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bonkers-4-hatter · 3 years

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!Yandere !Vampire Kisumi X Reader - Love Bites

♥ TW: This fanfic has mentions of kidnapping, violence, assault, biting and mentions of blood along with the biting, forced intimacies, forcing self onto the reader at certain points and yandere themes and actions. ♥ If any of the above does trigger you, please do not read. All characters are 18+ as college is mentioned in the past tense.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ You were never one to believe in such things as mythical creatures, it was just a bunch of nonsense. Of course, they’re wonderful tall tales to tell and talk about when you were younger, but you’re grown now; out of that phase you could say.

Tall tales, that’s all they were...at least you thought they were.

You could draw everything that you’ve experienced and seen as a lack of sleep, working too hard, or just needing a break to calm your mind, but with the most recent experiences you just couldn’t come up with an excuse for them and that very thought chilled you to your core. The dark figure standing in the corner of your room at night using the darkness as a veil, but the thing that stood out to you was the flickers of pink from the top of the figure's head from the small slivers of moonlight peeking through the closed curtains.

Not only did the figure terrify you, but the touches were what set you over the edge. The soft touches that caressed your cheeks, head and the curves and contours of your body as the hands glided across your blanket covered body. You would always peek your eyes open only to see the same pink hair in your view.

The only person you knew with pink hair was Kisumi.

He was your friend, a close friend at that. You guys did everything together, having been friends since College it just made sense for you guys to do things together. His behavior used to be carefree, fun and just free. Kisumi was a free spirit, but you noticed something change within him in the past few years; he was more possessive toward you. Always wanting to have your attention, scaring off potential significant others.

This wasn’t his usual behavior with you. Not only that, but his mannerisms have changed too. Not really eating in front of you, coming over at night only; claiming his new job had him working mornings many days and just being too exhausted to go anywhere with you during the day. Just weird things that have come up that rubbed you the wrong way.

You hated that your mind went to these tall tales of Vampires, but you couldn’t come up with a normal answer. With his towering figure plaguing your mind, the touches that came in contact with your resting body and the constant fear and shiver of being watched by something unknown, hidden, just lurking in the shadows with their eyes fixated on you.

Looking at how Kisumi was laughing and socializing with your guys’ group of friends, it’s as if nothing changed with him and he was the same ole Kisumi that everyone knew and had a great time with. He might have been able to fool the rest of your friends, but you knew something was up and tonight you were going to confront him even if you sounded like a lunatic. Taking a final drink of your (favorite drink), you placed some money on the table to cover your portion of the bill along with everyone else as everyone started to get up and say their goodbyes, making plans to meet up again next month as usual.

Giving a final wave to your friends, you felt an arm snake around your shoulders and pulled you into a firm body. “(Y/N)-chan, let’s get you home.” Kisumi’s smooth voice filtered through your ears as you both made your way down the mostly empty sidewalk, the chatter and lively atmosphere of the restaurant dying away the further you walked away. The only noise that echoed around the silent street was both of your footsteps.

“You know I can get myself home, right Kisu?” He only shook his head and rubbed your shoulder, his cold skin giving you goosebumps as he brushed his fingers against the skin of your exposed upper arm. That was another weird thing with him, he was always cold now. He used to be warm, overly warm actually, always a human furnace. Now though, he was always cold to the touch and it always made you shiver no matter how many times it happened.

“I know (Y/N), but I have to protect you from all the monsters out there, don’t I?” Another shiver ran down your spine at his question, you knew it was playful. It was Kisumi, he was always playful when it came to you, but this felt like it held an underlying meaning; like he was trying to tell you something. Scoffing, you rolled your eyes at his words. “Sure, the monsters Kisumi, whatever you say.” He laughed at your words as the both of you continued to walk down the street in silence.

Clearing your throat, you decided to just ask him. “So, speaking of monsters, what do you think about vampires?” Kisumi stopped walking as he grasped your shoulder in a tight grip making you reel back as well. “What the hell Kisumi?!” Your shoulder burned a bit at how hard he dug his fingernails into your skin, but he still didn’t let go. Looking at his face he had a stoic look and his eyes were menacing in a way; narrowed and pointed right at you. “Vampires? Now, why would little (Y/N)-chan bring up such a thing as Vampires?” The malice that was laced in his voice was evident and downright terrifying especially in a situation where you were alone with him at night on an empty street.

You tried to yank yourself away from his strong hold, but he didn’t let up. “It was a joke Kisumi, what’s wrong with you?” He only smirked at your words, before pushing against your shoulder until you hit the brick wall of one of the buildings. “A joke huh?” Placing his other hand on your free shoulder, he pinned you in place, the brick rubbing against your exposed skin in a way that it surely would leave marks. Before you could protest, Kisumi leaned down to your ear and whispered, “Do you think it’s a joke as you watch me in the corner of your room, or when I touch your delicious body in bed?” Your breath caught in your throat at his words.

Your hands pushed hard against his chest, fear crawling up your body at his words. “That’s not fucking funny Kisu, I’m leaving.” Without waiting for him to respond, you shoved your way past him, resuming the trek to your house. Even the thought of your house wasn’t safe, it made you even more fearful, but you didn’t have much of a choice at this point. You felt like the darkness was suffocating you at this point and without a second thought, you ran the remainder of the few blocks, your front door in your view making you somewhat relieved.

Deadbolting the door, your body slid down, settling at the floor. You felt exhausted, fearful and not to mention paranoid. Heavy eyes scanned the living room and what you could see of your hallway and everything seemed clear. Getting up with weak legs, you turned on every light in the house paying no mind to the thought of your electric bill nor how silly it seemed. This was what made you feel safe and at this point you were going to do anything to feel that way.

After changing into some pajamas and trying to relax from the encounter with Kisumi, you found yourself wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, television playing a cliche horror movie. Wanting something to take your mind off what happened, you got sucked into the black and white film.

Your mind was completely preoccupied with the slasher film, blanket clutched in your hands, hiding your face behind the fuzzy comfort item as specific gory and violent scenes would pop on the screen. Usually you would watch these movies, any movie really with Kisumi...your mind went to your friend for a moment, not of the creepy things that have arisen recently, but of the memories of you both together. He would be here right now poking fun at you for being scared of these scenes, but also ‘protecting’ you from whatever was going on.

As your mind was wandering, you didn’t notice the presence next to you, not until a hand was on your thigh, fingers tapping against the supple flesh that was exposed from your pajamas. A scream erupted from your throat, but a hand clasped over your mouth, muffled cries were the only thing in the room, the noises on the television being drowned out by the thumping of your own heart. “Now (Y/N), this is the best part, hold in that scream for a minute, alright love?” His hand was still over your mouth and his free one was still trailing along your thigh. Side eyeing him, he sat there with a content smile on his face, eyes still glued on the screen. You stayed in that position for the next ten minutes until the credits were rolling.

“I loved watching these movies with you (Y/N), it was nice to be your savior when you got scared at certain scenes.” His hand uncovered your mouth, but started to stroke the soft skin down the slope of your neck getting dangerously close to the valley of your chest. “K-Kisu...how’d you get in?” Your body started to tremble as he just laughed at the fear pouring out of you at this moment. Gripping the back of your neck, Kisumi pulled you toward him, his face shoving itself into the crook of your neck as he started to place soft kisses along the slope of your neck and your collarbone.

You felt his hot breath fan your skin as he answered your question. “Oh (Y/N), I think you already know the answer...I always tell you to lock your window.” The color drained from your face. Your window. The window that was always unlocked. It was something you didn’t think about because it was on the second floor. A place no human can reach because there were no trees, ledges, anything to help with climbing up.

“Am I right Kisu?” A single question you needed answered. A heavy silence hung in the air as the man in question even stopped his kisses on your skin. “You’re always right (Y/N), I knew you would piece everything together, my (Y/N) is smart after all.” You could feel the sharpness of teeth scrape against the tender flesh of your neck, your breath hitching at the sensation.

“I’ve always wanted to taste you, to know how sweet your blood is, I might get addicted to it (Y/N), but I don’t want to drain you dry...I want you around forever with me.” He laughed at the flinch in your body as he pressed his fangs a bit deeper into your neck. “You’re not ready to be changed yet either.” Sitting back up, he effortlessly pulled you into his lap, arms wrapping around your waist and anchoring you to him. “I think I’ll keep you as my personal toy until you’re ready to be changed, doesn’t my (Y/N) like the sound of that?” Fully grinning at the petrified look on your face, he showed you his sharp fangs, tongue sliding over them to add emphasis on what would happen if you disobeyed him.

You didn’t know what month it was, let alone the day. You just knew it’s been so long since Kisumi took you that night at your former house. After he had you in his arms, he told you what was going to happen. You got to pack what you could that night and he took you away. His home was your home now, or as he puts it, our home.

He didn’t let you out, the house was your own personal prison and you...you were Kisumi’s personal blood bag. He didn’t want to kill you, nor turn you yet, but he had to have a taste of your blood, he tasted every other aspect of you and he knew he’d be addicted to your blood and it turns out he was.

Your skin was littered in bite marks. He would pierce your skin and take a drink from you, enough to make you dizzy before he stopped himself. He couldn’t wait for the wound to heal which is why he bites you in any available skin no matter where it is.

He just wanted your sweet blood. Sometimes he would go overboard and will only stop if you pass out. Due to him feeding on you, you were exhausted. You turned into a shell of your former self with his constant feeding. Dark bags were under your eyes, droopy lids accompany them as well. All you wanted was rest, proper rest, but you knew you’d never get that again.

You wouldn’t get anything you wanted again.

“(Y/N), my love, there you are.” Your head lolled to the side, Kisumi standing there with his usual smile on his face. The bed dipped down as his hands smoothed over your body, caressing any part of you he could get. He kissed your lips and made his way down to your neck. Before he could do anything, you whined out, hands weakly trying to stop him.

“Please, not today Kisumi, I don’t think I can do it. I hurt so much, you drank too much yesterday, please give me a day to recover.” Kisumi cupped your face, thumb stroking the dark bags that decorated under your eyes. “Rest? (Y/N), we’ve been over this already sweetheart, I need to taste you everyday otherwise I might snap and we wouldn’t want that, right?” His hand clutched your face, squishing your cheeks together as you frantically shook your head not wanting to have him hurt you again.

“Good, that’s my good girl.” Placing a soft kiss on your forehead, he let your face go, a breath of relief escaped you as he bared his fangs and traced them over the scarred skin before sinking into the skin of your neck, a place he hasn’t touched in a week which was plenty of time to heal in his opinion.

“Ahh, Kisu...hurts, Kisu, it hurts..” Your weak voice flooded his ears, but he paid you no mind, you always struggled when he did this, but you were his to use and abuse to his desire. You were his little toy, his precious (Y/N).

The feeling of your blood sliding down his throat was beautiful. It was like a drug to him, he couldn’t get enough of it and he knew he was breaking you, but he didn’t care. He will turn you soon and you’ll be fine, but for now he needs you to keep hanging on. The quiet moans of pain only turned him on as he sunk his fangs deeper in your soft skin. “Kisu..too much, stop, please.” Soft pounding of your hands on his back snapped him out of his trance, Unlatching himself from your neck, your head fell to the side, eyes half lidded and skin heated after the ordeal.

Licking a stray drop of blood from his lips and the puncture wounds on your neck, he was satisfied for now. Even though he was addicted to your blood, he was excited to turn you. You would finally be his forever, just as it should’ve been. Smirking at your worn out body, he gave you one last kiss before throwing a blanket over you and stalking off to finish your turning ceremony.

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flourgirl · 3 years

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Sleepyhead

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: Peter will try just about anything to help out the very pretty insomniac from his math class.

Work Count: 11.2k

Warnings: Just some sweet, pure fluff with a few curse words every now and then.

A/N: Either the tags aren’t working for me or you guys just didn’t like it, but the final part of “Even If It’s a Lie” has been out for a few days now if anyone’s interested in reading it 🥺 Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this super long piece I’ve been working on to help me get through finals <3

“Touch you softly I call you up late at night No doubt it isn't right But you could be my one and only” -Softly, Clairo

Peter had seen you around campus a few times, but it wasn’t until you started sitting two rows ahead of him in his linear algebra class that he really started to notice you.

He thought you were really pretty, and he liked how cozy you always looked in the puffy winter coat you kept on in the perpetually freezing lecture hall. You took a lot of notes, which told him that you cared about the class, and never showed up without a giant cup of iced coffee.

You’re being a creep, Peter told himself. He had thought about switching seats to somewhere in front of you, so he could actually listen to his professor discuss permutations instead of staring at how you chewed on the end of your pen when you were thinking.

It was even worse when you started sleeping in class, your soft hair falling around your shoulders as you leaned your head against your desk. It seemed like all the coffee in the world couldn’t keep you awake, and Peter wondered if he should ask if you wanted to borrow his notes or something. But that would mean him admitting to looking at you way more than he needed to, and that was weird, so he quickly dropped the idea.

Still, he was worried about you. So when he came back from patrol in the middle of the night and bumped into you outside of the dorm kitchen, he figured it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce himself and maybe even find out why you were so tired all the time.

The only problem was that he had accidentally knocked your pan of banana bread out of your hands, and you were currently staring at it laying on the floor with your sleepy eyes, not saying anything.

“Shit, uh, I’m so sorry,” he told you, crouching down to scoop up the remnants of your late-night snack into the pan. “Were you really up baking at 3 a.m?”

You blushed a little, starstruck that the cute guy from your math class was talking to you. “Um, yeah. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come down to the kitchen while nobody else was here and make something. Baking always helps me calm down, and so here I am. And here we are. And there’s my bread, all covered in whatever kind of dust the custodians refuse to sweep down here.”

He offered a soft smile, and it made you feel better about the fact that you were rambling way more than you wanted to.

“I’m Y/N,” you continued, gently taking the pan from his hands. “You’re in linear algebra with Professor Meyers, right?”

“Yeah, you, um, you sit right in front of me. Well, not right in front of me. Two rows in front of me. Shit. I’m not creepy, I promise. It’s just… uh… My name is Peter and I’m going to stop talking now.”

That couldn’t have possibly gone any worse, he thought. You were probably thinking he was a serial killer or something.

“It’s okay. I know you sit behind me,” you reassured him. “You answer a lot of questions.” He was cute and smart, and you hoped he couldn’t notice how flustered you were to be this close to him.

“What are you doing up so late?” he asked, which made you laugh at how ironic his concerns were, considering he was also wandering around the dorm basement at this hour.

“I could ask you the same thing,” you replied, sitting on one of the benches that jutted out of the walls of the corridor. “I mean, you’re here too. At least I was baking. What’s up with you?”

You had a point. “I had an emergency… with my internship. I work for Stark Industries, and Mr. Stark rang me in the middle of the night to come to the lab immediately for something, so, yeah. That’s why I’m awake right now.”

“Okay,” you said, not buying his story. “So that’s why you have a black eye and you’re lurking in the basement hallway? Did Tony Stark punch you?”

Fuck. Did he really have a black eye and not notice? He didn’t think that Doc Oc’s stupid mechanical arm had punched him that hard, but apparently, he was wrong. And now he had to come up with some reason as to where it came from, although he could already tell that you were about to call his bluff.

The only solution he could think of was to change the subject. “Why are you always asleep during class?” he blurted out, causing you to give him a funny look before frowning down at your slippers.

“Isn’t it obvious,” you yawned, stretching your arms out in front of you. “I’m an insomniac. It’s actually kind of funny. I never really had any problems with falling asleep until I moved here. Maybe it’s the cold weather or the constant pressure to get good grades, but I just can’t sleep anymore. It sucks.”

Normally, you’d never tell this much about yourself to somebody, let alone a complete stranger. But somehow, you felt really comfortable around Peter. There was just something about him that made you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Peter caught himself staring at you again, your baby pink pajamas a far departure from how put together your usual outfits were. Even without your makeup or hair done, you were still the prettiest girl he had ever seen. For some reason, even the dark circles under your eyes were really cute to him.

“You never answered my question,” you reminded him, hoping that he’d say something to fill the awkward silence. “What’s with the black eye and wandering around in the middle of the night? Are you some kind of superhero?”

“What? No! That’s crazy. Me, a superhero,” he laughed awkwardly, wondering if you had somehow figured out his secret identity. Had you spotted him that one time he made sure that you and your friends got home safely from a late-night study session? Even so, you totally couldn’t have known it was him, right?

“Relax, I’m just joking,” you giggled, thinking about how cute he looked when he was flustered. “Although my friend did tell me she thought she saw Spider-Man a few weeks ago on her way back from a party.”

“Haha, yeah,” he breathed out, a wave of relief washing over him. It was times like these that he really started to appreciate how well-hidden his muscles were underneath all of his oversized sweaters.

“Does that hurt?” you asked, bringing your hand up to lightly brush his lip, which was bleeding. He flinched instinctively before settling under your touch, your eyes focused on the small cut. “I have a first aid kit in my room if you want some help cleaning it up.”

“Oh, no, it’s cool. I wouldn’t want to bother your roommate,” Peter told you, scooting further away on the bench, nearly falling off the edge of it. Ned hated it when he stumbled in at some ungodly hour after patrol and woke him up.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, standing up and gesturing for him to follow you. “I have a single.”

Peter looked at you in awe. Freshmen never got rooms to themselves, and yet somehow you had one. “Okay, fine. But only because I’ve never actually seen a single in this building before.”

“That’s cool with me,” you smiled, reaching for his hand so he could keep up with your pace. He noticed that you were chewing some of the banana bread, which he really hoped was from the part that didn’t fall on the floor. To be fair though, it did smell really good.

Not only did you have a single, but you lived on the first floor. Peter couldn’t believe how lucky you were, considering the building that the two of you lived in didn’t have any elevators to traverse its seven floors.

He was even more shocked when you opened your door, revealing the coziest dorm room he had ever seen. How on earth did you transform the glorified prison cell into something that felt so... comforting? From the twinkling lights that were wrapped around everything and the soft rug under his feet, Peter found it really hard to believe that you had trouble sleeping here.

“Sorry, it’s a bit messy,” you apologized, piling your many throw pillows and blankets into a basket to clear up some space on your bed. “You can sit here.”

If this was messy, then Peter and Ned’s room needed some serious help. “No worries,” he said, watching as you rummaged around your drawers in search of your first aid kit.

Eventually, you found it hidden under a bunch of graph paper and colored pencils, untouched ever since your overprotective grandparents had helped you move in. “Here we go,” you mused, now looking inside it for alcohol wipes and band-aids.

He winced as you rubbed the little cloth against his lips, and you made sure to be more gentle as you cleaned up the other cuts on his face. Thankfully, nothing was bad enough to require stitches, something you were seriously under-qualified to do.

All Peter could focus on the entire time was how close you were and what it would be like to just kiss you right then and there, but he knew that was way too forward of him. Plus, he didn’t even know if you liked him like that. Surely you were just being nice.

Still, the way he caught you staring into his brown eyes after smoothing a band-aid on his forehead made him think otherwise.

“You’re going to have to tell me eventually who beat you up,” you sighed, gathering up wrappers to throw away and tucking the first aid kit back into its place in your drawers.

“It’s a long story,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding your stare.

“I’ve got time,” you replied, climbing onto your lofted bed to sit next to him, innocently brushing your bare leg against his jeans, which made his breath hitch. “Tell me about it.”

“Uh, how about another time?” he stammered, hopping off the bed and running his hand through his hair. “After class tomorrow, or something. It’s getting pretty late. We should, um, go to sleep.”

“You can stay here if you want,” you offered, his eyes widening at your invitation. “On the bean bag, I mean. It’s actually really comfortable. You mentioned something about bothering your roommate and I figured that maybe you’d like to avoid the trouble tonight.”

“Oh…” Peter hesitated, looking for a reason to say no. He knew he’d never be able to sleep knowing that you were in the same room as him. “I don’t have any pajamas.”

“True,” you agreed, a little disappointed that he wasn’t interested in sticking around.

“I don’t actually even wear pajamas to sleep,” he continued, making you look back up at him instead of playing with the hem of your shirt. “It’s just… I sleep in my boxers.”

“I’m sorry for asking. I didn’t mean to put you in an uncomfortable situation,” you sighed, your face hot with embarrassment.

“It’s not that! I mean, I do want to stay here. But, uh, you… well, you make me really nervous, Y/N,” he muttered, his glance bouncing around the room.

“Why?” you asked, your brows furrowing. “Did I do something?”

“No, no! Nothing at all. I promise, okay?”

“Okay. You can, um, get ready for bed, I guess. I promise not to look,” you assured him, turning on your side to face the wall.

“Thanks. Yeah, alright.” You heard him fumbling with his clothes, his sneakers making a soft thud on your floor. You did your best to resist the urge to glance back at him.

“Can I just use any of these?” he asked, although you had no idea what he was talking about.

“Peter, I’m not looking, remember? You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that.”

“The blankets. Do I just pick one, or are you particular about them?”

“Oh. You can use whichever one you want to. But the coral one’s the softest and my personal favorite.” Peter stared at the basket in confusion. To him, they were all just pink. But based on touch alone, he pulled one out that he figured was a little more orange than the others.

He walked over to the light switch and flipped off the overhead fluorescents, letting the room be illuminated by the warm glow of your fairy lights, which weren’t too bright, but still twinkly and beautiful.

“Goodnight, Peter,” you whispered, snuggling into your comforter in the hopes that your heartbeat would slow down and let you fall asleep for once.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” In a matter of minutes, you could hear his soft snoring, and you figured that it would be okay just to take a quick peek since he’d probably be bundled up in one of your blankets.

His hair was perfectly messy, and he looked so cozy wrapped up in the blanket you had recommended. Still, as much as you could stare at his adorable face all night, you were exhausted. Burying your face under the covers, you did your best to calm your nerves and get some rest before class tomorrow.

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“Peter,” you whispered, jostling him lightly by the shoulders in the hopes of waking him up. “Uh, we have an hour before class. I was thinking that it would be enough time for you to go shower and change, and then we could go get coffee or something.”

He blinked back up at you, amazed at how well he slept on your bean bag. You had already gotten ready for the day, doing your makeup and picking out one of your many fluffy sweaters to keep you warm in the New York snow.

“Thanks, that sounds awesome,” he yawned, accepting the hand you held out to help him up. The blanket fell, and you stared at each other in shock, having forgotten that Peter was in nothing but his underwear.

You dropped his hand as fast as you could, covering your eyes. “Oh my god! I’m sorry. Shit, I completely forgot, Peter. I’m so sorry. I’ll let you get dressed.”

Peter watched as you stumbled around the room, your eyes squeezed tightly as your hands attempted to guide you away from him.

“Y/N,” he started, catching your attention as you nearly ran into your bed frame. “You can open your eyes. Really, I don’t care if you see me like this if it means I can keep you from breaking your nose.”

You hesitantly opened your eyes, relieved that Peter had already managed to pull his pants back on. Still, he was completely shirtless, and you found yourself staring at the abs you would have never expected to be hiding underneath his clothes.

Moments later, you averted your gaze, although you knew that he probably noticed you looking at where was now covered by his plaid button-down and dark blue sweater.

“I’ll, um, be right back,” he muttered, before practically sprinting out of your room and up the stairs. You groaned in embarrassment, burying your face in a pillow before attempting to take a quick twenty-minute power nap.

Peter couldn’t believe it. Sure, he had thought one time about you seeing him without clothes on, but this wasn’t how he thought it would go at all. Still, the image of you staring at him shirtless, your face flushed, made him feel like he was going to have a heart attack.

“Dude! There you are,” Ned screamed, startled at his roommate’s unexpected entrance. Peter panted, having run up four flights of stairs as fast as he could. “Wait a second. Did you finally get laid? Is this a walk of shame?”

Before Ned could praise him any further, Peter was grabbing a change of clothes and sprinting towards the bathroom. Don’t think about her, he begged himself.

The memory of your leg touching his last night immediately came to mind, and Peter was so angry at himself for being this starved for physical intimacy. To be fair, though, you were the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and so he cut himself some slack.

Shit, he told himself, making sure the water was set to cold. He needed to calm down, but instead, his thoughts were stuck on how good you looked in your pajamas, but also how good you would look without them and—fuck it.

Peter liked you a lot, and if thinking about you like this in private kept him from being a complete weirdo in person, then maybe he just needed to get his feelings of desperation over with.

When he came back down to your room about thirty minutes later, you were still super tired. You trudged your way towards the door, your hair now noticeably messier than earlier, but at least that meant your nap had been a success.

His hair was still damp and this time he was wearing yet another blue sweater, which made you wonder if he ever wore any other color. He had his backpack slung over one of his shoulders and a nervous smile on his face as he locked eyes with you.

“Hey,” he said, pushing some of his hair out of his face. “Are you ready to go?”

You leaned against the doorway a little bit, letting out a yawn that was literally the cutest noise Peter had ever heard in his life. “Yeah, let me get my backpack.”

“It’s so heavy,” you continued, rightfully complaining as the weight of all its contents practically pulled you downwards. “I think it’s so stupid how almost every professor bans computers from class. Like, it’s not fair that I have to lug around three textbooks every day. I don’t have time to run back to my dorm in between classes like some people!”

Peter frowned. Three textbooks were nothing to him, but he knew that you didn’t have spidey-strength and that you were also pretty tiny compared to him. It must’ve been hell on your back to be carrying all that stuff around every day.

“I can carry it for you,” he offered, holding out his hand to switch with you. “Here, you can take my backpack if it’ll make you feel better. I have a lot of programming classes today, so I’ve only got my laptop and a notebook in there.”

You gave him a look of gratitude as he traded bags with you, literally taking the weight off your shoulders. He was right. His backpack was much more manageable for you, even if the dark grey contrasted with the light colors you always wore.

In contrast, it looked kind of odd for him to be walking around with a backpack that was covered in a soft pink floral pattern, much like everything else you owned, but the sight of him carrying your books brought a smile to your face.

It was one of the sweetest things a guy had ever done for you, and Peter wasn’t even your boyfriend. He probably didn’t even think of you in that way.

“Uh, where do you usually get coffee?” he asked, slowing his pace so you could keep up. He felt bad seeing how tired you were, no doubt due to the lack of sleep you got last night.

“The Starbucks next to Hendrie Hall,” you replied, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. “You?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” he admitted. “I’m actually more of a tea person.”

“Oh,” you hesitated, wondering if it was worth it to walk all the way across campus just for a caramel ribbon crunch frappuccino. “We could go somewhere closer then.”

“It’s okay,” Peter reassured you, grabbing your hand and pulling you along to your destination. “I like walking.”

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You hadn’t really talked to Peter since that morning before class, but sometimes you would peek behind you and catch him stealing glances at you. Eventually, he had started to feel brave enough to give you a little wave whenever you caught him looking at you. Well, at least the times when you were awake.

One day, not even the loud shuffling and growing chatter of your classmates exiting the lecture hall could wake you up, and Peter figured he better do something before you got chewed out by one of the TAs.

“Y/N?” he said, leaning closer so that you could hopefully hear him. “Y/N. You gotta wake up. Class ended three minutes ago.”

He shook you a little bit, nervously hoping that you wouldn’t mind him touching you. Your eyes fluttered open, and you smiled softly as soon as you realized it was Peter.

“Oh. Thanks,” you said, standing up to slide your empty notebook into your backpack. Your hand brushed the side of your mouth, making sure you hadn’t drooled onto yourself.

“You can borrow my notes,” he offered, glancing at you sheepishly as you gathered up your coat and fixed your hair. “If you want to.”

“That’d be great,” you sighed, wondering whether you should skip your next class and just go take a nap. At this point, you weren’t even bothering to put on makeup and you basically wore whatever clothes you had that weren’t already sprawled across your room.

“Are you alright?” Peter asked, walking close to you to make sure you didn’t fall over. He knew you were an insomniac, but you looked seriously sleep-deprived today. “Have you been sleeping at all lately?”

“Nope,” you huffed, lugging your perpetually heavy backpack along. “But I’m skipping the rest of my classes today. I’d rather lie that I’m sick through an e-mail than have to explain to my professors why I was sleeping during their classes.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed, stopping you in your tracks to take your backpack from you. “I’ve actually got some time before my next class. I can walk you back to your room and give you my notebook if that’s okay with you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you told him, reaching to take your bag back from him, although he didn’t let you.

“Y/N. Come on, you’re exhausted. At least let me carry your stuff, alright?” He had such a kind look in his eyes, and you certainly didn’t have the energy to keep arguing for no reason.

“Okay.” You crossed your arms, the cold air slowly waking you up as the wind hit your face. Your ears were super cold, but you were glad you had pulled your hair into a quick braid to keep it from flying everywhere.

It wasn’t long before you were kicking your boots off in your dorm room, your teeth chattering as you wrapped yourself in a blanket.

“Do you want some tea?” you asked Peter, inviting him to sit down wherever.

“Sure, but I thought you drank coffee,” he reminded you, watching as you pulled an assortment of tea bags for him to choose from.

“I do,” you said, handing him the box and running to your bathroom to fill up the electric kettle. “But you drink tea.”

Peter’s ears suddenly felt hot. You had gotten tea just for him. Or maybe you were just a really good hostess and kept some around for all of your visitors. Probably the second option, he thought.

“Are you even allowed to have one of those?” he asked as the two of you waited for the water to boil.

“No,” you laughed, sitting next to him on your bed. For someone with so much space to themselves, you really needed to invest in more places to sit. “But you can’t have candles or fairy lights either, so I guess I’m just a rule breaker.”

“Guess I’ll just have to report you to the RA,” Peter teased, getting up to make himself a cup of earl grey. “Do you have any sugar?”

“Top drawer on the right,” you replied. “Do you have a sweet tooth?”

“Yes.” You watched as his lips blew on the tea to cool it down before remembering that it was weird to stare.

“You should let me bake something for you. What’s your favorite dessert?” You were kicking your dangling legs, suddenly feeling a lot more awake than this morning.

“Chocolate cake. With chocolate frosting,” he said in between sips, walking back over to you. With you on the tall bed and him standing, your faces were level with each other.

“I’ll have to make you one to thank you,” you smiled, peering into his eyes. Peter felt your heartbeat quicken, and the grin on your face as you stared at each other made him weak in the knees.

“Can I get those notes?” you asked, making him remember that people don’t just look at each other and say nothing like that.

“Oh! Yeah, definitely.” He quickly set the mug down on your nightstand to rummage through his backpack, flipping one of his notebooks open before handing it to you. “There are the ones from today, but all of the ones I’ve taken this semester are in there too.”

“Wow,” you laughed, making a worried expression form on his face.

“What’s wrong? Are they not good?”

“No, it’s not that. They’re just, uh, very thorough.” He had basically transcribed your professor’s lectures onto the pages. “You must write really fast. But thank you, Peter. I really appreciate it.”

Peter nodded before nervously gulping down the rest of his tea, not even noticing how hot the liquid still was as it nearly burned his throat.

“I should go now,” he started, looking around the room for his things. “I want you to get some rest, Y/N. Please.”

He had this look in his eyes that was so genuine—so full of care and concern—that it made you want to do whatever he asked you to.

“I’ll try,” you told him, awkwardly rubbing the top of your arm in the hopes that you could actually fall asleep after he left. “Have a nice day, Peter.”

“Bye, Y/N. I’ll stop by later,” he said, already halfway out the door. “For the notes, I mean! Uh, bye. Again. Okay. I’m going to go now.”

You giggled, giving him one last wave before he left. Like magic, the more you thought about how Peter was worried about you, the easier it was for you to drift off into a peaceful sleep, finally feeling at ease for the first time in weeks.

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

You woke up later that day to Peter knocking on your door, this time standing next to some guy in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt.

“Hi, Y/N,” Peter greeted you. You looked a lot less tired than when he saw you this morning, which relieved him. “This is my roommate, Ned. He just wanted to know who I’ve been hanging out with, so I hope it’s okay that I brought him here to prove you’re real and not a figment of my imagination.”

Ned leaned closer to you, your hair still a little messy from your nap. “Blink twice if he’s paying you,” he whispered, causing you to giggle. Peter looked on nervously, unsure of what his best friend had just said to you.

“What did you say!?” he asked, lightly pushing Ned on the arm, knowing that it was probably something meant to embarrass him.

“Ow! Okay, now I’m really not telling you,” Ned replied, rubbing the spot where Peter had just hit him.

“Y/N, what did Ned say to you?” He turned to you, a worried look on his face as you and Ned held back your laughter. Peter’s face turned as red as a tomato, making you instantly feel a little bit bad.

“It was nothing, Peter. Really,” you said, pulling him into the room with you. “It was nice to meet you, Ned. I’ll make sure he’s back before curfew.”

Ned laughed, offering a quick thumbs up and mouthing “I like her” to Peter before you shut the door on him.

“I knew that was a mistake,” Peter sighed, his back against the door. You were still a bit giddy from the exchange, giggling softly as he slowed his breathing.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed around me,” you reassured him. “We’re friends, right?”

“Yeah, of course. It’s just that…”

“What?” You could barely hear him as his voice trailed off.

“Well, uh, not all of my friends are, you know…”

“Spit it out, Peter,” you said, leaning closer so that you could hear him better.

“They’re not as pretty as you,” he muttered, making you blush at his words. Did he really think you were pretty?

“Oh. Thanks,” you smiled, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. Peter lifted his head up, relieved that you didn’t think he was a creep or something.

“Your notebook’s on my desk,” you continued, stepping back a little to give him some space. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as the distance between you and him grew. “I just took a bunch of pictures, so I can look at them on my computer whenever.”

“Alright, awesome,” he said, walking over to collect it before turning back to you. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty well, actually. The best I’ve slept in a while. I think you’re some kind of good luck charm.”

“Really?” he asked, a little surprised that he had been helpful.

“Really. You know, I’ve been thinking…”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe it’d be nice if we hung out somewhere that wasn’t my room all the time,” you said, a hopeful look in your eyes. “If you want.”

Peter had never noticed it before, but the two of you really did spend most of your time together in your room. It really was a nice room, but it made sense that you’d want to get out of it every once and a while.

“I’d like that. What did you have in mind?” Play it cool, Parker, he told himself. You can freak out with Ned later.

“How about ice cream on Friday?” you suggested, which came as a bit of a surprise to him.

“In the middle of winter?” As far as Peter could remember, you were always cold.

“Yeah. I really love ice cream,” you added, smiling up at him.

“Okay, then. Ice cream it is,” he agreed. There was absolutely no way he could ever say no to you when you looked at him like that.

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

“May! No, it’s not a date. She’s just a friend. Yeah, I got it. Open the door, pay for her, don’t be an idiot!” Peter sighed into his phone, hoping his aunt’s unwarranted crash course on first dates would be over soon. “Yes, I’m wearing the green sweater. Thanks, love you. Bye!”

“I have no idea who told her I had a date tonight,” he groaned, slumping down onto the couch next to his best friend.

“I texted her,” Ned replied nonchalantly, not even looking away from whatever video game he was playing. “Knew you’d need some kind of pointers. Y/N is way out of your league.”

“Hey!” Was he right? Yes. Did Peter need to be reminded of it right before his not-a-date date with you? Definitely not.

“Come on, you know I’m right. It’s Liz Allan all over again. I have no idea how you keep pulling all of these pretty girls, but hey, credit where credit is due.”

“You’re so mean.”

“I keep it real and you love it. Good luck, man.”

“Bye,” Peter grumbled, slipping on his coat and walking out of their room. Four flights of stairs later, he was at your door.

“Hi!” you squeaked, wrapping your arms around him. This was the first time the two of you had ever hugged and Peter was not going to forget about it anytime soon. “Come in. I have a surprise for you!”

“Here,” you continued, holding out a blue and white beanie for him. “I made it for you. To match all those blue sweaters you wear all the time.” Except this time, he was wearing a forest green one, which brought out the slight hazel tinge in his eyes.

“You made this for me?” he asked, eyeing the different stitches you had used and fiddling with the pom-pom on top. It looked store-bought.

“Well, yeah, silly. I just said that,” you replied, hoping that he liked it. With all the time you didn’t sleep, you were knitting anyway, but this was a special present for him. “Try it on.”

“I didn’t get you anything,” he sighed, pulling the hat onto his head. He looked really cute, the ends of his wavy hair peeking out from underneath the brim.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said, pulling him out of your room and towards the front of the dorm building. “Getting to hang out with you is good enough for me.”

“Where’d you learn how to knit?” Peter questioned, walking alongside you on the snow-lined sidewalks. With how cold it was, and considering he didn’t have a hood on his coat, it seemed like perfect timing that you had given him a hat.

“My grandma taught me,” you shared, taking in the twinkling of the streetlamps and how they bounced against the snow. In New York, that was practically the closest you could get to stargazing. “My, uh, grandparents actually raised me.”

“Oh. I was raised by my aunt and uncle,” Peter confided. It made you feel not so alone to find out that he didn’t grow up with his parents either, even though you knew firsthand just how hard it was.

“Do they live around here?” you asked, stealing glances at him and how rosy his cheeks were in the cold air.

“Yeah, my aunt lives in Queens,” he told you, staring at his feet to both avoid eye contact and make sure neither of you accidentally slipped. Not that he wouldn’t catch you, but he wanted to be safe. “My uncle actually passed away a couple of years ago.”

You stopped walking, immediately feeling a sense of regret. “I’m sorry, Peter. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay, Y/N. There was no way for you to have known that,” Peter reassured you, his warm breath coming out in clouds, and he reached for your hand to run his thumb across your knuckles. He gently pulled you along, keeping you from dying of embarrassment in the middle of campus.

“What about you? Are you from around here?” he asked, hoping to break the silence and make you feel a little bit better.

“No, I just moved up here for college. I grew up in Texas but moved to North Carolina when I was 13, so I finished school down there,” you explained, Peter suddenly noticing a slight Southern twang to your voice. “I just really wanted to go to school in a big city and not next to a farm for once in my life.”

“That makes sense,” he laughed, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere else. “I’ve only ever lived in New York City.”

“Do you like it here?”

“I love it. Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, to be honest.”

“Me either,” you sighed, squeezing his hand tighter as the two of you enjoyed your walk in the snow.

It seemed like forever before you reached the ice cream shop, but you didn’t mind. That just gave you and Peter more time to get to know each other better. Turns out you both competed in academic decathlons, although you were more of a math person and he preferred science.

“Okay, you’re wrong. Night at the Museum 2 is so much better than the first one. I mean that kiss between Ben Stiller and Amy Adams? The Jonas Brothers as little cherub angels? Name one thing from the original that tops that,” you ranted in between spoonfuls of peppermint ice cream.

“I just really like when the little cowboy and gladiator are driving that toy car around,” he reasoned, subtly admitting defeat.

“Don’t even get me started on why the second Shrek movie—”

You were interrupted by the sound of Peter’s phone ringing, and you immediately recognized his ringtone as the Coconut Mall theme from Mario Kart. He peered down at his phone screen, sighing and mouthing an apology to you as he accepted the call.

“Uh, hey, Mr. Stark. Did you need something?” Well, at least you knew he wasn’t lying about his internship at Stark Industries. “Toronto? Tonight? I’m kind of busy.”

There was a long pause as Peter mentally kicked himself for talking back to Tony, resulting in an earful about how being an Avenger should always be at the top of his priorities.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be right over… but I need a favor. Could you send Happy to pick my friend up? Yeah, it’s the ice cream shop on 1st. Thank you so much, Mr. Stark. Bye.” He frowned at you, and you could tell from what you had heard that he had to go.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s just, something came up last minute and Mr. Stark really needs me to go on this business trip with him,” he apologized, pulling his coat on. “But, uh, he’s sending a car for you. So don’t worry about walking back alone, alright? I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you when I get back, okay? Bye!”

“Oh, okay. Bye!” you managed to call out before he was running out the doors and down the street. Lots of customers were staring as you awkwardly gathered your things and went to go wait on the sidewalk.

A few minutes later, a shiny black car had pulled up to the curb in front of you, a man rolling down the window.

“Miss Y/N? I’m Happy Hogan. Mr. Stark sent me to drive you home,” he called from the driver’s seat, before getting out to open your door for you. You stepped in, a little starstruck at how nice the car was. You had never been in anything this expensive before.

The two of you were sitting in silence until you finally got the courage to speak up.

“Mr. Hogan,” you started, causing him to turn down the smooth jazz that had been playing on the radio. “Do you know why Peter has to go to Toronto?”

“Yes,” he replied, glancing at you in the rearview mirror. “But I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, okay,” you accepted, shifting to look out the window at all of the places in the city that you hadn’t yet gotten the chance to explore.

Eventually, he was dropping you off in front of your dorm, and you were trudging inside to your room to sulk about how your not-a-date date with Peter had gotten interrupted. You stared at your ceiling all night, wondering when the next time you’d see each other would be, and whether or not he’d come back with the same cuts and bruises as when you had first met.

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

Peter had been gone for six days and counting, and you were starting to worry that he might never come back. You had already started missing him the night he left, and now it was just some agonizing waiting game for him to return.

You must have spent hours in the basement kitchen before deciding to visit the fourth floor where Peter lived. You knocked on the door and was quickly met with Ned’s shocked expression.

“Uh, hi, Y/N. Peter’s not here right now. Did you need something?”

“I know,” you acknowledged, holding up the plate in your hand. “It’s just, well, I’ve been baking a lot and I didn’t really know who to give all of these cookies to, so I was wondering if you wanted any.”

“Oh, in that case, sign me up!” You watched as his face lit up as he noticed the assortment of chocolate chip, sugar, and snickerdoodle cookies all still warm from the oven. He offered his hands out to take the plate from you, which you happily relinquished.

“These are really good,” he complimented, his mouth full of a sugar cookie. “Can I keep the rest of them?”

“Yeah, of course,” you answered, doing your best to smile despite how much you wished it had been Peter opening the door. “I’ll see you around, Ned.”

“Hey, Y/N,” he called out to you, making you turn around on the stairwell. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Peter’s going to be back any day now.” You nodded, offering him a wave and walking back down to your room.

Turns out Ned had been right. The strange noises outside of your window were masked by how loud you were jamming out to We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel, jumping around and listing off the lyrics that had never made much sense to you. Peter knocked louder on the glass, startling you as you quickly switched off the music to investigate.

“Holy shit,” you whispered, squinting your eyes to make sure you weren’t hallucinating. “Spider-Man? Is that really you?”

You fumbled to push up your window, extremely confused as to why one of the Avengers was outside your bedroom this late at night.

“It’s me, Y/N,” he explained, his voice suddenly becoming extremely familiar. Your eyes widened as you realized who was behind the mask.

“Oh my god! PETER?” you screamed as he slipped through the window, pulling off his mask and clapping a hand over your mouth.

“Don’t freak out. It’s okay. It’s just me, okay?” he stammered in an attempt to get you to calm down before an RA heard. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I really wanted to tell you, but we were in public when I left, and I couldn’t risk it. And I didn’t want to text it or do it over the phone because it’s kind of a big deal, so I figured I’d just come to see you as soon as I got back and Mr. Stark said that you have to promise—”

“It’s okay, Peter,” you interrupted, wrapping your arms around him and burying your face into the very weird material of his spider-suit. “I won’t tell anybody.”

He softened under your touch, resting his head on top of yours. “I like your dance moves,” he whispered, making you glare up at him, your face suddenly very red.

“How long were you watching?” you groaned, dramatically throwing yourself onto your bean bag, your face covered by your hands.

“Only for about a minute,” he answered, pulling your hands down so you could see him grinning at you. “I especially liked how you used your hairbrush as a microphone. Plus, I thought we agreed to stop being embarrassed around each other?”

“Well, that was before I knew you were freaking Spider-Man!”

“Okay, fair enough,” he agreed, nudging you to scoot over and make room for him.

“So, that’s what that whole Toronto thing was?” you asked as he sat next to you, your knee touching his.

“Yep. There was this thing about aliens and these guys that could shapeshift. It’s a lot to explain.”

“Are you going to keep that thing on all night?” you asked, gesturing at his outfit, which was very tight and very distracting from whatever alien story he had to tell.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so,” he shrugged. “I don’t have anything on underneath it.”

“How scandalous,” you teased. “Not so family-friendly after all, huh, Spidey?”

“Oh, shut up,” he quipped, rolling his eyes as you let out a long yawn.

“Have you been sleeping much?” he continued, suddenly remembering the issue that had brought the two of you together in the first place.

“Of course not. I’ve been too busy worrying about my classes and, oh, just some idiot I know that abandoned me in the middle of an ice cream shop. Pretty sure he said he’d make that up to me, by the way.”

“Okay, okay. Message received. What would you like?” Please say a kiss. Please say a kiss. Please say a—

“Can I meet them? The Avengers, I mean. It’s not like anyone else really has a secret identity except for you.”

“Oh. I mean, I’d have to ask Mr. Stark and the rest of the team and see if they’re cool with it, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Awesome! You’re the best,” you chimed, wrapping your arms around him and planting a kiss on his cheek.

It was then that Peter decided he would just never be able to wash that side of his face again, his heart nearly skipping a beat.

“Peter,” you said, breaking the silence he had left the two of you in. “I’m tired.”

“Me too,” he sighed. “I should head up to my room. Gotta make sure Ned knows I’m still alive.”

“Yeah, of course,” you agreed, standing up to see him out. “Aren’t you worried somebody will see you, though?”

“Y/N, it’s 4 a.m. I’m pretty sure that you and I are the only people on campus that are awake right now.”

“Oh, right. Still, be careful, okay?” you told him, slightly worried at his secret identity being found out by some college kid that just couldn’t stay off Twitter.

“Will do,” he said, smiling and giving you a little salute before leaving.

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

A few days later, before you could even greet him, Peter was already walking into your room. It was 10 p.m., a little earlier than when he usually came over, but by now you were used to him showing up at your door unannounced.

He was already wearing his pajamas, a t-shirt with a science pun and some flannel pants that he had invested in to avoid any more awkward moments between the two of you. You were dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt, the clothes you usually threw on after class just in case you fell asleep on accident. There had been more times where you had woken up sweaty with your jeans stuck to your legs than you were willing to admit.

“Okay, so I asked Mr. Stark about your request and he told me he doesn’t think now is a good time, but…” he grinned, holding out a giant cardboard box with some kind of minimalist home appliance on the front for you to look at.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” you blinked back, trying to figure out what the hell you were staring at, considering that all of the text written on it was in a language you didn’t know how to read.

“It’s some fancy white noise machine from Japan. If I remember correctly, Mr. Stark said he made Pepper order it because I wouldn’t shut up about you, and it would be in everybody’s best interest if you got some sleep, so I could stop annoying him and the rest of the team.”

“Oh. That’s pretty thoughtful, I guess,” you said, gathering things off your floor to make space for it.

He set the box down on your rug and got to work opening it. Meanwhile, you were busy translating what exactly Tony Stark had so generously gifted to you.

“Peter, wait. This thing is like $300. Doesn’t he know that you can just look up whale noises on YouTube for free?”

“Yeah, but this one adjusts its volume based on the noises around it, has a light that simulates the sun rising, and has an alarm noise that’s supposed to support healthy cortisol levels.”

Peter peered up to see your arms crossed and brows furrowed, it suddenly becoming clear to him that the things he had just listed meant very little to you.

“Plus, he’s a literal billionaire, so I don’t think it was that big of a loss for him,” he added.

“Fine. Let’s just hope this thing works,” you sighed, watching as Peter leafed through the instruction manual before tossing it behind him. “It’s a little early to go to sleep, though.”

“Y/N, plenty of people go to sleep at 10. Not everybody is nocturnal like you.”

“I guess you have a point,” you agreed, kneeling down beside him as he fiddled with all the settings.

“I know,” he said with a smirk as you rested your chin on his shoulder to get a better look at what he was doing. “What time do you want to wake up? 7 a.m. would give us time to go get breakfast before class, but we could do 8 if you wanted to sleep in.”

“We?” you mused, liking the sound of that. “I guess that means you’re staying here tonight?”

“Well, yeah. I’m not letting you have all these overpriced rainforest noises to yourself.”

“Do 7. We can go get those blueberry muffins that you like,” you decided, standing up to get Peter’s makeshift bed on your bean bag ready. “Do you actually like sleeping on this thing, or were you just trying to be polite the first time I asked?”

“Dude, that thing is awesome. It’s like I’m on this little cuddly cloud, and then you add all those warm blankets and the twinkly lights and it’s the perfect recipe for me to fall asleep.”

“Wow,” you nodded, looking around your room to see all of the things that Peter was talking about. “I wish it worked that way for me.”

“Maybe it will, tonight.”

It didn’t. You were tossing and turning for nearly an hour to the agonizing sounds of birds cawing and the occasional monkey chatter, all set against the backdrop of a heavy thunderstorm. To be honest, it was something that would’ve given you nightmares when you were little.

“Y/N?” Peter whispered from the floor. “Are you sleeping?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

“Could you turn that thing off? It’s really distracting me.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, leaning over to switch the noise machine off. “Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

He hesitated, not really sure if he should ask the question that he had been thinking about for a while now. “How old were you when your parents died?”

You had to think for a moment, not really sure about the answer. For as long as you could remember, you just lived with your grandparents. “Um, well my mom left when I was a baby. And I think my dad passed away when I was four.”

“Oh,” Peter mumbled. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a parent leave you, but he didn’t want to pry just in case it was a sensitive topic. “Are your grandparents from your mom or dad’s side?”

You rolled over to rest your head on the edge of your bed so that you could see him better. He looked so cute bundled up in all of your blankets, his hair already a bit messy. “They’re my mom’s parents. It’s weird. I see a lot of pictures of her from when she was growing up, and I look so much like her, but she’s basically a stranger to me.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something else, but there was a long pause and he decided not to.

“What about you? How old were you when your parents passed away?”

“Five or six. They met while working at the C.I.A. together, but most of my memories are from the stories my aunt and uncle told me when I was growing up.”

For a moment, neither of you could find the right words to say to each other.

“Peter,” you spoke up, interrupting his thoughts. “I’m really glad I met you.”

“I’m really glad I met you too.”

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

Peter’s next plan of action involved even more advice from his fellow Avengers, and you were not looking forward to trying out any of their suggestions.

“Okay, so, Steve—I mean Captain America—said that when he was little, you know, in the 1940s, all he had to do was drink a glass of warm milk before bed.”

“I’m lactose intolerant,” you groaned, crossing your arms.

“I just saw you eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s in one sitting the other day.”

“Regular milk has almost 15 times more lactose than ice cream. You’d think a science nerd like you would know that.”

“I’m a geek,” he scoffed, clearly a little bit offended. “Not a nerd.”

“Yeah, I can see that now. It’s okay, though. At least you’re pretty,” you said, pinching his cheek.

“Just try it,” he grumbled, handing you the warm glass and waiting impatiently for you to take a sip. If anything, the milk did a better job at keeping you up that night than putting you to sleep. Not even thirty minutes after you had gone to bed, you were feeling sick to your stomach.

“I hate milk,” you gagged, Peter holding your hair back as you kneeled over the toilet bowl. “My grandpa could never get me to drink it as a kid.”

“Is that why you’re so short?” he laughed, helping you up. You glared at him as you moved to the sink to wash the acidic taste out of your mouth.

“Shut up, Parker,” you quipped, tired and grumpy from how terrible you felt. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”

“Alright, munchkin,” he smiled, pulling you out of the bathroom and back towards your bed.

Somehow, the warm milk wasn’t even the worst of Peter’s ideas, because a few days later, he was standing at your door with a bottle of some Asgardian sleep aid from the lightning god himself.

“Are you sure this is safe for me to drink?” you asked, your eyes widening as you stared at the silvery liquid that was almost shimmering.

“Uh, I’m about 87% confident you’ll live,” he said, “But I’m 100% sure that it’ll work.”

“Gee, thanks. Now I really want to drink this weird alien potion,” you sighed, looking at him nervously.

“Just drink a little bit and see if you feel anything,” Peter encouraged, leaning over your shoulder. You nodded, hesitantly bringing the drink up to your lips to take a sip.

“This stuff tastes amazing,” you mused, taking a bigger gulp this time. “Like a blue raspberry slushie.”

“Whoa, that’s enough,” he warned, taking the bottle from your hands before you could drink any more of it. “We don’t want you to go into a coma.”

“I don’t feel anything,” you shrugged, frowning back at him. “Maybe I should—”

You stopped mid-sentence to let out a loud yawn, the potion starting to take effect. Peter caught you as you slumped down in your chair, helping you into bed.

“Okay. I definitely feel it now,” you admitted, already half asleep. Peter tucked you under your blankets, placing a kiss on your forehead as your eyes fluttered shut.

“Sweet dreams, Y/N,” he whispered, turning off your lights and softly closing the door behind him.

For a moment, Peter had thought he had finally found a solution to your insomnia. At least before you slept through class the next morning. And then the day after that. But it wasn’t until the third day that he really started to freak out.

“Where’s Thor!?” he panted, having run all the way from his class over to the Avengers Tower. Wanda and Vision stared back at him from the kitchen, very confused at what he was so panicked about.

“He’s in his room,” Bucky called from the couch, his mouth full of popcorn as 13 Going on 30 played on the big screen. “What’s going on, kid?”

“No time to explain. Gotta go!” Peter called, sprinting up the stairs towards Thor’s room. He knocked frantically until the door finally swung open.

“Greetings, young Spiderling. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Thor smiled, his long, golden hair shiny as ever.

“I think I killed my almost-girlfriend!” Peter blurted out, practically sweating from how stressed out he was. “She drank that stuff you gave me and she hasn’t woken up in three days now!”

Thor chuckled, patting Peter on the head. “Do not worry, my brother. I’m sure she will wake up given time. It was a very potent drink, after all. Calm yourself.”

“Okay,” he sighed, relieved to know that he hadn’t poisoned you to death. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. She’s fine. Everything’s fine. Thanks, man. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you around.”

“Farewell, Peter. May we meet again soon,” he grinned before closing the door in Peter’s face.

On the way back down the stairs, Peter figured he’d give you a call and see if you were still sleeping.

“Hello?” you groaned, your throat dry from just waking up. “Peter, what the hell happened to me?”

“THANK GOD YOU’RE ALIVE!” Peter yelled into the phone, making you recoil from the volume of his excitement. “You’ve been asleep for three days, Y/N. I thought you were dead.”

“I am very much alive,” you laughed, slowly feeling the potion wearing off. “Where are you?”

“Uh. I may have run all the way to Midtown to ask Thor if I had killed you,” he admitted, feeling you roll your eyes through the screen. “I was worried, okay?”

“Now you know how I feel whenever you leave for a mission,” you countered, glad that Peter couldn’t see how much you were blushing. “Hurry up and get your butt back over here. I have the weirdest dream to tell you about.”

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

Even if you still weren’t getting a full eight hours of rest at night, it was obvious that all of Peter’s efforts had vastly improved your sleep schedule. Over the past few months, you had gone from staring at your ceiling all night to actually being able to stay asleep for small periods of time.

“Your eyelashes are so long,” you mused, playing with Peter’s hair. He was sitting in between your legs and How the Grinch Stole Christmas was playing on your TV.

“Really?” He tilted his head back to look at you, batting his eyelashes and making you giggle.

“Yes. It’s not fair that boys get all of the pretty eyelashes,” you pouted, watching as the Grinch explained his plan to steal all of Whoville’s presents to his dog.

“I think yours are pretty,” he replied, a soft smile on his face. “But there’s a rogue one just hanging out on your face right now.”

“Can you get it?” you asked, your eyes still glued on the TV screen. Peter nodded, twisting around to gently brush the eyelash from your cheek.

“Do you want to make a wish?” he laughed, holding the little eyelash on the tip of his finger in front of you.

“Okay,” you agreed, squeezing your eyes shut and blowing it away. When you opened them, Peter’s face was only inches away from yours.

“What did you wish for?” His gaze shifted downwards to look at your lips for a split second, before returning to look into your eyes.

“I can’t tell you, dummy. Then it won’t come true.” You weren’t about to tell your best friend that you wished for him to kiss you. At least not now, while the two of you were stuck in this really weird “not dating, but more than just friends” limbo.

“Fine,” he frowned, crossing his arms and pouting in a way that you recognized had been mimicked after you.

“Don’t make fun of me,” you said, mirroring his stance. Your puppy dog eyes were definitely a lot more convincing than his.

“I’m not.”

“Uh-huh, sure. You smell really good, by the way. Well, your hoodie does. I could just wrap myself up in it and fall asleep.”

“How come you’ve never mentioned that before? You could’ve been out cold every night months ago!”

“Guess I was just too distracted by your dreamy face,” you teased, causing Peter to blush.

“Whatever. Seriously, though. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know. I think it took me a while to realize how sleepy I got whenever you were really close to me,” you shrugged. “You’re not mad at me, right?”

“Of course not. But if I had known sooner I would’ve just given you one,” he said, slipping the hoodie over his head and handing it to you. “Here, put it on. You better fall asleep instantly or I’m calling bullshit.”

“You caught me, Peter. This was all some elaborate plan for me to steal one of your hoodies.”

“Just put it on. The suspense is killing me.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled his hoodie on. Just from looking at Peter and how slim he was, you never would have guessed that it would be this oversized on you.

“How do I look?” you asked, striking silly poses in front of him. Peter involuntarily licked his lips and he knew he’d be replaying this image of you in his head for the next few weeks.

“You’re going to have to keep that,” he stammered, doing his best to hide how much he really liked seeing you in his clothes. “It looks a lot better on you. I, um, have to go do my homework. And call my aunt. And walk my roommate.”

Peter stumbled to his feet, staring at his wristwatch to maintain his act that he was late for something before grabbing his things and heading out the door, making sure to hold his backpack in front of him. “Let me know if the hoodie thing works. Bye!”

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

Brushing off Peter’s strangely abrupt departure from last night, you nuzzled into your pillow, the warm morning light spilling through your curtains. Last night had probably been your best sleep in months, and you even got to wake up late since it was Saturday. Things probably couldn’t have gone any better.

Before you knew it, you were running up to Peter’s room and banging on his door. He opened the door on your fourth knock, right after Ned had chucked a pillow at him, and you were met with his sleepy eyes and messy hair.

“It worked!” you yelped in excitement, twirling around and still wearing his hoodie. “Well, kind of. I fell asleep after about an hour, and then I slept for maybe three after that. But I had to pee in the middle of the night, and when I got back into bed I couldn’t fall back asleep until 6 a.m.”

“That’s some good progress,” he yawned, stepping out into the hallway to keep your little celebration from bothering Ned too much. “If only we could get you to sleep the entire night.”

“I know right. But I’m so happy!” you cheered, wrapping your arms around him. “We finally did something right!”

“We need to celebrate!” you continued, grabbing Peter’s hand and dragging him down the stairs. “Come on. We’re making you a chocolate cake!”

You stopped by your room on the way to the kitchen, piling a bunch of ingredients into Peter’s arms from your mini-fridge and various shelves.

“Okay, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, chocolate. Damn it. We’re all out of milk.” You side-eyed him, remembering the whole Captain America induced fiasco from a couple weeks ago.

“I think we might have some in our room,” Peter laughed. “Ned drinks a lot of milk mixed with Milo powder. It’s some obsession he picked up when his family took a vacation to Australia. I’ll go get it.”

He set all of the ingredients you had given him on your desk and sprinted back up the stairs to raid Ned’s stash, already thinking of ways to apologize for it later.

A few minutes later he was knocking on your door, out of breath, and dressed to brave the many inches of snow that had fallen overnight.

“We didn’t have any milk,” he panted. “But I can run to the dining hall and get a few cartons.”

“I’ll go with you.” You quickly pulled on your snow boots and layered your puffer coat on top of Peter’s hoodie, wrapping a hand-knit scarf around your neck just to be safe. “All ready.”

Getting the milk was the easy part. Making sure you didn’t die of frostbite was another story. By the time you and Peter got back to your room, your nose was super red and you couldn’t feel your toes.

“Okay,” you said, your teeth chattering. “I thought I was used to the snow by now, but that was something else.” You dropped your coat on the ground and climbed into your bed, burying yourself under your comforter.

“I thought we were making a cake,” he laughed, walking over to see you peeking out of the pile.

“Cake will have to wait,” you whined, your voice slightly muffled by the blanket. “Come here. I need some of your body heat.”

“Okay,” he stuttered, kicking off his sneakers and climbing in beside you. He had sat on your bed a lot since the two of you met, but this was the first time that he was actually laying in it. You snuggled up to him, and he hesitantly wrapped his arms around you.

“This is nice,” you sighed, nuzzling your head into his chest. “Is this one of your superpowers? Spidey-warmth?” Peter let out a soft laugh. It was silly but true. Ever since the bite, he never really noticed how cold it was outside anymore.

“Y/N,” he whispered, tightening his grip around your waist. Your head was nestled underneath his chin, and he could smell the faint citrus scent of your shampoo. “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it, Pete?” you yawned, your eyelids heavy from how comfy Peter’s cuddles were.

“I love you.” He held his breath, nervously waiting for you to respond.

“I know,” you giggled, intertwining your legs. “Sometimes, you talk in your sleep. You’ve probably professed your love for me at least eight times by now.”

“Oh.” Peter had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that.

“Don’t worry. I love you, too,” you assured him, grinning and placing little kisses on his jawline. “I thought that was obvious.”

“Maybe you could make it a little more obvious,” he mumbled, his heartbeat getting quicker as you shifted up to kiss him on the lips, your hand running through his hair.

“I will,” you smiled, your forehead resting against his. “But after we take a nap, okay?”

“Okay,” Peter agreed, snuggling as close as he possibly could to you, never wanting to let go. In no time at all, he watched happily as you fell asleep in his arms, wondering how the two of you hadn’t thought of this sooner.

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

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#peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker #spiderman #spiderman x reader #marvel #mcu #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff

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codenamed-queenie · 4 years

Text

#BatsInQuarantine

I am going insane. So I poured my restlessness into one long and very detailed post and got super into it. Please enjoy this hot mess.

The Justice League, being the well-meaning virus-proof Super Friends that they are, took one good look at the news, one good look at their non-powered friends Ollie, Bruce, and their families, and collectively decided that these normal humans must be Protected At All Costs.

Now, keep in mind, Bruce is never one to roll over when it comes to being benched.

However, he understands the importance of social distancing. He knows he needs to set a good example for his kids, and keep up appearances as Gotham’s Most Responsible Multi-Billionaire.

So. Quarantine it is.

But how are his kids handling it?

Dick -

100% on board in the beginning. Gotta do the Responsible Thing. Gotta set a Good Example. Besides, guys, this is gonna be Fun. Quality Family Time is always a Must.

He lasted 2 days.

Then he started to get twitchy.

And as everyone knows? A Trapped Dick Grayson is a Feral Dick Grayson.

He bounces off the walls.

Literally.

“I have to climb.”

“Dick, no.”

“I have to climb everything.”

Has scaled the manor 16 times already. Has climbed the chandelier. The banister. Bruce. The roof. The Cave. Anything in the house that’s been bolted down and especially anything that hasn’t.

Duke found him clinging to the wall 10 ft off the ground like Spiderman and screamed so loud it shattered glass.

Desperate for news of the outside.

He thrives off of it like a starving man.

Was the one to suggest he and Barbara take a break to Social Distance from each other (”Sorry, babe, kissing spreads germs”) and experienced Instant Regret(TM) approximately 5 minutes after.

The Family has labelled him a Flight Risk Level 1 (Most likely to say f**k it and make a break for the outside world)

Jason -

Accidentally got trapped inside the manor with the others when Bruce called Shutdown. If he had his way, he’d be chilling in his favorite safe-house right now, binging The Witcher with Roy and Artemis, and not worrying about finding a stray brother in his sock drawer.

But he’s nothing if not an opportunist.

The way he sees it, Jason has 3 options:

Self Improvement

Self Isolation (See Duke, Cass, and Damian)

Descension Into Madness (See Dick and Steph)

And, well, he always wanted to try a few things. Now he’s got the free time to do it.

So he settles on baking.

Alfred’s got enough food and raw ingredients stored up to feed an army. (Not because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder in times like these. But because he’s a Panic-Buying-Hoarder all the time. Just try feeding 11+ teenagers sometime.)

Uses recipes he finds off Google.

His first few attempts are, in a word, ‘tragic’.

Alfred slips him a few of his recipe cards, and Jason suddenly starts seeing Results.

Turns out he’s pretty good at this baking thing once he gets the hang of it.

Hope everyone’s okay eating nothing but pie, macaroons, biscuits, and whatever else Jason whips up.

Cause that’s gonna be the only food left by the time he’s done.

Barbara -

Self-quarantined with her dad.

They’ve been binge-watching classic black and white movies together.

It’s a fun time, but she’s started to get a little antsy. Loving her dad and wanting to be around him 24/7 are, understandably, mutually exclusive.

Calls the manor to video-chat every day.

For her sanity just as much as theirs.

Gives everyone little challenges to film on their phones and send in. She makes compilations of everyone’s submissions so they can all watch and laugh together.

Bonus points for Creativity

One comp shows the family trying to drop Mentos into coke bottles.

Dick did a handstand, and dropped his Mento from the second story balcony.

Tim did it wearing the Batman cowl. The soda exploded into his face, and the rest of the video is just Bruce’s Shrieking.

Stephanie tried it, but the bottle tipped. Everyone on camera screamed as the bottle rocketed through the front window.

She spends most of her calls having one-on-one convos with Dick.

They’ve come up with little code phrases so they can be Cheesy even with family members lurking in the background.

She thinks the way he clings to the monitor is cute.

Almost like he’s giving her a hug through the screen.

(It’s easier than letting herself worry about his mental state, at least)

Tim -

Oh this boy.

Freaked out for the first five minutes before he decided ‘hey wait, Bruce is letting me stay in my pajamas all day? Noice.’

Now he’s just vibing.

The rest of his family is Low-Key shielding him.

He Has No Spleen, you see.

Steph: “Someone could cough on him and he could die!”

He just goes about his day, playing Animal Crossing like there’s no tomorrow, tinkering on projects, taking naps, etc. Living his best life.

Meanwhile there’s always someone lurking behind him, keeping watch, keeping him safe.

Dick sneezed within 5 feet of Tim once (the fact that he was on top of the dusty bookshelf Tim was perusing is irrelevant)

Jason still full-body tackled him the second Tim’s back was turned.

No one with any symptoms--

Like, any symptoms. They don’t even have to be Corona-related.

--is allowed within 10 feet of Tim.

Tim has been wandering the manor for weeks, now, without seeing another human being.

(He sees Dick on the ceiling sometimes, but that doesn’t really count)

He’s been trying increasingly drastic pranks and shenanigans to draw someone, anyone, out.

But it doesn’t matter how many times he steals Damian’s sword, or sets fire to Jason’s brownie bites.

Nobody wants to risk it.

Cass -

No one has seen her since quarantine started.

Everyone is approximately 87% sure she’s somewhere in the manor though

Because she does eat the meals Alfred leaves out for her.

Or at least someone does, at any rate.

(Jason and Santa top the running suspects list)

Santa was Steph’s suggestion. For some reason it snowballed.

It’s assumed that Cass misunderstood the meaning of ‘social distancing’ and took it too far.

But no one knows for sure.

She is Tim’s Guardian Angel.

People who so much as clear their throats a little too loudly anywhere near him suddenly wake up on a different floor of the house four hours later.

Duke came closest to spotting her while he was up in the attic.

Either that, or there’s another Creepy Sister everyone forgot to tell him about living up there.

She is silent, and watchful, sticking to the shadows, but she does leave the occasional note out to brighten her siblings’ day.

Things like ‘helo i love u’ and ‘hop u ar ok’ mostly.

She is bound and determined to protect her family from this invisible threat, no matter the cost.

Steph -

Like Dick, she was Super Pumped at first.

(Just kind of showed up at Wayne Manor before quarantine was enacted. The original purpose of her visit is unclear, but regardless, she’s Trapped.)

Also Like Dick, her descent into madness was swift.

She is impossible to pin down.

Not like Cass or Damian, who’ve stayed off the grid, and are therefore Untraceable.

No. She’s impossible to pin down, because she never stops moving.

Switches seamlessly between Zumba on top of the Giant Dinosaur in the Batcave, and furiously knitting Alfred (the Cat) a sweater with a pair of Tim’s used chopsticks.

Braided everyone’s hair while they were asleep.

Even Bruce’s.

She tried to do Tim’s, but somehow blacked out and regained consciousness in the attic.

When she woke up with a scream and a furiously twitching eye, she startled Duke out of his Makeshift Fort he built out of old cardboard boxes and antique furniture. He’s had to resort to finding a new hiding place.

Sometimes, on the rare occasions she does sit still, staring off into the distance, she’ll suddenly start laughing hysterically. This may last between thirty seconds and thirty minutes, depending entirely on how long it’s been since she’s knitted a cat sweater or done cartwheels through every room in the house.

Blew up the greenhouse out back, somehow.

Everyone has agreed not to talk about it.

Some people were built to handle prolonged time inside their homes.

Stephanie Brown is not that way.

Damian -

Damian Wayne Cannot Be Contained.

At least not inside the house.

He took off thirty-six hours into quarantine.

Thanks to the security equipment around the borders of the Wayne Estate, he can’t escape the grounds.

(He’s tried and failed multiple times. Jason and Bruce have a running bet on how many times the perimeter alarms will go off per day.)

(Jason is winning.)

He wanders the grounds with Titus as his only companion.

The two of them run laps, practice drills, and find ways to occupy their time.

No one’s entirely sure what those ways are.

In fact, nobody knows exactly where Damian is at any given time.

Only that he is Out There.

And he’s the best security system Wayne Manor’s ever had.

So far, he’s stopped five groups of civilians scaling the perimeter walls before the lasers and electric nets even have a chance to deploy.

They were trying to break in and steal supplies.

(Even ones they already had in surplus. Like Toilet Paper.)

He’s also stopped Dick from escaping twelve (12) times.

Drags him back by his shirt collar and deposits him on the welcome mat.

Usually with a note for Alfred/Jason, requesting more fruit tarts.

Duke -

Did not leave the attic for two weeks.

Then Steph discovered his hiding spot (read: was dumped there by Cassandra) which forced him to relocate to the basement.

Yes, it turns out Wayne Manor does have a basement.

This was a surprise to Duke, who always thought that the Batcave was Bruce Wayne’s basement.

Alfred keeps him supplied with all the necessities:

i.e. food, magazines, assorted pastries from Jason’s latest batch, usually straight out of the oven.

Duke also snagged the Manor’s Alexa.

She has become a sort of ‘Wilson’ to Duke’s ‘Chuck Noland’.

She is his only comfort. His only ally.

He’s determined to wait out this quarantine, doing his best to avoid the others.

Duke has seen these people under pressure.

He knows exactly what he’s dealing with.

Duke: “Alexa is the only motherf****r in this madhouse I ever respected.”

*offended butler noises from the other room*

Duke: “And also Alfred.”

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hopelesshawks · 3 years

Note

Hawks would go FERAL if he saw his girlfriend in his clothes. He would go absolutely wild that man has a claiming/marking kink for SURE

Oh absolutely. You technically didn’t request I write this but you also knew what you were doing dropping this in my ask box so HERE WE GO. I wrote this instead of finishing the next part of Official Accounts oops

It’s an 18+ one y’all, minors dni

Contains mention of reader having a vagina, fingering, mutual masturbation, light dom/sub tones, minor cumplay

Maintaining a relationship as a pro hero is hard. Maintaining a secret relationship as a pro hero is even harder. You understand that being a top hero comes with a certain level of fame but if one more fanboy or creepy reporter hits on you, you are going to scream. Not to mention the legion of fan girls constantly screaming after your boyfriend. You get it. Hawks is hot. It’s part of why you date him, but did they really need to mob him every time he was in the vicinity? Needless to say jealousy was not uncommon in your relationship but the two of you had learned to deal with it over the past couple years. Deal with it frequently meaning putting on the best poker face you could muster until you got home and were able to take out your frustrations in a way that was fun for both of you.

You could already tell today was going to be a long day. You had just gotten back from an early morning patrol and just when you wanted to pass out for a much deserved nap you’d instead been told you had to give an interview on the opposite side of town. So instead of napping you had caught a cab to the other side of town and dragged yourself to the studio, only to discover your least favorite reporter would be giving the interview. The interviewer was an attractive man in his late 20s who clearly was unaccustomed to being told no. It didn’t matter how many times you explained you weren’t interested, the man always flirted with you at every opportunity. In a version of reality where pro heroes could punch out interviewers without reproach, you would have taught him a lesson by now, but your temper had got you in enough trouble with the HPSC already this year.

You sit down for the interview and immediately you can tell the interviewer won’t be keeping things professional. It’s live so you can’t do anything in the moment but grin and bear it. By the time the interview is over he’s managed to put his hand on your thigh twice, make an inappropriate comment about your hero costume three times, and imply the two of you should date at least five times. You hate him. The minute the cameras stop rolling, without dropping the polite smile from your face you remove his hand from your thigh and tell him “If you want to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit I’d reign it in,” before storming off the set.

Finally, finally you get to go home. You immediately take a hot shower to wash off the sweat from patrol and the gross feeling from the interview. What you really want right now is your boyfriend, but Hawks is still working and probably will be for a while so you settle for throwing on one of his shirts with nothing underneath but a pair of underwear. You flop onto his side of the bed, burying your nose in his pillow to catch his lingering scent, and immediately fall asleep.

Hawks is irritated. He’s irritated because it feels like work has kept him from having quality time with you lately. He’s irritated because he saw your interview today. He’s irritated because he couldn’t even explain fully to Mirko why the interview had pissed him off so much. He’s irritated because he never should have come up with the idea to keep your relationship a secret and he’s irritated because you never should have agreed. None of these things are truly your fault though so when he finally gets home Hawks fully intends to just cuddle you to sleep and let you complain about how shitty your day was. Honest! He had not accounted for finding you curled up on his side of the bed wearing little other than his shirt.

You wake up from your nap to find your boyfriend lurking in the doorway to your room staring at you. You sit up and drowsily rub the sleep from your eyes. “What’re you doing just standing there Kei? Hurry up and come to bed,” you whine. You were not expecting him to groan “fuck,” before all but lunging towards you. Adrenaline surges through you immediately, the notion of sleep banished completely from your thoughts as suddenly Hawks is pinning you to the bed. You can feel his erection pressing against you but before you can ask what has triggered such a reaction he’s already got a hand in your panties, his thumb finding your clit with practiced ease. “Shit, Keigo, slow down,” you gasp as you grip the bedsheets tightly but he pays you no mind as his middle finger slides inside you. “God you’re so fucking wet for me. Look so fucking beautiful like this, you know that?” he groans.

You can’t even form a coherent response as he slides another finger inside you, dragging them along your inner walls in exactly the way he knows you like. Your hands move from the bed to his back and it’s only then you realize how much clothing he’s still wearing. “Clothes. Off. Now,” you manage to pant out and Keigo nods in acknowledgment. When he withdraws his fingers it’s all you can do to not whine at the loss of stimulation. He quickly sheds his coat and shirt, and for a moment you’re mesmerized by the wild look he has in his eyes and the haste with which he strips off the layers of his hero costume. As he’s finally moving to undo his pants you move to take off the shirt you’re wearing but immediately he’s back on you and pinning your hands above your head. “Don’t. Shirt stays on,” he practically growls and it sends shivers straight down your back and into your groin. “Ok,” is all you manage to say as he moves to press a bruising kiss to your neck. He doesn’t stop until he’s left at least a couple hickeys there, then he moves his mouth to the shell of your ear. “I want you to do something for me (y/n),” he whispers as he releases your hands and instead moves to slide your panties off. “I want you to touch yourself for me. Can you do that baby? I wanna watch you play with yourself in my shirt,” he continues and you’re already nodding before you’ve even fully processed the request.

He leans back to watch as you obediently bring one hand down to your aching sex. Your legs instinctively fall open to allow you better access as you slowly begin to rub along your folds before pressing small circles into your clit. You can hear Hawks curse under his breath as he quickly removes his pants and boxer briefs but that only spurs you on more. You truly are a sight to behold as you deftly insert two fingers inside of yourself, your nipples so hard they’re visible through Keigo’s shirt. He drinks in every lewd inch of you, wanting to commit the image to memory as he finally wraps a hand around his thick shaft. He’s not going to last long. He can tell by the way his dick is already weeping precum and he hasn’t even started moving his hand yet. He doesn’t mind at all though as he watches you squirm underneath him. He forces himself to wait until he can tell you’re getting close to climax. Only then does he allow his hand to start moving.

“Fuck Keigo I’m so close,” you moan, and it takes everything in him not to shoot his load right then. “Me too baby, me too. Let’s cum together, ok?” he moans back. “Ok.” “Ok. Fuck! God you look so hot so fucking beautiful right now,” he groans as the two of you continue to push towards climax, each egged on by the other’s performance. It seems to last both a lifetime and only a moment before finally you’re both rushing headlong into orgasm. Keigo quickly shoves his shirt further up your body to reveal your torso so he can paint it white with his release. As the high finally fades he collapses down next to you and you both just sit there for awhile to catch your breath.

“Kei can you get me a towel? I’m too lazy to move,” you finally ask once the two of you have recovered somewhat. You get silence back. “Kei?” you try again. “Can you leave it for a little bit? I promise I’ll give you the best bath ever afterwards,” he asks sheepishly. You can’t help but fondly roll your eyes. “So territorial,” you tease, “but fine. It better be one hell of a bath though.” “Thanks baby,” he smiles as he pulls you close and brings the covers up around the both of you. “The hickeys are gonna be a bitch to try and cover up in the morning though,” you sigh. “Then don’t cover them. It’s about time the world knew you were mine anyway,” Keigo says. “You sure about that?” “I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything in my life.”

#this got real outta hand real quick #enjoy #hhrequests #hawks #wing hero hawks #hawks x reader #hawks x y/n #hopeless.olivia #hopeless.thirst

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artzychic27 · 3 years

Note

The Artist Family? (new movie)

A month has passed since Marc and Nathaniel met and fell in love at age fourteen, now they’re dating

To celebrate their one month anniversary, they decide to visit one of the most romantic spots ever- The burned-down forest they met in- Only to run into some trouble

The mobs from their previous homes have still been looking for them since the incidents and were finally able to track them down

The couple manage to escape the angry mob with the help of Marc’s spiders and a friendly severed hand who cause a distraction

So they can get away quicker, That drives them in an old hearse he found in a graveyard

Marc: Mi querido, why must hoards of angry villagers follow us everywhere?

Nathaniel: *Kissing Marc’s hand* Meyn ziskeyt, I swear to you, we will find someplace so dark, so sinister, so dastardly that no one in their right mind would be caught dead in!

*They arrive in Paris*

Nathaniel: Huh. I see it’s changed over the last few centuries. And I’m noticing a lack of guillotines.

As they lament about how they can’t keep running for the rest of their lives, That, who was recklessly driving, runs over something in the middle of the road, right near an old funeral home shrouded by fog and cut off from the rest of the city

Marc/Nathaniel: *Excitedly* We hit something!

They rush to see who or what they’ve hit, and see that the figure is a blonde, pale young man who seems to have most of his organs missing

They realize that the person they ran over is Félix Culpa, a young man who died centuries ago, but was never given a funeral because the mortician prepping him got the plague. He regains consciousness and goes to attack the two, but Nathaniel just hands him their bags

Nathaniel: Thanks, man. Hey, you mind showing us around the place?

And that’s how Félix became their butler

When they arrive at the old funeral home, they’re given a very warm welcome.

Spirit of the House: GET OUT!

Marc: ... It’s hideous.

Nathaniel: It’s horrible...

Marc/Nathaniel: It’s home.

Weeks goes by, and more people begin to occupy the home, making amazing first impressions

Marinette and Alix actually snuck in and have been living in the walls for a short period of time until Félix found them

Marc found Rose resting in one of the open graves in the backyard

And Juleka Samara-crawled out of the swamp with her hair covering her face

The six of them share their backgrounds, sympathize with each other about how they were run out of their homes, and make the decision to change their last names to Artist

Now they’re sixteen while Alix is still fifteen

Meanwhile, down in Paris, Gabriel Agreste is taking the fashion world by storm, and his clothing (All basic and dull) is a big hit in Paris (For reasons no one understands but they won’t say anything for fear of not fitting in)

His son, Adrien Agreste goes for a bike ride through the woods with his two friends, Nino and Alya, where they come across the gate that separates outsiders from the Artists’ home

They’re immediately scared away when Marinette opens the creaking gate that sounds like the end of the world when opened

Also, Alix’s sinister sixteen is coming up in a few weeks, and part of the celebration is a swordfight, which she is nowhere near ready for

Nathaniel: Alix, you need to practice. It’s the day your family and friends judge you and pass judgement on your worth as a human being!... It reminds me of Hanukkah.

During one dinner, Marinette asks a question that shocks everyone

Marinette: Do you guys think things beyond the gate have changed?

Juleka: ... What?

Marinette: It’s been years, surely things must be different now. Earlier today, I swore I heard people.

Marc: Outside is forbidden.

Marinette: But-

Marc: Forbidden!

Back in the city, Gabriel is anticipating the arrival of tourists to buy his new line of clothing which he calls, Conformist

While filming a commercial, a red balloon floats astray and makes its way towards the Artists’ home, which Marinette finds as she’s “helping” Alix prepare for the Swordfight

Alix: Why are you helping me?

Marinette: Because. You are like my sister... And... I... Love... You...

Alix: ... You seem trustworthy.

Big mistake

Marinette: *Walks inside with the balloon* Good news, Alix is gone.

Marc: *Holding a sword to Nathaniel’s neck* Mari, go dig up Alix.

Marinette: You and Nathaniel are once again weakening this generation.

Nathaniel: *Points to balloon* Mari, where did you get that?

Marinette: I’m not sure.

Marc: Strange. There’s usually a murderous clown attached to the other end of these.

Juleka: *Gasp!* And what is this?! *Plucks a piece of pink confetti off of Marinette’s shoulder*

Nathaniel: Smells like cotton candy. *Off their confused looks* I was young and stupid, alright?

The Artists go outside where they find rainbow confetti raining down, and the fog that covers their home is lifting up, revealing to them the town

Much to Marc’s protests, Nathaniel suggests they go see the place for themselves

Marinette: This day is becoming most miraculously disruptive.

While filming another commercial, the Artist Family’s house is in the camera’s shot, and Gabriel passes out the second he sees it

*Somewhere else* Nino: ... I feel an overwhelming sense of... Joy.

The Artists arrive in their hearse, and immediately capture the attention of the other Parisians. They’re given strange looks wherever they go, and sometimes people run away screaming

No one has run them out with pitchforks yet. Yay!

Alix: Guys! *Pulls a tire off of a police car* They’re just giving these away!

Juleka: Alix, mind your manners, people might want tires, too.

After getting coffee grounds, the Artists come across Adrien, Alya, Nino, Chloé, and Lila in the park, prancing around in pink and blue outfits and singing about being conformists

Rose: Wow... That is absolutely horrible!

Marinette: ... *Dumps coffee grounds* I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. However, that blonde boy... Intrigues me

And it seems the feeling is mutual when Adrien steals glances at the gothic girl with braids

Rose: ... Yeah, I’m done with this song. *She hikes up the hem of her robe, releasing hundreds of bats that scare off the crowd* Done and done!

Done with these people, Marc wants to leave, Nathaniel insists that things have changed, but his boyfriend is still reluctant... Cue Gabriel

He insists on hiring interior decorators to fix up the Artists home (So tourists aren’t scared off) Marc, with some urging from Nathaniel allows him to do so.

Marinette: That man seems deranged. His face reminds me of a death mask.

*Somewhere else* Nino: In the future... I will have a new friend. Blue hair. Braids.

Back at the Artists Home, Nathaniel, Juleka, and Rose help Alix prepare for her Swordfight

Rose: Of all the Sinister Sixteens I’ve seen, Nathaniel’s was the stuff of legends.

Juleka: So no pressure!

Gabriel, Adrien, the design crew, and the news crew arrive, ready to remove the gloom and macabre form the Artists’ home

Félix: *Answers the door* Youuuuuu raaaaaanng?

Adrien: *Calling Alya and Nino* Hey, so I’m going into the creepy mansion. If I don’t come back, I’m dead... I love you too, Nino... Yes, Alya, I know he’s your boyfriend.

Much to his relief, Adrien is left outside and goes around back to explore

Gabriel: I do hope this isn’t a bad time.

Nathaniel: The worst!... Do come in.

Gabriel spends most of the time making light criticisms and jabs at the decor, the Artists themselves, their clothes, and Marc’s spiders (Which he considers the greatest insult)

Meanwhile in the backyard, Adrien is nearly killed by a crossbow. To his horror and awe, he finds the shooter: Marinette in all of her dark glory

Immediately, he develops a small crush on her. She’s not like the other girls at school who constantly cling to and flirt with him because of his father’s wealth

He tries his hand at impressing her by shooting an arrow, but accidentally shoots Rose, which actually does impress Marinette

Adrien: So, why haven’t I seen you and your siblings at school?

Marinette: We’re coven-schooled. But, blondie, do tell... *Leans in close so she can hear Adrien’s rapid heartbeat* Can anyone attend your school?

Gabriel and his crew leave, having made no renovations to the Artists’ home. And when Nathaniel explains that family and friends will be coming over for Alix’s Sinister Sixteen, that just motivates the designer even more

Down in Gabriel’s secret lair, he spies on the Parisians through a social media app where he fills the comments section with rumors about the Artists, saying they’re anarchists and breed spiders... Okay, so they’re not all rumors

*The Next Day* Nathaniel: Monochrome, I know the man is an eccentric, but- *Marinette appears behind him* Aah!

Marc: Mari, you know Nathaniel scares easily. Practice your lurking on someone else. *Marinette appears behind him* Better. Now what’s on your mind?

Marinette explains that she wants to atener school, much to Marc’s horror and Nathaniel’s excitement. She needs to torment more kids her own age.

Marc doesn’t want her to go, worried she might fall under the influence of the... Conformists, but Nathaniel somehow convinced him

Marinette walking into school: Ah, so these are the gates of hell.

Adrien, while being crowded by girls he doesn’t even like (Especially Lila and Chloé) becomes awestruck when he sees Marinette walking in. She looks like a beautiful demon queen

Lila and Chloé see this and try to intimidate her, but this is what Marinette says,

Marinette: Listen you future plastic surgery disasters, I’m not locked in here with either of you. You and your outdated, distasteful “outfits” are locked in here with me. And don’t you forget it.

Alya just might dump Nino so she can ask this girl out. Polyamory works too. / Adrien: Back of the line.

Mendelive’s biology class: They’re dissecting frogs.

Adrien: Aw, I feel bad for doing this.

Marinette: Relax. Rose showed me how to do this hundreds of times. *Cue Frankenstein equipment* FLIP THE SWITCH! *Adrien flips the switch and electrocutes all of the frogs* LIVE! LIVE MY CREATURE!

The frogs come to life and attack Lila and Chloé. Karma at its finest. Alya and Nino are impressed by her more than ever

Alya: It is an honor and a privilege to watch you work, spooky girl.

Back at the Artists’ Home, it’s game night! They’re playing the game of Death, but Marc isn’t focused. It’s late and he’s wondering where Marinette is

Finally, she arrives, but much to Marc’s horror, she has a Ladybug hair clip! He’s in so much shock that his face flushes red and a bat has to drink his blood

Marc: What. Is. That?

Marinette: Adrien calls it a “Pop of color” says it brings out my... Smile.

Marc: You don’t have a smile.

In order to see what’s going on with his sister/friend, Marc suggests they do ‘Tea & Seance’ like old times... Only she bails to hang out with Adrien, and they give each other makeovers as acts of rebellion

Meanwhile, Alix is upset because she still can’t get the hang of sword fighting and Nathaniel has been working so hard to help her

Marinette returns from her hangout with Adrien, almost making Marc faint when she shows up wearing pink and her hair in pigtails.

Marc: Okay, this is where I sever the line! You are not going back to that school!

Marinette: *Gives him the evil eye before leaving* You can’t tell me what to do.

Juleka: Dear Hades, that is some evil eye.

Horrified by Adrien’s new gothic look and attitude, Gabriel spreads more rumors about the Artists

Frustrated by the lack of support from her family/friends, Marinette runs away and goes to stay with Adrien

Alix: I always knew it would end up like this. Just didn’t know when.

Marinette: Farewell, Alix! I will never forget you, but I’ll try.

The next morning, Marinette, Alya, and Nino are helping Adrien look for his phone, which Gabriel his hidden punishment for his new look

While looking, they stumble across Gabriel’s lair and discover he’s been spying on everyone in Paris. Gabriel discovers them snooping and locks them in Adrien’s room while he goes to greet the tourists... And some unexpected guests

Nathalie: *Dials Gabriel* Gabriel, it’s an emergency. They’re here! The Artist Family!

The Artists more... Eccentric family members (Gina Dupain, Uncle Wang, Master Fu, Luka, Fei, Jagged, Penny, and the art teacher for example) have arrived to attend Alix’s sinister sixteen.

Things are going well so far. Juleka reunites with Luka, Fei battles Gina to the death, but Marinette still hasn’t arrived, so they do the sword fight without her... Which Alix fails.

As Nathaniel consoles her, a cannonball shoots through the wall. Gabriel somehow got a catapult for the mob to use

Marc: It’s Gabriel. He’s turned the town into a mob.

Juleka: I oddly admire his determination.

While the mob fires more cannonballs and destroy the house, Alix tosses her sword and grabs her explosives, successfully protecting her family... Until a cannonball blocks their only exit and she runs out of ammo

Just as the ceiling begins to fall and it seems like the end, Marinette, Adrien, Alya, and Nino come in just in time and save them all thanks to the possessed tree

She and Marc reconcile

Marc: I’m so glad you came back.

Marinette: Of course. There was no way you all could survive without me. You’re like weak kittens.

The Parisians begin having regrets about attacking the Artists (Mainly cuz they almost killed a bunch of kids), but this is interrupted by Gabriel

Gabriel: I will relish hounding you all until that nuclear waste dump you call is house is destroyed with you all in it!

Juleka: Oh, you are just begging to be dragged down to hell, aren’t you, Gabriel?

Marinette: And this family will never run from the likes of you again. *Her death glare stuns Gabriel*

Nino: Damn, I gotta learn how to do that.

Adrien finally stands up to his father and exposes how he’s been spying on everyone in the city while Alya live streams everything. Gabriel is now ruined

Months later, the Artists’ Home has been rebuilt by the guilty Parisians who learn to accept their new, weird neighbors. Also, the Spirit of the House has returned

Adrien and Marinette start dating while Alya and Nino share a mutual pining for the girl

#miraculous ladybug #marc x nathaniel #the addams family #the artist family #marinette dupain cheng #alix kudbel #nathaniel kurtzberg #marc anciel #rose lavillant #juleka couffaine #answered ask #ask me stuff #addams family au #mlb au #mlb crossover

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wolveria · 3 years

Text

The Haunted Heart - Chapter 1

Pairing: Ghost!Nines x Reader

Summary: You knew buying an old, creepy house would come with its own set of problems, but you never expected one of them to take the form of a tall, grey-eyed specter. One who was bitter, filled with anger, and determined to make your life miserable until you moved back out again.

You weren't going anywhere. He may have had two hundred years of boiling resentment toward the living, but you were an exhausted Millennial with no money. Unstoppable force meets immovable object.

Prompt: Inspired by Sleepy Hollow, Casper, and @uh-kitty-got-wet

Warnings: Rated E, eventual smut, spooky ghosts, seducing the supernatural

AO3

Living in a haunted house was not the ideal choice. It wasn’t even in the top five on your bucket list.

But when you saw the foreclosed house for sale at such a reasonable price, and you were sick to death of your shitty apartment in the city, well… you got haunted.

Sometimes, these things happened. More often than not, they happened to you, and you wondered what you did to deserve it as something fell and broke in the kitchen. While you were in the living room twenty feet away.

“For fuck’s sake,” you grumbled under your breath. This was the fifth possession of yours that had broken this week alone. You’d only been living here a month, and already you were considering the perks of burning down the house and collecting on the insurance.

Except you didn’t have insurance. Or money. Or anywhere else to go. So you trudged into the kitchen and sighed at the broken plate, which had been very firmly placed in the sink. A sink so deep no plate could have fallen out unless it had grown hands and feet and decided to crawl out.

That’s not what had happened at all, of course. You weren’t losing your mind and you weren’t imagining things.

“Could you stop breaking my shit?” you said to no one. You hoped no one heard you, and that no one would stop being the world’s biggest asshole. “I’m not leaving, so suck it up, Casper.”

After the glass shards were swept up and dumped into the trash, you returned to the living room where you’d been in the middle of unboxing your belongings. You didn’t have much, and the house came furnished, but it had been slow going when all your stuff kept disappearing or breaking.

Speaking of the house’s furnishings, you gave a glare to the extremely old brocade furniture and the tacky crosses hung up on the walls. If you’d actually had any money, you would have hired an interior decorator, because no one wanted to live in Norman Bates’ house.

Your resident poltergeist must have taken the hint, because there were no more shenanigans for the rest of the day. Nothing aside from the ominous creaking of the floorboards or the unsettling settling of the house’s bones. Part of you still couldn’t believe this place was yours, but you were determined to make it a home before it was all said and done.

No man, living or dead, was going to stop you when you set your mind to something, and your mind was set on domesticating a haunted house.

But the house wasn’t the problem. It was the entity who lurked inside.

***

You set your last packed book on the ancient bookshelf. The thing looked two hundred years old, but after you’d dusted and polished the dark wood, it had actually looked really nice. You didn’t know bubkes about antique furniture, but it was sturdy and would probably last longer than you did.

Gratified at a job well done, you dusted off your hands and planned to make yourself a late night snack and zone out on your laptop. Continue that show you were binge-watching or indulge in a Halloween movie. Maybe even see if the boiler was working and you could take a nice hot bath—

Thud.

Slowly, very slowly, so slowly it would have been funny to anyone watching, you turned and stared at the book lying on the floor.

The hairs on the back of your neck prickled, but you ignored common sense and walked over to the book, picked it up, and put it back on the shelf.

You turned away, walked exactly six feet, and another thud sounded from behind you.

You took a deep breath, told yourself it was fine, everything was fine—

Thud-thud.

You whirled around, heart leaping in your throat. Three books lay on the floor now, all from different shelves.

Before you could think about taking a step forward, another book was pulled down. And another.

With a violence you hadn’t seen before, the books all came out of the shelf at once, almost reaching you from the force used to dislodge them.

You flinched back, nearly stumbling on a wrinkle in the rug, the fear you’d been denying hammering away in your chest, but as you so often did lately, your terror curdled into bitter anger.

“Oh, fuck you! Fuck you, you son of a bitch!”

The silent, still room echoed back your obscenities. With a shaky hand you rubbed your face. What were you still doing here? This was insane, and you were the idiot in the horror movie who the audience was rooting for to be murdered first.

But where else could you go?

Tears prickled your eyes. It was unfair. You didn’t deserve this, not after everything—

“This one isn’t going to last long. She’s cracked.”

You whirled around for a second time. There was a man standing behind you, the owner of the low, drawling voice. He was dressed in an old-fashioned black overcoat with a high collar and a series of buttons that traveled all the way down his torso. His dark brown hair was neatly combed, a stray lock brushing his forehead, and his eyes were grey and cold.

The man was pale, far too pale, and there was a mocking twist to his lips.

“Mad as a hatter,” he added. You almost turned your head to see if he was speaking to someone else. But there was no one. Just you.

“Excuse me?” For the moment, you were too confused and a little bit offended to be terrified. Or maybe you were in shock.

The smirk dropped off his face, and his eyes widened as if he too were confused.

“You can see me?”

“Uh… yeah?” You swallowed hard, trying to speak past your dry mouth. “I can see you.”

“Oh,” was all he said, exhaling the word in a breathless manner. But he didn’t need to breathe, did he?

“Who are you?” you asked, hoping to buy time enough for the universe to start making sense again. Or for you to wake up from the strange nightmare you were trapped within. “Why are you in my house?”

But the man, or the ghost, or whatever he was, wasn’t keen on having a conversation. Instead, with that panicked look as if he were the one seeing a spirit, he quickly turned and walked through the archway that led to the kitchen.

“Wait!”

Despite your instincts telling you to run the other way, you chased after him, bursting through the doorway to find the hallway empty. You pulled your jacket closed and shivered, but aside from your breath fogging in front of you, there was nothing else out of place.

Leaning against the archway, you braced your head against the wood and took another deep breath.

Well, shit, you thought. Casper is real.

That, or someone was playing a very cruel trick on you. Fishing wires and hidden trap doors could explain the creepy phenomena, but your gut told you it wasn’t a trick. The surprise on the man’s face was too genuine, as was the unnatural pallor of his skin.

Only one thing left to do: find a way to make contact with the tall ghost with eyes the color of tombstones.

#nines x reader #rk900 x reader #ghost!nines #human au #detroit become human #my writing #my fanfiction #happy halloween

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theheartsmistakes · 3 years

Text

Any Other Name: Chapter 2

“Cordelia!” Her mother called up the stairs in a fake, chipper voice that held undercurrents of irritation Cordelia knew had nothing to do with her and everything to do with their company. “Our guests are here. Why don’t you come down and help me set the table for dinner?”

If she took to yelling up the stairs at her rather than walking the staircase or sending her father to come and retrieve her, she must be considerably uncomfortable.

“I’m coming!” said Cordelia so no one could come after her and find her kneeling on the floor over a removed floorboard with a secret letter in her hands.

Quickly, she folded the paper, stuck it back under the floorboard, and pushed the wood plank back into its place before pushing herself to her feet and brushed the dust off of her hands. She grabbed her black cardigan from off the bed and threw it on as she twisted the knob and opened the door and nearly walked right into Augustus Pounceby.

A small shriek escaped her as she fell back against the door frame, cursing in Persian, and clutched her chest.

Augustus smirked. The last time she’d seen him he had an impossibly round face, buck teeth, and a lisp that made it difficult to understand him. They’d been twelve years old at the time, but she didn’t think people could change so much in five years. He’d lost the roundness of his youth, grew several inches, and his teeth were a normal size. His dirty blond hair was cut short at the sides, long on the top, and perfectly coifed with products. He wore a black button-up t-shirt with the buttons done up to his neck, over dark denim jeans, and a pair of black and white trainers.

His smirk turned lascivious as his eyes roved over the length of her body, lingering on the bits her dress left exposed. She fought against the urge to close her cardigan around her.

“Pounceby,” said Cordelia by way of greeting. “Anyone ever tell you it’s rude and a bit creepy to lurk outside of someone’s bedroom door?”

“I was sent to fetch you,” he said, glancing over her shoulder into Lucie’s bedroom. “Your mother said that you’d give me a tour. I’ve always wanted to see the inside of the infamous London Institute.”

Cordelia unceremoniously closed the bedroom door behind her with a bit more force than necessary. Unfortunately, the movement made her step closer to Augustus. “No one’s ever invited you in before?”

“It wasn’t a matter of being invited,” said Augustus, not moving an inch to provide some space between them. “I wouldn’t have stepped one foot inside of this place with those demon-blooded Herondale’s living here. You can still smell their taint all over this place.”

Cordelia shoved her shoulder into his chest as she moved around him, fighting against the urge to also knee him in the solar plexus while simultaneously breaking his nose with her elbow. Her father probably wouldn’t appreciate her getting Pounceby’s blood all over the floor and he’d most likely make her clean it up, so she decided against bloodshed for tonight and keep things— cordial.

“Allow me to give you a tour then,” said Cordelia pointing to the walls as she walked towards the stairs. "This is the hallway and these are the--" She looked over her shoulder and realized Augustus wasn’t following her.

“What’s down this way?” He asked, nodding towards the other end of the hall.

She hadn’t bothered to wander farther than Lucie’s old bedroom. It felt wrong like she needed an invitation to go farther. There were two more doors at the end. One used to be a study and the other had been James’s bedroom.

She’d only ever been in there once the last time her family came to London for a visit. Lucie had gone on a trip to Paris with her Aunt Cecily, but James stayed home due to some punishment after an incident that happened at the Academy. James never told her and she never asked. Not that she could have, from a young age she was so enamored by James that she often found it difficult to form coherent sentences when she was around him. He was the most beautiful boy she’d ever seen. With his raven black hair, always unruly and curling at all ends like it’d been worked and shaped by the wind and his eyes, like golden flecks of sunlight framed by thick dark lashes. She remembered how they would crinkle at the edges when he smiled, and he always smiled at her.

They spent that entire week reading, wandering around the Institute, pretending to battle each other with the baguettes Tessa brought home for dinner. It'd started as the worst summer of her existence and ended as one she would never forget.

Warmth spread up her neck and into her cheeks at the memory of it. “There’s nothing down there. Come on, they’ll be wanting to eat soon.”

“The men are talking in the old, stuffy drawing room,” said Augustus as he turned on his heel and walked leisurely down the hall. “Come on, Carstairs. It’s your house now, you can do whatever you want in it.”

“I want to go downstairs and help my mum set the table,” said Cordelia, crossing her arms. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Wait just a moment,” drawled Pounceby. “Isn’t this goat eye's old bedroom?”

Cordelia glared. "Who?"

"James."

Cordelia bristled at the rude name he'd given James. “I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

“My interest is peaked is all.”

“Some infatuation of yours with James, Pounceby?” smirked Cordelia. “I’m sure he’ll be flattered, but somehow I doubt you’re his type.”

Augustus put his hand on the doorknob and tried to turn it but it wouldn’t move. “It’s locked.”

Relief swept through Cordelia. “That’s settled then. Let’s go to dinner.”

“Why is it locked?” Augustus tried the door again. “What’s in there?”

“How am I supposed to know. I did just tell you I haven't been there." Cordelia dragged her feet as she came beside him to try the door herself. It was, in fact, locked. “I’ll tell my father about it at dinner and he can find the key, or something.”

Augustus narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you hiding something in here?”

Cordelia’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

“It was no secret you were a Herondale and downworlder sympathizer,” he said with a sneer that once again made Cordelia want to shove his face into the wall. “Is there a reason you don’t want me going in here?”

Cordelia’s empty hands clenched around the fabric of her cardigan to keep from swinging out against her will. “If you want to look stupid for claiming that my father has anything to hide from the Clave by dragging them away from their drinks to come up here and open a door that’s obviously been locked from the inside, only to find that it is as empty as all the rest?” She stepped aside so there was room for him to go around her. “Please, by all means, be my guest. I was really hoping for quality entertainment tonight and to see the look of disappointment on your father’s face will be well worth the wait.”

Augustus held her gaze for just a moment longer before he released his grip on the door and walked past her, whispering the word ‘bitch’ in a volume that was just loud enough for her to hear.

She’d been called worse.

When he was far enough down the hallway, she gave the doorknob another attempt, but just as before it wouldn’t budge.

Curious, she thought and tucked the anomaly away for a later time.

~ ~ ~

“Ah, there she is!” Her father said as Cordelia descended the stairs. Now with the lights all burning in their sconces from the wall, casting shadows from the chandeliers, they gave the Institute back some semblance of the warmth that Cordelia remembered when she would visit. It still felt odd without any Herondale presence; she half expected Will to come bursting through the door in a rage about the city traffic and Tessa to follow behind him with her genuine smile.

But the front door remained closed, much to Cordelia’s dismay, as she slowly sank from the last step.

“Cordelia, you remember Inquisitor Bridgestock?” said her father with a tight smile.

Cordelia looked to the tall man standing before her. He always reminded her of a toad with his round face, bulbous eyes, and thin mouth. He even had a rather large wart at the start of his right eyebrow.

“Well, Elias, what a beauty your daughter has become,” said the Inquisitor, folding his hands in front of himself, not even bothering to shake hers, because why would he? Perhaps he thought her dainty little hands couldn’t withstand his masculine dynamism.

She fought hard not to roll her eyes at her thoughts and plastered a smile across her face. “Oh yes, I remember him well.”

“And our new Consul, Marcus Pounceby?”

Her eyes shifted to the man standing beside the Inquisitor. He did offer her his hand, and when she placed it into his smooth palm, she could not feel a single callous on his fingers or palm. It made her wonder when the last time he trained, or patrolled, or held a weapon for that matter. He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. A European custom and she was in Europe, but it still made her feel uneasy, small. At least, he wasn’t trying to kiss both of her cheeks like the French, which she didn’t mind, it just all depended on the person. Lucie and James’s cousin Anna was privy to that custom and with her, Cordelia didn’t mind it in the least.

“My son wouldn’t stop raving about you when he learned about your arrival,” said the Consul. “He spoke of your bravery, your skill, we are very lucky to have you back in England. He graduated from the Academy with top marks and has shown himself to lead a powerful squadron of Shadowhunters. You should speak to him about going out on raids together. He can show you around town.”

Her eyes flashed to Augustus, standing beside his father, looking rather bumptious. When she didn’t say anything for a good long time, her father nudged her with his elbow. “That would be delightful.”

She’d only used the word delightful possibly twice in her life. It tasted like poison coming out of her mouth, but it did its job. They both looked pleased with her which made it all the more difficult not to vomit on their shiny oxfords.

Only her father, who was attuned to her sarcasm and indifference after being the victim of it for sixteen years, noted the tone of her voice.

“Where is your son?” inquired the Consul.

“He stayed in Tehran to oversee the Institute until the new family moves in,” said her father. “He’ll be joining us just as soon as their settled.”

“Excellent,” said the Inquisitor. “Another student of the academy that succeeded with top marks. We could use him on the streets while this issue with the Downworlders is in effect and in meetings regarding demon and downworlder business. He had some dealing of his own with the Herondale boy, did he not?”

Cordelia looked to her father for an answer. She knew Alastair and James went to the academy at the same time and didn’t necessarily get along. Then some incident happened that resulted in James’ expulsion, but she didn’t know what that had to do with Alastair. He never told her even though she asked him nearly a hundred times.

Elias shifted a step so he stood closer to Cordelia. “Alastair only spoke of how troubled James was.” His eyes flashed to Cordelia. A warning and a plead not to say a word.

“Yes, well, with the filth that runs in that family’s blood it is no wonder he was capable of causing such a disturbance. He shouldn’t have been accepted into the academy in the first place,” said Inquisitor Bridgestock.

Cordelia bit the inside of her lip until she tasted blood.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Elias?” asked Bridgestock.

Elias breathed through his nose and straightened his shoulders. “Of course. Now that we’ve all been reacquainted, why don’t we move this discussion into the dining room. Sona has been slaving away in the kitchen for the better part of our move-in day to make this dinner special. Cordelia, please go help your mother.”

Cordelia gave them a half-hearted curtsy and dipped out of the entryway towards the hall that led to the kitchen. Upon noticing her angelic energy, the lights in the sconces along the walls flickered on with several distinct clinks and filled the space with a subtle glow. Cordelia put her hand on the swinging door that led into the kitchen where her mother, with a large ladle in hand, poured some kind of broth over the sliced pork chops lined neatly on a silver platter.

“I can’t do it,” said Cordelia as soon as the door swung shut again. “They are absolutely incorrigible. They called the Herondale’s filthy.”

Sona set the bowl of broth down on the crowded counter and started to pull the leaves off from a sprig of thyme. “You already knew they felt this way, Cordelia. This should not come as a surprise.”

“Yes, but to hear them say it out loud makes my skin crawl.” She picked up the serving fork and stabbed it into a pork chop. “I can’t even say anything to defend them. I just have to nod my head at all of their slurs. I might as well be stabbing my friends in the back.”

Sona wiped her hands on the cloth hanging over her shoulder as she turned to Cordelia. “Your friends know you, they know your truth, and they would want for you to protect yourself. If the situation was reversed and it was our family that had been banished, what would you want from James and Lucie?” After a moment, when Cordelia didn’t answer, Sona continued, “I knew Tessa well. She was a good friend. I know that if the situation was reversed, I would want Tessa to protect her family.”

“She was a good friend?” Cordelia emphasized the second word without looking at her mother. “Maybe I would want James and Lucie to protect themselves and not be banished like me, but I know I wouldn’t want them to stop seeing me as their friend.”

Sona opened her mouth and sighed. “Cordelia—“

“Let’s just feed the monsters so they can leave.” Cordelia picked up the platter of steaming pork chops and started towards the swinging door, leaving her mother to look as dejected as Cordelia felt.

Once in the dining room, still decorated in Tessa’s elegant taste with gold and white herons flying across the wallpaper with holly in their beaks, Cordelia set the platter of pork onto the center of the mighty oak table. The chandelier hung low with sphere-shaped crystals that cast rainbows across the walls when the light from the large arched window at the west side of the room hit them. The table was set for only six people tonight with Elias at the head closest to the window.

Cordelia had no choice but to sit beside Augustus, as all the other spots had been taken.

Sona followed in after her, free now of her emerald green apron and kitchen towels, carrying a plate of scorched rice and another plate of fresh-herb Kuku-- Cordelia’s favorite. A twinge of guilt went through her as she noticed the plates of comfort food her mother had prepared for no one else, but Cordelia.

“Sorry about the wait, gentlemen,” said Sona as she placed the food on the table. “I hope you’re all hungry and wish to expand your palettes. These are all dishes from Tehran. We thought you might like to experience something from our home.”

Augustus looked at the green pie-shaped dish placed directly in front of him as if it might come to life and attack him.

“It’s called Kuku,” said Cordelia, serving herself a large piece before anyone else. “It’s delicious.”

“It’s green,” said Augustus and looked to his father for help.

Consul Pounceby just laughed. “You didn’t have to go out of your way for us. We would have been happy with fish and chips or a nice shepherds pie.” He forked a piece of pork onto his plate with a small helping of scorched rice.

"What kind of pie?" asked Cordelia with a mouth full of Kuku.

“I thought it might be nice to have something from home for our first night here,” said Sona.

“It’s looks wonderful, darling,” said Elias.

The conversation took a small reprieve as everyone ate their meals. Metal forks clinked against plates and ice rattled around in glassware in the silence. Marcus Pounceby chewed with his mouth open and took a particular fondness to the Kuku, though his son took one bite and then refused to acknowledge it again. Inquisitor Bridgestock proceeded to take a drink of his wine after each bite to clear his throat. Cordelia felt a brief sense of satisfaction at the light sheen of sweat that coated his brow after having a piece of pork.

“We’re not used to such flavors here in England,” said Inquisitor Bridgestock, dabbing his face with his napkin. “It’s quite exotic.”

“I may have gone a bit heavy handed on the peppers,” said Sona as she soaked a piece of her pork in the sauce. “Can I get anyone some water or milk, perhaps?”

Cordelia forced herself not to laugh.

“Milk?” inquired Marcus. “Does that help?”

“It does,” said Sona.

“That won’t be necessary.” Bridgestock patted his distended stomach. “I’m quite finished as is. If I drink a glass of milk you’ll have to roll me out the door or call my wife and have her come drive me home.”

“How is Mary Beth?” asked Sona. “It’s a shame she couldn’t come tonight. I did look forward to seeing her again.”

Another easy lie from her mother. The last time Mary Beth and Sona met, Sona couldn’t stop talking about what a deplorable know-it-all with questionable moral Mary Beth was and how the Bridgestock’s may have not been the best family to adopt the young Ariadne girl. To go from such strong feelings towards the Bridgestock's to inquiring about her as if her absence was missed surprised Cordelia. Her mother’s ability to be so languid never ceased to amaze her.

“She’s well. She simply didn’t want to be present for a bunch of Clave talk.” Bridgestock wiped the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Not when she had a previously schedules game of bridge with some of the other wives. You should go sometime, Sona.”

Her mother’s tight smile was all Cordelia needed to know. She’d been invited to a few bridge games and attended one thinking that at least Tessa would be there and she’d have someone to talk to, but when she got home Sona looked exhausted and explained that all the women at the bridge club did was gossip, smoke, and drink expensive wine. There was not one game of bridge to be played. She then went into a rather hilarious impression of the Inquisitor's wife, with her pinched face and animated hands that may have been slightly exaggerated, but had even Alastair snickering.

“Perhaps when things are a bit more settled,” said Sona and took a long drink from her water glass.

“That reminds me,” said Marcus as he placed his napkin on the table, “we’ve interrupted your move in day. We apologize. We’ll get out of your way just as soon as we finish some business with Elias. Should we retire to the study, gentlemen?”

“Yes,” said Bridgestock as he rose from the table. “There is much to discuss regarding this Downworlder business. We’ll need to brief you on some of the changes we’re making regarding the laws and how we are expecting those on patrol to be our inforcers. We’d appreciate your opinion on a few of these matter before we hold the official Clave meeting in two weeks.”

“Uh, yes,” said Elias as he stood from the table too. “Cordelia, would you mind helping your mother with the dishes and then come and join us—“

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” said the Inquisitor. “Our talk will just bore her. We can explain everything to her at the official meeting with the rest of the Clave.”

Elias’s grip flexed on his dining room chair. “My daughter will be one of those patrolling the streets of your city. I would like for her to be prepared and understand what is expected of her.”

“Kill demons and any downworlders that dares to step out of line,” whispered Augustus under his breath. “Not much else left to understand.”

Demons can take the shape of many things, she thought. Even privileged, annoying boys.

She might be able to plead her case against the Clave if she were to accidentally stab him.

“It will all be explained at the meeting,” continued Bridgestock. “Until then, Cordelia will not be allowed to patrol alone and will instead train with Augustus.”

Cordelia couldn’t stop the pinched look that took over her face. Her mother nudged her underneath the table before anyone could see her.

The men filed out of the dining room, leaving their half-cleared plates of food for Cordelia and Sona to clean up. They piled the dishes and separated the silverware in silence before carting everything back into the kitchen.

Sona turned on the faucet over the deep bucket sink and held her hand under it waiting for the water to warm while Cordelia continued to bring plates in and set them on the small island.

She glanced at the old grandfather clock that stood in the hallway each time she passed it. Only two more hours and she could find Lucie. Finally, there would be someone she could speak freely about all of this to and not constantly be shut down; told to smile, and bear it.

The large hand steadily clicked on, but not fast enough.

Not nearly fast enough.

A/N:

This chapter does include some artistic license. To make it relative to the times, I changed it from James having to stay home from a Paris trip due to being expelled from school rather than being sick with the Scarlet Fever.

I also made up Augustus's appearance. It is not canon. It's just how he looks in my head.

Also I have no clue what Inquisitor Bridgestock's wife's name is so I'm calling her Mary Beth.

Comments and hearts are ALWAYS appreciated!

Next update comes out in two weeks: May 28

#the shadowhunter chronicles #jordelia fanfiction #the last hours #chain of gold #chain of iron #cassandra clare #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #james x cordelia #lucie herondale #matthew fairchild #thomas lightwood #christopher lightwood #alastair carstairs

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sohotthateveryonedied · 4 years

Text

Living is Harder

Read here on AO3!

Summary:

Tim drops the knife like it’s white-hot. Oh, god. Oh, god.

Tim did this. He was...he didn’t mean it. He didn’t. He would never. But the man was on top of him and Tim couldn’t breathe, and...he didn’t mean it.

Tim is walking home from Steph’s house, his light-up Sketchers the only things illuminating his path through the Gotham night. He stayed out later than he planned, utterly captivated in the Among Us tournament he and Steph were playing against their Titan friends all the way in San Francisco. (And Tim would have gotten away with the murders too, if it weren’t for that meddling Bart Allen who stared Tim down every time he killed a player, watching it happen but never reporting until Tim finally cracked from the shame and called an emergency meeting on himself.)

Tim rode in Steph’s car on the way to her house, but forgot that it would mean he’d be without a ride home. Steph offered to drive him back to the manor, that she doesn’t mind losing a measly hour of sleep, but Tim insisted he didn’t mind walking. Besides, it’s not like it was a lie. Sure, it’s Gotham, which means Tim can see drug deals going down on street corners and the occasional drunkard puking into a trash can, but Tim feels at peace here.

It brings him back to his early days of climbing fire escapes, tailing Batman and Robin under the cloak of night in the hopes to get just one more photo for his collection. It was a simpler time with fewer psychotic clowns—back then it was just the one, and all he did was tell shitty jokes and occasionally tie Robin up over a swimming pool filled with Jokerized sharks. Nowadays it’s all grotesque murders and creepy masks made of human skin. Where’s the showmanship? Where’s the pizzazz? Disgusting. Deplorable. Lazy beyond all reason. Tim is insulted by the lack of artistic ability in these new Jokers, and you may quote him on that. Regardless, Tim takes comfort in knowing that if something did go wrong, Cass is patrolling somewhere a good five blocks ahead. Maybe he can track her down and pick them up some corn dogs. He’s currently in the Red Hood’s territory, but whether Jason is around at the moment is a gamble at best. His schedule is harder to tamp down than a solid answer on Ted Cruz: Zodiac Killer. Jason might not even be in Gotham right now; he could be in space for all anyone knows. Sometimes Tim feels like Jason is more of a feral cat than a brother, which isn’t too far off, really. Tim happens upon an empty beer can on the sidewalk in front of a boarded-up store that he’s fairly certain used to be an adult film shop. Good ol’ Gotham City. He stoops down to pick up the crinkled can like the good samaritan he is and drops it into a trash can at the mouth of a nearby alley. He wipes his hands on his jeans, designer style be damned. That’s when Tim is grabbed from behind, a hand reaching up to cover his mouth and muffle his shout. He’s pulled into the alley and pushed up against a wall, the bricks digging into his back and knocking the breath from his lungs. Shit, shit, shit. How could he have been taken by surprise so easily? It’s hard to make out his attacker in the shadowed alley, the only discernible features being dark eyes and bared yellow teeth—never a good sign. Tim’s hands are pinned together above him in a strong grip, practically wrenching his shoulders from the sockets. He tries to scream, but the man’s disgusting hand presses harder against his mouth. Tim freezes when he feels the poke of a knife at his throat, digging into the skin just below his Adam’s apple. “Make a sound and I’ll gut you,” his attacker says, his voice a low rumble. The stench of cigarettes and alcohol assaults Tim’s sinuses and makes his stomach roll. He’s going to have to be careful about this. Robin could get out of this hold in five different ways with varying degrees of injury to the opponent, but a civilian couldn’t. Even if the only witness is a low-life scumbag, he shouldn’t run the risk. Better to wait until he’s at the point of no return to bust out the Robin moves. Instead, Tim goes for the oldest trick in the book and knees the man in the crotch, hard. It has the desired effect and the grip on Tim’s wrists slackens, the man dropping him with a grunt. Tim ducks out of range and makes a run for it. If he can just get to the street, he should be home free. Even in Gotham City, there are always witnesses to help out a poor, defenseless teenager under attack. Tim almost makes it to the sidewalk when he’s grabbed by the hair, crying out as he’s thrown violently to the ground. Then there’s weight on top of him, pinning his shoulders to the dirty ground under his back. Tim fights, kicking out and delivering purposeful hits under the guise of a panicked struggle. “You little shit,” the man spits. He’s still got a hold on Tim’s hair, which he uses to slam Tim’s head against the pavement so hard that Tim goes blind for a good ten seconds, his head spinning. The back of his scalp feels wet, and he hates to think about what bacteria must be lurking on the ground beneath him. The knife clatters somewhere to Tim’s side and he’s almost relieved until a hand wraps around his throat, cutting off his next breath. Instinct plunges him into panic, choking on the lack of air and scrambling to get a hold on his attacker. Scratching, kicking, desperately trying to loosen the grip crushing his windpipe. “You didn’t have to make this so difficult,” the man tells him. His body presses down on Tim’s smaller form, keeps him trapped against the unforgiving asphalt, and this is it. This is the point of no return he’s been waiting for, but now Tim is here and he can’t do anything about it. Not even Robin could get out of this without a weapon, and Tim has none. He’s powerless. The creep releases Tim’s hair with a whisper of, “Don’t move.” Before he can do anything more with his newly freed hand, though, Tim’s body is thrown into action faster than he can comprehend moving at all. The world goes hazy, time itself turning to molasses. Absently Tim feels muscles flex, sees shapes move in front of his eyes, but someone else might as well be controlling Tim’s body while he’s locked in the backseat, missing the entire ride. One minute Tim is on his back with the creep on top of him, and after a chunk of time that Tim can’t remember participating in, he’s standing against the alley wall with something clutched in his hand. Tim blinks back the fog, but it lingers. He looks down and studies the way his fingers clasp the handle of the knife. That can’t be right. He wasn’t holding a knife before. Tim comes back to his body in increments, a stop-motion reel. First there’s a stinging ache on the back of his head, blood soaking into the back of his shirt and plastering his hair against his neck. His gaze slips from the glinting knife to the blood that covers his hands, warm and sticky. Then he catches a shape on the ground in front of him and Tim’s breath catches in his throat. The man from before is on the ground now, his eyes closed and blood spreading from a stab wound directly over his sternum. Tim drops the knife like it’s white-hot. Oh, god. Oh, god. Tim did this. He was...he didn’t mean it. He didn’t. He would never. But the man was on top of him and Tim couldn’t breathe, and...he didn’t mean it. Tim staggers back until his back hits the cold brick wall, his pulse pounding in his ears so loud the entire city must hear it. He just stabbed a person. He just killed a person. The one rule he’s supposed to follow, the one thing he promised never to do, and he just did it. Without even a second’s hesitation. He took a life. What is Bruce going to say when he finds out? Tim’s legs are made of jello, wobbling in warning until they give out entirely and he slides to the ground, knees pulled in close to his chest. His hands are still covered in blood. A dead man’s blood. He should...he should do something. He should act. First-aid, stop the bleeding, do whatever it takes to help in case there’s a chance. Tim doesn’t move. He doesn’t even try. His limbs have been replaced with rubber, his brain with slush. He just killed a man. In the back of his mind he knows he can’t go home, not like this. Not covered in another man’s blood. Even if he tried, Tim isn’t sure he’d make it two steps without collapsing into a puddle of whatever emotion is making him feel as though he’s rotting from the inside out. His family lives by a code, would sooner die themselves than take a life. Bats don’t kill. Tim doesn’t kill. Tim killed. His fingers shake as they take out his cell phone on autopilot, and the screen is cracked at the corner from when he was slammed into the ground. That’s going to cost money to fix. Tim gets blood on the screen, smudging over his contact list and warping the names. He finds the one he’s looking for and puts the phone to his ear. A ring. Two rings. A click. “This had better be important,” Jason says. Tim swallows. “Um. I—um.” He can’t take his eyes off of the body, lying there still as a corpse. Because it is a corpse. “My...head isn’t working. It’s—something is wrong. With me.” “Are you high or something? Because if you are, I’ll fucking kill you.” That does it. What little resolve Tim held on to cracks in one clean split and a sob bursts through. He covers his mouth with his elbow, choking on gasps. “Jay, I—it was an accident. I swear to god, I didn’t mean to. He was...it wasn’t...I didn’t mean to.” There’s a creak on the other end, maybe Jason sitting up in his chair. Or maybe he just sat down. Maybe he closed a door. Too many things in the world are creaky. “What the hell are you talking about? What happened?” “He’ll kick me out. He’s gonna take Robin away from me.” Something slams—definitely a door. “Kid, tell me where you are.” “I don’t know. It was—” His brain isn’t working. For the first time in his life, logic and reason escape him and Tim’s mind pushes into overdrive, drags him deeper and deeper into oblivion. Bruce is going to find out. He’s going to find out and he’s going to hate Tim for the rest of his life. Bruce doesn't like murderers. “Goddamn it. Tim, listen to me. Can you do that?” It takes a moment, but Tim manages to get out an affirming noise. “I’m going to track your phone and come get you. Don’t move, got it? Stay right where you are. I’ll be there soon.” Jason hangs up, leaving Tim alone again. He drops his phone back on the concrete, uncaring of potential breaks. It’s already been cracked. “He’s going to kick me out,” Tim repeats to the empty alleyway. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tim is cold by the time Jason arrives. Or maybe he’s been cold this entire time. It’s hard to tell. “Fuck,” Jason swears as he takes in the scene before him. The body on the pavement. Tim, huddled against the alley wall, his eyes glazed over as he stares at the body like a horror movie he can’t turn off. Jason isn’t wearing his helmet, just a domino mask. He takes it off when he kneels in front of Tim, makes Tim meet his eyes. “Hey, kid. You with me?” “I killed him.” The words taste acrid on Tim’s tongue, sour. “Don’t worry about that now. Are you hurt anywhere?” Tim doesn’t answer. The back of his head stung before, but the pain is muffled now. Everything is muffled. “I killed him, Jay. I’m a murderer. Bruce is...I’m not supposed to kill. Robins don’t kill. They don’t.” His chest is tight, getting tighter by the minute until it feels like every breath is being sucked in through a tiny straw. “Tim, breathe,” Jason tells him. He puts his hand on Tim’s shoulder, and that helps a little. Gives him something to latch onto. “You’re in shock. Try putting your head between your knees.” Tim does, stares down at the dirty pavement between his sneakers. His eyes linger on an old fast food receipt. It has droplets of blood on it. “I don’t know what happened, I really don’t. He was—it was an accident. He was on top of me and he had a knife and then he was choking me and...I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe, so I just—I just moved. And now he’s dead. I killed him. What am I going to do?” “It was self-defense,” Jason says, as if the answer could really be so simple. “If you hadn’t acted, he would have hurt you. Maybe even killed you. You did the right thing.” “No, it’s—” Tim picks his head up, digs his nails into his knees to keep himself above the fog. “No. I took a life. I’m guilty. I can’t—there’s no coming back from that. There isn’t.” How can he live with himself after this? Does he even deserve to? “What, so you would rather be dead than have to tell Bruce you took a life? Seriously?” “Yes.” There’s no hesitation, not even a pause to let the words soak in. Jason sighs, and Tim is too far gone to decipher what it means. He squeezes Tim’s shoulder once and stands, goes over to the body still lying on the ground. (As if a dead man would go anywhere.) Jason crouches down and takes off one of his gloves, presses two fingers over the man’s neck. After a moment or two, he lets out a breath. “He’s still alive.” Tim’s breath hitches. “Really? Are you sure?” “Pulse is thready, but he’s not dead.” All of the air leaves Tim’s lungs in one huge whoosh, making him lightheaded. “Oh my god. That’s…” That’s good, right? It’s a good thing. It should be a good thing. “Yup. That’s one hell of a relief.” Jason straightens up from his crouch. He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a gun, and fires it into the man’s head. “Jason!” It happens so fast that Tim doesn’t even have the capacity to think about the blood and brain matter splattered over Jason’s clothes, Tim’s shoes, the cracks in the alley’s pavement. “How could you—” “What? It’s not like he was going to walk it off or anything.” “We just—” Tim’s stomach churns. It feels like he’s going to be sick. “We just killed a man.” “No, I killed a man.” Jason holsters his gun, then kicks the body in the side for good measure. “You, however, are off the hook.” “What are you talking about? I stabbed him.” The knife is around here somewhere. That’s evidence. Proof of what happened tonight, what Tim did. What Jason finished. “And I shot him in the head. One of those is worse than the other.” “But I—” “No,” Jason snaps. He lowers himself to look Tim in the eyes. “You didn’t. Kill. Anyone. Got it? I killed him. Your slate is still clean.” “There’s a body. Evidence. I still did this.” Jason grabs the bloody knife and tucks it into his jacket. “No, the Red Hood did this. He cornered the guy in an alley, stabbed him, then shot him in the face. That’s what happened.” Tim shakes his head. “You can’t. You can’t take the fall for me.” “I’m not. I’m the one who killed him, right? I’m just taking responsibility for my own actions, which nobody is going to look twice at because this is the third one this week.” Jason takes Tim by the arm, pulling him upright and keeping him steady when he wobbles. “What about Bruce?” “We’ll tell him the truth. That you got attacked by some creep, I killed his slimy ass like he deserved, and then I let you crash at my place for the night to make sure you were safe. That’s it. Understand?” Tim isn’t sure if he does or not. He’s too numb to attempt puzzling it out, but he does know one thing he can say. “Thanks, Jason.” “Don’t mention it. Just try not to puke on me until we get to my place and I’ll call us even.”

#whumptober 2020 #batfamily #batfam #tim drake #red robin #batman #robin #idiot duckboy #jason todd #red hood #batbros #batboys #fanfiction #fanfic #dc comics #no.9 #'take me instead'

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voidcat · 4 years

Text

– Stardust

Characters: Oikawa Tooru/You

Genre: fluff/comfort, heart to heart on reader’s part (questioning your place in the universe and all)

Summary: Sleep does not come some nights when it gets loud inside your head. Pebbles thrown at your window feels something out of movies. Oikawa Tooru being the one to do feels unreal. So you do what everyone does in dreams, is this a dream?, and follow his lead.

Word Count: 4.3k (i poured my heart out pls respond)

A/N: I didn’t write it with a song in mind but Kimochi Warui (When? When? When? When? When? When? When?) sounded fitting while proofreading. Take it as a suggestion if you want. – ao3 - PART 2

It’s late.

Too late to still be up. Too late to be thinking like this.

Too late to be up, awake, vibrating with all these overwhelming thoughts filling your head, wanting to break free, scratching the inside of your skull like feral animals, dying to get out.

It’s late and you keep lying down just like that. Hands clasped over your stomach, eyes locked onto the ceiling, trying not to think, keeping your mind blank like a newly bought sketchbook.

You lie like that for seconds feeling like hours and hours feeling like seconds.

You lie awake, the dim moon light entering your room lazily. All too familiar thoughts plaguing your mind, telling things you’ve known since childhood over and over and over until you grow numb to the noise.

Tck.

You consider checking the time but you’re afraid it’ll still be too early for the new day to start.

Tck.

Was that an actual sound or the newest trick of your mind?

Tck.

They say third time is the charm. Third time also means it’s too much of a specific occurrence to be a coincidence. The noise seems to be coming from outside, something small hitting your window.

Irritation and curiosity taking over you at last, not to mention boredom, you make way to the window and open it.

You see Oikawa Tooru of all people waving with his phone at you, a little aggressively.

Walking back to your nightstand and picking up your phone, you receive a message.

>[Does your folks wake up early?]

>[Or check up on you first thing in the morning?]

[No. why?] Hitting the send button you wait, walking back there and looking at him again. Face lightened by the glow of his phone, you can make up his eyes and nose.

>[Wear something warm.]

>[And make that spicy tea thingy you like so much if you want.]

>[I’m waiting by the door.]

Weird is seeing Oikawa Tooru under your window at an hour no one else is awake. Him telling you to get dressed and come outside? That’s creepy and worrying.

[Why]

>[I’m doing you a favor out of the goodness of my heart for once.] You want to roll your eyes at that. Since when does he know what being good means? Towards you especially.

>[No shady business, I promise.]

>[Trust me.]

As if knowing what went in your mind, these texts show up on your screen. You come to a halt.

Your relationship with Oikawa was never good. You would ignore one another on the good days and be utterly destructive and spiteful on the bad days. He never gave you a reason or made a gesture to earn your trust, you don’t even recall hearing those words from him much. They are reserved for Iwaizumi and the team only.

So why do you find yourself in a dilemma, as if there’s something to choose, a decision to make? Because the logical thing for you to do, the in-character thing for you to do, is to say no, go back to bed and hope to fall asleep at some point. The usual set of action for you is to refuse whatever he has to offer and go back to your own thing.

But you’re done with the logical and the in-character. So you send a quick [I’ll be down in 5.], make way to prepare something warm first and change your clothes as you wait for it to heat up. A sweatshirt should be enough.

Being too lazy and out-of-it to function once in a while pays, because instead of having to brew the tea and wait for a long while, you just heat up the already brewed and stashed one and pour it to your thermos.

Silently opening the door and getting out, you see Oikawa leaning against the wall.

He walks away when he sees you, you follow without a word. Soon enough you’re met with a car. Since when he has a car?

Wait, no. Don’t ask, don’t wait for an answer. Don’t look at the stupid car, don’t examine it. It is a dream after all, right? What’s the point in observing things when you’ll forget about them first thing in the morning?

Following his lead, you get inside the passenger seat, hear him start the engine, watch his hand reach for the stereo. A low hum arise.

It sounds like he picked a channel on random, the music isn’t bad per se, the volume is down. So it doesn’t exactly bother you either. Getting comfortable in your seat and resting your head against the window, you watch the blur of images go by.

There is no moon tonight, the only source of light is the street lamps coming into view and leaving as fast. Houses, buildings, trees, everything belonging to the day pass by in a fog and smear of colors. Almost like a quick brush of oil paint. It’s calming in a quiet before the thunderstorm kind of way.

As the road goes under the wheels, less and less houses come in to your view.

“Where to?”

Oikawa gives you a quick glance. He almost looks surprised to see you speak. Did he just assume you’d stay quiet all night?

“You’ll see.” His tone doesn’t match his face.

“What’s the meaning of it?”

“Consider it a favor.” This marks the end of your short lived conversation.

You don’t need to recognize the road he takes to understand he’s driving out of town, out of Miyagi. The why of it keeps floating in your head, you can’t apply the ‘it’s a dream’ tactic any more either, you are too awake for that, in both senses.

Turning your attention back on the sidelines, you let your mind wander off to meaningless assumptions.

A light behind the trees, you imagine a lonely night creature, lurking around to find his lost love.

You spot an animal you can’t identify and make up a story about an once-successful maiden, falling fool to a wicked spell.

You look at the trees and imagine nature coming to life in humanoid form, mutating and taking its revenge on human race.

Hearing a ribbit nearby and you recall the time your mother read you the Princess and the Frog years ago.

You turn left to look at Oikawa. Finding your phone inside your pocket and raising it in a show-and-tell manner, you wait for him to take notice and turn off the stereo. You press play.

Satie’s Once Upon A Time In Paris fills the air.

You note the relaxation in his shoulders. You let the melody take over your body as well.

Closing your eyes and holding your hands in the air, you can see the keys in front of you.

Hitting the keys one by one, reaching for the pedal, you can feel it flow through you. Head moving on its own, dancing with the melody, Gymnopedie no.1 as calm and serene as ever. Simple like a short quote on love from a poet.

It ends silently, Gnossienne no.3 enters with much more emotion.

It’s almost comical how many times you’ve played this exact piece but almost never listened to others playing. It sounds like you in some ways, some tints and emphasis different than how you’d play but that’s all you got right now.

You don’t need to break out of the music’s hold or open your eyes to catch Oikawa’s gaze on you once in a while. You went through all this before on so many occasions. Be it on public transportation and a piece you connect with comes on, you can’t stop your fingers from trying to play it on air, making keys out of nitrogen and oxygen in the air. Your body starting to move on its own after a while. Strangers giving you funny looks all the while.

The notes gain meaning and heaviness, hanging in the air and making way for the following ones as fast.

When the B bemols come, you can feel a stinging feeling in your eyes.

Since when does Gnossienne no.3 make you want to cry? Why now of all times?

You don’t care, you don’t want the answers, you don’t want to understand or reach a new level of understanding within yourself. Just shutting yourself out completely and taking in all the music with a deep breathe, you lean back as far as you can into the seat.

Gnossienne no.4 starts and your hands no longer itch to play.

When Oikawa pulls up at last, the music has long ended.

Getting off with your thermos in one hand, you look around.

Not a single building, a sign of life in sight. Where the hell did he bring you?

You can see his figure searching for something in the back seat, some shuffling reaches your ear. You look at the few and far between trees in the distance. It is a dead night. Not even wind, not even some comical tumbleweeds are in sight to add some motion. Time has stopped completely.

You don’t realize Oikawa’s signals for the second time that night, just as you didn’t hear him throwing pebbles at your window.

Noticing the loud thud, as him patting the hood of his car a little too late, only when he starts to get loud, you look back up. He’s sitting there, patting the space next to him, the gesture all too familiar.

Your mind wanders back to the moments you’d do the same, asking your cat to come sit with you, listen to you ramble, maybe purr for you, hear your sobs or meow at your antics. Tilting your hand with her head, bumping your legs with her tail. Those moments painted golden, filtered with a gray film, already gone, leaving nothing but a sharp pain in your chest.

You climb and sit, careful not to have any physical contact with him.

“Why are we here?” you try one last time.

“I didn’t want to be alone.” He says. Nodding your head at that, you’re not exactly surprised. The way he always surrounds himself with people, no matter the proximity and bond he shares with them.

He answered a question, maybe he can answer few more before I drive him to the limit, you think. “Why me?” This nags at your brain more than any other current question you have for him.

“It seemed fitting.”

“Why not Hajime or Makki, or even Mattsun?”

“Iwa-chan has come on little trips such as this with me before. I didn’t want to drag him tonight. Asking anyone else I’m close with didn’t sound like a good idea. And frankly? You seemed like you could use a break like this today.”

Observant prick.

“So, what exactly? We share one cozy moment tonight and return to our daily selves of hating one another in the morning?” His silence is a yes enough. “Sure, sounds good then.”

After the little conversation, you are back examining the surroundings, the comforting stillness in the air, the silence, the emptiness and the blackness of it all.

It gets boring after a while. Not wanting to disturb Oikawa further and at a loss of what else to do in the middle of nowhere, you look up at last.

Oh.

You forget to breathe for a few seconds. And that doesn’t even seem to be a problem in your eyes.

Has he done this before? How long has he been going out at ungodly hours for this?

You knew Oikawa Tooru was obsessed with space and aliens, thanks to Iwaizumi, but you never expected it to be on a more serious, in-depth level. Not like this.

Never like this.

Billions of stars hanging in the night sky, most millions of years old, blinking from a long gone past, probably dead in their current time.

A calm breeze washing over your wholly, reminding you just how small you are, your life is and how it is all okay because in the big picture you’re all nothing but dust. Destined to be forgotten by history in few centuries, if not decades.

Seeing all these stars, colorful lights what you hope are planets, an arm of the Milky Way, flowing like a waterfall and you feel a sense of security you haven’t felt in a while.

There is something comforting about the night sky, the way it can show you your unimportance in the big picture, your place in all this. You feel whole with the universe. You belong.

So you look up, and up and up. Stare at the sky, blink at the stars, smile at the constellations you spot and remember their stories, the gods and the myths, the heroes and the queens…

You look back at Oikawa then. As if remembering only now that he is there by your side.

Facing the sky in a manner just like yours, you can see the stars on his face. Shining on his hair, cheeks and in his eyes. Almost like stardust.

He looks ethereal, unreachable, enchanting. And a little vulnerable. All that tension, layers of masks he puts on each day, all the fake smiles and empty look in his eyes are gone.

Raw and pure.

This is the truest of Oikawa you’ve ever seen.

The admiration can be read from his eyes. His face holding an emotion you’ve seen on him once or twice. Not intense like this, never like this. You’ve seen the same look on him for Iwaizumi but only for a second, when he’s sure no one is watching.

With the same eyes, he watches the starry night sky.

He looks like he belongs up there. Not in a “be an astronaut and go to space” but in a “should be there, amongst the stars, his memory up there, to be remembered by everyone gazing upon the starry night. Like a constellation, become a constellation, a legend and a story, and so much more, just like Orion and Andromeda.”

This is the closest to Oikawa Tooru you’ve ever been. The thought gives you a shiver.

Seeming to notice that, he gives you a puzzled look and raises his right arm. You realize the blanket around his form then. He’s making an offer.

“Don’t worry, three people can fit in easily, it’s wide enough for the both of us.” When his face turned to you, it’s dark, no source of light to reflect on his skin.

You scoot over to him, under the blanket. The two of you refocus back on the scene above you.

Remembering the little mug inside your front pocket, you open the lid of your thermos and start pouring some tea, the steam leaving a little trail behind. You hold out the mug to Oikawa, he just looks at you, the confusion clear on his face.

Why are you offering me the tea you brought for yourself?

What makes you think I’d trust you enough to taste something you made?

“We said tonight was our little secret, right? I can use the cap as a mug, don’t worry.”

Your words and clarification seems to convince him somewhat, holding the mug with both hands, he smells it before taking a sip.

Silence falls over again and it’s much nicer this time.

Not even the coldness can get to you or pull you out of the warm embrace you’re in. The warmth around your shoulders, more provided by the idea of the blanket than the blanket itself. Like a thin veil, separating the real world from your little bubble of escape.

It’s new moon, no reflecting lunar light to block your view of stars. Sitting under the tent of black, blue, white and red; it feels divine. Divine to live in the moment, to truly breathe, to witness something so enthralling and forever.

To stand by yourself, stripped bare of everything; your layers, titles, names and ticks, clothes and paints, to be a newborn again, to reborn again, all alone, in an endless room, empty and cold, filled with stars and gods, stories to tell and dreams to see.

To feel whole again, alone again, hopeless again but reach a self-realization again, to taste nectar and discover the secrets of the universe, converse with the long gone philosophers and waltz with supernovas.

You’re not alone. Not completely.

Maybe left alone with your thoughts in this dead land and you know how one can never have company in their own mind, forever trapped alone. Yet in that moment, you’re not alone. Moving your head to steal a glance at the boy next to you again, you understand it well. It all happens so fast.

“Isn’t it ironic? How as humans we use a word like ‘star’ for untouchable celebrities, important people and such while in reality stars are nothing but these giant balls of plasma-“ gesturing a ball with your hands now, thermos sitting between your legs, “-with their ongoing chemical reactions, sputtering molecules of hydrogen and helium and all, until they come to an end with their current phase of life. If you can call that life.” You say all these with your eyes locked onto the stars, Oikawa’s locked on you. You keep going.

“Speaking of life, what is even life? Aren’t we just a bunch of organic components somehow managing to come together, build a system and gain conscious somehow? Just trying to survive until an outer force comes or our cells come off? Isn’t it technically our cells living, in a way?”

“Aren’t we just piles of protein just walking around and doing things that make no sense but to us? Until we come to an end with our current phase of life? Doing what we see fit or fun or appropriate until it all ends.” It’s not a question any more. He doesn’t give you an answer.

“Aren’t we all children of the stars in a different point of view? All our molecules and elements coming from them. I mean, look at them. We see them blinking and smirking and smiling at us but for all we know they could’ve ended long ago. They could’ve become part of a new life for all we know. They break down and give birth to us, pieces of us; and in return we go back to them when we are gone. Despite being made of stardust, we live pretty shit lives huh?” You give him a lopsided smile, facing him as you say your last words.

“Is that what you’ve been thinking this whole time?” he replies.

“For far too long to pinpoint an exact date actually.” You almost say in a singsong voice. He frowns at that slightly.

“But I am right! Right? I mean, you’re a space nerd! You must know what I’m talking about.”

“Understanding and putting it into words in such a depressing way are two different things.”

Pouting at that, you look the opposite direction sharply. “Whatever, I know I am right.”

His gaze is still on you. “Is that what you’re like most of the time? I don’t get how Iwa-chan deals with you.” He must be shaking his head now.

“Iwa-chan can’t read minds last time I checked.” You deadpan.

His laugh fills the air at that. Light and lively, carefree; you doubt you’ve heard him laugh before. It sounds wonderful.

You wonder how things would’ve been between you and Oikawa, if the circumstances were different. If you never met Iwaizumi that day, would your paths still cross? Would you finish your Aoba Johsai years never meeting him?

Would you meet Oikawa on your own? Could you ever be friends, instead of dancing around one another and spitting out insults whenever you can? Would you like him in another world? Value his friendship, the person he is? Would the two of you have met before or become something more?

All these unanswered questions hanging in the air and you find yourself looking at him again.

His smile looks different now, he looks different, changed. Almost breathtaking. Is that what Iwaizumi means by his ‘fake smiles’?

A honest smile looks good on him.

You find yourself smiling back.

“Hey.” He nudges your shoulder with his. “If you still want to complain about the meaningless of life and all that, be my guest. I promise I won’t listen.”

Taken aback by his wording, you give him a confused look.

“Tonight doesn’t exist, remember?”

“…Right.” You decide to lean back and lie under the stars.

Feeling a tug at the blanket after a while, you see him placing the mug down next to the tire. You hand him your thermos as he regains his composure, he complies silently and leans back when he’s done.

All there is in the air is your faint breathing now. Never matching one another, sometimes loud, sometimes ghostly. There is no rhythm, no adjusting subconsciously. Completely independent.

You take a deep breath and start.

“It feels grey most of the time. Not in a ‘there’s never two sides, everything is grey, blah blah.’ But more like a numbness of grey.”

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, nothing to show or to indicate that he is listening. You continue talking.

“Like lacking all color and feeling in life, blocking all there is to see and enjoy and I am left with nothing but… grey.

Grey to the point of everything is filtered, there are no boundaries, it all feels the same, plays the same and I am afraid. I am afraid of hurting. Hurting myself, being hurt myself and hurting the ones around me. Not the ones I love, I don’t even know love. What is love?” You turn to look at him.

“I tried thinking about it, reading about it, understanding it on a chemical and hormonal way. Consulted mathematics and never got an answer. It feels made up, a fairy tale to feel better, to attach ourselves to one another.

I fear I came across love and didn’t notice it, I fear I brushed it off for something else and now it’s too late.”

With each pause, it gets easier to speak, harder to talk. Finding the right words, using your vocal chords, moving your tongue, writing your sentences in your mind. You don’t feel the tears gathering around your eyes or going down your cheeks. You wait for the robot title, to be called heartless and how you have a rock in your chest. They never come.

“Do you really fear of hurting him?” There’s no doubt he is talking about Iwaizumi.

“I don’t know.”

“But you care for him.”

“I don’t know.”

“Think before you answer.” He says then, voice stern.

“I think I care for him but I fear I will ruin him.”

The unspoken ‘how so?’ is in the air.

“I feel grey to the point of dust and decay. I fear everything I touch either drives away from me or decays. I don’t want to lose him. I think I care for him. But I don’t want to watch him stay by my side and crumble one by one.

I don’t want to go from grey to blue.”

“Doesn’t he make you happy? I’ve seen genuine smiles on you when you’re with him. You almost light up when he enter a room or sits beside you.”

“What’s the point of happiness if it’s dependent on one person? It is not fair to either parties.”

He starts tsking. “Too many don’ts for that age. You’ll end up with wrinkles before your thirties.”

He stops prying after that.

The air begins to grow colder, a little breeze picks up.

The stars are as cold as ever, blinking diamonds in the sky.

You swear you see the arm of Milky Way coming into motion, flowing like a stream.

For what feels like an hour, it is quiescent. You decide to break it one last time.

“Speaking of stars, you and Iwaizumi are like neutron stars. Can be found alone or orbiting one another, chasing after each other, forever together and merged at last. Both stars on your own but as captivating when together.”

The hour taking its toll on you, your senses grow duller. You can’t hear his breathing without focusing, even the stars are getting blurry.

“Then you’re like a black dwarf.” Oikawa speaks up. “Because you feel unreal most of the time.”

You both fall back into silence. You don’t ask him if he meant it as a compliment and he doesn’t answer.

You don’t need to know which way he meant, in a way, you already know the response to that.

Tonight isn’t real. It’ll cease to exist in a few hours and you let these rare moments sink in. Probably the closest you’ll ever be to Oikawa Tooru, closest see him like this. It almost feels familiar, like you’ve done this before, went on stargazing with him and opened your heart out to him. It feels like a dream, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You chuckle at your attempt of a joke lightly.

It is serene around the two of you and in your mind. A placidity you haven’t had without the help of a distraction in a long while.

“Thanks Tooru.”

His name falls out of your lips like you use it on the daily. Like the comforting shuffle of a worn out sweater as you put it on, the chirping of this family of birds living by your house for decades, the warm meow of your cat when you’re headed to bed. It sounds natural.

Scooting closer to him until your head rests on his chest. He just wraps his arm around you, pulling you further. Not a single word on your way of addressing him. And not a word from you on his way of holding you.

The moment will cease to exist in the morning, along with your confessions and the blinking lights of the stars. In a few hours it’ll no longer be real. So you decide to give it a shot at being close to him in all senses, share something the two of you will never have. Wrapping your arm around his torso, listening closely to his heart. Your head under his chin, his hand atop yours, you fall asleep until the sun comes.

157 notes · View notes

sandpumpkin · 3 years

Text

Horror house

A little bit of late night spooks!!! The house inspired by the Crimson Peak house and also a little inspired by a reoccuring nightmare I had when I was younger. I love horror but I do need to stop writing it before bed

Under cut. It’s long about 2k. Also spooks. so..beware.

The rain fell unrelenting, the ashen gray skies covering the bright sun that had been visible not even twenty minutes past. The sound of boots against slowly forming mud and the crunch of undergrowth sang in harmony with the raindrops pattering against the abundance of leaves surrounding the group marching their way through the forest.

The Kid pirates were heading towards a nearby town though it seems much further than when they spied it from the crows nest of the Victoria Punk. Unless they had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Kid marched ever forward insisting they were indeed going the right way. Hana clutched her umbrella and tried to keep up with the crew, who had undoubtedly longer legs than her and in the growing mud she was slipping every few steps. Heat had stopped noticing her lagging behind. Taking the umbrella from her and aided her to stop her sliding around.

“Thank you.'' They carried on their way for a few more moments when the rain became so much heavier, spurring the group on into a panicked run until they moved from forest to open garden and a poorly looked after stone path. The house that loomed before them was a grand manor house. Hana was in awe. The house was old, its large windows dusty and hidden by the out of control vines that engulfed the walls of the building but still it radiated its once former glory. Killer ran ahead and opened the door quickly lettin them all follow and seek shelter from the rain.

“Wow!” setting her umbrella by the door and wiping her feet on the old and dusty doormat before venturing further into the grand lobby. “Look how big it is!” The lobby leads into an open living room, a huge stone fireplace in direct view of the doors. To their left was a wide mahogany staircase that hugged the walls as it snaked around and up the walls to the second floor. Old oil lamps were hanging on the walls amidst a horde of dusty paintings. Despite the outside looking old, the inside was surprisingly intact if just a bit dusty and home to a lot of spiders if the cobwebs were any indication.

“I’m going to go explore!” Hana announced excitedly, already halfway up the stairs before Kid could even complain.

“I’m sleeping outside.” Kid stated firmly, turning on his heels setting a hand on the door handle as a crack of thunder echoed outside.

“Kid. It’s one night. Come on, Heat’s already lit the fire.” Killer said with a mocking pat on his old friend’s back. Kid grumbled in response as he turned back to head towards the now warmly lit living room.

“KID!” Hana’s sudden shout made Kid jump in alarm, he looked up at the orange haired women leaning excitedly over the banister “you have to see this bedroom! It’s beautiful!! Can we sleep up here?”

“NO! Everyone is sleeping down here.” he said sternly, earning a whine in protest “come down here.” he ordered.

“Aw come on!” she whined, slowly and dejectedly making her way down the stairs “it’s such a lovely manor house.” Hana said in awe, finally joining the crew in the huge living area “look at this furniture!” she ran her hand along the arm of a huge tall backed chair “it’s like a throne.” she sat in it promptly causing a huge plume of dust to rise from it, the dust filled her nose and eyes quickly, making her sneeze and cough loudly. A strong arm yanked her out of the chair and pulled her down onto the floor. “Kid- I can’t see..” her eyes streamed trying to expel the dust and as she instinctively moved to rub her eyes, Kid’s firm grasp pulled them away.

“Don’t rub them. Stop touching stuff!” he scolded, holding her firmly. Another heavily calloused hand held her face still but she tried to jerk away in alarm “It’s just Killer sit still damn it.” Killer carefully opened her eyes to try and flush the dust out with water. Hana squirmed as the water ran into her eyes. Shaking her face of water after and finally rubbing her eyes. She blinked and tried to focus. “better?”

She looked around testing out her vision, scanning the room she spotted a dark figure standing back in the hallway. Is that one of the crew? But she blinked again and it had vanished. “Yes I think. Sorry. I just..I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.” she apologised, Kid huffed and pulled her backwards into his lap, his good arm coiled around her stomach

“Stop touching shit. We leave in the morning, regardless of the weather.” he ordered sharply. Killer handed Hana one of the travel mugs with some coffee in it.

“Kid is easily spooked.” Killer explained with a mocking tone.

“Shove it Killer.” Kid hissed in response.

“Oh! Let's tell spooky ghost stories!” Hana announced excitedly “This is the perfect setting for them.” Kid’s hand cupped her chin tilted her back to look up at him.

“Did you not listen to anything?” he growled but was met with her soft smile

“But ghost stories are fun! There’s no such thing as ghosts anyway.” she laughed loudly.

Kid allowed them to tell some spooky stories though he pretended not to care even though he was taking it all in and not enjoying any of it. She’s pretty good at storytelling though. After a few hours of scary stories the group finally began to retire.

Hana slept comfortably in Kid’s arms curled up in his super fluffy coat. Warm and safe.

A crack of thunder jolted her away. Blinking to try and help her eyes adjust quicker to the encroaching darkness, the fire only dim embers now. Shivering from a sudden draft, in the distance she could hear the front door banging against the wall. Reluctantly crawling from Kid’s embrace, grabbing a candle that had blown out in the wind and re-lighting it with the embers of the fire and stepping over the crew carefully. Peering out into the hall, the front door was indeed wide open letting in a bitter cold draft. They’ll catch a cold if I leave it open. Hurrying out of the lingering warmth of the living room, Hana crossed the eerily dark and cold hallway quickly pulling the door too. As she looked out into the courtyard amidst the driving rain she caught the sight of a figure in an old fashioned nightgown. She opened her mouth to call out to the person but they vanished. Hana poked her head outside the door and looked around. There was definitely nobody there. It’s just the darkness playing tricks on me. Finally closing the door making sure it had clicked properly “maybe Killer broke it earlier?” she hummed turning away from the door as a figure appeared at the frosted glass pane.

A loud thud from up stairs made her jump almost dropping the candle holder in alarm.

“Old house..makes creepy noises..” Hana nodded, convincing herself that there was nothing in the darkness. “Or maybe mice? Yeah mice..scampering around…” her words trailed off as another thud came from upstairs “big mice..” she walked past the staircase and then walked back to the staircase and then away again. “I won’t sleep until I investigate,” she grumbled, beginning her ascent of the stairs, moving carefully to not blow the candle out with any sudden movements.

“I’ll just quickly check the rooms and be done with it.” Hana took a deep breath as she stood at the mouth of the long corridor, the darkness making it seem almost endless. ‘I’m a pirate now..can’t be scared of the dark..or not being able to see in the dark..’ cautiously Hana walked down the corridor making sure each door was shut and all was well until she reached the master bedroom she had spied early and the door was ajar. I closed it. I definitely closed it. Taking a deep breath and reaching for the handle she pushed the door open quickly. Slowly pushing a door open would only spur potential ghosts to give her a scare: she had read enough horror stories to know that was a bad idea and she kept a firm grip on the door handle so the door wouldn’t slam shut behind her. I got this. Holding the candle aloft, she scanned the room. Nothing. Maybe I didn’t close the door. As she lowered the candle, Hana became aware of something peering out from behind the door. Don’t look at it..it’s not there..can’t see it… taking a step backwards, the little flame was blown out and in alarm Hana jumped away from the door letting whatever lurked behind it to slam the door shut.

Staggering backwards, Hana fell over what felt like a footstool and dropped the candle holder with a loud clatter as it rolled away from her on the wooden floor. Kicking the footstool towards the shadowy figure, Hana shuffled backwards in panic. “I can’t see it..it’s not here…” she chanted backing herself into a corner. The sound of quiet footsteps slowly became loud booming footsteps like a deep drum beat. “I can’t hear or see anything...nothing is there..” she mumbled, turning her back on the darkness covering her ears with her hands and closing her eyes tightly. Her chest felt so tight, it was getting difficult to breathe and she couldn’t stop shaking. “Don’t look at it..it’s not there..can’t see it…” she choked out, tears streaming down her face revealing her real emotions. She was scared. She tried to focus on what made her feel calm..that fiery red hair, hot temper, cocky grin, natural warmth. “Kid..” she sobbed quietly. “Kid.” again louder. The footsteps grew closer to her ever so slowly. “KID!” she screamed as loudly as she could muster.”KID!!” she screamed, though it was muffled through her continued and controllable sobbing.

Kid was kicked awaked by Killer. “What-” he noticed the fire had been relit and a certain someone was missing from his arms. Everyone else was awake too.

“I think she’s upstairs..there was-” Killer’s words were cut short when a strangled scream for Kid echoed from upstairs. Kid was on his feet in seconds he stumbled into the door frame clumsy as he raced towards the staircase. “I told her to stay put.” he grumbled to himself as he heard another cry for him. Kicking open each door scanning the room quickly. As he kicked open one of the doors the sound of metal rolling across the floor reached his ears scanning the darkness, he spotted Hana huddled in a corner sobbing.

“it’s not there..can’t see it. Not there..” she chanted over and over through her sobs. Kneeling beside her, he set a hand on her head which just made her curl in on herself more. “Not there...Can’t…”

Kid draped his coat over her shoulder and felt her tense in realization though as she turned her eyes were firmly clamped shut, gingerly she reached to touch him but he guided her hand to his metal arm, that was a sure give away who it was. Swallowing deeply, she opened her eyes, her lips still quivering. “Kid..” once she had ascertained he was in fact there, Hana threw her arms around his neck and sobbed loudly. “Kid. I’m sorry. I heard a noise and then there was something in here and and-”

“Don’t be leaving my side.” he scolded, scooping her up with his metal arm “back downstairs.” he ordered everyone. The group headed back downstairs to the warmth of the living room. Hana was still visibly shaken by whatever happened. Kid made sure to pull her as close as possible trying to ease her nerves. “What happened to ghosts not being real?” he teased, trying to coax a smile out of her.

“Kid..I don’t…I don’t..” but it just made her cry again.

“What happened?” he asked seriously planting a kiss into her bright orange hair. She sniffled loudly and regalled what happened. “No more scary shit before bed.” he warned, not wanting to be privy to anymore scares himself. She nodded and shuffled in close, he felt her let out a sigh of relief.

“You make me feel safe.” she admitted, looking up at him from the confines of his coat.

“I plan on keeping you safe..” he replied quietly.

The night went by without any further incidents. Morning came swiftly and Kid could not be more eager to get the hell out of that creepy dusty old house. Thankfully the rain had stopped and the sun shone brightly. Hana sighed deeply as she left the manor, as she crossed the courtyard she felt something behind her. Turning to take one last look at the manor, one side of the front door was open even though Killer had closed it. She could see directly into the living room where the fire was lit and a chair had been moved in front of it. She felt a chill run down her spine as long thin fingers appeared around the door. Unable to move from fear as she saw a head starting to appear from behind the door. Willing herself to move, she turned and bolted to catch up with Kid finding his arm to cling too.

“Oi. What’s wrong?” he asked, her sudden touch had startled him “you okay?” she nodded quickly and curiously peered back to see the front door was firmly closed. Kid put his arm over her shoulder. “Come on let's go.”

Thankful to put the horror house firmly behind her, she sighed with relief. Maybe she needed a break from horror stories for a while..

Though some things aren’t so keen to be left behind and can leave a little bit to follow you forever.

#pumpkin writes #metalpumpkin #self ship #eustass kid x pumpkin #horror #spooks #one piece

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idolistic-dreams · 4 years

Text

Lurking in the Dark; 9

♥︎ Genre: Vampire au, lots of angst, fluff, maybe some smut later on.

♥︎ Pairing: Vampire! Jaehyun x Reader

♥︎ Warnings: Language, violence, mentions of blood.

♥︎ Word Count: 3K

♥︎ A/N: Again, sorry this took forever, at least it wasn’t as long a wait as some chapters :’) Schools keeping me busy.

1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8

Spinoffs following the series; Serious // Hesitation // Believe

Days had passed without a single word or visit from any of the boys. You were starting to become concerned and you could tell it was taking a toll on all of your friends. Two days after the stormy night you had all started acting like zombies, walking around the apartment without a word and only getting up for necessities.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Melody was the first to break the silence, five days in. She pulls at her hair in annoyance and lets out a groan.

“Do we really have a choice?” Hana’s voice is oddly quiet, the silence from the past five days having an effect on her tone.

“Usually I’d be the one to say yes and drag us all out to the cemetery… but I don’t think I want to get killed by vampires today, so no,” you sigh, pulling your knees to your chest, sinking into the couch for comfort.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known you to back down from a challenge,” Hana smiles softly, and you know she’s not suggesting you make a plan but instead trying to lighten the mood. You smile back and roll your eyes.

“I’m tough, but not vampire tough,” you say. Silence washes over the five of you again, Mei looks out of the window, having not said a word. Prita walks in from her room, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Pri, you realize it’s 2 in the afternoon, right?” Melody looks at her in concern.

“Not like we’re on any schedule or going anywhere,” Prita mumbles back, looking uncharacteristically grumpy.

“Guys—”

“No need to be so grumpy Pri,” Melody frowns at her friend.

“Uh, guys?”

“Sorry, I thought not being able to leave your apartment for almost a week and not seeing your boyfriend was reason enough to be grump,” Prita retorts.

“GUYS,” Mei finally yells in annoyance.

“What?” The rest of you all turn to her at once.

“There are two guys that I’ve never seen walking into our building,” her voice is so quiet, you almost don’t hear her.

“You’ve been people watching too much,” Prita rolls her eyes, still grumpy.

“Exactly, which is why I know these guys aren’t from around here. I’ve seen enough people go in and out of here to figure that much out,” Mei looks concerned.

“Shit, do you think… Do you think it’s the other vampires? How the hell would they find us?” Your eyes widen.

“Why the hell would they come up here in the middle of the day though?” Hana looks confused.

“Because it’s more unexpected…” Melody looks grim.

“Everyone stay quiet and go to my room,” You look at the four of them and start walking as quickly and quietly as you could. Once you were all inside, just as you were shutting the door, you hear a knock from the front door. Your eyes widen and you quickly lock the door and grab the bat you kept by it, slowly backing away. Suddenly you all hear the front door being kicked in. You try your hardest not to make a noise, but you’re terrified.

“No point in hiding girls, we can smell you… Hear your heartbeats,” a deep voice remarks creepily. Your grip on the bat tightens, ready to swing. You see Melody shaking beside you with a pair of scissors in her hand. You all watch silently as they try moving the doorknob. Unfortunately, a locked door did little to stop a vampire. The door bursts open and hangs awkwardly half off of its hinges as the two vampires stride in.

“Well well well, what a pretty bunch,” The one who had spoken before looks over all of you in a way that made your skin crawl. He looked just as creepy as he sounded, with his dark, sunken eyes and crooked smirk, “And courageous too. It’s a shame we have to kill you, otherwise I turn you and make you all my little pets.”

“Go to hell,” you growl, sounding more confident than you felt. You’re ready to swing the bat the second he moves any closer. The guy behind him lets out a laugh and pushes his messy bangs back so he can look you in the eyes.

“You first, princess,” his ice blue eyes send a chill down your spine. The first one moves closer and you quickly swing the bat, but he catches it with ease. He yanks it from your grip, causing you to fall forward from the force.

“Did you really think that would work?” He smirks down at you. Just as he’s about to lift his foot to kick you, Melody rushes forward and drives the scissors towards his heart. She barely manages to cut him before the other guy has her pinned to the wall by her throat.

“LET HER GO!” You scream, looking at your cousin struggling to breathe.

“You little bitch… you really think some scissors can kill me?” The guy towering over you turns to her before looking back at you and pulling you up by your hair. His grip sends a searing pain through your scalp and you claw at his hand.

“Get off of me. Let. Her. Go!” You growl, watching angrily as Melody started to look as if she was going to pass out. Prita looks at you and then turns to rush over and knock herself into the guy holding Melody, causing her to fall from his grasp coughing and trying to get her breath back. Just as the guy is about to turn and grab Prita, a voice cuts in.

“Lay a hand on another one of them and I’ll make sure your death is as slow and painful as possible,” Taeil stands in the doorway, with two boys you’d never seen right behind him.

“I don’t understand how you could trust humans so easily and blindly,” the guy gripping your hair talks, still holding tight. He moves you out in front of him so Taeil can see your face, “Don’t you see they were trying to kill us?’

“Only because you attacked them first. You’ve been here for weeks. If they wanted to kill you or warn people about our kind they would have by now,” one of the guys behind Taeil speaks up.

“Your ways are outdated and largely unaccepted. Just because some mates are still human doesn’t mean we can’t trust them,” Taeil looks down at you then over to Melody and something dark flashing in his eyes, “Jungwoo, grab the girls and get them out of here.”

The one who’d spoken moments ago steps from behind Taeil and blocks the other vampire who had choked Melody, motioning for the girls to exit the room.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The guy he’s blocking pushes into him. From the way he looked, you could tell that Jungwoo wasn’t exactly the kind of person who cared to get violent, but the look in his eyes would make you think otherwise. He turns to the guy and looks him dead in the eyes.

“I’m protecting my clan,” he growls before ripping the other guy’s heart out in the blink of an eye. Your eyes widen in shock and you feel as though you’re about to puke. Hana screams and Mei looks faint, as she clutches Hana for support. As the guy’s body drops to the floor, the one gripping your hair pulls you closer to him, his fangs almost grazing over your neck. Tears stream down your face as you feel his breath against it.

“Oh, you’ve done it now,” you can hear the smirk in his voice as his fangs start to poke your neck. Before he can bite though you’re being pulled from his arms and against Taeil’s chest. The man flies back against the wall groaning.

“Funny you think you would stand a chance against me,” Taeil says steadily. He releases you and lightly pushes you behind him, into the arms of the guy who was standing quietly and waiting. Jungwoo ushers the others out of the room and grabs you as he leads you all to the living room. From the noise in your bedroom, you can tell Taeil had taken the guy out quickly. He and the third guy join you all in the living room.

“We have to get you girls out of here,” is all Taeil says.

“W-wait,” you grab his arm with a shaking hand before he can walk away, “What… What’s going on? Who are these guys?” You shakily wipe tears from your eyes as Taeil looks at you and lets out a deep sigh.

“This is Jungwoo and Yukhei. They’re newer members we recruited recently when we realized how bad this situation was becoming,” He starts to walk, signaling for you to follow him. As you all walk out of the building to the parking lot he continues to explain, “When we got back that day from explaining everything, the other group was extremely suspicious. They wanted to know why so many of us had randomly gone off without a word and all came back at once even though we left separately. They started to question everyone. We all made the decision to stay away for a bit in hopes that they would drop it and think it was nothing.”

“That clearly didn’t work,” you frown.

“No, it didn’t. Things got tense and we told them leave our territory, but it only caused more problems. They left, telling us we’d regret it,” Taeil stopped in front of your car, “It was at that moment I realized they had probably found where you guys were. So right after they left, we split up to follow them out and see if any of the strayed off course.”

“If you were following them then why did you even let them get into the apartment?” Melody cries, rubbing her now bruising neck.

“I went alone. I had to rush back to grab backup when I realized where they were going. I moved as fast as I could,” you can tell he’s upset he hadn’t gotten to you sooner. He looks up and unlocks your car. You hadn’t even realized he had grabbed your keys on the way out.

“Get in, I’m going to take you to the house and we’re going to keep you there. Jungwoo, clean up the bodies. Yukhei, follow me to make sure we aren’t being followed,” Taeil gets in your driver’s seat and the rest of you pile up in the back.

After driving for some time to the outskirts of town, Taeil pulls off onto a secluded road. After what seemed like ages, the trees on the sides of the road opened to reveal a large, dark house. As he parks, the boys come flooding out from the front door.

“Y/N!” Jaehyun catches you as you rush out of the car and fling yourself into his arms.

“Jae!” You hold him tightly, burying your face in the crook of his neck. He whispers calming words in your ear and runs a hand through your hair which causes you to wince in slight pain. He frowns and looks at Taeil, holding you a little tighter.

“What the hell happened?” You hear Johnny growl, assuming he had seen the bruises forming on Melody’s neck.

“These two guys… they broke into the apartment. We tried to fight them off… thankfully Taeil got there just in time,” your voice was quiet as you spoke.

“Of course, you would try to fend off vampires,” Jaehyun breathes out and you can almost hear a smirk in his voice, “You can’t fight off vampires baby.”

“It was worth a shot…” you let go of him enough to turn in his arms to look at everyone. You watch as Johnny takes Melody inside to take care of her. You look over at Prita, crying in Yuta’s arms. Hana and Mei looked as though they were still in shock, trembling in the arms of their mates. You hated how this had happened.

“Let’s get inside,” Jaehyun pulls you along into the house, taking you through the entry hall into a living room area. Taeyong was waiting there for you, leaning against the fireplace. Jaehyun pulls you down into his lap as he sits in a chair. The rest of the clan slowly trickles in, looking to Taeyong.

“What’s going on Taeyong… what are we supposed to do?” You look at the leader, watching as he paces.

“I can’t let what happened to my mate happen to any of you. We’ve gotten rid of them for now but they’re really after our territory… and now probably after you girls too,” Taeyong looks grim. It’s quiet for a few minutes as he thinks, everyone waiting for him to say something. Finally, he continues, “We can protect you all here, we have to keep an eye on you now.”

“I mean our apartment is wreaked anyway so I don’t really mind…” You let out an exasperated sigh. Jaehyun pokes you in the side, signaling that this isn’t a time to joke.

“D-didn’t you say that… that they only want to kill us cause we’re humans and they feel threatened by that?” Hana speaks for the first time in the past hour.

“Well, yes technically that’s why. That, and because they want our territory so they’ll do anything they can to affect us. Including going after mates,” Taeyong stops pacing and looks at her.

“So, what if we were vampires too?” She squeezes Sicheng’s hand as she looks at him next to her, “Then you guys won’t have to worry about losing us as much right?”

“No-“ “Not happening!” “Do you realize what that means?” All the guys start to protest at once.

“You’ve barely lived. Most of us didn’t have a choice when we were turned. That’s not a decision you make lightly,” Johnny runs a hand down his face with a groan.

“Yeah, this isn’t exactly the ideal life, granted some of our situations are a little different,” Jeno sends a glare around the room, stopping specifically on Jaehyun and Yuta.

“Stop giving us the death glare, at least we didn’t kill you,” Yuta rolls his eyes.

“Only because of Y/N being Jaehyun’s mate,” Donghyuck yells from the back of the room.

“Wait, you would have killed them?” You look at Jaehyun, confused.

“Okay look! Enough arguing about it. Girls, they’re right. It’s not an easy life and most people don’t choose it directly. With mates of course it does get more complicated if you aren’t already a vampire,” Taeil steps in to shut everyone up.

“You could be giving up the kind of life you may want outside of this, like Johnny said, this isn’t something to be taken lightly,” Taeyong crosses his arms with a sigh.

“Well then let’s talk about it and figure it out,” you look him in the eyes, completely serious. Everyone turns to you, slightly shocked.

“Wait seriously? A few months ago, you wanted nothing to do with Jaehyun and now you’re actually taking this into consideration?” Doyoung looks at you like you’ve grown an extra head.

“I know that sounds a little crazy coming from me, but you should be proud I want to actually talk about it and that I’m not just making a decision,” you roll your eyes.

“That’s not a bad idea, we can weigh out the pros and cons,” Herin backs you up. You smile at her in return.

“Okay then, let’s start throwing them out,” Taeyong leans back against the wall in front of everyone.

“We’ll be stronger, so you guys won’t have to worry about protecting us all the time. What happened today wouldn’t happen again,” you start.

“While you’re not completely wrong, new vampires aren’t as strong as older ones. It’s something that grows over time,” Jaehyun says, running a hand up and down one of your arms.

“Okay well, what about the fact that we know we want to be with you guys, and we’re meant to be together? The only way we end up together forever is if we’re vampires too, right?” Melody’s voice is faint as she speaks. You’re a little surprised she felt that strongly considering your cousin hadn’t been involved in any of this until recently. You knew she had a point though.

“Well it’s not like we have to turn you right now. We have quite a few years before you actually start aging,” Taeil looks over to her as he speaks.

“What if we don’t care to wait and we’re sure about it?” Prita counters.

“Think about the fact that you have to drink blood to survive. You’re weakened by the sun. You live forever which means you have to watch your whole family die basically,” Mark argues against her.

“Speaking of families, if you’re vampires you stop aging so you’ll have to let your family go before they start to see you aren’t getting any older,” one of the boys you recognize from the apartment earlier, Yukhei, speaks up.

“It can really suck not getting to see your family, or your friends,” Jaemin frowns thinking back on the past year without you and Hana in his life. The boys who had been turned a little over a year ago would know that pain better than anyone.

“If we were turned now, our parents wouldn’t have to know. We’d have a few years to spend with them and come to terms with it,” You say confidently. You feel like you could be okay with it as long as you had the time to say goodbye, though the idea still hurt a lot.

“They’re making good points Taeyong. Not only that, but if they do turn, we would have more vampires and that clan would be much less likely to try and take our territory. They’re already slightly outnumbered, we could widen that gap,” Ten, who you rarely seemed to see, adds in.

“Let’s take a few days to think about it, and we can come to a group decision then. Is everyone okay with that?” Taeyong looks around the room at his clan. Everyone nods in agreeance, “We’ll talk about this again in three days then. For now, get some rest.”

You sigh and sink back into Jaehyun’s arms as everyone disperses. He holds you close, resting his chin on your shoulder as he speaks, “We have a lot to think about now, don’t we?”

#lurking in the dark #lurking #kpop angst #kpop aus #kpop vampire au #nct imagines #nct imagine #kpop imagine #kpop imagines #nct vampire au #nct vampire #vampire jaehyun #vampire au #jaehyun imagine

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utterlyinevitable · 3 years

Text

Dreams

a super sweet but very sad-rated mason dream i had retold to @withbeautyandrage and @angela8754 as a bedtime story.

Ok so BASICALLY it’s some time near-romance and m hasn’t figured out his feelings yet and basically bakery 2.0 happened.

Lia had enough of his b.s. and pulled away - cutting the playboy off for good - to live her life. Go with the flow. Not spare another stupid moment for a stupid boy ever again.

While Lia and Mason were having their tiff over the course of a week and ignoring one another at all costs (on Lia’s part. Mason was being Mason and only turning up when he was ordered to), the dogs were in town to deal with the whatever that’s lurking around Wayhaven in addition to all this bounty/trapper/rogue shit.

Lia is at the local watering hole after a very tedious day. Sitting at the bar nursing her second drink when a familiar presence - a warmth attacking her like a radiating furnace.

“Detective,” he says with a nod and a point to the bartender for a drink.

She turned to her right to see Tane.

Her brows furrowed and she expertly scanned the rest of the premise for the rest of Unit Alpha. Not a single dog in sight. Just Tane.

He took the seat next to her without asking.

“What’re you doing here?”

“What, you think they keep us in cages?”

Lia had a rueful smile; “Kinda, yeah.”

They talk and talk and get on well with their shameless banter. and eventually he asks, “What’s going on between you and dark and smoky? That thing still happening?”

Lia scoffs so LOUDLY then says with the slightest shake of her head before taking a loooong sip, “Absolutely nothing.”

Tane raises an eyebrow.

All she responds is, “You’ve met Mason.”

And he kinda understands.

They talk and talk some more, and the alcohol hits her but she stops after 3 - girl knows her limits. And Tane’s actually kinda cool??

Ok so yadda ya he walks her back to her place after last call and they hook up.

A few days later UB, Lia and the dogs are holed up at the facility for a briefing. It went well - if you take away the utter distain and contempt coming from Adam about giving UA this job while UB focuses on their ongoing case.

UA were the first to depart after the meeting. Before leaving Tane crosses the distance and gets all up in Lia’s personal space. Not in a creepy way, but a delicate, for-your-ears-only kinda way that has the remaining members of UB watching intently.

His words certainly were not delicate. The were blunt and to the point though they were said in his low, raspy accent, “If you wanna go for round two come find me.”

He kissed her cheek then turned on his heels.

And Mason over in his dark corner by the door snarls HARD. Stares at them. Then storms out of the room before either could fully acknowledge his reaction.

Hours later she’s sitting in the living room of the warehouse reading all alone. Due to the looming danger, she’s been put on lockdown here until the dogs’ finish their mission. Mason ever-so-quietly enters and slumps next to her. Just enough space between them not to touch but still closer than they’ve been in a while.

Neither says anything.

Mason’s watching her out the corner of his eye and she’s trying to ignore him. Eventually he speaks uncharacteristically softly; “Are we good?” His hand resting on the leather next to her aching to reach out. He has to ball it into a white-knuckled fist to fend off the offending urge.

She closes the book and huffs.

(I don’t remember what happened next) They talked. They said things they needed to say. She got so so angry and so did he but he refused to let the emotion consume him. Lia was ready to walk away for good - prepared to do so. But then... but then they kiss. and he pulls her on his lap in an instant to deepen it. he doesn’t understand why he’s missed this - her so much. and gosh they’re so desperate for one another.

Mason uses the leverage to hike her up his torso to stand and carry her to her room without breaking the moment.

The second her bedroom door shuts behind them they waste no time disrobing one another.

Then they’re buck naked.

She’s sitting at the edge of the bed invitingly, ready, and he’s standing before between her legs. Mason’s eyes are dark and half-lidded and he’s somehow in a trance because he says something she wasn’t meant to know and he wasn’t aware was within him;

“mine.”

It was said like a fact the whole universe knew, uttered so softly that if he wasn’t two inches away her normal human hearing would have missed it.

Lia brushed it off. Not bothering to think further into it - Mason always says some sort of compliment every time she’s on full display.

So they’re doing the do for what feels like forever - certainly the longest they’ve ever been romping around. Now she’s on top and he’s looking up at her with those entranced grey eyes again. and this time says in his soft voice like earlier, he says “you’re so beautiful” as his hand comes up to cup her cheek.

And Lia stops. Breathing first. Then all motions. And just looks at him.

Sooo many emotions swirling in them and around them.

And Mason holds his breath thinking he’s fucked up again and ruined this for good. He’s waiting for her to pull the trigger.

But her fingers wrap gently around his wrist and she nuzzles further into his hand.

Nsfw things are said in between and done. And at one point she begs/demands Mason to stop makin loveee and to just fuck her because all this unwarranted tenderness is making her emotional and she’s fucking over all this shit. she wants to get off and get off him.

When they’re done she immediately gets up and heads for the shower. No cuddling much to masons chagrin :(

so he gets dressed slowly. Listening to her beyond the wall.

And she’s crying.

And he’s confused and his chest hurts because of her sobs. But he’ll let her have her moment obviously not wanting to intrude on her space.

So he’s halfway out the door and a cigarette in his lips when Nate passes, giving him a half hearted smile but reserved because of how forlorn mason looks.

“Everything okay”

“I don’t fucking know”

“What’d you say?” Nate says all too knowingly.

Mason takes a few beats trying to remember if he did actually say anything offensive, eyes glued to the floor and hands shoved in his jean pockets, “That she’s beautiful.”

Nates brows furrow.

“Now she’s crying in the shower”

“Well... if I were you, I’d make sure she’s okay. Be there for her”

Mason looks like Nate has just said the dumbest thing imaginable but turns back around into the room and shuts the door. He puts his cig in the bin and heads into the bathroom all be damned and thank god it’s unlocked.

She’s sitting naked on the expensive tiled floor and doesn’t give him a glance. Mason bounds over, sits next to her under the stream fully clothed and wraps his arms around her pulling her into his chest as she cries. For many many minutes. And he just holds her.

When the water starts to turn icy on his sensitive skin he turns it off and pulls her up to her feet, wrapping a plush luxury towel around her and guiding her into the warmth of her bedroom. She seems to be more with it now and steps away from him, tugging the towel around her tighter to give her strength.

Mason raises a brow to ask her what’s up.

She sighs and looks everywhere but at him.

“Sweetheart,” he practically begs.

“I can’t do this”

“Do what?”

She gestures around the bedroom where everything’s in the mess they made “This!”

He’s still not getting it.

“I like you so fucking much. I can’t do this if you’re gonna say those things and it mean nothing but bedroom talk to get me off.”

He lets her words sink in and swirl around a bit. He still doesn’t fully get it but he gets that feelings can change and that this is a two-way street, so he says “Okay.”

“Ok” she replies.

Their eyes meet so briefly. She’s trying to stay strong and keep a bit of space between them. He’s seemingly unbothered, his eyes giving nothing away. Not letting her know his inner turmoil of why his skin is itching but not in the hypersensitive way or why he said those things in the first place or why he feels like he needs some fucking air even though he doesn’t need oxygen to survive.

Lia points a lazy finger to the door, “I need to get dressed.”

Mason nods and leaves without another word.

He closed her door when Felix beams from his doorway across the hall, “You two are back together! Wait- why are you wet?”

Mason shakes his head and gets as far away as he can.

The end.

#agent m #tane

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moonchildsaurora · 3 years

Text

Moonlight Sonata

✤ OT8 w/ Woo-centric (+ a side of WooSan, SeongJoong) ✤ genre: fantasy!AU // mild horror, more creepy than anything really, a dash of fluff ✤ t/w: sfw, lots of spoopy shit happening, swearing, description of fantasy violence & grotesque body horror, very brief mention of intoxication, rated M ✤ count: 6k+ ✤ [ ‘prologue’ of The Alderfell Chronicles ]

a/n - well this was suppose to be for Halloween and instead I’m using it as a belated birthday one(long)shot for our beloved Wooyoung. It’s my first member-centric piece that stemmed from me thinking about, “Why aren’t there many AUs for legendary beings like the Dullahan (Headless Horseman)?” Lo & behold the world of Alderfell was created and I do not regret it one bit. The only thing I regret is not having enough time to write this out as an on-going series, having to squeeze info/hints throughout this piece...so please excuse the weird jumps in timeline...about the characters’ lives and backstories. This is also my own twist on the concept of the Dullahan – they usually are depicted with a more sinister nature but my Dullahan is a good boi™. I do plan to re-visit every now and then, maybe to elaborate on certain origins or associated scenarios/blurbs. But for now, please enjoy reading about Wooyoung having the time of his life trying to settle down in a town that’s more than meets the eye and live to tell the tale of how he experienced first-hand a midnight stroll with a legend 💙 P.S. sentences in all italics are flashbacks! P.P.S. I would absolutely be keen to hear any thoughts/headcanons/speculations as to what you think is happening with each character or just about the world itself. See how many easter eggs you guys can find!

The balcony windows slammed opened as the intruding wind howled into the bedroom, drawing a shriek out of Wooyoung. In the unfortunate process of accidentally slamming his knee up to the escritoire with a startled jump, he helplessly watched as the ink jar tipped over a river of black onto his handwritten letter. Tugging at his coal black strands with a groan of frustration, he was soon reminded that the tempestuous rain had come in uninvited when the lamps and bronze candelabras started to quake.

Grumbling a string of curses under his breath, Wooyoung marched across the rosewood floor towards where the billowing ivory curtains were. They reached out to brush against his cheeks as he worked against the wind to quickly close the large windows. By the time he managed to secure the latches, his vision was dotted with rain droplets that splayed across his silver-rimmed round glasses.

Fumbling with the sleeves of his sleeping robe, Wooyoung lightly wiped the lenses clean whilst he made his way back to where the ruined letter laid. Staring at the mass of harsh ink smears across majority of the previously neat lines, he gingerly reached out to grab the papers.

Then came a soft knock on the door.

“Wooyoung, is everything alright?” a deep dulcet voice spoke from the other side.

“Y-Yes, I was jus– please, come in.”

Wooyoung turned to face the doorway just in time to see it swing open, revealing the ever empyreal-looking aristocratic owner of Rosentine Mansion where he was currently residing at. Adorned with a beige embroidered silk sleeping robe and a faint smile, Yeosang stepped soundlessly in to the room.

“Sorry if I disturbed your sleep, there was a bit of a mishap…” said Wooyoung, gesturing to the mess on the escritoire with a sheepish look. The windows started rattling once more which drew Yeosang’s attention towards the balcony.

“No need to worry. Was it the wind?” he asked, walking over with the intention to check the latches.

Wooyoung nodded, “it’s rather blustery tonight.”

Yeosang hummed as he peered through the curtains, looking out to the gloomy darkness where he could barely make out the glowing street lamps through the rain.

“The rain will pass after tonight, storms don’t tend to linger around here for too long. At least it’s cleared up the fog a little for now.”

An involuntary shudder went down Wooyoung’s spine at the mention of the fog. He quickly learnt within the first few days of his stay, more often than not, the streets became foggy after dusk once the sun has gone to slumber and the moon awakes. Wooyoung wasn’t fond of how his mind would wander to think of what might be lurking within the fog, and so he makes a conscious effort to never stare too long from his windows. Too afraid that one evening he might find fiendish eyes staring right back at him.

“You speak as if the weather has a mind of its own.”

“Oh? Have you never thought of that possibility before?”

The ambiguity of Yeosang’s smile certainly didn’t help Wooyoung in trying to decipher whether the aristocrat was being serious or not with that question. Then again, Wooyoung had somewhat gotten used to the eccentricity within the mansion; especially when his own cousin is just of that calibre along with the rest of the residents.

However everyone he’s met so far have been nothing short of pleasant and accommodating, even the brutally honest groundskeeper who was particularly protective over his fruit trees.

“Please let me know if you require any more candles.”

Wooyoung diverted his attention back to the present, only noticing then that Yeosang had gone round to dim the lights within the lamps.

“And…” pausing, Yeosang turned towards the half empty ink pot and stained papers, “Perhaps it’s best to leave that for tomorrow. You’re due to wake up at dawn if you wish to make it on time to Seonghwa’s shop, you know how he can be like with tardiness.”

“You’re right,” said Wooyoung, with a tired sigh.

“I’ll leave you to it then. Goodnight Wooyoung,” giving the room a once over and deeming nothing else was out of place, Yeosang left just as quietly as he arrived before.

“Goodnight Yeosang.”

That night, Wooyoung fell asleep under the comfort of his duvet on the 4-poster bed. Dreaming of flowing ink, swirling fog and the echoes of thunder from the depths of his mind.

“Do be careful Mr Jung!”

Wooyoung still wasn’t used to being addressed so formally by the townspeople, it wasn’t this sophisticated back at his previous home in Rookhaven. But he had no time to dwell on that as he hastily dusted the dirt off his taupe trousers and gave a courteous nod before continuing on with sprinting his way to the shop.

Cheeks tinged with a rosy hue and not just from the chilly air. After tripping and face-planting onto the gravel path right in front of the Mayor surely proved to be an embarrassing start to his morning. He raced past the magnificent fountain of the dancing naiads in the town square; where the granite sign that sat on the top tier engraved with bold letters of gold read; ‘ALDERFELL – welcome thee to a pleasant stay, otherwise be on your merry way.’

Tucked in the corner of Étoile Lane was Alderfell’s main apothecary shop that Wooyoung was headed towards. He entered through the back gates to ‘Drops of Aurora’ and almost immediately, the fluttering of wings reached his ears. Soon his shoulders were claimed as a perching spot by the shop’s inhabitants. Hummingbirds of sunset shades excitedly chirped their welcome, making Wooyoung giggle as he placed his leather satchel aside.

A few of them had already begun gathering his hair in a loose ponytail and looping a ribbon around it. The first time this ever happened he was left flabbergasted and didn’t quite know what to make of it. By now he’s accepted the hummingbirds were simply highly intelligent and perceptive.

Even if they had an odd glow around their forms.

When he brought it up with the Master Healer all he got was a teasing, “Shall I send for the oculist to come examine your glasses?”

Wooyoung huffed at the memory, taking out a glass vial from his satchel that was filled with light amber-coloured liquid. Grabbing one of the spare ceramic bowls from the shelves, he placed it by the window sill where the morning rays were slowly trickling in and poured out the liquid. The hummingbirds gave cheerful chirps and took turns taking sips of the sweet nectar that Wooyoung had harvested from the new batch of bell purple valdeisses.

Smiling fondly at the scene, he left them to their treat and went to grab his work apron off the wall hanger before walking through the connecting archway to the main section of the shop.

“Ah Wooyoung, nice to see you’ve made it.”

Wooyoung felt his soul jumped. Releasing a silent yell, he blinked owlishly at his mentor who was unexpectedly early and already pouring lavender tea into two vintage floral tea cups by the counter. His almost-silver hair that had been meticulously styled to one side, faintly glimmered under the light.

“Good morning Seonghwa, I’m sor–“

Wooyoung was interrupted by his own stomach letting out an unbashful rumble. There was silence, in which Wooyoung wanted nothing more than to disappear into the ground before deep chuckling filled the air.

“Oh my, did you skip out on breakfast my young apprentice?” asked Seonghwa, a knowing look in his glacial eyes.

“I may have woke up later than usual this morning…and rushed right out the door to get here.”

“You’re lucky that Hongjoong insisted I bring these along then,” Seonghwa pushed a brown paper bag across the counter towards Wooyoung. Inside was an assortment of berries and cream cheese pastries, still having that freshly-baked scent had Wooyoung salivating.

“He was in one of his baking moods and next thing I knew he whipped up half a dozen batch too many. As the saying goes…sharing is caring.”

“Thank you, please tell Hongjoong for me that I’m very thankful for this too!”

Wooyoung felt a warmth stirring within. Both from the fond expression his mentor displayed as he talked about his beloved and from the simple yet kind gesture of looking out for Wooyoung’s wellbeing.

The whimsical ambience of the shop continued for the rest of the morning, especially when the mellow sound of a piano came through the radio speakers. Seonghwa hummed along to the melody and footsteps swaying between the counter and shelves. Wooyoung tried not to snicker out loud and hid his grin behind the bunch of mountain ifliums that he was tasked with deseeding.

What a rare sight it was for him to see the softer side of his normally strict mentor.

“What happened to your previous apprentice?” Wooyoung remembered asking with curiosity. Wondering if it was the pressure of the work itself as he knew Seonghwa’s way of teaching left little room for play – only because the nature of being a healer required immense knowledge and skills that can’t simply be absorbed overnight. And Seonghwa expected no less than his best, pushing Wooyoung to where he knows his capabilities could take him to.

“This just wasn’t the place for them, which was a pity because they had potential…”

Wooyoung felt there were unspoken double meanings underneath that simple answer, but decided to not push for it. Instead he dedicated his time and energy in to learning when he found himself growing to genuinely enjoy this area of expertise. The move from his previous mundane life was unplanned but he didn’t regret taking up the opportunity; perhaps this was the change he never knew he needed, until now.

It was when a chime came from the tall grandfather clock at midday that the hummingbirds noisily came chittering and flapping their wings around the Master Healer and apprentice. Seonghwa had been demonstrating to Wooyoung how to finely slice evergreen opier roots for a healing elixir when they were interrupted by the commotion.

“Hush, one at a time. What’s all the fuss about?”

A marigold coloured hummingbird with speckled spots came to land on Seonghwa’s outstretch hand, some of the others making Wooyoung’s shoulders and head their perching spots once again. Wooyoung stared at his mentor who paid attention to the little bird’s rapid chirping, pondering if Seonghwa was a bird whisperer on the side or by some sorcery if he actually understood the bird.

Then the bell to the entrance jingled, effectively drawing everyone’s attention towards the doors.

“That must be our visitor, Wooyoung would you please let them in.”

Must be an important visitor if it had the hummingbirds excited, or so Wooyoung thought when he swung the dark oak doors open. Only to be met with an empty space, confusion taking over as he looked around.

A sharp yip caused him to cast his gaze downwards.

“Um…Seonghwa? There’s a….”

The little silver fox stared back up at Wooyoung, head tilting to the side and fluffy tail swishing lazily. It let out another sharp yip before proceeding to walk right through the entrance and in to the shop.

Wooyoung scrambled to move out of the way, still utterly confused but not wanting to risk unintentionally stepping on the creature…and was that an ornate scroll container slung around its body?

“Don’t be alarmed, this is one of the town’s messenger.”

What an odd term for a postman, if Wooyoung could even call it that. He watched the silver fox jump up lithely on to the stool and greedily took the chin scratches from Seonghwa before nudging the small container towards Seonghwa’s hands.

“Thank you for coming by to deliver this. Here, for your afternoon tea,” said Seonghwa, pinching one of the extra pastries and offering it to the silver fox. As it left ‘Drops of Aurora’ with its sweet snack, Wooyoung swore the creature winked at him right before it leapt back outside. He really hoped he wasn’t losing his mind already, closing the doors and rubbing his eyes at an attempt to calm his nerves from the small oddities he’s observed throughout the day so far.

He shuffled back over to where his mentor was already reading the paper parchment he retrieved from the container.

“Seonghwa, what’s The Twin Moons festival?” asked Wooyoung with curiosity, after taking a glance.

The sheer look of surprise and raising of eyebrows fleeted across Seonghwa’s face, entirely missed by Wooyoung since he still had his eyes on the parchment. To Seonghwa, the written text was common Elvish that he was fluent in understanding – but to anyone who Alderfell has yet to accept would’ve been foreign script.

And yet, Wooyoung was patiently waiting for an answer he shouldn’t even have known to inquire about in the first place.

Placing down the iron pot in the middle of the dining table, Wooyoung felt a great sense of achievement. The hearty venison stew with a mixture of herbs from Jongho’s garden (with his permission of course, Wooyoung wouldn’t risk the groundskeeper’s wrath) had steam rising and the aroma of spices, rosemary and juniper berries filled the room.

His cooking ability had grown immensely after his arrival, having found out that the mansion’s kitchen was hardly in use; simply putting it that –

“…there aren’t any ingredients? At all?”

“Well, nobody here really cooks.”

“How in the hell did you all survive till now?!”

Wooyoung took it upon himself to make sure that the pantry was stocked and everyone had some form of substantial food at least. Yeosang would remark that it’d give him an excuse to bring out the fancier gold plated cutlery sets since the whole group would gather together for dinner whenever Wooyoung cooked.

“Something smells delectable in here!” announced a tall figure with a cheery voice and an even cheerier smile.

Yeosang had just finished placing the last gold fork down when Yunho walked in to the dining room along with his fellow gentle giant, both already in their work attire and carrying over-cluttered folders. A careless yawn and the dishevelled fiery red hair gave a good indication that Mingi had just awoken from slumber. Wooyoung was aware that both worked predominantly throughout the night at Alderfell’s Observatory, hence their abnormal sleeping schedules. He once made a passing joke that Mingi could very well be a vampire with the rarity of seeing him during the daytime hours, which made Jongho snort and comment about the, “lack of imagination…such a cliché thought.”

A small basket of ruby red apples and plums was placed on the other side of table as everyone took their seats. “Been feeling rather generous lately and these were ripe for the picking,” said Jongho casually, subtly puffing his chest out.

“Aww, he really does have a heart after all.”

“I will not hesitate to leave the cheese in your room again and let the remu– I mean rats find their way to it.”

“You wouldn’t…Yeosang would never allow you to do something so cruel!”

“Please do not involve me in this.”

The high-pitched laughter escaped Wooyoung’s mouth and he held his sides for support. The light-hearted bickering reminded him of his family back home and how boisterous the atmosphere would get. It made him smile till his cheeks hurt because in good company, he felt less alone.

“We should start eating before the stew gets cold, wouldn’t want Wooyoung’s hard work go to waste now would we?”

Among the clinking of cutlery against ceramic bowls, Wooyoung heard his name being called by Yunho, “Oh! Before I forget…these are for you. Yeosang mentioned you needed new paper to finish your letter and I have abundant in stacks lying around for the taking. I’ll be sending mail back to my family too, would you like for me to post yours off tomorrow morning?”

Wooyoung’s mind reeled back to the previous night’s mishap and promptly made a mental note to rewrite the letter after dinner. Or else his mother would surely worry her way into bombarding Yunho next with letters about her son’s lack of response. Wooyoung felt that same warmth from before engulfing his heart and starts to think, as he reached out with grateful hands, that maybe he’s found his new home here after all.

The Twin Moons festival turned out to be longer than just a day’s worth of celebration, rather it went on for two whole weeks. Wooyoung had been slightly overwhelmed at the start, even more so when visitors from smaller neighbouring towns poured in for the festivities. Alderfell came alive at night where Wooyoung got to witness the unveiling of the moons as the clouds parted and stars shone like little diamonds bedazzling the darkened sky.

“Yeosang! Look at the colour!”

And what Wooyoung found more astounding than the two giant azure orbs up above was that Yeosang had voluntarily left the mansion to accompany him down to the festival. He’s never really seen Yeosang leave the grounds of the mansion, unless he’s done so whenever Wooyoung had been at work, so being able to spend time with him outside was an enjoyable change. Wooyoung saw a couple of familiar faces in the crowds, notably Hongjoong who provided music for the townspeople; skilled fingers flying across the keys of the piano situated under the elegant gazebo and sweet low suave tunes enticed the crowd to slow dance the night away.

He could definitely see how Seonghwa became so enamoured with Hongjoong in the first place. If his charismatic presence wasn’t a big enough charm already than his music from the soul certainly was the final hook.

On the 3rd day, Wooyoung found out about the significance of moonflowers and why the entire town was decorated with them.

“Has anyone told you of Alderfell’s legend yet? It’s said that this land used to be occupied by the King’s bravest knights who defended against intruders. The fiercest knight left standing fought battle after battle, even after his head fell. Now in spirit, that same knight continues to guard this town. Rumour has it that in the wee hours of midnight you may hear the galloping of hooves in the distance or even catch a glimpse of a rider cloaked in black on a crimson-eyed noble steed if you’re courageous enough to venture out to the woodlands. The moonflowers we display are a tribute for our guardian!”

By the end of that Wooyoung was left with a copious amount of words to process and a, “…to guard this town from what?” at the tip of his tongue.

It wasn’t till the 10th day that Wooyoung got a cryptic answer of sorts to his question. Yunho and Mingi decided it was their turn to take Wooyoung down to the town square for the night, Yeosang opting to stay back at the mansion. They even managed to rope Jongho along who easily became distracted by the wood chopping competition and didn’t hesitate to sign up for it. Yunho introduced Wooyoung a local favourite drink, Duchess’ Crystal, which was a crystal clear liquid with an iridescent tinge and tasted like extremely sweetened blueberries. However there was a sting similar to that of drinking vodka when it hit the back of his throat.

Well into the night, a happy buzz tingling all over, Wooyoung asked Yunho what Alderfell was being guarded from.

“Oh my dear cousin, why there are many things! From deep within the woods, crooks and crannies…foul beasts that roam…fiends that lure with deceitful mimicry” Yunho spoke with a dramatic air.

Mingi slung an arm around Wooyoung’s shoulders, having gotten bolder with affection the more he drank. “Just remember this – do not always trust the voice that calls your name especially if you hear the clicking. Do not turn around, do not look and if by heavens’ grace you get a chance to…run!” he whispered to Wooyoung.

As inebriate as Wooyoung might have been in the moment, the chilling message stuck firm with him since. Logic scoffed at the ridiculous elaboration, yet intuition told him to take heed of this warning.

Fate sure had a peculiar way of working and Alderfell decided it was time for the final mask to be taken off.

“Oh shit…shit…bloody hell...” Wooyoung muttered like a mantra with each hasty step he took along the dirt pathway through the woodlands. He had spent all afternoon collecting medicinal herbs, mushrooms and flowers to restock some of Seonghwa’s ingredient jars that he completely lost track of time. Straying quite a distance inside where the rarer plants were found in abundance meant being able to fill his basket to the brim; though at the cost of how far he was from the safety of the town’s borders.

The sun was beginning to dip real low and Wooyoung could only hope that he’d reach back before the last sunray disappeared below the horizon.

He most certainly did not miss the fog that was currently creeping over the ground steadily chasing after his feet. Much to his delight there was the absence of it during the entirety of the time when the Twin Moons reigned the nights. Nerves were settled then but now, alone and stuck outside past the curfew set him right on edge.

Wooyoung held the basket closer and concentrated on moving forwards, refusing to allow his eyes to waver from the path ahead. The woods became eerily still and silence encompassed his surroundings, save for the crunching of leaves under his leather boots. Any other day he’d welcome the tranquillity with open arms. At present he was desperate for sound, for anything to drive away the feeling of being watched.

“I just hope someone will continue to feed the darling cat if I were to meet my demise here…” Wooyoung mumbled out loud, trying to elevate some of the tension by attempting to make light of his current predicament. He would miss the cat with gorgeous cerulean eyes that’s taken a liking to accompany him on the walk back to the mansion after work. It took him almost a solid week of many fresh salmon slices, sweet praises and patience to befriend the feline.

Just as the last light started to dwindle, Wooyoung finally caught sight of the familiar large wooden gate that he entered from. To hell with the uneven ground and risks of rolling ankles, Wooyoung was about to take off sprinting the last leg of the pathway.

“Wooyoung?”

He halted in his movement so abruptly that he nearly toppled over. The sudden voice that cut right through the silence took him by surprise.

“Seongh–“

Wooyoung paused from turning around to the sound of his mentor’s voice. Wait a minute…there had to be a mistake; Wooyoung knew for a fact that Seonghwa was out of town with Hongjoong and wasn’t due back till tomorrow. So why was he suddenly hearing…

“Do not always trust the voice that calls your name!” rang loudly in his mind.

His stomach dropped, limbs locked and frozen as sheer dread filled his veins.

And then he heard it.

Clicking.

Almost like sharp thin nails against glass, a heavy drag also followed. Conjuring up an image in Wooyoung’s mind – a mass of broken bones moving in unison, grating disjointed parts and the snapping of unhinged jaws at irregular intervals.

“Wooyoung.”

Came Yunho’s voice this time, luckily not sounding right from behind Wooyoung but not too far off either. The time he spent staring at the ground as he internally willed his body to move, he took notice of how thick the fog had become.

Each second that ticked by the clicking became louder and each time a different voice from someone he knew within Alderfell called his name. A part of him wanted to haul rocks whatever cursed being it was, angry that it had the audacity to mimic his friends with sinister intentions. But that would require turning around and he remembers, as clear as day, Mingi’s warning to not look.

At all.

The mimicry itself was perfect, however it felt off.

When the raspy breathing and rancid stench of decay hit his senses, his body jolted and legs broke out of its frozen state.

“RUN!”

An inhumane wail unleashed that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Which was more than enough for Wooyoung’s survival instincts to take off, kicking up the dirt and leaving the monstrosity behind. He could hardly see where his boot-clad feet landed as he sprinted, moonlight only being able to guide him where the fog hasn’t consumed. But he couldn’t care less so long as the distance between him and the wooden gate was diminishing.

Much to his dismay, it sounded like he was being followed as the clicking of bones were sent into a manic state and getting louder. Wooyoung yelled his throat hoarse, weaving in-between the trees and he was oh so close to grabbing the sturdy gate to leap over…

He lost his footing and fell, dropping the basket (he miraculously still had in his hold all this time) in the process. Something was painfully squeezing his right ankle. Looking downwards he had to bring a hand to cover his mouth, bile rising and threatening to spill at the sight. A solemn grey coloured…hand…if Wooyoung could even call it that, with unnaturally long spindly fingers each had unforgivingly sharp bone white talons protruding out from their joints.

“WOOYOUNG, HELP ME.”

“NO! STOP, GET THE HELL OFF ME!”

Wooyoung was blindly kicking in the direction of the ‘Yeosang’ voice that wailed, feeling the crooked fingers clamped down harder and he was pretty certain it was going to leave a nasty bruise for days. Too focused on trying to get his feet out of the creature’s vice grip he didn’t pick up on a distinct neigh and sound of hooves charging across the ground.

It all came at a blur for Wooyoung.

One minute he was thrashing about and then he was sailing through the air, having been flung by a mighty force. Luck was still on his side when his landing was cushioned by a pile of foliage. His ankle freed from the death trap.

“Be gone, you vile creature. Go back to the depths of the Abyss from which you came!” a disembodied voice bellowed through the woods.

Wooyoung’s eyes was on high alert for he did not recognise the commanding voice. He rolled over to his side where he heard metallic sounds and piercing screeches of a battle unfolding.

He swore upon the heavens for the second time that night. Not entirely sure if he was stuck in a twisted dream or that Alderfell’s legend was far more real than fantasy.

“I ought to start believing in ghost stories…”

Wooyoung watched as the headless rider strike his luminous blade fiercely down on the creature. One of its several elongated limbs made a clawed swipe at the rider’s steed, to which the shadowy stallion reared defensively on hind legs. Using the window of opportunity, the creature dashed in an attempt to flee though it didn’t make it very far.

“Close your eyes.”

The voice returned with a firm yet gentler undertone. It took Wooyoung a whole 30 seconds to realise that the instruction was directed at him and he followed right through; knowing enough to not question a legendary figure who had just saved his life. In the few milliseconds before he blocked out the view entirely, he witnessed the rider’s hands being engulfed in purple flames along with his sword, the blade itself unlocking in sections and extending to resemble more of a whip.

There was a cacophony of metal crushing bone, wail-screeches filling up Wooyoung’s eardrums, a sudden searing heat blowing against his skin and the reciting of an ancient language before silence took over again.

Wooyoung let out a deep breath.

He was alive, he was breathing and his heart still beating.

Just to be cautious he peeked one eye open, deeming it was safe to open the other and shook his head slightly to re-focus his sight in the dark. The headless rider stood by what Wooyoung assumed was the monster from before, now nothing more than a crumbling husk. Small purple embers ate away at it sending bits of ash floating off into the empty air.

Now under the spotlight of the moon, Wooyoung could get a better look at the headless rider. He was expecting a gory wound where the head was meant to be, instead black smoky tendrils coiled calmly in place. A heavy-duty cloak sat upon lightweight armour, leather gloves, pants and sabatons all of which were in an obsidian black. Wooyoung thought the rider would’ve looked rather regal, headless or not.

The stallion let out a low grunt signalling a reminder that they still had company.

Wooyoung stumbled to his feet, wincing slightly at his swollen ankle, when the headless rider sheathed the sword and turned to make his way towards the young healer apprentice. The sea of fog seemed to part and retreat wherever the headless rider stepped.

Up close both figures seemed to tower over Wooyoung but he didn’t shrink back in fear. Not when the stallion with mounted spiked armour and glowing crimson eyes stared into his soul nor when the headless rider quietly regarded him in his formidable presence. They didn’t pose a threat…or at least Wooyoung didn’t feel like they did.

“Your leg…is it hurting?”

So he had noticed Wooyoung keeping his weight off his right side

Now that the headless rider wasn’t fending off terror entities, he spoke in a warmer honeyed voice. Another aspect Wooyoung wasn’t expecting of the mythical figure. He could imagine the rider’s head tilting down to survey his leg as he asked the question.

“Ah…yeah, my ankle’s not in the best shape at the moment.”

The headless rider descended down on one knee and held out a gloved hand towards Wooyoung’s right foot.

“May I?”

Wooyoung mutely nodded and balancing on his left foot, he allowed the headless rider to hold his other to inspect the injury. The same hands that wielded a sword to slay were handling Wooyoung with utter care.

“It doesn’t seem to be broken, but best to get it treated soon. Come.”

A confused noise escaped Wooyoung when the headless rider beckoned him closer to the saddle.

“You came from Alderfell did you not?”

Another nod.

“It’ll be much quicker to return by horse than on feet, these woods aren’t safe at this hour…as you now are well aware of.”

Wooyoung felt bewildered. Only just a week ago, he found out about the legendary Dullahan and now said legend was planning to stroll through town to escort him back?

“Are you allowed to?” was what Wooyoung wanted to ask, instead he settled for, “But you don’t even know where in Alderfell I live.”

An amused chuckle resounded all around.

“I trust that you ought to know the way back home, little healer. You’ll be my guide for tonight.”

Wooyoung gawked at where the smoky tendrils were intertwining together, not doubt there was a grin hidden somewhere in there.

How did the headless rider know about Wooyoung’s connection with healer’s work? How was he being so…nonchalant about, well everything? Was he always this approachable towards other townspeople that may have encountered him? Did they even know that Alderfell’s legend actually exists? Questions upon questions that Wooyoung would demand answers for if he wasn’t already so drained from his near-death experience. Should he ever get the chance to meet his saviour again, he’d pester him about it then.

For now, Wooyoung was ready to head back home.

‘Is the legend really true?”

“Might I ask you to please clarify, which part of?”

“You being a knight…and that you’ve been guarding this town, or rather, land since you lost…your…”

“My head? You’re allowed to say that, I take no offence. After all I’ve had a century or two to get used to this new form.”

“Wow, you’re practically an ancient!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. To answer your question, yes. It seems like even after death, my guardianship of this land still remains.”

“…The thing, back from before…is that the reason why Alderfell has the curfew?”

“There are others besides Hollowsworns that come from The Abyss to hunt after dark. The curfew is a precaution. Alderfell has its own ways–powerful ways–to protect its people.”

“Like yourself?”

“You could say that.”

“You truly are the bravest. Do you have a name Sir Knight?”

The shadowy stallion let out a loud snort.

“So are you, and apologies for not introducing myself sooner. You may call me San, Choi San.”

“You have my deepest gratitude for saving my life Sir Choi. My name’s Jung Wooyoung!”

“Just…San is quite enough, Wooyoung. You’re very welcome.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Is it because it makes you sound old?”

To say the residents back at Rosentine Mansion were worrying their heads off was an understatement. Yunho was ready to lead a search party out for Wooyoung even if it meant breaking the rules. Jongho argued that was a counterproductive plan since no one knew exactly where Wooyoung had even wandered off to.

“What if something were to happen to you? That’ll be another added issue!” With Seonghwa being absent, they couldn’t turn to their level-headed elder for help.

It was a painful waiting game.

When the clopping of hooves and spectral guardian came into view from the porch, both Yeosang and Jongho instantaneously leapt up from where they had been sitting on the stairs.

“Yunho! Mingi! Get out here now, Wooyoung’s back!” hollered Jongho, sticking his head through the front door.

Meanwhile Yeosang had ran down ahead, oil lamp swinging in his hand, to fling open the front gates.

“Is he…?!”

“He’s safe, just in slumber. Understandably so.”

Wooyoung had fallen asleep against San’s chest on the ride back, head cradled under where San’s chin would’ve been and letting out soft snores.

“OH THANK MIHTOS!”

“HE’S ALIVE!’

“Shush! Or do you want to wake up the entire town?”

Jongho and Yunho managed to squeeze past Yeosang out on to the street. They worked to slowly lift Wooyoung’s sleeping form off the saddle and into Yunho’s arms so he could carry him back inside. San untied Wooyoung’s basket (that he made sure to recover, “I worked hard and nearly died for those!”) from his saddle bag and passed it over to Mingi.

Everyone thanked San profusely, Jongho even sneaking an apple from his pocket to feed the stallion which bowed in appreciation.

“San…”

The small whine ceased the group’s chatter, all eyes turned towards the figure curled up in Yunho’s arms. One of Wooyoung’s arm reached out languidly for San’s gloved ones. The Dullahan reciprocated to envelop Wooyoung’s hand with his.

“…thank you, again”

“Sleep well Wooyoung, may dreams allow you to rest properly tonight,” San responded softly with a light squeeze to Wooyoung’s hand.

Mingi followed Yunho back inside to help him get Wooyoung to bed while Jongho and Yeosang stayed to see San off.

“He can hear me, just like you two.”

“Who’s looking forward to seeing Seonghwa’s face tomorrow when he returns and learn of what’s happened?”

“I’m relieved that Wooyoung is here to stay, I’m growing rather fond of the young mister.”

“Do prepare Wooyoung for the discussion...”

“More like a history lesson!”

“...and please check on his ankle as soon as you can, the Hollowsworn got there before I did.”

San waited till Yeosang and Jongho disappeared behind the mansion doors before manoeuvring the reigns of his horse back in the direction he came from. It has been an eventful night and the Dullahan was intrigued by the young apprentice. There was much more to Jung Wooyoung than meets the eye – much like Alderfell and he hoped to cross paths with him soon again.

A purr stopped San and his steed in their tracks.

“There you are my dear, so this is where you’ve roamed to.”

A gloved hand patted at the rear and the cerulean-eyed cat claimed the spot on the horseback, nestling comfortably behind its master.

Somewhere else in a well-kept tomb beneath the winged stone sculpture, a dimpled smile forms on a serene face resting on a pillow of moonflowers. The head lets out a contented sigh.

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