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soaps-mohawk · 1 day
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Cherry Red, Crimson Blood
Chapter 18: Don't Let Me Go
Summary: Things have gone wrong in your pack's absence. Can they make it back in time before irreparable damage is done? Can they fix the damage that's already been dealt?
Pairing: Poly 141 x reader
Word Count: 10,232...oops
Warnings: ANGST, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, ANGST, anxiety, fear, panic attacks, very descriptive scenes of panic and anxiety, very heavy emotionally in the beginning, major invasions of privacy, hurt/sort of comfort, very brief mention of violence and death, and most importantly: fluff
A/N: Yeah, so this one kind of got away from me. It's definitely one of my favorite chapters now, and it's definitely the longest so far. It's pretty heavy, so plan something fun afterwards because it will hurt. I tried to catch all the possible triggers, but of course, if I miss one let me know. I promise things will begin to take a turn for the happier after this, at least for a bit. Picks up pretty much right where chapter 17 left off.
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You’re shaking. Your breaths are coming in gasps as you stare at your open door. There’s no scent in the air, nothing that would give you a hint of who invaded your space, or if they’re still in there. You should leave, barricade yourself somewhere and call Dr. Keller, or even Kate. 
What could they do, though? Your pack won’t be home until tomorrow at the earliest. 
No one can help you. 
You slowly push your door open, ready to run in case someone is hiding inside. You stand in the doorway, scanning the small space, but there’s no sign of anyone. There’s still no scent either, just your own mingled with the slight chemical burn of scent blockers. Your eyes scan the room, looking for anything that might be new, anything that might be missing, anything that might be slightly out of place. 
The clothes on the floor are slightly rumpled, but you’re not sure if you did that in your haste to pull on shoes before you left, or if they’ve been that way since the knock sounded on your door. You lift your gaze to the ceiling, scanning it and that’s when you notice it. The cover over the vent is slightly out of place. You likely wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been paying attention, if you hadn’t looked. 
The thought sends a chill running down your spine. 
You keep your eyes on the vent as you grab your desk chair, kicking clothes out of the way as you move it under the vent. You stand on the chair, reaching for the vent, but it’s not quite enough. You shove the chair to the side, taking everything off your desk before you pull it under the vent. You climb up on shaky legs, your heart thudding in your chest as you remove the vent cover. 
Nausea twists at your stomach as your breath leaves you in a sharp gasp. There, strategically placed between two of the gaps in the vent cover, is a camera. It’s small, and would have been invisible just staring at the vent from below. You feel like you might be sick as you pull it free from the vent cover, staring down into the tiny lens. 
How long has it been up there? 
You drop the camera onto your desk, your fingers shaking and trembling as you feel along the edges of the vent, checking for anything else that might be hiding up there. You replace the cover after you find nothing, a sense of dread filling you. 
Had the guys put it up so they could watch you, make sure that you’re safe? Had they put it up there before you arrived? You think about all the times you’ve changed in your room, your heat. 
You climb down from the desk, tugging it further towards the center of the room before you climb back up, unscrewing the cover off the light. You check the bulb, looking for any cameras or recording devices. You screw the cover of the light back on after finding none, a quiet sob leaving your lips as you look around your room. 
You close the door and lock it before you begin your search, checking every corner and piece of furniture for cameras or recording devices. You empty the dresser and closet, checking every drawer and corner for anything suspicious. 
You pull recording devices from under your desk and the back of your nightstand, the adhesive still fresh enough they pop right off. A cold sweat has overtaken you as you find another recording device and another camera, adding them to the growing pile on your desk. 
A quiet sob of fear leaves your lips as you check the bathroom, tearing your room apart to check every inch. You search up a tutorial on YouTube, using your phone to check for more possible cameras that you might have missed. 
You stare down at the pile of cameras and recording devices on your desk. Someone entered your room and planted them while you were with General Shepherd. It had all been deliberate. Get you away from your room and distracted so they could enter and set up the devices. You wonder if it’s all part of some sick plan, some way to ensure things are going well with your pack. General Shepherd had been very interested in your mark, invading your space without a moment of hesitation to see it firsthand. You would have shown him, had he asked to see it. Instead he’d just done it himself, as if it was nothing. 
Your hands are shaking as you find a ziploc bag in the mess you’ve made of your room, putting the cameras and recording devices into it. You drop it onto the floor before stepping on it, listening to the crack of metal and plastic and glass under your shoe. Tears slip down your cheeks as you pick up the bag of broken pieces, taking it to the bathroom. You hide it far in the back of the cupboard beneath the sink, piling things around it and on top of it to keep it hidden. 
You stand in the doorway of the bathroom, your skin crawling as you stare at the mess. You don’t feel safe anymore, not even in your own space. The thought of someone breaching the sacred space, entering your room without a second thought to put up cameras makes your stomach churn. 
Where will you go? You can’t just leave, find somewhere else to feel safe. What if they did the same to the guys’ rooms? There could have been an entire team of people that came in and put cameras up all over the barracks. A sob leaves your lips as you rush to the door, double checking it’s locked before you shove the dresser against it. You flip your desk up to cover the window as much as it can, just in case anyone tries to climb in.  
You sink to the floor in the middle of the disaster that has become your room, sobbing quietly. You want your pack home, you want to feel safe again. You glance at your phone where it’s sitting on a pile of shirts, afraid to even touch it. That woman could have done anything to it while you were with General Shepherd. What if they’re trying to call you and they can’t reach you? 
You should try to reach Dr. Keller, tell her what happened, get her to check if there’s anyone lurking around the barracks that shouldn’t be. What if they try to attack her, though? Can she defend herself? You don’t know if she can fight or not. What if she gets hurt because of you? She could ask someone else on base to look, but what if they were involved in it? What if it was someone already on base that had done it? The thought nearly makes you sick. 
You’re scared to leave again. What if they’ve noticed you found the cameras and come back while you’re gone? What if they come back while you’re here? 
The tears flow freely as you sob, too afraid to even move. You can feel it, the panic starting to bubble up again, the fear welling inside you. Your muscles begin to tense, shoulders pulling up near your ears as you try to defend yourself from this invisible threat. It’s an easy slope from fear to distress, and there’s no one to help you if you start distressing. You press your palms into your eyes, holding your breath to try and shock your body into something other than panic. 
You bite back a startled scream as a knock sounds at the door, your heart rate spiking again. 
“It’s just me,” Dr. Keller’s voice sounds through the door. “Ready for dinner?” 
You take a deep breath, staring at the dresser blocking your door. You’ll have to move it to get out, which she’ll likely notice. You could lie, you could lie easily, but you’re not sure you could keep it up right now. She’ll notice the tears, the obvious signs of panic and distress. She’ll want to know, and you can’t trust yourself not to spill everything. 
You should tell her about what had happened, but you know she’ll be disappointed. She’ll think you were stupid for leaving, for not even sending her a text. She’ll tell John when he returns, too. He should know about it, but there’s no way a high ranking General could arrive on base without them knowing, especially one that’s their commander. Maybe it had all been a test. Maybe they do know about General Shepherd and just forgot to tell you this was going to happen. 
Maybe Dr. Keller even knew about it, and didn’t say anything because she thought you knew too. 
“I-I’m not hungry.” You say, trying to keep your voice from shaking. 
There’s a pause outside the door for a moment, a beat of silence that’s too loud.
“Is everything alright?” She finally asks. 
“Y-Yeah.” You say, clearing your throat. “Just...not really hungry right now.” 
It’s silent again for a beat, making you hold your breath anxiously. 
“Are you sure? I can come back later, or bring you dinner.” She says. 
“I’m sure.” You swallow the tears welling in your eyes again. “I’ll grab a snack if I get hungry later.” 
“Okay...” She says, and you can almost see the frown on her face. “Text or call if you need anything, alright?” 
“Yeah.” You say, your voice cracking a bit. 
You regret it almost instantly, the urge to shove the dresser out of the way and fling the door open strong as you hear her receding steps down the hallway. You don’t want to be alone, but Dr. Keller can’t give you what you need. The tears start falling again, sliding down your cheeks as you flop onto your back, ignoring the way the edge of a book digs into your spine. 
You just want your pack back. You want John to scoop you up into his arms and wrap you in his warmth and soothing scent. You want Kyle and Johnny to squish you between them, sandwich you so tightly you’re scared you might burst. You want Ghost to wrap himself around you and offer you a blanket of protection against anyone who would even dare cast a glance in your direction. 
You just want to feel at home again. 
You want to be safe again. 
***
The emotional and physical exhaustion pushes you into the state between consciousness and sleep. You’ve moved to your bed, tucked under the covers and stuck between the wall and your giant bear, as if it could offer you some form of protection as you float between awareness and somewhere in the realm of sleep for a few hours.
You’re not sure what time it is, when the disruption comes. It takes you a moment to register why you’re awake. Some deep part of your brain is prickling, sending out warning signals to your body. Something’s happening, something’s wrong, something’s posing a threat. 
You hold your breath in the silence of the barracks, listening to the slow, quiet footsteps making their way down the hall. For a moment you think you might be imagining them, that you’re still asleep and dreaming. Your fingers pinch at your skin, nails digging in to confirm that you are, in fact, awake. This is really happening. 
Your heartbeat picks up, the bitter stench of fear that’s coated your room intensifying as the footsteps pause outside your door. You let out a quiet, shaky breath as you lay there, thinking up every time you checked the door in the last few hours to ensure it was locked and the dresser was still pushed in front of it. 
You cover your mouth as the door handle wiggles, catching on the lock. The whimper of fear threatening to rise catches in your throat as you hold your breath, your body trembling under your blankets. You should reach for your phone, send a text to Kate, call Dr. Keller, do something. Yet, you’re frozen in fear as the handle continues to wiggle before stopping. 
You don’t release a breath until the footsteps fade, a quiet whimper slipping from your lips. Someone just tried to get into your room. 
You’re panicking, breaths coming in short, sharp gasps as you burrow under your covers, barricading yourself between the wall and your bear, hoping you’ll be invisible in case they come back, in case they force their way in. You can’t fight, not after the day you’ve had. The best you can hope for is that your scent is rank enough in the room it’ll deter whoever is trying to get in. 
You need tomorrow to come, and fast. 
***
Daylight doesn't bring any sense of comfort. 
All it does is shed more light on the disaster your room has become, the physical representation of your internal thoughts and feelings. Your face feels puffy from crying, and there’s a bad taste in your mouth. You haven’t brushed your teeth since yesterday, nor have you showered, too scared to put yourself in such a vulnerable position. 
You glance at your phone, checking for missed calls, but there’s none. Dr. Keller will be by soon to get you for breakfast, but you’re not sure you can stand going to the mess. The idea of leaving your room, leaving it empty so anyone could just walk in and bug it or touch your things or hide out so they can take revenge on you for finding and destroying their cameras and recording devices has you paralyzed. 
That must have been what whoever entered the barracks last night had come to do. Maybe they thought you’d spend the night in one of the other rooms and they’d come to replace them. Or, maybe they wanted you to be in your room. Maybe that was the plan all along. 
The thought sends a chill running down your spine. 
You burrow back under your blankets, curling up against your giant teddy bear. You wish it was Price, that his arm would wrap around you and hold you close, keep you safe and protected in his arms. You’d take any of them right now, even Ghost. At least you know he’d protect you, especially if someone tried to enter the barracks without permission. 
You’re still lying there when Dr. Keller arrives. You stare at the dresser still pushed against the door, keeping you from opening it. Not that you really want to. You can’t stop the anxiety from taking over, bringing forward the image of Dr. Keller held at gunpoint on the other side of the door, trying to trick you into opening it so whoever tried to get in last night can finally do what they came to do. 
You know it’s a ridiculous thought. No one would be that stupid in broad daylight, and you doubt Dr. Keller would let something like that happen to her. She’d put up a fight, or at least you hope so. 
You can’t move the dresser without her knowing you’d pushed it against the door, which will only prompt questions. Questions you don’t want to answer. 
She calls your name through the door, concern lacing her voice. “Everything alright?” 
No. You want to scream it, tears gathering in your eyes again. You want to push the dresser out of the way, throw open the door and confess everything that’s happened in the last few hours to her. You want to bring her into your space, keep her there until your pack returns so you can feel even just an ounce of safety. 
But what if she gets mad? 
Leaving yesterday was stupid. Going off with some unknown beta without telling anyone was the dumbest thing you’ve done since your arrival on base. She’ll be disappointed and she’ll tell your pack and they’ll be disappointed that you didn’t say anything to her about it. Even if they knew it happened, they’d still be disappointed that you didn’t think to even question it, that you didn’t think to let Dr. Keller know what was going on. 
You made a stupid decision, and you won’t be able to take their disappointment and anger. Not after everything. 
“Yeah.” You call out, your voice shaking. “I-I’m alright.” 
You can tell she doesn’t believe you, even though you can’t see her. She probably has that look on her face she gets when she knows you’re not telling the whole truth. You take a deep breath, trying to calm the racing of your heart. You’re afraid it might give out after the stress of the last few days. 
“Are you ready for breakfast?” She finally asks, likely giving up on trying to get any more details from you. 
You’re not hungry, and you know going to the mess will not end well. The risk of distressing is high, and the thought that any one in the mess might have been the intruder last night nearly sends you over the edge. One wrong glance in your direction might cause you to do something reckless. “I’m not hungry.” You finally say, pulling the blankets tighter around you. 
“Are you sure?” She asks. “Did you eat something last night?” 
“Yeah.” You lie, trying to keep your voice from breaking. “I had some snacks.” 
Her feet shuffle outside the door for a moment, and you can almost hear her sigh. “If you’re sure?” 
“I-I’m sure.” You reply. 
There’s a moment of silence before you get a response, your breath catching in your throat from the nerves. “Alright.” She finally says. “I got word that your pack will be landing in a couple of hours and we have permission to go out to the airfield and greet them. I’ll come back to get you when it’s time. If you need anything, call me.” 
You listen to her footsteps recede down the hallway, tears burning your eyes. You hate lying. You feel bad for keeping the truth from her, but the shame of revealing what you did is too strong. 
You hastily wipe your eyes, staring at the mess on your floor. You need to get your room back to at least its somewhat normal state, and you need to put yourself back to your normal state as well. If anyone gets any hint that something is wrong, you might crack, and you’re not sure you could handle the repercussions. 
You start with the desk, flipping it back the way it’s supposed to be and positioning it as close to where it was as you can get. You collect the books and other little things that go on it, trying to arrange it as close to how it normally is. You know they’ll notice if any little thing is out of place, if anything looks suspicious. You can blame some of it on cleaning, if they ask. You did some deep cleaning while they were away. That’s one way of putting it. 
You push the dresser back into place next, putting the drawers back in before starting on the clothes, putting everything back where it belongs. You make your bed last, the urge to nest gone completely. You’re shaking with exhaustion by the time you finish, tempted to crawl back into bed, but you know you can’t. Your pack is coming back, and you need everything to look like it’s fine still. 
They’ll notice. They’ll see it, and they’ll ask, and you’ll have to spill everything and face the shame and anger from being so stupid. 
Tears burn your eyes as you slip your desk chair under the door handle, making sure it’s secure before heading to the shower to get ready for your pack’s imminent return. You shower with the door open, getting done quickly to avoid being vulnerable for long. You try to make yourself look as decent as possible, ignoring the fact that there’s broken cameras and recording devices hidden under the sink. Eventually you’ll forget. Eventually it’ll fade from your mind and become nothing more than a forgotten nightmare. 
One of many. 
You toss your pajamas on the floor haphazardly, just to make things look more normal. You know if it’s too clean, that might raise some suspicions as well. You don’t want to give away that something happened, you don’t want to raise any suspicions. You just want things to go back to normal. You want your pack back, and you want to feel safe again. 
At least, until they have to leave again. 
You sink to the floor, leaning up against your bed as you wait for Dr. Keller to take you to greet your pack when they return. 
***
Every minute seems to drag on infinitely as you stare across the tarmac. They’ll be landing any minute. Any minute now the nightmare will be over and you’ll get to see your pack again after days of being apart. Finally, maybe, you can begin to feel safe again. 
You watch the plane as it comes in to land, your hands already trembling in anticipation. There’s a twisting in your stomach, you’re not sure if it’s worry or fear or excitement. They’re so close, so close you can almost smell them. Your omega is scratching at the back of your brain, your muscles twitching as the ramp begins to lower on the plane. You need to see them, you need to smell them, you need to ensure they’re alright. 
You can’t stop yourself. As soon as their boots hit the tarmac, you’re running. You don’t care if you’re breaking rules, you don’t care if the other soldiers get worried, or see you as a possible threat, you need to be in your alpha’s arms again. 
John grunts from the force of you hitting him, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You throw your arms around him, clinging to him as tight as you can. You’re whimpering, the quiet sounds dragging from your lips but you don’t care. You press your face into his chest, breathing him in. He smells like sweat and musk, the sharp metallic tang of gunpowder burning your nose. Yet, underneath it all, you can make out the earthy scent, the petrichor going straight to your brain. 
His arms wrap tight around you, squishing you up against his chest. His vest digs into your skin, but you don’t care. You can’t feel much of anything but relief. His breath fans your forehead as he leans down, his hand cupping the back of your head. He shushes you gently, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Tears fill your eyes as you cling to him, fingers gripping his shirt tightly like you’re afraid he might disappear again. If it wasn’t for the pain in your chest, you might have thought this was all a dream, that they might disappear suddenly and you’ll wake up alone again. 
“Easy.” John rumbles, gently stroking the back of your head. 
You cling to him tighter as his hand gets close to your neck, the thought of General Shepherd’s hand being so close to your neck where he could scruff you so easily making your insides squirm. 
He’s gone. He’s gone and your pack is here. 
“You’re alright.” John tries to reassure you, squeezing his arms around your trembling form. “I’ve got you.” 
You keep your face pressed against his chest, breathing him in, trying to get his scent to calm the raging storm within you. Your omega is still scratching at the back of your mind, a deep need to claw your way under John’s skin and into his body pushing at the front of your mind. You won’t be safe until you’ve been utterly consumed by him, until you’re safely tucked where no one can hurt you without going through him first. 
“Alpha,” You whine quietly, nuzzling your face against his chest. His clothes are in the way, a barrier against what you need. To feel him, to smell him fully again. 
“Easy.” He says, grabbing your hands as they shift towards the velcro straps of his tactical vest. “Let’s get back to the barracks first before we start that, sweetheart.” 
You don’t want to go back to the barracks. It’s not safe anymore. What if there’s someone waiting there for you to return? What if they get hurt because you don’t tell them what happened? What if you get hurt and cause them pain? 
“You’re alright.” John says, stroking the back of your head as he begins to ease your grip on him. “There’s a couple of muppets here who I think would like to greet you too.” 
Right. You’re so caught up in your alpha, you forgot the rest of your pack. You slowly allow yourself to be peeled away from John, Kyle right there to let you cling to him. 
And so you do. 
Your grip around him is just as tight, ignoring the uncomfortable ridges of his own vest. He holds you just as tightly, projecting his scent just a bit to try and calm you. Someone presses against your back, arms wrapping around both you and Kyle. The scent of citrus lined with beta invades your nose, Johnny squishing you into a sandwich between them. Your eyes squeeze shut as citrus and salty sea air blend together, the beta’s scents reaching deep into your brain to try and ease some of the tension in your body. 
They’re back. They’re safe. You’re safe. 
Now you just have to convince yourself of that fact. 
***
“How was she?” John asks as he approaches Dr. Keller. 
“Held it together longer than I thought she would.” She says. “Things took a turn yesterday afternoon. Shut herself in her room and wouldn’t come out. I don’t think she’s eaten anything since lunch yesterday either.” 
“We’ll get some food in her.” John says. “Thank you, for looking after her for us.” 
“Well, it is partly my job.” Dr. Keller shrugs. “Always happy to do it.” 
“Things will get easier, won’t they?” He asks. 
“Eventually. She’ll learn what coping mechanisms help and she’ll adapt.” 
“Hopefully at least one of us will be able to stay moving forward. I don’t like leaving her here alone.” He grimaces. 
“Separation is hard no matter what, especially with limited contact, on all parties involved.” She gives him a look. “I think the best thing you can do right now is just be together as a pack. Let those bonds heal and let her do what she needs.” 
“Thank you, doctor.” John says, shaking her hand. 
“Call me, if you need anything, as usual.” Dr. Keller says, watching his retreating back before getting into her car to make the short drive back to the medical center. 
John gets into the car waiting to take them back to the barracks, sitting next to Kyle who’s holding you straddling his lap, your face pressed into his neck. “That looks safe.” He remarks, even though they wouldn’t be going very fast, or very far. 
“Couldn’t get her to let go.” Kyle says, tightening his hold around you as the car begins moving. 
“You’re alright, sweetheart.” John says, rubbing your back gently. 
You turn your face to look at him, your eyes red from the numerous tears you’ve already shed, and the ones still trailing down your face. The guilt nearly makes him sick as he stares at you, feeling the slight tremble still from where his hand rests against your back. 
He’d never say it out loud, but he hates the fact they had to leave you, all four of them at once too. He’d fought, argued. He and Simon could have handled it on their own, even him and the two Sergeants would have been sufficient. Anything not to leave you by yourself during their first deployment. 
Despite his attempts, General Shepherd had been insistent that all four of them were necessary for this particular task. 
So, he had been forced to leave you behind on your own. It’s gone about as well as he expected, from the looks of it. He knew the separation would get to you eventually. The stress would grow to be too much. Every day he anticipated the news to come from Kate that you had distressed and your omega had taken over because he wasn’t there to help you. 
Every day he waited for the news that they’d lost you because the brass that put this initiative into place couldn’t understand why taking them all at once was a bad idea. 
Or maybe that was their plan all along. 
He couldn’t stop the conspiratorial thoughts running through his head as their mission dragged on. What if they were doing this on purpose? It wouldn’t be that strange to push the boundaries of what could be tolerated for the purpose of testing just how effective the initiative really could be. But pushing it like that so soon? Sure, he could rationalize it was possible. War could break out at any moment, which would require most military members to leave, to be separated from their packs for months or even years. His own team could be called out at any time for months working to eliminate a target and stop war from breaking out. 
Yet, he can’t help but feel there was something more, something deeper going on. What if they had called away for more nefarious reasons? What if getting you alone had been the reason behind General Shepherd’s insistence that all four of them were necessary for this particular task? He had refused to entertain those dark thoughts for too long, the fear of leaving you alone already itching in the back of his mind from the moment they boarded the plane to leave. 
He hadn’t been able to hide his relief at hearing your voice on the phone. Though you had sounded upset, and rightfully so, his worries had been lessened in knowing you were alright. You would tell them if something had happened. He knows you wouldn’t keep something that serious a secret. If someone had hurt you, or had tried to hurt you, you would tell one of them. 
Even though he trusts you, he does plan to speak to Dr. Keller more in depth later to ensure everything went as fine as she seemed to imply it did. Obviously their absence has been hard on you, but he needs to make sure you really will be alright, that you will be able to come back from the obvious distress this has caused you. 
***
You finally release your constricting hold on Kyle as the car pulls up outside the barracks. Even with them back, it still doesn't feel like home anymore, not after such sacred space was invaded so easily, so nonchalantly. Kyle climbs out of the car, setting you on your feet on the ground. You look between him and John, realizing Ghost and Johnny are still in the car. Your stomach falls as you realize what they're about to say, tears gathering in your eyes again.
“We still have some things we need to do.” John says, reaching towards you. 
You have the momentary urge to flinch from his touch, but you let his hand cup your cheek. “You're leaving me again.” You say, your voice breaking. 
John almost looks guilty. He almost looks upset by your visible turmoil. His hand drops from your cheek to your back, turning you towards the barracks. Your stomach twists as he guides you inside, the fear of someone being inside spiking. You know you're safe with John, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but you'd have to play dumb if they did catch someone inside. You’d have to act like you didn’t know someone had entered before, like you had been unaware of anything going on. That might almost be worse than telling them the truth. 
You inhale as he stops in front of your door, still closed from when you'd left with Dr. Keller. There's no chemical burn of scent blockers, just your scent in the air, and John's scent coming off him as he stands next to you. 
“We won't be long. Maybe an hour at most, and we'll only be across base. We'll come back and we can get lunch before our afternoon meeting. Then we'll just have reports to do, and you can sit in my office while I work on those, okay?” He says. 
Your brows pinch as you try to hold in your tears. You want to tell him, you want to reveal what happened, beg him not to leave you alone here again, but you can't. You can't face that shame, the disappointment you know he'll show on his face at the knowledge that you let that happen. You willingly left with a stranger without telling anyone. You let someone invade your pack's space so easily. They were gone for a week and you screwed everything up. 
“Tomorrow we'll spend the day together. All of us. I promise.” He says wiping the tear that slides down your cheek. 
Even though they're back, you still don't have them. 
You inhale shakily before nodding. “Yeah. Fine.”
John's thumb brushes your cheek for a moment before he leans down, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 
You watch his back retreat as he leaves the barracks, leaving you alone again. You think back to when they’d left you, watching his back as he boarded the plane to be taken from you. You stare at the door as the cars drive off, a cold chill running down your spine. What if General Shepherd is still here? What if they're going to meet with him? What if he tells them he met with you while they were gone and they had no idea? 
Maybe you should have been honest with them from the start. 
You stare at your closed door, your hands shaking. What if there's someone inside? What if someone is waiting to take their revenge for you destroying the cameras. What if they put new ones up? 
You should have opened the door while Price was here so you could have at least screamed when someone would hear you. You back away from your door slowly, deciding to wait in the rec room. At least there you might have a chance. You could break a window and run, or at least have a higher chance of making it to a door. 
Would anyone help you? Would anyone come if you screamed? What if they’re all in on it? 
You're shaking as you sink onto the couch, sitting so you can see into the hallway. You want to see them coming so you can prepare yourself, or at least give yourself a chance to make an escape before it’s too late. 
You run through all the things Ghost has taught you in your head as you sit and wait, the minutes dragging by painfully slow. You can feel every second, though that may just be the anxiety and fear pulsing within you. You wish you could sleep, you wish you could relax, you wish you could do anything to make the time go by faster, but yet you remain hypervigilant, staring so hard you flinch at every little shadow your brain convinces you is moving. 
You’re not sure how long you sit there, tense and coiled, ready to spring at a moment’s notice. It can’t be more than an hour as John promised, yet it feels like a lifetime before you hear movement. 
You hold your breath as the barracks door opens, boots thudding with every footstep coming down the hall. You nearly whimper when a figure rounds the corner, before you let out a sigh of relief. 
“Ready for lunch, kitten?” Johnny asks, standing in the doorway of the rec room. 
You swallow the lump in your throat, your hands still clenched into fists. You're breathing hard, your entire body tense. You know you're reaching dangerous territory. Any more panic, you may start distressing. What a welcome home for them, coming back to a distressed omega. They're probably exhausted, and here you are making a scene. 
Hands close around yours. Warm, calloused hands apply gentle pressure, slowly uncurling your fingers. Your hands are shaking, trembling just slightly. 
“Ye alright, kitten?” Johnny asks, kneeling in front of you. When he moved, you're not sure. 
“I-I'm not...” You start, your voice shaking. 
“Ye need tae eat.” He counters, as if he had read your mind, expected the answer.  
He's right. You're beginning to feel it gnawing in your stomach, something deeper than the anxiety. With all the stressing you've been doing, you know you need to eat something. Being hungry is not helping that any, either. 
“I don't want to go to the mess.” You say quickly, the words almost mushing together incoherently. “Too much.” 
Johnny sits back, staring at you for a moment before nodding in understanding. “Alright. That's fair. I'll let the lads know.”
He stands up, leaving you alone in the rec room again. You listen to his footsteps fade, the door opening and closing for a moment. You hold your breath, practically on the edge of your seat. There's no reason they would make you go to the mess. You've eaten in the barracks many times before. 
You blame your worry on your hunger. You know omegas don't do well when hungry. Omegas don't do well being uncomfortable in general. 
Saying these last few days have been uncomfortable for you is a bit of an oversimplification. 
Footsteps echo down the hallway, a familiar hulking figure approaching the rec room. You never thought there would come a time when you would feel relief upon seeing Ghost. Yet here you are, the tension easing from your shoulders as he steps into the rec room. 
“They're grabbing us food.” He says, moving to sit in his usual spot in the chair facing the door. He sighs as he sinks into the cushions, and you can only imagine how tired he must be. 
And here you are making things worse. 
“You're stressed.” He says, staring at you. His eyes are still painted black beneath his mask, adding to the eerie vibe coming off of him. You're beginning to understand why they call him Ghost. “Stinking up the barracks.” He says, pulling out his phone. 
“Oh.” You say quietly, sinking in on yourself as you sit there. “Sorry.” 
You pick nervously at your sweatshirt as you wait for the others to return, letting out a quiet sigh of relief as they enter the rec room, food in hand. 
Johnny sits you on his lap as you eat, making sure you get your fill, likely aware that you haven't eaten yet today thanks to Dr. Keller telling on you. It's quiet in the room as everyone eats, even the TV off. They all look tired and tense, and you can only imagine what happened during their time away. The things they did, the things they saw. You wonder how much blood is on their hands now, hands that have touched you, hands that are holding you. 
They can just go off and kill people and come back and act like nothing has happened. 
You could almost laugh at how psychotic it all sounds. 
This is your life now. This is your new normal. 
“We have a quick meeting. Shouldn't take too long.” John says as they stand, Johnny placing you gently on your feet. 
You tug at your sweatshirt, avoiding his gaze. They're leaving you again. They won't be far this time, but still. You just want to curl up in bed with them and lay there until you feel safe again. 
Tomorrow, John had said. Tomorrow they will be yours. 
It might have been easier if you hadn't been told they were coming home until tomorrow.
***
You tense under the blanket as the door closes, quiet footsteps approaching your position on the couch. There's a quiet sigh as a figure drops to a knee in front of you, their figure visible as a shadow beneath the blanket. 
“Can you breathe under there?” 
You slowly lower the blanket just enough to peek over the top of it. John is kneeling next to the couch, his brows furrowed in a frown. You're in his office, having shut yourself in there while they went into the meeting. John had made you swear not to go snooping as he’d let you inside. You had promised, as you still feel no desire to dig through the likely classified files that were locked in the cabinets and on his computer. Instead you had parked yourself on his couch, burrowing under a blanket that smelled faintly of petrichor and tobacco smoke. 
“There she is.” He says as you peek above the blanket, gently running a hand over the top of your head. “How are you holding up, sweetheart?” 
“You left me.” You say quietly, trying not to burst into tears and confess everything. 
“I know.” He says, wiping the tear that slides down your cheek. “But we came back, just like we promised.” 
He is right in that regard, yet you can’t help the tears as they slide down your cheeks. The ache in your chest that had started to build over the last few days is still present despite their return. Everything is wrong. They feel too far away, too distant. Nothing is safe anymore, nothing is sacred, and they’re just acting like everything is back to normal. 
“Would you like to kneel for me?” He asks, his thumb stroking your cheek. 
You’re tempted to say no. For the first time you feel wary of your alpha. What kinds of things would you admit in your dazed state? If he questioned you, would you give him enough to put together that something had happened and you’ve been trying to hide it from him? Maybe it would help, though. It would at least ease some of the tension that’s built up. Maybe it could pull you back from the edge of distress you’ve been dangling over for almost two days. Maybe he’ll accidentally scruff you and you can forget the whole thing happened. 
The dark thought sends a chill down your spine. 
“Okay.” You say, pushing yourself up to sit. 
John offers you a hand, helping you up off the couch. You don't want to let go of his hand, you don't want to be parted from him. The omega in the back of your mind is screaming at you to get close to him and stay there for the rest of time. If he leaves you again...you're not sure you can handle it. 
He settles in his desk chair, getting everything he needs ready. He'll work on his reports while you kneel, a familiar position, a familiar situation. You've done this before several times. You're not sure why you're suddenly nervous. 
You set the pillow down, dropping to your knees beside him. The chair creaks as he shifts slightly, his hand coming to rest on the back of your head. You fight the urge to flinch, to move away as he gently strokes his hand over your hair. You've done this before, he's done this before. You're not sure why your heart is thudding in your chest. 
His hand slowly moves lower, slipping closer and closer to your neck. You can't help it as your shoulders come up, preventing him from gripping the back of your neck. He moves his hand away as you get defensive, his chair turning slightly as he leans down. 
“It's alright, sweetheart. It's just me.” He soothes you, his hand returning to the top of your head. “I know it's been a while, but I promise I remember what to do.” 
“Sorry, sorry.” You gasp out, trying to relax. “I don't...I don't know...”
You do know. Your brain keeps flashing back to General Shepherd, his hand tugging down your collar, so close to your neck. How easily he could have scruffed you, if he'd wanted to. You would have known if he had, but he could have done anything to you during the time he had control. 
“You're stressed, all worked up.” John says, still stroking the top of your head, trying to soothe you. “It's been a long week for all of us. It was a risk, sending all four of us at once. A stupid risk that shouldn't have been taken.”
You're pulled from your emotional state at the slight hint of anger in his voice. It hadn't taken you long to figure out they likely were all sent in order to get you alone. It would have been impossible to get you out of the barracks and put cameras up with even one of them here. Did he know about Shepherd's visit? Had he put two and two together and figured out they sent all four of them on purpose? You figured he'd be angrier if he knew about what you did, about what they did to you. He would be blazing a path straight to General Shepherd if your alpha knew he got so close to you, put you in that kind of situation. 
At least, you hope he would. There’s still that fear in the back of your mind, that worry that it was all a test and you’ve failed. Would they send you back to the institute? Would they break the bonds and send you to a different pack? Would they send you out on your own, leaving you to fend for yourself until some other alpha crossed your path and decided you were worth it? Does he know you’re lying to him, hiding the truth of what happened while he was away? Is he waiting for you to confess, biding his time to see how long you try to hide it? 
You want to tell him. You really do, but you can't bring yourself to get the words out. You can't bring yourself to confess here on your knees before your alpha. You feel guilty, like a sinner, yet the shame keeps the words trapped inside. 
He continues to soothe you, sliding his hand further down until he reaches your neck. You force yourself to relax, knowing you need this. You need your alpha to take control. You need him to ease the heavy weight on your shoulders, even if he doesn't know what he's lifting. 
You close your eyes as his fingers press into your neck, your brain quieting to a hum as you begin to slip into the back of your mind. You feel the rush of endorphins as your brain begins to calm itself, quieting the storm that's been raging for almost a week. You begin to go numb, relaxing into John's hold as he eases you into a quiet, meditative state. He begins to work on his reports as he holds you, your mind floating off somewhere else, somewhere safer where no one can break in and hurt you, somewhere where the barracks are still secure and safe and your pack never left.
Somewhere where there's no initiative, and your pack picked you because they wanted you, because you were a good omega who did as she was told and didn't make stupid mistakes that put everyone in danger. 
The last of the tension leaves your body, your mind distant from the present moment. You're safe with your alpha. He'd never let anything happen to you. None of your pack would let anything happen to you.
The thought continues to repeat in your head like a mantra as you relax, held up by the strong pillar that is your alpha. 
***
“Report's done, Captain.” Kyle says, placing the stack of papers on John's desk. 
“Thanks.” John sighs, grabbing them. 
Kyle turns to look at you, fast asleep on the couch. “You want me to take her?” He asks, the formality easing between them as they settle into being a pack and not a task force on duty anymore. 
John stares at you, curled up on his lumpy old couch. It’s getting late, or at least it feels that way. You’ve been out, sleeping peacefully on his couch since he eased you out of your kneeling position. You’d clung to him tightly, and for a moment he’d considered holding you, letting you sit with him as you dozed, but he knows he can’t risk you seeing something you shouldn’t. So he’d eased you onto the couch, having to peel your hands away from his shirt. He’d nearly given up and let you keep hold of his shirt before you finally relaxed and released him. 
“Would probably be more comfortable.” He rubs his eyes, feeling the call of sleep himself. He wonders how much you managed to sleep while they were gone. You look tired, though you’ve been looking tired since your heat ended. He needs to rest himself, but he wants to get these reports done so he can keep his promise for tomorrow. “I'll be in there soon.”
“Don't work too hard.” Kyle says, moving to lift you off the couch. 
“No promises.” 
Kyle shakes his head before scooping you up off the couch, blanket and all. You’re still sound asleep as he carries you, pausing in the hallway for a moment. He had just been instinctually going to his room, but would you be more comfortable in your own room? You probably have spent the last week shut inside your space. It might be nice to spend some time somewhere else. 
He takes you into his room, laying you on the bed, making sure you’re comfortable. He needs to shower and throw his clothes in the wash, but he doesn’t want to leave you and risk you waking up without someone there. You’re sleeping deeply, though, not even stirring as he tucks the blanket up higher around you. He doesn't want to crawl into bed smelling like gunpowder and sweat. That might throw you off too. 
He takes the risk, knowing he can do both tasks quickly. No more than twenty minutes to get himself clean and his dirty clothes in the wash, as he prays you stay asleep and won't start panicking if you wake in a strange place. He had sensed how close you had been to distress, how tense you had been when he held you in the car. It’s been a hard week for you, even harder than it had been for them. 
He breathes out a quiet sigh of relief as he finds you still asleep when he returns to his room. You haven't moved at all, still tucked under the blanket from John's office. He gets himself changed and moisturized, rubbing some cream on the bruises that dot his skin. He's going to be sore tomorrow, they all will be, but he knows they won't be doing much. John had already told them tomorrow will be dedicated to spending time with you and helping you recover from the stress of them being gone. He’s silently glad for the break, knowing it could only be a few days before they get called out again. 
John had also told him he’d be pushing harder for one of them to stay whenever he can. He’s not taking this risk again, not if it can be avoided. 
Kyle’s pulling on his sweatpants when you inhale sharply. You're sitting up straight on his bed, eyes wide as you look around in fear. They’re hazy, confusion settling into your mind after going from John’s office to Kyle’s room after kneeling. 
“Hey, hey. It's alright.” Kyle says, moving over to the bed, taking a seat on the edge so he’s in your line of sight. “You're just in my room.”
“Kyle?” You whisper, clarity returning to your gaze as you stare at him. 
“I'm here.” He says. “Just went to take a shower and clean up.”
“Where's John?” You ask, tears gathering in your eyes. 
“Still working on things.” He says, cupping your face. “He'll be in eventually.”
The tears fall from your eyes, sliding down your cheeks. They wet his thumbs as he strokes your skin, your body trembling slightly as you sniffle. 
Something’s wrong. He's known it since you latched onto him on the tarmac. The way you'd held onto him like he might disappear, how you looked almost angry when John told you they still had things to do, the way your scent had filled the barracks, bitter with fear and stress. 
Something’s up, something you're not letting them in on. But, to be fair, they had just left you for a week, up and abandoned you to go play heroes. He wouldn't blame you for not telling them anything. The bonds have weakened. He can feel it, beyond just his natural beta senses. 
“What can I do?” He asks quietly, trying to project his scent a bit to help calm you. He doesn't want you distressing, not after holding it together for so long. 
“I...I need...” You inhale shakily, still trembling in his hold. “I don't know.” You whine, the tears falling faster now. 
He pulls you against his chest, holding you as you cry. He feels the tugging in his chest, sympathy for you and what you must be feeling, along with the guilt of knowing they caused this. They did this just with their absence. 
An idea begins to form in his mind as he holds you, something his family used to do when he was younger. 
He pulls away from you, standing up. “Come on. I have an idea.” 
He strips the blankets from his bed before pulling the mattress off the frame. He drags it to the door and out into the hallway before heading down to John's room. You follow behind him, watching him as he opens the door to John’s room, dragging the mattress in and dropping it on the floor. 
“Stay here.” He tells you, heading back out into the hallway.
“What're ye doin’?” Johnny asks, sticking his head out of his door. 
“Grab your mattress and Simon and meet me in Price's room.” Kyle says as he heads down the hallway, ignoring Johnny's further questioning as he makes for John’s office. 
He doesn't bother knocking, walking right in. John blinks at him from behind the desk, and for a moment Kyle wonders if he'd fallen asleep sitting up. It wouldn't be the first time. 
“Come on.” Kyle says, moving to stand in front of his desk. “Finish those tomorrow.”
“They're important, I have to get them done asap.” John counters. 
“Yeah, well I have something more important.” He leans forward at John's questioning stare. “Your omega needs you.” 
John stares at his beta for a moment, and Kyle can see the gears turning in his head, the debate happening, the conflict in his mind. He so rarely sees his alpha, his captain so indecisive for so long. He's usually so quick to act, analyzing a situation and making a decision in mere seconds. 
If only you knew the things you've done by simply existing in their lives. 
John closes the file on his desk, slipping it into the drawer before locking it. Kyle fights the triumphant grin threatening to form on his face as John stands from his chair after shutting his computer off. Kyle makes his way back down the hallway, John following behind after locking his office door. Kyle stops at his room, grabbing his comforter before heading for John’s room. 
Johnny had obviously gotten the idea of what Kyle had in mind, his mattress and John's laid out side by side so the three make one giant bed for them on the floor. He’s already laid out his own comforter and Simon’s, as well as John’s on the mattresses. They probably wouldn’t need blankets for long with their body heat, but the blend of scents will hopefully begin to ease the tempest raging in your mind. 
You’ve parked yourself in the corner, watching it all happen. You seem so small, so lost, so out of place. It's not all that different from when you'd arrived in their lives. Has being gone for a week really reverted things so drastically for you? Has your stress broken the bonds so much that you feel like a stranger amongst them again? 
Kyle steps over the mattresses, approaching you slowly. You look up from where you had been staring off into space, blinking up at him. Your eyes are still red and watery from crying, your arms clutching one of your stuffed bears against your chest. It’s the one John had scented for you, back when they were trying to get you to nest. He wonders if you’ve nested since they left, if that urge is still there, or if that too has faded. 
Kyle doesn’t often feel angry at his job. Not anymore. He doesn’t often question it. It’s what he signed up for, and he does it because someone has to. He chose this life, so he does his best to be a good soldier, to follow orders. Yet, as he stares down at you, he can’t help but feel anger bristling in the back of his mind. He tries to blame it on his instincts, on the fact that a member of his pack is so upset, so distressed at something that’s happened, and he doesn't know what to do to help. 
Yet he knows they were the cause of it, even if it wasn’t their choice directly. Something happened because of them. He tries to rationalize it. This is an experiment, a test to see how well packs will do with omegas, if it has any effect on how well they can do their jobs, if it makes them stronger, or if it weakens them. Those in charge had obviously put little regard in for how it would affect the omegas. They couldn’t have known how you would react, how badly all of them leaving would affect you. Or maybe they did know, and they simply didn’t care.. Perhaps you weren’t the focus of their study, but you were still a variable, you were still an important piece of this puzzle. 
How can they be more effective if their omega is struggling because of their absence? How can they be expected to function like a team now knowing leaving behind their omega will only cause distress for all of them? 
Kyle takes a deep breath, pushing back the anger and the emotions whirling in his own mind. He needs to focus on you right now, focus on helping you relax, helping you get back to where you were before they left you. He’s doing the best he can do right now for you, giving you what you need, even if you don’t realize it’s what you need yet. 
He holds out his hand to you, staying still as you stare at it. It takes you a moment before you slowly begin to move, slipping one of your hands into his. He guides you to the mattress in the middle, Johnny’s mattress, easing you down to sit on it. You glance around as Johnny and John toss pillows onto the mattresses haphazardly, making sure everything is perfect. It’s not a pretty nest, he’d hardly call it a nest at all, but he knows nesting is not necessarily all about looks. It’s about feeling, and right now, he knows you need to feel safe and secure. 
John quickly changes into more comfortable clothes as Kyle stretches out on the mattress, opening his arms to you. You curl up against his side, resting your cheek against his chest. You press your face into his skin, inhaling for a moment before you settle, slowly beginning to relax in his hold. 
Simon enters the room as John settles on Kyle’s other side, closing the door behind him and locking it, securing the five of you inside. Johnny settles on the other side of you, pressing up close against your back. He pulls one of the comforters up around the three of you before he tosses an arm around you, resting his hand on Kyle’s stomach, sandwiching you between the two betas again. 
Simon stands over the makeshift nest, staring down at the four of you. He’s obviously the most uncomfortable with the situation, and still a bit miffed from your lack of greeting on the tarmac. It was his own fault for being so closed off with you for so long. You had instinctively sought out the members of the pack you felt the most connected to, the most comfortable with in your time of such great stress. 
“Aw come on, ye big bastard, get in the bed.” Soap says, snapping Simon out of his reverie. 
Simon shuts the light off, bathing them in near darkness. You tense for a moment as the lights go off before you slowly relax again. Kyle listens to your breaths even out as Simon gets comfortable on the mattress behind Johnny, the four of them settling in around you. 
It's already warm in the room but none of them would even think of complaining. They’re too focused on surrounding you with their scent and their protection, the very thing you need the most. 
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nerdpoe · 2 days
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Kill on Sight Orders
The Flash fam has a secret. Okay so they have a lot of secrets, but there's one above all others.
A kill on sight order.
In the worst possible future (one of them there's a lot), a beast named Phantom decimated the world. He took out the entire Justice League, the entire Justice League Dark, any and all small-time heroes that stood in his way. All of it. Everyone.
If they see Phantom as a kid, to prevent the slightest possible chance of Phantom being a thing, it's kill on sight. They all have anti-ghost weapons that can destroy a ghost's core, locked away in a secure facility that they can just run to and grab real quick to get it done.
None of them like it. None of them can risk it.
Bart stumbles into a town that doesn't exist, almost gets got by a ghost that managed to possess him, and gets saved by...Phantom.
A scrawny, teenage Phantom.
He's funny, makes puns, worries about if Bart got hurt or not-he's nothing like the Bad Phantom!
He's not gonna kill his new friend! No way, no how.
But he's gotta keep it a secret from the other Speedsters now, because he doesn't know who came up with that rule but they probably won't understand, and then he'll have a speedster fight on his hands, and no one wants that.
But the government keeps sending letters of complaint to Max, and Max keeps asking why the government is mad at Bart now, and Bart can't tell him "oh it's because there's this town that is off the record and a secret and also where phantom is and i broke in" because that'd rat Phantom out, and even if he didn't mention Phantom Max would want to investigate.
The mailman doesn't understand why his letters keep disappearing but he thinks it might have something to do with the Flash, because there's always a red blur.
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babyleostuff · 2 days
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when you look at them with love and adoration | ot13
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fluff 𐙚 established relationship 𐙚 idol!svt x gn!reader 𐙚 headcanon + dabble
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☁️ HIP HOP UNIT
𐙚 seungcheol  
tries to act unbothered. key word: tries. you have no idea how the look in your eyes makes him feel - how he instantly melts under your soft and loving gaze, how he would do literally anything for you just because of the way you’re looking at him. he always jokes that he has you wrapped around his little finger, but who are we kidding. plus, we know he tries to act tough and manly most of the time, but cheol is a baby, so he immediately turns into the biggest blushy mess on the planet. besides, it’s so crazy to him that someone can look at him with so much love and adoration, and the fact that he gets to call you his?  
[ ☁️ ]
“stop.” 
“what?” you laughed, brushing away the hair from his forehead. 
“stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, hiding his head in your neck, too shy to look you in the eye. 
“like what, hm?” you joked, waiting for the whines, and pouts from your boyfriend. 
seungcheol could act all tough as much as he wished, but you knew the real him - the blushy, shy, and adorable him that turned into the biggest puddle in your arms, just from the way you were looking at him. 
“i love you,” you heard a quiet whisper, followed by a gentle peck on your shoulder. 
“i love you too, my dumbass.”
𐙚 wonwoo
does not know how to act, because how is it possible that he’s suddenly feeling so shy, and… so loved? and just by the way you’re looking at him. but the look, oh the look you have in your eyes. wonwoo isn’t sure it should be even humanly possible to have so much emotion just in your eyes, but yours, yours are filled with so much adoration. you’re looking at him like his the most beautiful thing ever created, and he does not know how to react to something like that. 
[ ☁️ ]
wonwoo could see you standing in the doorway to your bedroom from the corner of his eyes. it was weird, because usually you’d come in and stand behind him, sometimes you’d warp your arms around his shoulders or kiss his cheek, but now you were only standing there. 
pausing his game, he took off his headset ready to ask you if everything was okay, but he was immediately struck by the look on your face when he turned his head. 
“wha- what’s up?” he asked, his voice shaking. why were you looking at him like that. what was going on? 
“nothing, i just came to check up on you,” you smiled, tilting your head. 
in that moment, wonwoo felt like the luckiest man alive.
𐙚 mingyu  
his instant reaction is waddling over to where you’re standing and wrapping himself around you. he knows how much you love him - whether you convey it by your words, actions, touch. but to mingyu, the deepest confession of love is definitely the way you simply look at him. anyone can see the way your eyes are filled with nothing but adoration for the man standing in front of you, and to mingyu that’s the loudest “i love you” you could ever say. nonetheless, he always turns into a big fluff of shyness, and giggles when he notices your love struck expression. 
[ ☁️ ]
“baby,” mingyu whined, his lips forming into a sweet pout. “don’t look at me like that,” he mumbled, before setting down the pan, and going around the kitchen island to wrap his strong arms around you. 
“i’m just watching you cook, gyu,” you said as a matter of fact with a small smile on your face, like you didn’t just melt his heart, turning him into a whining mess.  
you knew exactly what you were doing, and how your boyfriend would react, but you couldn’t help yourself. being with him like that was so… domestic. it made you feel like home. 
“i love you, baby,” he said, his voice muffled.
𐙚 vernon
if wonwoo doesn’t know how to act, then i don’t know how i’m supposed to describe vernon’s reaction. no thoughts, just puppy eyes. i doesn’t matter how long you’ve been together, vernon always freezes whenever he sees that look on your face. the look that says more than a hundred “i love you’s”, the look that never fails to make his heart beat faster, the look that says “you’re mine forever”. he never comments on it much, because - what is he really supposed to say in a situation like that, but it always, always makes him feel like the luckiest person alive. what he doesn’t know is that whenever you give him a look of pure love and adoration, his eyes are filled with as much affection as yours.
[ ☁️ ]
“should we order the pizza you were talking about last week, or the usual?”
when you didn’t answer him like you immediately would when it came to food, vernon raised his head to make sure you were still listening to him.
“baby are you-,” his voice immediately fell silent when he saw how intently you were looking at him. but it was more than that.
you looked at him like he was the only person in the world you wanted to look at.
the voice in his head tried to explain it by saying that you were actually alone in your apartment, so there weren't many other people for you to look at, but... that look, it was something else.
“yes, vernon?”
“um, the pizza, or the usual?”
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☁️ PERFORMANCE UNIT
𐙚 jun
his default reaction is to run and hide. jun cannot fathom how much love your eyes can hold, and adding the fact that he's the one that makes you look like that??? yeah, no, he’s good. he just ends up staring right back at you, eyes big and sparkly, not knowing he looks at you with the same amount of adoration, which just makes you chuckle (seriously, he couldn’t get any cuter). to protect his heart, he’d try to turn the situation around into a joke, but jun would just stumble over his words (adorably) and end up with a big blush on his cheeks, and a shy smile
[ ☁️ ]
"baby?"
jun refused to look at you, not after how he caught you looking at him with that look, no. he would not let you see how shy it made him. 
“junnie, please,” you giggled, and cupped his cheeks that were dusted with an adorable blush, which you’d never get tired of. “why won’t you look at me, hm?” you crooked an eyebrow at him. 
with his little pout and sparkly eyes, you couldn’t help but smile widely. what did you ever do to deserve such a precious human being? 
“stop looking at me like that,” he muttered, as his eyebrows furrowed at your amused expression. 
“like what?” you teased.
𐙚 hoshi
starts giggling like crazy - he always gets all smiley when you look at him, but when he catches you with this particular look that says “i love you” so loudly, hoshi just can’t contain himself. he’d skip over to you like a little girl, and hug the shit out of you, while vibrating with love himself. he’s just so happy to have someone that looks at him like that - like he’s their entire world while he’s doing the most mundane things ever, he just has to convey his love and adoration right back
[ ☁️ ]
“kwon soonyoung, what are you doing?” you laughed, as your boyfriend threw his arms around you, not in a gentle way. 
you didn’t get a proper response, just a bunch of hoshi sounds - giggles, laughs, and something even you couldn’t understand. the usual. 
“i love youuuu,” he said, and even though you couldn’t see (thanks to his not so gentle hug), you could hear the smile in his voice. that was probably what you loved about him the most - you weren't sure whether his next hug would almost suffocate you or whether it would be as delicate as a feather.
after a while, when his sudden burst of love had passed, he grabbed you a little gentler and pressed his cheek to the top of your head, and as you stood there, you couldn't believe that a simple look could cause such a reaction in him.
𐙚 minghao
gets so so so shy. minghao sees himself as a very composed person that’s very in touch with his emotions, and while usually he’s good at hiding his feeling when he has to, the second he catches a glimpse of you staring at him like he hung the stars and moon, he’s gone. he blushes like crazy, immediately turning away from you because you won’t catch xu minghao blushing, suddenly acting like the packet of ramen is the most fascinating thing in the world. poor bub just doesn’t know how else he’s supposed to act (he’d be a bit clingier than usual throughout the day, though, it’s his silent way of saying “thank you”)
[ ☁️ ]
you were in the middle of making a late dinner for you and minghao when you felt two familiar arms wrapping themselves around your waist. 
“the dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, honey,” you said, not paying much attention to your boyfriend’s sudden clinginess. 
“mhm,” he hummed, and placed his chin on your shoulder, pulling your body closer to his. you couldn’t help but smile - there was nothing better than minghao in teddy bear mode, especially with how gently, but securely he was holding you. 
“i love you, you know,” he said, and placed a soft peck on your cheek, nuzzling his face further into your neck.
𐙚 chan 
would melt on the spot, and turn into a puddle of love and fluff. he’d look at you with sparkly puppy eyes and a tiny pout, because how dare you to mess with his poor heart like that - no amount of “i love you’s” could ever express how grateful he is for having you in his life, and that he’s able to call you his. chan always gets so cuddly and giggly after catching your lovestruck gaze, it's like his entire being is filled with your love, and you can be damn sure he’d stick by your side for the rest of the day. you’re the best at bringing out the maknae out of chan
[ ☁️ ]
“i love you.” 
“i love you too baby, but this is like the tenth time you’ve said that in the last fifteen minutes,” you laughed, brushing away the hair from his forehead. you looked down at your boyfriend who was currently happily occupying your chest, getting his daily dose of afternoon cuddles. 
“i know,” he sighed, happiness clear in his voice. “and i’m going to keep saying that.” 
you could only shake your head in amusement at chan’s antics, as you fell back into a comfortable silence once again, both of you focused on the show you were watching. 
“i love you.” 
“lee chan i swear to god!”
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☁️ VOCAL UNIT
𐙚  jeonghan 
little (shy) gremlin activated because jeonghan will tease you with a hint of a blush on his cheeks (he mostly does that to distract you from how shy your stare made him). but after some snarky (lovingly, of course) comments, he’d just cling to you, and nuzzle his head into your neck telling you how much he loves you. no words could ever express how that look - so full of love and adoration made him feel. it’s just the feeling of being so… loved. yeah, that does things to him
[ ☁️ ]
“what is it jeonghan?” 
“nothing,” he said sweetly, not tearing his eyes from you. 
you rolled your eyes at your boyfriend’s antics. you weren’t sure what you did this time to deserve his usual teasing, not that it really mattered, but you couldn’t help but get a bit annoyed by him staring so intensely at you. 
“you know i love you, right?” he said after a while, just when you thought he’d proceed with his day, and leave you alone. instead he wrapped his arms around you from behind, and put his chin on your shoulder. 
you turned your head around, kissing his nose. “i know, honey. i love you too.”
𐙚  joshua 
smiles fondly right back at you with the same amount of adoration (to be honest, joshua always looks at you like that, it’s his default setting), but when he catches your lovestruck gaze he just cannot help but scrunch his nose cutely, and smile with just as a smitten expression as yours. from the third person's perspective this might look a bit scary weird, because why are you just staring at each other smiling like that? but you, you are just wrapped up in your little bubble of love
[ ☁️ ]
“do you think we look weird?” you asked, your eyes glued to your boyfriend’s adorable face. you’ve been sitting like this for the last five minutes, looking at each other unable to tear your eyes from each other. 
“no?” he smiled, his eyes scrunching cutely. 
just a second later the door to the bathroom opened and closed, and coups emerged from the hallway. “um, you guys okay?” he asked, suspiciously. 
you and joshua just proceeded to burst out laughing, leaving your friend very concerned, and very confused.
𐙚  woozi
woozi in his woozi fashion tries to act unbothered, but there is no way he could ignore your look full of nothing but adoration. for a second he gets so overwhelmed by the love that’s radiating off of you, because it’s so crazy to him that all of that affection is dedicated to him. jihoon would maybe try to turn it into a joke to hide how shy you made him, or just not comment on your lovestruck gaze at all, but no worries - the image of you and your love filled eyes would stay with him for the rest of the day
[ ☁️ ]
“hey, baby? what is this?” you asked, sliding the piece of paper that looked like it was about to fall apart over to your boyfriend. he looked up from his computer, scanning the paper quickly. 
you didn’t mean to snoop around his office at home, you just wanted to clean his mess a bit so he wouldn’t have to worry about it after coming back from work, only you didn’t expect to find what you did. 
“it’s just some silly lyrics,” he shrugged. you would’ve believed him if not for the small blush creeping up on his cheeks. 
“mhm, sure,” you smiled, knowing exactly who the lyrics were about.
𐙚  seokmin
seokmin has one of the most romantic souls in all of seventeen, so it’s no surprise he always looks at you with the most lovestruck expression, no matter what you’re doing. at this point you’re so used to it that you don’t comment on it anymore, but the situation is so much different when he catches you looking at him with eyes filled with nothing but love. dk’s immediate reaction is to kiss you all over your face with soft pecks, and then bear hug you and tell you how much he loves you. he just has to convey his love right back to you, he can’t let you think that he doesn’t notice how you look at him
[ ☁️ ]
“baby, let me go,” you whined, for the hundredth time, after your boyfriend got one of his love surges when he just had to take it out on you. “no,” he huffed, and kissed your cheek. and again. and again. 
you both fell silent for a while, a nice, comfortable quietness surrounding your intertwined forms. “you’re not bothered by me, right?” 
you swore you’d kill him one day for thinking he’s a bother. “lee seokmin,” you grumbled, and pinched his arm. 
“auch,” he whined, rubbing his arm. “what was that for?” you took that opportunity to untangle yourself from him. “shut up, and kiss me or i swear to god.”
𐙚  seungkwan
boo gets a bit sulky, because how dare you to look at him like that? and what is he supposed to do now? no hugs, kisses or words could ever convey how grateful he is for you. he settles for waddling over to you with a small pout, and sparkly eyes to first - whine “don’t look at me like that”, and second - kiss your cheek and wrap his arms around you. sometimes he thinks he’s not worth enough for you to be looking at him like that - he’s just making a snack, so why are you looking at him so lovingly? at the end of the day, your lovestruck look fills him with so much love and reassurance, and he could never thank you enough for that
[ ☁️ ]
you were used to your boyfriend’s random bursts of affection, but you didn’t expect him to hug you like his life depended on it in the middle of cooking. 
“you okay?” you asked, a bit concerned. 
“mhm,” he mumbled, his cheek squished against your shoulder. you figured he was just feeling clingy today, not that it bothered you. “i jus’ love you,” he added. 
you cooed at him, and turned your head to kiss his cheek. 
“i love you too, boo.”
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taglist (if you want to be added, check my masterlist): @jeonghansshitester @weird-bookworm @sea-moon-star @hanniehaee @wonwooz1 @byprettymar @edgaralienpoe @staranghae @itza-meee @eightlightstar @immabecreepin @whatsgyud @hyneyedfiz @honestlydopetree @vicehectic @dkswife @uniq-tastic @marisblogg @aaniag @daegutowns @carlesscat-thinklogic23 @embrace-themagic @ohmyhuenings @nidda13 @hrts4hanniehae @k-drama-adict @isabellah29 @f4iryjjosh @bangantokchy @mrswonwooo @bangtancultsposts @lllucere @athanasiasakura @chillseo @onlyyjeonghan @haecien @caramyisabitchforsvtandbts @hannahhbahng @valgracia @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @mirxzii @hhusbuds @wonranghaeee @rosiesauriostuff @gyuguys @aaasia111 @tomodachiii @veryfabday @lilmochiandsuga @asasilentreader @mrsnervous @bewoyewo @sharonxdevi @wondipity @gyuguys @raginghellfire @treehouse-mouse @waldau @wonootnoot @hellodefthings @dokyeomkyeom @sourkimchi @bbysnw @haneulparadx @zozojella @hoichi02
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egophiliac · 3 days
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Why do you think they put Savannah Claw Rook up to pull??? Is he even going to participate in Book 7???? I am so confused WHY HIM??? WHY NOT IDK, CREWEL? VARGAS? MAYBE TREIN?? WHY HIM.
I’m SO CONFUSED. Is it just for money grabbing or something like that? It doesn’t make any sense.
Also how prepared you are for the probably last update of Book 7?
I mean...it said he's a story card, and all the other story cards have had major roles, so I see no reason to assume he won't as well! (plus any staff cards are probably all going to be events like Crowley was; I would honestly be MORE surprised to see them as story cards.) really though I'm having fun trying to figure out how he's going to tie into things! we're back at Cerberus Ortho levels of "WHAT DOES IT MEEEAAAAN" and it's great. :D
I assume we're going to be doing some more dream-hopping, but I think it would be hilarious if it turned out to be someone else's dream instead of Rook's. who else could possibly be dreaming about him pre-fancification.
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(I'm also half afraid that this really is the last part, and half afraid that it isn't. I'm -- I'm not going to believe anything until we get the diadorm rerun pickups, and maybe not even then)
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a-b-riddle · 2 days
Text
Part Four
Can't stop thinking about reader losing her cool.
"So we're closed, John." You said, trying to be cordial.
"Is that all you have to fucking say?" He practically growled before huffing. A humorless chuckle rumbling out of his chest. "I suppose not since you won't respond to any of us."
"Don't do that." You said taking a step back. Trying to create some distance between you and him. John would never physically hurt you. That much you knew.
"What?" He asked. His voice rising as he stepped closer to you. "Be angry that you pulled that shit and then left? Stopped talking to us. Changed your fucking locks. Last thing we even knew about you was that you got on a fucking plane and left. Even your friends wouldn't tell us anything besides that you were okay." "Which considering this came out of bloody nowhere, I find it highly unlikely that you are in any way 'okay'."
You took a deep breath. You wouldn't be intimidated. You wouldn't clam up. You wouldn't cry. You won't go back on your decision. You will be cordial and polite and not unleash everything you want to.
"I understand you might be upset, but it's for the best. It wasn't working out and I wanted to end on somewhat good terms. I would appreciate it if you lowered your voice and stopped speaking to me in that way." You could barely recognize your voice. It sounded so scripted. So robotic. But it was something you had been telling yourself. Excuses you had been telling yourself.
Because if you told yourself the truth. The picture you would paint would tell a different story. It wouldn't highlight the fact that John spoke to you like he was one of your men or that Johnny had the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. It wouldn't show what a flake Kyle was or that Simon was well and truly a mean-spirited person.
It would show how you weren't worth it. Four possible men. Four possibilities of happily ever after and none of them chose you. That no one ever did and no one ever would. You weren't worth it. You weren't loveable.
It wasn't right, but it was what the voices had been telling you late in the night. When you would crawl into your cold bed. The silence of the room not filled with John's steady breathing or the sound of Kyle's heartbeat as you laid you head on his chest. The absence of Johnny's occasional snoring or whatever Simon was watching playing in the background of your dreams.
In the void, all your dark thoughts came back at you.
"Upset?" He asked, his voice still louder than you would have liked. "An understatement considering the stunt you pulled."
"You think it was a stunt?"
"So Johnny thought with his dick and didn't plan things out. You should have told him instead of crying to Simon and then pulling this shit." "Christ, I knew you were still young, but I didn't take you for that immature."
"You know what?" "I'm done." "I am so fucking sick of making excuses for you all." "You want to act like I'm the immature one, John?" "You are 35-year-old man who cannot separate his work from his work like. You have continuously talked to and down to me like I am one of your men, only to turn around and always blame your shitty fucking attitude on work. I get that your job is stressful, but I did not sign up to be your verbal fucking punching bag."
"And this come and fucking go incident with Johnny. It has been a consistent issue with him coming over just to fuck. I've asked him for that last six months that 'hey, we've been seeing each other for a year and a half, I would love to meet your family' and suddenly the dates stop. He doesn't ask to see me until after 7 PM. He brings food occasionally, fucks me and leaves. Sometimes before I even wake up."
"And the only reason Kyle is the person I am the least pissed off with is because I haven't even seen him." You took a step closer, not noticing how the anger in John's eyes had softened. "I have not seen Kyle in weeks, to no fault of my own. I stopped reaching out to make dinner plans after the third time he canceled on a date night when I was either on my way or already at the restaurant."
"And Simon?" You scoffed. "Well, it doesn't really matter. After all, as he said I get mine. You all make me cum which is supposed to magically erase how shitty you've all been as partners. It's supposed to erase the nights I've cried myself to sleep debating on whether or not there was something wrong with me. How I'm not good enough to meet anyone else in your lives like some dirty fucking secret. How none of you can even bother to pencil me for a group dinner so I can tell you a publishing house picked up my book. How at some point you all stopped caring or maybe never did."
You took a breath. Blinking quickly to keep the tears at bay.
You wouldn't cry. You wouldn't cry.
"As Simon said it best, I should have known that spreading my legs wouldn’t end with one of you putting a ring on your finger.”
For once, John was silent. Unsure of what to say. An apology starting to form at the tip of his tongue before realizing 'sorry' wouldn't cut it. Not this time.
Had he really been that sharp with you? He knew that there were times he had gotten short, but he almost always apologized immediately after. If not at the very moment he took in your crest-fallen face, then definitely later. But he almost always told you he was sorry. Didn't he?
"So as I said," you swallowed down the lump in your throat. "I'm closed. We're done. Now get out." Your face held no sadness. Even though your eyes were nearly full to the brim with unshed tears, you weren't sad.
You were finally angry.
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devinedoll · 1 day
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Previously virgin reader ending up loving sex and wondering how many positions would actually feel.
Everytime they would meet up shes like "let me try something new" and my mans just complies.
They be in the middle of trying "wheelbarrow" and hes wondering what did he turn her to.
Love them.
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when you and rafe began having sex, it was more of a matter of how do we do this in the least painful way possible. sure if felt good, especially for him, but rafe was big, huge even, so it was of upmost importance that he didn’t hurt his inexperienced, obscenely tight, girlfriend.
but now, after months of stretching and training and endless hours spent trying to stuff his large cock into your sticky enterance, it was less about the absence of pain, and more about the potential to include it.
you wanted rafe as deep as possible. you wanted his flushed red tip to bruise your cervix with each thrust so when you couldn’t walk straight the next day you were reminded of how amazing he was, how much he loved you, how lucky you were.
it’s how you end up here, fucking yourself back on rafe as you stretch out on all fours. you’re mewling and whining, pushing your hips back in messy, slipshod thrusts.
“easy kid,” he chastises, hands guiding your movements since you couldn’t see it yourself, “you gotta slow down y’gonna hurt yourself.”
he bit his lip as he watched. white teeth sink into a plush bottom lip as he admires his once shy, inconspicuous girl blubber and cry for more dick. maybe he did believe in god.
“m’not daddy.” you cry, pushing your hips back with more conviction, harsh thrusts that make rafe throw his head back at the feeling, “want more of you.”
rafe scoffs, laying a firm slap to the fat of your ass, hand running across the reddened skin to soothe it, “y’got my shit in your guts kid, you’re bein’ greedy.” he sighs when you whine back, “you’re just a little thing yeah? you couldn’t take anymore.”
“yes-yes i can,” you cry, turning your head back to look him in his piercing eyes. your eyes are bloodshot from your pleasured tears, you look deliciously pathetic, “please daddy.”
rafe just shakes his head, “said no. you take what i give you.”
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1-800-kami · 3 days
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late | satoru gojo drabble
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satoru who falls in love with you, a non-sorcerer. when you finally confess to him about how you feel, he realizes that the feeling of love is mutual.
he’s supposed to feel ecstatic, but he can’t find it in him to feel that way. instead, he feels nothing but dread.
he feels dread because before he knows it, he freezes up and rejects your confession. “i’m sorry, y/n. i just don’t feel the same way.”
god, he was such a shit-faced liar.
his words weren’t true at all. satoru has never wanted someone so badly in his life, but he knows that things’ll be better off this way. satoru knows that you’ll be safer if you don’t associate with him anymore. after all, with the rising number of curses in japan, it’ll only be a matter of time before you’ll be used as a target. and what if he can’t be there to protect you? satoru doesn’t even want to think about what could possibly happen to you then.
he thinks back to riko and frowns. he can’t let that happen again. he promised himself he’d never let something like that happen ever again.
at first, he thinks that rejecting you was the best move he had to make, all for your safety… but satoru has never felt stupider in his life.
because as the months pass by without you in his life anymore, he slowly realizes.
“…i’m the strongest alive, so why am i letting this interfere with who i want to be with? i love y/n, and i’ll kill any damn curse that even thinks of laying a hand on her. so why should i let this stop me from being with who i love?”
before he’s even realized it, he’s teleported to your place. he just needs to talk to you. he needs a few minutes to just explain everything.
except… satoru’s a few months too late.
he sees you. you’re as beautiful as ever, and you’re leaving your house… but you’re not alone. you’re with another man, and you look at him with nothing but love and adoration as you leave to go on a date with him.
that man could’ve been him.
still, satoru won’t interfere anymore. it seems that this is life’s cruel message that’s been sent to him. you’ve moved on, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s better for things to end like this after all.
but fuck, satoru still can’t help but feel hurt in the end.
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cordeliawhohung · 1 day
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Strangers
john price x fem!reader | masterlist | ao3
John Price remembers every life he's ever lived. When death takes him in one universe, he's born into the next with all his memories and past experiences still intact. Throughout the lives he's lived, you're the only thing that ever seems to quell the ache in his chest, and he spends every life searching for your comfort. Except, in this life, he's too late
cw: soulmate!au, murder, suicide, feticide, kidnapping, drugging, possessive john price, non-con elements, one shot, dead dove: do not eat!!!
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In every life you’ve ever lived, John Price finds you. 
He’s drawn to you like an animal is drawn to its cage. The glint of the metal bars look like stars if he squints hard enough, and the smell of blood and iron is the fairest perfume in the world. There is no life that he wishes to live without you in it. Tucked close to his chest in bed at night. Curled up underneath his thumb. Where you go, he follows you, hidden in the shadows until he’s ready to reveal himself as the soulmate who’s been tracking you across eons worth of lives. 
It’s a simple curse. One that’s haunted him since he first poofed into existence so long ago he can’t recall how much time has passed. Forever bound to remember every life he’s ever lived while everyone else debates the possibility of a god or heaven, forgetting their reincarnated selves in other universes. It’s a particularly lonely ailment. He had been locked in chains in one life for attempting to convince the world that there was life after death, not through a god, but through sheer human will. Had to sever the artery in his tongue with his teeth and drink down his blood to escape a life of imprisonment, and just like he knew he would, he woke up in his next life a free man. 
These days, he spends his lives on something more worthwhile: you. Just as he does, you look the same in every universe with a smile he knows by touch alone and a laugh that is the only melody that can soothe the immortal ache in his chest. He’s fried his brain with drugs and killed his liver with drink, forever carrying the burden of memory, and yet throughout his travels, you remain the only thing capable of soothing that terrible ache that haunts him. If death has already taken you in one life, he kills himself and moves onto the next, a wild man forever on the hunt for you. 
The only other thing that stays consistent throughout his many lives besides the desire to be yours, is the taste of fresh tea. He prefers Yorkshire tea, but the Earl Grey they substitute at the shop is fine enough. Quiet muttering fills the air around him as he sits in the corner of the shop, alone with his thoughts. He takes a sip of the tea, allowing the hint of lavender to wash over his tongue as if cleansing him. It’s the only thing that tastes and smells like home. Besides you, of course; but he hasn’t found you yet, and it’s getting late. 
Usually, he’s lucky enough to find you by the time both of you are in your twenties. It’s easy to win you over at that age. He holds a maturity well beyond his years, and you hold a wide-eyed innocence that has you in his grasp before you even realize it. But he’s in his thirties, and that has him anxious. Too much time has passed — a decade more than usual — which leaves him with a variety of possibilities. Ones he doesn’t like entertaining. 
No matter. He’s learned to be somewhat patient over the countless lifetimes spent searching for you, because it always pays off in the end. All the marriages, the children you have, the love you make. John Price is the luckiest man in the world, being able to replay his favorite memories with you for all eternity. He could never tire of you, would never dream of such a terror. 
So when the bell attached to the shop door rings with the entrance of another customer, it quickly turns to music to his ears when he sees you. Afternoon sunlight illuminates the world behind you, blinding him with the beauty you carry across universes and worlds. Your familiar eyes scan the area briefly, hardly paying him any mind before you approach the counter with a grace and poise that has his heart thudding in his throat. He can never get used to the first time. The first time his eyes land on you, he hears your voice, or skin touches yours; it’s the only thing that can tear him apart as well as you do. 
He tries not to stare at your ass when you order your drink. It’s always been his favorite physical feature of yours. There’s something different about this version of you, yet still familiar. Nothing is ever entirely unknown to him, not when it concerns you, but you’re glowing more than usual. It’s captivating in a way that makes him feel like a dog, looking at a woman in such a perverse way, but he knows you like it when he stares. You always have in every other life.
When the barista hands you a to-go cup, John knows he doesn’t have long before you slip away. Such a sharp girl, quick on her feet. Always buzzing around, never staying in one place for too long, as if the imprint of your soul enjoyed the chase of him following after you. It’s a game he enjoys very much; one he doesn’t mind entertaining at all. 
John rises from his seat, cup still half full, where he slips to the door just as you turn around to leave. His pace is leisurely, certainly in no rush as his hands reach out for the exit, only for him to pause. How silly of him to have left his drink behind, the only reason he even came to that shop in the first place. When he turns around, it’s quick and violent, and catches you so off guard you run right into him. 
Piping hot tea splashes around in your to-go cup, and if it wasn’t for John’s quick reflexes and a firm grip on your wrist, you would’ve gotten yourself hurt. Your gasp is sweet and melodic on his ears, and he nearly melts under your gaze as your wide eyes stare at him. Your surprise is cute. As if you couldn’t remember meeting him in countless different universes like this. 
“Terribly sorry, darling,” he says as if surprised. His grip loosens on your wrist just as his other hand comes up to rest on your waist. It’s quick, he knows; but in some way, you’re already used to it. “You alright?” 
It takes you a moment to catch your breath, and once you do, John feels you slip out of his grasp as you take a step back. Both of your hands come up to hold the cup, afraid of dropping it, and you give him a polite smile and nod. 
“Yes, thank you, I… good save,” is all you can manage as you chuckle and gesture to your drink. 
John’s hands mourn the absence of your warmth, yet he allows them to politely fall back against his side. His lips yearn to be on yours. For him, this isn’t a first time greeting, but a long awaited reunion. Still, he calms his nerves and hardens them to steel as he chuckles with you. 
“Would’ve hated for you to have gotten hurt,” he comments as his eyes glance down at your legs. The brief thought of that searing hot liquid broiling the supple skin of your thighs invades his mind before he can push it away. “You’re sure you’re alright?” 
Whatever your response is, he can’t hear it. The dazzling bling of your betrayal drowns out the sound of your voice and everything around him. It’s beautiful; your ring. Its gemstone glints in the sunlight streaming through the windows as if attempting to blind him. No, not blind him. Something worse. It screams at him the very thing he had feared for the last few years; he was too late. Bound to another man in matrimony, a silly mistake you had made before ever seeing the light. 
The aftertaste of tea suddenly tastes putrid on his tongue. His sweet mate, too impatient to wait for him in that lifetime. You’d fucked other men in other lives, and though it had always made his stomach turn, John could understand. But marriage? 
His teeth threaten to shatter under the pressure of his clenching jaw. 
When the sound comes back to him, his eyes comprehend the expression on your face. Discomfort — near disdain. In this universe, John Price is not your lover. He is a man, and only that. One who just so happens to be barring you from the exit. 
He remembers himself, and smiles at you kindly as he quickly steps to the side, muttering an apology with a jaw that’s much too stiff. And still, he reaches behind him to hold the door open for you, and despite your apprehension you thank him quietly and say goodbye before you vanish into the streets. Your smell lingers in the air next to him for only a moment before it dissipates and drowns in the aroma of herbs and teas. His face goes cold as he glares at the corner where his now cold tea sits. 
This was the first life he ever lived where you married a man that wasn’t him. Something broke. Shattered in his chest where the shards cut him apart from the inside out. When he breathes in, he can smell the blood pooling inside of him and it wakes him up to the terrible realization that — for once in his many, many lifetimes — he’s late. He’s late, and he doesn’t know what to do. 
As the sweet smell of tea fades and is replaced by the putrid aroma of London, John tells himself to let it go. So what he wasted thirty plus years just for your heart to already be stolen away from him? There’s a millennia behind him, and a millennia ahead of him. When one life doesn’t go right for him, there’s always the next. Yet as pavement turns to brick and The Thames sprawls out in front of him beyond metal bars, he finds himself hesitating. The idea of letting go can’t quite sink its tendrils into his mind, and his knuckles grow white as he grips the barrier in front of him. 
Bitter wind bites at his face as he looks at the water below him. Hesitation. He doesn’t know why it paralyzes him. There’s never been any need or use for second guesses, because he’s always known what’s waiting for him on the other side. All he needs to do is lift his leg, hoist himself up, and then let gravity do the rest. He’s done it before, in some other life. He’s felt his body hit the frigid water with needle-like pain blossoming across his skin just before it swallows him whole. It’s not an easy way to die, but it’s the only thing violent enough that has the capability of smothering the bitterness growing in his heart. 
The answer to his confusion comes as a whisper on the back of his neck, where it tingles until it reaches the base of his spine and flutters throughout every cell of his body. Principle. It’s the principle of it all. In every single life, you’ve been his lover, his wife, the mother of his children, and if you are not, then you are dead. Rotten. Decaying in some grave by the time he finally finds you. You’re not just his desire, the love of his life, his reason for being; you are his right. 
How long can someone love a soul before it becomes theirs? Before it’s ripped out of their lover and tucked safely away into a cage? 
John chuckles as his hand slips from the railing, and he slides them into his pockets as if he had been enjoying the view of grey water and even more grey skies this entire time. Kill himself? No; you’ve been his this entire time. You just don’t know it yet. 
He’s only ever done this a few times before; kidnap someone. In a few of his past lives, he’s been a soldier. A stone-hardened man who’s stolen families as bartering tools to make terrorists talk when their mouths were otherwise sealed shut. Killing is a good way for him to let out the anger that builds in a man’s soul after so long, and though he prefers to keep it to people who deserve it, his fingers can’t help but twitch as he watches your husband drop you off at the yoga studio. 
Doesn’t he — your husband — deserve it? Death? Shouldn’t he pay the ultimate price for stealing you away from your true lover? The man who’s looked after you for eons? John wants to do it. Kill him. Smell the sanguine aroma that mixes with the harsh gunpowder that expels after a bullet is shot. He wants to, and he could do it, but murder muddles things up more than he would like, and though he’s good at covering his trail, he’d rather steal you away without incident. He’s been carefully plotting this ever since he saw you in that tea shop all those days ago; he can’t ruin it. 
A smile pulls at his lips as he thinks about the look on your husband's face, when his pretty little pretend wife doesn’t return home. When he realizes how he’s failed you.
John’s hands tap at the steering wheel as he waits, patient as ever, for your session to end. Silly of you to go to a night class, really. Even sillier of your husband to allow such a terrible thing. If anything, it's greater proof that this new man in this new life isn’t good for you. It could have been anyone sitting in that car park, waiting for you to leave. Waiting to take you home.
Good thing it’s only him. 
John exits the car just before eight. Cool air does its best to calm the electricity sizzling in his veins, but ultimately it’s his own mind that stills his nerves. Everything is planned out in his mind with moves expertly rehearsed in a past now forgotten, yet still ingrained in his memory; he knows he’ll get exactly what he wants. You. It’s all he craves. All he ever does. 
You exit the studio with a laugh and a wave goodbye to the other women in your yoga class. That pathetic husband of yours is late, which only proves to be good fortune for John as he slips by your side. His feet are dangerously silent on the pavement and his arm is just as warm as ever as he wraps it around your waist, blade in hand. Even through the fabric of your shirt its point is noticeably sharp, and your feet stumble as he presses it against you in warning. 
“Not a word, darling,” he whispers, too saccharine to be a stranger. 
You listen, just like he knew you would, and he steers you away from the pavement and into the car park. It’s difficult for him not to chuckle as he recalls you in another life. How you once batted your pretty lashes at him, all but begging him to use a knife in bed with you. Not enough to draw blood, but enough to feel the cold sting of it against your skin. He wonders if some part of you feels that way in this life. 
Once you reach the car, he slips the zip ties over your wrists in a single fluid motion before opening the door for you. Any onlookers would just think he’s being a gentleman helping you into the car like that, but there’s a method to his madness. As soon as you’re seated into the passengers side, your eyes meet his and they widen with terrified recognition. Not quite the look he hoped for from you, but your expression quickly melts away the moment a needle pierces through your pants and into your thigh. All that’s left to do is buckle you in and drive off. 
He likes to pretend he’s carrying you to your honeymoon room as he curls you up into his arms. A sweet bride, passed out against his chest as he carries you to bed, safe in the confines of the cage he’s spent that entire lifetime preparing for you. You don’t stir when he places you in bed, but he lays down next to you as if both of you are resting. He lays in front of you so he can see your face while it’s peaceful; not while it’s twisted with confusion and disgust like it was in the tea shop a few days ago. No, he likes you much better like this. Quiet and pliant. 
The tips of his fingers trace the features of your face, and it’s a dance he’s grown to have well memorized. They brush your lips and the tip of your nose before dipping underneath your jaw where they continue to wander. It doesn’t feel wrong, even though he knows you’d beg to differ. He’s done this before, in a life you don’t remember. Touch you like this. Feeling the dip between your breasts and the skin of your stomach. He pats your hands, still bound together with a zip tie — he tells himself he’ll remove them once you start behaving — before caressing your thighs. He wants to slip upwards, to brush his thumb against your clit just like how he knows you like it, but he refrains. He’ll wait until you wake up to do that. Your gasps are always sweeter when you’re aware. 
The sweet bliss of numb eternity melts away as the drugs begin to wear off, and when your eyes flutter open you’re met with the face of a stranger. Truly, he’s not a stranger at all. Or, at least that’s what John would have you believe with the knowing smile he gives you. Your bound hands move up and press against his chest, desperately attempting to earn some space between the two of you. This only makes him laugh, and his hand rests on top of yours. 
“Easy, darling,” he soothes.
An incoherent response stumbles out from your lips just as fearful tears swell in your eyes. His hand pants yours against his chest before he frowns. The gemstone on your wedding ring stands out like a sore thumb against his palm, and it serves as a stark reminder as to why he had to do all this in the first place. You don’t — or can’t — fight against him as he slips the ring off your finger and places it on the nightstand next to him. He’ll dispose of it properly another time, but for now he just can’t stand to see that proof of ownership on you. 
“Please.” It’s the first word you’re able to slur out, and John hangs onto the syllable like it’s dessert. “W-Whatever you want… please… my husband, h-he’ll give it to you just… let me go, please.” 
Husband. He hates that word on your lips when it’s not in reference to him. 
“I’ve already gotten what I want, love,” he whispers. 
Your eyes wrench shut and tears fall free at the realization that there’s nothing you can do to get away from this crazed man. He shushes you as he holds your face in his hands and presses his lips against your forehead. It’s not enjoyable, the way you recoil from him, but giving you the same love he’s given you in every other life feels right. It feels more wrong to withhold it from you. 
Because this is his right, isn’t it? Of course it is, and in some sort of way, you seem to know this too. Your hands no longer press against his chest in disdain, and it’s all too easy to prop himself up on his elbow and press his lips against yours. The pressure is firm, as if he’s holding himself back from taking more from you. He groans at the taste of salt on your lips, and nearly chuckles at the way you tremble. It’s a one-sided embrace that you refuse to return, but he tells himself you’ll learn otherwise soon enough. 
When John pulls away, your eyes refuse to focus on him as the shame eats you from the inside out. Your entire body is limp, bound hands resting against your stomach as he sits up. Deciding you’ve been behaving well enough, he reaches for the knife on the nightstand and he turns back to you, ready to cut the ties from your wrists. 
The very moment the glint of the knife catches your eye is the moment you begin to squirm. Legs thrash and mess up the sheets as you scramble away from him until your head and back is pressed against the headboard. Your chest heaves violently as your terror overtakes you, and John pauses as you retreat. He’s never seen you look at him like that; not in any life he’s ever lived.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he promises. 
“Please don’t,” you beg, his assurance falling on deaf ears. Your pleas turn into mindless stuttering for a moment before something visibly breaks in you, forcing you to share a secret that feels like sealing your death: “Please, you can’t just- I- I’m pregnant! Please!” 
Everything stops. The world. His heart. It all falls quiet except for the sound of your hyperventilating which is almost as deafening as the ringing in his ears. Pregnant. Anything kind in John’s eyes dies quietly as he clenches the knife in his hand. 
Pregnant. Not with his child. It must be a lie — it has to be a lie. You don’t look pregnant. There is no swelling of your stomach. Yet your hands lie on your lower abdomen as if you’re cradling something. Cradling someone. You have never been good at lying in any of your lives, and the candor sheen in your eyes tells him you’re not good at lying in this one, either. 
John tells himself he only wants to embrace you. To mourn the life the two of you could have had if you only behaved. He doesn’t register why you’re screaming until the blood covers his hands, and then you fall quiet. His knife sinks into your stomach like it’s butter, and it pulls free from you even easier. You stare up at him, confused. As if you can’t comprehend why he would do this to you.
Ichor flows free from you like a river, and all you can do is gasp and paw at your wound. Your legs flail as John pulls you against his chest, chin resting on top of your head as if this is something he can soothe away with a hug. It’s not. He can’t soothe away your betrayal. Can’t come to terms with the fact you carry another man’s child when you should be carrying his. 
“I know,” he shushes with a strained voice. “I know. It’ll be over soon.” 
Your death is not kind, and he mourns every minute you bleed in his arms until you eventually still. It’s only when your blood goes cold that he allows himself to cry. Angry, hot tears that sear his skin as they soak into your hair. Damn this ruined life. Damn the years he wasted trying to find you only for you to be soiled by the time you were in his grasp. He hates the gore that stains your being, but he assures himself it was necessary. 
In every life, you belong to him. In the lives that you don’t, you’re already dead. 
John carefully places your body back on the mattress where he takes in the sight of you. There’s no more glow to your skin, not like there was while you were alive. But you’re dead, and he knows the life inside of you is dead, too. He tries to take comfort in that fact before angling the knife towards himself. 
Killing himself is easier than killing you, as driving the knife into his throat is a well practiced motion. It’s something he’s done before, and he’s so used to it he doesn’t even groan at the sting as the blade slices his artery. Darkness is quick to cloud his vision as the blood loss overwhelms him, and he sputters and stares down at your cold body below. There is little comfort he feels when his blood meets yours on the stained sheets of the bed he wished to love you on. The mixing of blood is the only bond the two of you will ever have in that life. 
He coughs as he falls forward. Soon, he has no use for any sort of comfort at all. 
There is no blood in your next life. No iron taste in your mouth, or rotten flesh haunting your nose. No, there is only ink, paper, and well loved books. 
You love your job. Books are your livelihood; the tool you use to escape reality on rainy days, so it only makes sense that in this life you work as a librarian. The building is dated with poorly insulated windows, and a bell that chimes as another patron enters, but that’s what makes it charming. Millions of words have been consumed in that library, and they linger in a way that never leaves you feeling alone. 
Several books sit tucked safely in your arms as you wander aisles, on the hunt to return them home. Every shelf is well memorized. You could find any book in that building blind folded, and you hum to yourself as you go to return Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself to its rightful home on the top shelf of the WXYZ aisle. 
Your feet are nimble as you climb the step stool to reach the shelf. It nearly reaches the ceiling, which is no small feat for a building of that size. Your arm stretches over your head and you breathe in the scent of stale paper and well loved books. Just as your fingers slide the item into place, the stool below you jerks, and your stomach drops as you fall to the side. 
The books in your arms tumble onto the ground, but you’re saved from that same fate as a pair of arms swoop around you. You squeak as your hands grip the shirt of your savior, and you look up with wild eyes at the man. John Price is younger in this life when he finds you. In his twenties this go around. His face is clean shaven, but his eyes still hold the wisdom of forgotten ages and dead worlds. 
“Terribly sorry, darling,” he apologizes. His grip on you loosens, but he doesn’t quite cut you free just yet. “You alright?” 
“Yes, thank you, I… good save,” is all you can manage through a breathless chuckle. 
There’s an innocence in your eyes that has John smiling at you. His hands are kinder in this life. The angry claws that ended your previous life don’t exist anymore. They do not wield a knife in anger; they only hold you with unbridled adoration. It’s the way things are supposed to be, with you in his arms and looking up at him with that innocent gaze, just the way he likes you. For a moment, John worries that you somehow recognize him when you tilt your head, yet as you bashfully return his smile, he takes comfort in knowing that you don’t remember anything. 
You don’t remember anything at all. 
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mrsdarkandyandere7 · 3 days
Text
❤ Yandere Lawyer ❤
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▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.
More at Masterlist
Female reader
WARNINGS: Obsession; Misogyny; slight Power Abuse.
This idea credit goes to @d-lioncourt cause she's the one that motivated me for this idea. Hope you like this :)
--
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who works in the top law firm of the country. He’s cold, determinate and calculative. Always thinking 10 steps ahead of everyone, carefully considering all possibilities and creating extensive back-up plans. 
His job relies on his capacities and he always aims for the top. If he’s not recognized as the best lawyer available, then he doesn’t even know what he’s been doing so far. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who doesn't care about how things are done as long as he wins the case in the end. Who said lawyers are saints?
He may be an advocate of the law but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t bend it to his will, finding sneaky gaps to reach his goal: win. 
Isn’t that what makes him such a requested lawyer? Isn’t that what causes every big corporate company to try to sign him up, to offer several millions for him to represent them in court? Because everyone knows that he wins.
No matter what happens during the trials or how badly the opposite side tries, he wins. It’s an irrefutable truth and anyone that tries to contradict it is a complete and utter fool. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who is upset enough when he’s informed that he’s gonna have to take a Pro Bono case for a random civilian. It’s frustrating to spend his precious time and expensive resources on a worthless someone.
It’s stupid and he'd immediately refuse it if it wasn’t for the strict order he receives from the higher ups.  
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who rattles you up, insisting on long sessions so he can know your side of the story.
His questions feel like accusations and you hate spending long hours answering him. Makes you feel like you’ve actually committed a crime of sorts when the reality is none of that. 
He knows you’re bothered by the way he pays attention to each of your words, taking mental notes of every minuscule detail so he can bring it up later.
He’s highly aware of how unnerving he can get and it’s fun to see you get so quiet and shy over it. 
He loves it when people get intimidated by him and it’s particularly pleasant when a pretty thing like yourself gets too timid to spare him a few words. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who drags the case much longer than it needs to. He could definitely end it in a blink of eyes, it would be so easy for him. A piece of cake. 
But he doesn’t. 
It’s exciting to see you on court, a helpless expression covering your whole face and your eyes at the verge of tears as your future lays on his hands.  
So pathetically weak. You can’t even defend yourself, you need him to do that for you. To defend your honor, to protect you. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who makes sure you know that despite it being a Pro Bono case, you owe him. He wants you to know that he’s winning this case for you, wasting his valuable time just to save your pathetic ass from those embezzlement charges. 
That he’s the one saving you from going to prison - despite the very evident fact that you have such a weak personality that it’s practically impossible that you’d steal money from your boss. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who takes every chance to hurt your feelings with snide remarks.
You look prettier when you cry, something so enticing about those shiny diamond-like tears that glow in your eyes and the miserable way you furiously blink to keep them at bay - to which you fail. 
You’re crying because of him. That’s enough to make him buzz with a twisted sense of possession and control. He holds that much power over you. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer whose mind wanders over the tempting fantasies of returning home to you. You’d do a submissive girlfriend, he’s so sure of that. If he gave you a nasty slap and a few harsh words, you’d bend to his will so fast - like a obedient girlfriend should. 
It would be so easy to control your life.
Order you to move in with him. Command you to become his stay-at-home girlfriend. Push you to cut off friends and family until only he remains. 
Those misogynistic ideas keep him thinking about you longer than he should. 
◾ Yandere! Lawyer who isn’t afraid to act upon his wishes and so he does. After a triumphing win on court, he leaves.
Storms off without even looking at you and you don’t even have the chance to thank him, but you forget about that quickly. 
You have more pressing issues to focus on, such as rebuilding your life all again. Celebrate your win. Find a new job. Move on with your life the best as you can. 
Your peace lasts exactly one week. And then everything comes down in rubbles.
Because then he comes to retrieve his payment. 
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405 notes · View notes
reiding-writing · 3 days
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Hi congrats on the Milestone, for the event can i ask for prompts 15 and 16 (angsty ones) Ty! 💖💖
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EAVESDROP [CLIMACTERIC]
/ˈiːvzdrɒp/
15. "You heard that?”
16. "I didn't mean it.”
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WARNINGS: miscommunication (i hate and love miscommunication way too much), happy ending
spencer reid x gn!reader || fluff || 3.0k || event masterlist!!
a/n: when i said that these were going to be coming out slower i unfortunately meant it 😭 didn’t help that i had massive writer’s block with this one either rip—
main masterlist!!
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You really didn’t mean to eavesdrop. You just happened to get to the office early that morning and figured it’d be an opportune time to make yourself some coffee.
But once you heard your name in the mix of the conversation that Spencer and Morgan were having you found yourself waiting around the corner until they finished what they had to say.
“—should just ask,”
“That’s awkward, besides, if I was going to then it’d have to be something more meaningful,” You can hear Spencer sigh in exasperation as he shuts down Morgan’s suggestion, and your imagination tells you he probably has his face furrowed almost in a pout like he usually does when he’s frustrated.
“Then plan something, you can’t just wait for something to happen, you have to take action man,” Morgan sounds determined in his beliefs, and it leaves you with a furrowed expression as you try and piece together what they’re talking about and how it relates back to you.
Spencer wants to ask you something. In a ‘meaningful’ way. Because he’s been sitting around waiting for something for too long.
What?
“I know that,” Spencer lets out another sigh, and you can hear the sound of his mug hitting the kitchenette counter. “I’m just afraid that they’re going to turn me down, okay? I really like them and I want this to go well,”
If their conversation was a tv show you would’ve rewound it to hear what Spencer just said again.
Spencer Reid. Dr Spencer Walter Reid just openly admitted to liking you.
There’s a major part of your brain that tells you that he just meant it platonically, that he just really valued your friendship and didn’t want to ruin it by asking you whatever he was going to.
And then there was another part of your brain telling you that that was complete bullshit, because what kind of question could possibly be so bad that it would mean you didn’t want to be friends with him anymore?
It had to be something inherently romantic, or Spencer’s concerns wouldn’t make any logical sense, which was a very off brand thing for him.
“It’ll never ‘go well’ if you don’t actually ask,”
The small flutter in your heart only proves to increase at Morgan’s reply, and if you were an actual part of the conversation you’d agree with him.
You wanted Spencer to ask you whatever was plaguing his mind, whether it be to take you on a date somewhere or even if it’s just to get lunch with him on your shared break. Any step forward was a step in the right direction, and you wanted that next step.
He doesn’t.
The whole day goes by without a single peep from Spencer in relation to his little pep talk with Morgan in the morning, and it was beginning to frustrate you just a little.
Of course you wouldn’t actually be frustrated if you hadn’t overheard the conversation they were having, but that wasn’t your fault. It was like the fates were trying to bring you together.
And you were letting them drag you in whatever direction they deemed fit.
“Hey Spencer!” You catch him right as he steps into the elevator, and he sticks out a hand over the motion sensor to keep the door open for you.
“Hey,” Spencer gives you a small, awkwardly endearing smile as you join him inside the elevator, retracting his hand to grip the strap of his messenger bag.
“Thanks,” You let out a stuttered exhale as you catch your breath from the mild jog you made to reach the door, pulling on the shoulders of your shirt to straighten it back out.
“No problem,” He gives you another small smile, and then the conversation falls silent, the sound of the doors opening as the two of you reach the ground level being the only thing to break the stillness of your joined company.
You couldn’t really tel whether the lack of conversation was awkward or not, but you did know that the longer you were in his sole company the more that you wanted to oust your knowledge of his earlier conversation with Morgan, to the point where you were rehearsing how to bring it up in your head.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Spencer gives you a small wave as the two of you step out of the elevator and into the covered parking lot, stuffing his hands into his pockets and turning around to walk away before you can reply.
You swear you catch the tiniest glimpse of him mouthing something to himself with a furrowed expression as he turns around, like he’s berating himself for something, and your brain decides that it’s the perfect time to just go for it, his name tumbling out of your mouth to no consciousness of your own.
“Spencer—”
He turns around at your call and your throat goes dry, your impulsiveness biting you right in the ass as you lose your confidence immediately under his gaze. “Yeah?”
“You… uh-” You watch as his eyebrows furrow slightly in confusion, and you clear your throat to throw your inhibitions out the window. You couldn’t just not tell him now. “I overheard the conversation you were having this morning with Morgan, the uh… the one about me?”
You can practically see the colour drain from his face at your admission, and it immediately makes you regret bringing it up. He wasn’t ready yet.
“You-” He lets out a sharp exhale through his mouth, tugging at the strap of his back awkwardly. “You heard that?”
You give him a small guilty nod with your lips pressed together, and he sucks in a breath like he’s forgotten how to breathe. “How much of it did you hear..?”
“About… three quarters of it,”
He shuts his eyes, head dropping until the hair framing his face catches against his eyelashes.
Of course you’d heard it all. Because him stumbling over himself over how to properly approach you to Morgan wasn’t humiliating enough.
No, you just had to be there to hear it.
There went any minuscule chance he had of actually managing to build something with you. You probably thought he was some weirdo who had some stalkerish fantasy of you.
“Spencer—”
“I didn’t mean it.” Your attempt at elaborating was very quickly short lived as he cuts you off.
“I- What?”
“I didn’t- I was just saying that to get Morgan off my back about not dating anyone,” Spencer knows he’s speaking straight out of his ass, but it’s the only thing that he can think of to say to possibly salvage a fraction of your friendship with him without making everything weird. “I didn’t actually mean any of it-”
There’s a small pause, silence flooding the space between you until you feel like you’re drowning in it.
“Oh,” There’s a split second where the astonishment shows across your face, and Spencer swears he catches a glimpse of disappointment in your irises before it’s covered up with something else. “Right- Yeah no that makes sense he can be quite annoying about that stuff can’t he?”
He gives a pathetic laugh at your response. “Yeah…”
“Well I’ll uh, see you tomorrow then…” There’s no mistaking the awkward tension between the two of you as you rifle in your pocket for your car keys.
“Yeah… See you tomorrow…”
“I messed up. I messed up really bad.” Morgan barely has time to leave the elevator before Spencer is practically dragging him into the conference room to speak to him privately, without any chance of their conversation being heard.
“Well good morning to you too boy genius,”
“I’m serious Morgan, this is really bad-” Spencer’s face conveys absolute desperation, almost bordering patheticness from just how rifled he seems.
“Okay okay damn,” Morgan raises his arms in surrender, a silent vow to take Spencer’s worries seriously.
“They overheard our conversation, the one about me being afraid to ask them out.” Spencer sighs in absolute indignation, taking a hand through his hair with an expression like his doctor just told him he wasn’t going to wake up tomorrow morning.
“Oh-” Morgan’s eyes widen slightly at Spencer’s confession, straightening up and furrowing his eyebrows. “And?”
“And I told them that I was just saying I wanted to ask them out to get you off my back about dating-”
Morgan’s shoulders drop, and he narrows his eyes slightly in a mix of confusion and absolute astoundment that he would fumble the bag that hard. “Why did you do that?”
“Because I didn’t want things to get awkward, but when they walked into the office this morning they didn’t even say good morning and we’ve been sat in a stalemate for almost ten minutes which suggests that they didn’t believe what I said and I did make it awkward and-”
“Reid-” Morgan holds up a hand to stop Spencer’s rambling mid-sentence. “Slow your roll a minute, what actually happened?”
“They caught me on the way out of the elevator to the parking lot yesterday and told me that they overheard our conversation,” Spencer drags his hand down his face in exasperation. “And I panicked and said that I didn’t mean it and that it was just to get you to stop asking me about my dating life, so that it wouldn’t make our friendship awkward…”
He exhales heavily, leaning his body weight against the conference table in defeat. “But I don’t think they believed me, and now they’re acting like I’m a stranger to them and I don’t know what to do,”
“Right… Okay,” Morgan takes a few seconds to take in the information through furrowed eyebrows. “And you’re sure it’s because they don’t believe you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was Spencer’s turn to furrows his features at Morgan’s response. What else could it possibly be to do with?
“Look, I’m not going to say anything, but you need to come clean and talk to them, right now.”
“What—” Spencer barely gets the question out of his mouth before Morgan is leaving his side to open the door of the conference room and yelling your name across the bullpen to bring you over.
“What are you doing?” Spencer Whisper-yells through his teeth as he watches you approach from over Morgan’s shoulder, and he watches the way your curiosity turns to begrudgement as you realise that Morgan wasn’t the only one there.
You literally fizzled out after realising that Spencer was there, what else was he supposed to think?
“You two need to have a conversation,” Morgan points between the two of you before tugging you into the room by your forearm. “I am going to stand outside that door and you are not allowed to leave until you’ve spoken to each other properly, no bullshit. You hear me?”
It feels like you and Spencer are two five year olds as Morgan looks between you, but you both nod stuntedly either way, and true to his word, Morgan leaves the room and leans his weight against the closed door so you can’t push it open to leave.
“So…”
“So-”
The tension between the two of you is palpable as you both try to start the conversation at the same time, but the fact that you were so similar in your awkward attempts at breaking the silence makes you laugh a little, which in turn makes Spencer laugh as well.
It was a little silly, but you were both glad for the break in the stalemate you’d put yourselves in, even if just for that moment before you found yourselves surrounded by silence once more, albeit a slightly more comfortable one.
“Well… Uh…”
“I’m sorry I assumed you liked me, romantically I mean,” You cut off Spencer’s awkward attempt at breaking the silence with your own blurted excuse. “I didn’t mean to make things awkward between us I just thought—” You cut yourself short before you can finish to save yourself from your own embarrassment.
Spencer can only blink at your apology.
“I— What?”
“When I cornered you in the parking lot yesterday, I should’ve known it was just Morgan bothering you, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” You clasp your hands behind your back, nervously wringing your hands together.
So it wasn’t because you didn’t believe him. You did. And you looked… upset about it? Dejected maybe? Spencer couldn’t be quite sure, but whatever emotion you were displaying it wasn’t something objectively positive.
“I— You didn’t—” Spencer exhales heavily through his mouth, clenching his hands into fists as he internally fights with himself over whether to just spit it out and get it over with.
‘You need to come clean’.
Morgan sounded extremely assured in his statement when he directed Spencer earlier, like he knew what the outcome was going to be.
It wasn’t a case of ‘come clean because the truth is better than lying’, it was a ‘come clean because whatever happens afterwards isn’t going to be negative’.
“I lied to you,”
Spencer’s brain always worked faster than his body, but apparently he’d managed to override his own instincts and let his mouth make the decision for him before he could think through all of the possible consequences.
“…What?” The traces of disappointment in your eyes are diluted by a mix of surprise and confusion as you turn them up to his, and Spencer feels his throat dry out almost immediately.
“I wasn’t trying to get Morgan off my back, I…” Spencer lets out another small sigh. “I really was asking him for advice, I… I really like you, a lot, and I just didn’t know how to tell you without ruining our friendship so Morgan was trying to help,” He lets out a small laugh, his fingers raking through his hair animatedly as he laments his own patheticness. “It didn’t go very well, clearly,”
There’s a small pause after his confession, the silence settling in Spencer’s chest and making him feel nauseous as he waits for a sign of how you’re going to respond.
The blankness on your face isn’t very reassuring.
“You’re being serious?”
“…mhm…” Practically all of the conviction in Spencer’s tone disappears at your question, and he half-wishes that he could travel back in time so this conversation never happened.
“I like you too Spencer,”
“I underst—” Spencer lowers his head as he dejectedly accepts your rejection. Except it’s not a rejection. “What?”
“I like you too,” You repeat yourself with determination, your eyes practically boring holes into his, and he swears he can feel his knees trying to buckle underneath him.
“You uh… Really?” Spencer blinks at you like a deer in headlights, his genius brain seemingly unable to comprehend how the conversation, one Spencer was sure would end in your rejection and end with the two of you as practical strangers, somehow turned into this.
You give him a firm nod. “I’d like to go out with you Spencer, on a date, anywhere you like,” Your confidence starkly contrasts his shattered composure as you give him your proposal like you’re presenting in a board meeting. Although he’s sure it’s almost entirely feigned, and the way you fiddle with your fingers is evidence enough of his theory. “Please?”
There’s a tinge of desperation in your tone as you add your small plea at the end, and it makes Spencer realise that he’s just blankly staring at you.
“I— Yes— Yes I’d love to go on a date with you Uh—” Spencer thoroughly stumbles over his words in his rush to wipe the traces of doubt in your features. “I’d really like that…”
“Good— Good,” You let out a short laugh of relief at his answer, and he echoes it with your own as you stand in a shared dome of fluster together.
“Do you want to get lunch? Uh, together?” The way Spencer phrases the question was like a middle schooler trying to ask out their crush rather than a grown man, but it only makes the sentiment more endearing.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Your answer is joined by a soft laugh that echoes from the back of your throat, and it makes Spencer’s heart flutter.
“Okay,” Spencer returns your chuckle with his own, gesturing curtiously towards the closed door like a true gentleman, and you have to suppress the urge to stamp a kiss against his pink cheeks as you pass him to push it open.
There’s less resistance than there should be as you push it open, with Morgan decidedly having left the two of you to your own devices to return to his desk without either of you realising.
He shoots the two of you a wink and a thumbs up as you walk down the stairs, and Spencer’s cheeks turn a slightly darker shade of red at the ‘unfortunate’ realisation that he’s due in for a whole load of jests and teases from him going forward.
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chuluoyi · 4 hours
Text
✎ throughout heaven and earth
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- gojo satoru x reader
a sudden mission. a curse beyond your grade. all hell breaks loose when gojo realizes that there are hidden machinations behind the incident that befalls you
genre: feral!gojo, injured!reader, hurt/comfort, exponential fluff !
note: we need a gojo who will go ballistic against the higher-ups for dragging you in their mess :) refer to this for the reader's CT, and this loosely takes place after the events in heaven's fury, and the epilogue is based on this very brilliant idea :))
a part of gojo's love entries
series masterlist | oneshot masterlist
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Something isn’t right.
You should’ve known it was strange when they assigned you with a sudden mission with little to no briefing. You should’ve gone through with your gut feeling and informed Satoru about it.
Because if you did... now you wouldn’t be running for your life like this, frantically dodging the hacks and slashes of this chainsaw-like cursed spirit that was evidently not a Grade 2 as what you were told.
“Ah!” you yelped as the sharp ends of its body struck your shoulder, leaving you bleeding openly. This was no small wound—it was deep enough to make you stagger.
You had to do something about this because merely avoiding wouldn’t save your life. You had to come back in one piece. You have to— for your baby and Satoru.
What if I can’t? The sheer thought made you tremble. Your baby boy was still so little and he needed you more than anyone, and Satoru...
God, you couldn’t bear to leave him alone. Not again. He couldn't handle losing someone again, not after all he had already lost.
You gripped your whip—your cursed weapon—tightly amidst your bleeding hand. You had barely enough cursed energy for a domain expansion that guaranteed a sure-hit effect. You have one shot. This was all or nothing.
But you weren’t sure if it would work, because you were on the verge of exhaustion, and this was a special grade curse. Your domain expansion was definitely not as refined as the Satoru’s, and this monster was an enemy of his class.
“Satoru...” your voice came out in a sob. You were terribly scared, and honestly you were entitled to. You weren’t even sure you would survive this at all, and all you could think now was your husband’s silly grin and how much you loved him.
And right afterwards, you saw the cursed spirit lunging at you, and with everything left that you had, you screamed—
“Domain Expansion: Transcendent Veil!”
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“Gojo-sensei, p-please come back... Nee-san is...!”
Satoru was in Kyoto when he received that call from Megumi— and that moment shattered his world as he knew it.
“Megumi, what is it?”
“She w-was sent on a mission... but then it's a special grade— a-and... she... she e-exorcised it b-but—!”
He teleported without second thought to Tokyo. His mind was blank, the only sound he could hear was his own violent heartbeats, and his fists were clenched so tightly.
“The cursed spirit got her too… It made a cut on her neck.”
His most precious wife... the one person he must protect at all cost, was now possibly—
“Megumi.” He saw him sitting on the hallway of the headquarters’ hospital the with his son on his lap—you had asked him to look after your baby—and the boy looked up to him.
“Gojo-sensei...” Megumi appeared shaken, and seeing that, Satoru immediately took his child from his hands, pulling the little kid into his embrace.
“Go back home, I’ll stay here.”
In all his life, Megumi had never seen Gojo Satoru as calm as he was now. He looked fearsome, as if he was in the battlefield.
“Ichiji.” Satoru turned to the other man rigidly standing next to Megumi, causing him to stiffen up even more. He didn’t say anything further as he pat his little son’s back, and yet Ichiji knew all the same what he wanted from him.
“It’s from… the higher ups, Gojo-san.” Ichiji gulped as he said it. “Y/N-san was suddenly called in yesterday night, and she was told it was an urgent mission.”
“Who called her?”
“It was…”
When Ichiji told him the name, suddenly Satoru barked a snort, and his lips curled into a manic grin. It was a menacing sight for both Ichiji and Megumi, as he looked almost unhinged if not for his secure grip on his son.
But contrary to what they were thinking, what filled Satoru at that moment was pure, unadulterated fury. A righteous sense of being crossed—because, how fucking dare they?
Those higher ups first pressed him to execute Yuji, and when he paid them no mind… now they staged this atrocity against you, most definitely to serve as a warning to him.
“Ichiji, tell them that I’ll pay a visit tomorrow. And drive Megumi home tonight.”
He would make his point loud and clear. He would show them how wrong it was to ever test him. But…
The plan barely satisfied him. They hurt you. His heart finally lurched as he processed the fact… when he heard his baby’s soft whimper against his shoulder.
. . .
You sustained serious injuries, but finally, you were out of critical condition.
When Satoru was allowed to see you, you were still connected to many monitors and breathing machine. He brought your baby too inside, and upon clearly seeing both of them, suddenly your eyes welled up with tears.
“Hey…” his hand gripped yours reassuringly. You sniffled when the strain of your broken ribs made you almost cry out in pain, and Satoru immediately calmed you down.
“Sweets— hey, don’t cry, yeah? You did good.” He pressed a soft kiss on the back of your hand. “You did freaking good. You’re okay now. You’re going to recover, yeah?”
You gave him a tearful little nod, feeling so grateful that you could see him again. And unbeknownst to you, seeing you like this broke his heart too.
“Mwa...” your baby, cradled in your husband’s arms, suddenly stretched his tiny hands towards you, and Satoru handed him over for you to hold.
With the little strength you possessed, you reached out to stroke his soft cheeks. Your son... the thought of how close you came to death brought another tear rolling down your cheek.
All sort of thoughts went through Satoru’s head at the sight. His wife, the mother of his son, who is proud of him for everything he does—
—and their sorry asses dared to hurt you.
Suddenly all he saw was red.
And he swore he would make it right to you. Soon.
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“Ah, Satoru-kun… to what I owe the pleasure?”
“…I’ve heard that it was you who assigned that special grade mission to my wife, correct?”
“Oh, that. First of all, I must apologize for my... oversight. We were misinformed... Our scouts made a mistake while filling the files.”
Satoru was trying not to lose his composure first thing after coming here. Really.
But the knowing tone of the elderly Jujutsu Commander only fueled his rage, growing stronger the longer he stood behind this stupid paper divider.
“So it’s a mistake, huh?” he repeated in a satire manner. “Then do you know that my wife has just gotten out of her maternity leave this week?”
The man behind the divider chuckled quietly. “Satoru-kun… I know the sentiment. Of course you’ll be worried, and it did end in a rather… unfortunate incident. However, jujutsu sorcerers are bound to their duty, and your wife cannot rely too heavily on her status as a member of the Gojo clan to be excluded from—”
Fuck it. He had no patience any longer.
“Seems like I need to be a lot rougher, after all.”
Suddenly the room crackled with electricity and the Jujutsu Commander gasped at the sense of foreboding he felt. “Gojo, you can’t—!”
“Heh, but I can.” He let out the most satisfied laugh before opening his palm and chanting in a lower voice: “Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.”
In a matter of seconds, the audience chamber of jujutsu headquarters turned into a pile of destruction. The commander barely made it out the deadly vacuum vortex with a shriek.
“Ah! N-no! Get a-away from me!” Satoru stared down at him coldly through his unobstructed heavenly eyes, as he pitifully tried to crawl away. He took one step towards him, stomped on his hand ruthlessly—causing the man to scream, before he got down to his level.
“N-no! Please, s-spare me...!”
“This is my first and last warning to you.” It was beyond terrifying, to see those six eyes in this close proximity. But even more dreadful was the tight chokehold on his throat—
“If you ever try to pull this idiotic stunt again on my wife, know that I can and I will snap your neck.” Satoru’s face split into a sinister grin as he tapped the man’s nape, before he crushed the bone on his hand with a crack and made him howl. “Remember that, yeah?”
. . . that day, none in jujutsu headquarters dared to spread any word about Gojo Satoru’s outrageous conduct, even when it was an attack against their own highest ranking leader.
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“Satoru, you don’t have to, really—”
“Nuh, uh! I’ve promised you I’ll nurse you back to health!”
Unaware of anything and everything, you thought that your loving husband was a silly jester trying to make you feel better. On the fifth day of your stay in hospital, you were well enough to eat solid food, and Satoru insisted on spoon feeding you the fruits he cut himself.
“Good girl,” he praised with a wholly playful smile as you chewed on the watermelon. You looked at him with a mock frown, pursing your lips.
“You’re making me look like a kid.”
“You are, in fact, my second kid, so I have all rights to baby you.”
You let out a giggle, but then suddenly your throat felt like it was closing in and you coughed. Instinctively, you reached for your neck— your fingers tracing the scar there.
You still could remember the sense of paralyzing fear you felt as soon as your neck was cut. The heavy bleeding that followed, the way the world blacking out around you…
“Sweets…?” Satoru put down the plate and got a grip on your trembling figure. He gently pushed your chin up to meet his eyes. “Hey, look at me. Look at me, hmm?”
Your frantic eyes locked onto his, and your rapid breathing steadied. Your clammy hand reached out to touch his face... before you lunged forward, throwing your arms around him.
“Sweetheart…” Satoru hugged you back in return, sighing against the nape on your neck, as he planted a soft kiss there.
You tried your best not to cry but it was hard not to while remembering everything.
“I-I was so scared…”
“Mhm.”
“I-I kept thinking… w-what if I c-can’t see you… or baby again…? I… I s-still want to do a lot of… things… w-with you…”
The way you shook in his arms like a fragile leaf made something inside him burn. He was supposed to provide you with security, give you a life far removed from curses—
Having left that warning against the higher-ups wasn’t enough, he should’ve made him beg for his life more—
“Listen to me,” Satoru said as he broke the hug, the deep frown in his grave expression made you almost sob. He gently wiped your overflowing tears with the pads of his thumbs.
“Stop thinking that. You’re alright. You’re going to get better. You and me—we are going to raise our son together.”
You took in each of his words fully, even as your lips quivered.
“And mark my words…” Right in this moment, you thought that your husband was most dashing as he gave you his promises—as his blue eyes glimmered under the light. “They won’t ever lay their hands on you ever again. Not while I’m here. Not ever. I already made sure of that.”
You were curious about what he did, but you chose not to press further when Satoru leaned in suddenly and brushed his lips against yours in a soft kiss, melting your heart into mush.
When he pulled away, it was his usual teasing grin on his handsome face. “Now, I only have one duty left— that is to get my cute wife back on her feet. So, be a good little wifey and have lots of fruits and sleep, okay?”
You giggled freely this time, feeling tremendously safe and loved, and instead of answering, you chose to peck his lips instead— hoping that he’d know that you trusted him with your whole life.
. . .
“By the way… Satoru, where’s our baby?” you missed your pumpkin, and while being with your funny husband lifted your spirits, you wanted to cuddle him too.
He chuckled in response. “Ah! Since Megumi is on an assignment, I left him with Ichiji earlier! Don’t worry, I’ll come pick him up soon, ‘kay?”
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Epilogue
“I’m going out for a bit, and if you ever make him upset or cry… I can and I will sense it! So Ichiji—do your best!”
“Bwa…”
“Eeek!”
Ichiji stared at Baby Gojo with literal sweat on his forehead, as the little being curiously looked up at him.
By all means, this baby was adorable. Even more so when his father dressed him in a shark onesie. It was a peculiar choice—just like any of Gojo’s choices were—but it sure made the baby look even more endearing.
But the thing is… he didn’t feel secure enough to hold him! Especially when he didn’t know if Gojo’s claim of telepathic connection with his son was true or not!
Amidst his thoughts, suddenly Ichiji felt a soft touch on his arm and immediately turned to find the little munchkin putting his little hand on him and staring at him with such pureness unbefitting of Gojo Satoru’s son.
How can this baby be a stark contrast to his father? Ichiji was almost tempted to snuggle him, but he knew better.
“O-oh… d-don’t touch me…”
And as he retracted his hand back, the baby suddenly widened his eyes, feeling betrayed apparently, as his little lips wobbled and face scrunched up, so ready to burst into tears—
“Hic…”
“—!! Nooo! Don’t cry! Your father will fry me—! Eeek!!”
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theminecraftbee · 2 days
Text
Wels hums as he walks through the shopping district. He doesn't need much, but with the recent release of Overlord, he wants to hear if any of the establishments are playing it. He doesn't expect it somewhere like the Permit Office--Grian's spent too much time and money getting a song that was as perfectly annoying to be put on hold to as possible--and if it is playing in the log shop, he will laugh. But music tends to spread around Hermitcraft fast, and sure, this isn't about anything specific, but who's gonna miss a good opportunity to dunk on Doc?
He hears the backing beats from a nearby shop and hums along with them, walking down the path--
--then turns a corner and leaps back.
"You," Wels hisses.
Hello. Awfully rude of you not to include me, you know, says the specter.
"No, there's absolutely no reason for you to be here. None at all!" Wels says, throwing his hands up. "The last time I saw you was--gosh, I don't even know. Season Seven?"
Yes, yes, and the only time you saw me, you aren't lying to yourself at all, the specter says agreeably. Come on. We both know I was haunting you for what little of Season Eight you bothered to be around for.
"If you were on Eight then you super shouldn't be here," Welsknight says. He shakes his head and looks up at the shop playing his song. Joel's? Huh. Wouldn't have thought he'd have a reason to make fun of Doc. Welsknight removes his shaking hand from his sword hilt again and starts walking.
On account of you leaving everyone there to die, yes, we're both aware, the specter says.
"Oh, screw you, you wouldn't have done any different, get new material," Wels says. "Also, you aren't real? You're like, all of my insecurities or whatever. You don't even have a real body right now, no one's made you one."
The specter shrugs. I mean, if I'm the worst parts of yourself, really, you're the one who needs better material. Abandoning all your friends to die and then abandoning them altogether--it's a wonder they let you stick around!
Wels rolls his eyes and forces his hand to stay out of his inventory. Wouldn't do to give away that still even gets him. He peaks at another shop. They're playing the song too, but it's ever-so-slightly out of sync, which is kind of terrible. As he does, Cleo waves at him. Their eyes sort of stutter right past Helsknight, which definitively tells him exactly how much body the specter even has to possess right now.
"I'm actually having a great time with my friends this season, so like, the whole 'abandonment' song and dance isn't going to work this time. Started the season with them and everything; hard to even go for 'they'll forget me at the first opportunity' or whatever."
The thing is, the more Wels says it, the more its true. None of the insecurities and pain points that the specter is echoing back at him are what he was actually thinking about. He's been like... fine? Sure, he's definitely still got repressed negative traits, but nothing like "Xisuma's evil twin brother playing around with his head" or "the moon crashing and killing everyone" or "too depressed and burnt out to get out of bed" or "sort of considering abandoning everyone because that's like, his thing" these days. None of the things that should bring the specter that had haunted him since Beef's cloning machine back to him without a body. But Wels is careful about clones outside of something like Vault Hunters, where they're explicitly under his control. He, like, doesn't even armor stand much. So that can't be this either; Helsknight clearly doesn't have a body to be messing with Wels yet!
...Helsknight doesn't even have a body or an actual insecurity to be poking at Wels with yet.
He stops. He puts his hands in his pockets, and turns around to face Helsknight. He is no longer shaking at all.
"Dude, why are you even here?" Wels asks.
I told you, it was rude to leave me out, Helsknight says.
"What," Wels says.
The final bars of Overlord play over the speakers. Welsknight hums and nods before it suddenly clicks.
"What," Wels says again.
Honestly, you're not normally this much of a moron. It was rude to leave me out. Rapping is also my thing.
"Dude," Wels says.
I could totally destroy Docm77 any day. I would obliterate the fool you call a "friend" in ways you cannot comprehend. You invoke a sacrificial goat? I know ways he'd never recover, gods he'd never be able to retrieve himself from. It would be laughable. And you left me out.
Wels stares at the demon from his nightmares.
"You're mad at me because you didn't get to be in my diss track," Wels says.
You let me be in the last one, Helsknight says.
"Dude," Wels says. "Dude, that's pathetic."
Helsknight sniffs. I'm your worst qualities. What does that say about you.
"I didn't even write this for this season," Wels says.
That makes it worse, Helsknight says.
"I don't even know where to start? For one--no, I still don't even know where to start," Wels says. "This is like, the lamest reason you could possibly have to come haunt me. Go away, I'm basking in my like, top 3 charting hit on the Hermitcraft server."
Top three? Pathetic. There are only three songs. You'd be the top song if you'd simply included my power, Helsknight says.
"I can't beat the streaming minutes Grian puts on that hold--look, uh, dude. You're, uh, a very scary representation of my fears and worst qualities and all. Appreciate that. Next time I need to do a diss track, I don't know, maybe I'll invite you? First you've got to stop appearing solely to make my life worse, though. Bring me a cookie or something. I don't know, whatever demons do."
I'm not a demon, I'm a Shadow. We're different, Helsknight says. ...I'll think about it.
When Wels turns the next corner, Helsknight has vanished again. Wels stops in the middle of the street, looks around, confirms the specter has vanished, and then bursts out laughing.
"What the Hels," he says, somehow feeling lighter and more bemused than before. That's a new feeling with his doppleganger. Then, he goes to visit Big Wood. While Doc definitely isn't playing the song of his own accord, Wels figures that Beef just might, and given the day he's having, that would feel like a kind of irony Wels isn't sure how to describe. Besides, he wants to see if Doc will notice if Wels sets the song on loop or something. What can he say--the man's reactions to being taunted are spectacular, and Wels loves seeing them. Call it a bad quality of his or something.
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a-b-riddle · 2 days
Text
Part Three
Warning: If you don't like Taylor Swift, you're not gonna like this chapter that much, homie. But So Long, London is so fitting for this drabble series. (I guess a series since it's longer than a drabble at this point)
Can’t stop thinking about reader just trying to move on
You had to remind yourself several times not to check in with the guys. It had almost become second nature doing something big like this. But going to another country…
Not that they would care. You told yourself. It was for the best that way.
The expo went better than you expected. You didn’t believe that there would be a line out the door of eager readers wanting to read your book, but you got a decent amount. More than a few told you they couldn’t wait to read it. Several asking for photos and asking questions on any future books, a spin-off or even continuing the series.
When one a particular large group of girls your age asked for a group photo, you could have cried. They were had found each other in an online book club. You had given them your book several months ago. All copies signed with a note thanking them for taking the time to read what you had poured your heart into.
You had spent a large chunk of your free time talking to them. Bonding more so as women than over your book.
"Have you listened to Taylor's new album?"
It had only been out for two days and you had been able to avoid it like the plague. You didn't need to even listen to 'So Long, London' to know it would fucking gut you. So you would enjoy your time in the states. Save the listening experience for when you were packing up their stuff.
They had posted and tagged you before continuing on with the rest of the expo. You had reposted the photo to your own social media. Or at least one attached to the pen name you had crafted. You only had twelve thousand instagram followers, but it was something.
The first day was much like the second. You had attended several Q & A sessions with a panel of more experienced authors and managed to go to a few meet and greets. Before you knew it, it was time to pack up shop.
The agent the publishing house had assigned to you had stuck with you for most of the day. You were able to pick her brain a bit about new ideas for possible future plot lines and her thoughts. Overall, the trip was great.
Not only were you able to make great connections and take a lot back home with you to reference, but for a few days you forgot what waited for you back home. Or rather what wasn't waiting for you.
By the time your plane landed back in London you could barely hold yourself up. You left the expo, went straight to the hotel to shower, pack and head to the airport.
Your flight was delayed. Your luggage was taking forever to get onto the belt. It was only seven, but fuck if you weren’t ready to just call it a day. Tomorrow you would have to start again. Opening up the shop. Coming back to an empty flat. Maybe start gathering up the items the boys had left behind.
Should you give them in separate boxes or just one giant one and let them sort it out themselves? It was easy to discern whose sweatshirt and t-shirts belonged to who, but when it got to things like socks and chargers...
Yeah.
They could sort it themselves.
You could drop it off at Kyle's when you knew he would be at the gym. He was good at avoiding you anyway.
It wasn't until you stood in your apartment did it hit you.
You were alone.
For the first time in over a year you couldn't call one of them over to soothe that ache of loneliness.
For the first time in over a year, you had to relearn how to handle just being alone.
You usually showered at night. Washing away the grime of the day before settling into bed. But today was a new chapter. You woke up wanting to start it on a good note. Plus you went straight to bed after getting home so you still had a bit of airport funk on you.
It had been a week. One official since you had sent that text nailing the coffin shut. You had touched base with your friends who didn't bat an eye at you dating four men at once. They liked them, even if Simon scared them. You didn't give them the details of the breakup or the cause. You were pretty private in your problems and if you wanted relationship advice, you would seek an unbiased unopinion.
You had a good group of friends, but the moment you told them that you were well and truly heartbroken, they would insist the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. Something you were nowhere near ready for.
So you needed to look like you had your shit together. You put on a dress that was feminine and, most importantly, comfy as fuck. An A-line floral frock paired with a light sweater and some white trainers. You knew a few of your friends would be stopping by for tea so you need to look like you were taking the separation well. Even if you were barely holding it together.
With makeup and perfume on, you started the early morning stroll to your shop.
You loved openings. Starting up the register and selecting the playlist for today. Picking out the essential oil to put in the diffuser even though you mostly stuck with a lavender and vanilla blend during the spring months.
For the morning you stuck with a Taylor Swift Instrumental playlist you had found initially for studying, but you liked the peaceful feeling it brought. Even when it covered the most gut wrenching songs.
You had started to collect the online orders that had accumulated over the last week. Sending out the e-mails alerting to your patrons that their orders were ready for pick up. Luckily you weren't set to receive a delivery until tomorrow.
It was eight and everything was set. Although not many people came to a bookstore at eight in the morning, it really didn't bother you opening up that early considering you were the only employee that was on the payroll. It gave you the possibility of making money, but mostly you spent the morning reading or writing.
You flipped the sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. Ready to start take on the day.
You had turned the kettle on in the back room when your friends had stopped by around lunch. You always said it was just tea, but you always had an array of snacks on standby for you all to munch on.
Meredith was complaining about what a dick the new client at the law firm was being. An absolute slime who had been married to his wife for almost twenty-five years before he decided to fuck his twenty-two year old assistant.
Tabitha didn't want to talk about work. To her, her career in tech was just a paycheck. She did what she needed to do and left when she was done.
You talked about the expo and how your book. Although neither of them really read, they had promised that they would read your book. You didn't hold your breath. They had reposted your posts as well as making ones of their owns in celebration of you. Words of praise about your dedication and hard work.
You realized that even though they couldn't give you the support you needed as readers, they supported you blindly. You could have written absolute garbage, but they would still support you.
You talked about how many people liked your book and wanted pictures and to sign their copies.
Then came the question you had been rehearsing since you had texted them a week ago. They both shared a look before Meredith finally asked.
"How are you holding up?" You gave a half-smile and a shrug. So perfectly rehearsed in your head you were ready to deliver your lies lines.
"I'm fine," you lied. "It was just fading so there isn't much of a difference, I guess." Not necessarily a lie. "We just wanted different things and were on different paths in life." Not a lie. "It's for the best." You weren't sure if that last one was a lie or not just yet.
They both shared a passing look before returning their gazes back to you. "You know you can come to us about this stuff." Tabitha's hand reached across the table, placing a hand on top of yours.
"It wasn't going to work out." You added. "Situations like that don't and I should have known better."
"A situation?" Meredith asked. "When have you ever called it a situation?"
"It always was one."
"I love you enough to call bullshit." She raised her eyebrow at you, crossing her arms over her chest. "You loved them and you need to stop pretending this is easy."
"You're a divorce lawyer, Mere," You reminded. "You see marriages fall apart every day."
"I do. I get to see from across the table how a woman is still willing to take her cheating arse of a husband back. So the fact that you went from on cloud nine with all of them to not even talking about the break up is concerning to say the least."
"Tabitha," you looked at your only ally left. "A little back up would be nice."
"I'm with her on this one." She confirmed. "You loved them. Not that I cared, but if you weren't talking about books or the shop, you were talking about them. What you did, where you went. How they fucked you."
"I think I'll miss that part the most." Mere sighed. "I lived vicariously through you."
"You know you could actually date people." Tabitha suggested.
"I'd rather live with chronic carpal tunnel than a man." You almost choked on your tea. If you were wearing pearls you would have used the comedic relief of clutching them to break the awkwardness of the current topic of conversation.
"That should be put on a t-shirt." You suggested
"I wouldn't mind it on a welcome mat to be honest." Tabitha added.
"But in all seriousness, cut this bullshit." Meredith gave you an sympathetic smile. "We're here. Good, bad and ugly."
You returned her smile. "I know."
You had closed up shop for the evening. Your lunch had gone longer than expected so now you were left doing the dishes and clean up during closing. You were setting the last cup on the drying rack when you heard the front door chime.
Shit.
You must have forgotten to lock the door when you turned the sign.
“I’m sorry!” You apologized, making your way out of the back break area and to the front of the store. “We’re-”
“Closed.” He said, locking the door behind him. “I saw the sign.”
736 notes · View notes
sirfrogsworth · 2 days
Text
Let's talk about vintage lenses.
Here is your cool samurai show with modern lenses.
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Here is your cool samurai show with vintage lenses.
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Hollywood is no stranger to fads.
We are currently in the middle of a "make everything too dark" fad. But that fad is starting to overlap with "let's use really old lenses on ridiculously high resolution cameras."
This is Zack Snyder with a Red Monstro 8K camera.
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He is using a "rehoused" vintage 50mm f/0.95 Canon "Dream Lens" which was first manufactured in 1961.
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This old lens is put inside a fancy new body that can fit onto modern cameras.
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Which means Zack is getting nowhere near 8K worth of detail. These lenses are not even close to being sharp. Which is fine. I think the obsession with detail can get a bit silly and sometimes things can be "too sharp."
But it is a funny juxtaposition.
The dream lens is a cool lens. It has character. It has certain aberrations and defects that can actually be beneficial to making a cool photograph. It's a bit like vinyl records for photography.
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[ Peter Thoeny ]
It has vignetting and distortion and a very strange swirly background blur.
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[ Gabriel Binder ]
Optical engineers have been spending the last 60 years trying to eliminate these defects. And I sometimes wonder if they are confused by this fad.
"I WORKED 70 HOURS PER WEEK TO GET PERFECT CORNER SHARPNESS!"
And whether you prefer to work with a perfect optic or a vintage one... it is a valid aesthetic decision either way. I think vintage glass can really suit candid natural light photography. You can almost get abstract with these lenses.
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[ Peter Theony ]
Personally I like to start with as close to perfect as possible and then add the character in later. That way I can dial in the effect and tweak how much of it I want. But even with modern image editing tools, some of these aberrations are difficult to recreate authentically.
That said, it can be very easy for the "character" of these lenses to become distracting. And just like when someone first finds the lens flares in Photoshop, it can be easy for people to overdo things.
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Zack Snyder decided to be his own cameraman and used only vintage glass in his recent movies and it has led to some complaints about the imagery.
I mean, Zack Snyder overdoing something? I can't even imagine it.
Non camera people felt Army of the Dead was blurry and a bit weird but they couldn't quite explain why it felt that way.
The dream lens has a very wide aperture and it lets in a lot of light. But it also has a very very shallow depth of field. Which means it is very difficult to nail focus.
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[ Peter Thoeny ]
Her near eye is in focus and her far eye is soft. You literally can't get an entire face in focus.
There is no reason you have to use the dream lens at f/0.95 at all times. But just like those irresistible lens flares, Zack couldn't help himself.
Here is a blueprint that you can't really see.
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Extreme close ups of faces without autofocus at f/0.95 is nearly impossible to pull critical focus on.
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Looks like Zack nailed the area just above the eyebrow here.
Let's try to find the point of focus in this one.
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Ummmm... she is just... blurry. Missed focus completely.
But Zack isn't the only one going vintage. I've been seeing this a lot recently.
Shogun is a beautiful show. And for the most part, I really enjoyed the cinematography. But they went the vintage lens route and it kept going from gorgeous to "I can't not see it" distracting. And perhaps because I am familiar with these lens defects I am more prone to noticing. But I do think it hurt the imagery in a few spots.
Vingetting is a darkening of the corners of the frame.
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Light rays in the corners are much harder to control. A lot of modern lenses still have this problem, but they create software corrections to eliminate the issue. Some cameras do it automatically as you are recording the image.
Vintage lenses were built before lens corrections where a thing—before software was a thing. So you either have to live with them, try to remove them with VFX, or crop into your image and lose some resolution.
It's possible this is the aesthetic they wanted. They felt the vignetting added something to the image. But I just found my eyes darting to the corners and not focusing on the composition.
And then you have distortion.
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In this case, barrel distortion.
This is mostly prominent in wide angle lenses. In order to get that wider field of view the lens has to accept light from some very steep angles. And that can be quite difficult to correct. So you kind have to sacrifice any straight lines.
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And sometimes this was a positive contribution to the image.
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I thought the curved lines matched the way they were sitting here.
But most of the time I just felt like I was looking at feudal Japan through a fish's eye.
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It's a bit more tolerable as a still, but when all of these verticals are bowing in motion, I start to feel like I am developing tunnel vision.
I love that this is a tool that is available. Rehousing lenses is a really neat process and I'm glad this old glass is getting new life.
This documentary shows how lens rehousing is done and is quite fascinating if you are in to that sort of thing.
youtube
But I think we are in a "too much of a good thing" phase when it comes to these lenses. I think a balance between old and new can be found.
And I also think maybe Zack should see what f/2.8 looks like. He might like having more than an eyebrow in focus.
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alastor-simp · 3 days
Text
Enchanting Lullaby - Insomniac Alastor x Sea Siren Reader
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❥Summary: Everyone in the hotel knows that Alastor does not sleep, but what happens when he seeks you out and makes a request only you can provide for him.
❥Tags: Alastor x reader, sea siren, siren reader, insomniac, insomniac alastor, alastor does not sleep, fem reader
❥Notes: I am OBSESSED with siren songs. I find them so hypnotic and beautiful, so I wanted to write a story with a siren reader with Alastor. Wanted to give a shoutout to my friend ValerieWinks777 for helping me with this story. I recommend checking her out on Wattpad, she does amazing Alastor x reader stories.
Spending years in hell, forming unbreakable deals and ripping apart demons in his broadcasts have harden Alastor to put aside certain feelings and tasks, including sleep. Well, he used to sleep during the time when he was alive, honestly he is surprised he even could after all the horrible murders he committed. He didn't just decide one day that he wasn't going to slumber anymore, this change started slowly. Indulging gleefully in the wrath he enjoyed created new enemies, enemies he knew posed no threat, but the longer that list got, the less often he slept, as he rather stay awake and attack them head on if any of them even considered wanting to mess with the radio demon.
A couple days after the extermination war and rebuilding the hotel, it had gotten surprisingly more busy with new demons arriving to gander at the hotel, and possibly consider joining. Charlie had been working like a mad women, tending to make sure everything was perfect for the guests and also trying to lessen some of the workload on the others. She greatly appreciate everything that happened before, so she didn't want them lifting a finger with anything. Alastor, however, was not one to just stand there and not offer his assistance. He may still consider the hotel a bunch of wack-a-doo nonsense, but he has grown fond of Charlie and her beliefs, also considering how much of a gentleman he was, he wasn't going to let poor Charlie do everything herself. Charlie waved her hands in the air, saying profusely that it was okay and Alastor didn't need to help, but Alastor was persistent. "Ah ah ah. Charlie, my dear. As the facility manager of the hotel, it is substantial for me to offer my assistance. Now then! What humble tasks need to be dealt with?" Alastor said with a smile, as he bent down, putting his face closer to Charlie's. Charlie gave a sigh and small smile back to Alastor and told him of the assignments that needed to be done for today.
Alastor went about and began completing each task, stockpiling the drinks for the bar, making sure the rooms were all spick and span, obtain groceries for the kitchen and also prepare dinner for later tonight. Alastor had finally reach the end of the tasks and softly heaved a sigh. Performing small things like this was nothing to him, as he preferred to finish the job quickly and properly and not dwindle on it, but he had used a great amount of his powers to fulfill each one of them, causing him to feel more drained then usual. Alastor, for the first time, felt the need to take a good due rest, but he knew it wasn't going to be easy since it has been a millennium since he last slept. Pondering through his thoughts, he came up with an idea that could help him, as he made his way upstairs.
Knocking on your door, Alastor patiently waited, as the door to your room opened, with you standing on the other side of it, wearing your cozy pajamas. You looked up at Alastor with a smile, head tilted to the side. "Oh good evening, Al. Is there something you needed?" Alastor smiled down at you, showcasing more of his teeth. "Yes, my dear! I have encountered a bit of a dilemma and I need your assistance with the matter. Would it be alright if you could come to my chambers?" He observed your eyes glaze with confusion before you nodded your head, and walked out of your room, closing the door behind you. Alastor had hooked his arm with yours, as the both of you walked towards his hotel room.
Upon entering his room, you glanced around his room, admiring the pocket dimension he had created. It gave a calm tranquil vibe in the room, along with the static music playing from the radio in his room. Al had said nothing when the both of you had entered his chambers, and you wondered if he was displeased with something. "Um.... Am I in trouble?" You question him, twiddling your fingers together. Alastor quickly turned back around to face you, eyes widen before going back to normal, while a soft smile was placed on his face. "Heavens no! You are no form of trouble my dear, I can assure you. There is just something I need from you however." He walk closer into his room, removing his coat jacket and setting it on the chair next to his desk, revealing his red striped shirt that was hidden. He ventured closer to his bed, removing his black shoes before taking a seat on it while crossing his legs. His eyes went back up to look at you, extending his hand out, inviting you to join him.
Your face flushed for a bit, as you made your way over to where Alastor resided, taking a seat on his bed, facing him. The both of you sat in silence, before Alastor broke it. "If my memory serves me correctly, your demon form is similar to that of a sea siren. Am I correct, my dear?" He turned to face you, peering down at you while you looked at him. Your answer to his question was a small nod. "Splendid! That will be quite useful for me!" Alastor seemed almost giddy with joy, making you feel a bit confused. "Can I ask a question?" You asked Alastor. Alastor continued to stare at you, telling you to go ahead. "Why is my nature going to be beneficial for you?" Alastor eyes gazed into yours, as they were filled with confusion. Heaving a sigh, Alastor slowly grabbed your hand, giving it a soft squeeze. "As much as it pains me to say this, but I need your help, darling. I am aware of the soothing hypnotic voices of sirens, how there gorgeous songs allure sailors. I am asking you if you could sing for me, my dear." Alastor smile almost dropped a bit, his face holding a slight melancholic look as he continued to stare at you. You continued to look at him, before you asked him why you needed to sing to him.
Alastor heaved another sigh, rubbing his hair with his other hand. "It has been a drastically long time, since I have enjoyed the comforts of my own bed. However, falling asleep has not been an easy task for me, and along with the chores that I have completed for sweet Charlie. I crave a good rest now more then ever." Upon observing his face, you noticed the dark circles that appeared underneath his eyes. His smile as well seemed a bit forced, almost as if he was having a hard time keeping it up. Your heart ached for him, as you placed you squeezed his hand that was still holding yours. "I will help you Alastor, but there is something you have to do for me." Alastor raised an eyebrow at you, asking what it was that you needed. "Well, could you use your powers to soundproof the room? My siren voice may reach the others, and cause them to fall asleep as well." SNAP! Within an instant, Alastor had snapped his fingers, preventing any sound from reaching out the room.
With a nod of your head, you moved further back on the bed, waiting to make room for your transformation. A dark light enveloped your form, as your body became covered in black and white scales, and your legs had morphed together into a long mermaid tail, causing your pajama pants to slide off. Alastor continued to gaze at you in amazement, finding your form truly haunting while incredibly beautiful. Once you had completed your transformation, you leaned back against the pillow, raising both your hands up towards Alastor. Alastor stood stiff, confused at your actions. "Come here." you said, keeping your arms stretched out. Alastor realized what you meant, his cheeks become a tad flushed. "M-my dear, there is no need-" His words were cut off, as you pulled him down. His head had landed on your chest, as his whole body was placed on top of you, with his legs rested on your lower tail. Your arms wrapped around him, placing one against his hair, giving it a rub. "Shh its alright Alastor. I just want you to be comfortable okay?" Alastor hadn't moved when he was on top of you, apparently not use to actions like this. His body soon began to relax, as he nuzzled closer into your chest, moving his arms to wrap them around your back. His actions caused a soft smile to appear on your face, as you continued to play with his hair. "I'm going to start singing now, are you ready?" You looked down, waiting for his answer. Alastor peaked one of his eyes out from your chest, giving you a small nod. Giggling at his cuteness, you moved the hand from his hand to rub at his cheek, before placing it back on his red locks.
Taking a few deep breaths, you leaned your head back against the pillow. Soon, you opened your mouth, and began to sing.
youtube
(THIS SONG IS SO SOOTHING, I LOVE IT!!)
𝄞 Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray
Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay
Conversing with a bouncing lass, who seemed to be in pain
Saying William, when you go, I fear you will never return again
My heart is pierced by Cupid
I disdain all glittering gold
There is nothing can console me
But my jolly sailor bold
His hair it hangs in ringlets, his eye as black as coal
My happiness attend him wherever he may go
From Tower Hill to Blackwell, I'll wander, weep and moan
All for my jolly sailor, until he sails home
My heart is pierced by Cupid
I disdain all glittering gold
There is nothing can console me
But my jolly sailor bold
My name it is Maria, a merchant's daughter fair
And I have left my parents and three thousands pounds a year
Come all you pretty fair maids, whoever you may be
Who love a jolly sailor that ploughs the raging sea
While up aloft in storm, from me his absence mourn
And firmly pray, arrive the day, he's never more to roam
My heart is pierced by Cupid
I disdain all glittering gold
There is nothing can console me
But my jolly sailor bold
My heart is pierced by Cupid
I disdain all glittering gold
There is nothing can console me
But my jolly sailor bold 𝄞
Your beautiful song had ended, leaving the room in a calming silence. Looking down, you motioned your head to look at Alastor. His head was still nuzzled on your chest, the one eye that had peaked to look at you had closed. His breathing was slowed and he was letting out small static-like snores and a few purrs. Smiling warmly, you leaned closer to his head, giving it a soft kiss. Your hand left his head, and began to reach for the blanket nearby on the bed, motioning it to have it lay over both you and Alastor. You placed your hand back on his hair, giving it a comforting rub, as you leaned back against the pillow, whispering, "Good night Alastor."
Tag List:
@alastorsgoldie @91062854-ka , @delectableworm , @iiotic
@cookiekyo , @demoarah , @danveration , @beebsbea ,
@veethewriter , @forbidden-sunlight , @pinkcrystal44 , @luujjvi ,
@unholycheesesnack , @saturnhas82moons , @jyoongim ,
@aceofcards0-0 , @ghostdoodlen , @yourdoorisunlocked ,
@starshipcookie , @ainsliemac , @aria-tempest , @nobuharashinyao
, @sweet06tart , @blakedbeanss , @ihyperfixatedagain , @ktssstuff ,
@yakultt-art , @mooniee123 , @nightmarenaya , @darischerry ,
@sadnessiscoldtea , @alastorssimp , @imacollasaltitan ,
@dilucragnvindr-my-beloved , @batmanmonstarr , @felice-jaganshi ,
@justchillaine , @crazed-flower , @ohmylovewhereartthou-blog ,
@akiooshizuka , @lokis-imaginary-friend ,
@themysteriousslenderman , @huntlowfan , @futureittomainn ,
@christinaatyourservice92 , , @just-trash-yeah-thats-it ,
@angelinevalentine89 , @yunimimii , @staryosh1 ,
@mihawksdemoness , @crystalreads , @blahblahbruhmeow ,
@madam-strawberryrose , @inkslayer , @azazel-nyx , @lixanjewel ,
@artemisandhunters , @thereeallink , @ask-theradio-demon ,
@lousypotatoes
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adventuringblind · 22 hours
Text
Entitled To You (3.6K words)
Norstaptri x Reader
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Summary: An incident with Lance sends the boys into a frenzy. She just wants to do what she loves.
Warnings: Explicit depictions of r@pe, injury descriptions, panic attacks, Oscar plots a murder, Lando throws hands, Car crashes, Author doesn't know legal stuff, Head trauma and blood.
Notes: This one is a request from @Lily234566 I know this wasn't the original pairing but I was struggling to fit the Ferrari boys in there so I had to scale it back... I'm sorry and I hope you still like it! T_T
Side Note: Sorry to the Lance girlies reading this. AND obligatory message of I don't know these people and this is purely FICTION! HEAD THE TAGS! DONT LIKE THEN DONT READ!
Masterlist // Request Form // My Website // buy me a Ko-Fi
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“Max!” She peeks her head into his driver's room. The bright beaming smile she receives in return after their 1-2 nearly kills her. “They want me for a media thing, apparently.” HIs smile drops into a pout. The sad puppy eyes might convince her to stay. 
“Again? Don’t they know we have plans!
“No, and why would they care anyway?” She looks him up and down and whines because he’s standing in front of her with no shirt on. “Just - I’ll meet you guys back at the room. It’s something to do with being a female in F1… again.”
“I’m starting to think they have nothing else to talk about.” 
She shrugs as she walks out of the hospitality, waving to Christian on her way by. The goal is to get past the Mclaren garage without seeing Lando because otherwise she is not going to the interview. His pout is worse (better?) than Max’s. 
To her pleasant surprise, Laura is the one conducting the interview. “I’m sorry about this being last minute! They said they wanted you to do it with someone else next week and I offered to do it now.” 
The interview passes with ease and thankfully doesn’t take long at all. The banter in-between is also entertaining. 
She’s exhausted when they finish. Ready to go back to the hotel and fall into bed with her boys. Hopefully They’ve ordered food - and dessert. 
The paddock is nearly empty as she makes her way through. Maybe, had she been paying more attention and not focussed on her aching body, she would’ve caught on to the footsteps behind her. 
They are heavy, she assumes possibly a mechanic still packing up to continue on their way to the next circuit. That’s what she still thinks when the hand on her bicep yanks her around the corner. 
If she weren’t as exhausted, then fighting would’ve been a possibility. However, that seems out of the cards as he pins her against the nearest wall. Her forehead hitting the surface hard enough to make her dizzy. 
“Not so confident now, huh?” 
The fuck- “Lance? What are you?-” He slams her head again and cages her body against his own. She flails, only to be slammed again. “Would you stop doing that please?” 
“Not after that stupid stunt you pulled today on track.”
“You mean the one where you showed you don’t know what brakes are?-” Again, her head is sent into the hard surface. She can feel her nose starting to bleed. “Must you?!” She decided to shut up when he does it again and everything starts to go fuzzy. 
His fingers dip beneath the waistband of her fireproofs. The cold evening air hits her bare skin and she panics more than before. Her head is too cloudy to fully comprehend what’s happening. 
“I feel like I'm entitled to a bit of compensation after that stunt.” 
“You’re entitled to nothing. You took yourself out!” She hisses through gritted teeth. Still, Lance continues to get her clothes lower. And slams her head again harder - you know - because she wasn’t disoriented enough already.
“Would you shut up?” She doesn’t say anything this time. Her mouth feels numb and her ears are ringing. Her exposed lower half is met with the bare hands of someone she doesn't want touching her. 
It's - well - it hurts. He's groping at her thighs, ass, even her tits which she isn't sure how he's managing. His hands are everywhere they shouldn't be. 
And then nothing. 
A vague awareness of what's happening seeps through her veins and invades her senses. She tries to scream. Attempts despite the sheer pain of the snap of hips she didn't ask for. 
His finger beat her to it. A hand encloses around her throat and cuts off her oxygen. The black spots dance around her vision. She wants them to stop moving; they are making her dizzy. Or was she already dizzy? 
“See, it's not so bad. Don't you feel less guilty for ruining my race now?” No, she doesn't. She wasn't guilty before. 
She blacks out. 
~~~♡~~~
Waking up with sore limbs and a killer headache is not how she pictured this night going. She tries to yell for help, but a mere creaky rasp escapes. 
When did she lose her voice? The thought makes her panic more. The sob she lets out hurts more than there is sound. 
Her face and hair is sticky. At least Lance had done her the courtesy of not finishing inside of her. 
Still - what the fuck even happened? The fragmented memory is trying to come back to her slowly. Each small piece remembered is another broken cry. 
She can't move. 
It's dark again. 
~~~♡~~~
The anxiety between the three boys is certainly not something they are used to. Oscar can pinpoint the exact moment Lando started overthinking and Max had to bear hug him so he didn't pace a hole into the cement of the parking lot. 
The fourth seat in their car remains empty and their messages have gone unanswered. It's getting more concerning with each passing minute. 
“Max, she always responds.” 
“I know Lando.” 
“She always calls if she's going to be longer.” 
“Lando?”
“Yes?”
“Would you feel better if we went and looked around for her?” 
The Brit nods his head in a fashion that might give him whiplash. It's better seeing him feel helpful then sit helplessly. Though Oscar can't help but agree with Max's original point. that they should wait there at the car just in case since that's where they were supposed to meet. 
Granted, it's only been twenty minutes. It's still long enough to be murdered. 
They Methodically peer around corners and wave at the mechanics who give them skeptical looks. They were supposed to be out for post race celebrations by now. 
Oscar freezes when he sees it. The human shaped lump lying on the ground. He rushes over with long strides. The closer he gets, the more familiar the person on the ground becomes. 
“Max! Lando! I found her!” The other two boys come sprinting in his direction. He's on the ground trying to clear her hair from her face only for it to get stuck in the sticky substance coating her features. 
“What the fuck?” 
Her fireproofs are still on, but it's obvious what happened. The handprints on her neck, the blood trickling down the sides of her face. “We need to bring her to a hospital.” 
Max hoists her up in his arms. Mainly because Lando is on the brink of tears and struggling to breathe through his panic. He loves deeply and with his heart on his sleeve. Oscar just hopes he can keep the Brit calm until they find more help. 
“Can we at least clean her up?” Lando pleads with him. Big Hazel eyes brimming with tears. 
It's always a struggle to tell him no. “We can't, not if it can help us figure out who did it.” The tears start right after that. 
“So that’s what happened then? Someone really-” Oscar has to maneuver the puddle of tears that is his boyfriend into the passenger seat of their rental car. Max tosses him the keys, opting to be with her in the back and keep her comfortable. 
The tricky drive to emergency is more because Oscar is too far in his own thoughts to pay attention to the traffic lights. He can hear Max moving her around, attempting to put pressure where blood still flows freely. 
Oscar doesn’t bother with parking. He pulls off into some empty area and helps Max shoulder her weight inside the doors while Lando runs ahead to find help. 
It’s fast after that. They take her away and start patching her up while the three of them are forced to sit in the waiting room. Oscar and Lando are left to their own devices while Max paces about on the phone with Christian. 
He feels like a knife is being driven through his chest each time his mind tries to come up with what could’ve happened. Who would do something like this? Unfortunately, a lot of people. The question is more of who could’ve done it and gotten away. Someone with access to the paddock this late. Security, perhaps? Maybe even a sleazy mechanic? A driver wouldn’t make any sense… right?
“When will they let us see her?”
“When she wakes up, most likely.”
He’s not sure when he falls asleep. The exhaustion finally hit him like a truck despite his persistence. He’s awoken by Max’s constant shaking and aggressive whispering of his name. 
“-She’s asking for us.” 
He’s up faster than Lando when Jon threatens an ice bath. They follow the nurse down the halls with an uneasy anticipation. They creep inside the sterile room and find her staring at the wall. 
Lando doesn’t hesitate to move further into the room. Always having been more in touch with his emotions then the other two boys. “Hey love, can I come closer?” 
She looks at him. The bandages plastered over the sides of her head and around her face now visible to them. She returns Lando’s gaze with glassy eyes. It’s damn near shocking when she tries to pull things off her body in a desperate attempt to reach for Lando. 
Lando gets to her before she can get everything off, specifically the IV, and catch her arms. Oscar and Max finally pull themselves together and manage to get her to lay back down with some coaxing. 
She’s shaking violently. Her grip on Lando’s arm is sure to leave bruises. “Who - who f-found me?”  
“We did, schat. We got worried when you didn’t respond.” Max drags the two chairs in the room closer and pulls Oscar down into one.  Lando, against all odds, manages to wriggle his way into bed with her. 
“I know who it was. I - well - does anyone else know?” 
“Just Christian and us.” Oscar can feel the fight Max is putting up to not ask her more questions. The way he’s grounding himself with a hand on Oscars knee instead. 
“You don’t have to tell us.” He attempts to reassure. Maybe calm her mind by giving her an option. “Just know we’re here, alright?” 
“I don’t want it to be a big story. It’s already going to be since I can’t be in the car for the next four weeks. Oh fuck - everyone is gonna know-” Lando hushes her; gets her to somehow hold him tighter.
“Christian said it’s up to you, whatever happens.” Max nods at her encouragingly. “We go at your pace.” 
“They did a rape kit. They’ll know who it is. It was all over so it couldn’t have been hard to get DNA - oh fuck” 
Her heart rate picks up. The nurses rush in. They send her back to sleep. 
~~~♡~~~
Max wants to know who it was who touched her. The rage simmering underneath her skin is almost too much to keep contained. 
On the more fortunate side, they were allowed to stay since she wouldn’t let go of Lando. Then when he did have to get up, they rotated. 
The doctors and nurses learned to approach her like she’s a scared animal. The heavy footsteps seem to set her off and there is now a sticky note on the door saying to tiptoe when entering. It’s endearing to see her doctors and nurses trying so hard not to startle her. But seeing as they’ve now had several incidents where she’s panicked, they are taking more caution. 
Oscar and Lando have meandered away in search of food. Max opted to stay put and made the promise to bring him back cheat foods. He’s too stressed to not eat something of comfort. 
Her physio is supposed to come by today with the stuff she left at the track and get an update from the doctors themselves instead of Max’s botched attempts at repeating back. It will also be nice to see her comfortable, as the one blanket that travels with her everywhere will also be dropped off. 
“Max?” He tightens his hold to show he’s listening. “It’s not fair… You, Lando, and Oscar make a mistake on track and nobody does that to you. I - It wasn’t my fault.” 
The thing is, Max is smarter than people give him credit for. The only incident on track was with Lance. An incident that was his own fault. “He’s at fault, not you. None of this is your fault.”
“They are going to say I was asking for it or something.” 
“In those fireproofs? The only ones asking for it are me and Oscar… for obvious reasons.” He chuckles proudly at his little self compliment. 
It also manages to get her to crack something of a half smile. “Are you complimenting your own ass?” 
“And what if I am?” 
She doesn’t eat anything despite it being sat in front of her. Soft foods are the only thing she’ll be eating. Her throat, albeit not as bad as it could've been (thank you F1), is still damaged and needs to rest as much as possible. 
They had to keep her for observation due to where the head wounds had been. It’s been a rough thirty-six hours, but they are managing.
Despite the hectic situation, Max has come to learn that the female lying in the hospital bed is a better person then the rest of them. Oscar was detailing a full proof murder plan while she was telling him not to make it a bigger deal then it is. To which Oscar politely put his ten step plan with four contingencies down and told her that it’s ‘what he had coming to him’. 
Max has not had to stop someone from assassinating a rival before, but Oscar seems like a reasonable guy. “Death is too good for him.” 
“Mm, you’re right, I’ll just make sure he doesn’t die then and can’t see my face.” 
“Or, we make his life a series of inconveniences! I feel like daddy’s money could get him good therapy. It can’t solve every minor problem.” Lando has a gleam in his eyes. 
Him and Oscar start pouring over ideas once more. The girl simply shakes her head and goes back to eyeing her pudding like it’s assaulted her. “I don’t want to leave here, Max.”
“Why not? I’d assume you want to go home? Sleep in a comfortable bed?”
“Out there, they can get to us. Here is safe.” 
He considers how to reassure her. Only, there is nothing he can think of. The truth is that outside of this hospital room, there is no guarantee they won’t run into trouble. 
“I can’t promise that we'll never have something bad happen again. But-” He looks to the McLaren duo brainstorming ways to make the Aston Martin garage regret existing. “We’ll be there for each other. We’re here for you. When you want us and when you need us, yes?” 
“Pinky swear?” She extends her pink to him. 
Max accepts and curls his pinks around hers. “Pinky swear.” 
~~~♡~~~
It’s not fair really, that they had to leave to go do things. Lando would prefer he at least stayed with her so she isn’t alone. Alas, they are preparing for her discharge and he had to run around getting things together for their trip back to Monaco.
He comes back to a partially opened door and smiles at the other two boys being able to get back before him. Then again, as he gets closer he can hear the angry tone. One that Max uses when he’s pissed off about something. 
Lando panics and rushes inside. Only to be met with the sight of the last person he wants around right now. 
Now - he wouldn’t say he’s prone to violence. Lando prefers to keep the peace when it comes to conflict unless he’s trying to piss someone off on purpose to get a reaction. This is not one of those times. 
Lando’s knuckles collide with the Canadian’s jaw faster than he can fully become aware of what he’s doing. Lance stumbles backward and holds his jaw, glaring at Lando like he’s the one in the wrong here. 
“Get out!” 
“We were just talking-” 
“I said. Get. Out.” He’s seething. The thudding in his chest becoming louder with each second Lance remains in this room. 
He’s not prone to violence. 
Really, he’s not. 
Yet the second crack of knuckles into Lance's chin gives him some sick satisfaction. Isn’t there something about equilibrium? Can he pin this on restoring the balance or something? Regardless, he isn’t going to dent the fact that it feels good. 
The nurses come running and start asking questions. Max and Oscar have to drag Lando away kicking and screaming. 
Worse is when they try to tell him that there are pictures out on social media. Christian has been calling Max non-stop. Oscar has been dealing with Zak. Their relationship isn’t a secret and neither is their current location.  
“They're sending us a different car to see if we can’t get out discreetly.” 
“What happened with Lance, Lan? Are you alright?”
Everyone is panting. Their eyes trained on the door. “I punched him. I restored the equal-brey-um… thing.” 
“Equilibrium.” 
“Yeah that!” 
He’s not sure how they get on the plane. He’s still amped up about the whole punching thing and running purely off adrenaline. 
They’ve been sitting in silence, mulling over their options. Creating statements they can put out. It’s hectic and they keep trashing them because nothing fits. 
The female has been apathetic. The last thing she wanted was for this to get out and now it has. Seemingly everything is flashing before her eyes. Her career will be gone soon enough, so what’s even the point? 
“Don’t post anything. We don’t have an obligation to confirm or deny the rumors. If anything, we can say that you were just driving me to the hospital and being good friends or whatever.” She won’t look at them. Still - Lando can hear how upset she is, the waiver in her voice. “I’m going to be kicked out anyway.” 
“Christian said-”
“Damn what Christian said! He knows this isn’t going to get any better and if I say who it was then Daddy’s Money is just going to pay his way through.” She's hyperventilating now. Her body collapses against her seat and Oscar makes an effort to get her to lean against him. “It’s not fair!”
lando Can’t help but share her feelings.
~~~♡~~~
She stays holed up in the Redbull garage the next weekend. The appearance is hard, people want to ask her questions. Her boys had been caught in the middle of the riptide and haven’t come back to shore yet. 
At least she’s here. She’s trying her hardest to look stronger than she is. On the inside things are falling apart. 
The team knows to give her space and not ask about the ordeal. She takes refuge in Max’s room when things are too much and the other drivers keep their distance. 
They know it was one of them. She’d been adamant on not saying who it was, but it’s obvious there are sixteen who it could have been, given her partners insistence that none of them go near her garage for the time being.  
She just wants this whole thing to blow over. She wants to lay in bed with her lovers and not flinch when they go to touch her. 
She knows, however, that until she deals with things that healing can’t happen like it should. Or at least, that’s what her therapist says. The one she is now required to see. 
Things get worse when she’s back in the car. Her media duties are limited so she can focus on driving and ‘listening to her body’ as her physio likes to say. 
She can’t hear her body over the sound of her mind going staticy as Lance closes in on her. The catalyst for everything. She panics and ends up in the wall. Not the worst crash ever, but certainly hurts her pride more than it has already.
The thing is, it keeps happening. Even as she’s able to let her boys back in. As her podium finishes start to come back. Her fireproofs (which they’d gotten her all new ones) start to feel comfortable again and she doesn’t feel the need to be out of them the second the race is done. Still, Lance is using this to his advantage. 
Finally, after he almost killed her on track (again), she’s had enough.
The trial goes better than she thought it would. Despite the money differences, Lance won’t be able to race anymore. It’s not some grand spectacle either, just an announcement like usual. It’s more the closure she needed versus the publicized drama it could have been. 
She wins the next race. 
“If I ever see him again, it will be too soon.” 
“It’s been over a year now, Lan. I’m getting better.” There is a genuine smile on her face. The car awaits to take them back to the hotel. It was here that it happened. She almost considered not racing because of it.
“Lando got a taste of blood and now he’s feinding for it.” Max has a comforting hand around her waist. A grounding presence. 
“I mean, I never threw away my murder plot…” 
“You’re a genius Oscar!”
She shakes her head. It’s not like any of this has been easy. It never is. Still - her boys are here and they’ve been so patient. 
“There’s her smile.” They all beam at her. 
She smiles back.
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