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comfortbucky · 3 years

Note

Hey! Can i request a cold, lonely ex-hydra reader × bucky who falls in love with her. Adding some panic attacks and nightmares of the reader.

i love this idea!!! thank u for submitting🥰

𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 ⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚ ⋆

pairing: avenger!bucky x ex-HYDRA!fem!reader

tags: enemies(?) to lovers, angst (if u squint), soft!bucky

warnings: canon level violence, description of injuries, blood is mentioned, panic attacks, anxiety, nightmares

A/N: i just came up with a random name for the HYDRA leader the reader is after🤣 so just ,,, ignore // also!!!! i tried out a different writing style than what i’m used to! hope u don’t mind🥺 just been feeling like a lot of my writing is the same and wanted to try something new!!!

word count: 3.5k (this is so long LMAO sorry 😭 literally why am i like this)

my masterlist!

completed requests!

The suit that you once considered a second skin, now felt uncomfortable and constricting, like a python squeezing the life out of you. Although, it made sense since the very organization of the uniform you were wearing did exactly that.

HYDRA.

For so long you were just another mindless pawn to them, just doing without every actually thinking. Unlike your younger brother, Alex. They indoctrinated him as well, getting a hold of both of you from a young age, but he was there when Captain America took down S.H.I.E.L.D. and it changed his entire worldview. You found everything he said about “freedom” to be stupid, naive, and dangerous. And you would later prove yourself correct.

You pull yourself from your thoughts as a group of HYDRA soldiers walk past the shrubbery you hid behind. Quickly and quietly, you get up and join them as they march towards the HYDRA base. As soon as you get inside, you manage to slip away from the rest of the group to search for your target.

Since HYDRA took the possibility of you ever having a normal life away, as far as you were concerned, your only purpose in life was to kill the man who was at the center of it all, Viktor Cross. And after months of tracking him down, formulating the perfect plan, that’s exactly what you were going to do today.

You make your way towards one of the main lab facilities, gun in hand when you see several unconscious guards lying on the floor in front of you. Shifting your gaze up, you see that the door has been ripped open, grip marks on the sides.

This was not part of the plan.

As you squeeze through the open door and enter the lab, you come to a halt, frozen in shock. There’s your target, Viktor, shoved against the wall by none other than Captain America himself. You almost let out a chuckle in disbelief at the irony of the situation. Instead, you take a step forward, and the glass cracks beneath your feet, alerting the men of your presence.

Shit.

Immediately, both sets of eyes are on you. Viktor’s lips curve into a smirk as you make your way to them.

“Agent- Miss Y/N,” he corrects himself. “What a pleasant surprise.” You ignore him and look to address Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America.

“Let him go and give him to me,” you start, Steve eyeing you cautiously. “So I can kill him,” you snarl, quickly turning to Viktor to see that his smirk had been wiped off his face.

“Aren’t you HYDRA?” He questions, nodding to your suit and eliciting a cackle from Viktor.

“Not anymore,” you mumble, before lifting a leg to kick Steve in his side. You hit him across the face with the end of your gun for good measure. He stumbles over, giving you enough time to grab Viktor’s collar, before he falls to the floor, and slam him back against the wall. His eyes are full of desperation and you felt nothing but pure, burning rage. You shove the barrel of your gun under his chin and place your hand on the trigger.

“You were such a gifted agent, Y/N. Don’t throw away such potential, come back.”

“Go to hell.”

Before you could pull the trigger, a force propels you to the ground and you feel a sharp pain in your side. Silence and then ringing fills your eyes as you squint your eyes to try and visualize the situation. Your vision is blurry, but clear enough to clouds of smoke engulf Viktor’s figure as he escapes. A muffled voice from behind you speaks, but you can’t make out any of the words they’re saying. You look down to see red. Just crimson red, staining your abdomen. Hands land on your shoulders, shaking you gently as your vision fades to black.

Viktor is in front of you, the barrel of his gun directed right at your head. He smirks as he moves his hand to the trigger.

“Hail, HYDRA.”

A gunshot goes off, forcing you to shoot up in bed, gasping for air. As you start to regain your senses, you realize you’re surrounded by a group of strangers. Well, not complete strangers, the Avengers to be exact. Part of your job required you to study their files, learn everything about them. You could recite from memory where and when they were born, their greatest strengths and weaknesses. Suddenly, your side starts to burn with pain, and you carefully lean back in bed. There’s an array of wires and tubes connected to you and you hear the rhythmic beeping of various machines. You’re in a hospital, or some sort of medical facility.

“That, is exactly why I said we should use restraints.”

You’re staring at the ceiling when you hear Iron Man, AKA Tony Stark, speak.

“Tony, she lost a liter of blood, she’s not going anywhere.”

Steve appears in your view, looking down at you.

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

You shift your gaze away from him. The last thing you expected to come out of this mission was to meet the Avengers, let alone them save you.

Steve sighs, “We’re not gonna hurt you. We wanna find Viktor too.”

There’s nothing he could say that could get you to speak. Your hatred for HYDRA didn’t mean you suddenly liked the Avengers. If anything, they were part of the problem too, so you stay silent.

“Told you, she’s not gonna talk,” Tony quips. From your research, you had come to learn that he was an arrogant man, and his statement only proved you right. “Maybe you should get Manchurian Candidate to come down, give her an ex-HYDRA buddy,” he says sarcastically.

Upon hearing “ex-HYDRA buddy,” you furrow your brows. Maybe it was the lack of blood in your body, but it took you a second to process his words and understand who he was referring to. Your eyes dart back to look at Steve’s but he’s gone.

“I’ll be back.” His voice trails off as he exits the room.

You’re still staring at the ceiling when you hear footsteps return and then several others departing.

There’s only one other person in the room beside you. Without even looking up, you already know who it is. His breathing was slow and steady until you started to shift in bed to reposition yourself. His breath hitched for a moment, before returning back to his normal breathing pattern.

“Killing him isn’t gonna make you feel better.” His comment makes you roll your eyes as you slowly sit up to look at him. There were no logical thoughts in your head, all you could feel was pain and fury. Anger swelled within you, your emotions boiling over.

“That’s rich, coming from the Fist of HYDRA,” you spat out. As soon as the words left your mouth, you felt your stomach drop. It was an unfamiliar feeling, one you hadn’t felt in a while. What was it? Regret?

Bucky’s face fell but he kept his eyes on you. It was a look that made you feel worse, worse than the searing pain in your side.

“I’m not a killer anymore,” he said in a tone so gentle, you felt another strange, new emotion but couldn’t quite label it. You quickly shift gears to avoid addressing the uncomfortable feelings swirling around in your stomach.

“Are you keeping me hostage to lure Viktor in? Because it's not going to work." Bucky shook his head.

"We want..." he trailed off, causing you to tilt your head in curiosity. “We need your help finding him.” You scoffed.

“What do I get out of it?” Bucky’s silence gave you your answer. Shaking your head, you start to disconnect yourself from the multitude of wires attached to you and get out of bed.

“You’re gonna hurt yourself,” he started, as you threw off your blanket and sat on the edge of the bed.

Standing up quickly, the blood from your head pooled in your legs, causing you to feel dizzy. Your head spun and your arms reached out for something, anything stable to grab onto. It was a metal hand. Despite it being cool to the touch, it ignited a heat to rise to your cheeks. You look down and mumble a thank you as Bucky helps you back into bed.

Letting out a sigh, you realize with the condition you’re in, you can’t leave. Definitely not well enough to go after Viktor alone. Shutting your eyes and pinching the bridge of your nose, you curse under your breath.

“Fine,” you finally speak, keeping your eyes closed. Bucky nods, even though you don’t see, and you hear him walk off.

After a couple days of rest, you were cleared by Bruce to get discharged. Viktor had gone deep in hiding, making your job to find him a lot harder. Tony had so graciously given you an extra room in the tower, right next to Bucky’s. He was probably the one person you saw the most, purely due to location, and the fact that everyone else cautiously kept their distance from you. It made sense though, since you rarely spoke to anyone and spent most of your time in the lab looking for any clues of Viktor’s location. When you weren’t searching for him, you were training in the gym. Bucky was there a lot too, both of you waking up at ungodly hours of the morning. No words were ever exchanged between the two of you, and yet, there was some level of comfort you felt being around him. Must’ve been an ex-HYDRA thing.

“What’s on your mind?” You walk over to Alex and sit on the edge of the bed next to him. He sighs.

“What if,” he starts, furrowing his brows. “What if freedom is good?” He speaks quietly, fearful of HYDRA listening in on your conversation.

It feels like you’ve got the wind knocked out of you.

“Alex,” you grab him by the shoulders. “What the hell are you talking about?” You’re searching his eyes, trying to understand what’s gotten into him.

“Captain America.” The biggest threat to HYDRA’s existence. He looks down at his hands. “He was willing to risk his life for it. It has to be worth something right?” Alex looks back up to you with a look in his eyes that you haven’t seen since you were children. Uncertainty. You sigh and pull him into your chest, stroking his hair.

“I don’t know, kiddo. Maybe.”

You wake up in a cold sweat, panting. Hot tears fall from the corners of your eyes. It’s the same dream you’ve had for the last week. Although, you wouldn’t consider it a dream necessarily, but it wasn’t a nightmare either. Just a bittersweet memory.

Bucky could tell that something was up with you for the past week. Despite having gone through a bit of therapy, Steve’s idea, the nightmares still came to him. So Bucky was already wide awake when he heard your weeping on the other side of the wall. It didn’t help that he was also a light sleeper with super-soldier hearing. He didn’t know what was causing you to be so upset, but he didn’t want to intrude and ask. Neither of you had spoken to the other since you first arrived.

But this night was different from the rest. Usually, you would flip endlessly through channels on ur TV until you eventually fell asleep, but it wasn’t working this time. There’s a tight pain in your chest and suddenly, you’re suffocating. You rip off your covers and spring out of bed, tripping on your blankets along the way. At this point, you don’t even register the pain of slamming down, face-first on the ground. Panic has taken over your body, tears now streaming down your face. You squeeze your eyes shut, hoping for relief.

He wasn’t planning on doing anything until he heard a loud thud from your room. Immediately, Bucky gets up and arrives at your door. It’s rude to just barge into someone’s room, his mom taught him that from a young age, so he settles on knocking. You don’t hear it though, the only sound you hear is the sound of your rapid breathing as you hyperventilate. Bucky hears it too and ultimately decides on inviting himself into your room.

“Y/N?”

You’re lying on your side, curled up in a fetal position with your hands covering your face, when Bucky opens the door. He quickly arrives by your side, kneeling beside you, as he examines you for any injuries.

“Are you hurt?”

You manage to shake your head in response, anxiety still flowing through your veins. Unfortunately, Bucky’s familiar with panic attacks, having had them himself. But he also knows that everyone deals with them a bit differently. Guess he did manage to learn some useful things from therapy.

“Can you try breathing with me?”

He starts to take deep breaths in and out until he sees you start to follow along with him, your hands still covering your face. There’s a part of you that feels stupid for keeping them there, but they help ground you, so you continue to shield your face. After what feels like an hour, but was probably only 10 minutes, your panic subsides. That’s when a wave of embarrassment hits you, realizing that it had been Bucky with you during your panic attack.

Slowly removing your hands from your face, you’re greeted by piercing blue eyes. You blink a couple times, realizing that Bucky had taken a spot on the ground, lying on his side to face you, his hands pressed together under his head like a pillow. He smiles and you feel warm. It’s terrifying, the new feelings that Bucky has caused you to feel and yet, you don’t mind.

“You feelin’ better?” You nod and smile back, something you haven’t genuinely done in a while.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

You stare at each other in silence, lying side by side. There’s no physical touch involved but somehow, this moment, it feels intimate. Bucky breaks the silence.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” He speaks in a voice so soft, it almost sounded like a whisper.

It might’ve been the fact that he just calmed you down from a panic attack, but as you looked into his eyes, you felt the walls you had built up for the last year slowly come crashing down.

“He killed my brother,” you reply, maintaining your eyes on Bucky. You searched his eyes for any fear or pity, but all you could find was a look of understanding. His eyes were starting to become a safe place for you.

“Alex was there when Steve took down S.H.I.E.L.D., HYDRA along with it. He wanted out, out of the organization.” Taking a deep breath, you continue. “Word got around about a “rat,” so I took the blame. Viktor was about to shoot me when Alex’s dumbass ran in front of me, sacrificing himself.” You let out a chuckle, your vision getting blurry as tears swelled in your eyes. “He was a goddamn idiot, but he also had a heart of gold.”

As you start to cry, Bucky hesitatingly extends an arm to hover over your body, trying to gauge your reaction. Physical touch was something he struggled with during the beginning of his recovery, and he didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. He’s reassured when you grab onto his shirt and pull yourself closer to him, and wraps an arm around you, his other hand softly stroking your head.

You hadn’t cried like this since Alex died, bottling up all of your emotions to focus on finding the man responsible for his death. But as you sobbed into Bucky’s chest, you realize that your love for Alex had transformed into an ugly, burning hatred for Viktor. He wouldn’t want this. You didn’t want it, at least, not anymore. The only thing you wanted was your brother back, and that was impossible.

Bucky held you in his arms until you fell asleep, listening to the sounds of your slow, rhythmic breathing, dozing off shortly after.

That night with Bucky had softened your cold, hard exterior that you initially presented yourself with. You would willingly spar with Nat in the training room and join the team for breakfast or dinner. Everyone noticed and, while at first thrown off by it, happily embraced it. Especially Bucky.

Initially, he got up to work out in the early hours of the morning as a habit. Now, he woke up to see you. His heart did flips in his chest every time he walked in the gym and saw you. Since that night, you started to acknowledge his presence, turning to smile and wave as he walked through the doors. It was something he looked forward to every day.

During the day, you were focused hard on tracking down Viktor and Bucky knew that. But he also knew he wanted to spend more time with you. He looked for reasons to enter the lab, whether it was offering snacks to you throughout the day or helping Bruce or, even Tony. Anything to see you again.

Bucky realized that there was a deeper, stronger emotion that he felt for you when he would wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. The first thing he thought about was you. Specifically, how you were the only thing that could possibly calm him down. Although he’d come in that night to help you with your panic attack, you ended up helping him as well. He hadn’t slept as soundly and peacefully as he did with you. And you hadn’t either. There were several nights when neither of you could sleep and ended up running into each other. It slowly became a routine that would begin in the kitchen, exchanging life stories, and end on the couch in the common area, entangled in each other’s arms.

Tonight you didn’t show up and Bucky panicked. He stared at the kitchen clock. It had been 20 minutes and you still hadn’t shown up. Bucky racked his brain for anything he could’ve done to scare you off, but came up with nothing. It wasn’t like you two had been officially together, Bucky had no idea what you were to each other. All he knew is that he wanted to be with you, always.

You were soundly asleep in bed, passing out as soon as your head hit the pillow. It was a particularly physically exhausting day for you, training with both Nat and Steve.

Bucky was so caught up with the thoughts racing through his head, he hadn’t noticed that his feet had taken him right to your door. He stands there for a moment, silently debating what to do. Grumbling under his breath, he musters up the courage to knock on your door. Right as he was about to turn away and shuffle off to his room, your door opens. You greet him with a yawn and a tired smile.

“Oh, hey Bucky.”

He looks at the bags under your eyes and feels instant regret wash over him, realizing that you weren’t avoiding him, but just getting some sleep.

“Sorry,” he looks down at his feet. You frown and place a hand on his cheek to lift his head up.

“Something wrong?” He avoids your gaze, partially because he’s embarrassed and partially because his cheeks were turning red because of your touch.

“No.” You cross your arms and let out a sigh.

“You’re a bad liar.” It’s his turn to sigh, as he scratches the back of his head.

“You didn’t come to the kitchen,” he lets out, in almost a whisper. It hits you. You were so tired, you had completely forgotten about your nightly tradition. “It’s stupid, sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you up," he mumbles. Bucky begins to walk off but you grab his hand. When he turns to look at you, his brows are raised at your touch.

As you start to speak, you pull him close, facing you. “It’s not stupid.” His hands move to hold your waist as yours move to wrap around his neck. You pause, an idea popping into your head. “I’m kind of tired from training today, wanna just come sleep with me?” He nods and you drag him to your bed, nestling into his arms as he holds you to his chest, his chin resting above your head. You tilt your head back to see him looking down at you. There’s a fluttering feeling in your chest and you smile.

“Just for future reference, you have an open invitation to cuddle with me, anytime.” Bucky chuckles at your offer.

“I’ll keep that in mind, doll.”

Bucky cups your face in his hand and you nuzzle your cheek in his palm. His eyes dart down to your lips before returning to your eyes.

Then, the most delicate, sweetest kiss you’ve ever received is on your lips.

You flutter your eyes open as you both pull apart. He quickly kisses your nose before pulling you back into his chest, speaking softly.

“And you have an open invitation to kiss me, anytime.”

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cali-holland · 3 years

Text

An Irregular Romance ★ Harrison Osterfield One Shot

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield X Reader

Summary: Over five years ago, Harrison followed his heart (a.k.a. you) to drama school, and the day he asked you out was the day he discovered you had a boyfriend. He thought that part of his past was behind him, but then he was cast as Leo in The Irregulars and you were cast as Bea. Romance and shenanigans ensue as he tries to navigate the resurrection of his crush on you.

Word Count: 10k

Warnings: spoilers for The Irregulars, swearing, drinking (reader gets v drunk at one point), cheating boyfriend + “open relationship” drama

Masterlist in bio

*Gif is not mine

A/N: inspired by harrison literally saying he followed the girl he liked to drama school but she didn’t like him back; the drama school is the brit school (idk if that’s what he was talking about but age wise it works better); also darci is 18+ in this fic bc it just fits better to make her around their age; plus i had to re-post this bc the tags didn’t work so rip

also just like to say a massive thank you to @duskholland for proofreading this for me :) you’re the best! this fic would be missing 90% of its commas if it wasn’t for you lmao

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Harrison had been buzzing with excitement all week. While he knew for sure that he had landed the role of Prince Leo in The Irregulars, he had no idea who the other cast members were. His agent learned from Netflix that they’d announce the cast on Saturday, so now here he sat, anxiously awaiting the news as he drank another pint with his good friends.

“Anything yet?” Tuwaine asked, refreshing his Twitter timeline.

“Nope.” Harrison said with a shake of his head as Netflix’s Instagram page remained unchanged as another minute went by.

“Maybe they’re announcing it at midnight.” Tom shrugged, trying to be useful to ease his friend’s nerves.

“Everyone would be asleep.” The blond replied before taking another long drink of his beer.

“Well, congratulations whenever they officially announce it.” Harry stated, standing up with his empty glass. “Next round’s on me.”

The conversation began to wander off, and Harrison found himself deep in thought, pondering his mysterious, new castmates. Would he like them? Would they like him? Were they big names or no names? Were they people he had screen-tested with (because, truthfully, he only screen-tested with a few girls, but even then, he didn’t screen test with all of the potential actresses)? As he got stuck, trying to think of someone he’d actually liked when they screen-tested together, he was snapped out of his thoughts by Tom yelling.

“It’s up!” Tom held his phone in the middle of the table as he, Harrison, Tuwaine, and Harry, who was now back with more beer, looked over the cast. A sense of pride soared through the group at Harrison’s picture and name being on the official Netflix page for The Irregulars. Harrison read over the other names, wondering if he knew any by happenstance. Just as he recognized one name in particular, Tom spoke up.

“Y/N Y/L/N? Isn’t that the girl you fancied in drama school?” Tom asked with a smirk. His smirk seemed to widen as Harrison blushed a deeper shade of red.

“No, no, no!” Harrison grumbled, taking out his phone to look over the post for himself because maybe, if he looked from his own account, the cast would magically change. When he looked at your name and picture right beside his, realization hit him. He slumped over, putting his head down on the table regretfully.

“I’d nearly forgotten about Haz’s girl that wasn’t his girl.” Tuwaine joked.

“Wait, what girl?” Harry questioned, out of the loop.

Perhaps the stupidest but best choice Harrison had ever made in his life was following you, his biggest crush, to drama school. Why his mother even let him chase after a girl like that was beyond him; he thought she should’ve advised him against it, but with the whole “follow your heart” attitude, his mum was his biggest supporter. He did his best to impress you, to get you to notice him, but you were unfazed by him. The day that he finally got the courage to ask you out was the day that he learned you’d had a boyfriend for the past two months.

Though he didn’t get the girl in drama school, he actually enjoyed it, and look where he ended up now— a new Netflix show was on the horizon for him. Despite the fact that he was (and still sort of is) crushed and embarrassed by the fact that you (very kindly) rejected him five years ago, drama school turned out to be a blessing.

“Harrison, here,” Tom laughed as he clapped his friend’s shoulder as Harrison still didn’t lift his head from his pitiful position, “thought he’d pursue acting because Y/N wanted to be an actress. He didn’t realize that in order to get her attention, he’d have to actually talk to her.”

That was enough to make Harrison lift his head, eyeing his friend questioningly. Cutting Tom off, he defended himself, “What do you mean? I did talk to her.”

“Right— you’d have maybe one conversation with her every three weeks.” Tom turned back to his brother, “Anyway, Haz finally asked her out and, turns out, she’d been dating this other guy for months.”

“Whatever. I only asked her out because you and Tuwaine shoved me into her. Maybe she doesn’t even remember me.” Harrison pulled out his phone to check over Netflix’s Instagram, wanting to see for himself the new cast again. When he opened the app, it notified him of all the new followers he had gotten, and, with one glance at the list of names, one account stood out to him.

‘@yourusername started following you’. Harrison let out a sigh, not wanting to dwell on this any further.

“She works fast.” Harry teased, looking over the blond’s shoulder.

“We’re co-stars now. She probably followed everyone else too.”

As if on cue, a new notification came through his Instagram— ‘@yourusername sent you a message’. With bated breath, he opened it to see the message that confirmed his worst fear— you remembered him.

‘Hey stranger! How have you been?’

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With every passing day, Harrison’s excitement for this new big project grew… but so did his dread about seeing you again. He wasn’t entirely sure now as to why his gut was filled with butterflies mixed with anxiety just thinking about you. You were only ever nice to him, both before and after he asked you out. It all led him back to the same conclusion that he still had a thing for you, but yet again, maybe it’s just life that your first real crush always has some power over you.

As he walked down the strangely long hallway to the conference room, he adjusted the collar of his letterman’s jacket. Today was the big day— the first table read for The Irregulars, and the first day he’d be confronted by you after all these years. Just on the other side of this door, his co-stars and the main production crew were waiting. Everything was real now; production would start in just a few days.

With one last nervous breath, he pushed open the heavy oak door and entered the room. People were chatting as they sat around the large conference table, which had small name cards at each seat. Harrison’s eyes found you almost immediately. You were locked into a conversation with your co-star, Darci, seated to your left for the table read. To your right was one of the last available seats, and Harrison’s name was on the little card on the table. All hopes of being unnoticed by you were instantaneously gone as he took his seat beside you.

“Fancy seeing you here.” You said to Harrison with a laugh, and he was instantly reminded of how that laugh basically drove him to where he was today.

“How long has it been?” Harrison asked, trying to play it cool like he hadn’t been rehearsing this day in his mind for the past several months.

“Far too long.” You smiled.

As the last few people trickled into the room, introductions flew around the table as everyone met their new coworkers. After a cold read-through of the script and a few words from the show’s creator, the table read was deemed over. Just when Harrison thought he was free to forget about your existence for a few more days, you pulled him aside.

“Hey, Darci and I were going to get drinks with McKell and Jojo. You should come.” You offered, and Harrison chanced a glance across the room to where Darci was chatting with your other two main co-stars.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Harrison replied. He cleared his throat before giving you a definite nod that yes, that’d be a great idea.

“Perfect.”

And just like that, the five of you made your way across town to a pub. Darci had chosen the spot, explaining that it was the best place for drinks in Liverpool, and, seeing as she’d lived there her whole life, none of you tried to argue with her.

Harrison felt a strange pit in his stomach as everyone talked and laughed over some beers, as if you weren’t all strangers a few hours ago. His eyes always seemed to land on you and your contagious smile. You looked almost exactly how he remembered you, and you still were the same happy, go-lucky girl he’d fallen hard for. It was crazy to him how quickly you gave him butterflies, how effortlessly you made him feel like a silly schoolboy all over again. He couldn’t help but wonder if you thought he’d changed since his school days, too… or if you even thought about him enough to notice. So far, you’d made no indication that he was anyone besides an old friend from drama school, making him hope you didn’t remember that dreadful day.

As you and Darci excused yourself for a bathroom break, Harrison gave himself a little reminder that he was meant to be getting to know all of his co-stars right now and wasn’t meant to be focusing so intently on you. He took another sip of his beer, turning back to Jojo and McKell.

“So how do you and Y/N know each other?” McKell asked, and Jojo tried to hide his shit-eating grin behind his beer.

“Drama school, a few years ago.” Harrison replied, trying to play ignorant.

“Ah, so it’s a schoolboy crush, then?” Jojo questioned teasingly.

Harrison felt his face heat up. Jojo and McKell were practically strangers to him, and they already knew. He was cornered, “Is it that obvious?”

“A little.” McKell said while Jojo simultaneously replied, “Very.”

“Just ask her out.” Jojo encouraged.

“That’s the problem— I did.” Harrison replied, and both of their jaws dropped.

“No way. Did she let you down easy at least?” McKell’s voice was somewhere between a disbelieving, teasing, and pitiful tone.

Harrison scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, “Well, yeah? I mean she wasn’t rude about it, but it was still a bit awkward. She was dating this other guy at the time. He didn’t go to our school, though, so I had no clue about him.��

“That’s rough.” Jojo grimaced, before he gave Harrison a hopeful smile, “Maybe she’s single now.”

“I’ve been rejected by Y/N once— I don’t need her to reject me a second time.” He shook his head with a small laugh to conceal his embarrassment. He took a drink of his beer, hoping that would calm his nerves a little.

“Incoming,” McKell said quietly, nodding in the direction of the bathroom.

“What’d we miss?” Darci asked as she slipped back into her seat. You remained standing to put your jacket on, both you and Darci completely unaware of the boys’ conversation.

“Nothing, just Jojo being an idiot.” McKell joked, to which his newfound friend just punched him in the arm, taking another long drink of his beer.

“I think I might head back to the hotel.” Your words were met with a collective groan from three of your co-stars— Harrison silently frowned as he sipped on his beer.

As your head was down to collect your things, Jojo swiftly kicked Harrison under the table. Harrison looked at him quizzically, sending him a “what the hell was that for” look. When his co-star just nodded his head encouragingly towards you, Harrison got the idea.

“I’ll walk you.” Harrison said, making you look over at him. Standing up from his seat, he insisted, “I was just about to head out, too.”

“Okay,” You smiled, still completely unaware of his interaction with Jojo.

After you all exchanged phone numbers and created a group chat lovingly titled “The Irregz”, you and Harrison left the pub. You fell in step together, walking along the sidewalk in the chilly Liverpool air back to the hotel that you’d all be staying at for the next few months.

“So what have you been up to since graduation?” Harrison asked you, his hands deep in the pockets of his letterman’s jacket.

“All sorts of things, really.” You shrugged with a smile, “I got a few TV roles here and there, did some modeling, but so far none of it has really stuck, so I’m hopeful that this will be a foot in the door. What about you?”

“The same as you, really, but, instead of shows, I’ve done some short films.”

“I see you’re still best friends with Tom.” You said in a teasing tone. Harrison felt an unusual, upsetting tug on his heartstring. Not noticing any change in his demeanor, you continued with a laugh, “It’s funny. I would’ve placed my bets on you being world-famous after graduation.”

“Me?” He questioned, surprised by your words.

“Yeah, you didn’t go to LAMDA for nothing.” You playfully nudged his arm with your elbow, and he felt his cheeks heat up once more. “Don’t be modest— I’m not wrong.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” A laugh passed his lips, any previous bashful reservations slowly fading away.

Before Harrison could say anything further, your phone began to ring. You fished it out of your pocket and barely looked at the caller ID before sending it to voicemail. Your actions were fast, but Harrison still caught the name of who was calling, Davey, followed by a red heart emoji. And that’s when it hit him— you were still with the same boyfriend from drama school, all those years ago.

And just like that, Harrison felt a tsunami wave of heartbreak from drama school wash over him.

“Hey, Y/N!” Harrison called out as he stumbled his way over to stall you from leaving school. He had one hand holding onto his book bag strap tight enough that his knuckles were turning white, and he shuffled his other through his hair.

“Hey, is everything alright?” You asked, concerned at how nervous he seemed.

“Yeah, um, well, tonight’s opening night for West Side Story, and I was wondering if you wanted to go with me? I know it’s your favorite play, and it’s one of mine too, so, yeah, I thought maybe we could go together?” He was sure that he’d never sounded so unsure of himself. Truth is, he didn’t want to ask you out right now, but Tom and Tuwaine had quite literally shoved him in your direction, physically encouraging him. He felt rushed and unprepared.

When you smiled so captivatingly and softly at him, he felt his racing heart speed up even more. Was this it? Was he really going to take you on a date? He thought to himself. His hopes weren’t up for long as you spoke up, “I can’t. I’ve already got tickets for tonight. I’m going with Davey.”

“Davey?”

“My boyfriend.” You replied, a hint of guilt in your voice.

His heart shattered. The only reason he was here, at this school, was because of you, and now he just had all of his hopes for any future dates with you thrown out the window.

“You and Davey are still together?” Harrison wondered aloud as you two arrived at the hotel.

“Yeah,” Your response was hesitant and quiet. He knew why— there was that elephant in the room between the two of you.

Before he could stop himself from mentioning it, he blurted out, “You don’t have to feel guilty about it, you know.”

You paused, watching unsure as he ran a hand through his hair nervously. “I kinda wonder what would’ve happened if I had said yes. Davey and I didn’t even end up seeing West Side Story, anyway, so I wonder if you and I would’ve ended up any differently.”

It wasn’t much, but his heart sped up ever so slightly— so you had thought about him, even in the dating context. Harrison couldn’t think of a response (his brain repeated “fuck Davey, ask her out again”) fast enough as you stopped at the front desk. You mumbled something about needing some towels, and Harrison took that as his cue to just continue walking. He bid you a quick farewell, wanting to escape to his room as fast as possible.

Nothing you had said tonight had been particularly flirty, but he still rewound the events in his head because maybe he missed something. As he laid down in his bed that night, his mind drifted off with thoughts of you, wondering just how he’d manage to pull off these next few months without falling for you all over again.

Over the next several weeks, his predicament only seemed to grow. Spending so much time with you (and your other three co-stars) just made Harrison wish even more that he’d asked you out sooner in drama school, and having to spend most of his screen time gawking over you added to it further. Maybe it was another school boy crush, or maybe it was intense method acting— either way, he definitely liked you.

Ever since he read the script for episode four, he knew that eventually your two characters would become romantically involved. He would’ve felt giddy over the thought (because his eighteen-year-old self would’ve died at this opportunity), but whenever he thought of the scene, he was reminded about your boyfriend. Harrison wasn’t the type of guy to hate his crush’s boyfriend, but something just didn’t seem right about Davey.

Harrison was lying on his hotel bed, reading over the episode’s script for what must have been the fifth time through that afternoon. It was Sunday, the day before you’d both film Leo and Bea’s kiss. With a beer on his side table and an array of highlighters beside it, he was set. As the words started to run together, and his glasses began to feel uncomfortable on his nose, he heard a knock at his door.

“Coming!” Harrison called out. Setting his script aside, he rolled off the bed. He was confused at who could possibly be at his door, but, figuring it was someone from set, he had the decency to slip on a white t-shirt, opting for not answering the door in nothing but grey sweats. He was thankful for his last-minute decision as he opened the door and was met with you on his doorstep. Smiling at you and leaning on the doorframe, he let out a small, “Hey.”

“Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to rehearse tomorrow’s scene.” You offered with a friendly smile on your face.

“Right now?” He asked, glancing back into his room to decipher if it was clean enough or not.

“Oh, is this a bad time?” You replied, subconsciously stepping back. “Is someone here?”

“What?” Harrison looked at you, confused before it clicked what you thought, “Oh, no, no. There’s no one here. I was just rehearsing, too.”

“So is that a yes then or-?” You trailed off.

“Yeah, come on in.” He opened his door fully, allowing you to step in. He chivalrously closed the door behind you. “Would you like water or anything?”

“Can I have a beer?” You asked, spotting the one on his nightstand.

“Sure.” Harrison nodded. While he got you a beer and grabbed his own half-consumed bottle and script, you settled on the couch with your pages in hand.

“Thank you.” You smiled as he handed you the beer, and you took a sip happily. “You know, I’m honestly so jealous of you this week.”

“Why?” He asked with a laugh, thrown off guard by your confession.

“You get to do all the palace scenes again.”

“I also throw myself off a balcony.”

“But still.” You insisted. “Leo really needs to sneak Bea into the palace just so I can have one of those extravagant ball dress scenes. I just want to feel like a princess, and I feel like it’s what Bea deserves.”

Harrison looked at you admiringly for a moment. “You are a princess.” His face dropped as soon as he realized he’d said his thoughts aloud. Coughing, he tried to cover it up, “I mean—- you were kind of princess-like in episode 3, right?”

“Smooth.” You laughed, but didn’t press the situation. Your phone began to ring, and Harrison watched as you rolled your eyes, declining the call and ultimately silencing your phone.

“Spam call?”

“More like clingy non-committal somewhat boyfriend.” You stated, rolling your eyes.

He furrowed his eyebrows, confused. You hadn’t mentioned Davey in the past few weeks— not that Harrison was complaining, but he just assumed you were private about your personal life. “I thought you and Davey were on good terms?”

“We are? I don’t know.” You sighed, taking a sip of your beer.

“If you’re not comfortable with the topic, we can just rehearse-”

“No, it’s fine. I just haven’t really talked about it with anyone. Before I came here, he asked about having an open relationship while I’m away, and I told him no. And the last time we talked, we got into an argument and that was a couple days ago. I’m not ready to talk to him, and at this point, I’d much rather talk to you than him. It’s very frustrating that he wants to have an open relationship, but he still expects me to be at his beck and call. It’s like he’s looking for someone to substitute me, but I can’t have a life of my own. He wasn’t the most supportive of me taking this job in the first place, too.” You paused, with a small shrug, “I know you’re probably thinking I should leave him, but I can’t. We’ve been together for 5 years. I don’t know anything else at this point.”

“I get it.” Harrison said softly, hesitantly resting a comforting hand on your knee. “He was your first love. It makes sense that it’s hard to move on.” He felt his own heart sink at his ironic words. After all, you were his first love.

“I wouldn’t say he’s my first love.” You said softly, placing your hand on his, squeezing it gently. “Plus, at this point, I wouldn’t even say I love him.”

A silence fell in the room. Harrison really didn’t know what to say now. He would have told you to leave him, but you already knew that, so what was the point in him repeating it? Besides, it was your relationship, and you needed to make the decision for yourself… or let Davey make it for you.

“Let’s go through the scene, yeah?” You asked, changing the topic. You dropped his hand to pick up your script again.

“Right.” Harrison mumbled to himself, flicking through the pages to the scene.

You glanced around his hotel suite for a moment, looking for something similar to a bridge rail to lean on. “Should we use the kitchen counter? As the bridge rail?”

“Yeah, that works.” He nodded. The two of you got up, scripts in hand. Harrison stood to your right, just as the stage direction had called for. There was some space between the two of you, enough room for Harrison to shuffle closer to you later, as scripted.

“You’re not on your own, Beatrice. You must remember that.” Harrison said to you, leaning on the counter but looking over to you with his icy blue eyes. “You’re very different to anyone I’ve ever met.”

“What do you mean?” You asked, looking at him curiously.

“You have something about you.” He started, awkwardly.

You cut him off, “Like a smell?”

“No, like a quality.” He chuckled softly before continuing, “I don’t know what it is, but I really like it.”

“Well, when you think of it, let me know.”

“I’ll be sure to.” He smiled at you, his confidence slowly building as the scene continued on. Harrison stepped closer to you until he was right beside you, leaning sideways on the counter. “And I’m not saying you don’t smell, by the way. I’m just saying that that’s not the thing.”

You laughed, turning your head away from him in disbelief. “You know, I was thinking of kissing you, but now I’m not gonna.”

Harrison paused, taking a moment to mentally hype himself up for what was about to happen, but also taking a moment because it was scripted for Leo to be nervous. “Well, uh, I suppose I have to kiss you then.”

You turned to him, smiling coyly. Slowly, Harrison closed his eyes and leaned in. His heart started racing faster as he felt your breath fan against his face before his lips finally found yours. It was gentle and hesitant, everything that it had been scripted to be. As much as he wanted to keep kissing you and keep tasting the sweet strawberries of your lipgloss, it had to end. He pulled away after a moment, and you seemed almost breathless as you opened your eyes to see him again.

“I meant it when I said you’re not on your own.” Harrison looked at you with more hesitancy this time, but he still kissed you with the softest passion. The script said that Leo and Bea kiss and continue to kiss for a few seconds; Harrison wasn’t counting, but he was sure this kiss was longer than it was meant to be. Again, he found himself dreading its inevitable end. If there was one thing he could do for the rest of his life, it’d be this… well, this amongst other things with you. His stomach started to stir with guilt as he remembered Davey; you were still technically in a relationship, open or not, arguing currently or not. But then it clicked with Harrison, you weren’t pulling away— no, you were fully kissing him back.

Before he could pull away and end the scene with his last few lines, a knock came from his door. Regretfully, he stepped away from you. He didn’t meet your eye as he went to answer the door while you read over the script on the counter. Flustered, he opened the door.

“Mum! You’re here.” Harrison’s eyes went wide, surprised to see his mother and his sister standing before him.

“Surprise!” She smiled, hugging him almost immediately. “We had to come and see you at your big job.”

“Are you not happy to see us?” Charlotte teased, and Harrison shook his head, pulling her in for a hug. As they all stepped into Harrison’s apartment, you waved from the kitchen.

“Hi.” You smiled, coming over to introduce yourself.

“Oh, mum, Charlotte, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is my mum and Charlotte, my sister.” Harrison introduced the three of you.

“You’re Y/N Y/L/N from drama school?” Phil said with a smile, making the connection as you shook her hand. Charlotte seemed to stifle a laugh as Harrison’s cheeks heated up.

“Yes, that sounds like me.” You laughed, brushing off any awkwardness that Harrison feared was there. “We were just rehearsing our scene for tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can come to set.” Phil suggested, sending Harrison an expectant look.

“I’ll have to ask. This is so, so last-minute, though, so I don’t know.” He replied.

“It’s a spontaneous weekend trip.” Charlotte clarified.

“We should get some dinner. We haven’t eaten much all day.” Phil told Harrison before turning to you, “Y/N, you should come, too. It’d be so lovely to get to know you.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” You trailed off, glancing at Harrison. He sent you a silent look that said ‘she seriously does want you to come… If you don’t come, I won’t hear the end of it’. “I’d love to. I just need to go change first.”

You grabbed your script off the counter, and Harrison walked you to the door. “How long do you need?”

“Like 10 minutes?” You replied, and he nodded.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know they were coming, or that they’d invite you to dinner.” He said quietly, making you laugh.

“It’s fine, but I do have to warn you, if my parents spontaneously drop by, they don’t know who you are.” You teased.

He let out an embarrassed groan, “Let’s not talk about that.”

“See you in ten.” You sent him a wink before leaving to your own hotel room. As Harrison closed the door and turned back around, he was met with the smirking faces of his mother and sister.

“So, is there anything you want to tell us?” Phil asked.

“We were rehearsing. That’s all.” Harrison insisted, going through the wardrobe to find some clothes to change into for dinner.

“Huh,” Charlotte trailed off, crossing her arms. “So, you wearing sparkly lip gloss that matches Y/N’s is a coincidence?”

“It’s a kiss scene tomorrow. We rehearsed the lines and the kisses, too.” He explained. With a pair of jeans, a clean shirt, and his red letterman jacket in hand, he made his way to the bathroom.

“Oh, multiple kisses.” She teased, making him roll his eyes.

“She has a boyfriend!” Harrison ended the conversation, closing the door to the bathroom.

Ten minutes later, you returned back to Harrison’s room, and the four of you left, making your way to an Italian restaurant nearby. You and Harrison shared anecdotes about filming so far, keeping spoilers to a minimum until the server came with your food.

“We got in so much trouble from the makeup and hair department.” You laughed as Harrison finished telling them of how you two went on the playground last week, much to the chagrin of the crew.

“It was worth it.” He added.

“Who would’ve known you’d play a Netflix prince?” Charlotte asked teasingly, but it was clear she was still proud of his achievements.

“Look at that face. He couldn’t play anything but a prince.” You joked, and he smiled smugly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He stated.

“Phil, I have to say, I’ve never met someone more well suited to play a well-mannered prince.” You told her, playfully pinching Harrison’s cheek beside you.

“I remember when there was a time he was revolted at the idea of playing a prince.” Phil said, her lips growing into a smirk, and Harrison knew exactly what that meant.

“Mum, no—“ He started, but you just shushed him, wanting to hear whatever embarrassing story was about to be told.

“He watched a single Batman movie growing up— and not even a good one at that, and decided he simply had to be Batman.” She explained. “Then the Christopher Nolan ones came out, and there was no stopping him.”

“Every kid wants to be a superhero, and Batman is simply the best one.” He said as if it was obvious.

“I didn’t know you had a Batman phase.” You teased.

“Phase? He still has posters and comic books and dolls.” Charlotte added.

“Action figures.” He corrected her, making you laugh at the humor of it all.

“You know, honestly, I think I still have Catwoman action figures.” You admitted, trying to make him feel better, and Phil’s eyes lit up as she remembered another story.

“I cleaned your room a couple weeks ago, Harrison, and I was surprised to see you still Anne Hathaway as Catwoman posters.”

“Do we really have to talk about that? Does this torture not end?” He groaned.

“Fine. That’s enough for tonight.” Phil let out a defeated sigh, clearly enjoying herself.

“Y/N, if you want the really embarrassing stories, you’ve got to talk to Tom. He’s told me embarrassing Harrison stories that I can’t say in front of mum.” Charlotte laughed, and Harrison’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head at his sister’s words.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” You smiled coyly.

“Sometimes, I wonder if he forgets that I know just as much embarrassing shit that he did growing up, too.” Harrison stated, shaking his head.

The night went on with minimal embarrassment on Harrison’s end. After Phil and Charlotte went back to their hotel, you and Harrison started the walk back to your own hotel. As you walked, your hands would brush against each other’s every so often, but neither of you made any move to take it further.

“Darci’s going to be so jealous in the morning.” You said, making him laugh a little.

“Why’s that?”

“That’s her favorite restaurant in town. Plus, I just got a free meal.” You laughed. A visible shiver coursed through you as the chilly night air picked up.

“Are you cold?” Harrison asked, already taking off his letterman’s jacket.

“Thank you.” You replied, taking his offer of warmth. Your short sleeves did nothing to shield you from the cold, but he had at least been prepared enough with long sleeves. “Are you sure you won’t get chilly?”

“I’ll be fine.” He reassured you.

“I had a really nice time tonight. I’m glad your mum invited me.” You admitted happily.

“Me, too. Apart from all of the embarrassment I just went through, I enjoyed tonight.”

“I never knew you had a secret Batman fanboy side.”

“I never knew you had a secret Catwoman fangirl side.” He countered with a smile.

“Guess that means we make a good team, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

As you smiled at him, completely content under the moonlight, he wanted nothing more than to kiss you right then, to taste the sweetness of your strawberry lip gloss again. The last bit of your walk was filled with you two arguing over Batwoman and Catwoman, two things that neither of you had ever realized you had in common before.

Harrison’s wish finally came true the next day, as you two ran through the kiss scene multiple times. It was strange at first for him, because his sister and mother were intently watching, proud to see him in action, even if it was just a kiss scene over and over again. But, with you there, he grew more and more comfortable with each take.

As a few more weeks passed by, Harrison thought that perhaps you and Davey had officially ended things, but then he heard through Darci that you had magically worked it out. Whatever magic it was, he was upset about it, and he found himself increasingly irritated at the mention of Davey.

“Ooh, we finally get to meet the Davey tonight?” Darci asked as the five of you enjoyed lunch in between shots. It had been two weeks Harrison’s mother and sister visited, and now Davey was coming, much to Harrison chagrin.

“He’s only here for two days.” You explained, taking a bite of your sandwich.

“Ah, so you’ll be very busy, then.” McKell teased, suggestively nudging your side with his elbow. You brushed off his comment with a laugh, avoiding Harrison’s eyes.

“We should get him to do that calzone challenge with us.” Jojo said to Harrison. Although Jojo and McKell had been rather supportive of Harrison’s interest in you at the beginning, they seemed to forget about it most of the time now— for which he was actually kind of grateful.

The conversation couldn’t go any further as the director came into the room, holding the script in his hands. The look on his face told all of you that something was up. He looked between you and Harrison before speaking, “Change of plans for tomorrow. Eileen isn’t feeling well, so we’ll film Bea and Leo’s scene tomorrow instead of her scenes.”

“But tomorrow was supposed to be—“ You started, but cut yourself short, realizing there was no point in arguing. Schedules, plans, things all change, and this was just part of the job. “Never mind.”

“Well, tomorrow will be interesting.” Darci said quietly, voicing what was on everybody’s minds.

The director left with a silent nod, and the room fell silent for a moment. You and Harrison wouldn’t dare to look at each other, both of you feeling awkward suddenly. Making out with Harrison multiple times, especially with your boyfriend there, was not something either of you particularly enjoyed the thought of.

Having to film no more scenes today, Harrison went back to the hotel with Jojo and McKell. He didn’t end up seeing you for the rest of the day, but he was okay with that as he wanted to go as long as he could without meeting Davey. The director had taken some pity on the two of you, asking you to come in later in the morning instead of at 6 AM like usual.

Harrison made his way down to the hotel gym, wanting to utilize his newfound free time. Normally, he’d get his daily workout in after filming, but he didn’t see a reason to not get an early start today. He didn’t expect anyone to be up this early, but as he got closer to the gym, he could hear a voice coming from inside the room, the door cracked just slightly.

“Love, I promise I’ll be back in two days.” The stranger paused before continuing, “You know I’m only here for business, nothing else.”

Curious and trying to decide if he should even enter the room, Harrison snuck a quick glance through the crack in the doorway. He felt his blood run cold as he immediately recognized the guy sitting on the weight bench. Afterall, Harrison had looked at your social media enough to recognize your olive-skinned boyfriend, Davey.

“Bit early for you, isn’t it?” Harrison nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of your voice from down the hall. He heard Davey mumbled something on the other side of the door, probably having heard your voice too.

“Yeah, but I just figured I’d start my pull-ups early today.” He replied before opening the door for you, acting like he had no clue that Davey had been in there.

“Hello, gorgeous.” Davey said to you, completely ignoring Harrison. He stood from his spot at the weight bench to wrap his arms around your waist and kiss you possessively.

“Davey, this is Harrison, he plays Leo. Harrison, this is Davey.” You introduced the two guys.

Davey looked Harrison up and down with his dark brown eyes and seemed to stand straighter, even though the blond was inches taller. Harrison was the first to step forward and politely outstretch a hand to the raven-haired guy before him. With a tight smile, Davey shook his hand, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Davey turned back to you, “Spot me?”

“Actually, I wanted to-” Your eyes drifted over to the treadmill as Harrison got in position to start his pull-ups at the bar. Davey looked at you expectantly, and you nodded, silently agreeing to stand there and spot Davey while he bench pressed.

Slipping on his headphones and turning on some music, Harrison began his workout. He played his music loud enough to block out your conversations with Davey. Not only was it none of his business, but god, Harrison really hated everything about him already. Hearing silence between you and Davey when his song changed, Harrison spared a glance over towards you. He was surprised when he found your eyes trained on him or, rather, trained on his abdomen that seemed to stick out from his tight white shirt. Still unaware of his eyes on you, your own eyes trailed up to his arms, watching as they flexed with each pull-up. Feeling flustered by your fixed gaze, Harrison faltered a little, and your eyes immediately darted back to Davey in front of you. Harrison couldn’t help the proud smile that ghosted his lips as he continued— you were checking him out.

Harrison finished his workout and decided to get cleaned up before heading to set in half an hour, leaving you and Davey in the gym. When he left, he was surprised that you were still spotting Davey, getting no work out in like you had planned. The whole time he was getting cleaned up (and brushing his teeth repeatedly to ensure he had good breath), he just kept picturing your staring in his head. He had worked very hard to get his body in this shape, and he was very proud of himself too, but he was even prouder that you’d clearly taken notice. If anything, it almost excited him that they’d be filming this scene today. There were a few times in this episode specifically in which Leo is shirtless, but none of those scenes had been filmed— and if this scene was going to be anything like it was scripted to be, then you’d definitely get a better show than in the hotel gym.

He didn’t see you again until the two of you were on set, in full costume and makeup. He had a loose shirt on, but underneath it, his chest had been painted with blues and purples to make convincing bruises. As he went to his mark, Leo’s makeshift bed on the floor of the cellar, Harrison spotted Davey across the set, looking bored and unhappy. His blue eyes drifted over to you next, and he refrained himself from smirking as he noticed your makeup artist applying chapstick to your lips.

While you gathered your prop lantern and the lights dimmed around you all, Harrison made himself comfortable under the ragged blankets. The director called out “Action!” and Harrison closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep as he waited for you to come into the shot. Hearing your footsteps, Harrison stirred, blinking his eyes open.

“Bea, is everything alright?” He asked, looking up at you as you stood over him.

“Let me see your body.” You said definitively.

“Beatrice—” He started, but you cut him off.

“Show me, Leo. I want to see it.” At your words, Harrison shifted slowly, moving as if in pain. He pulled the blankets down and went to roll up his shirt. “Take your top off.”

He paused, looking at you questioningly with a hint of fear in his eyes. Groaning a little, Harrison sat up and removed his shirt. He looked at you expectantly, and you set aside the lantern before kneeling on the blankets beside him. Your hand drifted over the painted bruise tentatively, ghosting over the same abs that you had been studying just hours earlier. Harrison waited for you to deliver your next line, knowing he was scripted to kiss you after it. It felt like ages that he was waiting for you, wanting nothing more than to kiss you right now. His mind went blank as your eyes found his and you leaned in to kiss him.

It was unscripted, and he was surprised, but he didn’t let his surprise stop him from immediately kissing you back. Your chapstick tasted of strawberries, just as it had the last time the two of you had a kissing scene, and he swore he was in love with the taste of it. He expected to hear the director yell cut, to hear him question why you suddenly improvised, but when nothing came, he just continued to kiss you. You pulled back, a shy smile on your face, “I don’t want you to hide your body from me anymore. It’s too nice to be hidden.”

His heart leapt as he leaned forward to catch your lips once more, this time scripted. His hands shuffled to your waist, pulling you down to lay beside him as he rolled onto his side, his chest leaning over yours. Your fingers tangled into his hair, and he savored the feeling.

You pulled back again, whispering up to him, “No more hiding.”

“No more hiding.” He reaffirmed. As he continued to kiss you, his hands sensually wandered down your back, keeping you as close to him as possible. Part of him wanted to pause the intimate scene and pinch himself, just to make sure it was really happening, but he was worried if he stopped kissing you now that he’d never get the opportunity to kiss you like this again.

“Cut!” The director called, and Harrison reluctantly pulled away from you. He could’ve sworn a small frown passed your lips as he looked down at you, not having shifted off of you yet.

“Spearmint— my favorite.” You teased quietly, as if it was only for the two of you to hear. As you laughed underneath him, Harrison couldn’t help but wonder what his younger self would think if he knew he’d one day get to make out with Y/N Y/L/N. Even if it was just for the show, it was a sight that he’d always want to remember.

“I’ve always enjoyed the taste of strawberries.” He replied softly, rolling away from you.

The director ran you two through a couple pointers for the scene, and, to Harrison’s surprise, he even suggested Bea kissing Leo first, just like you had improvised. You reasoned that you forgot your line momentarily, but something about the way you kissed Harrison made him feel like that wasn’t the case; no, it seemed like you’d truly wanted to kiss him.

After running through the scene a few more times, the director was satisfied. While you stayed behind on set to film more scenes, Harrison returned to his hotel room. Just as he was searching his toiletry bag for some much-needed chapstick, his phone began to ring with a Facetime call. Seeing Harry’s contact photo light up on his screen, he accepted and set his phone aside momentarily. He didn’t need to wonder what Harry (and most likely Tom, Tuwaine and maybe even Sam) were calling about— he had made the dire mistake of telling his easily-excited best friends about today’s scene.

“Why are we looking at your ceiling?” Harry asked almost immediately.

“I’m, uh, looking for lip balm.” Harrison admitted quietly and smiled to himself when he found some. He quickly put it on and then grabbed his phone, heading to his bed where he could comfortably talk to his friends.

As expected, his friends let out an incoherent chorus of excitement. Sam seemed to calm down enough first to ask (more like, shout through the phone), “How was it?”

“Does she really kiss with tongue? Remember Jack used to say-” Tom started, and Harrison scoffed, hearing the name of one of their old classmates who swears he had a summer fling with you once.

“I still don’t believe him, but no, not today at least.” Harrison was honestly a bit embarrassed to admit it. You were in a relationship… with a possibly cheating moron, but still. It just didn’t feel right to talk about you in that way.

“Not today? So there could be another time!” Tuwaine shouted encouragingly.

“Is she still with that prick?” Tom asked.

“Yes, but,” Harrison paused, and they all looked at him expectantly, waiting for elaboration, “I think he might be cheating on her.”

“What makes you say that?” Harry questioned. “Mate, just because you fancy her doesn’t mean her boyfriend’s a cheater.”

“No, I mean I heard him on the phone, and he said he was in Liverpool for business, not for his girlfriend.” He reasoned, “I’m just very suspicious of him.”

“You should tell her if you think he is.” Sam stated, “If he isn’t, then, oh no, you’re on bad terms with her boyfriend, who probably already hates you after today. If he is, well, she’d hate you if she finds out you kept it from her.”

Harrison let out a small sigh as the others nodded. “I don’t know. It’s not my place. Besides, she said something a few weeks about him wanting an open relationship. Maybe it’s that?”

“Okay, look, forget I asked about him.” Tom said, shaking his head, while the others looked at Harrison skeptically through the phone, “How was it to finally have your drama school dreams fulfilled?”

“Fucking heaven.” Harrison admitted with a laugh.

For the next week, Harrison resisted the urge to tell you about Davey. He wanted to, he really did, but whenever he’d finally be alone with you and mentally prepare himself for the conversation, you would always just seem so happy and content. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb your happiness, especially when it was Harrison making you happy. After Davey left, it’s like something changed within you, and Harrison had no clue what it was, but he enjoyed it.

‘You have to tell her.’ Harrison read over his most recent text from Tom again. He let out a small sigh, trying to get the courage to tell you as you sat across from him at the booth.

It was Saturday, and you two, along with Darci, Jojo, and McKell, had made your way to a club, wanting to celebrate another week down. With only two episodes left to film, you all knew your time together was starting to run low. You were all a few drinks in by now, happily buzzed. Jojo and McKell were off somewhere, probably attempting to be each other’s wingmen. Darci was telling you a story so wild that Harrison wondered if it was even true. He finished the rest of his drink and shuffled out of the booth.

“I’m going to grab another drink.” Harrison said to you two, and, without waiting for a response, he left. He made no move to flag down the bartender, leaning against an empty spot in the bar. Pulling on the collar of his blue shirt, he started to feel hot, unsure if he could handle this.

“What happened to getting another drink?” You asked him, stepping up beside him.

“Where’s Darci?” He replied, not wanting to answer your question.

“Found a friend in the crowd.” You laughed and turned to flag down the bartender. You ordered a round of shots, to Harrison’s surprise.

“Are you good?” He asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” You nodded, but with how your eyes were glazed over the alcohol and another unreadable emotion, Harrison didn’t quite believe you. Playfully, you nudged him, “I should ask you the same thing. You’re the one who’s been moping all night for god knows why.”

“I haven’t been moping.” He argued as a tray of four shots was placed in front of you two. You handed one to him and took one for yourself.

“Cheers to another week done.” You clinked your shot glass against his before both of you downed them.

As you went to grab your second shot, Harrison reached a hand and stopped you. Concerned, he asked, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Davey and I broke up— for good this time.” You admitted, and his hold on your wrist softened while he looked at you pitifully. “He told me when he was here that he went through with his ‘open relationship’ plan, even though I never agreed to it, so he’s been basically cheating on me since I left for this job. Then tonight, he drunkenly texts me, and I know it’s just a booty call. He’s done it for years, but now I actually see it for what it is. So now, my shitty boyfriend is gone, I’m finally single, and my only plans for tonight is to get properly drunk. Maybe even hookup with a stranger— god knows it’s been a while since I had decent sex.” Harrison was speechless, and you continued, a smile finding its way to your face at the end of your venting. “Dance with me after this shot?”

“Do I have a choice?” He asked playfully, feeling your mood lighten once more. You winked at him, handing him a full shot glass. He made a mental note to keep a close eye on you and to keep you from drinking anymore.

After you both drank back the burning liquid, you grabbed his hand and pulled him out to the dancefloor. Harrison had felt the alcohol that was flooding his system earlier, but the colored lights, pounding music, and countless bodies around him seemed to make the alcohol hit him harder. There was a weight off his shoulders, knowing you were actually single as you danced with him, and yet he still felt strange about his current state with you— were you truly into him or was he just the first guy you could drunkenly hook up with?

You turned to face him, a small frown on your face, “Haz, you’re being a bit of a killjoy.”

It was then that he realized, while you were fully grinding on his body, he was relatively motionless. Your hands found his, and you planted one on your hip and another on the small of your back, low enough though that it teetered being on your ass. You leaned in closer to him, letting him get a whiff of your perfume. While one of your hands trailed along the hem of his shirt, daring to even dip below his shirt, the other traced through his hair.

As you planted a kiss on Harrison’s neck, not caring at all for the dancing bodies around you, you heard him let out a strangled groan of your name. Your nails light scratched over the deep V in his hips, hooking onto where his jeans met the line.

“Should we get out of here?” You asked Harrison, your lips right next to his ear as your voice dripped with seduction. He felt his heart flip with intoxicating excitement before he was immediately reminded of the gravity of the situation. You went to kiss him, but he moved back quickly, stepping out of your reach. Pouting, you asked, “Do you not want me? After all this time?”

“No, I do.” Harrison insisted. “I want you, but not like this, not when you’re drunk. You’re not in the right headspace for this. I don’t want to be your drunken rebound.”

“How can you be a rebound when it’s always been you?”

Harrison sighed. Oh, how much he’d love to hear that from you— sober. He was saved from having to reply when Darci, McKell, and Jojo found you two. They looked at the two of you skeptically, but Harrison just shook his head.

“I’m going to take Y/N back to the hotel.” He said as he stepped closer to the group so that they could hear him over the music.

“We’ll come, too.” Jojo insisted, even though, with his words slurred and his eyes glazed over, he was thoroughly drunk, too.

“Where did Y/N go?” McKell asked, realizing your sudden absence.

“Oh god,” Harrison muttered, and the four of them dispersed in the crowd to find you, tripping over the other sweaty bodies. Darci found you first, unable to stop you from having a couple more shots.

“No, no, you’re done.” She argued with you. You reached for the last shot that she had taken from you, but, in your intoxicated state, you easily lost your balance. Harrison quickly wrapped an arm around your waist to hold you up.

“I don’t think she can walk.” Jojo commented.

“What gave that away?” McKell asked sarcastically.

“Come on, let’s get you home.” With a small sigh, Harrison, as the most sober of the group (though he still felt fairly tipsy), proceeded to lead you out of the club.

Darci hailed a cab for the five of you, and while it was an illegally tight fit, you all made it work. You leaned on Harrison as he was pressed right up against you. On your other side sat Jojo. You mumbled softly to Harrison, one of your hands falling onto his knee, “Do you remember that year when they put up mistletoe at school?”

“Where are you going with this?” He asked you softly.

“I saw you kiss Vivian at the one outside of the gym, and I couldn’t walk in that area for three months without thinking of you. I was so jealous of her, and you just looked like such a good kisser, which I’m happy to report you are.”

“Babes, maybe stop with the drunk talking.” Darci said, because all of you could tell this was stuff sober you would never say.

Harrison looked at you in surprise— he barely even remembered when Vivian dragged him under the mistletoe, so the fact that you remembered and were jealous? And you said he was a good kisser, too. He felt a glimmer of pride overcome him.

“Ask me tomorrow, it’s the truth.” You shuffled in your seat, laying your head against Jojo’s shoulder, “Jojo, wanna know a secret?”

“Y/N, maybe-” Darci started, but Jojo cut her off.

“No, go on, Y/N.” He laughed, wanting to hear your drunk thoughts.

“Do you think I’d make a good Catwoman?” You asked, words slurring together as you grew tired.

“Catwoman? Like Anne Hathaway?” He questioned, and you hummed a ‘yes’. “Yeah, you’d make a good Catwoman.”

“Good. Tell Haz he needs to my Batman then.” Your voice was quiet, as if it was something just meant for the two of you to hear, but your voice wasn’t nearly as soft as you had thought it was, meaning Harrison and the rest of your friends were truly aware of your little drunken secret

“Okay, I’ll tell him.” Jojo reassured you, a shit-eating grin on his face as he glanced over your head to look at the embarrassed Harrison.

The rest of the car ride was silent, and Harrison helped you out of your seat. With the help of the others, he got you safely inside your hotel room. Everyone retreated to their own rooms, except for Harrison who stayed with you. He laid you down on your bed and went searching for your pajamas, which to his luck were stowed underneath your pillow.

“Can you change or—?” Harrison asked, holding out the clothes to you

“I’ve got it, though I wouldn’t mind you helping.” You said with a wink. As you started to change out of your club clothes, Harrison turned away from you and focused on getting out some much-needed pain reliever and a glass of water for you to have in the morning. He heard you shuffle on the bed behind him before you let out a small huff, “Hazzy, can you come here?”

Hazzy— that was a new nickname. To his surprise, you were already tucked up in bed, your previously worn clothes scattered on the floor around you. He set the water and meds on your nightstand before kneeling to your level, “What’s wrong, love?”

“Do you know why Davey wasn’t my first love?” You asked quietly, your eyes beginning to droop with sleep. You reached a hand out to tentatively run your fingers over his cheek before you cupped it, smiling softly at him.

He had a hunch, but he played along anyway, wanting to hear you say it, in case he never heard it again. “Why?”

“Because you were.” Your voice was so quiet that he barely heard you, but he was so glad that he did. He leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead, and you let your hand fall from his face.

“Get some sleep. We can talk in the morning.”

“Can you stay tonight? Please?”

“Of course, love.” Harrison stood to his full height, and when he looked at you again, you were already asleep. He softly readjusted the blankets on your bed to make sure you were warm enough, before he made his way over to the couch. Grabbing a throw blanket off the back of the couch, he settled into his bed for the night. Just like every other night lately, he drifted off thinking of you, but this time, there was an excited flutter in his heart.

The next day, Harrison woke up to you letting out a groan, loudly asking, “Why the fuck is it so bright in here?”

He slowly sat up from the couch to check on you. A smile crossed his face as you took the pain meds he’d left out and downed the glass of water. Your eyes seemed to bulge out of your head when you noticed his presence in the room. Laughing, he greeted you, “Good morning, sunshine.”

“Please tell me you miraculously don’t remember anything I said last night because I remember, and I don’t want to.” You said, pulling your knees up to your chest.

“Sorry to disappoint then.” He sent you a sympathetic smile.

With a sigh, you patted the spot beside you on your bed. Wordlessly, Harrison got up from the couch and came to sit beside you on the bed. He expected you to say something, but when you were silent, seemingly caught up in your thoughts, he spoke up, “Did you mean it? When you said I was your first love?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in your reply, and you turned to finally meet his eye, “It was a very intense schoolgirl crush, hence why I hated Vivian after that mistletoe incident, but seeing you again just made me realize that it was more than just a crush. I’ve regretted saying no to you all those years ago ever since you came back into my life.”

“Well, I thought I was over my crush on you, but turns out, there are just some things time can’t change.”

A comfortable silence overfell you two again before you finally spoke up with the words that had been on your mind for weeks, “I think I’m in love with you.”

“I think I’m in love with you, too.” Harrison sealed his words by leaning in to kiss you.

With no script to follow now, he felt fireworks as you kissed him back. One of your hands drifted to the back of his neck, silently urging him to continue kissing you. His hands snaked around your waist before he shifted to lay on his back, rolling you on top of him. You deepened the kiss, your tongue finding its way into his mouth. He moaned at first, fully enjoying himself, before his lips curved into a smile, and he started to laugh against your lips.

“What’s so funny?” You asked, pulling away from his lips. His hands wandered from your hips up to where your own hands were resting on his chest, and he casually intertwined your fingers.

“It’s nothing.” He said in an attempt to play it off, but the smile on his face told you that whatever he was thinking was hilarious to him. “You remember Jack Evans? He told everyone that you were the best french kisser in school, and, well, he’s not wrong.”

You let out a scoff before giggling to yourself, “First of all, how many girls have you french kissed from drama school and should I be jealous? Second of all, Jack was an ass who couldn’t kiss for shit, but I’ll take it as a compliment that he told everyone that.” You leaned down until your lips were just barely touching, “And thirdly, do you want to keep talking about drama school, or do you want me to keep kissing you?”

“You don’t need to be jealous, but I kinda like that you are.” He replied with a cheeky smile. “And you’re right. He was an ass.”

“And for the last one?” You asked, raising your eyebrows at him.

Harrison pretended to think about it for a second before he let go of your hand to cup your cheek, bringing your lips crashing back down to his.

#harrison osterfield #haz osterfield #the irregulars #harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield one shot #harrison osterfield fic #harrison osterfield x you #haz osterfield x reader #haz osterfield x you

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wickedpact · 4 years

Note

dear tumblr user crim wickedpact pls write the essay/dissertation about nicky being shakespeare's fair youth (if you have time, ofc!!)

Not To Imply Nicky Was Shakespeare’s Fair Youth But Ive Read The Fair Youth Sonnets & Nicky Was Definitely Shakespeare’s Fair Youth, an essay by me, tumblr user crim wickedpact

background knowledge: our man shakespeare wrote some 120 sonnets about a young man referred to as the Fair Youth during the mid 1590s; there has been some debate among shakespeare enthusiasts whether shakespeare’s interest in the Fair Youth was platonic or romantic (but like. they were definitely romantic). no one knows for sure who the Fair Youth was, but it was definitely nicky and my first and most important piece of evidence regarding this hypothesis is the ‘lmao babe do you remember that guy who had a crush on me?’/ ‘i try not to remember the guy who had a crush on you’ look joe and nicky exchange when Merrick brings up shakespeare during the movie. especially since gina confirmed in a tweet that joe and nicky canonly did know shakespeare

my second piece of evidence is that it just Works (except for a couple small facts like.. the Fair Youth was prolly closer to his 20s than his 30s. and the fact that shakespeare implies that the Fair Youth slept with his mistress at one point. but he doesnt know what hes talking about shhh we IGNORE)

long post under cut

A. The Description Matches

when describing the Fair Youth (who I’ll call the FY from now on), shakespeare says he has a ‘gold complexion’ and ‘beautiful eyes’ and compares him to a ‘summer’s day’. He says the FY has “A woman’s gentle heart" and “An eye more bright than [women’s are], (...) Gilding the object whereupon [they] gazeth”

As much as shakespeare’s perceptions of sexuality and gender are very........ late 1500′s (whoo boy sonnet #20 is a wild ride) ...... the description does match, and also:

B. The Fair Youth Refused to Get Married

it’s never really said why one way or another (shakespeare assumes it’s because the FY is selfish) but the FY didn’t/wouldn’t take on a wife and have a kid, and this was something that was a real sticker for our man Willy S. because, as he says in his sonnets a million times: beauty doesn’t last forever, but having a child not only passes down the FY’s beauty, but also blesses the woman the FY would have a child with (im not saying shakespeare wanted to bear the FY’s children, but he definitely did)

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

(ie. If you don’t renew yourself/ have children, you deprive the world and deprive a woman from having your child, since what woman out there is so beautiful that she wouldn’t want to bear your child?)

Like.

1.) if nicky is the FY then so many of these poems center around the idea of nicky growing old sometime soon and that must have been pretty funny to Nicky and

2.) the fact that shakespeare would have been So Desperate for nicky to find a wife must have been the opposite of funny to joe. considering the ease of his and nicky’s relationship and the fact that being gay in late 1500s england was probably not a walk in the park, it is very likely shakespeare wouldn’t have known they were in a committed relationship-- or at least not known how close they actually were. Thus:

C. The Rival (aka. Joe)

shakespeare mentions having a poetic rival in regards to the FY in several sonnets. In sonnet #21 he talks about how he’s not like Those Other Writers who use grand metaphors to talk about their muses

So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

(ie. I’m not like other poets who, when inspired by a ‘painted beauty’ use heaven and every other beautiful thing on the planet to make a grand comparison to their muse: he specifically lists the sun and moon as examples as well as other beautiful things)

He then goes on to say

And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

(ie. my love [the FY] is as beautiful as any other beautiful person, though I wouldn’t compare them to the stars/heavens (which is what he means by the 'gold candles’. those are stars.))

So shakespeare insults poets who compare their subjects to the sun, moon, and stars (amongst other things) and in the comics, Joe does literally exactly that

That man is the stars in my sky, and the sun that lights my days. That man is the moon when I'm lost in darkness, and warmth when I shiver in cold.

shakespeare also goes on to say in the same sonnet “Let them say more that like of hearsay well / I will not praise that purpose not to sell” which is to say ‘let people who like that kind of language use it, I wont because I don’t want anyone else to have the subject of my affections (the FY)’.

(which is a bit of a contradiction regarding his feelings abt the FY getting married, but these sonnets are full of contradictions. shakespeare was a confused dude; man spent the first 100 or so sonnets convinced the FY loved him back only for him to start wondering if the FY ever loved him near the end)

(not to mention Marriage For Love wasnt really.. much of a thing in Ye Olden Times but thats a different conversation. so shakespeare prolly didnt associate marriage with love/competition? anyways)

Shakesy-boo goes on to complain about this rival several times. In #79, he says

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek: he can afford No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

(ie. everything ‘your poet’ (as the FY apparently favored this unnamed rival) says about you, he takes it from you in the first place. he talks about your virtue, but learned the word from watching your behavior. he calls you beautiful but only discovered beauty by looking at your face. every compliment he gives you he took from you in the first place)

[and, as a smaller example, he also bemoans the fact that people want to paint the FY in #67, saying, “Why should false painting imitate his cheek, / And steal dead seeming of his living hue?”. and yknow. Joe’s an artist.]

And then another example in #86

Was it the proud full sail of [the rival’s] great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

(ie. he’s talking about how he’s having difficulty writing abt the FY and is rhetorically asking if ‘the proud sail’ of the rival’s verses was the reason his ‘ripe thoughts’ were killed in their ‘womb’. He then asks (again rhetorically) if it was the rival’s ‘spirit’ (or creativity, maybe) ‘’’‘by spirits taught to write’’’’ that killed his own drive to write. none of the analyses I’ve read really explain what shakespeare means by ‘spirits taught to write’, other than maybe being a joke or reference to something we dont know, but... ‘taught by dead people to write in a way mortal people can’t’ very much sounds like a description of an immortal poet, eh?)

Which brings me to,

D. Willy Boy Thinks There Are 500 Year Old Writings About the Fair Youth

shakespeare talks about people having written about the FY ‘500 years ago’ from the late 1500s in #59 which......................... would have been around 1100 AD. :thinking face:

Oh that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done, That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame;

(ie. Oh if I could look back 500 years and see how you were described in some old books so I could see/reference what people used to write about you)

Which again brings me to,

E. I’m Not Saying shakespeare Stole From Joe, But:

1.) In #22, shakespeare says this,

For all that beauty that doth cover thee, Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

(ie, your beauty is due to the ‘clothes’ my heart gives you-- probably means something like ‘you’re beautiful because i love you’. goes on to say his heart lives in the FY’s chest, and the FY’s heart lives in shakespeare’s chest)

so: shakespeare tells the FY he has shakespeare’s heart. in comparison, Joe calls nicky ‘my heart’ in the comics...... :thinking face x2:

2.) In #109, shakespeare tells the FY ‘thou art my all’,

For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

which rings similar to Joe’s ‘he’s all and he’s more’ as well as (from the comics) ‘he is my everything’

and just saying. joe looks pretty #done the mention of shakespeare.

F. The last One

Despite shakespeare writing 30+ poems about the FY eventually growing old, the very last poem he writes about/for the FY says,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest.

(ie. you [the FY] have power over the ‘mirror’ (fickle glass) of time as well as time’s ‘harvesting’ ability (sickle hour) and as you grow older, you remain beautiful while your lovers [shakespeare] wither and grow old)

The transition from ‘get married and have a baby before you get old!!!!’ in #1-20 to talking about the FY’s presence in 500 y/o books in #59 to admitting the FY isn’t growing old in #126 kinda seems to imply shakespeare learning of/about nicky’s immortality at some point, and this last poem is him accepting it.

TLDR: not only does it make perfect sense if nicky was the Fair Youth from the FY sonnets, but it also makes perfect sense if joe was the Rival from the FY sonnets. its canon nothing will convince me otherwise

#IS THIS GETTING TAGGED? YES #nicolo di genova #joe x nicky #my_essays #the fair youth saga

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mortedeveles · 4 years

Note

Mha anon here! I'm on a roll lmao! Could I ask for something (oneshot,hc, whatever you'd like! ^v^) with Tenya/Baku/Izu/Kiri(seperate!) and a crush/so who's very cuddly & clingy? Like they always hug/kiss their cheek when they greet them, or they play with their hair, random fists bumps and when they sit next to them they like to lay their head in their shoulder/maybe even their lap! Catch is s/o gets super flustered if they hug/give affection back! Hope you have a nice day btw! Love ur writing!

hey there mha anonnie! sure thing! thanks, hope you have a nice day as well! i’m glad you enjoy my writing <3 as always, please leave a like, reblog, follow and/or comment if you enjoyed!

PLEASE READ: my requests are closing earlier than sooner! I will close them on the 12th :( so submit whatever you’d like until then! i have several writing projects planned and i’m going to be focusing on those. school is a week away as well so it’ll take a lot of my time as well. I will receive up to 2-5 requests!

IIDA, BAKUGOU, MIDORIYA, KIRISHIMA WITH A AFFECTIONATE!CRUSH!READER [DRABBLES]

Pairing: Iida Tenya x gn!reader, Midoriya Izuku x gn!reader, Bakugou Katsuki x gn!reader, Kirishima Eijirou x gn!reader

THEMES: fluff, pining, humor. [DRABBLES]

TW: cursing

IIDA TENYA

Tenya is a boy with good manners. He's respectful towards anyone and isn't particularly affectionate or indulges in physical contact in public.

That being said, Tenya would probably scold you the first times you're affectionate with him. Whether you're clinging onto his arm, hugging him as a greeting or sitting so close to him he can see your the flecks of color in your eyes, all of this is pretty new to him.

He grew up in a sophisticated and rich family, which meant that he was expected to have a good image and be mindful of his actions.

You'd probably have to explain why you're constantly engaging in physical affection with him. He eventually understands, but that doesn't stop him from feel flustered. It doesn't help that he's harbored romantic feelings for you for a long time, so being so close with his crush, makes him....feel things.

''Go-good morning, L/N!'' he stammered, feeling his face warm.

''Good morning, Iida-kun!'' you skipped towards him and hugged him tightly.

Iida's mouth closed and opened- and closed again. He was in the middle of reprimanding Mineta for disrespecting the girls when you came up and hugged him.

He became painfully aware of Mineta's gaze, even Todoroki and Ochaco were watching him and you! After a while, you pulled away with a smile and walked to your desk.

''You don't respect any of us, Mineta. Ribbit. If you wanted affection like Iida, you would ask for it, not touch us without our consent.''

''Why don't the girls let me hug them like that...?'' Mineta whined next to him.

Next to them, Tsuyu replied.

Iida was still too flustered to agree with Tsuyu, his cheeks were warm and he could still feel your warm body pressed against his.

Maybe your constant affection wasn't so bad after all...

In an attempt to thank you for being affectionate towards him, Iida would approach you one day and pat your hair. You'd freeze- Iida rarely touches others on places that aren't shoulders. Even though it's a small pat, it makes your face warm and your heart sings with joy.

''Iida..?'' you'd shyly look up at him, confusion written on your face.

His face would grow warmer when he'd meet you gaze. Swallowing, Iida fixed his tie.

''I just wa-wanted to thank you, L/N! You're always engaging in physical contact with me but I never initiate it!"' he'd nearly yell.

After understanding his intentions, you'd laugh loudly. Iida ignored the stares of his other classmates and smiled when you thanked him quietly.

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

Bakugou is very explosive and aggressive towards-well, everyone. So you'd probably have to hide your affectionate attitude or pipe it down until you're close friends with him.

Even then, while he won't push you off, (you're his crush, he's not going to waste an opportunity of being so close to him,) Bakugou will probably whine and snap sarcastic remarks.

''Eh?!'' he'd look at you with shock. ''What do you think you're fucking doing?!'' despite his crude words, his face would grow warm and his heart would race.

''Stop whining and let me hold youu...'' you'd mumble into his chest. His face would grow incredibly hot and red at your comment, and you were too busy smothering your face in his chest to notice how his face was as red as his eyes and how his hands began to sweat furiously.

If you were to engage in physical contact with him in public, around Class 1A, he'd probably glare daggers at whoever stares at the two of you- or shout at them to mind their own business. Bakugou doesn't want them to embarrass you and make you pull away.

You're a very affectionate person and even though Bakugou never returns your affections, you don't mind. He doesn't blast you when you hug him and that's enough for you.

Hugs and fist bumps aren't a big deal to him; at most he'll grunt and his face would redden slightly, not enough for anyone to notice.

However, one day you're flustering him so much to the point that he's plotting revenge. In the morning, you walked towards him and kissed him on the cheek, leaving him silent with burning red cheeks.

During lunch, you sat in his lap. Who was he to deny his crush's wishes? The entire bakusquad stared at him during lunch, but he ignored and avoided their gazes. You ate your lunch with a joyful smile, chatting with the others, oblivious to the fact that you were making him a blushing mess.

The next day, Bakugou decides to give you a taste of your medicine. In the morning, he wraps his arm around your shoulder and walks with you everywhere. He doesn't notice how you froze as your face heated up or how you're strangely quiet. Instead, he focuses on glaring daggers at anyone whos stares at the two of you. Katsuki has to admit, being able to hold his crush this close without any hesitation felt great. Touching you soothed his body.

You confront him at lunch. Instead of walking towards the table where you sit with the others, you drag him into an empty hallway.''Bakugou...'' you start off slowly, staring into his eyes.

Suddenly, he feels his heart drop to his stomach. Were you...bothered by him? Why was there such a serious expression on your face?

''Are you feeling okay?'' you lean close and press a hand on his soft cheek.

The blonde grunts and averts his eyes from you. He hopes you won't notice how his cheeks heated up when you touched him.

''Course I am. Why do you ask?''

Your face gets warm. ''Well... you've been particularly...touchy today. Why?''

Katsuki's eyes widened. He scowled. ''What? You don't like it?''

''Ah! N-no!'' you notice how his eyes narrow. ''Fuck! No! I mean y-yes, I like it, I'm just not used to i-it...''

Bakugou snorted. His heart warmed at your silly stuttering. With a grin, he wrapped his arm around your waist and pulled you closer.'

'Is that so?'' he says in a haughty tone. ''I think you should get used to it, Y/N.''

Your eyes widen and you begin to trip over your words again. Katsuki smiles at your nervousness and pushes your head on his chest, rendering you silent.

If you got this flustered by his physical affection, Bakugou was sure he would do it all the time.

MIDORIYA IZUKU

Out of all of them, Midoriya is probably the one to get flustered the most.

Since he's been quirkless most of his life, everyone has looked down on him. He's never been in close contact with someone he likes romantically. Hell, he feels nervous whenever a girl talks to him.

But if you do it constantly, he'll probably adjust, though it'll take him plenty of time. And if you do it around a lot of people or teachers, he'll probably blush like the first time you touched him.

So if you're affectionate with him, he'll probably pass out the few first times.

You can approach him during class and hold his hand or ruffle his green messy hair, and he's bound to combust. His face will turn so red it defies Kirishima's hair and he'll probably faint on the spot.

On one lucky day, you approached Midoriya, who was talking to All Might. Your friend hadn't noticed you approaching and when you laughed out his name and held onto his hand, he nearly squeaked and dropped on the floor.

All Might laughed loudly, his eyes twinkling in amusement as he watched his student get so flustered over you. You would smile sheepishly at All Might, who would send you a knowing look.

Midoriya would stammer and trip over his words for several minutes until he'd regain his composure.

Although you're not aware, Midoriya gets so flustered because just like you, he has romantic feelings for you. And feeling your skin brush against his makes his face warm and his heart flips and somersaults in his ribcage.

His friends know about his crush on you and encourage him to confess. After taking Todoroki's and Ochaco's advice, he confesses to you after school.

When he's done talking- which took easily half an hour- he'd stand painfully still, face burning as he waited for your answer.

''Oh..'' you were shocked and couldn't find your voice to say anymore. Since you were better expressing yourself through affection than words, you stepped forward.

Midoriya's eyes widened as your fingers tangled in his hair and you pulled him closer into a kiss.

He's bound to freeze for a couple of seconds- but he's quick to react and although he's inexperienced, he makes it up with his eagerness.

When the two of you pull away, your lips are swollen and your face is warm.

Midoriya feels like he's on heaven; kissing you is an ethereal experience.

Afterward, the two of you became a couple and he became comfortable with you being affectionate. He loved being so close to you to the point that he began initiating physical contact with you. The first time he initiated it, your face nearly combusted and you stuttered for several minutes until Izuku managed to calm you down with one of his charming smiles.

After knowing that you aren't used to receiving affection, Izuku makes sure to be more affectionate with you.

KIRISHIMA EIJIROU

Kirishima thinks it's great that you're very affectionate. He's very open to physical contact and doesn't mind at all.

And the fact that you're his crush? It makes the experience even better. Every day at U.A is better when you're around him.

Admittedly, it does make him a bit flustered. But not too much. He's happy to please you with a fist bump, a hug, or to let your soft hands run through his spiky hair. Kirishima's eyes always close in bliss when you touch his hair.

Since you're his crush, he's very anxious to be just as affectionate as you are. But he doesn't want to overstep your boundaries and keep his wishes to himself.

Until one lucky day, Kirishima arrives at the U.A classroom with heavy eyelids. He spent too much time working out yesterday that he barely got a wink of sleep.

As always, you approached him with that same cheery smile that makes his heart warm.

''Good morning, Kirishima,'' you said. He hummed in response and closed his eyes. Your voice was music to his ears and he never wanted to stop hearing it.

''Kirishima?'' you asked, concern fueling your voice. Kirishima mumbled and sleepily opened his eyes, reaching out for your hair.

''Pretty...'' he mumbled. You froze, feeling your skin prickle. Almost everyone was watching you, even Bakugou. He was biting down a laugh.

''Um...'' was all you could say.

With a tired sigh, Kirishima pulled you closer for a hug, burying your face in his chest. He murmured and placed his chin on the top of your soft hair.

''So soft and warm...'' he said with a smile. You yelped in surprise, but your yelp was muffled by his chest.

''Class has started. I don't want to see any more lovey-dovey nonsense during the rest of today. Break apart, you two.'' Aizawa's sharp voice snapped.

While you immediately flinched and stepped away, Kirishima groaned and slowly opened his eyes.

''What...?'' he whined. But once he noticed he was not dreaming, his eyes widened. Everyone began to giggle and murmur as his face warmed up.

''Oh....'' his eyes drift to you.

''Oh.''

494 notes · View notes

cosmiclatte28 · 3 years

Text

Purpose (Jeno x you)

a/n : sorry for ranting in the previous post, but here is my first oneshot of Jeno x reader ...please leave a comment or just anything so I know what to do and not do in my future works :D

happy MLK day! Enjoy the long weekend aka monday break!

warning : major character with disability! Please proceed only if you feel okay with it. Jaehyun is your brother :D (sorry if I use hyung accidentally, it’s a habit of mine. I make my characters always calling the older brother hyung, so it sounds less “romantic”)

word count : 3.0K

Check out my other works in my masterlist

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ :

“Jeno, do you ever wonder what your purpose in life is?” you rolled to the side of your body and rested your weight on one of your supporting arms, eyes aimlessly piercing into Jeno’s side face.

The said man who was staring at the ceiling turned his head to look at you. In this small bed you share with your best friend, he pulls his face back to give some respectful distance in between.

He glances back to the ceiling and hums, “Umm interesting, let me think of it.” He ponders for a while and your hand accidentally brush his. He laughs when a sudden memory comes into his mind and he ignored your hand that’s still lingering next to his.

“Tell me! You’re laughing! Did you know your purpose of existence in life?” you shake his taller and built body. His arm really feels buff and hard right now. Sometimes you wonder where the hell did your ten years old lanky best friend go. You’re his partner in crime since third grade and both of you graduated junior school together, even now you’re counting days to your senior school graduation still with him. Only that puberty hits Jeno Lee like a truck and bam here lies a young charismatic man lying with you on your bed as if it is nothing. (Well it is nothing right? Just two best friends sharing a bed. Lmao okay sorry author is writing this at 3.30 am)

He giggles and bops your nose, “No. I am not going to answer it.”

You pout, unaware of the effect it gives to the young man beside you. “Fine, I guess my purpose in this life is to bug and bother you.” You taunt and Jeno really wants to smack your head right now, but that is something he will never do.

“Fine if your purpose is to disturb me, then my purpose is to bear with it and make sure you never go beyond your line or hurt yourself.” He says this out loud, and continues in his heart, “Again, I’ll never let anything, or anyone hurt you again.”

Jeno lifts his arm to run a smoothing hand on your hair and you’re no longer surprised by this. Actions like this is common between you and Jeno.

“I haven’t washed my hair, stop touching it,” you run your hand over your head to stop him.

He chuckles and just ignores your word, “I don’t care, it’s not dirty you know. You smell sweet.” He sniffs into your hair and indeed it is fresh. You’re being over insecure.

“Fine. So, what time is it?” you cock your head to the side, showing him you’re asking a question.

Jeno runs his eyes into the clock hanging in your room, “It’s almost five. Your brother will be home after this around six. Do you need anything?” he asks when he sees you sit up from your laying position and grabbing your cane.

You nod, “Can you bring me to the café shop by the end of the road? It’s Jaehyun’s birthday today and I want to give him a cake.”

Jeno couldn’t help but feel his heart swells with emotion. Even after the unfortunate accident that hit you and your brother on the road, but only took your vision away, you never hate your brother at all. Jeno remembers how petrified he was the day he got a call from his mother telling him to rush to the hospital because you ran into an accident.

Three years ago

“Catch me if you can! I will finish the cake before you can get any.” You taunt at your older brother and run with all your might to get home faster than he did so you can stuff the whole cake into your mouth.

Jaehyun was still paying the cake when you ran with it already. He yelled out loud to you when you ran whilst looking back into him. He was too late.

Jaehyun saw your body flew through the concrete and the box of cake you were running with was already crushed over. The owner of the van got down and quickly run you and Jaehyun to the hospital. Jaehyun hugged you throughout the way to the hospital, his white shirt is already drained in dark red blood. His happy face he had that day for turning 20 was gone. He can only wish his one and only sister will make it alive.

The hospital did their best in trying to bring your consciousness alive. Your head hit the concrete, but luckily there are no serious injuries in your head. Fractures are found in your left side of the body but what hurts Jaehyun and your parents the most, was the fact that you will not be seeing anything in less than three months.

The experts were called, and everyone agreed that sadly nothing can be done to prevent you from facing the total darkness. From the age of 14 you lost your sight, you lost your friends, you lost your confidence, you lost your will to live. You wanted to die, but Jeno would never let that happen. He saw potentials inside you, and he saw the beauty you have within your heart that more people should see.

Jeno was the first non-family member to visit you after the news was spread. He was the first one to stay by your side and the last one from your school society.

You were suggested to move to a special need school, but with Jeno’s constant reassurance and help you stay with him in the regular school. After school, Jeno will accompany you learn braille and follow you to your post-traumatic therapy too. He even listened to the specialist called to teach you how to walk with a cane and how to use your cane as your second eye. He did struggle a lot to not play around with your service dog, because Goldy (your golden retriever who helps you walk in public) is not supposed to be friendly, Goldy needs to be alert!

Your family luckily didn’t abandon you, but they were sadly not in the same country as you were right now. Today, you’re only living with Jaehyun and Jeno is practically your neighbour from the flat next door.

Jeno actually did not want to bring you to the same store that caused the dreadful unfortunate event to happen to you. Not in the same day, on the same spot.

“You sure? I can buy it for you while you wait here.” He sounds worried that your post traumatic nerves might act up and calming you down in a crowded room is not easy.

You nod your head, “It’s been three years Jeno. Don’t worry. Jaehyun has never eaten that cake for three years! He did not want to go there. I guess my brother is more traumatized than me. I also want that damn cake.” You already stand up and grab a jacket. Without his help, you’re already good in dressing up. If you wear glasses, no one will know about your condition. The fractures healed perfectly, your face is still as pretty as one can be, it’s just that your eyeball did not spark life in them.

Jeno sighs, he can do nothing if you’re this persistent. “Okay, but please just this time hold my hands okay?”

You nod. Usually you ask Jeno to just walk beside you a several step behind, just to guard you. You’re good in walking with the help of Goldy. You never want to be a burden, although Jeno repeatedly tells you he doesn’t see you as a burden.

The tall man also takes his jacket and wallet. He stands by your side, gives his arm to you and you take it gently. Your right hand is holding Goldy’s leash and with Jeno by your side, three of you make your way to the bakery.

“Nice weather, it’s not crowded eh?” you ask when you feel the gentle breeze and rather quiet sound of the road. Usually this road is busy but not at the moment.

“Yes, I think it’s not the rush hours yet. We should hurry before it gets crowded. Hold on tight we’re crossing the road.” Jeno looks right and left. When he feels your grip tighten, he smiles to himself as he crosses the road with you carefully. Finally, you’re not as stubborn as usual!

You step into the store and automatically a smile comes to your face when the fragrance smell of sweet fresh baked pastries tickle your nose. “Hmmm this is yummy! We should consider living next to a bakery Jen!” you excitedly squeeze his arm you’re still holding on to and Jeno just smiles at your remarks.

“Do you want to sit down? I can order you a tea while they customize the cake.” Jeno asks, you deny it saying that you just want to go back quick before Jaehyun did.

So, after you do your ordering and finished the payment, Jeno only has to help with writing down the customized message. After 15 minutes, the box is set in Jeno’s right hand while his left hand is occupied with your firm grip.

You enjoy the short walking distance, simply enjoying the light breeze of the gentle wind and stopping for a moment to inhale the different smell in every block.

With your sharp nose, you know when you’ve passed by the coffee shop, the flower boutique, and your favourite Pizza place. You’ve ordered food for dinner and they’re already in your kitchen, you just need to reheat it.

Jaehyun drives his car back home, it’s a wonderful day. He got promoted thanks to the successful product launching his team did last month and today is also his birthday. Although a small part of his heart still grief over his own sister’s lost of sight on his birthday, he always try to cover that guilt because you’ve been repeatedly telling him not to bother it. He doesn’t know what he did in the previous life to actually deserves a really sincere and kind sister like you. That is also why Jaehyun loves you with all his might and heart.

He steps his foot into the comfortable apartment he shares home with his sister, and a trail of laugh echoes through the room when he sees you and Jeno holding a cake with a well decorated place. Jeno rushed his décor, simply putting on Happy Birthday Jaehyun balloons and draping a golden curtain over the bare walls.

“Happy Birthday Jaeeee!!” you scream on top of your lungs and open your arms wide. Jaehyun picks you up in his hug and turns you around, “Thank you! And you too Jeno!” he pats the younger’s shoulder.

“Blow the candles!!” you clap your hands and Jaehyun did what you say. He wipes a tear that escapes his eyes but quickly covers it up with a smile. He secretly wishes so that your smile will always be this wide and he wishes to experience more happy times with you.

“Both of you don’t have to do this you know,” Jaehyun says after putting the final heated up dish on the dining table. Although he is the one having birthday, he didn’t want you to set the table up. So, here you are seated on your chair, with Jeno on the other side.

“She insisted.” Jeno snickers.

You swear if he is on your side right now, you’ll slap him. Lucky he is far from your reach.

“Can’t you just be thankful hyung?” you roll your eyes and hufth.

Jaehyun lovingly ruffles your hair and kisses your cheek “Araseo, Thank you sweetie and you too Jeno! Thanks for dealing with this super annoying princess.” His tone sounds playful and you laugh at it.

“Jeno is whipped for me, he won’t bother having to take care of me all the time. Right Jeno?” you ask him this as a matter of keeping the spirit up. It’s as if you’re only playing around to Jaehyun’s joke but deep inside your heart… you did wish Jeno will want to take care of you til death takes you away from him.

“Stop that (y/n)! You’re making him uncomfortable,” Jaehyun mumbles as the three of you start digging into the dinner.

Jeno just laughs along, he is used to the two of you teasing and bickering with each other. He loves witnessing this and being in it. He loves the warm feeling of being “home” whenever you are around. “Tell him the truth Jeno! Did you hate me for being annoying?” you suddenly feel a bit sad to ask him this. What if Jaehyun is right? What if Jeno is actually tired of you? Afterall he can get way better and prettier girls. Why did he stay with you if he doesn’t like you. You used to ask yourself that when you feel lonely at night.

Jeno looks into you and into Jaehyun. He somewhat senses you feeling down about asking this and that hurts his heart. After glancing at Jaehyun, and receiving a nod from the older brother. Jeno finally answers your question.

“You’re not annoying. Even if you are sometimes, you’re my annoying princess. Look, don’t be sad… I’ll never leave your side okay?” Jeno reaches his hand out to take yours into his. He gently take your palm into his and his thumb strokes your palm calmly. Sending a reassuring feeling to you.

You feel your cheeks burning and your stomach bursting with butterflies. Your heart can explode right now, with this soft touch of Jeno and how his sure answer ends all of your silly scenarios.

“You will never leave my side?” You echo back to him.

Jaehyun winks to Jeno and secretly leaves his chair. You snap your head to the side (luckily the right side because Jaehyun is on your right) “Where are you going?”

Jaehyun mumbles a quick excuse, “Needed to call someone for work, just remember… sorry it’s urgent, go continue without me.”

You return your head to face Jeno and the young boy is already thinking of his next line.

His thumb caresses your hand again and you love that sensation.

“So, to answer your previous answer... I love you (y/n).” his sincere honey deep voice sooths your ear and a warm sensation envelopes your heart.

“I love you and I will never leave you. I’ll be by your side just like now, until forever. Don’t feel bad for needing my help, I’m always happy when I can help you. Instead, I feel sad when I see you trying to do everything by yourself… It’s like you didn’t want my help.” Your bestfriend explains his own feeling to you.

You quickly shake your head, “Sorry Jeno, I didn’t mean to reject your help. Gosh, I’m just feeling like I’ve asked too much from you and that I should stop. It’s my fault.”

Jeno stands and moves to sit next to you, he brings a strand of hair away from your face clearing the view he loves and he wishes to wake up to every day.

“Don’t worry, I know you don’t mean it. Now, don’t hesitate to call me okay? I’ll be here for you.” Jeno gently touches your chin.

You nod and blush, “I love you too Jeno, it’s mutual.” You lean in closer, wishing Jeno can catch your signal and leads you to the thing you secretly put in your number one wishlist to do with Jeno.

He gets your signal, with a small smile the sweet man pulls you slowly into his face and as you tilt your head to the side, Jeno’s lips finally found yours.

It was fleeting but the sensation lingers for a while. You’re still busy controlling your heart beat when you feel Jeno already disappear from your side and Jaehun’s foot steps come into the kitchen again.

“So, what did I miss?” he looks into both of you, but judging through the red faces both of you have, he just lets out a small cough and giggles.

“Who’s ready for the desert? Cake is here!” he quickly takes the plates and cuts the cake into smaller portions.

You can successfully focus back on the dinner and continues talking around while enjoying the sweet chocolate mousse cake.

Dinner ends nicely, Jaehyun pushes both of you to the living room while he insists on washing the dishes with loud music blasting on his earphone. He is glad finally both of them come our to each other. He’s frustrated whenever he sees the clear mutual feelings both of you are trying to supress.

Turns out today is indeed a good day.

Jeno hugs you from the side when both of you sit at the sofa. He is cuddling you, who is sleepy from the filling dinner.

“Jeno, did you remember the question I asked you earlier?” you suddenly bring this topic up.

He hums, and holds your hand in his, “I did, I think I know my answer.”

You raise your brow, “What is it? Tell me.”

He steals a quick peck from your lips, “I’m going to find my purpose of living slowly with you by my side. We’ll explore new things everyday together, and when one day I really find my purpose, I’ll make sure you are there and you know it.”

You feel like all the chains and nightmares clinging into your subconsciousness is broken free. The insecure feelings of being less perfect is gone and you trust Jeno with all your heart that he loves you and he will not leave you.

You smile and run a hand on his jawline, “Then I will also hold your hand as I find my purpose in this life too. Thank you Jeno, for always staying by my side. I promise I will also be here for you whenever you feel like the world is against you.”

He kisses your knuckle of the hand that touches his cheek, “I know darling, now if you’re tired just sleep.”

You close your eyes and shifts your body until it is comfortable enough to hug him from the side while leaning into him. “Thank you and I love you Jeno.”

He whispers back, “Love you most (y/n). Sleep tight, sweet dreams” he pecks your forehead and stays until you’re asleep.

Tonight indeed is a good day for everyone of you!

end.

tell me what you think xD

XOXO, cosmic

74 notes · View notes

solastia · 4 years

Text

The Dragon’s Lair | 6

- Riddle Me This -

Pairing: Dragon Hybrid Namjoon x Reader

Word Count: 5,094

Notes: It feels like so much has happened and this has been going on for so long, right? But this is actually the very beginning of my long and complicated outline lmao. Anyway, it’s time to meet our Sphinx! I wonder who this could be *insert lenny face here* And if you’re wondering if there will ever be an end to me adding other kpop fandoms: no, no there will not be. We’re catchin em all.

The winter storms were slowly giving into the spring rains. Of course, this made everything horribly humid and muddy, but at least you weren’t snowed in for days on end anymore.

As soon as you were able, you scheduled contractors that specialized in hybrid-friendly rooms to help get one prepared, as you fully planned on starting the adoption process for Mark when it was done. You had to make sure it had its own heating and cooling system separate from the rest of the house, insulation for winter, and UV lighting, among other things. Needless to say, it was not going to be a quick process, but Mark was safe at the shelter with Heechul’s near-constant vigilance.

You’d also begun to clear out the barn that you’ve only been using for storage since your grandparents had adopted out all of their animals. You weren’t quite sure how serious you were yet about getting some animals in there again, but for now, it gave you something to do while construction was going on inside your home.

You spent a lot of time throwing out or giving away anything unusable, sweeping out stalls, and scrubbing everything down until it shone like it hadn’t in years. Thankfully you still kept in touch with a lot of the people that had worked with your family over the years and it was easy to have fresh supplies brought in, half of which you weren’t even sure you’d ever use, but everyone was happy to hear that the farm was going back to work in a sense.

Despite all these other changes, your relationship with Namjoon was settled into a comfortable path. Not to say that things were unexciting - the man never failed to find some new way to make your heart flutter - but it felt secure and steady now. Like the two of you being a forever thing was assured. It continually surprised you when you remembered that you actually hadn’t been together for very long. He felt like he’d always been there.

Most days were simply routine. You’d both wake up at the same time and shower - together more often than not -, have breakfast and then he’d head to the shelter while you’d work in your office. At least three times a week you’d meet up to have lunch together, thankful that both of you had lenient bosses that wouldn’t freak out when an hour-long lunch turned into two or three. Once he was home for the day, the two of you usually just spent your time together. You’d watch a movie or read while you cuddled on the couch, oftentimes ignoring the screen to simply listen to him talk. The way he viewed the world was beautiful and you never grew tired of listening.

Namjoon had put his foot down and declared date night mandatory. So every single Saturday without fail he’d drag you into town for some event or into the mountains for a hike, always doing his best to create the most romantic day possible. You’d tried to convince him that he didn’t need to do all this, that simply walking with him in the forest near your home was romantic as long as he was there, but he claimed he was still “courting” you so it wasn’t something he could just stop. You assumed that meant it was something to do with his Dragon side and let him do as he pleased.

Once a week you’d usually tag along and go to the shelter, spending most of your time in the playrooms. According to one of the volunteers, Heechul’s shelter held an average of one hundred and fifty hybrids at any given time, which seemed an astronomical amount if one didn’t know about the secret wings and the fact that you were pretty sure he’d borrowed the whole ‘bigger on the inside’ concept.

You tried to spend as much time as you could with all the hybrids, but as you were only one person there was only so much you could do. Still, you did have your - as Heechul called them - “cub club.” There have been many arguments in the little group about the name - starting with you wondering why they needed a name at all - since they were composed of all different species, but they gave in after Heechul’s continuous use of it and the fact that it apparently was cute, according to Namjoon.

Basically, it was a group of hybrids that seemed to have singled you out as a clear favorite and would follow you around the moment you stepped into the building. The unspoken leader of the group was your little Mark, who was always waiting by the front door of the building when you would come in. Usually right next to him was Felix, who seemed to split his time between your cubs and Namjoon’s fan club fairly equally. Some newer friends of yours were a teen tiger hybrid named Seonghwa, and wolf pup siblings Changkyun and Jooheon. There were a few others that came and went, but these were your regular crew.

Today was one of your shelter days, and you were once again surrounded in the playrooms. Mark was sitting next to you with his raccoon hybrid friend Donghyuck, who was an honorary member of Star’s Cubs at this point with how often he was attached to Mark. They were both coloring a picture of their dream bedroom - a sneaky idea you’d gotten so that you could have Mark’s room ready and decorated when the adoption finalized.

Felix was having a Namjoon day, so after he’d run up to hug you when you’d first arrived, he’d gone right back to the class that Namjoon was currently teaching. You’d probably see him again at lunch, and then he’d talk a mile a minute about everything Namjoon was teaching him and demand cuddles.

Changkyun and Jooheon were currently wrestling around on the floor near your feet. They were a complicated pair. They had both been found in the wild several months ago, seemingly without any sort of parents or guardians whatsoever. The boys themselves weren’t sure, but you judged them to be around nine or ten. They were smart kids but had obviously been living on their own for quite some time. They mentioned a “her” a few times, speaking of someone from their memories that would make certain foods or clean them, but they couldn’t remember who she was. Their mother, you assumed.

Needless to say, they were perhaps not the most well-mannered children, but they were sweet and eager to please. To you, at least. The other volunteers usually tried to interact with them as little as possible after a few too many bites and temper tantrums, often referring to them as feral monsters. You had, of course, taken that up with Heechul, but the damage had already been done and they were labeled as such by everyone. From the day Jooheon had met you, however, he’d decided you “smelled nice” and would bring you scraps from their dinners (that they apparently hoarded - bad habits left from living in the wild). It had taken Changkyun a little longer to warm up to you, but one day he’d just walked up and pushed Felix out of your lap and took his place. You’d scolded him and made him apologize, but you’d let him stay, deciding it had probably been a very long time since he’d been hugged by anyone besides his brother. They’d gotten better about waiting their turn and learning to ask first, but you still went out of your way to cuddle them as much as they’d let you.

Seonghwa sat nearby doing his homework. He was...interesting. It was the nicest thing you could think of to say about that whole situation. The thing was, he was a nice kid. Almost seventeen, had been here for a few years. Definitely beautiful, no denying that. You didn’t know too much about his past yet, as you hadn’t wanted to pry and he didn’t volunteer much information. He helped you with the younger kids a lot though, asked you about your work, was genuinely sweet, and fun to talk to when he was just chill. The issue was...you were apparently his “first love.”

He wasn’t creepy about it or anything. He really was super sweet. He would bring you flowers and treats, help you carry anything heavy, and was just really attentive. Unfortunately, then he’d start walking around you in circles, staring intently with his tail flicking around in the air as he sang to you. He had a sweet voice, but they were of course all highly inappropriate love songs to be singing to an older woman. And according to Namjoon, the circling and singing thing was a tiger courting ritual, so you took great care not to acknowledge it. You’d tried letting him down as gently as possible, but somehow he seemed to just consider it more of a challenge, and you really didn’t want to be mean and be his first heartbreak as well. Namjoon surprisingly - or not since he could be a brat himself - thought it was hilarious. He’d often ask how your tiger cub was doing, laughing when you’d swat him. Of course, he was still a territorial dragon, so he would occasionally go out of his way to kiss you with a bit too much tongue or pinch your butt where everyone could see to get the message of your status across.

Things at the shelter have been fairly quiet and routine, as far as such a big place could be. That’s why you were awfully surprised when Heechul storms into the playroom looking distraught and frazzled. He brightens slightly when he spots you, rushing over and placing his hands on his hips.

“You’d be perfect, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that earlier!”

You frown, thoroughly confused. “Thanks, I think. For what?”

He clucks and shakes his head.

“We have an exotic on his way here. He was one of mine that I raised until he was ten, and then he was adopted by this lovely couple. Unfortunately, they were a bit too old even then, but they adored Seokjin so I let him go.” He sighs wearily and flops into a nearby recliner. “They passed away last year and left him everything. He’d been living on his own just fine until someone tried to rob the place and he ended up hurt. Then the police of course had to see his medical records and - surprise! - a hybrid had been running around owning a house and living free for an entire year and they don’t like that. They were going to send him to a state-run hybrid institution, which essentially means death if you’re not a baby or usable on the black market. So, he called me in a panic and I have it all settled with the police that he’s officially one of ours and they don’t have to worry about him anymore. But he’s too used to independence to stuff him back into regular hybrid life, so I was thinking maybe you could foster him? Just like, let him hang out at your place until we figure out some way he can go back to living how he likes?”

“I mean, I have to check in with Namjoon, but I don’t see why not. What kind of hybrid is he?”

“Sphinx,” Heechul answered, his deadpan voice at odds with his amused eyes.

“A what now?”

“Sphinx. You know, part bird, lion and man. Likes riddles. Has big statues.”

“Sure, why not,” you sigh. This place really made your brain hurt.

Heechul chuckled and reached out to pat your shoulder.

“Thanks. I know it’s a lot to deal with right now, with your new romance and getting ready for Mark, but Seokjin deserves a chance. I think you’ll like him.”

“You know, it’s really creepy when you do that. At least let me tell you with words what I’m planning about Mark.”

“I didn’t even need to use magic to see that’s where it was headed. He’s basically already yours,” he scoffs, standing up with a light groan.

“When is this Seokjin going to be here?”

“He’s on his way to the shelter now. I figured he could just come here first, meet you and have dinner with everyone, then head home with you guys after. If that’s okay.”

“Again, just have to check with Joon, but it should be fine. Sphinx and dragons aren’t like, mortal enemies or anything, are they?”

Heechul grins, “Hardly. In fact, I remember they were actually pretty good friends when they were little. Jin was older and would tolerate Joonie like a big brother. Not sure how well Namjoon remembers him, though.”

“Alright, I guess. Joon’s class is over in a few minutes. I’ll go talk to him now.”

“Thanks, Star!”

You shake your head as he flounces away, wondering when he’d started using that name too. At this point, that was basically your official name.

“Does that mean you’re going to have to stay home all the time? To take care of a new hybrid?”

A little sniffle came from your right as you registered the fact that your cubs had just been quietly listening to your conversation with Heechul. Mark’s eyes were beginning to glisten with unshed tears and you quickly snatched the boy up and cuddled him close.

“Of course not, sweetheart. By the sounds of it, he’s older than both me and Joon, so he’s not going to need much looking after. He basically just needs a place to crash until he figures out what to do.”

“Oh,” he sniffles again, and you try not to laugh about the fact that it’s not helping, as his nose is starting to water too. “So you’ll still come to see me?”

“Of course! And as soon as the farm is cleaned up you can come to visit me too. How does that sound?”

“Really? And Felix? And Hyuckie? And...and…”

“Yes,” you interrupt, knowing the boy will try to name literally everyone he’s ever talked to. “Anyone that wants to visit will be able to. I just wanted to make sure it’s safe first, so no one gets sick.”

“Okay!” Mark squeezes you clumsily but is quickly back to being a ray of sunshine and crawling off of you to go back to his picture.

“Seonghwa,” you call, snorting inwardly as the tiger practically jumps to attention, “Watch the kids for a bit, okay? I’m going to see Namjoon.”

He nods quietly and sets his books down, smiling softly as he watches you leave the room.

***

As you’d expected, Namjoon was more than agreeable to the idea of helping his childhood friend but was understandably concerned over how his dragon instincts would react to another creature in his new den with his new...well, mate. (Although he insists that you aren’t official mates yet. And he blushes and refuses to answer whenever you ask what makes you official).

“It’s just, like, I don’t want to stress him out even more, you know? If he’s already going through all this, then I don’t want to be growling and snapping at him,” Namjoon sighed as he stood with you in the lobby, grasping your hand tightly as you both waited for Seokjin to show up.

“I know, but Heechul told me that Seokjin is the only one of his kind as well so if anyone were to understand that this is a learning situation and not blame you for it, it would be someone like him, right?”

Namjoon shrugs, “I guess. From what I remember, Jin hyung was really outspoken too, so I think he’d be sure to let me know if I do something to offend him.”

“And if all else fails, you can just take him behind the house and piss on him,” you try to hide your grin as you tease him.

He growls playfully, leaning down to tug your hair. “Watch it. I’ll mark you next.”

“I thought you already did,” you quirk an eyebrow as you refer to certain activities that had taken place before he’d let you leave your bed that morning.

“Hey, let's keep the rating down in my presence, please,” Heechul sighs wearily from the other side of you.

The two of you fight valiantly to keep your giggles under control, only able to stop fully once a taxi pulls up in front of the building and nerves once again take over.

The man that steps out takes even your breath away - quite a feat considering how whipped you were for your own boyfriend. He’s tall, nearly as tall as Namjoon, and has a regal bearing. He has a face that many would pay millions for, with full lips and wide expressive eyes. His hair and lion ears were the same mahogany brown shade, as was the fluffy tip of his long tail. It seemed he had no trouble showing off his lion side. You weren’t sure if that’s all there was to his transformation though, considering he was a Sphinx, not just a lion.

He turned to pay the driver, who was actually smiling and laughing like the two of them were old friends. Seokjin reached out and shook the man’s hand heartily and shoved what was apparently too much money towards him if the way the man tried to argue about it was any indication. You supposed this meant Seokjin was the friendly sort, which boded well.

You were a little confused by the fact that the hybrid was only carrying a single suitcase. Perhaps he had left the rest behind to be picked up later? From what Heechul had told you, the hybrid had grown up in a fairly wealthy household, spoiled and doted on. You would think he would be walking in here with twenty name brand suitcases, and yet here he was with only a small rolling suitcase meant for a child with Mario on it. Something about that felt wrong.

The hybrid seemed fine, however, breezing through the front door with a wide smile like all was right in the world. He stopped right in front of Heechul and stared at him a moment, cocking his head.

“You haven’t changed a bit, hyung. You don’t have a single new wrinkle. Are you trying to compete with me?”

Heechul huffs and reaches out to hug the man. Seokjin laughs quietly, pulling Heechul into a bear hug so fierce Heechul squeaks a little. He releases him and pats him on the shoulder before he turns to Namjoon.

“Don’t tell me you’re little Joon bug? You can’t be anyone else, with those dimples. I used to swear I could use them as cereal bowls if we ever ran out.”

Namjoon shyly looks down and kicks his foot, but he’s smiling. “Hi, Seokjin-ssi. It’s nice to see you again.”

The hybrid waves his hand carelessly, “Just call me hyung, Namjoon. Or even just Jin. We don’t need honorifics with our kind.”

Namjoon nods and pulls you closer, drawing the Sphinx’s attention. His thick brow raises your way as his smile quirks mischievously.

“And this must be Miss Star, the one I’ve been hearing so much about,” he raises up his hand like he’s going to shake yours, but the moment you grasp it he holds on tightly. His face suddenly settles into serious lines as he looks down into your eyes.

“Answer me this. As small as your thumb, I am light in the air. You may hear me before you see me, but trust that I’m here.”

You hadn’t been prepared for this, for some reason. Duh, Sphinx’s whole thing was about riddles.

You bite your lip and give it some thought for a moment. “A hummingbird?”

His smile brightens back up and he releases your hand before he slaps Namjoon’s back.

“Hey, she’s smart. You got a good one”

“Yeah…” Namjoon answers dreamily, staring down at you with a dopey grin. You blush and grab his hand.

Jin’s arm was back to flailing around again, and you were wondering if he was in control of his limbs or if it was the other way around.

“Hey, listen, want to hear a joke about construction?” he asks. You’re not sure if he really expects an answer, but you squeak out a somewhat genuine sounding “Sure,” anyway.

“I'm still working on it,” he answers, before cackling loudly, his laughter practically shaking the glass windows as he slaps his leg in amusement.

You decide, if nothing else, he seems easy to keep entertained.

You politely laugh and wait for him to finish before taking the chance to steer the conversation in another direction.

“Are you hungry? We thought we’d stay and have dinner here before we went home. Only if you’re comfortable with that, though.”

“I’m famished,” Jin answered, slapping his flat and obviously in-shape stomach like it was the opposite. “I wouldn’t mind sticking around. Kyungsoo still the cook here?”

“Yup. And Wendy is making dessert,” Heechul tells him as he grabs the little suitcase.

“Sounds great.”

It hadn’t escaped your notice that no one brought up his past owners or any difficult subjects. You sigh quietly as you walk behind everyone as they went to the dining room, knowing that it was probably going to be all up to you.

***

Dinner had gone as it usually did, with only the occasional fights to break up between over-enthusiastic kids. You used the time to observe Seokjin, trying to see what you could pick up about him in a group setting like this. He was polite and charming, yes, but very quick to steer the conversation away from himself. You supposed he wasn’t ready to talk about his problems, which was fine. You had time.

He was also an enthusiastic eater and at one point seemed to have an almost mini-competition going on with the elephant hybrid over who could eat the most. You’d decided to break it up before anyone found out since the elephant was only seven and didn’t need to compete with a grown man.

Seokjin and Namjoon seemed to get on perfectly well, thank goodness. Jin treated him like a little brother - making sure his bowl was full, teasing him every time he stared at you, telling him at least five jokes about giants.

The man didn’t seem to have a shred of animosity in him at all, which would normally be a good thing. If one didn’t take into account what had happened to him. He should be upset and crying, or at least mad. Irritated. But he seemed more like he was just visiting some dear old friends, with nothing to fret about. That worried you more than anything because the poor man was probably just really good at covering it up then, and you hoped you’d be able to help him. Or that he’d even let you.

These thoughts plagued you the whole way home, as you occasionally peeked into the rear view mirror to see Jin sitting quietly with his tiny suitcase that you still hadn’t been able to bring yourself to ask about.

At least he was here with the two of you, somewhere he could be safe and have people looking out for him. That was the best you could do for now.

After you show him to a spare bedroom, he thanks you quietly, smiling with his lips but not his eyes. The door closes and you sigh, retreating to your own room to wrap yourself in Namjoon’s arms. It haunts you that something like this could happen to him if anything were to happen to you. That he would get sent back to the shelter with nothing, despite the fact that you wanted to give him the entire world. You’ll have to ask Heechul what you can do to make sure he’s safe.

***

When you wake up the next morning, it’s to the smell of meat cooking. Normally, this would be a dream come true. Unfortunately, you’ve been living with Namjoon for far too long and your mind now associated unsupervised cooking with near-death experiences, so instead your first reaction is terror.

You jump out of bed, unmindful of your state of near-undress, and run to the kitchen. Your ears are hyper tuned to every sound, waiting for bellows of pain, but so far you simply hear the slap of your bare feet against wood and sizzling from a pan.

You round the corner and grab the wall, catching your breath as you stare into the kitchen. Namjoon is sitting at the bar eating a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs and cheese, giggling as Seokjin preforms some a dirty gesture involving sausages and eggs. The Sphinx is standing over the stove with your bright pink apron, confidently cooking away, and both men are fine. You breathe a sigh of relief, slumping slightly as the tension leaves your body. Both men turn at the sound, smiling in greeting.

“Morning, baby. Jin’s making breakfast. He’s a good cook!”

“I see that. Morning, everyone,” you reply, walking in and trying not to let on how nervous you’d been. You peck Namjoon’s cheek and peek over the bar at the stove.

Jin meets your eye and smiles mischievously like he knows what you were concerned about.

“And here is one for you, madame,” he says with a flourish, setting a plate in front of you piled high with food and even garnished with a couple of tiny flowers from the garden.

“Wow,” you blurt, honestly astounded by his skill. Everything looked perfect and you couldn’t wait to dig in.

“What’s with that look?” He says loudly, quirking an eyebrow at you. “You just fell for me, didn’t you? Ah, I’m too charming.”

You laugh and take a bite, nervously peeking at Namjoon to see if he’d taken the joke too seriously. Seokjin must have magic in his food because you doubted the dragon had even heard since he was too busy shoveling food in his mouth like you’d been starving him for months.

“Slow down,” you cluck and tap his shoulder. He turns and grins at you with a disgustingly full mouth.

“Isth good,” he mumbles, and you laugh despite your disgust.

“I can see that.”

You swirl your fork around as you watch Jin settle in with his own plate, letting him get a few bites in before you strike.

“So, Joonie and I both took the day off to help you get settled in. We figured you might need to do some shopping or something. I know the bedroom is pretty bare since we were focusing on another room right now.”

Jin glances up and for a moment his gaze is troubling. You’d seen the brief flash of melancholy before he’d covered it up with a charming smile.

“I could use a few things to tide me over until I’m out of your hair, I suppose. I do have my own money, but most places around here won’t let you shop without a license.”

“That was nice of them to leave you money, They must have been good owners.”

His eyes cloud over and he glances away from you, staring at one of the windows.

“They were amazing parents. But the money that they left for me got taken away. I believe everything went to my Mom’s cousin - someone she didn’t even really know.”

“I thought you said you had money?”

“I...uhh...had some stashed away. My dad never liked banks - didn’t trust them. He always had a rule that whenever you used your card, you should take out some cash and squirrel it away just in case. So we’d always take a little out and stash it in this fake book. From the outside it looks like Crime And Punishment, and who reads that willingly?” he snorts, peeking over at Namjoon. “Besides this kid, obviously.”

Namjoon just shrugs, unbothered with the truth.

“But...Jin hyung, you mean they kept everything?”

The Sphinx sighs wearily and drops his fork, reaching up to rub his forehead.

“Everything. The cousin’s lawyer grabbed my old suitcase from storage and told me I could keep anything I could fit in there as long as he approved of it. I got some clothes, my mom’s recipe book, my dad’s favorite fishing lures, and the stash of cash because he thought it was just another book,” Jin shrugs like he’s just telling a story, never mind that the sound of your heart breaking was probably audible at this point.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” you murmur, struggling to stay calm for his sake.

He shrugs. “No big. I’m a hybrid. Should have expected it.”

“No, you should not have. People treat actual animals better than they do hybrids and it’s disgusting. I’m so very sorry. I know nothing I say can erase what’s been done to you. Just know that you are safe here and welcome in my home for as long as you like.”

Jin opens his mouth to say something but snaps it shut again like he can’t figure out what to say. Namjoon grins proudly at you and slaps Jin’s shoulder.

“Told you, hyung. She’s the best. And she’s right. You are welcome here and I can assure you that I feel no urge to fry you to a crisp.”

“I...was not aware that was a potential issue. Thanks for not ruining my beautiful face, I guess,” Seokjin says, obviously done with the serious talk and choosing to fall back into humor.

“And with that settled, I should probably go put on some pants. Thanks for the breakfast! We’ll meet up and go shopping in an hour, yeah?”

You grin at them both and leave the room, the smile dropping the moment you were sure they couldn’t see.

Poor Seokjin.

He had grown up loved and cared for by those people, and just because he was a hybrid he’d lost everything. The fact that this could easily be Namjoon’s story if you were to kick it tomorrow didn’t sit well with you, either. You needed to figure something out that could stop this from happening. Or at least figure out somewhere hybrids could go besides back into shelters. It seems like an impossible task, but one that needs doing, obviously.

As laughter filters towards you from the kitchen, you smile. One thing is for sure, your first task is going to be convincing Seokjin that he’s already home.

#bts #bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #bts scenarios #namjoon x reader #bts x reader #hybrid!bts #hybrid!namjoon #hybrid!seokjin #dragon hybrid #sphinx hybrid #hybrid fanfiction #the dragon's lair #solastia

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ackerslut · 3 years

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Prompt, Angst, The titan gets badly damaged and a lot of the crew are dead or injured, mariner goes AWOL from the cerritos to find out if boimler is okay and there's a scene with boimler unconscious on a biobed and Mariner is like "you have to live so I can feed you to an armus for leaving the cerritos!"

A/N: you sent this prompt ages ago, but the words just wouldn't happen lmao. So six months late and a few thousand words short, here you go:

ao3

Okay, so here’s the thing.

Beckett keeps files on everyone. Not physical files of course--too insecure and hackable (she should know). But a mental file. Still hackable if she runs into a telepath, but still slightly more secure from the rest of her coworkers.

It’s not as if they’re particularly like. Creepy files. She isn’t snooping into anyone’s actual physical file onboard or obtaining any info illegally. She just observes things and passively marks them for later. Tendi likes peanut-butter sandwiches. Janice gets her neck tattoos re-inked every few months. Captain Mom has a stick up her ass. That kind of thing.

It’s a fine tuned compartmentalization that’s useful in a variety of situations, whether it’s knowing what to say in a social situation or who to trust during a red alert (tip: always go with Rutherford, he’s anxious but the least likely to betray you and throw you out of an airlock. Bonus: he’s the most likely crew member on this trashcan to actually have a working idea).

Some mental files are incredibly detailed. For instance, the one on her mom is about as thick as a handbound copy of War & Peace and just as boring. Everything from her favorite flavor of ice cream to her first response to an emergency situation is in there-incredibly accurate and incredibly detailed. She’s sure her mom has a similar mental file on her as well, but resolutely does Not think about it.

Some mental files are almost empty. Ensign Gent’s toothbrush is pink. First Officer Ransom has nice abs I guess. That dude who’s name I can’t remember opened his third eye and ascended into the afterlife or something I wasn’t actually there Tendi told me and I was on my fourth drink.

And then some are medium sized but entirely unremarkable.

Like Bradward Boimler’s, for instance.

Loves classic rock. Dyes his hair purple. Stickler for rules. Needs to loosen up a bit. A lot. Probably needs to get laid. Definitely needs to get laid.

That’s it, that’s the entire file. Beckett doesn’t really concern herself with whatever’s going on with Boimler beyond the occasional ribbing or co-assignment. It’s not because she doesn’t like the dork. She would tentatively (but never to his face) call him her friend if cornered. And she enjoyed riling him up.

She updates the file about a year (almost two) into her acquaintance with him. FUCKING BACKSTABBING TRAITOR. (That’s it now, that's the entire file.) She doesn’t revisit it again, not for almost eight months, despite Tendi’s cheerful updates on how he’s doing--they’re still in constant contact, despite his ghosting Beckett--and Rutherford’s worried comments on his well-being.

“It’s not our job to babysit him,” she snapped one day. “Hell, it wasn’t our job when he was here. Just let it go.”

And that was the end of that.

______

Okay, that was very much not the end of that.

It starts like this:

“Something’s going on, on the Titan,” Tendi hisses, dropping down into Beckett’s bunk at like 2am. Time doesn’t work the same out here as it does on Beckett’s home planet, but it feels like 2am so she’s calling it 2am. Everyone who’d been on the Alpha shift were pretty much dead to the world anyway, so it might as well have been. The point was, Beckett was sleeping, Tendi should have been sleeping, but instead the two of them are having an anxious stare off in the dark.

And Beckett’s currently having cardiac arrest from being startled so soundly. After her heart starts working again like a human heart is supposed to, the words begin to register. Sort of. “What?”

Tendi flips her padd around. Beckett blinks at the bright light from the screen, squinting to see what’s there.

“Is that morse code? Why the fuck is the Titian using morse code.”

Tendi stares at her unblinkingly, face flat.

Then,

“Oh. Oh shit. Shit!” Beckett sits straight up, throwing the covers off. There’s a few protesting noises and shushes that ensue around the room, but Beckett is already making a blind grab for her pants and shoes. “The fuck didn’t you lead with that?”

“Because people are sleeping,” Tendi whispers. Loudly. She rolls off the bunk and onto the floor, shoes already on. “So we’re going, right?”

“Of course we’re fucking going,” Beckett hisses. “Why wouldn’t-”

“Because you’ve been all hung up over him for the past eight months.”

“He ghosted me!”

“Okay yeah-”

“After accepting a promotion that he promised he wouldn’t-”

“Mariner-”

“He’s a backstabbing, little weasel who climbs over his friends-”

“Is this about that or the fact that you miss him?”

Beckett finishes pulling her shoes on and stands up, scowling. “I don’t miss him. Why are you defending him?”

“I’m pissed too. Don’t get me wrong, when we see him I’m gonna kill him. But I think this is more than that.”

“Whatever.” Beckett turns on her heel. “Are we stealing a shuttle or what?”

“Rutherford’s already on it.” Tendi taps rapidly on her data padd, keeping pace with Beckett’s light job easily. “We were hoping you could like. Let your mom know-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Beckett pulls out her comm, quickly typing out a quick message to her mother. “This is gonna be a shitshow.” The two of them enter the shuttle bay, which is pretty much deserted due to it being beta-shift.

“I have no idea how we’re even going to sneak onto the planet. It’s been on lockdown since the Titian crashed there.” Tendi’s shoulders slump.

“Leave it to me, I know a guy.”

“Of course you do,” Rutherford says, popping head out the shuttle door. “Good to go?”

Tendi gives him a thumbs up.

Beckett straps herself into a chair, stomach churning. “He’s fine though, right? Like, we would have gotten a call. Who’s his emergency contact anyway?”

Tendi worries her lip between her teeth. “His mom? I don’t know, it never came up and I don’t have access to his file.”

“He wasn’t on the list of deceased. Just the missing persons list,” Rutherford offers helpfully, punching in some coordinates.

“Well that’s reassuring,” Beckett mutters under her breath. She stares down at her comm, stomach churning.

_______

“Seriously, what are the odds of this even happening?” Tendi asks, dragging Rutherford by the arm behind them. A severely concussed, disgruntled Rutherford makes a grunt of what Beckett assumes is agreement.

“Do you really want to be arguing about the odds right now?” Boimler shrieks, sliding to an uncoordinated stop as the four of them run directly into the maze wall.

“Fuck,” Beckett says, eloquently.

“I thought you said you knew which way we were going!” Boimler runs a hand through his wet hair, face going through a series of complicated expressions before settling on frustration.

Beckett crosses her arms. “I did know where we were going. When I had the fucking map!”

“Why are you yelling at me about that? I didn’t even have it!”

“I don’t see anyone else here dumb enough to have lost it.”

“Guys-”

“You were the last person with the map, Mariner.”

“Unless some idiot took it out of my pack when I wasn’t looking.”

“Guys.”

“I didn’t touch your stupid map! Why are you so fixated on this!”

“Because if we had the map, maybe we wouldn’t be about to die via giant space spider!”

“Guys!” Rutherford shouts.

Beckett jumps at the unexpected shout from the usually quiet ensign. She turns on her heel, meeting Tendi and Rutherford’s unimpressed stares.

“Lookie, secret passage.” Rutherford waves a hand to a hole in the wall that hadn’t been there like two seconds ago. “You two good? Can we go?”

Beckett pushes past Boimler, lightly shoulder checking him and jumps through the doorway after her two annoyed friends. She doesn’t listen worriedly to see if Boimler follows her (she doesn’t) and she doesn’t resist the urge to turn around and make sure he’s close.

She balls her hands into tight fists and stomps past Tendi and Rutherford, ignoring the exchanged glances. “Please tell me this is a way out.” Her flat voice has the barest hint of a tremble in it.

You’re losing your touch, Mariner, get it together, she tells herself.

Tendi pulls a lighter out of her back pocket. (Because of course D’Vana Tendi has an old timey lighter on hand. There was a reason Beckett liked her after all.) It takes a couple of flicks, but she manages to get it to catch. The small source of light barely lights up their passageway, but it’s enough to see that it leads deeper into the planet.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Tendi sighs. “I’ll take the lead, I guess. You good, Sam?”

Rutherford grimaces, but nods. “Nothing I can’t handle. Let’s just get out of here.”

_______

It would be Beckett’s luck that she and Bomlier get separated from the other two. And it would just be their luck that there’s a cave in just before they reach the end of the catacombs. And of course, of fucking course, the Cerritos’ ETA on getting them out is anywhere from 2-6 hours, depending on how fast they can get the ship up and running again.

If anyone is using buffer time, Beckett is going to put spiders in their pillowcase.

“This is bullshit,” she mutters, dropping into a seated lotus position. She plays with Tendi’s lighter, flickering it on and off again.

Boimler grimaces from across her. “Can you stop that? It’s giving me a headache.”

Beckett makes steady eye contact again and flicks it off again.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck yourself. Or whatever,” Beckett mutters. She flicks the lighter back on.

Boimler makes a face like he’s swallowing back a retort. Instead of snapping back, he jams his hands into his pockets. “Can we- can we just talk about it? Like actually talk about it, not passive aggressively pretend like-”

“Like passive aggressively avoiding your best friend’s calls is okay?” Lighter flicks off again. “Yeah, that seems like bitch move, for sure. Glad I don’t know anyone who does that.”

“I’m sorry,” Boimler says into the dark, voice cracking.

“Fuck you.” Beckett flicks the lighter back on. Boimler’s eyes follow it, eyes dilating slightly as the light hits them. She flicks it off again, plunging the cave into darkness again. She flicks it back on. Boimler leans heavily against the cave wall, not looking at her or the light. He starting to look very pale. Paler than usual.

Beckett wonders about that headache.

“How long were you out here before we got your distress signal?” she asks, keeping her eyes glued to the lighter. She sees him shrug in her peripheral.

“Dunno. A while.”

Her stomach tightens. “You didn’t like. See anything weird?”

“You mean besides you and Tendi hauling ass? Not really.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Why?”

“What about strange smells-”

“Mariner.”

“You look pale,” she snaps. “And like super clammy. And I’m not talking about your stressed out will Mariner stop talking clammy, I’m talking like I think you inhaled a deadly neurotoxin kind of clammy.”

“I feel fine! Just the headache. Aaand maybe a slight stomach ache,” he adds at her flat expression. “I always have a stomach ache though-”

“-yeah, yeah, it’s the ulcer you’ve had since you were, like, two, you’re a goddamn medical marvel Boims. Budge over.” She shoves the lighter into his hands and grabs his face. “Are you dizzy,” she asks, peering in closely at his pupils.

Boimler tries to shove her away, but she’s stronger and more stubborn. “A little. Look, it’s just the headache and str-”

“Yeah, do you usually get pink eye from stress?” she asks dryly, pulling back to giving him some breathing room.

“I-what.”

“Your white are like. Super inflamed or whatever. Boimler, I think something’s wrong.”

“Shit.” He rubs his temples. “What’s that ETA again?”

“Six hours. Give or take some buffer time.” Mariner stands up. She’s not worried, she’s not. “Maybe you should lie down.”

Boimler glowers at her in the dim light, hands tightly wrapped around her lighter. “I’m fine.”

______

“Good thing you pulled him out when you did,” Dr T’Ana tells Ransom. “Any longer-” she pauses, seeing Beckett’s expression. “Do you want to know what it was?” she asks her.

Beckett, who’s currently white knuckling the back of the plastic chair by the biobed, shakes her head. “Not really,” she replies, stiffly. “Long-term effects?”

“None,” T’Ana replies, scratchy voice almost gentle. Almost. “So feel free to be as hard on him as you want when he wakes up.”

Ransom barks a laugh, clapping Beckett’s shoulder. “Oh, Mariner knows how to be-”

“If you make a single hard joke in my presence, I’m tossing you back onto that planet,” Beckett replies flatly.

Ransom removes his hand. “Right! Right, I’ll just be on my-”

“Out,” T’Ana and Beckett snap.

There’s a pause after the turbolift doors close after Ransom. Dr. T’Ana eyes Beckett warily for a moment. Then, “Call me if he wakes up with any symptoms.”

“You said-”

“Yeah, well. He has a lot of surprises in him, doesn’t he?” She gives Beckett a pointed look before leaving, grumbling down at her clipboard.

Beckett glares down at the unconscious Boimler. “The shit I go through for your dumb ass.” She flops into the uncomfortable chair. “Wake up already. It’s no fun yelling at you like this.”

____

Surprisingly, Beckett does not yell at Boimler when he wakes up. It’s a near thing, though.

“Well, thanks for not letting me die, I guess,” he says, watching her warily after she’s done ranting. Not yelling, ranting.

“I wouldn’t have let you die,” she scoffs. “You’re still my friend, dumbass.”

Boimler perks up in surprise. “What?”

“Look, just because you pulled the ultimate shitty move, doesn’t stop us from being friends. You’re still on notice, though.”

“Right! Right.” He pauses, blinking up at her. “Does it help that I submitted a transfer back to the Cerritos before any of this went down?”

Beckett freezes. “Wait, what?”

“Yeah. I mean, don’t get me wrong that was my actual dream job, buuuut-”

“Riker is crazy?” Beckett dryly supplies.

“I thought you were crazy,” Boimler lets out a whooshing breath. “Like I seriously thought you were the most batshit, insane person I’d ever met, hands down. But Riker is certifiable.”

Beckett grins. She can’t suppress it and she’s too tired to try. “So you’re saying I’m preferable.”

“I will take you any day of the week over that.”

“Sounds like a compliment.”

“It is.”

“Hmm.” She eyes him critically.

“Soooo,” he draws out the word. “Am I forgiven?”

Beckett picks his shirt up off the end of the biobed and throws it at his face. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” He pulls it over his head, causing his hair to stick up in the back. Beckett suppresses the urge to smooth it down.

“I like watching you squirm,” she replies. “It soothes my massively inflated ego.”

Boimler barks out a laugh, easing himself out of the biobed carefully. Beckett turns to go--he still has to talk with Dr. T’Ana and possibly her mom over the transfer, and give his full report to Riker--but stops as he catches her wrist in one hand.

“Hey. Thanks.”

Beckett’s heartbeat rackets up a few notches. Stop that, she thinks at it and then stops because thinking at your own organs is weird. “Don’t worry about it,” she says, voice even. “You would have done the same for me.”

It’s true. Boimler may be a bit of a bastard and sometimes a shitty friend, but she has no doubt he’d have come running if it’d been the Cerritos accosted.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Sometimes I feel like that’s all I do with you.”

“What?”

He drops his gentle grip on her wrist. “Nothing. Just.” He shrugs, looking cagey. “I know I’ve been a bit of a-”

“Bitch?”

“--yeah, that lately. But. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you. And that’s why I’m coming back. Because-because you deserve to know that. That you're my best friend, too.”

Her face heats up. “Yeah, well,” she mumbles. “Whatever.” Jams her hands into her pockets. “Don’t think I’m just gonna forget everything because you-”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine.” He gives her a lopsided smile. “I just thought you should know.”

____

Beckett can feel the blush on her cheekbones until she reaches her bunk. Fuck, she thinks. Fuuuuuck.

She opens up her mental file on Boimler, crossing out whatever she had in there before. Best friend, she replaces it with. Stares at it for a long moment. Erases it. Puts it back.

Bradward “Brad” Boimler. Best friend. Loves classic rock. Dyes his hair purple. Has made some improvements, but still needs to loosen up a bit. Probably needs to get laid. Definitely needs to get laid.

You could help with that.

Best friend. She underlines in the file. You don’t have feelings like that for your friends.

Beckett throws herself into her bunk. She had the horrible, sneaking suspicion that Brad Boimler’s file was about to get a lot longer.

_______

#beckett mariner #brad boimler #marinler #boimler x mariner #d'vana tendi #sam rutherford #star trek lower decks #star trek lower decks fic #star trek lower decks fanfic

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writhingcreature · 4 years

Text

Breathe ~ the Doctor (part 3)

A/n: Sorry that I’m fixating on this series I just? I love this idea a lot lol. Also, I know I posted this on the wrong account but it would literally be like an extra half hour of work to fix this and I am not in the MOOD so I hope y’all can forgive my idiocy lmao

Word Count: 9100+

MASTERLIST

"What are you laughing at?" Y/n demanded, his face going red at Rose's giggles which had not stopped since Y/n had walked in the room.

The blonde shook her head, thoroughly amused it seemed. "You've been around the Doctor too much!" She accused. "Since when do you wear white button up shirts? Long sleeves and collar and all."

Y/n seemed suddenly defensive. "I like it, and I made it my own. See, no jacket, and I roll my sleeves up! With a nice vest, I could pass as a business man at the end of the day, or a farmer, or whatever." He sighed, allowing himself a smile. "Everywhere we go is never we expect to be. How many times have you gone running about in something not fitting for the time we turn up at? No matter where we go, the Doctor always fits in. I thought maybe taking after him would do me some good." He shrugged. "Makes me feel more professional too."

Rose gave a short chuckle once more before letting a long breath out as she looped her arm with Y/n. Y/n didn't know what Casandra had done to their little group, but ever since the trio had parted in that hallway when Y/n had stayed behind with Chip, things had been very different between him, Rose, and the Doctor. Y/n and the Doctor had long since stopped correcting people when they were called a couple. The Doctor and Rose as well. Y/n and Rose though... they'd been friends so long. Two people teetering on an edge they both tried not to fall over, thinking the other person didn't care at all. Yet here they were, secretly in love with each other this whole time. What a pair of fools.

"Well you look good in it, I won't lie. Especially with the sleeves rolled up," Rose complimented.

Y/n looked at her, his face colored with amusement but also embarrassment at her kind words. "What is it with men wearing collared button ups, sleeves rolled up, that does it for so many people?"

Shrugging was as much of an answer as Y/n got from Rose, because just then the pair arrived back in the main controls room. Where they were within earshot of the Doctor. The man turned around when they entered, and stopped short when he saw Y/n. "Well you look..." Y/n blushed even harder and Rose looked between the two men before scoffing.

"Oh, you two. Tell him he looks nice Doctor, you look silly like that, not saying how you feel when everyone knows what you're thinking anyway."

The Doctor cleared his throat. "You look very nice, Y/n."

"Thank you, Doctor," Y/n replied.

Rose dropped his arm, moving further into the room to divert attention from the sudden awkwardness. It really didn't make sense. The Doctor had been romantically involved plenty of times, Y/n knew that for fact. Speaking of, Y/n had as well. The Doctor had even been married and had children. That had been ages though... perhaps he was rusty when it came to romance. Maybe it was just Y/n, who was far less experienced and completely clueless how to treat a situation where the rules were not as clear as the feelings they had for each other. They had all this energy, but no idea how to utilize it. Rose, as usual, was the one who seemed to be able to handle it. Perhaps it was that she'd been in several serious relationships, but she always directed that unspoken energy in the right direction, then let it go when it was time. She had perfect timing, actually. It was rather impressive.

"What about my outfit, Doctor? Do you think it'll do?" She asked casually.

As always, the Doctor took the opportunity to change the subject. Y/n wondered passively if things between them would have really gone anywhere without Rose. God, what would they do without her? "The late 1970's?" The Doctor thought aloud, returning Y/n's mind to what was happening now. "You'd be better off in a bin bag. Hold on, listen to this," he added in a rush to cover his rather rude comment.

Rock music began playing suddenly, and everyone's attention turned to that. "I've heard this before. My mum used to listen to it."

Rose looked at Y/n in surprise, but the Doctor knew what it meant to far too casually bring up people one had lost and not want it looked at further, so he was the one who continued the conversation to other things this time. "Ian Dury and the Blockheads," he said with a grin. "Number on in 1979! Your mum had a popular taste, Y/n."

At that Rose got rather bright, her smile so wide that you could hear it when she spoke. "You're a punk!" The Doctor began to sing, and Y/n joined him, both of them grinning at each other as they had their fun with the music. "You both are, I can't believe it. A pair of punks. You, Doctor, are specifically some old punk with a bit of rockabilly thrown in."

"Do you want to go see him?" The Doctor asked, enjoying the banter.

Leaning against one of the rails, Y/n watched the two in quiet amusement as he often did with them. They talked too much for Y/n to keep up with. He was usually at a slower pace than them, and he preferred to watch them go at it anyway. "How do you mean?" Rose asked. "In concert?"

"Well what else is the TARDIS for?" The Doctor pointed out. "Also, Y/n, don't just stand there. You need to be watching me I said, you have to learn what I'm doing and then I'll teach you why I'm doing it and what everything means. You learn by doing I know, but you have to watch first."

Y/n smirked. "Oh don't worry Doctor, I'm watching plenty."

"Oi!" The Doctor pointed a warning finger at Y/n, but his face was not angry as much as it was red like Y/n's had been before. "Behave, you."

"I think not," Y/n disregarded.

"I'm sorry are we ignoring the fact that we might go to a concert in the 1970's? How cool would that be Y/n? I bet your mum would love that."

Y/n darkened a bit. "No, my mum hated crowds. She did like the music though." It wasn't bitter, but thoughtful. The same tone the Doctor used when he talked about his old life, before the Time War. Rose had noticed how similar the men were becoming. More and more very day, and quickly too.

"You know, I can take you anywhere," the Doctor told Y/n. Anywhere in space, but also in time. In the past. We can watch all the greatest moments of history, no problem. We're not just here to fix the world, we could just learn to. Take an easy trip for once."

There was something Y/n had been wanting to see for ages. Ever since Rose had seen her dad, way back when he died and she held him. Back before the Doctor was this man who he was now. He knew he couldn't do it though. Not because he would try and save his parents - he had learned from Rose. No, he just didn't want the Doctor or Rose to see back then. He didn't want them to know. He had been curious though... For so long. He couldn't remember them much, and had forgotten their voices ages ago.

"I'd like a concert," Y/n answered. "What do you think, Rose?"

She gave a small smile, as if she'd seen Y/n's thoughts in that moment but was too polite to call him out. "Ian Durey and the Blockheads it is." The TARDIS jerked when the Doctor began to go, but that was usual. What was not usual, was when the Doctor took a hammer from under the desk and began to slam parts of the control panel with it. Needless to say, when they all landed Y/n was the first one out. He felt annoyed seeing that. Even... a little sick to his stomach. He didn't know why - he'd never been motion sick before. He thought best not to question it.

Not that he wasn't plenty distracted when he and the other two exited the TARDIS to realize they were absolutely not anywhere near a concert being set up in 1979. In fact, they were in-

"1879," the Doctor realized when they were faced with men on horses wearing red coats and cocking guns they pointed into the trio's faces. "Same difference." Y/n glared at him, but the Doctor only winked in response.

"You will explain your presence," one of the armed men demanded. "And the nakedness of this girl." Y/n smirked and as if sensing it, without looking over, Rose elbowed him. Now was not the time to be flaunting how right he had been to dress the way he had, and not the way he usually did.

When the Doctor spoke again, he had a Scottish accent on and Y/n's eyes widened in surprise. Since when could he do that? "Are we in Scotland?"

"How can you be ignorant of that?" The same man spoke again, seeming seconds away of shooting them all. Y/n wasn't concerned for himself... except he had no idea how to explain why the bullets wouldn't kill him. The more pressing matter was definitely the other two though.

The Doctor began to bullshit and Y/n felt his muscles tense. "Oh- I- I'm dazed and confused. I've been chasing this wee naked child over hill and over dale. My partner is usually the navigator, so I trust him to lead the way." The Doctor motioned to Y/n with a head tilt, then looked at Rose. "Isn't that right, you timorous beastie?" He seemed a little hesitant, and Y/n had the thought pass of how fast he'd have to move to cover both of them when the bullets began firing.

Rose only made it worst. "Och, aye. I've been... oot about aboot."

"Please stop," Y/n whispered, shaking his head. Y/n hadn't heard many Scottsmen speak, but after the Doctor's fairly believable go at it, her complete failure was even clear to him.

"Hoots, mon?" Rose tried again.

"No Y/n's right, seriously, stop," the Doctor followed up.

The man on the horse spoke again. "Will you identify yourself, sir?"

"I'm Doctor James McCrimmon from the township of Balamory," the Doctor answered, switching gears again immediately. "I have my credentials if I may?" He moved his hand toward his pocket, drawing out his psychic paper when given the go ahead. He flashed it at the man. "As you can see, a doctorate from the University of Edinburgh." He showed it around willingly, and Y/n felt quite proud of the Doctor's ability to pull off a lie. Not to those who knew him, but when it mattered at least. "I trained under Doctor Bell himself."

Suddenly a woman's voice rang out. "Let them approach."

The uniformed man hesitated. "I don't think that's wise, ma'am."

"Let them approach," the woman demanded again, this time with attitude.

Obviously he didn't want to, but the woman must have been the final say because he finally conceded with, "You will approach the carriage, and show all due deference."

So they approached. The carriage door opened and there sat an older woman who looked rather comfortable in the company of strangers. "Rose, Y/n," the Doctor began. "Might I introduce you to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of India and Defender of the Faith."

"Oh my god," Y/n whispered, eyes widening. Aliens were one thing, but someone so staple in their own history? That was what tripped Y/n up, out of all the things they'd seen. This was just too close to home. Too hard to separate and look at logically.

Rose handled it better. "Rose Tyler, ma'am," she greeted politely. "And... my apologies, for being so naked."

"I've had five daughters," the Queen dismissed. "It's nothing to me. Who's the young man on the other side of you now, who looks at me as if I've grown three heads?"

This time it was the Doctor who elbowed Y/n. "I-" Y/n cleared his throat. "Y/n, ma'am. Sorry."

She smiled, obviously enjoying herself. "No worries." Her eyes moved to the Doctor. "How about you, Doctor? Why don't you show me those credentials?" He did, handing them over. "Why didn't you say so immediately?" She seemed baffle,d and suddenly Y/n was nervous as to what she'd found. "It states clearly here that you've been appointed by the Lord Provost as my protector."

"Does it?" He looked at Y/n, who shrugged. "Yes he does," he continued, more confident. "Good. Good. Erm, then let me ask, why is Your Majesty travelling by road when there's a train all the way in Aberdeen?"

"A tree on the line," she answered smoothly.

"By accident?" The Doctor pressed.

Queen Victoria seemed to find that question tiresome. "I am the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Everything around me tends to be planned?"

"An assassination attempt?" The Doctor seemed to be trying to understand something that seemed trivial to Y/n, but he had long since learned to not question the Doctor.

"What seriously?" Rose seemed stunned, just as Y/n was gathering his senses, as if she'd taken it into her to give him a break. "There's people out to kill you?"

"I'm quite used to staring down the barrel of a gun," the Queen reassured, though it wasn't reassuring at all.

The man on the horse from earlier spoke again. "Sir Robert Macleish lives but ten miles hence. We've sent word ahead. He'll shelter us for tonight, then we can reach our destination in the morning."

"This Doctor and his... timorous beastie will come with us." There was humor in her eyes. "As well as the silent one." Y/n ducked his head in embarrassment. The guard, which seemed to be what the man on the horse was, accepted that and then got them all moving again. He made a comment about the coming of nightfall, and Y/n found himself pleasantly surprised when the Queen responded, "Indeed. And there are stories of wolves in these parts. Fanciful tales, intended to scare children, but good for the blood I think." She looked ahead. "Drive on."

They all began walking and Y/n felt himself get awkward with all the guards watching him and he moved closer to the Doctor, nearly reaching out to take the man's hand. And then a few guards gave him a look of startled disgust and Y/n remembered what time they were in and felt a pang in his chest. He had to pretend all over again. The Doctor and Rose could be together wherever they were - whenever - but Y/n had to restrain himself. He dropped behind at the thought, distracting the movement that had been him about to reach out as pushing hair out of his face. It didn't fool the guards who knew what he had been doing anyway, so Y/n dropped back behind the Doctor and Rose. They looked at him but he just looked away, swallowing his awkwardness.

They arrived toward evening. The Queen was helped out as the Master of the house approached. "Your Majesty," the man greeted, bowing deeply.

"Sir Robert," the Queen returned brightly. "My apologies for the emergency. And how is Lady Isobel?"

"She's..." And then he hesitated, and Y/n felt in his gut that same feeling he always got when he felt something was wrong. He found himself questioning whether the man's wife was sick, or something else entirely was going on. "Indisposed, I'm afraid. She's gone to Edinburgh for the season.." He hesitated again, and Y/n felt that same pang. This time he was quite sure something was wrong. "And she's taken the cook with her, the kitchens are barely stocked. I wouldn't blame Your Majesty if you wanted to ride on."

"Not at all," the Queen chuckled. "I've had quite enough carriage exercise, and this is charming, if rustic. It's my first visit to this house. My late husband spoke of it often, the Torchwood Estate."

At that Y/n jerked. "I'm sorry, the what Estate?" Everyone looked at him like he'd gone mad.

"Torchwood," Sir Robert answered. "It was my father's house." The Queen hadn't objected to Y/n cutting in, so the man continued. The way Y/n was looking at him, Sir Robert seemed to see that the man was thinking, and thinking was what he needed in that moment. "It's a very old house you see. Lots of dangers in the old wood. That's why my wife est you see. She's grown tired of the keep up and needed a break. Are you sure you don't want to continue?" The man looked directly into Y/n's eyes and Y/n felt his heart stop. What was he trying to tell him?

"Quite sure," Queen Victoria interrupted. "Now, shall we go inside?" Sir Robert fought a frown when he nodded, seeming to want to run away. The panic in his eyes was so clear to Y/n, he was shocked no one else could see it. Y/n couldn't interrupt the Queen again though - he'd already tested his boundary. They began to go in, Y/n's mind racing as he scanned the Estate, looking for something out of place.

Then his eyes landed on the staff. They were all bald, and staring at Y/n like they wanted to destroy him. The Doctor moved up next to Y/n. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Y/n responded. "Yet." Despite how he wanted to stop it, he had no reason other than his gut feeling. What was he to do but be wary if nothing else? So they went inside.

The group headed for a room with what looked to be a gigantic telescope. "And this," the Queen began. "I take it, is the famous endeavor."

"All my father's work," Sir Robert answered. "Built by his hand in his final years. It became something of an obsession. He spent his money on this, rather than caring for the house himself."

"I wish I'd met him, I like him." The Doctor was smiling and Y/n almost rolled his eyes. He'd know all about obsessions overtaking your personal life, wouldn't he? "The thing's beautiful, can I..." He motioned to the telescope.

"Help yourself," Sir Robert allowed.

Rose and the Doctor surged forward to inspect it, but Y/n hung back, slowly dawdling past the butlers who were standing too close to just be there for no reason. The others began to talk, but Y/n focused on them. "You guys follow your Master around a lot, don't you?"

The bald man in front responded. "How else are we to attend to his needs?"

Y/n shrugged. "I suppose that's fair, except didn't Sir Robert say that the kitchens were poorly staffed and understocked? Doesn't it make sense that you'd be cleaning such a large estate, or working in those kitchens which seem to need such work?"

Eyes locked hard, it seemed to be a contest to see who'd blink first. The man was obviously impressed when Y/n won, if still irritated in Y/n's pressing. "Are you disapproving of how I do my job?"

Shrugging casually, Y/n stepped past them finally. "Not my right to do so. That would be Sir Robert's right to say or not say."

"What about me now?" Sir Robert piped up.

"I was just saying that your staff hovering so much surprises me, since you were stating how the kitchens needed some help. I of course don't mean to offend or tell you how to run things, Sir Robert. I..." He hesitated, the lie coming to him too easily. "I come from a rather poor family. I don't know how things like this works, and it fascinates me."

Sir Robert was the only one who saw through the lie - other than Rose, who was paying attention closely now, cued into Y/n's habits that showed when he was suspicious about something. Sir Robert hesitated, as if considering using the excuse to dismiss the men, but then decided against it - that same fear flashing in his eyes again. "I like to have them around. With my wife gone, they keep me company."

Y/n nodded in understanding, but the two men locked eyes and Y/n knew immediately. There was something up here. It seemed too late though. He had no proof and if these men were dangerous enough to control Sir Robert so in his own house, they'd doomed themselves the second they walked in the door. Y/n had to be careful about this - especially because it seemed he's just placed a huge target on his back.

The Doctor spoke, shifting the subject. "It's a bit rubbish." Only then did they all remember the telescope. Even the Queen had been distracted, looking between Sir Robert and Y/n like she was picking up on the signals between the two men, but didn't know what they meant. "How many prisms has it got? Way too many!" The Doctor stood from where he'd been crouched to inspect the instrument before. "The magnification's over the top. That's a stupid kind of..." He turned to Rose. "Am I being rude again?"

"Yep," she confirmed, smiling.

"But it's pretty!" The Doctor continued. "Really, it's very pretty."

Y/n got distracted after that, his mind wandering as he ran through all the possibilities to try and figure out what was happening. He could talk to the Doctor later to get feedback, but he'd at least like to have some theories to throw out when the time came. They weren't aliens, surely. The Doctor seemed to be able to pick up on that sort of thing eventually. If that was the case, Y/n sure wouldn't know. What else could it be.

Someone nudged Y/n and he looked up to see Sir Robert of all people. He had reached out to touch Y/n. "You Doctor seems interested in children's stories and magic and the stars. How do you put up with him?" He was making a joke, but that's not why he had gotten Y/n's attention to tell it.

Smiling came easy. He knew Sir Robert had the answers and that he wanted to tell Y/n. All he could do for now was give hints, and that's all Y/n needed for now. "Stories, eh? I like those myself. What kind of stories."

"One about a wolf around these parts, like I told you about in the carriage," the Queen answered. The fact that Sir Roberts purposefully stayed quiet made Y/n listen more than it seemed he was supposed to. "His father and my husband were quite fond of it, and the Doctor asked him to tell it to us. I'd be lying if I said i wasn't curious myself, actually."

"It's said that-" Sir Roberts began.

"Excuse me, sir." the bald man from earlier interrupted, and when Y/n and Sir Roberts locked eyes again, Y/n looked over carefully, taking in the man, trying to pull secrets out with just a look. "Perhaps Her Majesty's party could go their rooms now. It's almost dark."

"Well that was rude," Y/n spoke up. Again all eyes were on him, and this time the Doctor and Y/n were picking up on the way Y/n and the bald man were glaring at each other, eyes locked. "The Master of the house was talking, and he was just about to tell us something very interesting. Even I wait until people are done talking, and I'm considered insolent." There was tangible tension in the room. Tension that seemed apparent only to those who could pick up on Y/n's small tells, and those who knew first hand that this was not as it appeared."

"Please forgive me, sir," the man apologized flatly. There was a threat in his voice, one that made Y/n go silent - especially when Sir Robert shot him a panicked look. "I only figured that you'd all want to rest before dinner."

Damn, that was a good excuse.

"What a lovely idea," the Queen gleefully spoke. "And some clothes for Miss Tyler, perhaps. Sir Robert, surely your wife left something behind?" The man nodded. "See to it. We shall dine at 7, and talk more of this.. wolf." At that the bald man simmered, and Y/n realized the connection. "After all, there is a full moon tonight."

Y/n's eyes widened. He had to hear this story... though, he didn't think he did have to actually.

The Doctor followed Y/n to his room. "This isn't where you'll be staying Doctor," one of the bald men said.

"I'll find it in a bit, just leave the door open. I need to find my friend." The man dressed as a butler hesitated, but couldn't find a good enough reason to stop this from happening, so he nodded and left. When the door closed behind them and they were safe from those outside, the Doctor rounded on Y/n. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"The stories they mentioned earlier? They're true, and the men - the bald men - they're in one it. I don't think Sir Robert's wife is even gone off for some weather or old house, I think she's captured. Or dead." He shook his head. "I have no proof, only hunches and small noticings. But I'm telling you, Doctor. A wolf that only comes out on the full moon? The way the man interrupted Sir Robert from sharing the story. I think it's true, and I think it's coming after us tonight." It dawned on him then. "Or... after the Queen. No one else here alive is important, who should be here."

The Doctor considered all of this. "I believe you Y/n, I do. But we need proof, and that means we need to lay low and play innocent. You're brilliant, all you've gathered in such short time. I need you a bit longer before they try to kill you though and everything goes wrong. Do you trust me?" Y/n nodded immediately.

Rather unexpectedly, the Doctor grabbed Y/n's face and pulled him into a kiss then. He stepped backward, pressing his back to the door. Y/n kissed him back instantly, leaning into him. He hesitated, but when the Doctor kept kissing him, he found himself unable to help himself getting lost in it. His fingers threaded into the Doctor's hair and pulled their bodies closer. The Doctor's hands wandered, pulling and tugging on Y/n's shirt.

Just as quickly as it began, the kiss stopped and the Doctor was pushing him away. "Alright." The his voice was a little lower, his eyes blown just a bit. "I've been wanting to do that all day."

Y/n scoffed. "You snogged me like that to, what, blow off steam?"

The Doctor bit his lip, shaking his head before orienting his thoughts again. "I needed a reason to be in here that wouldn't incriminate us. They can suspect you know something, so you keep the attention on you. You're the diversion. While they're worried about you finding out, I'll poke around and see what I can find. They won't expect me because-"

"They'll only think you came in here to snog me," Y/n realized.

"Not a thing you can fake, the results of that. It leaves a nice touch, the blown out eyes and the... the lips." Y/n realized that the Doctor's lips were a little bit more red than usual. "Anyway, pleasure and business mix every once in a while - grand time when it does. See you at dinner."

Y/n rested his forehead on the door when the Doctor left.

What in the world was he going to do with this man?

The smile hadn't left his face when he sat down for dinner, and despite him straightening his shirt, there was still a heat to his face. The Doctor wasn't much better. The affects were missed by everyone who wasn't paying attention, but were picked up by the ones that mattered. The butlers who obviously were not butlers. And the Doctor's planned seemed to work. They immediately dismissed the Doctor and focused their attention on Y/n. He was probably in danger... not that he could die, which would hopefully be the worst thing that could happen tonight.

The man who seemed to be in charge of the bald men stepped forward, speaking as he had when he'd challenged Y/n earlier and lost. "Your companion begs an apology. Her clothing has somewhat delayed her." Y/n's heart stopped. His grip on the table turned his knuckles white.

By some miracle, the Doctor seemed as if he had no worries at all. "Oh, that's alright. Save her a wee bit of ham." Y/n's mind was racing again, his eyes focusing on Sir Robert. The man seemed to be apologetic, but not too sorrowful. Y/n was picking up on the man's emotions quickly as he watched him more and more. He only hoped he was right. Either way, it really didn't matter. Either Rose was trapped and they had time to work this out and save her, or... she was too far past saving to take risks anyway. And if Y/n left this room, he'd be doing it alone, and that would put him in line next to be carted away. The Doctor needed some help at the very least.

"Besides, we're all waiting on Sir Robert!" the Doctor exclaimed, breaking the men out of their stare and grabbing their attention again. "You promised us a tale of nightmares."

"Indeed," Victoria agreed. "Since my husband's death I find myself with more of a taste for supernatural fiction."

"You must miss him," the Doctor vocalized. It was then that Y/n thought back to the first time the Doctor lost someone. His own wife, even. The mother of his children... If anyone understood, it would be him. The Doctor understood loss better than anyone.

As if seeing that understanding in the man across from her, the Queen allowed herself a moment to be vulnerable. It was a very Y/n thing to do. Perhaps... Y/n was influencing the Doctor, the same way the Doctor was influencing Y/n. "Oh, completely." She paused, the air in the room growing heavy with emotion. "And that's the charm of a ghost story, isn't it? Not the scares and chills, that's just for children, but the hope pf some contact with the great beyond. We all want some message from that place. It's the Creator's greatest mystery that we're allowed no such consolation." Her eyes became far away and Y/n looked at his hands. What would he have left behind if he'd never become immortal? What would people leave behind with him, when their time came? That thought. The thought of realizing yet again that he was going to lose one person after the other forever... except the Doctor. They were all the other had left now. The only person they each had a chance of keeping forever. "The dead stay silent, and we must wait." Her voice grew small, and then she shook her head and switched gears to being chipper once more. "Come, begin your tale, Sir Robert. There's a chill in the air. The wind is howling. Tell us of monsters."

Under the table, Y/n let his knuckles rub against the Doctor's hand softly. In response, the brunette man turned his palm upward, allowing Y/n to interlace their fingers. Both relaxed.

"The story goes back three hundred years," Sir Robert began. "Every full moon the howling rings through the valley. Next morning, live stock is found ripped apart and d-" he cut off, that same terrified look crossing his face. "Devoured." Y/n felt his leg twitch.

The head of the guard laughed off the spook in the air by saying, "Oh, tales like this just disguise the work of thieves. Steal a sheep and blame a wolf - simple as that."

Robert was having none of that. "But sometimes a child goes missing," he insisted, pushing it to try and drive his point home. It seemed to be written off as dramatics by everyone else in the room. Everyone except Y/n who was listening intently, and the Doctor, who Y/n knew was listening even though he gave no note of it. "Once in a generation, a boy will vanish from his homestead.

Y/n knew the man holding his hand had questions, but if they were going the route of keeping attention on Y/n, Y/n had to be the one to ask. "Is there anything that tells what this thing looks like?"

"Drawings and wood carvings," Sir Robert affirmed. "And it's not merely a wolf, it's more than that. This is a man who becomes a wolf." He drove each word at Y/n, saying much more than just a story. What had he seen? Risked, to tell Y/n this?

"A werewolf," Y/n voiced, resting his elbows on the table.

"What a neat little story." The Doctor was smiling, shaking his head in the same way the head of the guard was.

"My father didn't treat it as a story," Sir Robert said, but his interest was as invested in convincing the Doctor as the bald men were worried he was someone to worry about. The plan was working, at least. "He said it was fact. He even claimed to have communed with the beast, to have learned its purpose. I should have listened."

The bald man began to move and Y/n went into protective mode. "Of course, it was your father's passion. I'm sure you miss him and wished to have listened more. Engaged with him." Sir Robert half halfheartedly nodded.

"The thing was, his work was hindered. He made enemies." This time Sir Robert focused on Y/n purposefully, eyes boring into Y/n's very soul. "There's a monastery in the Glen of St Catherine. The Brethren opposed my father's investigations."

"Perhaps they thought his work ungodly," the Queen suggested. That was when it clicked for Y/n, his eyes wandering to the bald men. The men who were monks, and who were also mumbling incoherently nonsense in a foreign language that set Y/n's hair standing up.

"That's what I thought," Sir Robert agreed. "But now I wonder. What if they had a different reason for wanting to keep the story quiet? What if they turned from God and worshiped the wolf?"

"I think..." Y/n drawled, his hand tightening around the Doctor's. "It's time to make a new plan, Doctor. I don't think its going to do any good to play nice."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Right." He turned around rather sharply, dropping Y/n's hand in favor of moving to his feet. They weren't getting any more information now - they had to find Rose. Chaos broke out, the Queen and the head guard trying to figure out why the Doctor and Y/n were so upset, Sir Robert apologizing because they had his wife, and the Doctor demanding to know where Rose was. There sat Y/n in the middle of it all, trying to be more productive than the confusion and the guilt and the yelling at people who were not going to respond.

"Doctor!" Y/n called, trying to knock sense into him.

The man looked over and he took a deep breath in. "Sir Robert, come on!" The three men took off down the hall. Sir Robert lead the other two to the basement, where a bunch of people were chained up and trying to pull to freedom as a werewolf grew to a dangerous form not even five feet from them.

Rose was so amazing, lord.

"Where have you been?" The blonde demanded.

"I missed you too," Y/n shot back. The joke didn't last long though, because soon they were all distracted by everyone scattering in a grab for freedom. All the women but Rose were rushed to the kitchens and the men all but Y/n and the Doctor were armed. There was a noise and the Doctor dipped from the room for a moment only to come bolting back, grabbing Rose's hand. She grabbed Y/n's and the train pull got them all out of the room and stay together at the same time. They made it just behind the line of guns just in time for the weapons to go off as the wolf itself turned around the corner in full force.

The Doctor took charge when the thing bolted from the bullets. "All right, you men, we should retreat upstairs. Come with me."

"I'll not retreat," the ground's keeper insisted. "The battle's done. There's no creature on God's earth could survive such an assault."

"You think not?" Y/n demanded, in no mood for people to act afool. He snagged a gun from one of the men, thrusting the thing into the Doctor's hand guiding the end of the barrel to his throat. "Shoot me please, Doctor." Without hesitation, the Doctor obeyed, knowing Y/n would be okay in a few seconds. There were some startled screams and a moment of darkness as Y/n passed out only a few seconds, but then he awoke and men stood around him, stunned. "Like I said," Y/n grumbled as he stood up again. "You think not? That's what I thought, listen to the Doctor now."

Soon they were all heading their way upstairs, just in time for the halls behind them to echo with the thing's roar. "Well at least you're alive," the Doctor reminded as the ground keeper's face grew ashen pale. They ran up, Sir Robert calling the Queen. She was running down the stairs to greet them.

"What's going on?" The older woman demanded. "I heard such horrible noises."

"Ma'am, we've got to get out," Sir Robert urged. "But what of Father Angelo, is he still here?"

The woman hesitated then responded, "Captain Reynolds disposed of him." Sure.

The Doctor, who'd left the room to check the front door, returned just then to deliver only bad news. "The front door is boarded shut. Pardon me, Your Majesty, you'll have to leg it out a window." The group moved to a window, only to get shot at and have it quickly proven that windows were as much not an options as the sealed door was.

"I reckon the monkey-boys want us to stay inside," the Doctor sighed.

"Do they know who I am?" the Queen demanded.

"Yeah," Rose answered. "That's why they want you. The wolf's got you lined up for a... a biting."

The Queen was not having that. "Now stop this talk. There can't be an actual wolf." Just then a howl broke through the house and Y/n had to bite back a laugh.

In the end, believing or not, they all took off running (after some snarky banter, but that was usual) and were all barely saved as they turned the corner and the wolf almost took them over, just in time for that head guard who Y/n realized he did not know the name of. The man tried to stay behind to give the others time to retreat, but now it was Y/n's turn not to tolerate nonsense.

"Now you listen to me," Y/n snapped with such authority that even the Queen didn't speak and payed attention. "I don't care who you are or what you've done or believe. I've got you all alive this far, and I've got plenty of witnesses that says I will do much better than you will facing down something that will absolutely kill you. Y/n ripped the gun from the man's hand. "Now go!"

"Why are you always staying behind?" Rose demanded, visibly stressed. "Just because you come back to life doesn't mean it won't hurt when that thing slices you up."

Y/n sighed. "It's my shtick, Rose, haven't you realized yet? I'm not good in stress anyway, I'm good for sacrificing myself and dealing with pain and doing the worst bits. You two are the brains, and you'll need as many hands as possible. Go."

"But-" Rose began.

"GO!" Y/n interrupted. "We can talk later."

Rose didn't listen at first. Instead she popped up on her tippy toes and caught Y/n's lips in hers. "You're an amazing man, Y/n." Y/n smiled and they finally all went, leaving Y/n behind like always to face the biggest problem on his own. It only made sense that he'd been given immortality. He was meant for this role. What he'd said had been truth, and everyone knew it. Y/n was the one who took the hardest hits because he could stand them better than anyone else. He was perhaps the only one who could stand them at all. Rose was right too, it didn't stop it from hurting, but he'd rather someone not die to spare him a bit of aching.

Everyone made it into the room, but Rose lingered, and that was why she was the one who got to watch Y/n get ripped apart. The last thing Y/n saw before the world went black and his bones snapped like twigs was the Doctor pulling Rose into the room so Y/n was out of sight.

When Y/n awoke again, he was too afraid to move in case it reawakened the memories of the last time his body had moved. When it had broken and snapped and caved in and his existence had become pain and loss. He just lay there, breathing, alone and cold in the silent darkness. He expected some kind of soreness or stiffness, but neither bothered him. His body was completely healed as if it had never once had anything wrong with it ever.

It was only when he heard a scream that he made his way to his feet, running after it to see what was wrong. As if on cue, there was Sir Robert standing with an ax or a sword or something, facing down that stupid beast. "Okay," Y/n growled, walking up. Sir Robert's eyes went wide. "Yes, I'm still alive. Now get into those doors you idiot, dying for a cause is my job!"

Sir Robert looked at Y/n, reaching out a hand to rest on his shoulder. "There is more to life than dying to protect everyone else, Y/n. You're brave, and amazing, but don't take this from me. I need to atone. I need to-" A roar echoed and the two men turned to see the wolf. Y/n stepped forward, screaming back. The wolf saw Y/n and froze, stunned.Y/n could practically see the thing recalling the memory of killing the man who stood before him now, completely fine.

"You think you will fear nothing," Y/n snarled, hunched over with his lip curled back. He looked quite wolfish himself, and the actual roof in the hallway seemed to take a step back. "Get back. GET BACK!" And by some insanity, the thing obeyed. "You're right, Robert. There is more to life than dying for a cause. You have a wife who cares about you, and I have watched far too many people die. Let me make a difference. Let me be the one who saves lives for once. Please, go inside." Sir Robert hesitated then nodded, stepping away from the door and into the adjacent hallway, out of range of the beast. There was a moment's pause where no one was sure what to do. Then the door behind Y/n opened and a hand wrapped around his arm and he was yanked back. The beast ran after him, whatever spell broken, and then-

Light.

So much light.

Y/n ended up on the ground, curled in a ball away from the light. He was so tired. He didn't ever want to move from that spot. Perhaps he could not negotiate never, but he could claim now. So he closed his eyes and did not move for a very long time. Because he was allowed that, I think. And so did everyone else.

When Y/n did move again, it was only to walk out of the estate and across the land they'd crossed what seemed ages ago to make his way back to the TARDIS, leaving the wrapping up to the Doctor and Rose.

He had a long time to himself in the quiet. A very long time. Far too long a time. He leaned against the control panel, hands flat on the controls, eyebrows knit together.

Finally, he spoke.

"I know you gave me his memories," Y/n told the control panel. "I know you were there when Rose was using your power. I felt you. Heard your voice. You told me his story. One that wasn't yours to tell. And now I know his life - his entire life, as if I lived it myself - and I have memories that aren't mine. That don't belong to me. How am I supposed to tell him that? How would I ever expect him to be okay with me knowing EVERYTHING? His life is clearer to me than my own." Y/n sighed, rubbing his face. "I can't die, but I can save people. I can lessen the burden he carries on his shoulders. The way he remembers each and every death and it hurts him. I took that upon myself, you know. And the wait of it all. The weight he must have, knowing that he can save one life and strand me and Rose here, or that he won't be able to save anyone's life ever again.

"Not to mention, he can die! He only regenerates when he's in the process of dying. If someone kills him before he regenerates, that's it. It's over. No more Doctor. For the first time maybe ever, it's not him who had to be afraid of losing someone because they might not live as long as him." Y/n sighed, feeling his heart fall slowly into his stomach. "Not to mention... I'm going to have to say goodbye to Rose someday, aren't I?" He looked up at the TARDIS around him, tears coming to his eyes. "How am I ever going to say goodbye to her now that we...?" His head fell forward as he sighed. After a second his hands tightened into fists as he stared at the floor under his feet. His gaze hardened. "I won't, you hear me? Not for a long time. A REALLY long time. We have so much time left together. She won't die or leave us. Not unless by choice, and I don't think she would leave if given the option. I'm going to protect her. You hear me?" He pushed off the panel, standing tall. "I don't care if I have to die every time we go out. I'm going to protect everyone."

It was a vow he would learn to regret.

The TARDIS door opened with two very nervous people entering the box that was bigger on the inside, expecting to see a very upset Y/n. Instead, they were greeted by a wide, brilliant smile and sparkling eyes as the man that had left in the middle of the night and spent all that time alone because Rose and the Doctor had to wrap things up with the Queen, leaned against the control panel like he knew they'd been about to enter. "You guys ready to go?"

Rose was the first one to answer. She wasn't smiling. "Y/n?"

The man turned away from her, beginning to distract himself by running his hands along the switches and buttons he wasn't completely familiar with yet. "That's my name. Where do you want to go this time, Rose? I'm sure you'd be a better person to give suggestions, Doctor, but I could shoot some ideas through history if we wanted to stay on Earth."

There was a moment of quiet where the Doctor and Rose had a silent argument before they stopped just in time for Y/n to finally turn around. "Y/n can we talk?" Rose asked gently, her smile small and soft.

Instantly Y/n was shot with terror. "Uh-" He looked at the TARDIS wall, trying to let the light make the horrible feeling in his chest go away. Had they finally decided he was useless and more a burden than anything and wanted him to go home? Was he too reckless and had upset them? Was he getting annoying, wanting to learn how to drive the TARDIS? Had he been rushing things by trying to be with both of them? Had... had they learned that they liked being together and not with him? "Talk about what?" Y/n finally asked, his gaze finally moving from the wall as he turned his back to them, trying to memorize the TARDIS so that he'd remember her as long as possible when he was gone.

Arms suddenly wrapped around his waist, looping under his arms. A face pressed to his back. He tensed, unsure of what was happening. "I love you."

Y/n was stunned. "I love you too, Rose." Her arms loosened, allowing Y/n to turn around to face, her, unsure of what was on her mind. "But?"

"But nothing," the blonde assured. "You just need to understand... losing you is terrible. And I know that you don't stay dead when you die, but- before you were immortal you were bad enough, but now you don't even try to stay alive anymore. It's really got me worried."

This was even more confusing. "I can't die, Rose."

"Do you want to?" That was the Doctor, and when Y/n looked at him, there was a look in his eyes that made Y/n feel terrible. This man had watched his whole planet and everyone he cared about die. After that, he had lost every friend and sometimes even more. The way he looked at Y/n now was not necessarily fear, because he didn't have to worry about Y/n dying. It was exhaustion. It was the face of a man who was tired watching his loved ones die.

"Of course I don't," Y/n answered honestly. Dying sucked. He hadn't had much experience with the process - the worst he'd had was last night when he'd felt his body shatter and then woken up perfectly fine and in one piece, with the memory still clear in his head. He'd felt insane, which had never happened before. None of his experiences dying had been good, and last night had shown him just how terrible it could be. It had also made him wonder... how far did this go? Could he be vaporized and still return completely fine, or if he was reduced to ashes, would he stay dead? Honestly, he didn't want to find out. Vaporizing looked painful and he didn't want that in his head. Not like he had the feeling of teeth ripping his chest and stomach into shreds ingrained in his brain with a clarity that still had him unsettled.

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Why did you?"

Y/n scoffed. "What, you're mad that I died when I did it to save all those people, knowing I would come back?"

That seemed to bother both of them. "We both watched you die last night, Y/n. In really unpleasant ways," Rose said softly, her hand stroking his chest comfortingly, as if to calm him down. He would be lying if he said it didn't work even a little. "You had the Doctor shoot you for goodness sake."

"He did it," Y/n reasoned weakly. "I-" He swallowed. "I didn't think it bothered you. I came back."

"I thought so too," the Doctor agreed. "That's why I did it." There was a short pause where the two men looked at each other, and Y/n was suddenly glad he could only see the Doctor's past feelings and thoughts, and not what was going through the Timelord's head now. "Then I watched you bleed out on that floor, and it was very real and you were very dead, and I have that memory now." He shrugged, obviously as uncomfortable with the conversation as Y/n was.

Y/n wondered absently how long Rose had taken to talk him into doing this at all.

"I'm going to be okay," Y/n reassured.

Something odd happened then. They were still looking at each other when they were hit by the same memory, almost watching it be recalled in the other person's mind. Somehow, that made it even harder to bare.

"I'm going to be okay, Dad, don't worry."

There was terror in every part of my... his body. I knew it more clearly than ever now, even though I also knew that I was seeing it from his eyes. The last time he was a dad with his kid. I was seeing it from his eyes so I knew that it was... both of our bodies, I guess. Just for a moment. For that memory, I allowed myself to make it personal. I allowed myself to become the Doctor, staring at his kid and hoping with ever fiber in his being that they would see each other again when it came time.

"We both will be." The woman smiled, hand reaching out to touch... my face. Her smile was warm and soft and compassionate. The same fear coursing through me, reflected in her eyes. They'd already lost so much. How much more could they all handle?

Y/n looked away, but he didn't miss the bewildered expression on the Doctor's face. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I just... want to be useful, I guess."

Rose's hands gripped Y/n's face, forcing the man to look at her when she spoke to him. "You don't need to be useful, Y/n. You are, don't get me wrong, but that's not why you're here. You're here because you're apart of us, and we care about you, and that is plenty enough. You're here because you chose to be here and then kept choosing to be here despite everything. THAT is the only reason you're here, do you understand me?" After a second, Y/n nodded. "I know you feel obligated to save people, just... please, you're important too. Even if you come back, it's going to start taking its toll on you eventually. Remember that."

Y/n allowed himself to relax into her touch. He looked into her eyes and saw the woman he never met. The care in her eyes matched Rose's, as much as the determination and care. They didn't really look alike, but their love was the same, as it was the same for everyone who felt it - one way or another. "Okay." He smiled, and Rose relaxed. "Is this you asking me not to die?"

Rose chuckled, shaking her head. "I never thought I'd have to ask that of you honestly." She shook her head, her hands dropping. "But no. Just... care about yourself as much as you care about other people. You're important too. That's all I'm asking. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."

That was fair.

"Now," the Doctor said, drawing the attention of the other two. "We have adventuring to do. Any suggestions?" Rose and Y/n parted so Y/n could join the Doctor at the control panel. Rose leaned against the wall across from them, crossing her arms and smiling. She looked at lot happier now. Y/n realized she'd probably been terrified of seeing Y/n die again, carrying a weight with that fear that had drug her down enough that now, she felt light enough to have a bounce in her step. She recognized that it was going to happen again, but at the very least it wouldn't happen often, like it had been.

"You pick," Y/n sighed. "I think you deserve a turn."

The Doctor's face began to light up with a smile. "So be it."

145 notes · View notes

enbeemagical · 3 years

Note

Any hc about our sparkly elf, Aaravos?

If not him, Runaan and Ethari?

OHHHH YES

OH YES INDEEDY

you see, I rp Aaravos, which means he likes to talk in my head even when I would rather he shut up so I can go to sleep. And he has Lots Of Opinions. Occasionally I learn things he’d rather I not know, and that’s where I build from.

okay! Headcanons!!

Due to his experiences, Aaravos doesn’t just hate Avizandum, he’s actually dracophobic.

He’s aroallo-- aromantic and allosexual (pan, usually). (I’m not entirely certain if I show that well in my rp, since Aaravos is so different from me. We’re both arospec, so that probably helps, but he’s allo and I’m ace and the blog is SFW, so idk anything lmao)

Yeah, Aaravos is good at flirting, but it’s never anything serious, you know? Flirting =/= attraction, and in fact flirting = no attraction. He’ll flirt with anything and anyone, but when he flusters and doesn’t quite know what to say, when he cuts the nicknames and teasing? That’s when you know he’s fallen.

Nicknames are just how he talks. He doesn’t bother remembering names unless they’re important to him. He’s sort of like Diana Wynne Jones’s Chrestomanci/Christopher Chant in that, except instead of calling Mr. Baslam “Mr. Bislow” he’d call him “dark mage.” He’ll use nicknames anytime on anyone, but name-names are only for people he respects/cares about. So he might call the dragon king “Avizandum,” because as much as he hates him, Avizandum imprisoned him, and Aaravos can’t help but respect the power it took to imprison him, an Archmage. (I still haven’t convinced him to call Amaya by her name, even though he says he respects her. Wait a sec--)

Revised nickname headcanon: He uses names when he feels close to someone. Not just respect, though that has something to do with it. Names aren’t something he takes lightly.

Okay, this got long, so there are two dozen more headcanons under the cut. They’re just in the order I thought of them, so they kind of jump around a bit, sorry. Angst and fluff.

Aaravos is basically a faerie. Not fairy like Tinkerbell; faerie like the high fae, like Oberon, Titania, and Puck. He’s extremely powerful, ethereally beautiful (though not all fae are), and he’s very careful with his wording.

Either Aaravos can lie and simply doesn’t, or he cannot lie and doesn’t want that to be known. (I choose to ignore the option of “he was lying when he said he never lies” because that hurts my brain.) “I’m not lying. I never lie.” Never, not cannot, which. Details, details.

He was betrayed. He ended up in the mirror because he was betrayed. They drugged him to seal away his magic so Avizandum could imprison him. I have several scenes of this in my head, but @alls-fair-in-pride-and-prejudice and I are using this is TSATS so I don’t want to give too much more away.

Ziard was Aaravos’s apprentice. They were kind of like Halt and Will in Ranger’s Apprentice. Only they invented dark magic together and Halt and Will didn’t use magic.

Dark magic causes nightmares until you learn it, if you don’t have training. Aaravos’s nightmares? The other Startouch elves leaving.

He’s afraid of being alone. He used to like it, spending hours and days and weeks alone with his books quite happily. But after he literally could not interact with anyone for three hundred years, he’d break if he had to be alone again.

He actually did break during those centuries. Multiple times. Screaming, crying, throwing things, trying to break things, windows, the mirror, anything. Even himself.

They’re antlers, not horns. Horns are one point, you get one (1) set for life, like adult teeth. Antlers have branches, and you get a new set every year. Aaravos... has feelings about this.

Startouch elves spoke like a Shakespeare play. This one’s kind of silly, and entirely based around the line, “Yes, it’s well appointed, but make no mistake, this has been my prison these past few centuries!” and me thinking that “well appointed” sounded very Shakespearean and he could just as well have said “Yes, it’s quite nice, but make no mistake” etcetera (and a bit that I keep wanting to write “thou” when writing him lately). Anyway. Moving on.

Aaravos is a good animal trainer. He’s got the patience for it, and he’s smart. He’s probably trained lots of animals, of many different species. Clicker training, probably; definitely primarily positive reinforcement.

The horse? Is not a horse. It’s a couch. (I only go in for this one because I love the image of Aaravos jumping around on his couch like a little kid, draping himself all over the room. Funnily enough, how he rides is entirely plausible, given that I’m not even drinking age and I can ride my horse very similarly to how Aaravos rides. He’s millennia older than me; he could absolutely ride like that.)

Aaravos killed Queen Aditi and Queen Luna Tenebris. That’s a big reason why he was imprisoned. Yeah, the dark magic was part of it, but Ziard lived 1,000 years ago and Aaravos was only imprisoned 300 years ago. Either he managed to evade the authorities for 700 years, or something else was the tipping point. Maybe a bit of both.

Aaravos has killed a lot of people, for various reasons. Sometimes for revenge (I’d like to think Aditi killed Ziard, which is why Aaravos went after her), sometimes just for being in his way (he discarded the poor Sunfire priest way too casually).

If he really cares about someone, he will kill for them? Die for them? Nah, not really, he’d have to be absolutely crazily stupid with love for that. Kill for them? Absolutely, any day.

Oh and he does the murderously protective thing where he’s like, “Oh, and if anyone hurts you do let me know. I will be happy to talk to them about that. 💖🔪😇 ”

He doesn’t like children. Like, there are a few he cares about, but by and large he’s like “children? ugh, no, yuck.”

He doesn’t fall in love easily, but when he does, he is in love. Period, fullstop.

For all his flirting and teasing, he knows how to respect no. I mean. Look at Xadia’s culture. Being queer is a total nonissue, women are actually treated as equal to men. Sure, it’s not perfect, but it’s hella better than here. Aaravos grew up in Xadia. He’s gonna respect people as people. Will he flirt insanely with everyone, whether they’re into him or not? Yeah. If he talks, he flirts. Will he make a move on someone who doesn’t want him to? No.

He loves cats. Need I say more?

He didn’t get any kind of trial, no chance to defend himself, to tell his side of the story. He was just betrayed and imprisoned.

Aaravos’s arrogance and vanity is a cover over some major self-esteem issues. Maybe he didn’t always have those, but during his imprisonment there were times he believed that he deserved it. That he was a monster, a soulless demon (like they said he was), and he didn’t deserve freedom. That he had no heart, that all he could do was hurt people, and anytime he tried to help he only ended up hurting more. Destruction and tragedy was all he could bring. He’d try not to believe that, forcing himself to remember good things he’d done, telling himself over and over again that he can help people he’s not a monster he’s not-- and he just. can’t. because he’s tried to help, yes, he saved Elarion and he killed for those he loved, but he killed, and not always to protect, and he even enjoyed it. He knows he’s done bad things, but he enjoyed them. Maybe he did deserve to be put in here, alone. Because if he deserved it, maybe when he’s suffered enough to atone he can be free, but if he was truly unjustly imprisoned then there will be no freedom. And this doesn’t make sense, and he knows it’s illogical, so he pulls on a mask of pride and confidence, hoping ‘fake it til you make it’ will work eventually, but underneath. Aaravos. Is. Broken.

Aaravos likes humans in general more than elves in general. They tend to be less judgey at him and they look up to him. Nice ego boost there, the admiration.

He also likes animals, especially now. They don’t judge him based on any criteria a human, elf, or dragon might use. They just care how he personally treats them specifically, and he’s good to them so they love him. They don’t ask anything more of him than that, no relentless demands on his time, and they can just happily coexist in companionable silence. Humans tend to be less good at that.

His favorite fiction books are romance novels. He does like the different ones, the cliche-benders that turn tropes on their heads, but sometimes there’s nothing like curling up with a cheesy, predictable, well-loved story and a cup of hot chocolate.

So, anon, this live up to your expectations?

#an ask! for me!!#anonymous ask #the dragon prince #aaravos #tdp aaravos #aaravos tdp #tdp theories #headcanons #okay about that super long one IM SORRY #i was listening to ''you will be found'' and ''battle cry'' while i was writing that okay #and battle cry was like ''i have no heart just ice and stone made up of nails and teeth and bone'' so OW oKaY #aNyWaY #tw self harm mention #tw murder mention #tw death mention #elarion #idk what else to tag #hope you liked this!

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ficsnroses · 4 years

Text

Irreplaceable - Keanu Reeves x Reader

Summary : You find yourself in bed with your ex, Keanu, which resurfaces old feelings.

Prompt : “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.” requested by anon.

Warnings : nsfw, smut. unprotected sex. angst. fluff.

Word Count : 2k. 🤡 im not even calling them drabbles anymore lmao, feedback and comments are so so so appreciated! This is prompt fic #24. Enjoy:)

also we’re going to ignore the fact that as I was editing this I realized this is basically a softer and sweeter version of my last fic and we’re not gonna @ me because I was half way through editing and didn’t wanna edit a different fic :))) im just a tired uni student tryna write sometimes pls be kind ily

His fingers rub feverish circles to your sensitive clit, exasperated groans and breathy moans fallen suit off your pleasure drunk lips. Keanu hovers over your bare body, throbbed cock swollen to a rosy hued tip, gliding effortlessly in and out your soaking wet folds. Proving imperative, his thrusts hit deep, profound, pounding severely through stifled breaths and skin sticking together through thin layer of damp. Whimpers and soft moans flee through tender breaths, encapsulated by his full lips on yours; breasts bouncing relentlessly to his demanding pace as he hovers above; your fingers clawing mauve marks bedecked into his toned biceps.

Keanu knows how to work you; how to treat you so well. Tonight, he’d invited you to his home in desperate need of relief, long composed history between you both had established ground for meetings such as today. “I need you tonight.” He rasped over the broken telephone line. “Please.”

Each time he calls, each time you return, his words crawl up the deep howls of your mind, your throat swallowing dryly as your heart yearns for another meeting. His hair ruffles in espresso hued fluffs tonight, falling ragged in his clenched eyes, complimented beautifully by the rasp of his tender sighs when he moans to the feel of you,

so warm. So snug for him. You wonder if he’d been running his hands through it as he awaited your arrival, if he’d bit his lip with the curve of his sharp jaw clenched; if he absentmindedly fiddled with the base of his sturdy ring finger as he did in deep thought. You remember more of him than you’d care to admit; than you’d want to admit.

Long ago, Keanu and you almost made it. Almost pledged to the bond that held you together; almost made it to the brink of promise. But it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how hard you and Keanu tried, you weren’t meant to be. The agonizing dissolve of your love was hard. The sky never worked in your favour, the fairy-tale ending never chanced.

The weight of his body holds you down, held close in his arms as he pumps into your inviting sanctuary fiercely, holding so dearly. His hot breath kisses the skin of your neck and you feel a wave of warm, moaning, leisurely whining, whimpering, and whimpering-

“Don’t stop, please,”

“I’m close, Y/N.” He chokes through a tensed jaw and gritted teeth. His erection is stiff, splitting your tight cunt inch by inch as his veiny bulk pounds, friction excruciatingly blissful with your sex starved bodies moulding together so naturally; fluently.

On evenings like this, Keanu and you would be reminded of what could have been. Find comfort within each other, release the months of built up crave that would reside deep, condensed within your dreary longed hearts that yearned for each other, still.

Keanu and you died a long time ago; but the love didn’t. You still loved him, and he still loved you. Unspoken, yet holding of pure truth. White lies, deep-rooted in a smokescreen only sufficed so long. Pledges of being “just friends” were far from the truth. Despite how long, how far and how often you’d both recited the prayer off your lovesick tongues; Keanu and you were not just friends. You couldn’t be.

You could never be.

“Cum for me sweetheart, together.” Keanu moans through broken exhales, chasing his high, yet desperate to bring you to the strongest of releases. He dwelled, thrived off making you feel good. He’d called you here tonight because he needed you, needed your body to feel something. Nonetheless, that didn’t mean he didn’t fully intend of making you see the heavens on earth.

He was always an amazing lover.

Amazing at far too much to not fall so deep for him.

Searing tears threaten in the corners of your dismissive orbs, wailing, yelping as his cock relishes, grinding inside your tight, pulsating pussy, creamy releases coated slick to your thighs as he thrusts. The thuds of his skin slapping yours enfold the room, his sizable length rams into your cunt, balls smacking relentlessly as if mould just for you to delight. With his lips placing a soft kiss to yours, he whispers shakily, your orgasm bubbling boils inside the pit of your mid.

“I’m so close, Ke. Please don’t stop.” You sob, fingers clenched into his rosily flushed shoulder blades. “Please don’t…fuck!” You gasp when he rocks, rotating his hips to hit that sensitive plush of nerves inside your velvety walls, encouraging praises and whispers into your ears.

“Come on sweetheart, let go for me.” Within seconds, Keanu spills his succulent load deep, deep inside you as you release, riding cloud nine of your high into oblivion as he works you through your orgasm. Through heavy palms holding your hips close and his tongue lapping, gently sucking your sensitive nipples, Keanu kisses you sweetly, hands gently kneading the soft of your breasts in a soothing marvel, leaving peppered kisses to your neck, your collarbone, your cheeks.

The love was still there. Plain to see. The love had never left; only now, years later, it suffocated you. Killed you when he’d make love to you like this. Destroyed you when he’d hold you so close, reminding you of how you couldn’t be.

Is it easier for him? You wonder.

You ponder.

Cock still sheathed deep inside, Keanu’s chest rumbles a deep baritone, palm of his stocky hand shifting to cup your cheek. “Feel good?” He asks, a final kiss to your forehead as he slips out, landing firm on the bed, your frail, weakened body pulled securely into his chest. In a delicate wrap of arms, he holds you close, your head rested to his broad as you stare, and stare, and stare daggers to the crème ceiling above.

It must be easier for him. You ponder.

You guess.

But it wasn’t easy for you. None of this was easy.

None of this would suffice much longer.

Keanu’s hand stations on your skin, chest heaving up and down softly as you live out your highs, returning to reality. During these meetings, these encounters where you’d steal a few hours away together, the world seemed to melt into oblivion. As if you’d held his hand as he took you to another dimension, soared the stars, drifted away for a sweet while together. These moments with him held a safe harbour away from reality. Away from the cold, harsh reality.

This embrace, this hold, this affection. It held the same sincerity from all those years past, the light pad of his fingers soothing over your skin delves goosebumps peppering over your silky skin.

Bare, naked in his arms, you’d never felt this vulnerable before. And you never thought you would; especially with the man that surprisingly made you feel safest.

Warm, wet.

The familiar, distinct saltiness of silent tears threatens to loom your lips, head still pressed to his flushed chest. Daring, barely above a confident whisper; you finally spill. Quiet. Harsh. Desperate to defend.

“We’re not just friends, and you fucking know it.”

Unmoved, your bodies still lay entwined. Connected. Fiercely connected, as your souls.

Your lost, overdue, lonesome souls.

“Friends don’t…call each other when they need a fuck. Friends don’t kiss each other. Friends don’t visit each other late into the night when they’re feeling alone.” You fight. Your voice raises. The hurt surfaces. “We’re not just friends. We’ll never be just friends. We’re fucking stuck. We’ll always be stuck and I don’t know if…” Words ceasing, the tears threaten to spill. The ache becomes intolerable.

Deadbeat silence. Stillness, cold. All around, the only feel. He stays silent, holding you, eyes still focused to the ceiling above. He’s hurting,

He’s been hurting too.

Quietly, through a hoarse of gruffed tone, Keanu speaks. He wonders if you know the sincerity of his declaration, the weight his pledge holds. “I still love you. I still love you so much, it hurts. Every single day.”

There’s never been pity in those deep cocoa depths, never confusion, resentment, aggravation. Only old understanding, old love, attachment that never died; even when the roots withered. When the skies caved.

You listen, you process, you absorb. You absorb his words, so wholly.

Sitting up slight, Keanu draws your body up as well, never letting your frail frame leave his toned arms. Biceps engulfing, you practically drown into his bare chest; your exposed skins melting together adding tremendously to the connection. “Y/N, I’ll always be in love with you.” He whispers into your hair, soft kisses stippled with strokes to your glossy locks, drawing the silk sheets higher, closer to tuck them around you. To protect you,

-from the cold. Or perhaps something else. Something so unforgiving, a harsh reality you’d both been compulsory to endure.

“But,” He breaks, yet stays composed, calm and confident, for you. “We’re no good together, sweetheart. We can’t be.” He whispers, hold tightening to soothe your plight. “It’s above us. No matter how hard we try, we can’t.” He reasons, voice saddened, yet explanatory. “You know that right, princess?”

The piercing, cold truth. Your lives are far too different, far too many complications come into play. For you and Keanu, a life together would always, forever, remain a distant dream. “We’re not just friends.” Taking hold of your hand, he presses a small kiss to your palm, eyes looking down into your softer, fragile ones. “You’re…you’re the best thing I have. Even if I don’t really have you.” He shakes his head, unable to face the realism. Because the cold, sour truth would always remain.

Keanu and you would rather be this way, than not at all. You’d rather meet this way, feel each other this way through scarce, secretive meetings, than not have each other at all.

Time held too much history. And history isn’t easily forgotten.

You and Keanu, couldn’t be forgotten. You were bound. Bound by something so special, so real. Something that would always stay, never fraying with the passage of a lifetime. Quelling his own emotions, Keanu kisses your lips again, tasting the salt of your dewy tears.

He’d always remained the stronger one. The one that would provide assurance. The one that would remind, even if it was the last thing he’d ever wanted to do. But he’d do it. He’d do it, every single time, for you. He’d do anything for you.

Through the softness of your skin, Keanu relishes, loses himself in how familiar, how right it feels to be so close to you. How badly he wanted nothing more, than to always be close to you. To have you, through sickness and health. To hold you this way forever, steadily, safely within him.

Yet, it would never be. The harsh, cold, truthful reality. Each time you’d depart, a little piece, a part of each other would let go. Stay with the other until you’d meet again. It all hurt, the same way it usually did. Through a soft sniffle, you tighten your hold around him as well, sinking into the deep, radiating warmth of his skin. Sinking away into your escape, your piece of oblivion that was all too well to be real.

All too good, to ever be.

If soulmates existed, if happy endings were real, he was yours, and you were his.

You knew it all too well, all too true. And through a heartbroken mummer, you declare. Declare to him, as you both always did when you’d meet this way.

“I still love you too.” You return to his earlier statement, whispering.

“And I always, always will.”

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

#keanu reeves x reader #keanu reeves #keanu reeves imagine #keanu reeves x you #keanu reeves fanfiction

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super-secret-sick-fics · 3 years

Note

ouu yes ive been so obsessed with them (osasuna) recently and there’s barely any fics for them in this department lol i wanted to see something like suna coming to school sick with the stomach flu or something and osamu taking him home to take care of him (i feel like it’s ooc for suna to go to go school if he’s not feeling well so it’d probably be one of those where it gets progressively worse throughout the day) sorry if this is too long haha

Okay!! Thank you for this request. Sorry it took so long. Honestly, I had a lot of fun with this and it ended up being so long, that I’m gonna post it in 2 parts!!

You can totally read either as a stand alone though. Part 2 should be up soon :)

Suna and I have the same birthday, so I actually kinda put a lot of myself into him in this one since we share a star sign lmao. I hope it’s not too ooc for either of them. It’s my first time writing sunaosa!

Sick at School: a SunaOsa fic

Pair: Sick Suna, Caretaker Osamu

Word Count: 3,024

Warnings: vomit & swearing & soft cuddles

Part 2 Here

_________________________________

Suna was confused.

There was a strange gnawing in his gut that wasn’t there when he woke up this morning. In fact, when he woke up this morning, he felt perfectly fine. Maybe he was a little more tired than usual, but he didn’t sleep all that well, so he brushed it off and got ready for school.

But now, he was sitting in class, his eyes burning as he tried to stay awake. It was only Monday and only the second class of the day, but he felt like he’d been at school for days already. On top of the grumbly feeling in his stomach, his brain was muddled, so paying attention to whatever his teacher was saying was taking every bit of energy he could scrounge up.

It didn’t make sense. He slept his eight hours (even if it wasn’t the best sleep), he ate a good breakfast, he was hydrated, there weren’t any tests or games coming up to make him anxious at all. So the unsteady, uncomfortable, unusual feelings he currently felt simply did not make a single bit of logical, rational sense.

And because they didn’t make sense—because there was no rational reason for him to feel that way—he ignored it.

Ignoring it proved to be more difficult than he anticipated as the fog in his brain solidified into a consistent pounding and the gnawing in his stomach started to feel more like his stomach acid was boiling. The sun shining on him through the window didn’t help any, and he started to feel rather warm. By his fourth class, occasional cramps rolled through his body, forcing him to tense every muscle in his body to keep from wincing.

When the teacher finally released them for lunch, Suna folded his arms on his desk and hid his face in the crook of his elbow, ready to take a nap. Within three seconds, he heard the chair in front of him scrape the ground, grating on his ears, and felt his desk shake as someone sat down. He adjusted his head and peeked over his arm to find Osamu staring down at him, his usual bored look gracing his features.

“Yer sick, Sunarin,” he deadpanned and took a bite of his sandwich. Suna blinked at him several times.

Sick? Was that why he felt so weird? But he wasn’t sick this morning. There was no way he would have come to school if he felt bad.

Still, it would explain why he slept poorly. It must be a fast acting bug.

“I guess so,” he mumbled and buried his face in his elbow again.

“Hmmm,” Osamu mumbled. They were quiet for a minute or two before Osamu spoke again.

“Wanna go to the infirmary?” he asked, his mouth full.

Suna looked up at him again and sighed before sitting up. The world spun around for a brief second and he closed his eyes until the feeling went away. When it righted itself once more, his stomach was hurting worse than before.

“How’d you know anyway?” he asked and rested his chin in his hand.

“You’ve been lookin’ bad all mornin’. Wasn’t hard to tell.” Osamu shrugged. His sandwich was gone and he started making his way through the onigiri he most likely made himself. The fact that Osamu could tell he wasn’t feeling well from across the room made Suna blush. Or maybe he had a fever?

“Plus,” Osamu continued, “Tsumu’s home right now with a pretty nasty stomach bug. Threw up all over his bed last night.” He scrunched up his nose cutely, probably remembering the disastrous scene from the night before. Atsumu was never good at being a sick person. Or an injured person. Or a person at all, really.

“Wouldn’t be all that surprising if ya caught it from him since ya slept over at our place last weekend.”

Suna nodded in agreement.

“What about you?” he asked. Osamu shrugged again.

“I’ll probably be spewin’ my guts out by Thursday. Usually how it goes. One of us catches something then the other is sick within the week. We’ve only been sick at the same time a handful o’ times.”

“Mmmm,” Suna nodded and put his head down once more. It was suddenly very difficult to hold his head up.

“Infirmary?” Osamu asked again. Suna shook his head.

“Can’t move,” he whined before he could stop himself. Osamu looked at him with wide eyes.

“W-well, I’ll help ya out, dumbass,” he stuttered and Suna returned the wide eyed look.

“Uh, sure. But finish your lunch first. I can wait. You should eat. Wake me up when you’re done,” he said and closed his eyes.

“Alright. Lemme know if we need to go sooner though…” Osamu said hesitantly and Suna tried to ignore the implication behind the phrase.

Just because Atsumu had a stomach bug didn’t mean that Suna did too. He wouldn’t throw up at school. The increasing nausea absolutely had to be related to the growing migraine that slammed away at his head. He definitely would not throw up at school.

Before he started overthinking himself into a downward spiral, Osamu placed a hand in his hair. Suna was tense at first, but then Osamu started gently scratching his scalp and he immediately relaxed. He was a little embarrassed, honestly. Not because this was unusual though.

Osamu knew it helped Suna with his frequent headaches, so Suna was sure he somehow knew about the incoming migraine. It was just that this was usually something Osamu did for him in much more private settings. He’d do it on the bus on the way back from away games, or in one of their rooms after school or during a sleepover. To be so affectionate in the middle of their classroom was unheard of and if Suna wasn’t feeling so poorly, he’d probably smack Osamu’s hand away.

“Ya got a slight fever there, Sunarin,” Osamu whispered gently.

“Mmmm.”

“Okay. I’ll let ya know when I’m done eatin’.”

“Mmmm.”

Within a few seconds, Suna felt himself drift off.

When he woke up again, it wasn’t because of Osamu.

A violent cramp rolled through his gut and he shot up in his seat, ignoring the startled looks of his classmates. The cramp passed quickly, but left behind a foreboding feeling of nausea so intense it left him paralyzed and glued to his seat.

A second later, he noticed that Osamu was nowhere to be found and his anxiety increased. The situation was becoming increasingly urgent and there was no way in hell he could move or speak without throwing up all over his desk.

His chest tightened and he swallowed back a gag. He needed help. He needed Osamu.

“Suna-kun?” a girl from his class touched his shoulder and he flinched. She withdrew her hand.

“O-osamu—“ he forced out and she nodded urgently and ran away and out the door. Less than a minute later, she came back, Osamu hot on her heels. She pointed to Suna and Osamu nodded before rushing over and stood in front of him.

“Sunarin?” he tried and Suna shook his head.

“Are ya gonna—“ Suna nodded before Osamu could finish his question. The eyes of all of his classmates burned Suna’s already flushed cheeks and as if to let everyone know what was going on, a gag forced itself through his body painfully and he leaned over his desk. He brought the back of his hand up to his mouth and whimpered.

“Can someone bring me a trash can, maybe?” Osamu snapped at their peers. The girl from before nodded and dashed to the corner of the room and dragged the trash can over to Suna’s desk.

Everyone froze again and stared with scared eyes at the situation unfolding. Suna shook with effort, trying to stop the inevitable. He really really didn’t want everyone to watch him throw up.

Thankfully, Osamu had his back.

“Leave?!” He shouted and everyone ran out of the room.

“I’ll bring the nurse, Osamu-kun,” the same girl said and Osamu nodded, but his eyes were focused only on Suna. They’d have to remember to thank that girl later.

“I’m sorry, Rintaro. I finished my lunch and you were sleepin’ so peaceful I thought I had time to go to the bathroom before I took ya to the infirmary,” Osamu apologized and cupped Suna’s face in his hands. His voice was much softer than a second ago. It was the voice reserved for those quiet nights that they spent chatting before they fell asleep. Or on the team bus early in the morning when everyone else was still too groggy to pay attention to them. And it comforted Suna in ways he couldn’t comprehend.

“I feel sick, S-samu,” Suna forced through gritted teeth. The swirling in his stomach grew more insistent by the second and he knew it was only a matter of time before he was leaning over the trash can.

“I know, Rin. I’m sorry. It’s okay. I’ve got ya,” Osamu smiled softly at him and brushed his hair back. He frowned when Suna unconsciously leaned into his cold hands.

“Fever got higher,” he mumbled. Suna gagged again.

“Alright, c‘mon,” he said and circled around the desk behind Suna. Osamu gently grabbed his trembling shoulders and positioned him over the trash can. People’s leftovers from lunch filled about half the bin and the smell of all the different foods made Suna dizzy.

“Rin, ya gotta relax,” Osamu sighed and forcefully rubbed between Suna’s shoulder blades.

“N-no,” Suna said stubbornly.

“Yer an idiot.”

“Y-yeah.”

“It’s gonna feel worse if ya don’t just let it happen,” Osamu tried. Suna shook his head.

“Alright well, be mad at me later, then,” Osamu muttered. Suna was about to turn and look at him questioningly, but Osamu wrapped a hand around Suna’s front and placed it on his stomach. Even the minimal contact forced a wretch that left Suna reeling.

“D-don’t,” he tried, but the request was punctuated by a painful hiccup.

“I’m sorry. Can’t do that,” Osamu responded before starting to rub up and down on Suna’s stomach quickly. The motion shook the contents nauseatingly and Suna couldn’t stop the watery burp that followed. He shook his head, eyes squeezed shut tightly.

Osamu didn’t relent. He started patting Suna’s back with the other hand, forcing belch after belch. The conflicting motions wreaked havoc on Suna’s already chaotic stomach.

They stayed like that for what felt like forever, before Suna grabbed Osamau’s wrist tightly.

“S-stop—hurrk. P-please, Samu. No m-mor—hic,” Suna begged. All of his limbs felt like they were about a thousand pounds and he shivered, cold despite the sun beating down on his back.

“It’s okay, Rin. I got ya,” Osamu muttered. He pried Suna’s sweaty hand off his wrist and replaced it with his hand. Suna squeezed hard when a wet belch jolted his body. His other hand grabbed the rim of the trash can in a white-knuckled grip. Osamu used his free hand to rub gently between Suna’s shoulder blades again.

Suna squeezed his eyes shut when he wretched. His throat felt tight and he tried to swallow the accumulating saliva in his mouth, only for it to come back up with a noisy gag. He opted to just drop his mouth open and let the spit fall into the trash can disgustingly.

“S-Samu—“ he tried but was interrupted by a guttural, wet, burp that left his head spinning. Two seconds later, he wretched and a weak stream vomit dribbled out of his mouth. It burned his throat and coated his mouth. The disgusting taste left him more nauseous than he thought possible and a belch gurgled in the back of his throat. He heaved, but nothing else came up.

“Ah, Rin, I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry,” Osamu shushed him. Suna didn’t even realize he was crying.

He continued heaving for what must have been an eternity before another painful gag jolted him forward and brought with it a torrent of pale vomit into the trash can. At least he didn’t have to see everyone’s discarded lunch anymore. Not that his new view was much prettier.

“There ya, go Sunarin,” Osamu soothed. Suna sputtered and coughed, trying to catch his breath. His body was relentless though, and before he felt like he had sufficient oxygen, he was lurching forward with more forceful vomit pouring out of his mouth.

Suna’s body didn’t let up. It was stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of gasping breaths abruptly interrupted by a fountain of vomit forcing its way out. Eventually, he was just left heaving over the trash can, his stomach trying but failing to expel whatever might be left. Anxiety crawled up his spine and the room spun. He wanted to breathe, he really did. He just couldn’t.

“Fuck, Rin, breathe. Please,” Osamu demanded and his voice shattered through Suna’s panic. He nodded and closed his eyes to try and collect himself. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled heavily through his mouth. A minute or two of that, and he was able to take in his surroundings again.

At some point, Osamu wrapped an arm around Suna’s chest because apparently, his own arms gave out at some point and hung limply at his sides. He spit the residual nastiness out of his mouth and squinted up at Osamu.

“Can we leave?” he asked plainly. Osamu stared at him owlishly and then chuckled.

“It’s the middle of the day Rin, I can’t just—“

“Please?” he all but begged and grabbed Osamu’s arm. Osamu hesitated for the briefest of seconds before relenting with a heavy breath.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘course. Want me to call yer mom?” Osamu responded. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped off Suna’s face. Suna shook his head.

“Is it too much to ask if I can stay with you? I don’t want to risk giving this to my little sister and grandma.” His voice was quieter than he wanted, but he was wiped out. He cleared his throat and spit in the trash can. He was fading fast. All he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep whatever bug this was off.

“Yeah okay. I’ll ask my Ma. Shouldn’t be too much of an issue since Tsumu’s sick too.” Osamu pulled out his phone and massaged Suna’s scalp. It felt so good that he leaned over and buried his face in Osamu’s stomach. If he wasn’t careful, he’d fall asleep here. Hopefully Osamu’s mom would be okay with it and come quickly.

“Ma, can you come pick me and— no I’m not sick— well, if you’d just let me talk ya crazy—Ma I do have a good reason to be call— would ya stop talkin—yer damn right I’m being disrespectfu—Ma!” As Osamu argued with his mother over the phone (it was nothing new) Suna took inventory of his body.

There was no denying he was sick. That much was obvious. His head was pounding and his stomach still rolled and swirled uncomfortably. Shivers danced up and down his body, exacerbated by the sweat that coated his skin. He was sure that he had a fever. All of his limbs weighed him down and he didn’t think he had any sort of energy to move them. It was taking all he had to stay awake right now.

“Osamu-san!” The girl from before returned, the school nurse right behind her.

“Suna Rintaro, you poor boy. Caught that bug going around, I see,” he heard the nurse and pulled his face away from Osamu’s body. Blinking a few times to clear his blurry vision, he sniffed and stared at the old lady in front of him.

She stuck a thermometer in his mouth without saying a word and pulled a water bottle out from her coat pocket. While they were waiting for his temperature, Suna glanced at Osamu, who was now leaning against the desk behind Suna’s. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, his other still holding the phone to his ear as he continued listening to his mother rant.

Without thinking, Suna reached over and grabbed a hold of Samu’s shirt with one hand. Osamu looked down in surprise before his face softened and he put a hand on Suna’s shoulder.

The thermometer beeped and Suna winced.

“38.7,” the nurse read and pursed her lips. She pulled out some medicine from her lab coat and gave some to Suna. He grimaced. Even in his hazy state, he knew putting something in his stomach wouldn’t go over well.

“Suna-kun, you need to get that fever of your’s down. I know it’s not ideal, but please try.” Suna turned his head away. She sighed.

“Okay, but make sure you take something at home. Does someone need to call your mother?” Before Suna could answer, Osamu interrupted.

“I’ll take him ma’am,” he said, apparently off the phone with his mother.

“Osamu-kun, don’t you be thinking you can just skip out on school,” she warned.

“I would never,” Osamu charmed, “I think it’s the smartest move, ya see. Atsumu is at home with the same illness right now and so there’s no way I ain’t carrying the germs for it. Wouldn’t it be safest if I go home too? Before I infect anyone else. And I can take Sunarin with me.”

The nurse gave him a skeptical look, but then glanced over at Suna. She noticed his grip on Osamu’s shirt and the former’s hand firmly on Suna’s back. It must’ve made Suna look pretty pathetic because she relented almost immediately.

“Oh fine, fine. Does someone need to call your mom?”

“No, ma’am. Just got off the phone with her. She’ll be here soon. Said she’s got no problem taking Sunarin in ‘til he’s all better.” He squeezed Suna’s shoulder and Suna relaxed knowing he wasn’t at risk of infecting his little sister or aging grandmother. He sighed and smiled gratefully at Osamu.

It was comforting to know that Osamu was going to be looking after him. Because, if the swirling in his stomach told him anything, he was in for a really long night.

#my fic #haikyuu sickfic #sick suna #caretaker Osamu #tw vomit

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