#I wrote this in a haze of like two hours on pure emotion
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Hello, my old heart
(Endwalker spoilers for the final zone!)
They are together. It’s a constant, like the land, like the air.
Though this place has proven those things to be just as ephemeral. It’s a void that has consumed them one by one. One for the space to stand, one for the winds that fly. Another, another, another.
And then there were two.
He couldn’t even protect the twins. His gloves do little to absorb his tears, but Apollo hides his face in them regardless. Maybe it’s shame, for letting them do this, for not being strong enough anymore to save them all. Maybe it’s because he simply cannot stomach another minute of this, of looking at yet another shining, brilliant way forward bought with the sacrifices of his friends. Maybe it’s because he’s always hated crying in front of Sindri.
Sindri is always here, always beside him even when they’ve been physically apart. He doesn’t judge (not for this), but Apollo feels all the weaker for being the one to break.
Metal clinks as Sindri’s gauntleted hand touches his shoulder. “We have to-.”
“I know,” Apollo chokes out. “I know. This won’t be for nothing. We have to find her.” He swipes at his eyes, makes himself take a breath. It can’t be much further. Please, gods, let this be the end of it.
They always go together through the darkest of times and places. It will never change. Sindri the devoted, protector of the woods; a king even in name. Sindri…his greatest friend.
He should have known she would take it all.
One more roadblock. One more sacrifice.
They look at one more dark feathered girl and before Apollo can even begin to think of the next bridge, Sindri steps forward. His throat goes tight and the words that are said are Sindri’s alone.
And then he is alone with the howl of the wind in his ears. Truly, completely alone no matter the earth below his feet or the air in his lungs. Bought and bartered with their lives and yet he must keep going. He must keep going.
The wind is so loud; this graveyard so silent beneath it.
The whispers come from nowhere in old, familiar voices.
Yours is the Fourteenth Seat: the seat of Azem. You have the power to call the very stars to your side.
Ours is the power of creation. Have you forgotten? To weave something from the very energy around us. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen that far.
Desperation has gotten him through more than one terrible moment. Light aether cracked open the pieces of his soul and he held them together out of the pure desperation to not see another world lost. The god of their old world, of the laws of nature, resurrected and they fought bloody tooth and claw just to live another day.
Live, live, live.
It pounds in his chest. He’s always wanted to live, selfishly. It makes him a terrible hero. It makes him a coward. Every risk he took, it was always with the thought in the back of his mind that he would live. That his powers would always save him at the last.
And now?
Apollo tips his head back, letting the tears roll back across his temples and into his hair. The weight of a thousand thousand worlds weighs heavy. The ghosts that hang always in the corners of his eyes move forward, a grim welcoming party to his final utter end.
Oh, don’t leave me here alone.
Don’t tell me that we’ve grown for having loved for a little while.
He takes a breath. He exhales. He takes a step, and then another.
Apollo walks across a dead world, ghosts flickering in his eyes. He clings to the shards of something in his chest, the last thing in the box, flickering against the dark.
I don’t wanna be alone.
The sun climbs the back of the cliffs, eclipsed against a dead star, nearly subsumed by the dark.
Apollo breathes and he keeps taking another step. Until he finds her.
The hard, black, dead star hangs above them both. Her feathers are pitch and her skin like ash. Another ghost, another one lost in the dark. He feels like her match. Here at the end of the universe, he is as any other mortal: small, insignificant, and alone.
Apollo closes his eyes. She speaks, the little bird long lost, in a voice that almost sounds kind. “Come, let me relieve you of your burden. You have suffered enough.”
A stone that should never have been made, not after their parting, hangs above his heart. He lifts his hand to it, safely tucked away, and smiles. “I have never forsaken this world nor its people. I will not start now,” he says quietly.
His eyes open, the summer sky blazing in his face. The sun rises, gilding all in gold.
It’s as easy as breathing. The spell circle appears like daybreak over the mountains. A heartbeat and they’re there. Hades starts to scoff. Hythlodaeus starts to chuckle.
“I’m afraid we don’t have time, my friends.” Apollo walks forward to stand between them. “I simply wanted some certainty.”
“Such recklessness.” Hades crosses his arms with a sniff.
“As if you’ve never had a flair for the dramatic.” Hythlodaeus holds a hand out, their own dramatic flair for show.
Apollo takes another breath. It feels like two sets of lungs, like a ghost of himself sets his hands on his shoulders.
Hello, my old heart.
It’s been so long since I’ve given you away.
“Focus and envision,” Hades says like they’re all still in school. Light builds around the three of them, power humming through the air and rising like a song.
He takes it in, holds it, and then weaves the next verse.
With a flick of his wrist, the world explodes at their feet. Beautiful crystal blossoms break from the cold earth, racing to cover the emptiness and welcome her home.
It reaches further, sunlight breaking through the branches, warming the earth with a new dawn. It steadies the ground, brings new life to the air, and makes manifest all their dreams.
The sun rises steadily, drawing all back into its light.
And every day I add another stone to the walls I built around you to keep you safe.
It leaves him burned clean and raw. He’d collapse to the ground alongside her if it wasn’t for the hands on his arms. “Beautifully done,” Hythlodaeus says. “Your greatest composition yet, I’d say.”
Steadying him, Hades says nothing. But his touch lingers, fingers brushing at his back. They help him find his feet and then they step away.
Oh, don’t leave me here alone.
Don’t tell me that we’ve grown for having loved a little while.
Apollo looks at them and feels a piece of himself walk away to join them. They will fade back into the Sea and one day…they’ll all give it another try. He smiles at them and then weaves Hydaelyn’s last light into his own.
They reappear in beautiful flashes of light, each and every one.
Oh, oh-oh. I don’t wanna be alone.
There is a presence at his back, a weighted gaze. Apollo turns to meet mismatched eyes and the ghosts all fade away. His face scrunches, the ugliest of expressions, and then he darts across the flowers, petals flying in his wake.
I wanna find a home. And I wanna share it with you.
Sindri’s arms are already up to catch him. His momentum carries them around in a half-circle and Apollo’s heart is in pieces, it’s ready to burst. He brushes Sindri’s bangs aside, meets his beautiful, steady mismatched eyes, and then kisses him.
It’s for the end of the world. It’s a promise. It’s a welcome home.
He kisses Sindri for every day that he hasn’t and every day yet to come. For every tavern night and every fight where they’ve been too reckless or too careless for each other. Every healing spell, every heavy sword, it always meant this: be safe, be well, I love you.
Hello, my old heart. How have you been?
Someone is whistling for them and Apollo pulls away, hands still cupped around Sindri’s face. He smiles as tears fall from his eyes. He wipes away those that land on Sindri’s cheeks before his feet find the ground again. Sindri’s throat works, but he says nothing. He puts his hand to the back of Apollo’s head and then hugs him tightly for a moment.
“Now that’s a step too far!” Thanced’s voice is light, teasing.
Apollo laughs as Sindri steps back and the others move in. He hugs them, each in turn, and then returns to Sindri. He takes his hand and holds it tight. The squeeze he gets in return is grounding.
Almost home.
#ffxiv#ffxiv fic#self-indulgence and sun imagery to the EXTREME#this is quite frankly just for me and Jade#Im only posting it for easy finding with the gpose lol#anyway I love them and they're living rent free :3#Apollo#Sindri#THE OCS NOT THE CHARACTERS but like whatever you wanna do I guess#I wrote this in a haze of like two hours on pure emotion#aka the best inspired shit ever for me#endwalker spoilers#endwalker
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when time stands still
spencer reid x gn!bau!reader
Spencer shows his love through his actions. You show your love through your words.
warnings: insects, feelings of insecurity (reader), alcohol consumption, mentions of drugged drinks (no drinks actually drugged), skipped meals, food/eating
genre: fluff
word count: 4,600
a/n: for the bug lovers and the clingy drunks. This was actually the first fic I wrote after my eight year break and I wasn’t planning on posting it, but sharing is caring, right?
As you step outside, half blinded by the sun and still surrounded by the aroma of coffee, you can’t help but grin.
It’s a good day.
The team had just arrived back from a quick case with an uplifting outcome. That’s why, not even an hour after landing, you decided to buy yourself some coffee as a treat—some real coffee instead of the cheap stuff in the office meant to be nothing more than pure fuel.
“The sweetest things are best enjoyed when you’re already in high spirits,” you told Spencer as you headed out the door of the FBI headquarters. He laughed when you said that before asking if he could join you. You agreed of course, and your already good day was made even better just knowing that Spencer wanted to spend time with you.
The summer heat and afternoon sun make the day feel almost dreamlike. The world is illuminated by a golden haze, cicadas in the trees around you create a lulling drone just loud enough to drown out any thoughts of the horrors you see on a daily basis. Looking over at Spencer’s messy hair and warm smile, you can’t help but be grateful that this is real—that he is real.
Your cheeks warm at the knowledge that right now he is smiling because of you. Not even the slow breeze is enough to cool your flushed skin.
The two of you make your way back towards the Headquarters parking lot, sipping your coffees and chatting idly, simply enjoying each other’s company. It can be difficult to find a moment of peace in your busy lives and everyone on the team tries to make the most of their time off. Spencer tells you about some books he wants to get and you tell him about a documentary you watched that you think he will like. It’s comfortable being around him.
In moments like this you think maybe he could love you the way that you love him. Surely his love would be honey sweet, and just as golden too. If you were ever brave enough to tell him how you feel, would the warmth of him seep into you deeper than the sun ever could? Would he sink all the way to the marrow of your bones?
You try not to let the idea linger, not wanting to let your hope grow too much. If you leave your emotions unchecked they will turn into some wild thing—some uncontrollable thing with sharp teeth perfect for ripping your heart out. It’s better, you think, just being his friend. Surely being alone in love is better than having none of him at all.
“Look!” you gush, quickly distracting yourself from your spiraling thoughts, “a bug!”
A large black beetle leisurely crawls across the sidewalk, elytra shining almost purple in the afternoon sun. If it wasn’t heading towards a patch of grass you’d pick it up and move it to a tree or a bush, away from the threat of being stepped on. Instead, you kneel down and watch its journey.
“I don’t think I know what kind of beetle this is,” Spencer says, coming to squat next to you. “Otherwise I might be able to give you some information about it.” It’s a rare occurrence for Spencer to not know about something he sees. It’s a simple reminder that even though he’s a genius, he is still human.
Spencer has never been a fan of not knowing things, not when knowledge is such a major part of who he is. You, however, don’t mind the rare occasions when he doesn’t know something. It just means he has a chance to continue learning.
“That’s alright, Spence. This one will remain a mystery.”
You sit and watch a moment longer. When Spencer’s legs start to ache he stands, waiting for you to be content with your bug watching before you both continue back towards the FBI Headquarters.
“Kisses for the weird bug,” you say before blowing a kiss in it’s direction. The beetle made it safely to the grass and now you’re ready to move on.
“Why does the weird bug get kisses?” Spencer asks, his tone teasing.
“Why? Are you Jealous? Does Spencer want kisses too?” You skip ahead of him, laughing as you do. If you had been looking you might have seen the blush spreading across his cheeks or the adoration in his eyes as you romp away. But you don’t look and the moment passes unshared.
Spencer follows behind you, waiting for you to grow tired of your antics before you return to him, as you’re always prone to do. He wouldn’t have it any other way, and neither would you.
When you finally reach the parking lot you offer Spencer a ride home, hoping to spend more time with him. He tells you he wants to run some errands and you can’t help the flash disappointment you feel. You hope that, despite Spencer being a profiler, he can’t clearly see your emotions through your body language.
“I’ll see you tonight then?” you ask, feeling hopeful once more.
Despite the confusion on his face, he still smiles, his features turning almost froglike. “We have plans?”
It’s clear he’s trying not to be rude, and you can’t help but smile.
“Not yet, but Garcia will make them and we’ll all be there.”
—♡—
You are right, of course. It’s not uncommon for the team to go out for drinks after a case goes well. This is especially true if the team gets back on time to take a few days off after the case ends, giving everyone the weekend to recover. The combination of high spirits and free time always leads to particularly exciting nights. Usually it means the whole team joins, at least for the first bar, and Garcia is almost always the one to send out the message naming the time and place. This time the text comes in right as you’re unlocking the door to your apartment.
You plan to eat dinner, shower, and change into an outfit that matches the occasion before you leave to meet the team. You plan to take time getting ready, not being rushed for once. You plan to show up looking and feeling your best, you really do. But things in life rarely seem to go according to plan.
After taking off your shoes, you stretch out on your couch, intending to watch an episode of your favorite show before slowly starting to work through your routine for the night. Despite the coffee you had just drank, you still find yourself falling asleep with no alarms to wake you. It’s not until Garcia calls you that you’re drawn from your slumber.
You’re late.
“I’m on my way,” you tell Garcia, though it’s a blatant lie. You rush to get changed and ready for the night. It has to be a new record. After getting changed and locking up your apartment, you make your way to the bar. You get the feeling that you forgot something important in your rush, but you can’t be bothered to slow down and think of what that forgotten thing may be.
This is your first mistake of the night.
When you finally arrive at the bar, you’re no less frazzled than you were when you left your apartment. Everyone else is there already, including Spencer, who smiles as soon as he sees you, before making his way from the table where the team is gathered to order a drink.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” you address the rest of the team, “I lost track of time.”
Everyone welcomes you with some hugs and teasing in the mix. The fact that you were late is quickly forgotten as normal conversation continues on and drinks continue to disappear. Despite the warm welcome, you can’t help but wring your hands together in a show of awkward nervousness. The best way to flush out the nerves would be to get a drink.
Before you can even move towards the bar, Spencer comes up beside you, setting a drink before you and urging you into the seat he vacated, a wide smile on his face the whole time.
Taking a seat is your second mistake of the night.
“You made it,” he says as softly as he can in the busy bar. “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
The sight of his smile and the seemingly constant flush of his cheeks is enough to lift any awkwardness that you previously felt. If Spencer can be relaxed in a social situation that he wouldn’t usually choose to be in, then so can you.
“Of course I made it, I was just running a little late is all…” You try to leave your response a little vague but of course he’s smart enough to notice something’s off. He is a profiler, after all. All he needs to do is raise an eyebrow to get you to crack. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that simply being near him, let alone being subjected to his full attention, is enough to make you giddy. That’s what you tell yourself, with little conviction.
“Okay, so I may or may not have fallen asleep after I got home,” you say, shifting your eyes away from his gaze. “I’m glad you came too.”
If you’d asked any of the other members on the team about what had been the factor that made him join, they would have told you that you were the reason that he came out that night. Not a successful case or Garcia’s influence—though those are both excuses he would use if asked directly—it was you. But you don’t ask because he’s your colleague and friend, a close one at that, and no one can know that you think of him as anything more. Especially not him.
Maybe if you were braver things would be different.
Time passes quickly. It passes slowly too. Actually, you’re not really sure how much time has passed. You lost track of a lot of things after the first drink.
Having more than one drink is your third mistake.
You aren’t even aware that you made any mistakes that night until the team decides it’s time to move on. Hotch, Rossi, and JJ choose to head home while everyone else, not quite ready for the night to end, plan to go somewhere else.
It’s not until you stand up that things go sideways, almost literally if it weren’t for the fact that Spencer had been standing so close to you all night. His arms are pulling you to him, steadying you immediately.
You’d never been one to doubt that the sun was the center of the solar system, but at this moment it seems as though the whole universe is spinning rapidly around you.
“… Okay?” Spencer asks. You couldn’t hear the beginning of his question but you smile and nod anyway. Spencer removes his hands from your shoulder and places one in your own, tugging you forward and following the others as they exit the bar.
Nothing matters now except for his hand in yours, warm and steady, guiding you through this timeless sea. The weight of it in your own hand is the only thing you’re completely sure of, the only thing you want to focus on. He’s held your hand before but it’s never felt like this.
Everyone begins the long process of saying goodbye, no one quite leaving when they said they would and instead falling back into easy conversation. You try to follow along but the world is still spinning and it’s too hard to keep up. You hadn’t realised you were this drunk when you were sitting down.
It’s as though reality shifted in that bar and everything is just slightly skewed from what it should be. Maybe you should be concerned that you’re so drunk when you drank so little but the summer air, which is now quite a bit cooler than it had been earlier in the day, feels nice against your skin, and you’re surrounded by the people you trust more than anyone else in the world.
Suddenly you feel a tugging on your hand, pulling you away from the rest of the group. If you didn’t feel like time had stopped moving altogether, then maybe you’d have been more concerned, but as Spencer is pulling you he is calling your name and he seems quite excited. You’re not ready to part from him yet anyway. Not when he is so willing to keep you by his side.
“Look at this,” Spencer exclaims, dropping your hand now that he has you standing in what he determined to be the perfect spot. You wish he was still holding it. Instead he places his hand up against the brick wall of the bar and something moves—slowly, very slowly—onto his fingers.
“What is it?” You ask, more distracted by the shape of Spencer’s hand than what he has on it.
“It's a rosy maple moth, or Dryocampa rubicunda. They’re native to the east coast and are usually active at night. Despite being fairly common I’ve never actually seen one before. Rosy maple moths are in the Saturniidae family, and while all of the moths in that family are beautiful, the colors of the rosy maple moth are really pretty, aren’t they?” He holds the moth up closer to you, looking very proud of his finding.
The moth really is quite pretty, with its bright yellow and baby pink coloring. It’s very fuzzy too, and looks almost doll-like, as if a child would carry it as a plush toy rather than it being a real animal. But you watched it move. This cotton candy creature is alive. All you can think about is how Spencer wants to share this moment with you. How he's all smiles and flushed cheeks, almost as pink as the wings of the moth in his hand.
Before you can help yourself, tears begin to well up in your eyes, falling hot and slow down your cheeks to the sidewalk below. Once they start to fall, there’s nothing you can do to stop them.
“Are you scared? I thought you liked bugs?” Spencer half asks, half shouts. The whole time he’s speaking he’s stepping away from you, putting distance between you and the bug, just in case you are scared, even though he’s confused.
The volume has drawn the attention of the rest of your group, but you can hardly focus on them, the only thing you can focus on is Spencer. The very man who wants nothing more than to share cool bugs with you and to see you smile. And now you’re crying.
He quickly ushers the moth back onto the wall before rushing to your side, hands fluttering next to you—your arms, your hands, your cheeks—not quite touching, in an attempt to locate the problem.
“What is it? He asks, just loud enough for you to hear, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m so in love with you! I was so in love with you already and then you do something like that and I just... I think I’m just filled with so much love for you that there’s nowhere left for it to go and now it’s spilling out of me from my eyes.” The words tumble out before you can even process what you’re saying, not that you really could process them if you wanted to.
The air, which had felt so light only moments before, holds weight to it now, settling in your lungs like gravel and feeling almost impossible to expel. Somehow you keep breathing, but you need to focus on it now. If you focus on your breathing you can pretend like the words that just spilled out of your mouth had stayed inside like you always intended.
Focusing doesn’t stop the tears from falling. It doesn’t stop you from loving him.
“What?” is all he can squeak out. Eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly, you think maybe he’s shutting down a bit. Or maybe he’s mad at you. You don’t want him to be mad at you, you can’t lose him.
“I love you.” you whisper it this time, quiet and unsure. “I’m sorry, I’m making a mess. I’m being messy. Messy messy. I think I’m going to go home now. It’s just one of those nights.”
You try to turn to say goodbye to the rest of your group but they all have similar expressions as Spencer. Garcia has her phone out and aimed directly at you, but you pay it little mind. “I think I’m going to head home too,” you say. “I think I’m a little drunker than I planned to be.”
Hands, large and warm hands, are resting on your face before you can do or say anything else you might regret, pulling your attention away from the rest of the group and back onto Spencer once more.
“Hey, look at me.” He says it softly, but firmly enough to keep your attention, as if it could ever stray from him for long. His thumbs run gently across your cheeks, wiping up the few tears that are still falling. “Look at me. What’s going on?”
You never want him to take his hands away. It’s nighttime now but his hands feel like the sun on your skin, soaked in summer, nectarine sweet, and you’re not ready for that to end. You pull your own hands up to press over his, just in case he tries to move away. He doesn’t. Instead he draws you out from your thoughts and back to the matter at hand.
“Did anyone touch your drinks?” he presses. “Was there anyone else but us who touched your drinks?”
Oh. He thinks someone did this to you.
“No, no that’s not it. I wasn’t drugged, I'm just drunk.” HIs hands are still cradling your face and you can’t help but lean into his touch.
“Was it something else then? You didn’t drink that much, and you said you fell asleep earlier, which is why you were late. Did you get a chance to eat before coming tonight?”
There it is, the root of the problem. You didn’t get to get ready as you had planned. You had wanted to take your time, to rest and enjoy the night as you got ready. Instead you napped and in your haste, you didn’t remember to eat.
“Oh,” is your less than brilliant reply. “Oops.”
“Oops? Oops is right. Let’s get you home so you can eat something, then if you want you can choose a movie for us to watch? I don’t want you being alone like this.”
“You’re so wonderful, do you know that? I don’t think you see it. I think you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met. No, I know you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met.” You look up at him as if he hung the stars in the sky. You know that, come tomorrow, you will have some regrets about the things you've said. You’ll have some regrets about telling Spencer just how much you care about him, not because he doesn’t deserve to know but because you’re drunk. He may not believe you, he may not believe that he deserves to be loved. But for now all that matters is that in spite of your drunken confessions and general foolishness, Spencer is still there for you.
You didn’t scare him away.
The details of how you make it home get lost in a drunken haze, but you make it back in one piece. Spencer ushers you into your bedroom to change into something more comfortable while he sets up the pullout bed in your living room. You may not have a guest room, but at least you have some sort of bed for visitors.
You must be moving much slower than you feel you are, because Spencer has already set up the pullout bed in your living room and begun cooking something by the time you exit your bedroom.
You move to stand behind him, just out of his way but still close enough to watch what he’s doing. He’s making pancakes, fluffy and sweet. They’re from a box mix but in your current state anything will do. You’re shadowing his every move, oblivious to how distracting it actually is. It doesn’t take long for Spencer to decide he’s had enough (not that he doesn’t enjoy the attention). He herds you out of the kitchen and nudges you onto the bed he set up.
“I’m not a child,” you complain. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know, I’m just happy. Please let me do this for you.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head, something he’s never done before but you still aren’t sober enough to analyze, before scurrying off to the kitchen again. In the meantime you scrounge around for the remote so you can pull a movie up to watch. Before you can decide, Spencer returns, this time with a plate stacked with pancakes and a full glass of water. After he set’s it down in front of you, he rushes off to your room to find the spare pajamas that you keep for the times when he stays over too late to take the metro home. Those are always your favorite nights.
You find the perfect movie to watch when movies you’ve already seen are suggested for you to watch again. It’s a documentary, the one you had told Spencer about earlier in the day. You think he’ll love it. You hope he does, at least.
“I picked this for you,” you say as Spencer returns to the room, looking much cozier now than he did before. He sits down on the bed beside you and hits play. As you watch, you eat your pancakes, slowly starting to sober up as you do. It’s amazing how much a little food in your stomach can help.
By the time you finish the pancakes you’re feeling sleepy, the beginnings of a headache not making you any more inclined to move. You don’t understand how Spencer has the energy to get up and deal with the dishes.
“Come back!” You whine. “I miss you!”
“I’m just putting the dishes in the sink,” he says. He leaves them to be dealt with in the morning, when you’re sober and he’s less sleepy. He leaves the important conversations for the morning too, intending to just enjoy the night for what it is.
“You’re missing the movie, I chose it just for you,” you continue to whine.
As soon as he returns you curl up against his side, seeking his warmth and comfort. He instantly wraps an arm around you, drawing soft patterns along your arm. The patterns feel almost like words, like the secret to all things that matter in his life, but you can’t decipher them. You close your eyes to tune out everything else, to learn just what it is that Spencer is sharing. As everything else begins to fade away, you begin to drift to sleep.
—♡—
When you awake it’s to the sound of Spencer breathing and his slow heartbeat that seems to be throbbing in time with your head. It’s too early to get up, you think. So instead of getting ready to start your day, you bury your face into Spencer’s side and attempt to fall back to sleep. Unfortunately, your attempt wasn’t quite as light as it should have been, waking him up in the process.
He stirs slowly, but he doesn’t seem confused. It’s not the first time he’s slept over at your house, after all. Hopefully it won’t be the last. Before he has time to fully wake up, you dart out of the bed, grabbing your phone as you go, and head to the bathroom, locking him out so you don’t have to see his face. So you don’t have to see that everything has changed, or maybe that nothing has.
Loving him last night was easy, you had the excuse of being drunk. But now you need to face that reality and you might not like what comes from it. You busy yourself by brushing your teeth and washing your face, now fully alert. When you check your phone, you see you have several missed messages. They’re mostly from Garcia, which include unfortunate videos of last night’s drunken confession. Then you move briskly to your kitchen, intending to start on cleaning up the mess from last night’s midnight meal, as if cleaning up the evidence could wash away your mistakes. Spencer follows you then, shadowing you the way you had done the night before.
He waits quietly, giving you time to think, to speak. He waits more patiently than you expected him to, than you would have if your roles were switched. Finally, you speak.
“I wish… I wish it had been different. That I could have told you in a better way, a way that’s meaningful. You deserve that much.” You finish drying the last dish before turning around to face him, giving him your undivided attention.
“Would you have ever told me otherwise?” He seems hesitant, eyes glinting with some unidentifiable emotion, something even he can’t identify.
“No, I-I don’t think I would have ever told you. I was afraid of what it would do to me, being rejected by you. I’m not as strong as people think I am. I’m not brave when my heart is on the line.”
“Then I’m glad.” This time he seems more sure, stepping closer as he speaks as if to prove his words are true.
“What?”
“That you told me the way you did. That you told me at all. I’m glad.” He maintains some distance between you, enough to be polite, but it feels like a canyon stands in your way. It contradicts his kind words. “By the way, I think you’re very brave. No one wants to have their heart hurt, but despite the risk you took a chance.”
“It wasn’t really taking a chance, I was drunk.”
“Maybe a little.”
“A little? I was very drunk.”
“I’m still glad,” he says, stepping even closer towards you. When he’s right in front of you he stops, bending down to look you in the eye. He breaks your gaze when he moves to press his lips to your forehead in a sweet kiss. Then he kisses your cheeks, first your left, then your right. He moves on to your nose next, feather light, as he meets your gaze once more, waiting.
“I love you.” You say it quietly but with conviction.
“I love you too,” he says. He’s never been so sure of anything before.
Finally he presses his lips to yours, setting a relaxed but steady pace. His lips are slightly chapped but soft. You could get used to this, kissing him. If you could, you’d never move away. One of his hands moves up to your cheek, warm and mild, keeping you grounded, and you deepen the kiss even further.
When you eventually do pull back he bites your lip, lightly tugging as though he wasn’t ready to part either. You’re both panting slightly as you gaze into his eyes once more.
“You better watch out, Spencer Reid. Now that I’ve finally kissed you, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop,” you state, still a bit out of breath. Just like last night, it feels as though time has slowed, only this time it’s with a clear mind. This time it’s real. Nothing matters now except for the two of you in this moment.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
#the usual disclaimer applies:#made with love not with skill#please be kind ^_^#this is really dialog heavy… whoops#spencer read x reader#spencer reid x you#spencer reid x y/n#spencer reid imagine#spencer reid fanfiction#spencer reid fluff#spencer reid x bau!reader#fics
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Stardust - CHANGMIN
So like. This was the first full scenario I wrote for TBZ and I can’t believe I wrote this before actually even STARTING No Air, but whatever! It was cute! I couldn’t help myself but I didn’t want to post this before No Air so that’s why it’s late
Thank you to @deathbykpopboys for helping me put this scenario together! Honestly I don’t think I’d ever write anything without sunny hhhh she’s always so great with ideas <3
Pairing: Changmin x fem!reader
Genre: fluff, a little angst if you squint, teacher!au
Triggers: alcohol, cursing
Word Count: 2.7k
Changmin sometimes thinks you’re a little too perfect to exist.
TBZ Masterlist | No Air | Touching Stars | Breathe, and Live
Friday nights are always fun, for Changmin. Friday’s the last day of the work week and kind of blends into the weekend, and because he’s a schoolteacher, he (sort of) gets the weekend off. Sure, he might be making lesson plans or writing reports or doing other important, not fun things, but he also has his stolen moments for dance or shopping or things that he doesn’t have time to do during the week. He’s free, more or less.
The last Friday night of each month, though, Changmin enjoys the most, when he, Jacob, and Kevin meet up for cheap food and drinks. And as much as Changmin likes to wreak havoc on the lives of his fellow teachers (mostly by scaring the wits out of them with dolphin screams and horror movie masks), he really does enjoy their presence in his life and appreciates them for it.
They haven’t a missed a night so far, not since that time Jacob was out with the flu and Kevin had a family emergency. And even though Changmin’s definitely done and said some stupid (read: really embarrassing) things while under the influence, the pros of each night always end up outweighing the cons. So if Changmin wakes up the next morning with a hangover, well, that’s just a side effect of having some fun.
But sometimes he has thoughts. Thoughts that he’s repressed so well he might not even register them, but that exist nonetheless. And Changmin, sadly, is a truthful drunk. His thoughts come spilling out of his mouth, mostly unfiltered, whenever he’s had enough to drink.
And this week, Changmin has been having thoughts. Thoughts that he isn’t sure he wants to spill.
If he drinks, they’ll flood out. It’s the way Changmin works – he’s had enough experiences with alcohol and his brain that he knows what will happen. As he stares at the soju bottle on the table, he knows that if he drinks, he’ll probably regret it in the morning. Not necessarily because he’ll remember what he says – his memory tends to get a bit spotty even after a round of light drinking – but because Kevin definitely will.
Normally, Changmin would praise God for Kevin's ability to remember drunk things. Coupled with his inability to lie, it makes for so much potent blackmail. Sure, Kevin makes Changmin and Jacob swear not to talk about anything he said under the influence, but Changmin isn't an angel the way Jacob is. If it came down to it, he'd sell Kevin's secrets for a single corn chip and some entertainment.
(Okay, not really. But the point still stands.)
If he complained about this to people, they’d probably just laugh and say something about how Kevin is a precious pure meme, that he’d never sell out Changmin’s deepest thoughts for anything. After several years of working with him, though, Changmin knows better.
(He’ll just say that sometimes, Mr. Kev Kev isn't the happy-go-lucky meme-y little boy that everyone likes to make him out to be.)
So maybe Changmin shouldn't be drinking tonight. There isn’t necessarily a lot on his mind, but he’s been thinking of things that he doesn't want spilled just yet, and drinking will only make that possibility a reality.
Isn’t that what alcohol is for, though? To make those worries disappear, if only for a short while? The soju beckons at Changmin, even more so when Kevin actually opens the bottle. Eventually, he throws caution to the wind and fills his own glass.
It’s a clear night, mostly. A bit cloudy, but no sign of rain, and there’s a pleasant little breeze that feels cool against his cheeks. Sitting at one of the small tables outside of the restaurant, Changmin loses himself in the food and the conversation.
After an hour, Jacob decides he needs to leave because he’s supposed to meet with his family the next day and can’t get too plastered. Kevin calls him a noob while making a face, but Jacob, being the angel he is, just pats him on the head on his way out. Privately, Changmin thinks Kevin is much more of a noob than Jacob, but the alcohol hasn’t addled his mind enough to say that out loud just yet.
At some point, though, the world becomes pleasantly muddy. Changmin can register what’s going on at a distant level and he probably shouldn’t drink too much more, but he takes a last shot anyway, just as Kevin asks a slightly slurred “How’s life with Y/N?”
A stupid smile stretches across Changmin’s lips. “Kevin, oh my God, she’s perfect.” He grins, the breeze cool against his flushed cheeks. "She’s so beautiful, it doesn't make sense that we exist in the same world."
Kevin mutters something that sounds like "whipped" and "so soft."
Changmin is sure that if he were sober, he would've attacked his fellow teacher by now, but his tipsy haze is too pleasant to interrupt. He just wants to keep talking. "Kevin," he whines. "Pay attention."
"Okay." Face flushed, Kevin puts his chin on his fist. "'M listening."
"Y/N’s so beautiful." Dimly, Changmin is aware that he's just repeating himself, but he can't help it. The point needs emphasis. "Kevin, she’s so amazing. So much more amazing than me. So smart. Did you know Y/N knows like ten programming languages?"
Tipsily, Kevin shakes his head. "What... what's a program."
"Computer shit." Changmin plays idly with his shot glass. "Doesn't matter. So smart, so nice, so... lovely, Kevin. Y/N’s good at everything. She cuts fruit for me when I work late and make me go to sleep. She doesn’t know anything about dance and tries to help anyway. She works so hard and never takes anyone’s shit and she always knows when I need time alone or when I need comfort.” His mouth draws down into a slight frown. “She’s like... she’s like..."
Why is it so hard to come up with something to explain you? Your entire existence defies definition. How can he even find something comparable to the way you sparkle in his eyes?
Ignoring Kevin’s gaze trained on him, Changmin slumps over the table, eyes gazing out at the dark night. A few stars manage to glitter past the clouds and the piercing lights of the Seoul skyline.
Stars. Something tugs at the back of Changmin’s brain. Stars. Sparkly.
An image of your smile pops, unbidden, in his mind. Your bright eyes glimmer. Like stars.
Oh.
Stardust.
Yes, stardust.
You're like stardust, warm and gentle and... magical. Magical to the touch.
"She’s like." Changmin hiccups. "She’s like stardust, Kevin. Stardust. Perfect. Warm.”
A tear trickles down Kevin's cheek. Changmin has exactly two seconds to ready himself in his drunken haze before Kevin launches himself at his purple hoodie, loosely grasping at the soft cloth as he fully encases Changmin within his arms. "Ji Changmin," he sobs, muffled, "that is the most adorable thing I've ever heard you say."
Even sober, Changmin doesn't think he'd know what to say in response to that, so he just stays silent. It's not like Kevin would even hear him over the sound of his overemotional crying.
Anyway, Kevin's hug feels nice. Warm. Changmin doesn't think he needs to speak words at the moment, he's too comfortable. It's not the same as being in your arms, but he'll settle for it now. He burrows a little deeper into his friend's hold.
“You little child, you,” Kevin sobs into his shoulder. “You’re so sweet and small and warm, I can’t believe you exist.”
Changmin doesn’t feel like replying. There’s a bubble of something growing in his chest that he can’t entirely decipher right now, and his brain has focused on that. It’s some sort of emotion, he thinks. It doesn’t feel very pleasant.
His head gets pulled out of Kevin’s arms. He whines a little, annoyed by the lack of warmth, but he doesn’t really have the presence of mind to do anything but sit there limply as Kevin starts shaking him back and forth, still wailing about how “adorable his little Ji Changminnie is.”
The bubble keeps growing as Kevin keeps shaking him. It doesn’t feel like vomit – Changmin knows that sensation a bit too well – but it makes him feel a little sick. A little upset. The bubble feels suffocating, cold, but it also burns.
Not vomit. He doesn’t feel nauseous. But still unpleasant.
Kevin goes back to hugging Changmin into his chest, which soothes the bubble a little bit. The soft warmth of Kevin’s sweater smooths the burning and takes away the edge of the cold. But the bubble still stays as Changmin rocks back and forth in his friend’s hold, blankly trying to decipher the stupid emotion growing in his heart.
“There’s a bubble.” The words slip out of his mouth just past Kevin’s ear. “There’s a bubble in my chest.”
“Bubble?” Kevin pulls back slightly, flushed face confused. “What bubble?”
Changmin vaguely gestures at his chest as best he can with Kevin’s arms partially trapping his hands. “Here. Doesn’t feel good.”
Kevin’s eyes squint. “Need to vomit?”
“Nooooo,” Changmin whines. “Kevin, it’s a bubble.” He pauses. “Think it’s an emotion.”
He hears Kevin suck in a breath. “I can’t believe my precious little Scorpio child is finally feeling emotions,” the older boy says in a stage whisper, loud enough for at least the next two tables to hear. Changmin has enough presence of mind to slap him. “Hey!”
“It hurts.” Changmin’s lips pout deeper. “I don’t like it.”
“Aww, no, baby.” Kevin pats his head – a little too hard, but Changmin can deal with that. “Why does it hurt? What emotion is it?”
Changmin racks his brains for the word. It’s not a good feeling, so he tries to eliminate the good words as they pass through his mind. Not pleasant. Definitely not happy. Not calm, either.
Sadness? Maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not specific enough. Anger? Not really.
Fear?
Changmin isn’t scared of many things. He loves horror movies and thinks possessed dolls are cute, and it’s hard for anyone to really startle him. Fear is not an emotion that regularly appears in his repertoire.
But this time…
“I’m scared.” The two words slip out of his mouth, quiet, lonely. “’M scared, Kevin.”
Kevin pulls back again. “Changmin, you’re never scared.”
“I am now.” He purses his lips petulantly.
“Why?”
Unconsciously, the corners of his lips turn down even further into a blank pout. "Sometimes I think Y/N’s gonna leave. Slip through my fingers."
Even tipsy, Changmin can tell there are more tears welling up in Kevin's eyes. "But… you love each other?"
"Y/N’s stardust." Changmin's pout deepens. "Too perfect. She’s gonna realize that, that I'm not... I'm not good enough but she’s too nice to say that so she’ll just slip away." He hiccups again, feeling his cheeks burn with drink, fluttering his fingers loosely to make sure Kevin gets the point. "Like stardust."
Kevin remains silent for one, two, three seconds. Changmin takes that time to drain the last little bit of soju left in his cup.
Then Kevin nearly knocks the cup out of his hand when he literally grabs Changmin and forces him to curl up into his sweater, nose buried in the soft folds of cloth. “You beautiful, pure little child, you,” he coos, patting Changmin’s head (still a little too hard, but Changmin really doesn’t feel the need to deal with it right now). “You small little child. You poor, small child. Y/N is so in love with you, there’s no way she’ll ever leave.”
“Stardust,” Changmin reminds Kevin, words muffled into his sweater.
“Stardust,” Kevin agrees. “But good stardust. Gonna stay with you. Never going to leave.”
Changmin doesn’t remember much of what happens after that. He knows that they eventually pay for everything and Kevin’s partner picks them up (well, they were the one who was supposed to pick the two of them up. He doesn’t actually register the driver’s face, but Changmin hears Kevin calling them “love muffin, better than Beyonce,” so it’s probably them. He refuses to acknowledge any alternatives), but he’s too drunk and too tired to process anything else.
Somehow, he wakes up the next day curled up in his bed, forehead threatening to split from the dull pain. Mentally, he thanks himself for closing the shades before he passed out last night (or was it morning? He isn’t completely sure when he got home) so that the sunlight isn’t adding to his headache.
Get up, Changmin, he tells himself, summoning the strength to swing his legs out of bed. Step by step, he exits his room and slowly brushes his teeth before heading toward the kitchen for a bottle of water or something to get rid of the pounding in his head.
Changmin’s so out of it that he doesn’t register the smell of something cooking wafting out of the kitchen before he’s almost in it. He finally stops, confused, just in time to see your head poke out from the kitchen entrance.
For a second, Changmin just stares at you, brain buffering as he tries to come up with a suitable greeting in his hungover state. There’s this look on your face that Changmin’s muddled mind can’t seem to decipher.
Oh, God.
You look like you’re about to cry.
He panics. What did he do wrong? Did he say something bad last night? He can’t remember anything – how badly did he screw up, what the hell did he do –
Then you leap at him, much the same way Kevin did last night, and bury your face into his shoulder.
“Ji Changmin,” you say, words muffled into his rumpled shirt, “I love you so much.”
Changmin’s mouth can only come up with a confused “huh?”
You pull back, eyes shining with tears, but mouth stretched into a beautiful, beautiful smile. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember what you told Kevin last night,” you say teasingly, though there’s a hint of uncertainty in your gaze.
Slowly, slowly, the events of last night begin to piece themselves together in Changmin’s brain. Every single stupid word he said to Kevin in his drunken stupor comes flooding back in one massive, jumbled mess.
He blushes.
“Ji Changmin.” You cup his puffy, red cheeks between your hands, voice trembling. “Listen to me. I’m not leaving. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to slip through your fingers and, fucking, I don’t know, fly away. Because I am not perfect, I am not stardust, but god, I – you’re perfect for me. You are good enough for me, more than good enough for me. You are perfect, and I’m staying here forever. You’re not going to be able to get rid of me. Understood?”
“But –”
“Understood?”
Changmin stares into your shining eyes. Even with you standing right here, hands cradling his face with the gentlest touch, he can’t quite believe you’re real and not just some beautiful figment of his imagination. Slowly, slowly, one of his hands rises to touch the fingers resting against his cheek. Just to make sure this isn’t a dream.
Solid. Warm.
Not a dream.
This is real.
He nods dumbly, a stupid smile spreading across his face. “Okay.”
You crush him close again and this time, Changmin’s arms automatically move to wrap around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest. He can feel a few tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt as you hold him tight, so tight, and he smiles, one hand coming up to pat your back.
You’re here. You’re here, alive, solid, real. He can feel your warmth against his body, feel your hair tickling his skin.
You may be ethereal. You may be something completely out of this world, beautiful, divine. You may be sparkling, glimmering, brilliant in the morning sunlight. You may be made of stardust, something too perfect (he’ll fight you on that) to exist on earth.
But now, with you wrapped warmly in his arms, Changmin realizes that even though you may be stardust, that doesn’t mean you’re going anywhere.
A tear slips out of his eye as he smiles.
If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3
(1 reblog = 1 cheek pinch for changmin idk why I just think that’d be fun <3)
#tbznetwork#destinyversenet#kpopscape#the boyz#tbz#the boyz scenarios#the boyz imagines#the boyz oneshots#tbz scenarios#the boyz q scenarios#the boyz changmin scenarios#the boyz q#the boyz changmin#tbz q#tbz changmin scenarios#tbz q scenarios#tbz changmin#changmin#ji changmin#the boyz x reader#ji changmin x reader#fluff#slight angst#tw cursing#tw alcohol#teacher!au#breathe and live#touching stars#stardust#scriptura-delirus
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Dawn Breaks
I have temporarily jumped ships because I fell in love with Colin and Penelope! I wrote a little something that is *gasp!* not Newtina. Should I write more of these two?
(Rated T for some kisses and skin)
___________________________________________________________
The first rays of morning light began to light the room and, unused to the dawn breaking through the curtains that she must have forgotten to close last night, Penelope blinked awake. She knew it must have been very early, and her thoughts were still clouded with the haze of sleep. Her body was tired, almost aching. She took a deep breath, intending to roll over and try to doze for a few more hours until her ladies’ maid came to wake her. Sleep sounded heavenly, indeed.
Her legs stretched out beneath the soft sheets, and it was then that she realized something felt different. The texture of the sheets, the softness of the featherdown mattress, the angle of the early morning sun cascading in through the window… She opened her eyes and her sleepy thoughts aligned almost immediately, jolting her awake. She was Penelope Bridgerton now. She had been married yesterday.
Colin laid at her side.
This was her life, but part of her still wondered if this was all a wonderful dream.
After years of loving him, after years of pining and waiting, dances of pity and obligation, standing to the side while every young woman of her age was married off... here she was. Colin Bridgerton had chosen her for his wife.
The part of her that still lingered inside, that child of sixteen who loved unconditionally without understanding what love was, wanted to pinch herself to make sure this was real. Penelope grinned to herself. This was very real. The past month had been real. Last night had certainly been real.
His hair was wild from sleep, it settled across his forehead boyishly and unstyled. His lashes were long and fanned across his still tanned cheeks as he slept. His lips were slightly parted and he breathed deeply, evenly as he slept. As Penelope’s eyes traveled down his form she realized that, while she had decided to don one of her delicate, ivory nightgowns from her trousseau chest before climbing into bed in the early hours of the morning, Colin had fallen asleep as he was following their wedding night activities. The white sheet had fallen to his waist, and she was privy to a very lovely view of his shoulders and back.
Her emotions began to overwhelm her as she took in the sight before her. She had never awoken next to someone before, and the fact that the person she was waking up next to was Colin was mind-boggling. Throughout their short engagement, she had been looking forward to the wedding night, for being in their own home, and loving each other openly without any barriers or worry.
If their first time together had been about their declaration of love for each other, last night had been about pure pleasure. They had not held back. Penelope, inexperienced as she was, had been curious and determined to give back to her husband every pleasure he had given to her. It had been a wonderful and memorable night. Both newlyweds had fallen into bed spent and giddy with happiness.
She could feel the tightness of her muscles, their pleasant ache after the exertions of the previous night. Stretching again, Penelope rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. She smiled widely, still not fully believing that her life was reality. How, after so many years, did she end up here? The love she had for the man sleeping at her side overwhelmed her and she felt tears pick at the corners of her eyes. He may not be the perfect man she had dreamed of throughout the past eleven years, the Lord knew that she had seen many sides of him that she hadn’t known existed in the past several weeks, but it made him even more desirable to her. His perfection had always been overwhelming to her, but suddenly he was entirely human. He was troubled and conflicted, a bit spoiled, and had a fierce temper that ran under the surface, hidden away. He was a wonderful puzzle and, while their short engagement held many trials that had upended their emotions and caused tension, the moments in between had drawn her in.
She thought she fell in love with Colin when she was days away from turning sixteen. She learned what love truly was in the past month since Colin had reentered her life as a close friend. It was as if they had been given a new start, and in her heart, she knew that things had happened just as they were supposed to. They both drifted alone for so long, longing for the fulfillment that could be found in each other, a home together, the family they would become. They were truly lucky.
Penelope felt a tear roll down her cheekbone and into the soft hairs just above her ear. A soft whisper of fabric caught her attention and she looked over at Colin. His eyes were open and he was watching her beneath sleep-heavy lids.
“Hello,” he whispered softly, the corners of his mouth quirking into a lazy smile. His eyes blinked slowly as he watched her and he took a deep breath in and released it slowly. Penelope turned her head toward her new husband.
“Good morning,” she whispered back, rolling to her side and tucking a hand under her pillow. The movement caused the white, cotton sheet to fall away from her shoulder, exposing the delicate tie that held the garment on her body. Colin reached over slowly to tug the fabric back into place, but he did not remove his hand. His thumb caressed the small sliver of skin that was left exposed, sending shivers through her body. It was that sense of intimacy and familiarity that she was beginning to grow accustomed to. Whispered words, small touches, and fleeting glances, each reaffirming her decision to call this man hers and hers alone.
His green eyes were admiring her now, sleep had fallen away from his face and she only found contentment in his gaze. “It’s early, my dearest,” he said to her in a soft voice, “why are you awake at this hour?” He continued his ministrations and gooseflesh spread over her arm as her body responded to the slight tickling sensation.
“We forgot to close the curtains last night,” Penelope replied with a grin. Colin chuckled and his wide smile matched hers once he caught her double meaning.
“I wasn’t thinking of the curtains last night, I can assure you. I was rather…”
“-Distracted?” she offered cheekily, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks.
“Mmm...yes. That sounds accurate,” he quipped as he pushed himself up onto his elbows and slid over so that they were face to face, only inches apart. His hand that had been on her shoulder now found the curve of her cheek. His thumb ran over the fading tear track above her cheekbone and he leaned down for a kiss. Softly, tenderly his lips touched her own. It was far from the searing kisses they had shared the night before. This was an expression of happiness and contentment. She could feel the heat of his skin as his chest brushed her own, the thin layers of cotton and satin the only barriers between them. He pulled away slowly, gazing down at her with a smile. “I suppose I don’t mind waking early, at least this time.” Colin settled himself down to the mattress once more, his head falling ungracefully to lay on Penelope’s pillow, his forehead nearly touching her own.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” she replied. She lifted her arm to loosely wrap around his waist, holding his body lightly against her own.
“No harm done,” Colin leaned forward, the tip of his nose just barely touching hers, “this way I get a few more hours with my beautiful new wife before I have to share her with the world.”
Penelope felt her smile widen. Her heart fluttered as she tightened her hold on him slightly. The shift in her face caused a forgotten tear to fall down her cheek.
“Are you crying?” Colin asked, his playful mood shifting to concern as he leaned away slightly to observe her. He thumbed away the errant tear before running his fingers through the soft hairs at her temple. Shaking her head softly, Penelope leaned forward slightly so that they were face to face once more.
“No, not really,” she whispered. “I’m just a little overwhelmed this morning.” Her fingers trailed up Colin’s spine, her cold fingertips a contrast to his heated skin. She watched him close his eyes in response, not fully believing she could have this effect on him. “I woke up and I was...well,” she inhaled, the scent of vanilla and soap with a hint of musk surrounded her. She closed her eyes, collecting her words into a coherent idea before opening them to meet her husband’s concerned gaze. “I couldn’t believe that after so many years of wanting you, that you are here. I woke up next to you, you married me. I—I still feel like I’m dreaming and that I could wake up at any moment.”
Colin shook his head as he pulled away to look at Penelope’s face. “I was an idiot for not seeing you for who you were all those years…”
“That��s not what I’m saying,” she interrupted. “What I’m trying to say is that...I have yearned for this moment for half of my life, but... I am thankful that we came together when we did. Life never felt complete for either of us,” she reached up to slide her fingers into his thick, chestnut hair, “but we needed those years to find ourselves before we could find each other. As lonely as we have been, I’m glad to have you now.”
“It doesn’t mean that I don’t constantly wish I had realized that you were who I was meant to be with a decade ago.”
“Well,” she began, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him to lean over her, “how about instead of worrying about the past decade we concentrate on the decade ahead?” Colin, hummed in agreement, his eyes closing as her fingernails raked over his scalp softly. He leaned down to kiss her. This kiss was more pressure and feeling; his lips slid over hers in what was beginning to become a practiced dance. He captured her bottom lip between his own and his fingers began to work the knot on the shoulder of her dressing gown. As the thin strips of fabric gave way, her lips parted in a silent gasp.
“Can the next decade start right now?” Colin mumbled into her jawline as his lips trailed across her cheek and to the creamy column of her neck. Penelope’s eyes closed as she lost herself in the sensations.
“Oh, yes. Please,” she replied breathily. Colin chuckled into her skin in response as he began working the satin bow on her opposite shoulder.
“Excellent,” he replied as the second knot gave way. Some things, he thought, were worth waking up early.
The early morning sun continued to stream in the window of their bedroom as the light grew in the east over Bedford Square. The curtains were entirely forgotten once again by the room’s occupants.
#polin#colin x penelope#bridgerton#bridgerton fanfiction#bridgerton fanfic#colin bridgerton#penelope featherington#newlyweds#honeymoon#morning after
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Coffee
Colin Bridgerton x Reader
Inspired from this ask that I was sent when I was having a bad day (x)
Summary: Colin visits your cafe every day, until he doesn't. He finally returns with a charming smile and gifts.
Rating: General
Word count: 1,830
Warnings: fluffy fluff, no beta, probably grammatical errors because I wrote the majority of this on my phone, or in my very cold 'study' space on my laptop and I think my fingers may just fall off.
It’s been two weeks since you last saw Colin at the coffee shop and you were quite ashamed to admit that every time the door chimed around 10am your heart fluttered in hope that it was him. But it wasn’t him. It was never him.
At first you wondered if he had decided not to visit the dainty little cafe you managed, that he’d fallen back into the hands of the big money making coffee places. Then you began to think irrationally, wondering if he’d been hit by a bus. Then, as the days grew longer and your heart ached more, you thought maybe Colin just wasn’t that in to you.
The first time you met Colin he had stumbled into the empty cafe about two minutes after the heavens opened and the rain began to hammer the streets. The cafe was empty, you’d had your normal morning rush of customers, and then it usually stilled until maybe lunch time.
But in stumbled Colin, his hair drenched and his shoulders splattered with rain drops, his breathing heavy and his mouth wide trying to regain his breath.
“Oh are you closed?” He asked, his eyes looking around at the empty tables.
“No,” you smiled politely, slipping off your stool behind the counter and heading to the till, “would you like anything?” you asked in an attempt to keep the drenched man inside, hoping that propriety would dictate him to stay instead of venture out into the rain.
Then he smiled, his smile wide and charming, it sent a flutter through your body and you then became quite anxious that your skin was now flush. You watched him in silence as he walked towards you, his head tiping up to look at the menu.
“Just a latte please,” he said as his head dropped and his eyes met yours once again, his lips now curved into a delightful smile. You froze for a second, but it felt like forever, before jumping in your skin slightly and turning to the coffee machine.
After you gave him the latte he stayed at the counter. He didn’t go to a table in the corner and stared diligently out the window waiting for the rain to at least ease so he could move from the awkwardly quiet cafe, he stayed. And you talked.
After that day Colin came in every day at 10am, like clockwork. He knew you’d be quiet, or at least the customer level manageable, and he sat by the counter and you talked. He ate whatever freshly baked cake or muffin you had on sale and then took a sandwich to go as soon as the lunch rush began to trickle in.
You had always wondered what he did that meant he could easily spare two hours of his day sitting and talking, but you never asked, it seemed oddly personal and slightly judgemental.
And then every Saturday he would come around closing, buying whatever pastry and cake that you had left over that would only go into the bin. It was an odd gesture, but you believed him when he assured you that he would eat most of it and any left overs would be devoured by his siblings.
But then he stopped coming. Without a mention to you, he stopped. And it hurt. It hurt like hell. Like your heart had been ripped from your chest and nothing else could fill the gap. There was nothing between you, but surely a man who spent at least 2 hours of his day 6 days a week to sit and talk and spend his money, cared about you? Thought you as friends. But it was obviously all a fantasy you made up in your head? Surely? People didn’t find love with their customers, he was just being nice and maybe he just liked the food.
It still didn’t take away from the empty feeling that sat on your chest every day, constantly gnawing at you and making you feel lost. It didn’t stop you dreaming of him when you slept. And it certainly didn't stop you looking with hope when the door opened every morning, hoping that the brunette would come through the door flashing his smile.
Finally, you gave up. After two weeks you had given up. Your childish dreams of a future with the man who fell in love with you over a cup of coffee was gone. Two weeks was too long to pine over someone whom you really didn't know, other than the fact he had an odd affection to coffee and could eat anything you put in front of him.
You crouched behind the counter, clipboard in hand, counting your stock. Ready to put in your order so it would hopefully arrive by Monday morning. The little bell by the door rung.
"Sorry, we're closed." You shouted over the counter, not bothering to stand up because you were sure you changed the sign on the door. You didn't hear the bell ring again.
A slight panic began to fill through your body, you had feared this happening ever since you took over the cafe and closed by yourself. You hadn't locked the door, you never did until you got the till out to cash up, sometimes deliveries stopped by or friends. It was always a pain to drop what you were doing and let them in. So you never locked it. Usually someone announced themselves, but this time they didn't and the panic rushed through you like a wave crashing on the shore.
"I'm sorry, we're closed." You said again through a shaken breath, hoping that your fear couldn't be heard. When you didn't hear the bell go again, you took a deep breath and stood, ready to face your worst nightmare, wishing that your phone wasn't sitting on the counter out of reach, or that the owner had installed a panic button. Your hands gripped around your clipboard, your knuckles white as your fingers dug into the wood.
"Colin." You gasped, the clipboard falling from your hands and clattering against the floor, narrowly missing your foot.
"Hi," he smiled that charming smile that always filled your stomach with butterflies, that made all fear and worry disappear.
You wanted to scream at him, to pick up the clipboard and smack his arm with it, to ask him where had he been these last two weeks. But you couldn't, you had no right to. Instead you pulled on your best known customer service smile and spoke, "long time no see."
Colin dipped his head before scratching at his jaw and letting out a slight chuckle, and it was the first time you noticed that the brunette had a slight tan, freckles were apparent on his face and his hair had golden streaks that had turned from the sun. He went on holiday. Surely you would tell someone you spend a lot of time with that you were going on holiday?
"I went to Greece," he said, answering your silent questions. He lifted a gift bag filled with tissue paper and placed it on the counter, "I got these for you." he added, his eyes scanning yours trying to figure out your emotions.
If your stomach could turn itself inside out, you were sure it would be doing it right now. You stared at the gift bag, the floral pattern climbed up the material and blended seamlessly into the tissue paper that hid the content of the bag from you.
"You didn't have to..." You whispered, slightly scared to reach for the bag. Colin pushed it closer.
"It's the least I could do considering I forgot to tell you I was going," he added, your eyes instantly flickered from the bag to his, your mouth slightly agape. It was like he was reading your mind, answering all your questions. Maybe, just maybe, Colin did care. "Go on, have a look," Colin bit down on his lip and you could see the way his Adams apple bobbed slightly as he gulped, nerves running through him.
You pulled the bag towards you, the sound of the bag rubbing against the counter the only noise between you two. Opening it, you delicately pulled the first layer of tissue paper from the bag and placed it carefully on the side. The bag was wracked with things. First you pulled out a bag of greek coffee beans, followed by a small box that seemed to hold a dainty espresso type cup, covered in an intricate design. Looking up at Colin your eyes filled with tears, you had never received such an amount of gifts from even your best of friends, or your family. But Colin had. When you looked at him his eyes were wide, his lips slightly parted, waiting to see if he did good, if he picked the right things.
"You didn't have to..." you whispered again, shaking your head slightly at the sheer amount of items that sat inside the bag. You continued to pull items out, a tin of baclava, some chocolate, a small bottle of ouzo and finally a plaited leather bracelet.
"Colin..." you looked up and shook your head at him, mostly in disbelief that he had got you all of this. Part of you wondered what gifts he brought bag for his family, did he have to buy extra luggage allowance?
"Do you like it?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck in worry.
"I-" you breathed in disbleif, looking back at the items that were not placed orderly on the counter, "I love it." you added, your eyes still glazed with tears as you looked up at him with the widest smile on your face. Finally, Colin smiled again. And although it was still charming, there was more, it was filled with relief and happiness, and there was something else in the way he looked at you that made your heart flutter and your stomach twist.
"Y/N," he swallowed, his smile fading into a delicate turn of his lips, "Do you want to go to dinner, with me, tonight?" he asked, the anxiety running over his face once again.
When the question left Colin's lips you froze, your mind a complete haze and your eyes blurry with the tears of pure happiness from the encounter. With your heart pounding against your chest you opened your mouth to speak, but the words didn't come out. A giddiness had taken over your body, it was if just looking at the bottle of ouzo had made you drunk.
"Of course!" you began to laugh, and Colin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and maybe also fear.
"Colin Bridgerton," you said as you caught your breath, looking at him with a steady face and glimmering eyes, "I would love to go for dinner with you." and he smiled again, and this time you were quite sure that if he smiled at you once more he would have your heart and soul forever.
#colin bridgerton#bridgerton#Bridgerton fanfic#bridgerton fanficton#colin x reader#couldn't not write a coffee shop au could I????
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I Don’t Need You (Geralt of Rivia x Reader)
Characters: Geralt of Rivia
Fandom: The Witcher
Tags: Reader Insert, Gender Neutral Reader, Angst
Warnings: Swearing, sad
Word Count: 1,1k words
Requested by @the-mechanical-angel: Hello dear! I'm so glad you're back! Now I would like to see what to will do with this: headcanon reaction of Gerald and the Fwarrior (yes, a sequel of the one I requested you) when they meet again in a tavern after she recovers, she's still hurt about his behavior and when he asks her to join him in another mission she declines coldly, telling him that he made clear that he doesn't need her and after telling him good luck she leaves him alone at the table. I love your additions to the fandom 🥰
A/N: Sequel to the headcanon I wrote here ;)
A/N2: It had been a while since I wrote pure angst! The other request was more from Geralt’s POV, and this from reader’s. There’s not a whole lot of dialogue on this one, but I kind of like how it turned out anyway. Hope you like it!!
Recovery was a slow and arduous progress, and Geralt didn’t make it any easier for you. Ridden with guilt, he stuck by your side. He insisted on looking after you to make amends for pushing you away and ultimately being responsible for your injury. Contrary to what he was trying to achieve, he was smothering you. It only made you feel more helpless. In any case, having him around after your argument was the last thing you wanted.
Needing to get away from him, you sneaked out while he was gone to gather supplies. While he rode on Roach, you left town. You hid yourself in a tavern, far enough from him without exhausting yourself in your injured state. Then your loneliness’ company made you thoughtful.
You still vividly remembered what happened, even through the passing of time (only two days had passed, yet they felt like weeks) and the haze of your injury induced fever. Your skin still felt warm, and it only seemed to burn more intensely at the thought of that moment.
Geralt had said you were getting in his way, even if you had only complained that he was being controlling and treating you like a child. You were strong and capable, yet he made you feel useless and defenseless. His arguments of his monster knowledge would never leave your mind, as he made sure of it with his shouting. On top of all, you couldn’t help but to resent him further after the very creature he was supposed to hunt got you. After it nearly killed you because he pushed you away. Because he insisted you weren’t strong enough to face it, until you believed him.
And now there you were, clutching your fresh wound, that still ached even as it healed. That still reminded of how painful that moment between you and Geralt was, perhaps even more so than the injury itself.
You shook your head, bringing the cup you held to your lips and taking a big swig of ale. It tasted bitter against your tongue, and somehow it was nothing compared to the biterness that had settled in your throat and your heart ever since you awoke.
Even after so many hours and through the haze of fever, you still remember Geralt’s concerned expression when your eyes fluttered open. The way his brows arched and his golden eyes shone with regret and fear. Fear of losing you.
Had he said anything right then, you might have forgiven him. Had he told you how worried he was, how sorry and scared... you might have tried to forget what happened. But he didn’t.
Had he been tender, attentive and patient during your convalescence, you might have changed your mind. Had he behaved differently, you might have too. But he didn’t.
Instead, Geralt showed you a sarcastic smile and muttered something of the likes of ‘I can’t believe you would do something so stupid, you barely made it’. As he stood by your side day and night, even when the healer came back to check on you, it was too much for you. You were feeling weak and helpless again.
So there you were now, away from him. You couldn’t handle his demeanor any longer. It was too much that he refused to admit he was terrified of losing you, of admiting that he had been wrong. His pride was too great for him to admit his mistake and instead was sarcastic and demeaning. For the last time.
“Y/N” Geralt’s voice startled you slightly. You hadn’t hear him approach you, and he seemed to come out of nowhere.
He had found you again, and seemed determined to know what you were doing. Perhaps this was due to his concern, but it felt controling and smothered you.
“What are you doing here?” You said, continuing to drink and without bothering to dedicate him a simple glance.
“You still look like shit, but at least you look better” Was his ridiculous attempt.
Trying to be patient, you heaved a sigh. Maybe he was making an effort. Perhaps you would give him a last chance to fix things. Mend the harm he had done.
“Charming as usual, Geralt” You rolled your eyes. “If you have anything to say, just say it, otherwise fuck off, will you?”
“Looks like you’re almost healed” Still not moving to force eye contact, the witcher stayed next to you, towering over you sitting. His hand accidentally brushed against the back of your shoulder as he paused for a moment. “And I’m off to Vizima”
“So?”
“Are you gonna stay here?”
You finally looked up at him. The mild darkness on the tavern shadowed his features, causing his eyes shine like a cat’s. There were no emotions in them, neutral as usual.
“It depends” You slowly stood up, watching him carefully. “Got something for me?”
Geralt frowned, seemingly understanding what you meant. ‘This is your chance, Geralt’, your gaze told him, ‘your last chance’. An apology would suffice. The word ‘sorry’ was not required. There were many ways to apologize and make amends. His would certainly be different, but you would take it still.
The witcher considered it. His eyes analyzed you, seizing you up as yours were him. Ultimately, he clenched his jaw and averted his gaze. Your heart seemed to break at the sight, and all of your wounds throbbed. Both internal and external.
“I have nothing to say to you” When his eyes landed back on you, he tilted his chin up slightly. “Except come with me”
“No” You said, calmly sitting back down.
“No?”
“You heard me”
“Why?”
You clutched the cup in your hand, feeling your nails sinking into its surface. A sudden urge overwhelmed you, but you repressed it before you could angrily slam it against the table and start shouting at him.
He had made his choice. He wouldn’t change. He wouldn’t admit his mistake.
You wouldn’t budge. You wouldn’t let him hurt you anymore. You would stay.
“You made it very clear, you don’t need me” You refused to glance at him again. “And I don’t need you”
The murmur of the tavern was defeaning. His silence was somehow louder. You didn’t turn towards him, but you felt him stiffen up beside you. A part of you wanted him to finally say something. To at least ask you to be more patient with him. To say something, anything!
He didn’t.
Geralt suddenly turned around and faced his back to you, so quickly and angrily that you jolted up slightly. Without a further word, the witcher walked away. He left the tavern, and with it you.
Tears gathered in your eyes, but you shook your head to shake them off. As much as the pain in your chest overpowered your wound, you didn’t move. You didn’t go after him. He was done being so stubborn and making you feel like that. You let him go as did you let your tears go, dripping into your ale and being lost there forever.
Tag list: @call-me-harley-quinn / @kingniazx / @greeniemoon / @they-call-me-thewildrose / @aviankin / @jasper-the-stan / @v3nusc3 / @kisabellar / @breezyfails / @squirrel-saloli / @saveatruckrideoptimusprime / @ultracolorfulnerdcollection / @creativemayhems / @bands-messed-me-up / @pantrashtic / @buckyness-intensifies / @drunkonbuckybarnes / @kkcline123 / @designfailure56 / @this-is-whump-dammit / @anderfelll-s / @x-joie-x / @waitingtobeimpressed / @legallyblindgamer727 / @kylosdankdealer / @angelias134 / @team-wang-puppy / @btsxtrbl / @szhead31 / @alwayshave-faith // If you want to be added or taken off the tag list for these fandoms or characters, let me know!! // Reblogs and comments are appreciated!
#rfi writings#ficlet#geralt x reader#geralt of rivia x reader#the witcher#the witcher ficlet#witcher#witcher ficlet#geralt#geralt of rivia#geralt ficlet#geralt of rivia ficlet#reader insert#requested
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Hollow Grave | Dean Winchester
M A S T E R L I S T
Supernatural Masterlist
smut (v sad though)
requests info
listened to ‘dumbledore’s farewell’ by nicholas hooper when I wrote this. just btw xx
The sun had set hours ago but the tears were still wet on your cheeks. The aching in your chest hadn’t lessened, you feared it never would. Your fingers curled around the steering wheel of the pickup truck you hot wired in your frantic attempt to leave the Bunker. Your hair was wet from the rain which battered down on the roof of the truck. The strands stuck to your face and neck as you cried, you couldn’t see through the tears or rain but you didn’t care- you needed to go. Dean didn’t- there’s no way he did what he said he did. Panic settles deep into you, if he did it then not only did he lie but he is exactly what you feared he was. A man who sees nothing more than what’s in front of him, that things in this world are as easy as black and white. Wendy is fine- she’s in North Carolina. That’s the last place a postcard was sent from, she’s okay... Dean didn’t. He just didn’t. Tears fly down your cheeks as you speed down the road going much faster than is safe for how heavily it’s raining.
Dean stood with his back to the door, you and Wendy stood in front of him. “Y/N you need to let me do this.” Dean says, his eyes hard and his jaw clenched as he eyed the two of you. You stood protectively in front of your little sister, a pleading look of pure panic strewn on your face. “She’s not a monster baby please you don’t have to hurt her. She steals blood from the morgues and hospitals.” You try to keep your tone sharp and hands steady but the fear coursing through you overrides anything else. Dean still holds the gun pointed firmly in your direction, but you know he’d never pull the trigger with you standing in the way. “Dean if you hurt her I will never forgive you. She’s all I have left.” You plead, the tears in your eyes threatening to fall. When Dean lowers his gun Wendy makes a beeline for the motel room door, not even throwing a fearful glance in Dean’s direction.
He didn’t hurt her, but he didn’t promise not to eventually. You feel nearly lightheaded as you frantically drive to the address Dean gave you. He didn’t look up as he did so, a somber expression laid over his face. Not happening. This isn’t happening. You love Dean but how could you ever look at him the same if he hurt her? If he killed Wendy? You don’t want to believe for a second that your faith in Dean was misplaced. You pull into the parking lot, barely making sure the truck was in park before you were throwing open the door and rushing into the forest. You glanced around for the trail start marker before sprinting down it, the rain chilling you to the bone. The water soaks through your clothes but you don’t notice as you keep an eye out for the tree with a yellow scarf tied around the trunk. Dean knows how much Wendy means to you, he knows that if you were to lose her then you would lose yourself. “No,” The word falls past your lips like a broken promise when you catch sight of the yellow scarf. Your feet move on autopilot as you collapse to your knees at the trees base. You begin to scoop up the ground with your hands, desperately clawing at the dirt as tears blur your eyes once again.
The Bunker was quiet, save for the steady ticking of the clock in the Library. Dean sat across from you, stubble lining his jaw and a tired haze in his eyes. Your socked feet stretched across the distance under the table to rest on his lap, and you felt his thumb rubbing circles onto your inner calf. He had a book in his hands but you could tell he wasn’t really reading it. “Where did Wendy end up?” His voice was ragged, it matched his appearance. You eyed him suspiciously, but saw no hidden motive in his eyes. “One of the Carolina’s.” You tell him, flipping another page of the book you were pretending to read. Dean turned his attention back to the book in his hands, but the hollow look in his eyes worried you. “Baby, are you okay?” You asked knowing it was more like that he would lie to you. His eyes turn up to meet yours and expression on his face has all the answers you need. “Been worse.” He quirked the corner of his mouth up, but that glimmer in his eyes never sparkled as he smiled at you.
You’re frantic as you dig away at the ground, the tears in your eyes making it hard for you to see what you’re doing. When your hand hits something you curl your fingers around it before yanking an arm out of the ground. “No, no please-” You gasp as you continue to pull the body out of the sodden Earth. Eventually you get another arm free and soon you’re yanking the body up by the shoulders. A scream erupts from your dry throat as you make eye contact with your little sister, her blue eyes glazed and empty. Dead. “Wendy! God please not Wendy.” Your tears are thick as you sob, clutching her to your chest. Her body is heavy like dead weight in your arms as you cry out. The pain overwhelms you. It consumes you and for a second you’re worried it’s going to swallow you whole. Dean- Dean. You feel anger first, the betrayal making your skin itch. Then the pain comes rolling in waves, each time drowning you more than the last. You gather Wendy in your arms, the pain turning into a boiling rage with each step. You trusted Dean, you love Dean. He killed Wendy.
As the weeks went on there was no further mention of Wendy from Dean, which you were grateful for. Every once in a while you’d receive a post card from her, a way for her to let you know that she’s okay. “Got another.” Dean said as he tosses the card down onto the table in front of you. His expression was sullen as he knelt to kiss your head. With a firm hold on your chin Dean tilted your head to press a searing kiss to your lips which you responded to with fervor. “Baby?” you questioned when he pulled away, his hand digging into your hair to drag your lips back onto his. Dean reached for you frantically, a desperation twitching underneath his palms as he lifted you around his waist. Your lips met his once again as his hands gripped your hips with a bruising force. You’re not sure where this sudden desperation came from but you know whatever demons he’s battling in his head- he needs you to chase them away. Which you gladly will. Dean’s hand slid up your bare thigh to graze his fingers over the soaked crotch of your sleep shorts.
There are no words spoken as he presses your back to the wall of the Library hard, his lips are still pressing to yours. You can feel the tension like an aura radiating off his body as his hands fumble to yank his belt loose. There is a quickness to this that makes you feel as though you’re running out of time. “Dean what’s going on?” Your voice is hoarse between the kisses and his hand has slid into your shorts. His eyebrows are pinched together, as though he’s trying to bury a painful memory. “Need you.” His sentence is simple, and while those are words you’ve heard him say before you can’t recall the last time they sounded so empty. It’s like he needs you because he has nothing else, or because he knows something you don’t. You feel like he’s saying goodbye- you want to understand. Dean’s fingers pull your panties aside and you feel the head of his cock nudging into your opening. His face is buried into your neck, breathing in deeply when he pushes all the way in. His cock immediately goes balls deep and you can’t control the strangled moan as it falls past your lips.
Dean’s lips find yours as he begins to thrust into you, his grip firm but his movements gentle. The way he kisses you, the way he holds you tightly but thrusts sweetly and slowly, it’s as though you can physically feel the breaking of his heart. Dean’s breathing is labored as he slides all the way out and then pushes all the way back in again, each drag of his cock against your walls causing you to flutter around him more. The burn is built slowly, that desperate aching to release growing stronger as Dean’s lips tangle with yours. Your mouth hangs open as he snaps his hips into you slowly but forcefully, and you feel yourself teetering on the edge. “God, fuck-” Your cries are muffled by Dean’s mouth as you cum, your body convulsing as you remain impaled on his cock. He swallows up all your cries and groans with his lips as he stutters slightly before you feel him going soft inside you. When Dean lowers you to the ground again and redoes his belt, you can’t take your eyes off him. He looks hollow inside, distant. “Baby-” You begin but he gives you one of his Dean smiles that makes your heart melt. He’s trying so hard to show you he’s okay but you know better. You know him better and when he sends you a wink and turns out of the room- you’re terrified of the secrets hiding in his head.
You nearly blast through the door of the Bunker, your dead sister laying in the back of the pick up. The Bunker is dark save for one lamp on in the Library where Dean sits with an open bottle of Tennessee Whiskey. You stumble down the stairs, your clothes and hair soaking wet as you tremble before him. The look of horror on your face and betrayal in your eyes is all the answer Dean needs before he even questioned if you found what you were looking for. You found the truth, but not all of it. Wendy’s necklace is held tight in your closed fist before you slam it against the table in front of Dean. The silence in the air is deafening, and it says much more than words ever could. You’re both aware that any relationship you had is destroyed, and that the love you share is in tattered pieces. “Wendy-” Your throat closes as you close your eyes to push the emotion back down again. Dean’s hand stays curled around the bottle, that familiar haze in his eyes. He’s been waiting for this nuke to go off. “You... you’re dead to me.” The words slip out of your mouth before you can stop them, and you see the shadow of emptiness cross onto his face once again.
“You’re heartless- soulless. I wish I never met you, I wish I could stop loving you. I never want to see you again.” Each harsh word spills out one after the other. It’s as though a tidal wave of pain and anger has begun to rush in your head and there’s no dam to hold it all back. “You’re a monster Dean, you only care about one thing: the next thing you get to kill. As long as you’re shooting something or cutting something’s head off you’re good. You’re a brainless grunt Dean, there’s nothing more to you. You’re only good at ending lives, and destroying the lives of people who are still living.” The tears are hot as they traverse down your trembling cheeks. Your words seem to bring out no immediate reaction from Dean- no anger, no defensiveness, just nothing. You turn on your heel and make a beeline for yours and Dean’s room, you need to leave. You need to bury Wendy, and then you need to drink yourself into a coma. Cas watches with heavy eyes from the end of the Library, and none other than Dean knew he was standing there. “You need to tell her what happened, what really happened.” Cas said, a look of sorrow crossing onto his own face as he took a seat next to Dean.
Dean shook his head, taking a long gulp from the bottle. You knew what Dean wanted you to believe because the truth is much worse than that. “Dean- she hates you... and you didn’t even kill Wendy.” Cas is confused, why would Dean let her believe a lie? What could be worse than allowing Y/N to believe that the love of her life killed her sister? Dean swirls the Whiskey in the glass, hearing you tossing things around in the bedroom. Your cries and words of hatred will haunt him forever, but he would rather shield you from the truth and just let you believe a lie. “Who are you protecting?” Cas asked, his eyebrows furrowed and it’s only now that Dean looks over into his eyes. “I’m protecting her.” No further words are spoken as Dean turns back to the bottle, his palm twitching as he reaches out to grasp it again. When you come stumbling from the hallway you’re dragging an assortment of bags up the stairs. Cas can���t let this continue, Dean already shoulders more guilt than he needs to.
Cas finds you outside, “Y/N there’s something you should know.” He says and you turn, eyes swollen and near dry clothes soaking again in the rain. You watch him expectantly, your thoughts flying and swirling in so many directions. “It might be easier to just show you.” Cas explains before his eyes glow and he reaches up to press two fingers to your temple. Your eyes glow blue as the vision starts nearly a month ago, during that hunt where you and the boys took down a witch in Tallulah, Louisiana.
Dean listens to the witch as she yells Latin. He’s safely hidden behind a fallen bookshelf, but you’re hit with the spell full blast. “Y/N!” Dean’s voice has panic in it when he watches you fall to your knees. He emerges from his cover when the witch smiles but before a spell can be blasted at him, Sam shoots her with a witch killing bullet. The brothers rush to your side as your eyes flutter open thinking that whatever spell has been broken by the witches death. But this is a spell of the witches own creation, the Hollow Grave spell. It needs to run it’s course before it is broken, but the flame in your eyes left by the spell grows dimmer but still simmers. Dean helped you to your feet before lecturing you about staying behind cover while checking you for injuries. After deeming you unharmed Dean pulls you close to his chest while whispering how he loves you. It was 2 days later when you disappeared. Dean had no idea where you went so he tracked your phone, where you just so happened to be in North Carolina. You didn’t tell Dean or anybody else that you were leaving so as soon as Dean received an exact address he left with Sam.
After stepping closer to the abandoned house at the end of the road, Sam and Dean were immediately alarmed to find the door ajar. Dean pulled his gun out, senses heightened by the possible danger and panic in his veins. Were you hurt? Sam stood behind Dean, staying close as to not become separated. A shadow is cast across the kitchen floor and a pool of dried and sticky blood pools into the living room. Coming around the corner into the kitchen Dean stops in his tracks when he sees Wendy, slashed and dead on the ground. It was you standing over her, arms and hands covered in blood and your breath was heaving. “Y/N? Baby?” Dean calls out gently, eyeing the knife in your hand and the wooden stake driven through the center of Wendy’s chest. “No loose ends.” Your voice sounds dissociative, almost as though it’s not your voice. When you turned Dean knew by the red glow in your eyes that this was because of whatever that damn witch did to you, and when you collapsed to the ground Dean called Cas. He needed Cas to wipe your memory, you would never forgive yourself if you knew this happened. Dean would rather you believe he killed Wendy.
When Cas released you it was as though your world came crashing down for a second time that evening. Wendy- Dean- you. You killed Wendy, it wasn’t Dean. It never was Dean. You turned your eyes back to the Bunker, “you’re a monster Dean.” The words haunt you as they come back, and the look that was on Dean’s face haunts you more. Dean, oh that man. That man you love so dearly, the man who has taken the blame for something as catastrophic as this so that you wouldn’t have to face this guilt. Before you can stop your feet you’re rushing inside, finding Dean still drinking in the same place. There are fresh tears on your cheeks as you take heavy footsteps towards him. You push him back in his chair before sliding into his lap, your arms curling around his shoulders and wet face buried in his neck. “I love you,” Those are the only words that make it through the sobs as you clutch tightly to him. Dean’s arms wrap securely around you, hand brushing through your hair as he whispers soft loving words into your ear. “It wasn’t your fault,” “I know you didn’t mean what you said,” “I love you,” Nothing can ease the pain, and the pain grows deeper still when you remember Wendy’s mutilated body in the truck.
-cavum sepulcrum unum eritis quem tueri desidério-
for you shall hollow the grave of the one you most desire to protect
#dean winchester#dean x reader#dean winchester smut#dean x you#dean x reader smut#Supernatural smut#Sam Winchester#supernatural#supernatural imagine#SPN#spn imagine#dean winchester angst#angsty smut#sad imagine#supernatural angst
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Noses In Roses (John Wick x Reader) Pt. 4.5
A/N: well hi! I was sad so I did some writing y'all!!!! wowwww abby actually wrote something!!!! it's a miracle!!!!
Words: 2.8k (this is longer than I meant for it to be)
Warnings: none, good ole family fluff!
June 27th, 4:03PM
The afternoon summer sun poured into the kitchen, illuminating the space in a golden haze. Classic rock played over the small portable speaker John had gotten you last Christmas as your hands dug into some fresh bread dough; kneading it gently. Patterned footsteps and cheerful giggles of two little bodies could be heard from the backyard, signalling that your kids were having fun.
It’s been three and a half years since Heather was born. Since then, a few things have changed. First, you and John are married now. He proposed shortly after Heather turned seven months old, and you were joined in holy matrimony at the courthouse the following Monday. Of course, you couldn’t find a sitter for the occasion so James sat quietly playing his Gameboy while Heather slept in her car seat. Although once the kids were put to bed, you and John did celebrate that night.
Second, you adopted James. Over the course of your relationship, John had always made little comments about how much James loves you and sees you as a mother. And after Heather was born, the boy actually started to call you ‘mom’. It took a few years for everything to fall in place, but, on your birthday last year, John and James surprised you with the adoption certificate, proving that you are now the legal parent to your eldest. You were a blubbery, lovey, emotional mess for a couple days afterwards.
And the third thing to mention, you’re pregnant again; a couple days away from seven months. After careful consideration regarding both yours and John’s ages, the two of you decided to have one more baby. You wanted a sibling closer in age to Heather, that way she’d have someone to grow up with. Yes, James will always be there, but he’s six years older than her. What nine-year-old wants their three-year-old baby sister hanging around?
“Mommy!” Heather’s small voice hollered from the backyard; breaking your thought train. Hurriedly wiping the dough from your hands, you made your way to the sliding door.
“Yes?” You answered, stepping outside. The afternoon heat hit you immediately, but you pushed it aside. Resting a hand on your belly and furrowing your brows, you scanned the yard not immediately seeing your children.
“Where are you two?” You then yelled.
“Mom, you’ll never believe what we found!” James spoke, rounding the corner from the side of the house. He held a mischievous grin; a grin you’ve seen plenty of times. Whatever he’s about to show you probably isn’t going to end well.
“If it’s another gross bug, James, I swear-” You started, but the boy cut you off.
“It’s not! I promise! You’ll like this surprise, mom.” James grabbed your hand as he spoke, pulling you towards the side of the house he’d appeared from.
“Mhm, just like how Dad and I liked our ‘pond’?” You spoke sarcastically. When Heather was in her ‘terrible twos’ phase, the two of them got into the most trouble; Heather being the instigator, and James gas lighting her. One afternoon, they had filled the tub in yours and John’s bathroom with dirt, twigs, rocks, and even a handful of worms, before proceeding to fill the tub until it overflowed and ruined the tile and rugs. Of course, you had fallen asleep on the couch from pure parental exhaustion and didn't discover the scene until John came home an hour later.
“That was almost two years ago mom, you’re going to have to let it go.” James spoke with faux sincerity, finally rounding the corner. You narrowed your eyes at him, ready to retaliate, however a very obvious bark caught your attention.
“Ta-Da!” Heather cheesed, grinning from ear to ear. Laying next to your daughter in the grass was a dog; A chocolate labradoodle to be exact.
“Oh my god- How- Whose- What?” You were stuttering over your words, too shocked to form a complete sentence. The dog perked it’s head up at your voice, tail wagging as the tongue hung out from its mouth.
“We found it!” James reassured, letting go of your hand and walking over to where they sat. Kneeling in the grass, your son began to pet the dog. It seemed to like the kids, not putting up a fuss wherever they touched it.
“Is this why you’ve been so quiet?” You pursed your lips, placing a hand over your temple and rubbing to ease the oncoming headache. The two of them chorused cheerful answers, even prompting the dog to let out a soft bark.
“Do you think dad will let us keep it?” James then asked, sadness clearly lacing his tone. You stepped closer to the dog, trying to form some sort of answer; but couldn’t think of one. The kids have been begging for a pet, ever since Heather was old enough to speak. You and John have been avoiding it, knowing you’d rather have your third baby then introduce a dog. But, I guess the universe had other plans for your little family.
“We’ll just have to see when he gets home.” You responded finally, kneeling next to the pet with a huff. You quickly looked over the animal, checking for a collar or any type of tags. It looked skinny as well, like it is malnourished and has been wandering for a bit; picking up a spare meal here and there.
“We found it in the field!” Heather cheerfully explained, pointing towards the open field behind your fenced yard. When John purchased this home, he also purchased the land behind him so no further development could be made. Living in New Jersey, it always baffled you how he’d managed to pull that off.
“Poor thing.” You spoke, a frown growing across your face. The animal gently lift its head from laying to look up at you. His tongue drooped from its mouth as it panted, the heat and fluffy hair not helping the fact.
“Is it a boy or a girl, mommy?” Heather then asked, lovingly grabbing its face and petting. You gently lifted the dog's leg to check before answering your daughter.
“It’s a… Boy.”
“Can we name him Rex? Like a T-Rex?” James mused, eagerly bouncing where he sat. You chuckled at his enthusiasm, however Heather was quick to join the decision making.
“No! I want Mr. Fluffy!”
“How about we choose names later, once Dad gets home.” You interjected yourself before a full fight was to break out. The two kids seemed in agreement, nodding quietly, letting the scuffle fade away.
“Let’s make sure he gets some food and water in his tummy.” You smiled towards your kids and the dog. The two of them nodded eagerly, probably also wanting a snack themselves. Using the side of the house for balance, you stood back up, resting a hand on your bump once again. James and Heather also stood, prompting the dog to jump up as well.
“Mommy, will the dog meet our new baby?” Heather's soft voice spoke. Her small fingers wrapped themselves around your own as the four of you made your way back into the house. Ever since you got pregnant, Heather has been fascinated. Her favorite thing is to feel the baby move and kick, and some days, she's even fallen asleep cuddling up to your belly.
“I'm sure he will, baby.” You smiled down at your daughter, ruffling her messy hair. She gave you a cheesy smile in return, showing her crooked baby-teeth.
Once inside, the dog seemed slightly intimidated by the new environment, however the comforting presence of the kids seemed to be helping. Firstly, you put your unfinished bread dough back into the fridge and turned off the radio before grabbing a spare bowl and filling it with water. James was quick to help, searching the pantry and fridge before pulling out the sandwich meat.
Setting down the bowl, you gently coaxed the dog over. He sniffed around the bowl before eagerly lapping up the water; spilling it all over onto the floor. Heather's giggle-fueled reaction only added to the silly situation. James gently set down a plate containing a few slices of the sandwich meat next to the water bowl. The dog sniffed the plate as well before realizing it was food and swiftly munched down the meat in a few bites.
The three of you hung around by the dog for a few moments before the sound of the garage door opening signaled that John is home. The familiar engine hum of his vintage vehicle echoed loudly before it was promptly cut off, and a few moments later the door to the garage swung open.
“I’m home!” The man called out, hanging his keys.
“Daddy!” Heather yelped, jumping off of a seat at the table and rushing over to her father. John bent down onto one knee, eagerly catching the little girl into his arms.
John, despite your wishes, still works as an assassin. When Heather turned one and things became more manageable, he insisted on going back. Money was the main reasoning, claiming the family will need more income with a new baby. You didn't agree, but went along with it anyways. John is going to do as he pleases anyways; you learned that early on.
“We found a dog!” James gushed, petting the animals head softly. Setting Heather back down, John's dark eyes met those of the dog, laying on the floor next to the food and water. The dog's tail began wagging at the interaction, and he popped his head up.
“How?” John asked, dropping the overnight bag on his shoulder and stepping over to the pet. You, James and Heather all looked at each other, hopeful for a positive reaction. Your husband gently knelt down, admiring the dog; his large hands then gently began to pet the animal.
“Behind the fence in the field, he was stuck.” James answered, “I had to jump it. I got a hole in my shorts because of it.” He added, standing up and showing off the small hole. Both you and John made eye contact at his statement, parental alarms blaring over the fact your son could jump the fence; nevermind the hole in his clothes. James is growing like a weed anyways, you buy him new jeans at least twice a month.
“Does he have a name?” John then asked, giving the dog a few more pets before standing back up.
“No, we were waiting for your input.” You smiled while answering your husband, waddling over to the table and taking a seat. Heather and James still sat around the dog, showering it with affection. John nodded, grabbing the bag he dropped and moving it out of the doorway.
“I want to name him Rex, and Heather wants to name him Mr. Fluffy. Mom didn't give an option, so, it's up to you, dad.” James explained, looking up towards his father. John nodded silently, joining you over by the kitchen table.
“Dog.” The man answered, looking towards his children. They sat quietly before looking between each other, almost having a silent conversation. The dog even let out a sigh, as though he too hated the name.
“That’s stupid.” James finally deadpanned, looking back towards John. You had to stifle a laugh, covering your mouth with your hand. James, as you've come to learn, is basically a copy and paste of his father. He's strong-willed, confident and extremely dry-humored. Sometimes it's humorous, and other times it can be very frustrating.
“Well, maybe Mom should take part in the decision.” John then spoke, his hand moving to rest on your shoulder. You scoffed and leaned away from his touch, annoyed that your neutral ground has been destroyed. The mischievous smile that crossed your husband's face said all that it needed.
“Well, if you must have my input, I've always liked the name Winston.” You then spoke, looking between your family. James and Heather looked at each other again, having another silent conversation. The dog’s head shot up at the mention, eagerly panting.
“We like it.” Heather finally chimed in, a wide smile covering her cheeks. “Mr. Winston Wick.”
“Can we get toys for him?” James added, enthusiastically standing up, which also promoted Heather and Winston to get up as well. The pair jumped into an excited babble, Winston panting cheerfully below them.
“I think there's an old tennis ball in the backyard, if you want to go play right now?” You cut the two of them off, gesturing to the sliding glass door. Nodding, they quickly took off with the dog close behind. With a sigh, you looked up to your husband who was still hovering over your shoulder.
“I can't believe you let them keep the dog.” The humor that laced your tone caused your husband to let out a soft chuckle.
“I know we wanted to wait,” John began, pulling out the chair next to yours and sitting, “But the look on their hopeful faces? How could I say no?”
“A dog will be nice, though. Sometimes I get lonely when you leave.” You spoke, adjusting so you were comfortable and could face him better. Resting a hand on your bump, you let out a soft sigh.
“I know, I’m sorry.” John's response wasn't what you really wanted to hear. You wished he’d retire and stay home to help with raising the family. And with the third baby on the way, while you are very excited, you're also scared. The same fear you held while pregnant with Heather and after discovering his line of work; what if you lose John?
“James seems to have really bonded with the dog. God knows how long they've been hiding it from us.” You changed the subject, turning to face your husband better. Scanning the side of his face, you could see a small cut donning his cheek bone. Must've gotten that from his most recent job.
“It’ll be good for him, teach him some responsibility.” John chimed. His large hand gently placed itself on your bump, thumb rubbing circles. The baby kicked at the feeling; always getting extra jumpy and excited when John touches you. This pregnancy, you wanted to keep the gender a surprise. Honestly, you weren't hoping for a girl or boy; just as long as the baby is healthy. Being an ‘older’ mom, the risk of complications are higher. So far, however, it's been easy. In fact, this pregnancy has been easier than Heather was.
“He's quite responsible already. He basically helped me raise Heather on the days you were gone.” You answered, placing your smaller hand atop John’s. “He’s such a brilliant boy. I can't believe he’s going into the fifth grade this fall.”
“If you keep reminiscing, you're going to cry Darling.” John’s voice gently spoke. You couldn't help but chuckle and sniffle down some tears that threatened to escape.
“Sorry,” You humored, standing up from the table and grabbing a tissue. “But, he’s basically become the man of the house, though. He helps with chores, and even learned how to mow the grass so I wouldn't have to.”
“We can hire a Maid and Gardener.” John deadpanned, standing up from the table and stepping over to you.
“With your career, I don't trust a lot of people. Aurelio is the only one allowed past the driveway.” You didn't mean for your words to come out harsh, but they did. John knows how you feel about his job, especially now that your kids are the perfect ‘kidnap and hold for ransom’ age. You don't even want to be reminded of when Helen kidnapped James.
The man didn't respond, instead his face told all that it needed. He was upset, understandably, but he knows and understands why you lashed out. It's not easy trying to keep your family a secret from your job and vice versa. Especially when your job is highly dangerous and deals with world class criminals.
“I’m sorry, you just got home. Let's not argue.” You sighed, stepping up to your husband. Grabbing his hand, you pulled yourselves as close as your bump would allow. John complied, placing his hands on your sides to hold you tighter.
“No, you're rightfully upset.” The man's voice was soft, almost a whisper. He gently kissed the top of your head before your lips met. Running your hands up his suited chest, a quiet sigh of relief escaped your lips as the kiss broke. The two of you rested your foreheads together, a silent gesture of romance. Your relationship is strong; the love you hold for John trumps your hate of his profession. All that matters is when he comes home and leaves the harsh reality of work behind, he’s greeted with a happy home and family.
“I love you, Mr. Wick.” You spoke gently, running your fingers through his long hair. A small smile overtook his face as he answered.
“I love you too, Mrs. Wick.”
#keanu reeves#keanu reeves x reader#keanu reeves fanfiction#keanu x you#john wick x reader#john wick x you#john wick fanfiction#john wick fan fic#keanu reeves fanfic
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Say you won’t let go
Fandom: Choices, Perfect Match
Relationship: Damien Nazario X F!MC (Name: Peach Park)
Warnings: Slight talk of smut, fluff, vomit, graphic death, alcohol drinking
Word Count Total: 2797
A/N: I’ve been in an emotional mood and so I was listening to Markiplier’s cover of ‘Say you won’t let go’. The song makes me so emotional and I thought Damien and Peach needed it. So I wrote this fic and posted it. I’d recommend listening to the instrumental or the lyrical version while reading. Instead of posting a sneak peek, I thought I could post the whole fic so here it is.
Markiplier Cover - Say you won’t let go
Instrumental Say you won’t let go
CHOICES MASTERLIST
Tagged: @ravenpuff02 @ephemeralsunsets
A low jazz voice hummed in the air of his office as Damien examined the evidence for his current case. This stalker was impressive in covering their tracks and Damien was struggling to connect the strings of graphic art and threatening love letters. His office was strewn with red tape and papers, almost as if his evidence board had come to life. Nadia Park’s case was proving to be his biggest challenge yet. He ran his hand through his hair and stood away from his desk, trying to see the case from a different angle.
A knock rang on the door as Damien grunted and opened the door, only to see the familiar dark hair that faded into light curls. The person turned to Damien and he held his breath in his neck. It was his client’s cousin, Peach Park, dressed in a fitted light pink button shirt that seemed to make her stature taller than she actually was. Accompanied with a bright orange pleated skirt that made her legs glow. She certainly looked amazing and different, she was usually dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans or a denim dress.
It was a welcome change and Damien gave a brisk nod to let Peach in. He assumed she wanted to see the progress of his case and he had no qualms about it. The client has a right after all, he glanced back through the door and noticed Nadia Park wasn’t there. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned between Peach and the empty hallway. Damien closed the door and took in Peach and realised that her face had more of a shine as usual. He felt a little hot under the collar but the window was closed. He had never been alone with Peach and no matter how many times he thought about it, he hadn’t believed it would happen. Until now that is.
“Hello Miss Park, what brings you to my office tonight?”
Deep down he hoped she came for him but a man can only dream. Remaining professional with her helped dampen his desire and need to know her more.
“How many times have I told you to call me Peach? If you don’t call me Peach, then I’ll start calling you, Mr. Nazario.”
As much as Damien would love to be called that, it also reminded him of how much older he was as he rubbed the back of his neck. He could never get over saying her name, he’d often repeat it to himself in the dead of night. He could never understand the power she had over him as he gave her a small smile.
“Sorry, Peach.”
“That’s better.”
“So do you want the run-down for what I’ve got so far?”
Damien went around her to grab a list of potential suspects when he felt her hand on his wrist. Damien almost audibly gasped at her sudden contact as he took in her slim fingers around his wrist.
“Actually Damien, I’m here for something else.”
Damien felt his heart rate increase steadily as his brain ran through different scenarios, some good but mostly bad. She probably doesn’t want Damien on the case anymore; she found out about Beitan; she doesn’t need him anymore. He must have gotten lost in his head as he felt a shake against his wrist. Damien escaped his mental hell to see Peach in front of him, a soft comforting smile. Her eyes were a cave full of life and wonders and Damien could feel himself getting lost in them.
“I wanted to ask if you were free to have a drink with me?”
Damien blinked as he slowly took in her words. A drink? With him? Was he dreaming? He hoped not as he repeated the words.
“A drink?”
A soft laugh came out as Peach smiled.
“Yes, a drink.”
He wasn’t meant to say that aloud as he felt his cheeks and ears heat up at her words. She had the softest sweetest laugh that reminded Damien of wind chimes blowing in the wind. He never felt like this with Alana and it really riled him up in the core of his soul. She took her wrist away to straighten her skirt and Damien was close to begging her to bring her touch back but he held back. It wouldn’t seem professional as she went on.
“You’ve been working so hard for my cousin, I thought I’d offer you a drink as a way to say thanks. And to probably give you a break from looking at photos all day.” His heart warmed at the fact that she was concerned for him. It was a redeeming quality of hers as she gave him one of her sweet smiles. “It’s on me the drink.”
Damien would’ve gladly given her his soul, even before she asked. Damien smiled and took Peach up on her offer, grabbing his jacket and keys and locking his office door.
Several hours later, Damien and Peach swayed from side to side, trudging up the steps to her apartment. The both of them giggling about the moving wallpaper and the rainbow cats. Damien could not remember anything as Peach reached into her clutch, pulling out her apartment key. She missed the keyhole three times and only managed to get it in with Damien’s help, They pushed the door open and stumbled in, Peach blindly tapped the walls for the switch. With pure luck she found them as she turned to Damien with a finger to her lips.
“Sh! You’re going to wake up Nadia!”
“Nadia doesn’t live with you!”
“I know! You’re going to wake her up!”
“Okay.”
The both of them wobbled against each other and just about reached the living room, Damien plopped himself on the sofa and Peach followed, falling face first onto Damien’s lap.
“Ah! My cojones!”
“What’s that?”
“My drawers!”
They giggled at the word and took a moment to breath. There was a comfortable silence as Damien ran his hands through her hair. It was coarse but she purred at the slow contact, he smiled in his drunken haze. It has been a while since he was in such a happy state as he glanced down at her but Peach had a slight grimace on her face. Her stomach grumbled as she pushed herself up to face him.
“I’m gonna vomit.”
Damien registered the word vomit and slowly got up, helping her stand and taking her to the bathroom. He could feel the alcohol muddling his brain as he just about opened the bathroom door. She dropped away from him and brought her face close to the toilet seat. Sounds of bile splashed against the water as Damien dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed her hair into a pony, with one hand. The other rubbed her back in an upwards motion to help her get the vomit out and Damien watched her hair.
He had seen worse things in his life but he’d take the sight of her vomiting over anything else. He cooed at her softly and once the groans of pain lowered, he grabbed some toilet roll for Peach to clean her mouth. After emptying her stomach, Peach took the tissue to clean her face and lifted her head to look back at Damien. He felt all the alcohol in his system flush as she threw him a loving smile that he felt she only gave to intimate lovers. She murmured a soft thank you that had Damien heart pump harder, she was sitting back and she brought her head close to his sternum. Damien placed a tentative hand on her arm as he hummed at the close contact. He shouldn’t take advantage of her like this but he wanted to indulge in his deep fantasy. He felt her lips brush against his button shirt as she spoke.
“Do you want to stay over tonight?”
Damien felt his heart melt at her sweet request. Many times a night he had dreamed about staying in Peach’s house, in her bed but he looked down at her drunken state. She wasn’t in the right state of mind and she was only a client. She was a client’s relative and Damien knew it would be overstepping boundaries. As much as he deeply wanted to, he knew he couldn’t so he shook his head softly.
“I think that you should get some rest.”
~~~~~~
Damien heard the train whistle of his kettle go off as he put away his newspaper and grabbed two coffee mugs, placing the filter paper on top and the beans. He poured the green coloured kettle into the mugs and got rid of the filter papers, letting the mugs sit and stew with the rich caffeine. He glanced at his bedroom door, hoping Peach wouldn’t get up and ruin his surprise but the door hadn’t moved. He grabbed the two mugs and walked out of the kitchen and straight into his bedroom, a warm smile grew on his face.
Peach was still asleep soundly as her curves heaved up and down slowly. The comforter was off her body and her body was spread into a misshapen starfish. Damien shook his head as Peach often loved spreading her body out and popping her behind into the air. He could never understand how she was able to sleep in that position but she looked adorable. Her mint green shorts had ridden up to show the zebra stripes of stretch marks on her back thigh and the bumpy surface. He went around the bed to his side, placing the coffee mugs on his bedside drawer and leaning on his arm to take a better look at Peach.
He brought his hand to the edge of her shorts and pulled it down slightly so Peach wouldn’t complain about her shorts riding up. She loved the way they felt but they often caused more harm than good as Damien smiled to himself about the complaints she’s made. Her navy blue camisole brought more prominence in her love handles and sleeping on her front, pushed her breasts together. She looked utterly stunning in the morning, it is because it was the first raw thing that Damien would see. He was so glad she was his.
As if sensing something, Peach forced her eyes open to see her love, Damien leaning beside her. A full chest of dark curls on display and dark horn rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. There was a slight softness near his stomach yet he still looked built and lean in the many years before they were together. His grey sweatpants hung low on his waist and that sweet trail of hair disappeared into the waistband of the pants. The both of them took in the other with unashamed, unjudging eyes as they gave a soft greeting to one another.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Damien brought his lips to press a short kiss to the brow of her hair and reach behind him to present her with her mug of coffee. It had a picture of Damien on it and she was able to wake up even more. She pushed herself up slightly snuggled into Damien’s side, kissing his collarbone and wrapping her hands around the mug.
“Just what I need.”
“I know.”
She took a deep sip and exhaled blissfully, letting the warm coffee seep into her blood and liven her soul. Damien too took a sip of his coffee and purred with content at the sweet warmth.
“This is amazing.”
“Isn’t it?”
Damien curved his eyebrow up as if suggesting he was amazing. Peach rolled her eyes and took another sip.
“I meant the coffee.”
“What about the company?”
“Could be better.” Damien pinched the side of her waist as she yelped excitedly, before she nestled further. “It’s perfect. you’re perfect.”
“That I am.”
A few minutes later, they both had finished their coffee as Damien took his and her cup to place on the bedside table. He had a cheshire smile on his face as he brought his hand to her shoulder for her to lay down, he held himself over her as a few strands of hair drooped down. Peach smiled and brought her hands to his cheek, taking in the slightly overgrown beard.
“Now we’ve got a few minutes before the morning really starts.”
“What are you going to do about it, Nazario?”
“I’m going to have my way with you.”
“Think you can be quick about it, old man?”
Damien smirked as he slotted himself in between Peach’s legs as the hair on her legs tickled Damien’s waist. Damien loved Peach’s body hair, the way it would brush against the back of his thighs when she’d wrap her legs around his waist, it would send chills through his body. Peach is really his. Before he could lean in to kiss her, the door opened and small footsteps thumped in the room. Followed by high pitched squeals, tiny bodies jumped on the bed, latching onto Damien and Peach.
Small round faces and bright eyes as a boy and girl jumped with unbelievable hyperness. Damien and Peach’s kids: Sofía and Gael. Both were seven and six years of age, they had Damien’s looks but Peach’s excitable personality. Damien rolled off of Peach and sat up on the bed, taking his daughter into his arms and Peach took Gael into hers. Damien turned to Peach and raised an eyebrow at her, as if blaming her for their kids interrupting their moment.
She rolled her eyes and brought Gael close, kissing his forehead and cheeks. He repeated many ‘I love yous’ and ‘Mummys’ while Sofía watched her dad with curiosity. She had her excitable moments but at this current moment, she was just like her dad. Perceptive and clever as she spoke up in spanish.
“Papa, qué hacías?” Dad, what were you doing?
Damien glanced nervously from his daughter to Peach, who watched the both of them with amusement.
“Nada, Princesa.” Nothing, Princess.
Peach stood up from the bed and arched her back, stretching the knots made in her sleep. She got both her kids to go out the room and told them to get dressed so that they could go to school. Damien watched his love care so deeply and once the kids went to the other room, Peach stood in the doorway of their bedroom. Their kids are the best thing that has ever happened to him and he could never dream about anyone else. Damien got up to Peach and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close to his chest.
“I wanna dance with you right now.” Peach laughed her sweet laugh as she swayed along with Damien. “I love you and I wanna stay with you until we’re grey and old.”
“I think that’s already starting to happen. I can see a little grey in your beard.”
At that she rubbed her palm over his cheek, fingers brushing against his lip. Damien opened his mouth and took a bite at her finger before placing a soft kiss and nuzzling his head into her shoulder. She was the one for him, her soft smile and bright eyes gave light to Damien’s life. He was so glad to bare his soul to her.
~~~~~~
“NO!”
It was too late as Damien pushed against the restraining hold of Hayden. Harley had Peach in his grasp and he pressed his fingers deep in her neck, a loud crunch of bones echoed in the room. They were back at EROS and just as they were about to break free and blow the facility up, Cecile had activated the hive mind control which took over the minds of all the matches. Hayden included. Damien felt his heart smash to pieces and time moved slowly, as Peach’s round body fell to the ground. There were no emotions for Damien to express the scene in front of him as he stared at Peach. Her bright hue was gone and replaced by a grey sickening colour and death claimed her bright lively soul. The love of his life was gone right before him, he closed his eyes to purge the uncomfortable thoughts of Peach.
~~~~~~
Damien opened his eyes to see himself in a clear tiled room, not the EROS facility or at home with Peach. Soon he heard the loud taps of heels and found the devil in front him. A smartly dressed woman with piercing green eyes and angry red hair: Cecile Contreras. She looked down at Damien with a sickening smile and turned her face forward to the screen behind Damien.
“Response is good. Up the dosage and add twenty milligrams of delysid. You’re doing very good, Damien. We’re close to creating the perfect match.”
#Damien#damien nazario#damien nazario x mc#damien x mc#Damien Elvis Nazario#perfect match#choices fanfiction#choices perfect match#choices fic#choices#damien nazario x fmc
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Wrecked (PJM)
Summary: Months after your break up, just before a performance, Jimin finds out that you’re seeing someone new through Instagram. His group mates pick up the pieces after that.
Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader
Tags: Breakdowns, Angst, Guilt, Sorta Self-hate, Platonic fluff.
W/C: 1.3k
A/N: I literally wrote this in one sitting don’t be mad at me. Inspired by jimin’s recent performance in Japan where he didn’t (couldn’t?) finish the last lyric in “the truth untold” on stage and this story sort of jumped out at me.
Jimin’s voice hovers on the last line “and I still-” the crowd roaring around him in a sea of lights, faces of his fans only just in shadow, but he falls short, and can’t make his mouth move even if he wanted to.
Jimin is taking off towards the dressing room before the others have even left the still hot stage. The lights barely having dimmed. He tosses his jacket into some soon to be forgotten corner of backstage not even caring that it was worth over 15k. His skin hot and body sweaty from the hours of performance, his temperature rising as his hands started to shake. He knew the others weren’t far behind, he didn’t want them to see him like this, didn’t want them to see him explode with anger.
When he retreats to the safety of the dressing room Jimin curls up, placing his elbows on his knees, laces his fingers through his pink hair and pulls as hard as he can. “Jimin-” Yoongi says from the door before Jimin suddenly straightens from his prostrate stance and swipes his hands across the table, sending glasses, makeup, food, and more than a few phones to the floor in a glorious crash, stomping on his own phone for good measure with the heal of a heavy boot. But it does nothing to sate the vindictive and self-directed anger that rages through Jimin’s chest like a storm.
He’d had to sing that fucking break up song again, The Truth Untold. The one he’d written with Namjoon just after your break up. At first, his emotions had colored the song a gorgeous lilting experience that made it one of the most popular on the album. But today, today his voice had fallen short, closed up against the syllables at the very end the only part that Jimin had written, one of his only edits that stayed the same through every iteration, every draft.
He couldn’t even say the words ‘I still want you’ anymore. Couldn’t, because it wasn’t even true. Jimin didn’t want you anymore, the wanting had faded. For the first few months, it was just a want, just a thought. But now all that’s left in his chest is a pure need for you. A need for your warm body pressed against his, arms wrapped around his neck, your kiss at the end of the day, your smile and your laugh and your everything that Jimin was absolutely wrecked over. He needed you. and Didn’t want to need you but his traitorous heart did regardless. And that had him absolutely enraged.
Namjoon gets his arms around Jimin when he sends everything on the other table crashing to the floor, a lamp knocked over in the corner winking out. Namjoon’s superior strength has always been enough to restrain all of them- even Jungkook. And it's no surprise when he literally throws Jimin onto a couch. He gets right back up and Jungkook’s arms go around him from behind.
“Calm down!” his leader commands but he can’t follow, can’t even see his face through the haze of red. No, not a haze of red, but tears that won’t stop falling. Jimin’s chest heaves an offal jagged noise somewhere between a sob and a gasp.
“Where the fuck did this come from Jimin- why the fuck-”
“-I thought I could handle it hyung, I thought I could handle it if I saw her in someone else’s arms but I can’t.” his tone is broken, heartbreaking, words spat through gritted teeth.
“Jimin- what are you talking about.” Jimin’s gaze drops to his phone, on the floor, its screen cracked. Namjoon picks it up and it opens straight to the picture the last thing he saw right before he walked on stage. The display still works showing your Instagram account, the latest post a picture of you and another man, your face smiling as your cheek is pillowed against another chest, a man who isn’t Jimin’s chest.
It’s kind of shocking even to Namjoon to see you with someone other than Jimin. You’d been such an item. It’s hard to believe that either of you could move on after your relationship, so full of passion and romance that even the boys had to restrain their jealousy. But obviously, you already have moved on, despite the fact that Jimin obviously hasn’t. No matter how much he’d pretended otherwise up until his breaking point tonight.
Namjoon swipes through the pictures, the next one the man preses a kiss to your cheek, just missing the corner of your lip. “She used to hate kisses like that, ones that weren’t on the cheek or the lips- and now she’s with this-this asshole who can’t even kiss her right.” Jimin spits.
Namjoon reads the caption, and Jimin watches him, Jungkook’s still holding him, still watching his hyung like he could get violent again. But all the fight is worn out of Jimin, desolation filling the place where before there’d been fire. Jimin watches Namjoon read the caption. Happy one month to my baby.
“They’ve been dating for a whole month and I didn’t even know.” Jimin sobs. All this time he was sure one day you’d text him, or try to call him or turn up at the company or something. He was sure you’d want him back and now, all this time that he’d been hoping, you’d been falling for someone else.
It wasn’t your fault; none of Jimin’s anger was directed at you. Only at himself. He's the one who was stupid enough to pick the world tour over you. He’d been inconsiderate enough to consistently push you out of his life until there wasn’t even space for you to breathe. He didn’t blame you at all for needing more than one or two texts a week.
The only one to blame was Jimin- and he’d let you go without fighting for you at all and now months later all he can wonder is, How the fuck did he not fight for you more?
“I fucking need her- and she’s in someone else’s arms when she should be in mine. I’m such a fuck up hyung, I couldn’t handle the pressure of someone loving me up close and now-“ Jimin breaks off- but he doesn’t need to continue it. All of the boys know what happened. All of the boys know his next words- and now I have no one to blame but myself.
Jungkook lets him go, sliding to the floor with jimin in his arms. Jimin’s Hands fixing in his knees Fists tightening. No one tells him that he shouldn’t have taken his anger out on his surroundings. Seokjin is still at the door, keeping the staff away, giving them some privacy. But he can hear the murmur of their voices. Their manager pushes through and Seokjin lets him pass. He surveys the devastation Jimin left with an air more similar to curiosity rather than anger.
Jimin sobs in Jungkook’s arms, Namjoon sinks to their level after a moment before he wraps his dongsaengs in a crushing hug, his hands tightening in the back of Jimin’s shirt.
Wordlessly, the boys help him clean up, and when one of the makeup noonas finally strong-arms her way in, sees Jimin’s puffy face and all her shattered makeup bottles he apologizes profusely and says he’ll replace them. Yoongi’s already ordering replacements on his phone as Hoseok sweeps up the glass from the broken light bulb. He knows they all have doubles and spares anyway just in case.
Eventually, he sits up at the couch, Jungkook lets him go, leaving him to wipe away the salt from his face with the back of his hand. Taehyung comes and sits by him and Jimin lets him tilt his face up so that he can see his eyes, one of Tae’s large hands pushes back his bangs as he uses a makeup wipe to clean off Jimin’s smudged makeup, the cool aloe Vera jell a balm against his irritated eyes.
“Need to clean you up,” Taehyung says, voice rough from singing half the night, his expression so concerned, even though Jimin knows he doesn't deserve it, his group has always been good at taking care of one another. Jimin sniffs up at him, not even having to ask why, before Taehyung responds to his unspoken question “Can’t have you looking like that. You’ll never win her back if you look like a wreck.”
#bts#bts scenarios#bts reactions#bts imagines#bangtan sonyeodan#park jimin#park jimin x reader#jimin x reader#bts fanfic#bts one-shot#bts drabble#bts fanfiction#bts angst#angst#jimin#bangtan boys#bangtan#bts bangtan#bangtan sonyeondan#bts fluff#bts smut#bts smut reactions#bts headcannons#min yoongi#kim namjoon#jung hoseok#jeon jungkook#kim taehyung#kim seokjin
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yo fam could you do the dying kisses prompt for my passione boys? I've been lurking on ur blog for the longest time and wanted to let u know that i love ur blog 💝💝
[[ To make things painful and easier for me I wrote it as reader dying and the boys mourning. Tbh if you want the boys dying instead just send me another ask. Also trigger warning this is honestly very depressing. Also it is very long so i put it under the cut, I also got very carried away and now I am very very sad. If you want more feels and set the mood a little, I wrote all this to illion’s Miracle on Spotify.]]
✖ Bruno Buccielati ✖
Burno doesn’t scream when he realises you can’t be saved, he cries, silently he cries so much, there is no sound other than him periodically sucking in air as the tears streak down his face. He would be holding you slowly getting limp in his arms, bending down to make sure he can hear your last words as you bleed out, not caring how red soaked his white outfit gets. The rest of his team doing their best holding out against the enemy to give the two of you time. No one is talking other than you telling Bruno how much you love him over and over again in the fear of death. Bruno replies you telling you how much he loves you too, how proud he is to have someone like you in his life supporting you even now, in your last moments. He silently begs whatever gods he knows of to keep you alive in his arms, he knows its futile but he wishes so badly he could save you so badly that he would wake up from this nightmare. When you ask him for a last kiss he obliges, his endless flow of tears soaking your face as he presses his lips against yours. Your lover gives you another deep kiss as your breathing slows to a stop. Only then did he let out an agonisingly loud sob, his hands balling up into fists so intensely his nails would dig into his palms drawing blood. But there was no time to cry now, the enemy was still nearby, he refused to let himself die before his revenge. Carefully Bruno would carry your body to somewhere safe, telling your dead body to wait for him before wiping his tears and rejoining the battle stronger than ever with his burning resolve for to avenge you.
✖ Pannacotta Fugo ✖
He screams he is angry beyond anything, he would hold you tight in his arms as Purple Haze went wild before him, literally melting your assailant into nothingness. It was a miracle neither of you were infected with the virus but that joy was short lived as you cough up so much blood. Fugo would let out an agonised cry when he feels you heave in his arms, your blood dripping through the holes in his outfit. Now that the enemy was dead he was filled with pure and utter despair. He always feared his own stand would be the one to hurt you, if he had known you would get hurt by someone other than him he would have gone all out earlier. He sobs holding you telling you how sorry he is that he didn’t protect you. How sorry he is that he let someone else hurt you how sorry he is that you were in this state. When you smile at him telling him that you forgive him he would choke back his tears. As you ask him for a final kiss he instantly presses his lips against yours, his warm body pressed against yours as you slowly go cold against him. As you stop breathing Fugo would slowly lose it, not even using his stand, with his own two hands he would wreck the concrete walls near you. Knuckles bloody as he would finally crumble off some of the wall, only then did he fall to the floor and sob once more. When the rest of the team arrive on scene Fugo was different he was now just as cold as you, an empty shell of whatever emotions he had left taken from him moments before.
✖ Giorno Giovanna ✖
Gold Experience was doing whatever it could, you looked perfectly fine, your very being looking as perfect as usual but he knew it was too late. The poison of the enemy already deep set in your very being, no matter how many parts he replaces, you wouldn’t survive. Giorno didn’t even realise he was crying until you used what little strength you had to tell him not to cry anymore. Giorno didn’t even realise just how much pain losing you was until you told him again and again that you loved him and you thanked him for being a part of your life until the very end. He thought he understood loss, he thought that being part of the dark mafia world for so long left him a hardened criminal. No, he realised the only reason loss never hurt him this much before was because you were always there to comfort him on his darkest nights. Even now you were doing the same, telling him that he was strong, that he would live for you, that he was the very embodiment of an angel if you could ever see one. Giorno would give you a sad smile, asking you how could he be so amazing when you lay here dying in his own arms. When an even more intense wave of pain coursed through your veins you knew it wasn’t long. Asking him for a final kiss, he would give it to you, it was soft, his lips pressed against yours, you were happy this was your last moment, you smiled into the kiss as the life in you faded. When Mista finally cleared the enemies outside and entered the rival boss’s room, all he saw was just an endless number of flowers surrounding your dead body as Giorno stood beside you, his eyes empty, now truly the cold hardened criminal he thought he was.
✖ Narancia Ghirga ✖
He was at total loss, he couldn’t stop shaking as he clutched you tightly in his arms. It was a duo recon mission, it was supposed to be quick and easy, he even had Aerosmith on alert he just couldn’t understand how an enemy even spotted and shot at you. It took literally everything the two of you had to run away. The adrenaline finally wearing off, you crumble into Narancia’s embrace, you feel his tears drip and fall down your face. He wanted so badly to scream, so so badly, he was biting his lip so hard to hold it back. He couldn’t even let out too loud of a sob, he didn’t want the enemy finding you and actually finishing the two of you off. You’d call out to him, scared but staying strong for your lover. Your voice would pull Narancia out of his panic attack, he didn’t have much time left with you he shouldn’t be freaking out. You would smile, asking him to talk to you to try and keep you awake. Narancia would blabber on, telling you how much he loved you, shaky laughter as he cries and tells you weird facts about your first few dates with him. Wheezing as he tells you how he wanted to marry you and how he was saving up to bring you somewhere the next time you guys had a holiday. As you lost the feeling in your arms and legs you’d tell Narancia to kiss you one last time. He would bite back more tears before telling you to stop joking this wouldn’t be the last time. He knew better however, as he bent down and pressed his lips against yours, holding on tightly to you as you slowly go limp in his arms. Like a flame going out, for Narancia this was the exact point of his life where he realises he would never love anyone like he loved you ever again.
✖ Leone Abbacchio ✖
Rage, despair, the pure regret and self hate exploding through him, his vision was getting blur from the pure trauma of watching someone important to him get shot again. He chose a life of solitude when he joined Passione, it took you months almost years to get him to open up and accept you in his life. He walled himself off because of this very fear, this nightmare of a hellscape just unfolding before his eyes as your body hit the floor. This was so much worse than back when he was a cop, this was so much worse because he knew so badly that this was a possibility and he let that doubt get pushed away only for it to happen again. He couldn’t even hear the rest of the squad told him to stay by your side as they chased the assailant down. You were the light of his life and now your light was flickering on the brink of extinguishing and he literally could do nothing about it. Abbacchio moved automatically, picking you up in his arms as he ran towards backup, uncharastically begging for anyone to save you and tend to you. Even when the mafia’s field surgeon tells him to prepares for the worse he still holds on to you. The pain just dripping from his voice as he begs you not to leave him alone. You would apologise through the pain you knew that this was his fear and you hated it so bad that you could literally feel yourself dying. Asking him for a final kiss, telling him to make it good so he could replay it forever, you tell him over and over how much you love him and telling him to stay strong before his lips pressed hard against yours. When you finally die in his very arms Abbacchio stopped crying. His tear ducts were empty and he was blanking out from the pure mental strain. The only thing keeping him alive is Moody Blue’s taking your form of your last moments.
✖ Guido Mista ✖
He watched it happen to his beloved Capo and he hated how he begged Giorno to save you too. He knew it wouldn’t last he knew your body would give out soon, your wounds no longer healing. So the two of you spent your last days enjoying to the limit, recreating dates laughing and sleeping together at night. Now that all that joy was burnt out all that was left was the depressing reality as Mista held your very cold dead body in his arms. You thank your lover for the past few days, the choice was hard on him but you were glad in the end you could spend your last hours with him. Mista knew, he could see your body slowly failing itself. The two of you sat on a bench in town in the dead of night. The place where the two of you had your first date. Reality slowly kicking in, Mista finally get serious, telling you how much he loves you. Telling you endlessly all the reasons he loves you, thanking you for an almost endless amount of things, from existing in his life teaching him about true love to painfully laughing as he thanks you for teaching him the difference between shampoo and body wash. He would tightly hold your hand in his before running his fingers through your hair as he tries his best to remember every sensation of you. You tell him that he’d never be alone, you promise him how even as a spirit you’d make sure to always look out for him, he turns to you, giving you a pained smile at the comment. As your already blurry vision slowly turns black around the edges, you turn to the love of your life asking him to give you a final kiss before you can’t feel anything anymore. So he did, his arms pull you in, silent tears dab your cheek as he passionately kisses you for the last time. A minute or so passes before you fall limp in his arms. Since then Mista just never really smiled the same anymore.
#TW: Death#JJBA Imagines#JJBA Scenarios#VAR Kisses#Passione#Bruno Bucciarati#Bruno Buccellati#Giorno Giovanna#Leone Abbacchio#Guido Mista#Narancia Ghirga#Pannacotta Fugo
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Old T-shirt - Niall oneshot
So I don’t ever write anything but I was inspired recently by the prompt “is that my shirt?”. So I wrote a little blurb that I ended up liking and decided to post!
I think this could potentially turn into more, with the same storyline and characters if you guys would like! Feedback is welcome :)
2:04am
My phone flashed as I heard the door slam shut behind me. The six, or maybe seven, drinks from earlier were still making my head buzz and the flooding emotions never ending. I stepped backwards and leaned against the door. The cold wood on my back sent a wave of goosebumps across my heated body. I slid down to the floor and held my phone up to my face, only to be greeted by a blank screen.
2:05am
It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes ago that I saw him. Tousled hair, dimpled cheek, and those deep chocolate eyes. It was those eyes that really did me in. Flickering over to meet mine with no expression of emotion. It was those eyes that brought me back to the warm, sunny days, windows down, with the biggest smiles on our faces, with nowhere to go and no worry in the world. It was those eyes that brought me back to cold winter nights, in front of a roaring fireplace beneath a knitted blanket. And it was those eyes that brought me back to the pure and utter betrayal that unfolded before me.
But this time, those dark brown eyes showed nothing. Not love, not sadness, not guilt. It was like I was looking at a stranger for the first time, no sense of a past.
And it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Two years, nine months, eleven days had come to a hault in the blink of an eye. The curly haired boy I once saw as my king, was treating someone else like his queen. His hands ran along the curves of her body, his lips trailed across her chest, the sweat along his naked back glistened in the dim lighting of the room. All in what they thought was behind closed doors.
It took them a second to realize I had walked in. The shock of the scene froze me on the spot, unable to move or speak. Jake had quickly snapped out of his haze, spinning around to look at me, profanities and quick pleads of apology spilling out of his swollen lips. As he reached out to grab onto my hand, the searing touch of his skin felt like a burn. All I could do was silently step back and run as far away as possible.
It had been nearly a month since that day. A month since seeing him on top of another woman. I thought I was finally coming to terms with it, finally moving on from the heartbreak. But the second those chocolate brown eyes locked with mine, I knew that was not the case.
He was with none other than his mistress. Her tanned arms wrapped around his neck as she fumbled with his curls and smiled up to him like nothing was wrong in the world. He leaned down to her and placed his lips on hers in a quick kiss before turning and locking his eyes with mine.
In that instant the wave of emotions from that haunting day slammed into me, nearly knocking me off my feet. All I could do was the same thing I had done before, run. I bolted out of the bar, pushing through the sweaty crowd, desperate to feel the cold air of the night on my skin. In the blink of an eye, I was back in my apartment with tear stained cheeks, knotted hair, and a throbbing ankle.
I leaned my head back against the solid door, attempting to get in a deep breath before cracking and releasing a silent sob. My world was spinning, both from alcohol and seeing him. I couldn’t get up.
After what felt like hours, I reached down to grab my phone again. The brightness of the screen causing me to squint through my tears.
2:13am
Time was moving at a snails pace. I popped my heels off my blistered feet and slowly picked myself up off the floor, using the door handle to steady myself. As if I were chained down by weights, I slowly dragged myself to my bedroom. I peeled off my skin tight jeans and stumbled around before getting them around my ankle. My running thoughts made such a simple task so much harder. I removed my shirt and bra with relief and reached into the bottom drawer of my dresser.
I reached in to find the softest white t-shirt, pulling it out and slipping it over my head. The subtle musky scent wafted through the air, bringing me a new sense of comfort. I closed my eyes and brought in a deep breath, finally able to control my emotions for even a second.
The plush duvet was a mess across my bed from the night before, not bothering to make it up in the morning. I sat on the edge of the bed, too anxious to make myself comfortable, and brought my phone back up to my face.
2:20am
This time, I opened it and went straight to my contacts, scrolling to the N’s. Just the sight of his name made me crack a slight smile among the tears. I pressed the phone icon and listened to the repetitive ring. Voicemail. What did I expect? It was nearly 2:30 in the morning. Of course he wouldn’t be awake. I threw my head back on to the bed in frustration, my eyes glazing over with tears yet again. Then I suddenly felt a buzz in my hand.
I immediately pulled it up and pressed accept which was quickly followed by a deep, raspy voice. “Jess, it’s two thirty in the morning. What the hell...”
“Niall, I saw him.” I squeaked out, cutting him off from badgering me about the time.
He paused, a soft groan escaping as he had just woken up. “Jake?” He finally replied.
“He was with her. All over her. And I just, I ran, and I, I...” My voiced caught as tears spilled over on to my already damp cheeks, leaving me gasping for air as I couldn’t control the sobs that kept coming.
“I’ll be there in five.”
Niall only lived one block over; convenient for being my best friend. We had known each other for almost four years now, and had a bit of a complicated history. When we met, he was dating a girl named Macie, but they had broken up shortly after. Only a few months later is when I started getting involved with Jake. But those few months after Macie and before Jake were when we really clicked. Movie nights every Monday, Chinese takeout on Thursday’s, kicking around a soccer ball on the weekends. However, that routine slowly came to an end when Jake came into my life. We still talked regularly and knew everything about each other, but it was different. We couldn’t hang out alone together without Jake accusing me of cheating (ironic) or even be seen together without rumors flying.
After I ended things with Jake, Niall was always there for me. He was the only person that could cheer me up, making him the obvious first choice call. I wouldn’t normally like to bother anyone at this hour, but my half drunken state told me I just didn’t care.
In what felt like sixty seconds, the scruffy haired boy came barreling through my door, instantly wrapping his strong arms around me. One hand came up to slowly pat through my hair, the other rubbing circles on my clothed back. My arms fell limp around his warm body, eventually latching on to the embrace and taking in the heat made between us. He held me like that, silently, until my tears subsided and my shaking breaths leveled out.
He pulled back slightly to look at me, his hand come up, thumb running under my eye to wipe away the tears. “Are you okay?” He asked softly with worry in his eyes.
“Been better.” I mumbled out, rolling my eyes as I looked up to his big blue orbs. They reminded me of the ocean on a beautifully sunny day, and brought me a sense of peace and calm, even in the darkness of the night.
“Uh sorry, dumb question.” He chuckled out, his thick Irish accent in full swing. “Lemme try this again. What can I do?” He looked me up and down as I sat there in just a T-shirt and black lace panties. My hair that was once in a ponytail was now falling out around my face, looking like I hadn’t touched it in days. My face was red and puffy and streaked with tears and mascara. I was a complete and utter mess.
“Jesus Jess, you...” his wandering eyes stopped on my shirt. “Is that my shirt?” He pondered.
The Republic of Ireland football logo peeked out from under my golden locks, the bright green contrasting against the stark white of the cotton. I had almost forgotten it was his. Niall had given it to me one night when I crashed on his couch after a night of drinking. The soft worn-in cotton felt like velvet against my skin and I vowed to never return it for it had turned into my favorite thing to sleep in. Even after all these years it still smelled like him too. A sweet subtle musk with a hint of citrus that reminded me of the Irish boy that stood in front of me.
“Yeah” I said sheepishly, almost embarrassed that I was wearing it. “I didn’t even think about the fact that it was yours when I put it on...it’s just my favorite.”
Niall’s face lit up a bit, cracking a small smile as he looked me over again. “Well it looks better on you than it ever did on me.”
His hands were now on my knees as he bent over me slightly, his face just inches from mine. Suddenly I felt a wave of insecurity. I felt naked in front of him and I backed away slightly, turning my face down to look at my hands nervously.
“Hey” he said, getting me to look back up at him. “Why don’t we get you in bed.”
He stood up and held his hands out for me to take. I obliged and got up, but instantly collapsed back on the bed as a shooting pain ran through my ankle. Forgot about that. I winced in pain as Niall looked over to me with worry and confusion. “Jess what happened?”
“My ankle. I, I think I rolled it. At the bar. It was all I blur I just ran home and ignored it. Fuck.”
Without a second though, Niall laced one arm under my legs, the other behind my back and picked me up. My heartbeat quickened with the feel of his arms around me like that. He placed me down on the bed with my head back against my pillow.
All he could do was look at me with a small grin on his face and a chuckle to his voice. “What’re you giggling about over there?” I questioned him, confused at his demeanor.
“You’re truly a mess.” He laughed out. I glared at him and smacked my hand against his chest in protest. “Hey!”
Niall leaned down close, locking his eyes with mine. “A very cute mess.” He said endearingly. Then I felt his warm, soft lips press against my forehead before he disappeared out of the room.
My heart was still racing. Even though we had been getting closer again, our relationship still wasn’t the same as it once was; after Macie and before Jake. His sweet and caring nature wasn’t out of character, but the small bits of physical contact felt foreign. I pulled the covers up over my bare legs and leaned back into the pillow, drawing in a deep breath and closing my eyes.
Moments later Niall came back with a glass of water, a bag of ice, and a blue foil packet. He carefully sat down on the edge of the bed next to me and placed the full glass on the bedside table. He peeled back the covers to expose my foot, and placed the bag of ice on my now swollen ankle. I winced at the sudden shock of cold, eyes flinging shut.
“Shit” he whispered. “You alright? Does it hurt?”
“’m fine” I breathed out, “I’ll be okay”.
His hands then reached down to the packet and opened it up, pulling out a damp white cloth.
“Niall I can-“
“Shh, I’ve got it”
Without hesitation, he brought the makeup remover wipe up to my face and gently swiped it under my eyes, removing the streaks of mascara from my crying fit. The cool cloth was a sharp contrast to my warm red skin underneath. I welcomed it by closing my eyes and letting his soft hands move around my face with the cloth.
I hummed in satisfaction and opened my eyes to see bright blue looking back at me. His hand was still on my cheek, the calloused guitar-playing fingers running down my jaw, to my neck, and eventually resting on my shoulder.
“You’re beautiful.” He stated simply.
As if my face wasn’t already red enough, I blushed, looking away from him again. My eyes turned glassy and I blinked rapidly before tears could escape my eyes for what felt like the millionth time that night.
“Thank you, Niall. You don’t have to do all this, really.”
“But I want to. I’m here for you darling. I can’t stand to see you like this. Ever since that jackass hurt you, you haven’t been the same. You’ve lost the sparkle in your eye, and I’ll do everything I can to get that back.”
His kindness was all too much. I was bordering on happy tears now, but I held myself together, in hopes of not worrying him anymore than I already was. There was something about Niall that I couldn’t put my finger on. He radiated an energy that I desperately needed. Rarely did I ever see him without a smile on his face. And his laugh, his laugh could cure cancer. In that moment it’s all I could think about, thinking back to the times when it was just me and him against the world.
“Tell me a joke.” I said straightforwardly.
I must have caught him off guard as his brow furrowed as he looked at me. “What? You want to hear my dumb dad jokes at three in the morning after all this?”
“Pleaseeee.” I grinned up at him, stretching out the word for emphasis.
“Alright then. I’ll be sure to make the punchline extra cheesy.” He winked at me with a smirk on his face and climbed up onto the bed, sitting in front of me with his legs crossed, hands reaching out to place on my knees. “Okay, so, what did the grape do when it got stepped on?”
Amused, I looked up at him, “What did it do?”
Before he could finish the joke, he already started to giggle. ”It let out a little wine.” His eyes shot to me, waiting for my response, but all I could do was shake my head.
“That’s it!? Niall that’s terrible.” I laughed out. “I know you can do better.”
His smile lessened, but didn’t disappear, as he looked me over again. His eyes stopped at my, well his, t-shirt and lingered on the logo above my breast. “Sorry, I’m a little….distracted.” he stuttered. “How about I tell you a story? Come here.” He moved next to me on the bed and leaned back into the headboard, snaking an arm around my back to pull me in close. I leaned my head against his chest and looked up, the scruff along his jawline becoming more prominent to my view. I had never really noticed he was growing out his facial hair, maybe it was new. Either way it looked quite good on him. I caught myself staring a bit too long and shifted my eyes back down, leaning into his chest.
“You know, this really does look good on you.” He said as he fumbled with the sleeve of my shirt. “I guess I’ll have to let you keep it.” A smirk danced on his face as he peered down at me wrapped up into him. I grinned and let out a satisfied hum. Little did he know that his roaming fingers on my arm were sending sparks across my body, but I wouldn’t let it show.
“Alright, let’s see…” he started. “Do you remember the time back in uni when we tried to plan that camping trip?”
Niall and I had met our sophomore year in college. We had the same astronomy class and were randomly paired up for our first assignment. We found out we had a friend in common, Louis, who shared his love of soccer (football as he called it) with the both of us. It eventually resulted in Sunday pickup games between Niall and his girlfriend Macie against me and Louis. Once Niall and Macie had ended things, it slowly turned into just the two of us grabbing a soccer ball and heading to the fields on warm nights, passing the ball back and forth as we told each other everything you could possibly know about a person. We knew all each others secrets, our deep past, and everything in between.
During that golden period, after Macie and before Jake, we planned a camping trip during our spring break. It was me, Niall, Louis, their friend Harry, and my childhood best friend Kaitlyn. To say it was a shit show was an understatement.
“Yes…” I responded, wondering where he was taking this story.
“So I never told you this, out of embarrassment, but I thought you’d get a kick out of now.” A smile danced across his lips as he was reliving the memory after holding it in so long.
We laid there for what felt like hours as Niall retold the story of that whole weekend from start to finish. I could listen to that Irish accent forever, focusing on those specific words that were pronounced so differently than mine. We laughed together, and I found myself unable to keep a smile off my face.
Eventually the effects of the alcohol and the early hours of the morning took over, and my eyes closed, drifting off to the sound of his heartbeat in his chest.
Thanks for reading!
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the m diaries
a series of short fics i wrote for my friend, who I am lucky enough to share a birthday with! this is for you, m, even if it’s late <3
pairings: logicality, background prinxiety
word count: 3667
warnings: i don’t think there are any for this? its the most fluff i’ve ever written. please tell me if i need to tag something!
taglist (general): @romanamongthestars @heir-of-the-founders @anthoscopus @ocotopushugs
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part one - a worthwhile ‘whisk’
It’s not a secret that Patton likes to bake - he does it often, and he does it well, and the others are not hesitant to show their appreciation of Patton’s baked goods. To say that Patton is a lover of food is to underestimate greatly, in Logan’s observations of the other Side.
It’s commonplace to find the other Side in the kitchen, a delicious smell wafting from the room alongside the hum of whatever song Patton was deciding to obsess over that day. Many days, it was a tune from Disney. Roman was quick to join in, happily singing along to whichever song Patton chose, dancing majestically in the dining area - alone, or with a partner. These days, he seemed to enjoy tugging Virgil into his dances, much to the blushing chagrin of the anxious Side.
Sometimes Roman or Virgil are recruited by Patton to help bake. Usually, this is a subtle maneuver from Patton whenever he notices that either is feeling particularly high-strung that day, lashing out more, or simply a bit quicker to give a reaction. And usually, he’s successful in cheering the others up, two flour-covered cheeks stretched in a dimpled simple difficult to ignore even by someone having the worst of days.
He’s yet to invite Logan into such an activity, though Logan supposes that, too, makes sense. Logan is rarely prone to the overly-emotional outbursts of the other three - he finds them frivolous and oftentimes unnecessary to achieving the best possible task. As such, Patton is less likely to notice when Logan is feeling particularly uncharitable, or, as he likes to put it, down in the dumps.
Usually, though, when Logan is feeling in such a way, he finds himself in the Commons, curled with a book he pretends to read as he listens to the consistent, calming noises of Patton rustling about in the kitchen, with his consistent humming. Logan finds comfort in the softness of their home in such moments, the simpleness of simply existing alongside Patton without need of their interaction, and getting along without saying a word. It’s… nice.
So finding Patton curled on one end of the couch, the cardigan Logan gave him fully on, no music or light streaming from the kitchen as the Commons are unusually enveloped in darkness is… surprising to say the least. Patton doesn’t say a word when Logan settles down next to him, barely glancing up at him. Though, in the brief moment where their eyes met, Logan suspects that he spotted a glimpse of bright tears swimming in Patton’s eyes.
Frowning to himself as he stood, Logan quietly made his way to the kitchen, flicking on the lights and ignoring the twing of something deep in his chest at the way Patton sniffled quietly in the Commons. Gathering the ingredients, vessels, and utensils necessary for Patton’s favourite dessert - triple fudge brownies - he began to quietly and gently place them on the counter, hoping they would catch the other Side’s interest.
When it’s been a few minutes and Logan has found himself halfway through the recipe with no sign of gaining Patton’s attention, he decides a more nuanced approach may be appropriate. Wiping his face on his shoulder, unknowingly smearing flour on his face, Logan washes his hands and quickly exits the kitchen, making the short way over to where the huddled form of Patton Sanders continues to sit.
Sitting down gently next to him, Logan waits until Patton spares him a glance to offer him an uncertain smile. When Patton does a double-take, that smile becomes a little more genuine, and surprisingly, a laugh bubbles in Logan’s throat when Patton pulls out of the curled position he had previously assumed - which must have been terrible on the Side’s back - to stare at him in shock.
Standing up, offering a hand to help Patton do the same, Logan gently asks, “Would you like to bake with me?”
The beaming, though slightly wet, smile that Patton gives him is answer enough. Hours later, when Roman and Virgil descend the stairs into the Commons, drawn by the housewarming, drool-inducing smell of the triple fudge brownies set to bake in the oven, they find the forms of Patton and Logan in the kitchen, covered in flour and other various ingredients. Both are laughing, faces aglow under the crappy kitchen lights as they steal unknowing glances each other, admiration clear in their gazes. Both are oblivious to the outside world, and the knowing glances that Roman and Virgil slant at them, lost in each other’s eyes and the happiness they find hidden deep inside.
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part two - a four-am snack
See, the problem isn’t really the time; four-am is no stranger to Logan, not with his tendency to go off on late-night binges on Wikipedia, always constantly searching for new information, new things that he hadn’t known before, something to settle the restless itch in his mind that always pushes him to learn more, know more, find out more. It usually ends in badly-hidden dark circles under his eyes, and the slightly disapproving frown Patton slants at him in the mornings, forcing Logan to hide the slight hurt he feels at the look.
That is - being awake at four-am is not something new for Logan. For Patton, however, is another story altogether. The man is the very definition of early mornings and early nights - Logan doesn’t think he’s ever seen the pure embodiment of sunshine stay awake beyond 11pm on any night. And he’s always awake, no matter what, at 6am, in the kitchen happily humming as the delicious smells of breakfast waft through the house.
So, on the rare night in which Logan is actually asleep at four-am, he’s rather surprised to find Patton gently shaking him awake, grin bright and happy under his glasses. It’s far too bright for four in the morning, but Logan finds that he cannot bring himself to truly complain. Not when the full force of the same smile is directed straight at him, even if it is at four in the morning.
Speaking of which.
“Patton… why, exactly, are the two of us awake at four in the morning?” Logan asks, voice heavy with sleep as he pushes himself onto his elbows. Patton doesn’t reply, simply raising an excited finger to his lip in a shushing motion and grabbing Logan’s wrist, warm fingers curling snuggly around it.
Logan is suddenly glad it is too dark for Patton to see the red that crawls up his neck. He lets the shorter Side bounce ahead of him, eyes watching the bounce of soft curls as they head down the stairs.
The Commons are silent, save for the quiet fall of rain in the backyard outside. For once, the TV and the radio are off, silence settling into the Commons in a way that it rarely does when all four of them are awake. Darkness has quietly befallen the Commons, shadows gently reaching sleepy fingers towards the center of the room, where Patton happens to be dragging Logan anyway.
Logan follows the Side, mostly in a sleepy haze of confusion, until Patton is dragging him to sit down on the couch, the blinds having been opened to the outside world. Rain falls heavily and steadily, the world occasionally illuminated by flashing glimpses of lighting far in the distance, thunder rumbling quietly and comfortingly. Patton doesn’t say a word, but aims another one of his blindingly beautiful smiles at Logan, and Logan… understands, suddenly, what Patton wants from him without a single word.
Gently, he relaxes into the couch, feet drawing up underneath him in a comfortable fold as Patton settles in comfortably next to him. Silence curls around them, blanketing the moment in a kind of peace difficult to find in their rushing, energy-filled home during the day. And Logan could understand why Patton awoke him - for this, for a moment such as this, Logan wouldn’t mind waking up a million times.
The peace is a fragile thing, really - easily broken by the slightest of movement or the softest of noise. The background of the falling rain is soothing, a quiet reassurance to busy minds that moments of solitude and recuperation are available. Moments like these are difficult to find and even harder to catch. Some distant part of Logan is unimaginably grateful that Patton invited him to one - and chose to share it with Logan.
Eventually, Logan’s eyes slip close, his head tilting dangerously until he finds himself leaning on Patton. It draws a wide-eyed gaze from Patton, one that is quick to soften into something highly akin to fondness and love. Shifting them slightly into a much more comfortable position, Patton places a gentle kiss at Logan’s dark brow before slipping off both their glasses. Closing his own eyes, Patton allows himself to drift off.
In front of them, rain continues to gently fall. Lightning flashes illuminate both their faces as they sleep, a soft, different kind of peace settling quietly over the sleeping pair.
All is well.
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part three - a field day of flowers
It starts with Roman and Patton, and their overly-enthusiastic love of flowers, gardens, and flower gardens. And Virgil, who apparently spent one Wikipedia-fueled night with Logan on a binge of flower meanings and is unable to say no to Patton’s puppy dog eyes. Not that he has to, with Roman aiming a hopeful smirk at him. Virgil is especially weak to those, as Logan has come to note over the last few weeks.
It ends with Logan’s hair full of flowers, and Patton bounding up to him, grin firmly in place as he shoves bouquets of multi-coloured roses into Logan’s arm. How they end up there is the true story.
Logan finds that Roman has a very unsubtle way of trying to subtly pushing him into asking Patton out. That is - the field they are currently in is absolutely chock full of flowers that symbolize romance, and different forms of love that Logan does not necessarily want to admit that he feels.
They are bright and beautiful, much like Patton, who very much has a fondness of bright and beautiful things. Which means that when Patton goes running off to the fields, hands curling around wild red carnations, Logan cannot help the red flush that travel up his neck. And at the question Patton poses him, curls bouncing as he tilts his head, Logan has to take a moment for himself before he can bring himself to answer. After all, red carnations represent deep romantic love, as well as passion, and Roman is really bad at being subtle.
Logan spots Virgil’s influences when he sees jasmines in the distance, the long-stemmed white flower catching Patton’s eye at the same time it does Logan’s. And Logan remembers a distant conversation, months prior under a starry sky and a nervous Virgil far too anxious about approaching a certain prince in regards to his feelings. Logan had remembered jasmines, then, sitting under the stars with his best friend - remembered that they had a symbol for unconditional and eternal love. Patton comes dashing up with a gentle handful of them, quietly threading them into Logan’s hair as he stands stock-still, a blush alighting both their faces even as they avoid each others’ gazes.
Purple bellflowers are next to join the wild array of flowers in Roman’s field and Logan’s hair. Patton finds them, quietly cooing over how they remind him of Virgil even as he picks them, holding them out gently to Logan. By now, the blush is something far more permanent, stuck on his face as Patton gently tucks two bellflowers behind each of Logan’s ears. He’s not entirely sure that Patton is truly understand the meaning of the flowers he is presenting to Logan like a gift - bellflowers are said to symbolize unwavering love, after all.
It is the similar story with the asters, though Logan is the one to point out the small area where the white-and-yellow flowers grow. He isn’t really sure why he did it, though some instinct drove him to do it, some art of him wondering if Patton would appreciate the flower as he quietly explained the meaning of asters. (They were symbols of love, of trust.)
And that is the story of how they end up here - with Logan and an arrangement of flowers in his hair, each one more romantic in meaning, and Patton running up with more in his hand.
Except these are roses - red and white, together, coming together to represent a union, and red alone to mean true love - and Logan is not sure Patton is fully aware of the meaning his actions hold, of the things he has communicated silently to Logan. And Logan - he cannot bear it, cannot have false hope in the light of things unsaid, not when a large part of his world teeters hopefully on the axis of the brightness in Patton’s eyes, and the pangs of sadness that overcome him when that brightness dulls, even for a moment. Of this, Logan must be sure.
And so he asks, voice quiet and gentle and hopeful despite his every attempt to keep it impassive. To be sure that he is not selling his heart away to someone who does not want, has never wanted it.
Patton only smiles and boops Logan’s nose, smiling as he calls Logan silly, saying that he’s been trying to send a message the entire time.
Logan smiles.
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part four - a midnight wait
It is 5 minutes away from midnight on the night of April 30th, and Logan is suddenly nervous. It’s like every minute has slowed down to a crawl as he awaits the inevitable striking of midnight, and the shift into May - May 1st being, of course, Patton’s day of birth.
He’s likely being irrational about this event in its entirety. It is not, in any shape or form whatsoever, unusual or irrational to stay awake until the moment when a new day is born simply to extend birthday wishes to a friend - Logan has experienced the same from his friends often. But Patton - Patton is not just any other friend. No, he cannot be, not with the giant crush Logan has on him.
4 minutes now, and all Logan can think about is Patton’s bright blue eyes and the way they light up behind his glasses whenever he sees Logan. The rush of happiness Logan gets at seeing the happiness in Patton’s eyes, the way the blue eyes see more, understand more than anyone else Logan has known. Here is the truth, raw and honest, if Logan was to ever give it: Patton is much smarter than others make him out to be, much smarter than he himself makes him out to be. After all, intelligence is not simply a measure of knowledge useful in schools - there are countless kinds of intelligence, and Patton is the most emotionally-intelligent person Logan has ever had the pleasure to know, the pleasure to be friends with. It is all written in his eyes.
3 minutes, and Logan’s thoughts shift to Patton’s smile. It has never failed to draw the attention of people - it’s the biggest compliment Patton gets, that his smile is wide and beautiful. And, seeing it from an absolutely objective viewpoint, it is a beautiful smile - the most beautiful Logan has seen adorning the frankly perfect beautiful face of the most wonderful human Logan has had the privilege of knowing. Patton’s smile is enough to light up a room, enough to bring cheer even to the most of upset of people when all else has failed. It’s one of the most wonderful things about him.
2 minutes, and Logan is suddenly struck with the image of Patton’s freckles. They’re everywhere, adorning most of Patton’s face with their grace and their beauty, and Logan wants to spend every day of his life counting them over and over again, tracing the constellations in them and finding new ones. They’re mini-stars on Patton’s cheek, an universe spreading itself across the bridge of Patton’s nose for Logan to appreciate in the moments when there is quiet and peace across the room - and sometimes in the ones where there is not. He’s often been caught staring at the freckles, mentally counting them, tallying up the counts in his mind and committing them to his memory.
1 minute - Logan is truly nervous now, a strange kind of energy humming in him as his grip tightens around his phone. This birthday feels different somehow, as if it means more than a simple wish on a simple minute. He and Patton have been dancing around each other for awhile now, neither acknowledging their emotions or doing something that would bring their awkward dance to a stop, neither willing to take the initiative if the other isn’t. But of course, each moment is important, and as Logan sits in bed, phone in hand, he knows that this birthday will bring something new into his life, and into Patton’s.
0 minutes.
Me to Patton <3: Happy Birthday, Patton. May all the wishes you may want come true.
Patton <3 to you: Aww, thank you Logan! See you later today! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
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part five - dental shenanigans
Logan has a tendency to wear a straight face like a mask - neutrality is his natural state, and oftentimes it is mistakenly misread for displeasure. It’s highly ever the case - Logan is a serious man, and he does not like to display his emotions for everyone to see. He takes them for a sign of weakness - he should be strong enough that he is the only one he needs to deal with, and understand his emotions, in his mind. It’s a mentality Patton works hard to get rid of.
Of course, that is a Logan who is not high on anesthesia following a dental procedure. A Logan who is high on anesthesia is a completely different story, as Patton is about to learn.
It’s like this - a high Logan is one that lowers the boundaries he has, the walls he has built to exclude almost every and isolate himself into a fortress of solitude, as illogical as it may be. Which means he’s no longer suppressing the emotions that rise and fall in his chest like waves.
Patton sees this when he first enters the room, Logan’s eyes immediately jump to Patton, forgetting everything and everyone else in the room as a wide grin splits his lips, Patton’s name tumbling out his mouth in a happy cry. The nurse shook her head fondly in the corner, knowing she’d lost the war for the man’s attention from the moment a nervous-looking Patton had stepped into the room.
Patton, for his part, was no less dramatic. He was quick to run over to Logan’s side, grabbing his hand as he stared in worry at the usually stoic man, not registering that Virgil had ducked into the room behind him, phone ready in his hand as he snickered quietly to himself, video already rolling. He had eyes only for Logan, and it seemed that Logan only had eyes for Patton.
This would be fun to show to Logan when he wasn’t quite as loopy in the morning, but for now, Virgil was going to take as much advantage of this as he could. Nothing like a little bit of blackmail for the man who had piles of blackmail on the others, stored safely away.
Virgil has to bite his lips to stop his laughter when Logan suddenly throws his arms around Patton’s shoulders, loudly declaring him the most perfect of angels, giggling as Patton automatically hugged him back before quietly whispering that Patton gave the best hugs, ever.
Roman was really going to hate that he’d missed this, especially because Virgil was too busy shaking with laughter to really hold the camera steady. It was an experience in-and-of itself to see Logan so… open with his emotions, especially in front of people he wasn’t familiar with in the first place. And for the man to do it so flamboyantly, as well, in a manner that didn’t fail to remind Virgil of Roman’s overly-extravagant way of speaking and acting altogether. It was as if Logan was a whole new man in such a loopy state.
Though it was becoming clearer that Patton didn’t quite know how to handle Logan in such a state, judging by the way that Patton clung to Logan, not allowing him to fall but not really holding him as if he was hugging him. Virgil supposed it was fair enough - none of them had really ever seen Logan so… extra, before.
Before Virgil can do anything, however, Logan pulls away, hands coming up to grab Patton’s face as he gasps, before loudly and suddenly asking, “Oh my god, are you an angel?”
Patton giggles lightly, reaching up and fixing the crooked glasses on Logan’s face before responding, “No, I’m Patton, silly.”
Logan gasps again, hands covering Patton’s own on his face, “But that’s the best thing to be! Patton’s are so cool, and fun, and nice, and sweet, and smart, and funny, and they make the best puns! My Patton is really, really cool! Have you met him?”
Virgil laughs at the blush covering Patton’s entire face, though Patton’s voice is steady as he responds, “Really? You should really tell your Patton you feel this way. I bet he would be really happy if you did.”
Logan smiles sleepily at Patton, eyes blinking slowly as he whispers, “Okay, Patton! If you say so, though no telling him! I want to tell him when I wake up, okay? No telling Patton, you have to pinky promise me.”
Patton pinky-promises Logan, and Logan only smiles again, before succumbing to his own exhaustion and slipping into sleep, hand still holding Patton’s lightly, their pinkies linked. Patton makes no move to unlink them, even as Virgil approaches quietly, ready to tease the hell out of his friend.
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Comments and reblogs are highly, highly appreciated and also lifeblood. Ofc, no forcing. <3 have a good night
#logicality#logan sanders#patton sanders#virgil sanders#roman sanders#sanders side fic#logicality fluff#so much fluff#background prinxiety#an writes#my writing#AHH PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS ILL LOVE U FOREVER#I CRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE#IM NOT GOOD AT FLUFF BE GENTLE PLS#hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn
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the vocabulary of us
Summary: Sometimes, words won't suffice to describe a love like theirs. Unless, of course, they're in alphabetical order. (Part 1 of 2)
Author’s Note: This is my tribute to the amazing David Leviathan, and his incredible book The Lovers’ Dictionary. The dictionary format that this fic has taken is not mine, and I use it here in homage to Leviathan.
Furthermore, this is a work of fiction. While it is based on a number of real-life events (filming of Riverdale 1.06, the Antelope Valley shoot, Comic-Con, the SH Hawaii trip, among many others), it is purely speculative, and was not intended to upset or offend.
Thank you to @jandjsalmon and @theatreofexpression for your incredible beta work, and to @stark, @gingerheel, @a92vm and @amab1060 for reading over this at different points and your valuable input.
Read under the cut, or on Ao3.
aperture (noun)
I wanted to capture you on film the moment I first met you.
The lighting, at least from a photographer’s perspective, wasn’t ideal; you were lit by nothing more than the fluorescent gleam of the lights overhead. There was no natural sunlight in that audition room - just an artificial pallor that made all of us look greyish and pale.
Not you, though.
That day, you were radiance and lustre and fire. Beyond the sudden certainty in my gut that I wanted to look at you for an unusually long period of time, there was something about you that day that drew me in. I averted my gaze - I didn’t want to come off as a creep - but every nerve in my body insisted on the contrary. I ignored them. Reluctantly.
What was it, though, that pulled me under? Perhaps it was your steely conviction, or your absolute, unflinching belief in yourself, both so evident in the way that you kept your head down, your eyes fixed on your script. Whatever it was, it was palpable - glaringly apparent to anyone who saw you (ask Cami. She was there. She knew it, too).
I didn’t photograph you that day. But maybe it’s for the best.
There are some things that are better captured by the unfiltered, evanescent lens of memory.
…
banter (noun)
Should I have been surprised at the rapid accumulation of teasing remarks between us? My underlying, deliberate flirtation and your coy return?
One time, I threw out a joke - a half-insult, really - that would’ve thwarted a lesser being. To see if you would take it. To see how far I could push you.
I wasn’t prepared. You smiled, drew yourself up like a pistol, then roasted me so magnificently that my friends gasped, and couldn’t stop laughing for ages.
I fell so fucking hard for you that night.
…
confirm (verb)
When I sensed the turning of the tide, I FaceTimed Dylan. He was puttering around his apartment, occasionally turning towards his phone, which was propped up on the kitchen benchtop. I asked him when he’d be back in LA.
“Two weeks, if the meeting with the William Vale contractors goes well, otherwise I’ll have to stick around here and push the trip back,” he said. “Why?”
“I want you to meet her.” I cleared my throat. “Lili, I mean.”
At the mention of your name - a name he had heard many a time over the last few months - he turned right around. I stared back at him, hoping that the implication was obvious enough that I didn’t need to elucidate why I wanted him to meet you . My once-mirror image, his hair golden as mine used to be, fixed his eyes on me and nodded sagely.
“Alright.”
That day on the beach, you couldn’t have been more perfect if you tried. You cooed over photos of Magnus. You asked him about the brewery. Your interest didn’t even waver as he segued into an impromptu lecture on how to use squash blossoms to infuse mead. You both discovered an affinity for laughing at my expense, which I didn’t mind (at least not from you; he just likes being a dick).
When you left, he and I hung back at the beach in companionable silence, staring at the horizon while finishing off our beers. He spoke up first.
“So… did you need, I don’t know, my blessing or something?”
I shrugged. “I just wanted to know what you thought of her.”
“You want my honest opinion?”
I sat up. “Yeah. I do.”
He polished off the rest of his drink, then looked at me, his face absolutely deadpan. “Cole, I’m sorry. She’s way too good for you.”
I laughed my head off. “Fuck off, dude.”
“Love you, too, baby bro.”
...
draft (noun)
In my mind, I wrote and rewrote what I was going to say to you. It needed to be heartfelt, but not too sentimental. Articulate, but not overly verbose (as I often tend to be).
It haunted me, the thought of this hypothetical speech.
...
envelope (verb)
It would all prove futile.
I wanted to enrapture you with my words.
Instead, I wrapped you up in my arms.
…
found (verb)
Had I been lost before that moment? Because as I slipped in behind your sleeping form and you tensed for a brief, fearful moment before melting achingly into mine, I felt as though I existed only in the places where our bodies touched, and all the rest of me was smoke.
We fell asleep together on the couch. Actually, that’s a lie - you fell asleep while I grinned stupidly at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. I felt like I was discovering someone new that night. Not you: I was already learning you like most things I’ve learned in my life - passionately, persistently, obsessively.
I was discovering myself. Like a man seeing his reflection in the mirror after months in the wilderness, I was startled by the person I’d become.
He was happy. At peace. And he was falling in love.
...
green (noun)
When I was in college, I took a class on art theory and criticism at Gallatin, where we did a whole two weeks on colour symbolism. Red is passion, anger, lust, love. White is purity, innocence, perfection. Etc, etc. You get the point.
Now, as for green.
“The etymology of green is simple,” my professor - the artist Meleto Mokosi - said as he paced around the lecture room stage. “It comes from the Old English word grene, which has the same root as the words grass, and more significantly, grow. This explains many of our symbolic associations with the colour: nature, energy, freshness and growth.”
He clicked on his laptop and an image of an Egyptian painting filled the large screen behind him. “The Ancient Egyptians, however, were onto this long before Old English even existed as a language. To them, green symbolised more than growth. Its hues painted the face of one of their chief gods, Osiris, the god of the underworld. It represented vigour and health, but more importantly, it represented regeneration. Rebirth.”
How apt. That the fervent green of your eyes was all I saw before I leaned in to close the distance between our lips for the very first time.
I was reborn in that kiss.
…
historical (adjective)
It didn’t occur to either of us to mark the date. We only realised this months later. You were frantic. We need a date, Cole. And I understood that - the need to commemorate, to pay tribute.
But history is more than a timeline, is it not? And it’s more than just facts and people and places. It’s about feel. It’s about zeitgeist. It’s about what the senses recall.
I don’t need a date to remind me of the scent of your skin, the soft pillow of your mouth, the gentle pull of your teeth on my bottom lip, your hands on my chest, your wrists still caught in my grip.
The memory of you transcends chronology.
…
inarticulate (adjective)
Sometimes it’s a look - an upward, innocent glance or a slight, playful glint in your eyes. Other times, it’s the maddening curve of your waist, or the shape you take as you turn off the light and move slowly towards the edge of my bed, your smile palpable even in the hushed darkness.
It’s in those times when you render me - yes, even me - speechless.
...
juxtaposed (verb)
We were driving somewhere. I had one hand on the steering wheel, another on your knee.
“So you went to school to escape acting, and I escaped from school into acting.” Your eyes sparkled as you drew that contrast between us.
I turned to smile at that. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“We were going in two completely opposite directions, essentially.”
“Yep.”
Silence. Then: “Huh.” You let out a rush of breath. “That’s crazy.”
I stole a quick glance at you. “What is?
“Just… that somehow, in the briefest window of time, we met in the middle.”
...
keepsake (noun)
You thought you’d lost it - your white shirt, from the first night you stayed over.
I kept it for a while. I wanted to preserve the memory of its removal.
…
ladder (noun)
A kiss triggered it - the deluge of questions that we had managed to ward off in the haze of each other.
Our first onscreen kiss as Betty and Jughead was supposed to be simple and straightforward. We’d both made light of it in the lead-up to filming. After all, we’d kissed plenty by that point. What’s another one, right?
But on the day, I stood at the bottom of that ladder while Steven, our director, talked me through what he wanted. Slowly, it was becoming anything but straightforward.
“Jughead’s putting himself in a vulnerable place,” he said. “Yes, he summons up the courage to kiss this girl he’s been rapidly developing feelings for, but down here, your character’s still in a place of nervousness and anxiety because he has no idea how the hell this is gonna turn out. It’s a big move for him. The ladder has nine steps on it, but really, the emotional equivalent of what he’s going through spans the distance of a thousand miles.”
I nodded in agreement. The wheels in my head were already turning, anticipating his direction.
“It’s a pivotal scene, and Jughead is driving it. He’s acting out of his own agency, exercising initiative over one of the only areas in his life in which he can have power - his feelings. So I guess what I need from you as an actor is to access that same vulnerability. To tap into your own emotional memory. Is there a place in your life where that vulnerability exists? I want you to go there. Safely, of course.”
So I did. There were plenty of moments in my life in which I’d felt vulnerable, but none of them felt particularly safe to delve into unless I had some sort of epic therapeutic debrief afterwards.
Then I thought of you, and how you made me feel reckless and exposed and exuberant all at the same time. And then it hit me.
I was about to kiss this girl that I was falling in love with in front of a crew of twenty people.
My head started reeling.
Does this scare her as much as it scares me - all the noise that surrounds us?
What if the noise overtakes us?
What if it becomes too much?
What if we crumble under the pressure?
If I wasn’t feeling exposed before, I sure as fuck was feeling it now.
Suddenly the nine rungs leading up to Betty’s room stretched out to infinity, and the journey there felt like a quantum leap.
...
metaphor (noun)
I kind of botched the kiss. You thought I’d forgotten my cue, saying your line (“What?”) twice - the second time, more forcefully - because I probably looked as lost and worried as I felt. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Britta flipping through the script, unsure of what to do or whether it was supposed to play out the way that it did.
But your lips were my ballast in the storm, and as I went in for that kiss, I felt the chaos in my mind subsiding, my vision narrowing to only you. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that we were surrounded by twenty people, with three cameras pointed in our direction, because the only thing that carried weight in that moment was me and you.
I always think of our process for filming that scene as a metaphor for us. Or at least for how I feel about you. We’re constantly surrounded by so much noise, but you are my touchstone for clarity.
In the contented silences of our drives home, I remember this: that you are the quiet in the clamour, the stillness that steadies me.
…
north (noun)
“If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?”
You gave me a lazy smile from where you were lying down, near the foot of your bed. “I’d be right here. With you.”
I rolled my eyes and chortled at that. “Obviously. Besides here.”
You sat up, the sheets bunched around your body. With your hair all messed up and the sunlight hitting you just right, you looked ethereal. “Wait, don’t answer just yet,” I said, grabbing my camera off the nightstand. “Hold that pose for me.”
You kept your eyes forward, away from the lens, already accustomed to the way I worked. “Honestly, how many photos have you taken of me, Cole?”
I snapped a couple. “Not enough.” I put the camera down and crawled over to you. “Okay. Back to the question.”
You chewed thoughtfully on your lower lip. “I’d have to say… Antelope Valley. I’ve never been.”
I scoffed. “Really? That’s like an hour from here, Lils. You could’ve picked, I don’t know, Hawaii or something.”
“Well, Hawaii is such a dream. That’s on my ‘someday’ list.” (I took note of that.) But I like my fantasies accessible.” I smiled and opened my mouth to make a crack about accessible fantasies, but you clamped it shut with your hand. “And please, have a little self-respect, Cole: the joke’s too easy. Don’t even bother going there.”
(Have I ever told you that I love it when you call me out on my shit?)
“Alright then,” I said, taking your hand and kissing your open palm. “Why Antelope Valley? Why would you want to go there?”
“You’ll laugh.”
I shrugged. “Try me.”
“Alright. It’s a little self-indulgent, but… you know the poppy fields up there?” I nodded. “I want to go there, dress up like a fairy princess, and walk amongst the flowers and have my photo taken.”
I smiled. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Your face scrunched up in embarrassment. “Is that... lame? That’s lame, right? Like, total Manic Pixie Dream Girl bullshit.”
“No, it’s actually…” The first word that came to mind was ‘adorable’. Which was woefully inadequate. I felt as though I had to resort to some insanely specific German word, one that meant “an overwhelming desire to fulfill the dreams of a lover, fuelled by intense feelings of warmth and affection.”
Because even then, mere months into our story, I knew that I wanted to indulge every whim and wish of yours. That I would do anything in my power to make you happy.
“You there?” You waved your hand in front of my face.
I turned to you. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
“What?”
“It’s about an hour’s drive up north from here, and you’ll probably have to change there, but I guess you can always—”
You launched into me so quickly that our teeth knocked together, and I’m pretty sure I bit you by accident.
We laughed about it afterwards. Right before you went on to research every fast food outlet and candy store on the route to the valley. Right before I promised myself that I would do this more often - take adventures with you.
…
obsess (verb)
I traced the soft muscles on your back with my hand, the black dress you wore on the day accentuating it perfectly. Unfairly.
“Get in the car,” I whispered.
In the backseat, I followed that same path with my lips - the one my fingers had made - inhaling the scent of the valley and of your skin.
Creating an addiction from which I could never recover.
…
proprietorial (adjective)
There are unspoken protocols in archaeology about what to do once you’ve found something incredibly valuable. The first priority is obviously protection, and archaeologists take this seriously; some use code words when talking about the found artifact (like “buttons” for gold, or “lemons” for silver) to avoid the constant threat of public theft, while others employ guards around the clock to preserve the excavation site. The more valuable the artifact, the more serious and intensive the protection.
It might be the archaeologist lying dormant in me, but I guarded the secret of us with a fierce protectiveness. Like a treasure goblin clutching its horde, I held on to the intimate knowledge of our relationship, reluctant to impart it to anyone else beyond my family and closest friends.
Because unlike so much of my life that is co-owned by my brother, or has been co-opted by the public, this thing that we had was wholly and completely mine. Or rather, ours. And I wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.
There’s something sexy in that. In the secrecy. In what is hidden.
In looking at you from across the room, and knowing that no matter how beautiful you looked in that moment, you were still more transcendent in my arms that morning.
…
quell (verb)
“Tsk, tsk. Be careful, dude.” Mad appeared at my side, a cocktail in her hand. The Comic-Con shindig was our last media obligation for the weekend, and it was pleasing to see her there - one of mine and Debby’s friends from LA, and now one of yours, too.
I gave her a look. “‘Careful’? Of what?”
She shook her head and laughed. “Seriously? You have no idea what you look like right now?”
“Well, I am wearing a nifty red suit--”
“I think technically, that colour’s called oxblood.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll stick to red.” Mad rolled her eyes at me. “Besides my nifty RED suit, I haven’t the faintest idea what the hell you’re talking about.”
She leaned in. “Look I’ve known about it for ages now, so I’m not particularly surprised, but when you’re making those desperate bedroom eyes at Lili...” I scoffed dismissively. She ignored me and went on. “When you’re doing that, you’re pretty much broadcasting your relationship to the whole room. Actually, scratch that - to this whole fucking town. ”
I wanted to brush that off, but she may have had a point.
Comic-Con had been fun, but difficult. Both of us knew that we were under scrutiny, and had zero interest in responding to any rumour or speculation that had nothing to do with the show itself.
Even then, with that in the back of our minds, we just barely managed to suppress ourselves from enacting the normalcy of our relationship. Every time I was in your vicinity, I had to pull myself together, because after months of retaining the memory of your skin, I could barely trust myself not to touch you.
So instead, I sought you out in every interview, every crowded room. It didn’t matter where you stood or sat, whether you were close by or seated far away from me: I always found you, and somehow willed you to look my way. I didn’t really need much more than that - just the assurance that you were there was enough.
The party, however, felt different. As my eyes settled on you - as they were now trained to do - my gaze was drawn to others that had you in their sights. Particularly one - a brash industry type who none too subtly shifted course and crossed over to you and Cami.
Usually, I’m a fairly chilled out boyfriend, but it was the end of an insanely busy week, and I was exhausted and in no mood to look at other guys gawking at you. Or, in this case, brazenly chatting you up.
I put my beer down on a table next to me, my body steely with resolve.
Mad read my mind and nudged me sharply with her elbow. “Hey. Friendly reminder that it’s an Entertainment Weekly party.” The implication was clear: the place was swarming with reporters. Technically off-duty, but obviously still tuned in to any whiff of gossip. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging off my blazer. “Fuck it. Tell them we were canoodling.”
I could still hear Mad’s bark of laughter as I walked through the crowd, blazer in hand, driven by purpose. Your back was turned; Camila had to tap your arm to get your attention.
You raised an eyebrow at me as you turned around. “Cole?”
I needed an excuse. Anything. “Are you cold?”
“Cold? Um, I guess...?”
I stepped forward and reached around to drape my jacket over your shoulders - a signal, clear as day, for anyone who cared enough to read into it, including this poor, irrelevant fuckboi who had stupidly attempted to launch a flirtatious offensive your way. As he slunk away, I stayed where I stood, inches away from you, uncaring as to who saw us standing that way, that close.
In your eyes mingled incredulity, confusion and delight. What are you doing? Do you know where we are? “Um. Are you okay?”
Was I? All I knew was that I was with you. And I’d been wanting to do just this one thing all night. Because I was tired of the pretence, and I needed my girl.
I leaned in and kissed you, right there in the middle of that crowded room. You went rigid with panic before melting against me, your lips soft and trusting and pliant in mine.
“I’m fine,” I whispered against your mouth. “Never better.”
…
recurring (verb)
Yours or mine?
At the beginning of every weekend, you asked that on the drive home, your overnight bag sitting in the back of my car.
Yours or mine?
I didn’t mind either. My PS4 was at my place, but at least your washing machine actually worked.
(Okay, so mine just hadn’t been used.)
Yours or mine?
From a Friday ritual, it became a nightly one. Until nights turned into consecutive mornings. You’d go home to get more clothes. Eventually, you bought a toothbrush and left it on my bathroom sink.
One day, you leaned over and whispered at the end of a long day at work, I’m tired.
Let’s go home.
...
surprise (noun)
I gave you a sleepy, lingering kiss goodbye before I left for my weekend shoot in LA. Making sure you were still asleep, I adjusted the folded printout of our Hawaii flight itinerary, propping it up on the nightstand, with a Post-it note stuck on top.
“You and me. New Year’s.”
I wish I was there. I wish I’d recorded it somehow, heard the screams that triggered the complaints to building management. As it turns out, all I received was this, a text message in all caps:
“YOU SNEAKY FUCKER I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.”
...
trick or treat (noun)
“So this washes off, right?”
“For the fiftieth time, Cole, yes.”
You were carefully drawing my skull teeth lines over the thick white base you’d applied to my face. I poked at your stomach. You looked up, close to the edge of your patience. I’d been doing that to you the entire time.
“Yes?”
“Nothing, I just…” I tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear. “You’re really good at this, you know? I love that.”
I watched as your hard, focused expression softened into appreciation. “Thank you, babe.”
“Also, we can still kiss with this on, right?”
You frowned. “It’ll smudge.”
“But how much are we talking, though? Like full-on smearing, or just a small streak here and there? Because if it’s just a streak, do you think—”
“Cole!”
“No kissing. Got it.”
I shut my mouth, clasped my hands neatly on my lap, the very picture of perfect behaviour. You giggled at the sight.
“Alright, you big baby. Just one more before I have to shade the black in.”
Like a kid being told that he could finally eat all his Halloween candy, I didn’t need to be told twice.
...
uneventful (adjective)
But, in all honesty, so much of who we are dwells in the mundane.
In passing out together on the couch after a long day at work. In the gaps of silence as we trawl through Instagram before settling in for the night. In the text messages compiling the grocery shopping list for the week. In the exasperation as I trip over one of your heels in the dark. In seeing your face dotted with pimple cream. In the arguments over whose turn it was to pick the driving playlist.
Between monotony with you and thrills with anyone else, I’d pick being boring with you. Every single time.
…
validate (verb)
I rubbed my eyes in frustration and looked at the kitchen clock. 2 am. Fuck. I had an early call time, too.
“Cole?” You came out of the room, bleary-eyed and wrapped in the duvet that you’d dragged off the bed. “You’re still awake.”
“I am.” I swivelled around in my chair to face you. “Everything I’ve taken sucks. It sucks, Lili. I’m sitting here trying to edit my photos, and I’m dying of cringe.”
“Oh, come on. You’re only saying that because it’s two in the morning and you’re your own worst critic. Here, move over.” I shifted a little in my seat as you sat on my lap, duvet and all.
You scrolled through the photos on my laptop. “Okay. Look at this one. See the way you’ve framed Sam here? In the rips of the white plastic?”
“It’s super pretentious, right?”
“No! God, what is wrong with you? It’s stunning. And see how he stands in the landscape, beyond the confines of the plastic? That’s like, a gorgeous metaphor for his process as an artist, how he’s broken free from the mold, how he’s his own man now.”
I sat there silently.
“Oh, and this one? The way you’ve tilted the horizon, and captured the sweep of his trenchcoat, the top hat in his hand? The lines in this are so bold and--”
“Brash?” I grinned at you.
You rolled your eyes. “I was gonna say ‘striking’, but sure, you can go with that.” I hugged you close to me. “Your work is amazing, Cole. Don’t you ever doubt yourself.”
“Thank you.” I kissed your shoulder. “How do you know so much about photography, anyway?”
You gave me a cute little shrug. “I learned from the best.”
…
whipped (adjective)
See: COLE SPROUSE.
...
xenophile (noun)
I thought I was the nerd. But I wasn’t the one who loaned James Michener’s Hawaii from the library and took it out to read on the plane.
It was adorable. But also, it made me want to take you everywhere. To spark your curiosity, to ignite your discoveries, to stoke the wonder.
If there was anyone who could be by your side as you found that the world was your oyster, please, let it always be me.
...
yes (unclassified)
We’re light years away from the fact, but in my idle moments, I imagine it. I imagine how I’d do it - where, and when, and even who might be there.
Maybe our friends. My brother. Your family. Definitely a photographer. In my more delirious flights of fancy, a specially trained pug.
And you. Obviously you. Your hair caught up in the breeze, your eyes widening in surprise before crumpling in the weight of the moment.
Saying yes.
…
zenith (noun)
We stood at the summit, the warm air punctuated by pockets of sea breeze. So many people think of the beach when they think of Hawaii, but - as we found out ourselves - its lush, verdant mountains are just as amazing and sublime.
I held your hand in mine as we looked out over the gorge and at the sea beyond it, the vivid cerulean of the deep bleeding into the viridity of the shallows. There was no-one else around, just us. I pulled you in, holding you in my embrace, relishing being alone with you.
I thought of the year that had passed, and my mind wandered to where I was when midnight struck over to 2017 - running down to the lobby of the William Vale while my brother and our friends waited outside the room we had locked ourselves out of, eating the remains of a pizza off the floor. You and I had tried to call each other to wish each other a happy new year, but in the tangle of signals and the confusion of the room situation, we didn’t make it, settling for a text message instead.
Thinking of the marked contrasts between then and now, a thought began to formulate in my mind - that this was it. That I had hit the proverbial jackpot of fate. Standing there, on the peak of a mountain in Hawaii, holding you in my arms, I had the very best that life had to offer.
But then you tugged at my sleeve and excitedly pointed out a pod of dolphins swimming in the waves, and there and then, I realised that my earlier assumption was wrong. Or at least it wasn’t entirely right. There were surprises around every corner. New heights to be scaled, new adventures to pursue. All of them with you.
“Oh my god, did you see that?” you asked.
I did, Lili. And I saw you. And realised the truth.
Our best still lies ahead of us.
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The Basting Stitch
Unfortunately I am going to talk about Supernatural (yes, 2005 TV Series) because the ride never ends, and it'll be Supernatural right up until the end of the year when we can collectively forget that the show ever existed, like a distant memory that could just have easily been a dream.
The reason I mention Supernatural is because I was trying to figure out the first year I attempted NaNoWriMo. My best guess is 2011, which is shortly after season six ended. I'd become attached to the show via Tumblr because I was in my early teens and that's basically what anyone on Tumblr in their early teens in the early 10's did. In my April school holiday I watched all six seasons (up to what was currently airing) on terrible quality streaming sites, and came away in a haze of having consumed far to much middle-quality urban fantasy television. My first project that November, had transformed from a light-hearted fantasy tale to something that could easily be ripped off from a season of Supernatural. The project was doomed to failure, and I finished my first NaNoWriMo attempt at somewhere in the 2,000 word region.
As a concept, NaNoWriMo always appeared to be entirely doable for every moment other than in November itself. I'd managed to hold up a streak of 380 days on Memrise once (before I lost it whilst going to Tokyo Disneyland), so writing each day for only 30 days had to be feasible, right? Then one skipped day lead to two, which lead to three, which lead to a fourth day of maybe only a paragraph, and then eventually it'd be January of the next year and I'd have maybe the best part of three chapters.
Then I'd spend all of the next year resolving to try again!
I wrote about it at the time, but 2017 was a weird year for me all in. Part of that year being weird included the fact I wrote a book in three months and finished it around three days before the start of November, another part of that year being weird is I instantly went on to write 30,000 ones in a project I no longer have any record of. I could spend a whole blog talking about how the year was weird in a million different pieces, but those two were reasonably significant.
My 2018 attempt was better, camping out in Pret-A-Manager stores around central London and spending my extremely limited student budget on 50p filter coffees to justify my presence on a table for the next four hours. In the end, I reached nearly 40,000 words. I wrote every day (not quite enough every day, but I wrote every day regardless). And it felt good! I could do it! I could get there! And in 2019, I wrote... under 2,500 words!
This year I figured that I could either start again with a new project, or try something else. My 2017 project (not the abandoned one, the one I wrote just before it) was sitting there, and I'd tried hard to edit it over the next three years. I knew it would take a lot of work - the seven chapters I'd already edited had all nearly doubled in size from their first draft, which was handwritten. So I figured that I may as well take that first draft and rewrite it as a NaNoWriMo project.
In sewing, there's a thing called a "basting stitch". It's used in hand sewing to essentially be a way to hold a fabric in roughly the position you'd like it to be in, before yanking it out later. The project I had in my hands was a basting stitch. Full scenes happened in a sentence. Character conversations were summarised into "and the x explained to y the situation". Entire locations compressed down into a reference to the colour and primary material. By the midpoint of Chapter Seven, I was technically half way through a manuscript with which the original draft didn't even qualify as a full NaNoWriMo win, which is how short it was. All I could do was start and hope I had 50,000 words stored away into the final half of the draft I already had (I won't leave you in suspense - I did).
Anyone who has tried, regardless of the result, a NaNoWriMo will probably be familiar with the moment that you run out of steam. Sometimes it's just the exhaustion of having to live your normal life and then somehow find at least an hour to sit down and write words in an assortment that vaguely makes sense, but usually there's just a moment where the "You Are Here" marker and the ever elusive point B are too far away to make them connect. Any other time I'd wander away, put the project down for a week (or month, or year) and then come back to it. But the pure pressure of time fixes you in your seat and forces you to write through it.
Normally this is the point when I give up. I'm not great at planning, usually I might write a few bullet point touchstones before I start, or I'll make a rough outline of chapter notes that give me enough wiggle room to change my mind later. More often than not, I'll start a project with most things as a placeholder and hope it'll come together eventually. I don't have the patience to think about something that's so nebulous in my mind as something as formal as a plan, so I don't. With the time pressure, the nebulous nature of a project never solidifies, and I give up.
Writing this barebones first draft avoided that problem, in many ways. There was still the bullet point outline, but then I wrote a first draft where my solution to not knowing much about a scene resolved as - okay, but what do I know about this scene? Suddenly I didn't need to get hung up on knowing exactly why my character decided to ask a Tough Question of another character, they just... asked it. It wasn't quite the NaNoWriMo level quality where a character rambles because I have five hundred more words to write today and zero ideas to fill it, but still a sense of placeholder of shoddy writing. There's a level of clarity to being concise with your words but taking great strides of plot in them. I don't need to spend a whole chapter slowly revealing a character's emotional state when I can just tell you that they're feeling sad in this draft and developing it into something you understand later. It's changing an idea from being nebulous to holding an outline you can see. It's holding together two pieces of fabric so you can roughly assemble the shape. It's a basting stitch.
I'm still riding the first NaNoWriMo win high, nine years after my first attempt, but I'm thinking I'll try again next year. But instead of spending eleven months telling myself I'll do better next time, I think I'm going to start on my terrible first draft now. Then we'll turn the basting stitch into a running stitch. And then eventually, we'll have clothes.
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Walk the line (Pt3/?)
Word count: 2,415
Pairing: Bucky x Reader
Summary: Being the granddaughter of Peggy Carter, you always try to stay away from spotlight. The lure of Hydra is still out in the world, but you get away from it whenever you work at that small diner a few blocks from the Avengers tower. You even befriend one particularly nice customer and let him help you with your language essays for college. But what are you going to do when your family name collides with reality and you finally realise what past is behind those sad eyes and shy smile from your favourite customer?
Warnings: drinking, angst, explosions, cliff hanger, swearing (I, uh, think that’s it???)
A/N: So sorry it took me so long to update!! But I’m not sick anymore so I had to go to work and catch up and also take care of family stuff. I’m gonna try to update every other day until this is finished and maybe start some shorter stuff? If you want? Anyways - please, please reblog if you like it, I enjoy reading tags and/or comments!
MASTERPOST
It's quarter past eleven, I'm not in the mood to think
Mr. band leader, let's kick out the jam
You knew this was a bit ridiculous. The dress, the shoes, the complete make-up – you looked like a clown, ready for the show. Plus, you didn’t even really know any of these people that would turn up and they didn’t know you. They all were just going to talk to you because of your name. Not your first name, no first name was interesting enough for that. It was your family name that caught their attention. Carter, that is. And if it hadn’t been Steve himself who invited you, you probably wouldn’t even go.
This all had started three months ago. After that weird evening where James had come in with his two… friends, yeah, that’s what you would call them. You hadn’t seen him that much since then and when you did, he was almost always covered in bruises from head to toe. There weren’t too many questions asked because you knew he didn’t like that. You would just place a glass of coke in front of him with his usual menu, he’d smile at you with that damn stupid half-sided grin, and then just eat and drink in silence before leaving with a more than gracious tip. There’s was pretty much no talking anymore, no more correcting of essays or anything. It was like that stupid comment his friend had dropped just – broke everything. It made you feel lost, it made you miss the times you would just throw remarks at each other during your shifts and you realised that he actually had made most of your shifts much more fun. He would hum along to the songs in the background, sometimes writing down the titles and artists in a small notebook. He had you so intrigued with his non-existent knowledge of popular movies (old and new) and you happily lectured him hours on end on your favourite ones.
Like Harry Potter. You probably spent an entire month telling him all about the storylines, the different characters, the canon pairings and possible pairings, the little details – you told him literally everything there was. He was even allowed to borrow your most favourite editions of the books, the well-loved and used versions you had owned since your 13th birthday. That was an honour not too many people in your life were granted and he had thanked you for it with actual notes of his thoughts. He actually wrote down his thoughts of every single chapter and as you read them at night, there was no way you couldn’t smile at them. During the first chapters of the Philosopher’s Stone, he wrote: Snape = suspicious. Probably up to something. Hermione is nerve-wracking, but will likely be useful to the boys in future. The pure thought of James staying up late, reading a children’s book and watching the movies and being so irritably bitchy about their lack of content – that was enough to make your insides warm and fuzzy.
But all of this stopped, and you felt lonelier than before. You hadn’t realised how much you relied on him as emotional relief until you no longer had him around. Sure, you still had your other friends who listened to everything, but you still found yourself missing his presence. He had managed to sneak into your heart without you realising it and now that he didn’t show up anymore – the hole he left was gaping deeply. And as if it was a weird coincidence, another guy had stepped into your life right at that time. And by another guy, you were talking actual freaking Captain America! You had gotten an invitation to S.H.I.E.L.D. which already startled you as you had never actively contacted them. Sure, your family name was like a holy grail and they most definitely had data about anything you did – you had just never expected them to actually contact you. It had been three months before the anniversary of your grandmother’s death and apparently, they had decided to celebrate it. Like, complete with speeches, music, and any other extravagancy they could come up with.
And they wanted you to join. You, as the granddaughter of the legendary Peggy Carter, should hold a speech at this ridiculous event in her honour. You were sure that this was the last thing she had in mind but well, if that meant to get them off your ass, you would do it. You had sent them back a letter in which you were stating you would do it but only under the condition of not being named anywhere. Not on any programme flyers, not on a poster, nowhere. That was the only condition for you and it was funny enough that that one thing made Steve Rogers appear on your doorstep.
It was a late Saturday night, you had been studying your ass off trying to understand this complete ass of a German news article and the whiskey bottle next to you was nearly half empty. Bourbon had been a favourite of yours since forever – Peggy had actually given you your first ever bottle of it when you turned 18 because that was the legal drinking age in England. No other reason needed. It probably also hadn’t helped you that since you still visited your grandparents frequently when you were over 18 and had drunk together with them. It had made you a bit immune to its effects and made you a wonder at every single frat party you had attended. But tonight, you weren’t drinking to feel good or goofy, you were drinking because you wanted to drown that stupid feeling of being lost. This feeling of not really having anyone who knew you. Your parents had died when you were 16 – officially it had been an accident, but you knew they had been working for S.H.I.E.L.D., so it had most likely been during a mission. And during all this mess, your doorbell rang. Quickly, you wiped your eyes and tried to make your hair look a bit less messy as you walked towards the door. You didn’t even bother looking through the small spy even though you didn’t expect anyone. It shocked you therefore when you opened the door and there was this stupidly hunky man standing there. His shoulders were broad enough to touch both sides of your door frame and his blue eyes felt like they were looking right into your soul. “Hello?” Your voice was a bit smaller than you wanted it to sound, you didn’t want to seem intimidated by his height or anything. “Are you… Y/N Carter?” His voice was calm, a bit worried maybe. And his eyes held a spark of hope that was all too familiar. Your eyes squinted slightly as your head tilted to the side. “I know you. From pictures. I think we should talk about this inside.” And with that, you ushered him inside, quickly glancing up and down the corridor to make sure nobody had seen literal Captain America waltzing over.
He had stayed nearly the whole night. When he left, there had been two more empty bottles of bourbon, a lot of tears shed, and a lot of tissues on your couch table. You two had spent the night talking about your grandmother, him sharing his memories of the younger her during the war and you telling stories about her as a mother and grandmother. It was nice to have someone who could relate to losing someone so close and loved – sure, your friends had lost their grandparents as well for the most part, but none of them had been as close as you and Peggy. Steve met you a few more times and after a while, you grew used to his visits. He reminded you of James in a way: He, too, didn’t know too much about modern movies or music but that was due to him being frozen and you made it a mission to show him your favourite stuff. It also didn’t take you too long to realise that he was dating your only cousin, Sharon. She was unlike you in the most parts, but you both were close nonetheless. And while you had preferred to stay in the shadows, she took part in S.H.I.E.L.D. and worked on the heritage of your grandmother. And bless her, she was good at that.
But tonight, you would have to step out of them. You felt utterly ridiculous and nowhere prepared to talk to all these agents. There was nothing you had in common with them, absolutely nothing. You were a languages and business student, they were field agents who fought one-on-one and some of them had only nearly escaped a certain death. Plus, the fucking Avengers were going to be there. Steve had told you that much about the preparations because apparently, even Captain America himself didn’t know everything. As if the mere presence of Iron Man or the Hulk wasn’t already intimidating enough! Your hands were sweaty, and you wiped them unconsciously on the side of your dress, making Sharon grab them in her own hands and squeezing them. “You’re gonna be alright, Y/N. You have your notes on these cards, you just look at Steve and me the whole time and you’re gonna be fine.” A deep breath escaped your chest. “I seriously don’t know what I’d do without you.” She gave you a half-sided grin and patted your shoulder. “Well, you certainly wouldn’t be here. Peggy would be proud of you.” The last part was merely a whisper, but it echoed louder inside of your head than anything else.
The scent and the aroma refuse to breathe
It's more like a haze that's trying to succeed
It's drawing me in and pulling me to you
And every thought I have turns the language blue
His nose crinkled as he tried to get this stupid tie correct. This had been his forte back in the 40ies, but those times – well, they were long gone now. He hadn’t been wearing a suit or a tie for decades and Bucky swore under his breath as he got it wrong for what felt like the 40th time. A quick glance to the watch on his bedside table showed him that he was already late. Annoyed and frustrated, he threw the stupid thing back onto his bed and fixed his hair one last time in the mirror before walking out. He had been excited for this evening because he had met Peggy during the War. She had been strong and beautiful, and it hadn’t been hard to see how much her and Steve had loved each other. Bucky only wished that he spent more time with her back then and deeply regretted his typically-douchebag behaviour from these days. He hadn’t thought much of women in the army, saw them as too fragile and emotional for the job. But Peggy – she had changed his mind. And every time he had met a female agent at the headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D., they had reminded him of that strong woman. In a weird way, Y/N had reminded him of her as well. The way she held herself up, this natural confidence, even the twinkle in her eyes.
Y/N. Her name alone made him frown a bit. He had only been down to the diner a few times because he didn't really want her to see him like this. All the missions he went on now, they had left him in desperate need of patching-up and it was a true piece of work to hide all the bruises. Bucky wasn't going to let her see him all messed up. She already worried and if he turned up even more worn-down, she would ask too many questions he couldn't answer - and that was a risk Bucky was not ready to take yet. He liked her, there was no denying that! But he could still remember the person he had been before, he remembered the things he had done, and he was not going to let Y/N anywhere near the danger that came with him.
He took the stairs two steps at a time and had trouble to catch his breath at the top of them. With a quick look around, he managed to spot Steve standing a few meters away together with Sharon. They were giving the thumbs-up to someone up on the stage, but Bucky didn’t give it too much of a thought as he walked towards his friends. “What took you so long, frosty?” The woman greeted him with a bright grin on her face. He gave a dirty look while his hands reached up to fix his hair one more time, but Sharon was quicker and stopped the movement. “You look fine, Buck. Even though a little haircut wouldn’t be a wrong thing to do.” Sharon stated while Steve nodded in consent. But he just shrugged his shoulders and fixed his eyes onto the stage where Director Fury was standing – Bucky had to take a double take because he had never seen the chief in a suit or anything like it, he almost looked unrecognizable. “Next up, we have a very special guest coming. Her family name has been engraved into the minds of all our agents, her very family is the foundation of our organization. Please, welcome the granddaughter of our founder, Peggy Carter – Y/N Carter!”
There was a big round of applause as a young woman walked up the stage, but all Bucky could think of was how funny it was you shared the same name as the granddaughter of Peggy. Before he could make out a face though, there was a loud thud. Within seconds, there was shattered glass, terrified screams, and the sound of guns being loaded. Bucky had instinctively thrown himself onto the ground, as well as Sharon and Steve. Sharing the same panicked and frantic look, they all whispered one thing: “Protect Y/N.”
#walk the line#bucky x reader#bucky x you#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes fanfiction#bucky barnes angst#bucky barnes#written#marvel
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