#that probably spanned two days and no one had a chance to stop or sleep between events until they reached the temple

[rambheem-is-real]

Gold Rings and Black Roses Pt 1

Pairing: Radha Rama x Aadhya

Warnings: siblings!Deva and Aadhya

Amma doesn't take pity on Aadhya. Deva never rescues Aadhya from Rinda and his men, breaking the seal. This changes everything.

-

If Aadhya was told two weeks ago that she’d willingly get trafficked to God knows where, she’d just laugh. However, as Aadhya huddles in the corner of a truck across from an unconscious Bilal, all she can think of was how stupid she had been. 

Two weeks ago, she was running herself ragged balancing work and her hours at the hospital. The doctors had been fairly confident, and Aadhya had believed them. They had said her mother’s chances of surviving the operation were on the higher side, and Aadhya was preparing to move her mother out of the hospital and into the spare room of her apartment in Brooklyn. She hadn’t even been worried about the costs. While her own field research kept her living reasonably, she knew that her dad could afford to, and would, pay whatever was necessary. After all, it was his fault that Aadhya and her mother were here.

Then, the call came. 

“We’re very sorry,” the doctors had said. “The patient passed peacefully,” they said. “Please collect her body,” they had said. 

Aadhya had arranged the cremation of her mother’s body, feeling entirely numb the entire time. The mortician had handed the ashes, whatever was left of her mother, to her, and all Aadhya could feel was denial. 

It had all been going well, and then her life had turned upside down in the span of a few hours. 

It was when she tried calling her dad for what was probably the fiftieth time in the last three days, and heard his standard voicemail response, that Aadhya felt frustration. One of the world’s most prominent businessmen, wealthy enough to purchase the entirety of her state and not have a dent in his finances, but what was it all for if he was too busy to even talk to her? 

Her mother had always talked about having her ashes deposited in Varanasi, constantly missing their home country. Maybe the homesickness had made her mother weaker, Aadhya would later wonder. For what her dad had done, they had all paid the price. Aadhya still didn’t know who her dad had offended, what trouble he had gotten into to have them all move to the US so suddenly seven years ago. She had been fine with the change, had given up her simple bank job to pursue a PhD in linguistics, and was now traveling the country doing various types of research. But her mother had always missed their home, the community she had left, to the point that she had always insisted on her final resting place being in India.

 Fuck it, she had thought. 

In the next few minutes she had airplane tickets, and in the next few hours she had a backpack and a suitcase ready to go. 

Aadhya wasn’t sure what she expected to happen once she landed in India. She knew it was dangerous for her to be there, but she had to do this for her mother. Aadhya only hoped she would get to the Ganga river before the consequences of her actions caught up to her, but her hopes were dashed once the trail of black SUVs surrounded her car. 

From there she had met Bilal, fought for (and lost) approval from Amma, and was now currently in a truck driven by strange men and a strange seal on her arm. 

Aadhya estimated it had been about a day since she was thrown into the truck, judging by Bilal’s sleep cycles. She didn’t know what was up with that man, why he was so willing to give up even his own life for her, but she was glad for the company. Even if all he did was look at her like she was going to die any second. 

They had stopped to give her food twice, and all in all it wasn’t a bad kidnapping experience. The drunk guy, Rinda, had made a pass at her the first time he saw her, but after she told him to fuck off he had just shrugged and staggered away, muttering under his breath about Nepali women being much nicer. The other goons had barely even looked her way the entire journey. 

As soon as she thinks about how nice it would be to see the sun again, the truck rolls to a stop, and some of the goons bang on the outside of the truck. 

“Get out, your time is up now!” They joke. Aadhya wonders who’s waiting for her outside, who she might have to gain approval from now to survive. 

She looks to Bilal as she jumps out of the door of the truck, wincing at the pins-and-needles sensation in her feet from sitting still too long. 

“Don’t piss her off,” he says. 

“Who?” 

“Don’t piss either of them off,” he amends. 

Before she can ask who once more, she’s led into another black SUV, and she can see Bilal getting into the one behind her. 

The truck driver is the same guy driving her to wherever she’s going now, and Rinda gets in the passenger seat. 

Aadhya stares at him, wondering if he at least would have some answers.

“Where are we going?” she asks in Telugu. “Who are we seeing?”

Rinda just laughs. “Lots of questions, darling?” He looks at her face in the rearview mirror, and her clear frustration must show because he takes pity on her. 

“You’re meeting with Obullamma,” he says. 

The name doesn’t ring a bell. “Who’s that?”

“Radha Rama’s maid,” he says, still annoyingly vague. But Aadhya can detect a tinge of fear, a sense of respect at the sound of the second woman’s name. 

“What do I have to do with either of them?” 

“...Your nanna didn’t tell you anything, did he?”

The mention of Krishnakanth hurts, making Aadhya turn to the window. Tears prickle at her eyes, and for the first time in a very long time, she misses her dad. He had sounded so worried on the phone, days ago. She wonders what he was doing now. 

It’s a short journey before they pull up to what clearly used to be a grand mansion, but had fallen into disrepair. 

“Well, bangaram, you’ll get answers now,” Rinda sighs. “And I need another drink.”

Aadhya needed a drink. But she probably wasn’t going to get one anytime soon, she thinks sadly. She really doesn’t want to deal with this shit sober. Alcohol had always calmed her down, soothed the always-tense bundle of nerves inside her. 

She and Bilal are guided up the stairs of the mansion, and Aadhya can hear the sound of a rubbu rolu clanging as she gets closer inside. Bilal is immediately ushered out of the main room, and Aadhya hopes that means they’re not going to kill him. 

Aadhya sees a woman first, sitting at a table, calmly grinding the pestle against her mortar. Is this Obullamma? she wonders.  

“Amma Aadhya?” At first, she thinks she mishears. That can’t be her dad, right?

“Dad?”

Standing in the corner of the room, surrounded by more men, is her dad. No suit, no tie, no advisors surrounding him. Her dad, just as he is. 

His button down is soaked through with sweat, and she can see relief and fear warring on his face. 

“Aadhya! You shouldn’t have come here, dear,” he cries. 

“Dad!” She tries to make her way to him, to fall into his arms, but one of Rinda’s men grabs her arms to stop her. 

“Obullamma!” Rinda calls to the woman, who stops grinding and glares up at him. “I’ve brought Krishnakanth’s daughter, I completed the job. Ika selavu [I’ll take a leave now].” Rinda walks out briskly, and oh, he did not like that woman. 

Obullamma keeps glaring at the disappearing silhouette of Rinda for a few more seconds, mouth curling into a sneer, before she turns to Krishnakanth. 

“Choosava? [Did you see?] I was able to bring your daughter in front of me within a few days. How did you think you could ever escape me?” Obullamma speaks slowly, but sharply, placing emphasis on almost every word out of her mouth. There’s a fascinating lilt to her accent that Aadhya would love to study some day. 

“Your quarrel is with me, not her!” Krishnakanth yells, but his tone turns pleading a second later. “Do anything you want with me, just please, let my daughter go.”

Aadhya looks at him in horror. “No, Dad! It was me who made the decision to come to India, it was me who put you and Bilal at risk by doing so.” She hangs her head, feeling the guilt and shame come back. Stupid, she had been so stupid. “I’ll face whatever punishment it’ll be,” she says, trying to project the veneer of calmness she had seen on Deva the past few days. If only she had his strength. 

“Is that so?” Aadhya hears someone new from the other side, and notices a woman sitting on the floor that she hadn’t seen when she had come in. This voice is commanding, and confident in a way that Obullamma or even Rinda’s voice hadn’t been. This was a woman who was used to taking, a woman who was used to others giving. 

The woman turns to face her, and oh damn she was hot. Dressed in an elegant black saree, the woman had beautiful kohl lined eyes, and power in every inch of her stature. She even sat with the straight back of someone used to a throne. 

“You offer to take his place, despite not knowing what he did. Why?” The woman asks. 

This must be Radha Rama then, Aadhya thinks. 

“It was me who made the choice, it was me who should face the consequences. Isn’t that fair?” Aadhya asks. “And…” she falters, looking at her dad, who’s staring at her with shame and regret. She straightens, and looks Radha Rama in the eyes. “And he’s my dad. I love him. I’ll do anything to protect him.” 

Radha Rama looks taken aback. It’s only for an instant before Aadhya watches the mask drop down over her face, as the surprise is replaced with contemplation. 

Obullamma sneers. “Like we want to make a deal with you, girl. We’re going to kill you in front of your nanna, and then we’ll kill him after. Both of you are dying anyway.”

Aadhya trembles at the mention of her death, but steels herself. There were worse ways to go. 

Like what?? Her inner voice says, and she ignores it. 

“I accept your deal.”

Radha Rama’s voice cuts through whatever Obullamma was going to say next, as she rises into a standing position, and turns to fully face Aadhya. 

“I- ammagaru?” Obullamma gasps. “You can stand?”

Aadhya frowns. What the fuck kind of question-

“Obullamma, make the necessary arrangements. Aadhya Krishnakanth,” she turns to inspect Aadhya from her head to her toes, and Aadhya blushes, “is going to be staying with us for the foreseeable future. At least until her brother shows up.” Radha Rama smirks at the sight of a gaping Krishnakanth. “Let the poor man go, he’s scared shitless already.”

Krishnakanth cries out, “No! Radha Rama! You can’t do this!” 

Radha Rama motions at the men near the doorway, and they bodily drag Krishnakanth out of the mansion. 

“Dad!” Aadhya tries to reach for him, to reassure him. “It’s okay!”

“Aadhya! Rama, she’s innocent!” Krishnakanth keeps shouting until his voice gets muffled by the doors of the car he’s pushed into. 

Aadhya turns to the woman that had just spared her dad’s life, who’s idly inspecting her nails. 

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” Too late, she processes what Radha Rama had said earlier. “And what do you mean… my brother?”

Radha Rama smiles at her, and Aadhya shivers. It feels like the smile of a predator that had successfully cornered its prey. She suddenly turns her head to Obullamma, who’s still sitting in shock. 

“I said, make the necessary arrangements.” Obullamma hurriedly agrees, earrings jingling with the force of her head shaking. “Show her to a room. Tell her to freshen up. I want lunch prepared in twenty minutes.” Radha Rama looks at Aadhya. “We’ll discuss business then.”

“Ammagaru, you want… lunch?”

“Did I stutter?” The temperature of the room drops about twenty degrees, and Obullamma jumps out of her chair. 

“No, ammagaru. I’ll have it prepared.”

Aadhya is led through a door near the entrance, to where she presumes she’ll be staying for the next.. few days? weeks? She can’t help but turn her head right before she leaves the room, to find that Radha Rama is already watching her. 

She shivers once again at the gleam in Radha Rama’s eyes, and hastily turns around. Hopefully she’ll find out soon, Aadhya thinks, about whatever the fuck was going on. 

-

tagging people that were on board with the ship @deadloverscity @ghostdriftexistence @greatkittykoala @nini9224 @just-call-me-ehre @recentinterest @looseukitty and others in the server i'm forgetting the handles now

#salaar #ramaadhya #ramaadhya fic #im tired i had a burst of inspiration and banged this out #this fandom’s missing a sapphic ship and i am here to rectify that

[praazlwurm]

Volo wins; fights God... again... and again...

cw: injuries, blood, swearing, violence

Everything goes precisely to his plan. Almost too well.

With you beaten, he wrests from you the plates and at some silent, heaven-sent prompting, your flute. You watch as he holds the new, strange shape and raises it in a trance, playing an eerie tune.

His hands fall to his sides and he stands atop the dais, facing north, still but for his breathing and even then not unnaturally so.

It's the little twitches in his fingers, knees, and spine that keep you there in the end. They remind you of sun-baked naps in the fieldlands, and watching your pokemon partner writhe in its sleep as though running in place or pouncing in a backstrike attack.

After maybe two minutes, he jolts, gasping raggedly. He stumbles, clutching at the front of his tunic, but just as quickly recovers. He looks around in a daze and spots you.

You haven't moved far, just to the foot of the dais' stairs, arms crossed and leaning on one hip. The wind is cutting, but this uniform has gotten you through worse; his tunic, however, is far flimsier.

"What the hell," he grits out after a beat, "was that thing?"

You blink, scrunching up your face before taking a shot in the dark. "Big white thing, gold ring, surprisingly dainty feet?"

Jaw clenched, he nods. His visible eye, shocked from that state of perfect mania, is shadowed by his glare but – no, that purple smear is actually the beginning of a black eye. How could...

Shaking off the thought, you shrug insolently, exaggerating an expression of disaffect. "That'd be Arceus."

Volo's face twists in a sneer, turning back around and giving the flute another, shakier playing.

He's... under longer this time, and after almost ten minutes of standing, stretching, and huffing annoyance you walk back up the stairs.

He jolts again, stumbling forward this time, and for a split second, you could swear something like steam wafts from his back. When he regains his footing, Volo whirls on you.

"Why," he growls, "am I fighting Arceus?"

Your brows jump. A glance away, then a vague gesture to the rubble and debris around you, "I mean, it kind of tracks."

Volo throws up his hands, turns, and has to draw a long, calming breath before he can steadily play the flute again.

Now, you're curious. And curiosity had seen you fill out pages upon pages of dex notes to be compiled by Professor Laventon later. In comparison, waiting around is no great feat.

Still, you're not about to do it standing.

You fold your legs to sit crisscross on the cold marble and, after another few minutes just watching him twitch and breathe harshly, plant your chin on a fist set against your knee.

Volo rouses again a moment later, not stumbling but panting as he turns. "I can battle it, why can I –"

He stops, looks down to meet your gaze, and, huh, that's a shiner all right.

The sight of your scrutiny has his jaw setting stubbornly again, freehand clenching. You note that his sextet of pokeballs is still at his waist, just above the spot where the metallic jut of gold splits off. The odd accent swings a bit when he once more ignores you.

When he goes under once more, you contemplate reflecting on everything leading up to this, but in all honesty, most of the betrayal and hurt had been worked out of your system in that grueling battle. So, reminded to heal up your team, you instead start puzzling out what's going on here.

The first strange fact is that he needed your flute. Whatever he's doing now, it was meant for you. Was it lucky or unlucky you had been training up a mid-stage evolution on the way up Mt. Coronet? The poor thing hadn't stood a chance against Volo's team, so battling Arceus probably wouldn't have gone great for you, either.

But, as he resurfaces and dives twice in the next half hour, it certainly seemed like something you could... keep trying at. Hell, with Lord Wyrdeer you could have gone to camp, switched out team members and returned in this same span of time twice over.

Volo doesn't seem the type to have many bench picks. Each of his pokemon were either a powerhouse or set-up players, tasked with paralyzing or hypnotizing. It's damn efficient, but you could likely counter it easily now.

He emerges next to immediately bend at the waist, hands on his knees as he struggles to catch his wind.

"Wanna rematch?" you ask, and he barely glances back before snarling wordlessly and diving again. In a mutter, "so-or-ry mister hates-god-so-much he's gotta cosplay about it."

Speaking of, that wack updo seems to be taking some strays, wilting, and now beginning to frazzle at the paler blond tips. That wisp of steam wasn't unique either; the flare of fabric off his left shoulder has been singed something fierce from behind.

Your harried quelling of Lord Arcanine springs to mind; Cyllene had to replace your entire uniform, leaving your first week in the highlands a miserably cold experience. Ol' Ingo had even lent you his tattered jacket.

Your head cocks, and you straighten a little as some pieces fall together. In facing great Palkia, you barely had time to question the sudden appearance of a sack of balms to hurl at it. That first charge was killer. 

Volo returns and it's not pretty. A few scattered drops of blood have you looking up sharply just before he gasps awake, immediately grasping his face and throwing his head back. 

"Don't move!" he barks at the barest shift of your legs against the stone. Around his now limp bangs, you see him pinching the bridge of his nose, and the drip of blood is stemmed. He doesn't dive again immediately.

"Are you huckin' balms?" 

"What?"

"Balms. The li'l sacks of whatever that helped quell the nobles," you say. You pinch the fabric at your ankles to keep from fidgeting further. "I had to use them on Palkia, too, remember?"

Volo's shoulders hunch. In silence, he waits another few minutes before hazarding to relax, and then still stays mum until he dives again.

By now, it's been long enough for the shadows among the rubble to shift and finally peeved enough at his refusal you stand up, dusting yourself off some. You walk over, a little wary now that you know what he's capable of, and walk around to Volo's front.

Definitely a nosebleed. There's still some tacky drying blood on his nostrils, a smear below it where he's cleaned some away. It doesn't look broken, and other than some new singeing and tears in his baffling outfit he looks no worse for wear. You take a step back, just in case, but after a while his face twists in concentration, eyes flicking about behind his lids, and you assume he'll be a while.

Coronet is still frigid, and the sun is starting to tick down toward the horizon. The cloud cover below the peak is thin enough that you make out the edge of the eastern sea carving into the shore in its myriad bites, like a wurmple munching leaf litter. 

After crossing your arms, tapping your foot, and finally huffing a sigh, you find where he had haphazardly thrown his uniform and pack on the far stone lip of the dais. The latter is far heavier than he ever treated it, and you're just beginning to help yourself to its contents when he seizes into waking.

"Fuck," he bites out, follow by a spit and a small splat. "Fuck, fuck, fu– what are you doing?"

You turn to find honest bafflement on his face, which you return when you see the state of him. In the mere moments you were turned away, he looks like he’s been dragged down the face of Mt. Coronet.

His tunic is dirtied, threadbare at the hems, the metal pieces at his hips scuffed and dull, and his strappy sandals in shambles. From what you can see, he’s got something like rug-burn on his forearms, and the blood he spat looks to have come from a split lip.

The pecha berry you’ve pilfered from his supplies falls from your mouth, painting the dais with a different shade of red.

“I was– you–,” you stutter out, dropping the pack to bark, “what the hell is happening to you?!”

He glances down, seemingly taking in the changes for the first time. He remains struck dumb as you cross the dais toward him, looking up sharply when you stop within arms’ length. Lip curling, he says lowly, “Going to stop me?”

“I don’t need to,” you say, jaw setting, “I doubt I’d have to see the ‘other guy’ to know you’re losing.”

“I’m not,” he snaps, and how the hell did you manage to forget the way he looms over you, brow shadowed and gaze sharp as a filleting knife. ”I’m adjusting strategies. The more often I battle it the faster I can wea–”

He stops, scowling.

Your patience runs out. 

“Oh, by all means,” you laugh, throwing your hands up, “keep your secrets, Volo!”

You can see his molars grinding. “Why are you still here?”

As much as you try, you can’t avoid the deafening pause that gives you. Then, with a jut of your chin to his occupied hand, “To take that back.”

The unspoken, when you fail, has him hackling. His hand swipes out at you as if to lift you by the collar, but you’re fresh-faced in comparison and dart out of reach. What stops him, however, is you palming a pokeball.

Above a bruised smear, his grey eye lingers, and you wonder if – assuming everything is transferring between here and there – his team is weakened; if he’s even able to heal them.

And damn, damn, damn you, you feel a pang in your chest. His pokemon don’t deserve this, whatever this is.

Without responding, his gaze shutters, ignoring that you’re right in front of him to play the flute once again. His knuckles are bloody, and one of his fingers might be sprained or even broken going by the shade of burgundy.

He’s under before you can get another word out.

You bellow something wordless and sharp, and feeling your tension lighten (and seeing he doesn’t react) you decide to seize a rare opportunity.

At the peak of Mt. Coronet, in the ruins of a temple that’s outlived her people, you let loose a railing, cursing tirade that falls just short of therapeutic. It leaves you raw and ragged, and your throat roughened too, and even after half an hour the bastard still isn’t back.

The sun is really dropping now, dipping below the cloud-cover and its warmth and rosy-copper glow with it. Early-bird stars begin to peak out of the darkening sky, and just before you throw his bedroll down to colonize it for your own you find yourself sourly throwing his fur-cuffed coat back over his shoulders. The chattering of his teeth diminishes.

Over the course of another hour, you sit, then lounge, recline, and finally lay back on the bedroll, and start tossing your partner’s pokeball up and catching it. You contemplate letting them join you, for all this about-face might beffudle them, and then allow yourself to actually consider his question.

Why would you stay, after all this? He’s used you day in and day out ever since he sicced you on that Vespiquen like some over-zealous houndour, and now he’s gotten what he wanted.

And yet, especially when his actual success has yet to manifest, some childish part of you thinks he might still come back around.

It was – it was fucking nice, alright? Having an actual companion these last few weeks, rather than crisscrossing the region with nothing but your team and a pokedex. Hiking hither and yon, hearing his rambling accounts of old legends over a campfire, waking up to just see him – every little thing helped distract you from the fact you had a direct line to Arceus and still had to wonder if you were ever going to remember your old life, if you were going to die he–

Volo collapses to his knees.

You’re upright in a heartbeat, eyes like saucers as he casts the flute aside to begin slamming the meat of his fists against the marble.

After a chance to find air, pulling it in like something half-drowned, he lets out a cry to rival your own.

In the moment before he finds the control to speak, you realize his tunic is in tatters, blackened at every edge and pocked by burns as though he’s caught stray pyroclastics while ascending Firespit. His metal adornments are bent and broken at his hips, and the cuffs are warped and dented – likely crushing his wrists. His sandals are unsalvageable.

“Why, you beast?!” he roars, coming out grating as it bounces directly off the marble beneath him. He hammers his fist again, and this time leaves a smear of scarlet behind. “The Celestica live in me, so why – why do you strike me down, again and again?”

You roll off the cushion, palms and knees on cold stone as you venture to approach. You feel like a raw nerve, and he a live wire – any word, any touch and you’ll both catch fire.

And you don’t want to fight him, you realize. Not again. Not any longer.

“I devoted myself to you, worshipped you as highest creator, even as your silence stretched year after year,” he snarls, and his knuckles drill into a seam in the marble pushing more and more blood to the surface and finally breaking skin. He shudders, but doesn’t stop, fading to a weaker moan, “After everything I’ve done…”

“H-hey, it’s– it’s gonna be–” you start, and his head jerks upright.

Around the grey iris and pinpoint pupil, a bloom of crimson creeps into the white of his eye, a stain that takes you a moment to realize is blood within the cornea.

His nose bears a small horizontal split and weeps red, spilling over his lips and staining his teeth when he bears them at you in something hair-raising, something feral.

"You," he snarls, his next words flinging red-tinted spittle, "you outsider, cast down to stop me and couldn't even manage that. Wh-why do you have the blessing of Arceus?!"

"Do you call this a blessing?" you ask, shocked by your own cool tone when it feels like a stone has been chained to your chest. You gesture sharply at him, even as you're still cataloging the bruises, the split skin on the right side of his scalp, "Do you think I would fair any better, even if I succeeded?" 

Volo pauses, but sneers still as he reaches beneath the coat to pull that smoky, purple plate from the remains of his gilded belt.

"Rebel beast," he growls, ignoring you once more, "sovereign of Distortion, come – come and aid me in this final stand."

The imperious timbre is lost to the slow dribble of crimson, painting the plate yet inspiring no shaking of the mountain or unearthly arrival.

The twilit sky does not shatter, nor do shadows spill forth; the quiet broken only by the animal keen Volo makes as he slams the plate against the stone. Once, twice, and not a scuff or chip earned. Finally he throws it away as well and buries his tacky-stained hands into his hair, hiding his face.

"Discarded even by the banished, bastard child."

"Hey now," you mutter lightly, "no need to impugn anyone’s honor. Not the time for making new enemies."

Volo rocks back onto his knees, dragging his hands away and tipping his chin. Even as starlight seeks out its silver, his gaze finds the heavens in a grotesque of bitter mourning.

"You… you're a fool," he says, dully. "Of all people, Arceus chose you. It's…"

"Fucking tragic, innit?" 

His eye flicks down to find you and even swaddled in sorrow the look is so deeply droll as to set you snickering. It builds to laughter as you tip backward onto your rump, wiping at your dewy eyelashes once you recover. As you do, you see Volo frowning down at himself, fingering the hem of the coat flung over his shoulders.

In a fit of pique, you catch him off guard with a half-earnest kick at his shoulder, spilling him onto his ass as well.

"That's for tricking me," you snip at his scowling affront. "Be glad we both failed in the whole ending-slash-saving the world, you prick."

Volo's fine-boned features contort further as he bristles into another furor, snapping, "I have not failed yet, you little–"

"And I'll stop you again," you sniff, tossing your arms over your knees in a petulant spread. "Or, y'know, God will. Mysterious ways and all that shit."

In the face of unimpeachable insolence, his face drops into little more than a curled lip. Leaning back on the hands he'd flung out to catch himself, his slackening posture is dramatic, even for him. Once again, even with the coat his airy tunic and loose-fit pants set him shuddering with cold.

After a moment, he mutters, "Do you mean to tell me this world, as foul and cruel as it can be, doesn't need to be remade?"

"Well," you say, sing-songing the word as you swivel to get your knees under you again. You shuffle toward him, and begin to hem-and-haw, "I think, if I'm so bold to speak on multiple behalves, that what's being said is… whether or not it needs to be, whether or not it can…"

You trail off, seeing him hang on the answer enough to surge forward. The moment you tuck your arms under his, he spreads them in shock. You worm into his space, angled so you’re at least not in his lap, and his shivering ceases. He stiffens but doesn't pull away, and as his arms cautiously find your shoulders and back, you can hear the note of wetness in his breathing.

"We're saying it shouldn't be," you finally surmise, hiding a grin in his chest as his massive frame turns to cotton in your arms. "And what things should be changed can be done together."

(this will get posted on Ao3 tomorrow, alongside the NSFW post-fic)

#pokemon legends arceus volo #pokemon legends arceus #volo #pla volo #volo/reader #voloxreader #xreader fic #volo x reader #pokemon #pokemon wielder volo

[thearchivistsjournal]

Day 173,

Author's Note/Content Warning: A more intense nightmare sequence this time around. A long fall, intense pain, and enough simultaneously broken bones to border on body horror. All a dream, yes, but still potentially unsettling.

My throat hurts too much to talk.  Almost even hurts to breathe.  Writing helps take my mind off it.  Lin and Huan told me I was screaming all through the night and they couldn’t wake me.

I hate that I put them through that.  Must have been horrible to watch.

Then again, my night was hardly better.

The mists must have been out yesterday, for I dreamt of the Catacomb Depths once more.  Wakingly vivid and memorable as ever.

Early in the dream my interminable claustrophobic wandering found a break from the norm.  Once more I stepped from a tunnel out onto one chasm-spanning bridge among visible dozens and hidden hundreds.  Two things set this bridge apart from others I’d crossed.  First, it ramped sharply upwards.  I’d long since learned not to let inclines raise my hopes, for it seemed apparent upward bound paths inevitably led deeper down rather than staying level, but still it was a welcome novelty.  The second, more intriguing matter was that it was decrepit.

True, everything in that place had an air of being ineffably old, ancient even, but it was all in good repair, buried and untouched by time.  Worn, yes, chipped and cracked, sometimes, but never crumbling.  Certainly no bridge I’d seen before had outright holes in it like this one.

Even had the bridge gone down instead of up, my curiosity would have compelled me to overcome my dread and cross it.

Just over halfway across, the main walkway of the bridge was fallen away entirely, leaving only the supporting guardrails at either side.  With little trust in my balance, I straddled that connection and pulled myself forward, inches at a time, on my belly.  Of course, it wasn’t the crossing but the dismounting that did me in.

Believing myself to be safe, I shakily stood up from the rail.  As I swung the outer leg over I must have placed my foot on a loose stone, for I tumbled backwards.  Flailing, I found brief, clumsy purchase back on the railing but lacked the strength to overcome my momentum.

I screamed as I fell.  Doubtless the first of the screams of the night that echoed into the waking world.

I know not how long I fell.  I lost track of the bridges I passed on the way down, even the ones I passed close enough by to reach out for in a vain attempt to halt my descent.  They never did more for me than wrench my joints and batter my body with impacts on the way down.  A new scream of pain each time.

Eventually, I landed, with a sickening crunch.  How it didn’t kill me I don’t know.  Nightmare logic perhaps?  Or maybe I was already dead.

At any rate, both of my legs were most certainly broken.  And an arm.  Probably both arms, but one moved enough to drag myself, however painfully.  And drag myself I did, for in that place, even when there’s not the sense of an other that I felt following Bartolome’s funeral, there is always a feeling here that above all else, one must keep moving.

It felt like hours more still that I crawled.  Stopping from the pain every few inches.  I was on the threshold at the bridge’s end when I finally woke.

I fear the next mist night, for the chance that I may find my dreaming body still in that state.

For now, I find myself grateful that my other sleeps are near-dreamless.  I got little rest last night, and though it is barely past noon (or so I am told) I think I’ll try to catch some proper sleep.  I’ll write more when I wake.

<==Previous          Next==>

#writing #original fiction #serial fiction #sliceoflife #Writeblr #daily writing #epistolary novel #writers on tumblr #WIP #creative writing #literature #prose #writers #web novel #novel #journal #isekai #epistolary #fantasy #slice of life #fiction #my writing

[thepropertylovers]

The Kindness of a Stranger on a Plane

Last week, the kids went on their first ever plane ride, but something happened that I hadn’t anticipated.

They absolutely loved everything about their first time flying. Being high up in the clouds! The loudness of the plane taking off! The snacks and drinks during the flight! And we loved watching the look on their faces when the plane took off up into the air. Their eyes grew big and they couldn’t help but laugh with joy. It was definitely an experience we’ll never forget.

But something else happened that I hadn’t anticipated when thinking about their first ever plane ride.

Allan, our oldest, sat in the middle between me (window seat) and a stranger (aisle seat). She had her mask on, so I couldn’t see her entire face, and she didn’t say a word, so we didn’t get a chance to get to know each other. I didn’t think anything of it other than I hope he doesn’t bother her (she was younger and traveling alone).

Before the plane started taking off, he was picking a scab on his hand that he had gotten from a rope burn while we were at Disney’s Castaway Cay. He had played on the water ropes course so much that he ended up getting a pretty painful burn right in the middle of his palm, which might just be one of the worst places to get a boo-boo. In any event, I leaned over and told him to stop picking it because it’s never going to heal if he keeps messing with it. He agreed and stopped.

But then out of nowhere, the stranger pulls out two bandaids from her purse, quickly taps me on the arm, and hands the them to me. I could barely get out the words “thank you” I was so stunned. Allan’s eyes lit up (our kids, like all kids I assume, are obsessed with bandaids and request them at all times, even though they’ve been known to want to take them off 10 minutes later for reasons unknown to us).

I thanked her for her kindness over and over and put a bandaid on his hand while he thanked her, too. What a sweet gesture- to give someone in pain something to help comfort them, especially someone you don’t even know. I think it might be the ultimate gesture of human compassion.

As time passed, we got some water and chips from the stewardess. I could feel my eyes getting heavy, and Allan was watching a movie, so I allowed myself to drift off to sleep for a bit. I was abruptly woken up by water spilling all over the place, as Allan had accidentally knocked his water cup with his elbow. During my slumber, he switched from movies to a puzzle game, and I guess his arm hit the cup while trying to solve one of the puzzles. I told him it was okay, but for him to be more careful. This was the fourth time this week alone that he had spilled one of his drinks.

I used the little napkins we had from the cups to clean up what I could. The problem was, the water spilled both ways, including onto me and the stranger sitting next to him. She immediately got up and went to the back of the plane. I felt horrible. She was probably so annoyed with us.

Moments later, she came back with a hand full of paper towels and handed them to me as she began sopping up her pants and seat. Again, I was speechless. I thanked her so much for helping us out and apologized. She kept shaking her head no, as if to tell me “It’s okay. It’s fine.” I was so grateful to her. She had helped us two times in one hour. I couldn’t believe it.

After she cleaned everything up, she then silently helped Allan solve one of his puzzles on the game he was playing. I didn’t say anything, just sat there and watched with a smile on my face.

When we got home, I couldn’t help but think, what would happen if I showed that much kindness and generosity to complete strangers more often? Sure, I hold the door open and I try to genuinely compliment at least three people every day, but to go out of my way to help someone that I don’t even know seems, at the risk of sounding dramatic… life-changing, in a way? This woman inspired me to be a better person in the span of just an hour without even saying a word. She led with her actions. And with a mask covering half her face, I don’t even really know what's she looks like. I only know how I felt around her, and how, I’m sure, our son felt around her.

The kindness of strangers has a way of making you remember that people are good. Not all the time, because we’re human, but we’re capable of so much goodness that these small acts of kindness have the power to make someone else’s day, and in some cases, inspire them to become better people themselves.

And when that happens, they sort of don’t feel like strangers at all. They sort of just feel like a friend.

[haruchyio]

tokyo manji daycare hcs

— children!toman members + caretaker!reader

— themes. fluff, crack, chubby cheeks toman

— bonten members ft kurokawa izana ver.

# sano manjiro.

he's always hungry that you wonder if his tummy is made of a blackhole. he drinks five bottles in a span of ten minutes and will cry if you don't give him his sixth. is that even healthy? is that even okay? you don't know anymore because his crying just won't stop. he cries just to get his way with you, this cheeky little shit >:(

# ryuguji ken.

the one who also takes care of mikey even though he's a baby himself. will give mikey all his snacks and toys if his friend asked for it. he will probably fight you if you don't give mikey what he wants because what mikey wants, mikey gets.

# baji keisuke.

the worst child you've handled so far. demon child. a whole MESS. this baby pulls at your hair whenever he gets the chance, refuses to nap when its time for nappies, and he always bully the other kids into eating all his greens for him. he never listens to you at all and had you running around in circles for hours before he himself gets tired.

# chifuyu matsuno.

is absolutely infatuated with his caretaker (you). always going on and on about how he's going to marry you when he grows up and promised you a grape-flavored ring pop when has a job. this baby sticks by your side wherever you go and clings to your leg when its time for him to go home.

# mitsuya takashi.

the most normal child you could ever ask for. a breath of fresh air from the other kids. he's aways calm and quiet, watching a nursery rhyme on the television screen, he even eats his greens and licks his plate nice nad clean. an absolute angel. best child.

# shiba hakkai.

trails behind mitsuya like a baby chick. he refuses to go near you because you have "cooties." one of the hardest child to work with because he won't let you touch him, hiding behind a clueless mitsuya. he's a big crybaby but when he warms up to you, he'll let you pat his head

# hanemiya kazutora.

he and baji are two peas in a pod. wherever they go, trouble always follows behind. he and baji have the weirdest mini conversation ever, comparing booger sizes. one time, he wiped his finger on baji so now they're on a baby war at each other.

# seishu inui.

an absolute charmer. just like mitsuya, he's always quiet and calm. he always asks you to read him a bedtime story when it's nap time, and he specifically asks for fairy tale ones. he loves snow white and beauty & the beast the most, he says his dream is to become a prince some day.

# kawata nahoya.

cute twins (1/2) the cheekiest one out of the pair. another troublesome child but its okay because he's always smiling. he never really cried, but when he's sad, he throws tantrums with his signature smile. he will throw his toys on a corner until it dawns on you that he's sad and having his baby tantrum moments, and you're confused as to what to do because he wont tell you what's wrong.

# kawata souya.

cute twins (2/2) always surrounds himself with stuffed toys, especially when he's sleeping. he and hakkai are known for crying about the littlest things and while its adorable, sometimes its annoying. will cling to his brother whenever he gets scared, his snot stickimg on nahoya's clothes and you'll have to wipe it off later.

© sen (haruchyio). all rights reserved. no work may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without my permission.

#tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo revengers imagines #tokyo revengers scenarios #baji x reader #manjiro sano x reader #mikey x reader #draken x reader #ryuguji ken x reader #smiley x reader #angry x reader #hakkai x reader #hakkai shiba x reader #chifuyu matsuno x reader #chifuyu x reader #inui x reader #inui seishunx reader #baji keisuke x reader #hanemiya x reader #hanemiya kazutora x reader #mitsuya takashi x reader #mitsuya x reader #kawata nahoya x reader #kawata souya x reader #東京リベンジャーズ #[⚖️] typing . . .

[wandaromanova]

Can you do a fluffy wanda one (with a little angst because of course) where reader and wanda are best friends, reader wants more, but thinks wanda is interested in vision so she doesnt say anything. And then one day a mission goes wrong, and reader gets into an accident that results in her getting powers, and it makes wanda wake up and confess her feelings?

Requited Love

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader

Warnings: cussing, injury, that’s all!

A/N: hello! i hope you enjoy what i’ve created out of your request, anon! sorry i couldn’t think about how i could incorporate the powers part of the request! not proofread, so i apologize for any grammatical errors! join my taglist here <3

Summary: Wanda Maximoff and Y/N L/N are your typical best friends who refuse to admit their feelings for each other.

Word Count: 3.3K (had a lil too much fun with this)

(gif is not mine)

You and your best friend, Wanda, had been friends practically since the moment she had joined the team. Being the youngest Avenger, you were so excited that there would finally be another member that was close to your age. Despite the events of Sokovia, you didn’t fear the woman. If anything, it only made the urge to get closer to her stronger.

Her powers absolutely mesmerized you. From the color of her powers to the different ways she could use them to her advantage; it was mind blowing how much power she had literally at her fingertips. As time went on, you and Wanda became very close. You’d always have movie nights together in your room, which eventually led to the Sokovian woman peacefully sleeping next to you in your bed.

Not only was Wanda drop dead gorgeous, but she was genuine and humble. She had confided in you about the many different traumas she had been through and expressed how the surreal amount of grief constantly consumed her. It broke your heart to know that such an amazing person was put through so much.

Her past could’ve easily turned her into a villain, but she decided to go the opposite direction. She came to the conclusion that her powers could help others and that’s what she had chosen to do in Sokovia and up to now. It was why she had agreed to join the Avengers in the first place. Wanda knew how awful the world could be and she wanted to be there for people the way that her family had been before they passed. The amount of respect you had for Wanda was immeasurable.

Over the span of two years, you and Wanda became joined to the hip. Wanda didn’t even sleep in her own bed anymore. Before, she would just accidentally fall asleep in your room or sneak into your room in the late hours of the night to sleep with you. But now, she just barged into your room every night and slept there. She said that you kept the nightmares she had at bay and you were more than happy to be there for her if it meant she got a full night’s rest.

You both jumped at any opportunity you guys could to be on the same mission as the other. You not only wanted to spend time with her, but you wanted to protect her. Lord knows that Wanda of all people could handle herself, but it kept you at peace when you were with her; knowing that she had you to back her up. Naturally, you fell in love with your best friend.

At first, you thought you were just confusing your special platonic friendship with Wanda for romantic feelings. But sometimes you caught yourself wanting to kiss Wanda. You knew damn well that friends don’t daydream about making out with each other. So, yeah, you definitely had feelings for Wanda, but there was one thing standing in your way; Vision.

Vision basically joined the team at the same time Wanda did. He was created during the Ultron situation and has been an Avenger since then. Wanda and Vision were very close. They weren’t as close as you and Wanda were, but he was a close second. They had a bond over the mind stone that you couldn’t ever compete with. This fact discouraged you and forced you to keep your mouth shut. You’d rather keep your feelings to yourself and suffer in private than risk your friendship with Wanda.

I mean, you didn’t even know if Wanda was into girls! She could be as straight as a wooden ruler and you would most definitely embarrass yourself if you told her. Vision wasn’t exactly a man by any means, he was a robot. If Wanda were to like Vision that must mean you had a chance right? Not to be an ass, but he’s literally a hunk of metal. Regardless of all these thoughts, you knew at the end of the day that you would have to hide your feelings for the sake of maintaining the relationship you currently have with the Sokovian.

You did pretty good at hiding your feelings for awhile. You acted as if everything was normal and not like you were emotionally crying out inside every time you saw Wanda with Vision. It began to get too much when you had caught sight of the pair cooking Paprikash in the communal kitchen. Cooking was something you and Wanda used to do together. It was kind of your thing. It may seem silly, but watching her do something with Vision that used to be sacred to you both hurt.

You began to distance yourself the closer Wanda and Vision got together. What sucked even more was that Wanda didn’t even acknowledge your sudden distance. She no longer slept in your room, opting to spend her nights with Vision. You were dying inside and Wanda didn’t even care to notice.

You had a mission to get to today. Usually, Wanda would be down in the hangar whenever you were going on a mission without her, but she wasn’t there today. She was probably off somewhere with Vision, again. It stung that Wanda didn’t even want to see you off. She was so preoccupied with Vision that she didn’t even give you a second thought. A toaster was stealing your best friend who you just so happened to be madly in love with away from you. And you couldn’t do anything to stop it.

So, you reluctantly got onto the Quinjet with Steve who was accompanying you on the mission. Fury only sent you two in for this mission because it was a simple one. It didn’t require the entire team to complete. You both were to capture and detain the scientist responsible for the latest human experimentations at the hands of Hydra. From the intel gathered by S.H.I.E.L.D, their security wasn’t that bad so it would be a walk in the park for you and Steve. You had just left and you already desperately wanted to go home and wallow in your own self pity in the comfort of your bed.

But first, you had to get this mission over with. The Quinjet landed a little far away from the small Hydra base. You and Steve made your way out of the jet and began to trudge your way toward the building. As you guys got closer, Steve stopped abruptly.

“No matter what, we stick together okay? Just because this should be an easy mission, doesn’t mean we should let our guard down. Understand?” He lectured you sternly as he stared at you intensely.

“Yeah. I got it, Cap.” You replied to him dismissively as you continued to make your way toward the building. You took note of the five guards that were guarding the entrance and gave Steve a nod before you both sprung into action.

After you guys had taken down the entrance guards, you both sneakily made your way into the building. It was pretty easy to find your target, seeing that the building was the size of a house. You and Steve barged into the room, the scientist whipping around quickly and freezing in shock at the sight of you both.

Steve quickly charged at the man and placed him into handcuffs. As Steve pulled the man up by the collar, forcing him to his feet, a thought crossed your mind. This is too easy. Only five guards and the professor was just conveniently in here? This had to be a setup.

Before you could voice your concerns to Steve, you felt a sharp pain rip through your shoulder as Hydra agents flooded into the room. You fell to your knees in pain as Steve threw the target to the ground. He quickly began to fight as many agents as he could. You stood up as you tried to temporarily forget the pain. You began to take on agents yourself. Despite being injured, you kicked their asses with ease.

You were down to the last agent while Steve was pulling the scientist back up to his feet, much more aggressively this time. For some reason, your thoughts went to Wanda. How would she react to your injury? Would she even bother to visit you to make sure you were okay?

Unfortunately, you had chosen the wrong time to become distracted by your thoughts of Wanda. While your thoughts were racing, you failed to notice the glint of a knife in the agent’s left hand. As you blocked one of his punches, he quickly stabbed you right in the stomach. At this, Steve jumped in to help you and made quick work of knocking out the man who stabbed you.

You fully fell to the floor this time, gasping for air. Not only were you shot, but now you got stabbed. Seriously? Did god decide you weren’t already having a shitty enough time? Steve quickly picked you up in his arms in a panic. He carried you to the Quinjet while making sure the scientist was following behind you both. Steve placed your body onto the medical table that was in the Quinjet, handcuffed the man to a railing, and sped off to the compound. He took note of how much blood you lost; it was a lot to say the least. If he didn’t get to the compound soon, he feared you wouldn’t make it; and that wasn’t an option.

The 30 minute trip to the compound turned into a 15 minute ride. Steve quickly rushed you into the medical wing of the compound and placed you into the care of Doctor Helen Cho. He knew he had to tell the team about what happened. The Avengers were a family, and you being the youngest meant you were like a child to them, well besides Wanda obviously.

Steve hurriedly made his way into the living room of the Avenger’s living quarters and made sure Jarvis informed everyone that it was an emergency. As Steve entered, everyone turned to face him with worry present on each of their faces.

“What’s wrong, Rogers? Is everything okay?” Natasha asked as she looked over his body. There was an insane amount of blood all over his star-spangled suit. “It’s Y/N.”

At Steve’s words, everyone in the room stood in shock as their jaws dropped. But no one’s feelings could compare to Wanda’s. She abruptly stood up from the couch and made her way towards Steve.

“What about her? What happened to her?” Wanda began to get angry as hints of her powers made their way to her eyes. Steve took a step back and looked at Wanda before returning his gaze back to the other people in the room. You could hear a pin drop in the silence of the room.

“We went on a mission together. It was supposed to be an easy in and out thing. But we were setup. She got shot in the shoulder and stabbed in the abdomen. She’s in the medical wing right now.” Steve spoke strongly, attempting to remain calm for the sake of the team, but he was terrified inside. Your state refused to leave his mind. Your limp body in his arms as your warm blood covered his hands.

Wanda didn’t say another word as she ran towards the elevator and impatiently hit the button to the medical wing. She didn’t bother to wait for anyone else. Nothing mattered right now except you.

Wanda had feelings for you. Ever since she met you, you were this light in the darkness that was her life. You could cheer her up when no one else could. You knew her better than she knew herself. You were not only her best friend, but you were the woman she was irrevocably in love with. She was terrified to tell you how she felt. She thought she would lose you if she had confessed how she truly felt for you. So, she remained quiet and tried to forget about her feelings for you by hanging out with Vision more. She wasn’t using Vision by any means, she genuinely did enjoy his company. But he wasn’t you.

Wanda didn’t even wait for the elevator doors to fully open as she squeezed herself through the small gap and made her way towards the medical bay doors. Before Wanda could open the door, Steve abruptly grabbed her hand, stopping her from going any further. He must’ve taken the stairs. Damn his super soldier abilities.

“Wanda. Stop. I know you’re worried about Y/N, we all are. But barging in there won’t be any help. You need to let Cho and her nurses focus on helping her.” Steve desperately tried to talk some sense into Wanda; it worked. Wanda’s shoulders slumped as she made her way towards the seating area that was right outside the doors. All she could do was sit, wait, and pray to whatever god there was that you would be okay.

Wanda didn’t even know you were going on a mission today. If she did, she would’ve went to the hangar and hugged you before she left, like she always did. Oh fuck, she didn’t even get to see you off and now look at your state. Now that she thought about it, she had been neglecting you for some time now. She let her fear of her feelings consume her. She spent more time with Vision than with you, and now she wasn’t sure if she would get the opportunity to be with you again. The thought of not being able to tell you how in love with you she was mortified her. This was the wake up call she needed.

——————————————————————————

2 hours later

After two agonizingly slow hours, Doctor Cho made her way towards the anxious group of heroes. Wanda shot up from her seat and approached Helen.

“How is she? Please, tell me she’s okay.” Wanda asks as she nervously chews on her bottom lip. “Y/N is fine. Luckily, the knife didn’t hit any major arteries. She won’t be able to make any sudden movements for the next few weeks which means no missions until I give her clearance.” At Cho’s words, the entire team was struck with relief. Wanda’s eyes lit up at the good news. You were okay. You were still here.

“Can we see her?” Steve asked from behind Wanda as he made his way to stand beside her. “Yes, shes awkward, but only one person can go in at a time. She’s very sensitive right now from the anesthesia.” Helen gave the team a smile before walking off.

Everyone looked at Wanda as she gave them a nod. Of course she had to go in first. You and Wanda may have been oblivious to each other’s feelings, but the team wasn’t. It was almost annoying how unaware you two were of how the other person felt.

Wanda quietly made her way into your room and almost let out a sigh of relief as she saw you laying on the table awake. You were trying to reach for a glass of water beside your bed, but the pain in your side made the small task a burden. Wanda quickly made her way to the table and handed you the glass of water. You were startled since you didn’t even hear her enter the room. You took the water from her hands and took a long sip before handing it back to her.

“What’re you doing here?” You asked coldly as you glared at the Sokovian woman. She was shocked at your animosity. You were never like this with her before. “I needed to make sure you were okay. I was worried sick.” Wanda frowned as she pulled a chair up to your bedside and sat in it.

“Oh. Now you suddenly remember I exist? It only took me nearly dying for you to notice me again.” You knew you weren’t being fair. You guys were just best friends and she was entitled to hang out and be with whoever she wanted. But the part of you that loved her and longed for more took over.

“Y/N. I’m sorry I haven’t been around as often. I got caught up hanging out with Vision when I should’ve been there for you.” Wanda’s eyes softened as she stared at your face. She missed you so much. She may have seen you around the compound, but she hasn’t been this close to you in what felt like decades.

“Yeah. You got caught up with Vision. Why don’t you just go back to him now. I’m fine.” You stubbornly spoke as you tore your eyes away from Wanda and stared out the window in front of your bed.

Wanda made a ballsy move and grabbed your hand in here. Thankfully, you didn’t move it away. “Y/N. I don’t care about Vision, I care about you. I love you and I mean that in more than a friendly way.” At Wanda’s words, your head snapped back to her as you looked over her features for any indication of a lie; you didn’t find any.

“I was spending time with Vision to try and forget my feelings for you. That obviously backfired and only solidified what I already knew I felt. I’m sorry it took such a terrible situation for me to finally grow the balls to tell you this. I love you Y/N.” Wanda squeezed your hand tightly as she stared at you full of love and adoration.

You were speechless. As cliche as it sounds, this was what you’ve wanted since the moment you laid eyes on her. She said the three words you’ve been longing to hear spill from her mouth. She loved you too.

“I love you too, Wanda. I’m sorry. I thought you had a thing for Vision and I let jealousy and insecurity get the better of me.” You looked down in shame as you tried to pull your hand out of Wanda’s hold, but she only gripped it tighter.

“Don’t be sorry. I completely understand. I’m so glad your okay and I’m so unbelievably happy that you feel the same way.” Wanda smiled brightly at you as you smiled right back. You guys must’ve looked like maniacs with your big, cheesy smiles, but you didn’t care.

Wanda began to slowly lean towards you. You attempted to meet her in the middle, but only ended up wincing in pain as you were reminded of your impressive stab wound. Wanda let out a laugh.

“Let me handle it, moya lyubov (my love).” Wanda said before closing the gap between you both and giving you a heated, desperate kiss. All the pent up emotions that you both had been withholding from each other were coming to light through this kiss. You guys were interrupted by the door swinging open abruptly and the sound of someone clearing their throat.

You both jumped apart as you cringed at the sting of your injuries. You turned to the door and caught sight of the team standing at the door with shit eating grins on their face.

“Sorry to interrupt you, lovebirds. But we wanted to check on Y/N too. Cho gave us the clear to come in now.” Natasha smirked at yours and Wanda’s flustered states.

“Pay up, Barnes.” Sam said as he held his hand out to Bucky, who groaned before placing 50 dollars in his hand. You and Wanda stared at the two confused, Bucky took notice of this and decided to fill you both in.

“We made a bet on when you two would get together. I said in the next two months, he said in the next two weeks. He won.” Bucky gave you both a shy, almost embarrassed smile.

Everyone in the room laughed, making you and Wanda turn even more red than before. You didn’t care about the inevitable, endless teasing you would have to endure after today. You would deal with the comments forever as long as it meant Wanda was by your side. You once thought that she didn’t feel the same, and you were so glad you were proven wrong. Sometimes, love can be requited after all.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #avengers #scarlet witch #request

[soulmate-game]

Well, here is the stupid thing I was alluding to. It’s mostly a filler chapter, but yeah.

Harley’s Plea for Help, Chapter 3

“Well, that took a while,” a relatively deep female voice smoothly drawled. The plants placed right next to the window pulled away, no longer blocking the pathway inside. The two figures who were perched right outside the windowsill took the invitation and climbed inside, the shorter of the two looking at the woman who had spoken and smiling widely.

“Auntie Ivy!” Marinette happily exclaimed, making the redhead across from her grin back.

“That’s me. It sure is nice to actually see you in person, little Marigold,” she held out her arms for a hug, which Marinette instantly ran in to accept. “Video calls are never quite enough, are they? You’re so tiny! Are you sure you eat alright?”

“Auntie Ivyyyyyy,” Marinette whined, knowing full well that Ivy was just teasing her.

“So, what took you all so long?” Ivy asked Red Hood, even as she kept her arms wrapped around her soon-to-be daughter in law. “Usually you bats are all about getting back on the streets to punch people, we didn’t think you’d be bringing her in at almost one in the morning.”

Hood shrugged, thumbs hooked in his pockets. “Your little garden fairy nearly gave us the slip. Went straight out the back exit instead of doin’ anything showy like we half expected and we almost missed her.”

“I stopped as soon as I noticed who they were, I swear!” Marinette pulled away from Ivy, holding her hands up in mock surrender. “I didn’t expect Momma to send them to babysit me before our first full day being in Gotham. In hindsight, though, I really should have.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Ivy agreed with a smirk, ruffling Marinette’s hair and making her pigtails go a little crooked. “And I know for a fact that you’ve done some stunts off your balcony back in Paris, so at least I know you can be responsible and hold yourself back from doing the same here. Must get that from me, because we both know it doesn’t come from Harley.”

Marinette and Hood both had to laugh at that. Being responsible was definitely not a trait that Marinette could have inherited from anybody in her family tree, that was for sure.

“Are ya makin’ fun of me in front of my daughter?” the comically scandalized voice announced the arrival of one Harley Quinn, who walked into the room in white onesie pajamas with a poker print on them. All of the “joker” cards were crossed out heavily with red sharpie, and a few of them had black-sharpie devil horns and handlebar mustaches vandalizing them. Marinette even caught one such card with a googly eye on it, the matching eye having fallen off and leaving only a small circle of since-dried hot glue where it used to be. “If you guys are gonna be that way, fine! Ivy dyes her hair!”

“No she doesn’t,” Marinette deadpanned, clearly fighting against a giant grin. The corners of her lips gave her away, they never stopped twitching with repressed mirth. “But you do. I got the pictures to prove—- aah!” Harley tackled her daughter to the ground, attacking her with tickles immediately.

“Take it back! My hair is naturally blond!”

“Yeah, naturally— hahahahaha! Sandy blonde! You— hahaha! Have just as much brown— stop I can’t breathe! hahahaha!— as yellow!”

“Hmph,” Harley finally backed off, crossing her eyes and looking away from Marinette with an exaggerated pout. “How dare you reveal my darkest secret?”

“I was a natural redhead even before I got my powers,” was all Ivy had to say, looking all too amused at this turn of events. “Your original costume completely covered your hair.”

“Don’t worry, Harley,” Red Hood butted in, reminding the three girls that he was still here. His tone suggested that he was definitely smiling under his helmet. “We found out about your hair dye years ago.”

“I just cover up the brown parts! It’s not like I’m changin’ much,” she argued before standing up again. “Thanks for gettin’ my cupcake back safely, little birdie. Oh, that's right! I made cupcakes! Hang on, lemme grab one for your trip back!” with that, she span on her heels and ran back further into the apartment. Marinette dashed over to Hood, immediately shoving him to the window.

“Quick, save yourself! Momma can’t bake for her life!” she whispered urgently. “I’ll say you were called away for an emergency, just hurry!”

“It’s not even a lie, getting away from Harley’s baking is an emergency,” Ivy agreed, waving as the vigilante took their advice and fled. It was only three seconds later that Harley slid back into the room, nearly falling due to the feet of her onesie having pretty much zero friction. Her face immediately fell when she saw that her victim was gone, leaving her standing there with a cupcake that was about twice as much frosting as actual cake, covered in sprinkles like a kid’s craft project that was smothered in glitter. The frosting was also shapeless, just heaped on the cake like a half-melted scoop of ice cream. She sighed in despair.

“There goes my chance of giving a bat diabetes. You guys warned him, didn’t ya?”

They both nodded shamelessly. “We’re not that cruel, Harley,” Ivy defended, getting up from her spot on her cushioned armchair and wrapping an arm around her fiance’s waist before she kissed the top of her head gently. “Hood got our little Marigold back safe and sound, and he’s even started a garden at his apartment. He doesn’t deserve to be poisoned by you.”

“I thought you said he got a single cactus at the flea market last month,” Harley deadpanned, making Ivy shrug.

“Might as well be a garden for him, and it’s something he’s not likely to kill so that’s a plus to me. He’s actually taking really good care of the little baby.”

“Speaking of garden!” Marinette gently took the sad excuse of a pastry away from her mom and sat it down on a side table before ushering both of them over to the living room and onto the sofa. “My garden back home is growing so big, I don’t think I can keep everything much longer. I barely have room to walk on the terrace, with all the vines and leaves and branches. Got any ideas of what I can do?”

“Of course! Do you have pictures, Marigold?”

—*—*—*—*—*

Slipping back through her hotel window at six in the morning was risky, since it involved climbing the wall and hoping nobody saw, but her classmates were so unpredictable that it was the only way she could be sure nobody would find out that she had violated curfew and snuck out. Of course, having Red Robin waiting outside her mom’s apartment’s terrace to escort her back helped. At least she knew that no street cams would record her comings or goings, and his grappling hook made the whole scale-the-hotel-wall business much more efficient.

Once she was inside, she sighed happily. “Thanks, now—“ her apology was cut off as Red Robin held up a finger to tell her to wait.

“Hold that thought, be right back. Don’t move.”

Thinking, rightfully, that something was wrong, Marinette obeyed. She watched Red Robin leap off of her hotel balcony and disappear into the streets. Immediately, she began a search to make sure her room had been left untampered— everything important had been packed in the backpack that she had taken to her mom’s place, but still. Could never be too careful. By the time she finished checking for bugs or any signs of snooping, Red Robin landed back on her balcony.

“Here we go.”

Turning to face him, Marinette opened her mouth to ask what the problem had been— only to tear up a little and walk over to the vigilante.

“Oh, my hero. Truly, my one and only savior. Knight in shining red Kevlar. I’m running on two hours of sleep and you have read my mind!” The pigtailed drama queen eagerly took the coffee that he offered her, and he sipped from a larger cup that looked like he had grabbed it from the same place. Marinette almost instantly sighed in gratitude when the hot drink lightly scalded her tongue. This. This was the elixir of life.

To his credit, Red Robin was able to restrain himself to merely an amused smirk. Probably because he was running on just as little sleep as she was. “Sorry it’s only a small, I figured it was best to have something you could finish quickly and easily hide the evidence for. If you need more caffeine, I happen to know that Wayne Enterprises has a very good coffee shop in their main hall. You’ll be touring there today, right?” He asked, taking another sip as he waited for the answer that he already knew.

Marinette nodded absently, drinking in the euphoria of her coffee as she tried to both savor it yet finish it as quickly as safely possible. When she came up for air, she said; “Yeah, that’s right. We’re touring Wayne Enterprises for most of the day, having lunch there, and leaving for dinner after the tour. Then we have a visit to the Gotham Museum of Fine Art, and we’ll stay there until about eight-thirty before heading back to the hotel.”

Red Robin nodded, then turned and looked out the window at the slowly rising sun. Sunrise was always a bit later in Gotham, partly because of the abundance of high-rises and partly because of the thick cloud cover and ever-present fog on the edges of the city making everything seem darker than it should have been. He had to be at work soon himself, which is why he had been chosen to escort her to the hotel in the first place, but that meant that he had to be heading off.

“Alright. We arranged for a bodyguard we trust to keep an eye on your class during the WE tour, but he doesn't know who you are or that we’re the ones who asked. We’re still in the process of arranging someone to shadow you after the tour, but we’ll tell you about that once it’s solidified. Until then, follow the usual self-defense procedures if you suspect anyone of following you. You have the panic button we gave you?”

Marinette nodded, gulping down the last of her coffee and carefully putting it in her room’s tiny trash can. “Got it. Thanks, again. Seriously,” she met his eyes— or, probably did since they were hidden behind that weird white film that the whole Batfam had covering the eyeholes of their masks. “I mean it. For listening to me, for listening to Mom. It means a lot. I’ll keep the panic button on me, and I’ll use it if I think I can’t handle a situation on my own. I’ll cooperate with the people you get to watch over the class, and I’ll do my best to not get into any trouble. No promises, but I’ll do my best,” she maintained eye contact until Red Robin nodded, hiding his expression behind his coffee cup. After a second, he cleared his throat.

“Well then. We’ll contact you once we have anything to say about your intel. Until then, I gotta go. And by the way?”

Marinette tilted her head curiously as Red Robin paused for just a moment on her balcony railing, aiming a smirk back at her. “Yeah?”

“Welcome to Gotham.”

And if she couldn’t help but smile widely as he grappled off into the fog-veiled sunrise? Well, only she had to know. She wasted no time closing and locking the glass balcony door, and pulling the curtains over it completely. Once that was done, she couldn’t help but do a little shimmy of Joy. She was caffeinated, she met Auntie Ivy in person for the first time, she got to sleep next to her momma— and she was in Gotham! Technically her hometown— or town she was conceived in? Didn’t matter. Point was, even with the chaos and dark energy clouding the very air, she couldn’t help but feel like she belonged in that city. Like that was where she was always meant to end up, where she could thrive and the environment that she was made to thrive in. The environment that she was born to start fixing.

She beamed at herself in her bathroom mirror as she gave herself one more once-over. Yeah, so far her visit to Gotham was going much better than she could have hoped. Now, she just had to make sure it stayed that way.

Three businesslike raps sounded against the door to her room, just in time for Marinette to feed Tikki one more cookie and straighten her purse on her shoulder. Madame Mendelieve’s voice called out from the other side of the door in her usual no-nonsense bark;

“Dupain-Cheng! Room check! It’s time to get up, we’re meeting down in the lobby in ten minutes.”

Marinette ran up to the door, not quite able to contain her energy, and swung it open with her trademark large, beaming smile.

“Way ahead of you, Madame Mendelieve!”

Her science teacher blinked, adjusting her glasses on her nose as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“Ah. You’re already awake and ready?”

Marinette giggled and nodded. “Yup! I was so excited for the tour that I could barely sleep! Does the hotel breakfast include free coffee?”

—*—*—*—*—*

The hotel breakfast did, in fact, include coffee. What it did not include, however, was free coffee that Marinette could reasonably stomach. Especially after the heaven in a cup that Red Robin had gotten for her earlier, the watered down motor oil in the hotel lobby had been unbearable. She had barely managed two sips before regretfully throwing the rest away. Which is what brought her to stand in line at the very same coffee shop that Red Robin had mentioned was in the main hall of Wayne Enterprises, as the rest of her class mingled and waited for their teachers to check their tour group in and their tour guide to arrive.

“Hmm. Sorry, this is my first time ordering here,” she apologized when she reached the counter, gaining a slight lopsided grin from the barista at the register. “Um, I usually like strong coffee, with a lot of caffeine, but I also like something sweet. I don’t need anything too complicated though, do you have any recommendations?”

The barista gave her a customer service smile that seemed just a tad softer at the edges than usual. “Sure! So, we can add an extra shot or two of espresso to any of our drinks, to make it stronger and give it an extra kick. If you’re looking for good sweet flavors, the classics are our white chocolate or caramel. But we also have a seasonal syrup right now that I personally love, which is our cinnamon butterscotch. Did you wanna try that?”

Marinette smiled widely. “That sounds delicious! Then, if I could have your largest size café latte, hot, with… two extra shots and that syrup? Does that sound good?”

The barista actually let loose a soft laugh, already keying in the order. “If you’re a coffee lover and a sweet tooth at the same time, then you’ll love it. If not, come back during your tour’s lunch break and I’ll make you something else.”

Marinette made a little more small talk as she handed over the proper cash for the order, and grabbed her drink after just another minute’s wait. She turned around, taking a sip of the unsurprisingly heavenly coffee and started off to join her class.

Only to realize none of them were where she had left them. She sighed, starting to reach into her purse to see if anyone had texted her about where they were going, but a heavy presence stopped her. She could feel him approaching from in front of her, slightly to her right, but she couldn’t hear him at all. On guard, she straightened up and turned to observe the potential threat.

A security guard. Marinette blinked, running over what she had been told earlier that morning. Was he..?

He seemed to notice her instinctually defensive posture because he raised his hands to show he meant no harm. “Sorry, didn’t mean to catch you off guard,” he apologized. “I’m the guard that was assigned to your tour group. I offered to stay behind until you got your coffee while the rest of your group went ahead and got the run-down on all the boring rules and whatnot of the tour. Figured you’d already know everything they had to say anyway, you’re the class president right?”

Marinette relaxed her posture, nodding and sending the man a relieved smile. “Yeah, that’s right. Well, that explains why they left without me then. Usually Madame Mendelieve is strict about following rules though, how’d you convince her to go on without me?”

The man chuckled, jerking his head to show that she should follow him as he began to lead the way to a side door. Marinette kept her guard up just in case, but wasn’t too worried. If nothing else, she was still in the middle of a super crowded building and the other security guards around didn’t seem concerned. She could easily yell for help if she needed to.

“Well, can’t you tell it was my devilish charm?” He teased, grinning. He waited until she rolled her eyes to continue; “but really, I’m like a second tour guide. She made me show a lotta proof that I’m actually assigned to you guys and not just faking it, not that I can blame her. Eventually she saw the logic in my suggestion and agreed. See, there they are,” he pointed casually ahead of them in the large side hallway they had entered. Sure enough, near the end of the hallway was her class at what looked to be the tail-end of a standard rules-and-guidelines speech from the tour guide. “By the way,” the guard spoke up again, holding his hand out. “My name’s Jason. You’ll be seeing me more often, since I’m supposed to guard you guys for all of your visits to the Tower. Call me if you need help with anything, ‘kay kid?”

Marinette grinned, now positive that this guy really was the guard that Red Robin had said was assigned to her class. She switched the hand she was holding her coffee in so that she could properly grab Jason’s hand for a shake.

“Got it, Monsieur Jason. Let’s both hope I don’t end up needing your help though, I think that would be easier on both of us,” she joked, earning a chuckle from the large man. And— yeah, now that she was relaxed, he really was big, wasn’t he? Then again, Marinette didn’t always realize when people were a bit larger or more buff than they should be. Living with her dad had seriously skewed her perception of the normal size of an adult male (which, she learned when she was seven, most definitely was not almost seven feet tall and muscled enough to make a pro wrestler jealous). But she would like to think she had gotten better in that aspect, and Jason was definitely a big guy. A little over six feet tall, she thought, and though the guard outfit hid a good portion of his physique, she could tell he carried enough muscle to do serious damage if he wanted to.

With a wave, she left him to join her class and sipped at her latte. She had figured that the Bat Clan’s criteria for civilians that they would put to guard her class had to be high, but now she had to wonder just how high. Most police officers or security guards were fit, sure, but not like Jason. Casting a quick glance back at him, she confirmed that he had quite a few faded but visible scars. Again, more than your average officer even for Gotham. Who had they tasked with her class’ safety, exactly?

An elbow in her side distracted her from her thoughts, forcing her to blink and stop her cup from going back to her lips. The grin of none other than Adrien Agreste greeted her when she snapped out of her own head long enough to pay attention to her surroundings. He jerked his head to indicate that the class was already starting to move off.

“Come on, Mari or you’ll get left behind again,” he teased. She grinned back at him, rolling her eyes but falling into step beside him as they followed at the back of their class. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were gonna marry that coffee. You haven’t zoned out that badly in years,” his tone was light and cheery, but Marinette didn’t miss the concern in his emerald eyes. She sighed, gently bumping her shoulders against his in silent reassurance.

“I’m fine. Just didn’t get much sleep last night, that’s all. But this really is good coffee. Elixir of the gods,” then, just to provoke him, she took a giant gulp of the still steaming hot drink. Adrien grimaced in pained sympathy even though Marinette didn’t seem affected at all.

“Oww, Marineeeeeeeeeette,” he whined. “Don’t do that, my throat hurts just watching you guzzle hot coffee like that,” he complained, rubbing at his neck to make his point clear.

“Wimp,” she teased, unrepentant. Adrien just groaned dramatically.

“I’m not a wimp, you’re just concerningly used to burning your throat from the inside out,” he accused. “Anyway, how’d it go?” He was being deliberately vague, but it was obvious to her what he meant. He was only one she had told about visiting her mom, after all, just in case she needed a quick getaway.

In fact, he was the only one of her friends that she had even told about her biological parents. Alix knew too, but only because of time shenanigans. Marinette was fine with it now, but still.

“It went great,” she smiled widely at him, keeping her voice low but casual. “If I have a chance, I’ll introduce you sometime during the trip. I have a feeling you’ll love Auntie Selina, but I have to meet her first. All I have so far are stories.”

“Fair enough,” Adrien agreed easily. “But you don’t have to, you know that right? I’d love to meet your family, but I’m also fine just being your pseudo-brother like I have been up until now. I know it might be a bit… uncomfortable, for you.”

“Nah,” Marinette shrugged. “Nerve wracking, maybe. But that’s also about half the things that I do in my life period, anxiety is no joke. I’ll catastrophize for a while, but I know you’ll love them and they’ll love you.”

“Sounds like they have paw-some taste,” he didn’t even miss a beat with his puns, earning a playful glare for his efforts.

“Never mind. You’re a heathen. Disowned. Who are you?”

“Mariiiiii,” he whined, causing them both to laugh for a while before focusing on the tour.

So far, so good, Marinette thought.

—*—*—*—*—*

Part 1 Part 2

@emotionalsupportginger @alysrose-starchild @emistar0 @kibastray @justanotherfanficlovinbitch @alyssadeliv @blackroserelina @blackstarlight-co @readingalldaysleepingallnight @maanae @aespades @jaybird-and-co @fleursroses @probably-a-hologram @misterpianoman @deathssilentapproach-blog @user00000003 @frieddonutsweets @blur-of-colours @prettylittlebutterflie @ladyqnoirr @a-star-with-a-human-name @mizzy-pop @laurcad123 @dorkus-minimus @chocolatecatstheron @tazanna-blythe @golden-promises @literaryhiraeth @asrainterstellar @hewantedbeefintheparkinglot @miraculous-trinity-leo @missanalysis @lovelyautumnsunflower @lolieg @ann0631 @whitetiger1249 @meow-now @toodaloo-kangaroo

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #soulmate-game #marinette x damian #damian x marinette #damimari #dc x miraculous #dc x mlb #bio!mom harley quinn #eventual daminette #probably #daminette #platonic jasonette #platonic timinette #platonic timari #platonic dickinette #platonic brucinette #Joker can choke on a cactus

[papercupids]

past the happily ever after - wong kunhang

pairing - wong kunhang x reader

genre - post breakup!au; angst; music producer! hendery;

summary - bumping into your ex reopens some unhealed wounds.

word count - 2k 

warnings - none that i could point out

as you waited for the employee to wash his hands and get back to you to take your order, you glance around the shop a little more, quaint little wooden tables are lined up messily and on top of them, matching brown stands which are home to almost 5 spoons, forks and knives respectively per table. The sunlight coming in abundance right in to illuminate every nook and cranny of the corner cafe.

It’s not too crowded here, maybe because 3:00 pm is not exactly the definition of a rush hour. 

the bells of the coffee shop rang and scanning the whole room, just to feed your curiosity more, you turned back. And when you do, you really wish you hadn’t, because just in the span of a mere second, your heart is ripped out of the place its caged in between your lungs because all of the time you’ve spent thinking about this moment did not prepare you for when it’s really happening. You turn back quickly, after freezing in your place when you first see him, and you’re scared that anyone who looks at you right now, including him, can see right through you and feel the trembling in your knees. But more than fear and awkwardness it was a simple debate of feelings of love and hate both that made you freeze right now.

 Countless accusations, numerous insults, you had so many questions for him, so many secrets to spill, it had come to an extent where you would imagine him sitting next to you jst to calm your overwhelmedness.

But you had later come to a conclusion. If your love meant nothing to him, neither will your hate.

 And hendery was just as shook as he spotted you and your face registered itself into his brain.

 the smell of pancakes, the small noise of it crackling on the pan, the sun pouring in just like in the cafe, but a little dimmer, the morning version of it. from the small windows of your apartment, soft music playing at a low volume and you’re humming along to it.

“y/n,” he calls out and that’s your cue to know he’s already up and you flip the pancake and walk over to him still lying in bed, adoring the rising sun from his position on the bed.

“Why did you wake up so early?” He mumbles groggily. “It’s your holiday today, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” you make your way back to the kitchen, “i just had a craving,” the pancake is perfectly golden when you take it out and place the batter for the next one.

A few moments later you hear the shuffling of feet before a pair of arms wrap around your waist and a face nuzzles itself in your neck.

“goodmorning, dery.”

“Mmh,” he inhales your scent as if it was the very oxygen he breathes, and when he does exhale it tingles on your neck.

Turning off the stove, you turn to him and catch his lips in a slow and chaste ‘good morning, honey’ and ‘i want this forever’ kiss. 

“Hey, y/n,” hendery currently has his hands in his pockets and you can hear the awkwardness in his voice, someone who was ever so frank and comfortable with you. You can swear this guy grows more beautiful each time you see him. The last was almost a fat six months later after you broke up with him, on an instagram story of a mutual friend of you both. You muted his story after that and it took you two weeks to stop listening to taylor swift after that. And now, it’s two years later but you still love this man as much as you did the first time you ever said it to him.

“hendery, hey, didn’t expect to run into you,” you pray that he can’t feel the beating of your heart which in your opinion is vibrating enough for your body to shake visibly.

“Yeah, me neither, how are you though? Long time no see,”

“Yeeah, i’m fine, just a little over the place.”

“Oh, well.”

The employee behind you both could literally feel the tension between you both from where he was standing. Either way, he needed to get over both of your orders before any one of you messed it up and made the other leave. It could strongly affect the revenue of this small cafe.

“Miss, what would you like to order?” He calls out to you, causing you to turn.

“Oh, yeah. A caramel macchiato, please.”

“And, you, sir?”

“I’ll have an Americano, thanks.”

“So it’s a combined order?”

And the next few seconds is just you and hendery awkwardly communicating through your eyes asking if the other’s okay with having coffee together and strangely enough even against your best interests, you both are.

“Okay, i’ll have it on your table in a few,” and the man disappears behind the curtain, quite proud of himself. If this one couple made it together, if they were broken up right now, their kids would hear of this cafe. He giggled and went on with his work.

As for you, it was not at all like the time you had once imagined in the shower how meeting hendery would be like. There were no slaps, no “fuck you’s” and absolutely no drama unlike how you imagined it in the shower.

You sat opposite on one of the round tables, besides the glass panel.

“So how have you been?”

“Oh, good. Just finished an album I was working on, a week ago. And damn, I'm tired.”

“Oh,”

 the music blasted through your ear and you hit the lower volume button as you rolled your eyes at hendery, if he continued to keep the volume this much, he’d end up losing his hearing, for sure. You try to tell him that, which comes across more as a shout than a normal tone to him because of your inability to listen to your own voice above the song. He nods carelessly, he’s just concentrated on your expressions as you listen to the track.

but it's just the way it was, life wasn’t always a happy ending, it was rough without any mercy. and you weren’t a fictional character, neither was this a fairytale.

You’re in his lab today, chocolate wrappers, guitar, papers here and there, the nightlife hours starting outside. And you are both sitting opposite each other, you’re sitting on hendery’s usual seat, a comfortable huge chair you loved to dominate whenever you’d drop by here and he’s sitting on a random stool that was lying outside, not complaining a bit.

“So, um,” you remove the headphones a few minutes later. And hendery listens in rapt attention, something you wished he did when you asked him to choose which dress he liked better on you,

“I hate to tell you this, hendery,” his expressions tighten as he tenses his jaw, “but, babe, you’ve nailed it this time around too!!!” You scream and envelope him in a hug.

And poor hendery is still shocked, but he hugs back as it soaks in his mind.

“This song is gonna be the shit people hear on loops, hendery, loops! This is a bop,” he pulls away.

“You really think so?” You nod your head.

He hugs you again, more tightly, “i love you,”

“So,” he drums his finger on the table after a long few minutes of awkward silence. The order still hasn't come. And you both have been looking at the other tables, there weren’t many people here.

“How’s life been for you, aside from your profession?” he asks.

“I don’t think I quite gave it much time, don’t regret it though, what about you?” your profession, for you, had been something of a coping mechanism in the past few years, it had been something you had given your everything to, and strangely enough it hadn’t packed up its bags one day and said, ‘we aren’t working anymore,’ and left.

“Oh yeah, no, i did try to make it work with someone, it’s going good for now.”

The last nail in your coffin. It takes up your entire energy to not flip the table over him and run away from not only the city, but the country and never leave a chance to ever bump into him again, because you see you did try to forget him.

But it never happened. It was just automatically that your hand reached over to the other pillow in your bed to ruffle hendery’s hair to wake him up to only be met with the cold side of the bed, and to take out two cups of ramen, only to quickly keep it back inside and to pretend it never happened.

“That’s nice,”

And thankfully, the cafe guy is coming over with your drinks.

And you sip on your macchiato as it gets awkward again. You can’t bear to look him in the eyes, no. It just cracks your very soul and you suddenly get annoyed with the fact that if he wanted he would have kept the girlfriend thing to himself, but he had to put it all in your face.

But your thoughts wander furthermore after this, does she get to listen to his songs firsthand? Does she get to eat the food he makes? gets to ruffle his hair first thing in the morning? gets to wrap her arms around him and feel his heartbeat?

 hendery slammed his hands on the steering wheel. He had fucked up. Big time. Plus the traffic wasn’t budging. He rested his head in his hands. The cars honked occasionally and the city lights hurt his eyes, an upbeat song was playing over the radio in a low volume and the car was warmer than the outside.

This was the third time in a row he’s done this. And he could feel the guilt build up in him, he wasn’t worried about your reaction to this.

You’d kiss him, tell him to not worry about it and go to sleep as it was probably late and he would be tired.

He was scared that this was gonna keep happening and he’s gonna wake up without you instead of you sobbing softly out in the living room. He was afraid he had messed you up too much. And what for?

The traffic clears as he presses the accelerator and lets go as fast as he can.

And back home you’re not disappointed, you’re just tired. You weren’t upset that hendery hadn’t showed up, but he hadn’t even texted you, surely it would take just a second.

But it was okay, he had work. It was important. You sighed as you slipped into your pyjamas and moved to the sofa to watch something.

And you hear the key turning then, signalling hendery was home, you stand up to greet him and as soon as he’s visible, a sympathetic look is plastered on his face.

“I’m sorry….” you hug him before he can complete and he hugs back with equal force.

“‘S alright, hendery, it’s fine.” And you rub his back.

And suddenly you hear a sobbing sound from him. A long and choked up noise and you pull away to get a good look on his face.

“dery?” You cup his face, “what’s wrong, honey?”

“Oh, babe, i’m not going anywhere.” You crawl close to him and wrap your arms around him. “I’m gonna be right here hendery, and things like these happen all the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that i love you, okay? I’m gonna stay. I’m gonna be with you as long as you want me to.”

“I messed up, I mess up all the time, why are you even here?” He’s sitting down now, crying in his hands.

He nods as his sniffles fade away slowly and you’re both just sitting on the floor, holding each other, knowing no one’s gonna go away. 

“And, um, y/n, i have to tell you something.” He finally speaks up. His body language tells you it’s been what he’s wanting to tell you since you met at the counter and you nod at him to continue.

“I wanted to apologise.”

You almost spit your drink.

“Why?” Even though you know the answer, you want him to confess his sins. Confess the fact that he threw a forever away in a matter of a moment, that he didn’t listen to what you had to say.

“I’m sorry for what I did, I truly and genuinely loved you and I made a huge mistake. Everyday I think about what could’ve been if I didn’t do what I did.”

loved.

But that made the two of you if he thought about it. It was okay now, now that you met him, now that he apologised to you, know that you’ll say “it’s okay,” to him, piece by piece it’ll start to get better. You believed it.

You’ll still love wong kunhang, but a little less maybe.

the silence in your home is biting. You can hear the low whirring of the air conditioner and the tick tocking of the clock. The text bell breaks the silence though, for a second, but it does.

“Coming home, give me 5 minutes.”

hendery wasn’t late. He just hadn’t came home for the entirety of last week. He has to work on this new album, he’d said to you when you called him this morning. Normally he had told you not to call him when he was working since it broke his link of working but it was out of hand now.

And he told you he’d come home today and talk.

You sighed as the lock clicked, and he closed the door behind him.

He throws a small smile at you, “y/n,” and he knows this is going to be hard when you don’t return it.

He sits beside you as you try your best to not let the tears fall, “what?”

“I’m sorry but this isn’t the way i want to see you, i want you to be happy-“

“Well, then damn, dery, keep me happy!”

“Will you let me complete?” You glare at him as you blink more to keep the tears at bay.

“Look, I realised that i want to see you happy, but i’m just simply, i can’t. So,” he takes your hand and grazes it with his own.

“So, i’m letting you go, y/n,”

“What the actual fuck ‘letting me go’?” Now there's no meaning in trying to keep the tears hidden, they come as fast as you stop trying to hide them.

“The thing is hendery, if you would’ve been sorry right now, i would have honestly had no problems in being here again and to end up in this same situation, i would go through it all again, but the fact that you just want back away is so disgusting,”

“Sorry would have meant that i would no longer do it again, y/n, and you know my work, I can’t keep promises,”

“So that’s it? We’re finishing this conversation and you’re taking out all the shirts from our wardrobe?”

His silence is a reply enough, and you can’t do anything but sit there as quietly as you shushing yourself and hoping this was someone else in min hendery's body and that tomorrow you’d wake up to him apologising and explaining how his body got swapped with someone else.

But it never did happen 

“It’s okay, hendery. You did what was best for both of us,” you take a sip from your drink. “I couldn’t see it then, but I do see it now,”

“You do?” He raises his eyebrows,

“Yes,” you nod gently.

And his phone rings. “Excuse me, i gotta take this,”

And he’s barely a few steps away from the table when he receives the call and says, “yes, babe, i’m coming i just met an old friend.”

And you smile. It was okay. You’ll probably cry yourself to sleep tonight but tomorrow will be better, and you will be better again.

#prism.nw #neoturtles #nct x reader #wayv imagines #wayv x reader #wayv scenarios #nct x gender neutral reader #nct drabbles #nct scenarios #nct angst #nct x y/n #wayv #wayv hendery #wayv angst #wayv smau #hendery imagines #hendery x you #hendery x reader #hendery #nct timestamps #nct oneshot #nct fluff #nct u scenarios #nct u x reader #kpop x reader #kpop imagines #kpop scenarios #nct wayv

[clefairymuke]

oiiii i have a request for a oneshot or maybe something fun to add to your regrets fic (whatever you find better) I think it would be funny a reader x the scouts drunk and levi finding them and being all cute taking care of reader :3

thank you for this request!! sorry for how long it took, but it managed to pull me out of some writers block that’s been kicking my ass lately. thank you for suggesting it and reading!

as always, much love! <3

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

Red Wine | Levi x Reader

pairing: levi x reader

themes: fluff

tw: swearing, alcohol use

word count: 2511

True fun and relaxation is not something you typically experience.

Of course, when you signed up for this whole Scout Regiment thing, you weren’t expecting nights out in bars and plush queen-sized beds with wool blankets. You expected exactly what you got: exhausting days and mostly sleepless nights, demanding grief and waking nightmares. One thing you hadn’t expected, however, was how stale it would get. These thoughts are why you ended up where you are now: propped lazily against a wall surrounded by your friends, loud laughs bubbling freely from your ever-smiling mouth, and a bottle of wine in hand.

While the “why” is clear to you, the “how” is a bit more cloudy. Around the complete euphoria in your head stands a thick fog blocking your memory — that, or the fact that your drunkenly dwindling attention span can no longer support a thought lasting more than a second or two. All you know is that you’re here now, and you’re having the time of your life. Your eyes and ears skirt past Eren and Jean arguing without stopping to listen in as you pass the bottle to Mikasa.

For once, you aren’t thinking about how Levi could make this experience better. Although you love being in the company of your boyfriend, you can’t help but imagine his disdain if he were to witness your situation. You can almost feel the ferocity of his razor sharp-glare creeping up your spine as you picture it within your mind.

You lay your head back on the concrete wall that keeps you upright and close your eyes. Although you had shown to be quite social when the bottle first began to be passed, you now wanted nothing more than to take a nice nap — or to go vomit just to ease yourself of the queasy feeling that was overtaking your stomach. Either would suffice. You listen to your friends chatting mindlessly around you, their care to be inconspicuous slipping away with the wine. You watch Connie drain what was left in the bottle, leaving you to curse at the fact that you would be stuck in the uncomfortable kind of drunk that left you a bit nauseous while still conscious enough to be prone to anxiety.

You sit there in a dizzy oblivion for what could have been five minutes or fifty, tuning out the antics of the rest of the people in the room as they laugh and roughhouse. Your stomach stirs and turns, but your mind begins to clear: you notice Connie and Sasha choreographing a dance routine to music only they could hear; Mikasa and Armin sit quietly chatting behind Eren as he and Jean argue over who is more adept at fighting; Ymir and Christa are making googly eyes at each other over their giggles.

“Hey, guys?” you say, your brain lagging behind your mouth by at least a few seconds. “I’m probably about to throw up.” You quickly discover that you’re right, as your gut begins to bubble and your mouth begins to water.

“Oh, fuck,” Connie mumbles as he looks around the room desperately. Sasha looks disappointed as he stops dancing and approaches where you sit against the wall, gripping your wrists in his hands and helping you to your feet; with both of you being drunk enough to show it, stumbles are surely present. Time skips, and you’re kneeled in front of the toilet, Connie leaving to give you privacy — you’re decidedly much drunker than you thought you were.

Just as you start to vomit, you hear Eren defeatedly say, “Oh, fuck me.” That can’t be good.

The space goes silent save your groans. The most imaginative depths of your brain think that perhaps a titan is looking in the window, waiting to bring you all to your doom. How convenient for half of the newest scout recruits to be intoxicated and defenseless. When you hear Levi’s voice say, “Stupid fucking brats. Where is she?” you wish it were a titan instead.

A chorus of voices answer, “Bathroom.” What a bunch of fucking sellouts, you think to yourself. Your heartbeat begins to pound in your throat again as you hear his footsteps grow near; when he taps at the door a few times, you let it all out — out of fear or simple drunkenness you are unsure. “God damn it,” you hear him mumble before the door handle turns and his hands find your hair, pulling it back into a makeshift ponytail.

He rubs your back in a manner you can only describe as passive-aggressive. You can tell he wants to scold you — and you’re definitely in for it once you get to feeling better — but you can also tell that he wants to care for you. That’s why you try to pretend not to hear his curses as he lectures you on responsibility.

“Why the hell are you drinking with these idiots? I wouldn’t be mad if it was a glass or two, but there are three empty bottles on the floor in there. Three. No wonder you’re puking your fucking guts up,” he mutters, voice low enough for only you to hear despite his angry tone.

You feel your eyes watering as your stomach settles for another brief moment. “Levi,” you say, your breathing labored, “now is not the time.” You hear him scoff before you begin to dry heave, his hand moving a bit more caring across your back as he holds onto your hair. Your gut starts to feel a bit better as your brain realizes there’s nothing left. He places his hands under your arms and lifts you gently to your feet before flushing the toilet. You stumble awkwardly to his lead as he escorts you to the sink.

He reaches around you to turn on the water, which is cold to the touch as he holds your hand beneath it. “Clean your mouth out,” he says, nudging his hand around yours until you form a cup. “It’s disgusting.” You oblige him, lifting it to your lips. You feel it drip down your chin as you swish it around between your teeth, looking up in the mirror to see your blushing cheeks and droopy eyes. Levi stands behind you, dressed in no more than a grey t-shirt and some comfortable-looking pants. His hair is neat and combed, which doesn’t quite match the rest of his attire, but you aren’t complaining. He looks as ethereal as always. After you spit, he grabs your shoulder and spins you around to face him.

“You okay?” he asks, brushing the tears that had formed on your face away with his thumbs. You shake your head at him, your eyes trailing down to the ground. Here comes the scolding.

He sweeps you off your feet, to your surprise, holding you bridal-style as he carries you out of the bathroom. You lay your head against his shoulder, seeing the walls of the room and the faces of your friends go blurrily by as he strides to the door; they all look terrified.

“Laps,” you hear Levi announce to your friends, his voice icy. “At dawn. I don’t give a shit if you’re hungover.”

A chorus of groans is the soundtrack for your exit as the door slams shut. The walk back to Levi’s suite is spotty at best; you’re unsure of exactly how long it’s taking. The scenery around you feels more dreamlike than anything — you find yourself hoping that you’re still propped against the wall with your friends, sleeping soundly and dreaming of Levi catching you red-handed. When time jumps and he’s laying you down on his couch, you’re pretty sure you’re awake.

You hear rustling around as you lay there, still half waiting for a scolding. He rejoins you rather quickly, setting some things down on the side table and gently lifting your head. He sits, letting you back down slowly to lay in his lap. “I brought you bread,” he says, taking it from the table and placing it in your hands. “It’ll soak up the alcohol. There’s water over here when you need it.” You inspect the bread lazily before nibbling on it. The very idea of chewing something and swallowing it is enough to make you nauseous, but you trust his judgement.

You feel his hand fall atop your forehead and his fingers draw circles in your hair. You don’t fight the grin threatening your lips. “Are you okay, my love?” he asks, his voice soft. This is the tenderness you had fallen in love with many months ago; the one thing your friends are blind to. He carries himself with such coldness for the public — he is rude, and blunt, and insufferable, and unobtainable. With you, however, he could be kind. He could be loving. The speed with which his gentle voice melts your heart never lessens. This is Levi at his most vulnerable.

“I’m just drunk,” you tell him, your words slurring into each other. “I’m not dying.”

You hear a chuckle barely pass over his lips like a spring breeze, the sparkle in his eyes reminiscent of the way the sun reflects off the surface of a pond. The peaceful nature of your position is a worthy opponent to how your insides wage war on one another: nausea, dizziness, and the beginnings of what will become an absolutely splitting headache all contained within one disoriented body. “I would’ve gone with you, you know,” he says suddenly after a serene moment of silence. “I would’ve known when you needed to stop drinking.” He combs his fingers against your cheek, silvery eyes softening into pools of undeniable adoration.

“You would’ve been a complete buzzkill,” you reply, half joking as you close your eyes and enjoy the rare affection.

You hear a cross between a scoff and a laugh come from above you. “Keeping those brats from getting you so wasted that you start puking isn’t being a buzzkill. It’s called taking care of you.”

“I think I’m not drunk enough,” you say honestly. “We ran out of wine right at that stage where you could go to sleep or start throwing up, but there’s absolutely no chance of having a good time.”

He taps the top of your head with two fingers, prompting you to let him up. You oblige him, using the opportunity to lay down your bread and take a sip from the glass of water that rests on the side table. You watch as he saunters back toward the kitchen, wondering what he was doing somewhat, but mostly just trying to get a grip on your senses. You sit up as you wait on his return, laying your head back against the plush upholstery and taking deep breaths.

He’s back as quickly as he left, both hands behind his back in a feeble attempt to hide the wine glasses as their stems poked around to your view. You feel a smile creep onto your face as he unveils his master plan: a bottle of red wine and a glass for each of you. “Don’t expect this often,” he announces as he sets it all on the table, pulling a wine key from his pocket. He joins you on the couch, scooting in close so that your knees brush before you hear the satisfying pop of the cork and the relaxing swish of liquid on glass.

“You’re expecting me to believe that Captain Levi is offering to get drunk with me?” you giggle, almost nervous to reach for the wine in front of you. He laughs off your comment, reaching in front of him and lifting the glass to his lips; he takes only a sip before looking at you in expectation. You take yours as well, holding it up to his jokingly before you both bring them to your mouths.

After your first gulp, time begins to melt away. A movie-esque montage begins in front of your eyes: the sight of the man you love, once so stoic and so stiff, loosening and laughing the night away at your side; the feeling of typically isolated and scarce hands trailing carelessly along the length of your arms, warm against the sensitive skin of your wrists and your thighs; the smell of red wine spilled innocently on hardwood and upholstery without complaints or uprooting to clean it; the sound of his velvet and brass voice with his uncensored expressions of love, whispered and melodic; the taste of mint and jasmine tea on his unusually wandering lips.

What might be thirty minutes or three hours passes in a flash, leaving you sprawled across the couch with the drunken mess that is your typically reserved lover, legs utterly entangled so that you were unsure where you ended and he began. He’s whispering to you — that much you know — but his words are slurred, and you’re unbelievably distracted by the feeling of wet kisses being peppered along your jaw and ear. He grasps at your back, massaging and caressing and leaving no inch uncovered by his calloused hands as his touch reminds you why you breathe and laugh and plainly exist.

“Levi,” you whisper, your mind a tangled ball of twine save for the feeling of his breath on your cheek.

He hums in response, not bothering to look up at you. You can feel his grin against your jaw.

“We should get to bed, love.”

You’d be left to wonder how the two of you made it into the next room when morning came; rest assured there would be a trail from the couch to the bedroom door made from clumsily knocked-over knick knacks and your discarded clothes from the day to clue you in. If you were sober, you’d care enough about Levi’s wrath tomorrow to clean up behind the two of you; however, you aren’t sober, and you don’t care enough.

The two of you fall into the bed you share, intertwining your limbs like the threads of a tapestry, laying out plainly and beautifully the comfort you find in him. Your head finds his chest and his hands find your lower back, pulling you flush against him as his eyelids begin their threats to close before he is quite ready. He murmurs out your name, his hold on you growing more snug when it passes his lips. “I love you, s—” he falters, nuzzling his face in the top of your head. “So much.”

It’s short — and a pretty common thing for someone to say to the person they love — but it means everything coming from him. “I love you, Levi,” you tell him, praying to whatever is up there that you’ll remember this in the morning.

Soon, the two of you stop stirring and whispering. As you breathe him in, you try to hear his words in your mind as many times as you can before you slip out of consciousness. You begin to drift off to sleep, peaceful and content in his arms as you’ve ever been.

#levi ackerman #levi x y/n #levi x reader #levi x reader fluff #levi attack on titan #captain levi #levi fluff #attack on titan #aot #snk #aot fluff #aot levi #drunk levi #aot fic #aot oneshots #levi oneshot #levi ackerman oneshot #levi ackerman x you #levi fanfiction

[ekaterinatepes]

Nothing but the Best

Author Notes: hello again my loves! Thank you for all your likes, reviews and specially your comments! I love it when you make questions and in general let me know what you think about the chapter. Thank you once more for all your support!

XII.

They say time heals all wounds, but there are some wounds that run so deep they refuse to stop bleeding.

https://youtu.be/s1tAYmMjLdY

A cold September afternoon welcomed the dying rays of the sun, the incandescent amber tones of the twilight illuminated the streets of Tokyo, ever so vibrant; full of life, people, delicious food, kaleidoscopic colors, laughter, children running…. Couples holding hands.

A tall man with a blindfold walked down a heavily transited sidewalk with his hands in his pockets and a small bag of pastries hanging off the side. Slowly, he made his way further away from the more concentric streets towards a park, he found a bench near a fountain and took a seat placing his bag right next to him.

The world remained the same and yet everything seemed to have changed, the days were now long and boring, conversations with people didn’t manage to hold his attention for long; missions were repetitive. Everything seemed… dull, opaque, flavorless, empty…

Everything, except perhaps his students who were the only sliver of hope he had left. Those kids would make it far in life, they were going to change the world and he was going to be there to help them along the way. A sad smile pulls at his peachy lips. You would have liked that. After all, the kids also enjoyed your company back in the day when you were still his. It was as if you had become their adoptive mother of sorts at some point. Your nurturing nature guided you to care for others.

A year ago when Yuuji was placed under his care and tutelage at Jujutsu High it had been hard for the boy. At the time the kid had just lost his only living relative and to top it off he also consumed the most powerful curse ever known to man kind.

He had so much responsibility on his shoulders Satoru couldn’t help but make the connection with himself when he was a kid his age. That’s how Satoru decided to take him home for dinner one night; he couldn’t have been more pleased with his decision. Of course, you adored Yuuji. His sweet snd enthusiastic personality, his polite manners and naiveté made him just endearing in your eyes.

Even Megumi, who barely spoke with his more taciturn approach asked about you. Satoru didn’t know how to answer. The dark haired boy would also come and visit your home to help you prepare some foreign delicacies you loved to cook. Sighing once more he ran his hands through his white hair.

***-Flashback-***

“So where’s Y/N-san? I haven’t seen her in a long time?” Asked Megumi right after Satoru returned from New York. It caught him by surprise

“She… she doesn’t live in Japan anymore” was all he said before changing the subject. Megumi looked at him with eyes wide open but decided not to pry.

Yeah… that probably was weird. Someone asks you about your spouse and you say they moved out of the country. It was pretty obvious what that meant.

***~End Flash Back~***

Sighing he opened the small paper bag containing his mochi, he loved his desert but lately he didn’t even have the will to indulge in sweets anymore. Satoru consumed insane amounts of sugar to stimulate his brain. The problem was that during the past year all that stimulation manifested in the form of vivid memories of you. Your voice, your smell, your presence. It was as if his brain chose to take him down the path to misery, as if to rub on his face what he could never have.

As of last week you were officially not Y/N Gojo anymore. He finally signed those blasted papers giving you your freedom and his capitulation.

It had been one of the worst days of his life.

After signing the divorce Satoru went straight to the liquor store where he found that exotic apricot liquor he liked in New York and bought a bottle. Once he made it back home he proceeded to get drunk out of his mind. The next morning he woke up by the pool, laying down on a tanning chair, wearing only a pair of boxers and hugging your wedding picture.

His head was killing him, at some point he had emptied his insides in the pool. A disgusted grimace reminded him he had to hire some help to take care of the house that was an absolute disaster, faithfully reflecting the state of its owner.

That morning, nursing a hangover he swore off alcohol for the rest of his life.

But hey! On the positive side he didn’t remember at all that night! Which means he ‘probably’ didn’t think about you (yeah right! As if he was ever not thinking about you) and how much he hated the fact you were not his Y/N Gojo anymore. You were not his wife anymore…

The memory made him want to cry like a baby. He lost the person he loved the most in his life because he had been one flaming idiot.

Despite all his efforts he could not forget you. Wherever he went, whatever he did… there you were, tormenting his waking and sleeping hours like his own personal curse.

He tried to get over you. He tried to be the asshole you knew him to be. He slept with so many women he couldn’t even count. But at the end of the night, in the throes of passion it was your face that he saw, your body that he craved, your flavor that he yearned and your name the one he called out when he climaxed.

He was absolutely fucked.

Revisiting memories of the last night he saw you he couldn’t believe how stupid he had been at the time. It took him so long to realize he had always been in love with you but Satoru, being well… himself, he didn’t want to see or admit that he had been head over heels, madly in love with you. He was a cynical bastard and that had cost him dearly. He chose to lie to himself thinking that THE Gojo Satoru was above all human weaknesses… including love. What an ignorant fucker he had been.

He wondered how you were doing and if you ever thought about him.

A frown made his handsome face look stern. Well… you were not alone anymore. Suguru also had stayed back in New York with you. After Satoru returned to Japan, Ijichi told him Geto Suguru wouldn’t be working out of Japan anymore. He had requested a transfer to the Americas.

Of course he did…

It had been one of the reasons Satoru fucked so many women. In his delusional mind he was ‘getting even’ with you for sleeping with Suguru. Not that he knew for a fact you were sleeping with him or not but… I mean….

Come on! It’s mother fucking Geto Suguru we are talking about here! 6’2 of pure sculpted muscles, tattoos and bad boy looks but with a Prince Charming complex. Yeah… Satoru was green with jealousy because he knew his former best friend was a better man for you than he ever was.

Looking down at his mochi bag he realized the small item had paid the price of his anger as he uncurled his death grip from the bag. Sighing he tossed the ruined pastry in the trash can to his left.

“Miss you….” He whispered to the wind.

———–

“I’m home!” You announced walking into your apartment. Setting you bag down as well as a couple of grocery bags “did you start dinner already?” You ask pleasantly surprised although you already knew the answer to that question since all the apartment smelled fantastic. Suguru walked out of the kitchen with a big smile wearing an apron that read ‘Kiss the Cheff’ nods “yes! I figured I would give you a hand tonight!” He answered as you walked to him to wrap your arms around his waist and give him a chaste kiss on his cheek “thank you Sugu. How was your mission?” You asked deciding to set up the table while Suguru finished dinner. “Not too bad actually, it was a special grade but nothing I couldn’t deal with” you returned a bright smile “I’m glad”

Your friendship with Suguru had slowly evolved into something else. You both spent all of your free time together. Your connection was deeper than mere sexual attraction. Suguru truly understood you, cared for you, shared your dreams and hopes. He was the type of poetic soul who would stay awake with you well into the night just to talk about the stars, the book you read that week that you loved, the new music you liked. It was wholesome.

On the more carnal side you desired Suguru and he desired you but you hadn’t taken what was going on between you two further than a few passionate make-out sessions and some cuddling.

After you last saw Satoru everything became worse before it got better. Suguru had been your rock, he had been there for the sleepless nights you spent crying. Without a word he held you in his strong arms and allowed you to let go. He knew you were deeply wounded, your emotions in disarray and your mental stability in peril. But Suguru never asked anything from you, he gave you the strength to go on. To take care of yourself, to keep going with your career. To have… hope.

It seemed like a dream to think that your life had changed so much in the span of a year. You weren’t able to recognise yourself anymore. Pain and duress molded you into someone new, better, more resilient, harder to hurt.

At this point, the only person you fully trusted was Suguru, he was always honest with you, no matter what happened or how much something hurt, he always remained true to himself and to you.

It was impossible not to love someone like him. He was the whole package.

Suguru was handsome, that was indisputable. But Geto was more than a pretty face. He was kind, truly kind! He did things out of the goodness of his heart, not because he expected anything in return. He was honest, Suguru Geto would never lie to you and THAT is what you loved the most about him.

He was patient.

He wanted you to be his but at the same time Suguru wanted you to heal, to have the chance to trust and love again, not as a means to forget about Satoru but because you wanted to choose a new path for yourself.

After diner you helped with the dishes and then settled on the couch. Suguru joined with a smile and two glasses of wine. He handed you one and sipped on the other one “what would you like to watch tonight Kitten?” He asked sitting next to you while picking a movie from the titles available on the screen of the tv.

“Anything you like! It’s your turn to pick” you said with a smile, leaning your head on his shoulder making Suguru smile. These tender displays of affection always made him feel so warm. Passing an arm around your shoulders he kissed your forehead.

You look up into his hazel eyes you blush. Suguru didn’t lose a second before he closed the space between your lips. The kiss was soft but meaningful, you didn’t hesitate to return it; wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him closer to then climb on his lap straddling his hips.

The handsome sorcerer leans back, relaxing and running his hands slowly up and down your naked thighs covered only by the small fabric of your shorts, he strokes them softly leaving a path of warmth in the wake of his touch. Suguru deepened the kiss. His tongue delved in your mouth, slowly inviting yours to join the delicious dance. After a few minutes you pulled back, you are breathless. Your heart beats fast and the adrenaline was making you dizzy in anticipation.

Suguru looks at you, leaning his forehead against yours “I missed you” he ads before engulfing you in another passionate kiss, not even giving you the chance to reply. This time his lips are more demanding, his teeth nibbling your lower lip, requesting entrance. His tongue still tastes like the wine and you recognize his addictive flavor. Suddenly you find yourself laying on your back on the white couch, Suguru is on top of you and your legs are wrapped around his waist. Things are getting much more heated than you anticipated. Your hands roam the expanse of his back over hard muscles and warm skin covered only by the thin layer of his t-shirt. You know if you keep going this way you won’t be able to stop.

https://youtu.be/yBatuRGZAmA

A part of you doesn’t want this to end, you want to go all the way with Suguru. But… as much as you hate it, there is a tiny part of you that feels ambivalent about it. You wonder why is that you can’t just… do it!? You want Suguru! God! You desire him more than you can express with words, the growing wetness between your legs is evidence that you indeed were very much sexually attracted to him and yet your mind kept torturing you.

It was… complicated.

Your marriage with Satoru have been over longer than that piece of paper you got last week said. But erasing your feelings wasn’t something you could ever hope to do.

As much as you wanted to give yourself to Suguru it felt wrong that you were holding a part of yourself back. You wanted to give him everything, he deserved EVERYTHING of you. It wouldn’t be fair to just have sex with him when he deserved to be made love to.

You love Suguru, everyday that goes by your feelings for him grow and intensify, it was hard to even understand why would you hesitate and yet you did.

Your passionate kiss slowly becomes more tender until you are just sharing small pecks. Suguru pulls back with a little comforting smile; he felt the change in your body language, he knew what was going through your mind. You explained it to him before and he didn’t want to push you. He knew you needed to go at your own pace and he respected that.

“I’m… so-“ you starts apologetically but Suguru stops you with a little kiss “don’t… don’t apologize, I know baby…” he said reassuringly. Sealing his tender words with a kiss. When you separate again he asks “Alright little kitten, tell me… what’s it gonna be? ‘Dorian Grey’ or ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’?” Pulling you in his strong arms he cuddled with you on the couch, returning to the choices for movie you had.

You were so thankful for this man in your life “let’s go with ‘Only Lovers left Alive’”

With a last kiss he started the movie and pulled a blanket over you both.

He could wait, he would wait till the end of time. For you.

———-> Chapter 13/Part 1

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@syynnaaah

@shaylove418

@coldvillainess

@vampgguk

@sukuna1stwife

@tampon-earrings

@actualdeemon

#gojo angst #gojo x you #jjk #geto x y/n #gojo saturo x reader #jjk suguru #jjkgojo #Youtube

[angelguk]

this prompt: jock!jaykay and namjoon running into each other at a party or sth and namjoon being like ‘you finally grow a pair and ask oc out yet?’ and jks just like 😧 and joons like ‘seriously dude? 😑 i’ve been waiting for you to ask her out since before i even dated her’. but make it more angst!!! namjoon is kind of an asshole here. there’s smoking, drinking and jk getting a brief lapdance. oc is a LIAR. jaykay deep in his feels tbh. roughly 1.5k. listen to all i wanted by paramore

Jeongguk's crossed too many paths with people during his life to remember every face his eyes have ever seen. But there’s one he will never forget, no matter how hard he tries to scrub the memory from his brain, ignore the muted forlorn twang in his heart, the low ache that ebbs from the base of his skull. It sparks up again despite years of never seeing the individual who caused the problem. How could he forget those broad shoulders? The sharp analytic eyes. The man whom you’d attached yourself too for a good chunk of your joint high school careers. It surprises him, honestly, because Jeongguk’s got a girl grinding on his lap but his eyes are locked on Namjoon, ears trailing after the sound of his deep laugh instead of the sweet nothings Nayeon (or Naeun, or Nayoung — he can’t fucking remember) is murmuring into the hollow of his neck.

For one, he’s fucked out of his mind. Taehyung probably laced the joint; he liked doing that shit even when it messed up Jeongguk’s trip. He should have known not to take a hit, but he was already ten shots in and nothing sounded better than smoke in his lungs. Maybe not nothing. This girl feels good in his hands, responds to the lightest of his touches, moans in his ear like she wants him to fuck her.

He could. He has before. Probably. She knows exactly where to nip his neck for this to have not been a repeat hook-up. But in the haze of the low living room lights and the spinning headiness of the drinks he’d downed, he couldn’t make out her face. It’d shift and twist and turn into an image that almost makes him want to cry because, at some angles, when the shadows form right, he thinks he can see your face. It could be you in his lap, you whimpering whenever your crotches aligned just right, you clinging to him like the sun hangs onto the evening sky.

But it’s not.

And for some unfathomable reason, Jeongguk’s ruined mind recognises that sucks.

Because it should be you.

He doesn’t know how he gets that girl off. Probably some lie that he needed to pee. In reality, he needed to breathe, because those thoughts surface with malicious intent, purposefully drawing him closer to deep dangerous waters. If he’s not careful he could easily drown, suffocated by desires he can’t even string together into a comprehensible sentence.

The night air hits sharp, seeping through his loose shirt. It grounds him enough for his steps to stabilise, feet following a slow trudge to the edge of the balcony. He doesn’t even know whose house this is. Somebody he’s probably never met honestly. But he wanted you to come. Everyone was coming out tonight. Even your elusive roommate Sohee was somewhere in some bathroom with a head between her thighs. You probably are doing that too, to be far. Even the name evokes bile from his throat, bitter and violent, full of jealousy he’d never really learnt to contain.

Lee Eunwoo. A graphic design major. Slightly taller than Jeongguk (only when Jeongguk is having a bad day) and somehow he can make you giggle like he’s getting paid for it.

You’d mentioned it so softly that Jeongguk didn’t even hear it at first. But then your cheeks had heated up, that stupid sparkle melting through your gaze. You wanted to spend the night with him, take advantage of an empty apartment, perhaps watch a movie or two.

It's obvious that you were going to sleep with him. The thought itself irked something visceral inside of Jeongguk. But he’d given you an easy smile, laughed at the modesty of your demeanour and wished you well with a tight hug. The same low buzzing of frustration that he got when you were with Namjoon was already waning through his system as he completed his sets at the gym with more force than needed.

Which is why he can’t help but release a bitter laugh into the night. Ironically, Namjoon was here while you were getting your back blown out by another idiotic guy Jeongguk did not like.

“What’s so funny?”

He can’t spin around to face him, Jeongguk knows he’ll throw up if he does. But he can’t forget a timbre like that. Not when you nearly wrote a poem about how wonderful Kim Namjoon’s voice was. A poem which you recited to Jeongguk before he begged you to rip it to shreds and never talk about again.

(Subconsciously Jeongguk had adopted a deeper voice whenever he talked to you since then. It came out more when he was drunk, but it’s not like you paid any attention anyway).

“Nothing,” he returns. He hopes Namjoon gets the hint and goes away. The bastard joins him on the balcony instead.

“No, seriously, what’s funny? You look like you’ve got a lot going on in your head.” Namjoon was always so concerned in talking about emotions and putting your feelings into words. It’s one of the reasons why you loved him and probably reason one thousand why Jeongguk hated him.

“Hello to you too, Kim Namjoon. Don’t you think we should catch up on the pleasantries before you start psychoanalysing me?” He retorts, forcing his gaze onto the other man. Namjoon looks good; golden skin, broad shoulders and his hair cropped short. There’s an ease to him that Jeongguk could never replicate no matter how hard he tried. Perhaps that’s what happens when you’re born sure of yourself. Like Namjoon was.

The laugh he receives is empty. Namjoon is busy rifling through his pockets, fingers emerging with a joint and a lighter. “Nice to see you too, Jeon. Didn’t think I’d ever bump into you after high school but the universe works in mysterious ways, doesn’t it?” The jay slips between his lips, followed by a swift flick of the lighter before a deep inhale that Jeongguk swears he feels in his lungs. The smoke floats out pretty, fading into wisps of nothing but grey as the breeze sweeps it away. Namjoon offers it cordially, a simple raise of his defined eyebrows and even though Jeongguk’s legs are melting through the floor he can’t say no.

“You sure?” The doubt tinting his tone makes him take it. His overestimation in his maintenance capabilities leads to a rather rough inhale, and an even worse hacking cough that he wants to be mortified at because Namjoon fucking laughs. But he can’t when the world feels like air in his fingertips, slowly slipping away. Almost like you feel at times. 

“You should stop taking the shit Taehyung rolls. I don’t even know what he slips in there but last time I smoked with him I thought I was on Mars.”

“Taehyung offers, I never ask.”

“You never ask for anything to be frank.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Namjoon returns, smoke falling from his lips.

“Yeah, I fucking did. I was giving you the chance to pretend you didn’t say it.” Jeongguk’s all in his space in an instant, the itch to smash Namjoon’s face tingling beneath his skin. Namjoon doesn’t even back up, gracing Jeongguk with a quizzical look that leaves him bewildered. “You don’t fucking know me—"

“I do.” There’s a scoff that riles him up even further. Namjoon’s still incredibly unbothered as he talks. “You think being Y/N’s boyfriend I didn’t hear everything and anything about you? Jeongguk this! Jeongguk that! You know that’s the reason we broke up, right?”

That halts him, a lag in his brain as he attempts to process the words leaving Namjoon’s mouth. The older man just stares at him, the sigh that drifts in between them bordering on pity.

“She didn’t tell you that, did she? Y/N lies about a lot more things than you think, Jeon. Where is she by the way? I’ve seen all her friends but I haven’t seen her.”

“Why would you know her friends?” It’s a stupid question but in the jumble of his thoughts it’s the only thing his mind is capable of plucking out. A question that doesn’t leave him bare and vulnerable like the other one’s racing through his head.

“We don’t have each other blocked on everything. Sometimes we talk,” Namjoon supplies easily. And just like that Jeongguk crumbles. He’s not even aware of it but the first crack spears deep enough to leave the rest of him unstable, wavering as he falters away from Namjoon. You never told him any of this. As far as Jeongguk knew you ended the relationship hating him (a thought that briefly consoled Jeongguk if he’s being truthful). But apparently, you felt comfortable enough to share your life with the person Jeongguk thought hurt you the most.

“Man, fuck you.” It’s a release, to say it. Because honestly fuck Kim Namjoon. In the span of a few short sentences he’s tipped everything he’s ever been sure of upside-down, stomped on Jeongguk’s heart like it was bendable and ducked his head right into the ocean he was afraid of diving it, keeping it under until the water filled his lungs and Jeongguk ceased to function.

Namjoon shrugs, not even looking as Jeongguk stumbles back to the door. He needs to find you, ask how much of Namjoon’s words were true. He doesn’t care if Eunwoo is over he’ll kick him out if need be.

But then Namjoon opens his mouth one more time, the final nail in the coffin.

“You should have asked her out. I was waiting for you to it — she was probably waiting too.”

#jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #yeah yeah this is bad but um! i tired #sorry i took away the wholesome couple trope... i think jj oc and jk have shit to work out tbh #au: jock!jaykay #thank u for the prompt annonie!! #bts x reader #bts angst

[eclectickss]

PGATW Part 2

Wanda Maximoff x Natasha Romanoff x OC (fem!reader)

Summary: The avengers take a vacation to a private island rental off of the Georgia coast! You now have an opportunity to spend time with your new family, especially Wanda and Natasha.

Word Count: 2.4K

Check out my main post for links to the rest of the parts.

You immediately lunged for Wanda's lips, finding them instantaneously. Her kiss was strong with soft lips, and all you wanted to do was melt into the connection. Natasha reached to cup the closer side of your face, and when you break for air, you lock eyes with the other woman before reaching in to kiss her too. Natasha was more gentle than Wanda, but your thoughts were either blasting or non-existent. It didn't matter, though, because you couldn't focus on them.

Wanda brings her hand over your shoulder and down your spine, then slowly up your loose t-shirt. The skin-on-skin contact makes you shiver as you climb on Natasha, pinning her down on the bed. You run kisses from the base of her ear to her collarbone, pulling at the skin just to leave a small mark, eliciting a small hum out of the assassin.

You sit back up over Natasha's hips to reach back to Wanda's jawline, pulling her in for another deep kiss. Using one hand, you reach to massage Natasha's chest, and with the other, you slip it under Wanda's top and up around her back to pull her closer.

Natasha lifts a thigh to put friction on your center, inevitably causing you to moan into the Sokovian's mouth. You return your lips and hands back to Natasha while Wanda works to slip off your shirt.

With your shirt now off, everyone takes a moment to stare at you. You begin to feel shy, pulling your arms to cover your body.

"Don't", Wanda says, standing behind you at the base of the bed. She wraps her arms around you to re-expose your image.

"You're stunning." Natasha nearly whispers, causing you to deeply blush. Wanda's lips connect with the top of your shoulder and Nat's hands scale your thighs and ass, and you groan. Your own hands find their way under the assassin's top, but that's when Wanda unclips your bra.

"Wait", You almost shout, and Wanda re-clips your garment while Natasha slips her hands off of you.

"What is it, Talia?" Wanda says quietly, both her and Nat a little nervous.

"I just- um- this- this is a lot for one night. I-" You pause. "Don't get me wrong, everything is amazing, i'm amazing... you both are... incredible... but I need- i need a second to process before.. uhh before I get too carried away." You blush and roll off of Natasha, hiding your face in your hands from embarrassment.

"That's ok, Talia. We understand." Nat pats your knee, giving a soft smile.

"We honestly didn't expect to get this far, so we are just happy that you want to be a part of our relationship", Wanda adds.

"I- I really am sorry- I- I got you all worked up and let you down and I-" Your words jumble as you slip your t-shirt back on.

"Hey," The assassin interrupts. "You did not let us down, baby." You blush at the pet name. "And we have our own ways of working off what you worked up, so don't you worry about that." She smirked, watching your wide-eyed reactions. Wanda laughed at that.

"We can just spend time together these next two weeks, but whenever you want to get more intimate, you let us know, Talia. Take your time." Wanda spoke softly while reaching for Natasha's hand to help her stand up.

"Ok. I like that." You smiled. "In the meantime... goodnight I guess? I don't really want to kick you both out but I clearly still have a bit of packing to do..." you glanced around at the messy room.

"That's alright, Talia. So do we." Wanda laughed.

"Would it be acceptable though if we got a goodnight kiss?" Nat requested softly, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Without replying, you pulled the redhead into a kiss, followed by Wanda who's lips curled into a smirk at the end.

"I liked the red suit the best," she said, leaning into your ear, loud enough for Natasha to hear but still quiet enough to send a shiver down your spine.

And with that, the two women left your room.

You internally moaned as you grabbed the red suit out of the box and threw it into the suitcase. You finally had Natasha and Wanda. Why did you want to stop?

With a lot more thinking left to do than packing, you picked up your phone to text Peter.

Emergency. Can I come over?

Of course. Give me 30 seconds to tell Aunt May.

You breathe again, using your short span of time to finish packing and cleaning up your swimsuits. The moment that you set the box down in your closet, you turn around and open a portal to Peter's apartment.

Meanwhile, down the hall, Natasha and Wanda went to finish packing.

"Well, that was a success..." Natasha smiled, leaning back against the door.

"It most certainly was. Do you think she really just needs a moment to process or do you think she's nervous? Or maybe she already regrets saying yes?" Wanda couldn't meet Natasha's eyes as she placed a stack of clothes into her bag.

"I really do think that she just needs to process, but realistically, she's probably also terrified, Wanda. We are the only people besides Peter who have shown her an appreciative amount of kindness on this team, and I think she's nervous about letting us down or losing us."

"Oh." Wanda thought about that for a moment. "It's hard to communicate that, isn't it? How do we tell her that we only want things to change for the better?"

"Well, I think we do exactly that, honey. We need to sit her down tomorrow and tell her that we can simply be friends if she ever wanted to drop out. We have to reassure her that no matter what, we three still have a connection, whether it be platonic or romantic."

"Okay. We should probably also lay off of the suggestive sex, Nat."

"What... why? It's fun to watch her squirm," She smirked and Wanda smiled.

"While I know everyone gets a rise out of the sexual tension, it wouldn't be fair to Talia. I don't want to make her feel like all we want from her is sex."

"I see. That's going to be hard, you know..." Natasha finally zipped up her duffle bag, placing it off to the side and sitting on the bed.

"Oh no, I know." Wanda did the same, the two of them now sitting in front of one another. "You can just take your... frustrations... out on me until then, ok?" A hand crept onto Nat's knee.

"I am very... frustrated, now that you mention it..." Natasha replied and Wanda smiled, the two of them excited to finally release everything they had been working up throughout the day.

——— "SO THEY TOLD YOU THAT THEY LIKED YOU??" Peter whisper-shouted as the two of you sat down on his bed. You nodded silently, still having trouble processing the information yourself. "I- you must feel like the luckiest girl in the world, Tal."

"I do... I really do. I like them a whole bunch though, and I am just scared to mess it up."

"Is that why you stopped the- uhh"

"Yes, Peter." You laughed. "That's why I didn't have sex with them. I don't want to lose what we already have, nor do I want to be in a relationship only for intercourse."

"Well, you should tell them that... don't you think?" You looked at him. "Well, they seem to be pretty understanding so far, Talia. You have been given something cool. Don't waste it because of bad communication." Peter allowed that sink in. You knew he was right. And while confrontation wasn't your strongest attribute, you knew it was important. And this was important to you. Natasha and Wanda are important to you.

"Thank you, Web Kid." You smiled. "That actually helped a lot."

He laughed and returned the grin. "Of course it did. You still have packing to do though, Tal. So do I. So you can't stick around here much longer." You sighed.

"Yeah yeah I know. Thank you for your time Dr. Parker. I'll see you in the morning."

"Haha," he mocked. "Let me know how that conversation goes tomorrow. And don't portal outta here before saying goodbye to Aunt May. She misses you."

"Alright will do. Goodnight, Peter."

"Night, Tal."

You smiled and left his room, even though your stomach was turning with the thoughts of the conversation that you would have tomorrow with the two women. ——— "Good morning Avengers" Jarvis echoed through the building. "Mr. Stark has asked me to inform you all to get up and prepare for the day. Be in the common areas with your luggage in one hour."

You groaned after your restless night of sleep. Your packing had kept you up a little later than you expected, but truthfully, your nerves were the thing holding you back from dreaming.

And now was your chance to face those nerves. It's just a silly conversation with Natasha and Wanda. Nothing to be worried about. Except, you know, the fate of your friendship.

You sighed as you tossed the covers off of you, not wasting time in getting to the bathroom to make yourself look slightly presentable. The oversized t-shirt and spandex were not your concern, but instead, it was your face and contacts that you couldn't seem to find. You brushed your teeth and got the knots out of your hair, but other than putting on your glasses and a pair of doughnut socks, you left to face the two women who had been making your stomach turn.

The walk down the hallway to their room was inevitably short, but somehow it felt like miles. When you finally reached their door, you held your fist up to knock, but instead, the door opened before you got the chance to touch it.

"Oh, hey Talia," Wanda exclaimed with Natasha standing right behind her.

"Uhh..." You were a little thrown off.

"We want to talk."

"I want to talk."

You three said at the same time.

"We were actually just coming over to you-" Natasha added.

"Uhh- I mean- we can go over to my room if-"

"No." The assassin almost yelled. "This is perfect. Come in."

"Ok." You entered their space in a gentle manner. Their room was rather simple but warm. "Is it alright if I sit?"

"Oh- of course." Wanda stumbled. "Just- take a seat wherever you like." The two women slightly blushed as you hopped up on their bed, an odd silence now filling the room.

"Do you two - uhh... want to sit down too?" You pushed out. They awkwardly walked around opposite sides of the bed to sit at the top, now facing you.

"So," Natasha started. "Do you want to go first?" Everyone's heart was racing.

"No- uhh... please. you can. please."

"Ok. Well, we just wanted to readdress some of the things we said yesterday." The assassin began. "When we said that you can drop out whenever you like with no strings attached, we meant it. We both value your friendship and that is the last thing we want to lose." You took a deep breath, a lot of the worry coming off of your shoulders already. "Us asking you to be a part of our relationship was influenced by our mutual crush on you, as well as the kindness and energy that you had already put on the table. It was not influenced by your body or sexual aura, (while we did think of it as an added bonus) it never affected our decision." You blushed at that last mark, and the two women allowed that all to set in. Once you had come to terms with their words, you slowly leaned up the mattress to pull Wanda and then Natasha into a slow kiss.

"Thank you... for that. You kinda answered my call already, but I wanted to tell you the real reason I pulled away last night." You had their full attention. "I was... scared... to be honest. I value you both a lot as friends, and I didn't want our relationship to be simply... sex. I wanted everything that we already had, with sex and labels and the fluff as a bonus." You blushed into your hands when you felt a hand on your back.

"We want the same thing then, Talia." Now the witch could feel you shiver as your name rolled off of her accent, getting a giggle out of her.

"Is that all that's on your chest, baby?" Natasha spoke softly.

"I uhh- no.." You thought of the other prick that you couldn't bring yourself to tell Peter. "Umm..."

"Hey, it's, ok... you don't have to tell us now."

"No- i- I want to. it's just... I haven't really done this before."

"What... be in a poly relationship?" Wanda asks.

"No, I- I mean yes I haven't been in a poly relationship before... but I was talking about the other thing..."

"You mean sex?" Nat replied.

You smiled shyly, meeting eyes with the two women.

"Hey, don't worry about it, Talia." Wanda laughed. "We can show you along the way, but you honestly seemed like a pro last night." You laughed, thinking about the endless hours of fan fiction you read before even getting your powers.

"Ok. I like that plan."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I do."

Wanda leaned in to kiss you, but before she could make it, you jumped.

"We leave in 30 minutes, Avengers." Jarvis interrupted.

"Damn." Your heart raced. "I've got to go finish getting ready." The two women laughed at you, both not affected by the jump-scare. You get up to leave, but Wanda's voice stops you before you reach the door.

"Hey, Talia." You turn around. "Why don't we all go on a date when we get to the beach. Just the three of us?" She turned to Natasha who was smiling, obviously not expecting it either. This made you extremely happy though because it meant that they genuinely wanted you and not just your body.

"Absolutely." You smiled as you left to grab your suitcase.

"Wanda..." Nat started once you were gone. "Fuck you for the 'no sexually suggestive comments' rule."

Wanda's eyes widened.

"She looked so hot, honey. Her socks were cute too."

"Well technically since she has communicated her real concerns about sex, we don't have to restrict anything," Wanda smirked. "Just take it a little slow?"

"Sounds good to me." She smiled as the two of them grabbed their packed bags and headed to breakfast.

#wanda maximoff #natasha romanoff #wanda x oc #wanda x reader #natasha x oc #natasha x reader #wanda x natasha x reader #natasha x wanda x reader #gxgxg smut #marvel gxgxg #gxgxg

[yong-bokk]

all in²

pairing: special agent ! lee felix x medical examiner ! reader

genre: f for fluff and felix

warnings: mentions of dead bodies and a ghost.. or a murderer... or a ghost murderer

welcome back to skz criminal investigation division !!

today

i’d like to introduce you to special agent lee felix yongbok ( ⁎ᵕᴗᵕ⁎ ）

he’s one of the two agents with the prettiest long blond hair in the division in the whole wide world

also has the prettiest !! freckles !! that looks like stardust sprinkled all over his cheeks

to conclude: felix looks like a tiny ball of sunshine,

especially when he smiles ,,

BUT he can kick ass real hard ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

very good with weapons and combat in general

he also has the deepest voice which comes in handy during interrogations

“stand up and show your skills you know the drill”

[phone] points for intimidation >:

don’t u worry though

bc he’s nothing but a cuddle bug and the sweetest ball of fluff to his loved ones ‧⁺✧(⁙´ワ`⁙)⁺

and that will include u

ESPECIALLY u

but first ! u’ll have to meet him

so u, my precious reader, are the new medical examiner in the office yay!!!

it has only been a week since u started ur new job and u’re still trying to adjust

but thankfully u have seungmin, the senior medical examiner and also ur new partner, who has been so so helpful and friendly

u’ve been so busy during ur first week with work and all the transfer administrations that u haven’t got the chance to formally meet everyone

so far u’ve only met, well, seungmin

and the unit chief, bang chan, who is very friendly too

but one day !!

an unfamiliar face showed up at the medical examiner’s office |ω・)

GUESS WHO

i’m going to give u a clue

long blond hair, prettiest freckles, and a BLINDING smile

YES

FELIX (♡ > ◡ < )

he came to ur office to fetch a report from seungmin

and that’s when he saw u for the first time

u were bagging up a few articles of clothing to send to forensics

felix never thought anyone could make a lab coat look so pretty

but THERE U WERE LOOKING LIKE AN ANGEL

u: exist

felix’s lovestruck braincells: (⸝⸝⸝ᵒ̴̶̷ ｡ ᵒ̴̶̷⸝⸝⸝)(⸝⸝⸝ᵒ̴̶̷ ｡ ᵒ̴̶̷⸝⸝⸝)(⸝⸝⸝ᵒ̴̶̷ ｡ ᵒ̴̶̷⸝⸝⸝)

cue: felix embarrassing himself in front of u

“hi, i’m here to r-report”

?????????

u are ??????(・ ・ ? confused

bc the most beautiful person u’ve ever seen just popped out of nowhere and says he’s here to report?

what does he even have to reportksljflkasdf

“hi! uhm i’m sorry, report what?”

“the medical report….?”

????????????????what????????

“OHH u mean u’re here for the medical report? hold on”

……

out of his entire lifetime

his brain choses to be dysfunctional right there in front of u

felix, deep down inside: i want to. (」｡≧□≦)」 D I S SIPATE. (」｡≧□≦)」

“oh right y-yeah, for the burn victim”

u hand him a copy of the report u had prepared and walked him through some of the findings

“we found something in the victim’s ear but i think we haven’t heard back from the lab-“

“hey yn they ran out of the cookies u wanted- oh! (｡･o･｡)ﾉ hey felix!”

“h-hi seungmin”

seungmin looks at him weirdly bc ??? what was that

who is this and what have they done with felix, his giggly cuddlebug of a friend

ANYWAYS

after u finished going through everything, felix said thank u and bolted out of ur office so quick

chan: “u okay there, buddy? u look.. uh”

“……that’s exactly how i feel too”

since then on

he never stops thinking about u

also keeps reminding himself of how embarrassing he was and gets sad over it again • ʖ̯ • )

not that he knows but !! u keep thinking of him too

u’re a little sad that all u know about him is that his name is felix (he didn’t even tell u himself :c ) and that he’s one of the special agents in chan’s division

but u two don’t see each other again after that for awhile

the next time u saw him was when u got back to ur office after lunch break

felix was fetching another report from seungmin

and he was all smiley and giggly (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ* with seungmin but the moment u walked into the room

he just smiles awkwardly at u and rushes out

u figured that he’s uncomfortable whenever u’re around

:(

and it was like that for a very long time

he’d come in with chan sometimes for the reports

and he’d be like buddy-buddy with seungmin but whenever u’re there he’s just hhshdfhshfgotta go

u wanted to be his friend too because he looks so lovely to be around :(

little did u know that he’s just shy because he likes u like A LOT and his brain just short circuits whenever u’re within his eyesight :(

u got felix going dumb da da dumb (sorry)

but stop being sad bc

here comes !! the twist to the plot !! (｡✧ᴗ✧｡)

one day

u were working late and we’re talking like LATE late because

(1) seungmin was out of office for a hearing, and

(2) suddenly 4 new bodies came into the office in a span of 2 hours?!@?!?!@# and u were currently in the brink of breaking down ；—；

but seungmin didn’t raise no quitter

with the power of coffee and anime by ur side, u started working through the bodies one by one

it’s a little past midnight now and u were quite sure the last light outside ur office turned off a couple hours ago and

u see

u could just leave and have seungmin work at it in the morning

but the caffeine in ur bloodstream said u wouldn’t be able to sleep once u get home anyway so

(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و back to work (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و

u were scraping something from the last victim’s nails when suddenly ??? the lights went off

ok let’s be real

u are ⁿᵒᵗ afraid

u work with dead bodies every. day. but it’s god knows what o’clock in the morning AND NOW it’s pitch black and u just hhhhSHDFHS

ur hand went into ur pocket to fish out ur phone but then u remembered that u left it to charge on ur table AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM

reader u dummy

u didn’t know how long u froze in that same spot bc ???u’re kinda afraid and u couldn’t see anything

but suddenly u heard the sound of glass shattering and someone’s groan and u thought

this is it this is ur END

seungmin is going to walk into this office tomorrow and find 5 bodies instead of 4

u crouched as a horrible attempt to hide from the ghost……….. or potential murderer…………. honestly u don’t know which one’s better (maybe bc the answer is NOT BOTH??!)

u were internally cursing about how u could’ve had a scalpel in hand for self protection but instead all u had with u was a goddamn TOOTHPICK when u felt something? or someone?touch ur shoulder

“hey-“

“p leasedon’t kill me i’m new here i really don’t know anything pleaseiwon’t sayanything to anyone”

“YN IT’S ME”

“THEY EVEN KNOW MY NAME ALREADYSDKFJSK I REALLY DON’T WANT TO D-“ Σ(ﾟДﾟ；≡；ﾟдﾟ)

“i’m not here to kill usdfskdfjs it’s me!! felix”

,,,,,,,,

felix? (･Θ･)

well

that was

,,,,,,,,embarrassing

“w-what are u doing here?”

“the electricity got cut off and i heard hyunjin say u’re working late and probably still down here so… (´ . .̫ . `) i came here to check on u”

u could barely make out his face in the dark but he was close enough u could see him smiling at u

the two of u just stayed there crouching on the ground and u were just about to say something when suddenly the lights flickered on again

( 〃．．) ohsldkfjs he’s so close and if he keeps smiling that lovely u swear u’ll combust

“are u gonna go home yet?”

“i-i’m not done yet”

“oh ! i’ll wait for u”

“WHAT no it’s late go home”

!!!!

“exactly! it’s late!! i’m not letting u go home at 3 in the morning by urself”

so u quickly finish and when u’re done u found felix nearly dozing off on ur table </3

how can a person be so CUTE ◕︿◕

he walked u home and offered u his jacket along the way

(wouldn’t take no for an answer)

it was a little awkward bc the two of u are just very very Shy

but u enjoyed his company

when u finally arrived at ur apartment,

the two of u just stood there for a little while, u fiddling with ur bag and him with his earring

“i-“ “hey-“

“sorry, u go first”

“i apologize for scaring u earlier…. whenever we meet i just always embarrass myself”

he mumbled the second half of his sentence and ur sleep-deprived brain couldn’t make out what he said but !! he looked so disappointed (っ◞‸◟c)

so u gave him a tiny hug

“no, thank you for checking up on me earlier and for walking me home”

:o

felix was bright red

shy shy felix shy

“no worries..” ⁄(⁄ ⁄•⁄ ⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄ “i guess.. i uh- i’ll get going, yeah? see u tomorrow?”

“see u tomorrow, be safe”

felix waited until u went inside and then let out a giggle

u hugged him

this is the BEST day of his life

it doesn't even matter if his house is on the other side of the city

he’d walk u home every day if it means u would hug him again

bonus:

“thanks for walking me home again” (⌒⌣⌒ )

lix looked like he was about to ask u something

but all he could say is his usual “no worries”

u see

felix has been meaning to ask u for ur number for a WEEK now but he just couldn’t seem to get the words out of his head >:

he was just about to chicken out once again when u fished out ur phone and gave it to him

“u know… i’d say text me when u get home but i don’t have ur number”

smooth reader very smooth (＾⌒＾*)

he thanked the heavens he didn’t drop ur phone when typing in his number because boy was he SHAKING

the two of u stayed up all night texting and neither could stop smiling that day

#felix #lee felix #stray kids #stray kids felix #skz #skz felix #stray kids fluff #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #skz fluff #skz imagines #skz scenarios #felix fluff #felix scenarios #felix imagines #felix x reader #:felix #:fluff

[tobiosmilktea]

umpah umpah! smau

↪︎ bokuto x f!reader x iwaizumi

[008] — we meet again!

masterlist | prev. | next

a/n: i was listening to hozier while writing this which explains why both bokuto and iwaizumi is whipped for the mc ✨

asking if you were okay was a good question. really, it is—too bad you didn’t know the answer to that very question no matter how grossly interchangeable the words were tossed around and scrambled into nuances phrases. if anything, it made your mood turn even more sour as your two best friends tried their best to calm you down. keyword: tried

kaori was too busy dying of laughter as she would tease the glaring look on your face. “you’re going to pop a blood vessel, honey.” she snickered, holding her stomach as it ached under the constant tension.

meanwhile akaashi was still profusely apologizing beneath the latter’s amusement. a sigh left your lips for the umpteenth time in the span of five minutes as your arms braided over each other in frustration. “what the fuck are you trying to get at, keiji?”

a gasp practically escaped kaori as she slapped her hand over her mouth, “(y/n) used your first name, that’s how you now she’s pissed off.”

akaashi could only roll his eyes. it was to his best bet to ignore any of kaori’s quips as she’s known to escalate things just by the power of that witty brain of hers. “nothing!” the editor exclaimed as he turned back to you, “i just figured it wasn’t a big deal since you and bokuto both said you guys ended on good terms. besides, i warned you to check the list.”

“okay, but that doesn’t explain the fact that iwaizumi is here!” it was at this moment that you were glad the music was pumping loudly through the venue speakers to hide over your shouts.

“i told you they work for the same team, but i didn’t know they were friends until i saw who bokuto wanted to invite!”

you groan, “unbelievable.”

“i just don’t think you should let their presence ruin the rest of the night, (y/n).” akaashi mentions flatly.

“i agree,” kaori suddenly cuts in, “it’s your party, you could kick them out if you want.” she suggests with an impish tone and an expression laced in provocation.

“i’m not going to kick them out, kaori—” you’re interrupted then as she swiftly elbows you in the breast, “ouch! what was that for?”

 “sorry, i was aiming for your ribs not your titty.” she laughs briefly before motioning to a familiar figure making it’s way towards you three. perhaps it was his height that triggered a response in you to cause your heart to rapidly thump against your ribcage, but honestly, it was probably his spiked hair with white tips that was the perpetrator. “is that bokuto? oh fuck, he’s coming, act natural.”

great, you thought. you had to fight the urge to just walk away a leave, but you knew it wasn’t going to end well whatever you did. knowing your luck, you were going to stumble upon this man one way or another.

“akaashi, there you are!” bokuto calls out over the crowd, serpentining his way through groups of conversating individuals to reach his best friend. but in all honesty, akaashi knew what this guy was doing. bokuto didn’t listen to a word he said in his text messages as the volleyball player ended up coming over here either way just to talk to you.

you’re over (y/n) my ass, akaashi thinks to himself, feigning from rolling his eyes again because at this point, it was just a matter of time before everything came crashing down.

it almost felt like a target was on you, perhaps a red laser shining right in the middle of your forehead the moment bokuto flickered his attention to you. “(y/n)! it’s so nice seeing you again!”

you nod as an awkwardly smile melted on your expression, “it’s nice seeing you too, bokuto.” despite your meek demeanor, what you said certainly wasn’t a lie. you would be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t miss bokuto and his warming aura. you suppose it was the sudden meeting that caused your fight or flight response to suddenly kick in.

bokuto’s eyebrows furrow slightly, “bokuto? what happened to calling me kou?”

as if the situation wasn’t already difficult being in, it was as if he flicked another match into the burning dumpster fire of a party. “well... we haven’t seen each other in years, so i thought it was appropriate.”

“ah...” his voice trailed on as a few beats of silence ensued.

“oh shit,” kaori suddenly curses under her breath as she nonchalantly spilled his drink all over her arm. “um, akaashi could you come and help me clean this off?” she asks in faux concern, not bothering to give the guy a chance to answer as she tugged him away.

you couldn’t help but feel a faint smirk forming on your lips as you watched the two disappear into the crowd. kaori was always good at acting herself out of awkward situations that you honestly had to applaud her. maybe later you would teasingly remind her to audition for the webtoon’s live action just to spite her. it was just a little mindless payback for leaving you alone with your ex-boyfriend.

your striking gazes met again as you turned your attention back towards bokuto. at first glance, he looked exactly the same as you last saw him—then again, the last time you did see bokuto was when you two decided to break up on the day before graduation, you couldn’t remember much of him as it was dark under the midnight sky as tears blurred your vision. even when things ended up mutual with no hard feelings, you still couldn’t help but feel a tug at your heart when you recalled the way bokuto looked at you then.

it was hard to sleep that night. 

it was a bizarre juxtaposition of comparing eighteen year old bokuto to him now. rather than appearing before you with messy hair and tears streaming down his face, he was beaming in some contagious lightheartedness. it was a feeling you never thought you would feel so nostalgic in as he still smelt like fresh chamomile. he was much bigger now, more buff as one would say and not to mention taller as well.

perhaps going professional really treated this man wonders as you had to admit how increasingly more attractive he has gotten.

“you look great, by the way.” bokuto says, pulling you out of your thoughts as you realize how long you have been staring.

“thanks...” god, this is awkward. this certainly wasn’t leaving a good impression on your part, “you don’t look too bad either.”

a red tint burned at the tips of bokuto’s ears as he scratched the nape of his neck like it was some kind of nervous tic. he usually doesn’t get nervous meeting people, new or old, yet there was something about the way you look at him even after all these years that would send his heart rate into the extremes. he hated how this all ended due to your differing aspirations. “congrats on having a successful webtoon. love cemetery is amazing and i’m obsessed if you couldn’t already tell.”

“i never really pinned you to be one of my biggest fanboys, you know.”

“i’ve always been your biggest fanboy,” bokuto assured with a smirk, “how about you, are you still my biggest fangirl?”

you playfully scoffed at his statement, “um...”

“um?” he pressed, finding the amusement in your eyes adorable.

“i dunno, i haven’t really kept up with volleyball after high school.” you chuckled, swirling the contents of your drink in your hand. “besides, i think you have enough fangirls drooling over you.”

“who needs all of them if i have you?”

you rolled your eyes as you took a sip from the alcohol in your hands. “you’re flirting again.”

“isn’t that the reason why you dated my in the first place?” bokuto jested, feeling the burning in his cheeks as he couldn’t stop smiling. this was progress to him knowing that this playful banter was enough to surely get you two to reconnect again.

you peered your eyes at him suspiciously, “you’re planning something, aren’t you?”

“you’re making it sound like i’m evil!”

“well, are you?”

“of course i’m not,” said bokuto, “i just wanted us to be friends again.”

“you’re kidding.”

he shook his head, “never in a million years.”

you weren’t sure if it was his words that made your chest feel warm or if it was the alcohol in your system. regardless, you refused to let bokuto affect you so easily in a span of a couple minutes even if you took your alcohol well.

“at least you weren’t kidding when you said you were going professional.” you hummed, leaning against one of the smaller round tables as you stared into the crowd. you were hoping bokuto would do the same, but he’d rather look at you than a congregation of random strangers.

“and you weren’t kidding either when you said you wanted to become an artist.”

“i mean, becoming a webtoon artist wasn’t exactly what i thought i was going to be, but i’m glad where i am now in life.” you answered as your eyes wandered the room.

“even without me in it?” god, what a flirt.

that infamous laugh of yours emitted from your cherry-colored lips. it was the type of laugh everyone found themselves attracted to and never annoyed, in fact, it was the laugh bokuto hadn’t even realized he missed so much until the moment it left you.

his mindless attempts at flirting was catching up to you now as you couldn’t fight the feeling of the heat rising to your cheeks. “well, you’re right in front of me aren’t you?”

“things are different know, though...”

“right but—” you tried to respond, but was inevitably interrupted by yuko.

she came up to you in a slight hurry, calling out your name before apologizing to bokuto. “sorry to cut your conversation so short, but i need (y/n) to come take care of something for me.”

confusion melted upon your expression as you turned to her, “we do?”

“we do,” she huffs.

“it’s alright,” bokuto says while motioning for you to follow suit of your manager. “let’s catch up more sometime, yeah?”

you smile at him, one that’s less mediocre and awkward and a bit more genuine. “of course,” was the last thing you could say before yuko yanked at your arm once again until you were in just another body in the crowd.

despite yuko’s hand firmly gripped around your wrist to ensure you wouldn’t get lost in the sea of people, it was difficult trying to focus at one thing at a time. at first it was the worry about your manager and her sudden interruption, but now it was trying your best not to spill your drink due to all the drunken bodies bumping into yours. were there really this many people on the invite list?

grumbling to your self, you threw your head back as you finished the last bits of drink in your hand while you were pulled through the crowd like a ragdoll. having to pay for a stranger’s dry cleaning due to a spilled drink was the last thing on your mind right now.

“what did you want me to help you with?” you shout over to your manager once she slowed down.

“nothing,” said yuko over her shoulder, “i was watching you and bokuto talk and you kept getting redder and redder i thought you were going to pass out.”

embarrassment flushed through, cheeks heating up again at the thought. “ugh, was it that obvious?” you groaned as your head fell from the utter humiliation that was coursing through your body at that moment—far too distracted that your humiliation could only worsen the moment you bumped into another.

“sorry, i wasn’t looking—” the apologetic tone in your voice subsided as your eyes flickered up to whoever’s chest it was up to a yet another familiar face.

“(y/n)?” he says.

“iwaizumi?” you say.

your names were jumbled up in unison just as much as your thoughts immediately dissipated into thin air. just my luck, huh? you swore you were dreaming. nothing in the absolute world could possibly make such a ironic turn of events as if you were in some melodrama yourself. call it fate or destiny, but bumping into both of your exes within a span of ten minutes was something you never would’ve wished upon yourself.

“it’s um... fancy meeting you here.” you start the second you flicker a look over to yuko as she could only give you a pitiful smile. “it’s been a while, right?”

regardless of the confident aura you were extruding right now, you were completely freaking out for the third time this evening. you knew today was going to affect you emotionally, but you wasn’t expecting it to be like this. you were expecting to get a bit emotional due to the fact your webtoon that you poured your absolute heart and soul into has come to an end and not because two attractive dudes from your past just coincidentally came back into your life.

and yet it didn’t matter, it wasn’t like iwaizumi could see through that little façade of false confidence in your expression as it felt like he was meeting you for the first time all over again. it fit all down to a tee from the way his adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat to his breath hitching from the sight or to the infamous monarch butterflies tickling his gut.

“it’s nice to see you too, (y/n)...” his words trailed as you couldn’t help but notice how deeper his voice had gotten since the last time you’ve seen him. granted, he was fifteen back then and had a lot of time to grow up and become this absolute adonis.

iwaizumi certainly wasn’t planning on coming across you this evening either. if anything, you two both shared that internal panic when your eyes briefly met at the start of the party. however, he couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved knowing that in the end you two did manage to cross ways. he supposes that after seeing you and bokuto talk as if you two have known each other for years created an inkling feeling in his gut.

he hates the way you distracted him the majority of the night. it wasn’t like you two were on talking terms especially after years of not seeing each other, yet it felt strange for him to even let himself feel this way.

besides, iwaizumi felt absolutely terrible knowing satomi was trying her hardest to capture his lingering attention by making conversation about anything—literally anything.

anyone who had been friends with iwaizumi in the past know he’s an absolute sweetheart, but at the same time, he’s honest. he’s not the type to hesitate in telling someone the cold hard truth even if it meant hurting their feelings, yet whenever he would look at satomi, he couldn’t bring himself to say that he wasn’t interested in the conversation.

you cleared your throat, pulling iwaizumi back from his thoughts, “so... i heard that you became the new athletic trainer for the black jackals.” the man before you nods as he was stilling taking you all in. was he staring at you for that long? “i thought were living in california, why the sudden change of plans?”

iwaizumi shrugs as he took a sip of his beer, “i ended up getting a better job offer here, so i decided to move back. why? have you missed me?”

the moment those words left his lips, he immediately wanted to slap his hand over his mouth and cringe. why was he suddenly so flirtatious with you? was it because he saw you and bokuto flirting earlier, was that it?

you chuckled in amusement as you nod. you honestly weren’t going to lie that his words did catch you off guard for a second. something like this was definitely not in iwaizumi’s handbook his (more or less) complicated personality, yet you decided to play along anyway. “of course i have, iwa! i’m not soulless, you know.”

iwa? the man before thought to himself, what happened to haji? he shook the thought out of his as he opened his mouth in attempt to speak, but he noticed your attention leaving his and onto the person beside him.

satomi cleared her throat as she looks at him innocently, waiting for iwaizumi to introduce her to you.

“oh uh,” he motions his head to the team’s physical therapist next to him, “this is yahagi satomi, she’s my—”

“—date for this evening,” she cuts iwaizumi off and answers for him, catching him a bit off guard and confused, yet he doesn’t correct her. granted, satomi was his plus one so it made sense.

you purse your lips as you took in her features. she was a bit on the shorter side with her long copper hair pulled back into a sleek high ponytail as her bangs were styled perfectly to fit her face. semi was right, she is pretty. it was then you stuck your hand out for her to shake, feeling who cold her palm was compared to yours. “it’s nice to meet you. how long have you two been together?” you ask out of the blue.

i mean, what’s wrong with a little curiosity?

“oh no, we’re not together.” iwaizumi is quick to answer, not even noticing satomi’s slight change in expression when she parted her lips to answer herself. “she’s just my plus one because bokuto told us to.”

you nod at his words, trying your best to ignore the intravenous relief that was coursing through you at that moment. you realized how long you had been standing there then, failing to notice that yuko was still by your side the entire time. if anything, she was just trying to help you out once again as she could literally feel the rising tension in the air. if you were to talk to satomi any longer, it would surely go wrong knowing your luck. luckily, she spots sugawara’s silvery hair just a few feet away.

yuko wasn’t entirely sure how in the hell she was going to get his attention to save your asses, but it was going to happen one way or another. she was just glad you were too preoccupied talking to iwaizumi and satomi that yuko was able to text sugawara to come over.

she watched sugawara feel the buzzing of his phone in his pocket, observing his every move as he pulls it out and read the text as the screen light shined over his face. he looked up then, eyes scanning the room briefly before landing upon yuko’s familiar figure standing next to yours.

the manager widens to eyes a bit at him like a warning to come over here.

she wasn’t sure what was so hard to understand from the pure helplessness in her expression, but sugawara was taking his sweet ass time.

yuko grumbled to herself. at this point, perhaps she was just trying to save herself.

it was then sugawara was finally making his way over to you and yuko. “oh hey, iwaizumi! long time no see, sorry to interrupt but i need to borrow (y/n) and yuko for a second.”

you gave sugawara a confused look as it washed over your expression. again? ugh, give me a break. however, before you could excuse yourself from the conversation, iwaizumi grabs your upper arm lightly.

“(y/n),” he stops you in place, “we should catch up sometime.”

you open your mouth to respond, but sugawara interjects before you could. “why not catch up now?” he suggests, causing all four of you to snap your head towards him, “i’m sure i’ll just yuko’s help will be enough, plus (y/n) has tons of time to talk to more guests.”

the silver haired man gives you a sly wink before taking yuko with him and leaving you behind. great.

you honestly couldn’t excuse yourself now as it would be obvious why no matter how many excuses you come up with, so you had to power through. besides, what could go wrong with talking with your first love and some random girl that somehow gives you a weird vibe?

“so how do you guys know each other?” satomi questions you, suddenly interested in your relationship with iwaizumi. it sounds suspicious, yet she was genuinely wondering if she was attempting to make moves on someone like iwaizumi was a good idea.

“we went to middle and a little bit of high school together,” you answer as a matter-of-fact. there was surely no need to lie.

her eyebrows rise in curiosity, “that makes sense... you guys must have been really close, huh.”

you flickered a look to iwaizumi, examining his reaction if he was also noticing her off words. “yeah... really close.” his expression melted into confusion then as you placed your gaze back to satomi.

iwaizumi scratched the back of his neck as the words remained at the tip of his tongue. why weren’t you mentioning that you two dated before? it wasn’t like it was a crime nor secret. he hated to think this, but could it be because you regretted your relationship with him?

he shook the thought out of his head quickly. the obvious answer was no as the breakup was mutual, yet after all these years of drifting apart, was that really the truth?

if he recalled correctly, one of the last words you said to him before you inevitably left for tokyo and never looked back was that you love him and would always be there for him no matter what. you even promised to text him as much as possible, yet after months had passed since you moved to your new life, it was as if the promise was nonexistent. however, iwaizumi couldn’t bring himself to blame you. if anything, he had himself to blame considering how many times he had written that same text over and over again, yet never had the courage to send it.

“(y/n) had to move to tokyo after our first year so we kind of drifted.” iwaizumi answers. even now with the chance open for him to mention your previous relationship was out in the open, he was still do cowardly to say it.

perhaps somethings never change.

fun facts! —

iwaizumi wasn’t really keen on using social media back in high school, which explains why he never really found out about (y/n) and bokuto’s relationship

it wasn’t like (y/n) and bokuto liked posting about their relationship either at the time

satomi and bokuto have always been homies after they have gotten closer when bokuto injuredhis knee and had to go to physical therapy, but he never really talked about his past relationships, hence satomi not knowing about (y/n)

taglist: (comment or send an ask to be added!)

@moonlightaangel @elianetsantana @k4tiepie @memorableminds @skyguy-peach @suhkusa @kitsunetea @airybby @noeminemi @truly-a-snitch @keichan @cosmicmermaid25 @bap-kingdom @saturnfarie @kwdflash @ennos-baby @dinablossom @chrisrue15 @seikamuzu @nestlevanilla @chasekudo @yammmers @pixcldust @iwaizluv @h0ngh0ngh0ng @emogril @tiredandkindaoverworked @atsunakaashi @underratedmage @bokutosuwus @kellesvt @kaiju-teeth @oh-tapeworm @scrappydaisies @alittlebitofrain @mxngy @tpwkatsumu @atsumuwoah @macchiatoast @dicerawr @kageyamasbabygorl @some-random-stranger-007 @vhskenma @wntrmn @little-plants @stargirlara @kissungjae @je11yfishwriter @sbaepsae

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #bokuto koutarou #bokuto x reader #bokuto fluff #bokuto scenarios #bokuto smau #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi scenarios #iwaizumi fluff #iwaizumi smau

[thedistantdusk]

Arcadia, Chapter 3

Thanks to everyone who followed along! Things are heating up with this chapter! Most of the referenced triggers from chapter 1 apply in this chapter specifically. Here's the link to chapter 2, if you're just seeing this now :)

Thanks again to @secretkeeper13, @accio-broom, @remedialpotions, @jamezbot, @jenoramaca, @not-steve42, @ginisbetterthanfirewhiskey... god, I'm forgetting people, and I'm sorry! But you're all amazing <3

___________________________

D A Y + T H R E E

As fate would have it, Ginny wakes before 0-700.

Not that she sleeps.

Nightmares, the likes of which she hasn’t experienced in years, torment her throughout the night. They leave her scared. Miserable. Guilty. Around 3 AM, she finally reaches for her Dreamless Sleep potion with shaking hands. For more reasons than one, she’s pleased that Harry’s slept on the couch.

She knows now just how stupid this entire mission truly was. The longer she analyzes it, the more she accepts that her bloody pride got her here in the first place. A chance for a promotion, however small, gave her false confidence in her ability to disregard a decade of sexual tension, all while trapped in close quarters with the person she wants the most.

She hopes Harry makes himself sparse today, though she knows that sounds cruel. But the longer they spend together, the clearer it becomes they’re on the cusp of something… and not something that would look good on a performance review. He’s been kind and understanding so far, even when she’s fucked things up. She just hopes she can ignore the most human parts of herself until they’ve dealt with this.

So at half-past 8, Ginny — Jenny — emerges from the house in a bright floral sundress and nude pumps. Were it not for the secret weapon clutched in her right fist, she might have fit in quite well... but Jenny has no intention of fitting in. Not anymore. In three confident strides, she marches across the front lawn, bends down, and spears the prongs of a lurid pink flamingo into the grass.

Yes.

She grins and takes in her work. How ghastly against the backdrop of earth tones! How repugnant!

Ginny steals quick glimpses over each shoulder, only to be met with the eerie, blanketed silence that’s defined Arcadia since their arrival. No activity at all. Which means she’ll have no issue with the next bit…

She strides to the mailbox at the end of their driveway and gives it a sharp kick. The post slides out of alignment, leaving it askew. Perfect. She returns to the house with a bounce in her step. Living with the twins taught her a thing or two about how to infuriate complete strangers.

She just hopes it’ll be enough.

___________________________

As luck would have it, it is enough. Her efforts receive reward more quickly than she thought— more quickly than she’s been conditioned to expect.

Scarcely an hour passes before she finds the warning she needs. And to be honest, it could’ve been there sooner; she just figured she’d give it that long before she checked.

Still, it’s not even 10 AM when she opens the door and sees it on their welcome mat: a folded paper with Pee-tri scrolled on the front. She can’t help but admire the sheer cheek as she unfolds it; this is the closest they’ll get to a public call-out for the way Harry insists on correcting everyone’s pronunciation. The message inside doesn’t surprise her, either.

Be like the others before dark. Or else.

Ginny glimpses out at the lawn, just to confirm— and yes. Sure enough. Just as she’d suspected, the flamingo's gone. The mailbox is straight. Everything’s back to normal.

She kicks the door closed with a smirk and wonders if they’re aware of how easily they’ve exposed themselves. How—

“What’ve you got there?” Harry calls from the sofa in the living room. He looks up from his laptop with bleary, dark-rimmed eyes. A wave of guilt washes through her; that sofa clearly didn’t get more comfortable overnight. Not that he would’ve accepted the alternative.

“Erm. A letter.” She waves in front of her and walks into the living room. “I’ve done a great job annoying them!”

He offers a gentle smile. “Any chance you’ll let me know who this ‘them’ is that you’re so worried about?”

Ginny rolls her eyes and settles on the other end of the couch. “You know I can’t—”

“Talk about your work,” Harry finishes, turning back to his computer. “Right.”

“Mm. Not exactly that I can’t… talk about my work,” she ventures, putting her feet up on the white ottoman. “More like I can’t give information until it’s essential knowledge for all parties involved. Based on criteria that I also can’t share.”

“Sounds like a fun job,” Harry deadpans, still looking at the computer. “But anyway, if I were to suggest something like… I don’t know…” He casually tilts the screen in her direction. “The fact that Oliver Skinner definitely has a criminal record, and maybe that’s worth looking into. You couldn’t confirm or deny that?”

Ginny just shrugs. “That’s correct. I can neither confirm nor deny.”

His theory is wrong, of course. Dead wrong.

They wouldn’t have sent an Unspeakable and an Auror into the country if this were a simple Muggle murderer. Harry would be able to suss this out, she reckons, if he had more sleep. Poor bloke.

He groans and cracks his back. “I’m starting to understand why King’s always so frustrated.”

“Probably because he has to deal with you all the time,” Ginny quips, reaching for a magazine on the floor. Ugh. Of course, it’s only the TV guide, Radio Times. They don’t even have a TV, but it came with the Daily Mail on Sunday.

Harry reaches for a glass of water on the coffee table. “Fine,” he relents, in between sips. “I’ll stay in my lane. But if I get bored, I’ll get tetchy.” He gestures to the computer. “And since they’ve given us this laptop, I’ve had time to do a bit of—”

“They’ve given me a laptop,” Ginny corrects, arching a brow. “As you’re well aware, Auror Potter, that is technically the property of the DoM.” She returns to the guide with a shrug. “I just don’t care if you use it, mostly because I don’t expect you’ll be looking up tits all day.”

He chokes on his water; Ginny just laughs and turns the page. Ooh, lovely! Eurovision looks particularly flamboyant this year…

“You’re absolutely right,” Harry says, once he recovers. “I’d never look up tits on government property!” He looks affronted as he hands over the laptop, but she knows he’s not done... not when he’s set that up so perfectly. Annnnd sure enough…

“You of all people should know I'm an arse-man, Ginny.”

Now it’s her turn for an unattractive snort as he winks over his shoulder and marches upstairs.

When he’s gone, Ginny rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. He’s an incredible liar on the arse-man front, but it was a good joke. A simple joke…. one that didn’t deserve looking into.

It’s just unfortunate that can’t stop these stupid fucking butterflies from erupting in her stomach like she’s ten years old again.

___________________________

He launches into the air again, the gardens of his neighbors spanning out in front of him. Each perfectly manicured. Each disturbing in its performative precision. None of this is real; none of this is life.

He pulled out the trampoline after dinner, when Ginny okayed it. He’s not used to that— checking before he does things. This whole exercise has been a great reminder that his teamwork skills are rusty, especially when he’s in a subordinate role. Ron left after their first year to work in the magic shop instead, which only made sense after… yeah. Harry draws a deep breath and jumps again. Ron and Hermione haven’t been problem-solving in his head for ages. There’s been no one to share the burden of choices or—

“OI!” Oliver’s voice thunders across the garden.

Harry smiles and takes another huge leap into the air. Just in time…

He rips open the fence door and stomps over, hands balled into fists. Harry’s never seen anyone look quite so furious while dressed in cashmere. And standing beside a trampoline.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Oliver hisses, eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you trying to make enemies, Henry? Is this entire estate a bloody joke to you?”

“Of course not!” Harry lands on his bum before he jumps up again. “This is very serious!”

“Oliver!” Sharon wails, hurrying over. “Oliver. Please! This really—”

“Keep your nose where it belongs, woman,” Oliver snarls, looking at her like she’s scum on his shoe. “No one wants your opinion!”

Sharon flinches… and this, more than anything else, gets Harry’s back up. “No need to take it out on her!” he snaps, climbing down from the trampoline. “Talk to me if you’ve got a problem, Ollie. Why not—”

But just as Harry’s feet touch the grass, something very weird happens: A dull buzzing fills his ears. Sharon and Oliver hear it too, but unlike Harry, they aren’t looking around in bewildered confusion. In a flash, the rage on Oliver’s face transforms into something much different: fear. And as the pressure grows, Harry can only watch as Oliver grabs Sharon’s hand, yanking her from the garden, when—

An unmistakable sound replaces the buzzing. A large piece of glass from somewhere in the front of the house shatters on the pavement. And with that, the buzzing stops.

Birds chirp again. Someone laughs in the distance. Harry jabs a finger in his ear, trying to clear it, but it seems Oliver’s returned to his furious state. He lunges towards Harry, a vein ticking in his neck, his hands outstretched as if to push him over— but Harry doesn’t have time for this. He’s already running around him, bolting towards the source of the sound, his hand inching for his pocket…

Because whatever they’ve got going on isn’t related to Oliver, is it? No… definitely not. That buzzing was too creepy to be muggle. Harry hadn’t really been convinced of the Oliver theory in the first place, even if the wanker has a criminal record for drunk driving. He mostly suggested it to Ginny to see if she’d give him any information.

Harry spots the broken glass the second he reaches the pavement. The lamppost right outside their house has shattered, light bulb and all. Bits of glass sparkle on the street, but the lamppost is at least 10 feet high. Harry scans around for signs of a ladder, or some form of a projectile… any method someone might’ve used to— oh! A baseball rolls around in one of the open garages across the street. He’s about to march over and collect it when his conscience stops him.

Because that’s the definition of circumstantial evidence, isn’t it? Harry sighs, rubbing his forehead. Snatching the baseball while working alone is one thing, but it’s not worth risking Ginny’s job. Especially because he reckons these thoroughly unmemorable homes are each equipped with monitoring systems. At absolute best, that would be… awkward to explain to the muggle police, especially without an obvious connection between the ball and the shattered lamppost...

Harry’s just about to turn back inside and write it off a freak occurrence when—

Shit.

His breath freezes in his throat.

What the...

He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not imagining it, but no...

There’s no weird buzzing this time… but something else is happening instead. The grass on the far side of their yard is bulging and curling, right in front of his eyes. The soil creaks as this… this mass — a huge sphere of some sort — passes through; bits of dirt fly into the air before settling back.

Harry’s veins turn to ice, his stomach churning. Work has introduced him to new, vile varieties of ghouls and nasties. He’s been bitten by a leprechaun. Stalked by a vampire. He’s encountered every disturbing otherworldly menace that one could imagine.

But he’s never seen anything like this.

His only solace is that it’s headed towards Mike’s empty house… this massive, rolling boulder that travels beneath the soil. ‘Boulder’ isn’t exactly the right term, though; he’s never seen a boulder move with a slinking, predatory grace. He’s never gotten gooseflesh from a rock, no matter how large.

And try as he might, he can only stand there, wide-eyed, his heart racing. Because now he knows for sure what Ginny only alluded to before: whatever they’re chasing isn’t human.

And it’s aware of them.

___________________________

The door creaks open less than five minutes after the glass shatters, but Ginny’s prepared.

She’s standing in the alcove just off the entryway, wand in one hand, fire poker in the other. It’s probably not the best strategy she’s ever had— but she reckons that if a Muggle were to catch sight of an altercation, it would be an easy memory supplantation. Wands and fire pokers don’t look that dissimilar, and—

“Ginny?” Harry calls. Directly into her ear.

Shit! She jumps into the air, the poker clattering to the ground.

“When did you learn to move like a cat?” she demands, turning to face him. “You nearly—”

“We need to talk,” he says brusquely. It’s only then that she takes in his wide, haunted eyes. His white pallor. The way he hasn’t even commented on the ridiculousness of her fire poker.

Oh.

He’s scared.

Scared in a way she hasn’t seen him in ages. Maybe ever. Which means he heard…? Shit. She’d might as well ask.

“What do you erm…” She toys with her wand handle. “Want to talk about?”

Harry heaves a tired sigh. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he says flatly, rubbing his hand over his forehead. Then he blinks up at her, his eyes pulsing and stern. “What the fuck was that?”

“The… shattered lamppost?” she hedges. “I’ve no idea. I just—”

Apparently, that was the wrong response.

Harry groans. “You know damn well I don’t mean the bloody lamppost!” he snarls. “I mean that… that thing! First the weird buzzing, then whatever moved through the grass! It was like some creepy worm, or—”

“—not a worm,” she amends, staring at her cuticles.

This, too, was the wrong reply; she’s never seen him go from bewildered to enraged quite so fast.

Harry lets out a furious roar and kicks at an empty box. “This is why Unspeakables are so fucking annoying!” he shouts, tossing his hands in the air. “You never fucking say anything — even if it might help someone!”

Pfft! He can do better than that...

“Not sure what you expected,” she deadpans. “Would it help if I were a Speakable instead?”

Harry rolls his eyes and throws himself on the couch. Ginny just leans against the door… and waits. She can’t say she blames him for being angry. It’s probably made him feel vulnerable in ways he hasn’t in ages.

“The least you can bloody do,” Harry says, cutting into her thoughts, “is to let me know how to kill it.” He glimpses up at her, his chest still heaving. “Because if anything happened to you….” His hand curls around his wand, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We both know I’d never forgive myself.”

Fuck.

Her heart clenches; as embarrassing as it is, tears sting the backs of her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that… but it makes perfect sense. He’s not angry because he’s vulnerable; he’s angry because he doesn’t know how to protect her.

Because he’s Harry.

Her Harry.

And try as she might, she can’t deny that. He’s hers… even though now he’s broken and angry and scared and alone. Which is probably why she loves the fucking fuck out of him.

No.

She stops herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Mission. Mission. They’re on a mission.

Right. She clears her throat and steps forward, two papers clutched in her hand.

“What’s that?” Harry grumbles as she hands them over. He scans the pages, brow furrowing. “Sugar… engine oil. Red Dye 40. What am I supposed to do with—?”

Ginny smiles and tries to make this easy. “It’s the report from the necklace. The thing that was on Mike’s medallion… it’s rubbish. Not blood, not some ghost slime. It’s just a weird mixture of types of rubbish.”

She should’ve figured he wouldn’t find this significant.

“What a brilliant scientific discovery.” Harry tosses the paper to the side. “Hermione would be thrilled.”

Ginny gnaws at her cheek, choosing her words carefully… but if he’s already seen it, if he’s already heard it, surely there’s no harm...

Harry rises to his feet and takes a step closer until he’s towering over her, all warm and brooding. They aren’t touching… not exactly. He’s just hovering close enough to give her strength, whether he knows it or not. When she finally gets the nerve to look up at him, his green eyes are swirling with more pain than rage. Truth be told, she prefers the rage. “I deserve to know,” he says thickly, like he’s suppressing something in his throat, “what the fuck is going on.”

Ginny breaks their eye contact. Some of this she hasn’t even shared with Attica yet. She’s violating about a million protocols by telling Harry first, but if they’re together on a mission…

“It’s… not what we thought. Not what I thought,” she admits softly, after a moment. “We came out here under the assumption of chasing something from the Thought Chamber. Something that erm… may have escaped. During a routine experiment.”

He’s not impressed, though. “Yeah,” he says, arching a brow. “I gathered all of that from your intro with the camera, thanks. Do you ever plan on telling me anything new?” He jerks his chin towards the window. “Because you’ve sure as hell never mentioned Evil Grass Monster Experiment #6, and that may have been helpful to fucking know before I saw it.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake!

His attitude is more infuriating than his actual words, but she lacks the patience for dealing with either. The bloody nerve, to act all impatient with information that’s kept secret for a reason...

“I don’t have to tell you shit, actually,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And in case you’re unaware, I can protect myself.”

Harry pulls back with a laugh, but this one is cruel. Dark. The sort she’s never heard from him before. “Makes sense,” he says with a fake grin. Then he taps her on the nose. “Because when that thing outside inevitably kills someone else, we all know how well you’ll manage the guilt.”

Ouch.

She reels back, stung. He’s got to know that’s a low blow. Younger Ginny would have Bat Bogeyed him into oblivion, but she’s better now. She’s changed.

At least that’s what she tells herself as she glares at him, her hands fisted so tightly they turn white. “Say what you mean,” she manages several moments later, when rage isn’t clawing at her chest. “If you’d like to rehash our breakup, Auror Potter, I’m all ears!” She gives her best impression of an icy smirk. “This isn’t exactly professional… but then again, when have you ever been?”

Harry looks like he’s going to respond, but a loud vibration starts in his back pocket. “Fuck!” Now it’s his turn to leap into the air before he realizes it’s just his wand. And really, she’s tempted to laugh— but the look on his face helps her put the pieces together.

Because if his wand’s vibrating, that means it’s an emergency; only department heads can summon their employees like that. They’re the only ones with access to that sort of technology, not that she’s really interested either way.

“It’s King,” he mutters. She’s about to get on him for stating the obvious, but when he peers at her again, his face is filled with such timid yearning that she can only see the 11-year-old boy on the train platform. “Can I…erm. Use your mobile?”

Fine. Ginny nods towards the bedroom, her head still spinning. She’s still a bit angry with him, but he’s so fucking broken. They both are. And besides, they’ve got bigger problems. What could possibly have King so worried that he’d call Harry from a mission? The man is unflappable.

Harry returns a minute later, his face stony, jaw set. In another life, she might’ve seen the bulge in his pocket and asked if that’s just her mobile, or if he’s happy to see her.

Instead, she tucks her hair behind her ears like the seasoned professional she is. “There’s no reception inside,” she points out. “I’ve had luck calling Attica from up the street, right at the corner. Just watch out for…”

Harry smirks. “Grass monsters?”

Ginny draws a breath to consider her options. She could keep him in the dark forever, but isn’t that the whole point of this assignment? To learn? It’s time for the truth, she reckons...

“It’s erm. It’s called a tulpa, actually.”

His eyes light up at this. “A tulpa?”

Ginny shifts her weight and searches for the right words. “It’s a… it’s sort of like an evil imaginary friend, created by a group of people to do their bidding,” she explains, reaching for the discarded papers. “They come from the material of whatever’s underground. I’ve only heard of creatures made from clay or water, but since this village was built on a rubbish tip”— she flicks the papers with her fingers— “that’s our guy!”

She can almost see the gears spinning in Harry’s head as he studies the far wall. “So…” he says slowly, still peering off, “it’s basically an evil dump monster, made of rubbish, that can murder people.”

A laugh slips past her lips. It sounds a bit dumb when he puts it that way. She clears her throat and continues. “I was wrong because it’s not something that’s escaped, more like something that’s—”

“Formed,” Harry finishes quickly. For the first time all week, he sounds intrigued. Like he’s happy to be here. “So… they’ve made it to keep order, then?”

“It would seem so.” She shrugs. “I… honestly don’t know. But between the weird buzzing and the rubbish, it’s the closest match we’ve got. According to the system database, anyway.”

There’s another pause as Harry mulls this over. “So, how do we get rid of it, then?”

How fucked up is it that her heart warms at the way he says ‘we’?

Ginny brushes that aside. “Considering the mask in Gogolak’s house and the way they’ve made a point to tell us he’s in charge, I’d say he’s the one we need to get rid of.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t object.

“Or at least… knock him totally unconscious,” she adds, swallowing; Gogolak’s a wanker, but she’d rather not kill him, either. “Beyond just being asleep. Because he sleeps at night, but the tulpa’s still here, which means he needs to be down for the count. Comatose, even.”

Harry’s wand buzzes again. Ah, shit; in all the hubbub, she’d forgotten about that.

Concern floods Harry’s face. “Give me five minutes.” He blinks. “Ok?”

She waves towards the door. “Duty calls.”

He gives her a weak smile and turns away; she begins the trek upstairs to send Attica an email update.

“Ginny?”

She stops to look down at him. Harry’s paused, halfway out the door. “Thank you,” he says softly, meeting her eyes. “And… I’m sorry. For everything. Ok? I’ll always, erm…”

But she can’t right now. She actually fucking can’t.

“Later,” she whispers, nearly begging. “Please. Let’s do this later.”

Because of course she loves him.

She’s always fucking loved him, even though that’s changed forms. It’s shifted. It’s evolved. He feels the same way… she knows he’s bloody feels the same way. She just doesn’t have the resources to deal with whatever this fuck is reigniting, right in front of her eyes, as the tulpa dances in the back of her head.

Luckily, he understands. Harry just swallows again, nods at her, and heads out into the night.

___________________________

As it would turn out, he was wrong about the identity of the summoner.

“Great news!” Hermione announces on the other end of the mobile. “MLE found Yaxley. He was hiding in a cave in Romania, just like you said.”

Harry snorts; he wishes that gave him more pride. “Well, if you’d listened to me months ago, then—”

“The important part is that we have him,” Hermione says, cutting across. “We need you back ASAP to prep for witness questioning. You’ll take the stand, of course. The trial’s set to start next week!”

He can practically hear her bouncing with excitement. Very little brings her more joy than trials of former Death Eaters.

“Erm… about that.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “We’re actually right on the cusp of something here. I’m gonna need a couple more days to wrap things up.”

“Really?” Hermione sounds surprised. “Kingsley and Robards said you’d be pleased. Said you found this mission as useless as they did.”

Fuck, he was such an arse.

“Well, things… changed,” he offers lamely. “It’s going really well. This mission is so important to her. I’d just hate to leave at the last minute.”

“Ohhh?” Hermione draws out the word in a way that suggests she finds herself quite clever. Even before she asks, he knows what she’s on about. “How’s it going with Ginny, then?”

Harry rolls his eyes. Her coy prodding is obvious, even over the phone.

“As I already said, it’s going well,” he replies flatly. “We’re a great team. Always have been.”

But she can’t let him have that one, can she?

“Well… not always,” Hermione allows. “After Percy—”

Harry groans. For fuck’s sake, what’s her obsession with stating the obvious? “Yeah, well,” he retorts, “I’d like to know who you think did well after that, especially since…”

He trails off with a sigh.

Especially since what, exactly?

He toys with the fraying ends of his hoodie string.

Especially since Ginny was the last to speak with Percy? That she still carries the weight of the guilt for what she said that night? That she’s never admitted it, but that he suspects her choice to become an Unspeakable was influenced by the things she wishes she could un-say?

Harry makes a face. That’s corny as fuck, isn’t it? What a thing to pull from his arse...

Hermione interrupts his thoughts for a bit of bragging. “Well, Ron and I have done just fine.”

He can almost imagine her staring at her engagement ring in dreamy affection. The mental image makes his reply sound more bitter than he intends.

“Well,” Harry snaps, “Ron wasn’t the last person to speak with Percy. So I’m not sure how you could compare the two, really.”

Shit.

The silence on the other end tells him he needs to apologize, even if it’s true. Fortunately, Hermione gives him an easy out. “Anyway.” She clears her throat. “I’ll give you until tomorrow night, but we really need you the following day. If you haven’t settled this, we’re swapping you out. Got it?”

Harry sighs. He’s exhausted, but this couldn’t possibly take much longer. Ginny’s more or less got the proof she needs now. They just need to confront Gogolak, knock him out, and—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Harry cranes his neck towards the source of the noise. Huh… weird. Far up the street, flashing lights tip him off. That’s definitely Oliver’s Audi, the one parked in the driveway directly beside theirs. It’s in utopia blue with a metallic finish, a detail Oliver probably mentioned at least fifty times the other night. Then, while Sharon and Ginny were out walking the dog, Oliver began a mind-numbing lecture on the car’s exact miles per liter. Harry was a bit drunk, which is probably why he interrupted to ask a much more important maths question: How many blow jobs per week is too many, exactly?

Even from a distance, Harry can tell that Oliver’s nearly the same shade of murderous red now; he storms from the house and turns off the alarm with his key fob. But then he pauses, glancing around like something’s spooked him. He must decide it’s not that significant, though, because he huffs back inside soon enough. Fucking wanker...

“....Harry?”

“Sorry!” Harry shakes his head. “Yeah, sorry, that works. See you then, Hermione.”

“Can’t wait!” she trills. He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smug and grinning.

___________________________

Two minutes after Harry leaves, Ginny feels it again: that same sensation she experienced while walking Captain Bone.

She’s sitting at her laptop when it starts… this deeply unsettling shift. It stands the hair up on the back of her neck. She rushes to the window on instinct, but just like before, everything outside looks the same. There’s no “moving grass monster,” as Harry called it. Not yet, at least.

Still, she can’t deny it’s growing louder. Getting stronger. And now that she’s felt it for a bit longer, she can put more words to it. It’s like she’s plummeting through the absence of sound; like all the wind’s been sucked from the air. It’s a building pressure, a mounting unease, and before she knows it, her whole body starts to shake.

Then two things happen in quick succession: that weird feeling stops, and a car alarm begins to blare in the distance.

Weird.

She shudders. This whole thing is so fucking weird. Weird is her job, and this place is still Very Fucking Weird. Seriously, who enjoys living here? She’s reaching for her wand, just in case, when the front door slams open.

In retrospect, it’s a blessing she knows Harry as well as she does… because she can tell that those heavy, clobbering footsteps don’t belong to him. She knows he’s not the one drawing deep, ragged breaths as he marches up the stairs.

She hides around the corner of the bedroom, her heart racing, and goes through a mental list of spells she might use. Shield charms. Enchantments. The buzzing’s stopped, so this probably isn’t the tulpa… but who else would be here? Gogolak? It sounds more human than—

“Jenny?” a deep, soothing voice asks. “Are you in here?”

Her breath freezes in her throat. She’s only heard that voice once before… but it’s so similar to her former life that she identifies it at once.

“Mike?” A wave of relief washes through her. She shoves her wand into her dress as she comes around the corner. Sure enough, there he is, in the flesh. Mike Snodgrass. A man she presumed dead days ago.

“Hi!” Mike pants. He cracks a smile. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but.” He winces, wiping a palm on his ripped khakis. “Been hiding!” Fuck. His whole outfit (yellow Polo, khakis) is the same he wore days ago to unload their boxes, except now it’s filthy. Stained. Like he’s been living beneath cars and inside drains. He’s just missing his Saint Julian medallion, which she’s sent to the Ministry.

Ginny feels sick. She wrote him off as dead so carelessly...

“I’ve been trying to take it down,” he adds earnestly, peering at her. His cheeks are caked in something red and grimy, the same stuff she stuffed into her bra. He’s been tailing the tulpa, she realizes, her stomach plummeting…

Except he’s got no clue what he’s doing.

“I was about to leave the development, to just run away, but that’s when I figured out it was coming for you two!” He shudders, closing his eyes. It feels like he’s been waiting a long, long time to say this. “And I’ve been aimless without Jess in the first place. So what was the point in leaving, really, if I could save…?”

He trails off, clearing his throat; when he looks up at her again, there’s a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’ve been leaving clues, though! Why didn’t you listen?”

“Clues?” Ginny sounds like she’s a million miles away.

Mike’s nearly pleading now. “You had to go and kick the mailbox and stick the flamingo in the grass, didn’t you?” He raises his pointer finger. “And even though I left you a note, you had to make it even worse! It only attacks when the sun goes down, see.”

“You… you left the note?” she whispers. She was so certain that it was from Gogolak...

But Mike proceeds in such a rush it’s clear he hasn’t heard her. “It was about to get Henry by the trampoline, so I threw the baseball as a diversion. I broke the lamppost, too— which worked. For a second,” he adds hastily, glancing over his shoulder.

“How did you also set off the car alarm— oh.” Her head’s still spinning. “Buddy system. Right.”

Mike dangles a keyfob. “Covenant rules. Stole the spare off Jane.” He glances into the hall again before whipping back to face her. “It’ll need a sacrifice tonight, though,” he adds grimly. “And every night, until you all have perfect behavior. It was coming for you earlier, see. We aren’t meant to be outdoors after dark without a permit for dog-walking, so.” He shrugs. “If there’s an unapproved disruption like a car alarm, it knows just where to hunt.”

It’s then that the final pieces of this dreadful puzzle slide together in her brain. “Captain Bone,” Ginny breathes; she swears a feather could knock her over. “He was the first since we arrived. Punishment for us sticking out.”

“I couldn’t save him,” Mike laments. “It came up and snatched him. So I threw in my medallion, right after his collar, just to make them think I was already gone.”

“That’s… that was brilliant,” she admits, biting her lip. “Thank you. You didn’t have—”

“Nah,” he says firmly. “I did. For starters, you remind me so much of…” He stops mid-sentence, an odd expression on his face.

For a second, she thinks he’s being sentimental, but then she feels it too.

Shit.

The hairs on her arm stand up. It’s back… that weird way she felt before. Like the air’s sucked from the room. That creeping, clawing silence. This time, though, it only gets louder, louder, louder, until she’s throwing her hands over her ears, all hope of self-defense forgotten.

But Mike knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. She doesn’t have the chance to object or get her wand before he’s ripping open the closet door and throwing her inside. Ginny opens her mouth in a startled cry, but it’s like she’s screaming underwater, the sound distant and distorted. Mike slams the door closed with her inside and stomps to the center of the room— but now the thundering, roaring wind is causing her physical pain… it’s so loud now that it reverberates in her chest, so loud that her hands shake as she reaches for her wand at long last, but fuck fuck fuck, it’s too late…

It’s too fucking late.

Because Mike’s made a choice. One he can’t take back. He just stands in the middle of the room, puffing out his chest, offering himself as the proud sacrifice, even as the noise grows so loud that Ginny screams her throat raw.

She feels it enter the bedroom, this looming, shifting mass— but by then, she’s certain her ears are bleeding, her eardrums bursting. Her whole body rattles and shakes as she peers through the slats in the closet door, but she’s frozen. Stuck. Miserable. She couldn’t cast a spell if she tried… even as the tulpa oozes into the room, lunges itself back, and swallows Mike with a sickening squelch.

Even though the slats of the door, Ginny’s sprayed with blood. Covered. And she’s dizzy now… so dizzy. A drop of blood trickles into her eye; she reaches up to wipe it from her face, and it’s only then that she hears her own screams again. They reverberate through the small space, anguished and pleading, so loud that she’s certain someone up the street could hear, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t fucking care. She just screams over and over and over, her nails clawing at the walls, until the world slips away into darkness.

___________________________

Blood.

It’s the first thing he smells as he charges up the steps. His chest squeezes, his eyes water, his head pounds over and over again with one word: No.

No. No. No.

Not Ginny. It can’t be.

But almost as soon as he smells the blood, he hears her screaming, and yes! His heart soars. Screaming is good; screaming means she’s alive and breathing and—

Fuck.

His dinner rises in his throat as he steps into the bedroom. He smelled the blood from the steps, he hadn’t expected… this much. It always takes him aback, exactly how much blood is in one human body, and he’s certainly never seen it sprayed, all over the floor… covering the walls. Covering the closet, even, where Ginny’s still screaming.

He flings open the door, thinking he’s prepared for what he might see. Somehow, though, none of that measures up. Because he’s dealt with tears in his line of work… but he’s never, ever seen her so broken. His chest clenches when he takes her in. Her perfect suburban dress — the yellow floral one, the one he liked so much— is now red and grimy, caked in blood, as Ginny rocks back and forth on the floor, sobs wracking her body.

Blood’s covering her face, too, and her arms. Dried trails of it have crusted around her eyes, like she’s fallen asleep wiping them away… or perhaps lost consciousness. The thought is too terrible to bear. He kicks the door open completely and brings her into his arms in one fell swoop.

She melts against him, her voice raw and broken. “H-Harry!” she manages. “P-please! I need-I need!” She begins to shake, pressing her face to his chest.

“A shower,” he says firmly, stepping into the en-suite. “You… you just need a shower. Ok? And maybe some calming draught, I’ve got some in my luggage, and—”

“No!” she cries, shaking her head. Her eyes are wide and filled with horror. “Don’t… don’t leave. Don’t leave me, Harry, please!”

“I… ok,” he allows, carrying her to his luggage to retrieve the bottle. She clings to his neck as he reaches for it, but she weighs next to nothing. Fuck, she’s so thin… he’d just been too busy eyeing her up to realize exactly how thin. What a complete wanker.

It’s not difficult to unzip the suitcase with one hand and pass her the bottle. “Take this,” he urges, thrusting it into her hands. “Please, Ginny. You’ll feel—”

She’s already downed it before he gets to the end of the sentence. She tips her head back, drawing air into her lungs. “Thanks.” Her voice is still hoarse. Ragged.

“Shower, then,” he murmurs, walking her into the bathroom. He feels her start to relax against him, her body growing looser, as he opens the curtain and turns on the tap.

“Thanks,” she whispers again, her head tucked beneath his chin. His fingers itch with restraint; he’d do anything, he thinks, to hold her against him. To press a kiss to her temple. To tell her he loves her and that she’s beautiful and perfect and he’s sorry, so sorry, that any of this happened and—

She peers up at him, her eyes more focused now, less wide-eyed and horror-struck. “Would you stay here?” she asks, biting her lip. “While I shower? Just so I’m not—”

“‘Course.” Harry swallows, putting her on her feet. She lands with unintentional grace, one foot after the next.

“And can you… erm.” She turns her back to him, lifting her hair above her zipper. His hands shake as he reaches for the clasp. He knows the exact shape of her back as he slides it down, over the middle bump of her white bra strap. He nearly unstraps that for her, too, before he catches himself. It reeks of intimacy, doesn’t it? All of this…

His eyes linger on the soft swell of her bum before he turns around, self-disgust hammering in his throat.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” he adds feebly. He balls his hands into fists as her dress hits the floor… followed by her bra. And her knickers.

“Not your fault,” she croaks, stepping into the shower. He smiles, his glasses fogging up as he moves to sit on the closed toilet seat. Even covered in blood and traumatized, she can't bring herself to blame him.

She finishes several minutes later.

“Erm… towel?” She shuts the water off. “Could you?”

“Sure,” he soothes, thrusting one through the curtain. “D’you want me to leave, or…?”

Ginny manages a weak snort. “Nah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”

He chuckles at the door as he turns around again. She’s right, of course; he knows every bloody inch of her… but it’s not quite the same now.

There’s a tap on his shoulder. He whips around to face her. Admittedly, she looks… better. The blood’s gone. Her eyes are still red-rimmed from sobbing, but she’s looking a bit less like a woman who witnessed a death. Which reminds him…

“Erm. Give me a second to get it all cleaned up?”

Ginny shudders and settles on the toilet seat; he immediately kicks himself for asking. “Yeah,” she says a moment later. “Just… come get me, ok? When you’re done?”

He nods.

___________________________

It can’t be later than 10 PM when he finally carries her to the bed, still wrapped in a towel.

He’s exhausted from the nights on the sofa, but he knows she’s worse off. He’s cleaned the bedroom fairly well, he thinks, considering. There’s a rust-colored stain above the closet that he reckons won’t go anywhere anytime soon. He just hopes she doesn’t see it.

He rests her on the duvet surface, fully prepared to head downstairs for the night— but the pleading look on her face informs him he’s got other plans, instead. So without sharing a single word, he spreads his palms, lies beside her, and waits.

It comes eventually, as he knew it would. One person can’t deal with all that, see all that, without eventually cracking. And as a fellow fucked-up individual, he would know.

It starts as simple tears, ones that he wipes away. It progresses into sobs… full-body sobs. The sort he heard coming up the stairs. He’s surprised she’s got any left, but Ginny’s always been the sort to keep him on his toes. And just as her water-dark hair starts to dry and sprout red tendrils, he faces the thing he expected least of all: a kiss.

She starts softly. Slowly. Her lips so tender and soft that he forgets everything. She moans against his mouth, her whole body leaning into it; he’s instantly reminded of how much he’s fucking missed her. How lonely he’s been. How could he have forgotten the tiny mewl she makes in the back of her throat as her tongue parts his lips? He must’ve blocked it out, he realizes, as she begins to slide her body against him, panting, as she tips her head back. His lips trail down her neck, nibbling and biting, as she grips his arms and hair and bum. Because if he’d remembered all of these little details, he’d have gone mad long ago.

He’s throbbing hard by the time he gets to the tail end of her towel, which brushes the tip of her thighs. He tries to adjust himself, to—

“You can take it out, you know.”

Oh. He blinks up at her, his breath freezing in his throat. She’s peering down at him, her lips red and swollen.

“I know you’re hard,” she adds, her voice still raw. “So if it’s uncomfortable… take it out.”

He arches a brow from his position at her thigh. He’s about to retort with something snappy. Something that might keep them bantering for ages. But Ginny has no patience.

“Please.” It’s nearly a command. She blinks down with glassy eyes, her lips swollen. “I want you, Harry.”

Fuck. He groans, rubbing his cock against his palm to relieve some of the pressure. It doesn’t help for long, not that it matters; he’d rather focus on her, anyway. So with a slip of his fingers, the towel opens. She releases a breathy moan, tipping her head back.

Naked.

She’s finally naked. In front of him. His breathing grows ragged, his eyes scanning the territory somehow both totally familiar and completely new. She is thinner; he was right. Her hip bones jut out now, her stomach more sunken. But most of her is the same. The smattering of freckles on her chest. The way her breasts have puckered and darkened, the way her chest is rising and falling so fast. The thatch of dark red hair at the apex of her thighs.

“Well,” she quips. He blinks up at her as she reclines on her elbow. “Are you going to fuck me, Harry, or just stare all day?”

With that, he removes his glasses and gives her a smirk— her only real warning— before he kisses her one more time, just as his fingers spread her thighs.

She opens beneath him with a breathy sigh. Fuck, she’s so wet… he groans into her mouth as he dips his fingers further and further down. She’s dripping by the time he finds her clit… by the time he begins to swirl in tight circles. Clockwise. The pattern that screams of such intimate familiarity that it’s as if the years never passed.

He’s scarcely done anything, but she’s already writhing against his fingers, arching her back. “Please,” she slurs after a minute, “put them in.”

He’s never been one to deny her, has he?

It’s like muscle memory how quickly he finds his face between her thighs instead. He spares a moment of self-indulgence as he closes his eyes, breathing her in. She smells like home. She always has. It’s comfort… but more than that, it’s proof. Proof she wants him as much as he wants her. It’s why he stuffed his face in her knickers whenever he got a spare moment on the Horcrux hunt: one hand on that black lace, the other pulling at his cock. It’s bloody erotic, seeing proof of how much she wants him… but it’s more than that.

It’s love.

And despite all the things he’s forgotten tonight, he’d never forget this. He presses two fingers inside her, his hands shaking, and lets his body do the rest. Fuck, he’s missed this. She cries out above him, her hands grasping at his hair, tugging him closer. He’s never forgotten this… the way she tastes. The way she smells. The right way to run his tongue against her clit. Exactly how many fingers she needs, pressed against her just there… crooked in a certain position… just as she begins to thrust herself up and down on them, her cries growing louder, more insistent… and yesssss, there it is, she’s right there, right fucking there—

“Harry!” Her hair rubs against the pillow with abandon. “I’m… I’m so close,” she pants, her body starting to shake.

“Come for me,” he commands, his cock fit to burst, his face slippery. “Come for me, Ginny.”

He returns to her clit for a split-second before she says the words that change everything.

Her whole body tenses, a blush spreading up her chest. “I love you!” she cries, her voice strangled… and with that, she’s coming, clenching around him, her body shaking as he rides her through it.

What he doesn’t tell her is that he comes, too. The second those words wash over him. Those fucking words that prove he’s fucked up, fucked up, fucked up… but he can’t exactly help that, can he?

He just shoves his face into the duvet, thrusting his hips once, twice, and with a grunt, he’s off. His cock tightens and bursts, filling his boxers. Soaking through his jeans. He pulls back, dizzy, when the clenching finally stops.

Luckily, she seems too distracted to notice. Ginny’s half-asleep as he rises from between her thighs, pulling the blanket over her. He presses a kiss to her temple and makes quick work of removing his soggy clothes. Fairly embarrassing, this. Like he’s 16 again and rutting on the lawn.

He mutters a quick cleaning charm and changes into basketball shorts before settling down beside her in bed… making sure he’s on top of the duvet.

But as he drifts off, there’s something far less sentimental that hammers through his chest: They need to get their shit sorted.

Before he ever, ever lets that happen again.

#harry/ginny fanfic #harry x ginny #harry potter fanfic #harry potter fanfiction

[elisaphoenix13]

Once Upon A Summer (Ch.7)

Tony didn't really remember going up to Peter's room, but that was where he found himself. Sitting in the darkened room as the boy napped and watched him sleep. He always treated Peter like his own kid, but now it was actually, biologically true. Now all he could think about were the what ifs. And did May know? She didn't give any indication that she did, and now Tony was going through the fifteen years of his son's life in the span of a few days because of a wonky spell.

He supposed it was fate's way of giving him another chance to be in his son's life from infancy. And Peter had been a complete angel so far. Tony was actually a little jealous that he wasn't there when he was born...but he could understand why he might not have been told. He was a notorious playboy back then.

But Tony knew now and he was even more determined to give Peter everything once his mind wrapped around the fact that the boy was really his. It still didn't feel real.

Everytime Peter seemed to fall asleep, he grew just a little bit more as the magic wore off, and now he was about eight years old if Tony had to guess. In fact, he looked surprisingly familiar. Like he had seen Peter like this before. It was an itch he couldn't quite scratch, but it was easily pushed to the back of his mind when Peter finally stirred. Sleepy brown eyes blink open and the boy yawns before pushing his blankets away and sitting up.

"Hey Underoos. How was your nap?" Tony asks after clearing his throat.

"Good. I'm hungry." Peter mumbles as he rubs his eyes.

"It's not quite dinner time yet. How about a snack to tide you over for now?"

"Cheese and crackers?" Peter asks hopefully.

Tony laughs. "Sure. I think we can do that. If not, I'll send Mom to the store."

"I heard that!" Stephen calls from downstairs.

"He knows everything." Tony stage whispers, making Peter laugh.

Peter gets out of bed and Tony immediately stops him and looks down at his...diaper. It didn't grow with him this time and looked more than snug on the boy. Uncomfortable to say the least.

"Hang on kiddo. Let's get you out of that." Tony says, leading Peter to the master bedroom. "Friday, order something for Pete to wear. One outfit should be fine since he'll grow out of it tonight." He requests as he looks through his dresser.

"Yes Boss."

"Does he have his regular clothes here?" Stephen asks from the doorway and Tony looks over.

"Hmm...I think there's a few things I bought for him." Tony answers. "He still needs underwear that fits him though doesn't he?"

"Just stick him in a pair of those and a t-shirt." The sorcerer shrugs.

"T-shirt for now until the Underoos come." Tony snickers and pulls out one of his band shirts and helps Peter into it.

It was big and slipped over his shoulder, but it covered him more than adequately and Peter must have agreed since he peeled out of the room shouting about cheese and crackers. Stephen chuckled as he watched the boy go and his smile dropped a little when he looked back at Tony. The older man must have had a look on his face if the sorcerer was concerned.

"You alright?" Stephen asks softly.

"As much as I can be." Tony sighs. "I get this bomb dropped on me and while part of me is ecstatic, another is terrified."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"...when he's back to normal. I just hope he's not disappointed or thinks I abandoned him." Tony heaves another sigh and rubs his eyes.

"I've only seen the two of you interact for a few days, but I think it's safe to say that he adores you." Stephen assures. "And I'm not talking about idolization. He sees you as a father figure. Even proved it by calling you his father."

"He called Mom-" Tony smirks and Stephen rolls his eyes.

"We're not talking about me."

"Maybe we should." Tony says abruptly.

Stephen looks at him in confusion and Tony steps closer. This was a long time coming right? This talk? Or maybe he was mistaken and these feelings he formed were one sided? He wasn't one to question himself though. Tony didn't test the waters...he just jumped right in. So why was it different this time? Was this what it was like to be serious about someone? He only knew Stephen for a few days but he wanted to know more. He wanted to know if the sorcerer slept on his side, or if he snored (something told him there was no chance of that), or if he was the type to watch medical shows just to nitpick at the inaccuracies.

Tony would bet half his company that he was.

"What's there to talk about?" Stephen asks carefully.

"First of all, you stuck around. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I expected you to only check in once a day...but here you are. Vacationing with us."

"As you pointed out, it was because I'm the one versed in magic and-"

"You know what I meant." Tony interrupts and steps a little closer. "Point two...Peter called you Mom and you didn't nip it in the bud." Stephen opens his mouth but Tony continues. "He was old enough to understand if you didn't want him to call you that. So why?"

Stephen swallows and Tony watches as the younger man's throat bobs with the motion. "I…"

"Point three…" Tony says, leaning closer. "You didn't send me to some weird dimension for doing this--" Tony pinches Stephen's ass and the sorcerer jumps. "--earlier. So either you didn't have the energy to care or...the curiosity isn't one sided."

Though it was brief, Tony saw Stephen's eyes widen for a split second before his face fell into neutrality again. Bingo. Tony's hopes flew to the heavens because Stephen was interested too. But he knew this wasn't just anyone else. He couldn't buy dinner and then expect to fall into bed with Stephen. Besides, he'd already done that the past few days. No, Tony wanted to properly woo the sorcerer. Make sure Stephen didn't feel like another one of his conquests... because he wasn't.

Tony could see a long future with him.

"Are you gonna kiss?"

Both Tony and Stephen startle and look down to find Peter standing by them and staring curiously up at them. When Tony saw how close he and Stephen ended up, he couldn't blame Peter for asking because he was so close to the younger man that if he hiccuped, he would have found himself lip-locked with the sorcerer. Tony was actually a little exasperated with Peter's ill timing but he did promise a snack for him. Who knew how long he and Stephen had been standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

"How about we get you some crackers?" Tony deflects and leads Peter back down to the kitchen.

"And cheese!" The boy declares, successfully distracted from his earlier question.

Tony looked over his shoulder at Stephen, who was descending the stairs behind them, and winked. The blush that adorned the younger man's cheeks was proof enough that his earlier assumption was correct and he really wanted to get back to that subject once Peter was properly occupied. Maybe a movie? No, it would probably have to be when the boy went to bed for the night. Tony still wanted to get every little bit of Peter's "childhood" while he could.

He decided to even make the lasagna he had mentioned earlier for dinner. While he got to work, Stephen helped Peter clean his shells and find a home for them. Even helped him get some underwear on when they arrived. Peter was given free reign of the tv until dinner was ready, which Tony was making the quick way, and Stephen sat on the couch to read. Tony would make the pasta from scratch another time, when he had time to prepare, but dried pasta would do for now. He, of course, took advantage of the sauce by asking Stephen to try it, and beamed when the sorcerer obliged him and was even impressed with the flavor.

When dinner was finally done, they all sat at the table with the lasagna and some garlic bread and Tony nearly laughed when Peter nearly inhaled a piece bigger than the flat of the spatula. The boy was suddenly growing quickly and Tony had to wonder if his mutant appetite was coming back. He would have to keep a closer eye on Peter.

"Enjoy dinner?" Tony asks Peter when he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Stephen had to grab a napkin to wipe his hands and face the right way, and made Peter grimace.

"It was yummy!"

"I'll make it even better next time." Tony promises as he gets up with his plate.

"I'd like to try it when you make the pasta yourself." Stephen admits. "But it was good."

"A dinner date? I accept." Tony smirks when Stephen blushes again and gets up with his plate as well as Peter's.

"Peter, go watch tv before it's time for a bath." Stephen says. "You need to get washed up before bed since we went to the beach."

"Okay!" Peter gets down from his chair and races back into the living room to watch a Disney movie.

Tony and Stephen cleaned up in the meantime, and Tony refrained from over flirting with Stephen. He'd already made the man blush at least twice in one day, but Tony would probably start up again once Peter was in bed. When everything was cleaned up, Tony herded the little boy up the stairs after his movie was over and ran a bubble bath for him which he helped Peter into once Tony helped him undress. To think just a few days ago, he would have been wildly uncomfortable with this situation. But now it didn't bother him. Maybe it was because Peter was actually his kid, or maybe it was because Tony had changed his diapers for the past week...or maybe it was both? Parenting wasn't easy by any means, but once he got into the groove of it, things didn't bother him as much.

"You alright by yourself while I go find you something to sleep in Underoos?" Tony asks after helping Peter into the tub.

"Uh-huh."

"Alright. Wash up." Tony leaves the bathroom to find another shirt and clean pair of underwear for Peter, content with the fact that Friday could tell him if anything happened in the couple of minutes he was gone.

Which was known to happen with kids. It admittedly made Tony nervous when he came across the potential accidents babies and kids could have while unsupervised. He had read that a baby could drown in a teaspoon of water and while he wasn't sure if that was accurate, he sure as hell didn't want to find out. He was glad for his AI for an entirely different reason.

"Alright Pete. Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin?" Tony asks when he walks back to the bathroom with the two band t-shirts.

Peter looks over and tilts his head in thought. "Sabbath." He finally says.

"Good choice."

Tony helped him wash his hair, and Peter helped unplug the tub while Tony grabbed a towel to wrap him up in. The drying process was obnoxious and made the little boy giggle, and even Tony laughed when he pulled the towel away to find the mop of brown hair askew.

"Can I have a bedtime story?" Peter asks as Tony helps him get dressed.

"A bedtime story? What kind?"

Peter shrugs. "Dunno."

"Hmm…" Tony takes Peter to his room and helps him into bed. "Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Peter who went to bed. The end."

"That's a terrible story." Peter complains and Tony chuckles.

"How about the three little pigs? I think I can manage that." Tony offers and Peter nods and squirms under the blankets to get comfortable.

Peter was using the other guest bedroom since neither Tony nor Stephen expected him to grow back to normal like this. In all honesty, Tony thought he would just spring back to his teenage self, but it ended up being gradual. He didn't see the point of kicking Stephen out of Peter's actual room all of a sudden. They would deal with that tomorrow. At least an adult was still nearby in case Peter needed one of them.

Tony told him the fairytale of the three little pigs with his own spin since, in his own opinion, the original story was a yawn fest. By the time it was done, Peter was half asleep with his eyes almost closed and part of his face pressed into his pillow. Tony leaned forward to tuck him in and then kissed his forehead before moving away and standing. He quietly made his way to the door and turned off the light after making sure to keep a night light on, and as he started to slip out of the bedroom, he heard Peter talk.

"Love you Daddy."

Tony stops and looks back into the darkened room and smiles genuinely.

"Love you too Pete. Good night."

#supremefamily #stephen strange #ironstrange #tony stark #baby peter parker #peter parker