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gemissleeping · 3 months

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Velveteen|Theodore Nott

"He knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else."

Theodore Nott x Reader

Summary: As the last surviving witch with ties to an ancient form of magic, Dumbledore has you tracking down horcrux hotspots.

Length: 2.2k

Notes: Angst mostly, some fluff. Blood, swearing, smoking. Percy Weasley hate (valid). This is just a little something I had the urge to write. May or may not continue as a series at this stage.

Fuck trees, fuck trolls, and fuck that smug little Weasley auror from the Ministry. He was a rat in y/n's eyes. A scheming, conniving rodent of a man. How he had even tracked her out there was beyond her. She'd made sure to take all of the precautions Snape had given her.

She'd apparated out with Professor Dumbledore. A good fifty kilometres from the point of interest too, might she add. Fifty kilometres she'd had to trek over two days to remain undetected. On foot. All for nothing in the end thanks to Percy.

Bootlicker.

There was no worse feeling than a failed task. Especially when it was one of her most important to date. The map was atrocious really, they clearly had no idea what they were looking for. Just that y/n should be able to sense it. Sniff it out as though she were some kind of blood hound.

Percy she had sensed. Thankfully she had gotten out before he'd seen her face, or the sea cave entrance she'd been eyeing on the cliffs below. She'd have to go back now. Which was absolutely wonderful and definitely did not make her want to tear her hair out.

Merlin, she thought she might hit the next Weasley she came across just for looking like him if she didn't calm down soon. Not Ginny of course, Ginny was lovely. Ronald was fair game though. Fred she would also be impartial to.

To top things off, y/n now found herself fleeing from the edge of the Forbidden Forest towards the castle. She'd missed the welcome dinner, which was a shame. But in all honesty, may have been a small mercy at this point. At least this way most of the students would be asleep, and she could get into the castle undetected.

It wasn't Dumbledore's fault that the end location of the Portkey had seemingly been inhabited by a troll since he had selected it. But how hard was it to check up on, really? Especially knowing she was wandless and unable to cast any regular spells. She'd blasted it to bits, of course. Not before it had gotten one good shot at her though, flinging her into the nearest pine tree.

It was just rather inconsiderate she thought.

The dizziness was setting in as she entered the castle via the Viaduct Bridge, snaking her way down to the dungeons. Making sure to grip every railing or wall available to her. Merlin was on her side that night, not one Professor crossed her path while she had floated through the dim halls. Once the concrete snake had appeared, revealing the door, she almost fell over with relief

The stairs felt so horrifically long, but finally she reached the dim, candle-lit depths of the Slytherin common room. Keeling forward for a moment, y/n placed her hands on her knees as she tried to calm her breathing. Her left palm came away bloodied. There was a tear in her stockings, and a huge gash across her knee.

y/n groaned, making her way around the corner to the couches her friends had claimed in third year. She couldn't wait to fall into one, maybe never wake if she had her way. And she did fall, only into Theodore Nott's eyeline. He looked as though he'd been waiting there for hours from the sweltering anger on his face. She took a deep breath, knowing she was about to get her ass handed to her for a second time that night.

"Nice of you to notify me of your delay."

"Does it look as though I planned on it?" y/n mumbled, sinking into the green velvet couch across from him. She sighed as her tension eased for the first time in days. Head lolling against the couch's back. Her hands shielding her eyes as a headache set in. While Theodore sat deathly still, awaiting further explanation with a burdened gaze. Something told y/n the burden was her.

"Mind if I borrow your wand?" y/n groaned from behind her palms.

There was only silence for a moment, before she heard him shift across from her. When she lifted her head his wand was resting on the table between them. He was pissed, beyond apprehension. But he had softened at her shattered appearance, the blood on her knee. Which she had now unknowingly painted on her cheek.

"Thank you," y/n sighed in relief, half expecting to have to fight for it. She worked quickly, sealing up the gash and cleansing the blood, pine needles, and dirt from her skin. Finishing by stitching her stockings together again. When she finally glanced back up, Theodore was frowning. His eyes sweeping her body up and down as she finished her work. He looked up from the closing threads of her stockings as they meshed around her knee, one eyebrow raised.

"Have something you'd like to say?" y/n grumbled, holding his wand out for him to take. He wasn't a fan of that question, or her attitude. His expression soured once again, all past concern pushed away. y/n brushed more pine needles off of her skirt, too tired and sore to care. She was spent, so completely crushed from the past two days. The knowledge that she had no choice but to continue until she succeeded wasn't helping.

"Have you always behaved like this, or do you just enjoying making me worry insufferably?" Theo leaned forward, and took the wand from her outstretched hand. His fingertips gently brushing her grazed knuckles.

"It's nice to see you too, Teddy," y/n laughed tiredly, shedding more pine needles as she picked them from her stockings. If she shut her eyes now, she worried they were so heavy she might fall asleep sitting up.

"Where have you been? I searched the whole train up and down for you. You missed the Sorting Ceremony," Theo hissed.

"It's a good thing we already know what house I'm in then, isn't it?"

"That's not funny y/n." He scolded, the concern in his voice thinly veiled by the frown he was wearing. She had no idea what it had been like for him, these past few hours especially.

"I need a cigarette before we get into it," y/n sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Everything was aching, she would find solace in a smoke or two. He didn't move. "Please?"

"It's late."

"You're awake," she countered, a hopeful look on her face that he knew he wouldn't be able to dissapoint.

"Because of you," he grumbled, running his hands through his messy curls.

"I'll take that as a yes, be right back," and she was off, disappearing into the dormitories.

"Do as you please, you always do," Theodore huffed under his breath.

He needed one too if he was honest. He felt as though he'd aged a few decades from the fear he'd been wearing all evening while he fretted over her disappearance.

She reappeared a minute or so later, the heavy overcoat he'd brought her for her birthday last year hanging off of her shoulders. The pair took their usual route until they found themselves at the top of the hill just outside the grounds, overlooking Hagrid's hut. y/n stood, overlooking the moonlit valley beneath them. The peace quickly disintegrating into swearing as the wind prevented her from sparking up. Theo had been hanging behind slightly, still not having forgiven her. But upon hearing the quiet curses falling from her lips, he couldn't help but walk over.

"You shield, I'll light it," he instructed, y/n doing as she was told and holding the sides of her coat up.

He closed the open space with his chest in two gentle steps. His thumb running over the flint of the lighter as the wind went quiet and y/n's face grew warm. He brought it to her lips, unable to keep himself from looking as he lit the cigarette between them. She took a relieved drag as the flame took. Theo got out his own cigarette, leaning down to press its tip to hers. He inhaled, spreading the flame between them. The grass was dewey beneath them as they smoked. Theo looked over to y/n, trailing over her body just to make sure.

"You've got pine needles in your hair, by the way," Theo murmured as he took another drag. His eyes flickering from hers, to the ground as he tapped his cigarette.

"Oh for fuck's sake," y/n heaved, tilting her head back in exasperation. She began ripping the hair ties from her two braids and brushing her fingers through them to shake the needles loose. Balancing her cigarette between her lips as she did.

"Still there," Theo mused, studying her with an amused expression as her frustration grew.

She passed him her cigarette wordlessly, which he took. She'd have rather not set herself alight on top of everything today. Then tipped her head forward, carelessly dragging her fingertips through it to rid herself of them. Once she was done, she flung her hair back. Raising an eyebrow in Theo's direction. He only gave her a saccharine smile as he took a drag from her cigarette, keeping it lit.

"Still?" y/n asked in disbelief, taking her cigarette from his lips and placing it between her own.

"Come here, sit," He shook his head, as though she was the most useless creature he'd ever seen. Theo walked over to the steps nearby, sitting on the top one. She followed suit, tucking her coat beneath her and taking a seat two steps down. She dipped her head back, leaning on her elbows. Her head resting between his knees. Theo couldn't help but admire the way her hair fell, even in its current mess.

Pressing the nub of his cigarette into the grass after one final drag, Theo brushed his hands off. His fingers quickly lacing through her hair in gentle streams as he dragged out the remaining pine needles. Christ there were a lot of them. He ran his fingers through it again, carefully to ensure he didn't snag anything. He did it again, and again. The pine needles were long gone. But her breathing had grown steady, and her shoulders relaxed. And that mattered far more to him than some pine needles.

"All clear?" She whispered sleepily, her head falling all the way back to meet his eyes.

"All clear," Theo echoed, the dried blood beneath her eye making him wince. "You missed this though," he reached out, pressing his thumb to his tongue and running it under her eye to brush the blood away.

"Ew," y/n gasped, but if she was honest, she was too tired to care. She swatted his hand away gently. Taking another drag from her cigarette which had been resting beneath her knuckles.

"Need I remind you that you once sneezed in my mouth?" Theo chimed, knowing it was his trump card, and likely would be for eternity.

"That was literally in First Year and it was an accident," she mumbled.

"Still stands." He shrugged.

"You loved it, don't lie." That got a smile out of him, however unwillingly.

"You're foul. Now tell me why you came in several hours late, looking like a troll dragged you through a bush backwards."

y/n's eyes widened slightly at his statement, choking on the dregs of her cigarette in disbelief. His smile vanished, eyes flickering between her own as he gauged her reaction. His jaw clenched as she sat up swiftly.

"Tell me you're joking."

"I think it's bedtime," y/n breathed, going to push herself up and off of the steps. But Theo's hand found her wrist like a vice, pulling her back down before she had a chance. He leant forward as she stumbled closer to him from the force. She just managed to catch herself from falling straight into him.

"I don't think so. What was that?" He said lowly, staring into her eyes. She was eternally fucked now. He could always tell when she lied, and he never tolerated it.

"Just leave it Theo, please," she pleaded, not having the energy.

"I left it all Summer. All of your disappearances, all of your little quests. You promised me it would be done by the end of the Summer. I have it in fucking writing, so don't tell me to leave it. What is going on?" He seethed, and y/n found herself unable to meet his eyes.

"Teddy, you know I can't-"

"God I'm so sick of hearing that." He laughed, a cruel sound, not his usual light-hearted teasing. "The Professors have you off, running around like some toy soldier, but you're not allowed to tell me what for. Then they're not even there to help you when things go wrong?"

"It's-"

"Despicable is what it is."

"Would you listen to me?"

"I would, but it's not like you'd be able to tell me anything, is it?"

The words left y/n silent, because they were true. She wished so terribly that they weren't. That she hadn't done it.

"I've always told you everything, y/n. I don't understand why-"

"I made the unbreakable vow."

The words rushed out of her as though she were going to be sick. The silence that followed her confession only made it more probable. Theo's features had darkened as her confession sunk in. He let go of her wrist, his hand wound into a fist as he looked out at the treeline of the forbidden forest. He stayed that way for a few moments as y/n stood before him, silently begging him to say something.

"Dumbledore," he breathed out finally, his voice straining with the effort of evenness, "you made the unbreakable vow, with Dumbledore?"

"I had to Theo, it was too important. They can't take any risks. Not until everything is done. I wanted to tell you, more than anything. I still want to-"

"Do you suppose he's ever made Potter make one?" Theo turned to her, looking as though he was about to set them both alight.

Her explanations fell dead on her tongue. They both knew he hadn't. Both knew what Dumbledore was scared of when it came to her.

"I didn't think so either," Theo conceded to her silence, his voice turning hollow. y/n felt something within her crack at the truth of his words. He was wrong, or at least she wanted him to be.

"It's different."

"I'm not sure it is," Theo countered, and he knew he was right in saying it.

Because it wasn't any different. The difference was trust. They were using her up and once they were done they would spit her out, or worse. He wasn't going to be able to sleep easily now.

"You should get to bed, I'll see you at practice tomorrow," he huffed, staring out to the forest again.

y/n stood there for a moment, hoping she could think of something to make it better. But as Theo lit another cigarette, the only thing she felt was tired.

#theodore nott #theo nott #theodore nott x reader #theodore nott x you #theodore nott x y/n #theodore nott fluff #theodore nott angst #theodore nott fanfiction #theodore nott fic #theodore nott imagine #slytherin boys

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leah-lover · 1 month

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Closed for maintenance. Leah williamson × reader.

This is part 2. I took a gamble on the ending. If you don't like it tell me so that I can change it.

PS: thank you for all the support ❤️❤️.

I woke up the next day with a painful headache. The light painfully affected my eyes as soon as I opened them. At first I didn't take in my surroundings, all I thought about was the pain. Then suddenly it all came back, the party, the drinks, Leah, the kiss. Holy shit Leah I kissed Leah. “Oh no why do I do this why the hell do I always do this. Fuck.” I cursed at myself. Then I jolted up. This is not my room, it's probably Leah's. I quickly inspected the room, no longer feeling the pain in my head as I was preoccupied with the trouble I got into. I then noticed a note that said “ good morning beautiful, come join me in the kitchen.”

I got up to refresh my hair. I was still in yesterday's clothes, so I just tidied myself and went out to join her.

I was met with the cutest sight in the world. Leah blasting ABBA, dancing and cooking what looks like eggs. With the biggest smile on my face I said “ good morning cap.”. She embarrassed turned down the music and replied “ good morning to you sleepy head, you were drunk last night so I brought you home I am not sure if you remember “

“ I do remember everything despite the earth shaking headache I am experiencing right now.” I added, which made her nervous.

“ Leah the pan it's burning.” I pointed out. “Shit. Oh god. What are we gonna do?” she said while putting the pan in the sink.

“ Well I guess the girls are having brunch, maybe we should join them.” I suggested, afraid of the outcome of us being alone.

“ Good Idea I am gonna go get ready you tell the girls we are coming together, I mean yeah…., not together like in the same car I guess.” She blurred out while going up the stairs.

On our way to the restaurant Leah seemed nervous, she kept fidgeting with the console not knowing what to do. I just ignored the tension and stared at the window.

Once we arrived we were greeted by Katie. “ Look who just showed up in yesterday's clothes late.” She said,

“ Katie fuck off please and thank you.”She replied, ushering me to an empty seat and pushing the chair out for me. “Such a gentleman “ said Katie, which earned her a stern look from Leah.

The conversation flew rather quickly, and the girls grew tired and started to leave one by one. After a while I was left with Leah alone.

“ We need to talk about what happened yesterday, it is eating at me.” She started, “ it , you, have been eating at me since you joined. You are one of if not the most beautiful human beings I know. You are kind, sweet, and confident. You are a leader and a good friend. I ….” She added before I stopped her when I put a finger on her mouth.

“ I need you to listen to me Leah. I can't let this go far. I have been in a relationship with my teammate. It has ruined my career. I left Chelsea because of my relationship with Niamh. I lost friends because they were hers first. I was left alone. I like the family here at arsenal. I don't want to lose that. Plus my heart is closed. I don't want a relationship. I can't handle a relationship right now.” I said with tears falling down my cheek.

“hey it's okay. It's not gonna be like that. Here at Arsenal what is mine is theirs. We have formed a group with Katie, Caitlain, Lia, Alessia,and Steph. What is mine is theirs and vice versa. That fact is known within the team. They won't only be my friends they will be your family. You won't be isolated. If god forbid something happened. Do you understand me?” She said, nervousness was apparent on her face.

I stayed quiet for a moment, not knowing what to say or what to do. “ If you are not up to it that's okay.” She said, worry in her face. “ I don't know what to think. Maybe I just need to understand more.” I replied.

“ Let's go to Katie's house, there you will understand.” She added, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the restaurant.

And right then and there a new chapter in my life began.

#alessia russo #mary earps #niamh charles #ona batlle #woso #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso x reader #woso community #leah williamson #steph catley #lia walti

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actuallysaiyan · 1 month

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Hello, good man 👋🏻

Imagine that Nanami and the reader are rivals. They don't get along with each other until one day they get drunk together and wake up in the same bed.

warnings: drinking, smut, sex...lewd things

Nanami thought he was a pretty patient man, for the most part. Sure he would get annoyed at Satoru's antics, but he could brush them off for the most part. So when he met you, he figured he could just deal with it.

Yet you were the bane of his existence...

You remind him of Satoru a lot. You're too clingy and make too many jokes. You also like to try and one-up him a lot, which makes him angry. Oh it leaves him seething at times. He sees red whenever he's on a mission with you and you're just showing off. You do anything you can to take an opportunity to show off. Even if it means taking an extra few minutes, you'll make a grand gesture to show him how good of a sorcerer you are.

Then the jabs come in and that irks him too. You've called him "old man" jokingly one too many times. He always corrects you, stating that he isn't that old. But you always like to poke fun, making remarks about the bags under his eyes.

That is...until one night. Gojo invites you both out to a celebration for someone's birthday. And you and Nanami get into a drinking contest. It's not a contest at first, but you've just pushed his buttons one too many times. Soon, everyone is noticing how drunk you and Kento are.

By the end of the night, you and Nanami stumble out the door together. He insists on walking you home, despite finding you insufferable, because it's the gentleman thing to do. He holds your hand, even if he's walking a little more wobbly than usual. Once at your apartment, tensions melt and things change.

Your kisses are all teeth-clashing and tongues wrestling for dominance. Kento has you pinned to the wall, his strength apparent as he keeps you there with little to no effort on his part. You whine as he bites your bottom lip. Finally, after all this time, he's showing you the affection you wanted.

He gets you into your bed, tugging your clothes off in a drunken haze. You change things up by flipping him over and straddling him. Grunts and moans rumble through his broad chest as you begin riding him, your hips moving sensually but sloppily all at once. You even let him finish inside of you over and over again, until you both pass out in a sweaty cuddle pile.

The next morning, you wake up with a headache and a dry mouth. But Kento is still there, and he's still holding you.

"Took you long enough to figure it out," you tease him. Kento kisses you hungrily, "Who said I didn't already know?"

#bacon.thirsts #nanami x reader #nanami x you #nanami x y/n #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento x you #nanami kento x y/n #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #kento nanami x reader #kento nanami x you #kento nanami x y/n #kento nanami smut #nanami kento smut #nanami smut #nanami x reader smut

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oneshotnewbie · 9 months

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Fight Falls - Part II

Trigger Warning⚠️ This one-shot includes the topic of a car accident and the plot is presented. If this triggers you too easily or you just can´t handle the subject, I urge you NOT to read this work. I am NOT embellishing this topic under any circumstance. Read at your own risk.

You groaned in agony, dizziness unfolding as your eyes fluttered open troubled, surveying your surroundings. To all appearances, you were in a hospital room, at least that was what the strong smell of disinfectant told you from the bed you were laying in.

Your attention extended to the woman who had nodded off in the chair next to you. The blonde had her feet on the edge of the bed while her head gently rested on her closed fist. Your breath caught at the sight of the devastated face. Dry, pale lines of tears outlined the dark circles under closed and tired eyes. The sight made the heart monitor you were hooked to go horribly crazy.

"Y/n?" she was slightly dazed and confused when her eyes opened and focused on you. It was only when she squeezed your hand that you realized she was holding onto you like you were about to disappear.

"M-maya" your voice trailed off as you tried to raise your body into a sitting position. You warmly accepted your wife´s help as she slipped her arms softly under your armpits and carefully pulled you up. Maya quickly stroked your matt and dry hair before taking a glass of water from your side table.

The firefighter held it up to your lips, patiently waiting as you took your first sip, enjoying the cool water sliding down your dry and burning throat. Nodding to her, she took the glass away from you before sitting down and fidgeting with her fingers nervously. Her head was lowered, only soft whimpers and sobs escaped her.

"Four days," she began to speak softly, her voice shaking with tension. "You were unconscious for four days. Apparently, you hit your head very hard"

"That would explain the killer headache," you mumbled and the blonde smiled slightly as you grimaced while running your palm down the back of your neck. "What happened?"

"Someone figured it would be a good idea to hit the gas pedal quickly to get through a red light," she shrugged, biting the insides of her cheek hard. Her clear blue eyes darkened and pure anger flared up in them. "Was not smart of him to mess with you. You have two women by your side, one of whom has free access to every room in this hospital and might be on lookout for a minute or two while he gets to feel my fists"

You had realized that Maya seemed to be barely breathing out of sheer nervousness and just talked until she ran out of breath. You slowly reached out a hand and grabbed her thigh, which you began to squeeze gently to bring her back to reality. "It is neither Carina´s nor your fault"

"You have a nasty cut on your forehead and a severe concussion" she replied in a serious tone, frowning while a fixed and intense gaze brooked no contradiction. "Our thoughtless and completely pointless argument got you in the car in the first place"

You applied renewed but significantly more pressure to the blondes thigh, causing her to grunt out as your fingernails dug into her skin.

"Okay, I give in. Not my fault!"

Satisfied with her answer, you smiled and leaned back against your pillow, covering your upper body with the thick blanket from the cold. "Please bring me Carina. Or Amelia. Or anyone responsible for me and get me out of here!"

Squinting and eye and pursing her lips, you could see that she was not happy with your wish. But she could not refuse you anything so she nodded and jumped up from her seat. Placing a gentle kiss on your forehead, Maya headed for the door and briefly disappeared.

Pinching the bridge of your nose, you let your eyes close for a soft moment as you rode out a wave of pain that took control of your body, making you shiver. You would like to ask for painkiller immediately if your treating doctor comes in. But then Maya and also Carina would worry and insist that you would stay here for observation.

Something, you did not want at all.

"Hey Y/n," you had not even heard the door creak open through your trance as your eyes snapped open and followed the voice.

Acknowledging the well-known neurologist in front of you, you smiled at her. "Nice to see you awake again. You gave the two toughest women I know a real scare"

Amelia tapped the tablet in her hands, calling up your file before joining your bed and shining her little lamp in your eyes. The light burned like hell in them, but you tried not to let it show so as not to minimize your chances of being able to go home soon.

"They are always worried, no matter what I do"

You were impatient as she gently pulled down the thick plaster on your forehead to examine the cut for any inflammation. You hated hospitals, everything about them but most of all the atmosphere that came with them. Even though you knew everyone here and were taken care of as if you were one of them, you just could not bear to be here.

"Not always, but often enough. Because we love you" the blonde folded her arms tightly under her chest and pouted. Amelia could not help but laugh at your bickering while you rolled your eyes and immediately regretted it.

"It looks like everything is okay so far. No bleeding or other damage to your brain, though you have received a mild concussion due to the impact. I will bring you the discharge papers in a few hours. Please try to walk a few steps to get your circulation going, see if you get dizzy while standing up"

"I am fine. I can go home now," you quickly leaned forward and threw your legs over the edge of your bed. There was no way you would stay here just a minute longer. Sensing your stubbornness as she knew it from you, Maya crept back to your side. "Honey, you really should listen to Dr. Shepherd"

You slapped away your wife´s outstretched hand, and a momentary, horrible pain shot through your spine but you tried to ignore it. It was not her fault that you were here, nor that the neurologist wanted to let you walk a few steps, but she was the only one you could take your frustration out on.

"Y/n!" you stared up at the blonde, who had crowded your personal space. Along with the warm breath you could feel on your cheek, the awkward beeping pierced your ears once again. "Take it easy before you hurt yourself even more and have to stay here longer"

You were about to argue but the look on her face brushed you off. You did not have the energy for another argument so you fell back onto the bed, mimicking the blonde with your arms crossed under your chest while an annoyed frown laid across your forehead.

Your head hurt from the strain she had put on your ears, trying to understand the voices of Amelia and Maya clearer than the constant ringing while your ribs started to ache. You squinted your eyes as the soreness in your body took your whole attention before slipping close, gritting your teeth to force down a whimper that threatened to leave your lips.

Your headache worsened.

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gerrystamour · 11 months

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run it back (give me five whole minutes)

Rated T | Steddie Week Day 5: Together | 1700 Words | Complete

[ READ ON AO3 ]

“Maybe I can come help you?” “No, Eds, you need to sleep tonight. You and Wayne have a lot of driving to do tomorrow, don’t you?” “Yeah, just… we’re not gonna see each other for a week, and we haven’t really seen each other for a couple of days already…” “I know. I’m sorry…” If you're seeing me reposting it, no you aren't. ANYWAY this is my entry for @steddie-week Day 5: Established Relationship & Together CW: Some negative self-talk because I decided to inflict some of my RSD on Steeb.

By the time Steve left work, his entire head was full of static. There was a pounding, pulling feeling just behind his left eye and it felt like his eardrums were ready to rupture with how loud his ears rang. So much had been going on all day, and then some moron knocked over an entire shelf literally five minutes before the store closed.

Steve had been tempted to tidy it up as best as he could and leave a note, but he knew Keith would fire him if he did that. Normally, he wouldn’t really care because cleaning up the mess would normally help settle his mood before he went home to bed.

But he had plans. He had plans and now he had to cancel them to clean up a mess so he didn’t get fired.

The phone call had sucked to make, telling Eddie that he wasn’t going to be able to make it to his place after work.

“Maybe I can come help you?”

“No, Eds, you need to sleep tonight. You and Wayne have a lot of driving to do tomorrow, don’t you?”

“Yeah, just… we’re not gonna see each other for a week, and we haven’t really seen each other for a couple of days already…”

“I know. I’m sorry…”

Eddie had reassured Steve that it was okay, that he understood, that he wasn’t mad. But Steve couldn’t shake the repeating, screaming thoughts that he fucked up big time. That it was a mistake to prioritize his shitty minimum wage job over seeing his boyfriend before he left to visit the few extended family members he and Wayne still spoke to for a week.

Steve was just destined to be a shit boyfriend, apparently.

That thought had to be shut down quickly because he didn’t want to do something embarrassing like cry while he was still within the four walls of Family Video.

So he focused on righting the shelf and reorganizing the videos correctly. A few cases got damaged, so he set those aside with a note for Keith. By the time he finished, it was one in the morning.

There was a chance Eddie was still awake because if Steve knew his boyfriend, he knew the man didn’t have a healthy sleep schedule. But what good would calling him do? Steve already chose work over him, so calling now would just rub that in.

Steve locked up the store and drove home, tears welling up in his eyes and blurring his vision. He fucked up bad and he was going to have to figure out how to fix it fast. Steve kept replaying the distracted way Eddie said he loved him on the phone when they hung-up earlier, which made him think of all the times Nancy said she loved him.

Maybe if he woke up super early the next morning, he could get to Eddie’s trailer before he left, and he could apologize in person and see him? Waking up early after a shift like the one he had and working past one in the morning was a recipe for a migraine, or at least a tension headache from hell, but it would be worth it to make this up to Eddie.

Steve couldn’t lose Eddie over his stupid bullshit.

By the time Steve pulled into the driveway of his house, he was struggling to hold back the tears. He wasn’t normally a crier, just when he was exhausted, in pain, and a bit heartsick all at once. Steve couldn’t stand that about himself, especially in moments like this where it wasn’t even okay for him to be that upset. He fucked up, why was he upset?

Entering his dark, quiet house, Steve quickly locked the front door and tossed his keys at the bowl on the table near the front door before trudging loudly up the stairs without taking off his shoes. He barely cared that his keys missed the bowl entirely and clattered loudly to the floor.

Steve didn’t even notice there was already a set of keys sitting in the bowl.

He didn’t stop until he was in his bathroom, staring at his tear-streaked and miserable face. “Stupid,” he muttered to himself as he started taking off his clothes for a shower. “Worst fucking boyfriend, why does anyone even fucking bother with you?”

“Hey!”

Steve jumped, too startled even to shout, and he turned on the intruder with fists ready. He wasn’t prepared to see his boyfriend, sleep-soft and frowning at him.

“Eds?” he asked, confusion blurring with his self-loathing. Why was Eddie here? Shit, he must’ve felt so bad for Steve he came over. Once again, someone else was doing all the fucking emotional work in the relationship, and Eddie had to be up early—

“Don’t talk about my boyfriend like that,” Eddie said firmly, stepping into the bathroom to hold Steve’s face.

“What?” he asked, dazed now that Eddie was standing in his space and touching him.

“You were saying mean shit about my amazing boyfriend, Steve,” Eddie said, and Steve’s expression crumpled.

“Don’t—you don’t have to say that. You’re just being nice—” Steve started, but he was interrupted by Eddie scoffing.

“Sweetheart, when am I ever ‘just being nice’ to anyone?” Eddie asked and Steve couldn’t really argue that. Eddie wasn’t mean, and he wasn’t always forthcoming with talking about his feelings on matters, but he was never nice for the sake of being nice. If he was telling someone something with his words, then that meant something.

“But I didn’t leave work,” Steve said weakly, trying to find the justifications for why he was a terrible boyfriend. “You’re leaving tomorrow and I didn’t leave work to see you.”

“Stevie, that’s your job. You—did I even ask you to leave work?” Eddie asked, bewildered.

“You shouldn’t have to ask me!” Steve said with no small amount of frustration. What wasn’t Eddie understanding about this? Steve wasn’t being attentive, he wasn’t thinking three steps ahead, he wasn’t reading between the lines of Eddie’s questions and requests well enough.

“So if I asked you to leave that huge mess and lose your job, you would’ve?” Eddie asked skeptically, but something must have shown on Steve’s face because Eddie’s expression faltered. “Babe, staying behind at work was fine. I’m not so needy that you should drop everything and come running to comfort me.”

“But you were upset,” Steve insisted, taking a step back out of Eddie’s hands. “You were upset and I didn’t—”

“I was upset because you sounded so miserable on the phone! I wasn’t—fuck, Steve, I’m sorry I made you feel like I was upset with you,” Eddie said, stepping forward to cup Steve’s face again. Then he added, “Yeah, I wanted to see you before I went on the worst fucking trip ever, and yeah I was sad I wouldn’t, but I was mostly sad that you were having such a shitty day.”

“I didn’t even tell you about my day, though,” Steve said, a bit dazed.

“Didn’t have to, sweetheart,” Eddie replied with a sweet smile. “You did your Headache Brewing Sigh after every sentence,” he elaborated after a moment and Steve’s heart ached at being known so deeply.

“You should be sleeping, Eds,” Steve said weakly, stepping forward into Eddie’s embrace.

“I’m not going anymore. I didn’t wanna go in the first place, so I told Wayne I’m staying home,” Eddie replied, and his arms tightened around him when Steve tried to pull away. “Don’t, you beautiful little martyr. I didn’t want to go so I’m not going. There’s nothing more to it, don’t make it about you.”

Steve felt all the fight leave his body, resting his weight more heavily against Eddie with a shaky sigh, his head dropping to Eddie’s shoulder.

“Let’s go to bed, baby,” Eddie cooed, petting his hair, but Steve shook his head.

“I just need to shower first,” he said, and he could feel Eddie nodding.

“Alright, let’s do that, then bed,” Eddie said brightly, stepping back carefully to start taking off his pajamas. When Steve opened his mouth to argue, Eddie held a finger to his lips with a playfully stern expression. “I’m taking care of you tonight, Stevie. It’ll be over quicker if you just let me.”

At that, Steve huffed a tired laugh and rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he grumbled lightly and finished undressing.

The shower took them a long time, Eddie refusing to let Steve do any of the work to wash himself off. Eddie just grabbed each bottle Steve reached for and did everything for him. At one point, Steve let out a sigh that carried a small vocalization at the end, his body finally relaxing under the hot spray of the shower and his boyfriend’s cool hands.

Eddie took that moment to drop a soft, almost distracted kiss to the back of Steve’s shoulder and the tenderness of that tiny gesture broke through something in him. With a shaky inhale, Steve turned around and wrapped his arms around Eddie, burying his face into the junction of his boyfriend’s shoulder and neck with a sigh. There were tears in Steve’s eyes again, but this time they weren’t sad.

When Eddie immediately wrapped his own arms around him, Steve kissed the skin his mouth was closest to before tipping his head back to meet Eddie’s eyes.

“I love you,” Steve confessed so quietly that the shower almost drowned him out.

Eddie heard it though, or read his lips, and his big brown eyes widened a bit. Then a grin split his face and he dropped a kiss onto Steve’s mouth. “I love you, too,” Eddie said without pulling away and Steve pressed closer to deepen the kiss again.

Standing under the steady spray of the shower, they kissed each other slow and sweet, searching even if they knew their ways around each other’s mouths. It was different now that they’d said the word they had both been thinking since the day they first kissed.

Finally, the temperature of the water began to waver and they pulled away from the kiss.

“Holy shit, so there is an end to the Harrington water heater,” Eddie marveled as they quickly finished up and turned the water off.

Once they were tucked into bed, Steve reached across the space between them to pull Eddie into his arms tightly. Eddie laughed as he settled, wrapping himself around Steve and sighing happily.

“I love you,” Steve said again, yawning.

Eddie turned his head where it rested and kissed Steve’s chest. “Love you, too, Stevie.”

[AO3 LINK]

[ NEXT FIC ]

I hope you enjoy and please consider reblogging! Taglist! @steddie-there, @patchworkgargoyle, @scarcrossdlvrs, @indigohightide, @steddieas-shegoes, @steve-harringtits, @mylilplanet, @afewproblems, @xenon-demon, @inairbinad, @matchingbatbites

#steddie #steve x eddie #steddieweek2023 #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve/eddie #gerry writes

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idontknowreallywhy · 29 days

Text

Resurface 11 - Revise

Previous bits here

Um, sorry John…

🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙

John growled and swiped his organic chemistry notes off his desk. The file sailed over the bed, slammed into the wall and, inevitably, the pages popped out of the binder and fluttered all over the room.

It was useless anyway, he couldn’t focus. None of it was making sense. Chemistry made no sense. His lack of ability to THINK made no sense. Probably because his entire life, right now, made no sense. His scattered notes had more chance of putting themselves back together than his family did. But he couldn’t let himself start thinking about that.

Not now. Not yet.

John had managed to get nearly back on track over the last couple of months, after that first four weeks of agony. He’d have respected the determination, the sheer bloody-mindedness that only John ever came close to taking his title for.

John just had to get through the next 3 weeks then he could… fall apart or whatever.

He clawed at his scalp in an attempt to release the constant tension that was making his eyes hurt and to distract himself from the suspicion he already had fallen apart or whatever.

Everything was… too much. He had so much to do. And 418 hours 47 minutes in which to do it all. So much still to get in his head. Which was way too full of all of the other thoughts he couldn’t compartmentalise properly because apparently he was weak minded and about to throw everything away. And on top of all that, with Dad doing whatever he was doing with the GDF big wigs, John was expected to cook for everyone and look after the kids and generally pick up the slack Virgil had just abandoned for a five day binge of complaining of a headache and creeping around the house muttering nonsense to himself.

John was actually a little worried about that. More than a little. But he forced himself to shut it away. It would be fine… Virgil would be fine. He had to be fine. Just like John did. Was. Fine was the Tracy way. Scott was always…

No. Stop.

Later.

He dug his fingernails into his thighs, bending one of them slightly back on the thick seam of the chinos he’d been wearing for 19.7 days. Nobody had noticed. All the other pants he owned were annoying. So. Whatever.

Scott would have noticed and quietly ordered him a second pair…

His fingertip throbbed angrily.

Argh, this had to stop. None of these thoughts were a good use of time. All of it was irrelevant, except the work.

A tiny voice asked how he could possibly betray his brother’s memory by adding him to that list… he quashed it with a mental fist of steel. He’d want him to do well. He’d always been proud, cheered him on… been sat in the front row between Dad and Virgil and clapping excessively loudly as John reluctantly shuffled red-faced on to the stage at high school prize-giving...

Breathe, John.

He picked up a well thumbed tome on astrophysics… it may be a waste of time - this was easy and didn’t need revision, but he needed to stop these unproductive trains of thought. This was easier to get absorbed in.

Approximately 8.25 minutes later his focus was broken yet again by a scratching noise above him. Aaaaah. Not bats again! Please no, they gave him the creeps but it was illegal to shift the things once they took up residence. He’d have to swap rooms with Virgil. He couldn’t sleep up here if there were…

Hell, they were massive sounding bats…

John flung open the window to peer up into the eaves… Dad had blocked the hole last year so how had they got in there to…

Some sixth sense made him suspicious of the volume of the scrabbling noise overhead and he ducked his head back inside, very narrowly avoiding having his face smashed in by a falling roof tile. Closely followed by… a shoe. A big shoe.

What? It hit the ground with a thud and John squinted down at it. A boot? One of Virgil’s he was sure of it but why on earth…?

A thud overhead, a clatter, a muffled curse in a very familiar baritone and two more tiles slid past his horrified face in quick succession.

Everything in his head went grey and screechy. He rushed from through the house yelling for Dad. Screeching for Dad. It was him screeching. He had no control over his vocal cords anymore, they had short circuited with his amygdala and were bypassing all coherent thought.

There was only panic.

🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡💙

Thank you to @astranite for helping me voice this one better - I’ve not got inside John’s head much before, at least without EOS for him to bounce off…

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #john tracy #scott tracy #virgil tracy #idontknowreallywhy fanfic #resurface fic

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nicomundthered · 1 year

Text

A Kiss and a Bounty

pairing: Arthur Morgan x fem!reader

warnings: little blood, little violence. nothing too intense.

summary: from the prompt- ‘for gods sake just kiss her!’

word count: 2,158

a/n: repost from ao3.

Masterlist

You and Arthur had traveled everywhere searching for this bounty.

This damn bounty. He was a wormy type of man that kept sneaking out of your grasp. How? You’re not exactly sure. But one thing was for certain, this man was either dangerous or lucky.

What was supposed to be a quick day trip, ended up taking three and a half days of hunting him all over the Grizzlies.

To be honest you were about ready to give up. You hadn’t packed for this type of trip. You were cold and miserable, and weren't quite sure if all this hassle was worth a hundred dollars.

And you really didn’t want to hear it from Arthur.

He was always so quick to fuss over you. And you weren’t positive as to why. The two of you got along great and always had, but something was different lately. You’d caught him staring a little harder, offering to help ya when ya didn’t need it. Which, in retrospect, didn’t really bother you. You knew what a kind soul he was even if it was shielded by the big broad shoulders and all around rough exterior.

“You know Arthur, maybe we should just turn around.” You called up ahead. It was getting late, your stomach was gnawing, and you felt a headache coming on. You were just ready to return to camp, eat a bowl of questionable stew, and lay down on your lumpy bedroll and not exist for a couple of hours.

He knew you were right, of course you were, you were the smart one. The Grizzlies were dangerous not only because of the wildlife, but also the Murphee brood. They were dumb but unpredictable and dangerous. So all of this wasn't really his best idea. But this particular bounty by the name of Jim, Gold Tooth Jim, had gotten under his skin. He’s never had a bounty make him feel inadequate before. Usually if you gave him the poster in the morning he’d give you your bounty by nightfall. What made Jim so different? Why was he able to string them along for so long? It was infuriating.

Plus, if he were being honest. He really wanted to impress you a little. He knows he doesn't deserve you, but dammit if he couldn’t stop thinking about ya. You were pretty much the only topic in his journal as of late. And he knew you were not a shallow woman, but this whole big-strong-tough-guy was the only thing he felt he had going for him. The only thing that might possibly tempt you.

Thus, it was his stupid pride that wouldn’t let him quit. Even when he felt the exhaustion deep within his bones.

“Just a little while longer.” He called back.

You rolled your eyes. He didn’t even turn to speak to you. You could tell by the tension in his voice and how high he was sitting on his horse that he wasn’t playing around. So you bit your lip and dropped it. This Jim fellow, for some reason or another, had obviously gotten to him.

A few moments later, you blame it on your hunger or maybe even your boredom, missed the sound of a horse coming in hot. And before you could you could even process what was happening, two horses went skidding and two riders went flying.

“Arthur!” You practically screamed jumping off of your moving horse and ran to him gun drawn.

“I’m al’ight.” He said slowly through his wheezing breath. “What the hell happn’d?”

It was getting too dark to see, and from what your sluggish memory could recollect the man was dressed in dark colors, so you kicked around a bit searching for the son of a bitch who apparently had some kind of death wish.

You were distracted, yet again, this time by the sound of Arthur making his way to his feet. You were still slightly concerned for him, it was a hard hit at full speed. Your eyes checked him over just as the stranger leapt forward pinning you to the ground.

You hit the ground hard and your cheek landed on a rock, you yelped at the sudden contact.

Then the human pile got even heavier as Arthur tackled the man. You heard a faint-familiar “sonofabitch” before you stood quickly, relieved that the two men were off of you, and cocked your revolver aiming it at the dark pile of limbs.

“You are one big idiot aint’ ya mister.” You said as Arthur hauled the tall man to his feet.

The man smirked wildly as the moon reflected in his gold teeth, which you recognized immediately.

You returned the wicked smile “Well, Arthur I believe our luck has changed.”

“Wha the hell you talkin’ about?” He looked up at you and worry flooded his features. “Hey you ok?”

You wiped the blood from your cheek, realizing it was bleeding heavier than you thought. “I’m fine.” You responded with more venom than intended.

“This here is ol’ Gold Tooth Jim.” You said bringing Arthur’s attention back to the matter at hand.

Arthur whipped his head to study the man, and when he seemed to be in agreement, gave you a big grin.

He was so handsome. And it broke you every time you saw him happy. It was so rare that he ever was, it hurt your heart. Your eyes locked with his and his smile slowly disappeared. Worry crept back to his face as a large drop of blood landed on your collar.

A horrible creepy chuckle broke the moment.

“I see you finally caught me. Well done!” The sarcasm was palpable.

You were shocked to hear a british accent, the smooth voice not fitting the appearance of the dirty stringy man before you.

“Why did you run into my horse?” Arthur asked, sounding more than a little confused, he too seemed a little thrown off by the man.

“To be perfectly honest, I hate being hunted like some animal. And since the two of you were so relentless, I thought I’d just...give it up.” He chuckled again giving you goosebumps.

“By trying to kill em’?” You were annoyed that he had almost hurt Arthur. It frustrated you that that was what he called ‘giving up’, plowing into a man with a horse.

“Don’t get me wrong I was hoping it would kill you. In fact I was hoping to kill you both.” His eyes seemed to darkened even further as he stared you down, but his smile was cut short by Arthur’s fist hitting him square in the face.

He landed hard and when he looked up blood was oozing from both his mouth and nose.

“What was that?!” Jim asked furiously from the ground.

Arthur landed on top of him, easily turned him over, and reached one hand back to you. You, familiar with his thought process quickly got the rope ready and passed it to him.

Then you turned to find Arthur's horse, hopefully unharmed when you heard him whisper to Jim “If you say one more goddamn word to her, I’ll smash your face in.”

Chills ran up your spine. You wish you could say that that didn’t do it for you, but that would make you a liar. You didn’t need your honor defended, you didn’t deserve it, you too were a no good outlaw, but hearing him do it made you feel special. And the fact that he hadn’t even wanted you to hear it made it even...sweeter.

You found his horse, thankfully unharmed, and led her over to the two men.

He lifted Jim easily, causing you to swallow harder than necessary at how strong he was, and placed him on his horse.

He turned to you suddenly, without any warning and lashed out with a loud booming voice. “Why did you turn your back on the man?”

Confused at first, but then you picked up on the fact he kept glancing at your bloody cheek.

But that didn’t matter, you didn’t deserve to be spoken to that way. “Like I could even see where he was Arthur.” You rolled your eyes and tried to pass him to find your horse.

He grabbed your forearm hard and turned you back to face him. “You can’t be letting you guard down like that, what if he would have had a knife!”

His voice was still too loud for your liking

“Oh like you did any better. I wasn’t the one that went flying.” You chuckled and tried to shrug everything off, this for some reason or another, was getting too intense.

His eyes squinted and he let go of your arm like it burned him. “I reckon this’ll be the last bounty you go on.” He slipped his tough guy mask on. His features turned sharp and intimidating.

It’s never worked on you. You could never be scared of him. For him, yes, everyday. But never of him.

“You can’t decide that for me.” You hissed and hated the way tears welled in your eyes.

“Sure I can.” He stood even straighter brows furrowed and lips tight.

“I’ll do whatever I want, whenever I want Arthur. I’ll catch every damn bounty the sheriff posts, in every county if I want to, and you can’t stop me.” You stood slightly on your toes trying your best to reflect his body language. You could feel your face flush as the anger flared. “Besides, if we would have turned back when I said, this never would have happened.”

You hated that you knew how to hurt him. You could see it as his eyes fell and his fists clenched. Guilt smacked you as hard as Jim and his horse did earlier to Arthur.

You reached out to him, feeling like a piece of shit “Hey…”

He backed just out of your reach. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I always seem to get ya into trouble.” He sounded ashamed and somehow small. You didn't like it, not one bit.

“No, Arthur, look I didn’t mean that. The camp needs money and I offered to go with you. This was your run, it was your call. I should have just been more prepared is all.”

You smiled at him but he couldn’t look at anything but your cheek.

“It’s just a scratch. Don’t be so silly about it.”

His eyes hardened and looked at you with an intensity that you’ve never seen directed towards you. But his voice betrayed him, it was still as soft as the breeze. “And what if it’s not just a scratch next time? What if it kills you instead of just cutting your pretty face?”

“You, you think I’m pretty?” You hated that that was what your mind chose to focus on, but in your defense, it caught you completely off guard.

“Dammit! I’m serious! What if next time it’s a bullet? Or a…”

You stepped forward, reached out, and touched his dirty face. In an attempt to calm him down. You were surprised by how fast he leaned in, closed his eyes, and exhaled loudly.

Jim, completely forgotten by now, chucked again and called out “Oh for god’s sake just kiss her!”

Arthur moves to turn and presumably ‘beat the man's face in’. But you didn’t want him to do that. You were certainly tired of Jim, however, you were thankful for the suggestion.

You grabbed a hold of Arthur’s arm and turned him to you, one hand pulled his collar, the other pulled his head down, and you pressed your mouth firmly against his.

At first he doesn’t move, and all you can hear is Jim's ridiculous cackling, but then, then he started to kiss back. And nothing else existed in that moment other than Arthur Morgan.

It’s delicate so very delicate. Like he was afraid you'd shatter, or maybe he was afraid that he'd shatter? He lifts up slightly and kisses the tip of your nose, and then the center of your forehead. You smile largely, it hurts but you can’t help it, and he returns it with another soft kiss to your patiently awaiting lips.

After a few moments of his mouth gently playing with your mouth, he reaches to grab your cheek to deepen the kiss.

You gasp as his hand pulls your wound and he opens his eyes horrified.

“God I’m sorry.” He reached into his coat and pulled out his favorite handkerchief, pressing it firmly, yet gently, to your cheek.

It was your turn to close your eyes as his palm comforted you.

“We’ll get Miss Grimshaw to look at that when we get back.” His voice sounded almost hoarse.

“I told you it’s nothin’.” Your voice didn't sound much better.

You opened your eyes to see his shining back, with a beautiful smile on his face as he pulled you back in and kissed you.

You had never seen him so happy.

--------

#arthur morgan x reader #Arthur Morgan x you #arthur morgan x female reader #my fics

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katyawriteswhump · 3 months

Text

The power of love pt 6 (steddie, stobin, steve whump fic)

Steve has a habit of surviving near death experiences then getting sick for no reason. And Eddie and those fatal bat bites? After an impossible feat of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from Steve, he’s mysteriously fixed. So, Eddie’s back to being banished, this time with Steve and Robin in tow. Eddie’s healing, but Steve isn’t… and life gets even more confusing, when Eddie develops feelings for Steve, which aren’t entirely unrequited.

Part one Part two Part three Part four Part Five Part Seven Part eight Part Nine Part Ten Part 11 Part 12

Steve POV

“Hey!” shouts Steve, the next morning, as Robin hauls a mass of supplies onto her back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He half-runs, half-skids down the slippery rocks outside the cave. He tries to wrest the pack from her. She turns sharply, and he loses his grip.

“Steve, chivalry sucks and should’ve died in the Middle Ages.”

“What? I’m not being—”

“I can totally manage! Most of its bedding, and Eddie’s got half the water. You’re sick, remember?”

He rakes his fingers through the hair he’s just wrested into some sort of sub-standard shape. “Honestly, I’m good.”

Honestly, he feels dead rough, though better than yesterday. Anybody would feel achy after a night in some dingy cave. Even with Eddie Munson’s lap as a pillow.

Not that he spent the whole night there. Hell, no.

He woke up with Eddie spooning him from behind, Eddie’s chin tucked on his shoulder. Which screwed him up big-time. Fortunately, Robin was also cuddled up with him, which… helped. Yeah, he’d been kinda nestled on her boobs, but it wasn’t intentional. And it was Robin, and she’d laughed when he’d apologized.

Thinking about snuggles with Eddie is waaaay more problematic—underlined by the swift and silent fashion they’d extracted themselves from each other, both apparently awakening simultaneously.

Both far too groggy to deal.

Almost as bad, he can’t recall exactly what he’d said to the guy last night. He’s pretty damn sure he made an idiot of himself.

He’s still squirming when they set off, neither he nor Eddie having exchanged more than a passing word. Steve insists on taking his turn with the luggage, as well as using the compass and reading the sky. He’s terrible at it, mainly because squinting at the bright sun gives him an epic headache. He ends up walking behind with Robin, while Eddie disappears off ahead.

“By my reckoning, we took twice as long as we should’ve to reach those caves yesterday,” says Steve to Robin. “Do we really trust him with this pathfinding shit?”

“He’s shockingly decent at it. Not sure I trust him with you. Or vice versa.”

Steve stops dead. He can’t cope with walking and with any Eddie-Munson-related bombshells. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, come on! I could carve the sexual tension between you two with a knife then sculpt a little love-heart with it. He literally can’t stop flirting with you.”

“That’s total bull. Eddie flirts with everyone.”

“Uh… no. He really doesn’t. I mean, without belittling your troubles, I wish my love life had ever presented me with such straightforward opportunities.”

He facepalms. “Oh Christ, I’m sorry. I-I just can’t right now.” He pushes his increasingly sweaty hair from his eyes. God, he’d kill for a shower. And why didn’t Eddie pack more hairspray?

“Steve?” She hooks her arm through his, and they trudge on together.

“Okay, I surrender. I like him.” He sighs. Why do they seem to be walking forever uphill? “I don’t see how he can be into me, how I’ve been the past few days, and I’m not sure I want to go there. Period. And before you lecture me, it’s not because I think being gay is bad, you know that. It’s because… I honestly don’t know what I am.”

“You’re bi, Steve,” says Robin, very quietly.

“Yeah, and it’s a lot to get my thick head around.”

“You’re not thick, you know—"

“Whatever.” He swipes his wrist across his brow. “We’ve talked this over a billion times. I really don’t need any more meaningless sexual relationships.”

“Why would it be? You reckon you wanna jump his bones, and it’ll flush him out of your system?”

Steve pauses again. Robin’s questions stab his brain, and yet… He finds he can answer the last one, easy enough. “No,” he says. “I don’t want that. I mean, I got urges to be with him, but it feels different… from Nance or whatever.”

“That’s ’cos he’s a dude.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Slowly, they walk on again, both breathing hard. “You know, I’ve had fantasies and stuff, but they were just that, and…” I want Eddie to jump my bones and... Oooookay, that’s a revelation he didn’t want to deal with this morning, on top of the rest of the shit. “Why are we discussing this now?”

“Because the pair of you are driving me ment—"

A loud roar scythes through the quiet woodlands. Steve barely hears Robin’s terrified squeak. He grabs her bodily, makes a dive for the undergrowth. A chopper passes low overhead, setting the trees shaking, the ground juddering. They’ve landed hard—on Steve’s injured side—and bracken prods everywhere. Extra bruises and scratches, however, are the least of his concerns.

Another large chopper is about to pass directly overhead.

Eddie! Has he been spotted? Are they all about to be rounded up and frogmarched straight to jail? Steve crouches, squints ahead and realises the forest thins out into a clearing. There are only bushy tree stumps, no real cover. The sky above is clear as summer… and he still can’t see Eddie.

Steve’s desperate to sprint on, to find him. However, even hunkered down, he starts to feel sick. Jesus, not now! He squeezes his eyes tight; squeezes Robin tighter, kinda prays, because he’s that desperate. He’d do anything to protect them both. Anything. Anything! Pleeeease? Apart from he can’t hardly breathe, let alone move. There’s a freaky-ass electric crackling in his head, and he’s on the verge of…

Steve blacks out, but only momentarily. He slams a palm to the earth, stopping himself crumpling.

The roar lessens, as the second chopper forges on. A third follows noisily in its wake. Steve glances up. A thick cloud has settled, low enough to obscure the top of the trees.

“Do you think they saw us?” asks Robin, when it’s quiet enough to be heard.

“Nah,” says Steve, forcing himself to think straight. “It’s military, heading toward Hawkins. Bet they didn’t even look down.”

“If they did,” says Robin, “that cloud couldn’t have arrived at a better time.” They extract themselves from the foliage. Robin offers Steve a hand, which he ignores, clambering up himself. “I mean, it’s beyond nuts. The sky was blue—totally clear—a moment ago.”

She folds her arms, narrows her eyes.

He tosses a hand up, exasperated. “What are you driving at, Robin?”

“I don’t know. Weird shit is afoot.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Jesus, is Eddie, like, taking a slash or something?”

They both yell his name, while Steve surreptitiously checks his bandages. Blood hasn’t soaked through them, so that’s one thing. He’s even more relieved, when Eddie comes thrashing back through the trees.

“That was waaay too close.” Eddie’s totally spooked, and Steve restrains a burning desire to both hug him and pick out the dry leaves that have gotten stuck in his hair. “Is this logger camp really such a great idea? I mean, we’re rounding back on ourselves—getting closer to Hawkins again.”

“I reckon it’s sound.” Steve rolls his shoulders back with a click. “It’d be beyond tricky to land a chopper round here. Too many trees and slopes. If this place we’re heading for is as remote as we hope, it’ll be impossible there.”

“You sound better,” says Eddie, eyes narrowing, like Robin’s had.

“That’s because I am, moron.” Unable to withstand Eddie’s sudden intensity, he turns to Robin. Who remains staring at him, pretty much the same.

He wants to yell, What now? On the other hand, he is indeed feeling more himself. He might test the waters concerning his ‘thing’ with Eddie. Not with Robin AND Eddie gawking at him, like he’s some kinda freak.

Sure, he’s thought about what Robin said concerning Lover’s Lake—about him asking to go there when he was sick. He really doesn’t want to think too hard on it. Yeah, he’s had a couple of close calls there, and yeah, there’s a gate to the Upside Down in Lover’s Lake, but there wasn't always one, and...

“Look, if you two have a problem with me, I really wish you’d come clean.”

“No problem,” says Robin, perhaps a little too quickly.

Frustration flushes through Steve. "Be honest with me, Robin."

"I am! It's just... what with supernatural creepiness swallowing our lives on an apocalyptic scale, I'm so hugely relieved you're okay. It's hard to trust in anything good being real these days."

Yeah, he buys that, and he sure as heck trusts her, plus Eddie's nodding vigorously. He believes them. Maybe too readily, but he does.

Then he hears it—the merest rustle in the undergrowth. Followed by the patter of footfalls. On reflex, he slams into Eddie, hustles him behind the nearest thick-trunked tree. They tumble to the ground, Steve on top. You were wrong, Harrington. Those choppers landed men after all, and… Shit, Robin!

She hasn’t followed. He straddles Eddie’s upper thighs, straining to see. He hears her cry out, “Oh my God, they’re so pretty!”

A bunch of brown deer streak by, their fluffy white bottoms flashing behind them. Doubtless, the chopper spooked them too.

Steve’s jaw drops. Flat on his back beneath Steve, Eddie hoots, sweeping his hair from his mouth: “Thanks for saving me from Bambi, dude.”

Yeah, he’s mocking him. Eddie’s laugh is still totally delicious. Their troubles forgotten, Steve retaliates with his best dreamboat smile. “You’re welcome. I’m at least 2-1 up again in the lifesaving game, huh?”

“The world is back to rights, Harrington.”

Steve leans closer, revelling in Eddie’s laughing eyes, mesmerised by that gleaming smile... This is where we kiss, right?

A twinge of pain, and the effort of disguising it, totally throws him. He lifts his butt from Eddie’s thighs, then offers Eddie his hand. Which Eddie takes. The strain of tugging sets perspiration dripping from his brow.

“My eternal saviour.” Eddie affects a silly bow. Robin laughs too.

Steve dabs his eyes: “We did that joke, Munson.” He slings his pack up over his shoulder and motions them onwards: “Come on, Princesses. Let’s go, let’s go.”

Part 7

...

tags: @estrellami-1 @kal-ology (thank you, thank you, thank you!) If anybody else would like to be tagged on this fic or any of my writing, please let me know :) Reblogs, comments and likes also very much appreciated :) Thank you for reading so far :)

(also part of my steve whump fic series on AO3)

#steddie #steve harrington whump #steddie fic #steve harrington x eddie munson #steve harrington #stobin #stobin fanfic #steve x eddie #steddie fanfic #stranger things fanfic #platonic stobin #stobin friendship #steve harrington hurt/comfort #steve harrington hc #steve harrington fanfic #eddie munson lives

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pessimisticpigeonsworld · 4 months

Note

Hey hey hey just quick question, have you come across certain individuals arguing that Luke's death was justified or deserved bc "he ran away like a coward" and that Aemond had a good reason to kill him? I certainly am appalled by the idea of justifying or even cheering on the death of a child regardless of what he did or didn't do at like 7 years old (especially considering not even Aemond himself was planning on killing Luke, tried to prevent it from happening once he realized he lost control of Vhagar and the look on his face afterwards clearly indicates how shocked/full of regret he himself is), sorry for the long message I'd love to hear your perspective on this

Ugh yes, I've seen some of them pull this shit. Apparently TG stans enjoy infantilizing their favs while hating the blacks for actually acting their age.

They excuse Alicent's actions for the entire twenty years the show covers because she was a child bride. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra must act like a mature adult when she's fourteen and be completely understanding of Alicent marrying her father when she has no context for what happened.

They excuse Aegon constantly bullying his siblings and being a literal rapist because his "daddy doesn't love him". However, Rhaenyra is expected to be grateful for being allowed to pick the man who's going to view her simply as a baby maker, which she thinks because of the unaddressed trauma of what happened to her mother.

They excuse Aemond never maturing past one prank done by his brother (the pig prank) and believing blood purity because he was bullied :(. Meanwhile, Luke is demonized for attacking the older boy about to kill his brother (at least it looked like it, if we're being generous).

Now, Luke is being mocked for being actually more mature than Aemond and reacting completely reasonably to his situation. Luke chose to ignore Aemond's insults and stayed true to the oath he swore to his mother. He tried to leave Storm's End peacefully, tried to leave the situation without making the tensions explode into a full out war.

Aemond, who is three fucking years older than Luke, acted like a goddamn middle schooler, trying to get a reaction out of Luke. He chose to antagonize Luke and tried to start a fight in the middle of a dimplomatic mission. Then he chases Luke and his barely old enough to ride dragon on his giant war dragon through a storm yelling maniacally about maiming a child.

What sane person wouldn't run away from that? Luke was smart enough to know that he'd die if he stuck around Storm's End and he'd die if he tried to fight Aemond.

Both of them lost control of their dragons, Luke's trying to defend him and itself, Aemond's trying to kill Luke (which Aemond was basically communicating). Aemong somehow didn't realize that chasing a child through a storm on the biggest dragon alive wouldn't end badly, yet his stans constantly make excuses for him.

It's only TB that's expected to be perfect and act perfectly mature. The double standard is endlessly frustrating and headache inducing. The greens are ridiculous and infantilized by both the show and their stans.

#lucerys velaryon #pro lucerys velaryon #team black #anti team green #house of the dragon #anti aemond targaryen #anti aemond stans #anti alicent hightower #anti aegon ii targaryen

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tropes-and-tales-archives · 6 days

Text

More Precious Than Rubies: Part 7a

This is an alternate timeline story that has a Rafael Barba track and a Sonny Carisi track. The two paths split off in part 3.

WC: 5046

TW: Idiots in love; angst; hurt feelings and apologies; talk of cheating; talk of panic attacks.

AN: The prompt was "I came here to explain what happened, and I’m not leaving until you listen."

You weren’t sure if it was possible to feel worse about yourself, but over the next few weeks, you sunk to new lows. You were always so good about thinking before speaking – you always had a thoughtful, measured approach to your words. You knew that words could be a weapon. They could cut deep or hit with a heavy weight.

Your flippant, unkind comment to Barba had been like a cudgel. He hadn’t done a single thing wrong. He had looked so hurt when he left you that night, and you felt like a complete asshole.

You tried sending him a few texts – he read them, but never replied. You called twice and left voicemails. You knew this was probably karma for the way you shut Sonny out when you’d broken up. That thought – that Sonny had probably tried to reach out to you too, and you had ignored him – gave you fresh waves of shame.

You saw Barba a few times at the courthouse, but he pointedly ignored you. More shame.

All told, you were probably at the lowest you’d been in a while. You had a terrible case – a seventeen year old being held at Rikers who hadn’t even been formally charged with anything yet. Your father had called a couple times and you’d missed each call. You had a tension headache that hung with you for a week, never loosening its grip on you.

And you felt terrible about Barba. You could logic out a lot of why you’d been an asshole. First Jason, then Sonny – wonderful boyfriends until they just stopped loving you or wanting you. Barba had just been a fun hookup at first. When he tried to start a feelings talk with you, your stomach had dipped pleasantly for a split second before it twisted. If he was developing feelings for you, then it’d be a short journey from that to breaking up, hurting you.

In other words, Barba might have feelings for you now. In a year, he’d be out of love with you and cheating (like Jason) or out of love with you and possibly cheating (like Sonny). There was something about you that reeled men in, but they never stuck around. Why bothering signing up for future pain just for a bit of affection now?

Still, the guilt weighed on you. Barba was a good man, after all, and it would have been be all too easy to fall for him. You remembered how he had comforted you that day in SVU, when you’d seen a pregnant Rollins and assumed the baby was Sonny’s. You remembered how Barba hadn’t said a single snarky thing, taking you to lunch instead and being perfectly kind and consoling.

You remembered all the times you argued, but how he had smiled at you like he enjoyed it. You remembered how he used to call you “Girl Wonder,” but then took to calling you “Fordham law” until he found out about your other nickname - then how he’d call you “Sparky” with a wide grin.

You remembered how it felt when you danced with him at the swanky lawyer event.

You needed to see Barba. At the very least, you needed to apologize, and if he didn’t stalk away from you with cold fury in his green eyes, maybe you could explain yourself too.

*****

Barba felt like shit. He’d gone over to your apartment with the intention of broaching the topic of maybe being more than just hookup buddies. It had been getting harder and harder to pretend that it was just physical for him anymore. Even when you got dressed and left him, he spent the rest of the night thinking about you.

Every encounter, he managed to learn a new bit of information about you. You couldn’t cook, apparently. You had been training for a half-marathon but had abandoned it because of work. You didn’t sleep well. You lost pens at an alarming rate, which was why you just used cheap rollerballs instead of fancy fountain pens. You knew the best swear words in five different languages, because you had a weird aversion to swearing in English. You read your favorite book, ‘Possession’ by A.S. Byatt, once a year, usually over Christmas.

It wasn’t enough for him anymore. He wanted to sleep with you after sex. He wanted to fall asleep with you in his arms and wake up in the morning to wild hair and bad breath and multilingual swearing at the alarm. He wanted to go to dinner with you and get to know you better than the scavenging of facts that he was doing currently.

You did not feel the same way. You’d made a snarky comment about hate-fucking that cut him to his core, and he got out of there as quickly as he could. You’d stammered out some half-assed apology, and he wondered if you even realized what you were saying when you said it. Still, it hurt.

He ignored your texts and calls. When he felt you nearby at the courthouse – and he could: you were like a storm rolling in, making every inch of his skin hypersensitive to a changing weather front – he kept his gaze carefully ahead of him.

When you stopped calling and texting, he tried to put it all behind him.

-----

It was a Wednesday, late-morning. Barba was in his office and going through a stack of potential cases that McCoy may or may not want to take to trial. Barba took notes, summarized each case, and sent them up to his boss to decide, depending on which way the political winds were blowing. It was a quiet day otherwise.

Until it wasn’t. Barba heard you before he saw you. Clear as day, he heard you walk up to Carmen and ask if he was in and available, and when Carmen answered, you blew into his office without even knocking. You, better than anyone, should know enough to at least knock, but you were like a storm. Blowing up out of the blue like a summer squall.

Carmen was on your heels, but Barba stood and nodded at his assistant to let her know it was okay. Carmen shut the door behind her, and Barba looked at you with an impassive gaze.

You were in tailored pants and a cashmere sweater – the weather was colder and you probably didn’t have court today. Your hair was down, and the overall effect was that you looked more casual. But you also looked tired, except for your bright eyes gazing back at him.

“Before you kick me out,” you said, holding up a hand to preemptively silence him. “I came here to explain what happened, and I’m not leaving until you listen.”

“So explain,” he said. He sat back down and looked at his notes. He couldn’t bear to look at your face. It still hurt too much, your cruel rejection.

“I’m sorry,” you said, and your voice was soft. He glanced up and saw the remorse on your face, and he felt his own resolve weaken just a bit.

But only a bit. “I know,” he said, terse. “I got your texts.”

You hung your head, and your loose hair swung down so that you had to brush it back and re-tuck it behind your ear. “When I said…what I said, that evening…” you started. You took a deep breath before you continued. “I was judging you unfairly against…other people. Other situations. It wasn’t fair to say that. Or to treat you like that.” Another pause, another deep breath. “You’ve been nothing but nice, and I…wasn’t nice to you.”

Barba snorted at that last bit. “You’re lying. I’ve been other things that ‘nice.’ I wasn’t nice when I fled your place that first time.”

You gave him a small smile at that. “Well, true. You’ve been nice, but also frustrating and annoying.” Your smile slipped, and you added, “but more than anything, you’ve been nice.”

He didn’t say anything, so you fidgeted for a moment, picked at an invisible bit of lint on your sweater. Then you continued. “I like you, Barba. A lot. It’s just…I’m not very good at dating. I’m unlucky. I have…baggage…”

His stomach did a curious turn when you admitted that you liked him, but before you could continue or he could interrupt, his office door swung open to admit both Olivia and SVU’s new guy. Dodds. You turned, startled, at the intrusion.

“We interrupting?” Dodds asked, and Barba murmured a “no” while you shook your head. The two detectives watched you as you nodded first at Barba, then at them, then left the office altogether.

********

You had your chance to talk to Barba, and you had managed to apologize. You had even managed to explain yourself, a little, before SVU interrupted.

It would have to be enough.

You still felt terrible, but it was the best you could do. Besides, in the entirety of your bad feelings, you could only afford so much bandwidth to Barba. You had other things to feel badly about.

There was your father, locked up in Missouri. You kept missing his calls, and it wasn’t like you could exactly call him back where he was. You sent him a quick letter explaining that you were busy in court and not ignoring him – it was important that he knew you weren’t abandoning him. Everyone else in your family had.

There was your case load, crushing in the best of times, but you had a case that was especially terrible. Your client was locked up in Rikers, and half the time when you went to visit him, the guards made it unnecessarily difficult: once your client was in lock-down, once he was put into a holding cell on the other side of the complex. And your client shouldn’t even be in jail – he was accused of shoplifting, but he was dirt poor and couldn’t make bail. You filed motion after motion, but you were low on the docket and in the meantime, your client was suffering.

There was your health in general: you weren’t sleeping at all. You couldn’t fall asleep because of your racing thoughts, and in the rare occasion that you did nod off before two in the morning, your dreams were unsettling. You didn’t have much of an appetite anymore, and you found yourself shaking from hunger sometimes, or nauseous from low blood sugar.

And your panic attacks had resurfaced with a vengeance. You tried to will them away, and then you tried to make an appointment with your doctor, but he couldn’t see you for three months. So you managed them as best you could, which meant that you found little hiding places all around the city, places that you could be alone and let the panic attacks tear through you without an audience.

When you went to SVU, there was a file room a floor up that you could hide in. Other precincts had other places to hide – cleaning closets, boiler rooms, ladies rest rooms in precincts full of men and, therefore, rarely used.

At the courthouse, there were the stairwells. Almost no one took the stairs, so you weathered your attacks there, mostly alone.

*****

Barba wasn’t sure where he stood with you after you left his office. He would have tried to reassure you – maybe call you “Girl Wonder” again to let you know that you’d lost ground but that he still liked you – but he didn’t see you. Your schedules were out of sync again: you seemed to be on a stretch with Major Crimes, dealing with assaults and a few burglaries and other minor, petty stuff.

You weren’t at the wine bar either. He went there more, hoping to see you, but you never turned up.

You had looked sad that day in his office, and if he were honest, he had forgiven you once you apologized. He knew the walls you had up, and he knew the baggage you carried from past relationships. He could have pointed out that it had been unfair to judge him against past boyfriends, but hadn’t he done the same in his life? How many subsequent girlfriends had suffered because of Yelina? How many relationships had ended because Barba assumed that he’d be cheated on eventually?

He forgave you because he had been exactly in the same spot you were in – but with less insight. If you had done some soul-searching and realized what you’d done, maybe there was hope for you yet.

If he saw you again, he’d tell you as much.

But the next time he saw you was at the courthouse. You were in your usual courtroom suit, but with thicker tights against the drafty building and cool weather outside. You shoved your way out of a conference room, and you half-walked, half-jogged towards the stairwell. You walked right past him, but you didn’t see him because your head was down.

He saw you though: your face was wan, and your hands were balled into fists along your sides. You shoved the fire door open to the stairwell, but in the moment before it slammed shut behind you, he didn’t hear your heels clicking on the steps.

He made his way over to the door and listened for a moment. At first, he didn’t hear anything – but he could feel you. You still carried that electric charge with you, and he swore he could feel it through the metal door.

Then he heard it – quiet sniffling, and shuddering, ragged breaths, like someone crying but trying to do it quietly.

Barba considered his options – he could leave you alone, or he could go to you. It wasn’t really much of a choice, though.

He pushed open the door carefully, and you were standing there on the landing, leaning against the wall. You were startled, and you looked up at him with glassy eyes. Your wan face was gone, replaced by a flushed lividity that didn’t look healthy. You were pulling in great gasps of air, and his first thought was that you were having an asthma attack. Stupidly, he reached for your bag, dangling limply from your hand. He thought maybe you needed an inhaler or something, but you slid down the wall into an awkward sitting position on the landing, and your legs were bent at an uncomfortable looking angle under you.

He knelt in front of you in alarm. “Do you need an ambulance?” he asked, but you shook your head.

Between your hyperventilating, you answered him. “It…will…pass.” Then he noticed your trembling hands, and he realized what it was. Not an asthma attack after all.

“C’mere,” he said, and he helped you move until you were sitting on the edge of the stairs. He laid a gentle hand on your upper back and guided your head to your knees, folding your body in half and cutting off some of the air you were hyperventilating on. Your breathing calmed, but you still trembled uncontrollably. Barba, for his part, just put an arm around your shaking shoulders, and he waited for your panic attack to pass.

It eventually did, and you raised your head to glance at him. “Sorry,” you mumbled, not quite making eye contact with him. Your voice was ragged. He kept his arm around you, and he gave a quiet laugh.

“Why are you apologizing?” he asked.

You gave a feeble shrug. “It’s embarrassing.”

He laughed again and gave you a comforting squeeze. “Sure. Wouldn’t want anyone to know that the Girl Wonder is human after all.”

You glanced at him again, this time with a small smile on your face. “Don’t tell anyone.” You turned to face him a bit, your eyes searching his face, and your smile fell. “Barba, I’m so sorry.” He knew, from the sorrow in your eyes and the way your voice cracked on the last word, that you weren’t apologizing for the panic attack.

“It’s okay,” he said softly, and he pulled you against him in a sort of side hug as you sniffled and hung your head.

“It isn’t. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

“Well, I forgive you,” he replied. You sat together in a moment of quiet, the sounds of the courthouse muffled in the stairwell. “Luckily for you, mercy is sexually transmitted,” he added with a smirk.

“What?” You pulled away from him in surprise and turned to look at him.

“Turns out I caught it from a bleeding heart public defender,” he continued. He grinned as the woebegone look on your face was replaced by an expression somewhere south of scandalized. Then you laughed – really laughed, deep in your belly until you were swiping away fresh tears from your eyes.

“What’s the incubation period on that, exactly?” you asked, and your voice was shaky again, but at least it was from laughter and not panic or shame. “Is there a cure?’

Barba shook his head sadly. “It’s terminal, sadly. The best we can do is resign ourselves to a life of compassion and clemency.”

You smiled at him, and then you smacked him lightly on his knee. “How dare you make me laugh,” you scolded him. “I was committed to feeling maudlin for at least another month.”

“Don’t do that on my account. That’s an order.”

Your smiled widened. “You’re not the boss of me, Barba.”

He released his hold on you and stood up, and he went and picked up your bag from the landing. He held his hand out to you to help you stand, and he watched you brush yourself off and smooth your hair. Then he handed you your bag, and you murmured your thanks.

“I’m not your boss, but here’s another order: go home early and take it easy.” He hesitated, and added, “I know that panic attacks can wear you out.”

You looked at him thoughtfully and then nodded. “Maybe I will.” You started to turn to leave but paused, rethinking it. You turned back and surprised him by wrapping your arms around him for a sweetly chaste hug. He froze for a moment and then hugged you back, savoring the feeling of you in his arms. When you broke away a moment later, you ducked your head, almost shyly, and thanked him again. And then you left.

-----

He finished out the day with you in the forefront of his mind. He imagined you at home, curled up in your pajamas with a cup of tea, but then he revised the mental image. You and he were too similar.

What did Barba do after a panic attack? He went back to work. He would be willing to bet his paycheck that you had gone back to work too.

Your office wasn’t too far from his own, so when he wrapped up for the day, he took a slight detour to your sad office building. There was a lone light burning, and Barba swore it was yours. Probably.

He dialed your cell, and you picked up on the third ring. “Feeling better?” he asked, skipping over the formalities. “Relaxing at home?”

“Yes,” you replied. “And…yes.”

Barba smirked. “So you’re not at work?”

A pause. “No.”

“Liar. I can see your office light on.”

Another pause, and a disbelieving huff of laughter. “Creep. Are you watching my office? Do I need to call SVU on you?”

“It’s a good thing you’re not a prosecutor, Sparky,” he replied. “What a flimsy case you’re pushing here. Textbook circumstantial evidence.”

Another huff of laughter, and he continued before you could return his volley. “Wrap up and get down here. Coincidentally, I’m parked out on the street in front of your building. I’ll give you a ride home.” He paused and looked at the clock on his car’s dashboard. “If you get here in the next five minutes, I’ll buy you dinner.” He hung up.

He timed you – you were sliding into his passenger’s seat with a playful glare in all of three minutes.

*****

When Barba forgave you, you felt a massive weight lift off of you. You still felt the sharp sting of guilt, and maybe you’d always feel a bit of shame, but if anything, you hoped it would be a caution for you to always measure your words before you spoke.

His forgiveness also made you feel something else, unexpected: a slender bit of hope. You knew now that you had feelings for him – you were able to admit that much to yourself. As you sat across from him at the sushi restaurant he took you to, you allowed yourself to explore those feelings just a bit.

On the shallow side of things, he was painfully handsome. He was amazing in bed, and you readily admitted that the two of you had great chemistry together.

More profoundly, though: he was kind. He didn’t present that way – he came across as arrogant and snide – but it didn’t take much to realize that he was a good-hearted man. Maybe the arrogance was a sort of armor, or maybe it was for the benefit of his role as a hard-hitting prosecutor, but the reality was that he was unbearable thoughtful and gentle every time you fell apart in front of him.

If you’d had a panic attack in front of Sonny, for example, you would have probably felt more ashamed of it. But in front of Barba, there was a bit of embarrassment, but his arm around you had been comforting. And he joked with you – and implied that he had the same issue. That it wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.

You wondered about his dating past. He seemed like someone who should have been snapped up and married off young, to a high school sweetheart maybe, but he led a pretty monkish life. Aside from hooking up with you, of course. Other than that, you didn’t know of a single girlfriend or boyfriend or casual fling, and you knew more gossip about New York lawyers than you cared to admit.

Now, at dinner, you ate and chatted like old friends. You didn’t even talk about work – he told you about his favorite book, his favorite movie, and asked you about your own. You realized that he was trying to get to know you better, and it gave you a pleasant, warm flush.

You realized that you were both Vonnegut fans, and you finished dinner and ordered dessert – a sampler of mochi that you split – and you argued over which Vonnegut was the best.

“Slaughterhouse-Five, hands down,” he said.

You shook your head. “No way. His essays are the best, and his short stories are a close second. Harrison Bergeron? Come on, Barba, there’s no contest.”

“His essays are so bleak,” he protested.

“And a book about reliving the firebombing of Dresden is a playful romp?”

You caught the smile he tried to hide as he raised his glass to finish his whiskey. “Are you going to argue with me on everything?”

“Stop being wrong on everything and I’ll stop arguing with you,” you retorted with a smile.

“Hmm,” he replied. “Let me think of something we can agree on. What are your thoughts on politics?”

You leaned forward. “The further left, the better. Anarchy and free rides for all.”

He snorted. “I’m further left than you give me credit for, you know.”

“Yeah?”

“There’s probably even some overlap in our beliefs,” he added.

You spooned another scoop of mochi and let it dissolve in a wash of sweetness on your tongue. “So, here’s the question. As a New Yorker, the political quandary of our time: in the last mayoral race, did you vote for the Wall Street fat cat or the left-leaning pervert with child porn on his phone?”

His grin fell instantly, and you knew you’d overstepped, but you weren’t sure how. Your mind raced to figure out where you messed up – Alex Muñoz had been an SVU case, but you remembered O’Dwyer in all the press conferences when it went to trial. It hadn’t been Barba’s case…

“I wrote myself in on that ballot,” he said, and he tried to smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.

You sighed and laid your spoon down, your appetite gone. “What did I say wrong? I thought that was O’Dwyer’s case, and anyway, Muñoz pled out halfway through trial…”

“Alex was my friend,” Barba said quietly, cutting you off. “My best friend. We grew up together in the Bronx. I supervised SVU’s case against him in the beginning.”

“I didn’t know that.”

He nodded. “Well, there were some press conferences that called me out by name. You probably didn’t see them, or didn’t remember.” He winced. “But my family did. My neighborhood. And they have long memories.”

You tried to think back to that time. You remembered the press conferences, of course, because they were like any other press conference where a politician got caught being a sleaze: contrite but vowing to fight, with a stony-faced wife standing beside him because she had to. Muñoz had been the same, standing beside his gorgeous, disappointed wife. But that’s all you remembered – none of the content.

“I knew his wife too. Yelina.” The way he said it made you look at him closer – his face was downturned as he ran his finger restlessly around the rim of his empty glass.

“You grew up with her too?” you asked gently.

He nodded again. “Alex was my best friend. And Yelina…was my first love.”

“Ah.”

There was a long beat of silence. “She thought I was targeting Alex specifically,” he continued. “As revenge. Because she left me for him. Years ago. A lifetime ago.”

You reached out to take his free hand, the one that wasn’t fussing with his glass. You grasped it gently and gave him a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure she realized deep down that you were caught between a rock and a hard place, and her husband was literally caught with child porn…”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. She was always blinded by him.” He twisted his mouth into a sardonic smile. “Alex had the charm.” He looked down at your hands, intertwined as they were, and he gave himself a little shake. “Sorry. This isn’t how I planned on the evening going,” he said, and when he smiled this time it reached his eyes.

You cocked a suggestive eyebrow at him. “How did you plan on it going, counselor?”

He didn’t return the suggestive look, though. He replied earnestly, “I planned on asking you out on a proper date. I didn’t plan on rambling about ancient history.”

“Ancient history came up organically,” you said. You tried to ignore your heart hammering in your chest at Barba wanting to ask you out, properly. “You need to balance the scales, hear about my first love? His name was Wayne Crawford, it was the second grade, and when I tried to hold his hand during a school assembly, he shoved me and said I smelled like hot dogs.”

He chuckled at that, and you added, “there was no press conference though.”

But you felt…trusted, like a confidant, that Barba had opened up to you, even if it was unplanned. So you added, more seriously, “my first real love, though, was Jason. Undergraduate at Fordham. We dated for a couple of years, and I found out he cheated on me for most of it.”

You glanced up to see Barba staring at you, but he had a sympathetic look on his face. You felt uncomfortable to open up, like you were exposing a raw nerve that might get irritated, but he had opened up to you. Quid pro quo. Give and take. You had learned that much from your failed relationship with Sonny: you had to open up more, take more leaps of faith.

“Well, I’m not a cheater,” Barba finally said. You smiled at him, and he continued, a sly look creeping across his handsome features. “And you got that hot dog smell problem sorted out now, so we’re good.”

You plucked your hand from his with as much dignity as you could muster, and you feigned like you were getting up to leave, so Barba reached out to snag your hand again, holding you tight.

“Does Friday or Saturday night work better for you?” he asked, and while he still smiled at you, his voice sounded earnest.

You wavered before you answered. “Are you sure? Even after what I said?”

Barba flagged down the waiter for the check, and he handed off his credit card to settle the bill. “You don’t seem to understand ‘forgiveness’ as a concept,” he told you. You shrugged a little ruefully, and he kept going. “Firstly, you forgave me when I fled the scene our first night together. You didn’t make me grovel.”

He paused as the waiter returned his card, and you watched as Barba signed the slip with a flourish. Then he picked up the thread of conversation.

“Secondly, I have people march into my office all day, every day and say rude things to me. I’m always being accused of being too political or too cautious, or not smart enough to find legal loopholes. The Muñoz case? I got it as bad from SVU as I did from Alex. And I never get an apology. Not a real one, anyway.” He sighed, and you could see how his job did wear on him, much like yours did to you.

“So it was novel, getting a real apology from you,” he said. “And thirdly, I understand now why you said what you did, so I probably would have forgiven you even without an apology.”

You hung your head a little. “I’m so….”

“…sorry, yes. I got that,” he cut you off to finish your sentence, his voice dry. “So Friday or Saturday?”

When you took too long to answer (caught between wanting to see him on Friday, but worried that you’d be too tired from the work week), he casually added a third option. “Or both?”

Your broad grin, wide enough that it hurt your cheeks to smile that wide, was all the answer he needed. Both.

#rafael barba #rafael barba x you #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfiction #tropes and tales

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littlelesbinonny · 7 months

Text

The Devil's Den

Chapter 25: In Which Fates Begin to Spin Pt. 4

You can read this also on Ao3 at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46831621/chapters/117962293

Well, you got zero sleep the rest of the night.

The aching in your back spread to the rest of your body and you ended up running a hot bath to soothe it. It was like you were in the day-after phase of a grueling work out session. Everything was sore. Tight. And your back was still stinging. It felt like rug-burn.

Luckily the soak helped alleviate much of the tension and you were able to get up and get ready for work, although, you really didn't feel like going. Maybe you were coming down with the flu? You didn't have a fever, you didn't feel congested or have a runny nose, no headache, just physically beat to hell for literally no apparent reason.

You couldn't help the feeling of anxiety crawling up from the pit of your stomach.

Maybe something was terribly wrong with Alcina.

About 30 minutes before you had to leave for work you texted your boss that you were sick. You weren't up for it today. You felt like shit, and exhausted was putting it mildly.

Curling up in your beanbag chair you opened your balcony blinds and watched the sunrise through another hazy fog. You did notice the plate of blueberries had been picked clean and at least that put a smile on your face. Nestling down with a fuzzy pillow you let your eyes shut and allowed a doze to wash over you.

Your subconscious filled itself with thoughts of Alcina and it was partially comforting and bothersome. Being apart from her sucked. A lot. All you could really hope for was that you were actually getting sick and nothing was wrong. Still unsure why you felt this way, you tried to abandon it, but it hung on like a pesky sibling in a needful fit of attention.

The faint screams you heard before your body had its convulsions came echoing back as you tried to rest and it pushed your nerves further to the ledge. If you didn't know any better you'd say it easily could have been Alcina. Maybe... maybe it was. Were you somehow having some kind of extra sense and experiencing things she was going through? When she told you the tale of her and Madeleine it seemed to play out like a movie in your head; like you could physically see and hear and feel what she had gone through. You chalked that up to the vivid imagination that you'd always had, but now you were starting to question a whole hell of a lot more. Like, how you could physically feel emotional changes in her, as if somehow Alcina's experiences were reflecting in or off of you.

Or, maybe you were just out of your mind and imagining all of it.

You groaned.

When Karl was finally allowed into the tent, Alcina was sitting upright on the med cot draped in a grey robe that was clearly too small for her. She looked paler than he had ever seen; her cheeks were hollow, eyes dimly lit and the slate color barely hanging on. Her lush lips that were normally the shade of blood were thinner and just as pale as the rest of her. The length of her arms that protruded from the garment showed the deep dark purple scarring of the slashes she'd endured, not to mention the bruising and scrapes down the left side of her face. They looked ugly and he winced internally.

Guilt was rarely, if ever, an emotion he felt. But somehow this was gnawing at the back of his neck and it was pissing him off.

She was slower than normal in regarding him. He assumed she must still be in a good deal of pain, but she nodded gently as he approached.

Beside her bed was a long table that was piled high with empty blood packs, one appeared newly drained and he cocked an eyebrow.

"Look's delicious," he smirked.

While she was lacking in energy, her retorts were swift.

"If I have to drink one more cold bag of blood I might just eat you instead - though I'm convinced that would actually poison and kill me."

Karl grinned, "that would be completely accurate. I'm basically junk food, but also bitter, rancid, probably a little bit of a lot rotten and not for the weak - however," he saved himself quickly, "I had a feeling you could use a real meal."

Alcina watched with a tilt in her head as he handed her a thermos.

"Don't ask where I got it. Just drink it."

Sable was eying the both of them with pure curiosity at their exchange, and more or less what was in the bottle while she cleaned and tidied Alcina's area.

Without questioning, Alcina unscrewed the black lid and sniffed. It was hot blood.

She sighed with pure delight and began to drink it greedily. She didn't care to ask how or where he got it, she was exceptionally grateful just to have some blood that didn't taste like rusted nails found in a riverbed. It was no substitute for yours, nothing ever would be, but it was nourishing enough and the majority of her pain slowly trickled away.

"Thank you," she said softly, eyes closed and her head tilted back, "I'll keep you off the dinner menu."

Karl tried not to stare at how ragged she looked, so he quickly recovered and began scratching his chin.

"How ya feelin'?" he asked abruptly.

Taking in slow and careful breath, Alcina eyed him tiredly, "like shit."

Well, at least she was honest.

"Hey, you should see the other guy," he grinned, "he's like dead and stuff."

Alcina smiled.

After a bit more conversation, and since it had been mentioned, Alcina requested to be taken to the tent where her deceased assailant was being examined. She wanted to look at the fucker herself, she had many questions she wanted answered. Though, there was no way she could go dressed like this.

Sable sent Gabe for some of their reserve gear. He returned not too long after with a black tactical jacket and a pair of beige pants that were baggy but a little bit short for her long legs. Oh well.

Karl didn't really stifle his snicker as she made her way slowly out of the medical tent. He so desperately wanted to make a quip at how quickly she had downgraded her class after just one short night in the company of lycans, but she threw him a warning glare. Her returning fire gave him great relief; she was getting better and she would make it through this like the warrior he knew.

Gerard and Mateo had returned, in tow was Mitch, whom she was pleasantly happy to see. He was mending quickly.

Without much more delay, she, Karl, Sable, Mitch, Mateo and Gerard all took a little visit to the coroner's tent.

"Why is his head smashed in - how did it get smashed in?"

Karl didn't look at anybody, just stood there with his hands in his pockets and a blank expression on his face.

"Methinks it had to be a really big hammer, or something," Mitch replied smugly, thumbing his bristly chin.

Alcina looked to Karl in the deafening silence and after accepting no one was going to say anything, she raised her eyebrows at him, "was that truly necessary? Wasn't he dead already?"

He shrugged nonchalantly seemingly bored with the subject, "nothing wrong with making sure."

Mitch winked at Alcina when their eyes met, the smugness only growing stronger in his grin.

"Aside from that - " she stopped shortly and hissed; her quick movement towards the large containment bin his body was in caused a sharp discomfort all through her back.

Karl was reaching for her immediately but she put her hand up as she closed her eyes and breathed herself back to normalcy.

"I'm fine... now... aside from that, what more do we know?"

Joel, the examiner and rightfully one of their most intelligent scientists, huffed, "well, that's about it."

It was easy to tell by his mannerisms he was just as curious but annoyed by the matter as everyone else.

"As I said he's definitely a vampire, but he's mutated. I still don't know with what or how. It seems parasitic in nature; his body was still quite functional even after there was no way for it to be. A bashed in skull really doesn't adhere to having a reactive nature in the way of his - nerve damage can cause such effects, sure, but his body actually reacted independently of each test. When I was slicing off skin samples from his hand, it jerked away as if it was in pain. He's clearly dead. There should be no reaction as such. It wasn't until several hours postmortem that he actually stopped having any movement at all, and that leads me to believe he's infected with something. Coming to that conclusion, that's why his body is now contained the way it is. And no, I don't believe it is contagious but I want to make sure if something exists that body, it's contained."

Karl walked closer to the bin and toed it with his boot. He really wanted to kick it, but he kept his cool.

"Huh... an infected mutated vampire. Can we kill it with fire?"

Joel smirked, "well yeah, you can pretty much kill anything with fire, but from what I've heard of these heathens they're damn near impossible to catch."

Alcina mused on the sight of the vampire lying there, recalling how sporadic but effectively chaotic his increased speed was.

"Do you have any assumptions on the weakness of this... thing? Preferably without hand to hand combat?" she asked looking back at him.

"From the damage done that you inflicted, before the head smashing, and his ability to still travel as far as he did before he died tells me this mutation has either drastically altered either his ability to feel pain, given him a complete lack of awareness of pain, or has simply made him psychotic. That would be the only real explanation for him to withstand such an attack and survive as long as he did. Examining the healing rate of the wounds tells me he's no real different than the rest of us, just utterly blind to his own limitations."

"So buddy boy here's infected with meth parasites - exciting. Well that's certainly not super helpful," Karl grumbled, "so we got a pack of psychotic mutated vampires on the loose who can't be tracked or caught because of their absence of smell and stupid fast ability to move. What the fuck are we supposed to do with that, play the Texas Chainsaw Massacre version of Where's Waldo?"

"Do we know how many more are out there?" Alcina interjected rolling her eyes.

"Not a goddamn clue," came another voice from the entrance of the tent.

Sylvia had stepped in with another guard and approached the group with a sour look on her face.

"I've got men stationed in droves around the cave. It's been silent tonight for the time being but I don't trust anything. There's no way this motherfucker was able to attack as many of my soldiers as he did in separate places even with his super mutant speed. Doesn't add up. There's gotta be more, but where is the million dollar question."

Everyone paused and mulled on the situation before Alcina stiffly straightened her posture and ran a shaky hand through her raven hair.

"After we finish here I will contact my people and get troops mobilized immediately to aid you. I would still like to keep this as quiet as possible for the time being; the less chaos we can avoid internally will greatly aid our efforts outside the underground cities to hopefully neutralize this threat before it becomes worse. Sylvia, please get me a list of supplies my military can bring."

The lycan general folded her hands behind her back and nodded at Alcina, then nodding in the direction of the tent entrance to the soldier behind her which immediately set off.

"What can we do for you in the meantime, Lady Dimitrescu?"

Alcina waved her off gently, "nothing. Your exemplary medical officers have gone above and beyond with my care and I am grateful for their expertise," she regarded Sable who smiled in return, "once my soldiers arrive I trust you and my general, Dmitri, will get things in order..."

She paused as the overwhelming feeling of uselessness drenched her psyche. In any other situation she would be side by side with her soldiers in planning and executing any kind of military plan, but in her current state she was a liability and it made her cringe. Alcina hated being left on the sidelines, she'd never been this helpless before as a vampire. Her wounds should be healed by now goddammit.

Clearing her throat she once more tried to straighten her posture to brush off her pain and dismay, "when I am more able, I will be back in the trenches with you."

Karl was no dummy. He could tell she was running herself down internally for not being the active commander she felt she should in this. He couldn't let it go noticed.

"Well look, I dunno about the rest of you but I'm fuckin' tired of being around this dead, some kind of infected bag of flesh; can we please get onto more important things? Like, when and what the fuck are we eatin'?"

A breath of relief eased from her tight chest and Alcina let the lycans lead the way out of the tent.

Sable was at her side and eyed her in the dimly lit night, "I know you're in hurry to get back to the warehouse but I'd like to apply more betadine to your back before you go."

Very few times in Alcina's life had she had to rely on other people for so much help. Unfortunately, she'd known long endured and intense pain for more than most when she was human. She'd gone for so long without real unmanageable pain as a vampire that this was playing mind games with her. Even at the worst of the lycan vampire wars, wounds she sustained were fast healing, and the physical discomfort was minimal through her vampire strengths. This... this took her back to the days she was bedridden by utter exhaustion and agony she couldn't wait to be freed from. She hated it. This wasn't normal. There was more to these wounds than met the eye and she hoped Joel's tests would bring back proof of whatever it may be.

Sable had to help Alcina undress, she couldn't move her arms in a way that didn't stretch the stapled, stitched skin that covered the majority of her back.

Wincing as she lie face down on the cot, Alcina sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm seeing improvement, Lady Dimitrescu. This is good. I think you'll need to stick with the increased blood intake for a while, at least a couple more days to continue the healing. I may even be able to remove some of these stitches by tomorrow."

The coolness of the betadine didn't hurt as much thankfully, and Alcina couldn't help but wonder how bad it truly was.

"What... what does it look like?" she asked, feeling a little sheepish.

"I can show you, if you like."

Alcina nodded at her offer and Sable took out her cell phone. Not 5 second later the screen was in front of her face with the picture that she now wished she hadn't asked for.

She may as well tell people she'd gotten in a tangle with a bear; the stapled and stitched gashes were thick enough. The coloring ranged from the deepest purple to bright red, blue, and some yellow-green where the blood had spread out under her skin.

"Sable?" she said very gently, "if I ever ask you something like this again, remind me about right now."

She'd already placed her phone back in her pocket and smiled.

"I don't think there will be a next time, we'll be on top of this in no time, but I'll keep that in mind. You should have seen them the night it happened... you looked 1000 times worse."

Sitting most gingerly and uncomfortable on the ragged couch in the warehouse common room, Alcina stared out into nothingness as her thoughts had been set loose off its chains.

Donna couldn't reach Mother Miranda.

She'd been trying for 2 days and nights now and nothing.

Miranda had several residences all over the world and each phone call ended in silence. A message left. And no reply.

Donna wanted to send a team to her manor in Connecticut not too far from where they were stationed currently, but Alcina halted the action by the feral reaction in her gut. No. They would wait. Miranda was known to travel frequently, though her silence on her departure was less than common, it did not make it entirely unusual.

Alcina heeded Donna's worry of the mutants getting to her first, but it was highly unlikely. If they had made an attack on Mother Miranda the entire city would have been made aware and the military would have been deployed faster than they could blink. No, there must be another reason to her unknown silence. She couldn't really say if she was relieved or not by this news, but for now it would just have to wait.

Perhaps deep down, hidden and hushed, Alcina secretly hoped Donna's fears were true... so many troubles would be over if it came to pass that she had been slain. She knew it was a far-fetched prayer, but she wouldn't write off her hopes.

Donna was unconvinced Alcina should be held up in the warehouse and should come home. It may be better fortified than the lycan outpost, but with her condition she was adamant she come back to the underground city for further treatment by their doctors and where there was a larger blood supply. Alcina denied the request. In truth, she was exhausted. She didn't think she could make the journey without burdening her company for help. Just because she was weak didn't mean she should show it. She was the Matriarch; the title came with standards she had to meet at any length possible... being weak was not an option, not in the middle of something like this.

With a heavy sigh she closed her eyes and hung her head. What she wouldn't give to be safe and sound in your arms, tucked into your couch, enjoying the shared comfortable silence and calm.

A small smile began to spread on her lips and Alcina took a different kind of sigh.

She missed you.

Badly.

She hoped you were doing well, that work hadn't driven you crazy, that you were resting and taking care of yourself while she was away. That you were safe.

A muffled commotion coming from the tunnel entrance brought her attention back to the here and now and she rose from the couch. After several hitches, winces, whines, and curses under her breath, Alcina was standing tall by the time her troops entered.

"My Lady," Dmitri's voice echoed proudly against the empty warehouse walls upon seeing her.

Dmitri Vladislav Shurshalin was a large, towering man. His shoulder length silver hair complimented his chiseled bold features with a softness, even as striking as it was. His eyes were a deep dark chestnut, which made his appeal all the more unnerving. Alcina and he had met on the battlefield in the beginning; he was the leader of the Iron Blood Clan that had migrated from Europe long before her time. He had been in league with Mother Miranda but he had never pledged his full services to her. When he and Alcina's troops had fought together, their cohesion and battle tactics seemed to flow like meeting rivers. And when Alcina had been named Matriarch, Dmitri was the first to pledge his whole allegiance and alliance to her. Appointing him her military general was enacted immediately. They lead the vampires to victory on every mission; including the alliances made with the lycans at the end of the wars.

He approached her with the same sturdy reverence as he always had, handing her a bag she recognized as her own.

"This, is from your daughters. It does not match my outfit but they were insistent I bring it myself," he grinned, speaking low with the lilt of his Russian accent, "and in the large containers you see coming in behind me, is our blood supply... I realize the lycans taste and ours varies quite drastically... Donna informs me you will be needing it."

Alcina ignored the respectful once-over of his glances. He stood at her height which was an unusual event of itself, but made it easier for her to gauge all his facial responses.

She sighed softly and looked at him with a nod, "ever the attentive right hand - she does her job well, for that I am grateful. Come, we must speak, privately."

"As you wish, My Lady," he nodded shortly at his men who were busy setting aside the large quantities of cargo, and followed the slower moving Matriarch to the second level of the warehouse.

Once to the table at the far East corner, he pulled the folding chair out for Alcina allowing her to sit first, then taking residence across from her.

"Donna has briefed you, yes?"

"Yes."

"I am wary as hell about this cave. The lycans are reckless about it but do not let them enter that godforsaken thing without proper backup. Sylvia seems level-headed but I have no idea how Heisenberg will continue to behave. You have always held a high rapport with them and I hope it holds through this high-stakes situation. The lycans are... gnashing, for lack of a better word, for revenge on these mutated vampires."

"Still no solid numbers as to how many?"

"No," she huffed, "that is my other concern... they are..." flashes of memories of her attack sped through her, "without a doubt the most deadly force I have come across. I've seen what they can do, I've experienced what they can do, and... " she leaned in carefully, "I fear our own strengths in this fight."

#alcina dimitrescu #alcina dimitrescu/female reader #alcina dimitrescu/original female character #alcina dimitrescu/reader #lesbian #f/f #fanfic #wlw #fic #karl heisenberg #donna beneviento

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mangomagiii · 9 months

Text

gojo satoru x oc (himetsuru ichimonji)

a/n: will be made as multichapter. title and succeeding chapters work in progress. tagged with xreader (pls just remove the OC's name/features if you want to self-insert). pls see end notes for other info

tags: cheating, eventual angst, eventual romance, different lifetimes, reincarnation (some tags will be added depending on chapters)

»»————-　　————-««

“I am not mad, Gojo-san. In fact, I am not concerned about your affairs with other women.”

An invisible yet heavy force seemed to take over the atmosphere at a particular booth as the woman opposite him calmly sipped on her tea. Her well-cared hands moved with grace in each motion she made. The man opposite her was frozen as he processed what she had just said. The almost-empty lavishly-decorated restaurant usually encourages a festive mood in contrast with the two people engaged in a long silence.

Ichimonji Himetsuru finished sipping on her cup, fully savoring the warmth and sweet taste of Chrysanthemum. She gently laid the half-full cup, the cup clacked upon contact with the oak table. Folding her hands on her lap, she continued. “There is no problem at all. I assure you of that, Gojo-san.”

Satoru got out of his stupor and tried to reason. “Himetsuru, listen to me. I’m your fiancé, you should be–”

Himetsuru stood up from her seat, the sudden difference in height made her look down on him. Contrary to Satoru’s expectation, her eyes held no anger nor sadness. Only tranquillity, as if they’re currently not talking about his cheating. “You are free to do whatever you want, Gojo-san. It’s not like I wasn’t completely aware. I understand that this marriage was arranged between our families and both of us never had a say on this.” She whipped out several amounts of cash and slid it on the table. Getting out of the booth, she bowed to him who still had his jaw slack. “You do not have to worry about me telling my family. I fully consent to your arrangement. We are not married yet.”

“This is not a joke, Himetsuru. You should be mad at me. I am sorry for not being faithful to our arrangement, for not fulfilling my part. I…”

“To which I already replied that I am not angry at all. Must I repeat what I have said already? I don’t really want to sound like a broken record.” She sighed, her hand already massaging a forming headache.

“I simply do not care what you do in your own time. As long as we both do our duties as husband and wife after the marriage then that’s all that matters. We are not married yet, that's why I am still compliant with your whims. Just don’t cause anything that will jeopardise both families’ reputation. That’s all I ask.”

She left the area, not even bothering to check him for the last time. Gojo was still in pure shock, not wanting to believe what he had just heard from her. He was fully expecting her to lash out on him, scream, slap his face, humiliate him in public. But all he got was a calm and straight response. It was so cool that it was also terrifying.

“What on earth just happened..?” his body sank on the plush seat, all the tension left his body, but inside was still in turmoil.

She doesn't care? He was her fiancé, he cheated on her and ignored their arrangement for ten years!

The arrangement had been decided since their teens, during his second year as a Jujutsu student. He came home after school, entered the estate after a long day of fooling around with Geto and Shoko, and suddenly he was bombarded with congratulations as news broke out that the Ichimonji and Gojo decided on their union. He looked around the main hall, and his eyes met with his betrothed. His Six Eyes fully-focused at her, critically analysing her features and every actions. Did they at least assessed his betrothed thoroughly? Apparently, yes. She was beautiful, deduced that she is a graceful person despite not moving on her seat. Elegance seemed to emit from her, making her a fitting candidate as his wife. Her eyes in a colour of jade did the same, studying her betrothed. Silky violet hair were adorned in kanzashi. She also happened to have a cursed energy, however, small and probably good enough to only assist just like what auxiliary managers do. He blocked out all the chattering, only waiting for her reaction. She nodded at him, and then went on to talk to someone, leaving him to deal with the annoying noises.

Despite her neat and refined appearance, it did not make him excited at the arrangement and instead anger started to form. He was furious, not only because he was paired with someone that he was not familiar with, but also for the fact that he does not get a say at all. Did they even care about their son? Not at all, as it was for the sake of the clan and prestige.

This particular memory in his life led to him ignoring her completely, also starting a bad habit of flirting and later on engaging in intimate acts with other women. He knows he will be found out, but he never really cared, at least at that time. This behavior intensified after Geto’s defection, sadness consuming him as he lost his only friend. His family became aware of his affairs, and noticed how evasive he was when it involved the Ichimonjis, particularly their daughter. Countless arguments spurred, asking him to be considerate and get along with Himetsuru. All fell on deaf ears. He hoped that by eliciting such reactions from both families and her would end up dissolving their engagement. But now, he was not sure. She was being compliant with him, as if she doesn't care about him at all. He also realized that no matter what he does, both families will not budge and will continue with their plans.

He’s already 26, already teaching for a few years, even taking care of late Fushiguro Toji’s son Megumi and his sister Tsumiki. The countless flirting with women continued despite not motivated anymore to break his engagement, and almost everyone in the Jujutsu society was aware of his flings. He would even engage with other school personnel, from auxiliary managers to even windows, earning the ire of his former teacher Yaga and an exasperated sigh from Shoko. Ijichi decided to not meddle, afraid of consequences from Gojo.

Today’s conversation between Himetsuru and Satoru happened because he was caught flirting with one of the windows. The halls that were usually silent and void of any people were occupied by Gojo and a female window. Smacking of lips and rustles of clothes filled the hallway as they descended deeper into lust.

Several meters, he already felt a faint cursed energy. Being the troublemaker he is, he paid it no mind and continued on his conquest. Despite his Six Eyes ability, he cannot figure out whose cursed energy it belonged to. Odd, but he’s occupied with another thing to even care about the person who will witness such debauchery.

The footsteps halted, and a voice that he had not heard for so long snapped him out of his lust-driven state.

“I’m afraid to interrupt your intimate time, but I need to get through the Principal’s office.”

Both Gojo and the window looked at the person who witnessed their affair. There she is, his fiancée with a jaded look on her face.

Oh, he was doomed.

»»————-　　————-««

a/n: inspired from a novel/manhwa "This Marriage Is Bound To Sink Anyway". Canon-compliant-ish(?). I originally wanted this to be an xReader hence the tag but I've planned so much about the appearance, personality, and features of the reader so i ended up making it as an xOC. but pls do remove my OCs features/name if you want to self-insert!

side note: some info such as timelines and ages were taken from various sources (reddit, blogs). it may or may not be accurate from canon so pls keep in mind that these ages/timeline was written for the fanfic plot's sake. this fanfic starts before he started teaching maki/toge/panda/yuta and he's 26 years old here.

gojo's start as a teacher: source

gojo's ages: when he met megumi, jjk 0

feedbacks are greatly appreciated, it helps me to improve my writing!

#gojo angst #jjk satoru #jujutsu kaisen gojo #gojo x you #gojo satoru x oc #gojo x oc #satoru x oc #satoru gojo x reader #jjk fanfic #jujutsu kaisen x reader

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bella-rose29 · 6 months

Text

Not Your Lover - Chapter 6

This is the slightly safer version (it's still kinda spicy tho) <3

I have also written a more explicit version of this chapter for anybody who is over the age of 18 which can be found here, so please don't read that one if you're younger or even just uncomfortable with that. hopefully this one is more accessible to everyone! (please let me know if it's still too much and I'll edit it)

(help I realised I don't actually know how to write sfw make out scenes)

Word count: 3.8k

Warnings: heavy making out, like heavy heavy, implied sex, swearing, mentions of the civil war from Nik's side, Davor is still a stalker

Tag list: @a-candle-maker, @bubybubsters, @el-de-phi, @hauntedethusiasttragedy, @iambored24601, @itsyoboo-jassy, @karensirkobabes, @kentucky-criedfricken, @little8sun, @mrsklockwood, @mvidaaaa, @nalie-98, @naushtheaspiringauthor, @notoakay, @pietromaximoffsbabe, @simbaaas-stuff

As always, let me know here if you would like to be added or removed from my Nikolai tag list! <3

Y/n and Nikolai had settled into a routine within the first two days of staying in the same room, and he was starting to blur the lines in his head of what was real and what was fake.

It was dangerous, walking this line, especially since one wrong move could ruin everything that the two of them had built, but Nikolai knew that he was extremely close to throwing himself fully past reality. They had kept the pillow wall the first night, but when they had woken in roughly the same position as they had the first time that they shared a bed it made sense to forgo the divider completely. Neither of them appeared to be acknowledging it while asleep, and it saved some effort in the evening when they were getting ready for bed.

Work on the building had continued in much the same way as before, although Nikolai noticed that there was a little more tension in the air than usual. None of this was helped by the fact that he couldn't let his demon out at night anymore, and had resorted to staying late at the mansion after Y/n had headed back to the hotel room so that it stopped giving him a headache. Davor was still watching the two of them, following Nikolai around when he tried to go on a late night walk to take his demon fishing, and it was starting to get annoying. He had half a mind to confront the man, but somehow whenever Nikolai actually wanted to see Davor, he wasn't anywhere to be found. Y/n had mentioned that he was doing the same to her, but she didn't seem nearly as bothered about it.

Currently they were working on the floorboards of the first room, having pulled up the old ones and throwing them out, and Nikolai couldn't help but stare at Y/n every now and then as she worked. His demon snickered at him in his head, and Nikolai muttered a quiet "shut up" under his breath.

"Sorry? Did you say something?"

"Huh? No, nothing."

"Oh. Never mind."

They worked in silence again after that, the only sounds being the new floorboards being put down.

By the time sunset came around a few hours later, they'd managed to lay the whole floor, and Nikolai had replaced the windows, letting in the evening sun. He wiped his brow, wishing more than anything that he could take off some layers (but that would mean showing his scars for longer than a few seconds, and he didn't feel like having that conversation with Y/n yet. She'd probably also stab him or something).

"You alright? You look pretty sweaty."

"Yeah, I'm alright. Hopefully this heatwave brings in tourists," he replied, turning to look at her. That was a mistake, apparently, since he couldn't do anything but think about how gorgeous she looked in the golden light streaming in and lighting up her skin, making her look ethereal.

He was so screwed, and he knew that there wasn't any coming back now. He'd very nearly kissed her the other night, when she'd come in crying about her mother and he'd wiped away her tears, but the demon just had to pick that moment to make a noise. Nikolai had scolded it the whole way back to the hotel, and it had the good grace to at least seem sorry for getting in the way.

It had been a little awkward since, neither of them saying anything about the fact that they had very nearly kissed purely because they felt like it, and the tension was starting to kill Nikolai. They kept waking up tangled in each other too, and although he knew he shouldn't, he held on to her a little longer in the mornings, and his touch lingered a moment more when he passed her things. Whether she'd noticed, he had no idea, but at least she hadn't told him to stop being weird yet.

~~~

Nik was being weird.

He kept staring at Y/n, for one, and every now and then he would hold on to her for longer than fake boyfriends probably should. He was staring now, in fact, although why she had no idea. She was covered in dirt and sweat from working all day, both in the bakery and in the mansion, and she definitely needed a bath. Maybe he was staring at her because of that? Yeah, that made more sense. Although when she looked at him (not that she was sneaking glances or anything), she couldn't deny how gorgeous he looked in the light, the sunset making his golden hair glow.

He kept talking to himself too, and Y/n was starting to worry that he was going mad. She'd talked to Gregor about it that morning, and apparently Nik was doing it while he worked in the workshop. Gregor also looked like he knew something else, but despite Y/n's best efforts she couldn't get it out of him. The man was notoriously good at keeping secrets, but if it was about Nik then she wanted to know.

"I'm sure he'll tell you in his own time, Y/n/n," was all he had said, and Y/n had huffed and left not long after.

She snapped herself out of her thoughts, blush rising when she realised that she'd zoned out looking at him, and turned back to the wall that she was painting. They'd done good work today; Nik had managed to get the new windows in with the help of her father, and the three of them had finished off the floor. Y/n had picked out the paint a while ago, and had made a start on covering the walls.

"You know," she started, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Nik turn to face her. "I think we can do this. How long have we got left now, eight days?"

"Yeah, I think so. There's still the two other rooms to do though. I know they're both clear but it's going to be a stretch to get them done on top of this one. It's taken us this long to get this room nearly ready."

"What happened to mister 'we can do it!', huh? I've got a plan, don't worry."

"Is your plan hiring the entirety of Taya? Because I might be an optimist but this is bordering on impossible."

"I thought that nothing was impossible, only improbable," she quipped, mocking his voice.

"Was that... was that meant to be me?"

"I thought it was an excellent impression. Did you have a problem with it? I mean, personally I thought there were two of you for a moment."

Nik laughed, shaking his head. "You're ridiculous," he said, looking at her fondly. Y/n smiled lightly back at him, and they got lost in each others' gazes. Nik suddenly snapped out of it, whipping his head back to the curtain pole he was adjusting. Y/n moved her own attention back to the wall, feeling her face heat up.

Shit.

~~~

An hour or so later, the sun had fully set, and Nikolai had had to turn the chandelier on in the room so that he and Y/n could continue to work. The demon had, for once, helped Nikolai out, since its laughing at Nikolai and Y/n gazing at each other made him realise what he was doing. He'd quickly gone back to what he was doing, and a moment later he heard the brush of the paint on the wall.

Now they were in separate rooms, and Nikolai had looked to check that the demon wouldn't be seen before letting it out.

"No noise, alright? The second you make a noise you're back in, understood?" The demon had nodded and padded off into a corner of the room, starting to use its tail as a brush, collecting the remaining rubbish on the floor. Nikolai felt proud of it once more, seeing it trying to help, and hoped that it had learned something valuable from working hard. Saints, he sounded like the demon's teacher. Nikolai frowned, shuffling furniture around the room. He supposed he was in a way, teaching it how to be nicer. Maybe he'd be able to let it out more if he knew it would behave. He was glad for the distraction of the demon, since it stopped him from thinking too hard about Y/n, and having to keep half an eye on the little bastard was rather entertaining at times. It was a little like having a child, except the child was quite literally a demonic entity of darkness and destruction that enjoyed ripping people's faces off and generally making their lives complete and utter misery. Nikolai suddenly wondered if that was how Baghra had felt about the Darkling, and shuddered at the thought of baby Aleksander. The demon noticed, growling lowly at its creator, and Nikolai called it over softly, careful not to alert Y/n.

"Come here, that's it, there we go," he whispered, settling on the floor as his demon came and rested its head on his lap. It was strange, doing this, but he could sense that his demon was disturbed by Nikolai's thoughts of the Darkling. While the man had been responsible for the separation between Nikolai and his demon, the latter now shared the resentment that Nikolai harboured. No doubt it was remembering the battle with Fjerda too, and the multiple brushes with death. Since then they had only become closer, reaching an agreement that they would die for each other if needed.

"Nik? You alright in there?" Both Nikolai and his demon turned to look at the doorway where Y/n's voice had come from, and they glanced at each other before the demon crept off into the shadows.

"Yep, I'm alright." He pushed himself off of the floor just as Y/n walked in, paint on her trousers.

"I think I'm gonna head out now, I've done what I can on the walls. You coming?"

"Yeah, sure. Let me just grab my things," he smiled, and she returned it, heading back into the front room. He took the demon back in, telling it to stop fussing and hurry up, and followed her out, collecting his jacket from where he'd slung it over one of the armchairs.

~~~

They made it back to the hotel no problem, although Y/n could have sworn that she saw Davor following them when they went round a corner, and when they were up in Nik's room he pulled out a bottle of kvas and two glasses.

"Drink?"

"Sure."

Davor following them wasn't too disturbing for Y/n, given he was a deeply untrusting person and was probably trying to expose Nik and Y/n's relationship for what it was, but Nik seem more concerned. He brought it up as he poured, passing one glass to Y/n and taking his own over to the sofa in front of the fireplace. Despite the heatwave, the hotel room was somehow freezing (Y/n had no idea how the owners managed it), so they'd lit a fire.

"You really aren't worried about him stalking us?"

"No, not really. Why are you so worked up about it?"

"Um... because it's stalking? It's quite literally illegal. Also, what happens if he finds out none of this is real?"

Her heart hurt at his words, but she quickly dismissed it as nothing. "Nobody will believe him if he says anything, because they like us a whole lot more. Everybody knows he likes stirring up trouble for no good reason, and I've got a reputation, hell, you have a reputation now. We'll be fine." She sipped her kvas, grateful for the burn as it went down. It stopped her thinking too hard about Nik.

"If you're sure," he frowned, and Y/n wanted to smooth the lines on his face with her fingertips. He settled into the sofa next to her having finished fiddling with the fire, and it was cramped enough that his thigh brushed against hers. She pulled her legs up, turning so that her back was resting against the arm and she was facing him. Nik angled his body slightly so that he was looking towards her, shifting in his seat in a way that had Y/n hiding behind her glass and trying desperately to not think too hard about his lap. "You alright?" he asked, amusement in his eyes and a smirk on his face, and Saints damn it she was blushing and he fucking knew it.

"Yeah, I'm alright." He hummed, and Y/n felt her cheeks grow even warmer. "What? I am!"

"Okay! You just look a little... flushed," he responded, and she could hear the laughter in his voice, making her glare at him. "There it is! I've missed that glare," he joked, only succeeding in deepening her frown.

"Fuck off," she muttered as she sipped her kvas, and he laughed, loud and bellowing. Saints, she wanted to make him laugh more often.

Sleeping next to Nik tonight would be difficult, she decided as she watched him.

~~~

A few hours and half a bottle of kvas later, Nik and Y/n had loosened up significantly, and were spilling secrets that she would never dare to tell him were she sober.

He'd confessed that he was absolutely terrified of spiders, having been nicknamed 'Nikolai the spider squealer' by his childhood best friend, and was considered a general menace to society as a small boy.

"Oh yeah, I find that so difficult to believe," Y/n giggled sarcastically, and Nik's responding pout only made her laugh harder.

"What is that supposed to mean? I am an absolute delight to have around!" He put on a look of offence, and Y/n nearly spilled her drink when she held her sides from laughing. "Seriously!" He was laughing now, spluttering as he spoke and unable to get words out properly. A few minutes later when they'd calmed down enough (it took a while since whenever they looked at each other they burst out laughing again), he spoke up again. "Go on, your turn. I think it's been my turn the last three times," he frowned, trying to count in his head. Y/n thought for a moment, before coming up with something.

"Saints, I don't know why I'm even gonna tell you this," she laughed, pressing her hand to her forehead. "Okay. So, basically, I've never... I have never... you know." She waved her hand in the general direction of her lower half. Nik's eyes went wide.

"Wait. You've never had an orgasm?"

"No, I haven't!"

"No wonder you're so fucking grumpy all the time, Saints!"

"Oi! It's not exactly my fault! Davor never could and neither can I, I gave up trying to get myself off like six months ago."

"Bet I could," Nik said, sipping his drink.

"...What?"

"I said I bet I could."

They looked at each other, Nik studying her over his glass and Y/n feeling increasingly flustered at the direction their conversation had taken.

"Prove it."

He said nothing, still just looking her, and she was starting to regret her words. "Sorry. Stupid idea. Forget it." She turned her face away, staring into the fire. He was yet to say anything, and the atmosphere turned awkward.

"Are you?" he said, and Saints, why was his voice so low? "Are you sorry?"

"No," she whispered, and she was hyper-aware of the sound of his glass clinking against the side table as he set it down. She turned to look at him, breath leaving her body at the sight of him closer than before, eyes filled with something dangerous. She put her own glass down, nearly spilling it since she hadn't taken her eyes off of Nik. "Why?"

"Because I want to prove it."

Something snapped then, and Y/n surged forward to grab at his shirt with her hands and pull him in for a kiss. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself for a moment, but after barely a second he was responding, wrapping his arms around her waist as he pulled her into his lap, moaning softly, and Saints she wanted him to do it all over again. Her hands moved up to play with his hair the way that she'd wanted to since their first kiss in the square all those days ago, tangling in the locks and tugging every now and then as his hands grasped her hips. She wasn't sure how long they were there for, exploring each other with their hands and tongues, but every second of it was just as good as she'd imagined. He'd moved her hair out of the way to kiss down her neck, alternating between soft kisses and gently biting the skin, drawing sounds out of her that Davor never could. "Nik," she whispered into his hair, not missing the way his grip tightened on her hips at the sound of his name. He slowly dragged his head back up, kissing as he went, before he pressed another to her mouth.

"Yeah?" His pupils were blown, the blue of his eyes nearly non-existent, and his lips were slightly swollen from kissing her.

"You gonna prove it or not?" she breathed, and he could only stare at her for a moment before nodding, and then she felt his hands at the top of her trousers, pulling up the fabric of her shirt. He hadn't taken his eyes off of her, silently asking if this was still alright, and they only broke eye contact when her shirt slipped over her head, landing on the floor a second later. He pulled her back in, kisses a little more gentle than before, and Y/n went to take Nik's shirt off. He hesitated slightly, and she paused, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. "This okay? You don't have to, if it's... I just... wanted to feel you, I guess." She blushed at the admission, and he smiled softly at her.

"It's okay, darling," and Saints she'd forgotten how her stomach dipped at the pet name. "I've just... got a lot of scars," he whispered, and Y/n immediately went to reassure him.

"That's okay. You're helping me out, not talking about your scars. but equally if you wanna do that then I'll listen," she said, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and she practically felt him melt under her. He moved back a little, giving himself room to take his clothes off. Nik paused for a moment, looking at his gloves, then made a decision and yanked them off, chucking them on to the side table next to his discarded drink. He glanced back up at her, waiting for her reaction as he settled his hands lightly on top of her thighs. Y/n could only stare at them, reaching out to hold one with her own hand but not quite touching. Most of the veins were black, and his fingers were the same, and as Y/n finally took hold of his hand, lacing their fingers together and turning his arm in her grip she noticed that the black veins continued partway up his forearms. "What..." She didn't finish, not sure where to go from there. Nik was transfixed by their interlocked hands, and his thumb was stroking hers.

"The Darkling," was his only response, and Y/n didn't know what to do other than press a gentle kiss to his mouth, cupping his face with her free hand. She pulled away, resting her forehead against his, and her hand moved down to rest over his heart.

"Does it hurt?"

"No. Not anymore."

She kissed him again, slow and careful, still holding his hand in hers.

"Do you wanna carry on?"

"Yes," he said into her mouth, hands sliding up higher on her thighs, pulling her closer to him, and Saints, he wasn't lying. She moved her hands to his shirt, tugging at the hem and lifting the fabric all the way off. Her fingers traced the lines of his chest, spending extra time on the scars and marks she found, and Nik's hands came up to rest on her back, pulling her flush against him. They kissed again, this time with more hunger, and in a sudden movement Nik had flipped them so that Y/n was lying on the sofa, legs half dangling off the edge as he situated himself between them, never taking his lips off of hers. Eventually he moved further down, and she lost all sense of time as Nik touched her, drawing out new sounds with every movement right up until he took her into paradise.

~~~

He moved back up her body a while after, having left soft kisses behind as she came down from the high, and when she brought his face down to kiss her it was soft and more loving than it should have been given they weren't actually together.

"You alright?" he asked, nose nudging against her cheek. She could only nod, wiped out. She could feel him smiling, the cheeky fucker, and she half-heartedly slapped his arm, trying to not think too hard about how toned it was. "What?" he smiled, pulling back to look at her.

"Nothing, just, you're a lot more... I don't know," she trailed off, blushing at his stare. "You have very nice arms," she decided on, and Nik's immediate laughter made her flush even more. "Shut up," she mumbled, turning her face to hide in the back of the sofa. She felt Nik's hand cup her chin, bringing her face back towards his as he planted a kiss on her lips, lingering for a while.

"Thank you," he whispered, amused smile still present. "You have very nice tits, if that helps."

"Nik!"

~~~

Nikolai had no idea where the two of them went from here, but he wouldn't take back a single second of it.

He'd helped clean Y/n up, and then had helped her move to the bed, passing her one of his clean shirts to sleep in. He went without the gloves as he got into bed next to her, leaving them sat on the table in front of the fire. He was just pulling his boots off when he felt Y/n's fingers on his back, tracing over the scars from the demon's wings. Her hands flattened on his back, then moved around his torso and under his arms as she pushed herself against him, pulling his head to hers to kiss him. The angle was awkward, so Nikolai shook his boots off and turned around, cupping her cheek to deepen the kiss. He clambered in next to her, breaking away, and pulled the sheets up over them. At Y/n's pout he simply chuckled, and brought her down to lie next to him, and she slung her arm over his chest and her leg over his, falling asleep not long after.

Nikolai stayed awake a while longer, thinking over everything that had happened. He really didn't know where they went from here, but no matter what, he needed to tell her the truth before they got too far in.

Chapter 7

#grishaverse #netflix shadow and bone #nikolai lantsov #nikolai lanstov x reader #nikolai lanstov x y/n #nikolai x reader #nikolai x y/n

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basicallyahedgehog · 1 year

Text

Right Over Left

Happy Trans Day of Visibility! I wrote this fic for the @magicaltrans 2022 Trans Comfest and then it just sat languishing in my docs drive for months. I figured that today was the perfect day to bring it back out and share it.

This fic is technically standalone but does include a canon character who has changed their name. The previous fics in this series can be found here.

Read Below or on AO3

Harry entered their room to find Eltanin cross-legged in front of their mirror, their eyebrows drawn together as they moved sections of their hair this way and that. He settled quietly on his bed, knowing that El would talk to him when they were ready. In the meantime, he enjoyed the time to admire his partner.

In the weeks since they had come out to Harry, Eltanin had been openly growing their hair out. Where it had barely passed their ears two months ago, it was now falling past their chin, and Harry had noticed them getting increasingly frustrated with it in class.

Last week El had stolen one of Luna’s headbands, only to return it the same day, complaining of the headache it caused. Harry had teased them about their big head, but not before he had soothed the ache with soft fingers in his partner’s hair.

If Harry was pressed, he might admit that he was rapidly becoming obsessed with Eltanin’s hair.

After the failed headband experiment Harry had bought El a variety of hairclips, which his partner had immediately stuck all through their hair like an excited five year old. They had continued to use the clips every day, however Harry had noticed in Defence earlier that the clips didn’t really hold against vigorous movement.

Apparently Eltanin had made the same discovery, as they repeatedly attempted to weave strands of hair together on the back of their head.

After what could have been minutes or hours — Harry regularly found himself lost in time when watching his beautiful partner — Eltanin dropped their head into their hands with a groan.

“This was so much easier on someone else’s head!”

Harry slowly moved from the bed, careful to make just enough noise that Eltanin would know he was there.

“Can I help?” he asked as he settled himself behind Eltanin, his hands already slipping into the silky strands.

Eltanin tilted their head further into Harry’s hands, their shoulders relaxing as the tension bled out of them. “Not unless you know how to braid hair.”

“That isn’t currently part of my skill set,” Harry chuckled, a plan forming in his head. “But I’ve been told I give good head rubs.”

------

“I need your help.” Harry tried not to show his nerves as he awaited Pansy’s reply. Sure, the eighth years had all become closer over the last three months, but he had never spoken to Pansy one on one before, and he couldn’t deny that he’d always been a little afraid of her.

“I’m assuming this is about Dr-Eltanin?” She fixed him with a piercing stare, but Harry was relieved at the tiny quirk at the corner of her mouth.

“I want to learn how to braid hair. They said they learned from you.”

Pansy’s gaze softened. “Is this about their hair in defence?”

“Yeah, even the clips didn’t hold it well enough. I went up to our room earlier and they were trying to braid their hair, but they said it was easier on another person.”

“So you thought you’d learn to do it for them.” Pansy smiled at him. “You know, I was a little worried when Eltanin told me you were dating. You two have always had the ability to hurt each other more than most. But I’ve never seen them as happy as I have during these past few weeks.”

Harry blushed. “I don’t think that has anything to do with me. It’s a lot easier to be happy when you can be yourself.”

“Which they wouldn’t be able to do without you.” The piercing stare was back. “Meet me in the old Charms room after dinner. I’ll teach you how to braid.”

------

“Right over middle. Good. Now left over middle. No no over middle, not under. Good. Now again.”

Harry hadn’t really thought about how Pansy would teach him to braid, but he had to admit that he wasn’t expecting this.

Ginny and Luna sat on the floor, leaning against a transfigured couch. Pansy had her hands woven through Ginny’s hair, demonstrating the braid while Harry did his best to replicate it on Luna. He had a bad feeling that his friend would be left with a lot of knots, but she was being endlessly patient with his tugging and twisting.

“Oi, Potter.” Pansy’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Less daydreaming, more braiding. Right over, left over, right over, left over…”

------

On Monday morning Harry stepped out of the shower to find El aggressively clipping their hair back, muttering to themself.

“Stay there you stubborn motherfucker. I’m not going to lose the mock duel again just because of my hair.”

Harry resisted the urge to laugh, and stepped up behind his partner.

“Come and sit over here, darling.”

He led a bemused El over to his bed, gently pushing them to sit on the floor in front of him. Removing the clips — while ignoring El’s protests — Harry hummed as he started to braid.

“Right over, left over, right over, left over…”

“Where…how…why??” Harry could hear the emotion in his partner’s voice, and paused to run a soothing hand over their cheek.

“You deserve to be comfortable in class, so I learned for you,” he shrugged, lifting his hand to continue braiding.

Instead he ended up with a lapful of wiggling, happy Eltanin, who pressed flurries of kisses all over his face.

If he could make them this happy just by braiding their hair, he’d do it every day for the rest of his life.

#happy trans day of visibility #this is just pure fluff #because we all deserve some happiness and softness in our lives #drarry #trans harry potter #nonbinary draco malfoy #magical trans comfest #my writing

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