#but she never in a million years thought he'd tell her she's not good enough and that her accomplishments don't matter | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

iaure · 1 year

Text

𝔩𝔬𝔯𝔡 ℑ 𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔶; 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔩𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔦𝔰 𝔳𝔦𝔬𝔩𝔢𝔫𝔠𝔢

𝖞𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖒𝖎𝖌𝖚𝖊𝖑 𝖔❜𝖍𝖆𝖗𝖆 𝖝 𝖋𝖊𝖒!𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉𝖊𝖗

𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱 2: 𝔴𝔥𝔢𝔯𝔢 𝔦𝔫 𝔪𝔶 𝔞𝔯𝔪𝔰, 𝔶𝔬𝔲'𝔯𝔢 𝔪𝔦𝔫𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔨𝔢𝔢𝔭 𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱 3: 𝔦 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱 𝔪𝔶 𝔟𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥𝔰 𝔬𝔫 𝔶𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔫𝔢𝔠𝔨, 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔢 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔰𝔩𝔢𝔢𝔭 𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱 4: 𝔰𝔞𝔡𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔰 𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔱 𝔢𝔫𝔬𝔲𝔤𝔥 𝔱𝔬 𝔰𝔴𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔬𝔴 CW: self-awareness, stalking, obsession, delusion, ptsd, mention of a brother's death, thoughts of kidnapping. Written in the third person. Use of Y/N. Spoilers for Spider-Man: Across The Spiderverse.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ heaven have mercy on my simple soul. we might have another dearest series on our hands, but for miguel. god. jesus. i made this in one (1) day. it's two am.

wc: 1.7k

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀𝗻❜𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗿𝗺𝘀.

Miguel knew that feeling all too well. Gabriella faded away in his arms, a flash of technicolour and geometric shapes. An entire world, falling away and escaping from him, like grains of glass as fine as sand but still so colourful. That's what kept him moving. He never wanted someone to make the same mistake. But he was only a man. he couldn't be alone in the isolation of his own making forever. He built up those walls, praying he'd have the sense to never knock them down. But brick by brick, other people did. First was Jess. She was his friend, his sister in arms. Then Peter, then a thousand other faces and names and hearts and morals and everything that made Spider-Man, Spider-Man. They each took a brick, as though it was nothing. It was just by pure chance that she was the one to take that last brick. She was a new addition. Friendly, witty, quick on her feet. Just like everyone else. Another Spider in another place and another time. Another in a million, another clone, another warm body as fodder. But when Jess brought her to him, Miguel knew; she was one in a trillion.

She had stood next to Jess, firm, with a thousand yard stare like she'd been digging around Miguel's soul and yanking out her favourite bruises. Harrowing was a good word for it. Her estranged brother, a captain in the police, had died. She looked like she'd seen Hell. Fresh bruises, scarring, her suit torn in some places...and she stood tall.

"Spider-Woman, from Earth 7290. Also known as Y/N."

Jess spoke softly, a hand on Y/N's shoulder. Her breathing was steady but her eyes had glazed over, completely tapped out to the situation. Miguel felt his heart tug. He knew what it was like. Everyone did. Most Spiders were sad, upset, but she simply seemed...angry. Furious, even. Like if Miguel made a move towards her, she'd chew him up and spit him out. He'd seen people try to tame horses before, ones that would buck and kick and neigh until someone's leg was broken. It was like Jess was doing that. The one hand on Y/N's shoulder, keeping her in place.

"Miguel?" Jess spoke up, and he came out of his haze. "Are you listening?" "Yeah." He nodded, quietly clearing his throat. "Sure. Get her a watch." Jess shared a look with Y/N, one that he couldn't quite tell the reasoning behind, but the glance of her eyes was enough.

Spider-Woman of Earth 7290 took the last brick.

He'd see Y/N around, walking around the Spider Society and speaking with other Spiders. She seemed to hold that anger close to her heart, despite the other Spiders telling her that it'd get better over time. They'd healed, or got over it, or pushed it out of their mind. But not Y/N. She stayed mad. She stayed angry. Miguel understood that more than most. Mourning took time. So many had gotten over it after years. It wasn't fair to expect Y/N get it over it so fast. He didn't think so, anyway. After all, it was an anomaly that took her brother's life. A mistake. It had fallen off the proverbial map, but according to Jess, Y/N had 'handled it her own way'. Whatever that meant. Miguel didn't really care. All he worried about was her. Rather than just taking the brick off his walls, she smashed it in with a hammer and ran it over with a bulldozer. She had a wrecking ball to smash a single blue and red brick. And he hated it. Because what about Gabriella? What about his wife? Did their deaths mean nothing now? And how was this healthy? Granted, Miguel wasn't a healthy person. Not like that. But the sudden way his mind dedicated himself to her was absurd. Did it have to do with his DNA? With the spider mutation? Rapture? Mating season? There had to be an explanation. A cure.

But there was none.

Now, Miguel's mind was rotting away. He wished he could pry it open and take to it with tweezers, to prod out the parts that he hated. But his eyes lingered on you for a moment too long, and he knew he didn't stand much of a chance anymore. It was all Y/N, Y/N, Y/N. Even just the faint, passing scent of her was enough to drive him up a wall that very much shouldn't exist. Passing word of her wellbeing made him tune into conversations he was never part of. He began to develop a seventh sense: touch, hearing. sight, smell, taste, spidersense, and Y/Nsense.-the uncanny ability to know when she needed help. Trademarked, owned by Miguel O'Hara exclusively. Peter once teased him about how Miguel would suddenly jump up and scoot over to the cameras, checking in on Spider-Woman 7290.

The teasing didn't last long when given way to the severity of the situation.

Gradually, Miguel leaned into it. If he couldn't fight it, then join it. Revel in it. Let his eyes linger on her frame. Let his waking hours resort to thinking of her. Let him suffer. He deserved it. He began to follow Y/N around. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. And sometimes, Miguel would see enemies-a Vulture here, a Doc Ock there-and he'd help when she wasn't looking. Little favours here and there began cropping up. Getting her groceries. Taking care of her cat. Fiddling with the gas for the car of the one creep that kept following her around that was so sure she was Spider-Woman. Granted, the creep was right. But he didn't know that.

(He did. Love comes in many shapes and forms.)

Y/N never seemed to notice. She was off, battling her own demons and fighting the good fight in her own world. She was good and kind and still angry but she used that anger so well, and Miguel loved her for it. She burned with the anger of a thousand dying stars. She was everything. When Y/N would stop by the Spider Society, Miguel made sure to look good. Brush his hair, brush his fangs, make sure his eye bags weren't too obvious, or if they were, then they looked good. He was trying to get her to like him, after all. Check to make sure his suit didn't have any tears or holes. Because Y/N was gorgeous. She could drag herself in with her guts spilling out like roadkill and he'd still think she's the most beautiful thing to grace the multiverse.

The beauty of delusion, he supposed.

He was aware how delusional this was. He knew how absurd it was that he saw her and fell immediately. Was this what happened in fairy tales? Is this what Prince Charming felt when he saw Cinderella? The world completely spinning the moment there's even a hint of her? The complete dedication of his heart to this woman that barely acknowledged him...someone who would only glance his way if it was a requirement. Y/N was cordial to him, but little more. And it made his heart ache. She spoke to Jess more than she spoke to him. It felt wrong. It felt cruel, like a tease, trailing up and down his spine but never providing relief. One word to him was ten to Jess.

Miguel refuses to admit it, to accept that he was willing to stoop so low. But there was a brief moment where he thought about hurting Jess. Or getting her on some mission that would take forever. Breaking her bracelet when she least expected it so Y/N would have to come to him.

He'd never act on it. He was sure of that.

If there was one thing Miguel was proud of for himself, it was his restraint. He had the unparalleled ability to simply...hold off. Another day, he'd tell himself. Next time, he'd self-assure. Then another next time. Then another. Until heaven knows how many next times it's been, and he's aching for her to even look at him, but why won't she glance his way? Why was she so cold? He's done everything he could. Just look at him! For god's sake, just fucking look at him! That's all he wanted! Five minutes with your eyes on him, your undivided attention.

But no. Another day, he said. Next time.

But maybe he could simply...take Y/N away. Her world was inconsequential. It'd be easy to take care of any villains. He'd do it for her, single-handedly. She were everything. He could just keep her there, in his office, never allowed to leave. He could come back after a long mission to her loving arms, her warm embrace, flush to flush to flush to flush. He'd do unspeakable things just for her to trace the vague outline of his body with her eyes. If Y/N told him to kill, he'd do so without question anymore. Miguel barely had any control over himself.

The next time he saw her, it was while dealing with Miles. It was so much, all at once and never at all and undying and swarming his senses. It was so much that he didn't realise how much she'd been smiling at the two teenagers, how sweet her gaze got, the gentle touches and warm laughter and how Gwen and Miles looked up to her.

He didn't know Y/N had a soft spot for kids. And he found out most vividly when she was the first one to help Miles escape, blocking off what must've felt like half of the Spider Society with the same undying rage, now spent on protecting her new friend, the child she called such sweet things. That she saw as her own.

Miguel felt his heart shatter when he had to take her down. The way she fell into the floor, limp and dangling like she was nothing more than occupied space. His heart was wounded, wailing like a dying dog. She picked the newcomer, the anomaly, over him. Him, her one true love. Did it matter that she'd known it yet? No. It only mattered that she helped Miles escape.

Lord, he thought. I worry that love is violence.

#divagaciones (per)#yandere miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #yandere miguel o'hara x reader #i am a girlboss i am a war criminal i am a lunatic and i am clinically insane and the next virgin mary and i am never going to die

2K notes · View notes

starzwithapen · 6 months

Text

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘˗ˏˋ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˎˊ˗∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

JOHN DORY / READER ☆ START A LOVE TRAIN

જ⁀➴.𖥔 ݁ ˖༉‧₊˚.

☆Summary: John Dory's first meeting with Rhonda and her owner, you!

☆Content: reader is gender neutral, first meeting!! Gonna make a part 2 exploring their relationship more :3

☆a/n: I FUCKING HATE HIM [affectionate] my first worrkk pls leave feedback if youd like it helps a ton!! :3

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘˗ˏˋ ˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ˎˊ˗∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The day John Dory met you and Rhonda was simultaneously one of the worst and best days of his life.

He'd been hiking- nothing out of the ordinary for him, maybe one venomous spider he'd had to fight off, but so far so good! The sting of the cold air against his cheeks quelled his thoughts, made him feel accomplished, in a way.

But he must've been distracted- he was a little more careless than usual, overestimating his own strength and struggling to pull himself upwards, his legs dangling over the edge- he could feel a tick of nerves in the back of his mind, but pfftt, John Dory's got this! He's done this a million times-

Next thing he knows, the rock holding his legs up collapses, and down he goes with it, tumbling over harsh terrain while the wind rushing past his ears drowns out his yelling.

After many very painful seconds of straight up rolling down this cliff, John Dory groans in pain, dusting himself off and pushing himself upwards, except- oh, shit, okay, ow, something’s very wrong with his ankle.

He hisses and grabs onto the skin, pulling his goggles up to inspect it- it appears swollen, and he realises with a frustrated groan that he'd managed to twist his ankle miles away from the nearest safe-house.

Well- looks like he'll have to camp outside for the night, wouldn't be the first nor last time, but it'll be significantly more difficult with a leg that refuses to cooperate with you.

He rushes through setting up camp, wanting to just sleep the pain off till his foot got better, but just as he sets his head down on the pile-of-leaves-that-vaguely-resemble-a-pillow, he hears distant rustling.

That's not odd- it'd be weirder for the forest to be quiet, if anything, animals are always trudging along no matter the time of day- what's odd is how loud the sound is, feet papping against the floor in heavy strides, coming closer and closer towards him.

John Dory sits up in a flash, suddenly regretting how shittily he'd camouflaged his camp- his eyes widen towards the oncoming noise, having just enough time to snatch a stick and hold it out threateningly, though his hands shake and tremble.

“Hey! I have a- uh, a really sharp stick, and I'm not afraid to use iiIIITTT-”

The stick goes flying out of his grasp, and he gets the breath absolutely slammed out of him as something huge jumps onto him, rumbling atop him and- eugh, was it licking him?! Was this how he died, after all these years?! Eaten alive by a-

“Down, girl- stop that, you're scaring him!” the thing finally lets up on trying to swallow him whole, standing back on its hind-legs and cooing at you excitedly, and it's then that he notices you.

“Gods, I'm really sorry- she's not usually like this-” you reach over with a grimace to wipe the wet mess of saliva and glitter off his cheeks with your sleeve, and all JD can do is stare at you, star-struck. One minute he was facing his impending doom, and now he was facing the prettiest person he'd ever set his eyes on, and though he's certain it's night time he feels as though you're shining the sun's rays straight at him.

You smile nervously and pat his attacker's leg, “She wasn't actually going to eat you- or at least I don't think she was? You can never quite tell with Rhonda.”

Okay, John Dory had lived on his own amongst nothing but the trees and mountains for years, so excuse him for not being particularly eloquent when all he blurts out is “John.”

You and Rhonda blink at him comically for a moment, and he feels his cheeks flush under his fur-lined vest. No one's ever caught him off gaurd like this before.

“That's…not my name, but good guess anyways.” You check over him as if he's concussed, and he tries not to frown at the scrunch in your nose as you take in his camp.

“It's my name- John Dory.” He flashes you a charming smile, though he assumes the effects are dampened by the mess of glitter and dirt still smeared across his face, “and can I get yours, or can I just call you mine?”

Silence stretches on between you both, his smile getting more strained by the minute- why hadn't that worked? That always worked, at least when Spruce did it! You were supposed to be- swooning, or something! Not looking at him like he's sprouted a second head!

You cut through the tension with a gasp, and he follows your gaze down to his badly-damaged leg, now with extra bloodied scrapes, “Oh god, that looks rough- did Rhonda do this?” He doesn't have time to tell you that no, actually, it wasn't your fault, when you turn around and scold your…armadillo? He feels his lips quirk up- you looked pretty cute like that, like a disgruntled parent.

“Well, you can come inside and I'll wrap it up for you- you shouldn't leave it out in the open like that.” You wave him over, grabbing onto his hand to pull him into the door, and he feels his skin burn pleasantly where you both touch.

And that's how it starts. JD walks inside the armadillo bus, Rhonda, marvelling at the warmth. Though you hadn't given him your name yet, he felt as though he could trust you- you seemed like someone who values honor and helping others, however bluntly or awkwardly you may go about it.

You wrap his leg with gauze and a healing salve, and he fills the room with chatter- it'd been so long since he'd last seen another soul, he didn't realise just how…lonely he'd felt. You don't speak much of yourself, probably staying cautious, but you do seem curious about his stories, and the twinkle in your eye urges him to speak with a little more pomp than usual.

Your voice turns more concerned as you ask what he'd been doing camping out in the open like that- he'd told you of the trail he planned to follow, though he'd skipped the part where he fell off-course. He tells you of how he'd wanted to end up somewhere warmer by the time winter really hit, sighing to himself. “I'll just have to stock up on fire-wood, maybe invest in a flame-thrower.”

“I mean….we can take you there.” You offer in a quiet voice, your gaze stubbornly set on the floor, “It's still a pretty long drive, but better than 2 months walking on a sprained ankle, especially with how gnarly it looks.”

John Dory's conflicted- the offer sounds heavenly. He pictures waking up to your warmth day by day, helping you gather breakfast, travelling with a companion, for once, but….he'd left to the middle of nowhere for a reason. He wanted to distance himself from his old habits, his old expectations of himself and others.

Though….you seemed to be just as- if not more- capable than him. He wouldn't need to be a pillar for you to lean all your weight against, nor the pressure that turns coal into shining diamond- you two could simply…have each other's backs. Maybe…maybe this could work out, at least for a little while.

John Dory tilts his head up and takes one look at your welcoming smile to make up his mind.

"Can't say no to your pretty face, now can I?"

This time you snicker behind your hand at his awful flirting, but he catches it just in time- and he knows this'll be the start of something great.

#john dory x reader #trolls #trolls x reader #trolls john dory x reader #x reader #ok sorry I dont like putting stuff in main tags </3 thats it for tags #starzwrites #PLS LEAVE FEEDBACK IT HELPS A LOT !!#i hope this was enjoyable even tho it was shorter than I wanted :[ had to split into 2 parts ....

506 notes · View notes

noisycroissant · 8 months

Text

"It's you..."

Astarion x Reader

She was one of those marks that broke his chipped heart. The trusting ones, the doe-eyed ones who looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. It hurt every minute he spent with her knowing that he was simply leading her to a fate worse than death.

He remembered the look in her eyes when they took her away with the others at the party where they lured all their marks to once a month. He dreamed of that look for years only to wake up to find himself shaking, face wet with tears. He didn't want to keep doing this, but another year of being confined and tortured and starved with no hopes of escape, freedom or otherwise...no, he couldn't survive that. Not again.

But then, he saw her again. He was sure it was his fragile mind playing tricks on him. Constant torture can do that you, y'know. But then he saw her again. The same hair. Skin paler though. And then he heard her voice.

"Astarion?"

When he heard his name in that voice again, his heart dropped to the pits of his stomach. He'd do anything, beg at her feet, grovel for forgiveness, anything to not hear that tone in her voice.

"I am angry for what you did to me. To my life. But I also understand why... I've had to do it myself."

I've had to do it myself.

If he ever had thoughts of murdering Cazador in the darkest ways possible, those thoughts just became a million times darker.

"Where you here all these years? I never saw you. I thought I knew every turned spawn in the palace."

"I was locked up for "lack of respect" and "till I learnt what was good for me "."

He knew what that meant. Lashes, pliers, blood, pain, hunger, tears.

Desperate prayers falling on deaf ears.

"I'm.. I don't deserve to say sorry. You'd have been... anywhere but here..if it weren't for me."

"I know. But you did what you did to survive. I don't begrudge you for that. I had enough time in that cell to know that choice does not live in these walls."

*******

And that's how it began. That was how hope came back into two people's lives. How it grew and bloomed with each passing look, each time fingers brushed while walking across hallways, each time a secret letter was found under a pillow.

After 150 years, Astarion dared to dream.

He would always curse himself when he remembered that night. It had taken them almost a year to plan, another year to talk courage into themselves to go through with it.

He remembered how soft her hands were when he held them as they ran through shadows.

Freedom. It was so close. Just a breath away.

And in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Of course. What had he been thinking? They'd never be free. Not as long as that monster had a leash on them.

"Don't let them see each other, Godey. But make sure they hear."

Astarion remembers the day his heart finally crumbled to ash.

*******

Decades later, when he was finally let out again, the very first night he goes to the highest roof he could find in Baldur's Gate. And he sat there. Waiting for the sun. The only way he could be free of this hellish life. The only way he could forget the sins.

His skin prickled and he cried as the sky turned pink.

The next thing he remembers is waking up on a beach with a unholy squirming in his eye. A crashed ship, fire and smoke bellowing. Intellect devourers running amok. But he was out in the sun and it didn't burn. It didn't hurt.

The confusion was enough to drive him mad. 200 years of rage and pain, and he finally had a chance to end it. But even that was taken from him.

He heard footsteps and chatter. Hand goes to his dagger naturally. But then he hears a voice.

Her voice.

This must be the tenth circle of hell, he tells himself. This is where depraved sinners like him go to. Where they're tortured for eternity with the things they'll never see again.

Like the sun.

Or her.

But hope survives in the darkest of hells.

And it had found him again.

"Astarion?"

364 notes · View notes

alchemistc · 8 days

Text

tastes like (he) might be the one

an: So this post made me feel some things and the drabble I started out underneath got wordy enough that I decided not to fully hijack the post.

Tommy is just now realizing has no idea how to prepare a meal.

Evan had told him where the spare key was and Tommy had wanted to do something nice for him but he is a forty year old man with NO concept of how to make a meal.

What do you put in a salad? Kale goes into the bowl and he finds Evan's cheese grater and a Romano wedge, but there's no bread around and Tommy eyes the bag of premade croutons in his pantry with unease before he calls it good.

The caprese is easy, he's made it a million times, a quick snack that reminds him of afternoons on his grandmother's back porch, drinking the thimble of espresso she'd allowed him while she spoke in her heavily accented voice.

He doesn't actually know how to tell Evan he's avoiding gluten without disappointing him, yet, (God he's down bad, the thought of Evan's bright smile faltering a bit like he's disappointed he hadn't thought to ask makes Tommy want to launch himself into the stratosphere) so he throws the pan of lasagne back in the oven on low and just... takes a deep breath.

Evan won't be back for at least another hour, though, and Tommy is fighting the itch to snoop, so he takes a quick glance at the supplies on hand and ends up whipping up the stracciatella recipe his mom had used to make him when he was sick. He's halfway through prepping it when he realizes he's fucking insane, but it's too late now.

The text hits his screen before he can contemplate hiding the evidence of the soup.

Be there in twenty.

So Tommy stirs, and rubs his suddenly sweaty hands on his thighs, and then he stares at the disaster he's made of the kitchen and starts sweeping things into the sink.

Evan, Eddie, everyone always thinks he's so cool, but the reality is that behind closed doors he's a fucking disaster and his head is a jumble of nerves. This is too much. Cohesively, it might make some semblance of sense in the range of 'this is all vaguely italian' but a minestrone would have been better, he just hadn't had the time. This is too much -- too much food, too much effort, too much like ripping open his chest and guiding Evan's hand to wrap around his pumping heart and squeeze.

The locks on the doors tumble open just as Tommy is drying the cutting board, and Evan presses in with a tired smile.

The smile goes wider at the sight of his table, laid out in some semblance of order Tommy doesn't remember, but it had made sense at the time.

Be cool, Kinard, Tommy thinks to himself, but he can't help but melt a little when Evan tosses his keys carelessly to the side board and then slides across the room, no unease in his face as he sidles up, hands curling around Tommy's hips, head tilted in the way Tommy absolutely knows is a flirt, now.

"Hey."

Tommy blinks. He's disarming, unreal, Tommy has known him for barely any time at all but he'd bend over backwards to make that smile stay on Evan's face forever.

"Hi."

Evan's thumbs are playing with his belt loops, and his grin dimples his cheeks, and suddenly he's slightly less alarmed that he'd cobbled together a disaster of a three (four?) course meal like a crazy person.

Tommy wants to hand him his spare key back. He also wants to grab his key ring and add the spare to it, full eye contact going while he tucks it in between the truck key and his own house key. He wants to bite Evan's neck, and tug him into his chest and never let go, he wants -

"Smells good in here. Did you make something? You didn't have to make anything, I would have -."

"I wanted to," he manages, around the blinding flare of Evan's smile.

Tommy is cool as a fucking cucumber. Evan presses his lips to the junction of Tommy's jaw, darts around him before Tommy can reciprocate. Grabs two wine glasses from a cabinet and when Tommy turns to look at the broad expanse of his back, Evan has his head ducked bashfully, and Tommy can see the edges of his grin, the swell of his cheek in profile.

At least he's not alone in this, Jesus.

Evan pours them wine, fingers curling around Tommy's. He stares at the meager offerings on display, and Tommy can see him ticking off serving utensils in his mind. He doesn't say a word about the monstrosity that is a kale and Romano salad (???), just dances around Tommy again, wine glass balanced in his hand, to grab some dressing from the fridge.

"Hey, there are oven mitts in that top drawer, there, can you grab the lasagne? It's gluten free, Chin mentioned something about you avoiding it?"

Tommy contemplates sinking to his knees right there in front of his sad sack salad. Why hadn't he looked for ingredients for the caprese first?

Instead he pulls the lasagne out, lays it out across the wicker hot pads he'd set out earlier. The moment it's securely on the table, Evan presses fully against his back, and Tommy wonders if he should have stopped to get flowers. Or condoms.

Both, probably.

"Did you make me soup?" he asks, lips pressed to the knob of Tommy's spine.

"From what I hear you've had a rough day. Soup always makes a rough day better." He wishes his wine glass was still in his hand, and not next to the oven where he'd left it. He twists to face Evan and Evan gives up zero ground, toe to toe and a delighted little gleam in his eye Tommy knows is going to get him in trouble one day.

"Hi," Evan says, again, and Tommy curls a hand around his hip and drags him half an inch closer.

#sorry you can't tell me tommy isn't secretly an overthinker #also sorry for the terrible BE lyric title but not actually sorry #bucktommy #bucktommy fic #911 fic

41 notes · View notes

lewmagoo · 2 years

Text

black butterflies and déjà vu | b. bradshaw

description: in which bradley bradshaw finds himself at a loss for words

warnings: 18+, unprotected sex, marriage proposal

pairing: bradley "rooster" bradshaw x nondescript fem!reader (she/her pronouns used)

notes: yet another idea i stole from myself. also, this is 100% inspired by the maine's song, which bears the same name. if you follow me for long enough, you'll learn that the maine is my favorite band and many of their songs inspire what i write. anyway, carry on. enjoy some head-over-heels-in-love rooster trying to propose to the love of his life

He'd always thought he was good with words.

He enjoyed making conversation, and he had a knack for capturing everyone's attention, whether he was telling a humorous anecdote, or simply recalling a story from his childhood. It just came natural to him.

But then she came along, burning bright as a setting sun, crashing into him like a rolling wave, and suddenly, Bradley found himself at a loss for words.

He realized this when he came to the conclusion that he was in love with her. Painfully, irrevocably in love. But how could he ever say it? Mere words were never enough to show her how much she really meant to him.

He'd never had such a deep connection with anyone before. It was entirely new for him, and he felt a bit out of his element. Maybe even intimidated was a good description for it. He was afraid of losing her, afraid of saying the wrong thing when trying to tell her how he felt. He was always hoping, waiting for the right words.

Some might call it pathetic, and maybe they'd be right. But he didn't care. He'd found his soulmate, something he never thought he'd find. He didn't deserve her, really. But there she was, the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, bright eyes gazing at him as if he'd put the very stars in the sky, and he was at a loss for words.

But she taught him that words weren't always needed to express feelings. She made him see things in a different light, made him feel things he'd never felt before, things that were indescribable. She truly had him wrapped around her little finger, and he didn't mind one bit.

As the months passed, and eventually years, he found that she knew him better than anyone else. She knew the most intimate parts of him, the vulnerable parts, the gentle parts, the intense parts, and everything in between. Sometimes it was almost like she knew him better than he knew himself.

And because of this, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. The decision wasn't something he struggled with, or debated. When he came to the conclusion that he wanted to marry her, he had complete peace about it. It was the one thing he was sure of more than anything else in his life.

He didn't tell anyone he was going to ask her. None of his friends. Not even Maverick, who he'd grown especially close to. He kept it all to himself. He wanted this sweet, intimate moment to be shared with her and no one else.

The only problem was, he had no idea when he should do it. He'd already bought the ring, and it was tucked away somewhere safe, far from where she might accidentally stumble upon it.

Then came the time when he wracked his brain, thinking of what he could do to make it special. A dinner date, where he put the ring into a glass of champagne? Too cliché. A walk on the beach, where he waited until sunset to get on one knee before her and finally popped the question? Too...romantic.

While Bradley was a romantic guy, he didn't want to do anything too cheesy or predictable. The scene had to be just right. But he was entirely stumped on what to do. The entire time, he thought she was oblivious to it all, but in reality, she knew him all too well, and it wasn't long before she picked up on his distantness.

She caught him one night when he was deep in thought, a million miles away from the bed they were currently laying upon.

"Hello? Earth to Bradley?"

Her soft voice jarred him from his deep thoughts, and he blinked. eyes flickering to her own. He hadn't realized how zoned out he was. He attempted a smile. "Sorry. Just thinkin'."

"Uh, yeah, I noticed."

He sighed, fingers running circles over her arm as he held her, bodies entwined beneath the covers. "Hey," she said, propping herself against his chest so she could fully see his face. "What's going on with you? You've been really distracted lately."

He paused, suddenly feeling his heart quicken. He was a terrible fibber when she was involved. Surely she'd know if he brushed her off and made up some excuse to appease her. "Nothing," he answered, a little too quickly.

She quirked an eyebrow, running her hand over his warm, bare chest. "You sure?" She could feel the quick thud of his heart beneath her chest.

He fell silent, meeting her curious gaze. She looked so beautiful right then, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, and her chin perched on her forearm. Then, his heart seemed to pick up speed again as the realization dawned on him. Somehow, some way, he knew this was the right moment.

If only he could get the words out, but couldn't find the sound under his tongue. What followed was a string of half-sentences as he searched for the right words. Finally, a frustrated Bradley very gently pushed her off of him as he decided he should probably grab the ring first.

But she pulled him back, gentle fingers smoothing through his sandy hair.

"Babe," she hummed, "it's okay. You can tell me anything. You know that."

"Yeah," he replied, letting out a breath as he glanced down at his hands. "I just don't know...how to say it."

She took his jittery hands in her own, stilling him. "Humor me."

Where could he start? Should he profess his love for her, go on a spiel about how much she meant to him and how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? Or should he just present her with the ring and let everything else fall into place?

"Baby, I..." Hoping for the right words, waiting for the right words.

She took his face into her hands, leaning close to kiss him on the lips, hoping to calm him. She'd never seen him this way before, and it was odd and unfamiliar. "Roos, it's okay."

He brought his hands up to rest against hers, and he closed his honeyed eyes for a moment before gathering his thoughts. "There are only twenty six letters in the alphabet."

"What?" She giggled, only for him to shake his head, sighing softly

"Twenty six letters. Not enough to tell you all I need to say."

"Twenty six letters, and an endless amount of words to choose from."

"Yeah, but suddenly I can't think of any. I lose my voice when I look at you."

Mulling over what he'd just said, she gave a short not. "Okay then," she conceded, "how about you show me?"

"What?"

She carefully slipped her arms around his strong shoulders, settling comfortably against him. "Yeah. Show me. I don't care how you do it. If you can't find the right words, then show me them. Make me feel what you're feeling. Make me see it."

In order to do that, he'd have to pull her into the throes of intense passion and overwhelming love, which was what he was feeling right then. At first, he hesitated. In his head, things had gone differently. He'd asked her to marry him, she'd said yes, yes, a thousand times yes!, and then they made love. But here they were, and nothing was going according to plan.

Maybe that was how it was supposed to be. He had to show her how much he loved her first, and then he could seal the deal with a ring. So that's exactly what he decided to do.

Bradley let his eyes flutter shut for a moment, breathing in slowly and deeply, arms encircling her waist as he did so. She was patient, waiting for him to make a move, wondering what he would do. And then, those kind, warm eyes were opening to meet her own, and his soft breath was fanning across her lips, and she knew.

He didn't have to say anything. He simply pulled her into his lap, hands clutching her hips as he moved to kiss her. She let herself relax, muscles loosening and shoulders falling. Bradley had that affect on her. He knew how to calm her like no other.

His lips were slow and soft, conveying everything he felt in that moment. Kissing him was comforting in ways she could never begin to explain, but could only experience by the feel of them against her own.

The kiss was gradually broken, and Bradley pulled back to look at her, hand coming up to rest gently against the side of her face as her rushed breaths intermingled. The look he held in his eyes was so tender, and her heart ached at the sight. Oh, how she loved him.

Her hands wandered beneath his shirt, fingers brushing over every plane of his torso. Her touch made him feel whole, and he found himself leaning into her, needing more. So much more.

He pulled her back, joining their lips again. She let her hands roam, sliding over his skin. She could feel his pulse, and it was racing. But hers was too, so it was okay.

Bradley copied her actions, his own hands slipping beneath her thin sleep shirt. His were much larger than hers, and they covered more ground. When he cupped her breasts, she arched into his touch, wanting to feel more, to feel everything.

Their kiss ended with him catching her bottom lip between his teeth, tugging gently before pulling away.

It was then she knew that she needed him. All of him. "Bradley, I-"

She didn't have to finish the sentence, for he already had her on her back, placed right against the mattress. Her eyes flickered down to the hem of his shirt, fingers fiddling with it before she tugged at it. Bradley was quick to remove it, carelessly tossing it aside. She then spread her hands across his sun-kissed skin, admiring his beauty.

Bradley lowered himself, pushing her top halfway up her body in order for him to access her abdomen. He pressed a sweet kiss just below her belly button, ever so slowly making his way up with an endless amount of tender kisses.

Halfway through, she stopped him in order to remove her shirt, wanting to be skin to skin. Once it was gone, he was against her again, leaving kiss after kiss.

Then his hot, wet mouth was against her breasts, kissing and sucking and biting. She could feel the rush of arousal between her thighs, body responding to his administrations. His hands replaced his mouth, squeezing the soft flesh while he moved up, nuzzling her neck with kisses, teeth grazing the heated skin.

She reached down then, hand coming down to palm him lightly through his sweatpants. He faltered for a moment, deciding that he wanted to move things along. So, he hurriedly tugged her own pants down her legs, underwear and all, before he rid himself of his own.

He snaked a hand down between her legs, which she willingly parted for him. Those nimble fingers of his trailed through her slick, right before he dipped his middle finger into her. He had to get her soaked for him, of course.

It most certainly didn't take long, her wetness soon enough heard above even the sounds of her breath. "I-I'm wet enough," she breathed, "need you inside me."

He stroked his fingers through her hair for a moment, gazing down at her as if she were the most beautiful creature on earth. Then he joined their lips, kissing her deeply to muffle her moan as he finally pushed inside, filling her whole.

She moaned into his mouth when their hips met, hands tightening around his shoulders. Bradley let out the softest of groans before he began rolling his hips into her, slowly at first, savoring the buildup.

This was it, just what he needed to to communicate what he was trying to get across. As they say, actions speak louder than words. And if this action could speak, it would be a deafening scream

That night, Bradley held her in his arms, and he made love to her. He treated it like this was their first time, like they were only just discovering each other's bodies, despite the fact that they had long since been acquainted.

Beneath him, she was quaking, clutching onto him for dear life as he thrust into her, brushing up against all those wonderful spots within her. He could feel her muscles shift and tighten around him, and he swore it was the best thing he'd ever felt.

He buried his face against the side of her neck, letting out the quietest of moans, hardly able to contain them. She slid your hands down his back, one hand coming up to tangle in his hair.

His entire body engulfed hers, creating a feeling of safety. Right here, wrapped in his arms, nothing could ever harm her. The cold, sharp fingers of the world couldn't touch her. She was entirely shielded in his love and protection.

She could feel tears spring forth, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to steady her breathing, though that was nearly impossible.

"What's wrong, baby?" His husky voice filled her head, and her eyes fluttered open to find him looking at her. She hadn't realized her tears had begun to spill down her cheeks. "Do you want me to stop?"

She shook her head, pulling Bradley closer, kissing him delicately. "N-no, no. I'm just...just...d-don't stop."

He let his forehead rest against hers, hot breath rushing across her face as he continued. His fingers brushed away any tears, and his lips hushed any whimpers. He was being so gentle, so sweet. But she wanted more, she craved more.

"Faster," she managed. "Please..."

Sucking in a breath, Bradley picked up his pace, pushing her legs towards her chest to give him a new range of motion. He watched her beneath him, her face contorted in beautiful agony.

There wasn't a sight in the world that was as breathtaking as her, he decided.

He wanted to capture this moment, save it in a photograph to be able to look at forever. The way she looked at him was something he'd never been able to comprehend. How could a soul as wonderful as hers care for him so deeply?

Yet he knew that she loved him something powerful, just as much as he loved her.

"Oh, god," he moaned, driving his hips deeper, faster. He could already feel that familiar, pleasurable ache deep within him, but he was trying desperately to stave it off. But with the way she was tightening around him, he wasn't sure he could last much longer.

She wrapped her arms around him, holding him to her, wanting to feel every single inch of him. His moans filled her ears, surely the loveliest song she'd ever heard. Words weren't necessary. Physical contact, the joining of their bodies in fiery harmony, was all they needed to express what they felt.

Bradley poured everything he had to offer into her, fucking into her until she was trembling, gasping, incapable of coherent sentences. Her skin was sticky with sweat, her head was spinning, and tears were endlessly spilling down her cheeks. The angle he was hitting spread such an intensity through her, she could hardly handle it.

"Oh, oh, Bradley," she squeaked.

He gritted his teeth, one hand clutching her thigh, the other clawing at the sheets. He was desperate to hold out, to quell that overwhelming need to release. But then he was gazing down at her, writhing on his cock, and he wasn't sure that he could control it any longer.

"Good girl," he gasped, hips moving just a little faster, "such a good girl, you take me so well."

She was burning up, skin hot to the touch, every thrust of Bradley's hips only intensifying it. He tried to bring his hand down, intending to stimulate her button of nerves with his fingers to get her off faster, but he was shaking too badly.

His breath grew rushed, desperate. His abdomen tightened, and currents of delicious pleasure began to spark through him. He placed his mouth against hers, an involuntary whimper slipping out into the air between you.

"B-baby, baby, I can't...I'm not gonna last. Oh, fuck. I don't think I can-"

"It's okay," she breathed against his mouth, "come for me."

And with one more deep thrust, he let go, surely coating her spasming walls in his pearlescent release. She shuddered, having always loved the feeling of him filling her in such a way. It was oddly comforting.

After a moment, Bradley fell still against her, desperately trying to catch his breath. Then he slowly withdrew from her, though he wasn't finished with her just yet. He kissed her lips deeply, bringing his hand back down to pleasure her. Two fingers slipped into her soaked cunt, sticky with their shared arousal. With his forehead resting against hers, eyes never leaving her own, her finger fucked her until she was violently shaking, clutching onto him as if her life depended on it.

He didn't stop until she was crying out, gripping his arm hard enough to leave bruises as she came for him, releasing all over his hand as he praised her for being so good for him.

And then she collapsed in a heap, still trying to catch her breath. Bradley kissed her feverish skin, soothing her as she came down from the intensity of it all.

As she relaxed into his body, they basked in the afterglow, both of them so incredibly satisfied, and so in love. Her brunette lover was caught up in the moment, and as his arms tucked around her waist, he whispered two words in her ear that caught her off guard.

"Marry me."

It came out of nowhere. He hadn't even intended to say it in such a moment, and he hadn't even grabbed the ring, but the words were out there now, hanging in the air, unexpected, but welcome. And then her face broke into the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen in his life, musical laughter leaving her lips as she realized what he'd been trying to tell her all along.

"Yes," she whispered, eyes sparkling with immeasurable joy, and unshed tears. "Yes, I will."

His face mirrored her own as a brilliant smile spread across it. She'd said yes. She was going to be his wife, his forever best friend, and in that very moment, his loss for words was no longer an issue. He'd finally found those letters lost under his tongue.

#bradley bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw smut #top gun maverick

1K notes · View notes

uluvjay · 1 year

Note

from last 2 prompt 33 and 69 with mark estapa where him and reader have been arguing back and forth so it’s angsty with tensionnn

Mark Estapa x fem reader!

warnings?; Cursing, light arguing, small fist fight, party scene, underage drinking, frat house, yelling

i figured this meant list 2 so thats what i went with! hope you enjoyed anon

33. "your not going out dressed like that"

69. "if you interrupt me one more time-so help me god"

You and Mark had been arguing all day and it had been over the smallest things but it was enough to have both of you in pissy moods hours later. Everyone was currently getting ready to go to some frat party, Mark had been downstairs with the guys for a little now while you finished getting ready.

as you made it down the stairs mark turned around and the content look on his face was immediately replaced by a pissed off one.

"you're not going out like that" he told you while looking you up and down.

"um yes i am" you laughed at him, you knew your corset top would piss him off and that was your reason you decided to wear it but you had to act annoyed.

"No your not, your not wearing something that your tits ar-" he started but got cut off by Ethan

"Guys! we are going to be late so you can either stand here and yell at one another again, like you have been all day or get your asses out the door" he told both of you, giving you both a dad look.

"Dude! her boobs are almost out, I'm not trying to have some dude be weird towards her" Mark tried but all of the guys were over both of you at this point.

"You have ninety penalty minuets i think you can handle someone if they're weird to her, now get the fuck out of the house" Ethan said and you could hear the annoyance in his voice so you decided to be the bigger person and walk past Mark and out the front door.

Unlike himself to usually do Mark had left you early into the party and because of it you were throwing shot after shot back in the kitchen with some random girl. You felt like shit that your boyfriend was so upset with you that he wouldn't stay and party with you like he usually did, so you used vodka shots to cover the guilt.

"What's your reasoning for getting wasted?" she asked after you both finished your third shot.

"My boyfriend's mad at me and won't even hang out with me" you told her with a pitiful shrug.

"is that his jersey number?" she asked pointing to your neck where you had a '94' pendant necklace that mark had gotten you for your one year.

"yeah he plays hockey" you told her with a smile, you loved talking about Mark especially when drunk.

"ohh a hockey player, good luck with that" she laughed before telling you bye and leaving the kitchen.

you couldn't help but stand there in your thoughts for a moment, you knew Mark would never, he loved you and he showed you on a daily basis how much he loved you. He actually walked around with a shirt that said "i love my girlfriend" that he'd bought for himself and was extremely happy to show you when it came in the mail, but your alcohol influenced made you think he hated you in the moment

You looked all over the first floor of the house and didn't see him and right as you began to panic you saw a concerned Dylan walking towards you. "Y/n! you need to come outside right now" he told you grabbing your arm and pulling you with him. You had to have asked him a million questions but he ignored them all just pulling you to a growing crowd outside.

As you got to the front you seen Nolan, Jay, and Ethan all pulling Mark away from some dude that was holding a bleeding nose. "What the fuck happened Dylan!?" you asked the boy next to you.

"we were playing pong when that guy and his friend asked for a round against us and then the one that's bleeding asked mark that if they won could he get a night with you and told Mark how good he thought you look in that top and Mark just went crazy" he explained causing you to shake your head and make your way over to where the guys were calming Mark down.

Hearing footsteps approaching Mackie turned around and his face immediately dropped before he made his way to you, "No I'm sorry, i love you Y/n but i don't want him lashing out on you, he needs to calm down" he told you, not letting you any closer.

"Is that Y/n?" you heard your boyfriend ask and watched Mackie take a frustrated deep breath before telling him yes.

"Let her over here I'm fine and we need a second alone" you watched as all the boys looked at each other before Nolan gave the nod okay and everyone started walking away from Mark.

You made your way to him but he stopped you before you could throw your arms around him and ask if he was okay, "I'm upset with you right now" he told you.

"I know and I-" you started but he cut you off

"No let me talk and if you interrupt me one more time i-" but before he could finish you did interrupt him

"Mark just listen for one second"

"So help me god! Y/n I am trying to talk so just shut the fuck up for a damn minuet and let me get my words out" he exclaimed and for once you did listen.

He was waiting for a braty reply but didn't get one and as he looked down at you to begin talking he noticed the new look in your eyes and how you were rubbing your thighs together.

"Are you turned on right now?" he asked with a smirk on his face

you looked down at your feet before answering him, "A little, I'm drunk and then duker said you stood up for me and then putting me in my place kinda got me going" you shrugged.

He didn't reply you just felt him pull on your wrist and looked up to see that you were heading towards the back gate to get out of the yard.

"Where are we going?" you asked

"Home so i can fuck you and then when we wake up tomorrow we can talk about what happened today"

#mark estapa imagine #mark estapa x reader #mark estapa #hockey imagine #nhl #nhl fanfiction #umich hockey

333 notes · View notes

chronicowboy · 2 years

Text

Buck loves kids. He's always loved kids. Well, apart from ages eleven through fourteen, but in his defence, middle school kids are quite literally evil. Like spawn of satan evil.

Apart from Christopher. He's an angel.

But the point is, Buck's always loved kids. Its why he always volunteers to free little girls from claw machines or bundle little boys up in his turnouts.

He loves kids. He loves talking space with Denny, and pretending to know video games with Harry, and having very serious conversations with Jee.

He loves kids. Never thought he could have them when he was younger, assumed he'd be fun uncle Buck forever. He loves kids. Wants them more than anything, maybe more than a partner. He loves kids. That's why he—

Fuck.

"Hey," Eddie leans against his locker, back in his street clothes, unbearably soft in the morning light. "Chris is getting all antsy about his dance on Friday, could use a hand helping him calm down long enough to try his suit on?"

He raises a hopeful eyebrow, but all Buck can see is the memory playing in Eddie's eyes. The memory of Buck, teary-eyed and half-drunk, a week after his parents left the state, telling Eddie he'd never been to a school dance because he was always grounded. That he'd only ever made it to prom because he'd asked the daughter of one of his dad's colleagues and he wouldn't let Buck stand her up.

"Sorry, man." He smiles, he wonders how long both of them can keep pretending its not a grimace. "Looking after Jee whilst Maddie and Chim go house hunting."

"Oh." Eddie blinks, the corners of his mouth twitching up. "You could always bring her along. She might be a good distraction for Chris, and you know—"

"No." Buck clears his throat, looks very hard into his locker for the hoodie he knows he already packed into his duffel. "I mean, I just hardly get any time with her, you know? So, I just kind of want to..."

"Oh, yeah, sure. 'Course, man." Eddie doesn't bother with a grimacing smile, just lets the furrow crease his brows. "Gotta keep up the title of best uncle, right?"

"Please." Buck scoffs. "Can she say Albert's name?"

"Right." Eddie nods with pursed lips. "Definitely doesn't have anything to do with easier phonetics and half the amount of syllables."

"Wow. I thought you were supposed to be on my side."

And, see, he means it as a joke. The whole conversation is a joke, really. Like Buck desperately doesn't want his niece and his— His Christopher to coexist in the same space, in the warm embrace of the Diaz house, home. But he can't, he just can't.

Still, its a joke. Only Eddie must be done with his jokes because he steps in closer, lays a gentle hand on his bicep and ducks his head until Buck has to meet his eyes. Like the tsunami.

Like the start of it all.

"I'm always on your side, Buck." He murmurs, more of a breath than anything. A confession that makes Buck a little dizzy. And then, Eddie's patting his arm and sweeping out of the locker room just as Hen and Chim come in.

"We'll drop Jee off at eleven, Buckaroo?" Chim says.

"Yeah. Sounds good."

Two days after Jee-Yun gives him the best workout of his life, he shoots a text to Hen asking if she wants to take Denny to the Renaissance Fair which had finally reopened after dealing with the bee problem.

He doesn't mean to do it is the thing. Sure, in his probie year, after Hen had finally trusted him enough to let him meet Denny, they'd hung out all the time. He'd practically fast-tracked his way to uncle Buck. But then, Eddie Diaz had waltzed into his life and said I'm all he's got and the rest—

Well, the rest is history.

But the thing is, Buck's DNA is floating somewhere in the American healthcare system in a little plastic cup with a green lid and he's trying very hard not to think about all the ways that could break him into a million pieces.

Because there's something hollow and empty inside of him that's slowly been shattering ever since Connor said that he didn't have enough swimmers. And it crumbles a little more every time he thinks of Christopher.

He thinks of that night in his loft with a frustrated rant, and two indulgent Diaz boys, a missing couch, and a lasagne that took three tries to get it right. A night that had become routine for them. And now he hasn't seen Christopher in almost two months, hasn't seen Christopher since—

Since Lev.

Two months he's spent trying desperately not to think of the way he'd seen Christopher safe in Eddie's arms and collapsed into a heap because his job was done and that was enough. Two months he's spent trying not to think about the flash of happiness that came with the end of a tsunami. Two months he's spent trying not to think about how he's buried that realization for almost three years.

He just. Christopher is growing up, he's lying to his dad, and sneaking out to see his friends, and going to dances, and having crushes. And Buck is trying so hard to remember. To listen to the cyclical chant of guardian, not dad echoing around his skull every time Eddie turns to him expectantly upon a mention of his son.

Because he has an answer to Hen's question. Finally.

But, fuck, he doesn't even really care about his sperm anymore. He doesn't give a fuck about the abstract concept of a child biologically half his out there in the world, out of sight and out of reach. He just doesn't care. Because nothing will ever hurt as much as having everything he's ever wanted at his fingertips and still not being able to grab it for fear of it vanishing into thin air.

He doesn't care about not getting to raise his child because there's a child he actually cares about, a child he's been raising. A child that's not his, but could be—

Fuck.

So, he's at a renaissance fair with his friend and her son, picking out a sword so that his niece knows that she doesn't have to be a damsel in distress, but he's trying so damn hard not to think about a little kid—who's not really all that little anymore—sat in a barber's chair because he wanted to look good for his crush.

It feels a lot like pressing his thumb into the space between bruised ribs.

671 notes · View notes

afewproblems · 1 year

Note

and there you go hurtin' me so good again with the continuation of your cheating!Eddie steddie fic.. thank you! <3

Based on Part One, and this Ask here,

I was chatting with @samcoxramblings yesterday about this and I think maybe there should be some Steve POV, as a treat.

If Steve thought about the last few weeks of his life alongside every other instant of sorrow and pain he'd experienced, his relationship with Nancy, the Upside Down, the death of Barb, his parents, he'd say he should be used to this sort of thing by now.

But perhaps he'd been spoiled.

He'd had more than twenty years of happiness, contentedness, with Eddie and their life together. He'd relaxed too much, and here was the other shoe crashing down.

The home phone line in their apartment has been ringing off the hook, reporters have been trying to get ahold of him to see his side of things, leaving messages and one bold enough to come to their apartment leaves a letter taped to their door.

Steve disconnectes the phone and installs another lock after that.

And speaking of letters, there have been a mix delivered to their shared PO Box, some in support of Steve, sympathetic to the situation, others are ecstatic --seeing it as their chance to wedge their way into his marriage just like the last person, that they've always hated Steve and can't wait to see him gone.

He only reads a few letters before letting them pile up on the side table by the door.

All because of that stupid photo.

There was no discernable face in the photo, or photos, that ended up online.

Just Eddie talking animatedly to someone facing away from the camera view. It pieces together the evening, a meet cute, a conversation, walking out of the bar together, and a passionate kiss before getting into a taxi.

Eddie confirms it, and it's like his heart breaks in two.

There are a million questions rattling around in his head.

How many times has this happened? How long has Eddie been lying to him, was this a one time thing or have they been secretly meeting one another for multiple tours? Does the band know? Have they been lying to his face as well?

Steve feels as though he's been on autopilot, walking around in a fog while at home, and mechanically moving through his lesson plans while at school.

To make matters worse, his principal calls him at home after the news breaks.

"Steve, how are you doing? I'm so sorry to hear," she tells him solemnly over the line, "if there is anything we can do please let us know".

"Thank you Liz, I, I really appreciate it," Steve hums, his voice much more level than it has been in awhile, "I'll take Spring break to finish up my marking and get my head on straight before we're back--"

"Steve, I'm sorry, I think," she hesitates, Steve can hear her pace around her office, her signature kitten heels click against the tiled floor, "I think it would be best if you take a little longer than Spring Break".

He feels his stomach drop into his shoes, no, no, they can't...

"What, what are you talking about, are you--"

"No, no, of course not," her voice shrill, panicked and tinny, over the line as she backpeddles, "no, we just think it would be better for you and the kids if you took some time away. We have a sub lined up and this wouldn't be permanent, just until it dies down".

"You can't be serious Liz, come on, their finals are coming up at the end of the month and I've never let my personal life affect my job before and I'm not about to start now, I don't need a leave of absence, I'm fine," he lies.

It has been difficult to get through class, to ignore the whispers from the kids during break or while they work in groups. He can feel curious eyes follow him in between the desks as he walks around for questions.

Liz sighs into the line and all at once knows the conversation is over, that it was never a conversation to begin with.

"Look, you're the best department head we've had in a long time Steve, and I want you back, fresh, for the kids. I can't imagine how you're feeling right now and I know this isn't what you wanted but I think it will be for the best".

"How long?" Steve manages to say, so softly that Liz asks him to repeat himself.

"Excluding the break, I'll say three weeks, so you can be back to see them through their exams," she sighs again, "the school year isn't over yet Steve, you'll still have lots of time with them".

Steve raises a shaking hand to his hair, running his fingers through it from root to tip. It could be good to take that time, Robin had asked him if he would when they initially spoke. It could give him a chance to think about what to do.

But, at this point, he worries if he stops moving, if he slows down, he won't be able to stop the grief he can feel, knocking at his window.

"Okay, okay, Liz, I'll take some time".

***

Steve finishes his marking in record time, but perhaps it's easy when one doesn't sleep.

He reorganizes the pantry twice, deep cleans all the storage closets, he throws every piece of clothing in the house into the laundry, including Eddie's, drops off the dry cleaning, and washes the walls.

He moves the furniture around and finds himself looking at rentable scaffolding to see about finally starting that painting project he's been thinking about.

It's only Wednesday.

One by one his family begin to reach out as the news begins to circulate more prominently in the regular entertainment news outlets. Hopper and Joyce call, Joyce asks Steve if he wants to come back to Hawkins for a bit, that their door is always open for him, just as it was when he was in his twenties. Hopper tells him all Steve needs to do is give him the word and he'll be in Chicago with a shovel, no questions asked.

Steve thanks Joyce and gives Hopper an emphatic, 'NO,' but he appreciates them all the same.

Dustin innocently brings up that he'll be in Chicago for a few days the following week, that Robin offered Steve's guest room to him, and Steve finds himself smiling while shaking his head at the co-conspirators.

All of the kids call at least once, but they are busy themselves, none of them are on a leave of absence after all, he thinks bitterly to himself.

Thursday afternoon there's a knock at his door, Steve is in the middle of changing out the old washer from the kitchen sink -finally getting around to fixing the small leak, he freezes at the sound.

He's not expecting anyone and even though he and Robin are nearly joined at the hip she still has the decency to call before showing up at his door.

Steve climbs out from under the sink and wipes his hands on the nearest towel before slowly walking towards the door. All the locks are still bolted from the night before, so he feels safer leaning in to peer through the peephole.

It's Wayne?

Steve feels his heart begin to race, what on earth was Wayne doing here? Was Eddie with him? Corroded Coffin was still on tour, he couldn't be.

He hazards another glance through the peephole but he can't tell if there is anyone else in the hall.

Wayne knocks again making Steve jump at the sudden noise.

Steve breathes in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth once, twice, before he unlocks both bolts and the chain with shaking hands, he opens the door a fraction.

"Wayne? What are you doing here?" Steve says softly, he steps aside to let the man through.

"I came to check on you," Wayne says after a beat, he wipes his feet on the second mat inside and shrugs off his red windbreaker. Steve tries to take the jacket to hang it up but raises his hands in surrender as Wayne waves him off and opens the closet to hang it up himself.

Steve takes him into the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee, they never did invest in one of those single serve coffee machines, Eddie drank so much coffee when he was home that it made no sense and, 'brewed coffee just tates better Stevie'.

Steve shakes the memory away and grabs two mugs from the cupboard, "Just sugar right?"

He reaches for the empty sugar bowl as Wayne nods, he hovers awkwardly as Steve flits around the kitchen.

Steve grabs the sugar from their pantry and fills up the bowl before placing it on the table with a spoon.

"So," Steve sighs as he leans against the counter next to the coffee maker, it hisses and bubbles filling the air with the smell of brewing coffee, "Eddie put you up to this, huh?"

Wayne frowns but nods, "Call it the first good decision that dumb-ass has made in the last few weeks," he scratches the graying scruff on his cheeks and steps closer, "how are you doing son?

Steve wants to tell him about how he hasn't let himself even think about the future. How he told Eddie he couldn't come home yet, how he's so achingly lonely despite the number of people that have reached out. How he doesn't want to think about a life without Eddie, but that he also can't imagine being in the same room as him for more that a minute without wanting to just scream at him.

How, Steve firmly believed that he would lose the man standing in his doorway, how his friendship with Gareth and Chrissy would inevitably fracture over Eddie, and once again Steve would be alone, picking up the pieces of his life to start again.

Instead, he manages to say, "I'm so glad you're here," before stepping into Wayne's arms, and allowing himself to be held as he finally, finally cries.

Wayne's arms come around him firmly, he reaches one hand up to cradle Steve's head while the other rubs his back, "its okay son, I gotcha," he whispers as Steves shoulders shake and his chest stutters.

"I gotcha".

#cw infidelity #steve harrington #time for steves pov #we love a protective and wise uncle wayne in this house #stranger things #cheating Eddie continuation #i promise im working on my other wips too #im just putting poor steve through the wringer at this point #sorry y'all #hurt and very little comfort

212 notes · View notes

seramilla · 2 months

Note

I have two images of Charlie learning Vaggie used too date Emily. One is back off she's mine. The other is guilt did she steal Vaggie from Emily the two had been dating before Vaggie fell and its not like they stopped because they broke up but because Emily thought Vaggie was dead and had no way to contact her. Is she keeping Vaggie from who she should be with. (I suspect after learning about everything Sera and Emily offered to let Vaggie stay in heaven where it's safe and also with Emily but Vaggie turned it down because she didn't want to abandon the hotel when they need it most.) It’s probably a mix of the two Charlie feels guilty whenever she thinks about it but has her horns out whenever she sees Emily around Vaggie.

Charlie is still reeling from the sheer chaos that had been her and Vaggie's meeting with Heaven. Not only had her attempts to make a case for Angel Dust's redemption been thrown back in her face in spectacular fashion, Adam had said he'd specifically be targeting her hotel in a mere month's time. And absolutely worst of all, her girlfriend, her partner, the love of her life, had been lying to her for years. Not only is she actually an angel, an Exterminator, to boot, but she also already has a partner, from a former life that Charlie knows absolutely nothing about.

To say things can't be worse would be an understatement. All of Charlie's optimism and hope, the very future she had envisioned for her people, is smashed. Dashed across the rocks into a million tiny pieces; there are so many, she cannot conceive of a way to put them back together again. She turns over in bed, where she's currently swaddled in her bedsheets like an infant. She's spent all day in here; unable to face Vaggie, unable to ask her how she could lie to her for so long, and treat her like she's the most precious thing in her life, when she already has a partner waiting for her back home.

Home...not with Charlie, but in Heaven, with her...Emily. The thought makes her sob again, and she's already done more than enough of that today. She usually feels better after a good cry; especially when it's into Vaggie's shoulder, with her hand patting her back, telling her it's okay. Right now, the effort seems pointless. It does help her clear her head in the moment, but it's short-lived when the feelings come rolling back in like a tide an hour or so later.

She wants Vaggie here with her, helping her try to process everything they'd learned in Heaven, like she normally does. She should have heeded Vaggie's warning...should have listened to her, and never gone up there. Maybe then she'd still be clueless; there is some happiness to be found in naïveté, after all. Maybe then she'd never have found out she only had half of Vaggie's heart.

A part of her knows that's unfair; it's not Vaggie's fault she fell. She saved a literal child from the end of an Exterminator's spear. And the price she'd paid was beyond anything Charlie thinks a person ever deserves to experience. She's been through so much pain and trauma in the last 3 years, and realistically, probably never thought she'd see Emily again. She'd tried to move on with her life, and make a new purpose with Charlie's cause, and a new home with her.

Charlie smiles, thinking of all the things they've been through together in such a short time. Her life spans hundreds of years, but somehow, the last 3 have been the most meaningful, the most joyful, the most special of all of them. She'd never give any of that up. And while her heart hurts, and she feels a little resentment toward Emily, she knows it's not the Seraphim's fault, either. All three of them are simply victims of circumstance; a really fucked up series of events. They just have to learn to move on from it.

Emily had been so nice to her; welcomed her, showed her around, treated her like some kind of celebrity, despite who her father is. She'd stood up for Angel when no one else in the angelic court would. If Vaggie had seen something in her, once...then she can't be a bad person. And if they're going to make her plan work, they need an ally on the inside. Even if it's awkward, or hurts her to work together...she thinks she may have to try. For Vaggie, and for herself, and most importantly, for the very souls of her people.

#hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie #emily hazbin hotel #ask #anon #fan theories #vaggie dated emily au #chaggily #chaggie

39 notes · View notes

letswritebangtan · 1 year

Text

It's Just Water | Jeon Jungkook Pt. 2

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook x Reader

Synopsis: y/n can't get over her fear of the water, but maybe former swim team captain and current swim coach Jeon Jungkook can help her.

A/N: Part 2 is finally here! Make sure you read Part 1 of It's Just Water to enjoy the rest.

Surely, it couldn't be that bad. Facing the guy who just broke your heart into a million pieces in front of the entire class? No biggie.

Ever since you called off your swim sessions with Jungkook, your swim coach was very quick - scarily quick - to catch on that since the deal was off, swim lessons weren't the exception any longer. Funnily enough, being forced to face your biggest fear was nowhere near as bad as having to face Jungkook one-on-one for an hour a day, every day. Of course it would be. He used you. Preyed on your biggest weakness. Then he kissed you in the pool. Almost as if he had been resisting for years. And then you realise what it had really been about. A promotion.

"What a fool." you grumbled unhappily. A blue and white striped towel draped across your back even though you didn't need it. You weren't getting in that damned pool anyway.

"Hey, you chose to be friends with me." Taehyung said frowning.

You were pulled back into reality. Students were jumping into the pool one after the other going about their laps. You flinched with each splash.

"Not you, idiot." you sighed, chin resting on your palm while you lingered in your sour mood.

"Oh...", Taehyung nodded in understanding, "Him."

"Yeah," you huffed. "Him."

"What a dick move, honestly. I thought he was one of the good ones." said Dahyun.

"You can never trust men," she added as she patted your shoulder sympathetically.

"God, it's just so frustrating. I can't even move past it because there he is all shirtless in his stupid hot speedos and water dripping down his skin with his hair wet and slicked back-"

"Okay, y/n, calm down. I really think you need to hook up with someone. It stinks of desperation from your end," Taehyung said.

"Taehyung! Don't be mean. But he's right, y/n, I know a nice guy and I'm telling you he'd love to go out on a date with you." Dahyun suggested.

You stared pointedly at the two of them. "Okay mr and mrs 'couple of the year', just because the two of you are in a relationship doesn't mean everyone around you has to be."

"I never mentioned a relationship, I just think you need someone to fuck you silly," Taehyung said.

You slapped a hand over his mouth making him flinch. "Shut up!"

"Group 5! Up next, let's go!" you heard coach shout.

"Well as if this day couldn't get any worse," you grumbled.

"It's okay, y/n. Just do as much as you can and I'll help you out okay? I'll pull you out as soon as you want me to," Dahyun said getting up and setting her towel aside.

You sighed, "Taehyung doesn't deserve you. You can do so much better, Hyun."

She pulled you up by the hand grinning while Taehyung complained in the corner. The two of you approached the pool. There was no way you were doing a lap, and you knew that. The coach knew that. So the fact that he would insist only means he's out to make your life a living hell. You looked across to the end. Jungkook stood there with his whistle, blowing orders at the more advanced group. He looked up for a second and his gaze froze when he saw you at the pool's edge. You could tell he stopped to think for a moment, and then in a second he was walking over to your side. Your eyes widened and you frantically turned to the coach who was getting impatient by the second.

"Coach, you know I can't," you pleaded.

"Just get in, y/n. You don't have to swim. Come on, you'll be in and out in a second."

"Motherfu-"

"Coach!" you heard him yell. Jungkook was by your side in no time.

"I think you should let her off, she can't really..." Jungkook trailed off trying to find the words.

You were growing angrier the more you thought of all the ways he could have ended his sentence.

She can't do it? She can't swim? She'll fail. Asshole, who does he think he is speaking up for you like that like some kind of hero?

"I can't what, Jungkook?" you snapped.

His eyes widened as he looked down at you, his hand instinctively moving to caress your upper arm.

"I mean, she doesn't have to-" he said worriedly, but you were quick to move away from him.

"I can do it," you said confidently, turning to your coach.

"That's right, she doesn't need a man to tell her what she can and can't do," Dahyun said backing you up, rolling her eyes at the man who know realises, he fucked up.

"No, y/n, I didn't mean- this pool it's much deeper I just don't want you to-"

"To what? To drown? I don't need your help, just leave me alone," you managed to choke out before gripping the hell out of Dahyun's hand and dipping your toes in the water.

She squeaked a little bit but held it in for your sake. With deep breaths, you kept lowering your foot, until the water was up till your ankle. Slowly, you bent your other leg and sat down, letting both legs dangle freely in the pool. Your hands were pressed to the tiled floor so hard they left marks on your palms. The bottom was right there. You could see it. You felt that you could reach it.

"y/n be careful," Jungkook tried to warn you.

"I said leave me alone," you snapped. You lifted yourself with your hands, and dropped your body in.

The cold water pierced your skin all the way up to your chest. Your breath hitched and your toes slowly pressed up against the tiles. That's it. You were standing in the water. And you did it all by yourself. The only problem now, was that you were too afraid to move.

"I did it," you whispered.

Dahyun yelled and cheered from behind you. "Taehyung get your ass over here!"

Your best friend didn't waste a second. He joined in with his girlfriend's cheering. They were a really loud couple.

"That's great, y/n. I think that's enough for today," your coach said pleased with your surprising performance.

"Okay, out you get!" Taehyung said reaching his hands out towards you.

You slowly turned your body around, hands still gripping the side of the pool. Taehyung slowly but firmly gripped your arms and practically lifted your body out like you were a rubber duck and stood you on your feet. Dahyun wrapped a towel around you and urged you back to the benches. You felt a pair of eyes bore into the side of your head but you couldn't bring yourself to look.

"That'll show him," Dahyun whispered to you cheekily, making you smile wider.

_________________

There was a buzz that filled you for the rest of the week. Sure, you stood in the pool before. But you had Jungkook there to help you. His strong arms holding you in place. You still remember his eyes, the way he couldn't stop looking at you. Yet this time, there was no overwhelming fear. Somehow the water felt calmer. Safer.

Jungkook lurked in the hallways once in a while, making sure to stay clear from your path. He knew you weren't too happy with him, and he didn't want to make things worse. It took every fibre in his body not to run up and talk to you. To tell you how amazing you did. To tell you that he was proud of you. To tell you that he was sorry. It hurt to see you look away from him so quickly whenever the two of you crossed paths.

Jungkook sighed at the thought of it as he shuffled through the piles of student reports on his desk. The semester was coming to an end, and he only had so much time to manually enter each grade into the system. It drove him nuts.

"You'd think by we'd have computers to do this for me," he muttered in frustration.

He chucked the report aside as soon as he was done with it, and swiftly picked up the next.

y/n l/n

Jungkook paused for a second. He ran a hand over his face in frustration. It was like he couldn't escape you, and he couldn't escape his guilt. He hated that you thought of him so lowly.

"I've liked you for years..."

"Years, huh?", Jungkook whispered to himself. "If only she knew."

A loud scream pulled Jungkook out of his thoughts. What the hell was that? It was late, school ended just about three hours ago. Who'd be around at this time?

He stepped out of his office trying to follow the noise. Jungkook checked every room in a hurry, but just as he ran past the entrance to the pool, he heard muffled cries.

"Help! Oh god...", someone sobbed.

Jungkook wasted no time. He ran towards the voice echoing throughout the room until he saw you. Jungkook stopped abruptly. There you were- drowning.

"y/n!" he yelled and jumped into the water immediately.

You were flailing, struggling to keep your head above the water. Soon enough, a pair of arms were lifting you by the waist and hoisting you up onto the pool's edge. Jungkook jumped out in a second and held you by your side, taking off his shirt in a flash to wipe the water from your eyes and sweeping the hair out of your face. You coughed and sputtered, trying to breathe normally.

"Here, it's okay. Just try and catch your breath, alright?" he said soothingly as he firmly pat your back, helping you cough the water out.

Your head hung low as you wheezed, one hand on your chest and the other instinctively placed on Jungkook's forearm. Slowly the atmosphere became quiet, with your softening breathing and Jungkook's gentle words of affirmation.

"What happened?" he asked softly.

You finally had the courage to look up. When you saw the concern in his eyes, you couldn't help the tears starting to flow out of yours.

"I-" you sniffled, "I'm so stupid."

"What? No-"

"You were right. I can't do it. I can't get over my fear. I can't swim and I never will. What was I thinking?" you cried angrily wiping the tears from your face.

"y/n, stop that. That's not true, okay? Did you or did you not get into the pool all by yourself the other day?"

"Oh screw that, Jungkook. I just got lucky, probably from some adrenaline rush. I nearly," you took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "I nearly drowned just now. And if you weren't here I would have- I could have-", your voice cracked, too scared to finish your sentence.

"Don't say that." Jungkook snapped, wrapping his arms around you and pulling your head to his chest.

"That would never happen. Not as long as I'm here." he mumbled softly.

"How did you hear me?" you asked softly.

"Well, you may not be a swimmer but you've got some lungs on you." he cracked a joke, trying to lighten the mood.

You smiled and hit his chest, sitting up again. Jungkook chuckled softly and brushed the hair from your eyes.

"What were you doing in the pool, y/n?" he asked, his tone soft and concerned.

You groaned and faced the stupid pool again. "I told you, I was stupid."

Jungkook paused, then asked, "Did you try to swim?"

"Yeah," you mumbled.

"Why would that be stupid?"

"Well it's not a good idea for someone terrified of the water to jump in headfirst with no one around," you said trying to explain the obvious.

"That's not true, I was around."

"Jungkook," you huffed. "You know what I mean."

"It's still not stupid, y/n," he said firmly, gently turning your chin to face him. "It's called being brave. And every day, I see you getting braver ad braver."

You resigned, shaking your head.

"It's true," Jungkook emphasised. "Just weeks ago you couldn't even dip your toes in the water. And when I did manage to get you in, you nearly beat me up while you panicked. You jumped in there not knowing that I- well, that anyone was around to help you."

You stayed silent, thinking about it.

"You jumped in because you were brave enough to do it alone. I don't call that fear and I sure as hell don't call that stupidity," he added.

It felt good hearing him say that, because a part of you knew it was true.

"Thank you, for saving me," you said looking at him. "Again."

The corner of his lips lifted slightly at that remark, and all you wanted to do was kiss it.

"No thanks needed, it wasn't even a question. Besides if you had drowned, I would have never gotten to tell you the truth and it would have killed me," Jungkook said.

"About that, Jungkook I-"

"No listen, please. Any other time, I'd let you speak first, I'd let you talk over me, I'd let you do absolutely anything y/n, but right now I have to tell you this before you remember that you hate me again," he rushed.

"I don't hate you," you said sympathetically.

"Well you should, considering what you thought I did. But I didn't do whatever it is you think I did, y/n."

"Okay, tell me. I'm listening."

Jungkook exhaled slowly. "It's true I'm being considered for a promotion. And it's true that it was my idea to help you get over your fear," he explained. "But what isn't true was that I did one to achieve the other. I would never use you, y/n. I would never use anyone like that."

"So why did she say it, Jungkook?" your voice sounding hurt.

He shook his head. "That was her own ridiculous assumption. Miss Jiyoung has no idea what she's talking about and she had no right saying that, especially when she knew you were standing right there."

You sighed. It was true. She said it, not Jungkook.

"I still don't get why you offered to teach me," you said sounding unsure.

Jungkook laughed softly, "Isn't it obvious, y/n?"

You stared at him clueless. "Jungkook, if I knew, I wouldn't be asking-" you said annoyed.

"Because I like you. Because I'm head over heels for you. Because I think I might actually be falling in love with you."

"Wh-Really?" you squeaked out embarrassed.

Jungkook looked almost offended. "Um yes, really. For years now. I wouldn't have kissed you otherwise. I wouldn't have offered to take extra hours out of my day to be with you. Just you, if I may add. And I wouldn't have been in such turmoil knowing how mad you were with me."

You blushed at the mention of the first kiss you had with Jungkook.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry..." you laughed softly. "I just, don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything right now-"

"No, I mean. I like you too, Jungkook. I more than like you, I-"

"You've had a crush on me for years too, I know," he replied smugly, a smirk adorning his face. If only he hadn't looked so hot while he smirked you would have slapped it off his face by now.

"Oh shut up! I just blurted that out because I was mad."

"So it's not true?"

"It's...not untrue."

Jungkook rolled his eyes. "Okay, so it's true?"

"Can we move on?" you groaned, feeling embarrassed.

Jungkook laughed, "Alright." He paused for a moment. "I forgot to mention, I actually gave up the promotion."

"What?" you said quickly.

"Yeah I, well it didn't seem like a good idea anymore. And I would have felt terrible if I took it, so-"

"No! Jungkook, what are you stupid?"

"Hey-"

"You walk into that office right now and you ask for your promotion back."

"y/n, I'm not-"

"That's what I wanted to tell you before your 'I'm not supposed to interrupt you' apology."

"It was a fair request," he mumbled in defense.

"Well what's not fair is giving up everything you've worked so hard for just because of me. I thought about it a lot Jungkook, and you deserve that job with our without coaching me because the truth is you're a fucking fantastic swimmer and an excellent teacher and you've represented this school more times than I have fingers and toes, so if there's going to be anyone for our swim students, it's you, because there is no way in hell they are going to make it without you," you said poking a finger to his chest.

Jungkook looked stunned for a minute. His hand slowly reached up to circle your wrist pointed at his chest and pulled it down.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" you asked confused.

"Because there's nothing to say, only something I need to do."

You smiled. He was right. All he had to do was walk back into that office and get that promotion.

"Then do it."

Jungkook's hand threaded in your hair and pulled your head towards him, capturing your lips and kissing them hard. Your breath got knocked out of your lungs as your hands reached forward to steady yourself against his chest. You responded just as eagerly, feeling his tongue brush against yours. He pulled away, trying to catch his breath as he looked into your eyes. He planted a brief kiss on your nose making you smile, before he leaned back again.

"That wasn't what I meant when I said go do it," you teased.

He shrugged, smirking slightly, "Well, it was for me."

"Wipe that smirk off your face and go get your promotion back!"

"Or what?" he prodded.

"Or this." You leaned forward and kissed that stupid smirk off his face. Finally.

You quickly stood up after, chucking his t-shirt in his face and running to take a shower and get changed.

"You better be all promotion-ed up before I'm done!" you yelled laughing as you ran.

Jungkook grinned, quick to catch up after you. "No running near the pool!"

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

Your report card must be fooling you. Otherwise, you had no words to explain the A minus next to physical education.

"Of course, the one who fucks the PE teacher gets the best grades, why am I even surprised?" Taehyung said sarcastically.

You cringed, "You're just jealous because you couldn't pull the PE teacher, idiot," you said snatching the thing back from him.

"She's right, you couldn't," Jungkook shrugged as he approached your table at the cafe.

You beamed proudly at Taehyung eliciting an eye-roll from your best friend.

"Hi, baby," Jungkook mumbled as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head and pulled his chair out to sit down next to you.

"Hi-" you started but stopped mid sentence when you saw the package in his hand. "What's that?"

Jungkook lifted the neatly wrapped brown package with your name written on in his cute, squiggly handwriting.

"Oh, nothing. Just an early birthday present for someone," he teased.

"W- her birthday's not for another month," Taehyung complained.

"Nothing wrong in being prepared. Maybe you could learn a thing or two," Dahyun muttered the last bit under her breath from next to her boyfriend.

"Okay, I'm sorry, when did this become an 'all hail Jungkook' and 'let's roast the hell out of Taehyung' party? I am actually the cohesion in this group, okay?" he complained.

"Aw, settle down, Tae. You know we love you," you cooed to get on his nerves.

"Yeah babe, don't be upset. You want me to buy you a cookie?" Dahyun reassured stroking his arm.

Jungkook laughed, "Let's give him some credit. Taehyung actually gave me the idea to get you this." He handed the present over to you, chuckling at the excitement in your eyes.

As you carefully opened the gift, afraid to rip through the wrapping paper, you heard Jungkook say, "I'll be away next month for the annual swim meet. I won't be able to see her for her birthday so, I thought I'd try and make up for it however I can."

"Nice try, but you can't buy my best friend over wit-"

"Oh my god, oh my GOD. Are you for real?" you exclaimed laughing.

Dahyung peered excitedly over the opposite side of the table. "What?! Show me, show us!"

Jungkook smiled sheepishly, "It's really nothing fancy."

You pulled out from the pretty pink box - the colour of rose petals to be exact - a framed certificate of your beginner swimming course that you took over the summer with Jungkook's help.

You laughed, unable to wipe the grin off your face as you looked at Jungkook with the utmost adoration.

"I can't believe this. This is so amazing, Jungkook, I never in a million years thought I'd be holding this in my hands," you laughed, warmth filling your chest.

You looked up from the frame to see him smiling down at you.

"I love you," you said softly.

Jungkook looked a little taken aback. He smiled softly, the blush on his cheeks unable to hide his embarrassment from your sudden confession.

"I love you. I'm so proud of you," he whispered before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to your lips.

"Okay, not gonna lie that was kinda cute," Taehyung whispered to his girlfriend.

"It's adorable," Dahyun said fanning the tears out of her eyes.

You giggled and looked at your name printed on the official-looking piece of paper.

"Boy is my mother going to think I spent hours forging this," you whistled.

Jungkook laughed as he draped his arm over your shoulder, "I'll make sure to tell her that it is, in fact, real and very much deserved."

"Wait, y/n, there's something on the back," Dahyun pointed out excitedly.

You frowned and flipped over the frame to see an envelope. You looked up at Jungkook again in curiosity and he only smirked, urging you to open it. You pressed the corners of the envelope open and dumped the contents out into your hand. It was a folded piece of paper. You stretched it out and turned it around to find a printed plane ticket.

"Japan?" you looked at your boyfriend shocked.

He grinned, "For two weeks. I'll be yours all day, every day except on the day of the actual swim meet of course. I love you, but I can't-"

You cut him off with a kiss to his lips. "Shut up. Just shut the hell up and kiss me."

"Gladly," he grinned.

_________________________

A/N: Well that took me forever to write. It's not as long as the first part but I wanted to give it an ending! I hope you guys enjoyed it, and I would love to hear what you think. I'd appreciate your hearts and reblogs. My ask box is still open so, any ideas and suggestions, I am happy to listen to. Love xx

#jungkook #bts scenarios #bts #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook #bangtan #namjoon #Kim namjoon #Kim taehyung #taehyung #jungkook imagine #jungkook x reader #jungkook oneshot #bts x y/n

211 notes · View notes

moobell55 · 8 months

Text

Your Love Made It Well Worth Waiting (For Someone Like You)

A very fluffy fanfic

This part contains no Smut, however a second part with smut will be posted soon

Evangeline never thought she'd been the kind of women to want a quick elopement; as a young girl she'd dreamed of a beautiful wedding full of family and friends.

But Evangeline no longer had a family, and the moment she'd been waiting for her entire life would be better alone.

Her feet shook as she walked the lite path. Flower petals lined the ground, brilliant colors that even stood out against the darkening sky. Her pink and white dress swayed around her feet, gold lacing lining the skirts and her corset.

For the first time since coming to The Magnificat North Evangeline Fox truly felt like she belonged to royalty. A crown of wildflowers rest in her hair, she spent all day making it away from her soon to be husband.

Overhead the moon and stars showed to their fullest, like all the celestials' in the sky were here for her wedding.

The thought brought warmth to her heart, that some greater force led them to each other, finding peace for both of them.

Her feet walked on their down towards the dock, where her true love awaited her. Her heart beat frantically, something in her mind telling her this was too good to be true. After all the suffering that they'd gone through that someone would tear them apart again.

But Hope rang through her soul, and Evangeline could not resist its call.

The Silver ring on her finger felt like a beacon to him, and like a moth to a burning inferno Evangeline followed.

Her pace picked up when she caught sight of the tall man waiting for her at the end of the dock, his gilded hair gleaming under the stars. The look that crossed his Silver eyes set her heart ablaze, she felt like she was burning in the sweetest of fires.

Jacks held out his hand and Evangeline took it as if it was the last thing she'd ever do. She'd die in the next moment if she didn't touch him; she'd cry a million tears to have his lips against hers.

And every part of her existence knew Jacks had done the same without her. Knew of all the blooded tears he cried searching for her, the corpse left in his wake while he lost hope looking for her.

Evangeline had enough hope in her heart for both of them.

Evangeline was the only star in the sky that mattered, the only saint he would pray to, the candle that guided him home, the arrow that always struck true.

She was his as last, and after a thousand years of searching for his one and only true love, Jacks was happy.

Something he'd only been when he knew her, those gray eyes had haunted his soul since his first gaze upon her in his church. He wondered back then if she'd remain a tool, but she hadn't been in a long time.

He could remember the first time he held her, despite his displeasure he cherished the moment. Wanting to hold her again when she'd healed, wanted her lips upon his, wanted her warm body against his fridge one.

He loved the women in front of him more than anything in this world, he defied death and time to keep her safe. He did the impossible, and for her he'd do much more.

Nothing mattered except for her, nothing would ever compare to her.

Jacks would kill for the women in his arms, he'd die and pray to every god to be reborn to find her again. He'd search every corner of the world, every village and every house if it meant having her.

In this life and whatever came the day after he will face his mortality he would be hers.

Perhaps he was hers from the moment he drew his first breath in this world?

In his Soul he knew it was true.

For Jacks of The Hollow, Jacks the Prince of Hearts, and The Archer, had always belonged to his Fox. His heart beat for one purpose, the women who wore his ring.

He smiled a brilliant thing that lite up the night sky and Evangeline's heart.

She spoke, "Shall we Wed now my beloved?"

Her voice shook, but he smiled and guided her to the end of the dock.

Candles set alight on the dock posts, flicking in the darkness.

He'd spent hours preparing this for her, so she could have the closest thing to her dream as she could.

How she loved this man in front of her.

A spool of Red ribbon rested on the dock, next to his silver dagger that she was all to familiar with.

"This is one of the old ways," his voice spoke at last, "my parents married this way, Honora and Wolfric married this way, and if they had more time Lyric and Aurora would've too."

He paused, "This is truly the only way I know how, legend says that it binds two soul together, so that they will always find each other."

Evangeline smiled and cupped his face in warm hands, her smile could've stopped wars and almost stopped his heart.

"I do not need a piece of ribbon to bind your soul to mine, my heart decided a long time ago that we will always be bound."

Jacks smiled kindly and rested his forehead against hers, and she to knew that he never wanted to this moment.

This state of bliss and love that would start the rest of their lives, their happily ever after awaited them on the other side of that ribbon.

How does it begin?

Her words slipped into his mind, not wanting to break the silence.

I'll measure a piece of ribbon, that we'll wrap around are arms, the binding words are spoken from the bride first than the groom.

Her heart fluttered.

And then what my Love?

His smile turned devilish.

He spoke, "We kiss, and then I take my new bride home and consummate our marriage."

Evangeline smiled and crashed her lips against his, the sound of his joyous laughter echoed across the lake.

And after an eternity of waiting, Jacks began cutting the Red ribbon of Fate.

He dropped his knife and it clatter somewhere he didn't care to look, he couldn't take his eyes off his Evangeline.

And carefully with their hands interlocked, Jacks began binding the ribbon around their arms.

Evangeline swore that her soul felt as it was clinging onto Jacks, her life was connected to his in every sense possible.

Messily Jacks tied the knot at the bottom and took a breath.

"The bride will say her vows first ," his tied hands squeezed hers.

"With the Ribbon I bind thee, soul and body to the keeper of my heart and holder of my hand. To Wed and love, for the remainder of my days and for even more after we fade."

As she withdrew a golden ring from her pocket, and carefully slide it onto Jacks long pale fingers.

As she looked up Jacks met her eyes, an eternal happiness burning in his soul not even the lake could put out.

And breathlessly he began his binding.

"With the Ribbon I bind thee, soul and body to the keep of my heart and the holder of my hand. To Wed and love, for the remainder of my days and for even more after we fade."

As Jacks slide the silver ring onto her finger she felt a pull to her heart, a pull that Jacks felt too.

A burning in her heart and soul that her husband felt too.

She didn't have time to dwell on it; as Jacks crashed his lips to her and carefully pulled apart the ribbon.

His lips consumed her, every inch of her belonged to him and she knew the man who was revenging her lips felt the same.

Carefully without her noticing Jacks placed the ribbon into his jacket pocket, he knew she would want to keep it for years to come.

And while still distracted Jacks swept his wife up bridal style and began walking towards their home, his lips not once leaving hers.

And so Evangeline Fox was carried by Jacks of the Hollow into their happily ever after.

#evajacks #stephanie garber #evangeline fox #jacks prince of hearts #tbona #tbona spoilers #the ballad of never after #ouabh #jacks x evangeline #ouabh spoilers #acftl #a curse for true love #once upon a broken heart #evajacks fanfiction #evangeline x jacks

40 notes · View notes

loserlvrss · 11 months

Text

꒰ 𝐋𝐔𝐂𝐊𝐘 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐄 ꒱ 전원우

summary : wonwoo and sarang have been dating for a couple of weeks, but they never in a million years would've thought they'd have fallen this fast

genre : fluff, romance, established relationship, wonwoo x original character tws : very loved up couple (ew) author notes : i wish it was me, huh? word count : 1.9k

"sarang, i want you to meet my friends," the dark-haired woman looked up to the tall man, wrapping her hand around his lower arm, "they're a little much sometimes, but i promise they're nice."

she smiled warmly, "if they're your friends, i'm sure they’re great."

the pair's arm swung in unison, their fingers tied together tightly as they walked the streetlamp-lit pavement. the tall city buildings casted cover from the dew-like drops that cried from the dusk sky, but it wasn't enough to dampen their hair, or slick it down completely.

sarang had gone out on a few dates before, but what she didn't know is that none could even hold a candle to the way this man has made her feel in the short weeks that have felt like an eternity — in a good way. she found herself daydreaming almost consistently about him; the way his eyes would sparkle as he watched her talk and talk, never telling her to shut up or make her feel like her interests were dumb. she felt a bloom in her heart the moment his skin would touch hers, and despite her lack of knowledge on love, she thought she'd like to learn from and with him.

"thank you, wonwoo," sarang squeezed his hand comfortingly, and he swears he felt his heart skip a beat, "tonight was really nice, truly."

wonwoo stopped, pulling the woman back with him. he took the arm that wasn't pressed to his, within his soft grasp, spinning sarang so she was facing him now. his hard exterior shattered when in the radiance of her sunlight — to his moonlight. she stared up at him, a smile adorning her lips. he swears that he would die happily if she was the last sight he'd see. the way she shot hearts at him with every glance, or the dimples that only made her naturally blushed features even more beautiful. he almost wanted cupid to stop shooting arrows straight into his heart whenever she caught his undivided attention, from the way it would race at an unsafe speed.

little did wonwoo know that sarang was almost more infatuated with him. the cold-demeanor his face portrayed, only broken when he'd see something cute catch his eye. the butterflies that swarmed her stomach when his breath fanned her cheek before kissing it. she swears the most beautiful man was the one who giggled, and wore glasses, and played stupid-little computer games on his free time — and, was all hers. she could thank a million lucky stars, but even that wouldn't be enough to show gratitude for the alignment.

the world would stop spinning, if only for the few seconds they'd synch pitter-patters. their eyes locked, and a blush crept into sarang's view. she bit back a teasing smile, but admired the shade she had caused without even so much as a word.

his voice lowered, "i'll call a taxi."

she nodded, on the edge of unnoticeably, caught up in the glasshouse of his glow, that even the nine o'clock darkness couldn't harbor.

the rain had only picked up a little by the time the car lights would pass by, wonwoo sticking his hand out to hail them to a stop. he opened the door, motioning for sarang to take the lead. she did, and he followed suit by taking the seat next to her in the back.

he brushed the droplets from her cheeks, and subconsciously sarang leaned into the feeling. the soft touch making her feel like she's never been homesick before. so much so, she'd found herself longing for it after he'd retracted.

sarang thought that she must've been bewitched within the moment she fixed her actions on him. she thought that someone must've casted a spell to have her seeing nothing but valentine's day, every day.

she reached for his hand, and to her dismay he didn't show any signs of a stutter in the way he was telling the taxi driver her address. he reacted only by placing his other atop her own, encasing her chilled fingertips, which wonwoo had only noticed.

his thoughtfulness always threw her for a loop. sure, he knew her well enough by now but still, she thought it was only human to have hesitations — though she had none of her own. yes, she'd been hurt before, but he made her forget she's ever had any other boyfriend.

"when will you meet them?" wonwoo asked excitedly as the car jolted forward. he looked past her and out the window, the blurry water-colored painting the droplets mixed with the orange hue of the streetlights created against the passing buildings. the backlighting made her seem almost like an angel sent from heaven. god, he didn't know why no shakespearian-like metaphor could do her justice in his eyes.

she hummed aloud, the sound just like music to his ears, "when will you all be together next?"

"they've been dying to see you so, i'm sure if i told them when, they'd all dramatically drop their schedules for you." he laughed, "they love you more than i do."

sarang's heart practically dropped into the pit of her stomach and jitters took over her body. however, wonwoo's hand instilled a calm feeling; one she was convinced only he could. she bit her lip, the smile still creeping through at the revelation.

and, maybe because it came so naturally to him, he hadn't noticed the profession he let slip.

"high standards." she voiced, "i guess i can't disappoint now."

the taxi had come to a halt, "you'd never disappoint them, sarang."

the man handed the driver a couple of bills, and the pair thanked him. he glanced to sarang before pulling the doorhandle and getting out, where then he held his hand out in assistance. she gladly accepted, not knowing how to be from him for very long anymore, and got from the backseat of the yellow-wrapped car.

wonwoo covered her face from the rain with his other hand, which still wasn't hard enough to melt her makeup off, but the action made her heart flutter more than it already was.

"that's very nice of you, thank you." she said, though it could go for a lot of things the man has said and done throughout the night. "and, thank you for bringing me home, i really do wish this night didn't have to end."

wonwoo shied slightly at the compliment, shutting the door to the taxi and bowing as it rode off into the night.

sarang looked to the dark-wood door of her small, two story house. she ached for the night to replay, for her to not reminisce as she awaited his call saying he'd gotten home safely, but for it to actually happen exactly the same way again.

reluctantly, she reached into the purse on her shoulder, and watched as the hanging swing swayed on her porch, and the potted plants danced with the breeze. her hand shuffled through the small items of her bag, searching for something she'd soon come to find wasn't in there.

her eyebrows furrowed, earning the man's attention as he bounced with anticipation, already hating the goodbyes that were going to be exchanged any second now.

"what's wrong?" he asked, shortening the distance between them, as if his height could protect her, like he found himself wanting to do nowadays.

even if anyone else would've been upset over the unfortunate event, she looked on the bright side of the situation: it only meant that she'd get to spend more time with the man who loves her.

she laughed out, "i can't find my keys."

he huffed, throwing his head back in disbelief. he never believed in fate, but this must've been it, he thought to himself.

"are you serious?"

sarang held her bag open, inviting him to look and see for himself, "i must've left them at the restaurant."

"they're closed now, sarang." he stated, concern dripping from his voice. on the contrary sarang just let out another laugh. she let her bag bounce against her side and ran her hands soothingly up his clothed-arms. "what are you going to do?"

she then pulled the phone from the backside of her jeans, pushing past the front of the black coat she'd, up until now, shielded herself from the wind and rain with, "i'll text my brother, he has the spare from when he came and watered my plants that week i was away. he'll be here soon, don't worry too much." she went up his bicep and brought it to rest against his cheek, rubbing her thumb along his skin, "tomorrow i'll go back to the restaurant and get them."

"don't tell me to go home right now, i'll wait for him to get here and make sure you're okay." she didn't argue, knowing that it was what he truly desired doing with the remainder of his night. and honestly, spending more time with him sounded like the best possible outcome anyways, “tomorrow, i’ll also go to the restaurant with you.” she smiled in a competent defeat.

they made their way under the security of her porch, taking a seat on the swing. the scene made sarang remember the times she'd envisioned sitting this exact way with her lover — she couldn't help seeing their future play through her head like he was just a school-girl crush — growing old and watching their grandchildren play on the front lawn.

he looked in her direction, taking in their surroundings, the peaceful pattern of the drips, the way the color-pallet made it seem like they were in a foreign city, like paris, shooting a romance movie.

since coming out of the rain, sarang had noticed the residual dew on her boyfriend's glasses. she carefully reached out, removing them and using the sleeves of her jacket to make his vision clear.

her voice was smooth, harmonizing with the trickles and gentle beeping of the surrounding city-life, "you know… i love you too, wonwoo." she stated, meticulously cleaning the lenses. he gasped inaudibly, too stunned under the words echoing and weaving his brain to take his eyes off her.

she continued nonetheless, “you said it while we were in the taxi." he followed her movements as she put the glasses back on his face.

their pupils dilated again within each others presence, and her palms stilled on his cheeks.

wonwoo opened his mouth with intent, "i mean it." sincerity barged into her thoughts, and she knew he wasn't lying.

he could feel the glasshouse shattering with the hammering puppy-love feelings. "sarang?" his voice was barely over a whisper, "can i kiss you?"

she smiled, heart thumping against their cage, “yes, you can.”

the distance between them inched closed, until the tender touch of their lips was the only thing to focus on. the surrounding noise faded away. all that mattered was that they were with each other, in this innocent moment that promised every season from now until the foreseeable future.

the pair finally understood the love songs, the romance movies, the books that glorified the feeling of love; it was divine, ethereal, enchanting, any adjective that meant beyond-belief.

they pulled apart, breathing against each others lips for a moment before a mutual smile broke out.

"do that again sometime." sarang whispered.

the sound of a clearing throat cut wonwoo off before he had a chance to reaffirm that he would, indeed, do it again.

sarang and wonwoo, cheeks essentially pressed together, turned to see her older brother, who was dangling the spare keys in the air. his eyebrows rose and sarang started laughing for the nth time this hour.

"alright lovebirds, paws off. i'm here to save the day."

reblogs, likes and comments are greatly appreciated! thank u!

54 notes · View notes

regenderate-fic · 7 months

Text

On Stars and Second Chances

Fandom: Doctor Who Ships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler Rating: Teen Word Count: 8,311 Other Tags: Fix-It, Journey's End, Reunions, Rose Stays, No Tentoo, Dimension Cannon Audios, Hurt/Comfort, Injury

Read on AO3

It was done. The Earth had been saved, everyone had been returned home, and now the Doctor could finally step away from the console and let his focus go to what had been pulling at it for the last six hours: Rose.

She was back. Not only was she back, but she was here, in his TARDIS, chewing anxiously at her bottom lip, bright eyes flitting from the console to his face and back to the console again. And when she noticed him looking, she looked back, searching him the same way he was searching her. She'd found a new eyeshadow, he noted. And her hair was just a little longer than it had been when he'd seen her last. And—

Did she know how beautiful she was? He'd often wondered. Almost gotten up the courage to ask her, once or twice.

“Doctor?”

The Doctor blinked. He'd been staring, hadn't he? Probably without blinking—he was always doing things like that. He couldn't help it. He'd thought he was never going to see her again. And he'd so desperately wanted to see her again.

“Rose,” he whispered.

There was no telling who moved first. All the Doctor knew was that one second, he was standing there, staring, and the next, Rose was pressed against his chest, squeezing the life out of him, and he was surely doing the same to her. It was just that she felt so real, so warm, and he'd been so cold for so long now.

“I missed you,” he whispered, and the admission simultaneously was too much and far, far too little.

“Yeah?” Rose moved back a little, just enough so that she and the Doctor could look at each other. He swallowed, then nodded.

“Yeah.”

The beginnings of a smile appeared at the edges of Rose’s lips. “I missed you too.”

The Doctor felt his own smile growing. He had missed her, more than anything, and what was worse, he'd forgotten all her little expressions, the way she looked when she was confident or nervous or excited or dejected. But having forgotten meant he had so much to rediscover—like the way even the barest beginnings of a smile on her face made him feel warm all over. It was brilliant. He'd never need a puffy coat again, not if Rose was with him. Not when her mere smile would keep him warm. Was that a cheesy thought? Never mind that. He was rambling, even if only in his head, and it was distracting him from the important thing. Which was Rose. Here. With him.

He felt caught in her gaze—he couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop smiling, and none of this was new, not really, but now it was mingled with the relief of seeing her again and the jubilance of universes saved and the pervasive, flat sadness of having dropped off all the people he cared about so they could go about their human lives (and the guilt, on top of that, that he was taking Rose away from her human life, permanently this time, after saying goodbye to her mum on Bad Wolf Bay). He didn’t know how to break away, didn’t know how to move on from this moment—did he even want to move on from this moment?

“You’re sure you still want to stay with me?” he asked.

“You’re sure you still—” She faltered. “You’re sure you still want me?”

“Yes,” the Doctor breathed. “Always. Yes, I want you here.” He wasn’t going to think about the human lifespan, wasn’t going to imagine the patterns wrinkles would eventually etch onto Rose’s skin. The universe (universes) had already given him far, far more than he had ever dreamed of.

“Well, then, you’re not getting rid of me. Not in a million years.” Rose’s smile grew, her tongue poking out from between her teeth.

Back before he’d lost Rose, the Doctor had frequently found himself holding back. Holding back information, but also holding back affection, holding back touch. And, specifically, he must’ve spent a good eighty-five percent of his energy stopping himself from throwing caution to the wind and just kissing her—especially when he was sure she was doing the exact same thing. He had thought, at the time, that it would keep him from becoming too attached. He had thought, at the time, that it would make it easier if (when) he lost her.

He had been horribly, woefully wrong.

And now, as he stood with her once more in his arms (exactly where she belonged), it dawned on him that he’d been given an improbable, impossible second chance, and he would, in fact, be wasting it if he went back to his old ways. Determined, now, not to waste it, he pulled her just a little bit closer, leaned his head forward so their foreheads were pressed together. She gasped, and the Doctor hesitated: there was no point if she wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was. But then her hand made its way up from his hip to the back of his neck, and he felt her breath warm against his mouth, and when their lips finally met, it was impossible to tell which of them had taken that final leap and finally, finally closed the infinitesimal gap between them.

He wished he’d let this happen years ago.

It was, in a word, sublime. Rose’s lips were warm and soft, and her hand had inched up into his hair, and his hands were splayed across her back, and even through her jacket he could feel how warm and strong and alive she was. Now that he was kissing her, he wasn’t sure he was ever going to be able to stop kissing her, which was probably bad news for all of time and space, but he was finding it hard to think about all that. Especially when Rose scraped her teeth against his bottom lip and he found himself, on instinct, letting his mouth open. She tasted sweet—how did she manage to taste sweet, after the day they’d had? Was she hiding breath mints or something in that jacket of hers?

The Doctor would have pursued that train of thought a little further, but then the hand on his waist edged upwards, slipping under his suit jacket, and he had altogether more on his mind. He let his own hands slide down Rose’s back, fingers tangling in her belt loops, pulling her flush against him (as if she hadn’t been close enough already) (but, if you asked him, she hadn’t been). He moved from her hips up to her waist, intent on touching every bit of her while he had the chance, even though he was hoping to have many, many more chances. He let his hands brush along her sides, from her waist to her ribs—

Rose gasped. This was a sharp gasp, coupled with a break in the kiss, and so the Doctor was fairly sure this one was not a good sign. He stilled, and Rose drew away.

“All right?” he asked, trying not to sound too out of breath.

“Yeah.” Rose did sound out of breath. “Yeah, I’m—never better.” She did sound like she meant it, but the Doctor caught another wince as he moved his hands down, away from her ribs to her waist. He frowned.

“Rose, are you hurt?”

“No, it’s—” Rose shook her head. “I sort of got slammed into a wall last week. Still healing.”

“Rose, you should’ve said.”

Rose raised her eyebrows. “What, when we were saving the world, or d’you mean when you were snogging me within an inch of my life?”

The Doctor floundered. “Maybe… in between?”

“Oh, so when we were saying goodbye to all your friends? Or how about when I was crying on the beach about never seeing my mum again?” Rose shrugged. “Honestly, Doctor, I just didn’t think of it. So much has happened in the last week, I sort of forgot.”

“At least tell me you had someone look at it.”

“Sure, one of the Torchwood doctors.”

The Doctor scoffed.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Doctor, I’m fine.”

“Can I—” The Doctor gestured at her torso. “Can I take a look at it?”

“What, are you trying to get my shirt off?” She was clearly trying to distract him, and worse, it was working, if only because he continued to be completely mesmerized by her smile.

“No—” And then he thought about it. “Well, technically, yes, but only to see how badly you’re hurt.”

“It’s not that bad!”

“Even if it isn’t!” the Doctor insisted. “Rose, this ship has the best medical technology humanity has to offer. From any time, any place. We’ve got herbs from ancient Rome and radiography from the 45th century. Whatever the Torchwood doctors did, I promise the TARDIS can do better.”

“Oh, all right.” Rose’s hand slipped into the Doctor’s. “Do your worst.”

A few minutes later, Rose was sitting at the edge of the bed in the medical bay. The Doctor gathered a few supplies—painkillers and bandages, mostly—and pulled a stool up next to her.

“Right,” he said. “May I?” He gestured to Rose’s jacket. She flinched away from him, and he jerked his hands back.

“Sorry,” Rose muttered. “Old habits.” She nodded. “Go ahead.”

Slowly, carefully, the Doctor moved his hands towards the zipper of Rose’s blue leather jacket. She sat still, stiff, as he unzipped it.

“This is a nice jacket,” the Doctor noted. The leather was soft, yet sturdy, and of course he was partial to a nice blue.

“Got it before my first jump,” Rose said. “Needed something practical.”

“So you've been wearing it—”

“Two years?” Rose guessed. “Hard to tell. Time isn’t exactly consistent, when you’re jumping between universes.”

The Doctor hummed acknowledgment as he pulled the jacket off Rose’s shoulders and down her arms. Underneath, Rose was wearing a plain pink T-shirt. The Doctor noticed some unfamiliar scarring on her arm, but whatever had caused that had caused it a while ago: the wound had healed into a criss-cross of pale, thin lines.

Rose had caught him looking. “Got scratched up trying to get out of a crashed car. Wasn’t as bad as it looks.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” The Doctor nodded to her torso. “Can I take a look at your ribs?”

“It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “That’s not a yes.”

“Fine.” Rose tapped at his calf with her foot. “Go ahead.”

“Right.” He touched the hem of her shirt on her left. “Where are you hurt? Here?”

Rose nodded.

The Doctor began to pull up her shirt, doing everything he could to ignore the feeling of his fingers grazing her soft skin. Yes, he’d thought for a long time, years even, how Rose’s skin might feel against the backs of his fingers, but his fantasies had been predicated on entirely different circumstances. Rose deserved better than to think he was getting anything out of this: she was hurt, and she deserved someone who would help her with no strings attached.

He stopped at the first sign of injury, a bloom of red and blue surrounded by the yellowish tinge of a mostly-healed bruise. It covered her entire side, disappearing beneath the rest of her shirt, and a wave of horror hit the Doctor as he realized how extensive the injury must have been to still look like this a week later.

He glanced up at Rose. She was watching him with a detached sort of curiosity.

“All right?” he asked.

She nodded.

He kept going. The bruising deepened as he got further up her side, hitting its darkest red just below the band of her bra. He was sort of surprised she was managing to wear a bra, considering how much pain she was surely in, but then again, what did he know?

“Rose,” he breathed. “You’ve been going around like this for a week?”

“It’s not that bad,” Rose insisted.

“That might work on your mum,” the Doctor said, “but it’s not going to work on me.”

Rose sighed. “Doesn’t really work on my mum, either.”

“Rose, this is some serious bruising.” His eyes widened in horror. “I hugged you! Rose, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I—” Rose looked away. “I don’t know. Didn’t want to ruin the moment, I suppose.”

The Doctor scoffed. “Are you telling me excruciating rib pain didn’t ruin the moment?”

“I told you! It’s not that bad!”

“I told you! I don’t believe you!”

Rose looked back at him, then down at her bruises. “I don’t know. Didn’t seem to matter, just then.” She raised her gaze until her eyes met his. “Was sort of distracted.”

He suppressed his smile. This was serious business, no matter how happy Rose’s voice made him. “Still,” he said. “As your doctor, I’m prescribing rest.” He peered at the bruises. “And maybe an X-ray.”

“I already had an X-ray,” Rose said. “Nothing’s broken, promise.”

The Doctor sniffed. “I don’t trust those Torchwood doctors.”

“Fine, then. Suppose you’d better do what you like.” Rose raised her eyebrows. “Considering you’re my doctor.”

Heat filled the Doctor’s cheeks at that. He sort of hoped Rose wouldn’t notice, but then again, who was he kidding? Of course she would. Indeed, she already had, if the smirk on her face was anything to go by. Maybe he could cover it up with a babble.

“X-ray!” he exclaimed, jumping up to pull a machine down from the ceiling. It descended on a hinged metal arm as he spoke. “D’you know, X-rays have been around since the 18th century?” He tilted his head. “Well, longer than that, if you count all the other species who discovered them first. But still.” He tapped the machine. “This is state-of-the-art. Takes a picture in a millisecond, loads of safeguards, gorgeous detail, doesn’t get better than this.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a bit geeky?” Rose asked.

“Nope,” the Doctor said. “You’d be the first.” He positioned the machine over Rose’s ribs. “All right, smile for the camera.”

“How’s that supposed to help?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Morale boost?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “D’you need me to lie down or anything?”

“Nope, should be good.” The Doctor grinned from behind the machine. “Very advanced technology.” He hit a button, and the picture began to print. “Brilliant.”

“What, you don’t need to leave the room?”

“Nah. Time Lord. Biological superiority.” She scoffed, which he cheerfully ignored as he plucked the picture from the machine and waved it like it was a Polaroid—technically completely unnecessary, considering the image was already crisp and clear, but half the fun was in the showmanship. “All right, let’s take a look.”

He hopped onto the bed next to Rose, picture in hand. She leaned in to look as he traced the image with his finger.

“Oh, all right,” he said, with a dramatic sigh for good measure. “Those Torchwood doctors were good for something after all.”

“No breaks?” Rose asked.

“No breaks. Which means—” the Doctor jumped up— “We’ve just got to get you something to accellerate healing, maybe some painkillers—” he grabbed a couple bottles— “And lots and lots of rest.” He whirled around to face Rose. “Sound good?”

“Yeah, all right.” Rose nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“So now,” the Doctor said, “as your doctor, I have to ask—when’s the last time you slept?”

“Oh, God.” Rose buried her face in her hands. “Don’t even ask.”

“Understood.” The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “How about food? You hungry?”

“Oh, God, starving,” Rose breathed.

“How about chips?” the Doctor asked.

A slow smile emerged on Rose’s face. “I could go for chips.”

“Brilliant. Chips it is.” The Doctor held out his hand. Rose took it without a moment’s hesitation, and he pulled her to her feet. Her shoulder bumped against his arm, and something about that small gesture brought him a peace he hadn’t felt in a long time.

They stepped out the TARDIS door together a few minutes later, just across the street from the chippy. They'd landed in the middle of London, a few days after everything; a few of the shops were still a bit banged up, but for the most part, people had gone back to business as usual.

“Impressive resilience, the human race has,” the Doctor noted.

“Amnesia, more like,” Rose said. She leaned her head against the Doctor’s shoulder. “Nice to see it all still here, though.”

He squeezed her hand. “We did it again.”

“We did, didn't we?” The smile in Rose’s voice was audible. “Sort of can't believe it.”

“Believe it or not, won't make it any less true.” They’d reached the chippy, and the Doctor pulled the door open for Rose. “After you.”

“Still a gentleman, then,” she teased.

The shop was busy, but not so busy they couldn’t slide into a booth in the back. For half a second, it felt like nothing had changed: here were the Doctor and Rose, sitting across from each other, stealing chips from each other’s baskets just like always. But it was different—the Doctor was different, and Rose was different. She carried herself differently, and not just because of her injury. In fact, it seemed like she was carrying herself differently despite her injury: it was hard to quantify, but there was a new fluidity to her movements, a new confidence in her posture. There was something guarded about her, too, now they were out and about. She’d put the jacket back on and zipped it all the way up, and she looked up every time the door opened, even though it was invariably just another family or couple or group of raucous-but-harmless teenagers.

The Doctor tapped his foot against her ankle under the table. She startled.

“All right?” he asked.

“Tired, is all.” Rose plucked a chip out of her basket. “And… it’s a bit weird, not having a universe-ending threat to worry about.”

“Lots of those, where you’ve been?”

Rose took a deep breath—although, the Doctor noticed, she stopped just short of filling her ribcage. “It took me two years to find you,” she said. “The dimension cannon, it didn’t exactly come ready-made with coordinates, or anything. At first, I was just jumping into random universes, looking for my—anything familiar—trying to figure out how close they were to yours.” She stared down at the chip in her hands. “The thing the Daleks did—the reality bomb—it was already hitting. Stars going out.” There was a pause. “So, yeah. Lots of universe-ending threats. We were lucky, today.”

The Doctor reached to cover Rose’s free hand with his own. “Rose, I'm so sorry.”

Rose shook her head. “I'm the one who couldn't stay put.”

“Do you think I didn't try?” the Doctor asked. “Rose, I burned up more than just the one sun looking for a gap. If I’d thought there was any chance—” He cut off. “I probably gave up just before it would've started working.”

“Might've taken longer,” Rose said. “From this side.” She shrugged. “My universe, we were just getting the fallout. This one was at the center. The theory at Torchwood was that all the universes I visited were just getting ripples from whatever was going on here.” She smiled. “‘Course, we were only assuming it was here. Would've been really unfortunate if I’d finally found you and the problem was somewhere else.”

“Nah, we would've figured it out.” The Doctor tapped his foot against hers. “Your dimension cannon with my TARDIS? Unstoppable.”

“The cannon’s hardly as good as a TARDIS. Can't even travel in time.”

“Nah, I’d guess it's loads better for interdimensional travel. TARDIS isn't really made for that.” He winked. “Even if I make it look easy.”

Rose scoffed. “As if you make anything look easy in that contraption of yours.”

“Oi! I said earlier! It's meant to have six pilots!” The Doctor leaned back and crossed his arms. “You'll have to admit, I'm doing pretty well for trying to do a six-person job on my own.”

Rose grinned. “Oh, all right. Maybe you're not such a bad driver.”

“Thank you.” The Doctor plucked a chip from his basket and took an emphatic bite. He swallowed, then added, “I’d like to look at that cannon, by the way. For curiosity’s sake, and all that.”

“The main bit’s still in the other universe,” Rose said. “I just have the travel disc, and it won't do anything now the walls are up again. But you can look at it if you like.” She pulled the little silver-and-yellow button out of her pocket and held it up for a moment. Her eyes stayed on it as she held it out to the Doctor. The Doctor accepted it, his fingers brushing against hers for a second, then another, before he pulled away.

“It's impressive work,” he said, turning it over in his hands. It was a simple device, a yellow disc set into a silver frame, but of course he knew how much work had to have gone into it. “I imagine Torchwood had the technology?”

Rose nodded. “We adjusted it a little. I mean, at first we were trying to make it work with the universes closed off—but we were also trying to make it punch a smaller hole. Didn't want to cause any problems or anything.” She paused. “The navigation system is all new, too. The original design was sort of hitching a ride from the Cybermen. Only went from that universe to this one. We spent months trying to figure out how to navigate between universes.”

“How'd you manage it?” the Doctor asked.

“There’s always someone back at Torchwood controlling the thing.” Rose pulled something out of her pocket and dropped it on the table—it was her old phone, the Doctor realized, the one he'd done his “jiggery pokery” on way back when he and Rose had only just met. “Rigged this thing up to work as a communicator. So they can—could—keep in touch with me. The cannon records all the different patterns of whatever universe I’m in—timelines, geography, background radiation—and we compare it to all the other data from all the other universes. And then we can pick which patterns to look for in the next go round.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket. “It all gets pretty boring, after a while.”

The Doctor stared at her.

“What?”

“Nothing, just—” He shook his head. “Do you know how completely impossible this is? You not only managed to cross between universes—”

“That bit wasn’t me—”

“—you also figured out how to navigate between them, and how to find this specific universe—”

“Had loads of people working on that—”

“—and then you spent years traveling between universes until you found the one you were looking for.”

“Had company for that too.”

“Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said, “don't you dare tell me you didn't do anything special. You were absolutely brilliant, and you won't convince me otherwise.”

Rose looked down at the table. A small smile was slowly emerging on her face, despite her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. She looked up through her eyelashes at the Doctor. “All right, then. Call me brilliant, if you like.”

The Doctor held her gaze. “You, Rose Tyler, are brilliant.”

Rose’s smile grew.

The Doctor scanned the table. He'd only picked at his chips, but Rose had practically inhaled hers—he'd count that a success.

“What do you say we get out of here?” He tapped Rose’s foot with his own again. “Get some sleep?”

On cue, Rose yawned. “Yeah. Sleep might be nice.”

The Doctor stood. He stacked both their baskets in one hand and held out his other to Rose. Her hand was in his immediately, and he pulled her to her feet. Together, they moved to return the baskets, then stepped back out onto the street. The cool evening air brushed against the Doctor’s face, and he found himself smiling down at Rose, who was, in turn, smiling up at him. He almost got lost in it again, but then he remembered they did, technically, need to get back to the TARDIS, and if they were looking at each other no one was going to be making sure they were going in the right direction and not about to trip on anything. So he forced himself to look away so they could have at least some hope of crossing the street safely.

Really, though, it was probably the least danger they'd been in all day.

And thankfully, that held true: in the thirty seconds it took them to cross the street, they weren’t hit by any cars, no wayward bicyclists; not even a stray alien crisis crossed their paths. The Doctor pushed open the TARDIS door and held it there, saying, “After you,” with a dramatic flourish of his free hand.

Rose rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling, and—at the risk of sounding cheesy—he sort of felt like anything was worth it if he got to see her smile.

There was something special, about that step across the threshold, from a public street to the privacy of the console room. Everything felt quiet now, maybe even too quiet, despite the thrum of the TARDIS all around them. The Doctor looked at Rose, and Rose looked back, neither one speaking.

Finally, Rose broke the silence.

“Doctor,” she said, her voice soft. “I—” She broke off.

The Doctor tilted his head to the side. “What?”

Rose shook her head. “I don't even know. Think I just need a nap.”

“I’d wager you need a lot more than just a nap,” the Doctor said. “I won't hold it against you if the actual event could be better described as a hibernation.”

“Well, that's a relief.” Rose giggled. “Imagine, I come all this way only for you to drop me the first chance you get ‘cause I said I was going for a nap and didn’t get up for hours!”

“Nah,” the Doctor said. “I wouldn't drop you. Might get out the foghorn, mind, but—”

“Don't you dare.”

“Oh, all right.” The Doctor smiled. “No foghorn.” He hesitated. “Actually, speaking of, your bedroom should still be there. Just how you left it.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “I shudder to think.”

“Oh, I mean—” The Doctor looked past her, his eyes focusing on one of the coral pillars holding up the ceiling. “I might've… cleaned up a bit. Just in case. But the room is still there. Still yours.”

“Thanks.” Rose stepped away as if she was going to go, but then she stopped, teetering for a long moment. “I—” She swallowed. “I don't know if I want to be alone.”

The Doctor found himself stammering. Not that he didn't want to help—but he didn't want to overstep, didn't want to overwhelm. “Oh, I mean—I could—you—” He forced himself to stop and take a breath. “I could come with you. If you like.”

“Is that—all right?”

The Doctor almost laughed. “Rose. After everything—I count myself lucky if you don't want to leave my sight.”

“Oh.” She took the step back towards him. Timidly, she held out her hand, and he took it. He expected her to lead him to the corridor, but instead she stood there for another moment, searching his face. He was about to open his mouth to say something—he wasn't sure what—but then she raised herself on tiptoe and pressed her lips against his.

This kiss was different from the one they'd shared earlier: slower, more deliberate. It took the Doctor a moment to process, and by the time he remembered to kiss back, Rose was already pulling away, and he wound up chasing after her for a moment. It was strange, suddenly living in a world where Rose Tyler was not only there with him but also kissing him—but it was the best sort of strange. Like the apple grass on New Earth: a lovely meadow, and then an unexpected apple-flavored snack.

“Right,” Rose said. She was still holding the Doctor’s hand, and now she swung it, back and forth between them. “Sleep.”

The Doctor gestured with his free hand. “Lead the way.”

Rose’s room wasn't too deep into the TARDIS—down a corridor and to the right. She’d always liked being right by the kitchen, convenient for a midnight snack or quick breakfast, and she never would've put up with a longer walk to the console room. When she'd been gone, the TARDIS had tucked her room deeper in its recesses, but the Doctor had no doubt it would be back in its place now.

And he was right: Rose found the room easily. The door slid open for her, and she stepped across the threshold, the Doctor in tow.

She stopped short just inside. The Doctor watched as she took in the room: it was exactly the same as the one she'd left, with the pink bedspread, vanity covered in makeup, pictures of her mum and her friends and the Doctor plastered everywhere. Something about it was incongruous with Rose now—the Rose who stood next to him was older, a little neater, more guarded.

There were tears running down Rose’s face. Without a second thought, the Doctor tugged at her hand until she collapsed into his arms, her quiet tears escalating into full-blown sobs as he held her. If he hadn't had such a strong time sense, he might've said he didn't know how long he held her, how long she cried, but in actuality he was well aware that it had been six minutes and forty-three seconds when Rose pulled back, tear tracks etched onto her cheeks, and said, “It's only just started to feel real.”

“Which part?” the Doctor asked.

“I don't know. All of it?” Rose rested her head against his chest. “I wanted to be back here for so long. I think I sort of got so used to looking, I didn't really think I’d ever be able to stop.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “But I did it, didn't I? I can stop now.”

“Oh, Rose.” The Doctor traced gentle circles on her back, careful to steer extremely clear of her injured ribs. “You've been so brilliant.” He rested his cheek against her hair. “And it's time you had a rest.”

Rose sighed as she stepped away. “Might go for a shower first. I feel a bit greasy.”

“Bathroom’s all set,” the Doctor said.

“You'll still be here when I'm out?” Rose checked.

“Might go wash up myself, actually,” the Doctor said. “But I'll come right back here after, promise.”

“You'd better.” Rose stepped forward to wrap her arms around his waist one more time. When she stepped away again, it was in the direction of her vanity. “The real question is, where did I used to keep my makeup wipes?”

“Now, that I can’t help you with.”

“They’ll be around here somewhere. Probably long past expired—”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not on the TARDIS. The rooms you’re not using tend to get a bit frozen, timewise.”

Rose smiled. “Never mind, then.” She reached up to take off one earring, then the other, hanging both on her old jewelry holder, the one she’d brought from her flat after losing one too many earrings to the recesses of her makeup drawer. The Doctor had watched her take off her earrings in that same mirror countless times, usually waiting impatiently for her to be done so they could go play a game or watch a show together. She still shook her head in the exact same way to get her hair to settle back over her ears—still pressed her lips together while she searched for something in the drawers—still flashed him a grin as she held up her prize.

“Found ‘em. See you in a few.”

The Doctor grinned back. Rose disappeared into the bathroom, and he stepped back out into the corridor. His own room—with the associated washing-up facilities—tended to move around, but he had a hunch he wouldn’t have to look too hard to find it. Indeed, it was only a couple doors past Rose’s.

He didn’t take long. Just long enough to scrub himself, and a few extra minutes to be sure he’d gotten all the dust out of his hair—fighting Daleks was dirty work, it turned out. He pulled on a random pair of flannel pajama bottoms (which regeneration had bought them? He didn’t remember. They weren’t quite his style) and a navy blue T-shirt and stepped back into the corridor.

Rose’s room was still empty when he returned, although he could hear the shower running through the bathroom door. He sat down on the bed to wait. He had to keep reminding himself that it was really her, that Rose was on the other side of that door. He’d spent more time than he liked to admit in this room on his own, organizing her clothes and her magazines and her souvenirs as if that would do anything to bring her back. But she had come back on her own, a reminder of his complete failure, but also a reminder that she was so incredibly determined, so persistent, so completely herself. She had never needed him; he was just lucky she kept coming back anyway.

The water turned off, and the Doctor shifted towards the bathroom door. It was a couple more minutes before the door opened and a slightly damp Rose stepped out. Her makeup was gone, and her hair had gone a little wavy from the water. She was wearing a plain white vest top over lavender shorts—her ordinary sleepwear. A shy smile appeared on her face when she saw him.

“Those are new,” she said, nodding to his trousers.

He glanced down at his flannel-clad legs. “Old, more like. Don't even remember which regeneration they were for. I'm lucky they fit.”

“So you're telling me those trousers could be hundreds of years old?”

“Suppose they could, yeah.” He tapped the empty space next to him on the bed. “C'mon, sit.”

Rose lowered herself onto the bed next to him. Hastily, he stacked a couple pillows behind her so she could lean back against the headboard without hurting herself—she wavered, looking speculatively at him, until he tugged at her arm in a bid for her to come closer. She moved to sit against the pillows, and when he extended his arm to wrap around her shoulders, she practically fell into his side. Deep in his soul, something small seemed to click into place, something he hadn't even quite realized was out of place. There was just such a comfort in having Rose’s body nestled next to his. Her hair was putting a damp spot in his shirt, and he didn't even mind. He looked down at her and couldn’t help but smile.

“How’s your side?” he asked.

“Still fine.” Her eye roll was audible, but then, so was her smile.

“Oi, it's not unreasonable to be worried,” the Doctor said. “A bruised rib can be serious!”

“But mine isn't,” Rose insisted. She looked up at him. “You checked it out, didn't you? And now I'm resting, just like you said.”

“Oh, all right.” The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “But I think I'm allowed to be worried, considering you seem to have spent the last two years being battered by cars and walls from across the multiverse.”

“Oi, you can talk. Blow up any buildings lately?”

“Depends. Would you say a Dalek spaceship counts as a building?”

Rose gave him a look. He sighed.

“Fine, point taken.”

Her responding smile was all but irresistible. And, the Doctor remembered, there was no real reason to resist. He lifted his free hand to trace her cheekbone with his thumb, pushing a bit of hair back and off her face. Her smile softened, and he ducked his head so he could kiss her. She kissed him back, gentler then he'd ever dared hope for.

When she pulled away, it was with a furrowed brow. “How comes you're doing this now?”

The Doctor matched her frown. “Doing what?”

“You know.” Rose waved a hand. “The kissing, and all that.”

“Oh.” The Doctor swallowed, mostly in an attempt to buy himself the time to formulate an answer. Finally, he took a stab at honesty, staring out at the pictures on Rose’s wall as he spoke. “I was so scared of losing you, before. I thought it might hurt less, if we were… less involved.” He looked down at Rose. “But when I did lose you, every single day I regretted not making the most of what we had while we had it. It was cowardly, and I'm sorry.”

“So—” Rose pushed herself further upright, angling herself to look him right in the eyes. “You want to be with me?”

“Rose Tyler.” The Doctor’s mouth was dry. Once he said the next bit, he couldn't ever go back. Although—who was he kidding? He'd hit the point of return a long time ago, with Rose. “Of course I want to be with you. I—” His voice broke.

“What?”

He steeled himself. “I love you.”

Rose held his gaze. “Really?”

The Doctor nodded. “Extremely. Definitively. Very—”

And then she was kissing him. He was startled, at first, by the force of it, by her hand in his hair and her tongue running across his lower lip, but then she'd been waiting years for this, and so had he, and it was long past time they did something about it. It was a bit of an awkward angle—she was still sort of sitting next to him, and he had to twist his torso if he wanted to kiss her properly, and with her injuries she couldn’t quite do the same—but there was nothing that could ruin this moment for him. He kept having to remind himself that it was real, Rose was real, not a hologram this time, she was tangible and here and he could tell because he was kissing her. It was overwhelming in the best possible way.

Rose pulled away. She was breathing heavily, and fear spiked through the Doctor—had he hurt her?

“All right?” he checked.

“Yeah, fine.” She flushed. “Better than fine. Just processing, is all.” Her bottom lip caught itself between her teeth. “Haven't exactly done this in a while.”

“What, dimension travel isn't full of people throwing themselves at you?”

“Not exactly.” Rose grimaced. “And the one time I flirted with somebody, he turned out to be a parallel version of me.”

The Doctor guffawed. “What, really?”

“And he was gay!” She swatted at the still-laughing Doctor. “Oi, it's not funny!”

“You're telling me that, of all the men in all the universes, the one you flirted with was your gay clone?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “He's not a clone.”

“Fine. Your gay doppelgänger?”

“Well, when you put it that way—”

“See? Funny!”

“You know what? You can have this one.” Rose let her cheek rest on the Doctor’s shoulder. “My point is, I haven’t been doing a lot of kissing, these last few years. Got to readjust.”

“Well, I’m happy to help any way I can.”

Rose swatted at him again. He grinned.

“Say, how many different versions of yourself did you meet, anyway? Lots of Rose Tylers running around out there?”

“Not unless you count the cats and dogs,” Rose said. “Only two humans. Rob and Rosie.” She glanced up at the Doctor. “Rob and me snuck into Downing Street together. Rosie ran a cafe, and my mum walked in and Rosie tried to kick her out. And I wound up babysitting.”

“What, like, she had a baby?”

Rose nodded. “And his name was Jimmy. After Jimmy Stone!”

“Jimmy Stone, your ex?” the Doctor asked. Rose had never explained all the details of the whole Jimmy Stone saga to him, but the Doctor got the impression he hadn’t been all that great of a boyfriend.

“That’s the one.” Rose wrinkled her nose. “She seemed all right, though. Was doing well with the cafe. Jimmy, Senior was dead, but she had good friends, nice neighbors. ‘Course, I don’t know how many of them survived.”

“Survived?”

Rose glanced at the Doctor. “Stars going out, remember? In all these universes.” She picked at a loose thread on her shorts. “With Rosie’s, there was this planet, must’ve been flung from a dead solar system, and it was heading right for Earth. Was going to stop it rotating. Barely any warning or anything. And the dimension cannon was malfunctioning, too. I almost didn’t get out in time. And then it didn’t bring me back to Torchwood, it launched me into another universe with a whole other crisis.” She glanced at the Doctor. “Had a parallel half-sibling in that one. Danni. We traveled together for a while.”

A dim sense of horror had settled over the Doctor. Rose had said the stars were going out, but he hadn’t really thought about it, hadn’t considered the physics of it. Stars—the Earth’s sun was a star, and so were all the other suns, and there were loads of stars that didn’t have planets but still pulled on the stars around it in all sorts of ways… he always said he was from the constellation Kasterborous, a constellation of seventeen suns, but he’d somehow never thought about the impact of even one of those suns disappearing. No star lasted forever, of course. And neither did any planet, nor any other piece of space. He and Rose had watched the sun expand swallow the Earth. But stars going out unexpectedly, all at once—that could be disastrous. Was disastrous, from the sound of it.

And Rose had been there. From universe to universe, she had seen the effects. The Doctor had seen all sorts of things, watched plenty of worlds end, seen entire species wiped out—he’d seen timelines unraveled, people’s births and deaths undone; indeed, he’d been the cause of plenty of it himself. But that had all been within this universe. He’d never seen universe after universe on the brink of collapse, never tried to save the same planet more than once. The stars going out… Rose loved the stars. The Doctor reached for her hand and interlaced their fingers, the same way he had earlier in the Dalek ship, the same way he had back in that shop elevator. Even all the way back in that shop, when Rose had been a stranger, when he’d been cold and angry and hurt, their hands had fit together.

“Rose,” he said, his voice low. “I’m sorry.”

Rose frowned. “What for?”

“You’ve gone through so much,” the Doctor said. “All those universes… all those stars. I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“It’s not like I could’ve done anything else.” Rose’s thumb rubbed absently at the back of his hand. “Even if I hadn’t been trying to get back to you. All those lives… someone had to help them. I knew if I could find you, you would.” She paused. “Anyway, it wasn’t all bad. In one of the universes I got to help the people on Earth make contact with an alien species. These aliens were taking all the salt out of the oceans, and no one on Earth could figure out what was going on. But it turned out they were just trying to survive, same as we were.”

The Doctor grinned. He was sure it was an extremely silly grin, but he couldn’t help it. “Have I told you how brilliant you are?”

“Might’ve said something to that effect, yeah.” Rose bumped her shoulder against his. “Anyway, you still haven’t said what you were up to. Made lots of new friends, did you?”

“Not so many,” the Doctor said. “Just the two, really. Martha and Donna. Donna showed up in the console room just after we said goodbye.”

“She—what?”

“She was being dosed with huon particles, turns out,” the Doctor explained. “The TARDIS, it runs on these particles—the details aren’t important. But it’s sort of like a magnet. She had the particles in her, and the TARDIS has the particles, and there she was in the TARDIS.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t exactly good company at the time. Asked if she wanted to come with me, she said no, invited me to dinner, I said yes, I went off and didn’t come back.”

“But you found her again?”

The Doctor nodded. “Much later. She’d been looking for me. Well, you met her, you know some of the story.”

“Not so much,” Rose said. “She didn’t know most of it, in that other universe.”

“Nice job not telling her your name, by the way,” the Doctor added. “Added loads of suspense to that whole conversation.”

“Well, it’s no fun if the answer comes easy, is it?” Rose smirked. “Anyway, you clearly got there in the end.” She nudged him again. “What about Martha?”

“Oh, Martha, she’s brilliant too. Met her in hospital, she was a med student, I was investigating—”

“So, what, you checked in as a patient just to see how people would react to your extra heart?”

Now the Doctor was smirking. “We all need a bit of a thrill now and then, don’t we?”

“Oh, shut up.”

“We had a good few adventures together,” the Doctor said. “She left on her own, in the end. Went through a pretty awful year—and, well.” He wrinkled his nose. “She fancied me.”

Rose laughed. “Oh, and I bet you were awful to her.”

“I wasn’t awful!”

“If you say so.”

“I wasn’t!”

Rose shook her head. “I know better than anyone what it’s like when you show up in that box of yours and ask someone on an adventure.”

“It was completely platonic!” the Doctor protested. “She knew that! I told her that!”

“Loads of people say things are platonic when they’re flirting,” Rose pointed out. “I used to say all the time that we weren’t together. Doesn’t mean I wasn’t head over heels.”

“That was because your mum kept thinking I was some sort of predator,” the Doctor reminded her.

“All right, but still.” Rose gave him a look. “How soon was this after you lost me?”

“Not—not too long.”

“Oh, so you were moping the whole time?”

The Doctor scoffed. “I didn’t mope. I’ve never moped.”

“You do,” Rose said. “Remember when I ate the last one of those little pastries you got from that little bakery in Oktoflan? You moped for a week. Even after we went and got more.”

“They weren’t as good the second time round.”

“You just think that because you’d gotten tired of them.”

“What does any of this have to do with Martha?”

“Oh, come on, Doctor,” Rose said. “You were moping. You met Martha. You asked her to come with you. You give her those sad puppy eyes—I’ve seen ‘em! You show her all of time and space—of course she fancied you! Who wouldn’t?”

The Doctor sputtered. “Donna didn’t!”

Rose placed an affectionate kiss on his cheek. “You’re completely oblivious, you are.”

“Oi, I figured out you fancied me, didn’t I?”

“And how long did that take you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Doctor said. “I was worried it was wishful thinking, at first.” He frowned. “Hang on. How long did you fancy me?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rose parroted. “There was something about you grabbing my hand and telling me you could feel the earth turning?”

“What, that long? Never mind, then, I suppose I must be oblivious.”

Rose grinned. “It’s good to be back,” she said. “Been a while since I had anyone to make a mockery of, too. Unless you count Danni, I suppose, but that was different.”

“Suppose that’s all I’m good for, then. A bit of humor at my expense.”

“Yep, that’s it.” But the way Rose was curling into his side said otherwise. “You’re just here to be funny.”

“You know what? I’ll take it.” The Doctor looked down at her. There was something vulnerable about her, now she was out of her dimension-hopping clothes, now she was no longer trying to project confidence into her every action and word. She was brilliant at it, brilliant at all that talking and running and world-saving, and he loved her all the more for it. But now she’d let her guard down, and there was something gorgeous about it, her tired eyes and soft smile as she peered up at him. Carefully, he kissed her forehead. “Say, weren’t you going to get some sleep now?”

“Oh, who needs sleep?” But even as she said it, Rose yawned massively.

The Doctor laughed. “Come on. .D’you want the light off?”

Rose shook her head. “That’s all right. Not a big fan of darkness, right about now.”

Another mark of her time away, then. “All right, then.” The Doctor lifted the covers over both their legs. He laid on his back, and Rose settled on her good side with her head on his chest, one arm around his waist.

“You’ll still be here?” she asked. “When I wake up?”

“Only if you are,” the Doctor replied.

“Good enough for me.” Rose shifted to lie more securely in his arms. “Night, Doctor.”

“Good night, Rose Tyler.” He let his hand run through her hair, drawing slow patterns on her scalp. It wasn’t long before her breaths evened out, and it wasn’t long after that that he, too, drifted off, perfectly content.

#my fic #fanfiction #doctor who #tenrose #ten x rose #tenth doctor #rose tyler #journey's end #fix-it #rose stays #dimension cannon #hurt/comfort #long #i haven't posted in a million billion years i forgot all my tags

24 notes · View notes

masterwords · 1 year

Note

I don’t know if you already have this domesticity prompt but if not: May I ask about Jack calling Derek dad for the first time even if it’s been a while Hotch and him are living together?

I did not have this one so thank you! I do have one that is in a similar vein and would make a very very sweet follow-up to this little shorty though. We'll see if I can be tough and brave enough to emotionally gut myself (and all of you) with it after this one already got me in all the feelers. Thank you for sending this in, it was a joy to write. Feel free to send asks anytime. I may be slow slow slow sometimes but I'll get there eventually.

Did I post this screencap set today specifically so I could make today all about Derek and Jack? Yeah. I sure did.

Summary: Derek comes to do a presentation for Jack's classroom for career day and Jack springs something pretty big on him in front of everyone.

Warnings: brief mention of death (Derek's father & Haley)

Words: 1.7k

Read below the cut or on AO3!

** got it all **

“Jack, tell us who you brought to class today,” Mrs. Jackson said, standing near the chalkboard with a smile. She scooted close to her desk, a clipboard in one hand, her cane in the other. She was well past retirement age and yet she couldn't quite give it up. Maybe next year, that was always her mantra.

Jack, whose legs were still too short to even reach the floor when he sat all the way back in his chair, kicked his feet excitedly and beamed. “Come on up honey, you can introduce him.”

Doing as instructed, Jack nearly knocked his desk over in pure excitement. Standing in front of his peers, he looked around and bounced a little on the balls of his feet. The adrenaline rush was coursing through his tiny body.

From the doorway, leaning against the wall, Derek stood and watched with a smile. Jack had his classroom's undivided attention, and though he was considerably more emotive than his father, he could see so much of Hotch in the way he stood there. In the way he never expected anyone to look at anything else. In the way he knew that what he had to say was important.

“Jack?”

“I brought the coolest guy in the world,” he started, like he was reading from an invisible script. And it turned out, he was. Hotch had helped him prepare his entire speech in the days before, hushed little whispers, co-conspirators. Derek had no idea what he was going to say and was excited to finally see the fruits of their labor.

He wasn't prepared for what Jack was going to say. Not even a little.

“Seriously. He's an FBI Agent and he used to be a police and he can run about a million miles without even being tired. He's kind of like the Terminator.”

“Who is he?” Mrs. Jackson asked, a little exasperated. This was her fifth presentation that wasn't quite able to get to the point. Derek laughed a little and knew this wasn't exactly what they'd rehearsed but it sounded good anyway.

“His name is Derek and he's my dad!”

Oh...oh no, Derek thought, his heartbeat increasing rapidly. Dangerously close to beating right up through his throat. It wasn't easy to knock him off of his game, except when a six year old calls you dad for the first time. He wondered if that part was prepared, and if it was, how in the hell Hotch managed to keep that under wraps for days. And if he'd pushed Jack or if that was all him. He whipped out his phone quickly and shot a text to Hotch before entering the room as tall as he could with barely contained tears in his eyes.

Dad? That was it, that was the text. Hotch would know.

“Everyone say hello to Jack's father,” she paused, reading from her clipboard. “Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan.”

A hand shot up into the air immediately, a boy right in front. Derek knew it was going to be trouble. “What's up kid?”

“How come you don't have the same last name?”

That wasn't what Derek expected. Not even close, and he breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Maybe we will someday, huh? Anyway, it's really nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me! Does anyone here know what an FBI Agent does?”

A dozen hands shot up into the air and Mrs. Jackson urged Jack to sit back down. Derek felt his phone buzz against his thigh, but somehow the look of pride on Jack's face told him all he needed to know. That whole dad thing had been entirely his idea, the little shit. Blindsiding him like that in front of a crowd. More than once he had to clear the emotion from his throat before he could continue.

“In order to be the best you can be in this job, you gotta stay in great shape. When Jack said I was like the Terminator, he was exaggerating...but I do keep myself in the best shape I can so I don't get hurt or hurt anyone else.”

“And so you can catch the bad guys!”

“Yeah. You want a little taste of what I do with new recruits?”

Mrs. Jackson let him take the class outside to run through a short obstacle course he set up for them to simulate some training exercises he taught at the Academy. The kids had a blast jumping over gymnastics blocks, crawling under nets and running to the finish line.

“I think you win today,” Mrs. Jackson said as she stood beside Derek. “The kids got to meet a puppy, hold a snake and learn how to bake cookies but I don't think anything compares to some good old fashioned play.”

“Gotta get 'em moving. Kids love moving.”

“You know,” she said, looking up at him. “I know that Jack's homelife has been rough the last few years. He's really been through a lot. He and his father.” Derek nodded in agreement, not sure exactly where this was going. He'd already been startled enough today, he wasn't going to try and predict it. “But since you became a big part of their lives, I've seen a change. Jack went from being quiet and withdrawn to the little boy you saw commanding a classroom's attention. He really looks up to you.”

Derek sniffled a little and nodded. “Thanks.”

“No, it's not just an empty compliment young man. When I asked them last week to draw their hero, he drew you.”

Jack had always called Hotch a hero. No one beats daddy. He couldn't count how many times he'd overheard that from Jack's room. It was never even a thought for him, he just knew.

“Me?”

“You.”

He nodded and smiled, wanting to finally take a look at the text. He heard it in Hotch's voice and had to turn away before he actually started crying.

His idea, not mine. Hope that's okay. I couldn't talk him out of it.

Mrs. Jackson smiled and patted him on the arm, recognizing that he needed a moment. She made her way over to wrangle the kids, get them to line up so they could go inside and grab their things before the bell rang. That left Derek, for the moment, entirely alone.

Why would you talk him out of it? Derek sent back, watching the kids walk single file back to the classroom. Jack waved at him and he waved back.

His phone rang and he picked it up on the first ring. His heart was hammering in his chest. “I thought maybe text wasn't appropriate for this conversation,” Hotch started without even so much as a hello. He was at his desk, door closed, and still barely felt comfortable having the conversation. At least he wasn't on his desk phone. “I didn't mean it the way it sounded. The reason I tried to talk him out of it was that I wasn't sure doing it in front of a crowd was going to be the best first time, not that I didn't want him to call you dad.”

“So you're uh...” Derek paused, clearing thick emotion from his throat. “So you're okay with it?”

“Okay?” Hotch asked, confused. He couldn't imagine why Derek would even question it. “Are you really concerned that I wouldn't want him to think of you that way?”

“No, I guess not, I just...after Haley...”

He didn't get an opportunity to finish his sentence before the bell was ringing and kids were flooding the blacktop around him. He would talk to Hotch about it later, about how he'd been concerned about over-stepping, about seeming like he was trying to take Haley's place in some way. His mother never bothered with dating again after his dad died, she said she only wanted one man and Hank Morgan was that man. Her life revolved around her kids after that, and Derek couldn't help feeling like he was intruding on Hotch and Jack's life in that respect. Taking something that didn't belong to him.

Jack bounded up behind him and wrapped himself around Derek's legs, tearing down all of that fear. “Hey buddy! I'm on the phone with your dad right now, you wanna say hi?”

“Hiiii dad! Dad and dad!” he repeated the word a few more times with a silly look on his face and Derek knew he had no interest in the phone. Not now. He was too busy turning the word dad into a jumble of meaningless sounds.

“Jack's dad! Jack's dad!” another boy shouted from the swings and Jack erupted in a fit of giggles over the sound of his name lumped in. His own name became nonsense on his lips.

“I gotta go. Things are devolving rapidly here. Think I'll take the kid out for ice cream, we'll pick you up at six yeah?”

“Better make it seven. I just got a pile of requests dumped on my desk. Go have fun. Dad.”

“ICE CREAM!” Jack shouted excitedly and Hotch made a stifled grunting sound. He'd do just about anything for a waffle cone filled with mint chip or rocky road. Something with lots of frozen crunchy bits that he could take his frustration out on. Anything was better than the salad he'd brought for lunch that was wilted and soggy by the time he had a chance to sit down and eat it.

“You know what? Scratch that. Make it five. I'm putting these on your desk.”

Derek let out a huge laugh and shook his head. He knew he'd been pushing his luck with the ice cream thing, but he got away with it until Jack's excitement. “You're a s-h-i-t-h-e-a-d,” he said, spelling out the bad word for Hotch while Jack stared up at him.

“Ooooooooohhhhhh...I know what THAT spells!” The serious look on Jack's face nearly made Derek lose it entirely.

“What exactly are they teaching you guys here huh? Come on. Let's go get some ice cream. Maybe if the less-fun daddy is nice and only puts half the stack on my desk, we can bring him some too.”

#derek morgan #jack hotchner #aaron hotchner #hotchgan #fanfiction

24 notes · View notes