#they absolutely soaked him within the first five minutes of his first episode

[chaoticvictorianspirit]

mad respect to the doctor who director who took one look at david tennant and went we need to get him sopping wet IMMEDIATELY

#they absolutely soaked him within the first five minutes of his first episode #brilliant move zero notes you're doing amazing sweetie #doctor who

[animalkingdom-an0nymous]

Cruel Summer

Disclaimer: No gifs or photos are mine unless stated otherwise.

Warning: It’s a smutty, filthy, NSFW Tom Holland AU and he just can’t seem to keep his hands off his best friend’s sister. No. Really. It’s a problem for both of them.

Subject: Tom X Y/N

"Why can't you watch the beach house, Jordan?" I asked my brother with my phone tucked between my ear and shoulder, wet dishes in between my palms.

"Because you live closer, you don't have a toddler running around, and you got out of doing it last time."

"Bringing JJ into this is low, even for you. Scumbag." I laughed, not serious in the slightest.

Jordan was two years younger than me but was probably more put together than I'd ever be. He ran his own construction company, had a beautiful wife, and had given me the greatest gift I'd ever known; my nephew, JJ.

Staying at the beach house was far from a hardship, but there was a storm coming and based on the news reports it was going to get ugly. Mom and dad wanted someone there to keep an eye on things and they were getting a bit too old to handle the responsibility of tending to the beach house on their own. I didn't blame them, and I didnt blame Jordan, he was right. I did live closer, but I was also looking forward to spending this weekend's storm curled up in bed watching old Audrey Hepburn movies and eating my weight in Pizzeria Regina. My phone was gonna be on airplane mode, absolutely no disturbances. Maybe a few orgasms, a little porn.

But even as I was scrubbing dishes and getting ready for my relaxing weekend, I knew I'd soon be packing a bag and getting in my car to head to the beach. Shit. “Fine. Fine. I’ll head out soon, but if this storm turns out to be nothing I am returning your birthday present and you’re responsible for mom and dad’s anniversary dinner.”

“If you really want to trust your dear brother in the kitchen then that’s your fault.”

I laughed, drying my hands with a towel before grabbing the phone. “Jordan, can you promise me one thing?”

“What’s that, Y/N?”

“Promise to give that kid the biggest kiss for me. Leila, too.”

“Thank you for not stealing him away!” My sister-in-law’s voice traveled through the phone like a song, her Japanese accent soft.

“Love you both. Stay safe tonight.”

“Text me when you get there.”

I ended the call, tossing my phone on the bed and quickly rummaging through my closet. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the tv could be heard faintly from the living room, alerting me to the weather report. Sixty mile per hour winds, flash floods, possibility of power outages, and a storm warning was already in effect.

I quickly yanked on a pair of denim shorts and an old UMass hoodie, the maroon material worn and comfortable, and definitely not mine. There may have been a storm rolling in but the summer air was thick with humidity, so all I grabbed as alternatives were a bathing suit, another pair of shorts, and a t-shirt, tucking the materials into my backpack along with my toothbrush and phone charger.

Within minutes I was packed and ready to go, pulling the hood over my head and catching the familiar scent of someone I hadn’t seen in a while. Or, maybe it was less of a scent and more of a memory. Shrugging it away, I locked the door and bounded to my car just as the first few drops of rain began to fall.

Music flowed through the speakers as I took back roads towards the coast, something tugging at my heart a bit as I thought of the last time I’d been at the beach house. My parents, Jordan, Leila, JJ.

Tom.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to relax as an old song came on.

Fuck this. I turned the radio down, alone with my thoughts. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about Tom since the last time I saw him, since I said too much. It wasn’t a hookup, it was nothing more than a conversation. Which was fine, Tom and I were friends. Sort of. Not really. He was my brother’s friend, his best friend. And that was it.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t sitting there suddenly drowning in thoughts about our last encounter, both of us out on the back deck long after everyone had gone to sleep, the first real conversation we’d ever had in our adult lives. I hadn’t seen him in nearly two years when we were both still in college, Tom at UMass Amherst while I attended USC. He’d moved from London to the States with his family when he was thirteen, making fast friends with Jordan and becoming like a part of the family. He was around on holidays, weekends, he practically lived at our house during the summer. He would drink my orange juice and bother me while I tried to read. I’d known him when he was annoying and pimple faced, when he was an absolute dick to anyone who wasn’t JJ, when he was going off to college. Tom had been a major part of my childhood, my formative years.

He was also the biggest player I had ever met.

From an early age he knew that girls were drawn to the accent. He used it to his advantage, had girls hanging off his every word. I’d seen his social media, saw him shirtless on beaches with different girls, in clubs with different girls, in dorm rooms with different girls. I wasn’t jealous, but only because I’d known him for years. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about the hype.

From the day I met him, I knew Tom Holland was trouble.

But that night, long after everyone had gone to sleep and we were two bottles of wine deep, something shifted. Maybe it was the topic of conversation, maybe it was the way the late June breeze wrapped around us, maybe it was the fucking wine. But something changed that night.

But that was two months ago.

We hadn’t spoken since.

I shook my head, telling myself to stay focused on the road, on the drive. I could still have the peaceful weekend I wanted, if only I could turn my brain off for just a bit.

I was pulling into the driveway of the beach house forty five minutes later and the rain was coming down in buckets. It was flying sideways, splashing against the car hard enough that I couldn’t see out the windshield. Thunder boomed overhead and it felt as though it was straight out of a movie.

I yanked my hood up once more and killed the engine, gripping my backpack and holding it against my chest as I looked at the house. The two story, wood shingled home was every bit the beach cottage. It was located right on a dead end, a path leading straight down to the beach.

The lights were off, the furniture on the porch scattered from the wind. I knew I’d have my work cut out for me if I needed to make sure everything was secure, so without thinking twice, I threw open the driver’s side door and jumped out, the broken shells in the driveway crunching under my sneakers. I made a beeline for the side door, running up the steps and throwing open the storm door as the wind howled around me, A regular thunderstorm was bad enough. A summer storm? It could leave the house flooded.

Unlocking the door, I threw myself inside and slammed it behind me, leaning back and catching my breath as the silent stillness of the house settled around me. Thanks to modern technology, I turned the central air on before I got there, so the air was cool against my bare legs.

I went through the motions and turned some lights on, made sure the basement was shut with bags of sand by every entrance to soak up any flood water or other leaks. The fridge was empty, but I wasn’t hungry anyway. I knew I’d disappear up to my room with a bottle of wine and Netflix on my mind soon enough, I just needed to make-

Headlights bounced off the living room walls, a sign that someone had just pulled into the driveway. Surely it wasn’t my parents, they both hated driving in the rain, and it couldn’t have been Jordan, unless he was so concerned by the weather that he felt compelled to drive over an hour to check on me.

I quickly pulled my phone out of my back pocket. No missed calls or texts. Oh, so you’re saying it’s a murderer? My mind was quickly going into overdrive, covering all the possibilities of who would be there to murder me and what I could use as a weapon to defend myself. But hey, could you blame me? Twenty five years old and alone during a storm, 20/20 basically already had that episode mapped out for me.

A car door slammed shut.

Shells were being crunched under shoes.

Pounding footsteps up the side stairs. A shadow appeared on the other side of the door and my heart leaped into my chest. I was more than prepared to call the police when I heard the familiar sound of a key being inserted into a lock. I was standing in the doorway of the living room when the side door swung open, revealing someone I most certainly wasn’t expecting to see.

“I… Tom?”

He was squinting, his face and hair soaked by the onslaught of rain outside. “Y/N? What are you doing here?”

It was evident that he was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Tom’s accent seemed to thicken when he was angry or confused, and right now he seemed to be a mix of both.

I took in his appearance, trying not to be too obvious. He was wearing dark washed jeans and a pair of black Nikes, a simple black hoodie over a plain white t-shirt. Completely fucking effortless and still the most good looking guy in a fifty mile radius. His brown curls were matted to his forehead and he pushed them back, running his fingers through the thick trusses.

“What are you doing here?” The words came out accusatory and I cleared my throat. Relax. You’ve been in this house with him plenty of times before. “Are you... is there a girl in your car or something?”

“What?” Tom scrubbed a hand over his face, still clearly shocked and confused. “What do you- Jesus, no. You think I’d bring a girl back to your parents’ beach house, Y/N?” He finally looked at me, drops of water still catching on his long lashes. “You think I’d- hey, my jumper.”

“What?” I responded before looking down. Fuck. Me. Sideways. I was still wearing the UMass hoodie, the same UMass hoodie he’d given me last time I saw him. “Oh! Yeah, I… I brought it back to my place with me. And then Jordan called me and asked me to come here and it was right by the door, so I figured I’d… you know, bring it back here and… leave it… for you?” I was making it sound like a question.

Why was I making it sound like a question?

Are you having a fucking stroke? I asked myself as Tom blinked at me a few times, saying nothing. Lightning struck outside, momentarily blinding me as the lights flickered. Damn, losing power meant no Netflix. No Netflix meant Y/N’s chill weekend was about to go to shit. Technically, it already did because I 1) wasn’t even in my own home and 2) no longer feeling chill thanks to one british Tom.

“Jordan asked you to come?”

“Yeah, why?”

He looked around, peeking out the window. “Your parents called me and asked if I’d come make sure the house was secure.”

My parents? I was confused. Jordan specifically called me and asked me to go because he couldn’t. Why would my parents call Tom? Questions were flying through my head and I was already shrugging out of the hoodie, suddenly feeling like the material was too heavy, like I was drowning in it.

I held it out to him as he turned to face me again. “He probably didn’t call them to let them know I was coming, you know how he is.”

Tom smiled then, revealing straight white teeth. “Your brother’s a space cadet.”

That smile had my stomach doing backflips and I ached to calm down. It never used to be like this with him. He was cute, yes. Very. He was charming. He had nice looking hands. But he was Tom. He was Jordan’s Tom. He was the same Tom who fucked Missy Turner under the bleachers at the Homecoming game and the same Tom who let Rochelle Adams suck him off in the janitor’s closet during school. He was that Tom.

So why was I looking at him like he was Netflix and I’d had a long ass day?

I realized I was still staring, not saying anything. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here. We can kill Jordan, if you want. I feel like that’s good payback?”

Tom nodded, still smiling and playing along. “Yeah, we could. But then Leila would do away with us and I’m far too handsome to die this young.”

“True.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and jerked his chin at me. “And you… you have more of my jumpers to steal.”

I cocked my head to the side. “I didn’t steal it. If I remember correctly, you offered it to me.”

“I did.”

I was still holding the hoodie out to him. “Here.”

He made no move to grab it, hands still in his pockets. “Keep it. Looks better on you anyway.”

My stomach dropped and I found myself speechless. “I… you sure?”

He nodded. “Yeah, no worries.”

I nodded my head, heat flooding my face as I looked down. What the fuck was going on with me? I didn’t act shy, not around other guys and definitely not around Tom. During college, I finally found my confidence sexually and I took hold of that. I was not the shy girl.

“Do you want to head out before the weather gets really bad?” I asked him

.As if on cue, thunder cracked loudly overhead, releasing a loud boom followed by flashes of lightning. The lights flickered again and Tom met my eyes across the room, blinking those chocolate pools at me. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere, darling.”

His voice was quiet, almost too quiet. I could have sworn I could hear the waves crashing against the shore, or maybe it was the blood rushing in my ears. We stood, staring at each other for a moment, and I opened my mouth to speak when there was a loud crash at the back of the house.

I jumped with a yelp, my heart slamming against my ribcage. “What the fuck was that?”

Tom moved past me, absentmindedly reaching out to touch my arm as he went. “Stay here, I’ll be back.”

Um, that’s what people say right before they murdered. Even though I had come to terms with the fact that I was irrational, I wasn’t going to take any risks. Turning, I followed close behind him, catching the earthy, musky scent of his soap. Or, was it his laundry detergent? I didn’t know, but I enjoyed it. He smelled woodsy, warm. Safe.

Back the fuck up I cleared my throat, telling myself not to look at the way the material of his jacket stretched across his shoulders. There was a small crash again as we made our way to the back door.

“It’s a shutter.” He laughed and opened the window, screaming wind filling my ears as he grabbed the shutter and slammed it, closing the window. Turning, he had a smug smirk on his face. “You’re a big baby.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No, I’m not.”

He started to laugh, tilting his head back. “You screamed like a banshee.”

I flipped him off before turning my back on him, retreating as his laughter followed. “You’re a dick.”

My response only made him laugh harder.

Everything in the house seemed to be in order. The windows were shut and locked, the basement was set. The only thing that needed to be brought in was the outdoor furniture, but we needed the rain to let up a bit first.

When I walked back down the stairs after checking the second floor, Tom was rummaging through the kitchen. Seeing him there immediately brought me back to that night, the intimate conversation, the almost.

TWO MONTHS AGO

My parents had gone to bed nearly an hour ago and I was in my room listening to an old Rolling Stones record. Jordan was somewhere, possibly in his room with Leila and JJ, or possibly drinking down on the beach with Tom. It was one of the first weekends at the beach house, one of the first weekends of summer, and the air wasn’t thick yet. There was a breeze floating through the open windows and everything felt warm. New. The summer solstice was upon us and I lived for family weekends at the beach.

Funny thing about family weekends? Tom was there almost every single time.

“You’re still up?” I asked his back as I entered the kitchen, watching as he struggled to uncork a bottle of wine. He was wearing black basketball shorts and his old UMass hoodie, somehow still looking like an ad for an Abercrombie summer collection.

Tom sighed in defeat, slamming the bottle down on the granite countertop before answering me with a huff. “First weekend here and your brother’s already in bed.”

“Dad life.” I said with a laugh.

Tom smiled at the mention of our godchild. The day Jordan and Leila asked us to be godparents I’d been so emotional I cried for nearly an hour and, though I knew he wouldn't admit it if pressed, Tom was emotional about it, too.

“I love that little monster.”

I reached out, taking the bottle and finessing the cork for a moment before it finally released with a soft pop. “Jesus, Tom, you need to be slow with her. Gentle.” I chided as I reached into the cabinet, producing two glasses.

He took the bottle in a wide palm, tilting it to fill a glass before passing it to me. “I don’t know, she doesn’t like it too gentle.”

I rolled my eyes even as I felt my heart speed up. “Are we still talking about wine, or has the conversation moved to your latest conquest?”

Tom put a hand over his heart and threw his head back as if he’d been shot. “For your information, there hasn’t been a so called conquest in over a month.”

I feigned shock. “Over a month? Tommy, are you feeling alright?”

I was still laughing, but Tom paused to glare at me for using his little nickname. He hated being called Tommy and always had, but for whatever reason he never corrected me, never told me not to call him that. He’d glare, sure, but he never told me to stop.

“Feeling just fine, love.” He took a sip of the cool white wine, his brown eyes looking at me over the delicate crystal glass he held. “Fancy going outside for a bit?”

We were the only two left awake. I could faintly hear the pitter patter of feet upstairs as Jordan or Leila hushed a crying JJ, and then looked at Tom. “Yeah, let’s go.”

And that’s how we ended up on the back porch, the sound of the sea crashing against the shoreline as a soundtrack for our conversation. The wind had picked up but other than that the world was silent. It was just the two of us, and after not seeing each other for so long it felt like there was a million things to catch up on, yet I didn’t know where to start. I could ask him about graduation or what it was like to live in a big city, but in the grand scheme of things did those questions really matter? Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the atmosphere. But I wanted to know about Tom, about how he was doing, how his life was. If he was happy.

If he was single.

The thought was fleeting yet it caught me off guard nonetheless. I had no reason for caring if Tom was single, but there I was wondering if he was. He had changed over the two years I was away, his eyes sharper, his jaw more defined and making him look older. Still five eight but no longer the skinny boy he used to be. There was more definition to his arms, his chest a bit more puffed up. I took in the breadth of his shoulders and the slope of his neck, too caught up in staring at him to notice that he was actually speaking to me.

“What did you say?”

He laughed, leaning back in his chair. “Daydreamer. Are you listening to me at all?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry!” I laughed, draining my glass and then reaching for the bottle. “This wine goes right to my head. I’m all ears, what were you saying?”

He grabbed the bottle from me, refilling his own glass. “I was asking you about being home. Are you and… Bryan… Bobby… doing the long distance thing?”

“His name is Ben, and no.”

Tom snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Ben! That’s right, Boring Ben.”

I wanted to defend my newest ex, but I couldn’t. He truly was one of the most boring, insufferable people I’d ever been around. We dated for the last two years of college, maybe out of convenience, or maybe because it was because I’d gotten comfortable. People assumed we would get married, but the thought of walking down the aisle to him made me sick to my stomach. We literally had nothing to talk about, his friends didn’t like me, and the sex was mediocre at best, leaving me disappointed with myself for getting so comfortable that I was settling for bad sex.

I took a sip of my wine, looking down at the glass for a moment.

“I… what did you just say, love?”

I furrowed my eyebrows, confused.

“Did you just say that you settled for bad sex with Boring Ben?”

What? What? It was quite possibly the biggest mistake I’d ever made, saying those words aloud. But it all honesty I didn’t think I’d said anything. I wasn’t drunk, definitely not drunk enough to make that sort of slip.

I was mortified.

My eyes widened as I looked at Tom. My face and ears felt hot and I tried to sputter out an apology. “Holy shit. Tom, listen, I didn’t mean to say any of that out loud. I-”

“Stop.”

I paused, my heart hammering in my chest. He leaned forward slightly, placing his glass on the table as he regarded me seriously. “You didn’t mean to say any of it out loud. But you were thinking about the bad sex you settled for?”

I took in his words and felt my face heat even more. It sounded pathetic, embarrassing, but I was so focused on school that the relationship had taken more of a backseat. It was nice to have someone at the holidays and during family and university events. It was nice to not feel so alone in California while my friends and family were three thousand miles away. It was all… nice. Convenient. Words that shouldn’t always be associated when regarding a relationship.

But it was my truth. Ben was boring, I was settling, we got stuck.

“Can we pretend this never happened?” I blurted the words out, hoping Tom would be agreeable. If he told Jordan they would rag on me for the rest of my life and having to suffer through it now was bad enough.

“I don’t think I can do that, darling.” He was already shaking his head and my stomach was sinking. “Because it breaks my heart that you settled for less.”

I didn’t know what to say, caught off guard by Tom’s soft tone and sweet words. I shouldn’t have zeroed in on him calling me darling, but I couldn’t help it. He’d never done that before.

Ever.

I shivered, not knowing if it was from the breeze or the way he was looking at me, but he noticed. Quirking that one, whacky eyebrow at me, Tom asked, “Are you cold?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, the wind is picking up.” I rubbed my hands over my arms.

Tom stood, reaching a hand behind his back in between his shoulder blades, pulling his hoodie off. I tried to avert my eyes as the front of his shirt rose, revealing a strip of skin above his shorts. I couldn’t help but stare at the defined V of his hips or notice the way his ab muscles contracted with every movement.

He handed me the sweatshirt with a boyish smile on his face. “Take it. I’m hot anyway.”

You have no idea, I mused silently, thanking him and slipping the material over my head. It was soft, worn, the inside of it felt warm from his body heat. I could feel his eyes on me as I adjusted the material, pulling the hood up so that it framed my face.

“Looks good,” he quipped.

I smiled, taking a very large sip of my wine, thinking I was out of the clear.

“So how bad was it?”

I nearly spit the wine out at the question. “Excuse me?”

“The sex.” He deadpanned. “How bad was it?”

If I was the fainting type I would have been on the deck floor. “Tom, I’m not fucking telling you about my sex life.”

“Sounds like a LACK of a sex life, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

He smiled, but it quickly faded as he regarded me seriously. “Really, Y/N, how bad was it?”

I wanted to blame my honesty on the alcohol or the late hour, but really I think I just wanted someone to talk to. Someone to confide in. Tom may have been an asshole playboy to some, but never to me. Thinking back on it, he may have even been a gentleman to me. Sure, he would annoy me when we were kids and barge into my room without knocking, or he’d go through my purse looking for gum, and there was the time he accidentally ate my birth control thinking it was a mint.

But Tom was also the guy who punched my high school boyfriend in the teeth for dumping me the night before Homecoming. He was also the guy who made an obnoxiously huge sign with Jordan for my graduation. He was that guy.

“It wasn’t… bad.” I found myself starting to open up a bit, pulling at a thread that was sure to unravel if I didn’t stop soon. “It was just routine. It was always the same thing, Ben wasn’t very adventurous. He didn’t like to try things, he hated anything new. He was just…” I took a breath, trying to choose my words carefully. “Set in his ways, I suppose. And that didn’t work for me anymore.”

“So, you ended it?”

I nodded, draining my glass once again. “Yeah, and that was when he showed his true colors.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

I thought back to the breakup. We’d been in Ben’s truck and it was raining. We were parked at a diner that was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. “He confronted me. He knew I was acting weird and he refused to drop it until I told him. I tried to explain that it wasn’t him, that I felt we just weren’t compatible. Ben lost his fucking mind. He was screaming at me about how he had all these plans for us, how I was fucking things up.” I paused, thinking back on the way he looked at me, like I was trash. “He called me a cunt, told me to get out of his car, and then I walked two miles back to my apartment.”

Tom’s eyes widened at my admission. His cheeks were tinted pink and I assumed it was from the booze, but when his mouth pulled into a tight line I realized it was because he was angry. I’d even say he was pissed. “He what?”

“I know, I know, it was a shitty thing for him to do. But the thing is, I’m not even all that upset about it anymore. I finally got to see who he really was and, oddly enough, the only thing I felt on that two mile walk was relief. It was finally over, it was like Ben was my last attachment to California. I could finally come home.”

He was silent for a moment, taking a sip of his wine before speaking. “Do your parents know about what happened with Ben? Does Jordan?”

I shook my head.

“Then why tell me?”

Our eyes met, held. Tom’s face held a look of concern, confusion, and something else. Something I couldn’t quite place. He was leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees as we stared each other down.

“Because honesty comes easier when it’s dark out, Tommy.”

He swallowed, not looking away from me. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears, the wine making my lips tingle with the familiar buzz. Everything suddenly felt hot, burning hot, like it was on fire. Like the whole world was about to go up in flames.

Maybe mine was.

“I won’t tell them.”

“I know you won’t.” I reached out, gripping his hand. “You’re a good guy, Tommy.” I gave his hand a quick squeeze, meaning to let go, but then his long digits were wrapping around the back of my hand and it suddenly felt like we were magnets. I couldn’t let him go. His skin was warm, somewhat calloused against the soft skin of my knuckles.

His voice was so soft and quiet when he finally broke the silence, I had to lean in to hear him. “Y/N, what were those things you wanted to try?”

“Huh?” I felt as though I was in a trance.

“You said Boring Ben never wanted to try new things. What were they? He raised his eyebrows expectantly, fingers still stroking over the back of my hand.

It felt like a distraction, a very chaotic, overstimulating distraction. It was the smallest, simplest of movements, but feeling his fingers dance across my skin was hypnotic, and it was only my HAND. But I couldn’t ignore the question and it made my stomach turn. I didn’t want to tell him the things I wanted to do with Ben, the different versions of sex I wanted to explore more of. Sure, I tried things with different people before Ben and I got together, but it had been so long. So long since I got the attention I was craving.

So long since I’d done something reckless and new.

So long since I’d been touched by hands that were actually interested in making me feel more than a grip.“Tom…” I breathed out his name, suddenly overwhelmed. The scent of him was on the sweatshirt I wore and I could feel his knee bump mine as he moved closer.

“Tell me. I can keep a secret, love.” His words were hushed, quiet as he leaned just a little closer, our faces mere inches apart.

“I…” I started, my eyes flickering down to his lips before moving back up. Tom saw the movement, his lips curling slightly. “I wanted… something new.”

“Something new or someone new?” Tom responded.

“I don’t know.” I answered honestly, feeling his fingers tighten around mine.

“I think you do. I think you know exactly what you want, Y/N, you just need to say it.” He leaned even closer, his nose brushing mine, and when I went to back up he brought his free hand around and reached into the sweatshirt, knocking the hood off and cupping the back of my neck, his hand gentle but firm, kneading the soft skin where my neck met my shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” I gasped, suddenly struggling to breathe, overwhelmed by the sudden turn of events.

“Then tell me what you want. Say it.”

I was so wrapped up in Tom, in the moment, that I didn’t care about anything. Fuck the neighbors, fuck Boring Ben, fuck my family that was literally sleeping only feet away in the house. I wanted Tom. I wanted new. I wanted him to touch me the way he touched the girls who told stories about him. I wanted him to kiss me like he’d die if couldn’t.

“I want y-”

“Y/N? Tom?” a soft, sleepy voice came from just inside the house.

We sprang apart like we’d been electrocuted, Tom standing and walking to the edge of the porch while I pulled the hood back up, trying to look nonchalant and failing beautifully just as Jordan poked his head out from the screen door. “What are you two doing up?”

Tom didn’t answer, still looking out towards the path that led to the beach. “We couldn’t sleep, figured we’d devour a bottle of wine and then crash.” I laughed even though I felt anything but amused, standing up and heading over to the door. “I’m gonna try to sleep, though. I’ll see you both in the morning?” I brushed past Jordan, standing up on my tiptoes to hug him before turning to Tom, who had finally turned around. The look on his face was strained and frustrated, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

God, he was so far from the boy I used to know.

“Goodnight, Tommy.”

PRESENT

“Earth to Y/N.” Tom waved a hand in front of my face, laughing. “You with me?”

I shook my head, pulled out of that very intimate memory. “What? Yeah, sorry. It’s been a long week.” I laughed and tried to play it off like I was fine, but my stomach was turning in knots. We’d both slept under the same roof before, hundreds of times, but now things felt different. Heavy. It was like I’d spilled something last time and there was still a stain that wouldn’t come up no matter how hard I scrubbed.

“You have your pick of bedrooms.” I said casually. “Jordan’s, my parents’, the guest room. Whatever you want.”

Whatever you want. It was an unintentional double entendre, but I noticed the way his eyes darkened slightly.

“Where are you sleeping?”

“My room.” I clarified.

He nodded his head, moving around the center island as he shrugged out of his jacket, throwing it over the back of the couch. “Y/N, can I ask you a question?”I shrugged my shoulders.

“Go for it.”

He looked at me then, his jaw clenched as he braced his hands on the back of the sofa, fingers spread in a way that looked almost vulgar. “Why the fuck are you looking at me like you’re scared I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”

“I’m not.” I started to defend myself, straightening my spine. “I’m just freaked out because of the rain.”

“Bollocks. You’ve loved the rain since we were kids.”

I shook my head, sensing the anger in his tone. “Don’t do this whole angry british thing tonight, Tom. I’m in a mood.”

“Clearly.”I narrowed my eyes at him, my hands balling into fists at my sides. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“My problem?” He huffed at me, his cheeks flushed. “You’re the one who can barely look me in the eye, Y/N. So, you tell me what the problem is.”

“I don’t have a problem.” It was a lie. A blatant lie. But I wanted to move past whatever this was with him. I had to move past it. I couldn’t crush on my brother’s best friend. I read those books. I saw those movies. It would ruin everything.I had finally come home, had finally gotten my old life back. No matter how much I wanted Tom- and believe me, I fucking craved him- I could never have him. He would always be just out of my grasp.Which was a good thing.

“Okay, you don’t have a problem. That means we can discuss what happened last time we were here, yeah?”

I froze, no words coming out of my mouth. He said the words so casually it was as though he was talking about the weather. “I... “ I was struggling, slipping, losing my composure. “I don’t know-”

Tom was shaking his head, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Don’t even fuckin’ say it, Y/N. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Tom looked at me, eyes blazing. “You wanted it, I know you did. I felt it.”

My breathing was labored as I blinked at him. I had no idea how to respond. I didn’t want to acknowledge what happened, I wanted us to forget it and move on. It was a moment of weakness, it was late.

“It was the wine.” I said quietly. “We were drinking. W-we weren’t thinking straight.”

“It was the wine.” He repeated my words, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at me. “It was the wine.. That’s a joke, innit?” When I didn’t respond, Tom walked over to me, the tips of his sneakers touching the tips of my bare toes. “The truth is, Y/N, you didn’t drink that much. Neither did I. I knew exactly what I was saying to you and I was sober enough to see your reaction.”

“Tom-”

“Why won’t you be honest with me?” Tom’s voice was so soft it felt like a blanket.

The question felt like a knife to the gut? He was right to be confused. I never had any issue speaking my mind with Tom, with Ben, with anyone. I was opinionated, I said what was on my mind. But I was completely frozen with him. I just couldn’t push the words out of my mouth, couldn’t tell him that all of this was killing me, draining me. I couldn’t be open and honest and tell him that I’d spent the last two months thinking about him. That it never stopped. That the smell of him was haunting me, the feeling of his fingers on my skin was a memory I wanted to drown it. Tom had been in my life for over a decade.

Why now?

As if God was finally on my side for once, we were interrupted by the sound of furniture scraping across both the front and back decks. “My parents are gonna kill me if we lose any of those deck chairs.”

He stared at me for a moment and said nothing, his eyes searching my face. Eventually, he took one step back, seemingly giving up

.I hated the relief that went through me. But more than that, I loathed the disappointment that tugged at my heartstrings. I felt his eyes on me as I walked to the front door, pulling open the door and bursting outside with a deep breath, appreciating the way the rain hit my skin. I needed to cool down.

We were both silent as we got the stuff from the front and put it in the living room, turning the normally spacious room into nothing more than a cramped closet. Then came the back of the house, something that would be more difficult. The furniture was heavier, we had to walk up and down stairs, the thunder was clapping so loud I feared I’d go deaf.

I glanced up at Tom as he bounded down the porch steps. His shirt was completely soaked, the white material now stuck to his skin, nearly transparent. I could make out the tight muscles of his shoulders and the way his back tapered down to a lean waist.

Stop, stop, stop. I was screaming at myself, my feet slipping in my flip flops. I angrily kicked them off and then stormed down the stairs, suddenly furious about the rain and having to come to the beach house, and I was angry at Tom for not leaving well enough alone. More than that though, I was angry at myself for letting any of it happen in the first place.

He was dragging chairs by me when I stopped and wheeled around, facing him. “Why would you go and do this now?” I had to shout to be heard over the rain. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”

Tom paused for a moment, his jaw clenched, rain dripping down his face. Releasing the chairs, he slicked his hair back. “I… I don’t know. Okay, I don’t bloody know, Y/N. I saw you here for the first time in two fucking years, and I missed you. I missed you so fucking much and I didn’t even know it. And then you were here and I couldn’t get enough of you. I wanted to catch up, I wanted to talk. I wasn’t even going to try anything, not that night, but then you mentioned Ben and everything you didn’t do with him, and I just couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry, alright? I am. But I’m not gonna sit here and play this bullshit game with you. You let me in that night and you can’t take it back.”

You let me in that night and you can’t take it back.

His admission left me stunned. He looked vulnerable and honest, the words heartfelt. I knew he meant all of it, that he didn’t mean for anything to happen that night. Not that anything really happened, but it felt as though that conversation changed everything. There was a shift, one that neither of us could stop.

“It doesn’t matter.” I finally responded, my voice laced with disappointment. “We can’t do this, Tom. Whatever that night was, whatever that conversation was, it has to stay there. It has to stay in that night.”

“I can’t fucking do that!” He shouted, the rain still pouring down around us. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I didn’t feel something, Y/N.”

I was aching for him to stop. I knew he meant all of it, that he wasn’t trying to play me or hurt me. Tom would never risk saying the things he said if they weren’t at least party true.

I was beyond frustrated as I turned, grabbing more things to bring inside. Tom was huffing and puffing ahead of me, mumbling to himself. He was clearly angry, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed. We were both soaked from head to toe, my feet bare against the deck as we lifted the glass table, maneuvering it up the stairs to the back of the house.Tom’s eyes were on me the whole time and I was too cowardly to look in his direction. Carrying that heavy glass table while thunder roared and lightning flashed was stressful, to say the least. But I didn’t even care about the storm, I cared about the absolute hurricane that was my situation with Tom. I wanted to fix it, needed to.

“Why are you so stubborn?”

His question caught me off guard. We’d put the rest of the furniture away and I was outside searching for one missing flip flop, rain hitting me sideways as I turned to stare at him. He was leaned against the door frame, arms crossed with that white shirt sticking to him like a second skin. I could make out the line of the chain he wore, could see where it fell against his chest. Tom looked like the cover of a romance novel, a few stray curls falling around his forehead. Even in my terrified, angry confusion, my attraction to him was undeniable.

“I’m not being stubborn. I’m being smart. What, you want me to admit that I’m attracted to you? Fine, Tom. I am. But attraction doesn’t change things. We can’t cross that line, now will you please help me find my other flip flop?”

“Jesus.” He stormed past me, pointing a finger in my direction as he went. “This conversation’s not done.”

I shouted his name as he walked back down the stairs in no urgency because he was already soaked. His jeans sat low on his hips, probably weighed down by the water as he bent down, pulling something from one of the hedges at the end of the property. My flip flop. Turning, Tom walked back up the stairs slowly, purposefully, his stance all man and making me feel very, very small. I was waiting at the top when he finally stepped up, crowding me, holding my shoe in his right hand. Our chests were touching, just slightly, and I could feel my nipples harden from the slight contact.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, reaching to grab it from him.

Only to have Tom pull it towards him, away from me. “Have you thought about kissing me?”

“What?”

“Have you thought about me touching you?”

“Tom…” I backed up three steps with him following my movements, keeping us close, chest to chest.

“Those things you wanted to try, have you thought about trying them with me? Because, fuck, I’ve thought about you.”

His admission made me weak, my breath catching in my throat. We were getting close, so dangerously close to something we couldn’t turn back from.

“I’ve thought about you every day. I’ve thought about your eyes and your mouth and the way you look in my fucking jumper.” Tom’s hands grabbed my face roughly, cupping my cheeks, fingers tangling in my hair.

He was holding me there as my breathing went ragged, our eyes finally meeting. His pupils were blown out, water dripping down the bridge of his nose

.It was all so intense. It was overwhelming. I wanted him so bad it was physically starting to hurt, my hands going up and gripping his wrists, prepared to pull his hands away. “You are… so fucking infuriating.” I was breathless, weak, but I still noticed the smile that pulled at his lips.

“Darling, I’m a fucking devil.”

I knew what was coming, knew I should pull away, but as soon as his lips came down on mine in a bruising, hard kiss, I knew I was gone.

Tom’s lips were hard, demanding, his tongue eagerly licking at the seam of my mouth and begging for entry. His hands still held my face hard enough to prevent me from backing up, but even if he let go I knew I’d stay, the brief taste of his lips so intoxicating it felt like I was in a trance.

He pulled back, his eyes opening. Our noses still touched and I could feel his breath fan across my lips. Our eyes met and for the briefest moment I thought he was going to pull away, but he spoke instead.

“What do you want, Y/N?”

I paused, my throat dry and my breathing ragged. I couldn’t lie anymore, to Tom or myself, so I opted for honesty instead. “You, Tom. I want you.”

That was all he needed to hear before his mouth was on mine again. He slanted his lips over mine, tilting my head back. When our tongues touched I felt like my body was on fire and I couldn’t help but wonder why we hadn’t done it sooner. Tom tasted like mint, like a secret, like my deepest, darkest fucking fantasy.

All of a sudden he was pushing us, walking forward while I stumbled back, our mouths still fused together as he let out a soft groan. I wanted so badly to memorize the sound, to hear it again, but I was too focused on not falling over. Something sharp dug into my back and I winced, gasping into Tom’s mouth.

“What the fuck was that?” I gripped my side and turned. The doorknob.

“Shit,” he muttered, reaching to lift at the edge of my shirt. “Is it going to leave a bruise? Let me kiss it better.”

I rolled my eyes and laughed, opening the door and ushering him inside. “I’m fine. Really.”

“No.” Tom’s hands gripped my hips. He was looking at me with mischief in his eyes and it made my stomach do a backflip. “Really, love, let me kiss it better.” I felt his fingers skim over my bare flesh as he dragged the wet material of my shirt up and over my head, dropping it to the ground.

My chest was heaving as he looked me over, eyes zeroing in on my breasts. I was wearing a simple black lace bra, nothing fancy. But Tom was looking at me like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen and my heart swooned.I thought he was going to kiss me again, but instead he sank to his knees and my breath caught in my throat as he looked up at me. I was wearing my shorts, my underwear, and a barely there bra while Tom was still fully dressed. I felt vulnerable, small, but in that moment I fucking loved it.

Tom’s breath fanned over my hip as he kissed the spot where the doorknob had jammed into me. “Better?” he asked, looking up at me through thick, dark lashes. All I could do was nod, and his smug smile told me everything I needed to know; Tom knew exactly what he was doing.

His hands skimmed over the backs of my thighs, traveling down. When his fingers touched the backs of my knees they wobbled, and I knew he felt it. “This alright?”

I nodded my head, reaching one hand out and tangling my fingers in his wet hair, feeling his head nudge into my touch. “Use your words, Y/N.”

“It’s okay.” I managed to gasp out. He’d barely touched me, barely kissed me and I was still completely breathless.

“Do you want more?”

"Fuck." I gritted my teeth, suddenly frustrated he was moving so slow. "Yes."

He smiled, soft lips trailing over my hip, his teeth biting at the denim that hugged my skin. "How about we play a game?"

I huffed, my fingers stilling in his hair. "I'm not in the mood for games, Tom."

He stood then, nails lightly scraping up the sides of my legs and making my skin break out in goosebumps. Every single part of me was ignited and I was on sensory overload. "What if I promised you win this game?" He kissed my shoulder, one hand trailing over my side and traveling up my back, tracing my vertebra. "What if I told you that you win quite a few times?"

I gasped, drunk on his words as he leaned in, kissing me again just as he reached up and unclasped my bra. The straps fell down my shoulders slowly and as his lips grazed mine I reached bed between us, tugging the rest of the material down.

Like any straight, hot blooded male, Tom leaned back and looked down, taking in my naked breasts. "Shit," he breathed, leaning down and sliding his tongue over the curve of one globe, mouth warm and tongue wet. I was already arching into his touch when his mouth closed over my nipple. I thought he’d be gentle, thought he’d start slow, but he sucked HARD, yanking my nipple to the roof of his mouth until I yelped.

Tom groaned against my skin, releasing me with a pop. “Mhm, I liked that sound. Didn’t picture you as a screamer.” He smirked at me, his mouth red and his lips swollen.

I laughed and leaned in, my arms wrapping around his broad shoulders as we stumbled through the dining room. “Yeah? You’ve been thinking about the sounds I make?” I licked a fat stripe up Tom’s neck, feeling him shiver against me.

“I’ve thought about much more than that.” He grabbed me by my hips, now in the kitchen, and lifted me, my ass landing on the counter as the wind howled outside.I watched, mesmerized as Tom lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it to the side, revealing the smooth expanse of his chest. His abs were hard, tight, and I wanted to leave hickies scattered across his collarbones.

“I’ve thought about you. Here.” He tapped one finger against the countertop. “And I thought about what it would be like to fuck you while everyone slept upstairs.” He took a step forward, his hands going to his jeans, fingers deftly undoing the button and zipper. “Me, telling you to be quiet, putting my hand over your mouth.”

Tom’s long fingers reached out, sliding over my chin, across my cheek. When they traveled over my lips I couldn’t help but poke my tongue out, tasting the tips of his fingers. He stopped for a moment, leaving them there, eyes glued to my mouth as I repeated the motion, this time holding eye contact as I tipped my head back, letting his index and middle fingers dip into my mouth, my tongue wrapping around them and sucking softly.

His hand twitched slightly, I felt it, and I smiled around his fingers, groaning softly when he pulled back. The truth was, I wanted them deeper. So much deeper.

“Fuckin’ minx.” Tom’s voice was rough and his hands were the same, gripping my thighs hard and pulling me to the edge of the counter. My legs hugged his slim waist, my hands settling on his chest. “You want me to fuck you, Y/N?”

I nodded my head. Consequences be damned.“Fine. I’ll fuck you any way you want. But you have to tell me one of those things you wanted to try first.”

“Tom…”

“C’mon.” His voice was soft, smooth. Charming. When he spoke again his accent was thicker and I physically throbbed for him. “Give me a little bit, love.”

“I…” I started, suddenly very self conscious of my own sexual desires. It was different when I was having sex with Ben because it was always the same thing, and it was different sleeping with a stranger because I’d never have to see them again. But I would have to face Tom in the morning and every day after that. I didn’t want his opinion of me to change. “I want to suck your fingers while you fuck me.”

The words were so soft I wasn’t even sure he heard me. He was silent, eyes staring at my mouth before looking up, meeting my gaze. “That’s it? That’s what you were so nervous to tell me?”

I shook my head, unable to help myself from laughing. “Oh, man. No, you have no idea how many things I want to try. We’re just not there yet.”

Yet.

Why was I implying that it was going to happen again?

Tom’s hands were sliding up and down my thighs while my ankles were locked at his waist, his fingers eventually popping the button and zipper while I waited for his response. “You like hands?” When I nodded he continued. “You like my hands?” As if to emphasize, he slapped one hand roughly over the side of my thigh and I jumped.

He shushed me, pursing his lips softly. “Relax, darling. We’re about to have fun.”

Without another word he unwound my legs and pushed his hands against my shoulders until I was laying flat against the cold quartz counter, arching my back and gasping. Tom hooked his fingers into my shorts and underwear, pulling both down and leaving me completely naked in one swift move. I felt vulnerable and open, but he quickly forced me to move past that as he spread my legs, his fingers splayed across my thighs.

His groan sent shivers through me.

“You’re like a fucking dream.” His words were hushed even though we were the only two in the house. “Oh, shit, did I just see you clench up for me?” His eyebrows furrowed in concentration as I threw my hands over my face, mortified and turned on all at once. He could see every part of me.

“Tom!” I practically shouted. If he didn’t touch me soon I was going to-

My body tensed up and every coherent through flew from my mind as Tom licked a fat stripe all the way from my ass to my clit, groaning and sending vibrations through me. My legs twitched and he repeated the motion, my nerve endings on fire.

Tom Holland’s head was between my fucking thighs.

His lips closed over my clit, sucking at the same time as he pressed his tongue flat against the bundle of nerves, and my hips pretty much lifted off the counter.

“Tommy!” I gasped, the sound ending on a choked moan as he looked up at me, brown eyes nearly black.

He pulled back for a moment and I could see his lips, glistening and wet from my arousal. “You know, you’re the only one allowed to call me that?”

My head lolled slightly and I looked at him, reaching down to run my fingers through his hair. “Why?”

“Because I like the way it sounds when you say it.”

His admission did something to my insides, made me just a little weaker for him. I was the only one allowed to call him Tommy, the only one to have that little nickname. Something possessive soared through my veins and I quickly sat up, seeing his shocked expression as the fingers that were in his hair traveled down, grabbing the back of his neck and tugging him towards me, our lips attaching. I couldn’t stop fucking kissing him and when I tasted myself on his tongue I wanted him even more, sliding my tongue into his mouth and dominating the kiss.

“I wasn’t fucking done with you yet.” He spoke against my mouth.

“But you said this was about me trying things. There’s something I want to try, Tommy.”

His eyes shut briefly, his jaw clenched, concentrated. He was coming undone for me in the same way I was for him. “What’s that?”

I ran my fingers over his collarbones, tracing the delicate bones with my fingers. I was nervous, forcing myself to push the words out anyway. “You know how when you were in high school being sneaky and fucking in a girl’s parents house was fun? And, sometimes, when the parents weren’t around you and the girl would sneak up to her parents’ room?”

His laps traveled over my jaw, down my neck, and I felt him smile against my skin. “You want me to fuck you in your parents’ bed?”

My face heated and I nodded, burying my face in his shoulder.

Tom laughed softly, pulling back and helping me off the counter. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was completely naked while he still wore jeans and black Calvin’s but I no longer cared. In fact, there may have been a part of me that enjoyed the way I felt knowing I was the only one who was naked. It made me feel small, soft.

“What are ya’ waitin’ for then?” He arched a brow and nodded towards the stairs. “Move your ass.”

I practically sprinted past him, moving before he even finished speaking. His eyes were on me as I moved, my hips swaying a little more than usual. Tom was hot on my heels as I bounded up the stairs, one of his hands reaching out and giving my ass a swift, harsh slap. I welcomed the sting, pausing on the stairs and turning to look at him as a gasp escaped.

“I fuckin’ knew it.” He marveled, a smirk playing at his lips. “I knew you liked it a little rough.”

I began backing slowly down the hall, facing him. “Oh, you have no idea.”

He arched a brow, molten brown eyes looking me up and down. “Is that right? You feel like telling me any of those deep, dark fantasies, or are we not there yet?”

I couldn’t help but laugh as he threw my words back at me. “Not yet. I like surprising you.”

I stepped into my parents’ room and Tom followed suit, looking around as the wind rattled the glass windows.

The air suddenly felt thick. The king sized bed loomed behind me and it all felt real. Terrifyingly, brutally real. I was about to get into that bed with Tom, I was about to take a huge step off a very large cliff. Whether it was good or bad- although I prayed it would be good- didn’t matter. We would never be able to come back from this.

“Believe me, you’ve done nothing but surprise me tonight, Y/N.”

“I actually think it’s your turn.” I said with a small smile as I crawled onto the bed, looking at him over my shoulder.

Tom was too busy taking in the view of my naked backside to comprehend my question. “What?”

I sprawled out across the bed and rested my chin on my hand, looking at him. His jeans were undone and his hardened cock pressed almost painfully against the denim material. “It’s your turn. I’ve been very honest about what I want to try, but what about you, Tommy? What do you want?”

His eyes locked on mine and my breath caught as he moved forward. “I want you. I want you to say my name while you come, I want you to wrap those beautiful legs around me and squeeze whenever I go just a little too deep. I want to fuck you the way I’ve dreamed about fucking you since I was fifteen years old.”

His candid admission left a pang in my heart and I quickly tried to stifle it, leaning up as he leaned down, our mouths fusing together once again. It seemed that I couldn’t keep my mouth off his. Maybe it was because I had been fantasizing about that mouth for so long, maybe it was because Tom was just that good of a kisser, but either way I didn’t care.

“Fuck me. Now.” The words were mumbled against his lips.

Tom’s lips traveled down my jaw to my neck and he bit the skin where my shoulder and neck connected. His sopping wet jeans pressed against me and I hissed out a breath as he pulled back, laughing down at me. His brown hair had begun to curl at the sides and he looked boyish, young. His cheeks were flushed and I couldn’t even remember why I’d tried to fight my attraction in the first place.

He jumped off the bed and began the painstaking effort of removing wet denim.

“God… fucking… dammit!” I watched him struggle, biting back a laugh as he hopped around the room, kicking one leg free and then the other. When he looked back up at me his eyes narrowed and he glared. “Are you laughing?”I shook my head, sucking my bottom lip into my mouth.“You’re laughing at me right now.”

I shook my head, backing up on the bed as Tom came forward. “No, no I’m not. I’m-” I shrieked as his hand wrapped around my ankle and he dragged me down the matress.

I struggled against him as he leaned over me, covering his body with mine as his hands tickled at my sides. I gasped and laughed, nearly headbutting him at one point. “Tom, please, I was-wasn’t laughing.” I was trying to explain myself when his hips settled between my thighs, his hard cock pressing against my clit, right where I was aching for any kind of attention, or friction, I could find.

“You’re not laughing anymore,” he whispered against my mouth.

“Not really finding anything to laugh at right now.” My response was just as quiet, my fingers linking behind his neck as he braced a hand on either side of my head. Our eyes met as he ground his hips against me, my mouth falling open in a quiet moan as Tom settled on a good rhythm. He wasn’t even inside me yet and I was already on the edge, my thighs trembling as they squeezed his trim waist.

Tom seemed just as eager as I was, his arms wrapping around me and then unwrapping, hands trailing up and down my sides, over my breasts, gripping my thighs. My own nails scratched lightly over his shoulders and I reveled in the way he shivered on top of me. His breathing was heavy, chest heaving as I lifted my hips, grinding harder, needing more.

“I…I don’t…” Tom trailed off and I stopped my movements.

My heart sank at his tone. He was about to tell me he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t sleep with his best friend’s sister. I, of course, would be mortified and naked and ashamed as he got dressed to inevitably leave, where he would get into a car accident and die because there was a storm raging outside. And then I would have to explain to my parents and Jordan that I killed Tom because I-

“I don’t have a condom.”

What?

“What?”

“I don’t have a condom.”It was a split decision, and normally I would argue with myself about practicing the art of safe sex, but I had waited too fucking long for this and I was thankful that he wasn’t about to leave me naked in the middle of my parents’ bed.

“I’m on the pill.”

He arched a brow. “You’re cool with…”

I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t seen him bashful very often, but I had to admit I found it completely adorable. “Tommy, I’m cool with anything that involves you being inside me.”

“Thank fucking god.” He sat back on his knees between my splayed thighs and I watched as he hooked his fingers into the waistband of his briefs, shoving them down so that his cock sprang free, slapping up against his abdomen. My eyes widened as I finally got the first glimpse of what had been grinding against me for the last thirty minutes, of what I’d been dreaming about all summer. His cock was long, a pulsating vein across his shaft.

My mouth watered at the sight of the pre-come that gathered at his crown and I reached forward with every intention of wrapping my fingers around him. But Tom’s hand snapped forward and he grabbed my wrist, halting my movements.

“I want this to last longer than fifteen seconds and, honestly, if you touch me right now I’m going to fucking explode all over you like a fifteen year old .I don’t want to ruin this.”

I looked up at him. He was panting, his cheeks tinted pink. He looked rumpled, worked up, his eyes dark, and I’d never wanted him more. Leaning up, I gave him a quick kiss on the lips, darting my tongue out to taste his quickly. “Get on with it then.”

Tom smiled against my mouth and then he was pushing me down again, covering his body with mine. His skin was warm and the hair on his legs tickled my thighs, but all I could really focus on was the deep, intense throbbing that had settled low in my stomach. I actually feared that I would die or combust if he didn’t fuck me so-

Too wrapped up in my aching body, I didn’t notice that Tom had reached between us and lined himself up at my entrance. When I felt his knuckles brush against my swollen clit I stiffened, a weak whine leaving my mouth.“I want to hear that fuckin’ noice on repeat for the rest of my life,” he whispered against the damp skin at my temple.

I was about to open my mouth and give a half assed witty response when I felt his body surge forward, his cock sinking into me in one long, swift, nearly painful because it was so good move. I gasped, my thighs squeezing Tom’s hips and my nails digging into his sides.

His groan in my ear sent vibrations through me and I shook underneath him, trying to find my breath, trying to acknowledge the fact that it was Tom inside me. Tom Holland. My brother’s best friend. But at that moment in time someone could tell me I didn’t actually have a brother and I would have believed them. I would have believed the moon was actually made of cheese. I would have believed anything… because none of it mattered.

In that moment the only two people who existed were Tom and me. Just us and the storm. “Tommy.” My voice shook as he pulled nearly all the way out, just holding the tip of his cock inside me.

Tom looked down at me with his eyebrows furrowed, mouth hanging open. He looked serious albeit desperate and I could completely understand why. It felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room as soon as he pushed inside me. “You good? You need a minute?”

I shook my head. “You feel so good.”

Something snapped in him then. I watched it happen. His eyebrows relaxed, the hands that were on either side of my head clenched into fists, and his hips snapped forward as he pushed in to the hilt, repeating the motion twice more before a rough grunt escaped his lips.

I slammed my head back against the pillows as a moan tore from my throat. He’d barely been inside me two minutes and I already felt like I was on the verge of an earth shattering orgasm. But it was true. Tom had kept me riled up so long, far longer than just this messy afternoon. My body had been waiting for this for so fucking long.

Tom’s teeth sank into my shoulder. Hard. He didn’t let up until I yelped, and then he pulled back with a devilish smirk. “Look at you,” he said, breathing heavily as he lowered his head, our noses brushing. “Screaming underneath me whilst I fuck you in your mum and dad’s bed. So, so naughty.”

He was taunting me, teasing me, and his words spurred me on. My hips lifted, another rough moan leaving my mouth at the new angle.

Tom must have liked it too, because soon enough he was thrusting so hard it nearly hurt, so hard I swore I could feel him in my stomach.“You’re. So. Fucking. Perfect.” His voice was gruff, the words barely audible. Our moans and breaths mingled, the sound of skin slapping skin filling the room. It may have been pornographic, may have been downright filthy, but I was too far gone to care.

I was fucking drowning in Tom.

So close to coming harder than I had in my entire life.

When he reached between us to rub his thumb over my clit it felt like too much, my back arching as I shook my head. “Tom, Tommy… no. I-”

“Shhh.” Tom’s focus was between us as he looked down, sliding his now soaking wet digit over my clit again, reveling in the way I shook under him. “Been dreaming of this for years. For years, Y/N.” He was so transfixed on looking down at where we were joined, I truly didn’t know if he realized he was speaking. “Do you want to come on my cock, love?”

He looked up at me then, our eyes meeting. His pupils were so blown out there was barely any brown left. No longer able to form a coherent sentence all I could do was nod.

“Good.” He pressed his thumb against my clit, harder than before, and watched my face as a scream erupted from me.

“Tom!” I went to grab his hand and he quickly grabbed hold of it with his free one, slamming it down against the mattress near my head, resting his full weight on me.

“You’re going to come for me just like this. My cock inside you, my hands all over you.” He released the hand he was holding and grabbed a hold of my hair, yanking my head back in a move that shocked me. I hadn’t expected him to be so rough, but the move sent pleasurable shockwaves through my scalp and down my back. I felt him everywhere.

I was close, so fucking close, words and moans and broken pleas leaving my mouth. I wanted it so bad I could cry, my desperation palpable as Tom trailed rough, wet kisses down my neck, never once letting up on my clit as his hips pistoned forward in short, quick strokes. He was close too, I could feel it in the way his pace began to stutter, in the way his breath was hitting my neck.

I ran my fingers through his thick hair and his pace quickened. “Come, Y/N, please.” Tom’s voice was raspy and I knew he was serious. He was waiting for me, holding back for me, wanting to please me… and somehow that was everything I needed to finally let go.

My orgasm hit me like a freight train, knocking the wind out of me. I came with a silent scream, my mouth falling open with no sound coming out, my breath stuck in my throat as Tom’s grip on my hair tightened. Vaguely, I could hear his name coming out of my mouth on repeat, my entire body tensing up underneath him. It was like nothing I’d ever felt, like every nerve in my body was on fire.

“Fuck… fuck… fuck.” Tom’s back muscles tensed under my hands, his entire body going still as he held himself deep inside me. The feeling of his pulsating cock sent delicious aftershocks through me and I clenched around him, loving the small groan that erupted from him as he slowly relaxed, resting his full weight on me with a long, heavy sigh.

We lay like that for a few minutes, the thunder and wind having calmed at some point during our tryst. Tom was resting his sweaty forehead on my chest and I ran my fingers through his hair as I stared up at the ceiling. Everything would be different now, everything would change. But I was too lost in my post orgasm glow to care much about anything.

“Was that too rough?” Tom’s voice was soft, the question catching me off guard.

“What?”

He lifted his head to look at me, shifting his body weight as he examined my face. “Was I too rough? I get carried away sometimes, don’t always know my own strength.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. If he only knew half the things I wanted to do to him, or what I wanted him to do to me. Shit. He’d probably have me arrested. “No, Tom, no. Believe me, it was perfect.”

He arched in eyebrow in a cocky way that only Tom fucking Holland could do. “Perfect?” His accent was thick. “Just wait for round two.”

I was about to respond when he leaned in for a kiss, capturing my lips and holding me right there in that moment with him. It was crazy, it was stupid, it was reckless. And I didn’t give a flying fuck.

A noise from downstairs startled us and I jumped. “It was probably just the wind.” Tom reassured me.

I nodded my head, but when I heard the telltale sign of keys hitting the countertop my heart leapt into my throat. “Tom? Y/N? You guys here?”

Tom’s eyes met mine and in unison, we said, “Jordan.”

Oh, fuck.

#tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland au #au #spiderman #avengers #peter parker #i feel like im gonna throw up #why am i so nervous about this

[iatheia]

EDA reviews part 2 - books 10-18

Previous part here

10) Legacy of the Daleks - A very enjoyable read, even though it doesn’t mesh well with Big Finish continuity. I have a few headcanons on how to rectify that, though... The meeting between the Eight and Delgado’s Master left me grinning ear to ear, the way Eight was posturing, wholly aware of the way the Master ticks. I’m not sure I liked Susan quite as much, though - nor was she that fundamental to the story, spending most of the time off screen, but being somewhat unlikeable when she was there. Her final confrontation with the Master was a bit much... Similarly, it was hard to accept Master not recognizing her. That said, the rest of it was a fun romp, and Eight’s thoughts towards the end were particularly poignant, 9/10

11) Dreamstone Moon - Starting right off the bat with an author self insert, and have him being both the source of the conflict and the one to ultimately save the day, kind of - it’s a bold choice.... It’s been said before, but Doctor’s companions really should unionize huh? Eight’s in particular. It really is quite striking that the situation with Sam is pretty much the exact same one as it will be with Charlie - thinking that the Doctor is dead, abandoned, alone, without any network of support. And I’m finally about to have context for that post, so, cheers, I guess. That said, Sam and the Doctor are very much representative of the “quit telling everyone I’m dead - sometimes I can still hear his voice” meme. I’ve lost count how many times Sam decided that the Doctor’s dead within five minutes of seeing him very much alive. (Ok, no, I jest, but it’s a good book, throughly enjoyable from the beginning to end, 10/10)

12) Seeing I - I, uh, really struggle to follow Sam’s logic in the beginning here. I don’t really understand how she ended up in the place she did, after the last novel. Because, she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t abandoned, she was in a company of people, who, uh, cared about her might be putting it a bit too strongly, but who at least could vouch for her. So this disconnect is a bit odd. And, as good as this novel is, as good as the character work in here is, I have a slight disconnect with the rest of it, too. There is too big of a gulf with where the story begun and where it ended - there are too many things going on, too many plots introduced and then unceremoniously dropped. It’s like... Revolution of the Daleks inside of Kerblam, with Nightmare in Silver thrown in with half a dozen other themes from other episodes. When you have the doctor in the machine and the psychologist guy go from primary antagonists to the supporting cast we’re supposed to root for, there is something mildly dissatisfying about it, thematically speaking. Overall, the story in its entirety is less than a sum of its parts. Breaking it into pieces, though, there is a lot of exciting stuff there. 9/10

13) Placebo Effect - Controversial opinion time - I don’t care for Ark in Space. I think it’s a pretty forgettable episode. So any time I encounter any reference to the wirrrn, my reaction is “wait, who?”. And even though I like Leisure Hive well enough, I dare you to find anyone who has been clamoring for the return of Foamasi. This rather made me immediately apprehensive, straight from the preface. In general, there was too much continuity. Stacy & Ssard, really? How deep do you need to be to appreciate their appearance? They are so utterly unnecessary, too, they disappear less than a quarter of the way into the novel, they aren’t even there for set up, they are there for a set up of a set up. If you are actually a person who knew who they were, and wanted to see more of them, I can’t imagine this being all that satisfying. It’s a rather abrupt transition from the previous ark. I dare even say, aggressive, to the degree you have Sam going from “she is afraid to be even in the same room with him, lest she kills him with her soaked through panties” to “she is absolutely delighted when he imparts onto her his grandfatherly wisdom”. Then again, any time either Eight or Sam opened their mouth, I didn’t see Eight or Sam. I saw Four and Sarah Jane. It’s not well written, either. It’s very clunky. The dialogues in particular are obnoxious. Stacy’s and Sam’s conversation, and later on dogmatic discussion between Sam and the priests gave me full on psychic damage. I mostly skimmed beyond that, can’t say there was much to catch the eye. 2/10

14) Vanderdeken's Children - This book is aiming to be a masterpiece, but it’ll just have to settle for being good enough. It does have some interesting twists and turns in here, even though most of them are pretty predictable and expected from the set up. The last couple of chapters, the ending overall, are quite decent (even though all the ebook versions I was able to find cut off the last couple of pages, argh!), but the middle is very middling, with mostly uninspiring secondary characters that are ever so slowly being positioned on the chess board. 7/10

15) The Scarlet Empress - Where to begin... It’s a series of mostly unrelated short stories in a trench coat pretending to be a novel. It’s set up in a middle of a road trip, unrelated not just to each other, but also the measly bit of plot that was given to us? I found it’s quite difficult to engage with the story overall, or follow it, really. It tries to be more character driven than plot driven, which is an admirable aim, and some of the character stuff they have in here is nice, except... Outside of may be bits of chapter 1, I couldn’t really hear Doctor’s voice - any version of him, let alone Eight. Sam fares a bit better, but, at the end of the day... It doesn’t really feel like Doctor Who story. The pacing is completely off, as is the structure, and it was quite nonsensical and whimsical, more akin to Alice in Wonderland than Doctor Who. Not bad in and of itself, just, hard for me to appreciate as a part of this marathon. A note on Iris. I haven’t yet listened to her stand-alone adventures, but I generally enjoy whenever she shows up in Big Finish. Here, though, she was rather lacking Katy Manning’s charm and personality. And, I feel, if you didn’t have any existing fondness for the character before, this novel isn’t going to give you much to care about her. Except, *checks notes*, this was one of her first major outings? Not really a good start. Oh, and prior to this she was in a few short stories, by the same writer. Well, that checks out. 6/10

16) The Janus Conjunction - I really liked this one. Not much to say beyond it, but, very well written, very easy read, practically in a single breath. Excellent characterization for both Doctor and Sam, just a right degree of joyful, determined, adventurous, death defying, mad, delirious, and codependent, almost moreso than any other I’ve read so far. Rather dark, though, I can feel it resonating in the pit of my stomach, and it gets inside your head. 10/10

17) Beltempest - What did the Doctor do to deserve this character assassination??? It’s not without redeeming bits (looks like “I’m not a man” quote comes from here, big yay), but, in large part, is barely a pale shadow of a character I like. Especially in the beginning - he think that Sam might have died and he is ok with this??? After the Dreamstone Moon??? And he is incredibly obnoxious? And Sam was barely herself, even before being... uh, possessed? for plot related reasons. I can’t describe how much disconnect I have with the protagonists here, or with any characters in the rest of the book, for that matter, and how much the dialogue made me roll my eyes. And, ah, the technobabble. I generally try not to overthink the physics of most things in fiction, because, as a certified space scientist, otherwise I’d be here all day, but there comes a point where it crosses the line. After everything else, to read the words “newly born main sequence star” with my own two eyes is just too much. I’m a good person, I do not deserve this nonsense... The first half of the book left me rather put off. The second part left me feeling absolutely flat. No emotions, either positive or negative. And, uh, there was a post going around on tumblr along the lines of “the worst you can do to the character is having them mention a certain food, because the fandom will turn it into an obsession” - it’s rather the same here with Eight and books & classical music. I am rather starting to loose count of the number of times they are trying to emulate the scene with the ending of the movie, where he is lounging about and reading, or specifically mentioning Pucchini. To be fair, it’s not just this novel, but it definitely starting to take me out of it. 5/10

18) The Face-Eater - I’m generally a bit wary of cold opens in the books, because some tend to ramble a bit, with the characters I don’t already know and love, so it’s often is a chore to muster enthusiasm to care about them. This one, though, despite all that, starts very effectively, in a way that made me immediately sit up straight. Very snappish, in a style of noir novels. Too bad it doesn’t quite sustain that energy throughout it. The plot is... interesting, I guess. Characterization is decent, for the most part - although some moments, especially early on gave me a pause, it more than makes up for it in other places. 7/10

Overall impressions so far: Much better than the first set of 9, which often were too deeply rooted in nostalgia to try to offer anything unique. And, I guess, with more writers having a chance to read each others works, the characterization is a bit more consistent (not for every writer, mind, but, in general). How long does it take for them to write a novel of this length, I wonder? A book a month is a rather grueling pace for the series - how far in advance do they start? How many other books come out during that time? 

Sam in particular incrementally found her footing (though, there is a bit of a lag from novel to novel). Instead of imagining literally any other companion, there were certain novels that really helped me to grasp her character. Though, hmm... being Doctor’s companion is not a safe job by any stretch of imagination, but this girl has really been through a wringer. I’m rather struggling to think of any other companion that has been put through so much (non-lethal) battering. There comes a point when one just wants to just to let her have some good time. And, uh, there was a horrible thought that occurred to me, and went to look up how she will depart the TARDIS in the end, and... well, I have a feeling that sometime afterwards I will not like what will happen.

Also, there is this trend of separating her and the Doctor, for a prolonged period of time, them having no idea where to find each other, without any contact, just, stumbling onto one another eventually. It’s a way for writers to have them cover more narrative ground, and you certainly don’t want them attached by the hip, but when they spend less than 20 pages a book in each other’s company, that’s, uh... not a trend I particularly care for.

Well, onto the next batch where we meet Fitz, and say good bye to Sam.

Next part here

#doctor who #eighth doctor #eighth doctor adventures #eda

[caramelohaechan]

Nightmare ~ High Tide Ep. 2 (C. San)

you guys gave me so much love and I feel so full inside thank you so much// I did my best to edit this one but I’m kind of dumb so pls forgive my mistakes

~

Episode 1 // Character Guide // Episode 3

Fandom: Ateez

Genre: fluff/ action

Warning(s): female!reader // pirate!ateez // there’s slight action, and it’s kind of long // there are mentions of blood and death in this one // also, mangoes ;)

~

       The nightmares start a week before you’re designated to reach Wonderland. 

More than half of them are easy to forget the second you wake in the morning, as they’re the usual kind of night terrors that end in your demise. The times you do wake up with a cry, or sometimes even a scream, are the times when you’re forced to witness the crew of Aurora being shred to pieces by monsters. Of course, though you could do without the intricacy, the dreams are always strangely meticulous when it comes to the deaths. The blood is always a deep scarlet, and usually you’re in the right area to receive a hot spurt to the face, and the screams are so guttural and horrifying it takes time to recover when you’re finally able to jolt yourself out of the dream.

Your guess is that they’re a result of the training sessions that have been taking place on the main deck. The hard to bear, even harder to teach, combat lessons that you and San have been doing for the crew members that aren’t so skilled in fighting. They haven’t been terrible, but they could’ve had better progress by now. It’s been three weeks since the initial beginning of the sessions, but it seems the only members who pick up the skills well are Jongho, Mingi, and Hongjoong. Jongho knows his way around the weapons, and is comfortable using them, Mingi is good at learning techniques and soaking in information the second he’s told, and Hongjoong succeeds because of his entrenched perseverance. With great reason, they’re usually the ones to be slaughtered last in your nightmares.

Today, approximately five days and nights before their skills are really put to the test, you have the scariest, most unpredictable nightmare of all. 

Though you’ve never seen Wonderland, or even heard of what it would look like, your brain conjures up a perfect picture of a treacherous island. The sand that the grey, ugly water is crashing against is the color of ink, and the sun seems to have been devoured by dark, lifeless clouds. Your feet are bare against the chunky, sharp pieces of sand, and the other crew members are standing around you, armed, but scared. They’re all pale and shaking in the ice cold winds, and everything feels so real. You wheel around to catch sight of Aurora, but all you see is the vast, endless sea of gray, merciless water. Your hair cracks against your face with a surge of more wind, and you snap around as fast as you can. 

“Guys, we can’t go in there!” You gasp, but the moment you turn, you’re met with an empty shore. San’s holding back a large branch, but he doesn’t turn to check if you’re following as he releases it, a sharp crack breaking the silence as it whips back into place. “WAIT!” 

The soft flesh of your feet is torn apart, the particles of sand give away to sharp stones that hinder your ability to get to San fast enough to stop him. He disappears into the tall, thick wood that covers the island as far East and West you can see, not turning back once at the sound of your calls. You ignore the pain and blood now covering the entirety of both feet and push forward, determined to get the others out of there. 

You have a plan to retrieve supplies, and everyone has acted as if you hadn’t. Simply barging into the depths of the island was completely out of the question, too dangerous and rash, but even Hongjoong had gone against his own words and surged forward into the unknown, which has every part of you feeling betrayed and anxious. You can’t watch them die. Not again. 

You hack at the sharp branch with a sword that suddenly appears in your hand, not bothering to question it’s sudden appearance as what little light you had before disappears under the canopy of dark green leaves and thick branches. The trunks of the trees are about three feet wide and taller than you care to try and see, and there’s a path of spongy amethyst moss lined with spotted mushrooms. It’s strange, but as far as you know, anything is possible on an island like Wonderland, which grows crops and other produce so delightful and rich, on the Mainland, it’s said to be a product of magic. 

You see the back of San’s head turn a corner a good distance ahead and charge forward, ignoring the shadows that seemed to follow you in the trees, and the stinging of your open wounds on the moss.You swing your sword at hanging vines, aware that your hands have a persistent tremor and your heart an unwavering stagger. You’re absolutely terrified of the path, the trees, the sounds of croaking and chirping you’d normally hear in a forest, but that seem ten times more terrifying when you know what you know about the place. You turn the corner where San had disappeared, and come face to face with your first monster. 

Out of every kind of drooling, slimy, terrifying sort of creature you were able to conjure up before, you had never expected this. The monster is actually quite beautiful. It has the torso of a female human, that slowly morphs into the glimmering coat of a wolf, the fur thick and white as snow. It’s head is human, hair waist-length and as white as the fur, and her hands are equipped with claws that make an actual wolf’s look like butter knives. It stares at you for a second, head cocked to the side in curiosity. You try to steady your trembling hand and tighten your grip on the silver sword weighing your arm down. This definitely isn’t your weapon, you think, but it will have to do. 

The wolf girl pushes a lock of milky hair behind her ear and smiles sweetly before her mouth opens and razor-like canines glint under the light peeking from a crack in the leaves. She lunges with a roar, and your first instinct is to dodge her attack, mushrooms crushing under your feet as you twist out of her way. You lift the sword and swing as she turns, faster than expected, the metal clashing with the tips of her talons. They rake across your sword and create a very unattractive sound that has your teeth rattling. You jerk your wrist to the right and aim for the smooth skin of her palm, and blade manages to split skin. Her hands jerk back and you push forward, swinging the sword like a mad woman with no sense or fighting experience. You manage to make several slashes on her unprotected arms, before she kicks it out of your hands with her massive wolf legs, claws raking against your forearm. The sword flies from your hand and embeds itself into the bark of a nearby tree, but you don’t have time to be shocked before she’s charging forward again, more livid now that you’ve caused harm. She manages to catch the same arm she’s scratched and sinks her talons into your skin, causing waves of pain to surge up to your shoulder. A scream tears from your throat, and you kick your foot out, bare, bloody heel catching on her hip and staining her untainted fur scarlet. You push her body away from you and her claws rip from your skin, creating more pain than before. She lands on her ass and you use that moment to grab the hilt of your sword and attempt to yank it from the tree. It’s deeper than you expected and doesn’t budge after many harsh tugs. A clawed hand grabs your ankle and you scream, but attempt to pull the weapon from the dense bark again. Your throat vibrates with another painful cry as you feel her jagged canines sink into your calf, this time tears springing from your eyes at the awful feeling. Both heat and pain lick up your leg, and you’re sure this is the part of the dream where you die. At least, you’re hoping it is. 

“HEY!” 

A squelch follows the yell and blood gushes from your new bite wound as the wolf-girl turns her head to the person who called. You take the chance to use every bit of your strength to finally free the sword of the tree’s hold, digging your heels into the moss to steady yourself. You turn your head to see Yeosang charging forward, a set of daggers in both of his hands. He looks terrified, yet determined, and he’s followed by the rest of the boys. 

You don’t risk the chance of the wolf-girl shredding him into ribbons, and use her distraction to your advantage. You swing the sword with every bit of adrenaline fueled strength, and slice at her neck. The blade catches in her throat and a ruby hot spring explodes from her skin. You stumble forward as her body falls back and her hands reach up to scratch at your sword. Your swing had been powerful, but your sword wasn’t sharp enough, nor your strength good enough to cut through the entirety of her bone, so the blade is stuck in her throat, just below the jaw. You press your bare foot atop her struggling hands and yank upwards. The blade comes free and your face is decorated with a wave of incredibly warm, sticky blood. 

She’s still alive, but dying rapidly, choking on her blood and clutching at her throat as if it will help. Within a minute she’s motionless. You don’t know exactly how to feel. You turn to greet Yeosang and the others with relief, but yet another scarring sight meets your eyes. 

Another monster. 

By the time the warning leaves your mouth, the four headed dragon is snatching up your friends by the heads like rag dolls. In spite of your pain, you surge forward and attempt to reach them in time. Yeosang and San run to you, but the others stay fighting, inevitably losing against the powerful creature. Mingi manages to lodge a dagger into the eye of the head that’s caught him around the middle, but it does nothing to stop it from biting him in half. 

The screams are the worst part. You’ve always admired listening to the others on the boat. Their voices are all unique and you could listen to them talk and sing for hours. The varying tones, the laughs that interrupted their sentences when they were telling a joke. The screams are a different story. They come from the deepest pits of their stomachs and rip their vocal chords in agony. They’re all so harrowing you can’t tell who’s scream is who’s. 

San reaches your side and grabs your face. “Darling, you’ll be alright. We can make it through this.” 

You can’t manage a word. How can he say that at a time like this? When he’s just seen his friends get split and torn apart as easily as thread. The only thing that manages to escape you is a whimper. You can’t look away from the bloody sight, and you’re sure that your body is going numb from shock. 

San shakes your shoulders and Yeosang, who had stopped beside the two of you, charges at the monster with a new, fiery wave of bravery. You don’t have the voice to stop him. San moves your face so that you can only see him, in all of his beautiful glory. He doesn’t even look scared. How does he do that?

“Listen to me, Darling, we’ll get out of here. I know it. I love you, remember?” He pants, hands still clutching your shoulders. 

You feel more tears slide down your face as a shadow encases the two of you suddenly. “I love you too, San.” 

He smiles softly, as if those words make the idea of death an easier pill to swallow. Then a sour rush of hot air rustles his hair and you look up just as a scaly mouth opens up, with razor-like teeth, and bites down on your smiling lover. 

An anguished shriek leaves your lips as your eyelids peel open, forcing you from your dream. You jolt up in bed and instantly take a breath, sobs quickly following. Tears already seem to have collected at your jaw and down your neck, meaning you had been crying as you slept. You clutch your fur blanket closer to your shivering body as the door bursts open. San instantly pushes into your bedroom, worry lacing his sharp features. He doesn’t say a word as he charges to your side, instantly taking you in his arms as if to protect you from the world. You wish San could protect you from yourself, as these night terrors are completely too real to ignore. 

You try to wrap your arms around him, but pull back when you notice he’s completely soaked. A loud crash resonates and you flinch, looking out the round port to your left to see dark grey water, and a cloudy sky to match. 

“A storm?” You hiccup, trying your best to pull yourself together. 

San releases you to pull off his coat, instantly re-winding his arms around your figure to give you warmth, because your shuddering seems to only have increased. “Started around midnight, but no one woke up until morning. We’ve been scurrying around trying to salvage things and get any metal below deck in case of lightning strikes, and Wooyoung is working his core to the max bending and throwing buckets of water overboard. I’m surprised that the lower levels haven’t flooded yet. I was going to wake you, but since you’ve been sleeping late I decided against it. Another nightmare?” 

You suck in a deep breath, wiping away your tears, though this proves futile when another tidal wave of them comes spilling down your cheeks. Your hand reaches to grip San’s arm and you look at him with wide eyes. “I hate them, San. I hate them so much. I keep watching all of you die over and over again. And they get scarier each dream. I watched your head get ripped from your shoulders just now. I felt your blood on my face.” 

San’s eyebrows are creased with worry, and he instantly moves his hands so they rest upon your cheeks. “Darling, it wasn’t real. It was just a dream, okay, breathe. You’ll forget it soon enough, and later tonight we’ll break into Seonghwa’s secret stash and make some hot tea for you, alright? Maybe that’ll calm you and assure a good dream.” 

You shake your head. “It felt so real, San. The screams, my God, they could’ve made the earth tremble. They were so terrible. I even felt the pain. I think I still do.” 

You run your fingers down to your forearm, where the wolf-girl’s talons had pierced your flesh as easily as a knife passing through butter. You push at your unharmed skin and hiss when it stings. Your eyebrows crease, but you don’t get too much time to think about it, as San’s reaching under your chin to pull your eyes to him. 

“Whatever you saw will never become a reality. Want to know why, darling? Because we’re going to fight, and we’re going to fight well. Would you doubt my abilities to protect you all?” He asks, eyes wide and mouth curled in the slightest bit of a smile. 

A flash of a memory and you see San smiling that same smile before the monster clamps his teeth around the beautiful pale skin of his neck. You surge forward to ground yourself in your reality, arms wrapping around his neck and pulling him closer to you. He smells of rainwater and his usual scent of cinnamon, and his neck is warm against your cheek. You can feel the gentle thumping of his heartbeat against the shell of your ear, the hum of his blood still pumping. You sniffle, glad that he’s still alive. 

A lot has changed since you declared your love for the man you’re holding. You’ve tried to reason with yourself that this type of change must be good, but when you found that you feel empty and can’t seem to concentrate when San isn’t around, you know that your newfound softness can only lead to bad. The nightmares are a great example, and make you feel almost codependent on San. Now you feel as if you need him to survive. 

“I love you, San.” You whisper, curling your fingers around the nape of his neck. “I love you more than I can handle. I would never doubt your abilities to keep us safe.”

He tugs himself back an inch so that your foreheads are free to collide together like magnets finally meeting. You do feel quite like a magnet. No matter what lies between the two of you, you always feel a tug pulling you to San.

“I love you, too, darling. With a fire that burns brighter than the sun itself. Nothing will stop me from keeping you or any of the others alive. You must know that by now, I take every chance and breath I get to tell you. So what’s causing these nightmares, sweet?” He asks, raising a hand so his fingers get lost in the sea of your hair. You feel yourself unconsciously lean into his touch.

Your eyes manage to close, shutting more tears behind the gates of your eyelids. “I hate myself for it, but it’s the training sessions. I try to convince myself they’re going well, and that we’ll all be ready when the ship gets to land, but I have this feeling in my gut that nags me so much it aches at this point. I feel disgusted with myself for thinking so little of the others. Especially because I know they’re trying the best they can, and I know they’re capable.” 

San sighs, and his warm breath snakes around the curve of your cheeks, drying the tracks of tears on your skin. “You’re having doubts. Darling, there is no need for you to worry, we’re going to make it out alright. They’re getting better, and we still have a week left, there’s room to improve if need be.” 

Your eyes snap open and your tears are free to roll down as you stare at him in disbelief. “Just yesterday Yeosang nearly burst into tears when he scratched you with the tip of his sword. Are we really capable of pulling this off when we’re so weak?” 

San’s face of worry slowly morphs into a scowl. He doesn’t seem to like that you used the word weak as an adjective to describe the entire crew (which includes him). “Yeosang pulled himself together, and he tried again. I know you have fears, but you’re making yourself believe we are incapable, and when you truly believe we’re destined to fail, that’s when we will. We’re all having doubts, but we’ve all managed to push passed them. It’s time you do the same.” 

You sit for a second, shocked at the shift of his emotions. You try to understand how frustrated he must feel, having to comfort you every time you wake from a night terror, and having to reassure you of things he isn’t even sure of himself. You pull back and wipe the evidence of your nightmare away with the back of your hand. You sniff, “You’re right. I’ve been letting my emotions get in the way of things. I’ll try harder today.” 

You crawl around San, pushing yourself off the mattress and heading to your neatly folded clothes. A clap of thunder makes the wood beneath your feet vibrate, and the ship leans dangerously to the left, but you manage to keep your footing. 

“We cancelled lessons today. ‘Cause of the storm, as you can see.” San says, voice softer than before. 

You pull on your pants, and then your boots, only turning your head slightly. “There’s always the chance of it clearing up, isn’t there? If not, there are other things to be done. Can’t just sit around and cry at the image of my friends dying all day, can I?” 

You realize when you’re fully dressed and out the door how bitter you must have come off as, though it’s not what you intended. You adjust the tricorn hat above your head and sniffle, knowing you’d have to apologize later. You’re just trying your best to forget the memory of your dream and witness something that’ll make San’s words become truth. You need to put your best efforts into the rest of the lessons remaining. You have to make sure that everyone knows what they’re doing when the time to fight comes. Or else no one will make it out of Wonderland alive. 

~

          Around lunchtime the rain stops, but the sky stays a dark, angry gray that promises more damage in the future. The upper deck still has about a barrels worth of rainwater that Jongho has taken to throwing overboard, and Mingi, Hongjoong, and Wooyoung have started to tend to the sails and ropes, also making sure the ship hasn’t been thrown off its course.

You find yourself glad that the rain has stopped, because it’s around this time that sword lessons start, and today you were originally assigned to have a one on one with Seonghwa. This is your first time having a one on one with him, but you’ve taught him things here and there. You noticed he quite likes to stick to very basic moves, and often likes to complain that a pan would do just as nicely to knock an opponent out (if the type of situation arose where he didn’t have a sword). 

You swivel around a leaking board in the passageway to the kitchen as you seek him, hoping he’s finished cooking lunch. You push open the creaky door and see him hunched over a pot, stirring sweet rice with walnuts. 

The food supply has reached an all time low, and Seonghwa has been putting together whatever he can scavenge from around the ship to make, at best, decent meals. He’s been miserable, with not much to work with, and is simply tired of not being able to express himself with his craft. He absolutely craves to make this delicious custard filled pastry that melts in your mouth, one of the very first things his grandfather taught him to make. He also often manages to torture himself by reading the cookbooks gifted to him by his grandpa in his free time, which, of course, doesn’t help the situation. 

“Hwa,” You call, which makes him turn his head, his hair obscuring his eyes. “Are you done with lunch? It’s about time for your one on one with me.” 

He glances back at the pot and nods, placing a cover over it and scooping a handful of sand over the fire crackling in the fire pit. The flame sputters out and with a cloth covered hand he moves the pot to the side carefully. As he removes his apron he asks, “I thought that they were called off today? With the storm and all.” 

You tilt your head at him, noticing his absolute affliction, by the way he moves so slowly and carelessly. “The rain stopped and I figured we need all the practice we could get.” 

He nods again, and without a word, pushes passed you through the door. You grab his arm before he can completely leave the room. “Hey, what’s eating you, bean?” 

Seonghwa lets out a distressed howl. “Please do not say the word beans, or rice, or both in the same sentence to me ever again! I am so sick and tired of those things, and I never want to cook them again!” 

You raise your eyebrows as he swivels to you, arms waving. You try to hold down the smile itching to come upon your lips. “I see. Don’t act so beaten, though, Hwa, we’re so close--”

Seonghwa grabs your shoulders, but your reflexes kick in and you instantly swoop under his arms and push him up against the wall. He grunts as his cheek kisses the wood and his hands wiggle uselessly. You press your knee against his butt and your fingers against his biceps. 

“Don’t play with me like that, Seonghwa, you’ll only get injured. What I was trying to say is that we’re so close to Wonderland. Though it’ll be dangerous,” An image from your dream of Seonghwa being ripped to pieces by a monster flashes through your head, making you stutter. You have to clear your throat to continue. “It’ll be worth it. Have you ever tried the food that’s come from Wonderland?” 

Seonghwa tries to shake his head, but he just grunts again. You remove your knee and spin him around to face you. He looks a little miffed. “No, I haven’t. But my grandma once ate a stew that had ingredients from there. She said it was the best thing she had ever tried in her ninety years of life. Tried her best to recreate it, but said it would never quite taste the same.” 

You see a solemn look pass over his features at the mention of his grandmother, so you try to lighten the mood. You throw your arm over his shoulder and bring his body to yours. “Well, I have, once upon a time. My father bought us a dinner made with only produce from Wonderland. Cost a fortune, but it was worth it. We had a vegetable stew, with a chicken breast off to the side. Even the spices were grown in Wonderland. It was amazing. The vegetables were of the best quality, and you won’t even believe what we had for dessert.” 

Seonghwa, cheeks glowing at the close proximity, has a dreamy look in his eyes as he listens to you. “What did you have for dessert?” 

You grin, mouth watering at the mere memory of the dish. “Fresh mango ice cream with bits of the juiciest, sweetest mango I’ve ever had.” 

Seonghwa’s eyes widen considerably. “You’ve eaten ice cream before? And with mangoes?” 

You nod, and you have to swallow back saliva. It had been one of the best things you have ever tasted. Just the right amount of sweetness and the bits of mango had been so good… Your father, however, hadn’t been pleased and had made a scene so extravagant that they never allowed your family back at the restaurant. You would kill for that type of luxury now. 

“It was a dream, but my point is that we can have that. When we get to Wonderland we won’t have to live off of rice and beans anymore. We’ll steal as many mangoes as our bags can hold.” You say, shaking him. 

Seonghwa cups your waist tightly. “Do you really mean it?” 

You nod enthusiastically. Seonghwa cheers, and is about to let you free of his hold when San pushes out of the meeting room, a pair of swords in his hand. When his eyes land on you, you instantly push Seonghwa away, a look of panic flashing across your face. San has his own moment of fear and hides the blades behind his back, cocking his head when he realizes what you were doing.

“Were you two hugging?” He asks, nose scrunching. 

“I was trying to cheer him up.” You say, scared of his response. 

San doesn’t react like you expect. He simply shudders. “Gross, Seonghwa smells bad.” 

You sniff unintentionally at his statement, and your nose is filled with the scent of tea leaves and sweet rice. You don’t voice this aloud, glad that San hadn’t made a big act of jealousy. 

“Hey!” Seonghwa protests, raising an arm and sniffing himself. “I do not smell. If anything, the acrid smell of steel is the first thing I got a whiff of the moment you stepped into the passageway. What exactly were you doing, bathing in warm metal?” 

San’s face of disgust drops to reveal another expression of panic. “Nothing. I was just getting something for Hongjoong. Which reminds me -- bye!” 

San turns, keeping those blades to where you can’t get a glimpse, scurrying up the stairs and out of sight. You crease your brows and turn to share a look with Seonghwa. He seems to be just as clueless as yourself. 

“Well then,” You clap, prompting a slight gasp from Seonghwa. “Let’s get on with this lesson, shall we?” 

When you’re above deck the skies seem to have cleared slightly, just enough for the sun to filter in through the clouds, and there’s a nice cool breeze that makes your hair dance in the wind. You see San whispering to Hongjoong by the weapons closet under the wheel, both of their hands empty, the blades nowhere to be seen. You shrug it off, drawing your sword from its place on your hip. 

You spin on your heel to face Seonghwa, and audibly gasp when you notice he’s already got his own sword in hand, ready to be used. You feel a spark of excitement at this and the corner of your mouth lifts in a smirk. You see San and Hongjoong turn, and immediately feel their eyes on you. 

“Eager, are we?” You question, raising your weapon. Seonghwa shrugs and the two of you instantly fall into position. 

Seonghwa smiles, before seeming to remember something. “Oh, I’ve forgotten to let you all know lunch is ready!” 

You lunge as soon as the words fall off his lips completely, prompting a yelp from Wooyoung who had begun to dart to the door behind you as soon as he heard the word lunch. He falls back as you swing your blade at Seonghwa. He yelps and barely manages to parry your attack. The clang of metal rings throughout the silent ship, and you immediately pull back to thrust at his throat. Seonghwa may be inexperienced, but he’s quick, so he blocks your swing again before you can try and knock the sword from his hand. He tries his own attack, but you block it with a fake yawn. He pushes closer, which surprises you and pulls a grin to your lips. You back up as he continues pushing forward, swords clanging like an incredibly unattractive song. You thrust your sword towards his rib cage, but since you’re not actually trying to kill him, you pause a second before it touches his skin. Seonghwa seems to be on a roll, and uses the opportunity to knock your sword aside and jab his your way. The tip catches your shirt and rips open a button. You gasp, raising your sword again and backing up as he continues to advance forward. You could easily beat him, but you’re so surprised that you can’t even focus on anything. 

“What’s gotten into that melon of yours?” You shout at him, the excitement clear in your voice. You let out a high pitched giggle as he nearly slices your neck open. You come in harder with your own attacks. “What has gotten into you?” 

“Mangoes!” Seonghwa cries happily, obviously very surprised by his own fighting as well. “Sweet, juicy mangoes!” 

You laugh again, pulling an unexpected move. You parry Seonghwa’s thrust and duck underneath his arm, kicking your foot out to catch his ankle and remove it from under him. He yelps and falls flat on his back. A laugh bubbles up your throat, and you throw your arms up in victory. There’s a tug on your boot and you stop abruptly to look down. Seonghwa pulls your legs from beneath you and crouches, raising his sword. You don’t stay shocked too long, using the strength in your leg to wrap it around his forearm and twist. The sword clangs from his hand as he lets out a pained hiss, and you use your other leg to shove at his head, sending him toppling to the side. You scurry back and stand quickly, but Seonghwa seems filled with adrenaline and pushes himself up just as fast, ignoring the stinging in his arm. 

You’re aware that everyone above deck is watching, but somehow knowing this only increases the excitement in the pit of your belly. You giggle like a maniac as you jerk your neck back to avoid a thrust he aims at your throat. Your blade slaps against his with a vibrating clang that has your teeth shaking in your gums. You shake your arm and back up to avoid another one of his hacks, but your back hits the railing of the boat, and you feel yourself nearly topple overboard. Seonghwa advances on you with a glint in his eyes that would instill fear in anyone else. You’ve seen worse, however, and hold back a laugh. 

You crease your eyebrows in feigned worry, and let your hands shake. Seonghwa eats it up and slices his sword in the air in the direction of your face. You don’t block his attack and move your head with the swing of his sword, to fake an injury. You fall to your knees with a cry and instantaneously there’s a stomping of boots on the wood as he rushes forward. Before he can crouch beside you, you push his sword away and kick at his feet again, successfully getting him on the ground once more. 

You place the tip of your blade against his throat and grin. “Come on, Hwa, you almost had me. Don’t fall for my parlor tricks.” 

He gasps, but his eyes aren’t on your own. He’s looking at your cheek. You frown and raise your free hand. Blood glistens on your fingertips in the minimal sunlight. You don’t feel pain, despite the blood, and shrug, removing your sword and holding out a hand. Seonghwa takes it and you haul him up, immediately wrapping your arms around him.

“That was a great fight, Seonghwa! You’ve learned more than I thought.” You compliment, pulling away to pat his back. He blushes, breathing heavy. “Have you had a one on one with San yet?”

The color flushes from Seonghwa’s face and he instantly shakes his head. “Oh, no. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet.” 

“Nonsense, Hwa. We only have a week left on this trip, roughly estimating, so you can’t put it off forever.” You turn, and the moment your eyes land on San, who had been resting against the railing on the opposite side of the boat, he scowls and begins to rush over. Your smile falls slightly, but you raise an arm with a thumbs up. “Did you see that, darling? Wasn’t Seonghwa amazing?” 

San’s face stays set in a scowl, so if he thinks so, he’s not showing it. You feel your shoulders tense as you notice he’s charging straight towards you. What did you do? Was it something you said? Is he, perhaps, jealous? You hadn’t shown any sort of affection to the others since your relationship with San started, but you thought now you two were comfortable enough to trust one another. You feel that definitely isn’t fair, though, as you’re the only girl on the ship. Is that why he looks as angry as a dragon?

“San--” You begin to say as he nears, but the breath leaves you as he grabs your arm and all but yanks you away from Seonghwa. He pulls you to the lower deck, where you know Yunho and Yeosang are either still cracking walnuts, or eating lunch. You hiss at the grip he has on you, and slap his fingers. “San, what do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting me!” 

San releases your arm and swivels around to face you. His face is pinched with worry and he surges to you. He grabs your uninjured cheek and sets his gaze on the other. He lifts his thumb and softly wipes blood from your jaw. You’re suddenly aware that your entire right cheek is numb, and you can’t feel the blood or his touch. It’ll probably swell soon, too. 

“What were you thinking?” He whispers. He shakes his head without waiting for an answer, and, more gently, tugs you along to the last door in the passageway. “This could’ve ended far worse if you hadn’t moved your head.” 

The meeting room is loud with the sound of cracking shells and you turn to see Yeosang and Yunho still cracking walnuts. Yunho’s in the middle of popping one in his mouth while his other hand cracks a nut, and Yeosang is clutching a wrapped finger. Your guess is he accidentally got it caught in the nutcracker. Jongho is the only other person in the room, and he’s sharpening a dagger with a stone, looking disassociated until you and San clamber in. His eyes squint when he notices the slash on your cheek.

“Hello,” You say as San lightly shoves you into a chair. “Got all of the rainwater out already?” 

Jongho raises his eyebrows, but somehow still shows no emotion. “Yes, wasn’t much. Got in your first relationship squabble?” 

You shake your head, smiling slightly. “No! This is from Seonghwa, we had a one on one. It wasn’t what I was expecting. It was more than I could ever dream of.” 

Jongho’s eyes sparkle, eyebrows still raised. “Seonghwa? Didn’t think he had it in him to harm a lady. Don’t want to see what he looks like.” 

“Doesn’t have a scratch.” You reply easily. 

San says some things to Yunho, who drops the nutcracker and rushes out of the room right after. You turn away from Jongho and smile sympathetically at Yeosang. “Got your finger caught?” 

Yeosang looks to you and gasps, rushing over to look at your cheek. “Nothing, compared to you. What happened?” 

You wonder what your cheek must look like to draw such reactions from everybody. Yunho bursts through the door just as Yeosang reaches for your cheek, and San slaps his hand away. He places his medical kit beside you on the table and scrapes a chair along the floor until it’s in front of you. Yeosang backs away and San stands beside you with his hand on your shoulder as Yunho plonks himself on the chair. 

“Come on, it mustn't be that bad. I didn’t even feel the blade break my skin.” You protest as Yunho begins to dig into his box. “A little cleaning is all that should be in store. You don’t need your whole kit.” 

Yunho raises his eyebrows and looks up from the bottle of alcohol he’s dug up. “Have you actually seen yourself yet?” 

You shake your head in response. Yunho glances at San before pulling out a beautiful mirror lined with pearls and handing it over. You crease your brows. “Where did you even get this mirror?” 

Yunho’s face turns red and he smiles sheepishly. “I wasn’t going to leave my foul parents without taking a few of their things now, was I? I grabbed everything I could get my hands on, and my mothers mirror happened to be one of those things. But I do think that is rather irrelevant, now isn’t it? Just look.” 

You raise your eyebrows and sigh, bringing up the mirror to eye level. You nearly drop the mirror when you finally see yourself. Your cheek is starting to swell, and the cut is obviously a lot deeper than you had assumed. The still bleeding wound is pursed and ringed with blue. You gasp, but when you reach up to touch it Yunho grabs your hand. 

“No touching. I need to clean and stitch it. It’s far deeper than it seems. Seonghwa’s blade must be rusted, which won’t turn out well if I don’t clean it immediately.” Yunho soaks a cloth in alcohol and sucks a breath of air through his teeth. “The stitching is going to be painful without anesthetics.” 

You frown, your eyes trailing to the alcohol soaked cloth. “I can’t feel anything as far as I can tell, but I’m okay with pain.” 

Yunho looks reluctant, but raises the cloth and places it against your cheek. Unluckily, you feel the sting the second the cloth is against your skin. It burns horribly, and your arm jerks forward so that you have something to sink your fingernails into. That something happens to be Yunho’s knee. He yelps, but keeps dabbing the cloth carefully.

“Care to elaborate on why you didn’t block Seonghwa’s attack when you were very capable of doing so?” San speaks up, removing his hand from your shoulder to move beside Yunho, where he has a clear view of your face, which is contorted with pain. 

A shrug is all you can manage as Yunho finally removes the cloth from your cheek, and a sigh of relief follows. Your grip on his knee loosens. 

“That’s not a proper response.” San says, though softer. 

Your eyes grow wide when you see Yunho grab a needle. You avert your eyes to San, but you feel them grow glossy just imagining the pain that will come. You keep them in, knowing crying twice in one day is more than reason enough for the others to peg you as weak. You look up at him. “I underestimated the amount of power he was going to put behind his swing. I guess he was feeling just as excited about the whole thing as me. I didn’t feel a thing, but I did feel something I haven’t felt since my nightmares started.” 

San raises his eyebrows and can’t help but reach forward to push a strand of hair from your injured cheek. You feel his touch this time, and it sends a wave of tingles throughout your body. Somewhere behind you Jongho gags. San ignores him.“And what was it that you felt?” 

You smile up at him, grabbing his fingers before they drift too far away from your face. “Oh, it was the most beautiful thing, and so refreshing too. Like a drink of cool water after a long day in the scorching sun. I felt hope, San. I felt hope.” 

~

       The next few days pass by in a blur. A blur of clashing blades and grand smiles that could light up the sky. You find your hope grows with each new lesson and duel, as all the boys aim to please you the way Seonghwa had. They don’t treat you like a doll made of glass anymore, and took your words to heart, which make the nightmares more bearable. They faced their fears of having one on ones with San, and gritted their teeth when they received new bruises from his unrelenting advances. 

All in all, the change of feeling was not only evident in yourself, but the entire ship. Seonghwa was happier when he cooked, Yeosang took to humming when patching leaks in the upper deck floors, and even Jongho smiled giddily when he was in training with you. You could’ve sworn that even Aurora was in a better mood, as she sailed smoothly despite the harsh waves, and glowed red under the sunrise. 

The day before set arrival at Wonderland, you wake from another nightmare in a cold sweat.

Your hand jerks out and lands on San’s chest, causing a deep sigh of relief to expel itself from your lungs. You roll over and cage his body in your arms, stuffing your face into his bare chest and inhaling greatly. A snore drifts from his mouth and you giggle, the nightmare instantly leaving your mind. You lift your head and admire his beauty. His face is serene as he sleeps, eyes shut and lips parted slightly. His hair is tousled and points in every direction, and his jaw is marked with pink splotches (a result of some fooling around the night before, though not as hot as it seems, as San had managed to fall asleep when you were kissing his neck). You lift a finger and use it to trace his lips, but quickly pull back when you feel moisture packed in the corner of his mouth. 

“Ugh!” You wipe your hand on the fur blanket pooled at his waist. You can’t help the giggle that follows. “The dream you are having must be a good one.” 

You almost jump out of your own skin when one of his eyes pops open, but put a hand over your mouth instead. He squeezes it shut once more before yawning and stretching his arms above his head. “It wasn’t that good a dream. The drool might be because my body knows I sleep beside you.” 

He wipes the corner of his mouth and visibly cringes. You cock your head to the side before unexpectedly throwing a leg over his waist and straddling his figure. His eyebrows shoot into his hairline but he doesn’t protest, simply placing his warm hands on your thighs and squeezing the flesh. You take a deep breath. “San, today is a big day. Do you know why that is?”

His slightly swollen eyes squint, which makes his disheveled appearance more comical. Then they spring open and a wicked grin pulls at his plush lips. “Because it is our month anniversary.”

You blanch, your own smile quickly fading. You fiddle with his fingers. “Well, obviously that makes today special! That isn’t why it’s important, however. Tomorrow we arrive at Wonderland. Today is the last day to wrap up our training, it’s also the day we decide who goes with what group.”��

San’s expression is unreadable, but before you can ask why, he smiles. “Of course, darling. Lots to do today. We can’t let anything go unnoticed. Don’t know if I’ll want to get up, though, with the way you’re sitting on me and all.” 

The smile slowly returns to your face. San’s hands slowly travel up your thighs, leaving fire in their wake. You lean in and place your lips on his, eager to get in your kisses while you’re alone, because the boys have a tendency of acting like childish fools when you even try to lock lips outside your room. His hands smoothly glide across your skin until they’re cupping the round of your ass. Your fingers wrap around his neck gently, your thumb smoothing over the span of his throat. Your tongues tangle together as San lazily bucks his hips into yours. He lifts his head and starts to push up more, and you know that he’s trying to push your over so that he can hover over you. 

Despite the fact that you desperately want him due to the abrupt cancellation of your plans last night, you know that you do, indeed, have lots of things to do, and this would only take up time that you couldn’t afford to waste. Perhaps before bed tonight, you think, trying to coax the roaring warmth in between your legs down. You pull back and a thread of saliva connects you together. Somehow, it doesn’t gross you out as much as his drool had. You press one last kiss to his rosy cheek. “We’ve got to get up, sleepy head. It would be a different story if it was still night, but as I recall, someone was too exhausted.” 

San groans, keeping his hold on you so you can’t leave him. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was just enjoying your lips, and then the next thing I know, you’re snoring away beside me--” 

You scoff. “I do not snore.” 

“--and it’s too late! Listen, I’m not some old disrespectful sod from the Mainland who wakes his wife while she sleeps for some sex. So, that being said, if we hurry, we can get the deed done before any of the others wake up.” He finishes with a satisfied smile. 

You stare at him for a second before bursting into a fit of laughter. 

“What are you chortling over, woman? You’re supposed to be aroused not amused.” San says, eyes glimmering. 

“Get the deed done, San?” You finally manage to gasp out between laughs. “What is the deed, handing out newspapers? That is the worst possible way to insinuate intercourse.” 

San rolls his eyes. “I’ve heard far more childish insinuations from older men.” 

You finally stop laughing and feign seriousness. “Are you sure you’re still THE San? The one who seduced women and convinced them to lend him their fine jewelry? Who was so smooth of tongue that even the smartest of men fell victim to his traps?” 

His eyes darken considerably, and his smile slowly turns into a satisfied smirk. “If you want me to be that man, I can surely arrange for him to come out and play.” 

You feel your insides jolt at his sudden change of tone. You hope he doesn’t feel the flare of warmth that’s probably very noticeable on his belly and slap his hands away. With cheeks flushed, you quirk your eyebrows at him. “Seonghwa’s probably up and making breakfast. Let’s go eat some gourmet beans.” 

San lets you up this time, not taking his eyes from you. “Ah, yes, mango boy and his beans. What happened to the rice?” 

You pull on your shirt first, and San admires your body in your slightly over sized shirt, and he feels the need to pull you back to lay with him for just a second longer. He refrains as you reply, “The sack’s gone empty. We ate the last of it last night for dinner. Pretty sure the beans we’ve got will last until lunch, at the most. The walnuts, of all things, are still plentiful.”

“We’re really living large, aren’t we?” San groans, letting his head fall back so he can stare at the ceiling. “With the preparations we’ve had to go through, this Wonderland better have trees that grow golden apples.” 

You both turn to each other at the same time. “Or golden mangoes.” 

You giggle, tightening your belt and proceeding to pull your coat over your shoulders. You decide to leave the hat today, and settle with braiding your hair. San watches your fingers, pulling and tucking everything expertly. “Teach me to braid one day. I want to be able to do it for you when you’re old and shriveled.” 

You walk to him, leaning down to press a kiss to his puckered lips. “Maybe when we get out of that hell place alive. For now, you need to wake up.” 

San groans, watching you strap your sword to your belt. “But the sun is barely coming up!” 

You open the door and grin back at him. “Early bird gets the worm, darling. Up!” 

San groans again, but smiles when you’ve gone from the room, proceeding with his routine with an energy he surely wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for you. 

Seonghwa is, in fact, already cooking breakfast. When you enter the kitchens it’s just him and Hongjoong, who’s struggling to crack open a walnut. They turn as you enter.

“Morning, Joong, Hwa!” You smile, and your eyes are drawn to the stone rod in Seonghwa’s hand. “An interesting tool! What is it?” 

Seonghwa looks back to his bowl. “It’s a smasher.” You glance at Hongjoong, who grins. “It’s not the real name, of course, but it’s accurate. Back in the day my grandma used it to make anything into paste. Her favorite was avocado paste. She would smash the avocado and spread it over sourdough bread, or barely, whatever was available, and top it with spice.” 

You raised your eyebrows. “Sounds delicious. I suppose we don’t have the luxury of expecting avocado, or bread.” 

Hongjoong’s eyes light up. “Well, Seonghwa might have found one of those is available today.” 

Seonghwa’s eyes light up, and he turns away from the bowl of what you guess is smashed beans. “Oh, yes! You won’t guess what we found!” 

“Hopefully not an avocado.” You say, as it’s been nearly a month and a half since all of the vegetables and fruits went bad. 

Seonghwa grabs a box from the small counter beside the fire pit and opens it carefully. He pushes it toward you. You crease your brows and grab it. There’s a mound covered with cloth, and when you slowly peel the cloth away you gasp. 

“It’s most likely very stale, but I cut away at the parts that had obviously gone bad, and it is definitely edible. I kept it tucked away in this box and completely forgot. It’s the last loaf I baked before we set sail. Hongjoong thought we could eat it as a reward today for our hard work.” Seonghwa says, smiling as you cover the bread once more, close the box, and hand it back to him. 

Hongjoong nods. “I also figured today would be good because we won’t have time to deal with upset stomachs tomorrow if Seonghwa’s bean paste doesn’t sit well with us.” 

“Good thinking.” You nod, grinning when Seonghwa glares at the two of you. You turn back to the Captain. “What’s the first order of business before we get all cozy with our food?” 

Hongjoong nods, standing up straight and abandoning his walnut. “First order is the groups. I want you all to train with your groups today, and in order to do that, we’ve got to sort ourselves first. I’m assuming you want to group with San?” 

Hongjoong gives you a pointed look, but you glance at Seonghwa before shaking your head. “Can I actually have a word with you in private?” 

Hongjoong raises his eyebrows, but abides by your request, following you out of the kitchen. You point to the ceiling and he nods, leading the way. The morning air is cold and pinches at your cheeks when you step out onto the upper deck, but the clouds are puffy and white today, and the sky is a beautiful shade of blue. Mingi is already by the wheel, hiding a yawn with the back of his hand. When he sees you and Hongjoong he smiles and waves. You wave back as the Captain leads your farther away. He leans against the railing, staring out at the glittering blue waters and gestures for you to speak. 

“No matter how much San insists, I don’t want us to be put into the same group in Wonderland.” You speak softly, as if San has a chance of hearing through the thick wood. 

“You don’t want him in your group?” Hongjoong asks incredulously. “I figured--” 

“He’s the one who’s been talking about it nonstop, but I never agreed to it.” You say quickly. “I love San, I do, and I want to spend every moment with him, making sure that he’s safe. But I know he won’t let me breathe. I have a feeling he’ll be entirely too focused on my health rather than the supplies. He claims to know I’m a good fighter, able to protect myself, but I know deep down he worries. I think it better we are put apart.” 

Hongjoong turns from the water to observe you. “You’re definitely capable of taking care of yourself. Of others, as well, if the need comes. I trust you, you’re a smart woman. If this is what you want, I’ll do my best to assure him that it’s for the better of the crew.” 

“I also want Seonghwa with me. I promised him mangoes, I intend to keep that promise.” 

Hongjoong smiles. “Of course, he hasn’t shut up about them since your duel.” 

“He also hasn’t stopped apologizing.” You laugh, softly pressing your fingers to your stitched skin. They run from the edge of your ear to the apple of your cheek, and it’s sure to leave a scar, a faint one, but a scar nonetheless. You don’t mind it, as it wasn’t for naught. The scar filled you with a hope so great it made your heart expand three times its size. 

And with so many dangers lying ahead, hope is a feeling you cherish with your entire soul. 

~~~

Teaser Scene for Episode 3: 

        The air is different as you scramble up the stairs to the upper deck. Something is off, you can feel it in the pit of your belly. It makes you feel all sorts of emotions at once, but also makes you feel void of every good thing you’ve had the privilege to feel. The upper deck is empty, as the rest of the crew is asleep, and a rope holds the wheel in place. It’s still night, the stars shining brightly in the sky, and the moon sitting comfortably in it’s blanket of darkness. You rush to the front of the boat and the strange feelings increase by tenfold. 

Whatever it is, you’re heading right towards it. 

You turn and fall to your knees. You wiggle a loose floorboard, digging out the golden telescope Mingi had hidden there. You leave the cap in the floor and pull it to its full length, placing it on your eye and hoping that there’s enough light to illuminate whatever it is that’s making you feel so odd. 

You gasp when the telescope catches it. Glowing underneath the light of the moon and the stars, so stark against the never ending water, is an island. Land. You haven’t seen land in so long. It’s huge, and even this far away, when it’s a mere spot in the distance, you can feel its power. 

You’ve reached Wonderland.

~~

tell me your thoughts,PLS FOR the loVE OF GOD! this ended up being a whopping 9.5k (alot more than expected, I say) there isn’t much about their past in this one, but i’m planning on doing that in the next part! pls look forward to it 

#ateez fanfiction #san imagines #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #pirate!ateez #pirate!san #san smut #high tide episode two #kpop imagines #san #hongjoong #seonghwa imagines

[samotchkaficrecs]

The Umbrella Academy Fic Recs!

Okie,so i just recently finished the Umbrella Academy and immediatley wanted more, so like any attached person would i searched for fanfiction!

The fandom isn’t as huge as some others but there is a good stream of fics coming through on archive, so i got all these from there! (Also there won’t be many ship fics, because incest)

[As always a ★ means that it’s one of my highly reccomended] 

General

★Succulents - by  KaneNogami 

Succulents, they're called.

So tiny. He looks at the pots who fell on top of another, dirt everywhere inside the crate. A respectable person would walk away, returning home to go to bed before sunrise. That's good Klaus has never claimed to be respectable, as he can fill his pockets with plants, and his arms too. That's going to bring colors inside the living graveyard they're stuck in (minus the ghosts, well outside of his).

- In which Klaus puts his siblings and himself back together, with the help of a bunch of succulents

(complete)

This Cage You Wove Around Me is Perfect - by shadowlancer_95 

Klaus has a terrifying moment of clarity where he wonders just how much like dad Luther was.

Or,

In which Klaus is reminded of the mausoleum, decides to say fuck it to Luther and averts the apocalypse all on his own.

(complete)

★The Moon Laughs - by  Lady_Origami

After attempting to transport all of his siblings back in time, Five wakes up to a familiar scene. Again. And again. And again. He doesn't know why he keeps being transported back to the day of his father's funeral, but he is determined to not waste it now that he has the foresight to prevent the apocalypse. He just wished he didn't feel so alone doing it all over again.

(ongoing) 

Blink - by  Lady_Origami 

When Five blinks, sometimes he's back in the world of ash and embers. It's hard to remember how to breathe when that happens. In which Klaus tries to play the role of supportive brother with Ben's help, and Five struggles more than he lets on.

(complete)

★as you choke on all the words you long to exhale within your next breath - by  wellthengetouttathesoupaisle 

“Twenty-two minutes?” Reginald Hargreeves barks incredulously. “Impossible. By all means, he should be dead.”

And by all means, Diego should. Stuck at the bottom of a pool with a slab of concrete on his chest, pinning him to the gritty bottom—he should have kicked it within the first few minutes. But he hadn’t.

(complete)

Too Old To Be So Young - by  KaseyBeth 

Five winced loudly, pushing his head off the floor to see bright red smeared across his chest and stomach; crimson soaked into his shorts, running down his leg. His head fell back against the ground dizzyingly, and he groaned as someone touched the wound, biting his bottom lip as he tried to stay conscious. The end of life, of everything, was in three days; they didn’t have time for this, he didn’t have time for this. A bullet wound, a stupid bullet wound and all that stupid concern and worry, was just going to slow them down. There wasn’t time for mistakes, or hiccups, or rest and recovery. It was the end of the fucking world. Sickfic so be warned. Also set between episodes 6/7 and spoilers. Also, in here their mother is still dead.

(complete)

come hell or high water - by  wearealltalesintheend 

“I heard a rumor,” Allison writes, fingers trembling, even as she tries another reassuring smile, “it’s gonna be okay.”

And Klaus wants so bad to believe her, it nearly works."

.

or, things go differently when Luther locks Vanya in the cage. Three conversations and one sleepover that happen before the world doesn't end.

(complete)

some old ghosts we grew attached to - by  Karturtle (karturtle) 

When they were young, Ben never really knew how to get along with Five.

(complete)

★6 Times Five Helped Out His Siblings... - by  kbaycolt 

... and one time they helped him.

(Or, in which the Hargreeves siblings realize the true extent of Five's trauma.)

(complete)

Trying to be done trying. And failing - by  wolfypuppypiles 

"You cannot convince me that Diego’s heart doesn’t stop every time they announce on the police radio that they’ve found a dead junkie" - ealeczander on tumblr

Diego listens to the police radio and prays the dead junkie in the gutter isn't Klaus.

(complete)

Twelve - by  castelmax 

The Hargreeves children celebrate their twelfth birthdays and get their names.

(complete)

there is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends - by  Drhair76

"What's this?" He said pointing a finger at the bread and peanut butter that was laid across the table top.

Five rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. "What do you think. It's a sandwich."

"Oh?" Klaus reached out a hand to brush the sleeve of his beloved hoodie. "And what's this?"

or, the one where Klaus 'loses' a hoodie, Five gets a hug and Ben is proud.

(complete)

With the Ink of a Ghost - by  floralhearts

“It’s good to have you back,” Luther clapped his no longer deceased brother on the shoulder, “We missed you.”

Klaus didn’t miss the way Ben’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh that’s rich.” The smaller hissed.

or,

Their first reunion with Ben goes a little different than they had originally expected.

(complete)

a game of waiting - by  sky_blue_hightops

He was always the fastest. He always beat the others up the stairs, down the halls, through time and space. If there's one lesson he's learned, it's that there's always a finish line. A stopping place. Blood bubbles from between his fingers, and suddenly there's no air in his lungs. *** Five jumps in front of a bullet. He calls it quick reflexes. Diego calls it stupidity.

(complete)

★If You're Different And You Know It (you're not alone) - by  M3zzaTh3M3z 

"Five was different. He’d always known. Different from most people, what with his freakish birth, powers and unconventional upbringing, all that old news. And different from his siblings. He was smarter. His powers were stronger. And he’d never picked a name. All that was old news too. But there was something else that separated him from the rest, something he didn’t know how to put a finger on, how to categorize, analyse, understand. Five didn’t like not understanding. It was probably Klaus that made him first notice something was off."

(complete)

haven't you heard of meditation? - by  rosesareredvioletsareblue 

"Klaus, you have a piece of glass sticking out of your neck!"

Klaus felt for the glass, wincing as he found it.

"Oh yeah. Fun." It took all of Five's willpower not to throttle him.

(complete)

★skirts and sweaters - by  slightlyworriedhuman

"I don't want to be a ‘cute little schoolboy’ anymore, alright?” Five snapped. For some reason, the thought of himself as a schoolboy was enough to make his skin prickle. Was it the implication that he was younger than the rest of them, less mature despite his life? ...Yeah, it was definitely that. Absolutely.

Five wants a change in wardrobe. His siblings are more than happy to help.

(complete)

That’s all... for now anyways! 

I know there was a lot of Five centric fics, buuut he’s my favourite so of course imma read fanfics about him

as usual i hope you enjoyed this list and if you haven’t watched the series (i don’t know why your here if you haven’t?) then you should! drop everything and watch it now!! 

#the umbrella academy #tua #ua #netflix #number one #luther hargreeves #number two #diego hargreeves #number three #allison hargreeves #number four #klaus hargreeves #number five #five #number six #ben hargreeves #number seven #vanya hargreeves #fanfiction #fic recs #the umbrella academy fic recs #recommendations #yeetus

[theycallmebeccawrites]

Chris & Ellie Series: Episode 3

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Ellie Spencer (OFC)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: awkward nudity and talk of it

Episode Summary: Takes place in June 2013. Chris arrives in LA a few hours before the rest of his family and finds out Ellie is sick with a bug.

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

The Chris and Ellie series is primarily chronological.  It begins with a flash forward to 2016 and has a few other scenes in the future.  However, the majority of their story is told in chronological order starting in 2013 and going through 2017. Each episode starts with a date to help you place it within the story.

The Chris & Ellie Series Masterlist | Chris & Ellie Masterlist

Episode 2

Episode 3: Sicker Than a Dog

June 29, 2013

Chris Evans entered his house, shortly before noon, exhausted from his early morning flight. He had planned on going back to Boston after filming the new Cap movie, but then his brother had gotten a project in LA which meant the whole family was coming to California for the Fourth of July instead.

Yawning, he climbed the stairs, hoping that Ellie had already gotten his bed ready for his arrival. He felt a little guilty for giving her just shy of twelve hours notice that he and his family were descending upon the house, but in the week he had been home before leaving for filming, she’d shown she liked to keep a clean house and he figured that wouldn’t have changed while he was gone. If anything, her job had become easier with him out of the house.

Upon entering his room, he saw that his bed was made and he pumped his fist. Then the sound of someone retching in his bathroom reached his ears. Knowing it could only be one person, he crossed the room and knocked on the half open door. “Ellie?”

“Go away,” she whimpered before throwing up again.

Concerned, Chris pushed the door open and entered the room. Ellie was sitting on the floor in front of his toilet, clinging to the cold porcelain. He could tell by the fatigue in her face that this wasn’t a post-drinking puke, but a sick-with-a-stomach-bug puke.

“How long have you been sick?” he asked, grabbing a hand towel. He turned on the faucet and stuck the towel under it, letting it absorb as much water as possible before he wrung it out. He folded the towel a couple times and waited for her to stop puking before he handed the towel to her.

“Thanks,” she replied as she leaned back against the wall and he took the opportunity to flush the toilet as she placed the towel across her forehead. “I started feeling crummy yesterday, I thought I’d feel better today, but I just feel worse.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll have the other rooms ready to go before -”

“You’re not doing anything,” Chris said, cutting her off. “Ellie, you’re sicker than a dog!”

“But the house, your mom hired me to make sure -”

“Knowing you and the fact I’ve been gone, means most of the house is already clean. And I will make sure the beds and everything are made before my mom gets here in a few hours. But first I’m going to take care of you.”

Ellie covered her mouth and barely made it back to the edge of the toilet before puking again.

Leaving the room, Chris made his way down to the basement of his house, the last remaining part that he had yet to move into completely. His entertainment center was hooked up, obviously because he couldn’t watch his Patriots or his Red Sox play ball without it, but the rest of the room was outlined with boxes. Opening the “beer fridge”, he pulled out a cold sports drink and grabbed one of the lemon lime sodas Ellie had no doubt added.

Carrying them back upstairs to his room, Chris went into the bathroom and found Ellie leaning against the wall again. He unscrewed the lid on the sports drink and handed it to her. “You need some electrolytes,” he said.

“Thanks,” she replies, taking a small sip. She put the bottle down and closed her eyes. “Can I stay here for a few minutes until I’m sure I can make it to my room without puking?”

“There is no way I’m letting you go back to the guesthouse this sick,” Chris stated. “You’re staying right where you are until you’re feeling better. If you want to lay down, I’ll carry you to my bed and get you a bucket.”

“Because your mom is coming,” she says with a small smile on her lips.

“No, I would insist on this even if she wasn’t coming,” Chris replied. “Drink some more while I go find a bucket for you in case you do want to lie down.��

“But where will you sleep?” she asked.

“I’ll camp out on the couches with the kiddos,” he replied.

Hearing him leave the room, Ellie opened her eyes and looked down on her once clean shirt and jean shorts. Both of which were now splattered with vomit. Cringing, she pulled the t-shirt over her head and tossed it aside. Slowly she rose to her feet, having to grab the towel bar on the wall to keep herself steady. With one hand she undid the fastenings of her shorts and let the denim fall to the floor as Chris returned with a bucket.

Chris felt his face heat with embarrassment as he struggled to keep his eyes off his nearly naked housekeeper, but her breasts filled out her lime green cotton bra so perfectly and her black and white polka dot panties showed off her natural curves. Forcing himself to look at the wall above her head, he stated the obvious, “I found a bucket.”

“My clothes had puke on them,” she said, attempting to explain the awkward situation they found themselves in. “I didn’t want to get it on your sheets.”

He nodded at the wall and said, “I’ll go get you something to put on.”

Leaving the bathroom, Chris took a minute to compose himself so he could focus on the task at hand. Going into his closet, he grabbed one of his t-shirts and a pair of his drawstring shorts for her to wear. He could hear her puking again as he headed to the bathroom and he kept his eyes straight in front of him as he set the clothes on the counter for her. As he left the room, however, he caught sight of her shapely, silk covered ass in the mirror.

Mentally cursing himself, Chris left his bedroom and went back into the guest bathroom to get a spare toothbrush and mouthwash for her. Then he went back into his room knowing he couldn’t step back into the bathroom until she was properly dressed.

“Ellie?” he called through the door. “I’ve brought you a toothbrush, I’m putting it -”

He stopped talking when she pulled the door open and revealed herself in his t-shirt and shorts. He couldn’t help but notice how well her breasts filled out his shirt. She smiled at him, but then he saw her face pale and her eyes roll back. Acting quickly, he dropped the stuff he was holding and caught her before she hit the ground. Picking her up, he carried her across the room to his California King sized bed. He laid her down on top of the blankets and then pulled them out from under her so he could tuck her in.

Hurrying into the bathroom, he grabbed a clean hand towel and soaked it with water before wringing it out. He grabbed the bucket off the floor and then went back into the bedroom. He sat down alongside of her and pressed the cold towel to her forehead.

It was a minute or so before she came to, looking at him dazedly. “What happened?” she asked.

“You passed out,” he replied. “You scared me for a minute there.”

“Oh,” she said, unable to suppress a yawn.

“You get some sleep,” Chris told her. “I’m leaving a bucket right here.” He grabbed her clammy hand and showed her, by touch, where the bucket was. “If you need anything, you call for me. Don’t get out of this bed unless you absolutely have to.”

“Yes sir,” she replied with a mock salute. “Captain, sir.”

Rolling his eyes, Chris left the room and went about setting up the other rooms for his family’s impending arrival. Every time he went into his room to check on Ellie she was asleep and he only had to empty the bucket once.

It was nearly five in the evening when his family arrived and he could tell his mom knew something was up the moment she walked in the door. Upon learning that Ellie was sick, his mom had taken over. She’d sent his sisters to the grocery store with a list of groceries to buy, something that Ellie hadn’t had time to do, and had declared the upstairs off limits to anyone who wasn’t planning on sleeping.

Chris helped keep his nephews entertained while his baby niece slept in the portable playpen that he kept at his house at all times. He and his nephews spent the evening watching movies and the boys had been ecstatic to find out he was camping out with them for the night, even more so after they had convinced him to pull out the hide-a-bed for the three of them to sleep on.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Chris couldn’t remember having a worst night sleep. The two little bodies had flopped around all night which led to him sleeping on his stomach to protect his bits from flying limbs.

Which was why, after being woken up by a kick to the side of his face, Chris gave up trying to sleep and went up to the kitchen. He hadn’t expected to find anyone else up at a quarter after five in the morning, but he found his mom cutting up the ingredients for the special chicken noodle soup she’d always made for them when they were sick as kids.

“How’s Ellie?” he asked.

“Much better this morning,” his mom replied. “She is still a little warm, but the fever broke and she hasn’t puked since last night.”

“That’s good,” Chris said as he attempted to stretch a kink out of his back.

“She said something interesting last night when I checked on her before I went to bed,” his mom said, putting down the knife she was cutting vegetables with to look at him. “It was at the highest point of her fever…”

There was something in his mom’s expression that made Chris slightly nervous.

“She told me I should send you upstairs and you could get the whole ‘seeing her naked’ thing out of the way,” his mom said. Her face showed a combination of disappointment and amusement.

“That is all due to our first meeting,” Chris said, quickly. “You were there, you know how awkward that was.”

“Oh, I certainly remember,” his mom said with a laugh. “You tried to cover yourself with a roll of  paper towels instead of grabbing the newspaper that was sitting right next to them.”

Chris flushed slightly and turned to the coffee pot to pour himself a cup. After adding the necessary extras, he took a seat at one of the stools to watch his mom work.

“I was impressed by your actions yesterday,” his mom said. “Ellie told me you took care of her before we got here.”

“I couldn’t just ignore her,” Chris replied. “And I didn’t want you to have to come and do more work.” It was then that he knew he had to tell his mom the other thing that had happened the day before. “Uh, another thing that could have prompted her comment last night was an awkward moment when I came into the bathroom and she was just in her bra and underwear.”

His mom looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“It was a complete accident. I had gone to get a bucket for her so she could have something to puke into if she laid down on my bed to sleep and she had decided to get out of her puke splattered clothes,” he explained. “Not knowing this, I walked back into the bathroom and there she was.”

“Sounds like you need to invest in those doorbells that go off when they sense motion,” his mom teased after a moment.

Chris was saved from further conversation by the sound of little feet stomping up the stairs from the basement. His nephews were talking loudly to each other as they came into the kitchen and his mom shifted from mom-mode to grandma-mode in a flash.

Later that afternoon, Chris found himself at home with his baby niece and Ellie, who was still asleep. His mom had taken his nephews to see a movie and his sisters had gone out for a girls’ afternoon.

Grabbing the baby monitor, Chris went upstairs and knocked on his bedroom door. Hearing a soft ‘come in’, he opened the door and smiled when he saw Ellie sitting up in the bed. “You look like you’re feeling better,” he said, noticing there was more color in her face.

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” she replied with a tired smile. “Did everyone get here ok?”

“Yes and all the beds were made before they got here,” Chris said as he sat down on the foot of the bed. “My mom left a pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove for you in case you wanted any.”

“I think I want to take a shower first,” she replied.

“You’re welcome to use my bathroom,” Chris told her. “Mom washed your clothes last night.”

“I’ve been dying to try out your soaking tub,” Ellie admitted.

“You’re welcome to use it now and when I’m out of town,” he replied. “My mom and my sisters have a drawer in the bathroom for bubble bath stuff. You’re welcome to use what is there.”

“Thanks,” Ellie said. Taking a deep breath, she swung her legs off the side of the bed and paused a minute before attempting to stand.

“Think you can get to the bathroom by yourself?” Chris asked.

“I’ve got it,” she assured him.

Chris watched as she slowly made her way to the bathroom and then remained in the room until he heard her turn on the water in the bathtub. Leaving the room, he went back downstairs and checked on his niece, smiling when he saw she was still asleep.

Thirty minutes later, Ellie appeared in the kitchen wearing the t-shirt and shorts she’d been wearing when he found her yesterday.

“Ready for some soup?” he asked her.

“I’m going to go change into something else first,” she replied.

She returned from the guesthouse a couple minutes wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt and a pair of baggy sweatpants.

“You’re a Red Sox fan?” Chris said, cocking an eyebrow.

“You sound surprised,” Ellie replied as she took a seat at the kitchen island. “Red Sox Nation is nationwide.”

“So how’d you become a Red Sox fan?” Chris asked as he set a hot bowl of soup in front of her.

“It sort of started with that Jimmy Fallon movie ‘Fever Pitch’, but then a couple years later the Red Sox drafted a guy from my home town,” she replied. She paused in her storytelling to take a sip of her soup. “Mmm… your momma can make a good chicken noodle soup!”

“It has healing properties,” Chris said, seriously. “I’ve been telling her we should sell it in stores.”

“Just put a picture of yourself on it and I’m sure it will sell out in know time,” Ellie replied before taking another sip.

Chris flushed then cleared his throat. “You were telling me how you became a Red Sox fan,” he said, redirecting the conversation.

“Right, so the Red Sox drafted a guy who was between my older sister and I in high school,” she continued. “And there were a handful of other guys from Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general on the team over the next couple years and I just sort of got hooked.” She took another sip of her soup. “Seriously, Chris, your mom makes the best soup. The best my mom could do was open cans of soup for us and reheat them when we were sick.”

“If you tell mom that when she gets back with the boys she’ll probably give you the recipe,” Chris said with a smile. “So what do you think of our chances this year?”

“I hope they go all way to the World Series,” Ellie replied. “I want that every year, but especially this year. I’m not from Boston, obviously, but with the bombing at the marathon… I think we could all use a little something extra to cheer about.”

“I am from Boston and I don’t think I could have said it better myself,” Chris said with a smile which turned to a frown when they heard his niece begin to cry. “I should go check on her.”

Ellie finished her soup in silence and then loaded her dishes into the dishwasher. Unable to stop herself, she straightened up the kitchen and then headed down to the basement where she could hear Chris cooing at his niece.

“Everything ok?” she asked him.

“We’re good,” Chris said with a nod. “I changed her diaper and I was thinking about watching a movie while I feed her. You want to join me?”

“Sure,” Ellie replied. She sat down on one end of the large, leather couch while Chris took a seat at the other end.

“Before we start the movie, I need to ask you something,” Chris said as he brought the bottle’s nipple to his niece’s lips.

“Alright.”

“Do you remember talking to my mom last night?”

Ellie looked away in thought and tried to remember if she had talked to Chris’s mom or not. She vaguely recalled Lisa coming in to check on her, but she didn’t remember anything else. Though, as she she thought about it longer, she had had a dream that she’d talked to Lisa again later. Had it really been a dream or had it taken place in real life? She turned her eyes back to Chris and she knew by the amused sparkle in his eye that it hadn’t been a dream.

Embarrassed, she covered her face with her arms and then asked, “Did I really tell her to send you upstairs so you could see me naked and get it over with?”

“I’m afraid so,” Chris said, chuckling. “Mom thought it was amusing when she told me this morning.”

“It’s a good thing your mom formed her opinions of me before she offered me this job,” Ellie sighed. “Between walking into the house to find you naked with me on the floor to this… I can only imagine what she must be thinking.”

“My mom likes you,” Chris said, deciding not to tell her that he’d also told his mom about their other awkward situation. Instead, he reached out to squeeze her calf quickly before returning to his baby feeding duty. “And she trusts you. You wouldn’t be here if she didn’t.”

Turning his attention to the TV, Chris hit the play button on the remote and “West Side Story” began. He kept feeding his niece for a bit longer and then burped her. As she drifted off to sleep, he considered putting her back in the playpen, but decided that he just wanted to hold her since he didn’t get to see her very often.

At some point during the movie, Ellie attempted to stretch out her legs, but found it impossible without kicking him. At his encouragement, she placed a throw pillow on his lap and laid her head on it with her feet hanging over the edge of the couch.

When his sisters got home from their afternoon out, they found Chris asleep as well and neither of them could resist taking pictures to tease him with later.

Episode 3.5

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

#chris evans #theycallmebecca #beccaheartschrisevans #theycallmebeccawrites #chris evans fanfic #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans fan fiction #chris and ellie series #chris and ellie #chris evans x ofc #chris evans x original female character

[umichenginabroad]

GHDI Presents: Weekend of Friends and the Quest for a Fitted Sheet

May 20, 2019 at 6:39 PM

Room GF44, Getfund Hostel, Kumasi, Ghana

We might be in Africa, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bring Michigan summer lake vibes to big city Africa.

Last weekend, the gang (Alex, Sophie from Holland, and Bismark from Ghana) took a trip to Lake Bosumtwe, which is a natural lake about two hours south of Kumasi. The OG plan was to take an Uber to a central place in town, pick up a tro-tro (more on this in a second) to the closet town, and then take a taxi directly to our guesthouse by the lake. In talking with the Uber driver, we bargained for him to just take us all the way to the guesthouse so that made our plans much less complicated!

I don’t think I’ve talked about tro-tro’s before, and they’re a critical part of Ghana’s driving ecosystem (and really kinda cool). Tro-tro’s are what Ghana has instead of local city busses. Picture a big 10-15 passenger van, like your average Ford Sprinter but beat up like it was bought in 1990, and now picture it packed full of people. There’s always a driver, an assistant, and the passengers. The driver has to focus on the road, and the assistant is the guy sitting by the sliding side door, yelling at people where the bus is going, leaning out the window to see if anyone on the sidewalk wants to get on, and collects money from the passengers, all while the driver is going full speed. They have a route that they’re on, or really just a destination, and that destination can change depending on what the driver and assistant are feeling like that day or where they think the people want to go. Now imagine that the road is FILLED with these tro-tro’s. There are sometimes so many that it’s chaotic to hear someone walking next to you over the honking and the yelling of destinations. We took a tro-tro when we had Afia’s son as a guide and translator so he knew that we needed a tro-tro to ”Santasi” and that’s how that works. The rate is hella cheap. We’re talking like $0.40 for all the way across the city kind of cheap. Definitely want to get more confident in using them because I love the chaotic system.

The road from Kumasi to Lake Bosumtwe is the worst road I have ever been on. Full stop. We complain about Michigan roads but the roads all across Kumasi are horrendous. Drivers swerve all over the road to avoid potholes and there are actually ravines in the middle of the road due to the heavy rains eroding the dirt. Slamming the brakes to a turtle crawl is a common occurrence just to try (and fail) to maintain the car in good shape. There is a section of the road we took this weekend where they’re widening the road, so there’s a ton of dust and dirt being kicked up from all the cars that drive on it, obscuring vision to maybe a car length in front of you. Now I would say I’m a pretty good driver, and relatively calm when others are driving in poor conditions, but when Ghanaian drivers are going almost full speed down a dirt road, swerving left and right to avoid pot holes, unable to see oncoming traffic, and no lanes to manage where cars are supposed to be, that’s an experience nothing can really prepare you for. I’m glad I wasn’t driving, and I’m glad I’m still here to write about the tale (I’m sure my mom is happy about that too).

The guesthouse at the lake was absolutely gorgeous, and they have kept the area very natural and relaxing for the maximum of 14 guests it can accommodate. We met a group of five other international students from Germany, Switzerland, and another girl from the Netherlands, and they were really cool to hang out with while we were there! We all had similar minds to relax, do a little tanning, do a lot of reading and listening to music, and enjoy the life away from the city. The guesthouse we stayed at was called The Green Ranch, and had some amazing vegetarian food (I was a skeptic but pleasantly surprised by the pasta) and free water (!). We may have splurged a bit on a horse-riding experience and a few too many beers but it was a really cool experience! Most of the pictures from this post are of the guesthouse or the lake view.

May 23, 2019 at 11:04 PM

The hostel room had a few items left in it, but the sheets were too small for the bed so couldn’t wrap them around the mattress, very frustrating. I made it my mission to pick up a fitted sheet for my bed. The first option was the local grocery store where we picked up our towels the first week; but, they only had (rather expensive) sheet sets for queen and king beds, and I’m not paying enough money to get a queen bed in the hostel. We wait another day.

On Monday, I met up with a couple of the locals here to watch the finale of Game of Thrones! I had spent my free trial of a VPN to stream the previous episode but I was glad to know the cult of GoT exists even in Kumasi. Also on Monday, a new exchange student from Germany, Alvin, arrived to KATH! His room is right across from Alex and I’s and he was quick to join the gang.

On Tuesday, we had another friend come into Kumasi! Nai’a is the third student doing almost the same work as Alex and I, with observations and needs finding within the Emergency Department, she just has a different timeline. She was in the prep class with Alex and I for the winter semester so we know her pretty well. The plan was to head into the market to pick up a few things for everyone and show the famous Kejetia market to Alvin and Nai’a for the first time, but the afternoon monsoons thwarted that plan pretty quick because we weren’t interested in getting soaked to our bones. I’ll have to wait another day to find my fitted sheet.

Wednesday the weather was mildly better, although it was dark enough, and because it’s rained for like the past 5 days straight at this point, we just expected it to storm right around the time we get out of work. Sometimes that’s how it be. We decided to risk it anyway because who knows when it’ll clear up. We spent a little time waiting out what ended up being just a drizzle in a small snack shop, but then finally made our way into the throngs of the market with Alex, Nai’a, Sophie, and Alvin. I am happy to report that my shopping was finally completed. The items of interest? Hangers, shower soap, a shower scrub, a second hankerchief, and finally, a blue fitted sheet for my twin bed.

Thursday we decided to check out the nearby cultural center! Sophie had done some preliminary exploration during the morning earlier that week so she knew the cool stores to show us. The cultural center was choc-full of artisan crafts and creators, it was a really cool area. I was trying to decide whether it was an area just for tourists (I mean the name was cultural center) or if it was simply a good location for craftsmen of bronze or pottery or weavers and sewers and artists. The artwork that was available from some of these creators are simply incredible and I can definitely see myself leaving with some, we’ll see how much money I have left towards the end of the experience to gauge how much of the traditional symbols and paintings I bring back as gifts.

Another weeklong project was to try and communicate with our tailor from last week to drop off the finished shirts! We finally met up with him on Thursday to exchange the goods and I’m really happy with how mine turned out! See below for pictures of the tailored shirts I had made.

This weekend we’re taking a longer trip south to Cape Coast! We have a hostel that’s right on the beach and Cape Coast is known for it’s beaches and old slave castles we are hoping to get a tour of to learn more about this history of the area. There’s also Kakum National Park, which is only about 45 minutes away and the only remaining rainforest in West Africa, so that’s pretty neat. Stay tuned for more fun times and travels!

Thanks for hanging with me,

Scott

———

Scott Vanden Heuvel

Mechanical Engineering

GHDI Immersion Experience, Kumasi, Ghana

#umichenginabroad #ScottVandenHeuvel #IPEghana #IPEsummer19

[yoi-secret-valentines2017]

Lombardia Trophy: For Aleiocus

I hope you enjoy it, @aleiocus! :3

At fifteen, Yuri Plisetsky won the Grand Prix Final and surprised everyone by snatching gold from Yuuri Katsuki who’s free skate broke world records. Yuri would have pointed out that his short program broke world records too, but no one had ever asked. He also would have said he earned the gold and people could fuck off, but he wasn’t supposed to get into fights with Katsuki’s fans.

He will be sixteen when he skates in the Olympic qualifying competition Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstorf, Germany the next september. Yuri wants to take gold there, to have the whole of the Russian ‘team’ collect the Fritz-Geiger-Memorial Trophy as a show that they dominated the other countries in every discipline showcased (not just men’s singles)…but he is not certain it will happen. If it were possible to flog the other skaters that will be entering under Russia’s flag into not failing, he would, but the most he can do on his own is take first in men’s singles.

Just as Nikiforov had done in previous years. Just as he still planned on doing this year, the sly bastard.

“If I’m lucky he will be so distracted by the Katsudon in the next few months he won’t remember to enter.”

“Unlikely.” Is the answer from Yuri’s phone. He’s Skyping with Otabek and has been grumbling at his friend for ten minutes already about the engaged couple, how disgusting they are to work around, and how much he’s going to crush them in the coming competitions.  

Otabek, wisely, says little.  They are friends, but it’s a strange friendship and they are both too old for their years in so many ways. Yuri with his soldier’s eyes and burning passion, Otabek with his steadfast nature and calm under pressure.

“So-” The Russian’s accent is harder to understand when they’re not in person, and he knows it - but he also knows that Otabek catches everything if he’s just a little careful; his friend has learned well in the time they’ve been growing this friendship.  So when Yuri begins speaking again, Otabek’s attention resets on his words and the blond pushes a cat’s fluffy tail out of the camera lens as he puts forth a question he already knows the answer to, “You’ll be there, right?”

“To take gold from you, of course.”  It’s unlikely, but Otabek’s goal just the same, and both are aware of the stakes - neither wishes to be left off the podium, and one may be. A known potential outcome but they don’t speak about that and their conversations are tinged with sharp words that hold warm affection.

“Ha! Keep dreaming!” Yuri has leaned back, laughing and leaving only that sharp chin still in the frame and Otabek can’t help that his mouth keeps trying to twist into a smile at the audacity of his friend.  After a moment the blond’s face returns, loose hair falling into his eyes and framing his now-serious features in weird ways.  “You will have to settle for silver, I do not plan on losing to anyone.”  That is the fire, the soldier, that dwells within Yuri Plisetsky and calls to Otabek.

The media may call him the “Russian Fairy” because of his slender form and short stature, but very soon Yuri will make that appellation seem ridiculous and outdated. He’s hit another growth spurt, what should be the Big one, and at the most inopportune time. His bones already ache with it and there are mornings where he spends torturous minutes after waking trying to make his limbs behave as they should or rubbing out the over-taxed muscles.  He is terrified of this growth spurt, it’s a fear all skaters - and danseurs - know very well: puberty changes your center of gravity, your body is no longer yours to control until you remaster it - if you can.  Yuri swears at every deity he knows to hold off on growing until after the Qualifier; he’s confident that if he grows after that time he will be able to make his changed body do as he wants it to, no matter what.

But Mother Nature obeys no man, not even Yuri Plisetsky, and he has to spend days with Yakov and his rink mates watch him with knowing, strained expressions.

Otabek knows, of course. He distracts his friend from the way his shoulders are broadening with stories of his sister’s antics. With weird photos tagged just for him on Instagram, song recommendations, and truly heinous costume ideas that he draws himself using his sister’s coloured pencils - just for Yuri. They don’t talk about how Yuri isn’t allowed to do quads right now, lest he hurt himself horribly - how Yakov didn’t want him doing any jumps at all but gave in after Yuri’s imbalanced hormones had him both yelling and crying over it until Viktor intervened on his part.

“I’m going to have to change my whole routine, it’s suited to– It won’t work now.” Yuri hisses the words, his face a mask of barely contained frustration and anger; he feels nothing but rage at being knocked on his ass right after reaching the top. “Don’t expect me to cheer you fuckers on if I can’t go.” He sounds absolutely tortured even through the internet and Otabek’s speakers, but before he can try to say something to comfort the Russian, it’s done. As abruptly as the words and anger came, the connection is closed and both skaters are left looking at the little icon bubbles and the call length, one feeling as though he might explode from within, the other as though he’s failed in some way.

***

In the months to follow, Yuri grows. From 163 cm to 179 cm, putting him five inches taller than Otabek and the same damn height as Viktor. “A centimeter shorter, Yurio!” Viktor likes to sing-song it to annoy him.  His body has changed from svelte and androgynous to rangy and clocking distinctly masculine,  his cheeks could cut glass. Otabek thinks he’s the most exquisite creature he’s ever lain eyes on and often dreams about what it would be like to touch the lines of Yuri’s body.

They talk frequently, in short bursts. Mostly via text since they are both training heavily for Nebelhorn and because Yuri specifically is working hard to bring his body into control. He only grumbles a little when Yakov tells him he’ll be performing a ‘test run’ at the Lombardia Trophy in Bergamo over that second week in September, with two weeks between it and the Nebelhorn. Otabek will not be participating, which is disappointing, but Yuri weathers it fairly well by only having two panic attacks. Yuuri is who he turns to in those times, the Japanese skater having a sort of calming presence when not on the ice, but it’s Otabek he calls later to discuss the episodes with.

When the seventh arrives, Yuri, Mila, and Yakov check into the hotel; Yuri rather likes Milan, but he’ll not get much time to wander the streets this go around. Yuri’s Angels are there, of course, but the Russian can barely stand to be near them with the strange new dimensions of his body and for once they let him go after only a few dozen selfies.  Yakov returns to where Mila and the newly released Yuri wait with their pile of luggage and they all head up to their rooms; his is a double and he thinks that’s absolutely stupid but decides not to bother with it as there are more pressing things to attend to.

On Saturday he skates fourth and his short program goes fairly well though he finds it hard to gauge just how much strength he’s putting into his jumps sometimes; he over rotates a triple axel and flubs the combo, and takes a nasty spill doing a quad loop, but almost makes up for it with a quadruple lutz that gets such fantastic height the sports casters comment about how maybe a quint jump could be possible some day - just as the sports casters of old once spoke of quads.  In the crowd, Yuri seeks out Otabek’s face momentarily before realizing his friend is not at the event; he is somewhat somber as he skates off the ice and accompanies Yakov to the kiss ‘n cry.

Sunday’s free skate will be better, he tells himself as the scores come in. He’s in fourth and it rankles.

Yuri Plisetsky is better than fourth, even after only the short program.

***

A repeated and obnoxious buzzing from his phone as he lays across one of the beds with a towel around his hips and heavy metal blaring through earbuds prompts Yuri to snarl as he unlocks his screen. There’s a text message from Otabek telling him to open his damn door already.

Yuri makes a very ungraceful squawk as his body tries going every which way at once and he ends up a heap on the floor, half-strangled by his earbud cords.  “Fuck–” he swears then focuses on standing properly, tossing his phone on the bed, and letting Otabek (and his luggage)  in.  They stand awkwardly for a few moments, the Kazakhstani man having to look up and Yuri blinking stupidly because oh. He hadn’t realized.  Known he was taller, yes, but the full implications came crashing now and it was so strange.  “You’re short.”

Otabek snorts, “You were shorter.”

“What are you even doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming!?” Yuri loomed aggressively without meaning to, but Otabek wasn’t bothered; he’d been putting up with intimidation tactics from taller men for years. Skating was a cut-throat world  after all, and no matter that his friend now strongly resembled some sort of demon with his face ugly-twisted like that, he was still the Yuri Plisetsky that had an unholy interest in clothing with big cat prints,  that spoke in ridiculous lovey-dovey talk at his cat, and would text him at 3am (his time) with snapchat or just some photograph of an oddity.

He was a giant dork and Altin knew it.  “I’m here to cheer you on.”

“You’re kidding–no, you’re not. That’s ridiculous! What about your training!? There are three weeks to Nebelhorn, you can’t be fucking around in Bergamo for fuck’s sake–” Voice spiraling until it broke, Yuri folded into himself only to be caught and hugged by Otabek; he was so disgustingly happy to have him there it hit too hard and he was crying like Katsuki.  A few minutes of soaking Otabek’s shoulder and both were sitting on the beds, Yuri in sweat pants with the scratchy hotel towel draped over his head as he looked over instagram.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I know.”

“Tomorrow I won’t screw up.”

“Of course not.” Otabek snorts and takes his laptop out so he can show off his adorable little sister again.

***

Sunday goes much better for Yuri. He skates with confidence and manages to land all his jumps without error though some are not as clean as they should be, and his longer limbs don’t always find the right places for spins or spirals. Having done ballet for so long, he can still manage doing his signature half-Biellmann, but it feels awkward no matter how technically proper it is.

At the end of his free skate, Yuri is panting for air and his legs go unsteady. It’s like he Grand Prix Final all over again, and the crowd goes wild. Plisetsky is a fan favorite, there have been many tears shed and much speculation as to whether he’d weather this growth spurt and be able to continue as an Olympic hopeful, and they are wild with the joy of seeing proof that he’s managed well enough to remain in competitions with the likes of Nikiforov, Giacometti, and JJ.  When he’s able, he skates off the ice and into Otabek’s arms, leaning heavily on the (now) shorter skater to get to the kiss ‘n cry.  Yakov looks pleased and while he has many corrections for Yuri, he holds them in for later.

Yuri’s score isn’t record-breaking, but he finds nothing to complain about with a 198.57. He’ll place, he’s sure of it now.

After all, Otabek is with him, how can he not?

***

[yuri-plisetsky]

❤ 8,528 likes

Yuri-plisetsky #lombardia #silvertastesokay #victory #otabekaltin #gorussia #goldatnebelhorn

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At fifteen, Yuri Plisetsky won the Grand Prix Final and surprised everyone.

He will be sixteen when he skates in the Olympic qualifying competition Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstorf, Germany the next september. Yuri wants to take gold there, to have the whole of the Russian ‘team’ collect the Fritz-Geiger-Memorial Trophy as a show that they dominated the other countries in every discipline showcased (not just men’s singles)…but he is not certain it will happen. If it were possible to flog the other skaters that will be entering under Russia’s flag into not failing, he would, but the most he can do on his own is take first in men’s singles.

Just as Nikiforov had done in previous years. Just as he still planned on doing this year, the sly bastard.

“If I’m lucky he will be so distracted by the Katsudon in the next few months he won’t remember to enter.”

“Unlikely.” Is the answer from Yuri’s phone. He’s Skyping with Otabek and has been grumbling at his friend for ten minutes already about the engaged couple, how disgusting they are to work around, and how much he’s going to crush them in the coming competitions.  

Otabek, wisely, says little.  They are friends, but it’s a strange friendship and they are both too old for their years in so many ways. Yuri with his soldier’s eyes and burning passion, Otabek with his steadfast nature and calm under pressure.

“So-” The Russian’s accent is harder to understand when they’re not in person, and he knows it - but he also knows that Otabek catches everything if he’s just a little careful; his friend has learned well in the time they’ve been growing this friendship.  So when Yuri begins speaking again, Otabek’s attention resets on his words and the blond pushes a cat’s fluffy tail out of the camera lens as he puts forth a question he already knows the answer to, “You’ll be there, right?”

“To take gold from you, of course.”  It���s unlikely, but Otabek’s goal just the same, and both are aware of the stakes - neither wishes to be left off the podium, and one may be. A known potential outcome but they don’t speak about that and their conversations are tinged with sharp words that hold warm affection.

“Ha! Keep dreaming!” Yuri has leaned back, laughing and leaving only that sharp chin still in the frame and Otabek can’t help that his mouth keeps trying to twist into a smile at the audacity of his friend.  After a moment the blond’s face returns, loose hair falling into his eyes and framing his now-serious features in weird ways.  “You will have to settle for silver, I do not plan on losing to anyone.”  That is the fire, the soldier, that dwells within Yuri Plisetsky and calls to Otabek.

The media may call him the “Russian Fairy” because of his slender form and short stature, but very soon Yuri will make that appellation seem ridiculous and outdated. He’s hit another growth spurt, what should be the Big one, and at the most inopportune time. His bones already ache with it and there are mornings where he spends torturous minutes after waking trying to make his limbs behave as they should or rubbing out the over-taxed muscles.  He is terrified of this growth spurt, it’s a fear all skaters - and danseurs - know very well: puberty changes your center of gravity, your body is no longer yours to control until you remaster it - if you can.  Yuri swears at every deity he knows to hold off on growing until after the Qualifier; he’s confident that if he grows after that time he will be able to make his changed body do as he wants it to, no matter what.

But Mother Nature obeys no man, not even Yuri Plisetsky, and he has to spend days with Yakov and his rink mates watch him with knowing, strained expressions.

Otabek knows, of course. He distracts his friend from the way his shoulders are broadening with stories of his sister’s antics. With weird photos tagged just for him on Instagram, song recommendations, and truly heinous costume ideas that he draws himself using his sister’s coloured pencils - just for Yuri. They don’t talk about how Yuri isn’t allowed to do quads right now, lest he hurt himself horribly - how Yakov didn’t want him doing any jumps at all but gave in after Yuri’s imbalanced hormones had him both yelling and crying over it until Viktor intervened on his part.

“I’m going to have to change my whole routine, it’s suited to– It won’t work now.” Yuri hisses the words, his face a mask of barely contained frustration and anger; he feels nothing but rage at being knocked on his ass right after reaching the top. “Don’t expect me to cheer you fuckers on if I can’t go.” He sounds absolutely tortured even through the internet and Otabek’s speakers, but before he can try to say something to comfort the Russian, it’s done. As abruptly as the words and anger came, the connection is closed and both skaters are left looking at the little icon bubbles and the call length, one feeling as though he might explode from within, the other as though he’s failed in some way.

***

In the months to follow, Yuri grows. From 163 cm to 179 cm, putting him five inches taller than Otabek and the same damn height as Viktor. “A centimeter shorter, Yurio!” Viktor likes to sing-song it to annoy him.  His body has changed from svelte and androgynous to rangy and clocking distinctly masculine,  his cheeks could cut glass. Otabek thinks he’s the most exquisite creature he’s ever lain eyes on and often dreams about what it would be like to touch the lines of Yuri’s body.

They talk frequently, in short bursts. Mostly via text since they are both training heavily for Nebelhorn and because Yuri specifically is working hard to bring his body into control. He only grumbles a little when Yakov tells him he’ll be performing a ‘test run’ at the Lombardia Trophy in Bergamo over that second week in September, with two weeks between it and the Nebelhorn. Otabek will not be participating, which is disappointing, but Yuri weathers it fairly well by only having two panic attacks. Yuuri is who he turns to in those times, the Japanese skater having a sort of calming presence when not on the ice, but it’s Otabek he calls later to discuss the episodes with.

When the seventh arrives, Yuri, Mila, and Yakov check into the hotel; Yuri rather likes Milan, but he’ll not get much time to wander the streets this go around. Yuri’s Angels are there, of course, but the Russian can barely stand to be near them with the strange new dimensions of his body and for once they let him go after only a few dozen selfies.  Yakov returns to where Mila and the newly released Yuri wait with their pile of luggage and they all head up to their rooms; his is a double and he thinks that’s absolutely stupid but decides not to bother with it as there are more pressing things to attend to.

On Saturday he skates fourth and his short program goes fairly well though he finds it hard to gauge just how much strength he’s putting into his jumps sometimes; he over rotates a triple axel and flubs the combo, and takes a nasty spill doing a quad loop, but almost makes up for it with a quadruple lutz that gets such fantastic height the sports casters comment about how maybe a quint jump could be possible some day - just as the sports casters of old once spoke of quads.  In the crowd, Yuri seeks out Otabek’s face momentarily before realizing his friend is not at the event; he is somewhat somber as he skates off the ice and accompanies Yakov to the kiss ‘n cry.

Sunday’s free skate will be better, he tells himself as the scores come in. He’s in fourth and it rankles.

Yuri Plisetsky is better than fourth, even after only the short program.

***

A repeated and obnoxious buzzing from his phone as he lays across one of the beds with a towel around his hips and heavy metal blaring through earbuds prompts Yuri to snarl as he unlocks his screen. There’s a text message from Otabek telling him to open his damn door already.

Yuri makes a very ungraceful squawk as his body tries going every which way at once and he ends up a heap on the floor, half-strangled by his earbud cords.  “Fuck–” he swears then focuses on standing properly, tossing his phone on the bed, and letting Otabek (and his luggage)  in.  They stand awkwardly for a few moments, the Kazakhstani man having to look up and Yuri blinking stupidly because oh. He hadn’t realized.  Known he was taller, yes, but the full implications came crashing now and it was so strange.  “You’re short.”

Otabek snorts, “You were shorter.”

“What are you even doing here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming!?” Yuri loomed aggressively without meaning to, but Otabek wasn’t bothered; he’d been putting up with intimidation tactics from taller men for years. Skating was a cut-throat world  after all, and no matter that his friend now strongly resembled some sort of demon with his face ugly-twisted like that, he was still the Yuri Plisetsky that had an unholy interest in clothing with big cat prints,  that spoke in ridiculous lovey-dovey talk at his cat, and would text him at 3am (his time) with snapchat or just some photograph of an oddity.

He was a giant dork and Altin knew it.  “I’m here to cheer you on.”

“You’re kidding–no, you’re not. That’s ridiculous! What about your training!? There are three weeks to Nebelhorn, you can’t be fucking around in Bergamo for fuck’s sake–” Voice spiraling until it broke, Yuri folded into himself only to be caught and hugged by Otabek; he was so disgustingly happy to have him there it hit too hard and he was crying like Katsuki.  A few minutes of soaking Otabek’s shoulder and both were sitting on the beds, Yuri in sweat pants with the scratchy hotel towel draped over his head as he looked over instagram.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“I know.”

“Tomorrow I won’t screw up.”

“Of course not.” Otabek snorts and takes his laptop out so he can show off his adorable little sister again.

***

Sunday goes much better for Yuri. He skates with confidence and manages to land all his jumps without error though some are not as clean as they should be, and his longer limbs don’t always find the right places for spins or spirals. Having done ballet for so long, he can still manage doing his signature half-Biellmann, but it feels awkward no matter how technically proper it is.

At the end of his free skate, Yuri is panting for air and his legs go unsteady. It’s like he Grand Prix Final all over again, and the crowd goes wild. Plisetsky is a fan favorite, there have been many tears shed and much speculation as to whether he’d weather this growth spurt and be able to continue as an Olympic hopeful, and they are wild with the joy of seeing proof that he’s managed well enough to remain in competitions with the likes of Nikiforov, Giacometti, and JJ.  When he’s able, he skates off the ice and into Otabek’s arms, leaning heavily on the (now) shorter skater to get to the kiss ‘n cry.  Yakov looks pleased and while he has many corrections for Yuri, he holds them in for later.

Yuri’s score isn’t record-breaking, but he finds nothing to complain about with a 198.57. He’ll place, he’s sure of it now.

After all, Otabek is with him, how can he not?

***

[yuri-plisetsky]

❤ 8,528 likes

Yuri-plisetsky #lombardia #silvertastesokay #victory #otabekaltin #gorussia #goldatnebelhorn

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#yoi secret valentines #yuuri katsuki #viktor nikiforov #writing #yuri plisetsky #submission

[sitical]

Dreams of Diamond Dust Ch.4

Ch.1 Ch.2 Ch.3

Full Fic Here Summary: Laurent just wanted a night away from the daily grind of scrubbing toilets. What he got was a night he’d never forget that would come back to haunt him every Tuesday and Saturday.

Chapter 4

Laurent was sure he’d had crappier days than this. He had worked as a janitor for nearly four fucking years; he’d thought he’d seen it all. Apparently, he had not. Nothing compared to the absolute filth that lay before him.

His boss had called him at five in the morning with news that his team’s regular cleaning assignment had been canceled in lieu of another job. One that started within the hour. Laurent would be paid extra for the job, of course. Laurent, half awake, and always in need of a little extra cash, agreed.

Fully awake and only smelling the stench from the van, he wished he hadn’t.

A god damn septic cleanup. Laurent could not believe what the hell he signed up for so early in the morning. Even through the mask, the smell was so pungent, and he knew it would only get worse as the day got warmer.

“Alright ladies, put your masks on! The smell is going to be something to get used to,” Hilda said from the driver’s seat, pulling on her own mask.

The first hour in the destroyed house was harsh; not even the industrial-strength fans the team had brought in helped. The bathroom and a good portion of the hall had been absolutely flooded with nasty fluids and waste of all sorts. Laurent tried hard not to think about what was floating around.

Laurent threw up all of his meals that probably dated back to last night. And after a couple episodes of dry heaving, with his eyes red and watery, he was sure he was getting used to it now. He honestly felt like he died a little on the inside.

By lunchtime, the team was still there and nearly done. Laurent did not feel like eating ever again. Hilda had to practically force the burger and fries down his throat, telling him that he needed his energy. Eventually, he broke and ate slowly.

With their hour-long break, he looked at his phone and decided to call Damen while he ate. The other man normally called him around this time anyway, and it would be nice to hear Damen’s voice after nothing but the h-vacs for hours.

He selected the contact and called, taking a bite of his burger while the line rang.

Damen’s voicemail eventually answer. Laurent just shrugged, figuring that maybe he was having lunch with a client or on the other line. He’d give him a bit. Ten minutes later, he called again. Again, Damen’s voicemail picked up.

It was a little strange. Damen always answered his phone, even when at the office. Or he’d send a text if he was busy and couldn’t answer. Laurent had learned that much in the past few weeks since their first date.

He finished off his food and sat back in the seat of the van and tried again. Nothing. He was beginning to get a little worried, but Hilda was round up the team to start up work again.

Laurent looked at his phone one last time, hoping to see Damen’s little chat head showing. Nothing. He sighed, leaving his phone in the van and headed back into the disaster.

Finally, after nine long hours, the team was done. They had done the best they could, but the flooring would need to be replaced, as would the drywall in most of the affected areas. Laurent was glad it wasn’t his tiny apartment. But it was a job well done.

The ladies all decided to go out for a drink, which Laurent declined. He was far too tired and far too grossed out to want to do anything but go home and soak in the bath for the rest of the day.

Laurent wanted so badly to just flop down on his futon and sleep forever when he got back to his apartment, but he knew he reeked. So, he went straight for the bathroom, taking a quick shower to get all the grime off first, and then running himself a bath, the water as hot as he could stand. He put in the last of the bath salts and a bath bomb from Damen as well. After the day he’d had, he deserved it.

The water felt so good on his skin, his tired limbs finally relaxing, and he slipped further down in the water. Letting his eyes close and mind drift, Laurent’s memory took him to last Saturday when the team had been cleaning Damen’s house.

Damen was usually found swimming on Saturdays, and while the rest of the team made a point to keep out of the client’s way, Laurent always managed to find himself sweeping the patio, even if there was nothing to sweep.

It wasn’t very inconspicuous, but Damen would always swim up to the edge of the pool and talk to him while he worked. And just this past Saturday, Damen had gracefully lifted himself out of the pool. A stronger man would have been able to look away, to pretend at professionalism, but Damen’s chest looked like it had been carved by the gods, and Laurent was weak. He was very weak for the drops of water that had cut lines across Damen’s chest, then down to the v-lines of his hips. Damen’s skin had looked so warm.

(( Full Fic Here ))

#Captive prince #laurent of vere #damen of akielos #captive prince fanfic #the maid and the billionaire au #beefy writes