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blu-archer · 3 years

Text

Mr. Park’s return

So, I’m not sure what to make of this really... like it’s not really a sickfic thing - I don’t know.. it might be, I’ll just say it classifies, it’s more of like a little continuation bit in this series and because I felt like writing about it... I’ve had this sitting with me for a while, so I may as well post it.. it felt a bit everywhere, there’s some knew characters I just tossed in because I needed too and we’ll just see where that leads, yeah?

[there is probably grammatical errors, my first language is English I just can’t proof read - its a rough life] anyway, I hope this is somewhat enjoyable, its kind of a mess

This is supposed to be just a small filler type thing I guess

Snz based but like its rather mild.

‘Sickie’ : Jimin / [Felix? its faint really]/ [Yoongi is mentioned, but yeah]

Hybrid AU

Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3

Word count: 5376

I tossed some Stray Kids in here because I love them too.

“Good morning everyone.” Jimin smiled at the class of juniors settling in their seats as warmly as he could considering that he was still trying to recover from days of fever. He still felt tired and a weak, with some lingering symptoms, but he was tired staying at home doing nothing. He needed to work again, get back into a routine so that he wasn’t lazing around all the time. So, he had suited up in warm clothes and more makeup than usual to hide the dark rings that had still not left him.

The class stared at him with a mix of confusion and curiosity before greeting him with about the same enthusiasm he had done to them. He supposed that was fair, it wasn’t like they knew who he was really.

He cleared his throat, dropping the exam booklets onto the desk set up in the front of the room, before continuing on with as much forced giddiness as he could manage. No one wanted to head into an exam with a dark unwelcoming mood, so if he could brighten it by even an inch then he would be happy.

“I’m Mr. Park, I’ll be your teacher for this exam.” As if to serve as a reminder, something caught in his throat and he smothered a small bout of coughs into his arm. “Please excuse my voice, I’ve been a little under the weather.”

It didn’t take long before a few voices rose up, which was not surprising considering majority of the class had probably never seen him before. it had become blatantly obvious that most of the students had wanted to spend much more attention on their paper. He didn’t blame them, anyone would want to be distracted from exams and he usually wouldn’t mind, he loved to gossip and get to know the students and they always seemed to be as interested in him as he was in what they were like, but even with the amount of lozenges he’d sucked on that morning already, his voice was definitely going to give out if he spoke for long.

“What do you teach Sir?”

“You look so young.”

“Mr. Park! What are you doing here?”

“Are you new?”

“What type of Hybrid are you?”

Jimin looked to students who had spoken up. Most dressed or styled slightly different from the standard uniform, clearly these were the usual extrovert favourites. He tried to ignore the more intrusive questions and focus more on the ones of innocent curiosity. A wide grin split across his face and his sight narrowed as he recognised one girl that he taught in modern contemporary. Jimin pressed his square framed glasses further up his nose, his tail flicking as the girl waved her arm wildly from the back of the class.

“Sana? Oh, it’s weird seeing you out of class.” Jimin chuckled lightly, giving a small wave in return. “Most of you probably won’t know me, but I’ve been a part of the dance faculty for I think about three years now. I usually only interacted in the other art departments during these times, but this year the school thought it would be better to shift things around a bit. I think I only know Sana… oh wait, Soobin’s here too. Wow, it feels like forever since I’ve seen you two…” His chest warmed with the pleasure of seeing at least some of his kids.

“Sir, what are you doing back?” Soobin grinned and leant forward from when he sat on top of his friends desk. “Mr. Jung said that you probably wouldn’t be back for at least another week.”

“Not quite.” Jimin corrected, moving closer to his student. “It’s just not as heavy a work-load as usual. Are you ready for your exams? And you Sana? I feel so bad for not being there in your final sessions.”

“I think we’re both glad that you rested rather than pushed to be there with us.” Sana grinned, packing away her English textbooks. “I haven’t done mine yet but Soobin had his exam yesterday.”

Jimin’s eyes shot to the boy who merely shrugged, although the bright flash in the fae boys eyes led Jimin to believe he did better than he wanted to portray. Which was good. Great, actually. His students were amazing.

“Ahhh… why do I get the feeling that none of you did any real dancing while I was away… Anyway, don’t stress over it. Deep breathes and smooth lines. It’s nothing you haven’t done before.” Jimin countered to Sana before stepping back to address the class once again, coughing into his arm again – slightly harsher this time. He answered and entertained a few more questions from the students that he didn’t know before finally calling it. “Okay, we should probably start soon. May everyone please start packing away any studying material. And is everyone present for this exam?”

“Mr. Park, Sir.” A trio of girls, each with unique traits that led him to believe they were all either warlocks or fae, waved to him from the side of the class closest to the wall of windows.

“Yes?”

“So, you’re a dancer, Mr. Park? Can you show us something?” The one with golden eyes smirked and Jimin’s chest tightened, knowing that her suggestive tone wasn’t one of humour or general curiosity. Kids. They were kids.

“I am, but we have more important things.” He chose to ignore the low whining that erupted from them. “Clear your desks please, you don’t seem to be going over notes anyway. I am assuming that everyone is here, which means we are going to begin.”

He returned to the desk without glancing at the girls again. The session had officially started.

Once desks were clear he began to hand out transcripts, only letting them turn through the pages once each student had one. It was a bit of a struggle, with how hoarse his voice was quickly becoming – given that he hadn’t needed to use it as much in the past few days as he was now, but he managed to read through the paper with them to make sure there were no immediate errors then set them forth on the 3-hour paper. Even though it made him drowsy he snuck a few pills in after he stifled a sneeze into his wrist. He wanted to try keep any and all symptoms to a minimum as to not distract anyone, but it was difficult when the class only had the scribbling sound of pens on paper to fill it with noise.

He sipped the tea from his flask that he was certain Yoongi had spiked with some type of herbal energy booster before Jimin had left that morning. The hybrid couldn’t help the wholesome warmth that ran through him at the thought of the worrisome warlock. Despite Yoongi being powerful and often intimidating to those who didn’t know him, Jimin knew that the elder was in-fact a big softy that was usually too shy to address things that stressed him out. Especially if it was about the people he cared for. Instead he was prone to small actions that he thought would help lift any burdens or stressors, for both him and whoever he helped – in this case, Jimin. Yoongi hadn’t even wanted him to start at the school again yet, even for short hours, but after the hybrid had spoken some sense into him – that it was Jimin’s job and everyone, including Yoongi himself, had worked while sick at some point – Yoongi eventually caved.

Although that didn’t stop him from being a bit clingier than usual, and definitely didn’t stop him from wrapping Jimin entirely in the Warlocks clothes so that his scent was with him all day. Not that Jimin minded being completed drenched in the elders scent and the clothes that were just a bit too big for him always made him feel warm and comforted. The last week that Jimin had spent at home with his boyfriend had been amazing, even if he had been a miserable mess for most of it.

Jimin had just finished firing off emails to the other dance staff members about how everything was going with the dance exams and if there are still students looking for last minute help when he felt the sad realisation that his med’s had been easing off. He hadn’t brought enough for a second dose and he could already feel his nose starting to run. The exam was almost over, just another hour or so and then he was free to be a mess again. But that wasn’t what his body had in mind.

He’inxshew… hih..Hieshxngt hXNGst..

Damn it.

Jimin sniffed and wiped at his nose with a tissue. Thankfully he had thought to bring quite a few of the tissue travel packs with him, Yoongi had tried to slip an entire box of Kleenex into Jimin’s bag but the hybrid found that to be a bit excessive. His tail curled around his waist as he felt the gazes of a few of the students that were already finished or were checking through their work, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He sniffed repeatedly, trying to be as soft and quiet as possible but it only seemed to make matters worse as he snapped forward with another sneeze that he caught by pinching at his nose. Stifling was a bit painful, especially with how congested he had been, but he would bear with it.

He stifled four more before he had to come to terms with the fact that he could not try to sniffle to keep it at bay anymore. So he claimed fresh tissues to blow his nose, wincing and sending apologetic eyes to the students at the wet gurgling sound that filled the room. Jimin’s face was heated and he swallowed hard trying to work past his embarrassment. The students probably didn’t even care that much. But he still felt like the floor should open to let him fall through it.

He perked as a hand shot up, the student mouthing for more paper. Jimin threw away his tissues, doing his best to ignore how gross he was momentarily felt, and after a quick squirt his trusty hand sanitiser that Jin made him carry, he was up and handing out pages. Taking that moment of already being up to slowly walk around and check if anyone else needing anything from him. He tried not to linger too much when he noticed Soobin gnawing at his bottom lip. A quick glance and Jimin could tell that the boy was struggling with understanding some of the things being asked of him and he didn’t want to add any extra pressure of being hovered over. Clearly the boy was unfortunately – in this case - closer inclined to the creative arts than he was to general studies.

“Si-Sir?”

Jimin followed the soft whisper to a thin, pale dog hybrid who looked anxious just to have to look Jimin in the eye. Jimin cleared his throat to try get rid of the insistent itch that seemed to plague him and leant down so that the boy wouldn’t have to look up at him when he spoke. It wasn’t often that someone reacted intimidated by Jimin, so he was left a bit unsure. The few handfuls of times that he could remember being anything close to scary were strictly associated with his dancers or the few times he got into arguments with his friends, but usually everyone saw him as a soft and gentle hybrid that they could either try to walk all over or have pleasant easy conversations with. No real threat.

Jimin rested his hand on the edge of the desk to steady himself, then silently inclined his head to indicate that the boy could continue.

“I-I don’t feel.. feel well.”

Jimin gently rested a hand on the boys back only to frown at how sharp the hybrid’s bones were beneath his clothing. “What do you mean? Are you stressed? Sick? Do you feel nauseous?”

The boy merely nodded and swallowed loudly, sinking further away from Jimin.

“Do you want to go to the nurse?” he asked softly. Looking more closely at the boys’ face, his oddly sharp facial structure and sunken cheeks. He had originally seen the bruises under the boys eyes as a part of the exam season stress but maybe there was something else happening.. When he got the nod of approval Jimin set his hand on the boys exam paper. “Do you want to keep this for now, or should I take it?”

“Take it.”

Okay then. Jimin stood up, slipping the exam paper from the students desk, and bringing it back to his station, making note of the foreign name, ‘Felix’, filled in at the top right corner. Then he moved to the intercom attached to the wall behind his desk chair and held the button that connected him to the head office. “Hi, could we please have someone come to room 48? I need a student to be taken to the nurses office.”

A garbled reply came back at him that he could only hope meant that someone would be sent soon. In the meantime, Jimin dug in his bag until he retrieved a sealed bottle of water. It wasn’t as cold as it had been when he had bought it, but it would do. He returned to the boy who had now buried his face into his hands, taking deep shaky breaths.

“Felix… can you try taking some small sips of water for me?” Jimin knelt beside the desk once more, twisting off the cap of the bottle. “Just a few? When last did you eat or drink something?”

He didn’t get much of a response other than the hybrid lifting his head enough to look at the open water before shakily taking it from Jimin. He took the smallest of sips before just sitting there with his eyes tightly shut.

“Okay.” Jimin rubbed Felix’s back and stood up again, coughing into his arm before letting out a restrained groan. “Everyone, you have 40 minutes left. If you’re finishing off or just sitting there, then go through your answers again and make sure you’ve read the questions carefully.”

It was almost ten minutes before Jimin heard a soft knock on the door.

Felix had been sitting with his hands pressed tightly against his eyes, leaning heavily on his elbows while taking stuttering breaths. Jimin had been hovering with concern, but there wasn’t anything he could really do to help. The dog hybrid pretty much shunned him every time he murmured a gentle question or soothing words.

Jimin left his spot next to the sick boy, giving a quick glance over the class to find that at least a third of them were watching him and not going over their work like he’d encouraged, but he called out a brief ‘half an hour left’ and moved to open the door.

“Jimin?”

“Jin.” Jimin let out a heavy breath, running a finger under his nose before leaning closer to the concerned elder. Silently thanking that their office employees had thought to call the school nurse directly and not some random other teacher to walk the boy to a better environment. “Hi, I’m not sure how sick this boy is, but he has a fever and I think he might be nauseous. He couldn’t tell me if it was from anxiety or something else so… He didn’t seem too keen on talking to me at all actually. I just gave him water.”

Jin nodded, wiping his hands on his jeans before stepping forward to move into the class. For a moment he looked like he wanted to question Jimin on something else but thought better of it.

“Where are they?”

Jimin pointed him out and then stood back, trying his best to watch over the rest of the class and not interfere with Jin as he prompted a few words out of Felix – mostly about what he felt like and whether he was okay to walk - before helping him stand. The witch had to wrap an arm around the boys waist to kept him steady and they were forced to move at a slow pace, but Jin just murmured soft barely audible words of encouragement until they’d reached the door. Jimin lay a steadying hand on Jin’s arm before biting at his lip.

“Do you need help getting back? I can ask the office to send another person..”

“We’re fine Jimin.” Jin reassures, his hand rubbing gently at Felix’s side. “I know him, I’d rather just move slowly and not stress him out too much. You can come by in a bit if you’re worried, but I’ve got it.”

Jimin let them go, closing the door softly behind them trying to ignore the tears that had sprung to Felix’s eyes as soon as the pair had left the room. Distracted, he gave a final slow walk through the rows of students. Most of them were finished now, some had lain down over their desks while others fiddled with their stationery. He gave a pleased nod to see that at least two students where carefully reading through their work and added to certain places, and then he passed Soobin. The boy had completely drawn over the back of his exam paper with dark detailed sketches that couldn’t have been done quickly. Jimin winced at the thought of how the boys answers must look, and took it has a hint to sit the rest of the time at his desk where he sipped at the final bit of his now lukewarm tea.

He sent a few carefree texts to Yoongi, who had been complaining bitterly about having to stay at home for the day. Apparently he had tried to talk Namjoon into letting him work but the clumsy witch had threatened to jinx the elder if Yoongi came in to work. Jimin smiled at his boyfriend’s irritated messages, knowing that the warlock was probably still in bed despite him having his studio there if he really wanted to work.

He still felt a bit bad about getting Yoongi sick, but the warlock had thankfully always been a quick healer, so hopefully if he rested for a day or two then he would be fine. Jimin sent a final ‘see you in a bit! Love you!’ before he readied up the exam folder to retrieve the papers.

He coughed once into his fist, pushing up his glasses instinctively afterwards, then gave a soft smile. “Okay guys, if anyone is still writing I’m going to need you to stop.”

“Jin? You in here?” Jimin peeked into the small nurses office only to find it empty, ignoring how his voice had cracked. The desk had been pushed neatly to the side and had an open medical bag with some scattered medications on it but other than that and the locker off to the side that held Jin’s personal things, the room was impeccably clean. Although that shouldn’t surprise him, it was a nurses office. “Soekjin?”

He heard a soft reply and then Jin appeared, ducking through the white curtain that basically blended into the wall. The sectioned off area for those that needed a bed to lay down in, if Jimin remembered correctly.

“Yeah, hey.” Jin smiled and tugged at the collar of his shirt before collapsing into his chair with a sigh. “Sorry, I’ve been running everywhere.”

“Mr. Popularity.” Jimin teased and entered properly into the room to lean against the second chair across from his friend. He flipped a small backpack up and dropped it onto the empty seat. “Felix left this. I didn’t want to leave it there in case there was something important inside. He can just fetch it from here whenever he’s back at school.”

“He hasn’t left yet.” Jin let out a breath much heavier than before. His expression darker than what Jimin was used to seeing on him. “He stays in a foster home with a whole bunch of other kids, his guardians are always a bit preoccupied with the younger children. I think they like to think that the older kids can fend for themselves a lot better than what they actually can, but yeah. They were called, but his foster brother will probably be the one to fetch him after his classes for uni end.”

Jimin frowned deeply. His chest ached in sympathy for the timid hybrid that had seemed close to passing out earlier. “Is he… okay?”

“Mostly.” Jin shrugged, glancing back to the curtained area he had come through. “He threw up a few times and put up more of a fight than I thought possible when I tried to get him to drink a potion. I had to resort to just standard medicine, but it won’t be as effective. Seems like a flu.”

“I felt awful that I couldn’t really help earlier.” Jimin admitted with a small sniff, rubbing at the tip of his nose swiftly. “He seemed scared to tell me anything, but I don’t know… maybe he just really wasn’t feeling well.”

Jin shook his head. “This isn’t his first foster home, he got moved around a lot. From his file and the times he’s spoken to me, he has a bit of a rocky history with cat hybrids – of course his experiences kind of dealt more with predatory breeds but I suppose he just kind of categorised.”

Now Jimin felt worse. He bit at his lip and locked his eyes onto the curtain as if he would be able to see the boy through the material. Was he asleep, or was he listening? Jimin’s throat tightened at the thought of having scared the dog hybrid. He didn’t really like causing someone else unnecessary stress, especially if there was a history of something … what, abusive? Maybe?

“I didn’t realise… Why was he sent to school if he wasn’t feeling well?”

“Beats me. Probably didn’t say anything, he’s only really comfortable with a few people and I don’t think he expects to rely on his foster parents.” Jin says quietly. “He’s a good kid, though. Very funny and loud when he wants to be. He just needs to open up to others a bit more, stop feeling like a burden and maybe participate a bit more.”

Jimin nodded, twisting at one of his rings. “It’s hard sometimes, I get that. If he ever wants to he’s more than welcome to come by the dance studio’s. We sometimes hold after school classes for those that are curious or need extra practices. It might be a bit late to switch to it as a subject, but I’m willing to teach him a few things when he’s feeling better, maybe it will help in terms of meeting new people. Or I can ask Hobi if he can teach him a few things if he’ll feel more comfortable with a human teacher.”

“I’ll let him know.” Jin let out a huff of a laugh. “How are you? Feeling better about being back?”

Jimin grinned widely, leaning heavily onto the chair. “Loads better, Yoongi helped me a lot. I’m still a bit stuffy –“

“And your voice is super hoarse.” Jin said, then smiled teasingly as Jimin whined, his ears drooping a little.

“Yeah, I know… But I really do feel better. I’m tired now but I’m happy to be back at work, I missed my kids. I got see two of my students during the exam, although I don’t think I have a lot of faith in the ones English skills. … its fine though.” Jimin straightened up and gave a dramatic wave of his hands. “He won’t need good marks in standard school, he’ll go far in dancing.”

Jin pulled a face at Jimin’s words causing the younger to let out a small giggle.

“Maybe not fail the standard schooling, but you get what I mean. He’s going places whether he gets those marks or not.”

“Sure, Minnie. Just don’t tell him that he doesn’t need to get good marks in other things.” Jin advised teasingly. “That’s not the best way to educate the next generation.”

A gentle knock on the office door had Jimin jumping in fright, his ears drawn back, and fur raised, only to see two boys hovering outside. He vaguely recognised one from seeing him in hallways but the shorter one was unfamiliar, they both had soft fae-like features and wide innocent eyes. The taller was still dressed in the academies uniform while the other was dressed entirely in baggy black clothes that reminded Jimin of Yoongi. Although he doubted Yoongi would willingly get a lip and eyebrow piercing… maybe Jimin could talk him into it…

“Hey, Chan. You got here fairly quickly.” Jin rose from his seat. “ I think he’s asleep right now, but I’ll wake him up and give him a final look over.”

“Thank you so much Mr. Kim.” The dark one said, smiling brightly at Jin before nodding a greeting at Jimin.

He gave a soft ‘Hi’ before he pulled the light backpack off of the seat and handed it to the one Jin had addressed. “Here’s his bag.”

“Thank you.” Chan accepted it quickly and gratefully.

“Aren’t you one of the dance teachers? On the other side of the school?” The student, who looked about the same age as Felix despite being taller than both Chan and Jimin. “I saw you in that theatre performance thing like three months ago… right?”

Jimin nodded, assuming that the boy was talking about the fundraiser that the school did that was mostly a time for the students to see the staff make fools of themselves doing dances or skits – or in his and the rest of the performance arts staffs’ case, their talent and skills being flaunted in their natural habitats.

“Yep, I’m a modern – contemporary instructor, but I help out in the hip hop sector when I’m needed.”

The boys face lit up at knowing he was right. “You’re dancing is so cool. You were so graceful on stage, it looked really beautiful.”

Jimin smiled and felt his cheek warm. Jin had disappeared behind the curtain and Chan was watching Jimin with a small smile.

“I remember now. I went and watched with him and some of our other brothers.” Chan added. “He kind of became obsessed with dance after that.”

His cheeks burned and he let out a soft nervous cough into his fist. “That’s kind, thank you. Are you… all in the same Foster family as Felix?”

Chan nodded before adding. “I don’t live there anymore, but I still spend time with some of them there, kind of become like real brothers, you know?”

Jimin nodded, stilling feeling a bit off about thinking of them in a foster home. “Well I was just telling Jin that he was welcome to come by the studios if he ever felt interested in dance. As a way to open up a bit. I’m not sure if Felix would join if I taught him, but you’re welcome to join myself or Mr. Jung as well if you want – um..”

“Hyunjin.” The boy said eagerly. “That’s so cool. I really want to, I wanted to take classes, but our guardians couldn’t pay for the extra fee.”

Jimin bit back his grimace. It was unfortunate that students had to pay an extra amount for specialised classes but there wasn’t much he could do besides over informal schooling.

“Well, we can organise once or twice a week to help you guys out. You actually look like the right build for a dancer, probably wont struggle too much…”

Jin reappeared with the small dog hybrid following close behind, looking a bit steadier on his feet than before but still nowhere near healthy enough to be at school. Felix hesitated at the sight of him but didn’t stop for long before he move to sink into Chan’s arms. Jin spoke about some of the hybrids symptoms and what he’d need to take as well as giving a few things to watch out for and what to do if it got worse just in case their guardians got busy. Jimin moved back, letting the two boys move closer to their brother in the office. It was cute to see the three of them together, so different and yet there was a clear sense of family. Jimin sniffed only to regret it as a sharp piercing lemon scent that was no doubt coming from Felix flooded his senses. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t smelt it earlier, perhaps it was because Felix was feeling safe – in any case, Jimin blinked hard. He pressed a finger secretly to his nose, but it only seemed to aggravate the itch. Damn it, he had really hoped that he had finished with this earlier – he had blown his nose enough times after leaving the class, but apparently not.

‘He’ingxt’ah.. h’ingxsh..hih..hih’IGTSHiew…’ He cringed as he felt eyes land on him but couldn’t do anything else but keep his hand covering his face. ‘hih’itchshew… h’IShiew..’

“Bless you, Jimin.”

Jimin groaned and pulled a face, giving a soft and somewhat nervous sniffle. It seemed to be the end of it thankfully. Everyone was looking at him, but thankfully they didn’t seem to really care. “Thanks…”

“Thought you were better, hmm?”

“Jin,” Jimin pursed his lips and resisted the urge flick him. “Shut up. I’m fine now, just... lingering stuff.”

Jin hummed but Jimin knew he was only trying to be annoying.

“okay well, I’ll head out then.” Jimin clapped his hands together awkwardly, no longer wanting to stay in the room in case he was going to start being sensitive to any more scents.

“Tell Yoongi to feel better for me, Min.” Jin said as he wrote down the names of specific medications that would be the most long lasting for a hybrid.

Remembering the adorable sight he had left his boyfriend in that morning, Jimin spun around with a cheery gasp and wide glimmering eyes that had Jin laughing loudly, the other three in the room just blinking with bemusement at the suddenly change.

“Get home Jimin! That wasn’t an invitation to start blabbering about your boyfriend. Actually, I’m very annoyed at you – It’s your fault that I didn’t get my extra Namjoon-day yesterday. I was devastated! Devastated Jimin!” Jin scolded him without even trying to suppress his smile.

“You can sleep with your husband whenever you want Jin. No one is stopping you.” A pen smacked into his chest and Jimin bubbled with laughter as he danced out of range of the book that had come flying soon after the first projectile. “Don’t throw things at me!”

“Yah! Don’t say inappropriate things in front of students, you bratty cat!”

“They know what sex is!” Jimin argued playfully, coughing lightly as he caught the next book that came flying at his face. “So sensitive. Has it been that long?”

“I should have never befriended you. I have to rethink my life choices.” Jin shook his head as he sent Felix an exasperated look. The dog hybrid was watching the interaction with wide, watery eyes.

“Bye, Soekjin.” Jimin laughed, handing the book he had caught to Hyunjin. “I’ll let Yoongi know you care. If you want… I can ask him to make up something special to help-“

“GO HOME, BRAT!”

Jimin pranced away, hearing the soft curses that Jin threw after him. Home. Despite how mixed his feelings were after finding out about Felix’s family life, he couldn’t help but be filled with a flood of warmth at the thought of his boyfriend waiting for him. Most likely still cuddled up into the warm nest Jimin had rearranged for him, unless the elder had decided to use energy to make food or something, but that seemed particularly doubtful after he had messaged Jimin about how lucid he felt and about the mountain of tissues creating a new city on the floor of their bedroom.

It was endearing… possibly contagious to anyone else that stepped fought into their house but somehow, very endearing.

#bts sickfic #bts fanfic #witch jin #nurse jin #hybrid jimin #dancer teacher jimin #alternate universe #stray kids #hybrid felix #I tossed some kpop idols into this mess just because I could #Its a mess #but I posted something #Its a little cute #I wanted caring Jimin #This is more plot than anything else i feel like

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neerasrealm · 4 years

Note

would it be too much to request a part 2 to cody x demi!reader where cody takes y/n to the mansion with the intention of just introducing them to ej, only for them to meet the whole family (including slender and jack who DEFINITELY don’t think of themselves as y/n’s new fathers and TOTALLY don’t have the wedding planned and y/n’s new room converted and CERTAINLY are not starting to work on a nursery in hopes of becoming grandfathers)

please ignore everything in the parentheses 😂

YES YES YOU MAY XFHSGFSAGHDF I HAD A BLAST WRITING THIS FHDGDSH SLENDERFAM JUST EMBARRASSING CODY WAS SO FUN. That’s probably why this story is 6.4k words long AGDSHFGS

enjoy

‘’Hey, y/n?’’

You look up from your laptop and half-typed essay at your boyfriend. His name is Cody! And he has the softest honey-brown hair and dazzlingly bright green eyes. He’s standing in your doorway, leaning out from behind your door, with his hand holding his phone up to his ear. You tilt your head at him.

‘’I uh- I was wondering if you’d like to come hang out with a friend of mine later? Just the three of us.’’

A friend? Cody- Cody told you he didn’t have friends. Odd. Maybe he made one! You smile at the thought and nod. ‘’Sure!’’

Cody smiles wide and nods. ‘’Yeah, yeah we’ll come!’’ he chirps into the phone, sounding excited. He disappears from view, behind the door, and closes it. From just outside your room you can hear him excitedly chattering to someone. You smile to yourself.

This essay can wait.

-----

‘’So how long have you had this...friend?’’

Cody looks up at you. The two of you are walking through a park- specifically, the park where you asked him to be your boyfriend. He’s wearing his regular track jacket, and has his hood pulled up.

‘’Oh uh- y’know...a couple months…’’ he murmurs, scratching at his neck. ‘’You’ll like him! He’s a chill dude- just uh-’’ he fidgets a bit. ‘’He has a uh- a skin condition! So he wears a mask...try not to mention it, okay? He’s kinda insecure about it.’’

You nod. Oh- poor guy. You decide not to pry any further after that. Cody having a friend is rare, and you don’t want to scare them off. The two of you walk into the forest bordering the park and you look around nervously. It isn’t dark, just evening. But that’s really only a small comfort. Cody takes your hand and squeezes it, like he can tell you’re scared. The two of you eventually arrive in a clearing, away from any and all trails. You frown. ‘’Where are we?’’

‘’This is the spot where he said he’d meet us.’’ Cody murmurs. He looks around. ‘’Weird- he’s not normally la-’’

‘’Hey Cody.’’ a deep voice growls behind you. You yelp and jump in surprise, stumbling away. Cody does the same.

‘’Dude!’’ he yelps. ‘’Stop doing that!’’

You turn and look at the person behind you. Your eyes widen. He’s incredibly tall and dressed casually in sneakers, grey sweatpants and a black hoodie. Your eyes go to the face. He’s wearing a mask, as you expected. It’s blue, and the face is smooth and flat. The eyes are pitch black, with black splotches trickling down the eyes like tears. Fluffy auburn hair hangs over his masked face. He’s- calm. Docile. Just standing there casually with his hands in his pockets. His head slowly turns from Cody to you. His gaze- though he has no visible eyes, bores straight through you, making a cold shiver run down your spine.

‘’Sorry.’’ he grunts. Cody looks at you and gestures to the tall, masked guy.

‘’y/n...this is Jack. Jack, this is y/n.’’

Jack stares at you for a moment, then steps forward. You back up in fear. He pulls his hand from his pocket and holds it out to you. You stare. His hand is big, with sharp black nails that remind you of claws, and ashy grey skin. Right- skin condition. Not wanting to be rude, you take his hand and shake it.

‘’Nice to meet you.’’ Jack’s voice is soft, friendly. ‘’Sorry for scaring ya. I tend to do that…’’ he sounds so sad and apologetic- all fear melts away and you smile gently at him.

‘’It’s okay.’’ you pull your hand away. ‘’It’s a pleasure to me-’’ you stop when Jack holds a clawed finger up. He looks around, sniffing the air. Cody suddenly looks worried.

‘’Something wrong dude?’’

Jack pauses for a moment, then looks at a bush. He lurches toward it, then reaches in. You stare in confusion until-

‘’Hey! HEY!’’

‘’AGH- EJ GET OFF-!’’

Jack lifts two...young...boys...out of the bush. One of them is dressed in a white hoodie and ripped black jeans with converse sneakers. His messy black hair is tied back in a loose ponytail. The other is blonde, with tanned, faded skin and...pointed ears. He’s wearing a green sweater and blue jeans with brown boots. The two boys struggle in Jack’s grip until he steps back and drops them down on the ground. Cody stares in horror as this whole thing happens.

‘’Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me-’’ you hear him whisper. You look from him to the two boys. The black haired boy grunts unhappily and rubs at his head. Looking at him more, you realise his skin is deathly pale. A white, barely pink colour, and his face has two jagged scars curling up from each corner of his mouth in a morbid smile. He looks up and blinks at you.

‘’Who’s the lab rat?’’

‘’They’re not a lab rat!’’ Cody spits.

‘’Food?’’ The blonde boy asks. His bright blue eyes look from you to Jack, who shakes his head.

‘’How’d you two sneak after me?’’ He asks, crouching down. ‘’How didn’t I smell ya?’’

‘’I took a shower.’’ the black haired boy says smugly.

‘’I stopped showering.’’ the blonde says, sounding proud.

‘’That explains it.’’ Jack stands up. You look at Cody and- oh. Oh god.

He looks angry. The angriest you’ve ever seen him. Angrier than that time a guy told you ‘demisexual isn’t a valid identity’. When that happened, Cody broke the guy’s nose and beat him into unconsciousness. You had to literally drag him away before he killed the poor guy! You look at the two kids in worry.

‘’What the FUCK,’’ His voice starts off soft and angry, only to turn into a furious bark. ‘’IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!’’ The four of you all flinch. Cody glares daggers at his friends.

‘’Cody calm down-!’’ The blonde yelps.

‘’OH FUCK OFF BEN!’’ He marches forward, but Jack quickly gets in front of him and grips him by the shoulders. Cody glares up at the gentle giant, who very softly pets his head.

‘’Ssshhhh…’’ He shushes. ‘’Go to your happy place, X.’’

Cody’s glare hardens. He inhales sharply, closes his eyes and then- flops...against Jack’s chest. Jack rubs circles into his back. That’s- that’s exactly what you do with him when he's angry- there’s no way Jack has only known him for a few months.

‘’...Babes...?’’ you very gently and very carefully ask. Cody shifts, looking at you. ‘’Uh- so...who’re these guys…?’’

Cody stands back up and sighs. He gestures to the two terrified looking boys. ‘’y/n...these are Jeff and Ben...my-’’ he hesitates. ‘’My brothers.’’

‘’Brothers?’’ you look at the two boys. They’re on the ground, holding each other. They blink at you.

‘’Babes?’’ The black haired boy asks. He looks at Cody, then at you. His mouth opens. ‘’Wait!’’ he jumps to his feet and runs at you. You stumble back as he invades all of your personal space. Up close, you can see he has a green eye and a brown eye, and that his skin is...burnt. ‘’You’re y/n?!’’

‘’I literally just called them that.’’ Cody mutters. ‘’That’s Jeff. He’s dumb. Be patient with him.’’

Jeff steps back away from you. He looks you over for a few seconds. ‘’I like ‘em,’’ he says, glancing at Cody. He looks back at you. ‘’Your taste in guys sucks though. I mean- Cody? Really?’’

‘’Jeff I am going to kill you.’’

You laugh, half out of anxiety and half out of actual amusement. This is weird. So weird. Very weird. ‘’You- never mentioned brothers…’’ you murmur. Cody glances at you, then the others.

‘’Uh- give- give us a second.’’ he mutters before walking toward you and pulling you into the bushes and behind a tree. You stare at him, surprised.

‘’What’s going on?’’

‘’I’ve...been lying to you.’’

‘’Again?’’ you stare up at him, confused. He winces.

‘’Yes...again- but it’s for a good reason this time!’’ he takes a deep breath. ‘’I...I wasn’t homeless. I actually live- or- lived, here in the woods. With Jeff, Jack and Ben.’’ he tilts his head at you to make sure you’re following. You nod for him to continue. ‘’We all lived together with...our dad. He- adopted us all. A lot of us- our dad he um-’’ he fiddles nervously with his hands. ‘’He’s...not human.’’

‘’E-’’ your eyes widen. ‘’Excuse me what?’’ not human. Not Human. NOT HUMAN?!

‘’He’s um-’’ Cody smiles sheepishly at you. ‘’He’s an eldritch monster with no face who likes to bake muffins and read sci-fi novels?’’ Your mind blanks. Literally. You’ve been reduced to a windows error screen but in human form. Cody tilts his head at you and smiles wider. ‘’...sweetheart…?’’

‘’What the fuck…’’ you whisper softly. ‘’How- how did you- why did you let him adopt you?’’

‘��He’s a good dad!’’ Cody says quickly. ‘’Listen- I know it’s a lot but…’’ he takes your hands in his. His hands feel soft, they’re good hands, hands that have carried out genius experiments and held you gently late at night. ‘’A lot of us in the house...we look up to him. He gave us a home, a new life. A lot of us...we didn’t have good lives, but Slender tried to fix that for us.’’ he smiles gently. ‘’Jeff came from a home where he wasn’t loved. Ben- Ben is a ghost...he drowned when he was twelve. Jack was a human, but now he’s a demon. We’ve all gravitated to each other. It isn’t the most functional home, but it’s the closest thing we have to one. Nobody judges anybody, and everybody treats us like we matter. Like we’re loved.’’ his hands squeeze yours. ‘’I know it’s a lot...and it’s scary...but they’re my family, just like you are.’’

You gulp. It’s silent for a few moments. ‘’...Nobody will hurt me?’’

‘’I won’t let them.’’

‘’...then I wanna meet him.’’

‘’Huh?’’ Cody looks confused.

‘’Your dad. And everyone else.’’ you smile at him. It’s your turn to squeeze his hands.

‘’Like- right- right now?’’ he asks. You nod. Cody looks from you, to the clearing where the others are still waiting. ‘’...well- I- I guess.’’

He pulls you back to the clearing and looks at his three...siblings.

‘’Good news everyone! y/n wants to meet dad!’’

‘’Really?’’ Jack turns to look at you.

‘’Are they crazy or somethin’?’’ Jeff asks.

‘’Ohh this is gonna be fun…’’ Ben murmurs with a smile.

Cody glares at them. He sighs. ‘’I told them everything. They wanna meet dad so they’re gonna meet dad.’’

‘’Dude! You gave my deep-seated traumas to another person without my asking?’’ Jeff exclaims. ‘’Rude!’’

Cody rolls his eyes and begins walking deeper into the forest. ‘’You’ll have plenty of time to drop your emotional baggage on us later!’’ he calls back.

-----

‘’So I had Silver lock me in the closet and I had to speedrun the game without even looking at the screen!’’ Ben exclaims. His bright blue eyes are full of excitement as he tells you about his various speedrunning misadventures. He’s been talking you ear off for the better part of fifteen minutes while the five of you trek through the woods. He’s a sweet kid, honestly, and you’d feel bad cutting him off. You honestly never expected a ghost to be so...lively.

‘’Hold up!’’ you all suddenly stop as Jeff holds his hand out, blocking you from walking any further. He turns and grins at you. ‘’Watch this.’’ he steps backwards, holding a finger up in the air. ‘’Now ya see me-!’’ he steps backwards and suddenly disappears from view. You stare in shock.

‘’...and now ya don’t.’’ Ben finishes for him. Cody rolls his eyes.

‘’H-how-’’ your brain scrambles to find an explanation for Jeff just- disappearing. A trick of the light? Mirrors? Maybe a projector hidden in the trees? Jeff’s head appears again, his upper body just- floats there. He grins even wider.

‘’Cool huh?’’

‘’How are- how are you-’’ you squint. Ben laughs next to you and steps forward. He disappears just as Jeff did. The white-skinned boy winks at you and disappears once more. You look at Cody for an explanation. Jack nudges you and you turn to him. He points a clawed finger at the ground. Your gaze follows his finger and you look at the ground. There’s...mushrooms. You arch your brow, confused.

‘’You know what that is?’’ EJ asks, leaning down slightly to look at you properly. You shake your head. ‘’It’s a fae circle. Also known as the entrance to the realm of the fae.’’ he looks at you.

‘’Like...fairies…?’’

EJ nods. ‘’This one’s special though. Dad set it up to keep the house hidden. You can only enter if you’re a fae, or you have the family marking. Of course you’re human, and don’t have the marking, so Cody’ll just pull you through.’’ you can hear him smiling in his voice as he explains. He stands up and steps toward the line of mushrooms. As he steps over it, he disappears from your sight. His hand appears again, and gestures for the two of you to follow. Cody takes your hand in his. He looks at you.

"Ready?"

You nod at him. "Ready."

Cody steps backwards toward the mushrooms. He holds both your hands, keeping his eyes on you. He disappears beneath the veil as he crosses, becoming nothing but some disembodied arms. You step over the mushrooms and-

"Oh my god-!"

Everything just- appears. Suddenly you're standing in a sunny clearing bordered by bushes and tall trees, and standing in the centre is a gigantic house. Practically a mansion. It looks old, but welcoming. The front yard is decorated with various bushes, a flower patch, a set of monkey bars, and a tall fruit tree with a tire swing hanging off one of the branches. I say fruit tree, because just by looking you can see it's growing apples, cherries, avocados, oranges and bananas. Bananas- can't even grow in this climate what-

"Cool huh?" Cody murmurs next to you with a small smile. You grin.

"Yeah…" you murmur. Cody squeezes your hand and walks toward the mansion. "You should've told me you lived in such a fancy pla-" you're interrupted by the loud barking of a dog. You look over to your left and see the biggest dog you've ever seen in your life, poking its head around the corner of the house. It has deep red fur, with some spots of orange and...hair. It has a long mane of messy black hair running from the top of its head and down its back.

"Smile! C'mere boy!" You hear Jeff call. You look over your shoulder and watch the massive dog bound over to the short boy. The dog leaps at him, knocking him to the ground and licking him while its tail wags happily.

"What...what is that…?" You ask, pointing at the dog.

"That's Smile." Cody says. "Jeff's pet hell-hound. He's a good boy, don't worry."

You nod. Smile barks again and turns to you. He grins wide and suddenly bounds toward you. You yelp and stumble back in fear.

"Down!" Cody barks (pun fully intended) at the dog. Smile skids to a halt. "Sit." He says firmly. Smile sits down obediently, his grin dropping. Now you know why they call the dog 'smile'. Cody grabs your wrist and gently guides it toward Smile. The massive dog sniffs your palm ever so gently. Cody lets go of your wrist and you reach up toward Smile, who lowers his head to let you pet him. You grin.

"Well hey there," you coo. "Aren't you a cutie?"

Smile lets out a happy yap and steps forward, butting his massive head against your body. You laugh and hug his head, scratching his neck just below where his spiked collar is.

"Cody!! Ye're home!" You hear a young, peppy voice call. You look over just in time to see Cody grin and crouch down to hug the young girl running towards him. Her hair is short and blonde, and she's wearing a black and white striped shirt, along with grey overalls, ankle boots and a pirate hat. Cody stands up, lifting the girl in his arms. She pulls away and grins at him. Getting a better look at her, you see that she has reddish brown skin that seemingly glints in the light. Her hair isn't blonde, in fact, it fades to red towards the ends, like fire. Her eyes are a bright eye-catching gold. On the sides of her head are two small, red horns that curve inwards. "Ya didn't tell us ye'd be visitin'!"

Cody laughs a bit. "Well I wasn't really planning it." he murmurs, casting a look at Jeff and Ben as they walk up to join you. Cody sets down the girl and looks at you. ‘’Slendra, I want you to meet someone,’’ he gestures to you. The girl, Slendra, looks up at you with big golden eyes. She looks surprised. ‘’This is y/n.’’

She gasps. ‘’The y/n?!’’ her eyes widen and she grins. She hops over to you excitedly and curtsies. ‘’It’s great ta meet ya! Cody told us aaaallll about you!’’

You laugh a bit and crouch down to her. ‘’He did, did he?’’ you give her a sly smile, glancing up at Cody. His cheeks flush red and he glares at you. Slendra giggles.

‘’Yep.’’ she rocks on her heels as she speaks. ‘’Once when he was crushing on you he told us that he wanted to-’’

‘’Avast ye landlubbers!’’ Slendra is interrupted by another young voice. You look up and see a young girl in a pirate costume with a pink skirt. Her hair is brown and frizzy, and her green eyes glare at you and the others with a playful scowl. She...floats, toward you all, her eyes locked on you as you stand up. She stops and points her toy cutlass at you. ‘’Who be this scallywag?’’

‘’Sally, this i-’’

‘’y/n, fearsome pirate of the seven seas!’’ you interrupt with a grin. Cody looks at you in surprise. The girl, Sally, gasps.

‘’The dreaded pirate captain y/n?! Stealer of brother’s hearts?!’’ she cries. You laugh and nod.

‘’The very same.’’

Sally lowers her cutlass and smiles, pleased with you for playing along so easily. She walks toward you and holds out her hand. ‘’Sally Dawn, pirate queen of four of the seven seas.’’

You take her hand and shake it. ‘’y/n, stealer of older brothers,’’ you smirk and lean into her. ‘’Sorry for stealing Cody away, but his booty was too good to pass up.’’ you quietly add with a wink. Sally laughs loudly and lets go of your hand. EJ laughs quietly behind you and opens the front door.

‘’You gonna invite your date inside, Cody?’’ he asks. Cody rolls his eyes.

‘’Course I am.’’ he mutters. It goes silent, with everyone just...staring at Cody. ‘’What?’’

‘’I’m waiting for you and y/n to go in.’’ EJ shrugs.

‘’Why do we have to go in first?’’ Cody replies defensively. You frown.

‘’You scared of somethin’, X?’’ Jeff asks with a smirk.

‘’Like...dad seeing y/n and freaking out?’’ Ben adds with an even wider, cheesier smirk.

"N-No…" Cody mutters. "I just- y'know-" he fidgets, trying to come up with an excuse. You smirk a bit, stand up, and stride right past Cody and into the mansion.

Inside is massive. The walls are a pleasant blue, and when you step out of the small entrance area, you're greeted by a massive living room. There's two black, leather couches, a few single armchairs and some bean bags, all facing a massive TV. The walls are decorated with photos, and in a few of them you can see Cody, EJ and the others, along with people you haven't even met yet.

"Hey guys." Someone greets you as the others come inside to join you. Laying on the couch, holding the TV remote aloft, is a young man. His hair is a light brown colour, and swoops over one of his eyes. He wears glasses, a grey jacket, blue jeans, and a black shirt with the logo of some band you've never heard of before. He sits up a bit, cocking a brow curiously. "who's this?"

"Cody's partner." Sally chimes in as she floats into the mansion. She's hovering, and slightly transparent. Oh. She’s a ghost. Well okay then.

The guy on the couch smirks and stands up. He's taller than you expected him to be. He walks across the room and extends his hand. "Liu Woods. Nice to meet you."

You smile and take his hand, shaking it. "y/n." You say.

He tilts his head, looking at Cody. "You didn't tell us you'd be bringing them over."

"I wasn't planning on it but your brother decided to stalk EJ and ruin my plans." He gestures to Jeff, who holds his hands up defensively.

"Hey don't look at me! I was just taking Smile for a walk and he picked up Cody's scent!" Jeff replies defensively, gesturing at his pet hellhound. Smile looks almost offended at the accusation. Liu laughs a bit.

"Sure bro, I believe you." He murmurs, turning and walking toward the couch again. "So is y/n gonna meet dad?"

"Yup…"

Liu chuckles. "That's gonna be fun."

"Why is it such a big deal…?" You ask. Everyone is hyping up 'dad' so much it's- kind of unnerving. Ben leans out from behind Smile and gives you a devious grin.

"He's gonna flip his shiiiiit." He says softly. Cody huffs and strides past you.

"It's no big deal! I'm gonna go tell dad I'm here, then casually mention y/n and just- introduce them! No big deal!" He turns and looks at you. "Just- wait here, ok? I'll sort eeeeverything ou-"

As if on cue, the door behind Cody swings open. Out of it leans a gigantic, horrifying creature. It's incredibly thin and tall, with white skin. It has no face at all, just a smooth white head. It's dressed in a proper black suit, and over it...a frilly pink apron.

"Kids, dinner is ready."

Oh. So this is dad.

Cody whirls around immediately. "D-dad!" He exclaims. The creature looks surprised.

"Cody!" The creature steps out from the kitchen and walks over to Cody, yanking him into a tight hug. "Oh, it's so lovely to see you! You didn't tell us you'd be coming over! I would have gone out and bought some fresh fish for your dinner." The creature's voice is deep and elegant, but speaks exactly like a doting mother. Cody squirms in the hug and eventually gets released from it.

"Haha, yeahhh...sorry about that uh- well you see I uh-" he fidgets, the creature staring at him with nonexistent eyes. "I brought someone with me."

The creature's head snaps up and stares right at you. You gulp. "N-Now I know what you're thinking!" Cody exclaims. "I should've warned you before bringing in someone new, you guys should've put on disguises and stuff but- well it's a funny story really I was just gonna show em EJ but then Jeff and Ben were in a bush and-" the creature's head lowers, looking down at Cody. He looks over his shoulder at you, gesturing for you to come closer.

You cross the room and stand beside Cody. He takes your hand in one of his, and grips your shoulder with the other. "This...is y/n. The person I'm dating." you both stare up at him in anticipation. Cody looks worried. ‘’Dad…?’’

‘’Cody…’’ The creature’s voice is soft, and almost threatening in tone. ‘’You are...the stupidest person I have ever met!’’

‘’Ow!’’ The creature lightly smacks the top of Cody’s head. He rubs at the spot and glares up at his father. ‘’I told you, it wasn’t planned, it just happened! Calm down!’’

‘’Honestly Cody! I would have cleaned! I would have put on a good tie, made everyone dress up and put disguises on! You don’t want us scaring them!’’ the creature gestures to you, then around the general room. ‘’This place is a mess! What kind of first impression am I supposed to make in this pigsty?!’’

Cody mutters something to himself and looks at you. You gulp and look at the creature, its hand on its hips, glaring down at Cody. You force a smile and bow a bit. ‘’It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.’’ you say gently. It stops and looks down at you, seemingly surprised.

‘’Oh dear- I’m so sorry, where are my manners?’’ the creature holds out a large, white hand. You notice a small, silver ring on its ring finger. Without hesitation, you take the hand and shake it. ‘’I’m Slender, Cody’s father. I’m so sorry you had to see this place in such a state.’’

‘’I think it’s lovely,’’ you say with a soft smile. ‘’And I think your tie is very nice.’’

Slender withdraws his hand and seems to smile despite his lack of features. ‘’Oh, so polite…’’ he murmurs, sounding like he’s fond of you already. ‘’It’s a pleasure to meet you. Cody told us all about you.’’ he laughs gently. ‘’You’re even prettier than how he described you!’’

You smile nervously and laugh a bit. ‘’Oh- well thank you, sir.’’

He shakes his head. ‘’Please, just call me Slender, dear. No need for formalities. You’re family.’’ Slender clasps his hands together and tilts his head at you. ‘’You two must be staying for dinner, yes?’’

‘’Uh- actually we ate befo-’’ Cody tries to cut in, but Slender has already taken your wrist in his hand.

‘’Great! You like beef, I assume?’’ he asks. You force a polite smile and nod. Slender pushes open the kitchen door and pulls you inside. ‘’Jack, we have a guest!’’

The second you step into the kitchen, your eyes go to the one person sitting at the kitchen table. They’re wearing a grey crop top, bandages around their hands and torso and feathered shoulder pads. Their sleeves, socks and cone shaped nose are all striped black and white. They turn and look at you.

‘’Eh?’’ the...clown? You assume they’re a clown- squints.

‘’Jack, dear, this is y/n! Cody’s partner!’’ Slender gestures to you enthusiastically.

‘’It’s a pleasu-’’ before you have a chance to properly greet the strange clown man, he climbs off his chair and quickly walks over to you. Jack leans down, sticking his face right into yours. You stumble back, only to be caught by Cody as he’s entering the room. You force a polite smile. ‘’H-Hi?’’

"...so ye're Cody's da'e, eh?"

You nod. "Yes sir."

"...ye scared 'f clowns, kiddo?"

"Only ones with cockney accents." You say. Jack's stern expression softens and turns into a grin. He stands back up and laughs loudly.

"I like this one!" He cries. Slender laughs gently above you. Jack grabs your wrist, much like Slender did, and yanks you. "C'mon, take a sea'. Yous're stayin' fer dinner, ain'tcha?"

You can't understand half the things Jack is saying because of his unbelievably thick accent, but you just smile and nod as you take a seat. Cody sits down next to you. You reach over and give his hand a reassuring squeeze while the others sit down. The kitchen table is huge- how many people live here?

"So yous two're livin' t'gether?" Jack asks. You nod.

"Yeah, on campus. I'm studying chemical engineering."

"So you're both scientists," you hear Slender say. You look over your shoulder and see him tending to a large metal pot by the stove. Behind him, more of the black tendrils you saw earlier are pouring dog food into a large bowl for Smile. "That's wonderful."

"And ye're smar'. Tha's real good." Jack adds, looking at you like he's examining you. Cody rolls his eyes.

"Ignore them, they're old fashioned and still think I need their permission to date." He mutters. Jack laughs.

"Well we like y/n, so yous don' 'ave ta worry abou' bein' broken apar'." He winks at you and grins. Cody sighs.

"Hey Slender," Liu speaks up. "Where's Tim? He'll wanna see Cody I'm sure," you notice he, Jeff and Ben all have sly smiles on their faces. "And meet y/n."

You glance at Cody. He looks pale, panicky. You frown. "Oh, he went out to get his prescriptions and some other things. I'm sure he'll be home soon." Slender replies like nothing is wrong. Cody looks like he really, really doesn't want to be here.

"Who's Tim?" You ask quietly. Cody gulps.

"He's-" he's interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. His head snaps to the kitchen door. He looks utterly horrified.

You wait in silent anticipation for whoever it is. Your mind is racing. Tim must be terrifying if Cody is scared of him. You're picturing someone large, muscular, with eyes that can bore straight through you. Someone who would crush a man's skull without hesitation. Someone who-

"Hey guys." The kitchen door opens and in walks a short, stocky man with black hair, sideburns and stubble. He's wearing an old flannel shirt, and holding a paper bag in one hand. He walks past the table, not really giving anybody a second glance.

"Hi Tim." The other kids chorus.

Oh. This is Tim. He doesn't look bad- he seems quite friendly. You watch him set the bag down on the kitchen island and rummage through it.

"Slender, I got a couple of the things you mentioned we needed," he says. "And also a box of donuts, for later." He turns and smiles at the table. His eyes finally fall on you and he blinks, then smiles a small bit. "Oh hey. Who's the newbie?" He glances at Jack for explanation. The clown grins. Before he can answer though, Cody shoots up out of his seat and whirls around.

"H-Heeeey Tim." He sounds like he's trying so hard to be cheerful, and it isn't working at all. Tim gives Cody a surprised smile.

"Hey kid," He tilts his head and walks toward Cody. "I didn't know you were comin' over."

"Heheh- yeah it wasn't uh- wasn't planned-" Cody fidgets nervously. Tim glances at you again. He can probably tell you and Cody are connected. ‘’How have you been? It’s been a while eheh-’’

‘’Good…’’ Tim folds his arms, tilting his head. ‘’Who’s your friend?’’ he nods at you

Cody gulps and glances at you before looking at Tim again. ‘’This is...y/n. My uh- partner.’’

Tim’s eyes widen almost comically. His head snaps to you and he stares. You gulp. Oh. Oh. Tim suddenly doesn’t look friendly anymore, he looks like he could crush a man’s skull without hesitation.

‘’...oh.’’

‘’Is that okay?’’

Tim shrugs. ‘’Yeah, yeah, perfectly fine. Of course that’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?’’ his tone of voice tells you nothing is fine. Slender laughs gently like none of this is awkward or weird.

‘’Calm down Tim. y/n is very nice! They’re smart, they’re funny, they-’’

‘’They made Cody move in with them without even talking to us first.’’ Tim cuts in. Cody whines.

‘’It wasn’t like I had a choice! They didn’t even know about you all until less than an hour ago!’’

‘’Oh, thanks Cody, good to know you care about me.’’

‘’Oh my gooood-!’’ Cody slams his face into his hands. ‘’This is why I only wanted y/n to meet EJ…’’

Before Tim can give another angry retort, Slender puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘’Tim, why don’t you sit down?’’ he says gently. Tim glares at him like he killed his loved ones before sitting down. Cody sits between you two, keeping you safe from Tim’s wrath. Slender puts a large plate in front of you. It’s loaded with mashed potatoes, corn, carrots and meat of some kind. You grab your fork and cut the meat off the small bone it’s attached to. It looks to be ribs of some kind. You cut the meat in half, and take a bite.

The taste is unlike anything you’ve ever had before. It’s definitely beef, but the flavor is almost overwhelming. It melts in your mouth and covers your lips in a glaze of grease and leftover sauce. The sauce is tangy and rich, and very faintly you can taste wine. ‘’Mmmm-!’’

Your involuntary hum of delight is followed by laughter from around the table. Except for Tim, who rolls his eyes and mutters something about table manners. Slender laughs and pats your head. ‘’Eat as much as you’d like, pet. There’s plenty to go around.’’

You smile a bit and keep eating. Even if you had food before coming here, you’re definitely not letting any of this go to waste. It goes silent as you all eat. Even Tim has calmed down. Just as you’re finishing off the deliciously sweet carrots, Slender speaks up again. ‘’So y/n, how much longer will you be in college?’’

‘’Oh uh-’’ you shrug. ‘’I have finals in a couple months, then I’ll only have my final year left.’’ you smile at him. He nods.

‘’I see...a year should be long enough.’’

‘’Long enough for what…?’’ you frown and tilt your head.

‘’To put your room together of course!’’ Slender chirps. Cody starts choking on corn next to you. ‘’After college you’ll probably be moving out of your dorm, and we have plenty of room here. You are family after all.’’

‘’D-dad-!’’ Cody speaks up next to you. ‘’Me and y/n haven’t even talked about that- wh-what if they wanna live outside with like- y’know- normal people?’’

‘’We are normal people, Cody.’’ Slender retorts.

‘’G-guys-’’ you cut in before a fight can begin at the dinner table. You smile at Slender. ‘’I’m flattered at the offer- that’s very kind of you. We’ll think it over,’’ you glance at Cody. ‘’Right babe?’’

‘’Don’t call him that.’’ Tim cuts in. Cody rolls his eyes, but gives you a nod.

‘’Sure.’’

‘’So ‘ow long exac’ly ‘ave you’s been’ da’in’?’’ Jack asks.

‘’Oh uh- a couple months. We’ve known each other a while,’’ you smile. ‘’It’s a funny story really, the first time I met him was in the campus library. We reached for the same book at the same time.’’ you glance at Cody and smirk.

‘’Tha’s real cheesy.’’ Jack murmurs.

‘’But it’s sweet,’’ Slender adds. ‘’Makes me remember the first time we met…’’ his face flushes a grey colour. Jack laughs gently and squeezes his hand. Cody rolls his eyes.

‘’Speakin’ of me an’ Slen,’’ the clown looks at you. ‘’When’s th’ weddin’?’’

‘’DAD-!’’ Cody yelps.

‘’There isn’t gonna be one if I have anything to say about it.’’ Tim mutters. You gulp. Oh. The faceless monster wants you to marry his son. You fidget nervously and look to Cody for help.

‘’We haven’t- we haven’t even thought about that yet!’’ he yelps, sounding as embarrassed as you feel. ‘’I mean- what’s next, you’re gonna ask me for grandkids?!’’

‘’We were planning that yes.’’ Slender doesn’t even sound like he’s joking. ‘’We can convert one of the spare rooms into a nursery! We might have to move someone to a different floor though…’’

Tim glares at you from behind Cody. ‘’Touch him and you die.’’

‘’I know this lovely place by Lake Charles where we could hold the wedding. Me and Jack got married there back in ‘98, you remember that don’t you dear?’’ he glances at Jack.

‘’I remember th’ dress…’’ Jack smiles fondly. You’re- not even going to question that. Cody sighs.

‘’We’ll think about it…’’ he mutters. Clearly, he’s given up. ‘’But no grandkids! Not yet!’’

"Fine. But I'm still putting the baby name books in your room. They're taking up too much space in my office anyway."

Cody rolls his eyes and sits back in his seat with a huff. He reaches over and grabs your wrist. "May we be excused?"

"You're done eating?" Slender glances at both your plates.

"We'll take the leftovers home." Cody responds quickly. Slender sighs and nods.

"You may."

Cody pulls you up out of your seat and towards the backdoor. The two of you step out into the backyard. It's starting to get dark now, and a chilly breeze blows past you both. Cody sighs gently and leans against the wall, rubbing at his face tiredly.

"You okay?" You ask gently. He nods.

"Yeah just-" he purses his lips, frustrated. "I'm sorry my family's so...weird. I really wanted you to like them and have a good first impression of everybody."

You tilt your head. "I do like them."

He looks up at you. "...you do?" He frowns. "They're not- y'know- weird? You aren't freaking out?"

"Oh no they're super weird and I'm definitely freaking out I mean- you have three dads and one of them is a clown, not to mention Tim is fucking terrifying but-" you pause and smile at him. "They're really nice people...and they love you, just as much as I do." You move closer to him. "Plus...they already consider me family so- I don't think I have a choice but to like them."

Cody stares at you for a moment, then cracks a smile. He laughs gently, relieved. "...thank fuck." He murmurs with a smile. He holds out an arm. "C'mere."

You move over to him and rest against him, letting him hug you. You snuggle up against his chest. He feels warm, and safe. His lips brush against the top of your head. "I love you." He murmurs. "I'm...glad you like them."

It's quiet then. Just the two of you enjoying the warmth of the moment.

"Ey, luv birds." Aaand it's been interrupted. You look up and over at LJ, leaning out the backdoor. "Slen wants ta know if yous're stayin' th' nigh'." He gives you both a sly smile. Cody exhales softly and looks down at you, cocking a brow to ask what you wanna do. You smile up at him.

"Sure pops. I guess we could stay."

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terushimas-n1-hater · 3 years

Text

𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙘𝙠 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙤𝙫�� ٭

𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐩 𝐨𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐰𝐚 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Genre: kind of fluffy but its mostly angst

Warnings: toxic (abusive??) parents, arranged marriages, toxic relationships.

!Timeskip spoilers!

Playlists I listened to while writing this

"Good job..you did great out there." You said with a hand on his shoulder.

"Ah" he smiled "thank you for your support, without you and many others I would've never won so, thank you"

He said with genuine smile on his face. He got closer to the sofa, he sat down letting out a long sigh "oh" he said as if he remembered something.

"Hey! Do you have a minute?"

"Yeah i guess"

"Okay okay here, i got you something."

he said handing you a bag "u- um thank you?" You're confused yet curious looking inside the bag you see a little box, it looked like a jewellery box...but why would he buy you jewellery? all you did was praise him and help him go through the tiring days because of training for the Olympics, so why would he buy you something expensive?

"You look curious, why don't you open it and see it for yourself." He said looking at you with a soft look. You took the box out of the bag opening it, What a gift....

It looks so beautiful

It was a pretty looking necklace. Its gold and Choker like with pretty little stars that go all around it. You remember wanting a necklace like this..

How did he know you wanted something like this?

Is this a coincidence?

You dont even talk to him that much?

What is he on exactly?

You looked at him and looked at the box again "uh..I saw you last month and how you were looking at that same necklace, it looked like you wanted it so um i got it for you" he said smiling softly

"But why? Is this out of pity or something?" You said with a confused face "what! Of course not! do..do you not like it?" "No no! I like it but its just kinda random.. since I didn't really do anything to deserve a gift like this.." You said sighing.

Your story with tooru was long.

You never wanted to marry a man. In fact the thought alone of a man's touch made you nauseous beyond all belief. But he.....wasn't any different from any other man you've always wanted to avoid. But with parents like yours, the moment they found out about your thoughts they completely lashed out on you saying that all those feelings and thoughts are not expected in their household. And Forcing you to marry a man that you never saw or knew about before in your life. I mean he wasn't mean to you never laid a hand on you.

But still, It didn't feel right.

You felt captured, you felt stuck in a dead end. Like there was no where else to go. Being a housewife for almost 2 years now made you fall in many depressive episodes. And he knew that, he knew so so well about all the depressive episodes you were in, He knew it all. He tried to help you, but there was nothing for him to do since he himself doesn't know you or anything about you.

Which made it harder for the both of you to understand each others struggles. He never forced you to stay inside the house and do stuff for him like how your parents want you to. He let you free, let you do what you want. There is nothing else for him to do. In fact the both of you thought about getting a divorce, but you both knew that both your parents would not let that happen. Although yes you both had something somewhat in common, you both loved space.

You specifically loved stars. And you could guess that he caught up with your love for stars. You wore a lot clothing and jewellery that had something with stars or space. He thought it was cute, so when he saw you looking at this very pretty necklace he knew you wanted it.

"First its not out if pity and second i got it for you since i kinda knew you liked stuff like this.."

"Thank you tooru I really appreciate it."

I mean who wouldn't appreciate a gift like this?you loved and valued this gift but something just doesn't feel right with tooru honestly.. But it was just a gut feeling so you decided to just ignored it.

Again, tooru isn't the type that would keep you in his house and order you around. So you had many opportunities to get outside and have some fun you get me? Almost every weekend you'd get yourself all dolled up and go out with your friends For a little night out.

This not only made you happy and made you forget about all the shit you were going through, but it gives you a chance to do other fun things if you know what i mean. Hear me out, you knew it was wrong, so wrong actually. But it won't hurt anyone right? I mean tooru doesn't actually like you so, why not?

You did this with many people you meet at the club, specifically women. You loved it honestly. It made you feel more open and more happy about yourself. You didn't feel as captured as you used to, it was just great.

It was one of those nights again, you were laughing and chatting with one of your friends wearing (dress/suit wtv you prefer)

You felt so confident and happy. Moments later Your friend excused themselves to go to the bathroom, you nodded as they went to the bathroom. You were leaning on the bar and drinking your drink looking at the people on the dance floor drunkenly grinding and dancing together. You looked around to see this very pretty lady admiring you with a soft smile on her face, You smiled a bit while getting closer to her.

"Is there something on my face?" You asked with a cheeky smile

"No..i just thought you look pretty"

"Oh?"

"Very actually.." You giggled at that statement.

You and....aiko chatted for a pretty long time you kinda forgot about your friend. Aiko, aiko..what a pretty name, You were so interested in this girl honestly all you wanted to do is sit there and know all about her.

"What a pretty necklace you got there!" She said pointing at the necklace tooru gave to you.

"Oh! Yeah my.. brother gave it to me as a gift."

"Aww"

You both chatted for a while more and exchanged phone numbers

"Dont forget to text me!!" She said waving at you and blowing you a lil kiss.

You smiled and sighed, its probably time to go home.

You were looking for your friend to tell them that its time to leave, you took out your phone to call them and to know where they are until you saw you got some unread messages from them.

"Oooo ;)"

"Yall better make out after this."

"Okay I kinda ship bye"

"ANYWAYS..I'm going to leave this nasty azz club and leave ya too alone *wink wonk* "

"Love you AND DONT FORGET TO TEXT ME WHEN YOUR HOME"

You smiled at the text messages. You really did appreciate having a friend like them..But, its time to head home now before it gets even more late. You paid for your drinks took your stuff on your way out.

You finally got back home, tooru was sleeping on your shared bed so now you have be extra careful not to wake him up.

After you changed and got ready for bed. Already texted your Friend letting them know you went home safely.

"Are you free this Tuesday?"

You just got a message from someone with the name "your bbg 😻" you chuckled remembering Akio saved here contact name on your phone that.

"Yeah i am!"

"Great wanna hang out? There is this café I went to before THEY SELL THE BEST BAGELS EVER"

"Oh sure!"

"Okay i will send you the location to the café tmr kk?"

"Okay goodnight bbg 😻"

"LMAO GOODNIGHT 💖💝💗💓❤"

¡A/n! : okay so ahm ahm I wrote this in a pretty bad mental state so, if there is errors or spelling mistakes OR ITS JUST BAD I apologise. But I do hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed thinking and writing about it!! I will be making a part 2 to finish this because I just realised that if I finish this all at once it would be a wattpad story type long lmaooo. Thank u and have a great dayy (ﾉ´ з `)ノ💕💞💓💗💖💝

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might-be-a-zygon · 3 years

Text

Flat 40b

Chapter Five

What Road to Take?

AO3 link in the reblogs

Thea wasn’t really sure how she’d wound up spending so long chatting to that odd woman in the odder room. It was all a little concerning, honestly- just a woman sitting alone in a little room like that, with such a secure lock. She’d been half worried that someone had trapped her there, but when Thea had held the door open for her to follow, she’d just said she was waiting for a friend to visit and asked Thea to shut it for her.

She hadn’t expected the sky to have darkened when she left the room, but she wasn’t particularly worried. It wasn’t a far walk to the flat, after all, and she hadn’t had much else to do that day.

Still, her casual dismissal of how late it’d gotten did turn to some degree of guilt when she spotted Yaz, still sitting up in the kitchen, looking at her with a degree of relief.

“Where have you been?” She asked, looking Thea up and down as though expecting to see some injury. “Bill said you went for a walk after the lecture and they you never came back- I was worried.”

Thea had the good grace to look guilty, at least.

“I didn’t realise how long I was gone.” She admitted, taking a seat opposite Yaz at the kitchen table, even if all she really wanted to do now was go back to her room and try and work out who that mystery woman was.

“You didn’t even notice it getting dark?” She could tell Yaz didn’t quite believe her.

Thea considered a moment. She could tell Yaz the truth- they were friends, after all. Best friends. By all accounts, she should tell her, but- something deep inside of her was screaming that telling Yaz about the woman in her vault would be a very bad idea. It seemed to be the kind of thing which she just knew should be kept secret.

“I went to the library.” She lied, digging a notebook out of her bag as though trying to prove her point. “Keep having these weird dreams, I’ve been trying to write them down. Thought I might try and make them into a book or something.”

Yaz blinked at her a few times. She seemed to have been caught off guard by that one. “Weird dreams?” She asked, taking her hands off of the mug in front of her and reaching for the book tentatively. Thea handed it over without complaint.

She hadn’t been planning on sharing them again, but in honesty doing so made her feel an awful lot less guilty about lying to Yaz about where she’d been.

“Is that me?” Yaz asked, holding up a sketch of the pair of them in some sterile room.

Thea grinned, nodding. “Yeah! That’s the one where we’re fighting the little goblin!”

“The goblin?”

Thea flicked forwards a few pages to another sketch of a pting. It had a snarl on it’s face, just like it’s real life counterpart had when they’d faced him on the hospital ship.

“I don’t know what I’m actually gonna call them, yet.” She admitted, “But he’s kind of cute, look. They’re these little goblin things that eat everything.”

“And you’ve been dreaming about this?” Yaz asked.

“Yeah. Probably just too much dodgy sci-fi before bed, but I think there are some cool ideas there, if I could streamline them into something.”

“And you- am I there a lot?”

Thea was suddenly very glad she wasn’t much of a blusher.

“Sometimes.” She admitted, not quite looking Yaz in the eye. “A fair bit, really. You’re my best mate, I like it when you show up. Those are always the best ones- we fight aliens and stuff.”

Yaz broke into an almost proud smile, and Thea had to remind herself not to stare. Had Yaz always looked that pretty when she smiled?

“Aliens?” she laughed, as though at some joke Thea didn’t quite get. “I thought they were goblins?”

“Can’t they be both?” Thea asked, flicking through the pages. “I have one in here about vampires who were fish, too…”

“I’m just saying.” Martha raised her hands in mock surrender, “Maybe if it’s been this long and I haven’t seen anything weird, and you haven’t had any weird readings, it was just a machine error or something.”

“There’s got to be a reason that we were brought here in the first place.” The Doctor responded stubbornly, not even looking up at her. He’d been tinkering with the same bit of the console throughout their entire conversation, and it certainly wasn’t helping her feel particularly heard in the situation.

It wasn’t like she needed his undivided attention- they’d not spoken in person once since she’d moved into the flat- but it was more than a little frustrating to be ignored while she was trying to report what was going on to him. It didn’t help that most of the reason she’d agreed to this in the first place was to learn about emerging technology, and since he’d registered her as a first year, she was going through all the basics over again.

“Go through it again.” He said, more instruction than request.

“Go through what?” Martha asked, showing her frustration a little more, now.

“What’ve you found.”

“I told you already! There’s nothing suspicious. No signs of aliens or anything, just a normal Uni campus.”

The Doctor made a frustrated noise, and Martha couldn’t tell whether it was aimed at her, or whatever he was fixing. He muttered something under his breath, quiet enough that she clearly wasn’t supposed to be able to hear it, though she could just about pick out the word Rose. That one stung.

Of course Rose would have been able to track down whatever was going on immediately.

Or, at least the Doctor might have believed her when she said that nothing seemed suspicious.

“The energy readings from your flat are off.” The Doctor insisted, finally giving up on what he was messing with, though if Martha thought she was actually going to have any attention paid to her she was sorely mistaken, since he moved straight back to checking the readouts on the monitor. “Who’s living there? You’re sure they’re all human?”

“Well I haven’t exactly tested them all.” Martha replied sarcastically, “But everyone seems normal. They’re eating and sleeping like humans.”

“Nobody’s wearing a shimmer?”

“What’s a shimmer?”

“Oh it’s all-“ he made a vague gesture in mid-air which was apparently supposed to mean something. “You know. A shimmer.”

Martha gave him a blank look.

“…Right.” He nodded after a minute. “I’ll get you something to test for a shimmer.”

“Doctor-“

He cut her off before she could actually voice her question, brow furrowing, “Oh- Yeah you’re right, that won’t work if they’re Zygons.” he said, despite not having given her time to actually say anything even if she had known what a Zygon was. “Tell you what, I’ll get you a DNA scanner too.”

“Hang on.” Martha said, “You want me to scan my flatmate’s DNA? How am I meant to do that?”

The Doctor shrugged her concerns off. “I know you’ll work it out.”

Her meeting with Jack had dragged Yaz right out of the town centre, to some pop-up milkshake shop which was she’d heard a few other students chatting about. She’d been meaning to ask if Thea wanted to go (as friends, obviously), so it wasn’t as though she was actively blaming jack for dragging her away from the University for a little while. After all, they had to make sure to avoid his past self.

She’d arrived first, though she could hardly be annoyed about that- it’d been her idea. She arrived, checked that Rose and the other Jack were absent, texted the all clear, then grabbed herself a drink, and snagged a booth in the back corner where they’d be able to chat with some degree of privacy.

“Yasmin Khan.” Yaz heard a voice that was becoming increasingly familiar from behind her, turning around to smile a little at Jack as he approached her.

It was odd, really- being relieved to see him, rather than dreading it. That first time she’d been scared out of her mind (though in fairness, he had kidnapped all three of them), and the second- well. She wasn’t too proud to admit that she’d been so overwhelmed by the Doctor’s return she’d hardly noticed Jack stepping out alongside her. This time though? Well, seeing someone she could actually talk to about all of this was amazing.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I’m always here to help a friend.” Jack said seriously, despite the grin on his face. He slid into the booth opposite her, “Loving the choice of venue, by the way. Very 1950s.”

“Remind you of home?” Yaz asked, just for something to fill the small talk, though she was really itching to get straight onto the topic at hand.

“You’d think.” Jack laughed slightly, as though at some joke she wasn’t privy to. She didn’t push him.

“So.” She said, when he didn’t elaborate. He sat forwards slightly in his seat, already knowing what she was about to say, “You know about this chameleon thing the Doctor used to make herself human?”

“Not quite.” Jack admitted, glancing over behind her, in the direction of the counter. “I know what it is, but I’ve never been around when she’s had to use it.”

Yaz seemed to deflate a little at that. It was hardly his fault, but she’d really been hoping for some more concrete advice about the whole situation.

Noticing her reaction, he gave her a reassuring look, “Hey, don’t worry. I haven’t see it but I called in a friend of mine who has. Great girl, you’ll like her. She was with the Doctor the last time. Plus she’s from this Time Zone so she’ll cause a lot less chaos hanging around here than either of us will.”

“You brought backup?” The relief on her face grew. She’d been beginning to feel very out of her depth, especially with all of Thea’s talk about weird dreams and secret rooms. What was she supposed to say to discourage Thea from sneaking around when she was supposed to be keeping herself safe? She was still the Doctor under all that, after all.

Jack grinned. “The Doctor drops into a lot of people’s lives. Makes a lot of friends. I knew a woman, once, used to say that for a lonely man, the Doctor had the biggest family in the world.”

Odd as it was to hear the Doctor being referred to as a lonely man, Yaz smiled. It was nice to think how many other people out there would always be there for the Doctor when she needed them.

“And this friend of yours can help?” She asked.

“Oh yeah.” He smiled at someone behind her, and Yaz turned to get a look. “PC Yasmin Khan, meet Dr-”

“Martha!” Yaz exclaimed, shock plain on her face, because- That was Martha, right? It was so clearly her. Except Martha was younger than this woman, by a fair few years, and at least judging by the shocked expression on her face, she didn’t recognise Yaz either.

“You two have met?” Jack asked, looking between them.

Both responded at the same time.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Another bewildered look shared, though Jack barking a laugh boke the tension.

“The joys of time travel.”

Martha seemed to relax slightly at that, slipping into the booth next to Jack, and setting a drink down in front of each of them. Yaz didn’t relax. She couldn’t just yet. If the Martha she’d met was younger, why didn’t this one seem to recognise her at all?

“Jack said the Doctor used the Chameleon Arch again?” Martha asked, drawing Yaz’s attention away from that issue for a moment. It was strange, but Jack had said she could help, and Yaz needed all the help she could get working out what was tracking them.

“That’s the thing that turns her human?” Yaz checked. The Doctor had never actually given it a name during their panicked preparations.

“Hang on, her?” Martha raised an eyebrow. “Blimy. He said he could change his face but I never knew he could change it that much.”

“You knew the white haired Scotsman?” Yaz asked. It was what the Doctor had said she’d looked like before.

“He got Scottish too? This must be a few regenerations since I last saw him.” Martha laughed. “I knew spikey hair and sandshoes.”

“Can’t believe I missed them turning Scottish.”

All three of them laughed a little at Jack’s statement, seeming to break a lot of the tension.

“So, spiky hair and sandshoes is who we think is here?” Yaz asked Jack. “You said the past you came here with a previous Doctor to investigate.”

“Oh, no. That was the Doctor with the ears and the leather jacket.” He supplied.

Yaz tried to picture the Doctor running around in a leather jacket, then quickly stopped herself. Nice as that image was, she doubted she’d get much else done today if she didn’t get it out of her head.

Still, that Martha thing was still nagging at her.

“Hang on, if the younger you,” Yaz nodded at Jack, “Is here with a younger Doctor. Then-” she glanced at Martha. “There’s a younger you living in the same flat as me and Rose. Does that mean…?”

“Another Doctor.”

Martha looked between Jack and Yaz, clearly thrown off by this whole thing.

“Hang on. I don’t remember coming here.”

“I don’t either, not really.” Jack said, though he seemed very calm about this whole thing. “Crossing your own timeline can sometimes scramble your head a bit. Makes you forget stuff, so you don’t find out about your own future too early.”

Martha gave him a look. “Do I want to know what you’ve been doing hanging around in your own timestream?” He winked at her, and based on the face she pulled, the answer was no.

“So, three Doctor’s then.” Yaz said, changing the subject. “That feels like a bad thing.”

“Well it’s not a good one.” Jack conceded. “We’re gonna need a way to differentiate, for a start.”

“Ears, Sandshoes and-“ Martha looked to the two who’d met the latest Doctor for a descriptor.

“Rainbows.” Yaz supplied. “She’s going by Thea Smith, right now, though.”

“Thea?” Martha looked surprised. “I would have expected Jane Smith.”

“Might be a little close to home.” Jack suggested.

The pair of them shared a sad look, and Yaz didn’t want to ask.

“Ears, Sandshoes, and Rainbows.” Yaz repeated, trying to get them back on topic.

“They’re like codenames.” Martha said. “It’s like we’re playing spies.”

Yaz felt a shiver run down her spine at the idea of ‘playing spies’. She’d been there, and fun as it had seemed at first… Well, she didn’t want to do it again. She thought about being on the run with Ryan and Graham, knowing how scared her family had to be, the plane, and that endless realm that those creatures had taken her to. They were all still fresh, and had very much put her off the James Bond lifestyle.

“Not spies.” She responded, quickly. The other two looked at her with some surprise. “There was a thing, with the Doctor, and some old mate-but-not-mate of hers. It wasn’t-“

Both of their expressions turned to understanding.

“The Master?” Jack asked and, when Yaz nodded, he spoke with the same bitter anger he’d used when talking about the daleks. “Pity. I’d hoped he’d stay dead.”

Opening up the diner portion of the TARDIS as a student hangout had seemed like a good idea at the time. They’d get to hear more gossip from around campus, and Clara had been kind of hoping it’d get them more information, though as of now she’d mostly just heard nonsense about who was dating who, and which of the tutors had the worst reputation.

The only real consolation was that they were far enough out of the way that they weren’t too busy, despite it being a Saturday morning. She had the distinct impression that most people were probably too hungover from the last night of Fresher’s week to fancy a milkshake.

It’d been an especially easy morning, really, since she’d roped Me into helping her out behind the counter, and she was just cleaning out one of the machines when her girlfriend had nudged her in the side, nodding towards a figure who’d just stepped into the shop.

“Is that…?”

“Jack Harkness.” Me responded, with a tone that suggested she was already bored of whatever drama he was about to drag them into.

It was hard to blame her- it wasn’t as though Earth had a lot of immortals, and from what stories of Me’s Clara had heard and read, they’d run into one another a fair few times over the years, usually with dramatic or dangerous results. Thankfully, he walked straight past them, to settle in a corner booth.

“What’re the bets that he’s behind this?”

Clara shot her a look that said ‘be nice’, despite the very real possibility he did have something to do with this.

“Should I go talk to him?” Clara asked.

Me shook her head. “I’ll do it. I’ve known him longer.”

“Play nice.” Clara said, a pleading note in her voice.

“I’m always nice.” Me responded in mock-offence, though the smile she gave Clara was a little too soft to maintain that charade. She leant in to kiss her girlfriend’s cheek, before slipping off towards the corner table.

The fact that they’d settled in the corner was honestly enough of a worry. There were two empty tables in between them and the nearest other customers, and they were speaking in the kind of low voices which implied they were plotting something.

“Okay, so no spy stuff.” Jack said as she approached, “But we’re keeping the code names.”

“Jack Harkness.” She said, drawing his attention, as well as that of his friends. “I should have known you’d be the source of all this.”

“Me.” Jack looked interested at her intrusion, even if his friends looked baffled. “Or, do I still have to call you Lady Me? Because you know I’m not big on titles.”

“Titles like Captain?” She retorted.

“Touché.” He smiled, in a way which made it unclear whether they were friends or foes. “Least you haven’t threatened me with a sword this time. Loving the uniform, by the way.”

“Still the same insufferable flirt, then?”

“You know you love it.” He grinned, before turning to his friends. “Martha, Yaz, meet Me. I have a feeling she might know a little bit about our problem.”

So, on the one hand, hanging around outside his dead wife’s office was an awful idea. On the other, the Doctor really couldn’t resist. He wasn’t planning on talking to her- he just wanted to see her, for a minute.

He knew that it would only upset him, really. He was just opening up an old wound. Somehow, though, that didn’t phase him. Seeing her for a few minutes- letting himself look back just once. It had to be worth it.

The Doctor was fully planning on seeing a face from his past that would make his hearts ache with loss- though the one he got was one that made them sink with guilt, instead.

Ashildr. He’d lost track of her a very long time ago- somewhere before all that hazy business on Gallifrey. Still, in this time zone he’d have assumed that she’d be managing Trap Street, still, not hanging around a University.

Not walking out of River Song’s office with a smile on her face.

Whatever she was planning, he already didn’t like it.

“Ashildr.” He said by way of greeting, glancing towards the door, but barely catching a glimpse of River before it slammed shut.

“Who?” From the look of false-innocence on her face, he got the impression that Ashildr was being purposefully difficult.

“You.”

“Call me Me, Doctor. How many times do I have to remind you?”

“Me isn’t a name.” He replied, sounding almost like a petulant child.

“Nor is Doctor.” Ashildr replied coolly, crossing her arms.

Since he didn’t have much of a retort for that one, he found himself falling silent for a moment, though when she didn’t get a response, and began to walk away, he found himself asking a question just to stop her from leaving just yet. He really didn’t like that she was here- with everything else that was going on, it made him nervous.

“What’re you doing here?” He asked, still not sounding the most friendly. He didn’t remember much about his last few meetings with Ashildr, but he remembered coming away from them very angry with her. She had to have done something, he just didn’t remember what.

She shrugged, maddeningly casual about the odd reunion. “The same thing as you, I imagine.”

Well that one certainly couldn’t be true. Ashildr may have had some questionable practices, but as far as the Doctor was concerned his and Missy’s current predicament had to be pretty unique.

“I really don’t think you are.”

Seemingly a little thrown off, she asked. “You’re not here investigating all the odd energy readings?”

“Energy readings?”

Ashildr narrowed her eyes at that. It clearly wasn’t the answer she’d been expecting, at any rate. “Why are you here, then?”

“I’ve got a thing to do.” He replied, sounding totally confident in his own vague explanation, even if she looked unconvinced.

“I told you once I’d protect the world from you, Doctor. I meant it.”

“I know you did.”

“Well then, I’d-”

Before either of them could continue their argument, the office door opened, and an annoyed looking River Song stuck her head out, looking between the pair of them as though they were naughty schoolchildren. Seeing that one of them was a Professor did nothing to change her demeanour- not that the Doctor had expected for a minute it would. Not with River.

“Excuse me, I don’t know what the two of you are bickering about, but if you could take it somewhere that isn’t right outside my door, I think it would be better for everybody. Okay?” She said sharply.

Ashildr offered a quick apology, while the Doctor suddenly found his throat had gone dry, his eyes fixed on the woman he’d been fairly sure he’d never see again.

She waited a full minute for him to speak, before beginning to disappear back inside. “Right, then. I’ll take the gawping fish look as a yes.”

“Y-Yes.” He just about managed as the door slammed shut between them.

By the time he’d managed to process what had happened and turned back to Ashildr to continue their argument, she was already disappearing from view at the end of the corridor.

After the third time going through the information they had at this point (which was about as little as they’d had when they arrived), Amy was really beginning to regret deciding to come back to the TARDIS instead of heading to the Student Union.

“Right…” The Doctor was pacing around the console, still. By now Amy was fairly sure he was talking more to himself than to them. “Right so what have we got? We’ve got a professor who doesn’t age-“

“We’ve got a professor who doesn’t age, and some weird energy readings coming from our flat.” She sighed, looking bored with the whole thing. “It’s the same thing we’ve known all week.”

“Wasn’t River trying to meet the professor.” Rory offered before either of them could say anything more. He just wanted them to stay on track, which between the Doctor and Amy was always a tricky task.

“He won’t set up a meeting with her.” Amy responded, “She said he turned her down when she made a proper request, and he’s never in his office when she goes.”

“So he’s onto her, then?” asked Rory.

“No…” The Doctor had moved back over to the scanner, now, bringing up those readings again, as though he was on the brink of some breakthrough the others couldn’t see. “No. Doesn’t make sense. I’m missing something-“ He turned to the pair of them. “What am I missing?”

Rory gave him a blank look.

“Right. Of course. In my head. Yeah…” The TARDIS made a wheezing noise, which appeared to mean something to him based on his reaction. “Oh! Oh, yes. That’s good, okay…” He began digging through a drawer under the console.

“What’s good?” Amy asked, leaning forwards to try and get a look what he was messing about with. When he didn’t respond right away she actually stepped over to get a look at the odd little device he was holding. It looked a bit like a USB drive, just with a display screen. “Doctor? What’s that?”

“What does he teach?” He asked, instead of answering her.

Amy hesitated. She knew that Bill, Thea and Jenny had been to lectures with their mystery professor, but she’d never bothered to work out what the lectures were actually about.

“Oh, I don’t know. I could ask my flatmate, he’s her personal tutor. Not sure what she studies, though.”

“Oh, that’s great.” He tossed the not-USB-drive to her, “DNA scanner. Should be able to work out if he’s human or not. You’ve just got to get close enough to use it.”

“And how am I meant to do that?” She asked, turning it over in her hands.

“Ask your friend if you can tag along to lectures or something.”

“Oh, great.” Amy replied, sarcastically, “You’re signing me up for mystery lectures with the maybe-alien professor.”

“Try and use it on your flatmates too, if you can.” The Doctor responded, either not picking up on the sarcasm, or deliberately ignoring it. He was messing about trying to wire something into the console, now, though he seemed to be mostly doing a lot of running around and sonicing various things.

Amy looked the device in her hands over. “You should’ve given me this earlier. Would have been easy to use it if I went to that comedy night with Rose-“

There was a clatter, followed by a squealing noise from the sonic, as it protested being dropped.

“Something wrong, Doctor?” Rory peered around the central console, looking concerned.

The Doctor picked up the sonic quickly, trying to brush off his slip-up. “What? No. Fine. I’m fine. Totally fine.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah. Because when someone says ‘fine’ that many times in one sentence, that usually means it’s true. What happened?”

“I had a friend called Rose once, that’s all.” He seemed to be staying at the other side of the console just so he didn’t have to meet their eyes. “Long time ago.”

“You’ve never mentioned her.” Amy said, nothing accusatory in her tone, though she certainly sounded curious.

The Doctor smiled a little, now, in that far off and slightly sad way he did when he was remembering something long since passed. “I don’t always like talking about the people I’ve lost.”

“She sounds special.”

“Oh, she was. Great woman, that Rose Tyler.”

Now, it was Amy’s turn to drop what she was holding.

#thasmin #thirteenth doctor #yasmin khan #jack harkness #doctor who #madeathing

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jwywrld · 4 years

Text

voicemail

genre: fluff & slight angst

pairing: jung wooyoung (ateez) x fem reader

word count: 1900+ words

warnings: mention of loss of loved ones

summary: you don’t like phone calls but your history partner, wooyoung, insists on calling you for your project. frankly, he just wants to hear your voice.

a/n: hii i’m rly new to writing and this is my first post :) i’m rly nervous shdjs hope you like it! if i made any typos or errors i’m so sorry (also the title sucks im so sorry i really didn’t know what to name it)

ring! ring!

with a roll of your eyes, you pick up your phone. “ugh who is it. don’t they know i hate phone calls?” looking at the caller id, you saw that it was your history partner, wooyoung.

“hey! i heard we’re paired together for the history project!” a black haired boy chirped, bouncing up to you. “yeah.” you replied with a sigh. it was wooyoung, the nicest and most cheerful boy in your class. he seemed nice but you thought it was all an act. how could anyone be so nice to everyone all the time? it’s probably just to gain popularity. he was kinda cute though you had to admit. “great! just give me your number so we can work on it together.” he smiled, handing you his phone. after you keyed in your phone number, you turned and left, asking him to text you when he wanted to work on the project.

feeling your phone vibrate in your hand, you looked at it, seeing it was a text from an unknown number.

Unknown Number: hi! is this y/n?

y/n: who are you?

Unknown Number: it’s wooyoung, your history partner

y/n: oh

wooyoung my history partner: can we start on the history project now? i wanna start on it earlier so we don’t have to rush it

y/n: can we start tomorrow

kinda tired now

wooyoung my history partner: sure! :)

“hello?”

“hi y/n!”

“why did you call me?”

“um.. because we have to work on the project?”

“wow didn’t know that. i meant why did you have to call me. can’t we just text?”

“calling is waaaayyy easier though!”

“i don’t like phone calls.”

“wha—”

you hung up.

about 3 seconds later, you got a text from wooyoung.

wooyoung my history partner: HEY!! why’d u do that! >:0

y/n: i told you. i don’t like phone calls. can’t we discuss over text?

wooyoung my history partner: No.

y/n: ugh

fine.

wooyoung my history partner: :D

immediately after, you heard your phone ring again. you sighed and picked it up.

“so... we have to choose between the mexican-american war or the cold war right?” you asked.

the two of you talked about the project for about an hour, researching and sharing the information you had found with each other, then collating it. in between, you guys made small talk and he told you a few jokes, causing you to let out small chuckles.

“ok that’s it for today. i still have work to do.” you said, your brain not being able to take any more history.

“ok bye—”

that wasn’t that bad! maybe phone calls weren’t as bad as you thought they were.

about 3 days later, you were practising some math questions. however, no matter how many times you tried it, you just couldn’t understand it. you decided to move on to the next question, only to find out that you were stuck as wel. frustrated, you felt the wet hot tears build up in your eyes. why do i have to be so dumb? why can’t i understand it right away? to make it worse, your exams were in two weeks and you had so much to catch up on. sitting at your table, you sobbed, the tears streaming down your cheeks uncontrollably.

feeling your phone vibrate furiously on the table, you saw that wooyoung was calling you. you declined it, wiping the tears away from your face.

wooyoung my history partner: why did you decline my call :((

y/n: do we really have to call???

wooyoung my history partner: i don’t understand! why do you hate calling people so much?

“y/n, your dad and i are going to be staying in New Zealand for a while to take care of gramps. i know you’re only 16 and it’ll be hard to be living alone but we’ll try to be back as soon as possible. we promise.”

“mom... why do i have to be left alone here?”

“sweetie.. we don’t have a choice.. gramps is really sick and needs someone to take care of him. i promise we’ll be back as soon as we can.”

those were the last words you had heard from your parents before they had gotten into a serious car accident right afteryour grandpa had passed. you had prayed for them to be okay for days, but to no avail. they had passed, leaving you, a 16 year old girl to fend for herself. after that incident, phone calls only reminded you of the day when the nurse had called you, informing you that your parents didn’t make it. it was one of the hardest years of your life, having to cope with the loss of your parents, grandpa and also having to get used to being alone. it had been 2 years and your aunt had been paying for the bills, insisting that you only repay her in the future when you had a stable job and income.

y/n: idk

wooyoung my history partner: wtv i’m still calling you idc

accepting defeat, you picked up the call, trying to calm your shaky voice.

“hi.” you said softly, your voice quivering.

“y/n? are you okay?” the concern in his voice genuine.

how did he pick that up from one word???

“yeah i’m fine. let’s just do this.” you sniffed.

“i’m not stupid y/n. but if you don’t wanna talk about it that’s okay.”

“thank you.” you croaked.

you let him do most of the talking while you typed down the points. after the discussion, you completely broke down again. not only because of stress but also because wooyoung’s question had reminded you of your parents.

“mom... dad... why did you have to go... i miss you so much. when can ever be happy again?”

after a week of calling wooyoung on the phone and discussing, you realised that you actually enjoyed talking to him. you also learned some things about him like how he was afraid of bugs and loved puppies. you also heard him talk about his younger brother and how much he missed him while he was staying at the dorms in school.

wooyoung my history partner: helloooo do you wanna meet tmr after school at the library to do the board

y/n: ok

wooyoung my history partner: can you bring the board & markers? i’ll bring paper & glue.

y/n: ok

wooyoung my history partner: ugh you’re such a dry texter

y/n: what did you expect me to reply to that???

wooyoung my history partner: ...

idk

y/n: exactly.

wooyoung my history partner: ok wtv see you tomorrow!!! :))

y/n: c u 2

why did you feel so nervous at the thought of meeting him tomorrow?

“hey woo” it was a nickname you had given him in the past week, thinking it was short and cute.

“hey y/n! did you bring the stuff?”

“yup”

“ok great”

you worked side by side, writing down the different notes and points, blushing when your hands accidentally brushed and mumbling a small ‘sorry’.

after two hours, your board was finally done!

“all that’s left to do is present”

“ugh that’s the WORST part”

“come onn y/n you know it’s graded! so let’s just do it properly”

a day later, before you called to practise your presentation. a thougut you had been pushing back popped into your head.

what happens to us after this project? i still want to stay friends. will he just pretend like nothing happened?

worry creeped in at the thought of being alone again without having anyone to talk to, even if the two of you did not talk much in school. however, others had noticed him occasionally staring at you during classes or breaks.

halfway through practising the presentation, curiosity and fear kicked in and you couldn’t help but blurt out

“woo what’ll happen to us after.. you know.. this?”

“what do you mean?”

“are we still gonna be.. friends?”

“why shouldn’t we be???”

“i don’t know.. i just thought.. maybe you wouldn’t have a reason to hang out with me anymore..”

“what?? you’re crazy. of course we can still be friends!! anyway let’s drop this subject and continue from where we left off.”

after hearing his words, you felt assured and relaxed. when another question popped into your head.

“woo? why do you like calling me so much?”

“i just... it’s just... weren’t we talking about the first phase of the cold war?” he cleared his throat.

“wooooooo~ you didn’t answer my question” you whined.

“how about we just focus on the project y/n?”

about half a year passed and you and wooyoung had soon become best friends. you facetimed each other everyday, talking about how your day went or ranting about the annoying teachers and classmates. you had told him about your parents, explaining why you were awkward and dry with people

what he didn’t know was that you had quickly developed feelings for him, but hiding it because you were scared of how he would react and afraid that you might lose your relationship with him.

it was one of the rare occasions when you were at his dorm, seated beside each other on the purple velvet sofa, just enjoying each other’s company while watching a movie.

“woo, remember when i asked you that question like. a while ago?”

“what question”

“why did you like calling me so much?”

“well... i... i... i guess i just had to do the history project with you?”

“we both know we could have just made a google document... so... why? i’m honestly soooo curious so just tell meeeeeee”

“fine. ijustlikedhearingyourvoiceiguess” he replied, cheeks turning pink.

“... you what”

“i just.. wanted to hear your voice you know?”

“oh”

“anyway y/n. what i’m trying to say is. i like you. a lot. i- i was scared to say this to you because i don’t want to lose our friendship but.. i don’t think i can keep this in anymore. i like you, y/n.”

gasping at his sudden confession and not knowing how to react, you just stared at him with wide eyes.

“ah shit i’ve screwed this up. i’m sorry y/n just. please ignore what i said.” he bit his lip.

“i... i- may or may not like you too?” you managed to squeak out, cheeks rosy.

suddenly, you felt a pair of lips on yours, eyes widening at his sudden movement. it was a short but sweet kiss, causing you to turn even redder than you already were.

“oh god y/n you don’t know how worried i’ve been about this. i’m so glad that you.. feel the same away about me!” he babbled.

“i..i’m afraid though, woo. what if... what if i lose you too? like i lost my parents.” your voice started to shake and tears welled up in your eyes at the thought of that.

he cupped your face in his hand, wiping your tears with his thumb.

“hey.. don’t say that alright? i’m here. i’m right here. i’m not leaving you.”

he pulled you in for a hug while you cried into his chest, letting the tears run. he held you in his arms until you stopped crying.

“how ‘bout i take you out on a date this saturday hm? how’s that sound?” he said, lifting your chin up so you would meet his eyes.

“great!” you smiled softly, melting into his gaze.

the next two hours were just spent cuddling, your head pressed against his chest, breathing in his scent while your legs were tangled up and he played with your hair and left little kisses on your head. it was the first time in a long time you had felt so happy, heart fluttering and exploding because you knew, finally, you weren’t alone anymore. wooyoung was here. and that was all that mattered.

#ateez fluff #ateez wooyoung #ateez au #ateez x reader #ateez #jung wooyoung #ateez soft hours #kpop #kpop au #kpop fluff #wooyoung #wooyoung fluff #wooyoung au #wooyoung x reader #kpop x reader #fluff

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cordoniantrash · 4 years

Text

Once Upon Another Time: Chapter Nine

AU: In another time where the brothers Beaumont did not reach Cassandra in time, the waitress turned lady went back to New York to rebuild her old life. After finding an unexpected souvenir, she set off and joined her long lost family. Four years later, a newly divorced King of Cordonia arrives in New York in hopes of reuniting with his beloved. Instead of Cassandra, all he found was a postcard with the word Edgewater written on the back

Catch up here: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8

Plus a masterlist if you guys are interested. Also in AO3.

Hello and welcome to my longest chapter to date! Also the opening of the “second act”. Chapters from this one onward are gonna be pretty long, so... brace yourselves I guess? Huge thanks to @thequeennefertipi for being my beta and for sticking with this story.

Segue: If you guys like the Miraculous Ladybug, she’s written an amazing fanfic about Chloé Bourgeois, which can be found in her writing blog and in her AO3!

Anyways, feel free to let me know what you guys think!

Spelling and grammatical errors are mine.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the characters, Pixleberry has that privilege. Title for both the series and the chapter titles, plus the epigraphs are from Sara Bareilles’ discography.

Pairings: Liam x MC

Warning: brief, non-graphic depiction of violence, long post

Words: 9994

Chapter Nine: Wicked Love

Wait until you see

How mighty the truth can be

Like an ocean of light

It's a sky filled with fireflies

Liam could still catch snippets of the revelry inside even though he had closed the double doors that lead to the balcony. Placing both hands on the railing, he allowed his composure to bleed away from him. That did not ease his heavy heart. Liam heaved a sigh as he closed his eyes.

“You know, I thought you’d have a few more years before you’d try to escape anniversaries.”

Liam tensed. Taking care to mask his emotions, he turned and met his father’s eyes.

“You should be resting, father.”

Constantine’s small smile vanished. A part of Liam, the little boy that still yearned for his papá, for just a moment, just a little more time, for just a scrap — mourned its loss. He mentally shrugged off the heartache, a part of him surprised at how easily he could do it. Must be all the practice he’s been getting.

“Liam—“

“The festivities can survive without me for a few more moments, father. Besides, Madeleine can handle it.”

“I know that. We both know that. But that is not why I sought you out.”

“Father—“

“No, Liam. King or no king, a son must still listen to his father.”

Liam’s hands curled into fists. A multitude of words seemed to have stuck inside his throat, all of them yearning to be let out. To let his father know how hard this year had been. How much it hurt. He wanted to scream and lash out. Let the world know how he felt. Why should I listen to you when you blocked me at every turn? Why should I even look at you when you’ve hurt her and driven her away? When you made a mockery of our choices?

“If this is about having an heir again—“

Constantine shook his head. “You’ve made your stance clear enough. I’ll give you the time you asked for. But that does not mean the people would as well. You can’t play the newlywed card forever,” his father took a few steps in his direction. “Liam, it may not look like it, but this truly is what’s best for you. For our kingdom.” He placed a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Fairy tales are all well and good, but you must think of what’s best for Cordonia.”

He gestured towards the ballroom. Towards Madeleine.

“Remember, you are Cordonia. And your future is here.”

His father let go of Liam’s shoulder. With long strides, he reached the doors and opened them. With a glance over his shoulder, Constantine imparted a parting blow.

“It wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

Liam woke up with his left arm asleep. Eyebrows furrowed and vision still foggy from sleep, it took him a moment to see what caused his arm to go numb. What he first thought to be a dark mass turned out to be Cassandra’s head. Liam glanced down and saw a smaller body cradled between them. Somehow during the night, his arm had served as a pillow for both Lucas and Cassandra. Liam smiled, all thought of his discomfort gone. Slowly and with a gentleness he vaguely remembered from his mother, he wrapped his free arm around his family, holding them close. He thought of the memory that came back as a dream. Of his father’s words. He looked at Cassie and Lucas again.

It can work out. I’ll do my hardest to make this work.

I won’t lose my family again.

----

“Does Lucas like castles?”

“Hmm?” Cassie looked up from the article she was editing. And stared. Liam, still looking through his phone, took a seat next to her. That wasn’t what caused all thoughts to flee from her mind. The father of her child and the love of her life, the King of Cordonia was wearing glasses. Cassandra’s brain seemed to have short-circuited.

Liam with glasses. No, Liam wearing glasses. Full rimmed glasses that showed off his eyes. And framed his face. Good god, was he more handsome than he was this morning?

Why is it suddenly warm in here?

“Cassie?”

Cassandra blinked. Her brain scrambled to remember what was happening. Liam’s face seemed closer than before. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. Concern was shining through his eyes.

His eyes, warm and brown and showcased through his glasses. Beautiful.

Focus!

“Are you all right?”

“Huh? Oh! Oh yeah. I’m–I’m fine,” her eyes darted around the room, finally settling on the old grandfather clock against the wall. “Oh, look at the time! It’s almost lunch! I’ll go alert the staff.”

Cassie quickly closed her laptop and set it on the coffee table before moving to stand. Liam laid a hand on her arm.

“Are you sure, you’re all right?”

“Uh yeah. Why wouldn’t I be all right?” she paused long enough to see Liam hesitate.

Oh.

She sat back down, took his hand in hers and smiled, “I’m not getting second thoughts, Liam. I just got, uh, a bit distracted, that’s all.”

Liam let out a breath. And smiled. It took all of Cassie’s willpower not to jump him right then and there. She moved to stand up again, this time dragging Liam with her.

“How about we talk about destinations over Sunday roast?”

Aunt Clara had the staff set up chairs and tables in the solarium. Far more personal and intimate than the rooms they’ve previously eaten in. As she and Liam stepped aside for one of the staff members, Cassie was suddenly hit with the thought that this might be her Auntie’s own little way of fully welcoming Liam in. Cassie smiled.

“So… what were you say—“

“Mommy!” a little blur ran into the room and crashed into her legs. Surprised, Cassie stumbled back. Liam’s hands were suddenly there to support her.

“Careful,” Liam said over her shoulder.

“Sorry Mommy!” their little terror said before zooming out again. The staff, all too used to Lucas’ hijinks, calmly stepped aside, indulgent smiles on their faces.

“Okay, who gave him sugar this time?” Cassie demanded once she straightened up. Briar who had followed into the room shrugged and smiled, looking over her shoulder.

“Who indeed?”

Eyes wide with realisation, Cassie whirled around and glared at Liam.

“You!” she gasped, jabbing a finger at him. Liam quickly stepped back and raised his hands, a placating gesture that she barely noticed. And to think she was swooning earlier!

“I just gave him one cookie — “he quickly closed his mouth when she scowled. Cassie ignored the small burst of satisfaction at the sight.

“You deal with him when he crashes from his sugar high.” She said as she crossed her arms.

Liam nodded quickly, his eyes wide. “Of course. Anything you need.”

Cassie’s heart melted. No! I’m annoyed! I should be annoyed! She opened her mouth, ready to launch into a speech when her aunt’s voice stopped her.

“Am I interrupting?”

Cassie turned her head towards the doorway. From the corner of her eye, she saw Liam do the same.

“Auntie!”

“Not at all, my lady, “Liam answered smoothly. A glance told her he had quickly regained some composure. Shit! I must look like a mess, came her flustered thought.

“Well, if you say so…” her aunt trailed off. She shook her head. “Actually dear, can we pop into the study for a bit? I need to talk to you about something.”

At Cassie’s frown, she smiled reassuringly. “It’s nothing bad, I promise.”

“I’ll go take care of Lucas,” Liam piped up beside her. He gave her shoulder a brief squeeze and took his leave with a smile to her and her aunt.

Cassie spared a moment to watch him walk away.

“He’s not going anywhere, you know,” her aunt’s words snapped Cassie out of her trance. Clara was wearing a teasing smirk when Cassandra looked at her aunt’s direction.

“I know that,” she mumbled as she turned and walked to her aunt’s side. “Did something happen?”

“In a manner of speaking,” her aunt replied as they walked towards the stairs. She smiled, the reassurance familiar as it was welcome. “I meant it when I said it’s nothing bad.”

Her aunt walked into her study, making a beeline towards one of the display cases near the far wall. Cassie followed, confusion turning into apprehension. She could feel her heart beating hard in her chest. Small, hesitant steps brought her a little closer.

Aunt Clara now stood in front of a familiar set of jewellery. The Edgewater Jewels, one of her family’s sources of pride, glittered in the midmorning sunlight that streamed into the study. Whoever holds the jewels holds the very essence of Edgewater, her aunt used to joke. But Cassie knew that it was a saying that had been passed down from generation to generation. There was a reason most of the jewellery Gran left her were coloured gold and blue. It was part of their heritage. And it was usually entrusted to the heir of the estate. Which also meant heir to the title and all the holdings and responsibilities that come along with the honour.

Cassie felt her eyes widen as she turned to her aunt.

“Tell me that’s not what I think it means.”

Aunt Clara’s smile was small and sad. Like Gran’s all those years ago. But unlike her grandmother, who tucked her head and hidden away during a confrontation, Aunt Clara held her chin high and looked Cassie in the eye. Apprehension caused butterflies to flutter in Cassie’s stomach. Her gaze fell to the jewels, still glinting after centuries of use.

“Can I at least tell you why?”

“Auntie—“

“I know you said you’d think about it. And I respect that, love. And I would have given you all the time that you need, but circumstances rarely go the way we want them to, you know that,” her aunt took a step towards her. Cassie felt rooted on the spot. “Please understand that I am not trying to force you into anything you don’t want to do. What I want – what I’ve always wanted, is to protect you and Lucas. And short of prohibiting you to go, this is the best way I can think of.”

Aunt Clara was now standing in front of her. She gently took Cassandra’s hands. “Even if it’s just by name, I’d like you to be the heir to Edgewater.”

----

The Duchy of Krona

“My lady, the media have been sending emails asking for an update on our monarch’s location,” Justin told her as she stepped out of the car. Suppressing the urge to sigh in exasperation, Kiara quickly composed herself and turned to her secretary.

Be careful around that one, Olivia had told her. Since then, she had felt like she was walking on eggshells around her own secretary. It was an inconvenience, but better safe than sorry, as the old saying goes. Keeping her face blank, she took care in choosing her next words.

“Justin, I already told you to take care of that.”

He bobbed his head, making a great show of being contrite. “Yes, my lady. But they’ve been calling and asking nonstop—“

“Then tell them again. The King is currently engaged in an important diplomatic summit in Europe. And this time, remind them that due to the sensitive nature of such events, we can’t broadcast the specifics until His Majesty’s return.”

There was a flash of frustration in Justin’s face before he schooled his features. Frustration and something darker. Beneath her calm façade, Kiara felt cold. Olivia told her she and her network are working on discovering what’s really going on. But their investigation had yielded nothing substantial just yet. At least, not on that front.

It couldn’t come soon enough.

Kiara swallowed her sudden fear and turned away, towards the main estate of House Amaranth. But it gave us an edge over Madeleine.

She set a brisk pace, quickly reaching the entrance and the line of staff members that await her. Justin at her heels. Is that even your real name?

Kiara took another deep breath. No use in engaging in multiple fronts, as Olivia would say. If he is a player, he will soon make his move. But right now, it’s my turn.

Adelaide was the first one to greet her in the sitting room. The usual sparkle that the older woman used to exhibit had dimmed. Like a paper doll, she thought with a pang of pity. Kiara felt for the Duchess. We are not the only ones that Madeleine’s schemes had hurt. A pity it must end this way.

Kiara stood up and offered a curtsy. “Your Grace.”

Adelaide offered her a smile that echoed her old one. “My lady. Despite current circumstances, I must say, I’m glad you came calling. Tea?”

Kiara smiled and nodded. This is my element. I can do this. And I will do this well.

“Yes, please.”

If the duchess seemed off when Kiara arrived, she was downright ashen when they finished their tea. A paper doll that’s about to be set alight. Oh, how I hate that it came to this!

Adelaide’s teacup rattled slightly as she set it on the table. She seemed to sag into her chair. Kiara kept her hands clasped together on her lap. She did not want to know if it trembled.

Silence reigned between them. Kiara could hear the faint ticking of a clock. Unbidden, her gaze went to the window. Summer finally came. But why do I still feel cold? God, I wish Hana’s here.

“If — “Adelaide’s voice cut through the chasm between them. Kiara turned to face the duchess once more. “If what you say is true, my house will be in ruins,” she barked out a laugh. Kiara stared. Its cynical edge was so different from what she had previously known from the older woman. “More than it already is.”

Despite her training, Kiara longed to comfort the older woman. She’s always been kind to me, even before all this happened. Instead of the comforting hand that she wanted to extend, Kiara reached into her purse and pulled out a sealed envelope. Still keeping her silence, she slid it towards Adelaide’s direction.

“I’m afraid that years of evidence proves its validity, Adelaide.”

The Duchess of Krona stared at the envelope in front of her.

“Has the king been told?”

“… not yet.”

“But are you going to tell him?”

Kiara hesitated. “He has to know.”

“I suppose you want me to stop Madeleine’s campaign in exchange for his majesty’s continued ignorance?”

Kiara kept her face carefully blank. It may be diplomacy’s last tool, but I’ve never truly liked blackmail. And it was blackmail, no matter how much they’d like to sugar-coat it.

“Nothing so drastic, Adelaide. I simply ask for a private audience with your daughter.”

“But you’re still going to tell Liam.” Defeat was written on the duchess’ shoulders.

Kiara softened her tone. “He has the right to know, my lady. And this would worsen if he found out that this had been hidden from him,” Kiara hesitated before going off the script that Olivia and Hana helped her write. “Liam is not his father.”

Adelaide looked up and met Kiara’s eyes, hesitation and cautious hope in her gaze. “He’ll see that you and your house have been unwitting accomplices. The fault lies with Godfrey.”

Adelaide hesitated. “And my daughter?”

Kiara sighed; her face the very picture of uncertainty, despite the satisfaction growing in her chest.

“That would depend on whether we meet and talk, Adelaide.”

The duchess straightened in her seat.

“Very well. You’ll have your meeting.” She moved to stand up. “I do hope you succeed. For all our sakes.”

----

The Royal Palace

Hana quickly tossed aside the papers she had been reviewing when she saw her phone light up. Ignoring the quizzical looks that Olivia and Leo sent her, she quickly seized her phone and opened it.

“It’s Kiara!” Her two companions paused in their respective tasks. “She’s in!” Hana announced into the room.

“Good,” Olivia said, a smirk blooming on her face. “And the secretary?”

Hana scanned the message, “she sent him off on another task. She and Madeleine would be alone.”

“What happens now?” Leo asked as he began to pace the room. “Was the bastard there?” he spat out.

“She didn’t say…” Hana trailed off.

“That would mean he’s still in his estates in the UK,” Olivia quickly cut in. Yesterday’s revelation had shaken them to the core, Leo most of all. Despite being her stepson, Leo had spent more time with Eleanor than Liam. She had practically raised him even before she had married Constantine. She was the woman he recognised as his mother. And to find that her killer had walked free for years… Katie and Olivia had barely stopped him from going after Godfrey. To say the last twenty-four hours had been fraught would be an understatement.

The older Rys grunted in acknowledgement before starting another round of agitated pacing. Like a lion in a cage, she thought before turning her attention back to Olivia.

“Should we tell Liam now?” she asked softly.

“We should have told him as soon as we confirmed it,” Leo grumbled before Olivia answered her.

“And we will tell him. Preferably in person,” Olivia retorted. Hana opened her mouth to agree with the duchess when her phone rang again. She stared at the screen, apprehension filling her.

“It’s Liam,” she announced. Olivia and Leo froze.

“Answer it, Hana,” Leo said urgently. The unanswered question hung in the air. Does he know?

“Put it on speaker,” Olivia quickly added.

With fingers that trembled slightly, she answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Hana!” Liam’s voice seemed to cement them in place. Faintly, they could hear a child’s laughter in the background. The three of them looked at each other, wide-eyed and on the verge of panic. Her heart was beating so fast, she was half afraid it would burst out of her chest. For one brief moment, Hana scrambled for a scrap of composure.

She managed a soft “Your Majesty” before another voice snapped her out of the stupor she was falling into.

“… Lucas!”

Hana straightened. “Was that—?”

“Hmm? Oh yes! That was Cassie. Would you like to say hi?”

“Oh! Oh, um—“she cast another wide-eyed look around the room, their conversation before weighing on them. Olivia hesitated, but Leo took a step forward. Before either of them managed a word, Liam’s voice unknowingly interrupted them.

“Lucas, don’t—“Hana and the others could just make out the sound of a splash. A scuffling sound followed.

“Liam?” Confusion mixed with the apprehension inside her.

There was a pause. The three of them barely breathed.

“Hana, are you still there?” Liam’s voice sounded harried this time. “I’m so sorry, but I have to cut this short. Cassie’s got Lucas inside. Maybe you two can talk some other time? Maybe later?”

“Oh! That’s fine. What happened? If I might ask.”

Liam’s voice was tinged with amusement when he answered, “He crashed his bike into the lake.”

Hana smiled.

“That’s not why I called though,” Hana suddenly felt cold. All too aware of the vacant seat that Kiara used to occupy. Does he know? The anxious thought circled her mind once more. And judging by the way Olivia and Leo hung on Liam’s next words, she wasn’t the only one.

How do you tell one of your closest friends that you’ve uncovered the culprit behind his mother’s death?

“Can you book a flight to London tomorrow? Cassie and I need your expertise on something.”

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Olivia insisted. Hana completely agrees with her. Across the table, with arms crossed and agitated, Leo glared at the both of them.

“He’s my brother,” Leo insisted. “What we found here should come from me, Olivia. You know that.”

“For the last time, I’m not saying you can’t tell Liam, I’m saying you can’t go!” Olivia snapped as she stood up. Hana could feel a headache forming around her temples.

“Besides, we don’t know what Liam and Cassandra need me for,” Hana added before her companion’s agreement turned into a shouting match.

“That’s obvious, he’s planning on bringing her and my nephew back here.”

“You don’t know that,” Hana countered, taking care to soften her tone. The last thing she needs is for this to escalate.

Olivia shook her head, “He’s got a point.” Leo opened his mouth, intent on driving his point home and getting his way. Olivia fixed him with a glare and added, “Which is why Hana has to go.”

“Olivia—“

“No.”

“But—“

“We need you here,” Olivia went on. “Abdicated or not, you’re the last adult Rys in the palace. You lend some legitimacy over our orders, so unless you want to tell your brother how you’ve disregarded his instructions, you will stay here.”

Leo scowled. He glanced at Hana, silently asking for support. Hana pursed her lips and shook her head. He slumped in his seat.

“Besides, Rashad’s also going on a business trip. People won’t think it’s strange that I boarded a plane with him.”

Leo scowled as he looked out the window.

Hana and Olivia shared a glance, a question between them. A moment passed, and Olivia shrugged. My move then. She glanced at Leo’s still sullen form. Compromise it is.

“I won’t tell Liam until you could, Leo. I promise.”

----

Leo kept looking through the window even after Hana and Olivia had left. Yesterday’s events played on a loop in his mind. It’s been decades, I thought I’d gotten over this.

But Leo could still remember the sinking feeling of watching the woman he’d known as his mother gasp for breath. Could still recall the frantic rush to her side, the way her hands had gone limp, the flashing lights of the ambulance, the cold sterile hospital. He could still remember, with frightening clarity, how Liam, still a little kid really, looked so lost when the doctors announced that there was nothing they could do. The way his little brother curled up in his arms, shaking and sobbing when it finally sunk in. The funeral and the empty years; years that Eleanor Rys should have lived if not for some heartless bastard and an innocent little goblet.

And to find that the bastard who did this to her was under their noses this whole time? That he had been one of Constantine’s cronies? Rage could hardly describe what Leo had felt. He wanted to get out there and catch him. Make him pay for what he did.

Katie had been nearly reduced to tears before he had agreed to stay and wait. Leo had agreed reluctantly, remembering his past sins. But his urge to do something, anything at all, remains bubbling under the surface, just waiting for the smallest push. Liam’s phone call had been the prime opportunity. But Olivia’s threat and his past regrets kept him again. Liam missed four years of his son’s life while he had gallivanted around the world. The least he can do is stay in Cordonia and do what Liam wanted them to do.

This doesn’t mean I still can’t make Godfrey pay. I’ll –

His thoughts were interrupted by the door opening. Before he could stand up and open it, Bertrand Beaumont had stepped inside the room, head held high and nose in the air. Leo resisted the urge to correct his posture.

“Your—“

“Bertrand, please. Don’t call me that.”

“Oh. Of course.”

The older man nodded and adjusted his cuff. Posture perfect and correct. Leave it to Bertrand to disguise awkwardness with a dignified response.

“I came here as fast as I could,” Bertrand said as he stepped into the room. Remembering the discreet conversation he had with Liam about the Beaumont’s finances, Leo kept silent. Bertrand dislikes showing weakness, especially among his peers.

“You’d want to see Maxwell then?”

At Bertrand’s nod, Leo stood up and walked towards one of his oldest friends. He clasped Bertrand’s shoulder and tried to give him a reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to work. Leo tried not to take it personally.

“Let’s go then,” Leo paused just beyond the threshold. “Although, word of advice? Go easy on him.”

Leo wants nothing more than to find Godfrey and make him pay, but he’ll be damned if he lets Liam down again.

“Let me get this straight, you knew where Lady Savannah was this whole time and you didn’t tell me?” Standing with his back against the wall, Leo heaved a sigh. What part of go easy did you not understand Bertie?

Maxwell opened his mouth once more to answer his brother and winced as he did so. Leo saw him rub his bruised jaw. Bertrand, still pacing and getting red in the face, did not stop his tirade to listen. “What on earth possessed you to do such a thing? Of all the—”

Leo thinks he saw the moment Maxwell snapped. The younger man stood, squared his shoulders, and whirled around to face his brother.

“I had to help her, Bertrand! She was pregnant with my nephew!”

Leo suppressed the urge to whistle. I really shouldn’t be part of this conversation. He glanced at the closed door behind Bertrand. But I can’t walk out without disturbing these two.

“I—your what?”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Bertie so speechless! Maxwell, emboldened by his brother’s response, continued.

“Savannah was pregnant with your child when she ran away. She said you rejected her!”

“I — “Bertrand seemed to have completely lost his composure. He reached out and clutched the back of the chaise lounge. His knuckles were white.

I really shouldn’t be here…

Leo looked away from the brothers. The late afternoon sunlight illuminated the courtyard below. He felt a smile creep onto his face. The twins were out and about. Sabrina, his eldest by a whole ten minutes, was busy drawing the various blossoms in the flower beds. Mother loved those flowers too…

Leo shook his head, half hoping the physical act would also shake off his thoughts. He immediately sought his youngest, a reflex he had developed as soon as they started toddling around. Samantha was bending over the fountain, no doubt looking at the pennies on the bottom. He wanted to name them after Eleanor, but he knew that Liam deserved that honour. Besides, they are named after her, in a way. Middle names are the same thing, right?

A sudden noise interrupted his thoughts. He turned to look at the Brothers Beaumont again. Bertrand was sitting in the lounge. Maxwell looked uncertain.

Leo opened his mouth to suggest drinks, but a knock interrupted him. All three of them turned toward the sound.

Leo stepped forward.

“Come in.”

The door opened and a woman wearing a nondescript suit poked her head in. It took a moment for Leo to put a name to the face.

“Agent Mara, what is it?”

“Sir, someone’s looking for you at the gates. She said you were expecting her.”

Eyebrows furrowed, Leo stepped forward. At the corner of his eye, he could see Bertrand and Maxwell carefully turn around, giving him as much privacy as the room could afford. Gratitude for the brothers bubbled in his chest.

“Who is it?”

Mara hesitated.

“Well?”

“She-she told us her name was Cordelia, sir. Cordelia Foredale.”

----

East Wing, the Royal Palace

“How’re your knuckles?”

Drake grunted as Savannah, who did not wait for his answer, grabbed his right hand and inspected his yellowing bruise.

“Are you talking to me now?” he said, immediately regretting his words. Savannah had all but ignored him after he punched Maxwell. A glare was the answer he received. Drake sighed.

He can’t help but feel like everyone was blaming him for one thing or another. Bastien was ignoring his calls, a sure sign that the older man was annoyed at him, while Olivia was pissed at him (nothing new but this one was on him, he’ll readily admit that). He knew he abandoned his assigned duties, so their reaction was a bitter pill that he had to swallow.

Hana and Kiara were keeping their distance, but he knew that they sided with Maxwell, and Leo’s accusing stare was directed at him and Maxwell both. So he can live with that. What stings the most was that Savannah was mad at him and his nephew (he has a nephew!) was wary around him.

And Liam’s out of the country, probably getting cosy with Angeles…

The pain in his knuckles snapped him from his thoughts. Drake was almost glad for it.

There’s a very big chance that Cassandra will come back into their lives. Drake doesn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, the very thought of her sent tingles down his spine (he ignored them as he had four years ago), and on the other, she’s probably coming back with Liam. Try as he might, that old, buried and suppressed pangs of jealousy had reared its ugly head once more.

There was a mention of a little boy too. Their boy, if he got that right. Drake refused to acknowledge the knot of emotions he felt at the thought.

I could really use a drink right now.

“Done.” In a flash, Savannah had stood up and walked away from him. Drake could make out Bartie’s head as it poked out of an open doorway.

He inspected the bandage on his hand.

“Thanks, sis,” he said into the empty room.

----

Meanwhile, in Fydelia

To an outsider’s perspective, it did not look like a stand-off. Just two ladies having tea on a balcony. Sophistication at its finest. From a young age, they have been taught how to disguise negotiations as pleasant small talk. How silence can answer a question as well as any given answer. They had been taught how to be graceful swans on the outside, never letting slip the machinations that lurked underneath their perfect façade.

A pale delicate hand calmly picked up her teacup, raised it to her scarlet stained lips and took a dainty sip. Kiara’s well-trained eyes observed the movement and catalogued it in her mind. It seemed like her hostess would insist on some juvenile power play right off the bat. Kiara took in Madeleine’s demeanour; shoulders back and chin lifted. Smug despite her courtly mask.

She thinks, because I came to her first, that she has the upper hand, Kiara thought, amused at the thought. Whatever pity she might have felt for the mother, unfortunately, did not extend to the daughter. Adelaide might have been an unwitting victim in this scenario, but we all knew that Madeleine’s actions are her own. She knew what she was doing from the start. And for whatever reason, she made herself believe that she can win in this hopeless endeavour. Kiara took another moment to study the Countess by taking a sip of her own tea. Let Madeleine think she has me on the ropes. What exactly were you hoping to accomplish from all of this?

“I do hope the tea is to your liking, Lady Kiara. I seem to recall you favour the more traditional favours?”

“The tea and the service is, as always, perfectly adequate, my lady,” Kiara demurred, taking silent satisfaction with the way Madeleine’s lips twisted at the insult. Ever the perfectionist.

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I find myself tired of courtly games lately,” Madeleine said, annoyance clear in her eyes. Whatever happened to patience Madeleine? Kiara’s quite certain that amusement was clear in her eyes.

“Well?” Madeleine snapped. For a moment, Kiara remembered all those uncertain hours under her thumb. Of all the times the woman before took genuine pleasure at breaking Hana apart at the seams. You’ll never see so much as the shine off the crown if I had anything to say about it.

Kiara raised an eyebrow. Madeleine’s own sculpted eyebrows started to furrow. What? Did you think I came all this way to hand you your imagined victory?

“I came to do you a favour actually,” Kiara answered coolly.

Madeleine scoffed. “And what favour is that exactly? From where I’m standing, you and yours are the ones who need a favour,” Madeleine barred her teeth in a poor imitation of a smile. “Has the King gotten so desperate that he sent one of his lackeys to grovel at my feet?” She leaned back, comfortably rearranging herself on her chair, the picture of smug satisfaction. “Well, tell him, he has to be the one doing the grovelling. The satisfaction would be sweeter when I personally reject it.”

Kiara calmly sipped her tea, letting Madeleine have her brief moment of glory. Well, a supposed moment of glory, she amended in her head.

A moment passed. Uncertainty entered Madeleine’s eyes.

“Are you done?” Kiara asked calmly. My turn.

Madeleine opened her mouth to retort, but Kiara did not give her a chance.

“If you want the continued existence of your House and holdings, you will cease this meaningless smear campaign at once.”

Anger flashed across Madeleine’s features. She opened her mouth once more. Kiara forged on, smoothly reaching into her bag and taking the same envelope that she had presented to Adelaide mere hours ago. She laid it on the table with a flourish.

“And what’s this?” Madeleine asked, her anger temporarily curbed.

“Why don’t you take a peak?”

“If this is some hare-brained scheme of Liam’s—“

“Just read the contents, Madeleine,” Kiara said, her voice curt.

The countess snatched the envelope up. Her face paled at what she read. Madeleine’s porcelain hands held a small tremble when she set it down again.

“You have already hurt your standing in the nobility’s eyes when you started this campaign. And while free speech is a right that is encouraged in this kingdom, I doubt you’ll be thrilled if we use that self-same right to reveal what your father did to Queen Eleanor all those years ago. Treason is a heavier stain on one’s reputation than mere rumours, is it not?”

Madeleine did not answer. Her eyes were still fixed on the envelope’s contents.

Kiara allowed herself a small smile, “luckily the king and his brother are generous enough to give you a warning.” She leaned forward, now on the offence. “But let me make myself clear. Continue in this ridiculous charade and the court, not to mention the entire world, will know just how many skeletons your father hides.”

“I had nothing to do with this!” Madeleine interjected.

“Perhaps,” Kiara allowed. “But with your well-known outbursts and the campaign, do you think the world will care?”

“They will if they know what’s good for them. The media—“

“Has grown tired of you,” Kiara finished. “After all, all you’ve ever given them are rumours. Were you ever planning on following the story through? Or did you just expect the media to fawn and fall at your feet like when you were still on top?”

“I—“

Now for my gambit.

“Face it, Madeleine. You’ve lost your crown. Do you really want the whole world to see you lose your dignity and your House?”

Green eyes set in a paper pale face stared at her. And for the first time since meeting her, Kiara had the genuine pleasure of seeing Madeleine speechless.

“And we don’t want that, do we? After all, this would mean the total collapse of House Amaranth. All those centuries of prestige reduced to mere rubble by you.”

“Now see here—“

“I really don’t think you have any bargaining chip left, my lady,” Kiara directed a smile at Madeleine’s direction.

“W-what do you want from me?” Madeleine asked, voice cracking. Her whole body was shaking. A stone statue crumbling before Kiara’s eyes.

“I tire of this courtly game,” Kiara countered. Madeleine flinched. “I think you know exactly what we want, Madeleine. Redact your statements, issue a formal apology and stop your hopeless campaign once and for all.”

“My reputation—“

“Is already in shambles. Imagine what would happen if this got out.”

Kiara stood up, smoothly plucking the folder from Madeleine’s hands.

“My people will be in touch,” she said as she walked out. She paused at the entrance of the balcony. “See? I am doing you a favour.”

She spared a moment to glance at her fallen opponent. Madeleine barely moved, except for a tiny nod. Her head barely moved, but it was enough. She had accepted the deal. Defeat seemed to be settling on the Countess’ shoulders. Kiara whirled around, a smile tugging at her face.

Checkmate.

----

The Royal Palace

Leo strode through one of the palace’s corridors, Agent Mara a step behind. Questions without answers whirled round and round in his head. Why here? Why now? What now? What does she want?

Leo scowled as he entered the lower levels of the palace. Old stone, centuries-old and cool to the touch, replaced the gilt and glamour of the upper levels. Leo repressed a shiver. It was always cool down here, and it will get colder the farther they descend. Harsh fluorescent lights replaced the torches used centuries ago, but they remain along the walls, a reminder of the Palace’s real age. It was older than it looked.

Generations of constant rebuilding had changed the façade of the one above ground. It is only when you get down to the lower levels, to the underbelly, that you remember that the Palace stands where an old medieval keep once stood. There had even been stories, mere fancy really, that Kenna Rys, their mythical ancestor, had once used the old keep as a base during one war or another. Liam’s always the one who paid attention to those.

At the thought of his brother, Leo’s mood turned sombre, more contemplative.

First, we discover Constantine’s secrets, then Liam finds out he has a long-lost son, then this whole business between Drake and Maxwell, I find out fucking Godfrey’s behind Mother’s death and now this? It’s barely been a month!

Another agent greeted them when they reached the end of a corridor. Leo knew from growing up in the palace that they had her inside an interrogation room. Leo could feel his heart beating hard. He rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms on his pants before taking a deep breath and nodding to one of the agents.

They opened the door.

Leo gulped.

He took a tentative step. And then another.

He was standing at the threshold.

Taking another deep breath, he squared his shoulders and stepped inside.

Leo had been told from a young age that he looked like his mother. That the only thing he had inherited from his father was his blue eyes.

Beyond hazy recollections that were carelessly dismissed in favour of more fond memories of Eleanor and baby Liam, Leo had next to no memory of what his birth mother looked like. When he met her again after twenty-odd years, her hair was more grey than blonde, her hazel eyes were surrounded by crows feet that made him wonder if she had been happier during the years she kept away compared to the years she had spent with him and his father. She had constantly looked down when he met her again, all those years ago. Had barely raised neither eyes nor voice when he had proclaimed a dead woman to be the mother he preferred. She had just nodded and asked in a small voice to see the occasional picture of him and the twins. Aside from lukewarm emails and the occasional promised picture, she had stayed away, as she had for most of his life. Leo preferred it that way, if he was being honest with himself.

After meeting with Clara Harper, Leo could see some faint echo, the barest hint of resemblance on their features. Unlike his, no – their — distant cousin, Cordelia held none of the iron spine that defined his—their – relative. If Clara was grace, poise and eloquence, able to command a room, her distant family member was the silent one.

But, Leo conceded, she had been high spirited once. During their father’s social season. She had enough charm and energy once. At least enough to secure her place as Constantine’s bride.

Looking at the woman sitting opposite him, Leo couldn’t help but wonder if Constantine was the reason Cordelia retreated into herself. He won’t be surprised if that was the case.

His birth mother rose from her seat when she saw him enter the room. She was a short woman. The few pictures he saw growing up featured a delicate, petite woman, more doll than human. A perfect accessory for this father to dangle on his arms. Now, she seemed to fold into herself, as if trying to make herself smaller.

“Leo,” she breathed. “You came.” A tentative smile bloomed on her face. There was a touch of relief in the curve of her lips.

“I did,” Leo stepped further into the room. “I wasn’t expecting you’d come here.” Wasn’t expecting you’d want to come back.

“Yes – well, the email you sent me— “she abruptly stopped. Her eyes darted around the room. Wary and watchful. Fearful too, Leo saw with a pang. Damn you, old man.

“It’s fine,” Leo assured her. “We’re safe here.”

“I wouldn’t be sure of that,” she muttered. “Can we talk somewhere more open? I don’t do so well underground.”

“I— “Leo furrowed his eyebrows. Cordelia had no problems underground, nor was she claustrophobic. “All right.”

They ended up on the banks of the little lake, just past the gardens that Eleanor so loved. It somehow felt wrong to take her to the place that Leo had always associated with Eleanor.

The late afternoon sun was on its way to twilight, but there was still enough light that the path lights hadn’t been lit yet.

He glanced at his birth mother. Silence mixed with awkwardness hung in the air between them. He cleared his throat.

“You aren’t really claustrophobic are you?”

She shook her head.

“So… why exactly—“

“I thought it would be safer this way,” she answered in a rush, her voice coming out stronger than it had before.

Suspicion rose within Leo.

“Why?”

“You never know who’s listening,” she said lightly, expression turning pleasant. “Will you walk with me? Just around the lake.”

“Who would want to listen?” Leo asked even as he walked along with her. “We’re at the heart of the palace. That was the safest we can be.”

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

“I — “Leo thought of Kiara’s secretary.

Cordelia nodded, interpreting his expression.

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here though.”

“I thought it would be safer to talk in person. Emails and phone calls can be easily traced.”

“Right,” Leo mumbled. He glanced at Cordelia again. “We –uh – found Edgewater on our own…” he trailed off.

Cordelia smiled, “I know.”

Leo’s eyes narrowed.

“I saw the pictures from the state dinner. It’s been years but I still know how Cousin Clara looked like.”

“Oh.”

“I hope she’s well?”

“Last I saw her, yeah,” Leo looked around. The shadows were getting longer. “She found your diary, by the way.”

Cordelia startled, “She did?”

Leo nodded then added, “Liam and I read it.”

“So… you know.”

“Is that why you came here?”

She hesitated, but she nodded.

“Is that why you left?”

“Among other things.”

“Right.”

“How did he manage it, by the way?”

“Manage what?”

Leo shrugged, “all of it? How did people not know what was happening?”

“Simple,” Cordelia said as she looked up. “Panem et circenses. The people were placated because he provided them with bread and entertainment. Constantine spearheaded casinos, increased the economy, and kept all the bloodstains behind closed doors. That was his greatest genius, really.”

“And no one noticed?”

“He was quick to silence those who did.”

A moment passed. They have reached the other end of the lake now. Cordelia had stopped walking. Leo turned to face her. The afternoon had finally fallen into twilight.

“Speaking of, did you come across the Severus clan when you read it?”

“Is that the one where he ordered a whole line killed?”

“… yes.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“There’s a group that formed right after you were born. They called themselves The Sons of Earth. Have you heard of them?” At the shake of Leo’s head, she continued. “I’m not surprised. They were just starting out when I left.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Cordelia turned and looked Leo in the eye, “because I fear that Constantine’s actions have caught up with us all.”

----

Edgewater the next day

A three-hour flight and an uneasy night spent in London, Hana was finally afforded her first glimpse of Edgewater. Her research into the Countess’ family revealed that the estate had been in their family for almost as long as their line had existed. A part of her relished the chance to visit a historical site with such deep and tangible roots (their collection of art and other artefacts alone would be enormous! Hana felt giddy just thinking about it). Another part was almost jumping up and down in excitement at the thought of seeing her first true friend once more. It was almost enough to drown the small part of her that wonders whether Liam already knew the truth. The presence of Bastien at the entrance did not help soothe her nerves.

The car slowed to a stop. Bastien walked over and opened the car door, offering a hand as he did so. Hana hesitated for a moment, doubts swirling around her mind, before taking Bastien’s hand and stepping out of the car.

One of the staff members must have been waiting on the other side of the doors as it swung open when she had finally righted herself. She could make out a line of staff through the doorway. Her promise to Leo rang in her mind once more.

With one final glance around the lush grounds and the impressive estate (Georgian, she noted with interest), Hana took a deep breath and stepped forward, through the threshold and into Edgewater.

Hana would be the first to admit that she had always viewed Cassandra through rose-tinted lenses. She was Hana’s first true friend, the woman who helped her stand up for herself. Cassie was the adventurous sister she had always wanted. And for a few short months, they had been sisters in all but blood.

Now, four years and a whole other set of separate experiences later, Hana once again meets Cassandra. Her hair’s shorter, Hana thought absently. The face that stared back at her was slightly more mature than the one she remembered. Hana only had the chance to observe those things as Cassandra, who spotted her as soon as she entered, broke into a smile and all but bounded over to give Hana a big hug. Hana hugged her tightly back, a smile blooming on her own face. It was the reunion that she had envisioned all these years.

“Hana! I missed you so much!”

“Oh, Cassie! I missed you too!”

Lucas may look like the spitting image of his father, but Hana can’t help but see the Cassie in him. He was an inquisitive child, bursting with questions and with enough energy to drive Hana dizzy after a time.

He had been a little hesitant when they had finally been introduced. He had been head peeking behind Liam’s legs when Cassie and Hana had reunited (At last! After four long years!) but he had warmed up to her when Cassie introduced her as a dear friend.

“Do you like cookies?” the little boy (the little prince!) asked Hana during a rare moment of silence. He stared at her with Liam’s eyes and with Cassie’s smile. The perfect little blend of her two dearest friends. She thought of the discoveries done in Cordonia, both before and after he arrived in their lives. Her heart went out to this little boy. Your grandfather’s actions have hurt so many. He unknowingly hurt you too…

“I – yes, I like cookies.”

He beamed at her, and Hana returned it with a smile of her own. How could she not?

“Me too!” he held out a chocolate chip cookie with a noticeable bite at its side. “D’you want one?”

Despite the apprehension that took root inside her, Hana let out a laugh.

“I’d like that very much.”

“So you’re telling me—“

Hana nodded. Cassie clapped both hands to her mouth as she gasped.

“Hana!” she squealed.

Hana blushed and quickly hushed Cassandra while she looked around the empty garden.

“But this is huge!” Cassie protested.

“It’s not a big deal,” Hana said softly, almost mumbling.

“But you and Kiara!”

Hana smiled despite herself.

“Oh, you got it bad,” Cassie teased.

Hana suppressed a snort. “Like you’re one to talk.”

Cassie laughed, loud and whole-bodied. Hana’s restraint lasted for one second before she gave in and joined the laughter.

A throat clearing behind them put a stop to their revelry. They both whirled around to see Liam smiling at them both.

“Is he down?” Cassie asked.

“After putting up a good fight, yes.”

Cassie raised her eyebrows, her smile quickly turning into a smirk. “You didn’t bribe him, did you?”

Liam scoffed, his smile turning bigger, “I’ve been schooled in diplomacy since birth, Cassie. I don’t need to resort to bribery just to get my son to take a nap.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow, “uh-huh…”

Now this feels familiar, Hana thought, amused.

“… fine. He will definitely ask to sleep in my room later. I might have promised to build a pillow fort with him.”

Cassie laughed, and Hana couldn’t help but join in. The day was devoid of the heavy clouds one usually associates with London. There was a pleasant breeze, bringing with it the perfume of the blossoms scattered about the garden. Halcyon days, Hana thought with a heavy feeling in her stomach. So rare and so brief. And I might have brought disaster with me…

----

Edgewater, night time

Aunt Clara’s office was bathed in shadows. The moon, barely visible over the top of the trees, did not offer much in the way of illumination. Not tonight, anyway. The fireplace was cold and empty, and only a couple of lamps kept total darkness at bay. Despite the hindrances that the dark might have presented, Cassandra was able to navigate her way through the room.

A few portraits of their ancestors were displayed on the walls; Auntie always liked landscapes better. Cassandra could almost feel the weight of their stares. It made the humid air feel heavier than it should be.

Her eyes landed on the jewels. It had been taken out of the display box for its cleaning. Now they were placed on the desk, in a bed of soft cloth, under the watchful eyes of one Clara Mills-Sinclaire. Her portrait looked nothing like her Aunt Clara, of course, but the way they lifted their chin and stared defiantly at the world echoed each other. Nestled on her ancestor’s head was the same tiara on the desk before her.

Cassie looked down at the jewels once more. Such a small thing, to carry so much history. Cassandra looked up at the portrait again. You didn’t run when the responsibility fell on you. She thought of her son, asleep and snug in his father’s arms. Cassandra wants more nights like that. Her family together. She eyed the jewels again, resolve building itself inside her. I don’t want to run anymore.

With trembling hands, she hesitantly reached for the tiara. Carefully, feeling the weight of her ancestors on her, she lifted the tiara and slowly, delicately placed it on her head. It was lighter than she had expected. Moments passed, and she chanced a look at a nearby mirror. Cassie stared. The tiara had fit her perfectly.

----

Cordonia the next day

Still flush from her victory over Madeleine, Kiara strode through the corridors that led to her office. That’s one obstacle out of the way. Although, I suspect Liam would want a chat with Adelaide…

A glance towards her secretary’s desk told her that Justin, or whatever his name actually is, hasn’t arrived yet. The morning sunlight made the room glow. Outside, the sky was clear, and she had removed a thorn on their side. Things are looking up and Hana’s set to come back with Liam and Lady Cassandra in the evening. Perhaps they will bring their son with them…

With a smile, Kiara opened the door to the office.

She froze.

Leaning over her desk, papers and other state documents in hand, was her secretary. He looked up as she entered, face twisted in a snarl.

For a moment they stood still, surprise making them freeze in place.

Kiara stood still, rooted on the spot, heart thundering in her chest. Justin held her gaze, something dark and sinister in his eyes.

Then time seemed to move once more, faster than it usually is.

Kiara tried to step backwards, perhaps hoping to gain more ground before the predator pounced.

But Justin was faster.

In a flash, he had leapt across the table, scattering papers and other knick-knacks as he did so. Kiara faintly heard a glass scatter on the floor.

Before she could do more than stumble back, Justin was on her.

Something flashed silver before pain erupted on her side. Something heavy collided with her head.

The world seemed to blur. Sound seemed to fade.

The last thing she saw before her face met the floor was a pair of angry dark eyes, and a smile that resembled a snarl.

----

Gatwick Airport, England

The walls were too white. The room was too bright. Liam resisted the urge to pace. A hand on his back made him tense. A whiff of jasmine caught his attention.

Tension bled out of his body. Her arms wrap around him. He could feel her warmth on his back. Her head barely reached his shoulders.

“Breathe, Liam.”

He did as she asked. He’ll always do as she asked.

He gently turned around and wrapped his own arms around her, resting his cheek on the top of her head. For a moment the world seemed to quiet down.

“Better?”

Liam leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Cassandra’s lips.

“Much.”

They both looked up as the PA announced their flight was ready. Reluctantly, they untangled themselves from each other. Liam scooped up his son’s sleepy form from one of the lounge chairs. His movement caused Hana to wake up from the nap Cassie suggested. He glanced around the private lounge. All their bags were already on the royal jet.

His eyes landed on Cassandra. He saw her spare one last look through the lounge’s window, a faraway look in her eyes. She pocketed her phone, grasped her trusty messenger bag (the one she had since before they met) and took a deep breath.

Liam crossed the distance between them and reached for her hand. She took it and laced their fingers together.

With one hand holding the love of his life and the other supporting his sleeping son, Liam walked towards the boarding gates.

----

The Dowager Queen

The setting sun caused shadows to stretch across the tarmac. Inside the tinted limousine, the Queen Mother heaved a sigh. The day had been taken a turn that none of them had expected. At least Liam’s finally coming back.

To be honest, Regina was a bit hurt that Liam had not deigned to inform her he was travelling out of the country or the reason behind it. Even an informal email would have done. Or any form of message really, however impersonal it may have looked. She was probably the last person to find out he had gone. I can’t say I can fault him for that. Not after years of passive non-action from my end.

But still…

Regina firmly reigned her thoughts in. She will take what she can salvage from their relationship. After all, she got along with Liam better than she did with Leo. She already made the mistake of being cold towards Katie when they first met and that resulted in her not meeting her grandchildren when they were born. She won’t make the same mistake this time.

But then again, it helps that Liam chose a more competent lady than Leo, circumstances aside. Lady Cassandra could have done well in court, had she stayed all those years ago. Had Constantine not let his paranoia rule him.

No matter. I’ll gladly welcome Liam’s long-lost son and his lady love. It’s the least she can do, really. Besides, Regina liked the idea of more grandchildren. Thank goodness Leo was more flexible in that matter. She had thoroughly enjoyed spending time with his twin daughters.

Regina smiled. Such precocious children! She had already made plans to introduce darling Sabrina to Joelle. Such talent should be encouraged and fostered. And from what she and her staff had gathered from the English Ambassador, Liam’s son – Lucas — was also a bright boy. Regina looks forward to meeting him in person this time.

The shadows lengthened as the sun sunk lower. The royal jet should be near now. Shadows and the twilight had always reminded her of her late husband. Shadows especially.

Oh Connie, so much has been lost because you were afraid. We could have seen our grandchildren grow up together. Your son would have had more time with his own son.

Four years ago

Constantine had been more stubborn than usual. It was so unlike him to get worked up on courtly intrigue, since he usually left such things under her purview.

“But the media’s focused on the engagement right now. I don’t see any harm in letting her come back. It was a misunderstanding at most. I’ll even take her under my wing—“

“No.”

“But Liam—“

“Would be better off if he focused on his own engagement tour. Bringing her back would only distract him.”

She looked at her husband in astonishment, “have you seen how he is right now? Constantine, your son is falling apart! Bringing Lady Cassandra back would do him good. It’s not as if they can change the engagement now—“

Constantine slammed his fist on the desk. Regina jumped, then froze. His eyes were cold with a fury that she had only heard of years ago. Fear churned inside her.

“I said no, Regina! And that is final!”

She had not tried to change his mind since. Not even when she saw how Liam struggled with juggling the crown and his own heartache. And while a part of her felt reassured that Madeleine was chosen as queen once more, it is becoming quickly overshadowed by concern as she watched cracks appear on Liam’s mask. She had tried to offer whatever comfort Liam would accept from her. It helped salvage her relationship with her stepson.

It did not help her relationship with her husband on the other hand.

But she dared not oppose Constantine too much. She knew the fate of his previous wives all too well. And she won’t be any help to Liam or to anybody if she joined that exclusive club. She knew what she married, after all. Or at least some part of it. She dared not look further, dared not put a toe out of line. Scared to peer into the shadow and see what lurked within.

The approaching jet snapped Regina from her musing. She smiled. As the jet landed, and the doors opened and she stepped out of the car, Regina resolves that she’ll do better this time. After all, this is a chance she dared not waste.

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miss-spooky-eyes · 4 years

Text

disarm me with a smile (or: Time to give Aric Jorgan an Aric Jorgasm)

So it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything and I had what you might call a very specific scenario in mind involving Aric Jorgan I wanted to write, but no suitable Trooper.

Then @sunsetofdoom very generously allowed me to borrow her Jerin, who turned out to be just what I needed and is, believe me, exactly what you need too (although you might not know it from this).

It also turned out to be Sunset’s birthday, so I really, really wanted to do a good job with her girl in order to pay tribute to Sunset, who in addition to being ridiculously talented is also unfailingly generous and magnificently filthy, a rare combination in these degenerate days, I don’t make the rules.

Happy belated birthday Sunset! and check out her Jerin content and, fuck, all her content if you haven’t already, and if you haven’t, are you even alive? no.

disarm me with a smile (Aric Jorgan/female Republic Trooper)

Jorgan just wants to get his paperwork finished, but as always when his CO has something else on her mind, there’s nothing for him to do but go down fighting

(No reports were completed during the making of this story.)

WARNINGS: filth; handjobs; ears; much fondling of ears; really an impossible amount of ear action; half-baked alien biology; femdom; risk of discovery

' - revealed an accuracy rating of 89.7%, a 0.6 improvement on last artillery exercise conducted on Tatooine (see report HV/AE/74-J). Subsequent to target elimination, squad was deployed in standard search formation covering a radius of -'

'You still at that?'

Jorgan slumped back in his chair as the words he'd painstakingly lined up in his head to complete the sentence broke ranks and dived for cover. One thing he hadn't missed about being an officer was the paperwork. 'Last one.'

He heard the slapping of her flimsy plastic sandals against the soles of her feet as she approached him, not that he needed that to tell him she'd just returned from the refresher; the smell of the ship's regulation-issue cleaning products and the herb-scented skin lotion she'd got on Alderaan had filled the air before she even stepped through the doorway. As she drew closer, he smelled clean skin, wet hair. 'Long shower,' he noted.

'CO's privilege.' She stopped behind him, and he felt the slightest vibration through the metal as she rested her fingertips on the chair back. 'Long report.'

'XO's privilege,' Aric returned dryly. He deliberately didn't turn to look at her; he knew what she usually wore when she got out of the shower - sweatpants and a sleeveless undershirt - and nothing about the sight of all that glistening green skin was going to help him finish these reports. 'You need the room?'

'Nah, you're good.' The CO's quarters came complete with a tiny antechamber designed to be used as an office, complete with chair, desk and wall-mounted terminal, all of which was generally wasted on Jerin, who preferred to write what passed for her reports on a datapad while lying on her back on the couch in the common area, long legs extended up the wall. Jorgan, on the other hand, found a stack of paperwork a nearly impossible proposition without a desk and a terminal equipped with a proper keypad, so he used the captain's office by permission; a working arrangement. One of many. 'You finish up.'

Despite her words, she didn't move away from the chair; her proximity was as difficult to ignore as the cloud of her fresh-from-the-refresher scent that still surrounded them both. Jorgan leaned forward, clearing his throat, and checked his notes.

'- 3 klicks from initial contact. Grid blocks 1-3 were covered in an average of 14 minutes, 36 seconds per block, dropping to 11 minutes 17 as terrain -'

'Kriff, you're thorough.' Jerin sounded amused, and the chair shifted slightly, as if she was now leaning on the back to look over his shoulder. 'Sure you don't want to include the ambient temperature? The phases of the moon?'

Interrupted, Aric lifted his fingers from the keyboard and glared at the terminal screen, in which he could faintly see Jerin's reflection. 'Problem with my reports, sir?'

'No, no problem.' The tone of her voice clearly hinted at an imminent 'but' and Aric waited, but after several seconds went by and she didn't speak, he figured she must have thought better of it and reached for the keyboard again -

'I'm just saying it was a routine training exercise, not the first three Xanitian Wars.'

Aric flexed his fingers, which hadn't quite touched the keys. 'So I should follow your example? What did your report to Garza after Tatooine say? "They died, we didn't. Best wishes, Captain Porter"?'

He saw a flicker of movement reflected in the terminal screen as she laughed. 'Garza said it was my best report ever.'

Mainly because Dorne wrote the one that actually got sent, and every one after that. Aric sighed. 'You going to stand there all night?'

He felt the chair shift slightly as she shrugged. 'Depends.'

'On?'

'On how long it takes you to finish your magnum opus.'

'Why? There something you want me to do afterwards?' Sufficiently distracted to turn away from the screen and twist to look back at her, Aric realised a split second later he'd done exactly what she was hoping he would, because she was smirking down at him in a very particular way, and the picture she made - bare arms braced on the back of the chair in a way that not so subtly highlighted her muscles, freshly-lotioned green skin gleaming like satin, wet hair slicked back and shining - was -

... was ...

.... was not conducive to finishing a report on Havoc Squad training exercises.

She shrugged, and he didn't need Cathar vision to notice the way her chest moved underneath that thin undershirt when she did. 'Play your cards right, Lieutenant,' she said, and the tone of her voice told Aric clearly that this battle was already lost, and the only thing left was to fight a valiant rearguard action and hope to go down with honour.

He had to swallow twice before he could say, 'Door's open.'

She didn't even glance back. 'Nobody's out there.'

There might be nobody in the common area now - for once - but anybody could wander in at any moment, could hear a noise from the captain's office, could walk curiously to the open door and see ... 'We shouldn't,' he mumbled, lowering his gaze, realizing as he said it that he sounded like some cornered ingenue in a holodrama.

'Shouldn't what?' She leaned down, resting her elbows on the back of her chair, her face just inches from his, and raised her eyebrows. 'There something you're planning to do to me, Lieutenant?'

That did it; he felt the heat, the tingle ... He turned back hastily to face the terminal, trying to hide it, although he knew it was a futile gesture.

It was; he heard her crow with delighted laughter, and saw the movement reflected in the terminal screen as she raised a hand to muffle it. 'Why, Lieutenant,' she said, lowering her hand to her chest in fake shock. 'Did I do that? Is that for me?'

He tried not to squirm in the narrow chair, tried to resist the impulse to hunch over and attempt to hide it. 'You know it is,' he growled.

'Oh, don't be shy.' He felt her fingertips graze the back of his neck, drifting upwards ... 'You know I love to see them wiggle.'

The tingling intensified, and Aric jerked irritably at her touch. Damn the woman! He'd served with COs, with entire squads who never found out what Cathar ears did when their owners got embarrassed. But two days on the same ship with this Coruscant back-slum loud-mouth and she'd spotted it ... and never forgotten about it.

It was ridiculous. He'd long ago gotten used to the idea that non-furred humanoids like humans and Mirialans had a tendency to find the physiology of furred species like his own ... intriguing; that they had a regrettable habit of finding perfectly normal behaviours and responses cute, even of comparing them to those exhibited by their domesticated animals. On the whole, he thought Cathar came off better than Bothans and Wookies, and anybody who had ever made jokes in his presence about scratching posts and hairballs had quickly seen, or rather been shown, the error of their ways.

But if Jerin was better at something than noticing things you'd rather she didn't, it was making you like her so much you didn't mind. She disarmed people as easily as she did bombs.

Even Garza. Even Fuse. Even Dorne.

Her fingertips were still just touching the back of his neck, just below the base of his skull, just resting there as if she'd forgotten about them.

Even him.

He could still feel her delighted gaze on his twitching ears. He sat up straight, resisting the urge to tilt his head and brush each ear against his shoulder to stop the tingling. Personally he didn't see what the big deal was; at least ears that wriggled slightly as a social signifier were subtle, not like furless faces that bloomed with blood. He cleared his throat in what he hoped was a dignified fashion. 'I'd better finish this report.'

'Mmmm, yeah, you'd better.' She was still leaning on her elbows on the back of the chair, a casual pose; anyone who looked in through the doorway would think that she was just reading the terminal screen over his shoulder, perhaps offering him some constructive advice on his report, like a good CO.

Anyone who looked in through the doorway wouldn't see the fingers still positioned at the back of his neck, the tips just grazing the fur as he breathed.

'Wouldn't want to waste the whole night on it, after all,' she added.

Concentrate. Aric squared his shoulders, extended his arms, positioned his own fingers above the keyboard.

'- terrain became smoother -'

'Smoother' was a dangerous word right now; he highlighted and deleted.

'- more easily navigable by patrols on foot.'

Garza, or whoever would be reading this, knew that they would have been on foot.

He was almost sure that Jerin's fingertips were higher up his neck than they had been before.

He highlighted and deleted.

'- as terrain became less rocky. After approximately forty-nine minutes, squad Besh -'

'You sure it was forty-nine? Not forty-eight? Not fifty-one?' Jerin punctuated each number with a touch, her index and middle fingers walking slowly across his neck towards his right ear. 'Did we synchronise chronometers?'

'We did.' He cleared his throat again, trying unsuccessfully to smooth the roughness from it as her fingers continued their deliberate progress. 'I covered that already.'

'You did? Where?' She straightened up, leaning further over the back of the chair to see the monitor screen better, and the curve of her breast not-so-accidentally grazed his cheek, and he knew that she could feel his pulse jump through his fur where her fingertips had come to rest just below his ear.

'Right there,' he said, working to keep his tone even. He pointed at the relevant words on the screen.

'My mistake.' She leaned back, with another oh-so-accidental brush of her breast against his neck. 'Carry on, soldier.'

Right. Reports. Training exercises. Aric blinked and refocused on the screen, trying to remember what he'd been going to write.

'- squad Besh reported signs of enemy passage, bearing 213.75 degrees.'

Her fingers were still resting just below his ear, behind the angle of his jaw, drifting in the tiniest of circles over the tips of his fur as they both breathed.

'Squad Aurek, designated C&C for this exercise, analysed topographical data and recomended -'

'You missed an "m" there,' Jerin pointed out, bringing her hand up to point at the screen.

The backs of her fingers just brushed the rim of his ear as she did so, and he jolted in his chair, twisting involuntarily to look back and up at her.

She met his glare with eyes of melting innocence. 'Something wrong?'

For a second, he let himself picture himself reaching up, grabbing a handful of her undershirt and twisting to pull her down to his level, a kiss so hard they'd both break away gasping for breath; the darkening skin on her face and neck as the blood started to pound, her lips swollen, eyes bright ...

He'd be damned if he let her win that easily. 'No, sir.' He turned back to face the terminal.

'Better carry on with your report then, Lieutenant.' Her hands brushed lightly along both of his shoulders, idly picking off a piece of lint here, deftly adjusting his collar there. 'We don't have all night.'

He squared his jaw and reached for the keyboard again.

Her hands rested softly one on each shoulder, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin material of his shirt. 'Or maybe we do.'

Aric highlighted, deleted, typed: '- recommended both squads circle round to intercept the enemy on their projected path -'

A finger trailed up the right side of his neck.

'- at canyon mouth designated Choke Point One -'

Despite himself, his fingers faltered on the keys as the questing finger approached the place where it had rested before, and he breathed in as it trailed towards his ear. But it swerved away before it reached the lobe, instead continuing on its slow path upwards, following the curve of his ear without touching it, up and over and down towards his cheek.

'- located at coordinates -'

The fingertip reversed its course, following the same path back, the softest skim against his fur as she traced the shape of his ear without touching it. All the way back down to just below the lobe and then up again.

Coordinates. He had them written down. In his notes. Somewhere. He reached blindly for his datapad.

As Jerin's finger trailed up and down, it left a line of tingling warmth in its wake, and his ear ... She hadn't even touched his ear and already it was warm, throbbing in a distant yet urgent tandem with the beating of his heart.

The problem, he thought dizzily as he paged unseeing through his notes, was evolution. Cathar ears didn't just signal embarrassment; they registered and communicated all different types of emotions and social cues. Much of what humans and many other humanoids communicated through their mouths - smiles, frowns, smirks, winces - was in a Cathar visible instead in tiny shifts and motions to which other species tended to be oblivious. And all of that subtle movement required many, many tiny muscles ... a tracery of many, many infinitesimal blood vessels to fill and throb ... hundreds upon thousands of nerve endings.

Well, that was one problem. The other was that the woman standing behind him was pure evil.

She would have to touch his ear soon, if only by accident. She would have to ...

Then he felt the lightest stroke across the lobe of his other ear, and jerked, caught completely off guard. The datapad clattered to the desk.

Pure. Damn. Evil.

'Better pick that up,' she suggested helpfully, her fingertip stroking across his earlobe again.

Automatically, with fingers that felt like they no longer belonged to him, he picked up the datapad again.

'You were looking up coordinates,' she prompted him.

Coordinates. He made an effort, focused, resolving the blur of shapes to green text on a black background. Numbers. He was looking for numbers.

Then both those fingertips stroked as one up the outside of both ears, and everything blurred again.

'Lieutenant?'

They followed the curves and indentations up to the point of his ears, and then down.

'Seems like you've stopped writing, Lieutenant.'

And then they slipped as one just half a centimeter inside, and started to climb again, this time tracing the inner surface of that soft ridge, up and over and down again.

He arched in his chair as she stroked him, the lightest, most abominably teasing brush of skin against fur, and the thought that came to mind was: It wasn't fair. It really, truly wasn't right that a woman of her size and strength, who threw punches the way other people threw grenades, should have hands like this.

Bomb-defusing hands. That's where this all started; that grimy Port Raga hellhole, the senator whining in his chair, the air thick with sirens and smoke and Jerin's hands, disconnecting sensors, rewiring gauges, as if there was all the time in the world. He'd watched, mesmerised, as she delicately picked apart the instruments of fiery death, and despite being one touch too heavy or too lingering away from the kind of pointless end he'd always hoped against hope he would avoid, all he could think about was those same fingers, grease-blackened, smelling of acrid smoke, on him.

After that it had been just a matter of time before she found him in the armoury one day and gave him what no shame could stop him from wanting, peeling away his armour piece by piece until she could run her hands all over his bare torso, touching and caressing him until he was panting, open-mouthed, then spinning him around and pinning him to the wall, grinding her hips against his from behind with such unmistakable promise that he came just like that, came inside his pants, without her ever even laying a finger on him below the waist.

'You'll never make captain at this rate, Lieutenant.'

She was using her thumbs now, a delicate pressure against the back of his earlobes as those fingers stroked again and again around the rim of his ear, each time lingering a little longer, straying a little further towards the inner folds and ridges.

Because she knew, knew what nobody else had ever looked at him and seen, what he'd rather die than let Dorne or Vik or any of the rest of them see; that day in, day out, he wore thirty-five kilos of reinforced durasteel, and underneath it what he really wanted was to be ... touched. Not to fuck, or even to be fucked, although both had their place. To be touched. Caressed. Stroked.

Petted.

Fingertips were circling the inner ridges of his ears now. He arched again, pressing his head back against her, no longer caring if she saw how much she was affecting him. She'd known from the beginning. From before the start.

The chair legs squealed on the floor, metal against metal, as he nudged it backwards, away from the desk. Creating space, so she could reach down and ...

Not that she would, unless and until he asked for it.

'Giving up already?' The question was a taunt, breathed out against one ear, stirring the fine hairs inside. Aric shuddered, fingers flexing and kneading at empty air, as he felt her move behind him to whisper the next question across the burning membranes of the other ear. 'On your reports, that is?'

The wet flick of her tongue across his earlobe.

'What happened to being thorough, Lieutenant?'

The softest tug of teeth.

'Unless there's something you care about more?'

His hand twitched involuntarily up towards hers before he could stop it. Her laugh stirred every strand of fur across his ear, made them sing.

'Better undo those pants before you make a mess of them.

Fumbling with numb fingers, he unfastened, yanked his pants open, hissing underneath his breath as his dick sprang free, hard and twitching and exposed.

She switched sides again, fondling fingers replacing lips and breath on his right ear, tongue snaking up and around and into his right.

Aric's dick throbbed, a pulse so powerful it was almost painful. His hand twitched upwards again -

Footsteps.

They froze as one, listening.

Someone was walking into the common area; Yuun or Dorne, he thought, or maybe even Vik; the big Weequay moved with a softness that belied his size, and it was hard to tell through the pounding of blood in his tortured ears.

The door was open. He tried to think, through the throbbing and the pounding and the tickle of breath stirring the fur on his ear. If whoever it was was just passing through the common area to get from one side of the ship to the other, they would have no reason to look through the open doorway, or at least would only take a casual glance that would reveal little but the captain's back.

If they were there to grab a snack, though, or to slump in the seating area that was just outside the door ...

He might be the one with his dick out, but she had more to lose, they both understood that; a blind eye might be turned to a CO sleeping with their subordinate as long as a certain level of discretion was observed, but this would hardly be considered discreet by any standards, let alone General Garza's. If whoever was out there saw. If they chose to report.

Even if they didn't report ... they'd know.

The footsteps grew a little louder, paused, as if whoever it was had stopped by the battered table, maybe to inspect a datapad left lying there, trying to decide whether the latest holodrama was worth sitting down and watching.

She was the CO. She would be the one to lose her command. And yet this was part of the equation for her, in a way he didn't quite understand. The open door was for her, not him; he felt no thrill from the possibility of discovery; there was nothing more likely to make his hard-on shrivel up and disappear than the thought of Tanno Vik, for example, knowing anything, ever, about what he and the captain did.

Jerin, though. He didn't understand why, but he understood that she was playing with the fears at the ragged fringe of her existence, playing with the possibility of it all unravelling, as much as she was playing with him.

Pathetically, that knowledge almost made him jealous.

Pressed together like this, his head flush against her chest, he could almost feel her heart beating, hear her trying not to breathe. He listened with her to the soft thunk as whoever it was put something down on the table, listened to the noises as they walked across the common area to the door on the other side, listened to the footsteps receding down the hall until they died away.

The captain let out the breath she'd been holding, and he could almost swear he felt each individual strand of fur shiver as it passed.

'Where were we?' The whisper was hot against the nape of his neck as she moved her head back from his left side to his right. He felt her lips fasten delicately around the crest of his ear, forming a tight, wet seal, and the touch of her tongue as it toyed with the pointed tip.

Damn dignity, kriff going down fighting, he couldn't take it any more. His hand seized hers and wrenched it downwards.

The softness of her breasts surrounded his head and neck as his grip on her hand yanked her forward, but neither they nor the drumming of the blood in his ears could muffle the little satisfied snicker she gave as he slapped her hand against his shaft and wrapped their fingers around it.

One thing he could say for his captain; she was merciful, once the conquest was complete. He let his hand fall away as hers began to move, firm strokes, her grip hot and hard and a little too dry, smoothing his fur on the downstroke only to rough it up once more. He'd given in, accepted defeat, and now all he had to do was wait in blind, throbbing anticipation for her to end it. He turned his head, nuzzling into her breasts, reaching back blindly for a handful of ass, thigh, anything he could dig his fingers into and squeeze as she worked him, worked him, worked him.

Jerin shifted her weight, brought her other hand around, enfolding him more tightly as she took hold of him with both hands, one circling tightly at the base of his shaft while the other twisted and stroked near the head. That's all it took, a few breathless, straining seconds of her hands on him and then everything that had been gathering in him ignited in white fire and he found himself thrusting wildly, desperately, as best as he could up into her fist.

She knew to release her grip on his shaft as the barbs sprang up, the teeth that were supposed to lock him into place within his mate until he was done spilling his seed, and her freed hand came up to stroke his face, cradling it against her breast as her other hand coaxed everything from him, circling and twisting to catch the pearly strands until he was spent, left trembling and boneless and clinging against her.

She stroked his face gently, murmuring things he registered only as waves of tenderness breaking against his twitching ears, as she brought her hand up in front of his face, his cum striping her green skin.

And without needing to be told, Aric bent his head to her hand and began to lick it clean, a purr rising from deep within his chest.

#swtor #fic #I wrote a thing #aric jorgan is also here #aric jorgan #sergeant grumpy cat #earogenous zones #I'm sorry

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ridiculousravenclaw · 4 years

Text

The life of Elara Ware - chapter 3

So, funny story. I accidentally shut myself out of this account when I forgot my damn password. Then there was this pandemic and being technically a key worker, that was stress. Then I just started writing other stuff. So yeah, I kinda left this behind, which was a shame because I had a lot planned for it. But anyway here's chapter 3 as I wrote it ages ago and who knows, maybe I'll keep going. FYI I could not be bothered to go back and check it so theres almost definitely a spelling mistake or some grammatical errors. Sorry about it.

The next few days at The Burrow passed far too quickly for Elaras liking. It could be hectic at times with so many of them in one house. A fact Mrs Weasley continuously apologised for. But Elara, so used to being alone, loved the business of life at the Weasleys. She had missed George more than she thought she could. They relished in the time they spent together and, when they were sure no one was around to see, stole as many kisses as they could. With so many of them in the house though the later was practically impossible and more than once their embrace had been broken up my someone walking suddenly into the room. Ron couldn't look Elara in the eye for days after he walked in to find a particularly passionate scene. In fairness it was actually his room.

The fullness of the house had at least meant that they could stage 4 a side quidditch matches in the garden with the Weasleys and Harry. Hermione preferred to watch. When they weren't doing that Elara found she enjoyed chatting with Ginny, who to Elaras great surprise was not as girly or shy as she thought she was. Or talking with the eldest 2 Weasley boys; neither of whom she'd met before and had a number of interesting tales about the twins growing up. Then there was Harry, Ron and Hermione. They were a bit of an unlikely trio and Elara was convinced Ron fancied Hermione, but nether the less they were obviously good friends and Elara enjoyed spending time with them. Especially Harry. She'd always really liked Harry Potter, he didn't want the pitty the world gave him, he just wanted a normal life. Elara found she really respected that. The only person in the house Elara found she clashed with was Percy. Though she got the impression that it wasn't just her he had that affect on. For lack of a better word, Percy was a bit of a snob. Thankfully she rarely saw him as he spent most days at work and often chose to stay late most nights.

It was the last day of the holidays and they were all sat in the living room except for Mr Weasley who still wasn't back from work. Elara had parked herself on the furthest seat from her boyfriend and his twin. There was 2 reasons for this. First it meant she didnt have to resist the temptation of his soft lips whilst everyone was here to see. Secondly it made it far easier to feign ignorance to what the pair were currently doing. As they sat huddled together, talking in hushed whispers. She wasnt entirely sure what they were up to but it was almost certainly to do with Weasleys Wizard Wheezes, something Mrs Weasley highly disapproved of. As she sat alone she found her mind wondering and without meaning to found herself going over the dream she'd had the night before. She couldn't explain why but it had been bothering her all day. It wasn't a scary dream or in anyway disturbing. But Elara found herself shaken up by it none the less. Especially as she was almost certain she'd had that exact dream before.

In the dream Elara was walking through the woods at night. The only respite from the dark provided by the moon as its faint light battled through the thick branche above. She's looking for something but what it is or where she should look remains a mystery. Still she keeps going. Undeterred as the trees and undergrowth becomes denser and more wild. Then all of a sudden she sees a shape moving through the shadows. It slides slowly through the trees towards her until it stops in a clearing ahead. Bathing in the moonlight is a great white fox. Larger than any fox had the right to be and more majestic than any she'd seen. Its pure white coat shining brightly as though lighting up from within. Elara feels a pang of familiarity deep in her heart as she looks into its eyes. She doesn't run or scream. She knows she's safe. The white fox is here to help her, like a mother looking out for her cub. Its gaze is mesmerising and Elara could read the message in its eyes. 'follow me. I'll show you where it is'

"hey! daydreamer! wake up!" Elara was suddenly pulled out of her thoughts to find the whole room staring at her. She shakes herself mentally, uncomfortable by the sudden attention on her.

"sorry" she said trying to laugh it off dismissively "miles away"

"whatcha thin huh in abou?" asked Ron mid yawn. Elara sighed

"that out of all Georges siblings I like you the least" she said dryly

"really?"

"no" she says with a smile, earning a few laughs. Ron a few seconds behind the others before he got the joke.

Suddenly his face changed

"woah!" he said, staring at Elara in amazement.

"what?" Elara said. she suddenly felt a bit self conscious.

"your eyes are different colours!"

"oh" She giggled breathing a sigh of relief. "you've just noticed? really? how long have I known you?"

Everyone was laughing again

"what. have they always been like that?"

"yes!" everyone else said in chorus.

"Since I was a baby Ron. what did you think I did it deliberately? I got bored one day and coloured one in with a sharpie?"

Ron made a face somewhere between confusion and embarrassment.

"what's a sharpie?" Ah, Elara thought. muggle reference, complete miss.

" Well we all know ickle Ronnie kins is a complete idiot at the best of times. "Said George as he crossed the room and squeezed on the armchair next to Elara before pulling her onto his lap.

"what is a sharpie?" he added to her at a whisper. Elara smiled and shook her head dismissively. The rest of the room going back to their individual conversations.

"muggle stuff" she answered

"Ah. well then whatever you do, dont mention it in front of dad. he'll get all excited and interrogate you again." George said as he started rubbing small circles onto her hip with his thumb. Elara couldn't help but smile at the gesture.

"oh stop it hes not that bad. " She said rolling her eyes.

"yes he is, remember when you mentioned the cinema?" Elara laughed. She did remember that. It had taken her the best part of an hour to explain the concept to Mr Weasley.

"Anyway. Don't be so mean to your brother, as I recall it took you months to bloody notice." George looked blank for a moment.

"notice what?" he asked

"my eyes!"

"oh" he remarked, realisation dawning.

"it wasnt months was it? maybe a few weeks" Elara was giggling now, enjoying the slight embarrassment creeping into George's cheeks.

"nope definitely months. it was around Christmas time. remember? you thought I'd done it with magic to be all christmassy. Though how that's a christmassy thing to do I dont know."

"oh. yeah. well... that's only cause I'm not a weird person who stares at pretty girls eyes" George said, mockingly batting his eyelids at her. Elara grinned fondly at him, then leaned forward and left a light peck on his lips.

"Yeah you are."

"a couple of months is good for him" Fred said " George didn't realise we were identical until we were 7" Elara started slightly having not realised Fred had come over. He was sat on the floor next Charlie looking amused.

"in fairness that's not so obvious as I have always been way better looking than you." George retorted quickly.

Both twins sniggered and Elara noted that even their laughter was the same.

"did we mention he's delusional? sure you want him El?" Fred said

"Oh someone sounds jealous to me. Don't worry Fred I'm sure we can find a girl to take pity and go out with you"

Elara could tell this verbal tennis wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

" *cough* testosterone *cough* "

"oh look your fathers coming" Mrs Weasley suddenly announced getting everyones attention. Sure enough the hand on the grand father clock which bore mr Weasleys likeness had moved and now pointed at travelling. Then it moved once more settleing with the other hands on home. At the same time the door opened and Mr Weasleys voice could be heard from the kitchen. Mrs Weasley scuttled out to greet him. With the others distracted by this Elara inexplicably found her mind once again wondering back to her dream and the White Fox. Its magnetic familiar eyes drawing her in.

"you okay?" George said quietly. Wrapping his arms around Elara protectively and pulling her back to the present.

"yeah of course" She said trying to sound as casual as possible. George wasnt convinced. He knew her far too well and having shared it with him that morning knew what she was thinking about.

"It was just a dream you know El. I know it was a bit freaky. But it cant hurt you" he said, squeezing her arm reassuringly. That's just the thing, she thought, it wasn't scary to me. But she smiled at him appreciatively.

"I know"

#fanfic #george weasley #georgeweasleysgf #gryffindor #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #the weasleys #fred weasley #mr weasley #mrs weasley #weasley wizard wheezes #ron weasley #hermione granger #elara ware #hogwarts #amateurhour

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hotchley · 3 years

Text

so why can’t you see (you belong with... each other?)

@whoreforthebauteam I don’t know if you want to be tagged in every chapter, but it was your present, so I am, I hope that’s okay!!

I take back what I said last time, this is my favourite scenario.

This is stupid, wildly inaccurate, probably an insult to every dance teacher that has ever walked the planet and also... just really stupid. But I had fun writing it, it’s almost 11:30pm, I’m tired and yeah.

We’re going with it. Ignore any errors and lack of continuity, I wrote most of this whilst fasting and literally just wanted to get it done so I can work on mr scratch

Erm, updates will probably be even worse after this because I have exams coming up and the next thing is completely... I don’t have any ideas, but yeah- just a heads up

previously: part one , part two , part three

read on ao3!

Chapter Four: Attempt Three- Penelope Garcia

Penelope Garcia loved love, in every single one of its forms. Her unfailing belief in love and its goodness was one of the things that defined who she was. It let her look at screens filled with horrors and was one of the biggest reasons for her to smile.

She loved the romantic love she had for Marissa. She loved the way Derek looked at Spencer when he thought nobody was watching him. She loved the platonic love JJ had for Hotch, and the way she would slip him chocolates when he seemed more pale than usual. She loved the love of a father Aaron had for Spencer, even though neither had experienced it properly.

She loved the ways in which people found love, and how they clung to it. She loved the way it made people smile and the things they were willing to do for it.

Which was why breaking up with Kevin had been the best decision about love she ever made. Because Kevin did not love her in the way that she deserved. And when she walked away from him one last time, she had felt relieved. Not sad, or angry. Relieved.

JJ and Emily had been ecstatic when she'd turned up at their apartment with a bottle of wine. They hadn't liked Kevin much, they thought he was a bit dodgy and not worth her time, but because she had seemed happy and it was easy to keep an eye on him to make sure he wasn't being a creep, they'd refrained from saying anything too obvious.

That same evening, she had phoned Derek and Spencer, who also then dropped their plans and they ended up having an impromptu party on a work night because she was finally free of Kevin and his existence.

When they turned up the next day, slightly hungover, Hotch had seemed like a disapproving parent- they'd exited the elevator with groans and complaints, Penelope massaging her forehead- and immediately gone silent when they realised he was standing there, holding a file, scowl looking slightly harsher than usual.

"It's lovely of you to join us. In the future, if you're going to be running three hours late, please inform either me or Rossi. Hell, tell Strauss. We've had people trying to track you down for the past hour and a half. Poor Anderson looked like he was going to resign from the FBI, and his face is never going to be the same after the frown lines you gave him," he had said, voice completely even.

"Hotch we're really sorry, we genuinely did not mean to cause such a big problem-" JJ had started, the first to recover.

He gave them one of his small, secretive smiles that seemed to light up his entire face and soften his eyes. "I'm joking. Everyone's fine. But seriously, please do tell us, we were beginning to worry. Is everyone okay though? It's not like you five to all be late on the same day."

Spencer looked between Penelope and Emily, who were smirking at each other, whilst JJ and Derek sighed but glared at the two mischief causers, warning them to not give away too much.

"I broke up with Kevin," Penelope blurted out.

Hotch's smile faded, and a look of concern settled over his features. "Oh, Penelope. Are you okay? Do you need some time off? You have lots of leave, I can clear it now if you'd like me to, there's no problem."

She started laughing. "Sir, we were having a party. I was never fully happy with him and breaking up with him was like- it was like coming into the office after a very annoying person was stuck with me during a case and finding that my handsome Unit Chief has sent me flowers."

Hotch seemed secretly proud that Penelope had broken up with Kevin because he had also never been a big fan of him, a fact that he had never really kept secret. When she mentioned the flowers he had sent her, many years ago, his jaw dropped.

"You never-"

"I wanted to let you think I didn't know. Now, shall we go?"

"Of course. Dave will probably want to hear about your reactions to my speech." When he saw how shocked they all looked, he continued. "It wasn't my idea!"

And Kevin had been completely forgotten by all of them.

Three months later, Penelope had met Marissa. As cliche as it was, they met a coffee shop. Their orders had been mixed up- she'd ended up with a flat white instead of the new toffee flavoured latte she had wanted to try- and neither had realised until it was too late.

When she'd gone back the next day, the barista had handed her a coffee without her even placing an order. She'd tried to tell them that she hadn't asked for it, but they had simply smiled at her, then pointed at Marissa, who had waved her over. Said that she wasn't a big fan of toffee, but she thought the pretty woman's boldness was something she wanted to be too, and if Penelope was willing to go on a walk with her.

One thing led to another, and a month later, they were officially dating. Penelope had never been happier in a relationship. Marissa's sarcasm and dry sense of humour balanced out her brightness and inappropriate jokes, but it wasn't just that made them compatible. It was everything else too. They just fit. And when Penelope stared into her eyes, still so mesmerised by them almost seven months later, she could see a future that would've never been able to have with Kevin.

Marissa was a dance teacher. Primarily contemporary and ballet, but she was thinking about branching into ballroom dancing, and it was exactly that fact that sparked Penelope's idea. Her original idea had involved flash mobs and individual confessions of love, but she also wanted to respect that Hotch enjoyed his privacy. And that he didn't like a fuss to be made of him, ever, even when it really was needed.

She didn't tell the others that she was planning anything, otherwise they would've started asking and it was such a good idea that she just wouldn't have been able to keep the knowledge to herself. It wasn't anything bad, she just didn't want to tell them and have it fall through because Marissa wasn't able or comfortable with doing it.

It was date night when her plan began. She had taken Marissa ice-skating, which had been an incredible experience and something that always made her feel like she was flying. Apparently some of the other people had taken some photos of them, holding each other and laughing at their own antics, so she was waiting for them to download. Marissa was laughing at something a child was doing, sipping her hot chocolate as she tried to warm herself up.

And Penelope knew, it was then or never.

"Sweetness, remember when you said you wanted to start teaching ballroom?" she asked suddenly.

Marissa tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yeah, but I still think it might be risky, because I've never been taught how to teach it and I don't want to mess it up."

Penelope took her hands and Marissa smiled. In some way, it reminded her of the way Hotch smiled- small and subtle, but absolutely everything to witness.

"If you want to do it, then you should. And I've seen you teach before, there's no way you could mess this up. But, and this is completely up to you, I have an idea. It could benefit both of us."

“Both of us? What is this plan?”

“You need to practice on someone to gain some confidence. So practice on my team. They’ll be delighted to help you, and then we can all spend more time together. They really like you. Much more than anyone else I’ve introduced them to. They’ll say yes.”

“Would they? It would be amazing if they did.”

“Of course they will.”

“Penelope, I love you so much. Thank you for doing this. I’m confused though. What do you get out of this?”

“The opportunity to go down in history as the best Cupid the world has ever seen.”

"What on earth- actually don't tell me now, I'll end up spilling your plan to the people involved," Marissa said, snuggling closer. Penelope pressed a kiss to her hair, smiling at the thought of spending more time with her girlfriend and winning the bet.

The next day, she went and sat with everyone in the bullpen, balancing her laptop on her knees as she worked. The rest of the team were working on individual consults, but Derek and JJ had decided to spend some time with their partners instead of just sitting in their offices. Rossi was doing his work from his office, and Hotch was in a meeting with Strauss and the Director. He hadn't seemed happy about it.

"Guys, what would you do if I said I can get Hotch and Rossi together but I need you to come to Marissa's practice run of a ballroom dancing lesson in order for it to work?" she asked, not even looking up from her screen.

"Start from the beginning," JJ said.

"Nope, because that will ruin my plan. Would you?"

“I mean, if Spencer didn’t mind, I would go. Any excuse to dance with the prettiest boy I know,” Derek said, a small and loving smile plastered across his face.

Spencer looked down slightly, cheeks tinged with a blush. “If it’ll help the two of them be happy, then fine, yes. But only if you promise to not make any comments if I’m not good at it.”

“Spencer, of course we won’t judge, dancing can be quite hard. And it’s not going to be a super serious session, it’s a trial run for Marissa and my attempt at getting them together, so it’s not the end of the world. JJ? Emily?”

“If Will can take Henry for the day, then sure, otherwise I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, is that okay?” JJ said, already pulling her phone out to see whether or not he was available. He responded moments later, saying it would be fine, and Penelope smiled.

“Sure. I’m excited to see whether your plan can top mine,” Emily said.

Penelope grinned. “Great! I’ll see you all at ten on Saturday then. Now I just need to get the two of them to agree…”

As she headed up to Rossi’s office, the four remaining team members all gave each other identical looks of fear. They knew that, realistically, Penelope’s plan couldn’t be that wild or dangerous, but they also knew how fiercely determined she could be when there was something she wanted to achieve. They also knew how adamant she was that everybody would find love, they just needed to be ready and willing. So they really had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

They assured themselves they would be fine, because they weren’t the ones being set up. And then they immediately felt extreme amounts of relief at the fact that Penelope had never once turned her match-making skills to them.

Rossi was working on the paperwork he’d stolen from Hotch’s office when Penelope knocked, popping her head around the door. The open blinds meant the team were able to watch through the window, and they did. They weren’t profiling, they were just observing for a bit of fun and to try and see whether or not they’d be able to get any more information from their exchange.

“Sir, what are your opinions on ballroom dancing?” she asked, not even bothering with hello.

“It’s okay. I don’t have particularly strong opinions on it either way. Why?” Rossi responded.

“Because Marissa would like to find out whether or not she would be able to teach ballroom dancing, so I have offered us up as guinea pigs for her to test on but she obviously can’t just do it with two couples, so I was wondering whether you’d be willing to come or if I needed to ask Anderson,” she said, tone not indicating any sort of ulterior motive whatsoever.

“If she’s teaching, you would need to be her partner so she could demonstrate. Who exactly is my partner?”

“Hotch of course. Sir, he could never say no to you. He loves you too much- us. He loves us too much. To say no. Or to deny us something small like this,” she said, realising as she spoke that it was too much, too soon.

Rossi went to deny that Hotch loved him- in any way, not just the one he’d found himself thinking about as he’d washed the singular plate and singular wine glass the previous night- but found that he couldn’t. Because Penelope was right. In some way, Hotch loved every single member of the team, in a way that Max Ryan and Jason Gideon would never have been brave enough to do.

It filled him with pride, a little sadness, and something close to admiration that he was too much of a coward to properly define. And then he realised that he had gone too long without speaking, because Penelope was beginning to shift uncomfortably.

“Sir? Are you okay? You kinda… disappeared for a moment there,” she said.

“I’m okay, just thinking. Of course I’ll tag along to the dance lesson, if only to give Morgan a few funnier nightmares. When is it?”

Penelope grinned, so wide and so beautifully, it almost hurt. He pushed the thought from his head. She was never going to lose her faith in the beauty of people. Not whilst she was able to find the beauty in everything, and not whilst she smiled without any shame or hesitance.

“Saturday and ten, unless we get a case, and if we do, we’ll sort it out after. Does that work for you?”

Even if hadn’t, he would’ve completely rearranged his career to make it. He didn’t just want to give Derek some funny nightmares. He also wanted to spend time with the team, and watch Hotch morph into Aaron as he smiled unabashedly and was dressed in casual clothes- he needed to get a grip.

“Of course it does. Thank you for inviting me,” he said, hoping that would end the conversation.

It did. When Garcia closed the door behind her, he groaned, then buried himself in the paperwork. Nothing would distract him more than trying to come up with a real justification for the BAU technology budget (Aaron’s preliminary notes just said: they don’t have to deal with a pouting Penelope.)

She just gave a thumbs up to the team, then went back into the bullpen. As she set about making her own tea, she realised that Hotch had returned from his meeting. It hurt a bit, to see him look so exhausted and disheartened. He always was, when he returned from those meetings with the Director, even with Strauss acting as a buffer between the two of them. So she made him one of her special coffees- with the added caramel and hazelnut milk- before heading up to his office, not bothering to knock because he had spent so long trying to convince them all it was fine to not knock that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“Oh hello Garcia. Did you need something?” he asked.

She set the coffee down and took the seat opposite. “Not in the conventional way.”

He smiled at the drink, taking a single sip, and some of the light returned to his eyes. “Oh? What do you mean?”

“Well you know Marissa right?”

“Of course I do, she’s lovely. Penelope, I really don’t think I’m the best person to come to if you need advice. Surely Derek or JJ would be better?”

“I don’t need advice silly,” she said with a smile, because her boss was just so good to all of them. “I need you to come to the dance studio on Saturday at ten because she wants to start teaching ballroom dancing and I’ve offered us up as test subjects.”

He blinked, and she realised how rude her demand had sounded.

“Only if you and Jack didn’t have plans and if you’re willing and actually able to of course,” she added hastily.

“Are you sure you want me there? I’m not… the best dancer, and I don’t want Marissa to be discouraged just because I have two left feet,” he said, looking slightly hesitant, but like he would say yes with a bit of encouragement.

“Sir, the worst of a dancer you are, the better. But I’ve saw you with Haley. You could give Derek a run for his money. There’s no pressure. I just wanted to ask because Derek, Spencer, Emily and JJ are acting as the other two couples. Rossi said he would come, but if you can’t make it-”

“Dave agreed?” Aaron cut in, meeting her eyes properly for the first time since they started talking. There was something behind the shock and slight glee that made her feel warm inside. She had been right- they both just needed a push.

“Yeah, he said the timing works for him. If it doesn’t for you-”

“No, it’s perfect. Jack doesn’t need to spend every waking moment with me, and he’s actually got a soccer camp that weekend, so I would’ve been in the apartment alone anyways. Of course I’ll come. It’s for you and Marissa after all,” he said, giving her the same smile usually reserved for Jack.

And Dave.

“Oh sir, thank you, thank you, thank you! Marissa is going to be so excited when I tell her! I promise you, even if it’s a disaster, you’ll have fun, and she will appreciate it more than you could ever imagine!”

“Penelope, it’s okay,” Hotch said with a slight laugh. “I’m not doing anything that out there.”

“I know that. But you’re just a good boss. You always have been,” she said, getting up and going to the door.

Hotch blushed and looked down. “Penelope…”

“Yes?” she asked, turning back.

“What does- what should I wear?”

She had to bite back a laugh, because there was her fierce Unit Chief, who had barely blinked when a gun was fired just to the left of his good ear, staring at her like she carried all the answers, with flushed cheeks, asking what he should wear to a dance lesson where the ulterior motive was to get him with his best friend. Not that he knew about that.

“Anything that’s comfortable,” she said, then left.

Marissa was indeed very happy when she found out, and when Penelope watched her face break into a grin as she processed the knowledge, she realised that happiness didn’t come from a relationship, but sharing it was amazing.

By some miracle, no out of town cases crossed their desks, which meant Saturday morning saw them all at the dance studio, dressed in t-shirts and sweatpants, stretching so they didn’t pull a muscle.

Hotch had paled slightly as Marissa explained that one.

“Okay, so what I’m going to have you do is pair up, and face each other. First I’ll describe how you’re meant to position your arms, then you’ll try and do it, and I’ll correct you if you’re wrong. Then I’ll just need you to follow my lead- I’ll demonstrate with Penelope. We’ll go from there. Is that good with everyone?” she said, after everyone had stretched for an adequate amount of time.

“Of course,” Derek said. Spencer nodded, looking slightly nervous, but Derek noticed and immediately placed a hand on his back to try and soothe him. It worked. JJ and Emily also nodded. Rossi grinned, and Hotch seemed hesitant, but stood up nonetheless.

“Great, so if you could all just turn and face your partners,” Marissa said, grinning when she took Penelope’s hands to press a kiss to them.

Derek and Spencer snickered at each other, which set off JJ and Emily, but Dave wouldn’t quite meet Aaron’s eyes. He was too afraid of meeting his eyes. Those beautiful and caring brown eyes that always sparkled with love whenever he saw his son, or his former sister-in-law that had really been his sister ever since Haley first confessed to her about her crush on him, all those years ago.

“Dave, are you okay to lead?” Marissa asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

“Hmm? Oh yeah, sure. Aaron is that okay?” he asked.

Aaron nodded, cheeks slightly flushed. “Course it is.”

“Great, so just place your arms… like this,” Marissa said, moving him slightly. It meant he was close enough to hear Aaron’s heartbeat. It was slightly erratic, and he frowned, wondering why. It wasn’t like him to be nervous about something like this.

“Okay, so ballroom dancing obviously covers a wide range of dance styles, so to keep things simple, we’re just going to a waltz. So hands where I’ve told you to put them- Spencer and Derek I am looking at you, and follow my instructions as best you can. We’ll go from there.”

Spencer laughed, whilst Derek pretended to be scandalised. Emily gagged, and Aaron couldn’t contain his laugh at their antics. It was the most beautiful thing Dave had ever heard, so fearless and carefree that it physically hurt him, and he was well and truly screwed. To try and move past the feeling in his stomach that he most certainly was not going to name, he placed his hands exactly where Marissa had told him, noting that Aaron’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. He told himself to not to read into it.

Which was funny, because Aaron was telling himself that he needed to get his heartbeat under control. That there was no deeper reason behind Dave’s refusal to meet his eyes. There was a completely reasonable explanation for the goosebumps that seemed to be spreading under his shirt, and there was no way he had been holding his breath without realising, only releasing it when Dave ran his hands down his arms.

“Okay, so person that’s leading, step this way,” Marissa instructed.

Dave did exactly as she said with no hesitation. Aaron flushed as the realisation that they were about to be dancing together, with all of their subordinates there to witness any failures. It was strange, but he felt like both Marissa and Penelope were watching him more intently than the others.

Dave had said everything would be fine, that there was nothing going on, but he couldn’t help the uneasy feeling forming in his stomach. The same feeling he instinctively got every time Jack appeared with glitter in his hands. He wondered when he started seeing the members of his team as children.

He also wondered how soon he’d be able to retire, now that more and more parallels between the qualified FBI agents who were trusted to carry weapons and talk down killers and his seven-year-old son were becoming clear.

“Where’s your mind gone?” Rossi asked, pulling him back into the moment.

Hotch stumbled slightly, but Dave’s arms were solid and firm around him, keeping him upright and leading him around their little area as though it was the most natural thing in the world to him.

“Nowhere interesting,” he said. Dave was always so smart, and everything he said had a purpose. If he knew Aaron was thinking about the younger members of the team as children, he’d never hear the end of it.

Dave stepped back, pulling Aaron flush against him as Marissa demonstrated exactly what they were meant to be doing. Aaron turned so Dave wouldn’t see the colour rise to his cheeks. It was beautiful to see the other members of his team, just having fun and enjoying themselves like there was nothing wrong in the world.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. Even if nobody else does, I find that brain of yours fascinating, no matter what it is you’re coming out with.”

“I was just thinking about the team. And how far they’ve come. And how I have no idea when I became their pseudo-parent, but that it doesn’t fill me with fear anymore,” he confessed.

“You’ve come so far too. And you’ve always been like family to them,” Dave said. Family. Nothing more. Certainly not anything romantic.

Hotch couldn’t help but laugh. “If Max heard you say we were like a family-”

“He’d murder me and they’d never catch him. I know.”

“Guys you’ve done really well, and this has really helped me, so I think we’re good to call it a day now. We’ll just do some cool-down stretches and then you can all go back to normal and pretend this never happened. Unless you want to go for lunch. That’s also an option,” Marissa said with a slight laugh.

“Lunch would be amazing, I’m starving,” JJ said.

Derek shrugged. “We don’t have any plans, do we, pretty boy?”

Spencer shook his head. “Also Marissa said she would try and show me that new magic trick, and lunch would be the perfect time to try and understand how it works.”

“Aaron?” Marissa asked.

From behind her, Emily and Derek cringed. It was stupid, but hearing Hotch be referred to as Aaron always felt weird. It didn’t matter whether it was Jessica, Erin, Marissa or Dave doing it, there was just something about their boss being known as anything but his nickname that felt like calling a parent their first name.

“If I won’t be intruding,” he said.

“Never!” Penelope exclaimed, grinning even wider when she realised that Dave’s hands were still on Hotch’s waist. She tapped Marissa on the shoulder, subtly gesturing to the sight. Marissa had very quickly realised what was going on, so a lot of what she had done was to try and aid the attempt.

“But before we do, Dave, do you mind if I use you and Aaron to demonstrate one last thing? It won’t take long, I just want to do it before we go,” she said.

Derek frowned, and Penelope let out a quiet gasp when she realised that Marissa didn’t really want to demonstrate something, she wanted to push them even closer than the morning already had.

She was going to win the bet!

“Oh sure. Aaron, you mind being my partner one last time?” Dave teased.

“Never,” Aaron said, voice strangely vulnerable. Something flashed across Dave’s face, before he smirked and adjusted the way his hands were positioned.

Marissa led them through a different type of waltz. Aaron stumbled and missed the steps a few times, but Dave carried him through flawlessly, and was so confident as he glided around the small studio, Aaron following him without a shadow of doubt because of the trust between them, that it was almost impossible to pick up on.

“And Aaron, twirl into his arms!” Marissa shouted, as the music reached a climax and Dave let go of his one of his hands, forcing him to spin outwards. Her plan was for them to meet the others eyes, and see the love that everyone else had apparently picked up on, and do something about it.

What happened was slightly different.

Aaron overbalanced as he turned into Dave’s arms, which wouldn’t have been the end of the world. Unfortunately for everyone, at some point during the final dance, his laces had come undone. So not only did he overbalance, he stepped on the aforementioned undone lace. Which also would have been fine, if it had just been that, and that alone. But because it was combined with the overbalancing, he did not manage to meet Dave’s eyes and see something more than friendship reflected in them.

He did however, manage to make an absolute fool of himself as he fell to the ground, reflexes too slow to stop himself from hitting it face-first. The noise of pain he let out was enough to make Emily stop laughing at his misfortune.

Dave immediately crouched down next to him, gently turning him and shifting him into a sitting up position so they could check that he didn’t have a concussion or any other injuries.

“My face really hurts,” Aaron whined after blinking a few times, feeling more oriented.

“I mean you did hit the floor pretty hard,” Emily teased. When Penelope hit her arm, she pretended to look completely innocent.

“Aaron, I’m so sorry-” Marissa started.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, don’t feel guilty. Besides, that was the most fun I’ve had without Jack in a while. I would definitely do it again, just with my laces actually tied properly. Dave, why are you looking at me like that?” he rambled.

“I think you’ve broken your nose,” Dave said, sounding nonchalant but panicking because he had no idea what he was meant to do in this situation.

“Oh,” was all Aaron said.

Morgan leapt into action the moment he processed the words. “Dave, get him to the hospital. They can make sure that nothing else is wrong and fix his face properly, without causing more damage. And you’re his proxy. Because it’s just a minor thing, the rest of us don’t need to be there, but we will all go for lunch so that we’re together if there’s any news. Okay?”

Everyone nodded, quickly gathering their things and departing. Before she left, Garcia gave her boss a kiss on the forehead, feeling terrible that things had gone downhill, but also grateful that he wasn’t mad, had ended up having fun, and that Marissa’s confidence didn’t seem too shaken.

Derek shook his head as he watched the women argue over something, whilst Marissa showed Spencer the magic trick she had promised him. How the bet had gone from the joke it had started as to this was beyond him, but he wasn’t blind. He had seen them dancing. They loved each other. It was just a matter of making them realise that it was romantic, not platonic.

An idea was forming, but until they got confirmation that Hotch- not Aaron because that was weird, no matter what Marissa said- was fine, he would put any and all thoughts about it to one side. He was a bit annoyed at himself for being such a romantic though. It meant he needed to actually come up with a decent plan.

Hotch did end up being fun. The doctors were- in Morgan’s words- fix his face without causing more damage. And whilst he passed their tests without any issues, they did decide to keep him in overnight, just to make sure he didn’t have any sort of delayed confusion or injuries.

Dave stayed until visiting hours ended. A fact that was not lost on the rest of the team.

Before he left, Aaron called out his name, and he turned.

“Yes?”

“Thank you for staying,” Aaron whispered.

“It wasn’t difficult to. It’s never been difficult with you,” he replied, wishing he could put it more eloquently, but he had no idea how to.

Aaron just smiled, wishing he could say something intelligent too, but he was tired and his head was killing him. “Have a nice evening Dave,” he settled on in the end. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Sweet dreams Aaron,” Dave said. It didn’t sound sarcastic, so Aaron smiled.

He dreamt of dances and double beds and drenched shirts, but throughout all of it, Dave seemed to be watching over him like a guardian angel, so the sleep he had was peaceful. Strange, but peaceful.

He would cling to that feeling of peace when he entered the office on Monday, because something was definitely going on.

Only it seemed like Derek was plotting. Aaron wasn’t sure how he felt about that. All Derek knew was that soon, the other members of the BAU would be buying him coffee and deeming him the best matchmaker of all time.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fic #aaron hotchner x david rossi #hossi #hotch x rossi #aaron hotchner #david rossi #emily prentiss #derek morgan #spencer reid #jennifer jareau #penelope garcia #sumayyah writes cm

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sometimeslenwrites · 5 years

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Cafetière

Pairing: Johnny x Cece

Genre: Angst

Warnings: Probably grammatical errors. It’s 4:30am

Word Count: 1,685 words

A/N: I am currently finish up Chapter 6 for Bring Me Home. I needed a break for a while so I decided to practice on a different story. This is actually dedicated to my one and only bubs, @jeongcheolbaby. I don’t really know how to write anything else other than angst so, I’m sorry bubs! But I just really wanted to write something who isn’t Jaehyun or Seungcheol. I have a story in mind for Seungcheol so even though we share the same bias, I decided to use Johnny instead! I hope you enjoy this, bubs! I love you! 🥺🥰

All you did lately was fight. No matter what you do, it didn’t seem right to him. You tried to make him dinner, he said you should’ve asked if he was going to eat at home. You fixed his ever so messy closet, he thinks you’re being nosy. You stayed up late to wait up for him, he says you’re being clingy. You put it all down to him being exhausted and stressed from work but you can’t ignore the pain you’re feeling. You stopped going the extra mile for him. No more hot dinners cooked for him, you don’t pick up after him anymore, you go to bed at a proper time instead of waiting up for him, heck, you don’t even send him good night messages anymore. You were so exhausted.

〰️〰️〰️ Johnny walks through the front door to find the front room dark and cold. He placed his keys in the bowl by the door and hangs his coat on the hook. He was expecting dinner, a well lit room, a fiancé waiting for him on the sofa and a warm home after a long day in the office but he was met with nothing. Nothing except a dark cold house.

“Cece, baby?” He called for you. Hoping you were in the study but he didn’t hear an answer. “Baby are you upstairs?” He called out for you but his ears were met with silence. A small panic settles in the pit of his stomach. He ran upstairs to your shared bedroom to find it empty. He fished his phone out from his pocket and dialled your number. “Please pick up” panic evident in his voice.

He ran to your walk in closet to find it empty. “No. No. No no no no no” he runs around the house, hoping you were just playing a mean prank on him. “Come on baby, pick up!” But it just kept ringing and ringing.

He ran back down to grab his keys when he found a note stuck on the mirror by the door.

“I think we need some space from each other. Maybe this will be good for us, to figure out whatever it is between us. I won’t expect you to find me nor do I expect you to take the time to look for me but I’ll be fine. Give me some time, Johnny. I’ve waited for you now it’s your turn to do the waiting”

No “I’ll miss you”, not even an “I love you”. He was terrified. Memories of recent events flashed in his mind.

“Hi baby!” Cece greets you with a warm smile and open arms. You simply looked at her and gave her a nod. “I made you dinner, you must be hungry.” She coos at you.

“I’ve eaten.” You were cold, but you didn’t mean to. You were just exhausted from work and the stress just kept piling and piling.

“Oh. I didn’t know. It’s okay, I’ll just…”

“You should’ve asked first. You’ve wasted your time” you cut her off. “It’s not hard to send a simple text message, right? That’s all you have to do! Can’t you do that?” Your voice was harsh and you didn’t even realise it.

“Shit” Johnny mutters to himself. He sat in the dark living room, face held between his hands. “What have I done” is all he says before he allows the tears to fall freely from his eyes.

〰️〰️〰️ It has been two weeks since you’ve left your shared home with your fiancé. You’d be lying if you say you haven’t missed him. You’ve fought yourself over and over again, trying not to pick up your phone and just tell him where you are. He has been trying to call you, he was never the type to just write things down in a text message. No, he was the talking kind of man. That’s why you guys have lasted for so long. You guys always knew how to talk things out and it always worked out. Until recently.

You convinced yourself that two weeks was enough to make him suffer. You’ve missed him dearly and you just really want to go back home. Something was holding you back, though. You were worried.

“What if he doesn’t want me back” your inner voice kept saying “what if he’s fine without me and the reason he’s calling is to tell me to get all my things” you felt the pang in your heart.

“Don’t be stupid, Cece.” You scold yourself as you pack your suitcase in the trunk of your car. “If you don’t try, you won’t know” with that, you drive yourself back home.

〰️〰️〰️

Johnny has been working from home. He couldn’t bare to leave the house, afraid you’ll come home and he’ll miss you. He wasn’t going to take any chances, not this time. He has tried to call you multiple times. Texting you didn’t feel right. That and he was desperate to hear you voice. He just wanted to hear you even if it was going to end in a bitter fight.

Johnny got up from his desk and stretched. He walked over to the kitchen “maybe a cup of coffee would wake me up” he tells himself. He hasn’t been sleeping very well, you see. How can he when the space next to him was empty? Your bedroom still smelled like you. Your scent, though fading, was still in your sheets. Oh how he missed you. “Baby, please come home” he says as he stares at your face on his phone wallpaper.

The kettle started boiling and he didn’t hear the front door open. He poured the hot water in his cup and started making his coffee. “Where’s the coffee?” He asks himself out loud.

“Cabinet above the kettle, second shelf”.

He stopped his movements. He knew that voice but he was too afraid to turn around. His mind must be playing tricks on him again.

“Also, the coffee maker is right by the cups. We don’t have coffee granules, we have ground coffee so that wouldn’t dissolve” Cece walked into the kitchen to grab the cafetière. She grabbed the ground coffee and started putting some in the cafetière. “I usually just put 5 grams but you like yours strong so I would normally put 7grams”. She continues to make his coffee.

“You’re home” Johnny whispered.

“I’m guessing you haven’t gone grocery shopping so the milk would be spoiled by now. You’re going to have to drink this black. Your sweetener is in the same place as the coffee. Can you grab it for me?” She looked up when she didn’t hear Johnny move.

“Johnny, the swee” Cece didn’t have the chance to finish her sentence because Johnny encased her in an embrace.

〰️〰️〰️ “You’re home. You’re finally home” he started crying “you came back. You’re really home” he hugged you and cupped your face. Thumbs brushing along your cheeks “I can’t believe you’re finally home. I’ve missed you so much, baby.” He pulls you in for another tight embrace.

“Am I not supposed to come home?” You asked as your wrap your arms around his waist.

“I just thought you wouldn’t. You weren’t answering my calls, it’s been two weeks and I haven’t heard from you!” He was trembling “I asked all our friends and none of them could give me an answer. I was so scared. I was terrified” he confessed.

You took his face in your hands and wiped the tears that were staining his face. You looked at each other, afraid to say something. You stared at each other, basking in the presence of one another. His hold tightens, afraid you’ll disappear again.

“I’m so sorry. I know I’ve been an ass but I never meant to.” He started explaining himself. “With the weight of work, I was lashing out on you. Taking my frustrations out on you and it wasn’t fair. I didn’t even realise I was doing it until you were gone. I’m sorry baby, please don’t leave me.” Johnny begs like a child. Afraid to lose you again, he holds you close and tightens his grip on your body.

“Sshhh, baby I won’t leave again” you say as you stroke his back. “I promise. Let’s work this out, okay? I know we can work this out, we always do.” You pulled away, just far enough to be able to cup his face again. “I need to be more understanding but baby, I can’t read your mind. I won’t know what exactly is bothering you if you don’t talk to me.”

You take his hand and walked towards the dining room. You pulled out one chair and asked him to sit. Refusing to be away from you, Johnny pulls you on his lap and nuzzles his face in your neck. “I’m sorry, Cece. I’ll be better, just please….. don’t leave me again”.

You hear the sincerity in his voice.

“I wasn’t going to leave you for good, silly boy. I just needed time to think, to breathe.” You really were going to come back home. Never in a million years did you ever think of leaving this man behind. You both have been there for each other. In each other’s best and of course, lowest. There’s no way you would allow yourself to walk away from this. This is your home. He is your home.

“Look at me, please” you say “I will never leave you. I will never walk away from you, okay? I love you too much.” You kiss his forehead.

“I love you too, baby. I love you so much” Johnny cups your face with one hand as the other wraps tightly around your waist. You wrapped your arms around his neck and close your eyes.

You shared a kiss for the first time in a while. It felt like electricity was coursing through your body. He pecks your lips once, twice, three time and one more. You stared at the man who had your heart. Yeah, there’s no walking away from this. Not now, not ever.

#Johnny imagine #Johnny scenario #Johnny fic #Johnny Seo #Johnny angst #angst #nct127 angst #nct imagine #nct scenario #nct127 #Johnny Suh #nct scenarios #SometimesLenWrites

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dusuessekartoffel · 5 years

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Some Thoughts on Druck Season 3, or: a Love Letter to Matteo’s Season

Okay, here we are. The season ended two weeks ago. I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from watching it all live. It was stressful as hell and and it was more emotional than I ever could have anticipated and it was so, so satisfying. It took over my life for ten weeks, which I’m somehow grateful for, even if it probably took away ten years from my lifespan. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express quite how this season makes me feel. I can try, but I really don’t think I can put all my feelings into words. (Which is frustrating, because words are what I’m good at, usually. But I’ll just have to accept that and try.) These are just some of my thoughts on Matteo’s season, because otherwise this would turn into a novel.

From the moment we saw Matteo Florenzi in season 1, I knew his season was going to be good. I knew it was going to be my favourite season 3 remake. I knew Michelangelo Fortuzzi would do Matteo and Isak justice. And yet, I could have never imagined this. I never thought I would love this season as much as I did. That I would feel this much for fictional characters and that their story would touch me so much. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this about any two fictional characters. Ever. (Not even Harry Potter and that is the one story that has stuck with me for 13 years now.)

Those people who, like me, have been in the fandom since the very beginning, will surely remember how we all knew how much we needed Matteo’s season when this disaster teenage boy first interrupted Hanna and Jonas in the very first clip. And then, sometime towards the end of season 1, people started advocating for trans Even. And I honestly think none of us would have ever expected that Druck would actually make their Even character trans. There was a casting call for a trans actor sometime last fall, but it was explained that it was for another show (which I’m guessing was a lie) and again, no one got their hopes up. When we saw David in season 2, the theories started, but still no one wanted to set themselves up for disappointment. And then Matteo saw David on that first Monday and it was confirmed that beanie boy was German Even and I will never forget how it felt to watch that scene for the first time and to see the fandom’s reactions to it, especially trans fans’ reactions. That Monday was when I realised that a. this season was truly going to be spectacular and that b. I could say goodbye to my life for the next ten weeks. That Monday was when “Druck is a show I like and think is really good” turned into “Druck is more or less the best thing I’ve ever seen and my life will now revolve around waiting for updates and then obsessing over them.” (You think I’m exaggerating, but seriously, on that Monday, I could barely concentrate on my classes and when I got home, I rewatched and rewatched the clip and I already felt way more for this show than I ever thought I would.)

This season was everything. It has its flaws, sure, and we shouldn’t ignore them. Criticising the things you like is good and healthy and we should never stop doing it. But the season also has its good parts, so, so many good parts. This is about the good parts because they are what made me fall in love with Druck again and again and again. (Also because a lot of people have talked about the bad parts and done it better than I ever could.)

David and Matteo have easily become my favourite version of Evak because they just feel so real. The show lets them be just two dumb teenage boys in love. It’s in everything, from both of the actors being the actual age of the characters, to them bonding over Matteo installing that switch thing (I’m honestly too dumb to understand what exactly he did), to Matteo calling David “Alter,” to their first date where they played table tennis with their hands and without a ball, to their dumb playful fights, to that first “I love you,” to them having sex for the first time. That’s what makes it so good, that they’re teenagers. They’re real teenagers. That’s such a rare thing to see on tv nowadays and it shouldn’t be. I’m not even a teenager anymore and I feel more represented by Druck than I have in a long time by anything else.

There’s a million details about this season and about Druck in general that make me love it so much. The music, which is always so good and so fitting. The flawless acting. The fact that they do workshops with the actors, writers and directors before every season and they adjust the characters and the scripts accordingly. The fact that Lukas was allowed to help on the last few scripts. The amazing and always entertaining Instagram content. (Oh, how I already miss #matteomonday and #florenzifriday.) How very much in character everything is all the time. Samstag 20:55. The kissing noises. (Don’t get me started on the kissing noises, because they may be my favourite thing about this season.) The sheer accuracy of everything. How stuff is properly built up and followed through and the writing is just so good.

One of my absolute favourite things about Druck is how good they are at characterisation. It was already spectacular in season 2, when we all suddenly fell for Alex right along with Mia, but they really took that to a new level in season 3. Matteo is one of the most well-written, well-developed characters I have ever come across. His character development was so good and so earned and it feels truly special to have witnessed it in real time. And David. Don’t even get me started on David. I do think a good part of this is Lukas Alexander’s sheer brilliance, but David is by far the most fleshed out and well-written Even character in all the remakes. He got to tell his own story and talk about his own experiences without ever being talked over and that is exactly how it should be. He was portrayed as kind and caring and desirable and funny and complex and more or less the best thing that has ever happened to Matteo. We all fell in love with him as hard as Matteo did. (How could we not have, when he’s the most loveable character played by the most loveable actor?)

But the thing with Druck is, every single character is multidimensional. They all have their little stories without taking away from the main character. I know a lot of people don’t like Sara, but again, she is by far the most well-written Sara/Emma character in the Skam universe. She has her own story and character development and I actually really enjoyed the scenes with her (when she wasn’t trying to get Matteo to kiss her). Eskild is one of my favourite Skam characters, but he doesn’t really get his own story, ever. Hans has an entire background we know about and, just like everyone else, he is also constantly learning and growing. Carlos and Abdi, who could have easily just been there for comic relief, are both fleshed out characters who have their own unique relationship with Matteo. Even Linn, who is in very few clips, has her own, distinct personality and got a cute little storyline about searching for a hobby.

Druck can be a bit messy sometimes and there’s a shit ton of continuity errors, but I think the fact that we are so ready to forgive them for that says a lot. The thing about Druck is that the people behind it care so much. They want to tell a beautiful story and they want to do it right. That doesn’t mean that they never fuck up, but throughout the entire show you can just feel the love they have for their characters and their stories. The fact that they listened to their viewers and gave us David says so much. So does the fact that they had Lukas Alexander work on the last three scripts with them. Or the fact that they broke their “no interviews” rule for those two videos with Annika to educate their viewers. Ever since we learned that they do workshops with the actors, directors and writers before each season starts to adjust the characters and the stories to the actors, I can’t stop thinking about that. It’s such a good example of just how much they care.

I’ve said this a lot this season, but Druck just gets it. They get how to be a remake (there’s a million examples of this, but my favourite one will always be how they took the iconic swimming pool kiss and turned it into their very own thing that felt absolutely fitting to their own characters while also referencing Skam). They get what Skam is all about: it’s about telling stories that matter, creating characters that people can relate to and being brave enough to try new things. This is why Druck is my favourite. Because it doesn’t try to be Skam, but in that, they do exactly what Skam was always meant to do. They open their viewers’ minds and they give people these beautiful stories that they can relate to in ways they may have never been able to relate to anything before. And it’s not even just things like the fact that so many trans viewers have been able to see themselves represented properly for the first time (though of course that is so important), it’s also just how well they portray how being a teenager in Germany feels. I’m not even German and I have never seen myself and my own school experience reflected more in a show. That Abi-Streich transported me right back to the end of my school days and made me feel all the things I felt back then. I have never had that with anything before.

So, yeah. Season 3 sure had it’s rocky parts. People are and always will be allowed to be upset about that. But it was nevertheless such a beautiful season. It made so many people feel seen and represented, whether in David or Matteo or any of the other characters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a show like this. Going through the Druck tag can leave you with the worst feeling sometimes, but so often, it made me feel joy. And it made me feel grateful. Watching this season live was one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done. But I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Because it was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever witnessed.

I don’t think I can quite put into words how much I love this season and this show in general. But I guess it comes down to this: I am so unbelievably grateful that I exist at the same time as this beautiful show. And I am so unbelievably grateful that I got to witness Matteo’s story and that it made me feel so much. Guess that’s how you explain “wunderschön” to the people who don’t speak German.

#this got a bit emotional #i wanted to do a 'good parts'/'bad parts' kinda review but my hand slipped #so have this instead #i also feel like i've forgotten a million things i wanted to mention but oh well #this is what ten weeks of my life come down to i guess #druck #davenzi #dankedruck #(does anyone remember that that's the tag that they used on their last clip of season 1? i've always loved that)#review

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candle-light-writings · 5 years

Text

Magnetic

Colossus x Mutant!Reader

Summary: You were up early in the morning practising with your powers: magnetism. Piotr finds you awake and decides to keep you company.

Word count: 2.0K+

A/N: oof I’m so happy of getting this one out. I have so many fic ideas, but they’re just taking me a while to write (cuz I like to write them long & have got no patience). Hopefully I can get the next fic out in a few days. Hope you enjoy ;u;

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5:30 AM

It was way too early in the morning, but you decided to start the day. At this time, it was still dark and quiet -which you liked. You were outside in the garden, wearing gym attire, already sitting on a mat and breathing slowly. There wasn’t anything important to do, except to teach a class later in the afternoon. For that particular class, it was a team building lesson, which they had to “capture” you. Though they didn’t like the idea of working together, so you had to make it more fun and simple. Which lead to a simple game of “tag”.

All they had to do was tag you. Which they’ve failed twice so far. You chuckled to yourself as you began to stretch.

You thought it would be nice to warm up outside because its quietness allowed you to concentrate on coming up with a plan yourself. After failing the second time, the kids were desperate to take you down. So desperate that you found them in small groups around the mansion- strategizing on how to get around your mutation.

Your mutation?

Magnetism.

Sure, Wade poked fun at you- calling you Lil’ Magneto for example- but you found ways to utilise your power efficiently and (probably) creatively. Students thought that you would grab whatever objects you were surrounded by and just throw it at them.

That was the beauty of your powers. With some experimenting, trial and error, and doing that daily grind from the start, you had a few tricks up your sleeve.

While you were stretching, you heard footsteps approach you. You opened your eyes to meet your large, muscular, steel friend. He was already in his uniform and he was surprised to see you.

“You’re up early, Y/N.” Piotr said. Hearing his thick Russian accent never fails to make you smile.

“Same goes to you.” You chuckled and lifted your lower body in the air, positioning yourself in a head stand. You knew that Piotr was an early riser, but you didn’t know that he was awake around this time. Without further exchange, Piotr went to sit beside you. It was common that you two spend a lot of time together. You understood each other well and a deep bond was made during your earlier years.

“You preparing for the class?” Piotr asked.

You breathed out, trying to maintain balance.

“Yeah, and I’m also thinking about what they might do. One of them almost got me-“ you grunted, “-but I don’t think they’ve realised they’re not actually working together. Whenever we start, they’re always charging at me with their powers and such.” You carefully brought your lower half back on the ground and laid there on your stomach. “It’s cute, but not effective.” You said, sitting up and grabbing a pouch full of coins that you brought with you.

“I found them brainstorming yesterday, but I reckon not all of it will go according to plan. We’ll see.” You grinned. “Why’re you here, Pete?” You asked, giving a quizzical look.

Piotr smiled timidly and looked down at his lap. “I was going to workout, but found you here. Thought I would enjoy the quiet morning with you.” He explained while you shook out the contents of the pouch onto your palm, not really hearing the last couple words. The coins began to levitate from your hand. Piotr watched in awe.

“You’ve improved a lot, Y/N.” He said, hinting how proud he was of you.

“Yeah... I have.” You took the moment to reminisce on how far you’ve come since the first time you discovered your abilities. When you first came to the X-Mansion, you had a lot of trouble getting a hold of your powers. You would randomly act as a magnet and every metallic object near you would suddenly charge at you. Moments of these required a lot of running because there would be knives following you.

There was also that time when Piotr was armoured up and was attached to you for an uncomfortable half-an-hour.

That being said, when he first met you and learned you had magnetic abilities, he knew that you were his weakness. In your case, you thought that you were a burden to him (which he never thought). This lead to you being partnered up with him during training sessions because the Professor believed it was possible for you and him to work together.

From there, you would use your powers to give Piotr a boost, or to pull him back whenever he was in danger. It wasn’t much, but Piotr told you countless times that he wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you, especially in those ‘life or death’ moments. That’s how your friendship kept growing.

The more you trained together, the more you could build upon your own skills. You learned how to deal with larger and heavier objects, without fainting, while Piotr... he hasn’t found a way to combat your magnetism. Let’s just say that him being armoured down was his only option.

Not only did the two of you feel stronger working together, you became close. Aside from all of the training, missions, and now, teaching, you would hang out.

A lot.

The garden was where you usually met up. He would sit down somewhere and draw while you laid down next him with some coins lazily swirling around in the air. Or just fall asleep. You felt at home in each other’s presence. Moreover, safe. Piotr would try to find you whenever you weren’t in the same room as him in the mansion. He liked being with you as much as you liked being with him.

From hanging out in the garden, it moved to each other’s rooms. There was this unyielding love that kept growing, and neither of you said anything. There were a few signs that the two of showed that you loved each other, but neither weren’t seeing it. It was too subtle. From the compliments and encouragement you and him exchanged, and the things Piotr would give and do for you, both of you have been wanting to be together.

With Piotr, he didn’t want to admit- actually, no- he couldn’t admit it. It’s a shame that his shyness brought him down. There was this strong connection you felt for each other, but didn’t know how or when to say it.

Thinking about how much you love being with Piotr caused you to lose yourself from controlling the coins.

“Y/N?” Piotr watched you zone out as the coins were now spinning rapidly in circles.

“Y/N, you okay?” Piotr carefully tapped your shoulder. Once you realised what you were doing, the coins flew everywhere as you snapped your attention him, wide-eyed, as if you just ignored every single thing about whatever he was talking about.

“Huh? I-I’m Sorry- I didn’t mean to ignore you- did you say something?”

“Bozhe moi, your coins.” He said. Feeling the absence of your tiny weapons, you brought them back by attracting them wherever they’ve scattered off to.

“So what were you saying?” You made sure your mind didn’t wander off.

“I didn’t say anything,” He laughed and patted your head. “but, I wanted to say that you should go easy on them this time.” Piotr said. He was referring to your class.

“Oh. Piotr, I know they’re kids, but I think now is a good time for them to learn persistence, and that people work best when they work together. Only if they put the effort.” You patted his arm. “That’s what happened with us. Didn’t it?” You smiled at him like he would remember the late nights and long hours of figuring out how you could benefit each other by testing and playing around with your powers. Not only did you want to be independent, you wanted to make sure that you were able to help others.

“...You’re right. That wasn’t fun, but was worth it.” He agreed.

“And you’ve also got fifteen kids against one adult.” You added. “One who is fully capable of taking care of themselves.” Piotr pointed out. You didn’t know if he was complimenting you, in a way, but judging by his playful tone, but you shrugged it off.

“Petey, these kids are smarter than you think. They know they have a lot of potential, and as their third try, I have a feeling that they’ve got a good chance.” You grinned then checked your watch.

6:20 AM

You wanted to play around with the coins a bit more, to see what you could do in the lesson. However, you took Piotr’s advice on taking it easy.

When you first gave this task to the students, you’ve never had so much fun in your life. How you would run all over the mansion, dodge the students, and seeing their determination, you might’ve taken it a bit too seriously. In fact, Piotr knew what you were doing with the students because he saw you run away from them.

“How about we have breakfast?” You offered, putting the coins back into the pouch. Piotr smiled and nodded.

“That sounds nice. I’ll cook for you. I don’t have anything to do today.” He said as he stood up and waited for you to pack up everything. He was such a sweetheart. He was so kind and giving to you that you felt like you don’t deserve it. You saved him countless times, but so has he. You had to do something special.

Which gave you an idea.

You didn’t like using your powers on him when you were at the mansion, but you had no choice and wanted to surprise him. Right here. Right now.

Just this once.

After you’ve finished rolling the mat, Piotr began to walk. Expecting you to follow him, you lifted your hand up and began working your magic.

“Huh-?” You giggled as Piotr tried to move onwards as this sudden force was holding him back. “Y/N, is that you- ah!” When he turned around, you were able to pull him with ease.

Come here, Petey. You grinned as Piotr was standing in front of you. You were pleased that you knew when to withdraw your magnetism and he didn’t knock you over.

“You should stop being in defense mode whenever I’m around.” You joked. With that, Piotr laughed lightly as he did what you said. Then, with caution, he leaned forward and gently pressed his lips against your forehead. You froze.

Oh, how bad you wanted to have an intimate moment like this. After all these years of wanting to be with him, and likewise, you finally take it all in.

“I love you very much, Y/N.” Piotr’s voice rang through your ears.

You stepped back and stared at him, shocked. Did he just… You opened your mouth, thinking how you were going to respond.

“I...I…” Piotr waited patiently for your response- anticipating that you might say I love you too.

“I was going to say that!” You finally say, blushing furiously. You then shoved your face in your hands, hiding your embarrassment. That was your last minute surprise. You were going to pull him to you, kiss him, and say ‘I love you’.

Looks like he beat you to it.

Piotr’s heart dropped for a second, but thought about what you just said and watched how you were acting all flustered- he couldn’t help but smile apologetically. It was cute how you wanted to say it first. Well, at least he knows you love him. He then felt your arms wrapping around his waist and you burying your face in his chest.

“I love you so much, Petey.” You mumbled. Your heart was beating hard as you were meaning to say that for a long time and finally did. “I really do.” You added.

Touched by your confession, Piotr revealed how much he loves you.

“You are very beautiful, strong, smart, and everything you do amazes me.” He began. “There is something about your power that makes you so-”

“Attractive?” You smiled weakly, letting go of him.

“Well...actually...yeah. Attractive.” He chuckled, whether that pun was intended or not. “Come on, let’s go back inside.” Piotr said, holding his hand out to you. You thought about carrying him back using your powers, but you discarded the idea and walked beside him. Hand in hand.

Like metal attracted by a magnet.

#colossus x reader #colossus imagine #piotr rasputin x reader #piotr rasputin #colossus #fuuu i'm so tired #moving on to the next fic uwu

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