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#he runs away comes back spray 2 more times then he leaves us alone

goosewithtwoos · 2 years

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HOME MOVIES

Pairing: Bob x Reader

Summary: Swoon pt 2 🫡

You hadn’t had any more alone time with Bob since your last encounter.

It wasn’t like you were avoiding each other, it was simply due to unfortunate scheduling and the fear of being caught.

Sure, you had talked a lot more than before, but it was typically in group settings. You learned a lot more about him and all his hobbies outside of being a RIO.

Phoenix hadn’t mentioned your slip up of swapped name badge but she did shoot you knowing glances whenever Bob entered the room.

You needed alone time with him. You needed to tell him exactly how you felt and you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t been missing his touch.

When you heard the team had plans to go to the Hard Deck, you knew you had your chance to strike.

You dug out the only set of lingerie you had brought and changed from your not-so-sexy Navy issued bra and panties. You put your uniform over and checked the time.

It was already 16:57 and people would be leaving around 17:00. You crossed your fingers that Bob would notice your car still parked in the lot.

You stayed in your room, quickly reorganizing the shelves and making sure your dirty laundry was packed away in the closet. You sprayed your sheets a few times with Febreze for good measure.

You pulled out your phone again and saw it was already 17:04. Maybe Bob had gone with Phoenix and didn’t even notice your absence.

A part of you was sad but the other part laughed. How presumptuous were you? Bob didn’t seem like a hit it and quit it kind of guy but with the amount of times you’d been moved around, getting deployed and then transferred the second you got back, it was probably better not to get to close.

Still, you wished that you were brave enough to actually talk to him. Even after everything, it seemed like you were getting more flustered around him. You would blush at the drop of a hat and had to leave the room a few times when he smiled at you.

You sighed, grabbing your keys and heading towards the door. Perhaps if you saw him at the bar, a bit of liquid courage would go a long way and you’d be able to talk to him again. Or, if you were lucky, you’d brush the back of your hand across his.

Your face burned in shame at the thought of how much the small amount of contact sent heat through your body.

There was just something about him-

Him.

Who was standing in front of your door.

Your eyes widened in shock and you took a step back, stopping yourself from walking straight into his chest.

He wasn’t wearing his uniform, he had opted for a pair of blue jeans and a loose fitting white t-shirt. His shirt was tucked in and you noticed a black belt that did an excellent job of snatching his waist.

Christ, you were whipped.

“Sorry, I just noticed your car was still in the lot.” You melted. “And I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay.” You said, trying to not act like an excited school girl.

He smiled lop sided and part of his hair swept across his eyes. He had taken a shower earlier, you could smell the soap, and the lack of gel in his hair made it look so soft. You stopped yourself from reaching up and running your fingers through it.

“Are you coming with us?” He looked like a hopefully puppy, bouncing slightly on his toes as he waited your answer.

You clasped your hands together in front of you, trying to not look too sheepish.

“I thought about staying back this time around.” You bit your lip, looking up at him through you lashes. Hopefully you wouldn’t have to spell it out.

You didn’t.

He straightened his back, breath hitching ever so slightly as he began to shift his weight side to side.

“Oh yeah?”

You nodded, taking another step back into your room. He stepped inside, quickly closing the door behind him.

It was a slight stand off before he took two strides forward, capturing you into a heated kiss. His lips against yours felt so right. You fit together like pieces of a puzzle and you never wanted to let him go.

You twisted your hands in his hair. You were right, it was soft. He pressed himself against you as he deepened the kiss. You were pleasantly surprised by how much initiative he was taking here.

One hand slipped down to the small of your back and you suddenly had flashbacks to the first time. Somehow this felt even more special. You pulled back for a brief moment, locking eyes before pressing yourself against him again.

Everything felt heightened. His simple touch was enough to send heat through your body. His fingers danced across you - moving from your back to your shoulders before resting right above your chest.

“Can - can I?” He asked, pulling gently at your lapels.

You nodded frantically, too excited for him to see your surprise to make words come out.

He stripped you of your jacket before making quick work of your tan undershirt.

His eyes widened and you would swear his brain short circuited. He gasped, mouth opening ever so slightly as he took in your lingerie. It wasn’t anything too fancy but he still looked like it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen.

“Do…do you wear this often?” His voice came out almost a whisper when he asked.

You laughed lightly. He was too adorable. “Only special occasions.”

He tore his eyes away from your chest, searching your face. “I’m a special occasion?”

Of course, even after everything he was still self conscious.

No one knew what had happened between the two of you, which was both good and bad. Good because Rooster and Hangman would tease you and him relentlessly and bad because Bob was still getting teased regardless.

A few days ago, Bob had gotten his clothes stolen while he was in the shower and had to tell the group a dirty secret in order to get them back.

His secret? He used to have a crush on Marilyn Monroe. It wasn’t dirty and Hondo forced the boys to give him back his clothes before it could go on any longer.

“Of course you’re special.” Your hand pressed to the side of his cheek, feeling the warmth blossom beneath.

You pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling back, slowly undoing your pants.

You purposefully went slow, trying to drag out the experience. He stood, hands clenched at his sides so he didn’t rip your pants off you himself.

Once they were on the floor and you were stood almost completely exposed, you raised your gaze to his.

Bob was trying his best to keep sane. He was sure he’d died and was seeing an angel. He wanted nothing more than to fall to his knees and worship you the way you deserved.

“God, you’re so gorgeous.” He muttered, eyes raking across your body. He was trying to see every little detail of you and commit them to memory.

He reached out, grabbing your hips and pulling you close against him. He pressed his lips against you fervently, running his hands across the expanse of your skin.

His hands were warm and yet they still left goosebumps in their wake.

“Bob,” you whined against him. “I want to see you.”

Now it was his turn to whine.

You reached down, undoing his belt and throwing it across the floor. His jeans followed quickly after as he tore his shirt over his head. His glasses came off too and, much to your surprise, he left them off.

The thought of taking a picture was so appealing and yet you knew that no photo could come close to encapsulating the beauty that was in front of you. Perhaps it could capture half - three fourths if you were lucky - but the whole image was forever in your mind only.

You dropped to your knees before you could even think. He was already half hard in his boxers and you wanted nothing more than to get your mouth on him.

His hand found it’s way to your hair, gently pushing back some of the loose strands so they didn’t get into your face. It was so domestic, so pure. You reached out with your tongue, licking through the fabric.

It was no longer domestic.

He bucked his hips forward and used the hand on your head to push you into him. You kept licking through his boxers, playfully teasing the elastic band with your hands.

“Please - ngh- please just do something.” How could anyone deny him when he asked like that?

You pulled down his briefs quickly, pulling back to look at him wholly. He was fully hard at this point, leaking pre-cum. The viens on the side stood out even more than you remembered.

You pressed a kiss to the top before dipping down to lick from the underside back to the head. He groaned, fisting your hair back into a makeshift ponytail.

“O-oh fuck.” His hips rolled forward, thrusting deeper and hitting the back of your throat. He felt so warm on your tongue, you were sure you could stay like that for hours.

You swallowed around him. Bits of pre-cum dripped down your throat, making you moan. You hallowed your cheeks and picked up the pace.

His hips began moving on their own and you couldn’t complain. You looked up at him through your lashes, moaning at the sight.

Bob looked utterly fucked out. His hair was falling wildly over his eyes which were squeezed shut. His mouth was opened slightly and small whines kept escaping him. Both his hands had found their way to your head, one still holding back your hair and the other pressing you down onto him.

When you moaned around him again, he let out an almost embarrassingly loud cry before biting down on his bottom lip.

You allowed him to use your throat, chasing his high.

“I..I want to..” His head fell back, trying to make out words. “Can I cum in your mouth?”

You hummed in response, taking him deeper down your throat. He was leaking at this point and you knew he wasn’t going to last much longer.

“So good…so good…Oh my God, I’m gonna come.” He was babbling at this point, hips snapping in rapid succession.

He came down your throat with a choked back sob. You swallowed, trying to breath through your nose, not letting anything spill out. He let your hair go, slumping back against the door.

“Thank you, thank you.” He whispered, trying to catch his breath. He ran his hand through his hair, pushing back stray strands.

As you went to stand, you found he was offering you a hand. He pulled you up and into a deep kiss. You knew he could taste himself on your tongue but he kept going deeper. It was like he was trying to devour you.

And you were more than willing to let him.

You pulled back, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him towards the bed. You spun him so that the back of his knees hit the bed before pushing him down.

He quickly scrambled to a more comfortable position and you saw his cock slowly start hardening again. Now he was at the head of the bed, laying on his back and waiting for you to do something.

“Let’s see if that tongue is as good as I remember.” You said, slowly removing your panties. They were soaked through at this point and you knew that you probably needed to get a new pair.

Your bra soon followed your panties on the floor and you blushed at the way Bob was looking at you. You got on the bed, and running your fingertips across his abs.

“You have five minutes, Lieutenant.”

Bobs eyes rolled back as you straddled his waist. You teasingly ran yourself up and down his chest a few times, enjoying the sensation against your clit.

He propped himself up on his elbows, watching your hips move before deciding he was done waiting.

In a swift motion, he grabbed your hips and roughly pulled you forward. You had to place your hands on the wall to keep from falling over as his breath ghosted over your core.

You were dripping and he wanted to make sure nothing went to waste.

His tongue raked over your thighs, picking up anything that would otherwise be left out. Once he was finally satisfied, he blew gently against you clit, making you nearly double over and cry out.

“You’re so reactive.” He noted and it shouldn’t have sounded as hot as it did. “What else makes you make those sounds…”

He didn’t give you any time to respond before pulling you down, delving straight into your core.

It was even better than you had remembered. His tongue was fucking in and out of you all while his nose pressed against your clit. Something about the way he was spelling his name drove your mind to the edge.

“Jesus, Robert.” You cried out as he started to pull you down even more against him. His grip around you was going to leave bruises and you were more than happy with that.

He hummed in response, sending waves through you. You made the mistake of looking down and almost came right then and there.

Bob’s eyes were closed like he was tasting the most delicious dessert and his hair was spread around his head like a halo. He wasn’t having a hard time breathing at all - in fact he seemed completely in his element as you smothered him.

His eyes flit open, making eyes contact before winking and closing them again.

It was too much. Seeing him beneath you like that, with his cocky attitude and the way his tongue was working better than any toy you’d ever used, you felt your toes curl as your spine tensed.

No man had ever gone down on you the way Bob was right now. He wasn’t just doing it for your pleasure, he was doing it for his, too.

The grip on your hips tightened as you began subconsciously riding his face. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest as you ground your hips against him, taking it as an opportunity to bring his thumb to your clit, sending shock waves through you.

His tongue hit a spot inside you that made you see stars and you felt yourself on the brink of coming.

“I-I’m gonna..holy fucking-” All words escaped you as he quickly replaced his tongue with his fingers and went to sucking on your clit.

You cried out a mix of words between ‘oh fuck’, ‘oh my God’, and ‘Robert’ as your orgasm hit you like a wall.

You had known it was going to be good but you had never had one like that before. You slumped forward, panting against the wall, before realizing Bob was still below you.

You tried to move back but found yourself still locked in his grip. His tongue was still moving across you, picking up everything but gentle enough to not overstimulate.

When he finally let you go, you unhooked your leg from the side of his head, flopping onto the bed.

He looked utterly fucked out and happy. His face was a mess and you inwardly cringed but the smile on his face made you reconsider.

You were still panting when you placed a hand on his cheek, turning his head so you could capture him in a kiss.

It wasn’t hungry like before. It was full of love and adoration, all the things you had wanted to give him. He kissed back happily, placing his hand on the small of your back, making you arch your body against his.

Three words sat on the tip of your tongue that you desperately wanted to say but you knew you had to hold them back.

You sighed into the kiss before pulling back and resting your head on his chest.

He played with your hair, wrapping his fingers around a few strands, twisting them around and before letting it fall back against you.

He muttered something, low and under his breath.

“Hm?” You responded, brain still trying to slowly make its way back.

“I said I want to take you to the Hard Deck.” He said again, slightly more confident.

You laughed, running a hand through his hair. His fingers found your thigh, gently running up and down.

“Right now?” You asked. “You just fucked me within an inch of my life and now you want me to go out?”

He bit the inside of his lip, trying to find the right words. He closed his eyes and got up abruptly.

A wash of panic ran through you. Had you done something wrong? Was it something you said? A million questions ran through your mind and you sat up, pulling up the sheets to cover your chest.

He grabbed his glasses and boxers, putting them both on, before sitting at the end of your bed.

“I want to take you to the Hard Deck.” He repeated. “I want to take you on dates. I want to bring you flowers and I want to be the one you run to when you come back from deployment.”

You moved closer, letting the sheet fall.

“I want to hold you in public and I want to wake up next to you in private.”

You wrapped your arms around him, pressing yourself to his chest. Your head found it’s place in the crook of his neck and you nodded. Everything you wanted, he wanted to. Your heart was beating a million miles a minute.

“I want that too.” You whispered, shifting your body so you could look at him face to face. He was smirking, wild post-sex hair that somehow looked amazing on him.

“And,” He had a wild glint in his eyes. He pressed a quick kiss to your lips before leaning back. “I want to know how you take your eggs in the morning.”

#top gun smut #bob floyd smut #bob floyd x reader #bob floyd x reader smut #top gun x reader #top gun x reader smut #bob lives in my head rent free #bob is pushay eating king #bob fucks

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luceafarul-de-dimineata · 3 months

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Asmodeus' trip to the human world - Part 2

Asmodeus was left alone in the human world, the only step back was that he had to write letters to Lucifer every now and again. Since demons can't lie, this was a full-proof plan from Lucifer's perspective. Asmodeus was dropped off in Wallachia at the age of a forest.

It was dark outside, the silence only broken by some barks in the distance. Asmodeus woke up with a mild headache and layed on the ground for a bit longer, taking in the unfamiliar scents and feelings. Abbadon had no grass, neither did Paradise Lost... now that he thinks about it, only Gehenna had any greenary. Asmodeus began to stroke the grass like the back of a family dog. The blades of grass between his digits sending shivers down his spine. He should order grass be planted all over Abbadon when he gets home. Suddently, he heard a melodic song coming from the forest, and when he turned to figure out what was going on, he spotted a group of women holding hands and dancing. Asmodeus thought himself lucky for so easily getting some wonderful women right next to where he spawned, but as Asmodeus got up, they stopped dancing.

"Oh, are you all so impressed by my beauty that you stopped your dancing. Please don't, I only wished to join you, ladies. But it's kind of dull dancing to no music at all, maybe I could get you to sing my name." Asmodeus tried using his charm ability, but the women glared him down. Without warning they started lunging at him and screeching. As Asmodeus was taken by surprised and tryed to run, he yelled "This is not what I ment! What was Lucifer on when he fell in love with you?"

Asmodeus ran towards the small village near-by and the women followed. The women's lust for blood went directly to Asmodeus' dick and he tried desprately to get it to stop. "This is not the time for fucking, dick! Think, Asmodeus, think, something that's very unappealing. Um... shit, I don't know! Lucifer! That's right, do these women know him?" Asmodeus turned to the women and screamed back, even louder than them "Voi stiti cine-i tata?! My daddy is Lucifer himself!"

The repulsion to Asmodeus' statement made the women stop chasing him. They were disgusted by his obcenity and seeming arousal by his father. They wouldn't dirty their hands with his blood.

Seeing himself alone, Asmodeus sighed in releaf before he realised that he was walking on gravel. Asmodeus hated the feeling of his feet touching anything, much less something as harsh as gravel. He started to flout like usual. Wherever he walked, the dogs would stop barking, leaving the town feeling dead. Bored, he decided to visit the biggest building in the village, the church. He heard from Lucifer that churches were made by humans to worship God, his true father. But even God was sometimes repulsed by Asmodeus, even when he did normal tasks like bending over or licking ice cream. Asmodeus never liked God, so seeing a place of worship for him felt out of place. Only Lucifer would build something like this. Humans really were a lot like Lucifer, always praying to a father that would never listen.

Asmodeus' sad reflection ended when a man with a lantern in hand went inside the building.

"Tulai! Sariti, un demon in biserica! Sculati pe Popa! Doriane, adu agheazma!" The man yelled to the quiet village, which slowly but surely started walking outside to see what was happening. Asmodeus' glowing red eyes and horn wheren't helping his case. He tried to speak with the people but none of them listened and called the priest on him. The priest started spraying Asmodeus with scented water, which was one of his biggest icks. The feeling of small dropplets of water slithering down his skin, the scent of lavander overpowering his senses. He covered his ears and screamed, running away once more from the priest. Everyone was gawking at his missery, but the overstimulation of his senses was to overpowering for him to care about humiliation. They chased him two towns over before Asmodeus once more ran into the forest where he proceeded to cry and screech like a dying animal from the unpleasant feelings.

#whb #whb asmodeus #what in hell is bad #tired dad!lucifer #Asmodeus is autistic in this

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red-ropes-of-avalon · 1 year

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They Can Live In My New World Or Die In Their Old One- Chapter 6: Heirs of the Dragon

Summary: You are known among the kingdom as The Mad Queen, a ruthless woman with a large military. Seeking to take your rightful throne, nobody who has ever seen you has returned before, all thought to presumably be dead. Your strength is unequal. Ser Leon Kennedy is a knight sent by King Graham to ask for a temporary truce. Hordes of monsters and the undead rising, the kingdom couldn't fight two wars. But how does one reason with a Mad Queen?

Using dragons to fly up North turned out far faster than horses. The distance that took his horse 2 days, had taken 4 hours from the skies. As you flew deeper into the Northern territory Leon guided you, the view was different from above but certain landmarks were still recognizable. The horde would be easy to spot once you arrived, and hopefully even easier to burn. “There dead ahead,” he shouted over the wind. You nodded your head, driving Moonfyre forward. The hoard had completely encircled the small group, and you nudged Moonfyre to start the flames.

“Hold on tight!” You called before diving for the hoard, Moonfyre spewing flames upon the backline of one side. Onraxes dipped down on the other side, his flames more destructive and wild than the blue flames coming from the dragon they were seated on. Onraxes roared his loud and deafening roar, being answered in response by Moonfyre. The hoard however paid them no mind. You urged Moonfyre towards the center, flames leaving her mouth as she cut her way through.

“Mi Reina!” The voice was distinctly Luis, everyone was still in one piece, though they all had seen better days. Onraxes had flown above them spraying destructive flames down before them. Moonfyre had landed, her tail knocking back a large section of the hoard.

“Which way did that man go? The man who commands them?” You asked, looking at Luis. “I’ll go after him, while Onraxes stays to protect your group. Ser Leon please stay with them, make sure they’re protected.” Leon dropped from her back, as she batted away another large push of the undead. She spun her head annoyed before blasting them with a large burst of flames. You locked eyes with Luis who had pointed into the large hoard and the even larger storm. “Of course, just our luck huh girl? Let’s stay low.” Moonfyre huffed, flaring her wings out and running through the hoard before beating her powerful wings. Her jaw snapped open to spew flames at those who would reach up toward her.

The North was infamous for the sudden storms that could form. They usually petered out rapidly but in the time they formed, they could be violent. You leaned your body closer to Moonfyre as she flapped her wings toward the storm. You could make out individual faces if they were spaced out enough. They weren’t even acknowledging you, just continuing with the attack on the group. Moonfyre kept twists and turns tight, avoiding the highly populated areas of the horde. You needed to find the leader, once they were neutralized the horde wouldn’t keep moving. At the center of the storm, you found the man standing alone. He had black rags over him, but you knew the face. You had long thought your twin brother dead, he had been in the castle when your father died. But now he stood before you, one eye matching yours the other an electrifying blue. Rahgor and you were twins, you were born first, but neither regarded the other as anything besides their twin. So seeing him alive, or more so undead caused your heart to stop. Moonfyre came to a stop, rearing back at the lone man. Your hands were still tightly gripping it. He was decaying, but you would recognize your twin even in death.

“Ah, how pleased I am to have one of you foolish lambs bring yourself straight to the slaughter. Another false ruler to cull.”

“No…no you’re meant to be dead,” your voice was barely more than a hushed whisper. In the single moment of hesitancy, your hands slipped from their grip on Moonfyre, and her roar at the man she was unfamiliar with, was enough to send your stunned body falling off her back. The low height she was flying was the only reason you escaped unharmed besides some bruises. The man moved closer, a blade hanging in the decaying arm. It hung loosely but

“Oh my…who would have thought…my own sister,” his speech became labored as his good hand grasped at the decaying flesh. “If you submit…I’ll kill you gently…” Your eyes looked up full of tears. “I am the rightful…heir…and for the crime of treason…you must die…sweet sister.”

“You are no king brother, you aren’t even human anymore. In your pursuit of power and revenge, you lost sight of our purpose on the throne. We need love and compassion to rule over the people,” your voice was breathy, barely held together. The rotting arm now held the blade to the bridge of your nose. Your eyes had lost the softness and now held a hatred. Where your eyes held emotion, his were dead.

“That’s why…no woman…can ever sit the throne. Your love…makes you weak…and not even your dragon…could save you from…that weakness.” The blade dug in drawing blood, causing you to flinch slightly. The blade wasn’t smooth like all other blades pressed to you, it was destroyed over time. “This sword…is what I…was meant to die by…instead…it made me stronger…it didn’t kill me…it only killed my heart.”

“My heart doesn’t make me weak. It makes me stronger, stronger than you could ever be, you foolish foolish boy. An entire army of the dead couldn’t give you what I have. Nobody will ever love you, and as such you can never be a king. Because a true ruler inspires love. Kill me if you want, but you will never garner a throne.” Rahgor lowered the sword and instead grabbed your collar with his good hand. The horde parted once more as he marched you toward the group, Onraxes maw closed seeing you now in the path of his flames. Rahgor knelt you central before the group and leveled the blade with your neck. Onraxes landed immediately throwing large amounts of the undead away. A growl emanated in his throat but he made no move, the blade threatening your life keeping him in place beside the humans.

Leon moved in front to see the cause of the stillness. His blood ran cold at the execution-style kneel you now were positioned in. How had you been taken off your great white dragon? Where was the dragon? His eyes zeroed in on the snow below your downturned face. There were no tears, only a puddle of slowly dripping blood. His eyes scanned the Leader of the Dead, looking for an opening. Once an opportunity presented itself, he would charge and attempt to disarm him or at least parry the blade to get you out of harm’s way. Kings had egos, most men did, if he started speaking maybe he could goad him into anger and cause him to slip up.

“My most esteemed guests…I welcome you to my show…Before me is my…treacherous sister…I am the rightful king…King Rahgor (L/N)...and for the crime and sin…of treason and…treachery…I sentence my foolish sister…to die…Are there…any objections?” A sinister imitation of a smile spread on your brother’s face. Onraxes reared his head back, almost as if preparing to scorch more of the undead.

“What makes you the rightful king and not her the rightful queen? You were twins were you not, there’s no age difference. So what makes you more rightful than her?” Leon inwardly blessed Luis, of course, he would have a counter. Leon personally hadn’t studied your family history, but someone that followed you may know better. Rahgor no longer gazed at you, and the imitation smile was gone, replaced by a cold fury at the actual challenge.

“She is a…woman…which makes her weak…a woman listens…only to their feeble…emotions…and contain…no strength.” The blade was still poised too close to your neck for Leon to make a move. From his face, you could tell he was planning his next move.

“But she’s the strongest woman to ever be seen. She is the one who brought back the dragons! She rallied actual forces, that required intelligence and smarts beyond, creating a mindless army that will obey everything. She has people of all different backgrounds that she convinced and that believe in her cause!” Leon quickly jumped in. The blade wavered once more and he just needed a little more egging on before he could move.

“She walked through the storms to keep them warm! She stayed in the most dangerous places to bring back the dragons! She proved herself a righteous and just woman, one we want to follow! Not a monarch who rules through fear and the concept of absolute power! She wishes to abolish absolute power, for what is more corrupting than the idea that you are better just for wielding a power you were born with as a justification for vile actions!” That final bit finally stirred a strong emotion and he removed the blade from near your neck and pointed it forward. Leon took that as an opportunity to charge forward. He threw his shoulder into the man and wrangled for the disgusting blade. He had the arm pinned up, his hand wrapped around the wrist, keeping it from moving but not able to get it to release. He hadn’t even noticed Piers had fired an arrow until it pierced through the soft flesh near Rahgor’s thumb. The blade fell, and Leon kicked it away and elbowed the half-undead man causing him to fall. Leon then rushed to help you up and grab the blade. The second you were upright, Onraxes let out a great roar, and from the other side, Moonfyre descended down upon the hoard, her own destructive flames bursting from her mouth. The hoard stood unmoving, with no orders from their “King.” Onraxes returned to the air once more to billow fire upon the other side of the hoard. Leon held you close, now that you were upright he took note of the jagged cut across the bridge of your nose. However, he also noticed the lack of tears. You weren’t badly injured, more shaken up, and you held to him tightly, like you might fall without support for your uneasy legs.

With the horde not moving, the dragons quickly incinerated them, even taking extra loops to ensure the corpses wouldn’t rise once more. When completed they landed beside you, Moonfyre nuzzling your free side gently. You held onto her muzzle for support to walk before the mess of your brother on the floor. Both dragons snarled viciously at him, the hand that had been shot, had flesh dripping off around it. “I believe it is time for my justice to be served. Today you, my dear brother, have committed an egregious crime against the true Queen. You committed treason and attempted to murder me. You are unfit to rule ever, as you have forgotten what it means to rule. You may once have been my brother, but now you are nothing but a hollow shell and a monster. You abandoned your family and are no longer fit to be called a (L/N), for you are certainly no dragon. I, (Y/N) last of the honorable house (L/N), the one true Queen, the Unbowed and Unbroken, the Empress of Dragons, I sentence you to die.” Moonfyre and Onraxes both reared their heads back and began their flames once more. Your face was cold as you watched his body burn to ashes. “And now my justice is served.” You turned once more to look at the group, your face still cold. “Luis, do you wish to bring this horse back? Or will you make do with another?”

“I can deal with another, wasn’t even really my horse. Just one of the ones here that I could ride.” He kept his tone light, trying to snap you out of the coldness. Your eyes softened slightly, but you couldn’t get out of your own head. Duty was the death of love, and you had just killed your brother. He wasn’t really your brother anymore, just a shell. But you needed to keep the walls up, it would keep you safe until you could process what had become of your brother. Moonfyre dipped her head down, allowing you to climb up and settle in. Leon’s eyes flicked to you, it wasn’t that you were being intentionally cold, you were just trying to appear strong. He could understand, most of the group didn’t hold your trust so you couldn’t be emotionally vulnerable here.

“Ser Leon, Luis you two on Moonfyre with me. The rest of you can get on Onraxes. They will carry your horses, you can either stay within my castle for the night, or you can return home. The choice is entirely yours,” your voice held a slight waver but kept up the falsetto of being unfazed. You extended your hand down for the two men to climb up. Leon was first settling directly behind you, followed swiftly by Luis. Luis held tightly onto a spine, afraid to slip off the graceful beast’s back. Onraxes lowered his neck to the ground completely. It still took a small amount of effort to climb onto the back of his neck. Moonfyre flapped her wings gently to not spook the horses. Each of her feet reached down to gently grip one horse per clawed foot. Once the rest were on Onraxes he did the same. With gentle wing flaps, the dragons ascended higher, reaching a height they could easily glide at. The large beasts were careful with inexperienced riders, where you could hold on at high speeds, the weakened humans would be unable. Your hands weren’t even on the dragon’s back, instead holding yourself tightly with the cape drawn around you, it muffled the sounds of your crying.

“The stars are beautiful tonight,” he whispered, and naturally his arms glided themselves around you. You stifled your tears at the feeling of his arms around you. “It’s ok to cry, it’s safe here. I won’t judge you, let it all out,” You turned around slightly, your hands releasing the cloak. You pressed your face into his chest, and he held you tightly. As you sobbed your misery out on him among the stars, he held you gently. Moonfyre let out a soft purr, trying to calm you. At this moment, it was just you and him, in the stars where nothing else could touch, no kingdoms and kings, just a boy and girl in love, afraid, oh so afraid, but safe within each other’s arms.

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x reader #leon x y/n #leon x reader

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pbandjesse · 1 month

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We are at the airport!!! I am very excited but also very nervous!!

Today was a lot of that. Nerves. Excitement. Not sure what to do with my hands. It was a good day. I slept okay. Had bizarre dreams but nothing that upset me. James had work for a few hours in the morning so I woke up alone.

I made the bed and then came up with a plan. I would dye my hair and take a shower. I would go to target and grab some last minute things. Snacks. New chapstick (I lost mine at the festival yesterday). Kitty litter so we could leave with a completely clean box. I wanted to make sure the house was nice for when Callie came to take care of the animals, so I also made sure that all the tanks were full and everything was in place.

I really should have gone to target first. But I started putting dye in my hair and there wasn't any going back from that. I would put dye on my hair and walk around the house double checking things. I also went through my luggage again and made sure everything was charging so it would be good for the flight.

Eventually I would run the dishwasher and go and start the shower. And for some reason that has worked getting the shower hotter faster (the dishwasher is probably using the water faster? Something like that anyway.) and I washed my hair and scrubbed and scrubbed to feel as clean as possible.

My hair actually would dry really nicely. I did not wait for it to be dry before I left for target though. Just put it in a clip and was off.

According to the cashier everyone was waking up and coming from church. Because while it wasn't busy when I first got there it was very busy by the time I was leaving.

I stuck to my list though. I got new chapstick, and a solid cuticle oil. My finger tips have been splitting and are really painful. I got cleaning spray for our bathtub and two bags of kitty litter. I got snacks. Various ones. Sweets and savories. I got hot honey cashews which seemed intriguing. I will probably save those for the layover because I don't want to accidently make anyone with nut allergies to have a reaction in a closed space. But I got rice Krispies and a chocolate bar and mini tates cookies, and some mints. A good variety.

My last thing was to try James over the ear headphones. The ones they ordered weeks ago never shipped. Stuck in limbo. The selection at target for until $100 ones was pretty abysmal but they had one that was made for kids and I thought would work (and thankfully they did fit!). The nice man who worked electronics had to unlock the case for me and he was very busy and pulled in all directions. But he stopped and helped me and then offered to check out all of my order so I didn't have to wait in the very long line at the front. I appreciate him greatly for that.

He called security so they would know I was coming from the other side of the store with my purchases and they wouldn't stop me. And I went home.

James has arrived home from work right after I had left. They had spent the time I was gone putting stuff away and tidying up. Getting the last of the stuff in their bags together. And I would jump on that too.

I sat upstairs figuring out how to fit all my snacks in my backpack. Double checking I had everything I wanted in cabin in that bag. I moved some stuff around and tried to make sure everything was good to go. My hair was mostly dry and the dye took really well. I will probably wash it two more times before the wedding on Saturday so it should fade just a little and will look really good, fingers crossed.

On the day of travel I like to only use products and things that I am bringing with me. So I know I will be okay with what I packed and not wishing I had something else. So my hair only has conditioner and hair oil and that is what I will have to live with. Being in a different climate I am hoping it stays looking nice.

We decided we would go to the diner for a late lunch to have our "last American meal" (outside the airport). And we left to go do that before 2.

I would get French toast and french fries. James got a patty melt. We spent most of the meal on our phones researching. I read the Wikipedia for Uganda. We double checked about bag sizes. And we realized our bags were probably to heavy to be carry ons. They were the right dimensions but we're probably to heavy. We would figure that out once we got to the airport.

We ended up leaving an hour earlier then planned. When we got back we had measured the bags and I would lay down. My allergies were really bad. Sweetp was a little distressed that we were leaving. Which makes him puff up and makes my allergies very bad. But I enjoyed just laying in bed and feeling cozy.

But at 430 we decided to go. And that ended duo being perfect. We had no stress.

As we were leaving our other neighbors we're coming home so we stopped to let them know we were going to be out of the country. And then James forgot their cost and had to go back for in it. But then we were off and on the road.

It's an hour and a half to the airport. This is the Dulles airport in Virginia so a little far but not bad. And we got here without much trouble. When we arrived at 6 we realized our parking checking in was for 7 and got nervous but it still let us scan in and we got a very good spot. We were both sweaty nervous but it ended up being super easy.

First we went and used the bathrooms and I had a very weird experience. It was a very large bathroom. Lots of stalls. No one else was in there. I go in and a lady comes in on my heels and goes to the stall next to me. Makes a ton of noise spinning the toilet paper. I was quick. And as soon as I came out she followed me on my heels again. Doesn't flush I don't think she actually used the bathroom. She almost crashed into me at the sink. I took my time to see if she would leave first. She doesn't. She waits until I'm walking out to finish drying her hands. Almost walks into me again but walks away when I get back to James. It was absolute weirdo behavior. Jess thinks she was trying to pickpocket me but Jane's had my bags and phone and it just made me feel weird.

But we moved in and went to the ticket counter to get our seats changed. Which is when they also weighed our bags and they decided they were to heavy to be carry ons. And honestly it's for the best. we can be much more hands free. And she was just really nice. Made us feel like everything was going to be good.

I wasn't sure what kind of tsa they would have. But they had us take nothing from the bags and we made it through super easy. Though my boobie set off the machine? Hilarious.

My little sewing scissors did make it through too! I will be able to embroider on the flight. I also have my bracelet making stuff. I am ready for the long haul.

Besides crafts I also have a ton of YouTube videos and music and podcasts and books and audio books. Way more then I need but it will be really nice to have the variety.

Once we got through TSA we could be a little calmer. It was the first big test. We will still have the layover and then customs but the first hurtle is done and we did great.

We would walk to the train car to the terminal. And we were laughing and having fun and it has been a really nice time. This is a nicer airport then I remember from when we flew into it from our honeymoon.

We would get dinner. James got a corn dog and I got a pizza that I would share with James. And we have been sitting at our gate for a bit now. It will be time to board soon.

No one else from our party is here yet but they are at the airport somewhere. Hopefully through TSA soon.

I am nervous and excited. The first leg is 10 hours. And we will arrive in Turkey at 3pm tomorrow. I will probably wait to do tomorrow's post until the second flight and post it when we land. Which if my math is right will be 11pm Monday home time. Let's hope that works !!

Send us good vibes. Especially to James who is so nervous about the flight. But it is going to be amazing and this time on the plane will be a fun part of the adventure. Wish us luck! I love you all. Until next time!!

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goblin-spider · 1 month

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[Log 480]

<year: 3065/2124>

<Time: 2:03 am>

«Spotted troopers today. No sound yet from Patrick about food. Noah gave me a pack of those things I used to eat called prawn chips. I wonder where he's getting them from? Is it from the Chinese place in downtown? Is it from Sydney, down in that little bar called madame Brock's? I'll never know where he gets the stuff he does. Sweet kid. Pat and Bowe raised him well. If I don't get my butt moving soon, someone might see me out here. The stars are lovely company though. The sand... Not so much.»

<Time: 6:30am>

«Made it halfway out to a swap base. The cars in this area are all out of fuel and broken down. Wonder if I can bum a smoke off of Kirk? He's always got something stupid on him. Grove sap would be nice for once. *Adjusts his goggles* Then again, it's probably non existent now. How longs it been? 4 years since I had my last drop? Would have to ask Kirk.»

<Time: 6:45am>

«*Sizzling of a steam powered door* morning Kirk. Found anything good in here?»

~Only some dead guys! Stole their clothes though. Designer alchemax boots! Retro! *Looks towards the goggles* oh come on you cunts would too if you were stuck in the wastelands, in hiding.~

«Kirk, please, cease your senseless yapping and help me lift this thing.»

~Back still bad from last week?~

«Yooouu bet. Found any medicine on these max workers?»

~Mate, do I look like the medicine retriever. I wish you'd just turn yourself in. No more running.~

«*rattling of medicine bottles* What happened to you hating troopers and bootlickers? I'm not going back to society. Troopers may be old but the culture is newer now. Nothing we knew will be there. Found some blight pills. Might help if we catch it.»

~I don't exactly like wandering out here, okay? Sometimes I get sick of you. oh and I'm immune honey. Just like you're immune to settling down or turning yourself in so we can actually shower.~

*he just stared blankly under his mask and goggles*

«uh huh... We showered on Monday, quit complaining.»

~ You smell like sand and death. Aren't you tired of running and killi- oh! Found a cellar! Wanna go in?~

«Not really. Gotta get a move on. We can sleep at the next swap base.»

<time: 1:00pm>

«*alarm goes off* manual, quiet mode.»

[Of course.｡⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠｡ reminder: it's time to go check on your friends.]

«My fri- you mean firelight and Harry?... Can't be that time of year already.»

[your readings show that your cortisol is high and your serotonin is at its lowest.]

«... Okay. I'll go see where they are now.»

~*mumbling sleepily* don't go. don't want to be alone...~

«*leans down and whispers in his ear* I'll only be gone for a few hours. I'm sure you can handle things without me. I just want to check. Okay.»

~ okay... I'll get a Bauhaus record on by the time you're back. ~

«seeya scrotum face.»

~seeya blight victim~

<Time: 5:45pm>

«*Boots thumping on the apartments floorboards* hm. No one's home. Good. Hopefully I don't leave any sand about. That'll be too hard to clean.»

«*Takes off his thick heavy gloves and puts them on the coffee table while he tidies just a little bit, like he usually does when he visits. He washes the dishes and cleans up the rubbish, takes a rag and dusts here and there and puts any dirty clothes he finds in a basket. He was just putting some things away when he spotted something* Huh, what's that?»

«*there's a recorder on the counter, a really old one, like from Bowes era. Curiosity gets the better of him and he picks it up to inspect it or hit play and listen, only to hear the front door unlocking. He quickly darts behind a corner and peers very carefully around it*»

«*He sees Harry come home and plop on the couch, covered in spray paint. Gabe must've heard him because he came out of his room and made his way to the kitchen cabinet to grab a snack. That's when he started internally swearing at himself for making so much noise without scanning the place first to make sure he wasn't home.*»

«*by that point, mer had stuck himself to the ceiling so that Gabe wouldn't see him peering out from around the corner. He looked a little different than he used to, seemingly spending a lot of time deciding what snack to eat. Then Gabe's head started to turn in his direction and he decided right then and there to quickly portal the hell out of there.*»

[end log]

#the life of mer taylor #mer osborn #spidersona #spiderverse #oc post #oc rp

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iviarellereads · 1 year

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Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 12

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Sixth House icon) In which something lost is found.

One morning, Teacher commends Gideon on fitting in, despite him having sat with her at some meals and knowing that she's definitely not. He's also said that he enjoys all the bustle, when he and Gideon were alone in the room.(1)

By now, Gideon has met nearly all the adepts and cavaliers, but all except Coronabeth and Magnus give her a wide berth. Still, you learn a lot, being silent. The Second House behave like soldiers forced into vacation. The Third seem to come together only because of Coronabeth's social gravity, like planets to her star. The Fourth are like ducklings to the Fifth. The Sixth and Seventh are never anywhere to be found. The Eighth duo, the uncle-nephew duo, Gideon sees only rarely, but that's more than enough, as they act like Gideon is contagious with something.

The corridor to the Ninth assigned living quarters is now garlanded with bones. Gideon left a note for Harrow asking what was with the skulls, and Harrow replied simply "Ambiance." That Ambiance means even Magnus hesitates to greet Gideon, so she wants to shove it somewhere uncomfortable.(2)

Dulcinea Septimus seems to spend all her time on various terraces, reading romance novels. Occasionally she spots Gideon and asks her to move a pillow or just to listen as she recounts the plot of the book she's reading. The sword is never again mentioned.

Gideon goes back to the training room often, even though she prefers to train by herself. She wouldn't need half of what she's done to join the Cohort, but she's always hoped she'd be rushed through and get sent to the front promptly with her skills and strength. Her fantasies about Harrow opening a letter detailing Gideon's medals and prize money and saying something like "Turns out Griddle could swing a sword after all" often get her through a hundred reps or more.

Still, no one can train every minute of the day, so she spends a lot of time wandering the Canaan House complex. A lot of places are blocked off, with CAUTION tape and crosses spray painted on blast doors. You can only go about fifty meters below the dock, and a hundred meters up. She doesn't get bored, exactly, the Ninth kills boredom out of one, but it makes her suspicious.

One morning, Harrow's pillow isn't freshly rumpled differently than it was the morning before, and there's no fresh layer of black clothes in the laundry hamper. Gideon makes guesses as to what might have happened.

1. Harrow had been prevented from coming home for reasons, e.g. that (i) She was dead; (ii) She was too impaired; (iii) She was busy. 2. Harrow had chosen to live elsewhere, leaving Gideon free to put her shoes on Harrow's bed and indiscriminately rifle through all her things. 3. Harrow had run away.

Gideon immediately dismisses option 3, because her childhood would've been MUCH smoother if Harrow were that type. 2 is exciting, but seems almost as unlikely. Harrow is too proper to let Gideon do up all the buttons on her shirts one button off in the wardrobe.(3)

This leaves only option 1. (iii) relies on Harrow being busy enough to forget to come back, which ties back into the dismissal of allowing for option 2. Harrow would never fail to account for Gideon's chaos gremlin-itude. (i) would be the world's happiest accident or murder, and if it was murder, what if the murderer was, like, weird, would that make Gideon's subsequent marriage to them awkward?(4) Maybe they could just exchange friendship bracelets instead.

In the end, (ii) seems the most likely. Harrow hasn't even used the paint supplies, and Gideon has never seen Harrow's naked face.

So it is that Gideon puts on her robe and starts searching. She finds Magnus in the chemical smelling pit room, supervising the skeletons cleaning it, with his trig and glossy-haired adept(5) but certainly no Harrow there so she darts back out before Magnus can finish greeting her. She's not on the terraces, or on the docking bay, or anywhere in the east wing.

At lunch, Gideon broods over her bread and cheese, and decides to give up. It's a futile task in such a large area. And really, it's Harrow's fault for being so secretive and controlling. She wouldn't even thank Gideon for finding her.

Only, by the time Gideon finishes eating, she gives up on giving up, and resumes the search.(6) She finds a door she can force open that she never tried before, leading to a staircase, leading to a precarious terrace, leading to another door, to a hallway, to a curious statue with no arms or head(7), in what may once have been a lobby with elevator access. Down a staircase in the corner of that room, she starts to hear another conversation.

Two people, the "Warden" and another, discuss whether something is impossible, or merely improbable. The Warden has scried the ages of some objects nearby each other, but one is nine thousand years old, and one is about fifty years old. The other voice protests that the limit of scrying is ten thousand years, but the Warden maintains that it's improbable that this object Gideon can't see is three thousand years older than this other object Gideon can't see.

"Inexplicable, Warden." "Certainly not. Like everything else in this ridiculous conglomeration of cooling gas, it's perfectly explicable, I just need to explic-it." "Indubitable, Warden."

The Warden decides that either the whole building was scavenged from a garbage hopper, or he's being lied to on a molecular level. There's something here, like in his fourth circle exams, when the masters seeded the core database with thousands of false records, to teach them a lesson: that you can't rely on anything, because anything can lie to you.(7)

By now, Gideon has snuck up close enough to see them. A rangy young man in a grey cloak, light glinting off the spectacles on his nose(8), and a tall, equally grey-wrapped young woman with a scabbard at her hip. Both are filthy, and twitchy. Unfortunately, Gideon has moved too close, and the sight of a painted skull face in dark robes in a dark corner can't be good for the heart. The cavalier stays absolutely still for a moment, then launches at Gideon, sword out. Gideon draws her arms quickly, and they fight. Gideon quickly realizes this is a true warrior, like herself, not a mere cavalier, and is exhilarated at their matched strengths, the cav even perhaps having a slight advantage.

The necromancer calls out "Camilla!" telling her to disengage. She does so, backing up toward her adept, who does something and makes a false flame wall between the two cavs until Gideon sheathes her rapier and puts up her hands in a ceasefire gesture.

The adept lowers the barrier, wiping bloody sweat from his brow, and chastises his cavalier lightly, then offers apologies to Gideon for the unscheduled bout but NOT for drawing on someone sneaking around in all black. Gideon wants badly to ask how the cav did a backflip down the stairs like that, but is asked if she's here about Nonagesimus, and the Sixth pair(9) read something into her blank expression. Face paint is great for masking.

The necro wrings his hands and asks if Gideon's seen Harrow since the night before last? Gideon shakes her head so emphatically she's surprised her hood doesn't fall off. The young man says she's cutting it fine. Harrow was down there(10) last night, and her blood is on the floor. Her intravenous blood.

At this clarification, something snaps in Gideon, and her body starts moving before the rest of her can catch up. She finds herself trying to lift the hatch, her arms embarrassingly not up to the task. The necro sighs explosively, tosses his bag to Camilla, and bemoans cavaliers. He says it won't open, because Harrow has the Ninth's key. This close, Gideon can see past his spaceflight-thick glasses to the perfect grey eyes behind them.

He had the eyes of a very beautiful person, trapped in resting bitch face.

Gideon keeps futilely trying to open the hatch, while the Warden explains that Harrow's blood hadn't dried yet when he saw it, so she's likely still close to life, and asks Cam to check the perimeter. She finds no sign Harrow left, so the Warden says she's still down there.

At this, Gideon finally breaks her silence and says "Then get off your ass and help me," and he sounds almost relieved when he says "Sure." Something flies through the air, and he fails to catch it, so Gideon gets a half decent look at a loop similar to the one she was given that first day, but with two keys on it. He picks them up, uses the longer one to open the lock on the hatch, and Gideon swings it open dramatically to reveal a ladder of metal staples in a long, dark hole.

Camilla points at the hole, and Gideon looks at her, again noticing her eyes which are not quite grey or brown, but unreflective and fathomless. Cam suggests Gideon go first, then Palamedes,(11) then herself.

At the bottom of the hole is a "retro installation" you'll have to read described for yourself. Palamedes leads the way, and Gideon notices that the sounds they make don't echo, are dulled by the paneling on the walls. There are signs indicating ten laboratories, a pressure room, preservation, mortuary, work rooms, and a sanitiser down various branches.

They head toward Sanitiser, and find blood smeared and splattered on the floor and walls. The trail leads inside the Sanitiser rooms, to a cocoon about the size of a person but made of bone. Gideon kicks it open to reveal Harrow.

Instead of the dance of joy she'd planned to greet Harrow's dead body with, she tells the Sixth she can take it from here. They ignore her, and check for life signs. All good, probably just some dehydration, a drop in blood pressure, and she made the cocoon (which Palamedes is absolutely fascinated by) defensively when she half woke up once, then went back to sleep.

Gideon asks if they can tell all that from Sixth necromancy. Camilla says it's not necromancy, just curative science. Doctor stuff. And Harrow can be moved now. Gideon slings Harrow over her shoulder, at which breath wheezes out of the tiny necromancer, and the cocoon shatters into chips and pebbles. Palamedes whips out a ruler and measures a piece of it before they leave.

At the top of the ladder, Cam takes Harrow's weight for a moment to let Gideon get out safely, then they close the hatch. Palamedes says she needs eight hours of sleep, in a bed not a library, and to tell Harrow she clinks when she walks if she asks how he knew she was in the library.

Gideon says she owes them one. Cam says they did it for free, and Palamedes agrees but asks Gideon to take some advice: it's dangerous down the hatch, and they should stop splitting their forces. Gideon asks how it's dangerous, Palamedes says if he knew why it was dangerous, it wouldn't be. Gideon doesn't understand this, and asks how he figures it. Palamedes replies, because he's the greatest necromancer of his generation.

The not-so-unconscious bundle on Gideon's shoulder mutters "Like hell you are."(12) Palamedes looks satisfied as he says he thought that would bring her around, and reminds Gideon: liquids and rest, and good luck to them.

=====

(1) This priesthood appears to have been alone here for years in isolation, Gideon, give them some credit. They probably do think Gideon's antisocial behaviour is social, and that having anyone new in Canaan House is a bustle. (2) Gideon would be so close to making actual friends if she could talk to anyone here. ;~; (3) Beautiful prank, no notes. (4) This may feel like a callback, but it's not. Muir's forming a habit of dropping you kind of in media res, in the middle or near the end of the thought, without showing you what led there. At any rate, this implies two things, imo: first, that Gideon would be so grateful to anyone who would rid her of Harrow that she might feel obligated to propose marriage in thanks; second, smaller, that Gideon still sees herself on some level as Harrow's property, as the spoils of war, belonging to the strongest, and that anyone who could defeat Harrow might win her as an object. Gideon undervalues herself consistently, and even her cocky thoughts are self-deprecating a lot of the time in the subtext. Just look at her comments about her ultimate fantasy being that Harrow might, one day, say she supposes Gideon could swing a sword in the correct direction. This series is like an onion on steroids. (5) Trig - neat and smart in appearance. (6) Again she says one thing and means the other. (7) Including the narrative. (8) Muir's watched some anime in her time, I see. If you're unfamiliar, TVTropes has you covered! (9) Remember, even if we weren't about to find this out for sure, the Dramatis Personae made this inevitable as we've met everyone else. Use every resource you have! (10) Presumably, down the hatch they're examining. (11) I used to pronounce this as "PAL-uh-ME-deez" in my head, but I guess the audiobooks say it closer to "calamities" because I heard it that way in a podcast of audio listeners and honestly I like it way more. One of these days, I'll convince my library to license the audiobooks on Libby, and hear for myself. Or get another free Audible credit trying to lure me back into a subscription I don't have because I don't listen to many audiobooks, and use it for this. Either way. (12) Nothing like being insulted to wake someone out of a half-coma.

#the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #gtn #gideon the ninth spoilers #gtn spoilers #gideon nav #teacher (gtn)#dulcinea septimus #palamedes sextus #camilla hect #harrowhark nonagesimus

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perpetual-fool · 1 year

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Mara 2

(3k)

"So, things not connecting?"

I was absent-mindedly lying on my bed. Staring at the ceiling, trying to will thoughts to come to me. Nothing was coming. Mara lies down beside me.

"Where were we?" I reply. "People almost making sense? Well, sometimes." "I'm not really running on full capacity at the moment, but I think it's generally the context that's off. Like family claiming 'we would do anything for you'. And I've felt strongly about a couple people, I can imagine what that might be like. But what they've actually done is gone out of their way to torment me, not giving me the slightest bit of leeway if I just ask them to stop." "It kind of seems like, and I'm sure this would make me sound like a terrible person, but my parents have a cat, and I've had to start kicking him to get him to stop touching me." "You feel you have to?" "Yeah. Like, used to be, he'd just hang around my parents and only rub on me or get underfoot once in a while. And I can handle once in a while. Sort of like, when he and his siblings were kittens I'd sit with them in the living room and let them climb on me. But then I could leave. When I'd had as much as I can handle and needed alone time, I could just climb over the little fence and get away from them. So, he'd mostly just bother my parents, and if I noticed he needed food or something I'd get him some. And it was fine." "Then what?" "Then my parents went on vacation for a couple weeks, leaving me to take care of him. And I tried to just give him what attention I could, and then set him down and go about my business. But that wasn't enough. He wouldn't leave alone, he still kept touching me. I had to start locking in one of the back rooms so I could cook, but that wasn't enough time for me to recover. It just kept grating on me more as time went on. I did start spraying him a spray bottle to keep him away. That kind of worked. He'd stay out from underfoot, but only just. He'd still be lurking a step away, a constant threat, trying to touch me if he thought I wasn't looking. And then I started spraying him if I could see him at all, if he ran under the table I'd lean down and keep spraying until he was out of the room. He kept getting more persistent as time went on, until my parents got home, but that almost worked." "Almost?" "He only gave me space if he saw the spray bottle. If I dare set it down he would try to touch me again. I'd go get the bottle if he started getting close, but there were a number of times when he just snuck up on me. I got so stressed out I just started kicking him on reflex. That eventually worked. But if I do anything nice for him at all he'll start touching me again. So, no food, water, cleaning the litterbox, or just opening the door to let him outside. I still tense up if I think I see movement out of the corner of my eye." "And this feels like what people do?" "Feels like it, yeah. In another context all of this would be fine. But they're not even the slightest bit considerate of my feelings."

"What would it look like if the cat was being considerate?" she asks. "I don't fucking know, animals are dumb." "I guess, leaving me alone and finding something else to do when I set him down. But it's not like I can tell the cat I need space. So probably doing the same thing, except when I pushed him out the way or started spraying him." "And what if you could just tell him?" "Then I'd say 'hey, leave me alone, I need some space.' and then he'd leave me alone for a while. And maybe later he'd get my attention by walking into my line of sight and looking up at me, and I could say 'no I still need space' and he'd leave me alone some more. Or maybe I'd say 'yeah okay' and then pick him up or something."

"Are we getting anywhere with the cat analogy?" "No."

"Ya' know," I say, "I've literally spent years on this problem. Is this even solvable?" "How would you tell?" "I don't think I could figure out if it's solvable without actually solving it. That sounds like one of those problems proven to be mathematically impossible. I wouldn't know, but I definitely don't know how I'd go about proving that. Though I can imagine proving that it's not possible. Say, like some kind of puzzle that literally has pieces missing, not enough to do.. whatever the puzzle is." "Alright, so what are the pieces? or I should say, what is the puzzle?" "Hm, two puzzles. One, build an accurate model as to what's going on in other people's heads. Two, get at least one of them to build an accurate model of me in their head." "Okay but before that, why? How do you know that this isn't the wrong problem?" "To connect; basic human need. On my end understanding is strictly necessary. On their end, I guess I've been assuming the same. And yeah, there's no way that could somehow be an exception. Though I don't know that they're actually trying to do that. Maybe they're not. Every time I've brought up something that wasn't right they just insisted that it was. That's not connecting. Like, when I'm chopping vegetables and feel some resistance, I'm not like 'no, the knife is wrong'. I adjust to the knife, to the situation. That's connecting."

"And, this is not a metaphor," I continue, "I've tried to teach other people how to use a knife, and watched how they do it. They're completely deaf to the knife. Okay, calling it 'deaf' is a metaphor. Numb, I guess. They can't feel when their grip is unstable. They can't tell when the knife is getting dull. They don't notice when they're damaging the edge. And there's about four different things in the cut itself, how much you press, how much you pivot, how much you slide, and what part of the knife you're cutting with. There's more but that's sufficient for my point. With each of those things, different configurations are better for different foods and different knives. And it's dynamic. Like, if you're sliding, sawing, then you're not using the same part of the knife for the whole cut. So you're constantly chasing a moving target, more or less. And they just don't. Like, 'knife go up and down' and if it's not working, make Ari sharpen the knives again. They don't feel when there's more or less resistance." "Help me make a point out of this." "And this is analogous to how people understand? or how they don't?" "No, I think this is how they understand, whatever that means to them. Not comparable, the thing itself."

"Does that have some implications?" "..That I really am naive for thinking I could ever connect with anyone." "You can't think of any way at all? That's really not like you." "..It's possible that there's some profound communication problem. But I don't fucking see how. It's not like I've been unclear. And it's extremely common for people to un-clarify what I said anyway. It wouldn't matter if I even made my own language, specific as Ithkuil. They would still just decide 'you don't mean [thing], you mean [different thing]'. I don't think there's anything in there that would be meaningful in the sense that I understand things. And if there were, then they're doing this on purpose." "Are you certain?" "As certain as I can be. If I ever meet someone who's like 'wait a minute, what do you mean by..?' followed by 'so you mean like..?', then I will flip on a dime. But I have nowhere left to look, and really, nothing left to try."

"I believe you." she says. "Thanks." "Hey, move closer?" She lays her head on my chest, I wrap my arm around her. She's warm.

"What do I do with this, Mara?" "With not being able to connect, or with knowing that you can't?" "I don't know. I guess I don't want to let go of the idea." "Understandable." "There isn't anything to be done with the former, is there?" "You could try writing a poem or a song or something." "Would that accomplish anything?" "I dunno. You'll never know if you don't try." "I guess so. And the latter?" "Same thing." "They would be bad." "Yeah, what of it?" "Wouldn't that make me a bad person?" "That's stupid." "Yeah, well, I'm stupid." "Okay firstly, what would make art 'bad'?" "I dunno. What even is 'art'?" "If I just tell you what I think you're going to be like 'oh well other people think I'm bad so I'm still gonna think I'm a piece of shit'. You're not going to believe me." "..I'm sorry." "I don't want you to be sorry. I'm not the one you need to believe, love." "I don't want to do this. It hurts." "You don't want to stay like this, do you? I'm here, we'll get through it together."

"Alright, so let's take a rock for example. In some kind of garden it might be an art piece but the same thing out in a field is just a meaningless rock. The difference being, in a garden it's evoking a sense of nature? So art is anything that evokes feelings. At least, that's a good enough definition for the moment." "And what would make art 'bad'?" "That it doesn't evoke feelings, or that it evokes the wrong feelings. Say, a plastic yard ornament that's supposed to look like a rock, but doesn't quite." "And evoking whose feelings, in your case?" "In this case, I'm the audience, they would be mine." "I just wanted to hear you say it. So what about failing to evoke emotions would make you a bad person?" "I don't know what 'bad person' means." "What would it mean to you, Ari?" "What would 'bad' mean? promoting suffering or hindering joy. If a person was doing that, they'd be doing bad, but that's not the issue here. 'Being' bad is the issue. So what does it mean for a person to 'be' something? Things that don't change I guess. Well, don't generally change. Structure and values? Being autistic, for instance. Or being altruistic for the latter. Do I need to justify that position?" "You don't have to justify anything to me, love." "Thanks. Alright, so structure would be inherently amoral, which just leaves values. Someone might think someone else's values are immoral, an instinct for hunting for instance. And someone might have conflicting values, such as wanting to hunt but not wanting to hurt others, and thus trying to hunt 'ethically'. But it doesn't make any sense for someone to say their own values are bad, as that would be the very thing they're using to make that determination. Ffrankly it makes as much sense to say I'm evil for wanting sex as it would to say I'm evil for wanting things to be orderly, or for wanting to help others. Tthat's just what came to mind. Am I bad for somehow making this about sex?" "What do you think?" "I think I'm conflicted, in that I want to connect with others and make them happy, and they've been upset whenever I've brought it up. But like, they didn't just tell me 'no I don't want to talk about that'. They like, just played along for awhile, letting me just be a piece of shit. Why didn't they just ffucking tell me? But um, they really weren't any different for any other topic. I think it was the same conflict of 'understanding' as everything else. It's just, this was really important to me, and impossible for me to process, because that's one of the main ways the church put the screws to people. Being generally taboo doesn't help of course. Like, I can't just ask someone what it's like to have a vagina. Nor what 'romance' means exactly. But I was never going to be able to discuss anything, really. So, if I'm evil, it's for failing to communicate. But it's not like I haven't been trying. Logically, I'd have to say that failure to communicate has to be a structure problem, and is thus amoral. It'd make as much sense to say I'm evil for being too tall. But it doesn't feel that way. Short of finding out that people really have been twisting what I say deliberately, I think I'm still going to feel like it's my fault." "So do you think you're bad for making your example about sex?" "No. Sex shouldn't be taboo, that's horseshit. I could see people wanting a trigger warning or something, but just discussing it should be fine, generally speaking." "And what would a 'bad person' mean to you?" "A fucking myth, people imposing their values on others. Not that the pursuit of certain values wouldn't be bad for others. Hell, capitalism right? But people don't get to decide what they are. It doesn't do any good to make them hate themselves for it. Nor to hate them. Hate isn't how you fix things." "So would you be a bad person for making bad art?" "No. Being an amateur is a necessary step to get to competence. I'm a bad person for not being able to figure out how to connect with her, and for not figuring out the things she wasn't telling me." "I can pretend I don't know what you're talking about if you want to discuss that." "I mean, really there's nothing more to discuss than what I've gone over already. Fundamentally incompatible. It looked like I really had a chance, but I think that was probably only because I hadn't been able to express myself well enough for her to take offense to it yet. And it this point, the handful of 'not being myself' incidents are bothering me more." "That's progress then? Do you wanna talk about those?" "It is. And I'm not sure. I have been writing these a bit longer, but I have no criteria for how long is the proper length. And also we're kind of at the end of the subject." "Shh, if you break the fourth wall then I'll disappear." she whispers. "You're a liar." "You would know." "I mean, the fact that I don't is kind of the whole premise here."

"So what do you wanna do?"

"I dunno. I had this thought of a whimsical place to take this but I'm not feeling it now. I'm so fucking worthless. And I'm so sorry. I don't know what was fucking wrong with me."

She rolls over and puts her arm around me.

"Even that," I continue, "I'm just imagining nice things I shouldn't have. And it's contrived, and I'm stupid." "You did just say you're not in control of me. Maybe I'm an alter. Maybe we really did get fucked up in second grade and you've just been thinking you're the only one in here." "That's not congruent with stories about what that's like." "Well maybe we're just a little fucked up." "Well yeah, but not like that." "You don't know that. Maybe you should try letting me take control sometime, see what happens." "What if you're really a demon or something trying to posses me?" "You'd like that." "Yeah. But you're not, you're too familiar." "Or maybe I've always been here, trying to tempt you to follow your dreams and believe in yourself." "Alright yeah, I'll try to let you posses me and if it works you can draw me a picture or something." "I'd love to, sweetheart."

"This is all unhinged, isn't it?" "Love, I heard you whisper that you should kill yourself for five minutes straight today. Having an imaginary demon girlfriend who loves you is unhinged in a much more positive direction. You've never been hinged."

"I'm getting loopy." "..I'm not just going to keep telling you to do things you know have to do." "I never feel better after I sleep. And I've been having nightmares lately. I've had to have rain noises or something going to deal with it." "I know." "Thanks."

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butwhyduh · 3 years

Text

Dead Clown 🤡

Jason todd x reader

Warning: smut, murder but it’s okay.

Jason pulled his helmet off and ignored the rain that poured down his face. He had to see this without a filter. He even considered taking off the domino mask but he was out in the open. The pouring freezing rain had him shivering but Jason was unaware. He literally couldn’t believe the sight before him.

The joker was laying in his back, the pasty skin on his forehead was marred by 2 small holes. The back of his stupid green hair looked almost black when mixed with blood. Blood and water mixed in a pink puddle around his head. Jason forced himself to check for a pulse before hitting his comms.

“Bats, you need to get down here,” he said in a shocked voice. “The joker is dead.”

“..... are you okay,” Bruce said in a measured voice.

“I’m fine. He was dead when I got here,” Jason added knowing he was number one suspect.

“On the way.”

Batman and Red Robin showed up shortly with Robin not far behind. It didn’t take long for the detectives to believe Jason’s innocence. The evidence didn’t match him.

Jason sat on a piece of concrete near the scene as they worked. He had hoped to see this for years now. But it wasn’t the same. Maybe it was because Jason didn’t get his revenge or because it looked too neat. Two quick shots to the brain. Probably didn’t even see it coming before he was lights out.

Bruce walked over to him as the other two took photos and bagged evidence. A little blood here. Some fabric fibers there. No fingerprints because of the heavy rain but a bullet casing.

“Did you see who shot him?”

“No B. I literally got here and he was already out. He was supposed to have a drug drop but I guess that didn’t happen,” Jason said with a shrug.

“You were going to fight him alone,”Bruce said with a raised brow.

“No. Just reconnaissance. I would have called it in,” Jason defended himself. Bruce gave him a side look before moving on to the case.

“Commissioner Gordon is on the way,” Tim said. He held bags of evidence carefully in his lanky fingers. “We’re finish collecting-“

“Can we go home, father? It’s freezing cold,” Damian interrupted. Bruce sighed before looking at him.

“Red Robin was talking but yes, you both should back to the cave to process everything. Red Hood, you too. The commissioner knows you have a history with the joker so it’s best you leave too. I’ll take care of this,” Bruce said carefully. Any wrong word might set Jason off with his trauma over the death of his murderer.

“Uh yeah, sure man,” Jason said clearly distracted. He would usually argue with everything Bruce said and this made Bruce even more worried for the young man. He sent a quick message to Dick before the commission met got there.

——————————

“We’re running the tests right now and there really isn’t much else to do. Robin already went to bed. Go home Hood and get some sleep,” Tim said by the computers. Jason hadn’t bothered to get out of his suit or shower.

“How long? How long until you get results?”

“Oh, uhhh maybe 12 hours? A while. Sorry DNA testing isn’t like in the movies. The meta or clone tests are even longer. It probably won’t be until tomorrow night that we know anything,” Tim said turning in his chair. “Get some sleep.”

Jason considered giving him a nasty comment but held it. He certainly felt dead on his feet and had a nice warm woman waiting at home for him.

“Call when you know anything,” he said with a growl.

“Yeesh, yeah. I will,” Tim said backing away. “Say it. Don’t spray it,” he muttered as Jason walked away.

———————————

Jason trudged into the apartment leaving wet clothing in his wake until he stumbled to bed in nothing but his boxer briefs. You were going to be mad at him for the mess in the morning but that could wait. He looked at you asleep on the bed. You looked so sweet and innocent. Like an angel compared to his dirty hands that practically dripped blood every night.

He slid under the blanket and pressed close to your warm form. You gasped awake before relaxing when you realized it was just Jason. Did you not realize he could kill you 84 different ways in your sleep? It didn’t really matter as you snuggled your head into the crook of his neck and slid your legs to entangle with his. Jason’s arms automatically wrapped around you and rubbed your back until your breathing was even in sleep. He stared at the ceiling until the hint of dusk could be seen outside.

Jason woke with a gasp followed by a moan as he felt perfect wet heat encompass his dick. He looked down to see the blankets move rhythmically as you slid your mouth along his dick. He blinked himself more awake to truly enjoy it.

It wasn’t the first time you had woken him as such but it was certainly a rare occurrence. Reserved for birthdays and Christmas, he couldn’t imagine what he did to deserve such a wonderful wake up.

“Fuck! Princess,” he groaned as you swirled before taking him deep. You hummed questionably.

“What did I, mmmm, do to deserve such a fuck! Perfect mouth. Perfect wake up,” he said pushing covers down to show you between his legs. You looked up at him with big innocent eyes as you licked long hot strips up his cock. You took him deep in your mouth before sliding off with a pop.

“I can’t spoil you?” You purred and he twitched. How did he get so lucky? “Do you want to finish in my mouth or can I ride you first?” You asked and he god honest choked on his spit.

“Baby, *cough* whatever you want, what. Ever. you want,” he said and you grinned before climbing up his body to straddle him. His hands ran along the side of your body before gripping your hips. You sunk down on him with a little mewl.

“Fuck Princess, you’re so wet. Do you like... do you like sucking my cock?” He asked breathlessly.

“Of course, Jaybird. Sometimes I touch myself when I blow you, like today,” you admitted with a sweet little giggle. He almost came right them. How could you say the dirtiest things while being the sweetest person he’d ever known?

Jason reached his thumb down to rub your clit as you moved. You whined before nodding at him. Your mouth fell open and your hips sped up. He knew that you weren’t going to last long. You really did get hot and bothered blowing him. You made little whined and whimpers before moaning his name loudly as you came. Your body clenching on him was enough and he thrust up into you as he came as well. You bent down and kissed him deeply. Jason was panting by the time you pulled back.

“Loved that for sure, but what the hell was that, Princess,” Jason asked breathlessly as you climbed off and threw on some clothing. You chuckled a little before tossing him his boxers.

“Just wanted to wake you up this morning. Do you want some pancakes, Jay,” you asked. He sat up and pulled them on.

“You certainly did. And I never say no to food. Especially my favorite food,” Jason said with a grin. “Is it secretly my birthday? Am I dying and you’re prepping me beforehand?”

You laughed. “You already did that, baby.”

Jason gasped a little before laughing.

“I just wanted to treat you like you deserve. Pick a movie. There’s a new slasher out that you can tear apart,” you said walking in the kitchen and grinned at Jason’s heart eye look he gave you.

He looked through the movies without paying them much mind. He’d seen the joker dead the day before and now his girlfriend was spoiling him. He didn’t know what to think about. He’d think about the joker finally being dead. He couldn’t hurt Jason or those near him any more. You’d been kidnapped 6 months earlier and it had almost ripped Jason apart when he found you bloody and beaten. Luckily alive though.

Then he thought about how sweet you were. A perfect angel who had nothing to do with that life. You couldn’t kill someone if you tried. He just wanted to keep you in an innocent bubble, especially after being kidnapped.

“Jay? Jason?” You said near him and he jumped. He had been so lost in thought that he didn’t notice you coming over to him with a plate of food. Heart shaped pancakes covered in whipped cream stared up at him and Jason had a little grin on his face.

“Sorry, thanks. This looks good,” he said and you grinned before sitting with your own. Jason turned on a movie and sat next to you to eat.

Jason’s phone rang.

He gave you an apologetic look before answering.

“Yeah,” he answered before quickly standing up to talk in another room. Definitely bat business, it sounded like. He came back in a few minutes putting on his suit. He bent and shoved most of a pancake in his mouth. Jason pulled you to your feet and swirled you around before holding you by the waist. You giggled.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“I’ve got to work. But when I get back, I’m making up for this morning, okay? Breakfast was amazing,” he said before pulling you into a dizzying kiss. You nodded before he left.

——————————

Jason arrived at the cave and realized something was instantly wrong. Tim, Dick, Damian, Bruce, and even Alfred were waiting for him around the computers. He slowly walked up. They didn’t think he did it, did they? Jason looked around in case of a fight.

“I have some bad news,” Dick said. Jason just stared at him. Dick sighed. “We know who killed the joker. You won’t like it. You- you might want to sit down.”

Jason frowned at his tone. It was the tone you used when telling a kid their parents died. He looked at the computer to see surveillance footage of the roof where he found the joker. He clenched his fist as the mad man walked in the screen.

“You know, this is the worst meeting place in the world,” joker said with a laugh. Jason’s eyebrows rose. He hasn’t expected audio. “So what do you have that I might want on the birds?”

A female voice off camera could be heard saying, “peace of mind.”

“Doubt you could give me that Princess,” he said in a mocking tone. His posture was casual even though the lower half of a woman’s body had walked into the screen and she held a gun in hand pointed at him. She froze at his words.

Jason couldn’t look away if he wanted to.

“Yeah, I know,” joker said. “I forget faces. Too many changing and quite a few people are a little two faced,” he said with a laugh. “But I never forget a voice. You sounded so much more sweet when you were crying tied to a chair. And the way you sobbed when I brought out the crowbar.... music to my ears. I bet it just reminded you of a certain bird that just didn’t quite make it the first time.”

“Shut up. I- I don’t care,” she said. Jason’s heart was in his throat. He knew exactly who that was before Tim’s DNA tests were complete. She moved around a little nervously.

“Honey, Princess,” he said drawn out in a mock of Jason’s voice. “Unless you plan on using that gun, put it down and we can play a game. You like games? You play one with the red bat all the time. Does he know? Does he know that you’ve been hunting me for.... geez, since you were kidnapped I’d bet.”

“Now drop that gun and I show you what pain really feels like,” he growled and she shot him in the forehead before he moved. He made a disconnected sound before falling to his knee, perfect height to be seen in the camera. She shot him again between the eyes and he fell back silently. His body splashed on the rainy roof before blood began to pool behind his head. The woman looked for a second, her body language painfully stiff, before running out the way she came.

The cave was silent as Jason realized what he just saw. He blinked a few times before clearing his throat. Has she- did she-??

“I assume the DNA matches?” He asked and Tim nodded before sliding him a paper copy. 98% match. Only chance it wasn’t you was an evil twin or clone but no, he noticed the clothing and mannerisms. It was you.

“Are you going to bring her in?” Bruce asked quietly and Jason gaped.

“I sure as shit ain’t. She killed the man who kidnapped her and abused her. That sounds like self defense to me,” he defended. Dick looked at him in pity and Jason quickly looked away.

“It was premeditated, Jason,” Bruce reminded him.

“I know. I’ll take care of it. She’s not going to prison. I’ll talk to her,” he said. Bruce gave him a hard look. “You come near her- I swear to god, Bruce. I’ll shoot you myself.”

Jason got up to leave. Dick moved out of his way. He wasn’t getting in this.

“Jason,” Bruce said but Jason was already gone.

——————————

Jason was a pretty smart guy but he was completely shocked at this moment. What possessed you to kill the joker? To seek him out? A man that tried to kill you and you were willing to meet him alone? Not even Jason wanted to do that. And that morning you were treating Jason special. He thought for a second that you killed the joker for him. It chilled him to the bone but he put that thought out of his head. No, you had your own reasons to do it.

Jason walked in the apartment cautiously. Who knows how you would be acting, the perfect girlfriend or finally breaking down when you realized you killed a man. He found you in the bedroom asleep. You didn’t look like you had just killed someone and for a second Jason had doubt but the video and DNA didn’t lie.

He crawled in bed with you. You pulled him close and laid your head on his chest and Jason’s heart hurt. You looked fine but killing people left scars and your first time killing someone was not something you forget.

You woke with a gasp and cry hours later. You trembled and grasped at Jason tightly. He woke up confused before pulling you closer.

“Hey, Princess, I’m right here. You’re okay,” he said rubbing your back and holding you close. “What’s going on?”

“I see him. When I sleep. Every time,” you breathed almost in tears. Jason kissed your cheek and he felt wetness on your skin. You had been crying. He didn’t want to ask but now was as good a time as any.

“Princess, what did you do last night?” Jason asked so quietly. You looked up at him quickly and it confirmed everything he needed to know.

“Nothing. I was here. All night. Wh-why?” You asked, lying terribly. Jason sighed. He closed his eyes before willing himself to speak.

“You know I’m a detective. I can tell that you’re lying,” Jason started gently.

“What does that mean,” you said a little too quickly. Your breathing started to speed up again and Jason hated the look of fear on your face.

“I’m not mad. I won’t turn you in. Just tell me what happened,” he said softly, watching you intently. You wanted to shrink away a little.

“I can’t,” you whispered. Your eyes started to water and you blinked them away.

“Did you do it? Did you kill him? I can help you,” Jason said and you froze. “Talk to me.”

“I-I did,” you said looking at him in terror. Your eyes were red rimmed. “I did.”

“I’m sorry,” he said pulling you tight to his body. You broke down in little sobs and clung to him. “I’m so sorry that you thought you had to. I should have. I’m sorry.” He wrapped you up and made little shhh noises and you cried until you fell back asleep.

You woke up later with a pounding headache wrapped up tightly against Jason. He was on his phone but sat it down when he saw you were up.

“Hey,You don’t have to worry about it. I’ve taken care of everything,” he said ever so gently. You nodded.

“What does that mean?” You asked slowly.

“Red Hood took the wrap on it. No great loss with one less psycho in Gotham. Harley Quinn had an impromptu parade with hyenas and jugglers and everything. Nightwing made an appearance. Dick said Barbie slept through the night for the first time in months and she said she’d help you with anything you need,” Jason said trying to be positive. You gave him a dry smile.

“That’s nice. What about- what about Batman?” You asked.

“He’s Batman. But he’ll get over it. And the next time you kill a murderous clown, let me help. He could have killed you. And if anyone knows how to hide a body, it’s me,” Jason said giving you a squeezing hug. You smiled despite yourself.

“I’ll remember that. I’m a little sad I missed the hyena parade,” you admitted.

“Oh she’s having a parade every day this week. An anonymous donor gave her a ton of fireworks. Fairly certain it was Tim,” Jason said.

#Jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #Jason todd smut #red hood smut #batboy smut #the joker needs to die okay #and I’ll do it myself

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moonvyx · 3 years

Text

Special One Out - Peter Parker (Any)

(Idea from YT and a fanfic)

Warnings: Angst, death and unfair parents .

Y/N's parent's never liked her, there were so many unnecessary reasons why they disliked her. One of the reasons were that she had beautiful h/c hair, while they were brunettes. (If you're a brunette, you can pick a diff hair colour.)

At a very young age of 5, her little sister, Celia was born. (You can use your second name or another name if your name is Celia.)

Y/N craved the attention her parents gave Celia.

She tried to impress them with her daily drawings from school, she tried to impress them by knowing how to spell Czechoslovakia, (I had a hard time spelling this!) but they were unimpressed with everything she did, instead they were impressed with the blabs and whines of Celia.

When Y/N was in her first day of grade 1, her parents didn't say goodbye, not even a good luck kiss on the check.

She felt nervous, no one was there to assure her that it was all gonna be okay.

No one but Peter Parker.

The two met on the playground during lunchtime.

Y/N was sitting on one of the swings, watching all the kids eat and laugh together.

"Hello." A friendly voice greeted, Y/N turned her head to the person who owned the voice.

"Hi," She replied with a smile. "I'm Peter, Peter Parker." The sandy haired boy introduced. "Y/N L/N." The h/c girl replied back.

"May I sit here?" Peter asked, she nodded. "So how's your first day?" He questioned her again.

"Uneventful. Mom and dad didn't even tell me to have a great day." Y/N said sadly. Peter's brows furrowed and his lips turned into a forwn.

"Why?" He asked, "Well they dislike me, for some reason. I never knew why. I didn't ask, I didn't want to be even more disliked." She replied with a frown on her face.

"Oh..Well, that's terrible." Peter stated, looking at the girl. "Yeah, but it's fine. Happens all the time." She said.

"No, you deserve better." Peter said and hugged the girl. "A hug to brighten your day." He breathed. Y/N smiled and laughed, and hugged Peter back.

"I can tell this is a start of a beautiful friendship, Y/N." Peter smiled. "I'm sure it is." She replied with a smile.

Years passed, everything stayed the same.

Y/N's parents still adored Celia, she and Peter still stuck together and formed a beautiful friendship.

But things began to down downhill when a specific blonde began dating Peter.

Gwen Stacy.

Who wouldn't like her? She's pretty, smart, kind, thoughtful, she could he every man's dream girl.

Even Peter's.

And here you are, holding the rails of your balcony as your tears tell down like the Niagara falls.

All because he ditched you just to hang out with Gwen.

"I'm supposed to he used to this, he always ditches me for Gwen." You said, wiping the tears before going back inside your so called home.

"Y/N, I want you to go to the store and get Celia some ice cream, Cookies and Cream. Don't mess it up." Your father commanded strictly. You nodded softly before heading out.

The night was cold, very cold. You mentally thanked yourself for always wearing a hoodie.

As soon as you arrived at the store, you couldn't help but feel like someone has been following you. You just hoped it was some guy who was also going to the store.

But oh how wrong you were.

"That'll be $5," the old lady said. You nodded and hamd dnher your $5 before leaving the store with the plastic bag full of ice cream.

"Thanks miss, have a lovely night." You smiled at her as she also smiled back before leaving.

During your journey on your way home, the same feeling that someone was following you came back.

Scared, you started to walk faster and began to walk in streets where there were a lot of people to scare the man away, if possible.

But sadly the random street walking ended up at an alley with a dead end. You stopped right in your tracks as the man stood behind you, you could feel that he was smirking in success.

"What do you want from me? Leave me alone." You told the creepy man, but all he did was stand there with a creepy look on his face.

He continued to not say anything, but when the one and only Spiderman jumped down from a building, the creepy man immediately grabbed your arm and ran away with you.

Oh but he wasn't alone, 2 other creepy men came out of nowhere and distracted Spiderman as the man who held you run away.

"Get off me!"You yelled at the man. "Let go off me!" He groaned and took out a handkerchief and sprayed it with some weird cologne and covered you mouth and nose with it, making you unconscious.

Before you could fully black-out, the man said "Now you'll shut up."

Y/N woke up with a banging headache. Groaning, she tried to move her arms but realised they were tied to a pole.

"Ah, I see that you're awake. Great timing, your spider boy is here." The same man who covered her mouth earlier said.

"What does this have to do with me?" She asked, attempting to untie the ropes. The man laughed darkly. "Oh you'll see. Just wait." He said before walking away.

A few minutes have passed, it honestly felt like hours for Y/N. She sighed before looking around.

At the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar Blue and Red Spandex walking around the building.

Relieved, she signaled the hero to come towards her direction. "Psst, Spider-Man!" She exclaimed, but only enough for him to hear.

It seems like his Spider senses heard her voice and alerted him. "Y/N," He said happily and walked to her. "I'm glad you're alright."

She recognised that voice, she paused for a moment before her eyes widened. "Peter?"

Peter's eyes widened, "I-I'm not Peter. Who's Peter?" Y/N laughed, "I know that voice anywhere, Parker. I thought you were a genius." She smiled as he did the same.

"Anyways, let's get you out of here." He said before untying the ropes.

"Not so fast, spider boy." A voice said, the hero turned around in frustration. "Look man, you have no reason to get this innocent fine young lady in trouble." He said.

Spiderman then shot a web towards the criminal, only to be dodged. Laughing, the man called in the rest of his gang and started to attack the hero.

Everyone was so focused on their own thing that they didn't know that one of the gang members placed a bomb.

The other men had already left after leaving Spider-Man tired on the floor, they knew exactly what was gonna happen, and so did Peter.

So with all his strength, he got up and ran to Y/N, who was trying to free herself all this time.

"Peter..Help." She begged, her eyes full of worry. "Shh, it's alright. I'll get you out of here." He said and untied her.

With Y/N free, the two ran for their lives but it was too late, the bomb exploded as soon as they reached the exit.

The blast was strong, it made the two fly away from each other, one of them still near the exit and the other near the edge of the building.

Peter got up and looked around for Y/N, only to see her on the floor, full of bruises.

The ground below her was about to break. Worried, Peter ran as fast as he could to save her.

But it already broke.

She felll.

He didn't hesitate to jump down after her, not forgetting to shoot a web to catch her.

Luckily, his web was able to wrap itself around Y/N's waist, Y/N looked up and saw Peter and gave him a big smile. She mouthed a "thank you" to him as he smiled back.

But the happy moment was ruined when the web snapped, making Y/N fall and scream.

Peter shot another web, hoping that it'd grip on her tighter this time. But it didn't.

He kept trying and trying until one of them didn't fail him.

He smiled again and made sure she was safe as he went next to her.

"Hey," Peter greeted with a dorky smile.

"Hey." Y/N said.

"I'm so glad you're okay." He said, caressing her cheek. "And I to you." The two stared at each other romantically.

The two got down safely, earning many claps from the crowd.

The two never broke their loving stare, that was until Y/N spotted one of the men pointing a gun towards Peter's back.

With no hesitation, she changed their positions and heard a gun shot after. Gasps and screams echoed through the area.

"Y-Y/N?" Peter asked, he looked at her back and saw there was blood leaking from a hole.

"No." He said in realization, he made her face him and begged with tears forming, "Stay with me, Y/N. Please. Stay with me."

But her eyes were already closed.

#avengers x reader #avengers #peter parker #andrew garfield imagine #andrew garfield x reader #Spiderman #tom holland #tom holland x y/n #tobey maguire #avengers angst #peter parker x reader angst

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foli-vora · 3 years

Text

more than words, pt.6

masterlist / mtw masterlist

A/N: Surprise! Thank you all for your patience—I’m sorry it’s taken so long! It wasn’t meant to, but life kept getting in the way (as it does) and then there was family crap to do over Easter lmao. I hope you enjoy the new chapter! There’s so bloody many of you beautiful angels on the tag list now and I’m so scared about leaving someone out! If I’ve missed you, please let me know and I’m sorry! I’m constantly blown away by everyone’s love for my little story—thank you so much! It makes me cry a minimum of 23 times a day.

Pairing: Francisco “Catfish” Morales x f!reader, bestfriend!Benny Miller x f!reader

Word count: 3.1k

Warnings: smut (18+), oral sex (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex, creampie, swearing, brief mention of alcohol, storm clouds gathering on the horizon

pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.3 / pt.4 / pt.5

It’s hard not to giggle drowsily as rough fingertips trace over your ribs, arms quickly winding around your torso as you try to squirm away, and pull you back into a bare chest. Frankie chuckles lowly in your ear, lips pressing softly to your temple as your chest grows with warmth, stomach flipping from the wave of bliss that flows through you.

He relinquishes his hold for just a second as you turn, smiling lazily up at him as the warm morning sun shines through the gaps in his blinds and paints soft lines across his features. His smile grows as you lightly trace along his jaw, turning his head slightly to kiss your fingers.

“Good morning,” you murmur sleepily, wiggling further into his arms.

“Yeah, it is.” He replies quietly, lightly tracing along your spine, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

You press your lips against the hollow of his throat, nose running along the warm skin as his Adams apple bobs when he swallows. His arms tighten around you, and you can’t help the content sigh that leaves you as your eyes are lulled closed again by his comforting embrace and steady breathing in your ear. His fingers resume their dancing across the skin of your back, and you squirm when he goes just a little too close to your sides.

“You’re very ticklish.” He mutters quietly, and you don’t miss the mischievous tone in his voice.

“Don’t even think—”

Squealing sharply as his fingers dig into your sides, you try to wiggle out of his hold and laugh into his chest when he just drags you right back to him. You blink in surprise when you’re suddenly rolled onto your back, smiling widely up at him as he hovers above you.

“Good morning,” he grins, pressing a soft kiss to your nose.

“Yeah, it is.” You cheekily return his words, grinding softly against the solid mass you feel digging into your thigh. He hums lowly as he moves to your lips, dragging his hips along yours and chuckling when you whine into his mouth. “What time does Mena—”

“We’ve got time.” He all but growls after quickly looking at his alarm clock, head quickly moving from yours and disappearing under the sheets with a quiet ruffle.

You laugh quietly, poking at the lump under the sheets that moves down your body with a grin. Fingers dance along your sides again and you shriek in surprise, thrashing lightly under his touch, “Francisco!”

His chuckle is muffled against your skin, arousal settling low in your core when his lips suddenly trail teasingly along your hip. He gently squeezes himself between your thighs, pressing kiss and after soft kiss along the insides of your thighs.

“Fran—oh.”

His tongue is hot when it slides between your folds and your eyes flutter closed as you sink into the pillows. Fingers gently spread you, and then lips are suddenly encasing your clit, a whimper falling from your lips as you buck into his mouth.

He’s too fucking good at this—

His mouth plucks any remaining thoughts straight from your head as you turn to mush, body melting into the mattress as his tongue works relentless strokes against your clit, fingers swiping through the slick quickly gathering at your entrance and gently easing one, then two, inside you, curling deep against your walls and hitting the spot that had your back immediately arching.

“Fuck—”

You can’t help but grind against his hand, Frankie groaning in approval when you slowly start to fuck yourself on his fingers and rub your clit needily against his mouth. He lets you set the pace and take what you need, more than content to just lay and let you move against him.

Your climax builds gradually, the heat burning through your body and settling lowly and tightening the coil in your stomach slowly, but he doesn’t complain, doesn’t pull away like previous impatient partners. He welcomes the pace, enjoys the leisurely drag of your hips against his mouth for as long as you need, and moans quietly into your pussy, grinding his hard cock against the mattress to ease the borderline painful throbbing.

His hair is soft between your fingers when you wind them through it, and tug just how he likes, his groan in response vibrating against you in just the right way to push you up and over the edge.

You can’t help but cry out when the coil snaps and heat suddenly shoots through you, toes curling painfully against each other as your thighs tremble in his hold. He doesn’t let up when you cum, tongue moving to greedily lap your entrance and then back to your clit as he pins your hips to the bed.

It’s too fucking much.

“Frankie—fuck, stop—”

He does immediately, and you breathe in relief, flinging the sheets aside and meeting his hungry gaze the second his head is revealed. His eyes are dark as he blinks up at you from where his head rests against your thigh, a whimper falling weakly from your lips when he gently removes his fingers from you. Your stomach flips when he sticks them in his mouth, and you pull at his hair impatiently, moaning when his wet lips attach to yours, the taste of you flooding your mouth when his tongue pushes past your lips and slides along your own.

His cock feels heavy against your thigh and you eagerly reach for it, quickly lining him up at your entrance and whining when he slowly pushes into you.

He could get used to this.

You were hot around him, pussy still fluttering from your orgasm, and he has to take a second to calm the sudden urge to cum then and there. You shift your hips impatiently against his, nuzzling into his hair as he buries his head into the curve of your shoulder with a shudder.

“Go baby—”

“I’m gon—”

“It’s okay, give it to me.”

He groans into your skin, pulling his hips back and then slamming forward, thrusts sloppy and eager as he chases his release. You praise him quietly, muttering sweet nothings into his ear as he climbs higher and higher until he trembles in your arms, teeth digging into your shoulder to muffle his cry as his cock twitches and empties inside your pussy.

He stays on top of you, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath, and you card your fingers through his curls softly as he comes down.

“Fuck.” He pants, kissing his way to your lips before carefully pulling out of you and rolling to the side, dropping beside you with a lazy sigh. You bask in the comfortable quiet that settles over his bedroom, rolling into his side when his hand blindly reaches for you.

A small noise sounds from the baby monitor next to the bed and he huffs a breathless chuckle as he looks at it. “Perfect timing.”

You giggle into his chest, stealing one last greedy kiss before rolling from the bed to start getting dressed.

“She’s not awake yet, but she’s getting there. We have time for a quick shower, if you want to join me?”

You grin at him, dropping the clothes in your hands and crawling over him, kissing him softly. “How could I refuse?”

He hums against your lips, “If you want to make it to the shower, I suggest you move before I throw that idea right out the fucking window and keep you here.”

You laugh as he gently moves out from under you, playfully swatting his ass as he walks away.

His shower is small, but you both make do as you take turns under the warm spray of water and wash. It’s not long until your lips are moving desperately against his, your back arching as it meets the cold tiles.

A noise, that sounds distinctively like an impatient ‘papa’, echoes from the baby monitor on the bathroom counter and Frankie chuckles into your smile.

“That’s my cue. Stay here—take as long as you need. We’ll be in the kitchen.”

And then he’s stepping out after a final kiss, wrapping a towel around his waist and slipping from the bathroom altogether, leaving you to relax and enjoy the hot water alone. Nerves suddenly blossom in your stomach as the sound of giggles echo through the house, and you find yourself rewashing to prolong the inevitable.

What if she doesn’t like you?

Toddlers can be tricky, and if she didn’t like you, then that would kind of kill whatever you had going with Frankie. Who would stay with someone who their kid doesn’t like?

You shut the shower off before you can really work yourself into an anxious mess and slink back to Frankie’s room, smiling when you hear him cooing to Mena in the kitchen. Dressing felt like you were about to have a fucking job interview, and you find yourself pulling at your clothes in his full-length mirror, frowning at your jeans and casual top.

She’s one, for fuck’s sake. She’s not going to notice what you’re wearing—

Shaking your head, you take a deep breath and leave the comfort of his room, following the sounds of childish little giggles. Frankie hears you coming, and smiles softly at you in reassurance as he turns.

“Mena, Ésta es mi amiga,” he says softly, bouncing a beautiful little girl on his hip. She blinks curiously at you, soul crushing eyes that match Frankie’s in depth and shade rolling over your frame before a small frown pinches her brows.

Her little face twists, lips pursing into a small pout and for a brief second, you’re terrified she’s going to cry… but then she smiles, dimple denting her chubby little cheek, and you feel yourself sigh quietly in relief. Thank fuck—

You grin at her, wiggling your fingers in a playful wave and she giggles quietly, turning to bury her face in Frankie’s shoulder as he laughs quietly.

“You’re never shy, princesa,” he murmurs against her forehead, fingers dancing softly along her sides. “Is the pretty lady scary?”

You scowl light-heartedly at him, “Hey.”

Mena giggles again, peeking at you through her fingers before she’s squirming in his grasp and running to her toys when Frankie puts her down. She calls after you with a playful babble, hands clapping impatiently when you take a little longer than she likes.

Frankie joins you on the floor as Mena bustles about, sitting dutifully still when she tries to balance a tiara on his head and accepting an empty play plate with a hum of appreciation as she all but falls in your lap, and watches him pretend-eat expectantly.

She lets you brush her bed fluffed hair with her princess comb and stays still as you tie her little curls into pigtails, giggling when Frankie starts poking her about never sitting this still for him.

It feels like home, you realise with a startle as Frankie starts on breakfast. Like you had always been here, always with them both, fitting perfectly into their little morning routine like the spot had always been there waiting for you.

Mena stays curled up in your lap the entire time Frankie cooks, bringing out book after book, and playing with the necklace around your neck as you read the stories quietly to her. You feel Frankie watching every now and then, and try to steady your rapid heartbeat each time you meet his gaze with a small smile.

Music’s playing softly in the kitchen when you go to see if he needs help with anything, Mena following curiously behind you and dragging an absurdly large soft toy behind her.

“I could get used to this.” You murmur as Frankie flips something on the stove, singing quietly along to the song playfully from the radio.

He grins at you from over his shoulder, “I hope so.”

Your stomach flips as your gaze falls to the floor shyly, smile widening across your face. He slides the food onto the waiting plates and sidles up to you after discarding the frying pan, arms winding around your waist.

He feels like an idiot, but can’t help the words as they tumble clumsily from his lips. “You make me very happy.”

Fuck. Understatement of the century.

Your eyes shine when they flicker up to meet his, your heart hammering heavily against your chest. “You make me very happy, too.”

He melts on the spot instantly, diving in for a kiss without another thought.

“Well, isn’t this cosy.”

“Cutest shit I’ve ever fuckin’ seen.”

You both startle, eyes flashing to the three men sauntering into the kitchen. Frankie’s face morphs first—his eyes narrowing at his friends as his jaw works in frustration, Mena squealing in excitement in the background at the sudden appearance of her favourite people. You, on the other hand, smile in welcome, grinning at Benny’s suggestive brow wiggle. He swipes you up into an immediate hug, fingers snatching food from your plate before you even realise his ulterior motives.

It surprises you when Santiago hugs you as well, making a cheeky comment about you still being able to walk as he helps himself to the fridge, and you flush with a flood of hot embarrassment as Benny snorts out a laugh from beside you.

Frankie stops Will from passing him, a frown burrowing between his brows. “I expect this from those two, but you? I expect better of you.”

Will nods in quiet understanding, lips twitching into a small grin. “That’s fair.”

It’s not the train wreck Frankie expects it will be.

Sure, there was teasing—more than he could keep with, in fact, but you jump in whenever he struggles with his snappy retorts, more than willing to take the brunt of both Pope and Benny’s relentless teasing, and it had his heart hammering in his chest to see everyone so at peace, so comfortable in each other’s presence... you just thrown in the mix like you were always meant to be there.

Mena gets swept away with her uncles, more than content to be showered with constant praise and attention, moving between each man with her toys until she eventually falls asleep in Will’s arms, little face pressed up against his neck as she snores lightly.

It’s nice to be accepted so quickly, so easily, by not only Frankie’s friends, but Benny’s, too. Watching them be together, picking shit on each other and laughing in the small dining room, was heart-warming. They really were family, and as Benny pulls out the chair between him and Frankie, you feel completely at peace between your two favourite men.

Mena’s laugh is contagious as she swings higher and higher, Frankie chuckling lowly as he pushes her, watching you jump back and forth in front of the swing and make a playful grab for the little feet that kick at you.

The park is empty, save for the three of you, and you bask in the suns soft, warm rays as it beams down on you. Your phone vibrates in your pocket and you step away with a smile directed at Frankie, humming a quiet greeting after your thumb slides across the screen.

“Let’s get lunch—I want tacos.” Benny’s voice floods your ear without so much as a hi and you snort.

“Hello Benjamin. I can’t—I’m at the park with Frankie and Mena.” You laugh quietly as you watch them play, Frankie growling as he ducks and dives through the playground after the squealing toddler.

You hear the pout in his voice when he speaks again. “Well, bring them, too—”

“We’ve got a picnic.”

“Oh okay, I see how it is—rude bitch.”

“Excuse you, asshole,” you smile, shaking your head when he laughs loudly in your ear, “I’ll call you later?”

“Yeah, you better. Enjoy your shitty picnic, bitch. And you owe me tacos.”

“I don’t owe you shit, Miller.”

He’s gone before you can even breathe a goodbye, and you roll your eyes as you return to the pair going down the slide, laughing when Frankie has to shuffle his hips to fit down. Mena slides right into your arms and giggles when you spin, little hands grabbing your jacket as she snuggles into your chest.

The day flies by with more laughter and toddler snuggles than you can count, and it’s not long until Frankie’s trying to pry her greedy little fingers from your t-shirt after she passes out in your arms after her bedtime story. You follow Frankie to her bedroom, smiling as you watch him carefully manoeuvre her into her cot after kissing her gently on the forehead.

He really did glow around her, and you feel your adoration for him triple as he carefully steps back towards you, quietly pulling her door closed.

Frankie reads the emotion washing across your face and kisses you softly, heart thundering in his chest as your lips move sweetly against his own.

Lost in Frankie’s soft affections as you both stumble blindly to his room, you don’t end up calling Benny back, and you miss his call the next morning, too wrapped up in the hands that greedily grab at your body in the soft morning light.

There’s a chill in the bar, bought in from the patrons desperate to escape the relentless rain pounding against the windows. Benny watches them all rush in, laughing as they shake the water from their jackets and move to their tables.

“Just you tonight?”

His bright eyes find the waitress placing the beers on the table, and he shrugs quietly, gaze falling back out to the dark parking lot where his truck sits alone at the far end. “Looks that way.”

She senses his reluctance for conversation and slinks away from the table, moving to take other orders.

He sighs heavily, thumb brushing over his phone screen as he scrolls through the many bubbles of his texts, stacking one on top of the other, all unbroken by a reply. Not even one—not even a call. It’s fucking Wednesday.

Where the fuck were you? It wasn’t like you to just not show. Were you okay?

But then he checks your Instagram, sees a picture of you snuggled under a blanket with a movie playing in the background, a pair of long legs stretched out next to yours with a sappy little text in the corner—‘movie nights with him

The relief he feels is short lived.

So you were okay—you were just ignoring him.

He throws cash on the table next to the untouched beer and pizza as he stands, shrugging his jacket on and shoving his phone into his back pocket. He slams the bar door a little harder than necessary after he walks through it, too angry to even flinch at the cold rain that saturates him as he strides to his truck.

Tags: @anu-simps @seasonschange-butpeopledont @withasideofmeg @you-got-me-starry-eyed @mouthymandalorianalso @frannyzooey @wyn-dixie @intu-witch-tion @amneris21 @mad-girl-without-a-box @pinguinstudiert @sergeantbannerbarnes @betterthanbucky @kat-r-in @starlightmornings @randomness501 @emilykjh @peterhollandkait @sara-alonso @starlightsearches @bookishofalder @empress-palpat1ne @shadowolf993 @rosiefridayrogersunday @canyonmirrors @eoz-stuff @blackonemasie @layniapetrovnaaa @alberta-sunrise @goldielocks2004 @afootnoteinyourhappiness @linkpk88 @busycryin @hailmaryyramliah @kesskirata @blueeyesatnight @a-perfct-stranger @melaniermblt @dragcn-queen @gracie7209 @mrsparknuts @janebby @littlebopper96 @wardenparker @brandyllyn @littlemissoblivious @a-skov @mandorush @stargazingcarol @charnelhouse @mustbeaweasleyginger @sherala007 @absurdthirst @casssiopeia @pedritobalmando @the-witty-pen-name @pintsizemama @clydesducktape @bison-writes @andruxx @missredherring @strawberryperegrine @alwritey-aphrodite @itssmashedavo @asta-lily @rebellou

#frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x f!reader #frankie morales x you #francisco morales x reader #francisco morales x you #francisco morales x f!reader #frankie morales #francisco morales #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal #triple frontier #triple frontier fic #benny miller x reader

526 notes · View notes

crimeronan · 3 years

Note

Ok so I’m into the dreamer trilogy and haven’t read the Raven cycle...what is Declan’s characterisation/journey there?

THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST ASK I’VE EVER RECEIVED. IMAGINE I’M STANDING WITH MY ARMS SPREAD USING DIFFERENT VOICES AND HAND GESTURES TO REENACT THIS STORY FOR A RESENTFUL CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

also declan’s TRC storyline is like. equal parts horribly fucking sad and unbelievably fucking hilarious so. i will try to strike a Balance

FIRST OFF. there is exactly one (1) declan POV chapter in the entire series. it happens toward the end of the last book. up until then, everything we know about him comes from the observations and narration of others.

he is also a very minor character. his importance grows throughout the series, but almost all of his actions happen offscreen. it’s not until the last book that we know exactly how much he’s been dealing with the whole time.

when he’s introduced in the first book, he appears as a plot device. here is a two-dimensional horrible controlling hardass who doesn’t give a shit about anything but his future political career. look at his fake, smug fucking grin. how did someone like ronan end up with a brother like him?? doesn’t matter. it’s a convenient excuse for ronan to live with his best friend in a drafty warehouse, which means more room for YA hijinks!

declan’s introduction scene is Embroiled in Capital-D Douchebaggery. according to the narration (from gansey and adam), he loves to fuck women and then never call them back, cozy up to powerful people, and bitch about how ronan’s ruining his life by being sad about their dead parents. SOME people can just get over their dead parents, ronan!

this intro scene is also Extremely Funny i 100% recommend reading it even if u don’t read the actual series. ronan makes a nasty comment, declan goes “why are you the way that you are” and tries to salvage his date, gansey utters the phrase “man whore”

then later that night things go like. actually bad.

declan shows up at the same pizza place where ronan is with his friends. this scene is gansey pov. gansey runs out to the parking lot to find the two of them Very Literally Trying To Kill Each Other. you don’t see that violence in cdth - there’s only the TINIEST shadow of it when declan confronts ronan over matthew - so i Cannot Express Enough that someone is going to end up hospitalized at BEST. ronan’s already slammed declan’s head on the car, declan’s already grabbed ronan and beaten the shit out of his face, like.

you do not get good old-fashioned Declan Lynch At His Actual Worst in cdth. u might be thinking, THAT guy???? doing THIS????

oh yeah. things are real bad between declan and ronan.

after gansey breaks up the fight (and gets punched in the face for his trouble, albeit accidentally), declan tells ronan that their dad would be fucking ashamed to see him now & that he’s washing his hands of it & basically if ronan wants to go off and fucking die, he can.

this is like. just a couple months after the magical suicide attempt referenced in cdth

in the aftermath of that scene it becomes clear that ronan absolutely unequivocally 100% will kill himself if he has to live with declan. hence. why he’s living with gansey instead. gansey spends that whole night petrified that the declan altercation will lead to another attempt, and for Good Reason

so like, that’s how we first meet declan. he’s an uncaring wannabe corporate asshole who does not give a fuck and who only exists to exacerbate ronan’s mental health issues.

but then the opening of book 2 gets real interesting.

book 2 is where we start learning more about the lynch family. we learn that ronan’s father was a dreamer who sold his creations on the black market, we learn that that’s why he was murdered. we learn that ronan’s a dreamer too. we learn that there are very powerful people looking for the greywaren, an artifact that takes objects from dreams. those powerful people just don’t realize it’s a person, yet.

so here’s the assassin who killed niall lynch.

he goes to declan’s dorm.

with everything we know about declan, the kid should be completely unprepared. he can box, but the assassin knows that, so there’s no real advantage. he’s alone, and he doesn’t have an escape route.

declan pulls out a gun.

this is an unexpected turn of events.

unfortunately he ends up getting beaten half to death with the butt of said gun, because he loses the ensuing physical struggle for the weapon. the assassin is like, i need the greywaren. declan is like, i know it exists but i don’t know what it is. i’ll find it for you. i’ll get it to you. then you’ll leave me the fuck alone

now with everything we know of declan at this point - his attitude toward ronan, his general demeanor, and this new knowledge that he knew about the black market - there’s one obvious question.

will declan sell ronan out if he finds out about the dreaming.

and like, okay. their relationship is antagonistic in cdth but it is NOT what it is in trc. believe me when i tell you that at that point, when you’re reading, you can pretty reasonably go, “oh, god. oh god. oh god please no one ever tell declan what the greywaren is. oh god.”

declan has some other interactions with ronan and the gang throughout the book, mostly where he’s just a hardass who tells ronan to stop causing trouble. adam’s the only one who notices that declan is scared. like bone-deep shaking to the core petrified. about Something.

probably getting beaten to within an inch of his life by the man who murdered his father. that’s the reasonable reader conclusion.

so imagine how everything changes when you find out that declan already knows. that declan’s known about ronan’s dreaming for longer than ronan has. that declan knew exactly what and who the greywaren was, and he lied to a man who was ready to torture him for information, and he got away with it.

suddenly a lot of things recontextualize.

“keep your head down and stop making trouble”? people are gonna NOTICE your magic bullshit, ronan, we do not have time for this!

“stop hanging with that loser druggie friend of yours”? you mean the loser druggie friend who sells on the magic black market and doesn’t care about protecting himself or anyone else?

“i got super weird for no reason about ronan sleeping close to adam”? i don’t have fucking TIME to be homophobic i’m busy with your POTENTIAL TO MANIFEST NIGHT TERRORS IN FRONT OF WITNESSES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

“i’ll find out what the greywaren is and bring it to you”? i’ll die. i’m making a bargain to die. i’m never giving you the greywaren and i know you’re going to kill me about it and that’s fine as long as my brothers are safe

ronan doesn’t know that he dreamed matthew. declan knows. he’s known the whole time. declan tells ronan in book 3. and then things recontextualize even further, because ronan’s death is also matthew’s, and matthew IS close to declan in trc.

but declan never tells the goddamn truth unless it’s his last option. he doesn’t tell ronan that he knows about the dreaming and he doesn’t tell ronan what specifically wants to hurt him and the lack of communication fucking destroys both of them.

in the last book, ronan realizes declan loves him.

more than that, he realizes declan’s loved him the whole time.

this is when declan finally tells the truth. things are getting bad, plot-wise, and declan is scared, so he comes clean. he tells ronan that niall specifically tasked declan with protecting ronan from the market. he begs ronan to run from the danger. “let’s pour gasoline on everything dad left and start over.”

this is also when ronan realizes that declan’s childhood was very different from ronan’s own. and that niall and aurora lynch were not the same people to declan that they were to ronan. and that their father’s decisions are what’s driven the wedge between him and declan all this time

(he’s still struggling with the cognitive dissonance of this in cdth. i don’t think he knows how to adjust his perception of declan to fit this new information.)

aaaaand the final scene with declan makes me cry every time i read it so instead of summarizing, here’s the important part:

Ronan delivered a sharp tap to the object, and a small cloud of fiery orbs sprayed up with a sparkling hiss.

“Jesus, Ronan!” Declan jerked his chin away.

“Please. Did you think I’d blow your face off?”

He demonstrated it again, that quick tap, that burst of brilliant orbs. He tipped it into Declan’s hand, and before Declan could say anything, jabbed it to activate it once more.

Orbs gasped up into the air. For a moment, he saw how his brother was caught inside them, watching them soar furiously around his face, each gold sun firing gold and white, and when he saw the spacious longing in Declan’s face, he realized how much Declan had missed by growing up neither dreamer nor dreamt. This had never been his home. The Lynches had never tried to make it Declan’s home.

“Declan?” Ronan asked.

Declan’s face cleared. “This is the most useful thing you’ve ever dreamt. You should name it.”

“I have. ORBMASTER. All caps.”

“Technically you’re the orbmaster though, right? And that’s just an orb.”

“Anyone who holds it becomes an ORBMASTER. You’re an ORBMASTER right now. There, keep it, put it in your pocket. D.C. ORBMASTER.”

Declan reached out and scuffed Ronan’s shaved head. “You’re such a little asshole.”

The last time they’d stood on this roof together, their parents had both been alive, and the cattle in these fields had been slowly grazing, and the world had been a smaller place. That time was gone, but for once, it was all right.

The brothers both looked back over the place that had made them, and then they climbed down from the roof together.

#long post #REALLY long post #i haven't reread this so excuse any incoherence #trc #trc meta #not really but??#suicide /#declan lynch #i love my idiot son #replies #Anonymous

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wishesunderthestars · 4 years

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Eunoia // Ch. 11

eunoia (noun): beautiful thinking, the possession of a well-balanced mind, which exhibits goodwill and kindness

Pairings: Hybrid! BTS x reader

Summary: You are a world famous director and you have dedicated your life to your job.You have everything you could ever dream of; wealth, recognition, talent, your friends and family. But loneliness ins’t cured by success. So what happens when you somehow rescue seven hybrids? Can they fill the void?

Genre: Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, eventual smut

Word Count: 9.9k+

Warnings: Abuse and violence, mentions of past sexual abuse, injuries and blood

Masterlist

Chapter 1, Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

A/N: The taglist for Eunoia is now closed.

“Zayn, I promise I’m right around the corner,” you said into the phone. “I went home for lunch and it took a little more time than I had expected.”

You heard the singer laugh on the other end of the line. “It’s alright, you are always on time. I can excuse this one. You aren’t even that late.” You checked your phone to confirm what he was saying. Six minutes late. Not that bad.

“I could be a little earlier. I parked the car at the usual parking spot so I’m really just around the corner.” You looked back at Jimin. He had stopped walking and was looking behind him. Some shop window had probably caught his attention. There were many charming independent shops in the area. “By the way Jimin is with me, he wanted to get out of the house. I didn’t think you would mind.”

“I don’t,” Zayn said. “I would like to see the lad again. You talk so much about him, about all of them really, it would be nice to actually see him instead of hearing about him.”

“I mean…” You paused. “C’mon, I don’t talk about them that much.”

Zayn huffed. “Keep telling yourself that. But I’ll let you have this one. Other than them and work, do you even have any other news?”

“I totally have other news.” Zayn waited. It was slightly worrying that you came up empty. “I’m drowning in work, okay? What other news would I have? Ehhh, have you met Astrid?”

In the short silence that followed, you could hear Zayn rolling his eyes. “Taylor’s hybrid is hardly news, she adopted her a month ago. You were literally together in Nashville. And did you forget I told you that last time I met up with Taylor Astrid was with her? Do you listen that well to what I’m saying?”

“Oh, right. I had wanted to come too, but you know work-” You were cut off by the sound of quick footsteps on the gravel behind you. Not many people wandered these streets. You turned back in time to see Jimin running in the opposite direction down the street. “Jimin!” You shouted. He didn’t stop. He should have heard you. With his hybrid hearing, he should have heard you. “I have to go. We’ll be more late.” You ended the call and took off.

You thanked whatever deities could hear you for deciding to wear sneakers instead of high heels to work. When you had important meetings with the higher ups of the film studios, you would dress nicer and high heels were etiquette at this point. Lucky for you, this day you didn’t have any meetings of that kind but rather a more active role as the director. High heels would only slow you down.

Chasing Jimin down the streets, you were glad nothing was slowing you down. You called his name again and again but he wouldn’t reply, just kept running. Your mind jumped to the worst things that could have happened. No one was chasing him, other than you. He wasn’t running away from someone, unless… Unless he was running away from you. But no. Jimin wouldn’t do that. He had no reason to run away from you. He had been a little strange before and something was certainly off but he wouldn’t run away.

You didn’t let yourself entertain the thought anymore, just put one foot in front of the other as fast as you could. Your heart was racing but it wasn’t solely because of running.

Around a corner, in a small alleyway nestled between a small art shop and a closed down building, Jimin had stopped. You stopped too. A large graffiti in blue spray paint read “The world isn’t fair, why should we be?”.

“Jimin?” you repeated quietly, it felt wrong shouting here.

Jimin was frozen in the middle of the alley, his eyes wide. His hands were fisted at his sides, they were shaking. Someone was standing against the wall.

Jimin went to take a step forward but a hiss stopped him. “Yoongi?”

“Step back,” the man said. Black cat-like ears were turned back, their fur blending into his pitch black hair. Narrowed dark eyes regarded Jimin. Jimin didn’t back down.

“Yoongi, it’s me,” Jimin said, albeit with a little less confidence. His eyes were open and vulnerable, staring at the other hybrid like he was a dream he was too afraid to wake up from, yet he wasn’t sure if he should call it a nightmare. “It’s Jimin, don’t you remember me?”

Yoongi didn’t reply. His shoulders were drawn high in tension, making more obvious the teared up fabric on his shoulder. It wasn’t the only tear on his clothes, his jeans were ripped in a way that didn’t look intentional and the hem of his shirt was torn and scuffed. One of his hands was tightly clutching a baseball cap. “Stay away from me.”

There was so much pain in Jimin’s eyes. All you wanted to do was gather him in your arms and hold him until it was gone, but something was holding you back.

“I looked for you. In the shelter and in the streets. I tried to find you for years.” Jimin’s lip trembled. “Where have you been?”

Yoongi looked away. “You don’t want to know.”

“Please,” Jimin whispered and you could hear the heartbreak in his voice. “I-I’m so sorry.”

That made Yoongi’s head shoot up. “You’re sorry? What-”

Just then, your phone started ringing. Both hybrids looked at you. Alarmed, Yoongi backed further into the alley. Perfect timing. You thought Zayn must be calling you, asking you what had happened and where you had gone, but it was Namjoon. Wary of the deadly glare Yoongi was sending your way, you declined the call.

“Who are you?” Yoongi hissed. The fur on his tail was standing on end and you could imagine him pouncing on you and tearing you apart with his teeth. You hadn’t been as nervous around a hybrid as you were at the moment. With Namjoon, it was more wariness than anything else. But this time a thread of fear was slithering up your arms. There was dried blood on Yoongi’s knuckles. There was no John this time and you didn’t have only yourself to worry about.

"She's my owner," Jimin replied for you. It wasn't the way you would have phrased it and Yoongi's eyes narrowed further until they were nothing more than twin slits. "Yoongi, please," he said again. You didn't know what he was pleading for.

"She's your owner?" Yoongi spat out the word like it was the worst of insults.

You had a very bad feeling about this.

Jimin clenched his jaw, standing up straighter. "She isn't like him, she's nothing like him. She saved me."

Yoongi didn't say anything. His back was one with the wall by now.

Jimin averted his gaze, shoulders slumping. "I-I missed you. I thought... I thought he had done something to you." He hugged his frame, making himself look smaller. "I thought he hurt you," the last words came out as a whimper.

Yoongi was quick to shake his head. "He didn't, he didn't hurt me. You shouldn't have worried about me. You shouldn't be thinking about me."

"But I was! I still am!"

Yoongi looked away, he didn't move from the wall. It was clear the two hybrids knew each other but there were too many things you couldn't make sense of. Yoongi must have been someone important to Jimin if he had chased him all the way here and by what they were saying he had something to do with Jimin's past owner. You had assumed Jimin had been alone with that vile man, you hadn't considered having someone there with him. Someone he seemed to care for. Maybe he had met him at one of those parties Jimin had mentioned his owner liked to take him to, or he was one of his friends' hybrid.

Your brain was in overdrive but your body was rooted on the spot. You didn't want to intrude but you were worried. Meanwhile, you only had limited time before you had to get back to work...

Stupid brain, you cursed. This was such an important moment for Jimin and here you were thinking about work.

“I have to go," Yoongi said, pulling himself away from the wall.

"No!" Jimin protested loudly, moving as if he was going to reach for the other hybrid. "I have been looking for you for years. Don't go. Please." He had been saying please a lot today.

Although Jimin didn't touch him, the other hybrid stopped, as if he was unable to leave Jimin behind when he was calling for him. His fists were clenched at his sides and you could see the dried up blood on his knuckles better. It looked like he had left the blood clog up for a day or more instead of cleaning it. It would be easy to get an infection, especially with the dirt and grime all over his clothes and skin.

"Is she treating you right?" Yoongi asked after a few moments of silence.

Jimin's eyes widened at the question, brimming with tears. You held your breath. "She's my family." He glanced at you. "She taught me how to cook. She takes care of us and she lets us dress any way we like. She lets us go out alone, too, I haven't yet but I could... We went to the lake and we stayed there all day and had a picnic and... and... I'm- I'm happy. I'm happy, Yoongi."

Yoongi lowered his head. "You deserve to be happy," he said quietly but even your human hearing picked it up. He took a step forward.

"Wait." You were surprised to hear your own voice. "You should disinfect your cuts, you could get sick if you leave them like this." Not your best, but enough to make his stop and look at you. Jimin gave you a hopeful look. "I have a medical kit in my car, I can clean them and if you want, then you can leave."

Yoongi's eyes narrowed slightly. His hands were shaking. "You know how to give first aid?"

You nodded. "I have taken a few lessons, I know my way around it."

"She's really good," Jimin confirmed. Neither of you could forget the night you had met. Purplish bruises, stark white gauze and fearful eyes.

Yoongi's cat-like ears twitched. It didn't give you any specific answers as to the kind of hybrid he was. His tail was black as well, it stayed low as he contemplated your offer.

"I don't need your help, I'm fine, " Yoongi said. His eyes flickered to the other end of the alleyway. You could sense the internal battle going on inside him, vices gripping his body as he vibrated with something you were hesitant to call nervousness. His eyes locked with Jimin for a moment and his shoulder slumped slightly. "I don't need your help… but there is someone who does. Can you help him?"

You ignored the suspicious glare and gathered all your confidence. "I can do my best."

A small nod. "Go get your supplies."

He stayed glued to the spot so you turned to Jimin. You cupped his cheek gently and said, "I'm going to the car, I'll be back in a moment." The cat hybrid nodded and you speed-walked to the parking lot, thankfully it wasn't too far away. You would have run if you hadn't already been tired from chasing Jimin. You grabbed the first aid kit from the trunk before rushing back. It was a medium sized box, containing all the essentials, from gauze, band-aids and disinfectant to various pills, like Advil and Claritin. "I've got it," you said when you arrived back at the alleyway, finding the two of them in the same spots you had left them.

Yoongi glanced at you and the white medical kit, and then he was walking away. You took that as a sign to follow him. You slipped your hand in Jimin's, who gave you a small smile, and intertwined your fingers. This neighborhood housed one of your favorite coffee shops, the one you had planned to meet Zayn at, but you hadn’t wandered far from the quiet aesthetic streets with the colorful buildings and the tiny squares.

As you walked further away, the scenery changed. More graffiti appeared on the walls. Words dripping in red and black. Slurs and protests. You kept Jimin close to your side. After ten minutes of walking, Yoongi stopped in front of a two-story building. The door was hanging off from only one of its hinges, as if holding onto a thread. Shattered windows, peeling paint on the walls and pieces of white plastic sheets angling from seemingly random places didn’t leave any room for doubt whether the building was abandoned.

Yoongi slipped in through the half opened door and disappeared in the partial darkness inside. Two balconies were situated above the door on either side, parts of them chipped off. You were worried they would fall on your heads at any any moment. You tugged Jimin forward and twisted your body to get inside without touching the door or the wall. Jimin did the same and you were faced with an empty room. You couldn't see much, sunlight didn't get in the house properly and the plastic sheets prevented most of the rays from passing through.

The smell of rot drifted in the air and you could almost feel the dust swirling around. You resisted an instinctual cough. It was mostly in your mind, the feeling that dust was suffocating you, but your mind tricked your body quickly. You ignored it and walked further into the house, leaving footprints behind on the granite floor. The light got dimmer the further you went and your eyes had trouble adjusting. Jimin's eyesight was much better than yours and like cats he could see well in darkness.

One of the rooms, with the dirtied floral tapestry peeling off from the walls, opened up to a grand staircase. Once upon a time it must have been beautiful, polished wood shining under the light of the chandeliers. You could imagine balls taking place here, women wearing beautiful gowns and men in tuxes made by the biggest names in fashion, mingling and sharing drinks. Now, the room was a ghost of its former glory, a place that belonged in a horror film instead of a period drama.

Jimin's hand slipped from yours and you reached blindly for him. The room wasn't in total darkness but it was dark enough to make you nervous.

In all of your observation of the staircase you hadn't noticed that there was something in the space under the stairs. A boy was curled up on a ratty blanket so thin, it must have been doing nothing to shield him from the cold granite underneath. Yoongi was kneeling next to him but you couldn't make out his features or if he was talking or not. You were too far to hear anything and the building was by no means quiet (you had a suspicion that a family of mice or cockroaches had made its home somewhere inside and you prayed you were wrong). You approached cautiously.

"-alone. Please, don't go again. I'm fine," you could hear the boy saying as you got closer. His voice was croaky, from disuse or pain you weren't sure. He must have been the one Yoongi wanted you to help. You couldn't see him clearly but you could make out the ears peeking out from his hair. Another hybrid.

Yoongi was holding his hand. "You aren't fine, I had to do something. I brought help."

The boy hadn't noticed you so far, he must have been pretty bad if he didn't hear you coming in and didn’t notice your scent. When his eyes landed on you he only curled up tighter with a whimper.

"We're here to help you, not hurt you," you said, coming a little closer when Yoongi didn't hiss at you. You showed him the medical kit you were holding. "I only want to help if you let me."

He didn't uncurl from the ball he had created with his body but Yoongi looked at you expectantly. You knelt on the floor next to the blanket, ridiculously aware of the dust and grime your expensive pants must be gathering. Your mind was jumping from one place to the next so it wasn't surprising that for some reason it decided it was worth it to worry about dirtying your pants. With Yoongi's help, you coaxed him out of the ball so you could start treating him. After turning on the flashlight on your phone, you handed it to Jimin, instructing him to keep it steady while you worked.

The boy clenched his eyes shut at the light, you wondered how long he had stayed here in semi-darkness.

You opened the first aid kit and took stock of the supplies inside, everything was there. You didn't know the extent of his injuries but his labored breathing and sharp flinches whenever he moved told you enough. In the artificial light, you took a better look at the boy laying on the floor. His hair was a reddish shade of orange. A fluffy tail was half-hidden behind his body. A fox hybrid. You had never seen once before.

The awe and curiosity didn’t last long. Your eyes were drawn on his swollen eye, a shocking purple painting his skin. It wasn't the only place tainted with color. His cheek had a purplish bruise as well and his lips were cut in two places. A trail of blood had dried underneath his nose.

"I'll start with your face, okay?" you asked, but the hybrid didn't reply, he just tightened his hold on the blanket. Taking off his clothes, to tend to the rest of the injuries you were sure were hiding underneath, would only make him more uncomfortable. You pulled out a water bottle from your bag, you were always carrying one with you, and poured a small amount on a white cloth. Before the cloth could touch his face, you spoke up, "My name is Y/N. Do you want to tell me your name?"

Wide fearful eyes turned to Yoongi, who gestured vaguely with his hand. "H-Hoseok," the boy whispered.

"Hoseok," you repeated, testing the name on your tongue. "That's a nice name. I like the way it sounds." Gently, you dabbed the cloth on his bottom lip, the boy flinched at the contact. He didn't pull away so you continued. "I'm not a professional, I'm not a doctor or a nurse or anything. My profession is actually very different from that, though I did have to play nurse a few times. I would like to think I'm quite good at this by now. I've taken a few lessons, I was fascinated with first aid when I was younger. I don't even know why."

You continued speaking while tending to the wounds on his face. Earlier in your life you had discovered that talking, or at least listening to someone speak, would take the other's mind off the pain a little. By the time you were finished with his face, you had told him the whole story of how you had come to learn first aid and how you had panicked and forgotten everything you had learnt the first time someone had fainted in front of you, only remembering what to do when a friend of yours had pinched you. Hoseok listened to everything you said silently, his lips curling up a tiny bit at the last story. Maybe you exaggerated a bit and you made way too many hand gestures for someone supposed to be tending to his wounds but it seemed to be working.

Yoongi helped him pull off his shirt and you heard a gasp from behind you as his torso was revealed. His body was toned but a few of his ribs were pushing out in ways they probably shouldn't. It wasn't too bad but it was clear he hadn't been eating well for some time. But that wasn't the worst and it wasn't what you noticed first. Large bruises littered his body and what looked like the imprint of a hand was left on his bicep.

Switching topics, you told him about your first time coming to Los Angeles. Hoseok let out a breath as you started speaking again. As you checked his ribs, you recalled your very first days in the city, when you had been as excited as afraid to go to University in a brand new city where you had no friends. He hissed at the contact, but didn't object otherwise. You observed the way he breathed, taking note of the heavy bruising over his ribcage. You applied salve over the area and all the other bruises on his torso and the few on his back, the front had taken the blunt of whatever had happened. You had a suspicion but didn't speak of it yet.

His right arm was broken, he was holding it immobile close to his body. One touch and you were certain of it. Disinfecting a rather large cut on his arm, you wrapped it in gauze after coating the injury in a thin layer of cream. The cream smelled awful and was a sickly green color but you could testify to how effective it was. You did your best to make a cast for the arm, you hadn't done it before outside of a class and it was more of a struggle than you had expected. When his arm was secured in the cast, you trailed off your recounting of a stupid fight you had with one of your cousins that resulted in both of you getting lost. You were done. Hoseok looked at you with wide eyes, as if asking you why you stopped.

"This is it, we're all done," you said, rubbing your hands together with hand sanitizer like you had before treating him. "When did he... get injured?"

"Why do you need to know?" Yoongi asked, at the same time as Hoseok croaked out, "Yesterday."

"What pill I give him to relieve the pain depends on when he got hurt. Some kinds could slow down the healing process if they are taken less than 48 hours after the injury." Digging into the small suitcase-like kit, you handed him two paracetamol tablets along with the water bottle. There was still had some water inside. "It will numb the pain, it takes about an hour to work," you explained.

Hoseok tentatively took the pills and bottle from you. He drunk the water in one gulp and you were reminded again that he might have gone without water for some time. "Thank you," he said, his eyes on the blanket.

You sighed, getting up from the floor and dusting off your pants. Just like you had expected, two white patches were left on your knees. "I'm afraid, other than a broken arm, you might have fractured one of your ribs. I noticed the area hurts more than the rest and you have some trouble breathing." Jimin who hadn't moved much while you were working, latched himself on your back. The situation was too familiar for him. The injuries, the smell of the disinfectant and the fear in Hoseok's eyes. And just like that night your heart was clenching, begging you to do more. It worked once, why wouldn't it again? The traitorous organ whispered.

Yoongi had sat on the blanket next to Hoseok, who had crawled closer to him, his side touching leg. The silence is broken as your phone starts ringing again. You had set it on silent so whoever is calling you must have made many attempts. You are expecting to see Namjoon's name flash on the screen with the wolf and moon emojis, but instead it is the name of one of the producers.

While tending to Hoseok, you had almost forgotten you had to be at work after the supposedly short trip to the coffee shop. You had to take this. At the other side of the staircase, close to a door that led to what must have been a dining room once, you answered the call.

Everyone had been looking for you, worried about your absence. You had never been late to work before, often you would show up before you were scheduled to, in order to get some additional work done. Three missed call, that's how many times just the producer had called you. His worry soon turned into irritation, asking you why you didn't inform them and why you weren't answering your phone. They had called everyone close to you to find out what had happened and no one had any answers.

You were more than an hour late. An hour you were supposed to spend guiding the actors and getting the first feeling of a few scenes. Those plans went down the drain.

You peeked over the railing of the staircase. Jimin was standing closer to the space Hoseok was laying under the stairs. They were talking but they were being quiet and you couldn't hear what they were saying over the loud voice of the producer coming from the phone and your own too loud thoughts. You tried to explain yourself, staying as close to the truth as possible, which was admittedly difficult. In the end, you used the personal emergency card. Although the producer didn't sound convinced, he let you off, scolding you half-heartedly about calling next time instead of leaving them in the dark looking for you and thinking about the worst.

Ending the call, you looked through all the ones you missed and the texts they had sent you. You replied to a few of the texts, giving the same answer as you had to the producer. There were several from Zayn, asking where you were and if you were okay. In the final one he asked you to call him as soon as you could. Guilt gnawed at your insides. You had left him alone waiting for you for forty minutes, until he was sure there was no chance of you coming. You were an awful friend. Namjoon had also sent you a few messages. Someone had called the land-line at your house. No word from you. You and Jimin had both disappeared. Cradling your heavy heart, you sent a message to Namjoon assuring him that Jimin was with you and you were both alright. You hoped that would be enough for now.

Pocketing your phone you walked around the stairs. Closer to them you could pick up parts of their conversation. Yoongi and Jimin were arguing, silent tears streaming down Jimin's face. You held yourself back from running to him and pulling him away from whatever was hurting him. This was Jimin's battle, you would let him fight it. He rarely spoke of the demons of his past but they were many and frightening with long claws and sharp teeth.

Jimin suddenly reached for your hands. "Tell them, tell them to come home with us. Please, they can't stay here. We have a lot of space in the house, they can take one of the rooms until he heals."

Your mouth was faster than your brain. That was a problem you didn't have to worry about before but something was changing. "They can come home with us if they want." Yoongi hissed, ready to protest. "A fractured rib isn't a trivial matter, he would need medical supervision but I can guess you don't want to go to a hospital. I can tend to it until he gets better, he will need medication to relieve the pain and plenty of bed rest. This place will only slow his healing."

"Yoongi, please. Let me..." He stopped with a sniffle. "Just come with us. I need you to come with us." That seemed to break any of the resolve the older hybrid had. Hoseok didn't react at all, remaining curled in on himself.

"Okay, we'll come," Yoongi said. "We'll come, but we'll leave as soon as he's better.

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

It should be way more surprising when you show up at the Castle with Jimin and two unfamiliar hybrids in tow. The initial surprise lasted only a few minutes before everyone just sort of accepts this. Namjoon was the most wary but you couldn't blame him, his instincts were screaming to protect his pack and while Hoseok in his condition was by no means a threat, Yoongi didn't exactly look friendly. Jungkook had hopped away soon after with Jin. The bunny hybrid wasn’t good with strangers. You suspected that he had inherited some bunny instincts that made him jumpy and easily afraid around predators.

You led the two new hybrids to the guest room with the two queen beds on the second floor, and like you had with Jin, you gave them the key. Yoongi looked at you suspiciously but didn't say anything. Hoseok fell asleep as soon as his body hit the soft mattress. Their reaction to the house had been similar to most people’s. Wide eyes and disbelief. It didn’t serve to calm Yoongi down, instead he looked like you had been leading him straight into some sort of trap.

Jimin stuck close to you as you called John from your office. He was one of the first people your team had called, it just happened that the day they needed him was the day he hadn't accompanied you. He was fuming when he answered, worried out of his mind and, unlike the producer, he didn't let you off easily. You had been rash, forgot about any rational thoughts, put yourself and Jimin in danger, didn't call anyone for backup in case something happened. Those hybrids could have been serial killers for all you knew. The list went on and on.

"I'm coming over as soon as I can," he said. "I have to see those hybrids for myself. You can't just go around picking up hybrids like they are new projects. What mess have you gotten yourself in this time?"

"Hopefully, not too big of one," you muttered. "You don't have to come, really. I've got everything under control and it's your week off. I took the rest of the day off so I'll be home. I swear I'll call you if anything happens."

"There is no way I'm leaving you in the house with two hybrids you just picked up from the street and decided to nurse back to health-"

"One of them is fine," you interrupted him.

Yoongi didn't have any visible injuries other than his bloody knuckles and a slit lip he wouldn't let you touch. Even if he had more, there was no way he would let you tend to them.

"And that makes it better how?" John asked. "I mean, good for him he isn't injured, but that doesn't guarantee your safety. If he is fine, he could try something. Don't forget that hybrid's have human DNA too, there are bad apples regardless of how much you want to keep looking at the good ones. Just because it worked once, doesn't mean it will work again. "

Jimin was sitting on the edge of your desk, his head tilted to the side. He could hear everything with his hearing. You ruffled his blond hair and he leaned into your touch. "It isn't the same," you said.

"Isn't it? It sounds awfully a lot like something I've heard before." John sighed. "It isn't that I don't trust your judgment, but lately you act then ask questions lately. I trust you but I don't trust everyone you take into your house. They could take all of your jewelry before they disappear or it could be much much worse."

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm not completely defenseless." The first years John was assigned to you, he had decided to teach you the basics of self-defense. He couldn't always be with you and you hadn't been able to throw a punch to save your life. The lessons had paid off and, although you were no black belt student, you could defend yourself to an extent if you had to. "I'm serious, you don't have to come over. What about Alice? She wouldn't want her father running off when he promised her he would spend the week with her."

John huffed. "You are evil, using my daughter against me."

"I will add it to my resume," you said. "I'm alright and I'm going to be alright. You know I'm not alone, if anything happens we can count on each other, and you can come in a few days when your break is over and check in."

"I'll accept this only because I have heard Namjoon growl when he thinks someone in his pack is threatened," you felt warmth seep in your cheeks when John mentioned so casually that you were part of their pack, "and Jungkook has gained enough muscle in the last few months to launch a nice punch if he needs to protect himself or someone." It was difficult to imagine your sweet bunny hybrid punching anyone, especially given the way you had found him, but it was true that the time he spent in the gym paid off.

John didn't come over. He stayed with his daughter because he had promised they would go to the zoo together as soon as she woke up from her afternoon nap. You went through a few papers after the phone call, reassuring yourself multiple times that the whole TV show wouldn’t crumble because you had taken one day off work (you really needed to work on your sense of self-importance). Jimin had turned his body on the desk so he could see what you were doing without taking up too much space.

They would be fine without you. The conclusion wasn't hard to reach but you had tortured yourself a lot over it. Missing days of work was almost unheard for you. You scheduled your life around your work schedule, the breaks were on specific dates and you didn't need to take extra ones. To miss work, you had to be so sick you couldn't get out of bed without fainting.

You put the papers in their respective folders and placed them back on the bookshelves. "Now that we are alone, do you think you can tell me what happened?" you asked, feeling Jimin's eyes on your back.

"I-" He averted his gaze, his fingers wrapping and unwrapping on the hem of his shirt, wrinkles forming on the material and smoothing out again. "I'm sorry."

You walked around the desk, coming closer to him. "That's not what I wanted to hear. A warning before taking off would have been nice, though. My mind went to the worst possibility and you wouldn't answer my calls or wait for me."

Jimin was about to apologize but stopped himself. "I couldn't lose him. I couldn't stop running, I couldn't lose him again. I couldn't really hear you... It was like a fog was over everything other than the path I was following. I needed to make sure it was Yoongi, that he was alright."

You touched Jimin's thighs, situating him better on the desk so you were standing between his legs. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

He hesitated before reaching for your hand and holding it in his. He brought it close to his face and started nuzzling on your wrist. He had told you your scent calmed him and he liked it when your scents mingled. Placing a kiss on the center of your wrist, he pulled back a little, keeping your hand in his.

"He was there, in my old house," he said. "I was around sixteen when he was brought in. My owner didn't say why he was there but Yoongi is a panther hybrid, he could brag about him to his friend and he was also a guard. He was supposed to be protecting the house, to be protecting me. I was all alone there and then I wasn't. He was suddenly there and I wanted a friend so bad. Yoongi was gentle and he was kind, he would stay with me when I was feeling lonely. He cooked for me when he could, the food was delicious. I remember loving it but I'm not sure it was because of the food itself or because he was the one who had cooked it. Maybe both." He lowered his head, his cat ears pinned to his head. "We did something. We did something very bad. He took Yoongi away and I was returned to the adoption center. I never learnt what he did to him. I thought..." His voice cracked.

You shushed him, stepping even closer and taking his into your arms. He wrapped his arms around your neck pulling you against his chest. "He's alright. You're safe here. This is a safe place."

"I know," he mumbled into your shoulder. "I know."

You cupped his neck with one hand, rubbing small circles with your thumb on his neck. "Do you trust him? Do you trust him to stay here until Hoseok recovers?"

He nodded. "I trust him, I would trust him with my life."

You held him in silence for some time, just feeling him breath against your chest. "What did you do with Yoongi?" you asked, curious. Jimin stiffened, you felt like he was holding his breath. "You don't have to tell me."

His body relaxed a little, leaning on you. "I can't, we shouldn't have done it. We betrayed him. I couldn't hold myself back, I was weak. I'm stronger now, I promise. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if your hated me."

What he said made you jolt back. Jimin whined lowly but you were quick to cup his soft cheek. "I could never hate you. Nothing in this world could make me hate you," you said, gazing into his watery eyes. Even with tears threatening to fall, he looked beautiful. "My Jiminie. Nothing you say will ever change my feelings about you. Your past doesn't define you. Whatever you did to that man, he deserved it."

"But you don't."

You didn't understand what he meant. "What?" You looked into his eyes but you only found sadness there. The small smile on his lips hurt more than his tears would.

He sniffled. "Don't leave me. Don't throw me away," he pleaded.

You squeezed his thigh, leaning your forehead against his. "Never, I'll never leave you. I will always watch over you, I swear."

“I’m not worth it. I’m not worthy of the care you give me,” he whimpered.

“You are. You are worth everything and so much more.”

♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩ ♩♪♩♬♬♩♪♩

Namjoon was sitting on the largest couch in the living room, a documentary about ocean life playing on TV. His ears twitched a little when he heard you climbing up the stairs. You stayed standing for a moment, watching the screen as a blue whale emerged from the water shooting up a water water spray like a fountain. Their tails flapped against the water. Such magnificent creatures. They were endangered species, the man speaking explained, hunted and killed for their meat and blubber. On top of that, pollution, vessel strikes, entanglement in traps and nets and more.

If there was one thing humans knew how to do is destroy beautiful things.

“Are you okay?” Namjoon asked.

You shrugged. “Shouldn’t I be asking that? Or some variation of it?” You turned away from the screen and settled on the couch, leaving some distance between you. “I didn’t have the chance to ask you before springing this on you.”

“I can handle it, I think,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think Jimin left you much of a choice if he ran after him. If his mind is set on something, he won’t stop until he gets it.”

“Do you know anything about him? Yoongi? Jimin told me some things but he doesn’t want to say everything.”

Namjoon shook his head. “I didn’t even know he existed until now. Jimin never mentioned it. He doesn’t like talking about his past. I can understand, but then things like this happen. I just wish he shared more with us, so we could help him.”

“I know,” you agreed. “I feel the same. But it’s only temporary. In about a week Hoseok will be well enough to go. Not completely healed, that could take up to a month or more, but he will be better.”

He cracked a small smile. “You can’t really stand there doing nothing, can you?”

You couldn’t, could you? You had always been one to try to help in any way you could. It didn’t matter what the problem was, you wanted to help. An issue at work, a dilemma one of your friends was facing, human rights, poverty, hunger. Homeless injured hybrids. But you usually were careful, you would think the problem over, review all the points and then try to find a solution.

Since when did you throw caution to the wind?

You liked to pride yourself on your mind. You could see the things other people couldn’t and laid new paths when others hadn’t bothered to stray a foot from the blocked road. It felt like you were slipping.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” you said, hiding your face in your hands. “Jimin was so sad and Hoseok’s ribs are fractured-”

Namjoon cut you off by tugging at your arm. He pulled you closer to him. “I trust you, you know I trust you.”

“That doesn’t always make things better,” you said, laying your head on his shoulder. “What if I’m wrong? What if you trusted me and I’m wrong? And, I don’t know, something really bad happens.”

“Then we’ll face the consequences together.” He didn’t hesitate. “I’ll tell you if I think you’re wrong and we will work it out. Now, I’m not sure. We don’t know what happened or why one of them has fractured ribs and a broken arm. I saw the blood on Yoongi’s hands. All we know is that he was part of Jimin’s past.”

The screen was darker as lion fish were swimming around the bottom of the sea, illuminated by blue light. They weren’t afraid of the diver, aware of the poison in their back spines, the narrator said.

You shuffled around a little, getting comfortable on Namjoon’s side. His arm snaked around your waist, settling on your hip. The words unsaid between the two of you were choking you.

“Jungkook came to me earlier,” he said. “He was crying. He told me he had done something horrible, something he couldn’t forgive himself for. It took me hours to calm him down. He said I needed to find Jimin and make sure he was okay. After what he had done, Jungkook said he wouldn’t want to see him again.”

You frowned. “Jungkook said that?” That sounded nothing like the sweet boy you knew. Sure, Jungkook liked joking around, teasing all of you and he could be very stubborn. But he looked at Jimin like he was his muse and whatever he created would be bland and pointless without him. “Jimin caught me last minute before I left the house. He didn’t look well, he was panicked. It was like he was trying to escape something. He didn’t tell me what happened and I didn’t want to push him and make things worse. Where is Jungkook?"

“At the atelier, Jin is there with him. I don't know what we'd do without him," Namjoon said. You agreed. Jin had slotted into your lives like he was always meant to be there. "What about Jimin? Wasn't he with you?"

"He came with me to my office, before I came upstairs he said he was tired and he left to go to your room."

The sun was setting outside, the sky turning navy as the colors of the day receded. You felt like only a few minutes ago you had been about to walk out the door to meet up with Zayn.

Namjoon's hand was rubbing your arm up and down, the touch calming something deep inside you. You had so many questions, so many doubts about what you were doing. There were so many ways this could go wrong. Jimin was in a fragile state. If what Jungkook had told Namjoon was true to some extent, Jimin would be in a really bad place. On top of that, a person from his past showing up could ruin all his progress. Most of all, you were afraid your Jimin would get hurt.

"You're thinking too loud again."

You groaned, burying your head in his shoulder. "I'm not." You turned to the TV trying to erase the look on your face. The deepest parts of the sea were home to so many creatures. Small and large, all of them had adapted to live in darkness. Adapting. Such an interesting skill.

You squirmed in Namjoon's arms, he loosened his hold on you so you could sit up straighter. You hadn't talked about the night when you had been beating yourself up for saying the wrong thing, Jin's retreating form, head lowered, haunting you. Namjoon had a way to make your brain go quiet, something you hadn't learnt how to do regardless of how much you tried. You had been floating and for once you had fallen asleep without tossing and turning.

But you hadn't talked and you couldn't decide if it was better that way or if it would only serve to torment you further. The doubts came, like they always did, and you weren't ready to deflect them.

Namjoon's clever eyes were on you as you traced invisible swirls from his shoulder, his neck and up his face. Your knuckles ran over his cheek in a feather-light touch. His hand covered yours, bringing it to his mouth and placing a kiss in the center of your palm. Your heart was beating rapidly in your chest.

"Can I?" he asked, leaning closer. You could do nothing but nod. His lips touched yours gently at first, before both of you got lost in the feeling. This kind of kissing was reserved for books and movies, it wasn't something that was supposed to happen in real life and yet... How could you settle for anything less after this?

This, this was something you could write about. Something to fill up all those blank pages taunting you. Paragraphs upon paragraphs attempting to describe that feeling spreading through your whole body. You could spend your whole life trying to put this moment into words and it would be worth it.

You pulled back. A flush had crept up on Namjoon's cheeks and his hair was mussed. You probably didn't look any better. Hopefully, your makeup could cover any redness on your skin.

Your hand was still in his, held against his cheek.

"What are we doing?" you asked him, breathy from the kiss that had overtaken your whole being. "What does this mean?"

"What do you want this to be?"

Your lips twitched up. "I don't know, that's why I'm asking you."

Namjoon combed a hand through your hair, twisting a strand loosely around his fingers before letting go. "It can mean whatever we want it to mean. Whatever we need it to be."

On a moment, his back straightened and he looked at the stairs. You followed his gaze but saw nothing. A few seconds later, your human ears were able to pick up steps climbing up the staircase. You got up from the couch and straightened the wrinkles on your clothes. An itch to change into clean clothes nagged at you, preferably after taking a nice long shower, but there were still things needed to be done.

Black hair was the first thing you saw before the rest of Jin came into view, but you had already guessed who it was by the careful steps he was taking. Living with them, you could distinguish between the ways they climbed up the stairs. Jungkook ran up, eager to reach his destination. Jimin occasionally skipped some steps, light on his feet like he was floating his way up. Namjoon's step were light as well and he was the most likely to miss, stalking up the stairs silently as if on a hunt. Jin was careful and measured in everything he did and this was no different.

The sugar glider hybrid glanced around, his eyes landing on the two of you in the living room. He shifted his weight on his feet.

"Hey," you said softly, coming closer. "Is Jungkook still in the atelier ?"

Jungkook was nowhere to be seen, even though he tended to stick to the other hybrids like glue. Whatever had happened earlier was enough to make him change his habits.

"He's in the middle of a painting," Jin said, biting his bottom lip. It was obvious he was worried as well, but trying to make excuses for the youngest. "I'm going to cook dinner."

The sun had set by now but you couldn't comprehend how late it had gotten. Time to make dinner. On an average work day you would be wrapping up now and checking off the tasks you had completed, making sure everything was going according to plan before leaving.

"I'll help you then," you said, nudging his hands with yours. The two of you go to the kitchen and Jin starts pulling out bowls from the cupboards. "What are we making?"

Jin paused. "Now that you're here, we can make whatever you want. But I can cook. You should rest, you must be tired."

"No more tired than usual." It was true in a weird way. Your body was actually feeling less like it would need to sleep for a week to restore all its functions and more like something heavy you didn't recognize had wrapped itself around your shoulders. "You? How are you feeling?"

Jin fiddled with one of the bowls. "I'm alright."

On a couple shelves, away from where most of the action took place, your cookbooks were lined in neat rows. You picked up one of your favorites, the well-known chef smiling at you from the cover.

"It's okay if you aren't," you said. "It was very unexpected. It'd be understandable if you felt uncomfortable or upset. I didn't get a chance to warn you before bringing practically two strangers into your home."

The bowl was apparently very fascinating for Jin because he was looking nowhere else as he forced a smile. "I couldn't be upset. I was a stranger coming here, too."

You left the cookbook on the counter. "The circumstances were different. I had called the others before adopting you and we had all agreed that I would bring you home with me. I adopted you, you came to stay. They will be leaving soon."

"It's just... I'm not used to strangers," he admitted.

You moved around the kitchen island, standing next to him. You gave him space in case he wanted to move away but he only leaned closer to you. "This is your home and all I want for you is to feel safe here. I'm sorry I didn't call you to ask before bringing them here. I don't want you to act like you don't mind if you actually do. You have a right to be upset."

You brought your foreheads together, rubbing gently. A rare purr escaped Jin and although his cheeks reddened he didn't pull away at the sound like he used to do.

The kitchen filled with noise as you started preparing the dishes. You had decided on chicken with honey and garlic as the main dish and you would make a few side-dishes because you didn't know what the new hybrids liked to eat. Halfway through, when you had added the honey, the diced garlic and the soy sauce in the pan, the itch under your skin got too long and you left to go shower.

Washing away the day felt almost cathartic. The worst parts of it falling down the drain. It was your favorite part of coming home, second only to seeing your hybrids and spending time with them. Freshly washed and dressed into sweatpants and a comfortable top, you got out of your room. Dinner wasn't ready yet but Jin didn't need any more help. Any other day you would get your laptop and open one of the files in your to-do-list but this time you climbed down the stairs to the second level.

Knocking on the door, you took a step back and waited.

"Who is it?" a gruff voice you recognized as Yoongi's called from inside.

"It's Y/N." You didn't elaborate further, curious to see what he would do. Contrary to what you had expected, you heard the key being turned. The door opened, Yoongi peeking at you through the crack.

"What do you want?"

"Dinner is almost ready," you said. "I came to check in on you. Has Hoseok woken up? I wanted to see how well the medication worked."

You could sense Yoongi contemplating shutting the door in your face before a small voice from inside said, "I'm awake."

Yoongi muttered under his breath but opened the door further letting you in. The room was mostly untouched, only the bed Hoseok had been sleeping in gave an indication that someone had been inside. Yoongi had taken a shower but changed back into his own clothes, which he had pulled out from the small duffel bag. The green duffel bag, as worn as their clothes, was the only thing they had carried with them. It was small and certainly not enough for two people to live out of.

Hoseok was laying on the bed, making himself as small as he could without aggravating his injuries. In the hand that wasn't in the cast, he was clinging to the blanket he had with him in the abandoned building. It desperately needed to be washed but you weren't sure it could be salvaged. The light in the room was in the lower setting not to aggravate his eyes. His fluffy tail was curled around his waist, dirt staining it and parts sticking together with grime.

He stuttered answering your questions but overall he looked better. The granite floor with only a thin blanket to lay on wasn't a place someone could actually rest on. You offered to bring him some clothes to change into. Unlike Yoongi, he accepted.

Jacob's clothes had really come in handy. You would have never guessed that you would find a use for them when he left them behind. You had even considered throwing them out at one of your lowest points. Jacob's promise to remain friends and the excuse he would be coming over had been proven a lie or just wistful thinking. They weren't taking too much space, considering how large your closet was, but you had no use for them but sentimental memories you no longer needed. Until February, that is.

Some of Namjoon's clothes would fit Hoseok better, but you dismissed the idea without considering it. The hybrid's scent would be too prominent on the clothes. Jimin liked wearing the others' clothes because he claimed he loved being enveloped in their scents. It was also the reason he had stolen one of your hoodies that fit him and refused to give it back.

Jacob's scent had faded from his clothes after so many months, Namjoon had confirmed it. He had left in early December, five months had come and passed since then. You could remember the months leading up to the break up. It wasn't the fights, there weren't many of them, but the silence and the distance that had broken you. You had been at work all day and he had been at the studio. When he went out you either couldn't go because you were busy or you were too tired to. He didn't get your hobbies. He wasn't a fan of reading and he didn't let you listen to his tracks before they were ready. You weren't good at giving feedback, he had told you laughing after you had said the track felt like something was missing in the chorus. You had been getting further and further apart for more than a year. The house was but a way to fool yourself that everything was alright.

Yoongi had helped Hoseok shower, following your advice to not ruin the cast on his arm and wet the bandages you had wrapped around some of the deeper wounds.

Dinner was different. You had carried two trays down with Jin's help for the two hybrids. It was better for Hoseok not to move and even if he could, Yoongi wouldn't be thrilled at the idea. Jungkook didn't come up for dinner. He wouldn't leave the atelier and Jin carried another tray to him, because there was no way he would let him go without eating. Jimin asked after him. He didn't speak for the rest of dinner picking up the food on his plate with a guilty expression on his face.

John did come the next morning. He didn't press and didn't threaten anyone, not that you had expected him to but it was a relief nonetheless. John was an intimidating man with his height and bulkiness. Yoongi hissed, backing into a corner when he saw him. John looked him up and down, taking in his split lip, the bruises and his worn clothes, and then showed you a picture of his daughter on his phone. Yoongi regarded him for a little longer before disappearing again.

Jungkook and Jimin were avoiding each other. Jungkook did everything in his power not to find himself in the same room as Jimin, getting up and leaving whenever Jimin entered. The hurt on Jimin's face was heartbreaking every time it happened. You tried to comfort him but you couldn't do much when you were gone most of the day and you had to check Hoseok's injuries every morning and night.

You were in your office scanning a few documents when the email was delivered. Your hand froze, unable to comprehend the contents at first.

There was a knock on the half-opened door. Namjoon walked inside. "Are you coming for dinner?"

You looked up from your phone. "I have to go to Virginia the day after tomorrow."

#bts #bts hybrid au #btscreatorscorner #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #jimin x reader #seokjin x reader #yoongi x reader #hoseok x reader #taehyung x reader #bts angst #poly!bts x reader #poly!bts #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts fluff #jikook #yoonmin #sope

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tenthgrove · 3 years

Note

Could we get a part 2 to the La Squadra with a teammate who has a healing stand :O?

La Squadra's Healer- Part 2

La Squadra x Reader, Platonic/Romantic, SFW

(A/N: Aight, so I was thinking through options for where to go with this and eventually came up with this: how each member behaves when being treated by you for the first time, each event occurring at the base as opposed to the battlefield.)

Formaggio- Unlike most in the team Formaggio has absolutely no shame about needing help with his injuries. He marches into your room, either alone or leaning on someone else, and cheerfully asks for your help before collapsing onto the bed. In spite of his agony he is equally jovial as you patch him up, cracking jokes and calling you sweet things as praise for your actions as you work. If your situation is already romantic, he keeps his hand on your cheek as a sort of comfort throughout the process, aware deep down of how frightened you must be by seeing him in this state.

Illuso- Above all else he adores the image of himself as the perfect assassin, one who leaves no evidence and bares no scars. In reality, this is rarely the case. Even with their stands removed many targets manage to rough him up quite badly in the mirror world before they die, and occasionally it even becomes severe enough for him to show up in your bedroom. Illuso is uncharacteristically quiet as he sits waiting for you to be finished, occasionally interjecting to ask if you can do this in the mirror world instead. He really doesn't want anyone else to see this.

Prosciutto- As ashamed as he is of the lapse in judgement that led to his injury, Prosciutto appreciates the need to seek treatment or risk it getting worse. He is very gentlemanly throughout the whole procedure, apologising for the loss of your time and asking where you want him to sit. He gripes about the harshness of the mission and how glad he is the bastard is dead. Once you're done, he gets up and thanks you for your help, promising to try and keep such visits to a minimum in the future. He tells you you're really coming along with your stand.

Pesci- Despite being relatively good with pain given his lack of experience, Pesci is very nervous about injuries because of all the stories of infection and blood-loss he's heard from his more experienced teammates, some of which may or may not be exaggerated or true. Pesci's nerves show greatly as he trembles in front of you, asking for you to help him out. You have to reassure him that your stand while relieve him from any possible negative outcomes of his wounds. He thanks you with a gentle hug, and leaves you be.

Melone- Although he usually stays away from his target, Melone has had a few incidents with pepper spray, broken bones, and even stab wounds resulting from a particularly unyielding host for his stand, and this is usually what brings him to your door. He is calm when you treat him, though depending on the nature of your relationship he may comment about the view from underneath you. A subtle lick of the lips here and there. He thanks you for your work, but asks if he can stay in your room for a little bit. You know, just to help his recovery along.

Ghiaccio- He's fairly reluctant to ask for your help unless it's necessary. But if it is, he'll do it. Ghiaccio's mouth tends to run freely when he has nothing else to do while waiting for your stand to work. He'll talk about everything from his shitty mission to random things he saw on the way that pissed him off. Halfway he realises how rude he sounds when you're just trying to help him, and apologises sheepishly at the end. The next morning, he makes you a cute little sculpture with his stand to say thank you.

Risotto- He knows it's bad, but he can not bear to ask you for help. It's nothing against you personally- you're a real asset to the team, but he cannot stand the vulnerability of the situation. It the end, it's you who comes to him, noticing the infection forming around the staples he crudely used to jam the skin around the injury back together. After talking to him for a while about it, you manage to persuade him to let you fix it with your stand. He looks down at his fixed leg and realises how much simpler it would have been to ask you first. He apologises.

Sorbet and Gelato- How this goes down depends greatly on who is hurt. If it's Gelato, Sorbet will calmly but urgently carry him to your room and politely but firmly request you see to his injuries. If Sorbet is injured, oh dear. Gelato's going to break your damn door down. Regardless of who it is, you're going to be treating your new patient in his husband's lap and you're just going to have to get used to that. The injuries being resolved gives both lovers great relief, and they apologise for any panic caused by their sudden entrance. They each give you a kiss on the temple (or lips, if that's where you stand with them) and depart.

#la squadra #la squadra di esecuzione #la squadra x reader #formaggio #formaggio x reader #illuso #illuso x reader #prosciutto #prosciutto x reader #pesci #pesci x reader #melone #melone x reader #ghiaccio #ghiaccio x reader #risotto nero #risotto nero x reader #sorbet and gelato #sorbet and gelato x reader

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keilemlucent · 3 years

Text

pretty eyes & starshine: ii

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i || part ii || part iii (epilogue)

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @firein-thesky

word count: ~15.2k

Healing takes time, but it’s easier with someone else around who’s on the mend with you.

(You and Keigo learn to start living again.)

warnings: codependency but make it sexc, injured reader, post-trauma symptoms, reader has abandonment issues, angst, ouchies <3

a/n: part 2 :’^) we made it!! soft hurt and very horny codependency that involves keigo’s immaculate d*ck. all that is left after this is part 3 which will be more of an epilogue :’^)

enjoy loves <3

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

The doors to exit the hospital scare you.

How can they not?

They’re... automatic.

The glass panes are wide, sliding and slapping as folks come and go, the quiet ring of metal on metal and the slap of the plastic padding makes your heart race.

Get over it, get over it, get over it—

It’s just some doors, they’re normal.

You’ve walked through automatic doors so many times. Never before had you even taken conscious note of them.

(But that was before you heard them let in that man who—)

Without thinking, you take a little, tentative step back from them.

Consider you are leaving your own slice of healing hell; you are shakier and sweatier than you would’ve liked. Your clothes are like the ones... he used to wear, cheap garments obviously pulled from some industrial multipack that stank like plastic and rubbing alcohol.

You hate it.

But you didn’t have another choice. Your old articles were bloodied and disposed of long ago, and the hospital gowns you wore during your stay were far more uncomfortable than your scratchy, wide pants and crewneck long sleeve the same pale, lifeless blue as your old bed sheets.

It would be enough.

You shift the crutch under your right arm and shuffle the backpack on your shoulders. It contains just enough to get you to the shelter, where they’d supposedly have a bed— a cot, more than likely. You had a toothbrush, some extra socks, and a prepaid card for a single, one-way train trip across the country and into the unknown.

Tears stung your eyes as you lingered by the doors.

It all feels so uncomfortably real. The world kept moving, and you’re reentering it far-more battered and perpetually bruised.

And completely alone.

(The thought horrifies you to your core, but you try to ignore it.)

Despite the time you spent at the hospital, you were leaving without a hint of reverie. Everyone, nurses and doctors and anyone who has fucking eyes is too busy dealing with the casualties that had lasted months.

It didn’t matter how long you stayed. You were just a body. A fucked up one too.

You count yourself lucky to even have the backpack, as cheap and sterile as it smells.

It all unnerves you, but you didn’t have a choice. Numbness settles over you as you accept your future.

There... is a little glimmer that he will show up.

(He won’t. Empty promises.)

(Everyone leaves.)

(Why’d you call him, anyway?)

(Because no one had spoken to you like a human in a month.)

Solitude makes people desperate and crazy.

You are a little crazy, you know. Maybe not in a bad way, but certainly in a way that is eating you up and out in ways you don’t understand. You don’t have the energy sort through it all. You just have to finally start moving forward. Or try to.

Tentatively, you walk toward the doors, stepping out and onto the pavement. You lurch and you would’ve tripped if not for the crutch shoved under your arm.

For the first time in a long time, you suck in fresh air and the trickling sunlight. It feels fresh, cleansing you with each little inhale as you face your cheeks to sky. You have your moment, basking before your journey.

Then someone whistles. You ignore it at first.

The person whistles again, calling out—

“Your ride’s here, starshine!”

Your breath punches from your lungs. You whip your head to the sound.

Though it’s overcast, you do see your morning sun.

Your steps stutter as you nearly trip over your feet.

He is standing, not far at all, leaning against a shiny black car, sleek and expensive and out of place. He’s all overgrown hair and lazy-expressions, one which stretches into a grin as he sees you.

And you see him.

(He really came?)

(Of course he did.)

Your crutch nearly clatters to the ground as you stumble toward him. The moment you waver, he’s running to catch you.

You meet each other halfway.

And without a goddamn lick of shame, the moment you near him, your arms lock around him. Your face buries into the hollow of his throw and you inhale. The scent of him, a bit spiced but mostly skin and sweat fills you. Not a hint of antiseptic.

And you shudder at how good it feels.

He stabilizes the two of you, greedily wrapping his arms around your waist and squeezing as if to give a much-needed greeting.

There’s a moment of heat between you, familiar and blessed and so damned missed that you both share shuddering breaths.

“It’s good to see you, starshine,” He soaks up any part of you he could get to. So casually, he touches like he wants to consume you.

You squeeze him just as hard.

“You came?” Your words muffled into his skin.

He simply nods, and the only confirmation you need to sink into him. Perhaps, there’s onlookers, but neither of you have the mind to care. All you care about is the shift of his muscles beneath your fingertips, the heat of him, his golden, pretty visage—

Like he had so many times, he tucks hair behind your ears and tension drains from him.

So tenderly does he squeeze around your middle where he holds you up, “Let’s go home, starshine.”

You want nothing more.

...

The drive to your new home is long, but you don’t mind.

The world has changed in the months you’d been tucked away in the forest-hidden hospital. As disconnected as you were, you still heard of the unrest and upheaval across the country. The political clashes are marked by the... contrarian billboards lining the highway, new slogans battling each other every mile or so.

The scenery slowly goes from flatlands, to wetlands, to rolling hills that are a lush green. From the safety of the car, you could see that the air even looked wet, and you could imagine the way it would stick in your throat and tacky the tips of your fingers.

“Where do you live?” You finally ask, voice soft in the melancholy softness of the light mist that sprayed the car.

“In the mountains, high-up,” He squeezes your hand (the one he’s been holding the whole ride). Quietly, he adds. “I still couldn’t bear to be too close to the ground.”

He laughs, though it fades into the suddenly heavy air.

This is the world, isn’t it?

You blink, gulping at the face of your reality, and let your eyes go half-lidded as you trace the shapes of growing evergreen as your drive takes you higher and higher.

...

Keigo had made up the guest room for you.

He doesn’t have much for extra sheets and softness, let alone decor, but he does what he can. The bed is made and pressed with clean lines, freshly washed. The curtains on the windows hang heavy, but warm up the room with their clement, tan fibers. It’s a start, with lots of space for you to add your own touches as well.

He’d spent the night prior on it, laboring, like he was preparing a nest as opposed to a simple bedroom.

(It is a nest, but he doesn’t need to accept that just yet.)

There wasn’t anything else to do for a while when he first escaped that fucking hell. He’d really given up. Keigo was uncomfortably content to rot away as he had dreamed of since he’d been burnt. The little, dusty corners of the cabin would’ve made perfect places to waste away in peace and alone.

Except, he didn’t.

Keigo started to make the home better.

He isn’t sure if it was out of some need to just do something, and the outdated, worn cabin was his most available canvas. Part of him is convinced it’s some buried avian instinct, and without the Commission’s constant hovering, he has no reason to suppress those more animalistic urges. The need to nest somewhere cozy and safe took him over, and he had gotten to work.

The cabin is cleaned up incredibly well. New appliances, floors patched and polished. The furniture is mostly old, but it’s obviously been shined and tended to. The living area isn’t horribly large, but it’s more than enough space for the two of you. It has wide windows that looked down upon the slopes and peaks that your home is nestled in. The colors are warm oranges and tans that are easy on the eye. Nothing too red and nothing too blue.

Nothing too imposing.

(Nothing too reminiscent.)

He leads you from the car, gingerly helping you up the rickety stairs to the front door.

The wound on your leg may be ‘healed’, but you don’t appear comfortable in the slightest. Your expression pinches with half of your steps, the bending of your scarred flesh undoubtedly painful. It makes something in his chest squeeze as he navigates you into his house, from the snow into somewhere warm. A place that he crafted all on his own. Shaped with his own hands. A real possession, all his own.

When you enter, you don’t say anything, only tightening your grip on his hand.

“I like it,” You smile, soft and dreamy, worrying the strap of your backpack. “... Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay?”

“Of course,” Keigo assures you. Of course, it was okay for you to stay. “I’m happy to have you here, especially when the other option is one of the shelters.”

You wouldn’t have lasted a day with your bum leg and natural softness.

The thought has him gulping, the heat flaring in his chest as he tugs you closer, ghosting his lips over your temple.

With only a bit of stumbling, he shows you the rest of the home.

...

You’re quiet the rest of the day, curled up on the couch in the same clothes you left the hospital in. There’s clear exhaustion in your face, from the dark circles ringing your eyes and the tremble in your hand and leg. Keigo is content to cover you in a nice knit blanket he purchased down in the nearby town, and let you rest.

His own back burns when he catches glimpses of your scar. It ran down all the way to your ankle, even bleeding onto the top of your foot. The gnarled flesh brings back memories of screaming and metallic exam rooms.

And he, like you, stares at a wall for a while before making dinner.

You can’t manage much.

The TV glows with some show you might’ve watched and been engrossed in it. But the hollow feeling in your chest keeps you submerged in the static of your skull. It’s more comfortable than acknowledging how quickly the picture moves in front of you.

Your only motion is a ‘light’ scratching over the thin fabric of your pants.

‘Light’.

He enters sometime later, bearing food and an easy smile that falls all-too quickly.

“Hey, starshine— oh fuck,” His voice clips as he enters, setting down steaming plates on the coffee table and pulling your hand from your thigh. The tips of your fingers are stained with enough blood to make your eyebrows shoot up.

Your eyes shoot to your leg, where you’d apparently tore through the thin fabric of your pants and torn your skin up without even thinking. So close to the scar—

Heat flares between, light bouncing in your eyes as you cover the hole, “S-sorry, fuck, I didn’t even realize.”

“It’s okay, it happens,” Keigo assures you, softer than you’ve ever heard him. “Let’s clean you up quick and then eat, okay?”

You nod, exhaling a weight from your chest as the light skitters out of your eyes.

And the heat fades from the room. The absence of it chills Keigo, and the abruptness makes his nose scrunch.

He patches you up quickly and with a precision that screams ‘yes, I have done this far too many times.’ The wound isn’t too severe, just a nasty-looking scratch. The dried blood on your finger is wiped away.

You both settle onto the couch, eating in silence.

Something hangs in the air, thick and unsaid. Questions and paragraphs that have been ignored up until now. Not out of will, perhaps just tired negligence.

But, Keigo has always been the blunt type, so he finally asks one of the many facets that needs to be broached.

“What’s your quirk?”

A little surprised sound lodges in your throat with a bite of baked fish, “My quirk? I thought you figured it out already.”

Keigo raises a feathery eyebrow, “I’m a bit slow these days, starshine.”

The nickname makes something settle pleasantly under your ribs, and the light, little orbs of yellow and orange return to your eyes.

And heat fills the room, like it had so many times before. Like those first nights in the common room, stargazing in the lamp and starlight. It’s warmth that bleeds between his bones and tendons, through and through.

Keigo puts it all together, jaw going slack and eyes going wide.

Had he never realized it?

It does make sense, in retrospect and without a sinfully heavy dose of painkillers swimming in his veins. The heat that permeated all of the nights you sat, eyeing the stars and each other.

The odd heat of it all.

You’d been warming the two of you. Souls cold from the sterility of it all.

“That’s your quirk?” Keigo leans in closer, inspecting the little specks of light in your irises. The tell. “This whole time?”

“U-um, yeah,” You worry a hangnail. “I don’t mean for it to be activating all over the place, but it has been since everything happened.”

“Why’s that?”

You chew the plump of your bottom lip, brows pinched.

Without thinking, Keigo bows to the will of the ever-present, needy feeling in his chest and presses a little kiss to your forehead, willing it to smooth away some of your worry.

I’m not upset, the action says, but the cabin is quiet.

“... You know how cats purr?”

Keigo quirks an eyebrow, “I do.”

“Well, I think it’s kind of like that,” You met his eyes, the light returning and the fire-like warmth tickling the hair on your arms. “Cats purr when they feel good, but sometimes, they purr when they’re not doing well.”

“... ‘Not doing well’?”

“If they’re in pain, or if they’re really scared,” You go quiet, tracing a seam on Keigo’s jeans. “They’ll purr to comfort themselves. It’s like that.”

Comfort themselves.

No wonder all those nights you spent together, you felt so warm. It was your quirk—

And you must’ve felt awful.

Part of him feels betrayed, just for a moment, before it dissolves with the watery look you wear as your injured finger traces over his knuckles.

And the heat of you flares.

Your quirk is a part of you.

“I didn’t think to tell you.” Your voice wobbles, yet remains vacant. “‘M sorry.”

You don’t need to apologize.

If anything, the knowledge only strengthens Keigo’s resolve.

...

The first weeks at the house are odd as you both settle into rhythms of living. There’s an orbit to how you choose to live, though it’s not predictable or reliable. It can’t be, there’s no way for it to be. You float around each other like little planets to a fickle sun, unstable and wavering, but elliptical, nonetheless.

You’re both learning to be human again with your own rhythms.

Keigo’s biggest challenge is dragging himself from bed each morning. The lazy bones he thought the Commission had broken and beaten out of him still remain somehow. Now that he has no obligations to tend to at the break of dawn, he thoroughly enjoys lazing about in the sheets, even if he’s just staring at his wood-paneled ceiling wishing that Dabi had finished the job and burned him dead.

He’s doing great.

Despite his sluggishness, you move about on your own.

You make coffee each morning, and curl up on the couch under the same knit blanket. A few patches of the multi-colored throw have been pulled apart by your restless hands.

Neither of you comment on it.

Though Keigo takes longer to rise, you move far less during the day during those first weeks. You’re tethered to the cushion until the sun goes down.

It’s like the nylon straps at the hospital never left your wrists.

Your vacant nature scares him, if he’s honest. There’s an unspoken, massive wound you carry with you, both physically and mentally, and its manifestation is a little haunting.

Keigo knows about trauma, knows about how the mind worked and how to, you know, deal with it. He is— was, a hero, for fuck’s sake. Trauma is in the job description and he’d had his fair share of bruises before he went undercover, before he killed Jin (REALLY don’t think about it—), and lost his wings. He’s stitched himself up by filling up his schedule with anything he could. Distractions. Things to occupy him, help him forget for a while. If that didn’t work, he always had a bottle or two of imported soju that he could nurse.

Again, coping.

The state you’re in is the opposite of coping, it’s being. Existing. The strain you carry from everything shows in you, and the way that it’s manifested terrifies him.

Keigo is smart enough to know to keep a few boundaries. He can’t fix you and he can’t get it in his head that he can. He’ll smother you; he knows he will. The solace he finds comes from being there when you need him, and always being close by.

It’s all he can do to soothe what’s obviously an open wound. He has his own, that you tend to in your own way as well when you can. It’s all give-and-take, naturally and easily.

You’ll find yourselves on the couch together, leaning and touching so naturally, but with no intent. Your little fingers trace shapes over his clothes, hearts and lettering he can’t catch. The heat of you will cling to him, whether your quirk activates or not.

He holds you, simply and truly. Tries to be a new, kinder being.

...

You don’t have much that is solely yours.

You’d been living in an odd combination of Keigo’s clothes and the single outfit you arrived with. It works, enough. Most garments are worn until they’re filthy, but it takes you a little too long to notice.

Keigo notices.

One day, he sits down with you and his heavy, black credit card and helps you pick out... whatever you wanted. The guy is loaded and will be until he dies, and he’s smitten to help you pick out whatever you need.

You’re more challenged by the task.

“I’m fine, you don’t need to do this,” you murmur into his collarbones, narrowing your eyes at the laptop screen. “I have enough.”

Keigo clicks his tongue, rubbing the fraying fabric of your shirt, the same, cheap scratchy fabric from the hospital. Your pants are soft cotton, old ones of Keigo’s that he should probably throw away. You adore them, and spend most of your time in them, too.

“You deserve some nice things that are yours, don’t you think?” He coaxes with some extra soft touches as you glare at the screen.

Perhaps, you think to yourself. Your jaw locks.

You deliberately avoided thinking about your lack of... things. The absence of all the bits of you that you had once carried tugs at something deep in your chest. Grief, probably. Loss at the very least. Your home has been torn apart and you have nothing. Not a single remnant of then except you. And you’re hardly a good cast of the existence you once lead.

The world feels dimmer with the thought.

...

The house gets cold at night.

It’s inevitable, with the chill of the snowy valleys and peaks slipping through drafty windows and cracks in the woodwork. It slunk into the house once the stars rose, sinking bone deep. It’s easier to ward off during the day. The little stray touches and the ambiance of shared presence helps.

But, you slept separately.

It’s cold— so fucking cold in your beds. Keigo hates it. Despises the way how it makes his eyes droop and his body heavier than it should be. Despite not having wings any longer, his other avian traits lingered, and torpor was definitely not in his top three faves. He can only be thankful that he thought to invest in an electric blanket for himself, for his nest.

Though it would be a lot better with you in it, the last thing he wants to do is push you. You’re fragile. Everything is fragile. Keigo has laid awake on more than one night, trying to make sense of all of it, everything and coming to the conclusion that sleeping in his too-big, too-cold bed would have to do.

Sometimes, there’s no way to swallow the state of things.

...

“Your packages are here.”

You look up, eyes wide and sweet.

Oh, yeah. Material goods.

Clothes.

Objects.

It takes a while, but the result of your shopping spree is a small horde of packages down at the town post office, all with your name attached. The idea of so much newness is daunting, but your few remaining garments are threadbare and practically falling apart. It’s necessary, you acknowledge, even if you’re terrified of not living in Keigo’s worn crewneck.

(Change can be good, you remind yourself. The thought is quiet.)

Keigo stands by the door, buttoning up his coat and lacing up his boots as you watch from your soft perch on the couch. The blanket has a new, wide hole picked in it, but you don’t notice.

“Would you like to come with me and pick them up?” Keigo flicks his gaze to you with a careful, easy smile.

You hadn’t left the house since you’d arrived.

The thought sends your stomach knotting and sweat gathering in your palms. You jerk your head side to side, sinking back down into the cushions.

Keigo doesn’t hold it against you. You can tell by the way his expression softens around his eyes.

He leaves after kissing you on the forehead a few times, telling you he’ll be quick to return. It’s not often that he leaves, though he’s always timely on coming back. His excursions are never more than a trip to the town market, thankfully. An hour or two feels like a lot, but the too-still air and quiet of the floorboards without Keigo’s pacing unsettles you.

Not having him near unsettles you. The thought of having him gone for too long shoots something hot and needy in your chest.

(Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave—)

Thankfully, just like always, Keigo isn’t gone for long. And he returns bearing a few armloads of packages and some takeout curry. You take it all, and him, greedily.

(Thank you, thank you, thank you.)

...

It’s a few days later when Keigo wakes to you knocking on his door in the early hours of the morning.

It had been a... rougher day. You had been a bit livelier early on, joining him on the snowy patio for morning coffee and even taking a quick walk around the neighboring forest. With the snow so deep, you could only go so far though. The motion of it aggravated your injury, left your gasping and clawing at Keigo’s arm as the scar tissue pulled.

The scar is still dead, thank god, but the impact is just as present physically as it is mentally for you.

The rest of the day you spent curled up on the couch, taking little sips of water between short naps. That night, you hardly touched your dinner. Keigo was smart enough to cut up some fruit and lay it with a handful of crackers and offer it to you throughout the rest of the night. You nibbled at the bits, but hardly consumed much at all.

You went to bed early, giving him a hard hug before retiring to your lonely room.

Those days are the worse, the bad ones. They’re the ones where Keigo wants to break all the boundaries he still has. The little touches and kisses he gives you are one thing, but there’s much more he wants to do. Craves doing. But, pushing you too far or too hard would break you. He’s smart. He knows that. So, Keigo doesn’t wait. He satiates all those protective needs.

He accepts circumstance, just as he always has.

(He doesn’t understand how much you crave him, but that’ll come later.)

That night, things begin to shift.

His voice cracks with sleep as he calls for you to enter. You linger in the door frame, clutching a pillow to your chest, like a scared child who’s had a—

“Nightmare?” He asks, sitting up and tugging a blanket with him to cover his bare chest.

The cold air of the cabin hits his scars. He hisses under his breath, shoulders drawing tense. You must notice, eyes going a little wider as you recede from his room. The darkness of the hallway nearly dissolves you. His chest aches, hands tightening around the fabric in his fists.

“Come back here, starshine, come on,” Keigo calls, praying you’ll heed him. “It’s alright. What’s wrong?”

Keigo half-recognizes that that’s a very loaded question, but you’re both a bit sleep addled. Maybe it will slide.

Your eyes alight in the pitch of the room, sputtering with little orbs of amber. Your atrophying arms squeeze the pillow, and you take a few more tentative steps closer.

“... We’re safe, right?”

The question surprises Keigo, enough to make his old wounds ache.

One loaded question answered for another.

It’s reasonable to ask. It’s very reasonable to ponder. Keigo has wondered about it too. The townsfolk don’t know who he really was, and he was quite secretive about the initial move. The world hadn’t caught onto the fact that ‘Hawks’ had moved him and his new love to an isolated little cabin in the woods, and hopefully they never would. Society had a lot bigger problems, according to the over-processed news channel he tuned into on occasion.

Keigo was old news at this point.

So many heroes had been called out for poor behavior. Scandal after scandal, coverup after coverup. Corruption, everywhere. It was an industry secret, all of the bullshit behind closed doors. Keigo’s little double-agent schtick and you know, murder of a good man (for the love of god, do not fucking think about Jin) was still bad, but the public had a whole new slew of bullshit to torch people at the stake for.

Still.

He’s glad no one knows about your little hideaway or you.

“We’re safe, starshine. Very safe.”’

It makes his answer easier to say, more honest.

You inch closer from the doorway. There’s a tremble in your shoulders that runs to your hands. You’re only wearing a t-shirt and thin shorts, maybe just panties, he can’t tell. Your scar runs down your thigh and calf, gnarling and twisting the flesh it dared to mar. The seam of it is a shining black that Keigo had failed to notice before.

It reminds him of why you’re so scared and the types of nightmares you must have.

“... Promise?” You stop at the foot of the bed, throat bobbing with a thick gulp.

Keigo gives a sympathetic smile, patting the sheets next to him, “I promise. You’re safe. We’re safe.”

You look skeptical, but climb into bed with him all the same.

Something stirs in Keigo’s chest as you do. As he watches you clamor over the sheets and blankets he... nests in, the heat of it fills him. A combination of yours and his own, spills through his ribs and down to his toes.

He shudders with it, something needy wriggling down from

You sit up on your knees, sinking into the mattress and holding the pillow tight to your chest. Watching, eyes still alight and wide.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Keigo asks.

You don’t, you both know that, but breaking the silence is a start.

You push the pillow against the headboard, trading it to link your fingers with his, over his chest and pressed to the linens.

You squeeze and let out a breath you’ve been holding. There’s a weight to it, like there’s something you’re actually carrying. There has been something you have been carrying, but only you are able to see it— feel it in its actuality.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to shoulder the burden alone, especially on darkened, lonely nights.

He tugs you closer, mindful of your tenderness and the scars you both bear. The night is only lit by starlight, and the room is dark with the new moon. It makes it easier to be closer as you settled into the bedding next to him.

It’s uncomfortable for a few moments.

Despite how much contact you share, this feels different. The little touches, kisses and caresses you trade throughout the day are second nature. Comforting someone else who so obviously needs it. His person who needs it.

(He wonders if you think of him as your ‘person’ too.)

You lay on your side, facing away from him as you fall into his nest, still tense, still on edge and unsure. It reminds him of those first days at the hospital, when you both had lost your tongues and yourselves and just enjoyed the stars together in oddly comforting silence and broken conversation.

It’s a process, he reminds himself.

Keigo slides closer, throwing an arm over waist and adjusting the blankets with his other. There’s plenty, piled on top of each other without much reason. Careful hands properly tuck you into it all, next to him, with him. He brings them up to your chin, pressing stray hairs back into place and laying a trailing kiss or two over the back of your neck.

“... Is it okay if I stay?” Your voice sounds far-off, like the question is more for yourself than for him.

He can feel the unease and fear still bound up in your shoulders. It’s always there, whether it’s a moonless night or a snow-glitteringly, sunny day. The tension he presses his thumbs into is held in all of the muscle of your back, in your hips, your hands— everywhere.

It makes part of him ache.

A few little coos, soft little rumbles, roll from the back of his throat.

Normally, he’d be a bit embarrassed. But at the birdish chirps, you’re falling deeper in the sheets, the nest, and against his chest.

“Please stay,” He assures you with a squeeze. A small comfort, one he’d keep giving.

The odd quiet returns, sans the little sounds in his chest.

Slowly, tentatively, you turn in his arms. Your own lock over his waist, splayed low on his spine. The pads of your fingertips brush scars, the old ones and the new. It makes him writhe a bit in his own skin. It’s unfamiliar, compared to all of the cold prodding and meaningless pleasure he was used to.

It is the closest anyone of familiarity has been to the scars in a long time, and you, preciously, grace him with the softest touch. No expectation in it, just some much-needed, shared bits of love. Once again, precious.

And you both relax into it all. The ambient thrum of the other's body, the shared breath and smells that mingle between you. There’s little pains and stings that never really go away, but with the other so close, neither of you mind.

It’s hard to tell when your quirk settles, and the organic heat you create together fills the rooms and your lungs.

All Keigo knows is that he falls asleep with your lips brushing the hollow of his throat, still and warm against his chest. The feeling of the living rhythm of your body with your breath lulls him off, content and hazy.

...

You never sleep alone after that night.

Keigo pulls you into his room, or you pad in after brushing your teeth and pulling on your soft, soft sleep clothes. The bed feels a lot less big and lonely with the two of you wrapped up in each other, fully giving in.

It puts Keigo at a remarkable amount of ease.

The urge in his chest to ‘keep you safe’ feels the most sated at night, when he can keep as close as you both can bear. Your hands always make their home at the base of his spine, or the fat and flesh between his lower back and his rear. The pads of your fingers rub away years of stored tension and weight, quietly and kindly before you fall asleep each night.

During the day, you’re equally as needy, though you’re slowly becoming a bit more independent. You’re more lucid in general. Though the couch and worn blanket are your greatest comforts (other than him), you’re beginning to stray and poke around the house a bit more.

The shelves have a few more familiar comforts, things Keigo had slowly accumulated to pass the time. There’s a video game console or two he’d never used, a few stacks of books he’d heard were good, and some tucked away art supplies if inspiration struck.

As much as he urges you to take and use whatever you’d like, you’re still tentative. The first few times you pluck a crisp book from the shelf, Keigo’s back aches with how the old muscles that once controlled his wings tried to puff-up non-existent feathers. Despite how it tugs at all the wrong parts of him, he still glows at the progress.

You start to help him with dinner too. That’s some of your favorite time.

There’s a rhythm to it, when you both start preparing meals together. Keigo can’t season food for shit, (though, he’s made leaps and strides with cooking that pats himself on the back for) but he’s quite skilled with a knife. Remnants of his training that have domestic applications.

He doesn’t tell you that that’s why he’s so good at dicing vegetables and paring meat, he just chatters to fill the air. You tend more to the process of cooking, seasoning and watching and nodding along to his words.

The more meals you share in creating, the more you start to speak up.

It’s progress, even in something so small.

...

But progress isn’t linear.

It’s not even a goddamn line and it’s fucking infuriating.

...

The depth of winter bears down on the hills, the house, and the two of you. You’re coping, both of you. But the momentum of it is fragile.

It scares you, secretly and privately.

You feel fragile, and you have for a long time. Your scar remains tender, gnarled and ugly on your leg. You avoid looking at it at all cost, though Keigo has free reign to graze tender touch nearby it.

That’s how you find yourselves, leaning on each other on the cushion of the couch and idly watching the glow of the television. Your cheek tucks over his shoulder and you watch with half-lidded eyes. You’re only half-there as Keigo changes the channel.

He hums after a few moments.

“There’s a storm coming tonight,” Keigo tells you, lips just a touch dry against the shell of your ear. “I’m going to go to town and—”

Oh wow.

You interrupt, fisting the front of his shirt, “Can I come?”

The question stuns both of you.

Your eyes are honest as you peer up, genuinely unsure if you can.

“Of course, starshine,” Keigo assures. You notice the way his eyes, his pretty eyes, look wide and bright. All for you. Wow. “Let’s get you out of the house, hm?”

Getting out.

Time has stretched out and you can’t remember the last time you left for anything more than a little stroll on the backroads, Keigo on your arm. Going to town and seeing people strikes something odd that has your stomach churning.

You’re nervous when you finally pile into the car, both bundled up with hats, mittens and scarfs (Keigo wears a mask to better hide his identity, but he’s sure some of the townies have figured him out.) The tasks are simple. Stock up for the coming storm and make sure he pays to plow their little backroad out once the storm passes. Easy, things that wouldn’t take too long, but it still makes your palms sweat.

Keigo massages your thigh as you drive into town. The comfort of the snowy hills and evergreens disappears, and it has you in goddamn knots.

You squeeze his hand, locking your jaw.

“I’m scared.” You break the silence as the small structures of the town come into view. “I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

You haven’t decided again.

He kneads his thumb into the tension in your thighs with a little smile, “Let’s give it a try.”

“It’s scary, though.”

“I know.”

You pull at a hangnail with your teeth but say nothing else as you roll in and park at the small market.

The first thing you notice is the goddamn doors. Automatic doors.

When you see them, you want to climb back into the car, maybe the trunk for fuck’s sake, and hide like you’ve never hidden before. Go home and bury yourself in a snow pile with how your heart hammers in your chest and your breath catches.

Deep breaths.

You catch yourself, just a little.

You keep walking, Keigo’s hand in yours and you enter the market like nothing feels as wrong as it is.

The store is small, but there’s a decent selection, all things given. Keigo places a basket in your hands, tells you to ‘go nuts’ and ‘literally get whatever you want, especially if it’s salty or sweet’ and you heed him the best you can. He busies himself talking to the clerk, organizing with that honey-voice you crave.

You take a few deep breaths and walk around the market like a normal person.

(Even though, the last time you were in a situation close to this, you got that nasty, cute scar on your leg.)

(You suppress the thought for as long as you can.)

The basket gets filled quickly, but you stuff it to the brim. Keigo picked out plenty of good food, and had learned how to cook decently, but having some... agency felt nice, if not fucking terrifying.

You’ve got your back turned to the entrance of the store when the (automatic) doors suddenly swish open.

A chill so cold and hard shoots down your spine and you freeze, hovering over a box of breadcrumbs.

One...

How long was it between that sound and when he touched you?

Two...

This was a terrible idea.

Three—

It was four—

Four—

Four seconds, you propose, as your heart beats out of your chest and you sweat under your arms. Four seconds from the door opening to pain.

You wait.

And wait.

Nothing.

Just more voices from the front of the store, a figure entering your aisle and then leaving.

You hate the way you're so rigid, tense enough in your shoulders for it to hurt. The ghost of the wound on your leg makes you want to fall to the ground and writhe, but you grab the box of breadcrumbs and try not to think.

It works, and you land next to Keigo, presenting your filled basket to be rung up.

You bury your face into his shoulder and take a deep inhale. Keigo keeps you close, tucked in your side with an arm around your waist. Your anxiety must’ve been quite visible, as he takes to quietly rubbing your shoulders over your sweater.

Things get hazy as you feel safer. Keigo laughs and sways the two of you as he speaks to the clerk.

(Her sons are going to blow your little house out when the storm passes. The family cat recently got out and came back pregnant. Her husband has been reading some odd literature he found on the internet. Something about ‘the strong triumphant over the weak’. Her daughter might be able to return from her foreign university now that the travel restrictions had been lifted.)

Everything moves forward, even if it’s unpleasant.

It’s an awful reminder at an inopportune time.

You watch your feet as you crunch your way back to the shotgun side of the car, only relaxing when you hear the doors lock and the engine thrum.

...

The storm comes, just as the faces on TV said it would.

You’re in the country, in the hills and mountains where the weather is already turbulent and changeable. All the same, the overcast skies dump snow over the land and blanket the world in quiet and cold.

Snow silence sucks the sounds from the air, sans the howl of angry wind.

You’re tucked away and safe. It’s Keigo’s only solace.

After going into town, you keep more to yourself as the storm takes it sweet time rolling in. He recognizes the far off look in your eyes; it’s the one you wore stargazing, but there’s no kind smile on your face. Just a thoughtless frown as you go through the motions of your day.

It makes his chest ache.

(Part of him regrets bringing you with him to the market. It rots part of him, and he can only hope it sprouts again.)

Finally, when the storm truly comes and the hills get heavy and crisp white, a bit more of you returns. Keigo wants to take the fragments you’re willing to give him and tuck them close, horde them and squeeze. The way he’s gotten abashedly greedy for you has him handsier and needier.

He’ll take what he can get, and give what he can too.

It’s easiest to bear at night, probably out of habit. Maybe the time in the hospital fucked both of you up (yes, for sure, it did), but nighttime was the time where you were open and easy with each other.

The storm gives the perfect opportunity to all of your time shamelessly twisted together, only leaving for brief coffee breaks and light meals. Otherwise, you’re both nested.

Pillows and blankets piled on the oversized mattress, all soft against your scars and old scratches. Keigo’s still fond of the color red, he can’t let that go, but he trades in the scarlet that was once his ‘brand’ for a deeper burgundy. All the sensations are rich and velvety, whether it’s the bedclothes you’re wrapped in or the touches you share.

It feels safe.

The feeling is something almost foreign to Keigo. He’s been getting used to it, even as the isolation weighs down on him. No one around means no reason to be so alert. The house isn’t bugged, there’s no villains or Suits watching his every move. He’s just a flightless bird, with no cage, but no captors either.

It feels amazing.

It feels even better that you’re always the heat against his side. That you and your perfect, sweet hands always know how and where to touch. Your words flow easier when you’re so close, so surrounded and so deliciously suffocated.

Keigo fills you up in all the best ways, and you’re finally able to breathe easier.

You tell him your secrets, little stargazing facts and facets of you that you’d held away and far from him before.

“Do you know what cosmic microwave background radiation is?” You ask, sweet as your lips nip at his jaw.

“No, not a clue,” He laughs, the giggle only you get to hear.

You hum, shifting your thighs so it lies over his. Your hips grind, slow and unhurried as wind rattles the windows.

“It’s this ambient radiation that’s just everywhere, all the time, forever,” You tell him, voice going a little huskier despite the fact you’re talking about theoretical astrophysics. “It’s left over from the Big Bang. A little bit of the beginning that never stops.”

“And how do you know all this?”

“A documentary, love.”

The questions fade as your lips slide together, lazy hands sliding into each other's hairs. You pull, only lightly, just to bring him closer. Keigo gets greedy, (again, always), licking into your mouth and tasting you. It’s all cheap coffee and the stale mint of toothpaste, and he drinks you down like the finest nectar. He sucks on your tongue, moaning at the way you keen and shift next to him.

It’s not enough. It never is, so he rolls to sit himself over your hips and grab your jaw in a tight grip. He can’t be too forceful, he can’t— his little birdbrain won’t let him do anything too rough to you, even if neither of you would mind it. He tilts your head just right.

You roll your hips up, breath mingling with his as it hitches and shudders from you. It’s so much, so much good, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.

Keigo pulls away, eyes half-lidded to take in your own blown pupils. It makes something purr in his chest, to see your eyes already glassy and wide for him. Your neck is thoroughly covered in darkened splotches, already sucked and bitten while the storm sang.

Little marks of him.

“You’re all mine, you know?” Keigo nearly moans at the way your expression goes gooey and sweetened. He tightens his grip on your jaw just a fraction, enough to make you gasp before he licks and nips below your ear. Just to make sure you hear him. “‘Everywhere, all the time, forever’, I’ve got you.”

“Y-you do,” you gasp as Keigo shifts your sleep shorts off, pushed away forgotten in the nest. The thin tank top you’re wearing is hardly covering anything, not that either of you care. The nearly-sheer fabric of it stretches over your collars and curves beautifully. It does nothing to hide the way your breaths heave or the sweat and heat gathering on your neck.

You’re bared to him.

And if Keigo’s being honest?

You own each other, in the most pleasantly fucked up way.

“Y-You’re so good,” The word holds weight, so much heaviness. Keigo groans, palming one of your breasts and rolling one of your nipples. It’s ambient, something to occupy himself as he resists your words. Just a little—

Your hand slips into the front of his sweats, bare beneath, and wraps around the velvet of him. Thick and hot, firm in your hand but not close enough.

You squeeze, almost in warning.

“You are good.” You gasp as Keigo pulls off you, leveling gazes with you, all pretty eyes reflecting the starshine and snow. He is good. There’s so much more to it than that, but your poor, fucked up little mind can’t synthesis it yet. Only that Keigo is good, warm, safe, and wholly yours. And you’re his. You stretch to ghost a kiss over his lips. “My good boy, always keeping me safe. You keep me so well.”

He stills, even as you slowly pump in his cock. It twitches in your hand, your thighs squeezing between his hips.

Keigo’s mind races, in the best way.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” He murmurs, head tilting and body sagging to drink down your kiss-bruised lips. More, more, more— “You just need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t need to,” You lie, huffing.

Keigo raises an eyebrow, biting his lips as your grip floats down to his balls, massaging them in your soft grip. It’s tender, weirdly vulnerable, as the whole of you two are.

“Maybe you don’t need to, you’re very capable,” Maybe not right now, but he knows it’s in there. “But you want it.”

“I-I like it,” You scramble the wording, shoving down his sweats, huffing again and urging Keigo to kick them away. Your palm goes to his cheek and drags him closer. “I like you a lot, love you, you know. You make me feel... safe. It’s a good feeling.”

It’s the most honest you’ve been in a long time, and it sits in the air. Keigo remains silent for a moment, silent and trying to control the way his birdbrain wants to take you. Wants to fuck you up and ruin you for anyone else.

You’re his, aren’t you?

“Good girl,” Keigo breaks the tension, squeezing your hips to the point of bruises. His, his, his. “I keep you so good, don’t I?”

You nod, spitting out little affirmatives between kisses. They dot his cheeks and forehead, slipping to his nose and downward. You pull his bottom lip into his mouth, letting out a little half-sob as Keigo’s touch drifts to your cunt, to your clit that’s swollen and untouched.

More, more, more—

“You keep me so good,” You gulp, whining and grinding into the heel of his hand. Slick coats your sex, sticky and hot. “So, so good—”

Keigo drops down the bed, ignoring the flare of his scar tissue, to seat himself between your thighs. They get thrown over his shoulders with a squeeze. His hands cup your ass, slipping a pillow beneath your hips before eating your cunt like he’d die if he didn’t.

It’s one of his favorite things. Stuffing you full of him until your belly swells is another, or seeing the way his cock opens and stretches you until you’re gasping for breath and begging for more, more, more—

Keigo slips a finger into you without resistance. He curls it, unyielding as he massages the little knot of nerves in you that makes you arch and beg for more, for him.

You choke on a sob when he adds another finger, and he hushes you so sweet, tears prick your eyes.

“Starshine,” He coaxes, withdrawing only to give your clit, a few kitten licks and slow kisses. His gaze flickers towards yours, holding your wet eyes. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

You nod, the meat of your thighs squeezing around him. Keigo would be happy to die like this, you soft and opened for him, crying for him. Broken and cracking for him, by his tongue, by his touch, Him. His.

“Who takes care of you?” He curls his fingers, and you throw your head back into the nest of pillows.

“Y-You,” Your voice breaks and you rub at your cheeks.

“Who knows just how to keep you so well? How to make you feel so good?”

He presses a third finger in, tending to your clit as you cry above him. You’re molten around him, and he laps you up until the smell and taste of you is all he comprehends.

This is what you both need, isn’t it?

Each other. All of each other.

Your cries turn sour quickly, and it has Keigo jolting up, fingers withdrawn and leaving you to feel empty. The little sobs turned into hiccupping cries, one's stifled with the back of your hand.

Keigo rises over you, tugging you hand away to get at your cheeks, kissing them soft and sweet.

It isn’t often that you cry, surprisingly. You probably should more often.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Keigo urges. Please, please, just tell him what the fuck is wrong. He knows, you know, the meat of it all. But please tell him something he can tend to. Something he can stitch up because god, he needs to be useful— “What’s making your cry sweetheart? Tell me.”

You paw at your forehead, “It’s silly.”

You sniffle and look at him with the most unguarded expression he’s seen you worn. The vacancy is gone, the hollowness and pain has been pulled away in the safety of that perfect nest and all that’s left is—

“‘M scared,” You mumble. Your arms curl over your chest, covering what’s primitively most precious to you. “I’m scared.”

Your eyes grow bright and heat, hotter than anything he’s felt from you, explodes over the room.

He’s half-choking and he fucking loves it.

Something in his chest snaps and he worries your hair, bringing his nose to yours, nuzzling and nudging your hands away. He nips you. His poor little birdbrain.

“I’m afraid you’re going to leave.”

Keigo stills.

He sits with your fear for a few beats.

“I’d never leave,” He says easily, truthfully and fully. He couldn’t.

Those long nights in the hospital and the warmth passed between you had so easily gotten you wormed his chest, right next to his second and third rib. He can feel it, always; you’re ever present. He grabs your arms and holds them to yours sides. You’re exposed, soft flesh and squirming a bit beneath him. He wants to mark you purple and near-bloody, so that no one would think of you as anything other than his.

His, his, his.

He shows you.

Worn hands, a bit chapped with the dry air, pull your high to rest on his shoulders. He massages your calves, kissing your ankles.

“I mean this real lovingly, starshine,” He breaths deep, fisting his cock with a few slow strokes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You don’t get a chance to protest as he slides into you in one stroke. The stretch of him has you burning; he can tell by the way your hands fly to his shoulders, nails digging into his shoulders as your little cries only get harder.

“Bear it, I know you can,” You had before, and you would many times more. The stretch feels amazing, even if it burns something in your core. You like it, how the pain pricks something that shoots into your toes. Only Keigo gets to fuck you up, gets to own you. “You’re always good f-for me— f-fuck, so fucking good—”

His, his, his.

There is, of course, the inverse.

You grab his jaw, your grip tight like his was earlier, and you meet his gaze. You blink away tears, sniffling, but expression set with determination.

“You’re mine too,” You squeeze around him, grinding down to the root of his cock. “‘M only good for you because you’re mine too, Keigo. All of you.”

Without thought, your hands ghost over his scars.

You have avoided them for so long. It was an untouched spot, something tender and from a time where Keigo was being that was entirely and wholly different from who he is now. It’s a piece of him that’s always been off-limits.

But you’re both so cracked open, you do it without thought.

And something in Keigo snaps.

He pushes you down by the backs of your thighs, folding your legs to your torso. And he fucks you.

His hips slam against yours, opening you up with pants and groans. You feel full, full of him in every and all ways, everywhere, always, and forever.

You’re greedy with your touches, tugging him closer and uncaring of the way your nails scrap over his shoulders and arms. His body is yours and you’re his. It’s disgusting, it’s fucked up and perfect the way you slot together. It’s like little, scared pieces of existence slide together, and everything feels whole, yet open and uncracked.

Keigo fills you up with a sob, tears dripping down his cheeks as you pressed down on the burns and scars that rack down his back.

“Fill me up,” You demand, the heat of you swelling as his hand dips to your clit, circling and rolling with the little pleas falling from both your lips.

The world drips as his thrusts go harder, sloppier as you tip your head back and scream. Your voice breaks, hoarse from all your pleading and possession.

Keigo stuffs you, tip of his cock pressed to the deepest parts of you. His cum, all him, leaks from around his cock as he gives a few more weakened grinds. He makes sure you’re full, content and sated and his.

He falls over you, coating your cheeks in kisses and praise. You sputter little sobs for him, begging for him to be closer, despite the way he still fills you even as he softens.

It never feels like enough, the closeness. But you’ll settle for all of him that you can get.

...

The storm passes, and you spend your time much the same way. Fucking, feeling, and for a little, blessed while, forgetting.

Eventually, the snow stops falling. The wind that has been whipping the power into tree trucks and your windows falls still. It’s peaceful, then. Not that it wasn’t before, but without the weather bearing down on you, you’re both less hungry. Still greedy, just not starved.

You share the first morning after the storm outside, on the porch. Keigo had shoveled a little clear patch and you’d brushed off the two, brittle lawn chairs that had seen better days. You fixate on the task a bit too much, the steaming coffee you’re to share is forgotten. The straining plastic of the chairs is a yellowed-white and bright red. It felt strong enough under your fingers, cold fingers, as you cleared away the snow.

It feels like a remnant

Whatever fixation you have on the object passes as Keigo runs a hand up your spine. His hand is wide and warm, still a bit warm from the toasty mugs.

You rearrange your chairs and yourselves to be close as can be, in your little patch of snowless porch, and sip at your coffee as the world begins to wake up.

...

Oddly enough, the storm helps you make forward progress, at least a little. You take up making breakfasts on your own, occasionally carrying plates into the bedroom with a big, previously unseen grin

Keigo returns the smile so big, his cheeks burn for hours.

You take to a few of the little crafts and things Keigo has been hoarding. Paper folding and little canvases with acrylic painting are your favorites. Sometimes, you paint your little strokes and press creases from the comfort of the couch. Other times, you make you place for the day at the kitchen island while Keigo makes his day-long meals.

There’s a rhythm to it that’s so good.

It’s progress, and seeing it visibly start to the fill the walls feels good for both of you. Your little canvases get hung around the cabin, little portraits of the stars and their mother, all for you and Keigo to admire. ;;

...

He gets the call exactly three weeks after the storm passes.

Keigo awakes before you to the shrill ring of his cell. It vibrates against the bedside table, loud enough to wake the both of you. You both startle out of sleep, squeezing each other.

He takes the call in the other room, after he sees the contact name.

[Suits] Calling...

He paces as he listens to her drone on.

There’s no greeting, no “hey, how does it feel to be a flightless fucking failure?”. It’s business. Just business. It’s always been like that with her, and the lot of suits that treated him like a fixture until he got particularly cracked and unsightly.

“So, you come into Tokyo, we’ll do a small event—”

“The event you’re describing really doesn’t sound small,” Keigo tilts his head and gives an angry smile to his own reflection in the mirror. “It sounds like a circus that I really have no interest in being a part of.”

“It’s for the people, Hawks—”

It makes him snap.

“Stop fucking calling me that.” He growls into the receiver, grip tight enough to hurt. “Stop calling me, stop asking me, I am not coming back.”

The woman is silent on the line for a beat, before spitting, “What if I didn’t give you a choice?”

His blood runs cold before burning in his veins. And he laughs.

“You think you could?” He only feels a little hysterical. “You don’t have any power, not over me, not over anyone else as far as I’ve seen, Madam President!”

“Hawks—”

Shut up, shut up, shut UP.

“The Commission is dead, the world is in chaos, and putting the corpse of a hero on the big screen isn’t going to convince anyone that this is all fixable,” Keigo chest gets tight, and he can’t tell if it’s from the uncomfortable laughter he’s spitting or the sobs that are locked in his chest.

“So, you’d rather turn your back on the people you swore to protect?” Suits speaks with no emotion, not an ounce of feeling. “Selfish.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish. The word echoes in his mind, worms its way down his throat and suffocates him.

“You’re really going to say that to me? Of all fucking people?” He feels his nails break skin where he’d been clenching his fist. “Me, selfish?”

“You left, didn’t you? Ran away?” The woman has the stones to fucking laugh. “Everyone’s lost something. You’re not special, and it doesn’t justify—”

“What the fuck are you getting out of this?” Keigo interrupts, burning, burning— “Did you call me to go to this little gala or did you call to dig into your perfect little hero? You told me I could be done. Should’ve known you were lying, you always lie—”

“You’re being childish.”

“Oh my GOD!” Keigo nearly screams and doesn’t notice how you’ve tip-toed from the bedroom. “Do you hear yourself?”

“I hear you screaming at me, the woman who practically raised you, like some petulant brat. Get a grip, Hawks.”

He snaps.

“STOP FUCKING CALLING ME THAT!” He screams into the phone, vision going white and scarlet. “I am not Hawks! Hawks is DEAD! Why can’t you understand that? There’s no fucking hero to attend your little ‘healing’ gala, there’s just me. ‘Childish’, ‘selfish’, and wingless, babe. That’s what I’ve got, and this is what I am.”

Suits takes an audible sigh, and Keigo can almost see how she’s shaking her head at him, “You’re being ridiculous, Hawks. Take at least a goddamn ounce of responsibility for your actions that helped cause all... this.”

Ah, there it is. The thing Hawks has so properly compartmentalized, tucked so far back in his psyche that it’s almost impossible to reach.

How much of the dissolution of... everything is on him?

Something in him snaps, and it slips through his own fingers.

“I’m not going and this, Madam President? This is for me.”

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

He hears her unspoken words echoing in his skull as he hangs up, slamming the phone on the countertop.

Something hotter than rage and more poisonous than pain fills his blood, and it makes him want to both wretch and break his fingers in the same breath. He slams a fist onto the phone, cracking it against the countertop. He can buy a new one—

“S-Sweetpea?”

Keigo freezes.

You’re at the mouth of the hallway, hardly out of the shadows, eyes wide and fearful. His chest somehow gets even tighter.

Normally, he would’ve rushed to comfort you, calmed himself down to console you for seeing his little outburst.

But he doesn’t that day.

He breaths ragged with his lips slowly curling, panic’s ugly cousin turning his spit acrid behind his teeth.

“Here, let’s go back to bed, okay? We can—” You take a few steps closer, hand outstretched and eyes beginning to light.

Oh, and Keigo’s hit by fucking envy, and it’s over.

“Don’t.”

You freeze, “Pretty eyes—”

“Don’t, just don’t.”

You don’t move as Keigo trudges to the door, throws on his thick parka and snow boots, pocketing his keys and grumbles to you that there’s leftovers in the fridge.

It’s shitty and selfish.

And he just doesn’t care.

He can’t make himself care as the door slams shut behind him, the sound echoing off the trees and so quickly dampened by the snow.

...

Keigo drives, white noise in his ear that echoes the wind in the treetops of the mountains he’s descending. He’s only half there as he leaves town.

It’s still too much.

...

You, on the other hand?

You’re frozen, stuck-still, as you watch Keigo climb into the car and drive off. Maybe your mouth has gone a bit agape, you aren’t aware of your body.

You panic.

There’s no other word for it, not that you were able to think of as you were untrenched in it.

There’s something thick and knotted that is rolling unraveling in your chest. The... thing is worse than a feeling and runs deeper and hotter than you can manage.

You tried to manage it.

While Keigo is god fucking knows where, you paced the house, always within eyeshot of a window. Hoping for a glimpse of his dark parka, or the tufts of his blonde sticking out in the snow, a return—

Fucking nothing.

He just left.

No return time, no destination, just a departure with no explanation. He’d obviously left the cabin before, you’d handled those times quite well, but he’d never stormed out. Never raised his voice and screamed and then just left.

Is he okay?

(You heard most of the call, at least his side of it. Is that awful Hero Commission he told you about calling him back? Or even worse, dragging him away.)

(He’d tell you, wouldn’t he?)

(Guess you’ll never know! Because he’s fucking gone.)

It made something seize in your chest, hot and awful as you walked your circuit, praying. Worry is damning.

How could he just... leave?

You need him back.

You alone without him.

Your thoughts rot you, despite the winter’s cold outside. The chill of the cabin seeps into your bones, coats them and leaves you sticky and downright paranoid. The lack of... presence (his presence) was driving you up a wall. The air is too still, the floors quiet and without the telltale old creaks of movement that you’ve become accustomed to, and the cabin is silent other than your breathing and rabbit’s heart.

Beneath the anger was a thick layer of fear.

You are alone.

The feeling rolled its way into you as the sun began to dip lower in the sky.

What if he never comes back?

Of course he is, you remind yourself, hurriedly, worrying the scary on your leg and picking at the core of it. He wouldn’t leave.

Why wouldn’t he?

The thought gets your poor little heart racing faster, air choking in your lungs. Your head whips to the window to see the empty, snowy driveway.

“I-I’m alone,” You break the silence of the house, the walls answering with their pensive quiet and the wind shaking the fresh snow from thin branches just outside.

All alone.

All fucked up and broken and fucking alone.

“He wouldn’t leave,” You start talking to yourself, threading a hand in your hair, gripping. “He cares, he wouldn’t just leave.”

He cared about being a hero too and he left everyone else.

What if things changed?

Insecurities, new ones and old ones, cloud your mind and vision and stuffed your lungs. The grip on your hair goes tighter.

All alone in the mountains.

All.

Alone.

It scares you more than anything, how much you need him.

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you tug at the roots of your hair. It hurts, but everything is starting to hurt very quickly, and a bit of hair pulling is child’s play to how it feels like your chest is being hollowed out.

You really have so little. It stuns you in the moment as you choke back a sob. The little house in the mountains, Keigo, and the starlight you still both enjoy— that’s fucking it. You’d never returned to your ‘apartment’, or rather the remnants of it. Any possessions you had were lost to destruction and unsalvageable. Your meager relationships and friendships had fallen away when you were bound to hospital for months.

He’s all you have.

“No, no, no,” You nearly trip in your pacing, dragging your feet as you accept your reality. “He can’t l-leave.”

The world responds with silence. The mountains are cold and lonely, just like you are. It’s cruel, it all hurts and after being in a daze so often, the reality of your situation hurts like a hot brand.

He’ll come back.

He cares.

You desperately try to convince yourself as you tug your parka on, throwing on your boots. You don’t bother to fasten or tie anything, you just stumble onto the deck blindly and scan the hill of the drive.

Not a single soul.

Something rotten curls up behind your teeth. Bile climbs the back of your throat and you have to swallow to keep from vomiting. Your chest is too tight, the world is too bright, and you’re terrified.

You’re not sure what to call the type of panic response you have; it doesn’t make any logical sense. Your heart runs in your chest, your breath is hot and tight, and you simply slip to the ground in the fresh snow.

And you wait.

...

Keigo drives until he’s nearly out of town, into some flatlands near the river that gurgles and churns nearby. The surrounding forest is the perfect place for a pensive walk.

It’s the best place for him to just get it out.

It had been a long time since Keigo had just talked to himself. Audibly sorts himself as he walks along the bank of the almost-frozen river. He doesn’t keep his voice quiet, no, its full volume complaining. It’s anger that’s bundled up in his chest that’s finally being lit and the smoke of it nearly chokes him out.

It’s not fair.

He does feel a bit childish, thinking about it like that. But hadn’t he done enough? Hadn’t they told him that he’d done enough? He lost it all and was just starting to the plant the seeds for a new life to sprout. Couldn’t he just have that? He’s not the shiny thing he used to be he’s fucking worthless. And that’s fine. He’s made peace with it and can find worth outside of saving people.

He’s capable. Adaptable. And he’s doing it all at his trademark speed.

But the thing that makes his gut twist is facing everything he (ran away from) left behind. The only short statement he’d given after Dabi’s video was nearly as viral as the actual video of him killing Jin (don’t think about it, don’t think about it—)

He’s not sure what possesses him to pull out his phone and pull up the video. It’s not hard to find.

It hurts to watch, but he does it anyway. Fucking masochist.

He’s standing beside Enji and Tsunagu, all of them in hastily tailored suits. They all had their visible injuries. Scars and brands that had just been carved and burned into skin. They look haggard, they look beaten.

Because they were.

Keigo watches as he adjusts his microphone in the video and gives his statement. Stupidly simple and vague, all at the same time.

“The villain Dabi did not lie. I am the son of Takami, and I killed Twice of the League of Villains. It was all necessary. Please accept my apology for the upset I have caused.”

His voice doesn’t even sound like him. It’s manufactured and broken. He remembers how the smoke had charred his throat and lungs for the first few days, before he was transferred from Central to the big facility in the tall-tree-ed forest.

He bows on the video and Enji begins his statement. Something solemn about the suffering he’s caused his family, how he wants to atone and how he is atoning. The public was too angry to listen and is too angry to listen. And the world Keigo ran from is the result.

He lets himself cry.

Finally.

His shoulders shake as he hunches over himself. The tears slip down his chilled cheeks and make little divots where they fall into the snow beneath him. His little gasps turn into sobs, the kind that hurt your chest and give you a headache that lasts for days.

He repeats a little mantra between scratchy breaths—

“I’m still good.”

He falls against the thick bark of a tree and slides down to the ground.

He let’s go.

It’s good for him, cleansing. Maybe it’s the rushing of the nearby river or the snow he's buried his hands in, but with each ragged breath he can feel some of that filth that’s clinging to him fall away. Not all of it, not by a long shot.

But feeling the worst is the first step to feeling your best.

So, when Keigo’s ready, he stands and moves forward. Trudges onward, albeit a bit slower.

...

Keigo returns home just as the sky begins to change from red to indigo with the night. It paints the pines and evergreens an eerie, dark color, shadows long and deep against the fluffy snow.

His gut twists in knots as he gets closer to home.

He’s tired. Exhausted. His eyes are still puffy from his tears, sore and aching. His body still feels tight, tense in his shoulders and arms as he grips the steering wheel. He needs rest. A good cup of tea and maybe a beer later.

And you.

As weak as Keigo feels, he knows he fucked up... just a bit.

It wasn’t fair to storm out. He isn’t dumb. All the same, if he stayed with you in the cabin, he probably would’ve said something he regretted. Or locked himself in the bedroom all day. It wouldn’t have been good or fair for you or him.

(Coward.)

Probably, but he was also burned alive fairly recently, so he had to give himself a bit of credit.

As he nears, his stomach drops.

You’re on the porch. You sit on the steps, parka pooling around your waist as your head rests on your knees.

Something’s not right.

Some of his old, honed senses trill to life, seeing you. Something in his gut twists, the muscles in his back tense, the old ones that controlled his wings.

You must be cold.

Keigo leaves the car and slaps on a smile, “Waiting for me, starshine?”

You twitch, curling over your body harder.

Something is very wrong—

He calls your name, your actual name, and you hardly stir. You all but twitch from where you sit, head tilting up just the slightest bit. It’s not enough to ease any of the worry pulling his old muscles, if anything, it makes it worse.

He falls to his knees in front of you, ignoring the crack his bones make.

“How long have you been out here?” Too long, he knows the answer, but he still has to ask.

“... A while,” You murmur, barely audible. “You’re back.”

“I am,“ Keigo pushes you up by your shoulders, scanning your face as more fear curls in his gut.

Your eyes are glassy and unfocused.

“We need to get you inside, now,” He isn’t sure if he sounds scared or angry (probably both), and he can’t make himself care.

You’re freezing.

Too cold, way too cold.

Keigo had to take plenty of survival courses during his training with the Commission and he had learned plenty about hypothermia. His avian anatomy made him more susceptible to the cold and knowing the symptoms for himself kept him from turning into a bird-adjacent popsicle more than once. He’d rescued his handful of civilians—

(Don’t think about being a hero right now or you’re gonna start crying again.)

You’re not some civilian, you’re you and you’re in front of him with darkened lips and dull eyes and full panic breaks his ribs.

...

You remember how pretty red the sky was.

You like sunsets.

You should see if Keigo wants to watch the sunset sometime.

Keigo’s gone.

You could drive—

Keigo drove away. You’re alone.

You aren’t sure how long you sat in the chill, but it was comforting despite how your fingers and toes began to ache. Outside, there were plenty of sounds and sights to keep you company. The wind whistled through trees, and the sky echoed a few, far-off sounds from distant civilization.

It was nice. Peaceful, at the very least.

...

“Inside, you need to be inside,” Keigo sputters, pulling you up under your arms. Your feet drag for a moment before going flat, and you sway in his arms.

Getting you inside makes his body ache in new ways, your weight mostly on his side. Old pains crawled to the surface as he dragged you to the couch, setting you down on the cushion and assessing you better.

His hands run over your body, over curves and divots he knew and loved and the chill of you filled him with dread.

“Your pants are wet from the snow,” Keigo swallows, rising. “I’m going to grab you dry clothes.”

As soon as he tries to move away, you catch his wrist in a weak grip.

And finally, half-lucidly, you regard him with terror in your eyes.

“You l-left,” You spit, lips curling over your teeth. “You left, Keigo.”

You use his real name and he really wants to die a little.

Sure, Suits used it on the phone with him and it made him see blood fucking red, but it’s you, and you saying the name he never really had, for the first time, so fucking angrily makes part of his secretly fragile heart break.

He freezes, breathing hard through his nose as he looks down at you.

“I’m sorry,” He says softly. “Let me get you warm, then we can talk, okay?”

You don’t look convinced, tightening your grip on his wrist and pulling him closer.

Keigo gives in, so, so easily, dropping to his knees and pulling your icy hands into his. He rubs warmth into them, bringing them to his lips and breathing hot over your knuckles.

“Please, starshine. Let me get you warm.”

“I’m already warm,” Your voice slurs, entirely unconvincing.

“I say this very lovingly,” He says, somehow cracking a smile, “but you’re genuinely hypothermic. You can be as mad at me as you want, but you need to get warmed up.”

You chew your lip, cupping his cheeks with your freezing palms, “... You’re not leaving?”

Your voice drawls and Keigo makes a note to turn up the thermostat.

“No, god, no, I’m not,” He tries to assure you, shaking his head, but your grip only gets harsher. He placates you with a squeeze to your knee. “Please let me help.”

He can’t tell you how much he needs to. How hyper aware he is of your chill and of his own thumping heart. That protective urge in his chest wants to just pull you to his chest and wrap you up in him, in his heat, but that’s for later.

Your eyes' gaze goes softer, little specks of light bouncing between your irises. The room fills with blessed, familiar heat and Keigo can feel his shoulders slacken and some of the worry in his chest dissipate.

...

He returns with some of his own soft joggers, fleece-lined and well-loved. He grabbed a few layers, and an armful of blankets and pillows. Anything he could carry gets brought as his little, avian mind craves something he suppressed for years so well.

Nest, nest, nest.

Heat them first, then nest.

He helps you slip into your new, dry clothes as your teeth begin to chatter. Thank fucking god. Keigo is smart enough to check your toes as he slips onto fuzzy, thermal socks, and they all look to be healthy and functioning.

You’re quiet during the whole ordeal, save for soft breathing and snapping teeth. You occasionally grab his hand and hold it to whatever part of your skin was bared, mumbling something about how warm he is.

Keigo eventually gets you settled and surrounded by blankets and pillows which you sink into, eyes hardly open. Only then does he feel like he can pull away enough to start the nearby fire.

It feels somewhat unnecessary, given you’re still heating the room. It’s probably somewhat for the atmosphere, considering the sky is nearly fully black. A bit of crackling flame and light would do you both good.

(He rarely lights fire, but considering the flame is a kind red and not a fucking disgusting blue, he can bear it. Especially now.)

When the fire is stoked, he turns back to you and deflates.

“I’m sorry,” You say, all soft and half-lidded from the blankets. “That was... dumb.”

“It was.”

Keigo can’t fight you on the obvious.

There’s a goddamn list of questions he wants to ask you. ‘Why’s and ‘what’s, but he has a pretty good idea of why you were sitting outside and what you were thinking.

He’s not sure you’d want to talk about it anyway.

The couch creaks when he sits down a few feet from your little nest, running a tired hand over his face.

“... You know, this couch folds out,” You shift a little, slow and lethargic. Still cold. “We should sleep out here tonight.”

He turns to regards you, and it takes everything in him not to fucking break.

“Why?” His voice shakes and he knows you can tell.

You hum, leaning toward him, “Change of scenery. I think we could both use it.”

“Later.” Keigo agrees. The urge to wrap you up in his (wings) arms feels unbearable, the little avian tickings in his skull loud and needy. “Warm first. Futon later.”

You huff weakly, but lift the blankets to let Keigo slip behind you. His body curls around yours, finding the coldest parts of you and tending to them first. His hands clasp over yours and your feet get tucked between his calves.

“Thanks,” You murmur, neutral and vacant.

Keigo doesn’t push you.

Instead, you stay tucked in his arms, still shivering, but significantly less cold. Your lips and cheeks look a far healthier color and they’re warm to the touch. He traces his fingertips over the curves of your face and neck, preening in the only way he can muster up.

You eventually break the silence, when the fire is all but embers.

“I heard some of that call…” Your voice trails off. “It sounded bad.”

“It was,” Keigo agrees with a little nod. He really doesn’t want to think about Suits and, you know, the rest of the world, but it feels necessary. “Very bad.”

“Who was it?”

“Old boss.”

“… And?”

Keigo sighs, squeezing you probably a little too tightly, “Why don’t we focus on warming you up from your hypothermic excursion and not my shitty life as a shitty hero—”

“You weren’t a shitty hero, Keigo,” He can hear the mourning in your voice and it makes him want to die, just a little. You cup his cheeks, eyes sad and soft around the edges. “You were a really good one.”

“Was I? News to me.” He laughs, the bitter sound tasting like bile. He hates it, the feel of it mixed with the heat and softness of you. It feels wrong. “I don’t want to talk about all that, starshine. Please just drop it.”

Your face hardens.

“No.”

“… No?”

“No, I’m not done,” You sigh, big and hard. “I think we’re more fucked up than we talk about, Keigo.”

He winces, but you keep going, and he doesn’t move to stop you.

“Probably.”

Your jaw sets like stone on stone. It makes him internally wince as your hands go to cup his cheeks.

“I’m fucked up, you’re fucked up, everything is fucked up. We can ignore it up here, quietly, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

Yes.

“Yeah.” He feels his gut roll, but he doesn’t stop you. His grip goes tighter on your hips. “You’re not wrong.”

“Can we just… Acknowledge it? Please.” You ask, beg, softly as you rub his cheeks with your thumbs. “Please, Keigo.”

He doesn’t know what to do at first. He really wants to lock up. Shut down. Lock all the nasty feelings in chest, behind his heart, so they can burrow into his spine and keep him moving forward.

He wraps his hands around your wrists.

Your eyes look glassy, tears sticking in your bottom eyelashes, but not daring to fall. Not yet.

“Keigo, I’m fucked up, I know that, and that’s okay,” You deflate a little. “I’m getting better. We’re getting better. I know we are.”

“We a-are.”

Keigo’s voice cracks, hoarse in his throat and tight as the uniform belt he used to wear. His lungs feel hot, too stuffed even as he tries to swallow the heat that’s welling up on the very back of his tongue.

“You are good, Keigo, I promise,” You lean in to give his forehead the lightest kiss and Keigo feels part of himself die in the best way. “Please, let’s just talk.”

And so, he does.

…

He tells you about Jin first.

You’d heard about him, the villain Hawks killed during the War. Published for the world to see, over and over, forever. The video was one you’d only seen once, during your early days at the hospital, but you could recall the footage on your grainy hospital television.

Your pretty eyes, pretty Keigo, cut him down. One of his old feathers, hardened into a stiff blade, struck Jin across the chest, arcing up to his neck and slicing a few important arteries and veins. It was an imperfect job, one that probably made his death more painful and prolonged than it needed to be.

You don’t let go of Keigo’s cheeks as he tells you the story. You can’t, you’re too busy thumbing away the little tears that roll down his cheeks.

He speaks between sobs that break from his chest. Underused and much-needed.

“He was good, starshine,” Keigo curls in a little on himself, but you keep him mostly upright. “I had to, y-you know? I didn’t have a choice, if I didn’t—"

How many more people would be dead?

His body convulsed, the little tears turning fat as he collapsed into your chest and buried himself in you. Like he was hiding, and god, did you let him.

You hushed him, soothed him with little kisses, and listened.

“And then Dabi—”

You hate him, obviously. You only know his name and visage, and you hate him so much it hurts. Part of you wants to rub at his scars like he lets you, but you decide against it in Keigo’s fragility.

He tells you of the blue flames, how the boot felt against his back, how his throat burned for weeks from the heat and smoke. His grip on you goes so tight, you’re afraid he’s going to tear your shirt to shreds.

“He took them, starshine,” Keigo’s voice muffled into your shoulder, the sound of it rattling you. “He t-took them!”

And he slumps against you, well and truly, and can’t muster up another word. All you could do is hold him, rocking him from your little, shared spot on the couch and whisper to him little comforts. You’re crying a little too, breath tight and hazy as you let Keigo shatter in your arms.

He’s not ready to talk about his wings and that’s okay. More than okay.

So, you soothe him. He soothes you right back, rubbing at your sides, hips, thighs— whatever he can reach and touch and claim. You’re good, you’re the closest he’s going to get to permeance and he’ll be damned to let you go when you feel so good and he feels so fucking awful.

You fall back onto the chest, pulling Keigo with you so he can lay atop you. His ear presses to your chest, heart thumping in his ear while you lock your arms around him. Caged in and held, with the lightest pressure on the thick skin of his scars.

“I’ll never truly get it, I can’t,” You admit, quietly as you smooth back some of his tear-matted hair. “But I want to be here. I want to listen when you’re want to talk. Need to talk. You can dash off on your own, Keigo, that’s okay. Just know that I’ve got you to, okay?”

Keigo sniffled, peering up at you with wide eyes, “Are you sure you can handle it?”

“I am now, aren’t I? Just a few hours out from nearly being a popsicle,” You hum and joke, glowing from the inside out when Keigo graces you with a little smile.

It takes a few more moments for him to cover, haul himself up to the crook of your neck and breathing hard and deep for a while. Like he’s trying to absorb you through scent alone.

“… Are you okay?” Keigo asks, squeezing you so tight it hurts. (And you want more of it.) “You’re not as cold anymore.”

“I’m feeling okay,” You paw at your face a bit, rubbing your cheeks like they’re still numb and not flushed with blood and sticky with drying tears. “I just freaked out a little.”

“… Because I left?”

You nod, chewing your lips.

“I don’t want to be alone, Keigo,” You whisper it, though he already knows your admission. “I’m terrified of you leaving.”

“When I left,” Keigo rises to meet your gaze, gooey and cobbled. “Did you think I wouldn’t come back?”

“… Maybe,” You shake your head, refusing to look at him. “You didn’t say anything about coming back, just about… leftovers.”

You both frown.

“I panicked.” You shake your heard.

“… That’s what happens when you panic?”

“I guess?” Your mouth feels too dry. “I don’t know. I got scared. I panicked. What else was I supposed to do?”

There’s an obvious answer or two, but it’s unspoken.

“I’m not leaving,” Keigo rubs at your cheeks. “You’re gonna have to try pretty hard to get me gone, starshine. I love you too much to go easily.”

It’s a declaration, a strong one, and god does it feel fucking good to hear.

“… Promise?” You ask him as his palms cup your cheeks and jaw.

“Promise.”

“I heard on the call—”

Keigo interrupts you with a kiss, hard and long that steals your breath and makes your head spin.

“Promise.” Keigo breaths, pretty eyes meeting your heat-filled ones. “Everywhere, all the time, forever. I promise, I’m not going anywhere.”

It’s a start, even if that insecurity is so deeply rooted. The adoration in his eyes, and the sweetness of his touch tempers it all. It’s there still, just like how there’s so much unspoken that needs to be sorted, chewed on, and digested.

But now?

The embers in the hearth need another log or two. The futon needs to be folded out and I’d be best if you shared a cup or two of tea. Preferably something with lavender that’ll scent the cabin with the smells of spring and herbs.

Now, you’re both more than enough.

…

thank you for reading!!💞keep an eye out for part 3! 👀

ko-fi

#salem writes #hawk x reader #hawks #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #mha x reader #my hero academia #anyways ouch <3 #kiss it better keigo #enjoy this big boy heheh #kith kith :'^)

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neopuppy · 3 years

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Preview-

Hot Sauce (M): Deeply Dip That

Hot Sauce: Intro—>

Hot Sauce: Part 1–>

Hot Sauce: Part 2–>

Hot Sauce: Part 3–>

Hot Sauce: Part 4–>

a/n: To thank you for 2000 followers(little under 100 away atm), this happened so fast and I never expected more than a few 100 followers. I’m very appreciative for all your messages and support! I’ve decided on one last Hot Sauce installment to celebrate🥳 The fivesome that was requested more than a few times, hopefully will wrap this up nicely for you all😮‍💨(not that I do requests but..)

This will be a lengthy one shot- and filthy. Reader be mindful, always read to your level of comfort💙

please do not ask when I will post- if you would like to be tagged just lmk!☺️

There is also this.

“Why’s he always gotta be such a dick? What does he want? He won’t fuck any of the girls we bring back. Now he’s pissed we got his sister here..” Haechan scoffs. Hands busy behind the little bar set up by the pool mixing a drink. Renjun sighs, leaning in on his elbow.

“Step sister, when you just say sister it’s kind of weird. After what we all had to watch..” he rubs his sweaty nape with a smirk. Other hand snapping at Haechan for a beer.

“Don’t act like you didn’t like it. You came faster than all of us.” Haechan lets out an appeased laugh. Pouring golden bubbly liquid into a red cup. Under his breath, he whispers quietly “wonder why.”

“Fuck you dude, talk about Jeno being a dick.” Renjun snatches the cup out of Haechan’s hands, sniffing the contents cautiously. All too familiar with his stupid pranks by now.

“Renjun.. hear me out.. if he’s not gonna fuck her..” Haechan’s brows lift suggestively. Eyes darting back and forth between where you stand. Tension evident in your body language as irritation overcomes you the longer Jeno ignores your presence. “Been awhile since me and you shared right?..”

“Haechan, he almost killed us once already. You really want to risk that chance again for some pussy?” Renjun leans back, contemplation passing his eyes none the less.

“You know it wasn’t just some pussy. Love me a good freaky bitch.” Haechan’s grin grows. Sipping alcohol through a straw, having started early today. Slight buzz reaching his head already. Maybe with a clearer state of mind he wouldn’t dare test Jeno again- yea right.

“We’ve been 6 feet deep in ass since we got here. You just love to piss him off dude.” Renjun stands up from the bar stool, hands smoothing down his t-shirt. “I’m not completely opposed to the idea though..”

“You act like Jeno doesn’t deserve it. Look at him seething away over there like some big baby. He needs to learn his lesson already, just cause he’s hot and has chiseled abs doesn’t mean he should always get what he wants.” Haechan says shooting a lazy glare Jeno’s way.

“You have to stop watching those enemies to lovers movies. You’re one more hour of Jeno walking around shirtless away from proclaiming your undying love.” Renjun responds with a disgusted tone. Tossing back the rest of his drink. Combination of summer heat and alcohol causing sweat to pool in the crevices of his body.

“Whatever..” Haechan laughs to himself, finishing the rest of his drink off. With a spin, he grabs two cans of beer making his way out from behind the bar. “You in or what?”

Renjun sports a hesitant smile, eyes bouncing between you and Jeno. He should know better by now than to let Haechan talk him into these messes. Against his moral judgment, he nods, smile spreading wider into his cheeks. “If we get caught, I’m blaming it all on you.”

“We’re not gonna get caught. Jeno’s too busy pretending she doesn’t exists.” With a roll of his shoulders, and an elbow nudged into Renjun’s side they make their way over to you. “Act cool. Don’t make it obvious.”

Renjun scoffs, stepping ahead of Haechan. If anyone knew how to be inconspicuous out of the four of them, it’s him.

“Why are you standing here all alone? Are we not friends now?” He steps into your space under the roofs ledge where you’re trying to catch shade. Pulling a can of beer from Haechan’s clutches, earning a scoff. “We got that sugar free kind, girly spritzer stuff? You thirsty?”

“First off- ew, we are not friends. Second off- why would you idiots invite me to this party?” You spit out, snatching the can from his hands. Haechan’s expression turning amused over Renjun’s shoulder muttering- “Should have let me handle this one.”

“God she’s just like Jeno..” Renjun tucks his chin into his shoulder whispering to Haechan. Face turning back to you quickly with a kind smile. “Let’s be friend then? You’re here right? We all know each other well.”

“You know fucking doesn’t equate to friendship right?” Your tone laced in annoyance. Hand swatting at mosquitos circling around you. Haechan’s eyes light up, the bulb in his mind sparking to life.

“Bug spray!” He shouts out, a little too enthusiastically. “We have bug spray inside.. come on let’s get you some before you turn into a mosquito feast.”

Renjun looks at him with confusion. Haechan motioning for you both to step inside the house. Majority of the party goers outside by the pool- a pool party after all. He throws Renjun a look indicating ‘I got this’, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Jeno doesn’t spot the three of you. You make your way inside, Haechan placing a hand on your lower back.

“Still can’t believe Jeno ruined your summer plans over something so petty..” Haechan mumbles, throwing another knowing look at Renjun behind your back. You take in the gorgeous beach house, anger building up inside of you the more you think about it. Unable to stop yourself from picturing all the surfaces Jeno could have been fucking you into mindlessness on.

“He’s so immature.” You sigh, slumping against Haechan’s hand. Renjun nods in return, wrapping himself around your arm.

“You have no idea. He’s just lucky we all agreed to help him pay this off.” Renjun bites back his smile. Leading you down the hall toward their bedrooms.

“I know you guys are like besties, but Jeno’s just..” your hands shoot up, groaning in frustration. “Why would he even bother to rent this place out for us. It’s not like I wanted to go out with that Mark guy!”

“Oh I know..” Haechan pauses, turning you to face him. “He told us all about it.” He tsks, head shaking.

“He can be such an asshole right?” Renjun strokes your arm up and down, free hand brushing hair off your shoulder. You slump into his pets, soft warm hands sweeping up and down your bare skin.

“You need to get back at him, give him a taste of his own medicine.” Haechan’s tone deepens. Hands finding their way to your hips. “Let us help you.”

“Help me?” Your eyes widen, Haechan’s lust filled gaze pulling you in. This can’t happen again, or can it..

“Jeno abandoned you for weeks to come fuck around out here with us. He doesn’t deserve anything from you.” Renjun leans into your ear with a hushed tone. Fingers finding the tie on your bikini bottom, toying with the strings.

“I think it’s only the right thing to do..” Haechan slides a hand down your fluttering bare stomach. Fingers reaching for strings on the other side of you. His mouth falls open comically, pulling the tied knot free.

“Wait..” you look around the hallway with slight panic. Thighs squeezing together, clenching the fabric of your bottoms between you. “Here? Isn’t this..”

“What? You’re shy all of a sudden?” Renjun bites your earlobe, tugging free the other knot. Bikini bottoms betraying you as they fall to your feet. Eyes drifting down, toes kicking the cloth aside. Stomach heating up, fiery heat coiling around inside of you.

“I’m not.. I just.. what if he..” Swallowing, head tilting as Renjun’s tongue slides down your neck. Soft lips leaving hot pecks on your burning skin.

“What if he what?” Haechan clasps your chin, eyes blazing with intent. “Jeno deserves this..” fingers drag down your neck, between your chest. Lips pulling back, sucking air through teeth. “You deserve this.”

A whimper passes between your lips, legs trembling holding you up. Haechan’s head tilted down, hand slowly stroking between your abdomen. Eyes look up, half lidded and menacing. Fingers sliding in-between your squeezed thighs, tapping at your clit.

“Don’t you?” The questions dangerous, almost threatening. Biting down on your lip as Renjun’s teeth dig into your neck, humming in agreement. His fingers running along the dip in your back. Giving in you nod rapidly, cocky smirk on Haechan’s lips spreading.

“That’s right. Nasty little whores like you love getting fucked where anyone can watch.” Haechan’s grin grows. Fingers gliding between your folds. “As expected, dripping wet.”

“Let me” Renjun steps in front of you, lips pouted with a sheen of spit. Lust hazy filled eyes racking across your body. He swiftly falls to his knees, arms wrapping around your thighs.

“I got you” Haechan steps behind you, arms wrapping around your waist. “He loves to eat.”

Renjun’s face dips down, nose shoving between your shaking thighs. One of Haechan’s hands squeezes your hip, landing a smack loud enough to echo against the walls.

“Stop acting shy, that pussy’s hotter than my ps4” lips drag across your nape. Teeth skimming down skin, tongue lapping at your shoulder. Hips jolting forward Renjun’s nose pressing against the hood of your clit.

Sandwiched between their bodies has your temperature rising quickly. Haechan pressing flat against your backside. Licking the top of your back, tongue languidly dragging up and down your spine. Renjun pulls your thigh forward onto his shoulder, you tense up reluctant to relax your body weight against him.

Haechan slaps your hip again, firm hand landing on your ass after. “Stop acting innocent, where’s that whore that begged for cock in front of all of us huh?” He hisses against your ear, hips thrusting forward against your lower half with emphasis.

Pathetic whimpers fall from your lips, body slumping as you release control, giving in. Renjun’s eyes shine bright below you, cheeks bunched up with eagerness. His jaw stretching open, mouth enveloping your mound. Hot tongue forcing between your wet folds. Loud sounds of wetness burning at the tips of your ears.

“That’s more like it, dirty slut” Haechan lets out a laugh, teeth digging into the crevice of your neck. “You gonna let me fuck this ass?” Fingers reach between you, tips circling around your clenching up hole. Gasping in surprise, instinctively rolling forward against Renjun’s mouth.

“Fuck..” your eyes squeeze shut, biting down a moan. Tongue finding it’s way to your entrance, moans shivering up your core.

“Ride his tongue baby, he loves that shit” Haechan slaps your ass again. Finger prodding at your backside. Mouth marking up your neck with endless licks, sucking and biting over every expanse of flesh. Haechan thrusts forward, Renjun’s tongue gliding inside with a firm wiggle. He doesn’t stop thrusting, finger running up and down between your cheeks. Face growing hotter as you speed up, neck dropping back against Haechan’s shoulder.

“Feel good? Come on, tell him how it feels.” He hisses meanly into the back of your ear, teeth nibbling.

“Yes! Oh fuck, yes yes” eyes dropping open, the ceiling spinning above succumbing to the pleasure. Renjun knows what he’s doing, hands squeezing around your thighs. Tongue relentlessly working away inside of you. The combination from Haechan’s torment and Renjun’s stimulation too much. Haechans fingers not giving your ass a break, hole fluttering against him with each pass.

“Dirty slut..” he mutters, reaching around you. Hand sliding down your stomach. Your eyes follow the motions, head dropping forward. Eyes locked on Renjun’s squinted crazed look. Practically fucking down on his mouth. His head moving up and down with each thrust of his tongue inside.

“I’m..o-oh..oh fuck…stop stop!” You squeal out. Still too aware of your surroundings trying to control your vocals. Haechan smirks behind you, hand swiping down. Thumb teasing at your clit.

“Gonna cum?” He presses down on your clit harshly. Roughly circling it, working you from both ends. Your head shakes, waist curling forward in his hold.

“No! I’m… I’m gonna..oh f-fuckk” your face contorting tightly. You grind down on Renjun’s tongue, legs shaking around him. Body jumping forward, squirting out past his tongue. He groans beneath you, eyes falling shut in ecstasy. Continuing to work away, licking all over your drenched folds. Heavy sounds of slurping mixing in with your panted drawn out moans.

Foot steps sound around as they reach closer, stepping into the hallway. Bottoms of feet pattering down on the wooden floor approaching. Moans and a tongue swirling in your ear much louder. Distracting you from hearing any warning. A displeased huff of shock paired with a deep voice breaking your thoughts— “Are you two fucking serious right now?”

ps- they are so going to get caught🤓

pps- 💙love you all💙