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snowdice · 4 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 23]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright! Let’s go!

Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite it being late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight, so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. That in mind, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

The home that Remus had chosen (after his long line of rejected requests) managed to somehow make no and absolute sense simultaneously to anyone who knew him. It was a small farm in the United States just west of the Mississippi in 1842 in what would be ratified as the state of Iowa in a few years. When asked why he would choose that time and place, Remus always responded with “I thought it was funny,” whatever that meant.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time. Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you here and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my second question!” he called back to Remus.

“It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“Remus.” Diesel Fuel the cat flopped to her side on the ground as Janus continued to pet her ears. He heard Remus’s footsteps, and saw cloth covering his legs, so risked looking up. He was currently not only dressed, but wearing an apron that Janus was fairly sure was not time appropriate judging by the fabric and cat pawprint design. He had a bit of flour on his hands, and it may have been a bit too white for the time and place, but Janus couldn’t be completely sure.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

“My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So, could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

“Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

“One of those night then,” Remus said, easily. “Let me finish up the bread, so I don’t burn the kitchen down. You can go get the alcohol from the cellar while you wait if you want, or you can just flop down on the couch.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted with and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

Janus sighed and scratched the cat’s ear. “He certainly wasn’t an amateur,” Janus mused to the cat. “With that amount of precision to get in before we did, he must have someone not on the ground feeding him information. Perhaps more than one.” He was part of a group of time traveling thieves perhaps or something worse. “I didn’t get a good look at his face since he was wearing a mask,” Janus said, “but I spent a lot of time with him, and I’m sure Remy swiped the mask from the police since it had been on me when I was arrested. It’s a good lead.” He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Remus came back in with the bottle of vodka and handed it to him without a word. He sat down on the couch near Janus’s feet and patted his lap so Diesel Fuel would come over to him and allow Janus to sit up.

The bastard waited until he was approximately 3 shots in (he didn’t have a shot glass and was just taking drinks from the bottle) to ask the questions Janus really didn’t want to answer. “Are you mad at Emile?” Remus asked.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look back at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“So, you’re not mad at Emile,” Remus continued, contemplatively. “Did you do something to him, then?” Janus bit his lip and looked away. “What?” Remus asked. Janus didn’t respond. “Look, I’m sure he’ll forgive you for whatever it is. He’s a good guy. Just talk to him about it.”

“I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

“I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

“Look,” Remus said. “You tell him and he either forgives you or he doesn’t. If he does, everything’s fine. If he doesn’t… well, it’s not like it would be any different from you two never being in the same room the last few years. Either way, you can’t just do this to him. He’ll probably forgive you. He’s your brother. Brothers don’t… brothers would forgive each other.”

Janus laughed softly and met Remus’s eyes. “That’s the problem,” he said. “He’d definitely forgive me.” He turned away and opened the vodka bottle again. “Now, if you’ll shut up for a few minutes, I’m going to drink until I black out.”

Chapter 6

“Really, Khalid,” Janus said, storming into his boss’s office. “A yellow?” It had been about a week since the 1920s incident, and his incident report had finally been cleared. Sure, it wasn’t a red or a black and he wasn’t facing any reprimand, but it should have been a green.

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “If it was anyone else, you would agree with me. While you didn’t go against protocol and had no time related incidents, the fact of the matter is, you were still distracted by this ‘rouge time traveler,’ didn’t complete your mission, and were arrested.”

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

She raised an eyebrow. “We are working on tracking him down,” she said. “We have done an analysis on the mask and found fibers dating to the 2010s and some DNA. Though it isn’t exactly a high priority.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“The incident investigation is over and your active again despite the dreaded yellow,” she said, clearly making fun of him a bit. “So, yes, and it’s a high priority mission, so I’ll be running it.”

“Who all is going?” he asked.

“Other than the two of us, Remus, Lena, and Fred,” she told him. “We leave in three hours, so, you might want to run off to Rhi before Fred gets to her and ties her up for an hour on details.”

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He ground his teeth a bit about the dismissal of his worries, but his resentment was slightly soothed by the fact that she’d assigned him to go on such a high priority mission and with only senior agents.

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

A few hours later, they were all in decontamination together, decked out in truly god-awful costumes. The turn of the third millennia had been a wild event, and the best way to fit in was to look like you’d grabbed something from every century in recorded human history, dyed it in neon paint, and rolled around in a vat of glitter.

Remus had opted to stick his head in a vat of thick glow in the dark green paint that costuming had offered them, and it wasn’t even going to be slightly disruptive to their covertness. It was so caked on that Janus couldn’t even recognize him.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

There were five people waiting for them when they landed 6 hours before the turn of the millennia. Three were touchdown agents, including Remy, and two were on location tech support. Usually it would be overkill to have that many people there just for support even with five agents in the field, but today the TPI needed to be cautious because they were planning on instituting a time lock.

Time bombs were dangerous things that would ripple through time if not contained. Even if it did end up going off (killing everyone in its reach), the time lock would serve to prevent most damage outside of the city and, more importantly, the year it was planted.

Janus had only been in two time locks before, and he was one of the most senior agents in the TPI, outranked only by the founder: Lia Khalid. Time locks were designed to keep all time linear in a certain fixed time and geographical area as well as prevent any time travel in and out. Once it was engaged, all forms of time travel would not work for the duration, bar the pin device. Khalid was already switching out her regular timepiece with the slightly bigger one that was designed to support the time lock.

There was a failsafe back at the TPI that could be engaged in an emergency, which was why tech support was here, but other than that, the only thing that could break the time lock was that timepiece, and it would break the moment the time lock ended.

As soon as it was on Khalid’s wrist, she looked up at them all. “Our information says the time bomb was planted in the costume of one of the ‘Millennium Birds’ who are the organizers of the different events,” she said. Janus had seen a photo of the identical costumes in the mission details. They were all robe like garments with giant fans of feathers coming from the neck that coalesced in a peak a foot above their head to hold a fake bird egg. At least they’d be easy to find. “There are 25 of them throughout the city. We need to find each of them. So, we don’t double count, you’ll need to subtly,” her eyes touched on Remus, “scan each one you find for the bomb and tag them with a tracker if it’s not on them. You can view the already tagged ones, as well as the rest of us on your timepiece even once the time lock is engaged. When you find the bomb, call it in.”

They all nodded, and Khalid looked over at one of the techies. She nodded at her and then the techie flipped a couple of switches. “Three, two, one,” the techie said. There was a slight shift in the air that most people would disregard, but Janus as a seasoned time traveler could feel the change even before his wrist buzzed. He glanced at his timepiece to see it had a big red ‘X’ across its display. He tapped it and was still able to bring up the map of the city with 10 green dots on it all clustered together in their current location.

After that, he tested the scanner on his timepiece that he would use to search for the bomb, just to make sure the time lock hadn’t messed anything up with his equipment. He glanced up to see everyone else was doing the same.

“Keep in contact,” Khalid said before everyone split up. Janus and Remus started by going North while Fredrick and Darlene were to go South. Khalid was a floater who would tag any Birds she saw but was mostly there for backup and orders.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

“Okay!” Remus said. “I wonder if they have those fun little genetically modified goldfish as prizes. I’ve always wanted to eat one and see if I end up getting whatever design was on the fish on my body.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

They walked over towards the entrance. Janus got in range first and moved to subtly scan the Millenia Bird, Remus doing the same the next moment. After a second, Janus’s timepiece buzzed and lit up red, meaning the bomb was within range. “Well, that was easy,” he said. “It was on the first one we found.”

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

“What?” Janus asked. He quickly moved to rescan the Millenia Bird, and his timepiece came up green as well. Which, meant the bomb was not in range, even though the Millenia Bird had not moved. “But…” He and Remus’s eyes met, and they quickly both started turning in a circle to look at the crowd around him. No one looked like they’d just stolen a time bomb off the Millennial Bird, but then Janus’s eyes caught on a man. He blended in perfectly to his surroundings. He was wearing the disgusting garb of the times, a large light blue piece that bubbled near his hips, and had most of his skin covered in rainbow neon paints. Yet, something about him, the curl of his hair or the way he moved, drew Janus’s eyes to him. He recognized the man immediately even in a completely different dressing style. Yet, what cinched it was the moment Janus’s eyes met his and they seemed to sparkle slightly in the afternoon sun. The next moment, the person Janus knew as Pat, turned to disappear into the crowd.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

“Oh,” Pat said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

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Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

“Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

“Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

15412

“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Pat smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

19053

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

#study break stories #not writing

29 notes · View notes

ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes · 4 years

Text

Roguish Women Part 20

Summary: Kate Rosseau is an American who fled to Paris to escape her past life. Now she's dancing and playing the part of a courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. There she meets Tommy Shelby who thinks she can be useful in expanding his empire. But has he been blinded?

Part 20: A week after the funeral, Kate still doesn’t know how any of them will recover.

Ada looked alarmed when Polly and Michael walked into the foyer without Kate. Dressed in black, they looked as if they were in mourning but moved like they were prepared for business. The medium that was necessary.

“Where is Kate?”

Polly already looked stressed enough, her niece’s question didn’t help any. “She didn’t come.”

Ada’s eyes widened. “Pol, Tommy gave me a list and said that she needed to be here. She’s supposed to meet with him after you two meet with him. That’s why I asked you-”

Polly held up a hand. “She wouldn’t let me in the flat for ten minutes. Then she let me in and said she wasn’t going. I said what Tommy said but she just ran off and got sick in the bathroom.”

“But-”

“Would you rather I had Michael pick her up and throw her in the car?”

Ada sighed and threw up her hand. “Okay, but you can tell Tommy.”

~~~~~~~~~~

After discussing legitimate business with Michael and Polly, Tommy dismissed them. Michael stood up to leave instantly, a good soldier. But Polly lingered. “Tommy.”

“That’s all.” He said again, the tension rising in his voice. “Go get Kate.”

“That’s the thing, Tommy, she didn’t come.”

He looked up from the mess of paperwork scattered across his desk. “Excuse me?”

“I couldn’t get her to come.” There wasn’t much else to add to it because there wasn’t anything Polly could say to make the ordeal better.

“I told Ada she needed to be here, so why isn’t she sat in front of me right now?” He pointed at the chair Michael had left.

“I don’t know what else to tell you, she said she couldn’t.”

“She couldn’t.” Tommy scoffed and leaned back in his leather desk chair. “That’s funny.”

“You need to realize-”

He interrupted her before she could lecture him about respecting other people’s feelings. “Go into the hall, pick up the phone and call her. Tell her if she’s not here by tonight, she’s in big trouble.”

Even if Polly was appalled by her nephew’s behavior, there wasn’t much she could say. A person in mourning wasn’t the most sensible. “Alright.” She stood up and headed out of the room to put in a call to Kate.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A driver was sent to Birmingham to pick up Kate. She arrived just after dinner. The headlights crossed over the study, alerting Tommy. It was the first time that he’d stayed in the house past dusk since Grace’s funeral. It made him itch because all he could think about was the bedroom they once shared. The bed that remained empty. Tommy wouldn’t ever sleep it in again.

He and Kate hadn’t interacted since the funeral. And even then, they hadn’t spoken. Tommy hadn’t spoken to anyone.

He didn’t watch as she stepped out of the car and walked inside. He kept his eyes steady on the bookcase across the room from him. Simply downing glass after glass of whiskey. There was no sense as to why he just didn’t drink straight from the bottle instead of pouring the correct amount into the same crystal tumbler. Maybe it was just a habit. Or maybe it removed himself from the reality that he was draining the full bottle. Instead, he was just downing a couple of inches at a time. That’s all he’d been doing. Seeing if he could survive another second. Then another and another. Suddenly, the day was gone and the bottle was empty.

“Come in,” Tommy spoke up when he heard a knock at the door.

Kate stepped inside, pulling off her gloves and hat. However, she left on her coat as she realized upon spending a few moments in the room that it was freezing. “You aren’t keeping a fire on in here? It’s drafty.” She looked up around the large room fit for his study. There was a portrait of one of his horses on the wall but other than that, there weren’t many personal items. She knew that he was a man who kept his passions close to the heart and wouldn’t outwardly display them if they weren’t in his best interest. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve.

“Why didn’t you come this afternoon when I asked you to?” He didn’t respond to her initial, innocent question. His hand was wrapped tightly around his whiskey glass. His eyes looking not really looking at her but through her. As if she weren’t really standing there. His lips were pursed as he waited for her response.

Kate hit her gloves against her thigh a few times before walking over to the desk to sit. “I don’t know, Tommy.” She admitted. “It’s too soon and I don’t even know what to think.”

“Too soon for what?” There was no give in his voice. No gentleness that he had shown her before.

“Just for-for all of this. For business and communicating and just-” Kate lost her nerve. The entire drive there, she couldn’t come up with one thing to say to Tommy. She had already given him her condolences. He didn’t want sympathy from anyone. She couldn’t offer any explanation because there wasn’t any he wanted to hear. She couldn’t explain the guilt and grief she felt because it felt minuscule to what he was feeling. It was comparing a drop to an ocean. “It’s too soon for you, Tommy.”

He let go of his grip on the glass and busied himself with lighting a cigarette. “You don’t get to tell me what I’m ready for.”

“I’m not. I’m just going off what your family has been telling me.” She folded her hands on her lap, not ready for a fight. That would just be like two wounded fighters dragging their swords into another fight for no good reason.

Tommy focused on his smoke for a bit before he addressed her again. “When I ask you to come to something, you come.”

Kate bit her tongue but still couldn’t keep herself from giving a prickly reply. “If you had things to tell me that was urgent, you could’ve called me.”

“That’s not the fucking point.” He tapped his cigarette against the ashtray.

“Tommy, everything I’ve done for you never matters. What matters is when I can’t do something. Before you pull shit like this, remember that I’ve stretched myself thin to accommodate you and to improve your business dealings. That’s what you brought me in here for, that’s what I’m doing. I’m not a puppet that you can call in any second of any day. Don’t you realize that everyone is suffering to at least some degree?”

Before she could continue, Tommy slammed his open palm on the desk. The loud noise made Kate jump in her seat and go quiet.

Exhausted, running on nothing more than whiskey and cigarettes, Tommy had reached his breaking point. His mind was nothing more than a blurred mess of jumbled thoughts and unbearable emotions. Feelings he was trying his damndest to subdue with alcohol. “Italians killed my wife. John and Arthur are going tomorrow to find their kin and bring him back to me. I won’t kill him right away; I’ll ask him a few questions. And if your fucking name comes up at all-”

Her eyes widened in absolute disbelief. “Are you implying that I had something to do with this!?” Her voice raised in pitch and she stood up.

“This whole time you’ve gone on about Italians being after you. You knew who the Changrettas were.” Tommy pointed a finger at her.

“How dare you?” She gasped in utter shock. Removed from the situation, she might’ve realized that he was just grasping at straws, trying to make sense of the murder of his wife. “You know exactly why this happened and you’re putting it on me? Your brother cut Angel, I told you what sort of hell they would unleash on you but you wouldn’t fucking listen to me!”

“You called her a liar, you wanted her gone!” Tommy rose from his chair to meet her challenge.

“I never wanted her gone! I showed up at that dinner because she asked me to. I showed up to support her and you. I may be a lot of things, Tommy, but I am not vindictive. I know when to walk away, unlike you!”

“Then how did you know about the Changrettas?” He demanded.

“I told you how I knew them. And I know what kind of people they are. I told you what they would do. And I’ll tell you this now. I would never ever work with them or help them in any way. They would sooner sell me out to Santo. So, don’t you ever question my loyalty again!”

Tommy appeared to be out of avenues of accusation. Even in irrational of a state he was drowning in, he had enough sense to hear her defense. The whole time, Tommy wanted desperately to clear his conscious of Grace’s death. He didn’t want to wake up in that pasture every morning knowing that his actions put that bullet in her heart.

He ran a hand over his mouth and returned to his chair. “It was the fucking sapphire then.” He muttered.

“What?”

He shook his head. “The woman I was speaking to before it happened.”

“The duchess,” Kate confirmed.

“She said the sapphire Grace was wearing had been cursed by a gypsy.” He explained.

Her brow furrowed. “And you believe that?”

Weary, Tommy just pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the pain throbbing in his head.

Kate allowed herself to lower her defenses once she saw that he wasn’t willing to blame her anymore. He was just a grief-stricken man searching for explanations. “I don’t know anything about curses. But does it really matter? You know who did it. They’re going to pay.”

He dropped his hand from his face and look up at the ceiling for a moment. “I need sleep.” He mumbled.

It was clear enough to her. He hadn’t been sleeping because of the guilt. She knew for certain because she wasn’t sleeping either. Not in the cause of the murder. There was no question that she had nothing to do with it. But the whole time Grace and Tommy were married, Kate envied her. She wanted to be in her former agent’s shoes. To be the woman on Tommy’s arm. She prayed that one day Tommy would see that Grace was deceiving him, as she’d done before. Then maybe he would leave her and open himself up for Kate. But she never imagined the murder would happen. That’s not the way she wanted to find her spot beside Tommy. She wouldn’t take advantage of a woman’s death. And yet, she still felt guilt for the feelings she harbored for Tommy. During their marriage and after.

“Then look for absolution,” Kate replied. “However, you see fit.”

Tommy looked at her for a second, the first time he was really seeing her. “If I kill Vincente, Santo Leoni loses another ally.” He said out of the blue.

“You need to be careful. Luca’s still active. If you kill his father, he will come for you.” Kate warned.

“If he’s a man of honor, he’ll understand why I’m doing this.” Tommy picked his cigarette out of the ashtray to finish it.

“You don’t need to worry about me, I can handle myself.” She didn’t want Vincente’s death linked to her in any way. Not even by a thought.

Tommy nodded and opened one of the top drawers of his desk. “I need you to do a couple of things.” He handed her a piece of paper that was folded three times.

“Okay.” She tucked it into her purse. “I’ll look over it when I get home.”

“You can stay the night.” He offered.

The suggestion hit her like a shock down the spine. “No, thank you but I would rather just drive back home.”

“It’s a long drive.”

“Well, you’re the one who wanted me to come at the last moment so I suppose I’ll just be getting back late.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Kate, just stay over for one night, it’s okay. You’re not intruding.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” She replied.

The two looked at one another for a short bit. Tommy opened his mouth to say something but she stopped him.

“I’m not someone who fills the space, Tommy. I stand on my own for a good reason. I don’t fit in other people’s lives. You can’t keep me around because you’re lonely.”

Tommy pressed his knuckles into the edge of his desk. The dull aching pressure was enough to remind him he was still there. “Grace wasn’t pregnant.” He told her.

“I know. Polly told me.” She wasn’t sure if he was trying to get a reaction out of her. And if he was, she didn’t know what kind of reaction he was looking for. Shock, joy, anger, relief?

“I knew before everything. Before the dinner. She told me the truth.” He rubbed the side of his face, stifling a yawn. “I couldn’t walk away from her. We decided to say she had a miscarriage. Then we’d have children along the line, hopefully.” He took a deep breath. “I thought I had it, Kate.”

There was no way she was going to lecture him or tell him she told him so. She wasn’t there to rub salt in the wounds. She simply saw him as a man who loved a woman at one point. So much so that when she came back into his life, he thought he could realize something that seemed so hard to grasp. A perfect life with a doting wife and children. Maybe he thought it was his only chance. So, he grabbed it and tidied things up along the way as they were needed. In a way, Kate could respect his commitment. “I’m sorry, I wish things worked out for you, I really do. No matter what I thought, or think, I want you to be happy, Tommy.”

“That’s why I never stopped loving you. Even when she came back. I still loved you. I still do, Kate.”

It was a strange concoction of feelings that sunk through her skin. A sense of validation mixed with absolute dread. She had waited so long to hear him reciprocate the feelings she had for him. But never in those circumstances. Her stomach churned. She wanted to admit that she’d never stopped loving him either. She wanted to be happy with him. But it was impossible after what happened the week before. It made her sick to her stomach to think that she wanted to be with him. The guilt was like poison. Making her nauseous and faint.

She stumbled to stand, leaving her hat and gloves behind but managing to grab her purse. “I can’t do this.” She whispered and made an exit for the door.

“Kate. Kate!” He called after her but she was gone before he could stop her. He paused at the doorway, listening to the heavy front doors close. The headlights dashed across the study again, the crunch of gravel under tires signaling her departure.

~~~~~~~~~`

After she was dropped off back home. Kate was desperate to just go to bed. She couldn’t handle everything, she just wanted to sleep so she didn’t have to cope. Tears in her eyes, she unlocked the door.

“Micina, it’s been long enough.”

When she heard his voice, every muscle in her body locked up with fear.

“Turn around, Kathleen, aren’t you excited to see me?”

It felt like her heart wasn’t working properly. But she had to turn around to make sure it wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.

Santo grinned from his spot on the sidewalk a few feet from her front steps. “After all this time and I still make you speechless.” He chuckled and took a few steps toward her. “Now, let's have a little talk.”

Permanent Tag: @papa-geralt-of-cirilla @giftofdreams @biba3434 @kimmietea @karmezii @enrapturedbythemoon

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#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelbyxoc #tommy shelby imagine #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders #peaky fookin blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction #cillian murphy #cillian murphy character #fanfiction #ofc #oc #ada thorne #ada shelby #polly gray #michael gray #ocs #season 3

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let-it-raines · 4 years

Text

Catch Me If You Can (22/?)

298 days. That’s how long Killian Jones was away from a baseball field. It’s less than a year, only part of a season for him, but it might as well have lasted a decade as he alternated between physical therapy and spending an excessive amount of time sitting on his couch.

But then he came back and won the World Series.

It’s something no one saw coming, and it’s certainly not something anyone who knows about his arm would predict. Now it’s a new season with new possibilities, and anything could happen. On-field reporter Emma Swan will be there to cover it all even if she is not his biggest fan right now.

Asking her out live on-air will do that.

Rating: Mature

a/n: Everyone take a moment to check out the INCREDIBLE drawing that @carpedzem did that was inspired by this story. It can be found | Here | and deserves all of the likes and reblogs for bringing the Killian in this story to life!

Have a good weekend! ❤️

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-/-

“You haven’t updated your Instagram account in weeks.”

Ariel says this as they sit in the hotel restaurant with their plates full of salad, grilled chicken, and rice. Killian’s been eating like shit lately, and as good as it feels in the moment, he can tell that it affects him and the way that he functions on a daily basis. So he’s been eating the same thing for every meal for the past week, but since they’re on the road where he doesn’t have constant access to a fridge and stove, he’s had to get a little creative in obtaining his food. Ariel is pretty much an expert at finding whatever it is that he wants when he wants it, and he cannot thank her enough for it.

Stabbing a piece of chicken, Killian lifts his fork to his mouth and takes a bite while he taps his passcode into his phone to see if Ariel’s statement is actually true. He really wouldn’t know, but it looks like he has several photos from the last few weeks on there.

“You can very clearly see all of these photos, A. Why are you so big on my social media presence lately?”

“These are all professional photos,” Ariel sighs, an emphasis on professional, and she pushes his phone back toward him. “You need more personal photos. You look like a baseball player.”

“I am a baseball player.”

She waves him away. “You know what I mean.”

Killian arches a brow and scoops up some of his rice. “I really don’t, love.”

Ariel rolls his eyes, and he settles a little further in his booth, his eyes glancing around to the people sitting around them in the restaurant. It’s not very crowded, just a few people here and there, but that’s par for the course considering it’s tentwo in the morningafternoon on a Wednesday. Not a lot of people are chilling in a hotel restaurant in Boston when there are approximately fifty-two other things they could be doing within a five-foot radius. And that’s only the tourists.

And he’s pretty sure that everyone in here can hear his conversation, is probably judging them for the particular subject of it, but he knows that no one cares.

He certainly doesn’t, but if A cares, he should for her.

“People like a little personality,” Ariel explains, ripping up a bit of her napkin. “I know we’ve talked about this before, Killian. You’ve got to show a little personality outside of baseball. I’m not saying put your diary on there, but post a picture with someone outside of baseball.” “Literally, everyone in my life is involved in baseball in some way.”

“Okay, true,” Ariel laughs. “It’s the same for me, so I get it. Still, though, think about it.”

Killian hums noncommittedly, pushing his rice around before looking up at Ariel and wondering why the hell she’s looking at him like she’s holding all of the secrets of the world in that mind of hers.

“Did you really ask to meet me because we needed to talk about my Instagram feed?”

“I mean, obviously not,” she huffs. “I had a few work things to talk about with you, but I’ve also missed you. I feel like it’s been so long since we all spent time together with you guys not in uniform. It’s got to have been months, and I miss it.”

His heart swells and breaks all at once while his head tilts to the side to look at Ariel, eyes glancing up and down over her as he studies her. “You okay, A?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Ariel.”

“Killian.”

“Ariel, I am here to talk if you’re upset about something, and, literally, say the word and I will get all of us together to do something. We’re here for five days before we’re back in New York for a week. I know we’re in the crazy part of the season where it feels like we can’t breathe, but I promise there’s time for us all to spend time together.”

Her eyes glance down at her food, and she swishes her water around in the glass before taking a long, slow sip that he knows is to take up time.

“I really am fine,” she promises. “I’m just a little stressed with it all, and I feel like I need some time with all of you guys and Belle and, um, Emma too. I’m trying to make contract negotiations for Eric, which has involved us talking about a lot of future stuff that I wasn’t quite ready to talk about yet.”

“Babies?”

“Ding, ding, ding,” she laughs, even if it’s kind of pathetic. “I mean, I want kids. I do. I want them with Eric especially.”

“Well, I’d be a little concerned if you didn’t want them with your husband.”

She flicks a piece of lettuce at him. “Shut up.”

“Never.”

“Why do I love you?”

“I literally have no idea,” Killian teases, reaching over the table to grab Ariel’s hand so that he can squeeze it to reassure her. “Go on, A. I’m listening.”

“I just – it’s hard, you know? Obviously, Eric and I are financially secure right now, but you can’t plan life when that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Because what happens if Eric gets traded somewhere else? We have to uproot everything, and having kids will complicate that. And we have to have a plan for Eric after he retires. Like, I have a pretty nice job because of all of you, but he’s going to need to have something to do. It’s just…it’s a lot on my plate when I’m already balancing so much. I mean, haven’t you thought about all of that?”

Damn.

Like, damn.

No, he hasn’t thought of any of that. Not at all. Well, that’s a lie, but it’s a small lie, a white one really. When he was out after the accident, his future was always on his mind, but it was never any concrete thoughts. It was always depressing ones about him never being able to play again, about him having no discernable skills outside of a sport, and about him wondering if he was going to fall into women and bars once more simply because things weren’t going his way. It was never a concrete answer about what he’s legitimately going to do after baseball. Money isn’t really his concern as long as he handles it all correctly, but how will he spend his days? What will he be passionate about?

Is Emma going to be by his side through all of it?

Woah.

Okay.

That’s not at all where he thought his mind was headed, but his brain apparently had a much different roadmap than he thought. Killian loves Emma, undoubtedly, and he does want his future to involve her, but it’s like Ariel said…they can’t plan life.

And he doesn’t know what Emma’s plans are.

Realistically, too, Killian isn’t exactly sure what he wants out of life, and he already knows that he most likely won’t have a career as long as a lot of other guys in the league. They haven’t had broken arms and rotator cuff tears that still bother him like he has.

Fuck.

This is not how his morning is supposed to be going, and the way that his heart is hammering in his chest is far worse now than it will ever be when he gets out on the mound tonight.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Killian squeezes Ariel’s hand again. “It’s hard to think about, A, but you guys will figure it out. I don’t think life can ever really be planned. I sure as hell have planned none of mine, and if I didn’t have you, I think it’d be a much bigger mess.”

Ariel’s cheeks flame up to be the same color of her hair, but she smiles at him anyways. “You’re right. You would be a mess without me and everyone else. I am the glue that holds you together.”

“You and a couple other people which means you are all very weak glue to need that many people to hold me together or I’m just that resistant.”

“The second option.”

“You’re going to be okay, A. You and Eric are solid. And if or when you do have that baby, no matter what city you’re in, I’m going to be there to be that kid’s favorite person in the world.”

“Please,” Ariel laughs even as water fills her eyes, “no one could ever compare to me. I’m definitely going to be my kid’s favorite person.”

“Whatever you have to say to make yourself sleep at night.”

-/-

Killian gets booed when he steps out onto the field, and he can’t imagine a more fitting welcome in Boston since that is what usually happens.

But then it continues past that first moment.

And he very much deserves it for how he’s pitching, though that booing is probably from the Yankees fans and not Boston natives. His arm is stiff, a bit of pain running through it, and he’s too stubborn to ask to be relieved early or to admit that he’s in pain. He tries to convince himself that it’s all exaggerated, that he’s simply been in a negative headspace all day since eating lunch with Ariel and all of the heaviness that was in that conversation, but he knows that it’s not exaggerated. Killian knows that his shoulder is bothering him, his mind is bothering him, and nothing is going to get him out of this foul mood.

Especially not when Al pulls him after the third inning once again and yells at him to get his shit together. Will does too, and even if it’s in his joking tone, Killian doesn’t take it that way. He doesn’t take any of it as a joke.

Who the hell cares about what he’s going to do after baseball if he can’t even figure out what he’s doing right now?

And in all of his anger, in all of his frustration at himself and at his team, the thing he hates himself for the most is brushing off Emma when she asks for an interview. He mutters a no under his breath and keeps walking down the hallway back to the locker room so that he can take a shower and get a massage.

She’s the woman who he loves more than anything or anyone else, which he didn’t even realize until right now, and he just blew her off when she was simply trying to do her job.

He’s such an asshole.

They lose 3-17.

-/-

Elsa: Are you okay?

Elsa: Killian.

Elsa: I know you’ve checked your phone. The game ended three hours ago. Five hours ago for you.

Elsa: I’m going to start calling you and won’t stop if you don’t text me back within the next five minutes.

Killian sighs and rolls over on his hotel mattress, phone still in hand, and sends Elsa a text back because he really does not want to talk on the phone right now.

Killian: Yes, Els?

He expects the bubbles to pop up to tell him that she’s texting back, but they don’t. Instead her face pops up, a picture of she and the girls from Christmas last year, and he wonders if she was ever not going to call him. The answer is most definitely no since he’s been ignoring her – and everyone else – all evening. Eventually someone was going to call him out on his shit.

Sighing again, he hits answer and presses the speaker button as Elsa’s voice comes through the phone.

“Why are you ignoring everyone?”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Only because I just promised to harass you until you did. Seriously, Killian. Your brother and I have been calling you all afternoon, and you’ve ignored us. And when I texted Emma, she said that you were ignoring her too.”

“Bloody hell,” Killian grumbles aloud, sitting up in bed and moving his arm so that he’s not pressing down on it so as to agitate it more. “You texted Emma?”

“Um, yeah?” Elsa questions, the hesitation obvious in her voice. “She’s your girlfriend. She was at the game. I kind of figured she was with you, but apparently the two of you haven’t talked either. What the hell is wrong with you that you’re not even talking to Emma?”

Well, he’s an asshole for one. He’s also never told Emma about his shoulder injury and the full extent of the accident. He doesn’t want to. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, but he doesn’t want Emma to know about it. Not now. As irrational as he knows that it is, she might think less of him. And maybe just maybe, if he doesn’t tell more people, the problem will somehow go away.

This is all becoming more irrational by the second, but it’s fine. Everything is going to be fine. That was such a dark place in his life, one he doesn’t want to keep repeating and reliving even if Emma already knows parts of it, and he has no idea how he’d even talk to her right now since she’s very obviously, and rightfully so, pissed at him.

It’s all so easy to mess everything up in the blink of an eye.

“She’s likely pissed at me since I brushed her off for an interview. I didn’t even say hi or smile at her or find her afterwards. So, I didn’t text her, and she hasn’t texted me. I don’t know…she’s upset with me, right?”

“She’s concerned about you,” Elsa breathes out, and from the lack of noise around her, Killian imagines that she must have locked herself in the study so that no one bothers her. “Killian, Emma loves you. Anyone with eyes can see that, and you guys are a team. Granted, you’re a brand new team, but you’re a team. You have to work together and share stuff like this.”

“I know that, Els.”

“Then why isn’t she with you right now?”

“Because my shoulder feels like shit today, and she doesn’t know anything about the accident besides the broken bone.”

Silence fills the air around him after he says the words, and it’s exacerbated by the fact that Elsa isn’t saying anything on the other line. The only sounds are the sounds of his television playing some kind of celebrity gossip show. How out of touch is he if he doesn’t even know the name of the show?

Why would it even matter to him?

“Killian,” Elsa whispers, and he’s so damn tired of hearing people say his name in sympathy today, “you haven’t told her?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I haven’t told anyone else, Els. Eight people on this earth know about it, and I don’t even know how I would tell her. I don’t want her to look at me out of pity. I don’t…my life has had some pretty shitty periods, and that was one of them. Emma didn’t honestly know me then. She didn’t know how fucked up that I was, and even if I’ve told her about Milah and all of the women after Milah and – I’ve told her a lot, and at some point, she’s going to flip out on how messed up I am.”

“First of all,” she starts, not even allowing him to take a breath or truly think about everything that he just said, “you are not messed up. You, even with all of your privileges now, have had some really hard times in your life. You lost your mom at a really young age and had a pretty shitty dad who took advantage of you and your talents. And then you had a really big love kind of blow up in your face, as well as everything that came after that, and just as you were getting over that, the accident happened.”

“It’s even more depressing if you say it all in a list like that.”

“But,” Elsa continues, “you got through all of that. Are you still struggling with it? Absolutely. But it hasn’t kept you from continuing to live your dream even though things are frustrating. It hasn’t kept you from finding a really great girl in Emma. You’re okay, you know that? And we all love you so much that I don’t think I can even express it with words.”

Killian smiles to himself and twists in his bed, a bit of water coating his eyes, but he blinks the tears away and runs his hands through his hair, taking a deep breath. “I love you guys too.”

“Good. Now text your girlfriend and think about telling her some of this stuff that you’re carrying around on your shoulders.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“A little.”

“You have no shame.”

“I know. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Will do.”

The line goes silent, for real this time, and Killian slams his eyes shut simply so he can have a moment to breathe. Today has been a lot for him, and he knows that Elsa is right about everything. He does. But he’s not quite ready to be that open with Emma. He will be. He does actually want her to know about everything even if he thinks it’ll make her run for the hills, but he’s not ready. And he tells himself that it’s fine. Emma has her own hang-ups, her own past, and not everything has to be shared right away.

They have time.

And his arm may very well start feeling better soon, and his freak out will all be for naught.

Killian: Can I come up to your room?

Emma: Ruby and Graham are in here.

Killian: I don’t care if you don’t.

Emma: 514.

Rolling off the bed, Killian bends down to his suitcase to grab a shirt, not caring which one, and tugs it down on over his head and shoulders before grabbing his phone and wallet to walk up to Emma’s room. He’s not even wearing any shoes, just socks, but he doesn’t notice this until he’s looking around the hallway to make sure no one is around and then quietly knocking on the door.

Graham opens it, a smile on his face, and for some reason it makes Killian think that maybe Emma isn’t as pissed at him as his mind has convinced himself that she is.

“Hey, come on in,” Graham says, opening the door a little wider and letting Killian inside. “I’m sorry about the game.”

“I’m sorry that you used vacation days to see us all play like shit.”

“Yeah, well,” Graham laughs, “at least I’m not at work.”

“This is true.”

Killian takes another step in the room and sees Emma sitting on her bed dressed in a pair of shorts and his old Vandy sweatshirt. He’s going to have to get something else because she’s going to wear that thing until it is nothing but threads. Ruby is sitting next to her, laptops on both of their laps, and he imagines that they’re simply working. Or, at least, he hopes.

“Hey,” Killian greets, crossing his arms over his chest.

Emma looks up at him, a slight smile on her face, and his chest practically heaves. They’re not even in a fight. Why does he feel like they are?

“Hey,” she says. “I’ve got to finish up this article, okay? And I have a little bit of prep work to do for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Swan, that’s fine.”

“It’s only going to take her thirty minutes,” Ruby starts, slamming her laptop shut, “and then she’s going to yell at you for how pissed she is at you for completely ignoring her today.”

“Hey,” Emma gasps, reaching her hand back to slap Ruby, “you weren’t supposed to say anything.”

“Well, I knew you weren’t going to.”

“I was.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I was going to talk to him.”

“No, no you weren’t. You two are ridiculous. It’s not that hard to talk to each other.”

“Sweetheart,” Graham sighs, tilting his head to the side, “why don’t you let them deal with their issues on their own? I think they can handle it.”

“You know Emma almost as well as I do, so you know that’s not true.”

“Oh my God,” Emma groans, sinking down further on the bed, “this is why I should have left the two of you in New York.”

“Technically,” Ruby laughs, “David sent me because this is a big game, and he didn’t want you to produce on your own.”

“Yeah, well, I should have convinced him to let you stay, and then we definitely could have left Graham behind.”

“Hey,” Graham scoffs, and Kilian can’t help but laugh. He’s only spent a little bit of time with the three of them all together, but they obviously get along great. Ruby is definitely an acquired taste, but Graham kind of evens things out. “I am on vacation. I don’t need to be berated.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Emma huffs, rubbing the palms of her heels under her eyes. “I’m just a little stressed.”

“Do you want me to go get you a cup of coffee, love?”

Emma glances over to him and shakes her head from side to side. “No. I’ve had enough caffeine today. Thank you, though.”

Silence falls between all of them, only the hum of the air-conditioning remaining, but Killian’s gaze stays on Emma even when she goes back to typing on her laptop.

“Ruby, let’s go out to dinner,” Graham suggests, walking over to the bed and beginning to pack up her stuff. “We’ll all have to do something together tomorrow night, yeah?”

“That sounds great, Graham,” Emma promises. “There’s a seafood place down by the harbor that I want to go to.”

Killian watches as Ruby and Graham collect their things and leave, saying their goodbyes to both he and Emma, and it’s not awkward until the hotel door slams shut behind them and he’s left with just Emma.

When was the last time he felt awkward around Emma?

Probably during his interview back in March. That was a lifetime ago.

“I had a shitty day,” Killian blurts out, walking over to the desk that’s next to Emma’s bed and sitting down on the edge of it so that he’s not talking to her from across the room. “That’s not an excuse. God, love,” he huffs, running his hands through his hair, “I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s mine. I’m sorry that I brushed you off, that I barely acknowledged you at the stadium, and that I didn’t text you while I’m here.”

Emma’s nails clack against the keyboard, and he swears every letter is being burned into his skin for how anxious he feels until she’s closing her laptop and placing it next to her on the bed, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Why have you had a shitty day? Just because you played poorly? Because I’ve seen you play poorly before, and it’s never resulted in you ignoring me while I’m trying to do my job. I get that reporters suck and that you have to talk to a million of them. And I don’t expect special treatment because I’m your girlfriend, but you can’t just brush me off like that and then basically be a ghost for hours after that. I mean, you weren’t even answering your family’s calls, Killian.”

How is he a functioning human being? How? How does he even have people who love him?

Killian’s got answers to all of her questions, to every single one, but he doesn’t know how to say them without talking about his arm and that’s…that’s not going to happen today when he needs more time to accept it all himself.

Emma will understand. When the time comes, she will.

“I’m an asshole, Swan. I am. I know you probably think I’m great with expressing my emotions because I usually am with you, but sometimes I still struggle with it. I had a day where nothing seemed to go right, and instead of seeking out the help of people who care about me, I isolated myself. It’s not right. I know it’s not, but it’s a pattern that I fall back into time and time again.”

Green eyes glance over him, studying him, and he feels her everywhere, like she’s able to peer deep into his soul and see all of the things he’s hiding from her.

Or the one thing.

It’s just one thing

And it can’t be that big of a deal. It’s not. He’ll tell her. Later. Tonight is not the right time.

“You’re not an asshole,” Emma sighs, flattening her lips. “I know I call you an ass all of the time, but I don’t mean it. I just – you had a bad day. I get that. I have bad days all the time, but, and at least I think I’m right about this even though Neal and Walsh never did this with me, when you have a shitty day, you’re supposed to share it with me, come to me, lean on me. If you need time to yourself, fine. Take it. That’s probably a good thing, but I don’t want to do this if every time things don’t go your way I’m pushed away.”

“Did you rehearse that?”

“Does it sound like it?”

“A little bit,” Killian chuckles as he scratches behind his ear. “If only because everything you just told me not to do is everything that I know you have a history of doing.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a hypocrite.” Emma lets her legs fall against the mattress before standing up and stepping into his space so that she’s standing between his thighs with her hands on his shoulders, nails curling into his t-shirt. “Obviously, we both have our own issues, but let’s try to be better, yeah? And if all else fails when it comes to talking, I’m a really good person to eat junk food with and possibly get a little drunk even if those are terrible coping mechanisms.”

He huffs, his hands finding her hips so that he can tug her closer. “I’m on a diet, actually.”

Emma’s nose scrunches up in that way that he loves before she’s dipping her head down and softly, thoroughly moving her lips over his in the way that he’s been craving all day. He hasn’t seen her today, only those few seconds after he got pulled out of the game, and he had no idea just how much he missed being able to feel her against him, to be able to smell the scent of her shampoo, until right at this moment.

“I know,” she says when they pull back from each other even if he doesn’t let his grip on her hips go. “We’ve been eating like crap lately.”

“I’m trying to rectify that. I know you are too.”

“Actually, Ruby and I signed up for another Pilates class at home, so I’ve been working my ass off to still eat my onion rings. Literally.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” Killian moves his hand back to squeeze her ass, reveling in the way that Emma rolls her eyes. “I like this ass too much.”

“Well, consider it some kind of punishment for being a broody ass today if my butt happens to get smaller.” She smiles at him before kissing his forehead in a move so gentle that he wonders how in the world this woman has so many wonderful facets. “Now, do me a favor and find something to watch while I finish up my assignment, okay? I have to talk about everything you guys did wrong today.”

“Just punch me in the gut why don’t you.”

“I try. C’mon, twenty-nine. I think we both deserve a relaxing night.”

“Yeah, Swan, me too.”

They don’t get drunk and eat junk food, but once Emma finishes her work a little under twenty minutes later, she turns her laptop off as well as turning off the hotel room lights, and crawls under the covers with him so that her feet are tucked into his calves. Killian loves that she does that, that she feels comfortable doing that, and it brings him comfort even if her feet are far too cold. Seriously, it’s like she sticks them in the freezer before she gets in bed.

As if that would be possible.

Emma absentmindedly playing with his chain and his mother’s ring is something he’s also grown used to recently, something that brings him peace, and Killian continues to trace words of affection into the skin of her back as the night goes on. They don’t talk much, just a few exchanges of words about Emma’s day, her plans and schedule for tomorrow, and she drags just that little bit more information out of him. It’s still not everything, was never going to be everything, but it’s a start.

And his shoulder doesn’t bother him nearly as badly when Emma is sitting beneath it with her head on his chest laughing at his truly terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression. He’s usually much better with accents, but this one is apparently too much for Emma to handle.

Weirdly, though, or maybe not so much, all of his concerns that sparked after his conversation with Ariel this afternoon fade away with each passing second. Killian’s got no clue what’s going to happen or if things are going to work out, but at the end of the day, all he wants is for Emma to laugh with him and kiss his collarbone before she falls asleep.

#catch me if you can #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan fic #captain swan

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hyperionswrath--archived · 4 years

Text

@onepartbrave :

There was a few things Squall could admit to admiring about his former rival. For example, he liked the man’s choices in tattoos, whether it be one of significant meaning like the symbol from Seifer’s past or the simple circuit on his wrist. How carefree and self-confident he still seemed to be even after getting in trouble at work for something he helped with and didn’t cause. How, after all this time, he still freely gave Squall his time and effort when (without a doubt) he was certain the blond would rather ignore everything and forget. Hell, he could even admire how patiently he sat with and waited for Squall’s lacklustre replies every time despite being known for impatience.

On the flip side, the only thing he wouldn’t—couldn’t—admire right now was being told what to do. He was a functioning adult, employed by one of the largest military-based groups in the world and didn’t need to be told to calm down. ‘Taking it easy’ was never on the cards for tonight and he’d be damned if he’d let Seifer chide him like a misbehaving infant.

“Mind your business,” he snapped in a subdued growl, muffled slightly by the bottle top and only toned down due to a member of staff arriving with their—giant platter of food? Well, damn. Colour him surprised for the umpteenth time that night but he’d grudgingly found another thing to appreciate. When Seifer did something, he went all out. “…That’s a lot,” he stated, curiously eyeing the contents. No shit, Captain Obvious. Stop saying that. “…Thanks,” he added as a mumbled afterthought, reluctant to admit he’d been snappy without reason a moment prior.

Replacing the bottle on the bench for now, keeping it out of Seifer’s stupidly long reach, Squall dove into the delectable feast set before them. Instantly, he reached out for the potato wedges, scooping most over to his side. Next was a slice of meat and a generous heaping of vegetables. Hesitating as he examined his horde, he paused only for a moment before he slid the rest of the potato wedges to his side. Seifer could contend with having only fries—all wedges had been claimed and he would kill a man to keep them.

Was the alcohol starting to set in from his recklessness? Oh yes.

Moodily chomping down on some potatoy goodness, Squall stuck with studying the surrounding decorations and the occasional bypassing person instead of striking up a conversation. Or, any conversation. Humility took hold at the strangest of times with him. For instance, in the present, realising that Seifer had been nothing but kind to him since meeting yesterday… it made every harshly spoken word taste sour. Every negative memory he recalled unintentionally were no longer relevant to the man seated next to him. all of the past was irrelevant…

Was he irrelevant now, too? Did he no longer have a place in his former rival’s life? His mere existence had already proven counterproductive for the blond, last night being a prime example. Was he… a reason Seifer abandoned him for a decade and never looked back?

A subtle shiver rocked his form and Squall’s otherwise ravenous eating pace slowed. Almost half of the wedges had been consumed and the one in his hand should’ve taken no more than three bites, yet he was already on the seventh nibble and a lead weight in his stomach had started to cause an ache. Swallowing thickly, he kept his gaze pointedly down, set on the meal alone, as more unwarranted thoughts entered his mind without permission. The excessive lowering of his mental barriers was the cause, the alcohol the culprit. Feeling his brows sinking lower until they met nearly in the middle of a troubled frown, he realised glumly that his appetite had all but vanished from his fleeting trip down memory lane and the half-eaten wedge no longer held any appeal.

Sighing softly, he tugged a napkin free from a food-free part of the platter and placed the morsal on it. Leaving that on the table away from the main course, he plucked his bottle up again and helped himself to more swallows, treating it dangerously as he would a glass of chilled water instead of mind-poisoning liquid.

“…Why are you here, Seifer?”

Snorting at the snappy reply bestowed upon him for being mindful for once, Seifer was just about to reach out and grab some of the potato wedges when he, quite astonished, watched how Squall started snatching everything away from under his nose and loaded his platter with ...an unsurmountable mass of food, he dared say. There was no way the smaller man would be able to stomach all that? His hand still hovered over the place where the wedges had been and one brow shot up in an almost admonishing manner, then he clicked his tongue and went for some broccoli instead, pointing it at Squall's meal "That right there is a lot." Seemed like someone had a severe case of hangry? "And you're welcome, although you make it seem like we need to order a second helping?", he murmured with an air of rebuke before digging in himself, simply fetching whatever he fancied directly from the big plate and forgoing his own platter. "Didn't take you for someone to get grumpy when you need food.", Seifer mused between mouthfuls, then paused, and shook his head. "Nevermind that, either you're always hungry or always grumpy, can't tell the difference." With a smirk, he leaned over to steal one of the wedges, long reach of his arms and all. This was almost... companionable? He'd never in his life imagined sharing his food with Squall like this could prove to be so homey? Focusing on his own hunger as he hadn't eaten much more than the brunet, silence soon set in and was only disrupted some long minutes later, by a low voice speaking words he couldn't immediately place.

“…Why are you here, Seifer?”

The question gave him a pause, him having resorted to enjoying some fried cheese sticks with a hot dip, not eating too fast, and sneaking in a shot or two in between because he had to keep up with the fast pace the SeeD dictated.

Why are you here?

His first, unconscious reaction was a snort as he waved one half-eaten cheese stick in the general direction of his bottle, the rum having been placed carefully out of his reach. "Cause you invited me?" His lopsided smile fell flat when he saw the dark shadows haunting the brunet's face and from one minute to the next a sinking feeling set inside his stomach, much like the one that had caused Squall to stop eating. Forcing down the last bite nonetheless, the tall blond chewed long and deliberately, washing his mouthful down with another shot for good measure. By now, a slight buzz had settled in the back of his skull which would otherwise have been more than pleasant, but with the direction their conversation was inevitably steered now, he could feel the shadows of his past lurk just beyond the corner, lapping at his mind.

Slowly pulling his feet from their perched position to sit upright, Seifer placed his hands on the table, fingers interlaced and gaze fixed on them, brow furrowing much like his former rival was so extraordinarily talented in. Much like the night before, his jaw worked, as he seemed to try and find the right words to answer this question when really he didn't even know where to start. It was legitimate, he had simply tagged along and basically forced himself into Squall's presence, falling into his old patterns like no time had passed. It had been ten years, what right did he have to invade Squall's life like this again? After everything...

Expression tense, it was now him grabbing the bottle and taking a couple of deliberate, deep gulps from it, if only to have something to do instead of answering. When he sat it down in front of him again, emerald eyes flitted over to the lithe form of the other man, trying to read him. If anything, he was good at that part. "I...", he set to speak, then cut himself off to let out a frustrated sigh, lifting a hand to absentmindedly brush over his forehead, along his scar, with cold fingertips. Shit... how was he even going to say this? He had played out this scenario at least a million times in the past ten or so years, had examined it from all possible directions with all outcomes his mind could think of and yet, this situation right here had not been among them.

Letting his hand fall into his lap now, his eyes searched for the pale-blue's of the other man, eyes he had seen in various states of emotion throughout his life, no matter how shortlived or imperceptive they might have been to other people. "Fuck Squall, I don't even know how...", again he interrupted himself, lips pressed thin now, and the frown on his face deep, almost mournful. "Look, I..." another pause, a deep breath, fist on the table clenching and unclenching "...I know I have no right to be here. Like this. With you." he finally pressed out, gaze of jade-greens now intently fixed on his fist on the table. "Not after everything...- " He just didn't seem to be able to form the words that he wanted to say as he, for the third time, broke off to swallow hard against a lump in his throat. Damn, this was the last thing he had thought of when they had met the night before. It had been like two pieces falling into place, clicking and running smoothly like a clockwork. But this one, small question, as innocent as it may seem, toppled everything out of balance.

Curtly shaking his head, Seifer reached for his coat and wordlessly pulled something out of it - his pack of cigarettes - grabbing the bottle with the other hand as he rose from his seat. "I'm sorry." His words a mere whisper, the tall blond spun around and made for the exit, leaving his coat behind to signal he'd not skip out on paying the bill as he rushed through the door and out onto the small alley, cool air engulfing him as he stood there, a rigid tenseness in his shoulders. "Fuck." Not bothering to search for a place less in sight, he only crossed the alleyway to the other side and slumped down on the ground, bringing the bottle up to empty another few deep mouthfuls, placing it beside him as erratic fingers produced a cigarette from the pack. He was such a pathetic idiot... Of all the ways he had wanted to apologize to Squall, this was definitely the worst way it could have gone.

#onepartbrave #rp #oh boy this is not just a bit angst now #well done xD he is broken #long post #the angstiest of angst

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izzy-b-hands · 4 years

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Dancer Chapter Five

We had a whirlwind of a last chapter, but we can’t breathe easy just yet! Hold on tight folks, nothing is ever as easily solved as we (or Eggsy) might hope lol. And there’s still a lot of work ahead for Eggsy and crew.

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

“Freddie Mercury used to own this apartment,” Boniface said as they stepped inside. “At least, that’s what the realtor claimed. Not the only reason I got it, but a nice thought, isn’t it? To be staying somewhere he might have, when he vacationed out here?”

Eggsy nodded. “I’d like to think it’s true. Pretty cool, all around.”

It was legitimately cool, still velvet on the drapes and furniture, but all yellow and light blues and greens rather than the harsher gold and black of Boniface’s office and home near the club. A warm, airy sort of place to come home to.

Boniface’s eyes were still red, but he had stopped crying, and he smiled as he showed Eggsy around the apartment.

“Go on and set your things in the room, then maybe we can sit and have a drink? Try and relax a bit after all that nonsense,” Boniface said, then scoffed. “Fucking Barrett.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy replied. “Can I use the restroom first, just quick?”

“Oh goodness, of course,” Boniface said. “I don’t blame you, that...situation has left me feeling a bit unsettled too. Luckily, we have two bathrooms here. There’s one just down this hall, you take that one, and we’ll meet back in the living room here, yes?”

Eggsy nodded, and moved as quickly as he dared to the bathroom, keeping his bag with him, only rooting the earpiece out of it until he’d shoved hand towels under the doorway to hopefully keep Boniface from hearing anything.

Even so, he made sure to whisper. “Merlin. He isn’t at all what we think, there’s so much I have to tell you. I’m going to type up a report when I get back to my apartment, okay, but for now...I think I can get him to work with us.”

“Why are you whispering?” Merlin asked. “Are you...at his?”

Eggsy sighed softly, and nodded out his frustration. “Yes, I am. He...look, it’s too much to tell you now. Just trust me on this. And I’m almost one hundred percent certain I can convince him to let us help him get rid of the formula, rather than selling it. And in the process, Kingsman can help fund some charitable work Boniface has been desperate to do! It’s a win all the way around!”

Merlin was silent, then sighed. “Okay. But you have to tell me more of what’s going on as soon as you’re able, do you hear me?”

“I will, I promise,” Eggsy replied. “I’ve got to go now, he’ll be waiting for me.”

“Are you safe? There, I mean,” Merlin asked. “If you need back-up, I’m always nearby.”

“I’m safe,” Eggsy said, and he knew it was true. Boniface might be many things, but he wasn’t a villain. He was just a hurting man, trying to find a way out of where he was stuck.

Eggsy knew how that felt. Even if he wasn’t falling hard and fast for the man, he’d still have to help him, because he knew how it was to be in that spot.

“Talk to you later, Merlin.”

“Very well.”

He replaced his earpiece into its hiding place in the bag, used the restroom quickly, then washed his hands and moved the hand towels back to their appropriate shelf. He stopped for a moment and studied his stomach, still stained with his and Boniface’s cum. He grabbed a hand towel back, and cleaned his stomach off, then dropped the hand towel into the labeled hamper near the sink.

He dropped his bag into Boniface’s bedroom, then went back out to the living room.

Boniface was sat there, a glass of wine in his hand, and another sitting empty on the coffee table by the bottle of white wine, waiting for Eggsy. A pair of light yellow sweats and a sweatshirt were on the couch as well, with a pair of lavender boxer briefs set on top of them.

“For you, to keep if you’d like. I figured you might want to be in something more comfortable than your club clothes. I always try to have things on hand for employees, just in case.”

Eggsy picked the clothing up, and smiled. “Thank you. Not that I hate the shorts or anything, I just get cold.”

Boniface laughed, and his eyes absolutely sparkled. “Understandable. Kick off your shoes and change, get comfortable. You’ve got the next few days off, per me, for helping me out like that tonight.”

“Wasn’t anything big,” Eggsy said as he took off the platforms, a different pair than the ones that were still in the bedroom of Boniface’s house near the club. He’d have to get those later, he figured. “Finally got a chance to use those skills, you know? Might have made my dad proud.”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Eggsy’s heart dropped, but he hid it as best he could. “He is. Is it that obvious?”

Boniface shrugged. “Maybe it’s a thing among those of us who’ve lost parents. I could just tell. How, if you’re comfortable saying...”

“Military operation gone wrong,” Eggsy replied. “My mum fell apart once he was gone. I was a mess for the longest time, you wouldn’t have believed it. Stealing cars and shit. Was fun though, that. At least until you get caught.”

That wasn’t the exact truth, but it was close enough, and if this went well, he could tell Boniface the full truth later.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Boniface said softly. “Of your father, and of who your mother was. That can’t have been easy to deal with, growing up.”

“Been easier if my step-dad wasn’t a right abusive prick,” Eggsy scowled as he continued to undress. “But it’s in the past now. And I’m much better off than I was then. A better person, too.”

Boniface studied him with gentle eyes. “I’m sure you were always a good person. Just takes time and growing up to reveal it.”

“How old are you anyway, if you don’t mind my asking?” Eggsy asked as he finished changing and settled on the couch by Boniface.

“29,” Boniface replied. “But I feel a lot older, sometimes, silly as that might sound.”

“Doesn’t sound silly at all,” Eggsy said. “I’m 28, but...”

“Life ages us faster than we deserve sometimes,” Boniface murmured.

Eggsy nodded. “It does. Speaking of life...you said, if there was another way out, other than selling the formula, you’d take it.”

Boniface finished his wine, and nodded. “In a heartbeat. Especially if it meant finding a way to get rid of the lab too. But how else will I fund the home?”

He took a deep breath. He was about to purposefully blow his cover, and he had to hope like hell he was right about this.

Or he might not survive it.

“I know of a way.”

Boniface frowned, but his eyes were bright. “How?”

“This is hard for me to say,” Eggsy started, and he twisted the edge of the sweatshirt in his hands out of nerves. “I’m. Not who you think I am. But it isn’t bad, I promise!”

Boniface looked shocked, but nodded. “Okay. Who are you then, Wyn?”

“My name is Gary Unwin, but I go by Eggsy,” Eggsy answered. “I’m an agent with a spy organization called Kingsman. I was sent here to either steal the formula, or otherwise ensure it wasn’t sold to anyone who could use it. I didn’t intend...”

‘on falling in love with you’, Eggsy finished in his head before continuing.

“...This mission has turned into something entirely different than I thought it would be, but I’m glad for it. Because at Kingsman, we can help you. We can get more agents out here, help dismantle the lab, destroy the formula and all research for it, and fund your home for at risk boys.”

Boniface had tears in his eyes again. “You aren’t lying, are you?”

Eggsy shook his head. “This is real, I promise I wouldn’t lie to you; unless it’s for the job, I try not to lie to people I love.”

The last bit came out before he could stop it, and he bit his tongue.

“That...I’m sorry. We’re just getting to know each other, and here I am, and god I’m babbling now and-”

Boniface’s hand on his stopped him. “I love you too. I know, it feels too early to say, but...I can’t explain it. But I do love you. And I know you love me too and that feels so good I can’t fully tell you how wonderful it is. But I need proof, of the rest. Do you have anything you can show me, to prove this is as real as I want it to be?”

“Do I ever!” Eggsy smiled, and pressed a kiss to Boniface’s cheek before dashing back to the bedroom for his bag.

He ran back to the living room, and yanked the earpiece from its hiding place. “Merlin, can you hear us? I’ve got Boniface on with me, told him everything!”

“Hello, Mr. Gagneux,” Merlin replied. “I take it my agent has just blown his cover to see if you would like to accept our help in getting rid of that pesky world-destroying formula?”

“He has,” Boniface said. “But I’m so glad he did. Sir, this is-it’s everything I could have ever dreamed of. I can end this madness without anyone getting hurt.”

“Long as Barrett doesn’t come back,” Eggsy remarked. “But I think we scared him away.”

“Barrett?” Merlin asked. “Not Barrett Palmer, you don’t mean?”

“One and the same,” Boniface said. “You know of him?”

“Do I know of him? The bastard has nearly killed some of our best agents!” Merlin thundered.

“Merlin, hold on,” Eggsy said. “What is this about? I mean, yeah, he held the club hostage today to try and get the formula, but we scared him off. I’ve never heard of him until today.”

“Because I hoped you never would,” Merlin said brusquely. “He’s a bogeyman, a nightmare on two legs. A pedophile, murderer, trafficker of drugs and sex and anything else he can pay off the local PD and every other agency under the sun to ignore. He’s got webs all over Europe and into the Americas, he’s is scum, but he is some of the richest and most influential of the scum. It means he’s nearly impossible to catch, and to beat.”

“Okay, but like I said,” Eggsy scoffed. “He got told not to come back unless he was prepared to pay for the formula, and he made it clear he wasn’t interested in that, so we made it clear it wasn’t up for grabs.”

“Eggsy,” Merlin scolded. “When has something like that ever stopped a man like Barrett? People like that...he doesn’t care, and you’re in danger, all of you. We need to move, fast. Mr. Gagneux, the club will need to be shut down. Construction, water leak, whatever story you have to manufacture, do it, but close the club. That’s your patrons and the people in town as safe as we can manage for right now.”

“Fine enough,” Boniface said. “Then what?”

“Then I, and whatever other agents I can scrounge up, probably just Galahad and Tequila for now, Roxy is still looking after Tilde for you, Eggsy, and-”

“Tilde?” Boniface asked, and frowned.

There was a pause, then Merlin sighed.

“Eggsy...have you not explained things?”

“Hadn’t really had a chance,” Eggsy murmured. “Was going to.”

“Do it now,” Merlin said softly. “Or I will. There’s no room for secrets, especially in times like these.”

“You’re married,” Boniface whispered. “I might have guessed.”

“Yes, but we-it-it’s not been working out and we were probably-I mean I don’t know, but-” Eggsy fought for a word to get grounding on, but everything was sand in his mouth.

“Can I assist?” Merlin asked. “Roxy had meant to call you anyway, on Tilde’s behalf, because Tilde is quite upset with herself when she doesn’t need to be. It’ll all work out, frankly, she just doesn’t know it yet.”

“What on earth are you on about?” Eggsy asked.

“Ah. Yes, well, Roxy and Tilde revealed, or rather, came to me as if I’m some Agony Aunt, and told me that they’ve been sleeping together since before you left. All those ‘girls’ weekends?’ Yeah. They’re both absolutely ashamed and upset with themselves, thinking you’ll be upset beyond belief-”

“And you’re here fucking me,” Boniface interrupted. “...did you both know you were each gay when you got married? Or bi, or pan, or however you identify?”

“No,” Eggsy said slowly. “We did not. But maybe we should have waited on that, as it happens, and then we might have found out and not bothered with the wedding at all.”

“I did think they were rushing into it,” Merlin muttered. “Didn’t want to say anything, or be rude, but young love forgets to take its time sometimes, you know? And now look where it’s landed us.”

“So, all we really have to do is come out to each other?” Eggsy asked. “And figure out the divorce proceedings, I guess. I presume that’s her plan?”

Merlin sighed so deeply it sounded his lungs might deflate. “She’s been debating it over ice cream and movies with me for five weekends in a row now. I’ve put on at least a good few inches as a result, I’m sure.”

“Merlin.”

“Yes, sorry, sorry. Just been a lot, you know. Both of you, going through it, and here I am just...I love you both, but I’ll need a mini-break after this, let’s just say that, hm? But first, to saving relationships and the world,” Merlin said. “I’ll arrange for a phone call between you and Tilde, on this earpiece, so the line can’t be hacked. In an hour, maybe?”

“That’d be fine,” Eggsy replied. “I think I can prepare by then.”

“We have wine,” Boniface whispered, but Merlin apparently heard him crystal clear.

“Oh good. That’ll help. I mean, once it’s done, you both can get on with it, you know? Still be good friends, hell, go on double dates once all this is over, you just have to do this one final difficult thing.”

“And save the world,” Eggsy reminded him.

“...and that, yes. Now, speaking of, here’s the game plan: Mr. Gagneux, tomorrow, you announce the closing of the club. That should bring Mr. Palmer out of hiding, to try and find you or just show some muscle by breaking into the club, if he thinks that’s where the formula is. Where is it, by the way?”

“At the lab in Switzerland,” Boniface replied. “I didn’t want it to be able to be found out if it was sent via email or whatever, so whoever bought it would have to pick up a copy of the research paperwork and everything like that at the lab.”

“Switzerland?” Merlin groaned. “I don’t have enough agents for this. But that’s fine, it’s fine, we can pull this off. I’ll send Agent Tequila to you, to keep an eye on the club. Galahad and uh...Galahad, Jr., aka Eggsy here will need to go to Switzerland and be protection until we can shut down the lab, and ensure that no one working there has copies of the formula they might try and sell.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Eggsy said. “Which means it really isn’t, right?”

“Right,” Merlin muttered, and he sounded exhausted. “I mean...some of it depends on Palmer. If he doesn’t come out of hiding like we expect to flaunt about and try and steal the formula outright, then it might be easier. Tequila keeps an eye on the club, you and Galahad go to Switzerland and shut down the lab, once that’s done-”

“Evan,” Boniface interrupted. “I’d want him to have the club, once this is all over. I trust him and Tony to run it well, to keep the dancers safe.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Merlin said. “Get all of this done first, and after if we can assure Barrett and no one else will be coming after the club in revenge once they learn the formula is gone, then we can talk about who keeps it and if it reopens. And Eggsy, I still want that write-up you mentioned earlier, any details you haven’t told me now, get them in it. We need all the information you have if we’re to even try and do this right.”

“Right,” Eggsy nodded. “Tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow,” Merlin said. “And you’ll have Tilde on the line in an hour exactly, so be ready.”

“I will be,” Eggsy said, and disconnected the call, then rubbed at his face with his hands.

Boniface handed Eggsy the empty wine glass. “Here. Not to get drunk on, mind, we certainly can’t do that now. But a bit of liquid courage.”

“I shouldn’t even need it,” Eggsy muttered as he poured himself some of the wine, sweet in scent and taste. “I mean, it should be easy. Should be. Should take a weight off of both of us, in fact.”

“Maybe it will be,” Boniface said. “You can’t know until you do it, and you both owe that to each other. Especially since I’d imagine you both want each other to be happy, yes?”

“Of course,” Eggsy replied. “All I want is for her to be safe and happy and healthy. She’s a wonderful person...deserves the world, and everything she wants. I just can’t give that too her. Maybe Roxy can, I suppose. If she’s willing to maybe give up the field, just work behind the scenes like Merlin.”

He reached for the bottle again as he drained his glass, but Boniface’s hand stopped him.

“I need to tell you something,” he said softly. “Since we’re sharing secrets, getting everything out in the open.”

“Okay,” Eggsy said slowly, and moved his hand from the bottle. “What is it?”

“Boniface Gagneux isn’t my real name,” Boniface muttered. “I made it up to protect myself in case anyone should ever come looking for me, not that they would, but...insurance. Just in case. No one knows that, not even Evan or Tony.”

“I mean this with all the respect in the world,” Eggsy said. “But no shit, that isn’t your real name.”

Boniface raised a brow at him.

“You’re Scottish, with maybe just a slighter accent now, but very definitely Scottish, yet you have the Frenchest name I’ve ever heard. If you were looking to keep people off of your trail, that’s the way to do it, but I sort of figured it had to be a chosen name for whatever reason, not your actual name.”

Boniface broke down into giggles. “God, it really is a bit much, isn’t it?”

Eggsy shrugged. “I’m sure there’s worse in the world. It seems like a fancy club owner’s name though, I’ve got to give you that.”

He joined in the laughter then as Boniface nearly cackled.

“It feels so good to finally tell someone. To finally have a way out of all this,” Boniface said. “I figured I’d be stuck with all of this forever. I wouldn’t mind being stuck in Ibiza forever, of course. Not sure anyone could say no to that.”

“We could come back and visit,” Eggsy said. “So long as it’s safe for you, of course. But you still haven’t told me your actual name yet.”

“Ainsley. Ainsley Dunn. Which isn’t much better, maybe. Always been told I look like a Thomas,” Boniface, or rather, Ainsley, said, rubbing at the sides of his face. “What do you think?”

If he had to describe how he felt it in the moment, the closest he could get to it was how he had felt at first with Tilde. Before the marriage, before the incompatibilities had started to show up, when they were still having fun and not worrying about anything else. The difference here, was he was learning everything about the man at once, and he’d have to tell him the same. More importantly, he wanted to, was eager to. He’d had that only once or twice with Tilde, even as he introduced her to his friends and met with them. But it never had gone beyond that, to talking about his past, only ever looking forward to his future and ‘princely duties’ that he couldn’t, and admittedly wouldn’t, complete. His heart swelled in his chest and it took a moment to find his voice again.

“I think Ainsley fits you well. A gorgeous name for a gorgeous man.”

Ainsley blushed, and the color reminded him of a particular sort of rose the palace gardeners planted. He ought to find some and buy them for Ainsley, was the mental note he made.

“You’re much too sweet,” Ainsley giggled.

“I’ll give you a cavity.”

“And I welcome it,” Ainsley replied, gesturing for Eggsy to move closer to him.

“Even if that means some pain?” Eggsy asked as he snuggled close to him.

“All relationships have pain, even if it’s just the occasional stupid conversation over things that don’t matter,” Ainsley said. “I’ve not gotten to experience that much, but I’ve seen it with others, and the sweetness always outweighs those little pains. So long as it’s never anything bigger, anything deal-breaking...root canal-causing, shall we say.”

Eggsy nodded. “How did I let it get that way with Tilde?”

“You still love her as a friend, yes?”

Eggsy nodded again. “Always.”

“Maybe you just needed more time to determine the sort of relationship you actually both wanted and needed. Sometimes, we don’t know we need that until it’s too late. Not a big deal, but still something to be dealt with or, to keep with the metaphor...root canal time.”

Time passed faster than he wanted as he stayed at Ainsley’s side, resting and watching the gorgeous view from the living room window, their conversation dropped, simply sitting in the comfort of being close.

Then, the ear piece buzzed.

“Take the bedroom,” Ainsley murmured, and hugged him gently. “Remember, you’re both doing this for each other, hard as it feels, so you can be your happiest, like you both want. I’ll be waiting here for you.”

Eggsy picked up the ear piece, and headed for the bedroom. Maybe it would be like a band-aid, quick and easy.

He could only hope.

#text post #LeeH writes #Kingsman fic

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acklest · 5 years

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Threesome, Party of Two

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Dean Winchester

Genre/Warnings: Wincest, One shot, Outsider POV, Top!Dean (implied), Bottom!Sam (implied), alcohol use, cursing. Nothing is truly all that smutty.

Words: 6,668

Summary: Whitney Evans meets two very charming and attractive FBI agents at a bar. Dean is intent on taking her home with both of them, but Sam clearly has some reservations. Fortunately for them, she’s a problem-solver by trade, and there’s definitely something up with these two.

Author’s Note: Inspired by an idea from @jbt111886 - thank you! Sorry Not sorry for all the gratuitous movie references. This was mostly an excuse for an outsider POV and some brotherly er, partnerly bickering. I’m hoping that if I officially post this, I’ll be less likely to delete it altogether.

✯✯✯✯

She had no intention of checking anyone out tonight, but his hands caught her attention.

Whitney had a thing for hands and picking up on small details was literally her day job. It wasn’t something she had ever managed to turn off.

He was leaning against the bar right next to her. His left hand was in a semi-relaxed fist that forcefully staked his place at the bar, and his right was palm-down with cash under it. They were broad, rough, and freckled, and three of his knuckles were healing up from bad abrasions. When he absently played a drum solo with the right, she noticed a couple more bruised knuckles and that his nails were short and clean, but cut bluntly across and chewed around the cuticles. No rings on either hand. The matte black watch on his wrist was more special ops than stylish.

The most intriguing part was that absolutely none of this matched the well-tailored sleeves of his suit, which was a tastefully muted blue-gray. A man with a suit like that should’ve had a manicure and a shiny watch, and a man with hands like that should’ve been in a biker bar with a jukebox, not a busy Irish bar in midtown with polished wood and delusions of grandeur.

Whitney almost turned to look but thought better of it. Nope, not here for that.

Then the pretty redheaded bartender leaned toward him, asking, “What can I get for… you?” That little hesitation should’ve been Whitney’s first warning. She had been here for an hour and a half, and had watched a half-dozen men flirt shamelessly with the bartender, and found her friendly but professional. But this guy, whoever he was, had gotten through.

Then he gave his order and Whitney was momentarily distracted by the sound of him. “I know it’s practically a felony to not order Guinness in a place like this, but I think that tap over there says Murphy’s Irish Stout on it.”

She grinned. “Sure does!”

The right hand flashed two fingers while she still was watching it. “Pints, please. Don’t go easy on the foam.”

The bartender seemed to twinkle up at him, Whitney’s second warning. “One of today’s specials is our bomber size, that’s our 22 ouncer for the same price as the pint.”

“Mmm. Hurt me, Riley,” he half-growled flirtatiously. She could hear his grin without seeing it. She also noted that in her time here, no one had bothered to learn Riley’s name, or if they had, hadn’t bothered to use it.

But his voice is what brought her up short at the moment. He spoke with a lazy, ambiguously accented drawl. His voice was low and rough, in that perfect Johnny Cash sweet spot between Barry White and Tom Waits. If he smoked, he certainly didn’t smell like it.

It was just one more thing that didn’t match the suit and Whitney finally gave in to curiosity and slightly turned to check him out.

Unfortunately, the stunned “oh” that played in her head was simulcast to her mouth.

Turning his head to glance down at her, his face softened from what she imagined was a resting smolder to a knowing half-smile that clearly stated, “I get that a lot.” But he seemed more pleased that she was pleased, rather than pleased with himself, which made the silent acknowledgement endearing rather than insufferable.

He was a few years older than Whitney and, though she was sitting down, seemed like he was about a head taller. In his suit, he looked kind of pleasantly solid all over, his thick torso balancing his broad shoulders. In American football, he’d be a running back, built for power and speed all at once.

Green-gold eyes appraised her with a not terribly subtle once-over. He had a well-defined jaw with maybe three days’ worth of stubble, a strong nose (ah, more freckles) that would’ve overpowered a lesser profile, and a generous, pouty mouth. With his dark hair in a frat boy cut swept up with product and a navy-blue foulard tie done up in a Prince Albert knot tucked neatly into his waistcoat, he was James Dean dressed up like Cary Grant and it shouldn’t have worked. At all.

Attractive men didn’t really impress her. Over the last few years, she had worked with hundreds of powerful, attractive men who wore even nicer suits than his, and had developed something of an immunity. But this guy had something else: Total, unabashed, panty-dropper confidence, earned through – if she dared to guess – years of rigorous study in the discipline. It radiated off of him in waves. She could almost guess that his first act had been to imagine her naked, and that his goal from that point on was to find out what made her tick.

He glanced down at her nearly empty glass. “Martini, huh? Can I get you another one?”

“Sure,” she managed a smile. “Thank you.”

His eyes lit up and he asked silkily. “Do you like ‘em dirty?”

That totally shouldn’t have worked, but he sold it through sheer audacity. She found herself almost as flustered as the time she met Gerard Butler at a party. Well, there was nothing she could do but play through the pain. “Yes, very,” she answered, then waited a couple of beats. “Wait, did you mean the martini?”

The smirk turned into a warm, appreciative smile, complete with the glimpse of teeth, that made little wrinkles fan out at the corners of his eyes. Okay, maybe the Cary Grant thing wasn’t entirely the suit.

He easily got Riley the bartender’s attention again. “Gin martini, stirred, extra dry, straight up, four olives, and —” He cut her a vaguely obscene sideways look. “Very dirty.”

“Wow.” Whitney was legitimately impressed.

She’d been right about the resting smolder, as he lapsed back into it while straightening a tie that didn’t need straightening. Just as she was starting to miss his big, open grin and all the crow’s feet that came with it, it snuck back across his face. “I overheard you orderin’ the first one. But, admit it, I almost had you.”

You had me well before that, she didn’t say. Besides, he clearly already knew, and it was a little late for her to play hard-to-get. Also, this meant he’d noticed her before she noticed him and since he continued to flirt with her, she liked her chances.

“Dean,” he told her, unprompted. Then, almost as an afterthought. “Gillan.”

“Whitney.” She mimicked his pause. “Evans.”

As the bartender deposited a fresh martini in front of her, Whitney asked, “So, Dean Gillan, what it is you do that you wear such nice suits, but also look like you start fistfights for fun?”

Dean stepped back to examine his suit, hands spread defensively. “A man can’t dress up for a fistfight?”

She was still laughing at this when another man walked up and stood behind Dean, flashing her an apologetic smile. He wore a nice suit as well, in a somber charcoal gray. His tie, she noticed, was the red version of Dean’s blue one, done up in the same knot.

This man was taller, broader across the shoulders but much narrower in the hips. His suit was cut to flatter both, and he seemed to wear his more comfortably. He had dark hair, too, but his was thick and collar-length and fell slightly into his face when he looked down. His deep-set eyes were either blue or hazel, or possibly neither, and he had a sharper side profile.

She didn’t get the same dirty “down for anything” vibe from him that she got from Dean. At the moment, she was thankful for that. She didn’t think she could handle two of them. However, the hand that gripped his phone was big, his fingers longer, but with the same blunt nails. No ring on him, either.

With his earnest expression, all he needed was a pair of half-rimmed glasses and a tweed suit, and he’d be that college professor who didn’t understand why so many students sat in the front row. How was it that they hung on to his every word and were still failing the course?

Without thinking, she asked faintly. “Are the hot guys traveling in pairs tonight?”

She glanced quickly at Dean, expecting him to bristle or look hurt since the two of them had been hitting it off. All he did was give her a small smile that she couldn’t quite interpret.

Dean turned to the other man and fixed part of his shirt collar that had fallen. He theatrically licked a finger and made a move toward the man’s hair, which was only narrowly avoided as he turned back to her with a smile. “Whitney, this is my partner, FBI Agent Sam Blackmore. Sam, Whitney Evans. She thinks you’re hot for some reason, so try to act like it.”

FBI agents. Now the suits and busted knuckles made a little more sense.

Sam briefly glared at his partner, a blink-and-miss sort of thing, before looking down at her to smile, revealing dimples in his cheeks. He turned back to Dean, showing him his phone. “Get this.”

The two of them stood with their heads almost touching to peer at Sam’s phone, eyes tracking back and forth, Dean’s lips moving slightly. Then the two had the most truncated (and possibly most dude-like) conversation she had ever heard in her life.

Dean leaned in closer to scroll his index finger down the screen as their eyes tracked some more. Dean straightened to look at Sam. “What the hell?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously, what the hell?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, more insistently this time.

“And there were —?”

“Two.”

“They find ‘em both?”

Sam frowned. “Just one.”

Dean turned to Whitney for a moment, smiling apologetically. “Bureau business, sweetheart, don’t go anywhere.”

“Why?” Whitney asked playfully. “Am I being detained, Agents?”

This earned her a shy grin from Sam and a much more suggestive one from Dean.

Besides, two hot guys, and the one coming on strong was apparently secure enough that he didn’t mind that she thought the other one was hot, too? How often did that happen? Why on earth would she go anywhere?

Dean turned back to Sam, their conversation picking back up right where they left off. “If there’s only one —”

The two pulled back from the phone, processed something for a moment, then chorused, “Vernal equinox.”

Whitney laughed. “You guys have been working together too long.”

The two peered at her over the top of the phone and Sam smirked. “You have no idea.”

“When?” Dean asked him.

“Not until March,” Sam answered. “But then –”

“The other thing.”

“Right.”

“And?”

“Well they —” Sam looked furtively at Whitney and seemed to select his next words carefully. “We probably won’t hear anything back until Friday.”

“Friday?” Dean brightened and happily braced Sam by the shoulders, giving him a firm little shake that made him roll his eyes. “You know what I’m gonna say next, right?”

“No idea,” Sam answered sarcastically. “But I’m guessing ‘something something pick this up tomorrow something something see you in the morning, Sam.’”

“Then you guess wrong.” Dean handed him one of the two big glasses of beer that were waiting next to him on the bar, before ducking his head to look the pretty bartender in the eye as he passed her a tip. “Thank you again, Riley.”

Whitney didn’t think it was the tip that made Riley straighten a bit and smile up at him.

“Why do you always do that?” Sam muttered as they turned away. “Give her a chance to finish her college education, Hef.”

Dean visibly balked at “Hef” but moved one hand palm-up under his chin and along the side of his head as if displaying a game show prize. “This is just my face, dude. It does what it does. I can’t control it.” He turned to look conspiratorially at Whitney, voice mock-mournful. “God knows I’ve tried.”

Whitney didn’t actually know which of them she liked better.

Sam ignored him and looked down at the beer in his hand. “Why’d you get me a beer if I’m just going back to the room?”

“’Cause you’re not going back to the room, you’re coming back to our table with me and Whitney.”

Whitney was as taken aback by this as Sam seemed to be. Not that she was complaining.

“C’mon,” Dean prodded gently, like he was trying to coax a pet back in from the outdoors. “You gotta sit for serious drinking, not as far to the floor.”

Sam shook his head, but followed them to the corner-most table in the back. Whitney noticed that Dean had a sort of hip-rolling strut. Because of course he did. She wondered if it was an affectation for her benefit.

The two both moved to pull a chair out for her, but Sam surrendered the right of way to Dean. After she was seated, Dean squeezed around her to the chair wedged directly in the corner facing the front doors, and turned it around to straddle it and rest his arms on the back. The suit now looked more incongruous than it had back at the bar. She found herself wondering what he wore when he was off-duty. Or maybe he had been a cop before a fed and hadn’t ever shaken it off?

Dean made an abrupt “put it away” gesture at some books and papers that were in Whitney’s place and Sam swept them into an open messenger bag before she could really get a look at any of it, though it didn’t seem like official research materials. Then again, if their case really involved the vernal equinox...

Sinking into his own chair, Sam watched Dean’s face intently.

“What?” Dean wiped at his mouth with his hand. “Do I have foam?”

“Uh... no. You... you got it.” Sam took a big swallow of the beer and leaned back in what she immediately recognized as feigned relaxation.

An attractive blonde server in her thirties stopped to ask them if they needed anything, and Dean jokingly gestured at Sam. “Can we get a double milk for this kid?”

As the server laughed and walked away, Whitney perked up. “Was that a quote from U.S. Marshals?”

Dean grinned. “I knew I liked you. See, Sammy, some people watch fun movies.”

Did he say Sammy? Hmm.

“Wait.” Sam blinked a couple of times. “Are you talking about the sequel to The Fugitive? That’s a terrible movie.”

“Actually…” Dean paused to take an operatically prissy sip of his beer and raised his chin haughtily. “Since it doesn’t continue, expand, or resolve the story from The Fugitive, but instead moves existing characters to a new story, U.S. Marshals is not a sequel, but... a spin-off.” Dean gave Whitney a wink that should’ve come with some sort of warning and then smugly looked at Sam across the table.

His beer glass stopping halfway to his mouth, Sam asked, “Wait... was that... were you being me?”

Dean nodded his head with a smirk. “Huh? I nailed it, right?” He added, sotto voce to Whitney, “I’ve been practicing.”

Shaking his head as if disappointed in both of them, Sam’s thumbs moved quickly across his phone’s screen and then turned it around so they could see it. “Look, 26% on Rotten Tomatoes.”

“Yeah, you’re right, now I can never watch it again,” Dean said drily. “That’s a solid flick, man. You’ve got Tommy Lee Jones, RDJ, and that cute French chick who played Wesley Snipes’ girlfriend.”

“74% of the world isn’t as easily amused as you.” Sam winced at what he’d just said and looked at Whitney contritely. “Or... you. Sorry.”

Whitney shrugged, feeling like she was a supporting character in a buddy cop movie like Lethal Weapon. Dean probably liked that one. Sam probably pretended he didn’t.

“This kid looks up the reviews for dive bars before he’ll agree to go,” Dean told Whitney incredulously. “Dive bars. What’s the review gonna say? ‘I had seven beers, they were fine, I passed out on the pool table and no one drew a dick on my face, will recommend to my friends’?”

Sam glared. “What if they had a salmonella outbreak or rancid bathrooms? Wouldn’t you want to know in advance?”

“I’m with Sam on this one,” Whitney conceded. “I don’t want to end up at The Titty Twister.”

“First of all, I’ve spent my entire life looking for The Titty Twister like it was El Dorado.” Dean scowled at both of them, but rounded on Sam first. “Also, any respectable dive bar has a rancid bathroom, that’s why it’s a dive bar.”

Sam interrupted to huff in disbelief. “Did you just use the word respectable and --?”

Dean plowed ahead. “And... And, as we’ve been over so many times, you don’t use that bathroom under any circumstances. Not even to hover.”

He turned to address Whitney now. ��And you… you lost a point by agreeing with him.” His forced stern expression faded back into a smile. “But then you got it back by referencing From Dusk Till Dawn. That was a close call.”

Sam groaned and spoke to Whitney with a mischievous air that she liked very much. “We have to change the subject or he will talk about the snake dance and I can’t go through that again. Last time he talked about it for an hour, and it’s only a four-minute dance.”

“Not if you keep replaying it.” Dean fixed his eyes on a point behind his partner’s head, and he must have been watching the video in his own brain because Sam waved a hand in front of his eyes to interrupt.

Whitney ate one of her four olives, looking from one of them to the other. “You guys are fun. I thought feds were supposed to have sticks up their asses.”

“He carries both of our sticks,” Dean said. Was that a little wink he gave his partner? “He won’t admit it, but I think he likes it.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh more at Dean’s proud “yeah, you heard me” expression or the dirty look Sam shot him from across the table. The comment would’ve seemed strangely sexual, but she knew that law enforcement officials had that unvarnished way of trash-talking that civilians didn’t often understand.

“What do you do?” Dean asked as Sam’s dirty look faded in intensity. “When you’re not being picked up by two federal agents?”

“I’m --” Wait. Had he said -- two? Did he mean “picked up” as in...?

It was obvious from his reaction that Sam had the same question, but Dean was looking only at her.

Whitney watched them for a moment and started again. “I’m a high-level intermediary for some of the corporate interests in the area.”

Sam squinted, then laughed under his breath. “So, you’re a fixer.”

Whitney smiled at him demurely, tilting her head slightly. “That term has taken on some unfortunate connotations. But... yes, I pay attention. I solve problems.”

The two of them exchanged a brief look, eyes widening and brows raised.

“Like Winston Wolfe?” Dean asked, intrigued.

“Or more like Michael Clayton?” Sam offered.

Dean had another one. “Madeliene White?”

Sam broke away from Whitney to look at him. “What?”

“Inside Man. You’re the one who wanted to watch it. We watched it.”

“I know the movie, Dean, I just didn’t think you were paying attention, since it didn’t have Salma Hayek dancing with a snake.”

Dean pointedly scratched the corner of his eye using only an extended middle finger, and Sam just as pointedly ignored him.

So, they watched movies together? Was being FBI partners not enough time in each other’s company?

“She was more of a power broker, actually,” Whitney said.

Dean frowned. “Those aren’t the same thing?”

“Power brokers are more about politics,” Sam explained. “Influencing things to turn out a certain way rather than trying to fix them. Like Henry Kissinger.” Sam added glibly for Dean’s benefit, “You might not have heard of him, since he’s not from a movie. He’s a real person.”

A nod and an obviously fake smile, all cheeks and no teeth, was his reward from Dean. There was just enough hostility in that look that she thought Sam might pay for this put-down in some small way when they didn’t have a guest.

Whitney took a sip of her martini to forestall laughing. “Well, if we’re sticking with fictional fixers, I guess I’m more like Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross. Though I’m much more diplomatic, I’d like to think. Usually.”

Dean leaned back, almost more in the corner than the chair. “Hmm. So when someone needs a fire lit under their ass, they call you.”

“Something like that.” She ate another olive. “When things are broken, they probably call someone else. But before that, they call someone like me to get things moving when they’re stopped, or stalled.” She smiled at Dean. “Not as many corpses to dispose of on that side of things.”

Smiling back, Dean raised his hand to get their server’s attention. “I’m orderin’ another round.”

Sam objected. “Dean, we haven’t even eaten anything.”

“Why do you think I’m ordering stout, dude?” Dean drained what was left in his glass and set it down with a thump. “The steak of beers. I bought you a burrito this morning, it’s not my fault you didn’t finish it like I told you to.”

Whitney sat back to watch them as they continued to bicker. There was no malice in it for them as near as she could tell. It seemed like more of a sport.

It wasn’t that they were excluding her exactly, and Sam especially would turn to her and loop her into it whenever he saw an opportunity, but the person they were trying most to entertain was each other. Which was fine. She usually preferred observing people to actually talking to them anyway.

As the give-and-take continued, she couldn’t help it. She started to notice things.

When she and Sam had started talking between the two of them, Dean would act out in some small way to get Sam’s focus back on him. She was flattered at first, thinking Dean didn’t want to share her. But when it happened the second time, she knew it was Sam he didn’t like sharing.

Dean was possessive then, jealous. Each time she watched it happen, Sam played annoyed but the rest of his body language betrayed that he was pleased. This was theatre.

They struck her as two very different people who shouldn’t have gotten along: Well-spoken vs. blunt, intellect vs. instinct. It was like the president of the chess club had hit it off with the motorcycle bad boy, and the two had bonded over some kind of shared experience, or maybe they had survived some kind of traumatic event. And now they filled in each other’s blanks.

But it was the little flickers of light between them as they argued that struck her the most. It was a little half-smile here, and a fond eye roll there, putting on a show for each other and, to a much lesser extent, her. The jaded, bossy senior partner and the eager, put-upon junior partner, each pretending they didn’t enjoy their roles.

There was more than friendship here. Or partnership. These two had tunnel vision that was only aimed at each other.

Whitney had guessed wrong: She wasn’t in a buddy cop movie. She was in a rom-com that thought it was buddy cop movie.

After they finished a second round, Sam started to relax, and Whitney was delighted that his cheeks flushed red when he was drunk. Sam touched them self-consciously. “It happens sometimes, I don’t know why.”

“It’s adorable, makes me feel like I just bought him his first beer.” And the little light in Dean’s eyes matched that statement of “adorable” with actual adoration that she wasn’t sure he knew he was showing. “Alright, this needs to be the last round, or we won’t be having fun tonight for very long.”

There it was again, that cryptic “we.”

Sam rose awkwardly, the handle of the messenger bag already in his hand. “I’ll leave you to it.” He turned to glance down at Whitney. “It was nice to m—”

Dean silently pointed his finger from Sam to the chair. After a moment, Sam sat back down.

The two of them then seemed to go into some silent discussion, somehow conveyed only through facial tics, Dean’s more forceful, Sam’s more uncertain.

If Sam didn’t want to be part of this, why was he? He was a big dude, the bigger of the two. He didn’t have to do what Dean was suggesting. He could’ve just gotten up, said “goodnight” and walked away. But he didn’t.

Did he want to be talked into it? And why did Dean want him there if Sam clearly didn’t want to be?

Oh.

Ohhh.

This was shaping up to be a very interesting evening.

As their secret sign language thing continued, Whitney looked up local hotels on her phone and found one that looked like it was very nice. “Let’s skip another round and just get to the main event.”

Dean beamed at her. “You are singin’ my song.” Absently, he reached over and slid the beer that Sam clearly wasn’t going to finish toward him, picking it up and draining it in one swallow, looking at Sam directly the whole time. Then, with another hand command that indicated Sam and then he and Whitney, Dean went to settle the bill.

Whitney had never made a wager in her life, but she was ready to bet money that these two were in love.

✯✯✯✯

When she got out of the bathroom and walked outside, they were standing together (very close together) against a shiny black muscle car. (She could guess who did most of the driving.) From the body language, it seemed that Dean was giving a pep talk, one hand flat against Sam’s chest.

She approached only to hear Dean say, “Think I’m gonna poke you in the eye? You’ll be at the other end.”

They didn’t see Whitney yet, so she decided she might as well eavesdrop.

“But it’s --” Sam’s hand was anxiously raking through his hair. “We don’t -- It’s weird, right?”

“Nothin’ you haven’t seen before, puritan boy.”

“Dean, those times weren’t by choice.” Sam protested. “They were usually because you forgot to hang the thing I made on the door.”

Hold up. Hold. The. Hell. Up.

Did these two... live together?

Dean braced him by the shoulders again. “Look, we only get to play it one day at a time, man.”

Sam stared at him, confused, then rolled his eyes and huffed. “Bull Durham? Right now?”

Dean’s laugh was in no way repentant. “Seriously, you’re good and lubed up and you’re probably feelin’ a little loose so you just have to go with the --”

Sam noticed Whitney standing there and slapped at Dean’s chest quickly in the universal “stop talking” gesture.

The two stepped away from each other slightly. Slightly. Sam was obviously considering the last words Dean had said, and his face flushed as if he was going to try to explain that Dean didn’t mean that kind of “lubed up” or that kind of “loose” but Dean held up a hand to stop this before it started and asked her, “You ready to go?”

“Absolutely, I already picked a place, but I need to make a stop on the way over, won’t be ten minutes.” She pointed at a silver Audi in the adjacent row. “Follow me.”

Dean’s grin was infectious as the prospect of sex grew nearer. Sam smiled, but also looked like he wanted a trapdoor to open beneath him and pull him down into the earth, never to be seen again.

✯✯✯✯

The hotel clerk was a lady in her 60s and, to her credit, when Whitney paid for a luxury suite with one king-sized bed for the three of them, her expression only changed subtly. It was that kind of place, with all the discretion that the rates could provide.

Dean caught the woman’s reaction and grinned back shamelessly, then turned to look at Sam as if sizing him up. Sam seemed to be carefully pretending that none of this was really happening, staring in feigned fascination at the shelf next to the front desk with all the different pamphlets for local tourist attractions.

“California king,” Dean amended, turning back. “If you have it.”

Whitney wasn’t sure what to expect when they got into the room. More small talk? Not that she hadn’t enjoyed their small talk at the bar. Should she call room service and have them send up more drinks?

The two of them shared a soft “huh” as they walked into the room. Likely, the FBI only paid for the minimum accommodations while they were on the road.

As soon as the door was closed behind Sam, Dean casually took off his jacket and draped it over the armchair next to the door, and she watched as Sam, who seemed to be foundering, followed his lead with their socks and shoes next.

Under his jacket, Dean wore a horizontal shoulder holster in soft brown leather that looked like it was out of the 1940s. Whitney was considering asking him to put it back on once he had taken off everything else.

Next was Dean’s waistcoat. Sam didn’t have one of those, so he went with his button-down next. Just as Dean was deftly removing his tie, Sam tried to do the same and hesitated. He looked at Whitney as if he hoped she wasn’t watching, but she couldn’t not watch this play out.

“Dean?”

“Hmm?”

Sam’s eyes darted back to Dean. “I can’t undo your stupid knot.”

Dean stripped out of his own button-down like he didn’t care if it still had buttons tomorrow or not. He had good, solid biceps. “I’ve shown you like three times, dude. Watch the YouTube video I sent you, and practice.”

“Whenever I try to untie it, it gets worse.”

Sighing wearily, but not at all convincingly, Dean stripped out of his white undershirt. He was just as broad and meaty as she had imagined, but none of it was fat. Given the amount of stout he had just put away, he must’ve had the metabolism of a hummingbird. If she knew him better, she would’ve warned him that metabolism slows down at forty, and she figured he was coming up on that.

When he turned around to rescue Sam, she could see every ripple and groove of his back. The deep valley down the middle looked more pronounced because of the bulk of muscle on either side. Out of the suit, and from the side, he looked almost svelte compared to how he looked from the front.

Sam raised his chin and exposed his throat so Dean could more easily access the knot. Dean picked at it from where Sam had tightened it and then undid it as effortlessly as he’d undone his own. Whitney wondered if Dean had picked out their ties this morning, and if he had tied Sam’s tie. She was wondering a lot of things.

Dean was unfastening his belt as Sam was still unbuttoning his shirt. When Dean turned, Whitney saw an ornate tattoo with a star at its center, just under his collarbone. She was actually expecting more ink on him than that.

After Sam pulled his undershirt over his head, she gaped at him, stunned. She wouldn’t have known it, but Sam was some kind of Greek god under that suit, his muscle was more structured, more by design, whereas Dean’s seemed more incidental. They were intellect vs. instinct even in this. Dean could’ve posed as Michelangelo’s David (though he was packing considerably more heat, given the outline of his black boxer briefs), but Sam was the Farnese Hercules.

Thank god both types coexisted. She wouldn’t want to live in a world where they didn’t.

As Sam reached up to smooth down his disheveled hair, Dean slapped his hand away. “No, we talked about this. You get that middle part every-thing-behind-the-ears thing, it looks stupid.” Dean stepped closer. “Here, look at me.”

She watched them, open-mouthed, enjoying this unguarded moment.

It wasn’t the way that Dean reached up with both hands to muss his partner’s hair further so that it hung messier around his face. It wasn’t the way that Dean stood back to admire his handiwork, and then stepped forward to make minor adjustments.

It was the few seconds before that, before Dean had made any move at all, where Sam had ducked his head with a good-natured eye roll, waiting patiently for Dean to “fix” his hair.

And then it was a few seconds after where Dean seemed to give his partner a critical assessment that was not only confined to his hair. “There. Looks better that way.”

Was she watching a live gay porno? That’s what this felt like. The “story” part of a porno before it got to the good stuff.

Sam turned to put his pants on the chair and she saw it.

The same tattoo that Dean had, in exactly the same location on his chest.

“Alright, guys, time out,” Whitney said finally, leaning forward.

Both men jerked toward her in unison.

They had literally forgotten she was in the room.

She smiled. “This is where I get off.”

Their bewildered expressions matched like their damn tattoos, and Dean’s eyebrows were raised, mouth quirked in a half-smile. He had only just realized that she hadn’t removed any of her clothes, not even her shoes.

“The ride,” she expanded. “This is where I get off the ride, now that I’ve got you two where I want you.”

As Dean put himself between her and Sam, he went through an abrupt transformation. Suddenly, he moved with military bearing and every muscle she could see was... not tense, exactly, but ready. There was no more Cary Grant; it had all burned away. There wasn’t even James Dean.

This, she ventured, was Dean Gillan. The real one, under all the charm and showmanship. She was looking at Mr. Fistfights-for-Fun, in the flesh. In almost all of his flesh, actually.

“What are you?” He asked, voice stripped of any sultry teasing.

In that moment, she could see the man who wanted to wrap his fingers in his younger partner’s long hair and fuck hard into him for those little disparaging remarks back at the bar.

As Sam stood just behind Dean to back him up, puppy face gone hard, she realized she was legitimately frightened of them both.

“I’m a fixer,” she said quietly, hoping to bring down the temperature in the room just a bit. “I get things moving when they’re stopped, or stalled.”

She indicated Dean first. “You want to be here. You want to fuck me. But, more importantly, you want him to see you fucking me. You want to show off, you want him to see how good you are. Because he’ll see what you do to me, and he’ll wish it was him, and you like the thought of that.”

Dean stepped just a little closer, but she continued.

Then Sam. “You do not want to be here. At least, not for me. You want to be with him, and you see sex-by-proxy, even sex you don’t want to have, as a way to get that. Something might accidentally happen between the two of you. That’s your hope. But me?” She smiled. “You don’t want me. You don’t want anyone else but him.”

Dean snorted derisively and glanced at Sam with an unspoken “can you believe this bullshit?”, but drew back slightly when Sam wouldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t help but notice that Dean made no specific denials of her assessment of him.

She went back to Dean. “You want him. Maybe more than you’ve ever wanted anything, but you don’t think you can have him.”

Then to Sam. “And the same for you. What is it, FBI regulations about fraternization?” Neither of them would look at her now. “Because I have a newsflash for you: It’s really obvious. You’re not subtle. Any supervising agent you have who hasn’t noticed is either oblivious or looking the other way because you’re good at your jobs. If I hadn’t had three martinis before I saw you at the bar, I would’ve picked up on it a lot faster.” She went back to Dean again. “You gave it away, almost right away, and I missed it at first. When I made the remark about your partner being hot, you didn’t get jealous. You didn’t get angry. You were... honored. Proud. You were gratified that someone else found him hot.”

She could tell by the hard line of his jaw and eyes that looked all but dead that Dean’s temper was barely in check, and even though neither of them could look at the other, Dean held one hand against Sam’s stomach as if holding him back.

“We could all still hook up,” she said calmly. “Or the two of you could hook up, and I could just watch.” To Dean, “You would like that, wouldn’t you? Why is it that when you’re fucking a woman and your partner’s around, you can’t seem to lock a door, or hang a sign? You want him to see you, just like that, in all your glory. All sweaty, red-faced and fucked-out.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably behind Dean.

“And you,” she addressed to Sam. “Your partner doesn’t strike me as being a particularly quiet lover, and I doubt the women he’s with are quiet, either. And you’re a trained FBI agent. You listen at doors before you open them. You already know what’s happening on the other side, so why do you open it? Why are you always so, so shocked by what you see?”

“You’ve got us wrong,” Dean said finally, but even he seemed to realize that this was a weak rebuttal.

“I’m wrong about a lot of things,” Whitney admitted. “But not people. I’m always right about people.”

Whitney stood now, hands spread placatingly with a plastic bag hanging from one wrist. “You can treat this room like a pocket universe if you want. A place where you can resolve all this tension and want and then, if you don’t feel like talking about it after that, you agree to never speak of it again. But I don’t think your partnership would survive. I think you’ll like what happens in here, if you give it a chance.”

She handed that plastic bag to Dean, who took it only reluctantly, letting it hang from two fingers like it was something foul.

“That’s what I picked up on the stop before we drove here,” Whitney explained. “I don’t think either of you have done this before, so I thought it might ease things along. For your bottom... or that is to say, Sam’s bottom.”

Dean looked a little smug at this appraisal, which Sam caught. As if fully realizing what he was being smug about, Dean’s face went carefully neutral.

“You’ve got the room until noon tomorrow.” Whitney put her purse on her shoulder. “It’s a luxury suite. There’s room service. You can simply decide that you’re going to sleep here and nothing will happen. But if I were you...” She smiled. “I’d make it memorable. I might even see it as a challenge to break the bed.”

Whitney walked past them, still not entirely unafraid but playing it off. Right before she closed the door, she said, “It was nice being an intermediary for something other than a multinational corporation.” Finally returning the wink Dean had given her earlier, she said. “Good luck.”

#wincest #dean winchester fanfic #sam winchester fanfic #spnfic #supernatural fanfic #dean winchester #sam winchester #i write things

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prettyfunkyunorganized · 5 years

Text

Sugar Daddy McCree part 4

OMG! It’s me! I’m not dead! Just dead effing tired. Grad school y’all. It’s a bitch. But like a rewarding bitch. That takes up all your time. Like getting a new puppy! But I’m rambling . . .

Here’s the post you should have had 2 weeks ago. Sorry. I’m doing my best, I promise, but now that I’m done with everything, I can write more consistently again and I’m sooooo happy! I miss you guys and writing in general - well, non-study proposal writing. Literature reviews are death.

But here’s some cuteness from McCree’s POV. A bit over 1,700 words of it. Sorry I don’t have more, but I hope you enjoy!

McCree was basically head over heels for you after that first date. If it hadn’t been a completely insane thing to do, he might have just popped on down to the closest jewelry store to buy you a ring, but even he knew better than that. Unfortunately, McCree had been sent to work his corporate relations magic a few days after your date and now he was stuck in an airport, wishing he could be with you.

The PA system suddenly dinged causing McCree and the dozens of people all waiting alongside him to look up at the speakers. “Due to the current snowstorm, all flights have been postponed for another 2 hours. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”

A collective groan rang out and McCree huffed angrily. “Son of a god-damned, motherlovin’ -”

Someone next to McCree cleared their throat loudly. He glanced over and saw a pair of little girls sitting beside him. They both had wide eyes, staring at McCree expectantly, waiting for him to say a naughty word. The girls’ father was eyeing McCree with an aggravated look.

“My apologies,” McCree said, flushing and tipping his hat to the family, “seems my mouth got the better of me again.”

“Uh-huh,” the father said, shaking his head a bit.

“Mister,” asked the littlest girl.

“Yes, little lady?”

She giggled and grinned, “Are you a real cowboy?”

McCree smiled from ear to ear, “I don’t get to ride horseback as much as I’d like to anymore, but I can still rope n’ lope with the best of ‘em.”

Both the little girls let out a long ‘oooooh.’

“What’s a ‘lope,’” the older girl asked.

“It’s a kind of movement the horse makes,” McCree explained.

Before the children could ask anything more, their father spoke up. “Alright now girls, we’d better stop pestering the cowboy and see if we can find a hotel room for the night. I don’t think we’re getting on a plane tonight.”

“Aw,” both girls whined, hopping out of the chair. “Bye Mister Cowboy,” the littlest one said.

“Hope you get to ride a horse again soon,” the older one added.

McCree laughed, “Me too, little miss, me too.” He tipped his hat to them again and channeled his Woody the Cowboy impression for a, “Take care, partners.”

Both girls lit up and waved happily as their father ushered them away.

“What’s a man gotta do to get a family like that,” McCree chuckled to himself. “Can’t wait to have me a couple a’ girls to spoil the hell out of. “

With that thought, McCree’s mind instantly wandered to you. He glanced down at his phone and frowned at the clock. It was late where you were, but not ridiculously late. He could maybe chance a phone call.

But was that needy? To be calling you up in the middle of the night just to talk after only 1 date? But then again, this wasn’t technically a normal relationship. Maybe since he was your ‘sugar daddy’ he could call and have it not seem desperate.

Well, at least not too desperate.

“Fuck it,” he mumbled, grabbing his things and wandering around the airport, looking for a quiet place to have a personal conversation. McCree tucked himself into a hallway next to the closing food court and made himself comfortable, his luggage acting as a backrest as he lounged on the wooden bench.

McCree sat there, waiting for you to pick up – hoping you would pick up – while simultaneously wondering what he was going to say to you. He was debating the pros and cons of making up a more legitimate excuse for calling you than ‘I’m lonely’ when you answered.

“Hello,” you said, sounding a bit groggy.

“Ah, damn,” McCree said, scrunching up his face in embarrassment, “I woke ya up, didn’t I? I’m sorry darlin,’ I’ll – ”

“No, no! I wasn’t asleep,” you explained hurriedly. “Well, maybe a little, but I was just snoozing on the couch, so no worries. Something up, McCree?”

“Nothing dramatic,” McCree drawled, smiling at the drowsy tone in your sweet voice, “just stuck in a snowstorm is all.”

“Ew,” you said passionately, “I’m not looking forward to winter here in the city. It makes me even more of a hermit.”

“Better to be snowed in at home than in an airport.”

“Ah, shit! You’re still at the airport? Can’t you go get a hotel room or something?”

“I could,” McCree shrugged, “but I fully intend to hop on the first flight out of here. I just wanna be back in my bed.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Jesse,” you cooed, “I know we haven’t been together long, but it sure seems like you’re on the road more often than not. That’s got to be hard.”

“It is,” he sighed, “but it’s a little easier now.”

“How so?”

“Well, cause I got the idea of coming back and seein’ you to keep me goin,’” McCree said with a sly grin.

“Ever the charmer, aren’t you,” you laughed, “Tell you what, when you get back to town, I’ll have you over for a proper home-cooked meal. How does that sound?”

McCree groaned almost erotically. “Oh babydoll, you have no idea how good that sounds. Its been ages since I had anything home-cooked.”

You giggled on the other end of the line and McCree smiled wistfully. He missed you. He’d give just about anything to have you snuggled up next to him right now.

“Darlin,’” he asked.

“Yes?”

“Thanks for answering. I was in desperate need of a pick-me-up.”

“Of course, McCree,” you said kindly, “that’s what I’m here for. Did you just want to chat in general, or did you have something on your mind?”

“Nothin’ in particular, beautiful, just saw a couple of cute as all hell kiddos and their Pops and got all sentimental,” McCree admitted.

You laughed loudly and when you spoke again you sounded just a tinge mischievous. “I bet kids love seeing you, don’t they? That hat and those boots and those spurs . . . “

“Are you makin’ fun of my style, beautiful?! I’m downright offended,” McCree teased.

“I’m not making fun of anything,” you replied, “not in the least! The first time I saw you I was delighted. And I still am.”

“That’s good to hear,” McCree chuckled, “’cause if you weren’t a fan of my get-up we probably wouldn’t last very long.”

“I adore your ‘get-up,’ Jesse and never think otherwise – right down to the stitching on your boots, not to mention the size of them . . .” you hinted.

“Oh honey,” McCree moaned as he felt himself getting stiff, “don’t you be doin’ that to me when I’m stuck in an airport.” He already wanted you so fucking badly, but hearing you say that you wanted him too? It was almost too much.

“Sorry, big guy,” you hummed, “I’ll make it up to you sometime soon.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, sweet cheeks.”

A tender silence fell between you, McCree trying to savor every moment he could. He didn’t want to go back to staring at the ceiling and hoping he could sleep.

“Can I ask you something a little odd,” he said, letting his daydreams go a little wild.

“Please do,” you replied, yawning a bit.

“You like kids?”

You hesitated a moment, surprising McCree, but eventually said, “Yeah, I like kids, but if I’m being totally honest, they intimidate me too.”

“Intimidate ya?”

“Well yeah! I was an only child without little cousins or anything, so kids always make me a little nervous. I never liked babysitting because I was so terrified I’d do something wrong and someone would get hurt or choke on something and die. I don’t know. Maybe ‘intimidate’ isn’t the right word, I think I just get really nervous because I’m inexperienced, but I’m a girl, so I’m supposed to be a natural at taking care of kids but I’m just . . . not.”

McCree frowned at the overwhelming uncertainty and shame in your voice. “Darlin,’ I think you’re being a little hard on yourself.”

“I – I know,” you said timidly, “I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough week for me.”

“Don’t apologize,” McCree said warmly, “anything I can do for you? I hate to hear such a lovely woman feelin’ so low.”

You giggled at him and sighed, “No, Jesse, I don’t think there’s anything you can do, but I appreciate the offer. And I’m glad you called – made me feel a little less lonely.”

“Anytime you need me, you call hon’.”

“You know I’m the one working for you, right,” you asked jokingly.

“What? Is a man not allowed to care about his employees,” he quipped right back.

“Touche,” you laughed. “By the way, why did you ask if I like kids? I thought you said you didn’t have much in the way of family.”

“Oh, you know,” he fumbled, “just curious. Just ‘cause I don’t have a family now doesn’t mean I don’t want one someday.”

“I, um, oh,” you said quietly.

“No pressure or nothin,’” McCree sputtered out, “the question just came to mind ‘cause I was thinking about how you’d – ”

“How I’d what,” you pressed tentatively.

McCree flushed, thankful no one was around to see him. “I was – uh – well I may have just been thinkin’ about how you seem like you’d be a real good mom is all.”

“Oh Jesse,” you all but whispered, “I . . . Th-thank you. That’s really sweet.”

“Darlin,’” McCree said gently, trying to change the subject, “you sound tired as all get out.”

“That’s probably because I am,” you mumbled.

“Then I better let you get some rest,” McCree insisted, “goodness knows I could talk to you for hours, but clearly you need some shut-eye, so you get to bed – ya hear?”

“Alright, alright. I’ll do the arduous work of leaving my blanket cocoon and walking to my bed if you insist,” you said with a dramatic flair.

“I absolutely do,” McCree chuckled.

“What about you,” you asked, “are you going to be ok all on your lonesome?”

“I’ll be just fine, lovely. A little chat with you has me feelin’ right as rain,” he said with a fond smile.

“Promise,” you said gravely.

McCree laughed, “Cross my heart.”

“If you say so.” You were yawning as you spoke, making it hard for McCree to understand you, but also making him grin.

“Goodnight, sweet cheeks.”

“Goodnight, Jesse. Hope you’ll be home soon.”

You hung up first and McCree sighed. “Home,” he murmured, “wouldn’t it be nice to have one of those someday.”

@zarcake-writes @collinssie @watch-your-grammer @seachelle-the-tideborn@pand3mold3 @gladiosamicitias @killerqueen-23 @the-red-jennies-are-here@justjaaaay @cbrokeherboobs @justjaaaay

#Overwatch #mccree #reader x mccree #sugar daddy mccree #reader insert #mine #my drabble #overwatch drabble

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thepartyresponsible · 6 years

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halloween fill #9. i got the prompt for this one by combining ideas from here and here.

the prompt was: in vino veritas + serial killers.

here’s steve rogers and tony stark, as special agents instead of superheroes. warnings for references to alcoholism, crime scene gore, and murder victims, including one murdered child. warnings also for irredeemable fluff and spilled coffee.

Steve gets the first text at 1:15am. It’s from Barton, and all it says is: Come get him. Now.

The second text hits a little after 1:20, when Steve’s sliding his wallet into the pocket of his jeans and trying to remember where the hell he left his keys. No words this time, just an image. Steve doesn’t open it until he’s in the car.

It’s Tony, facedown on the bar. Steve tries not to think what it says about him – about the both of them – that he can recognize Tony just from the way his dark hair fans out against the pitted wood of Barton’s bar.

By the time he gets to Clint’s place, Tony’s out in the alley, puking. So at least that’s over with.

“Hey, man,” Barton says, as he sidles up to the window. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, toward Tony. “Blowjobs are twenty dollars. Thirty if he pukes on you.”

Steve stares at him. “Hi, Barton,” he says, after a beat, because his mother raised him with manners. “Why in God’s name would the price go up if he pukes on me?”

Barton shrugs. “I don’t know why you’re into the weird shit you’re into, Rogers. I just know as soon as he gets sick you come running.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Steve says. He shoves the door open, and Clint dances back out of the way, which means he, at least, is still sober enough to drive himself home. “You mind not getting him so shitfaced on a Tuesday night, Barton?”

“Nat served him,” he says, with a shrug. “You got a problem with how drunk he gets, take it up with her.” He gives Steve a wave and sets off toward the bar, passing the torch in the increasingly complicated relay of keeping Tony alive through any given workweek.

Steve would throw more of a fit, but there was never a chance that anyone at this bar was going to cut Tony off. Not tonight. Not after what happened to the Coopers. Not when they know they can call Steve to pick him up. Which is exactly why Tony comes here when he knows he’s about to make a series of bad decisions.

“Hey, Steve,” Tony says, when he finishes puking and comes staggering out into the parking lot, a lit cigarette in either hand. “Sorry. Did Clint call you? I was just gonna sleep it off.”

“In your car?” Steve glances around at the snow piling up, at the clear sky above. “How many fingers were you planning to have in the morning, Stark?”

“Oh, Stark.” Tony winces. “Guess I’m in trouble.”

He lifts one cigarette to his mouth and inhales while he ashes the other one with a neat, well-practiced flick. He switches them out on the exhale, and Steve would be more impressed if he hadn’t seen this routine about a dozen times over in the past three months.

“I told you,” Steve says, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Even though he knows it’s pointless. “I told you about this case. What’d I say?”

“You say a lot of things,” Tony tells him, with a mutinous huff. “Don’t you have anything better to do with that mouth? Cuz I’ve got suggestions, if you’re looking.”

“Great,” Steve says, because he hadn’t realized they’d hit that part of the evening. “Load up. We’re driving with your window down.”

“I have never,” Tony says, with an awful lot of dignity for a man in his condition, “thrown up in your car.”

“No, but you’ve puked out that window a few times.” Steve hooks a hand around Tony’s elbow and starts herding him toward the car.

“Oh no, you’re doing it again,” Tony says, grimacing down at Steve’s hold. “Steve, you’re perp walking me. Steve, c’mon.”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Steve tells him. “In fact, I welcome it. I request it.”

He takes one cigarette out of Tony’s hand, and, while he’s whining about that, he snatches the other, and he grinds them both out against the asphalt.

“You’re a real asshole, Steve Rogers,” Tony says, staring grimly over his shoulder at his crushed up cigarettes.

“Yeah, that’s what you always tell me.” Steve opens the passenger door. “Watch your head,” he says, and then he guides him in anyway, hand wrapped protectively around the top of Tony’s head so he doesn’t give himself yet another set of bruises.

“Ugh,” Tony says, staring up at him with an interesting mix of despair and defiance. “You’re arresting me.”

“I am not arresting you,” Steve says. “I am taking you home.”

“You never mean that in the fun way,” Tony tells him. For a second, he looks legitimately forlorn, sitting there in Steve’s car, eyes bloodshot, face pale everywhere except the bruises under his eyes.

It’s hard to remember, when he looks like this, that this is Special Agent Stark, the Iron Man, the agent who brought down Vanko, and Stane, and the Mandarin. He looks worn down and vulnerable, looks harmless. Defenseless. Fragile.

He’ll probably throw up twice more before Steve gets him home, but he’ll be at work by nine tomorrow morning, handing breakfast and coffee, dropping notes on people’s desks with breakthroughs he had in the night.

Steve sighs. “I told you,” he says, gentler than before. “I told you not to keep this case. You’re too close to it, Tony. Fury should’ve reassigned you weeks ago.”

Tony closes his eyes and slumps low in his seat. “You gonna lecture me the whole drive home?” he asks. “Because I’d rather just wait for the Barton express.”

Steve rolls his eyes and very deliberately does not slam the door. By the time he gets around the car and into his own seat, it’s impossible to tell if Tony’s actually passed out or just faking it, so he reaches over and buckles him in, rolls the window down low enough that Tony won’t headbutt the glass this time if he needs to throw up some more.

They make it about five miles before Tony tips his head Steve’s direction and opens his eyes. “We don’t know he killed Coopers,” he says. “Could’ve been a copycat.”

Steve wonders if that’s what Tony’s been telling himself. If it makes it any easier, the idea that maybe this wasn’t their fault. Maybe the serial killer they’ve been tracking all over the East Coast didn’t double back to murder the Coopers right in in their backyard to prove some kind of point.

But the neatness of the crime scene, the execution-style gunshot wounds, the words Hail Hydra painted with the father’s blood on the windshield. It sure as hell looks like the Winter Soldier’s work.

“You’re too close to it,” Steve says. “Tony, it’s not healthy.”

“Take it away then,” Tony says. “Give up on it. Go in and tell Fury tomorrow that we’re done.”

Steve swallows. His hands tighten around the steering wheel.

“Yeah,” Tony says, with that throaty, rattling laugh he gets whenever he’s been smoking too much. “You can’t give it up either, Rogers.”

Steve doesn’t show strain the way Tony does. He doesn’t drink; he doesn’t go days without sleep. He likes to be in control. And the more things stir up, the harder things lean into the chaos, the more controlled he becomes.

But it’d be a lie to say that it isn’t getting to him. It’d be dishonest to pretend like he doesn’t want to find the person who did this and control them right out existence.

“I’ll drop it,” Steve says. “I would. I will. Tony, you’re not coping.”

“Maggots are eating that five-year-old girl, Stevie,” Tony says, with another creaking laugh. “How does anyone cope?”

Steve grimaces. “Jesus,” he says, “you don’t have to get so graphic.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Tony says.

Steve swallows and speeds up. No one is going to pull him over, and, if they do, there’s no cop in this city who’d write him a ticket. Not Captain America. Not with Tony Stark in the passenger seat.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” he says, when he can’t bite it back anymore. “I know how you feel. I get it. But it’s getting out of control.”

“You should’ve seen me in my twenties,” Tony says, with a small, self-effacing smile. “That whole decade was out of control.”

“Stop deflecting,” Steve says, as they pull into Tony’s driveway. “I’m worried about you, Tony. Jesus. This is a mess. You’re a mess. This case is a mess. We shouldn’t--”

“Wanna come inside?” Tony asks, interrupting him. He smiles, crooked and smug and a little knowing. “Or are you still pretending that you aren’t interested?”

Steve frowns. He shoves the car into park with a bit more vehemence than necessary and then he reaches over and undoes Tony’s seatbelt. “You need help getting inside?” he asks.

Tony laughs again, and it’s too fond to be mean, but it stings anyway. “Yes,” he says, “I need help getting inside, and I need help getting to bed, and I need help getting undressed. C’mon, Steve, help me out.”

“I hate when you do this,” Steve says, softer than he wants to, a little hollow with how much he means it. “I hate it, Tony. I wish you’d stop.”

Tony’s silent for a long moment and then he curses quietly and shoves the door open. Steve hears the clatter of his shoes hitting the ground, and then there’s nothing. Eventually, he hears Tony sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Steve, fuck, look at me.”

Steve looks up. He can’t help it. He’s been looking at Tony for years.

Tony studies him, and a pained, apologetic grimaces crosses his face. “Shit, Rogers,” he says, “I didn’t mean to--- I really did think you were interested.”

Steve breathes in sharp over his teeth. It’s cold and dark and surreal, damn near 2am on a Wednesday morning. And they both have to be at work in a handful of hours.

“You’ve never made a single move when you’re sober,” he says. He tries to keep the hurt out of his voice, but he doesn’t manage it. That’s always been a problem for him. He’s always just a bit too honest.

Tony stares at him for a long second before he swings the door shut. Steve watches him until he’s inside, just to be sure. Just to make sure he’s safe.

There’s a loud, insistent knocking on Steve’s door that starts up around 7am and does not stop. There’s a rhythm to it that’s nearly recognizable, and, as Steve makes his way carefully toward the front of his house, it resolves into the opening riff of Back in Black. Which means it’s Tony.

Which means he doesn’t need the gun he instinctively grabbed on his way to the door.

Tony’s not the only one coping poorly with the Winter Soldier’s sudden reappearance. It’s just that Tony, as usual, is so much louder about it.

Steve leaves his sidearm on the kitchen counter and runs a hand through his hair as he goes for the door. A quick glance through the window shows Tony, head banging softly, holding coffee in one hand and pounding at Steve’s door with the other.

“Steve,” Tony yells, like he can sense him. “Steve, sleepyhead, Goldilocks, Sleeping Beauty, wake up.”

Steve unlocks the two deadbolts and swings the door open. Tony openly goggles at Steve’s bare chest for a second before very determinedly looking up at his face. “The Winter Soldier’s talking to us, Steve,” he says. He grabs the folder he’d had shoved under his arm and waves it in Steve’s face. “Messages,” he elaborates, as he steps, uninvited, right into Steve’s house. “I’ve been going over the crime scene photos, and--”

“Tony,” Steve says, “it’s seven in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, brow furrowing. “Close the door, make some coffee. It’s fucking cold outside, Steve. Come on.”

Steve hesitates for a second and then shuts the door. If Tony wants to start the day early, that’s fine. It’s not like Steve takes much time to get ready anyway.

Although he probably would’ve showered and put on a shirt if he knew Tony was coming over.

What happened last night, the thing Steve shouldn’t have said, seems to have disappeared with all the other things that happen when Tony drinks. Tony grins at him over the rim of his coffee cup and then presses the folder into Steve’s bare chest until he takes it.

“He wants us to catch him,” he says. “I think. Or he’s trying to murder us. Kind of exciting either way, right? Nice to get some attention, pre-arrest. I, personally, am very flattered.”

Steve flips open the folder, gets one good look of the most recent horror show, and then shuts it again. “Not before coffee,” he says. “Jesus, Tony. You could’ve warned me.”

“It’s the hands,” Tony says, helpfully. “I think this is why he cuts them off sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, with a heavy exhale. “Okay. Coffee first.”

Shirt first. Steve starts the coffeemaker and then heads into his bedroom, comes back to find Tony eating yesterday’s leftovers, staring pensively at the crime scene photos while he lifts noodles into his mouth.

“Oh,” Tony says, looking up with a frown. “You didn’t have to get dressed for me. That view was making my whole morning, Rogers.”

Steve hesitates. There’s a weird moment between them, when Tony’s chewing his way through Steve’s day-old takeout and Steve’s just staring, wrong-footed and confused, still a little dazed from sleep.

“I only hit on you when I’m drunk, cuz I figure it’ll hurt less,” Tony tells him, helpfully, “when you punch me in the face.”

“I wouldn’t—Jesus, Tony.” Steve is legitimately horrified. “I wouldn’t punch you in the face.”

“No, I know that. I meant punch me in the face emotionally. I know you wouldn’t actually--- you’re a good guy, Steve. Good, nice. Brilliant. Perfect.” Tony makes a face like it physically pains him to say these things out loud. “You deserve a better partner than me. I know Fury paired us up cuz he thought you’d keep me out of trouble, but--”

Steve crowds him back against the kitchen island, curls his hand around Tony’s wrist and pulls the fork, with all its hanging noodles, away from Tony’s mouth.

“Um,” Tony says, wide-eyed and blinking. “Were you gonna eat those? Is--”

Tony tastes like coffee and sesame noodles. He’s frozen for three full seconds, mouth still curled in the shape of whatever word he was working on, and then he unfreezes, leans in and kisses back, makes a soft, pleased noise in the back of his throat that sounds exactly like something that’s going to make Steve late for work.

The kiss breaks when Tony drops his coffee cup, and the coffee splatters all over Steve’s kitchen floor.

“Shit,” Tony says. His face contorts for a second, like it wants to take a stab at being mortified, but then relaxes into the single smuggest grin Steve’s ever seen on his face. “Damn, Rogers,” he says. “You have a crush?”

Steve snorts as he drops a kitchen towel on the floor, kicks it at the growing flood of coffee. “Yeah, which one of us dropped their coffee, Tony?”

“You kissed me so stupid my hands stopped working,” Tony says. He sounds entirely too enthused about that. When Steve glances up at him, Tony’s looking at him with an intense, hungry focus that Steve’s only ever seen him direct at new cases and fresh coffee.

Steve can feel himself start to blush, but he can’t help smiling back. “Jesus, Tony,” he says, “we’ve gotta get to work.”

Tony smirks at him, mischief sparking in his eyes. Steve hasn’t seen that look in weeks. He tips his head back, eyeing Steve with a slow, thoughtful look that Steve can already tell is going to cause problems in the future, and then, slowly, begrudgingly, he nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “Alright. Work first, dinner after?”

Steve blinks. The coffee has spread across the floor, and he should really do something about that. “Work first,” he agrees, and then leans in and kisses Tony again, thorough and careful and mindful of the takeout precariously located right next to Tony’s elbow. “Dinner after.”

“Jesus, Rogers,” Tony says, a little breathless. “Why don’t we take a long lunch?”

“Work,” Steve repeats, as he finally crouches down and starts wiping up the coffee.

“I’ve got a new witness,” Tony says, kneeling to help. “And she says she saw something suspicious in the back of my car. So, I figure, during lunch, we check it out.”

Steve is both horrified and charmed that Tony apparently thinks he’s still young enough to fool around in someone’s backseat in the middle of the day. “No, Tony.”

“Steven,” Tony says, very seriously, “as servants of the public, we are required to diligently and exhaustively check up on all possible tips.”

Steve curls his hand around Tony’s chin, tips his face up, and kisses him again, because it’s seven in the morning, and Tony’s sober, and he’s still hitting on him anyway. He doesn’t know how anyone could expect him to keep his hands to himself.

“If I’m giving up my lunch break,” Steve tells him, just as seriously, “it sure as hell better be for more than the tip.”

Tony’s goes lax with surprise and then he laughs, sharp and bright. He laughs for the first time in weeks, and it settles into Steve’s chest like the first warm day after winter, feels like something frozen inside him has finally started to melt.

#writing #fic #spooky season fic #stony

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gaasaku-fanfests · 5 years

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Enslaved (Part 7 & 8)

Title: Enslaved Author: Pikaboubou Rating: E Word Count: LOL 86,775 Summary: AU; Suna succeeded in the Konoha Crush, enslaving their people. Years later Sakura is forced into the care of the man who destroyed her village, and is surprised by what she finds in him. Gaara, on the other hand, is interested in becoming more… ‘social’. Warnings: sexual assault, abuse, stockholm syndrome, graphic sexual content, murder, torture, physical abuse, verbal abuse, foul language. Author’s Note(s): Both Sakura POV and Gaara POV. Despite the warnings this is actually not as a dark as it sounds, and does in fact have some comedy and romance. There’s some OOC moments, but hey, its fanfiction. (Also have plans for a sequel if well received) (Additional note: Mild dub-con elements in the early section but not a dark story. If you don’t like dark Gaara you may still like this.👍😊💕) [Due to the size (and 10 parts) this story has been merged into 5 parts/posts.]

Prompt chosen: AU, War

Partner: saku-harem

Part 7

The next few days were ridiculous.

Sakura would sleep in his room at night, and when Gaara would leave someone would fetch her to bring her back to that strange bedroom. She would be forced to change into some sort of ridiculous harem attire, and made to sit in one spot for him to return.

Now he was just beginning to expect it, and would immediately come up to 'her room' to bring her back down into his. It was exhausting, and she made sure to complain about it every single day.

Today seemed like she would be going into the same ridiculous routine, leaving her to groan as the door to his room opened.

"Oooh don't you people ever give up?! He doesn't want me staying up there!!" Sakura turned away from the window to stare down whoever was taking her away today, but ended up blinking in surprise.

"Sakura Haruno, yes?" The blonde kunoichi waltzed in like she owned the place, well she technically did. "I require your company today."

Immediately the pinkette flushed, thinking that this beautiful woman, who also happened to be Gaara's sister, desired her for darker reasons.

"What for?" Sakura asked before wringing her hands.

"I'll be prepping you for tonight's festivities." Temari answered, beckoning her to follow as she exited the room. The pinkette rushed to follow after the blonde, wearing only her casual red dress with black shorts. Outside the room she hurriedly slipped on her shoes, and scurried to keep up.

Temari walked at a fast pace, that was for certain. Within a matter of minutes they were already walking down the city streets.

They rounded a corner, surprising Sakura when they were at an entrance to a hidden spa.

"Alright, hurry in. We need you to look classy if you're going to be on Gaara's arm." The blonde pushed at her back, and almost immediately upon entry the women in the shop set to work.

The pinkette was tugged this way and that, her only moments of rest was a mud bath and a relaxing facial. Other than that they roughly exfoliated her skin, put weird things in her hair like mud and oils repeatedly washing and drying her. It was a strange phenomena that she never wished to experience again. They plucked her brows, exfoliated her lips, cleaned her nails, scrubbed her hands and feet with harsh pumice stones, applied paraffin waxes, oils, lotions, potions; you name it and it was done to her.

By the time they applied her small amount of makeup she was exhausted. Temari seemed to be going through similar treatments, but handled it with the grace of a pedigree cat. Sakura was amazed by this woman's resilience.

"So, my brother, what all have you two done together?" The blonde didn't even bother looking at her as she asked the shameless question. The pinkette stumbled for a moment, wincing as her hair was yanked back into an elegant twisted hairstyle.

"I don't kiss and tell--"

"Ah, so you have kissed him. I'm surprised he hasn't killed you yet." Temari was cruel, but Sakura was certain it was merely a defensive act. Something told her that this woman was actually kind.

"He says he likes me enough that he'll protect me like he protects himself. I think that spells out how he feels." The pinkette could play this game, she grew up with Ino after all. It seemed to get the blonde's attention rather quickly.

"If you think you can tame him then think again. Gaara is ruthless--"

"You obviously don’t know him well, because I have experienced a gentleness from him that no other man has ever shown me." Sakura knew that this woman would not hesitate to beat the crap out of her if she felt like it. However, she merely smirked at the pinkette's boldness.

"Sounds like you like him, that's surprising too. Most women are scared shitless of him." The blonde gave a small laugh, completely at peace with the woman behind her yanking her hair into a high spikey bun.

"I'm not most women. I don't fear pain, and I don't fear death. Only humiliation." Sakura brought her eyes forward, and her words seemed to silence the powerful kunoichi sitting next to her.

Once they were finished the were given robes to walk back in, what they were going to do with her clothes she didn't know, Suna was a strange place.

Temari walked side by side with her up the stairs, but when the pinkette went to keep going the blonde yanked her back.

"My room, I have some things for you." Without even the opportunity to argue Sakura was pulled by the wrist into the blonde's elegant bedroom. It was very classy, draped in many fine purple silks and decorated with fans that the pinkette knew had to double as weapons.

Temari disappeared into her closet then came back out with a box of powder, and a velvet box that Sakura could only assume was some sort of jewelry.

"Perfumed powder mixed with diamond dust, it's extremely expensive so don't spill it. Also, this is one of my best bracelets, I hope it will go with whatever the hell you're wearing tonight." The blonde tried to sound tough, but it was obvious that she seemed to be enjoying this a bit too much. The pinkette nodded in thanks while taking the trinkets. "Kankuro brought Gaara with him to pick out corsages, yes this is a very elegant engagement. The annual Suna banquet celebrates the history of our people, and schmoozing up political officials. Don't fuck this up, keep your mouth shut, and just look pretty. That shouldn't be hard for you."

The sneaky compliment Temari threw in did not go unnoticed, and earned a smirk from Sakura.

"I'm a smart girl, I can blend." The pinkette snickered, and surprisingly the blonde laughed a bit before shooing her out of the room.

Now it was time for Sakura to prepare herself for probably one of the strangest nights of her life.

--- ... --- ...

The elegant black and nude dress was on, the black heels with ankle straps being slipped into. She had dusted her collarbone and shoulders with the perfumed sparkling dust, and it made her skin look shimmery, like she didn't belong on this plain. She reddened her lips a bit more, but just enough to look bitten. A wide crystal choker was placed high on her long neck, and the bracelet, which luckily was a diamond one, matched rather well with her choker.

Last but not least she placed a crystal pin in her hair in the shape of a cherry blossom. It went well with the elegant hairstyle. With her bangs brushed to the side she nodded at her appearance. This was probably the most beautiful she would ever look in her life.

She chose not to wear a bra underneath from how skin tight the dress was, and her underwear was the lacey kind that left no indentations. Her whole form looked sleek and fluid, elegant and sexy.

She wandered back out into Gaara's bedroom, not expecting him to be there. When she heard a light sound, like someone opening their mouth to speak she turned her head to see who it was. The redhead was wearing that nice cream suit she had seen in his closet the other day with a sharp red shirt underneath, and a white tie. He seemed completely dumbstruck.

"Cat caught your tongue?" Sakura straightened before jutting out her hip seductively.

Gaara was dumbfounded for a moment, but then quickly shook himself out of his daze. His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he practically slammed the door behind him making her jump.

"Woah, I was just teasing--"

"We're not going." He huffed as he tried to roughly take off his tie, blinking in confusion she closed the distance between them.

"Why? Is something wrong?" The pinkette tried peering into his eyes, but he refused to look at her.

'That's strange...' She studied him, but couldn't find an answer to his strange behavior. Finally he gave an exasperated sigh.

"I don't want anyone seeing you like this--"

"-Oh for heavens sake, Gaara! If you hated the dress why did you agree to buy it?!" When he wouldn't answer she grew frustrated, ripping the tie out of his hands to synch it back up to his neck, then she pulled him by said tie to lean forward. "We are going."

"No, we are not! I can't have every man lusting over you! I'll end up killing everyone in the fucking room!" The redhead sounded legitimately stressed about it, as if what he was saying was the truth. "Those men imagining you in disgusting ways... I can't--!"

"Let them imagine it then, I'm not going home with any of them." Sakura tried not to snicker about it, but her smile still peaked through. She undid his tie finding it had gotten too messed up, and began remaking it.

"Sure, walk around like that. Let every man eye-fuck you while I watch!" Gaara hissed, and as his voice started to rise she hushed him gently back into a calm state.

"Yes, but I'll be on your arm. You'll have the prettiest girl while they have the mediocre ones." She wasn't trying to flatter herself, rather she was trying to make a point that he could show her off, and revel in their jealousy. "Even if I'm wearing rags there will still be men who will desire me just because I'm female. There is no getting around that--"

"If anyone looks at you wrong I will kill them." The redhead huffed stubbornly making her smack at his chest.

"You will not! What is it going to take for you to be okay with this? Do I have to get on my knees, and beg you or something?" The pinkette gave an exasperated sigh before tightening up his tie. She glanced up to see him looking off to the side, trying avidly to avoid her gaze. "Well?!"

"Or something... could you elaborate?" Gaara murmured softly, awkwardly clearing his throat before staring off in a different direction. She blinked at him in disbelief.

Was he trying to get something perverted out of this?! Was she going to have to bargain with him?! She almost couldn't believe it.

Almost being the key word here. She knew that he had that side in him, he just hadn’t utilized it until she had came into his life.

'Fine.' She mused to herself before letting out a sigh of resignation.

"Well, it could be one something... or a few different somethings. Maybe I could let you choose one 'something' you'd like, but you have to show me that you can be a gentleman tonight." She smirked, knowing full well that his mind would probably be racing with possibilities. He licked his lips for a moment before looking down.

"I get to choose?" The redhead spoke shyly above a whisper, it was adorable.

"As long as it's not full penetration, then sure. Whatever you want." His eyes widened at that, and she moved in to swiftly kiss him on the cheek. She teasingly slipped past him, not failing to notice how quickly he turned to follow her as she made her way to the exit.

In a split second he was there, opening the door with the fiercest blush she had ever seen on him. Before she could step through it, however, he shoved something towards her.

It was a corsage of pink roses that matched the color of her hair. She outstretched her one bare wrist, and he tied it down with a stern expression. Once again, he was acting too innocent for his own good.

"It's beautiful, thank you." She admired the flowers attached to her wrist with a smile. He nodded quickly before gently ushering her out of the room.

--- ... --- ...

"I hate these things." Gaara huffed bitterly, walking steadily with her arm linked in his. She gave a small giggle at his expense.

"Don't forget about what we talked about. I want you on your best behavior if you want to get that 'something' tonight." Sakura smirked as she felt him tense under his jacket. They just rounded the corner when they came face to face with the legendary puppet master.

"Oh ho! Did my ears really just hear that--?"

"Shut up, Kankuro." The redhead narrowed his eyes threateningly, forcing the puppet master's smile to disappear.

"Gaara, knock it off." The pinkette warned before turning to Kankuro. "You look nice this evening."

"Heh, in comparison to you I look like road kill--"

Gaara started to growl, receiving a smack to the chest once more from his date.

"Do that again and you get nothing." Sakura glared at him, and while he tried glaring back at her his anger eventually waned.

"Two 'somethings', or no deal." The redhead put it out there so blatantly that it was obvious what he was bargaining for. At first she gaped at him in disbelief, but then finally narrowed her eyes.

"I get to pick the second 'something'--"

"No, I get to choose both--"

"Quit being greedy, you get what you get or you can have nothing. We can turn around right now, and I'll sleep upstairs. Alone." The pinkette was a ruthless haggler, and his eyes blinked in shock over how she was willing not only to deny him 'something' but also take even more away. She was certain that he hadn't taken that into consideration.

"Wow, Gaara, you should take the deal." Kankuro looked between them with interest while the redhead continued to glare daggers at her.

"Three 'somethings', and you can choose two." A small smirk started to form on his mouth, and finally she began to feel relief over the fact that he was becoming playful.

"Deal. Be sure to grab a drink while we're there cause it's going to be a rough night for you." Sakura gave him a teasing smile that had him looking off to the side.

"Likewise." Gaara grinned then, and that's when she was pretty sure she had just sold her soul to the devil.

"So, Sakura... do you have a sister--?"

"The closest thing I have to a sister is already a part of your harem. Try bantering with Ino, she's just as bad if not worse--"

"Really, billboard brow?!" Speak of the devil and she shall appear, Ino walked up with Temari before slipping her arm through Kankuro's. She wore a rather scandalous purple dress that was quite strappy all over.

Sakura couldn't believe it, she never thought that she would see her best friend again, let alone tonight of all nights. The smile that stretched across her face made her cheeks hurt pleasantly.

"Ino-pig!!" The pinkette detached herself from the redhead to throw herself at her best friend. They hugged it out so tightly that the rest of the group didn't know how to feel about it. "I missed you so much!!"

"You too!! Are you okay?! I thought they were going to kill you!" The blonde ran her fingers down her best friend's cheek, checking her over for any marks. Sakura felt a tidal wave of emotion begin to rush through her, but pushed it down in the sake of professionalism.

"I'm fine. They threw me in with this broody fellow over here, and he's actually a huge sweetheart don't let his glare fool you--"

"Sakura." Gaara warned, and it made her giggle for some reason.

"Ooo, yeah you can have the violent ones. I got the goofball--"

"H-hey!" Kankuro huffed at the girls as they erupted into a fanfare of giggles. Suddenly the two best friends linked arms to continue down that hallway, Temari seemed to say nothing about what was happening, but her smirk let on that she was amused.

Gaara growled for a bit as he followed behind them, but Sakura decided to not pay much attention to it. Instead the two girls clucked away over what they had been doing over the past few weeks. When it came to something nitty gritty they would begin whispering to each other, looking back at their dates, then break out into giggles.

The redhead growled a bit louder--

"Hey man, I get that its irritating, but look at it this way. They are two very beautiful girls practically smooshed together, it just takes a little bit of imagination and then--"

"Are you kidding me?!" Ino whipped around to poke Kankuro in the chest. "We don't do that perverted stuff, get your head out of the gutter!"

The redhead blinked owlishly, before noticing that Sakura was slipping her arm back into his. She knew Kankuro originally wanted her to be a part of her harem, now she wondered just what he would have done with her had she actually went along with the other girls.

"Well, now I know what your brother is into." The pinkette gave a scoff before urging the redhead to go forward down the hall. She could hear Ino chewing Kankuro out even as they turned another corner to go down a flight of stairs. It seemed she didn't have to worry about Ino at all, she obviously had the man wrapped around her finger.

‘She seems happy too, I’m glad.’

"What is my brother into, exactly--?"

"I really shouldn't have to spell it out, but I can be nice just this once. Lesbians." She tried to remain serious, but as his face distorted at the thought she nearly snorted with laughter.

"I don't understand. If women only have love for each other, and none for a man, then why would that be attractive? It makes no sense, the man would get nothing out of it." Gaara's naked brows furrowed in confusion as he tried thinking it over.

"I don't know, what would you do if I decided to just go over there and make out with Ino--?"

"I would kill her." His tone was practically murderous, and yet she had to stifle a laugh.

"What if I asked you to join?" Sakura smirked when he went completely silent. His lips formed a thin line while his brow continued to furrow. "Does it make sense now?"

"...I'm not really sure." The redhead tried to focus on something, his knuckle coming up to his mouth to bite at it in deep concentration. He was always so cute when he couldn't quite understand something.

"Have Kankuro explain it then--"

"Explain what now?" The puppet master had jogged to catch back up to them, leaving his enraged date in the dust.

"Gaara needs a crash course on the birds and the bees, especially between women--"

"I do not!! I understand it well enough!! I just don't care!!" Gaara hissed at the both of them, where Kankuro grew a bit nervous the pinkette busted out into laughter.

"Oh whatever! You're such a liar!" She snickered under her hand, watching him just about boil over.

"Does it work both ways?!" The redhead fumed while stopping dead in his tracks. She blinked at him for a moment as it caught her off guard.

"I'm not following--"

"Do women enjoy seeing two men together?! It's not that hard to understand--!"

"Um... I can't really say for myself but some women like it." Sakura bristled when he stepped closer. His haunting eyes had her mind stolen, hypnotized by the darkness that surrounded the ghostly opaque color.

"I want to know what you think about it." Gaara spoke in a low tone, making her hairs stand on edge. Why was he suddenly so interested in this topic?

"I've never seen anything like that, how should I know?!" The pinkette snapped, and surprisingly he straightened with a calm expression setting her at ease.

"Let's find out." The redhead said matter-o-factly. She stared at him incredulously, wondering just what the hell he was talking about--

Then he did the most strangest thing. He leaned over, and kissed his own brother on the mouth. It wasn't a truly intimate kiss, but it was longer than a peck and it was enough to make her shriek.

"GAARA!! What the hell are you doing!?!" Sakura quickly yanked him back towards her, forcing him to break contact with his utterly stunned brother.

"Well? Did it do anything--?"

"Did it do anything?!?! YOU JUST KISSED YOUR BROTHER!!" The pinkette screamed at him, and Kankuro immediately stepped in to try and save the day.

"Hey now! It's okay! No harm done! It's not like we're jacking each other off--"

"Oh my god NO!!" Sakura slammed her hands over her ears before storming away from the two. She chanted gibberish to herself to try and get the image out of her mind.

It took a few minutes to get her head back in the game after that fiasco.

--- ... --- ... ---

"I said I was sorry." Gaara murmured softly to her as they waited to be announced. Apparently everyone needed to be announced before entering the banquet, and she was already on edge from his shenanigans earlier. "I don't see what the issue is, though. It's not like he's female--"

"It's still incest, Gaara. Please don't defend things like that." Sakura groaned, but then stiffened when she heard him chuckle.

"Your face was priceless." The redhead broke out into a genuine grin, taking her breath away with how handsome he was when he smiled.

It was then that the doors opened, and whoever was paying attention on the other side got a good view of his wonderful smile before he quickly turned to stone. With a hardened expression he walked forward, a crowd of well dressed people started clapping from the get go, but then it quickly died down into a strange wave of whispering. He rose a hairless brow at the odd situation.

"That's the first time that's happened." Gaara murmured while he looked around himself curiously, then walked her towards a large table meant for the guests of honor.

"Why are they doing that?" The pinkette looked around too, noticing many eyes were staring at them.

"I've never brought a date to any function. I assume they think I must have snapped or something--"

"Or 'something' indeed." Sakura teased, and got a suggestive glance for her effort.

"Don't tempt me, I will make a scene." His eyes shamelessly sized her up before pulling out her chair. Even though he was teasing her back, the redhead still managed to play a gentlemanly card.

"That sounds like fun, let's get kicked out for fooling around on the buffet table." The pinkette laughed before sitting in her spot. He took a seat next to her, and funnily enough Kankuro was sitting on his other side. They were the last to be announced, thus the last to take their seats.

"Or we could give them all a real heart attack, right now." He gave her a devilish grin that made her wither.

"Please don't kiss your brother again, I swear to god--"

Gaara leaned in quickly, capturing her jawline in his hands before placing a soft kiss on her lips. Before she could say anything a hushed silence fell on the crowd of people in the room, and someone somewhere dropped a glass that happened to shatter loudly.

Kankuro snickered behind his hand, and it was irksome enough for Gaara to pull away to glare at him.

"Why are you laughing?" Even though the redhead was trying his best to be intimidating the puppet master couldn't contain his giggles.

"You didn't wipe your mouth first. She just got an indirect kiss from me-- OW!!" Kankuro winced as he recieved a hard punch to the shoulder. "Hey man, it was a joke!"

"Not a funny one, you should work on your punchlines." At first it sounded like a normal response, but when Sakura looked deeper into it she nearly squealed. The two boys looked at her suspiciously before she broke out into giggles.

"You made a pun! 'Punch' lines! Get it?" The pinkette clapped her hands giddily, enjoying the fact that sometimes the redhead could act like a normal person. It wasn't long before Kankuro started chuckling too, yet all they could get out of Gaara was a smirk.

The night started off strangely, what with everyone freaking out and staring at them, but then a few boring speeches were made. Certain council members gave these droll monologues that made not only her yawn, but Gaara too. She was beginning to understand why he hated these things.

Next there was dinner, and it was very delicious with several of Suna's signature dishes. Gaara got his own plate of what looked like a cooked tongue. She shivered at the thought, but he seemed to be excited about it. She happily had the chicken.

Desert was surprisingly cake with ice cream, and while she giggled at the thought of a children's birthday party the rest of the table raised their brows at her. Except Ino, she knew why it was funny.

All that was left was essentially drinking, and dancing. A few men had actually come up to ask her for a dance, but had left with their tails between their legs when Gaara would answer for her; in his most threatening tone possible.

They stood there, wine in hand, watching everyone else twirl on the floor. She sighed wishing she could do the same.

"What's wrong?" The redhead queried, leaning against the wall looking like a complete punk with a bad attitude.

"I want to dance." The pinkette huffed before giving him a pair of classic puppy eyes. His face actually started to look like his heart was breaking a little bit.

"I don't know how." He flushed lightly at his admission, and she gave him a sympathetic smile.

"I see..." Sakura stared back out at the crowd, watching them twirl to the beat of the music.

"Wait here." Gaara suddenly walked past her, leaving her alone on the wall. He left the room completely, which worried her a little bit.

"Well, I guess I'll just stand here--"

"I'm shocked that Lord Gaara has brought such a beautiful flower with him tonight, one that should be dancing rather than standing against the wall." One of the younger council members, still in his mid thirties however, approached her while holding out his hand to shake.

"Hojo, it's a pleasure, miss?" He waited for her to respond, and finally she kicked into gear.

"Sakura." The pinkette smiled handing him her hand, to which he surprisingly kissed the top rather than shaking it. It made her instantly nervous.

"Lord Gaara must be smitten with you--"

"Yes, he really is." Sakura decided to press that point, hoping that this man would back off. Yet his eyes drank in her appearance in a way that she would deem as inappropriate.

"You're not native, I see. It shows in your hair." Hojo grinned, his dark locks swaying into his eyes. Something about this man made her uneasy, and it wasn't just the perverted way he looked at her. She had met many perverts that she still felt comfortable around.

This man, Hojo, was clearly a cunning person who killed with slow acting poisons rather than with knives.

"I'm from Konoha." She finally answered truthfully, and got a strange expression in return.

"Oh, I see. That's why he likes you." The councilman's face cracked with a dark laugh making every hair raise on her body in alert. "Makes perfect sense why you were able to tame him--"

"Caring for one another does not make us a beast, and tamer. You would do well to watch what you say, and not just because I'm Gaara's date either." The pinkette threatened, letting him know that she could be just as dangerous as some of the other ninja here. However, she merely received another laugh discrediting her.

"Konoha women, so spirited. In more ways than one--" He went to stroke her hand, but was quickly intercepted by a very protective big brother.

'Oh thank god--'

"If you don't want to die tonight you'll back off, do you understand? Gaara will kill you if he sees you touching her." Kankuro grabbed Hojo's arm, and the man wiggled his fingers in surrender. Like this was just a game to him.

"I'm merely playing, I wouldn't dream of touching the jinchuriki's concubine-- er sorry, forgive me, his 'mate'." The middle age man sized her up before turning away to talk to other guests. A few people were watching curiously, probably wondering what the hostility was about.

"Fucking bastard." Kankuro nearly spat, but Sakura shook her head.

"Don't tell Gaara about this, it will ruin his night." The pinkette looked back out onto the floor wondering where he had even gone off to. In a matter of seconds of him leaving she had become shark bait.

They were already trying to use her to get to Gaara, it disgusted her.

"It's no problem, I just know if Gaara starts a fight it'll be really bad. Not only for him, but for you as well. Sometimes he just rushes in just because he knows he can, and that he is strong enough to get away with murder... literally--" Kankuro looked pale at the thought, but she really couldn't blame him after having to deal with the redhead's odd behaviors. In the beginning he was a ranting lunatic, but he seemed to have mellowed out since she started giving him the attention he needed.

It made her smile, knowing that she could make a huge difference for someone.

"Back, let's go." Out of nowhere Gaara appeared, not stopping as he made a beeline for the dance floor snatching up her arm on the way there. She stumbled after him, trying to balance on her heels as he forced her to powerwalk.

"Gaara, where did you go?" Sakura asked, but was quickly distracted when they got to the dance floor. He turned abruptly attempting to put his hands on her, but instead furrowed his brow in thought. "Start with the waist, we can just sway if you want."

"Rrrright." The redhead's speech sounded off, something wasn't right here, but he managed to put his hands on her waist... then let them slip down to her hips. She gave an exasperated sigh, wrapping her arms around his neck.

That's when she smelled just a hint of alcohol--

"Oh no, you didn't do what I think you did, did you?" The pinkette suddenly felt extremely worried, she had no clue what kind of drunk he was, and now she was stuck in a very precarious situation.

"Ha! That's a weird sentence!" The redhead gave her a funny kind of smile, and her point was proven.

"Oh my god, oh no. Oh nooo--" Sakura started to panic.

"Whassup?" Gaara tried tilting his head to see her more clearly... even though they were literally inches away from each other.

"What kind of drunk are you? Happy? Sad? Murderous?" The pinkette bit her lip in concern, watching him tilt his head to the other side.

"I dunno... never drank like this soooo, guess we'll find out!" The redhead laughed genuinely, practically like a normal person. He seemed relaxed, casual, but still a bit drunk.

Okay, maybe this could turn out for the better. He could seem more sociable--

"Heeey... did I tell you that you're really gorgeous?" While Gaara had attempted a whisper it was still loud enough for a few couples to hear. Sakura almost grimaced, but stopped herself as she knew that he was honestly trying to compliment her. She forced a small laugh for his comfort.

"You're not so bad yourself. You clean up nice--"

"Woah now! I know you want my body, but we should take things slooow." The redhead snickered before growing a bit more ballsy, and started to nearly waltz. She kept up with him, but still kept her eyes sharp watching for sharks in the water.

"Yes, you know me so well." Sakura rolled her eyes, but still carried a smile for him. She was surprised at how well he could dance now.

"I do! I know you better than anybody--"

"Oh really?" She played into his game, getting the biggest grin she had ever seen on his face.

"Yup, I know what you look like naked--"

"SSH! Gaara!" Although she smacked his chest she couldn't help but snort at his comment. With a laugh he twirled her outward, then pulled her back into his embrace rather hypnotically. It made her dizzy for many reasons.

"Good thing we already did stuff cause you're in trouble, pretty lady." He was clearly teasing at first, but then his eyes truly focused on her. "You're in a lot of trouble... big trouble..."

"Are you playing the hero then? Am I the damsel in distress?" With another giggle the pinkette was spun outward, then with greater force pulled back in. His eye's were so focused on her own that it seemed like he was thinking they were alone in this room full of people.

"Not a hero... I want to be the villain." Gaara purred softly, and as she blinked owlishly at him he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "I'll tie you up... and make you scream for mercy..."

Her heart started pounding wildly, her cheeks inflamed at the thought.

Sakura thought of pushing away, thinking that perhaps someone might have heard him say that to her, but everyone just continued dancing like nothing happened.

"Eeeh... you're blushing. Hehe..." Gaara snickered, and for his boyish behavior she smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "I don't want that expression to go away."

"Since when did you become such a pervert--?"

"That day when we were running and you got attacked, I licked a cut on your leg... and you blushed just like this-" His hand came up to trace his thumb over her cheekbone, the action made her tremble. "-I want to do that tonight--"

"Gaara, stop saying things like that in public." She tried to warn him, but it only made him grin devilishly.

"Why? Afraid someone might hear me? Hear about how I'm going to strip you down later--?"

"Gaara!" Sakura hissed at him, and he raised a devious brow at her. He went to speak, but she immediately hushed him. "Say one more word about it, and I will start taking back the 'somethings'."

He blinked at that, and then surprisingly gave a bitter expression.

"Fine. Take them. I don't care--" The redhead huffed stubbornly, she almost couldn't believe the instant change.

"Really? You're going to throw a fit right here?" The pinkette groaned with frustration, and then pulled away from him.

"Hello, may I cut in?" A different council member approached them with enough balls to ask Sakura for a dance. While she was prepared for Gaara to tell the man 'no' he actually continued to glare at her.

"I don't care anymore. Dance with her, she enjoys being a people pleaser--"

"Gaara!" The pinkette blinked at him in disbelief, and he merely shrugged.

"I'll see you later, I'm going for a walk." The redhead turned his back on her quickly, and her stomach dropped. The older man grinned expectantly at her, holding his arms out for a dance. She turned to call out for Gaara but he was already gone in a cloud of sand.

She was alone... stuck with the wolves while she was nothing but a lamb to them.

Sakura moved in to dance, trying to play off confidence as this older man spun her around like a rag doll.

"Hojo told me good things about you, I just had to see for myself--"

"Did he now?" The pinkette went apathetic, acting as if that man didn't scare her.

"He did, you're an ex-leaf kunoichi aren't you? You certainly are high strung like one--" The older man was despicable straight out of the gate, and it took everything in her power not to stamp on his feet.

"I wouldn't say 'high strung', we just know our worth." Sakura hissed bitterly as she glared daggers at the man, his smile turned into a evil smirk.

"Yes. Now that's a look I wouldn't mind changing. When Gaara is finally through with your outrageous antics I'll have the guards send you my way. I know just what to do with that pouting mouth of yours, leaf slut." The councilman chuckled darkly, and she balked at his disgusting behavior. Not being able to stand it any longer she tried breaking free of his grasp, but he held on rather tightly. "Don't make a scene, my dear. It will reflect badly on your owner--"

"Get your fucking hands off of me!" The pinkette spat venomously at him, but it only made him laugh more.

She felt trapped in more ways then one. She needed to get away from these people. This was turning out to be a very frightening evening.

"You know what? I think a few of my colleagues would enjoy your company as well, you obviously must have some sort of 'charms' going for you, otherwise Lord Gaara would never keep one of your kind--"

"For the second time today I have to tell one of you assholes to get the hell away from Sakura." Kankuro appeared at her side, gripping at the councilman's shoulder with hands itching to kill. She had never felt so relieved in her life, in fact she instantaneously thanked him for it. The older man narrowed his eyes, clearly offended.

"I'm not done with her--"

"Not your choice, you gross old lech. I overheard what you fucking said. You're a nasty old pervert, and you should be ashamed of yourself." The puppet master gave the councilman a hard shove, getting complete disbelief out of the man.

"How dare you, Kankuro!? Dishonoring your village for some worthless leaf whore--!!"

The crack that resounded around the room was loud, and sickly, but it made the pinkette so happy she could cry for joy. Kankuro hit the older man so hard that she was almost one hundred percent certain she heard his jaw break. The councilman dropped so fast that he looked like a sack of meat falling to the floor, and Kankuro was practically steaming he was so pissed.

Alright, the puppet master definitely deserved an award for best gentleman of the night.

"Kankuro!? What are you doing!?!" Temari stormed over to her brother, and opened her mouth to scold him up and down. He stopped her before she could even start.

"I'm getting Sakura out of here, that's what I'm fucking doing. No wonder Gaara was pissy about being here tonight, even the council is filled with disgusting old fucks--!"

"Kankuro!" Temari warned, but he shook his head angrily.

"Nope. I'm done. I'm taking her to a safe place. Fuck'em." Kankuro snatched up the pinkette's arm, tugging her after him in a rough way. She stumbled a bit, but she knew he was just urgently wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible.

"What about me?!" Ino shouted after him, and he groaned.

"Have Temari bring you back!" The puppet master shouted, and threw open the main doors to the ballroom dramatically as they made their exit.

Her heels were clicking against stone double time in comparison to his dress shoes, his gate was much longer as well so she had to nearly run to keep up.

The halls around the area doubled as walkways around the courtyards, the night air was dry and cool under a bright silver moon. Had she been with someone else, she would have found it romantic.

"Let's stop here for a minute." Kankuro guided her to a stone bench, and practically forced her to sit down. She followed his demands, and rested for the time being. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you--?"

"No! No... it was just unnerving is all. Embarrassing..." Sakura looked out into the night, she was beginning to feel shittier by the second. "I hate this place. No offense, but I hate your people too. They are savages."

Her words were cruel, but at this point she just didn't care anymore. She wished she could just leave.

"We're not all like that, but I can understand why you'd think it. Since we took over Konoha our people have grown cocky. They forget what it was like to be honorable, and instead revel in the fortunes of war." The puppet master sat next to her with his hands on his knees, his fingers tapped away like they had strings attached to them.

"They're misguided, I want to change that. However, the 'council' deems me to be unsuitable for the title of Kazekage. They don't think I'm strong enough, they want someone like Gaara to do it."

"Why won't he?" The pinkette pressed, and the man next to her laughed.

"It's not that he won't, it's just that they don't think he's perfect for the job either. Gaara is violent, selfish, and unmerciful. While he could get us far just by riding his coat tails it would only make for more wars, and he would not hesitate to kill his own people--"

"He's not like that anymore! He's making great changes-!!" Sakura tried arguing, but Kankuro hushed her.

"Do you really believe that? What do you think he does when you're not around, hmm? Do you think he just sits on his ass, eating a lollipop?" The puppet master grew a bit angry over the topic, and she could tell that it had been bothering him for a while. "I bet he's maiming someone right this very second--!"

"Just because he stormed off doesn't mean he's going to kill someone. The only threat I heard from him tonight was that he would kill anyone who came on to me. To be honest you should be happy he left, otherwise he would have killed two council members--"

"He gave you away to one." Kankuro said lowly, and it seemed that he had been there to witness the whole entire exchange.

"Gaara didn't know that those men were going at my throat, and he doesn't need to know either--!" She was about to tear him a new one when low and behold Gaara walked up the steps from the courtyard.

'Uh oh...'

"I just love it when people talk behind my back, especially the ones I favor most." The redhead's eyes were glowing, but with what emotion remained unclear. It were as if he were perfectly calm, laying in wait like a silent panther. Yet there was something off about him.

"You deserve it." The puppet master huffed, and she watched as Gaara's head turned painfully slow in his direction. The moon glinting strangely off his eyes.

"Excuse me--?"

"You heard me, you ignorant bastard." Kankuro looked him dead in the eye without a single trace of fear. The redhead seemed to smirk at this.

"You're not afraid of me." Gaara seemed amused while his brother violently shook his head.

"No, I am done with your bullshit." The puppet master hissed before standing, storming over to him with the intent to harm. Before she knew what she was doing she put herself between them.

"It's not his fault, Kankuro! He didn't know!" Sakura suddenly started to yell, as if it would defend the man behind her more.

"I didn't know what, Sakura?" The redhead's humor left him instantly, chilling the air with his aura while also heating it with the sound of her name. She couldn't open her mouth, she didn't want him to be angry...

"Well, for starters, that guy Hojo cornered her at one point to creep on her. Then when your ass decided to ditch you left her in the hands of that old guy Hebiki, who might I add called her a 'leaf whore'--"

"Kankuro, that's enough!" The pinkette tried putting her hands over his mouth, but Kankuro quickly pushed them away.

"He said that once you were done with her he'd have the guards send her his way, so that him and the rest of the council can do whatever the fuck they want to her--!!"

"ENOUGH!!!" Sakura screamed at him, at first gaining a glare of betrayal from the puppet master, but his face quickly changed when he saw her begin to crack. "I didn't want... I didn't want him to know..."

She quickly tried to conceal a tear by wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, but another just fell forward to replace it.

"I'm going to bed... I don't want to talk about this anymore." The pinkette couldn't look the redhead in the face, she felt so embarrassed over the whole thing. Instead she merely began making her way back to the main building.

The two she left behind began talking normally to each other, and she was grateful that at least her outburst had now kept them from fighting.

--------- …………… ----------- …………..

Gaara hadn't planned for something like this to happen. If anything he actually had high hopes that the night would end well, but of course his rotten luck would have it turn sour.

'Perhaps I really did get bad luck when I broke that mirror--'

"So, are you going to kill them? If you do, you know the rest of the village will be in an uproar." Kankuro spoke, still a bit bitter over the events of the evening.

The redhead couldn't say anything, he was at a loss for words. He had left her all alone with the very men that he knew had it out for her. He was a failure as a mate, and his shame was beginning to make him immobile.

"Are you fucking listening to me--?"

"Yes. I'm sorry." Gaara blurted out before walking dejectedly over to the railing to look out into the night.

His vision was a bit off, still woozy from the alcohol he had snatched from one of the more drunken guests. Luckily for him the alcohol seemed to metabolize fast due to the fact that he was a jinchuriki.

He remembered leaving Sakura in able to go find the 'liquid courage'. No, he had never truly gotten drunk before, but from what alcohol he had in the past he knew that people always thought of him to be friendlier with a drink.

Surprise-surprise, Gaara was a giddy drunk.

At any rate he knew that people did ridiculous things when under the influence, so he thought he would use that to his advantage.

Turns out that he's a bit more than 'happy' with half a bottle of hard liquor. For some reason he turned into a rather forward flirt. He knew he had been hitting on her when he had returned to Sakura's side, but literally half the conversation was a blur.

The redhead did remember her shooting him down, and the bitterness that came with it especially after they had made plans for 'private' activities later. It had left him for a complete loop.

Then he did something extremely stupid, he left her with the very crowd he hated most.

'I'm such an idiot.' Gaara shamed himself with a sigh, noting his brother now was on the approach.

"You said to them that if they disrespected her that you would torture them. To be honest I think you should act on that promise." The puppet master leaned with him against the balcony, looking out at the same night sky. "Teach them a lesson, and then go apologize to Sakura."

Silence fell again at the sound of her name. The redhead felt like burying himself in a hole out of guilt.

"You made her cry--"

"I fucking know that!!" Gaara surprised himself with his own outburst. He had never felt so guilty before, nor had he ever cared about someone else's wellbeing in such a way. His chest was starting to hurt. "Will she feel better... will she smile again?"

The redhead had meant to keep such questions to himself, but he felt that his mind was becoming more and more scattered every day.

"Just go beat those idiots up, and then apologize to her. If she starts turning her attitude around then seize the moment, and do something you know she'll love." Kankuro patted his younger brother on the shoulder, but something about it felt off. He felt tense.

The inkling had been there for a long time. From the first moment the puppet master had mentioned taking her, to him always questioning about her, even tonight with his gallant 'rescue'.

Gaara had heard them, he had been out in the courtyard practically underneath them at the foot on the large staircase.

He had heard his brother's anger, his malice towards the younger for his selfish behavior. However, had it been a different woman the redhead knew that Kankuro would have acted differently. He wouldn't have given a single shit about any other female...

But Sakura... she was special, and he knew that there was a jealousy there that bubbled under the surface.

"You like her, don't you?" Gaara murmured softly, and while he didn't want to know the answer he knew he had to know it anyways.

It went quiet, nothing but the breeze was heard between them for what seemed like an eternity. Finally Kankuro shifted, and cleared his throat.

"She belongs to you, not me--" His older brother dodged the question, making it painfully obvious how he truly felt on the matter.

"I'm not talking about that. Do you love her?" The redhead pressed, and the silence that followed was palpable.

He didn't want to know, but he had to know. She was important to him, as was his own brother. Gaara had never felt so torn in his entire life--

"I don't know her that well to answer such a question, but I'm sure if she had came to me instead of you I would have fallen head over heels... but...." Kankuro gave a pitiful laugh before shaking his head.

"...I may like her, but you love her, so I will only ever further your relationship with her. You don't have to be concerned about me sabotaging anything. You are my brother... I could never do that to you."

Gaara felt his brother's words wash over him, dousing the redhead with a wave of care that awakened him. Kankuro was his brother, and he knew he could trust him regardless of his feelings for the pinkette.

For some reason it felt like so many peaceful doors opened up in his mind. There were so many thoughts... good thoughts.

"I trust you." Gaara murmured, not failing to notice how his older brother tensed up completely.

'I've... never said those words before in my life... he must know this too.'

"Heh, well then I guess I'm going with you to kick some council ass. Someone has got to watch your back!" The puppet master gave a hearty laugh.

Yes, this was an alliance that the redhead had truly needed. For once he felt grateful to have an older brother.

--- ... ---

"I told you all what would happen, yet you chose to ignore my warnings. Why is that?" Gaara purred at Hojo, reveling in the man's fear as he was held captive in a coffin of sand. "It's almost as if you had asked me to kill you outright--"

"NO PLEASE!!" The middle aged man shrieked, squirming in his sand entrapment. It pleased the redhead to no end, the man who had made his mate feel uncomfortable was about to receive that feeling tenfold.

Gaara reared his dominant hand back, and pushed it faster than his sand could follow. He was able to strike the man in the cheekbone with a bare fist, and even though it stung it was just as equally satisfying.

Hojo groaned with confusion, but before he could collect himself the redhead struck again, and again, and again.

The sand was trying to keep up, but wasn't fast enough. Every bare fist connected beautifully as he beat this horrid man in the face--

"Woah woah!" Kankuro stepped in then, grabbing at the pummeling arm to hold it back from laying down another strike. "Hey, I know it's great getting revenge, but if you kill him it'll be your head on the chopping block--"

"Just one more--" Gaara argued, but the puppet master shook his head.

"Gaara... he's already unconscious." The older brother pointed to the limp person within the redhead's sand, and sure enough Hojo was out for the count.

'Damn.' Gaara inwardly cursed, wanting nothing more than to continue punching the guy until he felt better. However, he had to admit that his knuckles were definitely going to bruise after this.

He loosened the sand, and watched as Hojo fell unceremoniously to the ground in a heap.

"Alright, who's next?" The redhead cracked his neck, and then his knuckles before shaking them out.

"Hebiki is unconscious too, remember? I handled that one--"

"Well, I'll just break his legs then..." Gaara snickered for a moment, but his face dropped when he saw a strange look on his brother's features. "What?"

"Dude, it's done. Go take care of your girl." Kankuro frowned for a moment, but then a sly smirk graced his face. "Fine, if you want to go pummel some faces be my guest. I'll go visit Sakura, and make sure she's okay."

"No, you will not." The redhead barked at his brother, getting a snicker in return.

"I specifically remember you telling me how to handle my women, that I needed a firm hand?" The puppet master grinned ear to ear, making the younger brother uneasy. "Well, right now Sakura needs a 'gentle' hand. Maybe a nice massage, and a steamy bubble bath--"

"Is that what you want written on your tombstone?" Gaara glared with every fiber of his being, but didn't expect the bellowing laughter that followed.

"I'm joking! Get a grip, man! I'm not going to fuck your girl, but you need to step up. I've never seen a woman look so god damn stunning, and your standing here looking for a fight rather than doing her proper! You need to get those priorities straight before she finds 'comfort' somewhere else." Kankuro scolded him thoroughly. The redhead went completely dumb, he knew his brother was right, but he was so pissed that he didn't want to admit it.

"Gaara, go find Sakura! Fucking hell--!"

"Alright!!! I'm going!!" Gaara barked ferociously before beginning his trek towards the living quarters. He heard Kankuro shout a few lewd well wishes, but it didn't soften his stomping feet as he moved angrily through the halls.

--- ... --- ... ---

She wasn't in his room, and that was a bad sign.

Gaara thought about leaving her to her own devices for the night, but then again he knew he had to make things right as soon as possible. With a groan he made his way to the harem room, but didn't bother knocking on the door before entering.

The room was empty, but her dress was on the floor. In fact, all of her beautiful items were strewn everywhere, most likely in a fit of anger.

A bubbling sound caught his attention, and he saw that the stone bath had been filled to the brim with hot water. Sakura was at the bottom of the tub, eyes shut tight as she let the air escape from her lungs.

He waited for her to come back up, but then noticed that she seemed to be making it a game to practically drown herself.

He reached in, unceremoniously grabbing her from both sides to yank her to the surface. She jolted, gasping for air as she struck him hard in the chest like an enraged feline.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!" She screamed with every strike, not bothering to open her eyes.

"Stop acting like a fool, and I will!" Gaara seethed, tightening his grip around her until she finally calmed. He eventually let her go with a sigh, and watched mournfully as she sank back down to shoulder level.

"What do you want? I'm busy--" Her tone was not appreciative.

"Sorry to take you away from your 'drowning', but I want you to know that those men will not approach you again." The redhead huffed stubbornly. She whipped around, wiping her vision of water while looking him over. She seemed almost confused by his appearance.

'She's expecting blood...' He finally guessed.

"I talked to them, isn't that a surprise?"

The pinkette's mouth hung open slightly, completely shocked by his testimony. However, he wasn't being completely honest.

"Alright, I threatened a little bit... well... okay more than threatened--"

"Gaara." Sakura spoke in a warning tone, forcing him to look off to the side shamefully to avoid her judging eyes. "Did you torture them?"

"Torture is a strong word, more like 'physically pressured'..." Gaara broke into a small smile for a moment, but then cleared his throat when he caught her glaring. "I didn't mangle them, and you can blame Kankuro for Hebiki's broken jaw."

She didn't seem amused, and he found himself scrambling.

"Just know that I took care of it, and if it happens again they know full well that I will come to kill them. I made that fact more than crystal clear." The redhead sighed as he sat on the edge of the tub. She was still glaring at him, as if expecting him to say something else...

'What does she want--?'

"Do you regret leaving me?" Sakura murmured softly as she brought her wet knees to her chin. Her words finally hit him, and he realized that he had forgotten something crucial.

"Yes, but I also wish that you could have relaxed a bit on the dance floor..." Gaara huffed stubbornly, but regretted it as soon as her face soured.

"Gaara, there were more than a few eyes as well as ears on us. I had to be careful--"

"They already assume that we've gone all the way, why does it even matter--?!"

"Because they think I'm your whore! Not your girlfriend, mate, partner, whatever you like to call it... they think that I am your... sex slave." The pinkette sighed, turning on the hot water faucet. While her words stung, he could also see now why she would be hesitant, but she also hated these people so why should it matter?

"Who cares what they think?! They are all useless wastes of space! Meaningless in the grand scheme of things! All that matters is how I feel for you!" The redhead started to argue vehemently, but never rose up from his spot on the edge of the basin.

"And how do you feel about me, Gaara? Do you love me?" The pinkette stared at the water, shocking him to the point where he couldn't respond right away.

'What am I to say to that?! "Yes, I love you. Please, be mine?" I can't say that to her!!' His mind was running a million miles per minute, and he felt every muscle in his body clench as he finally found some word vomit to spew at her.

"Don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answer to." Gaara huffed, looking away from her with a small flush. Then he heard the water shift, and two wet arms wrapped around his center as she molded herself to his back.

'Just say it. "I love you." It's not that difficult--!'

"You're getting me wet..." The redhead huffed, and inwardly slapped himself for his stupidity.

Suddenly he felt a great pull from her, and his whole world turned as she pulled him into the hot water. His whole body was able to go under, and for a second he flailed splashing water everywhere.

Finally he came back up to the surface with a snarl. It scared her enough to squeal, and attempt flight, but his reflexes were quick enough to snatch up her ankle to yank her back under the water.

They wrestled, fought, pushed and pulled until the bath turned into a stormy ocean. Somehow he was underneath her, wondering why she was sitting on his waist before she slammed his shoulders against the edge of the bath in frustration.

"Apologize!!!" Sakura barked. He bared his teeth at her in response, causing her fist to yank at his red hair. Pulling his head back painfully he gave a harsh groan of discomfort, but something about it was strangely erotic. He was beginning to like how her dominance felt.

"Say you're sorry!! For everything that happened!! For leaving me! For... not being nice to me..."

Her hand finally relaxed, and she leaned in next to him to rest her head on the side of the tub. He reached for the tap, turning it off with a long sigh of resignation. He knew he was going to have to humble himself to make this right again.

They remained silent until the water was finally still.

"Sakura... I'm sorry..." Gaara murmured softly before his head dipped into the crook of her neck. His arms wrapped around her possessively as he nuzzled against her. Her naked form felt so soft under his gripping hands. "I'm sorry. I've been too... neurotic. My desires have turned me into a shameful man..."

The redhead adjusted himself into a more proper sitting position, her body slid down until she was nestled sweetly in his lap. Her form felt small in his arms, almost breakable. Like he could snap her if he truly wanted to.

Only he didn't want to kill her, if anything he wished that all barriers between them would disappear. Had he just stripped down before all of this they could have been in a perfectly precarious situation.

Well... they still could be.

The pinkette pulled away to look at him in the face, and the hard blush that hit her cheeks was flattering as well as telling.

"While I do apologize for it, can you really blame me for wanting you? I've tasted you... touched you... I've become greedy for it, and you keep so much to yourself." Gaara's hands gripped at her bottom, and he pulled hard on her hips to grind with her. A small gasp escaped her, and it left him wanting more.

His desire finally reached a tipping point, it left him licking his lips before purring gently.

"I want to be inside you... I want to feel you around me."

Part 8

Sakura sank into the giant stone bathtub, she had no desire to stay in Gaara's room tonight so she went to the one room she hated most. Thankfully she brought her own clothes this time.

The pinkette sat in the water for a long while, and had already washed her hair. At the moment she only had conditioner sitting on it, but with a hard sigh she dunked her head under the surface. Her eyes clenching tight as she sunk to the bottom of the deep bath.

She held her breath for as long as possible, and even after she released it she continued to stay under for an even longer time. She already felt a bit dizzy, and wondered if it would be okay if she just drowned--

Something reached in, grabbing her from both sides to yank her to the surface. Once above, she inhaled with a sharp gasp before hitting the assailant repeatedly in the chest.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!" She screamed with every strike, not bothering to open her eyes.

"Stop acting like a fool, and I will!" The rasped voice barked, and she didn't have to hear him speak twice to know it was Gaara.

Of course, who else could it be? He could never leave her alone to bathe.

"What do you want? I'm busy--"

"Sorry to take you away from your 'drowning', but I want you to know that those men will not approach you again." As that sentence sunk in she feared for the worst. She wiped her vision of water, expecting to see him covered in blood, but there was none to be found. He had lost the jacket and tie, and his knuckles seemed to be raw from hitting something. Other than that there was no carnage. "I talked to them, isn't that a surprise?"

The pinkette's mouth hung open slightly, completely shocked that he just admitted to not murdering in her name.

"Alright, I threatened a little bit... well... okay more than threatened--"

"Gaara." Sakura spoke in a warning tone, forcing him to look off to the side shamefully. "Did you torture them?"

She waited in silence, anticipating an apology or a confession. His expression flittered a few times before continuing.

"Just know that I took care of it, and if it happens again they know full well that I will come to kill them. I made that fact more than crystal clear." The redhead sighed as he sat on the edge of the tub. She could tell that an apology was on the tip of his tongue, but his pride was preventing him from saying it.

"Do you regret leaving me?" Sakura murmured softly as she brought her wet knees to her chin. She hugged her legs for self comfort, yet it still didn't do much to ease her.

"Yes, but I also wish that you could have relaxed a bit on the dance floor..." Gaara huffed stubbornly, and it made her frustration skyrocket once more.

"Gaara, there were more than a few eyes as well as ears on us. I had to be careful--"

"They already assume that we've gone all the way, why does it even matter--?!"

"Because they think I'm your whore! Not your girlfriend, mate, partner, whatever you like to call it... they think that I am your... sex slave." The pinkette sighed, turning on the hot water faucet for extra added heat. The temperature was almost blistering already, but she was still feeling cold.

"And how do you feel about me, Gaara? Do you love me?" The pinkette questioned him.

Why was she asking that, and why did it seem so sad coming from her lips? Perhaps she wished that he did, and that would be at least one person who truly loved her like she always wanted. Someone who wasn't already dead, or had left her behind.

Sakura wanted to be loved, but all of her relationships, even with friends and family, ended up failing in some way.

"Don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answer to." Gaara huffed, looking away from her with a small flush.

She was done with this. This weird dance with him was driving her insane. She reached up, hugging him around the waist feeling him tense.

She just needed to be comforted, she needed to feel close to someone. The desperation was there, and it was glaring.

"You're getting me wet..." The redhead turned his head further to huff, and she felt something snap inside her. With every ounce of her strength she yanked him into the large bath. His whole body was able to go under, and for a second he flailed splashing water everywhere.

He turned around while snarling at her like a vicious dog while she practically jumped out of the water. She squeaked when his hands dove under, pulling at her ankle until she was submerged.

Sakura splashed around, coughing and breathing fresh air as soon as she was able. Her fingers latched onto his wet shirt, tugging it away from his skin in able to regain balance. He started to snicker, and in another wave of anger she kicked at his legs, sweeping him back under the hot water.

The bath had turned into a wave pool, splashing out over the floor while more water was still being poured in by the faucet. Some how she got him completely under her, and she slammed him by the shoulders against the wall of the basin while she sat on his waist.

"Apologize!!!" Sakura barked, and when he bared his teeth at her she fisted her hand in his hair. Yanking his head back painfully he gave a harsh groan of discomfort. "Say you're sorry!! For everything that happened!! For leaving me! For... not being nice to me..."

Her hand relaxed, and her head rested next to his. She felt the coolness of the stone basin on her forehead, while his abdominal muscles seemed to tense under her thighs. She felt him reach for the tap, turning it off with a long sigh.

They remained silent until the water was finally still.

"Sakura... I'm sorry..." Gaara murmured softly before his head dipped into the crook of her neck. His arms wrapped around her possessively as he nuzzled against her. "I'm sorry. I've been too... neurotic. My desires have turned me into a shameful man..."

The redhead adjusted himself into a more proper sitting position, the water coming up just under their chests. Her body slid down him naturally, and she found herself quickly seated in his lap.

The pinkette pulled away from him to gauge his thoughts, and was shocked by the intense gaze he gave her. While his eyes were surrounded by darkness she could now see the water dripping sinfully off his lashes. His red hair sticking to his forehead in a piecey mess. He looked far too sultry to be real.

"While I do apologize for it, can you really blame me for wanting you? I've tasted you... touched you... I've become greedy for it, and you keep so much to yourself." Gaara's hands gripped at her bottom, and he pressed down hard in able to get her to rock against him. A small gasp escaped her lips, and she watched carefully as his eyes grew lidded. "I want to be inside you... I want to feel you around me--"

"Gaara, no. I'm not ready for that..." Sakura tried turning away from him, but one hand turned her chin while the other wrapped around her waist. His hips rose up to meet hers again, gaining a soft groan from both of them.

"I know that, but it doesn't stop me from thinking about it." The redhead panted, his fingers gliding along the skin of her throat. He wrapped his hand around it gently, rubbing her jugular with his thumb. "Every day... I think about it. I try to imagine what it would feel like to be inside you, pleasuring you--"

"Stop this." The pinkette batted his hand away, but he pressed her hips down hard as he lifted his own. She shook violently, and gave a true moan while he looked on in wonder.

"That sound, make it again... I want to hear you beg for me." Gaara held onto her tightly, grinding against her. His mouth went in to suck at her neck, and it had her so overwhelmed that her voice went up in pitch.

Sakura could feel how hard he was through his pants, and how his muscles would tense every time he moved. She wanted to feel them directly under her fingertips.

Her hands traveled to his shirt, plucking each button one by one on the way down to reveal his smooth wet chest. There was no netting this time, just silky pale skin that was hot to the touch. He broke away from her to watch as she finished undoing his shirt, his eyes glazed over with an emotion that she knew all too well.

"You're so beautiful..." Water dripped hypnotically from his lips as he nearly whispered. The redhead's unfocused eyes devoured her nudity, but it seemed that just grinding against her was not enough to quench his thirst. "Let me have you... please--"

"No." The pinkette was stern, but continued her own war of rolling her hips against his while slipping her hands into his open shirt. Her fingers reveled in the feeling of his working muscles, making her whimper with each hard movement. His hands lowered between them, and she knew exactly what he was doing. "Gaara... I said no..."

The redhead ignored her, and suddenly she felt his hand adjust his length out of his pants. He moved his hips in a way that the underside of his erection could slide against her folds, leaving him practically breathless, and her surprised.

"I wont go in... but... it's so close now...." Gaara panted excitedly, his hands now going to her hips for his fingertips to dig into. "This is my 'something'... I hope that's okay with you..."

'Clever bastard.' Her eyes narrowed, but he was correct, since it wasn't penetration it didn't count... but it was cutting it close for sure.

However, she found herself more humored by it rather than upset. She locked her eyes onto him, and rolled her hips sinfully against his. A whine erupted out of her as she did it, and he seemed to follow with a moan of his own.

The water around them made small waves as they moved together. At times he would get a bit antsy and begin kissing her chest, neck, jaw, and then eventually her mouth. The longer they did it the more intense his actions got. Occasionally he'd give a hard squeeze to her bottom, suck hard at her breasts, and sometimes bite at her neck and shoulders. He panted heatedly against her flesh while starting to groan continuously from the attention.

All his hard work was beginning to become her undoing. She rode her naked hips with his with an intensity that she didn't realize she had in her. Her body was pulsing for more, urging her to take it further when she knew she couldn't. She took out her frustration on his chest, clawing down the muscles as they tensed under her touch. His hands ran up her sides to tangle into her wet hair while she leaned forward to suck lasciviously along his neck.

"Fuck--" Gaara cursed as his coal rimmed eyes fluttered shut, she could feel his heart pounding rapidly in his chest as he whimpered. Her fingers latched in his hair for a light tug, and got a heavy whine for her effort. His movements grew more frantic, and his arm around her waist was holding her bruisingly tight so he could rock his hips even harder.

She moaned on his neck, then turned her face up to his ear, mewling against the shell while he shivered with each needy cry.

"Gaara... please..." Sakura knew he would be weakened to it, and as good as this felt she did not want to finish this way. Instead she wanted to really feel, and witness him do it. While she whined loudly next to his ear she heard him give another curse, this time it sounded almost like desperate prayer.

'He's so close...' The butterflies in her stomach wouldn't stop fluttering, the more he cried out in desperation to climax the more she felt those cries pang through her body in the most shameful of ways.

"Sakura--!" The redhead tilted his head back with a pitched moan, his hips rolling against her as his voice continued to cry and break. His breathing was panicked, his body arched up for one last grind before he came hard. She felt like she might be riding a bronco with how much he writhed beneath her. It was so incredibly sexy that she almost ended up getting there herself, and was somewhat disappointed when she felt her veins pulse with the absence of orgasm; screaming at her for being too cruel.

Gaara held her to him fast, his erection still pushing out what had been building up between them. The pinkette leaned her face upwards to kiss at his neck, occasionally giving long licks to wick away the water that had gathered along his pulse. She was in a state of arousal that had her doing strange things at the moment.

The redhead seemed to notice, and even in his hazy state he ended up raising a curious naked brow at her.

"I... seem to be the only one who got there...huh?" It was a rhetorical question, but for some reason he ended up laughing at himself. "I'm not very good at this--"

"No... you're wonderful..." Sakura ran her hands up his chest, and into his hair to scratch playfully at his scalp. His eyes watched her as if she were the most interesting thing on the planet. "I held off... on purpose..."

"Why?" His hairless brows furrowed, and his hand came up to trace her bottom lip with his thumb.

"I wanted to watch you first." The pinkette felt a sense of shamelessness, as if any and all truths could be told at this moment. He blinked at her owlishly for a second before looking away.

"Well... I hope I didn't disappoint... " Gaara formed a shy pout with his lips, and a flattering blush had tinged his cheeks. She almost couldn't take it anymore, and began reaching for his hands.

"You didn't--" Sakura pulled his hands over her wet frame, watching his expression carefully as he managed to swallow hard. She pushed his right hand downwards, and in between her legs. "--but now I need you to touch me--"

"Sakura, wait." The redhead held his hand firmly away from her, and she almost cried at the lack of feeling. He began moving them, but all she wanted was for him to touch her. She started to throw a fit, whining and smacking at him while he lifted her up out of the water to sit on the edge of the tub. Her feet were still submerged, but the rest of her body was exposed to him. "Forgive me, but I'd like to take the second choice of 'somethings' for tonight--"

"That's not fair--!!" The pinkette went to argue at first, but he ignored her completely. Distracted in her anger she didn't realize what he was doing until his hands had parted her legs. He nestled his chest between them, wrapping his arms around her waist sweetly before kissing her stomach. "Wh-what...are you--??"

"I want to taste you properly." Gaara answered huskily, and she was shocked that he could already be so worked up after just finishing himself. His kisses went lower, and lower.... and lower....

Sakura gasped as he quickly put one thigh over his shoulder, and placed his mouth over her aching heat. She mewled in approval, fisting her hands into his red hair to pull firmly at the locks. He let out a heated breath that flayed against her wet folds, and a slight breathy laugh escaped him before he took a few lascivious licks.

The pinkette whined, her figure started to rock itself shamelessly in ecstasy while he lapped at her. The occasional sucking had her throwing her head back in a hard pant while scraping her nails against his scalp.

The more he did it, the more strongly she'd react. She was already so worked up when he got to her that it didn't take long to get her to a steady point.

Sakura had never felt like this before, it was nothing like anything she could do to herself, and it was so intense that it had her trembling with the need to finish. There was no pain in the friction, no discomfort, only pleasure. As his mouth became more ardent she felt her legs clinging to his back while his fingers dug into her hips and thighs.

"...Gaara... yes...." The pinkette whined, her heart starting to race as her orgasm was fast approaching. Her body was shivering with need, and he answered by licking her as firmly as he could. When her hips went to buck in pleasure his strong hands held her steady, allowing her to have that fight that she needed for a great climax.

It was like a gunshot, loud and fast. Her hands pulled hard at his hair, and he groaned against her folds as he tried to keep up. She gave out high moan that quickly turned into a scream of ecstasy. Her blood pounded so hard that it was all she could hear in her ears. Her heartbeat was the only thing left of her before she took a much needed sharp inhale, coming back down into her body once more as oversensitivity took over.

He was still going, and as much as she liked his enthusiasm her body just couldn't handle that much attention.

"Stop!" Sakura squealed, her legs trying desperately to close even though he was still there, however his grip on her was great enough that she did not succeed.

Gaara pulled away from her with a lidded expression at first, but then a genuine smile made it's way across his features. He ended up chuckling as her expression grew more flustered.

"H-hey!! Stop laughing--!"

"I'm sorry... you looked so cute..." The redhead panted slightly, and ended up licking his lips which only made her more bashful. "Did I do it right?"

The flush that took over her whole body was intense, she made a weird expression before hiding her face in her hands.

'Oh my god... I was screaming!!'

"Sakura? I asked you a question..." She felt his hands go back to her thighs, steadily creeping up her frame to her waist, but she refused to look at him. "Did I do it right? Or perhaps I should try again--?"

"You did fine!!! Go away!!" The pinkette shrieked at him before swinging her legs out of the tub. She quickly grabbed the towel next to her, and wrapped herself protectively in it. However, it didn't protect her from his laughter.

"There's no need to be embarrassed." He teased. She heard water sloshing around, as well as a drain being pulled. Then one by one his soaked clothing seemed to be plopped over the edge of the tub. She jumped when she saw it, and scurried over to the bed in the center of the room. Acting quickly she hid deep under the blankets, encasing herself in darkness.

Sakura knew he would follow her there, but at the moment she didn't want him to see her face, or tease her for how she had reacted.

"Sakura... Sakura... in spring sky as far as I see... is it mist or is it a cloud?~" Gaara sang her name in a familiar song, and hummed the rest of the tune as he approached. The edge of the blanket lifted, so she huddled further down. "There you are, cherry blossom, no more hiding--"

"Go away!!" The pinkette pouted, and his brow furrowed before a sly smirk graced his features.

"Not a chance, not after hearing you scream like that..." His tone grew dark, sultry even. "How dare you tease me, and then hide away."

Suddenly he was crawling under those very same blankets as her, and for a moment it seemed that he was not dressed.

No, he truly was not dressed. At all.

"Stop!!" Sakura shrieked as she felt him pawing at her in the dark. Her body was being pulled to him easily on the silk sheets. His mouth was on her flesh in an instant, kissing along her chest and up her neck. She didn't know why, but her hands clawed sinfully along his back making him drag his teeth down her jugular.

"I want to hear it again... say my name... scream it..." The redhead spoke huskily, tilting his mouth towards her ear to purr. "I am starving, and my appetite is insatiable--"

"Gaara, please! I can't take any more, it's too much!" The pinkette tried moving away from him once more, but his hands pulled hard on her hips bringing her under him. With one arm he held himself over her, and with the other his hand immediately found it's way between her legs. "Gaara!! Stop--!!"

"Ssh... hush now, I'm going to do something a little different--"

"It's going to hurt!!!" Sakura kicked her legs, and only recieved a breathy laugh for her effort. The feeling of his lips against the shell of her ear had her breaking out in goosebumps all over her body.

"You really think I would be so cruel? I have only showed you gentleness despite the fact that I have an intense desire for you." Gaara's words were whispered, but the meaning had her feeling a bit guilty. She began to relax, and a small sigh escaped him. "Yes... just relax..."

His fingers stroked gently at her wet heat, humming in approval over the state of arousal that she still seemed to be in. Suddenly her folds started to part, and she felt him slowly insert two digits inside of her.

Sakura was not completely foreign to this, as she had grown curious a few times, but having someone else do it had her tensing up almost painfully. As he moved his fingers out slowly she felt her sheath wanting to hold him in despite the fact that she wasn't sure if she wanted him there in the first place.

"You're burning up inside, I can feel it." The redhead panted excitedly against the shell of her ear. She squirmed slightly with shame, placing her hands over her face even though the blankets already hid them from the light. When he pumped them again she felt a familiar sensation, but it was also different. The fingers that were invasive before were now filling her with a pleasure that she hadn't felt before, a pleasure she was slowly starting to warm up to. "Is this okay?"

Although he asked a perfectly normal question she had to turn her face away, and this seemed to not sit well him. He removed his hand, and then flipped back the blanket to blind her. She felt as if it were agony, being teased in such a way only for him to stop so abruptly. He glared down at her, and it made the pinkette feel small.

"I wont do it unless you tell me that you want it." Gaara scolded her, and while she would usually feel upset by it for some reason she found it somewhat alluring tonight. "Say it."

The redhead was impatient, dark, and dominant. It was turning her on, and surprising her at the same time. She maneuvered her body into more relaxed position while keeping her eyes on his, and she let herself become vulnerable underneath him. Yet all it did was make him click his tongue.

"No, while I do appreciate this I still asked you a question. You will give me a verbal answer--"

Sakura whined like a spoiled child who refused to ask for something politely, and it got the redhead to raise a hairless brow at her display. A small smirk tried to make it's way across his lips, but he quickly narrowed his eyes instead.

"Say you want it." When she shook her head his voice lowered to a soft growl. "Say it."

Her heart was pounding so fast, and truth be told she wanted him to do it more than anything, but she didn't want to have that choice. She didn't want to come off as some sort of sex crazed nympho--

"Alright, I'm leaving." Gaara's lips formed a tight line as he began to move away from her, but before she knew it she was grabbing at one of his arms desperately. That tight line quickly formed a devilish smirk that he unfortunately could not hold back. "Say it then."

"I want it." The pinkette's voice came out small, but it seemed to have a good effect on him. She could see him breathe hard at her admission, goosebumps showing up on his skin while a shiver went down his spine.

"...Say it again." The redhead growled as he turned towards her, an animalistic instinct washing over him quickly. She could practically feel the heat radiating off of him.

"I want it." Sakura spoke more confidently, and that same shiver rippled through him as he pressed his mouth over hers.

She could taste a hint of herself on his lips, but it didn't bother her in the slightest. If anything it had her burning up at the reminder of what he had done to her. He pressed her back down onto the mattress, and held one knee up to her chest while his hand stroked her exposed sex. She gave a needy whimper, and he answered by slipping in two fingers. It was more accepted this time, and the more she relaxed into it the better it felt.

Gaara moved back slightly to get a view of what he was doing, and it was enough to make her squeak in bashfulness. However, the tone quickly changed as he began working a firm and steady pace on her. Forgetting her shyness she started to writhe in pleasure, her body moving like a snake as his digits pumped into her.

"You're getting so tight..." The redhead chuckled slightly, and although she felt thoroughly flustered by it the only thing she could do was moan for him. Her emotions didn't seem to matter anymore as her natural instinct took over. "Does it feel good?"

The pinkette mewled in answer, rolling her hips with his working hand finding it to be just that much sweeter. His eyes roamed her frame greedily, enjoying every second of pleasurable torture he placed on her. Soon he was hovering over her again, leaning in for a kiss that she was far too eager for.

Sakura moaned against his lips, occasionally panting his name in between rough kisses that took her breath away. Her nails raked against his skin, carving her way down his lean hips and toned thighs leaving him trembling underneath. When her hand accidentally ran across his groin she felt his hardened length, and grabbed hold of it with an almost painful firmness.

"Stop being...sneaky..." Gaara panted in between desperate kisses, and decided that moving faster was the best option. She tried stroking him, but was greatly distracted by what he was doing to her. Her head shot back as her body arched with his hand, stringing her tight like bow's string. She was too close to function properly anymore, so holding him tightly was all she could do. "That's it... scream for me--"

As he pushed harder she felt herself clenching around his fingers, crying out wildly from high pitches to low ones. Her body was breaking out into a sweat as the noises heaved from her throat, slowly causing her vocals to rasp from overuse. Her pink hair clung to her face as she rolled her head in pleasure. Just when she thought it was too much his hand began to slow, and she regained the breath that she had lost during the intense moment.

The redhead pulled back, chuckling slightly in a breathy tone while his eyes continued to study her. As she came back to reality she looked over to him, her heart still racing from what he had done to her.

"I've been wanting to do that all night." Gaara laughed genuinely then, and his smile was far too beautiful.

That same smile that he only ever showed to her. It was a gift, and she wanted to return it.

"You're too stunning for your own good, I was completely enchanted when you walked out of the bathroom in that dress." His eyes closed for a moment, as if he were remembering it fondly.

"Is that so?" She didn't know why at first that she was suddenly crawling over to him, and it didn't become apparent until she had placed her hands on his hips that she actually had a plan in mind. It was spontaneous, but she didn't care, this would be her 'something' for the night. "You didn't think about yourself... at all?"

His eyes opened as her hands stroked at his skin, they darted around her frame curiously before he bit his lower lip for just the briefest of moments.

"I tried not to... I'd just chase you away with the things I'd want to take from you--"

"Such a martyr, the demon that loves only itself is a total lie isn't it?" Sakura smirked, taking his erection into her hand to tease it with feathery strokes. He let out a slow, yet shaking breath, his eyes starting glaze from the second she had reached for it. "So, oh selfless one, I guess you wouldn't be interested in me putting this inside myself, would you?"

"Don't be cruel." Gaara narrowed his eyes in warning, but it only spurred her on.

"Are you sure? You could try begging for it. Who knows, maybe I'm in a giving mood--"

"You already told me 'no', and I already prepared myself for that rejection." The redhead snipped, his temper started to flare just the slightest. It seemed he was not one to be teased, even lightly.

"I didn't mean 'that' way. You assume there is only one part of me that can take you..." The pinkette lowered her head for a moment, and licked the underside of his length as his breath hitched. His breathing from then on out was a forceful pant.

"Do you want it?" She purred.

"Yes." There was no waiting, no thinking involved, he simply put his desire out there on the table. She snickered for a moment at his eagerness, finding him to be fairly innocent yet struck with a carnal need.

"What's the magic word?" Sakura giggled looking up at him from below his waist. His eyes unfocused, became lidded, and glazed over with lust as his lips parted.

"Please..." He breathed the word, and it made every hair raise up on her body.

"With sugar on top-" She gave a long lascivious lick before continuing. "-And ice cream in the middle?"

The redhead blinked at her for a moment as his cheeks began to flush. He looked like he might faint from the attention.

"Yes... sugar... ice cream... middle..." Gaara's words came out choppy, as if he forgot what language was. She full on laughed at his display, but decided against teasing him any further.

The second the pinkette wrapped her lips around him he let out a groan of relief. His fingers tangled in her pink hair, but he was incredibly gentle with her scalp.

She remembered things that Ino had told her about her 'oral' encounters. There was to be no touching from her teeth, that was a given. The tip was the most sensitive part, that was second. Last, but certainly not least, the penis was not the only part that was to receive attention; the testicles were just as important.

It was funny how other women would rave about their talent in merely placing their mouth on a man, and calling it a day, but Ino had made sure that Sakura knew that there was a lot more to it than that.

As the redhead let out a rather youthful whimper she seized that moment to cup him gently in her hand. The fingers in her hair clenched while he gave a full moan.

He was far too precious, sounding like a young teenager during his first sexual experience. She reveled in the idea that she was tainting him in some way; tainting this 'monstrous' man who always seemed to have blood drenched in his clothes.

Sakura was enjoying herself, and that scared her a little bit, but just because it was new and odd didn't mean that she would stop herself. That would be true cruelty.

"Sakura..." Gaara whimpered, his hands clenching and opening in her hair. As she swirled her tongue around his tip she witnessed him not only cry out harshly, but tremble as well. He was shivering hard, and his skin started to sweat while he gave shaking breaths. He would whisper her name, whimper it, and cry it out like a mantra. It left her feeling high with how she could bring such a 'frightening' person literally to their knees. "S-stop... please..."

She didn't, she knew why he wanted her to do so, but she didn't care. His hands tried to push her away, weakly one might add, but she stayed regardless of the fact that he was also trying to pull her hair. She became more vigorous, and soon his hips were rising up to meet her with each bob of her head.

"No! Stop!" The redhead cried out, but after it was said she went harder, and she could practically feel the shock go through him as he groaned loudly through his teeth. She felt him start to pulse on her tongue, and as a wave of bitter salt splashed into her mouth she quickly tried gulping it back. It wasn't as fluid as she would have liked, but it wasn't awful either.

The fingers in her hair loosened, and all the muscles that were clenched up relaxed almost instantly. The only sound left was that of his panting breath. Pulling away she wiped her mouth smartly, giving him a rather smug smile.

"Did I do it right?" Sakura teased, and while he did blush he also got a tired laugh out of it.

"I think so... however we could try again--" Gaara said with a exhausted smile, and she balked at his suggestion.

"Stop getting greedy!" She smacked at his thigh, gaining another laugh for her trouble. "How about instead of acting like an ass you can thank me with a glass of water?"

As much as it made him wince he also couldn't stop his snickers. While she turned to lay on her stomach she felt the bed move as he got up to do the exact thing she had told him to do.

'He's such a puppy.' The pinkette giggled inwardly, thinking how he could literally eat from the palm of her hand while also licking it completely clean. 'Oh, boy... He's got a talent for that too...'

"Here." The redhead was now holding out a glass of water for her, and surprisingly wearing a nice black robe. When she looked him over questioningly his cheeks managed to tinge pink. "Um... it was by the closet... I can get you one too--"

"No need." Sakura smirked as she rolled onto her side, taking a long drink of the water he had given her. From the corner of her eye she could tell he was studying her naked form, and for some reason she liked the attention. She pulled the drink away from her lips to place it down on the nightstand before truly staring him down. "Well, thank you for such a wonderful evening. You were a fantastic bed partner, but now I must bid you farewell. The door is that way."

She pointed to the door, and gave him a sinister smile, which he returned in kind.

"Kicking me out--?"

"Well, that's what you're here for right? To please me? You've done your job well enough." The pinkette looked at her nails, pretending to be aloof with him just to get under his skin. It seemed to be working for the most part. "Oh, I forgot to ask what your going rates are-- AAACK!!"

With a ferocious snarl he tackled her onto the bed, and while it surprised her she couldn't help but laugh hysterically as he growled against her neck. He seemed to understand the joke, and it put a nice spin on things.

"Back! Back I say! You little beastie--!" Sakura almost snorted as she smacked at his shoulder, but he stopped abruptly to glare at her.

"I am not 'little'." Gaara spoke in a low tone that sent pleasant shivers down her spine. She lowered her lashes for him, and bit her lip.

"You're right. You're a big, intimidating, enticing, and handsome beast." The pinkette purred, and as he tried to inch closer she proceeded to crawl away.

"Flattery will get you nowhere--" He smirked.

"Wrong! You're already trying to paw at me again, you're incorrigible." Sakura turned her head defiantly, but it only gave him an opening to kiss her neck. "Hey! I'm tired--!"

"Hello, tired. I'm incorrigible, it's a pleasure to meet you." Gaara bit down, and when she jolted his hands gripped greedily around her frame. She smacked at his shoulder a few times, receiving a snicker against her skin.

"I can't believe you just made that joke!" The pinkette scoffed, but quickly became putty in his roaming hands while he worked his magic on her neck. It had her humming, and relaxing in his strong arms. "I'm about to fall asleep..."

"Let me sleep next to you then..." The redhead's heated breath flayed against her skin, and his weight on top of her was more than welcome.

"You really shouldn't." Sakura pet his hair while he kissed down her collar to the center of her chest, it was the place where he finally rested his head despite the fact of it being bare.

"I know...but I still want to." Gaara's arms gripped her possessively, and her heart began to sink thinking about his predicament.

"Have you talked to 'him' about it? You two talk often don't you?" The pinkette kept her tone gentle, as she was prodding at a very delicate topic. He nuzzled further against her chest at first before giving a tired sigh.

"It's like talking to a wall. He is stuck in his ways thinking that everyone must die--"

"Including me?" Sakura blurted, and felt stupid for asking such a thing. When he didn't answer she felt that she had recieved her answer.

"I don't... like to talk about you with him... but I can tell he likes you. However, I don't want to share you with him..." The redhead's hold tightened, but his words confused her.

"What do you mean by 'share'?" She asked carefully, and when he stiffened she felt a bit nervous to know the answer.

"We share a body... he knows what I know... and can feel what I feel.... I believe this is why he likes you." Gaara almost whispered, then some sort of desperation came over him. It inspired him to move upwards to hold her more protectively. She could feel a sense of anxiety wash over him as he held her. "He made me an offer recently... after our first... whatever you'd like to call it, and I don't think the risk is worth it."

"He made an offer? Like what?" The pinkette was already suspicious of the being inside of him, and felt her caution become validated rather quickly.

"Time with you... in exchange for the first peaceful night's sleep I've ever had in my entire life." The redhead sighed before shaking his head. "I'd rather die of insomnia--"

"You should accept it." Sakura stated calmly, and he instantly pushed himself up to truly look at her face. He looked absolutely horrified.

"You can't be serious! He would kill you--!"

"If he wanted to kill me he obviously wouldn't care enough to want my company." The pinkette deadpanned while he gaped at her for even trying to defend the beast.

"And what if it's something more sinister than that?" Gaara narrowed his eyes in warning, jealousy clear on his features. While she was worried about something like that she also knew that any chance he had at getting some rest was probably worth it.

She'd probably have to bargain with this one, and with the last card in her hand no less. However, she desperately wanted to give him some sort of peace... so handing over her final ace seemed only natural.

No, it was more than that. She honestly just wanted him to have it.

"You can take the bargain... after you've had me for yourself..." Sakura said it in a small voice, but it made a great enough impact on him that he started to forget how to breathe.

"Sakura... I... I can't do that--"

"Oh don't lie, you know you'd fuck me in a heartbeat." The pinkette scoffed, and while the idea seemed to dawn on him with a fierce reddening of his cheeks he also seemed to shake the thought literally from his head.

"I...no---wait... yes... I mean... yes. Yes, I would, but it's not right for me to feed you to a monster just so I can actually sleep for once." While he seemed a bit mixed in his emotions she could see the weariness in his eyes. He just... looked so exhausted. The idea must have been haunting him for so long now...

She'd have to force him to do this somehow, yet an idea came to her quicker than she thought.

"Gaara, I give you full permission to have sex with me whenever you so choose, but afterwards you will answer to the one tail's demands. Then you can finally get the rest you deserve." Sakura laid out the bargain for him, and he merely stared at her as if she were insane.

"You can't be... serious--"

"Deadly serious. I'll meet him head on for you, I'm not scared of him."

That was a filthy lie, ever since that day in the forest she was scared shitless of the bijuu that lived inside of him. The sand beast had almost killed her, yet she was sure that Gaara had somehow made it so she could live another day. She truly believed that deep in her heart.

His face started to twist, and his jealousy seemed to erupt.

"Then I guess I'll just stay abstinent!" The redhead barked at her. She frowned, thinking that he was blowing this out of proportion.

However, there were sneakier ways to get what she wanted, and she decided to use what she had at full force.

"That's too bad... I was really looking forward to it." The pinkette stretched languidly underneath him, and just like that she had his undivided attention. "After the amount of talent you've shown me tonight I'm positive that you must be a complete animal in the bedroom. I guess I'll just have to use my imagination--"

"Stop teasing." Gaara growled at her, making her raise a well groomed brow at him.

"What am I going to do? I don't think I've ever wanted anyone so badly in my life..." Her hands wandered her own body in the most sensual of ways, making him stare at her with a hungry expression. "Don't you want me too?"

As she reached up to stroke his cheek he leaned his head into her hand before kissing longingly against her wrist. His eyes were dark with desire, holding an almost bitter expression.

"You're so cruel..." The redhead murmured against the inside of her delicate wrist. She watched in wonder as he inhaled her scent while growing more enraged. "Why don't you ever shut up? I'm so sick of your twisted bullshit--"

"Excuse me?" Sakura furrowed her brow both in insult, and confusion. Her words seemed to wake him up to his odd behavior, cueing a horrified look in his eyes as he realized that he had spoken aloud.

"N-not you! I'm sorry, I wasn't talking to you!" Gaara seemed truly upset by this, and while she loved to watch him act like an innocent little boy she didn't truly want to cause him any harm. She reached up to soothe him, scratching with a feather light touch along his nape.

"Ah, I see. Well, if you're going to talk to him out loud can you make sure to let me know that its 'him' you're talking to, and not me?" The pinkette snickered while another blush graced his cheeks, although this time it was merely out of awkwardness.

The redhead couldn't seem to speak, and her only confirmation was a quick and awkward nod of his head. He was too distraught to tease any further, so she decided to end their discussion for the night.

"So, am I sleeping here? Or downstairs?" Sakura smiled warmly at him, and he blinked as if he were stunned by her somehow.

"I don't want you to get dressed..." Gaara started pouting, causing her to roll her eyes at him.

"Oh my god, you are such a brat!" While her words sounded mean, the little smile that went with them told him that she was merely playing. He seemed to take it well enough, managing a smirk if his own. She rolled over, and felt him cuddle up close to her. With a wave of his hand the sand in his gourd by the bed started to move at his will, going around to each oil lamp to douse them for the night.

Sakura watched curiously as the grains sparkled in the moonlight, wondering how he could get them to move on a chakra level. She felt him nuzzle the back of her neck, and breathe slowly. It were as if he was truly about to go to sleep, although she knew better than that.

"Goodnight, Sakura." The redhead whispered as he clung to her naked frame under the sheets. She moved even closer to him.

"Goodnight, Gaara, sleep well--"

"You know I wont." He huffed, and it was cute enough to make her laugh.

"I know, but I can still wish for it, right?" The pinkette hummed before truly feeling fatigue hit her, and she started to drift to the sounds of his calm breathing.

"I love you."

She could have sworn she heard him say that, but she wasn't completely certain. Perhaps it was only a dream.

Yet, it warmed her heart in places that she thought were completely destroyed. Places she could have sworn were broken inside of her.

She wished it were real.

#GaaSaku #gaasaku-fanfests #GaaSaku Fan Fest 2018 #Pikaboubou #fanfic

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dreamss-of-boston · 5 years

Text

Rise - ch9

link on AO3!

Sonya Romanova of the Underground is brought to the surface on the condition that she join and serve the Survey Corps. As she comes to grips with what the surface world is actually like compared to her dreamy fantasies, she finds herself becoming more and more enamored with the stoic Captain Levi.

hello! i tried to get this chapter up by the end of february but i suppose the beginning of march will do. studying abroad has been challenging but it has definitely inspired me to write more! france is so beautiful, je l'adore. there isn't much plot in this chapter, but things so get pretty spicy hehe. i hope u enjoy, thank u for reading love u bye!

- the game -

Sonya’s head was spinning.

She was still breathless from her interaction with Levi, when he had kissed and embraced her, making her feel like the lightest feather in the world - she almost couldn’t believe that it had happened. Her skin burned where he had touched it, her entire being hungry for more of him. But, presented with the opportunity to meet a member of her blood family - her libido had to take a backseat. That, coupled with the fact that her potential family member was standing before her in the flesh, potentially holding the answers to a million of her questions, was enough to send her into a sort of spiral.

She wanted to cry - and she did, a little. Her eyes began to water the longer she stared at Dimitri, and her stomach was in knots because she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t speak properly, anyway. Her heart soared as Dimitri surveyed her up and down, seeming to scout out her features to see if they matched his enough for her to be considered a relative.

“I must say, you’re probably the prettiest out of father’s bastards,” Dimitri continued, placing his hands in his pockets. He was the picture of relaxation. “But I’m his prettiest legitimate child.” He chuckled to himself.

Sonya’s stomach dropped-- bastard.

“What?” She said quietly, almost so quiet that Dimitri didn’t hear.

“So, where did you come from? Wall Maria? Trost?” Suddenly, Dimitri didn’t seem so amused when he hooked his gaze with hers. “Eh, it doesn’t matter - it’s almost ridiculous, how many Romanova’s are roaming about in these walls.”

Sonya didn’t understand; or perhaps she didn’t want to. Her feet felt heavy as lead, gluing her to the spot. Her eyes drooped to the ground, staring only at Dimitri’s shoes-- the same as hers, military-issued. Black.

Dimitri took a step closer, his whole body tense. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to shut someone up. The name you have -

name - was stolen from my family. You stole it, or your mother or aunt, whoever the hell raised you. I don’t care. The point is, no matter how much you insist, you will never get paid for something you’re not entitled to.” He spat on the ground in front of her, causing Sonya to wince. “Don’t come looking for me or my father. I won’t allow you to disrespect my mother’s memory with your existence.”

And when Sonya looked up, Dimitri was walking away - back to his horse, back to his home in the Garrison regiment. She was watching the place where he stood long after he was gone, her whole body feeling like a sort of husk. Bastard - she had heard the word tossed around.

Herschel was a bastard. She remembered the raven-haired woman telling her the story of when she first met her father, how he had spat at the ground she walked on, demanding her to leave him alone and to never speak of their relation again. Despite the fact that she looked so much like him, it had to be a fact that she had no relation to him. Apparently, he was a man of some wealth and prominence up top, and when Herschel had met him for the first time at seven years old, he was only on a visit to the Underground, paying Herschel’s mother to quit using his name as an attachment to her daughter.

Sonya’s legs seemed to fail her as she crumbled to the ground, staring at the dirt made of little rocks beneath her as the realization dawned on her. Her name - Romanova, the one her mother insisted she always use in all of her introductions, was nothing more than a bill that needed to be paid. Her mother stole the name of her father, spread it around Underground - a big sign painted on Sonya’s features, that she was a debt to be paid by a man named Romanova. A name of importance would be paid off quickly so as to avoid any rumors to be spread too quickly; the men would return to the whores they had bedded some years ago, and buy their names back from their bastards.

It was a sort of justice. The rich man got the whore pregnant, and if he didn’t want his reputation smeared, he would pay the price.

A tear rolled down Sonya’s cheek; then another, and another. She covered her mouth as sobs began to rack her body, her frame trembling pitifully. She had known about this tradition her whole life; she had seen other girls get paid off, heard their names disappear from introductions and conversations. But Sonya had begun to have a romantic notion that her father didn’t pay her off because he wanted her to keep it - the name Romanova, as a sort of compass to find him later.

Dimitri made it clear that that wasn’t the case. Eyes screwed shut, she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps behind her. She didn’t see Levi crouch down in front of her, until she felt his hand on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze to bring her back to earth.

Sonya looked up at him, her eyes red and face flushed. How embarrassing, how pitiful she was. She didn’t want him to see her like this - she didn’t want anyone to know that she was now both a bastard and a whore. She didn’t want to meet his gaze, but she was compelled to. As green met gray, there was only compassion shared between the two.

Nothing scrutinizing, nothing uncomfortable. Only a strange understanding, an empathetic pull towards each other.

Levi’s hand rested on the back of Sonya’s head as he pulled her into him, wrapping his arms wordlessly around her as she did the same to him, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She buried her face in his shirt, relishing the feeling of the world melting away as her senses were overtaken by Levi. And it was enough.

[-]

Days passed - of preparation, training, and the like. The first expedition to capture a titan was looming near, and Sonya was as troubled as ever. When she looked at the world around her, she no longer saw beauty in a pure, romantic sense. She saw that things were beautiful, such as flowers and the colors of the sky - but all meaning behind beauty seemed to fade away. Her romantic notions of the surface world seemed silly now. She thought about Anna every day, though less frequently, which filled Sonya with guilt. The fact that life would happen with or without Anna was a grave reminder that the same would be true for her. For Peter, Mabel, Ada - for Levi. She had come to the conclusion that people were people, under or above ground, and grief and sorrow spared no one.

Levi had hardly spoken to her since that night. They would pass each other in the halls, Sonya would perk up and attempt to get his attention, but he would pass her by, unaffected by her gaze and disinterested in holding a conversation. She couldn’t understand why; honestly, she didn’t want to think about anything, to analyze anything. All she could think about were his lips, his mouth, his hands roaming over her body.

Her skin burned and tingled every time she thought about their encounter in his office. She knew that she was just feeling aroused, just like the men that had stumbled into her home to bed her compatriots Underground, but the knot in her stomach wouldn’t go away, and she wasn’t sure how to approach him in order to get that solved.

Sonya knew the steps - she knew the risks, which places to touch when, and everything in between. But usually, it was the customer who initiated everything, and Sonya was now a bit intimidated by Levi since she now knew what his touch could do to her.

When they would pass each other in the halls or in the dining area, she would sit up straighter, attempt to present herself as more attractive, just in case he was looking. But she never caught him staring. He was acting as if nothing had ever happened. Once again, he had hurt Sonya.

She itched for the burn of alcohol, for the warm ignorance it provided her with. As she sat with her group of friends in the dining hall during dinner, it was all she would think about. Perhaps if she could get recklessly drunk for just one night, it would be a hard reset on her emotional turmoil and she could clear her head a bit before the dangerous expedition.

“I’m slowly dying,” Peter said one day after rigorous training, flopping down in front of his stew dinner.

“Me, too.” Mabel sighed. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you guys.”

“Well, this mission is really important.” Ada chimed in with a reassuring smile.

“You’re just in a good mood ‘cause Captain Shorty gave you the time of day today.” Mabel said bitterly, taking a big bite of her bread.

Ada turned a bright red, to which Peter chuckled. “Well-- getting praised by any superior officer is a good thing, not just from him!”

“Let’s do something tonight.” Sonya said, looking up to her friends from absent-mindedly stirring her soup. Mabel looked surprised that Sonya had spoken up; the girl had been unusually quiet lately.

“What did you have in mind?” Peter asked with a sly smile - though from his days training with Sonya, he already had a pretty good idea of what Sonya might suggest.

“We smuggle in some wine,” Sonya grinned, “and we play some poker in the dining hall after everyone’s gone to bed.”

Ada’s eyes widened, and she leaned in with a stern expression. “Sonya, we aren’t allowed to drink in HQ-- much less gamble!” She hissed. A little further down the table, Alfonse’s ears perked up, and he glanced over to their group curiously. Ada tensed, and frankly so did everybody else; Alfonse was a notorious snitch. Ada lowered her voice even more. “That’s such a stupid idea.”

“Yeah, Sonya, that’s really dumb,” Mabel added, shooting a glare to Alfonse, who looked away hurriedly. “Why would you suggest wine and poker when wine and

poker is far more superior?”

Sonya, Mabel, and Peter were all grinning from ear to ear, while Ada sat, wringing her hands in worry.

[-]

“Full house.” Peter said smugly, laying his cards down on the table.

“Fuck you.” Mabel took another swig of wine - Sonya’s head fell into her hands as the bottle was passed around, and everyone obediently took a swig. Whenever someone won a round, everyone else had to take a drink and remove a piece of clothing. So far, they had gone through a bottle and a half, and everyone except Peter was getting dangerously close to sitting in nothing but their underwear.

“I never should’ve taught you how to count cards,” Sonya’s mind was starting to become foggy, and while she was pissed that she was losing, she relished the warm tingling sensation the wine was providing her. She bitterly removed her socks, throwing them in Peter’s face. He smacked them away with his hand, his grin never leaving his face.

He jerked his chin over to Ada. “Come on, Ada, you gotta take something off - them’s the rules.”

Ada shot him a glare, and with a huff, she removed her outer shirt, suddenly very exposed in her little tank top. “It’s so cold!” She complained.

“Drink more; you’ll warm up.” Mabel advised, having no choice but to remove her pants since she didn’t want to remove her shirt.

And round after round, they played. Sonya won a few hands, and watched in triumph as Peter was forced to become just as exposed as them. Eventually, though, it was Sonya who was losing painfully - and soon, she was very tipsy and sitting in nothing but her underwear. Mabel still had her undershirt on, but Ada was in the same boat as Sonya. Peter still had his pants on, and that was it - four bottles of wine sat finished on the table, and the candle illuminating their little corner in the empty dining hall was almost burnt out.

Sonya stood with some difficulty, pushing her frizzy hair out of her face. “I believe our night… has come to an end.”

“Wooooo,” Mabel cried softly, lifting her hands up in happiness.

“I feel,” Ada mumbled, rubbing her eyes, “I feel like my eyes… weigh a lot.”

“You gotta go to bed, honey.” Peter laughed, his cheeks rosy.

“Ah, I needed this.” Sonya smiled stupidly, her hands cupping her cheeks happily. She didn’t care that she was standing in nothing but her bra and underwear, her clothes littered on the floor with her comrades’. Her belly was warm, her head fuzzy and cloudy enough to block out the worries that her sober self dealt with.

The door to the dining hall slammed open with a loud bang, almost startling the group into sobriety. Sonya turned, leaning against the table behind her for support, to see Alfonse striding into the dining hall with none other than Hange and Levi following right behind him. He looked triumphant as the three of them came upon the scene, and he stood with his hands on his hips while Levi and Hange took in the sight before them.

“I told you!” Alfonse said. “I heard them planning it during dinner.”

Sonya’s entire body was covered in a deep blush - she could only imagine what Ada looked like, being discovered by superior officers in the state she was in. Mabel scowled at Alfonse.

“You little snitch.” She spat.

Sonya’s gaze was locked with Levi’s almost instantly, her heart skipping several beats when he very obviously looked her up and down. Looking at him, remembering what they had done days ago, lit a fire within Sonya and only made her itch for him more - right now, being as exposed as she was under his gaze, she felt like they were the only two people in the whole world.

Hange, meanwhile, had taken a moment to take everything in, and then burst into hysterics, laughing loud enough to wake up the whole city.

“You all look so funny! You should’ve seen your faces when we came in!” She almost doubled over, she was laughing so hard. “Ahh, Alfonse, thank you for this. I really needed a good laugh.” Hange gave Alfonse’s back a hearty smack.

Alfonse stumbled, looking as confused as ever. “But - aren’t you gonna punish them?”

“Oh, absolutely! This was reckless and stupid, especially considering we have such an important expedition coming up.” Hange put her hands on her hips, and tried to contain her laughter once more. “But I can’t really punish them when they are oh, so, helpless!”

Peter had stumbled into his shoes, dismayed to find out he had put them on the wrong feet. Mabel was in the process of putting at least her shirt back on, but abandoned that in order to help poor Ada; she couldn’t find the sleeves to her shirt.

Sonya, meanwhile, was quite comfortable where she was. Her standing there, completely for Levi’s visual consumption, was how she was gaining the upper hand. He wanted to pretend their night together never happened; fine! Might as well make some new memories he couldn’t forget so easily. Without thinking too much - she was really only doing what she felt like, no matter how ridiculous - she winked at him, running her tongue along her top lip in an annoyingly over-the-top seductive way.

Nobody else caught that little exchange; Levi did, though. His expression darkened in the most delicious way, sending chills up Sonya’s spine.

“Let’s get them to their rooms.” Levi muttered, finally turning away and breaking the contact that Sonya had established. She pouted, and gathered her clothes in her arms, not at all embarrassed to be roaming HQ in her underwear where anybody could see her. What lovely things alcohol can do to a person!

On the walk back to their rooms, Levi stayed firmly ahead of the pack, having dismissed Alfonse to go to sleep long ago. Sonya just followed at a languid pace, hoping Levi was aware that she was fully checking him out in his sort-of out of uniform state.

He still had on his white button down, but the sleeves were rolled up, and the shirt was much more wrinkled from the affairs of the day. The harness of ODM gear was still strapped on his legs and across his chest, and Sonya’s thoughts wandered to how much she wanted to grab hold of it and -

“Uh oh.” Mabel said, and rushed to a window, pushing it open as she retched into the bushes. Hange hurried over to her, pulling her hair out of her face.

“I got this, go tuck the others into bed.” Hange assured Levi, who looked supremely disgusted at what was happening.

First it was Peter who got dropped off, then Ada, and finally Sonya. Levi stopped in front of her door, opened it, and stood back with arms folded, avoiding her gaze. With a sly grin, Sonya leaned against the frame of the door, not intimidated by him anymore.

“I don’t think I can get into bed safely, Captain.” She sighed, clutching her bundle of clothes tighter. “Would you help me?”

Levi glared at her, and bitterly grabbed her by the arm. Still, he was gentle as he brought her to her bed, helping her sit down. He even took her clothes and tossed them in the little hamper by the door. He seemed to be very eager to leave; he was uncharacteristically jittery. Sonya wanted him to stay.

She reached out, grabbing his shirt sleeve, which stopped him cold. “If you’re disgusted by me,” she slurred, “I’ll be heartbroken. But I just need to know for sure.”

Levi turned, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Sonya was a little irritated at that - what the hell did he have to be confused about?! He was the one sending mixed signals.

With a sigh, he sat down next to Sonya. “I’m not. Never have been.” He said, and didn’t flinch away when she started to run her fingers along the soft hairs of his undercut. It brought a dumb smile to her face, how he allowed her to touch him like that. Against his better judgment, Levi’s hand reached out, cupping her warm face as his thumb ghosted over her lips. She parted them just slightly in response, becoming aware all over again just how receptive she was to his touch.

Before he had the chance to do something rational, Sonya leaned forward and crashed her lips onto his in a sloppy kiss. Levi seemed to respond instinctively, pulling her closer and darting his tongue inside her mouth. Sonya bunched Levi’s shirt into her fist while his other hand roamed dangerously over the exposed skin of her torso. She leaned in to his every touch, absolutely on fire with desire. The cloud in her brain was electric now that she was being touched by Levi.

His fingers were dangerously close to her underwear, and to Sonya’s delight, they started to curl underneath the thin fabric, pulling it down ever so slightly. She sighed into his mouth, and shifted her hips so that she could make a move to straddle him. Levi sensed that, and as much as it pained him, he used both his hands to anchor her to the bed. That only spurred Sonya more, and she smiled with excitement as she pulled away, locking eyes with him. Her own lust was reflected in his gray gaze, and she leaned in to his touch as his fingers ghosted over the hickey he had branded her with days before.

He leaned forward, kissing the spot again, and ran his tongue over the bruised skin sloppily. Moving up her neck, he kissed and sucked, while Sonya’s hand tangled in his hair. She had to bite her lip to keep from making any noise, but she couldn’t help whispering out a request.

“Bite me,” She breathed, and felt Levi tense under her. Oh, shit; did she freak him out? Just as she was about to pull away in shame, Levi only leaned into her more, and grazed his teeth over the pulse on her neck, gently at first. He bit down, then lavished the spot with his tongue, causing Sonya to arch into him, tugging his hair harder. Each movement was made with trepidation, with a knowledge that at any moment, they could be caught.

But as soon as it started, Levi ended it. He darted up from the bed, and Sonya even made an irritated noise of displeasure. He looked back at her, lips wet and eyes dark with the same desire she had, but in a moment, she understood why he had stopped.

Hange could be heard coming down the hall, and in an instant, she was in the room, aiding Mabel in getting in to bed.

“Whew! That poor girl is gonna be feeling this tomorrow.” Hange said, stepping back and wiping her brow as Mabel wrapped herself pitifully in her bed sheets. She fell asleep almost instantly, but Sonya’s heart was still racing, and her core was throbbing and on fire - she wanted to shove Hange and Mabel out of the room so that she could have Levi all to herself without any interruptions.

“We’ll see you two in the morning. Don’t worry, you’ll be reprimanded fairly!” Hange waved as she exited their room with Levi. “Goodnight!”

Before he closed the door, Levi glanced at Sonya. It looked like he was about to crawl onto the bed with her, privacy be damned; Sonya almost hoped he would.

Instead, he looked down, and quietly shut the door behind him. Sonya flopped onto her back in irritation, but in a few delirious breaths, she was asleep.

#levi fanfiction #levi ackerman fanfiction #levi #levi ackerman #levi snk #levi aot #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #levi x oc #levi x original character #shingeki no kyoujin fanfiction #attack on titan fanfiction

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snowdice · 4 years

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 20]

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

I have nothing really due this week, but a lot of big looming deadlines. Not sure how long I’ll be working today, but I want to do some planning and get some stuff done. :D

Chapter 5

Janus stepped back into the reception area and booted up his time piece. Instinct said to go back to the office despite the fact that it was late enough that most people had gone home, but he hesitated. Surely Emile had given up by now, but considering he’d sent someone to ambush him in his office, Janus wasn’t sure if he should trust that. He could just go home, but he already knew his mind was racing too much to sleep tonight so he’d probably just end up staring at the lake for the next 6 hours. So, he decided on the only other legitimate option he had. He pulled up Remus’s home coordinates and selected.

Unlike most time agents who simply used the identities assigned to them by the AMO as a cover, Remus actually lived his part time.

Janus was… fairly certain he was cheating a bit to get everything done, but he maintained his small farm all on his own, growing most of his own food. The neighbors he had lived very far away, but he still spoke with them far more than Janus did his own.

Janus appeared inside the small home, his eyes already shut. “Are you hear and dressed?” Janus called. Something bumped lightly into his legs.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Janus peaked his eyes open and squatted to pet the cat at his feet. “That doesn’t answer my question!” he called back to Remus.

“It’s a surprise!” Remus said.

“What’re you doing here?” Remus asked.

“My day has been an endless series of frustrations,” Janus said. “So, I have come to see the only tolerable being in the history of the universe.”

Remus snorted. “Since I know that isn’t me, I’ll assume you’re talking about the cat.”

“I still don’t understand why you tolerate this creature,” Janus addressed Diesel Fuel. She blinked slowly up at him. “To be fair, he was assigned as my partner. I didn’t have much of a choice in it. You could go always run away and become feral in the woods if you’d like.”

“So could you, technically,” Remus pointed out.

“I’m thinking about it after today.”

“Would you like some bread?” Remus asked. “That’s all I’ve been making this afternoon. Some fresh should be coming out of the oven in a few minutes.”

“Do you have anything stronger made out of wheat?”

“Ew, no, but I do have vodka.”

“Vodka works.”

“Want me to mix it with something?”

“No.”

He was going to just flop down on the couch.

He did just that as Remus disappeared back into his kitchen. The cat hopped onto his stomach, proceeding to purr loudly and kneed at chest. Janus petted the cat and listened to the noise of Remus moving around in the other room, letting his mind drift. His mind drifted to Virgil for a bit and he steadfastly did not allow it to drift to his brother. Yet, the thing that most was on his mind was the strange man who had flirted and charmed Janus all night before mercilessly screwing him over. ‘Pat’ he’d said his name was, but surely that was not his real name.

He continued to pet Diesel Fuel. Eventually, Remus came back in, noticed Janus hadn’t bothered to get the alcohol and went outside to the cellar. “I’m going to find him,” Janus told Diesel Fuel. “I’ll stop whatever it is he’s doing, and I’ll bring him in.” Diesel Fuel mewed her support, and Janus patted her on top of the head.

Janus groaned, trying to wash out the bitter taste of shame and grief with the sharp sting of vodka. It didn’t work. “No,” he said to Remus.

“Then why have you been avoiding him?”

“Shit, I’m here because I didn’t want to think about it. Can’t we just not.”

“Don’t want to think about what?

“It’s none of your business, Remus.”

He could feel Remus frowning at him, but Janus stared resolutely ahead. At least, he did until a foot poked his face. He slapped it away, but it did the job of getting Janus to look at Remus.

“It is my business,” Remus said, foot still in the air. “I’m your partner and your friend.”

“If I’m your friend, you’ll drop it.”

“I can’t,” Janus said.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably been long enough that he forgives you. You literally just have to have a conversation, say you’re sorry, and everything will be A-OK.”

“I can’t,” Janus repeated.

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about it.”

Remus paused. “So, as far as he knows, you just cut contact with him all of a sudden for no reason and have been avoiding him ever since?”

Janus looked at his shoes. “Yeah.”

“That…” Remus said, “is not fucking fair Janus.”

“I know.”

“Then why the hell are you doing that to him? He’s like… soft and feeling-y. He’s probably really upset.”

“I know, Remus.”

“Tell him. Whatever it is.”

“I can’t.”

Chapter 6

She looked up at him, clearly unconcerned. “There was an incident,” she said. “You handled it well, but there was one. Therefore, yellow.”

“It wasn’t a time travel incident! It was a rouge time traveler.”

“Janus, you helped me make these rules,” she said impatiently.

“Which is why I know this is bullshit,” he snapped.

“He was good,” Janus said. “You can’t fault me for that. He also could be dangerous and you’re busy handing out yellows instead of working to track him down.”

“We have no idea who he is or what he’s planning to do. Why is that not a high priority thing?”

“At the moment?” she asked. “Because we have reports of a time bomb being activated.”

“What?” Janus asked sitting up. “When?”

“New Years Eve going into the year 3,000 in Brazil,” she said. “Which you’d know about if you’d bothered to check your integration port this morning before storming into my office.”

“It’s my mission?” Janus asked.

“Who all is going?” he asked.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. He turned back at the door. “I still don’t deserve the yellow,” he hissed.

She waved him off. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Picani.”

He took the advice and grabbed Remus from the office, noting Lena hadn’t been able to wrangle Fred yet as she was still at her desk, and they both headed off to see Rhi.

In fact, costuming had frowned when Janus had insisted he not get his hair dyed and instead wore a bowler hat. They had required him to have flowers made out of glitter on it.

Janus and Remus stepped into the chaos of New Years Eve before the turn of the third millennia. The streets were already swamped with people and it would only be getting worse the later it go.

“Where should we start?” Remus asked.

“Let’s go all the way North to the games area,” Janus said. “We can work our way back here.”

Janus gave him a disgusted look.

“What?! People eat fish all the time!”

Janus shook his head. “We’re not playing the games anyway. We have work to do. Important work.”

“Boo,” Remus replied. Janus chose to ignore him as he spotted one of the Millenia Birds letting people into the gaming area.

“Uh…” Remus said. “Jan.” When Janus looked, he was holding up his wrist to show his green lit time piece.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

“Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

“Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Patton said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“Oh,” Patton said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

“Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

“He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

“Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

“Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

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Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

“Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

“There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

“You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

“Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

“You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

“Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

“You exist. In my space.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

“Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

Chapter 10

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

“I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

“Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

“Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

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“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

“What happened?” Janus asked.

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

“I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“What are you talking about?”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Patton smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

“It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

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Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

#not writing #study break stories

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