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shelf-care · 2 months

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Welcome to my new series,

"Steel Crane, Silver Griffin"

This is a Witcher fanfiction that I’ve had in my head for a long time, all the characters in this story are original characters, I have only used the Witcher continent and the Witchers as a setting. Everything else is mine which I’m proud of.

There is no Geralt.

Just so everyone knows and I don’t disappoint you. This is set 1000 years before the witcher books, a 1000 years after the conjunction of the spheres.

I hope yall like it!.

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Mist clouded my view of the mountains from my room. The trees swayed from side to side as if waving to me and saying good morning. The sky said otherwise, angry and rumbling and threatening to let out a downpour of rain that would surely make the sea surly by the afternoon. In my next of blankets I sighed. I hadn’t been back to Kear Seren in a few months, the longest I had been away since I had first arrived. I stretched to feel the cold wood of my bed frame touching the balls of my feet. I wanted nothing more than to stay in here comfortable and warm as the sea breeze turned my skin to goose bumps. The embers in my fireplace had gone out hours ago, smoke and ash the only thing remaining. I turned, my body facing the window fully, and the cliffs below my window broke the waves of the ocean in a rhythmic pace.

A breath escaped my lips once again as I closed my eyes. I was home, and I did not intend on leaving again so quickly. That is if it had been my choice. My horns had wrapped themselves up into my sheets, putting a hole into the new set I had just been given. I ground thinking about what the headmaster would say this time. “Better not to say anything.” The thought escaped my lips. Stretching again as I sat up, I moved the bedspread aside, my feet now hitting the stone which had captured all the cold of the night. Spying my armor from across the room I couldn’t help but give a slight smile. The twin swords I had earned, the armor I had made myself over two years of work, and finally, my books which I had been memorizing since I could talk. I looped a belt over bandolier, Tunic over chainmail and finally boots slipped over my feet which had been covered in woolen socks.

Coming to the end of the winding staircase I could hear my fellow witchers, clambering for breakfast while some had come to stay for merely a night, such was the life we had all been called to. I pinned my hair back behind my horns, hoping it would stay up during breakfast. “Marabella!” A hand waved to me as I stepped forward avoiding the many other warriors in the castle. “Took you long enough. What were you doing anyway?” Burett asked. His faded hair streaked with white and black made him appear older than I, but we were the same age of course. His face was stubbled aside from the mustache he had chosen to grow over the summer season, he laughed, taking in his morning ale. “I dreamed I was walking in the woods, and low and behold the Gods had blessed me with a man. We were making sweet love before I was rudely woken up.” I gripped his tankard of ale, taking it from his loose hold and drank the remaining drops before he could. His jaw hung low before he laughed. “Marabella, the sweet, Marabella the soft. Marabella, the world would be too cruel to you.” He laughed as I sat down, tankard slammed down in jest. “It definitely was to you when you grew that horrid mustache.” I winked and gave a full hearted laugh, everyone else at the table joined in the jests as well and breakfast went over as well as one could in the keep.

The master of our order; Master Aber of the gray hills came to the front of the hall, calling our attention just with the way he walked. His built body seemed that of a twenty year old youth, but his wrinkles and grey hair had said otherwise. He stepped on the center platform that was used for announcements, our new queries, the path was never too long abandoned. “War has broken out among the many lords of Zerrikania,” His words lazy and tinged with age, his blue eyes still very much alive with zeal. He held up a contract. “The royal family have asked Witchers of all factions to accompany them to a masquerade, there, they will choose a witcher to serve as their personal bodygaurds till the royals death, or when this war has subsided. It is a very honerable proposal, however I know how all if not most of you are, stubborn, flighty, and worst of all compulsive.” He was silent as the room rumbled with people talking amongst themselves. Burret waved off the idea. “Who would want to be some queen's lapdog? The path is what matters. The money is shit, however the freedom? You can’t wish to put a price on that.” He smiled slickly, taking a long draw from his pipe. “Some of us like living in luxury dear Burret.” I leaned over whispering in his ear. I could feel the chill run down his spin as I’d tickled his ear with my breath. He looked at me, and gave me a side smile which had been noticeable enough for most to see his teeth. He leaned closer his ear inches from mine. “I can show you luxury you could never comprehend dear Marabella.” His voice was thick and husky. My breath would’ve hitched if I hadn't known what he was like in the bedroom already. “We both know I am the one who knows best dear friend.” I hummed looking back to our master. “Do I have any volunteers?” He asked, breaking through the quiet of the room. “I will be our representative Master Aber.” I stood, my leathers shifting with my body. “Pack your things Ms Marabella. Your contract, and supplies will be provided for by the end of today.” I nodded my head and that was the end of that.

#creative writing #the witcher #writingcommunity #cd projekt red #original fiction #original post #original character #Origanal Characters

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invisibleanonymousmonsters · 4 years

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2 A.M.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

PROMPTS: 48. I called you at 2am because I need you. 50. I’m scared but won’t admit it so you take my hand

Requested by @wonderlandmind4

So, I’m not going to include #1, because I already did that prompt in another story.

The Avengers are at the Tower for plot reasons. And just because I wanted it that way. Deal with it LOL.

Bucky rubbed his eyes awake as FRIDAY announced that he was receiving an incoming phone call. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand and it read 2AM.

“Accept,” he muttered huskily to the AI.

“Wait, FRIDAY, no, no, no!” The call immediately came in.

“Hello?” Bucky asked with confusion.

He expected it to be Steve, who was on a mission with the entire team. It left Bucky as the sole “superhero” left in the tower. But he didn’t see himself as such. Bucky was crashing at the high-rise because he really had no place else to go. And he knew Steve would be disappointed if Bucky didn’t take him up on the offer.

“Bucky, hi.” A female voice said.

He squinted and then put it together. “Y/N, is that you?”

Y/N was Happy’s niece. Tony and Pepper were basically her aunt and uncle without being related. She lived in the city, and therefore was around the tower a lot. Pepper was constantly inviting her over for dinner. Sometimes she’d do her laundry there. If Tony ever had a party, she was invited. The rest of the team had befriended her.

But Bucky...Bucky kept his distance – just like he kept his distance from basically everyone.

However, that didn’t mean he didn’t take notice of Y/N.

It was ridiculous how long it took him to realize that his eyes seemed to always be searching for her when she was around. He watched her at parties, always dressed in a fancy dress with her makeup a little heavier than usual. He would steal glances at her when she was in the gym. Apparently she didn’t want to pay for one herself, but there wasn’t a gym nicer than the one at the tower.

But just because Bucky noticed Y/N didn’t mean he talked to her.

Bucky thought the world hated him. Once all of Hydra and SHIELD’s secrets were leaked, everyone knew exactly what he had done.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t someone people wanted to be friends with.

“Hi, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to call you. No, I told FRIDAY not to call you,” she was talking really quickly – obviously, stressed – and yet quietly, like she was scared someone might hear her.

Bucky sat up straighter, fully awake and now on alert. “Everything OK?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, not really. I’m sure it’s fine. I’m probably being crazy,” her words were coming out faster and faster.

“Y/N, take a breath,” Bucky demanded.

She must’ve done as she was told because there was 5 seconds of silence.

“What’s going on?” He asked then.

“It might just be the storm…” Bucky looked outside his window at the lightning and heavy downpour. “But I swore I heard someone trying to get into my apartment. There’ve been two robberies in my building the last 2 months.”

Bucky already knew about that. He overheard Y/N telling Pepper, Tony, and Happy about it in the kitchen. She seemed pretty shaken up about it. One of her neighbors had to go to the hospital because the robbers timed it wrong and ended attacking the poor man in a panic.

Tony and Happy weren’t happy about Y/N living in what appeared to be an unsafe building. They both tried to convince her to move into the tower. When she refused, pointing out how ridiculous the idea was, Tony told her he’d just buy her a place that had a doorman and high-level security. Y/N refused that too.

It was the first time Bucky had ever agreed with anything Tony said.

“Can you hear anything now?” Bucky asked, taking Y/N’s concerns and fear very seriously.

“No. It’s hard to hear anything with the rain and thunder outside,” Y/N whispered.

Then she sighed.

“Listen, Bucky, I’m really sorry for waking you up. Pepper and Happy are in Germany for a Stark meeting. I was just trying to reach Tony…”

“Everyone’s out on an assignment right now,” Bucky explained. “I’m the only one here.”

“Oh…” Y/N said lamely.

Bucky could tell she did really feel bad, and was growing more and more embarrassed. “And you don’t have to apologize.”

“I’m just being a total spaz right now and–“ She stopped abruptly.

“Y/N?”

“I definitely just heard something,” she whispered as quietly as possible.

“Y/N, I need you to give me your address,” Bucky instructed calmly.

There was no answer.

“Y/N,” his tone more gentle this time, “you gotta give me your address.”

He was already moving around his room, grabbing necessary clothing. He moved with purpose, not even thinking about what he needed to grab.

Bucky listened as Y/N rattled off her address and apartment number.

He was grateful that her apartment was only a 10 minute drive from the tower.

“I’m on my way. Stay on the phone with me,” Bucky sounded like he did was he was on comms during a mission. Not that he’d done that recently.

“O-Okay,” Y/N stuttered in a whisper.

For a second, Bucky thought maybe he should talk to her, try to keep her calm, or make sure she knew she wasn’t alone. He’d be there soon.

But it was obvious that she was staying quiet so she could listen to any possible intruder.

Just when Bucky was two blocks away from her place, the line went dead.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath.

He slammed his breaks just outsider her building, not bothering to turn off the car or try to park it.

Bucky would’ve shoved his way through the front door of the building with his metal arm and shoulder, but the lock had already been broken.

Now Bucky was more concerned.

He was quick and stealth as he went up the stairs to Y/N’s floor. He pulled out the gun from the back of his waistband.

With one floor left to go, Bucky suddenly heard footsteps running on the floor above him – Y/N’s floor. The footsteps were running toward the opposite side of the building that Bucky was on. Which meant they probably knew someone was on their way up and they were escaping through the emergency stairs on the other side.

For a moment, Bucky considered running after them. He knew he could catch them. They didn’t stand a chance.

But Y/N was now at the forefront of his mind.

He quickly made it to her apartment.

The door was closed, but he could tell from the scratches on the lock and handle that someone had been trying to break their way in discreetly.

Bucky took in a deep breath and knocked.

“Y/N? It’s Bucky. Can you let me in?”

There was no answer. He waited a few minutes and listened for any movements from inside the apartment.

Nothing.

“Doll… I’m coming in, alright?”

With a quick twist of his metal hand on the doorknob, he was able to crush it to pieces. It should’ve been harder to do, but the building was clearly as old as Bucky and not kept up to code.

Bucky promptly put his gun back in his waistband, not wanting to alarm Y/N with just the mere sight of a firearm.

“Y/N?” He called out to the empty apartment. “It’s just me.”

But he knew where she would be. It was the most common place for people to hide in case of an emergency.

Bucky made his steps quiet, but noticeable, so Y/N knew exactly where he was in the apartment.

He made his way to her bedroom and stopped in front of her closet.

He knew that she knew he was there. He could hear her soft breathing that was still anxious and terrified.

Ever so carefully, he opened her closet door.

Inside Y/N was tucked in the corner, knees to her chest, with a kitchen knife in one hand and her dead cellphone in the other.

Bucky looked at her with only sympathy.

He couldn’t remember the last time he felt as scared as Y/N looked. Fear had been beaten out of him long ago.

He kneeled down, his forearms balancing on his knees.

“Mind if I come in?” He asked casually.

She shrugged.

Somehow the giant super soldier managed to fit into the closet, making it feel even smaller than it already did.

“For the record… you aren’t crazy. There was definitely someone trying to get into your apartment.” Then he took in a deep breath, realizing he probably wasn’t making her feel any safer. “But they’re long gone.”

When he glanced down at Y/N, she just nodded in acknowledgment.

Bucky wished he was better with words. He used to be. Words used to be his specialty. But he’d isolated himself from everyone. Before that, he was a brainwashed assassin without a mind of its own. Bucky was out of practice.

Bucky slowed reached over to the hand closest to him, the one holding the knife. Gently, he took it out of her grasp and placed it far enough away from them that it wouldn’t accidentally hurt anyone.

Then he took her hand in his, gripping in tight enough to show her comfort. His thumb brushed back and forth over the back of her hand.

She squeezed in return, silently thanking him.

The closet was quiet, only filled with Y/N’s shaky breathing.

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Bucky finally breathed.

The words surprised him. He had no idea where they’d come from.

But they seemed to finally calm Y/N down.

“Why don’t you pack a few things, so you can stay at the tower for a few days?”

He half expected her to be stubborn and say she was fine, that he’d have to put up a fight to get her to go back home with him.

But Y/N just nodded numbly.

He nodded back and got up first so he could help her back onto her feet.

When he started to leave her bedroom to give her some privacy, she jumped forward.

“W-Where are you going?”

Bucky quickly turned around. “Don’t worry. I’m just going to be in the living room. I’m calling the police. Between your door and building’s front door, there’s enough evidence to prove that someone was trying to rob the building again.”

Y/N blinked at the him saying “again,” proving that he knew this had happened in her building recently.

She didn’t think Bucky ever paid her any attention. She was never offended by it. But he had just proved that he knew paid closer attention to her than she could’ve ever realized.

20 minutes later, there was a knock at Y/N’s front door.

Bucky quickly answered to find two cops standing outside.

He answered all their questions, hoping he did a good enough job that they wouldn’t really need to talk to Y/N all that much.

“You live here?” One of them finally asked, realizing that his name wasn’t on the lease.

“No,” Bucky answered.

“It’s your girlfriend’s place?” They followed up.

“Uhhh…no. No, Y/N’s just a friend.” He felt awkward as he answered, but the cops didn’t seemed fazed by it.

Y/N finally came out of her room with a duffle bag.

The cops started asking her questions. Bucky stood guard, making sure they didn’t push her too hard or ask things the wrong way.

After seeing how shook up she was, he felt like he’d instantly turned into her personal body guard.

“Your landlord already called a locksmith to fix your door. He should be here in a few minutes. But you should take any valuables with you just to be safe.”

Y/N nodded.

When the cops turned to talk amongst each other and with the landlord, Y/N turned to Bucky.

“Can we go now?” She asked him meekly.

It was the first time she’d talked directly to him since he got there.

“Yeah, doll, we can go.” He ushered her out and, on instinct alone, put himself between her and the cops as they walked out.

Y/N was quiet on the drive back to the Tower.

Bucky had already texted Happy and Tony about what had happened. He assumed the whole team would know soon enough.

When they were in the lobby of the residential floor, Bucky shifted his weight awkwardly. He didn’t want to leave her yet.

This was the first time they’d ever been alone together and Bucky didn’t think he could go back to keeping his distance again.

“Uhh…Do you want me to show you where the guest suites are?” He asked as he scratched the back of his neck. But he knew that she knew.

She gave him a small, forced smirk. “No, I know where they are.”

He nodded.

“Hey, Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you want to just stay up and watch a movie or something? I don’t–I don’t think I can go to sleep any time soon?”

“Of course. I mean, yeah.” Bucky responded immediately.

“Let me just change into some sweats I packed. I’ll meet you in the TV room?”

“Y-Yeah. Sounds good.”

A few minutes later, Y/N joined him on the couch.

She asked him what he wanted to watch.

“Umm…I don’t-there aren’t a lot of movies that I’ve seen,” Bucky finally told her when she kept trying to figure out what he’d like. “Haven’t really tried to catch up on the whole pop culture thing like Steve has.”

“Oh…” Y/N muttered, realizing the mistake she made.

“Put on whatever you want. Really. I’m sure I’ll like it.”

Y/N clicked a few buttons and a quirky song started playing along with someone writing in a notebook.

“Almost Famous,” Y/N explained. “It’s one of my favorites. Always puts me in a good mood, no matter how terrible I feel. And this way, you’ll be able to get a crash course on the best bands ever.”

Bucky couldn’t help but smile at that.

The opening credits weren’t even over before Bucky felt Y/N looking over at him.

He turned to her.

“Thank you for…saving me tonight,” she told him slowly.

Her words were sincere, her eyes even more so.

“You don’t have to thank me, Y/N.”

“Figured you’d say that.” Then she seemed to be trying to work up the courage to say something else. “I’m…umm…I’m glad it was you.”

Bucky blinked at her small confession.

“Me too,” he finally agreed.

And then they both turned their attention back to the movie.

Halfway through, Bucky felt a weight fall onto his shoulder.

Y/N had fallen asleep, her body choosing Bucky as its pillow.

A soft and shy grin grew on his lips from the feeling and the sight of it.

Very carefully, he maneuvered her body so he could lift his arm around her and make it less uncomfortable for her.

She didn’t wake from the movement, only sighed and shifted a bit.

It wasn’t long after that Bucky fell asleep too.

——————————————

“Sam, I told you to leave ‘em alone,” Steve called out in a hushed tone.

“Not until I document this…”

Then Bucky felt the flash of a camera. His eyes snapped open to find Sam looking guilty with his phone pointed at Bucky and Y/N, who was still fast asleep.

“You have two seconds to get that phone out of my face,” Bucky warned in a growl.

He would’ve jumped up and snatched it himself, but he didn’t want to risk waking Y/N.

Sam winced and instantly fled.

Bucky glanced over at Steve, who gave him an apologetic look.

“Tony told us what happened. She OK?” He whispered.

Bucky shrugged. “She’s a little shaken, but I think she’ll be fine.”

“Well…at least you finally talked to her. Though I wish it didn’t have to be a break-in for it to happen.”

Bucky played the ignorant card. “What do you mean?”

Steve narrowed his eyes as if to say, ‘Don’t even try.’ “Bucky, give me some credit. I’m your best friend. No matter how discrete you are, I know when you have a crush.”

Bucky blushed and the looked down at Y/N.

What neither of the super soldiers knew was that Y/N heard Steve’s confession too. And she wasn’t about to let Bucky go back to ignoring her.

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This request was put in ages ago. I’m trying to clean out my inbox. I have so many requests that are collecting dust.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN MY REQUESTS ARE OPEN. THEY ARE NOT.

Please don’t request things. And please don’t immediately request a second part to this. There is no second part.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes reader insert #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fic #prompt request #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes fluff #bucky fluff #marvel fic #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes fanfic #marvel reader insert #protective!bucky #protective!bucky barnes

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imagine-loki · 3 years

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What About Trust, Chapter 1

TITLE: What About Trust CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 1 AUTHOR: fanficshiddles ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki owns a bookshop on Midgard. He had to do something there to try and avoid getting any attention. But he’s not fond of having customers, is rather grumpy and guarded. But then he meets a bright, bubbly and trusting young woman who doesn’t recognise him. To his dismay, he finds himself becoming rather fond of the mortal. RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS: Fluff ahoy in this fic! Lots of fluff.

Cleo was just strolling along the streets in the Northern Quarter of Manchester. It was her favourite place to be and since she had a day off, she was going to make the most of it.

As she worked in an independent record shop on Oxford street, she knew the importance of supporting small local businesses instead of the larger ones. And there was plenty of quirky shops in the area, including other record shops.

But suddenly the heavens decided to open and started dumping a load of rain on top of her.

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ She had forgotten to take an umbrella. And her jacket wasn’t exactly waterproof either.

She pulled her jacket up over her head in an attempt to try and at least keep her hair from getting utterly soaked and she sprinted along the street. Then she ducked into a small doorway that had a small overhang, enough to save her from the sudden downpour anyway.

Sighing, she looked round to see what she was outside of. Her eyebrows shot upwards when she saw it was a bookshop. It didn’t look very brightly lit inside, but there was a very small sign that said open.

Unable to resist looking around a bookshop, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. There was a small bell above the door that announced her arrival. But the shop was empty, aside from books.

‘Oh wow.’ She gasped as she looked around, it was quite a small place but the owner had managed to stack hundreds and hundreds of books in, with really tall shelves on every wall and a few aisles on front of her.

There was a beautiful wooden spiral staircase just off the centre of the shop, leading to an upper floor that came out halfway, where she saw even more books.

A lit fireplace was to the left of her, in a space amongst the book shelves. It kept the place cosy and was one of the few light sources in the shop. As well as a large lamp to her right.

Cleo breathed in deeply, revelling in the book smell that surrounded her.

How she had never noticed this place before was beyond her. Considering she frequented the area all the time, pretty much every week. But she decided she was certainly going to make up for lost time now.

‘Hello?’ She called out, wondering if there was even anyone here manning the place.

There was no response. But she didn’t notice the green eyes watching her from the back corner, hidden in the shadows.

Not caring much, she started to the right and looked at some of the book titles. She felt giddy when she realised this was no normal bookshop, these were rare books. Some were foreign, a language she didn’t even recognise. But some of the books were decorated in beautiful and intricate patterns, capturing her attention.

She pulled a few books out from the shelves and went to the fireplace, where it was warmest. There was a lone green arm chair on front of it, she took a seat with the books on her lap and she started looking through the first one.

It was a William Shakespeare play that was said to have been lost many years ago, she couldn’t actually believe it was in her hands as she carefully turned the pages.

‘What are you doing?’ Came a rather cold voice from beside her.

She jumped, having not heard anyone approach. When she looked round, her eyes widened when she saw a really tall man… A really tall and rather handsome man, at that. With long black hair, nice cheekbones. He was wearing a dark green shirt and leather trousers with boots. He didn’t look like an ordinary book shop owner, but who was she to judge?

He had his arms folded across his chest and didn’t look overly pleased at her presence.

‘Oh, sorry. I did shout when I came in but no one answered… I’m reading, that’s not illegal, is it?’ She smirked up at him.

‘No, it is not.’ He drawled. ‘But this is not a library.’

‘I can see that. It’s way better than a library.’

Loki had no idea why this mortal was in his shop, reading a book and sitting on his chair. Sure, it was a book shop, but barely anyone ever came in. Never mind stayed for this long.

‘Are you going to buy that book or just put your grubby hands all over it?’ He grumbled.

Cleo narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You’re not very friendly for a shop owner. No, I am not going to be buying it, I suspect this would be well out of my price range. Do you not like to share with a fellow book lover? I was going to leave some money on my way out, I know it can be difficult for small businesses to keep afloat.’

Loki was a little surprised at her answer. And the fact she was still there, sitting on his chair. Normally when a mortal came in and stayed to look through his books, they soon scarpered when he made his presence known. Either because they recognised him, or were just put off by his coldness towards them.

‘Fine. Whatever. Just… don’t rip any of my books.’ He huffed and walked away again, leaving her to it.

Cleo was rather confused at what the hell had just happened.

‘Wait.’ She carefully placed the books down on the small coffee table on front of her and rushed after him to the back of the shop. ‘What’s your name? I’m guessing you are the owner?’

Loki rolled his eyes before turning around to face her. ‘I am… My name is Luke.’

‘Nice to meet you, Luke. I’m Cleo.’ She put her hand out towards him. He eyed her suspiciously for a moment, then shook her hand when he decided she didn’t seem much of a threat.

‘I’ve never seen your shop before, it’s quite hidden. But it’s incredible. I can actually see why you wouldn’t want it to get too busy, it would ruin the atmosphere. But it’s quite the wee gem.’ She said as she looked around, still taking it all in.

‘Thank you… You’re not from here, are you?’ He quirked an eyebrow up.

‘Nope. I’m from Inverness, but I’ve lived here for the past eight months. Much more exciting than back home.’ She smiled.

Loki nodded once. ‘Well, I shall leave you to your reading… If there areany books you’re interested in buying, let me know.’

Cleo’s face brightened. ‘I will, thanks.’

She watched as Loki disappeared through a door at the very back of the shop, it said staff only on it. She shrugged the encounter off and went back to the few books she had taken out to look at. After flicking through them, she carefully placed them back in their place and went upstairs to look some more.

As she carefully pulled a book out from its shelf, she nearly jumped out of her skin when Loki suddenly spoke next to her.

‘Are you still here?’

She held the book she had in her hands close to her chest in fright, her heart was racing but soon calmed down when she realised it was just the owner.

‘Jesus Christ. Do you always sneak up on your customers?’

‘Are you always so jumpy?’ Loki countered, raising an eyebrow. A ghost of a smirk on his lips.

Cleo rolled her eyes and looked down at the book in her hands. ‘How did you even get hold of most these? They’re so rare and expensive.’

‘You could say I’ve travelled a lot.’ Loki said as he started walking down the aisle, she followed him, curious.

‘Really? That’s cool. I’ve never been out of the UK before. But I would love to visit some countries like Iceland, Finland and Norway, for the culture and history. Those places fascinate me.’ Cleo rambled a bit.

Loki suddenly turned on his heels, going back right past her. Cleo was a little stunned but turned and followed him again.

‘How long have you had the shop?’ She asked as Loki stopped and started skimming through the shelves, looking for something.

‘A year.’ He said simply as his long fingers tapped gently along the spines of the books on the upper shelf.

‘I can’t believe I’ve only just found it. I’ve been living in the city for the last eight months, I’m around this area every week.’ She said as Loki plucked a book out, he briefly turned his back to her so she didn’t see the slight shimmer of green that surrounded the book before he quickly turned around to face her, holding the book out towards her.

‘What’s this?’ She asked, tucking the other book under her arm.

‘Nordic tales. Since you seem interested in the Nordic countries, perhaps you might find that of interest.’ Loki hummed.

Cleo’s eyes widened as she looked at the book. She looked up at Loki in disbelief. ‘I’ve been looking for an English edition of this for… years! I didn’t think one existed. I thought I was going to have to give in and google translate every single word.’

Loki scoffed. ‘Google translate is not reliable at all, believe me.’ He turned on his heels again and started heading back towards the stairs.

Cleo was too busy looking at the blurb of the book, by the time she looked up Loki was back downstairs. She hurried after him, putting the other book back in its rightful place first.

As she was rushing down the stairs, she held the Nordic Tales book out. ‘How much is this? Please, God. Let it be within my budget!’ She said as she rushed over to him by the fireplace.

Loki folded his arms over his chest and sighed, narrowing his eyes at her for a moment. Then he smiled, just a little bit. ‘Call it a gift, for a fellow book lover.’

Cleo’s mouth opened wide in shock. ‘What? Seriously? But the originals are like at least fifty quid anyway. This English version must be worth a shit load more than’

‘Do you want the book or not?’ Loki interrupted.

She nodded sheepishly. ‘I do…’

‘Well then, like I said. Consider it a gift. Before I change my mind and decide to charge you triple what it’s actually worth.’

Cleo grinned and slipped the book safely into her handbag. ‘Maybe I did get you wrong, you’re an alright shop owner.’

Loki chuckled. ‘What is it they say? Don’t judge a book by its cover.’

‘Never a truer word spoken.’ Cleo agreed. ‘Well, it was really nice meeting you. Thank you so much for the book, I really appreciate it. I’ll be back before you know it, I want to read that Shakespeare play through properly.’ She said as she started to head towards the door.

‘I look forward to your return.’ Loki said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Cleo turned back to face him and grinned widely. ‘Ohh, I bet you do.’ She laughed.

As Cleo left the shop, Loki shook his head. But he smiled.

‘What a curious mortal.’

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #What About Trust #chapter 1 #fanficshiddles

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girlandthedarkness · 4 years

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the avatar I azula x reader

what if azula will have a crush on a girl that turns out to be the avatar, what would she do?

a/n: take a shot every time you see me doing a grammatical mistake, it's a little bit dramatic and in this fic azula is slightly ooc, because she's in love

Y/N were just playing in the royal garden, she came to the palace with her uncle, who had to attend a meeting. Y/N heard some noises behind her, and when she turned around, she saw a girl, who was walking towards her. The mysterious girl has a dark hair and a sly smile on her face, when she approached her, Y/N could see the royal crown in the girl's head. "Your Royal Highness." Y/N says gently bowing her head. "I saw you here, all alone, so I decided to play with you since I'm so bored." The princess voice was calm, but it still sends shivers down Y/N's spine. "Also, you can address me as Azula, what's your name?" To Y/N's opinion Azula's voice sounds genuinely interested. "Y/N". In that afternoon, Azula and Y/N spent time together, playing and chatting about stuff, the firebender even showed Y/N her moves, Azula couldn't help but try to impress the other girl. She even scolded herself for being so open with a person that she met a few hours ago, but the other girl makes it so easy to be wide open with her. Their game was interrupted by a maiden, that with a polite voice announced that the meeting was over and Y/N's uncle was waiting for her. "Will you come again?" Azula's voice was still calm, but to that was added a bit of sadness as well. "It was my uncle who was invited, so I don't know-" But her words were interrupted by Azula's "I'm the princess and I order you to be tomorrow here." She sounds like she will not take no as an answer, so Y/N just bend her upper body in a sign of respect and left with the maid who was ready to escort her. The next day Azula introduced Y/N to her other friends, Mai and Ty Lee, the last one was so happy to meet Y/N, that she runs to hug her. "So you are that mysterious Y/N that Azula talks about all morning, nice to meet you." You smile at the girl who griped you in her arms, noticing Azula's slightly red cheeks, which disappeared once she saw other's eyes on her. After that, the four became the best friends, spending a lot of time in academy and at royal palace. This is where Y/N found out that she can firebend, before that she was thinking that she's a non-bender.

Y/N was training already a few years in hand combat, but the last few months she had taken some acrobatic lessons from Ty Lee, who was very happy to teach her friend everything she knows. That's how Y/N found herself sparring with Azula on the backyard, wanting to test her abilities on a firebender who'll shot fire at her. At start Azula casts some fire at Y/N to see how good she can move, when she saw the girl moving fast and precise, she stopped holding herself back. After Y/N successfully dodged all the fire she sends at her, Azula shot more fireballs at the girl, thinking she'll dodged it like the first ones. But Y/N didn't, she avoids the first three shots, but missed to escape the third one, the blue fire almost licked the young girl's skin, but in a pure instinct, Y/N, stopped the fire right in front of her chest, shocking everyone including herself.

"So you didn't know that you're a firebender?" Mai's voice is curious; despite being hardly covered in carelessness. "Honestly I though I'm a non-bender as my parents, my uncle is the only firebender that I know in my family." Y/N talk fast, still astonished by the news. "Then you a very lucky person." The girl quickly turns around to see Azula who have a small smile on her face, but when she lifts her eyes to meet Azula's eyes she notice sadness in them. "Y/N can I talk to you privately?" But the princess didn't wait for girl to answer, she takes Y/N's forearm and drags her to garden, that she so dearly hates. "Something's wrong?" Azula study Y/N for a long time, her eyes exams her body, stopping at her chest when she noticed the slightly burned garment. "Are you dragged me here just to stare at my chest?" Y/N founds this situation funny, but the blush still crept on her cheeks, for her the princess is more than just a friend, you can call it a crush. Azula on other side just rolls her eyes, still deep in her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I should had been more careful, I almost hurt you." She said avoiding the other girl eyes. Y/N smile, in this few years, she gets used to see Azula's emotions or regrets occasionally and only in private, that's why she greedy memorize every second. "That's okay Azula, I'm not hurt and if you want to make up for almost kill me, you can become my firebender teacher." Azula just rolls her eyes again, feeling much lighter, now that she's sure that Y/N it's not mad at her.

Later, in the night, Azula is thinking about her feelings toward the Y/N, the things that she feels when the girl is near it’s nothing that she ever felt. Her heart starts beating faster, her palms sweats, she feels a tight in her chest and a foreign sensation of pure happiness every time Y/N hugs her.

Another few months were spending for Y/N in endless training with Azula, who makes sure to cast her own feelings for Y/N aside and teach her firebending. She makes sure to introduce her to everything she knows and even started slowly to teach Y/N the lightning bending.

But Azula was still a royal member who needs to attend gatherings and parties, so when she has to meet some very important general, she takes Y/N with her, half to continue their training and half to just have Y/N beside herself. "Why are you so pale, are you sick?" The Azula's face stay the same, not even one face muscle twitches, she keeps her appearance calm, but Y/N could see the worry in her eyes. "I guess it's just sea sickness." Azula frown her eyebrows and drags the sick girl to her own chamber, on the way ordering to one of the guards to bring something for sea sickness. "That's nothing Azula, I'll get over this." "You look very pale, maybe a tea will make you feel better?" The next few days Y/N spends on bed, feeling very ill and weak, but at the same times she enjoys the sudden attention that came from Azula. Lost in worries, Azula, didn't notice how their borders disappeared, she could spend hours just talking with Y/N, but deep down in her heart she knew that this is too good to last forever. And she was right.

Y/N felt like the sea decide to revenge on them, the storm make their ship to shake violently, while the waves were hitting them. Azula was busy talking with the captain, deciding how to survive the calamity. Y/N felt useless so she decides to go and help the crew to bring in everything from outside. The hard rain on girl skin didn't bring discontent, opposite, she feels very content, it was until she was thrown out from the ship by a violent shake.

Azula was annoyed by the downpour, thinking how late she'll be, her thinking was interrupted by an open door without anyone knocking on it. She was ready to scream, when she saw the terrified look on one of the guard. "What's now?" "It's Y/N, she was outside when we saw how she fell into the sea!" He sounds scared, and Azula wonders, is he anxious about Y/N or afraid of her anger. She didn't cast a second glance at him, she tells him to show her where this happened.

During this time, Y/N, was fighting for her life, feeling how the heavy clothes drags her deeper to the bottom. She already lost all hopes when she heard a voice, then another, thousands voices in her head, telling her to rise, Y/N's hands move on their own, bending all the water from her lungs and then around her, moving her closer to the surface. The last thing that Y/N feels is a pair of hands that brings her out of water.

Azula could feel her heart pounding in her chest, she hurried up her pace, almost running, she outs all her thoughts that she's late, Y/N's alright, right? Outside the rain stopped, making easy to search something on water, she moves around the ship, ordering everyone to do the same. Azula was ready to take a boat and search somewhere further, when she saw a light coming deep from the water and then she saw a body. Quickly lifting the body out of the water she breathes with relieved when she saw Y/N's face, but then she notices the light in her eyes that slowly faded away. Azula let the body on the deck and feels like her whole world breaks again, she commands to her guards to take care of Y/N, while she left to recollect her mind.

Azula spend the last hour thinking, Y/N is the avatar, there's no doubt, the shining eyes and the water that brought her from the sea. The person that she cares about dearly is the avatar, the number one enemy of the firenation. So the rumours about the "avatar" that was seen in Southern Water Tribe is a lie, she was right beside them. She could go and throw her in jail, where she wouldn't be able to bend anything, bring the avatar back the fire nation, her father will be proud of her, her nation will worship her. Azula moves fast, open the door that secure the avatar from her and stopped when she saw the girl on bed. The realization hit her, it's real, Y/N is the avatar, she can't sacrifice her, Azula stays here, just like that, staring at the girl and try to analyze everything. "Azula?" The hoarse voice of the Y/N, makes shivers run down Azula's spine. "Did you know that?" She needs to know, did Y/N lied to her all this time. "I don't understand." Y/N sounds genuinely, that make Azula even more angry. "Did you know that you are the Avatar?" She almost spits this words, feeling how her defense starts to crack. "The Avatar? What do you mean-...so this's what it was...Azula I swear I didn't know" The tears start pouring right from the Y/N's eyes. Azula study the girl a few more moments and came closer, already knowing what she'll do. "You can't stay here, Y/N, it's dangerous. I'll leave a boat here, on the ship, take it and run away. Hide somewhere, maybe in Earth Kingdom? It's a very big place, they wouldn't find you here." The stillness returned in Azula's voice. "I can't leave, my family and, and you Azula, I can't leave you." "I'll meet you at sunset, come here to the ship, understand?" Y/N nods and Azula, take of the hand from girl's face, when she even managed to touch her? The rest of the day Azula tried to focus on the general and his plans. "I know, everyone think that Avatar returned back to world, but tha's just rumors, your highness"

To Azula annoyance, outside was pouring once again, she lets a deep breath when she saw Y/N's form approaching her. "Had you taken everything?" Azula says nodding to a small bag in the girl's hands. "I didn't take a lot of things with me." Y/N study Azula's face trying to find anything, but was meeting by a stone cold face. "Take it, you'll need money." The princess quickly throws the bag with money in Y/N's own bag. "Why do you do this Azula?" "Because..." Azula looks at Y/N as if she tried to remember everything, taking her arms she cups Y/N's face, inhaling deeply when she saw her leaning in, caressing softly her face to Azula's hands. "I care about you." Y/N nods and take Azula's face in her hands, giving her a kiss, tears were all over their face, and Y/N let a painful laugh. "I imagined our first kiss differently." Azula tilt her head and give the last kiss, feeling way to numb to even cry. "We meet again, I know this, when I'll win the war, I'll found you, I promise." Y/N just close her eyes trying to remember Azula's scent. She quickly gets on the boat, which will take her to the port where Y/N will start her life on the run. The next time they’ll meet, both of them will be on different sides of the war.

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buckyswinterbaby · 3 years

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Leave A Light On — AU Series Chapter 1

Song: Leave a Light On by Tom Walker/ Home by Matt Gresham

Word Count: 1,923

Summary: The Avengers are left shattered after the loss of Clint and Tony while fighting to save the world from Thanos. After going their separate ways to grieve, Steve and Natasha find their way back to each other, in need of a friend and a place to call home.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff

Warnings: language, fluff, angst, death mention, grief, eventual friends to lovers, eventual OC inclusion (not sure if that needs a warning but I don’t really wanna get complaints 😂).

Please like and reblog (I love that shit)! Click here to fill out the form to be added to my tag list!

Divider is made by me. Please ask permission before using it.

Next Chapter: Chapter 2

Note: This is the first part in my series called “Leave a Light On” (originally posted on Instagram) that initially focuses primarily on Steve and Natasha but eventually branches out to a few other main characters like Bucky Barnes as well as OC characters as new program recruits. If that’s not your cup of tea, that’s perfectly fine, I just thought I’d share and see if anyone likes it. Let me know if you want to be added to my tag list!

The wet roads reflected the bright headlights of Steve’s car as he sped down the highway late at night on his way to Natasha’s. Months had passed since their mission to gather the infinity stones and their last stand against Thanos and his army. Months since Clint gave his life in exchange for the soul stone and Tony sacrificed himself to end the battle. After Tony’s funeral, Steve had returned the stones to their rightful places and went back to get his dance with Peggy; but, he decided that his place was still with his family in the present.

He still wondered how life went for her and her husband, but he could rest easy knowing they got their closure and she had a happy life. Despite the urges he had to stay and beget his chance at a life with her, he knew he had people who needed him. Bucky, who he had fought so hard to get back and was still coping with what Hydrahad done. Sam, who had been thrown into this world of superheroes and villains. Wanda, as she came to terms with losing Vision. Thor, who was clearly still struggling with all he had lost. Morgan and Pepper, as they adjusted to a life without Tony. Natasha, as she grieved the loss of her best friend and attempted to help Laura rebuild her life without Clint. He knew that his work was far from over.

Steve pulled into one of the open parking spots outside Natasha’s apartment building and quickly pulled his hood up over his head before he stepped out into the downpour of rain. A chill ran through him as the cool water and late night air worked its way into his bones.

It had been a couple of weeks since he last visited the assassin's apartment, a desperate attempt to give her some of the space she demanded so she wouldn’t push him further away. Natasha had gone into a reclusive state after Clint died during their mission. Some believed it was simply survivor’s guilt; but Steve knew that feeling all too well. The nightmares of a dear friend plummeting to their death hit too close to home.

He let his eyes close for a moment as the look on Natasha’s face after the realization set in flashed before his eyes. The tears that ran down her cheeks in that moment as she announced to the team the price that had just been paid stung as coldly as the rain that soaked his sweatshirt did now. Eyes that pleaded for this to be just another bad dream in a string of nightmares.

"In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul."

The soldier urged himself forward and into the dimly lit hallway of Natasha’s building, he scanned the doors that still had numbers nailed to them to find the one that housed his friend for the past few months. The apartments all looked run down, even a bit ominous in the dark. It all nearly reminded him of the shady alleyways he always managed to get into fights in. Eventually, Steve found his way to Natasha’s apartment and he let out a deep breath before lowering his hood and knocking firmly on her door. After a few moments had passed with no response, he knocked a bit harder, concern etched itself onto his already serious features.

Had he left her to grieve alone for too long? Not long enough? This was uncharted territory for him and he truly wished he could ask Barton for advice in this moment; but that was the problem. He was dead and Natasha felt alone in the world again.

A breath he didn’t realize he was holding in was finally released as he heard the deadbolt to her door click open. Knowing she was most definitely armed, he relaxed his expression and body to show the woman that he was here as a friend. The moment he laid his eyes on her he saw how deeply she had been feeling the loss. Her hair was styled into the braid she had become accustomed to in recent years but it was clear it was braided days ago. Tired eyes recognized him as no threat and she lowered her weapon with a heavy sigh.

“What are you doing here, Steve?” she questioned, her jaw was set firmly to attempt her trademark ‘emotionless’ expression.

Steve saw right through her cover and offered her a small smile, “I didn’t want you to be alone. It’s time to come home, Nat.” The tone of his voice was full of emotion despite his intention of remaining calm. The fact was, he was worried for her. Grieving was hard enough with support but she felt it was her demon to fight alone.

“The compound was destroyed in the explosion, I’m fine right where I am,” she looked away as she blinked back tears, waiting a moment before facing him again.

He shook his head incredulously, “Really, Nat? Because you certainly don’t look fine and you haven’t been answering my calls for days. We had a deal, you know. I would give you the space you wanted if you promised to keep in contact so I knew you were okay.” His voice trailed off at the end, clearing his throat before he spoke again, “you scared the shit out of me. Pack your bags, you’re coming with me. It isn’t up for debate anymore.”

“The hell I am,” Natasha scoffed, moving to close the door on him but his hand moved out to stop it. In one fluid movement, Steve slipped through her doorway and into her nearly bare apartment. Apart from a few pieces of essential furniture the only decode was the weapons that had been strewn across the room. Had roles been reversed, she likely would’ve made a comment about how pathetic the place looked. Instead, Natasha sent a harsh glare to the back of his head, “please, just leave, Steve. I’m sorry that I worried you but you need to respect that this is what I want.”

“Is this what Barton would’ve wanted for you?”

“Don’t,” she snapped, “don’t you dare use him against me, Rogers.”

Steve turned to face her again as he stood in the center of her living room, if it could even be considered that. “He was your best friend. That’s exactly how I know he’d kick your ass if he saw what you were doing to yourself. He’d probably kick mine, too, for letting you get away with it for this long, despite my better judgment.” He waited a few moments before speaking again, gathering his thoughts as everything that had occurred in the past years swirled in his mind like a whirlwind of emotions. “Since we met, you’ve had my back. You went out of your way to help me when I lost Peggy and you put yourself at risk to protect Bucky and I, even when we weren’t on the same side. You were always there. Please, Natasha, let me be there for you now because I’m not going to give you an alternative option this time. So you can punch me and scream, if you really want to. You can try to push me away again but I will still be here, for as long as it takes.”

Nat’s resolve started to crumble as she continued to hold back the wave of tears that threatened to spill. She spoke again, this time in a near whisper that pleaded for Steve to listen before her emotions took over, “please…”.

“No,” he stated again, his features softening as he saw his words were getting through to her, “I’m not going out that door until you’re walking out with me and a duffle bag.”

“Can I be in the duffle bag?” she attempted to joke with a sad smile, the tears finally spilling down her flushed cheeks. “He’s really gone, isn’t he?”

Steve cleared his throat and stepped closer before he pulled her into a hug. “He is, yes. But you’re still very much alive and what you’re doing here, it isn’t healthy. You should be with family.” He held her as she finally broke down for the first time in weeks and allowed her grief to flood out. Steve only held her tighter and tucked her head under his chin as she gripped the drenched fabric of his sweatshirt, his eyes clenched shut as they stood together in her apartment. They stayed like that until she stopped shaking and cried all she had to give. He pulled back enough to tuck a loose strand of hair that escaped her braid back behind her ear and looked her in the eyes repeating what he had said when he first arrived, “It’s time to come home, Nat.”

A moment later, Natasha nodded in agreement and the two pulled apart to start gathering the few belongings she cared to take with her. They packed everything she decided to take into a small bag that Steve slung over his shoulder and motioned for her to head for the front door. They made their way out into the parking lot of her complex, sure steps splashed lightly in the puddles left from the rain that had long since concluded. Steve placed her bag in the backseat before entering the driver’s side and starting the engine once she was buckled in.

He wasted no time before pulling out of the parking lot and onto the main road that would take them to the site of their new compound he had been working on since Tony’s funeral and the stones were back in their rightful place. He hadn’t told Natasha of his plans during all that time, not wanting to place any more stress on his friend’s shoulders than what she already had. The pair drove in near silence the whole way, only breaking it to ask the occasional question about what had been going on in the other’s life.

When Steve pulled into the long driveway of the compound, Natasha was visibly confused as her eyebrows furrowed together. “Where are you taking me, Rogers? I know I’ve been a pain in your ass, but taking me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me is a bit much.”

The soldier rolled his eyes and looked over at her as they pulled up to a large complex, still partly under construction, with only the internal lights shining through the windows to separate the building from the night sky behind it. “I already told you, I’m taking you home. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s a start,” he explained, a light smile on his lips. He watched as Natasha admired the structure and how he had taken pieces of architecture from the original compound and included it in the new design. “We can’t begin to replace those we’ve lost, no one can replace Tony and Clint. But, we can work to build a new team that will step up after we’re no longer able to do this job, the next generation of Avengers. I understand if you don’t feel like you’re in the place to be involved with the program but the doors will always be open to you regardless. Welcome to the Avengers Initiative Program.”

She tore her eyes away from the compound to look over at him, only illuminated by the lights on the dash. “It’s perfect, Steve. It’s home.”

#romanogers #steve rogers #captain america #natasha romanov #natasha romanoff #black widow #marvel #steve x natasha #Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff #endgame #marvel endgame #marvel AU #leave a light on #leave a light on series #LALO #LALO series

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gifted-burnout-archive · 4 years

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Jim’s Best Friend

Part Four - An Honest Discussion

Word Count: 2147

Author’s Note: I’ve already written so much for this fic, I cannot wait to share! I hope you all like the writing, I realise it sort of changes POVs a little when I write. But yeah, anyway!

WARNING: Domestic Violence and Abuse

October, 2005.

"It's so obvious I just..." Meredith let out a chuckle at the table as you walked in. Her, Kelly and Phyllis were on break discussing something, and you sat down with the trio.

"What is?" You asked, and Kelly giggled.

"That Jim has the hots for Pam." She said quietly, the other women laughing a little. You raised an eyebrow.

"He... He does?" You say, and Meredith tutted affectionately at you.

"You are so caught up in that more-than-friendship you don't even notice anymore Y/N." She explained, and you nodded, standing up from the table and making yourself a coffee, thinking it over.

You supposed it made sense: the pair of them were constantly chatting, maybe even flirting, around the office. They got on like a house on fire.

"Oh God... Have I been third wheeling them all this time?" You thought aloud, and turned to your colleagues.

"Goodness no Y/N... Well, maybe..." Phyllis tried to comfort you, when another person coughed, and the four of you looked over to Angela, who stood in the doorway. She closed the door, taking a seat beside Kelly.

"Not to be the bitch, but it's really clear that in your friendship bundle, Pam is the girl Jim loves, and you're the one he keeps spare." She said blandly, and the others looked at her with glares. "It's true! Y/N, you are great, don't get me wrong, but Jim has to chase Pam. She's with someone else, winning her heart is like winning the lottery, and you are, on all spectrums, just less appealing. You relationship is in shambles, you are more plain than Pam, you weigh more, you talk more..."

"Jim is with someone." You announced, trying to change the topic. You coughed and ran a hand through your hair. "Uh, yeah... Remember the lady who came in and sold bags? Katy? Yeah, he's bringing her along to our big date night..." you said, and Angela scoffed.

"With Katy and Pam there, you better hold on tight to Brian..." she warned you, walking past and back into the office. You shared a look with the three ladies, and smiled softly, before heading back to your desk.

—

"Pam, am I plain?" You asked after work. You had known Roy longer than Pam, the pair of you had been friendly when you interned downstairs, and since you were so close to Pam, it was normal for you to get ready at hers. Whether it was a girls night out, or double dates, or in this case a triple date, Pam and Roy's place was where you always got ready.You asked the question as you fixed your heels on, your hair curled and resting on your shoulders in beach waves, the sea blue dress Pam had picked out for you complimenting your skin tone.

"How can you say that when you look like a goddess right now?" Pam asked with a laugh, finishing off her own makeup. She had chosen a pretty blouse and skirt combo, and looked stunning, as always.

"You're just being nice... Angela said I was plain today in the kitchen, I just can't stop thinking about it." You sighed. You never thought you were a model or anything, but plain was such a neutral way to describe someone, and it kind of hurt.

"Angela's a prude and a hag who thinks that she is God's chosen angel." Pam tried to comfort you, and you smiled for appearances. She wasn't one to talk down someone, even if it was Angela. "Have you talked to Michael yet?" She changed the subject, and you shook your head.

"No... I've managed to avoid talking with him for six weeks now, and I will continue to do so until he talks to me." You decided, applying your final touches of lipstick and mascara.

"Silent treatment, I like it." Pam giggles, and she pulled you both together to look in her full length mirror.

"The boys won't be able to look away." She posed, and nudged you to do the same, causing you both to smile. As a pair, you headed into the living room, where Roy and Brian were waiting, chatting over a few beers.

"There you guys are. Come on, we're gonna be late!" Brian said as you both entered the room. Roy got us and whispered into Pam's ear, making her blush, and you looked up at Brian as he came over.

"You look great tonight honey." You said, taking his hand, but instead of stopping, Brian grabbed your hand and marched you both out to the car. Roy and Pam followed. Roy went for the driver's seat, but you stepped in. "Designated driver, my man." You said, and he tossed you the keys, he and Pam getting in the back. You watched Brian walk past the passenger seat and get in the back with them, but didn't say a word, reversing out of the parking spot and driving down the road towards the restaurant.

Pam had picked it, since she knew everyone so well, and had even made sure there was at least one meal everyone would enjoy. She had even researched through Jim what Katy would like, and made her decisions accordingly. So driving there, through the sudden rain, while your boyfriend, best friend and best friend's boyfriend sat in the backseat and sang along to the radio, you hoped it would be a good night. Pam had planned it out, and all you five had to do was execute it so that no-one went home hating anyone else.

You arrived at the restaurant five minutes late due to the rain, and parked up as close as you could get to the entrance. As Roy helped Pam out, holding his jacket over both of their heads to get themselves in untouched by rain, Brian ran ahead while you straightened out the car. You hadn't brought an umbrella, like an idiot, and your 'jacket' was a silver shawl.

So, you waited a second, bracing for the cold and the wet, and when the downpour eased up slightly, you ran as fast as you could into the restaurant, surprised you had managed to keep your makeup intact as you got inside, through your hair was now slightly damper, and your dress a deeper shade of blue. You nodded to the server at reception and walked into the main body of the restaurant, Pam waving you over from a secluded back table.

Jim and Katy has already arrived and ordered drinks for everyone, and you sat you bag and shawl on your chair before greeting them.

"We haven't met yet. I'm Y/N, I work with Jim in sales." You introduced yourself to Katy, who got up and pulled you into a tight hug, and you squeezed her back.

"You look great tonight, Y/L/N. New dress?" Jim asked as you gave him a quick hug. You smiled and nodded, sitting yourself beside Brian and Pam at the circular table, and smiling as you saw what Jim had ordered you.

"Thanks Jim..." You smiled at him, and the table slowly laughed at what you were drinking. Grape soda, Jim's favourite, a label stuck to your glass reading "fake wine".

"Designated driver." He shrugged, and the tables clinked glasses, beginning to look over the menu and discuss food options. It was Italian, the universal cuisine to fit all taste palettes. As the server came over, you glanced over the menu once again, finally deciding on a pasta dish.

"Oh, could I get the tomato pasta with chicken? And the pepperoni pizza for you, babe?" Pam ordered for her and Roy, who nodded with a grin. Jim followed suit, ordering the veal for Katy and another pasta dish for himself. As you opened your mouth to speak, Brian talked over you.

"The steak for me, gnocchi on the side, and the house salad for my girl." Brian smiled, settling his arm around the back of your chair.

"Sir we only do the house salad as a starter." The waiter interjected, but Brian nodded.

"Just bring it with the mains." He asked, the server disappearing. Pam gave your leg a squeeze under the table, and Roy struck up the conversation.

"So, Brian, how did you and Y/N meet?" He asked, and you glanced over at your boyfriend, along with four other sets of eyes. You didn't really discuss your relationship at work, it never really came up. For Pam and Jim though, it was a constant. The office knew Katy, and Roy worked downstairs.

"Well, it was, like, ten months ago now? I was at a party, old friend from college, and all of a sudden I hear this shout. This cheer, and I turn around, and there's Y/N, doing amazing at beer pong, and completely ruining my old pals on the table." Brian explained, and you smiled, pressing a kiss to his cheek and nodding along. Jim looked a little confused for a moment, but continued to listen, not voicing his puzzlement, even though it was fair.

What little your work friends knew about Brian was that you met at baseball game. You kept the ball he caught for you on your desk.

And, whoever Brian was talking about, it wasn't you.

—

"Tonight went well, don't you think?" Brian said as you got into your apartment, having dropped off Roy, Pam, Jim and Katy at their own homes. You locked the door behind you, dropping your house keys in the bowl, and you walked straight to the bathroom, tying back your hair and washing away the makeup you had so perfectly applied.

"You didn't tell me you have hot friends babe. I mean, wow. Those guys got lucky." Brian said from the kitchen, opening the fridge and pulling out a beer. You patted your face dry before heading through to the living area, leaning against the wall.

"Brian..."

"I mean, no offence, but I really pulled the short straw, huh?" He said, only half-joking, taking a gulp of beer.

"Brian."

"What?" He looked over.

"We met at a baseball game." You finally said, and Brian's smile flipped quickly.

"Yeah, so?"

"You told everyone we met at a party... But the thing is, I haven't met any of your old college friends yet." You spoke slowly, and Brian started walking towards you.

"Get to your point, Y/N." He said coldly, taking another drink. He had already had several glasses of wine at the resaurant.

"How long have you been seeing her?" You asked, and within an instant, he lost it. It was like waiting for bomb to explode.

"REALLY?! DOING THIS NOW, AFTER SUCH A NICE NIGHT WITH YOUR FRIENDS?!" He yelled, and you backed up into a wall. He trapped you in with his arms, and you tried to keep your composure. "I can't believe you would even think I would cheat on you!" He laughed, and when you tried to push him back his hand gripped your neck, constricting around your airway.

"Brian..." you choked out, shaking, and he hit you. Just like he had in June, but harder. He meant it this time.

"Say you think I cheated, Y/N! Say it and see what happens!" He screamed, and you moved you hands up to try and alleviate pressure from your throat.

"Brian, I don't think it... I know..." you managed to cough out, and he let go of your throat. You dropped to the floor, every breath hurting as you refilled your lungs with air.

"How?"

"Girls wear perfume, Brian. And lipstick... Lipstick generally stains..." You coughed out. You had suspected it for a while. A sharp pain hit your side, causing you to fall over onto the floor.

"What are you going to do, you little bitch?" He asked, standing over you.

"Leave, or I call the police..." you said with as much conviction as you could, sitting yourself up against the wall. And, like a switch, he changed, from angry to free. He kicked you again, catching your head this time, one last time for good measure, and left the flat with a slam of the door and a beer in hand. And there, on your living room floor, in you pretty blue dress that was now bearing blood stains from a busted lip and cut above your eyebrow. Your head pounded, but after a few minutes of sitting in the silence, you pulled yourself up and stumbled back to the bathroom, trying to examine the damage.

The bright light hurt your eyes, but you could still see . Bruising cheekbone, a bloody lip, a cut brow brow, a bruise on the side of your head when you fell to the ground. You didn't even want to know what sort of bruising was occurring on your body, but you knew it would be at least January before all of this healed up.

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sunflwrvolume6 · 3 years

Text

plausible deniability [twenty-nine]

chessboard captures

He’d actually slept in bed next to her last night. No liquor on his breath, no anger in his touch. They’d fallen asleep after midnight tangled in each other and sated. She’d woken to his warmth, the familiar feeling of ‘home’. They hadn’t moved as they watched the sunrise spreading gold-pink fingers through the windows. Then Niall had to go and ruin the peace by asking that.

[ao3 ☆ wattpad]

[previous ☆ next]

[masterlist]

Niall is hardly home over the next two weeks. He leaves early in the mornings to take care of business, do what needs to be done in the back room of Bobby’s, and comes home late at night. Sometimes drunk, sometimes angry at the world, sometimes both. Those are the nights that frighten Aila the most.

He keeps his hands off of her—won’t even kiss her. He doesn’t come to bed with her.

Aila stares up at the canopy of the bed, hands on Niall’s shoulders, legs around his waist. Everything she’d just felt is gone now. Sighing, she slides her hands to his chest and pushes against him. He blinks owlishly, as if surprised to see her beneath him.

“Where are you?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, rocking into her again, but there is nothing behind the action. A rote movement bearing no emotion.

“I can feel your dick. You aren’t into this. Like, at all. And honestly? It makes me feel really shitty that you can be fucking me and not be hard.”

He sighs, leans down to kiss her, and pulls away. As he tosses the barely-used condom into the bin, Aila sits up and tugs the sheet to her chest. She reaches for his hand once he’s beside her again, only for her breath to catch in her throat when he doesn’t return the gesture. He won’t look her in the eye.

“Love?”

When his gaze finally lands on her face, his eyes are dark. Full of something unrecognisable. She knows the fiery anger, the cold thirst for vengeance, the haggard dull of worry. But this? This is something entirely different. She swallows and whispers his name.

“I... God, Aila, I didn’t want to do it this way. Believe me, I didn’t.”

“Are you—Are you breaking up with me?”

“Will you marry me?”

He... He can’t have asked that. Aila hopes he hasn’t. She stares at him, pleading with any god listening for him to take it back.

“What?”

“You know I went back home this past weekend.” She nods slowly, and he blows out a breath. “Da said if I truly love you, we should get married. And... I hate to admit it, but he was right. Why shouldn’t we?”

“I—I don’t know. Niall, this is—“

He clutches her hand in his, squeezing gently. The doubt in his eyes has faded. The lack of an immediate ‘no’ seems to have bolstered his confidence. “Think about it, darling. We’d show the world we love each other. We’d be by each other’s side for the rest of our lives. It sends a message to the city that we’re a team.”

“So you think we should marry so you can maintain your power.”

“No,” he groans. “I think we should marry because we love each other. The power is only a bonus.”

“I...”

Her mind races. Aila can’t think clearly with him staring at her with such wide, clear eyes. Hope. The proposal came out of nowhere. He wasn’t going to ask, but his father told him he should.

Bobby hates her. Why would this even be a suggestion? Aila is certain it isn’t because of affection for her. He demanded Niall kill her not even a month ago.

“I need to think about it,” she whispers through numb lips, ducking her head when Niall only frowns.

“Okay, darling. I understand.”

Does he, though?

She doesn’t look at him as she tugs her clothes on. He doesn’t speak as she rushes out of the room.

Somehow, Aila sneaks out of the house without alerting anyone. Rain pours from leaden skies, and she resists snorting in amusement. Stormy weather for a storm of indecision. Confusion. She sprints down the road toward the station, quickly putting distance between her and Niall’s question.

And now it’s raining, as if the broken peace brought with it the sudden thunderheads and downpour.

“Holy shit, you’re soaked!” Willow frowns and shoves Aila’s wet hair from her face. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Wills, let her get dry first. C’mon, Aila.”

Aila follows Paisley to the room they used to share, and Angel drops a towel onto the bed. Aila shivers, though she isn’t cold. No, it has nothing to do with the late-July thunderstorm and everything to do with the unexpected, decidedly not romantic proposal. It was only a step up from Colton’s.

Once she’s dressed in a pair of Paisley’s pyjama pants and Angel’s fleece sweatshirt, Aila drops onto the couch next to Willow. “He asked me to marry him.”

Silence reigns at the announcement, but Aila doesn’t expect it to last long. Paisley stares at her, blinking owlishly, and Angel gapes with her jaw dropped. Her bowl of dry cereal falls to the floor, though she makes no move to clean up the mess.

“You don’t look exactly happy with that,” Cheyenne says finally.

“I—I don’t know what to say or how to feel. I mean, I love him. So much. But I don’t know if I’m ready to marry him. It just feels too fast, especially after the horrible start we had.”

Paisley clears her throat, crosses the room to sit on Aila’s lap. “Honestly? It probably is. Look at it this way, though. He’s already two steps ahead of Colton. Colt never came to any Junk Nights, and it took that bastard ten years to lock you down. Niall isn’t fucking around like that. He’s scooping you up before you can realise you’re better than he deserves.”

Aila loops her arms around Paisley’s waist, closing her eyes as she struggles to breathe evenly. Her heart continues its rapid rhythm beneath her ribs, pushing fear and panic through her veins. Marrying Niall would be a mistake. If she does, she can’t ever leave him. He could spend the rest of her life letting his anger control him, and she would be forced to endure it.

She can’t see that happening. He’s already shown he is capable of change. The possibility is still there.

Willow pats Aila on the knee. “Do you love him? Can you see a future without him?”

“I haven’t ever tried,” she admits.

“What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” cries Aila, and Paisley leans more securely against her. “Like, Colt was my first everything. Almost everything, anyway. After what he did, it’s hard to trust it won’t happen again. That I’m putting my heart into the right hands.”

Quiet plinks fill the silence left behind. Angel sets her bowl aside, dusts cereal crumbs from her hands, and faces Aila with an uncharacteristic serious expression. Aila peeks around Paisley’s torso and blinks away tears.

“Honey, that isn’t gonna happen. You are. We all saw how he looked at you at Junk Night. We’ve seen everything he’s done for you.”

Not everything, Aila thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, she asks, “So you think I should?”

“I think it doesn’t matter if it’s been a week or a century. If he makes you happy, if he treats you the way you deserve... If he would give his life for you, then I don’t see why marrying him would be such a horrible decision.”

Aila sighs, wiping her cheeks against Paisley’s shirt. “Can I stay here tonight?”

Willow’s hand lands firmly on the back of Aila’s hand. Aila takes it as the ‘Don’t be stupid’ it is and hunkers down into the couch. Maybe her friends are right. Still, she can’t get rid of the doubts.

What if she and Niall aren’t compatible in the long run? Most of their time has been spent ignoring each other, having sex, or her refusing to accept his behaviour. He can be kind—so kind and generous and soft—but she sees far more of his cold, vindictive side than she’d ever thought possible.

From: Aila (12:10) < I’m gonna stay with the girls for a bit. I just need to think, and you distract me too much.

From: Niall (12:16) > I understand. I asked a lot of you, and I won’t pressure you into making a decision so quickly . From: Niall (12:16) > Just know I love you no matter what you decide.

Three days later, Aila stares up at the manor. The same one that intimidated her so long ago. The one that became home at some point over the past few months. The groundskeeper and his apprentice amble across the lawn, checking for plants that shouldn’t be there, and guards move along the fencing.

“Miss? You may go in.”

Aila startles at the tinny voice coming from the intercom. She thumbs the button, thanking the guard, and steps through the iron gate. The trek up the lane drags on, each step seemingly bringing her backwards. Her words weigh heavily on her tongue.

She’s spent the last three days thinking of what Niall said. The proposal and promise of lifelong love. Saying ‘yes’ means growing comfortable with the realities of what he does. Saying ‘no’ means never holding him again. Aila doesn’t know which is worse.

The only answer she can give came to her in the middle of the night. Now here she stands on the precipice of changing the trajectory of her life forever.

Niall glances up from the table in front of him, frowning when Aila stops in the doorway. He doesn’t speak, only waits for her to break the sudden silence. She clasps her hands in front of her and clears her throat.

“Are you, uh, are you busy?”

Someone snorts, and her head snaps to the left to see Viper sneering. “Obviously we’re busy, so run along, Princess. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Enough.” Niall hasn’t raised his voice, but Viper shrinks back anyway. Niall slowly shifts his gaze from Aila’s face to the other man. “You will never speak to her like that again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Niall raises a brow but turns to Aila. “Is everything okay, darling?”

“Yeah. I just—I just wanted to talk about the other day. It can wait.” She forces a smile as his eyes widen, darken, then he dips his chin.

“I’ll find you as soon as we’re done here.”

Aila swallows against her nerves, nods, and pivots on her heel. As she walks away from the War Room, she hears his cold voice promising Viper will pay for his disrespect. A shiver runs down her spine. She knows what the cost will be.

Robert disregards his duties in favour of teaching Aila how to play chess. She wins only one game—the very first one, in which he tells her of the basics—and fails miserably at the rest. She grins at him after the fifth round and thanks him for not taking it easy on her.

“However will you learn, my dear, if you aren’t challenged?”

“May I have some privacy with Aila?”

As one, Robert and Aila look away from their game. Her attention catches on the sight of Viper slinking past the door. Blood drips from his split, swollen lip. Fingerprint-bruises litter his throat already. He glares at Aila, cuts his gaze to Niall, then scurries out of the house.

Robert stands, bowing his head toward her. “A worthy opponent, Miss Aila. I hope to play more with you.”

“You’re only saying that to make me feel better about losing so much.”

Robert’s chuckle lingers in the air after he’s gone. Niall closes the door and crosses the room to take the seat across from Aila. She watches him set up the pieces, wondering what he’s thinking. Finally, he glances up at her and smiles.

“I told you he’s quite taken by you.”

“You don’t think it’s weird that I consider him a friend and treat him like one?”

“Not weird. I’d find it weirder if you didn’t.” He moves his pawn before leaning back in his seat. “Your heart is too soft to ever look down on someone or mistreat them.”

“And that brings me to my point.”

She blows out a breath, gaze scanning over the board. Niall stays quiet—not pressuring her to make a move. A choice. Her hand hovers over a pawn, then she bites down on her lower lip as she sets the piece down. Niall takes it within two turns.

Aila rolls her eyes as he flashes her a smug grin. “Rude. Niall, I… I can’t do what you lot do. I just can’t. As much as I’m—not ‘okay’ with it, really, but accepting of your lifestyle, I’m not okay with the thought of taking a life.”

“No one is asking you to. If you die of old age without ever having killed, it will have been worth it as long as you’ve been by my side.”

They don’t speak for a few minutes. The only sound in the room is the clack of pieces being placed on the board, the scrape of pieces being dragged to the side. She ducks her head to hide her smile when his foot presses against hers. Warmth flares but flickers out.

She still hasn’t told him her answer.

“Stop letting me win,” she grumbles a moment later as she takes his knight. Keeping her eyes on the game, she sighs. “I love you, Niall. I always will. I just need you to know I can’t be involved in the actual murder side of what you do.”

He knocks his foot into her ankle. She looks up in time to see his soft smile. The tenderness nearly kills her. “Then don’t. Do what you’re comfortable with. I told you I would take care of the ‘stabby bits’.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s been a week or a century. She sets the piece in place, her queen and king blocking his king. He’s let her win, but she hardly notices it. The move feels too symbolic—if she says yes, she’ll have captured him. If she says no, she will have cornered him into an impossible situation. A loss.

“Checkmate.” Blowing out a breath, she meets Niall’s eye. “I’ll marry you.”

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i-run-with-a-wolfpack · 4 years

Text

One Question♡ Paul

Pairing: Paul Lahote and fem reader [OC]

Warning: mature language and sexual situations

1 part complete

Words: 2,138

One Question

"One question...are you going somewhere?"

I sighed deeply. Freezing rain was pelting my car, the trees were painted with ice, and the sky was gloomy. Every surface was covered and it kept coming down. I noticed the power line sagging under the weight of it all and I wondered how much longer before it snapped and we lost power. Well, he lost power. I don't live here.

"Well?" Paul prompted from the other side of the room.

I drew a heart on the window pane in the fog that my breath has created. I didn't know why I drew a heart. It wasn't like I knew what love is. Sure we said 'I love you,' but if we didn't act like it, then did we really?

I turned slowly to find Paul reclining on the couch, soft black flannel pajama pants resting beautifully low on his trim hips. No shirt. God, did he ever wear a shirt? Hardly ever. In fact, it was weird to see him wear one.

My eyes travelled up to his face. That fucking smirk pissed me off. But it was there.

We've been fighting since yesterday, maybe longer. Really it's just the same fight as always. It's about the only thing we ever argue about.

Don't talk to other guys. Period.

I knew this by now. After he revealed to me several months ago, that I was his imprint, it didn't take long to realize that Paul was possessive with a capital "P."

But this particular fight started at the grocery store. Once I heard there was winter storm coming, most likely nothing but a downpour of ice, I knew I needed supplies. The chances of getting back out in this were slim and now I could see I was right to get the extra bread and milk. The roads were treacherous and my car was a block of ice.

"It's kinda bad out there, huh?" Paul smiled a little as he rubbed a flattened palm up and over his stomach and back down again.

I sighed deeply and retreated into the kitchen. Begrudgingly, I yanked different ingredients from the refrigerator and pantry with the intent of making myself a sandwich. And that dickhead didn't deserve anything. I thought I'd let him starve.

My mind wandered back to yesterday at the store...where the fight started. Paul had sauntered over to the magazine aisle, no doubt to peruse the car magazines, leaving me to decide on something for dinner. In the produce section, I fondled the tomatoes and made my choice. "What I wouldn't give to be that tomato." A voice from behind me whispered.

I turned slightly, noticing the young guy next to me with the amazing smile. I watched as he lifted heavy sacks of potatoes like they were nothing, hoisting them up to rest in an intricate pyramid in the wooden bin. He glanced over at me and caught me staring at him as he worked. I had seen him in the store a few times before, but he had never spoken to me. His voice was nice. "Can I help? Find something, that is."

Then he laughed. And I laughed. God, I'm a dork. I grabbed a little container of strawberries and inspected it carefully. "No. I'm good," I replied quickly.

He nodded and moved behind me. I could feel his eyes on me and his shoulder as he brushed past me. "Stocking up for the big storm I see," he casually announced as he moved to stand beside my cart.

I smiled a little, thankful there wasn't anything in the cart that I didn't want him to see. Well, except for…

He zeroed in on exactly what I didn't want him to see and he blushed nervously. "Well I was gonna say that I hope you have someone to keep you warm tonight...but I guess you already do."

I gave him a tight smile as my eyes darted away from his intense stare. I tossed the strawberries into the cart in a feeble attempt to cover the extra large box of condoms that Paul had tossed in, because I knew I didn't grab them. Another weird laugh came from me. Dork.

"I really don't think you need to worry about who's keeping her warm tonight...asshole."

I gasped when I felt Paul's fingers tighten around my hips from behind...yesterday and again right now.

"Quit it, Paul," I argued weakly as he pressed against me, trapping me between his towering body and the edge of the counter.

"That looks good," he observed as he leaned over my me, his breath fanning over my exposed collarbone. I reached up to adjust my shirt and use it to cover my shoulder as it had slipped down. Paul pushed my hand aside as he reached for my sandwich and took a bite.

I sighed as I began to create another one. I was hungry too, dammit! I could hear Paul munching in my ear and I could feel drops of chicken salad plop onto my shoulder. "Sorry about that," he sighed, his voice low and growly.

I stretched my arm across counter to reach the paper towel holder, only to have Paul's large hand encircle my wrist and pull it back to my side. "Paul…"

I squeezed my eyes shut as his tongue flattened and smoothed over my skin, licking away any remnants of his spilled lunch. I gripped the edge of the counter tightly, pressing my lips together in an effort not to scream. He's only licking my shoulder, for fuck's sake!

A small whimper began to form in the back of my throat as his teeth grazed the sensitive skin on the side of my neck. Goosebumps erupted up and down my arms as his stubble brushed my skin. "One question…"

"Hmmm?" I squeaked.

Paul's hands slid up under my thin sweatshirt, climbing up to cup my breasts gently. My head fell back to rest on his shoulder. His lips curled around my earlobe and I shivered. "Are you still mad at me?" he breathed.

"Yes," I replied without hesitation.

"One question…"

I rolled my eyes and laughed a little. Only because he always said 'one question' and then proceeded to continue asking more, usually asking different versions of the same question until he got the desired answer.

"Can I taste you?"

I squeezed my thighs together and sucked in a deep breath. "Paul…"

"I'll take that as a yes," he declared as he lifted me by my midsection and carried me the short distance to the dining room table. He held my wrists, pressing my hands flat on the wooden surface in front of me. I panted when I felt him push into me from behind.

"I'm still mad at you," I insisted with a shaky voice.

"So you said, Babydoll," Paul growled as he peeled my leggings and panties down and discarded them.

I turned in his arms, facing him now, ready to continue our fight. His eyes were bright with desire, incredibly turned on by my insistence that we argue more. If I didn't know better, I'd swear he only started these fights with me so we could have the mind-blowing sex that followed. "You embarrassed me at the store yesterday. You didn't have to be such a dick."

I watched Paul's expression change, suddenly worried that I had gone too far. He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. "One question…"

I rolled my eyes and nodded as I yanked on my sweatshirt in a feeble attempt to cover my myself. "Did you really expect me not to say anything? That kid was hitting on you. Don't you care?" he insisted.

I huffed and scowled at him. "That's like… two questions."

He laughed and I gasped when he bent down, slid his hands around my thighs and lifted me up onto the table. His grip on my knees curled behind as he lifted, forcing me to lie back. "You didn't answer my question."

I swallowed thickly when Paul lowered his face and his head disappeared below my shirt. I could feel his lips on my stomach and my mind went blank. "The question?" I prompted with a shaky voice.

His head popped back up and he leaned in close to my face. "Don't you care that kid was hitting on you?"

I shook my head quickly. "It doesn't matter, Paul. I'm with you," I breathed as my hands held his jaw. "Every guy in town can talk to me and it won't change how I feel about you. Don't you know that by now?"

Paul squeezed his eyes shut before yanking me to the edge of the table and disappearing between my thighs. My back arched when that wide, wet tongue of his worked it's way to my most sensitive place and I had to hold onto the edge of the table. I panted furiously as his fingers slid inside me and worked in tandem with his mouth to take me to the brink.

I could feel myself teetering close to the edge when I reached for and dug my fingers into his broad shoulders. That feeling was lost when he slung my legs over his shoulders, wrapped his arms around my thighs and carried me to the living room with my ass resting on his chest, my hair swinging below me as he walked. I grasped the back of his neck with both hands, holding on for dear life. "Paul! You're gonna drop me," I whimpered.

He knelt down in front of the fireplace, holding me a few feet above the fluffy rug in the center of the room. "You really think I would drop you, Babydoll?"

My eyes went wide as he let me drop, just to pull me back at the last second. I squirmed in his arms as he smiled down at me. "I could never hurt you," he insisted as he finally lowered me to the floor all while still nestled between my thighs.

When Paul leaned toward to capture my lips in a kiss, I held a finger to his mouth and I cocked my head. "Are you ever gonna trust me to be around other men?"

Paul sighed deeply, resting on his elbows with his lips mere inches from mine. "I do trust you. It's them I don't trust. How could I ever live with myself if let you get away? You mean everything to me and I...I…"

That's all I needed to hear before closing the distance between us and pressing my lips to his. "I love you," he mumbled over and over against my mouth.

I knew it. I'd known it for months and more than that...I could feel it. I felt it in the way he protected me, even when I didn't need it. I felt it in the way he worried over things I didn't even notice. His love for me was all consuming, confusing and most times, overbearing. But the idea that I wouldn't have him in my life had my heart clenching in fear.

Paul Lahote drove me crazy with his jealousy and 'one question' stuff, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was his and he was mine.

He gazed down at me when I began tugging on those pajama pants of his. "You sure?" he questioned breathlessly, his brow furrowing with concern.

I nodded quickly and laughed when he made quick work of discarding them. "One question," he smirked as he pulled off my shirt and tossed it near his pants.

"Okay?" I urged, eager to feel him inside me.

Paul licked his way between my breasts and raised his head to meet my curious eyes. "Do you love me...want me...as much as I want you?"

I sighed sadly at how insecure my baby boy could be sometimes. I smiled widely as I reached between us and guided him to enter me. His hips lunged forward and he pressed his forehead to mine, waiting for my reply. "I love you, Paul. I want you...so much."

His eyes drifted closed and he nodded slowly as we moved together, getting lost in each other. The sounds of the ice hitting the window and tree branches snapping under the weight of of the furious drizzle that wouldn't let up were all around us. I jumped when the power went out and the house went silent. The only light in the room coming was from the fireplace and illuminating Paul's beautiful face.

His eyes snapped open as he continued to move inside me. "One question…" he began. "Should I stop?"

"Don't you dare," I insisted as I rolled us over and took charge.

Paul held me tightly against him as we rode out the storm… together.

The End ♡

#paul lahote x reader #eclipse #alex meraz #twilight wolf pack #twilight #twilight+paul #writing #paul lahote smut #smuttyfanfic #romance #paul lahote imagine #paul #paullahote #paul lahote

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theundercovermarvelfan · 4 years

Text

Whumptober 2020 - Day 27

Whumtober Challenge @whumptober2020

Day 27 Ok, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card? Earthquake | Extreme Weather | Power Outage

The rain came down in torrential sheets. Lightning pierced the sky about once per minute, while thunder rolled through with almost a palpable force. The wind whipped around at a staggering force, already picking up debris.

“I think it’s about time to get the hell out of here,” Clint announced over the comms.

The five Earthbound Avengers were scattered throughout the area. Bruce had remained behind in the Quinjet, Natasha and Steve had infiltrated the compound and taken out their target, Clint had been posted in a tree on a hill to provide sniper support and Tony was flying overhead for aerial support.

And then the storm had rolled in.

Clint had eyed the dark clouds warily during the mission. He didn’t like the way that they look or how quickly they had been moving. He had Bruce check the weather radar from the jet, and he had reported that a storm was indeed heading their way, but there weren’t any significant warnings associated with it. But Clint couldn’t shake the ominous feeling in his gut. After all, he had grown up in Iowa, affectionately nicknamed Tornado Alley. He had learned early only to have a healthy vigilance when it came to thunderstorms.

“The storm’s coming at me from the other side of the Quinjet,” Tony said, tension lacing his tone. “I’m not going to be able to fly toward it, I’m gonna have to land and hoof it in.”

“Yeah, you’re going to want to get your ass out of the sky and ditch the metal suit before you get fried, Stark,” Clint said as he was climbing down out of the tree he had been perched in, blinking rain water out of his eyes.

The blur of red streaked out of the sky and landed heavily not far from Clint.

“Natasha and I are heading back to the jet to regroup with Bruce,” Steve said.

“You might want to have a more stable option ready, Cap,” Clint said as he squinted at the sky, noting how the lightning was flashing much more frequently than it was just a minute ago. The storm was progressing really quickly. “Bruce, any weather alerts?”

“A tornado watch was just issued for the area just a few minutes ago,” Bruce reported.

“I always forget, which is worse, the watch or the warning?” Tony asked, his tone unusually tense.

“Warning is worse,” Clint said -- vaguely aware of how he had to talk louder in order to be heard over the roaring wind -- as he started to hurry in the direction that Tony had landed. “We’re still in the ‘could happen’ territory and haven’t crossed into the ‘probably will happen’ arena. You get rid of that armor, Stark?”

“Yeah, the armor’s on an autopilot retreat,” Tony said. There was a bright flash that emanated from Tony’s location, causing Clint to skid to a halt for a moment. “And I’m very glad I’m not getting cooked in it right now.”

Clint started moving again, hurrying until he managed to spot Tony, who was heading toward Clint.

“We need to get to lower ground,” Clint said quickly, motioning Tony to follow him down the steeper side of the hill.

“The jet is that way,” Tony said, pointing in the opposite direction.

“The jet isn’t going to be any use if a tornado comes through and throws it like a ragdoll,” Clint said, quickly crossing the distance between them and grabbing Tony by the arm. “Right now, we need low ground.”

“But, Bruce said it was only a watch--”

“Clint, Tony, we’re back at the jet with Bruce and the tornado watch just got bumped up to a tornado warning,” Steve suddenly snapped over the line.

“Get out of the jet,” Clint ordered, tugging Tony after him as they headed down the hill, Tony now hurrying along and falling into step beside him.

“We’re out and looking for a safe place to hunker down,” Natasha assured him. “You and Stark need to do the same.”

“Working on it,” Clint confirmed.

The ground under their feet was losing it’s stability by the moment with the torrential downpour and they were half running, half sliding down it in their haste. Clint’s gaze darted around as they ran, looking for something -- anything -- that they could use for shelter. The lightning was now flashing nonstop, the thunder a continuous roar that vibrated down to Clint’s bones. There was also something else behind the drone, something higher pitch that sounded like…

A freight train.

“Go, go, go!” Clint shouted as he shoved Tony in front of him and toward a small rock outcropping he had just spotted. It was too small for both of them, but anything was better than nothing at this point. “Cover your head,” Clint yelled as Tony wedged into the outcropping, Clint wedging in as close behind him as possible.

Just in time for the world to be torn apart.

Clint squeezed his eyes shut and threw his hands over his head. And then all that they could do was huddle there and pray that the incoming tornado decided to spare them. Clint could feel debris striking his exposed back, some small impacts and others large enough to send jolts of pain through him. The wind was now a defining roar, drowning out even his voice to his own ears as he tried to yell at Tony to keep still when he felt him shifting -- later finding out he had just realized that Clint was still exposed and was trying to make more room for him.

Then, it was as if he had been grabbed around the middle and ripped him violently out of the outcropping, flying through the air for a brief few months before everything suddenly went black.

XxXxX

“Clint! Clint! Where are you!?”

“Clint! Can you hear us!”

“Clint!”

“Clint… Over here! I found him!”

Clint blinked blearily as a flurry of voices slowly made their way into his consciousness. Brown, green and red blurs drifted around him dizzyingly. His whole body ached with pain, and there was a strange sensation of something falling on him. Water?

“Clint? Can you hear me? Please?”

At the sound of Natasha’s voice, Clint’s head instinctively shifted in that direction. A gentle hand put pressure on his shoulder, another hand carefully weaving into his hair. Slowly, the world began to return to focus.

“Nat?” Clint rasped.

The relief that washed over Natasha’s face was enough to knock her back on her heels. “He’s alive!” she called over her shoulder. “Bring the Quinjet around!”

“Wha’...?” Clint murmured, still not understanding what was going on.

“You got your ass kicked by a tornado, Feathers.”

Clint’s eyes wandered up at the sound of a new voice. Tony. And then it all came rushing back to him so suddenly that it took his breath away. Clint eyed Tony critically. He had some visible cuts and bruises and he looked terribly disheveled, but he was still in one piece.

“You’re going to be okay,” Natasha assured him. “I don’t see anything too serious here. You must not have gotten pulled into the tornado, just thrown by some of the outer winds.”

“Is tha’ all?” Clint said as he huffed something between a laugh and a cough.

“Steve and Bruce are on their way with the jet,” Natasha said. “They’ll be here in a minute and then we’ll get you all nice and put back together. Okay?”

“Sounds good,” Clint sighed.

It was yet another reminder that no matter what evil the Avengers were fighting… Mother Nature was going to do whatever the hell she wanted.

#whumptober2020 #no.27 #ok who had natural disasters on their 2020 bingo card?#extreme weather #Avengers #MCU #fic #tornado tw #clint barton #hawkeye #tony stark #Iron Man #Steve Rogers #captain america #natasha romanoff #Black Widow #bruce banner #fanfiction #whump

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courageouslyfearless · 4 years

Text

Summer Storm ☀ Sehun

Pairing: Sehun x Reader Genre: fluff; implied sex Word Count: 1.5k

You had always hated storms. But even more the ones during the summer. Those were the worst. The fear started when you were very young and it had grown as you did as well. The one raging on outside at this moment was particularly nerve-wracking. Thunder shook everything all the way down to your bones. You were grinding your teeth together as lightning painted sparks of white across the sky. You looked away from the dreary picture outside the window and hugged your knees close to your chest, burying your face in the space between them.

You were scared.

Yes, the storm was bringing to life unrealistic kind of fears, but that wasn't what was worrying you the most. Sehun had left an hour ago to pick up that stupid chocolate cake that you loved, because you had mentioned you were craving it. You regretted the comment instantly as he perked up from the dining room chair and announced he would go get it for you.

He was sweet. Always had been. But he had been particularly sweeter the past few weeks and you could feel yourself swooning every time he looked at you.

The truth of the matter is, when you had started dating him, you weren't particularly over your ex yet. You had warned Sehun of this fact and he promised it did not matter to him. He swore to change the way your heart felt and he did so with possibly the gentlest kiss you'd ever received. In other words, it had been impossible for you to say no.

You felt guilty for quite some time, especially on the days when your past love's face appeared to you in your dreams. But that was months ago. You no longer felt this way. Sehun had kept his word. He now resided permanently in your heart, with no space or even a corner left for any other man. You hadn't spoken to him about it yet. Not because you were afraid to tell him, but because you figured he would know already and there was no need for it. Not even two weeks ago you had agreed to move in with him and a few days later you were both sharing a home.

Home. You never thought you'd get to have one. But he had built one within you and you carried its warmth with you wherever you went.

So now, when the sky threatened to crack in half and fall down with the rain that showered the glass window of your living room, you had more than the fear of the storm raging outside. Because Sehun had been gone for so long and you had started fearing the worst.

That same fear stopped you from calling him. You imagined him driving in this weather and you'd hate to be a distraction on top of an already difficult task. So you waited.

But the fear in your heart grew by the second and before you'd know it, tears hugged the slope of your cheeks. The roar of thunder swallowed the creak of your front door opening, a drenched Sehun slipping inside the safety of what you guys called a home.

You were still on the couch, face covered by your own hair that fell down like a curtain over your wet eyes, when he noticed your sitting figure as he closed the door behind him.

He knew you hated storms. It hadn't started raining when he left, the downpour came when he was half way to the grocery store. He knew he had to get back to you as quickly as possible, for he didn't want you to be alone when the storm started. He had no such luck. So when he saw you sitting, face buried in between in your knees, he rushed to your side, placing the cake he had gotten you on top of the coffee table in the center of the room.

"Hey baby."

Something in you chest clenched at the sound of his voice as you felt a pair of arms covering you protectively. You quickly look up at him and he finally notices the tears trailing down your face. He frowns as he pulls your body to him, so that your head can rest comfortably against his chest. Through the fabric of his soaked shirt, you feel the rapid pacing of his heart.

"It's okay, honey. I'm here. You're okay. It's just a storm."

He whispers soft words of comfort and you shake your head against his chest, looking up at him again, placing a hand on his face, his skin is still glistening with the rain that he'd encountered.

"I was worried about you." That's all you say as the rest of your words get stuck on the lump you feel at the back of your throat. His expression softens and he covers your hand with his, keeping it against his cheek.

"I'm safe and I'm here with you. You no longer have to be worried or scared." He smiles at you with pure fondness and you feel your heart fill with joy. You couldn't help it, he had a way of making you feel full. In every sense of the word. You felt so consumed with emotions that you could no longer keep it caged in. The truth didn't beg its way out, it tore itself to freedom before you could do anything about it.

"I love you so much, Sehun." Your voice was barely a whisper, but he heard you. You knew because his eyes drew closed into the shape of half crescent moons as his smile widened.

His hand leaves yours, and you miss the warmth of its contact immediately. You don't have enough time to feel its absence because the next thing you know, he is cupping your face with both palms, inching closer and pressing a kiss to your forehead. You close your eyes for a second and open them up to meet his gaze.

"I love you too." The words came out with a rush of relief and you can't help but smile up at him.

Still smiling at you, his eyes study your face long enough for you to feel heat spread over your face in the form of a blush. This makes his grin wider.

"God, I am so in love with you," he says. He follows this with a soft kiss on your lips. "Thank you." He repeats the words again and you giggle as another kiss is gifted to you. Before he can pull away again to speak, you link your hands around his neck and pull his face close to you. He doesn't try to pull back, instead he meets your mouth with his without hesitation. You can feel his love through that kiss. The way it felt like falling in love with Sehun was the way he kissed as well. Its tempo was slow, the pressure gentle, his tongue patient but persistent in the tug of war that brought forth a sigh of contentment from your very soul.

He continues kissing you, the motions that started light and sweet, slowly becoming deeper and more passionate. Without unlinking your mouths, his hands travel from your face down to your shoulders and continue their path down your back. His touch on your bare skin, where his fingers find the hem of your shirt, is warm. He doesn't take the clothing garment off. After all this time, he still never assumes he can do anything in regards to your body without permission or unless you start it first. You loved that about him.

After being with guys who thought they owned you and your body because you were in a relationship with them, him respecting you this way was something that you thought you could never get accustomed to. But also something that you now expect only because it's Sehun and this is his way of loving you.

You nod your head in consent and you feel as he maneuvers his hand under the fabric, pulling the shirt up slowly as his touch leaves a trail of warmth on its path up your spine. His mouth leaves yours for exactly three seconds as he helps you pull the cloth over your head and throws it on the floor. His mouth covers yours again in an even more fervent kiss, pushing you back until you were laying down on the couch.

He loved you then. His skin against yours, joined in every way bodies, hearts and souls could. He loved every inch of you that you allowed. He reveled in your love for him as well. In the mist of breathless words and trembling limbs, you felt overwhelmed with everything that you shared with Sehun. Swiftly a passing thought nagged at you. How could you have ever loved someone before him? How could you have ever thought to love anybody else? No guy before him and no guy after him could love you this way. Or you him.

Outside of the living room window, rain poured from the skies, like a blanket covering the lands. Lightning lit up the dark clouds in a grandiose display of brightness. Thunder rumbled loud and unforgiving. And with it came an epiphany; Sehun and only Sehun could make you forget that you were afraid of storms.

____________________________________________________

A/N: I am so soft. Don’t mind me.

Also, here’s my masterlist. If you care. Hope you enjoyed :)

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doroyamz · 4 years

Text

Love in Accra

The road looked like it was sweating.

Rain. Heavy rain. The rush hour traffic on the 37 Military Hospital Road had come to a standstill. The downpour, from nowhere, was a welcome distraction for Tony. Last night’s encounter with his wife, Alicia, still all too fresh in his mind.

Cars were barely moving along on in the ever-rising storm.

He felt a movement on his right thigh but was too preoccupied with his thoughts to give it any attention. Esi by this time was growing restless, tired of Tony’s now constant rebuffing of her advances. Last night, and for many nights in the past month, he was totally limp when she unzipped him, a far cry from the throbbing pistol that had thrilled her to no end when they first began their countless rendezvous.

In those early days, they were lust personified. Crazed and addicted to each other beyond reason. Their constant need to feel each other’s skin had a near cataclysmic pull on them and their respective worlds. Alicia got pregnant in those early days, an event Tony privately regarded as a spillover from being with his now long-standing mistress. Esi’s marriage was virtually in the gutter. She often showed up at home disheveled and night after night, retired to her marriage bed wearing a satisfying post-coital daze on her face. Her husband, would just watch her. Mute and completely emasculated.

But now her once insatiable incubus was limp to her touch. She could not understand it.

xxx

Alicia had found the video on his phone.

Tony’s entire world came to a screeching halt. His throat was so dry, he wasn’t sure if he had one anymore. He stood paralyzed; the phone screen thrust in his face. Cocked his head at an angle as if in disbelief at the two actors in the tiny screen.

The man in the screen was bald, tall and dark and looked very much like him. He stood at about 6”3 with an NBA player’s build and had the beard to match. The male actor was indubitably approaching climax and his voluptuous female understudy, on cue, fiercely gripped onto dear life – which in that moment, was her male lead.

The ochre-skinned woman in the screen was of the finest fettle. Folasade was a full-blooded Nigerian but her unapologetic curves screamed South Africa. She looked like a Marvel comic heroine brought to life.

Fola and Tony met at a seminar for West African business executives at the Kempinski Hotel, a few months after his wedding. Fola was leading a breakout panel session which Tony sat in on, intoxicated by her form and presence. The two had exchanged steamy glances all day long, making no attempt to restrain their mutual intentions for each other when the conference ended.

Tony could never get enough of Fola and in Tony, Fola had found a man who could satisfy her every whim. They could go for months on end without so much as a text message to each other. But whenever contact was made, their respective schedules were cleared until further notice. They were fully aware that their combined desire was a vast black hole with the potential to consume them, so they took conscious steps to maintain some modicum of balance in their meeting arrangements.

The night the fated video was shot, Fola was headed for a month-long business trip in Morocco. They had arranged to meet at her private office on Volta Street in the Airport Residential Area.

Fola’s suggestion to record themselves as a temporary parting memento was inexplicable to Tony. Her claim that it would be something that would hold her while she was away, seemed puzzling to him. Her feigned desperation, even more perplexing.

Tony was completely against the idea of recording their liaison. Remonstrating over and over again about how technology and affairs of love should never cross. Fola ogled him for a while, offered tiny chuckles as he groped her every now and then during his rant.

Tony became so engrossed in his personal deliberations that he missed her slip into the bathroom. When he finally took a moment to break from his monologue, he was out of breath and had worked up a sweat. The man felt he just needed to wash away all traces of that unholy proposal.

Once on the other side of the bathroom door, Tony became Pavlov’s Dog.

That was over a year ago and Fola still hadn’t returned from her trip.

His mind slowly drifted back to the screen. The soft moans and cries. The sound of skin on skin rhythmically playing from the Samsung phone speakers.

He didn’t feel shame. He didn’t feel regret. He heard Alicia’s cries, felt her pain slide across his skin. He just stood there. Numb.

xxx

“We have asked around about Tony…Alicia…for your sake, for your parents’ sake, for all our sakes…please…do not marry this man.”

One of the many admonitions Alicia fielded from her aunts and cousins after announcing Tony’s marriage proposal at her younger sister’s festive birthday party.

In the ensuing weeks after her announcement, the family matriarchs conducted an extensive background check to gather as much intel as they could on her suitor. From what Alicia’s mum told her the matriarchs searched far and wide, even unearthing some very unsavory stories about Tony’s maternal grandfather in Mampong, a township in the Ashanti region.

The women came back with a most damning report on Alicia’s debonair Asante. Alicia, however, was defiant and unmoved by their findings.

She stood up to address the mini-assembly.

“Each woman here knows how highly I value them. You have all shaped me, guided me and helped me become the woman I am today,” she said in a restrained voice.

“But with all respect, none of you know Tony like I do. You don’t know what I see in him, his potential. The depths of emotion I have felt in the time I’ve gotten to know him. None of you can know that. He’s not perfect, Lord I know he’s far from it, but I know he’s the one for me. Nothing you say or do can make me feel differently.”

She loved Tony deeply. She had never believed she was capable of loving a man, let alone marrying one, after all the damage she had seen men wreak in and around her life. And Tony had flaws, many serious ones, but he had a certain light to him and he had showed her honesty and a vulnerability she had never known men to possess.

Deep down, she believed she could change him, iron out his weaknesses and over time drive out his especially troubling womanizing habit. She knew he liked women and on countless occasions, with her own eyes, she noticed the magnetizing effect he had on them. Alicia also believed some of his troubles with women lay in the fact that he was a true empath. That he, unfortunately, had never learned to draw boundaries to his empathy which inadvertently led to his many ‘situationships.’

“I won’t lie Alicia. I know I have a woman problem. It’s like an addiction. The intimacy, the need to connect, the sex.” They were having lunch at the Hinlone Chinese Restaurant in Labone. The night before, as they lay in bed, Tony had told he loved her for the first time. Alicia simply smiled at his declaration, electing to play it cool although inwardly, she was beside herself with joy.

Flashes from the video.

The woman’s legs splayed. Tony’s thrusts. The glistening sheen of sweat.

“But I swear to you, most of my things with these women often start out because I pity them or I want to help them in some way…along the line, things just get muddled up and…I lose my way...”

The woman crying out in throes of pleasure.

Her mind was a broken dam. Thoughts, memories and conversations flooded her head and receded at their own leisure.

She wondered why these memories and conversations were coming up at this time. The video was still a freshly opened gash, one she had already accepted was going to be a large and permanent scar. But for the other flashbacks, she questioned their relevance to her current predicament.

He was always a monster. Why was I pretending all this time that he wasn’t? Who was I kidding?

The video was the bomb but Tony’s desensitized demeanor and harrowing forced confessions were the firestorm. She knew there was so much more he would have confessed to if she had had any more emotional stamina during her five-hour interrogation of the stranger she called her husband. She had been beyond foolish.

Time had lost its meaning. She had spent three days huddled in the corner of their bedroom tormented by her broken heart and mind.

Alicia just wanted to disappear.

xxx

One week and seventy-seven unanswered calls had passed since the explosive encounter. Tony wasn’t sure if Alicia was alive.

He was parked outside the Total House Clinic in Adabraka on a Saturday morning. Completely engrossed in his thoughts and yearning for divine intervention to offer him some guidance. Since his exposé, his mind had been in a fog that thickened with each passing day. The only silver lining were the test results from his urologist. Tony’s recent erectile issues were deemed a stress response and his dysfunction persisted due to a lack of proper rest. He needed to relax.

His wife was even more inaccessible now than she’d been during the miscarriage. For Tony, the miscarriage was a living hell made more intolerable by how suicidal Alicia had been. He was disappointed to have lost the baby especially after how hard they’d tried over the years but a small and, perhaps, darker part of him felt relieved. He didn’t think it was right to have conceived a child with his wife barely an hour after stealing sordid moments with another woman. A woman he met through his wife. In his mind, it was perhaps the universe’s way of warning him that he had gone too far this time. He would never have been able to look at that child without seeing Esi in his mind’s eye.

This time though, he had overstepped the good faith that the universe seemed to constantly extend to him. He knew his credit line with the powers-that-be was now in the red and would stay there indefinitely. His latest debt, while not his most damning by a long shot, was irredeemable. He had nowhere to hide. There were no more lies he could spin around Alicia.

But he needed her. He couldn’t lose his North Star. She was the only thing that prevented his chaotic nature from engulfing him or so he thought. Surely, after all these years she knew what she was signing on for. Why was she so surprised? That video was nothing compared to the numerous other unspeakables he’d committed over the course of their marriage. Of all the things to do him in, it had to be a twenty-minute porno. What a sick joke.

In a bloodrush, he let out a hollow scream. His mind was drowning in haphazard thoughts.

“What have I done? God what have I done?” he blurted out repeatedly at his steering wheel, as he fought to hold back tears.

“Why? Why now? Why did it happen like this?” he plaintively questioned.

No answer.

Deflated and resigned, he took out his work phone and called the only person who would always welcome him with open arms and accept him for the depraved and gluttonous animal he was.

xxx

Incense burned as Jill Scott’s ‘He Loves Me’ played softly from the soundbar. The room had been steamed to perfection.

The Executive Suite at the La Beach Hotel was their favourite love nest. Any sexual fantasy - from orgies to swing parties - either party happened to be in the mood for or could imagine, this was the room that staged its enactment.

Tonight it was just the two of them.

The toned, dark-skinned Ga woman on the bed was in her early seventies but inexplicably did not look a day past twenty. Tightly twisted Senegalese crochet braids, flowed magnificently from her scalp to her dainty waist. Her oval-shaped face remained flawless as did her soft, wrinkle-free skin. How she managed to defy time with her looks and poise was a much pondered upon mystery to all who knew her.

Dede was naked underneath a black, sparkling see-through gown. Her shea-butter glistened body glowed through the gown. A wet, willing and wanting goddess. Ready to be ravaged by her young midnight warrior. She rose to sit on her knees, directing her eyes to her nude captor’s crotch. She rendered a wry smile.

The warrior was flat-out flaccid.

“Mm,” she remarked, as she beckoned him to draw closer.

“Looks like our little man needs a little something before he comes out to play eh?” she teased in playful Ga.

He smirked as he approached her, only stopping when his groin and her face were level.

The mind-fog was still present but he closed his eyes as he begun to feel the slow and perfectly measured licking sensations in his nether region. Dede was always masterful with the things she could do with her mouth. Two lifetimes worth of experience to draw from.

Two minutes passed but Tony’s situation did not improve.

She paused to look up at Tony, “Is something the matter? You usually perk up for me with no effort. Have I done something wrong?”

“No…it’s not you love…,” he paused, longer than he’d intended.

“Just been under a lot of stress lately,” he sighed as he pulled away. He turned his back on the regal woman to look around the room for his clothes.

Dede wasn’t buying it. His tone. That pause. Something was definitely up. She had never known her beast to act or sound so tame in all the years she’d known him, not even during his grooming period.

“But you’re even more marvelous when you’re stressed…or have you forgotten Abidjan?” she asked, biting her lip.

He shrugged at her retort.

Tony was troubled by his recurring limpness.

xxx

Esi’s heart froze when she saw the Caller ID on her phone screen.

Alicia.

Why would Alicia be calling her? For what reason? Was it about Tony? Had she found out about them?

The phone was still ringing but Esi just stared at her mobile. A million worst-case scenarios flying around in her mind each time her ringtone looped over.

She decided she would not answer the call.

It’d been over eight months since they last spoke and the distance that had grown between them suited Esi, considering the increased frequency of her liaisons with Tony in those months. After years of clandestine maneuvers, she felt she was finally closing in on Alicia’s husband.

Both women had known each other from childhood. Esi even witnessed Alicia’s declaration of Tony’s marriage proposal.

The announcement was a mild shock for her at first but she remembered feeling something resembling happiness for her longtime friend. Alicia had found a man who could actually hold her attention. He had to be special. She’d seen Alicia turn down the most desirable of bachelors - a few of whom Esi herself subsequently sampled extensively - on countless occasions.

In her quiet moments, she sometimes wondered why her then soon-to-be-engaged friend seemed to routinely attract men of a higher caliber without even trying, while she often had to go above and beyond to pull a semi-decent man. She felt she was equally as - if not more - attractive than Alicia and just as accomplished professionally but somehow, she always seemed to come out second-best to her childhood friend when it mattered. These thoughts irked Esi more than she cared to admit to herself.

Alicia mirthfully introduced her old friend and soon-to-be-husband to each other a few days after her announcement.

Their eyes locked for a brief but intense moment during the exchange of pleasantries.

xxx

Nyarko Abronoma could not look at the man she called her son.

She was disgusted.

Why were the men in her family such cancers?

To the uninitiated, her family’s men were walking gods. Dazzling men who could bend the wills and desires of the staunchest hearts. They were gifted manipulators and they used their power to wreak havoc. Their preferred targets, were often women of high standing and character. They swarmed on these women like bees to honey. Once ensnared, their targets were mentally and emotionally stretched and bent beyond their limits, enduring relentless acts of gross disrespect and shame on account of these bedeviled men. And in no time, the prey merely became a shell of their former selves.

Nyarko, at the age of nine, saw her mother gradually lose her mind. A year later, a young Nyarko watched on as her mother was lowered into an unmarked grave. Both events, her father’s handiwork.

Her mother used to say that the men of Nyarko’s lineage were descendants of the fallen angels from the Book of Genesis. The Nephilim.

Even in her womb, she already knew Tony was one of them. Throughout her pregnancy, Nyarko prayed, fasted, sought the counsel of several spiritual leaders to save her unborn child. She desperately wanted her son to chart a different path than the men before him.

Tony didn’t know how to break the silence between them.

His mother had always been his trump card whenever things between him and Alicia were coming to a head. This time around though he was seeking his mother’s intervention as a Hail Mary. He knew she admired and loved Alicia. She would probably have traded her for him as her child if she had her way.

He told her what had happened, leaving out a few details.

Nyarko knew her son hadn’t told her everything.

She raised her head to observe her son. A beautiful boy with a Machiavellian heart. He was a poisoned chalice like his predecessors.

Tony looked away, uncomfortable with her soul-piercing stare.

“I can’t help you and I won’t,” she said in Twi.

He was stunned.

“I won’t let you drive that poor woman to the grave. If I help you, you are only going to repeat what your grandfather put my mother through and what my brothers did to their wives. Alicia is too much of a good woman for that. Too much. She deserves better. This time you have been exposed for all to see and we both know there are countless more lies and secrets behind those scheming eyes of yours!”

Tony’s throat tightened. He hadn’t anticipated this tirade from the old woman.

“You think I don’t know about you? The things you scurry around town doing like a possessed rat? I weep for Alicia everyday. I always pray to God to give her strength in dealing with you. You have no shame. Even during your wife’s miscarriage you had no decency, no respect for her, not an ounce of self-control. Hiding in and out of Accra with your concubines.”

Nyarko spat at her son’s feet.

“If anything should happen to Alicia, it will be on your head and I pray you pay for it.”

xxx

Three weeks and still no word from Tony.

Alicia’s call coupled with Tony’s prolonged radio silence led Esi to assume the worst.

She was driving back into Accra, via the Accra-Tema Motorway, after wrapping up a meeting in Tema's harbour area. Hawkers streamed along either side of her car, as she neared one of the highway's three toll booths.

Esi's mind was spinning. Everything seemed to be falling apart. Had she been stupid? Why couldn’t she be allowed to have her own slice of heaven? Was it a crime to want to be loved? She didn’t mean Alicia any harm but the connection between her and Tony was unavoidable.

Why was Tony all of a sudden ignoring her? Why weren’t they making love anymore? She knew he had a harem of ‘playmates’ he could call on but he always came back to her. Was he over her? Had somebody else taken her place?

Too many questions with no answers. She wracked her brain to think of a solution, a way out through all the madness.

Dede. The Madame. The old woman would probably know something. She and Tony were close, a little too close for Esi’s liking. But Esi figured that a woman at that age didn’t have that long to live, no matter how well she kept herself or how many boys she gobbled up, so Esi was fine with their relationship. Besides she was on good terms with Dede, the three had had some raunchy episodes through the years.

Esi called Dede and inquired about Tony.

“I last saw him about a week ago but I haven’t heard from him since then,” Dede stated.

More worry for Esi. He had gone to see Dede but had not even bothered to call her for three weeks? What was going on with him? Was he over her? She knew Dede had some skills but the old witch had enough boy toys to keep her satisfied.

Dede hummed an Erykah Badu tune. Esi forgot she was still on the line.

“Thank you Dede. I’ll give him a buzz again.”

“Dear girl, hold on for a second please.”

Esi was caught off guard by The Madame’s request. Outside of their fervid love-ins, Dede was typically brisk and forthright with her.

“Have you noticed anything…strange about Tony lately?” Dede asked, an almost mischievous lilt in her slivery voice.

“Strange? What do you mean?” a puzzled Esi asked.

“His performance, has it changed in any noticeable way?” The Madame was sipping on something in the background.

“Oh Dede…,” Esi responded bashfully.

“My girl let’s not beat around the bush. Is anything different or not?”

The sudden firmness in The Madame’s voice unsettled Esi.

“W-Well…recently he doesn’t respond to my touch. You know…,” she didn’t know why she was so shy in speaking to Dede about her sexual affairs with Tony. She had seen the woman on all fours.

Static on the phone.

“He can’t get it up,” Esi muttered feebly.

“Mm..I see. Thank you Esi, that’s all I needed to know. Best of luck reaching him.”

The line cut.

Why would Dede ask that? Was she experiencing the same issues she’d been having with Tony?

The suspicion that had been floating in Esi’s mind for the past few weeks was too absurd to now consider an actual possibility. It was impossible for that to happen to Tony, he was too red-blooded, way too potent for that.

It couldn’t be.

No...no..not Tony...

Tony couldn’t be…?

No!

It isn’t possible. Tony couldn’t be impotent. The mere thought alone was utterly absurd.

But how else could she explain his sudden limpness? Plus Dede would never have asked that question if she hadn’t noti---

Esi fatally rear-ended her Nissan Qashqai into a heavy cargo truck.

xxx

Their luxury three-bedroom apartment home on Second Circular Road, Cantonments, was a stone throw away from the U.S. Embassy. It was a $600,000 property that Tony had astoundingly managed to wind down to a sale price just short of a $100,000. Alicia used to call him ‘Puppet Master T,’ for his uncanny ability to always get what he wanted.

Tony lingered outside the apartment door for nearly half an hour. He was jittery.

A flurry of deep and quick deep breaths filled his lungs as he steeled himself and turned the doorknob.

The apartment felt hostile as if it despised his presence.

His sweep around his marriage home confirmed Alicia had packed up, that much was clear. Their bedroom was half empty, with no trace of his wife left in the room. Alicia was gone and she was gone for good.

A small stack of papers was neatly arranged on the bed. Divorce papers and a small sheet with a number to call when he was done signing. That was Alicia, methodical and precise, even in the worst of circumstances.

Tony sat on the bed, staring at the divorce papers.

He wanted to call Alicia but thought better of it. She’d probably blocked him on all platforms. When his wife didn’t want to be found, she did it well.

The die was cast. There were no more moves he could play.

Something vibrated under his left thigh, briefly snapping him out of his self-pity. He shifted his weight to find the smoking gun that had ended everything.

Tony unlocked the phone to find a freeze-frame shot of a busty Fola in a most compromising position. Alicia must have watched the video countless times, trying to make sense of it all. Her soon-to-be ex-husband zoomed out of the video application to the notification center.

Ato, his closest friend and fellow degenerate, had just sent him series of confusing text messages.

The first message read: “Bro...I have been trying to reach you.” Tony checked his call log to indeed find several missed calls from his main man.

Second message: “I don’t know if you’ve heard already.”

Third: “Bro…I’m so so sorry about Esi...I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. I’m so sorry bro. Please call me if you need me. I’m here for you…”

xxx

Marijuana smoke filled the air of the love nest.

Tony’s head lay buried in Dede’s bosom. He was silent, as Dede gently stroked his head and offered hushed words of consolation.

She drew a few more puffs from her joint and moved it down to Tony’s lips but her wounded warrior declined.

They stayed silent for a lengthy period of time as Dede spaced out from the weed.

Memories of a lifetime’s worth of sexual dissipation with her favorite boy streamed across her mind. Despite her wanton admiration for his sexual prowess, she had grown to develop an affection for her former protégé over the years.

The Madame, as Dede was referred to by Accra’s high society, had known Tony since he was fourteen. Even as a sprightly teenage boy - and much to her pleasant surprise - he oozed raw potential with his savage-like lovemaking abilities. By seventeen, the boy could do things she had never known men to be capable of. He had a frightening and near bottomless appetite that bordered on the frenetic, that even her infamous grooming techniques couldn’t temper.

She shed an unseen tear for her paramour’s wasted manhood. To be completely robbed of his virility in his prime was a cruel blow from the gods.

Dede nonchalantly crushed the end of the burnt-out joint into an ashtray on the bedside table.

“It’s a pity but it seems I have no use for you anymore, my dear,” she said sofly.

Tony was still, his eyes shut. It was what he expected from his Madame.

“There’s a young French couple coming by shortly. Quite the adventurous duo. It’s a shame you wouldn’t be joining us,” she sighed airily.

“A shame,” he whispered.

She started running rings around his lips.

“You’re of course welcome to stay and watch if you please my love,” she said somewhat coyly.

Tony slowly reached for her moving hand and kissed it.

He rose from his resting place, stretched to his full height, and promptly made his way to the door without looking back.

“Tony..,” he heard Dede call out before he shut the door.

Two spirited European-looking girls gaily passed him in the lobby hallway.

As he stepped onto the elevator, the vivacious couple turned around to take in the view of the brooding stud exiting the floor.

xxx

Tony hopped over the fence that separated the La Beach Hotel premises from the beach.

It was a little past midnight and the cool and salty breeze of the sea, soothed Tony’s mood. The mind-fog was clearing up. Whether the fog’s retreat was a result of the second-hand smoke from the weed or the effect of the beach, he wasn’t sure but he was grateful.

It was a moonless, starless sky. The ocean’s waves roared gently, calling to him. He had been here before, in another life perhaps.

He took in the scene before him one last time and smiled. All was fair.

Tony took the first steps towards his death.

xxx

#love accra ghana short story

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honeybammie · 6 years

Text

downpour › hwang hyunjin

↳ in which your timing with hyunjin is never quite right ↳ angst ↳ sentence prompt: “do you love her?” ↳ part two - raindrops › lee felix

I was Hyunjin’s first kiss. I should’ve been his only kiss, but he doesn’t know that, and telling him so would ruin twelve years of friendship. We were fifteen years old playing video games in his basement, and he asked if I ever kissed anyone. I told him no, and he confessed that he hadn’t, either, but all our friends already had. Han, Seungmin, and Felix were six months younger than him, and they were already ahead. So we did what we obligatorily had to and kissed each other, which was a little too cold and dry but fine as far as first kisses were concerned. We dated afterwards for a month, but we never hung out other than with friends and only kissed a couple more times. In all honesty, I didn’t like Hyunjin. He had been my friend since elementary school, and I was perpetually in love with older men—meaning Chan and Woojin, who were eighteen at the time, and in my eyes, they were dreamy and sophisticated, even if they smelled too much like boy and didn’t yet know how to dress. So I broke up with Hyunjin, the two of us agreeing we merely dated out of a nonexistent necessity and high school pressure, and we returned to being friends. We still hung out with all of the guys, and after a while the fact that we were ever together faded out of existence.

Until it reappeared.

Hyunjin changed drastically in three years. At eighteen, he had kissed many girls. On bleachers at school soccer games. At bus stops while waiting to ride into the city. In cafes to take care of the coffee that had collected on a girl’s top lip. He dated a few, but they lasted no longer than I did. We didn’t hang out one-on-one anymore, but our group of ten hung out at least once a week, usually a Friday or Saturday night spent at Felix’s house, where Hyunjin would fall asleep with his head in my lap every time.

I changed, too, in that I was no longer perpetually in love with older men, but head-over-heels in love with Hyunjin.

I don’t know how many times he fell asleep with his head on my lap before I realized, but eventually, the feeling in my chest was as undeniable and uncontrollable as the weather, and every time he kissed a new girl, it downpoured, my envy coming in sheets of rain and jagged bolts of lightning, but he only heard the pitter-patter of rain on windows, and slept soundly while I brushed my fingers through his hair.

Felix lived only a couple houses down from me, so I usually arrived first and helped him pull all the blankets from his closets and all the bags of chips from his cabinets to set out in the basement living room. This time, his parents gave us money for pizza, as they did every-so-often.

“How many should I order? Five?” he asked while dialing the number. I sat at the dinner table, popping chips and salsa in my mouth.

“We usually order four.”

“Yeah, but that barely lasts the ten of us, and we have an extra guest tonight.”

My eyebrows furrowed. Extra guest? “What’re you talking about?”

“Just a second.” He raised the phone to his ear, rattling off five different types of pizza while I drummed my nails on the table. There had only ever been ten of us.

When the call ended, Felix focused on me again. “What’s up? Oh—our extra. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. Hyunjin is bringing his girlfriend.”

I stopped chewing, a myriad of alarms sounding in my head, but out loud I laughed. “You’re joking.”

“I’m…not.” Felix squinted at me. “Why?”

“He’s never been with a girl longer than a month. You’re going to start letting him bring all his flings into the nights dedicated to our group of friends hanging out?”

I leaned back in my chair, baffled. “Minho has a girlfriend, too, and she’s never done that.”

“Hyunjin’s been with her for four months,” Felix corrected me. My mouth dropped, and he widened his eyes in realization. “He hasn’t told you?”

I shook my head. “None of you did. Four months?”

“He didn’t tell me until a few weeks ago, saying neither of them have ever been good at relationships, so they didn’t tell anyone for a while, but he said he really likes her. I was the first one he told, but I assumed he spread the news to everyone by now.”

“To everyone except me, I’m sure.” I might not have spoken to him one-on-one anymore, but if he was telling everyone else, didn’t I deserve to know? Had I misinterpreted something?

“I’m sure there’s an explanation.” Felix rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder, but his eyes gave away his doubt. “Just wait until you meet her, okay? I’m sure she’s lovely, and if Hyunjin is happy, we should be happy for him.”

I faked a smile, but on the inside lightning cracked, and soon came the rain.

Minho, Jisung, Seungmin, and Jeongin arrived next, carpooling in Minho’s vehicle, followed by Chan and Changbin, and then Woojin. Hyunjin and Kim Mina—Felix told me her name—entered last, and all eyes turned to them as he helped her shed the winter coat off her shoulders.

He squeezed her hand before approaching while she hid partway behind him, timid and a whole head shorter, but adorable no less. She fixed her bangs repetitively, and her large eyes shone under the kitchen lights. One look, and I didn’t even have to wonder what he saw in her.

“Everyone,” Hyunjin announced over the chattering voices of our friends. He was beaming, his skin aglow, and everyone fell silent. “I wanted you to meet Mina.”

“Mina!” I exclaimed before anyone else had the chance. “We’ve heard so much about you!”

Sitting across the table, Felix turned around to shake his head at me, but no one else suspected a thing, chiming in with their agreements while Mina blushed crimson.

But Hyunjin knew, too. For a moment, his expression faltered, but this was not the time or place for him to make up to me, so he returned to his previous task, which included introducing each of us individually.

When Hyunjin reached me, Mina pitched in and said my name first. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “He talks about you often,” she said with a laugh.

“Does he?” I mused. “I’d love to hear about it sometime. All good things, I hope.”

This time, Felix kicked me under the table. I wasn’t even being noticeably sarcastic, and Mina continued to smile unaffected, so I kicked him back.

Soon after, we carried our get together from the kitchen to the basement living room, where everyone huddled under blankets for movies and talking too loudly over top of the movies. Mina was the primary star of the night, given that she was our first new guest in ever. She was a few months older than Hyunjin, which everyone teased him for, and she studied nursing in school, which was supposedly a lot of work but she knew it’d pay off one day. Hyunjin stared at her all the while, the rest of us barely in his worldview, and jealousy pumped thick and poisoned blood through my system. How I wanted to dislike Mina, but she checked off every box I could think of. She even had a kitten, who she excitedly shared pictures of. And she adopted it from a kill-shelter. Even better.

But why hadn’t Hyunjin told me? All the others clearly knew, whereas I was the one person left in the dark. We saw each other every week and he fell asleep on me all the time. Did that not count for anything in his book of friends?

“I’m going to make myself a bag of popcorn,” I announced after I found myself staring at them for an eternity too long in the middle of a movie. Maybe in two minutes, I could fall out of love with Hyunjin, and my envy would clear itself from my bloodstream.

“Wait, I want some, too.”

I was halfway up the steps, and I clenched my teeth when Hyunjin’s voice called after me. He shuffled to his feet while I continued my ascent, pretending I hadn’t heard him.

He watched me wordlessly while I scoured Felix’s cabinet until I found a box, and he shut the door to the basement so he could explain without anyone hearing.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he started. “I know this is bad.”

“No shit,” I scoffed. He looked at the floor. “You told all of them. Felix knew for weeks, and I assume the others found out soon after, but I had to learn from Felix twenty minutes before you got here. I must’ve misinterpreted something over the years because I thought you were one of my best friends since we were six, but—”

“Can I please explain? Please?” he interjected, pleading with big brown eyes and I turned away from him to put the bag of popcorn into the microwave. “I didn’t know how to tell you. With the other guys, it was easy, but you were the first girl I ever kissed or dated or fell in love with, and it took me almost three years to get over my best friend, so I didn’t know how to approach the fact that I had.”

I clutched Felix’s countertop to make up for the wind knocked out of my lungs, and my back remained to him. “Say that again,” I muttered. “Three years? When we broke up—when we were fifteen, I should mention—I said I didn’t see you that way, and you agreed.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” he asked. “Ruin our friendship? Say that I had the biggest crush on you? Even through the rest of high school, I waited every day for you to change your mind. I tried to kiss other girls and go on dates with other girls, but it never worked. I started falling asleep on your lap two years ago just so you’d play with my hair or give me attention, which is ridiculous, but it’s true. I just kept waiting for you to magically fall in love with me one day.”

I let go of the counter to face him. This was his magical day. I had fallen in love with him months ago under the impression he hadn’t felt the same way in years, and now we could fix years of miscommunication and longing and—

“But you never did,” he continued, and my imagination crumbled into dust. “And I’m sorry for doing this now. It’s probably awkward, but I just didn’t know how to address the fact that I had a new girlfriend when I spent so much time vying for you.”

“And you’re happy?” I asked. “With Mina?”

He nodded, trying to suppress a stupid smile. The conversation didn’t allow for it. “Yeah, I am.”

“Do you love her?”

He paused, and if he said no I told myself I’d tell him the truth. If he didn’t love her, maybe he was still in love with me, and I’d come clean. In two seconds I made an infinite number of promises to the universe of the things I’d do if he just said no.

But he smiled. This time there was no suppression, only complete acceptance and euphoria to a fact he knew in his mind long before he said it out loud. “I do.”

The microwave sounded. If it hadn’t, I don’t know what I’d say to him that I’d regret moments later, but I reached into the microwave to pull out the searing hot bag, and I poured its contents into a bowl.

“Here,” I said, holding the bowl out to him. “Thanks for telling me.”

He smiled, completely oblivious. There is nothing quite as sweet as being naïve and in love. Who was I to ruin that for him? “Thank you for understanding.”

He disappeared down the stairs, and I threw another bag in the microwave before slumping to the floor against Felix’s oven, covering my mouth with both hands to cover my shock. Two minutes to fall out of love with Hyunjin, but he took years, and I thought myself no better off, destined to play the same waiting game.

By the time I registered the sound of footsteps coming for me, I didn’t have time to move, only lift my head to see Felix pushing open the door and pausing mid-step once he saw me on the floor. From there, he approached with caution as not to startle me, tiptoeing his way over and sitting next to me.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I love him.”

I hoped admitting the words aloud might make them untrue, like I might laugh at the idea of ever being with Hyunjin again, but I only cried harder into my hands. Felix wrapped his arms around my shoulders so I could lean into him and further disguise myself from the remainder of the world. Maybe the storm couldn’t find me if I hid myself away as such.

He didn’t say a word, letting me spend as long as I needed with my forehead pressed into his t-shirt and rubbing circles on my back, but I only had so much time before the others would come upstairs wondering what happened to the two of us.

“He loves her,” I muttered when I found my voice again, engraining the fact into my head. It was true. I had to accept that there was no alternative.

I loved Hyunjin, and he had loved me, but I fell in love too late and he fell in love too early to do anything about it, and only one of us knew both sides.

Outside, it began to pour.

a/n: i hadn’t written angst in a while,,,this was the result

#stray kids #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids angst #hwang hyunjin #stray kids hyunjin #kpop scenarios #kpop angst #kpop imagines #kpop au #stray kids au #stray kids hwang hyunjin #kpop drabbles #stray kids drabbles #kpop oneshot #stray kids oneshot

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svucarisiaddict · 5 years

Text

Once bitten, twice shy- Part of the Foolish Pride Series

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. It’s wrong,” you said to yourself. The decision to call Mike had been a tough one. Now here you sat in a coffee shop waiting for him. You couldn’t count how many hours you spent waiting on him in the past. There was always a 50/50 chance that he would show. Until that became 70/30 he wouldn’t show which turned to not even bothering to make plans that involved Mike because you knew he wasn’t going to make it.

It boggled your mind that you were just as drawn to him as you were before. But that was never the problem. The draw, the attraction, the need for one another never faded. You never stopped loving Mike but you did want different things in life than he did, well at least that’s what you thought until you ran into Mike a couple of days ago.

Leaning forward you braced your head with your hands and took a deep breath. When you looked up Mike was sitting across from you. “Mike. Hi.” Not only was he on time he was actually early.

He grinned. “Hi.” Mike cleared his throat. “I’m happy you called. I was going to call you but didn’t want to seem pushy.”

“I am too.”

“Can I get you a coffee? Maybe a scone?” Mike asked as if he even knew what a scone was.

“Just a coffee with-”

“With two cream, two sugars and a shot of vanilla,” he stated. “I remember.” He stood and went to wait in line.

Your phone started buzzing in your bag. When you checked it there was a text from Peter. He wanted to come to visit you next weekend. It had been almost a month since you last saw Peter. He lived in Chicago but would come to New York periodically to visit family. What you had with him started as casual and fun. It was a great escape from the early days when you and Mike had split. He wanted more but that was something you weren’t sure you were ready for it. It scared you to open your heart up like that again. You typed out a quick response then put the phone back in your bag as Mike returned with the coffees.

“I will never understand how you can drink black coffee,” you said shaking your head.

“Puts hair on your chest. You should try it sometime,” he joked.

“I am not trying to grow hair on my chest! You laughed. “And from what I remember you don’t have any on yours.”

“Still true,” he admitted. “Why don’t we go for a walk. It’s a beautiful day.”

“Sure.” Picking up your coffee and bag you walked to the exit. Mike put his hand at the small of your back like he did in the past and you didn’t object. He offered his arm and you slipped your arm through it. Everything felt so right being here with him. Like it was the first few years you were together.

Before you knew it you and Mike had been talking a strolling through Central Park for over an hour. “The sky is getting darker, looks like rain. Should probably get back,” you announced.

Mike turned his eyes to the heavens. “You’re right.” He gave you a small smile as the two of you walked back to the coffee shop. A couple minutes the skies opened up. The cold downpour made you and Mike find shelter. He pulled you under an awning. The two of you were soaked, cold but laughing none-the-less. Mike brushed a wet strand of hair out of your face. Leaning down he pressed his lips to yours.

At first, you melted into his kiss. But something in the back of your mind made you pull away. “I-I can’t do this. I’m sorry Mike.”

The next week flew by and before you knew it, Friday had arrived. Peter was taking a late flight in from Chicago. You offered to meet him at the airport but he said he didn’t want to inconvenience you since he wouldn’t land until after 9pm. Peter was one of the sweetest people you knew. Considerate, caring, thoughtful and passionate; Peter was the whole package. And you did care for him very much. So what was your problem? Mike was the problem. And the feelings you still harbored for him. Especially after seeing him last week then having coffee last weekend. Not to mention getting caught in the rain and the kiss that you could still feel on your lips.

The next morning you woke up with a smile on your face and snuggled closer to Peter’s chest.

Peter caressed your bare shoulder with his thumb making small circles on your skin. “Good morning, darling. Sleep well?”

“Morning,” you croaked. “ Of course I did. I woke up next to you.”

Peter kissed the top of your head. “Want to eat breakfast in or go out?”

“Eat in. I like to watch you cook. What time is it?”

“Almost 9,” he replied.

You stretched beside him. “Hmmm...you’re usually up by now.”

“It’s been too long since I’ve been able to hold you and feel your soft skin that I wanted to relish it,” he said.

Turning over onto your belly you pushed to your elbows looking up at Peter. “I’m happy you’re here.” And you were happy. Peter was beginning to break down the wall you put up after Mike. It was scary as hell.

Peter pushed a strand of hair from your face. “I wish I could wake up to you every morning.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” you whispered. Inching yourself closer to Peter you were just about to kiss him when the doorbell rang.

“Hold that thought, kitten,” Peter said giving you a chaste kiss on the cheek. He got out of bed and pulled on his boxer briefs giving you a fantastic view of his ass. Peter smirked when he turned around to look at you.

Deciding to go to the kitchen to get the coffee started you rolled out of bed. Peter’s shirt was slung over the footboard so you grabbed it pulling it around you. As you were buttoning it up you made your way to the kitchen. Peter’s voice was evident. You wondered who he was talking to when you heard Mike speak.

“I’m sorry. I must have the wrong apartment. I was looking for Y/N,” he said.

“And you are?” Peter asked.

Padding to the door you came to stand beside Peter. “Mike. What are you doing here?”

Peter’s jaw clenched at the mention of Mike’s name. He knew everything about your relationship with Mike and that being one of the reasons you were so reluctant to open up to him completely.

Mike took in your appearance along with Peter’s putting two and two together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…” He cleared his throat. “I’ll just go now.” He pushed the tray of coffees into Peter’s hand then walked away.

Peter shut the door then placed the coffee on the counter. “What was that about?” Peter asked.

“I ran into him about a week ago. I had Max in the park. He started talking to me, thought Max was his,” you scoffed. You explained the events, including the coffee shop, going for a walk and the kiss.

“Did you kiss him back?” Peter looked over at you. His face was tight and you could see him swallow hard as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

You bite your lip and wringing your hands. “At first but I pushed him away and left. I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you but-”

“He started it and you ended it?” Peter asked.

“Yes. I didn’t want you to get mad or upset about something that meant nothing to me,” you explained. Well, part of it was true. The last thing you wanted was to hurt Peter.

Peter ran his hand through his hair. “I’m not mad, not at you anyway. But if I see him again…” He crossed the floor to you. “Thank you for being honest with me.” Peter cupped your face with his hands then kissed your forehead. He lead you into the kitchen with an arm around your shoulders. “Now pancakes or French toast?”

“Pancakes. Blueberry,” you replied. “I’ll make coffee.” You felt like gum on the bottom of a shoe for lying to Peter. That kiss, that kiss set your soul on fire. And you knew someone would get burnt before was all said and done.

#mike dodds x reader #peter stone x reader #Foolish Pride Series #mike dodds #peter stone #fluff #angst #lies

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besidemethewholedamntime · 5 years

Text

most sane and sunly

Happy New Year @recoveringrabbit ! It’s me, Rebecca, your secret santa! This is very belated but Merry Christmas! I had a lot of fun writing your gift and I hope it’s alright. Your prompt was beautiful and gave me so any ideas and in the end I went with this one. I hope 2019 brings you all the best for a wonderful bean like you! Thank you!

Summary:

'“Fitz?” She calls, heart in her throat. Disappointment at this stage would kill her, surely. “Is that you?”

“Who else would it bloody be?” He shouts, but then grins and it’s like the sunshine has come early but of course it hasn’t, for when she runs out to meet him she can still feel the raindrops on her face, only she doesn’t care.'

Sometimes it takes a little while for the things we love to come home, but eventually they always do. A historical au for the lovely bean that is @recoveringrabbit for the secret santa gift exchange!

{Read on Ao3}

or you can read it below if you don’t wish to on Ao3!

It’s raining.

Jemma’s noticed that, lately, it always seems to be raining on a Tuesday. It starts around nine in the morning with a light drizzle, progressing to full on torrential downpour by lunch. After that it’s a steady downpour until around three, where, quite suddenly, the water seems to stop, like somebody has turned off a tap, and the most brilliant sunshine fills the sky. Of course, by then, everything is wet and nobody wants to go outside and it’s far too late in the day to accomplish anything meaningful but all the same Jemma finds it quite beautiful.

She is waiting for the sunshine when he comes back. An empty bandstand stands in the centre of the park, and provides adequate shelter even during the worst of downpours. It’s peaceful here, nobody wanting to be outside during the horrendous weather, and so during the drizzle she makes her way out here with her book and notebooks and textbooks and stays until the late afternoon sunshine makes it so she can go home. The war has left her without a job and eager to return to her studies, though many disapproving of that choice. The peace afforded to her on these wonderfully rainy Tuesdays are something she does not take for granted.

At first she doesn’t see it’s him. It’s September, for a start. Many who are going to return have already done so, and those too wounded have not been prophesied to return for a good while yet. She hasn’t heard from him, is another thing. The last letter was almost six months ago, the last time she laid eyes on her best friend was over a year ago. Every day since victory was announced she has held onto hope that he will contact her in some way or another but months have passed and every day, quite without meaning to, she feels the hope grow looser on her fingers and she is so desperately afraid that one day it’ll slip away forever.

“Jemma?”

The voice seems to be her imagination at first, the result of many lonely hours sitting on this uncomfortably hard seat. There can’t be anybody out here in this rain. Only a fool like her would venture out into it. Sighing, Jemma moves her neck from side to side without looking up and goes back to reading.

“Jemma? Is that you?”

Surely she can’t be this tired. True, she didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, but not so little that it would warrant imagining this much. She shakes her head and picks up something new from her pile. Perhaps a different sort of stimulation is the answer.

“Bloody hell, it’s tipping it down. Jemma Anne Simmons!”

Now that voice and that special kind of grumpiness she would know anywhere and her head snaps up at the familiar sound she hasn’t heard in so long. It can’t be… but it is. A lone figure in Army greens, walking with a slight limp, with longer hair and a beard she doesn’t remember is coming towards her and she squints to make doubly sure through the rain.

“Fitz?” She calls, heart in her throat. Disappointment at this stage would kill her, surely. “Is that you?”

“Fitz!” She exclaims, throwing her arms around him, mindful of the force she exerts on his body. “You’re back. You’re properly back.”

“’Course I am.” Except his voice wavers a little bit and it sounds like there was a time when he wasn’t quite sure he would be. His arms come around her, so sure and strong, and he presses a kiss on the top of her hair. “I’ve missed you, Jemma.”

“Not as much as I’ve missed you,” she mumbles into his shoulder, not caring that there are tears in her eyes and most likely snot on his uniform. It’s not like he’ll need it anymore. She pulls back, shakily wiping her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re home. Just out of the blue like this!”

He smiles nervously, letting go of her to rub at the back of his neck. “Yeah, me neither, if I’m honest. Wasn’t expecting to get away this quick.”

A downward glance at his leg and she remembers suddenly what she noticed moments ago. “Oh, Fitz, your leg! What happened?”

A laugh that’s not quite a laugh at all. “A bit of a long story, that one.” He looks past her to the bandstand. “Do you mind if we sit down? It gets a bit sore if I stand for too long.”

Jemma suddenly realises that it’s still raining torrentially and she is only in her lightest of jackets and, by now, is soaked something terribly. Her hair is plastered to her face and she has to swipe it away in order to continue to marvel at Fitz. “Of course. Here, I’ll help you.” And offers her arm, which he accepts with a grateful smile. The weight he exerts, she notices, is considerably lighter than what it would have been the last time she saw him. Casting a critical eye, Jemma takes in his hollow cheeks and papery eyelids, but says nothing.

Once under shelter she shrugs off her jacket and gives it to Fitz to sit on. At his doubtful look she points to the cushion that she brought for herself. Fitz only laughs and shakes his head, before shuffling onto it. Jemma recognises the look if relief on his face; the benches do not provide the most comfortable place to sit.

“Thought of everything, I see,” Fitz comments, stretching out his bad leg.

“I’m studying. My grandmother doesn’t approve and neither do many of her friends that always seem to be visiting so I come here to get some peace and quiet.”

Fitz nods with approval. “Good,” he says, matter-of-fact. “You’re too smart not to go to university.”

It’s almost embarrassing, but she hasn’t had encouragement in so long that tears begin to burn her eyes. She pretends to sift through her books so he won’t see. “I suppose we shall see about that. Working as a nurse for the past few years has made me rather rusty, I’m afraid.”

Not that she regrets it, of course. Tending to the wounded brought to the countryside to convalesce is not something to be regretted. Oh, how many things she has learned and taken from the experience. The importance of the simple things: a good cup of tea, the smell of the rain, a kind word and a hand to hold. All the same, it’s put her plans for university on hold for considerably longer than Jemma previously thought they would be.

“Jemma Simmons being rusty? Nah, I don’t believe it,” Fitz teases her, a familiar glint in his eyes. Something in Jemma’s heart settles into place. Something comes home.

“You should.” She smiles ruefully, but then shifts the conversation away from her, uncomfortable with the spotlight. “So, tell me all of it.”

An uneasy look comes across Fitz’s face. The light goes out of his eyes. “Not much to tell.” Even his voice is different, sounding shrouded, hiding something underneath.

“Oh, come off it. I haven’t heard from you in almost six months. Surely things have happened.”

“Well, yeah, things have happened, Jemma; there was a war on. Doesn’t mean you want to hear about it.”

This is when she knows he simply has to tell her, otherwise whatever it is will eat away at him for years and years to come. She shuffles closer, rests a hand on his knee.

“You’re my best friend, Fitz,” she tells him, quite quietly but ever so matter-of-factly. “I want to hear about everything.”

He looks grateful and with a deep breath and his hand griping hers, he begins to tell his story.

Once, when Jemma was a child and beginning her everlasting phase of curiosity, her mother had warned her that there were some questions you didn’t want to hear the answer to. There are some things you can’t unhear, Jemma, her mother had told her sternly. Some things you’ll hear and they’ll rattle about your head for years. One day you’ll learn that there are things you’re better off not knowing.

It had made no sense, because even with answers you didn’t want, you still had more pieces of the puzzle and could make more sense of the world with the whole truth. It had never made sense, until just now. Fitz’s shaky breath and choked voice surrounding the words that he speaks are almost too much, and Jemma’s horrified to find that, if she didn’t love him the way she does, she would have to ask him to stop.

For he tells her about the things he’s seen, the horrors he’s witnessed. He tells her of the emaciated refugees with paper skin and empty eyes. He tells her of the fellow soldiers, his brothers in arms, that were one moment beside him laughing and the next quite still and broken on the ground. He tells her of the explosion, of the burning oil and the flying shrapnel that seemed to come from everywhere, and of the painful months that follows where there was nothing he wanted more in the world than just to sleep forevermore.

And after there’s nothing she can say except, “You came back.” And how she wishes she was brave enough to add to me.

Fitz nods, running a hand under his eyes. “Came back.” Then he digs around in his inside breast pocket and produces something that Jemma cannot yet see. “Brought this, too.” He unfurls his fingers to produce a ring.

It’s nothing special. A simple silver band with the tiniest of stones set a little off-centre into the metal. There’s no sunshine yet, for it’s not quite late enough, but it sparkles absolutely magnificently.

“A ring,” she mumbles, though more to herself than to him. At first it doesn’t quite click, because why would it? They’ve been friends for as long as she can remember, done everything they could together. They’ve been through it all – even a war for goodness sake. Why on Earth would she assume he would want anything more?

And then she thinks and softly goes oh and realises that she’s answered her own question.

“I know it’s a bit quick,” Fitz says quite breathily, “and it’s nothing special. But the thing is, it’s been in my pocket for the last three years and I thought it was about time to give it to you.”

Jemma disagrees; she thinks it’s the most special thing that she could ever lay eyes on. With wide eyes, too afraid to touch it yet, she says, “You mean you’ve taken it everywhere?”

“Everywhere.” He coughs, runs his other hand through his hair. “I’ve wanted to give it to you for a while but I… I didn’t want you to be promised to a ghost.”

With teary eyes she looks up at him. There’s no word in her extensive vocabulary, nothing that could ever help put name to this feeling in her heart. “I um, I suppose that makes sense.”

He laughs a little, as if to say of course. “It’s lucky, really. I wanted to take care of the bloody thing ‘cause I was scared I’d lose it so I was extra careful.” His voice goes quiet for a second. “Got a lot to thank it for.” Then back to the way it was before. “I thought I lost it at the hospital there; they take all your personal stuff out of your uniform and it was in this torn bit of lining in my pocket but…” He stops, a little bit breathless, like he can’t believe it. “It was still here.”

Jemma, somehow, feels this relief, too. “Well, thank goodness for that.”

Fitz’s head snaps up; she’s rather surprised it doesn’t pop. “Really?”

“Yes.” She feels a smile grow of its own accord. “It would have.”

It would have been a shame, but the greater one would have been if he had never returned at all. Not a shame, but devastating in a way that would not be recoverable. A ring is something appreciated and adored but not essential. Not like Fitz.

While he has carried this ring to keep him going, she has only carried the memory of him, and constantly wondered if this is all she would have for the rest of her life.

“So,” he ventures, licking his lips nervously. She wonders what kissing him will be like. “Does that mean that you’ll marry me?”

Right now she feels as though she is floating; suddenly there is no uncomfortable bench beneath her cushion and her feet are not sinking into soggy soles. There is nothing except love love love all around.

However, she is still Jemma Simmons. Still logical and practical. Still knows what’s expected, after all.

“There’s nothing I would love more but, oh, Fitz, we’ve never even been to the dancing.”

They’ve been to the pictures and they’ve strolled in the park, and taken picnics at the beach; everything one would do with a significant other they intended to marry. They’ve just never been to the dancing at the town hall on a Friday night. She’s never spun with him, watching the rest of the room fade away, making it seem as though they’re the only two that could ever be.

It’s not important to her, not really. It’s what her grandmother would expect, and his mother, and all of those adults that have made it their business to have a say in what they do with their (quite grownup) lives. Though she tries not to, there’s still a small part of her that does indeed care of what they will think of an engagement quite sprung on them out of the blue, even if it is to their dear Fitz.

(Though, there’s also a part of her that thinks her grandmother will be quite relieved she is marrying anybody, for with Jemma insisting on going back to university, she had been worried that nobody would be able to deal with a girl much more qualified than they.)

“Oh, um, no,” Fitz begins slowly, looking down at his leg. “Don’t suppose we have been dancing, actually.”

She feels truly terrible, her heart sinking into her stomach like a lead weight. Putting her hands on either side of his face, resting her forehead on his, she tries to convey how sorry she is, the truth in her next words. “It doesn’t mater. I do not care. About any of it.”

“You deserve it, though.” Eyes closed, he breathes deeply; she rejoices in the warm air she feels over her face. Opens his eyes with fire int the blue. “We’ll go, we’ll dance.”

His determination stirs up such feelings of fondness she wonders how she’s never noticed it for all these years. For it’s always been there – these feelings are not new. They are as familiar to her as breathing, have been as reliable and sure like a heartbeat, rarely noticed but always giving life in the background.

“Alright.” She nods. “We shall go dancing.”

He grins. “You just uh, might need to carry me.”

“Oh, Fitz,” she laughs, closing her eyes to keep the tears gathering inside. “Always.”

He fumbles with the ring, and she cottons on that it’s supposed to go on her finger. It slides on without the least bit of resistance, just as she knew it would.

And finally, finally, it’s time to kiss him and it’s nothing like she thought it would be but that’s alright. It’s wonderful and fantastic and more.

“We’re getting married,” she tells him, giggling in a way that she only reserves for the most special of occasions.

Fitz, for his part, still looks a little shocked by it. “I suppose we are.”

There’s warmth on her face, and Jemma realises it doesn’t only come from within; the sun has come out early. She begins to gather up all of her things. Fitz takes a few minutes and rolls his leg from side to side but stands up and begins to help.

“Well, where to first?” He asks her, looking at her textbooks. “Soon to be Dr Jemma Simmons?”

“Dr Fitzsimmons,” she corrects, enjoying the immediate grin it produces. “I suppose we should get you to your mum – she’ll be ever so glad to see you.”

Glad is perhaps an understatement, for his mother is a woman who does not do things by halves. Jemma hopes she notices his leg before giving him a hug that will turn his bones to crumbs.

"I meant it, you know," she says suddenly, a desperate ache of need making itself known in her chest. Her callous comment has left her feeling empty. "That I would carry you. In all manners. Forever."

"Oh, Jemma." His voice is like honey - sweet and smooth and exactly right. It fills her and she is so glad in the sensation that it takes a second before she fully knows that it's love. "I know. Just like I hope you know that I'd carry you, too."

She presses a kiss to his cheek. "We'll carry each other." And she knows they will. They will carry each other the way they truly always have done. In their hands and in their minds and in their hearts until the time comes where there shall be no need for it because their bones shall be laid to rest in such a way that it will be impossible for them to become separated.

His mother lives a little outside of Perth, and so they begin to walk, arm in arm, to the bus stop. The raindrops make everything glisten in the surprisingly warm Summer sunshine. To Jemma, the world feels as bright and new as it ever could. Oh, how she cannot wait for their next adventure.

“It’ll be nice,” she tells him, feeling like she could float away, “just a fifteen minute bus journey and then you’ll be home.”

He laughs and she turns to him, expecting to see some sort of mocking look on his face. Instead there is only love and there’s only tenderness in his voice when he tells her, “I already am.”

#fitzsimmons secret santa #recoveringrabbit #fitzsimmons #aos #fitzsimmons fic #fanfic by moi #eep!#i'm so excited to finally gift it to you!#i hope it's alright!

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lavendersmiles · 6 years

Text

What I Found

SasuSaku Month 2018

Day 6: Ghosts

***

Author’s Note: The week’s exhaustion took a toll on me plus the cold weather caused by an incoming storm came and I just hibernated like a bear... thus I’m behind in making the prompts. The writer’s block didn’t help either and I had to get my vibe back. But I’m determined to finish the 31 oneshots for SS Month. The love for my OTP is strong ne~

Another fluff before I make my son miserable for day 7

FFnet link

***

Sakura couldn’t believe her luck.

First, she was bullied again by her mean classmates because of her forehead of course. It’s only the first week since she entered the Academy, and they’re already making her life miserable. She ran away to the forests, knowing that she could lose them here. And just as she escaped from them, she tripped over some fallen branches when she looked over her shoulder to check if she’s far away from the bullies. Now, a gash was decorating her knee, and the little girl just wants go home.

Then, she felt a drop of water on her cheeks. And another. And another one after that. Realizing the situation, she decided to go to her safe place hidden in the forest. It was much closer than her house, and she knew that she’ll be drier there. Limping her way through the forest, she managed to get into her little cave just before the downpour of rain began.

Wrapping her handkerchief around her wound, Sakura allowed some tears to fall. She didn’t know if which one was more painful, her gash or her feelings. The exhaustion came to her in waves and before she even knew it, she closed her eyes and went to a dreamless sleep.

She woke up to the sounds of crickets, and jade eyes widened when she realized that it was already dark outside.

Okaasan will kill me!

Sakura went out from her own fort and slowly went to the direction of her home. She was thankful that the rain already passed, but the night did nothing to calm her down. Clasping her hands at the hem of her shirt, she walked slowly, mindful of her wound. She tried to calm down her beating heart, eyes darting around at every sound of the night’s orchestra. Her brain took the chance to remind her of what she overhead her classmates were talking about the very same forest she’s in just this morning.

‘Ne, ne, did you know that there’s a white lady there? My kaasan told me that it was a woman who killed herself because her lover was cheating on her. The ghost targets girls because she’s forever hateful of her former boyfriend’s new girlfriend.’

‘And did you know that there was also a boy who was murdered there long ago? You’ll know it’s him when he asks you where his otousan is.’

‘There’s also a little girl with her pet dog who fell from a tree and died. They also push people off the trees at night so that they’ll have playmates.’

'You can find a lot of ghosts there ne.'

Sakura shook her head forcefully to rid of all the tales. Unconsciously, tears formed on her eyes out of fear. As she wiped them away, she tripped on a rock and found herself face down on the ground. The pinkette froze when she heard footsteps coming towards her direction.

Someone… save me!

“Are you okay?”

Her tears stopped upon hearing the voice. A boy.

Please don’t ask where your otousan is!

She looked up to see eyes darker than midnight, concern filling it. “Are you hurt? Here,” he offered his hand out for her to take it. Sakura blinked a few times in bewilderment.

He’s not a ghost!

Gingerly, she took his hand and he helped her off the wet ground. The warmth in his hands filled her with a strange but happy feeling.

Her savior studied her profile. “You got yourself dirty. Do you have a handkerchief?”

Sakura pointed to it covering her wound from earlier. The boy made a disapproving sound and took out a towel from his body bag. With no hesitance whatsoever, he started to gently wipe the dirt and sweat off her face and arms. All the while, the little girl could feel her face heating up.

“A... ano… arigatou… um…”

“Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke. And you?”

Jade eyes widened. So he was the famous Uchiha Sasuke, whom she heard her classmates gushing about. The prodigy. “Haruno Sakura.”

Sasuke tilted his head to the side. “You seem familiar.”

She nodded. “I’m in the Academy too, but in the other class.”

“Then you should train well, so that you won’t trip and fall again. Ninjas can’t be clumsy, right?”

“H-Hai.”

After wiping the last big spot of mud off her forearm, Sasuke was about to return the towel back inside his bag when she stopped him.

“Ano… let me wash it for you. I-It’s the least I can do to repay you.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. Kaasan will wash it.”

“B-But…”

“And she might get angry if I can’t return her towel back to her,” Sasuke added. Understanding his reason, Sakura gave him another nod.

“Come on, let’s go. It’s already late, you know. I don’t want to miss dinner,” the Uchiha remarked. As they walked side by side, Sasuke matching her slow pace upon noting her wound, Sakura couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you out here, Uchiha-san?”

“You don’t need to call me Uchiha-san. Sasuke is enough. And I was out training with shuriken,” he replied.

Sakura blushed. “Sa-Sasuke-kun,” she began, testing his name on her lips. She rather liked it, and due to the darkness, she didn’t see how the tips of his ears turned red. He looked away, slightly flustered.

“And you?”

A sigh escaped her lips. “I was hiding… from bullies.” He frowned at that.

“You shouldn’t let them bully you,” he proclaimed.

The little girl looked down. “But… what they’re saying is true. And… I’m not… strong enough,” she admitted softly, and it was only due to Sasuke’s sharp hearing that he was able to catch it. He placed his hands on top of his head in a relaxed manner.

“Then do everything to get stronger and prove them wrong,” he announced. “If I were you I would make them wet their pants.”

Sakura giggled, and Sasuke felt the heat on his face. “Only you can do that, Sasuke-kun. No one can beat you!”

He felt pride fill his chest at her words and smirked. Not long after, they found themselves out of the forest and back at the busy streets of Konoha. Sasuke’s eyes sparkled when he saw who was leaning against a pole, looking like he was expecting them all along.

“Niisan!”

The boy rushed towards his brother, and Itachi smiled at him. “I felt your chakra there, and I was wondering how long it would take you to come out.” The elite shinobi then directed his attention to his little brother’s companion. “But now I understand. You were accompanying her?”

“Her name’s Sakura. I found her face down on the ground, Itachi-nii.”

Sakura fidgeted with her hands before speaking up. “I got lost and tripped, but Sasuke-kun helped me.”

Itachi chuckled in amusement as he noticed the two with a blush on their cheeks. Oh he’s gonna tell his mother about this later.

“Should we go with you to your house, Sakura-san?” the older Uchiha questioned, to which the little girl politely shook her head no.

“It’s okay. My home is just around the corner. I don’t want to cause you two any delay. I’m already much indebted to Sasuke-kun,” Sakura insisted.

“Are you sure?”

Jade eyes twinkled as she smiled at him. “Yes, Sasuke-kun. Thank you so much again for today,” she expressed gratefully and bowed at him. The boy looked away, not knowing what to do.

“Aa. No problem.”

After bowing to the two, the young lady turned her back to go to the direction of her house but Sasuke called out to her.

“Sakura!”

She looked back at him, “Yes, Sasuke-kun?”

“See you tomorrow." he chimed, a small smile on his face which she returned full force.

“Hai! See you!”

Emeralds followed the two Uchiha brothers until they turned to a corner and disappeared from her sight. Her fingers clutched her shirt, her heart racing a mile a minute while her cheeks flushed darker than her hair.

Her classmates were wrong. She didn’t found a ghost in the forest.

She found her first love.

#sasusaku #ssm18 #ssm18d6 #sasusaku month 2018 #prompt: ghosts #lavender writes #otp forever #mother ship

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