#and i think… tragedy is about what the deceased believe in their heart when they end | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

grippingbeskar · 2 years

Text

a welcomed distraction

obi-wan kenobi x fem!reader

word count: 9.8k (i have no idea how)

warnings: ADULT CONTENT MINORS DNI (oral f receiving, mxf intercourse, general sexual content) mentions of death, reader has deceased family so mentions of dead parents/siblings only briefly

a/n: sorry this is fucking LONG i dont even know why because there is hardly a plot but i tried. sorry but reader calls him master kenobi so thats hot? it’s fluff throughout tho bc CMONNNN ITS KENOBI HES SWEET AS. can’t believe the show is ending tomorrow i am so sad. manifest another season! okay bye!!

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“You came all this way for me?” You smile at your former classmate turned Jedi council member, and he is just as gorgeous as you remember him. “I’m honoured.”

“You haven’t changed a bit.” Obi-Wan Kenobi bows slightly, his eyes never leaving yours. It was protocol, now that you had taken your rightful place on the throne of your home planet, but with the history you shared with the man in front of you, you quickly brushed off the gesture and came towards him. Pulling him into you, your arms wrapped around his significantly large frame. The last time you saw him, he was a scrawny padawan training under Qui-Gon, and had that ridiculous braid down his face, but seeing him now, you hadn’t realised how much you actually liked it.

“You certainly have. You changed your hair.” You pull away from him and he smiles at you, attempting to hide the slight redness that flushes across his face.

“Yes, well the council had that effect on me.” You link your arm through his as you lead him through the palace, your dress gliding smoothly across the marbled tile. “This palace is incredible. I take you finally redecorated?”

“You should of seen it when I started. Total shit show.” Obi-Wan’s laugh fills the room, and you try to slow the racing of your heart at the fact that he remembers so much about you, even if it was years ago.

You grew up in the Jedi academy together, your parents wanting you to hone your skills, and having no clue where else to send you as no one else in your family was Force-sensitive. You and Obi-Wan were fast friends, and it was with him that you spent most of your formative years. In fact, when you think of your time there, there is very little memory that isn’t filled with laughs and smiles caused by the Jedi knight. You used to talk about everything together, your future, and most relevantly how you would tear down the castle your parents built and start it fresh if you were ever given the chance to lead your home planet.

That seemed like a lifetime ago, and you never would have thought those ideas would be realised. You had two older sibling in line for the throne, so you thought your life would be similar to Obi-Wan’s now, him dreaming of sitting on the very council chair he now holds, you wanting to one day have your own padawan, and train them how your Master trained you. When your families home was attacked, however, you were the only surviving member of the royal household, and you were immediately thrust into the political turmoil of ruling a planet, and forced to leave your Jedi days behind you.

You remember where you were when you found out that your family had passed, and that you would be crowned Queen in the coming week, tasked with the impossible of bringing your planet together in the face of tragedy. Obi-Wan held you while you sobbed, tucked away in the furthest parts of his quarters in the temple while he whispered soothing promises that he would never be able to keep. You believed them anyways, but you were just children. Neither of you could hold the other to those things - not now.

It was enough for you, though, to have him here now. To remember what he meant to you, how you spent your years together, and that even if you could only have him in flashes, it was still the most real thing you ever felt.

“I never doubted you would succeed. You know I read every entry that came in about you in the Archives?”

“Really?” You knew Obi-Wan could feel your Force energy as it spun wildly throughout the room. You were out of practise and he was a council member, but he did an incredible job of hiding his reaction. Or ignored it.

“Of course. Even now, when I know you don’t need me checking up on you, I still feel like I am with you, like when we were young.” You both walked through the archway and the doors softly shut behind you. You had led him through to your private chambers to discuss whatever it was he had come here to talk about. In truth, as soon as you had heard it was him coming, everything else flew out the window, so you were completely clueless as to the official business.

“I’m the same. Did you get my holo-message? When you made the council?” Obi-Wan smiled warmly, and you knew the answer before he spoke.

“Yes - I was meaning to reply, everything has just been-”

“Crazy? I get it, don’t worry.” He just nods, and you hear him exhale. It had always been like this, both of you easily slipping back into the familiarity of each other, so when he didn’t respond to your message over a month ago, you knew it was just because he hasn’t had the chance to take a breath.

“I never thought it would be like this. The council always seemed so put together - I have no idea how they hid it so well.”

“It was the same when I came back home. My parents hid the stress so well, I thought it would be a breeze.” You still hadn’t unlinked arms as you both took a seat on the couch, only sliding away slightly so you could rest your back on the arm rest. You were surprised Obi-Wan didn’t pull away, he was always so shy when it came to physical affection. Maybe the years that had passed between you both had mellowed him. Either way, you were grateful for the small contact.

“Well, you have been handling things incredibly since you ascended. Thats actually why I am here.”

“Oh, right. Offical council business. I am all ears, Master Kenobi.” He laughs again, and his smile is still a little bit crooked when he laughs. You remember it being so when you were young. You remembered everything about his face.

“Yes. I am very offical now.” You laugh with him, and he seems to lose focus for a second as your laughter dies down, waiting for him to speak. “Right. The council wants you to come to Coruscant, for the national senate.”

“In person? Like, to sit in?” He nods encouragingly, but it doesn't seem to calm your sudden nerves.

“I know how it sounds - and don’t worry, I already told them about your preference to not speak to crowds.” You still feel a little sick, but that is replaced with warmth in your stomach when Obi-Wan’s hand rests on your lower thigh and squeezes lightly. “It would just be to the council and a few of the national board members. They are impressed with your diplomatic discrepancy, and want to see if it has potential to be implemented into the senate debates.”

“I feel sick even thinking about speaking in front of the council. Do you remember that time we broke the amulet - the one Dooku leant Qui-Gon? We had to explain it to Master Yoda, and I swear if you hadn’t spoken for me I would have passed out.”

“But I am the council now! It would just be me, and a few other people. I’d be there the whole time. They are truely impressed with you, they just want to hear more of what you have to say.” You tried to swallow the lump in your throat. You knew it was ridiculous - a Queen, leading a planet full of people, terrified to speak in front of a crowd. It had been something you had always struggled with, and even still today you avoided it as much as possible.

“I am flattered - truly! You know the councils opinion of me means the world, but I-”

“I know you can do this. Look around you! Look at what you have created. This planet was at a breaking point when you took leadership, in the face of tragedy. Your own tragedy, in fact, but now it is thriving! Your economy has been stable for its longest period yet, exports and imports have nearly tripled in your short reign, and even major crimes have diminished. Your people are happy, your planet is safe - your leadership skills could help millions more.” He spoke with such passion and truth, you almost forgot he was talking about you.

“You really have been keeping tabs on me.” You breath and he shrugs, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Like I said the night you left - I will always be your biggest supporter. Even light years away, I would be there for you.”

“I missed you, Obi.” His hand was still resting on your lower thigh, and your skin had become inexplicably hot under his touch.

“I missed you too. More than you know.” The room felt smaller than before, and it was then that you could feel him in the room. He was in front of you, but he was also all around you, like he was surrounding you in everything that was here. You hadn’t used the Force in a long time, and you almost forgot how overwhelming it was when you leaned into it, but you couldn't help it when it came to Obi-Wan. You would do just about anything he asked - which is why you were already feeling nervous about this speech you would be inevitably making.

“When is this hypothetical senate meeting, anyway?” Obi-Wan beamed at you, relishing in your defeated sigh.

“The next national senate is in three weeks, so just before that. You’ll do great, I know you will.” You don’t know how you pulled yourself away from him, probably the simmering nerves threatening to spill over, but you got up off the couch and walked over to the table where you left out your favourite wine, and poured two glasses.

“I suppose it would be bad taste to let my old friend fail one of his first solo missions as a council member.” He laughed as he reached the table, taking the glass, and his fingertips brushed your own as he did so. Everything he did shot sparks up your spine, but the way he was touching you without hesitation was so unlike the timid Kenobi you remembered. It was the only thing that had changed about him - well that and the hair.

“I appreciate the sentiment.” He took a sip of the wine, and coughed as he drank down the liquid. “You still have a taste for strong liquor, I take it?”

“What’s the point of drinking if it’s weak?” He shook his head, but took another sip. “Enough business talk. Tell me what you’ve been up to, apart from keeping tabs on me, apparently.”

“Oh, that is about all I do. My council meetings do tend to revolve around you, as does the rest of the world. That is how you used to see it, am I correct?” You nearly spit out your drink. Sarcastic Kenobi was one of your favourites.

“At least being on the council didn’t squash out your sense of humour. I was worried you would turn into one of them.”

“One of them? Did you expect me to turn into a little green man?” Now you do spit out your drink when you burst out laughing, and he joins you.

“You know what I mean! We always used to talk about how serious they were. You were a lot more of a rule follower back then, though. They thought I was the bad influence.”

“You were! That amulet was your fault, I stand by that.” You start shaking your head and finish the glass in your hand, the wine going straight to your head.

“Bullshit it was! You wanted to look at it!”

“Only because you told me it was cool! I was trying to impress you.” The confession seems to even catch him by surprise a little, but he recovers quickly by finishing his own glass.

“Well, I couldn’t have been half bad. I did graduate top of my class, didn’t I?” He rolls his eyes, a smirk forming on his gorgeous face. Oh Maker - you really did have a taste for strong wine.

“You will never let that go, will you?”

“Nope! I still remember how angry you were when I beat you.”

“Yes, because I spent all my time quizzing you when I should have been studying.” He grumbles a little, clearly still holding a grudge. Your cheeks go pink at the memory, because you think of what actually happened that night before the final exam, which was what set you apart when you graduated.

“I don’t seem to remember a whole lot of work getting done.” You can’t look at him when you say it. Maybe he forgot - it was years ago now. You certainly never forgot, but the way he brought up that night so casually made you think he hadn’t dwelled on it like you had.

“I - no, I suppose not.” So, he does remember. You don’t know what senario would have been more daunting. “You were always smarter than me anyways.”

“True.” He laughs and you beam back at him. “But you were always stronger. And more focused. I tended to get a little... distracted.” Now you were really testing his memory.

Obi-Wan shifts on his feet, and for a second you think you might have made him uncomfortable with the memory.

That night meant a lot to you - and it had been something you had always thought about. Even throughout all the years apart, that night before the final test, both of you huddled on Obi-Wan’s bed sharing the same textbook, you had never forgotten how it made you feel.

You were so nervous - you remember it because its how you feel now, with Obi-Wan slowly making his way around the table to come towards you. It wasn’t just the big test, though. You had feelings for him, of course you did, you still do. He was your best friend, pretty much your only friend, and he was the kindest, most loyal person you had ever met. You swallowed those feelings, however, because you were both going to be Jedi’s.

If only you had known.

You remember how close you were, because Obi-Wan is almost that close now. You could hear him breathing in the same, uneven pattern you hear now, although now it is significantly lower. You were both holding the textbook on the bed, reading opposite pages and making up little quizzes and questions to test each others knowledge...

* * * flashback * * *

“I am going to fail. I know it - with the Force in me I know it. I can see it now. My first premonition: a giant F on my stupid paper.”

“Don’t be dramatic. If anything, I’m going to fail. I know nothing about the history of Coruscant. Nothing!” He groans and shuts the book, shoving it off the bed, his hands coming up to cover his face.

“Now who’s being dramatic.” You dropped your head on his shoulder, and he froze up. You knew any kind of physical touch would distract him enough to make him forget about the test, at least for a moment. He would pass with flying colours, you knew he would. He’s the smartest person you know.

“I -I never can just - this is everything to me. And to you, of course. I just -” You lift your head from his shoulder and take his hands in your own. You see him physically tense up when you interlock your fingers in his.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi. You will pass this test. You will be the best Jedi there ever was, and you will be completely and totally fine. I promise.” You let your gaze drop to your hands, laying on your lap as you had turned to face him. His knuckles were nearly white with how tight he was holding your hand, and you were grateful you were looking down because you were blushing furiously.

“I would never have made it this far without you, you know.” You let out a breath - he would have succeeded in any senario. “I mean it. All these years, you helped me so much. I don’t know how to thank you.”

You look up and find his eyes, wide and vulnerable.

“You don’t have to thank me. You did the same for me. You know that. What are friends for?” His eyebrows raise and his mouth opens just slightly, before he regains composure and lets go of your hand.

“What are friends for.” He repeats and nods, like he’s trying to remember the sentence.

“Obi? Are you okay?” He just nods again. You can feel the shift in his energy, and you know that he is lying. “Hey, you are going to crush this test, okay?”

“Yeah.” He breathes and goes to pick up the book. You reach out a tentative hand and stop him, fingertips brushing the bare skin of his wrist. He freezes.

“Maybe we should stop reading for a bit. Meditate or something, distract ourselves.” Your hand stays on his wrist as he turns towards you. Both of you sit cross legged on the bed opposite each other, knees touching, You keep your hand on his wrist and he keeps his arm outstretched so you can touch him, letting it come to rest on your ankle.

“Distract ourselves.” He says, and his voice cracks.

“Yeah. I’m sure we can think of something to do other than study. I can count on one hand how many times we have actually gotten work done, anyways.” You catch his smile in the corner of your eye, and your hand is still on his.

“Maybe that’s why I know I’m going to fail.” He says defeatedly, and you shake your head, bringing one of your hands to the side of his face. His eyes go wide, and you snake your finger underneath the braid that hangs on his cheekbone.

“You are not going to fail.” He sucks in a breath.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know you. You know me, am I going to fail?” The question surprises him, and he creases his eyebrow, seemingly relaxing under your touch. Finally.

“Of course not. You could pass in your sleep.” You smile and he mirrors it. You feel the evidence under your palm.

“See? We are practically Jedi already.” You don’t know why, or what about this interaction makes you bold, but you lean in just slightly. His breath brushes against your cheek.

“I’m - I am-” He lets out a shakey breath, and you nod your head. His hands comes up to your face, holding you close.

“I know. Just - we need a distraction, right? To focus.” He nods, convincing himself and you.

“Right. To focus. Then we can be Jedi’s. After we...” You were pretty sure you weren’t moving, or breathing, or doing anything but blinking at him. You feel him all over the room, his energy a live wire wrapping around your chest. Everything about his Force was new and exciting, it was skipping around in spite of how still both of you were. You are sure yours was the same - speeding around him at the same rate that your heart was beating out of your chest.

“Obi-Wan, I-” Your eyes were still open when he pressed his lips to your own, but as soon as you realised what was happening you squeezed them shut and kissed him back.

He was warm. You don’t think you were cold, but Maker he was so warm. Your free hand pulled him closer by his robes and he eagerly leaned into you, lips moving faster and more urgently the more time passed.

You were both completely inexperienced, and you don’t know how technically good you were, but it felt so good being this close to him. Being close to him in a way that you had longed for all this time, a way you never thought was possible. You could feel the heat swirling low in your stomach, and Obi-Wans hands dropped from your face and fell to your hips as if sensing what you needed. He moved backwards on the bed, leaning against the wall and pulled you towards him, urging you to follow. You shuffled forwards not letting your lips leave his, afraid that if you stopped for even a second one of you would realise how very wrong this was, and would come to your senses.

Maker, you had never wanted to be wrong so much in your whole damn life. You moved up and straddled him, his hands tight against your hips holding you to him. Your back arched as one travelled up your spine, pressing your chests together. You were both breathing hard; catching tiny breaths between kisses. When you let out the smallest of sounds, something between a whimper and a whine, Obi-Wan’s mouth opened on pure instinct.

When his tongue slid into your mouth you returned the gesture with a grateful moan, both of you letting your hands glide where ever you felt. One of your own found his hair and you tugged on it. Something about his hair always made you want to feel it under your fingertips; when he would come late to training and it would still be all messed up from sleep, or when he got caught in the rain that one time, and showed up at your room with his braid all out of place, asking you to fix it for him. You had always wanted to feel it in your fingertips as you kissed him, and he leaned into it, returning your desperate noises with his own. Hands found skin under your shirt and you let him touch you wherever he pleased, silently begging for him everywhere.

Your hips moved against him, and neither of you were prepared for how good it would feel to have each other so close. For the first time since he grabbed you your lips disconnected, only to say the others name in bliss before finding him again. You pulled his bottom lip between your teeth and he moaned, eyes fluttering open to find yours, pupils blown out in lust.

“Sweetheart.” Obi-Wan says, and you feel your entire body shudder. His hand grips the back of your neck and pulls you impossibly closer. You were trying to keep your head on straight but when his tongue slips into your mouth again, you melt into his lap and take whatever he gives you.

Both of your hips were rolling out of sync, Obi-Wan shifting uncomfortably in his spot to get any kind of relief. You could feel how hard he was underneath you, and you wanted him to lay down - to move so you could feel it more.

If either of you did move, though, this would become more. Something you couldn’t excuse. The thought hit both of you at the same time, because you pull away and Obi-Wan leans his head back on the wall, tucking your head into the crook of his neck. You were both desperate for air, but more than that you were trying to calm yourselves down.

“We-” You started and he groaned.

“I know. Shit.” His hand ran down the back of your head, smoothing out your hair.

“Shit is right.” He lets out a breathless laugh, not letting go of your hip.

You don’t remember how long you stayed there, tucked away in his lap, but time clearly passed in a second as you woke up alone, in your own bed, and only just made the final exam with five minutes to spare.

Obi-Wan came down three minutes after you, and you both passed with flying colours, you beating Obi-Wan by one point, a multiple choice question about the history of Coruscant.

* * * flashback ends * * *

Obi-Wan moves around the table and now stands in front of you. You don’t know if he picked up on your little clue, or how much of your energy he can read clearly. Everything seems fuzzy to you now that he had reached you, and the wine was making your brain short circuit.

“You always had an affinity for distracting me.” You breathed a laugh as best you could. “I nearly missed the final exam that day, you know.”

“So did I! I don’t even know how I ended up in my room that night.” He tilts his head.

“You fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake you, so I carried you back.”

“You never told me that.” He just shrugs, like he didn’t risk everything, being kicked out of the academy for a simple gesture. If anyone had caught him, it would have been almost impossible to lie their way out of that. “You could have been caught. You should have woken me up.”

“You looked... peaceful.” He closes is eyes for a second, remembering. A period of silence passes, neither of you wanting to disrupt the fragile glass of a moment.

“Such a gentleman.” He laughs and takes the empty glass from your hand and places it on the table. He takes a step toward you.

“I should have come and found you sooner. After your families funeral and your coronation, they stationed me off-world, but I should of-”

“Stop, Obi. Of course you were busy, being a Jedi knight and all that. It’s what you dreamt of - what we dreamt of. For years.”

“I know, but I should of-”

“You know I was also running a planet. Kind of a full time gig.” You both laugh and he relaxes, shoulders slumping forward slightly.

“Yes, so I’ve heard.” You roll your eyes, and he smiles. “But I never stopped thinking about you. About that night.”

“I-” He steps forward and you nearly step back, completely surprised by his boldness. “Are you drunk, Obi-Wan?”

“No!” He scoffs and stays where he is, almost looking offended. “Well, maybe a little.”

You giggle in response as you stare up at him. He was taller than you now, and where before he stood at your height, now his breath only just brushes your forehead, towering over in front of you.

“I never stopped thinking about it either.” He stops smiling, eyes widening a bit. It is so like that first time on his bed, and it sends a wave of heat through you to remember him like that.

“You never brought it up again. I thought I had crossed a line.” He whispers, and you would miss the words if you weren’t staring at his mouth.

“No, God, everything was just so crazy after that day. It was only a few days after we graduated that..” Obi-Wan was nodding, knowing you were speaking of when you found out your family passed.

“Of course. It was-”

“A lot.” Obi-Wan breaths a laugh at your casual response.

“That is one way of putting it.” He concludes. You think back to when you found out your family had died. They were never particularly loving, and most of your childhood had been spent with the man in front of you, so trying to mourn them while also never really knowing them was all too consuming.

You were more distraught about the future you wouldn’t have - you had never planned to be a queen. You wanted to be a Jedi, to fight, or teach, just do something good in this world, and to do so with Obi-Wan by your side. It was like your life was pulled out from under you, and you only had about a day to process it before you were whisked back to your home planet to lead.

“You really lived the dream, though. Best Jedi in the galaxy, so I hear.” He drops your gaze, but stays close enough you can hear him smiling.

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“I always had imagined what it would have been like, if all this-” you look around at the highly decorated private quarters. Blue and gold streams through the tinted windows, lighting up the marbled floor. “-hadn’t happened.”

“I have no doubt I would still be second best.”

“Such a charmer, Master Kenobi. What happened to that shy little kid who used to hide whenever it was time to practise hand-to-hand?” He looks up at you, eyes ablaze with a look you can’t quite pick.

“I have changed, like you said.” Your breath caught in your throat as his tone lowered. You almost forgot how close your faces were. “I had thought about it too. What it would have been like if you had stayed.”

“Really?” He nods, holding your eyes. “So in your wildest dreams, you are only second best?”

“Maker, you are impossible.” He smiles through the sentence.

“I really did miss you, though. For a long time I thought about running away, coming to find you and Jedi-ing it up across the galaxy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, all the time. Of course now, I am grateful for what I have, but I think we would have been awesome. Maybe a little reckless, though.”

“You? Surely not.” His eyebrows raise and you push him lightly on the shoulder. “I don’t think we would have made the council, though, like we used to talk about.”

“No?” He shakes his head.

“I think we may have gotten a little too... distracted.” Your eyes widen, and you have to blink a couple times. Is he... “If you had stayed.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You couldn’t.” He’s right. You would have stayed, if you had been given a choice. Stayed with him.

“Right.” You suck in a deep breath and try to blink away the fuzzy feeling in your head. You felt like you were spinning, and then everything went blank as Obi-Wan reached out and interlocked your hands.

His palms were rougher than you remembered, battle hardened you were sure. His hands were bigger, too, matching his larger frame. He still held you just as tight, knuckles going white as he pulled you toward him. He made no move to kiss you, but instead held you there, mere inches from pressing your bodies together.

“I almost forgot why I came here today. The flight over I had to re-read the message from the council.” You said nothing, just gripped his hand back with the same silent desperation. “Not once have I been unprepared for a mission, or gotten on a ship without knowing exactly what I plan to do. As soon as I saw it was your name, I just got on the ship and came to you.”

“I had no idea why you were here. I just told them that if you ever came, to let you in. No questions.” It was the reason he was able to come to your families funeral, and the coronation days after. It was pretty much the first change you made as Queen - the heightened security after the attack made it impossible for anyone to see you, but you couldn’t run the risk of him being turned away.

“See what I mean? Distracting...” His eyes drift down to your interlocked hands.

“Hmm. How am I supposed to get through this speech, then?” His eyes drift slowly up your body, roaming freely. You felt too hot - his gaze was burning into your flesh through your dress.

“You could always practise.” He finally pulls his eyes off the tiny straps of your dress, and looks at you.

“With you?”

“I am the council, after all.” His hand lets go of yours, only for his fingertips to drag upwards slowly, skimming the soft skin of the inside of your palm, up to your wrist.

“I- I don’t even know what I would say.” His hand stilled.

“I’ve never known you to be speechless. Try it now.” You huff a frustrated breath.

“Kenobi. This - what are we doing?” His fingertips are still touching your wrist when he pulls his eyes back to yours. You see them flick across your face, searching for some kind of sign of resentment or hostility. He would find none.

“You only call me that when your upset with me. Do you want me to stop?” You drop your head back and look up to the roof. Your eyes focus on the sparkling chandelier, twinkling your broken reflection back at you.

“I’m not upset. This just- it’s just not fair. I know that we can’t - better than anyone I know that we can’t. Well, you can’t.”

“We aren’t. I would never do anything to betray your trust.”

“Obi, that’s not what I meant.” You soften your tone. “I can’t handle having only half of you. You - my whole world has revolved around you for what feels like centuries. I could hardly stand watching you from a distance, because I know that- that what I want is not possible.” Your breath was shaking. You never imagined when he walked through the doors to the palace you would be laying yourself out like this - or maybe you knew yourself better than you thought. You did leave out your strongest wine.

“You can have as much of me as you would like.” He says lowly. It makes you realise that you aren’t kids anymore, and that maybe he doesn’t follow all the rules like he used to. Your heart jumps in your throat.

“You are on the Jedi council, Obi-Wan.”

“I know. I know.” He says, swallowing hard. “This isn’t something I take lightly. I know what it would mean. I would never have come if I didn’t.”

“You could lose everything you worked for.”

“I could.” And then Obi-Wan shrugs. At the idea of losing everything he cared about, he just shrugs. “I have met… people. New people, who have shown me that these kinds of things - there can be something like that in my life. If I choose it. After I made a decision, I took the first ship I could find and came to you.”

“I-“

“It helps if you don’t think about it too hard. I learnt many lessons from you, but not thinking is one that took me the longest.” He smiles, and your head hovers just in front of his chin.

Both of his hands rest on your hips and you step into him, his scent filling your senses. Vanilla.

“Do you remember that night, when we were sneaking around after training? We wanted to get those textbooks from the restricted section, and you were too scared to sneak past the Archivist?”

“Hey! I was- To be fair she was highly intimidating.”

“She was like a thousand years old.”

“With a very big cane!” You laughed and Obi-Wans hands held you tighter on your hips. “What about it?”

“This feels like that. We spent weeks trying to hide those books in our rooms, do you remember when Master Yoda came to speak to us, and-”

“Oh Maker, please do not bring that up right now. I am still embarrassed.” You laugh against him, and let your head fall into the crook of his neck. You take a second to breath him in. You don’t know how many times you have imagined this moment, where he finally comes to you.

“This was so much easier when we were kids.” You mumble into his robes, and one of his hands comes up to the back of your head, smoothing your hair down.

“I think it’s easier now.” Your eyebrows screw together, and he must feel it because he laughs. How could it be easier now? At least when you were kids you didn’t have any real responsibilities. Now, you had an entire planet on your shoulders, and he... “At least the council don’t have a cane.”

“And you said I was impossible!” His hands come up to your face.

“Come here.” He whispers, coaxing you closer. You leaned into him with little effort, and let your eyes flutter shut in anticipation. “You don’t know how many times I have dreamed of you.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea.” Your eyes were still closed, and you had no idea how close he was. His lips brushed against your nose as he lowered his head towards you, and you found yourself pushing up on your toes to hurry him.

“You think so?” You nod, feeling his lips against your cheek and his hot breath on the shell of your ear. “You are sure this is what you want? We can wait.”

“I have waited long enough.” Your eyes open and he smiles down at you, and finally, after years between, his lips finally reconnect with your own.

He moves slowly, teasing as he holds you in place with strong hands. You push up higher on your toes but he refuses to give you an inch of room, taking control and spinning you to the left so that your lower back is pressed up against the edge of the table.

He kisses you harder when he feels your hands in his hair, pulling and tugging in a desperate attempt to keep him here. A surprised sound is lost in his mouth when his hands drop to the back of your thighs, lifting you in the air before gently placing you on top of the table. You hear the breaking of glass next to you, and both of your heads slowly turn to the floor, where your broken wine glass lays shattered at his feet. He keeps kissing you as you look down, but his urgency makes you completely forget about the mess.

You wrap your legs around his back and force his body against yours, earning a groan from the back of his throat. His hands come down on your knees and slowly massage their way higher, bringing up the soft silk of your dress with their movement.

As he exposes more of your skin, his lips fall from your own and attach to your neck. You let out a moan at his teeth biting softly at the sensitive skin, and you feel him smile against you and then do it again.

“You’ve be- shit- been practising.” You tug at his hair again and he hums against your skin, the vibrations making your hips buck slightly.

“Only in my dreams.” The confession sends your mind blank, and you pull his hair back, attaching your lips back to his own. One of his hands holds your neck, the other coming to your lower back, letting you move your hips as much as you want. You can feel his hard length against your exposed core, the faint excuse for underwear under this dress hiding none of your arousal. You know he can feel it too, because he stutters out a few strangled moans every time you roll against him.

“Feels - good. Oh, shit it feels so good. I need you to-” You babble out as your legs lock tighter around him, and he pulls away. You pout, feeling like a child and reach out to grab his robes and pull him back to you.

“So impatient.” He smiles and kisses you again in a long, slow motion, enough to satiate you both so he can get a sentence out.

“And you are so good at being with-holding right now?” You try to focus on what he’s saying, but you can’t tear your eyes away from his lips, and how much you want them back. Want them in other places, too.

“You are right. If this dress wasn’t so pretty, I may have torn it off.” He tugs at the fabric of your dress, pulling it a little higher. The look in his eyes is purely hunger, and it makes your words get lost in your throat.

“I have a thousand dresses, you can-”

“Ah, but this one might be my favourite.” You shake your head and he presses a sweet kiss to your forehead. “Sit still for me.”

He drops to his knees in front of you, and the first thing you think of is how much you wish you could capture this moment forever. The way he looks, hair all over the place, robes pulled out in all directions; it is so unlike how put together you have seen him. Especially in any of the council addresses you have watched, which is all of them. He is always so proper and formal, but it took about twenty seconds with you to unravel all that composure, and it has you squeezing your legs together, searching for relief.

His hands run up along the exposed skin of your legs, fingertips just brushing the hem of your panties before coming back down to your knees. He was tall enough so that you could still see his face clearly if you leaned back, but you didn’t want to miss a damn second of the sight in front of you.

“You are still the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen.”

“Obi, please don’t tease me.” He looks up at you and presses a kiss to the top of your knee before urging your legs open with his hands, gently spreading you open.

“Are you going to pout every time you don’t get your way?” He presses sweet kisses up the inside of your thighs, taking his time to touch every sliver of skin available. “Always. So. Impatient.”

He hums each time he finds an unexplored stretch of skin, and occasionally gives into the temptation to softly bite and suck, leaving a row of marks no one but him will see.

“You’re an ass.” Your hands thread in his hair and he hums against your skin. Pushing your dress up higher over your hips, he slides you forward, edging you closer to the end of the table.

“You are so beautiful.” His hot words making you shiver, and you see the half lidded look in his eyes shoots awake when he sees your underwear. Thin, black lace hiding nothing from his intense gaze. It makes you, for just a second, want to hide from him, but then you remember who it is, and you let him take his time. His fingers tentatively hook over the thin fabric, and he seems to just stare for a second, enjoying the sight of his hands against your skin. “So beautiful.”

He drags the underwear down painfully slow, and you wriggle on the table to get him to move faster, but he doesn’t. He is meticulous, and you can see his eyes flicking to each of your legs, wanting to watch like he was unwrapping a present.

“Is this how you usually start offical council meetings, then?” He looks up at you, a half grin on his face and kisses your upper thigh. You can see a few of the marks he has left from this angle, and it makes your heart skip.

“Yes. The council is very close.” You start laughing, hands holding him tighter to stay upright.

“Going to be a busy few weeks for me then.” He bites a little harder on your thigh, and you let out a squeak. “Sorry, Master Kenobi.”

“Maker, it sounds so good when you say it.” He is so close to your centre you can feel your legs start to shake in anticipation. Your hands begin to gently tug and massage the roots you have tangled your fingers in, and he groans.

“You like it when I call you that?” He nods, leaning his face against the soft skin of your inner thigh. “I’ll call you that all day if you-“

“If I what?” You squeeze your eyes shut in embarrassment, but his hand taps your back, making them open on instinct. “You want me to taste you?”

“Yes, Master Kenobi.” He moans and his tongue finally dips into your pussy, soft and gentle. You cry out, and it is clear that he was holding back, because as soon as he hears your desperate sounds, he hooks both of his arms under your legs and throws them over his shoulders.

He holds you to him as his tongue laps at you, the sounds of your arousal hidden under both of your groans of approval. He was far too good at reading your body, knowing exactly where you need him without having to say anything but praise. He takes your clit into his mouth and sucks, and everything goes white.

The rough grip you have in his hair is the only thing keeping your body upright, and you can only hope he would tell you if you were hurting him because you need to see the sight before you. He occasionally looks up to you to watch you, and a small smile appears on his face every time he catches your eyes. One of his hands somehow snaked between your legs, because you feel his finger curl inside of you, setting a slow, delicious pace that has you panting.

“I love it when you call me that.” He murmurs, and then takes your clit back into his mouth, sucking and kissing until you aren’t sure if you are still on the table, or floating in the air.

“Oh fuck, Master.” He slows his finger inside of you and his mouth turns to kissing any skin except where you need him the most. “You’re so good. Please, I can’t-“

He slides two fingers back inside of you, and his mouth returns to your throbbing clit, and your hips roll into him on impulse. He was surrounded by you, legs still clamped around his head and shoulders, and his other arm was gripping across your lower back, ensuring you were close enough.

“Taste so sweet.” He says into you, and you can feel the years of built up tension simmering low in your stomach.

“Mmmfuck- please, please don’t stop - shit.” He groans into your pussy, and flicks his tongue right where you are most sensitive, making you whimper his name through gritted teeth. You were getting close, which is why you couldn’t hold back your groan when he pulled away again.

“Where’s your bedroom?” He leans his cheek leaning against your thigh, mouth still burning kisses into your skin like he can’t pull himself away. Both of his hands were now grabbing at the bare flesh of your ass, massaging and coaxing you to the point where you were almost completely off the table.

“Just come up here-”

“No. We can’t do this here.” He presses one more kiss, lower down on your leg before unwrapping your legs from his head. His hands drag slowly along the skin, and he lets his eyes wander around the sight in front of him. You liked seeing him like this, unabashed and staring like he had all the time in the world. Because he does.

“You don’t want to fuck me on this table, Master Kenobi?” He stands and lets out a long, loud groan, all of the air in his lungs brushing against your chest as he tucks his head into your neck.

“I want to have you on every elaborately decorated piece of furniture in this room. I want you to be like you were ten seconds ago, begging me not to stop.” Your legs almost start to shake just at his words, and you can feel how close you were to finishing on his mouth when your hips jerk against him, making a mess of his robes.

“Why don’t you, then?” You want him to. You would ignore every royal duty just to meet his every need. His strong arms wrap you against him and lift you into the air, and your arms wrap tightly around his neck as you squeal in surprise.

“Because when I take you for the first time, I want it to be the only thing you can think about when you go to sleep, because you are all I think about.” He spins around and walks further into the room. “Bedroom?”

“Through there. First door on the left.” You don’t fight him on that, pointing towards the smaller hallway and he kisses you sweetly while he walks. You can’t help but smile when he walks straight past the room you pointed out. “Missed it.”

“Hm?” He pulls away from you, eyes still half closed and looks around, quickly correcting course. “See? Distracting.”

You laugh as he bursts through the door, revealing your room. He’s still kissing you, eyes squeezed shut when he walks into your bed, so when he gently lets you go and you fall back onto the soft covers, you get to see his reaction as he looks around the room.

It is not as elaborate as the rest of the castle. When you were designing it, you wanted it to be a place you could check out of all the royal mess outside, and be at peace. You have even mediated a couple of times, not that you were very good at it nowadays. You designed it around the time you felt most comfortable, a place where you always felt safe.

“This looks like our rooms. From the academy.” He looms over you, taking in the grey metallic walls with wide windows, light stuttered by the cascading blinds. You shrugged shyly at him.

“I didn’t want my room to be the same as the castle. I guess I was a bit nostalgic when I designed this part.”

“I like it.” He says, still not looking at you. Your dress had fallen back into place, covering your legs, and you were growing impatient. You began to drag the fabric up, shimming on the bed.

As Obi-Wan had his back turned, examining the few things you kept on your desk, you took the entire dress off, leaving you completely naked on the bed, and Obi-Wan completely clueless.

“I kept my desk in the same place.” He observed, running a hand over the plain wood.

“Call it a coincidence.”

“Oh, I’m sure it-” He turns back to you and loses track of his words. It all happens so fast, but in the next second Obi-Wan is on top of you, kissing your mouth, your neck, down to your collarbone. Once he reaches a part of your skin he knows will be hidden, he starts the same slow, meticulous pace of biting and dragging his tongue, exploring.

His mouth starts to go lower, and your breathing quickens as his lips ghost along your stomach. He looks up at you, and you realise he’s still wearing clothes.

“I want to see you.” You whine, and he crawls back up your body, kissing a trail of heat back to you.

“Here I am.” You roll your eyes.

“More.” You tug at his robes, the various layers getting tangled and caught in your hold. He straddles you and sits back, eyes roaming your body as he begins the process of undressing. He had you boxed in so you couldn’t hurry him along, but you sort of enjoyed watching him.

He undid ties and fabric, each layer revealing more of his muscled torso. He finally reaches the final layer, pulling the shirt over his head with one hand. Your hands run along the exposed skin, and its your turn to drink in the sight of him. You try your best to memorise every scar and ridge on his abdomen, but you are impatient, and can’t stray your eyes back to his chest when he begins to pull his trousers down. He leans back down before you get a good look, but feeling him naked against you is almost better than seeing it.

“Is this okay?” He says breathless from the effort of holding himself back. You kiss him in response, shifting your hips to allow easy access, but he doesn’t move. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes. This is very much okay. Like, the most okay thing in the world right now.” He smiles and kisses you again, one of his hands traveling down the curve of your hips while the other comes up to your face, cupping your cheek. “Are you sure this is what you want? What I said before, I didn’t mean it like-”

“This is all I want. All I have wanted since that night in my room.” His face is hard - serious. You’ve only seen him like this in training, almost determined to make you believe it. The hand that travelled down your side cups your ass and moves your hips to lay flat on the bed. “I haven’t ever done this before. I - I don’t know how well I-”

“Anything you do is perfect. Perfect. Please.” You can still see some of the unsure nerves flitting in his eyes, and your mind drifts back to earlier, to what gave him that extra confidence boost. “Please, Master Kenobi.”

His teeth graze against your bottom lip and he slides into you, the room suddenly alive with both of your desperate gasps of relief.

“Oh, fucking Maker.” He groans into your mouth, before sliding out of you completely, and then back in. The process is blissful torture, and you feel every perfect inch of him inside you, hitting something that makes you see stars through the plain tiling of your roof. It wasn’t that he was larger than anyone you had been with before, but it’s just because it was him. He felt so perfect inside you, like he was made just for you, and even with his confessed inexperience his slow and controlled pace has you reeling.

“You feel so good- ohmygod- please go faster I-” You can hear him moaning something low under his breath but with the added stimulation of one of the rough pads of his finger on your clit, you don’t have the capacity to try and listen. You just continue to babble out plea’s and cries, the build up from his mouth before hitting you like a speeder.

“Faster, sweetheart?” You nod and squeeze your eyes shut. The hand on your face drops to hold himself up beside your face, hand finding yours and interlocking your fingers. “Like this?”

He starts to go faster, not slamming into you but just enough to build you up brick by brick. It’s mind numbing, the pleasure drawn out, every time he drove into you he was seemingly exploring a new part of you. He was kissing your collarbone, switching between each side, leaving wet kisses in his path, kissing your mouth each time he switched sides.

You couldn’t speak anymore, his relentless thrusts getting harder every time you moaned out his name into the room. Your back arched into his chest, and you could feel the flex of his abs against you.

“Baby, I’m - you feel divine I can’t -“He all but bites down on your shoulder and you try to move your hips to meet him, encouraging silently.

“Don’t stop! Please, please, pl-lease -oh fuck!” He went faster, the sound of skin on skin echoing. You were burning up underneath him, everything inside of you zapping into place for your inevitable crash. You were a shaking mess, and he was ruining you in the best way, every relentless snap of his hips had you begging for more, even though you weren’t sure how much more you could comprehend.

“I’m gonna- sweetheart” His voice cracked and you forced yourself to open your eyes.

“Cum inside me, please. I want you to-” You sounded more desperate than you wanted to admit, but from the broken sound that came from Obi-Wan, you would say it over and over again. His hips stuttered only for a second, and he came with the sound of your name on his tongue.

With the way his hand was working you, and the incredible sounds he was making in your mouth you followed him into his orgasm, the blood rushing to every nerve ending and blanketing over your entire body.

Everything went blank and you were almost positive you passed out, the feeling of pillow soft lips kissing up and down the front of your throat bringing you back to your body.

“Obi-Wan.” You managed and he was back to your lips in a blink, drinking you in like he still hadn’t had enough of you. You hadn’t had enough of him, either, and you returned his force with as much energy as you could summon. He had fucked you tired, though, because you could hardly pick yourself up.

“So beautiful.” He laid down next to you, clearly just as exhausted. You turned and watched as his eyes closed, and he wrapped an arm around you, bringing you closer to lay your head on his chest. Your hand comes up beside your face, tracing aimless lines along the multiple scars on his chest, and you sit in silence, trying to regain control of your mind enough to speak full sentences.

“Can you stay?” You whispered up at him when you felt his breathing even under your chin. He shuffles down on the bed, pulling back the covers enough so you can both easily slide underneath them.

“I’m afraid you will never get rid of me now.” He pulls you back to him, bringing your leg to rest over his abdomen, how he knows you like to sleep.

“Good. Council’s never getting you back now.” He laughs and kisses the top of your head, making you blush at the intimate gesture. “It wasn’t a coincidence. The room, I mean.”

“No?”

“I just really liked yours. It was always cleaner than mine, and it was warmer. I guess I thought it would bring me back to those days if I had a bit of it here.” Your wrapped your arm further around him, practically bear hugging him.

“Well, it is warm. Definitely not clean, though.” Your head shoots up at him.

“Hey! Not like I was expecting handsome strangers to whisk me to bed every time a council member asks to meet with me. You can clean it for me later, since you were so good at it.” You expect him to retort, but he just smiles.

“Handsome?” Your eyes nearly roll out of your head, but after what just happened, your more than happy to feed his ego.

“Very handsome. Bit of a light weight, but is a great fu-”

“Okay, that is quite enough.” He laughs and covers your mouth. You squirm away from his hold to continue the assault of profane compliments, but he easily holds you down. It turns you on a little more than you can admit, but you store the information for later considering the worn out look on Obi-Wan’s face.

“You know, when we get up in the morning, I’m going to have to explain to my staff who you are.” You say as you tuck the blankets up under your chin, nuzzling your face into his neck.

“And what will you tell them?”

“What should I tell them?” You feel his chest rise and fall and little uneven.

“A- I guess telling them a Jedi would only confuse them more. And me.”

“We can figure it out tomorrow.” He just nods, shifting himself under the covers.

“Hmm.” You feel the sound melt into the top of your head as he presses another kiss to your hair. “There is an explanation that would comply with both our interests.”

“And that is?”

“After a long night of negotiation, I was finally able to convince you to accept the contract of building a Jedi training academy on your home planet. One that I would personally oversee, hence the need for overnight accomodation.” You shoot up out of bed, bringing the sheet up only to cover the bare minimum of your chest.

“You what?” He smiles and leans up on his forearm.

“That was another reason I was here. They know your expertise exceeds your diplomacy - and they still talk about how much of a loss it was, when you left. The council wants you to come back, in a sense.” You think you were about to cry. “It was my suggestion, my first when I made council, to consider the construction of the Jedi academy here. It is just as safe as Coruscant, and with you as a ruler, the Force is just as strong. It would be a chance for you to live the life you dreamed of, while also adhering to your duties.”

You were crying. Definitely crying. Obi-Wan sat up and wiped a tear from your face, his brows pressed together in worry.

“I didn’t mean to upset you, I-”

“Upset me? This is the most incredible thing I... Maker, why didn’t you tell me earlier!?” He blinks a few times, and goes to speak but you cut him off, excitement taking over your need for sleep. “Of course I want to do that! It’s - that would be - wow, there’s so much I would need to do! I am so out of practise, I hardly even meditate anymore. Oh, and the council would need to-”

Obi-Wan kisses you, probably to shut you up, but you can feel him smiling underneath your lips.

“Why didn’t you say something?” You whisper to him, and a small blush appears across his face in the dim light of the room.

“I was distracted.” His eyes drop to where the sheet hangs loosely across your chest, and you breath a laugh. “Would you - the council sent me here to assess. See if I would be open to teaching here, if you would be, us, together. In the future, they even spoke of a Padawan-”

“I- I can’t believe this. I- all I ever wanted was to do this. You know that, right? My dream was to train, to work with the council, fight for what was right, and to share that with others.”

“I know. That is why I suggested you, not that they needed much convincing. You were the golden child.” You laugh tearily. The idea of getting to have that life back, while also being able to grow everything you have worked for since returning home. You let your weight fall into Obi-Wan, and he tucks you back into the bed, soft covers gliding along your skin.

“There’s so much we need to talk about.” You mumble, eye closed, already half asleep.

“We can figure it out tomorrow.” He repeats to you, and his breathing begins to even out behind you.

Everything you had ever dreamt of had practically come true, and it was fitting that it had all started with Obi-Wan Kenobi. He had been the source of almost every single happy memory in your life, and beginning this new chapter with him by your side, you knew that he would be responsible for the rest of them, too.

#obi wan kenobi #obi wan fic #obi wan x reader #obi wan fanfiction #obi wan x you #obi wan x y/n #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan kenobi x you #obi wan #obi-wan X reader #obi-wan kenobi x you #obi-wan kenobi x reader

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acacia-may · 1 month

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Acacia, since you’re offering, is it okay that I ask for your thoughts on Josele x the Fausts? 🥺👉👈

I’d be fascinated to hear your thoughts.

Of course, Erika! I was actually really hoping you would ask me because, as I am sure you know, I am just obsessed with Nacsele. Sorry Morgen. I love him. How could I not? He’s a total sweetheart, and him and Josele were very cute, but I am unapologetically Team Nacht all the way! I adore their deep friendship and the quick wit & banter that they share, but it's really the angst of that pairing that just elevates it for me. I mean they support each other through their trauma and grief, and then, fall in love?! Even when they believe they're too broken to ever be loved and to be happy again, they show each other that they can be. 😭 I'm going to sob. It's beautiful and is more compelling to me than I have the words to express.

I'm sure it's no secret that I am not much of a romantic, but what you may not know about me is that I do actually have some favorite love stories one of which is a movie called "Return to Me" which is about a man, Bob, who loses his wife in a tragic accident and swears off love forever, but he eventually finds healing and falls in love with the wonderful woman whose life was saved by receiving his deceased wife's heart in a heart transplant. (This is literally all established in the first 5 minutes of the movie so it’s not a spoiler, I promise). The heroine of this film, Grace, is just so incredibly sensitive to his loss and so supportive of him, and one of the main conflicts of the movie is that she cares about him so much that she is heartbroken to learn that even though this transplant saved her life, it caused him so much pain and suffering. The other conflict, of course, is Bob (the main man) coming to realize that even though he truly loved his wife and is always going to miss her, that doesn't mean that he can't love Grace just as much. It's real. It's beautiful, and it's so sincere that it just pulls at my heartstrings every single time. Needless to say, I have an extremely intense passion for stories about finding love after unbelievable tragedy and loss, and Nacht x Josele fit that category so well so of course I'm going to eat that up.

This pairing was just made for me to love. I mean, it also has a complicated brother relationship and they're childhood friends to lovers. Gah! It just has everything. Nacsele is just everything!

I don't think I'm even making any sense right now, but it's so, so good. I find myself just randomly thinking about them like I would with any canon character x canon character ship. I guess that just means they're canon to me. 😁

#nacsele #nacht x josele #clearly i am so normal about them #they're in love your honor #i don't make the rules #and yes i realize *you* do in fact make the rules here erika but like...they are. they are in love.#thanks for the ask #sorry for these probably incoherent ramblings. honestly my main thoughts about nacsele are unhinged squealing followed by ASHHDHHSDSFHF 😅😂#erika 💙#acacia's ramblings

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fantasmalresplendent · 19 days

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So you've got to write a sympathy card for your boss's dog. Or comment on a post announcing the death of your distant uncle. Or go to your partner's grandmother's funeral. But what do you even say to the people left in the wake of tragedy?

Please consider, my personal* list of dos and don'ts for expressing your condolences to the grieving.

Do... Think of your favorite memories of that person. Even something small like what they often wore.

Example: "The cake they baked for the charity auction was one of the best bundt cakes I've ever had."

Example: "When I think of [passed person], I remember how they always had fun sweaters to wear on Christmas."

Intended effect: Grief is a grey cloud that surrounds the mind and blocks out light. Reminding the person grieving of something specific and positive associated with the deceased helps them remember it too. It also gives them comfort that that person, who is physically gone from the world, is not gone from everyone's minds or hearts.

Do... Consider how they passed, the relationship to the person you're consoling, and how that person you're consoling has talked about them/their death.

Example (the relationship was fraught): "This must be a difficult time for you. I am wishing for you lots of rest and peace of mind."

Example (the deceased passed from a long, difficult illness): "Though they will be terribly missed, I'm glad to know they are finally at peace."

Intended effect: Considering the context of how the person passed and how the griever feels about it will make them feel like you aren't just saying words you've heard before to make yourself comfortable. A common phrase that may work well in one situation may work terribly in another.

Do... Question your own feelings about the death. What was your relationship to the deceased? Do you also feel sad for this person's passing? Or do you just want to provide comfort for the grieving person?

Example (you are affected by the death): "I wish I could give them one last hug, but I'm so glad to have known them for as long as I did."

Example (you didn't know the deceased well but you knew them casually): "I was so sorry to hear of their passing. I hope you are doing well and taking care of yourself."

Example (you never met the deceased): "I am sorry for your loss, I am thinking of you and your family."

Intended effect: People who are grieving can feel incredibly alone in their grief, especially if the loss was great. If you are also affected by the death, by all means express it (sensitively), because the griever will feel less isolated in their feelings. Even if you yourself are not affected, you can still lessen their isolation by expressing care towards the griever.

Do... Let silence speak for you. If the griever is a hugger, a few words and a long hug may do more good than 1,000 words ever could.

Don't... Bring up religion or an afterlife if you do not know what the person grieving believes, or they know you do not believe it yourself. "I'm praying for you" may be appropriate for some, but "I'm thinking of you" is a safer bet.

Don't... Say phrases like "everything happens for a reason" or "God has a plan for us all" unless the griever has already expressed this attitude around this specific death.

Don't... Say platitudes you don't mean or that are insincere to a point where it would be obvious. For example, do not say "they were a light to us all" if you spoke to the deceased maybe twice, or they were a chronic grump.

Don't... Assume that the person who is grieving doesn't feel anything negative or complicated about the deceased, unless you are extremely close with the griever. Even someone you know on a basic level may not confide in you their negative feelings about the person who passed, especially if they were a close relative. If you are unsure about the nature of the relationship, focus on the griever and express care towards them rather than sorrow for the loss itself.

Don't... Try to fix or solve anything. Be present, be warm, be understanding, and you will do just enough to maybe ease some small fraction of the pain.

Don't... Be 100% positive. It's tempting to try and cheer someone up by not dwelling on anything bad or uncomfortable, but that's more isolating than anything else. It also signals to the griever that you yourself are uncomfortable, which isn't incredibly helpful.

Don't... Be 100% morose. The person grieving may crack a joke, and it may be a dark one, but just go with it and laugh along. The ridiculous is made even moreso in the context of tragedy, and the person grieving will always appreciate/remember any points of levity they had in an otherwise dark time.

Don't... Be afraid to say anything at all, even if it's unoriginal. A simple "I'm thinking of you" is better than silence.

*I approached this topic from the headspace of someone grieving a complicated but profound loss, years after the fact. Trying to remember how it felt to be freshly grieving myself, I tried to be truthful but not too specific. If you have any other tips as someone who is familiar with grief, feel free to add. If you disagree with my list, then we simply process grief differently and I encourage you to make your own post. Thanks for reading 💚

#grief #loss #no not the meme #long post #the first thing isn't a joke i made this post after trying to think of what to write in a sympathy card to my boss after losing her dog #rip odin the boxer. he used to sit on their couch upright like a little gentleman and watch the people pass by the window.

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bxrnfrxmashes · 3 months

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TASK 001 - SHUT THE DOOR, HAVE A SEAT: THE INTERROGATION OF KALYANI SINGH.

Hello, can you please tell me your name, country and what role you provide your court?

Kalyani wasn't nervous, far from it. She was calm and collected, just like someone who had nothing to hide, even though she held many secrets in her heart. But she was used to this, the mask she wore was strong. "Kalyani Singh, I currently serve the Egyptian royal family even though I'm originally from The Mughal Empire. My parents died when I was a baby and the Singh family took me in, brought me to Egypt where I was raised." It was more details than she was asked to give, but that's how it worked, seem like you give plenty of information but at the end of the day, none that matters.

And who do you believe to be your closest allies, either nations or individuals? Do you trust your allies?

"I've learned that you should never trust anyone completely, no matter how much you think you can trust someone." She paused, titling her head to the side. "I would say the Egyptian royal family, I serve them and have known them for many years."

Ah, yes, I see … how about your enemies, then. Who do you not align yourself with, and why?

“Can't really think of anyone that I see as an enemy, that is a strong word to use to describe someone." Kalyani paused for a moment. "I don't like to say that I won't ever align myself with a specific someone, you never know what might happen tomorrow."

Interesting. Do you have a personal vendetta against any of the courts, or even individuals, here?

“No, I do not." She said with a sweet smile.

What are your thoughts on the mysterious deaths in so many royal families?

"It's horrible, isn't it? The whole situation is so scary, mostly without knowing who is behind it and who might be the next target." A sigh escaped her lips as she shook her head. "My thoughts and prayers go to the deceased and their families, may the rest in peace."

How do you feel about the system of monarchy as a whole?

"It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it? You might be ruled by a great king but once he is dead and the son or daughter get crowned, they might turn out to be a horrible ruler." Kalyani shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, it has good and bad things, I suppose. But it is what has been operating for centuries, people don't know any other way."

So, what would be your best theory as to what is going on, then?

"I do not have a theory, I like to have all the facts before I create any sort of theories in my head." She said with a smile. "I believe that is your job, is it not? Figure out what is going on and who's behind all of it."

Thank you for your time. Is there anything else you'd like to add, anything else that would be useful to the investigation?

“Of course, whenever you need, I'm available." Kalyani stood up from her seat. "Maybe look into the enemies of the nations that were affected by such tragedies. They could all be working together, against each other." She shrugged her shoulders and left the room. @theopulenthq

#theopulent.task #kalyani:task

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kylermalloy · 10 months

Text

Something something plantcest Flowers in the Attic AU

For the uninitiated, Flowers in the Attic is a gothic horror novel published in 1979 by VC Andrews. Four siblings are locked in an attic for years on end. Incest ensues.

So imagine—Vash and Nai locked up at a young age due to [unspecified tragedy] befalling Rem, which twists their subsequent development around each other

Oh my GOSH this is perfect for them

Here’s how I think it would go. Bulleted list to follow

Warnings: transphobia, manipulation, dubcon, periods, pregnancy, miscarriage

The twins are about ten when Rem dies and are passed into the hands of some relative or guardian (I am too lazy rn to elaborate further on this character)

Cruel guardian disgusted by their existence for [unspecified puritanical reason]

Does not believe Vash when he asserts he’s a boy; only provides him with dresses and skirts which he hates to wear

Nai shares his clothes with Vash so he feels comfortable

Vash adores wearing his brother’s clothes; they’re a little too big but they’re always warm and they smell like Nai. It’s a win-win.

Guardian is incredibly paranoid about the twins lusting after one another; insists they bathe, dress, sleep separately

They Do Not. They do everything together.

Vash longs for the outside. Presses his nose to the glass, dreams of climbing trees and growing flowers and going to school—

Nai helps him draw flowers all over the walls of the attic

Whenever their guardian catches Vash wearing Nai’s clothes, they’re liable to not get any food for a few days, at least

Puberty hits them both like a truck; Nai’s voice drops, Vash gets menstrual cramps and cries over his chest pains night after night

They climb out the window, sometimes, at night. Sit on the roof and watch the stars. They know them all by name; it’s in one of the books they’ve been allowed to have.

In that peace, that sliver of freedom, Vash longs for more. Maybe he cries about it. Maybe Nai just wanted to kiss him. Anyway, they discover kissing as they do all things—together.

Within a year they’re exploring each others’ bodies. They were made for this, Nai tells him. They belong together. It’s so natural, the way Nai rises under Vash’s touch, how Vash becomes slick enough for Nai to slide right into him—

Vash is pregnant by age thirteen.

They’re almost relieved when it bleeds out of him after just a few months.

Still, some part of Vash shatters when he realizes what’s happened.

He draws more flowers on the wall, over the old ones. It looks to Nai like a memorial.

Nai can’t promise him another baby. How he could he, when they’re so young, when they live like this, when they’re brothers—

It happens again, anyway.

They’re fifteen when the baby is born. It’s a girl, and miraculously, she’s healthy.

And loud. She’s very loud.

They’ve done all they can to conceal Vash’s condition from their guardian—wrapping him in coats and blankets, him feigning sickness for the last few months, when his belly is far too swollen to hide

But how can they hush a newborn baby?

Guardian finds out, cuts off their food entirely

Vash is near hysterics; how can he feed the baby if he can’t feed himself?

They’re on the brink of starvation when their guardian returns with food; announces the plan to send the baby to an orphanage

Nai snaps. He’s gotten a knife from somewhere, and—well.

They escape, two penniless boys and a newborn baby.

Making a new life for themselves is hard; they must reinvent who they are so as to appear ~acceptable~ to society

Their mother is newly deceased; the baby is their sister. They certainly haven’t been locked in an attic for five years, nope, nuh-uh.

It’s all so overwhelming. The boys deal with freedom in different ways. Nai is aloof, cut off from connecting with others—except Vash. Vash, on the other hand, gives a piece of his heart to everyone he meets.

Nai’s not jealous, of course. He knows Vash belongs to him, utterly and completely.

Right?

He begins to restrict where Vash can go, who he can see. Stay inside, brother, the baby needs you. Trust me, I know what’s best.

Vash naturally acquiesces, but he longs for the outside, for the freedom he dreamed of for so long. The flowers, the trees.

Someone probably guesses their secret about the baby, or at least part of it. Vash’s chest is a little too prominent, and people are cruel and judgmental.

Nai takes drastic measures to defend his little brother. They may or may not have to hide a body.

Sometimes, Vash whispers, he thinks it would be easier if they split up. At least for a little while.

Nai stiffens. Absolutely not.

They haven’t had full-on sex since the baby, but Nai pushes until Vash agrees to it. He warns Nai to be careful, though—they can’t explain another baby!

We’ll go away, then, Nai says. Somewhere they don’t know us.

He won’t let Vash get away from him, no matter what.

…and that’s where my imagination runs out for now. Suffice to say whatever happens after will be painful.

#plantcest #kv #hiii kv fandom! pls come talk to me about brothers <3 #i’ve been marinating in all the beautiful fanart and while i cannot contribute in that way rn i will most certainly be writing #this au is too perfect for them #feel free to add on #trigun stampede #uhh incest cw i guess #kylerrambles

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sixeyesgojo · 3 years

Note

Why do you love Gojo so much? I’m sorry if this question has been asked before

Anon, don't worry about asking twice or even three times...

Are you prepared for this answer though? I don't know how long this answer will be... I'll try to keep it rather short though because otherwise it would entail a full analysis of Gojo's entire character...

TL;DR: Love me a man who's a little yum yum, a little cray-cray and uwu uwu.

Manga spoilers?

The superficial aspects I really like in fictional characters: appearance (especially the hair), the strength and teasing attitude. Gojo just happens to have all three of them.

If I take a look at my MAL favorite character list, I have 9 characters on there and 4 of them have white/silver hair. And yes, all of them are super strong in their respective verse, so at this point the formula is "white hair = strong" in my head.

Gojo is also a tease. I like that about him because he's not over the top where it's just mean, unless he's talking to an enemy or someone he hates.

His confidence is something I admire and long for because I lack it. His sweet tooth is also something I personally vibe with because I, too, have an insatiable sweet tooth.

On top of that... a character voiced by Nakamura Yuuichi-san? How can I say no?

On a rather deeper level?

From the first moment I got to know this man called Gojo Satoru, I just knew that his cheerful character hid something deeper. (Most of the characters I'm drawn to do.)

And of course, my hunch proved to be right: Gojo Satoru is such a deep, complex and multi-faceted character. He's also one of the few characters that are not defined by the series but instead, he defines the series. It's shown in the fact that the enemies wouldn't make a move just because he exists.

On the one hand, we have the goofy teacher that annoys the living hell out of Megumi simply by being himself and regularly giving Ijichi a heart attack. He also seems to be super cocky and pretty close to having a God complex or something like that (before you ask: no, I do not believe Gojo has a God complex but that's a post for another day... maybe).

That's what we all see at first.

On the other hand, if you dive deeper into his character, you'll quickly notice some other things.

First of all, he's a "shitty teacher". Gojo sucks at traditional teaching, alright? In that aspect, I think Utahime and Kusakabe do better. If you think about it though, Gojo does not suck at teaching at all.

He simply nurtures his students in his own, sometimes twisted, way, with the intention of bringing out their highest potential for growth with each mission or task he assigns.

He uses uncommon methods for this but not before making sure the students are as safe as you can be as Jujutsu sorcerer. After all, he treasures his students a great deal (as can be seen in pretty much every interaction he has with Yuji and also when Yuji dies).

I've said he strives to nurture his students' growth, yes, but he's also respectful about it: He expects great things from Megumi, yet doesn't train him but instead waits for the younger one to approach him.

Yuji is a different matter in this case. Gojo - as busy as that man is - takes in the student without judging him for being Sukuna's vessel and chooses to personally supervise his growth as a sorcerer when he didn't have to - it just adds one more burden onto his already stuffed plate - yet he did. Because he cares. He cares about not unnecessarily throwing another life away (Yuta + Yuji). And he cares about Megumi's opinion or else he wouldn't even ask?

As much as caring Gojo goes, he's also very much capable of being unhinged and feral, if there is need (Shibuya).

He doesn't seem like your typical shonen anime hero that protects people/is on the side of 'justice' "because it's the right thing to do", but rather, he recognizes the faults within this so-called 'justice' and tries to uproot the cause of it. He's capable of thinking and judging for himself and chooses to constantly go against orders that he doesn't think are appropriate - the execution of Yuta and Yuji are one example. Another one would be him and Geto deciding to call off the merger (and you know how important that was), should Amanai Riko express the desire to live on as a normal teenage girl.

Moreover, the drastic change in character is what makes him interesting as well.

At first, he's a cocky teenager who thinks of himself oh-so-highly, with every right. For the longest time, he believed he was undefeatable, only to be proven wrong in a battle against Toji, a man without cursed energy.

This fall from graces shakes him to his core because what? He's been defeated? And thus, he enters a mindset he probably never experienced before: instability and vulnerability first cloud his mind - and he's not capable of processing it at first, leaving him in a delirious state, to the point where Toji questions himself: "Is this man high?"

On top of all this, his best friend 'betrays' the side he is on and defects; that's gotta be a huge blow mentally... and then he has to finish of said friend as well.

That didn't go without consequences.

After Geto's defection that ultimately lead to death in later years... for the first time in Gojo's life, he displays a weakness that is exploitable, used against him in Shibuya.

His fall from grace is a fall from being the strongest to 'oh, maybe I was wrong'.

Gojo went from being a teenager with no apparent goal to being an adult that wants to change the world to one where his (already deceased) best friend can laugh from the bottom of his heart.

On a more personal note:

Generally, his (pretty easy-going) attitude just makes me happy and has actually brought me comfort in harder times.

Obviously, this manchild is also my biggest muse. I have written fanfiction for other fandoms before but I have never published them but Gojo just makes it so easy, I'm having a lot of fun with his character. Plus, without JJK and Gojo, I wouldn't have come to Tumblr at all and therefore, wouldn't have met the wonderful people I call my friends now 💕

All in all, I love the tragedy in his character as the strongest but his unyielding resolve of staying strong, being strong, being the best he can be. The cruelty he, without a doubt, witnessed over and over again, yet he stays kind and caring throughout all of it. Oh, how easy it would be for him to simply destroy everything? "But nobody would support a mass murderer," he is so big-brained for this.

I don't think there's a single aspect of him I do not love? I really adore this man so much.

And yes, this was rather short and I am sure I missed multiple things but I do hope my answer helped.

Maybe, MAYBE, I will post a full one on another day. But that one would be long as fuck...

#nie answers #anon #why i love gojo satoru #musings #kind of?#gojo satoru #gojo #jujutsu kaisen manga spoilers #manga spoilers #gojou satoru

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stupendousconnoisseurpuppy · 3 years

Text

The son's warmth

Yandere! Hinata x Reader

Notes: This is my entry for @seijorhi's Deal with the devil collaboration~

Warnings: DARK CONTENT, Violence detail, injury detail, manipulation, kidnap, yandere.

Please refrain from reading if you are uncomfortable with the above!

That said, please enjoy!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Generosity. You suppose it could be a bit of a double-edged sword.

Although in hindsight, all you had wanted was to care for the exuberant ball of sunshine you had believed was dealt a bad hand. Parents and younger sister deceased, orphaned at the tender age of 14 and placed in a less than ideal environment - one devoid of love.

You had always been one of a large sympathetic capacity and it had always been a goal of yours, born of the principle’s kindness and compassion, passed on by your parents and sanctioned by your entry into adulthood; allowing you to action your desire to care for a young child struck by tragedy…

You’re not exactly sure, however, how that’d landed you in the basement of your own house with a broken leg and shattered kneecaps.

It was to be expected you'd reasoned at first, you had defied common sense and made a deal with a less than savoury entity.

Too bad you hadn't considered the fact that demons could come in the shape of fair seeming, walking tangerines with an aptitude for overbearing affection.

To his defence (something you’ve now come to consider a very ironic concept) Hinata wasn’t exactly - as far as signatories go - the one you'd even made this... deal with. It had been his orphanage, an institution shrouded in fraud and doused in the bitter aroma of embezzlement that had sealed your fortunes in the form of crisp white adoption papers.

You didn’t mind his clingy nature, the crushing strength of his grip when his hand found - sought - yours… actions that could and would have seemed to untrained eyes like a misplaced and overwhelming sense of desperation, like the shock of betrayal carved upon his features when your focus wasn’t solely trained on him, or the unnerving intensity pooling beneath glittering brown iris’ whenever they met yours during his volleyball matches. Again, this was something you’d chalked down to an amalgamation of a passion for the sport, desire to win and an appreciation for the fact that his beloved mother had come to show him the support he had clearly lacked in the early stages of his teenage years.

After all, what was a guardian without unconditional devotion to their child?

He was the coolness of your eyes whilst paradoxically, providing an all-encompassing warmth (much like the sun) and with an ostensibly boundless supply of energy. Such was the ardour that made your heart swell with pride. It was just a terrible pity – in your case at least - that this energy he had was now being put towards severing your contact with the outside world.

Wanted to go outside? He’d want you to help him practice.

Meeting someone? He’d pout and complain.

How could you refuse? You’d naively attributed such possessiveness to the trauma of losing his family and would excuse such behaviour in consideration of the circumstance. It was only natural. You’d decided to be there for him, accepting the responsibility as soon as you’d inked your name on the dotted line… if he needed a little more attention, that’s what he’d get.

And so, the story progressed until towards the end of his third year of high school, he’d decided the affection you were providing him with, however plentiful, wasn’t nearly as satisfactory as he knew it could be. For you still to be surrounded by others must mean his slice of the pie was diminished in size and a growing boy such as himself needed all the nutrition he could get. He’d reasoned that the entirety of said “pie” belonged to him, anyway. Surely no one could chastise him for exercising a due right over his own property?

He didn’t want to be the occupant of most of your time, he wanted all of it… And it was to be brought to your attention as soon as he arrived home from school.

No sooner had he entered through the front door than he was skipping towards your location (in the kitchen) with a blinding smile on his face, proceeding to grip onto your shoulders with a force that clearly betrayed his cheery demeanour.

“What’s wrong Shoyo?” You queried.

He’d went on to detail how neglected he felt whenever you enjoyed the presence of anyone other than him “It feels like you don’t love me anymore!”, like he’s not good enough, y’know? But it wasn’t your fault, all you needed was the chance to see that he was fully capable of being the only one you needed to depend on.

You were, at first, inclined to think of such proclamations as some silly prank, followed by laughter, declarations of how well and truly you’d been fooled and fabricated in boyish mischievousness. You’d managed to ask as such, but the speed and surety of his response had you becoming increasingly concerned.

“Nope!”

You forced out a nervous puff of laughter, clutching at the rapidly burning straws of denial because surely, he couldn’t be serious, but your dismissal had only served to become the source of his irritation and he squeezed you harder, fixing you with a determined stare that could only have been described as no less than peering into your soul.

You had ignored the red flags and were getting your just rewards.

“Sho- stop that hurts!”

“Reeeeeally Okaa-san?!” He quipped with insincere concern “It hurts more when you don’t care for me…”

It was at this bitter intonation that you’d scrambled back in shock and had prepared your body’s primal function of flight in the direction of the nearest exit.

But were you really going to run away from him? Shoyo, your own child, the coolness of your eyes and springtime in the haggard winter of your life?

Yes, yes you were.

And you would have gotten away with it too, had not the subject of your internal conflict taken advantage of your moment’s irresolution. For in a ginger blur of motion you were on the ground, he had taken a hold of your leg…

SNAP

He roughly covered your mouth to silence the scream, pinning you down with the weight of his own body as hot, fat tears rolled down your cheeks. The pain was excruciating, but you wouldn’t feel it for long, as with a swift hook to the jaw you were out cold. It hurt for him to have to utilize violence on the one he cherished; however, it’d seem a tad counterintuitive for him to give you the opportunity to run away.

You’d forgive him, you’d come around. You always did.

He’d swept you up and carried you to the large basement of the house, gently placing you on a worn settee; sickly ochre in colour - the one you’d been meaning to dispose of for years. His actions were soft and caring and his thoughts clouded almost entirely with his overwhelming love for you.

In passing hours he observed your peaceful state mindfully as his core pulsated in the cosy warmth of his rib cage, imagining what a future found solely in each other’s embrace would hold… eventually you’d stay of your own accord, he reasoned. He’d have no need to harm you or to keep you under the low, flickering lights of the basement. Defiance would become a thing of the past. You’d realise how happy you are he’d made the decisions for you, both of you, together…

“Why?” That was a question you sometimes took to asking yourself; more out of pure, unadulterated boredom than anything else. Something you’d already explored the answer to but thought it better to keep your mind occupied with trivial matters than to succumb to insanity (or the intensifying ache of your battered legs).

On that same note, though, contact with the world outside wasn’t the only thing he’d severed.

At the time, such an observation had very nearly made you laugh (and you could probably blame it on the fact that you’d always been quite partial to the more gruesome forms of satire). It was in an impulsive burst of inappropriate and rather facetious humour that you’d wanted to entertain yourself in the recital of depressing hymns (expected, given the nature of your surroundings), to congratulate your stupidity and wallow deeper into the marshes your own self-pity; only to be met with the simple fact that you didn’t have the option.

Your tongue? Gone.

And it hadn’t been the work of the proverbial cat, but your own son, who – cheery as always – had explained that it was another necessary action to stop you from hurting yourself, done behind the ever-wise teaching that prevention was indeed, better than cure. Could you not see he only wanted what was best for you?

It was then you were sure he’d dangerously distorted his self-awarded role as your protector and had lost his mind.

“Okaa-San, Its aright…” He beamed whilst you’d engaged in silently cursing your weak will “You won’t feel a thing!” - he flashed a guilty smile - after I knock you out…again.

And you didn’t. He’d sutured the wound (with what you really didn’t want to know) and made sure you didn’t choke on your own life juices, patching you up like the loving, doting son that he is… It was your job not to worry about the extremity of his actions, as a mother that should do everything in their power to put their beloved’s mind at ease.

Saved from the fate of Exsanguination… shows how much he adores you right? Not that you'd had half the courage or audacity to end your own life in such a macabre fashion, but even if you hadn’t been relieved of the burden of speech; you weren’t one to shatter another’s fantasies - especially if they were high school athletes with inhuman amounts of strength.

In the passing weeks, your mind had dawned upon the realisation that no one was coming to save you - and did you even need saving? – for your parents were far too busy, friends far too distant and dashing officer that’d do everything in his power far too non-existent. Shoyo was the only one who had cared for you, providing you with physical and emotional sustenance you’d never thought you needed - maybe for the reason that he had made himself the only source.

Another thing you’d come to realise, this time regarding unintelligible murmurs, is that they are very much open to interpretation. So even though his barrage of saccharine words were met with your limited arsenal of what might be considered responses, they been understood as absolute agreement, alongside the reciprocation of his affections. Which, to be honest, wasn’t that far off from the truth, as it was by that point, you’d learned the path of resistance was futile and that you were beginning to get used to (and even bask in) the flattery and praise he showered you with, silently and psychologically solidifying the notion that he was yours and you were his.

“You’ll stay with me forever right, Okaa-San?”

He giggled, placing a soft, lingering kiss upon your lips as if he were certain of your answer. And so were you. However, when he looked at you, tenderly caressing your form there was something amiss, a dormant hunger that hadn’t been there before, one that when coupled with the intensity he’d always regarded you with gave birth to towering waves of nausea and accentuated the persistent throb of your injured legs as if in subtle warning…

But you could deal with that later.

Because, despite the fact that his, short, brilliant orange hair had grown long and luscious with time and his scrawny figure had evolved into a mass of lean muscle, he still looked to you … like he did the first day he entered your care. Young, innocent and without fault. Unfairly dealt a bad hand and with you tasked to be the provider of everything he never had. So, as per the contract signed…

You nodded.

After all, what was a guardian without unconditional devotion to their child?

#deal with the devil collab #yandere #hinata shoyo x reader #hq hinata #hinata shoyuo #yandere hinata #yandere x reader #yandere haikyuu #hinata shoyo x you #haikyuu hinata #yandere hinata shoyo #tw yandere

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vanderlindemorgans · 3 years

Text

Cross My Heart (Chapter 6)

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Explicit/18+

Summary: A traitorous Agent Whiskey returns to the United States on the run. Being cast out by Statesman, he soon finds that you’re the only person he can turn to - the embittered former flame from years long passed

Word count: 7.7k

Chapter-specific Warnings: Descriptions of blood from a gunshot wound, alcohol consumption, talk of drug addiction, more death talk, mentions of entitled kid + parent, everyone being in denial and uh I think that’s about it

Read on AO3 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

The strangest thing about dreams were how quickly they disappeared: you could be passed out in bed, a million miles away from the waking world before the rays of sun started to shine over the horizon to rouse you from your slumber, and just like that - whatever world you were in would vanish, being replaced by an often disappointing reality in front of you. For Jack, vivid dreams weren’t too often of an occurrence for him, not that he really remembered anyway. Nightmares were even more rare, though at one point in time they’d plagued him for months on end. That was how he’d spent the first few months after his wife’s passing: waking up in a cold sweat, heart racing in panic from the lingering remnants of dream clung to the back of his mind, horrifying scenes of loss and tragedy playing out to torture him in his most vulnerable state. Usually the nightmares involved him being forced to watch Lily’s death with his own eyes and being powerless to stop it, the illusion always shattering just as her body hit the ground. Other times he’d be confronted by her, blood cascading from the bullet wound in her head and onto her skin while she stared at him with harsh eyes. He’d try to reach out for her, only to feel her hands had gone cold. And then the blame would start. The words that were repeated over and over by her until he felt his brain was going to break.You couldn’t protect me. Those ones were always the worst, and thankfully, the most rare.

All of this being said, Jack hadn’t dreamt of Lily in a long time. As the sting of her passing began to fade with time, leading into hate and anger towards the world for taking her away, the dreams slowly stopped. He still mourned for her every day, feeling frozen in time no matter how many years passed, no matter how fine he seemed on the outside, but the worst of it had left him. Or, so he thought.

Jolting out of bed with a fierce start, he could feel the rough material of the duvet in his hands, his hands grasped around it with an iron grip. He felt compelled to scream, though no sound was able to escape his mouth, and as he took note of his surroundings he started to feel less afraid when he realised where he was. He didn’t know what the time was, if he had to guess it was probably after midnight. Hesitantly, he placed the back of his hand to his temple, feeling the stray beads of sweat running underneath. It’d been a long time since something had managed to scare him to that degree, much less a nightmare. He probably should have felt relaxed once he realised that none of what he just went through was real, but he still felt spooked by the entire experience. Jack couldn’t even remember most of what happened - it all blended together in a frightening blur. The only moment he could still make out in his mind from the dream were its final moments: his wife was standing in front of him, in the middle of the convenience store where she died, with a man holding a gun to the back of her head. He remembered screaming out, pleading for her to be spared. It was too late - the sound of a gunshot rang out and her body fell limp to the floor, a pool of blood forming underneath her head. That wasn’t even the worst of it, as when he looked down upon her corpse he realised that it wasn’t Lily’s body lying dead on the ground anymore. It was yours.

“God fuckin’ damn it” he cursed, placing his head in his hands. On top of everything else that had already happened, he now had to deal with the return of old haunting nightmares that somehow were even worse than the ones he had years ago, because now you were involved. He sat up abruptly, grabbing onto a discarded shirt that he’d thrown over the foot of the bed and pulling it over his head, using nothing but the moonlight pouring through the curtains to guide himself out of the room and into the darkened hall. He stole a glance towards where your room was, a droplet of fear etching itself into his mind. Before he entirely knew what he was doing, he was opening the door to your room, being careful not to make any sound lest you were awakened. His fears subsided when he saw you curled up beneath the covers, sound asleep and none the wiser to his presence. Exhaling gently, he untensed his shoulders and looked over at your sleeping form with a small but sweet smile on lips. Of course she would be fine. You’re being paranoid.

Pulling the door behind him softly, he turned his attention to the end of the hall where the stairs were, the vague recollections of the nightmare rattling in the back of his mind. If he didn’t do something soon, he would keep himself up all night mulling over the implications of it all, and he wasn’t keen to spend the early hours of Sunday morning losing sleep because of his fucked head. He supposed it wasn’t that out of nowhere to dream about his wife, as he had been talking about her with you just last night. What scared him more so was that you were there, taking the bullet and ending up exactly as she had: dead. He couldn’t begin to fathom its meaning. Did it have to have meaning? Was it nothing more than a nightmare?

Scooping up a glass, he poured himself a generous amount of whiskey to sip on, returning the bottle back to the corners of your liquor cabinet. He probably should have asked before helping himself but it wasn’t like you were awake to answer to him, and he had a feeling you wouldn’t notice anyway, considering he’d found the aforementioned bottle pushed to the furthest reaches of the cabinet. When he noticed the label on the bottle, he couldn’t keep himself from smirking at the irony of it - of course you’d keep the Jack Daniels whiskey towards the back. Reclining into the couch with the glass in his hands, he took an absentminded sip while his mind further delved into the worrying implications of such a dream.

The only part of it all that made sense was that the dream had been about his deceased wife - with the discussion that happened between the two of you last night about her it was only logical that his subconscious had lingered on some parts of it. After you’d turned in for the night Jack had stayed up for a little while longer, seated out on that veranda with a pensive look and the bottle of bourbon you’d neglected to bring back inside. Your words made rings around his mind, sparking a debate of sorts with himself as he considered your criticisms towards him. The emotional part of him wanted to blindly hate, and to keep on doing exactly what he’d always been doing. But when he realised that blind hate had gotten him into this whole mess in the first place, he’d allowed himself to listen more carefully to your words, and to examine them on a deeper level. Upon knowing your own past with loss and pain at the hands of another, it made him take a step back and actually look at everything that had transpired in Cambodia, all the little things that led him to working against an organisation that he once devoted himself to. Whereas you’d taken steps to try and live in a world without your parents, he’d remained angry and hurt, stuck in a world that had long moved on from the tragedy and still feeling every raw cut of emotion that losing her dealt. Sure, he wasn’t exactly inconsolable over it constantly - he had been able to live for sixteen years without Lily. If he went to a psychiatrist, he knew exactly what they’d say to all that: “You’ve externalised your hate onto someone easier to blame, in this instance addicts, when really the only person you feel should be to blame is yourself for not being there to save her”, or something like that. He couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the ludicracy of it all. Never in a million years did he think he’d be one for deep introspection. What in the goddamn has this world come to?

Even so, your words wouldn’t leave his mind. Did you have a point? Was it wrong to blame every addict on the planet for the actions of a few? In a rational sense, he could see what you were saying. His actions hadn’t been based on rationality though, it was all emotion. His instincts wanted him to reject the notion of him being ideologically wrong in this, a notion he in turn fought to reject from himself. One thing in particular that Eggsy had said to him during their final confrontation had stuck out to him at that moment: “You’re working for the president?”. He’d denied it at the time, and there was truth to his denial: as he put it himself, he didn’t want any kind of association with that asshole. At the same time, his feelings on the matter did happen to crossover with the president's own agenda, and some part of that in general hadn’t sat right with him.

Would it even matter by this stage if he’d accounted for his errors? He’d already single -handedly destroyed all that he had by then, the only thing that could properly atone him in his own opinion would probably be death, and he’d be damned if he was gonna let himself die any time soon. The realisation that he might have to spend the rest of his days with the guilt of the incident in Cambodia eating away at him wasn’t too kind on his psyche, but he was ready to accept it in lieu of the alternative. And damn it, if there wasn’t something about that judgemental way you’d looked at him that gave him enough of a kick in the teeth to want to do better. You’d said it yourself that you didn’t believe him to be a bad man. Maybe somehow he could redeem himself enough to even be half of what you’d described of him.

Drumming a lone finger along the fine seam of the couch cushion, his thoughts circled back around to the disturbing dream and everything it entailed, including the part that had shaken him the most. Why you? Why were you of all people appearing in his nightmares? And not only that, why did you take the place of his long dead wife at the end? His mind was ticking into overdrive to decipher every little detail. There was only one other time in his life he remembered seeing you in his dream, and that was when you two were dating. He could chalk up your sudden appearance in his subconscious to the conversation the both of you were having the night before - it would explain the return of his nightmares about Lily too, although his mind swayed towards ruminating on a much more confronting possibility.

What if it means I’ve fallen back in love with her?

As soon as the concept crossed his mind, Jack frantically sought to purge it from his mind altogether. What a foolish idea, he reasoned to himself, taking a larger sip of whiskey out of the glass. There wasn’t anymore to this, and he shouldn’t be throwing out such wild theories based on a nightmare of all things. He went and thought back to the small moments you two had shared throughout the weeks together, times where one lingering touch almost seemed to convey something more. He realised just how many times he’d caught himself staring at you the last few weeks, or the times his touch lingered on yours a second longer than it should have, things he hadn’t noticed until he began to pick apart his own behaviour and examine it underneath a microscope. Old habits die hard, I guess. He may have teased you about making him coffee by “accident” a couple of weeks back, but there wasn’t meant to be any insinuation behind it. It was just that - a harmless tease, a simple reflex of his infamous flirtatious charm. None of this necessarily meant there were any reignited feelings, and furthermore, if by some insane stroke of dumb luck that did happen to be the case, then they were only small at best, fleeting in nature. He couldn’t fall for you again. He couldn’t. Not after putting you through so much pain.

No matter how hard he tried to convince himself it was nothing, even he wasn’t buying it tonight. If he was falling for you again, how would you take it? Not well he guessed, as you still felt hurt by his actions. Why wouldn’t you? He was the one that hurt you then came back into your life without warning because he had to go screw up the one good thing he still had. It was painful to be reminded of how little still had left by that time: his status as an agent stripped from him, everyone he ever loved being dead and buried, and not able to return back home as he was still on the run. Him being at your ranch at all was putting you in enough danger, a fact that made him uncomfortable in of itself. Falling for you would make things more complicated than they already were.

She doesn’t have to find out. Keep it to yourself, and she’ll never know.

That’s it. That’s what he’ll do. He won’t ever mention these returning feelings of affection towards you, and in doing that, hopefully they will run their course and die out. Jack would still be courteous towards you, it went without saying since you were implicating yourself in all of this by hiding a fugitive. He could do that, right? Ignore it all, and avoid anything more than general amicable gestures. A part of him hurt to think of that, especially when those thoughts he had when you two were on the veranda together last night pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind. The way your hair had looked splayed out over your shoulders under the dim porch light, the burn in your eyes that gleamed as you’d admonished him for every mistake he ever made that shouldn’t have made him so entranced. He chastised himself for thinking so lewdly of you in that moment, hating how the very image of you in such a light darted straight to his groin. Finishing off the last dredges of whiskey, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and let out a heavy sigh.

Forget about it. Leave her be. You’ve hurt her enough.

_______________

At long last, there was finally a lull in the day, giving you some off time to relax and decompress a bit. There was still an hour to go before the ranch closed for the night, though nobody else had any riding lessons booked and it was unlikely that anybody was going to show up unannounced at five in the evening. To say the day had been busy would be selling the whole experience short - downright exhausting would have been a more accurate way to put it. There was a function going on for a good chunk of it, a birthday party for the son of some big-shot oil tycoon. You’d been worried your injury would slow down your progress with getting tasks done but to your pleasant surprise you were able to manage just fine, though having your other employees and Jack around had also been a huge help. It’d been four weeks since you’d gotten injured, and according to the doctor during your semi-regular checkups the recovery process was coming along nicely, which had been more than evident to you with the lessening pain. Sadly, you wouldn’t be able to get the cast off for a while, despite your protests. You didn’t see why it all had to take so long: you hadn’t been in any excruciating pain for a good while so it was clearly healing. As well as the cast being a nuisance when bathing and the like, it was also annoyingly itchy, leading you to talking yourself out of shoving a coat hanger down the side of it in an attempt to stop it several times. If only you didn’t have a ranch to run, then you could take an antihistamine pill and be done with it.

Dragging yourself back into the house, you headed straight for the stairs, eager to lie down and doze a little - normally a long day like that would call for a bottle of scotch. This time round, however, you decided to forego the alcohol in favour of a more straightforward way to relax. Once you’d come to the door to the guest bedroom upstairs you felt compelled to stop, your mind wandering to where Jack was at that very moment. Last you’d seen him that day he’d been bringing the horses in. The two of you had stopped to chat for awhile, your usual bitter-edged banter being exchanged, things playing out just as they should when suddenly that same familiar feeling started to make itself known, the same thing you’d felt when he’d handed you the painkillers, or when you two had been out on the veranda a little while back. That spark, so to speak, the frightening feeling of something burning in you, something that shouldn’t be there in the first place. You’d instinctively ended the conversation soon after, making up some excuse about needing to take care of some accounting and hurrying off. Thinking about it now you couldn’t stop yourself from going a tad pink in the cheeks at your behaviour, thoroughly embarrassed for daring to act like you were inflicted with something as trivial as a schoolgirl crush.

Don’t be soft on him. Don’t do this. You’re better than this, those words you repeated to yourself like a mantra started to wear thin during those weeks, especially after the conversation you two had shared where you’d divulged some of the pain closest to your heart. You never thought that you’d tell anybody what you felt after your parents had died, not in a million years, so to have you in a position where you were comfortable enough to reveal such details was nothing short of astounding, particularly when one took into account the exact person you’d told it all to. You could justify these choices with the flimsy excuse of being drunk, but even you knew that in order to run your mouth about something that personal, even while intoxicated, meant you had to feel a certain amount of trust to the other person. Did you trust Jack? Was that what was happening here? To that, you couldn’t fully answer, as you didn’t really know.

Glancing from the doorknob to the stairs and back, you twisted the handle and allowed yourself into the spare bedroom, letting your feet move you towards the closet at the back of the room. Like a woman possessed, you didn’t stop yourself from doing any of this, the feeling of your heartbeat ricocheting through your chest. It had been years since you permitted yourself to look at any of this stuff, let alone giving any of it a second thought. Out of sight, out of mind, you’d thought to yourself when you’d originally boxed it all away, not being able to bear throwing any of it out. Sliding the doors open, you took note of the fact that everything was left in its precise location indicating that true to his word, Jack hadn’t meddled in any of it. A small sigh of relief escaped your lips while you sunk to your knees, poking your head through the rows of old coats that you kept neglecting to donate or sell to the very back of the closet where your eyes locked onto what you’d been originally seeking: a plain velvet blue shoebox shoved underneath an ugly knitted blanket that you plainly despised.

For as much of a hardline no-nonsense woman others perceived you as, a huge part of you was deeply sentimental towards both people and things, or more specifically, things people had given you, hence the choice to simply box up every gift and memento he’d ever given you rather than setting fire to it in some overly dramatic yet cinematic manner. When Jack and you had broken up, you’d gathered up everything that reminded you of him, thrown it in a box and then tossed it into the back of the closet of your apartment to be forgotten forever. When you’d taken over the family ranch from your parents, the box had ended up in the guest room closet instead due to you not wanting an object holding that many sorrowful memories anywhere near where you slept. Taking the box out and setting it down in front of you, you stared at it frostily for a minute, considering throwing it back into the closet and forgetting that you ever wanted to open it. Ultimately you caved, lifting the lid off and opening up the treasure trove of mementos, symbols of a love that used to be that became tarnished with time.

A lot of the items in question were photographs, a couple of polaroid shots of the two of you out at some bar in New York thrown in with the myriad of photos depicting you on various other dates with him. One in particular that caught your eye was a polaroid that had a heart drawn in red permanent marker on the white margins - you were wearing Jack’s Stetson and had one arm thrown around his neck, looking as if you hadn’t a care in the world while he looked up at you with those heart-meltingly gorgeous brown eyes of his, as if nobody else in the world existed except for you. You could still recall the smell of the cigarette smoke from that day, how the loud music reverberated through your ears the entire night you’d spent there with your head rested against his shoulder, ignoring all your other friends in favour of him. You caught yourself grinning at the memory as if you were some kind of lovesick fool. Back then you might’ve been. Not anymore though. Not now.

That’s what you continued to tell yourself while you sorted through the box’s contents, pulling out items ranging from small bits of jewelry to a small cat plushie that he’d won for you at the county fair. Your gaze zeroed in on a small silver chain necklace with a little horseshoe charm dangling on the end, earning yet another foolish smirk from you. Jack had bought that for you as a Christmas present, although you had insisted to him that he didn’t have to go all out on a gift for you. He’d even gotten the underside engraved with your name, which you traced over with the pad of your finger at that very moment.

Looking through all these gifts and the significance they once held to you, your mind started to wander back to the possibility you’d considered during your last proper talk with Jack, questioning once more if he deserved such harsh hostility being thrown towards him. You didn’t want to let yourself be hurt again, so it only seemed logical to make yourself guarded and keep him at an arm's length. With that said, time and time again he’d managed to surprise you - he hadn’t been pestering you as much you thought he would. Sure, he did jokingly insinuate that one time you made him coffee that you were growing fond of him but other than that he’d kept the charm to a minimum, or at least, less than you were used to in the past. It all made sense to you after you’d learned what happened to him that brought him back to you, his magnificent fall from grace so to speak. You meant what you said to him that night - you didn’t think he was a bad person, rather just someone who’s done bad things out of hurt and anger. With everything he told you about his wife’s death, you couldn’t help feeling a sense of powerful empathy towards him, a feeling that scared you a little to tell you the truth. It’d been easy for years to write him off as a liar and a player, but in reality, Jack was far more complicated than that. How ironic: the advice you gave him ended up being a hundred percent relevant to yourself at the same time, you huffed with an absence of amusement.

If you had to be completely honest with yourself, without any kind of lies or facade to keep up, you didn’t know what you felt about Jack anymore. You couldn’t say you hated him, no, hate was far too strong of a word. Actually, you couldn’t really say you even disliked him that much anymore. But you didn’t really like him either. Or did you? Once again, the thoughts of how his touch had made you feel over those last few weeks invaded your mind, things that by all means shouldn’t make you feel some type of way but did. Hell, even how you continued to make his coffee exactly how he liked it every morning, not bothering to question it anymore than necessary for the sake of your own sanity.

Shaking your head, you let out a heavy sigh as you glowered down at the box witheringly. Great, now you’d made yourself confused on your own emotions, all because you felt the need to reminisce on the past. You’re being ridiculous about this. You don’t feel that way about Jack, and if you did, you can’t have him. He’s on the run, he’s a criminal now, and more to the point he broke your heart once. Who’s to say he won’t do it twice? Do yourself a favour for once. Ignore those feelings. Ignore it, and they’ll go away.

You quickly boxed up everything soon after that, pushing it to the back of the closet as if you’d never been there at all. Lifting yourself to your feet, you neglected to look back when you maneuvered yourself out the door and back into the hall, pulling your mind back towards any kind of ranch duties you could muster up out of thin air that you had to attend to, anything that could distract you from the small pink tinge that had crept across your cheeks that refused to leave, or the racing of your heart with every step you took.

__________

After a day that felt like it dragged on forever, you’d been looking forward to turning in for the night. For whatever reason, everything that could have gone wrong that day decided to go wrong - one of the horses had done a runner during one of the riding lessons and you’d had to go out and try to catch the bastard. It took forever to rope the damn horse back into the property. Jack, you and another one of the instructors managed to catch him in the end but it ended up setting your schedule behind for the rest of the day. Later on in the day, some entitled kid had come down and decided he didn’t like the horse he’d been assigned to ride, waltzing right into the stables and picking out one that he deemed more suited for him. The horse, one of the older boys, was understandably annoyed by this random loud kid appearing out of nowhere and being rough with him, leading to said entitled brat getting chomped on the arm. The rest of the day had to be spent dealing with the screaming kid and his mother, who was every bit as entitled as her son was. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Despite your damndest to put on a smile and placate the woman who was screaming threats of a lawsuit, she still wasn’t letting up so you’d metaphorically thrown your hands up in frustration and told her straight to shut up. She’d left soon after that, huffing and threatening to get your entire business shut down. You weren’t scared in the least of her empty threats: you’d dealt with hundreds of other people just like her in your stint running the ranch and nine times out of ten nothing ever came from their tantrums. It was still supremely exhausting to deal with, draining your energy and putting you in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

You’d been angling to end the day as soon as the first instance of idiocy started, so when it was finally late enough in the night and you’d grown tired of the bottle of merlot that you’d been speeding your way through, you’d taken yourself upstairs, thrown on a random t-shirt and sweatpants, and sunk right into bed ready to forget it all and start over.

However, you weren’t so lucky. From the moment you’d first entered your room that night, something had felt off. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it at first, so you’d tried to ignore it, writing it off as feeling slightly on edge from the rough day. The weird feeling wouldn’t go away though - everytime you closed your eyes, you felt like someone else was there, like there was another presence nearby. Five minutes passed before you’d flicked the lamp next to your bed on and looked around the room. You knew Jack had already gone to bed before you, and you couldn’t hear any sort of noise from downstairs that would indicate someone else being there. Nevertheless, you couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else was there, maybe not in the house precisely but somewhere on the property, as if there were a pair of foreign eyes staring at you from afar. Your eyes darted towards the window, the curtains open to reveal the glimmering starry sky outside, your breath becoming shallow as you were finally able to place the exact feeling that was making you tense up in fear:

You felt like you were being watched.

Diving out of bed, you scrambled towards the window and scanned the vast expanse of countryside surrounding your property, searching to see if there was anything out there that was unfamiliar to you. Nothing - all you could see were the stretches of field that lay beyond your ranch, with a lone few collection of trees situated off the edge of your property, exactly as it always looked. That alone should have eased your nerves a bit but for whatever reason that feeling of being watched wouldn’t go away. You glanced back at your bed, trying to talk yourself into downplaying it all as you being paranoid. There isn’t anyone out there.You’ve had a rough day, and about three glasses of wine so you’re a little bit tipsy too, you told yourself as you trudged back to bed and pulled the covers over your head, a useless action that did nothing to quell the anxiety festering in you. For the next twenty minutes or so, you did everything you could to push your unease away in favour of sleep to no avail. The entire time you’d been lying there you felt like there were a pair of eyes burning into your back, directly across from where the window was, yet every time you sat yourself up to check there was nobody there.

Fantastic, guess I’m not sleeping tonight then. Clearly, that creepy feeling wasn’t going to leave and you didn’t feel comfortable in that room anymore. Briefly you contemplated going down to sleep on the couch but that idea was dismissed almost as quickly as it came to you - if you felt like someone was watching the house, then moving sleeping locations wasn’t gonna solve anything. A part of you wanted to go grab a firearm and go on a patrol around the property to be safe, though once remembering that you were a little bit tipsy you didn’t feel it would be the best course of action to go hold a gun right then. Throwing a single glance towards your bedroom door, another idea popped into your head, and before you could try and talk yourself out of it you were already out the door and down the hall to where the spare bedroom was.

Opening the door as quietly as you possibly could, you poked your head inside and peered over to where Jack was laying in bed, covers tangled up around him and facing away from you, appearing to be fast asleep. “Jack? Are...are you awake?” you called out hesitantly.

It took a minute for him to respond, by that time you’d come close to convincing yourself that you were being a baby about all of this and that you should go back to bed. “Darlin’? Is there somethin’ wrong?” he replied, his thick southern drawl sounding groggy, matching his dazed expression he wore while he fought to keep his eyes open.

“Sort of...maybe, I don’t know...I can’t sleep” you admitted.

“Having nightmares or somethin’?” he asked, sitting himself up in bed to properly face you. You couldn’t help but let your eyes wander down his torso ever so briefly - it wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen a million times before but damn, he did look good. Shaking your head fervently, you attempted to ignore that fleeting thought and focused back on what you’d come there to say, proceeding to reply. “No, no, nothing like that. I just...ok, this might sound a little bit crazy but I can’t help feeling like I’m being watched in there, and it’s freaking me out”.

You could see Jack’s brow furrow through the darkness, a look of concern creeping over his face while he thought on what you’d just said. “Watched? Like how?”.

“I don’t really know how to explain it, if I’m gonna be totally honest. All I know is that everytime I close my eyes I feel like there’s somebody outside. Whenever I go to look out the window though, I don’t see anyone” you explained, and at almost the very second you finished your sentence you could see Jack’s eyes widen, the last remnants of sleep falling away and being replaced by an alert and alarmed expression. Before you could say anything about it, he was already throwing the covers off him and sliding out of bed, hustling over to where you were standing by the door. “Stay right here. I’ll go take a look for myself” he instructed sternly, pushing himself past you and making a beeline straight for your bedroom. Instinctively, and in all honesty against both his wishes and your own better judgement, you followed in behind him, seeing him linger close to the wall just enough so that he was out of direct sight of the window. Slowly, he advanced forward to a position where he could properly take a look out, his eyes steely as they examined the landscape, the tensity of his demeanour feeding into your own feelings of concern.

“Jack, what’s going on?” you asked in a small voice, something that was uncharacteristically meek of you. In all fairness, something like this had never happened before. You’d hoped that Jack would come in, take a quick look, confirm there was nobody on the property and give you a little bit of peace of mind but the way he was acting made the possibility of someone actually being out there all the more real to you.

“Darlin’, I’m sorry, but I’m gonna need you to be quiet for a second” he orders, not tearing his eyes away from the window for a single second. You didn’t know how long you two stood there for - it was probably no more than a minute or two at most, even so it felt like an eternity to you, until at long last you saw some of the tension in Jack’s shoulders dissipate and he finally slunk away from the window. “Give me a second, I just gotta go check something” he mumbled, dashing back out of your room and still looking vaguely distressed at the entire predicament. This time around, you did as he said, not wanting to leave the house on the off chance there really was something to worry about. You heard him run back into his own room briefly before darting off downstairs, hearing the unmistakable click of the front door lock opening. You had no idea what to make of any of this - why was he acting so weird? Was there something you should know? Was there really something to your weird feeling and should you be genuinely scared?

The sound of gravel crunching from the ground below alerted you, leading for you to wander over to the window for what felt like the millionth time that night to see for yourself what was going on. Your eyes first landed on Jack, who was pacing the gravel and looking off into the distance, searching for something. You could see he was holding something in his hand but couldn’t quite get a proper look at it as he was angled away from you. He disappeared from your view and a moment later he was back upstairs with you, appearing to be infinitely more relieved than he was before. Now you could properly see what he’d gone to fetch from his room once he’d left: his gun from his days as an agent, the moonlight streaming in through the window glimmering off the silver barrels and onto the floor.

“Nothin’ out there, thank fucking christ” he sighed, giving you a smile that was meant to be comforting. His gesture did nothing to ease your worries, despite the confirmation that there wasn’t anything out there like you’d originally hoped. Along with still feeling uneasy being in that room, there was also the matter of what you’d witnessed in Jack before, the plain and unconcealable look of suspicion and worry that had been showing on him.

“Are you alright? You...seemed worried. The way you were looking out that window, it was...like you were searching for something in particular...”.

“It’s nothing, sweetheart. Don’t worry your pretty little head off about it” he dismissed, obviously wanting to put this whole incident behind the two of you. You were having none of it, so you pressed further, taking a single step closer to where he was standing in the door. “You sure about that? ‘Cause you kinda got your gun out” you pointed out, your eyes flickering down to the weapon resting in his hands knowingly. “Did you think it was Statesman or something?”.

Jack looked surprised that you’d dared to be that direct in your line of questioning. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected any less from you, following your eyes down to where he was holding his gun. “Well, if I’m gonna be honest, yeah. For a moment there, I was worried they’d found me somehow. But there isn’t anybody out there - besides, if they were doin’ surveillance on the house they woulda had me led away in cuffs already. You’re safe as pie, sugar” he confessed.

Exactly as you thought. You’d wondered if Statesman would ever make an appearance, suddenly becoming hot on Jack’s tail. So far nothing had happened, thankfully, and seeing as your strange feeling tonight turned out to be nothing, you permitted yourself to relax a little, despite the still present feeling of discomfort from being in that room. “Alright...thank you for checking. Sorry I woke you up for something stupid”.

“Don’t apologise, sweetheart. I haven’t been sleeping great this last week anyway so I wasn’t even fully asleep when you came in. You make sure to get plenty of rest, ok?” he nodded towards you, turning to leave the room, the comfort of his presence slipping away from you and leaving you to feel the same odd and uncomfortable unrest that plagued you all night.

Glancing back over towards your bed, you dreaded the thought of trying to go back to sleep in that thing tonight. It sounded so childish and silly for you to say, or rather think, but you really didn’t want to be in that room tonight. If you stay in here you aren’t gonna get a wink of sleep.

What you did next was something you never thought you’d do in a million years. In your defense, it’d been a long day, you’d had some alcohol earlier, and you just had to deal with the intense unnerve of being watched only to discover that your feeling was nothing more than a spate of paranoia. With all that taken into account, it was only logical that you asked what you did next. “Jack, wait” you called out before you could stop yourself, freezing once you saw him stop in the hallway and turn back towards you with those sweet eyes of his. “Look, I know this is an odd request but...can I sleep in your room? Only for tonight. I don’t know, I still feel a little on edge and it’s dumb but I’d rather be around someone else right now” you mumbled, simultaneously hating yourself for asking in the first place and feeling utterly embarrassed at your own audacity.

Some part of you wanted him to laugh in your face. Laugh at you and make some stupid little quip about you being a “big girl” who could handle herself. It would be easier to hate him still that way. Of course, he didn’t do that at all. What he did instead was give you the sweetest damn smile you’d ever seen from him, different from those charming smirks you were used to and harkened closer to those rare moments from when you two were together that he would lay down the bravado and be vulnerable. “Sugar, you don’t need to feel bad for askin’ at all. I understand completely where you’re comin’ from” he reassured, holding his hand out and beckoning for you to come forward. And come forward you did, following him out into the hall and into his own room, the anxiety from before fading into nothing and being replaced by relief.

“Thank you. I know we’re not...like that anymore but…” you stumbled dumbly as you glided over towards the bed, fatigue overcoming your brain and making you more impatient to be in bed and asleep as fast as possible. It had to be extremely late by then and you wanted to get a decent amount of sleep before having to get up and go about with business as usual the next day.

Jack, meanwhile, was on the other side of the room throwing his gun back into a chest of drawers. “Say no more, honeybee. If you want, I can sleep on the floor if it makes you more comfortable” he posited, to which you promptly snapped your head back up and stared at him as if he were crazy. “You don’t have to do that, Jack, I’m not about to be kicking you out of your bed”.

“Technically it’s your bed, not mine”.

Rolling your eyes at him, you flopped down on the pillow and sighed. “Doesn’t matter, just...stay here. I’d rather have someone close right now, ok?”. If you weren’t already tired beyond all reason, your brain might have been fretting over the oh so horrific implications of staying in the same bed as him, though if you were really being honest you couldn’t care less right then. It’s not like sleeping in the same bed meant anything, plenty of people did that all the time. So what if you wanted someone near after feeling scared? Wouldn’t someone else do the same thing in your position?

“If that’s what you want, sweetheart. I’ll keep to the other side of the bed if you’d like” Jack assured you, sliding into the other side, doing exactly as he said and keeping a safe enough distance from you. It might’ve been silly for you to care so much, but you had to admit it was nice having someone else be there, and at the least it calmed your anxiety enough for you to feel fine sleeping. Stealing one last brief glance over at him, you wished him goodnight and let yourself relax truly for the first time in hours, letting the world fall away and fade into nothing as you closed your eyes and passed out in mere minutes of being there.

___________

When you awoke the next morning, it was to the strands of sunlight streaming through the parted breaks in the curtain, shining right over your face and rousing you from your slumber. Through bleary eyes, you became aware of the room around you, memories of the night before flooding back to you instantaneously. You noticed you felt warmer, becoming aware of the heavy feeling on your body, which caused your eyes to snap open fully. Looking back over your shoulder, you saw Jack, still sleeping and curled into your back, his arm lazily stung around you. You knew you two hadn’t fallen asleep like that, reasoning that he must have reached out to you during the night, leading to the position you were in now. You could feel the light tickle of his breath against the nape of your neck, something so small managing to light an unexpected spark in your heart. You should have pushed him off. You should have woken him up. You should have done a million other things in that moment instead of the one thing you did.

When instead of flinging him off you and darting out of bed like a skittish cat you curled yourself further into his light embrace, the mortifying realisation hitting you right then with a full force - Jack Daniels, the man who’d broken your heart, was caressing you in his sleep.

And you didn’t mind it, not one single bit.

Taglist (message me if you wanna be added)

Permanent: @greeneyedblondie44

Cross My Heart: @giselatropicana @absurdthirst

#agent whiskey #agent whiskey x reader #jack daniels #jack daniels x reader #Kingsman #kingsman fanfiction #Kingsman: the golden circle #cross my heart #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal x reader

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anika-ann · 3 years

Text

The 5 Times Steve Felt Betrayed - Pt.2

and the 1 Time He Felt Like He Was Betraying You

Type: mini-series to a series (part 1 & part 2 & Part 3), Avenger!reader AU.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader, Matt Murdock & reader

Word count: 2600

Summary: Bucky Barnes is a wanted man and you don’t have Steve’s back; ableit for good reasons. And then it gets worse.

Warnings: mentions of terorrist attack, mentions of violence and death, language, angst

A/N: This part of Melting Hearts’ verse follows the events of CA: Civil War, sometimes only referencing them and kinda expecting the readers to know what’s up ;)

Posted in double chapters (1st &2nd time, 3th & 4th, 5th+1)

Previous part

────── ·❆· ──────

3. (Running to Stand Still)

Back at the hotel after the funeral, another punch straight to his face came; all news channels were broadcasting about an attack in Vienna, exactly where the conference about The Sokovia Accords was taking place. Several people had been killed and the king of Wakanda had been among them.

And they had a suspect: James Buchanan Barnes.

Now Steve was hundred percent sure the world had gone crazy and the universe simply hated him.

“I have to go,” were the first words coming out of his mouth.

You sighed behind him, your fist against your mouth. This was officially the worst day ever.

“And I have to go to work,” Sharon uttered, watching the news as horrified as everyone else in the room. Except for Steve; for him, the tragedy was to be measured on a whole different scale.

“I… I should go to work too.”

Steve’s head snapped to you in shock, his heart positively stopping. Were you… were you gonna come after Bucky too? After Steve’s best friend? Who had clearly nothing to do with this, because he had disappeared from the face of Earth and was definitely not bombing conference rooms with the highest representatives of 117 countries?

Your eyes were a sea of regrets and dilemmas when his accusing glare met with them. It mollified him a little – after all, you didn’t know Bucky. Sure, you heard stories about him, every single one Steve could remember because you were willing to listen, but you weren’t even close to truly knowing his persona.

“I understand, Steve. He’s your friend. He’s done terrible things, but you believe in redemption. I love that about you. And you know I trust your judgement. If you believe this wasn’t him… I trust you. But… I don’t know if I should come with you. With all the tension building up, if I don’t show up at work…”

He pressed his lips into a thin line, not liking it at all; but you were right. They had better chance at getting to Bucky – who might not even be in Vienna for all they knew – if it was just him and Sam coming. Lower profile.

Also, it kinda meant a lot that you were still putting so much trust in his judgement, at least when it came to people’s character.

“You’re right. You should go with Sharon. We don’t know what happens, even if we succeed. I… I can’t ask you to come with me.”

Your expression shifted into a gentle one, the worries softening into something much more affectionate. It surprised him to be honest – and he instantly felt bad for thinking ill of you. He knew you were a kind person. Why was he letting the circumstance make him doubt it?

“You could, Steve. And if I believed I would be helpful, I would come. I know we don’t agree on everything… but the only reason why I’m not coming along is because I believe it’s a way to make it easier for you.”

He gulped, taking a hesitant step towards you. The moment you noticed the tinniest movement of his arms as if he was debating himself whether he should at least hug you goodbye, you threw your smaller arms around him, enveloping him in a warm embrace. Steve closed his eyes at the feeling, welcoming the indescribable relief at the little piece of familiarity in this terrible mess. Having you in his arms always felt right.

“Good luck, Steve. Please, be careful,” you muttered into his suit and he let himself to have a few more moments of peace, pulling you closer so your body could almost merge with his. He took a deep breath with his face nuzzled in your hair, enveloped in everything that was you.

No matter the dispute you two had going on, it felt good to know some things didn’t change and he could find a support in you in the time of crisis after all.

────── ·❆· ──────

Steve barely managed to step on the breaks and swerve the wheel before he would crash into the debris in full speed. He jumped out of the car, having to sprint in front of the vehicle so it wouldn’t smashed him against the road since it overturned and was now coming his direction uncontrollably.

His escape turned into a chase when he saw a person in what could be a costume (an armour?) of a wild black cat standing over Bucky’s lying figure.

And then he caught a glimpse of a movement coming from above.

You landed gracefully next to the tangled mess of limps of Bucky and the assailant, a mass of ice sending the strange figure flying off Steve’s friend. Steve stopped abruptly since he had no one he wanted to throw off now and for a second, he allowed himself to breathe in. He had no idea where the hell had you come from, but he was eternally grateful. And a little bit scared for you, because he had seen what the metal claws of your opponent could do.

Your hand hit the ground, walls of thick ice shielding you all from cars coming from both directions, slightly curved on the tops to cover you from the sky where the flapping of the approaching helicopter was coming from. The panther figure was not included in your little shelter.

Bucky climbed to his feet, staring at you with his eyes wide in shock. Steve wasn’t any less shocked to be honest – but unlike his friend, he was more baffled at you materializing out of nowhere than your powers.

You all heard the sirens approaching rapidly from behind the icy shield, just like you could hear scratching of the metal claws against your barrier reaching tens feet to your right and left. Steve quickly looked around for the quickest and safest escape route as the loudspeaker-powered voice almost deafened you all.

“You’re surrounded-“

Steve sprung to his right, but he didn’t manage a single step. Columns of ice trapped his legs from the ground, reaching above his knees, his shield knocked out of his hands as he was hit by a burst of your powers. He gasped when he saw Bucky unable to move as well and he shot you a desperately perplexed look.

The wall around them melted just enough for you to come through with your hands above your head – about forty riffles immediately aimed at you, together with Rhodey’s repulsors. You sought a leader of the bust and since you didn’t find anyone else, you spoke to the man in the metal suit.

“They surrender,” you exclaimed firmly. “Don’t shoot.”

Steve glared at your back in disbelief, his adrenalin spiking to dizzying levels. What the hell did you just do?!

Rhodey nodded and you glanced at the man in a black costume, only to see no other than the son of the recently deceased king of Wakanda. Prince T’Challa.

Steve honestly thought this was the weirdest nightmare he had ever dreamed. Except it wasn’t a dream; the walls of ice slowly went down, revealing just how many men were ready to shoot at him and Bucky from both the front and the back.

You slowly lowered your hands, putting them behind your back so the agents could cuff you as well. But Rhodey just patted your back to let you know they were not gonna arrest you.

“Good job, kid.”

You grimaced and looked up at Steve. His eyes glinted behind his mask as he watched you with an emotion you certainly didn’t want to decode.

The shock of the Black Panther revealing his face was nothing. The icy needles cutting into his skin and muscles were nothing.

What burned him the most was your betrayal. Yes, you had iced T’Challa away, but you also stole their last chance to run – and what was worse, you had used your powers against him. Against him. You had done something he had thought terrified you, the memory of giving him a frostbite still haunting you. But here you were, doing what you had done so many years ago – except this time deliberately.

He saw the tears in your eyes, the desperate and torn expression on your face as the agents approached him and you let the ice around his hands melt so he could be cuffed. Then his legs were free too, but he couldn’t care less, feeling frozen from the inside.

What Steve couldn’t see was the three different snipers positioned at the edge of the pillars previously aiming at each of them, now with their guns cracking under the extremely low temperature, and their hands buried in ice. What he hadn’t seen before you let the walls crumble, was the number of men with itchy fingers, now lowering their weapons because the suspects were secured. Blinded by the anger, he couldn’t see a lot of things.

He couldn’t see you had just saved their lives.

────── ·❆· ──────

4. (Poisoned Words)

Steve knew – he had known the moment you hadn’t gone after him when he had stormed out of the room after the fight with Tony. He had known you had made up your mind a long time ago – and not even the idea of Wanda being practically held prisoner had changed your spirit. He had known when he hadn’t seen you fight after the psychiatrist did something to his best friend – neither the brainwashed escaping Bucky, neither anyone else at the facility.

Yet it still broke his heart when you hadn’t showed up at the airport with Sharon, who had brought their gear. The shield. Falcon’s wings. He should be grateful to Agent Carter, but it still felt as if she had come empty-handed. She didn’t bring the most important item. You. But that wasn’t on her.

“She’s staying with Wanda Maximoff. Keeping her company,” Sharon said simply as if she guessed Steve’s thoughts and he nodded hastily, pretending the incredibly tight knot in his stomach didn’t exist. That he could breathe. That he didn’t want to scream, but could easily draw enough air into his lungs to do so. That he didn’t feel tears prickle in his eyes.

“Thank you, Sharon. I owe you.”

“I’ll put it on the list. Right under this,” she said softly, pulling out an envelope from the inner pocket of her jacket.

Steve sucked in a breath as she held it out for him. Mentally, he let out a sarcastic laugh. A letter. You had left him a letter. Just words. Just like when you had left him the last time when you abandoned him, even for a whole different reason. The last time, you were protecting him; this time, you were protecting yourself.

Steve wondered if this was you laughing to his face. He didn’t even want the stupid piece of paper.

“Thanks, but… if it’s from the person I think it is, I don’t want it.”

That was a lie.

He did want it. He itched to have it. He craved for it, because he would love to hear what you had to say to all this. To him. Were you trying to justify your actions? How? Was it because you truly believed you were so bad in your core? Because your insecurity about you keeping control over your powers rooted so deep? Or because you didn’t believe he was doing the right thing, you didn’t believe his judgement anymore? Were you thinking he was not doing the right thing, saving a man, who had been turned into a weapon against his will, becoming just a tool?

It didn’t matter. You weren’t here. Whatever you had to tell him, it didn’t seem to matter, because you leaving him in lurch hurt so fucking badly.

He almost jumped when a small hand took his and he snapped from his trance, seeking the point of contact with his gaze. Sharon gently uncurled his fingers, pressing the envelope to his palm. When he met her eyes, they burned with sincerity and seriousness.

“She was very desperate for me to get this to you. She sought me out – because she figured I would come to your aid. Don’t underestimate her, Steve. Don’t judge her. I believe that the letter is truly important.”

Steve sighed, but tugged the envelope into the pocket of his jacket, planning on reading it never. Probably. Maybe someday. Who knew what was next. Who knew if he’d live that long.

Sharon smiled at him reassuringly and helped him to move the equipment to the trunk of their distinctive get-away car. The letter stayed in his jacket, burning with the tinniest hope. Maybe Clint would bring you along with Wanda, since you were staying with her. Maybe…

He didn’t.

He gave Steve an apologetic and pitying look instead; it only made the supersoldier sick. Because now, he was nothing but sure you didn’t give a damn about either him or doing the right thing.

And he had no clue how he had never seen it before. It almost looked like he should be grateful that you hadn’t stopped Clint and Wanda from wandering off at least. God, he had been so stupid—

“Steve-“ Wanda started from behind Clint, her voice sounding urgent, but from her expression, Steve could tell the matter she wanted to talk about; he just shook his head.

“Good to see you, Wanda. Thank you for coming,” he said with a strained smile, pushing the thoughts of you to the back of his mind. They didn’t have time for his self-pity now.

She returned the smile hastily, but opened her mouth again to speak.

“Please don’t. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it.”

“But you should-”

“Not now,” he opposed sternly, regretting his tone when Wanda winced. “Please,” he said, softer. “Not now, Wanda.”

Clint’s gaze flickered between them, unsure whether he should intervene. Honestly, he wasn’t quite certain what was happening between you and Steve, or how much bad blood the Accords poured between the two of you. He had noticed what could be a brief wordless exchange between you and Wanda at the compound and assumed you had wanted Wanda to send your sorry to Steve. He could understand why Steve didn’t want to hear it, especially now, but that was as far as his knowledge of the situation went.

“Clint, thank you. I wouldn’t call you if I had another choice,” Steve turned to him, a tiny grateful smile on his lips. His face spoke volumes about a lot of things, but Clint could tell the gratitude was genuine. He accepted his hand and shook it.

“Hey, trust me, you’re doing me a favour. And I owe a debt.”

Steve just nodded in acknowledgement when he noticed the tiny gesture towards Wanda.

“Thank you both for having my back.”

“It was time to get off my ass. I know where my loyalty lies. And I’m not the only one,” the Scarlet Witch commented lowly.

It earned her a raised eyebrow from Clint when Steve drew in a sharp breath.

Fuck, that hurt.

Steve would think it was just a slip, but the Sokovian tilted her head to side almost mockingly as if she knew exactly what she had said and was provoking him on purpose. Challenging him for whatever reason. Steve swallowed against the lump suddenly grown in his throat.

“What about our other recruit?”

And with that, the matter of you not coming along was dropped.

Steve wished he could get rid of the thoughts about you and his feelings just as easily.

────── ·❆· ──────

Part 3 (the fifth time and the +1)

────── ·❆· ──────

Thank you for reading!

#fanfiction #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers imagine #captain america x reader #captain america x you #captain america imagine #steve rogers fanfiction #melting hearts #avenger reader #mcu #marvel #5 times steve felt betrayed #anika ann

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randomly-a-fan · 3 years

Text

To Remember or Not (Ending)

The Last part from ‘IT’ Needs Advice, Where the ‘Star’ Falls, Friendships’ Strength (Malon and Archie’s Story) and Ferris Wheel Nightmare

When everyone got home, it was time for bed. It wasn’t hard to put their children to sleep since it was very late when they got back. But at the middle of the night at Camp Crystal Lake. Malon screamed in her sleep and woke up whimpering and crying. “Aw… Poor Malon must’ve had a nightmare about her experience, the poor thing…” MJ said in sorrow. She was going to get up to check on her until Jason stopped her and insisted on checking on Malon, since she feels more secure with him; not that Malon was never secured by her mom, she loved her mom’s comfort, it just that sleep doesn’t always apply to Jason, so he doesn’t mind checking on his frightened child.

When Jason walked into Malon’s room, Malon was about to calm down until she sees her daddy coming in. “…Daddy…” Malon said in a shaky voice with tears still running down her face. Jason lifted his daughter into his arms and carried her towards the rocking chair; just like he did when she was a baby, when she first encountered the dream demon. It was memorable for Jason, comforting his special, special girl.

While Jason continues rocking her, he thought about Pennywise’s offer; where he can erase Malon’s memory from the traumatic event at the Ferris Wheel. He thought to himself: what would his mother do? As much as he loves his mother, he knew that he can’t always rely on his deceased mother with his decisions, he had to think for himself, he’s the protective parent now. Without realizing it, Malon fell asleep in her dad’s arms, he noticed after he have felt Malon breathing slowly. So Jason carefully took Malon to her room and tucked her back in to her bed and gave her a lingering kiss by the head.

Jason went back to his room and saw his wife sleeping soundly. Jason climbed into his side of the bed and kissed MJ softly before dosing off.

***

When morning came, Malon was still asleep since she was up in the middle of the night crying from her nightmare, so MJ and Jason decided to let her sleep in. Jason was explaining to MJ about his experience with Pennywise while her and Malon were at the carnival. “That’s funny, Aquarius and I have been talking about Pennywise, she was asking me for an advice. Can you believe it? it’s almost as if we’re the chosen ones.” MJ thought, Jason smiled at MJ, thinking that what she thought about was cute.

Jason then explained to MJ about Pennywise’s offer; making Malon forget about the tragedy, he wanted advice from MJ. “I still have a little small doubt that Pennywise wanted to help… But what I’ve learned from your mother, as to my understanding, I can’t exactly get in the way with the situation. For whenever Pennywise gets here, we’ll let Malon decide for herself.” MJ suggested. Before Jason responded to her thought, they both heard a door knock. Jason assumes that it was Pennywise, wanting to know the answer for his offer.

Pennywise smiled with a big creepy grin. “Hiya Jason… How’s your family?” Pennywise asked. Jason tilted his head before he spoke in his head. “Jason, aren’t you going to write your response?” MJ asked from a distance. Pennywise looked over. “Quiet shorty, Jason is talking from his mind!” Pennywise yelled out. “Don’t yell at my wife! My daughter is still asleep.” Jason explained in a high tone in his head. “Sorry… But your daughter has to wake up now if she wanted to forget the last twelve hours, she only had five minutes left.” Pennywise explained. Jason looked down before he turned towards Malon’s room. “You might as well come in… I’ll fetch my daughter out.” Jason offered.

Jason walked into his daughter’s room and looked down at her before waking her up. He didn’t want to disturb her dream, she looked so peaceful.

Is it really that necessary? To wake her up just to have some demon clown remove her memory from before… No… That will not do at all. He’s been through trauma in his life and he managed to control it because of his mother, if not her, then his wife. All Malon needs to get over her traumatic event is by not thinking about it, and enjoy life while she still can. So he decided to leave Malon be and let her embrace it. So he tucked Malon in more and gently rubbed her head before he leaves.

After Jason came out, Pennywise was waiting from a distance. “I don’t see your daughter?” Pennywise observed. “I appreciate the offer Penny, but Malon doesn’t need this; she just needs her family to be there for her. You should do the same with your family.” Jason suggested in his head. Pennywise was surprised, he didn’t respond until after a few seconds. “If that’s how it’s going to be, so be it…” Then he walked out the door, just before he says his last warning. “If your daughter turns out to be a psycho-killer and then cause havoc at the carnival, don’t blame me… Blame yourself.” Pennywise said before he closes the door.

Jason was not threatened by Pennywise’s word, as a matter of fact, he’s glad that he made the right choice. So he removed his mask and looked down at his wife smiling fondly. They were going to kiss until they heard a door from Malon’s room. Malon was walking out with her bear while rubbing her eye. “Look who’s finally awake… Good morning sleepyhead…” MJ said in a sweet calm tone. Jason went over to pick Malon up and gave her a kiss by the forehead before Malon wraps her arms around her daddy’s strong neck.

So the family had their brunch together and made Malon her favorite; strawberry pancakes topped with whip cream. Normally MJ makes these pancakes on a special occasion, but since her daughter has been through serious trauma, she deserves a special treat.

***

As the sun is about to set, Jason wanted to take Malon out to watch the beautiful view of the sun setting from the lake. He brought his written sheets with him so he can talk to his daughter about an important lesson. Jason and Malon were holding hands to a destination where he proposed to her mother, and when they got there, the sight made Malon’s eyes sparkle with amazement. “Wow…” Malon said in a gasp. Jason gave Malon the note to tell her that where they are now is the exact place where he proposed to her mom and made their vows to each other. “Aww… how romantic… You really know how to win my mommy’s heart… without even saying a word even.” Malon said. Jason made a silent chuckle by her statement.

Jason was going to pull out another sheet of paper with the words already written for Malon to read, but Malon has something to say. “You know dad… Mom told me that Pennywise was here, to offer to erase my memory from what happened last night, and how you turned him down…” Jason stared worriedly as he thinks that she was going to be upset with him for not accepting the offer. However, he thought wrong. “I’m glad you turn that down… As much as I want to forget about my near-death fate, I never want to forget how you bravely came out in public in a weird disguise and came to my rescue… I’ve always wanted to remember that… Knowing that you’ll always be there for me when I needed you the most… I love you dad.” Malon expressed. Jason teared up, he looked at what he written for her, and then back to his daughter; he didn’t need to tell her about embracing the near-death experience, she’s figured it out herself, and he couldn’t be anymore prouder to have Malon for a daughter. So he picked his daughter up so they can watch the sunset together as it was shining through the lake, with the loons making beautiful calls.

Whoever thought that a traumatic event from the other night, turn out to be the most beautiful and peaceful in the present? What a night to be alive… again.

The End

#Friday the 13th #Jason Voorhees #IT #IT Chapter 2 #Pennywise #Pennywise the Dancing Clown #MJ #Malon

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mikauzoran · 3 years

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Lukadrien: Among the Wild Things: Chapter Eleven

Read it on AO3: Among the Wild Things: Chapter Eleven: Confrontation

The royal mausoleum was dim and a little dank; the solid stone walls and the flickering torches did little to keep out the dark chill of death.

Adrien led the way down into the crypt where the kings and queens of the past slept underneath the floor tiles and life-size statues in niches along the walls were the chief markers of which tenants rested where.

Luka found himself more than a little unsettled. He was just waiting for one of the statues to move, and he could swear he felt their eyes on him.

Adrien, however, made his way through the tomb seemingly unbothered by the images of his deceased forebearers. He also appeared to know exactly where he was going, quickly heading to the end of the row.

Luka guessed that Adrien had been to visit his mother many times over the years and was well accustomed to the place.

“Maman,” Adrien breathed, voice filled with emotion as he went up to the statue of a lovely young woman posed seated on a stone bench. She smiled tranquilly, her sightless eyes giving off a dreamy quality.

Adrien sank to his knees at her feet, placing his hand on top of her folded ones and resting his head in her lap.

“I missed you,” he whimpered. “It was so hard not even having a picture of you. I was afraid I was going to forget your face just like I’m forgetting your voice.”

Luka bit his lip, tempted to go kneel beside Adrien and wrap his arms around his mate to hold him together. At the same time, though, he didn’t want to interrupt the clearly personal moment.

Before Luka could decide, Adrien regained his composure and rose to his feet, turning his attention to the statue standing behind his mother’s with his hand possessively resting on her shoulder.

Luka had no trouble recognizing King Gabriel from the portrait Adrien had pulled out of the desk drawer in his mother’s room the night before. Surprisingly, Gabriel’s statue didn’t look new. It showed the same wear and weathering as his wife’s, indicating that the King had probably ordered the two made as a pair when the Queen had died.

“Father,” Adrien levelly addressed Gabriel’s imposing image as it scowled severely in judgment. “…I’m sorry that I didn’t say goodbye…. I’ve regretted that, but you made me feel trapped, so I didn’t think I had the option. I had to escape while I could without looking back. I hope you can at least appreciate the decisiveness of my actions.”

Predictably, Gabriel made no reply.

Adrien took a step back with a sigh, now addressing both parents as he continued, “I’m sorry that I was never really the son you’d hoped for. I’m sorry for all the disappointments.”

He then turned to look at Luka, holding out his hand for his husband to come take.

Luka swiftly answered the entreaty, coming to stand by his mate’s side, holding his hand as they presented a united front.

“I think you two always knew I wasn’t interested in women,” Adrien snorted softly. “Maybe you knew even before I did and that’s why you always said disparaging things about people who experience homosexual attraction. Maybe you thought it was some kind of choice I could un-make or an urge I could fight if I were strong enough…but it’s not.”

Luka inched in closer so that his shoulder pressed supportively against Adrien’s.

“I tried,” Adrien pleaded, his voice strained by building tears. “I tried really hard to be the son and heir you wanted. I just couldn’t make myself, quote-unquote, ‘normal’…and I’ve learned now in the past six months that that illusory ‘normal’ doesn’t exist. I don’t have to fix myself,” Adrien asserted, the tears leaving his voice to be replaced by strength and conviction.

“There’s nothing wrong with me that needs fixing. It’s okay to be gay. It’s actually something really beautiful and special…something that makes me me,” he tried to explain as a sad-but-daring-to-hope smile shyly tilted up the corners of his lips. “And I’ve found someone who loves and treasures me just the way I am.”

He nervously smiled at Luka before looking back to his parents’ statues. “Maman, Father…this is Luc…my husband.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, Your Majesties,” Luka greeted, crossing his left arm over his chest and inclining forward into a slight bow, not really sure what the protocol was for meeting deceased royal in-laws.

“Maman, you would have loved him,” Adrien insisted excitedly, but then his expression sobered, and he amended, tempering his remark, “…at least…I’m sure you would have loved him if you could see past him being fae and married to your son.”

Luka squeezed Adrien’s hand, signaling that he was right there beside Adrien no matter what.

“I hope you would have eventually seen past all that,” Adrien added softly. “He takes good care of me, Maman. He’s a good person, and his love and support help me get a little closer to my full potential and being the person I want to be,” he testified, praying that his assurances would have been enough if she’d still been living.

“I have the kind of love you told me fairy stories about, Maman,” he informed her pleadingly. “Please don’t despise me just because I couldn’t find that kind of happiness with a mortal woman.”

Next, Adrien turned back to his father, a wry smile sliding into place on his lips as he chuckled, “Sometimes you did things that made me think, ‘See? He really does love me after all’. …I know you would never approve of this marriage,” he admitted with a melancholy shake of his head, “but there’s a part of me that hopes that my happiness with a fae man wouldn’t kill that little spark of affection you felt for me.”

With a tearful choke, Adrien retreated into Luka’s arms, burying his face in his mate’s chest. “I guess we’ll never know, though.”

Luka shook his head in disagreement, insisting, “They would have come around. Maybe they would have resented me for a while, and I’m sure they wouldn’t have approved of our union, but, after some time passed, they would see how happy we are together. They wouldn’t be able to begrudge a marriage that made their son happy.”

“I think you’re a bit too naïve, My Love,” Adrien sighed, but Luka’s assertions did make the tears stop. “My world can be cruel and uncaring.”

“Yes, but I refuse to believe that any parents who managed to produce a sweet, compassionate, loving person like you could reject their son because of who he loves,” Luka continued to fight Adrien’s assumptions.

“…Maybe.” Adrien finally allowed the possibility to germinated and take root in his mind. “Maybe they would come around after a while.”

“You’d win them over eventually,” Luka assured, squeezing his beloved tightly, happy to see Adrien through all the ups and downs that came with facing the demons of the life he’d left behind.

Once Adrien regained his composure and bade his goodbyes to his parents, they headed back to the Queen’s chambers where they found Alya and Nino waiting for them, making themselves comfortable in the sitting area of the room on the settee.

“Dri!” Alya trilled in delight when she saw him, scrambling to her feet and dashing across the room to envelope him in a hug that knocked the air out of his lungs.

“It’s good to see you, Alya,” Adrien chuckled as best as he could without the benefit of oxygen. “Thank you for coming.”

She pulled back so that she was at arms’ length, holding him by the biceps to study him better. “Sunshine, you never told me you were the crown prince of the Kingdom of Agreste!” she accused.

Adrien shrugged and gave a sheepish smile. “I mean…you knew I was a prince. I told you that.”

She rolled her hazel eyes and snorted impatiently. “Yeah, but you took Luc for your mate—no offence.”

Luka smiled wryly, lifting and lowering his eyebrows in a manner that clearly stated that he was used to this kind of abuse and didn’t take it to heart.

“I thought you were the prince of some backwater, no-name kingdom,” Alya explained, “but here it turns out that you’re, like, the prince!”

“Technically, he’s the king now,” Luka pointed out helpfully.

A blush of embarrassment sparked to life on Alya’s cheeks, and her lips rounded into an “O” as she remembered the whole reason Adrien had come to the palace in the first place.

“I’m really sorry about your father, by the way,” she offered sheepishly, suddenly feeling bad for the way she’d been gossiping just the day before about the news of King Gabriel’s death and what the kingdom was going to do what with their prince missing.

She remembered the way she’d caught wind of the Queen’s death six years prior and had spent a prodigious amount of time and energy feeding on the conspiracy theories surrounding it. All at once, she felt ill because she’d treated her dear friend’s tragedy as a form of entertainment.

“I’m really sorry, Dri,” she repeated it earnestly, knowing as she squeezed his arm in support that she could never make any of it up to him.

Adrien nodded, looking down at the floor as he whispered a tired, “Thank you.”

Luka and Nino were at his side at once, resting comforting hands on shoulders and giving his hair loving tussles.

A thin smile spread across Adrien’s lips, and he looked back up at Alya with a deep weariness in his eyes. “It’s been difficult, but I’m making it through somehow. Having Luc by my side has been a blessing.”

Alya nodded, feeling awkward and, for once, unsure of what to say.

“But let’s focus on happier things, shall we?” Adrien forced himself to smile wider, trying to inject an air of levity into the conversation. “Did you hear about the wedding and the coronation scheduled for this evening?”

Alya’s eyes lit up, and she latched onto the new topic with unfeigned enthusiasm. “Oh, yes! I was just pumping Nino for information when you came in. It sounds so exciting! The pomp and the ceremony and the big feast afterwards!” She gave a vulpine bark of delight. “I wish I could see it all for myself. I’ve always dreamed of human celebrations like this.”

“You can come,” Adrien informed with a shrug that suggested it was as nothing for him to make her wildest, most cherished dreams come true.

“Really?” She almost stopped breathing.

Adrien nodded and shrugged again. “I’m king. If I say you can come, you can come, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can get over it because my word is literally law,” he assured, taking a heady pleasure in his newfound control. “…I mean, until I can foist the leadership of this kingdom upon someone else, but…”

“I would literally die of happiness,” Alya whined, near tears as she squirmed in excitement.

“Nino will have to chaperon you,” Adrien laid out the conditions.

“I can do that,” Nino gladly volunteered, looking forward to having more time to chat with the interesting fae woman.

“Just for safety,” Adrien explained. “My subjects can be a little…backward…when it comes to issues of embracing diversity. Some of them might be a bit uncomfortable if they knew you were a fox spirit, so I think it’s best if you stay close to Nino so he can help you out and keep you safe.”

“No complaints here!” Alya assured chipperly.

“And we’ll have to see about getting you a suitable dress for the event so that you fit in,” Adrien continued, voicing items of concern as they came to mind. “Nino, could you take her to see Marinette about that?”

Nino gave a snort, shaking his head as he grinned. “Marinette is going to kill you.”

Adrien waved away Nino’s assertion. “Marinette won’t kill me. Marinette loves me. She’s got at least twenty dresses just sitting around that she could make some quick adjustments to for Alya.”

“Marinette is going to kill you,” Luka snickered, imagining the seamstress’s face when Nino arrived with the request from the young king, her eyes bloodshot from working through the night on the coronation/wedding outfits. “She’s going to be livid.”

“It’ll be fine,” Adrien insisted, unconcerned. “I have faith in the supernatural abilities of my Royal Court Seamstress. There’s a reason she’s the youngest person ever to hold the title.”

“There will be shrieking,” Nino chuckled. “She’s going to take me by the shoulders and throttle me in your place.”

“You’ll survive,” Adrien promised with a wink, going over to where the decadent breakfast Alya had brought was spread out on the coffee table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m starving.”

“You’re going to be able to hear the shrieking all the way in town. People are going to think a demon has descended upon the land,” Nino muttered resignedly.

“They already think that about me,” Luka hummed as he followed Adrien over to the sitting area.

Alya arched an eyebrow in confusion. “How could they confuse you with an oni? Have they never seen one before? Don’t they have picture books? Didn’t you tell them you’re a kelpie?”

By the time Adrien and Luka returned from their morning out and sat down to breakfast, the rest of the castle inhabitants were starting to get up and move about, getting on with their day.

Nathalie soon appeared to give them their first briefing of the day, and then it was a flurry of servants and advisors coming in and out, checking about this, asking about that, all working together (or at odds with one another) to prepare for the day’s events.

It reminded Luka of watching his mother in action at a town hall where everyone gathered to make their concerns and desires known. It boggled Luka’s mind how many different decisions Adrien had to make, how many people’s concerns he had to deal with, all the orders there were to give.

Luka wondered if the daily life of a king was always like that or if it were just because of the last-minute nature of the wedding-slash-coronation.

Everyone seemed to be in a rush, and everyone was vying for Adrien’s time and attention.

“I hate you,” Marinette announced as she came in just after noon for a fitting.

“You love me,” Adrien corrected, encircling her in a warm hug.

“No, I really think I hate you,” Marinette snorted, even as she squeezed him back. “I love Alya, however, so I’m definitely keeping her. I’m not so sure about you.”

“Were you able to find a dress that could be modified for her?” Adrien inquired as they pulled apart and Marinette went to the rack she had brought in to get the garments for Luka and Adrien to try on.

“Yes, I actually have a gorgeous orange dress that’s going to look ravishing on her. I did the measurements and marked it up for alterations. Manon’s working on it now,” Marinette informed.

“Nino’s going to faint when he sees her,” Luka hummed happily. He had been pleased with the chemistry between them that he had witnessed during breakfast, and he had high expectations for Alya in formalwear.

“Are you shipping them now?” Adrien snickered as he accepted the garment bag from Marinette.

“Nino is a good man; he deserves happiness, and I think Alya could be a good fit,” Luka replied with an innocent shrug, as if he weren’t actively scheming to get them together.

“I’m in favor of this pairing,” Marinette reported. “Nino’s been a mopey mess since you’ve been gone, leaving him with no one to moon over. If you’re going to be going back home to the fair folk before long, it would be nice if he had someone to take a romantic interest in so that he didn’t feel so lonely.”

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed, feeling guilty. “It would be nice if he had someone. I don’t want him to feel left out, especially now that both of us are going to have partners.”

“He’ll find the right person in time,” Marinette tried to assure with an encouraging smile. “Nino is a great guy; he’s bound to find love…so go on and try your suit out, and don’t worry so much about Nino.”

Adrien nodded, going behind the screen to change.

Luka nearly overheated when Adrien came out wearing a three-piece suit. The jacket was a long, royal blue tailcoat with striking silver embroidery tastefully done down the front of the jacket and around the sleeves. White pants and an ascot completed the look, and, as much as Luka loved his husband in his everyday clothes, Luka found that expensive clothing really suited Adrien.

“I think he’s speechless,” Adrien chuckled, running a hand through his hair, mussing it up. “Excellent job, Marinette.”

“I don’t know if I can really take the credit,” Marinette snickered. “My suit wouldn’t be half as stunning if you weren’t smoking hot.”

“True,” Adrien laughed, giving a spin to make the coattails fan out.

Luka gulped.

“All right.” Marinette gave Luka a clap on the back as she pushed a second garment bag into Luka’s arms. “Your turn, if you think you can walk.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Luka cleared his throat and held the garment bag in front of himself to preserve his modesty as he slunk uncomfortably across the room to the changing screen.

His own outfit was nearly identical to Adrien’s saving for the colour scheme which was inversed. Luka’s jacket and vest were white while his pants, ascot, and the embroidery on his jacket were a beautiful blue to match Adrien.

“If you need help putting anything on, just ask,” Marinette called out helpfully. “I’ve dressed plenty of people in my line of work, so you won’t scandalize me or anything. Most nobles have people who dress them, so it’s really not a big deal.”

“I’m good, but thank you very much,” Luka assured as he fought a little with the innumerable buttons.

When he was content that he looked presentable, he stepped out from behind the screen and was more than satisfied with the effect his appearance had on his mate.

Adrien’s eyes dilated, and his mouth dropped open slightly as a hearty blush spread across the bridge of his nose from one cheek to the other.

Luka zeroed in on Adrien’s throat as he swallowed hard.

“Marinette, if you don’t mind, I think I need half an hour alone with my husband to discuss important marriage stuff,” Adrien informed as he strode across the room, grabbed Luka, and dipped him into a hungry kiss.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Marinette protested with an exasperated huff, watching futilely as Adrien pulled Luka back up only to escort him over to the bed (stealing breathy kisses the whole way) and push Luka down onto it.

“Adrien, I swear, if you harm so much as a button on those outfits, I will assassinate you myself,” she growled, lamenting the fact that she had done too good of a job making both grooms look incredibly handsome.

“I love you, Marinette, but get out,” Adrien hummed happily. “That’s an order.”

Stewing and clenching her fists and jaw, Marinette stormed towards the exit, threatening over her shoulder, “Don’t you dare rip his clothes off with your teeth, Adrien! I will kill you. Take them off like civilized people and hang them up on the rack in their bags. Then copulate like bunnies. I don’t care, but don’t you dare—”

Marinette nearly got hit by the door as Nathalie entered the room.

“—Oh! Lady Sancoeur! I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.” Marinette hastened to curtsy.

Adrien rolled off of Luka with a startled yelp, looking very much like a chastened schoolboy caught by his mother.

“…Am I interrupting?” Nathalie inquired blandly, her eyebrow arching upwards.

“Marinette was just making sure our clothes fit for the ceremony,” Adrien explained sheepishly.

Luka—who had been inoculated to this brand of embarrassment by being walked in on by or walking in himself on his mother, Rose, and Juleka—tried to stifle his laughter and an amused grin with varying degrees of success.

Adrien was adorable as he blushed and fidgeted nervously.

Luka leaned in and pressed a comforting kiss to his temple. “Everything seems to fit wonderfully, so we were just about to change back into our regular clothes until it gets closer to time for the ceremony,” Luka added to lend Adrien’s story credibility. “Marinette is truly amazing to have completed such a daunting task so quickly and so well. I’m extremely impressed.”

“Oh, well,” Marinette laughed bashfully, breaking out into a wide grin of pleasure at his lavish praises. “I couldn’t have done it without the help of my team. I’m very lucky to work with many talented people I can trust implicitly.”

“And we’re very lucky to have you to lead them,” Nathalie added, nodding her approval (a rare commodity).

Then, Nathalie was back to business, getting to the point. “The rings have just arrived from the jeweler, and we need to make sure they fit and meet with your approval so that there’s enough time to make corrections, if there are issues.”

“Oh. Right,” Adrien responded as one coming out of a reverie. He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips as he got up and came over to inspect the rings which Nathalie had fished out of little satin bags.

“Sorry. I know we talked about getting rings for the ceremony this morning, but…” He nervously began to twist the ring Luka had made for him around his finger.

It didn’t feel right to replace it or even to take it off. His subjects might not consider the ceremony that Anarka had officiated at or the private rituals Luka and Adrien had exchanged in their room that first day they committed themselves to one another to be legitimate or legally binding, but Adrien did.

The makeshift ring Luka had placed on Adrien’s finger that day was a real wedding ring to him, and it felt wrong to renounce it like this.

Luka came up behind Adrien, wrapping his arms around him to give him a supportive squeeze. “It’s okay, My Love,” he assured, gingerly taking Adrien’s hand and slipping off the ring, moving it over to the ring finger of Adrien’s right hand. “It doesn’t really matter which finger it’s on, does it? Isn’t the important thing that I put it there?”

Adrien hummed thoughtfully, studying the effect of this new placement.

“…Yeah,” he finally sighed, nodding decisively. “I guess you’re right, but this is only for the ceremony. Tonight, we’re switching them back. My real wedding ring gets pride of place.”

“As you wish,” Luka easily agreed, letting Adrien switch Luka’s ring from his left hand to his right as well so that they could try on the new rings.

Luka reached out for the one that Nathalie indicated was Adrien’s but then stopped, looking uncertainly at the advisor. “I remembered to tell you about my iron allergy…right?”

Nathalie gave him the vaguest hint of a smile as she assured, “You did, and I triple checked with the jeweler, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Thank you.” Luka smiled nervously as he hesitantly picked up the ring, poking it with the tip of one finger first to test it before taking hold of it with confidence.

Both of the rings fit comfortably, and the fitting ended without incident.

Marinette finished inspecting both outfits and identified small details that could be improved while Nathalie gave the boys what felt like their dozenth briefing of the day.

Even after Nathalie and Marinette were both satisfied and left, that didn’t end the whirlwind of people coming in and out of the Queen’s chambers, needing Adrien’s approval or input on this or that.

Luka felt like he barely had time to breathe as the day quickly slipped away and, suddenly, it was time for the ceremony.

#Lukadrien #Miraculous Ladybug #Miraculous Ladybug Fanfiction #Adrien Agreste #Luka Couffaine #Nino Lahiffe #Alya Césaire #Gabriel Agreste #Émilie Agreste #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Hurt/Comfort #Found Family #Fluff #Mikau's Writings #Among the Wild Things

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ephemerlskies · 4 years

Text

in the stars tonight | pjm

⇢ pairing: jimin x reader

[other members - seokjin, taehyung, namjoon]

⇢ genre: series, ANGST, enemies to lovers au, actor!jimin, actor!oc, (eventual) fluff if you squint

⇢ word count: 8.4

⇢ genre: Landing a role that might launch your entire career as an actor had come with the most unpredictable and daunting circumstances: grappling with the tragic loss of your boyfriend, Namjoon, and co-starring in a film with the vexing yet enchanting (and famous), Park Jimin.

⇢ warnings: explicit language, themes of grief/loss, themes of depression, (many) mentions of death, mentions of driving under the influence (please stay safe!!), themes of alcoholism, themes of escapism, mentions of alcohol, mentions of marijuana, unhealthy coping mechanisms, lots of internal dialogue with one deceased boyfriend, arguing/bickering, seokjin being seokjin, eventual love triangle (ish) feud

♪ playlist: dynamite - bts, move! - niki, saint nobody - jessie reyez, through the night - iu, ilomilo - billie eilish, the truth untold - bts, slow dancing in the dark - joji ♪

╰ series index: 01 | 02 (coming soon)

a/n: i, and i cannot emphasize this enough, can't believe this came out of me.... it was just a lil idea in my head, but then it expanded into this entire story that was way too long to fit into a one shot. so, here's me serving up a hot plate of enemies to lovers with a generous side of angst and longing!!! i hope y'all enjoy (and hate) arrogant jimin as much as i did hehe <3 ps i have no idea how long i want this series to be i'm lowkey winging it

The world does not slow down for anything. Not for catastrophes or miracles or even something as devastatingly common as death.

When your boyfriend of three years, Namjoon, lost his life due to another's drunken mistake, you realized this. The world revolves on a scheduled orbit, and not even your tragedy wedged a wrench big enough to halt life just a moment. Just to let you breathe and grieve without feeling left behind. However, you were left behind, both by the world and him.

Every sun and moon, every skipped meal, every unfulfilled rain-check, every isolated Saturday night, and every cancelled audition that came as quickly as they left paid tribute to this merciless phenomenon. It seemed you now existed just to watch the days pass, just to balefully relive the moments before Namjoon's passing. And that seemed to have been the only way you could have survived. To make a recluse of yourself because if the world was careless enough to let someone as amazing as him go, then what held it back from spilling even more wreckage into your life? For the past six months, you stuck to the cold, dead past. It was all you had to hold onto; letting go meant plummeting into a depth far too unknown and inescapable.

You and Namjoon were steadfast. You were still steadfast, or more appropriately, stuck now that you had no one to be loyal to anymore.

You and him were one of those couples other people saw and wished they could replicate into their own lives, but when it came down to it, rooted for your happy ending with him. The type similar to that of highschool sweethearts who beat the odds, or the type whose encounter fell along the silver lines of fate. Something beautiful that automatically made all the love poems authenticated by you and him. And when he held you, the idea of worry or evil seemed like concepts that did not exist past fictional tales. So warm, so loving, now gone.

The way in which you and Namjoon grew over the three years you were able to love him was in a convergent manner.

Your branches and vines were woven into his, and his into yours. Even your roots, the elements of your past, began to entangle beneath the soil. To root between each other meant there had been a foundation from which you grew, a stability that was once neat. There was no boundary of which would discern your life from his. And at one, more favorable, point in time, your life did belong to him. Namjoon was someone you only knew for a mere fraction of your life, however the moment he wandered into it, you had unlearned how to continue without him.

You didn't think you would have to relearn.

But then one decision forced you to do so. One person, who decided paying fifteen bucks for an Uber was not a wise enough investment, ripped out the plant of his body from your shared soil by means of inebriated judgment and a missed red light. You had no choice but to absorb the cruel sustenance of the sun completely alone. Most of your branches of life were left barren, with torn twigs where your body once borne fruit and leaves and beauty. But the roots were where most of the pain inhabited. A stubborn, sharp ache resided in your chest, deep enough that you might have had to be cut open and searched through to find the source.

It had been six months of 'Sorry for your loss' and 'Gone too soon' and your personal least favorite 'He's in a better place now'. It made you angry, because was there a place better for him that didn't have you in it? How could anyone know what was better for him when they didn't experience something as tender and gentle and loving as your relationship?

But none of the sympathetic smiles or half-hearted condolences made you quite as angry as the monster who was too selfish to call someone to drive them and consequently punctuating the eternity you were meant to spend with Namjoon. You always followed the virtue that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Forgiveness was a sweeter release than anything else, but if you could, you would take that drunk driver's life in a heartbeat. You would have gauged out your own eyes if the chance fell into your reach.

Though, no matter how hard you screamed at the universe for hurting you, despite the countless pleas to somehow retrospectively tell Namjoon not to go out for something as trivial as toothpaste so he might be alive today, holding your hand in this waiting room, telling you that you're going to do great, you knew the world wouldn't stop for you or your sorrow.

It revolves, waits for no one, and you had to pace yourself to jump back into the turning carousel of life.

"___. We're ready for you!" His voice was ten notches above a volume that wouldn't irritate you. The only hint you let slip that his tone made you want to throw this script at his crotch was the muted sigh.

You knew this audition was going to play out like the rest. They would ask you to read, stop you in the middle of your monologue, then say something like 'Thank you for your time, we'll get back to you soon' which was show business code for 'We are not giving you the role'. The only reason you were here was because you had been out of work for too long, the piles of overdue bills on your kitchen table a cruel reminder of that. Plus, you knew Namjoon would have told you to go.

He would have said something like, 'Get your lazy ass out of bed and go to that audition! You don't want Hollywood to miss out on a star just because you want to sleep in fifteen more minutes'. And it would have worked. It always had. Now, the only motivation that came to your aid was the echo of his voice, and even that had begun its slow descent into forget. Other than that, guidance of your own volition was as fleeting and disarrayed as a violent wind.

"Hi, my name is ___, and I will be auditioning for the lead. Jordan." Your hand must have been fielding its way through a nervous tick. The person you assumed was the director was eyeing the way it had been contorting at your side, and you hated showing that you were nervous.

"Perfect! We've already casted the other lead role. This audition will mostly be based on whether we think you'll have good chemistry with him." Him. So your possible running mate was a man. Before a list of names engraved on rows of stars cemented into the Hollywood walk of fame ran through your head, you lifted the script and collected all the air your lungs would allow.

Maybe, you thought, my courage and passion might come with it.

And when you opened your mouth, something magical that you credited to talent claimed sovereignty over your body. Now, you were Jordan. Jordan didn't have a dead boyfriend, now ex boyfriend, or luggage enough grief to sink a depression into the crust of the Earth. Jordan was a kind, low-energy, and sentimental artist coming into an age of overwhelming success and fortune —and love.

That's what alluded you in acting. For a moment, you could escape your life, leave your pain on the back burner while you emerged into someone who was unacquainted with the pain of losing the love of your life. It was akin to a drug, administering an intoxicating fill of temporary serotonin. Instant relief, and if you got this job you would have your fix of this twisted sort of high that tempered the Namjoon-sized void in your life. And Jordan's life definitely seemed to have, quite literally, all the things yours lacked.

"Wow, ___, was it? That was absolutely incredible!" The hand-covered whisper that followed this appraisal gave you time to begrudgingly peel of the Jordan mask. Within a half second, all the pain seemed to compound into your body. If you hadn't already shaped your entire life around that weight, you would have fallen over. Though you had done this, and even worse, you had been shouldering it for so long, you would have felt naked without such a burden. "Okay, well, we have a few more auditions but I think we have our Jordan! We'll send your manager the full script along with the schedule for the first week of shooting in about two weeks."

"Uh-" If you had not said something quick, the opportunity might have slipped away all too fast, the way Namjoon had. You vowed to grab hold of anything remotely good that arose into your life, giving you more than late nights of choked sobs and transfixed gazes out of half-curtained windows. This offer was clutched tightly in your fist. "Oh... Th- thank you! Thank you! Fuck, thank you so much. This means so much to me, thank you!"

Before you proliferated the meaning of the words thank you and the director's smile turned into rolled eyes, you stumbled your way out of the door. Waiting on the other side was a world that might strike against you with partially docile cruelty. The wind pressed against your skin, almost blowing away all your grief with the help of this successful audition.

That feeling, as always, was as comforting as it was fleeting. Because the scars of your past would not have budged for any brash current. Because your next thought disrupted the scant flourish of joy. It was the thing that came easier and sooner to you than eating and blinking; telling Namjoon any news of both good and bad ranks, sharing your life to celebrate or stress over. One of the many things that remained by an undissolvable adhesive along your mind. You tried to soak it away with liquor or smoke it out with weed, but there was no breaking of habits you loved almost as much as Namjoon.

I did it, Joon. I landed my first role. You thought, because that was the closest you could have gotten to relaying the news.

Your heart began to physically hurt. Heartaches were literal in your case. Literal and grim. You felt the grip of loss pierce its sharp thorns into your flesh. It had nearly been as painful as all the times your words were met to deceased ears, speaking to someone that had not belonged to you anymore. Six months had passed and pain cannot tell time in the way people can. So, you knew the marathon of your grief was one that followed its own metaphorical clock. You just had to keep running in hopes you could make it out alive.

Though, being Jordan for the next six months would help momentarily satiate your grief. If there were a remote for your emotions, this role would be the mute button. Your pain would still move as it usually would, but now it would be silent. You wouldn't have to listen to its unforgiving taunts and crippling obscenities. It was only just that you were paid reparations for six months of utter misery with six more months of narcotic, soundless distractions.

Two Weeks Later

If the universe had given you one good thing, it was skill and dedication to your craft. The script was memorized in just short of four days, and even a sizable amount of lines of the other characters had been stacked atop your memory. Doing an acceptable job at this role wasn't something that was worried you. In fact, the idea of wearing another's life on your body and on your heart was something you looked forward to.

It was a bit difficult to convince yourself how good this natural born gift was when the universe took something that felt a thousand times more crucial to your existence. Acting, or anything else that planted joy in you, was a consolation prize for merely participating in life. Namjoon was the reward you were meant to win in the end.

And you had no idea what the hell to do when the prize becomes in all of the sense of the word unattainable.

You hadn't driven in six months, despite the run-down Honda parked in front of your street, desperate to be given some sort of purpose. It was too much. Ever since the accident, the idea of manning a wheel that could take away more than it could ever offer was a responsibility you felt entirely too daunted to assume. Even though seat hogs, missed busses, and overcrowded walkways had been inconveniences of an indescribable level, it wasn't enough to put your body into the same vehicle that derailed your life.

Luckily, the bus stop was only three blocks away from the studio. It gave you plenty of time to get into character, however it also nestled in a span of time for Namjoon's voice to filter in and out through running your lines.

He talked to you a lot. As much as it made you want to cry, you held onto it, feeling as though it might be the last of his voice you'd be able to recall. If Namjoon's internal commentary were to suddenly disperse, you might forget his voice entirely. And you wouldn't admit this to anyone else, but you would always answer back. Sometimes out loud, and sometimes, when company forced you into sanity, you responded mentally. It kept you separate from life and any form of interaction with actual people, but it felt better than living in a world without him. Additionally, it helped keep his voice alive, which when you thought about it, was such sick irony. His voice, alive, his heart and mine and soul, dead.

And that was the only downside to acting. When there was another mind you had to engage in, Namjoon couldn't have broken the barrier and his voice wouldn't even register as an echo. Perhaps that was why you waited so long to dive back into your job. It felt synonymous with betrayal to do anything that would sever your connection already hanging by a single, fragile thread.

"___? Hello?" You were immune to every condescending gesture or vernacular weaponized in Hollywood by now. Your makeup artist's snaps fell into the base of annoyance you had grown used to. "Did you hear me? You're all ready."

Her voice wasn't too abrasive. If anything, you should be the one apologizing for dazing in and out of consciousness. Though, Namjoon's sweet compliments about how beautiful you looked with your stage makeup should have been the one to acquire this remorse.

"Sorry. I'm, uh, tired. Not used to waking up at six in the morning quite yet."

"Well, get used to it, or you'll have a rough few months ahead of you." Her laugh had shed whatever shell of pretentiousness once veiled her previous impression. "I'm Nayeon, by the way. I've heard many great things about you, ___. Let's hope you live up to the hype."

Nayeon's nudge was friendly, and it comforted you that within the first day you hadn't pissed off the person who could easily turn your face clown-like with a few heavy strokes of her brush. She was beautiful, too. If she hadn't been dressed in a black T-shirt strewn with foundation and powder stains, then you would have mistaken her for an actress.

"Let's hope so... I guess the director was selling me better than myself." Your eyes scanned the area, though no one seemed a fitting candidate to be your lead. "So, who's the other lead?"

"Park Jimin. I'm surprised they didn't tell you yet. I guess it's some obscure, artistic director decision to keep you in the dark. I’m lowkey fangirling right now… But, don't tell anyone that." Before you could respond, let alone react, Nayeon had collected all the products she needed for her next subject and was about a yard away from you. "Good luck, rookie!"

Park Jimin. You've definitely heard of him, but it surprised you that someone like him accepted a role in a romantic, indie, coming of age film that had not the budget to pay half of what he usually made in his repertoire of previous movies. He was certainly what one would consider an 'A-list' celebrity. The type paparazzi actually cared to stalk, and fans recognized in public, but were too shy to approach due to his sheer intimidation. It hadn't eased your nerves that he was notoriously withdrawn when it came to the behind the scenes portion of shooting a movie.

And, like any decent person, you did your very best to refrain from placing judgments without the opportunity for them to fill in their own narrative. Most of what you ‘knew’ of Jimin had been hearsay. However, you had some hunch Jimin wouldn't qualify as one who labored tirelessly for the roles he had landed or authenticated any sort of compassion with his rising fame.

See, acting and snagging a big role in a movie was characterized as a tall building for you. If one reached the top floor, then they would assume a wealth of opportunities and Oscar nominations and acclimation. Of course, this film industrial structure had various modes of climbing to the top. Some had stairs which called for more excretion and effort but still, all you needed were persistent legs, then each step would eventually get you where you wanted to be.

You had more of a ladder. Each wrung was slanted at an angle of which only deepened your brawl with success and had not been sanded down enough to save you from a generous supply of splinters. After a while, your hands began to ache and the fear that some high-society type would kick the base of your ladder always stalked the forefront of your worries. It certainly had not been a choice means of arrival to whatever awaited you on that top floor, however it was the only one available.

And while you had a ladder to overcome, Jimin had an elevator. The most he'd ever expend to reach that coveted floor was a few presses of a button. And perhaps his only sacrifice would be sharing the elevator with one or two others. Things just worked out for people like him. And an elevator’s delivery was always in a manner that was quicker than the likes of a staircase or a ladder.

When he arrived on set, dragging himself like his own body was a weight he shouldn't have to carry himself, you fought that instinct of yours to assume everything you needed to know from him.

Just because he's wearing sunglasses inside doesn't mean he's some arrogant asshole, even if that is the most cliché character trait of one. This internal lecture was certainly of Namjoon's doing, since he was always one to never run out of allotting the benefit of the doubt.

Yeah, I guess. But, come on, he looks like a fucking idiot. You replied as if he were really there before walking up to the callous man with your gauntlet thrown down by default. No need getting on Jimin's bad side, because you were sure it's complement was being blacklisted from the film industry. Instead of sharp edges you offered him a non-threatening smile and handshake.

Play nice. Namjoon reminded you before you had the chance to decide what you wanted to say.

"Hi! It's such an honor to be working with you. I'm ___." Jimin looked at your hand like you had filled it with mud and were intending on smearing his Gucci jacket, which you assumed was worth more than your monthly apartment rent. "Um, wanna touch base before we start shooting or..."

If his admonished glare at your hand wasn't encouragement enough to retract it back into yourself, then what he said, or more fittingly, what he didn't say next was.

The way his sigh infused a scoff within it made you feel small. It felt like fire, how thoroughly it burned you into a pile of ash, but then it felt like a gust of prickled wind that would scatter your remains completely. If it had not been for the way his head shifted from your head to your toe, you wouldn't have known that his shielded eyes were trailing the length of your body. Such a glare seemed like a calculation of your worth; it must have totaled out to that of a fly he had to swat away because the second you stood on the outside of his peripheries you stopped existing in his world altogether.

His back made a longer impression on you than his eyes, and that was your que to huddle yourself in the corner and stick to the two things you were best at.

Imaginary conversations with Namjoon and rerunning through your already memorized lines.

Before you say anything, I already think he's a prick. It might be pathetic to have instigated theoretical conversations with your dead boyfriend, but the world wouldn't know he would have scolded you first for already constructing an agenda to avoid Park Jimin whenever you could. You just felt an itch to lay down the first word.

You never know, maybe he had a bad day.

Yeah, well people like him don't need to be professional unlike the rest of us. I mean, I'm on the verge of openly conversing with you and I'm the one that has to turn the other cheek? Your script was decorated with a number of wrinkles. Proof that your anger was sleeping from your insides in the form of tightly gripped hands that were pretending to pinch Jimin's skin instead of the script. For once, you felt some grain-sized semblance of luck for having a grasp of acting to pull off pretending to love Jimin.

"Hey." You weren't quite thrilled to meet the person you had imagined pushing down a staircase standing over you. Without his glasses, it was difficult to remember why you had been so angry with him and you hated that. His eyes consisted of more than just irises and pupils, though you would not have been able to place what exactly accompanied these features. They were just eyes, after all, parts of a body. Functional. Mechanical facets of being. And yet, his seemed more than that. More than just sense mechanics. Perhaps beauty.

But for him to have been beautiful, it would have tainted the very idea of beauty.

"We're about to start shooting. Don't make this difficult, I'm trying to leave on time."

"Okay... Sure." Those were the two words you substituted for the 'fuck you' itching to crawl from your throat.

"I'm Jimin, but you know that already." The way he spoke was punctuated as though it was a waste of his time to spend any attention on you. If you weren't already drained of your strength from that tube of toothpaste that was some sort of paraphernalia of the night Namjoon became an article of your past, then you would have rolled your eyes or retorted with something that would knock him down a peg.

"I do." Your own weak will bothered you more than Jimin. "Um, I-"

"Let's not." Though he had no idea what you were about to say, a part of you agreed to not even indulge in small talk with him. It would be too forced and uncomfortable and that might leak into your performance on camera. Still, he had an abrasive way of going about it that made you want to disagree with him just to be able to lie contrary to him.

"Fine." It rolled off your tongue easily, like silk. His lingering eyes had you wondering if you somehow impressed him with your passive agreement or insulted him for not groveling for his approval. Either one would have satisfied you.

"Alright! Looks like you two got acquainted. We're jumping right in." The director, Kim Seokjin, was chirpy. Even if this project wasn't necessarily mainstream or highly anticipated, he was the type to salvage all his passion and pour it into anything he created. It comforted you knowing someone other than you found this to be somewhat life changing. "Please, Jimin, ___, on your marks. This is the scene where you two meet, so we're hoping you two can infuse that feeling of being slightly awkward but nevertheless enthralled in each other's presence. Got it?"

"Yessir." You said, and Jimin only produced a nod which seemed generous for him. Fighting the urge to snarl or squeeze your brows together came as a difficulty you had to practice at.

"Slate! Quiet on set..." Seokjin’s voice filled the empty space of the entire studio.

"Scene one, take one." Just as the snap of the slate reverberated through the room, your eyes changed just as abruptly. Your gaze upon the set transformed it into your reality. You looked at Jimin and now saw Laurie, a young soul filled with enough dreams and kindness one could have mistaken him for a cloud; the kind that spoke in loving whispers and gentle caresses. He reminded you a lot of someone else you knew.

You tucked Namjoon's voice away with the rest of your grief and became Jordan.

Amazing things seemed to happen when you least expected them too. You guessed that was the nature of amazing things, for if you expected them then they probably wouldn’t feel so amazing. About halfway through the scene, after a number of cuts, re-shoots, directorial notes, you noticed something. Or more so, this something willed you to notice.

Once you fell into stride with your character, it became easier to pick up on the person acting opposite of you. Maybe you hadn't given Jimin enough credit before. You knew maybe was an understatement, though you felt a sting admitting talent had fallen into his hands just as all his accomplishments had.

Jimin's acting rested on the side most polar to your own. You replicated, he revolutionized. You became your character, shrinking yourself enough so that one wouldn't have been able to tell who you were beyond who you were playing. Jimin, however, made the character his own. There was no minimizing his own body to fit into the mold of the character. Jimin was the mold, and he sculpted the character to fit along himself. He forged his movements, voice, and confidence into whichever role he played and brought life to someone strewn with a signature of his own soul polishing said character. All the while, he was inventive with each intention and emotion that were strung into his lines.

It was difficult to pull this off, being that you could easily begin to just play yourself in a movie and neglect any character mannerisms that you were supposed to portray, however Jimin seems to slip in and out of his role with ease. And with each take, he peppered in more dimensions to a character. He gave meaning and depth to a person constructed onto a paper script until you couldn't believe this person didn't exist in real life.

That was the amazing thing that kept your well-rehearsed lines behind an impermeable wall of reluctant admiration.

What hadn't helped, though seemed to have been timed to a tee to unwind your sensibility, and timing had always worked against you like you had done wrong to it, was the part when Laurie was written to sneak his hand along your waist after Jordan stepped backwards into his body.

His palm felt so warm. So warm that the entire world felt too cold for you to be anywhere but apart from his touch. Then, all your lines spilled from your recollection. He was standing close behind you, the plush of his cheek tickling your ear and sending the entire world away so you and he could reserve this moment just for yourselves.

"Your line." His whisper wouldn't be picked up by the mic, though it had no trouble debilitating the rest of your senses. Did he intend for it to blur any sort of attraction his character felt for you into the life beyond the camera?

The director called cut to the scene, and it felt like a lifetime before you were released from the entrapping heat of Jimin's body. When you spun around, hoping you could at least dig through your throat to pull out a deflated apology, the smirk laced along his lips illustrated every bit of his arrogance and once again shut you up.

From the way his eyebrow was arched, you assumed he must have read your mind. He knew what he did to you, and it reminded you of everything you disliked about Jimin. Presumptuous, prideful in his taunts. It also reminded you that he stood many floors above you in this architectural competition of acting. You were grabbing hold of each wrung as you went, unprepared for something as disarming as Jimin. All he had to do was peer down at the sight of you to make you feel a hundred times lower than him.

“___? What’s wrong?” You looked over to find Seokjin’s half worried, half irritated expression.

“No, nothing. Sorry, I just blanked for a second.” Jimin’s snide chuckle at your confession to a faulty performance didn’t help simmer the burn of embarrassment.

"It’s okay, I get it.” The director offered a smile as a peace offering, and since he looked not seven years older than you, it had you assuming he was the laid-back type. “Let's take five. We'll block a few of the scenes and finish the rest of this and we'll call it a day."

You made your nest over at the snack bar. Shoving half of a donut into your mouth had almost resurged your energy. Nayeon made a swift return to pat your face with more powder.

"Hey, you're pretty damn good." You were stuck with a mouthful of donut to null any chance of responding. "Except for when you kinda just shut down at that last scene."

You would have felt embarrassed, or rather more embarrassed than you currently did, if it weren't for the light laugh that followed. All you had to reply with was a shrug.

"I mean, I don't blame you. Jimin's pretty hot and if I were cozying up to him during a scene I'm sure I would also fuck up my lines." Nayeon finished applying whatever touch ups she felt necessary, not without a suggestive eye arch. This either meant she was going to shuffle over to another actor in need of visual repair or she would stay and talk. Her continued monologue advocating for Jimin's talents and good looks proved the latter was what you had in store. "I mean, damn. Also, I'm pretty sure he's got abs under that shirt. So, are you into him? Is that it?”

"It's not like that." The harsh delivery gave an impression contrary to what you said. "I mean, I just... He's just really good at this. I guess I got kinda intimidated."

Normally, you would have sought Namjoon's voice ringing in your head about how you could do this, reminding you how he believed in you. It would have gotten you through the scene however, Jordan didn't know Joon.

"Well, he won an Oscar for a reason, babe." You finished the rest of your donut and begun a prowl for another savory comfort food. "I mean, damn, twenty-five and already winning Oscars and getting nominations. It ain't for nothing."

"Yes, this is helping so much, thank you." You twisted in sarcasm as if that would make you seem any less intimidated. Again, Nayeon laughed off any shroud of roughness coating your words.

"What, do you want me to lie? Is that how you want to start this friendship, with lies?" Her elbow nudged you, and that alone communicated more than the brief exchanges you two shared. Now, you had a friend. Someone else to talk with that wasn't a figment of your own imagination.

Look at you, already making friends. Your smile was not as hidden as you attempted for it to be. Namjoon's little encouragements had that effect on you.

"What's that smile for?"

"Oh, nothing." You scarfed down the mini muffin, turning towards Nayeon. "Just happy my makeup artist goes easy on the blush."

She winked, and you felt ready to be sent back into the throes of this film. You weren't keen on Jimin feeling closer to a competitor than a partner in this project, however if that is how he wanted it to be, you were never one to submit so easily. You were determined to level this playing field, and your communion with victory felt like a well-deserved birthright.

"Thought I told you I wanted to go home on time, rookie." You watched his lips shape such venomous words, since his eyes, the unnamed, nearly beautiful presence, might have sunk you back into that state of speechlessness.

"I take it you're not a method actor, since Laurie is so sweet and you're a fucking ass." It felt good for all of one second before a series of reprimands fueled by none other than Namjoon now had you on the brink of apologizing.

"Feisty, huh?" Again, his lips eased out sharp words as if they would not nick the plump skin as it went.

You hoped Joon had nothing to say about how you were now tracing the lush of Jimin's lips. And yes, it had been six months, though you knew your love-ridden heart had yet to free its hands from grabbing hold of Namjoon, still, the feeling of attraction, no matter how brisk it might have been, felt like you were committing adultery. Adultery, over someone who was dead. You weren't the one who left him behind, and at the same time, you never got that shiny patent of closure. There was no break-up, so perhaps that was an explanation as to why your heart was foolishly stuck in love, never realizing its oath to loyalty was graced upon the deceased.

You thought of love now, while you were supposed to be getting into character. You thought of the one thing you once had held worn so easily, and now you had been chasing it knowing your legs weren’t enough to catch up.

There was a well in your eyes, supplied by the same source which fossilized a ragged lump in your throat. And you must have blinked twice as many times as you normally would since Jimin's eyebrows met halfway between his forehead as he watched you. Or, more disappointingly, he might have noticed your tendency to grow red in more places than just the whites of your eyes when you were about to cry. Holding those tears in hadn't helped with keeping your skin less flushed.

It frustrated you that he might have noticed, which only twisted you tighter into the verge of crying. You knew it was unlikely that his watchfulness of your pre-breakdown expression was due to a lapse of genuine concern. For all you knew, he was subtracting even more value from your worth, plummeting you into negative integers.

And if you weren't so dedicated to your craft, then you wouldn't have the ardor nor the ability to pull off acting like you loved him.

Nayeon is a good makeup artist, I think you have a thick enough cover of foundation and powder to hide it. That of course, along with any sliver of light in this dark tunnel, had always been attributed to Namjoon. He was the reason you kept going, the reason you had been able to get out of bed to drink a glass of water once in a while, the reason you did not completely break down every time a tube of toothpaste fell into your line of vision. Him and the memorialized voice was what chipped the lump free from your throat and dried your tears before they had the chance to spill.

"What-" Whatever motivated Jimin to ask you something had been gone almost immediately after it sprouted.

"Quiet on set!" There was no way you'd figure out what he was going to say if the director had mandated pre-shooting silence.

The rest of your day went accordingly. Nothing too devastating happened that cleared away the momentum of excitement of this being your first big role. Though, not that you weren't beyond grateful for this chance, you made a chore of reminding yourself to be aware of your good fortune.

And, with the help of a few well-placed improvisations that made you seem somewhat of a visionary in your craft, your previous mistake had been washed with water under the bridge in the director's eyes. It escalated your ego and confidence to watch Jimin scavenge for an unpracticed reaction to go along with the slight details or lines you infused into the scene. At a certain point, you could almost describe him as impressed with your acting. Maybe enough to bump your worth up a few decimals, not that that should be occupying your worries.

"Wow, ___! Look's like we hired the right thespian. Great work! By the looks of it, things will flow easier from here." The director, who you finally felt on a first name basis with, approached with a hug. Though, usually this would have sent red alerts, you could tell Seokjin had no ill intentions of the predatory type. "Also, you two have chemistry, but it's not quite there yet. I want this to be believable. There has to be some real life element of camaraderie if this story is going to be genuine."

"So, what exactly are you asking of us?" Jimin, of course, sounded all but thrilled with whatever Seokjin was suggesting even when it hadn't been specified yet. And though you hadn't expressed it outwardly, this aversion for what Seokjin has been suggesting was shared.

"I don't know, get to know each other? Method acting works usually. I mean, Jared Leto did it for that movie and he seemed pretty crazy." The attention was never yours to claim once Jimin had already pressed his phone to his ear and Seokjin was off reevaluating the shots taken today.

You were alone again. Surrounded by an entire crew and cast, but alone nonetheless. Your version of escapism was never as consistent as you needed it to be. All it took was a moment of stillness for you to drift into some place much darker than your current reality. Jordan was sealed away for now, and you were trapped in your own body. It felt horrible. Being you without the man who loved and cared for such a kindred soul felt no different than writhing in pain. Being you without him was empty. Before long, you might have fallen faint in front of your coworkers.

The only target you could acquire as of now was Jimin, taken away from the world for reasons much less burdensome than your own. Where you had a plight of grief to sift through, Jimin had a phone and most likely a supply of friends to text and busy himself with. Seokjin wanted you to get to know him, try your hand at method acting so to speak, and that was the excuse which allowed you to walk over and try to kindle some sort of conversation.

"Hey, so, uh..." The pause came to no avail, since it seemed as though you could have said nothing at all judging from his reaction. "Hey."

It took a fictitious clearing of your throat and three more seconds of unwavering silence to lure his eyes from his phone.

"What?"

As it had been for this entire day, everything involving Jimin was made to be some sort of challenge. A feat you had to overcome without an ounce of reprieve, just to remain standing.

"Seokjin said we should, like, get to know each other. Or, at least get along. I think that's a good idea." His eyes gave absolutely no clues to anything below the exterior of an expressionless face.

"Why are you trying so hard?" You waited for him to laugh, or even for a laugh of your own to slip and loosen the tension. A laugh to make what he just said a joke, victimless banter, because it would have been wildly insulting if that were the most genuine thing he had said to you all day.

"What the hell does that mean?" Your arms were crossed as if that would keep your heart safe from his cruel tactlessness.

"I'm not taking this shit seriously." He laughed, but it wasn't the one that you wanted previously. It sunk wounds deeper, with such a dull edge too. "It's just a side job so people think I'm humble, or whatever my manager said."

The puzzle began to piece together, it took this admittance from Jimin for the picture to emerge from ambiguity. This movie was some form of damage control for his reputation, and that might be because your accurately placed criticisms of his lackluster humbleness did not stand solitarily. Your big break had been reduced to a convenient plot of image reconstruction. You were familiar with anger, it was one of your trickier stages of grief to surmount, but it still affected you to the same degree as before.

He didn't expect a response. You could gather that much from the way he instantly turned back to his phone, rendering you nonexistent once again. Namjoon would have told you to remain civil. But Namjoon was gone. It hurt to think that way, but if his voice hadn't emerged to mitigate this situation now, then Jimin was yours for the taking.

"You're a fucking ass." It seems brash was the only approach to seize immediate attention from Jimin. His eyes widened as if you had grown twice as large and the vision of you wouldn't fit in his narrowed, judgmental glare. "This may be a joke or a throw away gig for you, but this means a lot to me."

"Wanna back off, Jesus. I only-"

"No, I don't wanna back off. I haven't had the best year, and having a co-star that treats me like shit isn't really helping either. And, I get it, you're some sort of elitist who thinks they earned their success." You scoffed, tethering his eyes with yours as though there were a string tying them together. And with each step closer you took, the knot only secured tighter. "But people like you, men like you, don't do shit to earn where they are. But it's so cute the way you think you did! Truly, it's embarrassing watching you flaunt your ego around like you actually have something to be proud of."

"So it's like that, huh? You know, I was almost starting to respect you." The fact that his delivery suggested this was some sort of badge of honor made him all the more pathetic. You should not have put it past Jimin to boast over paying a fundamental level of respect where it's due.

"Wow," You doused a generous layer of sarcasm over your throat so the words came out so. "Basic human decency? From you? How can I ever repay you for such kindness?”

"I said almost."

"You're pathetic."

"Like you're one to talk."

"Yeah, well at least I don't pretend I'm hot shit." The tip of your shoes finally closed the gap between his. Again, you were snared in his warmth, however it didn't feel as tranquil as before. Now, it was closer to a pot of boiling water, evaporating flesh and bone until you were steam floating along the air, bendable and displayed out thinly.

"You don't pretend because you're just that bad of an actor, huh?"

It suffocated you, being this close with him; the blurry details of his face became sharp this way. His eyes were hypnotically watchful of your lips, preparing for your next gambit. You surrendered only a smirk, hoping it would antagonize him. And you could have sworn standing at the furthest point of the Earth from Jimin wouldn't appease this invasive thronging. The universe had yet to expand wide enough to provide an acceptable distance away from him. Until then, you were left with shallow bouts of breath tasting of metallic hatred, hoping those would alchemize into words that would make you seem more intimidating that you really were.

"Please, I could act circles around you. Your performance is transparent. Anyone with a scope of the basics of acting could see through you."

"Is that so?" You hated how quick you had been to notice his tongue slip along his lower lip. He must have found this delicious, patronizing someone who only had 'friend number five' or 'cashier' as proof of their employment. Jimin was greedy, devouring all the blood spilled from his wounding retorts.

In some perverse way, being the focus of his attention had you feeling fulfilled. Jimin, the man commonly sought after among the demographic of teenagers and middle-aged women. Not only were you proving your merits of qualification to act alongside him, but you had something to prove to yourself. You weren't going to let Jimin push you around without pushing him right back. You were strong enough to fight. It seemed to have come natural to you to enjoy provoking anger in him. It felt as if you were finally accomplishing something that was unattainable to anyone else.

And even if you wanted to retreat, his gaze guaranteed your obedience. It was a battle, along with every other exchange you have had with him. Even when silence was the only parcel between you two, when the only semblance of noise was heavy, jaded inhales, it felt as though you and he were at wits to gather more air than the other. To see who would fall breathless first.

"You're pathetic." His words hit like physical blows, and you might have had to check for bruises along your ribs and torso from the churning sensation in your stomach.

"If I'm pathetic, I don't know what that makes you." You wanted your rebuttal to feel like fire. You wanted to scorch and sear blisters along his flawless skin for proof of any successful hit. “A privileged boy with enough of daddy’s money to get him any job he wants. But, I’m the pathetic one?”

He appeared unscathed, with one end of his lips rugged upwards, mocking you without needing any of the words to do so. Perhaps he'd gotten the best of you, as you were searching through your arsenal of refutes only to find it overspent. It would not have surprised you to discover his supply of acidic insults piling without a visible dent.

His eyes looked fully employed in studying you, and you felt disrobed to be under such scrutiny from a stranger. Jimin seemed to have been reading you like words on a page, armed with a twisted smile that was unnervingly addictive, but you tried your hardest to keep your book closed. You didn’t want him to know how weak you really were.

"God, you're so-"

"Oh, great! Both of you are still here." Seokjin's voice reminded you that there was a world of events beyond you and Jimin. For a moment, you had felt secluded into a universe constructed especially for any collateral destruction that might have come of whatever war was about to be waged. "I have some notes for you two. Go home, read, digest, and come prepared tomorrow! I have full confidence in the two of you."

"Thanks." Succinct yet not lacking any tonal sentiment, Jimin got the first word in with the director, leaving you scrambling to find yours.

"Thank you." You were frustrated in how recycled your responses felt after Jimin handled them. Actors like you always fed on scraps of the higher-ups, and they were never as appetizing or filling as you would hope.

"See ya, ___." Your name sounded awful on his tongue, like his voice had filtered out the good parts of it and the waste remained spilling from his lips. Like dirt or decayed flesh, or both, and saying your name was akin to saying a slur.

"Fuck you." Those words couldn't sift through your screwed jaw or muffled throat, but it gave you satisfaction that it had been said in the slightest.

It wasn't until you were halfway to the bus stop that the realization pummeled you down a hole you hadn’t recollected being dredged. That whole time, what might have been the product of a mere ten minutes, was the longest segment you had gone without thinking of him.

It was the most intimately you had ever engaged in a conversation with someone other than the late, imagined voice in your head. And it was the most you've gone without consulting with said voice before speaking. You simply spoke, and listened, and responded; like you were normal. You couldn't tell whether that was good, because maybe you would finally be able to move forward with the world, perhaps catch up with the life you were supposed to be living. But, at the same time, the guilt festering something acrid in the pit of your stomach had you convinced this wasn't entirely sunny skies and bright futures.

"I'm sorry." What frightened you, besides your mental slip to keep the words meant for Namjoon in your head, was the unreturned sound of his ringing through. It took the longest ten seconds of your life for the mental silence to be furtively trimmed by your own train of thoughts.

Jimin had done this to you, that you were entirely sure of. Jimin and his carnivorous tongue and greedy glare had drained your head of its second conscious. The one it had adopted when Namjoon's body could no longer harbor it. And that's how he lived on, through you.

Jimin took that away, somehow. You could almost kill him for it, but you had not favored a life in prison nor tabloids that headlined the Park Jimin being murdered or 'Crazy, Jealous Co-star On Murderous Rampage Targets Jimin'. So, for the time being, all that was accessible was quiet hatred.

And you took that over nothing. You hated Park Jimin.

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herstarburststories · 4 years

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Brutal (Dean Winchester x Reader)

✾ A/N: More Dean x reader content, but angst this time! Reposting because I had to edit a few things. Gif's credits on it. Based on the song ‘from the dining table’.

✾ Summary: Unlike her boyfriend, Dean Winchester, the reader wasn’t raised as a hunter. At first, it seems like a hard but worth it job. Unfortunately, you didn't have in mind how brutal all of it could get.

✾ Words: 3k.

"YOU ARE NOT YOURSELF ANYMORE, DEAN!"

The discussion over a delicate subject at the dining table was blossoming into something bigger. (Y/N) was on her feet, shouting at her boyfriend with a shaking voice; a manner that was very uncommon. You were used to Dean being stubborn, and you were not behind him in this aspect which caused a few disagreements here and there. That certain argument, though, was definitive in every meaning of the word.

"I HAVE ALWAYS MADE IT FUCKING CLEAR WHAT THIS LIFE WAS, (Y/N)!" Dean snapped back, anger dripping from his words like venom. He was hurt. How could you say that he was becoming a cold-hearted person? You, of all people. "IF I DON'T KILL IT, IT KILLS ME! THIS ISN'T AN APPLE PIE LIFE, AND YOU KNEW IT WHEN YOU DECIDED TO STAY HERE!"

"I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT VAMPIRES OR POLTERGEISTS OR WENDIGOS, DEAN! FUCK!" Your usual efficiency with words was starting to tangle with desperation. Dean didn't even see the problem, for God's shake. How could you keep this up? "I'M TALKING ABOUT THE PEOPLE! I SAW YOU KILL FIVE POSSESSED PEOPLE TODAY!"

"DEMONS!" He groaned and slapped the table. You jumped in surprise, making him regret getting out of control and coaxing a softer, calmer tone from his mouth. "I killed demons, not people."

"The demons were possessing them, and you killed them off without any regret. You didn't even take a minute to consider other options."

"What other options?" he questioned, obviously upset. What the hell were you doing? Becoming the devil's advocate all of sudden?

"Using the demon-killing knife to stab a non-vital part of their bodies? Maybe an exorcism?"

"None of those options would end the problem permanently. Do you have any idea how many sons of a bitch came back from hell to get Sam and me? It's them or us, (Y/N). And I will always choose us." Dean was aware that you weren't raised in this life like him and Sam, but this conversation was becoming frustrating and confusing. You were training to be like them. You went to hunts with them. You... You supported him. At least, you did last time he checked. "The human is long gone when they get possessed. Dying is the best thing that could happen to them after that."

You were supposed to be an easy case that turned out to be more complicated than previously expected, what meant both of them staying a little longer in the city, you catching feelings for Dean and vice-versa. After all you had seen, you knew that normal life was a long lost memory that you didn't wish to visit, leave alone live in. Hauntings, traveling across the country, having no banal responsibilities-- that seemed like the kind of dangerous fun you had been looking for your whole life. Then, you came with them. Killing things had never bothered you-- they weren't actually alive, for starts. Until you saw how cold Dean looked when he killed off possessed people-- the humans that were still in there somehow. And he kept doing it as if it were the only option. Of course, this job and violence walked side by side, but not unnecessary lethal choices. Dean certainly shared his portion of brutality, which wasn't tiny, but you would never picture your boyfriend as uncaring. Not until you watched five bodies piled up together, burning. What about the chance that those people should have gotten?

"Are you even listening to yourself, Dean? What if Sam had thought like that when you became a demon!?" Apprehensive, you tried to make him understand what was wrong.

Dean clenched his jaw before his answer came out, "Those are two different things, (Y/N). You know that."

"I..." You flinched, taking a deep breath and letting it out. You shut your eyes before opening them with a determinate glare, locking your gaze with his green one. "I can't. I said I would stand by you through anything, but I can't let this slide. Not like this."

"Because I killed a few demons?" The older Winchester grinned wryly. He was furious, scared by the possibility of you leaving him, and injured by your words. What else could a wounded animal do besides attacking? "I survived, (Y/N). I've killed many others, and I'm not fucking sorry for it. They had it coming. You knew that was my life, and you chose it. What are you going to do now? Play the coward? It's a dirty, fucked up job, but someone has to do it, and you knew that."

Offering a sad smile, you walked towards him and lifted your hand to claim his cheek only for him to pull away from you. Your heart ached, but you needed to do that. Stick to your morals and beliefs.

"I love you." And you did, you truly did. Unfortunately, blood was as normal as water in his mouth, and you couldn't help but remain nauseous after what you tasted. "But there is a better way. Maybe not perfect, but another decision. And if you can't see that, if you can't see why I find it wrong to just rush around with the knife in every situation--" Your voice almost broke. "Goodbye, Dean."

You turned around, passing away from the man you loved before another speech stopped you.

"I bet you regret leaving your home to run away with me now."

You didn't take two seconds to reply, and you desired that he could understand how hard it was for you too. "I would never regret you."

No ray of sunshine licked Dean's face to wake him up. Fortunately for the Winchesters' disorganized sleeping routine, the bunker prevented the sun from invading the window-- a perk of living almost under the land in a bunker.

Instead of a normal reason to emerge from his rest, Dean's eyes fluttered open from an annoying migraine. Perhaps he went a little too hard on the alcohol yesterday, but that was the last thing that mattered. Besides, even if it was an abnormal sensation, he wouldn't trade it for sake of 'drinking like a normal human being', as (Y/N) had teased him so many times before.

(Y/N).

It took two seconds after recovering consciousness to think about you.

“Where are you?” he said in a whisper, playing with himself to the silent walls. Dean laughed with his own brand of self-deprecation-- a learned cruelty to dilute the tug of his emotions before the eldest Winchester had to get up. He knew exactly where you resided and why you were there. He decided against feeding his masochism for once, not glancing at your side of the bed.

To face the light fixtures above him only made his current situation more depressing, just like the hints of paint that (Y/N) had once thrown there. Dean Winchester knew pain like no other; hell, purgatory, an emptied childhood, watching his mother seal a deal with a demon, living with the fact his father had gone to hell to save him, being right in front of Sammy when he died, all the bloody deaths he’d lived through again and again-- the list would go on. He could probably drown in an ocean of his deceased loved ones’ blood and swim there for hours until he reached its edge.

Most of the time, the life of a hunter was synonymous with tragedy.

Therefore, Dean was very experienced when it came to suffering. He even shared a last name with a rifle, for God’s sake. Destruction was stained in his bones. This time, it was a different kind of torment.

His heart had been broken before, sure. He wasn’t in his early twenties, neither was he a saint. Dean was aware that a break in relationships could be devastating.

But again, this time, it was different. (Y/N) had not only broke his heart. You ripped it out and threw it in the trash as you walked out the door without looking back. His trust was in your pockets, and the beliefs clinging to the divine sensation of your touch that left with you.

Dean Winchester was hopeless. Deciding not to mourn for a bit, he closed his eyes from the melancholy. It wasn't a hard job to fall asleep once more. People in his job were always heavy-eyed.

Forty minutes passed by the clock until the Winchester roused again. This moment felt missing without you snuggling up to him or kissing his neck between foolish giggles or even pushing him out of bed when you felt like playing the prankster.

There was no valid reason to remain where he was, glaring at a stupid ceiling that held nothing but an old light you installed together and memories. The yellow and blue paints still held firm where you’d spattered them, jumping in the bed together with your hands drenched in the colors from a gouache paint container just because you’d found the tins somewhere in the bunker. You and Dean became a tangled mess of greens, dirty with paint and kissing. How many sexual encounters happened here, he thought, glaring at this ceiling that looked like three-year-old Sammy’s art project.

The green-eyed man never thought he would feel nostalgic about a stupid ceiling. He had to get out of that room.

Finally raising from the mattress, Dean yawned as he padded towards the kitchen. He didn't mind checking what time it was, knowing he needed an alcoholic getaway. The Winchester sat down, sharing a bottle of Whiskey with his shadow. How distracting it was to make his throat burn when an unpleasant thought attempted to take control of his head.

If he had dared to look through the room, Dean would have noticed the clock's arrow pointing at 10:50 am.

By noon he was already drunk, which took a lot of effort since his tolerance to drinks was a bar high set. Dean groaned, displeased. The buzzy feeling of befuddlement hitting him certainly helped, but he could still affirm that he had never felt less cool. His body was starving for something that wasn't there anymore. Dean's feelings were all over the place, and he didn't have the energy to pick them up at this point.

"I can't believe you are drinking already." Sam sighed, making himself known by Dean in the kitchen. In response, all he got was his brother holding the glass up and drinking all of its bronze liquid. "It's barely noon, Dean. You-- Wait. Are you drunk?"

"Don't start, Sam." He groaned, holding his own cheeks with fingers as his hands slid down to his chin. The gesture was a habit of Dean's when he was fed up with something.

The younger one offered him an indignant glare, which was soon replaced by empathy and sorrow as he watched Dean. His brother was broken. (Y/N) running away from them had really taken him down. Part of Sam was hurt as well-- after all, you were his friend and confidant. But, in all ruthless honesty, he couldn't speak out and point fingers at you on that. Not about the whole situation, at all.

Yet, if Sam was feeling abandoned by his friend, he could only imagine what Dean would be experiencing. You had been a hint of happiness in the middle of misery and combat for Dean. It had been so long since Sammy saw his brother like that, so very long. Suddenly, it disappeared like smoke. And the worst part was that he understood your side. Deep down, the long-haired man knew Dean did, too.

Trying to knock sense back into his brother, or at least a bit of normality, Sam spoke, "You can go out and buy some whiskey. Your bottle was the last one."

"Yeah, right." His voice was impassive, almost serious for such casual conversation. He got up, going to the table to grab Baby's keys.

"Hey, Dean..." Dean turned around to face his brother. Sam’s expression was cautious, voice soft when he continued: "If you want to talk about it, I'm here. It could help."

"I'm pretty sure you heard the screaming yesterday, Sam," Dean replied dryly, an unsettlingly wry smile surfacing. His walls were up. It was an old defense mechanism. "There is nothing to talk about. She left. The sooner we can accept it, the sooner we can move on."

"Move on? You want to move on?" he questioned suspiciously, eyebrows arching to match his inquiry.

Dean didn't answer. He only picked up the keys.

"Dean--"

"Yeah, I think we are out of eggs, too," Dean interrupted. He didn't need to talk about it. Not now. "Whiskey and eggs, got it."

Any other remarks from Sam were ignored as he walked through the door, trotting in direction of his beloved Impala. An old song on one of his cassettes was the soundtrack to his five-minute ride to the nearest store.

Dean went searching for eggs and whiskey, adding a lemon pie that smelled better than himself-- not that it was difficult considering he hadn’t showered since yesterday. The store’s cashier swiped his credit card and offered a polite farewell that was replied with a nod. Everything seemed so normal in the most boring ways.

In the parking lot, a familiar face appeared for the first time in a year. It was Thomas-- a hunter that Dean, you, and Sam had come across during a job in New Mexico.

"Winchester!" The blue-eyed man smiled, making the scar near his lips more evident. Being thrown out of a window left marks sometimes. "It's been too long, dude."

"Cavill." His lips curved into a small smile as he greeted his friend. Laying his green eyes on him, Dean couldn't avoid noticing a familiar shirt. Fuck, he must be hallucinating or thinking too hard about foolish subjects. "Where have you been?"

"Burning bones, decapitating vamps. Same old, same old." Thomas waved his hand, banalizing the supernatural routine as if it were nothing but another Sunday. For them, this was true. "I saw (Y/N) yesterday. She seemed fine. Separate hunts to take different cases?"

His blood burned through an emotional fever in realization. It felt like the boil was intense enough to melt his bones if he remained in front of the other men for too long. Thomas had never been subtle about finding you attractive, and neither was his constant flirting when your cases collided. It didn't help that you and Dean weren't together back then, even though the tension was obvious for anyone. The Winchester gripped his grocery plastic bag harder, offering him a sarcastic smirk.

"Something like that." He reached the car door and pulled out his keys. The familiar red flannel, your meeting with him-- it was so obvious it was basically written all over his face, and sadly, Dean could read it well. Fuck, he wanted to drop his purchases and punch that smile off Thomas’ face. That man probably had more of what was once his. “Gotta go. See you around.”

Sliding in the car to leave this conversation before his treacherous mind could reach more detestable conclusions, Cavill answered, "If you need help, give me a call.''

Dean mumbled something but didn't care enough to give him anything beyond a nod while the Impala finally drove away from Thomas.

At that moment, he wished a bit harder that Ellen was still alive or that another bar like hers existed. The hunters’ bar was full of people who understood that death was a part of the job. Somewhere he could swallow barrels of alcohol, play darts and tell bloody stories about his world-- about the quintessential things he did to get despair out of his system to the point that he felt comfortable on his own skin again.

So, that was it? You didn't just leave him and Sam, but you also accused him with all certainty you had of being a cold killer, and then you slept with the first man who showed up? Who was also a fucking hunter? Why the fuck didn't you tell him how you felt sooner? He wasn't an angel-- he would be even more of an arrogant asshole than he already was if that was the case, but you knew it all along. He didn't deserve anything good in his life. He should've seen it coming.

Dean pursed his lips, deciding for another ride to a normal bar. Home and all the beautiful, tragic ghosts inside could haunt him later.

It didn't take him long to park near an establishment. For once, he noticed the strong grip he held on the steering wheel, knuckles strained whiter than usual. He let out a tired sigh, glaring at the entrance of the place before grabbing his phone.

No calls from you. No text messages from you. Just the feeling of being a thirteen-year-old boy again, just like when he was waiting for Mary to send him a sign that she was all right.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Dean put it back in his pocket and made his way to the bar. No 'welcome' board light was shining yet, and he doubts anyone but he and the owner would be there. Once he got in, two guys were sitting in a table far away, and a girl was entering the bathroom. The bartender stood behind the bar, watching some game on the small television the place provided.

"Whiskey. No ice." His words came out harsher than he expected. The guy didn't seem to notice or care, simply nodding his head and turning around go get his client's order. One more time, Dean took his phone and stared at it. There was nothing but a text from Sammy that he quickly replied to, frowning in disappointment. It was rare for you to be the first one to break after a fight, but that was more than a stupid argument. You had left. You had fucking left. And he was the only one to blame.

Such a miserable routine kept its course. Dean would drink, check his phone, and hurt himself with his own thoughts. The night came with lurking shadows, and he couldn't care less. It seemed like the ghosts had replaced the bunker for his company. He didn't want to believe you would come back because hoping and being destroyed again was too much to bear with right now. Dean couldn't even breathe properly at the thought that he would never, ever see touch you, tease you, or be with you again. You had him wrapped around your finger since the very first day until you cut your hand off and left him. You left. How could you have left? But then, how could you had stayed if you had it all in your mind before?

Someone sat beside him. Still, it didn't catch the Winchester's attention until he heard her voice. For a flash of a second, he thought it was you. Dean looked up instantly, only to find himself incredulous.

The woman in front of him looked so much like you. She could easily be mistaken for your sister. Hair, eyes, voice. Everything but the lips were so similar. The unknown girl kept her gaze on Dean despite his strange reaction to her. Repeating her former words, she asked, "What are you drinking? Seems good."

Yeah, she wasn't (Y/N). You could tell what he was drinking from miles away, just because you knew exactly what he enjoyed. In addition, you’d seen his preferences so much that you’d memorized it all without even trying.

She looked like you, though. A lot. The earlier jealousy mixed with a dangerous quantity of alcohol and anguish made his decision. Move on, just like he told Sam. You didn't call him. You weren't coming back. That was your choice. He had to shut up the little hopes in his mind.

Putting up his best sultry smirk, Dean pushed the glass on the table towards her as he answered: "You tell me."

Two hours later, he was tilting his head to the side, watching the woman in his sheets peacefully taking a nap after a long run. Her hand covered most of her face, pillow carpeted with her messy hair.

"Wake up, (Y--)" Dean restrained himself from finishing that sentence. He almost said your name. It was hard enough to keep the woman's name, which he had forgotten by now, on his tongue during sex-- he wasn't going to give in at the end of it. Clearing his throat, the hunter started waking her up again. He needed to go.

In any other point of his life, he would've considered that night a success. A hot girl was sleeping beside him after he had a great amount of old whiskey. Sammy sent a text about a new case, and he had pie waiting for him in the car. At any other moment, that would be enough to put him in a good mood all day. In any other age, that would be considered a good day. No one died, he had sex and food and was about to hunt a thing and blow whatever it was up.

But you hadn't called.

It was probably a good thing in a messed up way. It was tranquil. There was no arguing, no fighting, no hurting from either side. That kind of hurt was quite similar to being comfortable, in a tremendously distorted way that he didn't wish to feel, like not putting medicine on the wound and just allowing it to heal by itself-- yet, occasionally scratching it. The idea of a comfortable silence was so overrated. Dean would rather be screamed at by (Y/N) by now than whatever this option was.

The woman woke up and left a note with her phone as she abandoned the room. Crumbling the paper, he threw it away and touched his face. A deep breath was taken.

He had work to do.

Maybe one day you'll call me

and tell me that you’re sorry too

But you never do

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