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rynwritesreid · 5 months

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Take a ride| Spencer Reid

A/N: First of all, I hope that this is suitable compensation for everyone affected by my last fic. Second, my next non-requested smutty upload will be Sub! Spencer. And lastly, thank you so much for all the love guys, I am slowly working through your requests. Jag älskar dig 🫶🏼

Summary: You love to challenge authority, always knowing when to stop pushing buttons. However, you decide to see how far you can push Spencer before he gets angry enough to do something about it.

Content: Fem!Reader. Smut. Dom!Spencer Sub!Reader. Oral (both f & m receiving). Thigh humping. Fingering. Light bondage. Angry Spencer. Semi humiliation kink. Edging/overstimulation. Bratty reader. Power imbalance kink. 18+

Masterlist| requests are open| Navigation

Spencer knew what he was getting into when he started dating you. You weren’t defiant, per se, you followed the rules but only when you thought necessary. You didn’t mind getting lectured by Hotch, in fact, Spencer thought it was something you enjoyed.

Spencer knew you would not be someone who would easily submit to anyone or anything. He knew you were going to be a challenge, he just underestimated how much of a challenge you were going to be.

It wasn't just your defiance that fascinated him; it was the way you effortlessly challenged authority without ever crossing the line. You had a knack for bending the rules while still managing to stay within their boundaries. It was as if you had an innate understanding of when to push back and when to surrender.

Even though you loved pushing Hotch’s and the FBI buttons, you loved pushing Spencer’s more. Normally you wouldn’t take it too far, just far enough where you knew you were in for a treat later on. Spencer would normally overstimulate you; he loved hearing you beg for forgiveness, saying sorry over and over again until all you could do was moan.

But you wanted to see how far you could take it with Spencer, what he would do. You decided to play it safe to start off with. Every time he spoke, you would roll your eyes. At first, he didn’t seem to acknowledge what you were doing, he would simply carry on talking. Though after about a day of doing this, he would glare at you.

But instead of discouraging you, his glare only fuelled the fire within you. You craved his attention, even if it meant pushing his limits. So, you intensified your defiance, not holding back anymore.

As Spencer continued to talk, you let out an exasperated sigh and crossed your arms, openly displaying your disinterest. The room fell silent, all eyes on you and Spencer. His glare intensified, a mix of frustration and intrigue evident in his eyes.

"Is there something you want to say?" he finally asked, his voice slightly strained.

You raised an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corner of your lips. "Oh, I'm sorry," you replied sarcastically. "I didn't realize I had to be interested in every little thing you have to say."

Spencer's jaw clenched as he fought to maintain his composure. He wasn't used to being challenged like this, especially not by someone he cared about. He didn’t say another word to you, he just took his eyes away and talked to the rest of your peers.

Once everyone had gone back to their desks, Spencer walked over to you. His eyes never leaving yours. “Roll your eyes one more time at me, and so help me God.” You could feel the tension in the air as Spencer stood before you, his voice low and controlled.

You knew you were starting to get to him, but you knew you could still take it further. “I thought you were an atheist, Spencer. Why are you asking God for help?” Even though your question was rhetorical, you asked it with a level of sincerity.

"Enough, Y/N," he growled, his voice full of warning. "You know exactly what I meant."

You could sense the shift in his demeanour, the underlying intensity that had been simmering beneath the surface. You had pushed him to his breaking point, and yet, you couldn't help but feel a strange surge of exhilaration coursing through your veins.

Spencer took a step closer, his proximity only heightening the charged atmosphere between you. The air crackled with unspoken desire and unyielding defiance. There was a part of you that wanted to relent, to submit to his authority, but another part revelled in the power play that unfolded before you.

"And what if I don't comply?" you challenged, your voice laced with defiance. "What will you do?"

He didn’t answer straightaway, so you answered for him. “Exactly, nothing. Maybe you should go back to your desk and get some work done before Hotch complains.”

Spencer's eyes flashed with a mix of frustration and desire as he watched you, the challenge in your voice only serving to further ignite the fire within him. He could feel his control slipping, his usual calm and composed demeanour unravelling at the sheer audacity of your defiance.

With a calculated move, he took another step closer, closing the distance between you. His voice dropped to a low whisper that sent shivers down your spine. "You underestimate me, Y/N," he said, his tone laced with a dangerous edge. "But I assure you, I'm more than capable of making you comply."

He walked back to his desk, not allowing you to have the final word. You could see that you had rattled him, and that only fuelled your determination to push him further. You wanted to see how far he would go, how much control he was willing to relinquish.

For the rest of the day, you played it cool, focusing on your work and pretending as though nothing had happened between you and Spencer. You barely looked up at him, you wanted him to think he had won for now.

But as the hours ticked by, you could feel Spencer's eyes on you, his gaze burning into your skin. You knew he was silently contemplating his next move, strategizing how to regain control over the situation. And you were eager to see what he had in store.

Finally, as the workday drew to a close, Spencer stood up from his desk and walked purposefully towards you. His steps were measured, his expression unreadable. When he reached you, he took hold of your arm firmly but gently, guiding you towards the exit.

"Where are we going?" you asked, feigning innocence even though you had an inkling of what Spencer had in mind.

He didn’t answer, he didn’t even look at you. “Spencer, where are we going? I wanted to go to Rossi’s tonight, he’s teaching us to make homemade linguini, remember?” He still remained silent though.

“Are you ignoring me? How mature Spencer.” Spencer's grip tightened on your arm as he led you outside, away from the prying eyes of your colleagues. The cool night air brushed against your skin, adding a layer of suspense to the already charged atmosphere between you.

"Enough, Y/N," he finally spoke, his voice laced with both frustration and desire. “You’ve being testing me all day. And I think it’s time someone reminded you who’s in charge here.”

“No one’s meant to be in charge in a relationship, but if you want, I can go grab Hotch, I mean he is the one in charge after all.” Spencer’s eyes narrowed, annoyance and irritation flashing across his face. He had reached his breaking point, his patience worn thin by your relentless defiance. Without a word, he grabbed your waist and pulled you into him, his grip firm and possessive.

"Enough games, Y/N," he growled, his voice dripping with authority. "You push me, you challenge me, but do not mistake it for a lack of control."

He leaned in closer, his hot breath fanning across your ear as he whispered, "You want to play? Fine. But just remember, I always win."

“You don’t always win. I mean you haven’t won today. And what about Rossi’s?”

Spencer's gaze bore into yours, his intensity unwavering. "Rossi's can wait," he replied, a hint of mischief in his voice. "Right now, I'm going to remind you who's in charge."

He walked you over to his car, letting go of your arm so he could open your door, a gesture he always did, not matter how angry he was with you.

You slid into the passenger seat, still unable to hide the smirk playing on your lips. Spencer closed your door and made his way to the driver's side, taking a moment to compose himself before he started the engine.

As the car roared to life, the tension inside the vehicle matched the charged atmosphere between you. Spencer's grip on the steering wheel was tight, his knuckles turning white as he navigated the streets with a precision that mirrored his meticulous nature.

You decided to break the silence, you wanted to apologies to him, not because you were actually sorry but because you wanted him to think you were. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I was just bored today, and I thought it would be fun seeing how far I could take things. But I now realise that’s something I shouldn’t have done. So, I am truly and utterly sorry.” Your voice calm, but low, so it seemed like a real apology.

He remained silent, his eyes never leaving the road. “Spencer, please respond. I didn’t mean to anger you, I thought you would find it fun.”

“I don’t want to hear excuses, or fake apologies. You obviously need to learn a lesson.” Spencer's voice was cold, devoid of any hint of forgiveness or understanding. The atmosphere in the car became suffocating, the tension thick enough to cut through with a knife. You swallowed hard, feeling a twinge of unease crawl up your spine.

As Spencer continued to drive, the surroundings began to blur into a blur of streetlights and passing buildings. His steely gaze never wavered from the road ahead, his control unyielding and unwavering. It was as if he had transformed into someone else entirely, someone you had never seen before.

You glanced at him cautiously, trying to gauge his reaction. The anger in his eyes was still palpable, but there was something else there too—a hunger that made your breath hitch and your heart race. You could feel the heat between you intensifying, an electrifying current that left you both exhilarated and apprehensive.

"Spencer," you whispered tentatively, reaching out to touch his arm. Your fingers brushed against his skin, feeling the warmth radiating from it. But before you could say anything more, he abruptly pulled his arm away, his gaze still locked on the road ahead.

"Don't touch me," he snapped, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. The sharpness of his tone startled you, causing your hand to retract back to your side.

Once he had pulled up to his apartment, you didn’t wait for him to open your door, and simply jumped out and waited for him. As you stood outside his apartment, you could feel the tension between you and Spencer reach its peak. The air crackled with anticipation, each passing second heightening your desire for him. You knew that this was the moment you had been waiting for, the culmination of your shared lust and pent-up frustration.

Spencer finally emerged from the car, his tall figure casting a shadow over you. He eyed you intently, his gaze burning with a mix of anger and longing. Without saying a word, he walked towards you and grabbed your wrist, pulling you towards the entrance of his building.

He pulled you up the stairs, not even letting go off you to open up his door. Once inside his apartment, Spencer slammed the door shut behind you, his eyes never leaving yours. The room was dimly lit, casting long shadows that danced across the walls, amplifying the intensity of the moment.

“Spencer, I said I’m sorry. What else do you want me to do?” Spencer's silence hung heavy in the air as he continued to hold your wrist tightly, his grip unyielding. The room felt smaller, the walls closing in around you, intensifying the sense of anticipation and unease. You watched as his eyes bore into yours, searching for any hint of sincerity in your words.

His voice was low and gravelly as he finally spoke, his tone laced with a mix of frustration and desire. "Sorry isn't enough, Y/N. Words won't be sufficient to teach you the lesson you so desperately need."

He paused for a second, trying to come up with a good enough punishment. “The only way you’re getting off tonight, is my thigh.”

"Are you serious?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. The intensity in his eyes was enough to confirm that this was no idle threat. He meant every word.

“I am very serious. Remember, you did this to yourself. If anything, I’m going too easy on you. Maybe I shouldn’t let you cum for the rest of the week, or make sure you struggle to walk for the next few days.”

You gasped, the gravity of his words sinking in. As much as his punishment excited you, it also stirred a deep sense of vulnerability within you.

"Spencer, please," you pleaded, your voice trembling with a mix of desire and apprehension. "I didn't mean to push you this far. I just wanted... I just wanted to feel your control."

A flicker of understanding flashed across his eyes, but he remained resolute. "Control is not something to be taken lightly, Y/N," he said sternly. "It is earned and respected. And tonight, you will learn exactly what it means to surrender."

He led you to the living room, fingers still wrapped tightly around your wrist. The atmosphere was heavy with anticipation, every second stretching out into eternity as you waited for his command.

"Undress," he ordered, his voice firm. A small part of you wanted to tell him that if he wants to see you naked, then he should undress you himself. But you knew then that would be pushing it a little too far.

He stood still, watching you as you unbuttoned your blouse, revealing a light blue lace bra. His eyes scanning your body, his tongue licking his lips. He looked at you as if you were prey. As you moved onto your trousers, his eyes followed. It was almost humiliating. He was staying fully dressed, while watching you undress yourself for him.

Your heart raced as you slid your trousers down your legs, feeling exposed under his unwavering gaze. "You look beautiful," Spencer murmured, his voice low and husky. His eyes continued to roam over your body, taking in every curve and dip, fuelling a fire deep within you. You couldn't help but feel a surge of pride at his words, even though you knew it was merely a precursor to the punishment that awaited you.

“But when I said undress, I meant fully.” His voice had gone back to being cold.

You hesitated for a moment, uncertain of whether you were ready to bare yourself completely. The room grew colder as you stood there, shivering slightly under his gaze. With a deep breath, you reached behind your back and unhooked your bra, letting it slide down your arms and dropping it to the floor.

Spencer's eyes darkened with a mix of desire and dominance as he watched you undress. The air crackled with tension, the anticipation thickening with each passing moment. You kicked off your panties, finally standing before him completely exposed and vulnerable.

You watched as he walked over to his sofa. He sat himself down and open his legs slightly. He patted his thigh, as if he were asking you to sit on it for him.

Taking a step forward, you approached him with a mixture of trepidation and longing. You felt the cool air brush against your bare skin, heightening your senses. With each fleeting moment, the anticipation grew, electrifying the atmosphere.

You positioned yourself in front of Spencer, his thigh invitingly raised and awaiting your compliance. Slowly, you straddled him, feeling the heat of his body radiating through his clothes. The contact sent a wave of electricity coursing through your veins, causing you to inhale sharply.

Spencer's hands found their way to your hips, gripping them firmly as he guided you onto his thigh. The pressure against your core was immediate, eliciting a soft moan from deep within your throat. The friction of his thigh against your sensitive flesh sent waves of pleasure crashing through your body, making it difficult to suppress the moans that threatened to escape your lips.

"Ride my thigh, Y/N," he growled, his voice laced with a raw hunger that sent shivers down your spine. "Show me how badly you want to be controlled."

Spencer's hands tightened their grip on your hips, guiding your movements with precision. Each motion sent a jolt of pleasure straight to your core, building the tight coil of desire within you. The room filled with the sound of your moans, mingling with Spencer's low groans of pleasure.

As you rode his thigh, the intensity of the moment consumed you. The room fell away, leaving only the two of you entangled in a dance of desire and control. Spencer's hands tightened on your hips, his fingers digging into your flesh as he guided your movements with expert precision.

“Is this all it takes for you to actually listen to me? You just want to cum huh?” He chuckled.

You only seemed to be able to nod your head, the only thing leaving your mouth were moans. “Maybe I should have asked you to grind against my shoes instead, you seem to be enjoying this too much.”

Your body trembled with a mixture of pleasure and desperation as Spencer's words sank in. The thought of grinding against his shoes sent a surge of excitement through you, despite the humiliation it would bring. You were at his mercy, completely under his control, and you craved more.

Spencer's grip on your hips tightened as he felt your body tense with desire. A wicked smile tugged at the corners of his lips, reflecting the dominance that radiated from him. With a sudden surge of confidence, he released your hips and reached down to unbutton his pants. The sound of metal against metal echoed through the room as he unzipped his fly, freeing himself from the confines of his trousers.

You watched with hungry eyes as Spencer's erection sprang free, standing proudly before you. A shiver ran down your spine as desire pooled between your thighs, the ache for release growing stronger by the second. The anticipation was palpable, hanging thickly in the air like an intoxicating fog.

"Get on your knees," Spencer commanded, his voice low and commanding. You obeyed without hesitation, the need to please him overpowering any remnants of resistance. Your knees sank into the plush carpet, bringing you eye level with his throbbing length.

You could feel his gaze burning into you as you took him in your hands, stroking his length firmly. A groan escaped from Spencer's lips; his head tilted back in pleasure. The power dynamic between you had shifted completely, and you revelled in the sense of control you now held.

With every stroke, Spencer grew harder in your grasp, his desire evident in the way he gripped onto the edge of the sofa. You marvelled at the way he responded to your touch, relishing in the way his body reacted to your every movement.

You leaned in closer, flicking your tongue against the sensitive tip of his cock. Spencer's breath hitched, a low growl rumbling from deep within his chest. He tangled his fingers in your hair, guiding you as you took him further into your mouth.

Your lips wrapped around him, the taste of his desire lingering on your tongue. You reveled in the power you held over him, eager to please and satisfy his every need. Your tongue glided along his length, tracing the veins that pulsed with his desire. Spencer's grip on your hair tightened, his hips canting forward, urging you to take him deeper.

The intensity of the moment consumed you as you surrendered completely to him. Each thrust of his hips brought you closer to the edge, your own desire building with every flicker of your tongue against his sensitive flesh. Your senses heightened, the sound of his moans filling the room, mingling with your own pleasure-filled gasps.

Spencer's control wavered as he neared the precipice of release. His grip on your hair became tighter, guiding you with an urgency that matched the rhythm of his thrusts. The powerful waves of pleasure coursed through him, radiating from every inch of his being.

As Spencer's release neared, you could feel the tension in his body intensify. His breaths became ragged and irregular, and you could sense that he was on the verge of losing his grip on control. With a final, desperate thrust, he released himself into your mouth.

You swallowed eagerly, savouring the taste of him as his essence filled your senses. The primal satisfaction that filled the room was overwhelming, leaving you both breathless and intoxicated with desire.

Spencer collapsed back onto the sofa, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. You rose from your knees, licking your lips and savouring the lingering taste of him on your tongue.

Spencer knew he wasn’t done with you yet; he knew this wasn’t a proper punishment. Spencer's eyes burned with a renewed determination as he met your gaze. Despite the intense pleasure that still lingered within you, there was a hunger for more, an unquenchable longing that pulsed through your veins.

"Get on the bed," he commanded, his voice low and commanding. The room seemed to dim around you, shadows dancing against the walls, as you obeyed his command.

The bed beckoned you, its soft sheets invitingly cool against your heated skin. You climbed onto it, positioning yourself on all fours, ready and exposed for whatever Spencer had in mind.

Spencer stood up from the sofa, his eyes fixed on your vulnerable form on the bed. He moved towards you slowly, the anticipation building with each step. As he reached the edge of the bed, he trailed a finger lightly along your spine.

He reached over to the nightstand and retrieved a length of silk rope, his eyes never leaving yours. With a swift motion, he secured your wrists together, binding them tightly but not painfully. You tested the restraints instinctively, feeling the rush of helplessness mingling with arousal.

With your wrists secured, Spencer moved to the foot of the bed, his gaze darkening with a predatory hunger. He wasted no time, his hands trailing up your legs, skimming over the sensitive flesh of your inner thighs. A shiver ran through you, anticipation coiling tightly in your core.

His touch was teasing, tormenting, as he neared the apex of your thighs. His fingers danced along the edges of your arousal, but never fully delved into it. It was a maddeningly slow torture that left you trembling with need.

"Please," you whispered, unable to contain the desperation in your voice. The ache within you was unbearable, the longing for release. Spencer's lips curled into a devilish smile, relishing in the power he held over you. He leaned in, his breath hot against your ear as he whispered, "Patience, my love. I deserve patience after the stunts you pulled today.”

His fingers continued their torturous dance along your inner thighs, inching closer to your throbbing core. Every brush of his fingertips ignited a fire within you, intensifying the ache for release. Your body quivered with need, yearning for his touch to finally grant you the satisfaction you craved.

Finally, Spencer's fingers made contact with your slick folds, teasingly skimming against your sensitive entrance. A gasp escaped your lips as he dipped a single finger inside, drawing out a slow, deliberate stroke that had you arching your back in sheer ecstasy. Each movement was precise, calculated to push you closer to the edge without granting you the climax you so desperately sought.

"More," you begged, your voice filled with a desperation that matched the wildfire burning within you. Spencer's eyes gleamed with delight at your plea, relishing in the power he held over your pleasure.

With a wicked smile, he added another finger, curling them inside you expertly, hitting that spot that made your entire body quiver with every stroke. The intensity of the pleasure built rapidly, transcending everything else in the room. Your moans filled the air, mingling with the sound of his fingers slipping in and out of you.

But just as you were on the precipice of release, Spencer pulled his fingers out, leaving you gasping and reaching for something to cling onto. The sudden emptiness made you whimper with frustration. Spencer's eyes held an intoxicating mix of dominance and satisfaction as he watched you squirm on the bed.

"You don't get to come yet," he murmured huskily. "Not until I've had my fill." Spencer's words hung in the air, teasing, and taunting you. Every fibber of your being throbbed with desire, yearning for release. The hunger in his eyes reflected your own as he positioned himself between your spread legs.

Lowering his head, Spencer's hot breath fanned across your sensitive flesh. His lips brushed against your inner thighs, peppering soft kisses along the way, deliberately avoiding the centre of your need. The anticipation was agonizing, a delicious torment that made your body ache for his touch.

Finally, his tongue flicked out and traced a slow circle around your swollen clit. A gasp escaped your lips as pleasure surged through you. He continued to tease, alternating between gentle licks and firm sucks that had you writhing beneath him.

Each flicker of his tongue against your most intimate place intensified the fire within you. Your hips rocked instinctively, seeking more friction, more pleasure. But Spencer held firm control over your pleasure, denying you the release you so desperately craved. He continued his torturous ministrations, never relenting, never granting you the satisfaction of that mind-numbing climax.

Your body trembled with every stroke of his tongue, your need escalating to a maddening frenzy. The room was filled with the symphony of your moans, your pleas mixed with the wet sounds of his mouth on your throbbing core. The tension coiled tighter and tighter within you, threatening to shatter your sanity.

Spencer's hands gripped your hips, holding you firmly in place as he devoured you with an insatiable hunger. You were at his mercy, surrendering yourself completely to his touch. The pulsating waves of pleasure radiated through every fibber of your being, bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

Just when you thought you couldn't take it anymore, when the ache for release became unbearable, Spencer pulled away.

Your whole body cried out in protest at the sudden absence of his touch. You whimpered, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. Spencer's dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he watched you, revelling in the control he had over your pleasure.

"Please," you begged, your voice dripping with need. "I need to cum."

Spencer's lips curled into a wicked smile, knowing full well the power he held over your satisfaction. He crawled up the bed, positioning himself over you, his hard length brushing against your thigh. The hunger in his eyes was palpable as he captured your gaze.

"Oh, my love," he murmured, his voice low and seductive. "I'm not done with you yet. I want to watch you unravel completely."

His words sent a shiver down your spine, desire pooling between your legs once again. Spencer grasped your wrists, releasing them from their restraints, allowing you to wrap your arms around him.

With a swift motion, Spencer positioned himself at your entrance, teasing you with the head of his throbbing length. The anticipation was maddening, the need for him to fill you overwhelming every inch of your being. You let out a soft whimper, begging him to take you, to quell the ache that consumed you.

But Spencer relished in your desperation, leaning down to capture your lips in a searing kiss, his tongue plundering your mouth with a hunger that matched your own. It was a battle of dominance and surrender as your tongues danced and clashed, melding together in a frenzied embrace.

When he finally pulled away, his lips trailed down your neck, peppering heated kisses along the curve of your throat. His breath was hot against your skin, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. As his teeth grazed along the sensitive flesh, a bolt of pleasure shot through you, electrifying every nerve ending.

With agonizing slowness, Spencer entered you, his hard length filling you inch by inch. You gasped at the delicious stretch, the feeling of him stretching you to your limits. The pleasure was almost overwhelming, a mix of pain and ecstasy that had your body arching off the bed in pure bliss.

He began to move within you, his thrusts slow and deliberate. Each stroke sent waves of pleasure radiating through your body, intensifying the ache for release that had been building within you for so long. Your fingers clenched against the silk restraints, the sensation of being bound adding an extra layer of arousal.

Spencer's pace quickened, his thrusts becoming harder and faster. He knew exactly how to push your buttons, hitting that spot deep inside you with every powerful stroke. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, mingling with your moans and gasps.

Your senses were completely consumed by the pleasure, nothing else existing except for the connection between you and Spencer. His gaze locked with yours, his eyes filled with an intensity that matched the blaze within you. Every movement, every thrust, carried you further and further into a state of raw ecstasy. The world around you faded away, leaving only the two of you entwined in a dance of desire.

As Spencer's rhythm became more erratic, your body responded in kind, meeting his every movement with unyielding fervour. The bed rocked beneath you, a symphony of creaks and moans echoing through the room. Sweat glistened on your skin, the scent of desire mingling with the air.

Time lost all meaning as pleasure coiled tightly within you, ready to unravel at any moment. The fire burned within your core, threatening to consume you whole. Spencer's fingers dug into your hips, his grip possessive yet exhilarating.

With one final thrust, the dam broke.

An explosion of sensation ripped through your body as waves of pleasure crashed over you. Your nails dug into his skin. He quickly followed you, releasing his seed deep in you.

He pulled out and had a look a triumph plastered across his face. “I think we should probably get ready to leave now, huh?”

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crosshairlovebot · 25 days

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enclosed intentions / crosshair gn!reader

pairing: crosshair x gn!reader (no y/n). reader has a nickname.

description: amid your growing feelings for the silver-haired sniper, you and crosshair are paired together on a mission that goes awry, which brings to light intentions you've been aching to know.

word count: 9,934 (pHEW!!)

warnings: near-death experience (everyone lives). landslide. heavy storms. enclosed spaces. minor injury. minor injury description. making out. light angst.

been wanting to write another crosshair fic for a while bc he's my GUY and i love him!!! season 3 is only fuelling the burning fire he stokes in my chest. i hope you enjoy this! strap in! it's a long one! (sorry if there are any errors, i've edited this but it's so long it's entirely possible that i missed some <3)

also posted this on ao3. feedback is welcomed, reblogs are appreciated.

More often than not, Clone Force 99 was sent on dangerous missions – missions too specialised for the regular battalions and squads that filled the Grand Army of the Republic. The missions that troubled Jedi Generals regarding the potential loss of men. But Clone Force 99 and their specialised skills took on those missions with ease, enthusiasm even.

You were about to embark on another one of those missions.

When you’d first joined the GAR as a medic, you’d heard rumours about the squad of defective clones and their enhanced skills, and you would be lying if you said you weren’t impressed by their reportedly unbroken mission success.

When Echo walked into your medbay after he’d been rescued from Skako Minor and you were the first to check over him – making him feel comfortable after years of prodding and inhumane treatment – it only made sense for you to join the team as a field medic to continue to treat him and the other members of the squad.

Though they were initially dubious of the idea of a nat-born joining their ranks, they had always been a misfit crew – you were only another addition to that, and it wasn’t long before your presence with the squad felt like being at home.

You got on with each of the members well, even if they grumbled and complained about your regularly scheduled medical check-ups after missions.

Tech was a great help in collating the medical files he’d made from when he acted as the informal medic. You joked along with Wrecker, who often used you as an alternate barbell, lifting you over his head to warm up before a mission. Hunter often conferred with you before mission briefings to go over any hazards that could harm them. Echo was probably your strongest bond, the trust that existed between you both created a level of closeness not shared with the other members of the squad.

But Crosshair…

You’d soon discovered that Crosshair was weary of anyone who wasn’t part of his immediate family, and you joining Clone Force 99 – and in such constant close quarters, meant your relationship with the sharpshooter was a little more distant than the others.

You tried not to let it bother you so much, but it was hard when you were joking with Wrecker, and you could feel Crosshair’s discerning enhanced eyes on you. You often ignored his gaze as best you could, but sometimes you would look over at him, and hold his eyes for a moment before he got up and walked away.

You wish you knew what those looks meant. You would lay in your bunk at night, and think about it, trying to piece together any patterns and figure out why Crosshair’s eyes never seemed to truly leave you.

Despite the distance between you both, it didn’t deter your intrigue about him. There was something about him that drew your attentions towards him.

If you didn’t feel his eyes on you, your eyes would find him. He was so fascinating to watch. Everything he did, he did with purpose; intention. Nothing about Crosshair was insignificant. Every word, every gesture, every look held meaning. You liked trying to figure it out, but you had yet to decipher much of it – especially when it was directed at you. He was like a puzzle that didn’t want to be solved, hiding all his answers in disappearing ink, you had to hold him up to the light to try and unravel him. You wished he would let you, but his terse demeanour kept you at bay - not wanting to disturb what balance you had.

So you were content to watch him from a distance. He was methodical about everything. Cleaning his rifle the same way after every mission, never missing a step, always performing each of them in the same order. His armour went on the same way. You would watch how his toothpicks would always dangle from his lips as he cleaned his prized weapon, and you would almost be hypnotised by the way he moved the wooden stick between his teeth. You spent so much time staring at his mouth, that you could probably draw it from memory.

He was magnetising.

Whenever you needed to perform a medical check on him, you would do so quietly and draw it out, as if trying to soak up every moment of the closeness to him, catalogue it all.

When it came to checking his hands, you would gently hold them in your palms and gently massage the joints that could get cramped from holding the rifle tightly. You would check the nerves with a light prick on each fingertip and around the palm. Those examinations were so tense, his eyes on you the entire time watching your every move in the tiny medbay on the Marauder. You could barely focus in that room, there was nowhere to hide from his sharp eyes. And when you dared meet his gaze, his eyes would hold yours in a way that left you breathless and you were never able to look him in the eyes for very long. They’d look right into yours, an expression dancing in them you could never place.

But he never said anything to you – not unless you asked him a question about pain. But you’d think about each interaction for days afterwards.

Your silent exchanges filled your head at night, spilling over into your dreams. Dreams where those hands you’d just inspected in the waking world would be holding you tightly, that mouth you’d stared at brushing against your cheek and neck, whispering things you pretended not to remember once you woke. You’d wake up from those dreams confused, still feeling the ghost of his touches on you. It didn’t hit you until several dreams later that that initial intrigue had given way to feelings much deeper; to an intense crush that only seemed to build the longer you spent with Clone Force 99.

If anyone else noticed, they never said anything. You carried on as normal and hoped Hunter’s heightened senses didn’t pick up on the way your face heated or your heartbeat increased when Crosshair was near.

Except the silence between you broke a few days ago.

After the last mission, you were scheduled to do the weekly checks on the squad. You always left Crosshair until last, knowing he liked to clean his rifle as soon as the mission debrief was over. When you called him into the tiny room, he sat down on the bench, and you completed the first part of the check-up smoothly.

It was when you were massaging one of his hands, loosening the stiffness with your own fingers, that you felt his close around yours.

You had stilled and slowly looked up at him. His brown-eyed gaze met yours and you felt the air get sucked out of your lungs. You watched his eyes flick between yours, his throat working as his fingers were warm around yours. He was holding your hand, and it was warm and strong despite its slenderness. It was such an innocent gesture, and yet the sensation of his touch made your face burn and heat unfurl in your chest as your feelings for the sniper were unleashed in full force. You didn’t know what to do, but you would be lying if you didn’t like the feel of his fingers around yours. But this was Crosshair – the Crosshair who barely spoke to you, who watched you like he was analysing your every move.

“A-am I hurting you?” you managed to stammer out.

Crosshair blinked, seemingly jolting himself out of a trance and pulled his hands away roughly, frowning. “No.” His voice was like gravel, and he stood up and quickly left the room, check-up unfinished.

You had no idea what had happened, what you had done, what he had done, but you stood in that room trying to quell your racing heart for ages before you worked up the nerve to emerge. You spent that night thinking about the warmth of his fingers around yours and the way his throat bobbed like he wanted to tell you something.

What was it that he wanted to say? You knew Crosshair was always intentional in everything he did, so what was his intention with holding your hand like that?

Now, as the Marauder flew into a planet you couldn’t remember the name of, you felt those brown eyes on you from where Crosshair sat in one of the seats in the cockpit, his arms crossed and toothpick between his lips. Echo helped Tech guide the ship as Wrecker bench-pressed Gonky in the corridor. Hunter stood nearby as you held onto the back of Tech’s pilot seat as the ship flew into the planet’s atmosphere.

Since joining the squad a mere two months ago, you had been to more planets than you ever thought you would visit in your entire lifetime, but you had never seen anything like this.

The sky was full of enormous floating rocks, with thick greenery on top. You didn’t know how they stayed floating like this.

“This place is unbelievable,” you murmured. “How is this possible?”

“The rocks are held up by the planet’s unique gravity, creating a balanced pull that tethers the rock to its place. Think of them as miniature planets that exist within the atmosphere,” Tech explained.

You hummed in amazement as Tech flew past them all and steered towards the planet’s surface, which lay beneath a thick bank of dark clouds. The clouds gave way to rocky terrain, with a mountain range that jutted up from the ground haphazardly, not unlike their floating counterparts, as well as canyons and valleys. The whole planet seems to be rocks in various states. Tech landed the ship in a clear area and then everyone turned to Hunter.

“So, what’s the plan, Hunter?” Wrecker called out, finally giving Gonky a rest and placing him back on the ground.

Everyone gathered around a holomap Hunter had brought up. You felt Crosshair slide in next to you, his crossed arms grazing yours. Heat prickled your skin, the memory of the warmth of his fingers coming to life again, and you shifted slightly, drawing your arms closer to your body. You looked up at him but for once, his gaze wasn’t on you, but on the blue graphics in front of him. Your face burned. It was embarrassing how much of an effect he had on you, and even more so now after that moment in the medbay. He seemed to have completely forgotten about it, and here you were still having phantom feelings of the way his fingers wrapped around yours.

“We divide our squad,” Hunter begins. “Break off into pairs. The mineral we’ve been sent to recover is located across this entire sector, but according to Tech, not all of it will be viable.”

“There is a very narrow window in which the mineral is usable, and it will be difficult to find. But we will need to be cautious. The viable mineral is highly volatile when handled. And there’s an incoming storm headed this way, and due to the unique gravitational field on this planet, the storms here are quite lethal,” Tech tapped on his datapad.

You took a deep breath in. It appeared there was a lot that could go wrong.

Hunter nodded. “I can feel it. We’ll need to move fast, so let’s get going. Echo, you’re with me in the Badlands. Tech and Wrecker, you head west for the Valley. And that leaves Crosshair with N’edee up in the Mountains. Comm if you find any viable mineral and triangulate your position as best you can for reference before extracting as much as possible. Then head back to the Marauder where we’ll reconvene. Questions?”

Everyone shook their head. “The terrain is tough out there, so let’s try to avoid N’edee having to patch up any injuries,” Hunter added, sending you a smile. Everyone nodded before Hunter signalled everyone to move out.

N’edee was the little Mando’a nickname they’d appointed you. It meant ‘no bite’. After you’d first joined, you’d witnessed your first ever disagreement between Crosshair and Hunter and, not used to their scuffles yet, tried to mediate between them. They were so amused it stopped the argument and earned you the name – since you’d rather try to keep the peace instead of letting them fight it out.

Now, you knew better, but the name stuck. You wished you hated it, but Crosshair’s smirk as he called you it the first time was the first time he ever sort of smiled at you.

And the last.

The squad grabbed their gear, and you strapped your med pack to your back and holstered a blaster you barely ever used. You felt your whole body go into overdrive, not only because of the risk of the mission but also because you were paired off with Crosshair. The thought of being so close; just the two of you sent nerves running through you. If it was anyone else, you wouldn’t hesitate to ask what happened in the medbay, and try and sort it out and move forward, but you didn’t have that kind of closeness with Crosshair. There was no way you felt comfortable bringing up the way he held your hand – this was an important mission, and you didn’t want to risk ruining it by making Crosshair uncomfortable and clam up so tight you’d lose the modicum of trust you had.

Whenever intention he’d had, you weren’t destined to ever know what it was. So, you’d just have to take a page out of his book and pretend it never happened.

You made your way down the Marauder’s gangplank to find Crosshair waiting for you, helmet under his arm and holding the barrel of the sniper with his free hand as the hilt rested on the ground. He was the only one there, the others had already started their treks. You quickened your steps down as he looked over at you, heat blooming up your neck.

“Sorry,” you told him. Crosshair shook his head, either dismissing the apology or disappointed in your slowness to get ready – you couldn’t tell.

“Let’s go, the storm’s moving quickly,” he informed in that way of his. He placed his helmet on and started walking. You watched him walk away, not looking back at you as his long legs carried him quickly through the rocky ground in the direction of the mountain range.

“Try and keep up,” he called back, and you huffed, adjusting your med pack and jogging after him.

Crosshair kept a quick pace as you both walked, and his height didn’t help. The rhythmic beeping of the scanner Tech provided you with and your footsteps were the only sound between you both. You tried to keep up as best you could as you approached the base of the mountain range, but you were still lagging a couple of metres behind him.

You had been worried about the awkwardness a conversation about what happened in the medbay would bring, and yet you were not even close enough to have one.

You huffed, a light sheen of sweat covering your brow, as you stepped over a bunch of rocks, moving between them as best you could, looking down at your feet to ensure you didn’t fall. The weather was beginning to change, and you knew the storm was getting closer as the wind picked up and nearly knocked you off balance a few times. But you had still to find any viable mineral. You looked at the scanner and saw it was indeed picking up signs of the mineral, but none of it was suitable – either too old or too young a sample. You sighed. This was going to take longer than you thought, and you only hoped you had more luck once you reached the mountains, and that the storm would hold off.

“Watch your step,” Crosshair called back to you. You looked up to watch him as he stepped on a boulder and jumped down into what must’ve been a small ditch at the foot of the mountain range. You frowned and kept walking. As you got closer, you were surprised as you realised he was waiting for you. His helmet was trained on you as you reached the rock and you tried to pretend like it wasn’t a big deal to you. You stepped on top of the boulder, the wind whipping around you as his gaze tilted up at you. For once, you towered over him. You couldn’t help but smile playfully at him.

“So, this is what the world must look like for you,” you joked, trying to ease the tension that was still thick between you.

Crosshair let out a small scoff at your joke before holding out his hand. “Hurry up.”

You widened your eyes at his extended hand, your eyes flicking to it and then back to his visor. After the medbay, you hardly imagined he’d be offering a hand to you again in a clinical setting, let alone to help you descend a boulder. You looked at his outstretched hand, letting a moment pass as you waited for him to retract it, but he didn’t.

This gesture was intentional.

You slowly placed your hand in his. His hand was as warm and strong as it was several days ago, and the familiarity of it made your insides jolt as you felt it wrap around your palm. The nerve endings in your hand tingled in excitement as they ignited from his touch. Heat coiled its warmth through your whole body as you crouched down to a sitting position, doing your best not to topple over not only from the wind. He helped you slide off the edge down to where he was standing, his hand steadying you.

You wobbled on your feet slightly as you landed, and you looked up at him, wishing he wasn’t wearing his helmet right now so you could discern his steely gaze. Though you had a feeling his bare face still would not betray anything of what was going on in his head.

Was he acknowledging what happened? Or was he just being considerate of the terrain?

Before you could open your mouth with a ‘thank you’, he let go of your hand and started walking up a pathway that seemed to wind up the mountain.

You guessed it was not the former.

You took in a shaky breath, body tingling with the remnants of his touch as you felt its cold absence and started after him; scanner poised as you walked.

The pathway up the mountain was wide enough to walk on, but too narrow to walk side by side comfortably without worry of falling over the edge. So, you trailed behind Crosshair once again, who had now slowed down that the route had grown more precarious. You clenched your jaw as you followed his steps carefully, avoiding any loose rocks as you walked. You tried not to think about the increasing ascension of the mountain, the ground below getting smaller and smaller the higher you both trekked as you continued to scan the side of the mountain for any trace of a viable source of the mineral, but still, there was nothing.

The higher you moved the wind that whipped around both your bodies increased as the clouds rolled in. You had to move your hand alongside the mountain as you waked, too afraid you’d blow away as the gusts of wind threatened to knock you over.

You’d been walking for a few hours by now and with the weather getting worse, the constant pace was starting to wear on you; arms and legs sore and feet aching, face stinging. You looked out over the cliff and saw you were almost halfway up, and the sky was getting darker as the storm continued to draw closer. Every time you looked, it seemed to be moving towards you quicker, so as much as you wanted to stop and rest, you knew that you couldn’t – especially when you looked ahead at Crosshair and saw he didn’t seem to show any signs of exhaustion.

Though you knew clones had been engineered to withstand increased levels of physical exertion, you still felt inadequate not being able to keep up. Even after two months with the squad, you still weren’t used to the physicality of the missions. You weren’t initially trained as a field medic, but you still didn’t want to look like you couldn’t handle this simple mission – even if it was more gruelling than you anticipated. So, you gritted your teeth and kept walking, despite the way your body protested with each step.

Crosshair began to slow before he stopped and turned to look at you. “Picking up anything?”

You shook your head and hoped you didn’t sound as puffed out as you felt. “Nothing viable. Not even a false read.”

Crosshair grumbled. “Another wild bantha chase.”

You tried to sound upbeat, but you weren’t fooling anyone. “Maybe the others have had more luck?”

“Maybe,” Crosshair said, his helmeted face drifting from you to the sky. He removed his helmet and scowled as the storm drew closer and closer to your position on the mountain. It was close enough now that you began to see flashes of lightning strike within the clouds, and you jolted when a crack of thunder sounded like it was almost on top of you.

“The storm is too close,” he said, shaking his head in concern.

“I know. Should we head back to the Marauder?”

“There’s no time. We need a pickup,” Crosshair sighed and placed his helmet back on, pressing the side of his helmet. “Hunter, do you copy?”

You watched him, hand gripping the mountain as the wind grew stronger with each passing second. You were starting to feel spits of rain hit your skin as more thunder and lightning struck. Your body was shaking with exhaustion and all you wanted to do was lie down in a safe place and fall asleep.

“Wrecker? Do you copy? Tech? Echo? Hunter, are you there?” Crosshair spoke into his comm, his voice getting harder with every word. He let out a frustrated sigh.

“I can’t reach them. There’s too much atmospheric interference with the storm, maybe even the gravity too.”

You looked at him and tried not to sound panicked, but you knew your face betrayed you anyway. “What do we do?”

A crack of thunder sounded, and it was like the sky was splitting open. The mountain shook under your feet, and you fell to your knees, yelping. You felt Crosshair crouch next to you, a hand on your back to steady you. You looked up at him as the rain started to pelt down heavily on you both. You tried to shield your face, but the rain was so heavy it felt like knives cutting as it hit the skin of your face.

Crosshair hooked a hand under your arm and hauled you up. “We have to move.”

“We need to get off this mountain!” You shouted over the rain.

“We need to find shelter. Come on,” Crosshair skirted you in front of him and you both started to run up the path in the pouring rain. You held a hand against your brow to try and see, but the rain and wind intensified more than you thought possible, blurring your vision.

“Crosshair, I can’t—”

You slipped on a rock loosened by the wet ground. You cried out and fell forward, landing on your hands harshly. You felt your palms sting as you tried to get to your feet, but Crosshair slid his hands under your armpits and lifted you just as there was a flash of bright light, and the mountain shook again, this time more violently. It felt like the lightning had hit the mountain this time, and when you tried to look up to check, your worst fears were confirmed as the sound of rocks tumbling began to get louder over the heavy rain. Panic coursed through your veins.

“Go!” Crosshair yelled, hand steady on your arm as you both ran, him pulling you forward. You could feel rocks landing behind you and you tried to run faster, skin numb from the rain.

“There’s a cave up ahead! Hurry!” Crosshair shouted as he led you towards the mouth of the cave. Your thighs and calves burned, and Crosshair pulled you inside just as rocks fell and covered the entrance of the cave, trapping you both inside.

You fell to your knees, catching your breath as you looked around and realised how dark it was. You’re eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, so could barely see anything, but you heard Crosshair’s body hit the ground nearby as he sat down, grunting as he took his helmet off. His breath moved quickly too as you blinked and tried reaching out to see where he was.

“Crosshair?” you said, patting the hard ground next to you until you found his knee.

“I’m here,” he said, placing a hand over yours. You sucked in a breath as his fingers curled around yours. “You okay?” He asked, his voice raspy.

Your heartbeat which had only just started to slow, picked up again as he held your hand again. How many more times was this going to happen? Would you ever not freak out when he touched you now? Was that his intention?

You swallowed. “Yeah, I’m okay. Are you?”

You felt the muscles in his hand flex. “Yeah.”

You took in a shaky breath and let him hold your hand again, relishing in the feel of his fingers wrapped around yours for a moment, so warm and solid. The feel of his knee under your palm, a part of the body you had originally thought completely savoury until this very moment. After a moment too long of no sound except the roaring rain on the other side of the rock, you cleared your throat before you felt around you with your other hand. “I can’t see.”

“I can.”

You blushed profusely and hoped to the Force you didn’t look as bewildered as you felt. “Right. Of course.”

Crosshair slowly let go of your hand but made a point of keeping your empty palm on his knee, like he knew you needed to feel him close by.

The word intentional flashed in your mind.

Your stomach turned over at the gesture and you wiped your face with your other hand, shoulders beginning to shake. You heard Crosshair take off his pack and scramble through it, pulling out a small light that he usually placed on the end of his rifle. He clicked it on, and you shielded your eyes, before blinking your vision clear. Now you could see Crosshair’s face half illuminated, his brow was creased as he held out the light to you.

“Thanks,” you said, taking it from him. You pointed it around the cave and realised it was not so much a cave, but an oversized cavity in the side of the mountain. It wasn’t very deep, and it looked like its width was only a little bigger than Crosshair was tall. But it had saved your lives. You looked behind you, at the rocks that had fallen there.

“How are we going to get out of here?” you asked, running the light over the edge of the cave to see if there were any openings, but there were none substantial enough for you to try and get leverage to move the rocks that blocked you both in. Some rain fell through the cracks, the water landing on the rock as the storm carried on outside. That was good – at least you had some airflow.

“We need to wait for the storm to pass before we can see if comms will work to call the others,” Crosshair explained. “If we can’t contact them, we’ll have to wait for them to find us.”

The thought of being trapped in here for an undetermined amount of time made your heartbeat begin to race. “And if they can’t find us?”

“They will.” Crosshair’s conviction was comforting. You’d learnt that his belief in his brothers was unwavering, and never misplaced. If he believed that they would find them, then you did too.

You looked at him, careful not to shine the light in his sensitive eyes. His gaze was on you, and this might’ve been the first time you didn’t feel the need to avert your eyes. As intense as his gaze was, it was soft, and the brown of his eyes shined in the low light. Your hand was still on his knee and your eyes flicked down to it. You didn’t know if removing it would make it more awkward, or if leaving it there would. In the split-second moment, you were debating it in your head, with your body still shaking when Crosshair interrupted your thoughts.

“You’re shivering,” Crosshair said. “You need to get dry.”

You looked up at him and realised just how much you were shivering, now that the adrenaline had worn off. Your clothes were soaked through from the downpour, and the chill was sinking into your bones. You knew that if you didn’t get dry, you would get hypothermic.

You held out the light to Crosshair to take, which he did wordlessly. With shaky hands, you pulled your med pack off your back and placed it in front of you. Crosshair shined the light where you needed it as you searched through the items for a reflective blanket and when you found it, you pulled it out, the light bouncing off the shiny fabric. You looked at Crosshair, heat crawling up your neck.

“Um, I need to…”

Crosshair turned his head immediately but kept the light pointed in your direction. As quickly as you could, embarrassment flooding your trembling frame, you removed the layers of clothes you had on. You kept on the black GAR issue bodysuit you wore under all your clothes, even if it was slightly damp – you weren’t going to be completely bare with just a blanket between you and Crosshair. As you stripped everything off, you noticed the palms of your hands were grazed from the fall, and it hurt to move them as the skin stretched. You would deal with it once you weren’t shivering anymore, but the priority right now was to get warm.

Once you piled all your clothes together – there was no hope in everything drying whilst you were stuck in here, you pulled your knees to your chest and wrapped the reflective blanket around you tightly.

“Okay.” You said and Crosshair looked over and he squinted as the light bounced off the blanket, gaze searching your frame.

“What about your hands?”

“My hands?”

“You fell. I saw your palms are grazed.”

He was so perceptive, you wondered what else he saw that he never acknowledged. “I’ll patch them up after I stop shaking,” you told him, wrapping the blanket tighter.

Crosshair shook his head. “Aren’t you always telling us that injuries should be treated as soon as possible? Give me this—” he pulled the med pack in front of him and pointed the light inside.

“Crosshair—” You said as he dug around your pack, pulling out some antibac wipes and bacta patches. “You don’t have to. It’s not your job.”

Crosshair sent you a withering look before he placed the light between his teeth and gestured for you to show him your hands. You sighed and pulled your hands out of the blanket as best you could without it slipping off your shoulders. You turned your palms up, still slightly tremoring. They weren’t bleeding, but they were red and rubbed raw from the gravel you landed on. And they stung, but you were trying to be brave about it.

They were easily treatable, but your hands didn’t look pretty, that’s for sure.

Crosshair looked at them, adjusting the light in his mouth so they were completely illuminated before he shook his head with a frown, ripped open an antibac wipe, and cradled one of your hands in his.

He met your eyes, a silent question in their gentle expression as his hand was poised, wipe ready to be drawn across your palms. You’d never seen him look at you like this before; this softly. It was so easy for your crush to bloom when he looked at you like this. You looked into his brown-eyed gaze, cheeks heated, and you nodded.

Crosshair gently placed the wipe on your palms, and you sucked in a breath as it stung the exposed skin. You felt the hand that cradled yours tighten and then he slowly began to clean the wound. With his attention on your hand, you could watch him unabashedly. The roles between you had now reversed. He was treating your hands as attentively as you treated his. The way he held your hand in his large palm was so gentle that your heart fluttered. You could feel the heat permeate from under his gloves into your skin, and you felt your hand slowly begin to still, the warmth returning to you with his touch. You were so touched at the way he was doing this for you, without you even asking. The way he insisted upon it. You hadn’t expected it after the medbay, and you ignored the little voice in the back of your head that asked what his intention was and simply savoured this moment of kindness from the man you were hopelessly crushing on.

He was as methodical as he was when cleaning his rifle, wiping the wound on one hand in even strokes that coated all the raw skin twice before he moved to the other hand, a new wipe this time.

You watched the way the light was poised between his teeth, and when his eyes flicked to yours for a moment, you averted your gaze back to your hands reflexively. You heard him breathe out through his nose harshly as he discarded the wipe and grabbed a bacta patch, pressing it between his palms to warm the liquid. You watched him, your eyes meeting his tattooed gaze once again as your hands remained suspended between you.

You thought back to the medbay, at how his fingers had curled around yours so naturally like it was instinctual; at the way he pulled his hands away so quickly and so forcefully it was like your hands had been burnt; at how fast he’d left you standing there, reeling from his actions. You tried to think of what his intention had been, and what you had done that had made him retreat.

“I’m sorry…for the other day.” Your voice was quiet in the small space. The storm continued to rage outside, but there was no way he hadn’t heard you. Crosshair looked at you, knowing exactly what it was you were referring to, and placed the bacta patches in one hand before removing the light from his mouth to talk, confusion etched into his brow.

“Why?”

You brought your lips between your teeth as your eyes flicked between his. “Because I upset you.”

Crosshair looked at you for a moment, an undiscernible expression passed over his half-shadowed face as your eyes stayed locked on each other. What you would give to know what he was thinking, what thoughts swirled in his head. Two months of watching him had barely scratched the surface – you wanted to know everything, to be privy to the innermost workings of his mind.

Crosshair was the first to break his gaze, shaking his head.

“You didn’t upset me.”

You frowned at him, but before you could ask him what he meant, he had placed the end of the light back between his teeth and started applying the bacta patches to your palms, activating the adhesive and smoothing them down over your hands with his thumbs. He held one of your hands in both of his, his fingertips touching the back of your hand as he ran his thumbs along the edges of the bacta patch. He pressed them gently down, and you could already feel the bacta doing its job. He did the same thing to the other side.

You watched him and you realised you’d never felt so cared for before. Never had you been held so gently, treated with such practised methodical hands that were also so soft and caring. Your heart swelled.

He took the light out of his mouth. “Bandages?”

You cleared your throat. “They’re in the side pocket.”

Crosshair took some out and started wrapping your hands up so the bacta patch would be more secure. He was so good at this. With the light dangling from his teeth, he circled the bandage around one hand, before he tied it off and tucked the end, and then the same on the other side.

When he was done, he dropped his hands from yours and removed the light from his teeth for the final time.

You looked at your hands. You couldn’t have treated them better if you had done it yourself. You hadn’t even had to coach him through what to do, and that impressed you. It only made the warmth in your chest grow, that hopeless crush in full bloom and only growing more hopeless by the minute.

“Thank you,” you told him and pulled your hands back underneath the blanket.

Crosshair hummed and then placed the light up on its base between you both and leaned it against the rocks behind you, so the beam of light shined upwards and illuminated where you at. You watched him then sit back against the rock, stretching his long legs out in front of him and closing his eyes, sighing. You sat facing him and brought the blanket around you tighter. You no longer shivered, but you still wanted to be warmer than you were. You stared at the side of his face, Crosshair’s profile half-lit in the light. You gazed at the brown of his skin, the sliver of his hair, the slope of his nose, the purse of his lips. You noted the stubble lining his angled jawline, and wondered what it would feel like against your lips. He was beautiful.

“Crosshair?”

He only hummed again in response.

You tightened your hold on the blanket as you worked up the courage to ask the question that was burning inside you. You couldn’t sit here anymore and not know.

“If I didn’t upset you…what happened?”

Crosshair opened his eyes, but he didn’t speak straight away. It was like he was searching for the right words, the best way to explain what had happened. You waited patiently for him to answer, your anxiety only building in anticipation.

Crosshair scraped the sole of his foot on the floor of the cavity as he brought one of his knees to his chest, resting his elbow on it. You swore you saw the tips of his ears turn pink, but you weren’t sure in this light. “I…crossed a boundary, and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry for acting the way I did.”

You blinked at him, confused. That was the last thing you expected him to say, especially his apology. “Boundary? What boundary?”

“Does it matter?” Crosshair grumbled, his voice scratching.

“It does to me,” you told him gently.

He turned quiet again. He avoided your eyes, instead choosing to focus on a spot on his knee, frown etching deeper into his brow. You wished he would look at you. All those times you caught him watching you, now you willed him to meet your gaze. If he looked at you, you would be able to tell him with your eyes that he could trust you with whatever it was he was having a hard time verbalising. That you wouldn’t judge him the way you knew so many people did. That you saw him, how underneath all that surly exterior was a kind heart who’d been wounded too many times. But he pointedly didn’t look at you, and all you wished to say would remain your secret.

Crosshair sighed, breaking the silence. “You’re our medic, that’s more important.”

That only puzzled you more. “More important than what?”

Quiet descended again, and after several moments, you tentatively reached out and placed a bandaged hand on his shoulder pauldron. His eyes darted to you, wide like they were before in that medbay, and he shrugged you off, his voice hard and frustrated, and his cheeks tinted pink.

“Just forget it. It won’t happen again.”

You watched him, and the way his hands were clenched on his knees. The way he wasn’t looking at you anymore. You recalled the panic in his eyes that you saw in the medbay when he allowed himself the comfort of holding your hand, and how he’d had that same expression just before. You thought back to all the times you caught him looking at you, the way his eyes never left you – even when it was just the two of you during check-ups. The way he brushed up next to you when standing in mission briefings. The way he didn’t hesitate to touch you when he was helping you or keeping you safe – because it was easier to hide behind those gestures than the curling of his fingers around yours alone in the medbay.

Intentional. Intentional. Intentional.

Oh. Oh.

You felt your heartbeat increase as heat rushed through your body, your stomach flipping over at the realisation. You bit the insides of your mouth to stop yourself from smiling before taking a breath. It all made sense now.

Crosshair wasn’t upset at you, he was embarrassed. The man who was so careful about everything he said and did, had one moment where he allowed himself to do something on a whim, and it had made him vulnerable. The impulse had revealed a secret part of himself he had always intended to keep hidden, and now it was out there, and he was embarrassed about it.

He was embarrassed because he thought you didn’t feel the same.

What a fool. A beautiful stupid fool.

Nerves rattled through your body, but you couldn’t sit here any longer and not let him know how you felt too. “Crosshair…” you said his name softly, barely above a whisper.

Crosshair didn’t move, his eyes stayed glued to the middle distance, his hands still clenched into fists. You let out a breath and held out your bandaged hands. At the movement in his periphery, his eyes slid towards your hands and then up to your face. You flexed your fingers, a silent signal to place his hands in yours. His mouth turned into a line and just when you thought he wouldn’t, he slowly placed one of his tight fists in your palms.

You cradled his hand, the back of it resting in your bandaged palm. As best you could with your other bandaged hand, you began to manually unfurl his fingers, spreading them out slowly against yours. He let you, his hand as pliable as it usually was when you did this – there was no apprehension in this moment, only trust. You began to slowly massage his hand, pressing and kneading the joints of his knuckles and the centre of his palm. Neither of you spoke, and the storm continued its fury on the other side of the rock, but it very well could’ve been a parsec away with how intimate this moment was. All you could focus on was him. You could feel him watching you, wondering what you were doing, but you didn’t let his intense gaze pull you away. Not anymore.

Once you reached the end of the massage, you slid your palm over his, fingers lined up. You moved your hand slowly like he was a baby tooka you had to coax into your lap, you were giving him time to pull away. You let your fingers fall between the gaps of his and then curled your fingers down, so you held his hand.

You felt him tense as he realised what was happening, and you looked at him, but his eyes were locked on your intertwined hands. You waited to see if he pulled away, but he didn’t. His hand stayed firmly in yours, his fingers still splayed out – but his palm stayed pressed into yours. You heard him take in a shaky breath as he finally looked at you.

His eyes had softened on the edges, but his shoulders were still tense, and he had an expression that looked like he was pleading with you; begging you not to play with him like this.

You wouldn’t dream of it.

“Is…is this the boundary?” you asked. You felt Crosshair shift, and his voice came out in a rasp and his ears were definitely pink in this dim light.

“Yes.”

You looked down at your intertwined hands and squeezed his gently. “And me being your medic is more important than this?”

His reply came a second and a half later, all strained and breathy. “Yes.”

You looked at him, his tattooed gaze boring into your face. Ever the perceptive one, you could see he was trying to figure out what you were doing, and why you were doing it. You offered him a smile as you gave him the answer.

“This…this isn’t a boundary for me. Me being your medic has never mattered when it comes to this with you, and never will.”

You watched his eyes widen minutely, and if you didn’t know his face so well, you wouldn’t have noticed anything. But other than that almost indiscernible change in expression, Crosshair remained unmoving, his shoulders still rigid and his fingers still splayed out, not touching the back of your hand.

You searched his face and suddenly felt like you had completely misjudged his actions. Maybe he didn’t have the same crush on you, you did him. Maybe he had just held your hand by mistake, that what you thought had all been intentional, wasn’t actually intentional at all.

Your face burned and embarrassment flooded your body. You started to pull your hand away from him.

“But if it’s a boundary for you—”

But Crosshair’s fingers came down before you could rip your hand away, and he held your hand to his tightly, stopping your palm from leaving his. His hold was secure, warm and purposeful. There was nothing to hide behind anymore.

“It’s not,” he told you, his voice as soft as you’d ever heard it. He looked at you, and he was more vulnerable than you’d ever seen him. You felt your heartbeat flutter. You knew this was hard for him, vulnerability of any kind wasn’t Crosshair’s comfort zone. You smiled at him as reassuringly as you could.

“Good.”

You felt his shoulders drop as his whole body relaxed. Your heart almost burst when you saw the corner of his mouth turn up at you – a smile that was yours and yours alone. You smiled at him, that warmth in your chest glowing brightly, making you feel so at home, you almost didn’t mind you were trapped in this space. You were with Crosshair, and that was enough.

You both sat there, holding hands in the torchlight. It was such an innocent kind of intimacy, but for you both, it held so much. So many unspoken feelings now known through the feel of your palms against each other. You never wanted to let go, and you suspected he didn’t either. You felt his finger muscles flex and you squeezed his hand. He lifted his thumb and placed it on top of yours, stroking it gently in a ministration so comforting you could’ve sobbed. You smiled at him, and he returned it.

A genuine Crosshair smile was a rare gift so few received. He kept them, saving them for the people he trusted and loved. To get one now, to see the corners of his eyes crinkle and the smile lines in his cheeks stretch in a closed-mouth smile, you felt honoured. You never imagined you would ever see Crosshair smile at you like this, to let you close like this – to let you close at all. The dim light of the cave had revealed the disappearing ink of his feelings, and it was extraordinary. You would tell him the full extent of what you felt for him in time, but for now, your feelings were wordlessly exchanged with just you two for witnesses.

You watched as Crosshair tentatively and wordlessly brought the back of your hand to his lips. With his tattooed gaze on you the whole time, he placed a lingering kiss there. You inhaled sharply at the gesture and the skin tingled under the bandage where he kissed you. The rain outside was heavy, but your heart felt light – like if you weren’t trapped in this space, you float away and join those rocks in the sky. You watched him pull away, brushing his lips on the spot for a moment before he let your hands drop between you.

“Was that okay?” he asked, his husky voice asked softly.

You chuckled, a grin stretching across your face. “Yes. More than okay.”

Crosshair hummed, his eyes smiling. “Good.”

The mountain shook again, and you looked around you frantically as dust from the cavity began to fall on you both. Crosshair pulled you against him, arms going around you as he shielded you to his chest. You held onto the edge of his chest plate so tight it dug into your fingers, your face pressed into his chest as he held you tightly. You squeezed your eyes shut and tried to focus on the mixed smell of soap and wood of Crosshair instead of the panic that coursed through you. When the tremor stopped, you looked up at him, and him at you.

“You okay?” he asked

“Yeah,” you lifted your head but didn’t dare untangle yourself from Crosshair’s arms.

Crosshair adjusted the blanket on your shoulders, pulling it tighter around you. “The longer this storm goes on, the more danger we’re in.”

“Should we try the comms again?”

Crosshair let go of you briefly to grab his helmet and put it on. “Hunter, come in. Tech? Wrecker? Echo? Do you read?”

You waited. Crosshair’s arm tightened on you, but he let out a frustrated sigh and pulled the helmet off roughly, setting it down next to him. “Still nothing.”

You let your head rest on his shoulder as you sighed. “What do we do?”

“Wait.”

You groaned. Crosshair chuckled and you felt his hand run up and down your back soothingly. It was a simple gesture, but one that conveyed how much he cared for you. A man of few words, he let his actions show his feelings for you. And you had no doubts about it.

After a minute, you lifted your head to find him looking down at you intensely. You felt his arms tighten on you as this hand travelled down to your waist and stayed there. You blinked up at him, drawing your eyes across his face before they landed on his lips.

They had been so soft when they touched the back of your hand, what would they feel like pressed against your own? You’d dreamt about it, but you had a feeling that it would be nothing to the reality of it.

“N’edee?” His voice was quiet, but you feel the weight on them in your stomach.

“Hmm?” you hummed innocently, but there was nothing innocent about what was running through your mind right now.

“Can I test another boundary?” His tone was hesitant, careful as he leaned in a little closer to you.

Your voice came out in a whisper. “Which one?”

“This one.”

Crosshair slowly closed the distance between you and pressed his lips to yours. It was like your whole body lit up inside, igniting you so completely you were aware of every nerve ending you had. Your fingers tightened on his armour just as Crosshair languidly pulled away after too brief a moment. You stared at him, dazed with your mouth parted slightly, and in need of more.

“Well?” he asked, his voice like silk.

You were breathless. “Not a boundary. Kiss me as much as you like.”

“If you insist,” he smirked and pressed his lips to yours again.

Kissing Crosshair was an all-consuming kind of feeling. That magnetic pull he already had on you only seemed to intensify the minute his lips descended on yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck as he hoisted you onto his lap, your thighs falling on either side of his as you straddled him, and the blanket slipped off your shoulders – not that you needed it anymore with the heat that thrummed through you.

You melted into the kiss, and you were right – your dreams of his lips were nothing compared to the real thing. You felt the tickle of his breath on your cheek as you arched yourself closer to him. With just your body suit on, you could feel every hard ridge of his armour against you. His arms moved across your back, and you could feel his fingertips searing along your shoulder blades. His hot mouth moved against yours and you allowed yourself to nip at his lips. You felt him flinch before his lips stretched into a smile against yours, a chuckle vibrating his chest.

“Guess you do have some bite, N’edee,” he mumbled against your lips.

“Just for you,” you breathed, and he groaned into your mouth, kissing you deeper.

He was just as starved for you as you were for him, and you wondered how long exactly he’d been feeling like this towards you, but you’d ask such questions later. His mouth was heavenly, his lips like a caress against yours. Your lips parted and he took the chance to deepen the kiss as you dragged your hands up into his buzzed hair, feeling the short strands against your fingernails. And you felt just how skilled he was his tongue as it slid against yours, and you silently thanked his toothpicks for giving him the practice.

You’d never been kissed with such passion before, with such intention. Now, he was no longer embarrassed, he did not hold back his kisses and touches. That knowledge made it all the more thrilling as Crosshair pressed you into him, pulling your hips against his with hands that you knew to be tender, but now held with you with such desire you felt dizzy.

He moved his lips down your jawline to just below your ear, and you panted as you tightened your arms around him, rocking into him. He sucked the skin there, his tongue darting out and wetting the area. It made you moan so loudly you were glad no one else could hear how desperate you sounded.

“Crosshair,” you moaned.

You felt him smirk against your skin before he made his way back to your lips. Groaning into your mouth again, you felt his hands move from your hips to your ass and back up again, and you felt your body go into overdrive, pulsing with a wanting need. Where did he learn to kiss like this? You wanted to thank whatever Kaminaon training module taught him, or the illicit holos you knew Tech had stashed on the locked-down data drive you found a week after you joined them – whichever it was.

You were so lost in his kisses, the way they grew in fervour with each press against your skin, you almost didn’t hear the beeping of Crosshair’s comm in his helmet.

“Crosshair,” you said when you finally heard it, pulling away, but his mouth just found your neck instead. You patted his shoulder. “Crosshair, the comm.”

“What?” he said raggedly. His lips ceased their attentions, and he pulled back. His lips were all swollen and you smiled at the knowledge that was all you. You stayed perched in his lap and he grabbed his helmet and put it on. You could hear the other voice when you were this close to him.

“Crosshair, come in.” It was Hunter.

“Copy, Hunter,” Crosshair said, and you mentally applauded him for not sounding as breathless as you would’ve.

“Are you and N’edee okay?”

Crosshair’s hand squeezed your thigh, and you squirmed on top of him, smiling. “For the moment. We’re trapped on the mountain. The storm caused a cave-in, and we can't get out.”

“We’ll lock in on your signal and fly to your location. Stand by.” You realised then the rain and thunder had stopped, and that the storm had now passed.

“Copy,” Crosshair said before he removed his helmet and placed it next to him again, and you both looked at each other. He gripped your hips. “They’re on their way in the Marauder. Wrecker will be able to push the rocks out of the way, and we’ll be free.”

You breathed in, relieved help was coming. “I didn’t even realise the storm had passed,”

“Well, we were busy,” Crosshair snided.

“Right,” you laughed lightly.

Crosshair looked away from you for the first time since everything changed between you, and his hands on your hips loosened. You frowned as you watched his once open expression, slowly begin to close off again in the dim light. He looked uncertain, all in his own head again and you realised that he was worried – worried that this moment together was but a brief interlude in which you got caught up in the danger of the situation. You wanted to shake his shoulders and tell him he was being absurd, how he could think such a thing after all you just said and did. But you didn’t, because like baby tooka, Crosshair needed gentle reassurance; that his vulnerability and his feelings were not being played with.

Later, when you had more time and were back on the Marauder and tucked away in the medbay just the two of you again, you would tell him just how much he had nestled his way into your heart. That your crush was much more than that, that you saw all of him, and though you were still learning to decipher the riddles he was made of, you never wanted to stop. That you saw all his intentions, and now yours was to hold his heart in your bandaged hands the way he held yours.

But for now, in your final moments alone with him before his brothers rescued you both, you locked your eyes on him and gently grabbed the hands that had slackened on your hips, linking your fingers together once more. You watched his eyes find yours, his brows slanted at the ends as he looked at you with all this apprehension. You brought his knuckles to your lips and kissed them, lips lingering there as you let the gesture convey wordlessly your intention to keep nurturing what was between you for as long as he let you. That this didn’t end once you were both bathed in sunlight again.

“I hope we’ll be busy again later? And many laters after that too?”

Crosshair’s shoulder relaxed and you smiled as the corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk, his eyes smiling as he squeezed your hands once more. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

banner art by @vimse thank you reading! if you made it this far, thank you! i appreciate it so much! this is the longest standalone fic i've ever written!

🏷️ @starrylothcat @sinfulsalutations @moodymisty @nahoney22 @freesia-writes @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @bobaprint @crosshairsnose @jesseeka @thegalaxys-edge @chopper-base @shredderwest @leavingkamino @r2d2staser @beckbucket @pb-jellybeans @mylifeisactuallyamess @padawancat97 @littlecrowtime @jedipoodoo @ezras-left-thumb @lovelycurls @fruitsaladtree @literallydontlook @burningfieldof-clover @queencousland101 @clonethirstingisreal @skellymom @hopelessromantic727

TAGLIST FORM

#larissa writes #crosshair x reader #crosshair x reader fic #crosshair fluff #crosshair angst #soft crosshair #tbb x reader #the bad batch crosshair #tbb crosshair fic #the bad batch fic #bad batch crosshair x reader #tbb crosshair x you

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dancermk · 5 months

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HELLO MY FELLOW TRAVELERS!

I, like many viewers, have been completely entranced by Hawk and Tim’s love story in Fellow Travelers. As a mature queer person, this show has been very emotional, and I am deeply invested. (I WILL riot if Tim doesn’t get to die in Hawk’s arms, and know that he is, and has always been, loved by Hawk.) But I digress.

Something that I have been fascinated by are the differing opinions that have surfaced about the characters, especially Hawk. I’m not looking for any arguments here, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is simply mine. To me, Hawk falls hard and fast for Tim. He breaks all his own rules for Tim - they topple over like a house of cards.

When we are introduced to Hawk, he’s cold and heartless with the men he hooks up with - they are nothing more than a body to fulfil his sexual needs and desires. He doesn’t do repeats and he doesn’t bring them home. But Tim, he instantly begins returning to, gets him a job, then allows him into his own apartment, etc. When Tim pushes back, Hawk relents further, letting him in emotionally, sharing parts of his past, crossing lines by introducing him to others in his circle, and so on.

Hawk is a traumatised man, carrying guilt and anger and shame, and a bucket load of fear! Yes, he has some internalised homophobia, but interestingly, he’s also extremely righteous about his homosexuality -and I don’t believe he thinks being gay is wrong in any way. (His response to his father is indicative of this).

I can personally say that I’ve never thought it was wrong to be queer, yet I spent much of my life hiding who I was and feeling shame. It’s an odd thing! Perhaps it is that the shame forms purely from what is outside of us, while what is inside of us can love another person of the same sex, knowing it is right and pure. Perhaps these contradictions between self and society are what causes so much pain and conflict?

But back to Hawk. Hawk is undoubtedly most affected by his teenage first love experience. A love that he fucked up through his own fears (fear for many men is unacceptable and a sign of weakness), and now carries the burden of believing he is responsible for their death. Hawk doesn’t allow himself to love again, until Tim. And we see many times throughout the show how much Hawk fears losing Tim. And in the end he’ll have to face that fear. I think that, in part, not attempting to have a life with Tim, is also fuelled by his fear of fucking it up and losing Tim - so it’s easier to just not attempt it! In episode 7, when he loses his son, part of that spiral is Hawk recognising that he can’t really prevent loss, and he wasted his life trying to be something he’s not - still losing his child and Tim along with it.

But Hawk is a survivor! And no one has the right to hate or judge him for it. I don’t think some young people truly understand what it feels like to live in a world where who you love can put you in jail, and destroy your life. I grew up in the 70s/80s and my experiences were bad enough, but I try so very hard to think about what it was like before that! When being queer was a crime and a mental illness! That’s pure terror! And for Hawk, he chose to survive the best way he knew how, and he wasn’t able to change because that’s fucking hard when all you’ve known is living in constant ‘fight or flight,’ and when have chronic trauma and experience collective trauma.

I think in episode 8 we’ll finally get to see Hawk grow - I certainly hope so - because he deserves to be free. Our beautiful Skippy has been free for some time, and while we mourn for the cruelty of a world that would take such a truly decent man, I am glad he got to live freely. Being closeted is the worst kind of suffering- a compartmentalised and fragmented existence where you are never truly whole, and therefore can never be the best version of yourself.

Before I go, I just wanted to also talk about being in a closeted relationship-which I experienced in my youth. I think that Hawk and Tim’s intense and toxic and exquisitely beautiful relationship, in part, arises from this. Because two closeted people in love live their relationship in secret, in a bubble, only in certain rooms, with none of the outside world reflected back at them. It becomes the two of you against the world. It’s so insular. Hawk and Tim literally live their 1950s relationship within two rooms - their apartments. All their memories are held within those walls. And it only belongs to them. They know each in ways that no other living soul does. It’s all-consuming and often unhealthy, but also stupidly romantic.

Anyway, sorry for this long winded post that no one will read and is likely full of grammatical errors because I’m tired! This atheist is praying we get everything we need from episode 8! Acceptance, forgiveness, understanding resolution, healing and a whole lot of love! ❤️

Cheers queers! 🏳️‍🌈

PS Matt and Johnny are exquisite on and off screen and I am so thankful to them for bringing these characters and this story into our lives!

#fellow travelers #hawk and tim #hawkins fuller #tim laughlin #hawk and skippy #matt bomer #jonathan bailey #lgbtqia #queer media

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save-the-villainous-cat · 8 months

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can you write a snippet where hero beats villain for the first time, like completely whips their ass and destroys them but then it turns villain on. Yeah I got this idea from another of your snippets but I wanna read more >:)

“I feel like there’s a lot of unresolved hatred within you.” The hero stared at them, stared at the desk they’d destroyed with their bare hands.

“What makes you think that?” the hero asked. They were out of breath and seemed to be doing better now but if that was actually a positive thing remained to be decided. Even though this was an unusual situation, the villain had sworn to make the best of it.

As far as “the best” could go with a shock collar around their neck and lots of house arrest until the next trial.

“Your knuckles are bleeding,” the villain pointed out and they couldn’t quite look away from the broken table. It had been made out of heavy wood and if that wasn’t a metaphor for the hero’s sanity breaking, then the villain didn’t know what else would be.

“That happens sometimes,” the hero only huffed. They stared at their nemesis, thankfully not with that raw gaze anymore but nevertheless, the villain could only stare back. What even was this arrangement?

“Your happy ever after doesn’t seem so happy,” the villain said. “Shouldn’t all your problems disappear into thin air now?”

“They should.” The hero walked towards them. “Does it hurt?”

They were quick to touch the villain’s neck with their fingertips, pulling skin up until they could see the red and irritated parts beneath their collar. The hero pushed their thumb into the damaged skin and the villain couldn’t help but wince. Although they wanted to push the hero away, they couldn’t bring themselves to do so.

“Do you finally feel the weight of your actions? Do you finally know what consequences do?” the hero asked. Fucking hell, they were pissed. And the villain was fascinated by the anger that fuelled their enemy. The hero pulled their hand away and studied them for a second too long. They looked like they wanted to chop off the villain’s head.

Then, their fingers dug back into the villain’s throat gently.

“I have to deal with the mess you left the city with. Do you know how much work that requires?” they asked. “Do you know how much time I invest into this? Into taking care of you?”

“Interesting choice of words,” the villain said. They could only smile gently but that faded when out of a sudden, the hero’s hand came back down to the collar again.

“Do not even think for a second that you mean anything to me. I eat villains like you alive,” the hero said. They pulled on the collar and the pain around the villain’s neck was biting into them. It was sharp and merciless and it would leave the villain like this for a few more minutes.

“Fuck,” they cursed quietly but it didn’t help. It didn’t ease the pain and it didn’t change the villain’s feelings towards it.

“We may be stuck in this house together but you will not slip up under my command, got that? I’ve come too far to risk everything,” the hero explained. The palm of their hand found the villain’s cheek and almost tenderly, they stayed there, waiting for the villain’s protest.

But that never came.

Instead, the villain’s heart rate spiked and as they stared into the hero’s eyes, they found something true and vile. A darkness that had consumed both of them equally. It bound them together, made them one and even though the hero didn’t want this to be true, the villain feared they couldn’t deny this anymore.

“Did it make you happy when you arrested me?” the villain asked.

“Who wouldn’t be happy to catch someone as pretty as you?” the hero asked right back. They let go of the villain, looking as if they had to clear their head. And the villain was head over heels for their enemy’s growing frustration, for their violence and their tenderness, for their sweet and cruel words.

#yo ummm real quick this dude spent eight years studying barnacle dick #kick itttt #writing snippet #heroxvillain prompt #heroxvillain snippet #heroes and villains #hero #villain #hero x villain #heroxvillain #an answer for an ask #request #cruel hero #I guess?#little bit of #whump #maybe?

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itstheendofthegoddamnworld · 6 months

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Kissed by Moonlight (Alucard x Witch! Reader) 4

A/N: Thank you for your patience! This chapter will be to begin the brewing tension! Hope you enjoy it!

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Chapter 4

Three days pass after you come into Alucard’s castle, and you realise just how secluded the Dhampir liked to be.

Alucard kept to himself most times: tending to his garden, gathering food for when the days would get shorter, nights longer. You would also occasionally see him train with his sword in the front. He was one with the sword, and it acted almost as its being, moving on a whim without him telling him where to go next.

You could only imagine how much he had seen to fight so well, or how or who taught him to fight like such. A true warrior with a gentle heart.

It was a lonely occurrence, living with someone you barely saw, so you tended to find your nose stuck in a book rather than be truly alone within the tall walls.

You stuck to Dracula’s library, pouring over and collecting as many books as you could. You were surprised just by how many spells you could learn: astral projection, levitation, puppetry, the list was endless! It truly brought hope that you could pour as much learning in before you would be sent away from the one place full of knowledge.

Who knew Dracula had a fascination with witches?

It was only for breakfast or dinner you would have the blessing of sharing with him, and your conversations were to a minimum. Not much was spoken apart from going over your days, and then one or both of you would help tidy and clear the dishes, before going off to different parts of the castle for the rest of the evening.

Aside from the books, you craved a chance for normalcy, a chance to connect with someone who never wanted to open up to you. There were times he spoke about the things of his life, his mother and what his father did. It was a rare time when he spoke of the two friends he gained, Sypha and Trevor.

You couldn’t stand to be like this for the rest of the month, stuck between walls with no one to chat to, no one to feel human with. It was only fair you tried making it up to Alucard: to thank him for all he had done so far. After all, he could’ve killed you the first chance he had, instead, he had fed you, given you clean clothes, hot water to bathe and the library with books on vampires.

The morning started like any other day, except you had awoken to the bright light pouring through the thin curtains to your room. You would find yourself waking in time to go down to the library before remembering to eat something, but you knew it was now or never to do what you had to do.

You didn’t know if Alucard was awake before you (his room was luckily two rooms down from you) and he warned you from the beginning to not disturb or come to his room. Odd as it was, you obeyed his one rule, hoping that you wouldn’t need aid before he was out in time for breakfast.

You gathered your curls into a bun, tying a ribbon through to keep it up as you grabbed the closest dress to your dresser. Alucard offered more dresses to you, and the more he did, the more you came to realise that these dresses he did not buy. You did feel guilt wearing his mother’s clothes, but he did not complain.

Slipping out of your room once dressed, you hurried through the endless, winding corridors, trying to remember your way back to the ground floor, and once you found that, you could find the kitchen.

You passed through the doors, entering the rather chilly room before you decided quickly to get to work. You knew you’d get scolded by Alucard for making a mess, but raiding the cupboards and shelves for spices and items made your workspace rather dirty very quickly.

Alucard cooked everything: from breakfast to dinner, he fed and fuelled your mind to keep reading into the many books, rather than be exhausted by the time breakfast had finished.

If he can cook, I can too. You had prepared meals for Bogdan and his family previously, but they had been picky with their meals, keeping to basic porridge and a slither of goat, ham or bacon if lucky.

You gathered eggs, dried meats, bread that had gone a day stale and a whole cupboard full of spices, setting up as you thought the best thing to make was everything there was. You tried to keep it quiet for some time, carefully recreating the meal you had eaten made by Alucard. It didn’t look perfect, but it could taste just as good if you tried.

You got influence from your mama to include different herbs, ones from spices in the southeast, others from across the entire globe, past Wallachia. It amazed you how much of the world there was to explore, rather than being stuck here, surrounded by vampires and demons.

Maybe I could go travelling. You thought, and the very idea brought a chill to run down you. Part of you thought it could be a thrill-seeking adventure to travel halfway across the world, whilst the other part of you warned that you were not suited to a sailor’s life.

Breakfast came hot and ready in the end, and whilst you prepped the plates with the food, you failed to hear the door creak open, a pale figure walk through, half dishevelled and unexpectantly looking to what you were doing.

“Oh,” you jumped back, holding two warmed plates in each hand, surprised to see him standing there so quickly. Perhaps the smells had brought him to come down earlier. You weren’t expecting him so soon. “Good morning. I hope you don’t mind I made myself useful in cooking us something?”

“Why is that?” Alucard rubbed the sleep from his eyes, his blond locks were frizzy and tousled, and you watched as he sat at the table, his plate being handed to him. “I did not know you could cook.”

“Well, I thought you cook so often for me, I’d cook something for you,” you shrugged, trying to act as nonchalantly as possible, but you knew your heart was racing. Racing for his validation? A compliment for your cooking?

Alucard nodded, scooping some of the egg onto a fork and taking a long chew at the stale bread, but he still gave a look that read he was considerate for your time. “It is most thoughtful of you. Thank you, Y/N.”

Your shoulders had been so tensed you realised, after relaxing them from awaiting for so long his verdict. He said your name, you realised, and you couldn’t help that feeling in your chest, swelling with an unknown emotion. As if you had been waiting all your life to hear it from someone again. You smiled nonetheless, taking a bite of your food and being overwhelmed by the spices you remembered your mama cooking into meals.

You spoke about your plans for the day, and how you were close to beginning your training, and it even seemed to pique some of Alucard’s interest. “I will stand by today,” he announced, gathering your plates when they were finished. “Just in case something happens.”

“I should be fine, really.” you didn’t want to pressure him into being with you if he had other things to do, and you certainly didn’t want to make him feel uneasy about your spells- or lack thereof.

“I insist,” he says, his voice a hue of melancholy, “when it comes to witchcraft, there is a chance something can misfire. I’m only making sure you don’t set the books on fire.”

You blush easily but find his joke to make you laugh. “Very funny. Even if I did try to burn it down, I would certainly not start in there. There are too many good things in there. It would be a waste of knowledge, turned to ash within the blink of an eye.”

Alucard hums in agreement, though he does not speak further on the matter, instead, only awaiting for you. “Shall we then?”

“I heard it is hard to put a Vampire into a trance?”

You concentrate, staring from the pages up to where the Dhampir stands, tracing a finger over the aged pages. The two of you have spent many hours going through abilities that would be of use to you, and though you try to conjure them through word, nothing comes of it.

“It is true,” he answers earnestly, “the stronger the mind, the harder is it to break- so to say.”

“Vampires have a mental block or something?”

“Some do, it makes it harder to read their minds, to know their auras or get information out from one.”

It gets you thinking, and your curiosity gets the better of you, and you’re asking him the question you’re dying to know. “What about half vampires?”

Alucard quirks an eyebrow, “Half vampires?”

“Yeah, does it work on you? You’re half vampire, half human, after all.”

“You want to give it a go?” There is something that flickers in his tone when he asks you that, one that plays into amusement, and it makes your heart flutter in a way that has you half-guessing yourself and stumbling over the right words. “I can tell you one thing, I’m quite hard to read.”

You’re already stepping up close to him, “I do quite like a challenge.” It’s only when you realise up close, how tall he is. You’ve never been this close up to him, and from here, you can see the smallest of subtly in his movements, the way his eyes flicker around the room quickly, as if always on high alert for trouble.

Alucard takes in your smug stance as he stares you down, a neutral expression falling over his, before he leans in ever so closely, his fangs poking out from his lips. “Boo.”

“Haha.” You rolled your eyes, knowing full well he was trying to make you lose concentration. It’s hard, not just to crack through to him, but to look at him this up close. He’s handsome, you admit it, and there’s that ethereal beauty to him that makes him look eerie compared to other humans.

You try to ignore it as you stare into his comely face, rather than concentrating on just his eyes and eyes alone. Were his eyes always this bright? A golden contrast, like golden leaves of autumn, or smooth honey. Eyes are the windows to the soul, right? So why did you find it intimidating to look through his gaze and look through him as a person?

It feels like the smallest of cracks to a mirror at first before you can even reach the first layer, and you’re met with a heavy, hard-hitting wall.

What on earth? You tug and pull within your mind, amazed at just how mentally strong Alucard is.

You can picture it as standing in front of a locked door, needing a key to pass through. You were so close, yet so far, and when you blinked out from your trance, Alucard chortles in what sounded like victory to winning. “Quite the challenge, isn’t it?”

“Just what exactly were you thinking of?” You tilt your head, “That witches have pointy hats, or fly on broomsticks?”

His laugh is airy and it fills you with hope that maybe, you will be able to crack at him one way or another. “You could say so.”

The two of you continued your readings, and you noticed that he was a bit closer to you, sharing a short space with you as the two of you looked at the same shelf. Though Alucard was always the gentleman and remained a lengthy distance away from you, he seemed at ease.

“This may be of interest to you,” Alucard pulled forth a book from the shelf, handing it over to you. You grabbed, accidentally reaching, your fingers touching. He was oddly warm for a half-vampire, not like a stone-cold, cold-blooded creature. “Maybe we could start here.”

“This could work,” you prop the book up as you go to the right page: the act of telekinesis. “Though, I don’t think I’ve used it before.”

“I’m here in support,” Alucard takes a cautionary step to the side, pointing to the stack of books in the middle of the room, some that had been read through. “Start with one of them.”

You looked between him and the pile, and a feeling of instant negativity washed over you. “I don’t know—”

“I believe in you.” Alucard praises you gently, and for a moment, you can’t concentrate on anything else but the way he supports you. You feel your cheeks flush, and you suddenly want to hear more of his approval.

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes and shutting the world around you out. You’re in a dark room, with no air or light, just you focusing and holding out your arms. Concentrating on your breathing, you focused on nothing but what was in the room. When you finally opened your eyes, you spoke the word clearly. “Prodire.”

The stack didn’t move at first, and before you were to even complain to Alucard for your lack of power, you heard the sound of books flipping through to shut, and a lone, heavy-leather bound book lifted clumsily into the air, hanging a few inches off the air but floating.

Your excitement is loud when you gasp in amazement, looking to the Dhampir for approval, whose eyes are already on you, impressed. You look back to the floating book, motioning with your hand in a “come hither”, watching as the book – as if had been picked up by someone – slowly took in your words, approaching sluggishly.

Nice and steady, like water. You told yourself, focusing on bringing the book towards you. It was not even halfway towards its previous spot and when it stopped you sighed intensely, overwhelmed as your face burst into awkwardness.

“I didn’t think this would happen,” you offer an awkward laugh to ease the air, watching with a glance to Alucard, who didn’t seem so embarrassed by this little mishap. He was one to encourage you more. “You’ve got this,” he spoke, “pretend I’m not here if it helps put your mind at ease.”

That’s easier said than done. You thought, and you spoke again, “Prodire.”

Nothing came from the book as you sighed in defeat, your frustration rising with the way your tone did as well. Alucard was quick to try and step in. “I think you should—”

He didn’t get the rest of his sentence out when something surged forward towards you. Not just the one book that had been already floating, but the many others that had been still on the floor. They flew at you with such speed that you didn’t have time to react to even what was coming at you.

Bracing to be hit was your only way to react in time, but something grabbed you around the waist, pulling you backwards against a hard surface, before seconds later the sound of books colliding into the nearby shelf shattered your ears.

Your heart was racing, and it resonated against the surface your back was pushed against. You didn’t realise you were holding your breath, your adrenaline was slowly settling.

“Are you alright? The voice of Alucard was oddly close to your ear, and within seconds, you realised he was the one who pulled you out of the way from the flying books. You turned to look back at him, very much aware your body was burning from his touch, very aware of how close he was, the way he smelled so sweetly—

“Yes, I’m okay,” you managed to pull away, still feeling the warmth of his hands around your waist, trying to regain a level of composure. Your hands are sweaty and you’re wiping them across your dress urgently. “Thank you, Alucard.”

“What happened there?” He asked, and despite the softness in his dulcet voice, there was still concern in his words. “Your mind was elsewhere.”

“Yes, I think so. You were correct though,” you confirmed. “Magic can misfire.”

“It will come back to you with some time,” you watch the way Alucard’s throat bobs nervously, “I believe you can do so.”

His kind words are a shock to you, and you’re not so certain why he is so suddenly praising you constantly. Part of you thinks it’s out of kindness, whilst the other part of you tells you he just wants you to be out of his castle quicker, and in hopes you’d learn in time before your month ends.

I will learn, no matter how long it takes. You tell yourself, and you tell Alucard that perhaps you will stay in the library for a bit longer to improve.

Alucard does not seem exasperated at your choice, though you may mistaken the look of disappointment that floods his eyes. “Very well,” he drawls, and he’s slow to leave the library, leaving you to yourself.

Sighing heavily in defeat, you pull the books you had failed to bring towards you, pulling up the correct page as you went to try again.

Latin Translation:

Prodire – Come forth

#castlevania alucard x reader #alucard x reader #alucard castlevania #reader is a witch #witch! reader #half black! reader #mixed race reader #part 4 #itstheendofthegoddamnworld writes #castlevania fanfic #adrian tepes x reader #adrian tepes #alternate universe

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aresthelostboy · 8 months

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Hello! I heard you do requests and I have just the request for you, my friend! *Clears throat* Male Reader x the Rob Zombie version of Michael Myers. I have a HUGE crush on that guy like he is so hot! The prompt can be that they were both childhood friends that had feelings for each other when they were younger and years later when they are grown up, still have feelings for each other. Everything else is up to you. Anyways thank you and have a lovely day! :)

Ooh yay! Thank you for the request, I love the idea, so I’ll try my best to make it what you want! I hope you like it :) and have a lovely day too <3

RZ!Michael Myers x Male!Reader

Summary: After being introduced in the sanitarium where you had basically been raised, your interest grows over the often-masked, nearly silent boy. But, your fascination comes to a close when he escaped (you soon following suit) and you can’t seem to find him. Years pass and, after moving to Haddonfield, things seem to be weird… and why are they talking about Michael?

Wandering around the facility has become a pastime to you. The doctors don’t class you as enough of a risk to be put under constant surveillance so they let you roam free as you please, watching as patients slowly go crazy with their own thoughts. Boredom is rampant though, something you couldn’t help. That is, until he came.

You aren’t shy about death, you couldn’t be in such a situation without having a strong stomach for such an issue. So, when you hear wind of a killer, just a boy around your age, you can’t help but go find out for yourself. After a few minutes of wandering you come to the previously empty cell, now with a boy sat inside. As soon as his shining blue eyes meet yours, you know you’ll be close…

After a good few years, enough for you to be coming into your early and his mid twenties, you notice that your feelings for Michael (you’d found his name out after a lot of pestering that fateful day) had changed. That what being close constantly did, making you fall deeper and deeper into the hole that is affection.

The blonde hair is no longer synonymous with a Ken doll, as the nurses had previously gifted you (they foolishly believed it would keep you as a manly man, giving you Ken instead of Barbie), no. The colour was now only knows as that of Michaels hair, something you grew to appreciate dearly. Hair that he’d let you comb through on your worse days. He was a kind man, in ways that the others can’t see… no, in a way that they won’t see. And his eyes, how you could stare into the pools of blue, with hidden mysteries and intimacy, for as long as he’d let you… that is, until you get the news that you’ve been released.

Your heart sinks at the news, DR. Loomis explaining to you in a gentle tone that you cannot come back or be within driving distance of the sanitarium.

“It would be bad for you… and for Michael.”

You knew it. It was all because of Michael, you’re too close to him. You’ve done this to yourself… so you run.

Heart pounding in your chest, your feet slap against the linoleum flooring as you race to Michaels room, flinging the door open and yourself into his arms. He catches you with ease, pulling you to him. With frantic words, you whisper to him, urgency and worry lacing your voice.

“They’re making me leave. Come find me. Haddonfield. I won’t forget you,”

Feeling him freeze under your grasp, you know the orderlies are behind you, confirming as they wrap their arms around you. “so don’t forget me. Find me Michael… please.”

After a moment of sullen staring, he turns, the lack of reaction only fuelling your growing concern. You call his name again, wishing for him to know that this isn’t your choice. That you’d be with him forever, if it was. No, all you can do is hope that he’ll come to find you, so you truly can be together.

A year passes, then another and you lose hope of ever seeing the man who had your heart ever again. Tears burn at your eyes as you walk in the streets, greeting you as they remain unaware of who you are. Or at least, who you were. Your heart yearns to brush through his hair again, watch as he makes his masks during downtime, even to just stare into his gorgeous souls one last time. Right now, you’d take anything.

“Yeah, the boogeyman is back and someone’s died already…”

A hushed whisper catches your interest, the use of one of Michaels many aliases making you perk up slightly. Across from you, two men talk of a death, close to Haddonfield and your heart can’t help but stutter in hope as your wish for him may finally come true

The house is dark but your eyes have long since adjusted to the shuttered windows and beams of moonlight being cast through them. You know that if he’s back, he would come here, to be with you once more. Heart pounding, much like the day of your release, you can’t help but feel both excited and fearful.

You may have him back…

but will he want you?

A floorboard creaks behind you and, at breakneck speed, you whip around to find a man. At no less than 6’9, he’s imposing and a figure that most would be intimidated by. But you know him, have known him since you were both tongue. Breathing out a sigh of relief, you watch him carefully, noticing all the ways he’s changed.

“Michael… you came.”

A single nod is all it takes for you to become at parallel with those years ago and you fling yourself into his arms. It’s almost as if he’s a boa constrictor, the way he wraps himself around you. It’s comforting, a feeling you had long since forgotten. His head rests on top of yours, arms encircling your body as you cling to him, desperation filtering through into the embrace. After a few minutes, you pull away, looking up at him.

“I missed you… every day for 845 of them. I- I thought you’d forgotten me. Thank you for coming back, thank you.”

His head tilts, watching you in turn before finding yourself back in his arms, completely at ease with yourself. If you could feel him trembling slightly, you’re sure it’s just your imagination.

Though you had to leave Haddonfield (dating it’s known killer isn’t best for publicity), you can’t be happier with your life. You’d found another town, somewhere quiet and stable, somewhere that you can live with Michael in peace…

*slam*

Well, almost peace. The door of the wooden house slams open and shut, Michael soon shuffling into the room and directing his attention to you, bringing you close to him once more. Though many say the killer has no feelings, you can’t help but reject that, he just needs to trust first. And he trusts you. Opening his palm to you, Michael gestures for you to take what he’s holding. A (preferred colour) mens wedding band lays there and your eyes shine as you glance to him.

“Michael… this is gorgeous.”

Your voice is breathless, an deep awe detailing just how flustered but pleased you truly feel. His other hand comes out, showing off a matching black band around his finger.

“Oh. Oh Michael… I do.”

Turning in his arms, you raise the mask for your lips to meet his. He presses into you, albeit lightly, and makes sure to keep you close.

Hell, maybe you’d be forgiven if you went back to Haddonfield after dating it’s killer, but you sure as shit can’t go back now. And who’s to say where the rumours started, it may or may not have been you. After all, who wouldn’t be proud of who you are and what you had accomplished? What is the rumour? Well…

Its the rumour of the Boogeyman’s husband.

#michael myers #rz!michael myers #rz michael myers #halloween #rz halloween #rob zombie #x male reader #x reader #reader #male!reader #male reader #reader insert

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sky-fire-forever · 4 months

Text

Ya'll need to learn to love more than one character. Like someone loving a certain character does not take away your ability to love a different character or even their ability to love a different character

Izzy's my favorite character, yeah. But why are people assuming I hate Ed?? I fucking love Ed. I adore him so much. He's so baby girl. He tries so hard to be good and a lot of his worse actions are fuelled by his self-hatred and loss. He's fascinating to me and I want to study him like a bug. The way he distances himself from his cruelty ("technically the fire killed those guys") and how he presents himself differently to different people (the party boy to Jack, the sensitive sap with Stede, the ruthless captain to Izzy) are both things that I fucking love analyzing and talk about to my partner constantly. I love how hard he tries to be a good person! I love how he is slowly learning how to care about people on their terms instead of his own. I love his growth and how much he WANTS to grow

You know who else I love? Stede! His compassion and care for the people around him is so touching and I love that he takes so much pleasure in the little things. I love how we've watched his confidence build since the first episode, where he was constantly panicked and nervous, to a capable captain who still loves his crew but will defend himself and won't take as much shit from people like Nigel. He'll defend his crew instead of hiding like a coward. I love how he delights in details like fancy wardrobes and a cursed suit because he takes pleasure in small things like that! In marmalade and puzzle chests. He's a sweetheart and he rejects the idea that he has to be cruel to be capable

Oluwande was my favorite character when I first watched season one (though I dislike a lot of his season two writing because it feels like they dumbed him down) because he's kind and very intelligent. He cares a lot for the crew and he's extremely capable while also being a little goofy and being soooo bad at addressing his feelings. I love that he was so obviously in love with Jim, but had that first instinct of denying it if questioned because that's so often how crushes work! His little "What? No! Shut up!" When the chief pointed out his feelings for Jim still makes me giggle. He's a little awkward, but he's sweet and he's supportive. He also can be a little shit when he wants to be, like when he basically made Jim confront their past because he was petty about them not telling him about it. He's always got people's backs and there's a reason he was chosen to be the captain during the Izzy mutiny.

Jim is a character who means SO much to me as a trans person. Their arc is so special to me and they're also just... so fucking cool. I love their journey of figuring out who they're supposed to be versus who they WANT to be. Their struggle with what's expected of them and them wondering if they even want what they thought they wanted is so touching. Them defending Izzy is actually so great to me because it shows their loyalty and their need to defend their family. It didn't have to be Izzy, it could be any member of the crew and they would have their back. Because that's what family means to them. "Our dick" says a lot about them, as does their little "He was your friend" line. Jim cares about people even when they're quiter and more closed off. Hell, they stabbed a man in the first episode for insulting Frenchie and they didn't even talk yet! Them being the one to tell the Pinocchio story to Fang was so great because it shows just how soft they really are and want to be.

Speaking of, I also adore Fang so so so much. He's such a sweetheart and he's sensitive and he cares so, so much about his friends. He's a big softie and I wanna hug him. I bet he gives such great hugs. As soon as he's given the allowance to be soft, he takes it. He misses his dog that Ed forced him to kill (which I feel like no one talks about?) and gets blushy and giggly about Lucius finding him attractive. He's just!! So fantastic

I wish we knew more about Ivan because I love him and I have so much fun imagining stuff about him. Like how I hc him as a trans woman

Archie as a character is so fun and I wish wish wish we got more of her because I fucking LOVE everything about her. She's so fun to watch and I want to know how she gets along with Oluwande and I want to see her interact with the rest of the crew so badly. The way she fell in love with Jim because of their hope makes me CRY. I love that she kisses Jim while they're covered in blood and there's a rotten leg like a foot away and she doesn't care. I love her energy and her excitement and every scene with her just makes me grin like an idiot. I'm still so mad about the season being cut because I feel like we could have gotten more scenes with her

Roach is fucking great. My partner and I will quote "meat is meat" at each other constantly. He's so ridiculous and I love him. I love how obsessed with Zheng's soup he is. I love his bitchy "how am I supposed to cook here?" when Stede moves them to live under a bridge. I love how chill he is and the faces he makes when he's reacting to things. He's so funny and I love him

Frenchie is my fucking beloved. His mind box is something I think about so often. How he doesn't want to think about all that has happened to him, but doesn't. How hurt he is. How he fucking deserves every bit of becoming captain of his own ship. The fact that he sings and plays an instrument (I do not know what specific instrument he plays. Is it a ukulele?) and sings about how they're all gonna die with a grin on his face. He's a dork and I love how he hides Izzy at great risk to himself because he cares about his family as much as Jim does. The way he expdcts Ed to kill him and basically offers to do it for him just to get it over with (if I'm remembering correctly). I love his superstition and how he believes it's supported by fact! I think his superstitious beliefs are so, so interesting and I want to know where he learned them.

Wee John is so fucking great. How long has he been doing drag? What happened to his mother with whom he used to make dresses? I need to know! I love that he just wants to set things on fire all the time. I love his line about "I'd love to be stabbed by Jim". I love all of him! He's such a fun character

I love Lucius and how trauma genuinely changes him. He's a bitch and he's petty and he loves gossip. He's the first person to insert himself into a shitty breakup, helping both Stede and Ed at different points. Him keeping Jim's sex a secret and him helping both Stede and Ed is so interesting to me! He's a supportive friend and he's a slut (affectionate) and he's a bitch (affectionate) and everything about him makes me obsessed. I like that Stede has to talk to him about opening up about his trauma! I like that Lucius genuinely loves Pete and how his trauma has made him more bitter. I love how he's still the first person to call bullshit on Ed.

Black Pete actually used to annoy me, but he's grown on me. I love that he's such a dork who struggles with insecurity to the point of making shit up about himself. I love how much he loves Lucius! I fucking adore his one-liners and his delivery of them. He's so fucking funny

I could spend fucking hours talking about Mary Bonnet. I love her so much. Everything about her makes me feral. How she refuses to take Stede's bullshit. Her paintings! Her relationship with Doug that seems so fucking sweet. I love this woman. Please bring Mary back. Please. I'm begging

Buttons is Buttons. Everything about him is fucking fantastic and I want to chew on him like a chew toy

Me enjoying a certain character does not take away from my absolute love of other characters. I tend to talk about Izzy most because I find active displays of tragedy more interesting and Izzy and Ed are the most outwardly angsty characters (which is also why I'm usually talking about Kraken Era Ed when I discuss him). They outwardly express more dramatic feelings rather than characters like Stede or Frenchie who bury a lot of those feelings or express them in different ways. Izzy is from the dramatic genre and I love dramas. Comedy writing is not my specialty

But I can recognize that while I think about other characters a lot, I don't talk about them as often. So expect more metas and discussion of more characters in the future (hopefully. I just write things as I think of them and them to my queue tbh)

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #edward teach #stede bonnet #wee john feeney #frenchie #frenchie ofmd #roach ofmd #nathanial buttons #jim jimenez #oluwande boodhari #archie ofmd #lucius spriggs #black pete #fang ofmd #ivan ofmd

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beewolfwrites · 11 months

Text

The Weight of Guilt

Request:

I feel like there’s some serious childhood trauma in Chishiya’s past and would love a story where he gets triggered by something which causes a panic attack and his girlfriend try’s to help but it’s difficult because he doesn’t feel he deserves help or has never had help before??

Chishiya x OC/Fem!Reader (The girlfriend could be either really, she wasn’t given a name)

Here guys, have a one-shot because why not! Bear in mind, when I was writing this, I figured that Chishiya doesn’t seem like the kind of character to have a full-blown chaotic panic attack. He seems more like someone who would be very still and quiet until it goes away.

(Also Beware! This is very loosely proofed. Some of you all know how bad my proofing can be)

__________________________________________________

Well, this had never happened before. Nor had he ever expected it to.

A simple medical supply run had taken him straight back to the very hospital he had been itching to escape from prior to the Borderlands. And while his companion had disappeared into the musty wards in search of bandages, antibiotics and morphine, Chishiya took the opportunity to pay a little visit to his old unit.

It was fascinating in a way. The operating theatres were dark inside and hauntingly devoid of life. Recovery was just the same. The beds were all empty, as expected, but the patient charts were still attached to the end of each one. Naturally, he wandered down the corridors into the very ward he had been stationed in that day, right before the world disappeared.

He traced each bed, noting how the bedside tables were covered in small mementos, flowers and gifts from family and friends. All relics of a world long gone.

‘Chishiya?’

His companion’s voice sounded in the distance, but he barely heard it.

He barely heard it because he realised that he was standing before that bed. The sheets were dusty, but a familiar plastic dinosaur was on the bedside table and a vase of carnations had dried to a crisp.

‘Chishiya?’

That voice again. The sound was drowned out by a surging sensation throughout his body, a strange gushing in his chest. His fingers felt almost detached from his hands, like those of a marionette. He clenched and unclenched them, yet he felt nothing.

He felt nothing back then too. When they handed him a manila envelope and rearranged the priority list for heart transplants, Chishiya had felt nothing. Even when they had wheeled the boy’s body to the morgue in the basement, his mother still in the ward, clutching her chest as she howled, he had felt nothing but acceptance.

So why now? That was the question.

And why now, of all times, did his head feel underwater? Why was his throat constricted, as though there was a tight band wrapped around it? Why did his tongue feel larger than usual in his dry mouth, swollen enough to restrict his airways?

And that strange gushing sensation had only grown stronger, fuelling him with the urge to run away. And yet he couldn’t move himself from the bedside.

Why couldn’t he move?

‘Chishiya?’

She was right behind him now, in the doorway of the ward. Her footsteps clacked against the floor, growing uncomfortably loud, and a hand touched his shoulder. He didn’t have the energy to shrug it away.

‘Are you okay?’

Normal. He had to appear normal. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said quickly.

‘And why exactly would I do that?’

‘Don’t try to distract me either.’ She moved around him, checking him over. ‘You don’t seem okay.’

She was trying to read him, something that he disliked intensely. He didn’t want her to see this part of him. He had never told her about the things he did before they came here. If he did, surely she wouldn’t stick around.

But would she still stick around now? After this?

He knew exactly what he was experiencing. The DSM-5 had been sitting on his desk for months after he had completed two modules in advanced neuroscience. He understood the symptoms of an anxiety-provoked fight or flight reaction… on paper at least. But he had never truly understood it until now.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, forcing himself to move away from her. ‘I told you, I’m fine.’

In truth, his head was swimming and he had to lean against the railing of the bed for support. But she didn’t need to know that. Nobody could see this kind of weakness, not even her.

‘Chishiya,’ she stepped towards him again. ‘You… you’re tilting. Just—please just sit down with me, okay? You look like you’re going to faint.’

‘I’m not going to—‘

‘Please.’

He looked at her properly, although it was difficult to focus on the softness of her features, pinched in concern, when everything felt so watery and distant. All he needed was these symptoms to go away. Though he knew he wasn’t in any danger, and this was just his body’s reaction, there was no way he could logic himself out of it. Perhaps distraction was the answer.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘But we’re just wasting time.’

‘The supplies aren’t going anywhere. They can wait.’

She sat down on the bed — that bed — and patted the space next to him. He looked at it for a long moment, knowing that if he didn’t sit beside her, she would immediately realise why. So, whilst the thought appalled him, he took a seat on the soft mattress.

She sighed, smiling. ‘You should have told me this was your hospital. I had a feeling when we walked in.’

He didn’t reply. All he could do was focus on a spot on the vinyl floor in hopes that it would somehow make these irksome sensations disappear.

‘I’m guessing this is where you did your clinical rotations, right?’ She paid no mind to his lack of response. ‘You know, when I was a kid I ended up in a place just like this. I was pretty sick for a while, and it wasn’t looking too good. There was an intern there. He wasn’t my actual doctor, but he was shadowing.’

‘Oh really…’

It was the only reply Chishiya could muster.

‘Yeah, even though he was an intern he must have been a mature student because he had a pretty impressive moustache. He used to style it in all these weird ways, just to make the kids laugh.’

She chuckled a little, lost in her own memory. ‘I thought it was funny at the time.’

‘You would,’ Chishiya muttered.

‘Hey!’ She lightly pushed her shoulder into his, careful not to actually shove him.

Despite the fact that he was only half listening, her story was giving him something to focus on. His tongue still felt swollen, and the band around his throat was as tight as ever. But that strange gushing sensation had quietened, and somehow just anchoring himself on the bed helped ease his lightheadedness.

‘Looking back now,’ she continued, ‘he’s probably an amazing paediatrician. I didn’t realise it at the time, but there were some kids there who were dying. He did what he could for them, even if it wasn’t much.’

Was she trying to make him feel better or worse? It wasn’t clear. He would much rather face the humiliation of dying in an Ace of Diamonds game before growing out his facial hair and styling it like a clown just to please some children. Was that why he felt this way? Because deep down, although he was just a medical student, and although death came with the job, Chishiya knew that some deaths were preventable.

And yet, he had stood there, watching passively as they wheeled the boy’s body away.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, or what caused this — and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to — but if you ever do want to, I’m here.’

Chishiya swallowed, unable to meet her gaze.

‘I get that you like to keep your old life pretty private, and that’s fine. But I just need you to know that no matter what happened in the past, I’ll listen. I’m always here to listen.’

He couldn’t speak, simply because he didn’t know what to say. And if she knew what he had done…

It wasn’t the time for a conversation like that.

Maybe one day he would take her up on the offer. But right now, her words alone were enough to quench the dryness of his mouth and the tightness of his throat. A weight lifted from deep within his chest, and the world that had seemed so blurry only minutes before was now just within reach.

#alice in borderland #aib #Imawa no Kuni no Arisu #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #Chishiya x reader #chishiya x oc

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junosmindpalace · 9 months

Text

Hey!! (。・∀・)ノ☆

If it's okay, could you please write a Senku x gender-neutral reader oneshot in which the reader really wants to learn more about astrophysics (likely being inspired by Senku), but they're nervous and way too hard on themself, thanks to all of the criticism and discouragement they've faced from their family? ☆

Sorry about any of the grammar or spelling mistakes I might've just made, lol - I just woke up about an hour ago, but I got super excited when I saw you were taking requests! Have a great day/night, and no pressure <3 ☆

hi there!! thank you so much for your request and patience! i hope this is what you were referring to in your request, i'll edit a bit more in the morning </3 i WOULDVE answered this directly but i suddenly couldnt find it in my inbox anymore. forgive me!

synopsis: you doubt just how far a passion can get you.

You’ve really got to hand it to him; science was awesome.

The way Senku charged forward with his passion, never once wavering in his love and belief in it despite the backlash and hardships he received was inspiring. All the time you spent around him had his determination and fearlessness inspiring you as well. And when you told him about your pursuit in learning more about astrophysics, all thanks to Senku’s own fascination and all the crazy experiments he roped you into, he was more than ecstatic.

He’s been the main provider for your fascination, being damned if he wouldn’t take the opportunity to indulge you in the awesome power of and wonder that was science. It was a constant stream of information all coming from Senku, whether it was in the form of some texts he found or one of his rants on a related experiment. It even fuelled his own excitement of being able to talk science with you, eager to dump everything he’s learned into your mind and show off every related experiment he’s capable of.

Not that you were complaining in the slightest. You soaked up his knowledge and excitement like a sponge, just as eager to learn and indulge as Senku was. You traded information, having conversations that would last hours on the topic. Never once did either of you bore.

Though it wasn’t long until your family had found your stash of books on the subject and had walked in on you pouring over the information in them. Family members skeptically eyed your notes and the titles of the books you were signing out from libraries and borrowing from Senku. They doubtfully questioned you, and it was as if a switch had been flipped in your head, suddenly feeling small and insecure under their disapproving and scrutinizing gazes.

It wasn’t hurting anyone, it was just a hobby of yours. And they agreed. Besides, the benefits that came with having a career in the sciences was well worth the pursuit. What felt like a blow to the chest was the fact that they doubted this passion of yours, your capabilities and your commitment to it.

“You can’t waste all this time on a hobby.”

“Are you sure you have what it takes to pursue this?”

“I just don’t know how suitable this is for you…”

“This interest will die out in a couple of months. Don’t let yourself get caught up in something that will ultimately be of no value to you.”

Words like these and long conversations about your family doubting your passion in astrophysics made it hard for you to continue enjoying learning the material, and your attitude toward it slowly started to shift.

This shift didn’t go unnoticed by Senku, of course. He was all too familiar with people doubting the validity of his passion for science. His enthusiasm and insane experiments have gained him both admirers and people who doubted and even resented his eccentricity, viewing him as an oddity. He was all too familiar with people doubting his knowledge and science as a whole! Thus, it was why Senku was the perfect man to help you get back into your old mindset.

His mission to get you to believe in the awesome power of science started as soon as you first met him, but now he had to help you get back on the track to believing in yourself.

He remembers when you first reluctantly told him about this seed of doubt that had been planted into your mind, slowly invading your mind like an invasive plant.

Senku made sure to weed out the root of this seed before it could invade the rest of your mind, thorny and suffocating in vines. If there’s anything his old man taught him, it was what support and indulgence could do and where it could take him.

He can tell you’ve become more doubtful in your knowledge when it came to your discussions, not as eager as you once were to share your findings and things that particularly interested you in the subject. Corrections Senku made seemed to fluster you all the more, even quiet you at times, no longer enthusiastically accepting his contributions to discussions.

Suddenly you don’t feel as capable as Senku is. You watched his love of science grow up alongside him, and you’re fearful that you just won’t be able to commit to that interest as much as Senku does. What if you’re no good at it? What if you never grow? What if you constantly fall behind? What if you lose interest entirely? The doubts in your mind were endless.

But to Senku, his love of science came very naturally, and he was able to tell that so was the case for you. It wasn’t forced and you certainly weren’t complaining when it came to indulging in the material. You were knowledgeable and capable in the subject, and above all, he could tell that you had fun with it. And ultimately, that was what you needed reminding of.

And so one afternoon after another no-go at getting easy discussion out of you, you had revealed to him in a messy jumble all these fears that were pulling you back from continuing to pursue this interest. He listened with a frown and furrowed brows as you explained to him the doubts your family had put in your mind, and reflected on them throughout.

And once you were finally done venting those doubts that were weighing you down like a boulder chained to your leg, a moment of silence followed.

Suddenly you’re even more nervous than you began, having no clue what to expect from Senku’s response. But then you hear him speak up: “So what?”

You immediately raised your head, staring at him in confusion. “What?”

“So what?” he echoed, a small smile breaking out over his face. “Science is trial and error. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of time to learn and apply. It can be frustrating and all the failures can be discouraging--if you choose to look at it that way.”

He places his hands in front of his lap and propels himself forward, just slightly, so that his face is inches from yours. You’re taken aback for a moment, and his smile still hasn’t left him.

“Failure is part of the learning process, a big part! Doubt and speculation are what lead to more theories, more experiments, more learning, and more growth. And with every failure you learn something new, so you never really lose!”

He rests backward, but never leaves your gaze. His voice grows gentler, but doesn’t lose any of its resolution. “You know this.”

“And besides, science isn’t about being the best. You like it ‘cause it’s fun, right?”

And his smile grows a little wider when he sees in your face the reminder slowly coming down on you, snapping you out of this trance of self-doubt.

This interest didn’t develop out of a need to impress, for validation, or any other ulterior motive other than to indulge in a fascination that turned into a hobby you really truly loved. Not because of the praise it brought in from peers, but because you enjoyed immersing yourself in it, from the textbooks to the lengthy conversations to the experiments that took a hundred tries to get right. The successful end goals were just as fun as the insightful process. Even if it took a while to grasp certain concepts or review certain material, it was just all the more exciting and rewarding when it finally did click.

And though there would always be people who are hesitant to give their all and project those doubts, it shouldn’t hold you back and have you following in their footsteps.

Besides, having Senku to indulge with certainly meant that you would never, ever have to doubt for long.

#dr stone x reader #dr stone oneshots #dr stone oneshot #dr stone fluff #drst x reader #drst oneshot #senku ishigami x reader #senku x reader #senku ishigami oneshot #senku ishigami fluff

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nymphbunnyys · 2 years

Note

hi! I love the way you write and I was wondering if u could do Asa, Jesse, and Michael with an s/o who’s a famous (but unknown) horror game designer? Like they make all their games themself and their development set-up is in the basement

If this is too specific or hard feel free to turn it away, ur my fav slasher writer and I love ur fics ❤️❤️

Why would I turn this is away?! This is actually so cool. As someone who’s into stories and horror, at a very young age I always wanted to create games or even comics dedicated to horror so this was actually really fun to write! Also I love you so much, I’m your favourite slasher writer? Like what the heck?! I hope you like this munchkin, XO.

Also I deeply apologize for not writing as much I finally have a job again so I’ve been busy with that and saving for my PC, but I promise stuff is still coming out, I’m also in the process of trying to better the way I write sooo bare with me.

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬? 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠.

𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨’𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐫

TW; none that I know of?

GN!Reader!

𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐞𝐥 𝐌𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬

- honestly I feel like Michael would think this is.. actually kind of interesting. A lot of times he’s some what impatient to get home just so he can get his way into the basement and watch you create your own little worlds.

- in a way, it helps him escape? That and he can relate due to the horror themes.. but when he watches it’s almost like he’s the character. Watching so intently as you test the game, the character making their way through corridors and flashing their flash light at sudden noises. It almost felt real. Maybe you took inspiration from your murderous boyfriend, either way he thinks it’s fascinating.

- One night when watching you code and test the game you’d recently been working on, he noticed the frustration boiling under your fingers, watching as you occasionally picked up your pencil to scribble, watching as they went back to the keyboard to pop up the coding screen and quickly going back to the game. “Michael, I’m doomed.” The man ever so slightly jumped, the comfort of the quiet now gone. He tilted his head a bit looking at you and then the screen. What could have been the issue.. it looked great. He softly cocked a brow and sat back. “I can’t come up with an antagonist for the game.. nothing absolutely nothing at all comes to mind.”

- The two of you sat in silence once more, listening to the music that played from the computer the music that was supposed to make the killer of the game come out, it’s que for the coding to jump scare the poor pixelated protagonist. But nothing could come to mind. Michael sat for a long moment and on a whim.. pointed to himself. Michael usually wasn’t of much help and didn’t care to help you with most things but this had been something he’d taken a liking to and if Michael likes it then that’s when he’ll help.

- you looked at him with a glint of curiosity in your eyes. That’s actually.. not such a bad idea. I mean.. fuck even though the man did what he did he had.. a pretty large amount of people who liked him so why not.. make a game about him.. people do it all the time.. ‘based on true events’. He was a genius. You gave a soft peck to Michaels cheek before going back to your game, creating the antagonist to be the one and only.

-Michael Myers.

-… you’ve probably fuelled his ego though.

𝐀𝐬𝐚 𝐄𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐲

- I mean. Definitely isn’t interested in games but he understands what having hobbies is and doing things to thrill you so he’s all for it. He might occasionally tell you that you should add something like this.. or that, maybe put that in there. I mean he would know right. Horror.. is what he does.

- oddly enough whenever he does this it’s almost like he’s criticizing you on how to do things but he’s not.. he just wants to help in some way, show that he’s not such an asshole and does care for your interests. But it does come across as if he’s criticizing. He Never really learned how to tap into giving good criticism.

- he likes it because he doesn’t have to worry about you when he’s at the hotel. You’re content in the basement, tapping away at you work and listening to music, and when he’s home.. it’s maybe a little too quiet. He doesn’t normally get a hug when he comes home, or a kiss. So he’ll open the basement door, bring you food and deliver a kiss to your temple.

- “eat. You’ve been at this all day.”

- quickly walks upstairs so he doesn’t have to hear you thank him for being so sweet.

𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬

- uhmmmm that’s cool, but can you maybe bring a laptop with all that stuff cuz, he doesn’t want you in the basement he wants you by his side at work.. 24/7. So if you can find a way to bring that with you then uh I’d suggest do that.

- it’s not that he doesn’t want you to do what you’re doing, your job is great he just. Wants you time.

- all the time. Even if that means you have to bring work with you everywhere you go. He makes sure that you aren’t interrupted though, he makes sure you have a comfy chair right beside him and have room on his desk to set your laptop and all your work on. He likes to set his work aside at times to watch you, ask you questions about what you’re making and sometimes to test the game.

- I won’t lie.. Jesse probably likes the idea of games, like Michael he sees it as his own world, he can be somebody else, somewhere made up.

- the amount of times you hear the text to speech from his phone to tell you to add little skulls here and there is ridiculous. But you like to the little ‘I’m so proud of you’, ‘this looks amazing dear’

- he loves your work. He is very very proud of you and how much effort you put into it.

#slasher x reader #slasher x s/o #slasher x y/n #slasher x you #slasher hcs #slasher headcanons #slasher imagines #asa emory x reader #asa emory x y/n #michael myers fluff #rz michael myers x you #michael myers x reader #michael myers x you #michael myers x y/n #jesse cromeans x reader #jesse cromeans x you

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dreamcubed · 2 years

Text

she’s my collar | tom riddle x reader

song; she's my collar [gorillaz, kali uchis] pairing; tom riddle x fem!slytherin!reader genre; angst, hurt comfort(ish), soulmates, s2l word count; 6,8k timeline; riddle's last years at hogwarts warnings; swearing, minor character deaths, minor character murders, discrimination (muggle-borns), talk of hate crimes (muggle-borns), mentions of physical pain, injuries (involving blood), implied depression, implied manipulative relationship summary; most people were destined to never find the person who was born with a matching tattoo to theirs - you weren't one of those people, but you were forced to endure your soulmate creating horcruxes and the effect it had on your soul

masterlist

fyi i do mix up the order that tom makes the horcruxes a bit :)

"she's the serpentine, she's my collar."

——————————————

In a wizarding world with soulmates, but no guarantee that you would ever find yours, you - like many others - resorted to hopeful dreams of the perfect match. Your parents didn't inflate your hopes, and kept you grounded, as they themselves weren't soulmates, like so many other lifelong couples. Nonetheless, like little muggle kids dream of being royalty and heroes, wizard and witch kids dream of finding their ultimate love.

It was estimated that less than five percent of wizards and witches found their soulmate, which was a huge reason behind parents not fuelling their children's imagination. The whole concept might as well not exist if you weren't destined to find your partner - at least that's what you thought frequently.

Nonetheless, some hope remained burning within you even after your infancy ended, and resided in the back of your mind as you started Hogwarts. Often at night you found yourself tracing the snake tattoo curled around your left forearm: it was significantly larger than your friends' soulmate tattoos. Most inked marks were small, no larger than a galleon coin, and yours in comparison was massive.

Your friends often speculated that it was a sign of you being more likely to meet your soulmate than the rest of them, but you had always had a feeling it was something much more sinister, but you didn't know why - so you brushed it off as simply your pessimistic mindset. A signature trait of yours was only seeing the bad in things.

Perhaps you got that from your parents, who had reacted so negatively to your tattoo that they had told you to hide it, in fear of something dark. You had never really understood why - sure, snakes were associated with evil, like basilisks and Salazar Slytherin, but there were a fair share of Slytherins in your family who were the nicest of people. Despite that, they had reacted negatively to you being sorted into Slytherin. Sometimes it felt like they knew something that you didn't.

It wasn't something you liked to think about too often, but it still crossed your mind sometimes, like in potions, where you sat etching mindless graffiti into the table. You couldn't help but stare at the tip of your tattoo poking out of your sleeve, unaware you were subconsciously transcribing a snake into the dark wood.

You were so consumed in your thoughts that you failed to hear Slughorn dismissing everyone, until he walked up to your desk and tapped his wand where your graffiti was.

"A fascinating drawing, Miss L/N. Why a snake?"

Your eyes snapped up, a small hint of fear at being caught bubbling within you.

He sensed your apprehension, and laughed, "Don't panic, it's nothing a little magic can't cover up."

You watched as he wordlessly moved his wand over the snake, transforming it back into smooth wood.

"You didn't answer my question - why a snake?"

You shrugged, playing with the sleeve that covered your tattoo.

Slughorn noticed the fidgeting, and also caught sight of some of the ink. "Your soul mark? Is it a snake?"

You nodded.

"Fascinating. Very fitting of a Slytherin, don't you think?"

"I suppose," you said quietly.

"Perhaps your soulmate is a Slytherin?"

"Maybe."

"Anyway, my lesson has finished, if you hadn't noticed. You're free to go."

You pushed all your belongings into your satchel, and began making your way to the exit in a hurry.

"Oh, Miss L/N, I think you dropped something."

You span around to see Slughorn clutching a black book, cornered in brass - it looked like a handful of notebooks you owned from that distance, so you didn't think twice about moving forward and accepting it from him. As you shoved it into your bag, you mumbled a "thank you" before leaving the dungeon classroom for good.

***

Only now you were sat at your desk in your dormitory did you realise that the book was in fact not yours.

Like usual, you had completed your evening routine of going through your satchel and organising any new assignments and notes you had gathered that day, causing you to open the book you had thoughtlessly accepted from Slughorn to see what you had written in it. Except, you hadn't written in it - meaning it couldn't be yours, as at this point in the year there was not a notebook you kept on your person that wasn't written in.

At the very least, its emptiness probably meant no one was missing it.

You shoved the book aside and picked up a fresh piece of scroll for your next due assignment; you dipped your quill into the ink pot sat at the back of the desk, and as you brought your hand back to the scroll, a couple drops fell from the quill and landed on the still-open page of the mystery book. You wouldn't have paid any attention to it if the ink hadn't then dissolved into the page.

Suddenly, the assignment didn't matter to you anymore. All that mattered was the evidently charmed book, that could potentially hold someone's secrets if it was some kind of invisible ink spell.

Maybe someone was missing it, then.

In the case you managed to return it, you decided to write a small message to them, to ensure to them that you didn't invade their privacy.

Your charm works by the way - I can't see a thing in here.

You watched as the ink disappeared, but it surprised you when ink appeared in return.

D: Do you know the charm placed on this diary?

You hadn't expected a response, but found yourself replying nonetheless.

Y: An invisible ink one, right?

D: Wrong.

Y: What charm is it then?

D: A companionship charm. I provide company to the owner.

Y: Do you have a name?

D: I am named after my creator. I am him, in a way.

Y: Who is he?

D: Tell me your name first.

You hesitated. You didn't want the owner of the diary to know you had been writing in it.

Y: I don't think I should say.

Y: What did you mean by "I am him, in a way"?

D: A part of his soul lives in this diary.

D: It allows me to think, talk, and act like him.

At the time, you assumed that the diary was referring to a soul-imitating charm of sorts, as you hadn't gotten the impression of dark magic being at play.

Y: Does that mean this diary is connected to his soulmate too? Has your creator met his soulmate?

D: I suppose I would be bonded to his soulmate - that's my soulmate as well, as I am a part of the soul.

Y: That's cool.

Y: What's your soulmate tattoo?

D: Tell me your name first.

You chewed your lip in thought. Were you really this curious? Did a part of you think that maybe the owner of this diary was your soulmate? It was perfectly normal to compare marks with every person you met - although this wasn't really a person.

Y: Y/N L/N.

D: Okay, Miss L/N, this is my soul mark.

You watched as a design began forming on the page, as if being drawn by an invisible hand. You stilled in shock as you realised it was taking the form of a snake - one exactly like your own tattoo.

Y: Do you have eyes or something? A seeing charm?

D: What do you mean?

Y: You drew my soul mark.

D: I do not have a seeing charm placed on me.

Y: What's your name? I've told you mine.

You stared in nervous anticipation as the diary began to reply.

D: Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The grip you had on your quill tightened until your knuckles were white.

Tom Riddle was the mysterious - albeit handsome - boy in your year, in your house. He scared everyone with his dominating presence and calculated words, along with his fascination in dark magic. He had always had a magnetism of attraction about him, but a million girls fancied him, so you had always thought that everyone felt it.

You knew that should have been where you returned the diary to him, but you found yourself way too curious about your potential soulmate. So, you found yourself conversing with the diary right until the early hours of the morning.

***

Were you ready to have Tom Riddle as your soulmate?

Sure, he was a woman-charmer, a handsome guy, clearly intelligent beyond his years... he just seemed so disinterested in love and relationships. Did he even want you? Well, not you specifically, but a soulmate in general.

Did you even want him?

The sinister feeling around your snake tattoo had grown stronger ever since you first wrote in the diary, and something told you that Riddle was a person of many dark mysteries. Yet, still, in spite of that, the childish desire to be in the arms of your fated remained twisting inside of you, pulling at your core and urging you to confess to Tom.

"Riddle," you called out, just as your defence against the dark arts class had been dismissed.

The boy looked up, and narrowed his eyes at you as you approached him.

You couldn't help but gulp as you reached his desk, feeling threatened by the height advantage he had on you. "I believe this is yours," you finally spoke, presenting the diary to him. If he was paying any attention to your appearance, the bags under your eyes - which were normally well-rested - would probably give away that you had been up all night writing in it.

"And how did you reach that conclusion?" he replied - his tone as cool as ever.

"Whatever charm you put on it works. The diary talks back."

You placed it in his hand, looking up to meet his gaze.

"I must apologise - I did write in it for a few hours. It was so fascinating that I couldn't resist."

He didn't say anything in response, so you took that as your cue to leave, bowing your head as you exited the classroom.

***

"Avery," Tom drawled, staring daggers into his friend, "Your little spell of life force draining doesn't work."

"My Lord, I promise you it does. It isn't even my own spell."

"Yes, it's the oh so trustworthy dark magic you found in Knockturn Alley."

"May I ask what leads you to believe it doesn't work?"

Tom sighed, "Little Miss L/N in our year found my diary - which you dropped, by the way, I trusted you with it in confidence-"

"My apologies, my Lord."

"Do not interrupt me - anyway, she found it, spent some time writing in it, and didn't form an emotional attachment. It's supposed to happen within a few minutes of writing in it."

"Maybe the diary was already attached to someone else? It can't drain two people at once."

"Then that's all the worse for you if two irrelevant nobodies got their hands on it when it was supposed to be in your possession."

"The charm is genuine, though, my Lord, I promise."

"Liar."

"The book did say the charm doesn't work on the soulmate of the caster."

Tom stilled in his movements, slowly leaning towards Avery with a cold expression, "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Avery?"

"Maybe, y- yes, my Lord."

"That's a weighted hypothesis you're making, you know, I would hate for you to be wrong."

Tom flicked open the pages of the diary, grabbing an ink pot and quill from the nearest table surface. Slowly, but carefully, he began writing.

T: Why couldn't you begin draining L/N's life force?

He watched as the part of his soul within the book began forming ink on the pages.

Within seconds, he was staring at a fully drawn version of the soul mark imprinted on his left forearm: the serpent.

His hand gripped the edges of the page tightly, and he watched as his knuckles whitened as a result of the pressure. Eventually, he let go, throwing the diary towards Lestrange, "It's your responsibility, now, don't disappoint me."

He then stormed out of the room swiftly and menacingly, with only one thought bouncing through his mind.

***

At this time of night, you weren't necessarily meant to be asleep, but you were meant to be in your common rooms or dormitories. You shouldn't have been in the library so late - Merlin knows it's a miracle the librarian didn't find you tucked away in your corner. It was also a miracle you made it back to the Slytherin dungeons without running into a teacher or a prefect.

Only when you walked into the common room to see that it was completely deserted did you realise why you hadn't run into any prefects: it was very late. Hence the empty room.

Or so you thought.

A cough made you jolt, spinning around frantically to identify the location, to then spot a figure looming in the shadows.

"Y/N L/N."

"Yes?" you replied meekly, preparing yourself to grab your wand from your pocket. You relaxed when Tom Riddle emerged from the darkness, letting your hand fall back to your side.

"My apologies, I didn't meant to scare you."

You didn't think you had ever heard Riddle apologise to anyone before. "It- it's fine. Do you need something?"

He didn't reply verbally, but walked closer to you. All you could do was observe as he reached down to grab your left wrist, and pulled up your sleeve. You heard his breath hitch as he looked upon the serpent design, and you felt your eyes wander to his clothed left arm.

Letting go of your wrist, Tom stepped back and pulled up the material of his jumper, revealing the identical tattoo patterned on his skin. You didn't know what to say as his gaze met yours, so you hoped that he would lead the conversation.

"You are my soulmate, L/N."

No shit, Sherlock.

"I can only apologise for what your soul will have to endure."

***

You wish the night hadn't been sleepless for you, but the truth is Tom's words were playing around in your head like a broken record. Maybe it was just a joking apology about being soulmates with him? He didn't seem like the type to crack a joke, especially considering he said it so cryptically. No, you knew that there was a darkened undertone to his words, and you had a feeling it was connected to the diary.

Still, there was a burning desire inside of you to grow close to him - to be his, and for him to be yours. Every ounce of self-doubt told you that the man had no interest in a relationship, he was clearly preoccupied with other business.

That was definitely evident when you sat down at the Slytherin table for breakfast, immediately looking in Tom's direction. He watched as you sat down, but then turned back to whispering to his friends. Well, friends was a strong word - you weren't sure you would refer to them as that. Avery and Lestrange seemed to follow Riddle not out of platonic affection, but out of obedient loyalty. Their "friendship" dynamic had always immensely confused you, but they appeared happy so you didn't question it.

Tom didn't sit next to them in defence against the dark arts that day - he sat at your side, forcing the girl next to you to move. You gave him a glare for being rude to her, but it was futile as he clearly didn't care.

"There are certain things that come with being my soulmate that you might not be prepared for," he said quietly to you while the professor droned on.

"Such as?"

"I can't speak of them here," he said, "But I have great plans for my life, and you cannot be of any hinderance."

You frowned at him.

"Essentially, you're either with me completely, or not at all."

"I need to know your exact plans before I make that decision," you whispered, unable to squash the confusion you felt, along with the slight hint of hurt that you might not spend your life with the boy who was already making your heart race.

"It will have to be discussed in private."

***

You weren't entirely sure where you were, if you were honest. To your utter dismay, you had been blindfolded and led to a secondary location, something that had been strongly advised against by your parents. Unfortunately, you had been inclined to oblige, due to the blindfolder being your soulmate. Avery and Lestrange were tagging along as well, as you could hear them talking a little ways behind you, but couldn't make out what they were saying as you were too busy attempting to memorise all the turns and twists you took - though you weren't doing a very good job.

Eventually, all movement stilled, and you felt smooth hands brush against your skin as the blindfold was removed from your face. You looked around, but quite honestly still had no idea where you were: the room was darkened, with no windows, and you could hear the faint sound of dripping. After your eyes adjusted, you decided it was an abandoned classroom deep in the dungeons. Every instinct in your body told you that you were about to die.

You looked upon Tom shakily, wondering just what he was capable of.

"Everything said here must not leave this room, do you understand?" he asked, disregarding your blatant fear.

It seemed best to comply, so you nodded.

"Even if you decide not to join me, you cannot speak a word of this to anyone. Ever."

Again, you nodded.

Tom pulled his wand out of his cloak and held it to the palm of his other hand, "Blood pact."

You watched as he cut the palm of his hand open with magic, and held out your hand to allow him to do the same. Closing your eyes, you felt his fingertips brush over the back of your hand as the wand cut a stinging line on the front. You opened your eyes to shake his hand, feeling in your bones the bond then created between the two of you.

Tom then stepped away from you, looking towards Avery and Lestrange, before beginning to talk. "I am the only known living descendant of Salazar Slytherin... and thus I have a large legacy to live up to. Thankfully, my aspirations and skillset align with great things."

You held your injured palm in your other hand as he continued to speak.

"I desire to be the most powerful wizard of all time. The entire package - indestructible, intelligent, immortal."

The emphasis on the last word made you tilt your head in confusion.

"Did you know that immortality is possible, Y/N?"

You nodded, "The philosopher's stone - but only one has ever been successfully made."

"There is in fact a much more direct way," he said, "However it is not popularised due to the method involving... dark magic."

Shock and understanding coursed through your being: suddenly all of Riddle, Lestrange and Avery's strange behaviour was making sense.

"Have you ever heard of a horcrux?"

You shook your head.

"It is an item or creature in which a part of one's soul is contained. The division of one's soul into multiple vessels allows for it to be very difficult for one to be killed. All horcruxes must be destroyed for one's life to end - do you understand where I'm going with this?"

Meekly, you nodded your head once more.

"The more horcruxes the better, therefore, and by spreading them out far and wide - it would be near impossible for someone to find them all, especially with no clues."

You remained quiet as he stared deeply into your eyes.

"The diary that you found is my first - and currently only - horcrux."

"Do you age?" you finally summoned the courage to ask.

He nodded, "Yes, it is simply my soul that cannot be erased. Eventually my physical body will die a natural death of old age - but I can gain a new body with my continually living soul."

"How?"

"There are a multitude of spells and rituals for the task - all dark magic, of course."

"Who will do it?"

"My faithful followers," he said simply, as if it were the most obvious piece of information in the world, "I'm thinking of calling them death eaters."

You gazed off into the distance as you thought about the diary. "I was talking to an actual part of you?"

"A part of my soul, but yes."

"How do you make a horcrux?"

"Through a painful and grim procedure."

Trying to ignore the dull ache in your palm, you asked, "Why would you have followers?"

"I already have Lestrange and Avery, as you can see - it's really no mystery as to why many pure-bloods and half-bloods will be willing to follow me."

You frowned, connecting the dots in your head, "Something to do with muggle-borns?"

"Part of the cause is my- our- vow to erase mudbloods from existence."

Every part of your body froze, as your mind ticked back to the memory of muggle-born student Myrtle Warren's recent death. You couldn't help the itching sense of terror that consumed you as you looked upon Tom, who was analysing your body language carefully.

"I understand if this is a lot to take in."

You gulped, looking between him and then Avery, and then Lestrange.

"Can I- can I have some time to think about it?"

As he opened his mouth to reply, Avery cut in, "My Lord, it's getting late. We should return soon so as not to attract suspicion."

"Very well," Tom said, "You may have a week to decide. Regardless of your decision, you must not tell another soul of what we have discussed."

"I can't anyway," you mumbled, in reference to the blood pact.

The blindfold was soon on you again, and you were being led out of the mysterious location wondering how you made it out alive.

"Would I have to call you my Lord as well?" you asked.

"No," he said shortly, "I suppose not."

The journey then continued in silence, until you tripped when going up a set of stairs. It seemed that a fall was inevitable, as by some miracle one had not occurred on the way there.

"Please tell me when there are stairs," you snapped, with an anger-driven wave of courage.

Tom, who had caught you by gripping his hands on your arms, muttered, "My apologies."

You almost missed the surprised and confused way Avery and Lestrange began whispering to each other after that. In your defence, your mind was filled with a million thoughts a second.

You hated how safe you felt in Tom's arms, how secure his hold was, because there was a very good chance he was a killer. It should be a no-brainer declining his offer of joining his muggle-born hate group, but the part of you that was soulmate-bonded to Tom wanted nothing more than to be by his side.

But, at the end of it all, you were petrified. Petrified both of your soulmate and of being without him.

You had a lot of thinking to do.

***

One thing you read up on was that upon first making skin-on-skin contact with your soulmate, your bond would deepen and you would find it more difficult to be away from them. Many long-wed soulmate couples spoke of how it became easier eventually, but only after it got harder.

That was one famous quote you had always been irritated at the paradox in: it gets worse before it gets better. If you were going through hardships, and kept repeating that line, what is the point at which it gets better? Surely it would just continually get worse, as it has to get worse before it’s able to get better, but if it constantly has to get worse, then the better that was spoken of never takes place, which would mean that the quote- which is somewhat of a theory- becomes null and void.

You were overthinking it - fixating on one specific minute detail so as to distract from the mortifying ordeal of the bigger picture. Maybe it got better once things could no longer get worse, i.e. when you reached rock bottom. A more inspirational quote to you was once you've reached rock bottom, the only way to go is up. The only problem was that you weren't at rock bottom: your grades were perfectly adequate, your friendships were perfectly intact, and you had achieved the most common desire among wizarding folk. Of course, your woes were as a result of the latter.

You wished you had never found out it was Tom Riddle, the orphaned boy with sinister plans, because you knew deep down that this would end with you choosing your heart's wishes over your brain's logic. His touch was the subject of your cravings, and his elegant manner of speaking the music in your mind.

Your dearest friend Sullyoon could do little to gain your attention as you stared longingly at Tom from across the potions classroom. Despite having permanently placed himself at your side in DADA, he had not made the same move in Slughorn's lessons.

Sullyoon was a weird part in your finding of your soulmate, as normally she dragged you out of lessons the second they were over, but the day in which the diary was mistakenly handed to you was the day she was in the hospital wing nursing a severe quidditch injury. If she hadn't swerved left when in a quaffle-battle with chasers during the match between Slytherin and Gryffindor, the beater of the opposing team wouldn't have accidentally whacked her arm instead of the mischievous little bludger he had originally intended on. The poor boy had felt absolutely awful, but thanks to the wonders of wizarding medicine, Sullyoon didn't have to suffer for more than a day.

"Babe, I can't even get you to look my way for more than a second these days," she spoke, adding various ingredients to your shared cauldron, "You keep gazing at Mr Arrogant like Cupid has struck you."

The look you gave her in reply must have been an open book, because her jaw instantly dropped.

"Oh, Cupid has struck you."

You saw no point in denying it, but you weren't sure if she had jumped to the conclusion of soulmates yet, or just thought that you had developed a crush.

"Well, he's handsome, I'll give you that. But completely and utterly up himself."

You hummed.

"Not even sure if he's capable of love, to be honest, he's very closed off - always whispering suspiciously with Avery and Lestrange."

Part of you wanted to tell Sullyoon that she had every right to be suspicious of their whispers, but you were bound by a blood pact. You were reminded of that when Tom's gaze shifted to lock with yours, quirking an eyebrow in the most subtle of ways. Subconsciously, you began fidgeting with the sleeve that covered your soul mark, and only realised the habit when Tom then moved his eyes to look there.

Sullyoon observed all of this, and when you turned back to look at her you couldn't miss the understanding now enveloping her expression.

"Shit," she muttered.

"Shit," you repeated in agreement.

***

Did Tom feel the longing you felt on his end? Did he desire your touch? Crave your presence? You had to agree with Sullyoon's questioning of whether he was even capable of feelings as soft and affectionate as love. However, you reasoned, that wasn't the only way to love - some love was toxic, obsessive, but passionate. Was Tom the protective type?

All these questions that you wanted answers so desperately to seemed to push you in the direction of joining him. It was bad.

Fuck, that was an understatement.

It was immoral, unethical, evil - but at its very core, it was powerful and impressive. If Tom were to succeed entirely in his dark dreams, then he would be a serial killer. Even that term felt mild to describe who he would be if he followed through with the things he spoke of. He would be the most terrifying wizard to walk the planet, the miserable cloud hanging over history, and the name people feared to speak.

But, worst of all, he would still be your soulmate.

Whenever your eyes met his in lessons, when your hands brushed in the corridor, or when he greeted you politely at meal times - you would temporarily forget his dark side. The cliché butterflies in your stomach accompanied with the blood rushing to your ears would flourish as he gave you that devastatingly gorgeous smile, and you would feel at ease. Why did you feel so safe with someone so unarguably dangerous?

Which is why, to your utter moral dismay, you approached him before the week time limit was even up, telling him you would join him. He had grinned devilishly, before quickly instructing you to meet him after dinner in the girls' toilets that had been closed ever since Myrtle's untimely death. No one of a sane mind dared to step foot in them, as the death was far too recent.

Plus, Myrtle had elected to come back as a ghost.

***

Tom wasn't there when you arrived, but you caught sight of a ghostly flash in the corner of your eye. Apparently, Myrtle was far too shy to start properly revealing herself to students yet, but you assumed that would change as the years passed.

When the boy arrived, he appeared as calm and collected as ever, and it took you by surprise when he kissed you on the cheek and took your hand in his. Still, he did not say a word to you, turning towards the sinks before speaking- to your horror- in fluent parseltongue. You knew all too well that it was an ability blessed upon the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin, but you also knew it was heavily associated with dark magic.

Your shock was replaced by a different one when the sinks moved to form an entrance to somewhere - but all you could do was let Tom lead you into the unknown abyss of darkness, leaving the faint cries of Myrtle Warren's ghost behind.

You walked for a while in silence, though your tight grip on his hand must have spoke volumes. You didn't fail to notice the way his thumb lightly stroked yours, and for a brief second you speculated that maybe Riddle was capable of affection.

Those thoughts were quickly forgotten, though, when you reached a gate with a design of snakes decorating it extravagantly. Subconsciously, you shifted closer to Tom's side and gripped your free hand around his bicep. He made no objection to your movements, and spoke in some more parseltongue to make the gate open, presenting a very large and very scary room beyond.

"This-" he finally spoke, stepping in, "-is the Chamber of Salazar Slytherin."

You gulped.

"I've never taken anyone here before," he paused, "Well, that's a lie. I've never taken anyone here before in good intent."

At your frown, he further explained.

"I've never taken anyone here before without the intention to kill them," for a brief moment you felt a pang of fear for your life, but it was soothed by him saying, "Until you."

He guided you further into the chamber, and you couldn't mistake the sound of something moving in the background.

Tom, again, began speaking in parseltongue, and you nearly jumped when a giant snake- a basilisk- slithered out of one of the many interconnecting tunnels. Its eyelids were shut, but you knew what lay behind them, so instinctively buried your face into Tom's shoulder.

"Darling, the basilisk obeys me - another perk of Slytherin blood - so rest assured that I will not let you see into its eyes. I prefer you alive."

Cautiously, you peeked out from the material of his cloak, feeling your heart thumping tenfold in your chest. He spoke more parseltongue, and the basilisk began moving around the two of you, at which point he reached out to stroke it with the hand you weren't holding captive. He gestured for you to stroke the serpent as well, and with an immensely shaky hand you released his bicep from your grip and let your fingertips run over the reptilian scales.

"I always saw a soulmate as a weakness," Tom began, "I hoped I would never meet mine so as to not be held back in my plans, more concerned about you not being able to handle this lifestyle than being with you."

You looked back up at him from stroking the basilisk.

"It's strange, though, how now that I've met you, I don't care about weakness anymore. Despite the fact you're evidently going to take some warming up to my choices, I feel the need to protect you, to hold you safely in my arms from any dangers."

Pulling your hand back from the snake, you let it wrap around Tom's side, somewhat forcing him into an embrace with you. He returned it, much less stiffly than you had thought that he would.

"And to protect you from these dangers, I must create you a safety net," he spoke, stepping back from you to pull out his wand.

For a split second, you thought he was going to use it on you, but he didn't. He turned away and muttered a charm under his breath, which, to your further horror, brought two younger students into display - alive, but tied up and gagged.

"In order to be further bonded, and for you not to be a weakness of mine, we will become horcruxes for each other. I will not be your last horcrux, of course, but it is a rather romantic first step, I'd say."

You nervously looked over at the two students, feeling the urge to sob when you saw the fear in their eyes.

"Hey, shh, shh, darling," he only spoke gently to you, pulling your head into his chest, "They will be at peace soon."

Why did you lean into him even now?

"Did you not notice all the ruckus about two missing students? Mudblood students? Did you not suspect I was the cause?"

You hadn't noticed nor suspected him. You had been so wrapped up in your thoughts lately that you hadn't even spared an ounce of attention towards Sullyoon's relentless gossiping, or the rumours spreading like wildfire throughout the castle.

And that's when you heard more parseltongue, and the movement of the basilisk once again. It had its back to you now, but it wasn't difficult to decipher that it had opened its eyelids under Tom's orders. You were then overwhelmed with blood, and his voice, and the feeling of something within you being ripped and stolen like you were being mugged by a sadist.

But then it stopped. You collapsed a little, weakened by the experience, and noticed a burning sensation on your left wrist. Once your vision stopped spinning and Tom had pulled you upright, you looked at your soul mark to see that it had risen beyond ink, taking a bumpier three-dimensional form, blackened completely. You soon saw that Tom's mark had done the same.

What then took you off guard was your soulmate speaking to the basilisk, only this time, you could understand him. He was telling the snake to leave now, but with a hissing edge to his voice. It then further surprised you when you found yourself speaking to him effortlessly in parseltongue as well, which only caused his grin to expand.

"Yes, only my soulmate should also possess the ability of parseltongue. Very fitting."

And then his lips were on yours. A voice in the back of your head screamed that you should resist, that you should walk away, but you melted into Tom's touch. The number of books you had read on the first kiss with your soulmate didn't even come close to capturing the euphoria you were in, as well as the security you felt.

"You, my darling, are my forever."

***

TEN YEARS LATER.

***

"My Lady, the Dark Lord is waiting for you," the small and nervous death eater spoke, his height falling shorter than yours.

You dismissed him, turning back to the mirror that was cracked at the edges and scratched along the centre. Despite its wear and tear, you could still make out the darkening bags beneath your eyes, giving them a sunken look. The whiteness of your eyeballs had long since taken a permanently bloodshot appearance, but you found yourself uncaring. You ran the tap of the sink in the old-fashioned bedroom, and splashed cold water on to your face, enjoying briefly the refreshing feel - not that hot water was an option in this abandoned house.

Eventually, you left the room, forcing yourself to take upon a more confident walk as you passed death eaters in the dozen. They all bowed respectfully at you, and instantly rushed to open the door to the main room of the house - the centrepiece.

Within the room, Tom was sat alone at the head of the grand but beaten-down table, but his face lit up when he caught sight of you.

"My darling, my Dark Lady," he spoke, rising from his seat to peck your lips and pull you into his chest. You remained there for a while, unwanting to move, which Tom sensed. His arms were the only place you felt comfortable and happy these days. "What is troubling you?"

You shook your head, knowing that your dissatisfaction with this life was a bad thing to discuss when in a house full of murderers. "Nothin', Tom."

Tom was a name rarely spoken when in reference to the man before you anymore, being pretty much exclusively referred to by his chosen name of Lord Voldemort. You were about the only person who could speak his birth name without igniting a fury that could kill nations, but only when you were within closed doors. You could get away with "Tom" in public, but it would lead to a stern chat once you got home that ended in your tears more than you'd like to admit.

He would then comfort you, and coddle you, and, well, you could never stay mad at him or away from him for long. Sometimes you were sure that he had masterfully manipulated you along the way, ensuring your dependency on him, but you were thinking about your situation less and less - in a permanent state of disassociation save for when Tom embraced you.

"Darling," his voice pulled you back to reality, "You don't have to attend if you don't want to. You're the only person allowed to ignore my orders and I want you to use that privilege."

You shook your head again, nuzzling your nose into his warmth. Perhaps you would have taken him up on that offer had you not been under the influence of the drug that was his being.

"Are you sure? The last time you witnessed a murder you were quiet for a week. I don't like seeing you upset and unhealthy."

You mumbled something, but your voice was too muffled for Tom to understand it.

"Hey, hey, look at me, my darling," he said, tilting your head up with his forefinger so you could gaze at him, "Please look after yourself, you are my rock, my forever."

You nodded slightly, feeling exhaustion settle in your bones.

"I want you to rest, we will be back shortly."

He then kissed you, taking his time, slow and delicate as if you were a fragile ornament. But then he parted from you, leaving another peck on your lips before exiting the room.

And, as you watched him disappear out of sight, you briefly allowed yourself the luxury of pondering how life would have been had you walked away all those years ago.

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masterlist

written; 19/07/2022 —> 05/08/2022 published; 06/08/2022 edited; —/—/——

#tom riddle #tom riddle x reader #tom riddle x y/n #tom riddle x you #slytherin #slytherin reader #death eater #soulmates #hp oneshot #hp oneshots #hp fanfic #hp fanfics #harry potter #young tom riddle #young tom riddle x reader #young tom riddle x you #young tom riddle x y/n

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