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kashimos-hajime · 3 years

Text

the colour yellow | jjk

summary: “You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right.”

WARNINGS: ANGST!! hanahaki disease but not an au, HOSPITALS, DEATH, DESCRIPTIONS OF DISEASE, UNHEALTHY WEIGHT LOSS, pining, unrequited love, complicated feelings, its just sad. there are some light-hearted moments, and happier/softer aspects in the ending but it is generally sad in the ‘what could have been’ department pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader, past geto suguru x fem!reader, mentions of satosugu word count: 29.9k lmao

a/n: i just needed to get the hanahaki out of my system. it did not work. i took liberties w the timeline because idc about actual jjk canon in this fic thanks.

playlist for this fic

crossposted on ao3 x

Your Innate Technique always gave you a green thumb. Meaning, similarly enough to Yaga, you could plant cursed energy into objects.

Where it deviated, Satoru knows, is the type of object. Plants—trees, leaves, flowers.

Ironic, he thinks numbly as he walks through the hospital. Shoko had told him that at this point it was palliative care until you died—nothing else would work. Cursed energy only fed your sickness, and even her technique could not heal the damage fast enough. Stupid. Idiotic. Cruel.

Cruel. That was the word.

He hadn’t seen it himself but from how his old friend had described it, it could only be cruel.

His footsteps tap along the linoleum floors, urgent, but not too fast. A part of him dreads what he will see—his mind swirls with the possibilities, and of guilt.

Why didn’t he just come sooner? Why did he think it was okay to wait, to dismiss Itadori when he said you’d been checked in for your coughing fits?

“She’s strong. She’ll be fine,” he had said. Itadori’s small frown. “A little feather in her throat isn’t going to knock her down.”

Why? Why? Why? Why did he say that?

Because it had to be serious to put you in the hospital. For fuck’s sake, you were still that teenage girl who stood outside his dorm window in the middle of a thunderstorm to bring Fushiguro a birthday present before you left for a curse expedition a thousand years ago, and the woman who welcomed him into your home unprompted on December 24th, your cheeks dry, lips pressed in a brave smile.

You had held him tight enough he could not see the blood, scrubbed him in a bathtub, ran your fingers through his hair until the sweat and grime was gone. You took care of him because he knows the belief that no one should be left behind to suffer alone has been engrained in you since the day he’s met you.

He should’ve known. A girl abandoned for being cursed had turned into woman with a saviour complex who’d barely even think about telling him you were dying.

Dying, of all things, from a disease no one knows how to cure. And you’re a sorcerer.

He could’ve laughed. The irony is enough to make him smile.

Your room’s in a tiny corner of the hospital, down the hall from a nurse’s station, and as he walks through, he can see the grey sunlight streaming through the window, glaring against his glasses. He lifts them to rub the heel of his hand into his eye.

He doesn’t want you to worry when you see him, and mostly, he needs to stall. His heart is in knots in his chest, and he spots a chair beside the door with your name in the plastic slate, so he sits down. His knees feel gummy and he leans forward, the visitor’s pass clipped to the front of his shirt hanging.

Satoru tugs the glasses off his face, fits his palm over his brow and squeezes his eyes shut. It’s chilling in this dead end, and he swallows tightly. Everything tastes so dry as he looks up and shoves his hand underneath the sanitizer dispenser, rubbing it all over his hands just so he has something to do.

After a few minutes, he gets up and sets a hand on the knob.

It can’t be as bad as he’s imagining. At most, you’re a bit sick, but you’ll still be spritely, warm in the lips and with arms outstretched and, “Satoru, finally!”

He opens the door.

You’re sitting hunched over in bed. Silhouette outlined by the white-grey sunlight from outside your hospital room, you’re trembling as you hold onto a receptacle. An IV is hooked to your arm, a hospital gown is barely hiding anything, and it feels immoral to even look so Satoru doesn’t. Instead, he pauses by the doorframe and closes his eyes for a moment as your gaze flashes to him.

He feels it, to be honest. The heat of your stare until it is wrenched away by a violent cough you instinctually muffle by your palm, blood splattering over your hand, soft, velveteen purple petals falling from your lips and into the receptacle in your lap.

You’re supposed to have a green thumb.

Vines bend to your will if you command it, you can summon forth thorns to impale your opponents, send thick creeping ivy to barricade a doorway. It doesn’t matter if there is no greenery in your immediate area. At the sweep of your hand, the ground could rumble with the sound of trees twisting their gnarled roots into feet to march at your command.

Just as long as they’re within range and you’ve touched them in the past few hours, they’re yours.

So, why can’t you stop this?

Plants are supposed to listen to you, right? As he stares at your shaking body on the bed, curved over the plastic tub, thick globs of bloodied spit drip from your lips and soaked purple blossom petals entwine with your life essence. His heart plummets to his chest. You retch, spit, choke, and every sound stabs him in the chest as he takes a weak step forward, hand stretched out limply.

Your name flutters, barely leaves his lips before you’re looking at him again, a bit of a mortifying image but nonetheless.

Even so, you smile, despite the blood painting your face, the exhaustion morphing your body. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and your hands shake around the receptacle. You look battered, bruised along the arms where the needles keeping you filled with antibiotics, medicine you need, had punctured you.

And still, you’re beaming at him. He thinks he’s going to be sick.

“Hi, Satoru.”

His hand falls. Eyes wide, he cannot take another step. You wipe at your lips, tossing the tissue into the trash before pushing the plastic receptacle onto the table and swinging your legs off the bed.

“Don’t—“ he croaks but you don’t listen, sliding your feet into slippers and grabbing your IV stand to take a step towards him. Your knees nearly give in but you stick out a hand before he can rush to catch you. Then, you’re pushing yourself up and walking over to him. It’s more of a shuffle, but Gojo finds he can’t care as you land on his chest, hands pressing into his back.

You’re a bit cold in his arms, and he wraps himself around you, trying to rub the heat back into your skin as you shudder, but your heart is still racing as it always does around him, and you…

You’re the type of person who can shift how the air feels and looks to his Six Eyes with your smile or your tears or your frown, and in that moment, the air bleeds yellow with your joy. It’s so bright in his soul that it makes his heart skip as you shift on your feet against him, hands sliding down so your arms can circle his waist and haul him closer.

“Gojo Satoru turning off his infinity for little ole me,” you murmur, voice raspy, as he closes his eyes, cradling your head. Without another word, he sinks into you. “Talk about the world ending.”

Why didn’t you just call him? Why did you let him stay away for so long? He doesn’t want to ask why it’s happening, or how. He already knows you’ll just lie. But he wants to know if you think so lowly of him that you thought you didn’t matter to him.

After Suguru…

How could you think that? He’s screaming inside his mind as he touches your back, feels the faint protruding ridges along your skin when he pushes down. It makes your spine a bit more pronounced along the knobs, your shoulder blades a bit bumpy, but otherwise, it’s almost normal. One wouldn’t even be able to tell without touching you and actively searching for it. How could you think I don’t care?

This isn’t the work of a cursed spirit, that much he knows. It seems much more seductive, sneaking yet unhurried in its nature. This is agony in effigy. There’s something rotten inside you, but he can’t tell what it is. The energy is everywhere.

You pull back to look up at him with a soft smile, then tap his nose and tell him to join you before turning around and climbing back into bed with energy that betrays your earlier fits. You grab your robe that you’ve left on your bed before getting up again and walking around, shrugging the fabric back onto your shoulders.

He sits down in a visitor’s chair that is still cold.

“It comes and goes,” you explain first with your new, croaky voice, stretching your arms above your head and rubbing your neck. It doesn’t look painful, but you clear your throat a lot to see if it helps. So far, nothing. “So, it’s just like a really bad coughing fit, to be honest.”

“How long has it been going on?” Your hip cracks and you let out a relieved sigh. Satoru arches an eyebrow as you animatedly stretch your face. “What are you doing, silly?”

“It got worse a few weeks ago, enough that Nanami insisted I check myself in around two weeks ago?” you say, after counting on your fingers. Satoru’s heart plummets. “But it’s levelled out since I’ve been moved here and off-campus. And I’m stretching. When I get back out there, I have to remember how to emote.” You flash him a bedazzling grin and a bit of the weight lifts off his shoulders as you swallow down another cough. This time, it’s successful and you only let out a short, raspy breath before shaking it out.

You aren’t even doing that bad.

The blood, the flowers, that must’ve been just a bad bout, but otherwise, you seem quite normal.

That’s what he tells himself, and he believes it.

With relief, he stretches out his legs, leaning his head back on his hands. Your room’s pretty nice—much nicer than an average hospital room. Plants on the windowsills, some get-well-soon cards and a desk in the corner filled books that you look like you haven’t even begun to read, some paintings hanging off the walls.

You wave a hand to grab his attention again.

“Don’t look,” you chastise, tying the robe around your waist. “Some of these are works in progress.”

“So Itadori and Shoko were just exaggerating,” he assumes. You look up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “If you’re attempting to paint, I know all that’s happened is that you’ve lost your mind.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, they made it out as if you were dying. If it’s just a lung issue, they could probably just fix it and we can get back to exorcising curses and making fun of Fushiguro’s teen angst,” he says, crossing his legs at the ankles. You step over them to go to the window and examine your plants, and he eyes you in his peripheral, watching you inspect one of the leaves before looking next at some blooming flowers. You don’t answer, and the grey light makes you look melancholy until you shrug.

“The doctors say I need to rest, save my strength and all that,” you finally say vaguely. “And don’t make fun of Fushiguro.”

“I’d never do that.”

You tilt your head and arch an eyebrow skeptically before flicking his forehead with a sharp donk. “I’m not above slapping the shit out of you.” He opens his mouth to argue and you hold up a finger, shutting him up. “And you can’t hit back as revenge. Ill hospital patient rights.”

“You can’t take the moral stand. Vengeance has no gender bias,” he exclaims, sitting up but you merely smirk, leaning over and shoving your face into his space before turning your head to present your cheek. His eyes widen as you poke your own face tauntingly.

“Do it, then.”

Gawking for a moment, Satoru stares but you only wink and he pushes you away lightly. You stumble a bit and he jumps to his feet to catch you but you manage to right yourself up, shooting him a foul glare. He glares back in response.

“Well, obviously, I wasn’t going to actually slap you,” he says, indignant.

“So you pushed me instead? Gojo, in your words, you are the strongest. You never know how to control the strength you push out.”

“Yes, I do!”

“One time, you patted Megumi on the back and you sent him into the pavement.”

“He was nine.”

“It still happened!” you cry, although an impish smile is already curling at your lips and it isn’t long before it spreads to Satoru, warm bright yellow and enough that it absolves any of the remaining pain in his body as you straighten up, holding onto your IV stand for support. The metal rattles a bit as the wheels roll. Your feet brush the ground. You lift your head up wretchedly.

It’s almost like that weakness sobers you.

The expression that overtakes you frightens Satoru to fucking death.

His face feels like it numbs, staring at the darkness that seeps the light away. You stare at the metal pole your fingers are wrapped so tightly around, and then you look at the bag hanging there, clear and round and soft to your touch as you straighten up.

“Satoru,” you say softly.

“Yeah?” His voice is so quiet he’s not sure he even speaks. He can’t remember the last time you had looked so dispassionate at anything in his life. Even death had left its mark—black frowns, long streaks underneath your eyes.

Your apathy is dark purple, an endless void colour.

“When I die, make sure Shoko’s the one who cuts me open to find out what’s wrong with me.”

Something prickles at his fingertips. He touches your shoulder and half-thinks his fingers will go right through you.

“You’re not going to die,” he insists firmly. “It’s just a bad cough.” You look up at him and blink. Then you touch your lips and shudder down another cough.

“We all die.”

“It’s not your time, yet.” His fingers dig into your shoulder. You don’t even wince even though you’re clenching his jaw but he can’t find it in himself to loosen his hold. It feels like the Jaws of Death. A crocodile’s bite.

So much for not being able to control his own power.

“It’s just a bad cough.” He ignores everything Shoko had said. Sometimes she’s wrong—sometimes, it’s not even that bad. He’d just seen it, hadn’t he? You were stretching, jumping onto your bed, acting like nothing was wrong.

Palliative care? As if you needed it—

You blink, then, and look at him. Stare at him as if you’d never said those words, and he had never reached out.

You jerk your shoulder out of his grip. It stings more than it should.

“Right. But I’m just saying. You know how you always say I’ve got a few screws loose. It just makes sense someone will wanna crack me open to see what was going on up there and I want it to be her.”

You smile, and the yellow cancels out the purple.

Colour theory.

But Satoru doesn’t smile back.

“What about the flowers?” he asks after a while. You’ve climbed back onto bed and he’s sat back down. You’re blowing into a spirometer, and every time, without fail, the ball shoots up to the top, clattering against the plastic. He watches, hoping that the next time, it’ll do the same thing again.

You stop and look at him. “What about them?”

“Is it some optical illusion? Why are they in your throat?”

“That’s a harder nut to crack,” you muse. “I don’t really know. It’s like when you’ve got food in your esophagus and you’re trying to cough it up so it doesn’t feel stuck anymore except it keeps building up. That only started a few days ago, though, so maybe, someone drugged me or something.” He doesn’t laugh and you frown. “Not funny?”

He shakes his head. “It’s freaky.”

He sits on the bench on campus.

He’s cancelled classes because he didn’t come up with a standard lesson plan and his students are glad to have a Monday afternoon off, even if they’d never say it to his face. In truth, he’d spent the whole weekend at the hospital until he reeked of antiseptic and pollen.

You coughed up five petals, and without fail, a nurse would come in hourly intervals to collect them. Shoko came once, to check up on you and to collect the samples. If she was surprised Satoru was sitting in the corner on his phone, she didn’t voice it.

“She’s not even doing that bad,” he says to the air, more accusatory than anything. The woman standing by him doesn’t answer and sits down beside him uninvited. Turning to look at her, his eyes narrow behind his blindfold. “You said she needed palliative care until she died. The doctor said she could leave tonight.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive concepts,” she informs, not looking at him. Shoko looks a bit out of place in the warm colours of the garden. Half a corpse herself. Waif-like. “The doctor’s letting her relax in the comfort of her own home before she dies. That’s all.”

“She’s not going to die.”

She snorts. “Denial isn’t a good colour on you.” The words could’ve been delivered colder. Satoru is grateful that they weren’t.

Shoko rests her hands on her knees, tilts her head up, and sighs. Her long hair is like warm chocolate in the sunlight, spilling down her arched back from the knot she tied. “If you have any idea on how to fix this, I’m listening with both ears.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” he says. “Coughing and flowers? I’ve never heard of a sickness like that before.”

“Nanami pointed out that it could be a curse someone placed on her. I don’t know why, but it’d be an explanation.” Satoru spreads his legs, plants an elbow on his knee and leans forward to look at the ants travelling along the cobblestone before his shoe. “It manifested on some negative emotion lingering inside her and it’s growing every day, but she won’t budge.” Shoko sighs. Her purple eye bags look worse in the sunlight, but he would never tell her that. “Maybe you’d have a better chance digging into her. With Geto gone, there’s no one else to ask, is there?”

“What about you? What happened to girls and their little secrets?” he jokes, trying to ignore the ache that begins to bloom in his chest. Shoko eyes him wryly.

“I have suspicions, but there are some things girls don’t ask other girls,” she retorts. “It’s never been my business anyway. My job is to treat her, and I’ve given her options. It’s up to her to take them. Grief is a birthing ground for curses, and if she’s letting them feed on her freely, you know what fate is waiting for her.”

With that, she gets up and leaves as quickly as she arrived. Satoru swallows the smell of flowers and feels sick.

Monday night, Satoru pulls up his laptop and looks through, searching up words he can string together in a coherent sense to get the answers he wants. As rare as it probably is, some research wouldn’t hurt, would it? Some curses had a trademark affliction—maybe this one does, too.

So he searches up flower coughing to see if there has ever been a record of strange deaths that have made the news. If not, he’ll go to the jujutsu databases, but for now, maybe some publicity could put some answers to this question.

He is surprised when one of the first results is flower coughing disease.

When he hits enter, the white screen blasts into blue irises with numerous results all repeating the same two words.

HANAHAKI DISEASE

And Satoru reads, and reads, and reads. He reads two weeks to three months, he reads unrequited love, and removal, and disappearance of romantic feelings and capacity for romantic love.

He reads fictional disease and wonders how much of it really is fictional.

His phone pings with a text, and he grabs at it, tilts it just enough to get a glimpse of the screen. It’s from you, and he hasn’t read a text from you in so long he almost doesn’t recognize who it’s from except he does because… who else could it be?

[Greenbean] 11:02 PM

hey!!! guess whos finally fucking free oh my god

ugh out of the hospital and forgot how actual air smelled like lol bitch im so hungry i could eat a zoo

Letting his phone clatter, he sighs and rubs his face roughy, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before snapping his laptop shut and getting up. His phone buzzes again and he reaches for it blindly, the screen lighting up as he goes to bed.

[Greenbean] 11:03 PM

we should get smth to eat!! i wanna go to that new ramen place in ikebukoro

[Satoru] 11:03 PM

fine but you good???? who picked you up from the hospital? still insulted you didnt let me tbh

also what did the doctor say???

[Greenbean] 11:04 PM

bc ur a menace who doesnt know how to drive

he said itd get worse before itd get better so still gotta go for checkups but yeah dont worry and nanami came bc he didnt trust me not to try and walk home lol but he did buy me dinner

wasnt enough though!!!

…

[Greenbean] 11:06 PM

ok but fr does he think im insane

clearly id flash some skin and hitch a ride duh

…

[Greenbean] 11:10 PM

youre just gonna leave me on read? yikes

[Satoru] 11:12 PM

i was getting ready to sleep silly

and yeah ill come pick you up on saturday for lunch?

[Greenbean] 11:15 PM

sorry making instant noodles rn but yeah that sounds fine

wait youre sleeping so early lmfao

[Satoru] 11:16 PM

im old :/

[Greenbean] 11:18 PM

u sure are

(image sent)

look!!! my babies are still alive!!! idk how but miracles do exist im tellin ya

[Satoru] 11:24 PM

inumaki, maki, and fushiguro broke into ur home to water them but dont tell them i told u

[Greenbean] 11:24 PM

wtf

[Satoru] 11:25 PM

yeah idk when but i think u teaching inumaki how to pick locks has opened up too many possibilities but also its really funny thanks

now go to sleep u need to rest

[Greenbean] 11:28 PM

whos gonna make me lol youre not my dad

[Satoru] 11:29 PM

lol

remember how i can teleport

lol so cool

[Greenbean] 11:30 PM

dude

wtf

fine

goodnight hoe </3

[Satoru] 11:31 PM

goodnight knock off poison ivy <3

“You’ve looked better,” Shoko says. Satoru raises his head wearily as he pushes off the wall. Shoko’s holding a cup of coffee, her lab coat fresh on her shoulders and eye bags looking more printed on rather than natural swelling. Satoru can’t help but feel the same exhaustion. “Definitely looked worse. What do you want? It’s early.”

“Have you ever heard of Hanahaki disease?” he asks. She shakes her head, and he pulls up the page on his phone and hands it to her. She takes it from him and her eyes scan the screen as he continues, “It’s this fictional disease, something that stems from unrequited love, and I think it could be related to whatever she’s experiencing.”

“I thought you were set on willing her to survive,” she replies dryly, shooting him a quick look and adjusting the coffee in her hand. “But this is definitely one of your stranger theories.”

Satoru ignores that last part. “It’d make sense. With her Cursed Technique, maybe it manifested in a way that links to it.”

She pushes into the office, setting the coffee on her desk and sitting down. Satoru sits down on the exam table closest and leans forward eagerly as she continues to read the page, scrolling down occasionally before scrolling back up and sighing. “This is a stretch. The timeline doesn’t match up to what this is saying.”

“This is a curse. It doesn’t have to follow fiction.” His body feels sore, janky even, everywhere. He barely got a wink of sleep last night and he knows he’s paying for it, now. “Hell knows life rarely does, anyway. But the symptoms matches too well, doesn’t it? The flowers—you’ve done scans, haven’t you?”

She deliberates his words carefully as she looks to the file cabinet and pulls out a binder. Satoru catches a flash of your name on the spine before she moves her coffee and his phone out of the way to flip it open.

“The scans we’ve taken have only just begun to show small growths in her trachea,” she allows, “and we don’t fully understand how cursed energy affects our bodies, so I suppose it could be something like Hanahaki, if the negative energy stemming from December 24th was what brought this on or if these symptoms started when we were still students, but she’s been experiencing shortness of breath a few months before Christmas.” Satoru’s lungs squeeze the last of the air out of them at that, and a cold sweat drops down his spine as she hands his phone back to him. “It only started getting worse Suguru’s death, which meant there had to have been a trigger before that.”

In the back of his head, he hears your voice, light and yellow, saying a few weeks. It got worse a few weeks ago.

“Worse?”

“The first petal fell some time after Christmas. It’s been a slow, but steady progression since then. Sometimes, it’s two or three. When it’s not a good day, there can be as many as seven to ten.” Shoko switches on the lamp on the corner of her desk and adjusting the direction of the white light before flipping the page. “But if we can find the original trigger and alleviate that pressure it’s putting on her, we could buy her more time.”

“So it’s been nearly six months since the first petal,” he says. Shoko nods. Satoru is grateful for the blindfold—she can’t see how blank everything looks on his face. “It said sometimes, the disease can last for eighteen months.”

“As you said, this isn’t a fairytale.” She half-spins on her chair to face him and leans back into it, crossing one leg over the other and jiggling her knee. “I saw that one of the solutions is excise the growths at the cost of the attachment. That was one of the options I gave her when the growths first appeared. She said she wanted more time before she could decide.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because she’s smart, and likes to push her damned limits. And if this is truly the basis of the curse”—she gestures to Satoru’s phone. Her expression flickers—“those flowers are feeding off cursed energy. Cutting them out would remove those negative emotions, but at a cost of something else. Maybe whatever feelings she has regarding the trigger.”

Satoru looks down at his phone. It feels heavier than a thousand cinderblocks in his clammy hands. His fingers are numb as his screen dims and finally locks itself. Pressing the button, it illuminates again to reveal a picture of a cactus you gave him for his birthday years ago, blooming with delicate purple petals.

His heart rends. That cactus is long dead now.

“But, Suguru’s dead.”

“That’s why I asked you to ask her,” Shoko mutters.

Turning to her binder again, she picks up a pen and clicks it, lowering it to the paper before pausing, and Satoru looks up as she stares at whatever words are printed into the page distantly. A strange affliction is on her face, almost tormented, and Satoru is not-so-kindly reminded that before Suguru and Satoru, Shoko was your best friend first.

“Tell her how idiotic she’s being,” she enforces quietly. “The longer it lives, the more permanent damage is inflicted. With the unpredictable nature of curses, that won’t take long and by then, it’ll be too late to consider removing it.”

Saturday comes too fast, yet not fast enough. By the end of the week, Satoru is all but finished with teaching, and is waiting outside your apartment, leaning against the car as he scrolls through his phone. He’s done a bit more research on this Hanahaki disease, but even the word makes him shiver with the implications.

“Satoru!” Turning, he catches you loping easily towards him. You’re dressed in billowy, wide-legged dark mint green pants and a pretty white top that makes you look more nymph than human, with a canvas tote bag hanging off your shoulder. You flash him a smile as you fiddle with the fabric tie at the waistband of your pants nervously. “Hi.”

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind I brought Ijichi along for the ride since someone claims I can’t drive.”

“You don’t have your license, sir,” Ijichi says wearily as you bend over to wave through the window. "It would be illegal for you to be on the road in any capacity—oh, hello, ma’am. It’s nice to see you doing so well.”

“Thanks, Ijichi. I think I’m doing better after getting out of there,” you say as Satoru opens the car door for you and he smirks, eyes crinkling behind his sunglasses. You straighten up, looking at him before poking his chest and it’s almost just like the good ole days as you break out into a grin that crinkles your entire face. “What’s with you being a gentleman? It better not be because I was in the hospital.”

“Of course not,” he admonishes. “I wouldn’t dare dream of being polite to you of all people.” Still, he sidesteps and sweeps his arm, gesturing for you to climb in first which you do, exhaling a bit shakily as you settle in and slide over. By the time he’s settled in beside you, you have a fist over your lips and you’re clearing your throat testily.

A worm of unease wriggles into his stomach as he clips in his seatbelt, pulling the lapels of his unbuttoned green shirt free from the strap. Legs spreading, he lets his hands fold in his lap as Ijichi begins to drive them to their destination. You’ve lowered your hand by now, looking out the window, and it’s not bright enough that Satoru can read your expression on the glass.

It’s clear you don’t want to talk about it, but still, that nagging feeling bites at him as he rolls the divider up between the backseat and the front—a mock of privacy.

“The place we’re going to gives me the same vibe as that family-owned restaurant we went to when we were students. The one in Kagurazaka,” you say after a while, turning back to look at him. You’re wearing a bracelet that jangles when you move your hand to adjust the seatbelt across your chest. “I think you’ll like it.”

“Have you been?”

“One time, before I checked in,” you tell him, smiling still. “It was really good. The perfect last meal.” Satoru does well enough to hide his frown at your choice of words as you meet his eyes. “You know, you can ask. I’m not fragile.”

“I don’t have anything to ask,” he lies. “I’m just glad you’re out of the hospital.”

“Me, too. I’ve missed so much and it drove me insane. Yaga-sensei insists that I don’t work until I’m sure I’m feeling better,” you add. “But to be honest, there’s nothing much that can be done to make me feel better.”

“I see. So you’re still coughing up flowers?”

“Petals,” you correct, “and a bit. Don’t worry. It’ll get better soon.” You wave a hand and turn to look out the window and Satoru’s appetite all but vanishes. He doesn’t know why you’re so intent on lying to him about the severity of your condition, but as your knee jiggles relentlessly the whole car ride with unbridled excitement, he wonders if you’re even aware of how sick you could be.

His Six Eyes scan your body for signs of a curse. Normally, those plagued have their little burdens hanging off their shoulders, prying their head open, biting into an arm or leg, but he finds yours lives inside your chest, just barely hidden by the yellow light brimming from your body as you reach forward to lower the divider and talk to Ijichi.

They reach Ikebukuro before they’re dropped off after Satoru insists on walking the rest of the way.

“Give us some privacy, Ijichi! We both know you’ll just eavesdrop for the juicy details,” he exclaims loudly, leading to the man to blush furiously, stuttering that he’d do no such thing, and earning Satoru a smack on the back of his head, knocking his sunglasses askew.

“Thanks for the ride, Ijichi,” you say warmly as if you hadn’t slapped a concussion into Satoru. The Assistant Director dips his head. “See you later!” With that, he drives off and the two sorcerers are left in the busy street. Satoru looks around curiously, but you tug him along up the main road of the district and immediately turn right into one of the smaller streets. A few cyclists race past, as well as cars, but the traffic seems relatively slow despite it being the weekend. There are people walking along the white lines separating the lanes, chatting merrily as you lead him to the restaurant.

“I forgot how actual sunlight felt,” you sigh, stretching your arms high above your head as if to touch the wind breezing through. Inhaling deeply, you close your eyes. Satoru waits for you to begin to cough, and you hold it in, throat tensing a bit.

He looks away, and pretends he doesn’t hear your sharp exhale, the soft cough you try to muffle with your hand. Instead, he looks at their surroundings, traces the green roads, watches a man park his bicycle and take the plastic bags out of the basket before rushing into a store. The air smells faintly of smoke, and Satoru waves in front of his face to see if it’ll help dispel the scent, but it’s so engrained with the hint of meat, honey, sweets, and flowers, that he can’t.

“I saw Suguru here once,” you tell him suddenly. He blinks, head snapping to you, and you’re already regarding him with a faint smile, eyes a bit dimmer. The warm yellow energy has faded to a burnt orange as you look ahead. “A year or two after he left. It’s why I moved closer a few years ago. I guess I had this weird hope that I’d see him again, but I never really did.” A faint grin graces your lips again, as if you’re not even aware you’re smiling. Fondness overtakes you. “I think about him a lot these days.”

“Me, too.”

“Of course,” you chuckle a bit, rubbing at the back of your neck. “I’m being insensitive.”

“No, you’re not. He meant a lot to you, too. I don’t own him, or his memory.”

“I know, but he was still your best friend.” Unbidden, a voice in Satoru’s voice finishes it for you. My one and only.

“Did you guys talk about anything?”

“Not really anything important,” you say, shrugging, but by the way your eyes shift in the light, glimmer differently, he knows you’re lying. He knows it’s none of his business, but a part of him hungers for new parts of Suguru and it’s powerful enough to take control of his tongue.

“Nothing’s not important. He was a wanted criminal.”

“I think we both know somehow that part never mattered to us.” You look at him, and run a thumb under the strap of your bag. “To any of us. But…” You tilt your head to him and your smile grows tender. “…since you asked, we talked about us. He told me about what he wanted, the kind of world he was determined to create. He paid for my dinner, kissed me goodnight like it was normal, and then he was gone. Never saw him again until last December.”

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does.

He remembers that day ten years ago in Shinjuku. The coldness in which Suguru had looked at him. He can’t imagine that same poison directed at you. He couldn’t even imagine Suguru looking at him like that in the first place until he did.

“Are you the strongest because you’re Gojo Satoru or are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest?”

“I used to have nightmares about it,” you continue distantly. “Because I could’ve left with him, but I didn’t. And I could’ve killed him, but I didn’t do that either.”

“If you want to kill me, kill me. There’s meaning in that, too.”

Satoru’s chest tightens. His heart feels rotten to the core. “I didn’t, either, until I did.” You smile a bit more, at the irony. “Would you? Have gone with him, that is.”

“I didn’t, so what’s the point in debating it?” you ask before shrugging thoughtlessly and answering anyway. “I think tackling curses at the source is important. I just didn’t like the way he was doing it. If I thought I could somehow change his mind, just a bit, on his methods, maybe, but by then, he was too far gone.”

Your eyes, chips of glinting sunstone, mellow as a cyclist trills at them with a bell to get out of the way. You step out of the way, away from Satoru for a moment, before returning to him, and when the back of his hand brushes yours, he’s startled at how cold your skin is.

Satoru is quiet as he absorbs all of this. He doesn’t really know what to say, and you don’t prod him for a reaction as they turn the corner again.

“It’s just over there,” you say, pointing to a small restaurant, people milling by the door. There’s a sign hanging over the door, off-white with black kanji painted on and your arm falls. “There’s a line. Huh.”

“We can wait,” Satoru says when they stop at the edge of the crowd. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay. I’ll go put our names in then come back.” You disappear into the crowd for a moment before resurfacing and joining his side again, something in your hand. “It should be, like, fifteen minutes. I said the bar was okay.”

“That’s fine.” Shoving his sunglasses up into his hair, he cracks his knuckles and migrates to the wall. You follow, and he slouches against the concrete pillar. You adjust the tote bag against your body and lean against the other side just around the corner. Their elbows brush, and you tilt your head to look at him, smiling. Your face has caught the sun perfectly, and Satoru can’t help but smile back.

He wonders how to bring up this Hanahaki disease theory. You look so perfect, so happy in this moment where their eyes meet, that he can’t bring it up. Maybe it’s selfish, but it feels like it’s been so long since the two of them even managed to see each other for more than an hour. With how overworked jujutsu sorcerers are, it’s hard to recall the last time they both had downtime at the same time that wasn’t spent catching up on sleep.

You look away, shoulders shaking, as if that’s enough to hide your coughing, and he thinks, Later. There’ll be time for that later.

“Here’s the menu,” you tell him once you’ve calmed down, extending your hand. He takes the paper, unfolding it as you cross your arms and tilt your head back on the concrete. Reading down the list, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his vision, and your fingers play at your lips as you swallow. Reaching into your bag, you twist the cap of a water bottle and chug half of it down.

“Do you have any medicine? For your coughing?” he asks casually. You hit your chest with a firm fist, clearing your throat and looking at him in surprise. The water bottle returns to your bag.

“Oh, uh, no. It doesn’t work. Just gotta keep hydrated and avoid any possible triggers,” you inform. You turn up the street as you speak, crossing your legs at the ankles and sinking against the concrete.

“And what are those triggers?”

“And you say Ijichi is the one digging for gossip,” you snort with short, choked huff. Satoru rolls his eyes, but keeps looking at the menu. “Don’t worry about it. I’m avoiding them.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“If I wanted your dry wit, I would’ve gone to the original.”

“I don’t copy off Shoko. I take bits of everyone’s personality and twist it to make it my own.”

You shake your head. “Whatever you say.”

Your name is called a few minutes later and the pair push off the concrete pillar, heading through the crowd and into the small restaurant. It’s not too dimly lit, a bunch of natural light from the street streaming in through the open windows, and the air is rich with the smells of the kitchen as they sit down at the bar.

It’s not long before they’ve ordered, and Satoru has gone through his first bowl and is well into pouring his second into what remains of his broth before he remembers to even check up on how you’re doing. You’d been right—he loves this place. The atmosphere isn’t overly loud, but the mumbling of nearby patrons is enough to make him feel like he isn’t quite alone. It’s sheltered away from the world, and although he’s used to girls staring, no one has gone up to him which is giving him time to his own thoughts and food. Everyone here seems to mind their business—everyone likes to stay in their own bubble.

Here, he isn’t the strongest, or quite so special. It honestly feels kind of nice.

You’re sipping on your broth, tilting the spoon towards your mouth and your lips are pulled into the warmest smile he’s seen since they were kids. The light’s hitting you just perfect again, more cool than warm, but it’s got you on the cheekbone, illuminated your lips. Satoru wonders if you know how to manipulate light, or if that’s just your natural blessing as you tilt your head towards him, eyes squinting from your own joy.

For a moment, another image flashes in his head. Him along the end of their group of four—you and Shoko, Suguru and Satoru. It’s almost poetry how much of a glimpse he can see in your smile. You would always be laughing, and Suguru’s cheeks would always be red, and Shoko would charm the guy over the counter to hand over a bottle of shochu. Satoru would tease his stupid best friend, and pay for their meal because “I’m friends with a bunch of goddamn freeloaders.”

But that moment ends as quickly as it came, and it’s so fucking heartbreaking that Satoru never thought their last meal together would be their last meal together. He would’ve cherished it more—done anything to make them stay in that ramen shop in Kagurazaka.

“Do you like it here?” you ask.

He blinks. You’re studying him behind that smile of yours. Watching. Always watching. “It reminds me of when we were kids,” he replies. When he realizes that didn’t answer the question, he adds, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

You grin, delighted. “If I knew how stupid you’d look sucking up these noodles, I would’ve brought my camera like when we were students. I still have it, you know.”

“Next time, then.”

“Yeah, next time.”

Satoru pays. He insists despite your protests, and snatches the bill from you anyway, swiping his card as quickly as he can.

After, they walk slowly around the district, looking at the other restaurants and stores for desserts or souvenirs to bring back, and it makes him so nostalgic, his heart wilts a bit in his chest.

He is saying something about buying some soymilk for Megumi when you stop suddenly, deviating to the side of the road to cough. It grows so intense so quickly that your eyes widen as if you’re surprised, too, and you place a palm flat against your chest as he comes to your side. You wave him back, and he frowns, running a hand down your back as you finally manage to dislodge the petals in your throat and spit them into your palm.

Satoru sighs, staring at the cursed things. The energy emitted from the petals are raw, potent, and his nose wrinkles at the stench that comes from powerful curses as he softly asks, “Do you know what Hanahaki is?”

“Flower vomiting?” you whisper through your raw vocal cords. You shake your head, slamming your sternum with a tight fist and flinging the drenched petals to the ground with a wet slap. “Itadori… said something about it, once. Never really paid attention, I—”

Satoru squeezes the back of your neck gently. “Whatever this curse is, it could be something like that.“

“You don’t want to open that can of worms, Gojo, of what is causing this.” Straightening up, your eyes widen and your cheeks puff up as you choke down another bout. Wobbly, you spit out, “It’s under control. I swear.”

“Are you sure?” His fingers brush your chin to turn your face towards him so he can look at it more clearly, and the instant their eyes meet, you lurch over, slapping his hand away and succumbing to the wracking. Hands shooting out to grab your elbows, Satoru barely eases you to the ground as your legs give in.

You collapse to your knees, hard. A hand is slapped over your mouth but your whole body shakes with the seizing of your lungs. Eyes widening, your cheeks puff up as Satoru grabs your shoulders, falling to his knees beside you.

“Hey! Hey, breathe!” His fingers dig into your shoulders and your nostrils flare, trying to follow his instructions. Bloodshot eyes and blueing lips, your inhales are shaking and incomplete, gasps for air that do not take in any oxygen before you’re kneeling over, hand falling from your lips. Blood splattered over your palm, you let out a low noise of pain. Satoru’s hand glides down your spine, rubbing in soothing circles as red spit falls to the pavement in thick globs.

People all around stop to stare, eyes masked with concern, but he can’t care less at that moment despite the burning scrutiny. He shoves a hand into his pocket, speed-dialling one of the top numbers of his list.

“Ijichi, I need you to take us to the hospital, now!” Letting his phone drop with a clatter, he scoops you close but you slam your bloody hand against his chest, pushing him away. You throw yourself away, hands twisted tight in the fabric of your white shirt and Satoru looks down at the red handprint on his tee before blinking. “What are you doing? We need to get—“

“I’m—I’m fine!” Your voice, broken, is drenched with ice as you continue to wheeze, grasping at your chest as if you could reach and tear out the growths with your own hand. “Gojo, I’m fine!”

“No, you’re not!” Grabbing his phone, he hears a loud car horn, and looks up to see Ijichi leaning out of the driver’s seat, waving his arm frantically. Without another thought, he scoops you up and runs out into the street, ignoring the tires screeching, the cars horns blaring at him and the angry shouts as he jumps into the car and slam the door shut.

Ijichi sets off at a drive, no directions needed. Satoru is sure he’s breaking as many laws as he can as he pushes you back against the seat to buckle you in. Blood dribbles down your lips in bubbles as a thick, gurgling sound begins to grow in your throat and he wipes at your chin with his sleeve, clicking the buckle into place just as you pitch forward. He jerks back just in time as you retch, and, slowly, torturously, you gag out three petals, one after another. Your fingers claw at your own throat, panicking and desperate as you struggle to breathe.

The petals fall in wet pools between your feet, landing on the carpet, and he spares them not even a glance before forcing your head between your knees. You’re still hyperventilating and as Satoru sweeps a hand down your back and up to your neck, his fingers come into contact with something sticky.

Sweat. It drenches through your shirt so suddenly that Satoru reels at the wet marks spreading through your shirt, making the fabric translucent. Your heart is racing, tripping over itself. When you finally stop coughing, you breathe in harsh pants as he keeps your head between your knees.

Your fingers lace at the back of your head and he grabs them firmly, reassuring that he’s still beside you.

“She’s stable,” Shoko announces to the waiting Satoru and six students. The latter came when their teacher had told them of what happened, and Itadori still clings to Fushiguro’s arm by an iron hand, fingers clawlike into his friend’s bicep. Kugisaki chews on her thumbnail, a bit paler than usual and there are crescent indents along her forearm where she had dug her nails in. Maki’s hand rests on her shoulder. Inumaki’s on the phone with Panda, and he turns the screen around so he can see the Strongest Sorcerer who does not feel quite so strong.

Satoru’s assurances that you would be fine had done nothing but send them into a quiet that scared even him.

“Is she okay? When can she get out?” the kids demand suddenly.

“We’re waiting for the updates on her scans from the doctors, but she’ll need to stay here under observation.”

Satoru runs a hand through his hair, smiling in a way that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Guess that means she gets a few more days off while the rest of us are working our asses off,” he teases. Maki shoots him a glare and his eyes close in a way he hopes arranges his expression in one of joy as he shrugs helplessly. “Well, that means I have another girl I have to spoil.”

“Aren’t you too busy with the four already blowing up your phone?” Kugisaki mutters sourly. Satoru pretends not to hear. His phone has been silent without your texts, and it’s cold and heavy in his pocket.

“Can we see her?” Fushiguro asks. Shoko nods, but holds up a hand and the kids skid to a stop.

“She’s resting. I’m unsure if you know, but certain topics of conversation or trains of thought can lead to more attacks, so stick to talking about your curriculum. Topics you think are safe.” The woman shifts on her feet, a wisp of brown hair swaying in front of her eye. “It’s unavoidable, but use your judgement.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The students walk off down to the dead-end hallway, and Satoru turns to Shoko who has her arms crossed over her chest. She steps up, scanning him like he’s got contraband, and he raises his eyebrows innocently.

“What?”

“It’s getting worse. I hope you managed to get answers,” she says. At once, Satoru’s facade drops, and a sober sensation overtakes his face.

“No, I didn’t. She’s heard of the disease, at least. We talked about Suguru, but it wasn’t like it was under lock and key.” The brunette shakes her head at his words, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. Doing so, he leans back into the uncomfortable chair as she crosses a leg over the other. “She said she thinks about him a lot.”

“She still loves him,” Shoko says bluntly. “She gets that far-off look when she talks about him. You two should trade secrets some time.” A shake of her head, and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I healed what damage I could, but I can tell those growths inside are expanding. The attack only seems to have agitated and prompted them to take root.”

“How…” It’s hard to formulate the question. Luckily, Shoko knows him well enough.

“Without seeing the scans, I won’t know. Based on her last ones, I thought at least four months. Now?” Her lips press into a thin line. “She’ll be lucky if she gets two.” Shoko’s eyes flicker down Satoru’s front, and her lips press into a wry line. “And change you shirt. You look like a murder suspect.”

Glancing down, he looks at your dried bloody hand print, stark against white, and he gets up abruptly. Shoko doesn’t stop him.

He walks down to the dead-end hall. He can hear Itadori through your open door cracking jokes, Kugisaki relaying every detail of her shopping trips, and you’re wheezing your laughter despite Maki scolding you to save your strength. Satoru stops just outside your door, out of sight, and rests his head against the frame, content to just listen.

“Tuna mayo.”

“Is that right?” you ask Inumaki. “Lay it on me.”

You sound exhausted, beaten to the bone, but still, when Fushiguro says something too quiet for him to make out, you still have the strength to tease him for worrying.

The night is warm, and he sets the last plant back into its place on your window sill before cracking the window a bit at your request. He’s busied himself making this place as homely as possible as quickly as possible, and in the process, had walked in on you staring at your own scans on the lightscreen mounted on your wall.

“Thanks, Satoru,” you say over your shoulder. He joins you by your side to stare at the scans. Granted, Satoru didn’t cheat his way through medschool like others have, so he doesn’t understand much, but he can tell what is and what isn’t supposed to be there. The floral-like growths situated right where the main bronchi meet the trachea, for one.

The roots spreading across your chest like cracks in concrete, for another.

“The doctors want to monitor this,” you explain, pointing at the roots, “to see whether or not it’ll grow around my lungs or continue outward, around the ribs and spine. If it’s the former, I’ll slowly suffocate and die. If it’s the latter, I’ll slowly suffocate, become paralyzed, and die.” You smile grimly. “Not quite a win-win.”

“Exactly the opposite.” He inspects the growths and through the blue-white-black imaging, he spots the tiny stems emerging from the main growth, sprouting into your lungs. He guesses, with time, those will grow into flowers of equal size before sprouting more shoots.

He wonders…

As if sensing his hesitance, you scratch your collarbone and look at the scans with a new glint.

“The doctors say if I avoid another attack like today, I’ll probably have two months, three if I’m blessed, but because of how big the growths have gotten already and its volatile nature, it’ll be impossible, so we’re looking at a month. Maybe a month-and-a-half?” You smile at him, throat bobbing. “Guess it’s good to have a number,” you add shakily, a short puff coming at the end of each breath as you struggle to fight the cough. “Being a sorcerer, too much uncertainty, I think.”

“You should tell Nanami that. Maybe this time, it’ll convince him to stay away,” he retorts, turning away from the scans. They’re burning his eyes and he doesn’t want to look at the real thing for much longer. You turn with him, walking back towards bed and climbing in. “Are you sure you don’t want the operation? Shoko could do it so fast you wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“No, not yet. There are some complications that’ll definitely occur and I don’t want that to happen.”

“But it would save your life,” he argues. “What risks are frightening enough that you’d even consider not having it?” Your gaze flickers as you take another wheezing breath. The strength seems sapped from your limbs—you’re a scarecrow hanging off its pole as you swallow tightly. Satoru leans against your window sill and crosses his arms over his chest so you can’t see the frustrated fists he wants to make. “If this is about Suguru…”

Resolutely: “It isn’t.”

“You’re going to die if you keep going down this road. I don’t understand why you’re hesitating.” In the back of his mind, klaxons begin to scream.

“Satoru, some things are just beyond logical reason.” He jerks his gaze away, pushing his glasses up his nose pointedly. You sigh. “I know it’s hard, but this is my choice. I just want you to be here so you know it’s okay.”

Your hand stretches out. Blue eyes flash to your outstretched fingers and he takes it before he can stop himself. Your fingers curl over his palm, tugging him closer and he lets you, sneakers dragging over the tile until he’s sliding into the chair by your bed. It squeaks against the tile.

“Please don’t be angry with me.” That’s all. That’s all I ask.

A hard, heavy sigh, this time from his end. He tightens his hold on you as you sit there, smiling hopefully. His heart thunders in his chest. “I’m not angry.”

You perk up a bit, and his index finger unfurls to rub your wrist. It feels colder than normal. “Promise?”

He wishes he could lie half as well as you. Either way, he tries his hardest: “Promise.”

By the time it’s quarter past nine, you’re already getting ready to sleep. You have enough pillows to surround your entire body, and he fluffs them up, helps you arrange them until you’re sighing against the white sheets, burrowing in with a sedated smile on your face.

Satoru sits down again on his visitor’s chair and you watch him lazily through the dim orange light stemming from behind your bed.

“You don’t have to stay here and watch me, creep,” you mumble, turning your face away to stare at the ceiling. You cough dryly, but it subsides moments later. Your voice is nothing but a croak as you let out a tired groan, and Satoru smiles to himself, cheek to his fist.

“I feel robbed of our afternoon together. Making up for it now.”

You look at him again incredulously. “We’re not even doing anything.”

“I don’t know when you were told that every second of us being together had to be us doing something,” he huffs. “I like being in here. Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s too much. You’re annoying me.” Even so, your voice turns fond as you roll onto your side, away from him to settle in to sleep and Satoru’s warm gaze lands on your shoulder gently rising and falling as you slowly drift off.

He already knows you’re gone by the time he’s standing up and gathering his jacket. Walking around the bed, he glances at the bathroom to check the light’s off and catches a glimpse of his shirt. A coil wraps around his gut at the muddy red handprint pressed into the fabric and he turns away to look at you instead.

Your face is in perfect peace, half-buried into a pillow you’re hugging into your chest, and he only soaks in those features. His hand twitches, and his infinity wavers as he raises his hand as if to touch you. Your eyelids flutter and he freezes, fearing he might’ve woken you up, but you only mumble incoherently and turn into your pillow.

Satoru watches on silently just as a breeze sweeps into the room and he looks up where the window he had cracked open. The breeze takes hold of the plants, uplifts them until they sway like a tender dance.

His chest begins to hurt. The smell of the antiseptic is starting to sting, so he moves his hand to the light switch instead. Flicking it off, he turns to leave.

Every time Satoru walks down to the end of the hallway, a different memory will play in his head until he’s playing a movie over and over every single day. Of the first time he met you, although that one is blurry. Your sixteenth birthday when the four of them had piled into your dorm room to drink themselves stupid.

One-and-a-half weeks go by before he realizes that he only replays the moments where you feature. Like his brain is preparing him, reminding him. For what, he doesn’t know.

He can’t come every day—considering the low number of sorcerers has been taken down by one more, it means besides teaching, he still has to work for the Higher Ups as well as his own personal agenda—but when he does make it, he always makes sure that he soaks in every second. Even the horrible parts. Maybe, especially the horrible parts.

You have scans taken every other day to monitor your progress, so when he arrives at an empty room, he isn’t surprised. It’s when there’s movement in the bathroom that sends his nerves prickling until he catches a slab of golden hair and reading glasses flashing in the sunlight.

“Nanami,” he greets.

“Good afternoon.” His jacket’s off and his sleeves are rolled up. With a quick sweep of the room, Satoru notes that the windows are cracked open and the aforementioned jacket is folded over a chair sat in a square of sunlight.

“Do we need to be so formal?” he complains, bypassing the bathroom and searching for another chair. The one Nanami’s taken by the plants is still warm and Satoru isn’t keen on the idea of sweating so soon. During his search, he stops by the windowsill and his eyebrows rise curiously at the new plants and trash bin pressed up right underneath. “What’s happening here?”

“We were planting new seeds when she had to be taken for her scans. She insisted I finish potting the plants.” Noting the empty terracotta, Satoru bends over and prods at the moist dirt. “I have to go soon, though. I had hoped it wouldn’t take as long as it did and she would be back by now.”

“They started taking MRI scans when the branches continued to grow outward rather than inward,” Satoru informs. “It takes around forty-five minutes, on top of the CT scans they’re taking, too. That’s if she doesn’t start coughing in the middle of it.”

“I’m guessing she does.” Nanami adjusts the glasses on his nose, wiping at his hands free of the last of whatever dirt might’ve been clinging to his hands.

“Yup.”

“I see.” Satoru looks at the plants again. The blond man across the room throws the towel into the dirty clothes basket.“Has she… spoken to you of what to do with her effects?”

Gaze hardening, he doesn’t move at the question. Of course, he’s thought about it, but those bouts of weakness have never been longer than a few minutes. There’s no use in wasting time on a reality that won’t come until it does.

Hopefully, it never does.

“I’m so sick of everyone talking like she’s signed a death sentence,” Satoru murmurs, turning around to look at the blond man at the door to the washroom. “She still has time. Not a lot. It’s not convenient, but it should be enough.”

“She’s already considered the benefits of taking the surgery, and yet she actively decides to postpone it. You know she’s stalling,” comes the steady reply.

“And what about you?” Satoru asks. His words are biting, icy, but Nanami seems unfazed as he begins to loop the tie around his neck. “Would you do it?” Blue eyes meet a stoic face, and the coldness seeps into Satoru’s body. Nanami sighs.

A part of Satoru wonders why he even bothered asking. He already knows the answer—

“No.” Eyebrows shoot up. His mouth drops open and a strangled noise escapes his throat. Nanami merely continues on, quiet as death. “Perhaps it’s because I’m willing to accept my death, but, to be honest, I don’t know how to let any part of Haibara go. I’ve accepted it, but he’s still in my heart and my head.” Lips parting, Satoru takes a step forward as Nanami slants his body away, continuing to fold the fabric into a tie. He looks statuesque, unmovable, and something tightens in Satoru’s throat at the stone-like mask taking over his face. “I’m unwilling to do anything to taint that memory.”

Wordlessly, the blond walks over to Satoru to take his jacket from the chair, rolling down his sleeves and slapping his watch back onto his wrist. Standing less than two feet apart, the two men finally meet eyes.

“Gojo,” Nanami murmurs. “I can’t say I understand your burden, but I am by your side. I do not always agree with your choices, but I still respect them. As your kouhai and as your colleague.” His lips pull in a facsimile of a wry smile and there’s an understanding Satoru doesn’t understand haunting his handsome face. “However, she is your friend before mine. I think your opinion matters much more than mine. Don’t abuse that power.”

Satoru’s eyes nearly reflect in the lenses of Nanami’s glasses. He wishes his friend would take the damn pair off.

In truth, the reason he’s so irritated is because he knows. If he insists enough, begs enough, there will always be a chance that he can convince you. That you will give in, not because you are selfless, but maybe because you’re too selfish to let him stay mad at you.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and sometimes, the force wins.

But he’d promised, hadn’t he? To not be angry with the choices you’ve made?

“Jeez, it’s somber in here. Who died?” you tease as Shoko pushes the wheelchair in after you. Both men look away from each other. You’re still walking steadily, but an IV is hooked into your chest now, and it’s so obvious you’ve lost unhealthy weight that looking at you is hard sometimes. Satoru does, anyway.

Noting Nanami, you straighten up. Surprised, but pleased: “You’re still here.”

“I was just leaving,” he says. You frown, but don’t protest. A jujutsu sorcerer’s work is never finished until one stops breathing. “I finished planting the seeds you asked me to, and watered them.”

“Thank you.” He dips his head to you, then to Shoko, before departing, and you watch him go for a moment before your eyes land on Satoru and you smile. The air around you shifts immediately to a vibrant yellow.

“You’re early, Satoru.” You head towards the bed as Shoko parks the wheelchair by the door. “It took way longer than I thought.”

“That’s because you threw up pistils today,” Shoko replies dryly. Satoru straightens up and looks at Shoko more carefully. Placid lookimg—usual for his mortician friend in the jujutsu world—but there’s a blanching in her knuckles that isn’t usual. “The CT wasn’t good. You know that.”

“Well, it’s still more time than I could’ve asked for, you know.” Shoko shakes her head, and meets his eyes before leaving the room, presumably to talk to your doctors. “Party pooper.”

“First day knowing Shoko?”

You laugh sarcastically, adjusting the hospital gown on your body before climbing into bed slowly, as if your joints ache. Satoru’s feet shift on the tile when he realizes his body moves to help and he freezes. You’re breathing audibly by the time you settle in and you meet his eyes, wondering if he’s noticed.

Of course he has, he wants to tell you. He notices everything about you.

Then, you sigh, and the yellow energy around you flickers into something darker, something grey, something that reminds him of summer thunderstorms.

“The roots have reached the edge of my rib cage and are encroaching on my stomach now,” you inform bluntly. “I probably won’t be able to keep food down in the next couple of days so they’re going to up the ante on this thing.” You gesture to the catheter by your clavicle. “So that’s not really fun. And, they want to start taking scans every single day because the growth is increasing exponentially. The doctors think something triggered the flowers to begin blooming in earnest. Like spring has come to my body, and I’m having the worst fucking time of my life.”

Despite your admission, your smile only falters in that it no longer reaches your eyes. Satoru shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what else to do.

The word Hanahaki still burns, whispers coyly in his ear. It teases the tip of his tongue as he watches you look to your windowsill where your new plants are and get up, walking over to inspect your friend’s work.

He wonders if he can bring it up again. If he can insist that there’s a way to save you—

But Nanami’s words linger, too, and he bites his tongue until he tastes iron.

“Oh, look.” He blinks at your voice, turning to look. Your fingers sink into one of the pots and before he can ask, blue energy flares up around your hand and into the soil and a shoot breaks through the dirt, unfurling as it grows higher and higher into the air.

“What is it?” Petals are beginning to form, the shade of a warm, gentle red that fades in shade as it reaches the stem. Satoru comes up next to you as the first flower blooms and his eyebrows rise. “Tulips. Huh.”

“I used to love them,” you tell him, picking it off and extending it to him. Eyebrows furrowing in surprise, he takes it as you sink your fingers deeper into the soil, sending more cursed energy into the seeds. More stems to replace the one you had picked continue to grow and you pull your hand out, wiping at your fingers with a towel.

Satoru tilts the flower towards his nose, taking a whiff.

“Used to?” he repeats, and you nod.

“Trees and flowers have their own language.” Your eyes do not meet his as you watch the plant continue to grow. Your muscles go slack, and your fingers touch the petals, mind not quite aware of how you’re moving. “Red tulips mean eternal love, and fame.”

Blinking, he looks down at his own bloom.

Suguru. He hears you say his name, even in the silence, and remembers years ago, walking through Tokyo. A neighbourhood he doesn’t remember, his best friend looking at the florist’s shop and immediately perking up to head inside and buy a bouquet after something had caught his eye.

“For a girl,” he had admitted sheepishly.

“Only one?” Satoru asked, horrified. “You can’t settle down! We’re meant for so many more women than just one!”

A sharp nudge to the ribs. Raucous laughter. “Shut up!”

Quietly, Satoru’s fingers tighten around the stalk as you tilt your head to the sun, inspecting something he won’t understand. He doesn’t have a green thumb, and although you say you aren’t the smartest, he’s seen you grow the college’s gardens in a way that has amplified the beauty already lingering on the grounds. You had dismissed it as a little side project, but seeing you water your plants dutifully, spread feed and root out weeds, makes him wonder if you know how to put half-efforts into anything.

When you garden, you never take the easy route. You labour for the satisfaction, and pour sweat and tears into the soil.

When you love, you love with all of yourself and more.

It’s what makes whatever he wants impossible.

Because he is the same, and they will never change.

When Satoru goes home, he places the tulip in a vase and the cursed energy prickles at his fingertips.

You get worse and worse with every visit.

Each day brings him another raw wound, salt on blood. You slowly grow more and more ragged, even though you stay in the hospital, confined to your room.

There are days Satoru walks into your room to you hunched over the toilet, spitting blood and flowers into the bowl and vomiting all you ate the night or day or hour before and he already knows what he has to do. A cold, damp rag to your forehead, a crouching stance beside you as your grip on the toilet seat becomes rigid like steel.

Other days, you’re still asleep because the night before, you’d been hacking up half a lung and half a bouquet. Sometimes, you’re curled around a plastic receptacle already full of your half-attempts to dislodge the pressure building in your chest.

Or, you’re crying into your hands, breath coming in rapid bursts as you try to force your head between your knees to stop the world from spinning and Satoru holds you when you beg him to, and stands in the corner of the room when you push him away.

Afterwards, you always grab onto his sleeves, his arms, and sink against him, shivering. For hours after, he’ll curl around you on your hospital bed, no matter how much his body cramps, until you insist you’re fine.

“It’s a little like touching death,” you told him once, voice raw and fatigued. “When it’s a pretty bad day, and I think I’m going to die alone, it happens, so all I have to do is not think about it.”

There’s a flawed logic there, but Satoru was too busy pressing his nose into your hair and feeling the warmth of your body to reply any more than, “I’ll be there. I promise.”

Two weeks pass (fourteen sets of scans, a different pair hanging from the lightscreen every day tell him that) and Satoru watches as the branches spread through your body, past the reaches of your ribs, and the flowers have spread to your lungs so quickly he’s sure the time for you to decide is running out.

You’re near-passed out against him on the bathroom floor one evening, and although it’s not closet-sized, it doens’t make the arrangement any less awkward. He’s up against the bathtub, legs sprawled all around you as he holds you in his arms. On the edge of the tub, there is a bar of bodysoap and a bottle of lotion he recognizes as the same one Shoko used to buy when they still had time. Your sink counter is filled with your toothbrush and cup, handsoap and a microfibre towel hanging off the edge smeared with lipstick, foundation, and black streaks of who knows what.

Shoko must have spent the night while he was out hunting a curse in Sendai. Good. He doesn’t like the nights when you’re alone and he can’t be there.

His fingers brush over your shoulder blade, and he travels over something rigid cloaked by your skin. Your eyes are closed, and you’re nearly asleep as you curl deeper against him. Looking down at you, he presses curious fingers into your shoulder blade only for you to let out a soft groan.

“Did that hurt?”

“No. It just feels like you pressed down on a big sore muscle,” you mumble slowly. He trails his fingers over, feels the bumps of the roots curling around your bones before following it towards your spine. It disappears the closer it reaches the trail of knobs that go down your back, and he moves back to your shoulder again. “Doesn’t hurt, though.”

“Does anything?”

“Mostly my stomach,” you tell him. “I’m so hungry all the time, but I can’t eat.” He glances at the IV stand, the only other witness to the events in this bathroom. It leads down through your gown and past your clavicle. Monitored every day in case the growths dislodge it, it’s one of the only things keeping you alive. “And my throat. It feels like I’ve scratched it out until it’s bleeding.”

He tilts his head. His lips barely brush your sweaty scalp despite how cold you feel in his arms “No surgery?”

You shake your head, what remains of your strength slowly coming back. “They say the flowers and roots have taken up sixty-five percent of my chest cavity. It’s not only inhibiting my lungs, but my heart and stomach, too, so it’d be kind of hard to get rid of it all. Not impossible, but it’s really risky. That, on top of the already-present consequences—”

“So let’s say we start with the lungs,” he cuts off, trying to not sound too desperate but these past few weeks have worn him down to the bone. Although he thinks he’s managed to hide it from his students, Shoko has offered multiple times to prescribe him sleeping pills just so he can shut his mind down.

He said no every time.

Your legs draw up and he squeezes your shoulder carefully, looking down. “Are you ready to get up?”

You nod. “I think so.” He wipes at your lips with the rag he left on the counter and you roll your eyes as he makes sure no blood is left on your face before throwing it back up and carefully adjusting you against him.

“Do you want my help?”

“My answer does not matter to you,” you shoot back teasingly and he lets you pull away from him before reaching up with one hand to push yourself up. Your arm wobbles, your feet kicking back underneath you and slowly finding theirselves on the floor. Satoru withdraws, ducking underneath and back up so he can stand, hands floating around your body as you draw the IV stand towards yourself and grab on. When he’s sure your knees might give in, he grabs your elbow, but you shake your head. “I think I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” you breathe, raising your head to look at him. Your lips curl in a soft smile, and you clasp his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t even do anything this time,” he says.

“Not everyone stays for the pathetic girl on the floor of the bathroom floor,” you quip. Turning around, you begin to head back to bed and he trails behind you carefully.

“If the girl’s you, then I think exceptions can be made.”

“Hospital bonus.”

“It adds that you’re in the hospital, too,” he agrees. “My morals are just.”

“Isn’t that a relief?”

It is. It is a relief that you still have the strength to joke with him.

You climb back into bed. Satoru returns to the bathroom to make sure the bathroom is flushed and it’s clean before returning and perching on the edge of your bed. Pulling out his phone, he shuffles his shoes off and tucks his legs to his chest, leaning against the foot of your bed and scrolling through his messages.

Not much to miss, to be honest.

“There’s supposed to be a lunar eclipse on the morning of the 28th,” you say suddenly. Satoru looks up. You’re leaning back on the mountain of pillows, exhaling and inhaling measuredly in a way he now knows is your way of fighting off another bout. Squinting against the orange glow of the sunset, there’s a longing in your gaze. “I want to see it. Outside and everything.”

“You’re not supposed to leave the hospital.”

You don’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re abiding by rules, now?”

“If it keeps you around, yes, we are.”

“When did my best friend turn into such a party pooper?” Looking at him, an impish glint lives in your eyes. He balks.

“Don’t you dare insinuate that I’m not fun.”

“Then… take me to see the eclipse.”

“No. There’s nothing to even see.”

“I want to see the moon disappear, Gojo,” you declare. “And if you won’t take me, I will definitely sneak out.”

It paints a pretty pathetic picture, and he can’t help but arch his eyebrows at your determination. The air purifier drones on. The nurse turned it on after dinner, he guesses, and he has the strange urge to kick it as you fix him with a fierce stare.

“You probably won’t be able to walk by then,” he says.

“That won’t stop me.” He knows it won’t. The corner of his lips pulls into a slight smile as you continue, “I just want to go outside one last time. Is that really too much to ask?” Your words are tinged with a fine dusting of humour, and he shakes his head.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Big word for you, Satoru.”

“I still mean it.”

“And I learned that from you.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he caves. Your face lights up, and he sets down his phone, legs unfolding to brush the floor as he leans over to flick your forehead. Your eyes squeeze shut at the contact and you slap his arm away sluggishly before he soothes the smarting spot over with a smear of his thumb. “I’ll come by, and we’ll sneak out.”

You beam and he slips his feet back into his shoes and pockets his phone so he can focus his attention on you.

When visiting hours end, the nurses offer to set up the cot for him like they always do. You pretend not to look at him out of the corner of his eye, awaiting his answer behind your laptop screen, and he spares you a quick glance before saying yes.

“She likes you,” you tell him after one particular nurse with dyed purple hair who always wears a fishtail bids them goodnight. Satoru fluffs up his pillow ceremoniously, having shed his jacket and taken off his jeans to hide underneath the blankets. The fabric is cold against his bare chest, and he pulls his glasses off, sets them on the stand right behind him.

The black frame holding up his mattress rattles a bit as he punches his pillow one last time and lies down. He turns on his side and looks at you. You’re turned on your side, too, and your brow is furrowed as you fight the sleepiness.

“Is that so?” he asks carefully. “What do you think about it?”

“I think if you wanted someone with a hectic schedule, you could pick someone else,” you say vaguely.

He raises an eyebrow. “Does she have a bad attitude or something?”

“I dunno.” There’s a subtle fire igniting in your words. You look a bit more awake, and your eyes are shifting the air into a smouldering red. He squints up. Your face is shadowed, but you’re still silhouetted by the orange light behind your bed as your shoulders rise and fall greatly in staggering, weighty breaths. “She wouldn’t understand. I guess.”

He hums. “So I should find someone who understands me but can’t be there for me? Sounds like the set up to every tragic love story ever.”

You laugh, and it’s the saddest sound in the world.

Friday, July 27th arrives in clouds.

Satoru scouted a spot before where they can watch the eclipse. He settles on one of the highest buildings on campus with a balcony where they can sit against the railing and watch the moon disappear. You can’t eat, but he still buys your favourite food from all over Japan, travelling to different prefectures in hopes that they still have your favourite dessert or drink that you mentioned once—he even gets you a new polaroid camera. He doesn’t know exactly how well the eclipse will show up on it, but, memories, right?

Maki makes a dry remark about how much he’s running around lately, probably to make amends to a girl he’s scorned. Satoru deflects and says he’s actually trying to impress one this time.

It’s been a five days since his promise to bring you. You lost your ability to walk steadily two days ago and to speak effortlessly only yesterday. The roots have extended through your body, pushing the muscle of your back and shoulders, and it’s made even moving painful, so he intends to carry you everywhere he can, holding your IV bags if he needs to.

The doctors say eighty-five percent of your chest is now occupied with foreign growth. Satoru wishes they’d just tell it how it is—you’ll probably be dead by next week.

He arrives at the hospital and walks the path he’s walked so often over the past few weeks that he is sure he could do it with his eyes closed. The nurse’s station, and there’ll be the purple-haired one and the one with a double helix piercing on call at this time. Then, twenty-five steps to the end of the hall where the window often lets a lot of natural light in. Today, it’s grey and not much, but it’s enough to cast his shadow long and blurry.

He stops in front of your door to sanitize his hands when he hears voices within and hesitates.

Your door is closed, which means you don’t want people to interrupt, and he moves away from the rectangular window, back pressing against the tiny slab of wall between the frame and the corner of the hallway. Glasses slipping down his nose, he tries not to listen but he can’t help of himself.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” you say weakly. You sound awful. Satoru wonders if he’s missed one of your panic attacks and curses himself. “If I don’t sound sure, it’s because I’m dying… and sounding like a fragile piece of shit… comes with the territory.” Your words are coarse, and a harsh anger grates his ears as you cough violently, a terrible retching sound ending with a splat following right after.

“I wasn’t doubting you,” Nanami replies calmly. “But this could be done in so many other ways.”

“Look, Nanami. I’m not… brave enough to say any of it. Now, sit down. Your standing… it’s making me nervous… Thank you.” Satoru’s legs feel numb as he sinks down to the floor, tilting his head just enough to listen clearer through the sliver underneath the door. Resting his elbows on his knees, he runs a hand through shaggy white hair. It feels dry and lifeless.

He can’t remember the last time he took a shower that was longer than ten minutes and more than ice-cold bordering on just beginning to warm.

“Take care of him for me,” you croak and his fingers tighten against his scalp. Nanami doesn’t answer, and you let out a sound that can only be described as pure agony as another bout grasps you tightly. You’re wheezing by the end of it, gasping painfully for air, and the monitors start beeping rapidly, a dinging that echoes in his head as Nanami’s low voice soothes you, tells you gently to calm down. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Breathe with me,” Nanami orders, and everything falls silent. Satoru stares at his lap. His head is beginning to pulse with the monitors when the beeping finally starts to fade. “Good. No sense to waste your strength.”

Wobbly, spitting: “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A pause. “It’s not your fault.”

You laugh, as if Nanami’s cracked a funny joke, and it’s gut-wrenching. “Remember how… we can curse each other? Ourselves? True curses.”

Faintly amused, immeasurably strained: “I thought it was still a hypothesis regarding those who don’t have the correct bloodline and the ability to curse through their own will.”

“No…Not a hypothesis. Real, Nanami. Real. No one knows how cursed energy affects us. Not really. Since, in my opinion, it’s entirely based on how we process things… it’s so difficult to say but when you know someone…” You break off to clear your throat. “The curse of adulthood… some of us got that too early… but we can survive that and even if it’s not a curse by… definition, we still feel it, right?”

Satoru clasps his hands together just so he doesn’t rip the door open at the hinges.

“Right.”

“And… knowledge… can be a curse. Even if we can’t see it.” A ragged breath. Then, another laugh too loud for the grey light outside, too bright, a spark before it fizzles into, again, pained choking. “Nanami, remember last year… the job out in Yama… Yamaguchi?”

“Yes.”

“And we came back… Okkotsu was beginning his first year at the college… what I—what I told you?”

“…Yes.” A beat passes. A chair shifts on the linoleum floor and Nanami clears his throat. “I see.”

“I don’t want him to be so alone. I know I was never the strongest or the smartest or the most talented but I liked to think he let me in because I was there. Not because I understood. Maybe… Maybe because I didn’t. Nanami, please… he always try to stay so far away from the people he thinks he can’t love. Tell him… tell him—“

You break off and Nanami assures you with a steadfastness Satoru has counted on so many times before: “I will.”

“…thank you.”

Eyes shutting tight, Satoru rests his brow against the heel of his hand. His head is aching, and a hard fist grabs his chest, squeezes his heart until it feels like it’ll burst. So this is how you’re really feeling. When you’re not smiling, this is what you are. Angry at the world, and heartbroken.

So terribly heartbroken.

And you couldn’t trust him with it? Because you thought he couldn’t handle it?

He can take it. It’ll be okay because he’s the strongest. He has to be.

I’m the strongest. I should be okay. I’m the strongest.

I’m the Strongest.

The headache gets worse so he gets up from that corner in the dead-end hallway, all the while three words replay in his head like a goddamn gramophone.

Nanami doesn’t come out of the room for a while. When he does, Satoru walks down the hall with takeout and a smile plastered on his face as if he had heard nothing at all.

At just past one-thirty AM, Satoru sits up from his cot and rubs at his eyes. After dinner, the both of them had forced themselves to go to sleep in order to have enough energy for their little late night excursion. He glances at you, a slumbering shape on the bed, and gets up, slowly sliding on the lights. They burn a dim orange, glowing on your face, and your eyebrows furrow as he touches your cheek.

“What?” you mumble, vexed, and he smiles.

“Are you ready?” he asks. A backpack is situated at the end of his bedframe and he reaches for it, unzipping it carefully as you crack your eyes open. “We’re going to go see the eclipse, remember?” Pulling out clothes he robbed from your room in the staff facility from when you used to work full time, he grabs your shoulder and shakes you gently. The gnarled roots under your skin feel strange against his fingers as you groan weakly. “Do you want five more minutes, Sleeping Beauty?”

You don’t answer, burying your face into your pillow and he shakes his head to himself. It’s going to be all right, he thinks. I planned for this setback.

Slipping into a dark long-sleeve, he parts the black-out curtains to let light come in. He checks his reflection in the bathroom mirror before running a hand through his hair and washing his hands with a cold stream of water. By the time he leaves the bathroom, you’re sitting up already, heel of your hand rubbing against your brow as you groan. In your other hand in your lap, there’s a splash of blood and a lone petal, and he rushes to your side instantly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear—“

“It came out easy,” you assure as he grabs a tissue to pick it off your hand and throw it into the receptacle at the table just beyond the foot of your bed. Wiping at your mouth roughly, he hears your complaints and your hand shoves against his shoulder to tell him to quit it. “Ah, I can do it myself!”

“Shh! Do you want every nurse storming in here while we conduct our super secret getaway?” he whispers, and your eyes fix on his. Dark circles mark your face like bruises, but that light is still the same—glimmering, bright, like twin suns and just as warm. Making sure your hands are clean, he wipes the invisible streaks of blood just to be sure before grabbing your clothes and setting them at the end of the bed.

You glance around the place sluggishly, at the paintings you never got to finish, and the books you haven’t finished reading, before settling on him. “What are we going to do about the… about the machines? And my IV…”

“Oh, trust me. I may have bribed a nurse or two,” he confesses and you send him a scandalized look. He shrugs. “What? You told me a woman liked me and I couldn’t help but turn on my natural charm.”

“You’re awful,” you say without meaning it and he smiles as he moves your bed into a sitting position. You cough lightly, but sit up straighter as he carefully unhooks the huge bag and pump from your stand and gently slides it into the pocket in the backpack, resisting the urge to squish the pouch a bit. Strapping the pump in, he makes sure it’s secure as you peer around him to catch what he’s doing. “Is this… safe for me, you—you know, medically-speaking?”

“Nope.” He adjusts the tubing to avoid any kinks. “But, Purple gave me this backpack and she will come as soon as we come back to make sure you aren’t dying. And, if anything goes wrong, I promised her I’d come back as soon as possible.”

“Promised her?” you echo “I see. So that’s what Purple… was doing before my afternoon nap. I thought you guys traded suspicious looks.”

“Yeah. I’m pulling big strings. Now, c’mon, silly. Let’s get you dressed.”

You roll your eyes with a whistling breath. “Watch the tube… and c’mere, then, Gojo.”

He grabs the jacket first and does exactly as you order. Wrapping it around you, he helps you thread your arms through before zipping you up carefully as your shoulders begin to shake. Bending over, you reach blindly for the receptacle at the end of the bed and he hands it over to you.

A wad of saliva mixed with blood slips between your lips and you let out a low noise before forcing yourself to cough harshly again and again. Satoru watches. No matter how many times he sees you rip your throat up just to breathe with a bit less pressure in your chest, it doesn’t get any easier.

You manage to get up a whole magenta blossom. It blooms from your mouth like something out of a horror movie and lands in the receptacle before he’s wiping your mouth.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

They continue on.

Coat, next, zipped up, and a scarf, then he’s scooping up your legs to help you twist on the mattress until your feet are dangling off the edge. He weaves your legs through the sweat pants, careful not to let his gaze avert from his task even as the hospital gown trails up your legs. You shiver at the exposed skin and gooseflesh pimples your thighs as you lift up your hips to help with the effort. He pulls the hospital gown free from the waistband and lets it fall over the hem so you’re completely covered before falling back.

In a crouch, he pats your knees and makes the mistake of looking up only to find your eyes already on him, searching, nearly mystified. Satoru’s throat tightens. The faint light streaming from the window catches half of your face, as if half-divine. There’s a curiosity there, lingering, and the way you look at him makes him freeze in his spot.

Is this how Suguru saw you a thousand times before, a thousand lifetimes ago? Is this what he felt?

Did he see the way your pupils dilate, the flare of your nostrils as you exhaled so quietly that it felt like a feather against his lips despite the distance between them? Did he see galaxies in your irises, home in the softness of your stare? Is that why he kissed you the last time he saw you? To memorialize their love for himself, to remember what it looked like when you loved him?

Did he feel like he could fight dragons, crush demons, rip their world apart at the seams and rebuild it again with bloodied nails if it meant you would never cry again? Is that part of why he did it? So you would never be lonely again?

Because if so, Satoru understands.

Because if so, Satoru would do the same.

Because he always saw you as just pretty, because you had always been just his friend, and then his best friend’s girlfriend, and then his best friend, so there were always lines drawn in salt, scuffed and distorted over the years, but…

But in the light, tired and lost in his gaze, you’re nearly ethereal. The only reason he knows you’re not a goddess is because he’s still touching your knees, and your breath quivers, as if you’re just as disconnected from the world as he is in this moment.

Lips pressing together, he looks away, and the moment’s gone.

He glances at the clock.

How long has it been since he moved? It feels like hours.

Twenty-seven seconds.

Twenty-seven seconds of temptation, and then Satoru turned away.

He slants to grab a pair of thick woolly socks to give himself something to do. You’re still watching him, head tilted down just so, and he carefully takes hold of your ankle.

He focuses on the little things: the iciness of your skin, the way you pick at the fabric of your sweatpants absently as you watch him work, the way you shiver a bit when he touches you.

He rubs heat back into the arch of your foot as you reach into your jacket slowly to carefully remove the nodes monitoring your vitals. You seem stiff to the bone, and your fingers are rigid with anticipated pain as you peel off the stickers. In the back of his mind, he remembers the days that feel like yesterday when you weren’t hooked up to so many machines to assure both you and him that you’re still alive.

Removing the cap for the oximeter from your finger, you shake yourself out a bit, clearing your throat. He slides one sock on, and then the other.

“How’re you feeling?” he finally utters.

It takes you a moment to answer. “Bottom half feels tingly. Usual these days. My body feels like a big giant bruise,” you inform quietly. Your voice is nothing more than a rasp. “Very warm and toasty, though… Thank you.”

“Just gotta get the shoes on and then we’ll teleport there.”

“Okay.” He helps you slip your feet in, something straight out of Cinderella, and then he stands up to take your hands. Your fingers slip into his palms, and he holds you so tightly as you slide off the bed. The instant your feet hit the floor, your grip intensifies and your head snaps down to the floor. You find your footing after a moment, and he lets go to crack open your window. Moving your plants aside, he climbs out to glance around.

The air is crisp and cold, but not too bad for him. Even so, he’ll probably slip on a hoodie before they leave and he ducks back in to your room to do so, tugging it down his waist before grabbing the backpack.

“Arms through,” he instructs, slipping the backpack onto your shoulders. Guiding you closer, he helps you shuffle as close as possible towards him before turning around and bending over. “Alright, climb on. We’re going.”

Your arms touch his shoulders, his hands shoot out behind him, and you fall.

Fingers hooking on your thighs, he boosts you up and your arms wrap around him, your own fingers wrapped so tightly around his collar that it nearly chokes him. Haphazardly stepping through the windows, his fingers sink into the fabric of your sweats. Your breath is warm against the shell of his ear, and he can feel your heart pulsing against his back as he turns to look at you.

He smiles. “How’s it feel?”

“I’m still not sure if you’re going to let me die.” You press your face closer to his head and your arms tighten. “But the wind feels so good. So, so good.”

“That’d be too undignified,” he teases, and then he jumps. Time seems to slow as it always does when he’s about to teleport. He imagines the staff facility on the campus, quiet as a cemetery at this time of night, and his heart lurches forward. For a moment, his senses leave him all at once. He can’t taste or feel or see anything for a fraction of a second, then it comes to him in blinding speed. His hearing, as always, is first, then his eyes, smell and then touch and smell.

His foot lands on stone, as if he’s just finished a small skip, and he grins as he sweeps the courtyard. No one, as planned. The building’s to his immediate right, and he climbs the steps, using your knee to nudge the door open.

“That was fun,” you comment. “Convenient, too. Blink of an eye, and you’re somewhere else.”

“You can’t even begin to imagine how many lines I’ve skipped because of it,” he comments. The lights are all off, and he heads for the kitchen immediately to grab all the food he’s bought. Setting you down on the kitchen counter, he takes out another canvas bag and stuffs all of the food in.

Daifuku with of all kinds of fillings in the fridge, fresh dorayaki, canned coffee and aloe drinks, sweet soymilk and other wagashi they used to feast on when they were younger. Mostly because Satoru would buy enough to feed a kingdom so he always had something on hand for his overactive brain. You watch him with wide eyes as he moves around with such purpose one could think he was preparing to fight an army, but as soon as he finishes, he flashes you a smile.

“I think you’re going to like where we’re going a lot, silly.”

“Didn’t have to buy stuff,” you mutter, fingers playing with the tube leading into your backpack for a moment.

“You haven’t eaten in weeks. I thought maybe we could at least try. Maybe not now, but at the end of the night, before we go back. Just in case.”

“I can’t eat, though.”

“Don’t know until I stuff it down your throat,” he replies cheerily, and you smile at him so brightly it’s almost like you aren’t sick. Then, that smile turns into a cough, a fist in front of your lips, and your expression is frozen into one of exasperation before it flickers into strained. He sets down his bag, already knowing what comes next.

You make a hacking sound, deep in your throat, and he shifts you closer to the sink so you can lean over and throw up. Gagging, it comes in red and clear torrents, the cursed energy spilling out of your body nearly making it incinerating to even touch you as you clutch the edge of the sink basin.

You fall to your elbows, and Satoru eases you off the counter so he can hold you up instead of the cramping body contortion you sink into. Cupping the juncture of your shoulder and neck, his thumb sweeps soothingly over your root-invested spine, tossing the ends of the scarf over your shoulder and out of the way.

Settling a hand on your hip, he presses you against the countertop so you don’t fall, and hopes your legs can hold you up long enough for him to reach for the hand towel. You spit just as he manages to grab it, snapping back into position and peering over your shoulder to inspect how much you’ve coughed up. You shudder and a tortured moan wrenches out of your throat as you sink, forehead against the cool metal.

You’re scorching to touch, but he tightens his hold on you anyway, setting the towel aside for just a moment. Carefully, he pulls you back up and you let out an drained whine, but he shushes you quietly, turning you around and guiding your head over his shoulder so you don’t stare at the rot any longer.

Satoru knows you would, even if you pretend like you aren’t plagued with morbid, self-destructive curiosity.

Looking into the sink, he counts a few petals and three whole flowers, and you’re quivering against him as he wraps his arm around you.

“Alright, lean back for me,” he whispers into your ear, and you obey. His arm around you crooks so he supports your head, the other grabbing the towel again. Exhaustion seems to have sluiced through you, and your eyes are nearly unfocused as he dabs at your mouth carefully. His blue eyes focus on the gentle curve of your lips, and your cheeks puff up before you swallow tightly and let out a shaking breath.

“You’re really close,” you mumble in that exhale. He tilts your chin to the light to make sure he hasn’t missed a spot, and your eyelids flutter as the corners of his lips quirk up. His Six Eyes pick up a muted yellow emanating from you, and it’s so warm against his skin that he can’t help but relish in the feeling. “You smell nice.”

“Good. I took a shower before I came today. Well, yesterday,” he amends softly. “Alright, let’s go before you hack up your other lung.”

“Funny.” Nonetheless, he scoops you back up onto his back and he rinses down the sink as you rest your head against his. He feels you breathing steadily, much easier now than before. Red swirls down the drains, and he watches the magenta petals slowly reveal their true colours. There’s a flash of white in the center of each one, and he wonders silently what flower it is and what it means.

Maybe he’ll find out some day.

When the kitchen’s back to the state they entered, he grabs the bag of food and holds onto your legs tightly as your arms around his neck shift and pull him closer.

This time, when he teleports, it’s not as jarring. Walking around the balcony, he makes sure no one’s in the area before checking that the door to the roof is locked and heading back out into the night air, towards where they can see the moon clearest.

“Hey, open your eyes,” he whispers over his ear, and your head shifts.

“Hm? Oh!” He feels you wriggle, but he doesn’t let you go as he walks closer to the spot he’s set up. Near the railing, a blanket surrounded by pillows is laid out surrounded by a few space heaters. The moon is hanging perfectly in front of them, and the light illuminates the forests in silver as a gentle wind whistles through. Tranquil, the only sound is his footsteps on wood as you manage to pull your legs free with a harsh twist of your torso. Your hand slaps against the railing and he whirls around to hold you up but you grit your teeth. “I can do it.”

Breathing in deeply, you pull yourself past him using mostly your arms. Your feet drag as if they’re not really attached to a living body but you still move steady onward, and he walks ahead to turn on the heaters and set the food down as far away as he can so it doesn’t spoil too quickly.

“Satoru,” you breathe as if for the first time,” it’s so fucking beautiful up here.” Looking up, his heartstrings twinge. Your face is bathed almost entirely in silver, and it drapes down your body like silk, illuminating the cord of your throat he can see above the scarf, the strength of your hands. A smile brighter than even the most blinding sun rays comes across your face and he finds that the moon pales in comparison as your knees begin to give.

Reaching forward, he helps you sink down slowly, and then sit down, legs hanging off the edge and then you’re leaning to rest your elbows on the middle bar of the wooden railing. You can’t stop staring at the moon, and Satoru can’t stop staring at you as he opens the box of daifuku and pops one into his mouth.

“The eclipse should be starting in a few minutes,” he says, checking his watch. 2:10. Four minutes to go. You finally tear your eyes away from the moon to look at him.

“I forgot…” you muse. “I forgot how bright… the moon was.”

He settles in beside you and offers a canned coffee, but you shake your head. He cracks it open for himself.

“We’re about to watch the moon change,” he notes. “But I read that it’ll last six hours.”

“Really?” Excited, you look up at the moon again. The lunar rays outline your already-pronounced eye bags but it also makes you look more beatific. “That’s just proof… our time here on Earth is so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. It really makes you—makes you think how much we really matter. Which doesn’t seem like a lot, compared to things like a… fucking lunar eclipse.”

The moon’s opinion doesn’t matter more than mine, he thinks. “Well, while we’re waiting for your next epiphany to hit you,” he says instead, “you never answered my question.”

You smile, intrigued. “What’s that?”

“What if we removed the flowers bit by bit, rather than all at once?” he asks. Your gaze snaps to him, but he only regards you honestly. “That gives you a fighting chance.” Your eyes widen imperceptibly, and he grabs another mochi ball and takes a bite.

“The roots and flowers are too entangled in my chest to be removed safely. It’s either they remove my lungs completely, or not at all, and finding a… match for one lung is hard enough, much less two perfect lungs…” You trail off and shrug. “Well, that’d take forever… and I wouldn’t get much… longer, anyway. I’m a sorcerer. I always knew… I was going to die, so why not die on my own t-terms?”

He frowns. “Why not try?”

“Give me your phone.”

He does so, and watches you type in a query you must’ve typed before with how quick your lethargic fingers fly over the screen before you’re shoving it back towards him and leaning forward on the railing, chin to your forearms. You don’t even look at him, as if you don’t want to watch him crumble.

He reads: The first year after the transplant is the most critical period wrought with surgical complications, chances of rejection, and infection… Although there are some reports of some people living for 20 years post-transplant, many people do not make it past 10 years and only half make it past 5…

His stomach curdles. “Five years is better than nothing.”

“Five years worrying when my lungs are going to… kick it,” you correct. “Besides, my ribs are mangled by the roots. And my heart. My stomach. My spine. I’m undernourished, exhausted, and everything in here”—you gesture slowly around your abdomen—“is doing overtime. My body’s too weak to handle any kind of surgery that wouldn’t heal me… immediately.”

Your eyes find his, and it’s as if lightning strikes through him like a spear—piercing cold and electrifying. You’re beginning to blue in the lips like you’re freezing to death, but he’s sweating under the blast of the heaters.

Pulling off his hoodie, he drapes it around your shoulders. You don’t react anymore than: “Sucks, but that’s how it is.”

A few more minutes pass by in silence. Their knees knock into one another, and Satoru can’t stop looking at you as you breathe in the home you left months ago, head lifted to the inky universe.

“You know I can tell when you’re—when you’re angry with me,” you utter, not looking at him. “No matter how much you smile at me, you’re still too passive aggressive to cover it up.”

The words spill out of his mouth as you lower your gaze to him. “I’m sorry.” No sense in lying.

“That’s okay.” You smile for a moment, like he hasn’t said something worth ruining a night over, but when you look up at the stars, it fades. Wistful, you cock your head at the moon that hasn’t gone away just yet and lower your chin to your arms again. “It’s not really something that was… fair of me to ask anyway.”

Just as the moon turns yellow, he remembers something. Bending back to root through your backpack, he excuses himself. You frown. “What are you—“

“I got a camera for this occasion,” he announces, withdrawing the camera and a plastic bag, leaning back to snap a quick picture of you. You squint at the flash, mouth opened in an incredulous smile and face half-turned away, before the photo rolls out. “Like the one you used to carry around.”

“Some memories to hold on to, huh.” You reach for the camera and your fingers wrap around it, aiming it right at him. A flash and two peace signs later, another image joins the one of you Satoru slides into the plastic zip bag. “Hold on. I want to take another one.”

“We should do one of both of us.”

“Ugh, fine… I don’t look good at all, though.“

“Too late.” He snatches the camera from you and sticks out his hand, dragging an arm around your shoulders and you lean into him, temple against his cheek as he snaps another photo, and then another of him making a stupid face. Another of you mid-laugh. You’re wheezing for air as he keeps grabbing the polaroids as fast as he can with the arm that’s around your shoulder, leading to a bunch of jostling that has you in stitches at his frantic panic whenever the new photo chugs out of the slit.

When he’s had his fill of making you laugh, Satoru leaves you alone to look at the moon. He can’t stop grinning stupidly with every photo and while you watch the moon slowly descent into the earth’s shadow, he shuffles through the photos he just took of them together, trying to brand them to memory.

The way he looks at you in these photos makes him believe in something. In something that could’ve been there if they had more time, and he could convince you to open your heart up to a new possibility.

Another hour passes. The moon hangs a strange transition between black and blood red and a paler peach orange. A glimmering yellow dot sparkles below it, and he wonders if that’s Mars.

The forests seem almost hauntingly quiet, and no one has spoken in the darkness. You regard the moon, so enraptured, and more photos have joined the zip bag, but they’re mostly of you. He’s managed to sneak them in by turning off the flash and upping the brightness settings so it’d still be visible, and he hopes you never realize that he’s got them.

Satoru has never been interested in astronomy, but the stars in your eyes are changing his mind.

He’s dug his hand into the bag of dorayaki already. He remembers it’s supposed to be for you, too, but his hands are too empty without the camera, his brain going a mile a minute and the air absolutely quiet with nothing.

Twenty minutes ago, you asked him to help you take off your coat so you can pull on his hoodie, and haven’t moved since zipping yourself back up. The air smells only of canned coffee and the stinging wind carrying the scent of cedar. Feet swinging, he drapes his arms over the railing and looks up at the red moon.

It is pretty. Magnificent, and ominous, almost. The night is so much darker without the moon. Sheesh, colder, too. I wonder if you’re feeling okay. Maybe I should check, but you don’t seem to be shaking. Worst comes to worst, I could up the level on the space heaters…

“I don’t think I ever got to hear his last words,” you muse quietly, voice cracking, rousing him from his monologue. His head swings to you. Your eyes are barely open as you rest your cheek against your forearm, and you don’t look at Satoru despite your head turned towards him. Instead, he can watch the pieces of you fall apart without your scrutiny. “I used to think… that I didn’t care.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” he asks slowly as you continue to stare blankly over his ear. Your chest stutters in its inhale and the exhale is just as shaky as you smile a bit to yourself. He takes that as answer, and as he speaks, he sees Suguru’s smile—bright against the darkness of the alleyway, and a reminder of a simpler time. Satoru’s heart quickens from the memory “‘At least curse me a little at the very end.’”

You’re quiet for a moment, as if soaking that in. Then, you draw yourself up and sigh. “That sounds like him.”

You say it fighting off a laugh, even though it wracks your body with such intense pain you can barely breathe. You begin to wheeze not even a second in, and still, your face is cracked into an agonizing smile as you blink, tears slipping down your cheeks. Your eyes squeeze shut and your body goes stiff as you cough, hands flying over your lips. Your shoulders shake so uncontrollably it’s like an earthquake in your body, but Satoru cannot find it in him to calm you down as you hunch over yourself.

It comes in its own course, until you’re nothing but a gasping body, crying into bloodied palms cupping purple flowers, and the low sobs that spill and stutter out of your throat makes Satoru wish he never told you.

“‘At least curse me a little at the very end,’” you repeat to yourself, voice raw and iron-like, and your eyes finally rise to meet his. Nothing but hollow purple pierces through him once more. “Yeah… Yeah, that sounds like him.”

An apology bubbles at his lips, but you continue before he can even begin. Your hands fall to to your laps, and you look at the decaying flowers, thumbs stroking the petals. “I could never make him truly happy… could I? Just like he said… nothing would’ve been good enough for him while we lived in this kind of world. No matter how many times I sat by him while he swallowed… swallowed those curses, held his hand, held him, I would have never been… enough to make him laugh from his heart.” Your tears cast dark shadows. “I held him, Satoru, with all my might… and I still felt him slip away between my fingers.”

That’s how Satoru learns you were there that day, December 24th, not a snowflake in sight. Just a few metres away, you stood for only a moment before you walked away from the man you loved so he could die without any regret, at the cost of your own guilt eating you alive.

No one speaks after that. Satoru cleans your hands slowly, carefully, giving attention to each finger, before swiping your lips, and then he wipes your tears away but you’re not crying anymore.

You just look up at the moon emptily and he scoots closer in hopes to keep your returning trembling at bay.

“Ten years is a very… long time to love someone.” You break the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. Fifteen, thirty minutes? He looks at you, and your lips press into a thin smile. He lifts his arm so you can scoot up close next to him. Your eyes never leave his face, regarding him with new clarity. “I just… realized.”

“Ten years is a very long time for anything,” he replies quietly, their faces very close. Their noses brush, and a warmth spreads through his cheeks as he presses the tip of your nose against his. You don’t pull away. Instead, you almost lean closer. Your nose is cold against his hot face, and he rubs it slowly with his own, trying to send heat back into your skin.

“A very long time to… wait.” Your eyes flutter shut, and your breath is warm over his lips as you slowly tilt your head so their foreheads meet. His hand squeezes your waist. You smell like the hospital, but there’s still the fragrance of the fresh-cut grass and herbs clinging to your skin as he moves his head just to the side so his nose presses into your frozen cheek. Your arm moves as if dragging through honey until it’s wrapped around his neck, palm flat against his shoulder, just as their brows press against one another.

Something ignites inside his chest, incinerating the rot that seems to grow inside his own chest—it’s his dread, he realizes a moment later. An ugly knot of dread for what’s to come, the guilt, the cold grief that’s just out of reach.

It’ll unfurl soon, he knows, but for now, he welcomes the relief you bring him.

In this moment, you are his, and he is yours, and that is all that matters.

His eyes close. His cheeks are burning hotter than the heaters surrounding them, and he feels a smile pulling at his lips as your fingers curl against the back of his neck.

“When will people… stop waiting?” you ask him, hushed like a secret.

Eyes opening, he answers you in the same soft voice, “Probably when they die.”

Your eyes crack open once more and he catches a sliver between your heavy lids. You’re so close he sees every detail of your irises, the pores of your eye bags, the way memories flicker through your pupils like fish in a river.

Your exhausted smile grows more genuine—something inside you seems to rear its bright little head, but it’s sad, and he realizes, then, what you must’ve been thinking. Words fumble at his mouth, but he doesn’t let anything slip as you lift your face away to rest your head against his shoulder.

You’re dozing against him. Satoru is staring up at the moon in your stead. It’s nearly fully that famous shade of dark blood red, but not quite. He can’t hear anything except the buzz of the space heaters and your breathing. His arm is still wrapped tight around you, holding you flush against him. He’s wished he’d done it so many times before that now, he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.

You’re dying. Even as you rest against him, he feels it. The weakness in your body, the way you’ve turned ghost-like. The strength of your Cursed Energy has become more prominent now that you don’t have the energy to channel it properly, and it’s centred so strongly in your chest that he can feel it poking curiously at him, leaving little marks, a souvenir for when you’re gone.

His fingers dig into your side. You let out a noise, head shifting, and he rips his gaze away away from the sky as your hand falls away from where it had rested around his neck into his lap.

“Satoru?” you whisper brokenly, and he nods, smiling. He pulls you closer, but their bodies are so pressed against each other that it only serves to make you huff a bit.

“Hey. You’re still with us, don’t worry,”

“Not worried,” you mumble, lifting your head with difficulty. “Just glad you’re here.” You tilt your face to the moon. “It’s still… red, huh…” You shake, your hand at the hem of his shirt twisting tightly. He reaches to squeeze your arm and hopes it’ll be enough now. “Pretty.” Throat dry, he does not answer. His white hair falls into his eyes as you look up at him, and he decays at the vulnerability in your gaze. “Aren’t you glad… that we saw the eclipse?”

Jaw clenching, he nods and tries his best to smile. Your hand lets go of his shirt and you shuffle up close enough that your other arm sneaks around his waist. Touching his chin with trembling fingers, your eyes glitter in the darkness of his shadow.

“I’m going to miss this. The moon, stars, how… fucking short… ’n’ beautiful life is,” you finally whisper, throat tight. “Makes shit worth living for. Maybe… won’t miss it… the most… but, top three.”

“Top three?” he echoes. “Top three sounds pretty good to me.”

“And, y’know what, Satoru?” you continue in the same low, husky tone, as if you’re about to change his world one more time.

He drops to the lowest, quietest voice he can manage and moves his head closer. Their noses nearly bump into each other again, and you smile as he quirks an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

“You’re… going to miss me… more.”

Your hand on his waist travels up his shoulder and he feels the last of your strength in your muscles as you pull him towards you. Letting you, his arms wrap around your waist as your other arm shoots around his neck, clinging on so hard that he’s sure his spine might break.

Flattening his palms against your uneven back, he closes his eyes and slides a hand to cradle your head close.

“And promise… me something,” you breathe into his ear. Your lips brush the shell of his ear, and a shiver shoots down his spine.

“Anything.”

“When I kick it,” you whisper, “take my body, and bury me… yourself.”

Throat swelling shut, Satoru’s glad you can’t see the way the blood drains from his face as he nods and holds you tighter. “I will.”

“One more photo for the road?” he asks. You lift your head from his chest, and he looks as you reach to sweep his lips with cold, trembling fingers. He smiles, his hand on your thigh squeezing meaningfully even though you can barely feel it now. Your arms are bundled between your chest and his, and he hauls your legs on his thighs more securely up his lap, arm tightening around your torso.

“Satoru,” you murmur, tilting your head to him. His eyes never move from yours as he picks up the camera, and your hand falls from his lips. “I’m glad… that it was you.”

He snaps the shot and the only sound that fills the silence is the camera chugging out the polaroid. Your eyes are dark, murky and unfocused, and he feels your stammering inhale in his very lungs as he presses his forehead against yours.

“I’m happy it was you, too,” he whispers. You search his gaze for only a moment, and then turn your head to the moon once more.

Lowering the camera to the floor, he sneaks his other arm around you and rests his chin atop of your head, eyes sliding shut.

Nanami, Yaga, and Ijichi approach, dress shoes tapping against linoleum floors. Satoru and Shoko say nothing to them as they join in watching through the glass doors.

Satoru doesn’t like the room they’ve moved you to. It’s too full of machines, too open to passersby who could just look in if the curtains aren’t drawn, and even then…

It smells too clinical here. Too full of artificial light. The ICU is a mechanical sort of silence than the quiet peace of the dead-end hallway. There is no warmth, no books, no paintings. Your plants have been removed, and Nanami has taken all of them into his apartment except the red tulips which rest on the dinner table in Satoru’s kitchen.

You stopped being able to breathe on your own only a day after the eclipse. That was two days ago, and the ventilator is doing nothing more than prolonging your agony. Soon, the growths will block your lungs entirely, suffocating you from the inside out.

The doctors have stopped taking scans.

“It’s only a matter of time, now,” Shoko had said. “Her directive says we let her go as soon as she can’t come back.” Quieter: “Her pulse ox has been dropping. It won’t be long.”

Ijichi’s face is stony. Satoru doesn’t know why he focuses on him out of everyone. Leaning against the nurse’s station, he stares blankly at the Assistant Director’s. Maybe because he thought he’d be a wreck. Out of all of them, Ijichi’s the most emotional, but his lips are set firm from where he stands between Nanami and their principal.

Maybe Satoru’s just looking for permission to fall apart, but that’d be stupid.

I’m the strongest. I’ll be fine.

“I’m going to go in,” he announces. No one protests. Nanami sits down and crosses one leg over the other, fingers steepled and eyes indecipherable. Shoko sits beside him. There’s the faint scent of smoke clinging to her lab coat.

Ijichi dips his head, but doesn’t sit and Yaga excuses himself to talk to the nurse about your condition.

Satoru sanitizes his hands, approaches the door, and pulls it open before stepping in and sliding it shut behind him.

Click. Hiss.

The sound of the ventilator is the only thing that occupies the room. That and the monitors. It’s very dark, despite it being the middle of the day. Mostly because you can’t open your eyes wide enough to withstand the sun anymore, so Satoru had asked the nurses to bring the same blackout curtains from your room here. The lights are dimmed until it’s only an orange glow right behind your bed.

Click. Hiss.

Sitting down, he doesn’t take hold of your hand just in case you’re sleeping. The intubation tube rests on a pile of towels on your chest, and it takes a long time before your eyes open and your head tilts just enough to look. Your hand twists on top of the covers until your palm is tilted open.

He slips fingers in, takes hold. The feel of your skin making everything worse. You’re colder than you should be—it’s sweltering in this room, enough that Satoru is already beginning to sweat even through his short-sleeve—and your fingers just barely twitch against the back of his hand, tracing strange shapes.

You blink, tapping his knuckle, and he frowns.

“What’s up?” Withdrawing, he feels your nail scrape against his flesh and he looks down. Curiously, he takes your hand and places it on top of his so your fingers can touch the lines of his palm. “Are you spelling something out?” he asks, amused, glancing up again.

Another blink, slower this time.

He leans forward on his elbow to touch your cheek before resting his cheek against his fist.

“Alright, give it your best shot.”

Your eyelids flutter, lips trembling in a weak smile. Your index finger begins to trace shapes, kanji, into his palm. Your chest rises and fall slowly, pumped full of air by a machine hooked to your lungs, forcing breath into you as your writing grows sloppy by the passing second but you still persist.

ANGRY?

“Angry?” he repeats, and you blink slowly again, fingers insistent on grabbing his palm. Folding his fingers over yours, he arches his eyebrows. “If I was angry at a terminally ill patient, that’d make me the asshole here.” Your eyes squeeze shut, eyebrows rearranging in what he recognizes as your laugh in silence. More seriously, his hold on you tightens and he lifts his head to brush his fingers over your brow. You tilt your head more to him, gaze murky warm. “How’re you feeling?”

It takes a while, but he feels your hand shuffle back to trace your answer on his hand.

BETTER

“Better. Yeah?”

Another lethargic blink. Yes.

“It’s because of me, right? I knew it. I knew it. We should tell Shoko—I’m the newest medical innovation in town,” he proclaims, and his smile begs to slip off his face but he only forces it back on, shoves it into place. Your eyebrows move again, like you’re struggling to hold back your laugh. Your eyes slip shut and do not open again.

Your face goes lax a moment later, and your fingers loosen a bit, but he doesn’t let go. He just wants to touch your face and trace the lines into his memory.

Satoru stretches his thumb along the swell of your bottom lip while carefully avoiding the tube. He runs his knuckles down your cheek. His fingers brush your pulse point along your neck, and he feels the slow, weak beat.

Click. Hiss.

He thinks you’re asleep for a while, until your finger drags over the flesh of his palm and he looks down, hand lifting from your face.

“Hey, I’m still here,” he whispers, and your face turns towards him slightly, the tube in your mouth shuffling. He reaches forward, cupping your face and holding you still. “Hey. Don’t move. Your lungs are weaker than the rest of you and I’m not about to watch you die.” Something grabs onto the front of his shirt near his stomach and he looks down to see your fingers hooking on the cotton of his tee, twisting it weakly. “Oh, sorry.”

He draws back and slips his palm back into yours. Your index finger taps against the heel of his hand before your nail drags deliberately. One stroke. Then another, and another. Gojo wishes your eyes were open, because then he would be able to determine what the rest of the sentence could spell out before you’re done, but he’s patient.

HERE

“Here?” You tap on his hand. Yes. “What’s here?”

YOU AND ME

“You and me,” he repeats thoughtfully. “Yeah, I get that. At least… now you can see Suguru again, right?” Your hand goes still and he looks at your face, reaching to touch your cheek again. You’re placid—doll-like, eyes shut, living dead. “I’m a bit jealous of that, but you should rest easy. It’s been a hard few months, hasn’t it?”

Another weak twitch of your finger on his hand.

“No matter what happens, don’t think I’m angry at you, or the choices you’ve made,” he continues. “As long as you let me stay here, I won’t waste a single second of it, okay?” Tap. He squeezes your hand so tightly your eyebrows twitch, even as you slip away from him. “For all your saying that you’re weaker than me, I never thought that. Not really.” Satoru raises your hand to his lips and he closes his eyes. “Being the strongest is pretty lonely. Used to be so fucking cocky about it, huh. Thought no one could touch me or the people I cared about because everyone would be too scared.”

Your fingers curl against his palm and he lowers his head to press your knuckles against his brow.

“I was wrong. I’d give anything to have you both back, but I can’t, and I hate it. You’re supposed to be with me at the top. I don’t want to be alone again.” His eyes are burning from the strain of keeping them open, but he refuses to miss a second of you being alive when the time is trickling like sand in an hourglass. He feels it like a heavy stare on his back, wondering if this next breath will be the last one before your brain finally decides to shut down. Your organs have been shutting down for nearly weeks now. He knows it’s out of pure selfishness that they’re dragging precious moments into agonizing hours.

He knows you’re exhausted.

Resting his chin on your fingers, he swallows. “I don’t know how to let you go. I wished I’d come sooner. I was careless. I know that. We could’ve had more time…”

Your fingers squeeze his as tight as you can before letting go. Somehow, he hears your voice in his ear. Something about being grateful for the time they did have.

“You were right, silly.” He chuckles to himself, bitter, anguished, and lowers your hand back to the bed, not letting go yet. “Ten years is a long time to wait. I let you down, but I’ll make sure you go easy. I promise.”

Satoru lays his head down on his forearm and he swears he catches your lips pull into the faintest smile. He stays there for hours, watching your face, stretching up to touch your unmoving face. The only sound is his steady breaths, the beep of your monitors and the click-hiss of your ventilator.

It’s 1:04 PM when he falls asleep to the sleepy circles you trace into his wrist

It’s 6:22 PM when only one of them wakes up.

At 11:00 AM the next morning, during one of the hourly tests, they declare you brain-dead. With the announcement of your directive being honoured by your chosen proxy, Satoru himself, classes are cancelled and they are scheduled to take you off life support at six.

Ijichi brings them lunch and dinner. Satoru doesn’t eat. Only sits by your side, leaned back into the chair and looking at you while he still can until the clock ticks and ticks and ticks towards doomsday. The kids come to say final goodbyes while he watches on. Inumaki, as always, brings Panda through his phone, and Satoru wishes there could’ve been some way to sneak Panda into a high-class hospital just so their last moments together aren’t cheapened by a screen.

Shoko enters five minutes before it’s time, hand finding his shoulder and he looks up just long enough to catch her blank stare resting on your face.

She doesn’t say anything, only moves to the other side of the bed and sits down in the other chair.

The doctor pumps you full of sedation drugs, so you won’t feel any of the pain, unhooks the machines, and extubates you, explaining all the while what he’s doing just to fill the silence. As he pulls the tube from your throat, something in Satoru turns icy when a purple petal is plastered to the side of the plastic, but the doctor does not acknowledge it any more than murmuring that he will give them privacy.

Your rattling breaths echo in his ears as he watches the numbers slowly drop, but even your inhales fade to nothing more than soft, slight wheezes. The tape has left a strange mark around your mouth, and you’re unmoving otherwise. Shoko gently reaches and touches the eye bags that are, for once, worse than hers before shaking her head and pulling back. Everyone else waits outside.

Hours pass by in torturous years.

Satoru wears the same stony expression the whole while, finally surrendering into his desire to hold your hand.

His heart hardens. He goes completely still. Shoko talks but he can’t really hear anything except the slow beeps of your monitor once you pass certain thresholds.

There are nurses waiting outside. They’ve grown used to the company, he thinks. He thinks one or two are crying. Soon enough, they’ll come in to turn off the machines tracking your vitals so the sounds don’t drive them crazy, banging in home that you’re dead, dead, dead.

After a while, Satoru realizes you aren’t quite breathing, although your chest moves. Sometimes, there’s a gasping sound, like someone surprised the breath out of you and you’re inhaling sharply to replace it, and he imagines your fingers twitching against his hand one last time.

It’s very slow. Much slower than he imagined it to be. Maybe you’re still fighting. Maybe you don’t want to go.

Satoru can’t imagine why. Where you’re going, there’s no pain, or exhaustion, or blood. Where you’re going, Suguru waits.

He leans against his hand, elbow on the slight incline of your bed. Letting go of your hand, he touches your face, feels the soft puff of your breath, the curve of your jaw. You’ve lost so much weight from the sickness you barely look like yourself, but you’re still you. The cursed energy is still yours. His Six Eyes sees it. His soul feels it.

It tangles with his own where he touches you, and a wave of exhaustion washes over him.

He wants to sleep, let time pass, and wake up to you dead.

It seems a much better alternative to watching you slip away, but he’s always been selfish when it came to personal affairs.

You die two hours later.

Shoko closes her eyes and leans back into her chair as the nurse comes in to turn off the droning monitor. Her face is dry and she takes long, measured breaths as if trying to temper something swirling inside her. Satoru’s hard heart cracks as he squeezes your hand to see if you’ll wake up. It doesn’t quite sink in, even though he can hear someone crying outside, and when your limp hand doesn’t react at all, he shakes his head and gets up, pulling his sunglasses off the collar of his shirt and sliding them back onto his face.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rakes his face over your body, your face.

He’s seen a dozen dead bodies before, maybe more. You look just like he did on December 24th. At peace, younger. Like you’re glad the suffering is over, and Satoru turns his face away sharply and leaves the room. He doesn’t know what to say and he’s not sure if his voice is still here.

Everything feels dry and dull and grey.

“Sensei,” Itadori whispers wetly, reaching out a hand, making him stop. The students are all sitting in a small area, but they stand upon seeing him leave the room, and he gives them a plastic smile that makes all of them flinch. Maki is scowling furiously at the ground as Inumaki takes hold of her bicep but she flings the hand off and stalks away, hiding her red face.

“It’s going to be okay,” he tells them as Kugisaki runs after Maki. He watches the two go before turning his attention back on the students. “The important thing is that she didn’t suffer. Arrangements will be made, but there won’t be any rush, alright?” The words feel lacking, but he still manages to smile. “It’s been a long day. Go home. Rest, shower, eat. Let’s remember that she doesn’t want us to be here, slumping around looking like idiots. She wants you to all to take care of yourselves.” He arches his eyebrows insistently at his students, but they don’t seem to hear him.

They’re only looking through the glass doors at your coolling corpse, at Shoko who stands, and speaks to the doctor when he comes back in.

Fushiguro is the only one really looking at him, and the teenager has a silent question in his stare.

Satoru shakes his head, and Megumi nods.

“Classes are cancelled for the rest of the week,” Yaga adds. “Ijichi will drive you all back to the college in thirty minutes. Make sure you tell the girls.” He directs this to Inumaki, who nods.

“Salmon.”

Later, Megumi finds him smoking a cigarette leaning against Shoko’s car. Satoru’s never liked the taste of the stuff so he doesn’t really know why he’s smoking other than the fact he doesn’t know what to do.

Up is down, left is right, and you’re dead.

Nothing seems right, but Megumi gives him a good excuse to stop. Flinging the cig to the ground, he stomps out the ember and re-arranges his expression into that shielded smile of his, but it feels a bit weaker. Sharp, janky, wrong.

“Why haven’t you gone home yet? Ijichi should’ve taken you all back by now,” Satoru says wearily as Fushiguro stops before him, hands shoved in his pockets.

“I stayed behind to look for you,” informs Megumi. He looks a bit fractured, but the boy’s never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Satoru makes a mental note to dig into his psyche at a later date, and stretches an arm out to wrangle the boy into a hug against his side.

For all of his complaints and mumbles and scowls, Megumi’s body still relaxes a bit against his, and even though he doesn’t hug him back, when he tells him, “You should go home and get some sleep, too. These past few months haven’t been easy on you, either,” Satoru feels a part of his old self raise its bloody head.

Glancing down at a head of spiky hair, he knocks his knuckles into his student’s skull. “Have you been keeping an eye on me?”

Megumi crosses his arms, glares over Satoru’s elbow, but even his voice is quieter. “You need to take care of yourself.”

Satoru smiles again. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “But you’re not worried about me, are you, Fushiguro?”

Megumi ducks his head and doesn’t answer any more than, “Someone has to pick up the slack, now.”

“Thanks, Ijichi,” Satoru says with a huff, digging the shovel into the ground and stepping on the metal edge. “Not every day you help me carry a dead body and dig a grave, huh.”

“No, sir,” Ijichi replies. He sounds a bit hoarse and tired as he wipes at his brow.

It’s been two days since you’ve died. The college grounds feels a lot less lively. He took a walk in the gardens yesterday, and saw Yaga planting new flowers. He had strode past and ignored the tears on his sensei’s face, and absently wonders now why he hasn’t cried yet as he grabs the shovel and yanks it out of the dirt, tossing it to Ijichi.

It feels kind of stupid, but despite how eviscerated everything inside him feels, he just can’t.

Either way, he’ll deal with it when it becomes a problem.

Satoru wipes at his brow, too, with a heavy sigh, and heads to where a cloth-covered shape is resting on the ground. Your corpse is light in his arms as he bridal carries you to the hole he’s just dug into the grass. It looks suspicious as hell, but it’d probably be even worse if he’d been walking around with a dead body over his shoulder, stitched back together after an autopsy by your best friend.

Good thing they’re only in the forests outside the college campus. There won’t be any civilians for miles.

“You can go,” he says over his shoulder, setting you down by the hole they’ve dug. He takes in a deep breath to calm himself and Ijichi’s footsteps hesitate before beginning and fading away moments later. Falling to his knees, Satoru begins to carefully unfold the cloth just enough that he can see your face and chest.

He squints behind his blindfold at the ripples of energy still seeping from the stitches along your chest. Sinking his hands into the lush, cold grass, he twists the blades with rigid fingers at the stench of rot coming from the curse before he draws back.

Hands on his lap, he stares at your face. You look frozen in time, eyes closed, skin clean, and there’s that unnatural stillness about you that only comes with the dead. It’s strange. He probably couldn’t have imagined someone so vivacious could be so motionless if he hadn’t seen it first with Suguru.

He had asked not to hear the results of your autopsy. Not now, maybe not ever. It’d be fresh lemon juice in a weeping wound. All he knows is that the curse clings to your corpse, and Shoko could only remove the growths that were no longer being fed for examination.

“Weird that this is where we’ve found ourselves,” he begins humourlessly. “With how we were living, Suguru always said I’d die first. Doing something stupid, being too cocky.” He slides a hand into his pocket and withdraws something he’d snipped this morning from the last plant you had grown with your Technique. A red tulip with a short stem that’s a bit crushed, and beginning to decay, but… everything can’t be perfect.

“I never thought I’d outlive you.”

Reaching forward, he places the tulip gently on your chest, takes your cold arms that are just beginning to loosen up again from rigor mortis, and folds your hands over the stem.

“Eternal love, and fame,” he repeats to himself. The energy nearly swallows up the tulip, but as it radiates from your chest, flickers in the slight breeze, Satoru sees flashes of red and green, much brighter than everything else around him, and knows that it won’t be consumed. Sitting down, he hugs his legs to his chest and stares at your dead body blankly, chin on his knees.

He had had a plan. He was going to just… put the flower there, exorcise the curse inside you, and bury you so you could finally rest. He wouldn’t hesitate because this is something you entrusted him to do.

But this is the first time in months he hasn’t had a cloud hanging over his head, and his body feels so much ligher without the burden of your disease hanging off his shoulders, that he can’t help but relish in it. Speak to you without worrying about saying the wrong thing, of people overhearing. He’s finally… free.

It feels fucking awful.

“You were right, by the way.” His voice is dull, resonating deep in his chest. There is no August sun breaking through the trees above, only from behind him, and the golden beams touch your chin, down your throat and chest. It sets the red of the tulip on fire. “I miss you. And I wish I could’ve said so many things, but we ran out of time.” A faint smile. “No matter what you think, Suguru loved you. It’s why he came to see you one last time. I knew him better than I knew myself, and I know he was happiest knowing you were at his side.” Closing his eyes, the ache in his heart swells as he utters out, “So was I.”

Burying his his face in his forearms, a cup inside him seems to tip over and everything feels too hot for him to breathe in. Ripping his blindfold off and tossing it away from him blindly, his eyes snap open wide as he tries to breathe. His ribs constrict his lungs, and he presses his eyes into his arms, hands shaking as he sinks his nails into his biceps.

Harsh pants puff against his face as he tries to reign in his shuddering, but he can’t. The knot in his heart twists until he thinks he might die, and distantly, he hears soft footsteps so faint he’s not sure if he imagines it. Gritting his teeth, he stifles the bruising feeling welling up in his throat.

Gentle hands brush down his shoulders soothingly, sending a wave of nausea through his body, and he jerks away.

“Damn it, Ijichi, leave me alone!” Wrenching his head up, his eyes widen at the figure crouched in front of him.

Arms falling lax to the grass and his knees widening, his jaw drops as a thumb teases his parted lips. You step between his legs and crouch down, limber and strong. You look healthy again, bright eyes and full cheeks, young like spring, and when you smile, it fills him utterly with light. In your hands is his blindfold, and you ruffle his hair, tilting your head curiously.

“I’m not Ijichi, but… do you really want me to go so soon?” you ask as he rakes his gaze up and down your body. There is still a purple shell encasing your legs, but as you shift your weight on your feet, it falls like fragile eggshells to the ground and sinks into the dirt, disappearing for good. Peering around you, his eyes widen when he sees shards of a purple shell in shatters all over your corpse.

He’d only seen this once before, eight months ago, with a certain student of his and the cursed spirit of the girl he loved and who loved him.

Face burning, his gaze snaps back to you as you poke his cheek and continue to grin. Leaning back on his hands, he tries to stop the intense shattering of his walls by clenching his jaw, but the shudders overtake his body, his chest, his throat until he’s letting out an ugly sound and blinking hard as if that’ll hide it away from you. Something devastatingly warm immediately shoots down his cheeks. Covering his mouth with the crook of his elbow, he turns his face away but your warm hands cradle him carefully, thumbs brushing underneath his eyes.

“Yuuta, you’re right. Rika isn’t cursing you.”

“No,” he whispers, arm falling. His fingers sink into his shoulder as if that would be enough to wake him from this nightmare. “No. I can’t—Did I—Did I kill you?” You squint studiously, not letting go of his face as he lifts the hand from his shoulder and reaches to touch you. It shakes, and he snaps it into a fist to stop it, looking at his fingers that have done so much harm—shed so much blood. “Did I do this to you?”

“You cursed Rika.”

You chuckle fondly, like he’s said something silly, and set a hand on his fist, pushing it down firmly. “You can’t control how other people react to your words, Satoru.” Your voice changes, and your eyebrows draw together in something bittersweet. “And you can’t change something you didn’t know. The chances of you cursing me and me cursing myself are irrelevant. It doesn’t change anything about where we are, now.”

Satoru watches you, lips parted, as you tie the blindfold around his neck. You feel so real, so close, and as you slide your hands down his shoulders, to his chest, he jerks his head down to stare at your shoes in the grass.

So he did.

“I see,” he murmurs.

That’s it, then.

“Satoru, please look at me,” you whisper, fingers stretching to his chin. With the gentlest of pressures, you prompt him up and he finds your face, your smile, where all colours begin and end. For a moment, the world seems to inhale all of its life back into its core—the leaves whistle, the sun is warm and golden, and he lifts his hand to touch you again, but you pull back before he can.

“I can only thank you for being my friend. For staying with me until the very end.” You laugh quietly to yourself and lift your hand from his face. “I would make a joke about a curse, but I know it still hurts, so I’ll save it for when I see you on the other side, okay? When it heals a bit more.”

“It’s never going to hurt less,” he croaks. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know how much you mean to me.”

Your smile softens. Satoru tries to eternalize that expression forever. “I’m honoured, but, I hope it does heal. I don’t want you to learn how to carry so much pain around. I don’t want you to be numb.” You touch his cheek again, as if you’re trying to soak in as much of him as you can, too.

“Do you have any last words?” he manages to ask raspily, and you chuckle, tilting your head and running your hand through his hair again. His eyes flutter shut at the scratch, the sensation of your nails against his scalp, and then there’s your hand at his jaw, holding him all together. He wants to hold you so badly he thinks his muscles might cramp into stone at the desire.

“What does it matter?” you ask curiously. “You already know how I feel. That will never change. And if you ever want to know what I think, or what I’d do, you can just ask Shoko and think about it yourself. You know me well enough to not need me nagging about it.”

“But, it won’t be enough.”

“It never will be,” you agree. “But isn’t it wonderful that we even got to know each other at all?” You lean forward, and his eyes flutter shut as you hold him to your chest. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, but your warmth is almost the same. The echo of your voice rumbles in his head as you speak, and maybe that is enough. “If you want my last words, you already have them.”

You draw him back, and give him one last smile. The air shifts golden yellow to his Six Eyes, for the last time.

“Until we meet again, my Satoru.”

You fade without giving him a chance to answer, taking all the colour with you.

Staring at the empty air where you had been just a moment before with wide, burning blues, he whispers your name brokenly before burying his hands in the dirt, squeezing his eyes shut, and letting boiling tears scald his face red.

“If you want my last words, you already have them.”

Spinning the key ring on his finger, Satoru looks dully at the door knob he had just unlocked. There’s no one in the hall, and he debates whether or not he should turn around, but Shoko had insisted. There’d been something left for him in your old apartment, and according to her, it would be spoiled soon if he didn’t go.

“Oh, what the hell,” he mutters, catching the key in his palm and shoving it into his long coat. Tugging it tighter around himself, he twists the knob and pushes it open. He can’t remember the last time he was in here. Maybe five or six months ago, when they both had a day off that didn’t need to be spent at the college.

There aren’t any plants anymore. He supposes Nanami, Ijichi, maybe even Yaga have taken them. He swears he’s seen a few in the gardens lately, but who is he to say? Toeing off his shoes, he makes his way down the hall.

Everything is just as you left it, with clean counters and empty tables. The curtains are spread, letting in so much September sunlight. It hits random display pedestals of different sizes, all the surfaces big enough to fit a pot on. Your watering can sits by the sink. There are photos hanging on the walls, propped up on the desk, on your shelves, polaroids taped to the walls.

Reminders that someone did live here. That there is a whole life unknown to strangers but evidence enough that whoever used to be here, they had people who would miss them.

Walking up to the counter, he drags his fingers along the surface, feeling the dust collect up to a square of pale light. A clean circle is all that’s left as a clue that there used to be something there, and his heart twists.

Who knew he could miss fucking plants of all things?

Sweeping his gaze around, he brushes off the dust on his jacket and hooks a thumb on his blindfold, sweeping the area with an eccentric eye. The TV is off, your bookshelves are in their usual untidy state, but even the reaching vines of the bean plant is gone from the highest shelf.

“They really scooped this place dry,” he muses dryly to no one. He can still hear the music you’d play for late nights, the smell of dumpling soup. He walks down the hall and still remembers how many steps it takes to reach the bathroom that guests would use.

He had hunched over that bath on December 25th, and let water soak through his hair as strong fingers worked the sweat from his scalp and skin.

Four more steps to the guest best room on the right, and another three to the end of the hall where a door leads to your room. It’s already open, and he steps in easily, tugging his blindfold all the way down off his face. Hair falling over his eyes, he sweeps it aside and surveys the room. The walls are still that pretty shade of cream, and your bed is made carefully, dark olive blankets resting atop your white sheets. He smiles to himself, despite the twang in his chest.

Walking deeper, he approaches the cabinet by your bathroom, and picks up the photo you have by your jewelry stand.

A smile curls his mouth. He remembers this one. First year, their first September. All four of them had gone together to Sapporo for the autumn festival.

He sets the photo back down and looks into the bathroom. Your toiletries are all lined up, waiting for their next use, and he swallows as he raises his gaze up to the mirror. His blue eyes look a big too big on his face from the past month alone, and there are red-purple half moons printed onto his face that have only just started to fade. He swears it only looks worse because of how much pale light is streaming in from the windows, and he tugs at his collar uncomfortably, clearing his throat.

Turning around, he looks at the offenders for making him look so awful, and finds a medium-sized pot sitting on the window seat. It’s the only thing sitting on the flat, wooden surface, in partial shade and almost unfurling before his very eyes.

Satoru frowns, walking around your bed to inspect the plant.

The flowers are a warm magenta colour, and his eyes widen at the flash of white he can see leading to the center of each bloom. Brushing a thumb over the petals, his jaw sets as he tilts his head to get a better look at the plant. So this is what was growing inside of you. Huh.

There’s another slip of white near the dirt, and his eyebrows furrow, fingers seeking the thing. It crinkles when he touches it, and his frown deepens as he manages to grasp it, pulling it free underneath the leaves and stems of the plants. Sitting down beside the pot, he dusts off the dirt clinging to the paper, and reads his name along the front in your print before flipping the envelope around. There’s something sticking out of it, a sloping shape that’s hard but not too big.

Curiosity peaked, he tears the envelope open carefully and peers inside. A binder clip is inside, holding something together, and he flips it upside down, letting everything fall. The letter slides out first, followed by whatever the binder clip is holding together and he squeezes his thighs together so it doesn’t fall to the floor.

Setting the letter aside, he picks the bundle up.

Polaroids.

They’re polaroids of different sizes that have him smiling despite the heavy sorrow twisting his entire chest.

Various pictures of Satoru, Suguru, Shoko, and you together, and he finds most of them are of him and you. Pictures of him hiding behind plants of various sizes, a picture of him drinking soju, because Suguru liked it the most and insisted he try, while leaning against Shoko who was knocking back a shot of tequila. There is a shot of Suguru, wet with mud and smiling like sunshine, while a drenched Satoru was in the background, flipping the camera off in the middle of a storm.

More and more pictures, enough to spill out of his lap, and he picks up each one, desperate to remember when or where you took them.

And, sometimes, he can’t. Sometimes, they are just moments that he’s lost because he never thought they’d be important, and now moments he’d give anything to remember.

There are pictures of a fern he had named their first year, little annotations on the bottom of some others. Dates, but with no context otherwise. Names scribbled in black ink.

You’re in a lot of them, your smile timeless, your joy infectious even through film.

Arms slung around Suguru, face smushed against his, artfully blurry perhaps on accident, and annotated with scrawl that read: I call this masterpiece “Dumb Sweethearts” by Gojo Satoru :)

A picture of him and Shoko and Suguru, of them in one of Tokyo’s night markets, you behind the camera, the lights flashing and warm and pink, making them all look like they’ve transported to some other kind of cyberpunk world.

You and Shoko lounging in the gardens, having a tiny picnic at your insistence, and in Suguru’s handwriting in black: JUST GIRLS BEING PALS

Satoru stares at Suguru’s writing the longest, not even at his words, just the strokes of his pen. This is a new part of him Satoru thought had been destroyed, and he starves for it. It’s like his one and only lives and breathes in the ink, in those snapshots of him caught in eternal youth. When they’d been happy and unaware and not innocent, but cocky enough to think they could rule the world.

It’s hungry, the way he goes through each photo, searching for another glimpse of you, of him, of them together, until Satoru is all out of moments to feed on, and still, he feels empty, flicking through the last few photos.

You in a pool, arms wrapped around Shoko and beaming like the sun.

A shot of Satoru and Suguru climbing trees shot from below, your eyes and skeptically raised eyebrows in frame, captioned big dumb monkeys

And the last one…

He holds it to the sunlight and his gaze softens.

A selfie of you kissing Suguru on the cheek. It’s mostly dark, but they were definitely in the bathroom, and the flash made Suguru’s outstretched arm look pale as a ghost, but even so, there’s no mistaking the happiness captured there. He was sticking out his tongue, winking, and red as a beet so he was either drunk or you had said something or both. Your arms were wrapped around his neck, nose squished against his cheek, eyes squeezed tight as he took the shot.

Turning it over, Satoru’s heart plummets into his chest. In Suguru’s clean, blocky writing:

THE GIRL IM GOING TO MARRY ONE DAY <3

And crossed out is your reply followed by a little note:

dummy doesnt have the nerve to propose SHHH!!!! ONE DAY C:

One day.

It sounds so much emptier now.

He lowers the photo back to his lap, and glances around him, at all these scattered moments captured forever. Gathering them up again, he relives them all over again, looking at each photo for longer to see if he’s missed anything, but mostly his stare lingers on your face, and on Suguru’s, and his own, too, because he can’t remember what it felt like back then, but he is sure it feels so much better than now.

The polaroids come together a neat stack and he is careful not to scratch any of them when he clips them together. The top photo is of you with your arms wrangled around Suguru and Satoru, your face split in a maniacal laugh, their mouths open in shock, eyes bulging in how you must’ve scared them witless.

Shoko’s messy writing at the bottom, for it must’ve been her who had taken the photo: BREAKING NEWS: Japan’s Strongest Conquered by a Woman.

A smile cracks his weary face and he runs a thumb over their faces before sliding the photos back into the envelope for safe-keeping.

Then, he grabs the letter. His name is written again on the first flap, and he reads it three times over before unfolding the paper, not quite ready but also not sure if he ever will be.

Immediately, a faint, herbal-like scent slashed with antiseptic flows from the page and his stomach curdles as your script pours down the page.

Swallowing, Satoru shifts and leans against the wall, hiking a foot up onto the seat and holding your inked characters to the light. There’s a date inscribed at the top.

Thursday.

The first Thursday after you had been released from the hospital. Your last Thursday before you were back in for good.

“Shit.”

He folds the letter again and tilts his head back against the wall, staring at the ceiling.

Does he want to read this? Does he really want to fucking read this?

Taking a deep breath, he clears his throat and lowers his gaze to stare determinedly ahead of him. The purple flowers greet him warmly and he shakes the shiver out of his body before tightening his grip on your letter and unfolding it again, forcing his eyes on the page.

My Satoru,

I sent all the pictures I had of Shoko to her, and she has some of Suguru, too. Now that I’m gone, there’s no use if I keep them. Maybe you two could share some time, laugh it up over these old memories. I know she says she can’t stand you, but to be honest, who else is there that will remember us now? Who else is there to remember Suguru for more than his bloody hands and me as more than that girl too sick to do anything but die?

Some legacy we said we’d leave, huh.

I don’t think I told you this, but with this disease catching up to me, it’s hard not to form hypotheses on why it’s happening or how. I have quite a few theories, and, unfortunately, none of them are pleasant or unriddled with angst. By now, you’ve probably figured out it’s a curse, and if you’re smart enough to ignore how much I’ll probably deny it, that it’s some love bullshit. If you didn’t know, now you do.

I know it’s weird. Suguru is dead. It shouldn’t be happening, right?

That’s what I thought, too

You once said love manifests the most twisted curses. I never thought of it that way before, but I’m starting to think you’re right. I don’t want to curse you by dying, but I can’t help but wonder if we can control who we curse. If I hadn’t heard you say that, would I still be here? Healthy? Okay?

I don’t know. I can’t predict alternate timelines, because I got to live one life, and that’s more than most people get. But, because I know you, you want me to entertain you. I’m sighing as I write this.

Look, I know the pain would still be there. I know I still wouldn’t be able to forgive myself for what I did, even if it was what had to be done. I know I would still miss him. I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.

If you didn’t curse me, I cursed myself. It drives me crazy that this is how the die was cast, even now, even after months where I could’ve accepted this, but at least this physical manifestation almost makes me… calm. Like seeing what this life has done to me makes me brave enough to fight it. If anything at all, the curse brought me a greater understanding of how powerful our world is in comparison to people who… are normal. The people we have to protect.

I’m sorry. Reading this back, it sounds like I’m the one cursing you now; telling you all this knowledge that can only bring you more anguish. I promise, this isn’t what it is. I just want you to understand. You couldn’t have saved me, Satoru. I couldn’t have given you the absolution you wanted, and if that’s how it is, then I just hope that one day you can look back on this and it won’t hurt anymore.

It’s always been so complicated between us, after what happened to Suguru, and after what he did, even ten years ago. What we couldn’t stop and what we had to do that day. There was always a line that I thought I couldn’t cross, or a line you didn’t want to cross, and it was shaped a lot like him. I don’t know if it was just in my head, but there was something holding us back, and I was fine dancing around it because I saw how you felt about him and I understood. Your eyes always changed when you looked at him. When you spoke of him. Even after.

Always after.

Don’t think I’m angry. I’m not blind. I know how much you two meant to each other, and I could never be angry that Suguru is so cherished. Missed. It makes everything so much harder, so much more painful.

Look, in the end, I loved him, and you did, too. And if we both still do, that’s okay. He deserved love.

I guess it just feels like a stab in the back that it wasn’t enough.

But life isn’t a fairytale. None of it really matters. To be honest, I wouldn’t trade any of it for a second, and I hope you wouldn’t either.

Maybe life isn’t supposed to be lived happily, but lived contently. And I did. I am satisfied with what I’ve done, even if I wanted to do so much more.

I’m so grateful to have known you, to have had you by my side. I hope you can say the same.

Don’t regret my death. Remember how much fun we had when we were stupid kids, and smile. Because I don’t want you to think your best years are behind you. I want you to be happy, even if I can’t be there to see it. I want you to be excited for your future, even if I can’t be in it.

I’ll always be watching over you, so smile for me every once in a while. Even if it seems like you’ll never feel anything again. One day, I promise you will, and it won’t feel so bad.

Yours forever and ever and ever,

(Name)

Throat crushed, he reads one line over and over the most. He’s memorized your letter heart, but he still carries it around with him, anyway.

“I know that I would still long for the day I didn’t feel guilty for loving someone else.”

Sometimes, he just wants to imagine your hand whispering over the page, the pen tapping against your chin, your face as you wrote, the sigh that you said you heaved. Because he’ll never hear you laugh again, see your smile. Your voice will never tease his ear, your fingers will never touch his face. There is no more laugh-wrinkles set in a face always perfectly hit by sunlight, and this is all he has left. His memory, and what you’ve left behind.

It makes him laugh how almost lovestruck stupid he’s being, but… he doubts anyone blames him. As long as he’s still doing his job, as long as he’s still the Strongest, what does it matter if he carries a dead woman’s letter in his pocket everywhere?

“Warm weather, even in the evenings. That’s a bit unusual,” Nanami observes, startling Satoru and he looks up at the blond who stops by him in the gardens. The man is wearing his grey suit, as always, and his watch glimmers in the fading gold light. “How are you?”

Satoru’s fingers tighten around the letter in his hands. As usual, the urge to crumple it up, throw it into the garbage to never see it again, has reared its head after his latest re-read, but he’ll stave it off. He always manages to.

“Fine,” he replies, glancing at the startling blood red and burnt orange leaves casually. Colours seem a bit brighter, and Satoru still squints a bit against them, despite the soft light of the sunset. He doesn’t know when his Six Eyes got so sensitive to that kind of stuff, but it almost feels good to be distracted by something so trivial as sensitive eyesight. “It is a bit warm for October.”

Nanami hums. “How are your plants doing?”

“Mine are doing good,” he says, smiling. “The tulips have gone dormant, so nothing to worry about there. The one with purple flowers, though. It’s a tough one. It took me a while to figure out what it liked, but it didn’t go dormant or anything as long as I gave it enough water and paid attention to it.”

“That’s good.” Nanami adjusts his green lenses and sighs like he’s bracing himself for something difficult. “Gojo,” he begins, but Satoru merely folds your letter up and slides it into his breast pocket, holding up a hand.

“Whatever you’re going to say, Nanami, I don’t need to hear it.”

“Are you sure?” he asks skeptically, gaze following as Satoru stands, patting his jacket. Adjusting the lapel, he turns to his friend and when he grins, it feels like it reaches his eyes behind his sunglasses for the first time in two months.

“I’ve done this before, Nanami. I’ll be fine.” He waves it away. Nanami frowns. “I’m gonna get some dinner, though. Care to join? There’s a real good ramen place in Ikebukuro that you have to try.” The blond man observes him for a moment, before shaking his head, saying he had dinner already. “Suit yourself. Next time, I’m treating you, though.”

Lips puckered in a whistle, Satoru turns around and begins to walk away.

A breeze sweeps through the gardens, rustling the leaves in a discordant harmony, and sneaking into his jacket, sending a slight shiver up his spine as Nanami’s voice follows after him.

“The flower she left you is the sakurasou.” Satoru stops, hands in his pockets, but he doesn’t turn around as Nanami continues, “I wasn’t certain if if you knew.”

“Nope, I didn’t. Thanks for the info.” Lifting a hand, he barely looks over his shoulder before saluting with two fingers and smiling cheekily. It’s not as forced as it used to be. In fact, it comes quite easy as he reaches into his pocket for his phone. He knows what he has to find out now. “See ya later, Nanami.”

“Good evening,” he replies, and in a blink of an eye, Satoru is gone.

On the windowsill of his empty apartment, the sakurasou soaks in the last remnants of the day before wilting against two photos.

One of four students, arms entangled, and faces framed in eternal youth.

And another immortalizing what could’ve been longer than a few shaky months if someone had been just a bit braver.

a/n: satoru’s google search result: the meaning of sakurasou - desire and long-lasting love.

and yes, there was an actual lunar eclipse on july 27th, 2018 (28th in japan time). it was very pretty. i researched a bit about both the lunar eclipse and the medical stuff, but excuse any inaccuracies! tis but a work of fiction <3 also, fun fact: the polaroid camera is supposed to be the instax mini 90 but ive never used it so excuse those inaccuracies as well SKNDALSDKN

ngl i did wanna write an alternative ending, but i can’t see this ending any other way. this is it. this is the canon, and we got a bit of happy feelies at the end as a treat. thank you for reading!

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wordsinwinters · 2 years

Text

Then Again, Chapter 15: A Quick Detangle

Summary: After an intense fight and a forced-to-share-the-bed situation during their junior year decathlon trip, Peter and the Reader examine their faults and failings. As they attempt to fix their mistakes and improve their friendship, that friendship quickly begins to evolve into something else.

Betas: @fanboyswhereare-you and @girl-tips-from-satan

Masterlist (with AO3 links)

Then Again, Chapter 15: A Quick Detangle

(Word count: 736)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29,

It’s 6:13 when I wake up again.

A faint brush of almost-sunlight is highlighting the window curtains, illuminating the rest of the room as if through a thick film. Still, everything is sharper now. I can actually see the buttons on the alarm clock, for one thing.

For another thing, I can finally see Peter— see him well enough that I could count his eyelashes if I wanted to, or else trace the three freckles just under his jaw to mimic his hand thing from last night. Don’t even think about it. But I do — think about it — and the ache that accompanies the thought verges on painful. This is too much. Maybe it would’ve been better if he hadn’t come back at all.

No, that’s not true. Not even slightly. I can handle this crush, no matter how deeply I keep sinking into it, but I couldn’t handle it if our fight actually ended my and Peter’s friendship. I just need to focus on the competition. I’ll deal with the emotional consequences of everything later. Today is about the team, about Michelle and all of her hard work to get us here. I cannot mess this up.

For that reason, I know I ought to force myself up, start getting ready, and steer my mind back in the right direction. Though… though maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wait another thirty to sixty seconds.

God, why does he have to be so comfortable and warm?

I’m still lying on top of him, like before. My body rises and falls slowly to the tide of his breathing. His arms are wrapped around me, loosely hugging my middle while his chin sits on the top of my head. My face is buried in his neck, hands lying onto his bare shoulders. Our ankles are still tangled together beneath the blanket. The…problem is gone.

I let myself soak in the moment before it dissolves.

I am really glad you came back, Peter. More than I should be. This is such a mess, isn’t it? I try my best to shut off my brain.

After thirty seconds, I lift my head up and carefully reach behind my back to push away the blanket and set Peter’s arms back on the bed. I move my feet to either side of his legs, my hands similarly pressed into the mattress beside his shoulders, and I gently push myself up.

It’s far easier than last time, at least. Peter’s dead to the world.

I keep my eyes on his the entire slow crawl backward on the bed, however. I’m determined to drop to the floor the moment he wakes up— if he wakes up; I’m not sure how he might react to me hovering over his body while he sleeps. I can only pray his fighting instincts wouldn’t kick in.

As I near the end of the bed, I feel a sudden burst of relief, realizing that I’ll have at least one answer within the next couple hours. After that little blip of an apology last night, those few sentences, I can tell Peter that the only thing I want him to do is explain why he came back. That’s all I’ll ask. For now.

Hopefully, things will go back to normal today.

From here I cannot — I refuse — to let my feelings get in the way of our friendship. I really can’t lose him; I know that now without doubt or hesitation. One argument, one night where I thought he might slip out of my life and never speak to me again, and it was like a nest of sharp wires had been shoved into my gut. I can’t risk that again.

Not to mention, sharing a bed for one night doesn’t erase that photo of him looking at Liz. God. That image still tastes metallic, like a teaspoon of blood under my tongue. He doesn’t care about me in that way and he never will. Liz is who he likes. Liz is the type of person he likes. And I’m not Liz.

I need to remember that.

I slip off the bed.

Before tiptoeing to the shower, I glance at him one last time. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear he has that expression again, that look of disheartened longing from the picture. Or maybe it’s just a blank face from sleeping.

I wonder if he’s dreaming about her.

Next chapter

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#peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #peter parker #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine

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blush-and-books · 3 years

Text

she lives in daydreams with me

3+1 in which julie’s daydreaming spreads to luke, too. title and inspiration from she by harry styles.

a gift for my fellow fantoms on this beautiful clowngate.

a/n: this isn’t meant to be tied to/inspired by blissful reveries by noblealice on ao3, but it’s a great fic that i love and it’s a julie daydream fic so i may as well link it because you should check it out!!!

Luke noticed that sometimes, Julie would completely zone out.

It wasn’t often that she did it around him, but while she would try and study her pencil would be moving on the paper but her eyes would not be focused. Or when she would be washing the dishes, a faint humming could be heard under her breath as her hands mindlessly rinsed the plates and placed them into the dishwasher.

“They’re daydreams,” she whispers into the nearly pitch-black garage one night when they stay up, despite their exhaustion, just to be with each other. “I had them a little when I was a kid. It was how I got inspiration for a lot of songs.”

Julie’s voice raises to a higher pitch at the end of her sentence. It’s a familiar sound to Luke, now -- most of her little vocal cues are -- so he turns on the floor to face where she’s lying on the couch, and brings his hand up to her bare ankle.

“They’re musical?”

“They were, and then… They weren’t. I daydreamed a lot after my mom, but it was mostly her walking through the front door like she never left.”

He doesn’t have to say anything. He just needs to be there.”

“And then,” Julie continues, “after I met you, the music came back.”

His heart skips a beat. He knows she meant “you” as in him and Reggie and Alex, them as a collective unit; but it’s a fun little dream of his own for her to just be thinking of him.

Lightly, his thumb skates across her skin. “I’m glad. If anyone should have music in their life, it’s you, Julie.”

“Do you ever daydream?” Her voice is quiet. She’s probably falling asleep.

There’s no reply. So it’s just the two of them, in the dark, with his hand attached to her because now that he can feel her like this he doesn’t want to stop until he has to. His hand is just barely on her ankle, but with every trace of his fingers back and forth along the curve he marvels at his ability to do it in the first place.

A smile pops at the corners of Luke’s lips. “Not really,” he tells her. “If I did… They probably wouldn’t be musical, like yours.”

“Then what would you do?”

He stares, fixed, at his hand on her leg.

“The stuff I want to do, but can’t.”

nine in the morning, a man drops his kids off at school; and he’s thinking of you (like all of us do)

It’s a few days later when Luke realizes that something is off.

A simple Wednesday morning, when Julie darts into the garage before school with her backpack bouncing on her back as she runs up to each of them for a hug. Luke is the final recipient.

He enthusiastically throws his arms around her just as tightly as he does every morning, because in his heart, he wishes she could just stay. It’s ridiculous, and selfish, but he longs for the ability to lay on the torn old couch with Julie at his side and never have to leave.

“Writing when I come back?”

Her eyes are gazing up at him, round and wide and hopeful as her arms stay latched around his neck. Safely, he keeps his hands at her hips and doesn’t allow himself to consider letting them go anywhere else.

“Won’t you have homework?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, but I also have a song I want to work on and I won’t be able to focus until we finish it.”

Ironically, it sounds like one of the excuses he would give his parents long ago. Once the music was out of his head, he would tell them, then he could focus on homework.

(He didn’t.)

“You’re turning into me,” he jokes at her; to which she laughs with a bright and beautiful smile right in front of his face. His eyes can’t help but slip their focus to it. “Music before school? What happened to your dad saying ‘school first?’”

“I’ll tell him I’m going to the garage for peace and quiet.”

God, she’s making this harder and harder. For months, she was the one scolding him about her need to focus on school; and so he trained himself to come across as (marginally) less eager. But now that she’s bouncing on her tiptoes and her head is lifting right in front of his face as she teases fibbing to her dad to write with him, he doesn’t think he has much restraint left.

“How about…” He begins, trying to find something neutral to say. “How about you see how much homework you get and then decide what you want to do first?”

“Since when did you-”

The sound of Ray honking for Julie to come out ends their back-and-forth. It Luke looks close enough -- which he is, because why would he have anything better to do right now than look at Julie -- he can see her disappointment. “Go on, Boss. Your ride’s waiting. I’ll see you after school.”

Carefully, she slips from his arms and wishes them a final goodbye before hustling out of the garage.

And Luke collapses onto the couch the second she’s gone.

“You okay, man?”

“He’s fine, Reg. Just an idiot.”

Luke’s arm, that was covering his face, slides up so that he can glare at Alex. “Hey! Rude. Why am I an idiot?”

“Because all you do is agonize over Julie instead of talking to her.”

His forearm comes back down, blacking out his vision. “No point.”

Moments of quiet pass between the three boys, and eventually, the telltale sound of his bandmates poofing out of the room is faintly heard. Luke is left alone, on the couch.

He doesn’t know how much time passes where he sits in his self-made darkness before the garage door is opening again, and Julie is standing in the doorway, looking adrenaline-rushed and practically glowing. Luke, being Luke, jumps up from the couch in surprise.

“Julie! Hey, uh… What are you doing here? Didn’t you leave for school?”

Her grin is almost fake, it’s so blinding. “I forgot something.”

Unprompted and unexpectedly, Julie is confidently making her way towards him before softly resting her hands on his jaw and pulling his lips down to hers.

Even through his all-encompassing shock, his hands somehow find their way to her waist, and then her back, and then her hair. She’s pulling him down to her, so he’s kind of uncomfortably arched over her but he doesn’t care one bit. Just the same as this morning, she is pressed against him from head to toe but this feels so much better.

He’s trying to keep it slow and soft so that he can savor every moment of this random, welcomed action; but Julie’s asking for a quicker tempo. Her hands are skating across his shoulders and running up to his hair, pulling him down even farther, and he finds himself grasping at her thighs to lift her up and make things more comfortable but she’s pulling away before he can.

Once they part, she shyly takes her bottom lip between her teeth and Luke almost steals her away and begs for more. “That was it,” she mumbles, and then the car horn is echoing out front again, and-

Luke shakes awake.

he takes a boat out, imagines just sailing away (and not telling his mates)

He knows it’s a daydream almost immediately -- a long period of staring at a blank journal can do that to a guy -- when Julie suddenly appears and dangles car keys in front of him.

She’s only just got her permit. She can’t actually drive independently yet.

But he’s spent time on more than one occasion considering what they can go do together when she can.

“You ready for a break, Rockstar?” She asks with a coy smile, and it’s just more confirmation that it’s a fantasy. Julie has only ever called him “Rockstar” once.

But he already likes where his imagination is taking him, so he puts the journal on the coffee table and poofs over to her. “Born ready.”

Her hand tangles itself in his, and she enthusiastically tugs him from the studio into the sunny daylight where her dad’s car sits in the driveway. “Carlos and Dad and Tia are at a baseball game,” she grins, almost proudly, “so you and I get to have an adventure.”

God, this really is a dream. Julie isn’t as impulsive as he can be, but he occasionally finds himself wanting at the idea of going MIA for a day. Just a day. Less than 24 hours, even, with Julie by his side and nobody around who knows them or their situation. Julie and Luke against the world, against life and death, and whatever comes next.

“Lead the way, Boss.”

Nearly within the blink of an eye, they’re on the PCH, speeding down the asphalt with loud music blaring from the speakers. With the windows rolled down and the humid but fresh air billowing around them in the car, it was all too easy for Luke to imagine that he was…

Alive.

This should have been them in 1995 -- him and Julie, him and the boys, all of them together and feeling the rush of being a group of stupid teenagers who love each other.

He knows his hair is getting ruffled as he tilts his head back against the leather headrest, closing his eyes to directly face the air blowing into him. Maybe, through this dream, just for a moment, he can be human.

“This is so fun!” Julie screams next to him, and his face just breaks into a grin because it is so fun. She sounds so full of joy. It’s his favorite sound.

While a part of him wants to hold the daydream in this moment, with the sun hitting his legs and Julie’s hair chaotically whirling around her head; he decides to let things keep going. A moment later, they are pulling into a nearly empty parking lot on the beach.

Their seatbelts click and slide from their chests. Julie’s hand firmly latches around his wrist and proceeds to sprint with him laughing hysterically as he trails behind her, the ocean shimmering in the distance. The moment that their feet splash in the saltwater, Luke takes the chance to pull Julie into his arms by her waist and lift her up; droplets popping up from the water in a cyclone of laughter.

There’s already sweat layering both of their foreheads, but Luke feels honored that he’s standing close enough to her to be able to see it.

Hours -- or, what he assumes are hours -- pass by with water lapping their legs and Luke licking the salt from her shoulder in a move that started as a joke but was really just another ridiculous fantasy fulfilled. After he tries to splash her particularly roughly, she squeals and turns away; turning back to reveal a dripping wet face behind a curtain of hair.

Even though there’s a glare in her eyes, it’s playful. And she doesn’t fight him when he walks up to her, lifts the hem of his loose-fitting tank, and swipes across her cheeks to catch most of it.

The blush on her cheeks could be blamed on excessive sun, or the affectionate gesture, or-

“Luke?”

It takes less than a second for Luke to be back in the studio, back in front of the blank page, back in his reality.

And Julie is in the doorway.

Her cheeks aren’t pink, her legs aren’t bare, her skin isn’t sweat and seawater sticky. It was just a regular school day for her.

She still glows.

“Luke?” He hears her say again, and it’s the final nail in his coffin.

“Yeah, sorry. I was zoning out there for a sec.”

Her curious smile relaxes, and she takes the unspoken invitation to enter the garage and throw her backpack down next to the couch. Her eyes quickly find the journal, “write anything good?”

“Not a word. Didn’t have my partner.”

The line earns him a friendly shoulder-nudge. It’s not much compared to what he just had, but it’s something.

Only, his impulsive brain tells him he needs more.

“Can we go to the beach one day?”

Refocusing her gaze from the open notebook to his face, she amusingly furrows her eyebrows. “I mean… When I have my license, totally. Whatever you guys want.”

“I…” Shut up. Stop here. “I was thinking you and I, actually. Just us.”

“Oh.” He knows that “oh.” It’s the same one she gave him when she was flustered in the school hallway. He can’t tell if it’s a good or a bad sign. Her fingers are twitching against her legs and her eyes avoid his, but a part of him sees his daydream bleed into reality when a pink hue dusts her cheeks. “Just us.”

“Yeah, if you’re-”

“I’d love to.”

Her mouth zips shut like she didn’t mean to say it. But he’s already smiling at her, and probably sporting a blush of his own, and he knows he doesn’t even have a funny remark to say in response.

All he can do is count the days until Julie gets her license.

and she sleeps in his bed (while he plays pretend)

Sometimes, when Julie is gone, he’ll just… Go to her room.

It’s not weird.

He doesn’t snoop -- well, he tries not to -- but everything that’s out in the open is there for his eyes to take in. This way, he gets the little intricate details of what makes Julie Julie that would otherwise take years to learn about a person.

Today, when he poofs in, the bed is unmade. Normally she makes it before leaving for school, but on the rare occasion that she is running late, it will remain in disarray until her return.

Unless, he…

No, no, boundaries.

But it’s just a little favor. And it’s not like she can kill him or anything right?

Once again, his impulsivity dominates the argument. And he’s suddenly wrapping her sheet in his fists and tugging it up and over her pillows, followed by the comforter.

With each puff of air that brushes his face from the falling sheets, he catches a bit of her peach perfume.

The action of making a bed feels so distant to him, but he remembers having to do it himself like it was yesterday. He was too careless to tuck anything in or smooth anything out -- it was just a simple tugging of his sheets to cover the mattress. If he had Julie around back then, pulling him back from the precipice of his relationship with his parents and making music that Bobby wouldn’t steal, then she probably would have shown him how to make his bed more presentable for when she came over.

In front of him, the bed he's making doesn’t look like Julie’s anymore.

It looks like his. His old twin bed at Mitch and Emily Patterson’s house, his old bedroom tucked in at the end of the hallway. Every shade of blue and gray and yellow feels so familiar but only a little off; like his brain is vaguely reconstructing his home with blurred edges and familiar memories.

“Your bathroom is surprisingly clean,” a familiarly warm voice says from behind him. Julie stands in his doorway, adorning an ethereal flower-patterned dress and clunky black combat boots.

The strength of the daydream takes over when she approaches him with a smile and his hands, on instinct, find her hips. “I don’t know why you’re shocked. I’m not a slob.”

“Well…” They both chuckle at her tone. “I thought that with your parents out of town, everything here would be falling apart.”

“Well, you’re here, so that could never happen.”

Her smile is the one thing that he knows he got exactly right in this reconstructed environment. He will always know Julie.

The smile that he leans down to lightly kiss is the same smile he sees when they know they have a catchy chorus on their hands, or when she gets an A on a test, or sometimes just when she comes come to say hi to them. It’s pure Julie joy.

“Now that you’ve made your bed since I was in the bathroom,” she murmurs as they pull away, “can we take that nap we were talking about? School was exhausting.”

Tiredly, her head falls to his chest. It’s such a small, warm gesture; but it sends his heart soaring painfully into the wall of his ribs. “Of course, Boss.”

With a gentle touch, he pulls back the covers of his bed and gestures for Julie to crawl in first. She waves him off, trying to tug at the laces of her boots so that she doesn’t sleep in her shoes, but Luke is quick to prop himself on the edge of the bed and lift her foot to her knee.

“Such a gentleman,” she mocks him, but there’s no venom to her voice. In fact, she’s looking down at him like she loves him.

He slowly helps her slip her foot from the boot with a soft grip on her ankle. “For you, anything.”

Charged, quiet beats pass between them as he finishes work on the other shoe and instantly scoots over to make room on the bed for her to lay next to him. He can make out a small, pleased smile as she does so; rolling over to cuddle into his chest and tangle their legs the moment that she is able to do so.

He feels her take a deep breath against his collarbone as he pulls the sheets up to cover them both. “It all smells like you,” she sighs as she exhales.

“Is that a good thing?”

No verbal response -- just a nod, and the sight of her fingers curling into the edge of the sheet and pulling it up right under her nose. “You cozy, Boss?”

Her melodic hum vibrates against his sternum. Parents out of town, cuddling with his girlfriend, playing music -- this was the dream.

Truly, because it fades around him the moment the recognizable sound of a car rolling up the driveway hits his ears.

And he’s poofing down to greet Julie, acting as if he doesn’t have all of these wants and needs in his head that all go back to her.

It’s a late night, it’s after a gig, and adrenaline is still running fast through Luke’s nonexistent veins. The elevation is still carrying him across the walkway as he recalls the way he shredded his solo and the audience leapt to their feet in roaring applause.

Sometimes, just to spend a few more minutes with her, Luke will walk Julie to her front door after a gig. She’ll send her dad inside and tell him she was going to “call” the guys, when really they would be partaking in a celebratory band hug before they all cleaned up and retired for the night.

Tonight was one of those nights, and the cobblestones felt like clouds under Luke’s shoes.

“Jules, you don’t understand, that high note? I didn’t think it could get better, but something about the lights and the crowds and-”

“It was your guitar solo that kept the audience hyped, though!”

“I think after you swung your wrecking ball voice at them, they would have listened to anything afterwards. You don’t get how magnetic you are, Jules.”

The two of them step up her porch, lingering on the top step. Even though he’s been looking at her all night, post-concert Julie has messy makeup and wild hair and he still sees the flashing lights of the stage reflected in her eyes. She carries the energy of performing with her everywhere she goes.

They’re closer than he realized. He can see the exact dark clouds under her eyes where her mascara has rubbed off, and the strands of hair dotting her hairline, and-

“Luke…”

He doesn’t know what she wants to say, but he doesn’t care. “You’re magnetic, Julie, really. It’s like magic. Nobody can resist you.”

The energy crackles against his fingertips, because he can feel himself twitching to touch her.

It’s true -- she’s magnetic. He’s leaning in closer and closer with every passing second.

But she’s the one who makes the first move.

It’s expected and it isn’t when her hands dart from her sides to his neck to his hair and guide him to her as if he would need any help finding her. His hands waist no time in pressing up against her back, bringing her body against his in a way he only feels in hugs-

Only this time, their lips are colliding, and he almost convinces himself this isn’t real.

It’s a sudden and beautiful situation that he’s sure he could only conjure in his daydreams that he has her to blame for in the first place. He’s probably laying on the couch in the studio replaying the look on her face when she hit the high note in question at the gig, and how the gasp she let out at the end propelled him into his solo like he’s never played it before.

There’s no way he’s making out with Julie right now.

And he doesn’t mean to vocalize his hesitation, but as her mouth breaks from his with deep breaths that are muted versions of the gasp from the gig, the words tumble from his mouth.

“Is this a dream?”

With a confused mirth in her eyes, she scrapes the back of his neck with her fingernails and it’s almost tantalizing enough for his head to lull back.

Please let this be a dream so that he doesn’t wake up tomorrow realizing he did all of this on the Molina’s front porch.

“I don’t think so,” Julie whispers through her grin. Her fingers apply pressure on the back of his neck, wanting him to come back to her lips probably as much as he wants to come back, and she leans farther into him with their faces barely an inch apart. “But even if it is -- isn’t it a wonderful dream?”

As her mouth parts underneath his and he coaxes another gasp out of her, he agrees -- it is a wonderful dream.

Tags: @willexx @bluefirewrites @pink-flame @lydias--stiles @constantly-singing @fighttoshinetogether @babydagger28

#jatp #juke #julie and the phantoms #jukebox #palina #juke fanfic #jatp fanfic #julie molina x luke patterson #netflixwewantjatp2 #netflixwewantjatps2

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griefpersevering · 3 years

Text

sometimes you bend, sometimes you stand

the lokius beach fix-it fic nobody asked for

[Read on AO3] [Buy me a coffee?]

“Who are you?”

Loki stares at him for a long moment, his heart sinking in his chest. First Sylvie, now Mobius… maybe Lokis are destined to lose.

“What?” he asks, still breathing heavily.

The last few days have all melded into one; an indecipherable blur of racing for survival and not much else. With so much happening in quick succession since his failure in New York, it’s impossible to tell whether it has been days or weeks or months since he first arrived at the TVA.

Mobius doesn’t answer, just raising an eyebrow at him.

Loki allows his eyes to wander, assessing the situation and resigning himself to a fight. If Mobius doesn’t know who he is… well, there’s a chance he could get pruned again, and he would like to avoid that situation. Currently, the only people he can see are B-15 - who shouldn’t be too much of a problem - and Mobius, who he would prefer not to hurt, but if he doesn’t recognise him then-

Mobius bursts out laughing, B-15 snickering behind him. She claps him on the shoulder before waving goodbye and wandering off, still laughing to herself as she leaves.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Mobius says between breaths, his confusion replaced with a smile. “That was mean. I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Mobius?” Loki ventures, still wary.

“Look, all that stuff about the Multiverse or whatever?” he replies, waving a hand dismissively. “Not our problem. I’ve officially retired, and I’ve got an excellent retirement plan. Fancy joining me?”

Loki crosses his arms, frowning. “You tricked me.”

Mobius shrugs. “Seems only fair.”

He tries not to smile. “You’re sure the TVA can deal with the Multiverse?”

“Yep, B-15’s taking care of it. Now, come on, there’s a beach waiting for us.”

Mobius fiddles with his TemPad for a moment, a doorway opening up in front of them. He takes a few confident strides towards it before hesitating, looking around the library one last time.

“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” he says, not meeting Loki’s eyes. “I know… I know a quieter life doesn’t really agree with Lokis. You can stay for the fight, if you want, or for Sylvie.”

Loki’s chest constricts at the mention of her, but he forces a small, sad smile onto his face. “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he answers, and Mobius smiles.

“For all time, then,” he says, extending his hand to Loki.

“Always,” he finishes, taking it as they step through the doorway together.

keep reading under the cut!

1991

The other side of the portal is exactly what Mobius promised: a beach. But what he failed to mention is the beauty of said beach - it isn’t just any old strip of sand, but one of the most breathtaking places Loki has ever had the honour of visiting.

They take a few steps into this new world, their shoes filling up with sand and their hands still entwined as they let their eyes adjust to the bright light. Loki pauses to slip off his socks and shoes, the sand warm and soft between his toes. Mobius follows suit, leaning on Loki for balance, a huge smile on his face.

“It should only be a few minutes walk from here,” Mobius announces, grinning.

“What is?” Loki asks, but he doesn’t get an answer. For once in his life, he isn’t sure he needs one, happy to go along with whatever adventure Mobius has planned.

They walk in comfortable silence, their feet sinking into the sand as they take in the tropical sights. To their left is a bay filled with sparking water which disappears past the land out to the horizon. In the distance, Loki can see a much busier beach by what appears to be a town. If he listens carefully enough, and the wind is blowing in the right direction, he can hear a hundred conversations carrying across the bay at once, a pleasant white noise that mixes with the sound of lapping waves.

To their right is a row of secluded houses, all enveloped in lush greenery that grows from the forest behind them, seeming to lean forwards and envelop them. Their front doors are all painted a variety of bright colours - red, yellow, purple, orange, pink - apart from the one at the end, which is just the default brown.

Mobius pulls a set of keys out of his pocket, a tiny fish keyring hanging from them. “This one is ours,” he declares, and he tugs Loki towards the little cottage at the end of the row.

It takes him a moment to find the right key to unlock the door before it swings open, a neutral brown and white hallway greeting them. He leaves his shoes on the mat outside the front door, Loki following suit, before venturing inside their new house.

Loki can’t say he is surprised by the decor - it isn’t exactly reminiscent of the TVA, but everything is decorated to look almost like a show home. There are no bright colours, no personal touches, nothing to indicate that anyone has ever lived there before them.

Just as Loki opens his mouth to say something, Mobius wrinkles his nose and beats him to it.

“Would it kill someone to pick up a paintbrush?” he complains, but he’s still smiling. “That’s what you get for a company retirement plan that’s only been in place for six hours, I guess… we’ll have to do it all ourselves.”

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Company retirement plan?”

Mobius grins. “We have a lot to catch up on. Come on, why don’t you get cleaned up, and I’ll get us something to drink.”

As soon as he leaves the room, Loki rolls his eyes and waves his hand, using his magic to clean the blood and the dirt off of him and to change into a pair of shorts and a bright green haiwaiian t-shirt. And, now that he thinks about it… he frowns and uses what little magic he has left in him to spruce up the place a bit, before collapsing onto the (admittedly, very comfy) couch.

Mobius returns only a few minutes later, raising his eyebrows at the way Loki is sprawled across the sofa, his eyes closed. He looks around the room, taking in the few things that Loki has added - a blanket draped across the back of the couch, a wooden coffee table with a golden bowl of fruit placed neatly on top, and a framed poster of a jet ski on the far wall.

Oh, Mobius thinks with a snicker, you’re gonna love what I have planned for tomorrow.

“Did you get us a drink or are you just going to stand there for all eternity?” Loki asks without opening his eyes, swinging his legs so that there’s room to sit next to him.

“Sorry if I wasn’t moving fast enough, your highness,” Mobius teases as he plops onto the couch, passing a cold beer bottle into Loki’s waiting hands. “The new outfit slowed me down a bit.”

Loki smirks, cracking open one eye to see the outfit that he’d swapped for Mobius’ old clothes. “I thought you’d appreciate something more comfortable. Besides, we match.”

He swings his legs back up onto Mobius’ lap, taking a swig of his drink. They are quiet for a moment, listening to the distant crashing of waves and enjoying the lack of need to do… well, anything.

“Do you mind if I turn the television on?” Mobius eventually asks, and Loki hums an affirmative. He grabs the remote, trying to avoid jostling the legs on his lap as much as possible, before pressing the on button.

As an afterthought, he tugs the soft blanket from the back of the sofa and drapes it over the both of them, firmly focusing his attention on the screen in front of them rather than the sleepy god next to him.

{o0o}

Since he isn’t exactly human, Loki doesn’t need nearly as much sleep as humans. Usually, about eight hours is enough to get him through the week. However, with all the crazy stuff and time hopping and running for his life that he has done in the last however long, he’s asleep within minutes of making contact with the sofa.

When he wakes, however, it is to light streaming through a thin beige curtain. He sits up, running a hand through his hair, as he sleepily takes in his surroundings.

Somehow, he has ended up on top of a bed that he has never seen before. Given the boring decor, he assumes it must be the upstairs of the cottage… so, presumably, Mobius had moved him upstairs in his sleep.

Loki waits for that statement to sink in, for him to feel that usual sense of panic at someone being there and moving him while he was vulnerable, but it never comes.

(If he is being honest with himself, he knows exactly why Mobius is the exception, but he isn’t ready to admit that, not yet.)

He wanders over to the window, yanking open the curtain. There, outside, is the same paradise they had arrived in only last night. And, if the digital clock on the bedside table is enough to go by, it’s 10am on the twenty-fourth of September, 1991.

The view is even more beautiful when he is more awake to admire it, Loki decides. The bay sparkles like a rare jewel, and he finds himself cracking the window open to let some fresh air in.

He sighs, a long breath that mists the glass in front of him. He’ll miss this place, when he inevitably has to leave. Because there’s no way he can stay here for the rest of his life; he’s a Loki, after all, and Lokis are destined to lose. This - a paradise beyond time with someone who knows who he is and accepts him for who he is? He could scoff at the idea. When has the Universe (or the Multiverse, he supposes) ever been that kind to him?

Loki stares blankly out of the window for a few minutes until he is broken from his trance when he spots a familiar figure struggling down the beach, attempting to balance much more shopping than one man can manage.

He blinks a few times, making sure that it is, in fact, Mobius, before barking out a laugh and rushing downstairs and out the front door to lend him a hand. After all, what kind of guest would he be if he let his host embarrass himself publicly within 24 hours of moving in?

When he catches up to him - wearing the same garish, bright orange haiwaiian shirt that Loki had conjured up for him yesterday, he notes - Mobius doesn’t even notice he’s there until several of the bags are lifted from him.

“Hey! Oh, it’s just you,” he exclaims, adjusting a box under his arm. “Thank you,” he adds.

“What did you get?” Loki asks, tucking some of the smaller items into a pocket dimension so he had free hands to carry the rest of it.

“Oh, just a couple of things to spruce the place up. I got a bit carried away, actually,” Mobius admits as they start off back down the beach. “How did you sleep?”

Loki rolls his eyes. “Like the dead, apparently. Did you move me while I was asleep?”

Mobius doesn’t meet his eyes as he responds. “Yep. You looked uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

There’s a pang in Loki’s chest; another reminder that leaving this place will get more and more painful the longer he stays. He can’t get used to these common gestures of affection - he can’t think of another person who would have cared enough about his comfort to go to the effort of carrying him up the stairs.

“Is something wrong?” Mobius asks, interrupting Loki’s train of thought. He’s staring at him, a curious expression on his face, and it’s only then that Loki realises they have stopped.

“It’s nothing,” Loki replies quickly, giving Mobius one of his most charming smiles as he starts walking again.

Mobius stays rooted to the spot. “Bullshit.”

Loki stops, his back turned to Mobius, and sighs. A range of lies are on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t quite find it in himself to bother trying to keep up a facade that they both know Mobius can see straight through.

“I’m having a nice time,” he states, after a minute of debate.

Mobius starts walking again, juggling his shopping as he catches up to Loki. “And that is a problem… why?”

“Because good things don’t last!” he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “Lokis are destined to lose.”

Mobius raises an eyebrow. “You think this will be taken away from you,” he says. It isn’t a question. “Well, I have a present for you, then. Two, actually.”

They reach the front door of their cottage, Loki’s eyes trained on the ground as he scuffs his sandals on the sand. Mobius rummages through his bags, trying to find something specific.

“May I have the red striped carrier bag, please?” he asks, when his search comes up fruitless. Loki conjures it for him, passing it over. He doesn’t know what’s in any of the bags (although, now, he’s thinking he should probably have checked), he had only picked it because it is one of the heaviest ones.

Mobius opens the bag from him with a word of thanks, peering in to check it’s the right one. Then, he sticks a hand in his pocket, pulling out his fist closed around something.

“Here,” he says, offering his closed fist to Loki. “This is yours to keep, forever.”

Loki cautiously holds out a hand, and Mobius drops the item into his palm. Loki stares at the little piece of metal, wondering how it could mean so much.

“...Is this?”

“The key to our house, yeah,” Mobius confirms, smiling. “And a crocodile keyring, since I’m apparently never going to get over meeting that version of you.”

Loki smiles, just slightly, cupping the key carefully in his hands as he admires the keyring.

“And that bag is also for you. Well, the contents are, I don’t know if you want the bag as well-”

It’s not hard to tell that Mobius is nervous, so Loki can’t begin to imagine what is in the bag. He picks it up, sand pouring out the bottom of the bag, raising his eyebrows at what he finds.

“Green paint?”

Mobius grins, scratching the back of his head. “We’re the only ones with a boring front door. I figured we should probably fix that, add some of your flare.”

Loki gives him a shit-eating grin, sliding the keys into his pocket.

“What?” Mobius asks, sensing something is up. “What did I say?”

With a wave of a hand and without the paint can ever being opened, the front door is suddenly the colour of Peppermint Fresh.

“You seem to be forgetting you live with a god,” Loki declares, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, come on.”

They spend the rest of their day renovating their new house, Loki’s powers speeding up the process immensely. Other than paint and wallpaper, Mobius had also bought them both some clothes, as well as a range of random items to make the place look a little more personal, and two whole bags of groceries.

“I’ve never cooked anything before,” he admits, just as the sun starts to dip below the horizon. “We never had to, at the TVA. We always just went to the canteen.”

Loki hums to the radio playing in the corner, standing back to check if the strip of wallpaper he had just hung looked straight. “We always had people cook for us, back on Asgard,” he replies. “My mother tried to teach me, but I found pestering my brother much more interesting.”

“Do you miss your family?” Mobius asks, collecting the paintbrushes from around the room so he can wash them in the kitchen sink.

“They weren’t my family,” he responds immediately, before wincing. “Well, not biologically. But I’m starting to think that maybe family is more than just DNA.”

Mobius nods, shoving the paintbrushes into a carrier bag. When he’s sure Loki has nothing else to say, he gestures to the door. “Want to make sure I don’t set fire to the kitchen?”

Loki smiles. He has found himself doing that more and more since he has met Mobius; the man always seems to know what to say and do. “I’m pretty sure you know that I have quite the history of arson, but sure.”

So, they go downstairs, Loki waving his hands and cleaning the stray blotches of paint off their clothes.

“Let’s start with something simple,” Mobius suggests, opening the fridge. “Fish fingers?”

Loki nods. “Surely even you can’t mess that up.”

Oh, how he was wrong. An hour later, they’re sitting next to each other on the couch (upright, this time) eating burnt fish fingers and scoffing at the programme they’re watching.

“Do humans really believe in these things?” Loki asks incredulously, squirting more ketchup on his plate in an attempt to overpower the burnt taste.

Mobius scoffs. “I think it’s for entertainment, Loki. But yeah, ‘aliens’ don’t act like this. At least, not as far as I know.”

“There’s a multiverse now,” Loki muses. “Maybe there weren’t any before, but there are now.”

Mobius shrugs. “Who knows. It’s not our problem, either way.”

Loki doesn’t answer, instead opting to scoop the fishfinger into his mouth. Mobius frowns at his lack of response, grabbing the remote and muting Mulder and Scully’s investigation.

“You do know… this whole multiverse business, it’s not your fault, right? And, as far as we know, nothing catastrophic has happened yet.”

Loki swallows, refusing to take his eyes off the silent TV. “That’s the thing, Mobius. It is my fault - partly, at the very least. And what if something bad does happen? Any suffering or pain caused by this is on my shoulders.”

Mobius puts his plate down on the coffee table, nudging him with his shoulder. “That statement is so incorrect, it’s unbelievable. I thought you were supposed to be smart?”

Loki doesn’t say anything, and he sighs.

“Look - first of all, it isn’t your fault. This is all on Sylvie. I don’t know what happened there, but from what I gather, you tried to stop her, and that’s all that matters. I’ve met a hundred different Lokis, and every single one of them would have done what benefits them the most, not fought to try and do something to help other people.”

“She kissed me,” Loki says, out of nowhere. “Sylvie, I mean. And then she just… tossed me away.”

Mobius frowns. “Did you like her?”

“I thought I did,” he admits. “But I think - I don’t think I liked her like that. I think I mistook wanting her to be safe and happy for love.”

“It’s a kind of love, just perhaps not the one you assumed it was.”

Loki nods. “I loved her like a sister, I suppose.”

“And she betrayed you,” Mobius continues. “When you were finally allowing yourself to trust others again.”

Loki puts his plate on top of Mobius’, suddenly not hungry. He tries to turn his attention back to the muted television, but he’s missed too much of the exposition to properly understand what is happening.

“Loki, look at me,” Mobius says softly. “Loki.”

He turns, praying that he doesn’t notice the tears welling in his eyes.

“Experiencing two conflicting emotions is perfectly normal,” Mobius continues, reaching for Loki’s hand and squeezing it. “You can care about Sylvie, and be upset about what she did at the same time.”

“I just-” he tries, his voice cracking. “I just wonder whether she ever cared about me, or whether she was just using me the entire time. I mean, it’s the kind of thing I would do, isn’t it?”

Mobius stares him dead in the eye, his voice firm. “Maybe once, but not now. You know what makes you different from every other Loki?”

“The fact I stole the Tesseract, escaped to the desert, and then helped to take down the man in charge of the universe?”

“No.” Mobius sighs. “Well, yes, I suppose. But what I was trying to say is that you’re different to every Loki because you care. You recognised your faults, and then you tried to change them.

“You said, earlier, ‘Lokis are destined to lose’, and yet here you are. I would count this as a win, wouldn’t you?”

Loki is uncharacteristically silent after that. They sit like that for a few minutes, neither of them speaking, before Loki stands up and disappears into the kitchen, taking the plates with him. Mobius sighs, reaching for the TV remote and turning the channel to some random movie.

When Loki returns a few minutes later, he sits straight down next to Mobius. They watch the movie - something about little fluffy monsters - together, not finding the need to speak.

It’s only by the time Loki’s head has drooped onto Mobius’ shoulder that the silence is broken. He drags the blanket over the sleepy Loki that’s attached itself to him, grinning at how adorable he finds the ferocious god.

“Thank you,” Loki mumbles, only half-conscious, and they both know he isn’t only talking about the blanket.

{o0o}

This time, when Loki wakes up, he knows the bed he lies in is his own. He frowns, not remembering getting into bed, before realising that Mobius must have carried him upstairs again.

If anyone asked him, he would say that he had fallen asleep because of all the magic he had used to renovate during the day, but that wouldn’t be the truth. No, he’d be a little more hesitant to admit that their little cottage by the beach feels like the safest place he has ever stayed. Besides, emotions are exhausting.

He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and checking the little clock by his bedside. 9:24, it reads, which isn’t too-

“Loki?” a sleepy voice says from beside him, and he has to stop himself from leaping out of the bed in surprise.

Because somehow, in the few minutes he has been awake, he has failed to notice that he is not alone in the room. Next to him, tucked neatly under the covers, is Mobius, Captain America pajamas and all.

Loki wrinkles his nose at the choice of outfit, but doesn’t voice his opinion. “What - did I fall asleep again?”

“Mmm,” Mobius hums, eyes sliding shut again. “‘S too early, go back to sleep.”

Okay, Loki’s pretty sure his heart just melted slightly. “I don’t need as much sleep as you,” he replies gently. “But you should lie in.”

“Fine,” Mobius complains, rolling over. “But I’m stealing your pillows.”

Loki can’t help but grin at the ridiculous sight - Mobius M. Mobius, formerly one of the most prestigious members of an elite organisation, spread starfish-style across their bed in his Avengers pajamas.

(Although, Loki supposes, the actual Avengers won’t exist for another twenty or so years, thanks to their time travel shenanigans.)

He slips into the hallway, leaving the door ajar behind him, before rummaging around in the bags they had shoved in the study yesterday without bothering to unpack. It only takes a few minutes to find the item he’s looking for, and it takes even less time to sneak back into their bedroom, his footsteps entirely silent.

Click! Loki smirks from behind the disposable camera and sneaks back out of the room, hoping that Mobius doesn’t wake up. Just because he doesn’t want a throne anymore doesn’t mean that he isn’t the God of Mischief- surely, Mobius should be expecting at least a few harmless pranks.

It’s a nice morning - cool, but in that way that suggests it might get much warmer later in the day - so Loki decides to go for a walk. He has barely made it past the second house in their row when a familiar face pops up from behind a hedge, waving wildly.

“Hey! I know you - blue box guy!”

Loki blinks a few times, trying to place the man in front of him. “Casey?”

“Yeah!” he exclaims, hurrying out of his front gate. “You stole my drink.”

“Sorry,” Loki replies automatically, before shaking his head. “Wait, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, you would not believe the week I have had,” Casey begins, waving his arm dramatically. “So I’ve been behind a desk my entire life, right? And then Mobius comes along, and he’s all like ‘Everyone who works for the TVA is a variant and the Timekeepers aren’t real!’ So there’s a bit of a fight - not everyone believes him, you see, and I had no idea what to think - and then a load of people come back from a field mission saying they saw Judge Renslayer as a high school principal!”

“Really,” Loki says drily, trying to keep up with the man’s incessant babbling.

“Yeah! So then Mobius takes over, just for a while, and he says that there are two Loki variants who are gonna take down whoever is behind the TVA, and he comes up with a plan - the people who still want to work there answer to B-15 and do whatever they want to, or you can retire to a few different locations in a few different times! And I figured, ‘Gosh, I nearly died twice in the span of ten minutes and that was scary so I should probably make sure my life has meant something,’ and also a multiverse sounds like a lot of paperwork, so. Here I am!”

Loki is silent for a few seconds, still trying to process all the information that Casey managed to spit out at an alarmingly fast rate. “Wait. So, everyone who lives here used to work for the TVA?”

Casey nods. “This row of houses, yeah. ‘1991 Beach’ was the most popular retirement option - I was pretty lucky to get one of these spots.”

“Huh,” is just about all Loki can manage.

“And guess what, criminal whose name I don’t know!” Casey exclaims excitedly. “I met a fish the other day.”

Loki raises an eyebrow, amused. “Did you, now?”

“Yep! Which, uh, makes your threat much more vivid.” Casey shudders.

“Don’t worry, I don’t kill people anymore,” Loki says, and realises that that is probably the truth. “Sorry about that, and for stealing your drink.”

Casey shrugs. “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

“I should head back, but it was nice to see you again, Casey.” Loki turns back to their house, his feet slipping slightly in the sand. “Oh, and, by the way - my name is Loki.”

He turns his back and walks away before he can see the look on Casey’s face, but if the sharp intake of breath he hears is anything to go by, he has certainly succeeded in surprising his new neighbour.

When he gets back, Mobius is awake, shuffling around the kitchen in his pajamas. “Morning, sunshine,” he greets as Loki appears in the doorway, sniffing the air.

“Breakfast?” he asks hopefully, and Mobius laughs.

“Yup. Full English, I thought. Did you have a nice walk?”

Loki perches on the edge of the table, smiling. “I didn’t get particularly far. I had an… interesting conversation with Casey, though.”

“Oh, I remember him. Bit weird, if memory serves,” Mobius responds, scrunching his nose as he cracks two eggs into the frying pan. “Wait, how do you know him?”

Loki scratches the back of his head. “I may, uh - I may have threatened to ‘gut him like a fish’. And then I stole his drink and poured it into your salad.”

Mobius raises an eyebrow. “Wow, okay.”

“In my defense, he didn’t know what a fish was until he moved here. And, I was part of the reason he retired, so.”

“How did he not know what a fish- You know what,” he replies, shaking his head as he turns back to the stove. “I don’t care.”

Loki turns the radio in the corner on with a flick of his wrist, and they are both content to sit and enjoy the quiet morning while Mobius cooks. In no time at all, they are sitting across from each other, two plates of food in front of them.

Picking a piece of eggshell out of his food, Loki warily takes a bite. “Did you have any plans for today?”

“As a matter of fact,” Mobius responds with an excited grin, “I do.”

It turns out, Mobius’ plans involve him packing a backpack and eagerly dragging Loki down the beach to a small jetty. There, waiting for them on the end of the small pier, is a jet ski.

Loki grins. “So that's why you chose the beach.”

Mobius grins, dumping the bag on the side and fishing his keys out of his pockets. “I have read about these things every day for almost the entirety of what I can remember, and I’m finally getting to go on one. Are you coming?”

“Of course,” Loki answers, and he clambers on behind Mobius.

“Hang on,” he shouts over the engine, and Loki wraps his arms around his waist. “You ready?”

“I’m starting to think this might be a bad- woah!”

Before Loki can even finish his statement, they’re off. Mobius soon gets the hang of it, zipping around the bay and whooping. Loki can’t help but smile - sure, he isn’t nearly as bothered about jet skis as Mobius is, but the man’s excitement is contagious. Besides, there is a certain freedom to it; he can feel the wind in his hair and taste the salt on his lips.

Suddenly, Mobius attempts to do a sharp turn, jolting them both with absolutely no warning. Loki tries to hang on, clinging tightly onto his chest, but the movement catches him by surprise and he ends up in the water.

Mobius turns the jet ski around, slowly pulling up next to (the now very wet) god. “Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very apologetic.

“Maybe I’ll stick to sunbathing,” Loki suggests as Mobius hauls him back onto the ski before dropping him off at the jetty.

“Are you sure?” he asks, clearly torn between having the time of his life and leaving Loki on his own.

“Of course I’m sure,” he answers. “I think I’ll survive an hour or two on my own. Besides, I don’t want to ruin your fun by vomiting all over you.”

Mobius pulls a face. “Maybe it’s for the best, then. I won’t go far, I promise.”

“Go!” Loki says, waving his arm at his friend as he picks up their bag. “Have some fun. You’ve earned it. I think we both have.”

Hours later, when the sun has started to set over the horizon, the two men find themselves lazing on the beach next to each other. Mobius slips a chocolate wrapper into the book he’s reading and places it down next to him, turning to his companion.

“Loki,” he begins, staring out at the sea. “Did you ever think you would settle down like this?”

“Never,” Loki answers, without any hesitation.

“Me neither.”

In the distance, there is the faint smell of cherry pie - perhaps one of their neighbours is cooking. A seagull swoops by overhead, landing on a fence a few feet behind them and bobbing about. If you look closely enough, you can see the ripples on the top of the water; the only clue that there are fish below the surface.

“We make a strange pair, don’t we?” Mobius muses, watching the sky turn from blue to orange to pink.

Loki hums. “That’s why we’re perfect for each other.”

There’s no argument to be made against that in Mobius’ mind, so they sit together, not at the end of the world, but at the beginning of one.

THE END.

tag list! ask to be added or removed :D

@tiredgayemoweeb / @idrilearfalas / @consulting-supernatural / @doomeccentric / @lyriumwolf / @peterspattersons / @inconceivablelife / @sunsetcurve123 / @i-am-the-trash-duchess / @hermes-creature / @alexmalikplays / @hisfishfingersandcustard

#lokius #loki #loki spoilers #mobius #mcu #my writing #syssyb

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hottestthingalive · 3 years

Note

would you like a writing prompt? well you're getting one so- anyways maybe some anxceit with "What the hell were you thinking?!?!" and "Can't you stay a little longer...?"

in shared silence

A snowstorm causes a power outage at Virgil’s apartment, so his partner stops by with Chinese food. Fluff ensues.

Notes: I’m so sorry this took so long, anon! I hope you like it anyways!

Warnings: Mild cursing, trust issues

Relationships: Romantic anxceit, background implied intruality

Words: 992

Ao3

“What,” Virgil says when Janus stumbles into his tiny apartment at two in the morning, brushing snow from his clothes and hat, “the hell were you thinking?!”

“Well, mostly about you, darling,” he replies, fighting and failing to hide a shiver as he removes his soaked coat. “You weren’t exaggerating about how cold it was in here, hm?”

Virgil, wearing at least three sweaters, a scarf around his neck, a beanie pulled tight over his hair and ears, and the soft Nightmare Before Christmas blanket Roman had given him two birthdays ago, glares at Janus. “No shit,” he snaps, reaching forwards with one hand to help Janus in hanging up his jacket, the other keeping the blanket firmly in place. “You didn’t have to rush over here, idiot. You still had power.”

“I could hardly leave you alone,” he replies, perhaps more soft and sincere than he had planned to be, as Virgil’s cheeks and ears (or what is visible of them, at least) redden. “And besides, we lost it a few minutes after you texted me.”

“What about Remus?” frowns his partner, always more concerned about others than himself, even if others include Janus’ consistently chaotic roommate.

“Patton is with him, they’ll be fine,” Janus says, dropping the takeout he’d grabbed from the 24/7 Chinese place around the corner on the table and turning to Virgil with his hands on his hips. “I’m more worried about you. This apartment is freezing.”

“I noticed,” Virgil says dryly, eyeing Janus’ wet clothes critically. “I have some sweatpants and stuff that might fit you. Can you get out the food while I grab them?”

“Grab my sweatshirt too,” Janus agrees, already pulling the plastic containers from the bag.

“What sweatshirt?” Virgil asks, the picture of innocence in the dim light of the flashlights, lanterns and candles scattered across the apartment, and Janus rolls his eyes.

“I know you stole it.”

“I stole nothing.”

“Liar,” he says affectionately, and laughs when Virgil flips him off.

Virgil does, in fact, get him his sweatshirt, and various other articles of warm clothing. Perhaps too many, once they reach the point where Janus reminds Virgil that three scarves may hinder the consumption of the delicious takeout he’s so generously bought them both.

“Then starve,” his partner grumbles, but doesn’t protest when Janus wraps the third scarf around Virgil’s neck instead.

Janus is better at using the chopsticks than Virgil is, but it is difficult for both of them to eat in the darkness, unable to see if they’ve actually picked up anything, and so all of their concentration goes to the food instead of their usual conversation. He doesn’t mind, however -- he’s always been able to find a comfort in silence with Virgil, a quiet that isn’t really quiet at all and wraps around them both like yet another blanket in the cold, dark room.

It doesn’t take long after they’ve finished and cleaned up for Virgil to begin falling asleep, Janus hardly more awake than he is -- it is two in the morning, after all, and neither of them have ever really been morning people (ignoring, of course, that this early in the day could really still be counted as night).

“I suppose I’d better get going,” he says reluctantly, standing and pressing a kiss to Virgil’s forehead. “You need to get to bed, and I... well, I should probably get on a train back home before all of the lines shut down-”

“No!” Virgil blurts out, grabbing his hand, before dropping it again like it had burned him. “I mean, I don’t... sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Janus says, slowly entwining their fingers, giving his partner ample time and ability to pull away. Virgil does not, and he counts that as a victory. “What’s wrong, darling?”

“...Can’t you stay a little longer?” he asks, staring at the ground. “I don’t really want you to leave. You’re... you’re warm.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” exclaims Janus, masking the soft smile that tugs at his lips with a teasing grin, “you just want me for the cuddles, huh?”

“Of course,” Virgil answers, smiling too, the familiar banter a safety net for the moments of cautious vulnerability that, truth be told, scare them both.

Not that Janus would ever admit that, of course; he has always been a liar, and there is nothing he lies about more than his feelings, just as Virgil has always run away from the pesky things. They are, perhaps, the worst possible people to be in a romantic relationship together, and yet they work. They hold hands, they look out for each other, and, together, they each open up just a tiny bit more, buds beginning to bloom in the light of their individual suns.

“I can’t believe this betrayal,” he cries dramatically. “I thought you loved me!”

“I do,” Virgil says sincerely, and presses a kiss to their entwined hands, and if that doesn’t make Janus feel all warm and fuzzy inside... “But I love not freezing my butt off more.”

“Rude,” Janus huffs, but they end up curled together in Virgil’s bed anyways, within a nest of blankets and pillows, still holding hands as Virgil rests his head on Janus’ chest and closes his eyes. He is truly warm for the first time in hours, and there is no place, Janus thinks, that he would rather be than this.

"Wake me up when the power comes back on," Virgil murmurs, already half asleep.

"I will," Janus agrees, but he has always been a liar, and when he wakes up a few hours later to the bedside lamp flickering on besides them and the hum of the radiator beginning again in the corner, he simply reaches over and turns off the light, closing his eyes and drifting away once more to the sound of his partner's breathing, floating in the quiet in which there is only himself and Virgil.

Taglist:

@snek-snacc

#anxceit #cinder's prompt fills #prompt fills #asks #anon #ts virgil #ts anxceit #ts janus #romantic anxceit #cinder writes

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jinxedpanda4life · 3 years

Text

Criminal Investigator AU HC

I would first like to start off by saying thank you to everyone.

I honestly did not expect the response I got to my Damirae Hospital AU HC list.

When I first woke up and checked tumblr ~13 hours after posting I had a holy shit moment.

I felt powerful, should I? Probably not.

But! Since I am noticing a lack of AUs in the fandom, whether on Tumblr, AO3 or FanFiction.net, whatever AU comes to my mind I shall jot down some hcs for!

Thank you all once again!

(Also trying format changes for easy reading)

(Also Also, I am thinking the story is less fluid but more episodic)

Let’s get started:

- So I’m thinking this is some FBI, SVU, and FBI BAU mixture or whatever. Basically all the great shows we know in love shoved together. From Bones to Criminal Minds and everything in between.

- Special Agent (Dr.) Raven Roth is a lead interrogator and is the resident psych consult.

She’s been educated in interrogation, behavioral science, psychology, forensic pathology, and criminology.

She has combat training (hand to hand), she carries (for her job) a gun and at all times has a knife/dagger on her person (people have stopped trying to figure out where she keeps them).

Her father was/is crime boss T. Trigon who is currently imprisoned.

Was born in the states but fled with her mother to Romania when she was a newborn.

When Trigon found them he killed Arella and took Raven, she was abut 9 - 10 years old.

She took her mother’s last name when she turned 18.

Knows two languages besides English; French, Romanian, Romani (various dialects but knows multiple), Greek and Latin

On more than one occasion some goon of her father’s tries to recruit her, every time she kicks their ass. (Damian was there for the most recent (he was still green though))

Lives by herself in a decent sized apartment, has a gun safe (gun safety is important!), a cat (Nevermore), and is a regular at a 24/7 bookstore &/ cafe

Can usually be found wearing some kind of jacket, sweater, cardigan

She once helped save some kids (Melvin, Tommy & Teether) and is now their surrogate aunt, she has photos of them at her desk @ work. (Damian assumes/ed that they were her kids)

She also, when she can, hangs out and babysits them on occasion.

Raven is part of a team consisting of Dick Grayson (unit leader), Kori Anders, Garfield Logan, Jaime Reyes, and very recently Damian Wayne

- Special Agent Damian Wayne is a lead investigator (he is still a bit fresh to the unit), translator, sniper and combat coordinator

He’s been educated in martial arts, explosives, hand to hand combat, close range combat, and combat (basically he knows how to kill you 9 ways to Sunday), also, behavioral science, computer science, criminology, linguistics and language.

He can easily translate (into English): Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Bengali, French, Polish, German, Spanish, Portuguese, he can also learn any language you put in front of him and know the basics within a day

(Having lived in many places around the world he needed to be able to speak and understand in order to survive) (wow dramatic much?)

His father is currently the director (or deputy director, whatever floats ya boat) of the FBI.

His mother was essentially a secret agent who worked for various agencies around the globe. (deceased)

His grandfather was the leader of a, um, well to be honest, terrorist agency. (deceased)

Was sent to live with his father when he was 15 (when his mother died) and has been in the states ever since

Lives alone, he has an upscale apartment that he truthfully spends little time in, has multiple locations in the home where various weapons are stored, his place has a very cold atmosphere

Is either in proper work attire or in work out clothing, there is no in between

Tries and fails not to take work home with him

He sees a therapist (who says he should probably try investing in relationships with the people at his job)

His only “friend” (he hates calling him that, more like close acquaintance) is Jonathan Kent who was in his class at the FBI Academy, Jon works in a white collar crime department in Metropolis

The only person he actually kind of sort of doesn’t dislike is in fact Raven Roth, she’s a no bull shit person, he likes that

He may know Grayson because of how he’s Bruce’s kind of son but it does not mean he likes him

He finds Logan annoying as all hell, even if he is somewhat useful

He picked a fight with Reyes first day and regretted it (he will never admit that), he respects him

Anders is overly friendly in his opinion, kind of acts like a secretary with all that positivity and grates his nerves, he tolerates her

(Unlike last time I am not going in detail about the rest of the team, this will be brief)

- Supervisory Special Agent Dick Grayson (Unit Chief) is basically Dick Grayson with a big fancy title but all the same skills

He is also obsessed with Slade Wilson and Red X (who is Jason in this)

- Supervisory Special Agent Kori Anders is a lead investigator and is also a go to for undercover work

- Special Agent Garfield Logan is a lead interrogator, is head of the unit’s K-9 unit and kind of has a thing for Roth (which she does not reciprocate)

- Special Agent Jaime Reyes is a tactical analyst, tech analyst and is head of the unit’s SWAT team, he does not do well with talking with people, or change

The Scarab is a computing program that Jaime created himself

STORY START:

- When Damian first joins the team there is another member, Special Agent Terra Markov, she is revealed as a sleeper agent but she aligns herself with the team and sadly is shot and killed in a fire fight

- A couple weeks after Agent Markov’s death everyone is talking about what they are doing for an upcoming holiday, Damian says probably nothing, Raven invites him to spend it with her and her “niece” and “nephews,” he declines

- About a day after the holiday Damian is home looking through case files when someone knocks on his door

-- It is Raven. He asks how she knew where he lived, she says she asked Dick, she also says that she knows how it feels to be alone and that he may be insufferable but it doesn’t mean he can’t have a friend

-- His response is saying he isn’t the kind to make friends with co workers

-- “I’m not asking to be your friend Damian, I am asking you to be his,” She reveals a small black great dane puppy “I know that other people aren’t really your thing, but having someone in your corner and waiting for you is always nice, even if it isn’t human.”

-- Damian invites her in, names the dog Titus and thanks her

-- “Just make sure no one tries to kidnap and kill you, we don’t need you to go full blown John Wick.” Damian has no idea who that is. Raven tells him it is an action movie series that he should watch. She leaves. He does watch them that night with Titus on his lap. (after having gone to the local pet supply store to get everything he needs) The action is inaccurate but he enjoyed the movies none the less, and decides that he probably would go into John Wick mode if someone hurt Titus.

- SA Roth and SA Wayne are sent to a high security federal prison to interrogate a prisoner, who refuses to speak

-- When they get into the interview room the prisoner does start to speak, but not in English and not in a language Damian is fluent in

-- Raven on the other hand immediately responds to the prisoner (shocking the prisoner and Damian) “He is speaking Romani though not the dialect of those overseas, he learned it here.”

-- Damian is fascinated by it and they are essentially switching roles the entire time

-- They leave having successfully interviewing the prisoner, and Raven leaves behind a written list of common words in Romani so that they can possibly communicate with the prisoner better

-- As soon as they are on the plane back Damian asks her a myriad of questions from “How many languages do you know?” to “When did you learn that?” and even “Are you a spy? Sleeper agent? Part of a terrorist cell?”

-- “Not as many as you, when I was a child, if I was part of any of that you wouldn’t be asking.” The rest of the trip is spent with her teaching him Romani and even some Romanian

- Dick & Kori eventually get together and after a while they break up. Kori takes some vacation time. At the same Dick has been temporarily reassigned to another unit.

-- Chaos ensues

-- Garfield thinks he should be the interim unit chief, Jaime thinks the same, as does, you guessed it, Damian (Raven doesn’t want to she is comfortable with her role on the team)

-- In the end they are assigned an interim unit chief, SSA Jason Todd, who usually works overseas on covert op missions (not gonna lie this could easily flow into a Jayrae thing)

-- Everyone kind of falls into line, except Damian, Damian doesn’t like him for two reasons

1) He doesn’t act serious about the job 24/7

2) He has been flirting and hitting on Raven the moment he stepped into their sector

-- Damian hates the names he gives her; “Little Bird,” “Sunshine,” “Princess,” “Rae,” (no one calls her Rae, not even Garfield, at least not after the incident) etc.

-- (Little does Damian know, Jason and Raven have worked together before and are actually friends)

-- This all comes to a head when Damian and Jason are the only ones still in the office after a tiring case.

“You shouldn’t do that you know.”

“Do what? All I am doing right now is contemplating where Grayson keeps the liquor.”

“Call Raven all those names, she doesn’t like it.”

“Really? Because if you haven’t noticed she hasn’t exactly asked me to stop.”

“She gets uncomfortable, maybe not to the extent of asking you to stop, but she tenses up and her body language becomes slightly more agitated.”

“You seem to pay a lot of attention in how she reacts to thinks baby brat. Seems to me that you like her.”

“Of course I like her, she is a good friend and reliable teammate.”

“No, you like like her.”

“That presumption is juvenile.”

“But you don’t deny it.”

“Tch.”

-- If anything after that conversation Jason seems to doubled his advances. Which confuses both Damian and Raven. Damian because it is inappropriate and HR will be hearing about this. Raven because she was under the assumption that she and Jason were just friends. (Jason actually does have genuine intentions but is like 60% just egging Damian on)

-- Eventually (far too long for Damian’s tastes), both Dick and Kori return. At first it is sooooooo awkward. Like mom and dad divorced have shared custody but don’t hate each other but also cannot look each other in the eye. ((Was that a mouthful? Good)) No one can really look at each other the same? Though they do have a meeting to sort it out, get everything out in the open.

- Raven’s annual kidnapping/attempt to convert her/torture comes almost exactly one year after Damian joined the team (this is his 2nd time dealing with this)

-- This time Damian is prepared. By prepared I mean Raven doesn’t even leave her apartment before she is taken to safety.

“Damian what is going on?”

“Christmas came early this year that’s what.”

“Christmas? What in gods name are you talking about.”

“God has no dealings in this matter.”

“You do realize you are sounding like a bad action movie? It is not even 6 am and I am in your car going somewhere, I have had little to no sleep and I am barely dressed. What is going on?” Damian hadn’t payed attention to what clothing Raven was wearing. His mind was on one goal. Find Raven, keep Raven safe. His eyes glanced off the road enough to realize she was indeed not properly dressed. Her body was merely adorned with an oversized tee-shirt, tiny barely there shorts and a pair of fluffy socks.

“I apologize, it appears in my haste I did not leave you time to properly clothe yourself. As to why you are here, it seems your father and his people have shortened their waiting time this year from one year to a little more than ten months.” Ravens hands fisted her shirt. “This time I was prepared,” last time he was still new to everything, last time he made mistakes, this time there will be no mistakes. “Since our last encounter with your demon, so to speak, I have been setting in place precautions and safety measures to ensure Nevermore and yours’ safety. I have also been tracking the movements of his big players. If any came close I would mark it down. Multiple are entering the city at this moment. Seeing as you we taken last time I have made plans to ensure that will not happen again.” The car made a snap turn down an unfamiliar street pulling Raven from her clouded gaze.

“So I am going to be okay this time?” Her voice was faint and restraining against hope.

“You’re going to be okay.” His hand lightly held hers. Only to stop the shaking, they told themselves, only to make everything better. “Nevermore is with Titus at my place being watched by a friend of mine. I have already walked Grayson through everything we will not be expected at work this week, but we can work remotely.”

“We?”

“I’m not going to leave you. Ever.”

-- ((Sorry for the blocks of text))

-- As Raven finds out they are at one of Damian’s safe houses. The one least likely to be tied to her. It is fully stocked with food, has security cameras and if needed weapons. The only problem is that the only clothes there are Damians.

“Thought of everything huh?”

“I was following their pattern, I expected to have more time to acquire clothing for you.” (he was looking away and blushing, you cannot tell me he wasn’t)

-- Raven just resigns herself to wearing Damian’s clothes, yes his brain does stop working for a hot second when he sees her in only his clothes.

-- All attempts to try and retrieve codename: Gem of Scath are foiled (like some good math)

-- So many bonding moments happen. Cuddling (pure accident *rolls eyes*), eating together, inside jokes, etc. At one point Damian answers her phone (he disabled and disconnected the tracer) to one of the mob guys after them.

“Hello?”

“You can hide the gem but we will find her.”

“I’m sorry, is there a jewel you are looking for? I don’t think I have and any jewels that I am coveting.”

“We know you are with her! It is but a matter of time until we collect her.”

“I hope you do eventually find whatever you are looking for sir, but I haven’t the slightest idea the gem you speak of. If you could give me a physical description? Is it a ruby, diamond, onyx? Is it round or more of a pear shape?”

“...”

“Well, I will look for it here, but I do not believe I possess what you speak of. Will you give me your number so I can call you back?” (The line cuts dead, and Raven can be seen laughing in the background, the phone was on speaker)

-- Once the team tracks down, arrests and interrogates all of the parties working for Trigon; Raven and Nevermore can go home. Though both are reluctant in their own way. Nevermore has grown attached to Titus, and Raven well Raven has feelings. Sadly, as Raven knows, feelings are dangerous to have in their line of work.

-- Look at Dick and Kori they were together and then they fell apart and the team almost imploded.

-- What about Trigon if he finds out about Damian and how she feels towards him? What kind of danger will he be in then?

-- Like all of her feelings Raven puts them in a box and locks the box away. Not just figuratively, in her safe there is a box with: post its, torn papers, journals, etc. That box has a lock on it. Whenever she has a new feeling that she cannot ignore, like her feelings towards Special Agent Wayne, she takes out the box and writes her feelings down. They can range from a single sentence to pages worth. (Her feelings towards Damian fill a small notebook she has on hand). Once she has written all of her feelings out she places them in the box, locks said box and then places the locked box in her safe, which she then locks.

-- Is this a healthy way to cope with her feelings? Maybe not. But, it is way better than how Damian deals with his. Violence. Also art but violence comes first.

- At this point both Damian and Raven have caught the feelings (highly contagious I hear), which makes this a little awkward and a little not awkward. For one everyone but Raven knows how Damian feels towards her. He does things for her and with her that no one else gets the privilege to.

-- To list a few:

--- He brings her tea whenever he gets himself coffee or tea

--- He talks to her about what he does outside of work, even about his kind of friend definitely not enemy, Jon.

--- They socialize outside of work. Watching bad movies (some of them are not that bad), going to the park with Titus (they once got Nevermore in a leash and walked her), meeting each other before and after work to get breakfast or dinner.

--- He doesn’t glare at her

--- He allows physical contact between the two

--- He worries about her (hello he created an entire plan so that she wouldn’t get kidnapped, with contingencies and everything, garfield would be lucky to get a plan)

--- His eyes light up when she talks, or enters a room, or you know exists in his vicinity

--- He actually smiles around her (Dick caught him smiling once at Raven and he though Damian was having a stroke)

-- Even though everyone knows Damian likes Raven, very few know that Raven likes Damian back. (this only includes; Kori, Dick, Jason, Titus, Nevermore, and Melvin) She does do certain things that give herself away just like Damian.

--The list:

--- When Damian gets frustrated or angry she puts a hand on his arm, or holds his hand

--- She laughs at things he does (light chuckles, or little giggles)

--- She will talk to him about his interests and actively tries to have conversations with him about things unrelated to work.

--- She blushes when he does something unexpected (like a compliment)((Mostly she tries to hide it until he isn’t looking at her))(((Kori has caught the blush before)))

-- Luckily for them it does not take some cliche ‘One suddenly becomes in danger and the other one saves them only to be close to death and then they admit their love for one another and promise to go on a date when the other is healed’ situation.

-- Damian actually asks Raven out after being tipped of by Jason and Dick that she may like him back. Damian finds out when they have days off at the same time and asks her while leaving work.

“Raven, you have this weekend off correct?”

“Yeah I do. I wasn’t planning on doing anything though. Did you have something in mind?”

“Um, yeah, heh, I was wondering if you would do me the pleasure of going to dinner with me tomorrow.” *Awkwardly rubs back of neck*

“Like a date or two friends going to dinner?” *Thinks she sounds harsh* “I am honestly fine with either since we are friends.” *nervous smile*

“Like a date if that is okay with you of course.”

“Yeah, yeah totally that is totally okay with me.” *Starts sounding like a teenage girl who only knows about 10 words, because she’s nervous*

“Good, I’ll be by your place around 1830, if that is okay?” *nerve central, the central nervous system could never*

“Yup that is totally fine with me.”

“Great.”

“Good.” The elevator opens in the knick of time.

“See you tomorrow evening Agent Roth. Have a good night.”

“You too, Agent Wayne, you too.”

-- When Damian does pick her up he feels like his brain is going to explode. She looks absolutely breathtaking. This is just like all the other times they’ve gone to dinner, except this restaurant is slightly fancier and they are on a date.

-- Raven feels as though all her emotions are leaking out at once, she has no idea what she is doing.

-- In the end they have a good time and decide to do it again. Damian does bring up that all of the breakfasts and dinners they regularly do could now be considered dates. Raven does not oppose that switch at all.

- Fast forward a handful of years (like 3?), Damian and Raven are moved in together (Nevermore and Titus are happy about this, they even allow the humans to adopt another pet, a cat named Alfred). Damian is now Supervisory Special Agent Wayne and is in charge of their unit. Raven has retired from field work and now works at the FBI academy and at Virginia State University. In about 6 months Damian is going to propose and Raven will say yes. Their wedding will be small but happy and full of life.

Once again I would like to thank everyone and all the support the previous post got.

Like last time if anything is disjointed, out of place or seems wrong, please go ahead and tell me. I have been working on this since the last one, but have finally had the time to finish it.

I hope the new year will bring us all some good. Possibly more head canons to come.

#damirae #Damian Wayne #raven #Rachel Roth #damian x raven #Teen Titans #Headcanon #How do tags work #dc #demonbirds

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angst-fairygodmother · 3 years

Text

Light Fingers (The Umbrella Academy)

Diego’s vigilantism brings him repeatedly across the path of a young cat burglar. But as he finds himself developing feelings for the thief, he begins to wonder if there’s more to her than meets the eye, and whether they’re really on opposite sides. And as their relationship deepens, it brings with it a plot involving his estranged adopted father, and threatens to destroy all of them.

CHAPTER 13: DARKNESS FALLS

Word Count: 2362 Pairing: Diego Hargreeves x Reader Rating: T Content Warnings: swearing, references to violence (canon-typical), heavy angst, sort of spoilers for TUA season 1? Cross-posted to AO3: here

Previous Chapter: Confrontation || Masterlist

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Two weeks after your visit to the Academy, and everything that followed, a headline caught your eye as you poured coffee for a couple at the diner. ‘Eccentric Billionaire Reginald Hargreeves Under Federal Investigation. Crimes include Smuggling, Arms Dealing, Fraud’ screamed out at you in bold black print and you barely managed not to scald yourself as your hand trembled.

Your mind was racing. It hadn’t seemed real, when you were making phone calls and “visiting old friends” and whispering in the right, or wrong, ears. It was a stab in the dark, that you never expected to amount to anything. But it seemed like someone, somewhere, had listened and moved on D.S. Umbrella and your father-in-law.

A bubble of elation built up in your chest. Unable to contain yourself, you yelled out that you were taking your 15, despite the earliness of the hour, and jogged down the street to pick up a copy of the morning paper for yourself. As you scanned the article, more snippets jumped out: “midnight raid,” “suspicious and hazardous materials,” “illegal within city limits.” They also mentioned looking into his accounts, heavy investigation into recent break-ins at the warehouse that authorities suspected were to cover up evidence, and a re-examination of the adoption records for his now infamous Academy of children. That last one made your heart skip a beat. You hadn’t wanted to drag Diego or his family into any of this, and certainly not risk having his world flipped upside down. Still, there was hope nothing would come of that bit, and he would never have to be involved, and everything else was well worth it.

With a giddy giggle, relieved and stunned that things were going better than you could have hoped, you tucked the paper into your bag and returned to work, feeling lighter than you had in a while.

“This is insane,” Diego said, dropping onto the couch, head in his hands and the copy of the paper you’d brought home on the table in front of him.

“Is it?” you countered, sitting down on the far end and tucking your knees up to your chest. “We knew he was up to something…”

“But not this! Why would he raise us the way he did if he was a criminal?”

“Covering his tracks maybe? Or there’s something bigger here we haven’t put together.”

“You’re not even a little surprised by this,” there was something flat to his tone.

You shrugged, knowing that he knew you too well to deny it.

“What did you do?”

“Technically, nothing.” He fixed with you a firm, unamused expression that made you sigh. “I just talked to people. Gossip, anonymous tips, that sort of thing. I didn’t really think anyone would listen.”

His jaw clenched as he struggled to reign in his anger. “Who else did you talk to?”

“A few journalists, some law enforcement that Patch put me in touch with who wouldn’t ask too many questions, some folks in my line of work. That one clearly didn’t go anywhere, or we would have heard by now, especially if there’s an investigation too.”

“Thieves?”

“No waitstaff.” You rolled your eyes.

“What for?”

“I thought...I figured if some other crews went in, free looting, it would make it harder to figure out what we took, cover our tracks some.”

“That doesn’t make sense. He already knew we were there. Y/N, what aren’t you telling me?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s done now. I’m sure nothing will happen, the authorities are probably in his pocket, and if not...Prison for someone like your father isn’t even that bad. It’s a penthouse, just one with a 24/7 guard at the door.”

Diego looked annoyed but didn’t say anything else. You bit your lip, the silence tense over the two of you.

“I’m sorry, Diego. I just thought...it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He grunted in acknowledgement. A moment later, he stood, silently getting ready for bed, despite the relatively early hour, and went to bed without a word. You waited, fighting back tears, still curled on the couch. You didn’t expect Diego to be thrilled the way you were that something was happening with Reginald, but you also hadn’t predicted this anger.

“Y/N,” he called softly, an indeterminate time later, making you jump. “Come to bed, sweetheart.”

Things in the household felt fragile after that, even the dog could sense that both you and Diego were tip-toeing on eggshells, waiting for the outcome of the investigation, like the Sword of Damocles.

And then it dropped, with a breaking news bulletin, one that made you almost grateful that Diego had a late night at the gym. You wrapped your arms around yourself, shuddering, as you watched an all too familiar building go up in smoke.

“No one knows what, if anything, was taken by the miscreants seen fleeing the warehouse shortly before the explosion, or why they chose to destroy the structure so definitively,” the news anchor said, the rest of her words blending into a drone in the back of your mind.

At some point, you fell asleep there on the couch, waiting for Diego to come home, startled awake in the morning when the door slammed shut.

“Diego?” you asked, frowning and rising to greet him. “Are you okay?”

He laughed bitterly, shaking off your hand on his arm and stepping away. “You’re really asking me that, Y/N? After everything you’ve done?”

“What are you talking about, Diego?”

“I’m not an idiot Y/N.”

“No but evidently I am, because I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about, baby.”

“Don’t,” he growled, shaking his head again. “D.S. Umbrella. Thieves, an explosion. You’re honestly trying to tell me you had nothing to do with it?”

“I didn’t! Not...directly!” you protested. “I promised you that I wouldn’t go after him, so I called in friends who could, who would.”

“How is that any different?”

“I...you said yourself that he was dangerous, and he proved that to me. And I got scared okay? I panicked, and when I saw a solution, I took it. Torch and burn, and salt the earth seemed like a good idea.”

“And Luther? Was he part of your plan or just an acceptable casualty?”

“What do you mean?” your frown shifted from one of upset to confusion.

“Pogo called, last night. Dad sent Luther to the warehouse had he got caught in your friends’ chemical explosion. He’s lucky to be alive.”

There was a slight hitch to his voice as he spoke, and you knew that despite the years of tension between them, hearing such news about his brother had shaken Diego badly. And you hadn’t been there for him. You reached out for his hand, to comfort him as you usually would before recoiling.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

Diego scoffed in disbelief, nostrils flaring angrily. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I don’t hate your brother, and I had no reason to want that. Because your father was the one who sent him in, alone and probably unprepared even though he knew better than anyone what hazards were in there. Because I’m your wife, and I wouldn’t lie to you, not when it mattered. Because I never wanted any of this, I just couldn't sit back and do nothing.”

“Why not? And give me a straight answer this time, Y/N.”

“While you and Luther were busy getting out all your boyhood aggression or whatever, I tried to find answers just like we planned. Only instead I ended up having a nice little chat with Reginald. And he said that everything was staged, that it was an audition. That I passed. And he threatened you, and he called the Academy a failed experiment.”

“You never said anything to me.”

“I didn’t know how,” your voice was sharp, pleading. “I have even less answers than I did when we started. All I have is that your father didn’t care about you, but he did about me, for something. He was willing to let you die to test what I could do. He was okay with the idea of hurting you to keep me in line. I...I had to protect you. So I did the only thing I could think of to do.”

“We’re s-supposed to be a team.” His eyes were still dry, but you could see the pain written across his features, and you closed your eyes against the sight.

“I know,” you said softly.

“W-w-we could have figured it out t-to-tog-gether if you had ta-lked to me…”

“We tried that Diego,” you wanted so badly to reach out for him. You hated that you couldn’t. Not now. “It had us spinning in circles.”

"So you just shut m-m-me out?" His lip quivered.

“Would you have done any differently?” you gave up on even trying to keep your own emotions out of your voice, tilting your head in question as you looked at your husband, the man you loved, and said words that you knew were breaking both your hearts. “Honestly?”

He was painfully silent, lips pressed together and eyes downcast as he considered your words, and what his answer would be. Rather than let the question continue to stew, you forged onward, almost afraid of what would happen if you didn’t.

“I’m truly sorry that Luther got hurt, and glad he’ll be okay. But I still stand by what I did. It was the right choice to make. If anything, it worked out better than I had hoped.”

“H-how could you say t-tha-that?” despite his stutter there was outrage in his voice now, raising the pitch to almost a shout.

“If it’s him or you, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no choice. I’m not sorry for that.” You shrugged. “And maybe almost losing his last loyal son will be enough to get your father to back off, to rethink, stop doing...whatever it is he’s doing.”

Diego’s body tensed and his eyes narrowed to a glare, the full fury and hatred locked inside suddenly directed at you. There was no trace of the pain in his voice now and it made your blood run cold.

“Luther’s an asshole, but he’s m-y family.”

“I know that, Diego. And I know how much family means to you. That wasn’t how I—”

“You know, you’re starting to sound a lot like my father.”

You stared at him, aghast.

“You’ve been just like him this whole time, haven’t you?”

“What?” you couldn’t keep the break and horror from your voice, didn’t want to.

“All this scheming and planning. Using the rest of us as puppets. It’s all about the so-called greater good. And screw anyone that gets in your way.”

“Diego, that’s not—” You tried to pull your emotions back into check but couldn’t. Hot, desperate tears pooled in your eyes before spilling down your cheeks.

‘Not what?’ you froze to ask yourself. ‘Not fair? Not true? Isn’t it though? Wasn’t he completely right, that you and Reginald were circling each other, playing a game with each other? Lay a trap, dance away from it. Steal a piece of information, change it’s meaning. Capture a bishop, sacrifice a knight. Move and counter-move. For months now.’

“I’m going to the gym tonight,” he said, making a dismissive gesture when you remained silent for too long. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He turned on his heel, throwing a few things in a duffle bag haphazardly.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” you said quietly as you watched him pack, rooted in your spot in the living room.

“Of course it was a mistake!”

“I don’t mean things with your father or D.S. Umbrella,” you took a deep, shuddery breath. “I...I mean us.”

“What?” his voice dropped, all the anger leeching away as he hesitated in the middle of folding one of his turtlenecks.

You took a shuddering breath, “None of this would have happened if we hadn’t gotten tangled up trying to pretend we fit together, in each other’s lives.”

“Y/N. Stop.” He shook his head, words clipped and forced. “Don’t say that.”

“Say what Diego? What we’re both thinking? I love you, so much. More than I can possibly say. But...I don’t think that’s enough. I was...we were better off alone. Everyone was.”

“That’s not t-true.” He took a step toward you and you took a step back. He looked like the world had just dropped out from under him.

“Tell me I’m wrong. Please?” you begged, voice and lip trembling. “If you can say that, after everything I’ve done, after all of this, I’ll believe you. But...don’t say if it’s not true.”

“That’s it?”

“I don’t know.”

Your gut gnawed at you, the still image of the burning warehouse catching in the corner of your eye. It felt like he was going to forgive you, even for a moment, for that, for Luther, and you couldn’t fathom that. And the more you spoke, the more you found yourself meaning the words. You loved him, and he loved you, and that could only hurt.

“I should go,” he said, half-heartedly, almost asking you to stop him.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

His keys rattled as he picked them up, and the door closing behind him seemed louder than you had ever imagined possible. It felt like one of his daggers was protruding from your chest. You couldn’t breathe.

“Diego, wait!” you called shakily, throwing open the door but not quite chasing him into the hallway.

He stopped but didn’t turn around. Silence hung like a wall between you. Your tongue felt like lead. What could you possibly say to undo what you had just done?

The minutes dragged on, the silence unbroken.

With a sigh you could almost imagine wafting back to flutter over you, he started to move again, and you stood there until his back disappeared. Only when he was truly gone, did you sink to the floor.

“Goodbye Diego,” you murmured, the words trailing off into a sob.

#And No One Lived Happily Ever After. The End #I mean technically there's an epilogue and some sort of sequel but this is the 'end'#the epilogue isn't going to make things better I promise #13 is an unlucky number right? :/#how to break your reader's heart (and your own) in 2.5k or less #an essay by Shye #Light Fingers #Diego Hargreeves x Reader #The Umbrella Academy fic

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

Text

Writing tag game -- tagged by @lessattitudemorealtitude

how many works do you have on Ao3?

Discounting podfic on which I’m listed as a co-author, 24. My concept writing doesn’t go to AO3 and the vast majority of my Narnia fic was never cross-posted there. (Or reposted there, actually, I think most of it pre-dates the AO3.)

what’s your total Ao3 word count?

1,050,810. oh, huh, I didn’t actually realize I’d passed the one million word mark (probably with Crown).

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

all of these ended up being Star Wars, which is not a huge surprise. Morning will probably reach Dirt in the next couple of updates, I’d guess.

Immutable, or, Five Times Obi-Wan Kenobi Compromised His Jedi Ethics for Anakin Skywalker -- this is not the oldest Star Wars fic on there, but I think it’s the second oldest. people just really like 5 times fic.

Wake the Storm - did you know that when I started Wake I assumed it was a very niche trope in what was, at the time, a pretty dead fandom? the kudos count on Wake actually outnumbers Gambit by more than 1600 kudos, so the number of people who go from Wake to Gambit is a lot lower than you might think.

Queen's Gambit - a significantly lower kudos count than Wake or Immutable. Gambit’s such a weirdo of a story, tbh, I can’t be surprised by anything about Gambit anymore.

On the Edge of the Devil's Backbone - about 600 kudos less than Gambit, so less difference between Gambit and Backbone than between Wake and Gambit.

Dirt in the Machine - another older fic. I’d rewrite this one if I cared enough to do so, because it’s not at my current standards (Immutable isn’t either, for that matter) and I kind of wince every time I get comments on it. this is the first one of the top five to have below 1K kudos.

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I’ll usually respond to direct questions, but I very, very seldom respond to comments in general. This is an old standing policy of mine that’s now more than a decade old -- it used to be I’d wait twenty-four hours before responding, then I’d respond right before the next chapter went up, and for a while I’d only respond to comments on the first few chapters of a story. Now I just mostly do not. The reasons for this are: (1) many, many years ago, I lost my temper pretty badly at a comment on a fic of mine (this was pre-AO3, this was back in my LJ days), and after that I moved to the “wait twenty-four hours” response so I didn’t say anything without thinking about it, (2) I do go back and reread comments but I hate rereading my own responses, (3) I prefer to know the comments numbers on my fic are all from actual comments and not from me saying “thanks for reading!”, (4) I can’t take that kind of responsibility for answering every single comment, man.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Of stuff I’ve written in the past ten years? (I can’t really remember before that.) Maybe Backbone, because it ends on that pretty upbeat “yay team we’re going to be rebels now!” note. or Devil’s in the Details (other side part 1), though I don’t really want to consider it a finished fic even though it’s technically finished; it has another “yay team we’re back together (minus Ezra)” ending. I tend to end on complicated and reasonably open endings, not like...happy endings.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably Gambit for the “everything is super fucked up” factor and also the fact that I never wrote the sequel. plus it ended with the entire Wake trio split up in a whole new universe, plus back in the Gambitverse Amidala not able to go back to Naboo, Ahsoka shunned, Palpatine’s new empire, Rex trapped in the Gambitverse, etc.

do you write crossovers?

I did in my Narnia days. I don’t anymore. Working in widespread fandoms like Star Wars or the MCU is basically like writing crossover fic within the same universe, anyway.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

*hysterical laughter*

...yes. yes I have. it’s the reason every time I get a comment notification on Gambit or Wake I freeze in absolute terror. people HATE Wake and Gambit. I hate to say never, but I will probably never write those characters or in that series again.

do you write smut? if so, what kind?

not really? I’ve done relatively non-explicit sex but it’s not something I’m super comfortable writing, especially in recent years. I’m much more likely to do a fade to black.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think Gambit got scraped once when it was still in progress and my response was something along the lines of “good luck, bro,” given the whole “still in progress” thing.

have you ever had a fic translated?

I’ve gotten a couple of translation requests but I can’t recall if anything’s ever been translated. (Or if I responded to them...I know a few I forgot to respond.)

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, back in my Narnia days. Some SW concept writing and that ended so badly that I’ll never co-write again.

what’s your all-time favourite ship?

Kanan/Hera, of course!

what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

gods, Dust in the Air, my Narnia Last Battle AU. Back when I started it in 2008 or so I didn’t have the self-control or discipline I do now, even if I had a lot of the worldbuilding ability and the ability to conceive of if not execute long plot arcs, and I broke off more than I could chew. If I ever went back to it I’d probably have to do a complete rewrite and it has the unique problem among my WIPs of being the last major fic I wrote in present tense -- I now write exclusively in past tense. The bones of the story are good, I’d just have to go back to the bones and not just pick up where I left off.

what are your writing strengths?

Plot, worldbuilding/environment, action. I also do genuinely think I’m very good at characterization too, but I think they’re all inter-related. (Except the action, that’s me alone. I love writing action and I generally get a lot of compliments on my action scenes.) look, I know it’s conceited, but I’m good and I know I’m good, and I’m good in a pretty well-rounded way for the genre I write.

what are your writing weaknesses?

brevity. can’t do it.

honestly, there are others, but I don’t write stories where they’d come up. I think I have a tendency to get to bogged down in dialogue in a way that I’ve never quite solved. I also let my emotions take over too much and not in the good fannish way, in the “I’m having a fucked up relationship with canon or fandom and it’s affecting my ability to work” way.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

please stop having your Asgardians speak Latin for magic, man, that’s my feeling on it.

okay, my feelings on it for me -- I’ve sprinkled bits and pieces of Huttese, Twi’leki, and tee-tiny bits of other stuff here and there in fic. I’d not be comfortable doing more than that because the only other language that I really feel comfortable doing anything significant in is Latin, and even then I’d hesitate. also, like, Latin! not a language that comes up in the fandoms I write in. even then, like -- any extended dialogue should be intelligible to the audience, and I don’t expect my audience to be able read anything other than English; I’d rather just say “they switched to Twi’leki to say” or something similar.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

like, online? Harry Potter. for things that I didn’t post online because I didn’t know what fic was yet? probably either The 10th Kingdom or The Mummy.

what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

On the Edge of the Devil’s Backbone. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, I think it’s the most tightly plotted, I think it’s got the best worldbuilding, I think it’s remarkably consistent thematically, and it was, at the time, a fic that I was very devoted to finishing or dying trying, because I was going through it at the time and some of it was connected to the fic.

I don’t tag people, but please go for if you want!

#meme response

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midnightsnapdragon · 3 years

Note

Oops I’m bad at tumblr. I think I’m supposed to use this thing lol: Yayyyy! I’m a huge fan of all your stuff on Ao3 and have been dying for more good Cresswell fic lately :) How about: “It still surprises him, sometimes.”

...

“Carswell?”

Thorne bites back a swear word and swivels around in his girlfriend’s office chair, grinning widely. “Cress! You’re back early!” With one hand behind his back, he tries to close the program he’d been snooping in.

Cress leans against the doorway of her office and gives him a shy look through her hair. “You know we have security cameras in here, right?”

Uh-oh. Thorne forces himself to keep grinning. “Yeah?”

“And I keep an eye on my office 24/7.” She waves her phone at him, where a little app shows him a bird’s-eye view of himself, seated at her computer.

A drop of sweat creeps down the back of his neck. Shell Tech is a top information security company, and Cress is known to be its secret weapon. That’s why he was sent here in the first place. Carswell Thorne is six months deep undercover trying to get Shell’s secrets out of this five-foot-tall, twenty-four-year-old nerd, and if he just blew his cover because he forgot to disable one camera, he is never going to hear the end of it from his bosses. “Right,” he says, tilting his head with a quizzical smile.

Cress laughs. “So if you were planning to surprise me, this kind of isn’t the best place to do it!”

Thorne relaxes. “Oh. Yeah, you got me. Kind of dumb, huh?”

Her eyes widen. “No!” She steps closer, her fingers knitted together in front of her stomach: a bashful gesture that he’s starting to see less and less as their relationship progresses. “No,” she says again. “It’s really sweet of you. I was actually thinking we could go out for drinks after work, if you’re not too ...” Then she sees the computer screen Thorne is trying to shield with his body. “... busy,” she finishes, frowning. “Is that ... the beta?”

He glances over his shoulder, as if in surprise. “Oh. I guess. Is that what you were working on?”

“It’s kind of an important project.” She lets her hands fall. Crap. She’s not in bashful mode anymore. “What were you doing here?”

If he doesn’t come up with a really, really good cover story in the next five seconds, he can say good-bye to both his mission and his career.

“Okay, full disclosure? I was trying to see your calendar,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck in a sheepish way. “I know your birthday is coming up, and I’ve always wanted to throw someone a surprise party. But you can’t exactly do that if the person is already busy, right?”

Cress’s face lights up. Without preamble, she throws her arms around him, and he catches her and hugs her close. With him in a seated position and her standing, there’s not even much of a height difference to deal with. In fact, he wouldn’t mind staying like this for a few minutes. But only because she’s warm and soft and smells nice. No one ever said you couldn’t find pleasure in your work.

“You were going to throw me a party?” The words are muffled against his neck.

Thorne smiles into her hair. “Yup. And invite all your coworkers who hate me.”

“They don’t hate you,” she says unconvincingly. “I’m sure if they just gave you a chance ...”

“Well, then this is the perfect opportunity.”

Looks like his cover is still intact. Carswell Thorne, devoted romantic partner and thrower of parties. It still surprises him, sometimes, how utterly naïve this girl is, how trusting, and so tragically gullible. This isn’t even the first time she’s caught him trying to snoop on her tech conglomerate’s projects. Next time, he promises himself. Next time, I’ll get her secrets. I just need a little more time.

“Carswell?”

“Hm?”

“I really, really like you.”

Thorne becomes aware of a warm, expanding feeling behind his ribcage. He shuts his eyes and lets out a breath into Cress’s hair. “I really like you, too. But you already knew that.”

She pulls away. For a moment he’s afraid that she’s detected something in his voice, that he’s somehow given himself away, but her eyes are sparkling and her cheeks turning pinker every second.

“Yeah,” she says, smiling down at him. “I already knew.”

...

“Jeez, Cress. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Cress says, and pulls something out of her pocket. It’s a cell phone, smudged with fingerprints and locked with a measly 8-character code. “Here. I got something for you.”

Linh Garan, founder and CEO of Shell Tech, frowns at her across his desk, but he takes the phone and turns it over in his hands. “Is it his? The agent’s?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How did you even get it?”

“I ... picked his pocket.” She feels unsure of herself just saying it, like she might be boasting or lying. But she’s not. She went through hours and hours of YouTube tutorials and even got Cinder, Garan’s adopted daughter, to practice with her. Which wasn’t hard, seeing as Cinder would have signed up for anything that made “that idiot American” look like a chump. In the end, Thorne hadn’t felt a thing when she slipped the phone from his jacket. Of course, she was hugging him at the time, and he was already flustered knowing he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Guilty people never consider the possibility that someone else might be deceiving them.

It still surprises her, sometimes. How easy it is to play someone who thinks they’ve got you wrapped around their finger.

Garan raises his eyebrows at the phone, clearly impressed. “Well, this is obviously Rikan-issue. We’ll do a full scan and decryption and have it back to you before you leave for drinks. If it’s his work phone, odds are we can get a lot of intel out of it. Good work, Cress.”

“Thanks.”

"And you know you don’t have to do this, right? Rikan’s the one that planted him here. We’d be well within our rights to fire him. Don’t feel pressured to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Cress bites her lip. “I know. I won’t.”

“Good.”

When she leaves the office, she finds Thorne chatting up Michelle Benoit, co-founder of Shell Tech, who’s holding a coffee cup and nodding along politely to everything he says. Michelle has been twisting the necks off of farm chickens since she was a little girl, and she’s currently looking at Thorne like he’s a very noisy, very juicy chicken. Cress wants to be a grandma like her when she grows up.

“The work day’s not over yet,” she tells Thorne, sidling up to him in an apologetic sort of way. “You should probably let Michelle get back to work.”

Thorne makes Michelle an elaborate little bow. “Au revoir, Madame. Until le next time.”

Michelle smiles indulgently. “Ton français est franchement abominable. Je me demande quel bête t’a enseigné.”

Cress walks him to the exit, and as they walk he whispers, “What did she say? I didn’t get the last part.”

“She said your French is pretty good and you should come by again soon.”

“Ah,” he says, relieved. “Well, I’ll have to brush up on my Italian next. I hear it makes a very good impression with the ladies.” And as he opens the door, he leans back down to murmur lowly in her ear. “Non vedo l'ora di vederti stasera.”

Cress has no idea what that means, but her face goes tomato red anyway, and Thorne twinkles his eyes at her before disappearing into the street.

She’s going to have to wear something really distracting when he realizes who has his missing phone.

...

send me a prompt and I’ll write a quick(ish) drabble!

#the lunar chronicles #cresswell #cresswell fanfic #tlc fanfic #cresswell fanfiction #the lunar chronicles fanfiction

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yikesharringrove · 4 years

Note

There's a Jersey Mike's ad that says "your favorite sub, delivered right to your door" and it made me think of Steve.. Maybe Steve is some sort of sub for hire and Billy comes across his ad?

This made me LAUGH.

Sub for hire meet cute.

Smut

Holy SHIT this got really long omg

Ao3

Billy was scrolling aimlessly, holding his dick in one hand, stroking lazily.

He was looking for something good, some pretty boy twink getting fucking destroyed.

He scrolled to the end of the page, and accidentally clicked on the add at the bottom of his screen.

“Oh fuck.” He tried to stop it loading, but then a dark webpage had loaded.

Subs 4 U - submissives for hire Your favorite subs delivered right to your door

He snorted, screenshotting the site, knew Heather would get a kick outta this.

He scrolled through, just curious about this site, the kind of work they did.

It was all laid out in steps.

Step 1: Pick your Sub

There were about twenty pictures, different people of different genders, all with bios and kink lists. He stopped on one.

The guy was hogtied on a bed, a ball gag in his mouth. He was looking at the camera with his big dark eyes, was basically saying fuck me, please through the photo. Billy read through his bio.

Steve, 24, he/they. Steve is a bratty sub that likes being bound, gagged, and fucked. He likes being tied up, chained down, suspended, slapped, and spanked. He likes a big cock and an even bigger toy. Into painplay, full domination, humiliation, and sissifiaction. Looking for a Sir/Ma’am, a Mommy/Daddy, or a Master/Mistress.

Billy stared at his bio.

Would it, would it be fucking stupid to do this? To hire a sub to come to his door?

Billy had never really done the BDSM thing. Sure, he was naturally dominant in the bedroom, and liked a bratty little bottom, but, for how much hardcore porn he watches, he’s never, tied someone up, or flogged them, or whatever.

He clicked on Steve’s name.

It pulled up a schedule, with the title Step 2: Book your time. Steve was booked three weeks out. Billy can see why. This page has even more pictures, pictures of him fingering his ass, or in pretty lingerie, even one where he’s cuffed to a bed, and fucking crying. Billy booked a time.

Step 3: Pick your scene.

There were a few levels.

Level 1: Light domination. Perfect for beginner dominates. Subs will bring a collection of toys and gear and discuss scene options before hand.

Level 2: Mild domination. For more experienced dominates that just like an easier ride.

Level 3: Full domination. For experienced dominates. Full control (within reason) of the submissive.

Level 4: Extreme domination. For regular dominates looking for more. Please discuss boundaries with submissive.

Billy clicked on level one.

He entered his phone number and address, and put in his credit card information. It was expensive, getting a mail order sub for three hours, but he looked back and Steve’s pictures and thought fuck it.

Billy was making himself breakfast when his phone went off.

Unknown number: Hi Billy, it’s Steve, your sub for hire! I wanted to confirm our scene appointment and begin discussing expectations.

Billy stared at the text. He bit his lip.

Hi, Steve. Yes, you can confirm our appointment.

Steve (Sub): Great! You selected level one, meaning I’ll bring a selection of toys and gear I like to play with. Do you know much about BDSM?

I mean, I watch a lot of porn.

Steve (Sub): lol 😊 I mean like, for reals.

I’ve done some research, but very little.

Steve (Sub): Do some more before we get together. We’ll just stick with cuffs and stuff so you don’t have to worry about rope. Please get tested if you haven’t after your most recent partner, think about a safeword so you can have that ready, and what you want me to call you. Let me know if there’s anything special you want me to bring or wear. Can’t wait! 🌷

Billy stared at the little pink flower.

So he was really doin’ this. Huh.

Billy got a few books on BDSM to peruse during the next three weeks.

He did everything Steve asked, watched videos on some of the things Steve had listed in his bio, tutorials on how to do them safely. He got tested, came back clean as a damn whistle, and thought a lot about what he wanted for their scene.

So by the time there was a knock on his door, he was ready.

He smiled at Steve, who grinned brightly at him.

“Hi! You’re Billy, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me. Come on in.”

“Thank God. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve gone to the wrong apartment.” Billy laughed. Steve was easy to be around. He was light and happy and made some of the tension ease from his shoulders. “So, you wanna get right to it?”

“’Course.”

“You’ve got three hours. That includes set up and aftercare. Did you do some more research?” Steve had placed his big duffel bag on Billy’s coffee table, was pulling out cuffs and dildos and gags and impact toys.

“Yes, I did. Real research.”

“Cool! You got any ideas?” Billy looked at the spread Steve had brought.

He doesn’t really feel comfortable with impact yet, has been known to lose himself in things like that, and he really didn’t want to hurt Steve. He eyed a big dildo while picking up the set of nice leather padded cuffs.

“I want to start fairly easy. Cuff you up, stretch you open, fuck you.” Steve had a serious look on his face.

“Yeah, that’s cool. What would you like from me?”

“I love a good brat, so if you wanna play that up.” Steve smirked at him. “And, uh, any of the names you listed in your bio are cool.”

“Sir, is kinda my go to. And my safeword is licorice. Did you think of one?”

“I was thinkin’ Radagast.” It was the first thing that had come to mind. Steve grinned at him.

“You’re a nerd. That’s so cute.” Billy tried not to flush. “Okay, cool. So like, do you have any hard boundaries? I don’t fuck with piss and shit, and I don’t like being left alone, especially while bound or in subspace.��

“That all sounds good. I uh, I don’t want to be hit at all, and I don’t want to hit you.”

“Okay, cool. And what are you looking for in terms of aftercare?”

“Isn’t that, like the dom’s job?”

“Nah, doms need after lovin’ too. I like cuddling afterwards, but if that makes you uncomfortable, I’m good with that. I got a cat at home that’ll snuggle with me.” Billy pictured Steve curled up in a thick sweater, a cat curled into his chest.

It was cute.

“I like cuddling.” Steve smiled at him, nodding once.

“Alright, let’s walk through our scene step by step. What are you looking for?”

“Uh, I think I wanted to strip you, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah! Just don’t rip my clothes.” Billy huffed a laugh. “I’m not kidding, some asshole cut off a dress I was wearing, and I was so mad.”

“Alright, I’ll be careful.” Steve raised an eyebrow at him. “Okay, so after that, I want to cuff you. Like, arms behind your back?”

“That works.”

“And then, uh, make you suck me off, then get you stretched open, make you take this,” he held up the big dildo. “And then fuck you.”

“Great! Feel free to play into the scene, if you want to do some orgasm denial, prostate milking, whatever strikes you along those lines, is good with me.”

“Okay. I think all of that sounds good.” Steve smiled brightly at him, standing up. “And I got tested. I’m clean and I have the test results if you’d like to see them.”

“No need. I believe you.” Billy nodded once. “We can begin when you’re ready then!”

“You’re all good?”

“Yep.”

“Alright then, let’s begin.”

“Go ahead.” Billy grabbed his face, made Steve’s breath hitch in his chest.

“What was that?”

“Go ahead, Sir.”

The switch was immediate. Steve’s eyes were hazy, his body deflating just a little bit, submitting to Billy.

“Say it again.”

“Yes, Sir.” Billy let go of his face. He reached for the hem of his shirt, yanking it over his head. Steve made a disgruntled noise. “Oh, what, Baby? Don’t like it when I get rough?”

Steve shook his head.

“Words.”

“No, Sir. I don’t like it when you get rough.”

“That’s too bad, Princess. ‘Cause this isn’t about you.” He undid Steve’s jeans, pulling them down, slapping Steve’s legs to indicate which one he should step out of.

He brushed his hands along Steve’s body as he stood up.

Steve was watching him with dark eyes.

“Turn around.” Billy leaned to pick up the leather padded cuffs. Steve pouted. Billy cock stirred.

“Don’t wanna.” Billy grabbed his face again.

“Wasn’t a fucking question.” He was fully hard now, his dick flushed a pretty pink color. “Turn. Around.”

Steve did as he was told, hands behind his back for Billy to cuff.

They were each secured with a shiny silver buckle, and Billy silently thanked Steve for bringing them, not making Billy figure out rope.

He finished cuffing Steve, plastering himself to the back of his body, grinding his hard dick into Steve’s ass.

Steve sighed out a moan.

“Feel how hard you’re makin’ me, Sugar?” He leaned forward to nose along Steve’s neck. He titled his head, baring his neck for Billy. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

“Anything you want, Sir. Let you do anything.”

“Of course you will. ‘Cause you don’t have any choice.” Steve whined, pressing his ass back against the front of Billy’s hips.

Billy pushed off him, sitting heavily in his armchair.

Steve looked over his shoulder, eyes all big and pouty.

“C’mere, Baby.” Steve was on his in a flash, nestling in his lap, looking through his lashes at Billy. Billy sighed. “Did I say you could sit on my lap?”

“Just, just wanna be close to you.” Billy grabbed his face again.

“What did I say?” He spoke slowly.

“This isn’t about me.” He let go of his face, petting softly over his hair for a second. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

“Good boy.” Steve melted. Billy leaned forward, his breath ghosting over Steve’s neck. “Now get on your knees.”

Steve slid off him, settling between Billy’s thighs. He leaned forward right away, nuzzling his face into the hard line of Billy’s cock.

Billy grabbed his hair, yanking him back.

Steve whimpered.

“You’re not listening to me, Brat. I didn’t give you permission to touch me.” Steve’s bottom lip trembled.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Sir. I’ll be good, I’ll listen. Wanna be good for you, Sir.” His eyes were all gooey with tears. Billy was fucking delighted, wanted to make him cry.

He leaned back, opening his belt slowly.

Steve watched with bated breath as he undid his jeans, pulling his cock out.

Billy stroked over himself, made a real show of it, swiping his thumb over the head. Steve was watching him intently.

“Go get me the lube, Sugar.” Steve flicked his eyes up to look at him.

“But my hands-”

“Figure it out. Go on. Be a good boy.” Steve’s breath caught in his chest.

He turned around on his knees, shuffling awkwardly to the coffee table. He was totally gonna have rug burn on his knees.

He bent over the table to pick up the lube with his mouth. Billy admired his ass, his skin pale and smooth.

Steve came back to him, bottle of lube in his mouth.

Billy took it, petting over Steve’s hair some more.

“Go fetch your toy.” Steve rolled his eyes. Billy leaned over, grabbing his face again.

He spat right on Steve’s face. His lashes fluttered.

“Did you roll your eyes?”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” Steve’s eyes had gone bright and watery. Billy resolved to make Steve cry at least once before their time was up.

“Go get your toy, and I’ll decided if you deserve to play with it.”

Steve shuffled to the coffee table, picking up the dildo, his mouth wrapped around the side of the toy like a dog with a bone. He brought it back to Billy.

He sat ramrod straight, looking up at Billy through his lashes. Billy set the dildo with the lube on the little side table.

Billy began stroking himself again.

“Open your mouth.” Steve’s doe eyes were wide as he opened his mouth, sticking his tongue out.

Billy grabbed the back of his hair, and slammed his face down onto his cock.

Steve choked when Billy hit the back of his throat. Billy pulled him off.

“You want me to fuck your face like that, Baby?” Didn’t want to get too rough, wanted to give him an out.

“Yes, Sir. Use my face. Use me.” Billy grinned, pushing Steve back onto his cock.

He guided him up and down, shoving Steve’s head down as far as he could. He could feel Steve relaxing around him, breathing deeply through his nose, keeping his throat open.

He moved his tongue expertly against the underside of him.

“How many cocks you had in this little whore mouth a’ yours? I bet lots. Such a slut.”

Steve whimpered against him. Billy tugged his hair to pull him off.

“Your ass feel as good as your mouth?”

“Yes, Sir.”

He took one moment admiring how red and swollen his lips were, shiny and slick with spit, a thread of saliva still connecting him to the head of Billy’s dick.

“Ask me to touch you. Beg for it.”

“Please, Sir. I want-I need you to touch me. I’ll do anything you want, Sir. I’ll make you feel so good, just please touch me, please.”

And they were the tears.

Billy’s gut roared as a few dripped down his cheeks, as his bottom lip trembled.

“Shh, Princess. So pretty when you beg.” He leaned back in the armchair, patting his lap.

Steve scrambled to sit on his lap, looking at Billy through his lashes. Billy wiped at his tears, sliding his hands down his body, digging his fingers into his soft hips.

“Ask me again.”

“Please touch me. I’ll make you feel so good. Let you do whatever you want.”

“‘Course you will.” He made a big show of slicking up a few of his fingers. Steve’s breaths were short as he reached around him.

One finger went it easy, Steve’s body giving in to him.

“Such a perfect little cockslut. Sucking me in, so greedy.”

Steve melted against him, tucking his head in Billy’s neck.

“Feels so good, Sir.”

He curled his finger, gently brushing against Steve’s prostate, just teasing.

Steve pressed a soft kiss to his neck.

Billy pushed in another finger, pulling them apart, spreading Steve open.

He pressed them in deep, curling them, drilling the tips of his fingers into Steve’s prostate.

Steve keened and whined, his back arching, fucking himself back on Billy’s fingers.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“Being so good for me, Sugar.”

Billy crammed another finger inside him, Steve’s body fluttering around his digits.

“You want another one? Or do you want your toy?”

“Whatever you think I deserve, Sir.”

“Good answer, Slut.” Billy pulled out his fingers, slicking up the big pink dildo.

Billy lined up the dildo, using one hand to spread his cheeks open.

Steve’s back went stiff as he began to push the toy inside.

“Relax, Princess. Be good for me.” Steve was taking deep breaths, relaxing his body as the toy pushed inside, stretched him open.

He pushed the toy in as far as it would go, the flat base of it sitting flush against Steve ass.

Steve’s breaths were shaky.

“Did so good for me. Took your toy so nice. Does it feel good?”

“Feels so good, Sir. Thank you.” Billy pet over his ass, just left the toy shoved inside Steve.

And then he tugged on the base, began slowly fucking Steve with it.

Steve just took it, a pliant little mess in Billy’s lap His cock was hard and hot against Billy’s, smearing pre over both their stomachs.

“You wanna cum on your toy? Or do you want my cock?”

“Want, want your cock, Sir.”

“Do you deserve my cock?” He pushed the toy in a little harder, a little faster, making Steve gasp sharply.

“No, Sir. I don’t deserve anything.”

“No, you don’t, you little brat. You don’t deserve anything I give you.”

“I know I don’t, Sir. Thank you for giving it to me anyway!” Steve was writhing in his lap, Billy could tell he was close.

“Such a spoiled little Princess.”

“Yes! I’m so spoiled.” Billy was moving the dildo fast in and out of him, slick sounds and Steve’s moans filling the apartment.

“You gonna cum?”

“Yes!”

“Beg for it!”

“Please, Sir, I need to cum. I’m so close, please.”

Billy kept fucking him with the toy, leaning forward to speak right into his ear.

“Cum.”

Steve just about screamed when he came.

He covered the front of Billy’s shirt with his spunk, his hips stuttering and grinding, his back arching.

It was beautiful to watch, he fell apart so completely, his eyes squeezing closed.

Billy slowed his hand as Steve’s body relaxed, his chest heaving.

“Thank you.” His words were slurred together.

Billy pulled the toy out, made Steve gasp and whine.

“Gonna use you like the little toy you are.”

“Yes, Sir.” Steve was limp against him as Billy rolled on a condom, shifting Steve to seat him on his cock.

Billy leaned back against the armchair.

“Move.”

Steve blinked up at him.

“But,” his voice trailed off.

“Said I was gonna use you like a little toy. Means you’re gonna get me off.” Steve poked his bottom lip out a little. “Go ahead.”

His thighs were shaking as he lifted up, dropping back down onto Billy’s cock.

Billy was close, watching Steve fall apart had made him painfully hard.

Steve just kept fucking himself, his eyes hazy.

“Tighten up.” His muscles contracted around Billy. He kept going, taking sharp gasps every time Billy hit his prostate.

Billy reached down to play with his over sensitive cock.

“Sir, please-”

“I take what I want, Stevie.” Steve clamped his jaw shut, his bottom lip wobbling.

Billy so wanted him to cry.

“Faster.” He let out a little sob as he moved faster. “Faster.”

And Steve starting crying for real, his cock an angry red, hard again in Billy’s tight grip, his thighs shaking, his inner walls fluttering.

“You gonna cum for me again?”

“Don’t, don’t think I can.” Billy tightened his hold on his cock, jerking him fast.

“Cum, Princess. Wanna see it.”

He sobbed out, his sore cock giving a valiant kick some cum spurting onto Billy’s hand.

Billy bucked his hips, spilling out into the condom, breathing heavy.

He lifted Steve to pull out of him, uncuffing his hands.

“How you doin’?” Steve took a few deep breaths, wrapping his arms around Billy’s shoulders.

“Real good.”

“Everything okay?”

“Everything was fucking great.” Billy laughed, rubbing up and down Steve’s back. He checked his watch.

“We still have an hour, if you wanna cuddle. We could go to bed.” Steve nuzzled into his shoulder.

“I’d like that.” Billy took off the condom, tucking his cock back in his jeans.

He shuffled Steve about, lifting him up as he stood.

He dumped the condom in the trash on his way to the bedroom, putting Steve softly on his bed.

He took off his clothes, sliding under the covers to tangle around Steve.

“That was a good scene.”

“Yeah? I do okay?”

“Yeah, first timer. Did real okay.” Billy huffed a laugh. Steve took a shaky breath. “We could do it again sometime. If you wanted. I’d give you a uh, discounted price.”

“How good of a discount we talkin’?”

“Buy me dinner, get a free session.”

“I think that sounds like a good deal.” Steve smiled up at him. Snuggled a little closer.

#i wrote this and then accidentally deleted like half of it bc I'm Dumb and I don't htink it's as good as it was rip #yikes writes #lemons #steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #harringrove #harringrove fic #harringrove ficlet #harringrove drabble

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sunsoothed · 3 years

Text

open 24 hours

hello hello!! got a brainworm for jaehee/soohyun content so i wrote this mess. what can i say. women. anyway! this is set in canon and after that scene where sunah calls jaehee to hang out.

word count: 825

read on ao3

enjoy <3

It’s after the most peculiar phone call from her boss Jaehee’s ever had that she bumps into her, the woman she’d hit on the head so hard that one slip of hand would’ve killed her. It’s not everyday you meet the person you almost killed. Funny it’s happening to her so late in life, though, considering the sheer amount of people who’ve suffered the same fate as officer Yoon Soohyun by her hand.

But the officer is checking her out, and Jaehee’s happy with the attention she usually receives from middle-aged creeps, so she can’t entirely blame herself for sliding up to Yoon Soohyun’s side and clinking her glass with her’s.

“Cold night, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Yoon Soohyun replies. Then, with a nervous finger on the rim of her glass and her nervous eyes unstraying from the surface of the bar, “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“I’ve never been around here before,” Jaehee supplies. “Are you a regular?”

“Find out yourself,” Soohyun says, a bout of confidence strung within her. Whether she knows, whether she doesn’t, Jaehee can’t discern.

“Okay,” She agrees, grinning, “Uh, unnie?”

Yoon Soohyun laughs, affronted little by her forwardness. “Soohyun,” she introduces. “I suppose your Soohyun unnie.”

“Soohyun unnie,” Jaehee says. “It’s good to make your acquaintance,” she holds out her hand. “Jung Jaehee.”

And Soohyun takes her hand. “It’s good to make your acquaintance as well.”

Jaehee hadn’t expected to spend next to the whole night here. She’d come for a drink, perhaps to look at some attractive people, perhaps to go to bed with one of them; but never to stay for longer than a few hours. But here she is, cocktail replaced by a glass of water, and the seat opposite hers occupied with a more-than-tipsy Yoon Soohyun.

“I don’t know if I actually like him, though,” She’s saying. Talking about Kim Gaon, Jaehee suspects, but she’s been lost staring at the way her mouth moves rather than her words.

Jaehee leans forward on her elbows. “But?”

“What but,” Soohyun mutters, “I love him. He’s my best friend, we’ve known each other since school, I’ve been there for all the horrible things that happened to him.”

“But,” Jaehee repeats, prompting, resting her drooping cheek on the rim of her glass.

“But I don’t… I’m not… in love with him. You know?”

“I know,” She assures, even though she definitely does not. “Must be difficult to figure this out, no?”

Soohyun waves her hand. “No. Always knew I preferred women.”

“How remarkable, unnie,” Jaehee purrs. “Most of us don’t know ‘til we kiss boys and feel nothing.”

Her unnie huffs, a terrible smirk gracing her lips. “Is that how you found out?”

Jaehee sips her water. “He was smitten with me,” she gestures vaguely to her side, aiming to indicate some time back, but managing to convey, everyone here.

Soohyun hums, clearly understanding.

“And, as per the fashion, I thought he was cute, and his confession was worth accepting, because I loved those chocolates. And this was the way to go, right? We’d hide behind the patrol officers behind school and hold hands. We kissed once. That’s when I put an end to the relationship.”

“How eventful,” Soohyun notes. “I never had a relationship in school. People thought Gaon and I were dating anyway, and they wouldn’t believe us when we refuted them, so.”

“And since?” Jaehee inquires.

“And since… I went to police academy. There were some nice girls there, but nothing really happened. When I joined the force I had one serious relationship until her parents found out. Then we were just friends.” Soohyun looks to the table and sighs. “And you?”

“I’m hardly as refined as you, unnie,” Jaehee compliments. “I’ve had my fun here and there, but nothing serious.”

“Too busy with work?”

If only you knew. “Exactly,” she sighs, fully slumping over the table now. “My boss is so demanding.”

“Should I teach your boss a lesson?”

“Unnie,” Jaehee admonishes. “You’ll get into some serious trouble. My boss isn’t someone you should mess with.”

To be fair, Soohyun does look considerably determined. After a moment of staring into Jaehee’s demanding gaze, however, she relents. “Ah, I’ve had my fair share of butting into things lately.” Another sip from her glass. “I’ll sit this one out.”

A reigning moment of silence, then, “Thank you, though.”

“Hm?”

“Thanks for standing up for me, unnie,” Jaehee says timid, gaze astray. “It feels nice.”

Soohyun’s eyes twinkle as she leans close and says, “Of course.”

Jaehee wants to explain all circumstances to her, wants her to know that her boss isn’t a bad person, wants her to know that the damage caused to her was never meant to harm her, wants her to know all that she can stomach telling her. But she only swallows down another sip, and shares a discreet smile with her unnie, and spends until closing time observing a view unseen.

#the devil judge #the devil judge fic #yoon soohyun #jaehee #tvn the devil judge #whovie writes

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allsassnoclass · 3 years

Note

how about “i know we hate each other but it’s christmas eve and your flight was cancelled please come inside” for muke? xx

Here you are my darling I hope you enjoy it!

Ficmas Day 6

Rating: teen and up

Read on AO3

Michael is woken up at ten in the morning by Mariah Carey passionately singing about what she wants for Christmas, accompanied by a voice that Michael has become unfortunately accustomed to within the past four months. He groans and flops over, pulling his pillow over his head and hoping for the thousandth time that his neighbor might suddenly lose his voice, or at least lose the ability to blast music when Michael is still trying to sleep. He’s coming off of the night shift and it’s Christmas Eve. He should be allowed to actually sleep.

The pillow doesn’t help, so he slaps his hand against the wall as loudly as he can. That doesn’t seem to help either, and Luke keeps hitting high notes that would be really impressive if Michael wasn’t currently plotting his murder.

Plotting Luke Hemming’s murder is something that Michael does frequently. He’s never immediately disliked someone so quickly, but Luke is not only a professional at waking him up during what little sleep Michael is trying to get, but he has managed to set off the fire alarm with his cooking failures three times already, he sometimes keeps a bike in the hall that Michael almost always manages to run into no matter where it is, and when he watches TV it’s always bad reality programs at top volume. His mail continuously somehow ends up in Michael’s slot, and he never says “thank you” when Michael gives it to him. He has an endless trail of people tramping in and out of his apartment at all hours, but Calum said he got passive-aggressive about buzzing him up when Michael was still in the shower, despite them having met in the lobby multiple times and Luke knowing that Calum is Michael’s emergency contact.

When Michael ran into him during his move-in and said hi, Luke’s dog had growled at him.

Dogs love Michael.

Despite his cherubic blonde curls and dreamy blue eyes, Luke Hemmings might be the devil. This was only confirmed when he started playing Christmas music and decorating his door the day after Halloween.

Michal isn’t a grinch. He likes Christmas as much as the next person who grew up celebrating it, but he likes when it’s confined to the proper month. There’s something to be said about the feel-good movies and lights twinkling against the snow at night, but he works overnights at a 24 hour grocery store, and at this point Christmas music makes him want to claw his ears off. Luke doesn’t seem to listen to anything else, and he has a wreath and line of jingle bells on his door. Michael doesn’t even want to see what the inside of his apartment looks like.

His one solace is that today Luke is catching a plane to go back to his parents’ house. Their bedrooms share a wall, and Michael has heard him making plans to load up Petunia and spend Christmas at his childhood home. Michael is not so lucky, confined to his apartment for the holiday.

He’s not sure what his plans are yet. He’s trying not to be too sad about it, but it’s difficult when everyone under the sun is getting to spend it with family and he’s going in for a night shift.

The song on the other side of the wall switches to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Michael tries to block out Luke’s self-dueting and viciously stamps down the jealousy bubbling in his gut.

-/-

Luke finally leaves the apartment at 2 pm. Michael hears him cooing to his dog and the jangle of keys as he locks up, and then the apartment is blessedly silent. He lays in bed for an hour scrolling through his phone, but eventually seeing everyone’s messages about the holiday and seeing their families becomes too much and he gets up, making his way to the shower. The apartment is colder than usual, and when he looks out the window he only sees a mass of white, swirling too fast to make out individual flakes. Chicago seems to be living up to its nickname. Maybe it’s a good thing that he doesn’t have to drive far to get to work tomorrow. He bundles up in his coziest sweatshirt and sweatpants and his favorite pair of fuzzy socks, anyway.

Michael is getting something to eat when he hears Luke’s voice again, still talking to his dog. It’s clearly coming from the hallway, and Michael frowns when something thumps, followed by Luke apologizing. He leaves the plate with his half eaten toast on the counter and presses his ear to the door, trying to make the words take distinct shape.

“... know, girl, but we’re almost back,” Luke says. “Then we’ll… I don’t know. We’ll figure something else out, right? Fuck, where are my fucking keys?” Something else hits the floor. Luke sniffs.

“Fuck,” he says, but it’s small and fragile. Michael hasn’t heard Luke sound defeated before now, and he doesn’t think he ever wants to hear it again. To know that someone who typically is annoyingly joyful is unable to keep up that demeanor outside the privacy of his own home makes Michael’s heart break a little.

Maybe that’s why he opens the door. Michael doesn’t know; if he was asked, he’d have to say that he was reaching for the doorknob before his mind caught up with his limbs.

Luke scrambles at the sound, wiping at his eyes. He’s crouched on the floor, mittens in his hand, a large duffle on the floor next to him and a backpack open in front. Petunia’s dog crate is blocking part of the hallway.

“Luke,” Michael says. He doesn't have anything else to say; he didn’t think this far ahead.

“I’ll be quieter,” Luke sniffs. “Sorry. Don’t want to ruin your perfect day.”

“That’s not why I’m out here,” Michael frowns. “It’s just a normal day for me. Did your flight get cancelled?”

“What do you think?” Luke snaps. “It’s a blizzard out there. All flights are grounded until at least tomorrow.”

“Sorry,” Michael says. Luke’s face twists up, and he looks down and takes a breath. He paws through something in his backpack, but it’s packed in pretty tight and he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, hands falling uselessly after a moment.

“I can’t find my keys,” he says, voice small again.

“Oh. Do you… you can come and look for them in my apartment, if you want. Just so you’re not spilling all your stuff in the hallway, you know?”

Luke frowns.

“I guess I could make hot chocolate, too?” Michael offers. “I mean, it must be pretty cold out there, with the snow and wind and everything.”

“You hate me,” Luke says flatly.

“I know. Well, I don’t--” he sighs. Even when he’s trying to do something nice for him, talking to Luke is infuriating. “Look. I know that we don’t like each other, but it’s Christmas Eve and your flight was just cancelled. Do you want hot chocolate or not?”

Luke looks at his backpack, then at the dog crate.

“Can I let Petunia out?”

“Sure, as long as she doesn't growl at me.”

Luke considers for another moment, long enough that Michael has to tamp down the urge to fidget with his sleeves.

“Okay,” he says. Then, after a delay, “Thanks.”

Michael nods once, then retreats back into his apartment and holds the door open.

Luke gathers up his backpack and drags the dog crate behind him, immediately crouching to undo the clasp once Michael closes the door.

Petunia woofs in the crate while he fumbles with the latch, launching forward and nearly tackling Luke once he finally gets it open. He hugs her to him, burying his face in her back, and Michael makes himself look away, reaching for the mugs instead and checking to ensure there's water in the kettle before putting it on the stove.

If Luke wants his cocoa made with milk, he can suck it. Michael hopes he isn't expecting whipped cream, either.

"Can Petunia be on your furniture?" Luke asks, still hugging the wriggling beast. She's a solid dog. Michael isn't sure how Luke got her crate down the stairs.

"Sure," he says. Luke gets her go and she wanders around the apartment sniffing every corner. Michael hopes he didn't leave any snacks lying around. He breaks eye contact with the kettle to peer around the corner and ensure that his bedroom door is closed, too.

"So," he says as he gets out two packets of cocoa mix, ripping them open and pouring them into the mugs. "Where... um, where does your family live?"

He glances at Luke, standing in the middle of the room and looking around with a slight frown on his face.

He could try to seem less judgmental. Michael's trying to help him out here.

"They're in California," Luke says. "The northern part."

"Oh. That'd be a long flight."

"Yeah," Luke says. He doesn't say anything else and Michael has just about run out of his small talk, so he turns back to the kettle and wills it to heat up faster. Petunia's dog collar jingles and Michael looks back long enough to see her hop up on the couch next to where Luke has finally sat down.

"You don't have any Christmas decorations up," Luke says.

"Oh," Michael replies. "No, I guess not."

"Do you not celebrate? Sorry, I don’t know your religion or anything."

"Not really," he says. "I mean, I kind of do, but I'm an atheist, and since I can't go home doing Christmas by myself felt depressing. Calum and I already exchanged gifts."

"Oh," Luke says. "Where does your family live?"

"St. Louis. I have a shift tomorrow night, so it didn't seem worth the drive."

"Sorry," Luke frowns.

"S'okay. Better than trying to go home and having the flight be cancelled."

Luke purses his lips. Michael hopes he doesn’t start crying. Thankfully the kettle chooses that moment to squeal, giving Michael something to do besides stare dumbly at Luke. For someone who spent what was probably a very frustrating and frazzling amount of time at the airport, his hair looks infuriatingly good right now.

"Do you want marshmallows?" he asks. "They're a little stale."

"Sure," Luke says. "Thanks."

Michael gets the marshmallows from his cupboard and plops a few into each of their drinks. He gives Luke the mug his parents got him with his college logo, keeping the Marvel one that Calum bought for himself. Luke takes the mug with both hands, their fingers touching, and Michael tries not to snatch his hand back. Petunia leans forward to sniff, making Michael give her a wide berth on the way to his wicker armchair.

"Are you scared of my dog?" Luke asks. "Look, I know she has some pit bull in her, but that doesn't mean she's a monster. She's really sweet."

"She growled at me when we met."

"When was that?"

Typical. Michael isn't even a big enough blip on Luke's radar for him to remember that they met when he moved in. Sure, Luke probably met a lot of people that day, but Michael lives right next door, and they've obviously seen each other a lot since then.

"When you moved in. I was leaving for a shift, you were moving boxes around, and she came out and growled at me."

"Huh." Luke looks at her. Petunia looks right back, completely unbothered. "She's really not typically like that. The stress of the move made her moody. If you let her sniff you now, she'll let you pet her. Come on."

He sets down his cocoa and gestures Michael forward.

"Dude, it's not a big deal."

"It is," Luke says. He looks sincerely distressed. Michael immediately wants to correct that, like Luke has some sort of weird superpower that makes everyone around him want to keep him happy. "I want you to like my dog. She wants to like you, too."

"Fine," Michael says, rolling his eyes. "I'll meet your stupid dog."

Luke beams. He has dimples. Somehow, this is the worst thing that has happened to Michael today. His insides feel funny, like he swallowed pop rocks.

"Be nice, Piggy," Luke says to the dog. Michael cautiously holds out his hand, letting Petunia snuffle at it. Soon enough she must decide that he isn't worth the trouble because she puts her head back down and lets Michael run a hand over her back.

"She really likes it when you scratch behind her ears."

He tries that out, watching the way her ears flick forward and back and how she keeps moving her eyes from him to Luke. She sighs and smacks her lips twice, kicking out her back leg and stretching further on the couch.

"See?" Luke says. "She likes you."

Michael smiles, sitting gingerly on the edge of the couch so he can continue to pet her.

"I miss dogs," he says. "I keep wanting to get one, but I work too much right now."

"What is it you do?" Luke asks. He drinks some of his hot chocolate, pulling a face but going back in for another sip. MIchael’s not sure if that means his cocoa sucks or is acceptable.

"I work nights at a grocery store, but I babysit for some of the families here, too."

"Really?' Luke asks.

"Don't sound so surprised," Michael snorts.

"Sorry," Luke says. "You just don't strike me as a kid person."

Michael shrugs. Luke has a point. Michael was an only child and he gets tired and grumpy easily. Still, hanging out with his kids usually isn’t that bad.

"It pays well. They're little demons, but at this point all of them like me, so it's not too bad. The hardest thing is pretending to be bad at their video games so they don't get upset because I'm beating them."

“I guess,” Luke says. “I’m a hairstylist, and our salon is pretty high-end. We don’t get a lot of kids, thank goodness. I’d be scared that they’d move and I’d cut off the wrong chunk of hair.”

Huh. That must be why his hair always looks so good.

“You think my hair looks good?” Luke asks.

Shit. Michael is too used to being alone in the apartment and allowed to speak all of his thoughts to the air.

He shrugs.

Luke makes a pleased noise and drinks more of his cocoa. His cheeks look a little red, possibly a side effect of him still wearing his coat even though he’s inside with a warm drink.

Michael goes back to his chair and picks up his own cocoa. Luke takes a few more sips, but it seems like he has used up most of his small talk, too, although he tries as he goes through his backpack, commenting on the book he tucked in there but probably wouldn’t have read and occasionally cooing at Petunia. Michael is grateful when he finishes his own drink and can take it to the sink to rinse it, spying his half-eaten toast and taking a bite along the way.

Luke finds his keys quickly, zipped into an outside pocket.

“Thanks for the cocoa, and letting me let Petunia out,” Luke says, standing in the middle of the room again, backpack on and keys in hand.

“Yeah, sure,” Michael replies. “Hope you have a good Christmas.”

“You too,” Luke says. Michael looks at everything in the room other than him. Luke grabs his things, calls to Petunia, and leaves for the apartment next door.

-/-

There’s a knock on Michael’s door a few hours later. It’s still snowing pretty heavily outside, white flakes standing out against a black sky whenever they pass by a light, so it must be someone in the building. Michael hopes it’s not someone needing a last-minute babysitter. He’s still tired and trying to savor his one night off, even if he doesn’t have any plans beyond video games and movies. He’s going to have to resist shouting at the tv into the early morning now that Luke is home again, but he was still looking forward to it.

Luke is standing outside his door.

“Hi,” Michael says slowly.

“Hey,” Luke says. “Do you want to have dinner?”

“What?” Michael asks, sure that he heard something wrong or is misunderstanding something.

“I dunno. You’re here, I’m here, neither of us are doing anything. I don’t really want to eat alone on Christmas Eve.”

Oh. Michael hopes for once his pale complexion isn’t betraying him, but he can feel his ears burn. Luke is not asking him on a date; he’s just bored and lonely. Luke also has automatically assumed that Michael doesn’t have a life and isn’t doing anything which--while true--is a little offensive.

“Okay,” he shrugs. “What do you want to eat?”

“Well…” Luke looks down at his feet, ever so slightly pigeon-toed. He has really nice legs, even when they’re covered in baggy sweatpants instead of the usual skin-tight pants Michael typically spies him in. “I wasn’t planning on being here for a bit, so I have some pasta but no sauce, or I have pancake mix. We might be able to walk to the Chinese place at the corner, but I don’t know if they’re open with the blizzard.”

“Pancakes sound good,” Michael says. “I have some eggs, if you want those.”

“Thanks,” Luke says. “I have some bread for toast and jam and butter. That’s a full meal. Want to come to mine?”

“Sure,” Michael says. “I’ll get the eggs.”

Michael lets his door swing closed. He toes on his shoes and grabs his phone, then almost forgets the eggs anyway and has to double back to the kitchen.

He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to walk right in to Luke’s apartment or knock out of politeness. After a moment of deliberation he chooses the latter, navigating around the wreath to rap his knuckles against the wood, which sends Petunia barking and therefore might have been the wrong choice. Luke doesn’t seem bothered when he opens the door, though. He just smiles and steps aside, then tells Petunia to stop. Petunia actually greets Michael at the door, too, snuffling at his feet before trotting after Luke to the kitchen area.

"Woah," he says involuntarily once he gets a clear look at the apartment. There's a fake tree in the corner, which he expected, but what takes him aback is the tinsel hanging from the ceiling in green and red, the small Santas and snowmen standing proud on available surfaces like the TV stand, side table, and counter, and the numerous other fake evergreen springs scattered around. There are Christmas pillows on the couch. There's a wooden reindeer on the wall.

Michael knew that Luke loved Christmas given the numerous carol-sessions and decorations seen from outside the apartment, but somehow he still hadn't considered that the inside would look like this.

"I got started already," Luke calls from the kitchen. Michael breaks himself out of his decoration shock and follows him into the small area, looking in the mixing bowl Luke gestures to. The batter inside doesn't appear to be mixed very well, just milk sitting around a mound of powder. "I don't know when you usually eat, since you work so late, but I hope you don't mind. If you hate it you don't have to eat it or whatever; I'm not the best cook and I know that you're just humoring me."

Luke puts his hands on the counter and sighs.

"Sorry. I'm rambling."

"It's okay," Michael says. "I prefer rambling to awkward silence."

"I'm great at awkwardness," Luke says. "I excel at being awkward. If it's possible to make a situation more awkward, I can do it."

"Yeah, I'm getting that," Michael says, eyeing him. This Luke is different than the Luke Michael so often sees in the hallway. He's softened by the grey tracksuit he's wearing, hair now pulled half-up, slight embarrassment staining his movements. This Luke is approachable and comfortable. Michael thinks he can find his footing here. The Luke that he interacted with before today is intimidating in his heeled ankle boots and silk shirts. This one seems like... well, a little like a dork.

Michael reaches for the pancake mix box while Luke takes a fork and starts stirring.

"Hey, did you put an egg in?"

Luke freezes.

"This needs eggs?"

Huh. This Luke is a dork who is hopeless in the kitchen.

"You weren't underestimating your cooking skills earlier," he says. "Have you made pancakes before?"

"It was a while ago, okay?" Luke defends. "I eat out a lot."

"Every self-respecting person should be able to make pancakes," Michael says. He takes one of the eggs and cracks it over the bowl, Luke pausing in his mixing to give him room. Thankfully, Luke seems to have a griddle plugged in and warming up. Michael thinks it probably was a housewarming present that doesn't get much use.

"What kind of eggs do you want?" Michael asks.

"Uh, scrambled."

"How many?"

"You choose."

Michael has never cooked with Luke. Michael has never seen Luke eat and therefore doesn't know his appetite. Michael has no clue what to do with that answer.

"Can I have a pan?" he asks.

"Sure," Luke says distractedly, forcefully stabbing at the egg in his mixing bowl to break the yoke. "They're right over there."

He kicks his leg out towards one of the lower cabinets, right behind where Petunia has taken up residence.

"Hey Petunia, want to move?" he asks her, crouching and slowly opening the drawer. She stares at him. He scratches behind her ears and continues to pull the drawer out as far as he can, but it's not far enough. Eventually she must find the drawer pushing into her back more inconvenient than shifting her position, because she heaves herself up and leaves to sit by her food dish in the corner instead.

"Is this mixed enough?" Luke asks. He tilts the bowl and Michael cranes his neck to see. The fact that Luke is asking him at all is weird, because Michael himself isn't exactly in the running for a Michelin star, but there's something to be said about the easy way Luke has admitted his weakness here and turned to Michael for help. Michael himself would probably just keep messing stuff up rather than admit he needed guidance.

"Um, it's a little lumpy still."

Luke sighs and begins mixing again. Michael finds a suitable pan and begins cracking eggs.

True to his promises, Luke keeps rambling all throughout the dinner-making process. He talks about his favorite foods and his friends and asks Michael if they can add chocolate chips to half the pancakes, as if Luke is the guest here instead of Michael. When he remembers to catch his breath, he asks Michael about himself, seeking the information he had already ended up word-vomiting. It's a lot more endearing than Michael thought it would be. For how annoying he finds Luke, there's something endlessly charming about hearing him nervously spout facts about himself. It's even more charming when he doesn't reprimand Michael for eating some chocolate chips straight out of the bag.

He manages to get batter on his nose halfway through the cooking process. When Michael points it out, Luke's cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink, and Michael makes himself turn to start the toast.

The pancakes land themselves on a plate and Luke gets out another two for them to use. Michael splits the eggs between them and Luke hands out the toast, then they take two of the stools at the counter to eat.

They're not exactly the best pancakes he's ever eaten, but they're not bad at all. They're made even better by the fact that Michael isn't eating them alone.

Being on a different schedule than everyone else and living alone means that the vast majority of his meals are spent by himself, typically with the tv on just to give a bit of noise. While Luke turns on the radio softly, Michael barely registers it, too busy listening to Luke's stories of the salon and countering with tales from the night shift at the grocery. It's deceptively easy to keep conversation flowing between them.

Before Michael has taken his first bite of pancake, he's already decided that hating Luke was a stupid decision.

Of course, Luke is just lonely on Christmas Eve. While he's smiling and laughing hard enough at things Michael says to sometimes duck forward, close enough to rest his head on Michael's shoulder if he wanted, there's no guarantee that something like this will ever happen with them again.

Michael chews his last few bites slowly.

“Hey,” Luke says as he’s putting the plates in the sink, where the mixing bowl and pan are already taking up residence, “do you want to stay for a bit? If you don’t have work or anything? I usually watch some movies on Christmas Eve, but if you don’t want to we can do something else, like…” He looks around his apartment, biting his lip. Michael does not stare. “I have some decks of cards? We can have more hot chocolate?”

“I’d be down for a movie,” Michael says. Luke's shoulders slump in relief. It makes Michael feel better that Luke would be relieved over him staying. He's astoundingly easy to read up close, emotions flickering over his face and seeping into his body language to create an open book. It makes it easier to believe that Luke was asking out of a genuine desire to keep his company, rather than misplaced politeness or simple loneliness.

"Great!" Luke says. "Awesome."

"What do you usually watch?" Michael asks.

"Uh, the Lord of the Rings."

That wasn't what Michael was expecting. Honestly, he was betting on Elf.

"Like, all three? Isn't that twelve hours?"

"We usually have them going right after lunch. I think my parents hoped that watching would tire us out so we wouldn't wake them up early to open presents before church."

"Did it work?" Michael asks.

"Nope," Luke grins. "Jack--one of my brothers--always ensured we were awake when the sun rose."

"If I had a brother wake me up that early, I would kill him," Michael says.

"Not me. I wanted him to," Luke says. "I loved running to the living room and seeing all of the presents and our stockings lined up. I didn't want to wait a moment more than I had to."

Michael tries to picture a younger Luke Hemmings running excitedly to look under his Christmas tree, early rays of dawn streaming in through a window and fresh snow on the ground.

He doesn't know what Luke looked like back then. It puts a damper on things, but the image is soaked in nostalgia and happiness regardless.

"If you wake me up early tomorrow it'll be the last thing you do, but we can watch Lord of the Rings," he says. Luke grins.

"Can we make a blanket fort, too?" he asks.

"What are you, six?"

Luke's face immediately crumples.

Shit.

"No, not like that! It's not a bad thing!" he backpedals. "Like, I'm just teasing. I do it with all of my friends. If Calum had asked I'd have said the same thing even though I want to."

Luke eyes him critically.

"We're friends now?"

Michael rubs at his chest. He hadn't even thought before he had said that. He shouldn't have assumed. If Luke hadn't warmed up to him in the entirety of their four months as neighbors, why should one night make any difference?

"I guess," he says. "Why not? I gave you eggs."

"Yeah, a true sign of friendship," Luke says dryly.

Fuck. He fucked this up.

"I should go," he says, starting for the door. Luke lurches into motion, catching his arm as he passes. It sends goosebumps erupting across his skin, freezing him in his tracks.

"Wait, don't," Luke says. "Sorry. We're friends. Don't go, please. I didn't--we're friends. I want us to be friends."

He releases Michael's arm, and Michael feels like he can breath again.

"We're really bad at this," he says. It makes Luke laugh, lifting at least half the heaviness in the air. "We're friends, we're going to make a fucking blanket fort, and we're going to watch Lord of the Rings. Right?"

"Right," Luke says.

"Good. Let's get started on that blanket fort."

Luke's definition of a blanket fort is more of a nest. They don't have anything tall enough to prop up a ceiling unless they take the cushions they need to use as a floor, even with Michael going back to his own apartment to bring pillows and blankets. In the end, Luke moves his small coffee table and they simply pile as much padding and blankets as they can find in front of the couch. Luke pops a bag of popcorn and offers beverages. Once he gets settled Petunia flops down next to him, leaving Michael to set up the movie with Luke giving directions, since neither of them could disturb Petunia in good conscience.

Luke ends up disturbing her anyway to take her outside for the bathroom so she doesn't interrupt the movie.

Being alone in Luke's apartment with no distraction is strange, so he takes out his phone and texts Calum.

To Calpal: im in lukes apartment we had pancakes and now we are watching lord of the rings

From Calpal: ???? hot mean neighbor luke?

To Calpal: yeah his flight was cancelled

From Calpal: ????????????? I thought you hated him

To Calpal: hes kinda a dork cant cook for shit his dog likes me now hes kinda funny too we are officially friends

From Calpal: ??????????????????????

Luke’s door opens, and Michael has to scramble for the popcorn so Petunia won’t be able to get at it while Luke takes off his boots and jacket.

To Calpal: g2g tell you later

“Hey, Petunia,” Michael says when she presses against him, stretching for the popcorn he’s holding out of reach. He runs a hand over her back, fur cold and damp. “Is it still snowing?”

“A little,” Luke calls. “I think it’ll stop soon.” He gets the main light, leaving a lamp on a side table lit, then flops down on the blankets and cushions, shoulder knocking Michael’s briefly.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

Luke presses play, and the opening instrumental and Galadriel’s narration fills the small apartment.

Luke is chatty during movies. Michael would be more annoyed by it if this wasn’t clearly a movie he had seen millions of times before with a million memories to accompany. Besides, when Michael says he’d like to be a hobbit so he could snack all the time, Luke makes another bag of popcorn for him without asking.

“Do you think--” he asks, then stops. On screen, the Fellowship arrives at Lothlorien.

“Do I think what?” Michael prompts.

“Do you think I’ll be able to go home tomorrow?”

Michael looks at him, lounging back on the cushions with one of the blankets pulled around him. He let his hair down, curls shadowing his face a bit more in the low light.

“Yeah, if the snow stops,” he says. “But if not… if you’re still lonely, you can hang out with me until I go to work.”

“Really?” Luke asks.

“Yeah, why not,” Michael says. “If you’re not sick of me, I don’t have any plans. I was just going to play video games.”

Luke smiles at him.

“I like video games.”

“Great. We’ll play video games.”

Michael turns back to the movie, but Luke’s hand snakes over a snoring Petunia and grabs his own.

“Thank you,” he says. “Really. You’ve made what would’ve been a really shit time into a surprisingly nice Christmas.”

“It’s not even Christmas yet,” Michael says, feeling his cheeks heat up. Thankfully Luke won’t be able to see it in the low light.

“You’ll make that nice, too.”

Michael squirms under his attention. It feels too nice, and that’s something he can’t afford to consider right now.

“Um, I think there’s an important scene coming up,” he says. Luke squeezes his hand again, but returns his attention back to the screen.

Michael is the one to put the second movie in, because Luke is still sniffling over the ending of the first. Michael’s not sure if he’s allowed to tease him for it, especially when his own eyes welled up. He cries over movies pretty easily, and there’s something to be said about the loyalty and love packed into the last piece of the story, something that Michael occasionally wonders if he’ll ever find.

He comes close with Calum, but Calum also has a roommate and boyfriend. Michael wouldn’t mind another person to love, too.

“I think this one is my least favorite,” Luke says drowsily when Michael presses play. “Too much Gollum. He used to give me nightmares as a kid.”

“Really?” Michael asks. Luke nods.

“That, and the scene in the first one where they’re making the Uruk-hai and they appear from the mud.”

“When I was young, I had lots of nightmares about showing up to school in my underwear and everyone laughing at me. It would happen once a week. I started ditching school because it made me too nervous.”

Luke hums.

“I wouldn’t have laughed at you.”

“It was middle school. Everyone would’ve laughed.”

“Not now,” Luke says. “I know you now. I’d wait until I knew you were okay to laugh.”

“Thanks,” Michael says. Luke nods. He keeps sinking lower and lower into the blankets, eyelids drooping more every time Michael checks on him. Michael himself would still be in the middle of his shift at the grocery store on a typical day, and he could keep going for hours. The relaxed atmosphere they’ve formed might let him clock out early, though.

They watch most of this movie in silence, Luke’s commentary diminishing more and more as the movie wears on. There are a few times where Michael thinks he’s finally fallen asleep and he should take his leave, but then Luke will shift or say something else.

“Michael?” he asks eventually, voice small and eyes closed. He’s curled on his side facing him, giving up any pretence of continuing to watch.

“Hm?”

“Will you stay here tonight?”

“Sure,” he says. Luke smiles and snuggles deeper into the blanket. His breathing evens out more, slipping seamlessly into sleep. Michael looks at the way his eyelashes brush his cheeks, savoring the unguarded expression on his face. He’s almost ethereal like this, as fair and otherworldly as the elves on the tv but twice as captivating.

Michael puts the third movie in once it’s time. He’s asleep within ten minutes.

-/-

Michael wakes disoriented, tangled in multiple blankets and propped on too many pillows. There’s noise somewhere near him, someone else shuffling and the rustle of a jacket being put on, but it doesn’t feel out of place. This person isn’t an enemy breaking in.

“Wha?” he asks, trying to turn towards the noise.

“Sorry, sorry,” Luke murmurs. “I’m going to try to see if I can get to church. Go back to sleep.”

Soft fingers brush his hair to the side, lingering. He leans into the touch before it’s gone.

He rolls over and goes back to sleep.

-/-

The smell of coffee draws him fully out of sleep a while later. Michael blinks and does his best to detangle himself, sitting up and looking around groggily until he processes Luke standing at the counter, mug in hand. It’s a sight that Michael could get used to if he was allowed. He’s in his typical jeans and fancy shirt, a juxtaposition to yesterday, and Michael isn’t sure what that means about the dorky guy who wanted to make a blanket fort rather than the one who always brushed by Michael in the hallway.

He clears his throat. Luke’s answering grin is wide and familiar.

“Hi,” he says.

“Good morning,” Luke says. “Afternoon. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he hums. “Coffee?”

Luke pours another mug, offering Michael cream and sugar. He brings it over, and this time when their fingers brush over the mug Michael doesn’t feel the need to snatch his hand away.

“How was church?” he asks.

“It was good,” Luke says. “The plows were out overnight, so I was only a little late.” He looks down at his mug, fingertip tracing the rim. “I wish I had been able to go with my family. It’s fine though. Mum will probably have us go on Sunday.”

Michael nods.

“I, uh, got a message from the airport, too. My flight got rescheduled. I’m going to have to leave in about an hour.”

“Oh,” Michael says.

“Sorry.”

“What? No, this is a good thing. I’m glad you get to go home,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound too disappointed. He had been looking forward to spending part of the day with Luke more than he thought, and to have that taken away from him feels like a punch to the gut.

“Guess we’re going to have to reschedule the video games,” Luke says.

“Yeah.”

“Or,” he says, “we could go on a date?”

Michael gives himself whiplash with how quickly he looks up.

“I, uh, don’t know if you even like guys,” Luke says, “but I’ve had a lot of fun with you, and I’ve always thought you were cute.”

“I thought you didn’t like me until yesterday.”

Luke shrugs.

“I can think you’re hot and be frustrated about it at the same time.”

Michael nods because yeah, that tracks. Michael has never kidded himself about how nice Luke is to look at, even when he was cursing his name for waking him up with Christmas carols.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Yeah, you agree that you’re hot and frustrating? Or--”

“Yeah, let’s go on a date. Or stay in on a date. Whatever you want.”

Luke grins. Michael hides his smile behind his cup of coffee, but Luke can probably see it anyway.

“Want some pancakes?” Luke asks. “We have the leftovers from yesterday.”

“If you can handle heating them up.”

Luke swats at him on the way past and Michael tries to trip him in retaliation. It almost works, earning him a reproachful look that he responds to with a wink. Luke ducks his head.

Michael is going to flirt with him so hard in the future. He can’t wait to see Luke’s face turn different shades of pink.

They have to clean up the blanket fort after breakfast, and by then Luke barely has time to get Petunia ready before needing to leave. Michael offers to drive him to the airport, but Luke says Petunia rides best in his car, and he’d rather park it at the airport so he doesn’t have to call for a ride home.

Luke walks him to his door, even though it’s only a few feet away.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks again for making me pancakes and watching movies with me, and for inviting me in for hot chocolate earlier. I’m glad you did.”

“I’m glad you said yes,” Michael says. “Let me know when you get back.”

“I will.”

“Have a good time,” Michael says. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Michael.”

Luke leans forward and kisses his cheek. When he steps back, he’s smiling again. Michael mirrors it and stays standing in front of his door until Luke has disappeared into his.

His apartment feels small and empty after sharing Luke’s for the night. There’s no pillow fort spread on the floor nor dog lounging on the couch.

Of course, Luke’s apartment will be empty soon, too. He’ll be with his family, enjoying Christmas day with them, while Michael’s own parents will be without him for the first year since he was born.

He brings out his phone and dials his home number, listening to it ring a few times before someone picks up.

“Michael? How are you? Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas Mum,” he says.

“Oh, we miss you, darling,” she says. “We wish you could be here. Are you still having an alright time?”

“I actually am,” he says. “I, uh, was celebrating with someone this morning. Have I mentioned my neighbor Luke?”

“No, I don’t think you have. Why don’t you tell me about him?”

Michael gets comfortable on his couch and tells his mother all about spending Christmas with Luke Hemmings.

#my writing #muke #5sos fanfic #ficmas 2020 #MUKE! muke #conceptually I've been digging them a lot recently so this was nice to write #also I say that calum has a boyfriend and a roommate..........#in my head one is roy and one is Ashton. flip a coin for which is which there is no roy disrespect in this house

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flowerslut · 3 years

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Merry Christmas @tragicallywicked! And SURPRISE! I was your Jalice secret Santa! 🥰🎄🙈

Now, let me introduce to you the 15k+ idea that was born last night and that I vomited up and edited in roughly 24 hours. Trust me, it doesn’t read like it’s a hastily-scrapped together fic; I pinky promise. I’m very proud of this fic. Sorry about the whump though. It wasn't unintentional; honest.

Summary: He contemplates telling Peter about Alice’s visits, but something holds him back from doing it. Perhaps because it doesn’t feel like Alice whenever she’s lying on his bedroom floor, curled in an old blanket that’s too small for him but perfectly sized for her, utterly still and silent even while awake. A part of him feels like it would be a betrayal to reveal this side of her to someone even as close to him as Peter is. After all, Peter is his friend. And Alice is… well, not.

Title: No Friend of Mine Words: 15,199 Rating: T Read on: AO3 // or under the cut

He’s not friends with Alice Brandon.

Not really. But in the time it’s taken for him to even properly learn her name—Alice, not Mary-Alice, he hears her cheerfully inform a group of girls making nasty comments one day; comments designed to hurt, and to be overheard—she has apparently decided that Jasper is her friend, and that’s where things become a little confusing.

Maybe she’s just a glutton for punishment. After all, if she wanted an easy time of it, there was an entire list of things she could do to avoid it. That sounded mean, but it was true.

She’s just a weird girl. Plenty of those in the world. No crime about that. About girls who dance in the hallways between classes, or who talk to strangers with the friendliness of someone who’s known them for years. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Alice Brandon wears her hair in bizarre styles or wears clothes that... alright, well maybe that is something that he doesn’t understand, either. Not that he is an expert on fashion, but even Jasper knows her choices are strange.

Alice Brandon being weird doesn’t affect him in the way that it apparently offends most of the students in their tiny school. He can picture her fitting in better at a larger school in a different school district, perhaps. More students always meant more variety, diversity, and cliques. More students would’ve meant that there would have been a whole slew of other weird kids of Alice’s type that she could have hung out with.

But not in Fork’s high.

Which meant the day Alice showed up at his corner of the cafeteria, tray in hand as she grinned over at him and Peter, he felt something in him twist as she sat down beside him, making a remark to Peter he couldn’t quite focus on as he realized that with an absence of overt weirdos at the school, Alice was going to come to the next-best thing. Their little group of ‘misfits’.

He had glanced further down the rectangular table and made quick eye contact with Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, who had also noted the tiny dark-haired girl’s presence, but neither of them made a comment, and Jasper spent the rest of the lunch period wishing she’d sat down next to those two, and not himself and Peter.

It wasn’t to be mean. Truly. But Jasper preferred to go through life (and school) as completely unnoticed as possible. And for the first few weeks Alice Brandon had attended Fork’s high, it seemed that’s all she did: attract attention.

He’s not exactly friends with Alice Brandon.

After all, he knows so little about her. Only that she moved to Washington state about a couple months back with her family. That she’s a sophomore; a year behind both Peter and Jasper. And that she doesn’t need much encouragement, or participation really, when it comes to conversation. Alice can talk about anything and everything at length.

He knows, only because of the way she pronounces certain words, that she’s probably from the South. He knows, because his sister Rosalie has art with her, that she struggles a lot with simple tasks and often misunderstands requests from teachers. And he knows, because adults like to gossip when they don’t think teenagers are around, that the story as to why Alice’s family moved to that town is shrouded in some layer of secrecy.

Even when Bella, on one of the days Alice attempted to unite both ends of their lunch table in one cohesive conversation, had asked her a simple question about her ‘old school’ Alice had ignored the question entirely, before delving into an at-length explanation of the way she’d designed her favorite skirt.

Jasper had stood up and left lunch early that day. It wasn’t that he hated the girl, or even that he dislike her, but she bothered him so fiercely sometimes.

And they definitely weren’t friends.

So when she shows up unannounced at two o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday night, tossing tiny rocks up against his window, he doesn’t understand why.

He whispers down a series of questions at her, too shocked to understand what was going on.

What is she doing there? (She needs somewhere to stay for a few hours.)

Why? (Just because.)

How did she find his house? (School directory.)

Why did she come here? (It’s cold. Please.)

Later, he tells her she’s lucky his parent’s bedroom has windows that face the opposite direction of the house, meaning that they aren’t privy to their first conversation. But he shares a wall with Rosalie, he whispers to her as he leads her up the stairs, so she has to be quiet, he emphasizes the point with a look, as if doubting such a task is within her abilities.

Thankfully, it is possible for Alice Brandon to be quiet.

In fact, she doesn’t say anything that first night after he sneaks her up to his room and lets her curl up with an extra blanket on the floor beside his bed. Jasper isn’t even sure she’s slept; she’d been awake when he’d crawled back into bed, and then still awake when he’d awoken extra early the next morning. And when he explains that he can’t just drive her to school that day without getting in trouble—besides, Rosalie will have a fit (for more reason than one) if he emerges from his bedroom with Alice Brandon behind him—she only nods, asks for a drink of water, and thanks him as she sneaks out the front door, off back toward her house, he assumes.

Lunch that day is the same as any other. Alice’s bright smile greets him and Peter, her voice filling the space where comfortable silence and companionable conversation used to linger, and that’s when he starts paying attention.

To the fact that she rarely, if ever, eats anything. That her clothes, while layered strangely and often mis-matched, barely fit her small frame.

One day, a week after her first appearance at his house, Jasper is walking through the halls when he overhears Lauren Mallory loudly exclaim “God, do you know how to shut the fuck up?” Only to turn and watch Alice’s smile deflate.

He stops in his tracks at the sight because no ones comments have ever affected Alice like this. At least, as far as he’s seen. He even wonders if he should step in and say something, because Lauren isn’t finished with airing her frustrations at the tiny new girl, and each statement is growing more cruel than the last.

Before he can force his feet to move Bella Swan is already there, all stern words and deadly glances as she wraps an arm around the smaller girl and turns her away. Jasper can’t hear what she says but Lauren looks incensed and none of her friends are chiming in to help. And then Bella quickly whisks Alice away and Jasper realizes he’s still standing there, in the middle of the hallway, staring at their retreating forms.

He skips lunch that day, feeling like a coward for forcing shy, introverted Bella of all people to come to the harmless girl’s rescue, while he stood there, watching the scene alongside half a dozen others who happened to overhear the platinum blonde girl’s tirade.

Alice comes to him again that night, another handful of pebbles tossed to his window, but this time she doesn’t speak even when he does lean out his window to ask her questions.

What happened?

Is she alright?

Does she need a place to stay?

She nods at that question, and it’s all the reply Jasper needs before he’s closing the window and tiptoeing down the stairs, guilt and worry dancing around inside his brain.

But Alice is quiet as a mouse as he leads her up into his room. She quickly occupies the same spot on the floor next to Jasper’s bed. Like before, she has brought only a small backpack with her. Whether she owns a phone or not doesn’t occur to him—he’s never seen her use one before, even at lunch—but she never once retrieves anything from the bag.

With the pillow and blanket Jasper tosses her way, she’s curled up and asleep in minutes. This time, it’s Jasper who doesn’t sleep as he lays awake, his attention torn between this small schoolmate of his and his guilty conscience that makes him wonder if today would have gone differently if he’d come to her aid.

But morning comes, Alice leaves, and then when he sees her at school later she’s good as new. Talking and laughing and dancing through the halls like always.

He contemplates telling Peter about Alice’s visits, but something holds him back from doing it. Perhaps because it doesn’t feel like Alice whenever she’s lying on his bedroom floor, curled in an old blanket that’s too small for him but perfectly sized for her, utterly still and silent even while awake. A part of him feels like it would be a betrayal to reveal this side of her to someone even as close to him as Peter is.

After all, Peter is his friend. And Alice is… well, not.

It’s something he wishes he could tell Rosalie about. He loves his sister more than anyone else in this world but she’s too… involved in everything. He knows that she second she finds out it will mean the end of his privacy for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t help that he isn’t entirely sure that Rosalie won’t also say something rude to Alice. Nothing as cruel as Lauren Mallory’s blow-up, but still. Rosalie isn’t typically known for her warmth and consideration when it comes to outsiders…

It’s the night she shows up to his house for the third time, when things begin to change.

Her purple hoodie is pulled up tight over her head when he opens the window to get a good look at her. The material is certainly too thin for the weather she’s out in, but Jasper’s never seen her in anything warmer.

Alice tilts her head up toward him, and when his eyes fall upon her split lip, he doesn’t ask a single question. He almost slams the window shut and moves so fast down the stairs that he knows if he isn’t careful he’ll wake Rosalie and their parents.

She’s waiting on his doorstep when he finally swings the door open, ushering her into the house quickly and quietly.

The instant his bedroom door is closed he flicks his standing fan on it’s highest setting and pushes it close to the door. He’s going to need the white noise to drown out any noise their conversation makes. And he’s going to need her to talk tonight.

“Alice,” his voice is barely more than a whisper, but she ignores him. “Hey, Alice.” And when he ducks down to look her in her eyes, she averts her gaze. “What happened?” His head is swimming with thoughts and ideas and worst-case-scenarios, and as he looks at her face—the split lip, her bleeding cheek, and her swollen eye—he feels worry and fury at war within himself.

These are no ‘accidental’ injuries. Jasper knows with a sinking feeling that running into a doorframe, or tripping on the stairs, didn’t cause this injury.

(His mind is filled with images of the night Rose came home looking similar, and the rage that ignites in his body is hard to reason with.)

“Who did this?” Jasper’s words are slow and careful, but they are not quiet and he doesn’t know if he can be anymore. But Alice doesn’t reply, instead looking anywhere but him, as if she’s embarrassed or ashamed of herself.

But she came here, a voice in his head reminds him. And he doesn’t know if she’s aware of the weight of that—of this trust she apparently has in him—but he is.

He asks her to sit on his bed and then sneaks off to the bathroom in the hall, and then while Alice cleans blood off of her face with a damp rag he tiptoes downstairs to grab an ice pack from the freezer. When he returns she’s already pulled the spare blanket tight around her shoulders, and is lying on the ground.

“Alice,” he says softly, his chest aching at the sight of her, curled up so small on the ground, hurt and quiet. “Get up, I’ve got ice for your face.”

But Alice doesn’t movie, so he’s forced on the ground beside her. It’s when he places a tentative on her shoulder that he realizes she’s shaking with silent sobs. She only curls up tighter at his touch, and Jasper withdraws his hands immediately. He has the thought that maybe he should wake Rosalie, and let her come help. Surely, and despite all of his sister’s prickliness, Rose is better suited for a task like this. Jasper has never been good at comforting people with his words.

“Alice,” he doesn’t know what to say, and has less of an idea of what to do. But eventually she rolls over to face him and reaches out for the ice pack wordlessly. He hands it over and watches, speechless, as she simply presses the ice to her cheek, still not looking up at him.

“Will you tell me what happened?” He asks, feeling as if he already knows the answer, and when she shakes her head and closes her eyes tighter, the pain in Jasper’s chest throbs. “Okay,” he says, because no matter how badly he wants to know, he knows that her showing up here is significant. That there is trust here, despite the fact that Jasper hardly understands why. But it’s trust that seems so fragile that he’s terrified of shattering it if he pushes too hard.

By five o’clock she’s up and moving, and Jasper—who hadn’t slept a wink, instead choosing to lie awake and watch Alice, to make sure she was still breathing as she slept—is requesting that she stay. He offers to play hooky and encourages her to do the same.

She contemplates the offer before nodding to herself. But she leaves anyways, accepting a new ice pack on the way out of the door. She’s gone seconds before his dad is padding through the kitchen, ready to turn on the coffee maker, and Jasper’s heart is palpitating because he doesn’t know what to do.

“You’re up awfully early,” the man grumbles as Jasper wanders into the kitchen. Joseph Hale is a quiet man. A good father, despite how rarely he’s at home due to work. They aren’t alike in many ways other than disposition, but Jasper always enjoys when his father is around. During his absences, his mother often disappears for days at a time, only appearing to change clothes, or argue with Rosalie. With Joseph around Jasper can almost pretend they are a normal, happy family.

His father’s words rip him out of his reverie. “By god… what happened to you?”

Jasper blinks up at his dad before realizing he’s holding the bloody rag Alice used to clean up her face. He blanches at the sight, forgetting he’d even been holding it, and then just shrugs. “Woke up with a nosebleed.”

Joseph shakes his head, frowning as he gestures to the towel. “Your mom’s going to have a fit that you used one of her good towels.”

“I’ll clean it before school.”

Joseph hums, already moving on from this conversation to dig through the cabinets for a bowl for his breakfast. “There should be peroxide under the sink.”

Jasper spends twenty minutes dousing the hand towel with hydrogen peroxide in an attempt to clean Alice’s blood out of the fabric. And by the time the stain is just a faded brown against the cream-colored towel, he can hear Rosalie’s alarm going off.

The drive to school that morning is tense, and the hours leading up to lunch pass by in a blur. Jasper’s mind isn’t focusing on anything, and when Mrs. Chapel calls on him in math class he realizes he hasn’t even pulled his textbook from his backpack.

When lunch rolls around it’s clear to him, as he walks into the cafeteria with a mixture of relief and disappointment, that Alice isn’t there today. He isn’t the only one who has noticed her absence, and as he’s passing through the cafeteria he hears one of Lauren Mallory’s friends make a loud remark.

“Looks like the clown got stuck back at the circus today,” Carson Keys declares loudly enough for Jasper to hear him, three tables away. He turns to look at the dark-haired jackass, knowing that these are the comments they usually reserve for Alice’s eavesdropping ears. But Alice isn’t here today, and Jasper knows why.

And Jasper also knows that there’s a reason he’s never been the victim of any bullying at this school. Despite his misanthropic nature, he isn’t a very easy target. Maybe it’s because he’s one of the taller ones in the school, or maybe its the rumor that circulated last year when he was a sophomore, that he’d killed a senior for messing around with his sister.

But despite the very thorough beating he’d been given, Royce King was still very much alive, despite his swift disappearance from both the school district and social media. The King family had wanted to quiet the ‘incident’ as quickly as they could and had quietly moved somewhere East of Seattle.

The days spent in juvenile court and subsequent six months of house arrest had been worth it, in Jasper’s eyes.

It doesn’t bother Jasper one bit that many of the students are convinced Jasper has killed someone. Anything that keeps people away from him, and prevents others from harming Rose any further, is worth it in his eyes.

Jasper watches as Carson’s joke causes their table to erupt in giggles and head-shakes. Before he knows what he’s doing he’s walking over to the table, a twinge of fury forcing his feet forward.

He goes unnoticed until he picks up one of their textbooks and drops it from shoulder-level. The noise makes a sharp clap that causes the surrounding table to flinch and turn towards the source. Silence seizes most of his classmates as their eyes turn to bore into his form, and Jasper is almost thankful for this awful, unwanted attention. Their unease will certainly make this more effective.

Carson realizes it’s Jasper Hale standing beside him a few seconds after his friends are quiet and staring, and the grin slips off his face so fast it’s almost comical. “Hey Hale,” he says stupidly, and Jasper can almost feel the regret filling the air. “What’s up?”

Jasper doesn’t speak at first, and for a second he wonders if maybe he does have some sort of anger issue like his lawyer suggested, because watching Carson squirm in his seat while his other tough-talking friends are suddenly suspiciously quiet is very, very enjoyable.

He doesn’t issue any threatening quips or waste time with a joke of his own. No, instead Jasper leans in close, forcing Carson to back up a few inches, his eyes wide. “Say it again. Go on.”

Carson of course, doesn’t. Instead looking to his friends for help. It’s Whitney Barnes who chimes in first.

“It’s just a joke,” she says nastily, rolling her eyes at Jasper’s presence as she moves her attention to her phone, lying on the table. “It’s not a big deal.”

Whitney’s dismissal of Jasper’s actions seems to encourage Carson again. He pulls a grin back on his face, “We mean no harm, bro. Mary-Alice is a fun little thing.” He looks back to Jasper but something in his expression makes his smile fall again. “No harm, man,” he’s backpedaling again, lifting his hands up in front of him, as if to claim he doesn’t want any trouble.

It’s only Rosalie’s appearance at his side that keeps him from doing anything he regrets.

He can tell its her immediately by the way she grips the side of his shirt, bunching up the material in his fist and tugging twice. (Something she has done for as long as he can remember.) “C’mon,” her voice is quiet but annoyed. “Old man Bakers is watching.” She speaks, referring to the assistant principal that roams the halls during the student’s ‘free’ periods.

Carson’s face brightens at the appearance of his sister, but before he can open his mouth to say anything mindless, she chimes in. “I don’t want to hear it. Just keep your mouth shut.”

“But I—”

“No. Stop. I have a test next and I’m losing braincells. Shut up.” Rosalie is already walking away, Jasper’s shirt still gripped tightly as she leads him back the way he came. “You too, Miss Perpetual-Understudy.” Rosalie calls over her shoulder to Whitney, hitting the girl where it hurts. Always a very Rosalie thing to do; to say as little as possible while inflicting the most damage she can.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but stop it,” she grits through her teeth once they’re out of earshot. “If you start a fight at school they’ll slap that ankle monitor back on you before Carson’s dumb face will hit the linoleum.”

It’s an amusing thing to imagine, but he doesn’t want to irritate Rosalie any further, so he just shrugs noncommittally.

“What’s that all about anyways?” She demands as she drags him to her table. It’s still mostly-empty, thankfully. Only Emmett is there yet, and a couple other members of the football team that are nice enough. He likes Emmett for the most part. Most of the guys in school had been afraid of Jasper, and too terrified to get anywhere near Rosalie after last year’s incident. Emmett, on the other hand, had cornered Jasper the day he’d been allowed back at school and thanked him for doing what he didn’t get the chance to.

Jasper tries not to have to many opinions on his sister’s dating life now, but some days he thinks that Emmett wouldn’t be the worst choice if Rosalie decides to reciprocate the big guy’s obvious feelings.

“Nothing,” he speaks quietly as Rose sits in her seat. He knows that she wants him to sit with her and fill her in, but Jasper has never been comfortable around her friends. And he isn’t about to entertain their companionship on today of all days; he’s far too wound up.

“I heard Carson say something rude about that Alice girl,” the boy next to Emmett, whose name Jasper doesn’t know, chimes in. “Loud as shit, of course. But I didn’t hear much else,” he looks up at Jasper and shrugs. “You gotta do what you gotta do man. I would fully support your decision if you clocked him. Morally support, I mean. I can’t physically or I’ll lose my scholarship to UW.”

“No one is getting ‘clocked’,” Rosalie shoots the guy a glare before turning to Jasper and tugging on his shirt again. “Also, if you tried intimidating every person who’s been mean to Alice you’re going to have a long list.” She tugs on his shirt a third time, “sit.”

As Jasper settles into the seat beside his sister, absolutely dreading the next half hour, Emmett chimes in. “She’s a funny girl,” the curly-haired guys speaks, taking an enormous bite of his sandwich, “she told me she’d make me a bracelet the other day because I told her I liked her hair.” The boy next to him snorts and Emmett laughs, “What?” He speaks, mouth full, “like I’m going to say no to a free bracelet?! You’re out of your damn mind.”

“She’s friendly alright,” Rose speaks, turning her gaze back to Jasper. “Don’t know why she likes your prickly ass.”

“I’m not prickly,” Jasper deadpans, accepting the bag of chips Rose shoves into his hands.

Emmett laughs at that one. “Because you’re so warm and cuddly.”

“Em, hush.”

“I’m just playing around. But seriously. I like her. She’s fun.” He takes a sip of soda and fixes Jasper with another look. “Besides, I don’t think she has an easy time of it. My little sister is in her sister Cynthia’s class down at the grade school,” Jasper’s attention perks up at that. Alice has a sister? “According to Jennie, some accident that killed their mom messed Alice’s head up. I think it was a car accident. I’m not sure. It’s really sad though.”

A few members of the table nod at that, a morose feeling falling over them as more of Rosalie’s friends arrive, and then when Daniel Langfield starts telling the story of his uncle’s life-claiming car wreck, Jasper feels his mind wander.

He supposes that’s the day he halfway ‘befriends’ Alice Brandon.

Of course it would be the day she’s not even at school.

If anything he feels less like a friend and more like a protector. Or a guard dog. Like someone willing to do what it takes to keep people off her fucking back, and out of her goddamned business.

Later that night, before he climbs into bed, he rips a piece of notebook paper out of his binder and scribbles a small message on it.

I’m here if you want to talk about it.

He doesn’t see her the following morning, but he slips the note into her locker anyways. It isn’t until he’s walking to his first period class when he realizes he never signed the paper, and up until lunch he kicks himself, feeling much like a weirdo or a creep for delivering such a cryptic, out-of-context note.

But Alice is already waiting for him by the doors of the cafeteria when he finally sees her for the first time that day. She grins up at him, like she always does at school, big and wide, and Jasper is nearly stunned by the fact that she looks completely fine.

Whatever makeup she’s painted her face with that day has made her look entirely normal. But when she chatters at him, walking at his side as they wander across the cafeteria, he notices that her left eye is still a bit swollen, and blinks a bit slower than her right. Her expertly applied lipstick has nearly hidden her fat lip completely.

Peter isn’t there that day. He’d had a dentist appointment and left during the last period, so it’s only them today.

He knows that no one is listening in; if anything, the students of Forks’ High have begun practicing the art of tuning out Alice Brandon’s voice, but he still keeps his voice low when he asks her how she is.

“I’m fine,” she smiles up at him, before she opens her sketchbook and asks him for his input on her current art project.

“Did you get my note?”

She pauses then, smiling down at the still-life on the paper in front of her. Then, she reaches out and grabs the top of his hand, squeezing tightly before releasing it. She doesn’t so much as glance at him while she does this, and in seconds she’s already back to discussing her day.

Jasper knows that he isn’t going to get anything out of her today, and instead he pays attention to her every movement, and every quirk, watching her closely as she explains her current portrait and pulls out colored pencils, slowly working while she prattles on about some anecdote from gym class.

And with each day that passes he finds himself more curious about her. She doesn’t reveal anything during the school day, instead using their lunch period to talk and hum and laugh. He sits at her side, forgoing his music or books to simply watch and listen to her. But as the days pass, her face heals, and Alice reveals nothing.

He knows its only a matter of time before she shows up in his yard at night.

But the next time it happens, he has some warning.

Alice isn’t in school for four days. He hasn’t heard anything from the other students, and why would he? He’s the one she spends most of her time around anyways. If anything, the other students probably assume he knows whether she’s sick or not. By Thursday, even Peter asks him if he knows where she is. Jasper hates how he feels when he wordlessly shakes his head, anxiously picking the bread off the burger in front of him.

It’s Friday when Bella Swan approaches him in the parking lot while he waits for Rosalie. She startles him at first; he’d been sitting in his car listening to music when she tapped on the window. And when he turns the music down and lowers the window, she swiftly apologizes. He just barely takes note of Edward standing a few feet away.

“You haven’t heard from Alice, have you?”

Jasper shakes his head. “No.” He says simply, and then, “I don’t have her number.”

Bella frowns. “She doesn’t have a phone,” she explains, “I’m just…” she straightens back up, folding her arms and she turns back toward Edward. The redhead nods and Bella turns back toward Jasper. “I’m really, really worried.”

“Why?” Jasper shuts the car off then. Something in Bella’s expression causes alarms to go off in his mind, and he’s climbing back out of the old sedan before he can help it. “What makes you say that?”

Bella looks back at Edward again, and the redhead sighs and approaches. “You didn’t hear this from me,” he speaks quietly, looking around to make sure no one overhears. “My dad asked me last night whether I was friends with Alice. And I didn’t even know that he knew who that was. I…” he looked a bit embarrassed then, “I sort of weaseled a little bit of information out of him. But I think something happened to her that put her in the hospital. My dad didn’t say much but, you know how adults get when they want you to befriend someone else or ‘keep an eye’ on them or whatever? It was really weird and… kind of telling.”

“Do you know anything?” Bella asks, and her voice is so pleading, her face filled with so much worry that eventually he starts talking. He tells them about her first visit, and then about her second. And he’s rambling by the time he gets to her third, and most recent visit. It isn’t until he’s talking about her bloodied face and the fact that she cried as quietly as she could, curled up on the floor of his bedroom, when a voice chimes in.

“So that’s where Mom’s good towel went.”

His blood freezes in his veins when he realizes that Rosalie has snuck up behind them, unnoticed. Emmett McCarty is standing behind her, looking nervous at the fact that they have just overheard Jasper’s hurried confession.

Bella looks nervous at their intrusion, and Edward’s face is stern. Rosalie is glaring daggers at her brother, and it’s Emmett that chimes in eventually.

“What can we do?”

When their eyes all drift to Jasper, he feels as if his chest is about to cave in on itself. He doesn’t know how to tell them that he doesn’t know what to do. “Bella says she doesn’t have a phone.”

“Can’t we pull up to her house? Check on her at least?” The concern scrawled across Emmett’s features make him look far less menacing than he usually comes off as—he’s the only one in the Junior class taller than Jasper.

“That’s the last thing we should do,” Rosalie snaps, her words quiet. “The second you try to white-knight your way into whatever situation she’s dealing with, you’ll immediately make it ten times worse for her.” Rose speaks her words with the confidence of someone who truly knows what Alice’s situation is like, and it shuts everyone else up immediately.

There’s silence, then, Edward speaks. “We still don’t know what she’s dealing with. Let’s not assume.”

Rosalie glares at him then. “If your dad was dealing with her at the fucking emergency room, it wasn’t just a check up or a misunderstanding. Don’t be an idiot.”

“I’ll talk to Jennie when I get home,” Emmett offers, referring to his little sister who is classmates with Alice’s sister. “See if Cynthia has said anything at school.”

Bella nods, “Kids see and hear a lot more than people give them credit for.”

Rosalie speaks only to Jasper. “If she comes to you again, that’s a good thing. I can help cover your ass if you need it, but if you push her too much you will drive her away. Whatever you do, don’t go getting yourself arrested again, or I’ll beat you to a pulp.” Then, to everyone else, “If you really want to help her, give her space and mind your business. She’ll either come around, or she won’t. You can’t force it.” She climbs into the passenger seat, “Let’s go, Jasper.”

The drive home is quiet, and painfully awkward. Jasper keeps waiting for Rosalie to snap at him, or for her attitude to catch up, but when she reaches out and grabs a fistful of his shirt, holding it in her hand, he understands.

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough,” she speaks as he turns into their neighborhood, approaching the house. “I wish I had asked for help before it was too late. But,” there’s another patch of silence as he parks in the driveway before she speaks again, “Alice is trusting you with whatever is happening. Don’t take that for granted, and don’t fuck it up. She’ll decide what you can do to help her at her own pace.” Opening the door to the car she stands up as she gathers her things. “Don’t go trying to fuck your life up again. Please.” Then, she slams it and walks toward the house.

Alice doesn’t visit that night, but on Saturday night he’s restless. He picks up his phone and re-reads that day’s text messages. He’s comforted knowing that he isn’t the only person who has been plagued with worry over Alice that day. Bella confesses that she name dropped Alice in conversation with her father—the chief of police—who also pulled something akin to Edward’s dad, requesting his daughter to be nice to the girl and perhaps invite her over sometime.

It is confirmation enough that whatever is happening to Alice was known by both hospital workers and police. This information is enough for Jasper’s concern to turn into something far more nauseating. He’s not even comforted by the involvement of people outside of Alice’s situation, because if what was happening to her was severe enough for the police chief and Doctor Carlisle Cullen to be involved, it wasn’t good.

He’s up late, re-reading Emmett’s most recent texts, explaining that Jennie didn’t see Cynthia on Thursday or Friday, when the first rock knocks against his window.

He doesn’t even rush over to it, instead flinging his bedroom door open and zooming down the stairs as quick as possible—he’s never been so happy for his father to be on a work trip and for his mother to be off and absent once more than he is when he barges through the front door and runs to the side of the house.

The sight of Alice standing beneath his window, preparing to fling another pebble, her face wincing in pain, is both a relief as well as a worry.

She jumps at his sudden appearance, stumbling back as fear flickers across her face. It only takes her a second to realize who is rushing toward her, but by the time recognition calms her, Jasper has already slowed himself.

She’s wearing her purple hoodie again, and her face is black and blue. She reaches up to pull her hood tighter around her face and that’s when Jasper takes note of the pink cast encasing her forearm.

“Alice,” he breathes, approaching slower as he reaches out to her. Thankfully she doesn’t recoil from him and instead walks directly toward him. When she wraps her arms around him, Jasper doesn’t hesitate to hold her close. With her embrace he feels all the tension slowly seep out of him, and it’s when he feels her shivering that he steps back, keeping an arm over her shoulders as he guides her toward the house.

She’s as quiet as she typically is during all of her visits, so Jasper decides to fill the silence instead.

He talks at her mostly, prompting input here and there, but Alice is content to sit quietly on his bed as he rifles through his closet. He eventually finds a winter coat that stopped fitting him before high school and tosses it on the bed beside her. He tells her that it belongs to her now and that he wants to see her wearing it next time she decides to make the trek to his house at night.

He asks her how far she lives, and even when she doesn’t reply he informs her that he has a car, and can pick her up at a moment’s notice if she ever needs him to. He also asks about her phone situation, knowing that she doesn’t have access to a cell phone, but that if she has access to a computer, his phone dings when he gets an email. He can put her email in his contacts so that it rings loudly any time she sends a message his way.

He offers her food, and even when she doesn’t accept (or decline) he disappears for a few minutes, returning with some reheated pizza and a couple of glasses of water.

She accepts the water with a smile, and seeing the light in her eyes, despite how battered her face looks, does something strange to Jasper’s chest.

It’s when he asks her if she’s tired that she finally gives him a response, shaking her head.

“In that case,” he walks over to his desk, unplugging his laptop and carrying it over to the bed, depositing it in front of her. “We can watch a movie.”

He sneaks back into the hallway, and is rifling through the hall closet, retrieving extra pillows and blankets, when Rosalie’s door opens and he freezes, turning toward her with a look akin to a deer caught in headlights.

“Here,” his sister whispers as she tosses something his way, “she can keep these.” Before they can fall to the ground Jasper plucks the cotton pajamas out of the air, nodding toward his sister. With her voice low she then tacks on a threat, “and don’t eat all the pizza. I was saving some for lunch tomorrow.”

He smiles at her as she closes the door softly behind her, trying to decide whether its best to lie to Alice about the blue pajamas or to just tell them they’re a gift from Rosalie.

In reality, he doesn’t need to say anything, because when he presents them to her she smiles up at him, softly thanking him before placing them on the bed beside her.

“I’m serious,” he remarks as he turns the laptop toward him, opening and starting it up. “They’re all yours. They were Rose’s in like, freshman year before she got her growth spurt.”

“I doubt they’ll fit,” Alice’s voice finally rings out clear, and Jasper counts that as a win.

Jasper smirks over at her as he logs into Peter’s Netflix account. “Trust me, I wasn’t the only one who grew nearly half a foot freshman year. The money we spent on clothes that year was a little excessive.”

Alice excuses herself to the hallway bathroom a minute after that, and when she returns, dressed more comfortably now, Jasper smiles. “My uh, parents aren’t home by the way, so you can stay as long as you need.”

She doesn’t reply, but she does climb back into his bed, and when she wraps the old blue blanket around her shoulders—a blanket that Jasper is beginning to view as hers—she scoots herself into the corner of his bed, resting her back against his headboard and pillows.

Jasper is careful to keep his distance as he settles himself beside her, but Alice is quick to scoot closer, and when he asks if she has any suggestions or requests, she simply shakes her head, smiling at the screen, her chin resting atop her knees.

She is asleep twenty minutes into the movie, her head knocking against his shoulder as her exhaustion wins out. Jasper remains still for a while after that, barely paying any attention to the random animated movie, afraid of waking the girl up. Eventually he moves her carefully so that she’s lying down more comfortably. Closing the laptop he moves to place it back on his desk when her hand shoots out, gripping his arm tightly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he speaks quietly, his heart breaking at the flash of desperation—of fear—in her suddenly-open eyes, depositing the laptop on the ground and climbing back into his bed. It feels strange, to lie down beside this girl that he knows hardly anything about, but when she wraps her good hand around his, Jasper turns toward her, wrapping his fingers tightly around hers, returning the gesture. She is asleep again within minutes.

Multiple times he attempts to remove himself from his own bed. After all, he shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be staring at this girl as she sleeps, entirely unguarded, her face swollen from what could only be a beating, and for a while he lies there, frozen in both anger and helplessness.

Because Alice is good. A sweet girl with nothing but a smile to offer and friendship to give.

When he wakes up late the following morning, he doesn’t know why he feels sour at her absence. Deep down he knew she wouldn’t be still lying beside him, but in some far off part of his mind, he’d hoped for it.

It’s when he’s sitting up in bed, orienting himself with his surroundings when he hears familiar laughter echoing from Rosalie’s room.

He’s up and in the hallway in seconds.

Rosalie’s door is propped open, and inside of her bedroom there are people. It seems during the few extra hours Jasper stayed unconscious, his sister had invited over company.

Emmett is sitting completely still in the chair of Rosalie’s vanity, far too big for the tiny white furniture, and looking ridiculous as Rosalie leans forward, carefully applying makeup to his large face. Bella Swan stands at her side, holding Rosalie’s iPad in one hand, displaying a picture of whatever look his sister is trying to achieve on the face of Fork’s High’s star linebacker, and in her other hand are a slew of makeup brushes.

Edward is standing closest to the door, recording the entire debacle on his phone while Alice, who is lying across Rosalie’s bed, still clad in her blue pajamas is laughing and laughing and laughing.

It’s such a strange group of people, he realizes abruptly. Jasper is only acquainted with Bella and Edward through the far-off lunch table they all share, since it’s the only corner of the cafeteria that offers an escape from the rowdiness of their classmates. Emmett, of course, he knows through Rosalie, and has always been a friendly, funny guy, but Rosalie has always been careful about who she lets into her social circles. Especially now.

And last Jasper knew his sister couldn’t stand the pretentious red-head in the grade behind them. But if Jasper knows anything, it’s to never underestimate Rosalie Lillian Hale, and quickly he realizes that in the time between her handing off pajamas to him last night, and this morning, she’s carefully calculated this entire thing. From the guests to the activity.

Because the only thing everyone in this room has in common, is Alice.

When she notices him, she sits up, grinning widely at him. The yellowing bruises on her face stick out sorely against her skin that is pink and flushed from laughter, but when she beckons him inside of the room, drawing everyone’s attention from Emmett’s face to Jasper’s presence, he can’t help but smile back.

He carefully turns down the invitation to be ‘next’, and when Rosalie remarks that there are plenty of photos in tucked away albums of their older cousins putting Jasper in makeup and dresses when they were small, the entire room of teenagers look delighted at that information.

“Oh, please tell me you have that album handy,” Alice exclaims, gripping his hand fiercely as she bounces on Rosalie’s bed.

“Hell no.”

“I’ll show you some other time,” Rosalie comments dismissively as she holds Emmett’s jaw tight in her hand. “Now, do we want to go more pink or orange-ish…?”

And that’s how their Sunday begins.

Eventually they make their way from Rosalie’s room into the living room and then soon they’re piling into Jasper’s and Emmett’s cars, after Bella’s stomach had rumbled and Emmett declared that it was time for food. Of course, he took every ounce of makeup off before they left, and Alice changed back into the clothes she’d arrived in the night before.

The day passes so quickly and it’s so fun that Jasper hardly realizes how much he’s enjoying himself until the sun is nearly down and they’re hanging out in the parking lot of the bowling alley they just played in. But Bella has a late shift at Newton’s and Emmett needs to take them back to his car, which is at Rosalie and Jasper’s house. Then Rose declares that she has a paper to finish tonight and suddenly the day is spiraling to a close.

“I’ll see you at home,” she nods at him as she climbs into the passenger seat of Emmett’s Jeep. He simply nods, waving at them as they pull away.

And then it’s just him and Alice left.

He turns toward her after Emmett’s car disappears into the night, only to see her staring after the Jeep, a deep-set frown in her face.

“What do you want to do?” He asks, because he knows it has to be her decision now.

She steps up next to him and grabs his hand tightly, and that’s when Jasper feels her shaking again. He knows it’s not because of the cold; she’s finally wearing the jacket he’d given her the night before. But she’s shaking now and he doesn’t know what to do other than pull her against his side and hold her close.

“We can go back to my house,” he offers firmly, but quietly, as she nestles closely against him, her face pressed into his own coat. “You can stay as long as you want. I mean it.”

She shakes her head after a long moment. “I have to go home.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

She doesn’t answer his question.

Turn by turn directions are all she has to provide for him; she’s still so new to the town that even despite how small it is she only knows her way around when they’re close to the school. So he loops back toward Fork’s High and then Alice begins directing him from there.

They’re only a few streets away—surprisingly close to his house—when she grabs his hand suddenly. “Stop the car.”

Jasper slows the car down to a crawl, pulling it over to the side of the road. He doesn’t see anything that would cause her to erupt in fear like that; they’re still several yards from the next turn, bringing them toward where Alice said her house was.

“Here is fine,” she says in a hurry, unbuckling herself swiftly. When she starts to remove his jacket he reaches out and grabs her arm.

“Alice, that’s for you. Keep it, please.”

“I can’t,” she says desperately as she shimmies her arms out of the sleeves. It takes her a while to yank her left arm, cast and all, out of the jacket, but when she pushes it unceremoniously into his arms, he’s so confused. “Please, understand.”

“I don’t,” he says honestly, a little hurt by her actions, “that’s… that’s fine. Just—” he frowns, “how do you usually get to school? The bus?”

She shakes her head as she lifts her small bag up and throws it over her shoulder. “I walk. It’s fine, I’ll see you in school this week.”

He reaches out again, careful not to grab her broken wrist, and his hand lands softly on her shoulder. “Not tomorrow?”

Alice is anxious now, her eyes looking for something out in the dark, and Jasper hates this. Hates that she comes to him at night but doesn’t let him help. Hates that she does so much talking, but doesn’t reveal anything. Hates that he can’t fix whatever is wrong.

“I’m worried about you,” he eventually says when she flings the door open and moves to depart.

The look she fixes him with then is stern, and Jasper worries that he’s said something wrong.

Alice leans back into the car, and with her good hand she reaches toward him, cupping his cheek warmly, and stunning him into silence. He’s frozen for a few seconds, watching her every move cautiously, and when she smiles up at him, soft and beautiful, any other words he was thinking are suddenly wiped clear.

“Don’t.” And she’s gone in seconds, running off into the dark faster than he can keep up with his eyes.

He doesn’t go directly home afterward. Instead he drives around for a little while. Alice wouldn’t give him her address, and he’s almost nervous to accidentally stumble across her house now, so he steers clear of the residential streets. He’s halfway to La Push when he realizes he needs to go back home, because Rose will be waiting for him.

Rose and Emmett are waiting for him when he returns. It’s something that sort of surprises him, because as far as he knows, his sister has sworn off dating. Not that the two appear to be an item. But again: it’s not a secret that Emmett McCarty loves his sister.

When he walks through the door they’re in the kitchen, and their conversation dies when they note his presence.

“How’d it go?” Emmett asks, frowning from where he sits at the kitchen table across from Rosalie.

Jasper shrugs, turning to walk toward the stairs.

“Jasper,” his sister calls, standing up from the table. “Did something happen?”

“No,” he finally speaks. And it’s true. Nothing happened. No progress in their ‘friendship’. No discoveries on his part. Instead the status quo remains very much unchanged. He still doesn’t know how to help Alice, and she is still unwilling to let him in.

It’s when Rosalie takes note of the small jacket under Jasper’s arm when she finally closes her mouth and nods, turning back to sit back at the table, looking strangely defeated.

He doesn’t sleep well that night, or the next.

The rumors start circulating quickly then. It seems that some senior was at the bowling alley with their parents on the same day they’d taken Alice out on her outing. Word quickly got around that the tiny girl looked like she’d been in a boxing match, bruised and broken and still missing from school.

The worst of the rumors made their way back to him through Edward. Some group of kids in the freshman class were apparently under the impression that her absence and physical state were due to Jasper’s actions. Of course, it is a widely-known fact now that Jasper has a ‘reputation for violence’; whether it’s misplaced or not isn’t for Jasper to decide. But that rumor makes him feel sick to his stomach.

It becomes so bad that, with his dad still away on work and his mom god-knows-where, Jasper stays home from school on Thursday. Rosalie doesn’t even attempt to rouse him out of bed, just accepting his keys and telling him she’ll see him after school.

It’s around noon that he forces himself out of his bedroom. He doesn’t have an appetite so he simply shrugs on his coat, pulls on his boots, and goes for a walk.

He wanders through the neighborhood for a while, down one street, up another, until he finds himself wandering through Tillicum Park. He used to come here more often when he was younger. It was the one place his parents would let him and Rosalie wander off to on their own. And then when he was in middle school a man in a van had pulled up beside some of his classmates and he and Rose had been forbidden from walking there alone after that.

It has been several years since he’s sat on the swings here. And as he wanders toward where he knows the play equipment is, he finds himself freezing in his tracks.

Because there is a little girl sitting by herself on the swings.

He looks around then, but it’s barely one o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, and this girl can’t be any older than seven or eight. He contemplates moving on with his walk—after all, it was barely a decade ago when his mother would shoo him and Rose out the door and off to the park—but something forces him to approach the child.

He doesn’t want to scare the girl, so he gives her a wide berth as he loops around to the front of the swings, approaching from where the kid can see him. And when she looks up at him, Jasper hates that her terrified expression is vaguely familiar to him…

But when she the fear disappears, relief is quick to take it’s place on her face. The girl smiles at him and releases her grip on one of the chains to wave at him. “Hi!” She exclaims, her legs dangling beneath her as the swing sways in the wind.

Jasper looks around then. “Hi there.” He doesn’t even see any cars parked in the lot across the way. “Are your parents around?”

She shakes her head as she starts pumping her little feet, and then she starts going higher and higher on the swing set. “No, my Mommy is dead,” she says matter-of-factly, and Jasper frowns at that.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says awkwardly, hands in his pockets as he keeps his eyes on the horizon, waiting for someone to come claim this child. Something in him tells him not to wander off. Sure, he doesn’t want to seem like a weirdo creep, talking to alone little girls, but he doesn’t want an actual one to come and snatch this girl up while she’s swinging here, all alone.

“S’okay,” she mumbles sadly as she swings back and forth. “I miss lots of people. And stuff. And my friends, too.”

“Is your dad around?”

“No,” she shakes her head, and a dark, angry look falls across her tiny features. “He’s at home being a jerk.”

“Are you supposed to be at home?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She kicks her legs angrily as she talks, “Not allowed to be at home. And I don’t wanna go to school.”

“You don’t like school?”

She shakes her head, still pouting as she swings back, and forth. “I told the teachers Daddy was being mean and then I got in trouble. And I told them not to say nothing!”

That revelation didn’t sit well with him. “Being mean?”

She’s quiet for a few seconds, her feet ceasing motion as she thinks to herself. Then, she’s pushing and pulling her feet back and forth again. “I’m not supposed to say things to adults, so you should go to your job or something.”

“I don’t have a job,” he offered, “but I didn’t go to school today either.” He looks around once more. “Is there someone I can call to come get you? Someone that’s not your dad?”

The girl shakes her head. “Alice isn’t allowed to. Dad says she has to stay at home so we don’t get in trouble again.”

Jasper’s entire world shifts with those words. “Alice?” He steps closer. That’s when he notices the little girls arms, full of brightly-colored beads, homemade bracelets that Jasper suddenly recognizes. “Is Alice your sister?”

The child nods, and when she pouts again Jasper suddenly realizes why this girl looks so familiar.

There’s a memory somewhere in his mind where Emmett revealed this little girl’s name, but that particular piece of information is out of his reach. “My name is Jasper. What’s yours?”

And then she says, “Cynthia Brandon” confirming his suspicions.

“Is Alice in trouble?” He begins to approach Cynthia then, but then stops and hesitates. Then, he walks to a swing several feet away and sits down on it. “I’m friends with Alice. We go to school together.” He digs around in his pockets then, knowing that he never had the nerve to actually attach it to his key ring, but when Alice had handed him a hand-made keychain a couple of weeks ago, he’d stuffed it into one of his jacket’s many pockets and forgotten about it. He finally wraps his fingers around the beaded thing and sighs in relief. “She made me this.”

The girl leans toward him, frowning as she studies the keychain he holds out toward her. “No,” she shakes her head, “I made that. Alice just takes them to school for her friends. But I definitely made that.” She sounds put-out by the idea that her big sister is stealing all the credit, and Jasper quickly backpedals.

“Oh, it’s very nice. Alice did give it to me though.”

“I know,” and then she’s smiling again as she kicks her feet. “When Daddy gets mad Alice puts me on her bed and lets me listen to all the music and make as many bracelets and keychains as I want while she talks to Daddy.”

“Does…” Jasper hesitates, “Is Alice alright? I’m very worried about her.”

“I’m not allowed to talk to people about what Daddy does.”

Jasper’s frown intensifies. “Because you’ll get in trouble?”

When Cynthia nods Jasper has to bite back a swear. He doesn’t know what to do now. It’s clear that something sinister is at play here, but with a little girl too afraid to say anything, and with Alice also refusing to give any hints as to what happens to her behind closed doors, Jasper is left lost.

But when his phone buzzes in his pocket, an idea strikes him. Retrieving it from his pocket he ignores the random email notification and, as quickly as he can, he types a message to Bella, placing as much urgency in his words as he can in a short text.

He stays there, sitting with Cynthia, chatting idly with the girl about her favorite way to braid and design her tiny pieces of ‘jewelry’, when Chief Swan’s police cruiser pulls up, parking in the lot behind them without the little girl noticing.

“Are you hungry?” Jasper eventually asks the girl, turning his head and nodding toward Bella’s dad when the man begins to approach, a random deputy at his side. “If I got you some food, would you eat it?”

“I’m always hungry,” she whines. “Alice was supposed to go to the market yesterday but then Daddy—” she slaps a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide when she realizes that two policemen are approaching. “Oh, no,” she hops off the swings and scurries closer to Jasper. “Please tell them to go away,” she says in a whisper loud enough for the two cops to overhear.

“Hi Cynthia,” Charlie Swan smiles over at the girl, “how are you today, sweetheart?”

“Going home,” she declares loudly, reaching out and grabbing Jasper’s hand, quickly pulling him after her. “I’m going home now mister police man! Thank you! Goodbye!”

Jasper takes a few steps after the desperate little girl, turning to look at Chief Swan with a confused gaze. ‘What do I do?’ He mouths as the girl begins to drag him toward town.

‘We’ll follow’, Chief Swan mouths back, nodding to where the little girl is heading. Then, he places a hand on his partner’s shoulder and they begin moving back toward where the squad car is parked.

The pizzeria Cynthia drags him into is one he used to frequent as a child. The amount of birthday parties he and Rosalie had attended in the establishment were most likely in the double digits. His grandfather had been best friends with the owner of the place, and for years Jasper and his friends had been allowed to bring their report cards to the restaurant every marking period. Each ‘A’ entitled the kids to one free slice of pizza.

He leads Cynthia into a booth, sitting her in the side facing away from the parking lot. And minutes later when he sees the squad car park at the opposite end of the lot, he pulls his phone out again and starts texting Bella again. Thankfully she’s quick to send him her father’s number and for the first time since his arrest over a year ago, Jasper is willingly talking to a police officer.

He half-focuses on Cynthia as he starts texting Chief Swan every bit of information he has. It isn’t until Marnie—a waitress who has been working at the restaurant for as long as Jasper has been alive—brings them their order, a small cheese pizza to share and two lemonades, that Jasper realizes he has more information than he realizes.

Marnie gives him a serious look, glancing between the cop car and the little girl, and Jasper has to subtly gesture to the older woman that she needs to be quiet. When Cynthia is distracted with emptying more sugar packets into her lemonade, Jasper flashes the woman his phone. When the woman sees ‘Charlie Swan’ on the top she frowns and then nods, before retreating back into the kitchen.

You have to check on her, Jasper emphasizes more than once in his text messages with the Chief of Police of their tiny town. You have to go over there and make sure she’s alright.

It’s nearly two hours later—and Cynthia is stuffed full of pizza, cookies, and one warm brownie sundae—when Chief Swan finally exits his vehicle and approaches the building. Jasper hasn’t heard anything from the man in over an hour, but he knows that they’ve sent a few of his people over to the Brandon residence to perform a wellness check.

Marnie and Steve—the owner’s son, and current manager of the establishment—cleared out the restaurant nearly an hour ago, so after the two policemen step through the door, Steve locks the door behind them and flips the ‘OPEN’ sign to read ‘CLOSED’.

“Hi Cynthia,” Charlie Swan speaks again, and Cynthia turns toward the door and lets out a pitiful whine. “It’s okay. Nothing bad is going to happen. I promise.”

“You can’t promise me that!” She shrieks before ducking beneath the booth and reappearing at Jasper’s side. “Go away! I’ll go home later! Leave me alone!”

Chief Swan leans down to eye level with the little girl, and when she grabs Jasper’s arm, hiding behind it, he doesn’t know what to do. “Well, Cynthia. I’m here to tell you that you aren’t going to be able to go home today. In fact, a good friend of mine is going to come by and talk to you, if that’s alright?”

“I want to go home,” Cynthia’s words began to wobble as tears begin to spring to the surface. “I want Alice. I want to go home.”

“Alice is getting some help right now,” and Chief Swan meets Jasper’s eyes quickly then, before looking away, “but when she feels better you’ll be able to see her, alright?”

“I wanna go home,” she cries, burying herself underneath Jasper’s discarded coat, where she continues to cry. “I wanna go home.”

It isn’t until Edward’s parents show up—somehow Jasper had forgotten all about the slew of foster siblings Edward had when they were young—and Esme Cullen spends a few minutes calmly talking to Cynthia, that the little girl appears more willing to go with them.

When Cynthia is packed away into some random car with a borrowed booster seat Jasper turns toward Chief Swan. “Please tell me she’s alright.”

The man nods, and Jasper feels his shoulders deflate, relief almost suffocating. “I don’t know if I would’ve been able to say that if we’d waited another day or two to check, but their father is in custody and Alice is at the hospital.” The man fixes Jasper with a long look then. “I don’t know why, or how it is that I always find you at the center of these situations,” he remarks, somehow looking down his nose at Jasper, despite the fact he was a shorter man, “but you’re good man, Hale. Just make sure to talk to your parents about this.” He turned to walk away, “And thanks for not going rogue again this time.”

The underlying message was clear: ‘thanks for not trying to kill Mr. Brandon’.

When he walks through his front door an hour later, dragging himself up the stairs with heavy feet, he’s met with an avalanche of people suddenly. And when Rosalie’s arms are wrapped around his neck, he almost feels himself break down then.

“Tell us everything,” she mutters quickly against his neck, and that’s when Jasper realizes that Emmett, Edward, and Bella are all standing behind her on the stairs or in the hallway above.

He gets through the story slowly, starting with when he left the house and stopping when he realized that he was talking to Alice’s little sister.

“I’m so glad you texted me when you did,” Bella sighs. “I don’t usually have my phone on me during school, but it’s my Mom’s birthday, so I’ve been waiting on messages from her all day.”

“I knew something was up when Bella ditched English last period,” Edward comments from where he’s leaning back against Rosalie’s wall.

“Bella ditching class at all should be a red flag,” Rosalie remarks from her spot on her bed beside Jasper.

“Your parents have her sister, last I saw,” Jasper turns toward Edward as he speaks, as if hoping the younger boy could provide more information.

Edward nods. “They called a few minutes after I got here. They’re technically still registered as foster parents, so if they can’t get a hold of any other relatives in the area, I’m going to have some foster sisters soon,” he shrugs as if it’s no big deal to him to have Alice and Cynthia moving in. And the idea of Dr. and Mrs. Cullen taking care of the pair of girls is enough for force Jasper to look away from everyone, afraid that he might start getting emotional again.

Jasper stays home from school again the next day, and Rosalie does, too. It doesn’t take long for news to travel through the town of Forks and Jasper knows that if he hears any disrespectful gossip at school, he’ll likely be disappointing Chief Swan much sooner than anticipated.

He tries to visit Alice at the hospital but since there’s an ongoing investigation they turn him away at the front desk.

Joseph Brandon eventually calls one of them—the school must’ve finally gotten a hold of him about their absences—and gets the full story from Rosalie, promising to be home within the day and giving them permission to use the emergency credit card to get a bouquet of flowers sent to Alice’s hospital room.

When Monday rolls around he doesn’t want to go to school, but his father and Rosalie force him out of bed and down the stairs. He’s sort of glad he’s pushed out the door that morning, because when he returns home that afternoon, Mom is back, which means he’s missed out on a huge fight, and he’s relieved that at least it happened while he and Rosalie were at school this time.

The news of the newcomers—John Edgar Brandon and his two daughters—is such hot gossip around town that when Jasper and Rosalie come home one day to their mother’s belongings packed away in a U-haul truck, and some strange man helping her pack, the news doesn’t even make it to his classmates. Because the story of Joseph Hale finally kicking his unfaithful wife to the curb is something that the people of this town have been waiting for him to do for years now.

But the story of the twice-widowed John Edgar Brandon being arrested for abuse, neglect, and suspected murder, easily trumps the news of any simple extra-marital affair. Jasper hates the relief he feels, knowing that his deadbeat mother isn’t going to be the talk of the town, and instead the fact that John Edgar beat his eldest daughter within an inch of her life, is.

He’s been back at school for a full week when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. It’s nearly the end of the day; the bell is set to go off within minutes and he knows he won’t get a demerit if any teachers see him on his phone at this point on a Friday.

The first message is from Edward.

I told her not to go overboard. But he’s my apology in advance.

The second is from an unknown number.

hi jasper!!!!!!!!!!!!

He pockets the phone with a frown, staring back at the clock on the wall before realizing that his teacher is wrapped up in conversation with a few kids on the opposite side of the classroom. Trying not to be seen he ducks out of the classroom swiftly, pulling his phone out of his pocket to stare at the text message again.

It takes him two more seconds to realize who is texting him and before he can stop himself he’s pressing the ‘call’ button and rushing out the front doors as fast as he can. As he listens to the phone ring on the other end the knot in his throat is so thick that he’s afraid he might choke if he tries to say anything.

“Um,” her voice on the other end of the line sounds like a miracle, and Jasper finds himself clinging to his phone even as he strides into the parking lot, rain pouring down heavily on his head. “Hello?”

“Alice?” He can’t keep his voice from cracking as he makes it to his car, struggling with the keys to open the door and make it inside. “It’s Jasper.”

“I know,” and her voice sounds so small, so unsure that Jasper’s chest hurts hearing it. “Esme and Carlisle got me a phone.”

“That’s amazing,” he finds himself smiling as he talks, slamming the car door shut once he finally manages to climb inside and avoid the downpour. “Is it hard to use?”

“Kind of,” her voice sounds raspier than usual. Whether it’s due to misuse or injury, Jasper is still unsure. He hasn’t heard anything about her physical state, yet. “Edward’s helping me a lot though. Which is nice.” Theres another pause. “He’s nice.”

“He is,” Jasper agrees, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes. “It’s so good to hear from you, Alice.”

“Jasper,” she sounds sad, then, “I want to apologize.”

“What?” He sits up abruptly, his eyes open again. “Alice, no. You don’t have to apologize for anything.”

“I lied,” she whispers, “so, so much.”

��No, you didn’t. You kept quiet to keep yourself safe,” his words are stern but kind. “That’s different.”

“I’ve made everyone so, so miserable,” and when her voice cracks, Jasper feels something in his chest crack right alongside it. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Alice, listen to me,” clinging to the phone with both hands he finds that he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to tell this girl and he doesn’t know how to repair something that neither of them are responsible for damaging in the first place.

The entire situation is a mess.

“Are you allowed to have visitors now?” He asks instead. “I’d really like to see you.” There’s a slight pause. “And Cynthia,” he adds on. “I’m not sure if she’s told you about our adventure the other week.”

Alice laughs then, “Yeah. She keeps telling me she likes my tall friend with the pizza.” Jasper smiles at that. “I told her I do, too.” Theres the sound of shuffling on the other line, and then Alice speaks again. “I’m… not sure if I’m allowed…”

“Can you ask?” Then, he realizes what he’s requesting of her, and changes his mind. “I can have Edward ask, I mean.” The idea of asking a parent for permission for anything is something he’s sure Alice has no experience in.

“Um, maybe, yeah. That might be better.” After a slight pause, she sighs into the phone. “I miss you.”

Jasper’s stomach does flips then as he deflates back down into the seat. He can hear the sound of the final bell going off in the background, but he’s too focused on his phone to care. “How about I text Edward, and see if I can come over later?” The idea of inviting himself over to the Cullen household is as bizarre as it is bold, but Jasper doesn’t care. He wants to see Alice, badly. “Maybe I’ll bring some pizza for you and Cynthia.”

Alice giggles at that. “I think she’d really like that. Yeah, okay.”

It isn’t until minutes later when Rosalie wordlessly climbs into the passenger seat that he realizes he’s been crying. She gasps at the sight, leaning forward and grabbing his hand and demanding to know what’s wrong, and only when he wipes his cheeks with the backs of his hands and shakes his head, telling her that Alice is safe and home, does she deflate, pulling him into a hug.

Esme Cullen declines his offer to bring pizza, but is happy enough to see him when he and Rosalie walk through their front door that night. Cynthia is excited to see him and wants to show Jasper her new bedroom, informing him that it’s ‘full of books and shelves’, prompting Rosalie and Jasper to share a strange look with one another and prompting Esme to quickly explain that they were still in the process of packing up her husband’s study to convert into another bedroom for the young girl.

The house is huge—easily one of the biggest homes Jasper has ever seen—and when they eventually reach the kitchen in the back of the house, Alice is already sitting at the table, her eyes wide and smile bright as they cross the room toward her.

“Alice! Alice! Your friends are here!” Cynthia exclaims before climbing into the chair beside her sister.

Alice laughs and looks over at her sister, beaming, “I see that! I’m so happy!”

“Me too!” The girl giggles before hopping down off the chair and running after Esme. “Let’s finish dinner now, please, please!”

Alice looks better than Jasper expected her to, if he’s being honest with himself. One eye is still quite swollen and what used to be her ‘good arm’ is in some type of sling, but her smile is bright and there is color in her cheeks. Judging by the ill-fitting button down Jasper can tell it’s a collarbone fracture, and even though he can’t see her legs, there is a wheelchair resting a few feet behind where she sits.

“Good to see you,” Rose smiles at the small girl, leaning forward to wrap Alice in a light hug. Alice looks delighted at such a reaction from Rosalie, even grinning excitedly over the blonde’s shoulder toward Jasper, and when she lifts her pink cast to give him a thumbs up, he has to refrain from laughing out loud. “I’ll have to drag Emmett by sometime this week. He can’t wait to see you.”

“Oh, please do!” Then, Alice freezes, turning toward where Esme and Cynthia are across the room, “I—I mean, if I’m allowed to.”

Esme’s smile is kind and her words are steady when she calls calmly toward the anxious girl. “Guests are welcome any time before eight PM on school nights and ten PM on weekends. Carlisle and I will let you know beforehand if we have any exceptions on any days.”

And with the gentle setting of boundaries Jasper watches as Alice calms visibly, her shoulders losing their tension as she turns back toward Rosalie and smiles, nodding. “Yeah, I want to see Emmett, too.”

“He might be over sooner than this week,” Edward chimes in as he enters the room, waving his phone toward them. “He and Bella are on their way now, apparently.”

Rosalie manages to look a bit irritated at that. “He didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“I thought you didn’t care what Emmett does with his free time,” Edward speaks knowingly. It takes Jasper several seconds to realize that Edward is teasing his sister. And not only that, Rosalie hasn’t retorted; instead, she’s turning bright red where she stands.

Oh. Well, that was certainly a development.

“I’m glad I planned on having leftovers,” Esme laughs good-naturedly from the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”

Despite the unexpected guests, the dinner at the Cullen household goes like this: He manages to sit himself on Alice’s opposite side and hardly leaves it the entire night. She has difficulty picking up food with her fork, and even despite Esme’s insistence that she can help the girl Jasper insists on doing it. It’s when he realizes that most of the foods he’s scooping onto her utensils are soft, easily chewable things, that he wonders, as he helps her wrap her fingers around her fork again and again, what other unseen injuries she possesses.

Emmett and Rosalie insist on helping Esme clean up dinner, and Edward shows Jasper how to fold and unfold Alice’s wheelchair, before the younger boy helps Alice into it. Jasper feels nauseous as he sees that both of her legs are injured. Her left is in a cast up to her knee, and her right foot is in a black boot.

They’re ushered from the kitchen into a giant living room with a television so big that it makes Jasper wonder how they got it into the house.

As they wait for Emmett and Rosalie to join them Cynthia takes control of the remote as well as the trajectory of their night. Edward groans and Bella shushes him when the little girl announces they’re watching some animated movie Jasper knows nothing about, but after an hour into the film Emmett has declared that it’s his new favorite movie and Cynthia has declared that Emmett is her new favorite person.

They’re halfway through the sequel when the little girl finally passes out, one too many musical numbers zapping her energy. Esme laughs and Emmett remarks that his dance partner has underestimated her endurance as he helps collect the girl and carry her off to bed.

They turn the cartoon off after that and put on something a little more suitable for a group of teenagers. Some mindless comedy that Esme decides to forgo as she prepares to retreat to some other part of the house.

“Dude, your mom kicks ass,” Emmett whispers to Edward after Esme finally leaves them, bowls of freshly popped popcorn and pitchers of juice placed on the coffee table before them all. “What the hell?” He gestures to the TV and the popcorn. “HBO max and the gourmet buttered shit? You’ve been holding out on us, Cullen.”

“Edward’s spoiled,” Bella remarks with a grin as Edward turns to glare at his girlfriend, but when she pokes him in the ribs, causing him to jump nearly a foot in the air, they all laugh. “What? It’s true.”

The movie has barely begun before Jasper feels Alice begin to drift at his side. He turns toward her, hyperaware of her every movement, watching as she begins to nod off slowly, her head dipping and eyes fluttering shut every few seconds.

“Do you want to go to sleep?” He asks quietly enough that no one else hears him over the noise of the surround-sound in the room. But Alice shakes her head stubbornly before sitting up and adjusting the pillows beneath her arm in the sling. Then, she snuggles up close to Jasper’s side and lets out a long sigh.

“Not yet,” she mutters to him, even though her eyes are already fluttering shut again. “I want to stay here, please.”

Jasper barely pays attention to the movie after that. Instead he spends the next hour and a half letting his mind run rampant. His thoughts are so swept up in all things Alice that he hardly notices when the movie has ended and Emmett and Rosalie are standing up and stretching. Emmett starts to talk loudly before Rose smacks his shoulder, gesturing to where Alice is fast asleep at Jasper’s side.

They all slowly disperse after that. Rosalie hitches a ride home with Emmett, and before Edward leaves to drive Bella home he goes and fetches his mother to help Jasper move Alice to bed.

While Esme is unfolding the chair Jasper simply stands, maneuvering Alice into his arms as carefully as possible, all while trying not to jostle her too much. “It’s fine,” he whispers to Esme, shaking his head and gesturing for her to lead the way.

The room that has become Alice’s room is the only bedroom on the main level. Originally a guest room, Esme explains, it didn’t take much to transform it into the type of a room a teenage girl would love. In addition to the new cell phone, there’s a small desktop situated on a new-looking desk in the corner of the room, and there are pink and white twinkle lights cascading across where the walls and ceiling meet. The bedspread is also pink and white, and knowing that they’re Alice’s favorite colors, and that this room was hurriedly designed with her in mind, is enough to force Jasper’s throat to tighten up with emotion again.

The bed is low enough to make it easy for Alice to get in and out with minimal assistance, which means that Jasper has to bend down quite far to gently deposit Alice against the covers. Despite his care, she wakes up the instant his arms are back at his sides, sitting up with a gasp and then a wince, and when she cries out in pain both he and Esme are at her side.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Esme presses a firm hand between her shoulder blades, pressing forward until she’s sitting up straight. “There we go, good. Try not to bend sideways, that-a-girl.”

Gritting her teeth together Alice blinks up at the pair of them, visibly relaxing at the two people in front of her. “I need to pee,” she manages to rasp between pained gasps.

“I’ll go get her chair,” Esme says as she stands back up, swiftly exiting the room.

“Are you alright?”

Alice nods quickly, despite the pain apparent on her face. “Just hurts,” she wheezes as she closes her eyes. Reaching out she grabs for his hand, which Jasper is all-too-happy to give to her. Squeezing it tightly she manages a weak smile. “Thanks.”

“You’ll be alright,” Jasper sighs. And he means those words so wholeheartedly that it makes him emotional. Her injuries would heal, both physical as well as mental. It was so clear, in just the way that the Cullens had quickly outfitted their home to take in the two girls, that they would be safe here, and loved, and cared for.

Everything they hadn’t been afforded before.

“Is it after ten?” She asks, her eyes looking for the clock on the nightstand behind her. But when she tries to twist to see it and winces, she laughs. “I keep forgetting I can’t do that.”

“It’s nearly ten; 9:48.”

“That means you have to go soon, then.”

He nods as Esme enters the room, wheeling her chair in and helping Alice scoot herself off of the bed and into it. “We’ll be right back,” the kind-hearted woman smiles up at him as she wheels Alice out of the room. “Carlisle will be home any minute now.”

True to her word, the sound of the front door opening and closing brings Jasper’s attention toward the hallway as he watches Carlisle Cullen move carefully through his home.

Upon sight of the teenager standing alone in Alice’s room he approaches with a smile. “Good to see you, Jasper,” and when the older man offers his hand, Jasper takes it firmly, realizing this is the first time he’s actually spoken to Edward’s father. “I heard you all had a fun night.”

“Yes, sir,” Jasper nods, “Dinner, some movies. My sister and I appreciate the hospitality.”

Carlisle smiles warmly. “And you’re both welcome any time. Friends of Edward’s, and of Alice’s, are always welcome here.”

Jasper is taken aback by how much he dislikes that particular statement. Thankfully, Esme and Alice return seconds later, but the idea that he is simply that—a friend to Alice, doesn’t sit right with him.

It’s a ridiculous reaction to have, of course. And he continues to think this even as he helps Carlisle move Alice out of her chair and into her bed. It isn’t until Alice releases her grip on his hand that he realizes the cause of his disdain for the title.

He isn’t friends with Alice Brandon. Not really.

He cares about this tiny girl far, far too much to use the word. And when she smiles up at him almost shyly when Carlisle kindly reminds the two that ten PM is as late as guests can stay, Jasper can’t help the heart palpitations he feels when she turns to the older man and promises she’ll let Jasper leave after she properly says goodnight.

Jasper can see the unamused look Carlisle gives his wife, but Esme is hiding her grin well as she grabs her husband’s hand and drags him from the room, even closing the door behind them both; a luxury that even Jasper’s lenient father never grants to him and Rosalie when they have guests over.

The alarm clock on the bedside table blinks a bright pink 9:57 at him, and he knows his time is nearly up.

Alice reaches over and takes his hand in hers, tugging slightly until he’s sitting on the bed beside her. Carlisle already propped her up on the pillows and blankets she’ll be sleeping on until her collarbone heals, so Jasper has to nearly crawl across the bed until he’s sitting at her side. And even though most of her injuries are now hidden from him with a blanket tossed over her, he knows they’re there. That her bones are broken and her injuries are still too extensive to even properly see all of them. That the state of her body is far worse than it was that night she came to him, lip and cheek bleeding as she quietly sobbed on the floor of his bedroom.

“I have so much I want to say to you,” Alice eventually speaks, her eyes staring at his hand as she grips it tightly. “But I know I don’t have a lot of time, so I think ‘thank you’ is good enough for tonight.” She stares intently down at his hand as she speaks, and Jasper is so hypnotized by the way her eyebrows furrow and her lips pucker when she frowns that he has to force himself to focus on her words. “If you hadn’t found Cynthia that day, and if you didn’t do what you did, I would be lying in a pool of blood in the basement of that house, dead right now.”

The sorrow that fills him, upon hearing those words from her mouth, is something Jasper can’t even begin to properly sort through. So when Alice continues talking, he files that feeling away, knowing he’ll need to process it eventually, but that right now, Alice and her words are what is important.

“I owe you a lot; not just my life. But explanations. And stories and,” Alice swallows and forces herself to look back up at him, “and I owe you. All the answers I have to give.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he needs to emphasize that before she makes up her mind. “You will never owe me a single thing, Alice.”

“Well, what if I want to volunteer the information? What if I want to tell you every little thing I couldn’t before? Every detail that was dangerous before?”

He stares back into her eyes, realizing for the first time that they’re a deep, dark blue color. “I’ll listen to any little thing you want to tell me, Alice,” he promises as he holds her gaze.

Alice releases his hand then, lifting her hand to his cheek, brushing her thumb against his skin as the palm of her cast presses against his face. “What if I tell you to kiss me?” She whispers, her gaze flickering between his eyes and his lips as she attempts to lean up.

“Are you sure?” He feels himself leaning down before he can even gather her reply, and the second she has enough of a grip on the back of his neck she’s pulling him down toward her.

“Please kiss me,” she whispers against his lips, and when he finally obliges her, she sighs against his mouth. It’s the most beautiful sound Jasper has ever heard.

The kiss is sweet, gentle, and far-too-short, as a sharp knock on the door forces him to draw back quickly, turning at the sound of Carlisle on the other side of the door, reminding them that it was after ten now.

Alice laughs when she hears Esme scold her husband, and then the two voices are far away when Jasper turns back down to look at her. “Oops,” is all he can think to say.

Alice’s laughter fills the room as she reaches up again. And when Jasper kisses her once more before pulling away, Alice sighs against his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

He presses a kiss to the tip of her nose before nodding. “Tomorrow.”

“If visitors are allowed as late as ten o’clock,” Alice muses softly as Jasper crawls out of the bed. “I wonder how early they’re allowed…”

Jasper laughs, walking over to the side of the bed Alice is on before leaning down, capturing her lips in one final kiss. “I’ll ask on the way out.” And when Alice pulls him closer, deepening the kiss, Jasper scoffs at his own train of thought.

He and Alice Brandon definitely weren’t ‘friends’.

And that was more than enough for Jasper.

#jalicesecretsanta20 #twilight fanfiction #Jalice fanfiction #I LOVE THIS SO MUCH ANNA I HOPE YOU LOVE IT TOO!!!!!#twilight saga #its a drama-filled high school human AU so please forgive me for the whump and the sands #SADS*

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