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sweetbunnykook · 3 years

Text

Devotion (M)

Word Count: 5,885 // angst (toxic relationship, friends to lovers, yandere behavior, possessiveness, jealousy, mention of physical harm, mention of neglect), smut (rough sex/slight dub-con, fingering, omorashi, asphyxiation, forced creampie), no fluff

Childhood friend!Taehyung X Childhood friend!Reader

Summary: You and Taehyung were inseparable once. When you come back to your hometown after three years, fate pulls you back to him. And this time, Taehyung won’t ever keep his eyes off of you.

Music: X

Winter darkness came early this season. It’s only a few minutes past five and the sky had darkened and streetlights casted a deep orange hue over semi-empty cobblestone paths. The streets are almost silent except for the faint piano music wafting out into the cool air from restaurants and cafes lining the streets. You keep your fists deep in your coat pockets but the numbness persists. You never thought your hometown would look the same after running away at age twenty with nothing but clothes and a roll of cash – his cash – in your bag. Now, at twenty-three, you wondered if you made the right choice, if the yearning that slept deep in your marrows was the reason why you’re glued to the ground in front of the café you had your first kiss in.

You never thought you’d see Taehyung again – assuming he left not long after you did – but here he is, sitting near the bar with his long fingers grazing over the rim of his whiskey glass. He chuckles at something the bartender says, takes a drag from his cigarette, but his eyes are sad and his smile fleeting. His hair grew longer – past the tip of his ears – and he looks overall larger than life. He’s wearing the coat you bought him for his birthday and you’re wearing the knitted plaid scarf you stole from his closet before leaving. It doesn’t smell like him anymore. It doesn’t smell like his warm cigarettes and aftershave and it takes all your might to not walk in and put your arms around from behind like you used to do when he comes back from work.

Your heart wants him. It craves him. It has spent many nights in your chest begging you to call him and apologize to your tormentor who kisses you while keeping a noose wrapped around your throat. Your Taehyung, your lover, your captor who gave you everything including his own fears.

He doesn’t know why he is the way he is and you can’t find it in yourself to ask. You just know he was easily scared of losing you. The day you found your intimidating and loving boyfriend in your classmate’s house, hovering over the poor boy with his blood-stained knuckles in the air, was the day you knew your love for him isn’t enough to keep himself from hurting himself or others.

Just a moment longer. One moment. You want to stay in the cold for just a moment longer and admire how beautiful he looks without you even if the bags under his eyes are deep and his downturned lips are set in a permanent frown.

Just one moment. Just until he swings the shot of whiskey down his throat and asks for another.

You exhale into the scarf wrapped around your lips.

“Taehyung…” you whisper his name into the cashmere wool.

As if he’d heard you, Taehyung briefly glances up at the bartender and you hold your breath, thinking he would turn his head towards the window. He doesn’t and instead stares straight ahead, the cigarette hanging loosely between his lithe fingers falling into an empty dinner plate. Your heart leaps in your throat when he doesn’t move, the finger over the glass paused, his lips falling just slightly. It’s not until you look over at where he is staring that you stumble back a step, meeting his eyes through the angled mirror that gives him a direct view of your figure through the window. His gaze pins you to the floor; you’ve seen it many times in your dreams but in real life it feels like needles down your throat.

When he moves from his seat you tighten your hand around your handbag and run, your lungs burning in the cold as you stumble through the blanket of snow in your heavy boots. You don’t turn to look, not when you can hear the faint bell of the café door opening and your name hollered in that deep, baritone voice that makes your insides clench. He sounds just as guttural as the day he was covered in blood, shaking his head and whimpering your name when you kneel next to your wounded classmate, annotated papers strewn across the broken furniture.

You turn into an alleyway, looking around to see if there is a place you can hide or crawl under.

You’re stupid.

So fucking stupid.

The footsteps grow louder in the darkness the faster you run into the alleyways. The smell of smoke and dirt making you hold your breath as you turn another corner only to face a brick wall and a line of abandoned bicycles. Screaming for help is no use in this part of town.

Your toes curl in your boots as the footsteps grow louder and louder before stopping just a few feet from where you’re standing. Taehyung can see you tremble softly under the small lightbulb from the back of a dormant restaurant building and he is in disbelief.

You, who had torn his heart out of his chest, had the nerve to run away at the first sight of him.

Again.

“Turn around.” He breathes into the air. His voice is shaking, from anger or from desperation, you can’t tell. “Right now.”

You can’t move. You can’t breathe. You certainly can’t run past him. Taehyung has always been stronger and faster, even when you had pulled him away from bullies when you were both children. Even when he had let you ravish him, let him drown in ecstasy underneath as you rolled your heat into his pistoning hips, you can feel his strength. You can feel his capacity to easily turn pleasure into pain.

“Turn the fuck around!”

You wince at his voice, your tear-streaked face disappearing further into the scarf.

When you fail to obey, Taehyung walks forward and grips the top of your arm, his large hand easily wrapping around your limb. He brings you to him, wrapping his arms around your shoulder and neck this time as his whiskey breath hits your face. He breathes in the scent of your perfume when he presses his forehead to the top of your head.

You changed so many things about yourself when you left him. The color of your hair. The shade of lipstick you wore. The dresses you adorned. The thick rimmed glasses you exchanged for contacts. The one thing you didn’t have the heart to change was the perfume he loved to smell in your hair. The faint smell of roses and musk that kept his sanity intact when your eyes lingered too long on another man or when you scream and shout at his reasons for locking you in the bedroom after working so hard to earn your first job.

“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?” He whispers, tightening his hold around your body as if you were an illusion that could disappear any moment. “I looked for you everywhere. Everywhere, baby, everywhere…everywhere…”

You remember. The cries your neighbors in Denmark had to endure when Taehyung’s brother informed you that he crawled on his hands and knees in front of your injured classmate’s porch, hoping that if you saw how apologetic he is you might come back. The police had to drag him away on the third night.

“I’m sorry…” you breathe into the scarf, your shaking fingers coming up to grip his caging arms.

Maybe you wanted this to happen. You stayed another second longer, just another second longer, in front of that café window hoping that he would turn his head. You held your hand over the candle when you know it’d hurt you in the end.

“Don’t run away from me again, baby. Don’t you fucking dare or else I’ll go crazy,” he sobs into your hair. His hold is tighter and your heart is bleeding just like it had when you left. “You’re the only one...”

He pulls back and tugs the scarf down to see your face. You, his moon, his love. Your wet cheeks are still full and soft, your eyes as dark as the night sky, and your lips still swollen and wounded from your habit of digging your teeth into your skin when you’re nervous. You sniffle slightly in the cold and in such close proximity you can’t bear to look at him in the eyes until he takes your face in his big, cold hands and angles you to meet his lips.

You taste the cigarettes and the whiskey. Beyond his tongue, you taste his yearning and pain. You taste the nights he spent lying in bed with the dresses you left behind. You taste his appetite to hurt something – someone – when he comes back to a barren living room from work. You taste his seething, heartbreaking anger that enslaved you as the lover who needed to look at him and him only.

Despite the harshness of his tongue, above all cries, you taste home.

…

The apartment would have looked nearly identical as before had he expected your arrival. Stepping in, you’re hit with the smell of alcohol and leftover pizza on the kitchen counter before you witness the broken television and shards of glass from empty picture frames and bottles. There’s new workout equipment in the corner where an old, broken player used to be. Whatever cleaning he had done in the past three years was minimal. The only object that looked cleaner – polished even – than before was the snow globe with two angels in the center. You had gifted the little globe during fifth grade, gathering coins from underneath couches and stealing a few dollars from your father’s wallet.

Taehyung reaches from behind and underneath your armpits to undo the buttons of your coat and pull it down your shoulders. You turn your head away from the living room and let him without complaint, knowing from his trembling fingers that he’s holding back his unease.

He doesn’t have to say anything. Just from the sight of the place you once called home, the broken shards told you everything you needed to know.

Taehyung’s fingers pauses on the scarf around your neck. Moving your back to lean against the wall, you peek at his face through your lashes and look back down again when his piercing eyes meet yours once more.

“If you still loved me, why didn’t you come back earlier? Why leave in the first place?”

He tugs the material free from your neck and wraps the scarf around his hands before hooking it onto the coat rack next to the entrance. The light switch lays just underneath the rack but he shows no desire to reveal the extent of his anger just yet.

“I was scared.”

“Of me?”

You nod. “Of you and of myself. Of us. Together.”

Taehyung doesn’t comment, merely watching your wet lashes glimmer in the darkness as it catches the hue from the streetlights outside the window.

“D-Did you…see anyone else a-after I left?” You ask him in that soft, airy voice that you used to soften his heart when he’d get upset. Old habits die hard.

He squints just slightly before tracing the back of his teeth with the tip of his tongue, his arms coming to cage you further against the wall.

He contemplates lying.

He wanted to hurt you as much as you’ve hurt him. He wanted to watch your brows come together and fat globs of tears roll down your cheeks as he tells you he would bring women who looked like you in this space and made love to them. He wanted the satisfaction in feeling your fists pound his chest when he tells you he came inside them with a satisfied groan against their ear. He wanted to tell you he’d fall asleep with them in his arms and he’d lick every inch of their skin like he had done to you. It would be all a lie, but he wanted to. He really wanted to fucking tear your heart apart even if it’d feel like he’s tearing his own.

No matter how much he desired it, he couldn’t do that to you. Even when he knows without you telling him that you made love to other men in whatever place you ran off to, he couldn’t do that to you. Because he’s always known he loved you far more than you loved him.

“No, I didn’t.” He says and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “I’ve only ever been yours.”

Taehyung takes your hand and puts it on his chest. His wristwatch ticks against your skin like a beating heart.

“Take off my coat.” He commands.

You undo the knot around his waist with a small tug and let the black coat fall open. Taehyung hisses underneath his breath when he feels your hands flatten over his pecs and up his shoulders, peeling the heavy coat off of him until he draws his arms down and let the fabric fall onto the ground. He’s broader than you remembered him and so, so much larger in presence like he’s engulfing your entire being whole. He’s wearing a plain white button down with a pressed pair of black dress pants and a matching belt just like the time you left him on such an ordinary day.

His skin is warm underneath the shirt and you can faintly trace his strong arms and shoulders before wrapping your arms around his waist and placing your cheek on his chest. You close your eyes and breathe – in and out – gradual and rhythmic and soft. He can hear you whispering his name underneath your breath over and over again like a prayer, like he’s your religion and you found your way back to him to repent for your sins.

You don’t get the chance to tell him you want to stay with him forever when he suddenly takes your wrist from his waist in a vice grip and pulls you into the apartment, not looking back when you stumble and fall on your knees. He half-drags you into the open bedroom and throws you onto the bed before looming over your curled figure as you rub your sore shoulder. The bed smells like you and it takes a moment for you to see your dresses laying across the pillows and blankets until you’re forced to tear your gaze away as Taehyung wraps his hands around your ankles and pull you towards him.

“Tae!” You squeal when he leaves hot, wet kisses down your cheeks, jaw and throat and nips at your skin with his front teeth. Your skin prickles with sweat and your shoulder still aches from his relentless pulling.

The room is stuffy and you struggle to catch your breath with the windows shut and sheer curtains drawn. It’s stuffy most of all with the memories it held of Taehyung bringing you a heating pad during your periods, tending to your hands when you burned yourself making dinner, watching movies with a secondhand projector on the opposite wall, and stealing each other’s popcorn because you always finish your share before the movie starts. The little things that leave such heaviness in your lungs.

Taehyung’s hands are shaky but firm as he reaches underneath your knitted dress and tugs your panties down your hips along with your stockings. Because you’re still wearing your boots, Taehyung doesn’t wait until he buries his face into the crotch of your panties pulled down to your ankles and licks your essence off the fabric onto his tongue, sucking the satin clean before finally unlacing your boots blind with sharp, uneven tugs and peeling them off your ankles. The shoes fall to his feet with a thump and your panties, along with your pantyhose, falls onto the leather not long after.

He doesn’t recognize this attire and it makes him grip the softness of your thighs harder when he imagines yourself or any other man buying you these dresses. It has always been his pleasure to see you dressed in his money. He’d made a promise to be your provider when your parents threw you out of the house as a teen and out of their lives with nothing but a backpack on your shoulders.

As soon as he brings back your luggage from the worn-down hotel you’ve been staying, he’s throwing every dress he doesn’t recognize into the raging fireplace.

Taehyung pops the top button of his shirt and reaches behind him to drag the cotton over his shoulder and head. His skin glows like molten gold and the silver chain hanging from his neck, curving just slightly over his collarbones, sways with his calculated movements. At the end of the chain is the ring from a cracker jack box you’d engraved with a pocketknife.

So many fragments of your relationship with him surrounds you yet you gathered the courage to leave all those years ago. Three long years it took for you to realize you preferred to be in his arms than be free anywhere else. In his shackles you feel safe. In his shackles you feel loved. Your freedom had its own shackles too – putting on pretenses in front of strangers, trying to meet the expectations of men who could never love you like Taehyung does, molding yourself to fit into who you could be rather than who you really are. Taehyung’s shackles feel like jewelry, like luxury, like comfort.

“Did you think about me?” He runs his warm palms up and down your calves, kneeling between your legs as you squirm on the edge of the mattress.

“Every single day. I missed you…I w-wanted to call but…” I was scared you were going to hurt me like you hurt the people around me.

He doesn’t comment and for a moment you wonder if the years of anger he had built inside him will rush forward like water bursting from a dam. It was strange how you are the same, vulnerable person after all these years despite changing nearly every part of your identity.

When he looks up your heart leaps to your throat. If it were physically possible, Taehyung’s eyes would turn into steel with how hard, how piercing, his gaze is as if he intends to burn holes into your skull. Despite the glare that steals air from your lungs, he’s still beautiful with his uneven eyelids, thick straight eyebrows, chiseled cheekbones, and a prominent cupid’s bow.

“You’re not leaving me again. You hear me? You’re not taking one single step out of this room until I say so. I,” he grits his teeth, tightening his grip around your calves enough to bruise. “don’t fucking trust you anymore. You destroyed us.” His voice is harsh, labored, full of agony. “You destroyed every fucking thing we built together just because I allowed myself to love you.”

“I know, Tae, I know,” you bring a hand over your lips and stifle a sob. Taehyung’s hard gaze falters slightly upon seeing your sadness otherwise his face remains promptly emotionless. “I’m sorry. I’m s-sorry I left, I d-didn’t know what to do. I just…I’m sorry, Taehyung-ah.”

He takes his hands off of you and places them on the edge of the mattress next to your knees, gripping the plushness with all his might.

“You’re not leaving me.” He repeats as if he needed to convince himself more than he needs to convince you.

You shake your head. “I won’t. I swear.”

“If you do this again…something bad will happen. You know that, right? I won’t let you walk away. I can’t let you do this to me anymore, baby. I…haven’t I suffered enough?” He asks and it makes you wrap your arms around his neck and pull his lips towards you. He devours you like he needed you to breathe. It was obvious he was suffocated in this little apartment just as much as you suffocated in the little den back in Denmark, struggling to make it to the next month.

“I love you so much,” you whimper against his lips, tasting yourself on his tongue. “I’m here, Tae. I’m home.”

Your boyfriend groans as he pushes you back onto the mattress and hovers over your body with his knees on both sides of your hips. You bring your legs back, curling them towards your body before hooking it around his toned waist. The warmth that solely belonged to him, you didn’t know how you survived without it. His tongue roams your entire mouth from the back of your tongue to your teeth. You wince just slightly when his fingers trace your slit underneath your red dress, gathering the wetness over your swollen clit in slow circles then moving down to your throbbing core.

“Is this all for me, baby?” He whispers into your mouth as you snake your fingers into his deep chocolate brown tresses and brush his long hair back.

“All for you. I belong to you, Tae, I always have.”

He tsks, watching your hooded eyes suddenly widen and your mouth fall open into an ‘O’ when he impales his index and middle finger into your soaking pussy to the hilt. You had forgotten how long his fingers are until he’s deep inside, until he pushes so hard against your walls that you can feel him from beneath your skin. Your cervix probes his fingertips back and it makes you squirm and wince as he curls his fingers inside and lightly digs digits into your walls. You’ll take the pain with grace.

Your trembling hands reach down to wrap around his wristwatch, slightly wet with your juices trailing down the length of his palm.

“Please, Tae,” you plead, squeezing his wrist. “I want you.”

His fingers move slowly against your walls, leaving you panting and soaking your dress with sweat. He makes no move to be merciless and instead pushes his fingers incredibly deep until your opening burns. He keeps his fingers inside while he undoes his belt, the clinking of the silver buckle raising goosebumps on your skin. All those times he bent you over the kitchen table and lash you across the ass with the belt for blushing when you enjoyed the attention of another comes rushing back, your insides gripping the contours of his fingers as he moves his fingers up and down. Lewd squelches from between your legs make you turn your head away in embarrassment but Taehyung won’t take your disrespect. Not anymore.

You’re left unfilled when he slips his wet fingers out and places them in his mouth to suck, eyes rolling back and his smooth naked chest heaving at your scent. He’s brought back to reality when you work to remove his belt, your palm kneading his throbbing hardness as you unzip and peel his pants open as far as they can go to reveal his boxer briefs. His cock bulges through the dark fabric and you can lightly feel the trail of dark pubic hair above the base. In the silence of the room you relish in his labored breaths and the rustle of clothing. It’s a sound you longed to hear when you’d spend numerous night with your fingers in your panties in your lonely, cramped apartment, fingertips rubbing circles around your clit until you leak all over the vibrating dildo shoved inside.

Taehyung pulls the belt free from his hips and makes you sit up to wrap the belt around your neck like a scarf before lacing the leather back into the buckle and then tightening the loop. He places two fingers underneath where the belt meets your neck to make sure you’re safe. Even with anger radiating off every pore, he cares about you, loves you, wants to please you.

“Okay?”

You nod, palming him and wrapping your fingers around his thick, pulsing length leaking pre-ejaculate through the fabric. He admires the need in your tear-filled eyes and twists the length of his belt around his fingers before pulling you up, earning a whimper as your hands immediately move to your makeshift collar.

The fact that other men had seen you in this position kills him.

Taehyung pulls the thin straps down your arms and peel your dress down to your ankles. You’re not wearing a brassiere and he suppresses a smile. You’d often lounge wearing his shirts in the living room, your perky little nipples peeking through the cotton, all ready for his greedy mouth to latch onto.

When you kick the dress away from your ankles and bring your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms around yourself, Taehyung takes the chance to kick off his shoes. He’s too impatient to remove his slightly tight slacks and black socks, choosing to give all his attention to you instead.

“You’re really here,” he breathes, eyes glazed over in remembrance of you over the years.

It started with kisses in cafes while studying together; at the time, he hardly knew how to kiss and knew less about the feeling deep in his belly. Kisses turned into roaming hands, his fingers disappearing under your panties and yours under his jeans. You lost your virginity to him – and his to you – in the backseat of his car after graduating in which half the time was him struggling to put on a condom while your laughs made him giggle along. He had always been yours, and you his.

You couldn’t accept that Taehyung is no longer the boy you used to know. While he accepted your changes and made peace with your mercurial ways, you couldn’t do the same for him.

“I want to show you how much I missed you,” you bring his hands to your face and rub your cheeks into his palms like a kitten.

Taehyung melts, his tired smile plastered on his face as he pushes the dresses on the mattress away and lays next to you. You know what this meant. He wants to watch you come undone, watch you mold into his body as your spine arches and he can tighten the belt around your neck as you spill onto the sheets. You reach down and slide your hands under his pants, gasping slightly when your hands wrap around the girth of his cock. His hips jolt when you run your thumb over his weeping tip and smear precum down his thickness. Taehyung turns you away from him, his perspired chest sticking to your back, and brings your hips towards his lap until he can slip his cock between your folds.

Heat blossoms on your cheeks when he pants lightly in your ear, breath hitching as he slips the tip of his cock into your entrance before ramming his entire length without warning.

“Ah!” You grip his iron arms secured around your waist. He pushes his cock further until he’s fully nestled in your warmth.

“Ung, baby,” he hisses, sliding his left arm underneath your head to reach the end of his leather belt. He wraps the leather around his fingers twice and brings the belt back to him as he pushes your spine away from him in an arch.

He begins moving, his hand around your waist slipping down to your clit as he rubs coaxing circles while pulling the collar back to compress your jugular. In the dark, cold bedroom Taehyung makes you feel every inch of himself inside your starved pussy. Your vision is filled with spots and every nerve in your body curls and bows to his carnal hunger.

“Please…please, Tae, please…” You beg as he pounds without giving you the luxury to adjust to his thickness, tight balls clenching further as he grinds his hips into your little hole.

You cum immediately, legs twitching as you sob his name and curse under a single breath, the wetness from your folds coating the base of Taehyung’s twitching, loaded cock. When you gurgle and cough, he loosens his grip on the belt and listens to you heave, watching your arms pull you up and away from him as you get on your hands and knees to take bigger breaths. You palm your lower abdomen with the heel of your hand, the ache making your head turn towards the pitch-black bathroom connected to the bedroom. Not only did his penetration burned your entire lower body, but you can also feel the pressure inside screaming at you to run to the bathroom.

You underestimated how cruel Taehyung can be. With teeth gritted, he suppresses the need to cum, and bring your hips back towards him to slip his cock back into your battered pussy. You’re tighter after cumming and it takes every ounce of his energy to not spill his load inside then and there.

“T-Taehyung I need to go to the b-bathroom,” you pant as you sweat from the pressure building even more in your lower region.

He doesn’t reply, only spreading your legs further with his knees and grip your waist before impaling you onto his cock over and over again until you slump back down to the mattress.

“It aches,” you breathe as Taehyung throws his head back and closes his eyes, plunging with the ferocity of a man possessed. He finds the end of his belt curled on your back and pulls, yanking your neck back and curving your entire body to take his length. He hardly prepped you enough and he did so with purpose, with the intent to make you release in more ways than one. “T-Tae, I can’t…Taehyung!”

His hips move quicker and the sound of skin slapping skin echoes along with his deep, guttural groans.

“Give it all to me, baby,” he snaps, falling forward to pin your body beneath his as he pistons his hips like a demented animal. You can breathe now but your vision is still hazy and your breathing labored. You can’t move your arms with Taehyung’s hands wrapped around your wrists in a vice grip above your head. “Do it for me.”

When your legs convulse underneath and a scream rips from your throat, Taehyung leans his damp forehead on your shoulder and spills his seed inside. You swear you can feel every lash of his load against your walls. Your ears ring just as you reach your high once more, neck arching back, nose in his hair as you spill your wetness over the sheets along with warm urine that stung as it leaks down to the dresses below. This was his intent all along – to claim you and to humiliate you into accepting that he will take your body as he wishes.

Still, the embarrassment makes you bury your face into your arms and sob.

“You did so well for me, baby,” Taehyung exhales against your jaw and takes your earlobe in his mouth, suckling gently before running his wet tongue over the shell of your ear. You squirm in his grasp, feeling as if your bones had turned into jelly.

Taehyung reaches down and runs his fingers gently over your pussy, rubbing the wetness over your pubic curls before leaning back on his heels to look down at the soiled dresses beneath your thighs. The warmth of your urine no longer lingers and instead you’re left shivering with the collar still tight around your neck.

He takes a clean dress from behind and wipes your fluids from his semi-hard cock and thighs before wiping between your inner thighs and folds. You’re quiet, toes curled as he works his way down to your knees where your urine trailed. He rolls you to the side, gently, and gathers the wet dresses in his arms before stepping away from the bed and dumping the mound of fabric into a half-empty laundry basket.

He then takes a towel from the shelf and disappears into the bathroom. You can hear the faint sound of water running as you reach up to undo the belt from around your neck and let the leather fall onto the floor with a clatter. Taehyung would prefer to remove it himself, but he doesn’t complain when he comes back with a warm, damp towel and wipes your cheeks and neck before roughly wiping down your body.

The smell of sweat is heavy in the air but it feels rather comforting to know you can be disgusting with him and still wake up loved in the morning.

You keep your eyes trained on the ceiling until Taehyung pulls you up to the pillows once the top half of the bed is clean, molding his body to yours as he buries his face in your hair. He inhales slowly, arms locking around your body and keeping you caged inside his embrace. Only when you lean into his chest does he bring a blanket over your body and his and tuck you in.

“Are you hurt?”

You shake your head, eyelids heavy.

The room is even quieter than before. It feels serene under the blanket since nothing strange has ever happened when you’re safe in his arms.

“I missed you,” you murmur, your fingers twirling his necklace on his chest. “So…so much.”

Taehyung’s voice is hoarse when he speaks. “I never left. I’ve always been here.”

You blink, training your eyes on the broken chess pieces scattered on the floor, and close your eyes. No more lonely nights. No more haunting dreams.

…

‘What’s that?’ Taehyung pouts when you stand in front of him with a small box behind. Every time he attempts to look around your figure, you turn to hide it behind your puffy white skirt. He was really starting to get pissed off and the playground is growing louder with more lousy children interrupting his time on the slides with you. The fifth grade class is the largest in the school after all and there’s only so many slides to go around.

‘You have to guess!’ You insist, keeping the box behind you still.

Taehyung’s frown deepens and then he tucks his bottom lip under his teeth, turning away in a haughty manner with his nose turned to the sky.

‘Whatever it is, I don’t care.’ He says, stepping closer to the slides, but regrets it immediately when your eyes fill with tears and your hands fall to the side. You know he hates being teased, but he knows you love to keep him waiting.

He looks down at your hand to see a box with a picture of a snow globe plastered on the cardboard.

His mouth opens and close like a fish as he contemplates apologizing but he ends up walking up to you and putting his sticky hands on your face instead, tilting your face up to him. You don’t say anything before dropping the present on his shoes and dashing away, maneuvering through the monkey bars and sandboxes with your skirt floating around your knees.

Taehyung kneels and takes the box in his hand, shaking the package until the globe falls into his palm. There it is, the two angels and the glitter particles swirling around them, the very object that he admired in the book fair yesterday. He turns the globe around in his hands, careful, until he reaches the writing written sloppily with a sharpie pen on the glass.

‘I like you’

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five-rivers · 3 years

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Solutions to Nonlinear Equations

For @currentlylurking for the Phic Phight. :)

“Ancients, Vlad. I’m not rejecting you because I’m a rebellious teenager and you’re an adult, I’m rejecting you because you’re incredibly creepy.”

Vlad sniffed in what he hoped was an aristocratic manner and raised an eyebrow, minutely adjusting his grip on Daniel to keep him pinned to the floor.

“We’re human-ghost hybrids, Daniel. I’d hoped that you’d have realized by now that we are meant to be ‘creepy.’”

Daniel squirmed and began to mutter into the carpet. “Clockwork never acts like this, I’m fine with him—”

Vlad pulled back as if burned. He hadn’t heard that name in—in—

In a long time.

Years.

The thought was almost expelled from his head when Daniel managed to elbow him in the jaw hard enough to make him see stars. Before he knew it, Daniel had slipped from his grasp and zoomed away.

Whatever aspersions Vlad cast on Daniel’s mastery of his ghostly abilities, the boy was fast. When he put his mind to escaping instead of picking a fight, he managed it more often than not, to Vlad’s great frustration. Hence Vlad’s usual strategy of needling the younger half-ghost until fighting was the only thing on Daniel’s mind.

He set down on a nearby roof. There went his plans for the day. Which, admittedly, had consisted of distracting Daniel while his ghostly minions set up a nasty surprise for him at the school, hence making him fail his test, which would, in turn, convince Maddie and Jack to let Vlad set Daniel up with a tutor, something he had suggested to them earlier, and—

Well. Daniel would find them, now, no doubt.

Ah, well.

He had more important things on his mind, now. Such as, how in two worlds did Daniel know Clockwork? Because Daniel never just said things like that. He barely knew anything about ghost culture. He wouldn’t know to bring up obscure, secretive, ghost historical figures. He wouldn’t know what that particular name would mean to Vlad.

Tongues of fire flared out of his fingers, bringing a measure of stability to the gyrations of his core and his emotions.

Daniel knew Clockwork. And, it seemed, met him with some regularity. Enough for him to compare his actions to Vlad’s.

Would that ghost never be satisfied with ruining Vlad’s life? Was he not satisfied with—

He cut off the thought, shaking his head. Never mind that.

What Vlad needed to do was find Clockwork. Which meant inducing Danny to go to him at a time when Vlad when Vlad could follow. Which meant determining when he had visited Clockwork in the past. An undertaking to be sure.

He closed his eyes and teleported to his lab beneath his mansion.

“Maddie!” he called out, even before his body had fully reformed.

The hologram flickered to life with a faint crackled from the projector. “What is it, sugarpie?” it asked with a smile.

“Review the audio recordings from Fentonworks,” ordered Vlad. “Search for the term ‘Clockwork.’ Report findings to me.”

“Sure thing, honey!”

Vlad had to review the cheerfulness settings on the Maddie program. Maddie was upbeat, but not that upbeat. This was almost sickly sweet.

He threw himself into a nearby chair.

Clockwork. He thought he’d never hear that name again. Not after he’d been literally and figuratively ghosted by him.

He telekinetically pulled a book off his shelf. He ran his fingers over the leather tooling on the cover. The book had been given to him by Clockwork, years ago, when he was still in that hospital.

Clockwork had been the one to first show him the Ghost Zone, and all the wonders in it. Clockwork had been his friend, his only friend, through that long, agonizing hospital stay. He had been supportive, wonderful, kind. He visited often, though not on a regular schedule. He’d helped Vlad ride out the waves of misery and anger that so often threatened to overwhelm him.

Then, without warning, nothing.

No goodbye. The last time he left, he had even said something along the lines of ‘see you soon,’ although the memory was frayed from age and Vlad could no longer recall the exact words. For a long time, Vlad had worried something disastrous had happened to Clockwork. But then he had finally managed to build his own portal, reach the Ghost Zone under his own power, and, according to every search he did, every line of inquiry that bore fruit, Clockwork was just fine.

Vlad had been furious. He had been betrayed. He had spent the better half of a decade trying to plot revenge against Clockwork, before realizing that was akin to plotting revenge against a god and turning his sights to a more manageable target.

Now…

Now, Vlad just wanted answers. Both as to the reason behind his abandonment and as to why Clockwork was apparently repeating history with Daniel.

“Sweetie pie,” said the hologram, with a chime, “audio processing complete. There are over ninety-nine instances where the word ‘clockwork’ is mentioned. Would you like to play the selected files?”

“Yes,” said Vlad. “Include the video portions where available, and the thirty seconds immediately prior to and following the mention.”

He turned his attention to the nearest screen. He had a lot of videos to watch.

There was an envelope pinned to it. It was sealed with wax, impressed with the image of a pocket watch and the initials CW. Vlad attempted, and failed, to suppress the growl that grew in the back of his throat. Was this a joke to Clockwork?

He tore the envelope from the screen, ripped it open with equal viciousness, and began to read.

Three cups sat on the tea service tray next to the teapot.

“Are you expecting someone else,” asked Danny, “or am I going to break one of these?”

Clockwork chuckled as he began to pour the tea. “The former,” he said. “Although you may always surprise me with the latter.”

He handed Danny his cup. Danny inhaled deeply. It smelled sweet. “What is it?” he asked.

“A chamomile blend,” said Clockwork. “For calm.”

“I think Sam drinks chamomile before she goes to bed,” observed Danny, offhandedly. “Who’s coming?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

Danny made a face. “Do you have to be mysterious all—”

The front door of Clockwork’s lair slammed open, and Danny jolted forward in alarm – the only people who regularly did that were the Observants, who didn’t much care for Danny – but Clockwork put a steadying hand on his shoulder and rewound his tea into his cup.

“Clockwork!” came the expected yell. The yeller, however…

“Is that Vlad?” asked Danny, not quite scandalized, but more than a little surprised.

“Why, yes,” said Clockwork.

“Did you – Clockwork, did you invite him here?”

“Other than the Observants,” said Clockwork, “no one can enter unless I will it.” He took a sip of his tea.

“But,” started Danny.

Clockwork raised a hand. “Don’t worry, he’ll find us soon enough.” He repurposed the hand to pat Danny’s knee. “And even should he prove to be in a combative mood, I will not allow you to come to harm. You are safe here, Daniel.”

“Thanks,” mumbled Danny, looking away, towards the door in the sitting room through which Vlad would presumably enter.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Vlad half-flew half-skidded into Clockwork’s sitting room. He leveled an accusatory finger at Clockwork. “You!” he proclaimed, with a great deal of venom.

“Hello, Vladimir, I’ve poured you some tea. Why don’t you sit down? I understand it has been some time.”

“You under-? No! I will not sit down! I will not drink your tea. Not after you abandoned me for over a decade, just like that bumbling oaf—”

“Hey!” interjected Danny, not only because Vlad had once again insulted his father, but because he could tell that Clockwork, regardless of his stoic façade, was actually quite upset.

“Don’t interrupt me, Daniel,” snapped Vlad. “You don’t know what this, this ghost is. What he does. You don’t know that he gets close to you, makes you think you’re friends, and then drops you without a moment’s notice. Did you think it was funny to string along a man in dire straits? Did you?”

“I did not abandon you, Vladimir, I—”

Vlad scoffed and went on a tirade that Danny honestly found hard to parse. But it sounded like Vlad and Clockwork had known each other in the past and then fallen out of contact in a way that aggravated Vlad’s abandonment issues. Which didn’t seem like Clockwork at all, but Vlad sounded extremely certain and insistent, and Clockwork’s upset was actually finding its way into his voice, now. Danny didn’t—

With all the force and abruptness of epiphany, Danny realized what was going on here.

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Danny, putting down his cup. “Vlad, breathe or whatever. Clockwork, you did tell Vlad that you experience time nonlinearly, right?”

“Of course,” said Clockwork, clearly offended.

“But Vlad, ah, had you gone through natural portals often when you met Clockwork? Or, like, did you ever see him without him initiating contact?”

“I didn’t have my portal built yet, Daniel, so, no.”

Danny turned to Clockwork. “Why did you-? No that doesn’t matter. Haaauuuhh, Clockwork, do you have-?”

Clockwork waved a hand and a whiteboard appeared.

“Thanks,” said Danny, picking a marker up from the little shelf on the bottom. He uncapped it, then recapped it. “Actually, before that. Vlad—” he pointed at Vlad, who looked about one second from exploding “—you have some idea of how old Clockwork is, right? Or at least how old ghosts can get?”

“Yes, Daniel,” said Vlad, managing to overlay his supercilious ‘I know better than you’ attitude over his still obvious anger.

“Okay, great. So, just to establish, Clockwork has been around at least since, uh, beginning of time?”

“Give or take,” agreed Clockwork. “Although I have not experienced it all directly.”

“Right,” said Danny. “Just, already, his perception of time is different from our because of age differences.”

Vlad looked slightly less angry, and slightly closer to curious.

“But, then, there’s the larger issue,” continued Danny. This time his uncapping of the marker was decisive. He drew a flat, straight, horizontal line across the whiteboard. “This is our timeline. We deal with time linearly. We’ve also got, I don’t know, parallel timelines, like this.” He drew several more lines. “You following so far?”

“Yes, Daniel, I’ve read my share of science fiction.”

He was probably rolling his eyes. Curse his solid-colored red eyes. It made interpreting his looks and figuring out where he was looking during a fight much more difficult.

“Anyway, Clockwork isn’t on any of these lines. Because he experiences time nonlinearly.” He drew a squiggly up and down line on the board that resembled the world’s saddest sine wave. Or cosine wave. There wasn’t a y-axis on the not-quite-graph, so it wasn’t like anyone could tell the difference. They were effectively the same.

And Vlad still made fun of him for failing math. Danny knew plenty about math. He just didn’t have time to do the work. Mostly because of Vlad.

“Now, that, that is Clockwork’s timeline. It isn’t always in contact with ours. It’s, like, solutions to a system of equations. Nonlinear equations,” he specified, in case it had been too long since Vlad had encountered basic high-school-level algebra.

“It is somewhat more complicated than that, Daniel,” said Clockwork, exasperated. “It’s more of—"

“Yeah, but this gets the idea across more than the whole parade metaphor, doesn’t it?”

“I would say not. This doesn’t even begin to touch on my abilities.”

“That’s because we’re just talking about your perception of time,” said Danny. He considered for a moment. “And also your ability to interact with our timeline.”

“Which includes my ability to perceive multiple timelines.”

“But that’s complicated, and I still don’t get it,” complained Danny.

“It is less complicated than what you are currently trying to explain.”

“To you maybe, but the whole point of this is that you aren’t seeing things the same way we are. You disappeared on Vlad, what, a decade ago?” He looked to Vlad for confirmation.

“A decade is hardly any time at all,” said Clockwork with exasperation. He sipped at his tea.

“It was fifteen years.”

Clockwork made a somewhat dismissive motion with a gloved hand. “It’s a tiny fraction of your life as a whole.”

“It’s… closer to a third of his current lifetime,” said Danny with a wince. “Or a fourth? I don’t know how old you are, dude.”

“I went to college with your parents.”

“I know, and you were already graying then. Your age is weirdly hard to place.”

Vlad gave Danny a look, but his body language was no longer screaming ‘I’m going to beat the snot after you.’ Danny counted that as a win under the current circumstances. He disliked Vlad, but in a fight with Clockwork… Well, Clockwork could demolish just about anyone.

Not that Clockwork would. Just that he could.

“Daniel—”

“Please, Vladimir. Just sit down. Try the tea. I made it for you. I knew you would be upset, although I could not see exactly why.” Clockwork was almost pouting, now. “Fifteen years is such a short time.”

“Clockwork, I’m fifteen.”

“I know,” said Clockwork, patting Danny on the knee. “Your timeline is so small. And cute.”

Vlad was now distinctly on his back foot, offput and disarmed. “His timeline is cute?”

“It is. Don’t worry, yours is almost as cute.”

Vlad opened and closed his mouth like a dying fish. Danny pushed the whiteboard away.

“Don’t worry about it too much,” he said. “Like I said, different perception of time.”

“I really didn’t mean to make you feel abandoned, Vladimir. I simply wanted to give you some time to, ah, how should I put this? Have space? Find yourself?”

Vlad sat heavily on the couch.

“You get used to it,” said Danny. “But, Clockwork, do you think you can talk him into having fewer evil plans? Because, really. There are way too many. Like, one a week. They’re destroying my grades. Have you ever seen anyone else who had weekly evil plans?”

“Evil plans, Vladimir? Really?”

#danny phantom #phic phight 2021 #phic phight #danny fenton #vlad masters #clockwork

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beelzegrub · 3 years

Note

can I request what would happen if we summon them while we're on human realm bc we missed them so much but lose so much blood in the process I don't really know I'm a sucker for these kind of things. thank youu!!

EDIT FROM FUTURE OP: This ask has been sitting in my drafts for months half finished and I finally found the motivation to finish. Anon, I’m so sorry for the wait. You’re a sweetheart ❤️ I was only able to do the three eldest though and I’m so sorry!!

Um hello??? I love this so much thank you!!! I thought it was kind of silly to go through all of that at the end of season 2 to just.... not use it so I’m excited about this!!!! (Sorry if this is too angsty my brain got super pumped about this and took off.

PS the request said “we” so I used a reader insert type of style. Hope that’s what you were looking for :)

MC Summons Their Demon, but at What cost?

Trigger warning!!!! Self harm/blood

How long had it been since you’d seen the him? Weeks? Months? Who knows. They all blended together after while. All you knew is that it had been too long. Why was this all so tedious? Solomon had promised to teach you the summoning ritual as soon as you could handle it. Why hadn’t he done so? Did he not trust you? Was he purposely keeping you away from the them? Surely you were strong enough at this point. Enough with the waiting. You wouldn’t sit around and any longer! You needed to see them. You needed to see him.

You flipped messily through book after book. Solomon had given you many to study for your apprenticeship. There had to be something about summoning in one of these!

“Hmm..”

You carefully read through the worn pages of one of the larger and dustier tomes. Something about this one called to you. You zoned out as you took in the information on the pages, following context clues until you found what you were looking for. The images drawn on the page seemed foreign and surprised you. A summoning circle? You had expected as much, but the repeated mentions of ‘sacrifice’ and ‘blood oath’ seemed ancient and outdated. You couldn’t help but notice there was no mention of sentimental possessions of the demon you were trying to summon as well. You were sure none of the brothers would suggest a summoning if it were dangerous though...

Out of options and out of patience, you gathered your courage and set up the ritual to the best of your ability. Things seemed to match the books instructions, at least. All that was left was the blood. You stepped into the middle of the circle and closed brought a sewing needle to the top of your finger. The book hadn’t specified the amount of blood needed, but it was better to start small, you reasoned. You closed your eyes and pricked it, quickly squeezing a single drop of blood into the center of the circle, and said the name of the person you had been desperate to see.

Lucifer

The day of the summoning, Lucifer had felt this nagging sense of danger from the moment he opened his eyes. He was so sure it was one of his brothers about to cause trouble for him once again.

Lucifer spent the day preparing for the worst. Had Mammon stolen something of vast importance? Did Levi buy another piece of cursed media? Surely Beel hadn’t eaten a poisonous dish??

That evening, tired from being on edge all day, he had retired to his study, hoping some music would help calm his nerves. He settled into his chair and closed his eyes.

Then came the pull.

It had been ages since he had felt a sensation like this. When was the last time someone had tried to summon him? Hundreds of years ago, it had to be. And it never felt as strong as this force pulling him now.

There had once been a cult of devil worshipers who sacrificed many of their members for a chance to pull him to the human world, quite surprised to find out their sacrifices had been in vain, considering Lucifer wasn’t interested in a bunch of worthless humans. But even then the tug hadn’t been this strong. Sure, he could still resist it, but the strength of it still left him awestruck. Who had the power to call to him like this?

“Lucifer!”

His blood ran cold. Immediately, he stopped resisting the call and gave in, allowing the summoning to take place.

You had done it. Lucifer was here! The strongest and most fearsome of the seven, and you had Summoned him to you. Your heart swelled when you though of how impressed he’d be when he found out you had done it all on your own. Would he praise you? Would he tease you? Would he tilt his head and smirk, then ask you if you had really missed him that much?

You smiled softly, looking up at him. The look on his face wasn’t one of pride. His eyebrows had furrowed and a frown creased deep into his face. Was he angry at you? No... you had seen his anger many times. This wasn’t it.

“MC....what have you done?”

He cradled you softly in his arms. Wait. When had he picked you up? You looked at your surroundings, the fear in the pit of your stomach ever growing. Where had all this blood come from? You had only pricked your finger! Lucifer’s hand touched your cheek, pulling your face back to him.

“Don’t look.”

You had no choice but to obey. You simply didn’t have the strength to move anymore.

“I’ve called for help, it’ll be just a moment, MC. Just keep your eyes on me.”

Lucifer’s voice was soft and soothing, and you felt your tired body relax into his hold.

“I did it... I brought you here... I did it...” you closed your eyes, a smile on your lips.

“MC, keep your eyes open. Look at me. MC! MC!”

Mammon

That day had started out much the same as always. Mammon, still sore from last nights punishment, groaned as he slumped into his desk at RAD. He rested his head in his arms against the desk, and glanced at the seat that used to belong to you. Obviously, you weren’t there, but it didn’t hurt to check....

“MC is still in the human world, Mammon.”

Mammon jumped and sat up straight in his seat, his cheeks red from being caught.

“I know that Belphie! I was just-just uh zonin’ out! MC’s old seat just happened to be in the same direction!” He stuttered out an excuse.

“Just call them, Mammon. I’m sure MC would be happy to hear your voice.” Oh great, now Beel’s getting involved too. He knew his brothers meant no harm, but all this talk about MC was getting him riled up!

“Fine! I will! I’ll call MC tonight! and you two AREN’T invited!” Mammon laid his head down once again, this time hiding his face, not wanting his blush to show a second time. Tonight he’d finally hear MC’s voice again. And he could blame Beel and Belphie for the call!

Come dinner time, Mammon had just about run out of patience. His head kept telling him to wait just a bit longer, but something in his heart was yelling for him to quit dragging his feet.

“I’m going to my room and NOBODY better interrupt me, ya hear?!” Mammon stumbled to his feet and started marching to his room, six pairs of eyes staring at him questioningly. He only made it a few steps when he felt it. A tug. He closed his eyes and swayed on his feet, dizzy from the force of it. This was a summoning, wasn’t it? He had felt it plenty of times from those damn witches, but something about this was different. He turned around to look his brothers again, a look of confusion on his face.

“I...think I’m bein’ summoned.”

Levi snorted and crossed his arms. “I’m sure you’re guilty of something. Better just get it over with.”

The rest of the brothers mumbled in agreement.

Except Lucifer.

Lucifer quickly pushed out his chair and hurried to Mammon. Something was wrong. A simple summoning wouldn’t have this effect on a demon of Mammon’s stature.

The pull came once again, stronger this time. Mammon winced and held his hand to his aching head. Lucifer’s hand came down to rest on his shoulder

“I don’t know how long I can resist this. Somethin’ isn’t right. Lucifer, what’s happening to me?” He looked to his brother for help, and found the rest of them had gathered around as well, a look of concern on all of their faces.

“Someone call for Diavolo and Barbatos. Mammon, hold on just a few more moments.” Lucifer commanded.

Mammon would have agreed, if not for the voice that rang out clearly in his head, calling his name.

“Mammon!”

Mammon’s eyes snapped open and stopped resisting the pull, hearing the shouts from his brothers disappear as he followed the call.

“Mammon! Mammon! Mammon Mammon Mammon! Please!” You couldn’t keep this up for much longer, you knew it. You had fallen to your knees moments after the initial call. You could feel every drop of blood flowing out of the pin prick on your finger, but you didn’t dare give up. You had come this far, and you wouldn’t give up now. Not until you had to.

But you didn’t have to. A flash of light blinded you momentarily, and when you could see again, there he was. Standing there was the Mammon. Relief flushed through your entire body, and you stopped pouring your magic into the spell. Utterly exhausted, your body came crashing forward, landing in front of his feet.

Mammon quickly slid to his knees on the ground, picking you up off the floor and resting your head in his lap.

“You....Are you okay, MC?” Mammon tried to keep his voice even and steady, not wanting to scare you, but his hands that held too tightly and his body that quivered gave him away.

“I am now.” You answered quietly, unsure if it was true. At least Mammon was here and holding you in his arms. Things would be okay as long as he was with you.

“You...You idiot! Stupid! What the heck were ya thinkin’!? Can’t you see how much blood you’ve lost? This isn’t how you’re supposed to be summoning us! I’m gonna kill that damn sorcerer!” Mammon felt his blood boil with each second that passed. How Could Solomon have allowed this?

You softly squeezed his hand, not having the energy to yell for his attention. Immediately, he stopped, looking at you questioningly.

“Solomon didn’t teach me this. He wouldn’t. But.... I just couldn’t wait any longer. I needed to see you.” You answered.

He frowned deeply, more troubled with this answer. You had done all this just to see him? He felt a lump in his throat form. “I would have come to you. You didn’t have to do this.” He pressed his forehead to yours, closing his eyes to stop any tears from escaping.

You cupped his cheek, returning the affection he so rarely showed. “S’okay. All that matters is you’re here now. I just...need....to rest....a little...” Your eyes fluttered closed, feeling at peace and calm in your love’s arms.

Panic. Once again, Mammon’s eyes snapped open. He placed his hand over yours, trying to gently coax you into opening your eyes once more.

“Not yet, you can’t yet, MC. We have to wait for help to come. Come on, wake up.” He knew his brothers would come. Someone would come. They wouldn’t let this happen to you. He wouldn’t let this happen to you. “MC!” When gentle touches didn’t work, he got rougher, shaking you and yelling, desperate to see your eyes open.

“Enough playin’ around MC! Wake up! WAKE UP, DAMMIT! Wake... Wake up...You have to..... Wake up....”

Leviathan

To say that Levi was missing his MC was like saying humans like air. Is it true? Yeah, but kind of an understatement. Humans needed air to live and breathe, and in his eyes, you were air. It’s no secret that Levi wasn’t exactly popular. One might even say it was well known that he was a dorky loner demon, if they were feeling particularly sassy. Being a loner has it’s advantages, like having more time for gaming and anime binging, but it sure is, well, a lonely once you’ve had someone to share your passions with. And once that someone is gone, their absence weighs heavy.

So yes, Levi was missing MC. So what? Everyone was missing MC. Why wouldn’t they? His MC was a ray of sunshine in a world of darkness. Ugh. That line sounder way cooler when the hero in his latest otome had said it. Of course his thoughts couldn’t sound that cool. But that’s not the point! Levi figured he had no right to complain about MC being gone, because he was just a gross, annoying, worthless otaku. He didn’t deserve to miss them. He was lucky he got to spend as much time with them as he did, really.

But nobody could blame him for thinking these thoughts, right? Thinking about how much he missed the way MC would cram themselves as close to him as possible to get a look at whatever mobile game he was playing was harmless. So was remembering all the nights they’d spent binging anime and then realizing the sun was up, smiling sheepishly at each other and promising not to stay up so late next time, even though they always did. Okay, so maybe thinking about the way they looked when they were fresh out of his shower, smelling of his soap and shampoo was less than innocent, but what was he supposed to do!? Leaning your damp head on his shoulder and curling up close to him like that! Doing things like that is bad for an otaku’s heart! You might give them hope or something...

Enough was enough! He didn’t have time to be obsessing over how much he missed MC. It was taking time away from his one and only true love. “Ruri-Chan, you’d never abandon me right? No, I know you wouldn’t. You’re not like that.” Levi began speaking to his latest figure. “Not to say MC IS like that! No, of course their not! They didn’t have a choice!” He stuttered out a quick fix to his hurtful words. He was glad they weren’t around to hear, but it still felt wrong to say. He was quiet for a minute, staring at his floor in shame. Slowly, he lifted his eyes back to the figure. “Do you think they miss me like I miss them?”

And then he felt it. It had been so long, but he knew this feeling.This was a summoning, wasn’t it?! Based on the intense tug he felt, it had to be a super powerful sorcerer or maybe a group of basic magic users? Honestly, he was flattered. Someone wanted to summon HIM? No, They must have made a mistake. Surely this summon was meant for one of his brothers.

Leviathan was so lost in his own self pity he missed the first two calls of his name. The third one, sounding so desperate and pleading, snapped him out of his funk in an instant. He knew that voice. Without hesitation he let the summon take him, and there he was. He was finally reunited with MC.

But it wasn’t supposed to be like this. When he finally saw them again, he was supposed to feel elated and whole again, not like a piece of his heart was ripped right out of his chest. But when he locked eyes with them, surrounded by blood and their eyes looking glassy, that’s exactly what he felt.

“MC! Oh no. Oh no.”

Levi. He was here. He had to be. You heard his voice and felt his presence, felt his arms circle around you and cradle you tightly against his chest. But why couldn’t you see him? And why did you feel so… empty?

“Levi? That’s you isn’t it? Why is it so dark?” Had the candles all gone out? No, even before you lit them, you remember it hadn’t been this dark. Something was wrong.

Levi inhaled shakily, holding back the sobs he desperately wanted to release. “MC, what are you talking about? I’m right here! Can’t you see me?”

Like a bolt of lighting, the realization hit you. It wasn’t dark. The candles hadn’t gone out. It was your eyes.

“No, Levi. I can’t. I can’t see you. I can’t see anything.” You shakily reach your hand up, frantically feeling around for your love’s face. Leviathan’s usual timid nature word have normally had him reeling away, but in this moment, he had no reservations as he helped guide your hand to his cheek. His lips trembled as he fought the urge to scream.

“MC…. Why would you do this? You’ve lost so much blood… and.. and your sight? I’m not worth this. I’m just a useless otaku! It isn’t fair!” His tears began to flow, the guilt of it all was ripping him apart.

You closed your eyes and smiled as you remembered the many faces of this man you had called to you. “It was worth it. I did it because I love you, Levi. I need you. After all, what good is a Henry without his lord?”

#obey me #shall we date? obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mc #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #reader insert #tw self harm #tw sewing needle prick #tw blood #this was way to long winded I overdid it

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alittlebitmaybe · 3 years

Text

tying you to me

For @sugar-and-spice-witcher-bingo

Prompt: crafting

Pairing: Geraskier, implied Geralt/Yen in one line

Rating: T for language

Warnings: None

Summary:

As they lay in bed, Jaskier snuggled and breathing humid against his chest hair, Geralt remembers the pattern from Novigrad. A sweater with stretchy ribbing around the wrists and bottom hemline, a high collar. Intricate cabling criss-crossing up the front, making the fabric thick and sturdy. The scroll is stuffed into one of his saddlebags where he’d put it after purchase when he’d cursed himself for wasting the coin.

Jaskier snuffles closer, his grip tightening around Geralt’s waist as he soaks the added warmth through his skin, and Geralt has an idea.

Or: Geralt doesn't know about the boyfriend sweater curse.

Read more on AO3 or below the cut!

Geralt learned to knit out of necessity. Winters in Kaedwen, especially up in the mountains, are bitter cold, and require not only animal skins but woolen socks, hats, scarves, blankets. They keep a flock of sheep for the very purpose. And before—when there were others, even occasionally a proper staff—it would be part of the normal workings of the castle to have several sets of hands dedicated to knitting up useful garments to keep them from freezing their balls off when the frost came.

There are fewer hands now, but also fewer balls in danger of freezing. Geralt and Vesemir handle the bulk of it, these days—Eskel with fingers too big and clumsy to be much help, Lambert too fidgety and quick to rip out all his progress into a tangled mess of wool in a fit of frustration. In the evenings they sit by the great hall fire in mostly silence and take turns spinning the roving into yarn, winding skeins, chipping away at the endless miles of plain stocking stitch, and seaming panels together. (Sometimes Geralt will embellish the design with cables, or a moss stitch—unconventional patterns he’s started to see in the larger cities, sold by the fancier merchants. He may have paid a few crowns for the scroll describing the pattern for one particular sweater he saw in a shop in Novigrad. He has not mentioned this to Vesemir.)

It may be necessity, but Geralt would choose it even if it wasn’t. These are the things his hands are good for: wielding a sword; harvesting various glands and organs; curling into fists; crushing windpipes; skinning rabbits. Bandaging Ciri’s scrapes. Bringing Yen’s pleasure. Curling around the back of Jaskier’s neck, drawing their lips together. And, when it’s over, when there’s nothing to kill and no one to care for, he can create. He can put it all to the side and count off to himself, knit-purl, knit-purl, knit-purl, knit, knit, knit, around and around, back and forth, and this thing will grow from the rhythm of his fingers, from the steady loop and pull that he’s done thousands of times, taught by some witcher instructor decades ago whose name he no longer recalls. He had bushy eyebrows that waggled as he worked. That’s all the memory that’s left of him.

Anyway, it’s easy to allow the hours to pass until Vesemir excuses himself to bed and the fire burns down and takes the light with it. One such night, just as Geralt is squinting at his work to finish this one last row, the hall door creaks open.

“Geralt,” Jaskier says sleepily, “are you still in here? ‘S late, love.”

Knit, knit, knit. “Mm,” says Geralt. “I’m here. Just finishing up.”

“I’ll wait for you, then.” Jaskier pads in his sockfeet across the stone to the armchair Geralt occupies. He sits himself on the rug with his back against Geralt’s legs, knees pulled up to his chest. “Brr. ‘S chilly, too.”

Geralt drops the needle in his right hand, maintaining tension on the working yarn with his left. He runs his free hand through Jaskier’s bed-mussed hair, brushes against his cold ear, down to the soft skin behind it. “Not wearing a coat.”

“Well I wasn’t heading outside, seemed like a—” He yawns, jaw cracking. “—a lot of trouble just to come downstairs. But I now see my mistake.”

“Always have to wear a coat at night,” Geralt says. “Or be under blankets. Or both.”

“Or acquire a personal witcher furnace, unless he’s down here ‘til gods know what hour making yet more mittens for the princess.”

Geralt looks down at the large rectangle he’s been working on. “Lap blanket,” he says. For Ciri, when she’s studying in the library. It gets drafty in there even with the fire blazing.

“For the library?” says Jaskier, tipping his head back to see Geralt. “Good thinking. She’ll love it.”

Geralt releases him and goes back to his work, but knits at most ten stitches before Jaskier shivers again, his teeth chattering before he gets himself under control. Setting the blanket aside, middle of the row be damned, he concedes, “Let’s go back to bed.”

“No, you’re—you’re not done with—” Jaskier cannot finish his sentence for the yawn that overtakes him. “M’kay. Let’s go.”

Jaskier snuffles closer, his grip tightening around Geralt’s waist as he soaks the added warmth through his skin, and Geralt has an idea.

The next evening, after dinner has been consumed and cleaned up, Vesemir and Geralt move to the fire as usual. Vesemir is working up a new hat for Lambert, who has the shortest hair among them and has one practically pasted to his head all winter long.

Geralt spares a glance to his blanket-in-progress, and then veers toward the wooden chest that stores their yarn stash. He puts aside plain ball after plain ball, until finally he admits defeat and turns to Vesemir and asks, “Do we have any dye?”

“No,” says Vesemir, not looking up. He knits with the yarn looped around the back of his neck to keep the tension, instead of around his fingers. He says it’s easier on his old joints. Geralt thinks it looks preposterous, but it gets the job done. “Not a drop. And that’s never bothered you before.”

“I’m thinking of making a gift,” says Geralt. “I think they’d prefer it to be dyed.”

“Ah, the bard. Yes. I suppose he would.”

“I want him to actually wear it.”

“Indeed.”

“He says coats are too bulky and ponderous, and they dampen his spirits.”

“Foolish boy. He’ll learn.”

“So we have no dye? Of any color?”

“None,” says Vesemir. “Though it may be that there are some old skeins in the back of the cupboard by the linens. I recall that some of our forebears had rather expensive taste, for witchers. Quite wasteful of them. If you ask me.”

Geralt murmurs his thanks, pulls on a cloak, and makes his way through the frozen corridors to the cabinet in the laundry. Along the way he passes the study, and overhears Eskel dominating Jaskier in another round of Gwent.

“Eskel, you dirty cheating bastard, there is no way you just had that card.”

“Where d’you think I kept it, bard?”

“Up your sleeve, behind your ear, under the table, I dunno—”

“Down your pants,” Lambert chimes in, and Geralt hears Ciri giggle. She’s been spending too much time with the witchers now that Yen has departed for the season. Geralt should probably intervene more often.

“—maybe you magicked me with a sign thingy so I wouldn’t notice, but I’m sure you didn’t have it in hand a turn ago, I’ll swear that on—”

“Yes, Lambert, I’ve got Gwent cards lining my codpiece, naturally, even a few stuffed between my—”

Geralt rounds the corner and their voices fade away.

As Vesemir said, there is a small box pushed all the way to the back of the cupboard in amongst the linens. He opens it without much hope, but is surprised to find it full to the brim with yarn of deep reds and blues, all of some soft texture very unlike the itchy wool they’re accustomed to. Sniffing it, he decides it is from some type of goat. He also decides, based on its lack of musty odor, that it is not nearly old enough to have belonged to one of their forebears.

Well, in exchange for the use of the yarn, he’ll allow Vesemir his secret.

He carries the whole lot back to the great hall.

“You found it,” Vesemir remarks, now nearly done with the hat.

“Right where you said,” says Geralt. “You don’t mind if I use it?”

“As much as you like,” he replies disinterestedly, “if you’ll leave me the fuck alone while you do.”

Fair enough.

Geralt selects the red—a deep burgundy that will pair with the blush on Jaskier’s cheeks after a few glasses of wine. He pulls the scroll from his trouser pocket, and begins casting on as the pattern instructs.

When he hears Jaskier’s tread in the hall, he hastily pulls the half-finished lap blanket over his new project.

“Bedtime, Witcher,” says Jaskier, peering over his shoulder. “Didn’t make much progress on that tonight, did you?”

“It’s a big blanket,” Geralt grunts. “Eskel’s been practicing sleight of hand since we were boys. Don’t play him for money.”

“I bloody knew it,” Jaskier exclaims. He wheels around and stomps back out of the hall, suitably distracted. “Eskel! You’ll never believe what Geralt’s just told me!”

The sweater is slow going, since he does have to put real work into the blanket every once in a while to keep Jaskier’s suspicions to heel.

Over the next few weeks, it becomes near an open secret in the keep what Geralt is up to. Lambert catches him cursing late one evening as he is ripping back several rows to fix a cable he’d mistakenly crossed the wrong way.

“Whazzat,” Lambert says, crunching on a mouthful of tree nuts.

“Fuck off,” Geralt says. He squints and carefully tries to secure a dropped loop back on the needle. If it ladders down, he’s done for—there’ll be no fixing it while maintaining the pattern. He’s not nearly good enough for that.

“Looks like you’re fucking it up,” Lambert chews.

“I am. That’s why I told you to fuck off.”

“Thought that’s just how you decided to greet me now. That’s what Vesemir does.” He shoves another fistful of nuts into his mouth, though Geralt isn’t sure he’s swallowed the first.

“It’s not a bad idea.”

He manages to pick up that last loop before disaster strikes, and moves the stitches around on the needles to make sure they all look right. Then he shoves the left-hand stitches all the way up to the tip so he can continue.

Lambert leans down to examine the fabric, then runs his finger down the pattern with his eyebrow raised. “This is some fancy shit, Geralt, you giant poof.”

“It’s not for me,” he says.

Lambert swallows, belches, and says, “My point exactly. ‘S for Jaskier, innit.”

Geralt doesn’t bother answering as he approaches the cable he’d made a mess of the first time around. Lambert claps him on the shoulder with the hand he’s been using as a nut-to-mouth delivery tool, which leaves salt behind on his tunic.

“That’s okay. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks,” says Geralt wryly.

“Anyway, I’m outta here. This boring bullshit still gives me hives.”

He exits the hall and the door shuts heavily behind him. Geralt finishes recrossing the cable and, turning to check his pattern, finds it covered in greasy fingerprints.

Eskel, on the other hand, sits himself in Vesemir’s usual seat one night and sets to quietly whittling a whistle. After several hours, Geralt holds up the near completed front panel of his sweater and says, “Do you think Jaskier will like this?”

Eskel doesn’t even look at it. “Geralt, you could spit on a log and hand it to him and Jaskier would love it.” His knife stills. “Maybe don’t do that, though.”

To their credit, none of the other witchers say a word—possibly for lack of caring—and Geralt is able to rely on them to keep Jaskier occupied most nights while he finishes the front and back panels and seams them up.

Before he begins work on the sleeves, the pattern warns, the wearer should try on the body to ensure proper fit.

“Well, shit,” he says aloud. He can’t ask Jaskier to try it on and ruin the surprise. He holds it up against himself, trying to judge if they are similar enough size to judge whether it will fit Jaskier. Geralt, certainly, is wider in the chest and shoulders, but as long as he can get it on without stretching it too much he should be able to check the length. And, if it fits Geralt or is loose, it will certainly be too large on Jaskier.

It will have to do.

The next morning he rises early and takes the sack in which he’s been storing his project to Ciri’s bedroom. He knocks softly.

“Ciri?” he calls, mouth close to the door. “Can I use your mirror for a moment?”

“Mnnngh,” he hears. He takes this as an invitation.

The only visible part of her, when he lets himself in, is a tangle of hair escaping from under the pile of furs on the bed. He sets his sack delicately in front of the only full-length mirror in the keep and says, “Morning, Princess.”

“F’ off,” the fur pile groans. “No it’s not.”

“You really have been spending too much time with Lambert,” Geralt comments mildly as he pulls the unfinished sweater out and checks it for damage in transport, though he knows it was safe in the bag and only traveled up some stairs. “He’s a bad influence.”

“I’ve always been like this when rudely awakened at the crack of dawn,” Ciri says, muffled. “Don’t think any of you are special.”

“You cursed at the royal servants?”

“Quite regularly.”

Geralt shrugs the layers off his top half down to his undershirt while she continues to stretch and grumble wordlessly in the warmth of her bed. He pulls the sweater over his head; the neckline snags on his ears but otherwise he should be okay to try to get his arms in. He squeezes his right arm in and up, aiming for the proper hole—

“Geralt,” Ciri says icily, “what, by the gods, is that?”

He turns around, contorted in the confines of the too-tight sweater. She’s sitting up with her hair a wild tangle and her eyes wide in horror. “What’s what?”

“That garment!”

“It’s…a sweater? I’m making it.”

Geralt thinks he may be missing something very important.

“For yourself?”

“…No, for Jaskier. He needs another—”

“Don’t you care about the curse?”

Geralt finishes fitting himself into the sweater and tugs it down over his stomach while Ciri continues to stare at him in expectant horror. Thus no longer trapped, he decides to engage. “The what?”

Ciri slumps forward, briefly puts her face in her hands. “Good gods, Geralt, you really can’t be helped. But I also cannot allow you to give Jaskier a handmade sweater. Despite your…personal challenges”—at this, Geralt tilts his head and opens his mouth to ask exactly what the hell that means, but she barrels on—“I really have become fond of the two of you, so I cannot let you carry on with this foolish nonsense.”

Her voice goes more posh the longer speaks. Geralt thinks she will make a fine queen someday. “Ciri, I—”

“And really,” she continues, “it’s like you’re trying to sabotage a good thing. He does nothing but care for you, and this is how you repay him? Honestly. Melitele’s tits!”

“Melitele’s—? Where did you learn that one?”

“I’m hardly sheltered. And you’re one to talk, caring about my language when you’re about to lose Jaskier for good!”

“For good? Lose Jask—okay, Ciri.” He sits down at the foot of her bed, probably looking downright silly confined to a sleeveless sweater that is at least one size too small for him. He can feel it constricting the rise and fall of his chest and stretching tight in his armpits. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. What curse?”

The expression she aims at him is sharper than at least four of the blades in the armory. “The sweater curse, Geralt. If one makes a sweater for a person one is interested in romantically, that person leaves within a fortnight. Everyone knows this.”

“Oh, of course. How stupid of me,” Geralt says.

Ciri raises an eyebrow that says Yes, obviously.

“So you’re telling me that if I finish this sweater and give it to Jaskier, he will suddenly no longer be able to stand the sight of me and will stomp off on down the mountain, even with the good foot of snow and ice blocking the path.”

She sniffs. “Indubitably.”

“Hmm,” says Geralt. “I think I’ll take my chances.” He claps his hands on his knees as he stands and moves back to the mirror to inspect the sizing more closely. The armholes are definitely a bit small—he’ll have to let out the seam to increase the circumference—but the rest, if he tries to overlay Jaskier’s body onto his own, seems like it should be about right.

Ciri leaves the bed with a fur wrapped around her as a cape and comes to his side. “You’re impossible,” she declares, though the royal snootiness is diminished somewhat by her morning breath and tangled hair. Then she reaches out and touches the textured pattern between the cable running up the front. “Though, you know, it is quite beautiful, if horribly misguided.”

He grins indulgently at her. “Thank you, Princess.”

“Have you heard of the sweater curse?”

Vesemir snorts. “Poppycock. Who told you about that old superstition?”

“Just came across it.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Vesemir looks at Geralt over his spectacles. “I hope that it’s not bothering you.”

“No,” says Geralt. “Of course not.”

He has fuck-all in his hand of cards, but he stares down at them like they might contain the secrets of the Continent.

“It’s your turn, Geralt,” Eskel says.

“I know,” he replies, absently rearranging the cards.

“So…you gonna play or pass?” Lambert asks. He digs his hand into the bowl of nuts at his elbow.

“Not sure.”

“Is something on your mind?” Eskel, again.

“No. Well…do either of you believe in the sweater curse?”

They both look at him blankly.

“Nuh uh,” says Lambert with his mouth full.

Geralt says, “Pass.”

He speaks clearly into the xenovox. “Yen? Are you there?”

“Geralt?” comes the reply, as if she were beside him in the room. “Is Ciri all right?”

“We’re all fine. It’s good to hear from you, too.”

“If there’s no trouble, then make it quick.”

Now he hesitates, but he chokes the question out anyway. “Do you know about the sweater curse?”

There is silence.

“Yen?”

“For the love of the gods, Geralt, please don’t bother me with frivolous garbage. I’m much too busy. Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all,” Geralt says, suitably shamed.

The finished, washed, and blocked sweater rests folded at the bottom of his wardrobe for more than a week before he works up the nerve to bring it down to dinner with him in his knitting sack.

Even with the flaws that Geralt, as the creator, inevitably notices—a few loose stitches three quarters down the back panel, the right sleeve is slightly longer than the left—he has to admit that it turned out well. He could fetch a pretty penny for it in a large city. Silky soft, thick, and vivid burgundy, it would be a stand-out piece among any merchant’s wares even without the detailing that stretches collar to hem and even down the outside of the arms.

Knitting it was a nightmare. He will never do anything like it ever again, so Jaskier had better appreciate this one.

Still, every time he resolves to finally gift it, Ciri’s words echo in the back of his mind. You’re about to lose Jaskier for good.

On the ninth day, he shushes that voice, takes the sack, and marches straight into the hall for dinner. After all, if Yen and Vesemir aren’t worried, then he shouldn’t be either.

Everyone but Jaskier is there already. Eskel looks up from pouring ale into each mug and says, “Hullo, Geralt. What do you have there?” and Lambert says, “Ooh, didja finish it?” and Vesemir digs wordlessly into his mutton.

Ciri’s eyes zero in on the sack.

“Hello,” says Geralt. “Is Jaskier still washing up?”

“Yeah,” says Lambert. “He fell in a pile of snow.”

“Lambert pushed him into a pile of snow,” Eskel amends.

Geralt glares at the accused, setting the sack on the bench at his usual spot.

“He asked for it. Bloody said ‘Lambert, throw me into that snow over there!’ didn’t he?”

“Since you were alone with him at the time, I don’t think I can confirm or deny—”

“Geralt,” Ciri interrupts, “tell me you’re not still planning what you said.”

“I am,” he tells her.

“You were standing not ten feet away.”

“My back was turned—”

“You’re a godsdamned witcher! Or have you gone deaf?”

“Even after what I told you! I thought you were going to think about it!” Ciri pushes back from the table. “I forbid you from giving that to him.”

Geralt snorts. “Or what, Princess? Look, I don’t think Jaskier is planning to leave—”

“Of course he’s not planning to, the curse will make him! Why are you tempting destiny this way?”

“I’m just saying, Lambert, that it wouldn’t be out of your character to shove an unsuspecting bard into a snowbank.”

“Oh, and hustling him at Gwent wasn’t out of your character, so maybe you’re actually the one who shoved him. Thought about that one, Eskel?”

Geralt says, “If he tries to leave, I’ll tie him to the bed until the urge passes.”

She wrinkles her nose in disgust, but then moves past that comment. “At least let me give it to him. I’ll say I brought it from Cintra, or bought it on the way here.”

“And let my hard work go unacknowledged? I don’t think so. And why would you have bought a man’s sweater?”

Among the arguments, no one notices Jaskier enter the hall and come up behind Vesemir, wide eyed. “What did I miss?” he stage whispers.

“Just open your present, bard,” Vesemir mutters, gesturing to the sack at Geralt’s knee.

“Ooh, a present? For little old me?”

He picks up the sack and tests the weight curiously, before opening it and drawing out the most marvelous sweater he has ever seen.

“Jaskier, no!” Ciri cries, and everyone else falls quiet.

“What, why?” he says, looking between Ciri’s stricken face and the furrow between Geralt’s brows. “What is this?”

“It’s for you,” Geralt murmurs. “I made it.”

“You made it?” he repeats dumbly.

“Yes. For you. Because you were…cold.”

“Because I was cold?”

Geralt gently takes it from him and holds it up so he can see the full design. “That night, you came in when I was knitting, and you were cold. I wanted to make you something warm to wear that you would like.”

Jaskier squishes the soft fabric between his thumb and forefinger.

“Do you,” says Geralt, “like it?”

“It’s stunning,” Jaskier breathes. Geralt may as well have hit him over the head with a hammer.

“I cannot believe you, Geralt of Rivia,” Ciri cuts in. “You never listen to anyone. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” With that, she turns on her heel and leaves the hall.

Geralt grimaces. “Do you, er, have any particular desire to leave me?”

“Leave you? Why would I—Geralt, is this a breakup gift? Is it pity?” He panics, pushing the sweater back into Geralt’s hands. “I don’t want your gorgeous pity breakup sweater, Geralt. I’ve played that game before.”

Geralt steadies him, as ever. “No, it’s—Ciri thinks there’s a curse, or something. And that if I made you a sweater, you would leave.”

“Oh,” says Jaskier. “Well, I assure you I will not. And in that case I do want the sweater.” He shucks off his coat right there at the table and pulls the sweater on over his tunic. “There!” He spreads his hands wide. “How does it look?”

The smile Geralt gives him is answer enough. “Perfect,” he says. “You look perfect.”

“Not bad, bard,” Eskel says.

Lambert shoots him a thumbs up. Vesemir does not appear to be paying attention.

Jaskier leans in and kisses Geralt on the lips. “Thank you very much,” he whispers. “I adore it and promise to thank you more appropriately later tonight. For now, shall I go after Ciri?”

“That may be best,” Geralt says. “I don’t think she likes me much right now.”

“My pleasure. Say,” he says louder, “while I’m gone, don’t let my food get cold.” He opens the door and barely feels the usual chill of the drafty hallways at all. Over his shoulder, he adds, “You can get Lambert to tell you all how he threw me in a snow pile today! It was great fun!”

“I told you—” he hears, but then the door closes behind him.

#my fic #geraskier #the witcher #geralt x jaskier #geraskier fic #someone pls teach me to write drabbles i'm dying

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heliads · 3 years

Text

Radio Silence Chapter Three: Say Again

Poe Dameron has been assigned to work as an intel receiver to Acer, a Resistance recon agent. They’ve only ever talked through the comms, so when she’s captured by First Order troops he assumes she’s lost forever. When Poe accidentally rescues the absolutely infuriating Resistance spy Y/N L/N from a First Order Star Destroyer, he knows she’s got nothing do with with Acer. Right?

previous / series masterlist / next

They have only been on this ship for about three standard hours, and already Poe is beginning to go mad. The journey to the Kinoss system to deliver supplies to the Resistance supporters hadn’t seemed that long, yet somehow the return trip seems to crawl by, second by second. It could be because the ship is damaged and the flight isn’t as efficient as it was previously, or it could be because of the third passenger: a cocky, arrogant, altogether infuriating recon agent named Y/N L/N.

Suddenly, Poe can’t entirely blame the First Order for locking her in a cell. Of all the turns to take on that Star Destroyer, of all the detention blocks to wander past, they just had to pick the one with the girl who was his mortal opposite. There’s a problem with the nav screen, they’re both standing up to fix it. There’s an incoming call from headquarters, Poe has to race her to the comms to answer it. Poe knows he has an issue of always wanting to prove himself to people he doesn’t know, but with her, it’s the complete opposite. He can’t wait to get off of this ship and never have to talk to her again.

Finn, on the other hand, seems to be enjoying himself. His eyes cut between Y/N and Poe, a barely contained laugh written into every line on his face. Poe slumps down into a seat next to him. “Hey, pal, I thought you were supposed to be having my back in an argument, not watching this like it’s a podrace.” Finn just chuckles. “I’ve never seen someone so similar to you. It’s kind of funny, honestly.”

Poe’s mouth drops open in outrage. “We are nothing alike! She walks around this ship like she owns it!” Finn raises an eyebrow. “Is that not what you’ve been doing ever since you found out you’d be piloting a Mandalorian Needle?” Poe waves a hand dismissively. “That’s different, I was given control of the ship by the Resistance itself. She just happened to be on board.” Finn gives him a look. “Sure thing.”

Poe is distracted from delivering a no doubt witty defense by a choking sound coming from the consoles in front of him. “That doesn’t sound good.” Finn mutters, taking in the sudden appearance of several blinking red lights. Poe stands up, considering the controls arrayed on the walls and ceiling around him. “No, it doesn’t. I think the sublight engine power couplings were-” “Demagnetized by the jump to hyperspace?” Poe glances over his shoulder at Y/N, who has walked up in time to finish his sentence.

A slight smile surprises itself onto his face. “Yeah, actually. That’s right. How’d you know that?” That sound and these alerts aren’t just any ship problem, this is a very specific issue that Poe’s only seen once or twice in his life. The fact that Y/N knew it so quickly is actually pretty impressive, although he’d never say it to her face. Even this barest hint of approval is already hard to dole out- a smirk is present on Y/N’s face once more.

“You can stow the surprised look, you know. You’re not the only one in the Resistance who knows their way around a space cruiser. I’ll go check the couplings, you can pick your jaw up off of the floor.” With that, Y/N turns and heads down the corridor, a teasing grin still on her face. Poe makes a face at her departing back, and glances over to see Finn trying to hide a smile. Finn holds up his hands defensively. “Hey, say what you want about her but I’m glad someone’s finally standing up to you. The amount of times I’ve heard you brag about ships is astonishing and it’s pretty funny to see someone do the same thing to you.”

Poe doesn’t know what Finn is talking about, but he pushes it from his mind, standing up from his seat near the front windscreen to check the sublight engines near the back of the ship. Y/N probably has it handled, but he just wants to make sure everything is right. If he returns the Needle to the Resistance in a state of disrepair, they won’t let him fly anything larger than a speeder bike for the next decade.

Eventually, Poe finds Y/N leaning over an exposed panel near the engines, gaze riveted to the mechanical parts before her. Her sleeves are rolled up to reveal toned arms already streaked with grease, and she’s donned some light worker’s gloves to protect her fingers as she methodically fiddles with the couplings. She instinctively turns towards the door when she hears Poe approach. There’s a strange panic in her eyes, as if she’s not used to being in the same ship as someone. Then she relaxes and turns back to the panel, confidence once again flowing from her with such surety that Poe begins to question whether or not she’d looked uneasy at all.

“You know, I do actually know what I’m doing. You don’t have to check up on me.” Poe shrugs. “Not that many people have seen the demagnetization problem with the couplings. Guess I was just curious to see how you’d fix it.” Y/N shrugs, taking a step back to consider her work. “I didn’t know until about a month or so ago. A friend of mine told me about it.” There’s a slight smile on her face as she talks about her friend, whoever that might be.

Poe himself can’t help but think of one very important friend. It’s funny that Y/N should mention that she learned about the coupling issue from someone she knew- Poe can picture himself in that closet of a radio room, fingers tapping absentmindedly on the edges of the navicomputer as he told Acer about a problem he’d had with his X-Wing. He’d thought that he would have to replace an entire engine, but it turned out to be a simple fix. All he had to do was rewire and remagnetize, and then he was done.

He can still hear Acer’s static-laced chuckle over the radio channel. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next ship I steal,” she’d said, “I’m sure it’ll come in handy on this backwater planet.” Poe had protested, something about how all of his ship-fixing tips were handy, but she had just laughed and assured him that she’d write it down somewhere, just in case. Poe doesn’t know if Acer had ever thought about it again. It hurts more than it should.

Poe straightens up, forcing himself to return back to the present day. Y/N’s pausing with the replacement of the panel, staring at him with a quizzical expression. “You alright there, Captain Mechanic? You look upset.” Poe shrugs, flattening his face back into neutrality. “I’m just thinking about a friend of mine. It’s easy to lose people in this line of work, and I don’t know if she’s going to be alright.” Y/N’s usual smirk loses its conviction. “It’s hard to lose people, isn’t it? Even when you get away, there’s always someone that doesn’t.”

The room falls silent except for the beeping and whirring of the engines. Y/N seems lost in thought, then slowly closes the panel on the wall. She walks over to Poe, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, people have a way of making it out. Maybe they’re alive after all and just unable to check in at base.” Poe frowns. “Actually, I don’t feel better.” Y/N’s face drops for a second, and Poe continues. “Do you know why? It’s because I had a pristine white jacket, and you are going to get grease stains on it. Your hands are filthy, you realize that?”

Y/N breaks out into laughter. “Here you had me worried, I thought I offended you or something. But you’re worried about grease? How are you an ace mechanic if you can’t stand grease?” She moves towards him as if she’s about to rub her dirty work gloves on his jacket sleeve, and Poe catches her wrist just in time. “If you keep that up, I’m going to turn this ship around and drop you off at that Star Destroyer again.” He tries for a glare, but Y/N’s grin just broadens. “We’re about three parsecs from base. Would you make a return trip to the First Order just for me?” Poe grumbles, dropping her hand. “I might. I just might.”

Poe has never been happier to see the entrance lights of the Resistance base hanger in his life. He rushes through the entrance codes before dropping the ship into a perfect landing in the designated zone. Poe, Finn, and Y/N file down the entrance ramp, but they’ve barely taken five steps into the hanger before there’s an excited shout from one of the ship workers. “Y/N? Is that you?” Y/N’s beaming as she is swept up into the embrace of a beige-clad mechanic. “Stars, Jala, how is it that the First Order didn’t break any of my bones but you have?”

This mechanic- Jala- just laughs. “First I didn't see you for months, then I heard that you were dead. Sorry I’m happy to see you.” Y/N holds up her hands. “I’m still alive, don’t worry about me. There was no way I was going to curl up and die in a First Order cell, it would kill my reputation.” Jala snorts with laughter, then cocks her head at Poe and Finn. “Who are they?” A teasing glow enters Y/N’s eyes, and she slings her arms around their shoulders. “These are the hotshots that pulled me from a Star Destroyer. Isn’t that something?”

Poe can’t help but grin. “We’ve been arguing this entire trip back and now we’re your rescuers? I would have liked the thank-you a little earlier.” Y/N makes a face at him. “Unfortunate.” Jala glances over at a message popping up on her comms unit, groaning. “I have to get back to work. You should probably go see the General and tell her you’re back, but we’re catching up after this! I know you’ve got stories to tell.” Y/N raises a hand in a mock salute. “I’m not sure I’ll have that many stories, Jala. Almost everything is classified, I’m afraid.”

Jala waves a casual goodbye, promising to drop by later with some drinks and expectations of Y/N’s anecdotes. Poe, Finn, and Y/N start heading down the twisting and turning corridors of the Resistance base to find Leia. On the way, Finn turns to Y/N with a curious look. “You know, you never really told us why you were in that cell in the first place. What, you were trying to find Resistance supporters and got captured?”

Y/N shrugs as they disappear down the halls. “It was mainly just recon work gathering intel from the First Order bases nearby. I think somebody found out or tipped off the stormtroopers, because all I knew is that I was relaxing by myself and then the First Order shot down my door.” They’ve arrived at the main debriefing room of the base, and although Leia’s in the middle of a critical discussion with some advisors, her eyes light up when she sees Y/N walk through the room.

To pass the time until Leia can greet them, Poe glances over at Y/N. “You were doing recon work in the Unknown Regions? Then you weren’t a tactical officer, you were a spy.” Y/N nods. “Exactly. I would relay information back to an anonymous receiver, and I did it for a long time until I was ambushed.” Poe mulls this over. “That reminds me of someone. Did you ever know a fellow sender named Acer?”

Poe figured it was a long shot to ask Y/N about Acer, but the second he says her name Y/N’s gaze locks onto his. She tries to play it off, but Poe can tell that he caught her attention. “I do, actually. How do you know her?” Leia is approaching them now, only a few feet away. “I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I was her receiver. We worked together for months before she disappeared. Do you know what happened to her?”

Y/N’s eyes widen. There’s something new in her gaze, a stunned realization. Poe can’t quite name the emotion, but he’s certain that Y/N knows something that he doesn’t. Y/N looks over at Leia, then back at him. “No, I- I don’t know about her. You were her receiver?” Poe nods, smiling slightly in spite of himself. “Yeah, until she dropped off the air. How did you know her?” Y/N gestures loosely with her hands. “We, uh, ran into each other as spies. While we were in action.” Y/N pauses for a second, then continues on, as if the words are racing out of her without even thinking about it.

“She mentioned you, I think. She kept making some joke or something whenever she mentioned her receiver. She never said a specific code name, but she’d always use some play on words about applause.” Poe chuckles. “I could see that. My name was Bravo, it was probably because of that.” Somehow, the thought stings like a vibroblade. Somewhere out there in the world, Acer was talking about him to another spy. She laughed to herself and made jokes that only the two of them could know, even when she was speaking to someone else. Stars, he misses her.

Leia notes the break in the conversation and smoothly begins speaking. “Y/N, it’s so good to see you again. We were worried that you were captured by the First Order.” Y/N winces. “I was, actually, but Poe and Finn managed to break me out.” Leia smiles at them. “I would ask why the two of you were in a First Order detention block, but I have a feeling that I don’t want to know.” Poe and Finn chuckle quietly, but Y/N’s expression still looks strained.

She turns to them. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to the General for a moment.” Finn nods, turning briskly down the corridor once more. Poe, however, is still wary over Y/N’s sudden change in demeanor. He leaves the room, but pauses just outside of their view, hovering by the wall as if checking his weapon. It’s hard to hear them from the hall, but Poe can just make out Y/N’s voice. It’s changed again, and sounds unhappy, almost angry. She’s asking something, a question. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell him?”

Leia is beginning to answer her, but Poe can’t make anything else out. He waits for a couple more seconds, then continues on down the corridor. Even after he’s left the room behind him, Poe can still hear Y/N’s voice echoing through his mind. What was Leia keeping from them, and why would it be important enough to render even the never-serious Y/N L/N into a state of panic and disarray?

radio silence tag list: @kesskirata, @ubri812, @itsnottilly, @20th-centu-fairy-girl

#poe dameron #poe dameron imagines #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron series #star wars #star wars imagines #star wars x reader #star wars series #poe #poe imagines #poe series #star wars poe #star wars poe imagines #star wars poe x reader #star wars poe series #poe x reader

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i-am-infinite · 3 years

Text

Guilt (Part 2): The Market

(Din Djarin x ForceSensitive!F!Reader)

Part 1 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Description: Moff Gideon has found someone else to run his experiments on and word gets back to Din. Will he take his son far away and try and find somewhere safe? Or will the guilt of an innocent being put in his son’s place eat away at him? (No Y/N or ___ used)

Word Count: 4.5K

Warnings: violence, mention of blood, needles, crude talk, symtoms of anxiety attack, fluff, angst, implied death and death, let me know if I'm missing any

A/N: This took a while to write because I was really distraught after Chpt 14. Also planning on turning this into a little series. I'm going to try and finish it before my next semester starts in Feb. I also don’t know how to write fight sequences so sorry in advance.

You see a stormtrooper take aim at your rescuer. Right when he pulls the trigger, you reach your hand out screaming, “NO!”

It was supposed to miss him. It missed him before. Instead of bending out of the way, it hits him and the Mandalorian goes down fast. Before you know it, more troopers come, grabbing Dr. Pershing and dragging him away. They start coming towards you when you hear yourself say, “No, please no!” You could run towards the speeders, but there’s too many of them now, they can catch up easier. Looking back at the shiny man, tears leave your eyes. You were supposes to save him. That’s how it was supposed to happen. You start screaming the only name you know for him as a stormtrooper grabs your arms and has them twisted behind your back. Dragging you back to where you escaped from, the stormtrooper is calling your name.

He keeps calling it as he shakes your arms then follows it with, “Wake up.” Why does that mechanical voice sound different from the rest? The words echo in your head. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

The stormtrooper helmets transforms into the one of the Mandalorian as you open your eyes. His hands leave your upper arms as he crouches in front of you. Still disoriented, your own hand comes up to your cheeks to shield your face when you realize it feels damp to the touch. Closing your eyes again and taking deep breathes you have to tell yourself over and over again: He’s here. I’m here. It was just a dream. Finally calmed down, you open your eyes to Mando still squatting in front of you.

“You okay?” His modulated voice says to you. Nodding your head while wiping way the last of the tears, you can’t help but feel heat rise to your cheeks, wishing you could just disappear as you sink further into the copilot chair. “You want to talk about it?” he tentatively asks next. If it were anyone else, you would’ve probably said no, but seeing his tenderness as he cared for Grogu over the past few hours in hyperspace makes you give in.

“We- we were back there, about to get on the speeders,” your heart rate picks up again thinking of it. You have no idea why the dream is affecting you this much. Continuing on with a shaky voice, “The stormtrooper, h- he shot you before I- I could- and” tears were forming in your eyes again, “and they st- started dragging me off and-” your voice suddenly barely above a whisper as you continue, “you weren’t moving.”

You shouldn’t have shared it. Oh gosh, you wish you could take it back now. He hasn’t said anything. He probably thinks you’re weak now, unable to handle yourself, let alone a nightmare. It was a stupid dream, you are about to tell him when you hear him sigh, “Give me your hand.” Confused, you hesitate, causing him to tilt his helmet to the side and hold out his hand. Giving in, you hold out your own, placing it in his still hesitant. Moving his hand down to your wrist, gripping it lightly as he moves it his chest plate, he speaks again, “Feel this? This is beskar, strong enough to withstand blaster shots. While what you did was impressive, all you stopped from happening is me having to clean my back plate later.” Your face falls at this, noticing it, he brings his other hand over yours. You feel all the heat you have left in your body run up to your face. He declares, “That dream wouldn’t have come true. You’re safe. They won’t get to you again, I promise.”

Still with your hand against the cool metal, all you can say is, “Oh. Thank you.” You wait for him to let go of your hand and wrist before you pull away, but he still hasn’t. Grogu stirs on the chair to your right, waking up after seeming to have slept through your nightmare. As if the noise startled Mando, he finally lets go and picks up his son. Clanking could be heard coming up from the ladder.

Mando sits back in the pilot chair with the little green child who keeps trying to reach for the different buttons on his lap, as Dr. Pershing also seems to have finally woken up. Coming into the cockpit carrying a discarded IV bag. Oops. Should have put that back in at some point.

Pershing comes as squats to the side of your chair, blocked off by the arm rest. “Looks like you’ve got some of your color back, which is good. Just to be safe, you should probably leave this in for longer.” Just nodding your head in response, scared your voice will falter, but now not knowing if it was from the dream or the prolonged touch of the beskar man. Or the fact that Pershing just pointed out how you’re blushing right in front of the person who caused in the first place.

Trying not to look up at Mando, due to sheer embarrassment, you fail at your task when he turns to watch Pershing with the child still on his lap. He tries to be causal of his hand on his thigh, a little too close to his blaster as the doctor gets closer to you, while Grogu plays with his fingers. Father and protector, you smile to yourself. Realizing your line of gaze, he moves his other hand to hold to his child and abruptly turns his chair towards the stars as you feel a cold pinch in your arm.

The next hour or so is spent in silence, preparing to land on who-knows-what-planet. As long as you can get off this chilly ship and descend out of the numbness of space, it doesn’t matter where. You might be being a little over-dramatic, but wearing a now torn, thin, short sleeved shirt, some sort of pants with blaster powder now littering it, and no shoes, you think you deserve the right to be just a tad dramatic. The IV bag is finally finished, so there’s one less ice-cold thing touching your skin. Still you shiver in your seat, not wanting to impose too much and ask for a blanket or a change of clothes. Hopefully wherever you get off is warm, or at least warmer.

Finally descending, you see tall, colorful structures, bright blue skies, and so much green. It’s beautiful. You can’t take your gaze off the gorgeous landscape getting larger before your eyes. Pulling your legs away from your chest, you brave the cold floor yet again to try and get a closer look. Audibly making a noise as you shiver, both men turn towards you, finally taking in your tattered appearance. With a static-y sigh, your starting to think that’s how he starts everything he says, the Mandalorian notes, “We should probably get you some better clothes.” His helmet points down to your feet, then tilts as he says, “And shoes.”

Bare feet hit the luscious green grass, toes curling and uncurling into it as you deeply inhale the fresh air. The sun hitting your skin makes you feel alive again, warming you from outside to inside. It’s as if you can feel the golden rays pouring out of you. You have never seen nature as brilliant and as vibrant as it is here, you never want to leave its warmth. Too caught up in your own little world, you don’t notice the two men start walking towards the city. Grogu babbling in Mando’s bag snaps you out of it and you slightly jog to try and catch up to them.

It takes a while to walk into the city, considering where Mando landed his ship. By the time you actually get there, your feet feel like one of the thousand rocks you’ve stepped on during this journey. The armored man barely seems to notice at first of you trailing behind, only stopping when the city is finally in view. So now to top of being cold and unequipped for this amount of walking, you are now tired. Grrrwwww. And hungry. Hopefully no one heard the atrocious noise your stomach just made. When was the last time you ate?

Mando must of heard it growl because before you can react, he tosses you a few credits and tells you to go get something to eat while he takes Pershing somewhere to set up his new life. You didn’t catch the last part because you’re already following your nose to the nearest source of food. While walking away you hear more static come out of his helmet, like he was sighing again, but it wasn’t the same as last time. It almost sounded like a laugh. Was... was he laughing at you? You whip your head around, but they’ve already disappeared. Shaking your head, you turn back and let your stomach take the lead again.

Mando and Grogu finally come back when you are all about done with this meat on a stick. They find you sitting in front of this little shop, eyes closed in bliss about finally eating. There’s barely anyone around, so it was not very hard to spot you. Finally looking up, ripping one of the last pieces off the kebob, you beam up at him. You don’t know it but seeing you happy after the events of this morning, brings a smile to the bounty hunter’s face. Offering his hand to help you stand, he asks, “Better?” You nod your head in response while he helps pull you up. Shoving he little piece of meat into your mouth, you hear his voice yet again, “What even is that?”

“I don’t know,” you counter. “All I know if that it smelled really good. Honestly if I knew what it was, I probably wouldn’t be able to eat it,” you finish with a giggle. He just nods, still without you seeing the smile planted on his face. You two walk side by side going into the city, with Grogu in a bag on his father’s hip of course.

You can hear the main part of the city before you actually see it. People are bustling, vendors litter the streets, it’s astonishing. And overwhelming, very overwhelming. Your breath hitches as you recall that a vendor was the way they found you before. But no, no you’re safe with the Mandalorian, he said they wouldn’t get to you. No, that he wouldn’t let them get to you. Without noticing, you start walking closer to Mando, more into his personal space than he usually likes. You’re close enough to graze his hand while walking, and right now you desperately want to reach out and grab it. Okay, it’s okay, just focus on your breathing, in and out, in and out.

Too busy trying to calm yourself, you don’t notice Mando look over at you after he felt you invade his space. He whispers to you, “Are you okay?” but the volume is too much to get his question to your ears. Instead he lightly puts his hand at the small of your back, causing you to slightly jump. Looking around, your line of vision finally falls on the bounty hunter’s arm, now removed from your back, moving back towards his side. A blush creeps up to your cheeks as your realize that he noticed you. Pull it together. You manage to walk only a few more feet until someone bumps into you and instinct takes over as you grab onto something to steady yourself. The thing that happens to be is Mando’s arm.

Luckily, he extends it behind your back to steady you, but not before sending the poor soul that accidentally bumped you what can only assumed is a death glare. That poor man turns as pale as a ghost. You almost forgot how menacing he could be. You’ve only been on the receiving end of Mando’s protection and don’t want to know what the opposite would be like. You two continue to walk with his arm guiding you, until you see it. Shoes. You nearly forgot about the pain in your feet until you saw them. Hand no longer on your back, you hurry forward, leaving the now frenzied and confused Mandalorian behind.

Reaching the stand, you turn to find Mando with his hand on his blaster and his bucket of a helmet frantically looking around the area for a sign of danger. The T of his visor finally looks back at you and you just mouth to him, shoes! and then point at your bare feet. He tilts his head to the side and you just know that he sighed. Shaking your head, you let out a huff of air that resembles a laugh at his signature way of expressing himself.

Before you know it, you have new shoes, already on your feet, a few shirts and two pairs of pants. Mando insisted you have layers because who knows where they might end up. This begs the question, what kind of trouble has he gotten into before, better yet what trouble are you getting yourself into? Babbles from a hidden baby remind you that maybe the trouble is worth it.

The shiny man and you continue walking around the marketplace of the city. He said he wanted to see if they had any spare parts that he could use for the Razor Crest and you were just happy to be wearing boots and having the extra time to break them in. “You can go look around if you want, I’m going to be over here,” Mando states as he inspects some round, gear-looking thing. Figuring you’d get bored of the mechanical items, you go to wander. “Hey,” the modulated voice cuts through again, “stay close.” Nodding, you only go two booths down to look at the books laid out.

Eyes scan to find anything remotely related to this thing, this power, you and Grogu possess. In the back of your mind also knowing you’re searching for something to tell you more about Mandalorian culture, as you have become intrigued by your new companion. While looking, something shiny, much like Mando, catches your eye. Turning to the next booth, the item seems to be a hair pin. You freeze.

A flower hair pin. Pearl in the center, with gray and white iridescent petals. No, no, no, no this can’t be happening. It feels like you can’t get enough air into your lungs. Your legs feel like lead, but you need to get out of there, you have to. The table has more unfinished glass pieces there too, just like before. They can find you. They can get you. They can get the baby. No that can’t happen, you force your tense legs to move as your hands shake. Backing up away from the stand, you bump into the book stand, letting a stack of books fall into the dirt. “Sorry, sorry,” you say with an unsteady voice. You need to find Mando, you need to find the baby, you need to -

Hands grab the back of your shoulders, as you think it’s over. You try to shake them off when you’re turned around to a familiar T visor. You stop fighting against him and grab his forearms. Your breathing still hasn’t slowed as he asks with a sternness you haven’t heard from him, “What happened?”

You can’t think of how to explain with your mind and heart racing and can only answer with, “We need to get out of here.” He pesters why to better understand the situation but all you can answer with is, “please,” as tears threaten to spill. “We need to get out of here please Mando.” He looks around confused, trying to find any source of danger, but turns his attention back to you when your grip tightens and you try to pull the three of you out of there.

He lets you lead him to the edge of the city, back towards the green scenery you landed in. Finally stopping you with his hands on your shoulders again, he calls your name, “You need to tell me what is going on.” Taking a few breaths trying to compose yourself, you explain how the day before you were taken, you were at a shop similar to the one you were at. How you saw this hair pin then cut your hand while the person working tried to help you clean up. Explaining how you thought nothing of it, until you realized they wanted your blood for experiments. You barely make it through telling him that you saw the same set up with the hair pin at that booth.

“That’s how they must have found me. We need to get out of here before they recognize us, please,” you plead. His helmet hangs down low as he slides one hand down to take your hand and begins walking back towards the ship.

Arriving back at the ship, Mando hands you the bag filled with new clothes, “Go change, I’ll take care of this.” Just thinking he meant to fly the three of you off the planet, you go into the ‘fresher and get ready to take off far away from here. Finally dressed and hearing the latch close, you climb up to the cockpit. Grogu gurgles and makes grabby hands for you to pick him up from the co-pilot seat. While doing so, you realize the pilot seat is empty.

“Where’s your dad, huh little one?” you coo at him. You called out to Mando to get no response. Attempting to climb down the ladder with the child wasn’t easy, especially still worried from before. You call out to Mando again, this time more frantic as he’s nowhere to be found. Your hear rate increase as you search the ship. Pressing the button you think would open the latch of the ship does nothing. What? did he lock you in here? You open some cabinets to be met with his armory. Picking up a blaster, you start rambling to the kid, “Your dad won’t mind right? Yeah, he’d want you protected. I won’t need to use it, but just in case. Yeah, just in case. Why don’t we also hang out in the cockpit away from the doors? Sound good?” You’re only met with muffled babbles back as Grogu sticks his stubby hand in his mouth. “Yeah, we’re going to be okay. Nothing is going to happen.” You hope.

Back in the city, Din is looking for a stand that has this... hair pin? Does he even know what one of those looks like? He’ll figure it out, you knocked some books over, so he decides he’ll start there. Unfortunately for Din, most of the vendors are closing down their booths. Dank farrik. He’s got to move quickly before they’re all closed.

Speed walking, he comes across the same man working the booth Din was at before you panicked. He asks the man if he knows if there is a booth that sells this item, and thankfully he points Din in the right direction. Four booths down. The people who wanted his child, and now you, could’ve been four booths down from him and he had no idea. Now’s not the time to beat himself up over this, he needs answers. Stalking up to the table, he’s met with a young man cleaning up the stand. Without looking up the man says, “What can I help you with?” Din’s hand ghosts over the pin you described to him and sees the many broken pieces scattered on the table.

“Seems a little... unsafe having all of these around,” Din observes while now moving around the table. The man finally looking up, goes white in the face and begins to run. Why do they always think they can outrun me? Chasing the man down an alley, Din uses his grappling hook around his feet and the man goes tumbling to the ground. Grabbing him by the collar to face him. Anger laced through his modulated voice, “Did you follow us?”

“Nope, just the lucky bastard that happened to be on the same planet as you,” He spits out. Din notices that he moves his jaw to the side, but the man continues, “Don’t worry they’ll find you and the child soon. Oh, and I’m sure the troopers will have a good time with that pretty little girl you have once they get their hands on her.” Before Din can land a hand on this guy, he bites down on something and there’s electricity everywhere, just like he saw with Bo Katan. Din barely jumps off the man in time. Now full of adrenaline and anger he stands there for a few seconds thinking of his next move. Kriff. He needs to get back to you and his son.

You are sitting on the cold floor of the cockpit, with Grogu on your lap, hand hovering the blaster that is next to you on the ground. Banging coming from the Crest makes you jump. It sounds like the hatch opens, so you clutch Grogu closer and pick up the blaster as you stand up. The pram is still in the cockpit, so you put the baby that is pulling your hair in and close it. Going to the opening between the levels, with shaky hands, you raise the blaster and wait. Clanging can be heard when you finally hear Mando call your name and the kid’s.

Hopping down the ladder, blaster still in hand, you smile at him as he stands still. “What the hell are you doing with that,” he barks at you. You stand there dumbfounded, he’s the one that left you in the ship with his child. He should be glad your first thought was to protect him. He continues with his hands on his hips, “Do you even know how to use that?”

Still startled, you stammer, “You just- point and shoot?” With that his hands go up in astonishment and back down again, almost as if he’s saying, are you kriffing kidding me? Why is he so angry right now?

“You’re - you’re the one that left me, that left us here,” you point back up to the cockpit, “I didn’t know if someone else could get in or not. Why are you so angry at me for trying to protect your son?”

“You could have shot him or yourself, you don’t even know how to use it,” his voice raises and he takes it out of your hand.

“I’m not the one that left us here defenseless!” you scream. Both of you stand there for second huffing at each other. Finally thinking a little bit more rationally, you ask, “Where did you even go?”

Pushing past you, he put something in your hand, “I took care of it.” He climbs the ladder as you look. The hair pin. He took care of it? He took care of it. Your face falls thinking of what that means. Following him back up, you take Grogu from the pram and place him on your hip.

“You took care of it?” you say astonished, “Care to elaborate?” Mando sits in the pilot chair already plotting a new location.

“No.” Your eyes go wide as he spins the chair to face you. “I’m flying us out of here and I-,” his hands go up in defeat, “I need to eat. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come up.” He sounds less angry but still very annoyed. At this point you’re fuming. You spin on your heels with Grogu playfully slapping his little 3-fingered hand across your face for attention.

You leave the cockpit and grab two food packets on the crate before the ladder opening. Stuffing them in your pocket, you try to maneuver yet again down the ladder with a baby clinging to you. Hopping off the last wrung, you go to sit on the crates you woke up on. Opening the packets, you help feed Grogu his.

Why was he so mad? If anything, he should be thankful that you were being resourceful. And after the past couple of days you think you deserve the right to be a little worked up about things like this. The anger is fueling you right now. It keeps spiraling, you can feel the darkness surround you. This used to happen when you were younger. Your emotions would almost devour you whole. Luckily your mother would always tell you, it’s okay to have these emotions but don’t let them consume you. She would lead you through some breathing exercises to help you calm down. Oh, you wish she were here with you right now to help. Could she have known about this ability you have? That’s not important right now, you need to breath and calm down. While doing so, you feel two little hands come and rest on your chest, as to help you relax more. Playing with his ears, the weight of the day starts to set in. You feel your eyes start to droop and before you know it, you’re asleep yet again.

Din holds his head in his hands. He shouldn’t have snapped. He knows this. It’s just knowing that Moff Gideon and his Imps could be anywhere in the galaxy trying to find others like the two Jedi he seemed to have collected. Are you even a Jedi? He still has no idea how this even works. Din shakes his head trying to clear it of what that man said. The anger boils up in him thinking of what he said about you, about their hands on you. He wishes he could’ve gotten a few punches in on him. He got out easy.

He’d do anything to protect Grogu, he knows it and they know it. But now with you in the equation? He’s terrified. He doesn’t know what he got himself into with now both of you under his protection. You don’t know this but he saw you peeking through the opening, with your hands shaking holding the blaster and with such fear in your eyes. A pain springs up in his chest just thinking of it. Looking up towards the door, he thinks it might be time for him to stop hiding and time to go apologize for his behavior. He did just leave without explaining. You also have just been kidnapped and rescued in a matter of days. He sighs, remembering what you have gone through, and now with the reminder in the city. He should have been a little calmer and not taken out his frustrations out on you.

Putting his helmet back on, he opens the cockpit doors and climbs down the ladder again, only to hear soft snores. There you are with your back against the wall, with Grogu in your lap. Grogu’s eyes open and he starts to make, very slow, sleep filled, grabby hands at his dad. Carefully taking the baby out of your arms, he opens up his own bunk and places the child in his little hammock. Quiet babbling is directed at him and Din responds, “I know, I know, I’m getting her a pillow and blanket.”

Moving back over towards you with those items in hand, he places the pillow in its spot and carefully shifts you into a lying position, bringing your legs up onto the crates. After placing the blanket over you, Din moves the fallen pieces of hair out of your face. You look so peacefully, he can’t help but stare. Finally, he sighs, “I guess I better teach you how to shoot then.”

Taglist: @rogueheretic555 @heythere-mel @dancingwiththeplanets @ohpedromypedro

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whump-a-la-mode · 3 years

Text

“Pick Up The Pace”

A standalone drabble inspired by this amazing post from @trope-appreciation-tuesdays. Hope you enjoy!

Summary: An exhausted villain finds their limits.

CW//Captivity, forced labor, dehumanization, exhaustion, overwork, villain whumpee, non-con piercing (past), trackers, collapse

“Come on, Villain, pick up the pace.”

Pick up the pace...

Villain shook their head, blinking bleary eyes. Were they walking? They looked down: Yes, they were. They could hardly feel their legs, but yes, they were walking.

There were others, too. Three others. Two of them nursing hastily-patched wounds. The third, the uninjured, was Hero-- moving at the front of the little group.

Villain’s gaze wandered upwards, though when they stopped looking at the ground directly before their feet they stumbled rather immediately. The sky had turned a cloudy sort of grey, an overcast canvas devoid of sun. It was almost dusk, now.

How long had they been walking? Last thing they remembered was their standoff at the train station-- struggling to keep up with a quicker, more alert enemy. They’d won the fight, but had taken far too many hits. Not that they’d mentioned it.

They must have fallen asleep on their feet. Was that even possible? They supposed so, and their body threatened to fall into the same state again, eyes beginning to drift closed.

“Villain.”

They shook their head, gaze scanning about to find the source of the angered voice. It came from Hero once more, though now they were several yards ahead. They’d stopped moving-- when had they stopped moving? The sky was even darker, now.

They still couldn’t feel their legs.

“Sorry.” Villain muttered, hurrying to catch up with the others. Hero drifted to walk at their side, making the hairs on the back of their neck stand firmly on end.

“Don’t tell me you hit your head or something.”

“No. No, I’m fine.”

“Good. Pay attention.”

Pay attention. That’s what Hero had been yelling at them the whole patrol, ever since they’d set out a few hours ago. What were they doing... looking for someone, that was it. Supervillain. Or, at the very least, their scattered henchmen, having been separated from their leader in an earlier battle.

They’d been patrolling, ever since. Several groups, just like this one, moving about the city. Speaking to citizens, following wild goose chases of reported sightings. It had been a miracle that they’d found anything at all.

At the very least, the initial panic had subsided. The battle had been the day before, just before sundown. The city was far more subdued in nature now, no more panicked civilians in the streets. They had grown used to the patrols, little groups like these, several at a time, moving around on a schedule. Taking three hour shifts, patrolling particular districts.

This was the... ninth? No, the tenth. Eleventh? At some point they’d stopped counting. It had become irrelevant.

Maybe, if they had taken a blow to the head, at least they would have been able to sleep.

HQ rose up before them like a mountain over the horizon, unfurling until it was far larger than you expected it to be. The other patrols were returning, too, though it did not seem that they had found anything. At the very least, they were uninjured-- spunky, even. Talking and laughing, even the younger ones.

Villain’s tongue felt swollen, large enough to take up their whole mouth. To block their airway and choke them. That would be sleep, too.

At the entrance, the various returning patrols blended together, friends moving about to find each other and make their reports, share their stories.

Villain drifted off to the side. They had no friends to find among the group. Still, they stayed at the back of the crowd as they climbed to the elevator, ascended to the floor that had been converted to a makeshift mission hub. Patrol leaders found organizers, the injured found medics.

Villain found a seat. One of the few empty ones in the crowded room, against the corner. The rough metal wall served as a pillow as they leaned back into it.

Their ears had started to hurt, again.

A clumsy hand drifted to one, ghosting over their earlobe, though even the light touch made them whimper. The piercings were clean, unbloodied-- the red-hot needle used had made sure of that. The tags, however, had always felt far too large, stretching the edges of the neatly made wounds.

Of course, the tags didn’t come out. The little triangle tags, yellow, their round GPS trackers hanging near their ends.

The cattle tags.

If they did come out, however, Villain could only imagine just how ragged they had torn the formerly perfect piercings. As if that mattered.

They lowered their hand to their lap. It should be a few minutes before the next patrols were sent out. The heroes on duty had to get back to their dorms, to rest, while the new ones were brought in and organized.

Then, they’d be sent out again.

For a moment, Villain allowed their head to clear, gone of thoughts of heroes and earrings. To fill instead with fog, cool, restful fog.

A hand on their knee. Had they dreamed it? They should have had at least a minute and a half left-- they’d been listening to the ticking clock.

“You’re in patrol group E.” The organizer’s voice muttered. “Do try to keep up, this time.”

“Okay. Thank you.” They replied, nearly on instinct.

“Have you cleaned the kitchen, yet?”

The kitchen... they’d almost forgotten their normal chores. With only a few minutes between patrols...

“No. I’m sorry. I haven’t had time.”

“Well, get it done.”

“Yes. Sorry. Thank you.”

Opening their eyes was an ordeal that required enough effort as to be painful. Even though they had had them open mere minutes ago, the light still made them flinch.

The feeling in their legs stubbornly refused to return, but they had long since learned how to move on numb feet.

So used to it, in fact, that when their knees buckled, it took them a moment to notice.

The last thing they heard, before the fog of sleep overtook them, was five words:

“Villain, pick up the pace.”

#villain whumpee #whump community #hero villain whump #collapse #trope appreciation tuesday

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mediocre--writing · 3 years

Note

this hc is sad but whenever neil gets too rough and billy’s injuries are too severe to heal on their own, neil will do his own version of “first aid” since he can’t risk a hospital. stuff like holding billy down while doing stitches, stuffing a belt in his mouth and telling him to shut up and stop crying like a pussy. maybe billy views it as a form of love in some warped way, all “he wouldn’t patch me up himself if he didn’t love me, right? he could have left me or had me do it myself but he didn’t” and he doesn’t realise for a long time how not OK it is until he either causally mentions it to someone or someone witnesses it and tells him how fucked up it is

the first time it happens is when neil yanks on billy’s arm when he tries to walk away. dislodges his shoulder from its socket.

billy is already crying and neil huffs like it’s some inconvenience. grabs two wash clothes from a kitchen drawer and tells billy to bite down.

has him lay on the floor and shoves his arm back in (it took three tries). billy swears that he’s never felt pain that bad.

neil goes to the corner store and grabs a cheap sling for billy, just so the shoulder heals right and doesn’t get overextended or anything.

billy’s grateful that neil cared to help him. even gave him ice packs to make sure it didn’t ache too bad.

billy was 11.

it gets worse after that, if you can believe it.

neils a mans man. he expects billy to be as well.

neil knows when a cut is just a scrape and when a cut needs stitches.

he’s neared the line many times, but it’s never reached the stitches level yet.

but it does now.

neil had shoved billy into a wall, right under a cross that was hanging there (can you sense the irony?) and the cross fell and slammed onto billy’s face.

didn’t break his nose or anything, but there’s a deep deep deep cut right by his eye.

there’s blood in his face, but what freaks out billy the most is that there’s blood in his eye, and he fears that’s where the edge of the cross hit him.

neil, again, grabs two wash clothes and tells billy to hush, grabbing an ice cube to ‘numb’ the area (though it does nothing) and sticks the needle into billy’s cheek.

once too scared to open his eyes, billy is now writhing away because there’s a needle in his face and neil looks way too calm to be doing this. shouldn’t a parent be worried?

but neil forces billy back where he was before, holding down on his arm. says something along the lines of “do you wanna bleed out? i’m trying to help you, boy.” and billy just waits it out.

he cries like a baby.

neil let’s him take the day off of school the next day. let’s billy lay with an ice pack on his swollen face and bruised eye for most of the day. even apologizes, in his own, twisted way.

billy was 13.

once, when billy’s being whipped with neils belt for whatever godforsaken reason neil pulled out of his ass, he hits the same spot too much.

then the belt buckle grabs the skin and pulls.

billy’s screaming in pain. can’t describe how unbearable it was to have the raw skin of his back yanked by a dull belt buckle.

but, it turns out, he needs stitches. not wasting a clean washcloth, neil just shoves the belt into billy’s mouth, going to grab the first aid kit.

billy is laying on his stomach, holding his hands in front of his face so he doesn’t lash out and he bites onto the belt as neil stitches the skin back.

but neil doesn’t reprimand billy for leaving teethmarks on his nice leather belt, so billy thinks it could have been worse.

billy was 15.

the first time susan has to witness one of their bad arguments, billy had snuck a boy into his room.

they weren’t even doing anything. barely even flirting. and they were alone.

billy leaned in, but so did the boy, and they met in the middle and billy felt like an inexperienced virgin while kissing his first boy.

it was a life altering experience.

on many levels.

neil comes home early. or maybe not, maybe billy wasn’t watching the clock. either way, billy’s got a boy in top of him, though fully clothed, but making out nonetheless, when neil slams in.

billy’s life flashes before his eyes that night.

he barely even remembers what neil did. what he said.

billy knows at one point he thought about how much he missed his mom. and, apparently, he said it out loud. spurring his dad on with maximum fury.

it was past 3am when billy woke up from his unconscious state to unbearable pain. neil was stitching him up, had already done so on his face and neck. had moved on to his leg (a line of stitches worked all the way up the back of his calf).

billy could feel the bruising on his torso (from numerous kicks and pushes that rolled him into furniture and walls) and around the crown of his head (the result of a plate being smashed over his head).

he didn’t move. he didn’t have the energy.

but he could hear susan. she was yelling at neil, whispering, but scolding him.

“the hell is wrong with you!? he could have died? this is too far, neil, he’s your son! you should love hi—“

“i’m doing this because i love him, su, you know that! you want a faggot in this house? huh? no, you don’t! and do you really think i’d let my son bleed out on the floor? you think that little of me?”

and billy gets it. gets his dads side. because neil could just leave him to bleed all over the carpet. but he didn’t. he helped.

he had good intentions and only did what was best for billy. who was billy to say what his life should be when he wasn’t even smart enough to learn from his mistakes?

that was the reason for their move to hawkins.

billy, during their first week there, didn’t attend school on behalf of all the still healing stitches and bruises, though he was spotted around town a time or two (already instilling his bad reputation)

and once he gets there rumors fly around the school.

apparently, billy had to move from cali because he beat up a biker gang and they kicked him out of the state.

but, then, the night happens. the one where billy beats up steve and comes out looking pretty clean.

hopper drives his half unconscious body home, along with max, so he can ‘explain the situation.’

that night, for many reasons, is a night max will never forget. ever.

she’s seen demo dogs and tunnels from other dimensions, a possessed kid, and a girl who can move things with her mind.

but she also got her first taste of what it looks like when billy gets beat by his father.

it’s like a car crash, you know you should look away, but you just can’t.

and billy, still drowsy from the sedative, is getting in thrown around the living room and kitchen like a rag doll, being shoved into shelves and cabinets, even dislocated his left elbow and there was a loud crack from billy’s ankle.

and, though she’d wanted billy dead mere hours before, this seemed more torturous.

at least when it was billy and steve, they were both conscious. this was just twisted.

neil, for whatever strange reason his mind came up with, made max and susan watch the lesson: this is what happens when you don’t follow rules.

max could barely make out the rising and falling of billy’s chest at the end.

there was blood splattered on billy’s chest and neck, on his jeans and in his hair, on neils hands.

“grab me the first aid kit and a towel, su,” she scurried to the bathroom and back and max wanted to bolt. run. sprint. just get away from whatever was happening.

neil bent down and used the towel to press down on billy’s bleeding wounds, stopping the blood flow. he then disinfected and wrapped what he could, bandaged everything else.

then he rolled billy on his side, grabbed his forearm and upper arm then snapped them together, fixing the dislocation with practiced ease.

this was also when billy woke up. screaming.

“hush,” is was quiet, but stern, and billy knew to listen.

the towel, one side inked in blood splatters, had the other side shoved into billy’s mouth before neil got out the needle and thread, stitching billy’s larger wounds.

if max thought the most scarring part of her night was going to be anything that happened before this, she was wrong.

she knew. she knew that billy got smacked around sometimes. and he kinda deserved it. he was a jackass.

but this. this was a whole new thing. this was downright madness and max didn’t think she’d ever be able to sleep peacefully in her own bed again.

the tears were rolling down her face when she made eye contact with billy, who had equally red and teary eyes, but his held more pain. more suffering. more knowledge.

“see what you did? you made your sister cry,” neil told billy as he pulled especially hard on a stitch on billy’s tender stomach, making billy scream in agony, in more pain than before.

after that night, max listens to billy more. blames herself for being out and getting billy into trouble.

billy is just glad he was able to find the old sling he had years ago and that it still fit. he’s grateful that his dad stitched him up and made sure nothing would get infected.

knew he should have kept a closer eye on max and this is what needed to happen for him to see that. he knew that now.

a week later, the boys were talking about how some guy named (ronnie? maybe lonnie?) had called the byers asking about will. they talked about how joyce chased him out of the house with his own shotgun.

will told her, when they were leaving lunch, that joyce was so mad because lonnie, his dad, had hit his bother, jonathan.

max thinks about that. thinks about how susan would never, not in a million years, chase neil off with his shotgun for hitting billy.

she stood and watched when neil almost killed billy.

she didn’t know what to think. she wondered if billy knew what was happening wasn’t right. wondered if he’d ever tried to run away or was too scared of getting found if he did.

wondered if there was any scenario in which billy would take her harsh criticism of his dad well.

and it takes years.

billy moves out for college, somewhere good where he can focus on being smart, like he’s always been, and gets out from under neils thumb.

he discovers who he is a little better and still comes to hawkins every holiday and break, gets closer with jonathan and steve and robin and even nancy.

the first person he tells about it is jonathan. he hears the lonnie stories for himself and chimes in with his own anecdote. apparently, it’s not as light hearted as jonathan’s.

but he opens up. it takes the night and a little alcohol and weed, but billy has successfully told jonathan everything his dad has done to him. every stitch and relocation.

jonathan tells nancy and nancy tells steve. steve coddles billy and (because they were already close and in that ‘talking stage’) eventually gets some of the truth out.

jonathan, even though he told people, never exposed everything. there’s some things steve will never know about because they’re just too much and billy found comfort and a commonality in jon that he didn’t know he needed.

(joyce would also totally from that point on have adopted billy, doesn’t matter if he’s already like 22, he’s now her child)

#idk i like the idea of jon and billy being friends #but like not close/hang out every day friends #more like know too much about each other and bonded on accident friends #also their characters are very similar #they just had different types of parental situations #tw abuse #tw child abuse #tw blood #tw injury #tw stitches #tw abusive parent #stranger things #billy hargrove #neil hargrove #harringrove #mediocre—writing

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thatmultifandomhoe · 3 years

Text

Knitting You a Home - 8

Pairing: Wolf Hybrid Namjoon and Human Reader

Word Count: 2,731

Genre/Rating: Hybrid AU - Established Relationship - Angst - Fluff - Smut - Rated PG-13

Overview: Things have changed for you and Namjoon. It’s been a year since the two of you got together, and despite a rocky start, it was impossible to deny the bond and love you shared for each other. But ever since Hoseok had been separated from his Mate, Namjoon has been withdrawing himself from you and doesn’t come home until late at night.

With questions far larger than either of you imagined, you can’t help but wonder if he’s let his past and old fears come back to haunt him. You had shown him that it was possible to have a home and be loved once before, but will you be able to do it again?

Warning: Talk of nightmares - discussion of Hybrid abuse - implied mentions of drinking, drugs, hybrid mills - abandonment - Underground fights.

Music Playlist:

Main Master List:

Knitting You a Home Master List:

Mated Love is Never Easy Series Master List:

Sneak Peak - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - ?

©thatmultifandomhoe 2021. Do not repost, translate, or use my stories without permission.

You weren’t expecting Namjoon to come home at a normal hour. To keep yourself busy after Luna headed out, you plated all the goodies you made and cleaned up the kitchen, softly humming the entire time as you refrained from baking any further.

When dinner came and went, you had curled yourself up on the couch. The blanket you were knitting was long enough to cover your knees, but it still had a long way to go. In the living room there were two large windows looking out the front yard, a picture-perfect view of the tall oak and evergreen trees that surrounded your neighborhood.

The sky overhead turned pink as the sun began its descent, washed out burnt orange lights streaked the sky until it reminded you of peaches. If Namjoon had been here, he’d find a spot outside on the grass and watch until the sky was overflowing with stars. By then the fireflies would be out and he’d want to stay, mesmerized as they sparkled on and off until you went out with a shawl wrapped around your shoulders and a teasing grin to try and coax him back inside.

The knitting needles had stopped clicking a while ago. You were so lost in thought that you set the project back in its basket and stood up, tugging your sweater around your body as you made your way over to the window.

In the summer the sun didn’t set until eight at night, dragging out the painted skies for as long as nature allowed for it. Glancing around the room, an old book sat on top of an end table, the cover flipped open to reveal thinly aged paper. It made you smile softly as you picked it up, flipping through it to find the small black typed letters of poetry written long ago.

He was such a lover of words, always amazing you with how wide his reading interests ranged from, to how he even viewed life and the world. After everything that he went through, he still spoke about the world like it was a gift.

Screaming echoed in the house as you shot up in bed, chest heaving as you threw back the blankets to hurry to Namjoon’s room. Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t have entered without knocking, but this wasn’t the first time he’s had the nightmares during his stay with you.

It had been over a month since the storm, and while Luna had said many times that they weren’t as over-packed at the Homeless Center, you didn’t have the heart to tell Namjoon that he could go back. At least here he had a bed – a real bed and not a cot – his own room, new and clean clothe,s and home cooked meals. Even if the Center wasn’t over crowded since the storm had long since passed, it would still be loud and crowded, the very things that Namjoon didn’t need right now.

Turning on the lamp on his night stand, you crouched over Namjoon to gently shake his shoulder. He was breathing heavily as he gripped the blankets underneath him, beads of sweat dotting his forehead and tears formed under his eyelashes, dripping down his cheeks.

"Wake up Namjoon,” you called out, briefly scratching his ear as it twitched. “It’s just a bad dream hun, it’ll be all over when you wake up. I promise.”

He painfully cried in his sleep, body flinching when you touched him, but you didn’t stop trying to wake him up. It hurt to see him suffering like this and you knew, had he gone back to the Center, no one would have attempted to wake him once they realized this wasn’t a one-time occurrence.

“It’s gonna be okay Namjoon, you just gotta wake up.”

It took a little more coaxing on your part, but with one final shake Namjoon gasped as his eyes opened wide, searching around the room until they landed on you. He didn’t look away and he didn’t rip his arm away, a positive sign in your book since he had been doing that the previous times you woke him from a nightmare.

He never told you about the nightmares. Instead, he simply apologized and said to not worry about them. There was just one problem, you did worry. You worried because you knew that whatever was haunting him had been happening for years and every morning afterwards, there were dark circles under his eyes.

You worried because over the course of the last month, you’ve grown to care about Namjoon.

The clock on the nightstand said it was three a.m. Knowing that you weren’t going to be falling asleep anytime soon, you straightened so you were no longer leaning over Namjoon and let go of his shoulder.

“Want some tea?” You gently asked, realizing that the two of you had been staring at each other without speaking, long enough to make your cheeks blush.

Namjoon glanced at the clock too, momentarily coughing into his hand as he tried to catch his breath. You weren’t expecting him to say yes, he declined each time you previously offered after his nightmares. Knowing that, you still asked because a part of you hoped that one day, he’d trust you enough to open up to you.

“Sure,” he spoke, his voice hoarse from crying.

Your eyebrows lifted in shock, surprised that he had agreed. You didn’t let that deter you though, instead you gave him a small smile. “Okay. Come on out when you’re ready.”

Namjoon nodded once and you left shortly afterwards, closing the door behind you to give him privacy. Internally, your heart was leaping around, happy that he was appearing to come out of his shell, even if it wasn’t in the greatest circumstances.

Once you reached the kitchen, you moved out of habit, used to making late night drinks for Luna, but when you reached for the tea, you hesitated. You didn’t know what type Namjoon liked to drink. He only ever had coffee in front of you.

Leaving the orange mug empty for now, you prepared yours with instant coffee, knowing that it wouldn’t impact your sleep. As the hot water poured into the mug, you rifled through the tea bags you had, fingers pausing on one labelled Chamomile. Luna tended to favor this one when it was an especially stressful night, claiming that it helped calm her down.

Namjoon’s cries echoed in your mind and the next thing you knew you were plopping the tea bag into his mug and pressing brew for the hot water to dispense. If he didn’t like it, there were plenty other teas for him to choose. Leaning back against the counter, you softly smiled as he walked into the kitchen, his footsteps silent against the hardwood floor.

He glanced at the Keurig behind you, eyebrows scrunching up as he tilted his head at the smell. You didn’t recall making this one since he’s moved in.

“It’s Chamomile,” you softly explained, watching as his feet shuffled closer to the table. “It’ll help you relax. I thought you might like that after your nightmare.”

The corner of his lip twitched and a faint smile became visible. “Yeah, that sounds pretty good right about now.”

Hearing the Keurig finish, you turned back around to retrieve his mug, grabbing him a spoon and the honey bottle as well. “You’re gonna wanna dunk the bag a couple times,” you suggested, placing it in front of him. He raised an eyebrow at the honey and you shrugged as you retrieved your coffee before sitting across from him. “I wasn’t sure if you liked it sweet or not.”

“Thank you,” taking the honey, he poured a small amount in and stirred, carefully avoiding hitting the sides of the mug. “I…I really appreciate all that you’re doing for me.”

“It’s not a problem. I know things haven’t been easy for you.”

“But you didn’t have to help me.” He spoke, holding his mug in both hands. “You didn’t have to offer up your guest room, or be patient with me and share your meals, but you did.” Licking his lips, he raised an eyebrow at you. “And you didn’t have to let me stay this long. The storm ended weeks ago and the Homeless Center isn’t as chaotic, but you haven’t even mentioned that.”

Your eyes widened, feeling caught in the act when he softly smiled before taking a sip out of his drink. “How?”

“Luna called while you were away at work on day. She was wondering why you hadn’t told me that I could go back.”

Damn technology, you thought, shrugging as you tried to hide your embarrassment by pulling your knees up on to the chair and to your chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he softly asked. Lowering his mug, the spot between his eyebrows furrowed as he patiently waited. “Why didn’t you tell me to leave?”

A part of you wished you were able to play dumb and pull it off, to coyly act like you had no idea what he was talking about. Namjoon would know immediately though. His ability to pick up on your emotions hadn’t gone unnoticed in the time he’s lived with you.

The words escaped you for a moment, so you shrugged once as you tried to form the right thing to say. It only lasted a few seconds, because when you met his gaze, it flowed naturally. “I didn’t want you to leave,” you found yourself telling him, unable to say anything but the truth.

He blinked in surprise, leaning back in his seat as the silence took hold again. It wasn’t uncomfortable though. You didn’t mind it, figuring he was assessing your emotions to find the truth in what you said.

As he gathered his thoughts, you rubbed a hand across your eyes in an attempt to ease the headache from lack of caffeine.

“I told Luna it was better for that little Hybrid to be abandoned now because it’s true. It’s a shitty thing to experience when you can remember it.”

Tonight, was perhaps the most that you’ve heard Namjoon speak, and you were surprised with where he was directing his attention towards. Ideas swirled around with what he was talking about, about where this was going to lead, but you remained quiet as you focused on him, allowing him to speak at the pace he wanted to go at.

Namjoon ran his thumb around the rim of his mug, taking a deep breath. “I’ve lost track of all the owners I’ve had. There hadn’t been as many when I was younger, but as I grew up, grew bigger and taller, I got sent back to the Adoption Centers until one day, one of them got lazy and dropped me off at the Homeless Center. I was maybe, fifteen then.”

“Even with all the constant changes, I always knew I was a Hybrid. None of my owners ever let me forget that. They put me in small rooms, sometimes I didn’t even have a room but a closet or a mattress on the floor.” Lifting his gaze, he gestured around the kitchen with a bittersweet smile. “Everything in this room alone, to be able to have a cup of tea and not be afraid of the consequences, was once a dream for me. Still is sometimes.”

Shifting in your seat, you set your cup down on the table, having lost interest in the coffee that you usually loved. Because you were watching him, you were able to see his fingers tighten briefly.

“It was bad,” he simply said, not meeting your gaze this time. “There’d be days where I wasn’t allowed to eat, where I was expected to clean up after everyone and keep the house spotless and if I didn’t, well…sometimes not eat eating was better than their punishments. Almost forgot my own name with one owner. She only ever called me Hybrid.”

A rock settled inside your heart at what he was implying, and suddenly it made sense. The way he flinched at your touch, how you always had to encourage and reassure him that it was okay to eat and have more. Your eyes watered up and you bit down on your lower lip, unable to control the way your emotions seemed to fly around.

His ears flickered in your direction, finally looking at you again. He gave you a sad smile, leaning forward and shakily raised his hand, hesitating only once before running his thumb across your cheek. His touch was gentle but it only reinforced what you were thinking. How could anyone hurt someone as gentle as Namjoon?

“Don’t cry for me,” he whispered, doing it again to the other cheek. “It’s in the past, we can’t change what happened back then.”

Your bottom lip wobbled, leaning into his palm when he cupped your cheek, both drinks long forgotten as you closed your eyes, absorbing his touch. He wasn’t done with his story and for some reason, you knew that it wasn’t going to get any better.

“My last owner wasn’t any different. Like the rest of them, he felt like he was entitled because he had money to waste, and thought he was better because he was human and I was a Hybrid. But unlike them, he participated in the Underground.”

Frowning, you almost leaned back to get a better look at Namjoon, but when your cheek stated to slide out of his hand you stopped, choosing to stay in his touch. “The Underground?”

He gently tapped your cheek with his thumb, slowly nodding. “There’s the good part of it, and then there’s bad side. The good is mostly known for the music and art scene, but that’s not what most people think of. The Underground is mostly known for its bad side; the drugs, gambling, the Hybrid Mills and such, but everyone just calls it by one name since the lines blur together.” Namjoon shrugged, still rubbing your cheek as if to keep you calm. “One of the popular events are the fights, and as long as I was able to stand on my own two feet, he had me in them every night.”

You may not have known or understood what the Underground was, but with a little thinking it didn’t take long to understand what Namjoon meant.

“I was big and as a Wolf Hybrid, I had an advantage over some of the others. We…none of us wanted to fight, but if we didn’t, the consequences were worse than had we just lost.” Sighing, Namjoon lowered his hand from your face, his gaze falling to the floor once again as his shoulders slouched.

“My last fight had been against a kid, barely even eighteen and shaking. The crowd was screaming and whoever his owner was was threatening him…all I could do was stare at him, wondering who the hell I had become. For a split second I had considered it, it would have only taken one punch, and immediately I was disgusted with myself. The fact that I had even thought about it made me realize that I was no better than the human who owned me.”

You blinked as your mind resurfaced from the memory, pulling your fingers from the book cover as you stumbled backwards. Even now, there was still an ache when you thought about the life that Namjoon had been forced to live, the things he had to do to survive until he was able to escape. It had been a damn miracle that he ended up at the shelter that Luna worked at and she had called you when that storm came in.

Sighing, you plopped back down on the couch and turned the TV on, hoping to ind on a show that could manage to keep you awake for the next several hours.

Please Joonie, you thought, gently laying a hand on the Mate Mark that you treasured and wore with immense pride. A life with Namjoon was what you wanted, what you still wanted, but it was starting to feel like the two of you were heading in two different directions and all you wished for was to find the spot where things began to change. But you could only go so far, do so much, by yourself.

Please come home. Please.

78 notes · View notes

writingsbychlo · 4 years

Text

rapp-ed around your heart (02)

word count; 15,038

summary; moving on towards California, mitch is forced to face the truth, and some of his feelings, but maybe he’s not all that cut up about it.

notes; please remember, I am british and have never once been to america so if I got something wrong, please kindly comment and don’t leave messages like ‘um, that is not how we do it’, because I wouldn't know.

warnings; mentions of anger, mentions of injury, mentions of death.

The South West

It was gone two in the morning when you finally arrived in Houston, a truck stop not far outside of the main city as you prepared to settle down and sleep. Despite all the coffee you’d had, and the snacks you’d eaten on the way up, you were desperate to get in bed, ready to sleep off a long day.

It had been a long but fun drive, the two of you endeavouring to stay awake and keep one another company, not wanting each other to have to spend hours at a time alone with their thoughts, and you were begrudging to do so, not when you were making such good progress on learning more about the man you were with, finally unlocking some of the personality he kept locked away so tightly. You swapped over continually, ensuring that nobody was ever driving for too long, not once the late hours moved in, the night bringing a sweet haze that made your eyelids feel heavy and made your mind spin with the thought of drifting off into dreams.

The lights overhead shone brightly, but you’d found the darkest corner you could, nestling the car between two larger vehicles that would stop the shining of the neon signs and the streetlights, the occasional hum of other cars being somewhat soothing, your time on the road turning the low rumbling of an engine into something more familiar than silence was, and you found yourself comfortable with the noise, whether it was from your car or not.

Hopping out of the car, you were eager to stretch your arms up and over your head, letting out a happy sigh when your muscles all loosened up from the positions they’d been stuck in during the long journey, your joints all feeling stiff and locked up, and you shook yourself down, pins and needles in your legs receding a little bit as you bounced on the tips of your toes.

There was a faint smell of petrol and fast food in the parking lot, you stomach twisting in discounted at the thought of eating food this late at night, your face screwing up a little to suppress a yawn, and Mitch rounded the vehicle to look at you, raising his brows with a chuckle, and you shrugged a little, clasping your hands before your body and taking a few steps towards to back of the car where he stood.

“You want to go get washed up first, and then me?”

You nodded, tiredness sweeping over you once again, and you didn’t trust your voice, watching instead as he unlatched the box atop the car, pulling out your sleep bag and handing it over to you, his own following a second later, and you passed away across the carpark to find some bathrooms to change and brush your teeth in. You barely even registered yourself pulling on your pyjamas, working on autopilot as you washed your face and cleaned your skin while making your best effort to touch as little of the grumpy washroom as you possibly could.

Making your way back over to him, he was sitting on the edge of the car, waving your hairbrush sat you, the same item you’d been looking for when you couldn't find it only moments ago, and you accepted it gratefully as he held it out to you. He took his turn, dashing away from you as he crossed the parking lot, and you pulled the scrunchie from your hair to release the tangles, running your fingers through it a little to flatten it down, before you were brushing it carefully, dropping the free strands away to the carpark cement floor, and tucking your bag back away up top, sure to tuck the brush back where it belonged, before sitting o the edge of the car. Pulling off your shoes, you dropped them over into the passenger seat footwell, and crawled up over the mattress so settle comfortably beneath the covers.

You were only alone for a minute, the cool night breeze washing away the stale and stifling warm air that hair but up over the drive, and giving you a more refreshing atmosphere in which to fall asleep. The car shifted a little as Mitch came back, slamming the box shut, and sealing it up, before he was lingering in the open space of the trunk, hand on the open door ready to close it up for you.

“Are you really going to sleep in the front seat again? You’re going to mess up your back.” He shrugged a little, and you bit the inside of your cheek to hold in your laugh as his eyes swept over the pile of cushions, pillows and blankets that you had set up across the majority of the car. You brushed your hand over the space beside you, shuffling a little closer to one of the sides, and patting at the spare pillow. “You can sleep back here, y’know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Totally.” You grinned, and he seemed to deliberate over the decision for a moment longer, before he took a seat, dropping the shoes over into the front seat just like your own, and you leaned across to pull down the edge of the trunk, locking the car from the inside. When you turned back, he was laying down himself, holding up the edge of the blanket for you and letting you settle back down into your warmed spot, your cheek pressing into your pillow.

He was stuff, his body bent in a little bit of an unusual position as he laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling pointedly, and you reached a hand out in his direction, turning his face towards yours, his lips pursing as he raised his eyebrows. “Get comfy, Mitch, or else you’re going to be unhappy. I’m not going to freak out if your leg brushes mine in the night, you won’t have a shoot out with Uncle Stan at dawn.”

He laughed, rolling his eyes at the image you had painted for him, before he was letting out a slow breath, and rolling onto his side a little to face you. His legs pulled up, one hand tucking under his pillow as the other sat in the space between you both, and you nodded to yourself, positioning your own body in much the same way.

“Better?”

“Much, actually.” He mumbled, his eyes closing as he pulled the blanket further up his neck until it was brushing his cheek, and you hummed happily as it shifted up your own body in response. The cool air quickly became warm, your bodies almost pressed together as you settled down under the cover, and he shifted once again, his hand coming up to sit on your forearm where your hand was tucked under your head, breath brushing over your face. “Goodnight.”

You didn’t even open your eyes, a small smile taking place on your lips as his thumb smoothed over your skin absentmindedly. “Night, Mitch.”

It was warmer than you were used to when you awoke, the stifling heat under the covers somewhere between a cosy warmth and an overwhelming heat. You weren’t used to sharing the bed with someone else, being able to smell leftover cologne on the pillow beside you or the feel of another person so close, but you rolled over anyway, humming a little to yourself as you did, and finding Mitch a lot closer to you than you’d anticipated.

At this distance you could feel the soft puffs of air that he was letting out with each breath, you could almost feel the rise and fall of his chest each time he breathed, and you could see the very minute details of his face up close. Small wrinkles and worry lines, as well as tiny scars that you wouldn't notice from a distance, but closer in you could pick them up, puffy pink patches of skin mixed in with the sweet brown moles that covered his face, mostly buried and hidden by the continual scruffy patch of beard that he sported at all times.

“It’s from shrapnel.”

You jumped a little at his voice, twitching in shock, and the edges of his lips quirked up in a cock smile at startling you. His eyes finally fluttered open, long lashes no longer resting against his cheeks as he blinked into the morning light, before sweeping his eyes over your own face in return.

“When things go to shit and we end up near an explosion, there’s a lot of tiny pieces of flying glass and grit, and sometimes I have to pick them out with tweezers in the mirror when we get back, they leave tiny scars that you hardly notice.” You hummed under your breath, reaching up to scrape your nail over one lightly, and the muscles underneath twitched a little at the feather-light touch.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t, I’ve been awake for a little while.” He muttered, his eyes closing again, and you processed the statement, cheeks flaring up slightly. You figured that if he’d woken up laying this close to you that he would have been up and about immediately, on his phone waiting for you to surface, or simply waking you himself, but he'd let you sleep in, staying where he was as not to disturb you so that you could snooze for as long as possible, and your heart warmed a little at the thought. “What’s on for the plan today, then?”

“I was kinda thinking we could check out the zoo?” You moved a little pushing down the blanket so that you could lift out your arm to sit atop the blanket instead of underneath, and he matched you, his fingers brushing your own as he opened his eyes to look at you once again.

“It’s supposed to be warm today, like really warm, I checked the weather forecast before bed last night. The zoo is a good call, we probably don’t want to drive before the evening, because we’ll roast alive in here.” You grinned at his words, shaking your head at his odd humour, and moving to reach for your phone at where it was plugged into the charger, before bringing it back down between the two of you.

“I’ll book us in online.”

“You want to get breakfast here, or on the road?” He finally pulled away from you, propping himself up to sit against the back of the car until his head almost brushed the roof of the car, but he could extend his arms and legs out in front of himself in a satisfying stretch.

“We got any of those pastries left?”

“A few.” He replied, digging around until he found the bag, and presenting them to you with a flourish that made you grin. The next item he reached for was his shoes, holding them in his hand as he tugged them on and left the laces undone, hanging open around the ground. “I’ll go grab us some coffee to go with them, okay? You get directions to the zoo downloaded.”

You gave him a mock salute as he made his way to crawl out of the car, even offering an ‘aye, aye, captain’ under your breath, the door opening and slamming shut as he disappeared across the parking lot and into the building, disappearing from your view as you focused on your phone.

It was a good ten minutes or so before he returned, fully dressed this time and smelling much fresher, the scent of mint lingering around him from where he’d cleaned his teeth, and he had his bag slung over his shoulder and two large to-go cups of coffee in his hand, a paper bag between his teeth. You took it from him once he’d knocked on the window, placing it beside you before taking the coffees from his hands too, letting him tuck his bag away and follow back into the car, sitting back where he had been and stretching his legs back out.

“I got some sugars and some creamers and just a fuck-ton of those wooden stirring things because they’re useful for, like, everything, so..” He peeled the plastic top back off of his coffee, opening up two sugar packets and a creamer and tipping them both in, before snatching up one of the aforementioned sticks and mixing it all together. You were more preoccupied with the bag of leftover treats from your time in New Orleans, and you held one out to him in offering as he sorted his drink.

Opening his mouth, you pushed it between his lips, his mouth closing around it, a garbled and muffled ‘thank you; sounding out as he held it in place with his teeth, crumbs fluttering down around him, before he was finally satisfied, putting the lid back on a freeing up a hand to hold his food with.

The two of you ate in relative peacefulness, sometimes pausing between your bites of food to discuss the day, and other times, you’d simply be sitting in quiet. You had turned the music on partway through, starting the car up rough to be able to roll down the window and air it out before it got too hot, and once you were done, it was your turn to change.

You shook out the covers of crumbs and remade the bed together, before you’d disappeared for long enough to change into a pair of shots and an old band shirt, one that made Mitch’s eyes roll as he shook his head. He had proceeded to comment on how he recognised it from some of the songs you were playing, and asking you if a piece of merchandise that old was a hand-me-down from Uncle Stan, bursting out laughing when you’d looked at him in shock at his guess.

The drive hadn't taken long, and it seemed to take you an equal length of time - if not longer - just to find somewhere to park, and to queue up and grab your tickets, and as you watched dhow slowly the walk-in line was moving, you were glad you’d had the initiative, even if it had only been a couple of hours ago that you’d thought to do so.

The first animals you had seen on your journey had been the meerkats, your body pressed in as close to the fence as you could get, reading the plaque outside of their cage, and pointing out all the different ones, watching as their heads popped up, and the scurried around, soaking up some of the sun while rolling around in their dusty and sandy enclosure.

“Do you knew meerkats have, like, super pointy teeth?”

“They do not!” You scoffed, turning to look at Mitch over your shoulder, the brim of the floppy sun hat he’d bought you brushing his cheek as he looked down at you, and he glared at the item indignantly for a second, before bringing his attention back to you and letting his anger melt away. “They have like, cute little teeth, or something. Look at them, they’re adorable!”

“Nope, they have really savage pointy teeth.”

You shook your head, pulling out your phone, and he stepped in a little closer as not to block the path, placing a hand over your screen to shield it front the sun so that you could both see it, as you typed the question into the search bar and waiting for the results. “What the fuck is this? I hate it.”

He pressed his nose into the top of your head as he laughed at your reaction, watching as you flicked through different pictures, his hand slipping to your waist as you turned to look at him in mild shock and abject horror. “What did you expect? They’re omnivores, they eat meat, like lizards ad birds and things!”

“They have fangs, Mitch! Where are they even keeping those? Huh? Look at their tiny little snouts!” You were thoroughly displeased by it, and he was guiding you way from the enclosure before you’d even released, your body pressed into his side as the two of you walked toward the sea lions.

They were beautiful, diving in and out of the water, preening themselves up on the rocks, and showing themselves off as they sunbathed. The birds had been even more majestic, the flamingos a bright decoration across the landscape that you had adored takin pictures of, letting Mitch photograph you in front of the cages, the bright flashes of pink feathers and blue water, making it a perfect picture setting, and you could already tell that the photos you took today would come to be some of you favourites of the trip. The tropical birdhouse had been filled with all the flying creatures you’d seen on TV and never thought you’d get to see in real life; toucans, parrots, kookaburras, kingfishers, it was breathtaking watching them swoop and soar, squawking and singing tunes you’d never understand but would always appreciate.

Seeing the alligators had been exhilarating, as had the red pandas been, taking a thumbs-up photo in front of the cages holding the large reptilians, a cheesy one to send to your uncle, and a series of pictures you hadn't even realised Mitch has been taking of you until you’d turned around, ones of you pointing into the cage with an awed look on your face as you watched the furry little animals scamper around, thrilled simply to be alive and healthy, uncaring of all the visitors passing them by.

You couldn't deny that the attraction you were most excited for, however, was the bigs cats. You wanted to see them all; cheetahs and tigers and lions, read every bit of information on them and get as many snaps as you could, watching he predators prowl around and flaunt their power to everyone who stopped to see them.

Stopping outside of the first one you came across, it was the cougars, proud and bold animals, your heart exploding in your chest once you saw the group of smaller ones all rolling in the dirt, play fighting and practising their skills as they jumped and leapt from one another, while the mother's did protective laps around the walls of the cages. Next had been the tigers, and you were sure to drop plenty of change into the donation box outside of it, your heart aching as you read about their endangerment. They were beautiful, and elegant, their stripes setting them apart and distinguishing them from all the others, and you’d never understand why anyone would want to hunt them.

A loud roaring had called you onwards onto the lion cage, and you’d been in time to watch a feeding, your eyes wide as you gripped onto Mitch’s arm excitedly. There was a tour guide explaining loudly with a microphone what was going to happen, the animals already beginning to crowd around what was clearly a feeding box as they waited for another member of staff to bring a bucket of chopped meat pieces over, and somehow, Mitch had managed to shoulder his way through the crowds, pulling you along behind him until you were standing in the front.

Your heart was in your chest as the man explained how they were fed, and what their diet consisted of, and how they looked after their animals, the roaring and growling of the creatures behind increasing as they smelled their meal, only seconds later the helping staff member arriving with a bucket of raw meat slabs, and placing it down beside his feet. He was asking for volunteers, anyone brave enough to actually step forwards and feed one of the beasts, and then his eyes were on you as he put down the microphone.

Turning your head a little, you found a finger pointing down at you from above, before his other hand was pushing you forward, and you were stumbling over your own feet as you stepped up to the bucket, shaking a little with nerves as you shot him a look, but then everyone was staring at you in quiet fascination.

“Okay, what you’re gonna’ do, is take a chunk of meat out of the box, bit heavy and slippery so make sure you’ve got a good grip, and bring it over. I’ll unlock this box and pull the lid back, and when you look in, there’s going to be teeth and claws at the bottom waiting. You’re totally safe, they can’t bend through there, and they can’t get in.” You nodded as he spoke, gagging a little at the meat in the bucket before surprising it, excitement and adrenaline taking over, and you reached into the box, selecting your offering and picking it up. Turning to Mitch, he had his phone camera raised, shooting you a thumbs up at he looked at the phone, and you figured he was recording the event.

As he said, the staff member unlocked the box, leaning over it to check it was sorted, and when you looked in, there were claws scratching at the metal, and teeth snapping hungrily.

“Alright, love, hold the meat from the top and lower it in about halfway. Wait until you feel the pull from underneath, that means one of them has a hold of it, and they’re going to want to tug it from your hands and run before one of the others gets it.” You nodded in your understanding, taking a deep breath and lowering it in carefully. Just as he’d said, the tug came almost instantly as it was within reach, large and vicious claws curling into the bottom of it and ripping it from your hands, before it was pulled out and caught within a proud lion’s jaw in seconds as it took off in a run while other’s pulled away to snatch the treat, before returning to where they knew more was to come from.

When it was snatched, you jumped back with a loud squeal, scared for only a second, before an overwhelming sense of pride too over, and you let out a cheer to yourself, your hand smacking against the gloved one of the worker when he offered you a high-five, and clapping took up around you as others began to volunteer, having seen in be done. Making your way back over to Mitch, you were partially skipping as he beamed at you, and you looked between hi and the cage as you watched the other lions be fed.

“Holy shit, I just fed a lion!”

“I saw!” He returned your happiness just as enthusiastically, and you felt like your heart was going to beat right out of your chest. “Let’s go get you washed up, okay?” You looked down at your hands as he held your wrists, before realising your fingers and palms were stained with a little blood from the raw meat, and you accepted the antibacterial wipes being held out to you, but still wanted to find a washroom to clean up in.

After stopping off to see the cheetahs, the zebras and the giraffes, you had stopped for lunch, getting quick and easy sandwiches from one of the vendors, and taking ice-creams with you as you walked the rest of your way around the zoo, taking photos of every animal you came across. It had been an incredible day, the ‘African Forest’ exhibit that the man accompanying you had been so excited for was breathtaking, all kinds of animals roaming around, and it had been the perfect day for it. Not too hot, not too cold, and no rain, you didn’t miss a single creature, all of them out to enjoy their day and show off to you, and you couldn't have been happier.

The two of you had spent an unbelievable amount of time in the gift shop, going through everything there before settling on simply getting one thing each, you getting an ‘I fed a lion and survived’ shirt after seeing the staff member who’d helped you, and he’d prompted you to get it after printing you off a cheesy certificate, and Mitch ad purchased a paperweight, and beautiful glass dome that was clear, save for the rainbow-coloured feather sitting inside that had fallen from a parrot, and apparently it had been made from the feathers of the animals here when they fell loose.

You stored them both carefully in the car when you got back out, wrapping his glass item within your shirt for protection and storing it in a box, the carpark being much clearer than when you arrived as it moved towards the evening, having spent everything from the late morning on the zoo grounds, and it was finally cool enough for you to get a little more of your journey in, the longest drive on the whole trip being ahead of you for tomorrow.

“I’m in the mood for Chinese food. What are you thinking?”

He spoke the words right as your stomach rumbled, the two of you hopping up into the car as you decided to get a chunk of the drive done tonight, at least getting just to the other side of San Antonio before you stopped for the night, shaving a good few hours off of your long-haul drive up to Arizona tomorrow, and you turned to him as he started up the car, nodding your head. “I think that’s an awesome idea.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. I‘ve been craving dumplings for ages, now.”

You pulled out your phone, beginning to search up the best place to go near you as he began to drive, sending the directions to the car’s satnav before turning on the music, quiet enough that you’d still be able to hear the directions over the top of it when needs be.

Ordering food was a real problem for the two of you, trying to narrow down all the options that you wanted to simply enough that the two of you could carry, and you ended up getting more than enough food despite those efforts, carrying it all out to the car. Sitting in the back seat, you were left in charge of unwrapping and balancing it all, having gathered food that would be easy enough for you to handle in the vehicle, which meant leaving out the noodles and chow-mein, despite how good they had sounded and smelled in the restaurant.

Opening up the cardboard container, steam curled out into the air and filled the car with the delicious scent of the dumplings you had purchased two boxers of, and you used the chopsticks to dig one out, Mitch letting out a loud groan as he caught a whiff. Taking a bite from it, you humming happily at the hot mouthful, panting a little and sounding like a dragon as you tried to cool it down, before popping the rest into your mouth.

“Good?”

“So good.” You could barely tell what your own words said when he spoke them, but he seemed to pick it up, twisting his head a little to face you for only a moment as he grinned, before focusing on the road ahead of him. Grabbing another one, you lifted it up to his mouth, pushing it against his lips gently, and he opened his mouth to take it, before the car was jolting as he dipped down into pothole, and the soft pocket fell from the sticks you held it with, rolling down his front and he grabbed it before it hit the seat. “Oh, fuck!”

“Shit, it’s hot!” He cursed, lifting it to his mouth and shaking his hand as it burned a little form the impact, and you burst out in a fit of giggles as he panted at the heat, and his own laughs were quietened around the food in his mouth. “It’s good, though.”

You fed yourself another one, nodding in agreement, and lifting another one up in offering. “More?”

“Yes, but try not to drop this one on me.” His words were mockingly teasing, and you gasped at him, his mouth opening to take it before you snatched it away and ate it yourself, and he growled out in response.

“That was your fault, watch where you’re driving!”

“Yeah, yeah, just feed me, sweetheart.” He scoffed, muttering under his breath, and you held out another one for him, this one going much better for you both as you succeeded into getting it into his mouth without dropping it, even managing to hold it for him as he blew on it to cool it down first.

The rest of the meal went much like that, the two of you sharing out the food, laughing together and simply chatting as you went, the hours ticking by with every mile you travelled, time slipping away from you as you twisted or face him in the chair, pulling your legs up to your chest as he told you a story, talking more all at once than you ever had heard him talk before.

He was recounting the story of the first time he’d met your uncle, the first weeks when he’d been in training, and the contact times he’d been covered head to toe in bruises as he was thrown onto the ground every ten minutes, and tossed up against what felt like every tree on the acres of land that he owned. You knew the moves, and everything he spoke of, being able to execute and perform all of them in the same way that he did, because you’d been practising them all since you knew how to walk, catching Mitch off-guard when you’d revealed to him that you were just as deadly as he was, if not a little more. You were a born and raised assassin, you just happened to like to collect shitty zoo merchandise and go on road trips instead of making use of your skills.

By the time you came to a stop, you’d passed by San Antonio, the two of you growing tired, and deciding to call it a day on your driving, offering up the entirety of tomorrow towards driving to Arizona, and opting for an earlier night instead. You found a trash can, throwing away all of the rubbish, and changing into your pyjamas and settling yourself into bed, waiting for Mitch to come back.

“Can I sleep in the back with you again?”

You smiled at him as he sat down on the edge, a sweet pink bush barely visible from beneath his beard in the low light, and you nodded, lifting the edge of covers for him, and he was quick to take up a place beside you after sealing and locking the car. “You don’t have to ask, it’s okay.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s your bed, and your road trip, I’m just crashing your fun.”

“I’m having loads of fun with you, if not more than I would have had alone.” You paused and waited as he got himself comfortable, reading out gently to place a hand on your waist over the cover, and you tucked your arm over the top of it to assure him that it was okay, the two of you facing one another closely. “I never would have fed a lion without you, and it’s nice having company, I like having you here.”

He grinned, nodding his head and simply looking at you for a while, before his eyes were closing, his fingers rubbing slow circles over your waist in aimless patterns as you closed your own eyes, settling your breathing in tandem with his as the two of you slipped away into quiet, and you shuffled in a little closer to him, his hand slipping from your waist to your lower back, fingers flexing out over your skin.

It was quiet for a long while, long enough that you were almost asleep, feeling the quiet take over as your subconscious began to step forward and take over, before a quiet voice broke the silence, raspy and low as he whispered it out, like a secret confession;

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah, ‘course.” You mumbled, nudging your face up toward him a little, but not opening your eyes, and you felt him sigh lowly, shuffling a little in his place, seemingly nervous about what he was going to say.

“I feel guilty.” He finally spoke, his hand pressing a little firmer on your back as his fingers dug into your skin, and you reached a hand up, squeezing at his forearm reassuringly. “I feel guilty, because I don’t think about her as much anymore. I thought I’d miss Katrina every day for as long as I lived, I thought she’d be my dying thought, in all my dreams, everything my life centred around, and it’s all changed. I feel better, and feeling better makes me feel worse.”

Your eyes snapped open at that, and you looked up to him, finding his sad eyes already on you, and your hand slipped up a little high, resting on his shoulder as you tried to work out what to say. “It’s okay, Mitch. It’s okay to move on.”

“Is it?”

“Of course, it is.” When your words didn’t seem to convince him, you tried again, sorting your thoughts to be a little clearer. “She’s always going to hold a place in your heart, and that’s okay, she was someone you loved enough to spend the rest of your life with, but life had other plans.”

“You can say that again.”

The edges of your lips flicked up a little at his words, but he was staring at you like he was waiting for you to go on. “It’s a good thing, it means you’re healing, and I know she’d want that for you, she’d want that to be happy, and I know if it was the other way around, you wouldn't want her to spend her whole life mourning for you, would you?”

“No.”

You placed your hand over his heart, and his own came up to cover yours, weaving your fingers together as you felt the steady thud of the muscle underneath your hand. “She’s always going to be in your heart, Mitch.”

“Is she, though? Because sometimes over a week goes by before I think about her, I don’t see her in my dreams anymore, and it doesn’t make me want to rip my own heart out when I hear her name.” He mumbled, and you felt your heart clench and crack a little at the broken sound of his voice.

“You’re always going to love her, Mitch, but are you still in love with her?”

He thought about it for a long while, pulling your hand away from his chest but keeping them intertwined and connected beneath the covers, and you thought that for a while that he may not even reply. Your eyes had fluttered shut when he actually replied, his brows furrowed when you looked up at him, simply hearing his intake of breath, and while his face portrayed confusion, the look in his eyes portrayed revelation. “No, I don’t think I am.”

“That’s a good thing, Mitch.” He raised his brows in silent question, the frown on his lips softening a little. “You’ll never forget her, she will always be important to you, but you’re allowed to move on and be happy again Mitch. You’re allowed to have fun without feeling guilty, you’re allowed to have new people in your life, and you’re allowed to find a new version of yourself. You are a new version of yourself, you became this for her, but you can have a life again, you can be whatever you want.”

“You truly believe there’s hope for me?”

“I believe you’re a good guy, Mitch. Despite who you think you are, I know you’re not this cold, hard shell you put on. You’re the guy who comes to the beach just to make sure I’m safe, and is such a fan of TV show’s he wants to check out the sets, and you like sugared pastries. That’s not someone who’s robotic and unfeeling, that’s someone who deserves great things in life, and that’s you.”

He watched you for a long movement, before letting out a shaky laugh, his eyes closing as he shook his head gently. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome, Mitch.” He shuffled in, pressing a kiss to your forehead, before backing away just enough to be able to breathe, your bodies still close together and placed a hand on his face, rubbing your thumb over his cheekbone as your eyes closed again, offering him a smile. “You are a good person, Mitch, I truly believe it.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve had a friend.”

“You’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me now.” You teased, and he huffed out a laugh as his own tiredness took over.

“I don’t know if I’ll want to.”

“Oh, my God. I have never been happier to see a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere in my entire life.” You threw your hands up above your head victoriously, cheering as you stared out at it, taking a deep breath of the air, uncaring of the lingering smell of petrol fumes and tobacco smoke, that was lingering around you. “That was the worst drive ever.”

“It would have been worse if I hadn't come with you, sweetheart, you’d have to do the full fifteen hours.”

You gagged falsely, shaking your head. “No. I would have just curled up somewhere on the edge of the road, maybe found myself a new home in Texas or New Mexico.” Your eyes closed as you dropped your head back, humming happily to yourself and shaking your body down of tension as you stared up at the building before you. “Let’s go, I need to pee and have some coffee, and get some food in me, in that order.”

“Well, who am I to stop you?”

You were already marching ahead when a body fell into step beside you, and he was quick to hold the door open for you to enter alongside him from the second you’d reached the door, the bell overhead jingling a little tune as you did, and the few other patrons all looked up at you for only a second, a quiet moment with only the music to be heard before conversation picked back up again, and you’d become old news.

The smell of slightly burned pancakes reached your nose, along with the smell of freshly brewed coffee, and your stomach rumbled happily. “I’ll order for you, what are you having?”

“What are you having?”

He hummed over it for a second, looking up at the menus overhead, rubbing a hand over his jaw and scratching at the lengthening beard that certainly needed some attention if it got much longer. “Steak and fries.”

“Then I want a cheeseburger. And a milkshake, surprise me with the flavour, just not banana.” Your face screwed up a little at the thought, before you were spinning on your heel and making your way toward the restrooms at the back. You hovered as you peed, and took a minute to check yourself over, pouting into the mirror as your hair showed a little grease beginning to build up, despite the dry shampoo you’d put in, but you didn’t have much left. You were certain that you’d spotted a little convenience store on your way in, but you hadn't exactly been paying that much attention to your surroundings when you’d dashed with thrill into the establishment you currently found yourself in.

Shaking off the water on your hands and drying them on a paper towel, you stepped back out into the main room, scanning around for a familiar head of messy brown hair, and finding him sitting in a booth, eyes focused down on his phone as he scrolled through the whatever it was he was doing a deep scowl set on his face, and you spied the little shop you thought you remembered just across the road as you made your way over, making a note of it.

“Can we swing by the little store across the road before we get on with the rest of the journey? I need to pick some things up, and maybe we can grab some food for tonight, since we have to stay at a little campsite?” You waited for his reply, hearing him hum as he glared down at his phone, brows furrowed deeply as he gave you an agreement, but you weren’t even sure he’d really heard the words you said, never mind processing them. “Mitch?”

“Yeah, yeah. Store, cool. Get things, campsite.” He mumbled, continuing to swipe through his phone, and you noticed the white knuckles grip he held on the device, before you reached out to him gently, running you fingers over the back of his other hand, and his head snapped up to look at you upon sensing the contact.

“What’s up?”

“I’m running out of storage to keep our photos and videos on my phone.” He turned it around to face you, tapping at the edge of the screen where it was showing how little storage he had, and you let out a soft laugh. “That’s okay, we can just keep them on my phone, or you could download that google photos thing, or buy more data, o-”

“I need to delete some photos.”

“Uh, yeah, that works too. Do you have a lot of photos?” He nodded solemnly, and you rounded the booth to sit beside him, sensing that there was more to the story as he struggled with it all, your leg pressing up to his as you ducked your head down a little to catch his gaze. “Do you have a lot of photos that you can’t get rid of?”

“Not exactly.” He squirmed in his seat a little uncomfortably, the breathy sigh he let out brushing over your hairline as he sat up. “I have a lot of photos of Katrina, and they’re all just random shots, some of them stupid and blurry, and most of them mean nothing. There’s, like, over six thousand of them, and I’ve been meaning to delete them for a while, but I don’t.. it just doesn’t feel..”

“Like you’re ready.”

“No, the opposite, actually. I feel like I am ready, and like they’re holding me back, but I shouldn’t feel like that, right? I should want to keep them?”

You shrugged a little under his intense stare, not sure quite how to answer him as he waited for your words, and the waitress gave you both an unusual look as she placed down your drinks and your meal, to which you quickly thanked her for, letting her go without anything else to request. “Everyone moves on at different times, and if you’re ready to move on, then you should do so. If the pictures are weighing you down, delete them, but if you want to keep them then you should. I’ll never judge you for what you want.”

“Unless it’s a banana milkshake, right?”

“Yeah, unless it’s that. Bananas freak me out, they defy the logic of fruits and vegetables and I just don't get it.” He grinned, letting out a deep sigh and pulling up the photo album in his phone labelled ‘Kat’, with a series of sweet emojis next to it, including the ring, and you felt something within you pull and ache for him as you looked at it, eyes widening as he simply clicked to edit and delete it, confirming his choice, before the two of you were left staring at the empty space. “Shit! That was just so, clean and tidy! You didn’t even look at them!”

“Should I have? Then I would’ve wanted to keep some, and then I would have kept all of them, and then I’d be right back to feeling weighed down.” You gaped at him for a second, before shaking your head fondly, and reaching out to grab at the milkshake he’d purchased, and snorting at the cream colour and simple but sweet flavour that filled your mouth as you took a sip.

“Vanilla?”

“It was a safe bet!” He huffed grabbing for his soda and catching the straw between his teeth to take a sip, and reaching for his plate with the other. You made to shuffle out of his side of the booth, before a discontented grunt made you halt, his face stoic as he chewed on a mouthful of greasy fries, but his eyes were fixed on you, wide and longing, asking the question without actually having to say the words.

You didn’t bother to voice anything verbally either, settling back into his side and picking up your plate to bring it across to you. Your lunch consisted of sharing food, and teasing one another, and talking about the rest of you journey as the conversations once again slipped away, and it seemed that late-night talks and hidden diner-booths were the keys to unlocking the heavily fortified sanctum that was the true personality of Mitch Rapp.

You had also wandered the aisles of the convenience store as you gathered the things you needed while letting your food settle; dry shampoo, toothpaste mouthwash, fabric spray, a new car air freshener, an obscure list of things that ranged from quick snacks to long term products, and you expected more unusual looks as you reached the register. Instead, you got nothing but an empty and bored glance, before everything was rung up and bagged for you, and Mitch was sitting out in the driver’s seat of the car by the time you’d finished up, fingers tapping at the wheel as the window was rolled down, waiting for you.

On the road up here, you’d been driving, seven hours behind the wheel having almost killed you off, and you were excited to get into the passenger seat and be able to sing and relax, the mid-afternoon hours meaning that if you finished your final seven hours without any hitches or delays, you would reach the campsite by the late evening, ready to set up for your night.

“Guess what I got!”

You were all but thrown into your seat from the second you had sat down, not even fastened up before he was pulling out onto the road, smirking at the undignified sound that you let out as you slapped yourself in, slapping lightly at his arm as he switched gears, rolling his window up and flicking on the A/C to cool the metal box down. “What’d you get?”

“I got the stuff to make smores, later! I was thinking maybe we could make a little campfire, could be fun?”

“I got whiskey.” He nodded his head towards the back, a bag sprawled out across the pillows with the logo of the liquor store you hadn't even seen him go into printed onto the paper, and you cheered loudly, whooping at the sight.

“Smores and whiskey, it’s going to be an epic night.”

“I build a good bonfire.” He promised, and you grinned, picking up your phone as the SatNav began to direct you to the campsite, still hundreds of miles out, but you could play your songs and rock out as much as you wanted now that you weren’t the one driving, and so you were far more excited about the second half of the journey.

When you finally passed the sign on the road welcoming you into Arizona, you felt like you might actually cry a little, the longest journey of your trip being almost completed, and you could feel the draw it was having on Mitch too. He had started out simply watching you sing to the songs and talking to you between excited bursts of the choruses, which had changed into him humming along with you. There had even been that one glorious moment during your fourth hour on the road that he had sung along with you to, and you had been completely shocked and entertained for almost a full half an hour of unending laughs when he’d surprised you by rapping the ending of ‘Payphone’ perfectly, before flashing you a cheeky grin, and refusing to confess how he knew it so well.

After that, it had admittedly ended up going downhill, the tiredness seeping into you both as the car fatigue became all too much, both of you just wanting out of the vehicle and into the fresh air, exhausted, despite having done nothing but sit all day. You wanted out of the chair, out of the car, out of these clothes and into something comfortable, and, so the mood had quickly deteriorated. You were overly grateful for the comfortable silence, though, unsure that you would have been able to handle such a long trip with the man you now called friend, had the two of you been in the same place together that you had been almost three weeks ago.

The second the car came to a stop when you picked out the perfect parking space, up on top of a little hill near a pre-made fire pit, and a car park with some bathrooms only a short walk away. You were left in charge of gathering some sticks in the dying light, the two of you tearing up the parcel paper you hadn't used in your delivering of your memorabilia to your uncle at home, and changing into your sleepwear, cleaning up and getting ready for your evening.

Mitch had found a log from somewhere, dragging it over for the two of you to sit on with the flickering of the slightly burning paper giving you hope, soon to become a roaring fire. He’d already taken the bag of snacks and supplies from the back of the car, his face lit up in the darkness by the orange glow of the flames, and you tugged the blanket out from within the car, wrapping it around your shoulders as you trekked across the small patch of grass toward him.

Taking a seat on the wood beside him, he twisted his head to face you, smiling a little and leaning over or brushing his cheek across the top of your head when you leaned onto his shoulder, and his hand reached out to tug at the blanket that you had sealed around yourself.

“Share this with me.”

You unwrapped half off it from your body, shivering at the cold that swept in for only a second, before his arm was slipping around your body and pulling you in closer as you tucked the blanket over his shoulder, and the two of you huddled together before the growing fire. He reached down beside his feet, presenting the alcohol to you, and you giggled as his eyes glowed the same colour as the liquid within the bottle, opening it up and brandishing it to you before taking a sniff of the spiced mix within. Raising it to your lips, you took a small sip, testing the mix, before taking a larger one and wincing at the burn that washed down your throat, but letting out a happy noise afterwards.

“I picked the good stuff.”

“You sure fuckin’ did.” Your voice was a little hoarse, and he grinned as he took it from you, chugging at the bottle a little as you cheered quietly, egging him on like he was still in college, and he almost choked on the bottle when you shouted ‘keg stand champion’ into the cold night air. Smoke was beginning to come up from the twigs, wood snapping and crackling as it grew bigger, and Mitch handed you back the bottle before leaning away a little. He picked up one of the larger chunks of wood that he’d found, letting the flames begin to claim it slowly.

“When it gets hotter, we’ll make your smores, okay?”

“Sir, yes, sir.” You giggled, taking another generous drink from the bottle, and wiping at the edge of his mouth as he grinned at you, and shook his head. “Did you do boy scouts as a kid?”

“No.” He scoffed but if you weren’t mistaken, you caught a slightly bashful look on his face, pinching his cheek in a teasing manner as he scowled at you heatlessly, pulling his face away to take a drink as the two of you shared the bottle between you. “Were you?”

“A boy scout?” He shot you a pointed glare, a deadpan expression on his face, and you muffled your life by burying your face in his shoulder as you faced him a little more. “Who needs girl scouts and cookie sales when you can learn how to assemble and disassemble a rifle in the dark in under sixty seconds by age five, huh?”

He pulled the bottle down from his lips, staring at you for a second as he twisted himself to look at you fully. “Are you serious?” You simply nodded brows furrowing a little as you looked at him, and he moved, pulling you in a little closer to you. “That’s intense.”

“I grew up training for Orion, I’d have you flat on your ass in ten seconds, Rapp.” He smirked a little at the empty threat, and you moved again to tuck your head back under his chin and onto his shoulder, an action that he easily welcomed as the two of you snuggled up together. “It’s cool, but it still sucks, I didn’t get to go to prom, or go away to college. Uncle Stan scared away every single guy I might have dated, and that one time he caught me smoking pot, I thought he was going to shoot me in the foot.”

You welcomed the laughs that he gave you, before quieting down a little. Lifting out the other belongings in the bag, he handed you over a stick, the two of you cracking open the bag and pushing some of the fluffy treats onto the ends, dipping them into the fire as you chewed on the others from the bag. “You might have even more trauma than me.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re all a little bit broken, but it’s how we choose to rebuild ourselves that matters, right?” You turned the stick in your hands, watching as the marshmallow began to turn brown and crisp up a little as it went. “He was looking out for me, doing everything to take care of me, and so I don’t hold that against him.”

“Yeah, but prom is like a rite of passage! You slow dance and take stupid pictures and steal alcohol from your parents afterwards and get more drunk than you can handle. That’s the way it should be!”

“Yeah, I stole alcohol from Stan and got drunk, and I’ve taken stupid pictures. All Stan’s lessons in the aggressive arts never once included ballroom dance, though.” Pulling it back, you blew out a small flame that had started on it, before holding Mitch’s when he handed it to you, taking the crackers and chocolate out of the bag and setting them up for you both. “Wow, you’re no good at that, are you?”

“I’m amazing at this, what do you mean?”

He spoke the words through a frown as he struggled to get his chocolate to stop melting long enough to squeeze the marshmallows on top and close another cracker across the top, the two of you giggling in a drunken stupor as you watched the mess take place. He handed the messy bundle over to you, presenting it with a flourish, graham crackers covered in sticky fingerprints as the layers between tastes became mussed up. “You’re so bad at making smores, it’s great.”

“Oh, hush.” He muttered, shoving a hand into your face, before gasping and snapping his head up as he realised his fingers were coated in melted chocolate and sticky marshmallow residue, smiles on both of your faces as he stared at you in shock, before grinning wickedly. “That’s what you fucking get.”

“I was just stating the truth!”

“You were being me- oh, fuck!” The two of you stared at the dirty grass by your feet, where his smore now sat on the floor, a gutted expression on his face as he stared at it longingly. “You gotta’ share yours now.”

“You dropped it!” You shouted, bringing it up to take a large bite from it as he stared at you needily, and he growled lowly. “You shouldn’t have wiped chocolate on my face, now I’m going to have to go all the way to the bathrooms and clean up again.” Your words were muffled between bites of your food, and he watched it diminish in your hands.

He sucked each of his fingertips clean, before placing a hand over your unblemished cheek and holding you tightly, before he was leaning in. Dragging his tongue over your skin he drew a squeal from you, and he suckled lightly at your skin, teeth dragging over cheek as he lapped at your flesh until one side of your jaw was slick with spit but clean of his earlier assault. “There. All clean, now share.”

“You’re so gross!” You laughed, wiping your face on his shirt aggressively, but allowing him to take the other half from your hand, chewing on his happily, and you rubbed at your face until it was dry and red with irritation, and he grinned at you cheesily, chocolate in his teeth as you scowled. “Can I have another bite, though?”

He nodded holding it out and pressing it to your lips as you bit off half of what was left, sharing it with him before it was gone, and you were both left clicking your fingers clean. “Okay, maybe I suck at making smores a little bit.”

“A lottle bit.”

“That’s not a fucking word.” He mumbled, before shaking the bag of marshmallows in your face. “How about we just eat the rest of it without trying to combine it all?”

“Works for me.” You sighed, tossing one up into the air and catching it in your mouth. You munched through the rest of the bag, and the chocolate and most of the crackers, until you were thirsty, in which you’d both polished off a little more of the alcohol you possessed, leaving you well-past the giggly phase of being drunk and deep into the heartfelt and sombre stage, the two of you staring wistfully into the flames as you huddled deeper under the blanket for warmth. It was cold, but you didn’t want to be going to the car just yet, enjoying spending a few hours out in the fresh air after spending the entire day cooped up.

“Have you really never danced?”

His fingers were brushing along the skin underneath your jumper where his hand lay, lazy and unorganised patterns, sometimes stilling for minutes at a time before taking up in motions spontaneously once again. “I’ve danced, I just haven’t done that whole slow-dance to a cheesy song under a disco ball in a ballgown kind of dancing. Slow dancing isn’t much of a thing I’ve done.”

He nodded his head, shaking the bottle that was half empty once again, and seeming to consider drinking some more, as though the two of you hadn't already had ten shots worth of whiskey, at least. “I can’t promise a disco ball or a gown, but I’d dance to a cheesy song with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He whispered, pressing his lips to your forehead as you leaned into him, and you wrapped your arms around him tightly the dying embers of the fire beginning to leave the cold to creep in. “Do you want to go to bed now?”

The idea made you yawn, and nodding into him as he hummed, before he was standing up carefully and pulling you up to your feet, pressing the rubbish bags into your arms and securing the blanket around you.

“You walk back up, and I’ll put out this fire, and I’ll come meet you.” You grinned, brushing the tip of your nose along the underside of his jaw, swaying a little before taking wobbling steps away from him and back up to the car. You stopped by to dispose of the rubbish, stuffing it all into the bin and making sure none escaped, before lifting up the back door of the car and exposing the comfy looking bed to yourself, smiling at the sight of it.

You seemingly had just enough about yourself to be able to find one of your makeup wipes, cleaning off your hands and your face, anywhere that had been licked or might have leftover food smeared on your skin, freshening yourself up before kicking off your shoes. They were on the edge of the mattress, and you were too tired to even get under the covers, simply pressing your head into the pillow and bringing the blanket you had right up to your chin.

“We should have turned the heating on before leaving, so it would be nice and toasty when we came back.” You tried to reply, your words coming out in a jumbled mess as sleep tried to claim you. Picking up your shoes and taking his own, he threw them vaguely at the front of the car, following you into the bed and closing up the car, flicking the lock and rubbing his hands together. You couldn't express in the moment how thankful you were for your own forward-thinking, already in your pyjamas and prepared for bed before you’d settled down for the night.

The blankets underneath you were ruffled, thick covers being pulled back, and you were momentarily rolled to the side as you groaned, the sheets pulled out from underneath you, but you were caught cleanly before you slammed into the edge of the car from the motion. “C’mon, sweetheart, rollover towards me and get under the covers.”

You did as told, moving your body towards him, slamming into a firm chest before he was wrapping an arm around you and holding you close as he sorted the blankets around you, and turning off the light. Once the darkness encased you, you knew that you were truly a goner, and you pressed closer into the warmth he provided. He simply squeezed you in tighter in return, his body curling around yours as you turned to face the window, legs tangled as he held you from behind, his forehead pressed to the back of your head, allowing the two of you to drift off.

When you stirred again, it was with a warm body pressed up to your own, and you startled for only a second, before remembering where you were, the arm around you tightening, and you heard a chuckle come from behind you.

“Relax, it’s just me.”

It was with a breathy sigh that the words were exhaled, followed by a deep and sharp inhale that was indicative of a yawn, before the arm was loosening a little around you, allowing you to roll over to face the man. He stretched out an arm underneath your head, letting you cushion your cheek on his bicep as he reached over your head and fished around for the map, shaking it out with one hand as he blinked his eyes into being used to the morning light.

You reached up your other hand, taking the map in it and helping to stretch out the paper, and you turned to look up at it like he was, as the two of you tried to make sense of what you were seeing.

“Next stop, Vegas!” You pointed out at the starred spot on the map with your other hand, before turning to face him, and finding the man nibbling on his lower lip, your smile falling away a little. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just not sure I’ll be the best company in Vegas.” You resisted the urge to make a joke, shuffling your body a little closer to him until you side was pressed to his, an informal hug without ever actually needing to wrap your arms around him to reassure your support to him. “I don’t do great with crowds, I still get a little bit anxious, and nervous.”

“We don’t have to go, we can just skip it, or go somewhere else, re-”

“No! No, I want to go, I’m just warning you.” He turned to face you, lips finding his own smile as his eyes met yours. “I get overwhelmed, don’t hold it against me if I have to come back to the car and take a break.”

“I would never hold that against you.”

Pulling the map down from before you both, you worked in tandem between laughs and confused shouts as you tried to fold it up, finally getting it back into the crisply pressed rectangle, and tucking it back into the pocket to keep it safe. Following that, you rolled yourself onto your side, throwing an arm over his waist as you let your eyes drift back shut, on the edge of snoozing once again.

“We can go somewhere else if you want, or do something else.”

“This is your road trip, I’m not going to let my anxiety ruin it.” He mumbled, seemingly verging on falling back asleep himself, and he ran his fingers over your arm a little, tracing patterns into your skin that he probably didn’t even realise he was making. “Besides, I’m excited for it, I’ve never been to Vegas.”

“If you’re sure.” You turned over some more, more on your stomach than on your side now, groaning a little as sleep haze still covered your mind, but you couldn’t get comfortable again as your body decided it was rise and go time, before your brain was ready to follow. “We can just do whatever makes you happy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You cracked an eye open to look at him, propping yourself up to poke him in the cheek, forcing him to look back at you as he slapped your face away, face screwing up a little at the feeling. “It’s our road trip now, it can be whatever we want it to be.”

He stared at you for a long minute, with a look that you couldn't decipher, before he was leaning up and into you, dragging the tip of his nose with yours, before his lips were pressing to the same spot, a sweet peck placed to the end of your nose as you giggled softly at the ticklish feeling and intimate gesture.

“What was that for?”

“For being the irritatingly adorable ray of sunshine you always are, that has done more for me in two weeks that three years worth of therapy ever has.” You dropped your own face down, returning the sweet affection by pressing a kiss to his cheek, and he tensed up a little underneath you, looking a little shocked by the return of it, before he offered you a vulnerable but delicate smile. “I want to go to Vegas, I mean it.”

“Cool, then that’s what we’ll do.”

He nodded, sitting the two of you up a little more as he ran his hands through his hair to flatten it down and detangle it. “If it’s our road trip now, then I think I’ve earned the right to add to your playlist.”

You held your hand over your heart, gasping in horror. “What’s wrong with my playlist?”

“Nothing, I just want to put some of my songs on there too.” You eyed him for a moment, before giving in, upon realising he wasn’t insulting your music taste, and instead was simply trying to leave his mark on the trip. “Okay, fine, but nothing that will throw off the vibe.”

“I promise.”

Following that, he moved away from you, pulling the edge of his t-shirt up to his nose to sniff it and check it’s cleanliness, the sweats and tee on his body being suitable for wherever you were going for breakfast, and he pulled on his shoes, holding his hands out for the keys.

“Now, hurry up! I want breakfast.”

You rolled your eyes, the car starting up underneath you, and you struggled or clamber up into the front seat after doing the best to make the bed underneath yourself, cursing every time you messed it up from where you were kneeling, but you eventually were satisfied, and came up to sit beside him. “I want bacon.”

“Me too.”

It wasn’t long before you found somewhere to stop, to change and get yourself ready for the day. You got your bacon, and some sausages and toast too, a change of clothes and a quick wash up, leaving you rejuvenated and ready for the final few hours drive up to Vegas.

It was mid-afternoon by the time you arrived at Vegas, and so you were left with what was practically an extra day to explore, the driving having gone differently to what you'd expected when you had thought you’d been doing it all alone, sped up and giving you a good few hours before you had to crash back into bed.

“We’re actually staying at a hotel in Vegas? I thought you said we were sleeping in the back for most of it?” Mitch teased, and you rolled your eyes at him with a grin.

“Yeah, well, I figured one night in a hotel wouldn’t kill us. We’re in Vegas, thought it would be nice.”

“So, what’s the plan?” You chanced a glance, before fixing your eyes back on the road, and shrugged.

“We’re ahead on driving because I wasn’t doing all the driving, so we didn’t have to stop as much. I wasn’t expecting to arrive for another few hours, so there’s no plan until dinner, really.” He seemed to light up at the idea, pulling his phone from his pocket to immediately begin to research things that the two of you could do.

“How about we see the Avenger’s station thing? You like MARVEL movies, right?”

“Yes! I love MARVEL movies, are you serious?”

“Deadly.” He seemed to find amusement in his response, smirking a little to himself before turning to, reprogramming the GPS device with the location of the exhibit, before he began to tap away at the phone again. “There, we’re all booked in.”

“Oh, my God! This is so exciting!” You were all but bouncing in your seat as the thrill of it took over, before settling yourself down comfortably. “This is amazing. Just think of all the pictures we can take!”

“You know you’re cute when you’re all excited like this.”

“I’m cute anyway.” You mumbled, and he laughed at your response, but poked a little at your heated cheeks despite the reflective comment, and your burning embarrassment at the comment only furthered.

“Cute.” You scowled, leaning anyway from him and only making him laugh more, before he took pity on you and changed the subject. “Hotel first? Get our bags sorted out and wash out this car smell before we go?”

“Maybe we should get the actual car cleaned, y’know? Put it through one of those hotel services while we have dinner, later.” You took a turn as you were instructed to, slowing down as the roads began to narrow and crowd the closer you moved to the inner city. He merely hummed his agreement, leaning forward to peer out of the front window and up at the hotel you were arriving at, his face blank as you searched him for his opinion, feeling a little anxious as he stared up at the high-reaching building. “Is it okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I just haven’t been to a big grand hotel since before the CIA is all.”

“Well, this one will be awesome, I promise.” He pointed out a parking spot for you, before hopping out eagerly when the car had stopped, and you followed him out into the fresh air. The second you were out of the door, the background noise of the busy city took over, and he was already lifting down your bags from the storage box on the top of the car, slinging both over his shoulder as you locked the vehicle.

As you reached his side, you were lifting his arm up to wrap yourself underneath, his hand sitting on your shoulder and he easily allowed you to press yourself up to him, but dropped his arm down to sit around your waist instead of over your shoulders. “So, do you want to get the car checked in for a clean, then? It’s over there?”

You glanced over at it, shaking your head a little. “Nah, we can sort that later. Right now, I want to take a quick shower and get ready, because I am very excited to get to the Avengers Station.”

He squeezed at your waist for a second, and you tilted your head a little over onto his shoulder, as the two of you made your way to the help desk. The booking of your room was easy, and finding your room was too, the key card swiping in the door and the beds being revealed to you soon after, the bathroom only a doorway away, and within twenty minutes of leaving the car, you were tying your hair up and soaking yourself under the warm water. Mitch was left in charge of booking the car for a thorough clean inside and out, and for the bedding to be washed and placed back inside once it was clean.

Once you were dressed and ready, you were walking across the hotel grounds, directions on your phone guiding you to the attraction that was only a short walk away, and with every step you took closer, your excitement only grew, a squeal leaving you when the large overhead signs came into play, announcing your arrival to you, the doors propped open for you to enter.

“Iron Man suits first, right?”

“It's scary how well you know me after only a few weeks.” He simply grinned at you wickedly, your arms looping together as you sped towards your first attraction.

You took so many pictures that you thought you camera roll may actually explode and overflow, overflowing with the shots you'd taken. There were props from every movie, and most of them you were able to touch and take your picture with, posing in front of items like the Captain America shield, and Thor’s first armour. There were interactive sections too, like a holographic section of ants on the floor of one of the corridors, that cleared where you stepped, and computer systems were you could go through different aspects of the movies in small quizzes and games, the two of you competing at every game on there, until you lost track of the winner.

One of your favourite pictures had to be the one you’d both taken with the Hulk hand, laid flat for comparative size. You’d had fun pretending to the Black Widow for a second, the two of you trying to remember what was said in ‘the lullaby’ from the tops of your heads, before you’d eventually googled it. He took a video of you exciting it once you had it, your words practically drowned out by your laughs and his, before taking the photo you loved so much. His hand was flat on the Hulk hand, small in comparison to it, with yours on top looking even smaller. It was a sweet photo, one that you loved, and you saved it to your ‘favourites’ album, your best pics of the fic, a folder that was rapidly growing.

The two of you spent almost as much time in the gift shop as you did in the exhibit, debating over what you wanted to buy, and trying to narrow down one another’s baskets until it was a reasonable amount, debating and negotiating purchases, and only giving in and leaving with bag-laden arms when the rumbling of your stomachs and the need for food became all too much. The car was still in the process of being cleaned and washed when you passed it, and so you took the bags of souvenirs all the way up to your room, dumping them for wrapping and labelling to send home for a later challenge, more the desperate to get a table in one of the hotel restaurants before your appetite grew any larger.

After taking a while to deliberate over the restaurant you wanted to choose, you had settled on the place with a BBQ theme, the two of you settling in for a slightly messier and hands-on dinner. It had a southern theme, reminding you of cowboys and the wild west, and you adored all of it. Springs chicken wings, seasoned fries and ribs and what felt like a trial of everything on the menu. You never even bothered with a knife and fork, digging right in once you’d been given scented wipes to clean your hands off afterwards, and the two of you shared each dish out, trailing and tasting everything, more food than you’d possibly needed having been ordered and somehow you'd managed to eat it all.

There was no room for dessert, but you purchased two pieces of cake, taking them upstairs with you to eat later, boxed up and saved, and you felt stuffed to the point of bursting, one of the best meals you’d had so far on the trip filling you up. You ordered drinks up to the room, the two of you too lazy to go to the bar, wishing instead to get in your pyjamas, and sharing a bottle of wine as you tried to wrap up all the things you had, labelling them in large packages for your uncle.

“Do you think when we get home, we’re even going to have space for all the stuff we buy?”

He paused from where he was sealing one pack up with tape, looking up at you for a second with furrowed brows. “I absolutely do not, I’m going to have to build a whole new display case. Road trip memoirs.”

You giggled at his words, shaking you head as the slight buzz in your system prompted the sounds, but you added to the growing pile of sealed packages, feeling as though you were wrapping presents and building a mound to pile up under a decorated tree, Christmas still months away, but you shield to yourself at the idea that you may actually have someone else to spend it with this year, someone else to buy for.

“What’s with that look?”

“I was thinking about how nice this trip is, and how nice it is to have new friends.” He looked up at you upon finishing the box in his hands, getting rid of the final one before placing a hand on your ankle, rubbing his thumb over your skin lightly. His lips were pulled up in a delicate smile, but his gaze was fixed a little off from you, staring out of the windows behind you, and he seemed like he was drowning in his thoughts, mentally being a million miles away from where you were, even if physically he was here with you. You could see the moment that he snapped back, shaking his head clear and turning to look at you, expression changing entirely and yet minutely. “What’s with that look?”

“Nothing, just thinking.” You wanted to pry further, but resisted the urge, having learned with Mitch that prompting only made him shut you out, and that when and if he wanted to talk, it would be in his own time. “Pretty awesome view of the Vegas Strip behind you, you’re missing it.”

Turning in your place, you stood up, hand pressed to the glass as you looked out into the darkness, breath taken away by the beautiful sights. Everything as lit up, cars lining the roads and neon signs shining up into a black sky with an array of colours, some flashing and twinkling as others held steady and strong, all lighting up all the way to the horizon, and giving every piece of land that you could see a kind of ethereal glow.

“Nice, right?”

You hummed, only turning when you heard the snapping of his phone camera, smiling cheesily as you glanced back at him, holding out a hand and prompting him to put the device away and join you. He did just that, tossing it away behind himself to step forwards, letting you lean back against his chest when his hands were placed up on your shoulders. The rest of your evening was spent pointing out every building and sign you could recognise, and you’d eventually crashed on your beds, watching a movie and spending more time talking than paying attention to the plot, before your need for sleep had taken over.

The following day had included a lie-in, sleeping in until the late morning, before going to see the sights at the neon museum. It had been the suggestion of the lady behind the reception desk, changing you plan to instead take a walk down memory lane, but you’d ended up loving it even more than your original plan.

You had paused, however, to sort the car out. A pile of laundry and sheets sitting on top of a stripped mattress, the car sparkling clean inside and out sprayed with something that smelt like summer berries as the metal sparkled and gleamed more than it had before the two of you had even left, tires checked and pumped back up. Upon setting your bags in the storage unit, and sorting yourselves out, you’d delivered a bundle of more parcels, and grabbed some quick food for the day, hot drinks in hand as you sorted the directions to the Neon Museum.

It was incredible, getting to see every single beautiful sign there was, and compare them to the ones that were up now, the two of you pulling out your phones and holding them up in comparison, taking several photos to keep, as well as sending an update to you uncle.

As soon as you’d left the exhibit, your uncle had tried to FaceTime you, and you’d forced Mitch to cram in onto the screen next to you as you sat on the bench, plugging in your headphones and sharing them between you both, one in each of your ears. It consisted of mostly you talking, each of the men watching one another carefully, unsure how to have a conversation that didn’t involve them screaming and shouting orders and insults.

You chose instead to update the older man on everything that had happened, everywhere you had been so far, and the fact that you had parcels to ship home to him. He confirmed that he’d been gathering up everything you’d sent, dropping them off at your place each time they came back, and promising that the succulents and houseplants you’d left him in charge of were still alive.

He listened to your stories, as you excitedly told him all about the TV show tours, and the lion feeding, and the bar inside the cave, stopping only when you paused for breath, or allowed Mitch to add his two cents. You could tell he’d been a little anxious, talking to his boss setting him a little on edge even though he knew there was no assignment to come out of it, and so you’d neglected to ignore it when his arm had lay out along the back of the bench, acting as though he was simply stretching, but you could feel the tug of your hair when the fingertips playing with the strands sometimes got a little tangled, and the brush of his fingers on your arm seemingly going unnoticed as he simply hunter for a little touch to ground himself.

When your phone was running out of battery, you called it enough on the chat, feeling Mitch let out a deep sigh beside you once it was over, seeming to relax a little beside you. It was beginning to look like twilight, the day having flown by, and while you weren’t in any rush for the drive ahead, it certainly wasn’t the longest one to come, and so you were more than happy to spend a little more of your time here, watching as the first lights began to light up along the strip.

It was getting busier as the night rolled in, the two of you walking along towards the Bellagio fountains ahead of you. Where the streets had once been clear enough for you to walk side by side comfortably and undisturbed, they were now crowded enough that others still brushed up against you when you were pressed shoulder to shoulder as you walked, your linked arms folded tightly between your bodies as you weaved through busier crowds.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

You pulled him to the side a little, the two of you coming to a stop, and he was looking around at everyone intrusively, scanning over the crowds and trying to commit faces to memory. With a hand on his cheek, you pulled his gaze back to your own, snapping him out of his ‘mission mode’ as you reminded him that he wasn’t in battle, and that it was okay to relax. “Are you getting overwhelmed? We can head back to the car if you want.”

He shook his head, taking your hand from his face, dropping it down between you both as his fingers were still loosely wrapped with your own, swinging between you with his twitchy movements. “I’m okay, for now. Let’s see the fountains.”

You glanced down when you felt him shift his hand, weaving his fingers with yours and holding onto you tightly, tension slipping from his body when you squeezed back, the calloused palm of his hand wrapped with your own, and you fell into step at a comfortable pace as the two of you finished your journey to watch the beautiful display. Jets, cascading into the air, bright lights and music to accompany the waterworks as it created a show, and you video the entire thing, before snapping a picture of yourself in front of some of the final shots.

“Do you want me to take a picture for you?”

You twisted to the voice, an elderly lady smiling at you as she motioned to your phone, and you handed it over to her. She held it up, waiting for a second, and you weren’t sure what she was waiting on, but then she was staring pointedly at Mitch, and freeing up a hand to motion him over. With stumbled steps and red cheeks, he made his way to your side, a little stiff before you rolled your eyes, leaning into him and waiting for him to relax.

Only moments later, he loosened up enough to wrap his arm around your waist letting you curl into his side as the two of you smiled at the camera, taking the shot, and he pressed a kiss to your head before letting you go to retrieve your phone. The shots were incredible, bright lights and flashes of water illuminated behind the two of you, and as you swiped through the different ones she’d taken you noticed she’d caught on just before the man had given you that small token of self-soothing affection, his eyes closed and face tilted down towards you as you each held the other tightly, you staring straight ahead, unknowing of his actions with a large smile.

“We are making such awesome memories.” You sighed, the two of you trailing back towards the car.

“Together.” He squeezed at your hand, and you returned the gesture, leaning into him.

“Yeah, together.” When you finally reached the car, you were more than happy to see it, wanting to get some more sleep, despite not having had all that long of a day, but enjoying the chance to gather as much rest as you could while you were on a holiday. “Do you want to do the drive tonight or tomorrow?”

“You’re tired.”

“Little bit.” You pinched your fingers together, showing the small motion to him, and leaning against the car. Instead, he opened the car door, and you took that to be the answer that you were going to do the journey tonight, and so you rounded the car and hopped up into the passenger side as he started up the vehicle.

It wasn’t until he’d pulled out onto the road and set off that he spoke to you again, turning his head to speak to you. “You can sleep, if you want, I’ll do the drive. It’ll give me time to think, and clear my head, I’ll join you in the back when I find somewhere to pull over.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

He gave you a little grin, before shaking his head no, and you unclipped your seat belt, crawling between the seats and into the back. Fishing around for any kind of comfortable clothes, you found one of your pyjamas and a pair of leggings that had been put into the laundry pile, changing into them beneath the covers and discarding the day's clothes in a lazy pile of folded garments onto the front seat.

Before settling down entirely, though, you leaned back over the front of the seat, Mitch fiddling with the music volume to turn it down low, so he could just about still hear it, but also so that it wouldn't bother you. With a hand on either side of the seat from behind, you leaned in, pressing a kiss or his cheek, and catching sight of his shocked face in the mirror when you pulled back, mumbling your goodnight.

He gave you a quiet reply, before turning off the lights and slowing the car down so that the rumble of the engine wasn’t as loud, driving quietly toward LA as you slept the journey away.

#Mitch rapp #mitch rapp x reader #mitch rapp/reader #mitch month #mitchtober #mitch tober #RAYH #mitch rapp american assassin #mitch rapp x reader smut #mitch rapp/reader smut #dylan o'brien #dylan obrien #dylan obrien american assassin #dylan obrien mitch rapp #dylan obrien x reader #dylan obrien x reader smut #dylan obrien/reader #dylan obrien/reader smut

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whosaskingwrites · 4 years

Text

All For You (Akaashi x Reader)

A/N: So this one also has a fluffy end sorry if you wanted straight angst. It's to prepare for future ones that don't have happy endings.

WARNINGS: Mentions of cheating. Bokuto lowkey almost beat someone up. Also straight up threatens someone. Swears are involved as well.

Date: Friday October 23rd, 2020

Details: 3.8 pages 1,408 words

Theme: Bubble Heart- When you feel true love you'll breath out a soft pink heart that heals any illness. However when heartbroken the heart will turn black and emit a deadly poison. It can be cured if someone gives up their true love for you.

Check Here if you have any questions about this one-shot to see if I answered it!

Angst Masterlist

Pain.

That’s all I felt as I stared at my boyfriend of three years. His eyes blown wide in shock as he started back at me.

“W-why?” I whispered as the woman on top of him laughed. It rang in my ears a high pitched sound that didn’t belong. “Because sweetie you don’t put out like he wants,” I shivered as the word sweetie dripped from her lips.

“I see,” I stiffly said grabbing the present that I had come back to the apartment for. “I’ll be going then,” I turned walking out the door and closing it behind me. I stood still for a second feeling the shock wash through me. I sighed as I took a few steps down the hall before I heard a shout.

“Y/n!” I looked up my eyes meeting the bright liquid gold ones of my best friend, Bokuto. “Bo? Didn’t I tell you to wait in the car?” My voice didn’t carry like normal and I could that he noticed instantly.

He walked forward placing his hands on my shoulders and forcing me to stay looking at him. “What happened?” He voiced after his eyes scanned my face for any signs of distress. I knew all he’d found was shock and before I could answer him the door to my apartment opened.

“Babe wait-,” Before he could continue talking that woman talked again her voice aggravated my ears as I heard it “Honey stop bothering with her when I’m here,” she giggled at the end. I was vaguely reminded of nails on a chalkboard when I heard it.

Bokuto let me go and walked towards him his entire form basking in anger. “You son of a bitch!” Bokuto's fist met his face and I heard a loud 'Crack!' afterwards. “Bo!” I took his fist in my hand with a sigh shaking my head. “He…He’s not worth it,” I whispered “He hurt you. I can’t let that go and Akaashi wouldn’t either,” I shook my head at him. Before I could answer a small cough bubbled up it felt harsh and tearing as it traveled up my throat. I watched as a small dark black heart bubbled out of my mouth before popping. “Shit,” I said staring back at Bokuto who looked at me with wide eyes.

He took my hand and lead me to the car “Babe!” Bokuto interrupted him before he could continue speaking “If I ever see you again or you contact her again I’ll kill you,” He flinched at Bokuto’s words having not heard Bokuto speaking angrily before. He pulled me towards the car before getting in himself. He had started driving leaving us in silence before he spoke up.

“You know Akaashi isn’t going to be happy about this,” He said with a tight grip on the steering wheel. “About that…Can we not tell him? For today at least?” He furrowed his eyebrows in anger at the thought “I-" “Please Bo! It’s his birthday he doesn’t need this,” He stayed silent for a moment knuckles white with how hard he gripped the wheel.

“Fine but you better tell him soon,” Golden eyes looked at me in the most serious why I’d ever seen. “I…I will,” I voiced as I turned my own e/c eyes away from his.

*Time Skip*

Two days. It had been two days since the incident and I sat in a hospital bed. Only Konoha knew where I was since he had gone with me in the ambulance. It didn’t matter as he was the only one who had needed me these past two days. So it came as a surprise to me when the door to my hospital room was thrown open. I turned my head away from the window to look at who had run in. Akaashi stood there eyes wide and hands on both sides of the doorframe he was panting slightly as he stood.

My eyes clashed with his own blue pair hidden behind his glasses frames “Keiji,” I whispered as his own eyes looked me over. I knew how I looked frail, pale and thin. Eyes hollow and hopelessly dull. The needles in my arms and the breathing tube in my nose certainly didn’t help things as I looked at him. I must have looked like a skeleton in his eyes the poison working quicker the longer I sat here.

“Y/n,” he finally said as he approached me. He sat down next to the bed gently taking my hand in his own. His hands were much larger than mine and warmer while my hands were small and cold. He held it gently afraid to put any pressure on it like it would break if he did. He played with my fingers a nervous habit of his he’d had since I’d known him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He voiced as he looked at me “Would it have made a difference?” I asked back my throat was raspy as I spoke to him. “We all know how this ends for me Keiji,” I said as I held his hand.

He shook his head slowly messy black hair bouncing slightly as he did “I came to an agreement with my girlfriend,” he said as he looked at me. “We want you to be alive and happy,” I shook my head at what he was implying.

“No you love her…You can’t trade that in for me,” He just gave me a small smile in return “I won’t love her soon,” he said back “Keiji…you can’t do this not for me,” He sighed and gently cupped my cheeks being careful to not hurt me. “I’ve already decided you can’t talk me out of this,” he whispered gently.

I sighed knowing he wouldn’t back down about this. “Fine,” I mumbled quietly causing Akaashi to give me another soft smile. He leaned forward pressing his lips softly against my own I closed my eyes as I felt the gentle feeling of something soft passing from him to me.

It was sweet tasting compared to the bitter taste of the poison in my system. I sighed against Akaashi's lips as the bitterness and every other negative feeling faded from my body. I pulled away looking at the color that had returned to my skin. I looked back up at Akaashi who was frowning at his phone before putting it away.

“Keiji,” I called softly “Why’d you do that?” He held onto my hands again and looked at me “Yours and Bokuto's happiness means more to me than my own,” I felt a soft bubbling in my throat and I knew by looking at him that he felt it as well. I sighed out a soft breath watching as two matching soft pink hearts floated up before popping leaving a slight shimmer in their wake.

I giggled as I saw the shimmer land on us. “Guess you signed up to be my true love now,” I frowned slightly. “Don’t frown. If it helps my ex just told me she’d been cheating on me,” I looked at him shocked “Keiji Akaashi how does that help!?” I asked while he just looked at me and shrugged.

“We could both be dying in the hospital and she could have told me sooner. But she waited to tell me until after I didn’t love her anymore,” I sighed “As right as that is its still flawed logic Keiji,” he lifted my hands up pressing a kiss to the back of each hand.

“Also,” he voiced “I’m perfectly okay with being your true love,” He muttered quietly. I hummed in response “Funny I’m perfectly okay with it as well,” I smiled as he leaned towards me placing another gentle kiss against my lips. He put more force into it now that he knew I wouldn’t break. His hands caressed my sides rubbing small circles into my hips. My own hands has threaded their way into his hair as his glasses slid slightly down his nose.

We both pulled away to catch our breaths faces tinted pink and softly smiling at each other. “You know Akaashi if you hurt her like her ex did I won’t hesitate to beat you up,” We both looked towards the doorway startled by the appearance of Bokuto. He was leaning against the doorframe a glare poised in Akaashi’s direction. Akaashi merely chuckled at the threat Bokuto had issued towards him.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,”

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TAG LIST: @wonhomarshmallow

#akaashi keiji #keiji akaashi #haikyu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyu x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi angst #WhosaskingAngst

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blankdblank · 3 years

Text

Brother Dearest Pt 49

“I brought you something I think you will like,” Edie said in Polish with a smile that spread to your face as well in curiosity. From a new suitcase she settled on the table in the living room where she had found you at Eddie’s insistence you stay on the couch and relax that drew you to scoot forward and eye the folded fabric inside the case. “There is a good bit of fabric available in the markets, some less bold than some may care for on a fashion stance, however these will all be quite lovely for what is intended.”

“Intended?” You asked yourself with eyes shifting to Erik carrying a sewing machine table he settled along the wall until a better home for the crafting could be found. “Oh, for my maternity clothes.”

She nodded and said in a show of some sketches she pulled out as well, “I believe these will suit what you had mentioned in your letters. We wore clothes similar to these when working in our gardens in the town we grew up in, both with shorts and long pant legs to suit your needs.” The overall pattern had you look over their every detail to see how you would be able to put them on.

“And how would you secure them?”

To a set of buttons on the front she pointed to the neckline just under the straps with a few that have tie up straps as well with a ribbon above the belly to help support the top. Each which would be forgiving the larger you got and by use of old newspapers patterns were made up that you helped to pin onto the fabrics to cut out while Edie would stitch together. Buttons easily you could add from the supply she had brought. Though each and every shift of the needle through the fabric had your eyes fall on your bare ring finger now too far swollen to force the engagement ring and wedding band that now sat upstairs after a teary failed thought to keep them on your necklace weeks prior. Nearly four months gone and about a half of what a single baby carrying mother would be the size of, far from large and still it seemed your body wanted to play puffer fish once given the excuse to after years of starvation and exhaustion.

Edie having caught your stare on her way to add another pair to the pile on the table said with a kind smile, “Swollen fingers are a common symptom.”

That had you look up and shake your head with a smile, “I know. Norma and Dawn both wore theirs on a chain.” To the drop of a tear down your cheek you fanned your face mid giggle with a folded bit of the pattern beside you, “Ugh, crocodile tears.”

She shook her head and said, “Not bad tears at all. The changes are hard to adjust to. When is the Doctor coming?”

“Oh, he has some patients and such and will see me after the New Years.” Teddy mid giggle tottered through the room making you bring the pair with the needle still in it close to your chest and away from him, “Ooh, careful,” you said eyeing his path with Olive and Pepper after him. Whiskers however came in next to hop up beside you avoiding the chill that came in from James and Victor’s return. Norma had joined Dawn in their day with her family while Eddie focused on the paper. Between the brothers however your eyes fell on David in his bashful smile of an entrance to the sound of Erik’s chuckle to Teddy’s finding him in his turn to hide. “Hey David.”

“Hello. How is our lovely invalid.” That had you scoff and him chuckle, “I kid.” Timidly he came closer and asked, “I hope you don’t mind I was a bit curious once I heard you are carrying three babies. How are you feeling?”

“Oh,” you let out a breath, “Not bad. Hungry, always, and I sleep like a bear as much as I can. When the room doesn’t flip on me that is.” He gestured his hand to your side and you nodded moving a set of the patterns to Edie’s gentle acceptance of the pair in your hands to finish that button to Victor’s lift of one of the completed pairs of overall shorts.

David said to his glance at your belly, “Your babies seem to be growing well.”

“Yes,” you said in a settle of your hands on top of the belly visible in the settle of your hands on top of your sweater that had helped to mask its full size at least a little. “Certainly growing while I puff up like a scared cat.”

To that he smirked and accepted your settle of his hand on your belly he’d been afraid to touch that widened in the feel of just how round it was. “No movement yet?”

“Not yet, thought there was a kick yesterday but then my stomach made this awful gurgle noise.”

James chuckled to Victor’s stating, “Then we had to open a window as the stew we made came back with a vengeance. Last time we risk basil for Pipsqueak.”

“I said I was sorry,” you said and he shook his head mid chuckle to James’ settle beside you on the couch.

James said with a smile, “No apologies, been meaning to scrub the tile in that bathroom for a while now. Usually it’s Vic that gets sick in there.”

“It smelled so good too, which is the weird part.” You said and glanced at David who had a puzzled look on his face in a reach for your wrist which showed you didn’t have a pulse. “Sorry, ya, it’s one of my, things, Doctors can’t hear my heartbeat or lungs or the babies unless I link minds with them. Don’t know why.”

In the meet of your eyes a ring of silver flashed in his to match the silver dots in yours and his eyes lowered to your wrist now at the feel of the pulse and trio of heartbeats he heard through his contact with your belly. To a disbelieving scoff he looked up again to catch your eye in the dim of the ring of silver in his eyes and the spots in yours. “You are a marvel.” That had you grin and settle your hands on your belly and follow his gaze to the next pair of long pants pair of overalls. “What are those?”

“Pants I can wear instead of a tent.” That had him smirk your way and you said, “At this rate I’d need something huge to cover my belly and the skirts no doubt would get caught or folded up and flash my backside each time I stand up if they fold the wrong way.” To that he chuckled and settled in to the accepted social break to spice up your day in the first week so far that the town had been limiting to one or two visits a day in turns having all been filled in just how pregnant and likely to need of rest you were. “Plus the shorts should help in the late spring when it gets warm.”

David, “Well I am certain that you will be amply comfy in them.”

“Yes, and if the other ladies have a problem with it I’ll just start to cry and they will feel bad and never bring it up again.” You teased making the group chuckle in relief at your good mood. Daisy soon enough came to tag along on David’s visit and also drove him back to his office in time for his next appointment with ample news to pass on through the town of your high spirits in your cozy abode to wait out the next round of snow that was on its way by morning.

Alone now in the living room to the side you shifted with pillows adjusted for comfort and sighs galore on another glance to the stack of books you had finished from the daily supply our of the crate they had bought from second hand shop in Alberta they had been rationed to keep you distracted. Within ten minutes however on the way back from a bathroom break James in his arrival to feed the fire spotted you mid pace with hands on your hips from one end of the room to the next to simply have some movement for this cramped up day. “Restless or do you need a back rub?” He hummed in the bend to toss another couple logs on the fire from the log room they had stocked the day they had arrived.

“Oh,” you sighed out in another turn towards his end of the room, “Little bit of both.” That had him chuckle and smile to the slight blush on your cheeks. Still a bit embarrassed from the fumble of a try to be intimate the night before you’d ended up flustered and just curled up in his arms after the sensitive gag reflex of yours had struck again in a try to pay your ever so attentive husband some well deserved amorous attentions that shot that dead right there in almost getting sick on him.

Right up to you he strolled and across your back in his stop in your path he hummed, “I love you, let me rub your back.”

“You always rub my back,” you just about whined making him chuckle again.

And he leaned in to press his lips to your forehead that was next met by his, “And I will rub it again, as often as you like until my hands fall off and have to grow back and then I will rub it again. And as far as your attentions to me I love you and babies can make our nights in a bit awkward but never less than spectacular each time.”

Your head pulled back and you said, “I almost got sick on you last night.”

“And it was spectacular,” that had you roll your eyes and he hugged you to his chest with a kiss to the top of your head, “I got to hold you all night, pretty spectacular on its own just to be yours. The impossible love of mine who is growing our babies. How could I ever not love a moment with you?” He kissed your forehead again then stepped back, “Which reminds me.” Your brow arched up and to the mantle he went where you eyed the ring box he carried back to you.

Your lips parted as you said, “James you did not buy me jewelry!”

Lowly he chuckled and opened the box that had you gasp, “My wife cannot wear her wedding rings and is very upset about that.”

“James I’m a puffer fish!” you said with eyes on his again.

He shook his head, “No you are not. And these are sized for your finger now.” You huffed and could only watch his lift of your hand to glide the eternity band of diamond sideways hearts in white gold settings that sat perfectly at the base of the finger with the new engagement ring on after. The latter that had a large rectangular diamond surrounded by two square diamonds on a white gold band which settled next in an awe strike of a pair you didn’t expect. When your eyes met again he’d lifted the hand to kiss the knuckles beside the new duo and he said, “It hurt you not being able to wear your rings. Got you these when I saw your difficulty with your rings last month.”

“Last month?”

He nodded and said with a smile, “And I even dropped them by Father Thomas, he loved the chance to bless the rings for us so you can have a symbol of our marriage you won’t have to wear around your neck. So no tears or arguments.” He said in a stroke of his thumbs across your cheeks to wipe away the tears that had fallen after having tossed the box to one of the chairs, “Because if your fingers do grow again I’ll just buy another set.”

Laced with a sniffle you chuckled and reached up to cup his cheeks for a kiss he melted into completely ignorant of the tears that fell over his thumbs and end of his nose in the lingered first kiss and five hungry pecks afterwards that broke in his chuckle and move to wipe your cheeks again. “Now, let’s rub your back,” he said guiding you to the couch where he settled you comfortably sideways and carefully settled behind you, careful not to bother your back with a heavy plop. And in the gentle start to a backrub where he asked, “Do you like the rings? Apparently it is much harder than it is here to have jewelers in New York to design rings how you want them.”

That had you chuckle and say, “No, they like to keep a hard hand on the diamonds thanks to what they have to pay to keep them safe in the shops.” That had his eyes on you and you giggled, “The big Italian families mainly control diamonds. How much they charge you?”

“Seemed they wanted to charge me more till one of the old guys in the back said something to the salesman.”

“Ah, you must have gone to Grigor’s then.” His brow arched up and you said, “Mom treated his son in the hospital, kept the Doctors from ignoring one of his symptoms that could have killed him and he let her pick a pair of earrings as thanks. He likes to wave when I go by and ask how I am, always has since I started to head to museums alone.”

“How’s his son?”

“Down in Spain? I think, or Jamaica, required a tropical climate for his lungs. Has five kids though his wife just moved back last spring to be with her parents so he’s happy to meet the brood.”

“He must be upset to be away from his kids and wife.”

“Eh,” you said with a tilt of your head that had his hands pause to adjust again, “Not very. From what I hear he’s got a bit of a harem and she stuck it out until she could raise funds to fly home. Whispers are he caught something in his harem and he’s not got long.”

“See, brothels never mean well,” making you grin to yourself and steal another peek at the rings. “So was that a no that you don’t like the rings?”

“The rings are beautiful. Thank you.”

“Almost got laughed out of the shop for the hearts till the old man stepped in.”

“Yes, ovals or tears are more common as rare shapes nowadays. Rarely hear of hearts.”

Erik with a poke of his head in the room asked, “Did you want your pear now, Bunny?”

“Sure,” he nodded and popped out to come back with a pear in hand and smile eyeing your new rings above your belly you were stroking again. “Thank you,” you said in accepting the pear while he sat down and claimed your left hand.

“Very lovely choices. And impressive to show off when you get back to school.”

“Oh yes, may just distract from my belly. Be the size of a hippo soon enough.”

Erik shushed you and gave your belly a gentle stroke, “Don’t you worry on that you just keep growing little ones. Nice and healthy until it’s time for us to hold you and give your brave mother a good rest.”

All you could do was smile and lift the pear for a bite that had his smile grow in the clear elated change to the trio who soaked in all they could from the treasured fruit that was fueling their health as well as their mother’s.

“Hello sister,” Venom said on your easy stroll down the cold steps with hand on your belly in a hope for some cocoa and a grilled cheese to lull you back to sleep. On his next stroll across the room he had been pacing from side to side on you took notice of Marigold in his palm laid against his chest clearly in a means to let her parents rest from her usual fussy manner.

“Hello Venom, Goldie not sleeping again?” You asked releasing the stair railing to enter the warm room lit by the fire he had been feeding to keep the house warm for the animals and the usual nightly pacing you now had joined in on.

“Our little one is merely growing. The quiet winter has done her good.” He said in a turn to join you to the kitchen. “How are sister’s little ones?”

“Good, heartbeats are strong, they feel to be growing. No movement yet. Can you hear them too?”

“Venom can feel them,” he said with eyes that met yours in a glance up from the kettle you were filling. “Similar to how you feel heartbeats. They are why Venom cannot crawl on his Sister as he used to, would only cause them pain. For now Venom will ensure none harm his Sister and her little ones.”

“According to Elliot and Herc I could still blast some people a few hundred yards away if need be. And if I could urge myself to.”

Lowly Venom chuckled and replied, “Fear is a worthy hindrance with little ones. You are strong even in your fears.” Softly you sighed in a move to set the kettle on the burner you switched on for it. “However we do not carry the little ones. Far easier for us to say fear is worthy when a Mother’s fear is insurmountable.” Your eyes met his in your move to gather the bread, cheese and butter to go with the skillet you lowered from the hook it hung from to the cool burner for when the kettle was through boiling. “Your fear could cripple others, your pain could drive others to madness and despair. Venom has the best Sister, and her little ones will have the best mother. Eddie has shown Venom how Sister was mothered before Sarah grew sick and our Teddy is proof mothering is natural to you.”

“Still have to get the trio ready to be mothered. Have you read midwife manuals?”

“Sister is no fleshling. This birth will be the hardest merely for fear. We are here. Venom will help with any pain once the little ones are born.”

“There’s no medicine they can give me that could do more than a second of relief.”

“Pain is always there. We cannot protect Sister from pain. But Venom will be here with Eddie at your side. Sister saved our son we will protect your daughters.”

To his words your hands smoothed over your belly asking, “They do sound like girls don’t they? Fast heartbeats.”

James’ voice in his entrance however turned your head to his smiling self looking you over in his sweater, baggy flannels and thick fuzzy socks in your moccasin slippers with hair halfway slipped from the braid he helped you with hours prior. “Good, more girls the merrier.”

From the door he came over and sweetly pressed a kiss to your lips in a single move trading the kettle for the skillet to handle the grilled cheese for you. “Do you want some cocoa? I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. Vic is on the roof making goat noises again,” that had you giggle and he said, “Cocoa would be lovely, thank you,” he said watching you mix up the cocoa powder and water that you added some milk to even the taste out then stared at the empty spot where the marshmallows usually sat in one of the cupboards. “Vic bought more marshmallows two days ago. Should be in there.”

Instead of the marshmallows you eyed the new pack of gravy mix that turned you to the pantry for the duo to watch your search end with a trade of the mix and a new bag of marshmallows. “Guess Petal distracted Kitty.” The corner was split and an amusing amount was added to both mugs after the second confirming glance that Venom did not want mug himself but did accept a couple marshmallows you floated his way he snapped up then kissed his daughter’s head in her grumble to the jerk of the muscle under her head.

James while you clipped the bag and put it back in its proper home asked, “Any thoughts for names yet?”

“Not any traditional ones,” you said after a brief sip on the drink that had you put a hand on the counter to the same feel of another small flutter you felt to the trio’s heartbeats changing as they do every meal to soak up more nutrients to grow stronger.

“My Xander was named after King Alexander, Vic pulled names from records we read on Spartan Queens and Kings. The world all got the big filmed wedding broadcast all around the world, screw the whispers traditional is out the window. What names did you want? I know you’ve already picked full names.”

Venom said, “At least share the inspiration, surely the stars will whisper their names into infamy.”

“I actually picked star inspired names.”

James smiled as the bread toasted in the buttered skillet, “Even better, spill, three names. Go.”

“Aurora Nyx,”

James, “Ooh, love it already. Next name?”

“Belinda Rhea.”

Venom, “Both stunning views Venom passed to find Eddie.”

You nodded and said in James’ glance your way to encourage you to continue, “Nova Carina.”

James, “Perfect names.”

You nodded then said, “I also like Rigel Nash,” you said making him smirk at the clear boy’s name. “Just in case.”

To himself he chuckled in your next sip then hummed, “All incredible names, girls or boys they will be more than treasured.”

You nodded then asked, “For last names?”

“Pear Howlett,” he answered without a pause then glanced your way in turning the sandwich over, “The family name. Vic is going flowers for their girls as is Dawn and Eddie so let’s go stars for our munchkins.” One sandwich was finished followed by another that you ate and finished off with your cocoa before it was time to head back upstairs to the bed still warmed by the fire James had fed on his way down to find his cuddle partner who had gone missing while he slept.

1948. New Years came with a crash, literally, from your hand the mug you had intended to fill with tea fell to the floor and shattered to pieces. Loudly Teddy gasped and his hands at his sides rose in terrified fists to your hunch forward. From the table a chair slid over by your mental pull and both knees settled on the seat to the child’s call, “Daddy!!” Forward onto the back of the chair you leaned with forehead on the hands clutching the wood to ground yourself while the men already on their feet by the break of the mug raced to the kitchen.

Once in the doorway they saw you lost to the sudden shift that you felt of the room that required you to get off your feet as soon as possible. “My Bunny?” Teddy whimpered in a pat of his hands on your bent leg closest to him that had your hand lower to land on his hands for a comforting pat.

“I’m ok, Teddy.” You panted out.

“Jaqi?” James murmured in his ease behind you while Victor got to picking up the mug pieces Teddy had stepped around. His hand however on your side with the hand from the pat on Teddy’s yours moved it to the now actively shifting belly that dropped his jaw. “They’re kicking!” he exclaimed with tears pooling into his eyes mid spread of his ridiculous grin in his second hand moving to your belly.

“Kicking,” you sighed out and lifted your head to hold onto the chair in the lift of your head with an eye roll to follow. “Full on attack at once,” you added in Eddie’s teary eyed crouch to lift Teddy to help his toe top failed reach for your belly.

Erik now in the room moved to the oven saying at the whistle of the kettle, “I’ll fix up your tea, Bunny.”

Dawn and Norma followed Edie to join the others who circled around you with turns in placing their hands for feels of the active belly that was enough a shock to put you off balance. “Thank you Erik,” to the table James and Victor carried the chair you were on and helped you to turn around and settle in until the snack they fixed up for you was completed then you were moved back to the couch once you had steadied in their relax again.

In all the excitement to the best of your abilities Teddy was filled in to how the babies you were carrying now that they were big enough had chosen to stretch at once in a move that had made you a bit off balance. That however had his brows adorably furrow and in a glare and point to your belly he said to your girls, “You be nice to my Bunny. Or you’ll be in big trouble.”

Up into your side you lifted him for a welcome nestling hug and kiss to his forehead as you said, “Thank you Teddy Bear,” to the others’ wide adoring smiles in the moment that Victor captured with your camera.

Morning came soon enough with noon shortly after in the middle of another flurry that had both brothers off in town helping alongside Eddie some of the older neighbors to finish some minor repairs. Both Norma and Dawn however were tucked in bed with their much needed naps. The girls were mid lunch handled by Erik and Edie while you sat cross legged on the rug building a castle of blocks with Teddy who giggled the higher the structure began to grow. “We need a hat!”

Teddy exclaimed and you giggled in asking, “Hat?”

He nodded and pointed to the top of the tower on the side, “King’s house had a hat.”

“Oh, a flag. There’s some paper in the library I’ll fold us up a flag.”

He nodded and tottered off with Olive right behind him in her usual habit of shadowing the boy when on his own and your eyes turned towards the door that Victor entered, shivered and stomped with eyes cast your way once certain the door was sealed shut again to not let out too much heat. “Hey Pipsqueak, you’re on the floor.”

“We’re building a castle, Teddy is fetching paper for a flag.” You said to his strip from his outer snow protective layer that left him in trousers and a button down shirt once his snowy things were hung up.

“Well every castle needs a flag,” he hummed on his way over to sit beside you with smile spreading in a subtle scoop of the camera along the way to snap a picture of you sat down beside the castle that you giggled in notice of his plan that granted him a wide smile for the captured moment. “This’ll be among my favorites.” With legs crossed he plopped down beside you and watched teddy walk back with the paper from his coloring cubby with the dog behind him with bucket of supplies dangling from her mouth.

“Kitty! We need a hat!”

“Flag,” you again repeated and the boy nodded and again said, “hat,” that had you and Victor chuckle and you asked in settling the paper out beside the bucket Olive put down to hop up and lay out on the couch again beside her daughter Pepper still lost to her nap.

“What do you want on the flag?”

Various flags between the three of you were folded up and colored then placed atop the castle, all of which that slid close to falling off when James came home that had the momentary scowling boy stand up and smile mid shout of, “Unc Jim come make a hat!”

James smiled mid strip and once his clothes were hung up he came to join you all and post sweet kiss on your cheek he leaned in to join in on the fun that Teddy, now on his lap was guiding him through. Until his own flag was added. Lunch called and Victor lifted the boy while James helped to keep you steady in the unfold of your legs to climb from your knees up on your feet again.

Weeks of snow and in the break of 1948 came on the cusp of a fireplace smoldering with the end of needed firewood to warm the cabin that now was packed up for the long drive back again. Erik excitedly was back to finish his final semester in his high school with Edie planned ahead to head back to the market and get more material to make more of the outfits to add to your supply she would mail to you in Brooklyn. Just a whiff of some herbs and sauces in the drive back through the Italian block signaled a mental warning to the other cars to turn and stop to get something to eat before the final few blocks to the unlock of your home.

“Bunny Howler, sight for sore eyes Happy New Year.” Vinny Tortelli said upon your entrance into the warm eatery with his family scattered in a couple of the booths who turned their heads to nod in welcome to the surprising guests.

“Happy New Year,” you said and flashed a smile to his aunt and grandmother who came to the counter with spreading curious smiles of their own. “I know it’s close to closing.”

Vinny shook his head as his grandmother shook her head and ushered you inside in a path around the counter, “You all come in with those babies out of the cold and eat our food.”

Vinny’s cousin said, “We’re open another few hours anyways our food delivery for next week is running late.”

Outer coats were hung on the hooks around the large curved booth you were taken to and following a chuckle the shift of your sweater that folded a bit around your belly that had Vinny say, “I see someone’s been productive.” That turned your head and he gestured to your belly in your scoot aside to let James sit on the end of the booth, “Won’t be long before you can’t hide that bump when it warms up.”

Softly you chuckled and rested your hands on the table with fingers around the menu that drew his eyes to your new rings as you answered, “You have no idea. Barely halfway and I’ve puffed up nearly to put some full term women to shame.”

He smirked and asked, “I take it that explains the diamonds too? Heard you were up for a new gift with some sparkle.”

In a half smirking glance at James you said, “James’ idea to make me feel better on my others not fitting.”

Vinny chuckled as his grandmother now returned with some fresh breadstick baskets she eased between the couples at the table and said, “I knew those papers were trash. Who would trust a frog over strong genes. Snack on these and we will feed you and your growing baby, sure to be big one.”

You smirked and after a skim of the menu gave your order with the others as Vinny chatted with you all about the stories and what Eddie’s plans were concerning the stories the Daily Bugle could run about your change. Food however had the company to focus on their family and business at the sight of the truck that drove around the block to get to the back alley that they stood to help unload. Large servings and a helping of desserts with a paid bill later and off to your home you went for a welcome end to the trip.

In through the garage everyone unloaded the truck and cars into the lit and warming up house by everyone but you in your nest in the living room with the napping babies and pets. With the puppies and Mr Whiskers however you made your way up to your floor to simply take off your boots and get some sleep.

“Bunny!” Ambrose said with a smile wide in her hurry to close the distance between you in the morning drop in by the whole brood.

Gina however joined her in saying, “Off your feet! We found you a few nice dress patterns for Mass we want you to pick from.” Hours the family soaked up all they could and helped to plan what you might want for a nursery as they were all trying to think up ways they cold help on those grounds. Each kick between snacks had groups of hands on your belly until the time when you would be bundled up for the Wednesday Mass that would break you back into the pattern again. For now at least a wrap dress that Gina had made to fit for you from one of her old dresses to tide you over underneath a warm sweater and jacket helped to disguise the belly that Father Thomas took all that it had in him to not shout the change in your life that other former mothers had already guessed. Just your face alone that had given the change away with the new larger rings to drive the assumption home.

Mr Maisey however, father to three sets of triplets, was the one to break the ice and topic and caught you on your way to take communion. Just one look and he had a knowing smirk on his face in saying, “This is so familiar.”

His eyes shifted to James’ over your head, which wasn’t hard to do before but was even more so at your reluctance to wear heels since the kicking began to lessen chances of tumbles. In a chuckle James simply admitted to what was already known, “Triplets.”

Mr Maisey in a deep throated chuckle nodded and said to you, “Our youngest have a cold, but next week I’ll send the Missus round to pass over some pointers. Not that you need them for when they’re here, you’re the only one who was able to grant us nights off when they were fresh at home.”

“Thank you. Any tips would be helpful and she’s the only one to know the stakes.”

His grin spread and he said, “And don’t worry about the stories they tell you about needing a cut to have your babies. Had two sets born on their own and the last set took a cut merely because they tried to make it last a week on us and the older six at home were giving their gramps hell when we were gone.”

That had you giggle remembering that was how you were hired by the elderly man on edge who needed some backup of his own having seen at Mass and in town how you had helped with the younger Brocks since your adoption into the brood. “Yes, I remember how unruly they tried to be. Hopefully I can have a good birth, easy is out the window, but so far everything seems to be going well.”

“That’s good,” he said having taken notice of Mrs Cahn behind you who in a clear sign of withholding a secret and a smile tucked her lower lip between her teeth until she could pass on through her knitting circle just what and to whom you were talking about. Everyone had been up in arms over the story and with little to sue for from the leak in the lab of your exam it seemed to the town that there would be no justice in this for the woman whose reputation had been scuffed. Yet now evidently pregnant and so with triplets no less was a huge bitten thumb towards the Times for their story now that was publicly to be known to weigh less than the paper it was printed on.

He turned to Father Thomas however at the front of the line and in kneeling accepted his communion while his eldest six children on his left accepted from the younger Priest in training that handled all the children’s communion. James was next accepting in a trade of wide knowing smiles through his bend to the cushioned bench with lips parting for the communion wafer that they closed around to the Father’s hushed murmur. Up he rose in a cross of himself and stepped aside with eyes on you ready to help you down and up only to see the Father say with a smile, “You may stand.” Softly you chuckled to yourself and stepped up to the bench to accept the wafer and smile around it trying not to cry in his saying, “Congratulations. Truly a blessing and an answer to so very many prayers.”

All you could do was smile and turn in a cross of yourself. Stepping aside to let Eddie take his turn as you joined Victor to the side where he held Teddy and Marigold for Dawn and Eddie while Norma spoke to Ambrose about plans for your next appointment this weekend when she would come by again to continue sharing this experience with you.

Pt 50

#James Howlett x Reader OC #Victor Creed x Norma Jeane #Eddie Brock x OC #Erik and Edie #Teddy Brock #Marigold Dove Pear #Time in Canada #Nesting Period #Pregnancy Awkwardness #Family Time #New Gifts #Back to Brooklyn #Dinner with the Tortelli Family #Spread the News #Meeting the Maisey's

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Tex Avery Birthday Spectacular!

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a celebration of the only cartoon director I knew as a kid and one of the finest whose ever lived, Mr. Tex Avery.

Avery is a legend in the animation industry and rightly so. Starting out at a few other studios, and loosing sight in one of his eyes due to some tomfoolery at one, Tex was annoyed with the restrctive enviorment and eventually found his way to Termite Terrace, the animated shorts wing of Leon Schislenger Productions, aka the future Warner Brothers Studios and the makers of Looney Tunes. And his impact on the franchise is vast, cannot be overstated and I only learned about just how much recently: The man created Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, created the prototype for Elmer Fudd, and created the design for Porky we’re all far more familiar with.

Eventually though while he was happy there, his career when ended when he eventually got into a squabble with Leon schsinger over the ending of “The Heckling Hare” and left soon after. Given he got a four week unpaid suspension for it , a bit extreme given all he’d given the studio, I can’t blame him. He instead went over to MGM who badly needed his wacky energy, and thus got to go as nuts as he wanted, with creative control a better budget and the result was his peak and classic characters like Red and my personal faviorite and personal boy: Droopy. I will try and do a birthday thing for him next month, we’ll see if my rather packed schedule will allow for it. Point is I watched the guys cartoons a lot as a kid between looney tunes and his shorts being repacked for the Tex Avery show in the late 90′s, and until recently I had no idea the depth and scope of his career: The guy gave looney tunes it’s standard fourth walll breaking and made it a huge part of the industry, and he was the one to hlep htem break out of being a Disney knockoff and into what we know today. The guy has my utmost respect so today I honor him as the first animator to get one of my birthday specials: As is my standard ten shorts, my patreons get to pick one each (I now have two but she start’s next month so her benefits will too) if they so choose (Kev opted out of the porky pig one next week) and I went to my friend blah for a recomendation as he’s an avid fan of the golden age of animation and thus usually has a really good choice up his sleeve. Now that’s out of hte way join me under the cut for some shenanigans as old tex would want it that way.

1. The Gold Diggers of 49 (1935)

This was Tex Avery’s first short with warner and the first of his I could find, not ot mention his first time working with Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, who he’d mentor and go on to be the heart and soul of Looney Tunes and define the characters Tex created. And since this is more significant than his earlier work i’m coutning it as his first. And as a start it’s.. ehhhhhhh.

I don’t blame him for it though. Most don’t hit it out of hte park their first time up to bat, and frankly the deck was stacked against him. He was saddled with Beans the Cat...

No one brak no one. He was part of an attempt by warner to create a new star as part of a Little Rascals/Our Gang style group of kids debuting in the short “I Haven’t Got a Hat”. This short is notable not for Beans, who no one cares about, but for the debut of Looney Tunes first star: Porky Pig. Porky was just one of the various characters but the only one audiences really liked. It took some time for Warner to get the hint though, hence Beans starring here and Porky playing his girlfriend’s father.. and also now being much older than him for some reason.

So instead of being a Little Rascals ripoff bean is now a mickey mouse ripoff, as the short gives me mickey mouse vibes.. but without the things that made those shorts actually good and feels mostly built on studios trying to make what they think audiences will like. There’s sparks of waht Tex would become.. but just not enough wiggle room for him to make something special. Also porky looks and sounds weird in this one and Bean’s girlfriend has a REALLY annoying voice. Oh and two horrible Asian stereotypes, because it was acceptable at the time but lord was it never okay. Then again I should be at least mildly greatful none of the shorts had blackface.. because tex apparently REALLY had a problem with that, something I obviously didn’t know as a kid as they edited it out but given most of his MGM shorts have “blackface edited out of x version”, yeahhh.... I may like the guy, quite a bit and feel those gags weren’t done out of malice.. but it dosen’t make them okay, they were never okay and he should’ve done better.

2. I Love to Singa (1936) Thankfully our next entry is 800% better, as we get a classic from my childhood and probably multiple childhoods. Admittedly part of the reason this one stuck in my head is the title song, sung by a young jazz singing owl whose dad doesn’t like that he sings Jazz instead of classical, enters a contest and nearly looses singing classical to please his dad only for his dad to intervene and finally accept his son. It’s a wonderful story of acceptance with some decent gags, beautiful animation and one hell of a title track that will probably never leave my head. The song is really what makes this short and sometimes that’s okay. Also just to note so someone else doesn’t: This short was a parody of the Jazz Singer one of the first talkie’s.. and also a film that uses blackface and whose 80′s remake bafflingly also uses blackface for some reason. Yes really.

3. Tortoise Beats Hare (1941)

One of Tex’s only four Bugs Shorts.. but given 3/4 of them are certified classics, and one of them involving a horrible stereotype.. to the point it’s part of the rightfully infamous “Censored 11″ and the ONLY one involving Bugs Bunny.

So as I said, Tex has a bad history with casual racism, and while it was the style at the time and I don’t THINK he was actively malicious towards black people.. it doesn’t make some of his work any less harmful. The rest of his bugs work though is remembered for the right reasons: his first appearance, and early classic we’ll get to next.. and this standout everyone who saw it as a kid or an adult fondly remembers.

You all know the premise: Bugs finds out, in an utterly brilliant wall shattering bit at the start where he reads off the crew names and then the title, that this picture will have him beaten by a turtle and taking offense to that challenges the guy. This is honestly one of the few Bugs shorts where he’s the out and out villain of the picture. He’s doing this race purely out of ego, yells at Cecil whose perfectly nice in this one, and in general is the bully set up for a fall he’d later be famous for taking on. But it works, both because this si early in bugs career so it’s entirely in character, and because Mel just really sells the obnoxiousness while still being funny.

This short also has one of Tex’s trademark setups as this is essentially a prototypical droopy cartoon: A meek, goofy voiced protagonist whose shorter than his large obnoxious enemy and who torments him by showing up every where he’s going to be and casually doing it. Cecil even does so using an army of fellow turtles with Droopy later using a similar trick in one of his shorts. As a big Droopy fan i’m clearly not complaining and while Droopy would do it better, this short’s still a classic for a reason with tons of great bits and is a fun break from the usual bugs setup, though in full fairness the usual bugs setup is still solid gold so take that how you will.

4. The Heckling Hare (1941)

Originally I was going to have Daffy in Hollywood in this spot as I thought it was on Max, it was not, so I swapped it out with his final bugs cartoon. For the record his first, and Bugs, is being saved for Bugs birthday this summer. And honestly i’m glad I did because this was 7 mintues of pure joy that has another setup that Tex himself and other Looney Tunes animators would resuuse: Bugs being pitted up against a far dumber antagonist. One who often still fully deserves it but allows him to just have fun for several minutes at this dumb bastard’s expense. It works well here, with tons of clever gags, my faviorite being the two doing dumb faces with each other only for bugs to stop and pull out a sign as seen right above.

It’s also an approriate capper to our warner made Tex shorts for the day, as this would be the one that got him fired. He and Schisnger argued over it and he got suspended as I mentioned and I found it again a bit fucking extreme. So did Tex and after a handful of shorts elsewhere, he’d move over to MGM, whose cartoons would ironically be bought up by warner. They needed a shot in the arm to compete with Disney and Warner and Tex was happy to provide hte needle filled with nonsense. And the results.. are pure gold.

5. Dumb Hounded (1943)

I’ll admit as a kid I didn’t know Tex’s MGM shorts were theatrical, or any shorts but somehow I knew they weren’t looney tunes. Besidds obviously having hteir own show they just had their own tone and pacing and style. While the Looney Tunes aren’t bad, at all honestly, Tex’s work here was in a class by itself with MGM gladly giving him a higher budget and even more creative freedom. And the results speak for themselves and one of those results is one of if not my faviorite classic cartoon character. And since I might not be able to get to his birthday with one of these next month, though i’m certainly going to try march is just VERY VERY FULL. Anyways point is our happy hero was introduced here. And given i’m frequently depressed and often withdrawn, not that you could tell from my reviews here, I related to this depressed bulldog who always won anyway despite being an outsider, finding love, sucess and always beating a much larger, much more assholish antagonist. But Droopy is good on his own merits as his shorts are just that funny.

This was true from Day One as dumb hounded is fucking perfect: The Wolf that Avery always used in his cartoons escapes from jail and is hunted by bloodhounds including our boy, who charmingly introduces himself with “You know what, i’m the hero”. From there it’s a simple setup but a great one as Droopy finds the guy.. then chases him from here to enternity with one amazing gag after another. Simple, utterly hilarious and the dawn of a legend, with the ending having Droopy go a bit nuts after getting his reward money before returning to his usual demeanor “You know what? I’m happy” So am I bud, so am I.

6. Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)

Yup same year. Tex hit the ground sprinting. This one is his signature MGM toon and for good reason. Using his usual forth wall breaking style, both the wolf and red riding hood rebel when it opens with a typical telling, so it changes to a 40′s nightlife setting: Grandma lives in a penthouse and is man hungry, Red is a fanservicey night club act and the Wolf is a sexually harassing asshole who chases after here and has some over the top reactions to her that are iconic in some’s mind.

The short is gorgeously animated with Red’s dance sequence and Wolfie’s reactions being the highlight and the short isn’t as bad as it could be as the wolf is treated as a scumbag for hitting on her and generally being a creep. SO the first two thirds aren’t bad with nice touches like the narrator clearly improvising the new story. It’s just badly hampered by the last half where Grandma sexually harasses Wolfie and it just doesn’t work. This double standard stuff annoys me and “haha get it it’s funny when a woman stalks a man” isn’t funny. Wolfie stalking her really isn’t that funny either it’s just not you know an entire third of the film. So a classic for a reason.. but one that really has degraded with time. Still worth analyzing and what not, just not great.

7. Who Killed Who? (1943)

Yes still. It was a good year. This is another one off like Red Hot Riding Hood and as is tradition since the Tom and Jerry one, my patreons each get to pick one and Kev selected this one. And this.. was a great choice.

Seriously I could not stop laughing with a great gag a minute, WAY too many to mention, a classic ending, and just nothing but net the whole time. I don’t have much to say really.. but because this one’s just good. The whodunnit genre hasn’t really gone away, it’s cliches are welll known even today and this is a lovely parody of it that hits the ground running after a live action intro and runs right through the wall across a lake and straight into droopy “You moved.”.

The only real observation I have other than “This is fucking awesome watch it immediately” is that the villian looks exactly like the Phantom Blot. Who knew the Phantom Blot was a live action guy with a weird haircut the whole time huh? Seriously this one is a masterpiece, an instant faviorite, and I highly recommend it.

8. Screwball Squirrel (1944)

As you can probably guess by how I lead it in this one is not very good. It is tex TRYING to make a bugs or daffy type character again and somehow failing at it. He created them, he did plenty of shorts like theirs with other characters and got how the cat and mouse antics of the old theatrical shorts worked.. so I have no idea how this one happened.

I’m really not overselling it: The short is about Screwy, who hyjacks it from a cute widdle bunny clearly parodying bambi.. who he beats the shit out of, then decides to get things going asks a dumb dog to hunt him, then insults him to provoke him to attacking him. He then spends the entire short tormenting the poor dumb bastard who again HE PROVOKED. It feels like a poor imitation of dumb hounded, as while Bugs clearly outclassed the dog there, he’d die if he lost, so while he was punching down, he clearly didn’t have a choice and you can’t honestly blame him. Here, Screwy is fine, he just wants someone’s head to fuck with and spends a whole short torturing him. We don’t even get catarsis as while the dog does catch him at the end via weird gag, they end up deciding to beat up the bunny instead.

His voice is also just the worst, just utterly grating and making me wish an anvil woudl fall on HIM instead. Screwy would return for some other shorts but I have no idea why. This was easily the weakest of these ten shorts and I will probably not return to the guy next year.

9. Bad Luck Blackie (1949)

This is one i’d forgotten till I got a ways in. It’s also weirdly one of the only MGM Tex shorts on HBO Max as this was included in the Tom and Jerry collection for some reason, the dog in it clearly isn’t the tom and Jerry verison of spike... though the dog Droopy fought a lot was indeed called spike. Yes that is confusing, no I don’t know why MGM thought this was a good idea.

As a result though I have been saving giving out about this till now but seirously , put the tex avery shorts on HBO Max. Their on Blu-Ray, their on boomerang, especially Droopys. I do not get why they aren’t on here. I’m tired of them holding things out for the boomerang app when not everyone subscirbes to that. Let me have my morose dog dammit.

That giving out aside i’m glad this one caught my eye via i’ts weird name as it’s another masterpiece. It also does what one Tom and Jerry short I reviewed, the one where tom’s a millionare, earlier this month failed to: properly make it’s antagonist loathsome enough to deserve the parade of abuse he gets. With that one Tom is tourturning jerry for like 30 seconds, but Jerry torments him for most of 5 minutes.

Here we get about two minutes of our lead kitten getting torremnted by a mean bulldog. It’s not only still a bit entertaining to lessen the horror just enough to be watchable but not enough to make the bulldog likeable, but it makes what happens for the rest of the short oh so fucking satsifying. While the previous short today really didn’t get the karmic ballance neded for a good classic screwball comedy short this one overwhelmingly does.

Our kitten gets some help in the form of Blackie, a professional black cat who agrees to turn the tables, sauntring across to a wonderfully catchy tune. any time the little guy whistles. The result from there is 5-6 nonstop minutes of comedy genius, as Tex finds new and creative ways for the cat to come out of nowhere, and even shakes things up to keep it intresting towards the end iwth the dog getting the whistle.. only for it to still not work out, and for our little kitten to get his revenge at last by painting himself black after the bulldog paints blackie white. As should be obvious by now, it’s really good, showing Screwball Squirrel was the exception not the rule. In general Tex was this good during his mgm and when he was at his peak we got gems like this. Truly sensational, watch it if you have max it’s under the tom and jerry section for some reason.

10. T.V. of Tommorow A decent one I remember seeing as a kid. Not much to say though, it’s mostly a bunch of gags about “future” tv’s based on their viewer’s needs. Some good stuff.. not as good as most of what was here today but still better than the worst of it and still very memorable and part of a memorable tetralogy i’ll probably come back to when I do Tex’s birthday again next year. Not a bad note to end on though.

Overall these shorts show just how strong a creator tex was, gleefully taking convention and ripping it to tiny pieces. As i’ve mentioned many times i’ll be coming back to his work next year.. and probably be watching a hell ofa lot more in the time between. Might even do a second special on him in between birthday ones. We’ll see how this does. The Tom and Jerry one sadly wasn’t quite the hit I hoped.

Until then I have many other reviews. And since Today (This review is late) was supposed to be the 90′s tom and jerry movie but that turned out not to be on Max for some reason. I still plan to cover it some day i’ll just have to find it and buy it first. But tommorow if I have the time i’ll be continuing the Lena retrospective with an intresting little side trip. So until then, i’ts been a pleasure and you know what? Thanks for reading.

#tex avery #droopy #bugs bunny #porky pig #the gold diggers of 49 #cecil turtle #tortoise beats hare #the heckling hare #tv of tommorow #dumb hounded #red hot riding hood #who killed who #red #spike #bad luck blackie #screwy squirrel #screwball squirrel #owl jolson #I love to singa

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