#it's getting closer to the day i can finally deliver on the sequel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

calumfmu · 2 months

Note

PLEASEEEE can we get a sequel to steddie fighting over reader ?? maybe they get together to confront reader and realise they could have a lot more fun if they work together ;))

I've been working on it babe and here it is !! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I had fun writing it. I love this dynamic I have going on, and I hope to continue it. So send me some requests regarding these three, and I'll deliver <3 (also Jesus Christ it’s a long one: 4.2k+ words) Steddie x reader who is playing them both (part two to this) cw: smut, smut, smut, threesome, swearing, 18+, mdni, angst, eating out reader, mentions of Steddie relationship? situationship? idk man, blowjob, unprotected sex, eiffel tower (let’s gooo), fingering, facial, creampie,

The last few weeks have been hell for you. Or heaven, if you could call it that. Both boys yearning for your attention, spending as much time as they could in your presence, one dropping you off only to be picked up an hour later by the other. Constant touches and moments shared in a secret rendezvous between the two of them. The interchanged teenage boy libido was wearing you out day by day, nothing like you had experienced before.

Steve lay beside you, panting as his chest was exposed to the night air, chest hair wet with sweat that dripped down the muscle. He passed his discarded shirt to you for you to wipe down the evidence of the events that just occurred. You were stretched out across the scrappy picnic blanket that lay in the dirt, lake water trickling behind you.

"So, I was thinking..." He began, pulling his shirt over his head. You eyed it, not recognizing the pattern printed on the front. It did look familiar, but nothing of the sort that seemed to be in the boys closet.

"Oh God." You teased, eyes widening at his words. He lightly slapped your arm, rolling his eyes at your comment before buttoning up his jeans.

"Seriously, I was thinking maybe we could, uhh... spend the night together?" He cleared his throat as you got dressed, speeding up your movements as you searched the lake bank for anyone who might pass by. It was uncommon this time of night, but something you should be wary of as Lover's Lake seemed to be a damn near tourist destination these days.

You shot him a look, crinkling your brow. "Tonight?"

He nodded, "Yeah... we finally got that Molly Ringwald movie you wanted to see. I snagged it before we could shelf it, but it's gotta be returned before Keith notices."

You pursed your lips together, toying with the hem of your sock as you refused to meet his eyes. He continued his words, flipping over his stomach to lean closer to you.

"I was thinking me, you, the movie. I could make you my world-famous dish that I've only made for... myself, but hey... I could use a critic. Then in the morning, we could take a trip out of town to--"

"Steve," you gently said, touching his arm as you finally met his eyes. His expression immediately soured, eyes darting away from you. "I can't tonight. Maybe t--"

"Tomorrow? Next week even? " He rushed, irritation filling his words as he sat up suddenly. He began gathering the items that lay around you, tossing your shoe in your general direction.

You were shocked, faltering in your movements as you took him in. This wasn't what you were used to, this wasn't the Steve that had stolen your heart in the past few months.

"Woah, what's up?"

Your voice was shaky as he pulled you to your feet, balling up the blanket that you once lied on. He threw it into his trunk, not bothering to shake the dirt off of it. His once pristine trunk was littered with brown, speckles of Earth settling into the carpeted crevice. Your shoe was half way on, heel sticking out as he rounded the side of the vehicle to the driver's seat.

"What's up?" He repeated to you, venom dripping out of his words. The car clicked as he unlocked it, you sliding into the passenger as he began to start it up. His movements were so fast you could barely keep up with them. "You seriously want to know what's up?"

He fumbled with the keys in the ignition, turning the key over and over before you placed a hand on his wrist, halting the repetition.

"Steve."

His chest immediately fell with a deep exhale, his fingers loosening before he turned his head to you. His brown eyes met yours, wide and filled with an emotion you couldn't quite touch on.

"Steve." His name on your mouth felt like a plea for help, wondering what happened to the Harrington boy that you were so used to.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, bringing his hands to his face as his head fell against the head rest. He ran them through his hair. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"I just..." Chewing at your bottom lip, you didn't know how to start your next words. "I have plans with Eddie..."

His eyes rolled shut, hands falling to his side before he opened them to look at you. Silence filled the air accompanied by the nervous tap of your foot against the floor of the car.

"Yeah, I know." His whisper felt like a bullet, punching you through your chest, bleeding into your veins.

"You know?"

He laughed, a bitter sound making your skin crawl. "How could I not?"

"I'm sorry, I—"

"It's fine," he ended his words with your name, a sound you normally would love to hear coming from his mouth. In this moment, it sounded like a curse. "I—I just knew. Just like Robin said, you're terrible at it. Playing dumb."

Your mouth sputtered open, losing all words that could even begin to make an excuse.

"You go to his house when you're done over here. Days with me. Nights with him. I know the whole thing," he continued, counting on his fingers with every point he made. You nodded, agreeing with him as it was the only thing you could do in that moment.

"Are—are you mad at me?"

You felt like a little girl at this moment, getting chastised by your father even if the comparison was inappropriate. The only answer you got was Steve starting his car, putting it in reverse as he made his way to your house to drop you off.

The two of you sat in silence for the ride, your heart hanging heavy as he drove, Steve filled with an emotion you couldn't quite pinpoint—anger? Rage? Disdain? You weren't sure, whatever it was, he kept it to himself.

He pulled up to your place, lips pressed together as a goodbye as you turned to look at him before getting out. The door sat open, your leg half way out as you started him down, his gaze focused on the way his fingers gripped the steering wheel.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then?" You tried, smiling hopefully in his direction. He nodded, not yet meeting your eyes.

"Yeah, see you at 10."

Your face dropped, the mention of your shared shift starting having all hopes crushed. You were hoping he had mentioned something other than the start of the shift, that he was going to talk about taking you out, but you knew that ship had sailed. Whatever you had going on between the two of you—it was ruined.

Your exit was silent as you fled, shutting the door softly behind you before making it up your walk way. Tears stung at your eyes as you fought the emotion. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Your distraction was found in the sheets of Eddie's bed, the older man on top of you, half dressed as he kissed you. Steve lingered in the back of your mind, not dared spoken to him as you didn't want a repeat of the scenario that had occurred.

Eddie's kisses were soft, different than he normally did. He normally was fast, rough, strict black compared to Steve's white. Shaking your head, you placed a hand at the back of his head, pulling him further into you. He moaned into the touch, rutting his hips into yours as his hand pulled at the bra strap at your shoulder.

"Needy babe," he whispered to you in between kisses, pulling away to place his mouth under your ear. Your head crooked to the side, arching into him as the heat of his body overwhelmed any rational thought.

"Eddie—" You began, moaning at his touch. His fingers lowered the strap, dancing into the cup of your bra to grasp at your boob. Goosebumps chilled your body, prickling at the surface of your skin. "I need you."

"You need me, baby?"

The rasp in his voice had you falling apart under his touch, head pressed back into the mattress as bliss flooded your brain.

"I need you."

He hummed in response, trailing his mouth down the expanse of your neck. As his lips found your collarbones, you spread your legs even wider, your hands running down his sides. His tattooed skin felt like silk underneath your grasp, warmth shared in the touch.

"Is this okay?" You looked down to see him pressing kisses to your stomach, trailing lower and lower as gasps fled your mouth. His hands found the hem of your panties, pulling them down slightly as he buried his head between your thighs. The touch of his tongue on you had you gasping for more, fingers tangled in the sheets as he started his touches of pleasure.

He started out fast, tongue toying at your clit as your underwear was pulled down, still resting at your thighs, not yet free. Heat pooled between your legs, wetness dripping out of you. You loved the way he touched you, the way he kissed you.

"Fuck, Eddie—"

He hummed against you, tongue dipping into your hole as he pulled your underwear down further to gain access. Your legs were a bit more free of restriction, thighs pulling at the stretch of fabric.

"I need-" You began, shouting out at the brush of his thumb against your heat. He began to massage you, small circles rubbed against you.

"Need me more than Stevie?"

Your heart lurched at the name, not quite sure if you heard it correctly. Placing a hand at his head, you pushed him off of you, sitting up at your elbows to look at him. He was smug as the cold air hit you, your legs closing at the exposure.

"Wh-what did you say?"

A smirk played on his mouth, his fingers returning to your hips as he pulled you down the mattress closer to him. He leaned into his previous perch, pressing a kiss to your pubic bone. You didn't react, brows furrowed as you stared him down. He shushed you, returning his mouth to your wet cunt as he continued his pleasure to you. Your head fell against the mattress, eyes fluttering shut once again.

As his tongue worked you, his comment lingered, questions filling your senses. Did he say what he did? Or was your mind playing tricks, still caught up on the interaction earlier? A whine escaped you as a finger slipped partly inside of you, digit stretching you open with his tongue.

"Bet little Steve could never have you like this."

You heard it clear this time, your hands pushing him completely off of you before you sat upright, clawing at your underwear to be pulled up your hips.

"What the fuck was that, Eddie?"

It was your turn to be mad, the venom that lingered in Steve's words transferring to your own. Eddie's smug look only angered you more, features serious as his own were teasing.

"Just stating the obvious," he shrugged, leaning on one hand as the other reached down to adjust himself in his boxers. You briefly followed the movement, noticing how hard he was in his pants.

"What are you trying to get at?" You spat at him, already throwing on your clothes. Eddie watched you, eyebrows raised as you rushed it. You pushed off of the bed, searching for your shoe as the mess of his room was suddenly hitting you. "How do you live like this? It's so fucking messy in here."

He remained silent as you scrambled, flipping things over as you searched. That stupid smirk was ever present on his face, top teeth dug into his bottom lip.

"I don't know what you're talking about, and it shouldn't matter. Even if it is better," you continued, hopping on one foot as you located your sock. You struggled slipping it on, bra strap hanging off your shoulder, peeking out of your top. "In some ways, but not all, he is really good at that one thin—not like it matters. And not like I would even know."

He hummed in response, eyebrows raised as you knew he didn't believe a single thing you were saying. He found humour in the situation. It made you more mad.

"Anyways—I don't want to talk about Steve. I don't want to talk about it with you," you stomped your socked foot, height unbalanced as the platform of your one Mary-Jane stood in the carpet.

"Right," he nodded sarcastically, still seated on the bed as you made your fit. "Under the desk."

You crossed your arms over your chest, continuing your point, "I'm with you right now, it shouldn't matt—What?"

His finger pointed across his room, your eyes following it as you located your other shoe, sitting there on its side, under the small desk covered in figurines, music sheets. Grumbling, you crossed the room before slipping it on.

His laugh echoed through the room as you turned to face him again, pout on your lips. You hated when he was right.

"So... should I take you home now or do you want to continue your little temper tantrum?"

Your mouth dropped open at his words, leaning over at the waist towards him as he seemed so fucking smug. His laughter only deepened, his head shaking at your dramatization.

"I'm walking home."

He shook his head, standing off the bed as he grabbed his discarded jeans. The black denim slid over his legs as he hopped slightly, buttoning them up while staring you down.

"I'm taking you home, sweetheart, it's like midnight."

"No. I'm walking."

You stood firm, turning to throw open the door. You began to storm through the trailer, stomps shaking the pictures that stood on the walls. Wayne sat in the living area, cold beer in one hand, TV remote in the other. His eyes met the scene that entered, you storming through, arms crossed in front of you with Eddie high on your heels, van keys in hand.

"Babe—"

You swiveled around, halting both of your movements as you leaned closer to him.

"I. Am. Walking."

Wayne looked between the two of you, snorting under his breath as he watched his nephew stand in his place, you crossing the floor to the front door. Eddie didn't know what to do, mouth dropped open as you gave him the first bit of attitude he thought you had ever given. You pulled the door open, cold air breezing in. Turning to the middle aged man, you nodded your head in a greeting.

"Goodnight, Wayne," you smiled at him before turning to a scowl, head tilting in Eddie's direction. "Eddie."

The door swung shut behind you as you descended the small flight of steps. The trailer nearly shook as the metal made contact with the frame, loud into the night air.

Eddie stood there, gobsmacked as his keys dangled from his fingers. Wayne had his focused back on the television, some fishing show playing on the static of the box.

"Nice one, son." He muttered, shaking his head as he took a swig of the beer. "What'd you do now?"

"Uncle Wayne, please—"

Eddie's hands shook in the air before turning on his heel, returning to his room with a slam of his own door. Wayne shook his head again, snorting again as he looked at the front door and then to his nephews.

"Teenagers."

A dark hoodie was pulled over you head, black sunglasses sitting on your face as you leaned over the counter, sat in a chair Robin had pulled out for you. You weren't supposed to be in that day, disguise on you as you were wary to see sight of either boy.

"You look the exact same," Robin muttered, leaning on her elbow, one hand running across the cracked counter of the video store.

"Robin, shut up," you replied, ducking your head even further. Steve was nowhere to be seen, his shift not yet started. She laughed at you, shooting a look to a group of middle schoolers who were daring each other to sneak past the 'Adults Only' curtain.

"You look like you, but in disguise," she laughed, shaking her head at you as you looked around the store.

"That's the whole point, dingus."

"How long are you planning on avoiding the two of them again?"

You rolled your eyes behind the shades, pulling the hoodie further down over your head.

"Until they both forget I exist."

"Yeah, doubt that's going to happen. Steve hasn't stopped talking about you since the last time you saw him, and I see Eddie's van lingering in the parking lot, like a stalker," she said, sighing as she watched your paranoia. "You know, if they ever make a movie or something about the Richard Ramirez guy down in California, Eddie could definitely play him. Maybe he should get into acting!"

You gave her a deadpan look, mouth pressed into a thin line.

"You're losing the point, Robs."

She shrugged, sitting up as her hands found the counter. Her chipped black nails stretched in front of you, tapping patterns into the wood.

"I'm just saying, they're not going to forget about you or what happened two weeks ago."

"But I can try, no?"

The preteens who were terrorizing the store ran around, knocking over displays as they pretended to shoot at each other with finger guns. Robin shouted at them, fingers snapping in their direction.

"No, you cannot," her finger pointed at you, emphasizing her point. "You had to know this was bound to happen."

Groaning, you shrunk into your seat, hands at your head. "I know, but not like this."

"Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to say here," she said, grimacing a fake-smile (could you call it that?) at an older gentleman who came up, glasses huge against his oily face. He pushed his way to the counter, a little too close and personal to the two of you.

You both leaned out of his space, look bleak as he proceeded to ask about a movie.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Robin answered, typing into the computer as he supplied details of it. She searched the stores inventory, typing and retyping star names as he gave the wrong ones. "A stranger? Calling? 1979, really?"

He nodded in response, insistent on the description. You watched the interaction unfold, eyes darting between the pair.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, clearing his throat. The hacking of his throat had the two of you leaning further out of his reach. "1979, with that Carol Kane chick."

"Chick?" She muttered under breath, eyebrows flitting at the word. You laughed at her, her reaction being one of the reasons why you loved her so much. She typed some more, pausing as a title finally appeared on the screen. "I think I got it."

The slow computer loaded, pixel by pixel as details emerged. She leaned in closer, reading the details aloud.

"Ahh, When a Stranger Calls," she nodded, typing more information to search for its location in the store. Your eyebrows raised slightly, realization dawning on you. Your head suddenly felt more clear. "Girl gets calls from a stranger, finds out it isn't a prank, that whole slasher thing."

You stood up out of the chair, the furniture tilting back to slam onto the floor. Both Robin and the older man jumped at the loud noise, eyeing you as you pointed towards your best friend.

"That's it!"

The man grumbled, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I think I was being helped first."

You waved your hand in his direction, focused on Robin who started at you, wide eyed. "I'm going to call them! Explain that I was serious about them both, but couldn't decide and break it off tonight! With them both!"

Robin squinted her eyes at your exclamation, not following.

"I think you missed the point," she said, annoyed look on her face.

"No, that's it!" You cheered, smile wide as you took the glasses off of your face. "Thank you, Robs. Oh my God, I owe you."

You turned to run out the store, giddy with emotion as Robin stood behind you, confused as always when it came to you. A bleak 'you're welcome?' followed you out there as you ran into the street. Your plan for later was much clearer now, anxious emotions fleeing as you made your way towards home.

You chewed on your fingernail, tapping your foot against your kitchen linoleum, glass of wine in your other hand. They were supposed to be here any moment, the two of them supposed to be arriving separately, hours in between so things could go smoothly. You were expecting them to tear each other apart, fight to the death or something of the sort right in your driveway. Hours before, two separate phone calls had orchestrated, different time slots reserved for the heartbreaking conversations that were to take place.

The calls had gone smoothly, only for you to spiral hours later, red wine being your only escape into a less anxious state of mind. You expected it to be okay, the in-person talk, yet could only think of the worst case scenario at hand.

The shrill ringing of the doorbell pulled you out of your thoughts, your heart racing with every step you took towards the front door. You took a deep breath before opening it, Steve and Eddie both standing there to your surprise.

Your mouth dropped open, eyes wide as you looked between them two. Beginning to close the door, Eddie's hand shot out, stopping the movement.

"Hey, sweetheart," he beamed, tilting his head to the side. Steve gave him a look, eye roll in place at the nickname.

"Sweetheart?" Steve grumbled, hands resting on his hips.

"What—how did—why are you guys here?" You muttered, stepping aside as the two of them walked in. You remained frozen, eyes staring outside, where they once stood as they began to make themselves comfortable In your home.

Steve cleared his throat, pulling you from your trance. Reluctantly, you shut the door, turning to them as you gripped the wine glass in your hand.

Eddie stood, leaned against one of the walls in the foyer, Steve dead center in the small room.

"You invited us over, remember?" Eddie supplied, smile on his lips. Your eyes widened, darting back and forth between the duo. You shook your head rapidly, walking past them to the living room as they began to follow you.

You turned to them, a large swig being taken from the glass. "No! No! I invited you-" You pointed towards Eddie, "-over. And then him."

"Looks like you got two for the price of one," Eddie's stupid smug look had you faint, breath shallow as you moved to sit down, the Earth feeling shaky beneath you. He moved to sit beside you, legs splayed wide as he spread himself on the couch. Steve remained in place, arms crossed over his chest as he took in the sight.

"No, that's not—It wasn't su-"

"Supposed to be like this?" Steve spoke, his voice filling the air, drawing you from your thoughts. You looked at him, moving to take another drink from the glass, only to find it empty. He watched your hands, gripping the glass until your skin turned paler than your normal complexion.

Eddie leaned in your direction, hand coming out to rest at your thigh. You and Steve’s eyes followed the motion, time standing still.

“So, what did you want to speak with us about sweetheart?” The emphasis on their pairing echoed in the spacious living area, his vowels drawing out with an exaggeration that had your heart sinking.

“I just wanted to…” you cleared your throat, leaning to place the empty wine glass on the coffee table. “I was going to tell you that this isn’t working anymore.”

Steve’s eyebrows raised from his side of the coffee fable, he let out a low whistle at the words.

“Working with who?”

“Both. Both of you.” The two men nodded at your words, staring you down as you formulated your next words.

“You can’t keep up with the both of us?” Eddie asked, thumb beginning to rub small circles on your knee. Subconsciously, your knee began to pull closer to his, a familiar feeling settling in the pit of your stomach.

“You want me to choose one of you, and I can’t do that,” you sighed, placing your hand over his. He grinned at the touch, leaning into you even closer. Steve shifted nervously, watching the two of you. Even from here, you felt guilty, you making contact with the older man felt like you were choosing.

“You don’t have to do that,” Steve spoke up, moving to sit on the other side of you. You felt caged in.

A deep sigh left you, nerves returning as your sides began to warm up, the heat from their bodies entering you in the close proximity.

“I-I do, and it’s not fair.”

Your voice remained small as you removed your hand from him, clasping them in your lap. Leaning your back against the couch cushion, you found comfort in the ceiling, eyes searching the white paint.

“You’re right. It’s not fair,” Steve said, placing his own hand on your thigh.

It rested higher than Eddie’s, his own eyes acknowledging that and taking it as competition. His fingers left your knee, drifting up until it rested where your hip bone was. A shuttered gasp left your mouth, legs twitching under the contact. He leaned into you, mouth brushing the cusp of your ear, lips softly brushing the skin.

“You don’t have to choose just one,” he whispered, your eyes widening at the tone in his voice. “You could have us both.”

You shot up, shaking their hands off of you as you rose from the couch. Steve rose his hands in defense, while Eddie remained still, leaning on the couch cushion in the same position he was speaking to you. Looking in between them both, you were ready for them both to start laughing, pointing fingers at you, hell, even Robin coming out of somewhere and joining in on the joke.

“That’s not funny, Eddie.”

He shrugged, corners of his mouth downturning as you stared him down. The look on his face was still in good humour, glimmer behind his eyes.

“I’m not kidding. Stevie here was the one who suggested it.”

Your eyes cut to the him, disbelief in every inch of your body. He had been the most territorial of this entire ordeal, making lewd comments about Eddie that made you assume he couldn’t stand him, let alone even suggest this.

“Steve?” The shake behind your voice had him reaching up to you, placing a hand on your hip. You stepped away from it, eyes slightly dropping when he looked disappointed.

“You weren’t going to choose,” his voice seemed hesitant. “I wasn’t going to make you. And if you like Eddie… as much as you like me, I figured it would work.”

Eddie snorted, grabbing your hand to pull him into you despite your protest. You fell into his lap, snug against his hips with your legs in Steve’s direction.

“I think you mean as much as she likes me, pretty boy,” he blew a kiss in the younger’s direction, winking to follow. Steve rolled his eyes, shaking his head at the gesture. You lingered on his face, noticing how his cheeks reddened ever so slightly. Eddie’s hand found your cheek, cupping it as he brought your gaze to him.

Inches away from his face, your noses brushed each other, your breath getting caught in the back of your throat. Slowly, your mouths met, lips parted as his fit perfectly in between. His tongue ran over your bottom lip, a small nip given to you. You felt a hand run across your calf, pulling away from Eddie to see Steve, eyes running over the sight of your legs, palms spreading over your skin.

Eddie pulled you into a kiss again, your eyes unmoving from Steve as he leaned over to place a few kisses at the bend of your knee. You gasped into his mouth, spreading your legs as Steve began to spread his love across your skin.

“Wait, I—” all hands left your skin, leaving you feeling naked. The two of them waited for your next move, eyes blinking in anticipation. “Steve, you’re okay with this?”

He slowly nodded, seemingly thinking over the answer. He opened his mouth to speak, words getting caught in your throat.

“I—yeah, I am. I mean, uhh, I’d do anything for you,” his voice was sincere, quiet into the room as Eddie began pressing his mouth to your neck. You craned your neck, eyes fluttering shut at the press of his mouth.

“And Eddie?” Your voice strained, moan intertwined with it.

He nodded vehemently, teeth scraping against your jugular. He mumbled against you, “Fuck yes. The two of you are, like, insanely hot.”

Steve blushed at his words, dipping his chin as he leaned over you, kissing you the length of your legs until he reached your hipbones. You were stretched across Eddie’s lap, his hands running madly over your torso. With your eyes closed, you felt absolute bliss, mouths pressed against you, hands running wild, soft moans filling in the air in which you could barely decipher who they were coming from.

Steve’s fingers reached for your waistline, moving to bring down your shorts, only to be stopped by your fingers at his wrist. His eyes looked up at you, mouth parted open in surprise.

“There’s no way we’re doing this on the couch,” you said, standing up and pulling the two of them with you. “My parents are gonna kill me.”

They followed close behind you, trailing up the stairs as you lead them to your room. As your bedroom door swung open, you barely had time to walk in the room before Eddie was lifting you up, pushing you down on the bed before crawling over you. He was pulling off both of your clothes in a rush, throwing them all around the room in between getting his mouth anywhere he could touch.

“I think they might kill you for a couple of different reasons, sweetheart,” he gestured towards himself and Steve, swallowing the laugh that escaped you with his lips.

The bed dipped as Steve settled down next to you, kneeling from where you two were tangled amidst each other. Reaching for Steve’s shirt, you paused, realizing where this familiar graphic had came from.

“You’re wearing Eddie’s shirt,” you deadpanned, arching your back as Eddie kissed down your body, pulling your underwear down with his downward trail. The cold air hit your skin, wetness pooled between your thighs.

Steve’s cheeks reddened again, a nod coming before he crossed his arms at his chest, pulling it over his head.

“We had to, uhh, test things out earlier,” he quickly said, leaning down to kiss you. His mouth on yours for the first time that evening felt like heaven, a piece you didn’t realize was missing.

You slapped at his chest, mouth dropping.

“You’ve been playing me this entire time!”

Eddie’s tongue found you, circling your clit lightly before he delved in, mouth firmly planted at the nub. A curse fell from your mouth, hands shooting down to tug at his hair. Your head fell back against the duvet cover, Steve’s hand running through your hair as you tried to find your breathing.

It was sloppy, his tongue working you as loud noises filled the room. He ate you like he was starved, lapping up your wetness, diving his tongue into you, kissing the junction of where your thighs met. He looked up at you, hair falling into his eyes as he flicked his tongue, drawing pleasure from the sensitive nub.

“We had to beat you at your own game,” Steve whispered, pulling down his boxers until he sprung out, cock dripping. Your mouth fell open at the sight, tongue running over you bottom lip. He began to run a hand over it, fingers trailing from his wet head to his shaft, spreading a layer of the precum everywhere.

Leaning up on an elbow, you reached for him, wrapping your fingers around him before pressing your lips to the head. He groaned, fingers tangling in your hair as he guided you down on him, your mouth stretching wide the lower you swallowed him.

“Fuck, baby, you feel so good,” he groaned, hips making small thrusts as you sucked at him, cheeks hollowing.

Drool began to pool at the corner of your mouth, small groans caught in your throat as Eddie continued to tongue fuck you, his fingers running lightly over you clit. Your hips squirmed, trying to get more of him on you.

You pulled off of Steve, working him with your fist as you looked down at him.

“Need more, Eds.”

He nodded, smirking around you as he slipped in two fingers, pushing them to the knuckle, a curl in them. Your head tilted back a little bit, eyes briefly shutting at the pleasure that found you. A whine fell from you, your body tensing as he crooked his fingers, moving fast as squelching sounds began to fill the air.

Steve’s hand in your hair tightened, pulling you closer to him as your grip on him loosened.

“Okay, time to focus, baby,” he whispered, hand tight in your hair, the other placed on your chin, pulling you mouth open before you wrapped your lips around him. It was hard to even think straight, the feeling of his heavy cock on your tongue, Eddie’s tongue and fingers against you clouding every bit of judgement you had.

Your other hand rose to cup Steve’s balls, rolling them behind your fingers as he pushed you down to deep throat him. You couldn’t even be mad, used to the roughness he gave you, him often seeking his own high as fast as possible, he knew you loved feeling used in moments like this. Choking around him, you swirled your tongue on the underside of his dick, moaning at the pulse it gave you.

Eddie’s fingers gave you one last curl, that final push to your sweet spot that had your legs pulled up, squeezing around his head as you came, whining around Steve. He didn’t stop, fingering you through it, lapping at you as you shook below him, back arching off the bed as you squeezed your eyes shut. As you came down, the overstimulation hit you, aching between your legs as you pushed him off of you.

A laugh was heard as he crawled up to where you were sucking at Steve, body turned now to face him completely. Eddie’s ringed hand came up to lace with Steve’s, strands of your hair getting caught between your fingers.

“Aw, look at you, sweetheart.”

Eddie’s voice was rough, crouched down on the bed inches away from where your mouth met Steve.

He held eye contact with you, your hooded eyes watering at the way the head of his cock hit the back of your throat. His tongue traced over his lips as he stared down at your mouth working the younger man.

“Need more?” He asked you in a whisper, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You nodded, pulling off of Steve to catch your breath. He whined at the loss of contact, cock so swollen now you were sure that it hurt.

Eddie patted your hip, bringing you to your knees. You kneeled on all fours, ass sticking up as Eddie began to move towards you. Steve’s hand shot out, gripping his shoulder.

“No fucking way, Munson,” he hissed, squeezing the base of his cock. Eddie rolled his eyes at him, pushing at his shoulder as Steve scrambled to get behind you instead. He stumbled over his boxers still pushed to the bottom of his thighs as he kicked them off, finally rising to his knees behind you.

“Come on, big boy,” you giggled, mocking Eddie’s nickname, wiggling your hips in his direction.

A hand placed at the base of your spine pushing you down as he ran a hand over his dick a few times, eyes rolling at you.

“Shut up,” he exhaled, pushing into you slowly as you stretched around him. The slow push inside had the two of you groaning, your fingers clawing at the sheets, you found Eddie’s hip, gripping at it tightly.

Eddie rose to his knees, bringing your body up with him.

“Ready?” He asked you, nodding along with you before he guided his cock into your mouth. He moved slowly, your head bobbing along him as you rocked from the thrusts that Steve gave you.

Being filled from both ends had you blinded in pleasure, eyes rolled back to your head as the two men began to use you. It started slow, the combined movements of their hips in sync. Your body felt limp, jolting with their movement, mouth wide, stretched full.

Steve found his rhythm, taking charge as he began to pound into you, hands on your hips, pulling you back into him. The harshness of it had you choking on Eddie, gagging around him, cock thick and dripping into the back of your throat. Loud slaps filled the air, Steve’s grunts accompanying the noise.

“You look so perfect, princess.”

You looked up at Eddie, tears prickling in your eyes. That white hot familiar heat bubbled within you, already at your breaking point. The two men were no match for you, you were turned on beyond belief.

“Fuck, look how good you’re taking him.”

Steve’s words this time, his voice low and raspy—mind in a different headspace. He was relentless, driving into you so fast, you were running from it, arching your hips down as the head of his dick began to press onto your cervix.

“Come here,” he grunted, driving your hips back onto him. You were pulled off of Eddie, a cry of pleasure and pain, you weren’t quite sure which one yet leaving you.

“Ca-can’t. ‘S too much.”

Your head shook, eyes squeezed shut as you pushed your hips back against him anyways. Eddie’s fingers found your chin again, pulling your head in his direction.

“Baby,” he whispered, you shaking your head as Steve fucked you, speeding up as he began to near his high. Your legs shook with pleasure, wetness dripping from you at this point.

“Look at him,” Steve grunted, pressing deep as he drove into you.

Your eyes shot open, squinting up at Eddie, his hair sticking to his neck and shoulders as the air became more dense. He guided you back onto him, keeping your mouth only at his tip as he jerked the rest of his length. His chest began to rise and fall rapidly, his tell tale sign of his own release.

“Oh, fuck.”

Steve’s whisper under his breath had his hips stilling, spilling into you with his hot, sticky release. He thrusted a few more times, pushing his cum deeper, some of it spilling out the sides of his cock. Pulling out of you, he leaned down, licking at your hole, stretched from his brutal force earlier.

It only took a few licks from him, licking at his own release, to have you screaming again, legs shaking as your own orgasm coursed through your body. It was the best one you think you’d ever experienced, mind going fuzzy, abdomen tensing, rolling waves of euphoria through your spine.

“Fuck, Steve—” Eddie groaned, jerking himself faster before pulling himself out of your mouth. “Are you— ah, fuck.”

His sentence cut off, cum spurting from his dick all over your face, the angle having it drip down your cheeks, lips, and all over your chin. It felt warm against you as you came down from your high, eyes fluttering shut and your tongue sticking out to catch the rest of it. Eddie groaned even more, pushing the head of his cock onto the flat of your mouth, smearing his release all over it.

You swallowed it, smiling up at the way he stared down out you, that dark look in his eyes. Steve collapsed next to the two of you, laying on his back as he rubbed a hand over his chest.

“You guys are so hot,” he mumbled to himself, not meaning to be heard. The two of you laughed at his words, Eddie leaning over to grab his shirt to wipe off your face.

He was gentle with the touch, wiping down your face with the material as he looked lovingly at you. The interaction was comical, the adoration he gave you while wiping his literal cum off of you.

The three of you settled in, Steve on his back, you laying across him, cheek on his sternum as Eddie laid on top of you, his own head on your hip.

“Did you guys really know I was talking to you both at the same time?” You asked, voice small. Eddie snorted, shaking his head before Steve reached out and slapped him. He shushed him, cutting him a look. They seemed to be in on some inside joke you weren’t apart of.

“Hey, I don’t like that you guys are keeping secrets now,” you whined, reaching down to rub at the top of Eddie’s head. He leaned into the touch, pressing a kiss to your hip.

“No, it was, uhh, Robin,” Steve confessed, rushing out his words in one breath. Your eyes widened, looking at him in shock. Eddie stifled a laugh, coughing to cover his tracks.

“I’m going to kill her,” you said. You shouldn’t have been surprised that she said something after, you knew your best friend to start shit, always lurking in quiet corners.

Covering your face with your hands, you let out a groan. You felt Steve’s body shake with laughter, his own hands coming up to pull your hands away.

“Shh, it’s fine,” he joked, rubbing circles into your hair. You shook your head, a deep sigh coursing through you.

“I mean, look where we are now,” Eddie whispered, wrapping his arms around you as he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, settling into you as he began to search for sleep. You felt it creeping onto you, energy drained.

“I’m still confused on what this even is.” Steve hummed in agreement, his hands stilling on you as he closed his own eyes.

The three of you fell into a pattern of slow breaths, slight shifts that moved the other person’s body, yet still one together. These two around you were the missing pieces you figured you were missing your entire life, emptiness deep in the pit of your soul that you’d never figured would be missing. Being with them separately was one thing, but together it made sense.

“I’m sure we can figure it out, hon,” Eddie mumbled, pulling you closer to him. Steve moved with you, a tangle of limbs on top of each other that would soon be the normal.

a/n: this was supposed to come a lot faster than it did, so I’m sorry but here it is :) tags: @emma-munson @username199945

Masterlist. Inbox and requests are open!

#my writing #Steddie x reader #Steddie x you #Steve Harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #Eddie Munson x you #eddie munson x reader #Steddie smut #steve harrington smut #Eddie Munson smut #smut #requests

432 notes · View notes

tropes-and-tales · 2 years

Text

In It Together

Characters: Benny “Borracho” Magalon and F!Reader

WC: 11,307

Other Pieces: There’s a fluffy, unofficial sequel here.

CW: HEED THESE WARNINGS. DEAD DOVE AND SUCH. Contains controversial material: frank talk about abortion; dub-con (in the form of mutually drunken hook-ups); angst; smut (oral, f!receiving; PiV, protected). 18+ only. DO NOT READ IF ABORTION UPSETS YOU. IF YOU COME TO MY INBOX TO COMPLAIN, YOU WILL BE BLOCKED.

AN: This was a very specific request from a dear friend who I met on this hell site of a platform. You know who you are, bebe. 💕

It’s not a position Benny Magalon ever wanted to find himself in: sitting in a café across from you, getting less than ideal news.

You can barely look him in the eye when you say it. You look lower, your eyes fixed somewhere near his chin when you tell him that you’re pregnant.

It’s not ideal at all. Benny knows next to nothing about you—only your first name. It was a drunken hookup, two strangers meeting at a bar a little over a month ago. When you called him yesterday, he hadn’t recognized the number and had let it go straight to voicemail.

When he heard the message you left, he had wracked his brain to remember the details, though they were hazy and soaked in booze: flirting with you at the bar, challenging each other over shots. Getting a car together, getting handsy in the car. Taking you home to his apartment, recently vacated by his now-ex. He only remembers flashes after that—sordid little scenes—and then the awkward morning-after. He had given you his number with the idle thought the he had fun and you might call him, but you hadn’t…. until now.

Now, sober and in the cold light of day, he studies you closer. It wasn’t just the alcohol that night—you are cute, he thinks, even as nervous as you are. Your leg bounces rapid-fire under the table, making it shake, and he can see how tightly you grip your coffee mug.

He knows how it feels. The moment your words sink in, his stomach does a terrific flip, and he worries he might throw up. A million thoughts flood into his head: custody and child support and fuck, he’ll have to tell his family…

He got a one-night stand pregnant. It’s less than ideal.

“I have to ask,” he finally says after he turns the situation over in his head for a moment. “Are you sure it’s mine?”

You wince, then nod. “It’s yours. My ex and I broke up six months ago, and you were the first…” You trail off, and he can see how hard you swallow.

“Sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, it was a fair question.”

“It’s just…I know we were both…” He trails off too, loses his words. “I remember using protection.” That’s one of the flashes he has from that night—reaching into his nightstand, snagging a condom. He remembers it distinctly because he banged his elbow against the headboard, hit the nerve there, had a purpled bruise for days…

“I know. I don’t know what went wrong. I thought I should let you know, since the condom obviously failed. I wanted to let you know. I am getting an STD screening and you should too.”

He nods. He’s touched at your thoughtfulness. You could have never contacted him.

“I’m clean, but I’ll get a test too,” he murmurs.

“Well, I’m clean. I just didn’t know…we’re unknown to each other, really. You have no reason to trust me, so I thought it was best to reach out.” You shake your head as if you’re trying to clear your mind. “I’m sorry.” You drop your head and stare into your coffee cup, and Benny can see the unhappy frown on your face. When he looks closer, he can see that your eyes are slightly swollen, like you had cried before you came to meet him. He feels a wave of something for you. Pity. Sympathy. Something.

“Don’t apologize.” He reaches across the table, lays his hand palm up. He leaves it there, and after a moment, you put your own hand in his. He squeezes you gently, hopes it feels reassuring. It occurs to him that you must be a brave person, to handle this as you are. To have the courage to call him. To sit down with him and deliver this news.

“This is on both of us,” he adds. He squeezes your hand again, and that’s what finally makes you look him in the eyes. You raise your head and study him solemnly, then offer him a tremulous smile.

“Thank you, Ben.”

He releases your hand, and he swipes it against the side of his thigh. His hands are clammy with sweat, he realizes.

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

You drop your eyes again, and you take a deep breath. “I looked at it from every angle, and I just don’t see how I can keep it.” You glance at him, probably to see how your admission lands with him. Benny Magalon has a great poker face, and he only nods at you, encouraging you to continue.

“I mean, I live in a one-bedroom apartment I can barely afford. I have school loans. I just got my dream job two months ago….” You trail off again, and it sparks against Benny’s memory. He had been out that night on the rebound, only recently broken up from his long-time girlfriend. And you…yes, he remembers. You had been out celebrating a new job at the Jet Propulsion Lab. That had been his in with you, teasing you, pretending to argue that the moon landing had been faked.

“I want kids one day, I think,” you continue. “But I can’t make it work now, especially as a single mother.” You glance at him again, a guilty expression on your face. “I was raised by a single mom, Ben. I know how hard it is.”

He nods again. He knows his neutral face isn’t giving him away, but more than anything, he feels relief. A big wave of relief washing over him, calming his churning stomach.

He chooses his next words carefully. He doesn’t want to say a single thing wrong, pressure you one way or the other.

“I’m in this for whatever you choose. If you wanted to keep it, I’d step up however much you want. But if you don’t want to keep it, I support that too.”

“I’m one hundred percent sure.”

-----

The two of you part amicably, and Benny’s head spins with a thousand thoughts. A thousand feelings. He feels guilty at the situation he’s put you in, because his working theory—which proves out, once he gets home—is that the condoms he used were expired. A stupid fucking mistake. His ex had been on the pill, and he hadn’t thought to check the expiration date, and now you are pregnant and facing down your own guilt and angst.

He also feels that relief. He doesn’t know you at all, and you don’t know him. Maybe it could have worked, raising a kid with a stranger, coming up with some manageable co-parenting plan. Maybe it would have been hell, being chained to another person for eighteen years or more. He knows that he’s cynical from his recent breakup—three years gone, and if he couldn’t make that work, how could he launch himself straight into fatherhood with a one-night stand?

It’s not the last he’ll hear from you: you’ve promised to let him know when you make the appointment, and he’s promised to pay for the procedure.

You call him two days later, and it makes him chuckle, the polite way you speak when he answers his phone. The way you say your full name, as if he has multiple women he’s impregnated that he’s currently juggling.

“I have an appointment for next week,” you tell him. “But I have to choose if I want a medical abortion or a surgical.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Well, the medical is cheaper—”

He cuts you off. “Don’t worry about the cost. Pick whichever is better for you.”

There’s a long stretch of silence over the phone—so long that he pulls the phone away to look at the screen, thinking the call dropped. Then he hears it. Quiet sniffling.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asks.

Another sniffle, then a watery laugh. “Nothing. It’s just hormones, probably, but you’re being really nice about all of this. I didn’t think you would be.”

He chuckles at your admission. “Why’s that?”

“Well, not you specifically. Just…people in general, you know? People can be disappointing so much that when they aren’t, it’s…surprising.”

Benny knows exactly what you mean. He sees how disappointing people are all the time. In his job, in his personal life. People let you down. It gives him the barest bit of satisfaction that he’s not completely disappointing, at least in this situation.

*****

The plan had been for a friend to drive you to your appointment, but the ride falls through at the last minute. Because you’ve opted for the surgical option, you aren’t allowed to drive yourself….

You grit your teeth and sigh. You swallow down the remaining crumbs of your pride. You call Ben.

The goddamned man doesn’t even let you get the entire sentence out. He cuts you off, asks for your address. Tells you that he’s leaving work immediately.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” you ask. You swallow hard against the lump in your throat. You hate the entire situation: hate that it happened at all, hate that you had to drag this one-night stand into it. You had struggled with the decision to call him, after all. It wasn’t his business, really, but since the condom had obviously failed, it had felt important to let him know.

Though, to be fair, Ben Magalon is proving to be more than a one-night stand. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he is supportive. More than you ever thought a random cop hookup could be.

He chuckles over the line. “You don’t know my boss. It’s fine.”

Forty minutes later, he’s at your door.

There’s no reason for him to help you. He’s already given you the money for the procedure, so he could easily tell you to deal with it yourself…but he doesn’t. Your goddamned one-night stand, the darkly handsome cop that you never thought you’d have to see again—he turns up just when you need him like some fucking knight in shining armor.

-----

The nice thing about L.A. is that it’s liberal. There’s no one outside of the clinic other than an employee in scrubs taking a smoke break. No raging protestors, no gory placards trying to guilt you into a different decision than the one you’ve already made.

Inside, the people are kind. No nonsense, quick and efficient. But above all kind. Reassuring.

Ben has to stay in the waiting room, and he gives you a nod and a reassuring smile as you’re led back to the restricted area. You glance over your shoulder as the door shuts behind you, and you catch a glimpse of him settling into a chair as he pokes through a pile of magazines.

Not for the first time, but it strikes you how lucky you are in such an unlucky situation. It had felt like the right thing to do, telling him, but you never thought he’d be so supportive. So reassuring, and not a single ounce of friction. He accepted your decision without second-guessing you. He paid for it without you asking. He left work to be your ride.

It made you sad, in a strange way. You had enjoyed your night with him, but even drunk, you had noticed his strange apartment. How pieces of furniture seemed to be missing, how his closet door had been open to reveal one empty side. Early in the evening he had mentioned an ex with a frown, and it was clear then that he’d been rebounding.

Maybe that’s why you hadn’t thought to call him afterwards, until you had to. If he hadn’t been so fresh off of a breakup, you might have tried to nurture it into something more. Maybe. Maybe you would have dropped him a flirty text or even called, if you had summoned up the courage.

But it was all maybes. Just theoretical stuff, because this is the reality: him sitting in the waiting room of the women’s clinic, waiting for you. The two of you only together because of a sad accident.

*****

It takes almost no time at all, which surprises Benny. Less than an hour, all told, and then you’re walking out of the clinic with him, a small bag of pain killers and antibiotics clutched in your hand.

“How are you feeling?” he asks once the two of you are back in his truck. He glances over, and maybe part of him is afraid that you’ll be filled with regret. That you’ll burst into tears and tell him that you’ve made a terrible mistake. But the look on your face, if he has to classify it, seems to be relief. The frown on your face, the worried look in your eyes is gone. The relief is almost palpable.

“Honestly? Not nearly as bad as I thought.” You patted the bag of medication in your lap. “They gave me a Valium, and I’m a lightweight.”

Benny bites the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling. You are a lightweight. He knows that much about you. That night, he had beaten you easily in the dumb shots contest the two of you had devised. The thought occurs to him then, and his held-back smile fades into a frown.

He clears his throat as he merges onto the highway. “Hey, that night…” He glances over at you again, sees you looking back at him. “We were pretty fucked up. I didn’t…force anything, did I?”

He can see you shaking your head out of the corner of his eye. “I guess there’s an argument about consent and impairment, but we were both drunk. If you took advantage of me, then I took advantage of you.”

“I guess.”

“I’m good, Ben. No worries.”

-----

At your apartment, he helps you inside. It’s awkward. He’s not exactly a master of social situations, but he’s usually fairly confident. He usually moves through the world with a level of calm competence that translates to assurance. There’s no playbook for this, though, and he stands awkwardly by your door until you wave him in. You walk into your kitchen and he follows a few steps behind, twirling his keys nervously.

You turn away from him, and you take the pill bottles out of the little bag the clinic gave you. He watches as you read the labels, and he hears you mumble to yourself about timing the doses for every twelve hours.

“Is there anything I can get you?” he asks. “Anything I can do?”

“You’ve already done so much. More than you needed to.”

“Told you we were in this together.”

You turn to face him, and he can see the tears that spring to your eyes. He’s struck again at how brave you are. How brave you were to call him in the first place, even if it was probably incredibly difficult. He was a stranger to you, after all. He can easily imagine a different sort of man having a very different reaction.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever know how much this all means, Ben,” you tell him, and your voice is shaky with emotion. “You don’t know me at all, and you’ve been so nice…” Then you start to cry in earnest, though you try to hold it in, great gulping hiccups as you try to rein in your tears.

The guilt hits him again, so he reaches out carefully. Opens his arms for a hug, and after a beat, you step up to him. It’s an awkward hug at first, the two of you stiff and unsure against each other. He holds you lightly, gently. He’s unsure of any pain you’re in, but he rubs your back carefully. Tries to comfort you, and in doing so, tries to alleviate some of his own guilt.

“It was my fault,” he murmurs against your head. “The condoms were expired. If I hadn’t been so fucking stupid, it would have never happened.”

He doesn’t know you, and part of him expects you to react in anger at his admission. You don’t, though. You squeeze him around his middle, and you echo back his own words, that the two of you were in it together.

Somehow, it makes him feel better. He hopes it makes you feel better too.

-----

When he leaves twenty minutes later, Benny thinks it’s the last time he’ll see you. He assumes he’ll never speak to you again. But the guilt still gnaws at him, and two blocks away, he pulls over. He pulls up an app on his phone and orders you some take-out, has it delivered to your apartment.

It’s not nearly enough, but it’s something. It’s another thing he can do for you, because everything else—paying for the procedure, driving you there and back—feels paltry, despite what you say. You’re the one going through it. He’s just the supporting cast.

After he orders the food—he has to guess at what you might like—he pulls up your number.

Ordered you some food, he texts you. You should take the antibiotics with food.

The three little dots appear and disappear as you type and delete and type your reply again. He can picture you tearing up again, and it makes him a little sick, how grateful you are for him. He did next to nothing, and anything he did was the bare minimum, but apparently you have low expectations for people.

I owe you, you finally type back. If you ever have a medical emergency, just call me.

Benny shakes his head. As if you owe him. He writes back, telling you to rest and to let him know if you need anything at all, and he thinks that’ll be the end of it.

-----

It isn’t the end of it, though. Over the next few days, then weeks, Benny can’t get the entire sad event out of his head.

He checks on you, as much as he dares. He had read up on abortions from neutral, science-based sources, but he still has all the stigmas in his head. That you’re in terrible physical pain. That you’re wracked with guilt. That you’re destined for a life of regret and deep depression now.

How are you feeling? He texts you a couple of days afterwards, and you respond after a few moments.

Better! I’m working from home, so I’m resting too.

He waits another week, then asks the same question.

Back to normal, you reply that time. I went for a hike at Griffith Park the other day.

Because he’s LACSD and because he has a burgeoning sense of protectiveness over you, he texts you an entire litany full of safety tips. They had a case in Griffith Park not that long ago, a string of attacks on lone joggers or hikers, and he lets you know all about it. He tells you to only go there with a friend. He sends you a link for jogger’s mace—technically illegal, but better to ask for forgiveness after using it than risk an attack turning worse.

Yes, officer, you text back.

I’m a detective, actually.

Yes, detective, you reply. I promise to be extra careful in my solo midnight runs through Griffith Park with my headphones on.

Smartass, he types back, but he smiles at it anyway.

*****

It becomes a thing. It shouldn’t become a thing: media had led you to believe that the two of you should have never spoken again, the weight of the abortion a heavy, impenetrable wall between you. That if you ever saw him again, that the two of you should have shared a look of mutual sorrow and then gone your separate ways to nurse your unending guilt separately.

Yet here you are. The two of you text back and forth. It starts with his obsessive concern right after the procedure, which warmed your heart. Then it morphed into small talk. Then it turned into little jokes here and there, until you and Benny Magalon are texting each other regularly.

It shouldn’t become a thing, but it does.

It should also be stranger than it feels. If you lay out the situation like one of your work problems, it makes no sense on paper. One-night stand, drunken. Unplanned pregnancy. An abortion. Now the two of you texting, getting to know each other after going through a challenging moment together.

Maybe that’s why, despite it not making sense on paper, it still manages to make sense. Because you went through it together. Because you decided to let him know about the pregnancy. Because he’s just…him. Benny Magalon, you are finding, is a stand-up sort of guy. Supportive to a fault. Not just supporting you with the abortion, but checking on you afterwards. Fussing over your safety. Giving you details about crimes that surely must be embellished to scare you into living in a bubble.

It’s not a love story, but it’s a friendship, if an unlikely one. You smile when you get a message from him, and sometimes when you’re doing something fun, you think of mentioning it to him.

It’s not a love story, but sometimes you wonder how things could have gone differently. Maybe it could have been a love story. Maybe if you’d met him after he had more distance from his break-up. Maybe if the condom hadn’t failed. A million maybes, and it drives you a little crazy to think of them, but exploring every possibility is part of your job so it’s second nature.

-----

It moves from just texting when he calls you one evening.

It’s his phone, but it’s not him on the other end. When you pick up, a deeper voice asks if you know Benny Magalon.

“I do,” you say carefully.

The deeper voice introduces itself as a Detective Connors. He tells you that he is calling from Ben’s phone. There’s been an accident.

“His emergency contact was deleted a few months ago,” Connors tells you. “So we went through his phone and called you.”

You don’t question it, not in that moment. You only hear that Ben—the guy who supported you so selflessly in your hour of need—has been hurt. That he needs you now.

“Tell me where you are, and I’ll get there as soon as I can,” you tell him.

*****

In terms of injuries in the line of police work, getting hit by a car while running a traffic checkpoint is the least glamorous.

Benny never even saw it coming, which is probably what ends up saving his life. If he had seen the car barreling towards him, he would have tensed up, tried to get out of the way. As it is, the car hit him from behind, and his body went limp as a ragdoll. Flew through the air, landed hard on the scrub-grass median.

It’s not nearly as bad as it could have been. It’s not a career-ending incident. When he comes to in the hospital room, the doctor gives him the rundown of his injuries: a broken arm and two cracked ribs. A long, ugly scrape down his side. A concussion. Cuts on his face.

At least they’ve given him the good drugs. Whatever is in the line in his arm, it makes him feel like he’s floating a few inches off of the bed, despite how warm and heavy he feels. Everything feels soft and rounded off: the hospital noise is fuzzy and faraway; the lights are faint and haloed.

He blinks and realizes that he’s nodded off. When he opens his eyes again, the guys are there: Henderson and Z and Connors perched in chairs around the room, Big Nick standing in the doorway, ogling the nurses as they walk past.

“There he is,” Connors says.

“Borracho,” Henderson adds with a smile and a shake of his head. “Nine fucking lives, man. Gotta start calling you el gato instead.”

Connors reaches out, grips Benny’s ankle through the sheets. “You flew through the air like fucking Superman, dude. Thought for sure you were a goner.”

“Wha’ happened?” Benny manages ask, his words slurred, his tongue thick from the drugs in him.

The guys tell him, and even though they joke, Benny can hear the tremor of real fear in their voices. The guys’ relief is unmistakable, even through the haze of morphine.

“We called your girl,” Henderson says, and Benny is too high to really question who he means. His girl. The words roll through his head, and it takes a long beat before he asks, “wha’ girl?”

“The one you’re always texting. Your phone’s screen is cracked, but we were able to pull her number.”

Another long beat to piece together who they mean. His ex used to be his emergency contact, but he removed her months ago. Didn’t bother to replace her. He could have listed his sisters, but they’re terrible in an emergency. His parents moved to Arizona a few years back. There wasn’t really anyone else for him to list in a true emergency.

Henderson must mean you.

The drugs loosen his tongue, and Benny almost spills the entire sad history with you to the guys. Almost says that you’re not his girl, but the drugs also make him tired. He opens his mouth to argue that they shouldn’t have bothered you, but he blinks again and falls asleep.

-----

When he wakes up later, you are there. And maybe it’s the drugs or the brush with death, but damned if he isn’t happy to see you. You are sitting in the chair next to the bed, and you give him a smile when he sees you and focuses on you.

“How are you feeling?” you ask.

He holds up his good hand and tries to tilt the palm back and forth, the see-saw motion that means, “okay.” Instead, his hand seems to float on its own accord, and your smile widens.

“They got you on the good stuff, huh?”

“Yeah,” he tries to say, but his tongue still feels thick and unwieldy. It comes out yuh, and you reach out to pat his good hand.

He concentrates on his words. “Sorry,” he manages to get out. “Guys shouldn’t a’ called you. Bothered you.”

You frown at him. “Ben, after all we’ve been through? It’s not a bother at all.”

“You got better things t’do.”

You reach out and pat his hand again. “I actually don’t. A very worried detective put an end to my midnight runs through Griffith Park, so now I don’t do anything ever.”

The joke makes a warmth wash through him, on top of the morphine-warmth. He can’t help the goofy grin that spreads across his face.

“You’re a smartass,” he slurs, but when you go to pat his hand again, he manages to twist his own and capture your hand. Holds it clumsily, but you don’t let him go, and that’s how he nods off again.

*****

There’s a part of you that would readily admit that this is payback. That you are paying Ben back for his support from months ago. That you owe him, and now you are settling your debt.

There’s another part of you that would less than readily admit that there’s more to it. Despite your unlikely origins, you like the man, enjoy texting him. That when you see him looking like absolute road-kill in the hospital bed, your heart lurches in a way you hadn’t expected.

You learn why his coworkers called you. The one detective who called you, Connors…he pulls you aside in the hallway and explains that they knew about you, kinda. That Borracho—that’s his nickname, apparently—had been caught multiple times texting you and smiling.

“It was weird,” Connors tells you as he hands you a cup of coffee from the vending machine. “Dude never smiles like that.”

You scoff at him. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

The guy shakes his head and takes a sip of his own coffee. “Well, he hasn’t smiled like that in a while. We guessed he found a new girl after his old one destroyed him.”

You wonder what that means—destroyed is such a specific, strong word—but you are cagey in your response.

“Well, we’ve been taking it slow.” Not a lie, exactly. Not the truth either.

Connors claps you on the back. “He’s a good guy. And it’s good of you to come see him.”

-----

You don’t just see Ben, though. It isn’t a one-and-done visit. His coworkers—more like meddlesome brothers, really—pull you right into their orbit and you find yourself powerless to escape. Not that you want to.

They think you’re his girlfriend, so they treat you in a way that’s both deferential and familiar. When you come back to the room, they offer you the seat closest to the hospital bed where Ben is drifting in and out of consciousness. When they order food to smuggle in, they ask what you want before deciding where to order from.

But they are cops through and through. They are also pumping you for intel on yourself, on Ben, on your alleged relationship with him.

What can you tell them? You tell the truth where you can; you keep your lies as close to the truth as possible. Yes, you met Ben at a bar. Yes, you’re keeping it casual. Yes, he’s a good guy. A great guy, in fact.

The man himself comes and goes. Sometimes you glance over at him and see his lax face, and you realize how much younger he looks when he’s asleep. All the worry lines smooth out and he’s left looking almost boyish, save for the bit of silver in his beard and hair.

Other times you look at him and are startled to see him looking back at you. He’s got a dopey look on his face, his eyes glassy with the good drugs, and a very quiet part of you wishes things had gone differently. That maybe he would have looked all love-sick and goofy at you without the benefit of strong opiates.

When you go to leave, Ben is asleep. It spares you an awkward goodbye, the need to act like a couple for the benefit of the other guys. You do kiss your fingertips and press them gently to his forehead, light enough to not wake him.

*****

Benny doesn’t want to call you, but his ride falls through. It occurs to him as he’s calling you, though, that it’s a strange bit of symmetry to months ago, when you needed a ride from him.

Henderson was supposed to take him home from the hospital. Something comes up last minute at work, and since they are short-handed from Benny being out, he finds himself without a ride.

He could call a sister. He has three of them. He could even call one of the cousins that lives in L.A. But he’s weirdly secretive about injuries incurred at work—his parents had been against him going into law enforcement, so he avoids bringing up the bad parts of it…like getting hit by a car at a traffic checkpoint. He hates having to hear the usual I told you so from his mom. And he hates how they all descend on him when he’s sick or injured, his mom and sisters, how it turns cloying and claustrophobic within a day.

In reality, he probably has an entire list of people he could call for a ride. His mind settles on you: you’ve kept in touch over the past few days, texting him and even calling to see how he is. He knows you’re just paying him back from before, but he’s too tired and in too much pain to do anything other than embrace the warm flush he gets every time he hears his phone ping.

When you pick up the phone, he explains the situation, and he also walks it back a little. Says not to worry if it’s a problem, he can always find someone else—

“Not a problem at all,” you reply. “I have a light workday today. We’re just cleaning up the soundstage where we filmed the fake moon landing. I can dip out early.”

He laughs and then bites back a groan, his ribs hurting from the effort. “Smartass,” he grumbles after a beat. “And don’t make me laugh.”

You laugh too, and he realizes it’s the first time he’s heard your real laugh. It’s a nice sound. It makes him smile to hear it.

“Give me forty minutes, and I’ll be there.”

-----

You don’t just dump him off at his apartment, and really, Benny didn’t expect you to. He’s gotten to know you better—from the little texts, before, and now with the fallout from his accident—and he’s found that you’re a decent person. Which maybe sounds like nothing special, but he learned long ago that truly decent people were rarer than one would expect.

You pick him up from the hospital. You take him to his apartment. You help him inside, hovering right at his elbow. Not touching him, but lurking nearby in case he needs help.

You help him get comfortable on his couch. You remember enough of the layout of his place from that night together, and you disappear into his bedroom. You bring out pillows, a blanket. You help him settle on the couch, prop up his broken arm. You disappear into the kitchen and get him a glass of water, and you hand him the remote to the TV.

“I’m going to take your keys,” you tell him, all business. “I’m going to get your prescriptions filled and then get you some food.” You give him a disapproving frown and add, “I snooped in your fridge, Ben. You’re literally a stereotype.”

“What do you mean?”

“You only have a jar of salsa and old Chinese leftovers.”

You aren’t wrong—he rarely bothers to cook for just himself—but he waves you off.

“You don’t have to—” he starts to say, but you interrupt him.

“I’m going to, so just deal with it.” You stare him down, and Benny realizes that you’ve got a steely core to you that is intractable. When he doesn’t challenge you further, you nod in satisfaction and ask what he might want for dinner.

-----

He on a leave of absence for two months, but his first few weeks home are handled by you.

It should feel strange. Should feel like a fever dream, being taken care of by the one-night stand he accidentally knocked up. He realizes only a few days in that he’s stopped thinking about you in those terms.

He thinks of you now as a friend.

He doesn’t know how you feel about him, but at the moment, you treat him like a project. Or maybe you’re treating him like a problem to solve: you come over every evening after work, and you spend the bulk of the weekends with him. One morning, when you’re at work and he’s poking around in his fully-stocked fridge, he finds a list in your neat printing on the counter. It says:

Medication schedule

Meal planning

Laundry

Plant

It’s all the shit you’re doing for him. Unasked. When he tries to wave you off, or tell you that you don’t have to, you wave him off in return and say that you want to.

The bullet point of plant makes him wonder, but that is answered that very evening: you turn up at his door with a bag of groceries in one hand, a potted plant in the other.

“Thought it would cheer the place up,” you tell him simply, and you plunk it down on his kitchen table.

-----

The first few days, it’s just Benny drifting in and out of sleep while you tidy up and make him dinner. You dole out his pills—the antibiotics, the pain pills. You adjust his pillows. You sit and watch TV with him, and you chat a little.

He heals. The splitting headaches fade to dull aching, then disappear. His ribs ache less and less.

You help him clean the ugly scrape along his side. It’s on the same side as his broken arm, and he can’t quite twist his good arm to clean himself without hurting his ribs.

That should feel strange too—the two of you in his bathroom, him shirtless and you bent over his side, swabbing at his cuts and monitoring him for signs of infection. You have gentle hands, a light touch. When you press your head close to his shoulder to put fresh bandages there, he can just catch a hint of your shampoo, the clean herbal smell that he remembers from that night months ago.

----

After those first few days, as he heals and as he steps down from his pain pill regimen, the two of you start to talk.

He apologizes for you getting roped into this by the guys. He didn’t think they knew about you, and he never thought they’d assume anything from his texting with you…but you wave him off, tell him not to apologize.

At the end of the first week, you make a face at his constant apologizing. You wince a little and ask if you should go. Are you cramping his style? Would he rather be alone? Is it too weird, having you there? If he doesn’t need help or company anymore, you can go…

Benny is honest in his answer. No, he doesn’t need your help, he can probably manage on his own with some minor struggles, but he enjoys your company.

So you keep coming over.

And the two of you talk more. It becomes its own thing, the way his initial texts became their own thing: dinner and then watching TV together, either true crime or sports or nothing special at all. The TV is just background noise for when you talk.

“Do you ever feel guilty about it?” he asks one night. His voice is quiet, and the question comes out hesitant. He doesn’t want to offend you, but he also wants to check in with you. He wants to make sure you’re okay, so many months after the fact.

“Guilty? No.” You look at him for a beat, then turn back to the TV. “I suppose if I feel anything, it’s relief. And maybe a little bit of sadness. Scientifically, I know all the propaganda is just flat-out wrong. That abortion…it wasn’t a roly-poly baby. It was a cluster of cells the size of a blueberry. But I guess the sadness is at the potential. It could have been, you know? Maybe I would have miscarried anyway, but the potential was there, if that makes sense.”

Benny nods. “Makes sense to me.”

“What about you?”

He shakes his head a little. “Mostly relief for me too. I wasn’t in a good spot. But I do feel guilty about putting you in that situation.”

“We both agreed—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he cuts you off. “In it together. Right. But still….”

He trails off and looks at you, sees you gazing back at him. There’s no reason this entire weird friendship should make sense, but it does. He sees you looking at him, not an ounce of judgement or disgust in your expression. There’s only a small smile, a small encouraging nod, and he’s still on enough pain medication—and tired enough—for his usual taciturn reserve to fail him.

He opens up about his ex. About the three years they spent together. How he thought she was The One, capital “T” and capital “O.” How he felt like he was on a treadmill, though, always running after her, never catching up. How he struggled to make her happy. How he never made quite enough money, or had quite enough time, or said quite the perfect thing. How his ex used silence like a cudgel, making him scramble to guess what he’d done wrong.

“I went out that night because I was furious,” he admits to you. “I saw that my ex was dating again, only a week after dumping me.”

“So you were definitely rebounding.”

He nods. He reaches out for his glass of water, grunts at the stretch against his ribs as he reaches. You lean forward and get it for him, hand him the glass, and he takes a long sip.

“I just wanted to find some woman to sleep with,” he adds, and the shame washes over him to remember his rage and how he’d been prepared to take it out on a stranger.

“And you found me.” You smile again, this time sad, and it doesn’t reach your eyes.

But you weren’t just some woman that night, and he tells you so. He tells you how funny you had been, how kind. How you had bought him a drink, and no woman had ever bought him a drink before. How you had joked around with him, flirted. Made him feel good about himself, smoothed over the rough edges of his anger until he forgot that he was there to forget his ex.

“You did that thing that some drunk girls do,” he says quietly, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“What thing?”

That thing that some drunk girls do. Benny Magalon knows that alcohol can reveal a person’s innermost self. Angry people are angry drunks. Sweet people are sweet drunks.

That night at the bar: you completely drunk, him well on the road to full intoxication too. He had mentioned his recent breakup, made some disparaging comment about himself. And you had done that thing, cupped his face firmly between your two hands, smushed his cheeks together a bit because you were drunk. You had gazed up at him, eyes glassy but earnest, and you gave him one of those drunk-girl pep-talks. Told him he was good-looking and smart and funny and a million other superlatives that you couldn’t possibly prove out, since he was a stranger to you, but it still made him feel amazing all the same. After three years of scrambling to feel worthy of his ex, you had given him a hot-shot right to his ego. Made him feel hopeful.

That was the moment he had decided to take you home. Not because you were the random woman he wanted to fuck as a way of getting over his ex, but because you seemed so unlike her, and he wanted you just for you.

He tells you all of that now, and you’re quiet for a long, long moment. He’s found that you have a poker face too (maybe not as good as his own), and he can’t guess what you’re thinking.

“That’s why I feel guilty two times over,” he adds. “Because I went out to the bar with less-than-honorable intentions. I went out just to find someone to use. And then, what happened afterwards….”

“You have to let go of the guilt, Ben,” you tell him. You shake your head a bit, offer him another sad smile. “It’s in the past. You can’t change it, so take your lesson from it and do better going forward.”

-----

It’s only a few days later when he snaps at you. It’s not your fault, but it’s his first full day without pain medicine, and Benny realizes that the stuff he’s been on was super-strong. Now that he’s off it, the pain is in full bloom: the ache in his ribs, the grinding pain in his broken arm. The itchy healing of the cuts and scrapes on his side. He’s been in a shitty mood all day, and when you turn up and make dinner, he takes it out on you.

“You can stop coming over. If you think you owe me, you’ve repaid it ten times over,” he spits out. His head is throbbing, and he’s uber-aware of his broken arm. He can’t get comfortable with it, and even the sling seems to irritate his neck and shoulder until he feels like he’s made of just raw nerves and exhaustion.

“I don’t think that at all.” You are serene when you answer him, completely unperturbed by his mean tone.

“Don’t you?” It comes out sneering, and he knows he’s trying to pick a fight. Some part of him—a small, mean part—wants to fight with you. Wants to drive you away. He wants to be alone and wallow. Because another part of him—a small, despairing part—wants you to stay, but he knows that once he’s healed and able to take care of himself, you’ll disappear…

Better to be the one to push people away than to be the one who is pushed away.

You don’t rise to the occasion of the fight. You turn away from the stove to look at him, and your tone is mild.

“I’ll leave if you want, but let me finish dinner first. No sense in wasting it.”

It breaks the spell of his irritation, and Benny hangs his head. “Sorry.”

You reach out and lay a hand on his forehead, considering him. “You look flushed. First day off the pain pills, right? No wonder you’re ornery.”

You drop your hand and turn back to the stove, to dinner prep. You tell him, just as casually, that you know how it feels. That you took a bad fall on a hike a few years back and jammed up your shoulder pretty good. That you had surgery to repair the mess of torn ligaments, and that the withdrawal from even a short run of opiates was miserable.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats quietly. Then, a beat later, “will you stay?”

*****

It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. You and Ben Magalon may have started as a couple of strangers united through a sad event, but you’ve ended up friends.

From friends, you become something more, but you go so, so slow. It’s glacially paced, but that suits you just fine. It seems to suit him too. Friendship is a good place to stay while he works through his own issues with his ex. Friendship is a good place for you to idle while you contemplate how wildly out of order everything is: one-night stand, accidental pregnancy, then affection.

Because you do like Ben. A lot. You don’t love him, but you’ve always been slow to fall in love, too measured and wary of such precarious emotions. Love, for you, is like getting the flu: there’s signs that it’s coming. Instead of a sore throat or a bit of fever, it’s little things: the fluttery feeling in your stomach, the way your thoughts drift to him when you are at work.

It goes slow. Ben heals up and goes back to work. The two of you text all the time, and it becomes a thing, hanging out. You’re both zero frills, zero fuss, so you usually just settle at your apartment or his. Order take-out and watch whatever game is on, or you switch off on picking movies. Which is what friends do—they just hang out. But sometimes it toes the line of being more.

Like when he has a weeklong string of bad work days. A case that falls apart. A witness that disappears. Double shifts where nothing is accomplished and nothing is solved. He calls you and tells you about it, and you can hear the exhaustion in his voice.

“Want me to come over and bring you dinner?” you ask, and he does want that.

The week must have gotten under his skin, because when the two of you eat a late meal on his couch, he sits closer to you. Shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. After he finishes eating, he sets his take-out container down and loops an arm around your shoulder. Pulls you against him gently.

“This okay?” he asks.

It is okay, and you tell him so.

-----

Or there’s the time your grandfather dies. You fly out east for the funeral, but when you return to L.A., you text Ben.

He turns up at your door with a bag of tacos, grease-spotted and still warm from the restaurant. He sits with you and eats in silence, not pushing you, and when the dam finally breaks and you cry, he holds you then too. Only this time, he’s giving you comfort instead of taking it for himself, and you consider it later—how the two of you seem to be the other’s safe place, against all odds.

*****

It’s not a position that Benny Magalon ever thought he’d find himself in. Getting a girl pregnant, then falling in love with her after the fact. He’s seen a million incongruous things happen in his job though. L.A. is a vortex of the weird.

Stranger things have happened.

He keeps up the tame lie for the benefit of the guys. Easier to maintain the lie than to come up with a more complicated lie to explain you away…and certainly easier than coming clean. They rag him sometimes, and he finds that he enjoys the lie. He enjoys pretending that you’re his girl, that he’s managed to land someone he thinks is the real deal.

The two of you are friends, and maybe the situation that brought you together helps, in its own strange way. Trial by fire. Mutual mourning pulling you together instead of tearing you apart.

The reality is that the line is blurring. It’s slow, but the line is dissolving between friends and something else. The two of you start to touch more—you tucked away under his arm as you watch TV or chat, him casually touching your back as he walks past you. Small touches, nothing overtly sexual, but it’s a cozy intimacy that he finds he really likes, especially with you. It grounds him.

Sometimes you sleep over at each other’s place, even if it’s never planned. He nods off on your couch and wakes in the morning to find that you’ve eased a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket. You fall asleep against him at his place, and he puts you in his bed. He gives you a t-shirt to sleep in while he tosses and turns on his own couch, trying to be the gentleman.

There’s the night you both fall asleep together on your couch. He wakes up in the middle of the night, disoriented, to find you curled up in his arms, your steady breathing tickling against his neck.

That’s the night he chances to kiss you, just a gentle press of his lips against your temple. Then he falls back asleep too, wondering at the cliché of it, how well he sleeps with you.

-----

A year passes. The anniversary passes. He’s working a double shift that day so he can’t be there with you, but when he goes out for a smoke break, he calls you.

“How are you doing?” he asks.

There’s a long pause, and he knows you’re being thoughtful before you answer. You do that, he’s noticed: you answer slow because you want to be honest and clear.

“I was sad earlier, but I’m okay now,” you tell him. “What about you?”

He was sad earlier too. He had thought about it all day, the potential you had told him about before. But hearing your voice makes him feel better, and he tells you so.

There’s another long beat of silence from you, but then your soft voice says, “I’m glad to have you in my life, Ben.”

That makes him feel better too.

-----

It’s a few months after when one of Benny’s cases finally gets solved. It has dragged on for months and months, leads that led nowhere, witnesses who saw nothing. He finally gets a pop on some touch DNA, and it unlocks two other unsolved cases. He gets that flush of pleasure at a job well done, at actually living out his dream of being a cop who solves shit and gets the bad guys put away.

The guys want to celebrate. They invoke your name.

“Bring your girl, Borracho,” Z says. “We’ll keep it PG for her.”

“PG-13, at least,” Henderson amends.

Benny demurs. Mumbles something about not wanting to bother you, and he misses the sly smile between Connors and the Z.

When they end up at the bar they usually go to, there you are: waiting outside with a shy smile on your face. Waiting for them. You’ve shed your workwear and are in jeans that hug your curves, a shirt that shows just a hint of cleavage. You have a whole cutely sexy thing that he loves, and his heart lurches when he sees you.

Z slaps Benny on the back. He leans forward and tells him that Connors kept your phone number for just such an occasion, and he smirks as he tells Benny that he can’t hide you away forever.

He has to concede that they have a point.

-----

He knows you well enough to know you’re a homebody by nature, but you can turn on a sociable part of you too. You’re shy at first—you shrink against him a bit, because the guys are a lot—but you warm up over time. You know them from the hospital. It doesn’t take long until you are chatting with them, laughing with them.

When they try to embarrass Benny by telling you stories about him, you sweetly defend him. When Big Nick offers a toast to the man of the hour, when the guys give you the sordid details about the cases he just solved, you smile at him so broadly that he feels dazzled.

He lays his arm around your shoulders, and you lean into him. You lay a gentle hand on his knee.

You both drink, but not much at all. You both layer in a lot of water between your alcohol, and at some point, late in the night, you both switch to soda at the same time.

Henderson notices it. He rolls his eyes and gestures between the two of you.

“Gross,” he says. “You two are already acting like each other.”

Benny flips him off with a grin, but he squeezes you a little tighter against his side. He knows why he’s not getting plastered, and he can guess that you’re pacing yourself for the same reason.

By the time it’s last call, it doesn’t feel like the two of you are pretending for the benefit of the guys anymore. It feels natural.

----

Benny takes you home, like that first night together, but that’s where the comparison ends.

There’s no drunken pawing at each other, no giggling when one trips over their discarded pants. No sloppy kisses that taste like liquor.

He’s gone so slowly with you. He’s been so careful. It started that day he was healing, the first day without pain pills when he had been a snappish asshole and you had simply recognized the source of his ire and moved on. That was the day he started to think, maybe. Maybe I can win this woman over, after all the terrible shit from the beginning.

He’s never been so careful with a woman. He builds a friendship first. He gets to really know you, and he lets his own guard down so you can know him.

Benny goes slow now too. He puts his hands on your shoulders before he makes a move. He makes you look at him, and even though you’ve been only drinking a little, he studies your eyes for any signs of impairment. He finds none: just you, clear-eyed, gazing up at him.

“Is this something you want?” he asks. He thinks he gets that vibe from you, but he’s not entirely sure. The insecure part of him, leftover from his ex, wonders if you’re just trauma-bonded to him. He’s heard the term before, and he wonder if it fits your situation with him.

You’re not drunk, but you do that thing that some drunk girls do: you reach up and hold his face between your hands. You don’t smush his cheeks together like before, because you’re sober, and he smiles against the memory. You smile back at him.

“This is something I want,” you reply.

So he takes his time. He moves slowly, carefully. He kisses you, and it’s not like before. For one, you’re sober, but more than that: he knows you now. He knows your quirks and likes and habits. He knows how you deal with tragedy, how you break problems down into manageable bites. You aren’t just some cute girl from a bar. You’re a real woman that he’s fallen for, little by little, then all at once.

You kiss him back, the sweet press of your lips against his, the sweep of your tongue inside his mouth. He’s tentative when he touches you—his palms smoothing over your arms, one settling at your waist to pull you closer to him. The other slides up to cup the back of your neck, and he brushes his thumb over your throat, over your pulse point. He can feel your heartbeat, steady and solid.

You touch him back. Press your palms to his chest, toy with button near his throat. You undo it, and then you break the kiss to dip your head. You kiss him, feather-light, in the hollow of his throat. He exhales a ragged breath and cups your chin to pull your face back to his, your mouth back to his own. He kisses you harder. Nips against your soft lower lip, suckles against it when you gasp.

He does everything he should have that first night. Deep down, he’s not like Big Nick or the other guys: he’s only had a handful of random hook-ups, almost always settling for relationships over flings. Now’s his chance to do better with you. He leads you to the bedroom, your hand gripped in his, unwilling to let you go for even a few seconds.

He takes his time. He strips you slowly, worships each new part of you when it’s bared to him. He takes off your shirt and then kisses your neck, your collarbones, your shoulders. He finds the old scars from your shoulder injury, and he kisses those gently, remembering how kindly you had cared for him when he was injured.

He takes off your bra and lavishes you with attention there: cups your breasts in his hands, molds them and pushes them up so that he can lave them with his tongue, nip at your diamond-hard peaks with the edges of his teeth until you whine out his name.

It goes straight to his dick, hearing his name tumbling out of your mouth in that breathy, pleading tone. He’s never heard that tone before. He wants to hear it again and again.

He gets you out of the rest of your clothes. He sheds his own. He kisses his way down your body, suckles marks against your soft skin. He kisses the softness of your belly, kisses the swell of your hips. He bares his teeth and nips at your hipbone, and you squirm at the sensation. Huff out his name again, only this time you call him Benny. Usually you call him Ben (or sometimes Officer Magalon, when you’re feeling like a teasing little shit) but Benny sounds so much better in your mouth.

He didn’t go down on you before; you let him do so now. You part your thighs, make room for his broad shoulders to spread you wider before him. You squirm a little at that too, at his heavy gaze, so he asks again if it’s okay. You nod, but then you say that yes, it’s okay. Your voice is strained, tight with lust, so Benny bends his head to you. He puts his mouth on you, and the first swipe of his tongue makes you whine out his name again, makes his dick jump at the sound.

He wants to devour you, but he keeps his careful pace. Laps at you torturously slow, circles your clit in a lazy pattern with the tip of his tongue. Eases one finger, then another into your wet heat, and he can already feel how sensitive you are. Keyed up and twitching against his fingers. Benny has to shift himself on the bed to give himself a bit of friction against the sheets, a bit of relief for his aching cock.

“Benny, please,” you whisper. It tears out of your throat ragged, raw. He glances up and sees how he’s undone you with just his mouth: your lips are parted and panting, your eyes are shiny with frustrated tears.

“Got you, sweetheart.” And he does. He crooks his fingers inside you, pressing his fingertips searchingly inside you until you gasp and jerk against him.

“Right there?” he asks. “Is that the spot?”

“Fuck, yes, Benny…yes, right there—”

He bends his head again. Strokes that spot inside you with his fingertips, and then he wraps his lips around your clit. Sucks against it, and you’re so keyed up, that’s all it takes. He feels it a moment later, the force of your orgasm overtaking you. He coaxes you through it, groans at how it hits all of his senses—your pussy gripping his fingers, the warm slick of your cum coating his hand and his tongue. The taste of you, and best of all: you whining his name, begging him to not stop, to never stop.

-----

What comes next could be awkward, given your history together. But the two of you have taken it slowly, become friends. The two of you have spoken frankly about what happened, and so it isn’t awkward.

“We can stop, if you want,” he tells you once you’ve both calmed from him eating you out. He’s stretched out beside you, running his hand over your arm soothingly. “We don’t have to do anything else.”

You lean forward and press a light kiss to his mouth. “I want to, Benny.”

“I have new condoms. Unexpired.”

You nod. “And I have an IUD. Got one a few months after.”

“Twice as safe then.”

“Well….” You shrug against him, and you start to cite prevention percentages in both contraceptives, in perfect use and typical use, and Benny is reminded that you’re also a giant fucking nerd for statistics and numbers, so he cuts you off with a kiss.

And what comes after that discussion could be awkward too, but it isn’t. He lies on his back. He wants you on top, controlling the moment. He doesn’t want even an ounce of doubt in his head creeping in later, when he will inevitably try to convince himself that you don’t want him and only went along with it.

It’s not awkward at all. You mirror his slow pace, and now that you’re on top, you take liberties and kiss him. Gentle kisses across his face, down his throat. Across his shoulders and chest, and you start to drift even lower until he stops you.

“Some other time,” he says, and his voice sounds like yours did. Ragged. Raw.

It’s not awkward when you slide onto him. When you settle against his thighs, the full length of him buried inside you. Not awkward at all. You feel like home.

He grips your waist, but he doesn’t drive you to go faster. He just holds onto you as you ride him, slow and sensual. You go slow enough for him to feel every inch of you, feel the heavy drag of his cock as you impale yourself over and over on him.

You look like a damned vision. He probably looks stupid, his mouth agape, a stunned look on his face. He can’t fathom how he’s here with you, despite the slow and careful tact he’s taken all these months. More than a year he’s known you, and it astounds him that the two of you have ended up here together.

“You’re gorgeous, sweetheart,” he breathes out. You are. He looks at you greedily, takes in every inch of you. He wants to memorize this moment. Before, he was left with only a few flashes of memory, so he wants to take in every movement of your hips, every bounce of your tits as you ride him. The way you arch your back as you pick up the pace, driving both yourself and him to your mutual pleasure.

This time around, he gets to see you come. He can’t remember that moment from before, but he sees it now: the way you squeeze your eyes shut so tightly that a tear creeps out of one corner. The way you breathe out his name, a tortured whisper. One of your hands grips at his pec, your nails biting into his skin, but the other reaches higher to cup his face. To hold him steady as you lean forward and kiss him, hard.

That’s how you come—a throaty groan that he swallows down as he kisses you back, a tight grip on his cock as you sink onto him and still. You break the kiss a second later, whispering his name over and over like a prayer, and it’s such an intensely intimate moment—and he’s been holding his own orgasm back—that he comes too.

-----

Before, the two of you had basically collapsed afterwards, a mass of sweaty limbs tangled up together. You’d both fallen asleep; there had been no talking afterwards.

This is…sweeter. More intimate. Benny cleans up, and he helps you clean up, and then he settled back down in the bed with you. Lifts an arm in invitation, and you curl up against him.

He feels drunk now, if he’s honest. He feels loose-limbed and pleasantly buzzed. There’s a warm flush offset by the goosebumps you raise on him as you trace your fingertip over the tattoo on his chest, as your breath tickles against his neck.

Not for the first time, it occurs to him how absurd this is. This thing between the two of you. He always thought he’d meet his girl the usual way, do things in the usual order.

You must be thinking the same thing. After a long stretch of silence, you say, “it’s weird, right?”

It is, but it’s not bad-weird. Just…. unlikely-weird. Unexpected-weird.

“I’m not a one-night stand anymore,” he jokes.

You turn your head and nip at him playfully. “You know what I mean, Benny.”

“I do.” He takes a few steadying breaths, the adds, “it never has to be anyone’s business but our own, you know.”

“I know.”

“Because I want this.” He says it quieter, half hoping you don’t hear it over how hard his heart must be beating.

He almost thinks you don’t hear him, it takes you so long to answer. But you do. “I want this too,” you whisper back.

You fall asleep first, and he takes longer to nod off. He thinks back to when the two of you talked about it, how you had said that you were only sad when you thought about the potential, from before.

But as he starts to drift to sleep, he thinks about the potential the two of you still have. The potential you have together because you both took a less than ideal situation and came together over it. How you became each other’s support and built from that instead of letting the sad circumstances of your beginning keep you apart.

You and Benny Magalon. You were in it together, both then and now.

~~~Tag List~~~ @bananas-pajamas @massivecolorspygiant @imspillingcoffee @amneris21 @paintballkid711 @mad-girl-without-a-box @bestattempt @rosiefridayrogersunday @strawberrydragon @hoeforthefictional @greeneyedblondie44 @leannawithacapitala @stardust-galaxies @buckybarneshairpullingkink @harriedandharassed @thatpinkshirt@melaniecraig80 @thesandbeneathmytoes

#benny magalon #Benny Borracho Magalon Imagine #benny borracho magalon #benny magalon x reader #benny magalon x reader #Borracho Magalon x Reader #borracho magalon x reader #borracho magalon #den of thieves

134 notes · View notes

thnxforknowingme · 1 year

Text

My fic year in review 2022

Copying @forabeatofadrum because I like to talk about myself and this seems like a fun end-of-year reflection. If any other writers see this and want to do it, please do!

Fics I wrote:

True Colors

The Feeling's Plain to Me

In Orbit

these bodies are hoping to get addicted to sound

Miles To Go

Courting Royalty

Cohabiting

Confluence

Connecting

Peaches

Roots

Babysitting

A Matter of Distance

Texts With Benefits

The Some Kind of Summer series

A World to Rediscover

The Mattress

Naughty and Oh, So Nice

Questions and thoughts below:

Best/worst title?

I hate titling stories, so honestly I'm not totally satisfied with any of my titles. Courting Royalty is probably my most clever - it's thematically relevant, a pun, and isn't just a lyric or literary reference. The worst title is these bodies are hoping to get addicted to sound because it's SO LONG WHY DID I DO THIS?

Best/worst summary?

I'm pretty happy with the summary for Miles To Go, because I feel like it gets at the tone and plot of the story without giving too much away:

In the wake of Finn’s death, Kurt struggles to keep up with schoolwork at NYADA or engage with his life in general. He finally finds purpose again when he decides to spend the summer venturing west, to scatter Finn’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean. The road trip is long and lonely and challenging, but Kurt’s luck starts to turn around when he meets a handsome man named Blaine, who’s heading to California for his own reasons. After crossing paths in Colorado, they decide to travel together. As they get closer to the west coast they start to let down their walls, learning more about each other and revealing what they’re really seeking on this trip.

The worst summary is probably The Feeling's Plain to Me, because it's so nondescript and boring, but I feel like I can get away with it because it's a sequel:

Ficlets set in the same ‘verse as It’s Who I’m With. What did Kurt and Blaine get up to in between Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day?

Best/worst first line?

If I have to pick a best, it might be Confluence, because I feel like it packs a lot into one sentence:

Charades and fishbowl were the first-choice games to get drunk during in the Bushwick loft, but sometimes the roommates wanted a quicker avenue to intoxication - in which case they played King’s Cup.

This is kind of cheating because Courting Royalty really opens with a magazine article, but the first line of narration is probably my favorite opening:

When Rachel had told Kurt that she was secretly a European princess, he was 100% certain that it was a scam.

I don't have anything that stands out to me as "worst" - just a few pretty mediocre ones.

Best/worst last line?

I'm gonna say that the best is True Colors, because it's decently long and interesting:

But she smiled at her reflection - pink hair and ratty clothes and eyes bright with the sheen of intoxication - because she was free, and she was excited to figure out who the hell this new self was.

I think worst is probably Confluence. Not because it's particularly bad, but because I realize it's the second time this year I ended a fic with "Blaine follows Kurt out of bed for post-sex showering," and this ending line is the less interesting version of that:

“Ours,” Blaine agreed, and then pushed himself out of bed to follow his breathtaking naked fiancé to the shower.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Way more! I feel like I was constantly writing this year. I did not expect to both have so many ideas and be able to deliver on so many of them.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

Uhhhh I mean I never expected to write a Kurt/Blaine/Sam threesome, let alone multiple fics about it, let alone spark a whole impromptu fest about it. This started as one sort of silly idea - the observation that both Kurt and Blaine had crushed on Sam and then ended up living with him - that other people took and built on, inspiring me and others to keep writing more.

Relatedly, I also didn't expect to write real actual smut, but we'll get back to that later.

What’s your favourite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Ooof. I mean, I don't publish anything that I'm not proud of, and it's hard to pick my favorite child. If I had to choose one story that I'm the proudest of (saying it makes me happy is a little weird, although it does), it's probably Miles To Go. I know I've talked a lot about it elsewhere, but I think it's the most impressive work I've made this year, and there are so many scenes that I just love (the WHOLE Vegas sequence, man, I love myself for that).

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

By pretty much any metric, it's In Orbit. I'm immensely surprised and pleased that so many people enjoyed it. It meant a lot to me, and god was it fun to write.

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

This year it looks like it was True Colors, which has existed for just under a year and has 50 hits. I get it - it's a gen fic, a character study of Quinn - but I'm really proud of that story. It was one of those delightful creative exercises where I got to dive into the weird complexities of what characters might be going through emotionally, giving a little more weight and reality to the high-drama insanity that is Glee.

Story that could have been better?

I think it's Courting Royalty. I adored that prompt, and was so happy to write for it. I think it could have been a much more expansive story - there's so much to explore in the idea of surprise teenage royalty, and honestly it could have used more humor and hijinks. But I knew going in that I had to keep the scope pretty limited. I had just finished writing Miles To Go, which was 35k that I wrote in like, 2 months? I was tired, and on a deadline for the bang, so I kept it pretty succinct while still telling a complete story. I have some vague ideas for a sequel, so hopefully I can return to that world someday and expand on it.

Sexiest story?

Gotta be Confluence. It wasn't the first E-rated fic that I wrote, but it was the most like..."this is just a story about sex" fic that I wrote. I still kind of can't believe I did it.

Saddest story?

Miles To Go. It's about grief, and loss, and figuring out how to move forward from that. I'm happy with how I portrayed that, and if I did my job right I made some readers cry.

Most fun?

Maybe these bodies? It was sexy and fun, I got to throw in a little Kurtbastian to a Klaine story, and there was something very entertaining about Blaine's mix of immense guilt and immense horniness.

Story with single sweetest moment?

I don't think I write terribly treacly scenes. What comes to mind is the end of In Orbit - because the boys had been through a lot, so the epilogue was pretty damn sweet.

Hardest story to write?

Probably Naughty and Oh, So Nice. I was SO not inspired for this one. I wanted to write a Kublam Christmas fic - because, I don't know, there was something there about the warmth of the holidays mixed with the excitement of seeing old friends mixed with the dizzying possibilities of "seeing" old "friends" wink-wink-nudge-nudge. But then I was just not in a sex-writing mood but I needed to get it done by Christmas. The first draft of this was so bad, y'all. It had sentences like "and it felt amazing and then they both came." I still don't think it's as good as my other smutty fics (and I don't know how personal I wanna get in order to justify that lol), but thankfully several heroes from the Lima Bean Discord server helped me punch it up.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

Oh this is kind of how I answered the previous questions about these bodies, but I'll also say that In Orbit was a joy to write. There were some parts that were a little tougher to figure out, but overall I was just building the story ahead of me as I went, and it was a delight the whole time.

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

I really enjoyed examining both Quinn and Sam in the stories they were featured in this year - both of which I started doing a little last year, too. Writing the Some Kind of Summer stories was also a fun way to examine an alternate backstory for Sebastian. It's usually so accepted fandom-wide that he's a trust fund baby, so making it so that his stepdad was the rich/notable family member and he actually came from humbler roots was a fun avenue to explore. How does that recast Sebastian's personality and actions?

Most overdue story?

Definitely the Some Kind of Summer series. I had this image of Kurt and Sebastian being next-door neighbors and meeting on the roof outside of their bedrooms YEARS ago. Like, Glee-was-still-airing years ago. So I'm super glad that I finally got the chance to write that.

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Firstly I would just say that writing smut is a writing risk that I didn't expect to take. I think I have some old post where I say smut writers are braver than US marines and I can't imagine doing that - but, bit by bit, I worked my way up to the stuff I've written this year. It's challenging in a new way, but it's been interesting to play with and fun to bring some of my sexier ideas to life.

Secondly, I participated in collaborative fandom events, and working with an artist was a new and totally delightful experience for me. I can see how nerve-wracking that kind of collaboration could be, but I was fortunate to work with people who were great teammates and made some incredible art to go along with my stories!

Somewhat relatedly, I also became an admin for a fandom blog, and we hosted an event for the first time. We didn't get a ton of engagement, but we did get some, and I'm so grateful and astounded that anyone at all wanted to participate. I'm also really happy with the stuff that I wrote for that event. I don't know that it taught me much about writing, but running a fandom blog has definitely been a learning experience, and I hope we continue to grow and get better as we try more events.

This year’s theme and the story that demonstrates it most:

I cannot think of a cohesive theme for everything I've written this year (beyond the reality that it's all written by me and so it has my interests and experiences and hangups throughout). Honestly I'm happy with the variety, though.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

I want to make progress on and start posting Disaster Boys (working title) (and also hopefully finish it, God I hope that doesn't take a whole year). I also have a whole list of other fic ideas I'd love to make headway on - most notably my Mediator AU, which I MUST WRITE but still have to work out so many plotting kinks before I can truly start drafting.

Overall, this was a shockingly productive and creative year. According to AO3 I published 164,797 words in 2022 (which is inflated because In Orbit was actually mostly posted in 2021). It's the first full year of fic writing I've had since getting back into fandom. I'm pleased that I still have so much that I want to work on.

#about my fic

6 notes · View notes

limenysnocket · 2 years

Text

With Love, Ayoade

SEQUEL TO "With Care, Ayoade". ENJOY.

Summary: Beyond the Christmas crashing fiasco when you two first locked eyes, you have finally found the time to spend time together. Ah, Valentine's day. No one wants to be alone on Valentine's.

Warnings: YOU WILL BE UNCOMFORTABLE AT SOME POINT. Swearing, drinking (and eventual drunkenness), gossip, infidelity.

A/N: this goes out to my lovesick homies all over the world. Happy Valentine's Day.

@honorarytenenbaum

•○●•○●•○●•

All over the world, sweethearts and significant others delivered boxes of too sweet chocolates, delightful roses that were doomed to die within a week, and teddybears that were stuffed with labor as well as love. Richard, however, was only delivering letters. Why?

"It appeals to the overrated stereotype that you need to buy an expensive gift to get the affection of others. The social pressure is horrifying," he had told you once in a letter to you after you had asked about Valentine's. You really wanted to ask if he would like to go out on that evening,, since you both had never been on a traditional or discussed date with each other. No one, still, had made the first move. Originally, if only he had responded more positively, you would have asked if he wanted to have dinner. Now, you purposely avoided the question altogether. If something were to happen, then it would happen. And something did happen, of course.

"I need you to attend this weird Valentine double date thing with me and my friends," you pleaded, standing on Richard's front step at the touch of dusk.

"This is totally going against our relationship code right now," Richard, so used to communicating via letters, complained. "You're breaking our bro code. And a little warning would have been nice."

"Can we not talk about the bro code? Please, this is important!"

Richard begrudgingly listened to your heart's every quip with his arms folded over his cream colored sweater vest. Apparently, this entire mix up was a massive mistake and you had to pay the price for your inability to focus on certain conversation pieces.

You had gone to lunch with your favorite friend group, and the quiet chatter of the table lulled you into autopilot while you, simultaneously, chewed on a leafy salad. Everything was all calm until your name was spoken out loud to get your attention. You looked up, surprised and mid-chew on a crouton. Staring back at you was a friend named Alex and her eager-enough looking boyfriend from across the table.

"Well?" Alex primed expectantly. "What about you, (Y/N)? Could you do it?"

Your teeth halted to a grinding stop on your crouton. You felt embarrassed for not listening in on the conversation but refused to admit it. So, instead of asking to repeat the question, you shrugged your shoulders and muttered a very cautious, "Yes?"

"You don't have to! We just really don't want to be there alone! It's special!" Alex went on, and you picked at a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth.

"No, no, I can do it!" Now insisting on your own. Although, you still had no idea what it was, until someone who wasn't Alex or her dopey boyfriend explained it to you. It was time to face the music and you would not, could not, face it alone.

So, there you stood, dressed in your finest evening gown with your makeup done to perfection, asking for Richard's help.

"I'm honestly very flattered, but..." Richard had to look away for a minute, the slightest bit flustered. "Do I have to, really?"

"Yes, you have to!" You begged once more. "C'mon, Rich," you grew softer for him, which made him flustered further. You leaned forward on your toes, approaching him, just to be closer. "Just this one time? For me?"

"God damn you, woman, with your eyes," Richard turned his eyes up to the ceiling to avoid your doe-like gaze. It was too much for him to take. After a prolonged silence and a very quiet whine, Richard huffed an agreement. "Fine."

You waited patiently in the foyer while he dressed for the occasion, clicking the sides of your heels together, wishing like Dorothy that this night wouldn't end in spectacular failure. You closed your eyes. "There's no place like home. There's no place like home," you dreamed outloud.

"Gone mad, have we?" Richard broke your faint plea from the stairway. He was watching you the entire time, and he was very amused. He had also traded his sweatervest and slacks for one of his more gaunting, colorful suits. He claimed to be an introvert, but with suits like his, he's bound to get some attention from somebody.

"Can we go now? You take longer than me to get ready, and that's including hair and makeup," you whined, trying not to show your embarrassment to him.

"Of course we can go," Richard sighed, "but you must promise me something." He stepped down to your level and offered his arm for you to take.

"Should I be worried?" You wondered with a smile.

"There's nothing to worry about," he opened the front door and turned to close and lock it. "I only request that we only stay for no longer than an hour."

"Only an hour? That's so short," you shrugged, "and who knows how chatty Alex will be once she gets a few glasses of wine in her."

"My social battery cannot withstand more than that, unless it's with you," he made the exception, "and I'd prefer to be staying at home, reading of romance rather than experiencing it."

You took his arm again and he lead you to the end of the sidewalk to hail a cab on the main road.

"Have you ever written anything romantically engaging?" You asked him during the ride to the restaurant where you would meet Alex and her boyfriend.

"I don't believe so," Richard said and fiddled with his tie. "I've never been a big fan of it. It's always been too sappy for me to enjoy."

"Romance isn't always sappy," you reasoned, "it's heartbreak too, you know."

"I'd never read a book to purposely make myself sad or yearn for something," Richard cocked, "I read books to learn from their moral values."

"Ayoade On Top has moral values in it?"

"Hush," he silenced you before you even got the slimmest chance of messing with him. You snuck in a few verbal proddings, though. Just for fun.

"We should have a safe word," Richard suddenly suggested, much to your surprise. The cab slowly veered to the curb and lurched into a stop.

"A safe word?" You want to laugh.

"Just in case either of us gets uncomfortable and wants to leave." His idea was... kind of smart, actually. You had never felt all too comfortable around Alex. Her flamboyant personality was too much to bear sometimes, and when she was with her boyfriend, she was at her worst. You often wondered if that guy was okay. Blink once for yes. Blink twice for no.

"Alright, then," you sigh, peeking out the window to see the bustling street and the warm lights of the buzzing restaurant. "What word would be appropriate for a comfortable dinner setting?"

You saw him place his hand on his right pants pocket and fiddle with it for a moment. He hummed.

"Salad fork," he mused.

"Absolutely not. That's two words. We need one," you shook your head and smiled.

"Then how about..." he thought, again, for a moment, "Booner."

"Booner?" You asked. He nodded. You paused, mulling it over, then shrugged. "Booner it is, then."

With a hesitant smile, Richard opened his door next to the curb and slid out of the cab. You did the same on your side. You regrouped with him on the curb and clung to his arm. You were undoubtedly more nervous about this than he was. Richard was kind enough to guide you inside, where you both would be spotted by Alex, beckoned over, and forced to take a seat where the double date would officially commence.

You were seated in a crescent-shaped booth towards the shady end of the restaurant. Richard sat on the end, next to you. Alex sat on the other end, next to her boyfriend. It started with polite small talk, then ordering food and drinks. After that, you knew everything was about to take a plunge downhill.

"So, how did you two meet?" Alex was the one who liked talking the most. She had been keeping Richard occupied with a personal interview while scraping at her food with her fork, moments before hand. You weren't sure, but you thought you felt a waft of jealousy coming out of her words.

"We've lived across the street from each other for quite some time, as you might know," you decided to handle this question and spare Richard. As a thank you, he placed his hand on your knee and gently squeezed it. This was the first physical advancement he had made to you. "We met for the first time on Christmas, when I locked myself out of my apartment. Richard came to my aid, and made me feel really comfortable. We've been writing letters to each other since." You set your hand on top of Richard's and ran your thumb along the back of it. Richard was still quiet, but you could see he was flattered by the way he stole glances at you or smiled at the table.

The sensation of jealousy was stronger now. Alex picked up her glass of wine and took a long, slow sip as you capped off your brief love story.

"You know," Alex started and you braced yourself, "I've never heard of a celebrity going out with a common girl. How does that relationship work, exactly? I bet it's super hard, isn't it Richard?" Alex clicked her tongue. Richard twitched beneath the table, then reached out to take a drink of his water before answering. It was hard to say you both were dating, when you really weren't. Neither of you had asked, nor have you even kissed, but Richard still played along. For your sake, thankfully.

"I actually enjoy it more than dating another celebrity," he answered truthfully, but starkly all the same. "It's quiet. And (Y/N) just so happens to be more beautiful than anyone I've ever been with. So, I'm happy. Happy with her." He spoke to the table. His hand remained on your knee, and he held tight. You knew he was being genuine with you and you had to hide the fact that your heart began to beat wildly and flutter within your chest.

Alex scrunched up her nose in annoyance and finished off the last of the glass. She beckoned to her dopey boyfriend for more, to which he was happy to respond by refilling her drink to the rim. You, on the other hand, were flattered beyond expectation. You knew Richard had a way with words, but you had only ever read them on pieces of paper. Never had you heard them out loud.

"Well, I'm so glad for the two of you," Alex muttered. "Fuck... I'm gonna go use the bathroom. All this talk about stupid fucking relationships makes me sick." She tore herself away from her boyfriend, who had been coddling her drunk ass. His smile never faltered, though. Alex shimmied her way out of the booth, and somehow managed to stand up. She swayed harshly. You'd be surprised if she actually made it more than two steps without falling flat on her face. But suddenly, she spun around and face you head on. "(Y/N)!" She cooed in a sappy, slurrish voice. "Why don't you come with me? We can have a little one on one girl chat, hm?"

You looked around the table for help. Richard was still looking down at the floor, and Alex's dopey boyfriend was still smiling, glancing from you to Alex. Alright, so no one would get you out of this. Great. You were so close to saying the safe word.

"Sounds like a plan," you put on a fake smile and gently removed your and Richard's hand off of your knee. He was reluctant, however. He wanted you to stay, but didn't know how to voice it. So, he remained quiet, and eventually didn't try to fight it. He slid out of the booth to let you out as well. You climbed out. Your hand brushed with Richard's as you left. He wished he could have held on to you for just a little while longer.

Richard sat back down at the booth while you helped Alex stumble to the little girl's room. Now, it was only him and Alex's boyfriend. Not the best situation. Richard just tried to keep his head down and mouth shut. His social battery was worn down to it's last.

"So you're Gadget Man, ah?"

Fuck.

"Man, I'd give anything to have the amount of money you must spend in a single day on that set."

"I was Gadget Man... there's a difference," Richard mumbled and looked up for a minute. Alex's boyfriend was looking right at him, laid back against the booth so nonchalantly. So menacingly.

"Ah ha, you're funny, Gadget Man," the dope chortled. "I'm Charles, by the way. Friends can call me Charlie. Alex doesn't really bother introducing me all that much, but I don't mind it." A sickly smirk spread across Charles' face. "With the ass she has, I learned to let her do the talking most of the time, and that comes with its own rewards." A waitress passed by and took up an empty wine bottle. Charles eyed her up, smirking. He reached out and touched her thigh with outstretched fingers. His thumb brushed against the hem of her short skirt. The waitress smirked, then walked away. "And sometimes, it pays to keep your mouth shut about other things too."

Richard's uncomfort grew. He missed you. He hoped you were doing well in that bathroom and he hoped you weren't going through a similar situation. But you were.

In the nearest bathroom in the dark recesses of the restaurant, you sat outside a bathroom stall, waiting, albeit impatiently, for Alex to stop puking her guts out. The night couldn't have gotten any worse, and you felt awful for it. You'd have to make it up to Richard somehow.

You began to pace about the bathroom, and eventually stopped in front of one of the glimmering sinks and mirrors. You decided to wash up a little bit. Maybe you could scrub some of the memories of watching Alex paint the walls of her occupied stall with her insides out of your mind. You wished that was possible, of all things.

Alex soon crawled out of her stall, stumbling about until she found you at the sinks. She came up right next to you and hunched over the next sink over. Her lipstick was smeared and drool piled up in the corner of her lips where the lipstick was the most caked on. She spat into the sink, then turned the handle until the faucet poured water down the drain. You didn't look at her. You washed your hands and kept your head down.

"Feeling better?" You asked.

"No," she answered blankly. "I still feel fuckin' awful. And you wanna know why?" You still didn't look at her. You heard the handle squeal and the faucet stopped running. "Because you... you worthless piece of shit." You flinched and backed away as she slapped a hand on your faucet. "You've got something that I want."

You had been gone for a long time. Richard's worry increased.

"So why pick her?" Charles clicked his tongue. "What does she have? Or is she just for show?"

Richard didn't move. He feared he'd say something that would offput the night entirely. He fiddled with his front pocket and the letter he kept inside it.

"For a man who I often think can't keep his mouth shut on screen, you're being awfully quiet... She must be for show, then... you've got somebody else on your mind? Tell me..." Charles tapped his fingers against the wooden table.

"You asked me what she had that the other girls don't," Richard took a deep breath. "Right?"

Charles nodded, and the drumming of his fingers stopped against the table. "Yeah. So, what is it? She good in bed or something or is she just your specific type?"

"She has something that neither you nor Alex have..." Richard continued. He reached for his wallet in his back pocket to bring out his card. As soon as you came back, you and him would be leaving.

"And what's that?" Charles chuckled cockily.

"Loyalty."

"I don't understand why you get to have someone like that," Alex yelled at you. While taking it, you were quietly begging for someone to come into the bathroom. Someone. Anyone. "Someone rich... someone famous... how can he even adore you?"

"Alex, you're overreacting. Please, calm down," you tried to reason with her. You could see the tears brimming in her eyes. Tears of hatred or tears of defeat? You weren't sure.

"Oh, please. I'm stuck with some cheating, sniveling brat who can't tell the difference from his brain and his balls!" A tear streaked down her hollow face and dislodged a gooey ball of mascara from the corner of her eye. "Oh!" She exclaimed, "I just want someone to love me... is that so fucking hard?"

For a moment, you felt sympathy for the poor woman. Alex had originally been the "leader" of the friend group. Her title and rank got to her head, and she was stripped of the title. For months, she had been trying to work her way back up to the top, but it was always events like these that grounded her. Back to the bottom, and a lonesome start to gaining power.

"Alex," you whispered faintly, "We've been friends for quite some time now, and I think it's my duty, as your friend, to tell you something."

Alex was furiously weeping now and the tips of her fingers were dewed with her smeared mascara. "What?" She said, sniveling.

You backed away and reached your hand back for the door. What you were going to say was going to hurt, but it needed to be said.

"Alex, you are a terrible person," you shook your head, and put on a face of bravery, "and if you want to be someone again, you need to stop using our friend group like a getting to know only you therapy session." You tugged the door open and quickly got behind it, just as Alex screamed in her fury.

Quickly and in a trance, you ran. You ignored all danger transpiring, pushed past all the people heading in your direction and called out, once you were close enough to the booth.

"BOONER!"

Richard heard it as a beckon call. Charles was still sitting, stunned, across from him.

"Well, it was lovely meeting you, Charles, but I'm afraid this date has come to an end. Alex is pleasant enough as well, but I don't think I'll ever be interested in conversing with you again," Richard shimmied out of the booth just as you came around the corner. "I bid you an awful evening."

Just then, you grabbed Richard by his arm, and, in a rush, made for the exit. Richard just barely managed to tip as you passed by the host of your table. The night may have been shit, but the service wasn't.

"I can't believe I actually screamed 'booner' in the middle of a restaurant," you sighed, as soon as you were far enough down the sidewalk to take a break from running.

"If you weren't going to say it, I was. Alex and Charles seem like nice people, but I, simply, do not care for them," Richard laughed then reached to hold your hand instead of having you hug his arm all night.

"You're absolutely in the right mind not to," you didn't blame him for not liking your 'friends.' "They're awful."

"You said it, not me," Richard grinned, then felt his letter crinkle in his pocket as he walked. "There's still time to turn the night around, you know? I don't know what happened in that bathroom for you, but I would certainly like to forget the experience I had over a cup of tea."

"Tea sounds so nice right now," you groaned in satisfaction of the idea.

"Then... how about my place?" Richard offered. You smiled down at the ground. You knew he originally didn't want to do anything for Valentine's Day, and you knew this is far from how things were supposed to go, but you were so glad he could look past all of that, and want to still spend some genuine time with you.

"I'd really like that," you whispered to him.

Richard took you to the nearest streetcorner and hailed another cab for the two of you to share. You didn't mess with him on the way home, this time. You cuddled close to him to show him your appreciation. He showed his appreciation back by wrapping an affectionate arm around your shoulders and holding you tight.

He warmly invited you into his abode and had you sit in the living room while he got his kettle on the stove. He even went as far as to froth milk for the occasion.

"It's not everyday that I have guests over," Richard said from the kitchen, "so why not make things a little fancy?"

You appreciated the effort. He brought out two steaming cups of tea and set it on the coffee table in front of you. He, then, sat down in a comfy chair on the opposite side of the table from you.

"Valentine's Day has never appealed to me, you know," Richard starts. You nod and reach for your cup of tea. "The only thing that really made me happy was the sweets I would get, but I understand now that not everyone feels the way I do. Like you, for example... and you're one of the last people I want to hurt for not liking a specific holiday." Richard reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter that had been there since he first left the house. "This was going to be left in your mailbox this afternoon. That was, until you came to the door in a hurry," Richard placed the letter in front of you on the table.

You set your cup down, smiling. "You really didn't have to, Richard," you murmured and reached for the letter. He insisted, however, and urged you to open the letter anyway. With a smile, you tore it open and tugged the note out. Surprisingly, it wasn't the normal note card with the Sakura tree on the front. It was a Valentine's Day card. On the front, it had a jolly little bee buzzing about. In big, bold letters it read, "BEE MINE?" You glanced up at Richard. He seemed eager. For his sake, you opened the card to see his fanciful handwriting.

Inside, the card itself provided another sappy note. "We bee-long together." You kept reading to his note to you.

To D6,

There are many ways to display one's affections to another without the use of expensive gifts or sweet candies. Your company has been fulfilling to me over these past few months, and every day that I do not tell you how much I care for you eats at me.

This note doesn't express my gratitude or my feelings towards you. So, I ask to meet in person. I'd like to invite you to dinner with me, if that is okay. I want to get to know you in person, and I want, for once, to spend this holiday with someone. If this is acceptable, please respond in any way that you find necessary. I can only hope for the best.

With love, Ayoade.

Beside his signature, there was a little doodle of a bee. You just stared for a moment, going every word twice to make sure you weren't going insane.

To break the silence, Richard spoke. "Would you have accepted my offer?"

Your eyes shot right back up to him. Your lip quivered, but you smiled. You nodded. Richard, then, smiled as well.

"I'm glad," he whispered, then looked down at the two warm cups of tea. He reached for his, then proudly held it up. "Happy Valentine's Day to you, (Y/N)."

You picked up your tea cup as well and held yours out with his. Your cup clicked with his like a cheers to the holiday. "Happy Valentine's Day to you too, Richard..."

#Spotify #fanfiction #richard ayode x reader #richard ayoade imagines #richard ayoade fanfic #richard ayoade x reader #richard ayoade

73 notes · View notes

keanureevesisbae · 3 years

Note

Hm. That car breaking down in the middle of nowhere made me think... Detective Marshall coming into your coffee, looking forward to his cappuccino and an extra sweet cookie, recommended by his favorite barista - to find she is not in. Asking about you, he learns you did not show up for your shift without a word or apology. That is not like you, is it?

You ask, I deliver 😉 This is tiny sequel of this story

Walter Marshall x fem!reader

Warnings: The slight mention of smut

Wordcount: 618

Walter kept thinking about you. The drive back to his place was risky, but boy, did you fell amazing around him, sucking his earlobe and whimpering softly. You started to grind on his lap, only for Walter to spank your ass. It was intended as a punishment, however you seemed to enjoy it and kept pushing his buttons.

Back at his place, he used you all night. He tasted you, he pounded into you, he marked you, one way or another. Not once did you dare call him by his first name, always calling him detective, sobbing the title as you came and came and came.

The next morning you were absolutely exhausted underneath the covers and when Walter pulled you closer into his arms, you moaned, softly reminding him you were sore. All those times where he masturbated because of you, he thought all those dirty things about you, finally he could have his release.

He dropped you off at your place that morning and you gave him a long kiss on his lips, telling him how much you enjoyed last night.

It was two days after he picked you up in the middle of nowhere. He called a tow truck, they picked up your car and it’s at the garage right now. Today he is finally gonna see you again and not even ashamed to admit it: he missed you a whole lot. In a better mood than ever, totally expecting to see your sweet smile, your pretty face and the mischievous look in your eyes, he walks into the cafe.

Only to discover you are not behind the counter. That’s weird, you’re always here on Friday. What changed? Did something happen to you?

‘Good morning, detective,’ the other lady behind the counter says. ‘How can I help you?’

‘One cappuccino,’ he says, still looking around, hoping to see a glimpse of you. ‘Is Y/N not here?’ he dares to ask.

The lady shakes her head. ‘No, she called in this morning. Told us she couldn’t come in today.’

That’s weird, Walter thinks to himself. He wonders if something bad has happened to you. He quickly pays for his cappuccino and gets in his truck. He could drive by you place, to check if you’re alright. The choice is easily made, since he doesn’t have to get to work in about an hour, so he is totally free to do that.

Walter drives up to your place and marches into your apartment building. He remembers the number and knocks on your door. Waiting for you to open up, his mind wanders off to the moment you kissed him. Your lips felt so soft on his and he isn’t exaggerating when he says that he’s addicted to tasting you now.

You open the door and he says: ‘Hi sweetheart, are you okay?’

‘What are you doing here?’ you ask.

That’s not the welcome he expected. ‘Checking in on you. My favorite barista wasn’t there this morning.’

‘Detective…’ you plead and it shouldn’t make him as rock hard as it nearly happens. ‘Gosh, this is so embarrassing,’ you whisper, leaning against the doorframe.

‘Why?’ he asks.

‘Well, I bruise like a peach,’ you explain, ‘and you were quite rough so…’ You take off the scarf and show him the bruises. Purple marks all over your neck, your chest. ‘It’s literally everywhere and I kinda felt embarrassed to go to work today. I’ve been watching tutorials all day to see how to cover it up.’

Walter can’t help but proudly smile. That’s his handiwork, he thinks to himself. 'You said it’s everywhere?’ he asks.

You bite your lip, your eyes large and innocent. ‘Wanna check it out, detective?’

#walter marshall #walter marshall x reader #walter marshall drabble

218 notes · View notes

bffsoobin · 3 years

Text

This Time Around

➤ idol!yeonjun x non!idol/ex!girlfriend reader ft. same reader x jungkook (mostly platonic), fluff, angst, lots of messy feelings, other txt members make appearances/are mentioned

↳ weeks after your chance reconnection with Yeonjun, you book a flight to Seoul under his encouragement. When you arrive, you’re not only overwhelmed by the lifestyle of an idol, but the new people you meet. Will you and Yeonjun be able to hold on to each other this time around?

word count: 9k

requested?: yes! (thank you for this great idea, anon)

warnings: this is largely angst. crying, arguments, swearing, feelings of betrayal and confusion, Yeonjun is kind of an ass, self-doubt (in both Yeonjun and reader), messy feelings and relationships all around, this does NOT have a happy ending so don’t go in expecting one lmao also disclaimer (?) that I a) have no idea what the BH building looks like inside b) don’t think that either Yeonjun or Jungkook would act this way...we are here to write fiction, after all.

A/N: This is a sequel to Just One Day! I won’t be making too many explicit references to the content of that fic but reading it first will help with storyline clarity! I also don’t explicitly state this but the reader in this case already knows Korean, she just has never been to the country before- it was simply easier for storytelling. I really hope y’all like this. I was very inspired by this request especially since I was in the mood to write both angst and a sequel to one of my older pieces! (also this gave me a good excuse to write about koo without feeling bad for straying from TXT content lmao) ALSO this is not proof read or edited, as usual for me :)

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

“I think it’s a good idea,” Yeonjun’s voice, velvety and heavy with sleep, seeps through the speakers of your phone. You glance at the time displayed on your computer and do the mental math which proves it’s a crisp 2 am in Korea.

“Go to bed, Junnie,” you half-scold, knowing that you wish for nothing more than for him to stay on the line until he eventually falls asleep in the middle of the conversation. He sighs through the phone, and you imagine him stretching his arms above his head to eliminate the fatigue creeping through him.

“Not till you promise me you’ll come,” he counters smartly. Your stomach flips wildly at the words. It had been almost three months since you spent the day with him, and not a single day had passed where he hadn’t been on your mind. Whether you spent your time talking to him or indulging yourself in your newfound kpop guilty pleasures, Yeonjun was almost always on your mind. Staying in touch proved to be harder than expected, due to both time zones and your equally packed schedules. Since he had flown back to Korea, you’d begun your first big girl job in a serious office that required constant business attire and piled the paperwork onto you, the newest and youngest hire.

“I’d love to, but you know how it is at work. I think my boss would combust if I told him I was taking a week’s vacation.” Talking about work made your head swim, as you recalled the stack of paperwork currently residing on your bedroom desk that needed to be finished before you showed up on Monday.

“That’s exactly why you deserve a vacation, Y/N. Look, if you fly into Seoul I promise I’ll make sure you don’t think about work for a second. I know you have time to take off, so take it. Come see me.” The line was quiet for a few seconds as you pondered, weighing your options carefully.

“I miss you,” Yeonjun’s voice came through loud and clear, crumbling the last remaining bit of your resolve. You missed him too, so much more than you ever thought you would, and your heartbeat kicks into high gear at the thought of seeing him again.

“Okay, I’ll file for my week off on Monday. I’ll see you soon, Yeonjun.”

----

When you finally arrive inside of the BigHit building, suitcase in tow and a huge visitor lanyard around your neck, your hands are sweating profusely. A kind staff member had picked you up from the airport and delivered you to the practice room that Yeonjun would presumably be inside of. The walls were soundproofed well, but you could hear the faint beat of bass through the heavy door as you hesitate in pushing it open. Another staff member passes behind you and eyes you closely until recognizing the badge hanging around your neck.

Feeling awkward for hesitating in the hallway after being seen, you push on the door until it swings open in a smooth motion. The wheels of your suitcase click over the seams of the floor, and the sound would have been enough to make you cringe if it weren’t for the pounding music.

A track you don’t recognize echos through the mirrored room as none other than Choi Yeonjun stares intently back at his own dancing reflection. You catch your own reflection; arms crossed in a protective latch over your chest.

His body moves fluidly, as if he had left all of his bones waiting for him at home, and a thrill of excited anxiety crawls through your chest. He was really there, mere feet away, and you were really here in the middle of the BigHit building, achieving the dreams of fans all over the world.

The music stops and your mouth runs dry. Yeonjun’s heaving breath is the only sound in the mirrored room and you try to drive away the thought of the last time you’d heard him pant like that; sweaty and shirtless overtop of you on your rickety secondhand couch.

“You made it.” He says, impressively able to control his voice even after the exertion.

“In one piece, at least.” You say. Your arms stay wound around your body, a protective cage against his stare and his touch. He eyes you carefully and you’re suddenly concerned that your airport-chic appearance is inadequate.

“You look pretty.” He whispers, stepping close enough that his heaving chest almost touches your crossed arms. His hands, fingers calloused and rough, wind around your wrists and tug gently, giving you plenty of time to pull back. But you let him unwind your arms and pull them to your sides. His hands are large and warm and press gently into your skin, grounding you into the room and the moment and the absurdity of the fact that you’re actually here with him in Korea.

“You bleached your hair.” You offer weakly, withering underneath his attention.

“I’m not supposed to tell, but I’m getting ready for pink.” He says. Sweat drips down his temples, meeting and rolling together in tracks down to his chin. He looks just as handsome as you remember him to be months before, but it’s hard to ignore the thinned frame of his face.

“Have you been taking care of yourself?” You ask, finally finding courage to string together a meaningful sentence.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Yeonjun leans into you, supporting himself on the tips of his toes until he’s dangerously close to toppling you both over. He levels a heavy, constant gaze on you, eyes drifting down to the surprised pout of your lips and sliding back to your eyes. In a second you know that he wants to kiss you, and there is nothing more you’d like than for that to happen, so you close your eyes and lean into him; feel the warmth of his breath and you can almost taste the salt of his sweat, but the kiss never comes. Instead, Yeonjun startles and drops his hands from you, takes one huge step back and immediately bends into a deep bow.

Your back is still facing the door, but you catch a glimpse through the mirror. Jeon Jungkook stands just inside the door, dark wavy hair tied half up in a messy bun, some loose strands framing his face. He’s wearing a t-shirt and loose sweats and rubbing fatigue from his eyes, but he’s somehow even more handsome in person. Your face flushes, desperately trying not to make eye contact with him through the mirror and knowing you failed as soon as he shoots you a small, toothy smile.

“Didn’t know you had company,” He says in lieu of a greeting as he steps just slightly closer to the two of you.

“We were just going.” Yeonjun bows again, grabs your wrist and tugs you in a persuasive manner.

“It’s okay, really.” Jungkook enthuses, eyes crinkling in apparent amusement at Yeonjun’s behavior and before you know it your face twists into a similar smile. It had been a long time since you’d seen Yeonjun so nervous, acting like he was attached to a live wire that kept him moving nonstop. “No need to rush out on my account.” Jungkook adds as Yeonjun tugs you again, leaving your suitcase abandoned in the spot you’d been standing. You open your mouth to protest.

“Wait! I don’t think that...” Jungkook looks at you pointedly as he rolls the suitcase back over to the two of you.

“Y/N.” You offer, hands sweating profusely as he passes over the luggage.

“I don’t think that Y/N would like to leave without her suitcase.” His eyes twinkle with something like an untold joke, an anecdote he wants to share but keeps in the back of his head for later. You thank him shortly, still starstruck and nervous as Yeonjun pulls you out of the door.

----

“I’m so sorry about that.” Yeonjun apologizes again as you arrive at a new door, this one in a whole new wing of the building that you would have gotten lost finding on your own.

“It’s okay, Jun. I expect to run into...o-other people.” You stutter as he opens the door, facing the realization that you were probably about to meet Yeonjun’s members too. The dorm was simpler than you expected, opening up to a lightly furnished living room that looked like it had been hastily cleaned- you could see a stack of clothes had been clumsily shoved behind the couch.

The lack of instant greetings surprises you as you follow Yeonjun blindly into the room but you don’t say anything. You kind of wish that the other four boys would come bursting out, bombard you with questions and jokes and prodding fingers as Yeonjun lets you into his room. The air is still charged from your interrupted kiss, and your fingers curl around the handle of your suitcase as you recall Jungkook’s reaction. He had clearly found it amusing, but was he more interested in teasing Yeonjun or finding out exactly who you were?

In the moment you had found his attention comical although stressful, like a funny anecdote that Yeonjun might grumble about a few weeks later. Now, you replay it over and over again, worried that every chance interaction with another idol within the building would play out exactly the same. Maybe you weren’t quite cut out for this. Yeonjun had been speaking the whole time, rattling off words you don’t catch as he opens and closes drawers.

“-is that alright?” He asks, spinning on his socked heels to face you. You freeze, trying desperately to claw through your mind for any clues to what he’d said. Yeonjun smirks, closes in on you and raises a well-kept eyebrow.

“What did I just ask you?” He asks, voice level and cool despite the teasing nature of the question.

“I-I don’t know.” You admit, a blush rises on your cheeks as his smirk pulls even larger.

“I asked...” he tucks a stray hair behind your ear, “if you wanted to share a bed. You could always sleep on the couch, but I-”

“No, I’ll sleep with you!” You slap a hand over your mouth as Yeonjun dissolves into giggles. “I mean, I mean, I don’t mind sharing a bed.” You try desperately to break through his laughter but it’s useless, so you succumb to the same fit of giggles. Yeonjun cups your cheeks sweetly, squishing them together in earnest before leaning in the same way he had just minutes prior. Your heart stutters at the knowledge that this kiss was finally happening after three months separated.

Your lips meet in soft, tentative passes against each other until you recall the feeling. Yeonjun is hesitant, hanging back until you surge forward, kissing him harder and wiggling your tongue between the seam of his lips until he opens them. His teeth rake your bottom lip and nibble hard enough to draw blood, the metallic taste grounding you into the moment until Yeonjun pulls back, thumbs stroking the tops of your cheeks. He places another kiss to your nose, giggling against your skin as you shy away.

A loud crash sounds from just outside the door and you jump, eyes blowing wide when the sound of overlapping voices grows closer and closer. Yeonjun tells you that the rest of the boys must be back and ushers you out of the room before you can protest.

In the living room you’re faced with the four of them, all busying themselves with mundane tasks or scrolling through their phones until Yeonjun clears his throat. They look up simultaneously, synchronized enough that you would have laughed under a different circumstance.

“Everyone, this is, my uh, uh, Y/N.” Yeonjun awkwardly sweeps a hand your way and you flush, feeling small as the four boys you’d watched and laughed with and admired through a screen bowed to you.

“I really-it’s not...well, hi.” You sigh.

----

Introductions aside, the night slides by easily until the wear of your travel catches up with you so suddenly that you slump onto the nearest body. Yeonjun shakes you awake and it’s only then that you notice the shoulder you were leaning upon belonged to Beomgyu. You apologize to the boy as soon as you can get your tongue to work properly and are soon whisked away to Yeonjun’s bedroom. The short trip awoke you to an unpleasant degree, almost feeling as if you were suddenly too aware of your surroundings. The lights were too bright, the scent of fabric softener too strong in your nose, the sound of the remaining four people in the living room too loud. And of course, the presence of Yeonjun too much to handle.

You sit at the foot of the bed and pick at your nails while Yeonjun shuffles around the room, doing something you don’t bother to track closely.

“Are you going to get ready for bed?” He asks shortly, not even turning to face you. You now realize that he had pulled on pajamas of his own; a too-big graphic t-shirt and a pair of worn sweatpants. Frowning, you head for your own suitcase and dig through the carefully stacked clothes until you find some suitable options. You change quickly, keeping your back to him although you can feel his heavy stare at your back.

“Did you like them?” He asks. You sit back at the metal headboard and nod thoughtfully. His lips draw into a straight line as he settles beside you. “You and Beomgyu really...got along well.”

“Sure, I think we all got along well.” You offer, tucking yourself underneath his newly cleaned sheets. For a moment you wonder what he was going to do about the lights overhead, but they extinguish with a press of a button on his phone. Plunged in darkness, you can’t help but feel a bit bolder, indulging in the burn of defiance within you.

“Why? Are you jealous?” You ask. Yeonjun scoffs and you can feel the sheets pull as he flips underneath them. He says nothing but you can feel the air in the room shift. The bedding feels suffocating.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

----

When you wake, you’re uncharacteristically hot. You notice the sweat beading your neck and forehead as soon as you sit up, desperate to free yourself from the covers. You wonder if Yeonjun is suffering a similar fate, or if his body is used to the brutal heat of his bedroom. You turn to look for him, happy anxiety at the thought of seeing his sleeping form in real time brewing in the pit of your stomach. You couldn’t count the amount of times you’d imagined this exact moment, wondered if he scrunched his face in his sleep or if he looked serene and peaceful, wondered if he snored or spoke or sighed in his sleep.

But all you saw was crumpled sheets and a small, bright green post-it note with bunched writing. It stuck to the bed sheets as you pulled it up, and you had to blink a few times before you finally understood the gist of the note. Yeonjun was gone, off to do his daily idol duties, and you are welcome to use their shower as none of the boys were home. You scan the note again for any sign of love or sincerity but find nothing more than cold and clinical facts, like a teacher giving instructions to a class.

Bitterness grows in your chest as you slip into the cramped shower and cool yourself off under a trickle of water. Theoretically, you know that Yeonjun would be busy while you were here. After all, you couldn’t expect the company to let him off of all responsibility just because you were around. Your skin was growing red under the scrub of your fingers. But he could have at least run it by you last night, warned you that he would probably be gone by the time you got up and given you some idea of when he’d be back. What were you supposed to do all day? You stepped out of the shower, flinging your wet hair away from your face. You could barely make it out of this building alone, but you’d be damned if all you did was sit here and wait for him to return. If he wasn’t going to be here, you’d make your own fun.

You were unfamiliar to Seoul, but after navigating yourself out of the BigHit building you felt as if you could conquer anything. You hadn’t realized how much of the day had passed by in your slumber until you stepped into the real world. Dusk had begun to fall over the sky, painting it a hazy purple-pink in anticipation of a sunset. People and cars and buses rushed by with purpose as you stand still and baffled at the city before you. The packed street before you is a little bit intimidating, but reminded you enough of the bustle of your hometown that you took a brave step forward anyway. Crossing so quickly that you almost run into a group of teenage girls, you finally reach some kind of a destination. To be fair, you had done zero planning on sight seeing before coming, so almost every building looked like a destination to you. A particularly cute looking café seemed to manifest itself out of thin air and beckon you in with sweet drinks and sugary snacks. You order and eat greedily with the realization that this is your first real meal since being on the plane yesterday, and the waitress laughs when you tell her that as you flag her down for another piece of cake.

The café certainly lives up to the hype you make for it, but you notice the employees begin to clean and close things down, so you leave and thank them on the way out. You finally check your phone, hoping that Yeonjun might have sent you an apology or an update, but you see nothing aside from email notifications. Emblazoned by his actions, you continue on your exploration, opening the doors to a clothing shop with so much force that other patrons cringe. Inside, you buy way too many things to fit in your suitcase before traipsing yourself-weighed down by bags- into a nearby restaurant. Something about being in Korea had elevated your appetite to an extreme level, so your stomach growls as soon as you cross over the threshold. The place is crowded, almost packed wall to wall as patrons and employees alike bustle between one another.

The cute wooden sign reads “seat yourself” so you dodge and weave until you find a tiny table, just big enough for your party of one, hidden in a more private corner of the restaurant. An employee spots you and yells out that he’s going to go get a menu, so you content yourself with people watching in the meantime. At the table diagonal to you, you spot a woman who looks just about the same age as you. Her hair is carefully waved; a deep, shiny brown that flows just down to the top of her chest. Every feature you can spot is immaculate and it makes you feel sick. Her nails are perfectly manicured, not a single chip or hang nail in sight, while your own nailbeds are torn up and bloody as a result of nervous picking. A weird, unwelcome acidity crawls up the back of your throat and demands to be acknowledged, makes your eyes burn with envious tears as the waiter finally delivers a menu and you wonder why you can’t just look that put together and perfect. After you order you can no longer stand to look her way anymore, angry at the fact that you were so resentful of this stranger.

Your waiter drops your food and utensils with polite haste but you aren’t nearly as hungry as you were before. Noodles and broth swirl around your spoon as the steam rises into your face, paying more attention to the bustle of the open kitchen where you spot a fun streak of vibrant pink hair. Whoever is donning it must have had it done recently. There’s a few small patches of pink dye spotting the back of their neck and it’s quite endearing to think about until you remember- Yeonjun was supposed to be dying his hair pink soon, and that tall frame and broad back look suspiciously familiar, and he still hasn’t sent you any texts, and you think that maybe he was just getting some takeout and heading back home but then he turns away from the counter and heads to your corner of the building. Your mouth goes dry, all the air still and stale in your lungs as his eyes land on yours. He looks away and then looks back again, double taking as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. As if he hadn’t been the one to invite you out to Korea, as if you hadn’t shared a bed last night. And then he moves, finally, walks away from the counter and toward your table with a tray piled with food and your heart hammers against your ribs as he walks right by and settles into the seat across from the perfect girl. She smiles wide as he unloads the food and settles in.

There’s nothing you can do but stare and fight the sting of your eyes until your waiter comes back around, notices your untouched food and asks if you want a takeout container. You say yes loud enough for Yeonjun to hear, and you can see him flinch but you know he won’t turn around. Not in public, with all these people around. Not when he’s an idol and you’re just a normal girl- a fucking tourist- and not when Miss Perfect is giggling her perfect laugh at whatever he just said.

The air outside is cold and it stings. Your face is wet but you don’t try to hide it. You don’t know any of these people, and they will never see you again. They probably won’t even remember that you cried on the walk home, weighed down with bags of food and clothes and the knowledge that Yeonjun was lying.

When you return to the dorm Beomgyu, Soobin and Taehyun are hanging around the living room, watching something on the television.

“Hey- where’s Yeonjun? He said he was going to dinner, we assumed he was meeting you.” Soobin asks, his tone cautiously trying to hide his confusion.

“Well, I did go to dinner,” you lift up the bags on your arm, “and so did Yeonjun. At the same place.” Your voice clips and you take a moment wonder if you should go on until Beomgyu mutters a soft “oh”.

“Well, here’s some food.” The plastic bag thuds on the coffee table. “Not hungry.”

----

You don’t know what time it is when Yeonjun decides to come back, but you have no plans of acknowledging his presence. The room is dimmed, only a bedside lamp left to keep you out of total darkness. You are perfectly content to simmer in your own anger for the night, let him feel it radiate off of your back the whole time you sleep. Until he has the audacity to ask, “Hey, what’s wrong?” You see red in the dark room. Your fingers clench into the pillow, making a victim out of the poor feathers and fabric as you contemplate throwing it at his head. His new hair looks even nicer in the low light; nearly fluorescent and falling in a perfectly styled arc around his face.

“Don’t do that. Act like you don’t know.” You spit. Yeonjun says nothing but he clears his throat awkwardly, as if he’s about to make an argument, but you beat him to it.

“At least tell me who she is.” You try to hide the waver of your voice but it’s already there to stay.

“She’s no one! I’m not really supposed to tell anyone about it yet, the guys don’t even know-”

“They don’t know what? That you’re keeping two different girls in your pocket? Can’t even commit to one for a week long vacation? Jesus, Yeonjun, If you want to...cheat on me, at least wait until I’m not in the country. Fuck, I can’t even call it cheating because you don’t even want to date me! We only met up again a few months ago, and we spent one day together! And we fucked and it was nice and it was fun but what the fuck was it really? I texted you today, you know, to ask where the hell you were, and you never answered. I know that your life is busy, but a warning yesterday would have been nice.”

“I’m not cheating on you! She’s not- she’s just, someone I- that’s not the point, Y/N! And I’m sorry I didn’t answer you, but I was really busy, and I forgot to bring it up and I’m sorry, but did you really expect me to hang around all day?” You grit your teeth to stop an annoyed screech from hopping out.

“Of course not, Yeonjun. I’m not an idiot. What I expected was some fucking communication. I traveled across the world to come see you, maybe even try to figure out what we are, and so far all I’ve done is wander around the city alone. This isn’t what I wanted to do! I’m missing a week of work for this! I didn’t come out here just to be your little plaything once you get home!”

“That’s not what I’m doing!” Yeonjun stands up from the bed, rubbing his palms over the back of his neck. “I knew you would never understand. You can never understand how busy this lifestyle is, and I guess I was stupid for believing that you could understand, and that you wouldn’t be mad at me for having to go do my fucking job.”

“I don’t understand? I don’t understand your life? Will you ever just admit that you only like me because you can mold me around your shit? When I’m back home you can call me at any hour that works for you, and I’ll pick up. You can bitch about your job and your friends and your company and all the pain you have but whenever I call you you’re tired or sick or just don’t feel like it. Guess fucking what Yeonjun. I’m here now. And we share a room and a bed and a city so you can’t keep me miles away and at your beck and call whenever you so well please. I’m right in front of you now, and you need to own up to your shit. You ignored me. Now you’re lying about whoever the fuck that girl was. You don’t get to be a prick just because you’re a famous idol.” Your face is hot and your hands are shaking. Sweat is beading on your forehead just like it did this morning and it makes you itch but you refuse to move a single muscle, hardened to the spot and staring Yeonjun down. You can’t even remember how the argument started, but all you know now is that you can’t stand to look at him any longer. His eyes are wide, bottom lip wobbling. Tears sting at your eyes and your nose burns and you’re ready to lay down or maybe chug a bottle of vodka.

“I’m going to bed.” You pull the covers over you even though you’re sweltering, turn off the bedside lamp with the switch and clamp your eyes shut.

----

Your brain never shuts off. Even when you slam your eyes shut and start counting metaphorical sheep, you’re still replaying the argument on a relentless loop. Yeonjun had left the room moments after you tucked yourself in and you had yet to hear the door creak to announce his reappearance, so it was safe to assume that he was sleeping on the couch or holed up with another one of the boys. Or maybe he went crawling back to Miss Perfect.

The room is suffocating; heat simmers off of every surface even after you’ve thrown off the sheets and the white walls are annoying you. If you ever talk to Yeonjun again it will have to be about his piss poor decorating skills and the fact that he couldn’t even manage to hang up some pictures to break up the never ending white. Your phone says it’s just minutes shy of 2 am, but what does that really mean when you have no idea what time you laid down? Your legs move before your mind decides where you’re going, seemingly possessed by the idea of leaving the room as fast as possible. There’s just enough time to shrug on a crewneck and a pair of sneakers before you find yourself under the blinding fluorescents of the hall that remind you exactly where you are. Tall, sturdy black doors stand on both sides of you, metal accents gleaming and boasting their contents. There’s no easy way to understand the layout of the building, and you assume that’s for the protection of the idols, but it also means that you completely forget the only route you know for leaving the building.

Had you taken a left or a right? Did you pass by the hallway next to the ladies bathroom or go down it? Had there always been a potted plant next to that office, or did all of the doors just look similar? Somehow, you find yourself back in the place you had first been delivered to when you arrived. The doors were slightly different here, some made of thick wavy glass that was vaguely transparent and others made out of the same black you had become used to. A set of three rooms with the wavy glass were right next to one another, and if your suspicions were correct they were all practice rooms, presumably empty at the lack of music. The thought of the rooms, empty and clean and sporting just enough comfortable furniture in the corner for you to sprawl out on. There was no way that sleep was going to overcome you, but at least you could feel secure in your loneliness for a few hours.

The metal handle was cold, chilling your sweaty palm instantly, but you’re met with harsh resistance. It doesn’t budge forward no matter how hard you push downward and lean into the door. Out of anger you try one more time, grunting and digging your heels into the carpet of the hallway.

“You need a card to get in.” A voice calls from what must just be steps behind you, and you jump embarrassingly high before turning reluctantly. Surely some poor late-shift cleaner or intern had seen you struggling with the door and decided to take pity on you before someone really saw you making a fool of yourself. You could only imagine what they were thinking- how they would go home to their pets or family or friends and laugh about the girl they saw throwing her entire weight against a locked door.

But in the split second your neurons begin to fire anew, you know that you weren’t lucky enough to be discovered by another normal member of society. On this already annoyingly unlucky night you come face to face with- once again- Jeon Jungkook. You flush immediately and pull at the hem of your shorts until they do a better job at covering your thighs. You’re still sweaty, strands of hair matted to the back of your neck and your forehead, and the fact that it’s sometime past 2 am and you’ve yelled and cried and tossed and turned and cursed everything that led you to this moment only makes you look worse.

And, of course, even though it’s sometime past 2 am and maybe Jungkook had also been sweating and tossing and turning and cursing everything too...he still manages to look like an angel. His hair is unruly, all loose and wavy and sticking up in some places. His outfit is almost identical to what you first saw him in, but this it was black instead of gray, and his sleeves are bunched at the elbow, only affording you half a look at his lithe muscles and tattoos. His lips split in the same toothy grin as he gestures a small plastic card your way. How dare he look so handsome no matter the circumstance. He’s so much closer than he had been before, merely a foot away from you in the narrow hallway. Up this close you can see how perfect his skin is, as smooth and pore less as Yeonjun’s and Miss Perfect’s.

“No, I don’t need it.” You dismiss his hand with a small wave, sour after reminding yourself why you were here to begin with.

“Seems like you do?” Jungkook’s voice was oddly small too. He retracts his hand halfway, making sure you could still take it from him if you want to.

“No, what I need is a new boyfriend.” You spit the words before your conscious can review them, before you can remember that Yeonjun isn’t your boyfriend, that he isn’t technically anything except a rekindled flame you traveled across the world for. Jungkook pulls his arm all the way back and his face softens. You know he puts the pieces together quickly and you can feel the sympathy pass through the hall. “Nevermind. I’m sure you’re busy, or need to pass by or- yeah, sorry.” You stand aside, press against the wall and wait for him to walk away, but he stays grounded and levels his soft but deadly gaze on you. It’s an unwelcome reminder that he’s one of the most famous idols in the world and you’re standing in the middle of his company building; tired and teary.

“Did you fight? Is that why you’re wondering through our part of the building alone?” He gestures at one of the doors further down the hallway, a solid black one, and you can make out a shiny plaque with his name on it and some cute little decorations taped on the wall.

“I’m so sorry, I can’t find my way around this place- I just couldn’t sleep so I wandered and I guess I ended up in...your part of the building.” You can feel the heat radiate off of your face as he smiles again, nose scrunching at your panic.

“Cute.” His nose wiggles one more time before he schools his features as if the word didn’t nearly knock you on your ass. Cute. Cute! He has the audacity to stand here in the middle of the night and call you cute. “Seriously, if you need somewhere to sit down or sleep, there’s a couch in my studio, it’s clean in there, you can-”

“Oh, no! Jungkook,” you blush stupidly at using his name, “I can’t ask you to do that. I’ll just circle back to Yeonjun’s and sleep it off.” The thought makes your stomach churn, the idea of trying to fall asleep in the exact room your almost relationship fell to pieces. Surely the carpet couldn’t be too uncomfortable-

“No, please, I’m offering. You look tired, and if you fought...well, I know how awkward it can be in the morning. Come on.” He walks away before you can protest and some other worldly sense makes you follow him. You never expected to be in this position, but you also never thought that Yeonjun would disappoint you so much. Inside of the partially padded studio is a surprisingly large sofa with a charming patchwork blanket draped over the back. Jungkook stands awkwardly next to his desk and picks at his fingernails as you sit down. You sink in to the couch and instantly feel more comfortable than you have in days, the soft scent of lavender and the warm yellow lights bring you as close to relaxation as you can get.

“I saw him with another girl.” You lose your filter again and Jungkook’s eyes narrow. “He says it wasn’t a date, but he also won’t tell me who she was, and the rest of them all thought he was with me so he’s obviously lying. We aren’t technically dating, so can I even be mad? He’s lying no matter what, and he didn’t even tell me he would be out all day or text me during it. But I also still have three more days to stick out here.” A few hot tears are slipping down your face and you can’t help but feel insecure about them.

Jungkook says nothing of the tears but chews thoughtfully on his thumbnail. He leans his hip against his desk, intimidating and sharp yet soft and handsome and sweet for letting you stay here and spill your anger into his studio. His socked foot taps on the floor in a rhythm unknown to you, and you can’t help but wonder how many people would kill to be in your exact spot. You notice a day-by-day calendar that’s quite a few days behind on his desk, and it makes you smile until he’s moving, lowering himself to the floor just a few inches away from your feet.

His fists clench- subtle enough that you wouldn’t even notice if the room didn’t feel so charged- and as he looks up at you, you see that a look somewhere between anger and pity paints his face. It’s embarrassing to sit here like this, so clearly under his scrutiny with nothing but your pajamas to cover you.

“I’m sorry.” Jungkook finally speaks again and shakes his head so much that a few ebony pieces of hair slip into his eyes in a near-perfect arc. You shrug. “Really, Y/N. I’m sorry. That’s an asshole move, no matter who the other girl is. You don’t deserve to be treated like that, and after all the trouble you put in to come out here and see him-he’s lucky we don’t cross paths often.” He sighs and suddenly he’s sitting next to you on the couch, the weight and heat of his body making the situation that much more real and that much more odd. You must still have unshed tears lining your eyes when you find the courage to look up at him because he frowns. “Please, don’t cry! It’s the first time I’ve ever had a girl in here, and well, it’d be pretty embarrassing if she spends the whole time crying.”

A shit eating grin sprouts on his face as soon as he sees your lips upturn with laughter. It’s hard not to be grateful for the joke, so you laugh and thank him for trying to make you feel better.

“And thanks again, for the place to sleep. Or, try.” You have a feeling that sleep will evade you all night, no matter how cozy the room makes you.

“If you don’t think you’re going to sleep-” Jungkook stands suddenly and rushes over to his desk. When he gets there, he turns his wide desktop computer until it faces the couch and logs in. “Then at least watch some movies! Here,” he puts a wireless keyboard in your lap- “whatever you wanna watch, I have it all.” You hesitate for just a moment and then type in the title of one of your favorite films with seconds to spare before Jungkook throws the patchwork blanket over both of your laps. He sinks back into the couch and you follow his lead, careful to keep a good few inches of space between the two of you because holy shit, you’re sitting next to Jungkook, and holy shit he’s watching a movie with you, and holy shit he just saw you cry and he looks so handsome from the side.

You pay more attention to Jungkook than you do the movie. It’s funny to watch someone who feels so extraordinary do something as normal as watching a movie and realize that he really is human. And the way he crinkles his nose and widens his doe-eyes makes your heart stutter with attraction and then guilt at the thought of Yeonjun, who still makes your palms sweat and your heart shake with anticipation of his touch despite your argument.

But here’s Jungkook, being kind and open and raw and willing to stay up with you on this random sleepless night although you only met by chance mere hours ago. And his kind eyes widen and narrow and crinkle when he laughs at the movie, and he offers you a second blanket and a throw pillow when your eyes get too heavy for you to focus, and you don’t think that you’re imagining things as you feel gentle fingers comb through your hair.

----

Your head feels like it’s filled with cotton when you wake up, confusion soaks your senses as you piece together where you are and how you got there and who’s lap your head is laying in. As if he could read your thoughts, Jungkook lets out a long and loud groan from above you. Clearly he had fallen asleep where he is now, head lolled against the back of the couch and a throw pillow folded between his arms.

“Good morning.” He drawls, voice still deep and thick from slumber. Out of all the things you never thought you would do, waking up to Jungkook is near to the top.

“M-morning.” You manage to call back as you run your hands over your face, hoping to absolve yourself of any evidence of shock. Jungkook’s studio is just as welcoming as it had been to you last night, but now a deep sense of guilt creeps through you. Yeonjun might have woken up by now, maybe he was ready to talk and try to make things better, maybe he’s been calling and texting you and you haven’t seen any of it. Your phone is nowhere to be found as you dig around in the blanket, a noise of distress clawing up the back of your throat. Heart pounding, you put a hand underneath the couch and slide it back and forth until your fingers graze over the cold, hard mass that must be your phone. As soon as it’s in your grasp you can see that the time is just a few minutes past 8am, and that you indeed do have a few texts waiting from Yeonjun.

“Oh, Jungkook, thank you again for-y-you know, but I have to go, do you mind showing me which way to go?” Poor sense of direction had landed you here to begin with, and you wouldn’t let it make this problem any bigger again. Thankfully he doesn’t protest; just waits by the door as you straighten out your pajamas. Out in the hallway, the lights are bright and imposing and you recognize a headache from the late night is starting to creep up behind your eyes. No one really seems to be around to see the two of you, and you are nothing short of grateful for that when Jungkook makes a quick stop and you barrel into his back, face burning with embarrassment. He laughs as you sputter apologizes and wave for him to keep leading the way, but he insists on stopping and turning to face you. His face is puffy with sleep, eyes still scrunching against the lights, but they’re still clear and gentle and it’s hard to miss the teasing twitch of his full lips in such close proximity.

A wave of admiration crashes through you, followed quickly by a sickening feeling of guilt. Yeonjun was probably waiting for you to come talk things out, and here you were drooling over a different boy. “I’m okay, lets keep going.” Urging him on with a gentle push to his muscled back is the most you can do since you still don’t notice anything distinctive to lead you back to the correct dorm. Just a few more steps down the hallway and you can hear voices, overlapping shouts, and one voice you would recognize anywhere coming from the way you were about to turn. Before you even had time to open your mouth to voice your concern to Jungkook, Yeonjun is stomping down the hallway, a panicked looking Taehyun in tow.

His face is draw, sharp features heightened by either confusion or anger- it’s hard to tell- as he realizes who’s standing in front of him. The two boys are fairly evenly matched in height but Yeonjun still squares up, lifting his shoulders higher and craning his neck. You know he knows you’re there; you shared a moment of eye contact in the seconds before he leveled a glare at Jungkook.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Yeonjun spits, anger shaking the fists at his sides. Jungkook is shocked, you can tell even from behind him, the way he recoils just slightly and scoffs as if he can’t believe his ears.

“Look, this doesn’t need to be a fight. I was just helping Y/N get back to your dorm.” You’re amazed at how well he controls his anger, especially after seeing the anger he held back against Yeonjun the night before. You take this as a queue to step out from behind Jungkook’s frame, allowing Yeonjun a better look at you.

“Oh, before or after she spent the night in your studio? Just couldn’t resist giving her a place to stay. Someone to sleep with?” Anger flares in your stomach, lighting a fire underneath your skin.

“What the fuck, Yeonjun? Do you really think that I would-”

“Sleep with him? Of course. Why wouldn’t you? Look at the state of you two, don’t tell me you didn’t fuck.” There was simply no believing what was coming out of his mouth, and his words only made you wish that you had acted on the feelings you felt brewing last night.

“What if I did? You certainly don’t want me! I’m sorry I went looking for companionship somewhere else!” It’s much too quiet in the hallway after that, the only evidence that the world hadn’t stopped turning is Jungkook’s hand that comes up to rest on your shoulder.

“So you did.” Yeonjun rubs his chin, taking a step backwards in what you assume is disbelief. Tears creep into the corners of your eyes, stubbornly burning and forcing you to blink until your vision is blurry. Jungkook says something you don’t quite catch through the static buzzing in your ears. You feel exhausted, weak at the knees with disbelief at just how awful this interaction was going; so lost that it takes Jungkook shaking your shoulder to bring you back to reality.

“Please, I don’t want to talk about this here. Yeonjun, let’s go, please.” You beg, walking toward him before he even responds. The idea of being caught in this odd trifecta made you sweat. Jungkook protests but you wave him off quickly, assuring that there was nothing else he could do. As upset as Yeonjun was, you knew that he would calm down substantially once the older boy was gone.

The walk to the dorm is thankfully short, and Taehyun tries his best at making small talk while Yeonjun trails behind like a petulant child. As soon as you cross into the dorm you feel awkward and hot all over like everyone is watching you even though Taehyun is already disappearing into his room and locking the door while Yeonjun breezes right past you.

“I’m not playing the silent game.” You follow Yeonjun into the kitchen where he has his head buried in the fridge, making a point to rattle every bottle and package inside of it.

“Alright, fine. Then you get to tell me the truth.” His voice is softer now, much less elevated and harsh than it was just minutes before. “Did you spend the night with him?” It rattles your bones to hear the edge of hurt in his voice.

“I was wandering around the building in the middle of the night, and he was too- so I told him what was going on and he offered for me to stay in his studio, on the couch. And I said yes-” Yeonjun’s face crumples. “We watched a movie and I fell asleep.”

“Why didn’t you just come back? I texted you, Y/N. We literally just argued about communication and the first thing you do is run to a different guy? If I’m not good enough for you, just admit it.”

“I could say the same exact thing to you. Why am I here? Should I just book a flight home tonight and call it quits? Do you even want to try this?” Yeonjun cracks open a bottle of water and drinks half in one go, avoiding your gaze at all costs. “And I did nothing with Jungkook. Because I respect you, and whatever the fuck this-” You gesture between the two of you, feet apart, “is. Or was.”

“Don’t say that.” Yeonjun’s voice cracks, reminiscent of the way he used to sound on the phone when he called you at the end of the day. “I- I don’t want to hear you say that. Please.” A tremor of hurt shakes your bones, creates an unpleasant lump in your throat that you try and fail to swallow. Yeonjun appears to you now as similar as he did in your teenage years; uncertain and small and his wide, glassy eyes latching on to you like a lifeline. And you can’t help but remember how you used to be too; devoted to him and naïve about where life was going to take you.

“I don’t want to say it either, Yeonjun. I hate saying it. But we aren’t the same people we were all those years ago. We’re in two different lives, and as much as I want to be able to fit into yours...it’s never going to happen.” Your body weight feels suddenly too much, like you’re being filled with lead and sunk to the bottom of the ocean to be forgotten. Yeonjun finally closes your perpetual gap in a slow gait that seemed like it would last forever. His eyes are red, puffy, rimmed with unshed tears. Dark circles ring his eyes and you know they’re because he probably didn’t sleep last night either. His lips are chapped and dry, pouting in an incurable sadness. Your fingers itch to cup his jaw and litter him with kisses until he finally grins.

“Are you saying you don’t love me?” If any other noise had happened at the same time he spoke, you wouldn’t have heard the question. A stake strikes through your heart at the words, scarring your soul for years to come.

“No, Junnie. I love you so much.” Your bottom lip wobbles and you gasp out a sob, “I just don’t think we’re going to work this time around. We’re both too busy, and on different tracks, and I think we just have to be more r-realistic.” You have to close your eyes, unable to watch the way tears begin to cascade down his own face. “I’m sorry.” You stand alone, still and cold and clamping your eyes shut so hard that they hurt.

Yeonjun’s body molds around your form, tight and warm and shuddering slightly from his own tears. He smells like laundry detergent and musk and you shake with regret as his arms wind around your back and hold you as close to his frame as you think is humanly possible. Your tears soak his crewneck as the fabric scratches your skin. His heart beat is erratic, but you know yours isn’t fairing any better, and you can’t help but curse the universe for bringing you all this way with him just to shoot you back down.

“I’m sorry too. For not being enough.” His words rumble into your hair and you can’t even find the energy to refute them and instead just shake your head. Your head spins in wild circle as Yeonjun finally stops shaking underneath you in favor of cupping your face in tender hands, forcing you to open your eyes. His look felt more intimate than anything else you had shared before; a pure and expressive opening into his most vulnerable form and the knowledge that you were the reason he was feeling it.

“I think I should try to catch an earlier flight home.” You aren’t quite sure exactly why you say it, but Yeonjun doesn’t seem surprised at the notion. After all, there would be nothing to stick around for. He still had to work and you had no relationship left to hang on to. You hadn’t even gotten around to unpacking your suitcase. Yeonjun nods sadly, wiping at a few more tears before clearing his throat. His voice is thick, the evidence of his emotion loud and clear and your heart breaks at the thought of truly walking away from him.

“I’ll miss you, Y/N.” There’s no telling if he would ever contact you after this, or if you would contact him. Maybe the two of you will live with odd shadows of one another in the back of your heads for the rest of your lives- a teenage romance rekindled years later only to explode and crackle and eventually fade into the dark.

356 notes · View notes

steepgan · 4 years

Text

someone dear (iii) - d. ragnvindr x f!reader

PART I - PART II - PART III

FINAL PART!!!! also i hate this part the most because i definitely rushed it and i could feel myself losing steam for writing so i wanted to finish it asap LMFAO ALSO DILUC IS HELLA OOC IM SO SORRY I STARTED PLAYING GENSHIN LIKE SIX DAYS AGO IM RELLY REALLY SORRY LAFAHFOA#@*$@)*$

Today was payday.

“You look…” Charles made a face. “Vibrant.”

“I get paid!” you squealed.

“Oh, boy,” Charles said. “You know there’s more to life than money, [Name]. There’s knowledge. You could always learn more. There’s love. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with a significant other, honestly. There’s—”

You waved a dismissive hand. “I know all that already! I’m satisfied, Charles. It’s just not so bad to be financially secure while I’m at it. Money is the best thing ever!”

“Money is the root of all evil.”

“The root of all evil is buried deep within that chest of yours,” you accused. You picked up a clean rag and soaked it in a water basin. “You never let me have any fun on payday. Anyway, today there’s a new book being released, and I’ve been waiting for the sequel since forever.”

Charles nodded. “I think I know which book you’re talking about. Give it time and your librarian friend will have it in the library in no time.”

“That very librarian friend is coming today to hand-deliver the book to me.”

“Of course. Never once would you abandon your shift for books. Though, I think I’ve once seen you leave midway through the day because you saw a cat on the balcony while standing outside.”

“It was a cute cat,” you defended.

“You shouldn’t make friends with cats. They’re very picky and particular with whom they associate with.”

“Ah,” you said absentmindedly, “like Master Diluc.”

“[Name], that’s your boss.”

You deserved the reprimand. “Sorry. It’s not anything bad. I actually took your advice the other day and chatted with him a bit. He’s not as… cold as I thought, but he’s certainly as chilly as Snezhnaya at times.”

Diluc had been somewhat stubborn when you insisted on helping him. You didn’t understand. It was only natural to be there for other people; however, Diluc believed differently. He was right in some ways. Too much dependency would lead one to no good, but that was not your concern.

“Before comparing your employer to one of the coldest nations in Teyvat,” Charles said, “I nominate you to call for Patton a bit today. He’s coming in late ‘cause he’s wrapped up with something today.”

“Do you think me standing out there would do the tavern some good?”

“Try wearing a costume. Draws attention.”

“Right on. Let me see if there’s any maid uniforms in the back.”

As much as you worshipped your own looks on a daily basis, standing outside where Patton typically was took a toll on your body. But your mental health persevered. After all, you were getting paid today. Nothing could deter your smile.

You stood outside, calling out passing people with hopes of luring them in with Dandelion Wine. Diona, who worked at Cat’s Tail, stopped by to convince you to join her tavern. She was ultimately dedicated to sabotaging the traditional and rich wine industry of Mondstadt yet was doing rather poorly at it. You declined politely, as your job was the wine industry of Mondstadt.

Nimrod, one of the usuals, entered the tavern. He dodged his wife who condemned his drinking habits. He typically hung around Angel’s Share for the addicting wine. It was not strange to see him coming in and out of alleyways.

Not even the approaching Master Diluc could taint your spirits.

The approaching Master Diluc.

You’d recognize his hair and determined face anywhere. You were accustomed to seeing it, as you saw him often. You smiled and greeted him accordingly just before he entered the tavern. “Hello, Master Diluc. Have a good day today.”

“I will,” he said. “I assume today’s a good day for you, too.”

“Of course.”

Donna was giving him puppy-dog eyes around the corner, you saw, but she gave him puppy-dog eyes every day, so what was new? Diluc, the brooding bachelor bastard of Mondstadt, was the center of many ladies’ attention.

He was the center of yours because your paycheck was in his hands.

Days and weeks went by.

Because you knew Diluc’s secret and nighttime hobby, it wasn’t strange for you and he to grow closer. When he’d come back to the tavern, you arranged a nice meal for him to eat. Heroes needed plenty of food, you figured.

Sometimes, you’d eat with him in agonizing silence.

He made for mediocre company, but when it was late at night and you had nothing to do, he was a fine person to talk to. He kept his distance, preferring to sit a seat away from you at the bar, idly standing when you were sitting at a table. But you never felt alone on those nights.

Diluc came back injured sometimes, and as each night passed, he let you tend to his wounds pathetically before he went to see a doctor. You didn’t know if he was humoring your concern or if he seriously needed your help.

Even without you, he was doing just fine, but little by little, akin to a trickling stream, he began to rely on you. Another person’s trust was a heavy thing to carry, and Diluc’s trust was the weight of the entire world upon your shoulders. You feared that if you ever messed up, Diluc’s trust would be gone in a snap.

Diluc and you shared meals, which was nothing out of the ordinary now, but there was small conversation. Diluc, to your knowledge, never really participated in idle chatter, but he talked with you about the sights he’d seen around Liyue, the hub of business in Teyvat, and you retold jokes your friends had said and rumors about a certain person that were made just to pass time.

You could pull vicarious wonder when Diluc told you of the other nations. You’d venture there yourself, but your skills in the adventuring department were lacking.

You admitted that you were wrong about Diluc; where you had thought him cold and stoic, he was protective and brave. He treasured his work above nearly everything—to the point he overworked. In a way he was somewhat like you. A little different, though. A little stranger. A little better.

Diluc had grand aspirations and was bold personified. You, too, had something to live for, but it wasn’t as great as his. You liked the little things; you liked the dog who wagged his tail whenever you passed in hopes of you giving it a treat; you liked shopping with your friends; you liked reading new books and joking around with Lisa.

You and Master Diluc seem to complement each other, that’s all, Charles had said then.

“Charles, you’re insane,” you said, pushing Charles’ shoulder. “It’s never going to work. Patton would never agree to putting on the maid dress.”

“And if we bribe him?” Charles asked.

Diluc was standing on the other side of the bar, a brow quirked and a smile lapping at his lips. His arms were crossed, and as much as he tried to seem intimidating, he looked like a friend to you. Before, you would have seen him as judgmental and indifferent, but the Diluc before you was someone who you knew better.

“How much do you think we should give Patton? Maybe we need to sort into bigger pockets.” You peered at Diluc.

Charles said, “What—do you think Master Diluc is willing to put on such a uniform?”

You laughed, and Diluc was looking at you. He didn’t look upset at all. His face was calm, and his pretty cupid’s bow lips were drawn in an amused smile. Oh, he was gorgeous—and upon that thought intruding your headspace, you nearly stopped laughing.

Sometimes Diluc would bring you small trinkets from the winery. You once brought up you wanted an owl statue to put on your balcony to attract other owls (though you were sure that wasn’t how nature worked), and Diluc, sure enough, gave you an owl statue around the size of your torso.

“Master Diluc,” you said. “What is this?”

“An owl statue.”

“Gee, wow! I thought it was a penguin.” You tentatively patted the top of its head. “What’s it for?”

“You,” he said. “I had it laying around the winery.”

It provoked thought in you. What sort of person had an owl statue laying around? You felt the need to give Diluc something back, but what did you have to give him? So that very night, you took him outside of Mondstadt so you could capture a Mist Flower Corolla for your friend.

Typically, you wouldn’t take your employer out on an errand, but you were done with work, so it wasn’t Master Diluc. It was just Diluc. Diluc looked like he wanted to say no to you because he didn’t really devote his time into something so trivial, but you insisted.

“If you needed it that badly,” Diluc said, “you could have asked me. We have plenty near the winery, and I can take care of them easily.”

“It’s not that,” you said, watching an Ice Flower bloom and freeze the water around it. “It’s about the adventure. The message.”

“And what’s this message you speak of?”

“It’s the message of ‘hey, I nearly froze my ass off to get this flower for you, but I care about you enough to risk frostbite.’”

“How… kind of you, [Name].”

You and Diluc spent all night catching enough Mist Flower Corollas for your liking. You wanted a bouquet, and you had a bouquet at the end of the night, at the expense of Diluc’s time and your sleep. You carried the bundle in your hands happily.

Diluc’s fire skills came handy, and it wouldn’t be a lie if you said you brought him along just for it. You liked his personality and his friendship, of course, but his fire skills were a… plus!

On the nights where it was just you and he, Diluc sat nearer to you now. Diluc picked up Charles’ shifts more often and sat across from you whenever you were seated at tables. He sat next to you at the bar, entertaining you out of your boredom.

It wasn’t until one day, Donna of the flower shop was gushing about Diluc, and you felt uneasy. You’d known that Donna was incredibly fond of Diluc, but it never bothered you until now.

Of course, you brought it up to Charles, one of your closest confidants, only third to your bank account and Lisa.

“He likes you back, you know,” Charles said, playing with the tip jar. The coins clinked and clanked in there. “I can tell you that much, [Name].”

“Ewwwwww,” you moaned. “Talking to you about my problems is gross. Where’s Lisa? She’ll tell me the truth for sure. You only want me happy so I can clean the entire tavern for free again. You want me to cover your shift again?”

“Sure I do,” Charles said, “but what I’m saying is true, [Name]. He looks at you all funky.”

“Yeah, because I’m a funky gal.”

“Stop it.”

“Funky, funky, funky.”

“Please.” Charles sighed and set down the tip jar. “It’s like… you and he are weirdly connected. He looks at you a lot. He always looks at you whenever there’s a joke, just to see if you’re laughing, I guess. He must like your laugh. I think it sounds like a horse, personally.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek. You loved talking to Charles. You loved money. You loved your friends, and you loved your happiness. You loved—no, you liked Diluc. You didn’t know what to do when it came to him. Maybe if you kept away, your affections would find someone else to torment.

Like, for example, that newly hired boy next door that nearly killed his shop’s plants. He was a clumsy sort of cute.

But Diluc was not clumsy. He was meticulous and always got the job done. He took care of himself well, and on days he overworked, you made sure he took some time to rest.

You shook your head. You should stop thinking about Diluc for now and focus.

Yet it was always you and Diluc, and Diluc began to invade your thoughts. You brought up weaving flowers into his long hair, and Diluc always turned you down, saying that there wasn’t enough time for that.

You wished to brush Diluc’s bangs back and lightly kiss his forehead, if he was okay with that. Instead, you said to Diluc, you have a big forehead. No wonder you’re so smart.

Can we go back to the part where you said I had a big forehead? he’d retorted.

It wasn’t until nearly a month later did Diluc come to his shift with Mist Flower Corollas in hand and shyly handed them to you. There was a red hue on his cheeks, and his voice was small, afraid of rejection. His hair was tied back in a neater fashion, and his eyes were cast downward.

Become someone dear to me, he had said.

He wore fine clothes and a nervous expression. It was so out of character for Diluc. You felt as if you were watching a high school boy struggle to express his feelings. However, had Diluc walked into the tavern with a more open chest and chin up, he wouldn’t have been Diluc at all.

You liked Diluc as he was—somewhat closed off but kind enough. Mondstadt’s hero. A knight who donned glimmering red hair and a steel exterior. You wondered if Diluc had to prep himself before coming to you.

“Sorry,” he said although there was nothing to be sorry for, really. “I mean, if you don’t like the flowers—”

Hey, I nearly froze my ass off to get this flower for you, but I care about you enough to risk frostbite.

You took the flowers. “Oh, no, I love it. I really, really do, Master Diluc!”

“Just Diluc.”

“Diluc,” you corrected. “Do I get financial compensation if I become someone dear to you?”

“For starters, I could give you a Mist Flower Corolla every day,” Diluc said, “if that’s enough to satiate you.”

“And then?”

“In the evenings, I’d take you to Cider Lake to watch the starry night while you read those magazines of yours. We don’t need to talk. Just bask in each other’s company, really.”

You tried to fight the smile that was growing on your face. You set down the flowers on the bar counter before saying, “that’s it?”

“I’d let you weave flowers into my hair. I’d take you all over Teyvat, if that’s what you wished as well. I’d take care of you as much as you had taken care of me whenever I’m injured. I’d learn your jokes and get along well with your friends because they seem pleasant.”

You didn’t know Diluc was such a romantic. You dusted Diluc’s shoulder. “I would hold your hand.”

Diluc frowned. “This doesn’t feel very equal to me.”

“You want more?” you quipped. “I’d kiss your forehead. And then I’d read to you. That is, if you like fairy tales… Oh! And then I’d take you up to the mountains where we could see the constellations the best! I love constellations; they’re so pretty.”

“Truthfully,” Diluc admitted, “you don’t have to do anything. I think… I think I’d be satisfied if I just had your company.”

“Would you now? And what about Donna from the flower shop?”

“What about her?”

“Oh, nothing.” You pretended to think about Diluc’s proposal. “I have to say, I think I’m enchanted by your offer, Diluc. I’m going to have to say yes. I will become someone dear to you.”

PART I - PART II - PART III

#diluc ragnvindr #diluc #genshin impact diluc #x reader #genshin impact #diluc x reader #diluc ragnvindr x reader #genshin impact x reader #me speedrunning the ending desperately:

196 notes · View notes

alolowrites · 4 years

Text

Juice

Summary: Bakugou’s daughter demands juice, but he refuses.

Author’s Note: Story inspiration came from a video I saw on YouTube a few weeks ago. Video was about MHA/BNHA memes (lol), but please click here to watch it. The specific timestamp for the meme I used for inspiration is at the 1:38 minute mark. The joke originally came from Kevin Hart. All credit goes to the comedian and the person who made it into a MHA/BNHA meme.

Enjoy!

~~~

“You’re gonna die, Shitty Hair!”

“We’ll see about that, Bakubro!” Kirishima challenged him with a shark-like grin, shifting into a defensive position with his sharp arms.

Bakugou mischievously gritted his teeth while he charged at the red hedgehog he grudgingly called his best friend. Although it was Bakugou’s day off from work, he wasn’t going to sit his ass down all day. Luckily for him, Kirishima was also free today and itching to spar with his longtime bro from U.A.

The two Pro Heroes never lost touch with each other after graduating from high school. While Bakugou would never admit this out loud, he really appreciated his friendship with the eccentric, jolly man. He respected him, and viewed him as an equal, but Bakugou would always strive to be better than him since no one else deserved to be the number one hero in Japan.

That coveted title was for Bakugou, and damnit, he’ll achieve it one day.

Bakugou flashed a feral smile at his opponent, his razor-sharp teeth menacing as he threw one powerful blast at the hero. The blonde-haired man rushed forward into the dark smoke to deliver the final blow at his unsuspecting spar partner, not holding back one bit since Bakugou knew he could handle it. He was a damn Pro Hero, after all.

As the dust settled, Kirishima tapped against the winner’s shoulder.

“Alright, alright, you win,” he groaned and Bakugou smirked. Standing on his two feet, Bakugou offered his hand to his friend and Kirishima graciously took it.

Bakugou threw a white towel at his friend. “Get clean, I’ll get us some drinks.”

“Yay, daddy!” A little girl screamed from the sidelines. She sprinted towards the sweaty man, snatching his hand while jumping up and down. Bakugou gave his daughter a victorious grin before scooping her in his arms.

Kaida Bakugou was the crown jewel in the Pro Hero’s life. You knew your daughter was the definition of a daddy’s little girl. The moment Bakugou laid his eyes on his newborn daughter at the hospital, it was over. He was whipped once Kaida yawned and opened her tiny, crimson eyes at him. It was one of those rare times when Bakugou actually had a genuine smile on his face.

As Kaida grew, she slowly developed her personality. Unsurprisingly, she was just like your jackass of a husband: determined, passionate and loud. In fact, she was the spitting image of him except for her hair; that was all you (and maybe your nose if you squint a little), but those eyes—they were definitely his.

Both men trudged their way to the kitchen. Kaida squirmed in her father’s arms, and Bakugou realized she wanted to be put down. The little girl darted to the refrigerator, eagerly pointing at the door.

“Daddy, juice,” Kaida requested, and Bakugou frowned.

“No,” he grunted at her. “You had enough juice. You’re gettin’ water.”

Kaida glared at her father. Standing up straighter, she curled her small fists and puffed out her chest in a bravado manner. The toddler aggressively babbled away, swinging her fists up and down as she argued for her juice. In her head, her reasoning sounded perfect, full-proof, a guarantee to win her request.

At the end of Kaida’s jibber-jabber, she demanded: “Juice!”

Bakugou was stunned at her behavior while Kirishima’s hand flew to his mouth to stifle his laughter at the sight unfolding. A large vein appeared on the father’s forehead.

“Who the fuck you think you talkin’ to?”

Kirishima lost it and banged on the counter. Bakugou fiercely jabbed his finger at his daughter’s direction.

“You are not gettin’ juice! You already had two pouches before lunch.”

“Juice!” Kaida stomped her foot for emphasis.

“No, brat,” Bakugou sneered. “You get juice when I say so. One more outburst and I won’t let you watch that annoying, pink British pig garbage you like so much.”

Now Kaida was a toddler, but she wasn’t stupid. She carefully thought through the pros and cons for a minute before deciding to surrender. Kaida scowled at her father and stormed out of the kitchen to who knows where in this house.

Bakugou pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Kirishima’s laughter echoed behind him, earning a snarl from the hot-headed father.

“SHUT THE HELL UP!”

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

After Kirishima left, Bakugou went to find his daughter.

He knew where she would be, so he dragged himself upstairs to the second floor. Bakugou glanced at the various photos you hung on the walls. Some were from your wedding day; others captured the trips before Kaida was born. The remaining ones were of your daughter, either alone or with her parents.

Standing in front of her door, Bakugou sighed and knocked.

“Kaida, it’s me.” Not waiting another second, he pushed the door opened before walking inside. Bakugou shot himself in the foot by doing this when his eyes narrowed at his little girl’s body curled up on her bed.

Her back faced toward him, and she didn’t bother turning around when he knocked. Bakugou hauled himself to her bed and sat down. Kaida sensed the mattress sinking and shuffled away, clutching her mother’s pro hero plushy. Bakugou groaned as he saw his own tossed across the room.

He fucked up big time.

“Listen, Kaida, I know you’re angry at me,” he exhaled, shoving his fingers through his hair. “And I know you’re stubborn like your damn mother, which is a good thing, but not when it’s used against me.”

“Daddy, go away,” the toddler mumbled.

“Daddy ain’t going anywhere,” Bakugou retorted at the girl. “Kaida, I’m your father. That means you gotta put up with my shit because I’m the grown up here.”

No response.

“Oi, you know I hate seeing you like this.” Bakugou scooted closer to the toddler. She didn’t move away from him, so Bakugou laid down next her fetal position. “But you have to understand you can’t have everything whenever you want. There are limits and rules.”

“I want juice,” Kaida sniffed.

“You know you can’t have juice. Mommy said you can only have two juice pouches a day. That’s mommy’s rule. Do you want to break her rule?”

Kaida shook her head. “Hewo no bweak wules.”

“Exactly,” he answered. Kaida rolled around and faced her father; she hugged him, and Bakugou wrapped his arm around her tiny frame, pulling her closer to his inferno chest.

Parenting was no walk in the park. There were moments where Kaida tried to push his buttons and test the boundaries, but he needed to remain firm. He was responsible for guiding her down the right path with strong morals. That all began with her understanding certain things like ‘no means no.’ He wasn’t going to raise a selfish brat.

Sensing that Kaida was no longer angry, Bakugou gently shook her so she could look up at him.

“C’mon, let’s get you washed up so we can eat dinner.” Bakugou picked Kaida up, and carried her out the room. She snuggled her head near the crook of his neck. “Now, you’re gonna drink water with you food, but if you finish your dinner…I’ll give you ice cream.”

Kaida’s eyes lit up. “Ice cweam?!”

Bakugou kissed her forehead as a tiny smirk curled on his lips. “Yes, but we won’t tell mommy. It will be our little secret. Got it, squirt?”

Kaida adorably cupped her mouth and giggled, making a quiet ‘shush’ noise to keep her promise to her father.

To this day, you never found out about their ‘little secret.’

~~~

I figured I write a fluffy piece after my last short story *nervous laughter*

But thank you all for your incredible response on The Point of No Return. I am leaning towards writing a sequel for that story. Usually I don’t write sequels, but considering I did Toshinori dirty...I’ll see.

1K notes · View notes

pi-cat000 · 3 years

Text

BNHA: something sad (Resentment)

Summary: The last time Katsuki sees Izuku alive the other boy is rushing to save him. A ‘the Sludge Villain incident gone wrong’ aka Izuku dies.

Characters: Katsuki Bakugo

Fandom: My Hero Academia

WARNINGS! Major Character death, swearing, heavy angst, graphic descriptions of violence

Other parts in this AU: (Something Sad), (Anger), (Grief)

This is the direct sequel to (Implosion)

......

“Not many people get hit with a concussive blast of this strength and walk away will so few injuries.” Is what the paramedic that looks Katsuki over says, hand glowing a faint blue as he uses some sort of diagnostic quirk.

“It looks like you have a few cuts, bruising, strained muscles and sprained wrist from what I can see. I’d recommend getting a proper examination at the hospital but there’s nothing life-threatening here.” The medic continues.

The emergency doctor at the hospital confirms the diagnosis and shakes his head in disapproval, adding, “…bruising on your ribs and a fractured finger. No concussion, thankfully, but you’ll have a nasty bump on the back of your head. If your quirk didn’t make you naturally resistant to these sorts of shock-based blasts, you would be dead..”

…

After that, everyone is practically falling over each other to lecture him on how irresponsible and reckless he is.

His mum arrives and there is a lot of shouting which just pisses him off.

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT WHEN I GET WOKEN UP AT ONE IN THE MORNING BY POLICE TELLING ME THAT MY IDIOT SON, WHO SHOULD BE ASLEEP, IS IN HOSPITAL!!”

“WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!

Then there is the quiet disappointment he gets from his father when his mum is done yelling which only fuels his resentment.

“I don’t understand why you did it son. Did you want to get into that fight? Or was it a mistake? Please. We can’t help if we don’t know what’s going on.”

Eventually, he finally snaps, “I fucking felt like it! That’s why I did it! And you know what, I’d do it again.”

It wasn’t like he could or even wanted to explain that he’d jumped out his window to wander the streets at midnight because he had had a bad dream and his All Might poster had looked at him funny. That the rage and anger were preferable to that sinking empty feeling that had turned his every waking moment into a pointless repeat of everyday routines and useless interactions. That every time he let himself pause and reflect, Deku’s stupid smiling face was mocking him from the afterlife.

Next, he spends an hour with Senior Officer Watanabe recounting every possible detail from his stroll through the streets to his climactic fight with Lanky, Tiny and Grease-Hair.

“Well, you definitely don’t do things in half measures kid. So far we have private and public property damage, unlicensed quirk usage, quirk usage with the intent to harm, vigilantly activity, assault...”

“Assault! Why the hell is that on the list. Those bastards started it.”

“You can’t go around beating people up no matter how good your intentions are!”

“So, you wanted me to just watch!”

“Yes!” A long breath, “I know it can be hard but you need to wait for the pros. You got lucky this time but what if things had been different? You had misread the situation. What if you had been badly injured? What if you had accidentally injured the victim or killed someone? There is a reason we make people get a license for Hero work. Seison Masuyama is a B-rank villain.”

“B rank? He wasn’t that strong.”

“His quirk, Kinetic-Force, collects kinetic energy and releases it in one overpowered attack. It’s deadly to most people. You were lucky he had already used it once that day and that you were resilient enough to withstand it."

After multiple repeats of the ‘you’re lucky you’re not dead,’ with a side order of ‘it’s a good thing you’re still a minor because you could go to jail for this,’ he gets to go home.

It is three in the morning by the time he arrives back at the apartment, two exhausted parents in tow, having been issued an ‘official warning,’ an order to complete 100 hours of community service and instructions to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He has never felt angrier or more resentful.

A days later and he is back at school, wasting his time watching clocks and avoiding classmates.

Nothing had changed.

…

The car screeches to a stop at the school gates, throwing Katsuki forward in his seat. His mum turns to fix him with a stern glare, eyes narrow.

“If you’re not waiting right here by the gate when I come to pick you up or so help me I’ll be escorting you to and from your classroom from the rest of your school life,” she threatens.

“Lay off you old bat,” Katsuki snaps as was becoming routine since his mum had started driving him the short distance to school, “I got it the first million times.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” A finger is pointed at his nose, waving in an almost menacing fashion. “Remember. Here. School Gates. 4:00pm. Don’t you dare think about ditching again.”

Katsuki sneers and kicks open the car door, turning to slams it shut with as much force as possible in retaliation. He stalks through the gates, shouldering his way through a group of loitering students. They all scatter when they recognise him. In some ways, he prefers dealing with the anger and yelling of his mum than his father’s quiet disappointment. That doesn’t stop it from being annoying as hell.

A spike of pain runs through his hand from where he must have used a little too much force on the door. Maybe he should take his father up on those kickboxing classes. Sure, he had practised punching after reading a bunch of online guides, but reading and solo practice were completely different when compared with real actual fighting. That was assuming he was going to be getting into more real fights. He opens and closes his bandaged fist, feeling a slight sting in his wrist and fingers. He glares. Four days on and he can still feel the echo of adrenalin. The thrill of righteous anger had been so much more satisfying than the directionless rage he was accustomed to. It had rekindled some of that fire that drove him to be the best, to win, chasing away the sickening emptiness which had been dogging his every waking step.

He wants to feel that again…He wants to do something other than listlessly go through the same daily motions as he drifts towards his now uncertain future.

“Hey Bakugō!”

He keeps walking, ignoring whatever loser classmates wanted to talk to him.

“HEY!”

A hand lands on his shoulder and Katsuki twitches, a hairs breath away from spinning and firing a blast point-blank into the pest’s face. Instead, he stops and deliberately turns to glower at the pathetic piece of trash behind him. Murata Taheiji from his homeroom is standing there, one hand on his hip, flanked by two other boys he doesn’t know the names of. Two more appear to stand in front of him, blocking his way. They are all puffed up like they think they’re hot shit. Katsuki scoffs. Are these failures really trying to bully him? HIM!?

“How about you get the fuck out of my way and go find a first year to pick on. You know, someone more on your level.”

That gets him an irritated scowl that transforms into a patronising grin, “You were always such a stuck up prick Bakago…Acting so high and mighty all the time. Not anymore, I know the truth. You’re just like the rest of us.”

“Huh?” he drawls, dragging out the sound, turning so he is facing the boy, “What the fuck are you on about.”

“My dad works for Musutafu police dispatch and he told me something real interesting yesterday.” A dramatic pause, “He said that you got arrested a few nights ago.” There is a laugh that is echoed by the four surrounding him. By now the confrontation has garnered the attention of several onlookers, who are slowly drifting closer.

“All that shit about being a Hero and you got arrested. What’d you do? Steal some candy from a convenience store? We all know you don’t have money.”

Around them, the growing audience is eyeing him with varying levels of eager anticipation like they think he’ll break down and start crying because of some dumb-ass insults. Damn, if that doesn’t just piss him off. How dare these losers think him that weak.

“Don’t compare me to your loser selves,” he dismisses aggressively, making to turn and forcefully elbow his way past. He is stopped by Murata’s hand which is still on this shoulder.

“You know what I think. I think you’re all talk.”

Katsuki stills, letting the words sink and curdle in his stomach. In one short move, he turns and steps in close to Murata so they are almost nose to nose.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he warns. The other boy tenses, looking like he wants to say something else equally stupid. If he remembers correctly Murata has some sort of muscle-enhancer, reflex quirk. One of the only worthwhile quirks in the school.

Katsuki jerks his elbow up and around in a quick jab. It smacks into the loser’s face. Crack. Guess having fast reflexes didn’t make a difference when you never saw the blow coming.

There is a cry of surprised pain and shouts of alarm from the peanut gallery. The other boy falls back, tripping over his own feet. It is ridiculously simple to lift a leg and deliver a kick to the stomach, not even a strong kick, so his failed bully thuds onto the ground, tossing up a small puff of sand. Unlike the fight in the ally, there is no rush of excitement, no spike of anger or adrenaline. No exhilaration. He is just irritated and maybe a bit disappointed. That’s what he gets for expecting anything out of the pathetic losers that went Aldera Middle School. They were more annoying than anything else.

Murata rolls around in the dirt, wheezing, trying to draw breath. He can almost imagine Deku running up to complain about his violent tendencies or sprout some shit about Hero’s needing to protect people like Murata didn’t ask for it when he decided to try his luck bullying someone obviously stronger than him.

The reminder of Deku sours his already shitty mood.

“Ah…you broke my nose. YOU BOKE IT…ah…it hurts. Do something!” The idiot calls to his equally idiotic friends as he tries to stop blood from pouring down his face.

Katsuki gazes coolly at the boy before directing his attention at the four other ‘bullies’ standing frozen around him.

“You extras got something else to add to that?” With Murata out of the game, the rest of the pathetic group shuffles about uncertainly.

“Ah…we’re good,” The tallest one says nervously, “Sorry about that Bakugō. No hard feelings right?”

He scoffs.

One of the boys moves forward to pull Murata upright, kneeling and pulling out a tissue to help stem the flow of blood. “Crap. I…I think Murata needs to go to the nurse. This looks serious.” There are a few more apprehensive glances in his direction like the other boys think he’ll insist on continuing the ‘fight’-ha! like this has been anything near a fight- until they are all bloody messes on the ground. Kaksuki rolls his eyes. As if he has the patience to deal with any more of these losers.

“Cowards,” he mutters, shoving past. The crowd of students who had gathered to watch the failed confrontation, scramble to get out of his way. A strong breeze rushes through the school’s courtyard, drawing attention to how quiet it has suddenly gotten. Barely audible whispers follow in his wake and he can feel many sets of eyes on his back, watching.

“He always did have a bad attitude.” They murmur.

“Guess he’s a real delinquent now.”

“…did you hear what Murata said. Do you think Bakugō actually got arrested?”

“That’s got to be fake right? Murata is full of hot air.”

“No way. I believe it. You don’t have to share a class with him, I’m telling you, Bakugō’s gone nuts.”

“Kind of scary when you think about it. With a quirk like that...”

He doesn’t know why they’re all so shocked. This isn’t the first fight he has gotten into on school grounds. Okay, so maybe he’d held off doing any real harm before now, well aware that U.A. would probably check his school record. It had never mattered to him because there was no point in beating up weaklings when he was obviously superior. Except for Deku…the only person he had ever really hurt, the only person he could get away with hurting without repercussions. And now he feels like extra shit. God, what a huge farce it had all been. Kaksuki clenches his fist and growls, wondering if it isn’t too late to ditch and go find somewhere secluded to blow off steam. Anything to escape this feeling of frustration.

He doesn’t have time to make a proper decision because news of his ‘fight’ had obviously spread to the staffroom. One of the second year homeroom teachers comes barrelling out of the school’s front entrance, eyes immediately landing on him.

“What happened!” Their eyes move past him to the bloody Murata, “Go wait in the principles office. Now.”

Well, he didn’t want to deal with his annoying classmates anyway. He stalks away, the sounds of the teacher fussing over Murata growing fainter behind him. When he arrives, the principal’s office is empty and he flings himself down into one of the comfy couches, irritated. The bell for homeroom goes off and Kaksuki remains sprawled across the couch, arm across his face to block out the light and his view of the clock slowly ticking away.

Just as he begins to contemplate leaving, Principle Fukuhara comes strolling into the room.

“ Bakugō,” the man lets out an exasperated sigh, “Sit up please.”

Katsuki moves his arm to peek out and glare at the man, deliberately ignoring the instruction.

“I just finished talking to Ms Yuki and the school’s nurse. You broke Murata Taheiji’s nose. I hope you realise how serious this situation is and that there will be major consequences. Aldera Middle School does not tolerate this sort of violence on its grounds.”

Silence. That was a fucking lie. Slowly, Katsuki pulls himself upright, meeting the man’s hard stare with his own.

“Well, do you have anything to say for yourself and your disgraceful behaviour..”

Katsuki narrows his eyes, “The idiot was asking for it.”

Obviously, it's the wrong response going by how the skin tightens around the man’s eyes, “I see...I’m sorry you feel that way. Up until now, our school has been more than lenient. We have overlooked your shameful behaviour these last few weeks because we wanted to give you time to settle after going through such as tragic incident. However, I am afraid that this time you have gone too far. Your parents will be notified. You’ll see the school councillor. You will be staying back for after school detention. Since this is your first major incident we…”

“First?” He cuts the man off. He is sick of hearing the moron’s voice. “Hahaha and people say you don’t have a sense of humour.” He laughs an unpleasant laugh which increases in volume until he is almost shouting.

“What sort of shit hole are you running? Three years I’ve been beating up the dumb idiots that come here and now you decide to care. Why is that huh? Is it because I’m no longer going to put this shitty place on the map and become a famous hero! HA!”

He lets his voice quieten, sneering “I’ll never be a hero so you’re shit out of luck.” Finally saying it out loud is like throwing a bucket of water over the embers of an already struggling fire. It hurts deep in his chest. The expression of shocked disbelief is almost worth it.

“Thanks for proving what a worthless profession it is,” he finishes with another hash laugh, rage simmering under his skin. When he tries to stand and leave a hand lands on his shoulder, pushing him back down.

The principal, who still looks somewhat stunned at his sudden outburst, orders, “Sit back down Bakugō! I am far from finished.”

Why do people always feel the need to grab him. He is so fucking sick of everyone pulling and tugging on him, trying to control him and hold him down. Katsuki turns slowly, that simmering rage pulsing, running down his limbs. Pop pop pop go his hands. He feels as explosive fire gathering in behind his eyes and in his shadowy stare. It is not the dramatic, adrenaline-induced anger he had felt when preparing for the ally fight. No, this is a dark burning rage, fuelled by his growing resentment.

“Touch me again,” he growls, low and intimidating, “and I’ll kill you.”

The principal snatches his hand back like he has just been burnt. A poignant silence follows in the wake of his threat.

“Suspension,” the man says, swallowing, “You’re suspended. I’m calling your parents right now.” And is it just him or does he look genuinely worried? There is even a hint of fear in his wrinkled face. Katsuki takes vindictive joy in the achievement. Finally…finally the worthless morons are seeing him, truly seeing him and not whatever Bakugō -delusion they’d all cooked up in their heads.

#bnha #mha #boku no academia #my hero academia #bnha fanfic #MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH #Katsuki Bakugō #‘the Sludge Villain incident gone wrong’ aka Izuku dies #graphic descriptions of violence #angst #bakugou swears and gets into fights #coarse language #fanfiction #fanfic #something sad au

28 notes · View notes

winter-fox-queen · 3 years

Text

We all Deserve a Fairy Tale Chp. 2

(Photo not mine, I found it on Pinterest....maybe @softpedropascal‘s?)

Thank you all for being so awesome about my first chapter! I am not sure where this is going, I just wanted to write a fairy tale with our darling Frankie.

I pronoun, reader insert, not gender neutral - I make a smart remark and mention the gender, but it is only once if you can ignore it. No use of names or y/n. Pretty clean, not even any cursing! :P

Summary: In our last Chapter, our author (you) is bored to death while trying to do an author signing at a bookstore. Frankie comes in and gives you some badly needed sunshine, and leaves...and then...

Chapter Two: In which our Hero is gentle and awkward and our heroine tries not to outdo him.

It was about an hour and a half later. The door opened, I did my straighten up and look like I was successful and interesting routine, my smile warming when I realized Frankie maybe Franklin maybe Francisco had returned.

He pulled his…my…book out of the shopping bag and held it up. A piece of napkin showed that he was a good chunk of the way through. “This is really good, so I thought, hey, why not buy the sequel while the author is in town.”

“That’s lovely! I am always in town, though,” I drop in and try not to wince at how smooth that wasn’t.

He looked at me earnestly. He reminded me of a forest animal. I wondered if I poured some m&m’s into my hand and held it out if I could get him to step closer. No sudden moves, woman. You’ll scare him off.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at me, and I realized I’d been wool gathering instead of actually, you know, trying to make a sale. “So, which one is the sequel…?”

I flushed and tapped a book. “The other one is related, but different people.”

“Huh. OK.” He picked one of each and placed them gently in front of me.

“Thank you,” I said, as I racked my brain for something to perfect to write. But everything sounder like I was a creeper, so I simply signed one, and the second, I wrote, Thank you for making my day.

He picked them up carefully.

“Here, wait…let me give you my business card, and some book marks…that way if you want to tell me what you thought. And if you want to you know, keep in touch. I mean, I have a newsletter. If you want to se what else I’ve got going on.” I capped my blathering with my brightest smile.

His smile had grown more and more as I talked, that perfect dimple reappearing, and he tapped the business card against the cover of his book. “Maybe I will. I mean, how many people can brag that they know an author and can email her and ask her questions about her book?”

“Pretty much everyone,” I say, because I cannot shut up.

He laughed.

I didn’t care if I never sold another book at that store again, that laugh was worth it. I felt a shaky happiness flutter against my ribs.

“Alright,” he said, looking at me. He was looking at me a little sideways, under his lashes, and I wondered if he knew how devasting that look was. “I better go.”

“You are keeping me from my legions of adoring fans,” I pointed out.

He chuckled at this. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re amazing.”

“OK,” I said, because I am so very good with words.

He shuffled a little, and nodded goodbye at me as he went and bought the last of my books.

If he looks back you’ll see him again, if he looks back you’ll see him again if he looks back…

He put his hand on the door and pushed, and just as he stepped outside, he did it. He looked back, and he smiled at me.

“Score.” I said, out loud after the door shut and he was crossing the street to an old red truck.

The clerk sniggered at me.

And hour and a half more later, I was cleaning up. Packing my stuff…getting my money from the clerk, helping her fold the table, rolling my stuff out to the car.

“Time to eat my profits,” I say as I drive to the nearest diner.

I go inside. To the left, a man in a familiar worn cap is reading a book and slowly eating. Oh my God. He’s going to think I’m stalking him.

A waitress comes over. “Booth, or do you want to sit at the counter?”

I sneak a look. Frankie looks up. His eyes widen. He smiles. I smile back. “Booth,” I mutter.

“Follow me.” She says and heads right.

I am the one shuffling this time, uncertain of what direction to go. I take a breath, go left.

“I swear I’m not stalking you.” I say.

“What? No tracking chip in the book?” He opens it and shakes it. Gentle. Like he respects the book and does not want to damage it. Could he be any more perfect?

“Nope, only the big presses can afford that.” I deadpan.

“Miss, where are you sitting?” the waitress asks.

“Here.” Frankie answers for me, and then he blushes and says. “I mean, if you want, I’d love for you to join me.”

“That’d be awesome. I’ve already read all the books I brought with me.”

The waitress takes a paper placemat and wrapped utensils and places them a little harder than needed as I sit down.

“I don’t think she realizes that I’m a best selling author.” I lean forward and whisper.

“I don’t think she’d be impressed by anything. She could find a bomb under the counter and she’d just shrug it off. Have you seen her eyes? I was in the army and I ain’t never seen eyes that cold.”

“You were in the army?” He looked to…gentle. But I looked at him again, and I could see it. The chipping around the edges.

He nods. “I was a pilot.”

“Awesome. Then I know who I can ask for all sorts of details about being a pilot for my next book.”

He nods, his cheeks pinken, but I can tell he’s just so pleased at the idea. I feel like I’ve handed him the biggest compliment.

“So, you’re gonna have a pilot in your next book?” He puts the book aside finally, concentrates on me.

“I am now,” I say.

His smile grows, and the skin around his eyes crinkles so damned prettily. “Nice,” he says, his voice deep and soft and just a little promising.

Dear Diary, I think. Today I was smooth. Thank you God for helping me deliver that line.

“Tell me something that makes you happy,” I say as I grab a menu and try to decide what to get.

He’s carefully putting the book away. “Reading. Being outside. My friends. You?”

I blink. “Umm. Nice men reading my books? Um. The outdoors…yes. I’ve always wanted to go on a long road trip, just see everything?”

He fiddles with his fork, stares down at his plate. I realize if I want to know anything more, I’ll have to do most of the talking. I’m better throwing words down on paper, but I wanted, needed to know more.

“Do you still fly?”

He looked up, his tea-colored eyes clouding over. “No. I work at the airfield, though. I’m a mechanic.”

“So you fix broken birds?”

He seems to take this in. I think he likes the idea, he smiles a little. I imagine those large hands competently working on an engine, or smoothing across the side of a plane.

“Enough about me. I’m boring.” He says. “Tell me about you? Why do you write?”

We talk for a bit, exchange the normal facts – what do you like to read? What do you like to watch on TV? And he parries anything deeper. But I like him. I like his sunshine smile and crinkling eyes and expressive hands and gentle voice.

We talk long enough that I am convinced the waitress hates us and we leave a huge tip to make up for it.

Outside the diner, he walks me to my car. “That was nice,” he says.

“Yes. It really was. If you are ever bored, I’d be happy to do it again sometime.”

He smiles shyly, nods once, and says, softly. “Later.”

I get into my car, and try not to stare at him as he gets in his truck, pulls out. He rolls down his window and waves at me. I wave back, and I think, well. There goes my heart.

And then I laugh at myself for being a stupid romantic goofball. I write a bit of romance, I daydream it…it’s a comforting fairy tale. I knew it wasn’t real.

But as I watched him drive away in his beat up red pickup, I found myself really hoping it was.

#Frankie Morales #frankie morales x reader #pedro pascal #We all deserve a fairy tale

26 notes · View notes

tact-and-impulse · 3 years

Text

Shinkane Week 2021 Day 1

For this prompt of ‘roommates’, it’s a sequel to Propriety! Let’s see where Miss Tsunemori and her faithful former chauffeur have ended up, now that they’re on the run…

Runaways

“I’m so sorry, but we only have one room available.”

He clenched his jaw. Gino would have his hide if he found out, but it seemed there was no other choice. “We’ll take it.”

Beside him, Miss Tsunemori was feigning interest in the worn floorboards. The innkeeper handed over the key and directed them to the room. It was terribly cramped, with only one futon. Extra blankets would be brought for the other to make do.

As soon as the innkeeper left, he insisted. “You can take the bed. I’m used to sleeping on the floor.”

“But you must be tired too. You drove the entire time.”

He did, because it was the middle of the night and she didn’t know the roads. He wasn’t even entirely confident they were safe yet. He had driven until the fuel ran out, and then decided to ditch their vehicle on the side of the road. It had been a harrowing twenty-four hours, and her entire life had been pulled out from underneath her. “Don’t worry about it. Besides, I’m the servant.”

“Not anymore.”

That was true and he abruptly turned away. “Get some sleep. We’ll think better if we sleep.”

His blankets were then delivered, and afterwards, neither of them spoke. As he attempted to find a comfortable position, he couldn’t help hearing her light breathing and knew she was just as restless.

***

“I’d like to see the ocean.” She had said, when he asked for a destination.

So, here they were, in a harbor town. They had watched the sun rise over the glittering water, and Miss Tsunemori had darted to the shoreline. He followed her prints, hiding them under his, and joined her at the breaking surf. She was standing just shy of the approaching foam.

“See any monsters?”

“Kougami-san!” She admonished but laughed. She could laugh when they were alone, without worry that someone would overhear and realize that it wasn’t two young men staying in the last room. “No, I haven’t.” She bent down, untying her shoes and removing her socks. After placing them on higher ground, she dipped her toes in. Just as she did, she made a startled sound and retreated.

He took her arm, steadying her. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I didn’t expect it would still be cold.” She pressed her feet into the darkened sand. “I suppose that makes sense, it’s early.”

Letting go, he copied her, tossing his boots closer to her belongings. He stepped into a wave, the ocean surging around his ankles. “It’s actually not bad. Once you’re in it, you’ll warm up.”

She splashed towards him. “If you say so…”

For a few minutes, they didn’t move. He crossed his arms, breathing deeply of the salty air. “So…where to?”

“I’m not sure.” A frown had settled upon her face. The reality was kicking in, that there was no plan other than running as fast and far as they could.

“We need to decide. Every minute we stall, we risk getting caught.”

“You’d be arrested for kidnapping me.” She had already reached that conclusion, and despite that bleak possibility, he felt a twinge of pride. “And I don’t want that to happen.”

“Maybe, you’d see me again when I’d leave jail in twelve years.”

“Please don’t joke about something like that.”

He glanced at her forlorn expression, her downturned lips. “Sorry.”

A breeze swept through, and she held on to her hat. “If I can keep up this disguise, I wonder if I can study law.” She mused.

“Maybe.” He conceded. His skin itching with the need to move, he walked away from the ocean and grabbed his boots. She followed suit, and they slowly crossed the beach.

“Kougami-san?”

“Yes?”

“How do we get rid of the sand?”

***

Her question also brought up the issue of hygiene, so they concocted an excuse that “Akio” had a skin condition and couldn’t go to the public bathhouses, unlike “Satoru”. The story bought them a large basin of water and coarse soap. Miss Tsunemori was eager to use them, and to secure her privacy in this small room, he made a suggestion in case the innkeeper knocked.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, go ahead. Don’t worry, I won’t peek.” He held up the sheet, turning his head to the side. “Let me know when you’re done.”

“Alright, thank you.” There was rustling, as she removed her clothes. He tried to ignore the soft sounds and the liquid sloshing as she dipped below the surface.

He clenched the cotton, searching for a topic of conversation. “We can keep to the coastline, and there’s the option of leaving Japan.”

“I’m not sure if I want to, or even if you do.”

“Why not? There’s jungle out there, hidden temples.”

“Hmm. But you wanted to go to the mountains.” So, she remembered.

“Yeah. I had a teacher once, who said he wanted to live in the shadow of Mount Fuji. To us kids who only knew the rowhouses, his idea of a peaceful life was something we couldn’t really imagine.”

He could hear her smile in her reply. “But you liked it.”

That phrase, accompanied with the fact that she was naked in a tub just below him, caused him to waver. He renewed his grip on the sheet, his reply harsher than intended. “Well, runaways never have peace. Do you want to go home?”

Long moments passed, before she quietly replied. “I think we’re past that point.”

It wasn’t a denial. Before he could say as much, she announced that she was finished. He lifted the cover higher, while she dressed. It didn’t take long before she popped up on the other side, her face flushed.

“Thank you so much.” Her smaller fingers reached up, pulling the cloth barrier down. This close, he could smell the soap, and underneath, the lingering traces of sweet citrus that hadn’t been entirely removed. “Your arms must be sore. Do you want me to rub them?”

They did ache, but her offer was far too tempting for his fraying self-control. “That won’t be necessary. I’m going to the public baths. Keep the pistol, you know how to use it.” He was about to take the basin with him, but she protested.

“I can empty it, don’t worry.”

“…Thanks.” He couldn’t resist ruffling her short damp hair. His hand tingling, he hurried out of the building and down the road.

He was one of the few patrons at the time, and he was grateful. As he quickly scrubbed off the grime, he had an intrusive thought that she would be gone when he returned to the inn. It wouldn’t be surprising; being a runaway wasn’t nearly so glamorous, now that the initial adrenaline had faded.

However, when he knocked on the door, her lowered voice answered. Upon his entry, she sat up in her futon, clearly relieved. “Welcome back.”

And he smiled. “I’m back.”

***

They kept moving, never staying in a town longer than a few days. Kougami maintained a close eye on their surroundings, but he didn’t spot anyone tailing them. If Tougane was still persistent, he might have lost their trail. They traveled inland, running errands for money; he usually did manual labor, while she was a good scribe.

In one of the larger markets, there was a stall selling books. Her interest couldn’t be concealed, and he encouraged her to peruse, while he bought the remainder of their supplies. She had found one in particular and her gaze was bright as she skimmed through the book.

“Is it about law?” He asked over her shoulder.

“History, actually. But it’s well-written.”

He approached the vendor. “How much?” They spent a minute bargaining, but he was going to pay regardless.

As they headed to their lodgings, she humbly said. “Kougami-san, you didn’t have to.”

“Hey, it’s a gift. That’s what roommates do.” He smacked the spot between her shoulder blades, and she startled. For a moment, he wondered if that was too forward, but she didn’t mention it.

“Well, then I need to return the favor. Let me know if you really want anything.”

There was, but it wasn’t the time, place, or situation to ask for it. He didn’t speak again, trying not to think of a sweltering night that seemed like years ago.

In the evenings, he pored over their maps, marking the places they had left. It was still warm, and he left the window open. The sound of cicadas also distracted him from the fact that he was really itching for a smoke.

Then, there was a slight tap against his upper arm. Miss Tsunemori had set her book aside, holding out an open box of rolled papers, pungent and familiar.

“Here. I bought you a new pack, since you ran out.”

“You noticed.” It was the same brand he liked too. Touched, he accepted the cigarettes. He picked one, lighting it. Noticing that she was watching, he asked. “Want to try one?”

“No, thank you. I’ve gotten used to the smell though. Now, it reminds me of you.”

“Does it?” He regarded her, the smoke weaving around them. She blushed but didn’t look away.

At that moment, a cicada flew into the room. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stop from screaming, and he bit off a curse as he extinguished the cigarette in the ash tray, before grabbing his boot to kill the invader. A few good hits, and he tossed the body out before she closed the window. Damn bugs.

Shocked laughter bubbled from her lips. “That was…scary.”

“I wasn’t expecting that.” But he began to laugh too. It was the first time, since they’d driven away from Tokyo.

After recovering, it was quiet again. Even the cicadas must have tired out. For a second, they stared at each other.

“Well…it’s late.” She slowly said, wrapping up in her blankets. “Good night.”

In every room, they’d been sleeping on opposite ends, but this one was the smallest so far. If he could, he could roll over and close that distance. But he only answered. “Night.”

***

The final summer days gave way to autumn, and the mountains were abundant with color. Unfortunately, the scenery was the only enjoyable thing. Influenza was spreading, from beyond the borders. The numbers of infected and dead were rising fast. It was recommended to cover their faces with muslin layers, and the masks also served in laying low. However, it wasn’t enough, because he fell asleep one night with a dry throat and woke to feeling cold under his blankets.

She took over, ignoring his attempts to convince her that he should be left behind. She kept their brazier lit, measured his medicine, and even wiped him above the waist. He felt terrible and weak, but he had to rely on her. From morning to night, she looked after him, her brows drawn together in perpetual concern. He wasn’t getting better, not as quickly as he thought, and he knew it.

One morning, she wasn’t there when he opened his eyes, and he made an effort to sit up. The room spinning, he swayed, and his hand landed on the note she had left. She was buying more tea for him, but she would be back soon. And just like that, he was reassured. He didn’t stir again until he sensed her presence.

“I’m back. I’ve brought someone who said he could help. Can you hear me, Kougami-san?” She squeezed his fingers.

“Mm.” He grasped back, comforted by her touch.

“Kougami? Is that you?” The voice was familiar, and he thought he was dreaming as he looked up into the surprised, bespectacled eyes of the man who held weekly lessons for the rowhouse children.

“Saiga-sensei…please help.” Then, he spiraled into delirium.

***

“Young lady, what is he to you?”

“He’s-”

***

Just as he was beginning to crest over the worst, her temperature spiked. He blamed himself. Staying in one room together this whole time, breathing the same air. She deteriorated fast, struggling with each inhale. Her skin was burning, despite the growing chilliness.

He didn’t leave her bedside, giving her water and broth and the little medicine he was able to buy. Saiga said he had seen other young women survive this, but his expression was serious. Kougami was afraid. Afraid that she was going to die, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

In her fever dreams, she called for her parents. Her grandmother. Her friends. And for him. “Kougami-san! Don’t go!” For whatever reason he was, it brought her to tears, because they spilled down her face, onto her sweat-soaked pillow.

“I’m here.” He hushed her, pressing his hand to her forehead. “I’m here, Akane. I won’t leave you.”

He wouldn’t, because she believed in him. In the silent spaces between her coughing, her words haunted him.

He’s the person I trust most with my life.

***

“So, you ran away together?” Saiga summarized, as the two of them sat on the back steps of his house. “I admit, I’m not sure what to make of your decision. You must have had your difficulties.”

“It wasn’t easy, but it had its kinder moments.” Footprints in the sand, pages in the candlelight. A sheet between them.

His old teacher smiled. “That’s how life is. It was lucky that I was passing through. I was sick earlier this year, so I’ve been helping out. Kougami, don’t underestimate this flu.”

“It’s going to get worse, isn’t it? Winter isn’t even here yet.”

“You assume correctly. But at the very least, you’re both alive. I’m glad.” Miss Tsunemori’s fever had finally broken, though she was still weak. Kougami was better, but not by much. He still couldn’t bring himself to light a cigarette yet.

“Me too.”

“Whatever you decide next will be crucial. Snowy roads are harder to traverse, and with the infection rates, I’d be surprised if any small town will welcome outsiders. As long as you hold on to logic and clarity, you’ll find a solution.”

“I won’t forget. Thank you.”

With that, his teacher excused himself to obtain groceries, and Kougami went inside. She was reading the newspaper, looking lost.

“Miss Tsunemori?”

“Oh, Kougami-san. Um, sorry.” She hastily wiped at her eyes. “All the news of cases and deaths made me think of Obaa-chan. If we were this ill, then what about her? Masaoka-san too, and everyone else.”

“I know. Even Gino is only human. But if we go back…”

“We’re immune though. We can offer to nurse the sick, in exchange for clemency. We can negotiate.”

“And Tougane?”

“I can always use the pandemic as an excuse for delaying a wedding.”

“I don’t like the idea of you marrying him.” Saying that aloud felt like drawing to the edge of a precipice, that he knew he couldn’t turn back from.

‘I don’t either. But I’ll find another way.” Of course, she would say that. And he had faith in her.

He smiled bitterly. “Alright. Let’s return to Tokyo.”

#shinkaneweek #shinkane #psycho pass #i hit a block and then thought 'i wonder what else happened in 1918'#*googles*#oh #uhhhhh #that's appropriate

45 notes · View notes

thefallennightmare · 4 years

Text

Dorogaya-Prologue

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader.

Warnings: swearing, fluff, angst.

Summary: It has been sometime since Y/N and Bucky went into hiding but now their past is returning. Can this new relationship survive the Civil War that’s about to happen?

A/N: Here is the prologue for the Soldat Sequel called Dorogaya(darling in Russian). Not a whole lot happens in this but I wanted to give an update on how Bucky and Y/N were doing while in hiding! The first chapter will be out soon and let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters! I’m not sure how long this one will be and it will take place during Civil War.

Letting out deep breaths, I continued up the stairs to the sixth floor of the apartment complex I had called home. It was after midnight but that didn’t stop the neighbors from blaring their music or have yet another argument. My nose scrunched up in disgust as the familiar smell of garbage and body odor filled the air and after finally making it to my floor, I knew I had one more obstacle to cross before making it inside safely.

The next door neighbor that every single night for the past week had tried asking me out. My Romanian was a bit rusty but I knew when a guy was hitting on me.

“Hey beautiful.”

Groaning at the gruff voice, I turned on my heels and gave him a curt nod. “Hi.”

I went to unlock the door but could feel his presence creep closer towards me. My fingers slipped into my pocket and slowly pulled out my knife.

“Fundul tău arată bine în blugi acei.” He placed his arm against the door frame to my apartment, trapping me between him.

I scoffed. “I may not know much Romanian but I don’t need to be fluent to know that when someone is talking about how good my ass looks in my jeans.”

His mouth opened to speak but the door opened behind me. I didn’t have to look who opened the door, I could tell from the heat radiating off the body. And the feelings that weren’t my own of jealousy and rage filled my veins.

“Totul in regula?” Everything alright?

I looked over towards Bucky and nodded. “I’m fine, Bucky.”

The creep took in one quick glance of Bucky before retreating back into his apartment, clearly not knowing I was living with a man twice his size.

Bucky remained blocking the doorway and when I looked into his eyes, I found myself sucking in a breath. In the week we’d been in hiding, he had let his beard grow a bit more and it was now that I realized how blue his eyes were; a deep ocean. Licking my lips, I stood taller after realizing how close we were standing and nodded behind him.

“Are you going to let me in?” I joked.

After giving me a small smile, he stepped to the side allowing me to walk past him inside. He did a quick glance around the landing and staircase before shutting the door behind us. The sound of locks clicking together sounded behind me as I looked around our new home.

It wasn’t the best apartment by any means. I did have money saved up, enough to get us by for a while, but I had to do what I could to save it. Bucky had no money so it was up to me to provide for us. I didn’t mind at all but we had to make some sacrifices and a nice apartment was at the top of the list.

Newspapers lined all of the windows, not allowing anyone from the outside to look in, even though we were on the sixth floor. There was the bathroom to my left and the only thing good about it was the bright blue towel we had hanging on the almost broken towel bar. The paint was peeling all over the apartment but it didn’t bother us. We only had one bed, well mattress, and it laid on the floor of the apartment. We each had one pillow and there was only one blanket. We were also able to find a couch for pretty cheap at the local market in town and that’s where Bucky slept every night.

He still didn't feel comfortable with sharing the bed with me and not wanting to push him, I agreed that he could have the couch. I did have to admit, it was adorable seeing how small he made the couch look while laying on it.

The kitchen would become cramped when both Bucky and I tried cooking something at the same time; which wasn’t often since we had opted for getting food delivered.

For the first few days of living here we tried our best to stay inside, opting to go out into public if we absolutely needed to. And when we did, we wore anything to help conceal our identity. I went out more than Bucky would, him being afraid someone from his past would recognize him.

It was then that I noticed he had made a make-shift shelf with a few two by fours and cement blocks.

“You love to read so I thought I could make you something that you could put your books on,” he spoke when he noticed me staring at it. “It may be a bit shaky.”

Immediately I waved him off. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

We both stood in our respective places, staring at each other, and the feeling of desire warmed my insides. Bucky must have noticed because he shook his head, letting out a quiet scoff.

“Stop that.” Was all he said.

“It’s not my fault!” I defended myself. “I can’t help it that I can not only feel your pain but your feelings too!”

“I’ve been thinking,” He started, immediately changing the subject.

“What about?” I questioned while putting away the groceries.

Bucky’s hands grazed over mine as he took the box of spaghetti from me and placed it in the top cabinet; the one I couldn’t reach. His back was to me so I could see the way his shoulders tensed and I felt fear cloud my mind.

“Bucky,” I spoke softly while placing a hand over his flesh arm. “What’s wrong?”

He remained silent but gave a quick look over his shoulder to the door, eyes trained hard against it. His eyebrows scrunched together and he tilted his head to the side, almost mimicking an animal that heard something off in the distance.

Oh.

“Do you hear something?” I asked.

Every footstep or every voice put Bucky on high alert, especially with the super soldier hearing. He found himself staying up way after I had gone to bed, sitting on the couch with his eyes and ears on the door. He wouldn’t admit it to me but I knew he was terrified of Hydra finding him again, turning him back into Soldat.

“It’s nothing,” he reassured me before busying himself with unloading the rest of the stuff I had picked up from the store. “I still don’t understand why you have to go late at night.”

I shrugged. “Less people and less chance of someone recognizing me.”

“More creeps,” Bucky reminded me.

“I am more than capable of taking care of myself,” I stated back with a smile. “You’re not the only one that’s good with a knife.”

And if that wasn’t enough to reassure him that I could handle my own, I snapped my fingers together causing a small flame to spark between them. Bucky held his hands up, knowing when he lost the argument and we continued to put everything away in silence.

“Bucky, I’m home!” I called entering the small apartment.

Soft music came flooding into the room from the outside and I followed it to the balcony. A smile spread to my lips as I took in the sight in front of me. Bucky was sitting in one of the fold up chairs with the leather bound journal in his lap. It could see that there were sentences upon sentences written. The soft tune of a song from the 1940’s played on his phone but what warmed my heart the most was ewing Bucky finally using the journal I had bought him.

I bought it shortly after we settled because I thought it would be a good idea for him to write down anything he would remember; a memory or even him remembering that he loved plums. This was the first time in six months that I had seen him open it.

“Keep staring at me and your eyes are going to be glued stuck.” Bucky joked while closing the journal.

Oh, I don’t think I would mind one bit.

“I really hate your super hearing. I bet you could hear me the second I stepped foot into the building,” I smiled while sitting on the chair opposite of him.

“How was work?” He questioned.

He went to turn off the music but I stopped him, saying that I didn’t mind it.

“It was okay. The really bad bar creeps seem to come out in the day rather than night,” I shrugged.

I had been bar tending at the pub across the street for a few months now and while it was true that the daylight seemed to bring out the worst of the creeps of Bucharest, the money was really good so I tried not to complain too much.

Bucky’s heart rate sped so I placed a hand on his knee, letting him know that I was fine. “No one bothers me, Bucky.”

I kept my hand on his knee when I realized that it wasn’t making him uncomfortable. Even though we had been with each other every day for the last six months, we still had yet to make a move on taking whatever relationship we had to the next level. I promised him one night that I wouldn’t push him, let him find himself first, then we can talk about our relationship. We were friends living together.

“I’ll let you get back to writing,” I motioned towards his journal while standing up.

“You’re not going to ask what I’m writing?” He wondered, confusion on his face.

I mirrored my own confusion to him. “Why would I? Those are your private thoughts, Bucky. I won’t read them unless you want me too.”

Turning my back to him to enter back into the apartment, I felt cold fingers lace with my own and tugging me back towards him. “Hm?”

He remained silent, only bringing my hand to his lips and I felt warmth spread through me when he laid a soft kiss on my knuckles.

“Thank you, Y/N” he breathed against my knuckles.

“Anything for you, Bucky.”

I tossed and turned on the mattress, a quiet groan slipped through my lips. My fingertips padded on the mattress next to me for my phone and when I saw what time it was, another groan slipped out. It was after two a.m and I had been trying to fall asleep for the last 3 hours. Bucky and I had spent the last few days finally getting our apartment settled after I had worked three doubles in a row. Needless to say I was exhausted.

Forcing my eyes shut, I placed a pillow over my face, hoping that would help. However, I sat up with a start as I heard whimpering coming from the body next to me. Bucky was fast asleep on the couch; or so I thought.

His large body twitched and in the dim light, I could see the lines of his mouth pulled together in a hard line. The feeling I had surging through me told me one thing; he was having a nightmare.

In the year of living with him and sleeping next to him, I had yet to notice him have a nightmare. I knelt on the mattress and gently placed my hand on his metal arm while giving him a quick shake.

“Buck? Are you alright?” I whispered.

Bucky’s eyes snapped open and the fingers of his metal arm wrapped around my throat cutting off my airway with a gasp. My body fell onto the mattress while Bucky straddled my hips. His eyes were gone, almost black, as he stared into me. I could feel his heartbeat quicken as the grip on my throat tightened.

“Bucky,” I tried to cough out.

My hands scratched and smacked his arm but failed. I didn’t want to have to use my powers to stop him, refusing to use it against him, but I knew if I didn’t, he would kill me. The air within slowly started to leave my body and I felt the darkness looming so with a quick snap of my fingers I felt the warmth spread through my hand.

Wrapping my hand around Bucky’s flesh bicep, his metal one released my throat as a loud hiss escaped his throat. The air returned and I coughed loudly a few times, trying to swallow as much air as I could. Curling my hand into a fist, the fire evaporated and I felt Bucky’s body still on mine.

“Y/N?” He asked, voice trembling. “What did I do?”

He could tell in the dim light that marks were starting to form around my throat, guilt pulling at his heart.

“I’m okay,” I reassured him. “You were having a nightmare and I made the mistake of trying to wake you.”

“No,” Bucky shook his head while climbing off of me. “I could have killed you.”

“But you didn’t.”

I knelt in front of him and reached for his hand however he snatched them away from me. “Y/N, I’m sorry. I should go-.”

“Bucky, stop! I’m okay!” I gripped his hand to keep him in place. “Call us even, okay?”

I motioned to the red mark on his bicep when he looked at me confused. “I’m sorry for waking you. They’ve never been this real before.”

“You’ve had nightmares before?” I questioned.

We slept next to each other for the past year and I hadn’t even noticed that he was struggling with this.

“The screams. It’s the screaming of them that haunt me.” He stuttered.

I felt the sadness drowning me so I placed my hands on the sides of Bucky’s face and made him look at me. “It wasn’t you. What you did, that wasn’t you.”

“But I did it.” His shoulders raised and slumped down with regret.

Ignoring the voice of doubt that resided in the back of my mind, I knelt up closer to Bucky and laid a gentle kiss on his forehead. His hands immediately grasped my hips and squeezed.

“C’mon, lets get some sleep.” I motioned for him to lay on the mattress next to me.

Bucky refused, afraid that if another nightmare took over what he would do. But I wouldn’t take no for an answer and pulled him down next to me.

“Is this alright?” I asked as I laid my head on his chest.

His heart pounded against the cage of his chest and I placed my hand on top of it, almost trying to calm him. Bucky’s breathing slowed and his metal arm wrapped around my back pulling me closer to him, letting me know that he was in fact fine with it.

That night was the last time we slept separate and the last time Bucky would have a nightmare for a long time.

“My God,” I gasped while my eyes scanned the article I was reading on my laptop.

Avengers cause destruction in Sokovia.

The article was a handful of months old, me just now getting my hands on a laptop. Bucky and I had spent the entire time here in Romania trying to stay away from the media, not wanting to know what was going on in the world and not wanting to be in the spotlight

Scrolling farther into the article, I read that Tony Stark and Bruce Banner had created Ultron who now was on a mission to destroy everyone on earth; only wanting metal to live here. The Avengers, along with these enhanced twins, were trying to stop him.

I couldn’t help but feel sadness and jealousy when I continued to read how the Avengers fought together against this Ultron. I could have been fighting alongside them, saving the world. But I knew that my place was here with Bucky.

The mouse ghosted over a video on the article and after looking around the apartment to make sure Bucky wasn’t around, I clicked it open while holding my breath.

Everyone from my former team was fighting these robot soldiers for the first half of the clip but when it cut to a different video, I sucked in my breath. Steve’s face popped up as was shown saving so many people, leading them to an old SHIELD helicarrier.. My heart ached wanting to be with him, fighting with him, and wanting to feel his body against my own once more.

For the first few months, Steve’s face would cloud my dreams and I found myself missing him terribly every night. I told him to not look for us but a part of me knew that he wouldn’t abide by my wishes. I knew him and Sam were doing everything they could to find us.

But now, over two years later, I found myself regretting my decision to leave; only slightly.

“What are you watching?”

Jumping at the voice, I went to close my laptop but a metal hand stopped me. Bucky’s eyes scanned over the article before he watched the video I had just finished watching. His face was unreadable but what scared me the most was that I could feel what he was feeling.

Maybe I was having an off day.

“Stark? Why do I know that name?” He wondered, mostly to himself.

“He’s one of the richest men in New York. He also helped find The Avengers.” I said while placing my laptop on the kitchen table.

“The Avengers?” Bucky asked.

“I know, it’s not that great of a name. But what we did made up for it.” I defended myself.

Bucky placed his journal on the counter and shook off his jacket, placing it on the chair in front of him. He then sat on the couch next to me.

“We?”

Biting my lip, I gave him a small nod. In the last two years, we were so focused on getting him better and figuring out his past, that I hadn’t given him any details about mine. Since the night of his nightmare, we became incredibly close. We still haven't made ourselves official but we shared the bed each night, tangled in each other's arms, and soft kisses on forehead and hands were as far as it got.

I never complained once.

“Um, I used to be a part of the team. That’s how I met Steve actually. We first came together to help defeat the Chitauri; some alien species.” I started.

“I remember reading about that a few months ago,” Bucky admitted.

A few months ago he spent an entire weekend reading old news stories that he had missed out on.

“Ever since that day, I had decided to stay on Steve’s team. Now, it seems like they’re still working together.” I said with a hint of jealousy.

“Doing what?” Bucky asked, passing me a plum.

Taking it with gratitude, I tried the best way to bring it up without triggering him. “Uh, I guess the last few months they’ve been taking down Hydra bases to find this special scepter and they nearly leveled Sokovia trying to stop this Ultron guy.

Bucky was silent, body rigid when I had mentioned Hydra. “I thought Hydra fell?”

“Apparently not,” I sighed.

We sat in a tense silence and noticing that his shoulders were straight with rage with the thought of Hydra still being a functioning terrorist group.

“Hey,” I spoke softly. “They won’t find you. It’s been almost two and a half years. We’re going to be fine.”

Bucky hesitated for a moment before nodding. “I, uh, added more to my journal.”

“You did?” I smiled.

“Those stories about the war in the 40’s helped me remember some stuff, not a lot though.”

The disappointment in his voice broke my heart so I placed my head on his flesh shoulder, not daring to place it on the other. Every night when we would lay in bed together, I had refused to touch the scars on that shoulder. Bucky was still reserved and uncomfortable with it.

“So,” I started, immediately wanting to change the subject. “Anything you want to do tomorrow?”

Bucky nodded and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. “Can we go to the fruit market? We’re out of plums.”

“You and your plums,” I giggled while wrapping my arm around his midsection. “But anything for you, Buck.”

“Thank you, dorogaya.” He breathed against my forehead.

We both enjoyed this new normal for us, settling into this routine fairly early on while we were in hiding. But nothing would prepare us for what was about to happen tomorrow and how it would affect the rest of our lives.

#bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #captain america #the winter soldier #soldat #sebastian stan #chris evans #avengers

154 notes · View notes

rmtndew · 4 years

Text

Begin Again ~ Chapter 3

Summary: Walter Marshall is a dedicated homicide detective doing his best to balance his work life with being a single father to a teenage girl. Fiona Sparks is a woman doing her best to take care of everyone and everything around her, except for herself. Neither has had the best luck with relationships, but once they meet, they’re willing to give it another shot, this time with each other. (It’s basically just romantic fluff)

Pairing: Marshall and OFC.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Mentions of death, cancer.

A/N - This is a sequel to ‘All I’ve Ever Known’. I started writing this because I needed an escape for some personal stuff going on and my coping mechanism included giving Marshall all the love that man needed, and imagining him being the softest boyfriend to me, then passing those details on to Fiona (my OFC).

I also made a Spotify playlist for this story, if anyone is interested - Begin Again Playlist

Tag list - @hollydaisy23, @alyxkbrl, @onlyhenrys, @omgkatinka, @speakerforthedead0, @gearhead66, @thethirstyarchive, @oddsnendsfanfics, @littlerinoa, @agniavateira, @aaescritora, @justaboringadult, @beenthroughalot, @seriouslygoodlookinggents, @xxxkatxo, @musicartmayheminmyheart

If you want to be added/removed from the tag list, let me know!

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7

Hectic was the only word to describe the next morning. From the moment I stepped foot into Darcy’s office at Waverly, we were going non-stop. We had a massive delivery that had to be ready by eleven o’clock and even though we’d done as much prep work as we could the day before, it was still a huge undertaking for a single morning. Our saving grace was that the company was sending someone to pick it up for them instead of having it delivered, which meant we could work right until pickup time. And that’s exactly what we did.

We had all the orders boxed up and ready to go, and Nick and I waited in the front room of the store for the pickup guy. Nick’s sole purpose for being there was to make up for his mistake from the day before: his punishment was to help with the loading.

I was double-checking the order (just for my own sake) when I heard the bell above the door alert me to someone coming in. I turned, mentally preparing myself for social interaction, knowing that I had to greet the customer with a smile. But as I took in the man walking towards me, I felt like puking.

“Fiona? Is that you?” Ezra, my ex-boyfriend, was smiling and walking towards me.

I didn’t answer him. Instead, I steeled myself and asked, “Are you here for the Mead-Holmes order?”

“Come on, Fi, don’t play like this,” he said, stopping far too close to me.

“Don’t call me that,” I said. “And what order are you here for?”

He put his hand on my arm. “Fi, I swear I didn’t know you worked here. I promise. Or I wouldn’t have come,” he said. “But maybe it’s a good thing.”

I took his hand off me, removing it completely. “Don’t touch me. Don’t call me Fi. Just tell me what order you’re here to get,” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could manage.

He scoffed. “Wow. I really thought you’d be an adult about it whenever we finally ran into each other, but I was wrong.”

Nick stepped up. “Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt but I’m here to help load the Mead-Holmes order, so if you’re here to pick that up, you can go ahead and sign off on it and show me where you’re at and I’ll get these loaded for you.”

Ezra kept his eyes on me while Nick was talking and then a moment longer once he finished. Finally, he looked at Nick and let out a breath. “Yeah, that’s my order,” he said. “Where do I sign for it?”

Nick moved behind me, taking the clipboard with the order form from the counter, then handed it to Ezra. He scribbled out something that was meant to be a signature, but I was sure that a brain dead parrot would have had more legible handwriting. Nick had his hand out, ready to take the clipboard back, but instead, Ezra thrust it at me. I took it, trying not to give him the satisfaction of letting him see a reaction on my face.

“Thank you. A copy of the receipt is attached to the order and will be e-mailed back to your company. We appreciate your business,” I said. “Now, if you would show Nick to your vehicle, he would be more than willing to help you load your order.”

He took a set of keys from his pocket, aimed over his shoulder, and pressed a button. The van parked right outside the door beeped and the lights flashed temporarily as he unlocked it. “You can load them in the back,” Ezra said to Nick, not bothering to even look at him.

“Have a good day,” I said flatly, then turned to leave. I didn’t even take a step before he put his hand back on my arm again. My entire body tensed up. “Ezra, let me go.”

“You’re really just going to walk off without talking to me?”

“I did talk to you, but there’s nothing left to say except let me go.”

He removed his hand, then circled around so he was in front of me. “I’m here on business and you’re supposed to be representing your company. Being rude to me isn’t a great way to treat customers.”

I placed the clipboard on the counter and crossed my arms, trying to keep them out of his reach, then took a side step, allowing Nick access to the boxes stacked beside me. “I’m not being rude.”

He smiled condescendingly at me. “Look, I know that we ended on some...rough terms, but I hoped that when we finally saw each other, we could recognize it was for the best.”

“It was for the best,” I agreed.

“See? That’s my girl.”

My jaw clenched as my hands balled into fists. “I’m not your girl. I’m not your anything,” I said. “The reason I think breaking up was for the best is because I didn’t want to waste any more of my time with someone so shallow, and cold, and selfish as you. And the moment you finally revealed that part of yourself to me, the moment you showed me exactly who you are, I was done.” I shook my head. “The one good thing about you being as heartless as you were, was that I never spent a single second worrying about what I did wrong, or how I could have fixed things between us. I never cried myself to sleep at night missing you. Most people who have toxic partners don’t get a clean cut at the end of a relationship like I did. But that day at South York, when you broke up with me all of ten seconds after I’d told you that Dad had been in a wreck, you cauterized that line between us. So yeah; it was for the best.”

Nick made a low whistling sound right before leaving the store, the bell overhead echoing him.

“You know, it’s a little irritating that you always bring up this crap about ending things after your dad’s accident, but would you have preferred me to wait until after you knew that he was dead? Would that have made it easier? No,” he said. “I did you a favor. It was like a Band-Aid. I pulled it off quickly and got it over with. But you don’t see it like that, do you?”

“I’m not sure if you understand the definition of ‘quick’ but talking about it for the full twenty-minute drive to the hospital, where you basically kicked me out on the sidewalk, isn’t it,” I said.

“Do you hear yourself, Fi? You’re happy that I broke up with you, but oh, I should have held your hand and walked you into the hospital? Why so your mommy could yell at me then, too? Even you have to admit that was embarrassing, having Ava yell at me for you.”

My fists tightened, my fingernails biting into my skin. I’d never been so tempted to smack anyone my whole life. “I didn’t have her do anything. She was plenty mad enough to do it on her own. It was her husband who had just died when you dumped all of my stuff on her front lawn because seeing it was ‘too painful’ for you.”

“Well, rumor has it, it’s your house again now.” He took a step closer to me. “That you got fired and had to move back in with her.” He smirked. “Is that what happened, Fi? I wouldn’t marry you so you had to move back in with your mommy so someone would take care of you?”

The bell over the door rang again. I was expecting Nick to come over for more boxes and give me a way to escape, but he didn’t.

“Stop calling me Fi!” I snapped. “You don’t get to call me that anymore. Now I suggest you take your order and leave.”

He frowned at me mockingly. “Aw, am I making you mad? You’re so cute when you’re mad. You finally do that red hair justice,” he said. “You know, if you’d shown this much passion when we were together, I might have actually considered marrying you.”

“Thank goodness I dodged that bullet then.”

The humor left his face. “Whoever gets you next, they better like broken things.”

I looked him in the eye. “Do you honestly think you were strong enough to break me, Ezra?” I asked. “The only thing you could break were promises.”

He sneered at me, then let his eyes drift behind me. I was sure that he was looking at Nick, wondering how much of his true personality he was going to let a stranger see, but then I felt a wall of heat behind me. I turned my head and saw Walter. Comfort flooded my body the moment he was at my side.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, looking down at me.

I nodded. “He was just leaving.”

Ezra took a step back. His mouth was in a thin, tight line as he looked Marshall up and down. “Are you the owner?” he asked. “Because I’m here for an order and your employee here -” He crossed his arms and nodded his head at me. “- she needs to work on her customer service skills.”

“I’m not the owner. But I’m fairly sure she told you to leave.”

Ezra looked confused. I watched in his eyes as he tried to work out what was going on. “If you’re not the owner, then our conversation has nothing to do with you. You have no reason to intervene.”

“I’m here for Fiona. And how you’re talking to her, it isn’t acceptable. She’s asked you to leave, so if you’re here for an order, I suggest you take it and go,” Marshall said. He spoke slowly and deliberately, but each word was laced with anger.

Ezra smiled. “Are you serious? You’re with her?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Good luck to you. You’ll never be able to please her.”

“From what I understand, you never really tried,” Marshall said.

“Is that what she told you?” Ezra looked at me again. “You’re always the victim, aren’t you? You poor little bird,” he said mockingly. “Maybe one day you’ll grow up and see the truth.”

“You know, this immature gas-lighting bull crap that you and Demi both pull, it’s getting old,” I said.

He smirked. “Speaking of Demi, the next time you see her, tell her that I found her earrings. They were in my couch.”

I knew what he was trying to do and I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of succeeding.

“So you had the audacity to dump my belongings on a dead man’s lawn, but you don’t have the guts to return some earrings that she allegedly left at your place?” I asked. “But I’m the immature one. Sure.”

He was angry that I hadn’t taken the bait. He pushed his hair back from his face aggressively and stepped back from me. “I hope your boss realizes that you just lost a big client,” he said, then started walking away.

“Did we? Because I’m pretty sure that the company is called Mead-Holmes, not Mead-Holmes and Williams,” I said, turning and calling after him. “And I’ve never heard of a partner or CEO fetching lunch for his company. It seems to me that you’re just an errand boy.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, then slowly turned back around. He opened his mouth but didn’t get a chance to speak.

“Don’t say another word. Just turn around and keep walking,” Walter said, putting himself slightly in front of me. “Or I can escort you out. It’s your decision.”

Ezra looked from Marshall to me and I could see him trying to decide if he was going to back down and listen or try to get the last word in. Eventually, he made the smart choice for once and left, shoving past Nick, who was returning to the store, then climbed into his van, slamming the door hard enough to make his windshield wipers jump.

Marshall turned to me, blocking my view of Ezra. His face was softer, his eyes holding worry. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

I let out a breath. It was shaky. My whole body was tense. “No, actually. I’m angry. I can’t believe he had the nerve to come in here and act like that.”

“What do you need me to do for you?”

I blinked. It was a simple question, but it wasn’t one I was used to hearing. It felt like it took me a long time to unwrap it in my mind. Finally, I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I admitted.

“You should take a break,” Nick said. He was loading another portion of the order onto his cart. “I’ll tell Aunt Darcy what happened as soon as I’m done. She’ll understand.”

I chewed my lip for a moment, mulling it over before finally relenting. “Okay. Thank you,” I said to Nick. Then to Marshall, “Would you come with me?”

He nodded. “Where do you want to go?”

I led him through the store and out the back door, into the employee parking lot. The moment we stepped outside, the cold air hit me. I gasped. I hadn’t thought to get my coat from Darcy’s office. Walter noticed.

“It’s cold,” he said, taking off his coat. “Put this on.”

I shivered but shook my head. “No, I can’t take it from you.”

“Yes, you can.” He placed it over my shoulders and held it on me until I finally put my arms through the sleeves, then he pulled it closed in the front. It swallowed me whole. He smiled at me. “Perfect fit.”

I smiled back. “It’s pretty cozy. Thank you,” I said. “But I feel bad that you don’t have one now.”

“I guess I’ll just have to stay close to you for warmth,” he joked. He slid his hands inside the coat and placed them on my hips. Instinctively, my arms went around his neck. We looked like we were dancing, even though we were standing still. His smile grew. “Just like this.” He kissed the top of my head before pressing his forehead to mine. “Do you want to talk about what happened or do you want to forget it?”

I let out a breath. “I don’t - I don’t know.” I let my fingers wander into the hair at the nape of his neck, gently playing with his curls. “That was my ex. I haven’t seen him in two years. Part of me...a big part of me, just wants to forget about him, erase him from my memory and never think about him again,” I said. “But another part of me wants to go yank him out of his van and throw him to the ground and stomp his stupid teeth in. And I hate it because he’s the only person who makes me feel that way.”

“Do you want me to talk to him? The gun and badge tend to make people listen to me.”

I smiled but shook my head. “No. I just want you to stay right here with me,” I said. “Please.”

He didn’t say anything, he only nodded, moving my head slightly with his as he did. Then I closed my eyes as I tried to breathe calmly and let go of the anger that Ezra had stirred up in me. With every passing second, Marshall took over and pushed out any lingering pieces of Ezra. The heat of his hands melted away all remembrances of Ezra’s cold, clammy touch that always had an ulterior motive. The scent of him, clean and full of coffee, chased away the smell of expensive cologne that had always been applied too liberally. His presence was comforting and enveloping, not demanding and suffocating. It was like I’d been trapped in a burning building, inhaling smoke, and Walter was my first breath of fresh air and my lungs were screaming for him.

I opened my eyes and saw him looking at me. I blinked and it suddenly hit me that there must have been a reason for him being there and I’d been so caught up in myself that I hadn’t even thought to ask. I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment.

“I’m...I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I doubt you came here for all of this.”

His hands tightened, pulling me closer. “I came here for you.”

“What did you need me to do?”

He smiled, just the corner of his mouth turned up. “Nothing.” I must have looked confused because he laughed softly. “I just wanted to see you,” he said. “I thought I might be able to take you for coffee?”

I felt my heart swell. My fingers pushed further into his hair, sinking to his scalp. Lightly I scratched my nails against it. He closed his eyes and sighed. “How did I get so lucky to meet you?”

His eyes stayed closed as he leaned back into my touch. “I’m pretty sure I’m the lucky one.”

“Mom, I’m home,” I called out as I walked through the door that evening. “I picked up dinner, too.”

“Already in the kitchen,” Mom called back.

I kicked off my shoes by the door, then went to the kitchen. Mom was at the table, papers spread everywhere in front of her as she wrote on a legal pad. One set of reading glasses sat perched on her nose, while another hung around her neck on a chain.

“So...what’cha doin’?” I asked slowly, standing in the doorway.

She looked up at me and over the rim of her glasses. “Last night, June mentioned that since I was sick on her’s, mine, and Aunt Rose’s birthday, it would be fun for the three of us to go away for the weekend and celebrate. So -” She indicated to the layers of paper in front of her. “I’m planning the trip.”

“A trip to where?” I asked. “What kind of weekend getaways call for this type of planning?”

She shook her head. “No, see, I looked up a few places, printed off a list of all their attractions, restaurants, hotels, what have you, and now I’m making a list of each with pros-cons and prices for them all, then we can decide from there.” She waved her hand dismissively over the papers. “This is all getting condensed. I’m not giving them an entire booklet.”

“So, when Dad said that you were a teacher’s pet, this is the kind of thing he was talking about. Right?”

“I wasn’t a teacher’s pet; I just like being thorough. There’s nothing wrong with that.” She stood and started clearing the table. “Those are pretty,” she said, nodding to the vase of flowers in my hand. “Where did they come from?”

“Marshall gave them to me.”

“He sent you flowers at work? That was sweet.”

“Actually, he didn’t send them. He took me out to coffee and bought them for me afterward,” I said, carrying the vase and takeout bag to the counter and setting them down.

“He saw you last night, and you have a date planned for Saturday, but he asked you out for coffee today?” she asked.

I turned to look at her and leaned back against the counter. I couldn’t help my smile. “He said he just wanted to see me.”

“I think this one might be a keeper, Fi.”

I laughed. “I think so, too,” I said. “Today was very nearly a dumpster fire and he extinguished it.”

She looked concerned. “What do you mean? What went wrong?”

“So, the big order we had today? Ezra was the one who picked it up.”

She paused her cleaning. “What?”

“Yeah. I was there to get the driver to sign off on the order, so I had to talk to him. I was hoping - a little naively, I guess - that we could just keep it simple and professional, but unfortunately that didn’t happen,” I said. “I tried walking away and he followed me, essentially saying that everything that had happened between us was my fault. He said that it was pathetic that you yelled at him after we broke up, making it sound like I’d had you do it for me. And then insinuated that he and Demi were having an affair, or they’re currently sleeping together now. I’m not sure. He was trying to upset me, but I don’t know if it was the truth or not. I didn’t fall for it and ask.”

“Well, if Demi is dumb enough to get involved with him after everything she saw him put you through, then she deserves what she gets,” she said. “And if he thought it was pathetic that I yelled at him, what did he think about throwing your stuff out on our lawn two hours after your father died? Is that not beyond pathetic?”

I shook my head. “I genuinely think he’s too narcissistic to even consider himself at fault. He said he got it over with quick for me.”

She rolled her eyes. “How kind of him,” she deadpanned.

“Then Marshall came in -”

Her eyes widened. “He came in while Ezra was there?” she asked, interrupting me. I nodded. “What did he do?”

“He told Ezra that how he was talking to me was unacceptable and that he needed to leave. Then he took me outside so that I could calm down, and once Ezra left, Darcy let me have an early break and he took me out for coffee and bought me flowers to cheer me up.”

“Oh, Bird. He really is a keeper, isn’t he?”

I put my hand over my chest and felt my heart speed up thinking about him holding me in the parking lot, telling me that he was the lucky one. I let out a sigh and nodded. “Yeah. He really is, Mom.”

That night Walter called me like he said he would. I’d always been rather bad at phone calls and even he had admitted that anything outside of work calls was out of his comfort zone, but for the three and a half hours that we talked, it didn’t seem that way. I lay in bed and talked to him like he was right there. Like we’d known each other forever. We only hung up because I started drifting off. He joked that he was boring me, but I tried to assure him that it was far from that. His voice was calming and soothing and every bit as warm as he was. Sleepily I told him that he was like sitting in front of the fireplace on a rainy day with a cup of tea. He laughed but said as long as he got to sit at the fireplace beside me, he didn’t mind the comparison.

I slept better that night than I had in months.

#Henry Cavill #Henry Cavill fan fiction #Walter Marshall #Walter Marshall fan fiction #Walter Marshall/OFC #Night Hunter fan fiction #Night Hunter #Nomis #Nomis fan fiction #Henry Cavill fanfiction #Henry Cavill fanfic #Detective Walter Marshall #Begin Again

137 notes · View notes

jenniferisacommonname · 3 years

Text

Bonus Level Unlocked

This week marks the release of Jason Schreier’s Press Reset, an incredibly well-researched book on catastrophic business failure in the gaming industry. Jason’s a good dude, and there’s an excerpt here if you want to check it out. Sadly, game companies going belly-up is such a common occurrence that he couldn’t possibly include them all, and one of the stories left out due to space constraints is one that I happen to be personally familiar with. So, I figured I’d tell it here.

I began working at Acclaim Studios Austin as a sound designer in January of 2000. It was a tumultuous period for the company, including a recent rebranding from their former studio name, “Iguana Entertainment,” and a related, ongoing lawsuit from the ex-founder of Iguana. There were a fair number of ghosts hanging around—the creative director’s license plate read IGUANA, which he never changed, and one of the meeting rooms held a large, empty terrarium—but the studio had actually been owned on paper by Acclaim since 1995, and I didn’t notice any conflicting loyalties. Everyone acted as if we always had been, and always would be, Acclaim employees.

Over the next few years I worked on a respectable array of triple-A titles, including Quarterback Club 2002, Turok: Evolution, and All-Star Baseball 2002 through 2005. (Should it be “All-Stars Baseball,” like attorneys general? Or perhaps a term of venery, like “a zodiac of All-Star Baseball.”) At any rate, it was a fun place to work, and a platformer of hijinks ensued.

But let’s skip to the cutscene. The truth is that none of us in the trenches suspected the end was near until it was absolutely imminent. Yes, Turok: Evolution and Vexx had underperformed, especially when stacked against the cost of development, but games flop in the retail market all the time. And, yes, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling had been hustled out the door before it was ready for reasons no one would explain, and the New York studio’s release of a BMX game featuring unlockable live-action stripper footage had been an incredibly weird marketing ploy for what should have been a straightforward racing title. (Other desperate gimmicks around this time included a £6,000 prize for UK parents who would name their baby “Turok,” an offer to pay off speeding tickets to promote Burnout 2 that quickly proved illegal, and an attempt to buy advertising space on actual tombstones for a Shadow Man sequel.)

But the baseball franchise was an annual moneymaker, and our studio had teams well into development on two major new licenses, 100 Bullets and The Red Star. Enthusiasm was on the upswing. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention when voice actors started calling me to complain that they hadn’t been paid, but at the time it seemed more like a bureaucratic failure than an actual money shortage—and frankly, it was a little naïve of them to expect net-30 in the first place. Industry standard was, like, net-90 at best. So I was told.

Then one Friday afternoon, a few department managers got word that we’d kind of maybe been skipping out on the building lease for let’s-not-admit-how-many months. By Monday morning, everyone’s key cards had been deactivated.

It's a little odd to arrive at work and find a hundred-plus people milling around outside—even odder, I suppose, if your company is not the one being evicted. Acclaim folks mostly just rolled their eyes and debated whether to cut our losses and head to lunch now, while employees of other companies would look dumbfounded and fearful before being encouraged to push their way through the crowd and demonstrate their still-valid key card to the security guard. Finally, the General Manager (hired only a few months earlier, and with a hefty relocation bonus to accommodate his houseboat) announced that we should go home for the day and await news. Several of our coworkers were veterans of the layoff process—like I said, game companies go under a lot—and one of them had already created a Yahoo group to communicate with each other on the assumption that we’d lose access to our work email. A whisper of “get on the VPN and download while you can” rippled through the crowd.

But the real shift in tone came after someone asked about a quick trip inside for personal items, and the answer was a hard, universal “no.” We may have been too busy or ignorant to glance up at any wall-writing, but the building management had not been: they were anticipating a full bankruptcy of the entire company. In that situation, all creditors have equal standing to divide up a company's assets in lengthy court battles, and most get a fraction of what they’re owed. But if the landlords had seized our office contents in lieu of rent before the bankruptcy was declared, they reasoned, then a judge might rule that they had gotten to the treasure chest first, and could lay claim to everything inside as separate from the upcoming asset liquidation.

Ultimately, their gambit failed, but the ruling took a month to settle. In the meantime, knick knacks gathered dust, delivered packages piled up, food rotted on desks, and fish tanks became graveyards. Despite raucous protest from every angle—the office pets alone generated numerous threats of animal cruelty charges—only one employee managed to get in during this time, and only under police escort. He was a British citizen on a work visa, and his paperwork happened to be sitting on his desk, due to expire. Without it, he was facing literal deportation. Fortunately, a uniformed officer took his side (or perhaps just pre-responded to what was clearly a misdemeanor assault in ovo,) and after some tense discussion, the building manager relented, on the condition that the employee touch absolutely nothing beyond the paperwork in question. The forms could go, but the photos of his children would remain.

It’s also a little odd, by the way, to arrive at the unemployment office and find every plastic chair occupied by someone you know. Even odder, I suppose, if you’re actually a former employee of Acclaim Studios Salt Lake, which had shut down only a month or two earlier, and you just uprooted your wife and kids to a whole new city on the assurance that you were one of the lucky ones who got to stay employed. Some of them hadn’t even finished unpacking.

Eventually, we were allowed to enter the old office building one at a time and box up our things under the watchful eye of a court appointee, but by then our list of grievances made the landlords’ ploy seem almost quaint by comparison (except for the animals, which remains un-fucking-forgivable.) We had learned, for example, that in the weeks prior to the bankruptcy, our primary lender had made an offer of $15 million—enough to keep us solvent through our next batch of releases, two of which had already exited playtesting and were ready to be burned and shipped. The only catch was that the head of the board, company founder Greg Fischbach, would have to step down. This was apparently too much of an insult for him to stomach, and he decided that he'd rather see everything burn to the ground. The loan was refused.

Other “way worse than we thought” details included gratuitous self-dealing to vendors owned by board members, the disappearance of expensive art from the New York offices just before closure, and the theft of our last two paychecks. For UK employees, it was even more appalling: Acclaim had, for who knows how long, been withdrawing money from UK paychecks for their government-required pension funds, but never actually putting the money into the retirement accounts. They had stolen tens of thousands of dollars directly from each worker.

Though I generally reside somewhere between mellow and complete doormat on the emotional spectrum, I did get riled enough to send out one bitter email—not to anyone in corporate, but to the creators of a popular webcomic called Penny Arcade, who, in the wake of Acclaim’s bankruptcy announcement, published a milquetoast jibe about Midway’s upcoming Area 51. I told Jerry (a.k.a. “Tycho”) that I was frankly disappointed in their lack of cruelty, and aired as much dirty laundry as I was privy to at the time.

“Surely you can find a comedic gem hidden somewhere in all of this!” I wrote. “Our inevitable mocking on PA has been a small light at the end of a very dark, very long tunnel. Please at least allow us the dignity of having a smile on our faces while we wait in line for food stamps.”

Two days later, a suitably grim comic did appear, implying the existence of a new release from Acclaim whose objective was to run your game company into the ground. In the accompanying news post, Tycho wrote:

“We couldn’t let the Acclaim bankruptcy go without comment, though we initially let it slide thinking about the ordinary gamers who lost their jobs there. They don’t have anything to do with Acclaim’s malevolent Public Relations mongrels, and it wasn’t they who hatched the Titty Bike genre either. Then, we remembered that we have absolutely zero social conscience and love to say mean things.”

Another odd experience, by the way, is digging up a 16-year-old complaint to a webcomic creator for nostalgic reference when you offer that same creator a promotional copy of the gaming memoir you just co-wrote with Sid Meier. Even odder, I suppose, to realize that the original non-Acclaim comic had been about Area 51, which you actually were hired to work on yourself soon after the Acclaim debacle.*

As is often the case in complex bankruptcies, the asset liquidation took another six years to fully stagger its way through court—but in 2010, we did, surprisingly, get the ancient paychecks we were owed, plus an extra $1,700-ish for the company’s apparent violation of the WARN Act. By then, I had two kids and a very different life, for which the money was admittedly helpful. Sadly, Acclaim’s implosion probably isn’t even the most egregious one on record. Our sins were, to my knowledge, all money-related, and at least no one was ever sexually assaulted in our office building. Again, to my knowledge. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure we remain the only historical incident of corporate pet murder. The iguana got out just in time.

*Area 51’s main character was voiced by David Duchovny, and he actually got paid—which was lucky for him, because three years later, Midway also declared bankruptcy.

18 notes · View notes

monaisme · 3 years

Text

One Week Later - Chapter 5

This is the sequel to my one-shot, “The Battle”

Mrs. Stark was seated on the couch, her back to Peter as she spoke affectionately to someone on her phone. She was obviously preoccupied and missed his quietly entering the room, as she continued talking. “I know you want to see me, sweetheart, and I miss you, too—so desperately, but things are a little crazy right now.” A pause. “I know that I promised you a special date just the two of us, but I can’t get away from the city until things are settled and you know this.” Another pause. “Morgan, please—“

In his haze, Peter registered the name, Morgan, and almost wondered who he was? The lethargy that had washed over him weighted him where he stood and he almost felt like he was supposed to react to Mrs. Stark’s words, be curious at least? But he could barely...

FRIDAY interrupted the moment. “Apologies for the interruption, Mrs. Boss, but Boss is on his way up.”

Mrs. Stark called out a quick, “Thank you, FRIDAY,” then came back to her call. She muttered a tender, “I’ve gotta go. I love you, baby,” and hung up the phone. She stood up from the couch and gasped, her hand flying to her chest as she noticed Peter for the first time. “Oh! Peter! How long have you been standing there?” Her cheeks flushed pink as she hid her phone behind her guiltily.

He heard her question, shrugged in reply, and looked down at the floor as he tried to process that he couldn’t process what was happening in that moment. The almost indifference was giving way to discomfort as his brain tried to filter out the garbage bogging him down. “Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to interrupt... it seemed important?”

She looked uncomfortable, at least to Peter, but he really wasn’t sure of anything in that moment. “Peter, I should explain—“ She gestured to her phone she’d brought forward, but her words were cut off when the elevator doors in the penthouse foyer opened and footsteps echoed on the marble floor.

Mr. Stark entered the living room and grinned big. “Ah, my beautiful family! Exactly the people I wanted to see!” he announced. “I have news from the med bay!”

That tweaked something more in Peter, and his attention was diverted away from Mrs. Stark and the mystery Morgan to his mentor. “I can see May?” he asked quietly.

Mr. Stark nodded emphatically. “You bet you can, kid.” He laughed at something to himself then continued. “She was asleep when I got there so I had a chance to talk to the doc in person for an update. He was just getting around to telling me that we couldn’t come around today when May woke up.” Mr. Stark laughed a little harder. “Needless to say, you are definitely seeing her today.”

Peter felt what must have been the first spark of a real smile in ages. “Really?”

Mr. Stark took a step closer to the boy, then put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Of course, buddy. We’re just gonna give the nurses a chance to help her put on her game face and as soon as she’s ready, they’ll call, but for now...”

Peter’s shoulders sagged under the weight of Mr. Stark’s hand as he realized, “Now we wait.”

Mr. Stark gave an oddly grounding squeeze and pulled Peter into a firm hug. “Yeah, bud. Now we wait... but she’s as eager as you, so it won’t be too long, I’m sure of it.”

Peter shivered as he pressed further into Mr. Stark’s chest. The haze of the last little while was lifting and he felt a little unsteady so he closed his eyes and breathed in as he clung to the one thing in his life that seemed to have changed the least.

“Hey, sweetheart, not going to hassle you, but did the shower help?” Mr. Stark whispered into his hair. “Are you feeling a little better now?”

He nodded a yes, choosing to ignore whatever it was that was going on with Mrs. Stark in order to address his previous outburst. “I’m so sorry about that, Mr. Stark. I’ll fix the wall. I promise.” He pulled back and shifted to peek around Mr. Stark to Mrs. Stark but refusing to let go. “And I’m sorry if I scared you earlier, Mrs. Stark. It won’t happen again. I swear... I don’t even...” He tried to explain that he wasn’t like that, that he didn’t know where the anger had come from—well, he did, but that didn’t mean he was allowed to show it— He huffed in frustration as he struggled to find the right words.

Mrs. Stark stepped closer, smiled softly, and stopped Peter’s apology before he could completely short circuit. “I know, Peter, and it really is alright. I know that you’d never hurt me, I was just surprised, is all. Thank you for the apology, though. I appreciate it... and don’t worry about the wall, please. It should be fixed by the end of the day.”

Peter felt his cheeks pink with embarrassment and he ducked back into the safety of Mr. Stark’s arms. “Thank you... and I’m still sorry.”

Mr. Stark gave him an extra squeeze in acknowledgement then said nothing more.

It was a few seconds later when Peter could sense movement behind Mr. Stark—then his humming and shaking his head in response to whatever it was that Mrs. Stark was apparently silently communicating to him.

“Pete?” Mrs. Stark spoke up. “We need to talk to you about—”

“Boss, Mrs. Parker is requesting Mr. Parker’s presence in the med bay.” FRIDAY alerted the room. “She has asked me to play back her request directly. She says, ‘Tony, if you make me wait a second longer than I have to to see my kid, I’m gonna tell Pepper about that time you—‘” FRIDAY cut off the recording. “Apologies for the disruption in playback, while you can gauge the seriousness of her request, per your ’Admit Nothing’ protocol, I have determined it is not in your best interest to play the entire recording, sir.”

Mr. Stark snort laughed, “Thanks, FRI, you’re a gem,” he replied and hugged Peter tight one last time before letting him go. “Well, kid. You heard the AI! Aunt May is waiting!” Mr. Stark led him to the elevator.

Peter didn’t hesitate to follow and made it half way across the room when—

“Peter, can you wait a moment, please!” Mrs. Stark called out.

Peter cringed at the delay, but turned around to face her. “Um, okay?”

“Peter, I... we,” she glanced toward Mr. Stark, “We still need to talk to you about a couple of things—“

Peter was fighting down the impatience, and Mr. Stark must have seen it. He cut her off. “Pep. We can talk about this later on, can’t we? He’s been waiting a week and May will kill me literally dead if he’s not there soon.”

She looked flustered, and Peter almost cared, but she’d been hiding something earlier, now that Peter’s brain was firing back up he was sure of it—and he couldn’t make himself worry about it anymore, especially when he needed to get to May.

She paused, seemed to consider, and then, “Fine. But can we please make the time to talk about things later? Maybe over lunch?”

Peter was making no plans beyond the med bay, but he knew that wouldn’t fly so he agreed. “Yeah, sure. Lunch.” He looked between the two. “Can I go now?”

Mrs. Stark looked at her husband, who stared back goofily at her. She smiled, then he smiled, and like that, Mr. Stark was on the move with him again.

And then Peter wasn’t so sure he wanted the company anymore. “Mr. Stark, would it be okay if I went alone?”

“Are you sure you’re up for that? I mean, I know you’d be okay if you do go alone, but there could be a lot going on in that room that you may have questions about and I don’t want you to get overwhelmed.” Mr. Stark was concerned and had no issue with voicing it. “I don’t have to stay for long, just until I know you’re comfortable, and—“

“And I appreciate that. I do. It’s just...” Peter wasn’t sure he could find the words to convey how badly he needed it to be just them. “Please?”

Peter could see Mr. Stark struggling with it. There was no good reason that Peter could think of for Mr. Stark to let him go alone except that he wanted it. And the man was right. He was already anxious and he hadn’t even made it to the elevator yet. Peter was about to give up on the request altogether when Mr. Stark broke into his thoughts.

“Fine, you can go alone, but you have FRI call me if you change your mind, okay? I’ll be there in two minutes. No questions. No judgement.”

“Really?” Peter asked.

“Yes, and we expect to see you back here for lunch when she gets tired of you, alright?” Mr. Stark teased.

“Yessir.”

Mr. Stark glared.

“Yes, Mr. Stark.”

“Alright then, you heathen, begone.” Mr. Stark pointed toward the elevator with a wink. “Don’t make me regret this. And you’d better tell Aunt Hottie that you’re kiss and grounding were both delivered as requested, got it? I told her but I don’t think she believes me.”

“I will.” Peter promised and then waited only a few seconds for the elevator doors to open and finally make his way down to the med bay. He focussed on the next while and how this reunion would go. Aunt May was going to be so happy to see him, he thought. It had been the two of them for so long, and he wished that she hadn’t had to go through all these years without him. But he was back now and things would get better. They had to, right? As the elevator descended, though, his thoughts started to twist. What if it wasn’t better? He knew logically that things were different now-- for him it had been a week and five years and forever and no time at all and all Peter knew was that he didn’t need to say a word to her; only wanted to curl up beside his favourite Aunt and never leave her again.

And she was sick.

The elevator doors opened and Peter froze.

Maybe he’d made a mistake?

“Mr. Parker, we have arrived at the med bay floor.” FRIDAY said.

Peter didn’t move, but he could feel himself getting worked up.

And so could FRIDAY. “Mr. Parker. While still within normal parameters, your breathing, pulse, and heart rate are elevating rapidly. Might I suggest a few deep breaths in order to regulate them?”

Peter still didn’t move... couldn’t move.

“Very well, initiating ‘Meltdown Management Mode’ now.”

The elevator doors closed and for a second Peter thought that the AI would return him to the penthouse and he’d lose his chance to see Aunt May, and his breathing picked up more. He gasped out a “no!”

The elevator stayed where it was, but its lights softened and the canned muzak that had played in the background was replaced by soothing ocean sounds. “Don’t be alarmed, Mr. Parker. Please try to match your breaths to the count, Mr. Parker.” FRIDAY instructed softly. “Breathe in, 2, 3, 4, and out 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.”

It took a couple of cycles, but eventually Peter picked up the rhythm and within a few minutes, Peter was feeling a little more like himself. “Um, thanks, FRIDAY,” Peter called out to the AI. “That was... unexpected.” And he didn’t know if he was talking about the freak out or the assist.

“Yes,” FRIDAY interrupted. “Due to the random nature of anxiety and panic attacks, Boss has found the protocol to be quite useful over the last five years. He will be glad to know that it has been of use to someone else.”

The thought of Mr. Stark knowing he’d freaked out AGAIN was not okay. That he couldn’t manage to make his way down a few floors without breaking down? “Yeah, um, FRIDAY, do you think you could not tell Mr. Stark about this? I mean, I’m fine, right?”

The elevator fell silent for a brief moment then, “When this protocol was first initiated, Boss required that Mrs. Boss was notified each time it was initiated. There is no specific protocol requirement for you, Mr. Parker. You’re vitals are indicating that you are still experiencing some stress, but they are steady and within normal parameters. I see no reason to report this at this time, but if Boss asks, I will be required to inform him.”

Peter could have slumped with relief... or exhaustion. The constant ups and downs were messing him up big time, and he hated it, but at least he’d remembered his manners. “Thank you, FRIDAY.

“You are welcome, Mr. Parker. Are you ready for me to open the elevator doors now?”

Peter steeled himself and then answered, “Please?”

“Of course,” the AI replied. “Enjoy your visit with Mrs. Parker.”

The doors slid open and Peter stepped out into the waiting room of what was his second home—well, third. First was May’s, then the penthouse with Mr. Stark, and then...

“Peter?”

He turned towards the familiar voice, smiling as he saw one of his favourite nurses walking towards him, “Lydie?” Her hair was cut shorter than he’d remembered it and was dyed a vibrant red. Definitely different, but still definitely her, thank goodness.

“Peter, you haven’t aged a day! Get over here!” She enveloped him in one of those awesome hugs she’d give him when he’d wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night after he’d finally convinced May or Mr. Stark to finally go and get some sleep in their own beds. “I missed you so much!”

And Peter had exactly zero idea of what to say back. ‘You, too,’ wasn’t true. In his reality, he’d seen her two weeks ago when a he’d been triple-teamed by a trio of wanna-be ninja muggers with zero throwing star skills and just enough luck to land a star smack in the back at his shoulder blade. He mumbled a “Thanks,” and pulled away.

He’d hoped she’d realize his discomfort, but Lydie was always one to talk and it seemed like this time was no different. She pointed down a hallway Peter didn’t think he’d ever been down before and started walking. “I know you’re here to see May so let me catch you up while I take you to her—so...”

Apparently it only took the length of a long hallway to find out about the life and times of all those who had been left behind. Peter tried to focus, but the moment Lydie had mentioned May again, his stomach had knotted and he did everything he could to use FRIDAY’s breathing techniques without being too obvious.

“...and here we go.” Lydie stopped walking and pointed into the closed door to the left. “Before you go in, though, we’re just gonna gown you up, okay?”

“What?”

She brought Peter over to a station stocked with gloves, gowns, caps, and masks. “Yeah, we want to be sure that we don’t bring any uninvited germs into the room with us while she’s already fighting this infection—or carry any out, for that matter.”

Peter almost recoiled. “I could make her more sick?” He hadn’t even thought about that and suddenly worried that his shower hadn’t been enough.

“Don’t be silly, Peter.” She chided him. “We’re only doing this as a precaution and I know how anxious May is to see you, so let’s go. Chop, chop.”

Peter got to it right away and tried not to feel ridiculous in his new oversized get up even as Lydie looked almost identical.

Lydie’s eyes smiled at him encouragingly. “Alright, are you ready?”

He didn’t answer, but she wasn’t waiting for him to as she pushed the door open and grabbed his arm to drag him inside with her.

“May, I hope you’re decent. You’ve got a gentleman caller here!” Lydie sang out softly as she peeked through the curtains surrounding her bed.

Peter heard the rustling of sheets and a groggy, “Wha—Lydie?”

Lydie glanced back at him, gestured for him to wait and ducked behind the curtain. “May?” Lydie whispered, quiet enough that it was only because of Peter’s enhanced hearing that he could make out the words. “May, can you wake up a little more? You dozed off on me.”

“Oh?” The sheets rustled some more. “Oh, no,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean to— is he gone? Did I miss him?“

A monitor beeped in warning.

“Shh, shh, shh. May, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. It’s fine. He’s waiting for the all clear before he comes in. I know he’s fallen asleep on you plenty of times so don’t sweat it.” Lydie really was the best.

Another beep, this one a press of something on a machine.

And then the sound of stifling tears.

“May, honey, oh. No-no-no, don’t do that, May. He’s back now.” Lydie comforted her, not bothering to lower her voice. “Peter’s just on the other side of the curtain and he thinks he’s hiding it, but he’s nervous, too.” Peter heard Lydie pull a tissue from a box and pass it to May.

May sniffed, then blew her nose and squeaked out, “Peter’s really here?”

“You know I wouldn’t lie to you, May, and he’s probably wondering what’s taking you so long.”

“Yeah.” May took a deep breath and then another. Peter could hear her and Lydie doing a last minute straighten up. “Okay.” May whispered. “How do I look?”

“Like a million bucks.” Lydie reassured her. “Now, can I open these curtains before he loses his mind?”

May must have nodded because the curtain was slowly dragged back to reveal the most important person in Peter’s universe, propped up in the bed and fussing with the long braid trailing down the front of her hospital gown.

And Peter stood there frozen, mere feet away from her bed, his mouth opening and closing like a fish behind the mask. “May?” The woman in front of him looked like a weak imitation of the woman he’d left only a week ago to head to school and that stupid MOMA field trip. The yellowed, swollen face and hands screamed sickness, punctuated by the heavy scent of medicated creams, antiseptic, and blood. They’d at least made an effort to disguise the various machines surrounding her, but the curtains and draped blankets couldn’t camouflage the nasal cannula—and the delicately flowered robe she wore over the medbay gown did little to hide the tubing still connected to her IV or the dialysis machine Peter guessed she’d been hooked up to since that call in Wakanda that morning. His stomach turned at the sight of it all so he concentrated again on her face. There, he could see the flush of fever in her cheeks and a glassiness in her eyes. She looked exhausted.

He didn’t know what to do.

She looked just as stunned as Peter, though for completely different reasons. “Peter?” May stared at the boy and then scowled at Lydie. “I swear, Lydie, on the soul of my dead mother. If you don’t get all that shit off my kid so I can see him for real, I will make sure that you never find that stupid blush nail polish you swear by again—and I know people so I can make it happen.”

Lydie threw her hands up in apology. “May, you know that I can’t. Dr. Bonwick has orders—“

“I don’t care, Lydie.” she huffed. “I’ve waited too long to see that face.” May turned her attention back to Peter. “You heard me,” she pointed to his medical gear with a look of distaste. “All of that garbage off, now.”

He wanted to listen to her, honest, but she was sick and the reality of it had smacked him in the face. There was no way he’d risk—

“Peter.” Peter recognized the tone anywhere. It was the same tone that made sure his homework got done before patrol, that his bedroom was cleaned before heading to Ned’s, and that got wet towels off the bathroom floor and an apple in his hand before he ran out the door to school. Yeah. Peter knew better than to dawdle. The fabric gown and its accessories were in a laundry bin in the corner of the room in half a minute and he stood ready for inspection.

May beamed with joy as she gazed upon him. “There’s my Peter,” she exclaimed. “Now get your ass over here and give me a hug before I lose my mind, you goofball.”

Peter rushed up to the bed, hesitating when he reached the railing of the bed. “Uh... what should I—“

Lydie, who’d tucked herself inconspicuously away to work in the corner of the room, came forward to help. “C’mon, Peter, you know as well as anyone how these beds work.” She teased as she did her nurse magic, lowering the railing.

“I know how the bed works,” he insisted as he tried to ignore the fear that one wrong move would hurt her. “I’m trying to be careful, is all.”

May was having none of that. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried, sweetheart.” She leaned forward and opened her arms, now seriously. “Please?”

Peter was in her arms in a blink, fighting back tears as May finally gave in to hers. Neither of them said a word as they revelled in their reunion. Only a week and five years- five years- She’d waited for him for so long.

Peter whispered, “I didn’t mean to go, May, I swear,” as he burrowed into her.

She buried her face in his hair and tried to breathe in the scent of him, like she'd done his whole life. "I know, baby. I know." May reassured him. She shifted slightly, started pushing the pillows supporting her aside.

Peter panicked. "Oh! I'm hurting you! I'm so sorry!" He pulled back and away, "I'm gonna—"

May grabbed his hand. "No, Peter. You're not hurting me at all. I just need to move- these- damn- pillows." She ground out the words while she tried to readjust.

"I can do it!" Peter declared, jostling the pillows about. “I’ll just—“ He shifted the pillows Aunt May, just a little, but the ones behind her seemed determined to keep her from completely relaxing, if he was reading her body language right. “Maybe if I—“ He slipped off the bed and started looking for the controls to set the bed at a better angle.

Lydie stepped in again, “Peter, here. Let me help—“

“No!” He replied loudly, surprising everyone in the room. He pressed on, moving May’s blankets in his hunt. “I’ve got this. I’m just gonna adjust the bed and make sure that May’s comfortable.”

“I know, Peter, but if I help—“

“Look, Lydie, I’ve got this, okay?” Not finding the controls, he moved around to the other side of the bed. “It’s the least I can do after all this time, right?” He tried to laugh at the little dig but sounded more like he was choking. They had to think he was losing his mind.

“Peter.” May called to him. “Come on. You’re fuss-farting around for a bed controller.” She patted the empty space beside her. “Let’s do a snuggle party like when you were little instead.” She held out her arms in welcome again and that was all Peter needed.

He clamoured up onto the bed again and tried to squeeze in beside her as she shifted to give him room, just like she’d asked.

Lydie watched the exchange sadly and smiled, “I’m going to give you two some time,” and exited the room. Peter was sure she hadn’t gone far.

“I remember you being smaller, buster.” She teased.

Peter rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Are moms obligated to say cheesy stuff like that? Like, is it in the secret mom rulebook?”

“Now, Peter,” she grinned slyly as she looked down at him. “You know if I told you, I’d have to kill you—now, c’mon.” She eased herself a little further to one side of the bed and sighed in brief relief as she settled. “Get closer.”

He did try. Oh, how he wanted to be held in her arms and have her tell him everything was going to be okay, but gentle teasing couldn’t hide the limitations of the IV tube he’d interrupt if he laid this way—or the access site on her other side if he shifted that way.

May giggled through a new round of tears as they struggled to find a hold that wouldn’t cause her harm. “Wow, if we ever thought we could ignore the elephant in the room, huh?”

Peter stopped his wiggling. “May, don’t... I... I... ” He couldn’t speak so he sat himself up, twisting and turning away from her. He buried his face in his hands and started to tremble.

He was going to lose her.

He could feel her pulling herself up, trying to get closer to him. Peter jumped off the bed. “No! You need to lie down, May. Please.” He pressed her gently back into her pillow pile. “I’m gonna grab a chair, okay?”

“Peter, stop it. Get back up here,” she ordered, watching him work his way up to another freak out.

But he couldn’t... he just couldn’t.

Instead, Peter grabbed the straight backed chair rested against the wall and, in a flash, seated himself at her bedside. “Nah, I need you comfortable, May...” He grinned big and insincere, “And you know I’m a bed hog. Really! This is probably way better for you.” He focussed on his hands as they twisted at her blankets. “Just until you feel a little better, please?”

She didn’t bother to hide as her frustration shifted to concern. “Peter, please. I know this is strange,” She reached out to grab his hands, stopping him. “But we’re gonna get through this. Okay?”

Peter slid his hands out from under hers, then gently laid his on hers, but could say nothing. A part of him had thought that maybe... just maybe Mr. Stark had been overstating things so that Peter would find relief at things not being so bad. But Mr. Stark would never have done something like that. Peter had just been wrong. His vacillating between hope and impending doom stopped exactly then.

He knew all about Parker Luck, after all.

He gave May’s hands a squeeze, kissed them, then pulled away. He could feel the greasiness of lotion against his lips, and forced himself to ignore it. “You should lie down, May. I don’t want you to get more tired because of me.”

“Peter. I’ll worry about me, alright?” May lightly scolded. “But I’m also gonna worry about you, got it.” She cupped his cheek and tried to catch his eye. “We’ll need to talk about this eventually, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes and prayed for strength, “I know...” he choked out. “But can it not be now?”

May didn’t say anything for a moment before agreeing. “Alright... but soon? Hiding your head in the sand does nothing but leave your butt exposed for that big kick in the pants you’re trying to avoid, and you know it.”

Peter nodded. He didn’t have a choice.

The last two Parkers clasped hands again and sat silent for a moment; May savoured his presence while Peter mourned hers.

Five damned years. Peter’s thoughts turned to Titan and failed attempts and how if he’d only gotten the gauntlet.

A series of beeps sounded from one of the hidden machine, startling the two from their thoughts.

“Holy crap!” Peter jumped as he threw his hand to his chest, knocking over his chair in the process. “What’s wrong?” He scanned his aunt, not seeing why the alarm was suddenly going off. “Did I do something?”

“Calm down, Peter. That means my dialysis is done for today.” She reached for his hand. “It alerts whoever’s on shift that they can unhook me.”

Lydie entered the room again without a word and pulled a blanket off the machine closest to the bed.

Peter looked away.

“I’ll be quick, folks, then a quick check up and I’ll be out of your hair.” Lydie promised as she pressed a button to silence the alarm.

May didn’t pretend to be anything other than irritated. “Lydie, can we just do it later? Peter’s here and I don’t want to—“

Lydie raised her hand her hand to stop her. “Nuh-uh. I’ve already broken one rule for you today. If you think I’m not following another protocol, you’ve got another thing coming to you.” She glanced over to the young superhero. “Sorry, Peter.”

He just shrugged and moved his chair back towards the wall. “No worries. I’ll just stay out of the way.” Yeah, even he knew better to fight with the nurses in Avengers Tower.

Lydie chuckled, “I wish you were that cooperative when you were a patient here, Peter.”

May outright cracked up at that. “You tell him, Lydie.”

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. I am a stellar patient.” Peter pouted, “You’re both so mean to me.”

The laughter died down as Lydie disconnected things and went about doing what should have been a cursory check. The cuff of the blood pressure monitor has inflated, May had flinched at its tightness, and Peter had sympathized. Lydie had pulled the stethoscope from around her neck, preparing for the next check when the alarm went off.

“May?” Lydie questioned suspiciously. “What’s going on?”

May looked from Lydie to Peter, then back to Lydie. “Nothing. You know that the machine is too sensitive. Let the cuff do its torture again,” she pressed. “It’s probably because I was laughing is all.”

Lydie wasn’t buying it, “Peter, would you be a dear and step into the hallway, please.”

Yeah, Peter knew that tone, too. It was the old ‘the medical professionals need to discuss things that aren’t any of your business’ tone. He was out of the chair and into the hallway in a shot.

It wasn’t like he’d be missing anything, anyways.

“Okay, May, ‘fess up. What’s going on?” Lydie whispered.

Had they really forgotten that it didn’t work?

Peter could hear a button being pressed, maybe an aural thermometer, then May’s reply. “My pain medication,” she whispered back. “I should have thought to say something before he got here, but then I fell asleep and I couldn’t let Peter know—“

“How bad?”

May exhaled slowly, “Bad enough that it set off that stupid machine.”

A quiet beep sounded.

“Aw, shit. May!” Lydie hissed. “You’re fever’s up, too! You know better than to not say something about that!”

Peter could hear Lydie’s movements around the room, a drawer opening, vials being shuffled about—“I’m going to get your pain meds and some fever reducers on board, then I’ll call Dr. Bonwick.”

“No.” May blurted out, desperate. “You know it’ll put me to sleep. Just wait until Peter’s visit is over, an hour? Please? Can I have just an hour with him?”

“No negotiations, May.” They were done with trying to be secretive. “We’re already pushing our luck because of the delay with the dialysis... and Peter’s a smart kid. You know he’ll understand.”

Peter could hear the quiver in her voice again. “I don’t want him to understand! I want him here!” May moaned, giving in to her pain and exhaustion. “I want five years with him, and I want stepping on legos, and sleepovers with his friends, and... and I wanted him to be a man before he had to deal with—oh.” May couldn’t speak, and so she wept.

And Peter’s heart broke again—how many more times would he feel it splinter before it finally stopped.

Lydie tried to comfort May, even as she went about her job with a haste that made Peter realize his coming had been a mistake. She’d been hurting. She suffered because of him—for five years, she had suffered because of him.

It took a few minutes, but May’s cried eventually softened, then levelled to a nice even breathing. She’d fallen asleep. Lydie popped out of the room, took one look at him, and knew. “You heard?”

Peter nodded.

She stepped into the hallway completely, approaching him like a wild animal. “I gave her something to calm her, but with the fever and all...”

“She’s asleep, I know.”

“Good.” She looked over her shoulder into the room, and then addressed Peter. “She’ll sleep for a while now, which is good.” Lydie assured him. “I’m going to call Dr. Bonwick and get her started on her new meds. If everything goes as well as we hope, she’ll be ready for visitors tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Lydie stared at him for a second and forever. “May mentioned that Mr. Stark had filled you in on some things. Do you have any questions for me? May’s given me permission to give you the basics.”

Peter stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as he fought the urge to ask one of the so many questions he didn’t want answers to. “No. I’m good.”

The look on her face told Peter that she didn’t believe him.

“Are you alright?” She asked, sympathy pouring off of her. “That visit had to be hard for you, too.”

Peter shook his head in the negative, “I’ll be fine.” Peter assured her. He always was, after all. “You just worry about Aunt May... please.” He tried to be casual about it, but the tears welling up were a dead giveaway.

Lydie stepped closer. “Peter, you’re allowed to be upset, too. I’m sure that Mr. Stark can find someone that can—“

An alarm blared in May’s room, loud and urgent. Lydie stopped talking and rushed back into the room, turning the alarm off and double checking what she thought was the culprit. “A-ha!” She called out as she reattached the oximeter to May’s finger. She watched the numbers jump back up from 0% to a not amazing but could be worse percentage. “There you go, May.” She squeezed the sleeping woman’s hand in support then went back into the hallway. “I’m so sorry about that, Peter, she shifted and knocked... off... her... Peter?” She looked down the empty corridor then rushed down it towards the elevator. She noted the floor numbers descending on the display. “Oh, shit.”

* * * * * *

“Mr. Parker, would you like me to initiate ‘Meltdown Management Mode’ again?” FRIDAY inquired.

May was dying, if she wasn’t already dead. He’d pushed her too much. She was too weak and in pain and then the alarm had gone off and he knew—

Peter said nothing, just stared at the numbers on the panel as the elevator descended. He couldn’t be there anymore. He couldn’t be there when she wasn’t—

May was dead, and Peter was alone.

“Mr. Parker, you are again displaying signs of distress, and failure to respond will require me to contact Boss and update him on your condition.”

Peter blinked as he registered the unintended threat. “I’m fine, thank you. I just need some air,” he rasped out.

“Yes, fresh air and exercise are both optimal solutions for mental distress. Boss has programmed me to provide him positive reinforcement when he takes the initiative on his own to remedy his anxiety. Would you like me to tell you ‘good job,’ Mr. Parker?”

“No, thanks.”

Peter felt a slight shift in speed, then the elevator came to a halt.

“It is currently an overcast 58°F, Mr. Parker. Enjoy the fresh air.” The elevator doors opened, revealing the Avengers Tower lobby bustling with activity. “Mr. Parker, should Boss inquire, what time will you be returning home?”

Home? May was dead and Peter was alone.

Peter chuckled darkly. “I don’t have a home anymore, FRIDAY,” he replied, and pushed his way through the masses of people, out the front doors of the tower, and into the chaos of a world struggling with unexpected rebirth.

#fanfiction #IronDad and SpiderSon #Avengers: Endgame #non-compliant #ao3fic #AO3 fanfic #OBlossom

11 notes · View notes