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kyriethesquishysquid · 8 months

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Betrayal Never Felt So Good (König/Fem!Reader) Chapter 1

You can find Chapter 2 here, Chapter 3 here, Chapter 4 here, Chapter 5 here, and Chapter 6 here!

Summary: The reader is a military nurse currently employed by Shadow Company. She was sent out with a small team into the middle of nowhere to gain intel on the enemy, her presence only a precaution as it should have been an easy in-and-out mission. Unfortunately for the Shadow team, KorTac had also been working on a lead in the same area. One thing led to another and the reader was forced to watch as her team was slaughtered mercilessly. Rather than kill her as well, she was taken back as a hostage and kept captive by the group's colonel, König.

Word Count: ~8.5K

Rating: Mature (For Smut)

A/N: To preface this story - I’ve never played the storyline of any COD games, nor do I know a damn thing about the military, much less special forces, so there will be inaccuracies galore, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless! My take on König is somewhere between the headcanons of him being a ruthless psycho and a shy bean. Also, don’t come at me with complaints of this not being realistic, please. This is fanfic, loves. It doesn’t have to be realistic. Plus, if I was the one captured by this tree of a man and he was interested? Morals and reality be damned. I’m hopping on that train lmfao. Also, I wrote this entire thing in less than 24 hours and was too eager to post it to do a bunch of editing, so please excuse any errors!

Important Details: Occasional use of Y/N. Reader appearance is left vague but is described in little details such as being short (no exact height used), chubby, and with hair at least long enough to be pulled back. This story is essentially porn with plot, so literally over half of this is smut.

TW: Body shaming, violence, and attempted assault from random asshole #1. A few insecurities surrounding weight by the reader. Canon violence toward others by König. Super fast burn, unprotected sex, oral, fingering, Dom/Sub, multiple orgasms, squirting, creampie, suggested Stockholm syndrome (but really reader is just a touch-starved, thirsty bitch for Gentle!Giant König), pet names (in English and German), bad German translations bc I’m a lame monolingual American, no beta we die like the jackass Graves. Crappy Translations:

Ich werde dich mit deinen eigenen Eingeweiden füttern, bevor du diesen Satz beenden kannst! - I will feed you your own intestines before you can finish that sentence!

Maus- Mouse

Süßes mädchen - Sweet girl

Heilige Scheiße/Scheiße - Holy shit/shit

Mein schatz - My darling

Mein Gott - My god

Kleines - Little one

Verdammt, sieh dich an, kleine Maus - Damn, look at you, little mouse.

Oh, du kleine Füchsin! - Oh, you little vixen!

It was probably stupid. Scratch that, you knew it was stupid, but you couldn’t help but enjoy the company of the large Austrian man before you. Despite being the one to kidnap you and keep you tied up in this basement-like room for almost a full day now, the conversation had been flowing between you two like you were good friends. Maybe it was the gentle way he was treating you. Maybe it was the fact he’d kept his promises to you thus far. No matter the reason, you knew it was dangerous, this trust growing between you and him, but you were going to lean into it nonetheless.

“Hey, uh, I- I promise I’m not complaining but… why haven’t you, ya know, hurt me yet?” you asked softly.

König let out a heavy sigh, his mask fluttering around his face temptingly before he dropped back into his chair. It was hard to see his eyes from across the room but you were certain he was staring at you nonetheless. His gaze was heavy anytime it was on you, palpable in a way that made goosebumps crawl over your skin.

“You’ve given me no reason to,” he replied after a moment, “And, in all honesty, you weren’t our original target. In fact, it should have been anyone but you.”

You almost asked why, but he was quick to continue his explanation as if he hadn’t even stopped.

“You’re a nurse, ja? A nurse who does not see combat often, according to the intel we’ve been able to gather about your team, and that means you have little to no information we need.”

A warmth crept up your neck as he casually talked about you as if you were nothing of import, essentially a useless captive. It made your heart sting in an odd way.

“Ah… I see,” you hummed quietly.

“So now, we wait until your squadmates come in for the rescue, and then we get what we need from them.”

You managed a little nod but it stopped short when an embarrassingly loud rumble emanated from your stomach. Eyes widening, you nervously glanced his way to see if he’d caught it, only to find him getting to his feet.

“My apologies. You’ve been here quite some time with nothing but water. Let me go grab something for you.”

Before you could argue, he was out in the hallway, instructing one of the guards to step inside and keep an eye on you until he returned. The instant the young brunette stepped into the room, something felt off. Why? You weren’t sure. Maybe it’s just because you’d grown used to the “comfort” of your kidnapper. More than likely though, it was the way he was staring at you.

As you were stewing in your thoughts, trying to figure out your emotions, the man crossed the room and stopped at your feet with a laugh.

“So, you’re the broad the colonel’s been hiding? Interesting.”

The man’s words were spit with pure vile and reeked of danger. You instinctively leaned away when he reached out for your face and the disobedience was quickly rewarded with a hefty smack, tearing a cry of shock from your lips. While the sting was painful, it was nothing worse than you’d experienced before. Unfortunately, you knew he wasn’t going to stop there, the leer in his eyes enough to make your stomach uneasy as he stalked in circles around you like a predator to its prey.

“A little round for my taste, but I can see it. The colonel must have a thing for soft and small. Probably because he’s a fucking mountain. Opposites attract and all that jazz,” he snickered, “Too bad the bastard is too scared to just take what he wants. But don’t worry sweetheart, I’m not a little bitch like him.”

Hearing him talk about König in such a way did weird things to your body. Anger began to rear its head. What kind of person talked about their commanding officer that way? You may not have been a full-blown soldier in the practical sense but you could never imagine speaking filth like that about your superiors.

“Just because you lack the self-control to be a decent human like him doesn’t mean everyone does,” you bit out through a glare, “I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last human on earth.”

He paused, eyebrows flying up in surprise, and, for one silly little moment, you’d thought you’d gotten through to him. Then reality struck hard with his fist across your face. A scream escaped your lips as the pain finally registered through the shock, your cheek aching to the heavens.

“Now, see, you just had to go and be a smart ass. And here König talked about how compliant you were. Don’t tell me you got a hardon for the colonel, sweetheart,” he touted with a cackle, “And, for your information, it wasn’t a request. Either you can suck it up and make this easy, or I’ll take what I want either way.”

Before he could do anything more, you tilted your head back and screamed, long and loud, for König. Of course that wasn’t allowed for very long. His second punch cut you off instantly, causing your vision to swim as you cried out again. You could hear him mutter something under his breath and you brought your eyes up only to find him drawing his fist back once more.

“Fuck!”

You braced for impact, tears slipping down your cheeks through your clenched eyes, but the sound of a door crashing open interrupted his assault. The sound of a solid thud and a scream of pain tore your attention to the sudden group piling into the room, then more specifically to your captor-turned-savior pinning your assailant to the floor by one knee on the smaller man’s back, his arms wrenched behind him in a way that looked horrifying. He was snarling words in a mixture of German and English but you weren’t able to make out a single thing as you watched on in awe while he slammed the man’s face repeatedly into the concrete floor.

“You are lucky I don’t kill you now!” König thundered, voice echoing through the room.

“I- I’m sorry, I-”

“Nein! Ich werde dich mit deinen eigenen Eingeweiden füttern, bevor du diesen Satz beenden kannst!”

Shivers crawled up your spine at the ruthless aggression in König’s voice. It was new, unexpected, and you were suddenly even more grateful not to have been on the receiving end of his anger.

“Take him to his room and see to it that he does not leave. I will deal with him later,” König hissed, shoving the now bruised and bloody soldier toward the two at the door.

“Yes, colonel, right away, sir.”

The moment the door closed, he deflated, shoulders slumping as he pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something under his breath. You watched carefully as he closed the gap between the two of you.

“I’m sorry, maus, are you hurt?”

And instantly, it was like that war-hardened soldier had never existed, replaced once again by the gentleman you’d spent the last few hours with. You shook your head slightly and watched him kneel before you. A little smile twitched up the corners of your lips in amusement as you realized he was still taller on his knees than you were sitting in the chair.

“Nothing that I can’t handle anyway,” you replied quietly, voice trailing off as his hands cupped your face gently.

His touch was tender in ways you hadn’t expected as he shifted your head around, taking in the damage with a sigh. Thankfully, other than a sore and swollen cheek, that asshole hadn’t gotten the chance to do anything more before König had returned.

“Thank you.”

The giant before you froze, looking as surprised as you felt. Had you really just thanked your captor? Face warming, you watched him watch you. You could have taken it back, but not only would that have been weird, it would have been a lie. Because as far as hostage situations went, this was the best one you could imagine, and he had just saved you from one of his own when he could have turned a blind eye. Instead, you waited patiently for him to react.

“Hurting someone defenseless is cowardly,” he muttered lowly.

So the infamously ruthless König had an honor code. Interesting. That explained a lot, really. If it weren’t for the fact you’d seen him kill multiple of your allied Shadows with a brutality unparalleled, you’d think he wasn’t the revered Operator he really was. The silence grew in leaps and bounds, a strange charge in the air between you, until the moment was interrupted by another untimely growl of your stomach.

“Ah, yes, food!”

He grabbed a brown paper bag from beside the door and brought it over only to pause once he was in front of you once more.

Confused, you watched on as his eyes darted around you in obvious thought before you finally broke the silence with a soft, “König?”

As if snapped out of a trance, he rushed over and snagged the black folding chair from across the room just to plop it loudly on the floor at your feet. He quickly took a seat and started opening the bag.

“I apologize but I can’t exactly unbind you,” he spoke softly, “Not yet, anyway.”

Your heart began to race at the implication. He was going to feed you. It was hard to decipher how you felt about it, a potent mixture of surprise, adoration, lust, and embarrassment hitting you all at once.

“O-Oh, okay,” you mumbled.

Eyes lowering, you watched in interest as he carefully peeled an apple and cut it into bite-sized slices with a fancy-looking pocket knife. It was hilarious how tiny his massive hands made the fruit seem. All humor drained from your thoughts when he picked up a piece and slowly brought it your way.

König’s eyes were wide beneath the sniper hood when you glanced up but you quickly dropped your gaze once more self-consciously as you parted your lips. Before you could stop it, a mortifying moan of delight fled your lips as you crunched into the deliciously sweet fruit, but you couldn’t find enough fucks to care as the hunger in your belly ramped up. When he picked up the next piece, you preemptively opened your mouth in wait.

This continued on for quite some time in a comfortable silence until you swallowed the last piece and you almost whined at the loss. Thankfully, it seemed he wasn’t done. He snagged a block from the bag next and your mouth watered as you finally realized it was a brick of cheese. Surprising, but delicious and welcomed nonetheless. The cheese passed much quicker as it was a small chunk and you couldn’t help but watch in elation as he grabbed another thing from the bag. It appeared to be the last of the food because he crumbled up the paper sack and tossed it aside before opening up the little red box.

“Do you like dark chocolate?” he asked suddenly.

A grin spread across your lips as you nodded a little too eagerly.

“Of course!”

You couldn’t tell for certain, thanks to the mask, but you were sure he smiled with the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. Why was that cute? That shouldn’t have been cute.

“These are from Germany,” he explained warmly, “A brand called Schogetten.”

He broke off one of the small pieces and brought it to your already parted lips. As the sweet morsel melted across your tongue, you went limp in disbelief, a little whine muffled in your closed mouth. You don’t know if it was because you hadn’t eaten in almost a day, or if it was the fact it was different than your usual chocolate back home, but the flavor was unparalleled. If all your dignity hadn’t already gone through the window, you wouldn’t have certainly lost it for that chocolate.

Piece after piece, he fed you dutifully and silently, until you were too full for more.

“I’m- I’m glad you enjoyed that.”

His voice was low, huskier than before, and it sent flutters through your heart.

Feeling much more relaxed and comfortable, you had to smile back in response, carefully nudging your foot against his much larger boot.

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” you replied.

That familiar weight of his gaze was on you once more but it didn’t take long to figure out why, one hand reaching out and steadying your face while his other thumb came to wipe your bottom lip.

“You have some chocolate here,” he mumbled.

It was sweet of him to help when you would have had no way of knowing. The feelings of adoration dissolved into something much darker when his hand went beneath his hood and you heard the audible pop of his thumb leaving his mouth.

OH.

It seemed he realized what he was doing at the same time as you, his posture going rigid as his eyes widened. A soft curse left him as he suddenly jerked his hand back down.

“I apologize. I don’t know what came over me.”

Fuck. Was this Stockholm syndrome? Did that set in this quickly? It wasn’t exactly a topic you’d researched much in your nursing classes. If it was… it certainly wasn’t a bad feeling.

Biting your lower lip, you tried to steady your breath as the flutters in your chest grew stronger.

“It’s okay,” you assured him.

Another bout of silence filled the space between you both, but this time you were practically vibrating in your seat from the anxious excitement thumping in your veins. As you stared into his half-lidded eyes, your thoughts went wild.

What was going to happen now? There was a static charge in the air and it made your skin bump up. How long did you have before your team came? Were they coming? Did you even want them to come now?

Your thoughts were brought to a screeching halt when he lunged forward, hands cradling your face carefully as his mouth smashed painfully hard against yours. It was a delicate juxtaposition and your brain took a few long seconds to register what was happening, but the instant you realized he was kissing you, you melted into it with a moan. The scratch of the hood against your lips was a unique texture but not entirely unpleasant, although you’d much rather have his lips bare.

The chair creaked with a loud groan as you tipped forward, eager for more of the Austrian and frustrated by the rope keeping you bound.

A huff of annoyance slipped out as you snapped beneath your breath, “Fucking rope!”

“Süßes mädchen,” König groaned low in his throat.

He pulled away just as suddenly as he’d started and you actually did whine out at that, not caring how pitiful you sounded, until you saw him take out the pocketknife. Fear bubbled acridly in your throat as you swallowed hard, eyes pinned to the blade as he flicked it out. König hadn’t hurt you yet. There was no reason to think he would now… right?

It became painfully obvious that your intuition was right when he stepped behind you and fingered the ropes.

“Stay still, maus, I don’t want to hurt you.”

You did as instructed and we were rewarded with the freedom to move as the rope snapped and fell away. With a long, loud, groan, you leaned back and stretched up to the ceiling, a dopey smile painted on your face as you loosened all the stiff muscles. As you relaxed back into the chair, you found König in front of you once more, almost looking nervous in his stiff posture.

“Thank you,” you said warmly.

When you stood, you were made acutely aware of just how short you were compared to him. You’d known he was tall but seeing him now, how far you had to crane your neck back to meet his gaze, it was so different.

“I’m trusting you not to try anything.”

His voice was tight, whether from excitement or worry you weren’t sure, and you immediately knew how you wanted to prove your trustworthiness. Grabbing one of his massive hands in both of yours, you pulled him over to the cot in the back corner of the room. It was almost comical how easily he followed you and allowed you to push him to sit on the bed but, as you stepped between his knees and got face to face, there was no denying who was actually in charge when your eyes met. If his physical presence wasn’t enough to deter you, the power in those beautiful blues was reminder enough.

“I think I owe you, for being so kind and for saving me,” you whispered, hands cupping his jaw to mimic the hold he’d had on you, “If that’s okay, sir.”

When he didn’t stop you, you took the chance to kiss him again. It was even better the second time around. The groan he let out against your lips was pornographic and you found your knees weakening as his arms wrapped around your thighs, hands resting right below your ass. It didn’t take long for your desire to overwhelm your thoughts and you broke the kiss with a gasp of air, carefully lowering to your knees between his legs. What you weren’t expecting was the absolute mind fuck it was to see such a big man looming above you, nor the way seeing his thick thighs on either side of your head would make your pussy throb.

“Well, süßes mädchen?” he teased, leaning back onto his hands.

What a sight that was; Black shirt pulled so tight across his body that every ridge of his muscles bumped through, dark green cargo pants now sporting a growing bulge, the intensity of his gaze staring you down with something akin to amusement and delight.

You could feel your hands shaking as you reached up. What little confidence you had previously was beginning to wane at the realization that you were going to actually be allowed to touch this adonis of a man. Taking a deep breath, you steeled your nerves and got on with it. To his credit, König didn’t push you to speed it up. In fact, he praised you softly with each touch. By the time you were pulling on his boxers to get his cock out, you were beyond soaked and arousal hummed like a bee through your body. The way it slapped against his stomach once free didn’t help your predicament one single bit.

“Holy shit.”

You weren’t a virgin by any means but the size of him made you pause in shock. Of course. A giant man would have a giant cock. What else did you expect? It was surprisingly beautiful too; surrounded by trimmed blonde hair, thick, long, and curved, flushed tip leaking and just begging to be sucked.

Swallowing hard, you let your fingers wrap around him and moaned when your fingers didn’t meet. If you were lucky enough to do more than suck him off, you were going to be sore… blissfully, happily, sore.

“Ah, scheiße, ja. That’s it, maus,” he purred, cock twitching in your hand.

Your face warmed under the praise. Leaning forward on your knees, you braced your hand against one of his thick thighs before bringing your lips to the tip of his cock, pressing a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin. The hiss he drew in was delightfully guttural. You needed to hear more of him, needed to earn that praise and pay him back for his unprovoked kindness. Slowly, you moved down his cock, planting kiss after kiss until you came to the base. He was nearly vibrating with need when you finally poked your tongue out, tracing up the veins branching along the underside.

With the way his body tensed, you’d almost thought you’d done something wrong but then his hand was in your hair, pulling it back as he guided your mouth to his head again.

“Stop teasing or I’ll bend you across my lap, Y/N,” he commanded gruffly.

The way your name sounded coming from his lips was deadlier than any poison. You wanted to hear it again and again, whispered in your ears and against your skin. Fuck.

Oh, and the mental images. How did you tell him that you wouldn’t mind him spanking you at all? Hmm, an option for later, maybe? Pushing the thoughts aside, you finally gave in to your temptations and licked up the precum around his head before taking him into your mouth.

“Heilige Scheiße!”

His moan was heavenly in the most sinful ways, only rivaled by the little breathless whimpers he let out as you hollowed out your cheeks and slowly sucked him down. You knew there was no way you’d be able to fit the entirety of him, your jaw already aching from the stretch, but you were going to fit as much as humanly possible. Inch by difficult inch, you took him until he was pressing dangerously hard against your throat. Unfortunately, you couldn’t get your body to relax enough to take him in- your body’s self-preservation too strong- but you quickly thought of a loophole.

Pulling back suddenly, you gasped out, “Push me down.”

“Huh?”

Giving him a coy smile, you said, “I know I can’t push past my body’s limits, but you can fix that. I want you in my throat so, please, just… push me down?”

His entire being shuddered and he took in a sharp breath as if he were going to argue, but finally, he relented with a nod. Flashing him a wink, you wrapped your lips around him once more.

“Take a breath,” he instructed softly.

You barely got a lungful in before he arched into your face. Tears welled up in your eyes as he thrust in deep, saliva pooling in your mouth as you gagged around him, but you were able to relax just enough for him to push through. Mortification clawed at your brain as both tears and drool spilled out the instant he began to fuck your mouth, but worse was the embarrassing noises that escaped your throat. Thankfully he didn’t seem as perturbed by them, possibly even enjoying them if his groans were any indication.

Blinking away the tears, you looked up at him and were rewarded with a pained moan.

“Scheiße, kleines maus, you look so perfect like this,” he groaned, “That pretty little mouth feels so- ah- so good.”

When he let you up, you inhaled a quick breath before going back down. Now feeling more comfortable with the sensations, you brought your hands back into play, one pumping the base of his cock while the other wiggled beneath his boxers to stroke his balls. It wasn’t long before you could hear little frantic whimper leaving his lips. The way his breath hitched and his fingers tightened painfully in your hair told you all you needed. You quickened your pace and played into the sucking noises that he seemed to relish.

“A-Ah, fuck, I’m going to cum. B-Bitte. Bitte, bitte, bitte. Don’t stop!”

A flush of heat rushed through your core and you couldn’t help but moan around him. Something about hearing such a powerful man reduced to a pleasured mess was both arousing and flattering. His strangled gasp was the only warning you got before he slammed you down, hips arching into your face as his cock throbbed in your throat.

Eyes burning and throat aching, you managed to pull up just enough to breathe and used your saliva to pump his cock faster.

“Come for me, König, please,” you begged him weakly before taking him in your mouth again, your tongue laving his head lovingly.

Almost instantly, he broke, rope after rope of cum filling your mouth as he groaned your name. As you looked up at him, you wished you could see his face, see more than just the squint of his eyes as you sucked him dry. Unfortunately, you knew you couldn’t ask that of him… yet. Maybe if you were lucky enough to be around him more, eventually you could earn that trust.

It wasn’t until he was shuddering and tugging on your hair that you finally pulled back, content that he’d ridden out that wave as long as he could. A satisfied smile curled up your lips as you leaned your head against his thigh and watched him intently. The heavy rise and fall of his chest was enrapturing. What would it feel like to curl up against him and use those muscles as a pillow?

You were torn from your daydreams when he patted his other thigh.

“Up, now,” he demanded.

Lifting your brows in shock, you let him guide you up onto the cot and sat on his thighs as commanded.

“Yes, sir?” you asked curiously.

König didn’t answer. Instead, a hand came to the back of your skull and jerked you forward while he sat up, a squeal of shock escaping as you fell against him hard. Before you could question him, a mouth was over yours. A decidedly bare mouth. No hood to impede it. Realization sent a shiver through your body and you couldn’t help but reach up and hold his jaw. Prickles of a shadow beard tickled your palms and fingers with each caress. There was no denying his jaw was strong, angular almost, as you soaked in the sensations. God you wanted to see him even more now. Your exploration was cut short when you felt the breach of a tongue between your lips and a hand between your thighs simultaneously.

“König,” you gasped out softly against his mouth.

The chuckle he let out caused your core to clench in need.

“You didn’t think that I was done with you, did you, maus?”

He didn’t give you the chance to respond, tongue filling your mouth with vigor as you melted into him. You were suddenly very thankful that you’d been captured in your pajamas when his hand slipped easily beneath the elastic waist of your silky shorts. He let out a hungry groan when his fingers came into direct contact with your skin.

“No panties?” he asked, amusement and lust heavy in his voice, “How lucky for me.”

His words made you blush but the embarrassment was easily forgotten when one long finger ran down your cunt, tracing your slit in teasing strokes.

“You’re already so wet, mein schatz.”

A broken snicker fled your lips as he tenderly slid two fingers between your lips and you whimpered out, “It’s not my fault you’re- fuck!”

“I’m what?” he teased.

He made it impossible to respond, the calloused pad of his fingers making little swirls around your nub, just on the right side of not enough.

“You-You’re, fuck, you’re- Ugh, you’re making it hard to talk!” you squeaked out.

König let out a long rumbling laugh that felt way too nice against your chest.

“Try, maus, tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Fuck, you’re so sweet, and you’re big, and your eyes are beautiful, and- and-” a pitiful squeal interrupted your train of thought when he slowly slipped a single finger into your cunt.

“Annnd?” he purred.

“I love your voice, fuck, I could listen to you read a dictionary!” you groaned.

“Mmm, good girl.”

Your knees went weak and your cunt clenched around his finger as your eyes flew open to meet his in surprise.

“Ah, you like that, hmm? You like to hear what a good girl you’re being for me?” he asked, not-so-subtly grinding up against you with an already hardening bulge, “You’re being absolutely perfect, mein schatz. This little cunt gripping so tight. Almost as tight as your throat was on my cock. I’m almost afraid to take you.”

“No, please, please do, please! I can take it!”

“Oooh, I know you can, süßes mädchen, don’t worry,” he hummed, quickening his finger as he twisted his palm to rest against your clit.

Your forehead fell against his shoulder in utter defeat as you lost all inhibitions, grinding down against his palm with each thrust he gave. It was ridiculous how close you already felt with so little stimulation but there was no denying the ways your walls were flutter around him. Pleasure swirled through your core, growing tighter and tighter, until all you could think about was how fucking good he felt and how you wanted his cock in you, now.

A needy whimper fell from your lips when he suddenly pulled his hand away and you jerked back in his lap to stare at him in disbelief.

“Wha-”

Your voice went silent as you watched the way his tongue cleaned up his glistening fingers with a moan. Fuck. That was it. You were good and ruined.

“I want to make sure you are good and ready, mein schatz, so lay down for me.”

Before you could even move, he picked you up as if you were nothing and dumped you onto the cot. It took a second for your brain to catch up, too shocked by the show of strength, and by then he was lying on the comically small bed on his stomach, mouth pressing hungry kisses to the insides of your soft thighs.

“Mein Gott, you are so beautiful,” he groaned quietly, “So soft. So sweet.”

Instinctively, you slapped your hands over your face and let out a whine. No way was this beast of a man not only going down on you, but he was going to kill you with compliments while he did it.

Almost instantly, your hands were thrown aside and you gaped at him in confusion, only to see his full lips curved up into a smirk, mask tucked behind his ears to expose even more of his beautiful features.

“None of that now. You will not hide from me. I want to see that pretty face when I make you scream.”

Yep. You were dead. Dead and gone to heaven. When they raided the camp, you had just been killed with all your allies and this was some fucked up kind of reward for all your good deeds.

All existential thoughts were wiped clean from your mind when you felt him tugging your shorts down. You quickly helped him, unable to stop the giggle that escaped when he tossed them aside with a curse. And then you were bare before him. He looked like a man starved and you were given no warning before he dived in.

“Oh, fuck!” you gasped.

Big hands wrapped around your thighs and tugged you closer, throwing your legs over his shoulders before moving to part your lips for his tongue. Before you could get used to the sensation, he thrust two fingers in your cunt, punching all the air from your lungs.

“Scheiße kleines,” he groaned against your skin, “You taste so good. I could live between these thighs.”

It was all too much. The swirl of his tongue on your clit, the girth of his fingers pressing oh-so-perfectly against that sweet spot only your toys could reach, the feel of his facial hair scraping against your sensitive skin. And then he added a third finger into the mix.

“Ho-Holy fuck! König, ohmygodfuck!”

You nearly collapsed in around him but he was quick to catch your legs, holding them apart with a hand and elbow on either side, his forearm pressing deliciously against your lower belly. That pressure alone sent you rocketing to the edge. Instinctively you reached down to grab his hair, only to come into contact with the fabric, and you couldn’t help but whine in frustration. You really wanted to touch him more.

As if understanding your plight, he slowed until only his fingers were pumping in and out and lifted slightly. Something was brewing in his beautiful blues when they met your gaze.

“I can’t take off the mask, mein schatz, I’m sorry,” he sighed.

“It-It’s okay!” you assured him quickly, “I understand!”

Despite your words, he kept staring at you, the sounds of his fingers sliding through your arousal the only noise in the room.

“Here, close your eyes for a moment.”

You did as told, swallowing hard in anticipation, and then his hand grabbed yours. Your heart felt like it was trying to escape your chest as he guided your fingers below the hood into his short hair. It was a bit longer than you expected, having thought he would have a regulation military fade cut, and softer.

“Thank you,” you whispered, tears invading your closed eyes.

“Of course, maus.”

How in the actual fuck was this stranger- a literal mass killer- you’d met a day ago more in tune with your needs and willing to compromise than literally any other man you’d been with?

A gasp tore from your throat, harsh and raw, when he immediately returned to his previous act. Somehow it was even more intense after the brief break; frantic, almost painful.

“König, pl-please. Don’t stop!”

His moan was the only response you got. Rather than take your words as an invitation to go harder or faster like most did, he listened and listened well, keeping the same even pace, building you steadily higher and higher. Words and thoughts became impossible, incoherent pleading and wanton moans the only sounds you could make as you began to shake around him. Your fingers snarled in his locks in a way that was probably painful but you couldn’t find the wherewithal to stop.

“Ja, that’s it, maus,” he demanded, “Be a good girl and come for me.”

Within seconds, that ever-tightening knot in your gut broke. You tried to scream but the pleasure left you mute, lips parted in a silent cry of his name as wave after wave of ecstasy rolled through your being. When your breath finally came, so did the tears.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck, so- mm!- so good!”

Just as it became too much, he lifted from your pussy with a heady groan.

“Verdammt, sieh dich an, kleine Maus.”

The moment the orgasm haze started to clear, you reached down and snagged his shirt, tugging on it to get him over you. He relented with a little chuckle when you whined his name.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly, clean fingers gently tracing along your jawline.

“Okay? The fuck you think? I’m absolutely dead in the best way,” you giggle, finally opening your eyes to meet his, “But… I still want you.”

Wrapping your legs around his hips, you reached up at the same time and carefully pushed the hood back up, just enough to reveal his lips, your own curving up into a gleeful smile as you saw them.

“Can I?” you asked hesitantly.

His answer came as the brutal crush of his lips on yours, pulling a moan from deep in your chest. As his tongue dominated yours, you took the initiative to reach between your bodies and palmed his cock, delighting in the way he whined.

“Please, please fuck me,” you begged against his mouth.

“Couldn’t refuse you even if I wanted to,” he hummed back.

You helped guide him as he lowered his hips to yours, unable to stop the gasp that escaped when you felt his fat head against your entrance.

“You’re sure?” he asked suddenly.

Brows furrowing, you dug your nails into his neck lightly and pulled him into another hungry kiss.

“If you don’t fuck me, I might die.”

That earned a warm laugh, a laugh that made your insides light up too bright, and a swift smack to the ass.

“Well, we wouldn't want that, now would we?”

When he began to push in, you tried so hard to keep your eyes open, wanting to see the expression in his, but it was too overwhelming. Despite his thorough prep, it’d been quite a dry spell for hookups due to work and it didn’t help that he was absolutely massive. It was a stretch, to say the least, but it hurt in all the best ways.

“Oh mein gott,” König hissed into your mouth, “You are so tight, Y/N.”

You couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m pretty sure you’re just hung, big guy,” you teased through shaky breaths, “It’s- It’s good though.”

“So fucking good.”

The metallic tang of blood filled your mouth when he suddenly caught your lips again, this time with too much teeth and force, but it only made you moan. The pain of a split lip was nothing compared to the delight of his cock stretching your walls. It felt like forever until his hips were against yours, but once they finally were, you were already needing more. You tried to rock your hips into him only for him to stop you with a bruising grip and a dark growl. His eyes were predatory when you found them and it lit another kind of fire in your belly.

“Dont. Do. That,” he bit out gruffly, “Don’t move. Give me a second, mein schatz, or it’s going to be over far too soon.”

Pride fluttered to life in your chest at his admission and you couldn’t help but grin, earning another cheeky smack.

“You’re enjoying this? My pain?” he teased warmly.

You pouted slightly but couldn’t maintain the look, too enraptured by his pretty blues.

“I have to admit that it feels good to know you’re as affected as me,” you whispered.

He groaned, forehead falling against yours, and muttered, “You have no idea, my love. You feel- Gott, I can’t even describe it. I’ve never felt someone who fit me so perfectly.”

Lips quirking up into a teasing smile, you replied, “I guess you’ll have to keep me around then, hmm? Because I can promise you, you’ve ruined all other men for me at this point.”

König groaned and his hips rutted eagerly at your words.

“Don’t tempt me, süßes mädchen,” he moaned, “I would love nothing more than to steal you and keep you here, all mine, to have whenever I wanted.”

As he spoke, you fell more and more in love with the idea. And why shouldn’t you? This was the most romance you’d experienced in years, all your previous conquests being quick flings with soldiers who barely qualified as friends. König was the first one to truly see you in years.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, maus, you’re making this hard.”

Biting your lower lip, you tested a little wiggle against his hips and were elated when he allowed it.

“I’m already here, König, who says you have to let me go?” you whispered, “For all they know, I’m just another casualty.”

Logically you knew you shouldn’t feed into the delusion plaguing you both right now, but fuck did you want it. Something about the idea of being at his beck and call, being allowed to please him whenever either of you wanted, was a deliciously dangerous option.

Suddenly, he drew out his hips and slammed back in with a strangled grunt.

“You want that, hmm? Want to be my personal little whore, maus?”

The way you clenched around him made you both whimper and you instantly wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him down into a heated kiss.

“Yes, yes, please! Wanna be allowed to have you whenever,” you whined, “Want you to use me.”

Your nails found his shoulders and dug into the firm muscles there as the sound of your bodies meeting clouded the room. But you needed more, needed to feel more of him. Logically you knew you both needed to stay as clothed as possible, considering you could be interrupted any moment, but you couldn’t resist the urge to touch him. Slipping your hands under the hem of his shirt, you slid your nails up the length of his back, dragging the material with you until it gathered at his shoulders and you were granted the absolutely stunning visual of his abdomen clenching with each thrust of his hips.

“God you’re beautiful,” you gasped out subconsciously.

The noise König let out was unholy, deep and keening, as his fingers tightened on your hips once more. Even through the haze of bliss, you could see the way his cheeks lit bright red. It would be cute if he weren’t currently fucking you silly.

“That’s-That’s my line, maus,” he chuckled breathlessly.

Eyes trailing back up to his, you couldn’t resist leaning up as you pulled him down against you once more, your lips finding his ear with a little moan.

“Then we’re both beautiful, König, because- fuck!”

His pace grew brutal without warning as he shifted and suddenly it felt like he was slamming right against your cervix, the sharp pinch of pain making you yelp in surprise. It was clear the praise was doing something, a fact you stored away in your memory for later. Then he hit your cervix again. You almost tried to pull back until his hand left your hip, coming between your bodies to rub gentle circles across your clit. Fuck and that made the pain more than worth it.

“Kö-König, close, please, just-”

He groaned lowly and grunted out, “I know, I know. I’ve got you, mein schatz. Just relax and let go for me.”

You finally released your hold on his back only to cup his jaw and draw him into a frantic kiss, panting out half-mumbled half-screamed moans as he tongued at your mouth. It was all too much. It was the best thing you’d ever experienced. When your climax finally hit, it felt like the world turned up on end. Collapsing back on the bed, you slapped a hand over your mouth to somewhat muffle the scream that escaped, but König had none of that. One big hand collected both of yours and pinned them to the bed by your wrists.

“No! Let me hear what I do to you,” he snarled, “I want to hear every pretty little sound!”.

Looking up through wet eyelashes, you couldn’t stop the enamored smile that crossed your lips even as you whimpered for him. He looked so fucking good over you. What you wouldn’t give to see that sight every damn day.

“Why are you so smiley?” he asked, amusement lacing his tone as he slowed his pace.

“Just really fucking happy,” you giggled softly, “You feel so damn good and look just as amazing.”

König’s lips twitched into a half smile before he shifted in place, keeping your hands pinned while he carefully lifted one leg up over his shoulder. Before he even moved, you could tell your body was going to resist the change in depth. Not that you would stop him. He could demand you attempt a headstand while he fucked you and you’d do it.

“Oh FUCK!”

Your shriek earned a broken moan from the man above you but it didn’t stop him for even a moment, hips slamming into you with purpose. Fingers curling tight, you dug your nails into his hand and bit your lip hard to keep a hold of your senses, though it was for naught. The way his fat cock buried into your tight walls over and over was more than you could handle. You wanted to beg him to stop and to keep going until you died.

“So tight for me, süßes mädchen,” he groaned huskily as his free hand came back to your clit, “One more.”

“Eh!?” you gasped in disbelief.

He grunted out a laugh and said, “Come for me, one more time. I want to feel you coming again before this is over.”

You shook your head violently and retorted, “I can’t.”

Even as you said it, he was easily proving your words wrong with his gentle stroking contrasting with the way he pounded your swollen cunt. His fingers tightened until it felt like your wrists would break under the force and yet you couldn’t find it in you to care, all self-preservation long gone.

“You can and you will, mein schatz. I am nothing but a patient man.”

A pathetic whimper tumbled from your parted lips as you panted for breath beneath the exhaustion of it all. Suddenly though, he slows, releasing your hands and letting your leg fall aside.

“König, wh-”

He silences you as he falls completely over you once more, the heavy feeling of his body against yours making you sigh happily. It only takes a moment to realize his reasoning, hands pushing your hair away while plush lips begin kissing along your neck.

“Mmmm,” you hummed softly, fingers slipping up the back of his hood to find his hair again, “That feels incredible.”

“You taste incredible,” he replied through a mouthful of your flesh, “Though, I must admit, my intentions aren’t so pure.”

Before you could ask what he meant, he bit down hard, hard enough that you reflexively yanked on his hair and screeched. The pain dulled to a low throb when he started licking and sucking over the wound, and you clenched hard around him when he rolled his hips into yours.

“You’re gonna kill me,” you whined breathlessly.

“Only with pleasure, maus,” he said with a chuckle, “Would never hurt a hair on this pretty little head.”

Your heart fluttered traitorously at that. Deciding to return the favor, you moved aside his hood enough to reveal his thick, pale, neck and started kissing along the warm flesh.

“Ah, s-scheiße.”

Poking your tongue out, you traced a line up to his ear and moaned at the taste of salt and skin. Even his sweat was driving you crazy. What was this man doing to you?

The slow motions quickly turned into something much more primal when you wrapped your legs around his waist and sunk your teeth into his throat.

“Oh, du kleine Füchsin!”

Groaning, you released his neck and whispered, “Fuck, I love hearing you talk.”

“Then I shall talk to you,” he grunted through moans, “What should I say? Should I tell you how good you feel, how perfect you grip me? That I never want to leave this tight little cunt? How divine you look when you’re drunk on my cock?”

Despite your earlier protests, you could feel another orgasm brewing fast under his words and you let him know.

“Ja, you going to come for me, aren’t you, schatz?”

“Oh god yeah, yes, please, keep- keep-”

You pulled his hair taut as your limbs drew him in close, silently demanding to feel every inch of his body against yours, and his name spilled from your lips like a mantra. This one came up just as fast but much calmer, creeping up silently and taking you by surprise with its voracity. Something deep inside you snapped and you could feel your arousal gush down your cunt, coating your cheeks and the cloth beneath you.

“Fuck, mein schatz, where- mein Gott, where do you want it?” he gasped out as you clenched around him.

You didn’t even give it a second thought, locking your legs and pulling him into a ravenous kiss.

“In me, please, I’m- I’m on birth control. I need to feel it in me,” you whined weakly into his mouth.

His curses were muffled by your lips but their intensity wasn’t lost on you, the mumbled praises only adding to the flush on your skin. You bit his lower lip gently and suckled all while your nails scraped against his scalp and shoulders, doing your best to pull him under with you.

“Oh, that’s my girl. My good girl,” he snarled, “Mine. All mine!”

Stars burst behind your eyes as he buried his cock as far as possible in your walls, the throbbing sending little pulses of ecstasy through your veins as you tried hard to focus on working him through it. You only hoped you could return even a fraction of the bliss he put you through.

A long, loud groan reverberated through the now silent walls as he went limp- though stubbornly keeping all his weight from pressing on you- and you had to smile to yourself, fingers now playing through his soft strands gently, in a silent apology for nearly ripping them out.

“I’m going to move, hold onto me,” he instructed you quietly.

You did as asked but the way he flipped your bodies over was still a shock. You instinctively tried to lift off of him only to be jerked back down, massive arms locking around you and holding you to his chest.

“You are not going to hurt me, Y/N,” he murmured, “Rest. Relax.”

“O-Okay,” you whispered.

Face red, you fought all those negative inner thoughts away and gave in, earning a content little sigh from the big man.

“You know, I never thought I’d have the best sex of my life while being a captive,” you joked easily, turning your head to rest your chin on your forearm, allowing you to observe him closely, “Where have you been all my life?”

Your head bobbled like a boat on the ocean with each hearty laugh that left him and your heart clenched in delight at the pure joy in his eyes.

“Waiting for you apparently, maus, took you long enough to get here.”

There was something strange in the way he looked at you, the tenderness in his touch as he held your face and stroked your lips, but your cockdrunk, touch-hungry, brain decided it couldn’t care less. All that mattered was how it made you feel, and God did it ever make you feel perfect.

#König #könig cod #könig x reader #König smut #COD smut #call of duty fanfic

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davestridernb · 1 year

Photo

@duskyashe here is my Raven (eldritch Nightwing) design from Encryptid/Calling All The Monsters! Drawn in sketchbook & colored on the computer. Feat. colored sketch and concept of how it looks in the dark. Very long details below the cut.

Firstly, the pose and drawing style used on the left is inspired by Lilo & Stitch, because of the description "He held his ready stance for a count of eight, then started relaxing parts of his body opposite how one would normally relax their body, starting with his legs and working his way up to his shoulders." which reminded me of how character weight was drawn in the movie opposite of how it usually is, keeping the weight rooted low with gravity and pulled towards the ends of the limbs.

The coloration concept is based off of animals that have direction-dependent color, the most famous of which is the blue morpho butterfly, but one which most people have probably also seen is the super black bird of paradise. So the idea of how that works in the wild is that tilting movements or seeing it at the right angle causes a disorienting flash of color, which I hoped to use here for Raven!Nightwing's eldritch illusion.

His fingerstripes aren't strictly straight but more inspired by tree bark/veins/cirque du soleil costumes, where lines that curve across limbs make the poses look more twisted and fantastical rather than emphasizing the actual direction of the limb, which is what the straighter lines in most hero costumes are supposed to do.

His wingsuit structure as described is a snap-out style that he holds the ends of when he flies, which I've augmented with small electromagnets to seal the airspace between his arms and the wings, which can turn on and off with a current. The structure itself is similar to the draco lizard in nature, where the draco lizard has modified rib bones that hinge at the top of its wings and fold back down to its sides when not in use. The edges on the wingsuit have a soft tattered texture that helps silence the wings like owls' feathers, as well as obscure the outline a little.

I wanted to avoid showing human skin, so I used a full face mask and repurposed the Nightwing V into an abstract suggestion of a beak. His real eyes can either be disguised with colored lenses that match the stripe or can be white, but there are also decoy eyes scattered in different spots on the suit that have cameras. At first it was just the two on the sides of the head to increase peripheral vision, but I thought it would be super cool if Raven could just see in a bunch of directions and into small spaces like Emily Eyefinger just because he has several small working cameras in different locations on his body. Ravens and eldritch beings are both associated with eyes so it works? ^u^

Regarding the wing coloration, this was the last addition to the design. I considered eyespots, just as I considered larger wings, but I really wanted to avoid the design getting mistaken for Mothman from a distance. The premise of the AU relies on the power of belief, so people need to recognize Raven on sight and also believe he's an eldritch being, so I went with one big solid eye that no one expects just opening out of the darkness when you’ve done something wrong. Yikes. Raven knows where you sleep.

#duskyashe #dp x dc #nightwing #encryptid #calling all the monsters #my art #character design

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nordleuchten · 1 year

Text

Hamilton vs. History

As most people are certainly aware of, Hamilton: An American Musical is not an exact representation of history and never wanted to be one. But when a pop-culture medium is so widespread and in certain places almost as omnipresent as Hamilton is, there will always be a blend between fact and fiction. Certain aspects of fiction or pop-culture simply make such a strong impression on us, that they shape our view on reality/history. Some aspects appear so much more fun, so much brighter in fiction, that we often do not want to know weather said aspect really happened this way. Some other details are so minor, that they are hard to catch if you are not deeply interested in the topic at hand.

Since I do know a thing or two about La Fayette, I thought I take a little deep dive into his depiction in Hamilton.

As a little disclaimer, while I have read the book Hamilton by Ron Chernow and listened to the official cast recording, I have never seen an actual production and can therefore not take into account what the actors do on stage.

Appearance:

I would have hoped that I do not have to say it, but I have made the experience in the past that I indeed do have so say it; La Fayette was not dark skinned. He was as white as the rest of influential America and Europa at that time.

As to his costume, well, he wears two uniforms throughout the play (plus the white suit at the beginning and in the end and his civilian clothes at the beginning of Act I)

His first uniform is identical with Mulligan’s, Laurens’ and Hamilton’s uniform – not quite right since he was a Major-General and the others were not. A more suitable uniform would have looked something like this:

The second, and probably more prominent uniform, is this one:

La Fayette wore this uniform as a lieutenant general in 1791 towards the end of his military service during the French Revolution, so roughly a decade later, in a different country during a different revolution.

Aaron Burr, Sir

With this song we are introduced to La Fayette for the first time. As a disclaimer, La Fayette never met Hercules Mulligan, had very little contact with Aaron Burr and he also met Hamilton and Laurens at the same time.

[LAFAYETTE]

Oui oui, mon ami, je m'appelle Lafayette!

The Lancelot of the revolutionary set!

I came from afar just to say “Bonsoir!”

Tell the King “Casse toi!” Who's the best?

C'est moi!

I like that La Fayette is speaking French in his opening lyrics because by the time of his arrival in America he only had a very limited knowledge of the English language and he needed a few extra months to feel entirely comfortable. Hamilton and Laurens both spoke French and this circumstance really helped in building their friendship.

La Fayette also makes a remark regarding the legendary (often described as French) knight Lancelot du Lac. Quite fitting, given that La Fayette hailed from a line of literally knights and these were stories and (self-)characterisations that he was quite attached to.

Other than that, the song is a bit too bubbly for my taste. Yes, La Fayette could be extremely energetic and optimistic, but he could also be incredibly self-conscious. He knew that he had no practical knowledge, that he barely understood the language, that his age was working against him, he even told Washington that he came to learn and not to teach – he would have never said “Who’s the best? C’est moi!” And while we are at it, he also did not like swearing.

My Shot

[LAFAYETTE]

I dream of life without a monarchy

The unrest in France will lead to 'onarchy?

'Onarchy? How you say, how you s-oh, 'anarchy!'

When I fight, I make the other side panicky

With my—

I suspect that the first line is directed towards the French monarchy, since France was where the vast majority of his life took place. If so – no, La Fayette did not dream of life without a monarchy. Later, during the French Revolution he was critical of the monarchy but never wanted to abolish it. He was not called a Counter-Revolutionary and Royalist by his enemies for no reason.

While yes, there had been unrests long before the French Revolution, as we know it, started, these problems were at this time of his life not on La Fayette’s mind.

As to making the other side “panicky”, well, La Fayette had no practically military experience at this point so there were very few people whom he made “panicky” (and I think half of them were members of the Continental Congress and Continental Army.)

But once again, I like La Fayette’s struggle with the English language.

The Story of Tonight

[LAFAYETTE/MULLIGANS/LAURENS]

I may not live to see our glory!

This line is rather interesting because while, yes, many of La Fayette’s ancestors have died young, his own father among them, and while La Fayette himself had been wounded early on in the Battle of Brandywine and also had been severely ill several times, he wrote these lines to his Adrienne on January 6, 1777 in regards to the birth of their second daughter Anastasie:

For the rest, if one must worry about the family name, I declare that I have decided to live long enough to bear it myself for many years, before I am obliged to bequeath it to another being.

Idzerda Stanley J. et al., editors, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, Volume 1, December 7, 1776–March 30, 1778, Cornell University Press, 1977, p. 222-226.

He certainly was full of optimism to see their glory.

[LAFAYETTE]

Let's have another round tonight!

La Fayette was definitely not averse to a drink or two or fife with his friends. This line is very much in character.

The Story of Tonight (Reprise)

I would like to preface this song by saying that neither La Fayette, nor Laurens, nor Mulligan nor Burr were present at Hamilton’s wedding. The only guest on Hamilton’s side of the wedding party was Doctor James McHenry, former aide-de-camp to Washington and now an aide-de-camp to La Fayette

[LAFAYETTE]

Let's have another round tonight!

As I said previously, this is definitely something that La Fayette would have said. :-)

[LAFAYETTE]

You are the worst, Burr!

There is no reason to believe that La Fayette, even when a bit tipsy, had any ill feelings towards Burr. In fact, La Fayette had very few feelings towards Burr because he mentions the good Sir almost never. There are six letters in total, both to and from La Fayette, that mention Burr and the earliest is from 1807.

Stay Alive

[LAFAYETTE]

I ask for French aid, I pray that France has sent a ship

La Fayette lobbied extensively for the American cause, even before his first voyage home again to France.

[WASHINGTON]

Have Lafayette take the lead!

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

As we snatch a stalemate from the jaws of defeat

The Battle of Monmouth was a wild. Washington offered the command to Lee, who was not interested so Washington went to La Fayette, who gladly accepted the command. Suddenly, Lee’s interest was renewed, and he took command after all. The battle itself was disaster but La Fayette never officially took command but instead worked with Lee to try and safe the day and he was also in command of his own little sub-division.

Guns and Ships

La Fayette's most prominent number in the musical.

[LAFAYETTE]

I’m takin this horse by the reins makin’

Redcoats redder with bloodstains

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

And I’m never gonna stop until I make ‘em

Drop and burn ‘em up and scatter their remains, I’m

[COMPANY]

Lafayette!

[LAFAYETTE]

Watch me engagin’ em! Escapin’ em!

Enragin’ em! I’m—

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

I go to France for more funds

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

I come back with more

[LAFAYETTE AND ENSEMBLE]

Guns

And ships

And so the balance shifts

La Fayette went to France in 1779 and returned to America in 1780. He brought with him the promise of “guns and ships” but the French aide needed some time to arrive.

[LAFAYETTE]

We can end this war at Yorktown, cut them off at sea, but

For this to succeed, there is someone else we need:

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

Sir, he knows what to do in a trench

Ingenuitive and fluent in French, I mean—

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

Sir, you’re gonna have to use him eventually

What’s he gonna do on the bench? I mean—

(…)

[LAFAYETTE]

No one has more resilience

Or matches my practical tactical brilliance—

By the time of La Fayette’s return to America, Yorktown was not yet chosen, or better destined, to be the decisive battle in the Revolutionary War, especially since Washington and the French commanders had different ideas about how to proceed.

La Fayette did try to mend Washington’s and Hamilton’s relationship, not only by talking with Washington but also with Hamilton. And no, he would have never said, that he was tactically brilliant – because he was not, simple as that.

Yorktown (the World Turned Upside Down)

[LAFAYETTE]

Monsieur Hamilton

[HAMILTON]

Monsieur Lafayette

[LAFAYETTE]

In command where you belong

[HAMILTON]

How you say, no sweat

We're finally on the field. We’ve had quite a run

[LAFAYETTE]

Immigrants:

[HAMILTON/LAFAYETTE]

We get the job done

This is such a lovely scene, isn’t it? But it never happened like that, quite the opposite actually. La Fayette chose one of his former aide-de-camps, Jean-Joseph Soubadère de Gimat, to take command of the storming of redoubt number 10. Hamilton was eager to be given the command but when La Fayette refused he went straight to Washington who decided in Hamilton’s favour and overruled La Fayette’s decision. While in the end this incident did not harm La Fayette’s and Hamilton’s friendship, La Fayette was anything but happy with the situation.

[HAMILTON]

So what happens if we win?

[LAFAYETTE]

I go back to France

I bring freedom to my people if I’m given the chance

As I have now already mentioned a couple of times, at this time there was not really any freedom that La Fayette wanted to bring to France. There were certainly political and social matters that he was interested in and some laws that he would have liked to see reformed – but I feel like these lines imply a fixed agenda that simply was not there yet.

[HAMILTON]

When we finally drive the British away

Lafayette is there waiting—

[HAMILTON/LAFAYETTE]

In Chesapeake Bay!

La Fayette and his troops played a vital role in cornering and keeping the British troops in Yorktown by making a retreat by land impossible.

[LAFAYETTE]

Freedom for America, freedom for France!

Again, freedom for France was not yet on the forefront of La Fayette’s mind.

Cabinet Battle #2

[Jefferson]

Did you forget Lafayette?

[Hamilton]

What?

[Jefferson]

Have you an ounce of regret?

You accumulate debt, you accumulate power

Yet in their hour of need, you forget

[Hamilton]

Lafayette’s a smart man, he’ll be fine

And before he was your friend, he was mine

If we try to fight in every revolution in the world, we never stop

Where do we draw the line?

La Fayette’s imprisonment was a headache inducing topic for many people at the time. Neither Hamilton, nor Jefferson, nor Washington for that matter, had forgotten La Fayette, but there was very little that could be done from their positions. What could be done however, was done and Hamilton and Jefferson both helped. Interesting is here the change of roles – Jefferson accuses Hamilton of not caring while Hamilton himself is rather optimistic. In reality it was Hamilton who did way more for La Fayette, even taking his son in, while Jefferson, although concerned and helpful, sometimes had a mindset of “Well, it is a revolution, shit happens.”

This post is not intended as a critique of the musical or the people who like it and listen to it, this is simply a little note for the curious. :-)

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killerandhealerqueen · 2 years

Note

This isn't exactly a detailed prompt, but I would love to see something about Shen Yi's past. I imagine he didn't have an easy childhood. Maybe him telling Du Cheng about it? It being brought up in a way that forces him to tell Du Cheng about it? Basically I would love to see what you think his past might consist of (even just a piece of it), with a sprinkle of our favorite pair and a pinch of H/C.

Lmao, finally got around to writing this! I hope this is what you wanted...little bit of tears, little bit of hurt/comfort, little bit of drunkenness, some bed sharing...all good things

Shen Yi didn’t like talking about his past. Hell, he didn’t like talking about himself in general. He was personable, sure, but anything he told you was superficial and surface level information…nothing truly deep or to the heart. But Du Cheng…fucking Du Cheng somehow managed to worm his way under his skin and know things about him that he…never wanted people to know. But he didn’t know everything…and Shen Yi was determined to keep it that way. ~*~*~*~*~*~ It was a quiet, normal evening as Shen Yi sat at his desk in his apartment, grinding up pigment to make his make his own paint while Xiaoxuan played nearby. While he worked, there was a sudden knock at his door, making him look up in confusion. “Who the hell is knocking at my door this late at night?” he grumbled before he pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the door, unlocking it before pulling it open to reveal Du Cheng standing outside his door, smiling. “Evening” he greeted. Shen Yi huffed. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. Du Cheng smiled. “Uh…visiting you?” he replied. Shen Yi gave him a look. “At one o’clock in the morning?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. Du Cheng shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. And I take it, you couldn’t either, considering that you’re still up” he stated. Shen Yi huffed. “You know I don’t sleep” he reminded. Du Cheng chuffed as he stepped into his apartment. “Maybe you should work on that” he suggested. Shen Yi shot him a look as he closed his door after him and watched as he looked around before noticing Xiaoxuan. “I see you still have the cat” he mused, making Shen Yi huff. “Her name’s Xiaoxuan. And yes, I still have her. She makes sleeping at night…easier” he murmured as he walked back over to his paint making station and sat down in his chair, Xiaoxuan walking over to him and hopping into his lap. “Oh? Do you have a hard time sleeping at night?” Du Cheng asked as he walked over to him and knelt beside him, reaching out to pet Xiaoxuan, who gently bit his fingers. At her gentle nips, Du Cheng pulled his hand away before he held it out again, allowing Xiaoxuan to sniff him and realize that he’s not such a bad guy. Once she realized he wasn’t a bad person, she nudged his fingers, making him smile and gently pet her head before he looked up at Shen Yi, who was staring at him, and raised an eyebrow. “You never answered me” he stated. Shen Yi quickly shook his head before he cleared his throat. “Yeah…sometimes. But I’ve always had a hard time sleeping” he murmured. Du Cheng hummed before he stood up and began looking around Shen Yi’s studio, noticing that it was full of more art than anything else. “You know…I noticed that you don’t have any pictures of your family. Neither here nor at work” he mused. Shen Yi froze before he cleared his throat. “Yeah…we never really…had a lot of pictures together” he murmured. Du Cheng hummed again. “I see. Maybe you should do that” he suggested, making Shen Yi turn and look at him. “Do what?” he asked. Du Cheng shrugged. “I don’t know…find time to take a photo with your family. You can’t just have paintings decorating your house, you know” he stated. Shen Yi huffed. “Did you come here to talk, or did you come here to judge my studio?” he demanded. Du Cheng chuckled. “I guess a little bit of both” he replied before he looked over at him. “How good are you with holding your liquor?” he asked. Shen Yi frowned. “Liquor? Like wine?” he replied. Du Cheng shook his head. “No. Like liquor liquor” he stated. Shen Yi blinked before he shook his head. “I’m not really a big drinker…I’m probably a lightweight” he stated. Du Cheng hummed before he removed his backpack that he had brought and opened it, pulling out a bottle of liquor. “That’s too bad…I was hoping you’d be my drinking partner for tonight” he declared. Shen Yi looked at him in shock. “What about Jiang Feng? Why didn’t you ask him?” he asked. Du Cheng huffed. “Because we’re not partners” he replied before he motioned to himself and Shen Yi. “We are. And I wanted to drink with you” he declared before he reached into his bag and pulled out a glass, holding it out to Shen Yi. “So. What do you say?” he inquired. Shen Yi looked at the glass, then at Du Cheng, before he sighed and pushed himself to his feet, Xiaoxuan jumping to the floor as he walked over and took the glass from Du Cheng, motioning to his bedroom. “Come on, let’s drink in my room. There’s not really a place for us to properly drink” he stated. Du Cheng smiled and followed him into his bedroom, taking a seat on the floor while Shen Yi sat on his bed, holding out his glass. Du Cheng chuckled before he cracked open the bottle of liquor he brought and poured some into Shen Yi’s glass before pouring some into his own. He then clinked his glass against Shen Yi’s before he downed the alcohol, Shen Yi raising an eyebrow at him before he knocked back his own liquor, making a face as it went down. “You can drink wine, but you can’t drink baiju?” Du Cheng asked, surprised. Shen Yi huffed. “Baiju and wine are two totally different types of alcohol” he grumbled before he held out his glass. “But I never said I couldn’t drink it” he stated. Du Cheng smiled and poured him some more baiju before pouring more for himself, both men clinking their glasses again before they downed the liquor like shots. “I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be sipping this…not shot gunning it” Shen Yi murmured, a slight slur to his voice. Du Cheng hummed. “Not really in the sipping mood” he replied as he poured himself another glass before holding out the bottle to Shen Yi, Shen Yi sighing as he held out his glass, Du Cheng pouring him some more. As Du Cheng knocked back his baiju, Shen Yi opted to sip on his, starting to feel a little lightheaded from the alcohol. “Could you really not sleep, or do you have some ulterior motive?” he murmured, making Du Cheng look over at him before chuckling softly. “No, I really couldn’t sleep and felt like drinking. So here I am. Drinking” he explained as he placed his glass down and opted to drink straight from the bottle. “I guess we should be glad it’s Friday then and not a weekday because your hangover is going to suck” Shen Yi declared. Du Cheng laughed again. “Yeah, probably” he agreed as Shen Yi took a sip of his baiju and sighed. “You know…you said that I didn’t have a lot of photos of me with my family…” he started, making Du Cheng look over at him as he sighed again. “The reason I don’t have a lot of photos of my parents is because…I don’t know them. I don’t have any parents. Laoshi was the only father figure I really had” he explained. Du Cheng looked at him in shock. “What…were you an orphan?” he asked. Shen Yi shrugged. “I guess so…I don’t remember much of my childhood. I must have come from somewhere…but from as early as I can remember, I was out on the streets, drawing murals or street art. I don’t even remember my old house, other than the one I lived it with Laoshi. And those years…those were good years. I was happy. I enjoyed doing art. It made me realize that I didn’t need to have a family to…have a family, you know?” he asked, looking at Du Cheng, who nodded. Shen Yi then sniffled as he knocked back his baiju, sighing again. “That’s why I don’t have any pictures of my family…and the picture of my teacher I gave to his son…so it’s just me here” he murmured, just as Xiaoxuan padded into the room and walked over to the bed, hopping up onto it. Shen Yi then let out a laugh as he gently pet her head. “And Xiaoxuan, of course” he added as tears suddenly came to his eyes and he began to cry, making Du Cheng look at him with wide eyes. “Ah! Shen Yi-ah!” he exclaimed, quickly pushing himself to his feet before slightly stumbling over to the bed, sitting down beside Shen Yi. “Shen Yi. A-Yi. What’s wrong?” he demanded, reaching out to cup Shen Yi’s face in his hand, gently wiping away the tears that was streaming down Shen Yi’s cheeks. Shen Yi sniffled and shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just…I have no family. I don’t have any parents; I don’t have my teacher…I don’t have anyone” he croaked. Du Cheng looked at him before he scoffed and gently pinched his cheek, making him cry out in surprise and look at him with wide eyes. “What the hell?!” he exclaimed. “You silly boy, saying you don’t have anyone. You have me. You have our team, our kids. You have Xiaoxuan…you don’t have anyone, my ass” Du Cheng chided. Shen Yi looked at him, his eyes still wide and doe like, before he let out a wet laugh and leaned against Du Cheng, Du Cheng wrapping his arms around him. “You have people who love you, you idiot. And just because you don’t have a biological family…you still have a family. Didn’t you say that with your teacher, you realized that you didn’t have to have a family to have a family?” he asked. Shen Yi hummed as Du Cheng huffed. “That applies here too” he declared. Shen Yi smiled and chuckled softly as he leaned against Du Cheng, letting himself relax and even fall asleep. Du Cheng looked down at him and smiled softly as he reached up and gently pet Shen Yi’s hair before he carefully scooped Shen Yi into his arms and stood up, carefully pulling the covers back before he placed him down and tucked him in, Xiaoxuan quickly making herself comfortable on top of him. Du Cheng chuckled before he began to clean up, putting away the alcohol and glasses back into his bag (he would clean them up at his apartment later) before he looked towards Shen Yi and the bed, humming softly. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I just…stayed the night’ he thought to himself before he walked over to the bed and carefully sat down on it, making sure that Shen Yi was still fast asleep before he laid down, letting out a soft sigh as he shut his eyes, sleep nearly taking him in an instant. ~*~*~*~*~*~ The next morning, when Shen Yi woke up, he let out a soft groan and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the headache that was pounding in his head. “This is why I don’t drink” he grumbled, just as he heard a soft snoring coming from in front of him, making him blink before he slowly looked up to see Du Cheng fast asleep in front of him, his arm draped over his waist. At their closeness, Shen Yi’s eyes widened and he quickly shot up, shocked as all hell. What the hell was Du Cheng doing in his house, in his bed more specifically?! He then remembered earlier that morning, with him and Du Cheng drinking some pretty strong liquor, and let out a soft hum of realization. ‘Right…we were drinking’ he thought to himself before he looked at Du Cheng, remembering how…safe his arms made him feel after he had talked about his past. He then sighed softly and slowly laid back down, carefully snuggling up to Du Cheng, who immediately wrapped his arm around him again, pulling him close. Shen Yi blinked in surprise before he chuffed softly and buried his face in Du Cheng’s chest, smiling mentally at the realization that he fit quite nicely in Du Cheng’s arms, almost like they were missing puzzle pieces who had found each other. “A few more minutes couldn’t hurt…it is the weekend anyways” he murmured, almost immediately falling back asleep, safely and securely wrapped in Du Cheng’s arms.

#sass writes #Under the Skin #du cheng #shen yi #dushen

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divine-mistake · 3 years

Text

'till death blooms us art

Summary: You’d rather die loving him than never getting to see the sun ever again.

(“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. This number is not available. At the tone, please record your message.”)

Characters: Sam Wilson/Plus-sized Reader

Warnings: 18+ (no smut), strong language, Hanahaki AU, angst with a happy ending, weight insecurity, allusions to eating disorders, talk about death, blood, past domestic abuse and trauma, gun violence, original male character, book quotes, anxiety

Word Count: 12796

A/N: Thank you for reading! This fic won the vote during my 500 follower celebration and it's finally out now! This story has a lot of meaning for me, due to it being a bit of a metaphor for disorderly eating. I know that will make some people uncomfortable, but as someone who has struggled for a long time, I want to talk more openly about this kind of thing. Anyway, thanks so much for sticking with me and I hope you enjoy!

main masterlist | AO3 | playlist by @tripleyeeet

—STUBBORN WEEDS—

They are everywhere—covering the space of the sitting room like an overgrown garden made of glass and paint, canvas and pages torn from old waterlogged books, stained mugs filled with decaying brushes. Wanda walks through your room like it’s a maze, her fingers trailing over the air but never touching the art. She’s pretending she’s in a museum, or a gallery, or something fancier than what you could ever appear in, but a twinge of something akin to warmth stabs through your heart at the thought.

“These are incredible,” she says, not looking at you. “How do you do it?”

With a shrug, you bend down and pick up one of the canvasses from the floor, holding it out to look at it.

“I don’t know,” you lie.

White space in the shape of flowers, uneven and missing petals here and there, is outlined in streaks of paint that go every direction, in every different shade, hard edges and soft, blurred lines and covering the entirety of the canvas except for those spaces where flowers once sat, pinned to the medium.

“They are beautiful,” Wanda says.

Your nail sneaks under one of the dried chunks of acrylic and you chip it—a fleck of ultramarine blue falls from the painting.

When you turn, Wanda studies a different piece in careful hands. It’s a glass case, trimmed with shitty, shaky lines of gold you painted on a whim. But inside, between the thick panes, dried flowers painted over are encased in eternity, arranged to match their exact placements on the canvas where your brushes stroked life onto them, around them, through them. Two perfect pieces that once belonged together, separated like an act of Adam against his God.

Maybe they were meant to be together, but no one will ever know their story.

“They’re amateur,” you tell her, laughing. “I’m not much of an artist. It’s just for fun.”

She smiles at you, placing the glass piece down. “You have a talent.”

Wanda takes another turn about the room, another circuit, another spin. She looks at every piece in such focus, taking in every single detail, fingers stretching and curling as if she wants to caress the dried flowers, the dried paint, and feel their meaning. You wonder what she would say if she could read their minds—the art you’ve made. Would your pieces tell her the true meaning behind their existence? Or maybe they would laugh, or cry, or howl in pain.

But Wanda only stares, at the paintings and at you, a small smile on her face like she knows something you don’t. Like she’s keeping a secret. Is she keeping the secrets that the flowers have whispered to her when you weren’t looking?

“What inspired them?” she asks, the very tip of her nail tracing a different glass box filled with dyed petals reconstructed into a larger artificial flower, protected by its own display.

You wring your hands together. “I like flowers.”

She laughs. “That’s obvious. But what makes them special enough to paint? To—To make such lovely art out of?”

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you place the small canvas you’d been holding back on the side table, crossing the room to your bookshelf. Your fingertip finds the spine of a hardcover book you’re too familiar with, pulling it out and into your awaiting hands. Sheets of paper, a little bent and crooked, stick out of the pages.

You crack it open, the dulling white petals of a daisy pressed flat between the crackling spine fluttering from between the black inked words, then fall to the floor at your feet.

“The Devil’s hand directs our every move,” you read. “The things we loathed become the things we love.”

Wanda stares at you as you fiddle with the book, tracing the words of the cover.

“Les Fleurs du Mal,” you say. “The Flowers of Evil.”

Gently and without word, she bows at your feet and picks up the drying daisy, cradling it in her pale hands, but you don’t have the strength to take it from her.

(“Hey there darlin’, it’s just me. I had to run some errands this morning, y’know how it is, so I’m out of the Tower right now. I was just wondering if you needed anything while I was out. Anything—really, anything at all. Even breakfast, or maybe a latte? Just a little pick-me-up. Well, give me a call back if you need anything. If not, I’ll be back soon. See ya.”)

—BETTER TOGETHER—

“Steven Grant,” you say his name like a curse, shaking your head. “This is why you spend three hours a day in the gym.”

Too busy shoving the first bite of his first hoagie into his mouth, Steve doesn’t reply. You roll your eyes, but the smile on your lips gives you away. When he’s finally swallowed, wiping crumbs from his mouth, he looks a little indignant.

“Are you calling me fat?”

“Well, you would be if you didn’t have that serum running through you.”

He frowns, brows furrowed, a little confusion on his face. “I thought it was because I work out three hours a day. And I’ll have you know—”

“—you work out six hours a day between your morning runs and training, I know, I know. I’ve heard it all before Steve.” You groan at the thought. “It’s like it’s your job.”

“It is my job. Saving the world and all that.”

“Okay, you really need to let America know that it’s giving you a complex, ‘cause if I hear one more thing about you saving the world, I think I’m going to scream.”

He shrugs, taking another gigantic bite out of his sandwich. Scraps of shredded lettuce fall out from between the buns and litter his plate. You pick at your own, pulling uneven pieces of sliced onion and stray pickles from the hoagie, content to sit and stare at it instead of eating.

Food is good. You brush the grainy crumbs of bread from your fingers. Food is good, but you just aren’t hungry. And you don’t work out three hours a day. Maybe you should start. Your body feels like a balloon with all your insides threatening to come up in a retch and choke you. Food is good. Food is good. You just have to pick up the sandwich and eat it.

Fingers shaking, you take the sub in your hand and stare at the corner where you mean to take the first bite.

“You good?”

Steve, still chewing, looks at you with concern clear in his crystal blues and it makes you put your food back down on the plate. Instead, you busy yourself with another sip of your water, nodding at him.

“Yeah. We can’t all be Steve Rogers, demolishing two hoagies in less than two seconds, y’know.” You throw in a snort, trying to sound nonchalant. “Wipe your mouth, Captain. You’ve got mayo on your cheek.”

He doesn’t, but him grabbing a napkin to embarrassedly wipe a nonexistent condiment from his face gives you enough time to pick your sandwich back up and contemplate taking the first bite. You’ve just gotta start with the first bite and the rest will go down.

But you aren’t hungry. How can you be hungry when you’re already so full? Stuffed, even. There isn’t room in your insides. All your organs are bursting. It’s so painful sometimes, the expanding of your skin to accommodate. Waves of sickness roll through you, spreading. Your stomach is stretched, bloated, filled with all the swallowed—

“What are you doin’ to my girl, huh Steve?”

The sound of his voice alone makes the ache inside of you dissipate, the nausea escapes from your throat, the anxiety twitching through your hands steadies. Your head perks up, shoulders rolling back as your entire body relaxes, and you look behind you.

And there, dressed in a tight blue polo and a pair of pants clinging to his legs like they were made for him, the very angel who blessed you, the devil who cursed you, the god of the fucking sun and everything it could ever touch, stands before you with a smile saved just for you.

Sam Wilson.

His dark eyes are piercing, like he’s trying to peel back the layers of your skin to see underneath, as he shoves his hands in his pockets and grins with all his teeth.

“Hey honey,” he says—simply and easily and not serious. Never serious.

Your lungs burn. Your mouth feels too dry to answer him.

“Oh, your girl?” Steve asks him, brows a little too furrowed to be joking. “When did she become your girl?”

Sam shrugs, walking toward the empty seat next to you, placing his hand on the back of your chair so dangerously close to your body that it makes you pull in a deep breath. His thumb could brush against the fabric of your shirt, run along the seam of your spine. And, goddamn, it should be illegal for him to look so casual and so unbothered while still looking that handsome.

Like this, you can smell the spice in his cologne, a powerful mix of something you’re sure is designed to drive you crazy.

He looks down at you, still hovering over where you sit, and throws a wink your way that brings heat to the surface of your cheeks.

“Aw, she’s always been my girl, ain’t that right? Tell him, darlin’.”

You stare at Sam for one second too long, breaking away to gaze down at your uneaten sandwich again. With every flutter that Sam sends down your stomach, the heaviness inside it seems to fade away. Your fullness is replaced by a familiar hunger—the rawness of your throat waning as a burning itch takes over. A cough is threatening to bubble up. You choke it back, smiling instead.

“He’s right, Stevie,” you say all bright and cheery again.

Steve meets your eyes with a stony gaze, unreadable, his blue eyes looking gray in the light. Beside you, Sam throws himself down in one of the chairs and pulls up to the table, hand still sitting on the back of your seat. His knees are spread a little wide, thigh resting against yours.

It’s so innocent but your brain thinks it’s so intimate. A lie. A lie.

In the end, Steve relaxes back, his eyebrows lifting as he watches the scene unfold in front of him. He tosses one of the sticky plastic menus toward Sam, nodding at it.

“Order up, man,” Steve says, his tone more neutral than you think you’ve ever heard it in regards to Sam. “But I’m not paying for yours. You’re on your own.”

At that, Sam laughs, full and robust with his face up to the ceiling. He rocks back in his chair, shaking his head, and he looks so beautiful even in the shitty sub shop that Steve drags you to for lunch every other week that it makes you ache and your lungs contract in an attempt to cough.

You swallow it back again, trying to even out your breathing. The itch in your throat is so bad that you almost pick up your sandwich to eat again, but your hand passes it up to take another few sips of your water. It’s cool, clear, refreshing—but it can’t make the tickle of the cough go away.

“So,” Sam starts once he’s finished ordering his own hoagie, “how’s that apartment hunting going? Found anything good yet?”

A frown forms, heavy, on your lips. You pick off a flaking piece of bread from your sandwich, watching it turn to crumbs underneath your fingers.

“It’s going,” you say, but anyone who ever responds to a question of how’s it going with it’s going is absolutely lying and it is absolutely not going—and maybe Sam knows that, or maybe Steve does, or hell, maybe they both do but it makes you look weak to admit that things aren’t going so well out loud.

And you—you can’t admit the truth, so it’s just better to lie about it.

You don’t want to leave the Tower.

“It’s going, huh?” Sam asks, his tone proving that he can see right through you. “You need help looking at some places or something?”

“Well—”

“You know,” he barrels through your words as if they are nothing, “I think I actually know a realtor around here. Maybe he can get you some leads on rentals or something. I could make some calls for you, honey.”

It’s not supposed to—Sam only means well, he always does, always trying to do so much for people—but it hurts to hear. Because you don’t hear him saying that he’s trying to help you out. You hear him saying he doesn’t want you around the Tower anymore.

Because, well, why would he want you there?

To him, you’re just an outsider. A girl who doesn’t belong. Someone who daydreams and doodles flowers on every surface as soon as she thinks of him. And you always think of him.

Before you can think about it, your hand flies to your mouth reflexively to hold back a cough. Instantly, Sam’s leaning closer and that damned hand of his falls soft against your back.

“You okay?”

There’s barely a moment for you to nod, signaling that you’re fine, before Steve’s got on his game face, all hard lines and furrowed brows and thin lips pressed tightly together.

“Hey,” he says, grabbing Sam’s attention. “She’s allowed to stay as long as she wants, alright? The Tower is her home now, too. So there isn’t a rush for her to find a place unless she wants to leave.”

The passion and care in Steve’s voice is strong, almost so overpowering it’s oppressive, and something rises up from within you and threatens to send salty tears careening down your cheeks if you don’t blink them away.

Sam raises his hands in front of him dramatically. “Okay, okay, I get it. I wasn’t trying to run her off or anything, just wanted to lend a hand if I could. Damn, Steve.”

Something changes at the table, then. It’s like a fog, thick and cloying, falls over the three of you and keeps you lethargic—so much so that the only words spoken in the next few awkward minutes are Sam’s thanks when the waiter brings his sandwich by.

You still haven’t even touched yours, and you hope it seems like you’re just waiting for Sam to get his, because Steve’s tearing into his second and by the looks of the mustard dripping down his fingers messily, he’ll be done any minute now.

But as you prop your head up on the table, leaning on your elbow boredly, Sam nudges his leg into yours to grab your attention. When you turn to look at him, he’s got that grin again, all pearly and white with the little crooked gap you think you could stare at forever as long as it meant he was smiling and laughing and happy.

“You gonna eat, girl?” Sam picks his sub up in his hand and gestures at you to do the same. God, he makes you dizzy just by talking. The butterflies in your belly are fighting tooth and nail against your organs, trying to take up all the space, but they aren’t really butterflies. The soft monsters in your stomach leave a taste on your tongue you can’t explain.

“Oh.” You mimic his movement and then Sam toasts his hoagie against yours with a chuckle.

“First bite,” he says, and there’s no thought in your head or balloon in your stomach and no bloated skin to make you second guess yourself.

You follow Sam, sinking your teeth into the bread of your sandwich, and its flavor explodes over your tongue just enough to take away all the bitter, floral, fragrant taste of the daisies that are building up in your stomach, their petals choking you out, downy fluttering things inside you.

(“Hey girl, it’s me. I couldn’t find you anywhere—where you at? I was coming to see if you wanted to grab a bite with me for lunch, maybe at that little Italian place you like to go to around the corner? Or maybe sushi or something? Been a while since I got to go out for lunch, so I thought I’d ask, but I guess you’re busy right now. I’ll catch you later, darlin’. Enjoy your lunch.”)

—NEW BEGINNINGS—

You’ve got to call him. You have to. You have no choice anymore.

Danny is on the other side of the locked door, his fist pounding on the wood and threatening to cave it in from the repeated force. The sound is louder than it should be, really, echoing off the tile of the bathroom you’ve barricaded yourself inside. He’s shouting above the sound.

“You fucking bitch. I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna fucking kill you. You lied to me? What else are you lying about, huh? You fucking whore. I took you in, I gave you a home, I gave you everything. Fucking fat slut—how many other guys are you sleeping with, huh?”

None, you had answered earlier when he was questioning you in your shared bedroom, his fist tight around your soft arm and squeezing so hard it made you want to scream. None.

But that wasn’t the answer Danny was looking for. And, well, once he threw you onto the ground and stomped to the dresser, clothes strewn around the room as he furiously ripped through it until he found the shiny black firearm you didn’t know he had, you were gone.

But there was only one place to go and that was the bathroom.

Now, trapped inside, you know you have no choice. You have to call him—the man from the coffee shop you’ve been going to regularly for a few months. The man who noticed the bruises Danny always left on you after a rough night. The man who pressed and pried and tried to do anything to get you to open up to him even as you refused over and over again. The man who put his number in your phone because he wanted you to call him if you ever needed him, not because he was a hero, but because he was worried about you.

You press the number two on speed dial. The phone rings.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Steve?” Your voice is nothing but a sob. “Steve, you were right.”

He doesn’t miss a beat, but you hear the rustle of clothes and a jingle of keys on the other side beyond the static, a sound that makes you almost cry with relief or hope or maybe just stress.

“Hold on,” he tells you. “FRIDAY is pulling up your address. I’ll be there as quick as I can. Are you safe?”

“Bathroom,” you’re able to mumble out from behind the waterfall of tears rushing down your face. “He’s locked out but—but I’m scared.”

“I’m on my way. He’s not going to hurt you. I promise you.”

And then Steve hangs up, and you wish he hadn’t because now you’re left all alone with just a flimsy wooden door, painted fucking white so the blood will show up real pretty when Danny kills you, between you and your boyfriend.

Well, ex-boyfriend if you get out of here alive.

“Four fucking years!” he shouts from outside. “I gave you four fucking years of my life, you stupid bitch. I put up with your dumb fat ass for four years and this is what you do? Is this love? Do you think this is love?”

You figure anything is love as long as it doesn’t look like this. The ring of bruises around your upper arm from Danny’s grasp is already turning black and blue, a sight that makes you flinch.

Honestly, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s yours. All the cash you were stashing should’ve been hidden better. You knew better. A shoebox up on the top shelf of the closet? Amateur. You should’ve cut a section out of one of your prized books or something. Danny never fucking reads. He probably doesn’t know how. He would’ve never found all the money if you’d stashed it there.

“Six thousand dollars!” he roars, punching the center of the door. The wood bends slightly. “How long’ve you been fucking stealing from me, huh? Fucking bitch. Stupid fucking bitch.”

And then it happens.

Danny’s fist breaks through the first layer of the door with a curse of pain falling from his lips. Then, a laugh. He’s laughing.

“I’m gonna kill you.”

He punches the door again and then his hand is through, wood splinters shattering and flying toward you, and with a scream you shield your face with your arms and duck down. You’re sitting beside the bathtub, squished against the toilet, and you scoot back as far as you can trying to wedge yourself to safety.

But there is no safety here. Danny’s bloodied fingers find the doorknob and unlock it with a click, and it’s over. It’s over. It’s fucking over.

With a kick, the door comes flying open and you’re screaming again at the top of your lungs, throat tearing itself raw. Danny’s broad frame possesses the entire room as he shoulders his way inside, his lips pulled back to show all of his teeth in a feral grin, the overhead lights catching the shine of the sleek gun he’s carrying.

You can’t even look at him. All you can do is stare at his back in the bathroom mirror hanging over the counter, your mind completely devoid of thought.

“Fuckin’ dead,” Danny says, and you don’t see him aim the gun at you. You stare in the mirror, right in the mirror and memorize the pattern of the plaid jacket he’s wearing, how the colored stripes form new colors, how the fabric all blends. It’s a pretty shirt. You bought it for him two Christmasses ago. He looks good in it.

You are going to die.

Then, suddenly, you can’t see the plaid anymore. Instead it’s a gray shirt on a much bigger body blocking out the mirror, and when you turn your head to look, Steve’s there.

Steve’s here.

He’s got Danny in a chokehold, grappling for the pistol in your boyfriend’s hand. Ex-boyfriend. Despite Steve being completely unarmed—he’s Captain America for christ’s sake, a goddamn super soldier, he doesn’t need a fucking weapon—he easily brings Danny down to his knees and onto the floor, kicking the gun away from their bodies and out of the bathroom completely.

“Fucking whore,” Danny manages to spit out, the sound strangled as Steve’s arm buckles over his neck. “You’re fucking him too, huh? I’m gonna kill you.”

“Shut up,” Steve grits through his clenched teeth, pulling Danny toward the destroyed door. “You’re done.”

They disappear from the bathroom in a tangle and thrashing of limbs. Danny curses the whole way down the stairs, struggling to break out of Steve’s grasp you presume. He’s a fighter—that’s what he always said. Dog meets dog eats dog world, he would tell you. You can’t ever trust anyone.

And, well, he certainly proved his beliefs. You had the bruises to show for it. The scars as evidence.

Sitting alone in your wrecked bathroom, still sprawled out on the tile, you stare down at your hands. The lines run deep in your palms, fingers stubby and chubby and not at all feminine. Too small to grab Danny the way he always grabbed you. Too soft with fat to deliver a good punch.

You don’t know how much time passes before a much larger hand enters your vision, slowly, like approaching a kicked mutt on the street, and when you don’t flinch, Steve lays his fingers across your palms. Apprehensively, you grab onto his hand, and he squeezes back.

Looking up, he’s crouched in front of you, the beginnings of a bruise forming on his left temple. With your free hand, you reach out and let your fingers brush over it, but Steve just smiles at you.

“Let’s go,” he murmurs.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here,” he says, gently tugging on your hand. You hold onto him a little tighter and let him help you up off the ground, his arm immediately sliding around your waist to steady your shaky legs.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” you say. “The money I saved…”

You don’t even know what happened to it. For all you know, Danny burned the cash. Or stashed it somewhere else.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Steve says in a soft voice. “I’m taking you back to the Tower. The police are dealing with Danny right now. Can you help me pack some clothes for you?”

And so you sat on the bed among your wrecked bedroom as Steve picked through the messy drawers that had been pulled from their dresser, some articles of clothing crumpled on the floor where Danny flung them in his mad search for your secret money stash. And the gun. You almost forgot about the gun.

Steve helps you pack, his face only a little pinker than normal when you’re shoving your intimates into the black duffle bag he fished out of his car, and then he’s helping you slip on your sneakers and guiding you out of your house.

You don’t say goodbye to it, though. That house. Even after four years, you don’t call it home. In a lot of ways, you’re happy to watch it disappear from Steve’s rearview mirror, hoping you’ll never be back.

“They’re going to love you there,” he says quietly in the silence of the car, both hands tight around the steering wheel. He glances over at you, then back at the road. “You’ll fit right in. You’ll be safe. Right at home.”

But you think Steve is a bit of an optimist. Homes, you think, are for people who are loved.

(“Hey honey, just me here. Look, I remembered you saying something about how you wanted those, what were they called, the fairy lights for your room? The ones that look like Christmas lights? I thought we could go pick some up and I’ll hang ‘em up. You’re too short to do it yourself, girl, you know that. Anyway, give me a call if you want to, or just come down to my room and get me, anytime. I’ll be waiting. Talk soon, honey.”)

—KEEPING SECRETS—

Wanda hums a tune under her breath. “I just can’t wait to get out of this place! It’s been too long. Mission after mission after bloody mission.” She sighs and starts to apply a thick coat of mascara, eyes wide as she stares in the mirror.

“Agreed,” Natasha says from somewhere behind you. The sound of her bare feet on the bathroom tile is the only warning you have before she sidles up beside you, gracefully lifting herself up onto the counter and sweeping various cosmetics aside to make room.

You’re still undressed, standing in your panties and an old t-shirt with a stretched out neck, just finishing up your eyeshadow when Nat taps a black bottle on the marble top near your fingers.

“Want me to do your eyeliner?” she asks.

A few months ago, you would have seen it as an insult—a beautiful, dangerous woman telling you in less words that your makeup looked like shit. Now you know it’s an expression of Natasha’s unending love for you. A willing act of service. A small thing she can do for you.

“Yes please.”

Natasha motions you forward, between her legs, and when she takes your face in her hand you close your eyes.

“Pretty colors,” she says, probably about your eyeshadow.

“Thanks,” you reply, and then you feel the cool wetness of liquid liner right on your lash line as she begins to paint a wing on your lid. “You always look pretty.”

“So do you.” She blows softly on your left eye. “It’s like you never need makeup, I swear. Are you even wearing foundation?”

A smile works its way onto your face. “Nope.”

From beside you, Wanda giggles.

“Slut. You’re so perfect it makes me want to scream sometimes,” Natasha says, tongue clicking her teeth as she finishes off your right eye.

All the breath seems to leave you in that moment. Like someone punched you straight in your gut, your bones like the gel shock-absorbing layer protecting your organs. Your eyes want nothing more than to shoot open, but Nat is blowing cool air over the newly formed wing and you force yourself to relax so you don’t mess everything up.

“I’m not perfect,” you tell her. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“Don’t deflect.” You hear her cap the eye liner and set it down on the counter, then her palms engulf your cheeks. Slowly, you let your eyes open, blinking gently.

She’s staring at you, eyes narrowed.

“Just because I’m beautiful doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful,” she says, simply, as if it’s just easy for her to not compare herself to anyone else. “If you’re perfect, you’re perfect. Doesn’t matter if I’m perfect, too. And that Wanda is perfect. Or that anyone is perfect.”

Natasha takes your chin in her fingers and grabs a tube of lipstick—the one she and Wanda always tell you to wear because it looks so damn good on you.

“Your beauty and your worth doesn’t come from other people.” She runs the silken rouge over your lips. “It comes from who you are, not comparisons to other people.”

And, god, you want to scream at her. You want to shout and tell her that she isn’t allowed to say that to you when she looks the way she does—slim and picturesque and every human being’s wet dream. She doesn’t get to say that you shouldn’t compare yourself, with your heavy chest and your wide hips and all your soft pockets of skin, to someone like her. To someone like Wanda. To anyone else that doesn’t need liposuction with a side of diet pills, please.

You can’t be perfect, because if you were perfect, if you were enough, you wouldn’t be dying in agony every night over someone that doesn’t look twice at your too-large stomach and your too-large thighs.

They’re just trying to make you feel better, but all it does is make you feel worse.

“Look,” you say when she’s done with your lipstick, “I get what—”

In a split second, your chest is wracked with hard coughs, lungs struggling for air. It’s choking you, your own insides, and you’re hacking and wheezing and grasping at the bathroom counter and Natasha’s hands are on your shoulders and Wanda is slapping your back in hope that it will help and someone, somewhere, is saying the word heimlich and you can taste it on your tongue like old wallpaper from the 70s, floral and disgusting and toxic and ugly.

You throw your arm over your mouth, smearing your lipstick. It doesn’t help. Natasha is looking at you, eyes wild. You’re coughing and coughing and you think you taste blood underneath the overwhelming velvet on your tongue.

They’re saying your name. Shredded petals are between your teeth.

And then you break, pushing past them to the toilet, skidding on your knees until you’re doubled over and retching. It’s all burning acid and fresh flowers. Rot and fester and earth and greenery. A pair of cool hands—Wanda’s, you think—rest upon your forehead and move your hair away from your face.

Vomit and daisies leak from your mouth until your stomach is done contracting and your insides are empty. All that’s left is your sputtering coughs that taste caustic and beautiful.

It’s getting bad.

When you finally pull away from the toilet, slumped back and wiping your mouth, the toilet is full of an explosion of crisp white and bright yellow, tinged with the faint pink of blood. Wanda is glancing back and forth between you and the unflushed toilet, horror stitched on her face.

Before Natasha approaches, a glass of tap water in hand, you lean over and flush the petals down the drain. The look you shoot Wanda is pleading, but you don’t even know what you’re asking for.

Everything on the inside hurts, burning like a pit of snakes in your belly, hissing and spitting venom and biting into you like they mean to kill you. Perhaps the daisies have grown fangs. Your lungs feel chewed.

Nat places the glass in your shaking hands, her fingers holding your own as if she knows you can’t do it yourself. She helps raise the glass to your soiled lips and you gulp the water down like it’ll flood the valley unfolding in you.

“Who is it?” she asks, her voice calm but her eyes uneasy. You nearly choke, a hand pressing against the middle of your chest as if you need to feel your lungs as they work to assure yourself of your own survival.

“What?” you barely eke out, throat thick and scratchy. One of Wanda’s hands strokes down your back and she doesn’t speak, only shakes her head.

“Who is it?” Natasha repeats.

You look away.

“God.” Wanda sniffles behind you. “How could we not have realized?”

“Because it doesn’t happen,” Nat says, shifting from crouching in front of you to sitting on her knees on the floor, a hand resting on your thigh. “I’ve never known a single person—until now, I guess—who had it. I thought it wasn’t real.”

“They tell it like a fairytale in Sokovia,” Wanda says, her words just as watery as her eyes. “A story you lull children to sleep with! But I should have seen it. We should have seen it.”

A new abundance of petals tickle the back of your throat.

“All that art,” Natasha hisses, but she isn’t looking at you. She’s glaring down at her lap.

“All the daisies,” Wanda cries. Her head drops against your shoulder. You feel the wetness of her tears.

“It’s okay,” you tell them, but your voice is too small. “It’s okay,” you say, louder this time, tasting the flowers like they are the blood of your bitten tongue.

“Who is it?” Natasha asks again, a begging in her voice you don’t think you’ve ever heard before.

“It’s okay,” you say again.

And with this, Nat’s face changes from one of concern to something of realization—like she’s been struck with a thought she never considered, like she’s seen the future.

“It’s him.” Her jaw is slack, staring at you even as Wanda looks at her with confusion etched on her visage. “You have to tell him.”

“No,” you say simply.

“This is bad,” Nat snaps, as if you don’t know it already. “This is getting bad. You need to tell him or you’re—you’re going to die.”

A laugh breaks through the bathroom, echoing. “How can I tell him? How could I ever tell him that I love him when the simple fucking fact that these flowers are growing—rooting—in my goddamn lungs is proof that he doesn’t love me the way that I love him?”

You lean back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

“Sam Wilson doesn’t love me the way I love him,” you whisper.

The tips of Natasha’s fingers catch the tears you don’t feel streaking down your cheeks like the screaming of shooting stars, hot and bright and dying.

“It’s sort of beautiful, don’t you think?” Your nails dig into the fat flesh of your thighs, trying to puncture skin. “To make art of your own death. To make something lovely out of something so tragic.”

You can’t swallow it back this time. A cough wracks through you, jostling your bones, and you fold yourself in half as soft white petals emerge from your esophagus and choke you. You grind them against the backs of your teeth with your tongue, trying to mash them into nonexistence, but it’s not enough. You retch another wave of daisies into your awaiting hands.

Wanda calls your name and it sounds broken.

“Death like this,” you rasp, catching your breath, “is the most beautiful way to go.”

Your finger drags over one of the downy petals, a bead of blood catching on your skin and smearing across it like a brushstroke of paint, ruining it.

“Death like this is the only way I want to go.”

(“Hey beautiful, it’s me again. I heard you were going out with the girls tonight—I hope you have fun. I just wanted you to know that if you need a ride back home, or you get into trouble and need a hero, or anything, really, I’m just a phone call away. You need me and I’ll be there, ‘kay honey? I’ll be up if you need anything, at least ‘till you get home. Have fun, girl.”)

—INNOCENCE—

You’re beginning to ask yourself if the mirror lies.

It doesn’t. You know that. You’ve been trying to find the lies in it for years at this point, pinching and pulling at all the places you find are thicker than the women you see on TV, the women you see floating around the Tower, the women you’ve seen on the arms of Sam Wilson. Chubby hands caress down your soft belly, poking and prodding the skin you wish you could make disappear. The mirror never lies.

But you wish it did when you stare at yourself and all you see are the bruises beneath your eyes, the hollows in your cheeks, the drained look in your gaze. The longer you stand there, the less you recognize yourself.

You aren’t hungry anymore. You never get hungry—the flowers filling up all the space in your stomach, coughed up from your lungs and swallowed back in pieces. Perfume is what your mouth tastes like now. Perfume and iron. The vomiting hasn’t stopped since the night your secret was revealed to Natasha and Wanda.

And you’ve never looked better.

That’s the part you hate. The part where when you look in the mirror and you can see the places where those daisies have shaved you thinner. It almost makes you laugh. People say you pack on the pounds when you find love. Maybe they should try having toxic flowers take root inside of them and slowly steal their lifeforce while they watch the person they love never love them back.

It’s a slow process, this death. You wonder which will kill you first—the starvation or the suffocation.

The walk down to the gala is as equally exciting as it is dreadful. You’ve never been to a Tony Stark gala before and you’re eager to dance the night away with your friends. But you’re also exhausted.

Oh well. The makeup helps you look less like a corpse and more like a dancing queen. The dress, which you’re sure someone paid far too much money for, is part of the solution. It’s all flowy and gorgeous as if you are a Greek goddess meant to be worshipped and highlights your figure while hiding all the imperfections the mirror seemed to find.

And when you finally enter the room, classical music playing from the live band and people laughing loudly and champagne twirling about the floor for people to take, the first thing you see is him.

Grin taking up his entire face, lighting up the entire ballroom, dressed beautifully in a navy suit that makes him look utterly dashing, is Sam Wilson.

He’s surrounded by people—women who are better dressed than you are—so with a shaky breath and a pain in your lungs, you quickly turn on your heel and head toward the next familiar face.

“Woah there, doll, where you hurryin’ off to?” Bucky, hair neatly pulled back and wearing a black suit, grabs you by your waist.

“Nowhere,” you blurt. “The bar. I just got here.”

He raises a thick brow at you, a silent question, but when you choose not to answer he shrugs.

“Well I can’t refuse to escort a pretty lady, can I?” With a charming smile, he holds his elbow out to you and gestures for you to grab on. You slip your hand around his arm and grasp him tightly, shooting him a grateful smile.

“Thanks, Bucky.”

But as the two of you start dodging through the crowd of excited party-goers, on your way to the bar in the back, Bucky stops short and gets a look on his face that you’re not quite sure you can describe as mischievous, but it’s close enough to make you frown.

“Y’know what,” he says, glancing over at you with that boyish grin, “I think we should take a spin on the dance floor instead.”

“Oh no,” you tell him, eyes wide. “I can’t dance—”

He snorts. “I’ve seen you dance around the kitchen, doll.”

“I can’t dance in front of all these people.”

“Can’t is a word for losers.” Bucky closes his hand over yours, locking you to his elbow. “Don’t wanna be a loser like Stevie, do ya? Oh Buck, I can’t stop fighting, gotta teach ‘em a lesson. Oh Buck, I can’t rinse out my cereal bowl, I gotta go for a run.”

It makes you laugh, maybe a little too loud, but it eases you just enough for Bucky to pull you into the menagerie of dancing couples, and then he’s moving your hand from his arm and onto his shoulder and clasping your other in his fingers.

“There we go.” His eyes shine like the ocean sparkles under the Tower lights.

Bucky has something magic in him, you decide, after two songs of him swinging you along the floor. He has something magic that makes everything so easy, which is something so admirable after all he’s been through. He has you laughing and smiling and spinning across the room with so little effort you forget all your worries in an instant.

“See?” Bucky dips you in his arms, making you squeal with glee, collecting the stares of the people peppered around the room. “Knew you could dance, doll.”

Panting, you rest a hand on his chest, still giggling. “Only ‘cause you’re so good.”

“Song’s over, Buck,” a new, familiar voice cuts in. When you look up, Steve is standing there, eyes crinkling with his own smile. “I can’t wait for another.”

At that, Bucky rolls his eyes with such drama it has you laughing yet again.

“See? I told you. It’s all can’t this, can’t thatwith Stevie. But fine.” Bucky guides you by the waist over to Steve, passing your hand over, and then gives you one last grin with all his teeth. “I had fun, doll. Thanks for dancin’ with me.”

“Anytime,” you tell him, and then Steve’s adjusting your grip on him. The song changes from the upbeat tune Bucky was twirling you to down to a slower classical piece.

“You doing okay, sweetheart?” Steve asks, his eyes roaming over your face.

“Yeah,” you hum. “Bucky and I had a lot of fun.”

Steve’s grip at your waist tightens a little. “No, I mean in general. Are you doing alright?”

There’s worry there—in the wrinkles on his brow, the blue skies of his eyes, the curve of his lips. You know he’s staring at you and seeing everything the mirror told you. All the gaunt places. The hollow, haunted look you’re parading around. The weight you’ve been steadily losing. You know he sees it.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, and you wonder yet again if the mirror ever lies. You know you do.

Steve sways you gently, more carefully than Bucky had. Steve dances with you like you’re made of something fragile. You still don’t understand why. You don’t know why he ever looked at you and saw something important, someone to protect. Maybe it’s just how he was born to be.

“You can tell me anything,” he says, so seriously that your heart breaks a little.

You move your hand from his shoulder and up to cradle his cheek, smiling.

“I know, Steve. I know.”

And if he pulls you into him, crushes you against his chest, and holds you like that for the rest of the song, no one mentions it. Steve lets you rest your head on his shoulder and, not for the first time, you think this must be how it feels to have a family.

But then the lights in the ballroom brighten a little and a spark finds its way into the music, changing into something jazzy and fun, and someone slaps Steve on the shoulder.

“Alright Rogers, she’s ours now.”

There, dressed like she could kill a man with her heels alone, Natasha has her arms crossed over her black satin gown. Beside her, in a red, flowy dress, Wanda has her hands on Nat’s shoulders, giggling from all the bubbly you’re sure she’s consumed.

Steve pulls away from you with a chuckle, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Alright, alright—she’s all yours, ladies.”

With that, Natasha pounces on you, and the three of you start to shimmy the night away together.

You lose count of the songs you spend dancing with them, sweaty and out of breath and having the time of your life, before you wave them off and step out onto the outside patio where hardly anyone is loitering. You pass up a couple sitting on a bench, cuddled up in the cool air of New York, and leave a man smoking a cigarette to himself.

Instead, you find a lonely bench far away enough from the gala that you can hardly hear anything but the bass strings resounding through the building. There, you sit, and turn your head up to the stars you can’t really see anymore.

“You okay, girl?”

Startled, you whirl around to face the object of your affections, standing behind you with his hands shoved casually in his pockets. He isn’t wearing his usual smile. Just staring.

And then you taste dirt. Freshly upturned soil coated in congealing blood. You cough into your hands and hear him approach, laying a warm palm on your back as you choke the daisies down and down and down, swallowing as many as you can, the pungent taste still ripe in your mouth.

“Honey,” he calls out all smooth and sharp like whiskey. “Honey, are you okay?”

You lick the blood from your lips. Sam crouches before you, gathering your cold hands in his, looking up at you with such a fucking expression that you want to kiss him so solidly he can taste the vines growing up your throat. You want his tongue to taste the soil of your suffering—the flowers of your own doom.

“I’m worried about you,” Sam says, his dark eyes searching your face for something.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, just as you’ve been telling everyone.

“You’re not looking so good these days,” he murmurs, and you recoil.

“Wow.” The hurt in your voice is so palpable it makes you cringe. “Thanks, Samuel.”

You move to get up from the bench, heart twisting, but Sam grabs your arms and cages you there.

“I didn’t mean it like that, darlin’, you know better than that.” He gives your arms—too soft too wide too fleshy too—a squeeze of reassurance. “You’re not painting much anymore either. You think I wouldn’t notice?”

Sam holds your gaze until it’s too much and you have to break away.

“C’mon, girl. Are you even sleeping?” Sam shakes you a little. “Eating?”

The flowers of evil root in your chest. See, you know how this book ends. You don’t need to read the last page to find out. It’s just as Baudelaire wrote, you know: “My heart is lost; the beasts have eaten it.”

Your organs have been replaced by daisies. Sam Wilson won’t love you—not tonight, not tomorrow, and not in time.

So you shrug, forcing your lips to curl into what you think might be a smile.

“I can’t paint. I’ve got too many flowers to press,” you tell him. Sam’s visage morphs into confusion, and he shakes his head slightly. He doesn’t understand. He won’t understand.

You take his arms from your body, holding his hands for a split second, long enough to steal their warmth and imagine what it would be like to hold them every single day, and then you pick yourself up off the bench and give him a wave.

“See you inside, Sam.”

And you leave him there, confusion still frozen on his face, the gritty blood ripping shreds in your damaged throat as you swallow it again and again and again in an attempt not to taste it anymore.

(“Hey, uh, it’s Sam. I was just calling to, uh, y’know, remind you about the gala. You have a date yet? I didn't ask anyone. I, uh, I wanted to ask this girl, but uh, I ended up waiting too long and I’m a little late so… I’ll see you there, honey. Try not to kill me with your good looks tonight, you hear? Save a dance for me, baby.”)

—THE SUN AND ALL ITS STARS—

Dishware rattles into your room, signaling Nat’s arrival. By the time you gather the energy to sit up in bed, she’s already entering, a tray of food in her hands and an icy look on her face.

“Breakfast in bed,” she says monotonously.

You shift and pull your duvet up as she fits the tray over your lap. There’s not much—a sweating glass of cold water beside an amber glass of apple juice, two slices of buttered toast, and some melon she cut up.

“Thanks,” you say, voice strained and weak.

Natasha doesn’t leave, but you wish she would. She seats herself on the edge of your bed, staring you down as you sip on your water. You purse your lips in frustration, but pick up the fork and begin to poke at the fruit.

“Eat,” she says.

“I’m trying,” you grumble back. “Stop staring at me.”

Natasha throws her hands up on the air. “Well if I don’t watch you, you’ll just sit here and waste away,” she snaps. “You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, hell, you aren’t even coming out of your room anymore. You go to work, you come home, you don’t talk to any of us. Steve says—”

“Steve doesn’t know anything!” you shout, interrupting her. As soon as you do, her eyes narrow into slits and you shut your mouth, gulping. That wasn’t what you wanted to do.

Natasha takes a deep breath. “Steve says you’re still looking for a place.” It’s eerie how calm she keeps her tone. “Leaving isn’t going to stop them, you know.”

Even now, not doing anything but staring at the food in your lap, you can taste them like a funeral home, saccharinely floral, covering the smell of death.

“I can’t stay here,” you say.

“You’re dying,” Natasha stresses. “Please. Please, I am begging, krasavitsa. I’ve not begged for much in this life. But I am begging you to please, please tell him. Tell him or consider the other option.”

Two options in the scale, tipping weights. To die or to have the roots of true love carved out of your lungs, peeled away from where they wrap around your heart.

You stab your fork into the tender flesh of the melon. It gives way so easily, letting the tines puncture it. Natasha stares at you, her gaze heavy. Your fingers fumble with the fork and it falls, clattering, to the tray of dishes.

The blood is too hard to swallow anymore—it builds up in your mouth and stains your teeth red, the petals colored pink when they fall from your lips.

“Okay,” you whisper. Maybe you don’t even say it aloud.

“Okay?” Natasha asks. You nod your head, not looking at her.

“I’ll tell him.”

It takes you hours, it feels like, to gather the courage. With all the energy you have left in your bones, muscles only satiated a little by Natasha’s breakfast, you drag yourself out of bed and to your bookshelf. It’s memorized, the place where your book sits, and you pull it out with a gentle tug of your finger.

The Flowers of Evil, its pages nearly chock-full of pressed daisies that have ejected themselves from your body, eager to find the man you love and spill all your desires to him. You thumb through it, gaze flitting over all the damn flowers that have dried in this damn book, and you close your eyes in order not to cry this time.

You press the book tight to your chest, feeling the desperate beating of your heart echo through it, and you head to Sam’s room.

The walk is long and lonely—the Tower feels empty. Devoid of people. You’re a little glad because you’re sure that anyone could see the sickness painted on your body, the illness from inside you that’s staining your outsides. It’s not anyone’s fault but your own, really. The flowers are too beautiful to supplant.

And now, you’re in front of his door, a fist raised to knock, a loud buzzing in your head that keeps saying no, no, no. But your heart, traitorous thing still hammering away in your chest, it just keeps saying yes, yes, yes, finally.

Sam Wilson doesn’t love you.

But do you have any other choice except to take a garden spade to your lungs and dig them out of your chest cavity, to destroy your ribcage and break through the mulch that makes up your nervous system? Is the only option left to die at the hands of Sam or to wither away until your decomposition will feed the very things that killed you off?

You shudder a breath and knock on the door. And you wait. And wait. And wait.

He doesn’t come. He isn’t there. He doesn’t love you.

The tears come suddenly—unexpectedly. They are hot and stricken and fast. They drip off your chin and careen down your neck and dampen the collar of your shirt and your hands are trembling, grasping your book too tightly, to even begin to wipe them away.

You don’t know why you’re crying. You already know this. Sam Wilson could never love you the way that you love him. Sam Wilson is perfection, you know. He possesses the strength of gods, he radiates love, he’s passionate about every fucking thing he does. He’s beautiful. He’s everything and you are nothing when standing next to him, but you love him. You love him.

Sam Wilson doesn’t fucking love you.

“Well,” you laugh to yourself, “I can either die a fool or live a life without you.”

I can either die in love or live my life not knowing what it feels like to be in love with you.

Something tickles your tongue. You reach between your lips and pluck it from your mouth, letting it sit upon the center of your palm. Blood drips down your arm like a river, violent and sooth.

The daisy covers your entire hand, white petals tinged with pink reaching toward your fingers. The center, all yellow florets seeming to seek out warmth, are so bright and full and so big—these are too big, they could choke anyone, anyone, they are choking you.

And like them—god, just like them, just like these daisies that grow from your lungs and destroy you from inside out—you are heliotropic. Everywhere you go, you’re focused on the sun, looking for the sun, stretching toward the sun.

You need the sun.

So you crumble the daisy in your hand, fist tight, blood still easing from between your fingers. You back away from his door, then turn and break away to head back to your room in silence.

You’d rather die loving him than never getting to see the sun ever again.

(“Hey girl, it’s me. Just calling to let you know that Steve and I got called for a mission. It looks like an emergency, wheels up in ten and all that. I wanted to catch you before we gotta go, in case you wanted to say goodbye. To Steve, I mean. Just in case. Take care of yourself while I’m gone, sweetness.”)

—FAREWELLS—

It happens faster than you think it will. You swear you have weeks, or a month at least. You swear you have time.

Four days later, your knees buckle and slam into the wooden floor beneath you, stomach contorting and contracting, balloon finally bursting. Someone is shouting your name from the common room, something is knocked over, scrambling. You barely hear it over the sound of your own vomiting.

On your hands and knees, you stare down at the lump of flowers you couldn’t swallow back. They’re coated in a mixture of soil and blood and stomach acid, but the sweet perfume scent breaks through the rest and makes you retch again. It smells so sweet. So sickly sweet. Dead people and churches.

Did churches always smell so much like blood?

There’s a hand on your shoulder. It’s pulling your hair from your face. Someone is saying something—something—something you can’t make out over the blood rushing between your ears.

You’re dying. This is it.

You collapse upon the ground, rolling onto your side, arm thrown over your mouth as if that will stop the flowers from pouring out of your body. And when you blink, trying to see through the dizziness, it’s him again.

The god of the fucking sun, your sun, mouth moving frantically as he says things you can’t hear and the little gap in his teeth that makes you feel at home when he smiles at you and his eyes, oh, Sam Wilson has eyes that set you on fire and burn you alive and you’d be happy to die like this, you’re so happy you get to die like this, so thankful that the daisies chose you, so thankful you chose him.

You were right. Death is so beautiful like this.

“It might be too late.”

Helen Cho’s heels clack on the tile of the medbay’s room as she shoos the nurse out with a wave of her hands, shaking her head. He shoots to his feet, fingers already curled into fists, and he shoves them in the pockets of his jacket to hide them.

“Too late?” It’s impossible for him to keep his voice low. “How can it be too late? What even—What’s wrong with her?”

She frowns at Sam, folding her hands together in front of her.

“It’s… rare,” she says. “Some of us didn’t think it was real, to be frank with you.”

His brow furrows. “What is it?”

“A disease caused by unrequited love,” Helen says plainly, staring straight at him. “Typically, the patient finds themselves in what is regarded to be true love, but the feelings are not returned, so they build up. It’s theorized that the stress of that creates the problem.”

Sam swallows and it tastes like vomit. “Unrequited love?”

She ignores him, continuing, “The part that is normally so hard to believe is that flowers begin to grow inside the patient, the roots puncturing their lungs and creating masses that eventually will suffocate their host.”

It’s a bag of bricks to his stomach. A super soldier punch to the gut. A bomb blown up in his face. Sam doubles over, clutching his middle, trying to breathe again. He can’t breathe at all. The flowers. The flowers.

“It seems she was swallowing them in an attempt to save herself,” Helen explains. “It’s what kept her alive much longer than she should have been. But now, I don’t know. It may be too late to save her. If she’d just said something earlier, than the surgery might have been able to stop it, but—”

“Surgery?” Sam asks, still gasping for breath. “What surgery?”

“You can extract the roots,” she tells him, glancing at the sleeping woman in the sickbed. “It’s a difficult procedure but it would have saved her. But, from the very little research we have on it, removing the roots also removes the feelings entirely. The love that the patient has disappears. They aren’t able to ever feel anything for that person ever again.”

He falls back into the plastic chair, his limbs numb. Or, at least that’s what he wants to do. But Sam doesn’t. He steadies himself, crosses his arms over his chest, plants himself so firmly there in the hospital room that he doesn’t think an earthquake can move him, and looks at her.

She’s sleeping, but she doesn’t look at peace. Her eyes, lovely things, are sunken in and it makes him so mad. Her collarbones have shadows beneath them and he feels fury wracking his own bones. And how long has it been since he’s seen her smile?

“Do the surgery,” he demands.

“You know I can’t do that without her consent,” Helen says, sighing.

“Then I’ll wait until she wakes up and get her consent,” he seethes through a locked jaw.

Helen’s face doesn’t change. “She might not wake up.”

“She will.”

Sam doesn’t get it. He understands—in a way—but he doesn’t really get it. He knows why she wouldn’t want to get a surgery like that. But he loves—he loves just as fiercely as she does, and that’s why he understands. Why he knows.

So why did the flowers pick her? Why would they pick her and not him?

Helen glances down at her feet, says nothing, and turns to exit the room. He’s left there in the silence, with the crowing of the machine keeping her alive to punctuate all his thoughts. If there is one thing he hates in the world, it’s feeling helpless.

He lowers himself in the plastic seat, leans his head back against the wall, and closes his eyes.

“You’ll wake up,” he says to her, but he can’t look at her.

Or maybe he’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream.

There’s a soft rapping of knuckles on the door, and it opens slowly and quietly, and Sam has to lock his fingers around the arms of his chair to keep from jumping up and sending a right hook right at Steve’s face.

“How’s she doing?” Steve has the audacity to ask, has the audacity to look worried, has the audacity to pull up another plastic seat next to Sam.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he mutters under his breath, spite burning his tongue.

Steve glares at him. “Yeah, that’s why I asked. What’s your problem?”

“My problem is you, Rogers.” Now, Sam can’t help but stand, towering over the super soldier. He immediately grabs Steve’s arm and hauls him out of his chair, through the door, and out into the hallway. Steve stumbles, a hand on the wall, and Sam’s nostrils flare.

“How could you do this to her?”

“Me?” Steve sounds genuinely taken aback, but Sam doesn’t buy it. “What are you talking about? Helen told me—”

“I thought you loved her, too!”

He really did. That’s why Steve brought her to the Tower, didn’t he? That’s why they go out for lunch every other week and why Sam never gets a chance to take her out himself. Why he always makes sure to say goodbye to her before a mission, like he doesn’t want to leave her behind. He really thought Steve loved her too. If he had thought for one second that Steve didn’t love her...

“What?” Steve’s jaw slackens. “Not like that! She doesn’t—She’s not in love with me, Sam!”

He pants, unable to catch the breath that’s leaving him like a slow leak.

“Then who the hell is she in love with?”

Steve stares at him, a look that Sam can’t recognize, can’t name, in his eyes. Steve stares at him and smooths his hand down his beard, shaking his head.

“She’s in love with you,” he says, and Sam chokes.

Because all the pretty things in his world lead back to her and man, if she loved him, it would all be so perfect that he would never want to leave it. He would never want to say goodbye. He’d ask god and anyone else who would listen to grant him a deathless life so he could look at her forever, with no end in sight, because he would. He would. Sam would love her forever.

“No,” he says, a dry chuckle escaping his lips. “That can’t be true.”

“It’s true,” Steve says.

“That’s impossible.” He backs up, against the wall, holding his head in his hands and staring at the floor. “It’s impossible.”

“It’s true,” Steve repeats, staring past Sam and through the window of the medbay’s room to look at her, lying so still in her bed. “I know it is.”

“Steve, I’m in love with her,” Sam confesses, an ache in his chest. “It can’t be me. I’m in love with her. I’m so fucking in love with her.”

A heavy hand clasps his shoulder, and when Sam looks up, his breathing unsteady, Steve has a look of regret smeared all over his face.

“But does she know that?”

And, for the first time in years, Sam cries.

(“It’s me. I need to tell you something. Even if it will hurt, even if it will destroy—destroy what we have, I don’t know. But I need to tell you, baby. I need to.”)

—SINCERITY—

Sam Wilson thinks she’s starlight.

When she first arrives she’s a collection of stars and their ashes, explosions and deaths, supernovas and black holes and earthbound meteorites.

What he means by that is she’s covered in bruises but she’s so beautiful, and he wants to gather her in his arms and tell her it’s going to be okay.

Steve introduces her, and Sam tries to bite his tongue, but all his words pour out of him anyway as she holds out a hand to him and he takes it, soft and trembling, and he knows she’s special somehow. She’s special.

“You’re the prettiest thing I think I’ve ever seen,” he says, and he means it, but she ducks her head and tries to hide the little smile on her face.

Sam Wilson thinks the world of you. But even when the bruises fade, you’re still left with all the land and the water and the galaxies hidden in your eyes when he catches your gaze, and he looks at you and he swears that you’re reaching into his chest and taking his heart in your small hands and squeezing him dry. You have realms inside of you, he’s sure, all the worlds and all their wonders. But you—you look at Steve like that sometimes, and then Sam is just grateful that you even let him breathe in your general atmosphere.

He can fly, sure, but he certainly isn’t an astronaut, so this is about the closest he can get to you.

(“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. This number is not available. At the tone, please record your message.”)

—TRUE LOVE—

The first thing you see is the ceiling, hazy and sleep-filtered, but it looks just like the ceiling in that bathroom, back in Danny’s apartment, back when you thought the pain of love was bone crushing, before you knew the pain of love was slow suffocation.

It makes you stutter back to life and that sends you into a coughing fit. You can still taste them—the daisies. They taste like the rawness of sunlight.

Hand pressed against your chest, your eyes dart around the room, trying to catch your bearings. There’s an IV in your arm, the bed railings are plastic, Sam is sitting in the corner, the lights are dimmed.

Sam Wilson is sitting in the corner.

You gasp, looking at him, and he’s staring right back at you, a familiar book in his hands.

Sam Wilson is sitting beside your bed, holding The Flowers of Evil, and the look on his face is far from happy to see you. It’s not anger. And it’s not sadness. It just… is. And Sam is never “just” anything.

Even if he thinks that sometimes, like the times when he calls you and says, “It’s just me,” as if he isn’t something special, so important you can’t live without him in your life.

Well, you can’t live with him, either.

After a solid minute, Sam looks down at the book between his dark hands, and he begins to sift through the pages. He stops sometimes, lingers on the sheets of dried daisies that have been pressed, their color leaking onto the text only slightly. But then he moves forward, searching for something. You don’t know what.

“How long have you been here?” you ask, throat sore when you speak.

“How long have you been in love with me?”

Your teeth gnash together, bite into your bottom lip, worry a sore there as he doesn’t look at you. He just keeps flipping through the book as if he didn’t just thrust a dagger straight through your heart, as if it isn’t beating so fast and hard like it’s trying to stay alive. You feel like you can’t breathe and you don’t know if it’s the flowers crawling out of your lungs and trying to get to him or if it’s the fact that he knows.

You can’t answer him.

Sam stops on a page, his finger trailing over the script, and then he begins to read.

“And yet

to wine, to opium even, I prefer

the elixir of your lips on which love flaunts itself;

and in the wasteland of desire

your eyes afford the wells to slake my thirst.”

“Les Fleurs du Mal,” he says, shutting the book with a thump and striking his palm with it. “Baudelaire sure had a lot to say, didn’t he?”

Your mouth is suddenly so dry. There’s a pink pitcher of water next to the bed, just like a hospital would have, and you reach weakly for it. Sam grabs it immediately, pouring you a cup, and passing it gently to you. You gulp what you can down through the straw, hardly breathing.

When you finally feel like you aren’t going to cough your lungs up into your hands again, Sam takes the cup back from you, and embarrassment is a cold shiver down your spine.

He sits back down beside you, looking straight at you. “Do you want to get the surgery?”

Your lips part to speak, but he interrupts.

“Be honest.”

Chewing your lip, you take a deep breath. “No. And I never planned on it, either.” From the corner of your eye, you see his jaw tighten.

“Why not?”

“Because what is a life without the fucking sun, Sam?” The words are spat from your mouth. “A life spent not loving you—not knowing you, not feeling you anymore—it wasn’t worth it. Because I love you, Samuel Wilson. I have loved you since the day I met you and you told me—told me I was pretty for some goddamn reason. And I’ve loved you every day since. I love everything about you and there is not a single iteration of life that I would want to live if it meant not loving you.”

This time, nothing tastes like blood. It’s all just daisies, like they’re populating your mouth, changing the way your tongue works, turning to paste in your teeth. It’s so strong that it hurts. Like you’re eating paper valentines and crying too many tears as you say goodbye to a body in a casket.

But it’s beautiful and lovely and gorgeous because you swear that, somewhere beneath it, you can taste what you think love might taste like.

Sam doesn’t speak and it hurts, but it tosses your book down on the side table and reaches into his pocket and it still hurts. He pulls out his phone. You swallow down the rising earth in your chest.

He pulls out his phone—no, it’s your phone. He turns the screen toward you and punches in your password. You furrow your brows. When did he learn your password? But it doesn’t matter, really, because he just swipes to your call log and pulls up your voicemails. And then he begins to play them.

“Hey there darlin’, it’s just me. I couldn’t find you anywhere—where you at? I thought we could go pick some up and I’ll hang ‘em up. You need me and I’ll be there, ‘kay honey? I, uh, I wanted to ask this girl, but uh, I ended up waiting too long and I’m a little late so… I’ll see you there, honey. I wanted to catch you before we gotta go, in case you wanted to say goodbye. I need to tell you something. Even if it will hurt, even if it will destroy—destroy what we have, I don’t know. I’ll catch you later, darlin’. Have fun, girl. Save a dance for me, baby. Take care of yourself while I’m gone, sweetness. But I need to tell you, baby. I need to.”

The sobs fall from the broken seal of your lips, loud and crashing, like a waterfall. Your hand, shaking and weak, comes up to try to cover your mouth, but Sam lunges forward and catches your wrist in gentle fingers.

He’s looking at you like you’re everything—and you know, you know now that you are—to him.

“You’ve been saying that this whole time?” you ask, a laugh bubbling up from your lungs. No flowers retch up your throat.

Sam smiles, lips pulling back to reveal that gap in his front teeth.

“You haven’t been listening, baby girl. I’ve been tryin’ to tell you I love you for months.”

He rests his forehead upon yours, and as close as he is, all you can smell now is the spice of his cologne. Nothing smells floral.

“I never would have thought,” you whisper. “I was sure—so sure—that you didn’t love me. I thought because of the flowers, I thought that meant for sure that you didn’t love me. I mean, why would you? Why would you ever love someone like me?”

“Honey,” he says, so softly, “you’re starlight.”

Tears flood your cheeks and Sam cups your face in his large hands, wiping them away with gentle thumbs.

Sam Wilson is sunlight. You never considered that you could be starlight.

“Why wouldn’t I love you, darlin’? You’re so good, so gorgeous, so perfect.” He laughs and it makes you laugh too, but it comes out like a sob. Your heart feels lighter. “But you’ve never considered yourself worthy of love before, have you?”

“I’m sorry,” you cry. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

He hushes you, soothes you, smooths his palms over the planes of your face and over your hair,

“You don’t have to be sorry, baby. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He presses a warm kiss to your forehead and the memory of every single time he’s kissed your forehead like this flashes through your mind, an electric current, and you wonder how you never saw it before now.

“I love you,” you say, and this time, your lungs don’t feel as though they will burst from the pressure, the roots, the vines twined around them. You don’t feel choked by petals. You don’t taste blood in the back of your mouth.

“I know,” he says, “and if you let me, I will spend the rest of my days with you convincing you that you are worthy of love, honey. Because I’m in love with you. I’m so in love with you.”

When he presses his lips to yours, he doesn’t taste like flowers. Not like the daisies that wrote your death sentence. He tastes like golden pools of sunlight, warm and wanting. This is your heliotropism. You are a magnet for him, Sam Wilson, god of the fucking sun.

And maybe he’s phototropic, always drawn to you, moving toward your starlight.

(“Hey, it’s me. Sorry I missed your call! I’m on my way home now, and guess what? I have a surprise for you. It’s a bit ironic, but I think you’ll like it. What do you think of the name Daisy for a baby girl?”)

#sam wilson #sam wilson x reader #sam wilson x plus sized reader #plus sized reader #sam wilson angst #sam wilson fanfiction #hanahaki au #sam wilson fluff #thanks for supporting me!#divine masterlist #the flowers of evil

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itrytowrite-things · 3 years

Text

Murder podcasts

Spencer Reid x reader

Summary: Y/N has a tendency to listen to murder podcasts while doing chores, one day Spencer comes in unannounced scaring Y/N into action. (This summary sucks but it’s fluffy)

A/N: shout out to @with-paint, she helped me form some of this fic so check them out.

The eerie background music and narrator filled the kitchen as I scrubbed diligently at a plate. I blinked down at it, trying in vain to remember what the hell I used it for that would cause such a stubborn stain of food. Sighing, I squeezed the soap bottle some more and ran hot water over it. Maybe soaking it would help?

Grabbing a few of the cups I had washed, I spun around from the sink to a towel I had laid out earlier. I scrunched my nose as cold soap suds ran down my arm, hit my elbow and fell to the floor in a sticky mess I didn’t want to deal with right now.

I was so engrossed in the podcast playing over the Alexa that I barely even processed the grueling chore that was longer than normal. I was lost in the words, that an hour longer scrubbing at dishes seemed almost fun. The dishwasher had completely died a couple of weeks ago.

Normally Spencer would speed read the manual to figure out what was wrong with the stupid machine. But unfortunately, his case in Michigan was taking longer than he anticipated. So, he hadn’t been home to look into it, leaving me to hand wash the dishes. I didn’t mind, it was a mindless task and allowed me to catch up on my favorite podcast.

“They found her body a week later, twenty minutes from their house,” I shook my head at that, case freaking solved. Her husband obviously killed her. I mean there’s no way the police didn’t solve this case, come on.

I moved from the towel back to the sink, sticking my hands back into the soapy water. I always believed that I should be a detective. I could solve these cases easily, Spencer claims that suspicion can only take me so far and the reason that they don’t catch the guy is not because they don’t suspect it, but because they don’t have hard evidence. I normally just scoff and give him a kiss knowing that I would get the bad guy in the end, “hard evidence” my ass.

“Two months later the police came in and found Jeff’s disembodied head laying on their kitchen counter.” My jaw dropped and I turned around furiously, bringing a wet butter knife with me, on instinct I pointed the knife at the device.

“Oh shit.” I said to the speaker, as if it were relaying the case itself. Well turns out I was wrong. I cleared my throat and lowered the stupid knife. I placed it down and tried my best to look less scandalized. We all make mistakes. So I might have been a little off in my husband theory, but I mean I had only heard half the case at that point so it doesn’t speak anything of my amazing detective skills. I nodded at that and tossed the knife into a little stack of silverware. The metallic sound echoing around the kitchen. I smirked at my good throw and turned back to the sink.

I quickly got into the true grove of washing the dishes, listening to the more gruesome details of the case. Turns out the killer did quite a number on old Jeff. I was halfway done with the remaining dishes when I felt a tap on my shoulder sending my heart into a frenzy.

I whirled around quickly bringing the closest item with me as a weapon. The plastic spatula slapped the asalint straight in the face creating an awfully loud twack sound that bounced off the kitchen walls. I blinked in horror at realizing who exactly was standing in front of me.

Spencer's cheek turned red immediately.

“Oh my god! Spence! I am so sorry!” I dropped the spatula and brought my other hand to his face trying to soothe his skin. My hand was covered in water and soap suds, and it dripped down his face onto the already wet floor.

“I am so so sorry. You scared me.” I rubbed my thumb over the spot, feeling his heated skin. Jesus, I felt awful. I didn’t hold anything back when I hit him. I figured I was fending for my life, not greeting my boyfriend.

“It’s okay.” His much larger hand cupped mine removing it from his face. The redness had died down a little, making his skin a rosy pink instead of the previous bright red. He looked adorable which only made me feel worse. Who looks that cute after getting slapped in the face with a spatula?

Spencer startled me yet again when a chuckle came bubbling out of him. His laugh was like someone bottled the sound of happiness. It made my own laughter arise every time without a doubt even if I didn’t understand what was funny.

“I guess I don’t have to worry about you protecting yourself.” A loud squeak sound emitted from my body unexpectedly followed by more laughter. I slapped him very lightly across the chest, kissing his unharmed cheek.

“You're lucky I wasn’t cutting vegetables.” I said, rustling my way into his arms pulling his body against my tightly, loving the way his laughter shook my entire body. I felt the short press of his lips against the crown of my head before tucking my head into the nook of his neck. I inhaled deeply, taking the scent of him with me. The apartment had started to lose its scent with him being gone for so long. I was beyond eager for the apartment to smell like us again.

“I think those podcasts are giving you wild ideas.”

“They would never find your body Dr.Reid.” I teased, poking gently at his side making him squirm in my grip. Another round of laughter filled the small space, it was only when it died down that I realized my podcast was still running in the background.

“Alexa, stop,” I shouted into the air stopping the podcast. “The neighbor did it.” I said with coincidence knowing that my answer was correct this time. Spencer let out a belt of laughter, nodding his head, a big grin on his face.

I pulled back from Spencer taking in his features for the first time. He looked tired, his eye bags had doubled creating a skunk in effect. I could see the trouble in his eyes, the case was hard. It killed me to see him after a hard case, he looked more and more defeated after each one. However, it was what he loved doing and my job wasn’t to erase the trauma of his job, but to ease him back into daily life. I thumbed his eye bags lazily, a pout taking over my face.

“You wanna take a shower and I’ll start us some dinner.” I asked gently. Not wanting to completely destroy the quiet we created. He nodded slightly looking younger than ever. I quickly pulled him back into me taking all of his weight. “I love you bub.” His hair felt silky against my fingertips as I disentangled the curls.

“Love you too.” He mumbled, his heated breath warming my skin. I waited a few comfortable minutes rocking our conjoined bodies in the cozy silence of our kitchen, I took a deep breath and said what was on my mind.

“You wanna talk about it?”

I don’t ever ask Spencer for the details of his cases. He either goes into a tangent without prompting or doesn’t feel like talking about it. I used to think that talking to Spencer about his job would be like listening to my murder podcasts. It honestly was one of the things I was excited for, but I soon found out it’s nothing like that.

When Spencer spoke of cases it was personal. He felt every death that was caused and saw every killing through the eyes of monsters. He held so much emotion in his voice when he spoke of the victims, that I often can’t help but cry. How a person can hold that much pain and still continue to do it everyday, is beside me.

He shook his head, squeezing my torso before finally pulling back and placing a soft kiss to my lips.

I continued the dishes, washing the last few. I left the podcast off, listening instead to the shower from down the hall. I scrubbed off the last of the grime before starting the oven. A simple dinner was always best in these situations. I pulled out a pre-made chicken pot pie from the freezer and placed it in the oven.

As I moved to dry and put away the dishes while waiting for pie to finish. Spencer emerged from the bathroom freshly bathed. He wore a thin gray shirt paired with some soft looking sweatpants. My upper lip jutted out automatically. God I love him.

“Feel better?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to startle any peace that the shower might have brought him. He nodded slowly.

“What did you cook?”

“A chicken pot pie, I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s perfect.” He smiled and returned to my arms, kissing my neck once before tucking his head into my neck. The edge of his wet hair scraped against my skin in an uncomfortable way, yet I only moved enough to rub circles into his back.

A loud beep emitted from the oven caused me to jump in Spencer's arms. He let out a small chuckle.

“Pick us something to watch and I’ll plate us some food.” I hummed turning my back to him. I heard him walking towards the living room as I bent to retrieve the hot food.

Spencer sat criss cross on the couch, Les Enfants du Paradis was displayed on the TV. I handed him the steaming bowl and sat down, sitting close enough for our knees to knock together. I have no idea what Les Enfants du Paradis was, but I would watch literally anything he wanted as long as he was here.

“It’s in French, but I figured I could whisper the translations to you while we watch. Or I could pick something else?”

“No! This is perfect Spence. I love it when you translate, you tell the story better.” He let out a little blush highlighting his previous slap mark. I bit my lip and winced slightly, “How’s your face?”

He touched the spot faintly, he didn’t wince when his fingers made contact which was a good sign. However, I have an inkling that a small bruise would form in the center of the slap which was going to be a fun story to tell his colleagues Monday.

“I’ve had worse, but you wield a lot of power with a cheap piece of plastic.”

“I am professionally trained in the art of spatula wielding Spence, don’t try that at home.” I stared at him, my face blank before a blast of laughter came out of both of us. One can only be so serious when you are talking about slapping people in the face with kitchen utensils.

Spencer started up the movie, and we remained there for the rest of the evening. Laughter and dramatic sighs followed by even more dramatic translations from Spencer. At some point he went so off script that even I could tell his story was bullshit. I didn’t call him out though just allowed him to spit nonsense, I would let him create fake French stories until he was blue in the face if that meant we got to stay in this happy bubble forever.

#spencer reid #spencer x reader #doctor reid #spencer reid x reader #reid x reader #reid fluff #spencer fluff #cm #cm x reader #criminal minds #dr. spencer reid #spencer #spencer reid fluff #x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer x you #y/n

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elen-aranel · 3 years

Note

Hii! Disco Sarek is making me feel things. I never thought I’d ask for this but could you maybe write a Sarek x reader?

Dear Anon, thank you for the request! I am so sorry this took so long! I hope you enjoy. I have set this in the past relative to Discovery, when Sarek is just getting to know humanity. Thanks to @starfleetstgmgr for some really helpful ideas!

Regard

Pairing: Sarek x Reader (no Y/N) Warnings: Moderately frank discussions of human relationships, Diplomacy, gratuitous detail of Paris WC: 4.3k Rating: Teen

You have always watched people.

When you were a child, you watched your classmates as they fought and made up, sometimes finding you had a better memory for who was friends with who than they did.

When you were at college, you watched people go by through the window of your favourite coffee shop. And you messaged your friends, as you sipped your latte in breaks between reading, if you spotted any of their tutors going by looking like they were in a bad mood.

These days, as a Federation Attaché, you watch people negotiate. Sometimes it’s just a formality – the nitty-gritty of signing a treaty. Ambassadors, professionals, everyone on the same page, little details to hammer out. But the more interesting times are when the stakes are higher: people negotiating to protect their way of life. People negotiating who are personally affected. People who care.

This is your first time on a negotiation with the new Vulcan ambassador, Sarek. You’ve worked with Vulcans before, and you generally appreciate their logical approach to a situation. Unlike some other Federation diplomats, they don’t try to make everything about them themselves. But still, Sarek is different, somehow, and you watch him, trying to put your finger on why.

You’re on a Federation colony planet, Omicron Aquila III, trying to negotiate between the two factions of humans that live there. The land is very fertile, and the original colonists grew crops for export. But 10 years in there was a disagreement, and now the humans live in two separate settlements. Everything was fine until last year when a volcano, thought to be extinct, erupted, damaging farmland and water supplies. The colonists from Hebden and Longridge don’t agree on much, but they did agree that they wanted a Vulcan to mediate their issues, because they knew a Vulcan would use logic and come up with a fair solution.

Sarek remains unruffled as Representative Jackson Walker gets increasingly angry about Hebden’s south well. His voice stays deep, slow, and calm as he re-iterates the logic of allowing Longridge to use it, and you realise that unlike the other Vulcans you’ve met, he doesn’t treat humans like they’re inferior because of their emotions, even if he doesn’t seem to understand them. Representative Laila Patel from Longridge sits there with arms crossed, a grim smile on her face. But you’ve been watching her, and you’re pretty sure that when you get to the issue of land borders, she’s going to kick up a fuss.

“I hear your objections, Representative Walker. I think we should take an hour’s recess to consider next steps.” Sarek says, and both humans stand and leave, without so much as a goodbye. You stand, too, gathering up your PADDS.

“Ambassador, may I have a word?”

“Yes of course, Attaché. Please join me.” He leads you through into a corridor, then to a door you haven’t been through yet. You make a point to give him space as he holds the door, letting you take it from him; Vulcans are touch-telepaths and contact is frowned upon. You follow him through into a garden. It’s beautiful, with pink and white roses in bloom, perfuming the air. You think it must have been one of the first things the colonists built because the plants are mature, and you’re touched that in establishing a new home they put beauty at the heart of it.

Sarek leads you toward the middle of the garden, so you can talk and be sure you’re not being overheard.

“What is it you wish to say, Attaché?” He regards you, curious, and you notice his eyes. Stormy, grey-blue – how had you not paid attention to them before? You shake yourself, mentally. Now is not the time.

“Your proposal is fair and logical. But I—I don’t think you will be successful with it. The colonists think they want a logical solution, but they cannot stop their emotions coming into play.”

Sarek raises an eyebrow at you. “What is your evidence for this assertion?”

“The way Representative Walker gets particularly aggressive when you bring up the south well. According to their database his grandfather, John Walker, dug it personally, and for some time at the beginning it was the colony’s only source of drinking water. Representative Walker probably remembers his grandfather telling stories about that time. His family derives status from that well. I think you’ll likely find something similar if you challenge Representative Patel on this land.” You get out your PADD with a map of the colony. “When Hebden split from Longridge, her family grew the first crops here.”

“Yes.” Sarek looks thoughtful. “This does explain the behaviour we have seen, and provide a hypothesis which we may test going forward.” He looks at you again, something in his expression you can’t quite read. “How do you suggest we proceed?”

The bronze plaque reading “John Walker Memorial Well” is being installed as you leave aboard the USS Jemison. Sarek isn’t with you, since he’s returning to Vulcan on his own ship, and you find yourself thinking about him as you review the agreement between the settlements and prepare for your next assignment. He hadn’t been what you had expected, and after your talk in the garden he had checked with you over several other points of negotiation. You had enjoyed watching him work, and you wish you were able to spend more time with him.

And – you couldn’t really let yourself think about it on the planet, but he was attractive. His eyes. His face. His voice. Very attractive. But a Vulcan isn’t going to be interested in a human, you tell yourself. And who knows when you’ll even see him again?

Again is months later. There’s a Federation summit on Earth and almost the entire Federation Diplomatic Corps has descended on Paris. You’re supporting the Zaranite delegation. You wouldn’t admit it to anyone but you feel a little creeped out by their masks; you understand they can’t breathe in an oxygen atmosphere but you don’t really see why they have to cover their eyes, too. The black slits are intimidating and narrow, and you think intimidation must be the point since their field of vision must be constrained. Regardless, you can’t watch them, not in the way you like. You can’t tell how they feel.

You tell yourself, however, that you are a professional, even if you don’t understand them. And even if they aren’t especially influential they still deserve competent support.

But the work isn’t terribly interesting: there’s nothing personal here, no real stakes, just checking language, ensuring the Zaranites have the correct paperwork – well, PADDs – to hand.

Socialising with your friends in the Corps is more fun. You’ve always loved Paris, from the first moment you looked down on it from the Eiffel Tower, and it’s good to catch up with Mark, Kelechi and Evan who joined the service at the same time as you, over good food and wine. But when, at the bottom of one-too-many bottles of Côtes du Rhône, Evan hits on you... you just aren’t interested. He seems a little juvenile, honestly. But you let him down gently.

On the third morning of the summit, though, you are summoned to see Consul Galea.

“So, I’ve had a request for your services,” she says, without preamble, as her aide waves you straight into her office. Her dark eyes are slightly incredulous, you think.

“From who?” At least the Zaranites don’t appear to have complained, which is what you’d been worrying about since receiving her message.

“Ambassador Sarek,” she says, raising her brows. “Apparently you made a good impression on that backwater colony. He finds his current assistant insufficient and would ’value your organisational skills and clear thinking.’”

“Wow, okay,” you say, feeling your skin warm a little. He had made an impression on you, but you had not thought you would have made one on him.

“Naturally I can’t say no to the Vulcan ambassador. You’ll be supporting him for the rest of the summit. I’ll assign someone else to the Zaranites.” She taps a control on her desk. “You’d better get going; Sarek will need you at 09:00. I’ll make sure all the paperwork is waiting for you.”

“Attaché,” Sarek says as you sit by him.

“Ambassador Sarek,” you say, nodding. You’ve had half an hour to get up to speed on his part of the negotiation, and you hadn’t let yourself think about... him. But there he is, with those blue-grey eyes, handsome face, deep voice. But no. This is emphatically not the time.

You don’t have the time, anyway. You would love to know which of your colleagues left Sarek’s paperwork in such a mess so you can have a word about it; just because he’s a Vulcan and logical doesn’t mean he can do both his job and yours at the same time. But you apply yourself and get everything sorted, and by midday you’re on top of it all, and able to properly support the ambassador. There may not be personal stakes to this but Sarek’s part of the negotiation is a lot more interesting.

“Thank you for your assistance today, Attaché,” he says as the session winds up. “I have found your presence to be...” he hesitates. “To be... most helpful.”

“You’re welcome, Ambassador.” You nod and smile, stowing your PADDs in their case. What had he been going to say? He doesn’t give you time to speculate, however.

“I was wondering if you could be of further assistance to me this evening. I have been... struggling... to find appealing sustenance. I am unused to using the synthesiser for an extended period of time, but I am having difficulty finding alternatives in Paris which are compatible with my dietary requirements.”

You nod, understanding. Traditional French food is not known for being vegetarian friendly.

“Of course, Ambassador. May I ask – are you happy to eat non-meat animal products, like eggs and dairy? If the animals’ welfare is assured?”

You take him to a little galetterie that you and Kelechi had happened upon a few years ago, during your second time in Paris together. It’s small, on a back street near the Bastille. The sort of place that locals go rather than tourists. It’s one of your favourites, and you try to go back every time you visit Paris. You enjoy the traditional Breton food, and the atmosphere – it’s friendly, quiet, and unpretentious. And you’re confident they will have plenty of vegetarian options for Sarek, as you sit opposite him at a dark wooden table covered in a crisp white tablecloth.

You both have the galettes – thin savoury pancakes freshly made with buckwheat flour – folded round cheese, eggs, mushrooms in cream and garlic sauce, and vegetables. You enjoy your food, alongside Breton cider served in a delicately painted bowl. You think Sarek relishes his, too, although he drinks the non-alcoholic fresh apple juice instead.

You find his conversation very interesting. He tells you of the planets he’s visited, and some details about Vulcan and its culture. You have to hold yourself back, a little; you don’t want to pry but you can’t resist asking a few questions about him personally. He tells you his father translated Surak’s teachings into English, and you make a mental note to get a copy.

He asks you about your life, too. Nothing overly personal, but he asks about the town you grew up in. What human schools are like. Details about Earth from a human perspective.

It’s later than you expected when you leave the restaurant.

“Thank you. For the meal and the enlightening discourse,” Sarek says as you prepare to part ways.

“Thank you, ambassador. I enjoyed this evening.”

He looks at you, then, something appraising about his glance. You can’t tell what conclusion he has come to, though. He nods. “I will see you tomorrow.”

As a mere attaché your accommodation is out towards the suburbs, and you have time to think on the metro-shuttle back. You had enjoyed yourself, a lot. If you were being honest with yourself, you had a better time than you had with your friends. If Sarek were to hit on you...

But he’s a Vulcan. You know nothing about their relationships, and the first lesson you learn about Vulcans is that those are questions you do not ask. You sigh, staring out the window at Paris rushing by. It’s not like you’ll see him again after this week, anyway. He’ll probably go back to Vulcan, and Consul Galea will have your next assignment ready.

First thing the next morning you send a message to Marin, Consul Galea’s aide, and just after your lunch break he delivers. You hope Sarek doesn’t notice you quickly checking your personal PADD, but he’s busy in conversation with a member of the Tellarite delegation.

“Ambassador,” you say, as you pack away your work. “Have you made plans for dinner this evening?”

“I have not,” he replies, grey-blue eyes looking at you with interest.

“I took the liberty of doing a little research, and I have a personal recommendation for a vegetarian restaurant from an aide who works in Paris full time. Would you like to try it with me?”

“I would. That was very... thoughtful, Attaché.”

The restaurant, near the Place Charles de Gaulle, specialises in North African food, and you enjoy flatbreads with hummus and baba ganoush, tabbouleh, and a vegetarian tagine with harissa and apricots. But better than the food is Sarek’s company, once again.

You wish, as you stand at the end of the Champs-Élysées and look through the Arc de Triomphe at the angular Grande Arche de la Defence almost glowing in the distance, that the summit was going to last longer. But the signing ceremony is tomorrow, followed by the official dinner, which as an attaché you are too junior to attend.

The following day you work as normal, highlighting last minute changes to the treaty’s wording for Sarek to review and uploading his edits as he debates with the Andorian representative. But somehow you get the impression that there is something on the Ambassador’s mind. You think he’s watching you when he thinks you aren’t paying attention, and you’re not sure what to make of it.

You put it out of mind instead, and as the work winds down as preparations begin for the signing ceremony, you think about what you might do this evening. Perhaps go up Montmatre and look down on the city by night.

“That’s the last of them,” you say, as you had a PADD over for Sarek’s signature. The signing ceremony will be old fashioned with pens and paper, mainly for the media, but the actual agreements are signed off digitally.

“Once again I thank you for your support, Attaché. I believe we work efficiently together.” He pauses for a moment, giving you one last appraising look. “I am leading a seminar on human relationships on Vulcan next week, and I would like to ask for your assistance.” You blink at him, surprised, but he continues. “It seems logical to have a human present, and from our time working together I believe you would be a good choice to educate other Vulcans. I have sought permission from Consul Galea. She is willing for you to go, but wanted me to ask you since it is not strictly within the remit of your job.”

“Uh, yes. Having a human there would be logical.” You nod, trying not to sound too eager. “I will... assist.”

The seminar room in the Shirkar Academy is large and airy. There are floor to ceiling windows down one side, looking out over the city of Shi’Kahr, and there are two rows of pale wooden desks curved into a semicircle around a large screen. You can just see the desert in the distance.

Every desk is occupied, and as you watch the assembled Vulcans, you are nervous.

You have done your fair share of talks – to colleagues, and sometimes in negotiations. You could do the one on the Advantages of Federation Membership in your sleep (and according to Kelechi, who had been sharing a room with you the night before the first time you’d had to give it, you actually had). But this is different. You resist the temptation smooth your clothes; you may be nervous but you don’t need everyone to see it.

You had to admit that Sarek has done a good job with the presentation section. He goes through a through a brief history of types of relationships on Earth, including times and societies where women had been treated like property, and relationships and marriages were often treated as a property transaction. He also covers some things even you are not too familiar with, like societies that practice polygyny and polyandry. The audience seems engaged, taking notes.

He spends a little longer than you expect on arranged marriage before handing over to you.

You take a deep breath, reminding yourself that the Vulcans are aliens who probably don’t have many preconceived notions on the subject so there’s no need to feel awkward, and begin.

“Thank you Ambassador. I’m going to speak to you today on the types of relationship you’re most likely to encounter in the humans you meet, and then open up for questions and discussion.

“These days humans will most often enter into a romantic relationship with one other human at a time. These may be casual, as in the case where the two partners are getting to know one another, or sometimes because they have other things going on in their lives like work or travel which preclude the formation of a more serious relationship. It could also be because they enjoy sex with each other and don’t want anything more...”

You go on to discuss love and long term relationships, marriage, negotiating things like exclusivity and cheating, and a brief discussion of the two parent family as a common basis for child-rearing.

“Finally, it is important to note: not all humans are in or even desire to be in a relationship. Some humans are uninterested in the concept of romance or sex altogether. Others wish to pursue careers or other time-consuming activities and do not feel they could give a relationship proper attention. And some humans would be open to the idea of a relationship, but haven’t found someone they would like to enter into one with.”

You look round the room. You can’t really gauge how things are going; they seem attentive, at least.

“Does anyone have any questions?” You nod at a older Vulcan on the back row who has raised his hand.

“Are there specific ceremonies for humans wishing to undergo marriage?”

You relax. A safe question to start. “At its most basic form marriage is a legal contract, so can be performed by someone with legal standing to do so, the couple wishing to marry and a witness. It can be as simple as signing a document. However, there are a lot of traditions surrounding marriage. A more common ceremony would involve the exchanging of vows, and often rings to be worn as a visible sign that a human is married.”

You go on to cover traditional ceremonies, elopement, wedding clothes...

“Does that answer your question?”

“Yes. I note that you do not wear a ring. Are you married?”

“No, I am not.”

He nods, and you gesture to a younger female on the front row.

“I have read about virgins and virginity in human literature, but I do not understand the concept. Can you explain it please?”

Oh gosh. “The most basic definition of a virgin is someone who has not had sexual intercourse. In the past in some societies a woman primarily but sometimes a man too would be expected to be a virgin when they entered into a marriage. This isn’t the case anymore but losing one’s virginity, having sex for the first time, can be... uh... important, to some people. And there may be a perceived stigma around humans who are older than say... mid twenties, who have yet to have sex.”

“Thank you. You said you were unmarried; do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend? Are you a virgin?”

You blink, resisting the temptation to look at Sarek for support. You should have expected this, you think, feeling a little weak.

“There are some questions that it is... inappropriate... to ask humans. Asking whether a human is a virgin is always inappropriate, even for another human, unless you know each other incredibly well. So I will not be answering that, and I would recommend that you don’t ask another human. But no, I do not have a—a partner, at the moment.”

Safer questions follow, on things like how long it’s appropriate to be in a relationship before marriage, and divorce and how that’s accomplished. Questions about how partners are chosen, and even one about love at first sight. Then—

“How would you know if someone is interested in pursuing a relationship with you?”

“You—uh... it’s difficult. Someone might hit on you,” you say, wincing mentally, thinking of Evan. “That is, they may say something to express an interest. But a lot of the signs are physiological, and difficult for us to recognise consciously. Like... someone’s pupils may dilate when they talk to you. Or they may lean in toward you, mirror your actions. They may ask you questions, try to get to know you. Find opportunities to spend more time with you. But it can be difficult.” You shrug. “Sometimes it takes a friend to tell you they think someone is interested in you. But if you want a relationship, and think they may too... sometimes you just have to ask.”

You are relieved when the seminar is over, and gratified when the organiser at the academy makes a point to thank you, both for the presentation and your willingness to answer questions candidly.

Afterward you think Sarek will take you to the Federation Embassy, but instead he steers his desert flyer out of the city. Part of you wants to ask where you’re going, but you trust him, so you enjoy the ride as the city gives way farmland, and forest. You skirt the edge of forest and desert for a while, then Sarek turns the flyer through the trees and stops in an open area.

Your eyes widen as you exit the speeder; you have always heard of Vulcan as a desert planet, but in front of you is a large body of water, waves gently lapping on a sandy shore. You turn to Sarek.

“It’s beautiful,” you say, and you think you see satisfaction in his expression.

“This is Lake Yuron. This part of the shore is quiet and I frequently come here when I wish to meditate. I... appreciate the calm.”

He walks toward the water and you follow. You stand together, watching the waves as they go in and out. The water looks different, somehow, to lakes on Earth, as it reflects the more orange tint of the Vulcan sky.

After a while, Sarek speaks. “Today during the the seminar, you described some of the ways one can tell if a human is interested in pursuing a romantic relationship. I have observed you over the past few days, and I believe you have displayed many of these signs.” He turns to you, stormy eyes reflecting the lake water.

“Are you interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with me?”

You look down at the sand, and swallow, your mouth suddenly dry. But you have to be honest with him. “I am. I find you fascinating. I enjoy your company. And you... are very attractive.” But there’s just no way he can reciprocate, you think. “I’m sorry if I have made you uncomfortable. That was never my intention.” You look back up, hoping he can see the apology in your eyes.

“Although I am an adherent of logic, of Surak’s teachings, it would be... inaccurate to say that I do not experience emotion. I control and suppress the emotions that I feel, and generally that is... satisfying, to me.” He takes a step toward you, closing the gap between you both. He’s close enough to touch.

“I find you... compelling. I lack the proper language to express emotions, but… perhaps I can show you?”

You nod, mutely. You know about mind melds, even though you’ve never seen one performed, much less participated. Your eyes track his hand as he reaches up to touch your face.

“My mind to your mind. My thoughts... to your thoughts.”

The touch of his mind is like nothing you’ve ever felt before, and you gasp slightly at the extra dimension that opens up for you, in a direction you couldn’t even have imagined. But you feel safe; you can feel that he is keeping you from being overwhelmed. And then you for a few moments you see yourself as he sees you. Feel an echo of what he feels, even as you share what you feel for him.

As he breaks the connection the only thing you can do is bring a hand up to his face, and kiss him. It’s gentle, almost hesitating at first, but it feels so right as you press together, as the kiss deepens.

You have always watched people; you have never really thought about people watching you. You know they will, though, as you ride back to Shi’kahr: the human partner of the Vulcan ambassador. You won’t be putting on a show, but you find, as you think it over, Sarek at your side, that you don’t mind.

#sarek #sarek x reader #ambassador sarek #s’chn t’gai sarek #Star Trek Discovery #writings of the girl from outer space #regard #ask #request #nonny #fanfic #fanfiction #star trek fanfiction #sarek/reader #sarek x you

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homeformyheart · 3 years

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vows - adam du mortain x f!detective (twc)

day 28 – soulmates

author’s note: thank you so much for the request @anotherbeingsworld. i am so glad i got to end this month’s challenge with such a sappy, happy fic – i don’t know if this is my canon wedding fic for these two (mainly b/c regina’s being stupid), but it was fun to write. i hope you all enjoy!

copyright: all characters, except my oc detective, are owned by mishka jenkins @seraphinitegames. series/pairing: the wayhaven chronicles – adam du mortain x f!detective (regina bishop) rating/warnings: 14+; fluff word count: 1.5k based on/prompt: day 28 – soulmates from #28dateswithunitbravo challenge by @wayhavenmonthly summary: adam surprised regina with his vows on their wedding day.

vows

regina took one last look at herself in the mirror, her grandmother’s veil framing her face and covering her shoulders. her hair had been styled in soft waves and pinned back in a half-updo, and a delicate pair of diamond studs adorned her ears.

“are you nervous?” farah asked, standing behind her so regina could see her in the mirror.

“a little, but i think it’s more nervous anticipation than anything,” she said softly, fiddling with the large, ornate engagement ring on her finger.

she locked eyes with farah in the mirror, feeling a familiar prickle behind her eyes and remembering tina’s warning about ruining her makeup. “i just never thought we’d get here, you know?”

farah gave her an understanding smile and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “i know it wasn’t the easiest road to get here, for either of you.”

regina put her hand on farah’s and squeezed back. a knock on the door made them both turn.

tina opened the door, holding out regina’s bouquet. “we better get going or else your guy might break something,” she joked as regina took the bouquet from her.

“i better go check on him,” farah said, giving regina a wink and leaving the room.

“are you ready?” tina asked softly.

regina stood up, adjusting her dress with tina’s help. “i think so. how do i look?”

“if the battery ram doesn’t marry you, i will,” she said and regina chuckled.

they exchanged a long look of understanding, one that could only be ascribed to friends who had seen each other through the highs and lows of their twenties and secrets that no one else would know.

“it’s the end of an era,” tina said quietly, one hand on the doorknob, the other clasping regina’s. “you and me.”

regina gave tina’s hand a squeeze. “i’m still going to see you around. we’ll still hang out.”

tina gave her a bittersweet smile. “you know it’ll be different. you’re marrying the love of your life and beginning your life together. and i’m incredibly happy for you. if anyone deserves to be happy, you do.”

“you are definitely going to make me cry,” regina said, trying to delicately wipe away a tear without smudging her eyeliner.

“if you cry, i’m definitely going to cry,” tina said, chuckling. “so let’s get you married before that happens.”

* * * * * it was a small ceremony, of only those that felt like family, but regina didn’t even register anyone else besides the man at the end of the aisle that stole her senses. she didn’t register that his crisp, tailored charcoal suit matched nate and morgan to his left, nor that verda was standing in the center smiling at her encouragingly.

her eyes never left adam’s green ones, sparkling with warmth in the late morning sun as she walked down the aisle, the breeze ruffling his hair, styled no doubt at nate’s insistence. the silvery sheen of his pale blue tie matched the heels hidden underneath her dress, coordinated no doubt with farah’s help. but all of those details faded away like a vignette as she approached him.

she gave her mother a hug but didn’t register rebecca’s red rimmed eyes as she moved to sit down next to eric. nor did she register farah’s beaming smile or tina’s teary one from where they stood on verda’s left. she handed her bouquet to tina without so much as a glance in her direction, preoccupied with the feel of adam’s arm as she tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow.

she continued to stare at him in awe even after adam turned back to face verda, but he kept glancing to the side at her once verda began the ceremony, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

“we are gathered here today, to join these two souls together,” verda began, smiling warmly at regina.

adam raised his hand up and verda fell silent. regina glanced between them both, trying to suppress the panic rising in her throat.

“if i may, i would like to say something first,” he interrupted, his tone gentle but still laced with authority.

regina tensed. why would adam want to interrupt their wedding?

“i know we agreed to do our vows in private after the ceremony, but i need to make sure you and our closest friends understand what you mean to me,” he explained. “as dr. verda has said, we are here to join our souls together spiritually, but you must know by now my soul has always been yours.”

regina’s mouth fell open slightly.

“i know now, without a single questioning thought in every fiber of my being, that you are my soulmate, in every romantic and literal sense of the word,” adam murmured.

he reached up to stroke her cheek with his thumb, brushing against her veil.

“and i love you with my entire heart and soul and i promise to love you forever,” he said, smiling gently with his fingers resting under her chin.

regina could feel tears gathering in the corner of her eyes, the lump in her throat blocking her voice. they hadn’t discussed whether she would turn, so the idea that he would still love her even after she was gone and never love again overwhelmed her completely. adam looked at her with such love and tenderness that somewhere in the distant corners of her mind, she knew she should be saying something, anything, but especially that she felt the same.

but how could she even hope to articulate the depths of her feelings for him when words failed her like this?

say something, she thought, vaguely aware that her mouth was still open in surprise when verda cleared his throat and continued with the scripted vows.

adam took both of her hands in his and smiled warmly, just as verda said, “adam du mortain, do you take regina elizabeth bishop, to be your lawfully wedded wife? do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect her, forsaking all others and holding only unto her?”

“i do,” adam’s said, his voice ringing clearly. “you have my heart, my body, my soul, for evermore and i will always say yes to every lifetime with you.”

“and do you, regina elizabeth bishop, take adam du mortain, to be your lawfully wedded husband? do you promise to love, honor, cherish and protect him, forsaking all others and holding only unto him?”

regina’s mind was still in a daze, replaying adam’s words from earlier on loop. she felt tina adjust the veil at her back, subtly pinching the skin between her shoulder blades in the process, an attempt to shake her out of her stunned silence.

“i—i need a minute,” she blurted out, grabbing onto the skirts of her dress and running back down the aisle.

tina chased after her, catching her back inside the dressing room while adam looked on, brow furrowed in concern. his gaze fell to the ground, nate’s hand patting his shoulder reassuringly.

it could be feasible, although the thought hadn’t occurred to him in a very long time, that regina might not feel the same. perhaps he went too far and overwhelmed her and now she might change her mind.

“are you okay?” tina asked, quickly handing her a water bottle and encouraging her to take a sip.

regina shook her head. “i’m okay, i just got overwhelmed. i can’t believe he feels so strongly for me, and i couldn’t come up with anything that would really explain how i feel and i—oh god, he’s probably panicking, right now!”

“hey, take a deep breath,” tina said sharply. “the way that man looks at you, like you’re a dream he never wants to wake up from, and the fact that you said yes to marrying him, that already tells him how you feel. all you need to do is actually marry the man.”

regina looked at tina and they burst into laughter together. “you’re right,” she said, gathering her dress and exiting the room one last time.

she ran back down the aisle, tina frantically chasing after her and holding up the back of her dress. regina grabbed adam’s arm for balance as she stopped suddenly in front of the podium.

“i do! of course, i do! a thousand lifetimes over, and i will always say ‘i do’,” she said breathlessly, eyes shining with unshed tears.

adam’s shoulders instantly dropped in relief and she giggled, mouthing a silent “i’m sorry,” as verda asked the crowd for any objections.

“you may now kiss the bride.”

adam gently cupped her face in his hands and leaned in, his emerald green eyes drinking in every part of her before his lips covered hers. her hands instinctively reached up to either side of his neck, keeping him in place as their lips moved in sync slowly and deliberately, only pulling apart when the cheers and clapping around them had gone on for almost a minute.

“i love you, mrs. du mortain,” he whispered as he pulled back to look at her again.

“and i love you,” she said, her heart swelling with more joy than she ever thought possible.

* * * * * permatag: @kelseaaa; @kat-tia801; @anotherbeingsworld; @crackerdumortain; @pearlsandsteel; @gloynporslen; @sosolenoo; @alyssalauren; @wayhavenots; @gingerbreton; @takemyopenheart; @writer-ish; @fhauvilles;

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schoenheitslut · 3 years

Text

BABYSITTER

note/s :: literally just porn without plot. I vastly underestimated how long this would be. It’s completely self indulgent and based on the babysitter au idea I had earlier. This is probably shit but honestly it was so fun to write now that I don’t feel embarrassed while writing smut.

desc :: mari is a babysitter for epel. after tucking epel in, she finds rook in the kitchen and offers to cook dinner for him. she realizes that her two attractive bosses feel the same way about her.

word count :: 2263

pairing :: beautywings | rookvil x mari

Mari stretched her arms as she exited Epel’s room. It took a bit of time in order to get the rowdy child to bed but she managed to tire him out enough. It was kind of a shame that she didn’t get to tell him a bedtime story like usual but Vil is very strict about the exact time he needs to be asleep. Sometimes it was a little tiring to meet his standards but it was all worth it in the end. The family paid well and Epel was a sweet child.

Her eyes landed on the man sitting in the living room. A small smile graced her lips. “Ah, I see you’re back from work, Mr. Hunt. Have you eaten dinner?” She asked him.

He shook his head, mirroring her smile. He tipped his hat to her in greeting, gazing at her like he usually did. It looked as though he was a predator stalking his prey. But as a hunter, it was just his thing, she reasoned with herself internally. He’s never done anything to harm her. In fact, he was always so charming and sweet. Mr. Schoenheit was a lucky man to have him as a husband.

“Then let me make something for you.”

Mari made her way to the kitchen in order to cook something up for the two of them, as well as Mr. Schoenheit. Hopefully she can perfect her skill in making meals the way her two employers like it, knowing how high the actor’s standards were for everything. As she placed the ingredients onto the counter, she felt a warm breath on her neck, causing her to jolt and drop the ingredients on it. His arms wrapped around her.

“M-Mr. Hunt, what are you doing—”

She was interrupted by him. “Fufu, I’ve always dreamed of getting to know you carnally on this counter. The thought of having you for dinner tonight makes me feel so excited.” He couldn’t mask the giddiness in his voice. His hands roamed her body, groping at every curve.

“Mr. Hunt, you’re married— Ah!” She moaned at him slipping his fingers through her skirt and panties and inside her warmth, massaging her insides. She felt his tongue drag across her neck and collarbone. A heat spread throughout her body from her abdomen.

“Mm, yes. You’re so wet, mon petit lapin,” he cooed as he grinded his hips against hers, pressing his hardness to her ass.

She bit her lip, trying not to be too loud. But accidentally let another moan out when he inserted another finger into her depths. A knot formed in her loins, squeezing tightly and aching for release.

“Let me hear all your beautiful noises, mon chéri. Show me how much of a whore you are,” he whispered into her ear, tickling it lightly. It caused her to gasp. For some reason, she felt her pussy twitch at his words.

But then came the sound of heels clacking against the marble floor. Her heart stopped, recognising the sound and her head whipped up to see the glacial gaze of Mr. Schoenheit piercing through her soul.

She was so fucked.

“Mr. Schoenheit, I’m so sorry—”

Vil glared at his husband. “How dare you start without me, Rook? I should punish you for your impatience.” He walked over and pushed him off of the girl.

“Wha—”

She couldn’t even get a full word in before he pulled her towards him and picked her up, carrying her bridal style to their shared room. “Don’t be so surprised, darling. I hope you really didn’t think we didn’t notice how you look at the two of us with such longing eyes.”

Her cheeks heated up, unsure how to respond to all this but she couldn’t bring herself to protest. He was right. But god, it felt embarrassing to know that they were aware of how she saw them this whole time.

The model laid her on the bed, the silk sheets were more inviting and twice as sensual on her skin. A click sounded from behind them, indicating that the door had been locked.

“Sit down.” His voice was commanding, so much so that his husband immediately sat down on the chair. He pulled his drawer and took out some brilliant red rope before expertly tying his husband in a manner that reminded the girl of shibari, such intricate and detailed patterns were so elegant that she felt unworthy of seeing Rook in such an erotic state. She rubbed her thighs together, trying to calm the rising heat between them.

He tied a blindfold over his eyes, concealing them. Then, Vil turned to her, causing her to tense up. Her breath hitched. “Strip for me. Slowly.”

Mari gulped and nodded, unbuttoning her cardigan one at a time. She took it off, revealing her bare shoulders and started to strip off her dress which left her in her underwear.

He tutted. “They’re decent, but you could do better, my dear.” He eyed her underwear, judging the way the fabric hugged her body, how the color looked against her skin tone, and other things.

“I didn’t exactly expect this to happen, sir,” she spoke, finally able to actually get a whole sentence out.

A frown pulled at his lips. His expression was one of exasperation. “We were meant to wait until I deemed you ready but Rook had gotten too excited, so now I have to punish him for that.”

Vil crossed his arms. “But before we proceed any further, I must ask if you are truly alright with this. You’re allowed to say no if you do not feel comfortable with this. Do not feel pressured by our status as your employers.” He seemed so genuine with his words, like he truly cared about how she felt. “You may go home and forget this ever happened and I can assure you that it won’t affect your job.”

She bit her lip, nodding meekly. “Yeah, I was just shocked that you guys would actually… want this. I’m still having trouble believing this is actually happening.” This felt too good to be true. The two men that she pined for had just suddenly shown that they were interested in her. She wondered if this was just a really spicy dream she was having after being sexually repressed for years. But it was really nice that Vil cared enough for her consent first.

He smirked, leaning closer. His finger hooked underher chin to make her look directly at his lilac eyes that held such lust for her.

“Then we’ll have the whole night to convince you that this is very real.”

His other hand went behind her and unhooked her bra with ease. It fell to the ground with a near silent thud. She shivered, feeling a cool breeze nip at her flesh. He took off her panties as well, dropping them so that she was completely naked.

Vil led her to where Rook was and instructed her to get on her knees in front of him. The girl unzipped his pants and was startled by his thick length springing up, leaking precum. “Place it in between your breasts,” the taller male ordered her. She obliged, leaning closer to get him between her soft mounds. Rook shivered at the contact, his cock twitched lightly.

“Now, lick the tip.”

Mari opened her mouth and circled her tongue over the head, causing the hunter to moan lightly. She then felt a pair of hands snaking down to her nether regions, rubbing circles on her clit. This caused her breath to hitch.

“Take it in your mouth and massage him,” Vil commanded her as he moved closer to her, their bodies had gotten so close that she felt his hardness against her.

She followed his orders. Rook groaned at her actions, wishing that he could see her but the blindfold prevented him from doing that. “Mon ange, please—”

The actor noticed and a mirthful smirk pulled at his glossy lips, enhancing his gorgeous features. “Begging already, are we?” He asked. “How pitiful. Usually you can last hours before you’re even pleading for release.”

“But I suppose it can’t be helped,” he continued on, “You couldn’t even wait until she was ready, and now I have to punish your impatience.”

“You’re not allowed to cum until I say so, got it?” His voice was commanding, so much so that Rook had nodded immediately.

“Keep going,” Vil whispered into the girl’s ear before he looked down at her sopping wet cunt. His fingers entered her, making her gasp around his husband’s cock. “Hm, I see Rook did one thing right. You should be wet enough.”

His hard length pressed against her ass when she continued to tease Rook, who was doing well when it came to holding back. She swirled her tongue around his tip. Looking up at him like this was a glorious sight to behold. His skin shone with sweat and his body was completely ripped. His chest heaved as he breathed. A nice red blush dusted his pale cheeks.

Mari cried out when she felt Vil’s cock enter her. The more intense vibrations around his manhood caused Rook to jolt in pain and pleasure.

Vil waited for her to adjust for a moment before moving his hips to grind against hers. The heat between her legs intensified, raging like a fire. She moaned at the sensation, feeling him hit all the right places.

The hunter wished for nothing more than to be able to see during that moment. It must’ve been quite a sight to see his cock between her soft tits while she sucked the tip as Vil pounded into her from behind. He groaned. “Roi du Poison, please… forgive me.”

Vil hummed before looking down at Mari. “What do you think, dear? Should I?” He asked her before angling his hips upward to hit her g spot.

“I think he learned his les-SON!” Mari felt herself go cross-eyed when he hit that spot within her. The knot tightening in her loins.

“Hmph, you’re certainly forgiving. But fine. As it is your first night with us, you’ll have your way,” he said. He turned to his husband. “You have our permission.”

Upon hearing those words, Rook immediately spilled his seed into her mouth, filling it with his creamy essence.

“Don’t swallow just yet. Take off his blind fold.”

Mari pulled away, tasting the thick saltiness of his cum. She leaned up to remove the blindfold from his eyes. Hunter green irises locked with milk chocolate-hued ones.

“Make him taste himself,” Vil commanded as he leaned down on her shoulder to leave a trail of kisses.

Rook’s eyes darkened with lust and hunger when she closed in on his lips. It was obvious just how eager he was when his tongue entered her wet cavern. He moaned, finding bliss in such an intimate act shared between him and the girl.

“Mon ange, my cum tastes divine on you.”

As they did this, Vil quickened his thrusts, hitting every sweet spot in the process and making her cry out. Her body felt as though it was on fire with every thrust. Her walls hugged his thick cock, tightening around it.

“Mr. Schoenheit… Mr. Hunt…” Mari gasped, breathing heavily as she pulled away from the hunter, his seed dripped onto her breasts. “It feels so good…”

Rook leaned down to lick her bud, nibbling on it lightly. “Oh, my dear slut, you’re doing so well. But please, call us by our first names.” he praised her. She bit her lip.

“Ara? You’ve tightened around me when you were called a slut.” Vil smirked. “Does that mean you want to be treated like one?”

Mari couldn’t answer as the knot tightened more and more, needing release soon.

Smack!

“Ah!”

He gave her an icy glare, slowing his thrusts to a torturous pace. “I asked you a question, whore. I expect you to answer.”

She nodded frantically, desperate for relief. “Yes! Please treat me like your cumslut. I am nothing more than a toy for your pleasure.”

He hummed, smirking. “That wasn’t so hard now, wasn’t it? And for that, you’re allowed to cum now. Remember to thank me for filling you with my seed.”

Vil started going at a brutal pace. Fast squelching noises could be heard. The room was permeated with the scent of sex.

“Ah! Yes, thank you, Vil! Thank you!” Mari cried out repeatedly as she started going cross-eyed with pleasure.

And with one final thrust to her g spot, she squealed. She saw stars in her vision as euphoric bliss engulfed her senses. The knot in her loins snapped. She felt his seed flood her cunt before he slowly pulled out, some cum dripped onto the floor.

Mari panted heavily before collapsing, then was caught by Vil. He brought her over to the bed, laying her on it. Then, he pressed a chaste kiss to her lips.

“You did well, my dear,” he praised her.

He turned around and started untying his husband’s constraints. The rope dropped to the floor.

Rook got up from the chair and approached her with a smirk. She looked up, a bit confused.

Vil turned to her. “I did say that we had the whole night to convince you after all. Don’t be so surprised.” He sat down, observing them with his lilac eyes.

“Ah, mon petit lapin, how I’ve waited to ravish you for so long.” Rook licked his lips as he neared her. “Now I can do it all night long.”

#twisted wonderland #twst #vil schoenheit #rook hunt #twst thirst #rook hunt x mc #vil schoenheit x mc #rookvil x mc

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tragedybunny · 3 years

Text

Wise Men Say, Only Fools Rush In - Chapter 1: Welcome to the Jungle

What I had expected was an interview, a proper face-to-face with the chance to prove my suitability to my potential superiors. What I had was maybe twenty minutes on the phone with the notorious CEO before he cut me off abruptly. “That will be enough for today, Ms. Du Couteau. I’m perfectly convinced your Father is correct and you will be more than sufficient for the role here.” From the moment he spoke I’d noticed that while rich and cultured, his voice carried a certain quality to it, a sense of superiority, as though he held himself above those around him. It seemed to me that it was genuine confidence though, unlike Father’s smugness, which always seemed to be from a place of compensating for whatever. As rich and powerful as he, I could only think he had short man syndrome with his insecurities. There was something dark as well in the tone of this Mr. Swain, he was not a man to be trifled with. “Provided you do not prove to be inept in some way I can’t predict.”

It was probably unwise that I gave in as I felt my temper flare at the unnecessary condescension. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Swain. I can’t wait to prove myself sufficiently competent for my future with Noxus Holdings.” The sarcasm rolled off my tongue before I could catch myself, my eyes going wide and a hand moving to cover my mouth as though that could undo what I’d said.

There was a long pause on his end and I held my breath, sure that I’d just burned this whole thing to the ground. “Very well, we’ll expect you in two weeks. I’ll have all the details forwarded to you.” I could’ve sworn he sounded almost amused and I died a little bit inside.

Hanging up, I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, and was thankful I was alone so no one could see their crimson hue. Had I really just snapped at the most important person at my new employer, the CEO of the company that my whole future hinged on? And he hadn’t said anything. Either this was one of those “I like her moxie” types of situations or there would be hell to pay later. The latter was usually the case for me anyway.

It was with that peculiar encounter in mind that I found myself waiting in the lobby of Noxus Holdings wearing a subdued gray suit, hoping to look less like the hot-head I’d proven to be over the phone. I swallowed a nervous exhale and glanced around, a carefully constructed fantasy of an industrial office space from a century ago surrounded me, all glass, and iron, and deco style windows. An escort from my department should arrive at any moment, and I wanted to be damn sure I looked as cool and confident as possible. It wasn’t as if the job itself would be a challenge, contracts and fending off lawsuits from angry ex-employees and investors, nothing I hadn’t done before.

“Red!” A richly accented, yet horrifyingly familiar and obnoxious voice broke the quiet ambiance of the lobby. The pair of receptionists on duty shot furtive glances toward the source in unison before returning to what they were doing. Standing just in front of the elevator, a black suit with a yellow blouse perfectly accenting her bronze skin, was a woman I’d hoped I’d left behind on graduation day, Samira.

How had I missed that this was where she’d ended up? I’d stayed in touch with some of our old sorority sisters, and they kept me in the loop on a lot of the gossip about everyone. It made a lot of sense though, she had a truly vicious nature, there was no way she wasn’t thriving here. I inhaled, feeling a slight twitch in my eye at even this small interaction, and walked toward her. “Hello Samira, it’s been a while.” My voice remained level and surprisingly pleasant, I just needed to treat her like every troublesome, idiotic client I’d ever been assigned, even if I felt irritation clawing at every one of my nerves. It had always been like that, something about her just grated on me.

“A while!? We haven’t talked since the Phi Sigma Tau farewell party.” The wind was suddenly knocked out of me as I found myself in a very unwelcome embrace. “Not that anybody saw much of you that night, well except Garen. Not that I blame you, a moonlit beach, a few good drinks, perfect romantic atmosphere.” I was freed only to be nudged harshly with an elbow as Samira leered at me in a teasing manner. “And I heard he saw quite a bit of you out there on the sand.” The laugh that followed was at least quiet enough that we didn’t instantly become the center of attention.

An involuntary snort escaped me and I felt irritation starting to give way to outright anger, my mind buzzing and my vision starting to tunnel. “I’m surprised anyone noticed with the other incident that happened that night.” My pleasant mask remained in place but reminding her I wasn’t the only one with a story from that night filled me with a sense of petty satisfaction, especially since hers ended with the wail of police sirens.

“What can I say, it was a wild night all around.” Her arm looped through mine and she began to drag me toward the elevator. “See, it’s just like old times.” For a moment I wondered if she could truly be this oblivious to my intended insult. That was answered a moment later she leaned in and violently whispered in my ear. “Don’t think you can fuck with me Red. Your Daddy’s name isn’t going to get everything just handed to you here.” I’d just made horrifying mistake number two. There was no way she hadn’t been baiting me to see what reaction I’d have. With reckless force, she jabbed the elevator button and spoke in a more audible and warm tone. “I’m sure we’ll find ourselves to be best friends all over again.”

I nodded silently, not wanting to give her a response that would encourage her further. These last few moments had brought my new reality into stark clarity. I hadn’t expected to waltz in and find myself in a top position with no work on my part, but I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be met with outright hostility. If it was just Samira that would be one thing, but were there others lurking in the shadows that I’d have to wary of? Maybe deep down I had still had some delusion about the family name being a shield of sorts, those were just entirely shattered. It would get me no further than it already had.

A vintage styled, cage-like elevator came to a stop before us. An insistent tugging on my arm pulled me into it after her, her pleasant smile frozen into place. The doors closed, a cheery ding sounded, and we dropped all semblance of civility to glare at one another. “My dear,” my eyes rolled reflexively at the honeyed tone, “we are going to be working very closely. Try not to lash out every time I make a harmless joke. I know you are used to things being smoothed along in the family business.” Nails dug into my palm, there was no way she could know the truth, but still, I fought an urge the physically quiet her.

I know a powerplay when I see one, this whole scene had been staged to give Samira a sense of dominance in our new arrangement. And there was no way I could retaliate with her seniority over me. At least not yet. I could feel bile creeping its way up my throat as I realized that if I was going to succeed and build my life of independence, there was nothing I could do about it right now but live with it. There was the small consolation that I gleaned something else from this encounter, if Samira was taking direct action it was because she was threatened. I’d always been the better lawyer, all throughout school and our intern days. It was likely I wouldn’t end up having to live with her antics for long. To that end, I released a breath and relaxed my shoulders. “You’re right. Let’s start this whole thing over. It’s good to see you again Samira.”

A small noise of approval escaped her and she turned away to face the elevator doors, clearly satisfied with my conciliatory act. Well, even if she had won the battle for today, there was still a war to be fought. Another high-pitched ding and the cage stopped at one of the upper floors. The same aesthetic carried through here, exposed venting ran along the ceiling, gray carpet accented the dark wood and iron-finished metal of the walls, artfully uncovered “antique” light bulbs illuminated anywhere the natural light from those same intricate windows from the lobby didn’t reach. “We should really track down Darius and I’ll introduce you.” There was an implication she was doing me a favor. Another small irritation, the whole department reported to him, it was expected we’d meet. “He’s the VP and also head’s up the acquisition team along with lega-Ah!”

Samira had turned to speak over her shoulder at me and midspeech was physically halted by a collision with a figure appearing from around a corner. I stifled the laugh that bubbled up, she’d desperately deserved that little impact. “Sorry Sam, don’t kill me. Well hello there new and gorgeous.” His tone shifted from apologetic to a practiced arrogance somehow in perfect harmony with the goatee he sported, one that I can only imagine he believed was attractive. The obvious leering that accompanied his words left me with the urge to bury my knee in his groin.

“Draven, this is Katarina, she’s just starting with us in legal. Should I let your brother know what a warm welcome you’re giving his new employee?” The newcomer’s face visibly became several shades paler. Interesting, it would seem that Noxus was also a place of family ties. “Kat, this is Draven, head of marketing.” For once, I couldn’t blame her for the annoyance coloring her words.

A hesitant hand reached out toward me and I made sure to lock my grip on it firmly. Years of martial arts as a hobby had left me with deceptive strength in my small frame. Pale blue eyes widened at the sudden pressure as I smiled sweetly. “Very pleased to meet you Draven.”

Shockingly, he returned my smile when I released his hand. “You’ve got a bit of a spark, I’ll bet you fit in just fine. Lookin’ forward to working with ya.” Wordlessly, Samira led on as Draven waved pleasantly behind us. “Be nice to this one Sam!”

An irritated sigh escaped her, but she waited until we were out of earshot to speak again. “Nicely done,” a compliment, he must really rub her the wrong way, “he’s harmless, but it’s good to keep him on a short leash.”

The hallways we passed through lacked the small cubicle farms you would find on the lower floors, instead, there were plenty of offices, conference rooms, and occasionally open-plan shared workspaces for teams who worked closely together. It was in one of those workspaces, bordered by offices, that Samira finally stopped. The buzz of those gathered in the area halted, and all eyes turned toward us. Silence reigned even as the curious examination of the newcomer was evident. “Everyone, this is Katarina, our new team member I told you about.” Murmurs welcoming me to the group responded, they were subdued though, as if they were afraid to be too excitable in front of Samira.

Despite the outwardly friendly moment, I kept my face neutral, and voice aloof as I returned their greetings. Any group within a company this high profile would be extremely competitive, and I’d be damned if I was going to start by giving off an air of weakness. They were probably already appraising me, deciding if I was any real threat to their positions.

“I see I’m right on time.” A deep voice cut through the subdued chatter and a massive figure approached us. Clad in a simple, but clearly expensive suit, his presence seemed to fill the entire space as he exuded a calm confidence. There was also something familiar about him, I was sure he had been at the family firm before.

“You couldn’t give me an hour before checking in, could you?” Indignation caused her voice to go up an octave in pitch, an effect that was quite satisfying for me.

The newcomer’s eyes narrowed dangerously, my first taste of the office hierarchy in action. Impatiently he gestured for us to follow, and not wanting to seem daunted by the sparks, I cut in front of Sam, following to an office that was nearby. Once the door was slammed behind us, I realized it was her office, the degree proudly displayed on the wall bearing her name. Tension enveloped the three of us. “Don’t start Sam. I’m not trying to babysit you.”

She clicked her tongue and muttered in defeat. “Fine, just make it quick.”

The full attention of the room fell on me. “Darius Basilich, pleased to finally meet my newest team member.” He held out a hand for a much more dignified handshake than the one I gave his brother. “Sorry we haven’t had a chance to talk before now, Jericho doesn’t always give us a head’s up when he’s decided something.” The gruff words had a frankness and sense of honesty about them that was refreshing. I took note of the use of Mr. Swain’s first name, it was good to know who he was that comfortable with.

Releasing his hand, I could recognize that he’d be my first ally here and one that I needed on all fronts. “I believe we’ve met previously, while I was interning for my father.”

In answer, he offered a small, but genuine smile. “Thought you looked a bit familiar. Must have been when I was wrangling Draven out of that mess.”

Sam, who had sat behind her desk and started furiously typing, snorted. “Your brother is always into something.”

My expression must have faltered because he let out a weary sigh. “I see you’ve met. Anyway, great to have you on board. It was a shock that Marcus was willing to let one of the kids go.”

My stomach crawled as I recalled the last two weeks of verbal abuse I’d gone through, not just from Father, but Cassie as well. All because I dared to leave them. I was never more grateful for my apartment, that space that was mine alone, and no one could spoil it. Leaving the family manor was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. Of course, I couldn’t get into any of that, so I just shrugged nonchalantly. “Who would’ve guessed.”

“I’ll let you get settled in, we’ll talk again soon. Sam, play nice.” They glared at each other one last time before he exited.

“You two have a problem?” I ventured. Knowledge was power, so I needed to get the lay of the land quickly.

Laughter met my words. “Nah, Darius and I just have an endless pissing contest. He’s alright, but I am going to replace him as the boss’s favorite eventually.” No surprise it was some obnoxious game of hers. “Anyway, let’s get you settled in the office, I’m sure it’s not the posh corner you had a Daddy’s, but you weren’t expecting that anyway.” If the thought of returning to him defeated didn’t make my stomach heave, I would’ve knocked her out cold. Instead, I shot her a cold look and followed to my new office; small, windowless, and suspiciously right across from hers. A few seconds later we were joined by a short, pale woman with tight pinned brown hair and ice-blue eyes, about our age. “This is Alyssa, she’ll get you set up.”

Several hours, and an aching back later, my mind was completely overloaded with passwords, computer systems, and file paths. Stretching, I felt the siren call of the cozy little cafe I’d spied in the lobby. Turning to Alyssa, I could read in her expression she was in the same mind frame I was. She’d proven to be easy enough to get on with, that was one victory for the day. Our backgrounds intersected in a way, she’d come from a family business as well. However, she’d sold her share of the ownership of Ironspike Industries to Noxus on her way through the door. It had been a nice payday and guaranteed her a stable career no matter what. Most would consider it a cold-blooded move, but I could get the perspective that family wasn’t always sacred. Besides, she laughed easily enough and had a comeback for every bit of banter. “Hey…”

The door flew open with a sudden violence, Samira standing behind it. “You’ve been summoned Red.” A hefty binder dropped from her arms onto my desk with a resounding thud. “It’s been requested that you escort this up to the top floor for Mr. Swain. He wants to read through it before it’s presented to the board and he has a hard-on for physical copies.”

My heart lurched as I rose from my seat. I hadn’t expected it to come this soon, meeting the CEO I’d had the gall to snap at. “Well, wish me luck Alyssa.” My voice was deadpan flat and Samira gave me an odd look. Maybe the incident hadn’t become common knowledge as I’d feared.

The elevator ride was not nearly long enough as the gilded cage ascended the final few floors to the very top of the building. I stepped out, binder held in front of me like a shield, only to realize that Samira hadn’t given directions beyond the floor. An empty receptionist’s desk stood sentinel, the occupant clearly out to lunch. Beyond it was a foyer with branching hallways. Hesitantly, I stepped forward to glance down them. “End of the center hall.”

The deep voice from nowhere caused me to jump a little. Darius, of course his office was up here too. “Thanks,” I ordered my voice to remain cool and collected.

“Let me guess, Sam neglected that bit?” He chuckled slightly. “She really wants to assert herself with you.”

“It seems a certain level of ruthlessness is the Noxian way.” Some of the tension faded. Despite the fact that he was very nearly a literal giant, Darius was much less intimidating than you would think. In fact, there was almost a warmth to him.

He shrugged. “We buy and sell other companies. We have the whole of another person’s world in our hands. It helps to keep an edge about you. Although I imagine it’s not a problem with your background.”

It would seem that everywhere I went, the Du Couteau name would haunt me. If I wasn’t outright reviled for it, I was at the very least, notorious. Father had a reputation for ruthlessness, a reputation that had been handed down the generations with the firm starting with my great-grandfather. “You’re not wrong.” Even if I was shadowed by the name, the lessons I’d been taught in the cause of that reputation ensured I could be cut-throat when necessary. His words reassured me that even if the name itself couldn’t, the legacy of it could definitely serve me here. “Catch you around Darius.” I gave him a confident smile and a wave as he headed toward the elevator.

The walk down the hall was short with no other offices present and ended in an impressively large door made of dark stained wood. Before I could give it any more thought, I quickly knocked. “Enter.” The voice from the other side sent a shiver down my spine with the combination of confidence and callousness that I recognized from the interview. Again, I couldn’t hesitate, so I obeyed the order as quickly as possible. Afternoon sun streamed in from a wall of windows across from the door, throwing the massive desk to the right into shadow. Contrary to the sleek, artistic industrial look of the rest of the building, this office had the look of a cozy personal study. High-backed chairs surrounded a table to the left, bookshelves lined the walls. The L-shaped desk was made of warm cherry wood with brass embellishments and looked like a genuine antique. “Ah, Ms. Du Couteau, we meet at last.” Looking up from his computer screen as I approached, he fixed me with a piercing gaze that I would swear could read my thoughts.

My breath rushed from my lungs. That cultured and captivating voice I knew, but the physical reality of him I hadn’t been prepared for. Elegant cheekbones and a proud nose gave him a regal bearing, but his high arched eyebrows and deep-set, midnight eyes put it under a pall of severity. The long mane of silken looking, white hair that flowed down his back could’ve offset it, if not for the scowl he was currently giving me. Overall though, his attractiveness took me by surprise, the elegant silver-fox not the visage I’d been imagining since our call. That fact critically distracted me, leaving me frozen where I was at the edge of his desk far too long. “Well, I don’t have all day.” Inwardly I cringed, what the hell was wrong with me.He motioned to the binder that I still clutched with a hand that gleamed bronze in an errant ray of sunlight that had fallen over us.

“Right.” I passed the burden into that outstretched, lustrous hand.

He all but snatched it from me. “Yes, it’s prosthetic. You could ask instead of staring.”

My eyes went wide with horror, I hadn’t realized that I had been. “My apologies, Mr. Swain.” My father’s triumphant laugh as I begged to return rang in my ears.

Turning his chair from his monitor, he dropped the binder with violence on the desk and began to thumb through it. The pace was such that it gave the impression it wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. “Did you have the opportunity to read through this?” He asked without glancing back up at me.

“No, I hadn’t.” Mercifully, my voice remained steady.

Turning it toward me, he tapped a fingernail on a paragraph. “Tell me what is wrong with this?”

Leaning down, I skimmed through it quickly, my mind translating the legal jargon without effort. At first glance, it was a contract for our purchase of yet another company. What had he seen in it? What was I looking for? Ah, it wasn’t a sentence, it was the whole paragraph. “There’s no commitment for the transition from the current leadership. They can dump and run, leaving us without support.”

“Very astute.” Well, he didn’t lose the scowl but there was a subtle note of approval in his voice. It felt like I could inhale again finally, I might still be able to salvage this. “Take it back down to Samira and tell her it will not make it to the Board this week. I want Darius to answer how that was overlooked.”

Warily, I gathered back up the binder as he sat back in his chair, on guard as though he were somehow dangerous. “Will that be all?”

“For now.” His eyes were drawn back to his monitor, and I began to turn away, sensing dismissal. “Fine enough job for the first day, Ms. Du Couteau.” The small compliment halted me mid-pivot, a small touch of warmth blooming in my stomach and a smile tugging my lips with the unexpected approval. I opened my mouth to answer, but was cut off. “Hmm, you know, this should be further reviewed. Samira already has a lot on her plate. Let her know that you’ll be taking the lead on this for the department. Darius will bring you up to speed.”

The world around me spun. Take that Father, I’m already getting the recognition I had to scrape and fight for every day with you, even when I’d accomplished something. “Will do, Mr. Swain.”

I strode from his office, feeling at the summit of the world, but a curious sensation of butterflies filled my stomach. As the door shut behind me, I let myself smile wide. I’d done it, sufficiently impressed him, the CEO with the ruthless reputation, the known hardass, the man with...with those captivating dark eyes. “Reign it in Kat.” Furiously I whispered to myself. “You’re engaged and you’ve seen attractive men before.” My mind betrayed me though, flooding me with the sensation of having those eyes focused on me as I walked.

Silently lecturing myself, I headed back to the elevator. The sudden vibration of my phone from my jacket pocket shook me from the cycle of my thoughts. Pulling it out, the notification seemed there just to judge me, Garen’s smiling face poised next to it. “Hey dear, how’s that first day going?”

#swain #jericho swain #swain x katarina #katarina du couteau #league of legends #league of legends fanfiction #modern au #wise men say only fools rush in

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farahs-babe · 3 years

Text

Always, I’ll Care

Fandom: The Wayhaven Chronicles

Pairing: Ava du Mortain x Detective (Elijah Robinson)

Word Count: 1675 words

Warning: None, its just fluff

Author’s note: So this is my first time writing for TWC fandom and gosh I’m nervous lol. Here is to hoping it shows up in the tags🤞 I hope y’all like it ❤

Title Inspiration: Always, I’ll Care by Jeremy Zucker

Ava sat in the empty common room, the night shrouding around her like a cloak.

A lone night lamp was turned on in the corner of the room, which cast against the sharp and rigid lines of her body accentuating the tense muscles and the constant flexing of her arm as she clenched and unclenched her fingers around the pen in her hand.

The others had shortly retreated to their room after the detective had bid good night. She could hear their steady breaths and that helped a bit with the growing anxiety which gnawed away at her slowly and steadily, like rust eating away at iron.

After 900 years of existence, you would think that nothing could bother Ava so much it made her stay awake into the wee hours but... It might be because of a certain blue-eyed detective.

Whenever Elijah's name crossed her mind, a flux of emotions would swirl through her. Initially, it would be an intense sense of longing which tugged at her heartstrings, followed by worry for his safety and concluded by a snort of annoyance on how easily she lets him invade his thoughts.

The entire ordeal with the pack of werewolves and the new revelation of the bounty had Ava so stressed that she had dug tracks into the common room carpet as she walked in circles before finally settling into a chair.

And Elijah being the- how could she place it delicately- the joker that he is, played it off in his usual sarcasm and jest.

But she could see.

She could see everything.

The rising panic in those soft brown eyes with a swirling green... The way his fingers threaded through his ebony black curls and tugging them, a gesture he did when he was nervous... The way he rocked on his heels... Everything.

She knows how capable he is and how determined he is, like Agent Robinson but that's the very thing that could get him killed. And the very thought of living in a world where he didn't exist...

He is more capable than you give him credit for. Mason's smoky voice from earlier, floods through her head which has her sighing.

She couldn't get herself to finish that sentence.

She leaned back on her chair and her hands went to rest behind her head, clutching her tight bun. The action caused a few strands to escape the restraints of the hairband and frame her face.

She looked out of the window to stare into the inky darkness. The sky was clear and you could see the numerous stars glittering over the treeline. Wayhaven looked so peaceful at night that you would be lulled into a sense of security.

But everyone knows, monsters come out at night.

She let out a sigh trying to relax but her muscles bunched up in tension as she heard a familiar heartbeat and the familiar set of footsteps to the common room.

The door opened slowly and the man who had enraptured her, popped in.

"Hey, isn't it late for you?" His voice rasped, which caused the hairs on the back of her neck to rise in reaction.

She cleared her throat and sat straight up. "Well, I should be asking you that question. What are you doing up at 4 am?"

He chuckled. "Fair enough. I was having trouble sleeping. Can't get my mind to calm down."

"I can relate to that."

He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. She could see his naked torso in the golden hue of the lamp and that made her gulp. He was not as built as Ava but he had a lithe and athletic build. The early morning runs which he goes for definitely benefit the detective.

With a huge effort, she got her emerald eyes to meet his hazel ones.

"I know that you are a vampire with amazing strength but you seriously need to sleep."

A smile played on his lips as he ignored the jibe. He walked up to the table and leaned against it. She notices the closeness and she noticed how his heart thundered against his chest.

"We don't need sleep to function, unlike you humans."

"C'mon Ava. Nat herself told me you haven't rested in a week. And I know the entire bounty thing is bothering you more than you admit to."

Guess I'm not the only one who can see everything.

She looked down at her pale hands resting on the wooden table. "It shouldn't have come to this. I was supposed to protect your identity- I am sorry I couldn't-"

His hand cupped her chin, gently bending her head backwards so that he could look down at her.

"I have said this before and I will say it again. It was not your fault. You don't have to be apologetic."

"Bu-"

"Shh…" He placed a finger on her lips and she could feel electric sparks and a steady blush rising to her cheeks. His fingers traced her cheek and continued, captivated by the feeling of Ava’s smooth skin.

Thank the gods he is human and can't see in the dark.

“It was too big an information to be kept under the wraps and it was bound to be out at some time. All we can do not is do damage control.”

She nodded her head. “Yes. That is the approach we are taking.”

His hand dropped and the loss of contact pricked her heart. "Enough work talk. Come with me."

Her eyebrows knotted. "Pardon me?"

"Come with me. I know what can help you relax."

Uncertainty coloured her features but curiosity won the best of her. She stood up and followed him.

He opened the door to Ava's room and gestured her to go in first before following her in.

"So what is your genius plan Detective?" She asked, sarcasm lacing her sentence.

Elijah wordlessly sat at the edge of the bed and pointed at the space on the floor before him.

Ava cocked an eyebrow and Elijah sighed. "I am just going to give you a massage. The knots in your neck is giving me knots. You need to relax and that will help you sleep."

She stood hesitantly by the door, her instincts begging her to just turn and march out but the genuine look in those starry eyes made her want to stay.

"Ava, do you trust me?"

With my heart and life.

Ava nodded and sat down on the ground, in the space between his legs, facing the wall opposite her bed. She proceeded to take out the combat shoes she was wearing as Elijah got comfortable on the bed behind her.

"May I?" He asked as his hands reached for the tight bun.

"Yes."

Slowly untied her hair and the golden locks cascaded down, stopping a little below her shoulders. She let out a sigh of relief as she felt his fingers combing through her hair, freeing the tangled hair. He was so gentle and Ava couldn’t help but gulp at the intimacy, something she wasn’t familiar with.

She was so lost with the feeling of his fingers threading through her hair that she almost didn’t hear him.

"Tina says that if you tie your hair so tight and keep stressing it, your hairline will recede and you will lose hair. It also gives a nasty headache."

"Well, I'm a vampire so I don't think that affects me."

Elijah hummed in agreeance as he pressed his fingertips into her scalp and massaged. Ava let out another breathy sigh, feeling her face heat up, her pulse race and goosebumps on her overly sensitive skin.

"I know the others don't apply to you but, I can literally feel your head pounding."

Well, it's for other reasons. Her subconscious snarked which had her mind overthinking again. And the closeness between the two had her senses on overdrive which didn’t help her cause.

"Ava, I can hear the gears in your head-turning... Relax. Focus on my hands." He chastised as his thumbs circled her temples, applying just the right amount on pressure.

It took all her strength to not melt into a puddle before him.

The way I'm putty in his hand is frightening... But at the same time, it feels like home.

He proceeded to thoroughly knead through the taut muscles of her neck, his magical fingers releasing the knots of tension.

These tender gestures took her back to the way her mother would run a comb through her hair before bedtime. Or how she would help Ava out when she returned from war.

"What are you thinking?" He asked softly, not wanting to break the peace.

"It's just... It's been a long while since someone has done something like this for me."

She didn't need to turn around to see the Cheshire grin on his face. The way his white teeth would contrast his dark skin. The way his eyes would ignite, a captivating mix of brown and green... As if moss were creeping on the rich soil.

"Well, I'm glad I could help you relive the experience."

She turned around and looked up at him, her eyes memorising his face and every minute detail. The freckles dusted on his nose, the curly hair falling against his forehead, the light stubble and his full lips.

"Thank you, Eli. I really appreciate it."

He squeezed her shoulder and gave her a gentle smile, something he only showed her. He reached to tuck a rebel strand behind her ear. "It was my pleasure, Ava. Get some rest, okay? Supernaturals don't take it easy on you just because you are tired."

Her eyes narrowed. "Are you mocking me?"

Elijah took a faux gasp. "I would never dare to."

Her lips tilted up in a half-smile before rearranging back into an impassive mask.

"Good night Detective. See you bright and early tomorrow morning."

"Good night." He said as he stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Ava in a haze of rushing emotions, untethered thoughts and the regret of not asking him to stay back with her.

I hope you liked it and thank you for reading❤

Like, comment, reblog and let me know what you think ❤

Tagging: @lilyoffandoms ; @agentrebecca ; @anotherbeingsworld ; @oshen ; @nathanielhsewell ; @starrystarrytrouble

#anushka writes #the wayhaven chronicles #ava du mortain #ava x detective #twc ava #a du mortain #oc: Elijah Robinson

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adam-dumortains · 3 years

Text

only you - mc x adam du mortain | chapter one

Your fingertips trace my skin to places I have never been. Blindly, I am following, break down these walls and come on in.

Book/Pairing(s): MC x Adam Du Mortain Rating: 16+ Category: Mini series Warnings / Trope: mentions of blood, slight mention of violence, angst

She could feel the searing on her neck and the blood trickling down to her shoulders. She screamed out for him. She screamed out to see his face, those green eyes, one final time before the inevitable. It wasn’t long before she could feel the life drawing from her body. She was dying as the teeth sunk into her further. Her eyes closed, smiling at the last flash of his face before the end.

Detective Maya Kingston (faceclaim: adelaide kane)

Agent Adam Du Mortain (faceclaim: matthew noszka)

note: hey! this is my first real wayhaven chronicle fanfic on mc x adam du mortain and i’m nervous but excited! enjoy.

Maya’s whole body jolted as the nightmare woke her up, her breathing erratic as a bead of sweat fell from her forehead. It took a few seconds for her breathing to calm down, a small pain in her chest from breathing so hard. Her fingers slowly made their way up to the scar on her neck, gently moving across the risen skin. Her eyes instinctively closed as she gritted her teeth. She hated that Murphy still had this effect on her after all this time. She was Detective of Wayhaven. She shouldn’t be scared. She needed to be brave. But she was. What scared her more than Murphy, however, was the thought of being without him. She sighed heavily, slowly swinging her legs to the side of the bed with her head in her hands. It was 3am, and she was awake, yet again. Knowing she would find it hard to fall back asleep after her nightmare, she made her way to the library to have a drink of water and read, with the hope that she would nod off at some point.

As she made her way to the library, she felt her body stop in front of Adam’s door. She thought about knocking but she knew it would be best to carry on to her intended destination. She sighed quietly and she continued walking towards the library. When she quietly stepped into the library, she scanned the bookshelf and chose a book and sat down on the big, deep red couch with her knees to her chest as the book lay between the gap.

——

Thump. Thump. Thump. It was all he could hear. He knew it was her heartbeat. Whilst he was alone, with nobody to see, he let himself listen to the soft beating. It calmed him. The sound of her being alive. He closed his eyes to heighten his senses. All he could hear was her. The peace he felt was soon interrupted when the beating sounded as though it was beating against her ribcage. Then the beating travelled further away. Something is wrong, he thought to himself. As though it was instinct, he jumped off the bed and opened his door, letting her heartbeat be the guide until he came to the library. He stopped outside the door, his hand hesitating above the doorknob. Her heartbeat was back at a steady pace and he could now hear her calm breaths. He knew she was okay at this present moment. He thought whether it would be best to slink back into his room, knowing that once he opened that door and laid eyes on her, he would have a hard time saying goodnight to her. He opened the door anyway.

Maya’s head turned towards the door as she heard it creak as it opened, her breath hitching as she saw Adam standing at the doorway, his body as stiff and still as ever. As he stepped forward towards the dim lamp, she could see the features on his face. How the softness of his concern contrasted with the harsh details and contours on his face. Her legs became weak as her heart fluttered. Looking at him was one of the most intense feelings Maya had ever felt, and she revelled in it.

“Maya.”

Maya cleared her throat, to drown away the thoughts about Adam she was just having. “O-oh, uh, Adam. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“Not at all. I was merely checking if you were alright.”

“Yes I’m fine, I just had a nightmar- wait, how did you know I was up?”

Adam coughed, almost losing his footing as he searched his mind for an answer. “You can be rather... loud.” He was not going to admit that he was listening for her heartbeat.

“Oh,” Maya frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t sleeping anyway. You said you had a nightmare?” Maya couldn’t see his concerned frown in the dimly lit room, but it was there nevertheless. All he wanted to do was comfort her, but he thought better of it. At the same time, Maya yearned for him to move closer to her. He stayed perched at the doorway, to Maya’s dismay.

Maya frowned, looking down at the book unable to meet Adam’s eye as her voice cracked ever so slightly. She didn’t want to seem weak. “Yes.”

“What about?”

Again, her fingers touched the scarred skin on her neck, making Adam’s eyes flicker towards her neck. His face fell slightly, as he shook his head. “But I’m fine.”

Every time he saw the scar on her neck or saw her flinch at the mention on Murphy, it was like a weight on his chest. A reminder that he wasn’t there in time to protect her. The ache wasn’t because it was his job and he had failed, but because he had failed to protect her. These feelings terrified him.

He turned to leave, headed towards the door before a small whisper stopped him. “Adam..” He paused for a moment before slowly turning his head to face Maya. “Can you stay with me for a while?” His jaw clenched as he thought about saying that he couldn’t. But he couldn’t leave her.

“Yes. Until you feel the need to go back to bed, that is.” He turned back around and sat on an armchair opposite her, his back straight as he watched her.

“Thank you, Adam.” She smiled softly at him, her heart skipping a beat as their eyes met. Their gaze held for a few moments before Adam coughed, tearing his eyes away from hers to look at the book she had in her hand.

“It’s no trouble.” He smiled slightly to himself as he grabbed a book from the shelf, his fingers delicately brushing against the book’s spine. He sat back down opposite her and opened the book.

As they both read in comforting silence, neither could help looking up to glance at each other. Maya watched as Adam’s brows furrowed in concentration and his chest rose in soft breaths as he read. Just looking at him ignited a feeling she had never felt before inside of her. A feeling of heat and fluttering of butterflies deep within her. Her tongue slid against her bottom lip gently as she imagined what his lips would feel like against hers.

Unbeknownst to Maya, Adam was allowing his eyes to move from the pages of the books to her. He couldn’t help but notice how her dark hair fell onto her cheeks, how her eyes followed the words she was reading and how her breathing shallowed whenever their eyes met.

After around an hour, the room was silent. When Adam looked up from the page for what could be the thousandth time to look at her, he noticed she had fallen asleep, the book askew on her legs. Her chest was rising and falling slightly, in a state of serenity. He couldn’t help but smile as he watched her before he quietly stood up and placed the book he was reading back on the shelf. He walked over to her, in almost complete silence to ensure she wouldn’t be awoken by him and let himself be consumed by her. He allowed himself to listen to her soft, steady heartbeat and the gentle, sleeping breaths escaping her lips. He allowed himself to smell the faint scent of her perfume. He slowly took his hand from his side and hesitantly brought it close to the skin of her cheek, mentally debating whether to let his fingers touch her soft skin. He gave in to temptation. His fingers glided delicately across her slightly blushed cheeks. He let out a shaky sigh as the feelings inside of him grew. And how he wished that he would be able to hold her. In another life, maybe. But not this one. He couldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t let himself hurt her. His thoughts were interrupted when Maya, still asleep, moved further into his touch. A slight draft hit both of them, causing Adam to quietly grab the knitted blanket drenched over the back of the couch, to gently put it over her to ensure she wouldn’t become cold.

As he did this, he felt the book that was parched between her legs fall. In a fast and instinctive reaction, he caught the book in his hand before it fell to the floor. As he looked back up to Maya, his eyes widened as he realised she was awake and their eyes had locked. Her light brown eyes, the colour of caramel, searched his face. His breath became unsteady as he realised how truly close he was to her face, her lips.. before he came momentarily distracted by the book in his hand that had fallen. His eyes slowly falling onto the book she was reading. Romeo & Juliet.

“These violent delights have violent ends,” Adam muttered, almost in a whisper. The line from the book playing over in his head. He frowned gently as he remembered Sanja’s words in the fortune tent about the darkness consuming them both. As though he was snapping out of a trance, he quickly stood up and shook his head. He took one last look at Maya, before abruptly turning around and storming out of the door.

Maya blinked, the sudden encounter shocking her into silence. A wave of sadness came over her, revealing itself as an escaped sigh as she was left alone, yet again, yearning for the man she wasn't entirely sure would ever feel the same.

#the wayhaven chronicles #adam du mortain #adam du mortain x mc #mc x adam du mortain #mc x adam #adam x mc #twc fanfic #twc fanfiction #the wayhaven chronicles fanfiction #agent adam du mortain #mc x adam du mortain fanfic #mc x adam du mortain fanfiction #im nervous about posting this lmao

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nomiliy · 3 years

Note

6, 7, and 10 for you too!! ;) I received yours and I am VERY much looking forwards to answering it in proper detail when I get home ;) Also pls tag mikaverleth whenever you get around to posting your reply, I always forget to check the notifs on this blog 😂

I COMPLETELY FORGOT THIS WAS IN MY INBOX I’M SORRY😭

6. What’s your favorite piece of dialogue you wrote this year?

Oh, that’s such a hard one...

I think it’s a toss-up between chapter 10 of Idiot Savant and The Devil’s Holed Up in Redcliffe.

Chapter 10 had one of my favorite scenes in all of IS. The flashback where Steve remembers his falling out with Darren harkens back to the Steve we know in Cirque du Freak. He’s mean-spirited, antagonistic, self-absorbed, all the traits that I still include in IS but just magnified. And I think this bit of dialog really sells it:

“Stop it, Steve,” Darren warned in a low voice.

“What? These are serious questions, Darren,” he jeered back. He lowered his face into his, nearly cheek to cheek as he goaded him on. “Shit, they won’t let me in the girls’ locker rooms, so what about you, huh?”

“I’m serious, Steve,” he saw Darren’s fist clench at his side. That anger, that rage—that violence was something he understood. Steve could sink his teeth into the broiling heat under Darren’s collar.

He grinned down at the Irishman, living up to his namesake. “I am too, Shan,” he whispered into Darren’s ear, enjoying the little shiver that sent goosebumps up his bare forearms.“Wanna take me balls deep like all the other slags I stuff on the weekly? We use to be friends, so I’ll mess you up good—”

But I also really love this bit from The Devil’s Holed Up in Redcliffe. It’s my first smut piece for the CDF fandom, and anytime I get to write Starren bickering/arguing is a good time~

“That iron tolerance failing you, Shan?” Steve cackled again, losing nearly half of his third Old Fashion over the rim with each jerky sway. “Or you jealous?”

“Oh, definitely,” Darren snapped, “just positively green over here from all the jailbait they were too stupid to card drooling over your Jewish prick.”

7. What’s your favorite piece of description or narration?

This little scene from chapter 9 of IS where Steve sees Annie in a different light:

“I didn’t even say your full name, Anne Margaret—”

She shoved his shoulder, rousing a chuckle out of him.

He popped her arse with the butt of the rifle and earned a hit square to the chest. Another note: The Shan siblings were the cuddly sort and could throw a killer punch if they wanted.

He felt good getting under her skin for once like he was finally evening out the score.

A respectful silence fell over them, and Steve liked the way she looked at him then. It was the light, joking smile she threw his way that felt so familiar.

Her green eyes bounced off the string lights just overhead. The thick sleeve of her jacket muffled a titter and warmed her lips up to plush, lively pink. Cold wind kicked up her strawberry frizz. Annie tucked what she could behind her ear with a few curses about useless hair masks.

It felt like he was close to home in some way. If he could just do this for the night—chat her up and watch her smile, win her a few prizes, fill her up with more cheap beer—Steve wouldn’t mind.

I’ve really enjoyed writing Annie for this series. We don’t know much about her relationship with Steve in the books other than she was a victim of his manipulation, and because of that, she doesn’t really get much characterization. I like to see her as this fiercely independent young girl who loves her family immensely. She knows what she wants, and she’ll get it and defend it however she can. And I think in this scene Steve sees a bit of that, and they just have a friendly moment~

10. What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

Well, I really want to try posting more consistently this year. I’ve seen some writers have ‘posting days’ to manage their upload schedule, and I want to give that a try. After Idiot Savant is complete, I’ll shoot for posting the first and third Friday of every month.

I also want to manage my chapter length better. I’ve consistently written over 10k these past few chapters, but I know that’s really hard on readers and reinforces bad writing habits. For my next stories, I want to keep it between 5k-7k. That’ll help me post more consistently, and I think it’ll create a better narrative structure overall.

This is all in preparation for those WIPs I have stewing in my docs folder. For ‘Lilac Heartthrob’ (still the WIP name, but I don’t know what else to call it XD), I’d love to post twice a month and finish the first part by 2022. I’m planning right now for 22 to 25 chapters, so between 125k and 175k in total. It took me two years to write a little over 100k for IS, so here’s hoping for more progress in the new year :D

#ask nomi #asks #asks open #mikaverleth

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kittinoir · 4 years

Text

You can read this fic on Ao3

Chat Noir waited in the upper beams of the Eiffel Tower, observing the city. This high up, the wind tore at his blonde hair, whipped at his face, but he barely felt it. He was focused, determined, waiting. Waiting for her. He knew she’d show up. She always did.

He didn’t have to wait long.

It was mere moments before he saw that familiar red blur swinging across the rooftops of Paris. He couldn’t see her face yet, but he could imagine the furious scowl, the condemnation in those beautiful eyes. Absolutely devastating.

He watched, idly twirling his baton between his fingers, as she slid to a stop in the plaza below, mere feet away from his father’s latest creation. She kept her weapon at hand, currently in use as a shield, and though her enemy was impossible to miss, she kept searching the area. He’d be lying if he said his heart didn’t give a little stutter at the sight. He’d also be lying if he said he wasn’t flattered.

But he stuck to the shadows of the beams, watching and trying to convince himself what he felt was a rush of adrenaline and nothing more. It wasn’t admiration, and it certainly wasn’t anything like affection - even if ‘affection’ was putting it much too lightly, if he was being honest with himself. Which he hadn’t been doing much of lately.

He watched as Ladybug ran out of time and the akuma-victim struck, lashing out. She dodged it easily, no surprise there. Good technique, but a little over-zealous. Did the trick, he supposed. She dodged another swipe, springing across the plaza. God, she even made fighting look beautiful.

He slid down a beam, a little closer to the fight. She hadn’t brought a friend this time, and some small part of him quietly warmed at that. Just the two of them; that was how he preferred it.

Shut up. Those kinds of thoughts could only lead down one path, and he wasn’t sure he could take any more heartbreak just then.

He slipped closer again, now maybe just twenty feet above them. His tail (god, it was still weird to think of it like that) lashed behind him as he watched. He hated waiting.

“Lucky Charm!”

Chat Noir couldn’t help the feline grin that lit his face as she finally activated her power. And not, he told himself, because it meant he could finally, finally spar with her, talk with her again. No. It was definitely because his plan was falling into place.

Ladybug attacked the villain with renewed energy. He saw her glance around, could practically see how she was planning on using the little spotted toy that had dropped into her hand. He was close enough now that he could see the cute little crease between her brow that always appeared when she was trying to figure out her lucky charm. And if he couldn’t pretend his heart didn’t skip a beat as he marked her victory smile when she did figure it out, he could at least ignore it.

Chat Noir slid down the leg of the Eiffel tower the rest of the way to the ground as the sounds of the battle washed over him. There was a brief moment of silence seconds before his feet touched down, then a quick shout followed by the sound of something breaking.

“Time to de-evilize!” Oh, god, that was adorable. He heard the yo-yo whiz out, heard it snap shut. Show time.

Chat Noir saw her clearly as he sprinted around the side of the tower towards her. Her back was to him, as he’d planned, and her yo-yo was halfway back to her, the stunned akuma-victim dazed on the stones before them.

He threw his baton with lightning swiftness. It sailed across the plaza, striking the yoyo. The weapon whipped around Ladybug nearly too fast to see, pinning her arms to her sides, the force of it knocking her to her knees.

And then he was behind her, hauling her up by the string as she cried out.

“You,” she spat as he secured the string.

“Me,” he said, pulling her along as he retrieved his baton.

“This is cowardly, even for you,” she hissed, struggling to keep her balance.

“Cowardly?” he said with feigned injury. “And here I thought you’d compliment my cleverness. I didn’t break a sweat this time. I even succeeded.”

“It’s not over yet,” she snarled. And then she gave an almighty heave. The string didn’t snap, but it did…slip through his fingers at the sudden weight. Or did he simply let it go? Either way, the surprising lack of resistance meant she found herself over-balanced and face-down on the concrete.

“Looks like you’re finally falling for me,” he said, crouching beside her. The heart-stopping glare she shot over her shoulder was scorching.

“Don’t hold your breath,” she said as he hauled her back up. “Actually, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

“You wound me m’lady,” he said. And before she could distract him with her wit and charm, he swept her up bridal-style and leapt back towards the beams of the tower.

She didn’t even scream. Not the way Chloe or anyone else would have. In fact, he would’ve sworn she actually snarled in protest as they sailed up through the tower, a detail he nearly missed, overwhelmed as he was by her proximity. He’d never been this close before. She smelled like vanilla. His body tingled wherever she touched him, and he didn’t think he was imagining the warmth of her in his arms. In fact, he was rather surprised by the rightness of it.

“Release me,” she demanded as they finally came to a stop.

“Gladly,” he said. He set her down gently, another beam at her back, and him between her and escape without enough room to manoeuvre. And then he reached for her earrings.

He’d never taken off his miraculous while he was transformed, but he was unprepared the burst of pink that erupted from her skin as it began to dissolve, one earring in his hand. He also wasn’t prepared for her reaction. He’d expected more fight, or at least some foul curse thrown his way.

Instead she had curled in on herself, pressed herself right up against the beam, as far away from him as she could get. She’d drawn her knees up to her chest and squeezed her eyes closed, as if she could prevent the inevitable by simply refusing to see it. The wrongness of it, of seeing her small and terrified, struck him so deeply that he hesitated.

Fearlessness. Determination. Kindness. Cleverness. Those were the qualities Chat Noir admired most in her, even when he’d told himself he shouldn’t. Those were the things that left him breathless and wanting more. They were the reason he’d fallen for her, despite his better judgement.

And he knew, even then, with victory literally at his fingertips, her transformation dissolving before his eyes, that he would not be the reason he took those things away from her.

By the time Ladybug realized the sound she heard was her yoyo string slipping back into place and opened her eyes, Chat Noir had disappeared. Her earring had been abandoned on the beam in front of her. When she looked, he was no where to be found.

* * * * *

Marinette fiddled with her pencil, desperately trying to calm her nerves. The Jardins du Trocadero were full of people, but she couldn’t stop staring at the Eiffel Tower across the Seine. Couldn’t stop the images of that morning’s fight flashing across her mind. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel his arms around her, still hear his heartbeat in her ear as he carried her up those steel beams, her head against his chest. She shivered.

“Hey Marinette.”

She nearly fell off her step as Adrien’s voice sliced through the memory.

“Adrien!” she climbed to her feet, mercifully without tripping down the stone stairs. “I’m so glad you could come.”

“My father had to let me, since it’s for school,” he admitted with an adorable grin. “But I only have about 45 minutes.” He glanced around, his gaze lingering on the Eiffel Tower. “What made you pick the Trocadero?”

“Oh, I’ve been coming here forever,” Marinette admitted. “I always find inspiration here. I’m hoping it’ll help out with our design project.”

“Well your designs always have been amazing,” Adrien said as they sat down again. “Have you come up with anything yet?”

“Not yet,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “It’s a little hard to come up with something under pressure.”

“I get that,” Adrien said with a small laugh. “Hmmmm.” He looked around again, taking in the sights. “What about something Ladybug themed?”

The tip of Marinette’s pencil snapped against her sketchbook. “L-ladybug themed? Why Ladybug themed?”

“Why not?” he asked. He was looking at the tower again. “I heard there was a fight there this morning. Did you see the footage? She was…incredible.”

Marinette stilled, putting down the sharpener she’d pulled out. “Incredible, huh?”

“I’ve never seen anyone fight like her,” Adrien said. “She’s certainly not making Hawkmoth’s job any easier.”

“Ladybug’s a bit obvious, don’t you think?” There was an edge to her voice she hadn’t known she had, but there it was, sharp as a knife and twice as dangerous. But then, her eyes lit up. “Chat Noir on the other hand?”

Adrien glanced down at Marinette out of the corner of his eye. “Chat Noir? Isn’t he one of Hawkmoth’s cronies? Isn’t he…just as bad as him?”

But Marinette was already sketching, broad, violent strokes across the page. “I don’t think so,” she said absently. If Adrien stopped breathing beside her, she didn’t notice. “I think maybe he’s confused. I think maybe he feels like he has no other choice, or that maybe this is what he has to do.”

“Has to do?” Adrien echoed. “For what?”

Marinette shrugged. She’d shifted beside him, resting her elbow on one side of the book as she twirled an earring with her free hand. “I just think there’s more to him,” she said. “They always say he’s with Hawkmoth, but he’s saved Ladybug about a dozen times. He could have beaten her by now, if he really wanted to.” Marinette’s hand stilled on the page, a rough sketch of a three pieces suit beneath her hand. Adrien could see at a glance that it was indeed inspired by Chat Noir, mimicking the lines of his suit in a way he doubted many people could have done with any great accuracy. There was even a small bell in the centre of the bowtie. And rather than villainous, the figure looked…dashing.

Adrien wordlessly reached over, tilting the sketchbook a little bit more towards him. “Is that really how you see him?”

Marinette swallowed, nodding slowly. “I think…I think Chat Noir could be the hero Paris needs, the partner Ladybug needs, if he could just let himself be that. I think - I know there’s good in him.”

“What makes you so sure about that, Marinette?” Adrien asked, his green eyes flashing. “The way he attacks the city over and over? The way he takes advantage of the people in this city? Or the way he tries to sabotage Ladybug, the best thing that ever happened to these people? To him?”

“I see it,” Marinette said simply. Maybe it was the small smile, or the sureness with which she said it, but in that moment, he almost believed… “But if you’re really against it, we can try something else. It’s a group project after all; I want you to be happy with whatever we decide.”

He was quiet for so long that she really thought he’d ask her to change the design, even though a feeling in her chest was ringing at the rightness of the sketch. The right thing at the right time with the right person. It would be a good project, she could feel it.

But in the end, he just nodded, losing the intensity. “I’d be happy to use this idea for our project,” Adrien said, risking a smile of his own. “Fabric shopping after school tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Marinette said. She flipped the sketchbook closed, but Adrien placed a hand across hers, stopping her from putting it away. She felt her face turn red. His hand was so warm.

“I just…it’s stupid, but…after the project, do you think I could have the sketch?” he asked, turning to face her head on. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Marinette said over her pounding heart. “Yeah, as soon as we get it back, it’s all yours. I’d be flattered.”

“Thanks, Marinette.” He gave her hand a quick squeeze before letting her go. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow,” she said, waving after him.

The next time one of Hawkmoth’s creations showed up, Chat Noir was no where to be found.

#lovesquarefluffweek2020 #fic #writing #miraculous ladybug #LadyNoir #Adrienette

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lukatheselkie · 4 years

Text

HMC - Watermelon and Ice Cream

This is my first of THREE different posts for today! I wrote them all today, that’s why they’re so late. I’ve been waaaaay too busy these past two weeks, with PruMano and FrUk week. But now I’m back to writing without a due date! Well, mostly.

There’s a bit of information to know before going into this. I use two of my OCs, Albert and Alrik. Alrik has his own story coming in a moment, so I’ll describe him there. This one is for Albert. He’s the personification of Stockholm Syndrome (will be abbreviated as SS). This isn’t mentioned in what I wrote, but his mannerisms are directly related to what he personifies. He’s terrified of touching people with bare skin (he doesn’t want to be the cause of someone falling into SS), so it’s an honour if he does. He’s also incredibly cautious of romantic love, because he’s not certain if the person actually loves him, or is just with him because they fell under SS. He’s also very shy and INCREDIBLY soft-spoken. His accent is also stronger than Alrik’s, because he spends more time in Sweden.

*This character is not a romanticization of SS, he is a coping character.* I have been put under it. If anyone says him existing is romanticization of SS, you will be blocked. No exceptions. He is very afraid of putting anyone under it, therefore he is not making it seem like this great thing. He hates even saying what he personifies. I repeat, he is NOT romanticizing SS. And no, having a romantic relationship isn’t romanticization.

Pairings: OC x France

Warnings: Death threat from an overprotective big brother

Alrik sighs when he hears a knock on the door. Of course someone has to visit when he’s cooking. He sets aside the vegetables he’s in the middle of cutting, and goes to answer the door. He blinks in confusion when he sees Francis standing there, an armful of red roses. He smiles flawlessly at the shorter man, and glances behind him. “Is your brother here?” Alrik scrunches up his nose slightly. It’s weird, seeing Albert accepting affection from someone besides family. But he’s glad he’s happy.

“Berty! Francis is here to see you! I think he wants to take you out on a date!” He narrows his eyes at the Frenchman and lowers his voice. “If you hurt him, I will cut off your dick.” He brandishes the knife in his hand, glad he accidentally brought it from the kitchen. He takes satisfaction from the shudder this elicits from Francis. “And don’t think I won’t do good on that promise. Ja, it’s a promise. If you hurt him even the slightest bit, you won’t ever be able to pleasure yourself again.”

“Rikky, stop threatening him.” Alrik spins around, giving his little brother an innocent smile.

“I wasn’t threatening him!” Albert raises his brows skeptically.

“Then why is he paler than usual?” Alrik shrugs, a movement that’s much more animated than it should be. Albert rolls his eyes, and lets out a quiet laugh. It’s only slightly louder than his voice. He switches gears quickly. “Du brought me flowers?” He smiles sheepishly, and Francis’ heart rate increases. His smile combined with what he’s wearing is almost too much. Not that it’s revealing or anything, he’s just not used to seeing the Sweidsh man in anything besides long sleeves, pants, gloves, and a scarf.

“Oui, of course. Though they aren’t as beautiful as you are.” Alrik fake gags, and practically runs out of the room. Albert blushes, shaking his head.

“I’m not-”

“You are.” He shifts the flowers into one arm, and reaches out with his other. “Can I hold your hand?” He nods, and grabs his hand. He steps closer hesitantly, not daring to look at Francis. “Will you accompany me today? We can go anywhere you want. I just want to spend time with you.” Albert finally looks at him, thinking over the offer. In his silence, he can’t help but focus on their slight height difference. They’re too close for him not to. He’s only a few centimeters taller than Francis, maybe three, but it’s noticeable enough he fixated on it in his nervousness. He looks into his eyes, and his uncertainty melts away. There’s patience in his eyes, something he’s not used to receiving. Most prefer to rush him into an answer, which always gives him anxiety. He’s so very thankful for Francis’ understanding.

“Ja, alright. I think I can handle that.” He gives him a tiny smile. “But I need to change first. I don’t feel comfortable around strangers in this.”

“Of course. Wear what you have to. I want your company, not anything else. But take these. We wouldn’t want them wilting, now would we?” He holds out the bouquet of roses. Albert takes them cautiously, making sure none of the thorns poke him.

“Tack. They’re beautiful. As are you.” He whispers the last sentence as he turns away, hoping he doesn’t hear it. He’s not very good with accepting compliments, but he’s even worse with giving them. He hurries into the kitchen for a vase, pausing when he feels Alrik’s gaze on him. “What is it, Rikky?” He looks at his older brother, who’s—rather unexpectedly—smiling at him.

“You seem happier. I’m glad. I love seeing my little brother smile. And even if I’m not the sole cause as much as I used to be, it’s still a good thing. Maybe even a better thing, because it means you’ve found another person that makes you smile. He’s doing so much good for you. Now give me those flowers, you need to get dressed. Can’t keep your date waiting!” He grabs the flowers, and gently shoves Albert out of the room.

“Alright then,” he mumbles, walking toward his room. He changes out of his T-shirt and capris into a dark blue long sleeved button up, black pants, and light brown knee high boots that he has to spend five minutes putting on. He hops up, grabbing his gloves and his favourite infinity scarf on his way back to Francis. He pulls the scarf over his head, looping it around his neck twice. He tugs his gloves on, and holds out his hand. “I’m ready now. Can we go to a loppis? There’s one nearby that I’ve been wanting to go to, but there’s always so many people.”

“I’ll protect you. Stay as close to me as you wish.” Albert smiles at him, and takes his hand.

“Du have nej idea what a loppis is.”

“I do not. But you’re excited about it, so I’ll take you to one.” The slightly taller man giggles, squeezing his hand.

“You’re too sweet. Okej, let’s go! I’ll direct du.” He nods, letting himself be dragged to his vehicle.

It doesn’t take Francis very long to figure out a loppis is very much like his own vide grenier. Though this loppis is a permanent thing, according to Albert. Not all are. “I can see why you wanted someone to come with you, mon cher.” He watches his companion blush, then stick his bottom lip out in a pout.

“Just because you’re speaking French doesn’t mean I don’t know what you’re saying. I looked up cute names.”

“I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. I will stop calling you them.”

“Wait.” He squeezes his hand tightly, looking away. “I didn’t say they make me uncomfortable. I don’t mind. Please don’t stop.” He bows his head, not looking at him. Francis smiles slightly, seeing the blush creeping down his neck and up his ears.

“I won’t. I enjoy being able to call you these things.” Albert looks at him, lips parted to say something, but his words never leave his mouth. Instead, he gasps, and picks up an item from a table they’re in the process of passing. It’s a wooden bell, with flowers carved into it. They’re expertly painted, down to the detail of the stamen and anthers. “How much is it?” He asks the seller, already pulling out his wallet.

“One hundred Kronor.” Albert’s eyes widen, and he hugs the bell tightly to his chest. He nods frantically, and reaches for his pocket. Francis grabs his hand again, shaking his head.

“Let me get it for you.” He pulls out the appropriate bills, and hands it to the seller. “Thank you.” He nods his head curtly and walks away, Albert in tow. “Consider it a gift.” The Swedish man grins brightly at him and rings the bell happily, not caring about the strange looks he draws in. Francis’ heart aches with joy at the sight. But something bothers him. “I’m sure you’re warm in that. Is there a place we can get ice cream close by?”

“Ja. But can we get some watermelon first? It’s in season, and I’ve not had any yet.”

“Anything for you. Can I kiss your cheek?” Albert furrows his brows slightly, but he’s smiling. After a moment, he nods. Francis brushes his nose against his cheek, then kisses it.

“That wasn’t part of the agreement,” he huffs out, cheeks tinted pink. “But since du just bought me this lovely bell, du are forgiven.” He rings the bell again, letting out a small giggle at the sound it makes. “I’ve never had a wooden bell. I love it. Tack!” He throws his arms around Francis and hugs him tightly. He returns it, being careful not to overstep his boundaries. When they pull away from each other, they walk back to the vehicle in a comfortable silence.

“Watermelon!” Albert practically launches out of the vehicle, into the building. Francis doesn’t bother following after him; he knows he won’t be long. He plays the word over in his mind, smiling at the intensity of it. Normally, he speaks at a level just above a whisper, but he nearly spoke at a normal volume in his excitement. He’s back a few moments later, watermelon slices in hand. He leans back in his seat, and stares straight ahead. “I overdid it. I’m hot now.”

“That’s why we’re going for ice cream.” He pulls back into the road, keeping his eyes out for the stand he saw on their way over. It’s close, but he doesn’t want Albert to have to walk outside anymore. He’s already red in the face, and not from blushing. He turns the vents toward him, hoping that helps at least a little bit. He thanks him quietly, and closes his eyes. He pulls in next to a stand, and reaches for Albert’s hand. “What kind do you want?”

“Tehran if they have it. If not, vanilla. Tack, Francis.” He gives him a weak smile.

“You look miserable. Let me help.” He tugs his scarf off, then his gloves. “Feel better?” A nod. “Good.” He tosses the clothing items in the back seat.

“Tack. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of doing that.”

“You’re overheating, that’s why. You don’t stay out this long in those clothes, do you?”

“Nej. But I wanted to spend the day with du.” Francis scoffs.

“That doesn’t mean you should risk heatstroke! I’ll be right back.” He opens the door and slips out, leaving the vehicle running for the air. He comes back a few minutes later, thankful to see Albert’s moving around a bit. “Thank goodness. I was worried you overdid it.”

“I’m sorry for worrying du. I don’t normally push myself like that. I guess I just lost track of what I could handle.” He looks away. “We should go to a park to eat this. There’s one we can walk to nearby.”

“Are you sure you’re up for that?” He nods, opening his door. He hesitates for a moment, then grabs a paper bag Francis hadn’t noticed before. He chuckles and turns the vehicle off, putting his keys in his pocket. He gets out as well, making sure to lock the doors. Albert walks ahead a bit, looking back at him every few seconds. When he finds a tree he likes, he sits under it. He places the watermelon and bag aside, and reaches out for the ice cream so Francis can sit next to him without having to worry. “Thank you,” he says as he hands them off.

“I have something to give du after we finish.” He motions at the ice cream, handing one back to the Frenchman. He doesn’t waste any more time, and starts eating his. Francis follows his example.

When they’re finished, Albert opens the watermelon, albeit with a bit of a struggle. He hands a slice to Francis, and bites into his own. It’s the first time he’s seen him be so careless. “Merci.” The Swedish man looks at him with his eyes.

“Hmm?” He’s got his mouth full.

“This is the first time you’ve not been cautious when eating around me. It means a lot to me. I know it takes a lot for you to trust like this.” He swallows the watermelon, blushing hard.

“I thought it was time I did. We’ve been… We’ve had feelings for each other for awhile. I know it can be aggravating to wait for me to be ready for the more romantic things. Showing I’m comfortable enough around du to stop being so conscious of what I’m doing is the least I can do to thank du.” Francis smiles softly.

“You don’t have to do anything for me. But merci. It means a lot.” Albert stares at him for at least a minute, then smiles.

“I want to do things for du. Just as du want to do things for me. Here. I got this for du at the loppis when du weren’t looking.” He hands him the paper bag, then focuses on his watermelon like his life depends on it. Francis opens the bag curiously, being careful of its contents' possible fragility. He stares at the item, awed by it’s delicate beauty. “It’s one of those combs du put in your hair to keep it out of your eyes but also be stylish. I saw it while du were looking at something else and couldn’t resist. The gems match your eyes. She said they’re sapphires and obsidian.” He turns the comb over in his hand, examining it closer. The prongs are silver. There’s a run of sapphires at the top, in the shape of a heart. Obsidians swirl around it, to the outer edges.

“It’s beautiful,” he breathes out. “Merci beaucoup. I love it. I shall cherish it forever.” Albert bows his head more, but he can’t hide his red ears; they poke through his hair. “How much did you pay for it?”

“Actually, I got a hell of a deal! Her ex husband bought it for her, so she wanted to get rid of it pretty badly. She wanted fifty for it, but I insisted on double.” Francis laughs quietly.

“So we wound up paying the same amount for a gift to each other.”

“Ja, we did! I’m surprised, honestly. Both of our items were underpriced. Mine less than yours, but it’s still a beautiful bell.” He frowns suddenly, realizing he left it in the vehicle. After a moment he shrugs, and leans against Francis. “I hope this is okej.”

“It’s better than okay. It’s perfect.” He kisses his forehead. Albert tugs on his arm, and wraps it around his waist.

“Now it’s perfect. Jag älskar dig.” He cuddles up to Francis, closing his eyes in content.

“I love you too.”

#hetaliamondaychallenge #aph france #aph oc #aph hetalia #i'm serious #he's a coping character for TRAUMA

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