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teklarn · 3 years

Note

hi, this is my first ever ask so I'm not sure I'm doing this correctly, if that's the case I'm sorry; I don't know how tumblr works just yet >:')

would it be possible for you to write something about bakugo, pining incredibly hard for fem!reader and initially hating how strongly he feels about her? because they're not even friends, they only exchange few words occasionally and she doesn't even glance at his way whereas he slowly finds himself unable to divert his eyes from her during classes? shes always with damn deku and his friends and doesn't even seem interested in him at all but his heart can't ignore the way she looks at him proudly whenever they spar together, the way she sends him small confident smiles as they fight each other with all they have; so he thinks that maybe, maybe he might have a chance. basically bakugo liking reader so much he's completely lost in self-hatred because he always thought feelings were for weak romantics and not great people like him, but everytime he sees reader doing some badass things (again, like sparring with him and basically matching his skills etc...) he's reminded of how badly he likes reader? but when he finally accepts he's fallen for reader, after ignoring and trying to forget about how she makes him feel, he masters up the courage to confess? and it's a very clumsy confession because he's awkward and has no idea how to deal with those feelings? and he tries so hard to make reader realise he's never been more serious than now? and reader is startled and speechless before rejecting him? and at that point he's just completely humiliated, so he nods and walks away.

it might be a little dramatic but I've always been into unrequited love and one-sided pining. thank you, its okay if you don't want to write about this, i'll understand <33

𝓫𝓻𝓾𝓽𝓪𝓵 - 𝓴. 𝓫𝓪𝓴𝓾𝓰𝓸𝓾

character(s): katsuki bakugou x fem!reader (my hero academia)

reblogs are greatly appreciated!

a/n: AHHHHH this is so cute <33 honestly this is super exciting for me and this ask made me so happy, lovey. i’m fairly new to tumblr, i’m usually just a reader but i wanted to migrate here from wattpad so this made me so happy. here u are my love <33 i hope this lives up to what u wanted !! :)) a bit lengthy, but i had a lot of fun writing it !!!

summary: bakugou finds he’s rejecting his feelings for you in fear of becoming weak, however he just can’t seem to ignore you.

genre: fluffy, fluffier than the clouds istg, however the clouds are sprinking a little teeny weeny droplet of angst.

warnings: cursing (bakugou, duhh), one-sided pining (on bakugou’s part) second hand embarrassment (on bakugou’s part bc we can all agree he’s a complete idiot when it comes to trying to get someone’s attention), just bakugou being a jackass, i gave the reader a quirk

word count: 3,859

(pls excuse any typos or mistakes, i edited to the best of my ability but i miss some things sometimes !)

- - -

part 2 is here my loves <3

brutal. it was utterly ruthless. he couldn’t focus, couldn’t think right. his hands were already exceptionally sweaty, but gosh when he saw your damn face, he was ready to explode. literally.

what the hell was it about you? was it your stupid smile? or the way you just seemed to carry every battle on your back? was it all the undeniably sweet things you do for others ‘just because’?

it made him angry that he thought about you, but gosh he couldn’t wait to see you every day.

just like any other day, bakugou found himself staring at the large door to the classroom, awaiting the moment you would bounce into his day, skirt shifting around your legs, bag slung loosely around your shoulders.

his leg was bouncing eagerly.

bakugou didn’t know when the feelings came. his cheeks just started flaring up all of a sudden and one day you just looked...different. you hadn’t done anything different to yourself. it was just him. not that he would ever admit that, to you or anybody else.

you were insufferable. you were stupid and obnoxious and so...so damn...

“y/n! come look at this!”

you’d come walking into class just as expected, and as soon as you did, that stupid nerd had called you over.

it didn’t help that deku sat right behind him, either. the two of you had recently gotten closer. bakugou noticed it last month when he yelled at the two of you to shut up about all might and get to work. he’d turned around to find you leaning over deku, hands resting on his shoulders while you peered at his phone.

“sorry, bakugou,” you’d said, barely acknowledging him. you had waved him off like an annoying fly. is that all you were to him? some nuisance that got in the way of your oh-so-entertaining conversations with deku?

all he heard nearly every day was your chipper voice talking to deku. always, “oh my gosh, midoriya, did you see the fight edgeshot was in last night?” or “midoriya! i have something to add to our quirk analysis book!”

that was the one that took the cake. you two dorks shared a notebook, occasionally passed between one another, and filled it with junk about quirks and pro heroes. but no matter how much he tried to tune you out, no matter how he tried to zone off and think about something else, you were always there. it made him want to vomit how much he thought about you.

you were doing an adorable shuffle over to midoriya’s desk and leaned over the table as you usually did while he angled his phone your way. “did you see this hero report?”

deku let you slip the phone out of his grasp to get a better look.

“no,” you breathed. “was this just recent?”

“yeah,” deku said, taking the phone back. “last night.”

“holy—”

“can you guys shut up over there?” bakugou said, his voice quaking.

“sorry, kacchan.” deku scrolled through the article.

dammit, bakugou thought. “i wasn’t talking to you, nerd. i was talking to shitface over here.” he jerked his head towards you. his eyes flared in anger when he saw you were looking down at your phone, now focused in on the article yourself. “i was talking to you, asshat!”

your eyes flicked up to his. you looked around for a moment before slowly pointing to yourself as if to say, “me?”

his face scrunched. “yeah, you. you’re so damn loud.” gosh, he hated how his voice was cracking, how he could feel his ears and cheeks lighting up in a swollen, cherry red. his stomach flipped.

she’s looking at you, gosh i’m sweating. i’m going to throw up. she’s so gorgeous. what the hell? they’re ugly as shit, i don’t think anything of them.

his eyes bore into yours.

“did you...need something?”

your voice broke his trance.

“kacchan, are you okay? you dozed off there for a second. you look like you’re burning up.”

bakugou looked to deku who was currently stretching out of his seat, arm extended. he pressed the back of his hand to bakugou’s forehead. “you’re really warm, kacchan. should we call recovery girl?”

it took him a moment to realize what was happening. his vision got blurry every time he was with you. bakugou smacked deku’s hand away. “i’m fine!” his voice lifted at the end, cracking. “i’m not sick. don’t you think i’d take better care of myself?”

“i don’t doubt you take good care of yourself, kacchan, but everyone gets sick once in a while. there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“i never get sick!” besides, if i got sick, i wouldn’t want you to be the one taking care of me.

he was still pissed. he was always in a bad mood, however, more so right now because you’d gone straight back to your phone and that stupid hero article that was supposedly so damn interesting.

soon enough, the bell rang, and you were seated at your desk. it was jirou’s old spot, however, after much convincing, you two had switched spots so you could be closer to deku. just a few months of getting close to the idiot and you two are suddenly best friends. jirou hadn’t minded one tiny bit, claiming she needed a break from how loud that section of the room was.

late as always, aizawa came trudging into your room. thankfully, his entire body wasn’t obscured by a yellow sleeping bag that smelled of something unwashed and coffee and gasoline. (for some reason, aizawa’s clothes always smelled of it.)

“lucky for you,” he began while shuffling papers on his desk, “all of you are doing training for these first periods.”

the class cheered in perfect unison, followed by their individual chatter. you had erupted with glee along with them, and bakugou was sure he felt his heart clench and then explode. just a tiny bit. but he shoved the feeling down just as quickly as it had come up.

“go out to the field and wait for further instructions. don’t make a sound in the halls otherwise, i’ll expel all of you.”

this shut everyone up in almost a second, the sound draining out just as water does. the first years trailed out into the hall, single-file mimicking the positions baby ducklings would take when following their mother.

bakugou found himself walking faster when he saw you take up your spot in the line, hoping to land his spot right behind you.

unfortunately, this idiot who considered himself bakugou’s friend tugged him back. “bakugou!” a familiar voice rasped.

“shitty hair, let go of me.”

“hey man, chill out. wanna partner up if we’re doing training in pairs?”

bakugou glanced at the line, the spot that should have been reserved for him now taken up by sato.

bakugou tugged his sleeve from kirishima’s hand. “whatever,” he snapped.

“sounds good!” kirishima flashed him a toothy grin and a thumbs-up. the bubbly feeling in bakugou’s chest died down as he stood behind sato, the overwhelming scent of sugar filling his nose, various candies that would go straight to your arteries.

“you smell like ass, damn,” bakugou remarked, squeezing his nostrils together.

luckily, sato was tall enough to not hear the insult, as he towered over bakugou by just another head. the line began moving like a sloppy train down to the change rooms.

bakugou scoffed as he listened to your giggle. he should be making you laugh.

“you’ll be given partners randomly from this box.” aizawa held up a familiar red box. “inside are all your names. i’ll select one, then that person will come up and pick another name from the box. that will be your assigned partner for today. as soon as you have your assigned partner, i want you guys to get straight to work.”

denki raised a hand, speaking before being called on. “sensei, why are we getting random partners? we’re always allowed to choose.”

“in the real world, you’re going to come across different villains every day. you’ll never improve your skills or your quirks if you keep fighting the same person.”

denki sighed, slumping back.

dammit, bakugou thought, gritting his teeth together. there wasn’t any way he wanted to be partners with you. it’s obvious he’d win the fight in the first few seconds.

yes! exactly right! bakugou internally grinned. his fluctuating feelings had finally soothed themselves. you were just another extra, and he had no room for you in his head.

aizawa took a moment to fiddle with the slips of paper inside the box. soon enough, he pulled out a name. “todoroki.”

todoroki walked up, digging his hand into the box when aizawa held it out for him. he pulled out a name, delicately unraveling the slip. “uraraka, you’re my partner.” he deadpanned.

the brunette grinned. “great!”

the two found their own spot on the field, and the class’s attention was once again diverted to their grouchy teacher as he pulled out another name.

“bakugou.”

bakugou strutted up without a worry in his mind. he pulled a name to find...

“y/n,” he said, voice a low growl. instead of the annoying fluttering in his chest, his eyes met yours, and they were filled with a different, new ferocity. he crumpled the paper in one hand, letting it twirl to the ground.

you looked at him, unsmiling. your eyes gave away nothing, and to bakugou’s knowledge, all you saw in him was another opponent.

it took him a moment to realize you had both locked eyes for about a minute. perhaps the two of you would have stayed as you were if aizawa hadn’t snapped at the two of you to get moving as yaomomo’s name was called.

bakugou was on his way to the back of the field, you followed close behind. while there was plenty of room still, he chose a secluded area. while it was still open enough to view everything going on so nobody got hurt, it was often nobody chose to train here. for whatever reason, you weren’t sure.

“wait up, bakugou,” you said. after a bit, you caught up to him.

“if you can’t keep up, then...” then what? he looked at you from the side of his eye. “then don’t keep up...” gosh, here came the embarrassing, disgusting feeling of redness in his cheeks.

you laughed. “what?”

“shut up.”

“you’re an idiot, bakugou.”

“i said shut the hell up!”

“what, so you can call me shitface in front of the entire class but you get all pissed when i call you an idiot?”

so you had heard him!

he tongued his cheek, curling his hands around an invisible ball, explosions sparking in the centers of his palms. “don’t expect me to hold back, dumbass.”

“i wouldn’t dream of it.”

gosh he loved that about you.

bakugou caught his thought in the air.

ahem...gosh he hated that about you.

you both charged in at the same time. his cry was louder than yours, but you struck first.

he admired your quirk. while he’d overhead you explaining all the drawbacks it had, it was strong, and you were strong because you knew how to control it.

purple arrows flew from your arms, going in your desired directions. if you lost focus for one moment, they’d vanish and weaken. if you focused too hard or long, you’d be plagued by a splitting headache.

he’d spent too much time obsessing over your strengths and weaknesses.

your arrows were weightless, however they were solid objects capable of carrying any mass, any thing, and worked as extensions of your body.

the violet arrow had shot out at him, twisting around his right gauntlet and crushing inwards. it’d snaked around him without him noticing, slithering along his back.

bakugou struggled to get the air-light arrow off his wrist, but it was no use. he glared back, only to see your focused, furrowed brows. he’d expected to see your cocky ass smiling. it was nice to see you weren’t.

that was one thing that had also caught his eye. you never underestimate your opponent, but you never underestimate yourself, either.

you conjured a larger arrow. it snaked around your right arm as you hurled bakugou into the air, releasing your grasp on him. you shot your other arrow into the air, and it raced into the sky.

it swerved. bakugou’s eyes went wide as the tip of the arrow came down on his chest. if they weren’t intangible things, he would have been bleeding out.

another drawback: the arrows, while they could solidify, they couldn’t do any actual damage. you had to use your surroundings to inflict harm on your opponent.

he coughed out as the arrow shot him into the ground. he hadn’t even touched you, and here he was, vulnerable and so...so...

you stood over him, hands on your hips.

vulnerable and so lost in that adorable, winning smile.

“get away from me, idiot,” he grunted and turned onto his side, his back crying out in pain.

“i think i won this fight, bakugou,” you chirped, rocking on your heels.

“don’t get arrogant, shithead. you won’t be winning against me anymore.”

you grinned, arrows shooting out behind your back.

the dorms were exceptionally quiet. you were typing away in the common room, bakugou on the couch reading. everyone was off doing something else. it was the weekend, luckily. he’d expected you to go bounding out with everyone else, however you’d stayed back, claiming you had some homework to catch up on.

bakugou being classic bakugou had stayed back. he was excited to have the dorm to himself, but your dumbass was stuck here with him. couldn’t you have done your typing in your room?

you were so aggressive on that poor keyboard.

“oi, quiet down with your shit typing.”

you barely grunted in response.

“don’t ignore me.”

“i heard you, mom.”

“the hell did you call me?”

no response. only your aggressive typing is a bit less aggressive.

“i can still hear it,” bakugou remarked, eyes fixed on your back.

“‘kay,” you said. your typing slowed a tad, and your pressure on the keys lessened.

it was quiet now. bakugou should go back to his book. he shouldn’t still be looking for a reason to talk to you.

the pages crinkled in his fingers. he bit his tongue, keeping his snarky comments in.

“you’re a fucking idiot, you know that? doing your damn homework. it’s due tomorrow.”

you turned, pursing your lips. “and how would you know what i’m working on? are you stalking me?”

“i- what? no. you’re such an idiot, of course i’m not—”

“i’m messing with you,” you breathed, face un-moving.

“o-oh,” bakugou stuttered out. he blinked awkwardly.

“gosh, what’s gotten your panties in a twist?”

“you’re annoying.”

“you’re a jackass.” you returned to your work. bakugou settled with reading in his room. reading consisted of jumping onto his bed just as the stereotypical high school girl would in an eighties movie. he buried his face in his pillow, face burning bright red. he cursed you for making him feel this way, and hated himself even more for how much he enjoyed it.

the next day came swiftly. you’d left early to go train with midoriya. there were many improvements needed to be made, but you weren’t doing too bad.

you propelled yourself forwards with an arrow, and your green-haired friend shot back, lightning flickering around his body.

landing back on the ground, you panted and swiped the sweat from your brow. from the corner of your eye, you could make out both kirishima and bakugou coming to the training grounds.

bakugou stopped in his tracks, frowning at the sight of you.

it was evident he hated you a bit more than everyone else. he was always making his annoying comments, he was always snubbing you. you saw no reason to talk to him, so you didn’t. either way, even if you tried, he would still get angry for no reason.

it’d taken you quite some time to get used to his obnoxious attitude. tuning him out had been the best course of action, in your opinion.

the way you and midoriya had bonded was through bakugou, in a way. the first day of school, bakugou had snapped at you for tripping over your laces and nearly crashing into him. later that day, midoriya had stepped up and apologized for his old friend’s actions.

you two had never been too close until now. the recent incidents going on with the league of villains had snagged your attention, and it seemed you were the only person who didn’t mind listening to him ramble on about heroes.

you were just as passionate and just as dorky, but midoriya could talk your ear off. you never minded, and he always took the hint when you didn’t want to listen.

you brought your leg up, twirling in the air with ease and watched your heel collide with midoriya’s face. he grunted, stumbling back.

you were about to charge in again when a hand landed on your shoulder, big and rough. you turned to see bakugou standing behind you, a scowl on his face.

“fight me again,” he demanded.

“excuse me?”

“don’t act like you didn’t hear me.”

“i’m in the middle of fighting midoriya right now.”

“so?”

“so if you think that i’m just going to ditch my friend because you want to fight, i won’t.”

“you’re being stubborn.”

“i’m being reasonable. back off.”

“y/n?” midoriya rubbed his jaw—right where you had struck him. “what’s going on?” he jogged up to you and bakugou.

“he wants to fight me in the middle of our fight. it’s nothing serious. don’t worry about it, midoriya. let’s just ignore him.”

bakugou made a sound someone would only make if they were choking. “the hell did you just say?”

“we’re ignoring you!” you waved him off and placed your hand on midoriya’s shoulder, wandering away.

it was new to him, not getting what he wanted. and what he wanted right now was to be around you. again, it wasn’t like he would ever admit that to himself.

“dude? you good? i thought you went off to fight y/n. i was so ready to cheer you on, dude,” kirishima’s chipper voice piped in. “she’s not fighting with you? why not?”

“the dumbass was just probably scared of getting her ass beat by me.”

“dude...that sounds really weird.”

“whatever, shitty hair. let’s go.”

the clock ticked. his ears were on fire. again.

gosh, it was happening again. it was all you. his face scrunched up, his voice would surely crack if someone were to ask him what was wrong.

bakugou was once again stuffing his face in his pillow, hiding his expression from no one. why did you have to go train with that shitty nerd? why were you always around deku? deku, of all people. what did he have? why was he so great?

bakugou was a man of many insecurities, but losing to deku? that was possibly his biggest fear.

perhaps he wasn’t the nicest, or the most soft person out there. bakugou could admit that, at least. but he was smarter than deku. he was stronger and he was better and people liked him more. right?

what was so...amazing about deku?

it was often bakugou would find himself obsessing over little, insignificant things such as these.

you were what he was thinking of most of the time. just yesterday, he’d gotten a test returned. he was expecting an eighty at the lowest, but more so expecting a high ninety. it’d come back exactly sixty percent.

sixty. percent.

bakugou vividly remembered staring at your face. he also remembered not being able to focus because of it. his grades were dropping because of you.

you were the only person to be able to do this to him.

his heart grew quiet, but the pounding of his didn’t cease. he lifted his head.

“alright, fine,” he said aloud. “you win, y/n. you win.”

he settled with getting over his feelings the way he’d read them in his collection of romance manga.

bakugou left his room and knocked on your door. (he was banging on it, but it was his nice way of knocking.)

you answered, looking around awkwardly. “yes?”

his hands shook. how was this supposed to go? sure, he’d seen it in romance movies and read it in books but it was always easy to tell whether the guy would get the girl or not.

in this instance, bakugou was clueless. for once in his life, he was clueless. you stood, tapping your foot with a hand on your hip, waiting expectantly for him to tell you why he was here.

“um.” he scratched behind his neck. “you uh- i uh...i’m sorry i called you a, um...a shitface.”

“okay? is that it?”

what? come on! it was already unlike him to apologize. what else did you want from him?

“did you...i’ve been thinking, maybe? maybe we could..train together as...friends?”

“...what?”

gosh dammit, as friends?

“whatever, um...the uh...” oh gosh, what did the boys do in all the books he’d read? right! bakugou stretched out his arm, resting his forearm on the door, leaning to the side.

although he didn’t, really, because like the clumsy jackass he was, bakugou missed completely and nearly toppled to the floor.

this earned a snicker from you.

his stomach flipped and churned, and bakugou found himself unable to reach your eyes. “uh, would you maybe..? okay, um. do you want to go on a date with me? you absolute fucking dumbass.”

your eyes flew wide. “...what?”

“no, that’s not what i— i mean i didn’t mean the last part. um, i meant the first part. the first two parts. the part where i was asking you if you wanted to go on a date with me and then before that when i said maybe because it’s still a maybe until you say yes. or...or no because that’s an option too.”

he swallowed.

you resisted the urge to mock him, just a little bit. “um, bakugou, listen.”

he leaned closer. “yes?”

“it’s going to be a no. i’m sorry, but i’m just not interested in you like that.”

it took him a moment to register everything. his shoulders sagged. gosh that was brutal.

“oh, alright.”

“yeah, uh, sorry about that.” you offered him a weak smile, still a bit shocked yourself. he did his best to return it, and when you closed the door, his face was ready to explode.

it was so damn difficult to deal with these feelings, but maybe it was better this way. knowing where you stood on your end, he knew he wouldn’t miss out on anything.

perhaps it was alright to admire from afar. things could happen in the future, right?

right now, he’d just wait. for a long, long time. bakugou pressed a hand to his chest, feeling his erratic heartbeat. maybe it was alright to not have you right now. perhaps he could better himself for you. just for you.

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witchlyboo · 3 years

Text

Definitely, maybe.

Part five: The one who belongs to someone else.

Introduction. Part one. Part two. Part three. Part four.

Paring: Latina!reader x Logan Lerman x Tom Holland x Ben Hardy x Timothee Chalamet x Pedro Pascal x Michael B. Jordan

Warnings: Swearing, angst, misspellings, some Spanish, me learning how to write properly, and NY stuff that I've learned from movies that we all agree to pretend are real.

Word count: 6.4 k

a/n: You been asking for smut, I know, I know, I just wanted to introduce you to all the boys first, and we're getting there, just one more ahead. Also, I'm working on a masterlist because we are getting too many parts already.

All body types and skin tones friendly. You can also enjoy it as a no Hispanic reader. Constructive feedback and misspellings correction is always welcome.

Red and blue lights flash the driving mirror.

—No, no, no, por favor que no sea a mi—You beg to the sky looking at the patrol that is asking you to park, or someone else, there's a lot of cars in this part of the city, there's a big chance is the panic who's controlling your senses.—Dios, mi abuela fue a la iglesia cada domingo de su vida y nunca te pidió nada, please let me have some of her divina recompensa.—But that's not how it works, you end up parking with just a few seconds to think what to say. There's a perfect explication of why you are driving a car that is not yours in the middle of the night and smelling like a minibar.

Then this ridiculous thought comes to your mind, you look expensive, you've never seen the daughter of a senator but you must be close to it, it would make you less of a feminist if you just use your attributes? Ugh, you feel sick just to think about it but don't have enough money to pay a fine, and the constant paranoia of being chased all the time as an immigrant will only get stronger.

You pull down your dress a little so your neckline can do its job but you regret it immediately, and you're pretty sure you look more like an expensive prostitute who stole the car of his lover than some influential men's daughter.

—License and registration.—You hear him say when he approaches your window. You don't like this but you have to play the dumb tourist, the pretty foreign girl that is too stupid to be dangerous, with the look you have tonight it shouldn't be hard. But damn you hate cops, any uniformed man that works for the government is your eternal enemy, and you don't know how long you could keep the nice dumb Latina game before spit on his face.

—There's something wrong, officer? ...You?!—Your sexy and fake high voice is ruined when you see the face of the man who stopped you. This night couldn't get worse.

—Wait, what happened with the party?—Evan interrupts you while you finish some notes for work, little remainders for later when you don't have an eleven years old kid running around you, he's not usually this energic and you have to blame yourself for that, you're describing a life of excess and eccentric fun, something you let behind so many years ago that your own son doesn't know even a bit of it.

—Ugh, a nightmare doesn't worth telling.—You remember vaguely most of it but what keeps fresh in your mind is bad enough to don't want to bring it back.

—But if Timothée is my dad I have to know the important things, including the bad stuff.—Sounds perfectly reasonable and that's what makes you groan at him. Sometimes you feel blessed that your kid is better than you in any possible way, and sometimes you want to kill his brain with video games and reality shows like the rest of the parents.

—Ok, cool, but I'll keep all the +18 content for myself, so this part of the story might be blurry for you.—It kinda is for you anyway.

You should’ve known this night was cursed, you had a feeling because a) your earring fell off at the same time Timothée texted you to give you the party address and say he can't pick you up. And b) he won’t pick you up. Your mother would say that’s reason enough to not go, a real gentleman wouldn’t make you go to an unknown place in the middle of the night on your own in a city like this. But you decide to ignore it because you are a modern woman and because it’s worth it. It better be.

The outfit must be something special. You always take your time to choose what to wear, even if just another regular day, and since this isn't the case you thought about it for hours, that made your mind busy enough to not thinking about Tom and the whole love confession. He texted you saying he'll come for you to go to class together on Monday, which is completely impractical because he's way closer than you but is progress and you're going to take it.

You wanted to ask for Sheep's opinion but you thought she might not care, has been a few days since she started acting strange like she's bothered just to see you breathe. You want to blame his boyfriend to take all her time and attention from you but is probably just her new job, she got a small role in a Netflix show, and even when you're so happy for her, that's the event that has changed her into someone completely different. But you give her time, stress can do bad things to people.

The winner is the exact copy you made of the black and white striped dress Cameron Diaz wore in "The Mask" beautiful, classy, and sexy enough without being too scandalous, not that you have any problem with that, but this isn't the occasion, you don't want to feel like you're being too much or too little, just enough, it's supposed to be easy, right? you were born for this. Just adding some big shiny earrings you got on a thrift shop that look like real diamonds and you're ready, not that you own any to compare. Red lipstick, dark eyes, and a messy bun to get that disinterested pitch every look needs.

Getting there wasn't a problem, you were in the rich part of the city, everyone know who, where and what just to brag about it. The excitement is growing with every second, you check your makeup like thirty times in the elevator and send texts to your mom just to let her know where you are, and because you have to share that moment with someone and you are limited of friends these days.

Timothée opens the door with red eyes, drunk, high, or somewhere in between, you know then you were right about the bad feeling. He jumps on you to kiss you and no matter how much you try to explain the delicacy of your lipstick, he does it anyway, leaving a taste of alcohol and shrimps in your mouth. Taking you by the waist he walks you to a group of people you don't know while you're trying harder to fix the red color of your mouth without a mirror.

—Here is the companion I bought, look at her, that's how five grand per hour look like.—They laughed but you were too disoriented to process all the things he said, it was supposed to be a joke? if it is, why isn't he correcting? Instead, his hand goes straight to your ass and presses it to get you closer to him.

—I'm actually an intern in the costume designer department of the new version of "Sense and Sensibility".—You wanted to mention your recent promotion to hairstylist and makeup artist but that might be too pretentious. Anyway, they don't seem to care what you are or not, in fact, they don't even see you, all eyes are on Timothée

—Oh, well, is easy to forget when you're paying them—All laughs again. Who is this person? Who are all these people, actually? You recognize some influencers, a few cast members but there's no sign of the director, other main actors, not even his co-star. You feel like an extra in a movie where someone will be killed in a luxury party, hopefully not you. You take his hand from your body and clear your throat.—I'm just joking my love, she looks stunning, isn't she? I’ll get you a drink.

He leaves and the group of people surrounding you suddenly dissipated like boiling water, you were on your own again and despite some judgmental gazes is like you’re not there, you’re sure you could just take your dress off and throw it to someone’s face and unless Tim says something about it, no one would care. You’re there as his companion, an ornament, and that’s not enough to earn their attention because it’s too obvious you’re the one in turn.

You walk to the only window no one is smoking and check your phone, you know, the thing you do when you pretend you have important issues to attend, but no, you end reading some old messages, pictures, texting your mom of how much fun you’re having at the party, and somehow you check your filed Facebook messages to find Logan’s name. You cover the screen so fast you hurt your nail, his name is enough to make you tremble like a Chihuahua, you haven’t talked to him since that night, you know from his sister he lives in the house he bought for you two and he’s having the happiest life without you. You want to believe that because that means you took the right decision but deep inside… no, you can’t be that person, you want him to be happier than ever.

You find the guts to open the message, and you read as slowly as is humanly possible. “My angel, I hope this finds you in perfect health…” Dios, just Logan could start a message like that, your smile is almost too big to fit in your face so you bit your nail to cover it a little. “I recently found one of the human body drawings you made for me to study, you’ll be happy to know…”

—That’s a fucking long-ass message.—Tim appears behind you and takes your phone from your hand, spilling some of his drink on your dress in the process. Apparently, he's been there long enough to read part of the message.

—Give it back.—You command in the most severe voice you have, your magical moment got ruined and you remember the hole of hell you are.

—"My angel, I hope this finds you in perfect health. I recently found one of the human body drawings you made for me to study, you must know I still use them now and then"—Timothée starts reading the message, and even when no one is close enough to hear it and you don’t really care about this people’s opinion, that’s not for anyone to read, that’s one of the few parts of your life you treasure the most and you’re not ready to get over it.—You little slut, are you cheating on me with a med student?

—Give it to me.—You repeat trying to take the phone from his hand but he’s faster and walks away putting it out of your reach.

—"I meticulously preserve them, I certainly know any piece of art made by you will be priceless in the near future"—You don’t want to hear it coming from his drunk mocking voice, so you try to ignore what he’s saying and put more effort on chasing the phone.—Should I had kept the jeans where you left the wet spot on? I didn’t know you were an artist, my love.

—Timothée, por el amor de Dios.—Now you're trying to climb him, it wouldn't be that hard to take him down, he's skinny and you're fierce. That's what you thought but he's not moving even with you are on top of his shoulder and his opposite long arm keeps the phone away from you.

—Who is this guy and why is he talking to my girl like this?—You see the olive eyes getting darker and the tone of his voice went deeper than you thought he could do. You desist from taking the phone, you know the bullies love the attention, maybe that's exactly what he wants and give it to him just makes it worse.

—I'm not your girl.—You claim fixing up your dress having enough of games, and you have no reason to keep worrying about losing your job, the filming is done, and apparently your relationship with him too. You don't care about any of that anymore, just want to read Logan's text.

Even behind all the alcohol and the eyes injected in blood thanks for who knows what kind of drug, you can see the disappointment and anger, but it's not a broken heart, Is the hissy fit of a child that loses his balloon and now everyone will pay for it, especially you.

—Are you sure about that?—You can see him swallow hard, almost looking vulnerable, but his voice is defiant and threatening to prove you wrong. He just has to stretch out his arm to reach the open window with your phone in hand, his intentions are clear and the only thing you can do is raise your hands as a reflex.—You were mine the moment you put a foot on my trailer, and I don't fucking share my stuff.—Before you can say a word he drops the phone from the fourth floor.

You know is senseless but you find yourself running out of the party and going to search the device, using it also as an excuse to get away from that place. This is the first time someone makes you feel meaningless, you know the famous' world is cold and lacking in empathy but this is ridiculous, they're a bunch of parasites fed by attention and power. By Timothée.

The screen is crashed and the rest of it is probably beyond repair, not that you're surprised, its life is longer than you've been in the country and you admit you should have replaced it much earlier but you're not the kind to throw away things that still work. However, is not the phone you are worried about, not as much as what it contains.

—That was obsolete anyway, I'll get you a better one.—You didn't know he was following you, his voice interrupts your self-wailing. He sounds calmer and a little embarrassed, but not enough to say sorry, you don't think he's capable of saying it.

You shake your head and start to walk away without a word, you don't want anything from him, not materially, at least.

—Don't make a scandal out of it, it's just a phone!—He yells erasing any trace of regret in his voice. He doesn't see the reaction he expected and that's when he runs after you and with a hand on your upper arm pulls you back, you gasped for the sudden bluntness.—That annoying habit you have of leaving when I'm talking to you.

You push him away with all the strength you have, which resulted in him almost falling on the ground.

—I don't care about the stupid phone!—You finally break, but sadly is not as satisfactory as you thought it would be.—You are mean, vain, arrogant and the worst part is that you enjoy being this despicable human because you have absolutely no consequences to it. Everyone around you just accepts it and I feel so sorry for you because the only possible way for you to fill the void inside is to be surrounded by that crowd of mules licking your steps—To your surprise, he has nothing to say, he's just standing there with no facial expression, whatever he feels is easily covered by his years of experience acting, even drunk.—I can't give you that and it's obvious they don't want me either. What am I even doing here?—You ask yourself thinking where would be the best way of getting a cab, is a rich zone, must be easy.

—Everything is better when you're around—His voice is thin and fragile, you have to process what he said three times in your head to understand his words. You're not willing to look at him yet.—You're not like the others.

—Pure bullshit. You love to repeat that misogynist discourse of girls being in a certain way because is easier than be responsible for the people you choose to be—You were hugging yourself the whole time, is a cold night, but not enough to be bothersome, you enjoy Fall weather—You got me for a moment, I give you that, you fooled me but I'm too tired of guessing what version of you is real—When you return your gaze at him, he doesn't try to hide the guilt anymore, but there's still haughtiness in there.—Now, if you don't mind Mr. Chalamet, I need to get a cab.

—No, you came with me, you leave with me.—There's no trace of alcohol in his voice anymore, a good scolding is enough to put you sober, you know that thanks to your mom. Oh god, you're becoming her.

—You didn't bring me here, gigantic head—You look at him and put your hand in front of him with the palm up. He stares at it for several seconds before put his own on it—Not that!—You shake it and start looking inside his jeans pockets until you feel the metal of his key car.—You can't drive and I have to get home. You'll find it in the studio tomorrow.

That's how you ended with a car way more luxurious than you expected, driving so slowly and carefully that the police stopped you. What a night, but at this point, you couldn't care less about anything that is not that message, is been months and you can't get over it, over him. Not even Ben moans, Tom's comforting arms, or fight with a movie star at 3:00 am. is enough to get him out of your mind.

—So is true, you don't wear anything that hasn't appeared in a movie, huh?—Michael B. Jordan is leaning on the car window with a mocking smile and a sparkle of satisfaction that you would love to punch but his uniform keeps you in line, where you come from police is not equal to justice, most of the times is oppression.

—You know where it's from?—That was kind of comforting, no one at the party noticed. Not that you care.

—Is The Mask, not some Adam Hitchcock's blurb.—He smiles and even when you really don't like him, it's nice to be with a familiar face, you are really tired of running away, scaping for problems that are a result of your null capacity to deal with emotions. Ugh, what a word.

—Is Alfred Hitchcock, actually.—You didn't want to sound priggish, but you correct him with no time to stop yourself, an old habit.

—You got me, smarty, you know more than movies than me. Where did you get this car?—You feel really nervous even when you got this legally, you have your documents and license on time and he's being nice enough to not want to run away in a car that you technically borrowed for yourself.

—It's not mine.—No shit, Sherlock.

—No shit, Sherlock, I was asking where did you steal it.—You wanted to laugh but there's something with the uniform that just doesn't allow you to be yourself.—Are you drunk?

—No, no, fuck, no, it's just, I don't feel comfortable with cops—He raises his eyebrows but that is his only reaction.—Listen, is my boss' car, I'm doing the favor to take it to the studio, and I'm really nervous because is fucking expensive, he's an asshole, I haven't drive un almost a year because you people only use cars if you're rich or your work and lives depend on it. I'm starving.—The last part came out of nowhere, you haven't eaten anything in almost 13 hours, maybe that's the actual reason why you are that moody.

He doesn't answer right away, takes his time to look at you, what makes you blush, he's really close, closer than he's ever been. Does he smell like green apples? Not the actual apples, the artificial smell they had given to them.

—Get out of the car.—Oh no, is he arresting you? Is he finally taking revenge for every time you make fun of his Hawaiian-type shirts? You know you have too much karma accumulated and a cop making you pay for it when you don’t believe in their sense of justice is kinda poetic, and evil.

You don’t want to discuss with someone with a taser, gun, pepper spray, or who knows what else. So you take your bag, the key car, and get off defeated.

—My turn is almost over, I’ll take you to eat something, c’mon.—He walks back to his patrol and you stay still for a few seconds still processing his words, you must look totally devastated for him to offer that. How you see it you have two options, go with him and spend an awkward hour with a person you don’t like or risk getting a fine, Tim can pay it, it’s not a big deal but you don’t want to owe him even the minimal thing.

You get in the car holding on to your bag to feel calmer, this is the first time you’re fully alone with him since you found him half-naked in your kitchen. Those defined abs may never leave your brain.

—Are you cold?—He interrupts your thoughts with his question, you didn’t notice you were shaking. He looks for something under his seat and gives you an NYPD hoodie, you hold it doubting your next move, is not like you don’t appreciate the gesture but it’d be easier to take if it doesn’t get that words printed—Is clean.—He says chuckling when he sees the way you’re looking at it.

—Is not that, just, you know, fuck the police, defund the NYPD, demilitarize the pigs and that stuff.—You say putting on the hoodie anyway, is a cold night and you won't help the institution wearing their propaganda.

—Yeah, I get it, but you can't change the system just from within.—You decide is not the right moment to have a political conversation so you shrug your shoulders and discreetly smell the hoodie, a mix of cologne, green apples, and cheap soap, you know is cheap because you buy the exact same, do its job.

—I'm in the mood for pizza.—You say casually, making a deal to yourself to try to be his friend, he is a small part of your life anyway.—Domino's is open at this time of the night?

—Tell me you're not consuming that shit, dear Lord, you been here for how long, two years? I can't believe your idea of a good pizza is Domino's. Stella hasn't taught you anything?—You're surprised by the level of condescension with a pizza and you mirror his smile, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Your school program includes people from all around the world so you don't have that much experience with actual new yorkers. Logan is rich, so he doesn't really count.

—What's wrong with Domino's? I don't buy much street food, is cheaper to buy things on the food market. Besides, all pizza is good.—The mention of Sheep makes you a little tense, so you don't say anything about it, is not a conversation to have with him.

—Don't blaspheme in the patrol, I just washed it—You laugh, finally, after a terrible weekend. You can see why she likes him, there is something about his voice, smile, and his eyes that feel... calm, like watching Friends after a marathon of Lord of the Rings.—There are rules to survive this city, and I'm surprised you have made it this far without a proper guide.

—Chill out Mr. Miyagi, I'm not from the jungle, and I've learned a lot by myself.—He gives you a lopsided grin as a request, and you put your fingers up ready to enlist your acquired knowledge.—Walk fast, like you're about to be stabbed, something that actually happened to me, with an umbrella—He nods and laughs being related to it.—Number two, no small talk, no one cares, even if they ask. Number three, if you look a stranger in the eye, especially a homeless person, you have essentially invited them to approach you.

—Number four, we never eat from Domino's, Papa John's, Pizza hut, or any other chain restaurant, only trucks and local places are allowed.—You roll your eyes but you get the point, is just, again, you're not much into street food, it doesn't taste like home and the only way to eat food like that is preparing it yourself.

—Fine, fuck capitalism, let's support local places—You make an obvious fake enthusiastic tone but he nods proudly.—Number five, you don't need a car to live here, not even know how to drive. I would have successfully avoided this police brutality if I had followed that rule.

—For someone who is about to eat for free, you whine too much.—He parks the car and gives you a sign to go with him. You see him go to a pizza truck and order, you realize at the moment how ridiculous you look, so before chasing him you let your hair down, take your huge earrings off, and roll up the skirt of your dress until your mid-thighs letting the hoodie cover the rest, and clean the red lipstick with a Kleenex from your bag. Now you look more like a college person and not a rich girl who just got seized.

—Here you go.—He says giving you a slice as big as your head, looks oily and spreading cheese everywhere. Perfect.

—Is it vegan?—You ask receiving the food with an obnoxious face. His kind grind turned into a dread expression and you give him your second laugh of the day.—I'm kidding.

You are about to give it a bite when you see passing next to you a huge rat with the exact same slice as yours in its mouth, running into the dark of the night happy to have obtained the food for its family. They use to scare you when you just moved out but now they're like any other pigeon in the sky.

—Rule... whatever, a rat with a slice of pizza is a symbol for good luck, congratulations.—He pets your head awkwardly, not sure if you're ok with the physical contact, which, surprisingly, you are.

—I see rats with bagels all the time.—Pizza and bagels, that's the main culinary wonders of the city, you like it, not much to object but is hard not to compare it with your home's food.

—Is easy to confuse a rough diamond with a simple rock.—You both eat in silence, enjoying the mixed sounds of the city and all the different smells, the whole situation feels like one of those lofi music videos. You remember thinking about moments like this before getting the scholarship, what would it be like to feel normal in the city of your dreams.

—How do you know that much about movies?—He asks after a few minutes when you take a break to drink something, that pizza is not easy to take.

—When I was a kid a spent much time on my own, so my dad bought me a used DVD reproducer, and at the corner of my neighborhood was this movie store where you could buy 5 pirate movies for one dollar. They were blurred, with a terrible sound, and most of the time with the wrong movie inside but they helped me to not feel lonely. Eventually, the store closed but I've watched everything in it by then—He gives you a warm smile, you never told that story to anyone, not because is too intimate to share, but because no one asked, it doesn't sound like a question with a complex answer.—Anyway, I watched Marie Antoinette when I was like eight, and I decided at that moment that however is done I wanted to be part of that magic.

—You hear all kind of people chasing dreams in this city but is hard to find someone who actually deserves it.—You blush and you cover it with your hair but the smile on your voice is impossible to hide.

—Is that a compliment? You must really want me to like you to date Sheep.—You laugh but you can see his face tense, so you can guess your friend has been busy breaking everyone’s hearts.

—She hasn’t returned my calls in three days so I don’t think there’s much you can do—You nod, all this time you thought he was the reason she is ignoring you but apparently you are both in the same boat.—But yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking, what I should have said is, Marie Antoinette at eight? I can see where all the damage started.

You gasp and throw your napkin at his head, he easily catches it without even looking at it and laughs; that was unexpectedly attractive.

—Why a cop?—You ask, not sure where that question came from, maybe you authentically want to know more about him, he just bought you food, and honestly, that's the easiest way to win your trust.

—I wanted to be an actor when I was a child. This is the city of opportunities so you may think that if you want to chase the big wonder, this is the perfect place to do it. But I grow up surrounded by these people giving their entire lives to get something just given to one in a million so I decided is not worth it. For many years I wondered what I wanted to do with my life and the answer was really clear, my dad was a cop, a good one, or that’s what people say. I don’t remember much because he died when I was seven—Conversations about death are not your strength, everything can turn out uncomfortable if you choose the wrong words.—It might not be that glamorous but if my father died for it, it surely worth it.

—For the good ones.—You raise your almost empty can of Coke and he does the same with a grin that warms the cold weather of the night.

—For the good ones.

The next two hours passed like minutes talking about anything and everything. It just felt right to talk freely with him, you didn’t feel judged for your awkward family moments or your random thoughts, not even once because he told you his too. At some point of the night he borrowed you his gym sweatpants, any of you could just suggest going home but that was off the table, end that peace just for weather reasons would have been a tragedy.

—I read Timothée Chalamet is a dick. Is that true?—The mention of his name remains you of your life and everything that comes with it, including the middle semester project that you must dedicate your entire day, one that is about to start.—What, you can’t talk about it?

—He is a complete dick with no sense of privacy or human decency—And when he interrupts a deep kiss to look at your eyes, smile, and caress your chin, you feel like a character of his Victorian movies. But he didn’t ask that.—But the next week he’ll be no longer my problem.

—That’s why we have rule twenty-three, don’t ask for a picture of a celebrity unless they are local—You have heard about it before but you haven’t got the opportunity to decide if you like that rule because the only celebrities you have seen are from work and that club’s party opening.—That means you’ll be free to go to the Stephen Kings’ movie projection there will be for Halloween.

You don’t know if that was a proposition, a suggestion, or just a simple recommendation, and whatever it is, you noticed he was nervous to ask. Is it wrong? It feels wrong like you were betraying your friend accepting to hang out with his boyfriend without her consent. But he didn’t ask you to go with him so is safe to answer.

—Yeah, I guess—You get a moment, four seconds top, where you shared innocent, curious, and tenting gazes like three graders in the playground. And that’s the further you will allow yourself to go.—We better leave, if the sunlight touch me I’ll turn into dust.

You get off the car hood and go to the side door, but this time he opens it for you. You give him a “seriously?” Look, receiving a little push in your arm as a response.

↬☀︎︎

A distant voice asks you to wake up, softly whispers that turn into caresses on your cheek, your eyes feel so heavy, even when you are well aware of your environment your eyelids keep closed.

—Good morning, Princess—This is the first time Tom calls you that way, the change from silly nicknames to Princess is enough to get you out of hibernation. He is squatting beside your bed, his smile is the promise of a better day, and chasing that idea you give him one small back.—Your mom has been texting me desperately all day, she said you're not answering her calls and is worried.

—Fuck, my phone broke last night, can I call her from yours?—That’s an oversimplification but in the search for a better story, that's what you decide to believe and tell. Tom nods and gives it to you, he looks happy, beyond that, this is the first time you see that subtle blush on his cheeks and the eyes sparkling. You sit on the bed next to his body looking for your mom's number, slowly he moves between your legs, you have shorts and an oversized Back To The Future t-shirt, you got took the time to prepare yourself to bed last night and keep Michael’s clothes inside your closet to wash them, like The Tell-Tale Heart, a little innocent secret who feels dirty somehow

The conversations with your mom are always long, nostalgic and the tears are hard to hold for both parts; after a long life sharing almost every day with her, her absence never feels smaller. But this time is different, Tom is exploring the bare skin under your knee with his warm hands, asking for permission with curious eyes, and when you don’t object to the touch the British boy keeps his exploring mission cautiously, giving special attention to see your eyes in case something change. Is time to hang up when he gives a long and loving kiss to your knee, the less erotic kiss you could think of but so intimate to bristle your skin.

—Not nice to touch someone's daughter when is talking to her mom.—The protest of your voice loses strength at every word, he heard that and just straight his back to reach your face, the gap is almost extinct.

—We're okay, she likes me.—He assures holding your hips and pulling you a bit to him. Tom looks very comfortable with the new closeness authorization, you like it but are not very sure about it yet, most of you still think of him as your best friend.

—Did she tell you that? Are you talking with my mom behind my back?—You laugh when he does, almost like nothing changed.

—She adores me, I swear, I'm invited to Christmas, you know?—You're not surprised, she invites everyone, Logan was too but the first time he got family plans and didn't make it to the second.

—You should go, maybe we can do...—His lips touch yours in a peak at the middle phrase and makes you forget what you were about to say.—Man, the audacity to interrupt...—Then he kisses you again, deeply, using his tongue to taste your inner lip and his hands holding your shirt in fists. That's a twist of events.

—Is that ok?—You hear a weak whisper coming out of his voice but you got so mesmerized on his lips that decided to ignore it and kiss him back instead. He responds to your touch and starts to lean over you to make you lay on the bed.

Jesucristo bendito, is this happening? like, actually happening? you must look like trash, you barely took all the makeup from the night before and didn't take a shower, you start to get so worried about smells, feelings, and what that'll mean to your already too much-spoiled friendship.

However, the time of doubts is done when Sheep starts yelling in the living room, you both reacted running to the sound and looking for your blonde friend. Michael is there but doesn't look like the same as a few hours ago, is annoyed and tired for the lack of sleep, a look that doesn't match him at all.—What did you do?—You ask him fast assuming she's mad for something he did.

—Just in time, the star of the movie, I was wondering how much it will take you to be the protagonist of this.—That is Sheep's voice talking about you and what must be your heart breaking from her words.

—Excuse me?—You wish your tone would be less savage but you can't help respond the same way she did.

—Logan wasn't enough, then you got the drummer, fucking Timothée Chalamet, Tom and now my boyfriend. I'm so glad I didn't leave you alone with my dad or I'd be calling you mom now.—You have no words to that, Michael doesn't even dare to look at you, he must have told her something she misunderstood, but Sheep, or well, Stella is saying things she actually thinks and keep to herself. Tom walks in front of you whispering things to her to calm her down but she is not looking at him, you didn't tell her anything about Tom either so he's taking responsibility this time.—Go ahead and fuck the whole city, Michael if that please you but you're crossing the line with Tom and you know that, you're going to ruin him as you ruin every man that enters in your life.—She has a very you moment having the last word of the dispute and getting out of the apartment with Michael going after her but not putting much effort in it.

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Thanks for all the love and support, if you have opinions, suggestions, or want to be part of the tag list (Or don’t want to be part anymore) let me know, I appreciate every message.

#ben hardy imagine #michael b jordan fc #tom holland x reader #timothee chalamet fanfiction #pedro pascal #logan lerman fc #definitely maybe #fluff #angst #timothee chalamet #Tom Holland #Ben Hardy

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ohworm-writes · 3 years

Text

#01 - Tape One | series masterlist

⮞ Beta Reader - @jschllatt ! thank you so much for proofreading this for me !

⮞ Pairing - Monster!Technoblade x Monster-Hunter!Reader ⮞ Summary - A sleepless night and a hazy mind aren’t the smartest thing to bring along on a solo mission that could end in your demise, but what’s the worst that could happen? ⮞ Rating - Mature (SFW) ⮞ Warnings - cursing , weapons ( hatchet, crossbow, gun ) , slight anxiety ⮞ Word Count - 2.8k ⮞ Taglist - Open! Send an Ask or DM to be added

Time is a finicky thing. It's a social construct created by humans as a desperate grasp at something they can control. Of course, they can't control the sun or the stars. That would be insane, would it not? Humans were the people who gave time meaning. If not for them, we would only see it as darkness and light, not the hours we've put between them. How was it they made up such an important idea, something key to their everyday lives, that only they as a race use? Humans are the only ones who use time, their actions simply affect everything else.

Take canines, for example. Their genetics tell them when they are to hunt, to mate, to kill. They don't depend on the hours or the days, that itself is a foolish thing to them. Why would they need to know it? They know that once the sun has set; the hunt is on. With humans around, they have disrupted the balance of it. These once feared predators depend on the hand of a human to feast. They depend on an electronic clock to sate their pangs of hunger.

Looking at it, how would humans be without time? Would the world crumble? Would everything they had once known to be true turn out to simply be a lie? Mayhaps-but that is the beauty of it all. The beauty of chaos, the beauty of the world closing its curtains in the final act. And when the crowd asks for an encore, who would the world be to deny their wishes?

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock-

The tick of the clock snaps you back to reality like whiplash, your previous thoughts fleeting from your mind in an instant. Your eyes are blurry, everything around you set in a foggy haze. Even aside from daydreaming, everything felt fuzzy. The clock didn’t help with it, the constant noise only setting you on edge more than you already were.

How long had it been? Hours, maybe? A few minutes? You couldn’t tell, and frankly, you couldn’t care either. Letting out a small sigh, you pinch the skin between your brows, slumping over as you try to ground yourself. You open your eyes after a moment, the blurriness from before subsiding for the most part. Now, you found yourself met with the sight of several manila folders and post-it notes scattered across the mattress you found yourself on.

Ah, yes- so that’s why you had been up at such an ungodly hour. Your mission. The suicide mission they had assigned you to. Good gods above, how long had you been awake for? Taking in the organized chaos that was your bed currently, it made you grimace. How many files did they have on a single monster? Sure, you wanted to be prepared, but this was absurd.

However, that apparent thought had never crossed your mind in the previous hours, evidence being the bags forming under your eyes and the overall stiffness of your body. Taking the folder that had found itself on your lap, you flipped it open, reading over the open page.

“Upon a prior expedition, Piglins seem to be tame around those wearing gold items. Whether it be armor or simple jewelry, they seem to be passive towards those wearing the metal. One scout found themselves near the beasts, but said creatures left him alone upon seeing the gold wedding ring around his finger.”

You squint your eyes, trying to make sense of the next sentence. Was that a Y, or a T? Gods above, you were exhausted. Letting the folder drop back onto your lap, you bring your palms up to your eyes, rubbing harshly to keep a hold of your consciousness. You’d be able to look at the files whilst on the road. Sleep was more important right now if you wanted to survive until the next day.

Knowing the casino’s fellow patrons, they’d probably get a kick out of seeing you leave all drowsy and such. Hell, that wouldn’t come close to how entertaining it would be to them if you didn’t return. With a groan and a sigh, you begin gathering all the files. Paper-clipping a few together here, stapling a few there until the process was complete. Looking at the files stacked together, you really were in over your head. The number of files was making your head dizzy, not counting how sleep-deprived you were in the current moment.

Placing the folders in a neat stack on the floor beside your bed, you finally let your body relax. Your back falls against the mattress, sinking into it almost instantly. It was nowhere near comfortable on a normal day. The mattress was hard, firm, and wildly uncomfortable, but now? You might as well have been sleeping on a cloud. Before your hazy mind could even process it, you were out like a light, left to your own devices in the world of unconsciousness.

05:30 in the morning. Who in their right mind decides that the crack of dawn is an appropriate time to wake up? Quackity, apparently, because that’s exactly the person who was pounding relentlessly on your door. The loud and sudden noise is enough to make you jolt upright in your bed. Your foggy mind can’t even process what is happening, much less when he speaks.

“It’s 05:30! Get up! You leave in the next hour, c’mon! You’ll be burning daylight before you know it, so get your ass ‘outta bed!” His shrill voice is enough to get you to peek your eyes open, immediately met with the darkness of the room. With the warm sheets you found yourself in, the comforting dimness of the room, you almost fall back asleep then and there. Almost being our keyword here, because you wouldn’t want to make Quackity mad, now would you?

With a groan, you’re able to kick the sheets off of the bed, successfully leaving you out in the open as the cool air of the room sets across your warm body. It sends a shiver running through you, effectively allowing goosebumps to settle across your skin. The feeling is unpleasant, but that’s the point of it. With minimal effort, you sit yourself up in the bed, immediately regretting your actions.

Your muscles are tight, making every turn and twist of your body painful. A silent scream rips through your throat as you stretch your arms above your head, only to turn into a satisfied groan as your muscles relax. One would have thought that the richest hotel in the city would at least have comfortable beds, but apparently not. No, instead, you were better off sleeping on the carpet, which you could proudly admit was comfier than your own mattress.

Looking out the small prison-like window your room provided, the sun hadn’t even risen yet. The sky, a blur of dark blues and purples sprinkled with stars, was your only greeting. You could see the lighter hues begin to peek over the horizon from where you sat. A masterpiece from your window, who would have thought?

Aside from the awe-inducing view, you yourself felt far from it. You had a lot to do in the span of an hour. A short time span, but it was feasible. With hurried motions, you’re able to dress in form-fitting attire; something not too tight, but at the same time not too loose. It was important to wear such clothing in these times. Something too tight could leave you breathless, in this case, vulnerable. If it were to be too loose, it could get caught on something or weigh you down. That shouldn’t have to explain why that would be unfortunate.

Style aside, you now had to tackle the process that was your files. The ones you had obtained were a copy. They’d never give you the original without a backup in store. That would simply be foolish. Instead, you’d been given a clean copy of said files, all neatly tucked into their respective folders. Of course, that neatness had been your doing alone.

You made quick use of your time, neatly tucking the folders and files alike into your bag. The bag itself was less of a bag and more of a backpack, however, it served both uses. The fabric was weatherproof, as you liked it. It was strong, not even a tear could be seen over it. It had lasted you all your time here so far. Hopefully, it would survive the rest of the way.

With your bag fully prepared with your files, clothes, and things of the like, you set out for the armory. Swinging open your door rather roughly, you make your way down the halls, turning here and there and speeding down a flight of steps or two. Checking a clock on the wall as you amble down the halls, you see that you have just under 20 minutes before Quackity is on your ass. Perfect.

With a final descent into the basement of the building, you reach the armory. The place itself is impressive, with one wall lined up entirely with weapons. Guns, crossbows, blades; any weapon of destruction that you wanted was here. The rest of the open room stayed reserved for a shooting range. Was it the smartest option that it was indoors? Maybe not, but would you rather be shooting outside where beasts of unknown origins could hear you? Hell no.

The man running the armory shoots you a look as you enter. Some could interpret it as a glare, but to you, it was nothing short of a hopeful wish for your demise. Unfortunate maybe, but you couldn’t be one to judge. Politely, you offer a wave. Nothing flashy or energetic, simply the bare minimum.

You don’t look to see if he responds in any way, as you probably wouldn’t be met with anything. Instead, you turn your attention to the wall. They really had any weapon you could need here, didn’t they? Every single one was in pristine condition, that you could see at least.

You would have never touched a weapon in the old world, that you knew as fact. Why would you if you didn’t have a reason to? Why so much as place a finger upon something that could cause harm, when you could put your efforts into something else? Those thoughts, ones that you used to have, have been long forgotten as of now.

Taking a moment to admire them, you reach for a sleek, black crossbow. Weighing it in your hands, you press the stock against your shoulder and take a step behind you towards the range. It feels nice in your hands, not too heavy nor light. You take one arrow from the attached quiver, loading it with a quick move of your hand. Turning around, you kneel down and peer through the scope at the hay targets 15 yards away from your current position.

You hover your finger above the trigger, lining up your sights with the yellow center of the target. At that moment, nothing else matters. Not the man behind the counter, giving you shady looks as he watches you with an unimpressed look. Not that mission, the simple task that weighed your life in its hands like a god. Nothing. The only thing that mattered now was you and the target.

You steady the crossbow, using your other hand to hold it up. If you missed this, how could you survive in the field? Your eyes arrow in on the small, yellow circle in the center of the target. It wouldn’t be too hard to hit it, considering there was no wind nor monsters chasing you at the moment. You wanted to hit the minuscule black dot in the center.

With a sharp breath in, you fire. The arrow fires, flying through the arrow and straight towards the target. The man behind the counter raises an eyebrow, watching the arrow as it rips into the target. He lets out an annoyed huff, already heading under the counter to get a full quiver for you. Bullseye.

You smile to yourself softly, the good feeling of accomplishment flowing through you. Letting the weapon rest against your side, you turn back to the wall. With your primary weapon figured out, now you needed a melee and possibly a secondary weapon as well.

You choose something less flashy for your secondary, simple G17. The pistol isn’t your favorite, but it’d be better to have it than nothing. You had one when you first started out, the damn thing jamming too many times for your liking. Granted, you didn’t have sufficient ammo for the gun, but you’d rather it worked in life-threatening situations than not.

Now all you needed was a melee weapon. Easier said than done, seeing the sheer amount of different options at your disposal. You didn’t need something flashy, nor did you want it. You let out a quiet laugh as you look over some of the more… unusual options. Good gods, as much as you wanted it, you didn’t need a damn sword with you.

Looking back to the more tactical options, something catches your eye. A steel hatchet, an awfully beautiful one at that. The dark metal shines against the flickering lights of the armory, the edge of the blade reflecting your own features. You grip the handle, prying it off the wall, and hold it tightly. It was a lot lighter than you’d thought, feeling at home as you curled your fingers around it.

It was on the smaller side, but that only added to it. Gracefully, you toss it from one hand to the other, feeling the difference between the two. You’d wield it in your dominant hand, but it’s worth the effort to try with both. With a nod to yourself, you grab all three weapons and head to the man behind the counter.

He’s just as unamused as he looked when you first entered, scrunching up his nose as you place the weaponry on the concrete counter, the items clinking together in the process. He ducks under your line of sight, grumbling to himself. Within a few seconds, he pops back up, all the supplies you’d need in his arms.

A quiver, hatchet cover, ammo; anything you’d need for however long the mission would be. His tone is bored as he asks for payment, sliding your things across the counter with his hand held out. Reaching into one pocket of your bag, you pull out four poker chips, a mocking smile on either red or blue side.

His eyes widen as you drop them into his palm, staring at them with confusion. His voice almost hints at that of anger as he speaks up, voice gravelly. “I said two, not four. Are you an idiot?” His eyes are dark when they look into your own. You shrug your shoulders nonchalantly, grabbing your things and clipping them to your bag. “Consider it my thanks, Phineas.”

His mouth is agape as you leave, lifting your hand up as a ‘farewell’ while you head out the door. As your footsteps fall heavy against the floor, you contemplate your prior decision. Chips were the casino’s idea of money. You received chips if you did particularly excellent work on something, which was rare for most. Four chips for your safety didn’t seem like too far of a stretch. One would pay the world for their life, would they not?

Your steps echo down the halls as you make your way towards the main door, anxiety bubbling up. Gods, you were going to die on this mission, weren’t you? A solo mission against one of the most powerful beasts you had ever read about? You might as well have been writing your will then and there. The carpet of the lobby muffles your steps, leaving you to listen with no distraction to your racing mind.

Was this the last time you would step foot in the casino? You squeeze your eyes tightly, stopping in your tracks right in front of the door, letting out a groan. Fuck, you were overthinking this. Even if you didn’t make it to tomorrow, at least you made it this far, right? With a little pep talk to yourself, you push open one of the glass doors and step out into the darkness that lays outside of the casino.

“Oi.”

The voice makes you wince involuntarily. Turning to your left, you see the familiar mop of jet black hair leaning up against one of the casino’s walls. Your hands find themselves at your bag’s straps, pulling them tightly against you as you meet his gaze.

“Quackity.” Your voice comes out small, not something that you liked. His breath comes out in a puff, the cold temperature of the morning making the sight visible. Like a dragon, you think in the back of your mind. The childish thought is tossed aside as he pushes off of the wall, watching as he rubs his hands together and making his way past you. He stops at your side, not looking over at you. No, he just looks ahead as the sun rises behind you.

“Come back, won’t you?”

⮞ Previous Tape ⮞⮞⮞ ⮞ Next Tape

⮞ Technoblade Route Taglist - @cutiebear45 @kiki-is-the-name @hololizard @sunshinebutnotrainbows @valkyrieidunn @dominickle @err0rnan0 @lacunaanonymoused @ura-writes @jaciahbabes @mega-trash-cringe

⮞ Author’s Note - After long last, another tape! I went through quite the rough patch with this one. It took me a long time to finally find some inspiration, but this is evidence enough that I did somehow. I’m hoping to update next Sunday, possibly earlier, but we’ll have to see what my mind deems fit.

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grudgecollector · 3 years

Text

Soft whisper of the basket flower | Chapter 3

Chapter Title: Sweet Pea

Pairing: Loki Laufeyson / Fem!Reader

Story Summary: You’re an agent of the Time Variance Authority and partner to Mobius .M. Mobius. Your job is simple, help with finding the possible whereabouts of the Loki variant, and don’t get caught in the crossfire.

Words: 2.3

Tags/Warnings: Swearing, nothing else.

STORY MASTERLIST - Every previous part can be found here

After the endless pestering from Loki, Mobius finally caved and they were off to Pompeii, Italy. On the off chance that what Loki is saying is in fact true then it could be a big step to finding the escaped variant. And as usual, Mobius threw caution to the wind and agreed.

So here you sat at the small table in your kitchen, anxiously toying with the handle of your coffee cup while you waited for Mobius to return. The coffee was bitter, not enough sugar, but you couldn’t force yourself away from looking out the large circular window in your kitchen. A much needed distraction after the eventful lunch you had.

You had tried to read, finding it was too hard to focus on the words. Hell you even tried to work, but without fail Loki’s apocalypse theory would begin swirling around in your head, mocking you.

You felt bested by the variant. This was something that you have been working tirelessly on, losing sleep over, yet he was able to find a possible answer so easily. Further proving that Ravonna made a mistake demoting you to variant research.

A frustrated sigh left your lips, fingers tapping rhythmically on your mug while you brought your other hand to your mouth, quickly getting lost in your thoughts.

“If you keep chewing on that nail you won’t have a thumb by morning.”

You let out a gasp, your body flinching violently at the unexpected voice behind you, your coffee sloshing over the rim and onto your lap, the liquid still scalding hot.

“Fuck!” You cursed, quickly standing and spinning around to see Mobius standing in the archway of your kitchen, worried and already rushing to grab the towel sitting by your sink. “Mobius, what the hell?! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry about that. I called your name, but I guess you didn’t hear me.” He gave you an apologetic smile, handing you the purple towel.

You let out a sigh, annoyed with your own jumpiness. “How’d the apocalypse test go?” You changed the subject while trying to dab the coffee out of your pants, knowing it was useless.

“It worked. Loki was right, when the volcano erupted there was no variant energy detected.” Mobius was excited, finally seeing a break in the fog you had all been in.

You couldn’t help but feel relieved too. Hoping that this could be exactly what you all needed to catch up with Loki’s counterpart and arrest her before she killed more hunter units. Finally bringing an end to the bloodshed and allowing the TVA to go back to normal.

“So where’s Loki?” You asked, looking behind Mobius to see your living room was empty.

“I left him in the library so I could come find you. We’re gonna be reading up on the other apocalypses to try and pinpoint where this Loki variant is.” Mobius answered, “You’re more than welcome to join us, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

You shrug, turning around to pick up your mug and sit it in the sink, “Sure, I mean I don’t have anything else better to do, right?” You smiled, “Let me just get changed first.”

“Oh yeah, ‘course.” Mobius says, going into your living room and sitting down on your couch “I’ll be here.”

---

You couldn’t stop the yawn that forced itself from your mouth, tiredness and non stop reading made your eyes burn. When you looked up it was hard to focus on anything, your vision blurry and an oncoming headache already making itself known. While you were happy to finally be doing research with Mobius again, it was still just as exhausting as ever.

“God I’ll tell ya, I sure don’t miss doing this.” Mobius groaned from next to you, closing the file he was reading about the California tsunami of 2043.

“Thrilling isn’t it?.” You chuckled humorlessly and closed your own file, letting out a long sigh and rubbing your tired eyes.

Mobius hummed “Oh yeah, can’t get enough.” He replies sarcastically, gently bumping Loki’s arm with the file he had been reading “Hey.” Loki lifted his head, blinking up at you and Mobius “Come on, let’s take a walk.”

You stretched your arms over your head, back popping and another yawn coming from you as you followed behind, hands comfortably placed in the pockets of your blazer. ’God I need more coffee.’ you thought to yourself, rubbing at your eyes once again as you made your way down the long halls with Mobius and the variant.

The three of you walked inside the cafeteria, the room was almost entirely empty besides one man. Mobius opted on taking one of the bigger tables that had four chairs.

You immediately made your way to the coffee station, pouring the still steaming brew in an orange cup and putting a generous amount of sugar and creamer in after, stirring it together with a small plastic spoon. After concluding that it tasted okay you joined the two back at your table, careful not to disturb the conversation they were having.

“You know, some things…. Actually, most things in history are kinda dumb and everything gets ruined eventually” Mobius says, drawing your attention. “But in the early 1990s, for a brief, shining moment, there was a beautiful union of form and function, which we call the jet ski, and a reasonable man cannot differ.” You hummed, having heard this same speech time and time again when talking to Mobius about jet skis.

“You ever been on one?” Loki asks, smiling a little.

“No…” Mobius shook his head, looking down at the floor “No. I think a TVA agent showing up on a jet ski on the Sacred Timeline, that would create a branch for sure.” You nodded along, watching them talk from over the rim of your cup.

Loki tilts his head “It’d be fun, though.” He comments.

“Yeah, it’d be really fun.” Mobius muses, a small smile forming on his lips.

“So why read about them?” The variant asked, talking about Mobius’ magazines.

“Just helps remind me of what we’re fighting for.” Mobius says. “It’s the simple things that keep us going.” Mobius says, looking at you with a small smile. You return it, taking a sip of your coffee that was doing a good job of keeping your hands warm.

Your eyes wandered around the empty cafeteria, not really paying attention to the conversation anymore as hunger started to claw at your stomach. There was a small snack cart next to the coffee station. It was half stocked with packets of nuts, cookies, and small pastries. You quietly excused yourself, careful not to completely interrupt them but still listening intently to their back and forth on how ridiculous everything sounded in retrospect. Mobius saying how the TVA may have sounded unbelievable, but it was just as unbelievable as Loki’s own life, you heard your partner list off various things to prove that point.

“It’s not the same.” Loki insists.

You turn around on, two bags of cookies and pretzels now in one hand with a cup of coffee for Mobius in the other. “I don’t know… it sounds pretty similar.” You chuckled, sitting back down across from the trickster and next to Mobius, setting his coffee and a pack of cookies down in front of him.

“Thanks.” He smiles at you kindly, taking a sip from the coffee only to draw back with his lips puckered “That’s a lot of sugar.”

“It’s not the same, it’s completely different.” Loki argues, now looking between the both of you.

You shrug, batting away Mobius’ hand when he tries to reach for one of your pretzels.

“Uh, actually, it’s exactly the same.” Mobius starts, chewing on one of the small cookies, “Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous.” He takes another sip from his coffee, thankfully not cringing this time as he became accustomed to the sweet taste “Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I’m just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all of this… My own glorious purpose.” Loki scoffs at that, but not saying anything letting Mobius continue talking “‘Cause the TVA is my life. And it’s real because I believe it’s real.”

Loki stares at him for a second, then looks over at you, you nod in agreement to what Mobius had said.

“Fair enough. You believe it’s real.” Loki starts.

Mobius responds with a quiet “Yeah.”

“So everything’s written. Past, present, future. There’s no such thing as free will.” The variant states.

“Well, I mean, you know, it’s an oversimplification.” Mobius nods.

The conversation was beginning to get muddy in your mind, even with the coffee, exhaustion from stress and lack of sleep gripped at your body. Making it hard to focus on any one thing, let alone grip onto the existential conversation they were having. You tilted your head back and looked up at the lights on the ceiling, blinking slowly. Letting their conversation of how the TVA would end drift into the background briefly.

“No chaos? It sounds boring.” Loki says, drawings his brows together, hand sliding against the table.

Mobius shook his head a little, lips drawing in a line before saying “I’m sure it does to you.”

“You called me a scared little boy.” Loki states suddenly.

’Where the hell did that come from?’ you thought, lifting your head to look at Loki, confused at the dramatic shift in the conversation that you had only been half listening to.

“I called you a lot of things.” Mobius says.

“You did. You’re wrong though. You see, I know something children don’t.” Loki’s voice was much more serious now, ominous in tone as he leaned forward in his seat.

“What’s that?” Mobius asks, tilting his head.

“That no one bad is ever truly bad. And no one good is ever truly good.”

There was a beat of silence before Mobius spoke, “Scared little boy.” he whispers.

“Yes, it was quite patronizing. I thought it was a bit too far, actually.” Loki said, drawing his brows together.

You chuckled quietly before glancing at Mobius, watching him stare at Loki. You could practically see the wheels turning in his head before a metaphorical lightbulb went off over his head.

“You’re very clever.” He said to the variant, getting up from his chair and making his way to the door.

“What?” “I know?” Both you and Loki said at the same time.

You watched Mobius’ retreating figure, looking back at Loki. “Where the hell is he going?” You ask, only receiving a shrug before Loki was up to his feet too, and you were quick to follow the both of you following Mobius.

---

After Mobius’ sudden departure you were back in the library. Splitting files between the three of you looking for a connection between apocalypses and the evidence Mobius had found on a kid not too long ago after a unit had been killed. While reading about disaster after disaster between the years 2047 and 2051, Loki finally found the one you were all looking for.

The Loki variant was in Haven Hills, Alabama, in the year 2050 during a class ten apocalypse that had a tragic casualty of 10,835 people, all of them fallen victim to a category eight hurricane. After the discovery Mobius was up and moving, wanting to discuss the most recent discovery with Ravonna and plan an immediate field mission.

“Do you think she’ll agree?” Loki asks, looking from Ravonna’s office doors to you, who had opted to sit on the opposite couch as him.

You shrug, playing with a piece of fuzz inside your blazer pocket “It’s hard to say. She can be pretty stubborn sometimes. But when it comes to Mobius... She trusts him, so we’ll just have to see if she trusts him this much.”

“Wow…” Loki stares, a small smirk on his lips, “That’s probably the most I’ve ever heard you speak.” You roll your eyes, looking at the floor.

“Yeah well, It’s hard to talk when someone doesn’t shut up.” Loki’s brows shot up in surprise, “And you talk a lot, like, a lot.” You chuckle, smiling at the trickster briefly before your eyes shift to the hourglass patterned double doors that lead into Ravonna’s office.

“And you’re very rude.” Loki says.

The door opened before you could reply, watching Mobius walk through the door hastily saying “We’re on.” Loki stood and so did you, Mobius quietly said your name, looking at you sadly.

You could already feel the pit forming in your stomach already knowing what he was going to say “She said you’ll have to stay behind.” He placed a hand on your shoulder, squeezing gently.

“Yeah that always seems to be the case, doesn’t it?” You mutter, tucking your hands back into the pockets of your blazer.

“Well,” You let out a long sigh, stopping when you all got to the elevator, you look down at your scuffed boots, annoyance bubbling in your stomach “Catch that variant will you?” Your smile was forced, face softening a little when you saw the sympathetic look on Mobius’ face.

“I tried to convince her…” He started, but you waved him off, placing your hands on his shoulders.

“It’s fine Mobius.” The hug you pulled him into was tight, a worried, ‘you better come back to me in one piece’ kind of hug. Loki watched the two of you with silent curiosity, his hands tucked into the pockets of his variant jacket while waiting for the elevator. “Alright, alright. Go. Please be safe.”

Mobius chuckled “Aren’t I always?” He asks, ruffling your hair making you groan.

“Ugh, I’m serious.” You chuckled, smoothing your hair down again and pushing Mobius’ shoulder playfully. You waved to him as you backed away, beginning your long trek down the long halls.

#violet writes #swotbf #loki imagine #loki imagines #loki laufeyson imagine #loki x reader #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki/reader #loki reader insert #marvel imagine #marvel reader insert #marvel x reader #marvel x you #marvel #loki #loki tv

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spencessmile · 4 years

Text

Enough Is Enough

Pairing - Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Summary - Spencer has had enough with you putting your life in danger.

Warnings - Angst

Word Count - 2,365 words

And all imagines/fanfics/blurbs are written solely by me so please don’t steal my work and post it without my consent.

Feedback and Comments are welcome. Happy reading!

Requests are CLOSED!

“Jake, just take a minute to think about what you’re about to do. I’m not going to tell you that it’s going to be okay because you and I both know that’s a lie. But I just need you to put the knife down, can you do that?” You slowly lower your gun. “Okay, I’m going to lower my weapon,” You slide your gun back into its holster.

The room is eerily quiet and you can sense the tension.

“Y/n, what are you doing?” Morgan called out from behind you. You ever so slightly shook your head, not wanting to take your eyes off from Jake. You move slightly closer to him.

You can see Jake gripping the knife tighter, “Jake you hurting yourself isn’t going to help anyone. Just talk to me. I’m right here.”

“NO! NO ONE EVER LISTENS!” He shouted back.

“I’ll listen. I promise I’ll listen to everything you have to say,” You respond. It was at that very moment that you noticed Jake’s facial features change.

“I want your partner to kill me! He has an aim, doesn’t he?”

“My partner isn’t going to do that,” You reply, standing a foot away from Jake.

“Make him do it! Make him,” Jake yells, as he cries, his shoulders slump. You notice that Jake drops the knife as she continues to sob in front of you.

“Adding another name to the list isn’t the way to go Jake. You and I both know that” You speak as you slowly but with caution move closer and closer. You knew what you were about to do was risky but you didn’t have much of a choice, so you were going for it. You quickly reached up and grabbed Jake’s wrist as you bent down, your hand reaching for the knife. Jake’s eyes meet with yours as he realizes what you’re doing.

“NOOO! NO! NO! LET GO OF ME!” He yells at you, pulling his arm back but he pulls back with a force that you went with him, you feel the cold metal of the knife slice into your left torso.

“Y/N!” You hear Morgan yell.

“Morgan, do not shoot! Do not shoot,” You say as Jake pulls you in, again.

“Shoot me now. Shoot me!” Jake said to Morgan. “Take me out while I have your partner!” As Jake is talking to Morgan you notice you have an opening so you go to grab the hilt of the knife. “Watch it! Otherwise, I’ll kill you first!” Jake yelled, as he fought for the knife, you and him going back and forth until you felt a sharp pain shoot through your right hand.

You muster all the strength you have and turn your chest to this back and kick his legs, watching him falling to the ground as you pull out your gun. He tried to fight you as you put your right leg on his chest, keeping him down.

“It’s over! Stay down!” You yelled as the pain in your left torso increased every single second as you applied pressure with your leg to keep Jake down to the floor.

As you keep your gun pointed to him, the next couple of seconds are blurry until you see Hotch and Morgan running up to you.

You holster your gun and take a step back, holding your torso. You feel something wet when you look at your hand; its blood. Your back hit the wall as you slid down.

“Agent down, we need a medic!” You hear someone yell through your earpiece. “Y/n,” With hazy eyes you look up and see Morgan bending down to your level.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” You breathe, as the pain is starting to take over your body.

“This is a bit deeper than a flesh wound. I’m going to have to stitch your torso and right hand,” The EMT tells you while examining your wounds. As you’re sitting in the back of the ambulance you can hear multiple footsteps making their way closer, you look up and see Spencer running towards you. Spencer stops himself before he can fully reach you.

“This is going to hurt a little, are you sure you don’t want any morphine? You can also tell me to stop at any time,” The EMT said, cleaning your wound

“I’m okay,” You reply as Spencer scoffs at your answer.

“Oh, she’ll be fine. She throws herself into dangerous situations all the time. Break? She doesn’t need a break. She never stops! But guess who does need a break? Me, I need a break!” You were taken back from Spencer’s reaction.

You’d never seen him like this. He was yelling. He never raised his voice at you or as a matter of fact at anyone.

“Spen-”

“I need a break from your stupidity! You fought a teenager who was far past his mind, he was holding a knife. Not only did you put your gun aside but you told Morgan to stand down. Why do you do this type of stuff? Does this stuff excite you? Can you not do this job unless you’re on the edge? You went real far today. I ca-” Spencer stops when Emily puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Reid, she’s ok-”

“I know she’s okay,” He breathed, looking at Emily. “But why can’t she just try to do this damn job without getting herself killed or put in danger every time we’re on the field?”

“Spence,” Your emotions were all over the place, you felt tears pressing but you pushed them aside not wanting to cry in front of the team. “I didn’t have any other ch-”

“There is always another choice other than throwing yourself in danger.”

“Spencer!” You say, catching his attention. “Look at me, please. I’m okay. I’m in one piece,” You assure him.

“You are today, but if you keep making stupid decisions and putting yourself in danger like this every time then someday you won’t be!” He snaps at you.

“Spen-” You try to reach for his hand.

“Please sit still,” The EMT said, holding down your hand as you groaned in pain. “Spencer! Spencer, just lis-” Spencer just turned his back to you as he pushed past Hotch and Rossi.

“Kid!” Morgan calls out.

“Reid,” Emily said, turning back to go after him.

“Em,” You call out as she looks at you. “Let him go,” You say as you watch Spencer walk away.

“Alright, you’re all good to go. No heavy lifting or putting any pressure on your right hand. You’ll probably be off work for a couple of weeks until your left torso stitches fully heal. I’m prescribing this medication, take it as instructed and you should be good. Also, follow up with your doctor in a week,” The EMT said, handing you your prescription, that Morgan quickly snatched from your hand and put in his pocket.

“Alright let’s go,” Emily said, pulling a wheelchair towards you.

“Seriously?” You raised your eyebrow.

“It’s just from here to the car and then I’m sure Morgan wouldn’t mind picking you up,” She laughs as Morgan chuckles.

“Did Spencer leave?” You ask.

“He uh- he rode back with the Sheriff. Rossi, JJ and Hotch just left.”

“Oh,” You understood that he was upset at you but he never left without you.

“He just cares for you Y/L/N, that’s why he’s just upset. The kid can’t stay mad at you for long. He’ll run up to you as soon as we get back.”

“I know,” Morgan was right, no matter how upset Spencer was at you, all it took was one glance of yours. Spencer was a softie, which is one of the million reasons why you loved him.

Emily held the door open to the station as Morgan helped you inside, JJ took notice and quickly pulled out a chair for you.

“Agent Y/l/n,” You looked over at the Sheriff. “That was one hell of a tactic. Great job,” You shake his hand as you notice Spencer shaking his head.

“Hey kiddo, how are you feeling?” Rossi asked.

“I’m okay,” You answered but, to be honest you weren’t going to be okay until you talked to Spencer. He was on the far end of the table with Hotch, wrapping up the files. He glanced your way and you sent a small smile his way but he just ignored you.

You sighed, grabbing the stack of files until Emily grabbed them from you, giving you a stern look.

“What are you doing?” She asked, putting the files aside.

“My paperwork.”

“Y/N, you’re hurt. The paperwork can wait,” She tells you.

“Don’t stop her Emily, she may be injured but she’ll probably fight you too,” Spencer says and you snap your head in his direction giving him the ‘are-you-being-serious-right-now?’ face.

“Guys,” The team looked up at you. “Can Spencer and I have the room for a minute?” They nod, leaving you and Spencer all alone, sitting on opposite ends of the table.

“Why are you so upset?” You ask as Spencer continues to shuffle through the files.

“You should know why.”

“This is our job, Spence,” You reply, as Spencer turns the corner you muster all the strength you have and stand up, grabbing his arm. As soon as you do, pain shoots right through your hand and wince in pain, retracting your hand.

“Are you okay?” Spencer asks, immediately dropping the files and lightly holding your arm. He pulls the chair and helps you sit down.

You look at Spencer and notice how instead of now being upset he was worried about you.

“I’m okay.” As you looked at him, Spencer grabbed his files and turned his back to you, walking away.

“Spencer,” He didn’t turn around. “Turn around please.” You heard Spencer sigh as he walked over to you and crouched down meeting you at eye level.

“Do you like doing this to yourself?!” He was still really upset.

“Doing what?”

“Always getting hurt? Does it give you some sort of adrenaline rush?”

“I made a decision.”

“It wasn’t the righ-”

“If you were in my position you would have done the same thing.”

“I would have thought of something else, Y/n!”

“No, no you wouldn’t have.”

“Y/n, I’ve had enough with you thinking that you can save everyone while doing this job. You’ve been doing this job for a long time and you know it doesn’t always work that way.”

“I know how this job works Spencer.”

“Do you really though?”

“What does that supposed mean?”

“You don’t think through your decisions.”

“Are you being serious right now?”

Although you were upset that Spencer brought it up, somewhere along the line you knew he was right. You didn’t always think your decisions through. If there was anything you learned while doing this job it was sometimes you had to make rash and fast decisions; and they won’t always be safe and easy to make.

“You can’t keep putting yourself into situations in which I might lose you.”

There it is.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer shook his head. “I know that this is our job but sometimes it sucks when we have to put ourselves on the front line not knowing what can happen.”

“There is a reason why we go through so much training, it’s because it prepares us for situations like this.” “I’m sorry for yelling at you in front of the team, I just saw you and I ju-just don’t know what came over me,” He breathed, you grabbed his face.

“You were just worried and I don’t blame you,” Spencer looked at your bandaged right hand and you nudged his shoulder. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re just saying that. Why didn’t you take any meds for the pain?”

“Because I didn’t need them.”

“Can you promise me something?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Can you promise to stop making stupid decisions when we’re out on the field?” You sat on Spencer’s words for a bit.

“Spencer you know how th-”

“I know I should trust you when you’re out on the field and you make decisions and I do but I’m always so nervous that I’m never going to see you again,” Spencer spoke honestly. “The thought of never seeing you again is abso-”

“Hey,” You whisper “We do a pretty intense job for a living, I won’t promise you anything but I will try to be more careful and make less stupid decisions.”

Spencer nods at your words. “But I am upset at you for one thing,” You said.

“What?”

“Back at the crime scene, you left without me.”

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have done that. It’s been weighing down on me ever since I got back with the Sheriff,” Spencer said, his voice laced with an undertone of sadness.

“I’m kidding Spence,” You said, throwing him a small smile. “I just don’t like it when you’re mad. You seem like a whole different person.”

“I know.”

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you by any chance have ibuprofen?” You ask, shyly.

“I do but you said you don’t need them.”

“Well I didn’t, but you’ve been squeezing my hand for the past 3 minutes and it’s starting to hurt like a cheese stick,” Spencer lets go immediately. You can tell that he tensed up. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” You assure him.

“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” Spencer gets up but turns around and faces you again. “Hey,” You look up at him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Enough is enough; no more hurting yourself. Just don’t want to lose you,” He said, leaning down and kissing you. “I love you.”

“I love you,” You reply, pecking his lips again. “Also any unsub is going to need more a kitchen knife to take me out,” You joke as Spencer just shakes his head at you.

Sometimes making rash decisions can be the best decisions you ever make - Unknown

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid angst #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fluff #bau #bau x reader #Criminal Minds #criminal minds masterlist

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fanficbitch · 3 years

Text

Aaron Hotchner// Touch

A/N: Four times you and Hotch touch on accident. And one time where he makes it on purpose.

It had been harder than you thought to restrain yourself from your boss. He was just so sexy and mature. It was hard to resist. You wondered if he picked up on your stolen glances from across the bullpen or the coffee runs you made just for him. He was special to you and there was no denying that. And sometimes you thought that he felt it too.

1. I take a sip from my morning coffee, then try to rub the tiredness out of my eyes. We literally just got back from a case and the next morning we have a new one. The whole team sits in the conference room except Hotch. He’s kind of important so we have to wait for him.

“You know here and there,” Morgan says. “A day off would be nice,” he says and we all laugh. Just then, Hotch enters the room and we all quiet down. The only seat available is the one next to me so he takes it. Feeling his presence so close makes the hair on my arms stand up. I let out a slow deep breath to calm myself down, then turn to JJ to listen.

“We are heading to Seattle to examine the disappearance and reappearance of three semi-professional athletes.”

“Reappearance?” Rossi questions.

“Yes,” she says. “All of the athletes have turned up dead near their places of practice.”

On the screen, JJ shows pictures of two young women and one young man. “Well victimology seems pretty similar aside from attacking two different genders,” Morgan says.

“Yes, they’re all in their mid-twenties. One soccer player, one basketball player and one football player,” Prentiss observes.

I almost open my mouth to comment, but Hotch adjusts in his seat which causes his left leg to push against my right. I immediately expect him to pull away and apologize, but he doesn’t. He leaves his warm, muscular leg pressed up against my small one.

As JJ continues to present the case, I try to make eye contact with him to confirm what is going on, but his eyes keep avoiding mine. It leads me to the conclusion that maybe it was just a mistake. But the hopeful side of me wants to believe more.

2. After a long case in Santa Barbara, we have a long flight home. I think that everyone is asleep but me. Since I am still semi-new here, I adjust myself to get up to explore the jet alone. At least that was the plan, until the person next to me starts to stir.

Hotch was in the window seat when I boarded the plane and I slid into the seat right next to him. We talked briefly, along with Reid and Morgan who sit across from us, but they all fell asleep soon enough. I find it hard to sleep on the plane, usually Hotch does too so we talk, but not this time.

I glance over at him and appreciate him sleeping. It’s different to see him calm and relaxed. That is something you never see from him. Just when he seems to have settled down from his shifting, he moves his head so it is resting on my shoulder.

I sit as still as possible so I do not disrupt this moment. Sure, it is probably by mistake and if Hotch actually knew he was doing this he would be terribly embarrassed. But for me, this is a dream come true. There’s no way I’m walking around the jet now.

3. My cell phone lets out a ring on my desk and I pick it up without looking at the caller. “Hello?” I ask as I flip through paper work.

“Y/N?” a voice asks and I can immediately tell it’s Penelope.

“Yeah, what is it Pen?” I ask.

“I need you to come down to the bat cave right now,” she demands.

“What, why?” I ask.

“Too much to explain, I just need you down here right now!”

“But-,” I try to contest.

“Right now!” she shouts.

“Okay, okay,” I say then push back from my desk. “Can you at least tell me what it’s about?”

“It’s about the Kaiser case,” she says and my heart rate picks up. That was one of my first cases at the BAU. It haunts me to this day because the killer escaped from my custody.

“Oh my god,” I whisper then pick up into a run. I’m looking down at my feet so I don't trip in my heels. But I end up missing a barrier right in front of me and by the time I see his black dress shoes, it’s too late.

I collide into a tall, hard body with such force that I push him and me to the ground. My head falls right in the center of his chest with a loud thud. Despite just falling on a person, I appreciate their built chest. However, I don’t lay there for long. I quickly pick my head up to see who I fell on, and when I do, my heart stops. I ran into my one and only boss, Aaron Hotchner.

I make brief eye contact with him. I try to read his face which is mainly giving off confusion. I quickly push myself off his body and onto the floor. “Sir, I am so so sorry,” I say as I help him up.

I expect him to release the full wrath of hell on me. But instead, he gives me a small smile. “It’s alright,” he tells me. “Just be careful,” he warns me then carries on to his office.

4. I hum lightly as I finish my paperwork. I have been putting it off for a while, but it has gotten to the point where I literally had to do it. I’m surprisingly in a great mood. We haven’t had a case at all the last week. I love working on cases, but it’s been nice to have some time to calm down.

“Why are you so smiley?” Emily asks as she walks up to my desk.

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “It’s Friday, we’re in town, we’re getting drinks tonight. Things are just going my way,” I say.

“Well it’s good to see you happy,” Emily says.

I finish the paperwork with one last signature then stand up. “And now I’ve finished all my work!”

“Get it girl,” she says as I head to Hotch’s office. I run up the few steps then knock softly on his door.

“Come in,” he calls and I do. I let out a shaky breath as I see him in his suit. He looks so good.

“I finished the paperwork from the last case,” I say. He holds out his hand to take the files, but when I hand them to him, my fingers brush against his. It is very brief, but we both notice it. I quickly yank my hand back which causes Hotch to give me a small smile.

“I won’t bite you,” he says.

“Oh, yeah, I know,” I say quickly. I almost leave, but decide that I want to ask him a question. “Are you coming out with us tonight?”

“I think so,” he says. “I usually reserve my Friday nights for time with Jack. But I have seen Jack everyday this week and he’s starting to get tired of me,” he chuckles.

“Great, I’m looking forward to seeing you there,” I say then slip out of his office before he can respond.

5. Things are becoming kinda blurry. I am a few drinks in and they are definitely hitting me. I sit at a table with the rest of the team who are all having a blast, even Hotch. I keep an eye on him and notice that he is nursing a beer.

Morgan who sits next to me, places his hand on my thigh. “Do you wanna dance?” he whispers.

“Oh, hell yes,” I whisper back then take his hand. Morgan and I are both aware that we are nothing more than friends. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t have a little fun here and there.

Morgan wraps his arms around my waist while my arms go around his neck. I rock back and forth with him and all I can do is laugh. “What’s so funny baby?” Morgan asks.

“I’m just having fun,” I explain then squeeze him closer. We dance for what seems like forever, but deep down I know it can’t be more than 15 minutes.

Things are getting more dizzy. But I am sober enough to feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around to see Hotch. He makes brief eye contact with me, then turns to Morgan. “You mind if I steal her for a little bit?” he asks Morgan.

“She’s all yours,” he says then backs off.

Hotch takes my right hand then places his left hand on my waist. When he touches my waist, I expect to freeze, but instead I just melt into his touch. Everyone else around us is grinding and humping. But Hotch leads me in a slow dance. I place my head on his chest as we rock slowly. There are so many words that are racing through my mind, but since I’m drunk, I decide to stay silent.

After a few moments, Hotch whispers in my ear. “I’ve been wanting to ask you to dance for months,” he says and my heart feels warm.

“I’m glad you finally did it,” I whisper.

#Aaron Hotchner #aaron hotch x reader #aaron hotchner imagine #aaron hotchner x reader #hotchner #aaron hotchner imagines #Criminal Minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds imagines #Derek Morgan #penelope garcia #jennifer jereau #jj #Emily Prentiss #Spencer Reid #david rossi

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animeheadcannoncentral · 4 years

Text

NSFW ENJI (Endeavor) X READER ONESHOT

Business/CEO A/B/O AU - this just popped into my head and turned into a 10 Chapter fic you can read on Ao3: “Hidden Flowers”

Warnings: smut, Dom Enji, sub reader, rough sex, A/B/O dynamics, alpha Enji, omgega reader, alpha Toshinori, heat cycles, dirty talk

Words: 5k

(Y/N) checked her emails one final time, ensuring nothing new had come through in the last three minutes that needed her boss’s attention. She picked up the file she had organised for the day, shuffling the papers into a neat stack before rising to her feet, straightening out her clothes and marching towards the CEO’s office. She opened the door without knocking, an action that he had told her to forego many years ago, she was his secretary after all, if she had something urgent to tell him, there was no point in wasting time knocking on the door. And he also didn’t need to burden of someone knocking on his door fifty times a day. The red head was on the phone when she entered, this scene wasn’t uncommon, some days he scarcely got away from the damn thing.

Closing the door behind her, she walked up to his desk and placed the pile of papers down on his right before walking to a white board and started neatly writing out the day’s major meetings.

“I don’t care about the cost, how long will it take to get it up and running again?” Enji sighed into the phone as he noted down the time frame.

“Is there another company that can fix it faster?” she turned back and saw he was looking at her. He’d asked both her and the person on the other end of the call, he just knew she’d come up with a solution faster.

“Mack Plus have the best engineers, Trencher Co. will be quickest but they fixed that unit previously and it’s broken again, I would suggest Wheels Down Inc as nothing they’ve fixed has broken again and it will be fixed within the week” she spilled out, she’d read the email about the mining vehicle break down this morning and immediately looked at the data for previous break downs. The man nodded and wrote it down, whilst also rolling his eyes at whoever was on the other end of the call.

“(Y/N) will send through contact details for further correspondence with Wheels Down Inc, let me know once the machine’s operating again” and the CEO hung up.

“Fucking useless” Enji muttered as he started going through his emails, “got any good news?” he asked.

“Stocks are up again today?” she tried which resulted in a small smirk from him.

“And you only have one meeting currently locked in today as well, however it is with a major shipping company that we’ve been trying to create a deal with for the past five years” she frowned a little at the last part.

“I said good new (Y/N), not mediocre news” he sighed.

“It’s their new CEO, so I guess a new chance to make good impressions” she tried again.

“That’s why I’m putting you on the front line”

“I’ll do my best Sir” putting the whiteboard marker down and turning back to him.

“Have you found anything of use in Yagi’s background?” he asked as he started going through the files she had left on his desk.

“Nothing of particular use. The problem is he seems completely different to his father, since he’s taken leadership, the company has become heavily involved in charity work. Regardless of whether it was his intention or not, the shipping company has gained a huge amount of positive press. I found nothing on Yagi himself, the only thing you can really play into in this deal is the ‘make the world a better place’ because even after a deep dive on his history, I couldn’t find anything to suggest he wants anything else” she explained with a shrug.

“How do our eco stats look?” he questioned.

“Favourable, we’ve cut emissions by seventy-five percent with the new machine’s we’re using, and with the new sonar tech that’s been implemented we’ve reduced habitat loss due to our companies’ procedures by nearly ninety percent. The rest of the report is on page five” she was confident as he went through the papers and pulled out the report.

“Increase public profile” the red head raised an eyebrow at the short list of suggestions she had made.

“It can’t hurt Sir, becoming more involved with the local community could see a potential increase of upwards of twenty percent in sales”.

“At what cost?” he put the paper aside, knowing she would be able to give him a clearer answer than the document.

“Time, funding, man power” she was curt, the CEO didn’t like wishy washy explanations.

“The board won’t like that” it was a statement.

“Can’t make an omelette and all that” she shrugged and he eyed her. She had never been wrong when it came to giving suggestions or advice on what was best for the company. She would voice her opinion on occasion, when she knew she was completely in the right. It was one of the many reasons Enji kept her as his secretary and refused to promote her to a section manager, not to mention the ridiculous bonuses that he forked out to her at the end of each year for her work. She were too goddamn valuable, and unlike many of his employees, she wasn’t afraid of him. The alpha was used to people grovelling at his feet, begging and pleading for whatever it was that they wanted at the time, usually sex or money, even employment. Enji Todoroki was one of the strongest alpha’s out there, hell, he was so intoxicating some alphas had even begged him to use them. But she wasn’t like them, it was almost as if she couldn’t smell pheromones, he was almost convinced that she in fact couldn’t, going by the amount that he had released around her in the beginning to test her.

When he’d first met her, he was shocked by her professionalism, she didn’t seem to care that he was an alpha and she wasn’t deterred when he borderline threatened her during the job interview. Hell, he didn’t even know what her secondary gender was, her CV states that she’s a beta, but the way she acted sometimes, she could convince anyone she was born an alpha. She wouldn’t take shit from anyone, and she certainly wouldn’t let him dish it out to her either, or if he did, she’d give it straight back and usually be right, and always got away with it. It’s why he respected her so much and hadn’t tried to come onto her once, also because he was more attracted to submissives, and she were far from it. She took suppressants, that much he was sure off, she never smelled like anything, and she didn’t give off any scent at all, ever.

“When’s the meeting?” he asked.

“In thirty minutes” she said as she turned to leave.

“You better get to it then” he mused.

“You don’t have to tell me twice” she gave a small smile and then exited the room. She made her way down to the lobby of the building to greet Mr Yagi on his arrival, just in case he was early. And wouldn’t you know it, this ball of sunshine was always early. He walked through the front doors to the building not two minutes after she had walked out of the elevator. She lifted her shoulders, stood up straight and approached the man with confidence.

“Mr Yagi, I’m (Y/N), Mr Todoroki’s secretary, it’s an honour to meet you” she put on a bright smile upon reaching him and what must have been his secretary. It wasn’t until she reached them that she realised how god damn tall the man was in person. Sure, Enji was tall, but for some reason, this man’s height stuck out to her. And they were both businessmen, so how the fuck did they both luck out in the looks, smarts, height and muscles departments?! It just wasn’t fair. Forget about triple threat, these men were quadruple threats. They covered all fronts.

Then to her surprise, he actually offered her a hand to shake with a genuine smile.

“Thank you for greeting us, this is my secretary Izuku, we’re so glad Enji was kind enough to host this meeting” his voice was deep, but kind and polite as she shook his hand, referring to the greenette beside him. She glanced at the young man before returning her attention back to the alpha in front of her.

She had never met a business partner this kind-hearted before, the business world didn’t usually allow his kind to thrive, but here he was, the CEO of the world leading shipping company. Without even realising it her cheeks flushed a light shade of red and she felt her heart rate increase, and of course, her scent glands started aching as they tried to release pheromones. Luckily, her suppressants were working for now, but it was then that she caught his scent, everything went blurry for a second and she lost focus.

“Are you alright Ms (Y/N)?” he asked, gently stabilizing her by her shoulders. She cursed herself, why did her body have to react to an alpha now of all times?

“I’m so sorry, Mr Yagi, and (Y/N) is just fine” she smiled up at him, puffing out her chest a bit and stabilising her footing.

“Please, call me Toshinori” he corrected her and she was slightly stunned for a moment. Every single business partner she’d ever introduced had always treated her like trash on the side walk, scarcely giving her the time of day. She’d be lucky if she even got a grunt of acknowledgment from them.

“If you’d kindly follow me” she said and turned to lead the way. Taking the chance to scoff at herself and attempt to pull herself together, an attempt that miserably failed when Mr Yagi insisted on maintaining small talk then entire elevator ride. He was just being a human being, asking how her day was going, how long she’s been working at the company, if she enjoyed working here. She could feel her temperature rising with each question he asked, and pain started erupting in her abdomen.

“Please follow me” she said politely, stepping out of the elevator cursing herself, she was going into her heat early, and she was pretty damn sure it was because of the presence of this alpha. She guided the CEO and his secretary to an empty meeting room.

“Please wait in here for just a moment, Mr Todoroki will join you shortly” she said before closing the door. Her head was starting to spin and the pain was growing from annoying to uncomfortable ridiculously fast. She maintained her composure as she walked into her small office, quickly taking some pain killers with half a litre of water. She ruffled through her draws as she looked for her EpiPen, her heart skipping a beat when she couldn’t find it. She knew she had one here for emergencies. The omega let out a sigh of relief when her hand glided over it. Quickly removing the cap and injecting herself with more suppressors that would hopefully stop the effects of her early oncoming heat for at least the next few hours. She took three deep breaths before exiting her office and entering Enji’s.

As soon as the door opened, a wave of pheromones hit the CEO. His brow furrowed in anger. His employees knew better than to come to work during rutting or heat cycles, it decreased everyone’s productivity.

“Get the fuck out of…” his eyes had been fixed on the computer when he glanced at the intruder. “…(Y/N)?” he looked taken aback. There was no way she was an omega. She always held herself like an alpha, how the hell was this strong, independent woman a fucking omega? However, he couldn’t deny that her scent was causing blood to flow straight to his cock.

“But you’re not supposed to be off til next week” he went to check his calendar.

“I know, it’s come on early” she let out a stuttered sigh as the drugs finally started to set in.

“I’ve taken some emergency suppressors, my hormones should level out in the next minute or so. I um, Toshi… I mean, Mr Yagi and his secretary are in the meeting room” she shook her head at herself. It was then that everything clicked for Enji and a smile crossed his face as he rose from his seat.

“He’s sent you into an early heat, hasn’t he?” the alpha’s voice was low, but there was a hint of playfulness behind it. She ground her teeth, refusing to answer the question, instead choosing to look away. He approached her, a smirk still playing on his lips, instead of walking through the door, he shut it, as he caged her between his arms.

“You know better than to not respond when I ask you a question, omega” he let the work hang in the air, testing her boundaries. Her brow furrowed and she glared up at him.

“You don’t get to call me that” she growled at him, then noticing that he was purposely releasing pheromones to try and rile her up. If she hadn’t just shot herself up with enough suppressants for a week, she would probably have slick running down to her ankles by now. Her boss was unfairly attractive.

“Answer the question (Y/N)” he leaned close to whisper into her ear.

“So, what if he has?” she burst out, ducking out from under his arms and walking across the room, folding her arms, “All he did was smile at me and I lose control, what the fuck is wrong with me?” she sighed angrily rubbing her temples.

“When was the last time you properly went through a heat?” Enji asked her, she looked back at him to see a genuinely concerned face. When she had taken her mandatory time off for her mating cycle she never stopped responding to emails, most people wouldn’t touch their computers during the height of a mating cycle, it all became too much, but she was always online, which told him that she probably hadn’t let her body go through a normal cycle in a while.

“I don’t know, during high school, like eight or nine years ago” she shrugged and the CEO just blinked at her in shock.

“I had more important things on my mind” she shied away from his judging look.

“That’s still a long time” he pushed.

“It’s not like I had an alpha to help me through one!” she suddenly shouted at him, she stared him down for a moment before realising what she’d just said and who she had just said it to.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, that’s not your fault, nor something you should worry about, fuck I hate this” she muttered.

“(Y/N), be honest with me, have you ever been through a proper heat?” he asked, when she turned to him this time, there was nothing but concern in his face.

“No” she didn’t make eye contact with him, but she had no reason to lie to him. Enji hated how submissive she was being, this wasn’t her at all, while a dark part of him did want her begging for his cock, he hated seeing her looking so vulnerable, he wanted to protect her, to make her feel safe.

“Look, I’m going to be really selfish now, but if you think you can handle staying for the meeting then I could really use your help. If not, I’m also more than happy for you to go home. But you’re going home before lunch today either way and I strongly advise you don’t take any more suppressants” he paused for a moment, as if trying to word something correctly, “What I’m about to say, I’m saying as a friend, not your boss, if you need help getting through it, i can help you. But who knows, maybe you might actually be able to get his number and he can help you” the alpha growled slightly at that last part, admitting and acknowledging that he wasn’t the one to set off your heat. Although to be fair, he hadn’t purposefully released any pheromones around you since you had your job interview with him. The girl let out a sigh and composed herself, straightening out her shoulders.

“I’m staying for the meeting” he knew she would, “but I am not going through a full heat” she said firmly, walking past him.

“(Y/N)!” he was about to say more, but she had already walked out the door, heading towards the meeting room. She opened the door and put a smile on.

“So sorry to keep you waiting” she apologised.

“That’s quite alright” Toshinori smiled back at her, however he noticed that she was no longer producing the lovely pheromones that he knew he had set off. Was the girl taking suppressors? He was certain he had set off an early heat, that fact that she was supressing it frustrated him. He loved seeing a flustered omega, especially one who was normally kept together as this one appeared to be. She was going to pose a challenge, and Toshinori was going to have fun pulling her apart and turning her into his little slut. The thought had him half hard in his pants. This omega was going to belong to him, one way or another.

Enji followed her into the room. The two CEO’s shook hands and introduced themselves to each other before commencing the meeting. (Y/N) was a sharp as ever, handing Enji the correct documents when they came up in conversation and was able to provide any information when called upon. Izuku wasn’t as sharp as she was, but still maintained a professional standard and look about him, the boy certainly didn’t let the woman’s sheer dominance fluster him. The meeting went as well as it could have, they both signed a contract of partnership, so it went better than both parties were expecting. Seeing her in action just made Toshinori want her more. She was professional, sharp and confident, and he wanted to be the one to own her, to see her trembling underneath him, begging for his cock. Somehow, all four of them managed to remain professional throughout the entire meeting, there were no sly words with hidden meaning, and (Y/N) was thankful for that.

Enji Todoroki was never one to escort his guests out himself, it just wasn’t a thing that he did. So, he left the meeting as he usually would with a ‘pleasure doing business with you’, but he purposefully changed the wording on the following sentence ‘my secretary will get you anything you need before you go’. She burned holes into his back as he exited the room. She was going to kill him. The next morning’s headlines would read, ‘Secretary jailed for attempted murder of her boss’. She sighed, shaking her head slightly.

“Midoriya, go wait outside, I’ll be down shortly, I just need to go over a few things with (Y/N) before we leave” the tall blonde uttered to his secretary.

“Of course Sir” the boy said before he exited the room. Toshinori’s eyes didn’t leave (Y/N)’s, who still had her business face on. He couldn’t read her. This was going to make things more difficult. After seeing her in action, he wanted her even more, and without even realising it, his pheromones radiated off him. But she was acting as if she couldn’t sense them, which pissed him off.

“What can I help you with, Sir?” she asked, her tonne polite, but holding no emotion behind it. Unlike their first interaction where she put on a sweet, warm smile for him, she was bitterly cold now, purposely trying to shut him out.

“I don’t like corporate titles, I told you to call me by my first name” he sighed, rising form where he was sitting, she was going to be more of a challenge then he originally thought. That was fine, he was actually excited.

“Is there anything I can get you, Toshinori” she said softly, not removing herself from her seat as the man walked around the table removing something from his pocket. He handed the small piece of paper to her.

“You seem like a very professional woman, so I hope you don’t take offense to this, but here’s my number, I’d love to catch up for a coffee sometime” he said with a smile and she took the paper from him carefully, the man was letting off an absurd amount of pheromones which were causing her to literally burn off the suppressants she’d taken no more than two hours ago.

“I…uh…” she tried to respond, but the alpha gripped onto the side of her chair, leaning over her to whisper in her ear.

“Let me know if you need any help with your heat, something tells me you’ve never had an alpha look after you properly before” he growled lowly in his chest before pulling away and walking out of the room with a smirk on his face.

Once she finally recovered, she heaved herself out of the chair and found that her panties were completed soaked through, luckily it hadn’t yet soaked through to her actual pants yet. She made a quick dash to her office before closing the door behind her. She turned the internal heater on and grabbed the emergency blanket from the bottom draw, wrapping it around herself and hiding in a bundle under the desk with her laptop as she continued to work, hoping it would distract her from the slick pool that was growing around her cunt and the immense pain growing in her lower abdomen. At about three in the afternoon an email came into the inbox that needed the CEO’s immediate attention. She was too worn out by that stage to register that he had told her to go home and she probably shouldn’t be working at all. She flicked the email to him without a second thought.

Upon receiving said email, Enji’s brow furrowed, she should have been home by now. He quickly opened the door to his office just to check she had in fact gone home, letting out a low growl when he noticed her light was still on. He stormed across the corridor and opened the door, a wave of sickly sweet pheromones hitting him all at once. He was confused when he didn’t see her sitting at the desk, she had to be in the room, there was no way the place smelled this sweet without her being in there. He closed the door behind him and walked around the desk to find her nesting. His first thought was to yell at her for not listening to him and also for using the goddamn office to nest. But then he saw she was shaking as she tried to type out an email, it took a moment for her to noticed him crouching there looking at her incredulously.

“I told you to go home” he rumbled deeply, and she winced.

“I… I can’t walk” she admitted, refusing to make eye contact with him. Something burned inside him, obviously that alpha had said something to her to set her off again, and then just goddamn left her. It infuriated him, sure he’d done the same thing to plenty of omega’s before, but this was his…, no not his, this was (Y/N).

“I want you to send a message out to all staff working today and inform them that they can knock off” he said calmly. She was confused by the instruction, but took a minute to type out the message and sent it on his behalf.

“Now close the laptop and give it to me” he said gently, and she cautiously complied, handing him the laptop before he placed it on the desk over her.

“Come here” he motioned towards himself, and she went to move, but her eyes widened in panic and she returned to the way she was sitting, confusing the alpha who was doing everything in his power not to just grab her and knot her right there.

“If I move, it’s gonna run” she whispered, his face scrunched up in confusion for a second.

“What’s gonna…” he stopped short, she was worried about her slick. She really had never gone through her heat’s properly before, she was embarrassed by something that was normal, something that made him almost lose control and show her just how normal it was.

“That’s okay, it’s normal” he said, still offering his hand to her, she looked at him then, searching his eyes that were looking at her with kindness. There was no malicious intent behind them. She slowly reached for his hand and crawled out of her makeshift nest, pausing for a moment when slick gushed down her thigh, before continuing to crawl out from under the desk. Enji noticed she was clutching her stomach the entire time. She lifted her face up to look at him, she had tears in her eyes.

“Enji, can you please…” she paused trying to think things through, “can you please fuck me?” a tear rolled down her cheek when she said that and the alpha wasn’t’ sure if she was crying from the pain or from giving in. He unintentionally started releasing pheromones, having an omega so close to him, and especially considering that omega was clearly under a lot of stress, his instincts were taking over.

The omega couldn’t help herself when she caught his scent, she latched onto him, rubbing her face into his chest, taking in as much of it as possible. Seeing how well she responded to his pheromones, Enji started released them in waves and the little omega in his arms sighed and then started doing something he thought she’d ever do. She had split her legs over one of his muscled thighs and was rubbing herself on it. If he hadn’t been stiff before, he was definitely rock hard now. The omega was whimpering with each thrust of her hips, and soon enough, Enji could feel his pants becoming covered in her slick. He would never allow an omega to dry hump him like this, but she looked so goddamn perfect as she chased her orgasm on his thigh. He ran a hand through her hair, gently tilting her head back, forcing her to look up at him.

“Are you enjoying yourself? Little omega?” he asked lowly, she let out a moan then made eye contact with his stone-cold eyes, that screamed indifference.

“Please…” she whimpered, by the way she was shaking, he could tell she was close.

“Please what?” his eyes narrowed as he looked down at her.

“Can I p-please c-cum, alpha?” she begged, and something stirred in him, maybe she was a submissive after all. And as much as that excited him, he wasn’t going to be cruel to her right now, he had promised to help her after all. So many dirty things flooded into his head to respond with, but he wasn’t sure if they’d scare her off or turn her on. He decided teasing her was the best way to go.

“You’re so close already, and I haven’t even touched you” he mused, easily picking her up off his thigh and placing her in his lap, she let out a moan as she rubbed herself against his clothed erection.

“Good omegas look at their alphas when they cum” he whispered in her ear and then leant back into the chair, to watch her as she came undone. The girl did her best to look at the alpha as she rode out her orgasm, but her head titled back in euphoria at the height of her orgasm causing Enji to bite his lip to try and control himself. She was going to send him into an early rutt if he wasn’t careful. The girl was shaking as she came down from her high, however, her eyes widened slightly when she comprehended what she’d just done and she quickly looked away, causing Enji to smirk at her expression.

“Come now, you enjoyed yourself, didn’t you, (Y/N)?” he asked, gently grasping her chin and guiding her head to look at him.

“Yes, but…” she trailed off.

“But what?” he asked curious, although, the alpha was well aware of the answer, he just wanted to hear her say it.

“You’re my boss and I just, oh my god” she hid her face in his chest and he chuckled deeply.

“If it’s any consolation, I’m thoroughly enjoying this” he looked down at her to see her flash dagger eyes at him before she doubled over, whimpering in pain as she clutched her stomach.

“I can make the pain go away, you just have to ask” he whispered into her ear. She lost all normal sense as her instincts took over.

“Please fuck me, please alpha, I need your cock, use my cunt, please” she begged and a thrill rushed through Enji’s body.

“You’re so pretty when you beg” he trailed his hands down her body, hooking them under her thighs and lifting her up before easily manoeuvring her onto the desk. He rolled her pants and panties down to her ankles in one go, and was pleased to see that she had removed her shirt when he looked back up and was in the process of removing her bra, before laying down and displaying herself to him.

“Sir, please, I need your thick cock inside me, please fuck me” she begged again, looking him the eyes, on the verge on tears. The alpha released his hard cock from his restrictive clothing, stroking himself as he watched the omega writhe below him. It was a dream come true, seeing her beg for him like that, and it was taking his last piece of self-control not to dive in and fuck her immediately. He leant down over her, slapping his cock against her cunt, teasingly as he gently moved his hand to stroke her face, she nuzzled into his palm.

“Alpha, please, use me for your pleasure, I’m yours, please alpha, please” she begged again, attempting to thrust her hips upwards to gain any form of friction. Enji’s last fibre of constraint snapped, and with no warning, he thrust into the hilt and his omega let out a scream a pleasure. Even though this was her first time, there was enough slick pouring out of her cunt that his massive tool didn’t hurt her, it stretched her perfectly and hit all the right places as Enji started to thrust in and out of her cunt.

“Fuck… your cock… mhmm, feels so good, alpha, do whatever you want with me” she panted as he rammed into her. It was invitation Enji realised. He smirked as he gripped her throat with his free hand, and she let out a whine. Gently running her hand up and down his arm, encouraging to grip her neck tighter.

“Do you like that, little slut?” he whispered into her ear, and she nodded, her hips thrusting up to meet his.

“Good pets reply when they’re asked a question” he sneered, gripping her neck like a vice.

“Yes daddy… I love it when you choke me” she managed to wheeze out using the little oxygen that she had left in her lungs. Her words were nearly enough to send him over the edge.

“You’re such a filthy omega, I bet you’d do anything to please your alpha” he growled as he pulled his hand away from her throat, hooking one arm behind her back, the other under her thighs so he could lift her up. Her legs wound around his waist, arms hooking around his neck as he fucked up into her cunt, using gravity to enhance the angle.

“Mhm… anything to please you, anything, use me as your cock sleeve, I’ll be your cum dump, I want to satisfy you, please Enji” she moaned into his chest. This omega was going to be the death of him. She’d used his name, which meant that there was truth behind what she was saying. He could feel his knot starting to swell up.

“Fuck, you dirty whore, if you don’t stop talking like that, I’m going to knot you” he growled.

“But I mean it Sir, i need you to use me, I could keep your cock warm during long phone calls, mhmmm, you could come in here and fuck me whenever you wanted to, I need to pleasure you, please alpha” she whined.

“I bet you’d even let me fuck you in the middle of a meeting, wouldn’t you? Fuck. You’re mine. You’re my pretty little cum dump. You are mine, all mine” he growled possessively, thrusting deeply into her. It was enough to send her over the edge into an earth shattering orgasm, screaming his name as she clenched around his cock. He was patient and waited until she came down from her high.

“Alpha” she whispered in a sighed, he grunted, informed he was listening.

“Do you want to cum in my mouth or my ass?” she asked with a sly grin and he smirked, this omega had stamina, and the fact that she could keep up with him just made her that more attractive.

“All fours, face down, ass up” he ordered as he placed her on the ground. Oh and did she move quick for him.

“You’re such a perfect little omega for me” he cooed to her as he knelt down behind her, hotdogging her ass with his slick covered dick, using the slick build up to cover his knot.

“Please, use me alpha, I’m all yours” she begged.

“You’ve cum twice now, and you still want my cock. You greedy bitch” he growled, thrusting inside her back entrance, forcing his knot inside, scraping against her walls. The omega beneath him let out a muffled scream of pain.

“If it’s too much for you, I can take it out” he wasn’t being kind, he was teasing her as he fucked her ass. (Y/N) pulled her teeth from her arm and panted before responding.

“I’ll take your cock whenever you give it to me alpha. My perfect, handsome, strong alpha. I’ll give you anything, I’d do anything to please you. I belong to you” she moaned, it was enough to send him over the edge.

“Fuck (Y/N)” he muttered, with one deep thrust, he poured his seed into her ass with a guttural moan.

“Thank you alpha” the omega whispered as he slowly rotated her on his cock so she was facing him before picking her up and sitting down in the chair as they waited for his knot to shrink.

“You were so good for me” he cooed, continuing to whisper soft nothings into her ear as she leant against his chest.

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qvid-pro-qvo · 3 years

Text

i can’t hold you now (and god, it kills me)

rafael barba x female!reader. based on “townhouse incident (season 17, episode 10).”

word count: 12,500

rating: mature, for the pain that comes when someone you love is just out of reach (canon-typical mentions of rape, and tw: vivid depictions of assault and rapes in progress, blood, guns, hostage situation. not fun).

The call from Liv isn’t exactly unexpected – you’re about halfway across town to pick her up anyway, and you’d shot her a text that had gone unanswered about her preferred coffee order. The day is for the two of you. However, the request is an odd one, or at the very least, inconvenient.

You hadn’t anticipated the invitation, and like a lot of things in SVU, it came last minute. If anything, you’d thought Dodds would’ve gotten the invite, considering that he was her sergeant. But, something about your interest in the technical aspects of the jobs, the medical aspects of the jobs, hell, the lab as a whole, had caught Liv’s eye, and so when these innovations came up, a new way to look at DNA, your name was always on the list. It was an honor, and spending the day with the lieutenant never disappointed.

You answer her call with a smile. “Hey, I’m on my way, I promise. I just needed the caffeine boost for another day of lectures,” you tell her. Your voice is light, and the clock in your car tells you that there’s plenty of time. “Like, ten minutes?”

Your boss’s little chuckle is light, but there’s something strained in it. “Not a big fan of those seats personally, but. We’ve got to make a stop first.”

You reach down for your iced coffee, taking a long gulp. The sweetness on your tongue makes you smile, mainly because you can see Barba wincing at the sugary mess you insist on downing.

Rafael Barba. The A.D.A. for the Special Victims Unit, the transfer from Kings County, Harvard Law graduate, Bronx native… and your boyfriend. Even thinking it makes you smile around your straw.

It’d started off like anything else, you and Rafael. Meeting in the squad room after you’d joined up. Bickering and squabbling, different people with different worldviews in high stress situations. The amount of times Liv’s eyes had rolled at the two of you bickering could’ve broken world records. (Amanda was known for leaving the room with her hands up in the air when the two of you got particularly biting, especially if Carisi was added like a cherry on top.)

But then you’d watched him soften. Watched his way with the victims soften, watched his eyes soften. Watched squabbling and bickering turned into standing side-by-side and making snide comments from the other side of one-way glasses. Energy against turned into energy together, and the two of you became a duo that could convince a defendant of anything in those interrogation rooms.

(“At least they’re being productive,” Fin had snarked to Liv, as the two of them watched the interrogation unfold. “Last time they fought paperwork got held up for a week just to spite him.”)

And then the other shoe dropped, as it always did, with a case.

Squabbling turned into standing over his desk, facing him down over a file. You’d stared at him, eyes narrowed, hands gripping his mahogany desk.

“I will not stand by while people we promised to protect are thrown aside in the name of the law.” Your voice hadn’t even dared to waver, and he had stared right back.

His eyes had scanned you. Up, down. Narrowed, sharp, and you braced yourself for the return volley. And then he’d stared right back.

His hand reached out to cover yours. Squeezed it.

“Trust me. Neither will I.”

(The first kiss didn’t happen, then, but it came pretty soon after.)

Rafael’s a good boyfriend, even though sometimes his work prevents him from being as attentive as you know he wants to be. But there’s a catch, because there’s always a catch – you haven’t exactly told anyone yet.

At first it’d been just because it was easier. Because how can you tell the squad what you are when you don’t even know? But when long nights turned into early mornings, and conversations turned serious, it became the only way. To protect yourself, to protect the team, you needed to keep it separate. These two things could not mix, or else disaster would surely come of it.

(“I don’t even want to think about what Carisi will say,” he’d told you one night, fingers running down your arm, and you’d snorted before rolling over to kiss him, shut him up.)

So the now is like this: the day ends, he’s Rafael, and he teases you and tempts you and kisses you. The day begins anew, and he’s back to Barba, and you have to settle for good enough.

Even though he’s more, all you can be is colleagues in the squad room, in interrogations, during debriefs with Liv. Any affection you want to show has to be bottled up until those precious moments alone. It’s exhausting, but worth it, getting to know Rafael, and getting to really, truly care for him.

You shake your head, forcing your thoughts back to the present. You finish your sip, raise a brow. “What kind of stop?”

“A favor.”

You slowly pull up to a red light. The coffee is down. The phone is in the passenger seat and jolts at little at the stop, so you reach for it, turn the speaker off. When you hold it up to your ear you can catch the little things: the rustle of Olivia’s hair against the microphone, Lucy’s voice behind her, something that sounds a lot like Noah babbling.

“What’s up?” You shift in your seat, suddenly very aware of the gun on your hip.

“Lucy works with another family, asked us to check in one them. Said the mother had bruises around her neck, shooed her away after saying that the kid was sick and the husband yelled at her.” Liv’s voice is tense, and you feel your shoulders rise a little. Your jaw clenches, too. “So, can you pick me up?”

Domestic violence cases always have your anger flaring, the thought of those victims stuck and unable to get out. Your sigh is short, sad. “Yeah. I’ll grab you and we’ll head over.”

“Thanks.” She signs off, and suddenly the sugar in your coffee feels like it’s churning in your gut.

For a moment your hand runs over your phone’s screen. Wakes it up from its brief sleep, ready to text Barba – to text Rafael – the update. Might be a little late. Favor called in. But then the light turns green, and you toss your phone to the side, sighing.

You’ll do it later. After the visit. When all is said and done.

Olivia knocks. It’s loud, repetitive, sure to get the attention of whoever’s home. Your hands slide into the pockets of your jacket, your toe tapping on the concrete.

“Did Lucy say anything else?” you ask your boss, but before she can answer the door opens. Slowly, carefully, and you find yourself looking over every detail the woman who peeks out offers.

She looks exhausted, first of all. Her eyes are watery, and you can clearly see the bruising. One hand is holding the door open, the other hidden. You wonder if there’s bruising there, too, and your hands in your pockets clench into fists at the thought of someone hurting her.

“Hi, Lisa.” Your boss greets. Her smile is small, but there’s something urgent in the way she does the same scan. “Olivia Benson.”

“Right, Noah’s mom,” Lisa responds, and she’s quick to tell them that Lucy’s not there.

Liv has perfected the concerned friendliness, and her head tilts a little at the assumption. “Well, actually, I stopped by to speak with you.” With a gesture to you, Liv introduces you as a friend, and you offer your warmest smile.

“Hi, Mrs. Crivello,” you say. “How’re you doing?”

“Well, Luca’s sick, so – so it’s not really a good time,” she stammers out, and you glance towards your lieutenant, who seems unfazed. When you look back, though, you see the injuries add up. The span of the bruises. The little marks on her face.

“You have a little cut, over your eye,” you tell her. Your hand starts moving to your bag for something to dab at it, clean it up.

But Lisa just shakes her head. She looks even more teary, close to letting them fall as she pulls back a little from the door. “I should go…”

Again, Liv just looks at her, and you see her brow furrow for a moment. “Well… how about we come back later? Is that all right?”

Suddenly the two of you hear a voice from behind the mother. It’s quiet, but firm.

“Let them in.”

It’s like a switch is flicked. The uncertainty gives way, and suddenly, Lisa acquiesces. Glances down at her feet for a second before opening the door wide, and the two of you smile at her as you’re let into the apartment. But your eyes see almost nothing before something clocks you in the back of the head, and you hear Liv’s cry as she’s shoved back against the door.

There’s a clatter, but the room doesn’t go black. The hit just grazes you, fortunately and unfortunately, and you stumble forward into arms that are anything less than welcoming. A woman has Lisa, a guy with sweat on his brow has Liv against the door, and a third is the one who’s grabbing you. Your vision is blurry, and your ears are ringing, but you can see Liv lift her hands, see her look both of the captors in the eye.

There’s another girl, you realize. She’s young, a teenager, and when your eyes meet hers you can see her tears. The whole room comes into some kind of focus, and when you take it in your heart starts to sink.

Oh, fuck, what did the two of you get yourselves into?

Instincts start kicking in quick, even in your daze. Your hands test the strength of the guy behind you, which makes his grip turn bruising, and you hear the shouts of the men as they tell the two of you to drop your bags.

“Who the hell is she?!” one of them hisses, and your whole body shivers at the feeling of breath on your neck. “Who are they?!”

“My name is Olivia Benson.” There’s a shake in her voice, the adrenaline, the high, and your eyes blink a few times to focus in on her.

“Liv –“ you call out, but her eyes meet yours suddenly. She glares, and you go quiet, once again feeling those hands tighten on you. It’s as good as an order from her.

“We’re here by chance, okay, but the both of us are New York City police officers.”

The panic on them in clear, and you feel one of the hands holding you start to roam against your waist.

“Fuck, man, this one’s armed,” says the man holding you, and Olivia just sighs, nodding.

“I am, too. Okay? I am, too. I’m telling you now, do you understand?”

“Ralph,” the guy next to Liv says sharply. He’s jittery, and you see a bead of sweat drip down his brow. “Come take this.”

Your guy just stammers out something. “But I’ve got her, Joe.”

There’s no warning, from Ralph or from Joe. One moment, you’re being held to keep from struggling, and the next there’s another hit, this one against your temple. Liv’s voice is the last thing you hear as you crumple, and your mind goes blank, the room going dark.

When you stumble to consciousness again, it’s to the sound of sobbing. Your head is slumped forward, and the taste in your mouth is copper.

“Fuck,” you hiss. Every movement feels like fire, and when you blink your eyes open it’s to see one of the men, Joe, jostling the teenage girl in his arms, they’re moving towards another room. She’s screaming, Liv and Joe are talking, and Roxie is yelling. The cacophony of her voice and everyone else’s makes you wince and groan again.

“Roxie, this is on you. Let me in there,” Olivia all but snarls, and you see her get clocked across the face. Watch her stumble, get shoved on the bed. You’re pinned to the bed, you realize, as you try to reach for your lieutenant. Tied around it, your ass on the hardwood floor.

“Liv,” you whisper, and your voice makes her pause. You’re awake, after all. But the look she shoots you is sharp. She wants you to let her handle it, you realize. Throw herself in the line of fire.

Yeah, you think to yourself, unlikely without your company.

Joe. Ralph. Roxie. The trio that broke in. Ralph is… gone, now, nowhere in sight, and… where’s Lisa? Your eyes blink a few more times, the sounds around you ratcheting up to full volume as you wake.

There’s someone else here, another voice, so painfully young. A memory swims to the surface as your head swivels from side to side – Lucy takes care of their boy.

Liv hasn’t moved since she got hit, hasn’t said a thing, but the screams are raucous. They make your head spin, and Roxie only adds to it when her frustration reaches her limit.

“Can’t you just shut up? God, make him shut up,” Roxie snarls, and you blearily blink so you could turn to look at Liv. Her eyes are like daggers at the woman, who looks frantic at the noises Luca is making, the sound of… his sister…

Begging for his own sister’s life.

God. You feel sick, and combined with the concussion you’re trembling.

“You’re gonna need to untie me to do that, aren’t you?” your boss almost whispers. She’s frustrated, pulling at her restraints as her will battles Roxie’s. “Please, I’m not going to do anything stupid, just let me help the boy.”

When you look back at Roxie, she looks helpless. Even with the gun in her hand. And when she moves to untie Luca and Liv, cutting off her restraints, the sigh of relief you let out is audible, even with Roxie’s whisper threat over your head.

So Liv goes. Goes to Luca, quiets him, and her voice is so gentle. It makes your lower lip tremble, the way she cradles him against her, reaches for his iPad so he can send the world away. He doesn’t deserve this, not even a little, but Liv is there for him anyway.

Leaving you to stare down Roxie.

“You wanted this?” you mutter, and the woman’s attention shoots to you, her gun shaking ever so slightly in her hand. “It’s on you, like she said. All of this, right now.”

“Shut up,” she snaps, and Liv looks up, too, lifting from her spot next to Luca, who is thankfully engrossed in a movie.

“This can’t be the way you wanted things to go down,” she adds, and she’s able to stand to her full height, dwarf the woman who looks nothing more than a girl. Uncertain, even in her arguments.

“You don’t know me,” Roxie snaps back, and you scoff, shaking your head.

“I wouldn’t want to, if you’re fine with your boyfriend raping a sixteen-year-old girl,” you hiss. Her gun shifts between the two of you, Olivia staring her down, you glaring up from your spot on the bed. “Do you even hear that? Do you hear what he’s doing to her, that sick son of a –”

“Well, Joe does Joe, and I do me, so you better sit down.”

“You can save yourself,” Liv tries, but the girl just raises her voice, pulls back. You duck your head to hide the frustration on your features, the clench of your teeth as Liv’s phone chimes.

When Roxie moves to it, you look up at your lieutenant, who spares a glance down at you. You must look a mess, because you can feel the slow throb of your temple, the stickiness of your hair that’s surely from blood. You can smell it, on you, but even after all of it, you offer a smile. A small grimace. And when Liv turns toward Roxie again, her toe taps yours.

“Who’s Lucy?”

Liv freezes. You see her shoulders tense, and for the first time since you’ve woken up another name dances across your mind. Noah. Oh, god. All of this, and Liv has Noah, and your stomach rolls again.

Your boss is quick. Her minds works, and as you blow hair out of your face she’s reaching for the phone.

“She’s my sitter. She’s also Luca’s sitter, and she needs to talk to me. She needs to know about my son’s daycare pickup.”

Wait. Pickup? It’s… it’s what, 11:00 in the morning? Your mind swirls with confusion, but in shock you realize that Roxie is handing her the phone, that Roxie is letting her text back. Your eyes widen, and quickly you duck your head.

It’s almost in prayer, you realize. With your hands tied behind you, with the feel of them going numb against the metal that’s hot from your own body heat.

Please, Lucy. Whatever she tells you. Get it to the right people.

Suddenly, a face swims to mind, and your eyes widen, blinking away the sudden rush of tears. Liv is surely thinking about her son, but all you can think about is Rafael.

Please, Rafael. Please be the right person.

The wake-up call in the morning is a text, and Rafael Barba blinks blearily at the message. It’s almost habit that makes his lip curl up in a smile, and when he throws off the sheets it’s with a preparedness for the morning he almost never has.

Perhaps it’s just the expectation of coffee. These huge events usually have a few cups for him to help himself, too, and he knows the sight of him downing them will make your lip curl in disgust. Or maybe it’s the knowledge, knowing that going to this DNA conference will make him a better lawyer, a better advocate for the victims.

Or maybe, it’s just that the text is from you.

You’d been a surprise, when you’d met him. A veritable source of conflict on one hand, with snappy words soothed by smiles. A disregard for the courtroom, in more ways than one. A capable detective, who had a tendency to follow instinct whether it helped or hurt. At least, that’d been the pitch.

Of course, because it was Rafael, the start had been shaky. Bickering and bantering over everything and nothing. More than once Liv had to shut the two of you up with a raised hand and a raised brow, since gut collided with a man who wore suspenders and a belt.

(“If the two of you don’t get it together, I’m throwing both of you out,” she’d threatened one eventful evening, her voice very reminiscent of the tone she took with Noah. An unsteady peace was made through the end of the week.)

But just like the squad, just like Rollins, and Carisi, and Liv, all it took was one case.

One case to turn the tide.

From there, it’d grown. Moments alone, somehow snagged against all odds. Him and you in a side room in the courthouse, talking about deals. Visits to his office to break the monotony, banter and bribe with snack to take a break. You became a friend, first and foremost, and from there it slotted into place.

Didn’t take long for him to realize just how much he’d fallen for you. A kiss sealed the deal, Rafael finally working on instinct. But while the short-term was brilliant, the long-term was more… complex.

The ADA, together with a detective. Complicated to say the least, a disaster waiting to happen at most. But how could he stay away, knowing that you had a smile that was just for him? Eventually, the two of you had agreed – it would be a secret, from the squad, from the office. The only people that needed to know were you and him.

On the outside, you did your best to treat him like everyone else, treat him like before. Banter and bicker and bite. You’d slug him in the arm same as Carisi, and you laugh with him like you do Rollins, and you roll your eyes with him and Fin as the perps incriminate themselves.

But when the two of you were alone… when you knew you were alone…

Of course, that doesn’t mean that he can’t enjoy the thought of spending time with you even at work, can’t enjoy your morning texts in the privacy of his own apartment. Today is the DNA conference, after all, which is why your text isn’t surprising. He expects to see you there, you and Liv. You send him your itinerary, which matches his almost to the letter, and he thinks about you as he thinks about what to wear, thinks about you as he pours himself his coffee, and thinks to stop thinking about you as he pulls up to the conference.

And then… you’re nowhere to be found.

He double-checks the schedule you and Liv have planned out. It’s intricate, but there are overlaps. And in those sessions, he sits, thinks about saving a seat. But there’s no further texts, nothing, and that makes the lectures a bit harder to get through. He’s almost thankful for the text from Carisi, the one that pulls him up and out of his chair and out the door. Because surely this is what’s keeping you.

Got the push-in rapist.

When Rafael makes it to the precinct and immediately grabs a cup of coffee.

“What do we have?” he asks Dodds, who is the first to greet him. Not you. Or Liv. He gets filled in by the new sergeant, and by the time they make it to the one-way glass he’s noticed that the two of you are nowhere to be found. It makes his brow furrow, but soon he’s leaning against the window, watching as the man inside starts fidgeting.

“He was on top of the roof, got trapped. Had the weapon on him, too, tossed aside. It was clean,” the sergeant tells him, and Barba can’t help the lift of his brow.

“We’re sure?” he asks, letting the doubt creep in, and Dodds’ eyes narrow at the ADA.

Fin backs him up, arms crossed over his chest. “It was clean, Barba. We got him.”

There’s a bit of relief, and tension in Rafael’s shoulders drop. Fin joins the two of them in front of the window, and he nods at him. He takes a sip of his coffee, and the steps that stalk towards the squad are distinctly unfamiliar.

“Well, congratulations. You found another innocent black man.” The defense attorney is vaguely familiar, and his eyes scan the three of them with disdain (and some kind of sick glee at his own taunts). “I suppose we should be grateful that you didn’t shoot him.”

“He had a gun on him,” Fin says, no flair, just facts.

“Did he?” is the return, and Rafael looks between the two sides, brow raised. “Who planted it?”

That’s when the ADA decides then he doesn’t have time for this, and he lets his scoff sound over his coffee cup.

“Don’t troll. This is your client’s third rape. We have multiple IDs.” He says it with a confidence that he rarely gets to have, and it feels good to be able to reply with the knowledge that DNA will match, IDs will be made. Dodds again affirms the presence of DNA, forensics, and that’s that.

It could all go horribly wrong, of course, but he still has time to relish just a little in the assurances provided.

“Save it for the judge. May I?” The public defender moves smoothly into the interrogation room, and Barba watches him for a few moments before turning to Dodds again.

“Nice work.” Frank, but honest. And straight to the point. “Where’s Liv and Y/N?” he asks, casually, paired with another sip of coffee. There’s no urgency, even as he hopes that Dodds has some idea why you bailed.

But the sergeant seems unbothered, and Fin pipes up as he stands up straight, hands in his pockets. “They’re both still at the DNA conference.”

Barba stops. Pushing off of the window, stands up straight. Looks at the two officers in front of him. Smirks a little. Not a prank, he guesses. Something else came up, surely. “No, they’re not. I was there all morning. I would’ve seen them.” He doesn’t confirm how he knows he would’ve seen them, the texts from you on the cell in his pocket, but he does know that the two of you were nowhere to be seen.

And… well. That certainly catches the two of them by surprise. Dodds looks at Fin, and Fin looks back at Dodds.

“I’ll text her again,” Dodds decides. “Let’s wrap this case up, get it delivered to her signed, sealed.”

But at that point, there’s still a hesitant peace. A certainty that whatever is wrong will be resolved, wherever Liv is she’s there for a reason. Rafael finds himself hoping the same thing for you, hoping you are not far behind her, that soon enough your voice will be heard down the hall, in the elevator, your laugh pitched high among all else.

And then, the peace shatters.

“Guys, we’ve got a problem here.” Carisi’s voice is sharp, tight. His strides are long, and soon he’s across the precinct, at Fin’s desk. “Liv just texted this to Lucy, and… it’s bad news.”

Rafael’s brows inch up his head. His mind goes to the solution that’s obvious – that Carisi is overreacting. That nothing’s as wrong as the Fordham student says it is. He doesn’t even lift his pen from the paper.

And then Fin reads.

“Stuck at precinct all day. Pick up William at daycare. He has a playdate with Lewis and Y/N today.”

In a moment Barba finds his head spinning. He lifts up, looks around the room at the other men, watching as their own minds piece together the information.

William Lewis. Just the thought of him sets Barba’s teeth on edge, sets his body alight. He has to straighten so he can wrap his mind around the implication.

“William Lewis?” he repeats. Well. Says, out loud. “That’s… that’s not good.” But he remains calm. He has to remain calm. His voice is steady, even as it wants to tremble. “When did you last hear from them? From Liv?”

Barba tries to keep his cool, but he can’t ignore the way his heart is pounding. Can’t ignore the way that he turns to Dodds again. “Have you spoken to them today?” he urges, and the sergeant jaw is clenched as Rafael reaches for the phone Fin has in his hand.

His eyes scan the words. Over and over, just to confirm. He can’t help but hope against hope that Fin read it wrong, but everything is there, in black in white in front of his face. There’s a growing dread in the pit of his stomach.

“I sent Liv a text, let her know we got the push-in rapist,” the sergeant explains. “She responded.”

“Same with Y/N. I texted her, earlier, and I got a reply,” Fin tells Barba, but there’s still something that’s got him on edge.

“But did you talk to them? Hear their voices?” He hopes the others can’t hear the break in his voice, the worry in his tone. “You didn’t actually speak to them?”

The silence is deafening.

For once, he and Carisi are on the same page. Their eyes meet over Fin’s desk. “That sounds like a 10-13 if I’ve ever heard one. It’s gotta be. Lucy said that Liv checked on a neighbor this morning?”

Dodds’ voice cuts through before Rafael’s can. “Where?”

The four men find themselves all turning to the nanny, who stands off to the side. Her worry, that brought her to the precinct in the first place, seems close to crashing over her.

“Go find out.” It’s not an order, not really, but it leaves Barba’s mouth before he can stop it. And without a second to waste, Dodds and Carisi step towards Lucy, while Barba looks down to his own phone.

It’s instinct. One tap, two, three, and there’s your name. His thumb sweeps over the screen before he presses dial, and within an instant his phone is at his ear. He’s dialed your number, what feels like hundreds of times, but the ringing stretches on and on and on. Each time it goes off, he expects the call to connect, for you to tease about calling during work hours. Can’t get enough of me at work, Barba?

When he hears your voice, he starts, wants to feel that relief, but the automated message is the only thing that’s going. His heart climbs into his throat.

One more time. He pulls back, taps a couple of times. Another call, this time to Liv. The same thing. Ringing, ringing, ringing. Message.

Nothing. He tries both numbers again, with all eyes on him, with the same result.

Two of them. Two of their own. Gone without a trace. And all Barba can think about is the name William Lewis, and the sight of it so close to your own.

Nausea rolls, and he tries one more time.

“Barba,” Fin tells him. Reaches out, fingers on his desk. “Barba.”

When he looks down, Fin’s eyes are piercing him. There’s something in them, something that makes the lawyer think the old blood knows more than he ever lets on. That Fin knows exactly what the day looks like now, and what the next case will be.

“Find out,” he manages, and tries not to think about how he’s dialed your number yet again, the sound of your automated message the definition of insanity.

Your phone is in Roxie’s hand. It buzzes, over and over again, and then the same thing happens with Liv’s phone on the chair next to her. Your captor watches it, reads the name and then the notifications on your own phone. There’s a back and forth, a pause, and then she looks at the two of you with confusion.

“Barba keeps calling. And this guy, Rafael. Why?”

Your breath catches. Liv is on the bed, her feet planted next to you, and you hear her words, vaguely. Something about work.

Then you realize Roxie is staring at you, raising a brow your direction. You swallow, blink a few times. Clear your head, offer a tight smile.

“Just… probably calling to ask about a case. Let it ring. He’ll get the… the message,” you say, and her eyes narrow at you before setting your phone down.

You feel Liv’s toe tap your leg. When you look up at her, her eyes catch yours, and you feel her gaze sweep over your face before you shake your head.

Not now, Liv.

She taps your leg again, but you refuse to rise to the bait, and that’s when the door bursts open.

Joe says something, but his voice fades away. All you can see is the girl, the way her face is vacant now. The faraway look, in her eyes, and your chest tightens at the sight of her hair, limp around her face.

Your sympathy turns to anger in an instant, as she limps over to the bed. Liv’s voice is soft to the girl, but your mouth twists into a sneer as you look up at Joe, who sneers right back.

“What are you looking at?” he scoffs, and the rage is blinding.

“Untie me and you’ll find out,” you shoot back.

“Playing hero, huh?” Roxie spits, but Joe beats her to it, glancing toward your phone.

“Got someplace you gotta be? Someone at home waiting for a detective who’ll never come back?” His threat isn’t lost on you, and your instinct is gone, replace with the impulse to lash out, kick at his legs.

A third tap, a warning shot, but it’s too late. Joe reaches for your collar, and Liv’s hands reach out to stop him, press against his chest as he lunges.

“You’re okay, Joe, it’s fine,” she urges, and his mouth goes a little agape as he stumbles back.

“What the hell, Roxie? What is she doing untied?”

“She was helping with Luca –” you snap, just as Roxie says that Liv isn’t going anywhere.

“If she does, she’ll never see her son again,” Joe sneers, and he moves to retie Liv just as there’s another phone ring. But it’s not Rafael, and it’s not your squad. It’s the third wheel, it’s Ralph, and you watch as Joe’s anger is stoked again. It’s like watching a train you know is going to crash, your eyes drawn to the disaster as it happens. Joe’s frustration is only peaked by Lisa’s demands, and your admiration for the will of a mother is tempered by the way that Joe’s voice grinds on his last sentence.

“Now get the cash, or they’re dead.”

One thing after another. Your head, still pounding, can barely keep up, your energy gone from the kick. There’s a ring at the doorbell, and Joe’s corralling Tess downstairs. You strain to listen, to hear anything, but the muffled voices aren’t ones you can recognize. When Tess comes back up, she’s shaky, and Joe screaming at her doesn’t help.

“They were cops! What the hell did you say?!”

Cops? you think to yourself, and for a moment images of your team swims across your vision. Oh, god.

“Nothing, I just told him Luca and I were sick!”

Joe’s pacing now, and Liv is standing. She reaches out for them, and her voice is so strong, so calm. You’re still on the bed, attached, but you force yourself to breath in and out, to look up at Joe with Liv and try to talk him down.

“Now is the time for you guys to go,” she whispers.

“You need to stop talking,” Joe hisses, but your voice chimes in before he can think too much.

“This is only the beginning,” you add. It’s what you have to do. Make him think, make them second guess. Your hands pull at your restraints to no avail, and you huff out a breath to move the hair in your eyes. “You guys should get out of here, while you still can.”

“What do you mean?” Roxie asks, but she’s silenced by Joe. Your anger at him only grows at the way he grips her tight, enough to bruise her wrists.

“They are cops – both of them, do you fucking hear me? She is lying to you, and everything that comes from her mouth is a lie.”

“Joe, there is no perimeter,” Liv urges. “Look outside. There’s no one out there. If you sneak out the back, they won’t find out who you are.”

The conversation ends with one last word from Joe. A knife in his hand pointing at all you, even Roxie. “And we’re not going anywhere until we got the money.”

The next hour is ruthless. Your concussions settle in, and you keep having to force your eyes open as Liv moves to sit next to you. The lights and the sirens are relentless, and every so often you can’t help the groan that leaves your lips at the pain.

Liv’s at the bed, too, with Tess and Luca, and a hand reaches out to you. You hear Luca’s voice, soft and gentle. “Is she gonna be alright?” he asks your boss, and before she can answer you look up at them with a shaky smile.

“Hey, buddy. Yeah. I’m – I’m fine. Just. Just got a bit of a headache. Go back to your movie, okay?”

You try to ignore the way that Liv’s hand presses on your shoulder, the way you can feel her urge for calm through the touch. Try to forget that for a few minutes, that’s the only thing grounding you, her fingers on your skin and the knowledge that your friends are out there. Your family.

And Joe? Joe’s on the edge. His fingers keep messing with the blinds, keep pulling them down and shoving them aside when the sight of the cops steadily piling into the street overwhelms him. You watch his hands go to his hair, pull, and drop back down to his sides, watch his sweat drip down his forehead. He looks manic, he looks pissed, and Roxie’s whispered doubts only do that much more to drive him mad.

“Let Richard go,” Liv urges, at one point. “Let the kids go. Keep me – I’m your best asset.”

Oh, no, you don’t, Liv, you think. Not while you’ve got Noah.

“Keep me,” you press. Your hands are still tied, so you push forward with your shoulders. “I’ll do whatever you need to do, but if you let the kids go, if you let Richard go, use me as a bargaining chip.”

“Y/N,” Liv warns, but you pull forward again, the zip-tie digging into your skin.

“They won’t come after you if I’m inside,” you urge. “Liv’ll make sure of that. Keep me, Joe. Keep me, and… and I can get you out of here.”

But before you can push anymore, Joe is shaking his head. Roxie looks frantic, and their voices drown each other out.

“Just shut up!” is the shriek that stops her, but Liv is reaching out to him again.

“Joe. Just let the kids go.”

“Will they stand down?” Joe snaps, suddenly, at Liv. You sigh out a groan, as Liv just shakes her head. “No. Not unless they hear it from you. You’ll call them, tell them to stand down. You’re going to get us out of here.”

“Joe, they’re not going to stand down,” Liv tries, but soon her phone’s in her hand, anyway, and there’s a gun to your head. You wince, tears springing to your eyes as you squeeze them shut. Liv’s voice catches in her throat.

“There’s – there’s no need for that, Joe –“

“But I’m not playing. Call them.”

“Okay. I’m calling my sergeant. Speaker is on.”

When the gun is pulled from your head you realize you’ve been holding your breath. You gasp for air, and when the phone call goes through, Mike’s answer is drowned out by your own breathing.

At the mention of a negotiator, he loses it. There doesn’t seem to be anything that doesn’t set him off, and Roxie can’t calm him.

“No, I want to get out of here,” he snaps, and your voice comes out raw.

“We have to negotiate, Joe.” You’re begging him, begging him to see reason. “We have to, if you want to survive.”

Liv fills in the gaps. “You have a family in here, Joe. You have two police officers in here. They will burst in here if you do not negotiate. That is where we are.”

“So – so who do you trust?” the asshole sneers, and the gun points to Liv, nudges against her shoulder. “At the NYPD.”

“My squad,” she responds immediately. Your heart warms, for a moment, before the chill of Joe’s voice freezes it again.

“Oh, no. Someone with more pull.” You watch Joe lean close to Liv, watch his breath puff in her face. “So I’ll fucking ask again. Does anyone at the NYPD care if you both live, or if you die?”

You look up at her. You can see her thinking – her eyebrow twitches for a moment, her gaze drifting over the scene before her.

“What about that Barba guy?” Roxie asks, pointing her gun between the both of them. “He called both of them, he obviously seems to give a shit –”

Your heart climbs so high in your throat you choke on it. Liv’s eyes widen at the suggestion, and thankfully speaks before you can stammer out an indication in the negative. “No. Ed Tucker. He has pull.”

You try to hide your shock, the way his name twists your lips. There’s history there, more than you know, and Liv looks to you, brow furrowing, a silent plea. Something passes, between the both of you, a mutual understanding. About what it means to be someone that either of you care about.

This is what needs to happen. To get the both of you out. The both of you safe, to those who care about you the most.

“Ed Tucker, Joe. He’ll get you what you want.”

The street outside the brownstone looks like a battleground – the armored vehicles and lights flashing on closed windows.

Rafael’s steps are quick through the organized chaos, shouts from other officers as they directed the traffic around the area filling his ears, exhaust from engines rising up into the cool air. But there’s no time to linger, catch his bearings. He can only feel lost among the uniforms and bullet-proof vests. There is only the task at hand, the thought of you pushing him to keep one foot in front of the other.

And if his hands start shaking, well, that’s what pockets are for.

He sees Dodds in the distance, the man standing half a head above any others in the area. He makes quick work of the terrain, weaving through armored bodies, and soon he’s beside the man, who greets him with a tense nod.

“Where are we?”

“Ralph Volkov. Assault, drunk driving. Fired by the Crivellos’ after two failed drug tests.” Dodds is to the point. His steps are quick, and Rafael feels like he has to take two keep up with him. They’re on a fast track to the command center, and Rafael tries to ignore the pit in his stomach.

“A revenge plan?” Rafael hisses. It’s in disbelief, in horror. All of this because of some grudge? Your life over a job as a truck driver? “Do we think he’s in charge?”

“He’s not the ringleader. Through here,” Dodds tells him, but before the sergeant can reach for the door the counselor’s voice stops his hand.

“Dodds. Where… where are we?” When he asks again, he doesn’t mean for his voice to tremble, but it’s fraught with the emotions he knows he’ll need to put away.

The sergeant takes a moment. Ducks his chin, before giving an answer. One without fluff, or pomp, or poise. Just the truth. “As far as we know, they’re both there, conscious. Okay, as of a few minutes ago,” he murmurs. “But we don’t know what okay means. They’re alive. We caught a glimpse of them, both of them, through a second-story window. Some bruising, bleeding. But… the one with the phone is hopped up on something, and. We can’t get a rapport. Not a real one.”

“But we’ve heard them?”

When Dodds glances back, it’s with a sigh. Rafael tenses. “Just Liv. Her phone is the one they’ve been using. To make the calls. But she’s told us that they’re both okay, and I trust that… she knows what she’s doing.”

Rafael’s eyes widen, just a fraction, but Dodds doesn’t see. He’s already pushing forward, into the armored truck, leaving the lawyer’s thoughts scrambled. Your voicemail message seems to sing in his head. But the spiraling has to stop, and so he forces himself forward, through the door, chin lifted and steps long.

He can see him, at the end. One of the assholes responsible for taking you, for beating you. His shoulders straighten, and that fury is used to stalk close, tilt his chin down and glare. His presence makes the man shrink, and he relishes in that pleasure.

“Hello, Ralph. I’m Assistant District Attorney Rafael Barba. Who’s we?”

He’s pathetic, the man in front of him. Voice a mumbled mess, clothes dirty. His hands are cuffed in front of him, and he can barely look Rafael in the eye. But he answers, slowly, blinking up at the lawyer. “Me and my sister, Roxie. We needed money, for my ma, she. She needs a new hip, she can hardly walk.

Dodds says something. Rafael’s mind is on the name. Roxie. Roxie. Roxie and Ralph, the fucking dynamic duo.

Suddenly Ralph is pushing back. “Yeah, but she didn’t want to hurt anyone either. And Joe came along. All of this was his idea, man, not ours.”

Rafael takes a seat. He’s level with this guy, and it makes him sick to his stomach. “Uh-huh.” His voice is hoarse. Bitter. “Joe’s his real name?”

The man doesn’t respond, seems to shrink back, and Rafael finds his temper flaring, his voice going sharp. His hand reaches out to snap under the man’s nose. He sits down, and the only place he’s looking is at the dumb son of a bitch in front of him. “Ralph. Look at me. Anyone dies in there, you’re on the hook for felony murder.” He doesn’t want to think about you, about your body coming out, not your life. His vision goes a little red, and he leans close with a tight tone. “You help us or you’re gone.”

That seems to get his attention, and Ralph nods, swallowing down his fear. “Joe’s his real name. Joe Utley.”

Fin moves to the laptop quickly, looking at his sergeant. Their glance is exchanged, but Rafael’s mind is fixated on the three names he has. Ralph. Roxie. Joe Utley. All of them responsible for taking you. For taking Liv. He finds himself squeezing his knee under the table, praying for a moment that the crime he prosecutes them for doesn’t have – fuck, doesn’t have murder in the damn headlines.

And then he gets a text from Carisi. His hand goes to Ralph’s phone, next to him, and the latest text shines up. The two kids, huddled together on the bed, Liv to the side, and you… sitting against the bed on the floor, looking up. There’s blood, on your forehead. Some down the side of your neck. Your eyes look glazed, dull, and all the blood drains from his face.

When he holds up the photo, he can barely speak.

“This photo.” His voice is raspy, and his hand is almost shaking. “Is this the last time you had contact with Joe and Roxie?”

Ralph confirms it, and that’s when he has to step away. He just hears a fraction of what Dodds says. It doesn’t matter. It just confirms the filth that has you captive in that fucking building. Has to pull back, take a breath. There’s a fury within him that only builds as Ralph pushes back, refuses to cooperate when you’re inside that damn townhouse –

Fin’s voice cuts through the chaos, goes straight to the point. Tucker and Dodds and Rafael watch on, as the detective leans close, scowls at the perp. “Let me ask you something, man. Do you ever want to see your sister alive again?”

Rafael swallows at that. Looks down at his phone. Can’t watch as Dodds holds up the phone to Ralph, can’t do anything but close his eyes and turn as the hand is dealt.

And then Ralph stammers. There is nothing more useless than a juris doctorate in that moment, watching as the man turns. Admits that he’s caught, that it’s done. Nothing more horrifying than the sound of Joe’s voice on the other end of the line, a furious shout of a curse before the line goes dead. And nothing more nauseating than knowing that whatever happens next, Rafael can’t do a damn thing.

“Son of a bitch!” Joe screams, and you can’t help your wince. The noise seems to rattle your brain, and when you open your eyes again the man is leaning on the fireplace.

The four of you – including Liv and the kids – had been moved downstairs as Ralph’s absence stretched longer. And no matter how much you wanted these bastards ended, you couldn’t help your prayer that Joe would just get what he wanted. Anything to keep him sane, to keep him from using one of the kids as a punching bag, or from hurting Liv.

But with Ralph out of the picture, caught by the police… you can’t help but notice the way that your chances get slimmer and slimmer. Your eyes flick toward your lieutenant, the strongest woman you know, and you can’t help but feel the doubt. Doubt that trickles down your cheek with a couple of tears, a mixture of blood and sweat joining it.

And Rafael… your throat closes up at the thought of him, swimming around in the back of your mind. Usually such a comfort, and now the guilt kills you. The knowledge that you’d – fucking hell, that you could’ve seen him for the last…

You have to physically shake your head. Enough that Liv’s hand reaches out for you.

No. You have to see him again. You have to.

Joe and Roxie are yelling now. Back and forth, back and forth, and you want to sink further into your chair but can’t get far enough away. It all bounces in your head, and everything just as you hear Joe’s voice scream into the phone.

“What?”

The silence is deafening. Joe’s ultimatum more so. And then the phone is shoved into your hands, along with a threat for your life, the gun pointed at you.

“Ralph, and the cash, or your pretty little girlfriend dies. Or what about… what about this one? This useless bitch, huh? Not much stopping me from putting a bullet in her head.”

Your energy is used to glare up at the man. You feel Liv freeze beside you as you lift your mouth to the speaker.

“He… he really wants Ralph back in here, Tucker.”

“Yeah. I, uh. Understand that. But that’s not something we can do right now.”

Your head drops. The phone and your hand drop. And Liv’s voice is next to you, soft. “He’s telling you the truth, guys. We’re not allowed to send civilians inside.”

“All right. Then I’m done talking.”

There’s a hitch to your breath at the end of Joe’s statement, and Rafael’s hands are limp at his sides. He can picture it so vividly – he knows what Joe looks like. It’s not hard to visualize him lifting a gun and aiming it at you. Barba barely notices he starts to tremble as he anticipates the sound, that one final sound.

Luckily the finality is something that Tucker doesn’t accept. And at the sound of Joe’s request to talk to Ralph.

After all, he knows what that look on Tucker’s face is trying to tell him. He sees the way the man turns to him like he understands. With Liv on the other end, perhaps that’s what he’s hoping to convey. The urgency, the knowledge that he’s doing everything he can.

Little does he know.

There’s yelling, fighting. Tucker tries to talk them down again, but Roxie and Joe on the other end of the line are going off at each other, and then there’s a clatter. The whole room seems to wince at it, and when there’s silence on the line no one can breathe.

“Everybody okay?” Tucker asks. But even when the silence breaks, the tension is still thick. Rafael feels it clawing at his throat. And Liv’s voice on the other end, shaking, makes him lift a hand to his hair.

“Okay. So we know that Ralph’s not coming in here, but do you have his money?”

The trade develops. Slowly. Too slowly, and your name doesn’t come up once. It makes Rafael’s twitch, and by the time the final deal is made, he’s had enough of it. One person. One person, and it’s not you. It’s not you.

The door is opening, and Rafael is gone before he can think. He’s pushing out of the van and starts pacing behind the command center, muttering something to himself. He’s halfway through the recitation when he realizes it’s a prayer, and almost done with it when he sees Carisi just a few feet away, making his way to where Rafael just left.

He doesn’t stop the detective from coming closer. If anything he almost welcomes it. Carisi looks almost as harried as he is, and he can’t help the way his lips twist at the familiarity of Carisi’s “counselor” in his mouth.

“How’s it goin’ in there?” For a first question, Rafael is struck by how little he can bear to answer.

“The… the father’s in bad shape. They’re organizing a trade,” he whispers, and hates the way that his voice cracks. The way he looks up at the row of townhouses and has to swallow his fear so he doesn’t vomit with it.

Suddenly Carisi’s face softens, somehow, even more. He looks at Rafael with pity. And while the counselor wants to bristle at it, he can’t.

“We’ll get them out, counselor,” the blond promises. “We’ll get Liv, and we’ll get them out –”

But when Rafael lifts his hand, it’s to silence him. To just glare, work his jaw, and try not to shatter so completely.

“It’s not just Liv,” he spits, and the admission takes even him by surprise. “It’s not. So. Please, just.”

He doesn’t know what Carisi is seeing when he looks at Rafael in that moment. He doesn’t know what the detective thinks. But no matter all of his words, his teasing, he knows that the man isn’t stupid, and can put the pieces together on a simple puzzle.

Who else is in that fucking room? Who else could the squad lose?

“I can’t lose her.” Carisi’s jaw clenches, his whole body tensing in Rafael’s periphery. But there’s no answer, because the detective isn’t stupid.

Not enough to make empty promises.

Mike’s eyes meet yours first when he comes through the door. He reassures Joe that his demands are being met – the money, the car, the goddamn plane – but he can’t stop looking at you. Maybe it’s the blood at your temple, the way your hands are gripping armrests on the chair you’re basically strapped to. Maybe it’s the dazed look in your eye that you’re sure you have, a concussion wreaking havoc on your system. But it doesn’t matter. He can’t help you.

Joe’s orders to strip had made too much sense – forcing them down to the bare essentials to come in and get the father out. But seeing it, seeing how vulnerable Mike it makes your chest hurt, and as he stands before Joe and his fucking assault rifle basically bare, you can’t help your desire to reach out to him.

“Everything is on its way,” Mike tells Joe, meeting his gaze head on – a steady lift of the chin while Joe fidgets.

And then the vests come off, too. And you have to watch Mike leave without any protection, his back so vulnerable, and you have to watch Joe’s eyes follow him, and once he leaves the breath you let out is audible. Audible enough to earn you a glare.

“What?” he snaps, and you just shake your head, offering a smile that feels like

“Nothing, Joe. That was a good thing you just did, letting Richard get the helps he needs,” you tell him.

There’s a beat, and then before you can react he’s lunging forward, his fist and thankfully not the butt of the gun smacking you across the face.

The kids scream, a horrific sound as your head is whipped to the side, eyes closed tight as you groan and try not to look at them.

“I’m – I’m okay…”

“You’re laughing,” he hisses, bending forward. “You’re fucking laughing at me.”

“Joe,” Liv says with a sharp tone. She doesn’t come to you, but her eyes are wide as your body pulls in on itself, barely able to look up and see her through the tears in your eyes. “Joe, look at me. That was good, getting Richard out of there. The car is… is coming, okay? It is, and… when it’s here we can start working on an exit strategy.”

“I have an exit strategy. For me, and for Roxie,” he snaps. His voice is hoarse from yelling, and then the phone rings again. Joe picks it up, and he’s moving from the hall to the table and back again, the end of the line approaching steadily.

“I’m gonna send someone out to check the car. I want the keys in the ignition, I want the engine running, and I want all those ESU guys gone, y’hear me? I want a clear path!” The phone is tossed away, connection gone, and then Joe’s in front of you again, bending forward, grinning. “About time to make yourself useful.”

“Joe,” Liv murmurs, trying to reach out to him, but the gun is quickly pointing at her.

“Shut up, boss lady!” he snaps. “The both of you are gonna put the vest on Roxie, and then she’s gonna go out there and check the car.”

What else can you do but comply? Joe’s release on your restraints has you stumbling forward, but when Liv goes to get you she’s pushed away by the firearm. You slowly rise to your feet, and there’s blood falling steadily from your nose as you stumble forward.

There’s no affirmation. Joe can only hiss out a curse, and then he’s stumbling away towards the back of the house.

The front of the house feels cold. By the time you make it to Roxie it feels like an eternity, and you and Liv have to get to work buckling her up. You’re so disoriented, the world spinning, that when you realize Liv is talking she’s already halfway there.

“Roxie,” she murmurs. “You can save yourself. You realize that? Right now. your brother is out there, and you don’t have to die. All you have to do is drop to your knees and put your hands up.”

Your hands are finally free. It feels good being able to roll your wrists, but you can barely focus as you realize you’re looking up into Roxie’s eyes. Your brain stumbles through its recollection, and when you do manage to speak it’s small. Soft. So Joe can’t hear.

“Save yourself, and your brother, Roxie, okay?” you whisper. “Get out of here. For him, you understand.”

“Just – just shut up,” she snaps, and Liv buckles her in.

It’s torture watching her leave. Joe’s back now, and the phone is at his hear, while Liv’s at the window, watching. But the light from outside makes your head spin. All you can do is stumble back to a chair, count to ten, and try not to cry.

You wish you had a hand on your back right now. Someone rubbing small circles into your skin. You can hear his voice, Rafael’s, in your ear, low hums as the two of you relax on the couch…

No.

You blink a few times. You can hear Roxie’s voice over the phone. Her sharp gasp, the long pause. You hear Rafael, then, too, urging you onto your feet, urging your mind to come together for just a bit longer…

No. He’s not – he’s not there. He’s outside. He’s not on the phone, he’s not on a couch, he’s outside and waiting and you’re stuck in here. It makes you want to scream, and your fingers lift to curl in your hair.

And then Carisi’s voice filters in over the phone.

“Hey, hold up, she’s surrendering. We got her!”

Something in Joe seems to snap at that moment. His eyes are wild, the assault rifle draped over his body, and when he lifts to gun to direct it between you and Liv.

“We’re almost there,” Liv tries to tell him. But you know she’s telling you, too. You try to nod, but there’s a flash of light as you struggle to stay conscious.

We’re almost there, Rafael whispers in your head, his little smirk so clear.

Okay, Rafa. Okay.

“It’s your terms,” Liv’s saying. “You tell Tucker how to do this… we’re so close to getting out of here.” Even as your head hangs you can’t help your smile. That’s your lieutenant. That’s Olivia fucking Benson. Allying herself. Protecting you. Your everything aches and she knows it and she’s still there.

The phone rings. Tucker’s voice filters over all of you.

“Now I’m gonna need something. The kids, Joe, okay?”

But Joe’s ready. Joe’s fired up, thanks to Liv. She’s there with him, she almost smiles at him, as he ends the negotiations. He’s ready to get out of there, he’s ready to live.

She’s got him, you think. She’s got him, right where she wants him.

“Joe, we kept our side,” Tucker says. “We’ll need at least one kid.”

“Fine,” he snaps. “You get the boy. When I get into the car you get the boy.” And then his smile goes rancid, evil, cruel.

“But I’m keeping my girls.”

Rafael’s leg can’t stop bouncing. He’s made his way back inside the command center, and the hustle and bustle never stops. People are in, people are out, and all he can think about is you. All he can hear is your voice is his ear, all he can focus on is getting you out safe.

Which sucks, because he can’t do a damn thing about it.

He shouldn’t even be here. He should be home. He should be home but he hasn’t been able to move since he made it to this chair.

His fingers go to your tie. It’s around his neck, but it’s yours. One you bought for him, the burgundy something you said brought out his eyes. You’d handed it over with a wink, at the end of a day that’d had you both in the office for longer than you strictly should’ve been.

Just for you, you’d said. It was basically calling your name.

God, what’d he give to hear you calling his name.

He doesn’t have an earpiece in his ear. So he doesn’t know why the cops all around him suddenly tense up, he doesn’t know why they file out of the command center and start loading their guns. What he does know is when Dodds peeks in, Carisi’s eyes visible behind him through the doorway.

“Barba,” the sergeant barks out. “They’re coming out. Stay down and stay behind, Joe is coming out –”

Rafael’s throat closes up. “With who?” he asks, but Dodds is already gone. Carisi peeks in.

“All of them, Rafael,” he says. “Liv, the kids, and –”

Rafael doesn’t need to hear your name. He’s already up. He’s led by Carisi to a vest, he’s led by Carisi to a spot behind the line of armed officers, and all he can do is watch as everyone watches the doors.

“They’re coming out by the garden level!” someone yells, and guns are aiming before Rafael can think.

He sees you first. It’s not hard to miss you. Your hair is whipping around your head a little from the wind, and there’s...

“That’s blood,” he whispers to himself. “God, that’s blood.” It’s dripping down your face, or it was – from your nose, all over your face and mouth.

“Barba,” Carisi whispers back, and that’s when he sees the gun.

No! his brain screams. His body is motionless. The gun is against your head, and you’re walking, no, stumbling forward ahead of him.

He sees your lips moving. You’re talking to Joe – Joe, surrounded by you, and Liv, and the kids. Your hands are up.

Joe starts yelling. “Farther back! Get farther back!”

“Get back,” Carisi says, and he shouts it a little louder for the group. Everyone starts backing up. Everyone does, and Rafael watches as the four of you creep towards the car. Liv is talking now. She’s right in his ear.

And then the kids get let go. He seems a small smile play across your face, as Joe looks back at Liv.

“He’s letting both kids go!” Dodds shouts. Someone rushes up to meet them, carries them away, and Rafael watches as Joe is flanked by you, by Liv. The kids are rushed away, and the breath Rafael can take after that is minimal. It’s minimal and you’ve still got a gun to your head.

There’s talking. There’s more talking. The car is only inches away.

And then your elbow swings.

“Joe,” you whisper. “Keep the gun to my head.”

You feel the pressure against the back of your head. Right against the bruise from this morning. “Good, Joe. We’ll keep pushing forward, okay. I’m gonna keep my hands up, and you…”

“Shut up.”

Your mouth closes tightly. The inching forward is tedious, but you creep with every step. And then Liv starts talking.

“You don’t need the kids, Joe,” Liv whispers. “You don’t need them. Let them go, all right? It’s just about you and us, no one else.”

And then they’re gone. The kids. They dart away, and your eyes close tightly, the smile on your face momentary. One step closer. You can almost hear Rafael still. Almost there.

You feel Liv’s foot tap against yours as the group of you come to a halt. And when your eyes meet hers you can’t help what happens next.

There’s a mutual understanding. One that the two of you come to, in that moment, surrounding Joe, protecting him. His voice is still in your ear, but it doesn’t matter, in that moment. In that moment, it’s just you and Liv, and you see her eyes flick to Joe’s head before glancing down to your elbow.

“Get in,” Joe snaps, and you nod.

You know what she’s asking of you. You what she’s begging for. Safety for the kids, for the parents, for the nightmare to end.

“I will, Joe. I’m just gonna tell Tucker the plan.”

And you know that while she thinks of Noah one last time, steeling up her courage as the two of you shuffle towards the car, that you think of Rafael Barba.

“Get in!” he shouts, and you swallow tight.

Three fingertips against your hand give one tap.

“I’m just gonna tell –“

Two fingertips.

“Get in the damn car, you bitch!”

One finger, one more second.

His gun lifts from your head.

One smile staring up at you from his contact photo, one kiss that he gives with his hand tangled into the hairs on the back of your neck –

Go.

You throw an elbow, and Liv throws herself to the side while you drop. You hear the command, the gunshot, and everything stops as it rings in the air.

And then Joe’s body crumples. There’s a thud as it hits the ground. and you wait for the other shoe to drop. Liv’s own body falling, a new radiating pain in your side. But there’s nothing. Fucking nothing. It’s over.

“He’s got a gun,” you murmur, but it’s so quiet it’s just to yourself. You can’t speak up louder, the sound of the shot that killed him ricocheting in your head, rattling around until your eyes cross and you can’t think.

The yelling of the officers around you can’t stir you from your daze. Nothing seems like it can. You’re holding your hands over your ears to try and quiet what you can, your eyes wide as you stare at Joe’s dead body. And then it hits you, all at once. Like a fucking tidal wave.

It’s done. You’re free. And as you turn towards the crowds around you, shaky legs and a migraine making you stumble, one name is on your lips.

“Rafael?”

It starts out small. Low. Quiet. You can hear Liv next to you, calling out for Noah and people start crowding before you can think.

“Rafael?”

Another time. Louder, fiercer. You can’t see him, but you need to. You know he’s here, he has to be. Your throat almost can’t push the sound out, but it goes, fierce and brave.

“Rafael!”

And then you see him. There. You see him, you see the bright purple tie, the way he’s turning any way he can to find out where your voice is coming from. It’s almost comical, and you start laughing, a lot hysterical at the same time tears start coming down your cheeks.

Laugh. Cry. Same thing. It doesn’t fucking matter. The next thing you know you’re pushing towards him, and it takes one more turn for him to see you, to start moving through the crowd. You throw your arms around him as he does the same to you, and everything inside of you seems to fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, over and over again. “Lo siento, mi amor, lo siento, estoy aqui.” But his apologies mean nothing more than just hearing the sound of his voice, pressing your lips to his mouth and neck and shoulder as you press as close as you can, hug as tight as you can, hide as much as you fucking can.

“I – I was so sc-scared,” you sob out, and that’s when your legs give out. Rafael has to try and catch you, and almost can’t, the way you go dead weight on him. But there’s nothing left to give, no more strength, and in the end he holds you as the medics rush you.

Liv’s voice fades in behind you. “I’m fine, go to her, I’m fine. Where’s Noah?” Tucker’s voice is trying to assure her that they’re getting him, that he’s coming, but then everything fades out again.

You’re so tired. God, you’re so fucking tired.

Your head hurts so bad.

Shit.

“Rafa,” you whimper out, and his shushes are gentle, one of his hand lifting to shakily push through your hair. There are other bodies around the both of you, and you try not to think about how when his hand pulls away you can see your own blood on it. Blood. Like your nose.

“Cariño,” he murmurs. “What happened?”

“Got… hit. In the head,” you whisper, and that’s when everything goes black.

You wake up in the hospital. You wake up, and things are still a little fuzzy, but you wake up at all, and that’s a minor miracle. You could’ve slept for another week, you think, if the way your head is pounding tells you anything.

“Fuck,” you hiss immediately, when everything hits you all at once. The lights, the beeping, the feeling of your body, somehow weightless and heavy as hell at the same time.

“They wouldn’t let me in.”

You have to blink. The lights are still too bright, and the voice almost doesn’t sound like it’s coming from in the room. After all, Rafael’s voice was in your head throughout the last few hours of that damn mess.

Right. The townhouse.

You blink again. Rafael is sitting next to you. His eyes are on you, and he’s leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

You try not to think about the way his sleeves are rolled up, the way he looks like he hasn’t slept. There’s a bit of stubble on his face, and you want to reach out and touch it – he’s never not clean-shaven.

“What’d you say?” you murmur. Your mouth feels like cotton.

“They took you away,” he whispers, and reaches out to grab your hand. “They took you away, out there, and… they didn’t let me in because I’m not family.”

Everything slowly comes back in.

“You’re here now,” you whisper, and he shakes his head.

“I wasn’t. Not the whole time you were... I wasn’t.”

“You were... you. You were.”

You struggle to sit up, but there’s oxygen in your nose and you can’t pull at it. You’re so weak, and everything, everything hurts. But. But the kids, Liv –

“They’re okay.” That’s when you realize that you were talking out loud, and Rafael reaches up to brush your hair back. Leans forward to kiss your forehead. “They’re okay. You’re okay.”

“Rafael.”

“The squad didn’t know. No one knew. So no one could vouch… no one knew, when your name was on there, too, with Liv, with... fuck, William Lewis...”

You’re blinking. You’re blinking a lot. Something is prickling at the corners of your eyes, and you let the tears fall. “Rafael. I’m here. I’m…”

He leans up to kiss your forehead again, and you realize he’s crying, too. You can feel something wet against your skin, and he’s holding you so close.

“You almost weren’t, and. They know now,” he whispers. “I told them. If anything ever happens, I – I need to be in here first.”

You don’t have time to process, and frankly, you don’t want to. Because Rafael is here, in your room, holding you gently, and you hear his voice in your ear just like you did earlier. You hear his little murmured prayers against your head, thanks to God, in Spanish right at your collarbone.

You didn’t tell anyone because it was safer. You didn’t tell anyone because it was easier. You didn’t tell anyone, and it still ended with you in a hospital bed.

He told them. And you can’t help but… but feel grateful.

No more uncertainty. No more secrets. No more, if it means that he gets there just a little bit earlier. If it means you know that he’ll be there.

“If anything ever happens to you,” you mutter back, “you best believe I’m beating down the doors. Family or not.”

It’s slurred, your words. Things are getting a little fuzzy, again. You think it’s something about the medicine that’s dripping into your arm. It doesn’t matter. Rafael’s holding you so tight.

“Of that I have no doubt, cariño. Now get some rest for me.”

tag list - @writefasttalkevenfaster // @hurricanejjareau // @crazyshannonigans // @goldenxreid // @teamhappyme // @chasingeverybreakingwave

#rafael barba x reader #rafael barba #female!reader #olivia benson #law and order: svu #my fic #tw blood #tw guns #tw rape #tw rape mention #canon-typical violence #hostage situation

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wtf-yoongi · 4 years

Text

“Stay tonight.”

pairing | yoongi x reader

summary | a few months after your break up, yoongi stumbles upon you while you’re drunk

genre/warnings | fluff + what some people might consider a teeny tiny bit of angst + established relationship

words | 3,325

note | i’m so bad at requests. i read “yoongi stumbling upon her while she’s drunk” and had an idea… probably 100% different than what the anon had in mind but what can i do (full request at the end if you’re curious!)

There is something oddly familiar about the melody Yoongi hears. He stops mid-step with his car keys in hand to pay attention to it – brows furrowing in deep concentration, eyes lost in the middle of nowhere, jaw hanging slightly ajar as he focuses on the notes.

You see, there are a lot of things that can drive a musician crazy. One of them is knowing for sure you have listened to a melody before, but not being able to remember where it is from. Recognize it. Say its name and who sings it with precision.

In Yoongi’s defense, the origin of the sound isn’t the most accurate. It seems like someone is whistling to it, humming along at times, whispering a few words every now and then – making it hard to put the pieces together. That shouldn’t be an excuse, he knows it, and winces when he finds himself close to walking around the corner to ask the person what is the name of the song or else he won’t be able to sleep tonight.

That’s exactly when it clicks in his head. It’s that song.

Yoongi lets out an exasperated breath as he finally recognizes it. Maybe he’s becoming too slow at this game or maybe his brain made an extra effort to keep this song hidden in the farthest shelf of his mind’s music index. Of course he remembers it now – you spent two whole months of your life listening to it on repeat, making sure Yoongi also listened and cherished it with you when you were physically together and talking about how brilliantly composed it was when you were not.

Don’t get me wrong, he liked the song. But you adored it so much he started to wonder if you weren’t falling for the guy singing it. You know, it could happen… Right?

As soon as the moment is over, Yoongi shakes his head slightly to get rid of those thoughts as best as he can. They can’t ever truly leave and he knows that, but he just needs them to go back to that far place again – right where he keeps the ones that once made him happy and are still in the process of not hurting anymore. He takes quick steps, ready to get behind the wheel and leave the empty street when the source of the lazily sung melody makes a turn around the corner.

When Yoongi casually looks up, he doesn’t expect so many of those neatly filed memories to come back, but they do with the same force gravity keeps us grounded. More than recognizing the song, he should’ve recognized your voice. How could he not have in a split second? His ears have truly failed him.

The first thing Yoongi notices is that you must be cold. It’s a little chilly for this time of year, but you’re wearing a dress that leaves most of your legs bare and exposed to the midnight wind and there’s only a thin sweater covering your back – way too light for his liking. His initial instinct is to take off his jacket and run to carefully place it around your shoulders, but then it hits him that it’s not like that anymore. You’re not like that anymore.

Oh, well.

It doesn’t really matter because only a second later Yoongi is willing to risk it all and throw his dignity out the window when he sees you stumble, losing your balance for a moment before giggling lightly and moving on only to trip on your own feet again. He can’t see your face now, but can totally picture the pout appearing on your lips.

She’s drunk, he thinks. She’s drunk and alone at this hour and right here in front of me for some reason.

Where the hell is she going?

Yoongi really isn’t the type to make reckless decisions, but he’s quick to convince himself this isn’t reckless at all. In this moment, he doesn’t mind the fact that you two are not together anymore – and haven’t been for a while now. He’d do that for anyone he cares about.

And he would be an idiot to think he doesn’t care about you anymore.

Next thing Yoongi knows, his brain is ordering his legs to take long strides in your direction. He’s not rushing because he’s nervous or excited, but truly because seeing you like this doesn’t sit right with him. Yoongi is in the middle of taking off his jacket when you lose your balance again and his feet are suddenly moving faster.

“Hey.”

What Yoongi says doesn’t really come out as a greeting, but more like the way you call out someone for stealing the last cookie from the jar – only a little bit lower in tone. You turn around slowly, lazily, and not at all affected by the fact your ex is holding out his jacket in your direction in the middle of the street. It takes a few moments, but you finally open your mouth to say something.

“I already told you to stop calling me. Are you following me around now?”

Yoongi is surprised by your unbothered tone, but most of all by your slurred words. His brows are once again furrowed, trying to understand what exactly you mean by them while taking a few hesitant steps forward to finally be able to cover your shoulders with his jacket.

“Aren’t you cold?” He asks, deciding to ignore your previous remark for now. When you shrug, Yoongi raises his jacket with his hands to cover your back and takes a deep breath. Now this situation is fixed, he can go back to the other one. “What do you mean by stop calling you? I haven’t called in forever.”

You freeze. For the first time tonight, you raise your head to meet his eyes and, if you were in any other state, you’d be able to see the worry in his dark brown ones. Unfortunately for you, your vision is too blurry for that – the alcohol concentration so high your brain is having a hard time telling reality apart from your dreams.

“Oh, you haven’t?” You ask rhetorically, trying to look unfazed. “I must have… Mistaken you for someone else.”

Yoongi squeezes his eyes, not completely convinced, but decides to move on. “Where are you going? Do you want a ride?”

“No!” Your answer comes out too quickly and frantically for Yoongi, but he’s more worried about how your next words are even more unclear than before. “I don’t need a ride, I’m good.”

“Are you sure?” Yoongi is, once again, unconvinced. “I can give you a ride home, I don’t think…”

“I’m just taking the bus.”

You try, but fail to raise your hand to wave him off, the movement just as imprecise as the words leaving your mouth. Yoongi sighs, taking another deep breath and holding back from getting closer to hold and support you – it really seems like your knees are just about to surrender, even more when you turn your body away from his, stubbornly attempting to take steps forward.

“Let me…” Yoongi starts, but his words falter as well. He knows this isn’t good for him, knows this isn’t going to make things easier, but he just needs to. “Let me take you home. Please. I can’t let you go alone like this.”

Those words hurt – they shouldn’t anymore, but they do even in your intoxicated state. You close your eyes tightly, lowering your head and desperately trying to organize your thoughts. You have wished for this to happen so many times before, but now you’re not so sure anymore. Isn’t this just going to reopen that damned wound?

You turn around to face him again. Your words are supposed to come out dry and indifferent, but instead drip with love and care. “You shouldn’t.”

“I know, but I’m doing it anyway.”

With that, Yoongi extends his hand and you reluctantly take it. His left hand is cold, but firmly intertwines with yours and you immediately feel protected the way you did before – like Yoongi would cross deserts and fires and seas for you. You know there’s no going back now. The wound is suddenly opened again, but you feel oddly fine with this as a warmth spreads inside – something you haven’t experienced in a long while.

Yoongi is taking extra careful and slow steps, supporting you without getting too close. The struggle to walk is still there, but you’re not stumbling as much with him by your side. As soon as you’re close to the car, Yoongi is opening the door for you and calmly asking if you can put on your seatbelt on your own, to which you nod silently. Then, he gently closes the door, walking around the car to the driver’s side.

“Please drink this,” Yoongi says once he’s inside, offering a water bottle out of seemingly nowhere while his other hand is quickly turning on the A/C to make the interior warmer for you. You do as you’re told, attempting to open the plastic bottle for a few seconds before Yoongi puts his hand on top of yours to help. “Here. There you go.”

You raise the bottle to your lips to take a sip and can’t help watching his actions carefully. Yoongi is as calm, gentle and collected as ever as he turns the wheel and releases the break, suddenly looking at you to check if you were done drinking before accelerating. With your head resting on the seat, you feel yourself let go of the constraints of not being together anymore. This is too much, too normal, so you and him that being completely captivated by him is simply unavoidable.

“You’re not making it easy for me,” you start softly, letting out a short laugh. Yoongi doesn’t turn to you when you first speak, but does the second time around. “I tried so hard to move on, so hard… And right now I can’t even remember why we broke up.”

Yoongi has a small half-smile on his lips when he speaks. “You can’t remember because you’re drunk, but I remember it clearly.”

“You don’t get it,” you say, shaking your head from side to side. “I mean I don’t care why we broke up. Life with you was never easy, but I knew it wouldn’t be from the start. I knew it. I guess I was just tired.”

You pause to take another sip from the bottle and Yoongi remains silent, absorbing the meaning behind your words. The worst part is that he knows life with him is not easy at all and it breaks his heart to hear it from you even if he is aware of it. There’s something about it that makes it seem more real than ever.

“I know you also get tired of it sometimes,” you continue, voice becoming slightly clearer as the water washes your throat. “But you love it too much. I guess I loved you too much as well.”

“You’re speaking in past tense.”

“You’re right.” You nod, taking another big gulp of water before speaking again. “I love you too much. Present tense. I haven’t stopped loving you, do you think I ever will?”

That’s not really what Yoongi meant, but he’ll take anything. He smiles to himself as he stops the car at a red light, wanting to say something, but not quite figuring out the right words.

“You think too much before speaking sometimes,” you mention, way too used to this behavior coming from him. “Just say it. I can take it.”

“You’re drunk, you won’t remember anything.”

“I actually think I will but, if I don’t, that’s even more reason for you to say whatever you want.”

Yoongi wets his lips, wondering if he’s actually ready to speak his mind so openly – and in front of the person that matters the most in this case. “What if I told you I want you to remember?”

“Well, then what do you have to lose?”

The car is silent for a while and Yoongi takes advantage of the fact the traffic lights turn green to drop the subject completely. He doesn’t dare to speak another word and you’re okay with the silence – it isn’t uneasy or anything like that, but almost as if you’re just coming back from dinner somewhere or Yoongi is driving you back home after a lazy Sunday. It’s normal again. It’s us again like it hasn’t been in months.

By the time Yoongi parks in front of your place, you have finished the rest of the water bottle and your body has metabolized enough alcohol for you to be mindful not to leave the empty bottle behind, but take it with you to throw it away. You’re also not tipsy anymore and able to step out of the car on your own despite Yoongi being fast to catch up and help you close the door behind you.

But that also means you’re now awfully aware of everything. Yoongi doesn’t ask for permission to follow you inside and you’re not inviting him in either, but you prefer it like this – it saves you both from awkward questions you don’t think either of you have answers for at this point. You’re determined to just let things flow however they want as long as they feel natural and comfortable to you.

And they do. Yoongi remembers the passcode to open the main door, he remembers how stupidly placed the light sensor is and how you must wave your hand to the left when the stairs are to the right, and you bet he even remembers how many steps there are until the first floor of the building. When you’re in front of your door, he tentatively places his thumb on the fingerprint scanner just to check if you have deleted his info – which you haven’t. There’s a smug smile on his face when the door beeps and opens that you don’t want to acknowledge, instead choosing to move inside and sit to take off your shoes.

Again, this feels way too normal.

Yoongi is the first to walk again, moving his socketed feet in the direction of your tiny kitchen. He stops to check up on you for a second – just enough for you to catch his kind eyes – before diverting his gaze again. You know he wants to say something and it’s almost slipping away.

Meanwhile, Yoongi’s desperately trying to find something to talk about and is happy to find a mess of opened books and notes on top of the kitchen table. He’d ask anything not to touch on a certain subject.

“How’s Law School going?”

“You didn’t just get in and removed your shoes to ask me about Law School, did you?”

Shit.

Yoongi’s right hand flies to scratch the back of his head. You notice this is the first time he shows any sign of nervousness and have to fight the urge to get closer to bring his arm down and tell him he doesn’t have to feel like this.

Actually, why fight it?

“Stop this,” you plead, taking a few steps to get closer and pull his arm down by the elbow. “Tell me what you wanted to say when we were in the car. I told you I can take it.”

Yoongi gulps, mouth suddenly too dry to speak. He wants to say something, he really does, but there’s no way he can find the right words under pressure.

“I…” He tries, tongue wetting his lips to buy some time. “I know life with me isn’t easy, but do you think it’s more bearable than this? Because I don’t think I can go on much longer.”

You turn your head slightly and open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out immediately. It takes you a few seconds to understand and process what Yoongi says and it pains you a little to know you don’t have a definite answer to that. Not yet.

Instead, you raise your head for your lips to reach his cheeks. Yoongi lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, soon closing his eyes to enjoy your touch again. It’s like a cup of warm tea in the winter, like waking up thinking it’s Monday only to realize it’s actually Sunday, like finishing a song knowing you did everything you could to make it perfect.

Like coming home.

You don’t separate when your lips leave his skin. Rather than facing him and his honey eyes, you bury your face in his neck, breathing him in while your hands encircle his body and rest on his lower back. Yoongi does the same, holding you as close and he can.

“Stay tonight.”

Your words come as a surprise to him. Yoongi expected you to somewhat kindly reject him, asking him to go because it hurts too much or – best case scenario – to take things slow for now. He expected you to treat his feelings gently, to maybe assure him you’d try your best for things to work a second time around, but definitely not this. He sighs contently.

“Okay.”

You only remove your hands from his back to take his own, moving slowly in the direction of your room and mumbling something about how Yoongi can wear one of the t-shirts you have not returned on purpose with a shy smile. Once in the bedroom, changing into something comfortable to sleep so unceremoniously in front of each other also kind of surprises Yoongi, but he’s happy to know you still feel like you don’t have to hide anything from him.

You take your time removing your makeup and brushing your teeth as Yoongi waits for you after washing his face. He’s leaning on the door frame with crossed arms, seemingly annoyed, but his face tells a different story – his eyes are shining bright although looking a bit tired and there’s the smallest of smiles on his face as he watches you intently as if you were his whole world.

Everything falls into place so effortlessly you’re both wondering if this is just a dream or if it’s actually real. Luckily, for the both of you, even though it feels like something that could only happen in a world of fantasy, there is nothing more sincere and true than this.

It’s not until you’re both tucked in bed that you feel like speaking again – and like you have to do it soon before falling asleep. You’re not really touching, but close enough for Yoongi to easily catch one of your hands in his and bring it close to his chest. His heartbeat is quick despite his calm expression and you raise your eyes to meet his just as Yoongi starts in his typical low register.

“Can I ask you something?” You blink and nod twice, not having enough energy in you to do much else. “Do you mind if I kiss you right now? I feel like I’m going to explode.”

You can’t help the shy smile on your lips. You know Yoongi is not the one to make this sort of remark and it makes your heart swell to think how he must be feeling to be bold enough to say it.

You nod yet again, but he’s not completely satisfied.

“Please say it so I can hear it.”

You let a short laugh escape your lips before whispering the words Yoongi so desperately wants to hear. “Yes, you can kiss me.”

Yoongi doesn’t rush even though there’s nothing else in the world he craves more than you. He takes his time, delicately settling a hand on your face while his opposite arm supports his weight. Your chest is now almost completely covered by his and you feel a warmth spread like wildfire as his soft lips touch yours.

And, just like that, you’re convinced he’s not leaving again any time soon.

Read more ›› masterlist

request | Hiiii I’d like to request for yoongi x reader who is in law graduate studies Abroad and yoongi stumbling upon her while shes drunk, and when he was talking a break from idol life. Pls huhu i love your writing btw ILY

note 2 | did you notice i 100% got carried away with this? i mean 3k words is a lot for my standards lol i hope you’re ok with what came out of it. thank you for reading! stay safe xx

#i'm actually kinda proud of this one #min yoongi #yoongi imagine #yoongi x y/n #yoongi x you #min yoongi fluff #yoongi fluff #bts fluff #bts imagines #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fanfic #yoongi x reader #requested

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redhoodssweetheart · 3 years

Text

Blackbird | One

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Fem!Reader slowly turning into a Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2K

Requested: No

Warnings: Swearing, angst, some fluff, talk of having a dark soul and not being a good person, death mention, shot with a gun

Description: You were once a member of the BatFam known by the moniker Blackbird. You and Dick Grayson were close, but when a tragic accident left many members of the team thinking you were dead you went into hiding and tried to build a new life for yourself. But now Dick is back and he’s about to find out your secret.

A/N: You may recognize this from @writersfortheworld which I was once apart of. I am moving my Marvel/DC stories from there to here. Enjoy.

The rooftop was dark, little light from the street lamps below casting light this far up. She preferred it this way, less time for her prey to catch wind of her if she were up here with no light then trying to avoid the yellow tinted pools the street lamps caused.

Below her was a man stalking an instant pedestrian. She wondered why someone was out this late at night and alone no less. The city wasn’t known for being safe in the nighttime. She also wondered why the person hadn’t called a cab or hired one of those drivers from one of the apps they had nowadays. That certainly would have been safer than this.

If she was going to act it had to be now before the mugger got any closer to the other person. Swinging over the side of the building she dropped down in front of the man who came skidding to a stop. “What the fu--”

“Ah, ah,” she chastised. “There’s no need for such harsh language.”

The mugger was clearly frustrated that some masked vigilante had just interrupted his heist for the evening. He lunged for her, but in a swift move she kicked him in the stomach and set him sprawling backward until he hit the pavement. He was stunned for a moment before sitting up, “You’re gonna pay for that.”

She merely inspected her nails, “Am I though?”

The person who the mugger had attempted to rob had fled the scene the moment the masked woman had jumped down from the building behind them. Their phone in their hand as they dialed nine one one to alert the police of what was going down on the corner of sixth street.

The mugger clamored to his feet and tried to come at her again, his fist aimed straight at her face, but she was quicker and ducked out of the way. She laughed, which only spurred the man on. “Come here!” He yelled as he lunged for her again.

She jumped into the air and used his back as a springboard. “Is that really the best you can do?” She taunted, the distant sound of sirens piercing through the air. “Well it looks like our playtime is over, now be a good boy and wait here until the cops show up and arrest you.” She took his head and rammed it into one of the light poles knocking the man out.

Handcuffing him to that same light pole she took off into the night once more. She was trying her hardest to go unnoticed by the law and others around her. There was a reason she didn’t want to be discovered and had managed to protect her identity pretty well except for a few fuzzy photos bystanders had managed to snap of her.

The night was relatively slow after that as she picked her way across the city back to her apartment. She was tired and just wanted to get a few hours of sleep before she had to be at her job the next morning. Maybe tonight she could finally shut her brain down long enough to get some actual rest for once.

Doubtful, but a girl could wish.

She carefully opened her window and discovered that everything was how she had left it. Pulling the mask from her face she headed for her room to turn on the shower. Hunting down bad guys gave her a thrill like nothing ever would, but she always felt icky after a night out on the town.

Steam poured out of the bathroom letting her know that the shower was nice and warm. The hot water relaxed her muscles and she hummed in content. This was her favorite part of the evening. These few minutes to herself where she could just relax and not have to worry about anything else.

When the water ran cold she grabbed her towel and stepped out of the bathroom to finish her nightly routine. Tomorrow was going to be a good day, she could feel it in her bones.

Dick Grayson walked into the Batcave with a folder in his hands. There was a new vigilante that had popped up in Preston City, no one knew much about this new player and the only photos there were, were all blurry and dark. He wished that he could find out more about this new vigilante but it seemed he would have to go to Preston City himself and see this person up close.

“Bruce, I’m going to be out of town for a few days,” he said without looking up from his file.

“What for?” Bruce had noticed Dick come in with the file in his hands and wondered what the former Robin had discovered.

Dick finally closed the file he was holding and met Bruce’s gaze, “There’s a new vigilante that’s sprung up in Preston City. I was gonna head there tomorrow and see if I could recruit them. Maybe offer them training and get them on our side.”

“No,” Bruce shook his head. “The League and I have discussed it and we’d rather not bring in the vigilante.”

Dick was confused, “Why the hell not? We’re always looking for new members to bring in and they could be useful to have around.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dick. Just leave this one alone for now.” He turned his attention back to his computer and hoped that Dick would drop the subject.

Dick stood there for a moment just staring at Bruce’s back wondering what the hell was going on with him. Normally the League looked for new recruits, it was better if the vigilantes that sprung up were watched by the leaders than running around causing problems on their own.

When Dick saw that this was no longer up for debate with Bruce, he huffed and left the Batcave. He still had plans to go to Preston City no matter what Bruce or the League had to say about it. His gut was telling him something different and he was going to listen.

Bruce waited until he heard the doors to the elevator slide shut before he picked up his phone and dialed a number. “It’s me,” he said. “Dick’s going to be heading your way tomorrow. Be careful.” With that, he hung up and set his phone down. Steepling his fingers together he leaned back in his chair and stared blanking at the computer before him.

“How do you know Master Dick is going to be heading her way, sir?” Alfred asked as he emerged from the shadows.

Sometimes Bruce swore that Alfred had a superpower of knowing when something was bothering one of the people living under the same roof as him. “Dick is impulsive and if he thinks something is for the better good of the world then he’s going to do it. Tomorrow he’ll be heading for Preston City and I’m not sure he’s going to like what he finds there.”

She set her phone back on the nightstand and stared at the wall in front of her. This was the exact reason she had been so careful. She didn’t need him coming into her city and messing up the life she had built for herself.

“What am I going to do?” She whispered into the darkness of her room.

She could take a few days off. With Nightwing in the area he could handle any small crimes he came upon. The city would be safe until he grew tired of waiting for her to come out. But she knew she wasn’t going to do that.

Growling she stood and headed into her living room to try and find something to watch.

Another sleepless night on the books.

“You ready Blackbird?” Dick looked over at her, his usual carefree grin on his face.

She rolled her eyes and pulled her gloves a bit tighter, “I’m not the one that needs to be focused right now. Keep your eyes on the prize, Nightwing.” He chuckled and knew that she wanted to use his last name.

“Focus you two,” came Bruce’s voice over the earpiece. “We can’t let Luthor or any of the others escape. Remember what’s at stake here.”

Luthor had banded together with the likes of Poison Ivy, Deathstroke, Black Atom, Deadshot, and Killer Frost to try and steal a nuclear reactor. The League had called in all the help that they could get to stop them before it was too late.

Dick’s eyes scanned the road and tapped her on the shoulder, “There.”

She followed to where he was pointing and saw the flash of headlights in the distance. “They’re here,” she warned.

Things hadn’t gone as planned though. There were more villains there than the intel had said and the heroes were ambushed. She and Dick were on the roof fighting off Harley Quinn and Joker when the Joker had pulled a gun and shot her.

“Blackbird!” Dick had shouted as she went falling over the side of the building, pain blooming in her chest.

That had been the last thing she could remember before the world went dark around her and she was lost in a sea of pain.

#Dick Grayson x Reader #Dick Grayson x Fem!Reader #Jason Todd x Reader #Jason Todd x Fem!Reader #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #Jason Todd fanfic #Jason Todd fanfiction #Jason Todd angst #Jason Todd fluff #Dick Grayson fanfic #Dick Grayson fanfiction #Dick Grayson angst #Dick Grayson fluff #Nightwing #Red Hood #Red Hood x Reader #Nightwing x Reader

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nightwingshero · 3 years

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WIP Tag

I was tagged by @minilev and @simonxriley, thank you!!!

Tagging: @strafethesesinners @water-writings @pen-in-hand @theknifegame @chyrstis @smithandrogers @lilwritingraven @chuckhansen @fadedjacket @geronimo-11 @scungilliwoman @shellibisshe @witchofinterest @witchesconstellation @aceghosts @archetypesinthefog and whoever wants to share!

So...my Far Cry 5 babes are coming back.

Wren’s first Baptism and, if you look closely, Randy’s cameo/debut.

“Don’t kill her! John wants them alive, use the bliss bullets!” Bliss bullets? I pulled my pistol back out, taking aim from around the tree to return fire. I didn’t understand what they were talking about, all I knew was I needed to get the hell out of here, and quickly. I was outnumbered and injured, clearly at a disadvantage. I was trying to come up with a solution, anything, that would help me get out of this mess. A panic attack was beginning to work its way in, and I fought as hard as I could to keep from hyperventilating. I reloaded and my vision swam. Reds and greens becoming vibrant, making anything solid turn blurry. Small lights danced in my vision, I couldn’t tell if they were stars or lightening bugs, or something else entirely. Was I going blind? I began to feel tired, my body becoming heavy. I stumbled from my cover, my mind trying to tell me that that was a terrible idea, but I suddenly couldn’t remember why.

“Ow.” I said as I landed on my knees, my hands palm up as I began to attempt to study them. My body teetered off balance, and I tried to catch myself, rocks and twigs cutting into the very palms I was looking at merely seconds before. I heard cheering far away, but I couldn’t remember where I was or whom I was with. I finally collapsed, my body now too much to hold up. My arms and legs were jelly, my brain like static. My eye began to close as I felt hands lift me. I tried to reach for something before everything went completely black and I was gone.

“This one?” a male voice echoed as I fought against heavy eyelids to see a blurred night sky. I saw a man in the corner of my eye with a wool sweater and messy hair, pointing to something on the ground.

“No. This one.” Another male voiced, his voice deep and well-spoken. Had it been any other situation, I would dare say it was soothing.

The scruffy man found his way to me, leaning over as he studied me with confusion. “Doesn’t seem very worthy.”

“It is not for us to judge.” The other man came into view, and he was much more put together than his companion. His dark hair was neat, and beard trimmed. He donned a trench coat, giving him an air of importance. “Deliver her unto the waters. The Cleansing begins tonight.” The grungy man reached for me just as I faded back to blackness.

The falling out with John that leads to the Atonement

“I warned you, Wren. I told—”

“Yeah, you told me to stay away. And maybe then it’ll keep the resistance from Jacob’s region, right? That’s what it’s all about, right?” I demanded as my heart tugged painfully. His brow furrowed and suddenly, just like that, I was looking at a mask.

“My brothers mean everything to me, Deputy. I’ll do anything for them.”

“Except open your heart, right?” I sneered as I ignored the jab that I felt at him using my title. “Joseph asked you to love, but you can’t, can you? That’s what he had said to you that night you almost drowned me. ‘You have to love them, John.’ How’s that going for you? How’s Hudson?” He said nothing for a moment, just stared at me. That only made it worse, my insecurities screaming at me, forcing my panic and anger to grow.

“She’s right where you left her.” He replied lowly and my breath staggered as I felt the preverbal punch in the gut. I clenched my fists as tears pooled in my eyes.

“Right. That’s on me. How stupid of me, right? It was so easy for you, wasn’t it?” His brow furrowed a bit before he hid his confusion once more, but it was enough to keep me going. “That’s all it was to you, some fucking game. The ultimate conquest. Get the Deputy to fall in your bed, make her fall for you while the resistance suffered for it. I should’ve fucking known better.” A flash of hurt crossed his features and my mouth went dry as I regretted it immediately. But he only just glared at me and took a step forward.

“What happens between my brothers and I is none of your concern. I wanted you to join—”

“Oh, right. How could I forget about that? Manipulating me by luring me into your fucking bed—”

“I didn’t hear you complaining!” he snapped.

“No, I suppose you didn’t because for once in my fucking life, I believed that someone could fucking love me!” I screamed. “I thought I finally found someone who didn’t ask me for anything, who didn’t want something from me. God, I was so fucking wrong! You’re just like them! You manipulated and lied to me to try and get me to join this stupid cult of yours, so your brother wouldn’t kick you out!”

“I have never lied to you!” he snapped, and he took another step forward as he pointed at me. “I may be a lot of things, but a liar is not one of them. And don’t you dare use Joseph against me. You don’t know anything—"

“Oh?” I laughed bitterly as I took a step forward, forcing him back a step. “I know that you’re scared, John. So fucking scared because Joseph tied our fates together, and I’m still running around causing hell. You were so scared that you fucked me, manipulated me, thinking that it would keep me on a leash, but guess what? It didn’t work, did it?! No! Your brother is fucking insane—" He caught me off by chuckling, dark and bitter. He looked at me with a twisted smirk, anger burning in his eyes. There was a darkness coiling, I could practically taste the wrath coming off him in waves, and I knew then that the line had been crossed.

“What if Joseph was right? Did you ever stop to think about that?” He taunted lowly. “Everyone thinks he’s crazy, but he’s not. Look around you, the world is on the brink. You can feel it in your bones. Look at the headlines. Look at who’s in charge!” he yelled suddenly, making me jump a bit. He grabbed his key, making a show of it. His knuckles turning white as he held it tightly, I thought for sure it would break. “You want this key because you think you’re saving people, but they’re already safe. We have a plan. You don’t understand. You don’t believe. You don’t CARE!” He screamed as he turned away from me, knocking a stack of files to the floor before placing his hands on his hips. His heavy breathing making his shoulders rise and fall rapidly. “So fucking wrathful, you’re looking for every reason to unleash it on anyone who gets a step too close. I don’t think you care about anything else. It doesn’t fucking matter to you, it never did. Our fates being tied…what consequences that come with it. You’d rather let it consume you, even after everything. You’d rather have the emptiness than…this…and that is disappointing.”

My heart broke, shattering into pieces as the silence hung heavy. I took a step back as the tears fell. I turned, grabbing my gear, and ran out the door. I fished out the keys from my pocket as I jumped into my jeep. My fingers shook as I fiddled with my seatbelt. I jumped as I heard the slam of my passenger door. Turning I saw Randy as he put his seatbelt on, giving me a quick nod once he was settled in. I wanted to ask but thought better of it. I just needed to get the fuck out of here. I started the car, put it in drive, and slammed on the gas. Something in me wanted nothing more than to turn around, to apologize. I wanted him, wanted to take it all back. Kiss him until we were both forgiven, everything forgotten. But I couldn’t. There was nothing to go back to.

“Deputy!” Jess called over the radio. “We’re heading to the Jessop Conservatory. You coming?” I looked at Randy and he looked back. John was expecting me to go to Jacob’s region. If he were to send anyone after me, he would send them there. For once, I was thankful for Jess’s timing. I sighed as I picked up the radio.

“Yeah, I’m coming.”

Wren’s fight with Faith

“He had to choose, you know. Between saving a Herald—the sister of the Baptist…or you. He chose you.” I turned back with eyes wide, and her tears finally fell. “I thought the Father was taking from me in the beginning, taking who I was away from me. But that wasn’t true. He was giving me the chance to help others the way he had helped me. He offered me salvation. And I want the same for you.” She tilted her head slightly. “I know you see John in the Bliss; I’ve known for a while.” She looked back over my shoulder once again. “If you kill me, Wren, you will have to kill the others because that’s how it has to be. There would be no going back, the choice would be made. It would hurt him; it would hurt John deeply and put things so far into motion that you won’t be able change it. You know this, don’t you?”

I look at the river, flowing swiftly and offering a soothing melody. “Yes,” I whispered. “I can feel it.”

“Which is why you’re standing here in front of me.” She whispered. “I know that you feel it, and we both know that Jacob would be next. Instead of just hurting one side, you will hurt both. You will ruin John, while destroying yourself in that process. One path will lead to John, the other to heartbreak. Is it worth it? Because if it is, continue. Kill me, I won’t fight you. But you can go back, it’s not too late. It’s not too late for both of you.”

#oc: wren blake #ch: john seed #ch: faith seed #far cry 5 #my ocs #tag game

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izubear · 3 years

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file name

↳ hey, ei.

[repost from my other writing blog]

contents

rq by: anon

ch: eijirou kirishima

reader: male

warnings: self doubt, lack of relationship confidence

genre+format: comfort, drabble

kiri is a very outgoing guy, but even being someone as cheery as him, he still feels down sometimes.

he always remembered what middle school was like, specifically as a third year. jet black hair with a bold yet very unconfident demeanor. he still feels that way sometimes, but going to UA has made a lot of things better for him.

he met some amazing people, and even made some blonde haired mr. “i don’t do feelings please leave me alone”, allow himself to open up to him. there was one other thing too, he met you.

ei fell head over heels for you, and you did the same. your now 7 month long relationship is going steady and you’ve opened up to each other about a lot. he trusts you and knows you’re loyal. and of course he’s the same, he would do anything for you. you two were inseparable and think of each other as the best boyfriend you could ever ask for.

his confidence shrunk significantly on a certain thursday afternoon. he was sitting outside on a bench and was studying by himself which was unlike him, but bakugou had told him he couldn’t today because he had to take care of something.

as he was sitting on the wooden bench, kirishima gazed upward and set his eyes on a familiar figure, who was you. his eyes lit up as he noticed the way your clothes fit over your chest and your back, how you held your backpack slung over one shoulder, and especially how your hair seemed to be extra fluffy.

he also noticed how you were talking to another guy. he was tall, buff, and had a nice figure. kiri couldn’t deny that the guy was attractive, which is what made him even more nervous. the guy was significantly larger than both of you in almost every aspect.

he noticed how happy you seemed to be talking to him. he almost wished he couldn’t see this, but it was only because of where he was. the bench on which he sat was located in a small park-like area near the back of UA, closer to the third year classrooms. he could see through the first 3 floors of windows until the nearly setting sun glared upon the upper ones.

was this a wrong place wrong time situation? or was he meant to see this? will it mean something eventually? will it help your relationship? will it demolish it? has he run out of luck? eijirou’s mind was racing. it seemed like too unique of a situation to just ignore.

he felt…. sad? angry? jealous?

kirishima isn’t one to feel this way, but everything is different when it comes to you. it’s like all of his emotions are enhanced. but this, this was completely out of character.

he felt weak, like he was back in middle school again. that guy was so much manlier than he was. you seemed extremely happy talking to him so why aren’t you with him? kirishima felt pathetic compared to this guy.

he tried his best to think nothing of it, and continued to scribble in a corner of his notebook.

but he couldn’t stop looking back up at you, he noticed how bright your smile was.

he forced himself to look down at his notebook again. struggling to keep his composure.

why was he reacting this way? his emotions are telling him how much he actually cares about you and loves you, which is what hurts. he hasn’t got a chance and you’re already dating.

he has no clue how much time has passed, until he feels his eyes focus again. blurry dark spots on a white surface are in his blurred vision. he sees tears drip down onto the lined pages of his notebook, and feels a weight on his left shoulder.

his eyes widen as his head tilts upward while he’s still slouched.

“ei? ei! are you okay? why are you crying? who hurt you? what happened?” he heard you say.

he knocked himself back into reality when he sniffled. looking into your eyes, they were filled with concern, and you almost looked like you were going to cry. who hurt your boyfriend? why is he crying? wheres bakugou? is he responsible for this? quite unlikely but still possible to some extent.

“i’m okay, y/n. sorry for worrying you.” he wiped his eyes with his sleeve and put on the weakest smile you’d ever seen on his face.

you frowned and brought him into a hug, nuzzling your face into his shoulder.

“do you wanna talk about it?” you said, voice muffled by the fabric of his coat.

“i’m sorry i just… i saw you talking to that guy up there. you looked so happy.” he said as you let go. he avoided your intensive gaze into his eyes.

“i don’t know what came over me. the last thing i remember was trying not to look at you guys, and then i started crying. not very manly of me, huh? crying out of jealousy?” he exerted with a tired laugh.

before you could speak again, eijirou said “what’s so interesting about me, yn?”, softly. “you seem so much happier when you’re talking to others, or maybe that’s just my brain? or am i crazy? i’m sorry.”

“hey, ei.” you turned his face towards yours as he widened his eyes a bit.

“i love you. okay? you know me. i’m an honest person and i don’t take any shit. if there’s someone i don’t like i cut them off as soon as i can. if i didn’t like you then why would i do this?”

“do wha-”

before he could finish you brought him into a kiss, and you felt his entire body unravel like he was being untied from something. he felt better almost immediately.

sometimes he wondered if you had a second quirk, because you know exactly what to do to make him feel better, whether it be mentally or physically. you were like a doctor and and a psychiatrist and a hero in training all at once.

you let go of his lips, both hands still on either of his shoulders, and your foreheads pressed together.

“ei, you’re the manliest guy i’ve ever met. you know that, right?”

kirishima automatically felt a sense of calmness, but especially reassurance. he knew by the shine in your eyes that you meant what you said. hell, he almost felt himself tear up again.

a switch flipped in his brain. he didn’t need to know who the guy was anymore. he didn’t need to care at all. he didn’t need to be worried about anyone else, just you and him.

he never doubted you, he knew you were loyal, he just doubted himself. that’s why you’re the perfect match. you have what the other doesn’t.

a fond smile formed on his lips and he closed his eyes, your foreheads still against one another.

tags: @mochi-marie @fourcansofpringles @cvsmixplant @milktyama @1itt1el0v3 @we-mentally-unstable @simplysako @bakujirou4562

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wkemeup · 4 years

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By Any Other Name (16)

series summary: When Special Agent Bucky Barnes is tasked with infiltrating the notorious gang Hydra and gathering evidence against its leader, Brock Rumlow, Bucky finds himself drawn to the woman who doesn’t seem to belong in this world of violence, the wife of the head of Hydra… you. pairing: bucky x reader chapter word count: 6.1k warnings: torture, gun violence, kidnapping, arson, a whole shit show and a wild ride from start to finish i am so very sorry a/n: to anyone who listens to the series playlist, a reminder that Slow Mover has been on there from the start and the second half of the chorus was a direct warning for this chapter 😅 🌹series masterlist 🌹

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

You paced along the small length of a cold, dark office in the back of an old textile factory Brock used to manufacture Cerberus. Heels long forgotten to the top of the table, your bare feet touched on concrete, over small rocks embedded in the ground and the cracks of the floor. They poked and prodded at your skin, weight sinking puncture marks to the balls of your feet. It was something, at least, because with the rushing race of your heartbeat, it was hard to feel much of anything else.

You didn’t know where you were or what happened to James in the blackout. You assumed he was arrested like he was supposed to be, that they made a show of it for the Hydra crewmen in the effort to protect his identity for when this was over. You hoped, anyway.

But if you knew James - and you knew him well - you didn’t suspect he would comply to much of anything when you were missing and in the company of your husband.

“How in the hell did this happen?!” Brock roared, storming into the office with several men on his heels; Zola, the scientist in a white lab coat with subtle red discoloration along the sleeves, and the two men who held James down in the basement that night as Brock nearly beat him to death, Kohl and Sanzetti.

“I don’t know, sir,” the blonde one, Kohl, replied, to which Brock answered by throwing a right jab straight to his jawline. He staggered backwards, into the filing cabinets as Brock growled at him, almost feral.

“Then why the fuck are you talking!?”

You froze at the corner of the room, watching as your husband cleared the desk of its supplies, aggressively throwing papers and coffee mugs and the computer monitor itself to the floor. You winced as the screen cracked and paper slowly drifted down through the air to land delicately amongst the mess.

Brock was panting, red in the face, as he leaned against the edge of the desk, gripping at the corners until his knuckles were sheet white.

You’d never seen him like this before; panicked in a corner and lashing out. You would have felt some kind of satisfaction if you weren’t within the crosshairs of his rage.

“I may have some answers for you,” Zola’s mousey voice spoke from the doorway. He pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as Brock shot him a kind of glare that could have killed a man. “If you allow me one moment?”

With that, he disappeared back into the warehouse.

“Fucking hell,” Rumlow grumbled, shaking his head. “You’re all fucking useless.”

Kohl and Sanzetti were talking quietly amongst themselves, eyeing Brock suspiciously; low, murmured voices of men with loyalties to the highest bidder, the man with the most power, and suddenly, Brock didn’t hold that position.

You watched as your husband started to finger at the weapon strapped to his waist, touching over cold metal like it was a comfort, like he it was an extension of himself, violence at the palm of his hand.

You had to get out of there.

“Brock,” you called, voice dry in your throat, arms folded over your chest protectively as he glared at you for daring to interrupt his brooding. “Maybe I could step outside for a moment? It’s a little cramped in here and—”

“No fuckin’ way, baby,” he shot back, waving his hand at you dismissively. “There could be feds casing this place! You’re not going anywhere. I want you right where I can see you. How else am I supposed to protect you?”

He spat it at you like a threat.

You clenched your jaw until it ached, nodding enough for Brock to divert his attention. He wore a forced smile, a dead kind of look in his eyes that slowly fell away to a cold, hard, nothingness as he stared down at the desk again. He didn’t care to protect you from anything. He was a selfish man at his very core and even with you feeding into his ego, he would throw you to the wolves it meant saving himself.

“You know what I don’t understand? How the hell did the FBI got access to our shipping logs?”

Your lungs burned, like fire had lit a match deep within your chest. Had you stopped breathing?

“That shit’s been under lock and key for decades,” Brock continued as he straightened his back, cracking his neck to the side, “ain’t that right, Sanzetti?”

“Yes, sir.”

Brock gritted his teeth, a sharp exhale from his nose. “So, logically, the only way that information could have been leaked was if the feds had an inside man.”

Sanzetti exchanged a nervous glance with Kohl before nodding slowly. “Yes, sir.”

Brock’s hands suddenly slammed down to the table in a fit of rage, the sharp echo of it startling straight to your chest and skipping over a beat.

“Someone better start talking!”

“I believe I can assist with that, sir.”

Zola appeared in the doorway again, a proud smirk on his face and you took a step forward, cold pavement under bare feet. Zola waved at someone beyond the door and he slid into the room, taking his place at Brock’s side and waited patiently. He glanced up at Brock like he was a man to be admired. It made you sick.

“This better be good, Zola, or a I’m going to—”

A body was thrown to the floor at Brock’s feet, heavy and lifeless, with a black canvas over his head and ropes tied at his wrists. Blood trailed down his neck and onto the concrete.

You stared at the body, heart in your throat, breaths like fire to your lungs. You swallowed back the scream before it passed your lips.

“What the fuck is this?” Brock snapped, nudging the body with the toe of his wingtips.

“This,” Zola replied, bending down to remove the canvas, “is the man behind Hydra’s undoing.”

The canvas was ripped away, tossed to the far corner of the room and you bit down hard on your cheek. Thick coppery liquid pooled in your mouth as you stared down at the mess of blood matted through dark brown hair, ocean blue eyes shut, unconscious as your husband pushed himself from the desk.

James.

Zola pulled a water bottle from his bag and slowly began unscrewing the lid. He gestured for Kohl and Sanzetti to keep James secure, even amongst the bindings, and he dumped the water onto James’ face.

You dug your nails into your palms, your forearms, your thighs, leaving behind puncture marks you couldn’t feel, even with the red staining to your fingertips. The anticipation was torture, watching the water fall to James’ face, washing away the blood and soaking his hair, until he woke suddenly, coughing violently and flinching away from the stream of water obstructing his breathing.

“Ah, he wakes!” Zola jeered.

James wrestled to his knees, though he didn’t get much further, not with Kohl and Sanzetti holding him down. Wide, panicked eyes shot around the room, catching his bearings, until they landed on you. There was a moment of stillness, a slight relief only long enough to confirm your safety, before he thrashed against his bindings.

There were no more pretenses. There was no cover to protect. It was only survival now.

“What the hell are you going on about Zola?” Brock groaned, watching as James fought against his men, shoving shoulders to knees and grunting in the strained effort. He was unfazed – curious, maybe – at his own right hand bound at his feet, the mark of a traitor branded to his name.

Zola stepped forward, handing Brock a series of photographs. He eyed the short, rounded scientist suspiciously before he snatched the stack of photos from his hands.

From behind your husband, all you could see was the way he tensed upon a single glance down to the evidence in his hands, shoulders melding to stone as he flipped through the pages, a fire in his breath. When the scorch of red touched his ears, a low growl in his chest and a tight clench of his fists along the photographs, you knew this could only end violent and bloody. Brock held little capacity for honor or mercy. He’s killed men for far lesser offenses than this.

Brock tossed the photos to the desk as if they had burned him. Some scattered along the floor, others laid upon the surface. Taken from a distance with an often blurry figure at the center, set in varying locations ranging from the cherry blossoms around D.C. to the streets lined with brownstones in Brooklyn; always the same man in focus.

James.

You stepped forward, touching the image of James in a black suit, a man different than the one before you; shorter hair pushed back away from his eyes, a brightened smile on his face, a youthful glow in his stance. But what drew your attention wasn’t the lightness in his demeanor, the laugh so clearly present on his lips, or the lush of greenery in the background, but instead, the shiny gold badge draped on a thin metal chain around his neck, sitting at the buttons of his jacket.

Oh God.

“Meet Special Agent James Buchanan Barnes.”

Your knees would have buckled out from under you if it wasn’t for your grip against the desk. Heart stammering, hands shaking, panic running course through your veins, you stared at James from the far end of the room, though he kept his gaze on Brock, hardened features and stone-cold expression. He didn’t bother to deny it.

“FBI, huh?” Brock questioned and Zola nodded slowly.

“He’s been feeding them information from the start,” Zola confirmed, placing a series of small metal wirings into Brock’s hand. “We swept the house shortly after word of the raid began. He had bugs planted everywhere. Didn’t take long to weed him out as the culprit once I started looking into his history. He was a ghost before taking this job. He didn’t exist two years ago and that... intrigued me. So I tapped into the security footage records from Quantico and well... seems as though he fooled all of us, sir.”

Brock chuckled, low, humorless as he examined the small listening devices in his hand, pushing them around with his finger until he closed his hand to a fist, crushing the bugs and dropping their broken pieces to the floor. He wiped his hand along his thighs as if ridding dirt from his skin.

“I never took you for a traitor,” Brock sneered, slowly pacing along the room, cracking his knuckles out in front of him, making a show of it as he stretched his hands with every click. “I have to say I’m surprised… and well, a little disappointed. We could have done great things together, Karpov – oh, sorry, Barnes.” Brock chuckled to himself. “You were damn good, too. So eager. So willing to do what needed to get done for the glory of Hydra. What a goddamn shame...”

James just stared up at him, allowing the unkept disdain to rise straight to the surface. Jaw clenched, hands to fists though they were tied at the base of his back, skin red and raw under the cut of ropes. He barely even flinched as Brock barreled a closed fist straight to his left cheekbone.

You gasped, hand clamped over your mouth, tears brimming in your eyes from the terror coursing through you, but James was calm, so impossibly still as he slowly turned back up to face Brock.

“Nothing to say for yourself, Agent?”

James spat a glob of thick, crimson blood to the floor, some of it dripping from his lips to his chin. “Go to hell, asshole.”

“Oh, so he can speak!” Brock laughed, though he jumped back abruptly as James grappled against his bindings, lunging towards him only to be pulled back gruffly by the collar of his shirt. He narrowly clamped his teeth around Brock’s hand. “Fuckin’ hell!”

Brock raised a hand, fist clenched and rings reflecting in the dim lighting of the room, and you quickly turned your head before you saw him take the swing. The sound of knuckles to bone was enough; it warped in your stomach, pushed bile up your throat and clamping your jaw was no longer enough.

The adrenaline was seeping through the cracks, tears burning in your eyes, lump throbbing at your throat. You opened your eyes again to see James swaying unsteady on his knees, held by the front of his shirt by your husband as he punched him again and again while his men stood back and watched, while they laughed.

Blood dripped from James’ lips, sliding down his chin, his neck, pooling at the concrete beneath him. You couldn’t watch this again.

You had to do something.

You had to stop this.

“Brock?”

“I’m a little busy, baby,” he grunted, throwing another hit to James’ cheekbone, reopening the long, jagged wound that had healed in the weeks since the basement. The ring on Brock’s middle finger broke through skin and James cried out, shouting as he hunched over, pressing his cheek to his shoulder to stop the bleeding but it only soaked into his shirt. Pools of red in its wake.

“Brock, just—wait!” you tried again, voice shaken.

“Why? You want a turn?”

Wide eyes bore into his as he paused for a moment, looking back at you earnestly, and – dear God – he was serious. Your gaze flashed to his closed fist, staring at the red coating his broken knuckles and dripping down his wrist.

“We should get out of here,” you gasped, desperately avoiding the panic the quickly surged through James’ face, though he kept himself motionless. “Before his friends find us... we should go.”

Even from the corner of your eye, beyond the blood and swelling on James’ face, you could see the confusion, the horror, as the words left your lips. You knew your husband better than anyone else in this room, so you knew there was no scenario where he would allow James to leave this room alive; not unless his own self-preservation outweighed his need for revenge.

So, you’d stay with Brock, go with him far away from this factory, away from James and his team, to corners of the world you’d never see the other half of your heart again. You’d stand by your husband’s side and keep up this disguise for the rest of your life. You’d wear a dozen different masks, staple a smile to your face, and learn to be content – complicit – again. You’d do anything if it meant James survived this.

“Brock,” you whispered, taking another step forward like you were approaching a feral animal, cautious, calculated movements as not to set it off. You slowly reached out to him, close enough to slowly wrap your hands around his and carefully pull him to your grasp. Gentle, tender movements as you held his gaze, the blood of your lover warm on your palms as you guided away the monster’s fist.

“Let’s go,” you urged. “You and me. We’ll get away from all of this. But we have to leave now.”

There was a stillness in Brock, a slow drawl of his eyes as looked from your intertwined hands to your face; a moment of reprieve, maybe something like relief, and he pursed his lips together to a soft smile.

Then, he released James’ shirt and your whole heart fell crashed to the floor; concrete to his jaw, his arms bound behind his back and unable to catch himself. He groaned, withering against the cold of the ground, trying to push himself back to his knees, trying to catch your eye and beg you to stay, beg you not to leave with the same man you’d been desperate to escape from.

“Okay, baby,” Brock cooed, his free hand sliding up your arm, pulling goosebumps like ice and venom along the way until he cupped the side of your face. You held your breath, allowed him to kiss you, push his tongue into your mouth, and you held back tears, realizing you’d kissed James for the last time. Brock had already swept his touch away from you.

You could feel James’ eyes burning on you, desperate, begging, but you couldn’t look at him. The second you did, you knew you’d lose your resolve completely. You couldn’t allow that to happen.

Protect James; the way he protected you, the way he protected Peter. This was how you save him. Go with your husband. Take the life you were dealt and deal with the consequences.

You were prepared to make that sacrifice. Until –

“Just one thing before we go.”

Brock swiftly yanked a pistol from his waistband and in those seconds, your world seemed to move in slow motion; like limbs underwater, pushing against resistance, like you might be able to reach out and stop it in time if you were only faster than time itself.

The barrel pressed to James’ temple.

The unlatch of the safety followed; deafening, echoing.

There was a burning in your lungs long before you realized you were screaming.

“NO!”

You clamped your hand over your mouth, muffling yourself under trembling hands as time came speeding back up to you.

Brock froze, head slowly turning to you with a hardened expression of disbelief, of fury and fire and rage burning behind his eyes; a flicker of something darker hidden in the flakes of green, a realization, maybe, and you were certain a single look could have killed you.

You quickly dropped your hands and closed them to fists at your side to stop the shaking.

“Do we have a problem here, baby?”

There was venom to his voice. He spat the pet name at you like an insult.

You cleared your throat nervously, trying to find your breath but your eyes flickered to James. There was crimson coating over most of his face, the cold barrel of a gun pressed against his temple, and he was watching you, terrified, but never for himself – no, his fear was for you. His drive to protect you was always stronger than that of his own.

It was something you had in common.

“He’s a—a federal agent,” you tried to reason. “You don’t—you don’t want to give them more to charge you with. You kill one of their own and they’ll hunt you down. They won’t stop until they find you.”

Brock’s stare could have torn right through you, unnerving and cold as ice, like blades to your skin as they drew blood right at your heart. But then, seemingly out of nowhere, he lowered the weapon and you exhaled a heavy sigh of relief.

“Fine,” he shrugged, far too calm for the man you knew. He brushed the barrel of the gun against his thigh, examining it up against the light. It was the calm before the storm and you could sense the lightening long before the thunder when his eyes snapped to you. “Why don’t you do it?”

Before you could take another breath, Brock bounded across the room, grabbed a painful grip of your wrist and yanked you towards him. His grasp cut deep into your bones, would surely leave behind bruising and you watched as the marks of his fingers left discoloration in their wake.

He slammed the gun in your hand, cold metal to the burning heat of your palms, forced your arms out straight, pointed the barrel at James.

“Stop,” you gaped as you tried to push out of his grasp but there was no give on his hold; no release as he caged you, forcing a violent weapon to your hands and aimed at the one man you’d give your life for.

“Go on, baby! Shoot.”

You shook your head, trying to squirm out of his hold but it was like fighting with a wall. “Brock, let me go--”

“You wanted to be part of Hydra, didn’t you? This is Hydra, baby! Welcome to the fun!” Brock shouted, a laugh in his voice, amused, as his fingers dug bruises to your shoulders. “Now... shoot him!”

Your hands were shaking, the barrel of the gun swaying in your grasp. Your eyes caught James and you were shocked to find him calm, waiting patiently on his knees. There was a determination there you didn’t quite expect, a simple kind of realization. His gaze pointed down at his left shoulder before it returned to you.

You furrowed your brow.

“What are you waiting for?” Brock grunted. “No one is coming for him. We’ll dump the body before the feds can find us. No one will miss a fuckin’ narc.”

James was staring at you and you could barely make out the blue of his eyes over the swelling, behind the steady stream of blood on his face. He was breathing heavy, gargled, like there was blood in his throat, too, and God, it was worse than that terrible night in the basement. You choked back a cry, trying to bit it down before your husband could see your tears.

You wanted to scream, to run, to use that goddamn gun on Brock himself, but you wouldn’t get more than a few feet before his men took you down. There was no way out of this. James seemed to know that, too, because there was a slight nod of his head, impossibly subtle that not even Brock seemed to notice. You parted your lips in shock as blue eyes flickered to his shoulder again before returning to you.

The realization hit you like a sucker punch to the gut.

No.

“I’m growing impatient, baby,” Brock groaned, squeezing hard at your shoulders and causing you to recoil under the strain of muscle. “If you don’t take the goddamn shot, I will and I’ll make a damn mess of things; might empty the whole clip and I know how you women are about keeping things clean.”

You shivered as the heat of his breath touched your neck, disgust and rage surging through you and you struggled to find your breath.

James nodded at you again. Your heart thunderous in your chest; it pounded in your ears. You could feel the pulse of it in your temples, through your finger tips and you slowly slid your pointer to rest against the trigger.

“Good girl,” Brock praised, his voice laced in a thick, unrelenting poison.

James held your gaze the entire time and you wished you could have known what was running through his head in that moment, because all you could think about was how scared you felt how terrified you were that this was it, that you’d already used up your time with him.

He nodded again, the curve of his lips so soft you almost missed it. That sweet smile of his, the one that convinced you trust him more than a year earlier, the one that lifted the storm clouds and walls you’d surrounded yourself with, the one that you dreamed about at night. It was small and only an ounce of what you knew it to be, but it was there.

“Shoot him, baby,” Brock urged in your ear, but his voice was distant, muffled, because you kept your focus on James, on the sense of calm on his face, the trust in his eyes.

Brock was miles away when you were with James.

You took a deep breath, and on the exhale, you pulled the trigger.

There was barely anytime to watch as the bullet tore through the fabric of James’ shirt, as the impact nearly knocked him over, as the blood splattered out onto the white walls behind him, dripping down in deep crimson stains.

Hands shaking violently as the weapon was pulled from your grip, you couldn’t look away as James’ eyes started to lose focus, how they drifted away from your own, and started to flutter, how he could hardly hold his head up.

You barely registered the push of angry hands shoving you to the door, a painful grip on your wrist, bones crackling under the touch as James slumped down to the floor. Your body was not your own as it was dragged on unsteady; a vicious ringing in your ears and a muffled voice shouting at you with malice laced in his tone.

Vision tunneling. Blurry. No – tears in your eyes. You nearly tripped over something on the floor, foot catching on something heavy and it took a moment before you realized it was James’ body Brock dragged you over.

You glanced back in horror, unable to pry Brock’s grip from around your wrist, to find blood pooling around James as he struggled to find his breath. The bare of your feet touched over warm, slippery crimson as Brock shoved you forward; red footprints in your wake.

Brock turned abruptly at the door, swinging you sharply behind him, and fired his weapon in two consecutive shots; ones that were muffled to the ringing in your ears as Kohl and Sanzetti fell to the floor, vagrant stares in their eyes and bullets lodged deep into brain tissue. You barely flinched, your focus solely on James.

He wasn’t moving, his gaze fixing on the wall far beyond you.

The pool of red under him was growing.

“You wanted to go, baby?” Brock sneered, yanking painfully on your hand, his rings cutting into your skin and you felt something pop. “Let’s fucking go!”

Red and blue lights flashed into the building and Brock cursed loudly, dragging you along as he sprinted to the back of the factory. James disappeared from your view and all you were left with were the bloody prints on the bottom of your feet.

The cold air slammed to you like a wall, shivers trembling up your spine, rocks and dirt to the bottom of your feet as Brock led you through the wooded overcast of trees running along the property. It was too dark back where you were, the street lights barely illuminating the front of the factory, let alone the long, winding, dirt path at its rear.

Police cars were parked by the entrance, lights flashing, men and women in uniform with weapons attached to their hips, some in their hands, as they slowly entered the building. You wanted to scream, to beg for help, but you knew the second you did, it would divert their attention to you and they might not reach James in time. You couldn’t allow that to happen.

Branches poked at your sides, scraping your skin and leaving prickles of blood in their wake; stones puncturing at your bare feet, leaves and dirt sticking to the mess of blood drying underneath. You nearly tripped over an exposed root before Brock shoved you up against a tree, hand slamming down over your mouth as a patrol car zoomed by up along the road.

No one saw you.

No one would.

At the end of the tree line was an unmarked car sitting alone in an empty parking lot. Brock pushed out ahead of you, pulling a key ring from his pocket and unlocked the vehicle. You paused, staring at him, wondering why the hell he had a getaway car stash out a mile away from the factory.

“Get in the goddamn car,” he growled, yanking your hand like you were a child and whipping you around the trunk. Your hip slammed to the rear lights and you let out a whimper, though Brock paid it no mind.

He shoved you to the passenger seat, slammed the door behind you. He slid over the engine and dropped in behind the wheel himself. Headlights off, he threw the shift into drive and drove away like it was nothing at all, like there weren’t dozens of policemen and SWAT teams and FBI patrolling the area.

The low vibration of the engine was deafening. Your hands were shaking in your lap so you tried to curl them to fists, nestle them under your thighs, but nothing seemed to make it stop. Dried blood on your feet, ringing still burning in your ears, and you turned your attention to the side of the road, watching the blur of trees out the passenger window.

You tried not to think of James.

Along the way, you must have lost track of time, because you were suddenly pulling into the driveway at the end of your estate. You’d lost nearly twenty minutes just staring out the window, lost within the ringing and the panic in your veins, and you stared up at the home with narrowed eyes.

“What are we doing here?” you asked, turning to Brock suspiciously. “This will be the first place the feds will come looking for you. We should--”

You bit down on your tongue because beside you, Brock was laughing to himself. Chin to his chest, wide smile pushing at his cheeks, like he was genuinely amused. It wasn’t a look you saw on him often. It was... unsettling.

“Brock?”

He looked up at you, crooked smile on his face, as his right hand slowly slid up your arm and nestled along your neck, fingers scratching at your scalp and they interwove into your hair. It was an intimate gesture, a tender one, and you tried to fight against how quickly you tensed up, how your muscles conformed to stone, but you knew he could feel it.

“We should go,” you tried again, voice low, cracking in the effort. Your throat was dry, like sandpaper.

He only smiled back at you, though it didn’t touch his eyes. Something was wrong.

Your heart started to pick up in pace, your breath becoming shallow.

“You can stop pretending, baby. It’s just the two of us now.”

His hand gripped tight to your hair, pulling out strands and a yelp from your lungs, and he slammed your head to the dashboard. Once, twice, until darkness came in and washed you away.

***

You woke to the smell of gasoline.

It burned in your nose, the tang of it bitter on your tongue, pushing down into your lungs with a sharp intake of breath. You started to cough, violent and dry heaves as you tried to find clean air, and that was when you felt the resistance at your wrists.

Vision still tunneled, unforgiving darkness, like you were looking through the thin fabric of a black mask, you found your wrists bound to a single, wooden chair; tied down primitively with electrical wires. You tugged against it, only for it to rub raw into your skin, digging deep into the crevices, pulling a hiss from between your teeth. You tried to push forward but there was a series of wiring wrapped at your chest, holding your shoulders to the back of the chair.

“Welcome back, baby.”

Snapping your eyes abruptly to the sound of the sudden voice, you saw Brock sitting on the corner of the couch, stretched back into the arm rest with a cigar in his hand, legs crossed over one another.

“Guess I knocked you out a bit too hard, huh?” he snickered as he started to light the end of his cigar. “You figure out where we are yet?”

Your head was throbbing, black spots covering most of your vision, but they were slowly fading away. You could make out the soft blue color of the couch he was sitting on, the coffee table with stained rings upon the wood in the shape of old mugs, the greenery hanging by the windows, the colorful bindings of hundreds of novels lining the shelves surrounding you.

A room that had held you safe for so many years. Four walls that shielded you from Hydra’s claim. A place where you could be yourself without fear of repercussions, where you found respite and grew to love a man who now laid in a pool of his own blood miles away.

Your library.

“Ah, there it is,” Brock jeered, taking a long drag from the cigar, his wet, cracked lips circling around the wrapper as he inhaled. He held your eye as you stared at him, wide and stunned, before he removed the cigar and slowly blew the smoke to your face. The thick cloud of grey touched your skin and the bitterness of it stung in your lungs as you tried to cough it away.

“What the hell are you doing, Brock?” you rasped, chest burning from the smoke and the sting of gas in the air. There was a container at his feet, a bucket filled high with thick, dark liquid, and you could see his reflection in.

“Getting justice,” he replied with a shrug.

“Justice?” you scoffed, rolling your eyes. “Are you insane?!”

The mask you’d worn was long cracked and dismembered to pieces at your feet. There was no hiding your distain, no reason to pretend that your relationship was anything other than hostage and captor; certainly not with the wires binding you to a chair and the blinding pulsing in your head from where he’d knocked you out cold.

“Maybe,” he shot back with a sickening grin. He waved the cigar at you, eyes trailing over your body, the hem of your dress riding up high on your thighs in the struggle. He smirked. “I see you’ve decided to drop the act, as well.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you spat, rolling your eyes.

“Ouch. That stings,” Brock whined, hand mockingly clutching at his heart. “Didn’t know you were so unhappy, baby. I gave you the world, didn’t I?”

“You took everything from me, you fucking asshole!” you shouted, voice raw and hoarse. “You forced me from my career, from my friends. You stole my money, my inheritance, my—my freedom! You tricked my sixteen-year-old cousin into a goddamn drug trafficking ring and threatened to beat him within an inch of his life! You kept me locked up in this house for years and tied me to your arm at those miserable fucking parties like I was some accessory you could show off for a few hours before you threw it back to storage! You destroyed my life!”

“Funny,” Brock chuckled, completely unfazed. “I recall you signing the marriage certificate yourself. No gun to your head or anything.”

You shook your head, chest heaving with heavy, painful breaths. “You lied to me. You used me.”

Brock only shrugged, a slight purse of his lips as he tapped the end of the cigar and grey ashes fell to the cushions of your couch.

Your stomach was heavy, lined with stones; your gaze focused on the muddied imprint on the tips of his shoes, the dried blood on the soles of his feet, the same blood that stained your bare skin, where you’d left footprints behind.

James’ blood.

“We could’ve had it all, baby,” Brock sighed, taking another drag from the cigar. He blew the smoke to the ceiling. “You and me. We could have ruled Hydra together. You could have been my queen.”

He paused, a heavy sigh as a cloud of thick, grey smoke passed by his lips. The cigar twirled around his fingers as if manipulated by string.

“But you just had to go and start fucking my hitman, didn’t you?”

It was the full force of a train whipping along the outer curves of a mountain, plummeting you to frozen rapids amongst the free fall. Ice water to your chest, in your veins.

The hardened glare slipped from your features, replaced by widened eyes, parted lips gaping in the shock of it, panic and fear; exactly what your husband wanted from you. He wanted you afraid, trapped. It was how he always wanted you.

You couldn’t find your breath, much less your voice, so all you could do was watch as Brock pushed himself up from the couch and started to pace along the room. He slid his fingers along the shelves, pulling books by their bindings and watching as they fell to the floor, open pages stepped on by muddied wingtips.

“You know,” he drawled, picking up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, examining it as he flipped through the pages before he tossed it over his shoulder. You winced as it hit the ground. “I never understood your obsession with this room. All these old, boring books written by old, boring people; thousands of dollars of my fortune... wasted on fairytales.”

Your stomach was still lodged in your throat, hands gripping painfully at the arms of the chair. Your wrists were raw, red, and there was a burning sensation there, a tingling, and you realized the wires had cut through your skin, dipped in blood. It didn’t hurt nearly as much as the pounding of your heart in your chest, your ears, down to your fingertips and toes.

“You spent so much time in here. Figured it must be something special…. but it’s just another fuckin’ room,” Brock continued, passing by the series of plants hanging by the windows.

In one swift motion, he grabbed a pot hanging from the ceiling and threw it across the room. You flinched, the shock of it forcing several skips in your already racing heart, as it collided against the wall and shattered to the floor; a cloud of dirt circling into the air above it.

Behind you, Brock snickered as he began kicking over the plants behind you, tipping them from their place on the windowsill and dumping them from the shelves. Flowers and greenery amongst the dirt and pieces of broken ceramic, lying on the floor as he dug his heels to the roots, smashed the petals under his wingtips and kicked at the remains.

You could hear the floorboards under his feet whine as he paced behind you but you kept your gaze forward, not daring to turn around. He paused then, a heavy exhale as he turned his attention to the couch, smirking from behind your shoulder.

"You fuck him in here, too?”

You bit on your tongue, tears burning in your eyes you could no longer contain.

“Huh?!” Brock bounded across the room, thunderous steps and he gripped ahold of your shoulders until you yelped, turning away from him as best you could. “You fuck that traitorous son of a bitch in my house?!”

You recoiled as he screamed to your ear, eyes closing shut as tears slipped down over your cheeks. Brock chuckled to himself as he pulled away, pleased by your reaction and he wiped his hands on his thighs, as if to rid you from his touch.

Despite the bindings, you were shaking; hands trembling, breaths labored and uneven, jaw clenched impossibly tight to stop the chattering. You weren’t made for this the way Natasha was, or Sam, or Steve, or James. You weren’t an agent of the FBI. You weren’t trained as an army ranger or learned how to withstand torture the way James did that night in the basement. Brock hadn’t even raised a hand to you and you were in pieces.

You were a literature professor at Columbia. This wasn’t your world.

“I don’t know how long you knew he was a fed but frankly, I couldn’t give a shit at this point.” Brock bit the cigar between his teeth, holding it steady as he knelt down in front of you. His breath was sour, like old smoke and day-old bourbon, and you flinched as his fingers reached up and grabbed a sharp hold of your jaw. “All I know, is that you were in on this somehow. You gave me up. Didn’t take long to figure that out once our buddy James was lying bloody on that floor and you wouldn’t let me kill the bastard myself.”

You swallowed, trying to pull yourself from his grasp, but his fingers dug in further.

“I was surprised at first,” he continued, words garbled from the cigarette nestled at his lips as he ran his free hand through your hair, “but then I remembered how Karpov volunteered to take a beating for that punk ass cousin of yours. I remembered how you reacted that night in the basement, how you begged me to stop and I realized... he did it for you, didn’t he?”

Your blood ran cold. You couldn’t speak.

“It opened my fucking eyes, baby!” Brock shouted right to your ear, causing you to flinch. “All those times he was watching you from the corner of the room? Shit, I thought it was harmless. The guy wanted to fuck you. So what? Half my men get themselves off to the thought of it. But him? No... this was different. That fucking moron actually fell for you... and you know what is so goddamn funny about it all? You fell for him, too, right under my fuckin’ nose.”

Tears were openly sliding down your cheeks, touching onto Brock’s fingers as he held your jawline in place, forcing you to look him in the eye. His stare was of ice, heartless, a vicious envy in the green of his eyes.

A single beat. And then, “imagine how fun it was for me to force you to shoot him.”

“You’re a monster.” It came out broken, harsh and aching. Images of James lying still and bloody on the floor of that factory haunting you as you closed your eyes.

“Yeah?” Brock chuckled humorlessly. “At least I’m not dead.”

Cold, unforgiving eyes stared back at you; seething, red.

And yet it ignited something in you.

“James Barnes,” you started slowly, finding strength in his name as you stared to the eyes of the devil, “is ten times the man you will ever be.”

You waited, watched as Brock’s mouth curved up to a smirk, baring teeth behind dry, cracked lips, and you spat.

He flinched at it landed on his cheek, wet and dripping down his jaw. He started to laugh as he wiped it away, flicking away the saliva to the floor and wiping the rest on his suit pants.

“Was.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What?”

“You mean ‘was,’ as in past tense,” Brock jeered, planting his hands on your forearms, face inches from yours. “James Barnes was ten times the -- blah blah blah. You killed him, baby... or did you forget?”

No.

No, you shot him in the shoulder, right where he told you. You were certain of it. It was a clean shot.

But there was so much blood. There shouldn’t have been so much blood...

God, why was there so much blood?

You weren’t trained like he was. You weren’t an expert marksman like Natasha. You could have missed without realizing it. You could have shot two inches to the right and hit an artery. He could have bled out alone in that room before the cops got to him in time. He couldn’t actually be–

Your heart rate started to pick up, thunderous and burning a lump in your throat. Breathing coming in uneven, rushed, shallow, and you looked up to Brock with wide eyes, only to find him turning his back to you, slowly making his way to the bucket by the couch.

“His friends aren’t coming for you,” he taunted, picking up the container of gasoline and dumping a steady stream onto the couch beside you. You held your breath, trying to turn away from the stench of it, but it was too powerful. Brock only laughed.

“You think that because you were his plaything that they’ll give a shit about you? You’ve been a part of Hydra from the start, baby! You stood in the shadows and watched from your fuckin’ ivory tower! You knew everything that was going on in this house and you kept your mouth shut like the good little girl you are!”

You shook your head, panting because your breaths were coming in faster than you could take in air. “You threatened me! You threatened my family!”

“You were still complicit to hundreds of crimes,” Brock shrugged, dragging the container around the room and spilling puddles of gasoline along the hardwood floors. “You are Hydra, baby, whether you like it or not. You are not worthy of redemption. You are not better than me. You are and always will be Hydra to those feds and they will leave you to BURN!”

There were splinters in your palms from how tight you were holding the edge of the arm rests. Your whole body was rigid, like stone, as you watched Brock douse the shelves filled with priceless books, first editions and cherished copies, with gasoline.

He always held a resentment for this room; the fact that you had a place within the cold, unforgiving nature of this home to feel safe in. It mocked him, infuriated him, that he couldn’t control every ounce of relief and happiness you were allowed in this world. You’d found that for yourself outside of him. In this room. In James. In yourself.

And he was going to set fire to it all.

“Brock,” you choked out, terrified, “wait.”

“I think I’ve waited long enough,” he shot back, tossing the rest of the gas onto the plants behind you, letting it seep along the floorboards. He threw the empty container to the side of the room, against the bookshelves to your left and pulling down several novels along with in. They splashed into the gas, their pages soaking in the fuel.

“Don’t do this,” you begged, voice barely above a whisper, too lost, too broken behind the lump in your throat. You tugged against the bindings, fighting the restraints, until blood dripped down your wrists and stained the hardwood floors beneath you.

Brock winked as he leaned on the door frame, pulling the cigar from between his teeth and blowing out a cloud of smoke. One final drag before he flicked it to the floor, almost in slow motion as it spun and twisted in the air.

It landed amongst the gas, and then, it burst into flames.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you

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