#and mark is also so wonderful ;A; even before he spots boston you can see that there is still some heartbreak lingering | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

i-have-a-wonky-eye-too · 3 years

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Chris Evans x virgin!reader

This isn't a series (yet), just the first one shot from the same mini verse. You don't need to read part 2, but you can!

>Part 2>

Warnings: 18+ readers, smut, swearing, oral (f-receiving), fingering, breast play?, loss of virginity, protected!sex, m/f, age gap but not specified (reader of age)

Chris was in love with you. As he sat watching you talk to his mother and his family throughout the night, smiling and laughing, having light debates and being your general wonderful self, Chris realised, even though your relationship with Chris was farly new, he loved you.

You'd only lived in Boston about a year or so, and as a way to make friends after a couple of months, your neighbours invited you to a BBQ. That's where you met Chris' brother, Scott. Over the following months your friendship grew and before you knew it, Scott had convinced you to let him set you up on a date with his brother. It was definitely a shock when you walked into the coffee shop and realised who exactly Scott's brother, and your date was.

"Would you like to come in?" You whispered against Chris' lips as the two of you stood at your front door later that night.

Chris pulled back from you with a lazy smile, brushing his fingers against your forehead, moving your hair. "It's getting late, sweetheart."

You nodded, "I know, but, I thought you could, maybe, spend the night." You looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes. "I, I've been thinking... That, I... I'm ready." You whispered, your fingers stroking over Chris' chest.

Chris' eyes widen at first in surprise before he broke out into a softer smile. "You serious, baby girl? I don't want you doing this for me."

You shook your head, "No, I know, but... Tonight, meeting your family and seeing the way you kept, smiling at me," You blushed, smiling bashfully at him as Chris also blushed. He hadn't thought you'd noticed him. "It made me realise that, I... Want to share this, first, with you, and no one else... I, love you, Chris."

Chris' heart filled with so much love and his eyes watered as he broke out into a giant grin. He reached up and cupped your face, crashing his lips against yours in a loving kiss, pressing you against your front door. He pulled back with a satisfied hum, making you giggle at him. "I love you too." He whispered.

You nodded, reaching up to brush his small tears away. "Will you come in?"

Chris nodded, "Of course, baby." He leaned in to give you one final kiss before allowing you to open the door.

You stepped inside, only for to Chris quickly bend down and pick you up bridal style, kicking the door shut.

"A bit of warning would have been nice." You playfully scolded Chris, giggling as he carried you.

"I'm being romantic." He chuckled. He carried you into your bedroom and gently placed you back on your feet. He carefully reached up and held your face between his large hands as he leaned in and pressed his lips against yours in a loving kiss. He pulled back with a smile, "We can go as slow or as fast as you like, baby. Okay?"

You nodded with a smile, "Okay."

With one more kiss, together you began to undress. Every other piece of clothing you'd share a kiss or press one to a newly exposed piece of skin. Your fingertips trailed across Chris' chest and over his shoulders as Chris ran his hands over your waist and up your back. With ease, Chris unclipped your bra, letting your breasts fall free.

Your head fell back as Chris cupped each of your breasts, leaning down and kissing your neck in the right spot, making you moan.

"You're so beautiful, baby." He let out a breathy moan against your neck. He moved his head and flicked his tongue over one of your nipples before taking it into his mouth.

"Oh," Your mouth fell open as you threaded your fingers through his hair. "Chris,"

He stood up straight with a smile. "Can I taste you, baby?"

"Always." You grinned up at him excitedly.

You may be a virgin, but you weren't a prude. You and Chris had shared quite a few intermet moments with each other. You'd had the pleasure of not only having Chris' mouth bringing you pleasure, but you'd also brought him pleasure with yours.

Chris carefully laid you down on your bed before pulling your already damp panties off, throwing them over his shoulder with a smirk. "So, beautiful." He pushed your knees apart and leaned in, running his tongue up the length of your slit.

Chris slowly licked and sucked your core, moaning against you as he enjoyed his most favorite meal, his large ehamds kneading your thighs. Your eyes rolled back and your fingers tugged at Chris' hair. His tongue swirled around your clit before dipping inside your dripping slit, tongue fucking you as his fingers dug into the round of your ass cheeks.

A deep, drawn out moan left your mouth as Chris sucked your clit between his pink lips as he inserted two of his thick fingers.

"Fuck, baby," Chris moaned against you, "I love your pussy."

"Chris, I-" Your back arched as you pushed Chris' face closer to you. Your eyes rolled back as Chris fingered you and sucked your clit hard. "Yes!" You cried out, cuming hard around Chris' fingers.

Chris drank everything up, loving your sweet taste. You let out a soft whimper as Chris withdrew his fingers. "Good girl," He smiled breathlessly as he took in your post-orgasmic state. "How you feel, baby?"

You hummed, stretching your arms up and ran your fingers through your hair, grinning to yourself. "Wonderful." You let out a small giggle.

Chris grinned down at you. "Want to carry on, sweetheart? We don't hav-"

"Please!" You pushed yourself up, sliding your hand over his shoulder and up the back of his neck. "I need you." You whispered.

Chris smiled lovingly before pressing his lips against yours. "You've got me." He whispered then crashed his lips against yours. It was all tongue and teeth as he laid you back down, his large hands holding you.

Your gaze burned into Chris' skin as you watched him rid himself of his boxers before moving over to your bedside table to grab the condoms you bought in preparation. Your mouth watered at the sight of him handling himself.

"You're drooling, doll." Chris smirked as he settled between your legs.

You shut your mouth quickly and looked away, feeling your face begin to blush.

Chris pinched your chin and raised your head so you'd look at him. "Ready, baby?" He whispered, lightly kissing the corner of your lips.

You nodded, "Ready." You panted.

Chris pressed his lips firmly against yours before slipping his tongue between your lips. As he devoured your mouth, trailing his finger tips down your neck and down the front of your chest teasingly slow, he used his other hand to guide his hard cock between your lower lips.

"Shh," Chris whispered as the head of his cock pushing inside you. You let out a startled gasp. He could feel your whole body tense. "I need ya' to relax, baby." He whispered and slowly trailed his lips across your cheek and below your ear.

Chris knew where to kiss to make your body tingle. He ran his tongue up the length of your neck before he lightly bit and sucked, leaving marks across your skin. He smirked victoriously as you moaned, relaxing under him and arched your back, allowing to sink further inside your wet core.

Chris held you close, all the time kissing and whispering praises in your ear. Slowly, you felt the pain subside and the pleasure build deep inside you. You both let out a deep, pleasured moans as he settled himself fully inside you.

"Fuck, sweetheart, you're so fucking tight." Chris pressed his face against the side of your face. "Tell me when you're ready, baby."

You nodded taking a deep breath. "Okay..." You let out a soft sigh, squeezing your arms around Chris' body. "You can move." You whispered, pressing your lips against the side of Chris' face. "Please,"

As Chris began to pull his thick cock out of your warmth, you squeezed your thighs around his waist and dug your nails into skin, you could feel every inch of him. Chris soothed you with praises, pressing his plump lips against your temple as your moans got a little breathier.

"Fuck, baby," He panted, "Feel s'good..."

"M-more... Please, Chris," You moaned quietly.

"What?" He pushed himself up so he could see your pretty face. He watched your mouth fall open as he pushed a little harder, "Tell me what you want, sweetheart."

You moaned, lifting your hips to meet Chris'. "More, please."

Chris pushed himself up so he was hovering above you, spreading his knees so he pushed your legs closer to your chest before slowly picking up the pace.

"Fuck!" You cried out, your hands wrapping around Chris' wrists as he began to fuck you.

"Open your eyes." Chris spoke firmly. Your eyes shot open and met his lust blown gaze. "Good girl." He smirked. The new dynamic caused your pussy to clench around Chris' cock. "Oh... Fuck, you like that, hmm?" He pushed a little harder.

You nodded biting your bottom lip.

Chris' eyes fell to your chest as your tits bounced with his harsh thrusts. He licked his lips and looked back up as your mouth fell open and let out a strangled gasp. Your walls tightened around him again.

"God damn!" Chris barked. His breath caught in his throat as you ran a hand down his side and over his hip until you let it rest on his ass cheek. "Feel good, baby?"

"Yes..." You slipped your other hand behind his hand and pulled him down into a passionate kiss that was all tongue and teeth.

Chris blindly slipped a hand between your bodies and pressed his thumb against your throbbing clit. Your nails dug into his skin as you pulled back and cried out pleasure. Your walls clamping around his cock as you came. Chris' face contorted in pleasure as he delivered a couple more harsher thrusts, working you through your orgasm before he came.

You weren't sure how long the two of you laid tangled in your sheets. You didn't care. You were happy, and content on just being there with Chris.

#Chris Evans #Chris Evans x reader smut #chris evans x reader #Chris Evans smut #Chris Evans x virgin!reader #bearded chris evans #chris evans #chris evans x reader smut

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jenohi · 3 years

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My Baby

"I'm helplessly falling into your eyes like whoa."

The last place Y/N expected to meet Mark Lee was at a nightclub in the middle of Boston, but also she wasn’t the type to go clubbing regularly either.

There was a spark when their eyes met. Mark was sitting at a table with some friends? Y/N wasn’t sure.

She had a drink in her hand as her body moved to the beat on the dance floor.

Damn that girl is hot. Mark thought to himself. Her face was gorgeous and her body was divine. The kind he thought about when he wrote songs.

He wondered if she knew who he was, normally when fans saw him they’d run up to him. Ask for a picture. But she wasn’t even looking at him anymore. She wasn’t looking at anyone.

Y/N’s eyes were closed as she let her body get lost to the beat.

Eventually when the song ended, Y/N made her way to the bar where there was an empty seat. She pulled herself up onto the seat and actually started to drink her drink. When she brought the cup down from her face she felt a presence beside her.

Mark Lee watched the girl open her eyes and walk over to the bar. Maybe for once, he’d be able to try being a normal guy at a bar. He followed her to the bar and moved to stand in the space beside her.

“I’ll take a Rum & Coke please.” Mark said to the bartender before turning his attention to the girl.

Y/N looked over to see that it was Mark Lee standing beside her. “Hey.”

“Hi, I’m Mark.” he said, holding his hand out.

Y/N couldn’t help but laugh. She grabbed his hand to shake it. “I know who you are. It’s nice to meet you Mark Lee. I wasn’t sure if it was actually you.”

Mark wasn’t sure how to feel about this so he paused for a few seconds before realizing she had never given him her name. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Y/N.” she said. Y/N slid off the barstool and placed her empty cup on top of the bar. She hadn’t even noticed that she was still holding his hand as she walked towards the dance floor.

Mark didn’t let her go. He gently pulled on their intertwined hands, turning Y/N around and pulling her back towards him.

With the alcohol running through her veins Y/N couldn’t help moving her body along with the beat, a dopey smile on her face. Mark couldn’t help but smile. She was really cute.

Now Y/N stood between Mark’s legs as he sat on the seat at the bar. When she was close enough to him he loosely wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

“Aren’t you, like worried you’ll get caught by the paparazzi or something?” Y/N said into his ear.

Mark smiled down at the pretty girl in his arms and shrugged. Maybe she was right but at this moment he couldn’t find it in himself to care. “Maybe, but in this moment there isn’t anywhere else I want to be.”

Y/N only smiled. For a few moments the two of them stayed silent, admiring each other. “Sorry, I don’t want to be like an annoying fangirl so I’m just not sure what to say.”

Mark laughed. “You can say whatever you want. You’re definitely not annoying me right now.”

“Okay.” Y/N smiled. “Do you wanna dance?”

“Sure.” Mark said.

Y/N turned around with Mark’s hand held in hers and led them back to the dance floor. Once she had pulled them into a good spot on the dance floor she turned around and faced Mark, swinging their arms as she moved her body to the beat.

Mark swung his body to the beat. The two had matching grins as he led Y/N to dance under his arm. Then he pulled her in close to him so that her back was pressed to his front.

“You’re a lot smoother than you look.” Y/N giggled, her head was tossed back on his shoulder as they moved in sync.

Mark couldn’t help the flush that rose up on his face, thankfully it was dark in the club so nobody could see. He wasn’t sure what to say so he just continued to move with the beat.

Y/N put one hand behind his head and pulled his head down so that she could whisper into his ear “it’s not a bad thing Mark. It’s kinda hot actually.”

This time the corner of Mark’s lips pulled up into a smirk. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So would it be okay if I did this?” Mark asked before placing butterfly kisses from behind Y/N’s ear down to her neck then to the end of her shoulder.

“Yeah.” Y/N breathed. “I like the confidence.”

Mark held Y/N by the hips and turned her around, she had her arms tossed loosely around his neck. He stared into her eyes. “Kiss me.”

Y/N hesitated for a second, looking at Mark in the eyes and then down to his lips and then back up to his eyes before pulling his head close and pressing her lips onto his.

And then they were kissing. And it was magical. Their lips moving together in unison, gentle licks and nips building up the tension until finally they had to pull apart to breathe.

“Wow.” Mark said. Y/N giggled at his dazed expression. Mark looked down at the girl in awe. This was the Mark she saw online, sweet and kind of awkward.

“Alright, this is the last song of the night so everybody grab your partners.”

Last song? How did it get so late? Y/N thought to herself. She had to get home. At that moment, the only thing in her mind was hauling ass out of the club.

“I gotta go. It was so nice meeting you Mark.” Y/N said, before pushing away from him and running out of the club.

“Wait.” Mark said, but in a rush to leave the club Y/N didn’t hear. What she also didn’t notice is that her phone had fallen out of the pocket of her shorts and onto the floor of the club. Mark picked up the phone and examined it. He laughed to himself, surely nobody in today’s society could survive without their phone right?

A/N: This is my first ever post everrr so please be nice! I have a couple of ideas on how to continue this, so if y'all like it please let me know. I'd be happy to continue it.

#mark #mark lee #mark lee x reader #nct #nct dream #nct 127 #superm #nct fic #mark lee blurbs #nct blurbs #nct imagines #nct-writers #neowritingsnet #cznnet #nct scenarios #mark imagines #mark scenarios #mark lee scenarios

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queenbirbs · 4 years

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the mountain between us | Ethan x MC

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC (Sloane McTavish)

Rating: E

Warnings: language, adult content, N*FW, description of a panic attack

Word count: 8.1k

Summary: In which the return to Edenbrook doesn’t go as planned, or: Ethan and Sloane get the hell out of Dodge Boston.

Notes: This story continues off my previous fic, waiting for rain , although this can be read as a stand-alone. It is a sort of AU of chapter 12, in which Danny has a separate funeral of his own (I mean, I get why PB wrote it to save time/redundancies, but I don’t see them somehow managing to secure burial plots right next to each other? Anyway, the wonders of fiction aside…).

------

She makes it to the diagnostic office with two seconds to spare.

The muffled thump of the door meeting the casing is like a gunshot, echoing in the quiet room. She stumbles past the table and over to the couch, trying to get out of direct line of sight. The leather creaks under her weight as she collapses onto the cushion. That constant undercurrent of dread builds into a wave, washing over her. Her hands start to shake and soon, the rest of her body follows suit. The faux-wood grain of the coffee table before her is the only thing in focus; the rest of the world is warped, as if she’s viewing it through binoculars. Her heart feels as if someone has a fist around it and is trying to pull it free through her throat.

“Stop… fucking… crying,” she hisses, wiping furiously at her cheeks. But her lacrimal glands pay no mind to her threats, nor does the rest of her when she begs it to stop panicking.

All this, she bemoans, over plastic wrap -- just a patient’s sandwich that he asked for her help unwrapping. But the moment she touched it and felt it crinkle under her hands, she was back in that tented room, shrouded by the thick plastic draped over the walls, sealed in and suffocated by the opaque sheeting, waiting and waiting and waiting to die.

She doesn’t remember what terrible joke she made about not being a fan of tuna, nor does she remember the trip from the oncology ward to here, several floors down. None of her friends must have seen her, because none of them have followed her in here, at the ready with their hugs and assurances, suffocating in their own loving way.

“You’re the worst… person on earth,” she whispers, clenching her jaw in an effort to stave off another round of tears.

“Sloane?”

She glances up to see Ethan stepping into the room, his mouth crumpled into that familiar frown of worry -- the one he’s worn ever since she returned. He says her name like it’s a question, as if she has the option to shake her head no and become someone else. It’s a tempting idea. Her reply is at the ready, as natural as breathing now. Not that she’s doing a very good job of doing the latter.

“I’m fine.”

“I see that.” Though the words should be harsh, his tone is anything but -- weighed down by all the concern in the world, it seems. His gaze roves over her, observing and diagnosing her like the specimen she is, walking through Edenbrook’s halls once more. “You’re having a panic attack,” he says, more to himself than to her.

“Correction: my second. First was in the supply closet. Decided I wanted a change of scenery.”

Although it’s a struggle to get the words out, her audience doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke.

“Do you want me to sit with you?” he asks.

“Please.” The plea is whispered into her clasped hands. She tightens her grip, trying in vain to stop the tremors working through her.

Ethan crosses the room and takes a seat next to her, giving her the illusion of space by twisting at the waist to look at her. In blocking her view of the hallway, he also blocks them from seeing her. His hand comes to rest on the space between them, a show of support that doesn’t make her feel crowded or trapped. She could kiss him right now, if it weren’t for the whole world-feeling-like-it’s-falling-out-from-underneath-her sensation. Her lungs ache with each choppy, shallow breath she drags in.

“I’m here. You’re safe with me.”

Untangling her laced hands, she reaches down and rests her hand atop his. With a gentle motion, his fingers shift to nestle alongside hers, grounding her with the pleasant warmth of his touch. With her eyes closed, she focuses on the smooth breaths he takes, mimicking them as best she can. Seconds turn to minutes, marked only by his murmured phrases of assurance and his pulse, sure and steady under her palm. Gradually, her breath begins to ebb and flow, rolling in and out of her lungs in languid sweeps.

She opens her eyes. The office fades into focus. The track lighting is still too bright, so she turns to Ethan. The sympathy welling in his eyes almost makes her want to shut hers again. His gaze tracks over her in a fitful dance; he’s mapping out each tear that stains her cheeks and neck.

“I’m okay,” she tries this time.

His eyebrows scrunch down as he studies her.

“No, you’re not.”

“Okay, fine, I’m not.” Sloane leans forward and rubs at her cheeks. If she puts her hair down, she could maybe make it to the bathroom and wash away the evidence before a staff member notices. “Have you thought any more about Aurora’s proposal?”

“The one you two dropped on me at the private memorial we had on Tuesday morning? No, I can’t say that I have.” Shaking his head, he pinches at the bridge of his nose and sighs. “God, Sloane, I don’t want to talk about the hospital. I don’t give a damn about it right now. I only care about you.”

The cushion creaks as she shifts, uncertain how to drive the conversation away from her. She goes with the best tactic: avoidance.

“Well, thanks, then. But I should go. I’ve wasted enough time as it is. I’ve got to pick up some labs and check up on Mr. Evans and see what Baz wanted from--”

Ethan puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes, once, then again.

“Stop. Stop worrying about everybody else for a second.”

She snorts out a humorless laugh at that. “I’m serious,” he continues, pressing on her shoulder and urging her to look at him. “I know that you practically begged Naveen to let you come back to work, even after I told you no, but I think you need to give yourself more time. I think you pushed yourself too hard.”

“I was stuck here for three days, and then stuck at home for another four. I’m done waiting around. I can only take so much medical leave. And I can’t just… sit at home cowering in fear.”

“So you thought doing it at work would be better?” he asks candidly.

“Fuck you.”

Sloane jumps to her feet and rounds the table, leaving him to throw his pity party for her all by himself -- then freezes. Outside the glass walls, the hallway is teeming with people. Nurses and orderlies and patients mill about, pushing gurneys and cleaning carts and wheelchairs. Several nurses at the station spot her and then, like marionettes on shared strings, turn towards each other at once, their chins tipped low as they converse. She feels like a zoo animal, on display for the hospital to ogle at.

“Go home, Sloane,” comes Ethan’s voice from behind her. His footsteps drag across the rug as he approaches. “For another day or two, at least. Please.”

She turns from the hallway and brings her arms around her chest to hug herself tight.

“I… it’s no walk in the park there, either. Being there alone is frightening enough, but when everybody’s home, they walk on eggshells around me. Even Jackie, who I can always count on to be a certified bitch, has been coddling me. It’s... I hate being home. It’s like they’re too afraid to say something that might -- I don’t know, offend me? -- so they don’t say anything at all. It’s like living with a ghost, except I’m Bruce Willis in this scenario.” She stops short, figuring she’ll have to explain that one, but he holds up his palm to keep the synopsis at bay.

“I understand your reference. You know, I have seen a film or two.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

She tries for the usual smile that wants to form when making fun of his limited pop culture knowledge. Her bravado falls away, though, as he comes to stand close to her. His arms cross over his chest, as if attempting to keep his hands to himself in front of their audience. “You know what it was like for me,” she continues, “being in that room, doing nothing--”

He cuts her off, his blue eyes suddenly ablaze.

“That isn’t what I saw. You stood by Rafael’s side. You helped him when you yourself couldn’t walk without falling over. You lost every semblance of control during the worst moment of your life, and you still were able to relay the changes in your symptoms. You saved Rafael’s life--”

“That was all Tobias and the team’s--”

“You know as well as I do that patient care is more than an antidote in a syringe. You think that if we’d stuck him in a room alone, away from you, or inside one of those glass boxes that he would still be alive? Think again, Rookie.”

The passion and heat in his voice, along with the return of her nickname, sends a tingle up the length of her spine. “I watched you struggle to be by his side. I watched you have all your faculties ripped away. Which is why I’m so worried that you’re pushing yourself too hard.”

“Ethan--” she starts, but he barrels right over the deflection attempt.

“If you had a patient who was experiencing the same symptoms at work, would you tell them to get over it? Would you tell them to push past their fears and their anxieties, in order to stay on the clock?”

Her lips purse at his point, knowing that he’s right. But she doesn’t want to let him win this one.

“Doctors do a lot of things they tell their patients not to. We’re the biggest hypocrites of them all.”

“No, I think that honor falls on politicians,” he quips.

The little laugh feels foreign in her mouth. She can’t help but notice the way his eyes light up in response to the noise.

“I have an idea.” She raises a brow in interest, spurring him on. “Let me take you somewhere. Anywhere you’d like. We can leave today, spend a long weekend away. We’ll swing by your place, pack you a bag, and go.”

“And you think we can just… leave? Slack off on our duties like that? What about our patients?”

The corner of his mouth hitches up in a smirk.

“You’re talking to the person who does the scheduling. And I happen to know your boss wouldn’t mind. My boss has been not-so-subtly sending me couples vacation rentals after seeing our appearance on national television.”

Taking a deep breath, Sloane considers the offer as he watches her, not an ounce of hesitation on his face. That tingling sensation returns, banking higher and higher within her.

“Okay,” she agrees, hating how her heart beats a little faster at the brilliant smile on his face. “I like the way you think. Let’s go.”

------

Within two hours, they load up Ethan’s car and make their way out of Boston, Jenner wiggling happily in the backseat.

The city center gives way to the urban sprawl. That soon becomes overtaken by suburbia and its penchant for shopping outlets and tract housing. Sloane can’t help the sigh of relief that comes when they reach Medford and the city skyline drops away in the rearview. They leave the coastal lowlands of Massachusetts behind, heading north along the interstate and up into New Hampshire. Though she packed a bag with what little information he gave her, she’s curious still when they stop at a food truck for lunch.

“You realize you could hit the navigation screen on the GPS, right?” Ethan points out. “It’ll tell you exactly where we’re going.”

“That’s cheating. I thought you taught me to be a better doctor than that.”

“No, I taught you how to be a smarter doctor. Besides, you’re the one knowledgeable about technology.” When she doesn’t immediately outright ask, he settles back in his chair and pets Jenner when she approaches for attention. “All right, then. Diagnose it.”

Sloane’s fork pauses on its way to her mouth. She shoots him an incredulous look, but when he simply cocks an eyebrow, she takes the bait.

“We’re headed north. At first, I thought Maine, especially with what you suggested I bring, but we’ve gone too far west now. It wouldn’t make any sense to make a big right turn and head east. And we’re not going as far as Canada, because you didn’t tell me to bring my passport -- which I do have, by the way, though I’ve only gotten to use it one time.”

“I know,” he tells her. “There’s several photos of your semester abroad on your Pictagram page.”

“Those photos are from my senior year of undergrad. That means you scrolled for quite a while, Dr. Ramsey.” It’s impossible to miss the blush burning along his cheeks and up his ears. Sloane tips her head to the side, eyes wide, her words teasing: “Were you that interested in Stockholm?”

“It’s a lovely city.”

That thick, bottom lip of his ticks up in a grin. The little cafe suddenly feels too warm for her, but she resists the urge to tug at her sweater.

“Right. So, not Canada. I have to admit, I’m not well-versed in what New Hampshire or Vermont have to offer, other than maple syrup and hiking. Ooh, and Ben and Jerry’s.” Twirling her straw wrapper around her finger, she looks him over for another minute before giving up with a shrug. “Nope, I’ve got nothin’.”

“Some dedicated physician you are.”

His grin widens as the balled-up wrapper hits his chest.

------

They leave the interstate behind after entering Vermont.

Instead, the state highway takes them through the proper countryside. When the satellite radio fails to connect, Sloane steals the aux cord and plugs in her phone. Ethan’s protests quiet down soon enough when, instead of the pop drivel he expects, Nat King Cole croons out of the speakers.

The Taconic mountains roll along beside them, as if shielding them from the outside world; Sloane appreciates the gesture. Clusters of horses and cattle float along in their fenced-in pastures, the grass rippling under a light wind blowing off the mountains. Towns seem to sneak up on them as the road curves through the valley. Tiny stores and tiny gas stations and tiny churches, Johnson’s Hardware and Morgan’s Jewelry and Lee’s Drugstore line up along the roadside. Hanging signs advertise berry farms and local maple syrup, their arrows pointing up into the hills. Then the highway curves again, and the towns disappear from the rearview.

Sloane watches it all from her reclined position against the center console, her hand in Ethan’s as he drives. Jenner’s wet nose bumps against her cheek when the Boxer mix demands affection. Though they swore off it back in Massachusetts, they talk about work, which leads them to medical articles, which leads them to the inaccuracies in medical dramas. Serenading about her need for a Sunday kind of love, Etta James joins them as they cross into New York.

It doesn’t take too long before the feminine voice of the GPS announces that they’ve arrived. Sloane does a double-take at the welcome sign as they pass it.

“Wait -- isn’t this where that horror movie was set?” she asks.

“The film took place in Maine, actually.”

“How are you suddenly an expert on horror movies from the late nineties? And how did I not know that? Did I finally find your film niche?”

“My friend forced me to attend his Halloween party in high school,” he admits with a sigh.

They pass by the shops and bars and restaurants that line Main Street, all the brick facades and rugged decor blocking the view. Locals and fellow tourists clog the sidewalks, meandering in and out of the storefronts as they enjoy the afternoon sunshine. Eventually, the buildings fall away, and the world is filled with nothing but a cloudless sky and clear water that stretches wide beyond the guardrail. Just over a stretch of land, Lake Placid burns a deep blue in the sunlight.

Sloane keeps her eyes on the sights, but shifts her attention back to the man in the driver’s seat.

“Okay, now I have to know: what was your costume?”

“A doctor,” he says, as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

She chuckles at the image of a teenage Ethan in his white coat and his patterned tie, swimming in his tailored shirts and trousers, lecturing his friends on the risks of alcohol poisoning.

“Oh my god, of course you did. Did you at least dump fake blood on yourself or something?”

“No.” His brow crinkles as he glances over at her, confused. “Why would I have done that?”

“To look scary.”

A smirk appears on his face at the idea. “Right. And what did you dress up as when you were sixteen?”

“I’m pretty sure I went as Daphne. My girlfriend Ruby went as Velma.”

“What, you didn’t douse yourself with fake blood?”

“Honestly, we should have. That would’ve looked badass.”

Ethan shakes his head at her, but she can see that smirk of his hasn’t disappeared. Turning off the main drag, he takes them down a one-lane road that winds back into the wilderness. After passing the town lodge, the occasional driveway and accompanying mailbox are the only signs of human life among the towering pines.

The house is tucked back off the road, a pretty little cottage painted robin’s egg blue. Two rocking chairs frame either side of the front door. Once Sloane releases her, Jenner darts out and takes full advantage of the lush front lawn, sniffing along the shrubs and tree line. Leaving Jenner to her exploring, Ethan hauls in their bags with Sloane following behind. The rustic decor leans too far towards kitschy for both of them, but she finds the log bed frame and large, dramatic painting of a howling wolf charming. The real draw, though, is the wide back deck, where the sea of trees parts to offer a stunning view of the lake.

It’s the perfect place, she decides later while sipping from her second glass of scotch, to watch the sunset. From his position, Ethan seems to agree. His arms are wrapped around her waist as they spread out across the porch swing. Bundled up in scarves and blankets to ward off the evening chill, they watch the sky turn from blue to orange to black. The stars, when they fade into view, are thrown into sharp relief against the night. It’s almost dizzying to be able to see so many.

It reminds her of back home, of lying on Ruby’s hood in her grandparents’ driveway under the pretense of looking for falling stars, but actually making out under the cover of darkness.

Curled up atop their feet, Jenner sighs in her sleep; Sloane mimics the noise, stretching out against Ethan. Her eyes flutter closed at the sensation of his lips against her temple.

“Do you remember the Stevensons’ house down in North Quincy?” he asks, continuing before she can respond, because he knows that she doesn’t forget a patient. “This place reminds me of that. But the desire for peace and solitude makes a lot more sense to me, now.”

She shifts in his arms to rest her cheek against his shoulder.

“It reminds me of where I grew up, in this one-horse town in Virginia.” It’s a detour of the conversation he wants to have, but she can’t help but avoid talking about That for just a little while longer. “I mean, really, a real hole-in-the-wall kind of place. My grandparents lived there for sixty years, though, so that was home. When I was nine, my mom dropped me and my brother off at their house and never came back. So, it became our home, too. They took us in and let us have the run of the land -- which was easy to do, since we were surrounded on all sides by mountains. I was happy there -- happier than I’d been with my mom. But I spent a lot of time daydreaming about living in the big city, going to all the college parties that I saw on television, and travelling the world.”

His grip tightens around her. “And then you didn’t,” he murmurs.

“No, I didn’t,” is all she says, knowing he’s replaying her deathbed confession in his head, just as she is. “Though I blame that more on becoming infatuated with this diagnostician who wrote all these amazing books, and who inspired me to go to medical school and one day become one of the country’s greatest doctors.”

“What do you mean?” At her hum of confusion, he clarifies. “You already are, Sloane.”

Tears spring to her eyes at his declaration, but she hides them by burrowing closer into his warmth.

“But yeah, despite growing up in the middle of nowhere, it’s nice to be there again. I mean, you can’t get views like this back in Boston.” She waves a hand towards the thick spread of stars above them.

“Your file didn’t list your grandparents as contacts.”

The invitation to talk about her past lies in the proverbial space between them; she takes it.

“They passed within a few months of each other when I was seventeen. They left what little they had to me and my brother, and I used that to get to college.”

She tells him about the farmhouse and how it would become so big and lonely; and the vintage, rose-patterned sofas that would collect dust; and the little kitchen at the back that would never smell of fresh coffee and banana bread again.

She doesn’t tell him about how it felt like being abandoned all over again.

Time has healed the wound’s edges, but it flares to life on occasion. Over the years, she’s learned to sit with the grief, to take long moments to study it and inspect it and move through it. It’s how she knows, despite the horrific tragedy at Edenbrook, that she’ll be okay. Maybe not right now, or next week, or next month, but someday.

From inside, muffled through the French doors, comes Gladys Knight singing about life’s ups and downs. Sloane closes her eyes, focusing on the song and on the steady brush of Ethan’s thumb as he strokes her arm. Across the dark expanse of the woods, a whippoorwill calls out, its warble echoing off the water.

At some point, she stirs to the sensation of movement, of warm lines of pressure along her back and behind her knees. Ethan is talking to Jenner in that low, gravelly voice of his, as if trying not to wake her. Before she can tease him for it, the blanket of sleep wraps around her once more.

------

After a lengthy argument on staying in bed versus exploring the town, Ethan takes the loss with a surprising amount of grace.

Oh, he grumbles a bit as he tugs on his sweater and makes several comments on how proper vacation etiquette does not include rising before nine a.m. But once she gets him downtown to the farmer’s market and gives him the task of finding the ugliest souvenir for her to give to her roommates, he perks right up.

Under a stretch of white tents, card tables are laden with wares and plants and produce. Buckets of brightly-colored croton and chrysanthemums flare against the white tablecloths. Necklaces, fishing lures, and welded sculptures glint, swing, and jingle, catching the attention of passers-by. Wines and cheeses and honey are bottled and wrapped and canned, their labels touting how local, how fresh, how organic they are. From somewhere along the thoroughfare comes the smell of hot apple cider as it drifts between the stalls.

Sloane is marveling at a collection of wind chimes that she has no use for whatsoever when she feels a hand settle on her lower back.

“I found it.” There’s a strange sense of pride in his voice as he lifts a nondescript, brown paper bag up for emphasis. Jenner knocks her body into his legs, as if reminding him of her role in the game. “Alright, well, technically Jenner did.”

“What is it?”

“As per your request, the most hideous object known to mankind.”

“I don’t think I was that--”

“Fine,” he concedes, “known to this region -- or state, at the very least.”

Out from the Lake Placid News’s crumpled pages comes a tankard of a coffee mug with Don’t confuse your GOOGLE search with my Medical Degree! printed along the side. Then, stamped underneath as if an afterthought: Adirondack Mountains, NY. Sloane stares at it with a sort of horrified amazement.

“It’s…” she trails off, unable to form words.

“I know,” Ethan agrees, turning the mug around to read over it again. Looped around his wrist is another smaller bag.

“What else did you get?”

“That one’s a surprise.”

Jostling the tote bag on her shoulder, she gestures to the cork sticking out. “I bought us some wine to go with dinner. C’mon, show me what you bought.” It may sound like she’s whining, but she’s not.

“Are you unaware of how surprises work?” he questions, raising a brow at her insistence.

“Okay, fine.” She lets the topic slide, grinning and rolling her eyes at his desire for secrecy.

Reaching towards him, he answers in kind by sliding his arm through hers. They spend the rest of the morning strolling through the stalls together. He buys a nice bottle of bourbon for Naveen; she buys a little box of self-care items for Sienna. When Sloane comments to the shop owner on the pretty photo printed around the candle, he mentions that it’s his own photograph of a nearby trail.

“It’s a short hike, no more than three miles roundtrip,” Terry tells them as he wraps up her gift. “You pass Lake Placid Lodge and keep going about four, four ‘n a half miles, and the trail is at the end of the road. You can’t miss it.”

------

Terry was right.

It’s impossible to miss the trail, given that four-hundred feet past their cottage, the road dead ends in a gravel semi-circle. Two boulders and a single post mark the trailhead: Kiver Mountain, 1.4 miles. After dropping off their purchases and changing into more terrain-friendly shoes, they set off on foot from the cottage.

Despite autumn’s grip on the foliage above, the last vestiges of late summer remain on the forest floor. Thick, leafy undergrowth makes the trees appear as if swimming in a downy sea of green. The hike’s elevation gain is slow and steady, which Sloane is grateful for, considering that eighty percent of her exercise comes in the form of running up and down hospital hallways. The other twenty percent is spent with ‘the boys’ in their dungeon gym that hasn’t seen the wet side of a paint roller since the Clinton administration. The views there, however, certainly make up for the lack of decor.

It’s the same view she’s enjoying now, what with Ethan in front of her. There is something to be said about wearing the proper apparel for such an activity, she’s finding.

“Sloane?”

Her gaze shoots up just as Ethan twists to look over his shoulder. “Were you listening?”

“No, sorry, I was--” she fumbles for something to say. The altitude must be getting to her, she reasons, because the next words out of her mouth were about to be ‘staring at your ass.’ “--um, I thought I saw a… snake.”

“They’re usually more afraid of you than you are of them.”

“You’ve never experienced me with a snake before.”

“I’ll make sure to warn them of your presence if I see one, then.”

“All snakes in the surrounding area just gave a collective sigh of relief.”

Her poor attempt at humor earns her an exasperated sigh, though she does catch the chuckle that follows. Ethan keeps talking, but she doesn’t really hear him. Mostly due to the fact that Jenner and he keep going, while her attention is caught by a small, branching path through the trees.

It’s been a long time since she spent a weekend away from the city. When her friends spent fall break camping or borrowing a friend of a friend’s uncle’s boat to cruise around on the lake, she stayed holed up at her desk, studying and outlining. Her first copy of Diagnostic Principles looks like she closed it around a rainbow, what with all of the colorful sticky notes peeking out from the pages. That same copy moved with her through every dorm at Duke, all the way across the Atlantic for her semester at Karolinska, and then at every off-campus apartment at Johns Hopkins.

After she left for college, the closest she came to the wilderness were the views on her Pictagram feed, or the nature documentaries Aurora likes to watch. Here, as Sloane pushes past bristly limbs, the scenery stretches out before her, live and in full-color. Drenched in sunlight, the valley stretches wide to whatever direction she’s facing. A trio of birds swoop down from above her, heading towards the staggering shelves of trees that line the distant hills. At the furthest edge, the blue shadows of the mountains melt into a spatter of gray clouds. It’s all very picturesque, so much so that when she hears a noise on the path behind her, she expects to turn and see a frolicking deer.

“Did you not hear me calling your name? What are you doing?” Ethan demands, his jaw firmly set as he looks her over. Trotting along beside him, Jenner sniffs at the ground, unaware of the impending argument. Sloane hops down from the outcropping she climbed for a better view.

“Sorry, I was--”

“You shouldn’t go off on your own like that.” The heat of frustration burns along his reprimand, surprising her with its intensity for such a small offense. “This isn’t a walk around the block back home. I was-- you can’t disappear on me like that.”

Sloane tries to let his tone roll off, but she also isn’t going to roll over for him. She sucks in a breath and mentally counts to five.

“Wow, okay. You’ve never fought me before about something so absurd. What’s this really about?”

In an instant, the fire is gone from his eyes. Ethan wipes a hand across his face and over his jaw; he gives his head a little shake, as if rousing himself from the spell of anger.

“I’m sorry,” he says, the blue of his eyes burning cool now. “I hoped that if we got away from the hospital that…” his words trail away under the birdsongs echoing around them.

Sloane takes Jenner’s leash and motions for Ethan to keep moving up the trail. She gives him an encouraging look when he glances over, embarrassment tinging his cheeks. The gentle slope becomes steep stone steps that they trudge up, climbing higher and higher, wary of the loose ones that wiggle under their feet.

“I thought that I would get better at this,” he finally says.

“This?” she prods.

“At coming to terms with what happened. And not just with you, although that’s a large part of it, obviously. But when Naveen was sick, when he was damn near death, I could still work. I could still be Doctor Ramsey. But when you…” he swallows and shakes his head again. At his sides, his hands clench into fists. “I was terrified, and I think some parts of me still are. But when I was in that lab with Travis, and I saw him lying on that bed near death, I felt vindicated in some horrible way. I was happy that he was in pain, for what he did to you.”

“Ethan--”

“He refused to give me any information,” he bowls over her attempt at reassurances, his voice strained. “Then he begged me to ease his suffering. It was his dying request and I walked away. As someone whose friends he had killed and injured, I can compartmentalize that. But as a physician, how can I continue treating patients? How can I work with them when I not only failed, but refused to ease another patient’s suffering?”

They reach the top and step out onto the cliff.

Over the edge, purple-tipped shrubs choke the rock shelves that stagger down the cliff until they reach the forest floor below. The valley dips low before them, cradled by a long line of mountains in the distance. They roll along in a lazy sort of wave, deepening to a hazy blue the farther they stretch. True to its name, the water of Lake Placid is calm and still, reflecting the foliage’s vibrant array of colors, fuschias and reds and oranges peppering the mountains that flank the lake. Pale crags of rock decorate some of their peaks, so bleached from the sun that they almost look like snow.

Keeping a firm grip on Jenner’s leash, she breaks the silence they’ve fallen into.

“Unfortunately, you suffer from something incurable.” At his answering noise of interest, she wraps an arm around his waist and hugs him close. “You’re human.”

His hand sweeps across her back, holding her tight.

“I’m sorry.”

She shoves down her need to use humor as an emotional crutch by mentioning this must be a record number of apologies for him. Instead, she lets her head rest on his shoulder.

“What for?”

“For burdening you with my problems, which pale in comparison to what you went through. It’s not fair to--”

“Hey,” she cuts him off, hugging him tighter for a beat. “You can’t work through the trauma if you discount it like that.”

“You sound just like Naveen.”

“Smart minds think alike.”

Her heart squeezes at his familiar, half-formed huff of laughter. They spend a good length of time at the top, enjoying the peaceful view and watching clouds roll in from the west. Eventually, her stomach growls and he teases her about doing strenuous activity on an empty stomach. Jenner leads the way as they start back down the trail.

The two boulders and trailhead sign come into sight just as the rain arrives.

Fat raindrops plod the canopy above, drumming through the leaves and onto them. Ethan lets out an undignified yelp when cold rain lands on him, prompting a full-throated laugh from Sloane. They race down the path, sprinting between the boulders and down the road. Jenner barks with excitement when she tugs free of Sloane’s grip and barrels ahead of them.

They reach the cottage, Jenner at his heels when Ethan rushes inside for towels. He makes it to the hall closet before realizing that Sloane isn’t following. Retracing his steps, he returns to the little porch and finds her standing out on the front path. Her arms are stretched out beside her as the rain soaks her clothes and hair. He sets the towels down on the rocking chair and approaches her, raising his voice to be heard above the downpour.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s silly,” she answers with a shrug. Contentment and grief coat the words; it’s an effort to push them free of her throat. This close, he can see the rivulets of water running along her trembling lips. “But I was waiting for this. It’s been sunny every day since… and all I wanted was for it to rain.”

It’s not difficult to recall her angry words as they drove away from Danny’s funeral.

“It’s not silly.” Reaching for her, he takes her hand and guides her under the porch and out of the storm. “Silly would be how I worry about you constantly now -- that if I leave you alone, or you go off somewhere without me knowing, that it could happen again. I’m terrified, Sloane, of losing you again. Every patient room you step into could lead to another disaster, and it might be another one that I can’t fix.”

He keeps busy while he talks, picking up a towel and wrapping it around her shoulders. With another he dries her hair; his fingers clench and release the wavy strands like he saw her do a lifetime ago in their shared hotel room.

“It’s why I’ve been keeping tabs on you this week,” he says with no small amount of embarrassment. “Why I’ve been following you around the hospital. It’s how I knew to go to the office yesterday. And I know that’s awful and overbearing of me, and I understand on every sensible level that you’re safe. But there’s that one percent of something that keeps me at it.”

Sloane reaches up for the towel in his hands and tugs it away, letting it drop to the ground. He cups the back of her head and settles her against his chest, right against his heart where she belongs.

“I’ve spent enough years being a cynic and a pessimist, always waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Ethan clears his throat, swallows, and steadies on. “But when I held your hand that night, I didn’t think about what the next hour would bring, because I wasn’t sure if that next hour would include you. And to have to stand there and watch you -- you, who’s always brave in the face of death and danger -- accept your fate in those last hours, that scared me more than anything.”

“I knew it would hurt more if I begged you all to save me.” She feels the shaky rise of his chest, the tension of the muscles as he goes rigid at her words. “But I’m glad I wasn’t alone.” Her cheeks are wet with tears -- whether his or hers, she isn’t sure. “I -- my grandma, we didn’t make it to the hospital in time before she passed, and she died alone, and I know that hurt my grandpa more than anything. So I’m glad you were with me.”

When he speaks, the passion and heartache in his tone unfurls something in her chest.

“I don’t want to waste what time we have left. I’m tired of playing pretend. I’m tired of holding myself back. I don’t know what to do, other than tell you that I care about you, and that I want to be with you. And I know it’ll be messy, and I don’t have all the answers for how we go about it, but I know that I want you so goddamn much, Sloane, that I don’t care anymore.”

Gripping his wet shirt, she pulls him down for a kiss. He answers in kind, his lips dragging against hers; his hands come up to frame her face, to keep her close as he drops another kiss, then two, then three against the corner of her mouth. The roar of the rain turns to a muffled drum as they fumble their way through the door and down the hall.

The bedroom is lit only by the tall windows, reflecting what weak sunlight manages through the cloudy sky. A wall of fog floats between the trees, blocking out the rest of the world. Sloane leans down to the nightstand and flicks on the Tiffany lamp. Honeyed shafts of light fill the space, warming the room with their glow.

Ethan peels their wet clothes away, stripping the both of them bare. His lips cruise every inch of her damp skin; she shivers at the cool, stagnant air of the bedroom, then again at the heat of his mouth as he kisses her shoulder, her breast, her belly. He guides her to the bed and she sinks onto the soft mattress, the sheets smelling of them: his soap and her shampoo, his aftershave and her lotion. It’s a scent she wants to wake up to every morning.

“I never got to take my time with you,” he laments as he lays her down. Goosebumps follow in his wake as he runs the backs of his knuckles down her throat. He cups one breast and then the other, brushing the pad of his thumb over her pebbled nipples. Mesmerizing, he thinks, of the sweet noises she makes and the way her hips shift in time to his touch.

“We’ve got time,” she assures him, her fingers trailing up and down his ribs. She’s unable to hide her grin when he squirms, obviously ticklish around his sixth and seventh rib. Lifting up onto his knees just enough to capture her hands, he presses her to the bed and takes a long moment to admire.

Frizzled from the rain, her strands spread across the pillow and dampen it -- no doubt the one that he’ll end up being forced to sleep on. The light dusting of freckles across her nose and shoulders are more pronounced in the yellow light. There’s the scar along her inner thigh from climbing over chicken wire to feed the hens, the burn mark on her inner arm from fumbling a hot pan of cinnamon rolls. He kisses the sharp cut of her cheekbone and the soft skin of her stomach, reveling in every facet of her. He takes a deep breath, and then another; they feel like his first real ones since approaching the window of that damned room.

Her hands, along with the rest of her, squirm underneath his hold.

“Ethan.”

He doesn’t ask what she’s demanding; he takes one of his hands back and urges her thighs apart, pressing the heel of his palm against her and circling her wet heat. Her response is almost as erotic as the act itself; her knees jerk up, her muscles stuttering as her body rolls into his touch. Her freed hand snakes down her body to circle his wrist, her nail digging into his pulse point as she directs him how she likes. Increasing the pressure, Ethan can feel his cock growing harder as he watches her enjoyment. He’s too enthralled by her; his grip loosens on her other hand. In a flurry of movement, she’s got an arm around his neck and hauls him down to her for a messy kiss. He retaliates by changing gears; he slides two fingers inside her, delighted at the strangled moan that escapes her.

“Is it good?” he asks, unable to stop the smarmy grin on his face.

“Yes,” Sloane breathes out. She rolls her hips down when he curls his fingers and strokes her with all the precision in the world. “Yes, it’s good, it’s--” the words are lost to the crest of another wave as it pounds through her. She squeezes his wrist in a vice-like grip, keeping him where she needs him, and croaks out his name as she comes.

He eases the glide of his fingers, but doesn’t stop until he’s got her climbing again.

“God, you’re still so tight.” He nuzzles the arm she has planted against his shoulder, nipping at the sweat-tinged skin. Her fingers dig into his flesh in time with his thrusts. “So responsive, all for me.”

“Please,” she begs, “please, Ethan, I need--”

In a flash, he slides down her body, scoops up her hips, and drags the flat of his tongue across her. Sloane cries out, arching up into the wet heat of his mouth. His knees ache as he kneels before her and worships, coaxing hymns from her lips until she’s dragged under once more. Ethan eases her down from her high, running his fingers up and over her hip as her equilibrium returns. He rouses from his own arousal-induced haze at the sensation of fingers stroking through his hair.

“Come here.”

He goes, without question, into the circle of her awaiting arms. She meets him with a messy kiss, her tongue tracing the corner of his mouth. His blood pulses hot underneath his skin, knowing she’s tasting herself on his lips. One of her curious hands skims along his stomach and down to wrap around his cock.

“I want to make you feel good, too,” she murmurs, stroking him with a quick, little twist at the base, her thumb swiping across the swollen head. He barely holds it together, clenching his jaw to keep from thrusting into her hand like some horny teenager. “I… ever since that last time, you’re all I think about.”

“It’s the same for me,” he admits, too many emotions bubbling to the surface that he isn’t comfortable with declaring right now. Pressed against the long line of her body, he feels the vibration of her laughter when it comes, ringing through the room.

“Well, yeah, that too. I was mostly talking about when I masturbate, though.”

“Oh.” The word tumbles out before his brain has a chance to catch up and say something suave. It gets another giggle out of her, though -- and he finds that the taste of her laughter is even better than the sound of it. “Christ, Sloane,” he groans when he breaks their kiss, “tell me what you need.”

“You,” she says in a matter-of-fact way, as if he were stupid for expecting another answer.

Ethan slides an arm across her back, cradling her close, needing to feel her against every inch of him. He pushes into her soaked heat, his breath escaping him in a moan when she digs her nails into his shoulders. Giving her a moment to adjust to the stretch, he nips at the soft skin of her breasts, pleased with the rosy marks that bloom from his attention. One of her hands drifts down to his ass and squeezes.

“Move,” she begs.

At her command, he does; he wraps his free hand around her hip and uses the leverage to drag his cock in and out of her with short, heavy strokes. Her legs come up to encircle his waist, her body rocking up to meet his. The new angle is sweeter, deeper than before. Sloane gasps at his next thrust. Words fall free from his lips, nothing more than murmurs of praise. She writhes and keens underneath him; he has enough wherewithal to slide a hand down between them, knowing exactly what she needs. The rhythmic clenching of her sends him overboard with her, the both of them are dragged under the warm sea of pleasure. He pulls out and collapses next to her, nestling close when she slings an arm across him. The room spins around them as they wait for their breathing to turn to normal.

As his heart rate slows, he finally hears it: the rain, beating steadily against the tin roof, a cocoon of white noise that shelters them from the outside. Before he can speak, he hears another familiar sound. Sloane rubs her nose against his shoulder and chuckles.

“What was it that you said about strenuous activity on an empty stomach?”

His laughter echoes through the room. After some poking and prodding, he manages to convince her to get out of bed and meet him in the kitchen. Ethan is reprimanding Jenner for dancing around his feet and gathering ingredients when she wanders in, dressed only in his button-down and a pair of wool socks. He manages to not whack his head against the upper cabinets, but only just barely.

“Hey, you never showed me what you bought.”

He follows her finger to the little brown bag, still sitting on the bar where he dropped it off earlier.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” he says.

“And satisfaction brought it back,” she replies in a sing-songy tone.

“Go ahead. Open it.”

He watches her sift through the tissue paper and lift the object out. The snow globe catches in the kitchen’s recessed lights. Inside the glass is an overly-contrasted photo of Lake Placid, looking out towards Whiteface Mountain and the surrounding Adirondacks. “I figured you could add this to your collection.”

Sloane looks up in confusion. “My collection?”

“When I visited your apartment, I noticed the one you had from Stockholm on your shelf. Now, the next time you travel, you’ll know what tacky souvenir to buy yourself.”

“Why would I do that, when I have you to do it for me?” she teases.

Setting the snow globe down on the table and away from Jenner’s interested nose, she crosses the kitchen and slides her arms around his waist. The kiss she gives him is gentle and sweet, her lips curled into a smile as they press against his; he wishes for a thousand more. “But that’s a good idea. Too bad I didn’t get one in Miami.”

He switches on the gas stove, glancing back at her with an impish grin.

“We could always go back.”

“You know,” she hums, “I like the way you think.”

------

Author’s notes and what-have-yous:

There’s probably a reference to something recognizable in here, but the only one I can think of is a line from an Alan Jackson song (don’t ask, I’m just having fun).

#open heart #choices #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey #open heart fic #Kaila writes things #f: the mountain between us #also if you read this after 9/23 I did some minor editing on the backstory part because I forgot it's canon that MC has a brother

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wellhellotragic · 3 years

Text

These Wounds Won't Seem to Heal 1/2

Summary: It’s not her fault. She’s still new and doesn’t know. He’s not flawless. Not anymore. He’s got scars, ones she’s seen first hand. Ones she helped tend to. His body is covered in them. There’s a thin red line where he took a bottle to the face during his early beat cop days. There’s another angry red mark on his torso from where he was stabbed with a knife in his ribs. The one where he had his hand slammed in a locker as a teenager has long since faded, only the barest hint remaining, only visible in just the right lighting.

There’s two oval scars now too. One in his stomach and one on his chest. Those are from the worst day of her life.But none of those scars compare to the ones he carries on the inside. The self-inflicted cuts he makes to his soul never quite healing over. He blames himself. It’s not his fault.

There’s a scar on her soul now too. One he left. A piece of her heart forever missing.

Rating: Mature (mostly for language)

A/N: I'm a day late but hopefully not a dollar short. Happy birthday to @searchingwardrobes. This woman has the most generous heart and I hope she knows how much she is loved and appreciated by all of us! If AO3 is more your jam...

She’s been listening to Annie drone on for the better part of their lunch break. The girl is sweet, she really is, but she talks. A lot. So much so that Emma started to tune her out sometime between finishing her chips and opening her brownie. She nods her head in what she hopes are all the right places. But when she hears Killian’s name, Annie has her full attention again.

“I wonder what he’s like in bed.” It’s said with the longing sigh of a high school girl with her first crush and Emma has to physically hit her chest to dislodge the bite of brownie she just choked on. “Have you and he ever...”

The sentence drops off but Emma knows exactly what Annie is getting at. Have she and Killian ever slept together. The answer is no, despite half of the station house being 100% sure they have before. Past tense. No one thinks it’s happening anymore.

“No.” Her voice catches and she hopes that the woman doesn’t pick up on it.

“Well he’s a goddamn masterpiece. I mean, just look at those arms!” Emma is well aware of how toned his arms are. She used to be intimately familiar with them. "I can only imagine how cut he is under that uniform. Like a flawless Greek God.”

It’s not her fault. She’s still new and doesn’t know. He’s not flawless. Not anymore. He’s got scars, ones she’s seen first hand. Ones she helped tend to. His body is covered in them. There’s a thin red line where he took a bottle to the face during his early beat cop days. There’s another angry red mark on his torso from where he was stabbed with a knife in his ribs. The one where he had his hand slammed in a locker as a teenager has long since faded, only the barest hint remaining, only visible in just the right lighting.

There’s two oval scars now too. One in his stomach and one on his chest. Those are from the worst day of her life.

But none of those scars compare to the ones he carries on the inside. The self-inflicted cuts he makes to his soul never quite healing over. He blames himself. It’s not his fault. Liam was always so headstrong and there was no way Killian could have talked him out of confronting the guy.

Sometimes she still has nightmares. She sees the gun raise in slow motion but she’s frozen. In her dreams the bullets get her too and she falls to the ground right next to Killian. She watches helplessly as he tells her that he loves her, and then he’s gone and all she can do is wait for her turn. That’s when she wakes up gasping for air, clutching her chest.

That’s not what really happened. But the truth almost feels worse. She heard him yelling for backup over the radio. Heard the officer down call and then nothing. The speaker went silent. She and Boothe raced there, sirens blaring, red lights run. They were the next on scene.

Liam was already gone. Boothe told her that, but at the time, her only focus was on Killian. There was so much blood and it was all she could do to keep it together enough to keep pressure on both of his wounds. Boothe tried to help, but she wouldn’t let him. She couldn’t bring herself to let Killian go, so instead she screamed at him to get away. That she had it.

She heard the ambulance coming, but it was still blocks away and Killian was fading. She pleaded with him to hold on. To stay with her. To stay for her. But he was tired and she knew he’d given up. When he told her that he loved her, that he’d always loved her and he was sorry that he never told her before, she knew it was a goodbye.

He lived by some miracle. The doctors couldn’t even explain it, but he didn’t come back whole. He changed after that. Those fleeting glances, the flirtations and innuendo, the easy physical affection all gone now. He’s shut her out. He’s shut out the world and whatever chance they once had is now long gone. She’s never stopped loving him, never will stop, despite him being lost to her now.

There’s a scar on her soul now too. One he left. A piece of her heart forever missing.

He’s a Captain now, a dream that came at the expense of his brother’s life. One that he resents to his very core. He puts on a mask, but she can see it when he doesn’t know she’s looking. When he’s in his office with the blinds only partially drawn. The way his barely visible hands ball into fists. It’s a nervous habit, one she noticed for the first time when they were studying for the detectives exam.

He’s been clenching the armrest of the couch for the better part of twenty minutes, and while it didn’t bother her at first, realizing that he’s now starting to leave marks in her favorite sofa may be the final straw in an otherwise frustrating night. He knows all of the answers, more than her and he’s still stressed about failing, when it’s become painfully obvious that she’s the only one that should be worried.

It’s not that she hasn’t studied, she’s just not great with standardized testing. She over thinks everything and starts contemplating of all of the unnamed variables that could affect the answer, and how is she supposed to know if the drop of red paint is significant? Are they in an industrial warehouse or in the middle of a grassy park? Are they sure it’s paint and not blood splatter? How is she supposed to answer without knowing the facts?

He’s told her twice tonight to get out of her own head, to focus on her gut, that it’s never lied to her before, but it’s easier said than done, especially when she hasn’t been able to convince him of the same damn thing.

“Killian, you’ve got this. Why are you so worked up?”

He takes a deep breath and she can see a storm brewing behind his eyes. He’s rarely like this. So serious and stoic.

“It’s not,” he pauses, thinking over his words. He’s also rarely at a lose for those too. “Swan, I’m not worried that I’m going to fail the test. It’s more that I’m worried I won’t live up to expectations.”

“What expectations? Everyone up at the station loves you, lord knows why, but they do.”

She shoots him a wink, hoping that he realises the teasing for what it is, but the sad lift in his lips he gives back shows that her attempt at cheering him up has fallen flat.

“Liam wasn’t just top of his class in the academy, and he’s not just the fastest promoted officer in recent history. He’s always been the best at everything, and he’s one of only three people in the history of the Boston PD to get a perfect score on his detective’s exam. He’s set this bar and it’s so high that I’m scared I’ll never live up to it.”

She’s up and off the floor before she knows it, at his side, grabbing one of his clenched fists.

“Hey, you have to stop trying to compare everything you do to how Liam would do it. You aren’t the same person. Liam, he’s, well, he’s a little self righteous if you ask me.” He tries to interject, and she knows he’s about to defend his brother, but she won’t let him. “No, he is. And I get it. You two had it rough and he had to grow up too fast. But Killian, it’s okay that he’s so formal and by the books and that you aren’t.”

He’s eyes are fixed on hers, and she can still see the doubt, the fear of failure he lives with daily. He’s usually better at hiding it, but sometimes when it’s just the two of them, he lets the mask slip. He’ll let her in, just in the rare moments that he needs her support to fight away the self doubt.

“And just between us, of the two Jones brothers, yours is the company I prefer.”

She can hear him take a hard swallow just as she closes her eyes, letting her body move forward. Letting her feel his lips against hers, unresponsive, but only for a moment before he’s moving in tandem with her.

The kiss isn’t long. It’s happened a handful of times before, usually when one of them was drunk or had just made a big bust. And it never went beyond that. It’s never gone beyond that, and even though sometimes she fantasizes about what it would be like to be with him, to really be with him, she’s not sure she can take the risk that she's wrong about him. She’s been burned before, and can’t lose Killian that way too.

She thinks he understands, that he feels the same way since he’s never tried anything more.

They break apart and without hesitation, she moves back to her spot on the carpet next to the coffee table to grab her book.

“Just making you take your own advice to get out of your head for a minute.” She winks at him again and this time there’s an audible chuckle.

He got a perfect score on that exam, just like his brother before him. She did well enough to promote not long after him. She got assigned to homicide while he got his dream job in the narcotics division one floor up.

It was strange at first, not seeing him everyday on patrol, instead only getting glimpses of him on the elevator or in the lobby in the morning. Having to schedule drinks at the Salty Wench a couple of nights a week, which eventually became a once a month thing. It was okay though. Both of them were excelling in their careers. She got partnered with August within a month of becoming a detective, something she still thinks was likely a PR stunt from media relations. Something to boost the PD image. The two of them, the posterboard for troubled teens now respected law enforcement professionals. What a glowup story.

“And what pray tell are we talking about over here ladies?”

August wastes no time in pulling up a chair to their little table in the back corner of the breakroom. Emma’s always admired him that; the ease he has in any situation with any group of people. He’s always been confident in a carefree way. Guess that’s a win for nature over nurture.

“Oh, not much. Just the renasonician piece of artwork that is Captain Jones.”

“Whoa. That’s a big negative ghost writer. That pattern is completely full.”

Emma doubt’s that Annie understands the reference, but the point is made as Annie’s face falls.

“So he’s taken then?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that taken is necessarily the word for it. He’s just not into dating any of the lovely ladies right now. Hasn’t been for awhile.” She appreciates the way August keeps things casual. Taking the emotional boulder from Emma’s shoulders onto his own. “But, I can give credit where credit is due.”

There’s a moment, just after Annie notices the way August is taking in Killian’s form as he leans against a beam, reading a file while he waits for his lunch to finish warming up. Emma can see the exact second that it finally dawns on her. That August Boothe has a type that neither of them fit.

“Wait!” It’s almost a screech and Emma has to move her hand in front of her face to hide in embarrassment. “Is he? Are you two, you know?”

He’s about to make a quip, something that will leave Annie guessing for days, but she can’t do that. Can’t let the rumor mill stir up anymore about Killian than it already has.

“Please, he couldn’t handle it. Even on a bad day Boothe here is way out of Killian’s league.”

“Damn straight!”

She and August don’t even have to look at each other to give the perfect high five. It’s just muscle memory at this point.

August does make another quip, one about how the new DA is more to his standards and how he’d catalogue his evidence any day. It’s a stupid joke but it makes them all laugh. She doesn’t even think, the amusement slipping from somewhere deep inside her.

She usually tries not to call attention to herself when Killian is around, preferring to blend into the background like a wallflower. But this time she’s caught off guard, and between the three of them, they’ve made a scene. She stops, but it’s too late. Even without looking up she can feel his eyes on her, can feel the contempt he has for her even just being in his presence.

She doesn’t know how to fix it. The thing that broke between them. She’s not even sure what she did wrong. But it’s done, whatever it was, and there’s no mending it.

He grabs his tupperware out of the microwave, not even letting the timer finish and throws it away in the trash can next to the counter, and without so much as a word, only the tensing of his jaw, he’s gone.

It stays the same, day in and day out, week after week, month after month. She does her best to avoid him, and he her. Her assignments usually come by way of Lance, the poor middle man trying to keep the peace. Her case reports move through Lance as well. The only congratulations she and August ever get for closing some of their tougher cases comes from the lieutenant, or from their colleges. Never from the Captain.

It’s Emma’s birthday, or what she celebrates as her birthday. It’s a little hard to tell considering the way she was left on the side of the road. The way that anyone in the foster care system that might have known never bothered to keep up with the paperwork.

But it’s okay, because she’s got August, and he’s been there for almost every birthday since she was six years old, when they both lived with Ingrid. She still remembers that first cake, she’d never had a birthday party before, and even without having any real friends to invite over, Ingrid had made it so special, just the three of them.

She’s got friends now though. More than she ever thought possible. And she’s got August, singing along to Smooth Criminal with a childrens reverberating microphone that he bought just for that very purpose. She’s laughing harder than she has in months, the tequila in her veins helping her to relax for a change.

“Emma, are you okay? Are you okay, Emma?”

He’s not a horrible singer, but he’s not the best. Neither is Ruby from the forensics lab either, but the sound of cheers around her from most of the 56th precinct is music to her ears.

She’s so engrossed in Ruby’s encore of Hit Me Baby One More Time that she doesn’t even notice Killian standing in the doorway, but August does.

“Oi!” Emma realises too late what’s happening and is powerless to stop it. The mockery in August’s voice. “Look at this cheeky bloke here coming to get pissed with us mates!”

There’s cheers from the crowd, and now there’s no way Killian can just leave unseen. She also knows there’s likely going to be a massive pile of grunt work on her desk first thing in the morning as retribution.

“Captain!”

“I uh, I can’t stay. Just wanted to drop by and wish you all well.”

He’s waving them off, and Emma just prays that August knows well enough to let it go, but he’s had too much to drink to think clearly. His inhibitions are lowered, and long gone is his ability to think clearly.

“Bollocks! Come have a cuppa with us,” August continues, raising his nearly empty beer bottle, “in Emma’s honor.”

She can see the smugness forming on August’s face as he challenges Killian. It’s only matched but the sneer Killian shoots him in return.

Killian doesn’t say anything, just walks to the bar and orders a drink. She knows what’s inside the glass the bartender is handing him. She knows that it won’t be the only drink he orders that night.

Things mostly go back to normal. Everyone mingles amongst themselves, and as the night goes on, she assumes that August’s little outburst earlier was the worst of it. But August hasn’t stopped drinking, and a drunk August has awful judgement.

It’s almost midnight, and she should be leaving, knowing that all of the aspirin in the world isn’t going to save them from having to be at work in the morning. She’s trying to leave actually, but Ruby and Annie convince her to stay for just a few more minutes.

It’s one minute too long. Especially when August stands up near the bar, calling for everyone to be silent so he can give a speech. Considering that he’s probably way past the legal limit, the speech is actually impressive and emotionally moving. He knows her better than anyone after all.

It’s the perfect ending to the night, except that it isn’t. Because August has no plans of letting her leave without some words of encouragement from their mentor, Captain Jones. Killain declines, warning him that he’s drunk and should go home. August won’t let it go though.

“Seriously man, what’s your problem?”

“Boothe, you’re inebriated and you need to think carefully about what you say next.”

Emma grabs August’s arm, trying to drag him out of the pub, but he won’t budge.

“No, no. You’re right, I am inebriated. And what’s that saying? A drunk man’s words are a sober man's thoughts?”

“Boothe.” It’s a growled out warning. Killian’s never been a fan of August, even in the early days, and Emma knows that he’s been looking for any chance to put the man in his place.

“So here’s the thing. Both drunk me and sober me want to know what your deal is. What the hell crawled up your ass? Is it because she wouldn’t sleep with you, so now you’re punishing her?”

“Patrol duty, one week.” Killian’s malcontent is evident in every word he yells, and now the entire pub is silent, watching the carnage taking place.

And there’s nothing Emma can do to stop August’s arm from pulling away and decking Killian clear across the jaw.

There’s just silence, and the hissing sound August makes as he shakes his hand out.

“That’s it. You're suspended indefinitely.”

She hears Killian mumble the word prink under his breath as he makes his way to the door, and she’s torn about what to do. But when Archie hands her a bag of ice, the choice is made for her, and she goes after Killian.

Maybe it’s the tequila making her brave, or maybe it’s making her stupid, but she just needs to know what she did to make him hate her so much. She’s tortured herself, going through every interaction they had at the hospital. Trying to dissect every word, but she has nothing. No explanation for what could have happened between him confessing his love for her and then forbidding her to go to Liam’s funeral.

“Killian!” She has to jog to catch up to where he’s standing on the corner trying to hail a cab. “Here. Take this.”

She tries to hand him the bag of ice, but he won’t meet her gaze.

“Go back inside, Emma.”

Emma. He’s never called her that before and its stings for some reason. She turns, but the last shot if tequila is still kicking in, and she needs to know, and as horrible as August’s approach was, it’s the first real opportunity she’s had to be alone with him. Choosing to stand her ground for once, she turns back to him.

“Look, I know that this probably wasn’t the best way to approach this, but I think I deserve to at least know what I did. What was so horrible that you can’t even stand the sight of me anymore?”

“Go back inside, Emma.”

It stings just as much the second time, and gives Emma the fight inside of her that she needs.

“No. I don’t get it. I don’t understand. Please, just help me understand it.” She’s got tears forming in her eyes from the anger of it all, and he’s still just so damn dismissive. “You don’t get it do you? I saved your life and somehow I still lost you that night!”

“I was scared I was dying. I didn’t mean it. God, don’t you understand? I never loved you. You’ve just been clinging to me all of these years, this sad little orphan and I felt guilty, like I had to say it!” There’s so much spite in his voice.

“You told me you loved me. I was there, covered in your blood, fighting for you, for us, and you told me you loved me. You don’t get to just take it back.”

She hasn’t seen him in the better part of a year. It was only supposed to be a six month assignment, he promised her, but eleven months later, he’s still undercover. Liam won’t tell her anything, and even if he would, the chances are that he doesn’t know much either. Somewhere around month seven Killian stopped checking in regularly. He was paranoid that they were on to him and didn’t want anyone to see him with his handler.

The only reason she even knows that he’s still alive is from security footage at the docks where a deal had gone down about a week before. All of the men were in masks, and anyone else reviewing the tape probably would have missed it, the barest hint of a tattoo sticking out from just under his left wrist sleeve. From the camera angle, it looks like the tip of a dagger, but it’s a point, one of eight. She knows the meaning behind it too, a compass that he got etched into his skin on his eighteenth birthday. Something to always remind him of where he’s been and where he was going.

To keep him always moving forward in life. Aside from letting down Liam, Killian’s biggest fear has always been turning out like his dad, a poor, unfortunate soul. A lost boy who never grew up into a man worthy of his children’s respect.

It’s hard. Knowing that he’s out there, only being able to imagine what he’s going through. If he’ll still be ‘him’ when he comes back, not letting herself wonder ‘if’ he’ll come back. They’ve both seen what can happen when someone goes too deep, how they come back fractured. A part of them left behind, the humanity shed away, sloughed off to make room for their new toughened skin. Peter went too deep and came back in a bodybag, courtesy of a bullet from her gun.

He promised her he wouldn’t lose himself though, that he’d come back to her. That he was a survivor.

But then again, he’d always promised her he wouldn’t go undercover without talking to her first, and he’d broken that promise, volunteering without much prompting, only telling her as he was leaving the station for the last time. The truth was that they’d grown apart in the year before he left. Their careers pulling them in different directions, and she wasn’t sure how well she knew him anymore. Of course, she’d also never expected him to develop a romantic relationship with a heroin king’s sister, but she’d seen evidence photos of the girl sitting on Killian’s lap, so what did she know.

There’s a commotion coming from down the hallway near the bullpen, and Emma doesn’t want to be around people, not like this. Not when it’s taking everything she has not to let the tears welling in her eyes fall, not to scream and punch the wall. Trying so hard to hold herself together when she’s barely hanging on.

She takes a right, ducking into an evidence room, closing the door behind her. She walks to a table, lets her hands grasp the edges, the cold metal against her skin helping to anchor her to reality. She takes a few deep breaths, the air burning her lungs in a way that reminds her she’s still here. She has to accept it. He’s gone, and she’s just going to have to learn to live with that fact.

Except he’s not gone. Her eyes go wide at the sound of his voice behind her, not even realizing that someone had slipped into the room with her.

“Swan.”

It’s soft, like he’s testing the sound of it on his tongue.

“Killian?”

He’s standing toe to toe with her in a flash, his arms going around her, one hand tangled in her hair. It’s suffocating almost, how hard he’s pressing her against his chest, but she doesn’t care. Not when he smells of leather and salt air. Not when he’s there with her just like he promised.

“How are you here?”

He leans back and there’s something in his eyes that she’s never seen before. A fire burning behind the icy blue. He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, the door to the evidence room is thrown open and Emma can hear the proud bellow of his brother. Liam tells him to come to the bullpen, and Killian tries to object, but Liam won’t hear of it.

“I, we’ll talk later, ya?”

She nods, wrapping both of her arms around her torso keeping away the chill that’s entered the room, the way she feels the distance growing between them already.

They never talk about it though.

There’s something in his eyes that she’s never seen before. A haunting. Shadows filling in the recesses of his soul. And he’s encroaching on her space, making her feel like a small empty shell of herself.

“Killian, please. Stop it.”

“Liam was right you know. You’re nothing more than a pretty blonde distraction.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because, I want to hurt you, like you hurt me.”

He gets into his cab, driving off and leaving her alone on the sidewalk. It’s ironic, the way she’s ending her birthday just as she started her life. Completely alone and unwanted. But it gives her peace in a way. It’s a form of closure. The true end of what they had. She now knows that it’s over. That chapter of her life. She’s ready to finally close the book altogether.

Her legs carry her into her precinct, she doesn’t even bother with the elevator, taking the stairs instead. Just taking it all in. It’s been her home for years. She’s spent more time there than she has at her own apartment. She knows every dent in every way, all the uneven floor planks. She knows that there’s going to be food left out on Leroy’s desk, and that the only thing that will be on Arthur’s desk is an excalibur shaped letter opener that he uses as a fork more often than not. And she knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her desk will have someone new sitting at it before anyone else realizes that she’s gone.

She fills out the form, leaving it as ambiguous and impersonal as possible. It isn’t until she’s signing her name that she hears someone else walk into the bullpen.

“I thought it was your big birthday. What are you up here instead of celebrating with everyone?”

She looks up to find Lance standing behind her.

“And I thought you would be at home with those cute kids of yours.”

“I forgot my phone.”

It’s peaceful, this small moment shared between them in a dimly lit room.

He sees the form, and by the way his face drops, she feels like she’s disappointed him in some way.

“It’s our loss.” There’s something in the way he says it, and she knows he's talking about more than just the precinct transfer order she’s filled out. “May I?”

Emma hands him the pen he’s gestured to and watches as he signs the approval line. He hugs her before he leaves to rejoin his family. The calm feeling he left stays though, even after it’s just her there again, even when she steps into Killian’s office to set the form on his desk. There’s a picture of him with Liam on the desk. She picks it up, letting her fingers brush over Killian’s form, only the barest hint of her shoulder still showing from where he’d cropped her out.

Closure.

#captain swan ff #captain swan fanfiction #captain swan #wellhellotragic #Happy Birthday Mel!!!

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worryinglyinnocent · 3 years

Text

Fic: Family Matters

Summary: Belle and Gold spring into action after Neal calls them in an emergency, and Belle reflects on the meaning of family.

Written for the @a-monthly-rumbelling January non-smut prompt: Dealing with a family crisis.

Rated: T

CW: Medical themes, pregnancy loss.

Family Matters

It was a perfectly normal Friday night when they got the call. The only sound was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. Belle was curled up on the chaise longue with a book, and Gold was sitting in his armchair browsing the catalogue for the auction he was going to in Boston the next week.

His phone ringing wasn’t normally a cause for alarm, but it was rare enough for someone to call him at eleven o’clock at night that it sent a current of worry through his veins, and the current of worry increased when he looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Neal.

Belle looked up, her brow furrowing in concern. “Who is it?”

“It’s Neal.”

“Strange for him to be calling so late.”

“Very.” He answered, and almost immediately, the current of worry turned into a full torrent.

“Dad, Emma’s in the hospital and I don’t know what to do.”

Neal's voice was choked, on the verge of tears, and Gold took a deep breath, trying to calm the torrent. Neal was an adult now and a father himself, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t also still need his own father to rescue him every now and then.

“Ok, what happened?” He beckoned Belle over so that she could hear as well.

“She’s had really bad stomach pains all day, she thought it was just something she ate. It just kept getting worse and worse until she passed out… I saw her drop, I barely caught her in time… I called 911 and they took her into the hospital, they think she’s got some internal bleeding somewhere…”

“OK. We’re coming. How’s Henry doing?”

“He’s ok, just a bit shaken, he doesn’t really understand what’s going on.”

“Just hold on for a little while. Belle and I are coming.”

“Thanks Dad. I’ll see you soon.”

Belle was already in the hallway pulling on her coat and boots, and Gold took a few moments to check that the house was secure and grab the insurance paperwork from his office - Emma should have been covered by the Sheriff’s office but it paid to be prepared. The drive across town to Neal and Emma’s apartment did not take long, but every moment of it was spent in tense silence. Neal was standing on the doorstep waiting for them, an anxious-looking Henry balanced on his hip, aware that something bad was happening but that it was too much for his one-year-old brain to try and comprehend.

“Hey Henry,” Belle cooed, taking him out of Neal’s arms and giving her stepson a little peck on the cheek, whispering it’ll be ok, I promise in his ear. “Why don’t you come with Nana Belle and we’ll let Daddy and Grandpa get everything sorted out, eh? You should be in bed, it’s very late. I guess all the commotion woke you up.”

Belle took Henry back into the apartment and Neal, no longer having to worry about staying calm and focussed on his son, crumpled against Gold’s shoulder. Neal had never been the most physically affectionate of people, not really a hugger, and the fact he was crying on his father’s shoulder stood as testament to just how scared he was for Emma.

“Let’s go to the hospital,” Gold said. “I think you need to be there. I can always come back and get anything that Emma might need.”

“I’ll be ok, I just needed someone to come watch Henry, I can go…”

“Neal, I don’t want you ending up in the hospital as well.” He held up Neal’s hand, which was still shaking. “I’ll drive. Belle’s got Henry. We’re all here.”

Neal nodded, going back inside to grab his things before following Gold out to the Cadillac.

“Thanks for dropping everything,” he murmured as they set off towards the hospital.

“It’s what families do. You’d have done the same if it was Belle.”

Neal nodded. “Yeah, I would.”

The rest of the drive to the hospital was made in silence. As worried as he was about Emma, Neal gave Gold something to focus on, knowing that he had to be strong so that Neal could be afraid. He thought back over all the family crises that they had lived through so far; mercifully, there were few of them. This was certainly the first time any of them had been in the hospital since Henry was born, and whilst Neal had done his fair share of panicking at the time, that had ultimately been a joyous occasion rather than a crisis.

Gold could only hope that the outcome here would be a good one in the long run.

Belle settled herself in the armchair in the corner of Henry’s room, cradling the tired toddler on her lap. She opened the picture book that she had selected to try and get him back to sleep, but she didn’t start reading it for a few minutes, wondering what could have happened and hoping against hope that Emma would be ok. She was certainly in the best hands, but that didn’t stop Belle from worrying.

Still, there was nothing she could do to help Neal and Gold and Emma, and the most useful thing she could do was to stay here with Henry. The poor boy could obviously tell that something dreadful was going on, and if she could reassure him and get him off to sleep so that his parents didn’t have to worry about him as well as everything else that was happening, then that was what she would do.

She knew that children were far more intuitive than everyone gave them credit for, so Henry would probably be picking up on her unease even if he couldn’t actually give voice to that, so she took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice nice and even and sing-song.

“Ok Henry. Let’s see what Spot the Dog is up to tonight.”

By the time they finished with Spot, Henry was asleep again, curled up against Belle’s chest, and she sighed, deciding to sit with him for a while instead of putting him back to bed. His warm weight was a comfort to her, keeping her grounded and reminding her that there was a little human relying on her to keep him safe whilst his parents were dealing with other horrors. As long as she was holding Henry, Belle knew that she wouldn’t go to pieces.

She didn’t know how long she sat there in the dim light, listening to Henry’s soft breathing as she wondered what was happening in the hospital, looking at her phone every couple of seconds. It was on silent to avoid disturbing Henry, and she was nervous of somehow missing a call from Gold or Neal. The hours kept ticking by until she finally heard a key in the lock and someone tiptoe into the apartment.

“Belle?”

It was Gold’s whispered voice, and a moment later, he stepped into Henry’s room. He looked dead on his feet, but he smiled when he saw her sitting with Henry, and Belle took that to be a good sign.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “How’s Emma? Do they know what’s wrong?”

Gold nodded, coming over and leaning against the chair.

“It was an ectopic pregnancy.” He sighed. “Emma didn’t even know she was pregnant.”

“Is she going to be ok?”

“Yeah. She’s stable and on painkillers and they’ll operate in the morning. The doctors are quite confident.”

“How’s Neal holding up?”

“Well, he’s just about holding it together. He calmed down a lot after we could get in to see her. We both did. I forgot how much I hate hospital waiting rooms. He’s still there; I just came back to get a few things for Emma, I’ll bring him back later.” He was unable to stifle a yawn. “Sorry. The adrenaline’s wearing off now and I’m exhausted.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling. Still, at least it looks like the worst is over.”

They stayed there in silence for a while until Henry shifted in Belle’s arms and she decided that it would probably be a good idea to put him back in his bed so that he could get some better sleep. Hearing the news had lifted a great weight of uncertainty off her mind. Of course, they weren’t out of the woods just yet, there was still the operation in the morning, and it would take time for Emma to recover, but for now the crisis was, if not over completely, then at least manageable now.

She followed Gold out of Henry’s room, helping him pack bits and bobs for Emma’s stay in the hospital. It was one of the marks of what made a family a family, she thought, the way that they all acted in a situation like this. Belle would be the first to admit that theirs was not exactly the most conventional of families, since she was less than ten years older than her stepson and already happy to be an honorary grandmother, but she and Gold had swept in to help without a second thought. It was just what families did for each other.

In the hallway, as Gold was getting ready to make the trip back to the hospital, Belle slipped her arms around his middle, going up on her toes to kiss him.

“Thank you for making me part of this family,” she said.

Gold gave a soft laugh. “Even when you end up staying up half the night watching your step-grandson in the middle of a medical emergency?”

“Even then. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

“Me neither.” Gold kissed her again, and Belle closed the door after him with a little wave.

As long as they had each other, they’d weather any storm that life threw at them.

#A Monthly Rumbelling #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #Belle French #Mr Gold #Floof Family #background swanfire #toddler!Henry #Fic: Family Matters

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let-it-raines · 4 years

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Nonnie, this is quite possibly one of the funniest prompts I’ve ever received. I actually, legitimately laughed out loud when I read it, and I definitely had to find the original post to read it all. Not gonna lie, I’m totally rooting for that poor girl.

I hope you enjoy this version of such a crazy little tale 😘

on ao3 | here | if that’s more your style

-/-

Her back is absolutely killing her. There are bones in positions they are definitely not supposed to be in, and she has to wonder where the hell David and Mary Margaret got their couch. Emma secretly thinks that when she asked them if she could come stay with them for a few weeks – days, weeks, months, who the hell knows at this point – they got rid of their old couch and replaced it with one that they found on the side of the road that’s full of extra springs and the smallest amount of cushion stuffing on the planet.

David and Mary Margaret are too full of kindness to do something like that, but she knows that if her sister – if she had one obviously – called and said she lost her job and her apartment and needed a place to crash for a little while, she would definitely make the stay as uncomfortable as possible.

If the couch crasher isn’t comfortable, it means they won’t stay as long, right?

It’s July, and she’s been on their couch since the end of April. So much for that theory, obviously. But hey, at least she’s not stuck still living with Neal because if she had to sleep in the same apartment as her cheating douchebag of an ex, there is no guarantee that she wouldn’t murder him in his sleep.

Small blessings and all.

Emma raises her arms above her head and interlaces her hands together, stretching her body out and loosening up her limbs, before she moves her legs and starts running. She’s never been much of a runner. She always thought it was some kind of voluntary torture. Back in Boston, she had a kickboxing gym she went to every day, but there’s not one of those in Storybrooke. There’s one gym here, and it’s got out of date equipment that definitely aren’t cleaned every day. There’s no way she’d ever pay for that when she’s already short on cash to begin with.

So running on the beach it is, even if it makes her calves feel like they are legitimately on fire.

There’s no one on the beach this morning. Sometimes tourists will get here early and mark their space with their chairs and their umbrellas, but today, it’s blissfully empty so that she can run up and down the sand without being bothered. Music blares through her headphones, and it propels her forward every time that she wants to quit. She’s never been one to want to stare at the ocean and soak in its beauty. It’s never calmed her, but now, when her days are spent going between having a bad back, serving drinks to people who don’t know how to tip, and wondering if her life is always going to suck this much, she thinks that the ocean isn’t that bad.

It’s calm and beautiful, and right now, it’s as blue as the…what the fuck?

Emma stops jogging, sand kicking up around her, and her breath escapes her as she squints and looks out onto the ocean past the pier.

Is there…is there someone out there?

About forty, fifty feet out in the water, there’s some kind of floating figure. She can’t really tell from here, but it looks like there’s a man floating on his back, his head tilted backward.

Oh shit.

This area has been full of scuba divers this summer, but they’re usually in groups and only go in the afternoon with some kind of instructor. This guy – or girl, she can’t really tell right now because she doesn’t have her contacts in and can’t see that far away – must have been a dumbass and gone on his own.

Her stomach is heavy, like it’s full of wet sand, and when she looks around, she’s reminded that there’s no one around.

Shit, shit, shit.

This isn’t what she’s trained to do. She’s not even technically trained to do anything. She’s only really ever worked in food service besides her boring as hell office job in Boston, and none of that would have ever prepared her for something like this.

“Oh, what the hell?” Emma mumbles to herself as she pulls her tank top off before tugging her leggings down, kicking them off with her socks and shoes. She drops her phone and her headphones into her shoes. She’s in nothing but a sports bra and a pair of underwear that literally has little animated penises on it from Mary Margaret’s bachelorette party, but that doesn’t really matter when this guy (girl) might be dying.

The water is cold when she first dives in, and salt gets up her nose so that her throat is itching, but she manages to swim out to the water as quickly as possible. Now that she’s closer, she can see that it’s definitely a man, and Emma closes her eyes as she closes the final strides and reaches for him.

When she opens them, he is staring directly at her, blue eyes blown wide in what she can only assume is confusion.

So, he’s not dead. That’s good to know.

“Are you okay?” Emma blurts out, salt water still in her mouth that she hacks up.

The guy nods and slowly removes his regulator and his mask. One eyebrow raises before they both furrow together. “Aye.”

Great. He thinks she’s a lunatic. She probably is.

She just tried to save a man from drowning when he wasn’t actually drowning.

This is all Mary Margaret and David’s fault because they own the most uncomfortable couch in existence, and she obviously is suffering from poor decision making because of a lack of sleep.

“I thought you were dead!” Emma explains as she starts treading water and hopes that a shark doesn’t show up any time soon. That would really be the cherry on top of her day. “But you’re obviously not dead.”

“No, love, I don’t think I am.”

“What’s going on here?”

Emma stops treading and dips under the water before she rises back up and sees another guy floating a few feet away. As she looks around more and more keep popping up, all of them deadly silent, and if she had any air in her lungs right now, she would scream.

What the hell has she just walked…swam into?

And then, when she comes to her senses, she realizes that they’re all laughing at her.

The bunch of assholes.

(She probably deserves their laughter, but she won’t admit to that.)

“Alright, alright,” the non-dead guy says, raising his hand in the air, “leave the lady alone. She is a real savior, okay?” He flashes her a pearly white smile and nods back to the shore. “Do you want to go back and get away from these assholes?”

What she’d like to do right now is drown, but there seems to be none of that going around today.

“Yeah, I would. I don’t need you to take me back though.”

“Good because I’m not going to. I’m simply going to happen to be swimming to the shore at the same time that you do.”

Emma nods and then turns around and starts swimming back. He stays at her heels while his friends whistle out words she’s ignoring behind them, and while Emma considers herself to be in good shape, she is not a swimmer. The adrenaline from her run and from her not-so-daring rescue are wearing off, and she can feel her breathing getting heavier and heavier. Is the shore getting further away? That would be impossible.

“You’re so lucky you weren’t actually dying back there because there was no way I was going to be able to drag your sorry ass back to shore.” He chuckles, and she cuts her eyes back at him. “I’m glad you find this funny.”

“I find this hysterical, love. You need a tug to shore?”

She does, but there’s no way in hell that she’s going to accept that.

“Absolutely not.”

Eventually, after what feels like ages, she steps foot on solid, if sandy, ground, and the early morning air nips at her skin as she emerges from the water. She tries to shake it off while walking toward her clothes, but she knows that there’s no way that she could possibly get her leggings back on.

That would be torture of an entirely different kind.

Holy shit. She’s wearing underwear with cartoon dicks on them.

This day could not get any worse.

Except when she turns around, she sees the guy stripping out of his gear, only the wetsuit left on, and this is the first time she gets a really good luck at him. He’s trim, like he spends a heck of a lot more time swimming than she does, and he’s got dark stubble across his jaw that she imagines would feel fantastic brushing against her skin. His eyes also seem to be bluer now, and she definitely didn’t think that was possible.

Okay, so maybe her day could get worse.

Or a little better.

Then she watches his eyes tail down her body, just for a moment, but it’s long enough that she knows that he’s noticed her unfortunate choice in underwear.

“So, do you go about saving people every morning or is this just a one-time thing?”

“Definitely a one-time thing since all of my effort was apparently useless.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. That’s the most entertainment me and the boys have had in weeks. I don’t think we’re going to forget about this for a long time.”

Emma nods and bends down to get her tank top. She pulls it over, and it immediately clings to her skin. So much for getting a little coverage. “You lead that boring of a life then? All diving all the time?”

“Lately, yeah.”

“Is that so?”

He shakes his hair out and runs his fingers through his locks, and she is not distracted by that at all.

(She is definitely not thinking about the fact that she hasn’t had sex in several months.)

(She just embarrassed the hell out of herself in front of him, so that shouldn’t even be a though going through her mind.)

(Even if these were normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be a thought that went through her mind this early in the morning.)

“We’re training for diving school for the Navy,” he explains. “We’ve got a few weeks off that we’re spending up here for the incredible diving spots, but then we’ll be in Florida for four months.”

“Well, I hope you won’t need any saving while you’re there.”

“It won’t be you, so I’m not sure that it’d be quite as enjoyable.” Emma rolls her eyes, and she has to try her hardest not to let herself smile. That was a bad line. She will not smile at it. “Killian Jones, by the way. And you are?”

“Emma Swan.” She reaches out to take his hand to shake, but instead, he pulls it up and brushes his lips across the back of her hand, never breaking eye contact.

“It’s nice to meet you, Swan. You wouldn’t happen to know a good spot around here to get a beer, would you?”

Emma looks down at her feet, kicking them in the sand, before she raises her head and smiles. He’s flirting with her. She just embarrassed the hell out of herself, interrupted a military training exercise, and he’s flirting with her.

What’s wrong with him?

“I actually work at the Crab Shack down by the pier. Don’t let the name fool you. There is only a small possibility that you’ll get crabs if you shack up while there.”

Okay, what is wrong with her?

Killian cocks his head to the side and chuckles as a water droplet falls from his hair and streaks down his face. Why is that so distracting? “I’ll see if the boys and I can stop by tonight. You know, to celebrate the woman who saved me.”

“Alright, alright,” Emma laughs, holding her hands up and bowing her head. “I get it. I’m never going to live this down.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

-/-

David and Mary Margaret are both at work when she gets home, so she thankfully doesn’t have to explain her appearance. Her heart is still racing and her clothes are still soaking wet. Her leggings were pretty much impossible to get on, so she walked through the streets of Storybrooke in nothing but sneakers, a tank top, and dick-covered underwear. She takes a shower and tries to wash away the embarrassment of the morning. She never thought that she was one to embarrass easily, but she guesses that was not some kind of normal situation.

Why is she such an idiot?

Is this just a new low point in her life?

She’s not working until after lunch, and while she would usually take this time to clean up around the loft to show her appreciation for David and Mary Margaret for letting her crash here, she doesn’t do that. Instead, she spends a ridiculous amount of time trying to decide what to wear to work, like she’s not going to wear her regular cut-offs and a tank top. That’s exactly what she puts on, and if she decides to add a lacy bralette, well, that’s just because all of her other bras need to be washed.

Eventually, she heads to work, clocks in, and starts helping to serve the few tables and the people at the bar. It’s pretty slow, though, and when there’s only one guy in a booth in the corner, she tells Ruby about her morning.

Considering Ruby literally starts choking from laughing so much, Emma thinks maybe that wasn’t her best idea.

“You were wearing the underwear from Marg’s bachelorette party?”

“It was clean! I have to do laundry!”

“This is the best thing to ever happen to me,” Ruby laughs, leaning forward and resting her face on the countertop before she pops back up with wide eye and a wolfish smirk. “Wait. Did you say that he’s coming here tonight?”

“Mhm.”

“Is that why you have on mascara?”

“I wear makeup sometimes.”

“Rarely.” Ruby places her hands on her hips, and okay, maybe she definitely shouldn’t have told Ruby. She probably wouldn’t have noticed the Navy guys coming in. “Oh, is he cute? Are you going to sleep with him? Is that what’s up with you looking slightly put together. Emma Swan, have you gone and found yourself a man in the most ridiculous way possible?”

“I am not going to sleep with him.” Ruby raises her brows and then winks, and all Emma can do is shake her head. “He’s in the Navy. He’s about to go to Florida for four months and then who knows where? What would even be the point?”

“That sounds like the perfect excuse to sleep with him. There are no strings attached, and I’m sure he knows that too. I mean, you’ve got to get over that douche eventually. Why not do it with a hot guy who is going to leave, no strings attached?”

She’s only known Ruby from when she’s come to visit David, but they’ve managed to be pretty close friends over the last few months. Ruby is fearless and crass, and there’s never anything holding her back. Emma often wishes she was like that.

The girl is right, unfortunately, not that Emma would admit that to her. She would never shut up about it.

“He’s probably not even going to show, Rubes.”

-/-

He shows.

His entire crew doesn’t. It’s just him and two guys named Robin and Will, and they all settle down at a booth, ordering burgers and drinks and taking the piss out of her every time she brings them something. Will is the main culprit, and she’s pretty sure that he’s the one who scared the shit out of her earlier by silently popping up out of nowhere.

It’s weird seeing them all out of their gear and in their civilian clothes. Killian is in a pair of dark jeans that hug his legs – not that she was staring or anything – and a short-sleeved gray t-shirt. A tattoo peaks out underneath his sleeve, and she’s curious as to what it is.

She’s not going to sleep with him, though. That’s not…that’s not happening.

“So, I have to ask,” Ruby says after Emma’s been chatting with them on and off for an hour, “did you manage to get a good look at the panties this girl had on earlier?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t, love,” Killian tells Ruby before looking at Emma and winking.

Oh, she might be in trouble if he’s going to do things like that..

“Really?” Ruby asks, disappointed.

“I’m afraid that I was too busy being thankful to be saved to pay any attention to what my savior was wearing.”

“I call bullshit on that, but whatever. You really missed out too. They were the greatest pair of panties in existence.”

Little by little, the bar fills up with people, mostly tourists, but a few locals come in. Will and Robin start talking with a few guys they happen to know, but Killian comes to sit at the bar across from her where she learns that he’s originally from California but that his dad was in the military growing up and they moved around a lot. His mom was British, and they spent the majority of his early years in England, which explains the slight accent, and he has an older brother who lives in Denmark with his wife. At twenty-four, he’s only three years older than her, and he says that he got a bit of a late start to being in the Navy, messing around too much and not knowing what the hell it is he wanted to do with his life.

Emma gets that more than he could probably ever know. She’s literally sleeping on her brother’s couch and working in a place called the Crab Shack.

They don’t even sell crab most days.

He gives as good as he gets with being teased, and she finds that he’s always quick to give back an insult or a jab whenever one comes from Ruby or from his friends.

Or from her.

It’s easy talking to him, laughing and sharing a drink and some fries, and as the night goes on, it’s even easier to forget that she hasn’t flirted since Neal and that the man smiling across from her was the witness to one of the most embarrassing moments of her life.

Killian kisses her against the wall in the hallway that leads back to the bathrooms and the storage closets. It’s dark, the music from the bar dimmed, and the only thing she can focus on is the warmth of his mouth and the expert sweep of his tongue as chills scatter across her body before warming her everywhere, from her toes to her cheeks but especially in the pit of her belly. She hasn’t been kissed like that in quite some time, if not ever, and getting lost in it is as easy as anything she’s ever done.

She doesn’t sleep with him, though.

She desperately wants to, aches for it really, but he mutters something about being a gentleman, which she protests against, but he reassures her that he is, indeed, always a gentleman.

Making out with her in the hallway of a bar doesn’t really allow that theory to hold up, but she guesses he’s going to play the gentleman card.

He promises he’ll be back, though, asking her if she’s working tomorrow, and when she says yes, he kisses her again and then walks out the door.

-/-

Killian comes back the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

And then he asks if he can see her outside of work, take her on a proper date or something, and the only reason Emma says yes is because she knows this is temporary. He’s going to leave soon, so it’s okay for her to get to know him and laugh with him and make out with him in the backseat of her car until her lips are kiss-swollen and every part of her is flushed.

It’s okay for her to get to know how he likes his burgers and what his favorite drink is and that the tattoo on his arm is in honor of his mom who passed away five years ago. She learns more about his brother and his apparently shitty dad, just as she tells him about David who he apparently had some kind of run-in with on his first night in town, and little by little, she starts to know all of these pieces of this man she never should have met.

If she were a romantic, Emma would say that this is like something out of a movie, a summer romance that passes by in montages full of laughter and good times. She’s not a romantic, though. She knows that this is the real world where things don’t work out like that, but even so, the weeks pass by, and when she goes to bed at night, she finds herself thinking of blue eyes and a kind but mischievous smile.

Oh.

Oh, okay. Maybe she’s gotten herself in too deep of waters without knowing the way out, and this time, there’s not going to be some idiot running along the beach who dives out into the ocean to save her.

Despite her thoughts starting to attack her, her heart aching even when she tells it to stop, she continues to see him whenever she can. And a week before he leaves, they manage to find a time when no one is home but the two of them, and while she doesn’t intend for it go that far, once his lips brush across her neck and liquid heat blazes over her skin, there’s no stopping them as they shed their clothes.

“No dick-covered underwear today, love?” Killian whispers against her bare stomach as he kisses her in such a way that her stomach ripples.

“I’m afraid those have been retired.”

“A pity that.”

They don’t talk much for the next few minutes, not more than curses and instructions and repetitive words of pleasure, and as her heart races while Killian drives her absolutely mad with his movements, it also aches, the ticking time bomb she wants liked suddenly something she’s dreading.

She likes him.

Honestly, truly likes him.

He’s kind and funny and has a mouth on him that matches hers in curses and in banter. He asks her about her day and listens to her when she talks, which Neal nearly never did, and while she finds that what’s between them is physical, there’s something more underneath the surface, so damn close to breaking through.

When he leaves, she doesn’t want to say goodbye. She’s never been particularly good at those, but Killian still comes to the bar, sits with her at the counter likes it’s not his last day, and when he has to go, he takes her hand and pulls her outside, the wind whipping around them and the smell of salt permeating the air.

“There’s not a day will go by I won’t think of you.”

Emma nearly makes some kind of sarcastic quip, but instead she leans up on her toes and slowly glides her lips over his, savoring the softness and undeniable warmth of them one last time.

“Good.”

-/-

Emma wakes to a text the next morning.

KJ: So, I have some time off in January. Do you think I could take you to dinner?

ES: I think that could be arranged. I don’t know if I’ll recognize you all bundled up to live through Maine’s winter weather.

KJ: I’ll bring a red rose, just in case.

Emma rolls over on the couch and buries her smile in her pillow.

ES: I am looking forward to it.

-/-

Emma sees Killian for the first time – FaceTime not included – on January third, four months and a week after they said goodbye. He’s standing outside her apartment – one she shares with Ruby, each of them with their own, actual bedrooms – dressed in his Naval dress uniform with a red rose in his hand.

His hair is shorter, his usual stubble a little bit more trimmed, his skin tanned, and even with his uniform, she can see that his shoulders are broader than they were this summer.

“Hi,” Emma whispers. She thought she was yelling it, but it definitely only came out as a whisper. “You’re not supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

He cocks his head to the side, smile bright, and God, she has missed that smile. “Ah, well, you see, I had an opportunity to see the woman I love one day sooner, and there was no way in hell I was going to pass up that opportunity.”

“The woman you love, huh?”

“Aye.” He steps closer, and it takes everything in Emma not to tackle him to the ground. “She’s this fiery lass who is beyond brilliant and witty. And, I’ll have you know, that she is so brave that she’ll dive into the ocean to save a drowning man. Would you happen to know anyone like that?”

Emma rolls her eyes and closes the distance between them. It was once 1,500 miles (she may have looked it up), but that is no longer. And it feels damn good. “I might have an idea where you can find her.”

“Good,” he says, her own word from so long ago echoing back to her, before pressing his lips to hers in a deep, slow kiss that feels like it never stopped.

She has never been so thankful for David’s shitty couch and how it inadvertently led her to this.

#the one where emma goes underwater #cs prompts #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfic #Captain Swan

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feverinfeveroutfic · 3 years

Text

chapter three: take this longing

“your body like a searchlight, my poverty revealed. i would like to try your charity until you cry, ‘now you must try my greed’. and everything depends upon how near you sleep to me.” -“take this longing”, leonard cohen

The sun had dipped behind the Los Angeles skyline and in turn, the entire area was bathed in a blanket of bluish violet darkness. It was moments like that there in the northeastern side of the city that Sam realized she had missed it all. She peered out the windshield at the winding dim lit freeway before them: all the jacaranda and oleander trees tucked behind the brick walls that lined the road around them. Somewhere near there was the old neighborhood in Alhambra where her parents used to live at before she was born.

Chuck took the next exit to one of the side streets down below, past a small row of low palm trees off to the right. Beyond the trees stood a mural painted upon a wall of pale bricks. Sam couldn't exactly tell what the mural bore but she made out the sight of a series of bright colors there in passing.

“Did you see that?” Greg asked her.

“I did, yeah,” she said.

They rolled up to a stoplight and Sam glanced about the intersection before them. The darkening freeway to the left, the stretch of road right in front of them and all the mission style houses up that way as well, and to the right, the four lane parkway that took them into the heart of town and closer to that old neighborhood. The faintest of memories in mind and yet a memory nonetheless.

“Oh, god, the memories that are coming back right now,” she admitted.

“That's right, this is your neck of the woods, isn't it?” Chuck said as he raised his attention to the rear view mirror; even in the dim light, Sam made out the sight of the little glimmer in his eye.

“All of Elsinore and this side of L.A. in particular,” she said. “My parents lived around here when they first got married. They also lived closer to the beach, too—down by San Pedro.”

“Love San Pedro,” Tiffany declared.

“Oh, yeah, it's all cool down that way. San Pedro, Long Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes—it's all the real nice part of L.A.”

Sam thought about a walk on the beach at some point. So much she wanted to do while she was back there in California, that is if she could do it. Bill wasn't willing to let her out for any reason whatsoever.

Hell of a time getting back to New York if she so wished to do so.

In the meantime, she thought of her parents. Or at least she thought about Esmé and what she planned on doing following the divorce. The fact that her parents were splitting up left her wondering where it all went wrong when she wasn't looking. Her mother became an author and her father had his own things to deal with and yet she had no idea about either one of them.

Much like with her secret about living with Bill had to be kept away from Joey at all costs, she knew that she need not tell a soul about the divorce as well. As far as she knew, Bill had no idea about it, and he didn't need to know about it, either.

Within time, they reached the center piece of Alhambra, the vast stretch of dark grass nestled in between a series of scraggly but still fully shrouded oak trees. The grass made a little hillside near the middle of it all. And right near the sidewalk stood the dark brown wooden city sign: Sam peered out Alex's window to the stone sidewalk out there as Chuck searched for a place to park.

“We're just gonna be seeing them in a little restaurant,” he announced to them. “It’s another little baby thrash band, too, so it’s a humble restaurant rather than the sunset strip.”

“They’re not Poison or Ratt, anyway,” Alex noted in a low voice.

“Don't really wanna walk too far, though,” Chuck continued, “you know?”

“Right, right,” Tiffany said.

“Especially after all of the running we just did,” Sam pointed out. “And the fact I fell on top of Greg.”

Alex laughed out loud at that and Greg bowed his head at that.

“I saw that!” Chuck declared. “That was actually pretty funny—no offense, Greg.”

“Greggy,” Sam said in recollection of Zelda's nickname of him.

“Greggy!” Tiffany chimed in.

Chuck then swerved towards the curb and they took the spot closest to the corner, right across the street from a small bar in a brick building with a pink and blue neon sign in the window.

“We're seeing them in there?” Sam wondered aloud.

“Nah, next door,” Chuck told her as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Mr. Skolnick here isn't twenty one yet—neither are they.”

“Really?” Sam muttered but Chuck never replied as he climbed out first, followed by Tiffany, and they leaned the seats forward so she, Alex, and Greg could climb out into the impending darkness.

Chuck and Tiffany led the way to the warmly lit restaurant next door: on the far side of the room stood a doorway into a separate floor for a band to play. Behind them stood a long table with Death Angel shirts.

“Here just in time,” Greg remarked right as the lights turned low. The five of them were only a select few in a small crowd but it didn't seem to bother either of them up on stage. All five of them had that smooth Pacific Islander skin that seemed to glow with a halo under the dingy lights. All five of them were slender and svelte and their instruments seemed far too big for them.

“Band of cousins,” Chuck told Sam. “Each and every one of them.”

“I was just gonna say,” she started, “they all look related to one another. Like they're brothers.”

“All literal kids when they started out a few years back,” he continued. “About around the same time as us, but kids, though. Literally kids—you think Alex is still just a baby when you first saw him and also right now. I think Andy, the drummer, was fourteen when they dropped their first album. That was like a month after we officially changed our name to Testament.”

“Wow!”

“Hello, Alhambra!” the bassist declared into the microphone with a bit of a high pitch squeak of a voice. “We are Death Angel.” Indeed, they struck Sam as a five piece band out of a high school up there on the stage. But she knew they carried with them a bit of prowess from her secondhand experience with Mark. He then ran up to the stage with a portable microphone in one hand, and those long black dreads streamed behind his head. His slender little body was wrapped up in a big black Slayer shirt and baggy black jeans that appeared to be falling off of his hips.

To think Aurora had an encounter with him right before her wedding. The more Sam thought about it, the more she wished for Aurora to have gone with him rather than that harebrained Emile. But as far as she knew, Aurora never touched him once and she only did it to rile her up, especially after her behavior in recent months. He gave those dreads a little toss back with a flick of his head and he showed a big beaming smile out to the audience.

“This is from our brand new album—it's the kind of album you listen to in the City of Angels, too,” Mark said into the microphone head. “It's called Frolic in the Park.”

“What a name,” Sam joked, to which Greg and Alex burst out laughing at that.

“Exactly!” Chuck declared.

“Hit it—”

For a band of kids, they reminded Sam of the Cherry Suicides, just by their relentless nature, their tightness, and the high scratchy shriek that Mark sang in. They weren't nearly as akin to punk rock and they lacked that gory aspect as well, but they were definitely up there; his thick black dreads reminded her of Joey. She needed to call him at some point.

“Man, they just pull, don't they!” Sam shouted.

“They do!” Greg shouted back.

Mark lashed his tongue and threw his dread locks back so that he resembled to a sea monster up there. Andy kicked his drum so hard in order to get the crowd clapping: given it wasn't a very big room, Sam could feel the thumping right through the floor. Chuck and Greg also stomped along with them.

“Let me hear you guys!” Mark bellowed into the microphone. “I wanna hear this room come alive! Make the Philippines proud, Alhambra!”

He raised his hands up over his head as they plunged into a good long guitar solo. Sam thought of the Cherry Suicides in Boston, when they became a thrash band themselves for a few moments. The whole series of claps lasted about five minutes before they returned to the original flow of the song.

Death Angel played one more before they parted the stage, and Sam, Alex, and Greg treated them to applause.

“Hey, kids, you want a shirt?” Tiffany offered the three of them.

“Can get a whole bunch of shirts, actually, Tiff,” Chuck told her from behind them, “they’re all like a buck-fifty.”

Sam couldn’t help but laugh at Bill’s complaint about a bag of crackers. Cheese crackers that were the same price as a handful of T-shirts she could sleep in that night and the one afterwards. But at the same time, she still shook her head at the very notion. And he was about to lose what income he had left; but Marla had the right idea to pressure him into finding a better solution for himself. Sam thought back to what her mother had said about things growing treacherous and sticky when kids were involved.

Greg bowed into the men’s room in the restaurant while Chuck and Tiffany strode outside into the night. Sam turned to Alex.

“You want something to eat?” she volunteered as she tucked her small bag of shirts under her arm while she put her change away.

“Nah, I’m not very hungry believe it or not,” he said, “Chuck also told me that he and Tiffany are going next door to bar for a drink.” To which he then eyed her juggling her things only to put her wallet away. “Here, let me help you—“

He took the shirts so she could put the change inside her wallet, and then her wallet back into her purse. Once she had it back against her body, he handed the shirts back to her.

“Thank you,” she told him.

“Wanna take a walk outside?” he offered her.

“Take a walk on the wild side?” she retorted, and Alex laughed, a big hearty bout of laughter. But he led her out to the front door of the restaurant, where the night had fallen upon Los Angeles: a hazy orange glow emerged from the downtown area, such that Sam could only see the stars in the sky if she turned her attention to the north, over the mountains.

Alex led her to the corner next to the bar, and they both peeked inside: Chuck and Tiffany were in fact in there and at the bar in anticipation of their drinks.

“Did Greg say anything about being in there?” Sam asked him.

“Nah, he just said he was using the bathroom and then he’d meet us outside.” Alex took a glimpse over his shoulder right then.

“I’m not seeing him, though.” He stood there at the corner of the sidewalk and she awaited right next to him there. Once they glanced about both ways first, he took a step off of the curb and she walked side by side with him to the opposite sidewalk, right near the car. But Alex himself kept on going into the darkness: the sole light came from the glow of the city, the neon lights behind them, and the sole street lamps on the corners up ahead.

“Would you believe that before I joined Testament,” he started at one point, “I never really had been to the L.A. area?”

“Really?” She was stunned by that, to which he nodded his head, even in the darkness.

“Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area my whole life,” he told her. “Never really felt the need to leave until I decided I wanted to be in a band. Sometimes I made visits to New York City or out to Vegas, but never the City of Angels. It was weird telling Chuck that, too, because he was born in L.A.”

They reached the street corner and he ran his fingers through his hair once more. Even in the nondescript light, Sam made out the sight of his deep eyes as they glanced off to their right. She was once again alone with Alex, and what better place than an area she called home for such a long time.

“I will say this,” he began again as he strolled along the sidewalk with her right next to him.

“What's that?”

“I'm glad that you're out this way,” he admitted: whenever he looked over at her, the ambient glow of everything made him resemble to a little porcelain doll. “Ever since we got together on New Year's over in Ithaca, I went home thinking, 'I was really wrong about Samantha.'”

“I feel bad about you overhearing at that conversation I had had with Aurora, though,” she confessed. Meanwhile, the sidewalk deviated away from the grass and gave way to pillars of pure concrete.

“Why?” he asked her as he stepped down in the barren storm drain.

“You saw a side to me that I didn't really want you to see.” She followed his lead into the storm drain, away from the concrete and almost into the street.

“Why? She was your best friend and she pretty much left you behind at this point.”

“And she made your day all about her,” she added.

“And she made my birthday all about her, right,” he echoed her.

They kept on walking around the concrete until they reached the next edge of the sidewalk. Beyond that something dark emerged from behind the pillars.

“Bit of grass here,” he pointed out.

“Grass, the trees, and the hill,” Sam added, and she turned to him. No moon out that night but there was in fact plenty of ambient light from the city near there and the very town of Alhambra; despite the dim light, however, she could make out the sight of that gradual hill side not too far from the concrete's edge.

“Remember during Kirk and Rebecca's wedding when you and Zelda rolled down that one hillside together?” he recalled.

“Oh yeah!” Sam snapped her fingers at that. “And you and Joey ran down it together with your shirts off like you were a couple of athletic boys.”

“I dunno about him but my suit was getting a little heavy at that point,” he pointed out with a shrug of his shoulders and a lopsided little grin. Through the darkness, she noticed his eyes pointed towards the other side of the grass. “Hey, there's the car.”

“Where?”

“Due north of us from here. Right over there.”

“Shall we frolic in the park?” she joked.

“At this time of night?” he pointed out.

“Yes.”

“There's no light, though, Samantha. We can't see the creatures and things that crawl about the grass beneath us.”

“Well, if we frolic about in the park, we gotta get closer at some point, though. So you can protect me from all the bad things that linger about down in the grass.”

“Well—you're technically married now,” he pointed out as they continued onward to the next corner. One more corner, and they were back at the restaurant and the bar, and of course the safety of the car.

“Yeah... but I don't have a ring, though,” Sam pointed out. “Sure, Bill made me sign some things but we don't have the things that make a marriage a marriage. Or at least so I think.”

“But you are technically married to Bill, though,” Alex insisted. “That means we can't fool around or do anything like that or anything that involves any kind of frolicking. Or at least that's what the Jew in me tells me.”

Sam giggled at that.

“Mr. Wandering Jew,” she joked.

“The Wandering Jew!” he recalled with a chuckle. “I think we gotta put a name on that at some point.”

“Who, you and me or you and Testament?”

“Testament! That could be a track for an album in the future. When I get back to my guitar, I'll throw around some licks and see what comes out of it at some point.”

“You are just—you are fascinating, Alex,” Sam remarked.

“You think so?”

“Yeah. There’s so much more to you than meets the eye, and I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface with you.”

“You really have, Samantha,” he told her, “you like barely made an etching on the surface of the little Skol-man.”

“By the way,” she began and a part of her shuddered at the phrase given she knew Bill likes to employ that onto her, “I know you're a guitarist for a heavy metal band—but are there any other genres you play?”

“Not really,” he answered with a shake of his head. “Most of my influences tend to be rock n' roll based. Most anyways. I saw Miles Davis in a concert on TV a while back, and ever since then, that's piqued my interest for the jazz world. I was raised by older parents compared to my peers. Where they grew up to things like Grateful Dead, I was exposed to like Sinatra and Dean Martin when I was growing up.”

“Who do you tend to be influenced by?”

“Well, my favorite band ever is the Beatles. I think anyone who knows what they're talking about when it comes to music they mention the Beatles at some point. They have to mention them, too, otherwise they have no credibility. The thing that got me into heavy metal was Kiss—I remember being eleven years old and literally begging my parents to take me to see Kiss. I actually cried to convince them.”

“Aw!”

“Yeah, my older brother Nate was like 'okay, Alex, if we can't get Mom and Dad to say yes, turn on the water works' and I did! So the Beatles got me into guitar, Kiss was what convinced me to go into metal—and then I found Van Halen and Eddie Van Halen, whom I think genuinely inspired me to be a lead guitarist. And then I started finding more and more guitar players like Randy Rhoads and Stevie Ray Vaughn. I also found a movie—you might find it the next time you go to a video store like near here or over in New York—that came out when I was nine years old, I think? I was nine going on ten. It's called 'American Hot Wax'—got people like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins playing themselves!”

“'American Hot Wax',” she repeated, “I'm writing that down.”

“Please do! The last time I threw out that movie name to someone they forgot it in like three minutes and then I never saw them again.”

Sam stopped right on the sidewalk in search of that one piece of paper, the one with Chuck's and management's phone number written on one side, and a pen down inside of her purse. Alex stopped right before her with his head bowed a little bit before her. The neon from the bar across the street from there provided enough light for her to find it but she had to squint her eyes in order for her to adjust to the sight of the ink on the paper.

“Can you see?”

“Sort of.” She held the paper within the pink and blue glow of the neon and that proved to be enough for her.

“'American Hot Wax',” he repeated. “The story of Alan Freed, the disc jockey who introduced rock n' roll to the masses and even coined the term, too. It's a little obscure, though, I remember one of Nate's friends had a copy of it and I happened to watch along with them. So you might have to look around for it.”

“A little late movie night the next time I see Marla and Bel,” she said as she carefully wrote the words down.

“Do they still live in New York, by the way?” he asked her.

“Marla does—Belinda went up to Albany to work in a shop that specializes in stained glass.”

“Oh, wow, that's badass.”

“She tried to get me to take stained glass when we were in school but it went through twice.”

“Damn, that would've been awesome.”

“She showed me a few little tips and tricks on the whole world of glass. There’s just… so much I want to do. You know?”

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Absolutely.”

Alex then turned his attention to the sidewalk before them, to the car still parked there. Chuck and Tiffany were in that bar there while Greg appeared to be still in the restaurant.

“What shall we do next?” he asked her. “We kinda walked around in a big circle just now.”

Sam tucked the piece of paper and the pen both back into her purse, and she glanced up at the grass before them. They were close to the car and the sole light came from the neon across the street: he was too young to go inside there and she needn’t drink lest Bill ask her about it by the time she came back. As far as she knew no one would see them out there.

“We can lie here, though,” she suggested, and he giggled at that.

“Just lay on the grass?”

“Yeah, like star gaze. Just walking around here, I can tell that the sprinklers haven't come out yet, either. We're a ways out from the very center of L.A., so the light pollution isn't so bad out here in Alhambra.”

“Yeah, guess we sure can,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. “Just don't get too close to me, though.”

“Why not?” Sam laughed.

“Because when you get too close to me,” he started with a little gyration of his head, “it warrants a kiss from you.”

“I won't kiss you,” she assured him. Alex sighed through his nose and he ran his fingers through the piece of black hair on the right side of his head. That little glimmer of gray atop the crown of his head appeared even lighter against the soft neon glow near there.

Sam tucked her new Death Angel shirt underneath her arm, and then she led him onto the soft dry grass in the midst of the trees. It wasn't in fact entirely dry: a light dew already began to fall over their heads. She guided Alex towards a spot on the grass, the driest spot as far as she could tell there. He had rolled up that single bag of T-shirts into a tight bundle and, once Sam stopped right in place, he dropped down to the ground and he set the bundle down on the grass behind him.

“Oh, I see what you're doing,” she declared as he lay down flat on the grass and his shirt lifted a little bit up his body. Even in the darkness, Sam made out the sight of that little sliver of pale skin between the bottom hem of his shirt and his jeans, about the width of her thumbnail, but a sweet little sliver of his tummy nonetheless. She bunched up the shirts in her bag as well, and she followed his suit and lay down next to him there on the grass. A couple of inches separated them from the other.

“I won't kiss you,” she assured him for the third time in a row.

He shifted his weight there on the grass and folded his hands upon his stomach, which in turn made the sliver between his shirt and his jeans a little bit bigger. He swallowed and his neck appeared much more shapely than before. She thought of drawing that shapely neck at some point. It was a fleeting thought, but that thought in fact swam right through her mind at that point. The shape of his side profile and the soft appearance of his black hair as it sprawled over his shoulders even down there on the ground.

Sam then cleared her throat and he rolled his head over the makeshift pillow for a glance over at her.

“So if you write a song called 'The Wandering Jew',” she said, “will you credit me for inspiration?”

“Of course,” he replied with a slight chuckle. “I mean it only makes sense to do just that.” He showed her a sweet little smile and then he rolled his head back to where he lay flat on the bundle of the other shirts. “The Perseids are coming up here soon. At least I think they are.”

“Perseid meteor shower?” she asked him.

“Yeah. They're right in the middle of August—at least I think they are. That's my memory of them from when I learned about them in school.”

He fetched up a big yawn and then he stretched his arms up over his head. Sam rolled her head over her makeshift pillow for a look at the side of his face: the way in which his side profile had such a fineness to it. The prominent but gentle point of his nose. The full sensual shape of his lips. The smoothness of his skin and his chin.

She never thought of Alex as being so lovely, but laying there next to her, she recognized another side to him that she hadn't seen before there. She inched closer to the side of his face, much to his surprise. He gaped at her and raised his eyebrows at her.

His little body enticed her and she wanted him, and she wanted to kiss that little pearl of gray upon his head, now a little tuft the size of her index finger. She set a hand on the side of his face and she lunged in closer to his face.

“Samantha!” he gasped. “What're you doing?”

“I want to kiss you,” she whispered into his face; she showed him her tongue.

“Don't,” Alex begged her in a soft whisper and with a shake of his head.

“I want to kiss you,” she insisted as she gazed into those deep eyes and at those sweet smooth lips, as smooth as butter.

“Samantha—Samantha, please—you're legally married and you have a boyfriend, too.”

“So?”

Alex froze right in place at that.

“So?” she repeated, and he cracked her a smile and he laughed at that. He brought a hand to his mouth in order to stifle his laughter given they lay together there outside of the bar. She lifted herself up and then rolled over him: she suspended herself over him. He was right underneath her; Sam brought her face closer to his so she could smell the soft cologne on the side of his neck.

Decadent, like a little treat for her and all for her, all for being such a bad girl.

A bad girl with a good boy.

His chest heaved from her being right above him. The tips of her dark hair dangled down towards his chest and she ran her tongue around her lips to get him going as well.

“Samantha, I—” He could hardly talk. “—I—” She pressed a finger to those lips.

“You're just—you're so sweet and intelligent and funny and refined and just—everything totally different from what I'm used to.”

Alex swallowed but he never moved a muscle.

“I want to come closer to you,” she begged him as she touched his chest. With that free hand, she unfastened the bottom lip there at the top of his shirt. “I want to come closer to you, Alex Skolnick.”

Or at least that was what she thought would happen had she inched even closer to him. Instead she fluttered her eyelashes to rid of the daydream, and she just lay there on her back next to him and every so often, she peered over at him and the soft and smooth side of his face.

“I should tell you,” she began for real that time, “you have the cutest little lips.”

He snickered at that.

“You do! They're really cute and shapely, and I like how they kind of peel back whenever you talk, too.”

“I'm a mishmash,” he confessed with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Like one of those rag dolls,” she added.

“One of those rag dolls they piece together of all the scraps they scrape up from like the bottom of the barrel.”

“Nonsense,” she insisted.

“These lips under this schnoz and with these eyes and with the little tuft on my head? Yeah, it's bottom of the barrel, Samantha.”

“You are not from the bottom of the barrel, Alex,” she persisted. “I assure you.”

“I'm like something that the world likes to keep a secret, and by the time it comes out, it's already been said and done.”

He sighed through his nose and Sam frowned at that. And then it hit her, especially with Joey and Marla not around, and neither of her parents knowing about Alex himself.

“Speaking of secrets,” she began, to which he rolled his head back over the roll of shirts on the ground. “Can you keep another one?”

“I'll lock secrets up in a vault and never let them out,” he said in a single breath, “especially after Louie told Marla about your living situation. Can't believe he did that.”

“My parents are getting divorced,” she told him straight up.

“Aw, really?” He gaped at her.

“Yeah.”

“Well, why am I sworn to secrecy about it?”

“My mom doesn't want me talking about it with anyone. But she doesn't know about you, though.”

He raised his eyebrows at that.

“Really?” he said in a low voice.

“Yeah. So—could you?”

He ran his tongue along the edge of his teeth.

“I'll put them in the proverbial vault, Samantha. Don't you worry about a thing.”

“Hey, kids!” Chuck called from across the street.

“I want you to be my secret, too,” she blurted out to him.

“Me?” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Yes. From my parents, from Joey, from everyone. I want you to be my best kept secret.”

“Sam?” Tiffany called from across the street. “Alex?”

“I’ll explain later,” she vowed, and he nodded his head and they both clambered up to their feet. Alex fixed his black hair and Sam straightened her top.

“Oh there they are, babe,” Tiffany pointed out from the shadow under the neon lights.

“Had a little fun on the grass?” Chuck joked as they headed closer to them.

“That’s for us to know and for you to find out,” Sam retorted, and Chuck erupted into laughter. She glanced over at Alex and the shadow cast over his face.

“Gonna be hell of a time getting you back home,” he said in a low voice. “I just think about how that man treats you, too.”

“That’s an understatement. I don’t even want to go back there.”

“You wanna hang out with us!” he exclaimed with a chuckle. “Next time we’re down this way, I’ll make sure you get a spot with us in the hotel room. I’d hate for you to go back to him.”

“Aw, Alex, that’s so sweet of you,” Sam said with a smile on her face.

“There’s Mr. Christian,” Chuck declared.

“Looks like he’s got some food, too,” Alex added. Indeed, Greg returned to the car with a brown cardboard box in one hand. The two of them awaited Chuck’s unlocking the doors as well as the folding back of the seats.

“Still not hungry?” Sam asked him as she took a whiff of whatever was inside there as Greg walked past.

“That might change,” Alex confessed to her before he climbed into the back seat behind Tiffany first.

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phoebehalliwell · 3 years

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Piper/Kyle, except it's an AU where Kyle's parents were never killed by demons, so he lived a perfectly normal, happy childhood and grew up to follow their footsteps into teaching and Kyle's a normal, maybe even a little boring archaeology professor who secretly dreams of having his very own Indiana Jones moment - up until the day he opens some dusty old chest and unleashes a demon that tries to kill him, and he barely gets away only to run into this petite brunette woman who proceeds to blow the demon the fuck up, and Kyle's never believed in love at first sight before, but he's pretty sure he can make an exception for Piper

wait omg mentally stable kyle au okay wait i gotta wrap my head around this kyle but not absofuckinlutely insane whatta picture omg. okay. i feel like he’s still gotta have this belief in the supernatural i feel like that’s a large part of the charm in literally any kyle dynamic with the sisters is Witch Who Gets It and Man Who’s Only Got Raw Data. there’s an appeal to that. seeing things from different angles all that. so we can say kyle ever good at puzzles has taken his parents notes and everything he knows and various texts and kinda pieced together okay magic does exist. but in this au he’s a professor and not an fbi agent so he can’t just walk around saying Magic Is Real because um he needs this job. also he’s never seen it. but like. the data does not like. like. like it’s real man like are you kidding me. and we’ll say he has one normal friend because he’s normal in this au and he’s like okay here me out tho magic is real and his friend is like ......okay. because like. it could be, i guess? i’m not gonna fight you on this. and kyle also definitely read a lot as a kid he reads a lot now and he’s always kinda like. like you know wondered what it might be like to be a man of action not someone stuck behind a desk all day seeing the world through books. so when he starts to see markers of the gathering storm,,, well. these are the times that make a man. he can either be a pussy about it and keep living his life through paper and ink, or he can follow his intuition. blah blah blah this leads him to get kidnapped by pirates which like. excuse me??? and kyle’s kinda kicking himself because he Wanted to be like a character in an adventure book and well like bada bing bada boom you get what you ask for. which. all due respect on his part. is smart enough to outwit them and escape. he might have dropped his wallet there tho. but when he goes back the same route wandering through the thick fog, all he finds is a solid wall of rock. so i guess he’s fucked in that regard. whoops. but!! magic is real. so that’s a dub. digs a little bit more into the blackjack cutting lore, maybe finds the x marks the spot on where their main hideout was, road trip to. seattle? i guess? port city that isn’t san francisco but is more reasonable to drive to that like. nola or boston. and lo and behold he finds it and find their documentation of the gathering storm accidentally trips a booby trap and jesus fucking christ pirate skeletons with sword which - respectfully - kyle is holding his own for the most part, not getting immediately worried, but there’s no way that would have lasted had the three skeletons not been blown to pieces. and he looks over and sees three brunettes and the one in the center is like who the hell are you? to which kyle really feels like He should be the one asking that question but after stammering out some kind of response about how he’s a professor and he was just looking for some soil samples something generic archaeological because hey. he doesn’t trust these women. he doesn’t know what side they’re on. and he’s not just gonna sacrifice the information he has on the gathering storm. and it’s obvious they don’t believe him, but they don’t kill him either. instead, the one in the center just says be more careful where you leave your stuff and tosses his wallet back to him.

and later at the manor paige is like we just let him go?? and phoebe’s like yeah how to we know he’s not a demon? he wouldn’t be the first to pose as a mortal in the mortal world (because phoebe went to the university to return kyle’s wallet because like it has is ID in it employee id all that under the guise of like. giving a lecture to some of the student’s there as the bay’s leading advice columnist oh hey is there a kyle brody here yeah haha he’s a friend of a friend anyone seen him no he’s on vacation right now? left real abruptly? and then immediately went into his office and touched every surface trying to get a premonition (au in which phoebe didn’t get her powers stripped) and concluded that he’s just Some Guy. like he like has friends and a nine to five and an apartment. so a guy). but piper’s like we don’t know. but we also don’t know what he’s up to or what his connection to the pirates was, which is why i cast a tracking spell on the wallet. and both phoebe and paige approve and in this au again phoebe didn’t get her powers stripped so in styx feet under it’s her and paige on mission and as paige is the one who cast the protection spell and as paige is also very stubborn and also refuses to let innocents die she is the one who gets to become death. she also has a very compelling relationship with death because like. she watched her parents die. and she’s prue’s replacement. the replacement for the dead girl. also fun paige/prue parallel! meanwhile right Should state in any piper/kyle au we just extend pleo’s divorce era by having him remain an elder and keeping that early s6 vibe. so piper’s definitely like a bit more neurotic than normal because you know things haven’t gone great for her and those pirates were warning about the gathering storm and honestly that better not be something that’s gonna hurt her boys because she really could not bear to lose another family member so she’s doing some digging which begins to imply that kyle knows more that he let on so where is he now? the university? great.

and kyle’s you know minding his own business in his office when the same woman practically kicks down his door and is like alright i’m gonna ask again who the hell are you and this time you better answer me honestly. to which: wow. like wow. she’s. she’s a force to be reckoned with and also kinda immediately gains points in kyle’s book for like a) kinda confronting him about knowing more because he’s pretty good at covering his tracks all that so if he’s been Found Out it’s by someone good and b) she also disintegrated evil pirate skeletons so like. 👍. But. he does not trust her for shit. no. absolutely not. he has no reason to. but piper’s not yielding blasts a hole in the wall near his head like quickly now or next time i won’t miss but kyle’s so fuckin stubborn he’s like 🤐 and piper’s. i mean, she can’t kill an innocent. she doesn’t know if that’s who he is, but she can’t run that risk. and kyle’s not saying shit, so she leaves.

then it’s the guardian angel episode where the charmed ones are there on instruction (though they don’t know what they’re looking for. maybe they were just scrying for information) and kyle’s there on a hunch and piper and kyle see each other and it’s um. mac charlie see each other from across the room reaction image. both like. what the fuck are you doing here? and in this one paige is still the one to get her guardian angel stolen and piper’s immediately on high alert because you know big sister/mom mode activated. but they don’t know what they’re looking for and kyle’s like it’s her guardian angel. and piper once again snaps to him firey look in her eyes but kyle’s really just trying to place nice here so he’s like guardian angels. they’ve been going missing being stolen whatever. he’s got the research on it. and piper doesn’t want to trust him but paige is really in grave danger. so, as the sister with the offensive power, she’s going with kyle, and phoebe has to make sure paige doesn’t like. pull a grams. (which for the record i do not accept prewitched as canon but like the elders definitely killed grams <3)

so blah blah blah piper’s now and kyle’s place which is ten times worse than his office because this is where he does his real work and he’s got all the guardian angel shit up and out and is explaining it to piper and it’s making sense but what catches her eye is something on the gathering storm that kyle left out now they’re talking about that they’re starting to realize they’re on the same side. blah blah blah save paige. next episodes what werewolf episode. skip. then!! idk paige still runs magic school right so she’s in the library and she calls piper and she’s like hey remember when you told me to keep an eye out on the gathering storm? and piper’s like yes yeah what is it? and she’s like well we’re inventorying the library and we have books on them and piper’s like that’s good news ! ? and paige is like yeah but we’re missing one. book five. in this something something series. and piper knows Exactly where that book is because she fucking saw it on kyle’s kitchen counter. so now she’s barging into kyle’s place which is getting to be a common occurrence at this point and kyle kinda wants to complain but this is by far the most interesting his life’s been ever and honestly? he’d be kinda bummed if piper stopped kicking down his door. wait actually scratch that you want my book no fuck you changed my mind. to which piper’s like look we’re looking for the same goal here right so give me the book because i have the rest of the series and this could be the missing puzzle piece and kyle’s like okay fine i’ve read the book cover to cover give me the rest of the series and i’ll get you your answers and piper’s like okay let’s get things straight here i’m the witch you’re some two bit archeology professor so when it comes to the handling of sacred magical tomes i’ll be taking the reigns here and kyle’s like fine then you won’t be taking the book. and piper’s like wanna bet and the next think kyle knows he’s hearing the door slam his book’s gone and he’s hearing tires peel out onto the street and he has no idea how she did it.

back at the manor piper’s got her reading glasses on an volume one open and god this fucking sucks. so she makes phoebe take a stab at it and she hates reading it too. paige also starts it and is like respectfully no. piper’s the only one who did the reading in high school. this is her turf. but my god she cannot make it through all eight of these fucking books. So. she calls kyle. he has to come to the manor because there’s no way she’s giving him the books and there’s no way she’s letting him in magic school so. hi. welcome to the house. but!! by a contrived plot device!!!! a gnome has been shot in magic school this book was the only thing at the scene and paige wants to investigate further but she can’t just leave it out there so she brings it back to the manor she’s gonna cast some spell to find out if there are already spells on the book how to reverse it she just needs to find the spell first and like. there’s no way in hell paige ever wears an outfit with big enough pockets to keep the book on her. so she leaves it on the table. to which kyle asks how this is relevant to the collection. to which piper says don’t open that!! whoops. see, this is why i said we don’t let two bit archeology professors near magical books! piper/kyle charmed noir..............

#love me a good piper/kyle ask 🤙🤙🤙#charmed #piper halliwell #kyle brody #piper x kyle #margaretsminiessays #haven't used that tag in forever whoops #should probs go back n backtag

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tamyrawilliams · 3 years

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@frank-hauptman wants to map the jungle from the water’s side and Tamyra accompanies him. They talk about attunements, the jungle changes and then some shit happens. Frank’s drowning trauma comes to the surface.

"So what are we looking for exactly?" Tamyra asked once the boat was well into the ocean, now just slowly drifting along the jungle shoreline. It was a struggle to find the boat that was stationed by the Western Cove just in case somebody wanted to fish there instead of going all the way back to the other beaches, but they managed it and now they were out in the water, one eye of Tamyra constantly on Frank to make sure he would not actually fall into the water. "Hidden monsters behind the trees, more ghosts, or something completely different?"

________

Frank doesn't bother bringing a map with him. What use is it with the sea spraying on their faces? Only a few minutes in, bobbing on the waves, and his shirt grows damp and his shoes wet. “I haven’t checked the shoreline since summer time, I’m trying to keep an eye on how the water is impacting the beaches. Boring, yes, but useful in the long run.” Strictly speaking, he doesn’t need to do today; it’s January, and the rain proves more hindrance than help. “I certainly hope all the ghosts are gone, but warn me if you spot one? I’m checking whether the terrain is changing any. Does the whole island change, or just the jungle, I wonder?”

________

Tamyra was glad Frank said that it was boring, at least she didn't have to say it herself. She was more careful with these stuff these days, still a bit worried about their peace, but it also felt nice to just sit in the boat and spend some quiet time, away from everyone. She can just focus on looking for anything out of the ordinary while Frank focused on the rock stuff. "I hope I won't see any, I had enough of them already, but will do. Did you ever see visible changes in the island before on one of these trips?" She leaned against the edge of the boat, splashing the water with her fingers are she watched the trees. "Did you ever try to feel the changes with your powers? Or would this distance and the water make it impossible to do so?"

________

Frank scans the beaches, a thoughtful look on his face. "Once I saw a chunk of a cliff missing. You can see it... that way, I believe?" South of the Leander, towards the cliffs jutting out in the distance to mark the western side of the island. "I hope you don't see a ghost either. The island doesn't have a psychiatrist still, I assume," he comments dryly. It's hard to tell if the waves protest the joke about their mistress or the woman herself does, but a strong wave hits the boat, sending them rocking and spraying him with water. Frank pushes his hair away from his face, snorting. "Ah, I haven't tried. It feels numb though, maybe it is too far?" He squints in the distance, trying to tug on a strand of his attunement, but a beat later sighs. "Nothing. At least we know you'll be the one carrying the team whenever we get off this island."

________

Tamyra followed Frank's direction, but to her it all looked the same. She could recognize changes in the jag because she spent a lot of time roaming it while she was alone, but these parts of the island? Parts of a cliff missing? That was way past the type of stuff she paid attention to, still she diligently nodded along to Frank's description as if she recognized it instantly. She let out a snort at his joke, rolling her eyes, that turned into a laugh when just at the right time there's a bigger wave that spays him. "Even the water doesn't think that was funny, that's something," she teased him gently. She remained quiet while he tried to connect to the earth and feel any of his powers, hoping it would work in this distance at least, but alas, maybe Frank and all the earth attuned needed actual earth beneath their feet. "Is it weird? Not feeling that connection anymore? Does it scare you?" She couldn't imagine not feeling the water around herself anymore, even if just unconsciously, in the back of her mind.

________

Frank swipes a hand through the water, splashing her in silent retort to her laughter, a smile playing around his lips. "You mean that wasn't planned?" he asks with a laugh, leaning back in the boat as another wave knocks against it. If he topples into the water, it's over for him unless Tamyra can pull a rescue from her bikini. He doesn't doubt her - just doubts even she can bend the sea to her whims. He considers her question, frowning, dragging a hand down his face as he thinks about the feeling. "Not scary, but definitely weird. It's like I've got a head cold actually, like when everything feels stuffy and unusual," he explains after a lengthy pause, dragging his gaze from her to the horizon.

And blinks, staring at the gulf they'd found themselves in with the cove on side and the southern beach on the other. "The current is strong today, we'll have to be careful. I don't remember us being this close to the cove," he admits, peering over the edge of the water and into the sandy depths below. Shallow, so they must be along the reef still. "Have you been out this far before?"

________

Tamyra just grinned at Frank, flicking a bit of the water back in his direction and then leaving her hand in the water. The waves were harsher now and she had to grab onto the side of the boat when one bad one hit them, but they were fine - it a was a weird doality, her fingers in the water enjoying the way the water moved around her hands, while her head knew that if things got worse, they'd have to turn around because she didn't want to fish Frank out of the ocean. "Head cold..." she mused. "It sounds strange. It even feels strange to think about it. Not feeling the water anymore. Wonder if it would be like that for good if we got out of here." A head cold for the rest of her life was not the best prospect, but she'd be out of here at least.

She could see Frank's expression changing and something happening, and when she looked back up over to the jungle, she realized they shifted so far off from where they originally were and that got her to sit up properly. "We definitely weren't this close, yet. Want to to try to navigate us back towards the jungle line?" She shook her head at his question, "Not really, this isn't the direction I usually move towards. Not--" but she couldn't finish her sentence because another hard wave crashed against them, rocking the boat even harder and Tamyra automatically reached over and grabbed Frank's arm to make sure he wouldn't fall off. "We need to be careful-- you need to be careful."

________

"Is that not how it feels to you?" Once Frank reaches solid ground, the strangeness is usually gone. "I hope this isn't a permanent feeling. I can't imagine not having it and yet I've lived longer without it." It's best, perhaps, if they find a way out of here before it becomes more second nature. If it's too late for him, for Josephine then. He dips an oar - more thick stick carved into a rudimentary paddle - into the water to change their direction. "I can try," he says, dubious, and to answer his question, the sea gives an awful lurch. Her hand on his arm is the only thing keeping his thoughts from shifting to something else. Something more like a sail boat in the Boston harbor. "I will. I will," he says, more firmly, a hand moving to grip the sides of the boat.

The oar hangs over the water, waiting for the jostling waves to halt before he resumes attempting to steer them. "It really doesn't want us--" A forceful wave hits the little boat. Water splashes over the sides, and against his face. Another hits. The little boat spins from the force, and the oar flies from his hands, disappearing in the turbulent waters. For an awful second, he can't see, the water in his eyes and whipping against his face. The little boat rocks, near tipping with each wave.

________

"I never really felt completely cut off from water," Tamyra admitted. "The ocean is so vast and always seems close in some way, while other times just beckoning me when I'm not near it. And if I'm really far away, I usually take several bottles of water with me to make sure I don't get dehydrated, so even then some bit of water is with me, you know?" Feeling completely cut off from it? The thought suddenly scared her to death. Not that it was an option, at least not right now while they were sitting in a tiny boat surrounded by the ocean.

The ocean that was relentless and tossing them around as if they were just rag dolls. Tamyra kept holding onto Frank with one hand and the side of the boat with another, even though it felt to matter less and less. In a split second decision, Tamyra let go of the side of the boat and pushed her hand back into the water and focused hard, trying to calm the water around them at least, just enough that they could keep afloat and not tip over. "Can you row like this? I can try to keep the water at bay, but I can't push the boat to the shore just with my water magic."

________

Frank holds onto the side of the boat, grimacing, as the oceans tries to heave them up and over. If it's a response to their chatter about it, he doesn't understand the motive. "The sea clearly wants us to be a little more in awe of it than we are," he says, shifting carefully in the boat and dipping the remaining oar in the water, sliding through the water in one direction and then lift to do it into the other. "I got this, just..." Hold tight, he wants to say, but there's no more room for her to hold onto the boat than there is for him. With less effort into thinking and more into rowing, their little boat rocks its way to the shore. The current fights them along the way, pushing them further and further in the other direction. It's a futile fight. "We need to go with the current, I can't get us back to shore. Where's it pushing us? What can we turn into, preferably without smashing the boat and ourselves?"

________

"This is more than just the ocean's response to us joking, Frank," Tamyra muttered as Frank started rowing. Either theycame out here at an extremely bad time, which was possible, or the ocean wanted to get them away from something, stop them from seeing something. Were they not supposed to see the landscape change? Or was it something else? She didn't really have time to mull over these things, though, she had to focus all her energy onto the water and trying to control it even the slightest. The waves crashed relentlessly, though, and it felt like her magic was not able to do anything in this current. "I think it's pushing us towards that rock formation over there," she nodded towards a bunch of rocks towards the shore, but still very much in the deep water. "Doubt we'd want to let it get there." There was another rush of waves, this time pushing them heavy towards said rocks and tilting the boat more than any of the other waves before, and Tamyra cursed, "Shit, shit, shit! Alright, try maneuvering us to the shore instead of the rocks?"

________

Frank swears quietly, digging his oar into the water in an effort to spin the boat towards the shore. Beneath their feet feels less like wood and more like a puddle. "We're almost--" The boat lurches, a wave crashing over the sides and sending them tipping. He gasps, sucking in a large breath, and hits the water with a smack. A sharp coldness pieces him. His lungs protest, and he scrambles to find the surface, unable to tell up from down. Frank surfaces once, waving a hand, struggling to stay afloat. "Tamyra!" It isn't like the last time he ended up in the water, doomed to die; this time, he can't stay afloat. Can't fight it. He sinks again, flailing for the boat or Tamyra or the oar. Anything.

________

They were getting back already, if only they could just hold on a little while longer... but another wave hit them hard and then next thing Tamyra knew, the boat was tipping and they toppled over right into the water. As she fell, something from the corner of Tamyra's eyes flashed. She wasn't sure what it was, if it was just the play of the light or something more, but it came from the direction of the South Beach. She didn't have time to look back, though, or spend more time on it, because the water swallowed her up whole and she was sinking in the water, trying to get her bearing.

She needed a few moments to find her way up, up, up to the surface and for a moment she forgot that Frank was probably sinking faster than she ever would. It only hit her when she reached the surface and Frank wasn't anywhere. "Shit, shit, shit!" She dunked right back down, looking around desperately to find her friend before it was too late, before he sank too deep and she couldn't see him or his oxygen ran out.

________

Frank can't find the surface. The water yanks him one way, and then shoves him the other. If he were home, he'd stop fighting and let himself float towards the surface. Here he sinks like a stone. If Oswald had it this way, he'd have sunk this way the first time, too.

He wonders how many times the water will drag him under and spit him out. The first time it asked for nothing, but taught him how to look at the world differently. The second had stolen his world. Would the third time ask for his life? No. No, it can't. Josephine, and Rose, and his world are back within reach. He struggles more, desperation and fear warring with the bone deep determination to see them again. Not just once, or twice, but for however long he'd be given.

His eyes snap open, even as the water burns his eyes, searching through the darkness for a sign. Up, down-- there, the light. Frank swims for it, struggling. He fears it's useful until he sees her. His hand shoots out, as if afraid she won't see him in the inky blackness, and catches her wrist. His lungs scream, and his vision is growing darker and darker, but they scramble for the surface. And when he breaks through the waves with a grasp, he can't think of anything other than the sweet relief of breathing, of the brief snatches of sunlight on his face. "I have..." he says between gasps of air, head shooting around in search of their boat, pushing sodden hair from his eyes with little luck. "... never been happier to see you in my life."

________

It felt like the moments were dragging on and Tamyra was wondering just how much time she had left, how much time before Frank ran out of time and oxygen and would start losing his consciousness and fuck, it was so hard to see anything under the water and if she missed Frank, if soemhow she couldn't see him...

there he was. The moment she spot him, she felt herself ten times lighter. But she didn't have time to rest, she needed to get to him before she sank way too deep.

She had better chances under the water thanks to her attunement, she could last longer, but by the time she got to Frank, she could tell that he was struggling really bad and the moment she got to Rose flashed in front of Tamyra's eyes, so close to passing out in the body of the plane all those months ago, in that fateful day. She didn't have a stake in that rescue, she just didn't want to flat out leave Rose behind, but she had so much more riding on this.

Tamyra grabbed him and pulled him up as strongly as she could and swam with them - up, up, up, as fast as she could. Her lungs started to burn when they broke the surface, too, relief finally taking over. "Fuck, you're too heavy," were her first words to him and then a relieved laugh burst out of her. "Please don't fucking do that again. We need to get to the shore before you start sinking again. Just grab onto me, hmm?"

________

Laughter bubbles up, even as Frank coughs. His eyes sting; not from tears, though any longer in the water and he might succumb to that, too. He wipes his face, futile as it is while they bob in the water. "Is the boat gone?" He can't see it, but then, he refuses to look away from the distant shore. His head twists, and he grimaces as he spots it, heading further and further from them without someone to guide it. "We can't chase it, it's already going beyond the reef. If it doesn't crash, it'll..."

A wave smacking against his face interrupts him, but he doesn't need to finish. She knows how angry the sea becomes it they drift to far from the island. Frank nods to the shore instead, and tries not to be the anchor holding Tamyra back as they make an attempt to head for solid land. He strains to find his attunement, wishing it were as simple as dragging the ground to meet him, but it feels far away. Further than when he was in the boat. Panic, he assumes, still curling in his stomach and waiting for a chance. The closer they get to shore, the less panicked he feels. It's only when he starts to feel the first flicker of his attunement that he heaves a heavy sigh. "My attunement is working again, we must be near solid ground."

________

"Yeah, I don't really give a shit about the boat, Frank, the longer you're in the water, the more chances are of you sinking again, which is the last thing either of us want. So no boat hunting, leave it," Tamyra said, holding onto his shoulder and arm, trying to keep him upright. Thankfully, the boat drifted away enough for them to even have a chance of going after it and both of them start swimming towards the shore.

Tamyra normally would have stayed underwater to avoid the waves, but she didn't want to leave Frank to fight it alone, so she fought against it, too. The water was relentless and hard and exhausting, and when Frank finally said he could feel his attunement again, Tamyra breathed out a sigh of relief and pushed on until she could feelt he ground under them. "We're good, we're good, we can walk now." She practically fled the last bits of the beach and then collapsed onto the shallowest bit of water at the edge of the shore to soak some energy back into her body. "Are you alright?"

________

Frank knows they'll make another boat, but he still can't help looking over his shoulder for the one drifting further and further away. Weeks of effort, and little to show for it. As Tamyra guides them to shore, he thinks longingly of the time where sailing for a few moments bore no such risks. But he pushes these thoughts away as they reach solid ground, and instead helps Tamyra up, as she helped him, until they can collapse on the beach with a sigh of relief. "I'm..." And is he okay? Frank runs a hand through his hair, at once weary, his hands shaking as he does. Under the weight of her gaze, he opts for honesty. "It's been a long time since I've thought I was going to die that way. I don't know if I'm okay, but I am alive. This time. I've probably pushed my luck with this. Three times is more luck than most others have in a lifetime."

________

He was alive. That was something. It was everything, really, in this state. Tamyra couldn't even imagine what it felt like for him. She arrived through a plane crash, it was impossible to relive the trauma - the closest she got was the plane crash, but even there she pushed the pain aside and focused on trying to get out instead of the memories. But for Frank who drowned to get here (and so many others), it was a real possibility, and fuck, he got too close to it again. She ungracefully crawled closer to him and gently nudged him. "Do you want to talk about it? I'm here to listen."

________

Cool sand is better than a cold sea. Frank rolls onto his back, everything aching. But there's little relief to having something solid beneath him; the tides tug it away as it does the water. He frowns as she nudges him, head tilting towards her. "I..." And what could he say? Fear is mingled with relief, anger with happiness. And a terrible sadness stronger than the sea itself.

"Did I ever tell you how I got here?" He asks instead, closing his eyes, chin tilting for any flicker of sunlight through the grey clouds. "It was Fourth of July. Never celebrated it much; I grew up in England and moved to Boston later. But that year, we wanted to celebrate. For Josephine, and what was going to be her history. And then my brother tried to kill me."

________

Tamyra pushed herself up into a sitting position and watched Frank as he battled with himself on whether or not he wanted to talk. "Boating accident, drowning," she replied at his question. She never really thought more of it. Frank didn't talk about it, but that was alright, she didn't really talk about her crash either (unless it was to complain about Mallory, but that had completely different connotations), and they were okay just talking about their lives before the island and what they wanted once they got out of here. So when Frank said his brother wanted to kill him, Tamyra needed a moment to take it all in. "What the fuck?! He did what? Why would he do that? What happened, Frank?"

________

Frank sighs at her question; he's asked himself some of the same things. "I didn't get the chance to ask him, and I didn't think it was something he was capable of doing until he did. Money, I assume. My father is a rich man with pull. Regardless of how little we see eye to eye, I was still his heir." Without his brother here to ask, he has no answers. Maybe someday, when his brother is old, grey, and riddled with regrets, he'll tell someone. They'll have an answer, even if Frank will not. His nose wrinkles. He doesn't intend to say more, but this small leak in the dam proves stronger than his resolve. "We were sailing. I remember a blow to my head, and I remember hitting the water. The rest is... a blur." Head injury, or his memory protecting him, Frank doesn't question it. "If the island didn't pull me in, I'd have died. Drowned, eaten, I don't know. Swimming skill or not, no one is equipped to stay afloat in the middle of nowhere. I'm just grateful Rose and Josephine weren't there. Maybe he wouldn't have done it with them there, or maybe they would be someone else for him to hurt. But now you know."

________

Tamyra listened to Frank retelling the story, trying to make sense of at least as much as he could of what happened and it was horrifying to hear. She knew what people were able to do for money, she's seen some very nasty things in her days, but to Frank... he was good, he was kind and so not the type to fuck anyone over for money. His brother could have probably asked and he would have made anything work. "What an asshole. I am so sorry, Frank." She crawled closer to Frank and wrapped one arm around the man, pulling him close into a hug.

He kept talking, explaining the actual attack and the afterward and Tamyra just let him talk. Once he was done, she pulled back, looking into his eyes. "For once the fucking island did something good. You never should have been attacked, but at least you're still here. And you're with your family again, and with some time, we will figure out a way to get back to the world. I promise, we will make it happen."

________

Saying it without looking at her is easier, but Frank knows the feeling won't last. His mouth is dry, as much from the salt still burning his throat as it is the ache of memories. Her hug startles him, gaze flashing to her and then back to the sky, continuing to talk. As he does, he leans into the touch, because despite the horrible things he's seen, and the horrible things to occur, he agrees with her. If the island did anything good in it's long existence, it's bringing him rather than leaving him to die.

"I believe you," he says quietly. "I just hope we're going to make it back in whole pieces, or a little bit like the person we were before."

But the longer he's here, the more he thinks they won't. It's a worry for another day, though. "But thank you." And he sighs, tapping her hand, a silent thank for everything unspoken.

________

I just hope we're going to make it back in whole pieces, or a little bit like the person we were before. That single sentence alone scared Tamyra more than so many other things on this island. How they would arrive back home, what they would have to sacrifice to get the hell out of here. "We will figure it out," she said instead of voicing her fear, though. Because she was clutching onto hope that it would be alright. Because that hope was the only thing keeping them together.

"Once you're ready, we should head back to the North Beach," she changed the subject. "Hugging Jo after something like this sounds like a good way to feel better, right?" she suggested, knowing that for Frank, that was probably the best thing that could possibly happen after a scare like this.

________

Frank catches the tone of her voice. He's come to think she's never more certain than when she's most afraid. This feels like one of those times. He feels the same, and he pats her hand in solidarity. Let one fear be echoed and pointedly ignored, it's how they've always done it.

"Good idea," he says quietly, taking a deep breath and forcing himself up. Facing your own mortality has a way of leaving him weary, but there's too much to do for them to sit around. "Let's go back. I think we could use a break from the sea." He turns, holding a hand to help her up. "Best we don't tell anyone about this latest failure. I don't think anyone will trust us with boat building if they know we lost this one," he admits, a rueful smile on his lips.

It takes him a moment to find a more familiar stretch of land, but Frank points out a small grove of trees with a sigh. "Bit of a walk back." It's the thought of Jo driving him onwards, as it always is. Physically here or not, she's the north guiding him home, and it's this thought that makes the first step easy, and next step fast, and the last one before he sees Josephine a small victory. He'll take those where he can get them.

#frank #frank 005 #interlude 2 #this was pre-event #clearly tamyra has no fear of the water for her own safety #unless something bad actually happens #we'll see how she handles the water now in present time after what happenedxD #anyway this was fun #and bless mira for finding the pictures i used and coming up with the title <3

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alecmagnuslwb · 4 years

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Fantasy

Writer’s Month 2020 Day Twenty-Eight

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The sunlight streams in through the parted curtains, a bright streaming light that tells him they’ve gotten to sleep in today. He closes his eyes peaceful.

“John, wake up,” Zatanna’s voice says from somewhere above him, melodic and slow.

John hums eyes still closed. “Five more minutes,” he grumbles tossing an arm over his closed eyes.

“No, John now,” she says picking up his arm. “You have to wake up now.”

Her tone has shifted, urgency in it he doesn’t understand.

“John, please wake up,” she says the tone growing more worried with every word. “Come back to me.”

Finally his eyes open and she’s over him looking well rested and bright, her face not matching her tone. The sunlight is streaming around her like a halo.

“Wake up Constantine,” she says once again. He’s about to tell her he is awake, he’s looking at her in the warm morning light awake and alert, but before he can she’s pressing a hand to his chest hard. A sharp jolt goes through him, his vision blurs.

When it clears there’s no longer sun streaming in, Zatanna’s face still hovers over him, but not well rested, she looks exhausted like she hasn’t slept in days a track of drying tears on her cheeks. A halo of light still surrounds her head, but it’s from a flickering cracked lightbulb instead.

“There you are,” she says her voice washing over in relief. The hand pressed to his chest moves to his neck rubbing gently.

“Zee?” he says groggily taking in his surroundings as he sits up, she helps him hands hovering in worry. No longer is he in a bed surrounded by golden silk sheets, he’s on a dirty basement floor the stench of death around them instead of the wafting scent of fresh coffee.

“You’re okay, the Djinn’s gone,” she says, he feels magic, her magic coursing over his skin softly checking him over for injury.

Djinn. He remembers now, the string of disappearances that Boston had caught onto, the bodies drained of their very lifeforce nothing left but husks. Then the Djinn he’d tracked without backup assuming it wasn’t strong enough to take him on yet. He’d been wrong, it hadn’t been one Djinn working alone. A struggle comes to memory but the details of where and how escape him. All he knows is it led to him here weak and tired in some abandoned old basement.

Clearer in his mind is the fantasy world the Djinn had sent him to, the world where he wasn’t being drained of his life slowly. The world the Djinn used to immobilize him and take his real life away.

“Help me get him up,” Zatanna says to someone. Andrew comes into view pulling John’s arm over his shoulders and helping him up, Zatanna settles his other arm on her own shoulders steadying him. His legs feel like jelly as he tries to walk. “Easy,” Zatanna says bringing her free hand to his chest.

“I can help you banish all of this,” she says turning her head to the side where John now sees Boston hovering.

“Go take care of him I got this,” he says shaking his head at her, a stern tone in his voice John’s rarely heard. He floats away after nodding at John leaving no room for argument.

“Portal me back here after I help you get him settled and I’ll make sure this mess gets cleaned up,” Andrew says shifting his hold on John. The shift allows him to survey the room, it’s a mess of death and destruction. Skeletons of god knows how many previous victims are piled around and three bodies that look nearly fresh probably not dead more than two days hang near where John had been hanging as well. The floor is soaked in black sludge, the blood of Djinn’s, the decapitated and demolished bodies of five of them laying in waste. He can sense Zatanna’s angry magic hovering around at least three of them still.

“You’ve used enough of your energy as is these past few days, leave the cleanup to us,” Andrew says pleading with Zee to let them handle things.

Days? Has it really been days since he tracked down that single, scrawny looking Djinn, has he been missing all that time? No wonder Zee looks so tired.

Zatanna nods a grateful look in her tired eyes. She brings up a hand and quietly conjures up a portal that they all step through, John practically being carried by the both of them. Andrew helps Zee settle him on the bed in their shared room in the House of Mystery before she brings up another portal for him to go back to help Boston.

He settles a hand on Zee’s shoulder and squeezes once, she reaches up grabbing his hand for a moment and giving him a tired smile before he steps through the portal backwards.

He feels a little out of body as Zatanna strips him down to his underwear her hands softly healing every mark she comes across. The rope burns around his wrist and the ache in his arms from where the Djinn had suspended him from the ceiling slip away as she casts spells of healing under her breath. She leaves the room for a moment after that. He closes his eyes and when he opens them she’s gone and for a moment he worries this too has all been a fantasy.

She notices the panicked look on his face when she comes back in and rushes over sitting the tray in her hands down. She crouches between his knees, resting her hands on them.

“I’m here,” she says rubbing her hands slowly up and down his thighs. Her polish is chipped and her fishnets are ripped in little spots he notices, both the product of her nervous habit to pick at them when she’s stressed. “I’m here.”

She repeats it like a mantra till she’s certain his eyes clear and he reaches out a hand to run his knuckles down her soft cheek leaning into the touch. It’s only then she seems certain that he believes this is real.

After a few minutes she pulls away just enough to grab the glass of water she’d brought in encouraging him to drink it down. He does in a few quick gulps, his body realizing how thirsty he is at the first sip.

“I got the poison and paralytics all out of your system with magic, but it’ll probably be a few days before you get your energy back fully,” she says softly her hands still moving across his skin, reminding him she’s here and this is real while he picks at the food she’d brought in as well.

He eats about half of it before giving up.

“How long?” he asks the first thing he’s said aside from her name since she woke him up.

“Three days,” she says lifting up and moving the tray to sit beside him. She gently uses her fingers to tilt his head her way. “One more and I would have lost you.”

On the fourth day a Djinn’s victim dies in their fantasy and in real life, always without exception there is no turning back from that point. John swallows hard and nods.

“It all felt so fucking real,” he says, angry at himself for not figuring it out, for playing into the fantasy and letting the hold on him become so strong. “I should have known; I should have been able to fight back.”

The fantasy wasn’t some white picket fence life, but it was something that John knows deep down he’d give anything to have. It was a world where his mother never died, where he still had magic but not a darkness pulling at one hand constantly. A world where he met Zatanna in a bar one night and they bonded over magic and fell in love easy and simple. A world where he woke up next to her every day in a shared apartment and went to work at a club she owned and performed at every weekend.

A world where they weren’t constantly fighting off apocalypses, where Batman didn’t have their phone numbers and Boston and Andrew were just two living men that happened to be their best friends. Hell, Swampy was even there, Alec and Abby Holland their friendly neighbors they did regular date nights with.

It was a world where John wasn’t jaded and damned. A world where the magic in his blood isn’t the only thing he has to offer anyone. A world where he didn’t make the woman sitting next to him cry.

She turns pulling John in as close as she can from the angle she’s sitting, gripping his hands tightly.

“It’s not your fault,” she says. It is. He shouldn’t have followed that thing without backup, without telling her where he was. Then she wouldn’t look as tired as he feels. “You couldn’t have fought back, you fight a Djinn once it has its hooks in you, you die faster. By living out the fantasy you gave me more time to find you.”

Logically he knows that, but he’s John Constantine if anyone could have pissed off a Djinn enough and fought back he likes to think it’s him.

“Still,” he says looking at her with defeated eyes. She shakes her head pulling him into a strong embrace. She doesn’t say anything just holds him close, her fingers carding through his hair.

In the fantasy the Djinn had expertly crafted up for him from his subconscious he felt like he could give her everything, here he has nothing to offer her and yet she takes everything without hesitation.

She pulls back after a while running a hand across the more than a stubble that’s grown across his chin.

“You should get some sleep,” she says resting her forehead against his. He protests despite the fact his body is begging for a good night’s rest.

“I just slept for three full days, Zee,” he says. She lets out a deep breath her eyes closing slowly, but her head staying put resting against his.

“A paralytically induced dreamscape while hanging from the ceiling for three days and being drained of your life force is not real sleep,” she says. She pulls back then her eyebrow raised in challenge. A look on her tired, beautiful face that’s daring him to argue with her right now.

He thinks of the fantasy world where she never looked tired, where she never had to challenge his stubbornness over such serious things and relents.

“Only if you join me, I know you haven’t slept in three days either,” he says brushing a stray hair from her face.

“Damn, I look that bad, huh?” she says, the joke falling a little flat with how tired her words are.

“You’re gorgeous, but you’re also exhausted,” he says cause it’s the simple truth.

She smiles softly and nods.

“Okay, give me a minute,” she says standing up from the bed. “Can you get settled?”

“I may have been on death’s door, but I think I can lift some sheets and get under them,” he says a bit of his usual snark returning.

She snorts and steps away. John moves and damn he might have been wrong about his capability to lift some sheets and get under them. His whole body feels heavy, but he manages somehow to move around leaning back against the headboard and watching as she changes from her battle-ready outfit to an old The Clash t-shirt that used to be his.

It speaks to just how tired she is, how tired her magic is that she’s doing this manually. John’s seen her banish her clothes and change full outfits with a wave of her hand more times than he could possibly count.

Once she’s done she flips the light switch off and crawls into her side of the bed. John slides down slowly to settle on his side as she does the same. He winces slightly once he settles the tiredness in his bones leaving him sore in certain spots still.

Zatanna’s hand is on his arm in an instant the start of healing spell at the tip of her tongue.

“It’s alright, luv, just tired. Save your energy,” he says grabbing her hand lightly and pulling it so he can thread their fingers together near his heart.

She looks him in the eyes for a moment searching for a lie before settling believing what he says. She scoots over keeping their hands joined between them and wrapping her other arm tightly around him like he’s not the only one in need of confirmation this is real.

Maybe tomorrow he’ll tell her about the fantasy world he saw, about the old insecurities it brought up of how he’s no good for her, but for tonight he’ll choose to get lost in what he has, in what’s real and perfect as is and hold on.

#my fic #writersmonth2020 #johnzee #john constantine #zatanna zatara

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choices-love-affair · 4 years

Text

Pedestal ch.5

The sun was beginning to set on another busy Boston day, although Edenbrook was still thrumming with activity late into the evening. By 8pm, Ethan had well and truly met his mental and physical quota for the day, squeezing his eyes shut tight and rubbing at them harshly with his hands, he surrendered, realising it was time to head home. Packing up his things and standing from his desk, he hung his coat over his chair and glanced down, the stark reminder persisted that Lorelei still had his tie from this morning “Christ sake…” he mumbled under his breath irritably, as he turned the light out and headed for the exit, letting out a loud and dramatic sigh as he realised he still had to go shopping for a few items for dinner, his home not even baring the essentials at this point.

By the time he had done his shopping and trudged through the lobby of his apartment complex and up the elevator, he was looking forward to a quiet night to eat a hot meal and the potential of a good night’s rest. That is, until the elevator doors slid open and presented him with Lorelei. She was lent up against the door frame that led to his apartment, half eaten apple in one hand and the other holding a medical journal open, reading intently, seemingly oblivious to his arrival.

“Lorelei… what are you doing?” he asked quizzically as he raised an eyebrow at her

“Oh hey, baby!” she chimed excitably through a mouthful of apple, her face lit up at the sight of him, as she stood up and brushed her pants down, a brilliant smile spread across her face “I remembered the code for the downstairs door but alas, I possess no such key for this one” she gestured comically at his apartment door, before turning back to him and pouting as he approached her, the wide strides of his legs meant it only took a few to meet her at the door.

“Oh yeah!” she said as she began digging around her handbag “I think I have something for you…” she continued, still searching

“My tie?” he asked expectantly, as he appraised her with unimpressed eyes

Lorelei looked up and giggled at the sound of his voice “Oh… oops. Damn, I thought I packed it but I must have left it at work… sorry” she scrunched her face up innocently.

“Lorelei” he sighed, rubbing his free hand over his face, trying to rid himself of the agitation he could feel building from the day’s events before turning back to her “Lorelei, do you realise the situation you placed me in today?” he asked, face hardening as he looked at her.

“Oh Baby, come on, it was just a bit of fun! You didn’t seem to mind as it was happening” she grinned at him, as she ruffled her hands at his chest

“Lorelei that’s beside the point, I received quizzical looks all day, do you know how hard it is to explain to people why I’m not wearing a tie when I’ve worn one every day since my resident year? Do you think people are just going to not notice? If this is going to work, there’s going to really need to be boundaries, I need to be able to trust that you won’t go out of you way to do that again, please” he explained as he unlocked the door and gestured for her to come in

“Okay, Ethan. Sorry” She offered him as she crossed the threshold, a hint of remorse in her eyes that didn’t go unnoticed.

“…just give me the bloody tie back before I bound your wrists to a post with it” he nudged her playfully, trying to lighten the mood once more, his irritability quickly dissipating.

“Oh? Are we talking lamp or bed here? Because I could really get behind the latter…actually you know what? Maybe I’ll keep it a bit longer…” her face perked up as she winked at him and took the shopping bags from him “what are we making?” she peeked inside as she began walking over to the kitchen.

“By all means, help yourself” Ethan said sarcastically as he held his hands up in defeat and closed the door.

***

The next few days whirled by in a blur, neither getting the chance to see the other much at all, between work and extracurricular commitments, they soon found three days had passed without nothing, but work-related communication and the occasional personal phone call. Monday night rolled around which only meant one thing: Karaoke night at Donahues! Ethan, despised Monday nights with a hot burning passion and avoided the bar like a plague at all costs on those nights. But Lorelei had asked, no demanded, him to come along and even though they couldn’t be an amorous couple whilst there, it was considered spending time together, time he didn’t want to miss out on, so he had begrudgingly agreed. He found himself sitting at his usual spot at the bar, wincing at the high pitches of terrible singers that came over the microphone one after the after. Lorelei would take any opportunity possible to approach the bar sporadically throughout the night, often offering to be the one to buy everyone’s drinks if it just meant she could have five minutes alone with Ethan at the bar.

“Alright, next up, we have Lorelei Stannaway with All For You” thundered the karaoke host. Lorelei’s eyes went wide as she stopped mid conversation with Ethan to turn and find Sienna and Bryce giggling in the booth “they didn’t” she huffed, clearly embarrassed, her face turned beet red as she hung her head in her hands

“Lorelei Stannaway… Lorelei Stannaway in the house?” continued the host

“It sounds like you’re being summoned” chortled Ethan, an entertained smirk erupting over his face as he sipped at his drink, a twinkle in his eye “better go fulfil your calling”.

“UGH!” Lorelei threw her head back and turned on her heel, stomping over to the booth “you’re coming with me! Come on!” she yanked at Sienna's arm, who emitted no resistance at all, fuelled by alcohol, she giggled and ran up to the microphones, dragging Lorelei behind her, Bruce letting out a loud wolf whistle at the pair as the music started.

“You’re just lucky it’s our queen, Janet Jackson, otherwise it would be a big fat no” threatened Lorelei into Sienna's ear, who only returned Lorelei’s serious tone with a giddy smile. It didn’t take the pair long to find their rhythm, and Lorelei soon found herself laughing and getting into the spirit as her and Sienna sung along, although terribly out of tune.

“All for you if you really want it! All for you if you say you need it! All for you if you gotta have it!” Lorelei and Sienna took turns at singing the lines, crooning into the microphone, often followed by giggles from the pair and Lorelei burying her face in her hands - she was not drunk enough for this.

“Look who’s watching” Sienna whispered, waggling her eyebrows. Lorelei glanced up in Ethan’s direction nervously as she sang along to the chorus, a timid smile erupted over her face and her ears grew hot as she saw Ethan grinning widely from ear to ear as he watched her. He had intentionally swivelled around in his stool now as he faced the makeshift stage, watching as Lorelei and Sienna started dancing to the music, no lyrics being sung at that point, giggling at each as they both took turns at dropping into a squat and back up again

“All my girls at the party, look at his body. Shakin' that thing like I never did see. Got a nice package alright, guess I'm gonna have to ride it tonight” they crooned at each other once more, as Sienna attempted to twerk, before they both erupted into fits of laughter at her awkwardness and inability to actually do it. Just the sight of Lorelei being so carefree and the boisterous laugh that cut through the whole bar made Ethan chuckle under his breath as he shook his head and sipped at his drink, his eyes not once leaving the scene before him, still grinning like a Cheshire cat. He felt a presence behind him and turned his head expectantly, when he was met with Dr Elise Connolly leaning up against the bar and watching Lorelei singing and dancing away over her shoulder.

“She’s quite the resident, wouldn’t you agree” she said, gesturing her head towards Lorelei before looking at Ethan sideways, his back went rigid as he tried to process the best way to address the question, his mind that was once carefree watching Lorelei having so much fun now clouded with apprehension.

“She has certainly made her mark within Edenbrook, proven her value with the patients and on the diagnostic team, I know Naveen is very impressed with her.” He answered carefully, swivelling back around in his stool and sipping at his drink, feigning disinterest in the bar or the karaoke once more.

“Ahhh, trips to Miami, the position on diagnostics team even” she listed “a very sought after position, many other interns would have killed for the opportunity also, she must have really won over the chief… amongst other people” she mused, playing with the stem of her wine glass before glancing sideways at Ethan, eyebrow cocked and a small smirk forming as she sipped at the wine inside her glass.

Ethan stilled, meeting her eyes and silently challenging her to continue. He did not take too lightly to the charade she was currently playing, nor the tone of voice or insinuating direction the conversation was now heading “She earned it, fair and square” he replied sternly

“Ruffled some feathers though, was quite the tumultuous intern year for her, I always wondered how she managed to survive that ethics hearing” she added.

“Is there something I can help you with in particular, Elise?” queried Ethan, turning to her abruptly, shaking his head as he watched her intently, clearly agitated now.

“No, not at all, just starting a simple conversation with a colleague, that’s ok, isn’t it?” she replied, her voice dripped condescendingly, brows furrowed in confusion.

After appraising her for a long while, he cleared his throat and stood to his full height “Well, it’s been great, truly” he nodded his head at her, face saturated in sarcasm “But I must get going, I have files to go through before the morning” he assured her as he turned to step away.

“Ah yes, of course. You must get going, could always rely on Dr Ethan Ramsey to do the right thing, those morals and ethics were always your guiding light, weren’t they? Would hate for an exception to get between yourself and that diagnostic team you worked so hard for” she chided at his retreating form. Ethan stopped in his tracks and turned back around to appraise the other Attending who was now perched lazily up against the bar, the small smirk playing at her lips, making Ethan’s blood boil as he attempted to decipher exactly what she was playing at.

He stepped back up to Elise and whispered in her ear through gritted teeth “whatever you’re insinuating, Elise, you’re wrong.”

“You think you can reject me for a prepubescent twinkie, barely left her intern year and think I wouldn’t figure it out? Please, you forget who I’m friends with. We could have been great you know” she returned his intense glare, and while the moment only lasted briefly, it was long enough for Lorelei to notice the palpable tension now evident between the two Attendings. Lorelei watched on in shock as Ethan stormed for the front door, taking a fleeting look at Lorelei and subtly shook his head at her, a warning to not follow him, his face pale with temper as he shoved the door open and disappeared into the night. Her mouth now hung agape and shell shocked, she turned back to look at Elise, who was now smugly looking back at her, a vicious smirk played at her lips as she sipped at her drink, winking at Lorelei over the top of the glass.

Lorelei’s stomach lurched and she suddenly felt todays lunch in the back of her throat, threatening to exit “Oh shit…” she mumbled, as her skin prickled with anxiety.

Taglist: @ethandaddyramsey @trappedinfandoms @openheart12 @mvalentine @noboundariesplease @kaavyaethanramsey

#open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #playchoices

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belladonnaandulriched · 3 years

Text

the dead of night | chapter eleven

Scott's point of view

If I was honest to myself, I wondered about Kristina and her life in Boston. I wondered about it so much that I could hardly concentrate on what was going on there in Sew Into You. I wanted to know more about her and I wanted to know about things there.

Joey said that I could use the arrowhead for my benefit and go to visit her whenever I wanted. So once Marcia told me that she would get to work right away on my checkerboard shirt, I took the arrowhead out of my pocket and doubled back to the shelves where Frankie had been standing before. I was alone standing there.

Just make a mark in mid air and a hole would open up.

I did just that and sure enough, a little dark hole emerged out of mid air. I had no idea as to how to make it any bigger so I ducked my head and climbed in.

I was surrounded by complete and total blackness. I didn't know if I could breathe there, and so I crawled along the darkness. It was like crawling on a slick veil, albeit one that was closing in on my body. I held my breath and kept going.

Nothing around me. Nothing but darkness. Nothing but sheer blackness. And something kept me steady.

I spotted a single white light up ahead of me. I kept crawling along on my elbows and my knees. I thought my chest was about to burst when I reached the end, and I somersaulted out of there and stumbled out on my back on a hard surface. Pain surged up my back to the base of my skull, to which I snapped my eyes shut.

I didn't move and I could hardly breathe from the pain in my back.

I opened my mouth and let out a long low whistle. I looked up above me at the sight of a sink basin to my left and a small bathroom window to my right.

The door above my head swung open and I caught the sound of a gasp behind me. I raised my gaze to the doorway where Kristina lingered above me, upside down no less.

“Scott! What—What are you—”

“I can explain,” I quipped to her; I pulsed my fingers and I could still feel the edges of the arrowhead against my skin.

“I'm sure you can. I heard a whistle in here and I thought I had left the window open.”

“Nah.” I winced at the pain in my back.

“Want some help?”

“Yes'm.” I raised my free hand towards her. She stood over me and held onto my hand to help me up. I set my other hand on the linoleum: I could feel the arrowhead underneath the palm. I gripped onto it as I stood to my feet and shoved it into my jeans pocket.

“Something smells good,” I remarked.

“I just put on a pot of tea,” she said. “Care for some?”

“Um—yeah, sure, why not?”

She giggled at me. I glanced about her bathroom and the warm creamy colored walls surrounding us. Nice warmth to take to me in after being surrounded by pitch darkness for a bit.

“It's snowing right now,” she told me.

“Remember when we were in school and we played 'Planet Caravan' to ourselves on our little guitars?” I recalled.

“How could I forget?” she said with a twinkle in her eye. She led me out of the bathroom to the rest of her warm lit apartment, just big enough for her. Up on the wall to the left was a shelf which upheld a bunch of little knick knacks and stuff.

A pair of little dolls looked to be made of ceramic rested on the end of the shelf. Their beady little eyes stared back at me.

I stopped before them to take a better look at them. The one on the right had a little black yarmulke atop its head and a little knit sweater about its body, while the one on the left wore a dark dress with a long skirt down to its ankles.

“Is this you and me?” I asked her.

“Huh?” She doubled back to me with her eyebrows raised.

“These two dolls here.”

“They started life as voodoo dolls, actually.”

I took the one with the yarmulke down first for a better look at it. It looked like a doll of me.

“Why would you have voodoo dolls that look like us, though?” I asked her.

“Just a coincidence,” she pointed out. “If it makes you feel more comfortable, I thought they looked like us, too.”

“What's this right here, though?” I fingered the deep rut on the side of the doll's lower leg. It didn't look like a mistake, though, like there was an imperfection in the ceramic.

“It's carved into their flesh,” she said, to which I threw it down onto the floor.

“Scott!” she exclaimed; she stooped down to pick up the doll from there.

“What?”

“Be careful with these! They're very delicate.”

She turned it over to make sure it was alright on the back. Meanwhile, I checked out the rest of the stuff on the shelf: a pair of heart shaped boxes, one of ceramic and the other of what I believed was cardboard. The ceramic one had been glazed and painted black and red, while the cardboard one had a floral pattern all over it. There was a small snowglobe with a silvery skull inside next to the ceramic heart shaped box. She had fetched a bunch of shells and bunched them up on a single spot of the shelf; right next to that was a small pile of guitar picks of all colors of the rainbow followed by another little black box, this one made of black velvet to which it resembled the box a ring came in. And then, at the far end of the shelf stood a white ceramic vase with a fake glass rose inside of it.

Kristina set the doll back on the shelf before us and that was when a timer went off with a soft little ding from the kitchen.

“Tea's ready!” she declared. “How do you like yours?”

“Uh, just a little bit of sugar,” I said to her.

“Is that all?”

“Yeah. I'm not really the biggest tea drinker. But I'm more than happy to have a cup, though.” I thought about Geddy and his love of wine, and I hoped he could get his hands on it soon enough.

“I have green, black, chai, and blueberry pomegranate,” she told me.

“Ooh, that last one sounds tasty!”

“I love that one,” she said with a glimmer in her eye. “It always puts me to sleep on the hard nights.”

She led me into her cute little kitchen with the rich blue paint job and the silver cookware dangling over the sink. She picked the bright blue teakettle off of the stove and poured the hot water into a pair of white bone china mugs. And then she reached over the stove for the box of blueberry pomegranate tea for a couple of bags.

In the meantime, I looked about the room.

“Nice little place you've got here,” I started.

“It's my home,” she explained as she set the bags of tea into the water and let them steep. “Nothing more and nothing less.” She handed me the cup on the right to me. Her luminous eyes stared back at me as she brought her cup up to her nose for a whiff of the blueberry tea.

“You and I should jam together again,” she told me in a low voice. “We can do it down by the dock and watch the birds.”

“Watch the birds?”

“The huge birds,” she elaborated, “endemic to Boston. Their wings are the size of city busses.”

“Wow,” I remarked with a raise of my eyebrows. “'Planet Caravan' set to birds flying.”

“Or 'Here Comes the Sun.'” She rounded me towards the doorway again. I followed her into the living room. She swayed a little bit with every step, and I wondered where she was going with all of this. She took a seat on the little blue love seat underneath the window. A little sliver of gray sunlight shone through the window behind her, down onto the crown of her head. Her blonde hair shone in the light like a little crown. There was something here, something I didn't know if she was ready to tell me as if then, especially when I glanced about the living room and didn't see any photographs of her family.

I thought back to my spoken word tour and I talked about her in Boston, by coincidence. No one really knew her, not even her own family. She was like a treasure locked away from the world, and the sun on her head made me wonder if there was something more she hadn't told me yet. But I was there in her apartment with tea in my hand.

I took a seat next to her on the loveseat. She showed me a warm smile, which was accentuated by the sunlight.

“I'm glad you were able to come here to visit,” she confessed to me, to which she raised her mug towards mine. I clinked the rim of mine against hers, and then we took sips of tea at the same time. The tea was warm and sweet and perfect, so much that I thought it was going to put me to sleep.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I started.

“I have only so many pennies.”

“Why is that?”

“I'm sure you know how hard it is to be a musician.”

“Absolutely.”

“We're both starting out and it's—it's admittedly daunting. It brings me joy, sure... but at the same time, it's like I'm looking at the great wide unknown that's the music industry.”

Joey immediately came into mind right then. I didn't want to think that, though.

“Have you done gigs, though?” I asked her.

“Oh, yeah. It's how I was able to get this place and all my things. But I still have a lot of fear, though.”

“Why's that?”

“There's a lot I have yet to reveal to myself.”

“To yourself?” I echoed her.

“Yeah. There's a lot I feel that—I'm not too sure to reveal yet.”

“Well... do you have an idea? Like, to get you moving?”

“Yeah, but—nothing that really sticks, though. I often feel like I can't write a good song.”

“What's your definition of a good song?”

She swallowed but never answered. Instead, she took a sip of tea. There was a lot on her mind and she had no way of getting it out of herself. And she wanted to record an album. I had time, but I also had my work cut out for myself. I wondered if I could make my way back to Rochester soon enough without a means of getting there besides arrowhead.

#the dead of night #the dead trilogy #the dead of night fanfic #scott ian #scott ian x oc #anthrax #anthrax fanfic #chapter 11 #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #fan writing #delicate romance #also on ao3 #text

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greatpretending · 5 years

Text

I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

Word Count: 5063

Pairing: Peter Parker x Female!Reader

Warnings: Cursing, cheesy fluff, discussion of sex/a little steamy stuff but nothing actually NSFW

Summary: The sequel to Catch Me If I Fall. Thank you to everyone for all of the support for that fic. I’m sorry it took me so long to get a sequel up, but the inspiration has to be there, you know? Huge thanks to @peterbparkerr for encouraging me and for proofreading it for me as well. Also @steelfeather for proofreading it and screaming in my text messages.

Your eyes were stinging. You blinked, hard, for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to get them to focus. You were sitting on your too-small couch in your too-small living room in your too-small apartment. Your legs were over Peter’s lap, and you were desperately trying to ignore the sounds of him tinkering with one of his webshooters while you read.

Five pages left.

You were so close. So close to the end of this book. So close to the end of your assignment. Of your class. Of your year. Of college.

Four pages left.

Peter’s tinkering continued. It was the first time in two weeks you’d spent any longer than 20 minutes in the same room together- sleeping not included.

Three pages left.

Between exams, final assignments, your thesis paper, and your job, you were living more off Starbucks and bagels than balanced meals. Not to mention Peter had all of that plus his Spider-duties, so your relationship had become little more than a quick kiss goodbye in the mornings and your hand reaching out to touch his shoulder when he finally crawled into bed late at night.

Two pages left.

In fact, the only reason you were together right now was that Peter had needed to put off going out for the night to fix his webshooter. You knew as soon as it was fixed, he’d be swinging out the window. Selfishly, you hoped it took a while.

One page left.

As soon as you had your degrees, you’d be moving back to New York with Peter, where you already had a job lined up - thanks, Pepper Potts - and maybe, just maybe, things would be a little less crazy.

“Fucking finally!” you shouted, throwing your book onto the floor and startling Peter a little. “I never want to read a book about women that was written by a man again.”

“And you never have to,” Peter said, rubbing your leg soothingly. He slid his webshooter onto his wrist, poked it a few more times, then used it to snag your book off the ground, setting it on the coffee table. He then patted your legs to get you to lift them off of him. “Alright, I gotta go.”

Instead of letting him up, you sat up and knelt over his lap, knees on either side of his hips and arms around his shoulders.

“Or,” you suggested, pressing a light kiss to his lips. “You could stay in tonight.”

Peter hooked his hands under your legs and stood up, making you squeal in surprise as he carried you to your bedroom.

Peter laid you sideways on the bed, crawling over you and pressing quick kisses from your collarbone up your neck. You were just reaching down to pull his shirt off when he reached your ear.

“I can’t,” he whispered, then he pressed a kiss to your forehead and hopped off the bed.

“That was mean!” you complained, sitting up and watching him pull his suit out of your cramped closet.

“Sorry,” he said, pulling his clothes off and suit on. Mask in hand, he walked back over to the bed where you were still pouting at him. “You know I can’t take a night off right now. Not with all those muggings going on in Charlestown. Plus,” he continued, tapping you on the nose with a finger, “you have a thesis to work on.”

“Uuuughh,” you groaned, throwing yourself back onto the bed. “I would so much rather have sex with you.”

“I know,” Peter laughed, grabbing your hand and pulling you back up. “Three more weeks. Then we’re done and we can have all the sex you want.”

“All the sex I want?” you asked. Peter shook his head.

“I’m still not going to take you to the top of Trump Tower to defile it.”

“Fiiiiine.” You tugged on Peter’s hands to get him to lean down and kiss you again. After the soft peck, Peter held onto your hands, kneeling down in front of you and looking into your eyes.

“Oh my god,” you laughed, already catching onto Peter’s latest bullshit.

Lately, Peter had taken to getting onto one knee to ask you the dumbest things. Will you grab milk on your way home? Will you please order him a caramel macchiato with six shots of espresso and an extra pump of vanilla? Would you grab lunch with him between classes?

“Will you promise me you won’t wait up for me?” Peter asked, with all the sincerity of a real proposal. You rolled your eyes and continued to laugh.

“Yes, I promise,” you said, shoving on his shoulders playfully. “Go save some spiders.”

Peter pulled his mask on and headed to the window.

“Don’t stay up too late.”

“Only if you come home safe.”

“Love you.”

“Love you more.”

By 1 AM, you couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore, and decided to call it a night. By 2 AM, Peter was sliding into bed next to you. You reached out your hand and put it on his shoulder like you always did, but this time you didn’t notice the blood seeping into the sheets.

At 5 AM, your alarm went off, blaring loudly until you managed to dig your phone out from the sheets and shut it off. Wanting to cry more and more with every passing moment that you were awake, you sat up and stretched. You scratched your leg, which was weirdly itchy, and felt something… flake off.

In a lot of confusion and a little panic, you flicked the lamp on your nightstand on and pulled the covers back, finding dried blood on your thigh. You pulled the covers back more and found that your sheets were soaked dark with blood, coming from somewhere underneath Peter.

Panic setting in fully now, you grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

“Peter, wake up!” You all but yelled at him, voice shaking. “Peter!”

“H- What-” Peter grabbed your hand and startled awake, eyes flicking around the room before settling on yours. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re bleeding!”

You were already crying. Between the exhaustion and the terror, it wasn’t a surprise that you’d become such a mess so fast.

Peter sat up quickly and looked down at his leg, running his hands along it and trying to see every spot he could. With your brain in the state that it was, you couldn’t make yourself do anything more than sit there and stare at him with your hands covering your mouth.

After a few moments of Peter checking himself over, his shoulders relaxed and he turned to you, taking your blood-stained hands in his and pulling them away from your mouth.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said softly, squeezing your fingers. “Whatever it was, it’s all healed up now.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, sniffling.

“Positive.”

You let out a sigh of bone-weary relief, leaning into his shoulder and feeling his arms go around you.

“That scared the shit out of me,” you mumbled into his skin.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

You took a deep breath and sat up again, resting a hand on his face and kissing him slowly.

“Go get in the shower,” you said. “I’ll take care of the sheets. And get us coffee.”

Peter kissed your cheek and stood up. You did your best to ignore his slight limp as he walked into the bathroom. With another sigh, you stood up and began pulling the sheets off the bed. You took them straight to the trash can, knowing that no amount of bleach could save them from that much blood.

As you were pouring two cups of coffee, you felt Peter come up behind you and wrap his arms around your waist. You leaned back into him as he placed soft kisses along your shoulder and neck.

“I’ll buy more sheets on my way home from class, okay?” he said, hugging you a little tighter.

“Mmkay,” you said, reaching up and carding your fingers through his hair. You stayed like that for a little while, just trying to enjoy whatever short time you got to spend with each other lately.

“I also have good news,” Peter said when you finally leaned away from him, unable to resist the aroma of the coffee any longer.

“What’s that?” you asked, handing him his mug and leaning back into the counter. Caffeine didn’t really do anything for Peter, but routine and familiarity did, so he shared morning coffee with you anyway.

“Tony wants to throw us a graduation party,” Peter told you.

“I love when Tony wants to pay for things,” you replied, sipping your coffee.

“It’ll be a black-tie event,” Peter continued, and your heart sank a little.

“I don’t own anything black-tie,” you said, and Peter grinned.

“I know,” he said, grabbing his wallet off of the counter and pulling out a heavy, black card. “That’s why I have his credit card.”

“I love when Tony wants to pay for things,” you said again.

You set your coffee onto the counter and went over to the couch, pulling your planner out of your bag and flipping to the current month.

“The only day that neither of us have class and I don’t work is… next Sunday,” you grimaced. “And my thesis is due at eight in the morning on Monday.”

“We can make that work,” Peter said, and you nodded, already penciling it in.

“Where do you even buy black-tie attire in Boston, anyway?” you wondered aloud.

“Uh… Tony said he wanted to set us up with personal shoppers at Barneys.”

“There’s a Barneys in Boston?”

“Uhm, maybe,” Peter said, seeming hesitant. “But Tony wants us to go to New York and get the full experience. Whatever that means.”

“New York?” you asked, incredulous and a little panicked again. “Peter, that’s a three and a half hour drive!”

“I know, I know, hear me out,” Peter said. “I’ll pick you up from work Saturday night and we’ll head straight there. We’ll spend the night with May, go shopping Sunday morning, and then you’ll have plenty of time to go over your thesis before Monday morning. Then you can sleep in, and we’ll come back that afternoon before your four-thirty class.”

You stared at your planner, already filled with pencil marks and notes. You couldn’t believe you had to block out forty hours for a shopping trip.

“Also Tony said he’d pay for gas.”

“He should fly us down in his dumb private jet,” you grumbled, filling in your calendar.

“I could probably arrange that,” Peter said, and you waved your hand.

“Between getting through security and finding a cab in the city it’ll take the same amount of time if we just drive.”

“That’s true.”

“Okay, I need more coffee and I need to go,” you said. “I need to be in my seat taking a test in…. 49 minutes, fuck.”

The week went by in a blur, just like the last few had been. By Saturday night you were almost grateful to be going to the city. At least May would cook for you and you would get to have something for dinner that wasn’t a microwave burrito.

Peter pulled up in your Mustang just as you were locking up, and you hopped in the passenger seat, immediately reaching into the backseat for your overnight bag.

As Peter began driving, you pulled out some pajama pants and a t-shirt, tugging off your work uniform as quickly as possible. You fucking hated khakis.

“Is it sad that this is the most naked I’ve seen you in almost a month?” Peter asked, glancing over at you in just your underwear as you struggled to get your pants on.

“Whose fault is that?” you replied. “I told you, any time you want, we can go up to Trump-”

“Okay!” Peter interrupted, turning up the music as you laughed.

You spent most of the drive working on homework, but as you got closer to the city and Peter began growing tired, you put it away. For the last hour you and Peter talked more than you had in several weeks, laughing and singing along to music and telling bad jokes back and forth. Even though you’d technically seen him every day, you realized that you had missed him. You’d missed just being with him. No homework, no Spider-duties. Just laughing.

And even though you had so much left to do, you had this moment to yourselves. For just a moment you felt your stress melt away and be replaced with pure, unadulterated joy. When Peter smiled at you and took your hand, you knew he felt the same way.

It was just nearing 2 AM when you pulled up to May’s apartment, and you and Peter let yourselves in quietly, heading straight to bed. You snuggled into him, feeling closer than you had in a while, and for the first time in weeks, drifted off to sleep with a smile.

The next morning you woke up to the smell of pancakes. Peter had gotten up before you for once, so you were sad to find the sheets empty.

You weren’t sad for long though, as Peter soon creaked the door open poking his head in.

“You up?” he asked softly.

“Hhhngdbjuh.” you replied, affirmative.

“May has breakfast ready.”

“Hmmmmminute.”

By the time you stumbled your way into the bathroom and back out, there was a plate of quiche and pancakes at the table for you, set next to a cup of coffee. You gave an awkward hug to May’s shoulders as you made your way to your seat, immediately reaching for you coffee.

“Thank you for breakfast, May,” you said, digging into the melt-in-your-mouth quiche. It was incredible, just like everything else that came out of May’s kitchen.

“Peter flipped the pancakes,” May said.

“And they didn’t end up on the other side of the kitchen? I’m so proud of you, babe.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re such a bitch before your coffee,” Peter joked, and you laughed as May kicked his shin under the table.

When you were dressed and ready to leave for Barney’s, Peter grabbed his wallet and your hand, kneeling down and smiling up at you.

“Would you do me the honor of going shopping with me?” He asked as you laughed and tugged your hand away.

“Yes, now knock it off!” You said through your laughter. “What if May had seen you, you would have given her a heart attack!”

Peter just shrugged and led you out the door.

On your way to the store, you let yourself revel in the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of New York City. Even the crammed subway felt calming and familiar as you stood with one hand on the railing and the other in Peter’s.

Walking up Madison Avenue, you felt a strange combination of nerves and excitement. You kind of loved the idea of spending someone else’s money on extravagant things, but you also felt a little guilty about spending all that money on extravagant things. You tried to push it out of your head - this was a gift from Tony, and he could choose to spend his money however he wished.

Peter held the door open for you as you entered Barney’s and you were immediately greeted by two very stylish employees. They swept you away to their “consultation rooms” and began asking questions about what you thought you might like to wear. You and Peter had talked about it a little on the way there. He was going to get a classic black tux, and you were leaning toward a red dress. Black and red were MIT’s colors, after all.

You tried on a few different dresses that your shopper pulled for you, not really loving any of them. Eventually (long after Peter had picked out a tux) you found one you felt really good in. It felt stylish and classy and a little sexy, and you hoped Peter liked it as much as you did.

He must have, because when you stepped out of the room to show him, he looked you up and down and said “Yup, you’re getting that one. I have to go try on shoes.” And walked away.

When you went back into the changing room, your shopper said “I know a great pair of Louboutins that we have that would look amazing with this dress, let me go grab them.”

“Okay,” you said, swallowing. You had a general idea of what the average pair of Louboutins cost.

She wasn’t wrong, though. The shoes were amazing. She also helped you pick out a nice pair of earrings and a clutch. You never saw a price tag or a receipt. Everything was “added to Mr. Stark’s account” and would be delivered to May’s apartment that afternoon.

“Why did you get all weird and walk away when I showed you that dress?” You asked Peter on the way home.

“Because if I looked at you in it any longer I was going to pop a boner,” Peter shrugged, and you laughed so hard you cried a little.

You spent the rest of your day on May’s couch, headphones on, laptop open, notes spread around you, and coffee nearby as you perfected your thesis paper. You didn’t move except for bathroom breaks and fifteen minutes to eat dinner. Peter, the ever-patient and wonderful boyfriend that he was, kept your mug full and periodically reminded you to drink some water as well.

You didn’t pay attention to anything else for almost sixteen hours. You couldn’t. Every word in every sentence in every paragraph had to be perfect. Every statement had to be fact-checked and cross-referenced. You couldn’t stop until the minute you turned it in.

When you finally crawled into bed, just as the sun was beginning to rise, you felt both anxiety and relief. You were asleep before you were able to pull the covers up.

At some point you were vaguely aware of Peter kissing your forehead and telling you he was making a Starbucks run, but you fell so deeply back into your sleep that you never realized it took him nearly an hour and a half to get back.

Your last week of college was a whirlwind of turning in projects, working, taking exams, and packing up your apartment. You’d never been so truly, deeply exhausted in your life. You knew you’d lost a little weight simply from not having the time to eat.

As you exited the building after your last exam, the sun was shining and your wonderful, wonderful boyfriend was waiting for you at the bottom of the steps. He was holding a bouquet of flowers and he shouted “You did it!” as you ran into his arms. He lifted you into the air and spun you around in a circle.

“I did it!” you repeated when he set you down, handing you the flowers. You took them and rolled your eyes as he got down on one knee, putting both hands over his heart.

“Would you make me the luckiest man on the planet and let me take you out to dinner?” he asked.

“Stop it!” you laughed. “Someone’s going to think you’re actually proposing!”

Peter pouted dramatically and stood up. “Is that a no?”

“Oh my god, I’ll go to dinner with you, stop being… the way you are.”

“Got it, I’ll be a total and complete asshole for the rest of my life.”

“So what are you going to change, the- hey! Don’t tickle me!”

You went to your favorite diner and had your first full meal since you’d gotten back from May’s. When you were stuffed and just picking at the remainder of your fries, you felt the exhaustion start to kick in again.

“Hey, babe?” you asked, feeling your brain start to lose focus.

“Yeah?”

“Can we go home and take a nap?”

“Yes, please.”

And so you did just that, flopping together onto your mattress and relaxing. You both slept through the night and into the next morning, despite your plans to pack and Peter’s plan to do Spidey things. Clearly you both needed the sleep though, because neither of you woke up until after 9 AM.

When you finally peeled your eyes open and found your phone, you groaned at the clock. Technically, you hadn’t missed anything that needed to be done, but you still felt like you’d wasted a lot of time.

You reached over and put a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Peter. Babe. Peter. Peter.”

“Huwassat?”

“It’s like… morning.”

And thus started another week of trying to keep your shit together. You finished up your last few days at your job while Peter finished his last class. You packed up your apartment. You finally had sex for the first time in five weeks.

Your commencement ceremony came and went in a blur of speeches, sweating in your gown, hugging your classmates, thanking your professors, hugging your family, and feeling all eyes on your group as you left with Tony Stark.

“They ask me to speak every year,” he explained when he arrived unexpectedly. “This is the only time I’ve ever wanted to come.”

Peter was very touched by that.

Tony took Peter, May, you, and your family out to dinner, and then it was back to the apartment to finish packing and cleaning. You moved back to New York in the morning.

Of course, the day after you moved was the party.

After getting everything down to New York, you brought everything inside and started unpacking as quickly as you could. Thank god Peter had super-strength, or you didn’t know how you would’ve gotten some of those boxes inside.

You had your shared playlist playing from your speaker on the windowsill as you sorted through box after box. It was a little annoying that unpacking was way faster than packing had been.

Now I’ve….had the time of my life….

“Oh, baby, we have to dance!”

You smiled. Peter only ever called you ‘baby’ when this song was playing, or right after you’d caught Dirty Dancing playing on TV.

“We don’t have time,” you argued, though you did let him spin you once.

“We have all the time in the world!” Peter retorted, grabbing your hips and trying to get you to sway with him. You smiled again and pecked him on the lips.

“We really don’t,” you said. And you weren’t lying. Tomorrow night was your super-fancy graduation party and then you started your new job on Monday.

You didn’t have time to dance, but as the song went on, you decided you at least had time for a jump.

“I love you,” Peter said, smiling as he set you down.

“I love you more.”

The next morning you met up with May at a nearby salon and got your hair done, then you grabbed a light lunch and went to the nail salon. You felt like you were going to high school prom all over again.

You went back to your apartment and steamed your dress, ridding it of any wrinkle it had acquired during the move. A few minutes before a car was supposed to arrive to pick you up, you stepped into it carefully, having Peter help you zip it up.

His eyes trailed up and down your body as you stepped back.

“I really, really just want to take that dress right back off you,” he said. You smiled, butterflies fluttering in your stomach as you grabbed his chin and kissed him. You loved how wanted he made you feel.

“You look pretty good yourself,” you said, tugging on the lapel of his jacket. His hands fell to your waist and he pulled you close to his body, kissing you deeply. He kissed you until your back was against the wall and his knee was between yours.

Eventually Peter broke the kiss, breathing a little heavily and leaning his forehead against yours.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said.

“No, we don’t,” you agreed. Peter pecked your nose.

“Fix your lipstick.”

When the car came and Peter held the door for you as you slid in. With every mile you drove you became more nervous. This was the biggest you-centered event you had ever had. Tony said there were around two hundred people on the guest list. And that was after he had trimmed it down. You didn’t even know two hundred people.

Peter held your hand during the drive and every step into the venue. You could tell he was nervous, too. Tony wasn’t there when you got there - he was never on time to his own parties, let alone early - but Happy and May were. Employees of the venue were finishing last minute set-up.

“There’s a fucking ice sculpture,” you whispered, staring at the giant beaver that you assumed was supposed to represent MIT’s mascot.

It wasn’t long until guests started to filter in, heading to the bar to grab a drink for cocktail hour before dinner. You mingled as best you could, introducing yourself to people you’d never heard of and embracing your family and friends. You lost Peter for a little bit, and you tried to smile and nod your way through conversations with several talented, successful, beautiful people. You probably explained your major to seventy-five different strangers.

Finally, dinner was served and you found your boyfriend again.

“Ellen Degeneres is at our freaking graduation party,” you whispered to him as you sat down.

“I know.”

“How the hell did that happen?”

“I don’t know.”

Throughout dinner there were a few toasts made in your honor. Tony made a lovely speech about Peter beginning his internship with Stark Industries at just 14 years old, and how in the time since he’s become nothing less than family to Tony. By the end of it, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.

When all six courses of your meal were through, you were really starting to feel overwhelmed by the event. There were so many people, and you weren’t even allowed to get drunk to cope with that. Well, you probably could get drunk, but you weren’t going to risk embarrassing yourself in front of all these people you could potentially work for in the future. Or who could work for you. Or Ellen Degeneres.

So you tapped twice on Peter’s wrist (his cue to follow you in a few minutes) and stepped into the hall where the bathrooms were. When Peter met you out there he took your hand in his.

“There’s a playground across the street,” Peter said. “Wanna go get some fresh air?”

You nodded and Peter led you out a side door so you wouldn’t be caught ditching your own party, if only for a few minutes. You hurried across the road and wandered into the playground, empty at such a late hour.

There was a tall tower structure right in the middle that you really, really wanted to climb.

“I’m having a really hard time not climbing that tower,” Peter said, making you smile.

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

“So lets do it!”

Peter started up the ladder without hesitation, but you knew there was no way you’d be able to make it up there without losing a shoe, so you carefully stepped out of them and then followed him up.

“Oh good,” Peter said when you reached the top. “You’re not an extra three inches taller anymore.”

“I like those shoes,” you pouted.

“And I like when I don’t have to give you a foot rub at night because you gave yourself cramps and blisters.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

You leaned against the railing of the tower, looking out across the street at your party that was still in full-swing. You knew you’d have to go back before things started to die down so you could say goodbye to your guests, but you figured you had a couple minutes to yourselves.

Peter stood behind you, arms around your waist and head on your shoulder. The silence was comfortable and calming, broken only by the occasional passing car. You leaned into Peter’s embrace, enjoying the quiet after weeks of chaos. Life would never move slow when you lived in New York City and had a superhero for a boyfriend, so you had to learn to appreciate these small moments.

“Are you ready to go back?” Peter asked after a handful of minutes had passed. .

“Yeah, I suppose so,” you replied, gathering your skirt to turn around.

“Okay,” Peter said, and you watched as he began a now familiar motion.

“Peter, don’t mess up your tux- yes, I’ll go back to the party with you, you don’t have to-”

Peter grabbed your hand, and when you looked down into his eyes, something was different. There wasn’t playful laughter there, but serious sincerity. Your mouth went dry.

“The last two and a half years with you have been better than I ever could have imagined,” Peter said. Your heart was thundering in your ears. “Doing what I do, I never expected to meet someone who was willing to- to put up with that. To support me. You have been the best support I could have asked for. No one makes me laugh harder. No one is more patient with me. No one makes me feel more loved.”

You squeezed Peter’s hand with your shaking one.

“If you’ll let me,” Peter continued, “I want to spend the rest of my life trying to make you feel just as happy, supported, and loved.”

Peter fumbled into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a box, laughing at himself a little as he struggled to flip it open with his thumb. You weren’t laughing.

“Will you-”

“Yes.”

Peter smiled brightly. “I haven’t even asked you yet.”

“Sorry. I’m the worst. Go ahead.”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes!”

Peter stood up and wrapped his arms around you kissing you and brushing the tear off your cheek. He pulled the ring out of the box and slid it onto your finger. Then you grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him again. You felt like your heart was about to explode out of your body.

“I love you,” Peter said against your lips.

“I love you more.”

#peter parker #spider-man #spider-man homecoming #tom holland #avengers #spider-man imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #marvel #marvel imagine #marvel fluff #fluff #imagine #avengers x reader #my fic

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peaky-shelby · 5 years

Text

Margaritas.

Pairing: first pov!reader x Chris Evans

Request by @tfandtws : Heyo! I’d like to request number 21 with chris evans from the friends prompt list. A friends to lovers kinda thing., if that’s ok. Anyway, can’t wait to read more of your work and thank you for tagging me.

🤗❤️Request by @tits-out-for-cevans : Hewwo! Can I request no.8 from the friend’s prompt list? I know it’s cliche but I just looooove the best friends turn lovers genre 😅

warnings: too many feels, hits close at home

words: 1.601

author’s note: writing is my way of copying. This one comes from the heart and it means a lot to me. I hope you will read and relate to this. I didn’t use both prompts on this part but this will be a three part story so be patient please thank you♥️

Prompts:

21. “I turned to a friend for comfort, and instead I found everything that I’ve ever been looking for my whole life.„

8. “I’m not in the friend zone„ “you’re mayor of the zone!„

I knew i shouldn’t have come to this party, Hangovers are more expensive than the drinks and the drinks are not worth the hangovers but here I am on my third glass of a fine Margarita and on my way to a very expensive hangover. The only thing that makes it worth is spending time with chris before he leaves again tomorrow but the irony is that having him around is the reason I have to drink so much. You’d think an entire year apart would kind of force me to move on from all the feelings but I guess we’d both be wrong. I mean all these years away from high school didn’t because How can you forget your first true love? The high school crush that you failed a couple exams for, the person you started wearing make-up for. hoping he’ll see you as something more than his best friend but god damn he never did. No matter where you go and what you do you will always imagine him as your Nicholas sparks Co-star, especially if he happens to be a hollywood actor you see almost everyday on your TV.

I did move on, I had closure with myself, I let go and was fine knowing that even tho He’d never be my boyfriend he was my friend and he was there for me no matter what.. but a burning tree will remain burned even if you turn off the fire, there will always be burn marks, and that’s ok, that’s what the Margarita’s are for. Of course margaritas can be dangerous too.. they can lighten the mood but they can also bring a shit storm of feelings, that’s why you should never have too many- trust me I know.

“Jeez- are you even listening to me from that Zone over there?” Seb’s voice brought all my thoughts into a halt. Truth be told, i hadn’t even realized he was next to me or even talking to me. I snapped out immediately, stopped staring at Chris and gave him my greatest ‘what-the-fuck-you’re-talking-about?’ look. “I mean the friend zone!” my look changed immediately to the angry version of the ‘what-the-fuck-you’re-talking-about?’ look.

“I am not in the friend zone!” I complained with the squeaky voice I use when I’m trying to argue but I Know I am wrong.

“You are Mayor of the zone!” I punched him in the shoulder as a response, i knew it wouldn’t really affect him since he was like ten times bigger than me but I couldn’t help myself.

“Being in the friend zone would mean that I am still in love with him-”

“which of course you are not”

“Exactly! I've moved on, It’s been years and I’m finally happy you know? I am happy for him going around Europe making his dreams come true, meeting hot girls that he clearly he can’t stop talking about with beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair, while I am here in Boston.. Taking care of 7 year old kids in school that wear shirts with Captain America and his face on them... and carrying bags and pencils and fucking hats and textbooks-- where do they even find the those annoying spinners--” I took a deep breath, calming myself and looking at sebastian with a very fake smile “I am fine! Totally fine!”

“You need a therapist-” “I need a new job” I paused looking down at my almost empty glass “and another margarita!” With that I headed to the bar to fill my glass again, I knew I just had to be patient and tomorrow he’d leave again and I’d be free of this spell. Standing there I felt a very familiar touch on my back and oh god that smell-

“She just texted me!” He said, I looked at the bartender wondering where that margarita was. “she says she’s in Vienna and that we would have fun there together- God why is she playing with me like that?”

“do I have to wait too long for that margarita?” I asked, ignoring chris’ complains. “Ma’am you’ve already had three!” “Who are you? my mum?” ok maybe I snapped, poor man was not at fault here but I needed that alcohol. I turned to Chris who wouldn’t even look away from his phone, this girl had him wrapped around her little finger and he wasn’t letting go. “She’s playing with you because you are letting her!” as if on queue the bartender finally gave me that margarita, I moved away from the bar with it and tried to make my way out to the garden alone but chris was followed behind me mumbling all the time about that girl.

“Why can’t I just have her for myself? First she’s all romantic than she says she wants to keep it an open relationship, which would be cool but is driving me crazy because I am so in love with her but she’s just doesn’t care and I keep chasing it, because that’s what you are supposed to do when you are in love right? Chase it and I am and I will keep doing it--”

“You’re not in love with her Chris!” I shouted, finally turning around to look at him. We were now on the garden of the bar, there weren’t many people there and you could only hear a little from the music playing inside the bar. Chris had finally looked up from his phone, his eyes were giving away his confusion and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop what I started “You’re addicted, there’s a difference!” I spotted a bench a little farther away and started walking towards it, chris always following behind me. After I sat down i took a long sip from my glass, making sure it’d hit me well. “You wouldn’t chase it like that if you were so in love with her, you’d just be patient!”

“That doesn’t make sense!” “It’s not supposed to make sense!” I sighed again, looking down at my glass. “and you shouldn’t break your heart over an addiction.. its not worth it.”

“Have you been listening to any of the things I’ve been telling you about her—”

“Yes i have! And All i hear is how much you love her body and her kisses and her blue eyes and how you wanna kiss her all the time and how you will blindly follow her- That’s addiction!” he really wasn’t getting it “oh god you want me to give you the obvious example? I didn’t fall in love with you because of your pretty eyes and your pretty face, I fell in love with you because you cared about me, because you were nice to me, because you were there for me! And when you made it clear that this would never happen, I backed away even if I still loved you and yes I hurt myself because of it but it was worth it because it was true love, it was pure and it taught me things... even when you found out you did everything you could to make sure you wouldn’t hurt me or make me feel awkward. You didn’t use me, you stayed my friend! That was... you... were worth breaking my heart over.” I gulped, we had promised that we would never talk about this and for the last years it actually worked but since he wouldn’t listen I had to make my point clear “and it’s not supposed to make sense, it’s not supposed to be about her body or her kisses or her sex, there’s not supposed to be one reason because if that reason is taken away than you are left with nothing. And love is supposed to be unconditional.” His eyes were piercing right through me, it was terrifying, I bit my lip as if it would give me strength to keep going “it’s supposed to be about looking at the stars and wondering if that person looks at them too, it’s reading Nicholas sparks books that don’t make sense and feeling like you just read the Bible. It’s looking in someone else’s eyes and seeing the entire universe before you, it’s butterflies in the stomach, it’s heartache but not a chase. You don’t chase who you love, you let him go.”

I hadn’t realized that I was crying until a tear fell on the margarita making it splash. “(Y/n)?” He whispered my name so softly, making me look up at him and his blue eyes.

“I’m just telling you it’s not worth it, ruining your life for her. Find something better.„ I got up and handed him my glass. Suddenly all I needed was my bed and my pillow, I just had to leave this place. “I’ll see you when you come back I guess... or you know on Monday when Harry walks in with his captain America shirt again.” He stood up, leaving the glass on the bench we were sitting.

“You’re leaving already?”

“It’s late and I’ve had to many margaritas so I’ll get an Uber and go home. Ok?”

He looked at me like he wanted to say more but like always he hid his words behind his lips and only gave me a hug. It felt safe to be in his arms, it always does. I stepped back slowly, raising my head a little to look at him one last time. The small gab between us made my heart beat like the drums but it wasn’t because I felt nervous. The way he was looking down at me was almost like he was putting a spell on me and all I could think about was stepping closer and kissing him, showing him how much I still love him but instead I just gave him one last smile before walking away. There was a time I really believed that it would work out between us like it does in all the movies but now I knew that I was only fooling myself, it’s what I do best.

Evans taglist:

@softbibby

#marvel #imagines #chris evans imagine #chris evans fic #chris evans fan fic #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans x oc #chris evans one shot

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missweber · 5 years

Text

Here’s the final part of this story for Day 7 (Free Day) of @lardo-week! Please excuse any typos, but I am falling asleep as I type. AO3 version goes up tomorrow. I had good intentions, but Benadryl.

Read the entire thing on AO3

Chapter 7 - to arrive where we started

"We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time"

–T.S. Eliot

A year after Lardo graduated, her bà ngoại moved into a retirement community. It wasn't quite assisted living, but assistance was available.

At first, Lardo's mom looked at it as a failure on her own part. As a dutiful daughter, she should be the one to look after her mother in her old age just as her mother had looked after her during infancy.

Lardo knew all too well what it was like to struggle with the idea that what you thought you should do wasn't always the right thing to do.

Bà ngoại had laughed aside the idea as she patted mom's hand. "We would murder each other, my precious girl. Besides, I'm going because I want go and before I have to go. And all of my friends are there. I'll be able to play cards every day, if I like."

Oh, yes. Cards. Lardo had seen bà ngoại at the card table. Bà ngoại at the card table was like Lardo at the pong table.

It didn't take much imagination to see a younger bà ngoại kicking everyone's asses at flip cup.

Scratch that. It didn't take much imagination to see bà ngoại kicking everyone asses now.

"What are you smiling at, child?" Bà ngoại asked with an innocence that fooled absolutely no one.

"The way you're going to totally dominate the canasta table. So, do you need any help moving? I know some big strong guys who owe me a favor or five."

And so it was that all four foot ten of bà ngoại led a procession of current and former hockey players down the halls of the Fern Hill Retirement Community. Lardo wasn't sure what grapevine had been called into play, but all of her bà ngoại's friends had found some reason to pass through that part of the building.

Later, Lardo would swear she saw one woman fan herself like she was Blanche from the Golden Girls.

If the smugness radiating off of bà ngoại could be converted into energy, all of Boston would be shining like the sun.

Bà ngoại had few enough things that none of the guys had to make more than two trips. Ransom and Holster took their leave as soon as they were done, as did Snowy, but from the look of things, Tater had gotten himself adopted by a couple of elderly Russian widows, while Bitty had locked in on the community's most avid bakers as if he were a butter-seeking missile. She wasn't sure where Jack and Shitty had gone off to, but they could look after themselves.

The larger pieces of furniture had been set where they needed to be with little fuss (except for one carved wooden table which had to be set just so), and all the boxes were placed in the appropriate spots as decreed by Lardo's clipboard.

"Do you need any help unpacking, bà ngoại?"

Bà ngoại waved her off even as she dug into the one box that she had carried herself. "No... actually yes. I would love it if you got my bed made up. I have a few things I need to do before I can call this place home, and then I think I will take a nap."

It didn't take long to find the sheets and make the bad, thanks the clearly labeled boxes. When she returned to the living room, she smiled to see the old photo of her ông ngoại already set up on the carved wood table, right where it belonged, surrounded by the familiar vases, bowls, and incense burner.

But bà ngoại wasn't done with whatever it was she needed to make this place a home. She held a large framed picture to her chest and was clearly deciding between two possible walls.

"There, I think," bà ngoại said, pointing to the wall next to the kitchenette. "Can you help me hang this?"

This was a framed picture of a blobby, spiky animal—supposedly a triceratops—in faded pinks, yellows and oranges. It was an unskilled drawing, but Lardo could see the beginnings of a sense of color, of form, of light.

"Yeah," she said, voice thick. "Let's do this."

There was measuring, and marking, and squabbling, and a couple of bent nails, but eventually the picture was up.

"There. Now this is home," bà ngoại declared. Her late husband's photo and her granddaughter's drawing were both where they should be, and apparently that was all it took.

Lardo hugged her gently, remembering when bà ngoại had been the taller one and she was the smaller one.

Lardo had been Larissa back then, a little girl who had loved dinosaurs almost as much as she loved her bà ngoại.

"Do you remember how you always said you wanted to be a paleontologist when you grew up?"

Lardo sort of remembered that, but what she actually remembered was—

"You always used to get so mad when your parents told people how you used to pronounce it!" bà ngoại said gleefully.

"Arrrgh!" Lardo cringed in embarrassment and tugged at her hair. "They said it was cute! I hate being called cute!"

The way bà ngoại smiled said that she knew damned well just how much Lardo hated it—and found it cute.

"I remember how much you loved making up stories with your toy dinosaurs. Do you still have that big plush one?"

"Mr. Steggy?" She scoffed. "Heck yeah I still have him!"

"Good. I thought it was a little sad when you stopped being so interested in dinosaurs."

"Mr. Steggy is forever. And now I'm into ducks, which are, like, stealth dinosaurs."

She still remembered the little thrill when she learned that dinosaurs were still around in the form of birds.

They hadn't gone extinct.

They just weren't what you expected them to turn out to be. But they were still there.

She hugged her bà ngoại goodbye and went to collect her boys.

The others assumed that her thoughtful mood on the way home was due to the idea of moving her grandmother into a retirement community, but that was only part of it.

She thought about all the times her family asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.

At first, she had wanted to be a paleontologist the way other kids wanted to be astronauts, back when it wasn't the reality of the job you wanted but the cool factor of ACTUAL MONSTERS or SPACESHIPS.

Then, there was the dream of being an artist.

And fuck it, she was an artist. She just also happened to be an equipment manager for a professional hockey team, a job that wasn't in any way, shape, or form on her list of dream jobs at any point ever.

But, via a 'happy accident,' George had mentioned something to Thirdy about needing to train up a replacement for Stu, and Thirdy had said something to Marty, and...

And because a previous 'happy accident' had led her to Jack and a job that got her away from that miserable deep-fryer, here she was.

She had taken to the job like a duck-billed dinosaur to water. It hadn't taken long for the team to take to her. Of course it helped that Jack already loved her, Tater already adored her, Snowy already admired her, and Poots already (rightfully) feared her.

She was jolted out of her musings when Jack pulled up in front of Haus 2.0.

"Later, gator?" Shitty asked. Lardo didn't say anything, but gave him a lingering kiss.

With training camp starting up soon, it made more sense to crash with Jack and Bitty during the week. In another year, she and Shitty would probably be ready to find a place of their own, so it didn't make sense to move into our out of either place completely.

Jack and Bitty had to go on a grocery run, which Lardo suspected was an excuse to give her some alone time.

Jack was a good bro, really he was.

Lardo let herself into the condo. The picture hanging next to the kitchen pass-through was familiar enough that she didn't usually notice it anymore, but now she stopped to look at it.

Bitty had declared that Still Life With a Fuckton of Jam was one of his favorite graduation presents, and the fact that he hung it by his beloved kitchen said more than a 'thank you' ever could.

She passed by her Junior Show sky-scape as she cut through the living room. She loved that it was owned by someone who saw it being made and who wanted to hang on to the memory of the making of it.

No, this wasn't what she pictured when she thought about being an artist when she grew up, but that dream was still very much alive. Just not in the way she had expected it to be.

It was better. She would never say this out loud, because it would completely nuke her cred, but it was all tangled up in love.

Even when she was doing work for hire, it was still about the people. She still went to the Macey's used bookstore where the steps she had painted enticed young readers up to a nook furnished with cushions and hidey-holes. And every time, Macey still gushed about how she had wanted a staircase like that in her bookstore ever since she saw one as a child, and now she had the store of her dreams, and wasn't it wonderful?

She was halfway through another commission, this one for a friend of Snowy's who needed a re-do on his mask after getting traded to the Aeros. Jukes was super-psyched about the retro-futurist space-themed design she was doing in the Aeros' silver and red, so psyched Lardo half-suspected that kid-Jukes would have said he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up (possibly a hockey-playing astronaut—he was Canadian, after all).

Snowy had taken one look at the design and had declared that by the end of the season, Lardo would have a three year waiting list, and that if he weren't so superstitious about his current mask, he'd be next in line after Jukes.

Having another job (one that she loved) gave her the freedom to pick and choose the art she wanted to do the way she wanted to do it and for the people she wanted to do it for. One day, she might be able to do it full time and she really hoped she would get there.

The important thing was, she was an artist. It was an essential part of who she was and who she would be, just like Bitty didn't need to own a bakery to be a baker.

She flopped down on the bed in Jack's guest room (which was already halfway to being 'her' room). She was exhausted enough to want to nap, but too keyed up to do so.

So, she picked up her bedside sketch pad, flipped to a mostly empty page, and began doodling.

She started with a triceratops.

#omgcp #omgcheckplease #lardo duan #shitty x lardo #my fic

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