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star-spangledstud · 4 years

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SAVE THE DAY

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Summary: Peter wants to quit being Spider-Man, but the reader needs saving.

Word Count: 3600-ish.

Warnings: mentions of violence/alcoholism and abuse/hostage situation. Angst with fluffy ending.

A/N: Let’s just pretend Peter didn’t turn into dust during IW. Also, this has a dark theme? I wrote this a while ago and figured I’d post it. It’s pretty bad, sorry.

Peter Parker is sick and tired of being Spider-Man.

Between hardly getting any sleep and his grades faltering miserably because of his nightly escapades, the fact that half of his friends died just three weeks ago doesn’t exactly help his case. He’s tired of putting on the suit, tired of scouring the streets in the dark of night, tired of waiting for crimes to happen when he really should be studying.

Peter lost some of the people he looked up to the most, and ever since he returned home, he hasn’t been able to stop feeling horrendously guilty over the fact that he wasn’t able to save them. He misses his friends, but mostly, he misses his coworkers, half of whom had disappeared into dust. What’s the point of being Spider-Man when you can’t even save the ones you hold dear to your heart?

Peter is seated behind his desk, black ink pen tightly gripped between his clammy fingers. His left palm is stuck under his chin, and his eyes, droopy and fluttery, shift between the clock hanging above the door towards the back of the classroom. His hazel orbs scan everything from the green linoleum floors to the yellow-stained ceiling with its flickering lights. Empty seats line the back walls, desks and chairs stacked on top of each other in a sick manner.

Desks that were once filled with students now sat empty to collect dust and termites. Most of the kids that vanished didn’t even know who Thanos was or what his intentions were. It isn’t fair, Peter thinks as he grips his pen and clenches his jaw. They didn’t deserve to die.

Several of Peter’s classes have been postponed until further notice due to the sudden lack of staff and student body. Of course, Mr. Brown hadn’t vanished, and so, Peter is sitting in his Tuesday morning math class with barely over a dozen other kids. Each one of them looks just as sad, confused and most of all defeated as Peter does, because most of them have lost multiple family members and friends in the blink of an eye without any hope of bringing them back.

James from physics has lost both his parents. Samantha from biology lost only one, but her grandparents as well. Francis from literature didn’t have parents even before the Snap, but lived with her aunt and uncle who both disappeared. The gist of it is clear; grief, hurt and anger surrounds the school like a thick, impenetrable blanket of fire from which nobody can escape and for a moment, Peter doesn’t know on which side of the Snap he’d rather be.

The seconds on the clock tick by agonizingly slowly. Mr. Brown knows nobody in his class gives a shit about potentially solving mathematical problems anymore, but life must go at the end of the day and until anyone has any better ideas, the only thing the school board knows to do is to keep teaching classes to whoever decides to show up. To be fair, even though it’s nothing like how it used to be, school remains the only constant in most of these kids’ lives.

Doubt continues to plague Peter’s cloudy mind as the day progresses. He’s already stuffed his suit in Ned’s locker - he wouldn’t be needing the space anymore anyway. The mere thought of his best friend vanishing into thin air made his fist curl and his eyebrows twitch in anger and every waking moment of his existence he hates himself for not being able to help him make it through the Snap. Then again, maybe it was for the best.

Being alive suddenly didn’t seem like such a great thing anymore with the world in complete shambles.

After class is over, most of the students slowly drag their feet towards the library or the cafeteria. With so many postponed classes, study hours are given left and right until the board has time to conjure a new schedule. Peter slings his backpack over his shoulder and, while dragging his feet to the library, absentmindedly reaches his phone from his back pocket. The latest iPhone he was given by Tony now feels alien in his hand, especially since half of his contacts don’t exist anymore. The Snap chat streak he used to have with Ned died weeks ago, and the last message Peter sent him still sits in Ned’s inbox marked as ‘unread’. Peter grips the device and bites his lip. He has to stop himself from throwing it out of the window all together. Looking at it has become unbearable.

Just as he’s about to shove it back deep inside his pocket, it vibrates. He thinks it’s just his imagination at first, but when his hand shakes for the second time, he lifts up the phone with the thumping of his heart.

It’s you, your name displayed as the caller ID across the screen, followed by blue and red heart emojis. You picked those out yourself.

“What’s up?” he asks after picking up, “where are you? You have no idea how boring math is without you.”

When the line momentarily remains silent on your end, Peter shrugs. You’ve pocket-dialed him before so it doesn’t immediately strike him as odd, and when he calls your name and doesn’t receive a response, he hangs up, finally able to place the phone in his pocket where he hopes it will remain forever.

But it doesn’t remain there forever, because less than a minute later, it rings again, once more flashing your name across the screen for his eyes to see. His groans, but picks up anyway as he stands in front of the library entrance.

“Y/N?” He asks, holding the device tightly to his ear just in case he can hear you in the distance.

“No,” you whisper finally, “he’s going to kill a bunch of people, P.”

Peter’s blood runs cold when the call is ended once again. He wastes no time sprinting towards Ned’s old locker and holds his breath when he dashes through the empty hallways. Before he gets there, he calls you back. You don’t answer.

Peter sneaks the costume into his backpack and changes into it in the empty bathroom near the physics lab. He stuffs his backpack inside the air vent and dials your number again. With his phone stuck tightly against his ear, he jumps out of the window.

You are one of the only people Peter still has left and vice versa. The two of you have been friends for ages, sharing nearly every class and you, him and Ned always sit together for lunch. The three of you would hang out together after school as well; you saw movies together and played video games on the weekends. You texted each other constantly.

The Snap wiped out nearly your entire family. Your mother, little brother and both of your grandparents and your aunt and uncle on both sides. You were left with nobody but your step-father.

Peter knows the two of you don’t get along. The man drinks too much, stays out too late even during the week and sometimes, he doesn’t even come home for days. Your mother always welcomed him back with open arms and chose to ignore the empty bottles of vodka and whiskey in the trash. She ignored the perfume on his clothes and his behavior towards you and stayed with him, a man so unstable he couldn’t hold jobs longer than a few months at a time. Her blindness to his shenanigans always angered Peter, because the relationship between your mother and step-father affected you in more ways than you cared to admit.

He knows you wish it was him who died instead of your mom and frankly, Peter wishes the same. He never liked the guy.

Peter is extremely worried about you, because he knows the drinking has doubled since your mom died. You’ve been skipping school to take care of the household and you know very well how Peter feels about your step-father’s lack of participation in and around the home. He started taking you away from your house whenever he could find the time and you’d even met Tony Stark the first time Peter took you to the tower. It surprised Peter to see how well the two of you got along, but then again, computer science is your favorite subject in school so it’s something the two of you could bond over. Well, it used to be anyway, because the class got dropped after the teacher and eight of his students got lost in the Snap.

Peter’s heart rams against his rib cage when you finally answer the phone. In the background, he can hear people screaming and shouting.

“Y/N? Where the hell are you?” He asks, using his webs to sling himself from building to building to avoid being seen in broad daylight.

“Central bank,” you whisper under shaky breaths, “gun. Can’t talk.”

The line goes dead once again, and Peter immediately changes direction.

You knew something was wrong when Hank offered to drive you to school this morning, because he’d never volunteered to take you anywhere before and you doubted he would start now. The red rims around his dull, yellow eyes made you decline his proposal at first but he insisted, and in fear of getting hurt by a man nearly twice your size, you finally agreed to have him drive you to school. You weren’t in any kind of mood to argue with him, and you sure as hell didn’t want to provoke him. Besides, the drive would only take ten minutes, while walking took you nearly half an hour, so you couldn’t exactly complain.

It saddened you to see him like this. The two of you never really got along, but at least a small part of you hoped that the shared loss of your mom and little brother would bring you some type of twisted companionship, something dark to bond over. You wanted to ask him if Peter could stay over for dinner, but the dark sweat stains on his creme t-shirt and his iron grip on the wheel made you stay quiet.

Hank never liked talking when he had a hangover. Talking too much always made him angry, and you don’t like seeing him pissed off. Granted, the only times he’d physically hurt you were when he was so drunk he couldn’t even tell you his own name, but you still fear him even now, afraid that one day he might actually do something he can never take back. With this knowledge, you typically stick to avoiding him on mornings after he’s had too much to drink. Nowadays though, it’s all he does.

Even when he deviates from the usual route to your school, you bite your tongue in fear of pissing him off. Perhaps, you think, he’s forgotten the location of your school or maybe he’s too hungover to think straight and the entire time, you expect him to turn around. He doesn’t, but wen he finally does stop, he does so in front of Central Bank.

You finally dare to speak up, asking him quietly what the two of you are doing there and fully expect him to sneer at you, to spit out that he’s only going to withdrawal money from your mother’s account again so he can support his bad habits, but instead of answering, he leaves you in the car and reaches for the trunk.

“What are you doing?!” You ask fearfully when he rips open your door and grabs a fistful of your hair.

“Shut up and don’t make a sound, got it?”

He pulls your head towards the ground when he walks, so the only thing you can see is the beat up sneakers on his feet and the terrifying barrel of a semi-automatic weapon. There’s no security guard near the entrance, but you don’t have enough time to wonder where he might be, because Hank’s already crossed the threshold and he’s shouting like mad when you realize what the hell is going on.

"Everybody sit the fuck down on the ground or I'll kill every last of one you!"

Screams erupt from every corner, and as Hank angrily waves the gun around in an attempt to scare the customers and bank personnel, people left and right begin to duck behind chairs, desks and in booths. You can hear a baby crying somewhere nearby, and your palms are sweating and shaky when you curl them into fists. You’ve always known he’s crazy, but even for him, this is fucking insane.

"Hank, what the fuck are you doing?" You scream, feeling the pressure of his grip on your neck sting like a hot iron.

"Shut up, before I shut you up myself. Don't make a god damn sound, you hear me? That goes for all of you!"

The next hour is a complete blur. Shots are fired into cream-colored walls, demands are made on stolen cellphones and most of all, you and everybody else inside is scared shitless. Hank forces you to sit in of the empty chair behind counter three, the one where people come to apply for loans. He continues to keep the gun pointed mostly at you - the hostage he uses to negotiate his demands. You called Peter when his back was turned to you, but couldn’t speak at first out of pure terror of being seen or heard.

Outside, flashing red and blue lights draw near, and the sound of multiple helicopters rounding the perimeter nearly drowns out the sound of Hank’s screeching voice when one of the clerks makes an unexpected move. You’ve never seen him this angry and doubt you’ll ever see it again. Practically all bank transfers are conducted digitally nowadays, most banks using shares on the stock market to finance their customer’s savings accounts. Sure, there’s physical money inside, but none of the desk clerks have access to the vault where they keep the big bucks. How Hank didn’t realize this is a mystery to you.

You’re starting to realize time is running out when SWAT arrives with a hostage negotiator. Peter can feel his heart nearly exploding inside his chest when he thinks of you as he slings his way across the city. He’s never run faster across rooftops, but he doesn’t take a moment to breathe until he makes it there.

It doesn’t take him very long to sneak inside through one of the top floor’s open windows. Peter ignores the news camera’ that zoom in on him while he climbs inside, swallowing thickly at the knowledge that Tony’ll probably be pissed off later.

He jumps down the staircase, swinging from left to right and balancing on the barricades until he reaches the first floor of the old building. Directly beneath him, he can hear the commotion and when he finally finds an air vent in one of the break rooms, he uses his webs to fling himself up and inside. His phone vibrates again when he’s slowly crawling his way through the dusty vents, but he doesn’t answer, because he can see you sitting in your chair shaking like a leaf when he finally reaches one of the vents that lead to the main entrance.

He notices your step-father walking anxiously in circles, his eyes wildly darting across the entire ground floor to make sure nobody tried to take him down. He needs money now that his source of income has died and the amount of debt he finds himself in leads him to believe this is the only way to do it.

Peter quickly and quietly unscrews the roster that allows fresh air to distribute throughout the ground floor and silently moves it to the side.

Look up.

He quickly texts you, but doesn’t realize your phone might make a sound until he’s already pressed send. He releases a deep breath when you check the message, and begin to search around the ceiling with a worried frown on your face until your finally eyes land on him halfway hidden in the darkness.

You sigh inaudibly but tremble when the gun goes off three times and Hank begins to shout at a mother and her crying baby.

“I'm going to get you out," Peter mouths at you after pushing up his mask you you can see his lips.

He has to get the gun away from Hank, who is now pacing back and forth on the other side of the wall. With one swift motion, Peter drops down from the vent with his finger pushed against his mask to let the people know to keep quiet. He slides behind your chair and gives your hand a tight squeeze before disappearing just in time to see the barrel of the gun followed by Hank.

Sweat drips down the man’s face and back, veins popping angrily in his neck protruding from his temples. Outside, the hostage negotiator uses a megaphone to shout at him, but it’s as if nobody is paying attention to what he’s saying. You only have eyes for Peter, who’s crouched under one of the desks, his arms stretched out in front of him so he can get a good angle on Hank.

Before you get a chance to do as much as blink, silvery webs shoot out from Peter's wrists. They latch onto the cold metal of the firearm and begin to quickly retreat, pulling the weapon out of Hank's sweaty palms. He accidentally pulls the trigger when he struggles to hold on to the only thing that’s currently keeping him alive, firing four shots into the wall before the gun clashes to the ground and drags away from him.

His eyes bulge out of his head when he sees Spider Man, now standing on top of the desk. Peter yanks his arms back, flinging the weapon towards the security guard, who was sitting near the water cooler next to the staff room. The man doesn’t hesitate to pick it up and disarm it, emptying the magazine onto the ground until every last bullet falls to the ground with a clang. They bounce across the floor and roll under desks and at people's feet, away from the man who threatened to kill with them.

Within minutes, the entire place is surrounded by SWAT and cops, their guns aimed at the man who was willing to kill innocent people for his own benefit.

You can hardly get up from your chair when you feel something warm and smooth pressed up against your body. You instantly feel your knees buckling under you, but Peter uses his strength to keep you from falling. Reporters outside try their hardest to catch a glimpse of what’s going on inside the bank, but police officers hold them back as best they can, cutting off their view with all their might while the two of you hug.

Your entire body trembles and your heart feels like it was going to explode as you shivered in Peter's arms, holding onto the boy for what felt like dear life.

"Shh," he whispers in your ear, "It's okay. I got you."

You try to speak, to thank him for coming as quickly as he did, but nothing comes out except throaty stutters and shaky breaths. You’re hurting, even a blind man can see it.

“You came,” you manage, “he just lost it.”

“Of course I did silly,” he replies, “I couldn’t let you get hurt, could I?”

People all around you gasp audibly when Peter pulls off his mask, synapses doing jumping jacks when you come face to face with him in public. He’s never taken off the mask in front of people before, especially not in front of reporters, and out of all of the Avengers, his identity is the only one that up until now remained a secret. Peter isn’t thinking about what Tony might say or what Steve might think. He’s not concerned with the gaping expressions of journalists and cops alike, or with the newspapers that will have his face plastered on the front page tomorrow. He doesn’t care because grown attached to you.

The feeling had crept up on him slowly, and he hadn’t realized it until now, when the possibility of losing you for the second time in such a short amount of time finally managed to get it through his head.

“What are you doing?” You ask, eyes wide and pupils blown out.

“I want you to see me,” he says, “not the mask.”

“But-” you stammer, “your identity. They’ll know. Everyone will know.”

“I don’t care anymore,” Peter uses his thumb to caress your cheek, “let ‘em know that spider man’s just a kid from Queens. I’m sick of hiding.”

The small smile that plays on your rosy lips makes his heart skip a beat. He’s in love with you, has been for a while now, and Peter’s pretty sure the adrenaline surging in his veins is the reason for the sudden realization. He opens his mouth to speak and the words dangle on the tip of his tongue, but he remains silent when a police officer drapes a blanket over your shoulders and asks you if you require medical attention.

He’ll tell you, he reckons. When the time is right.

172 notes · View notes

to-star-lake · 4 years

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re: untitled [ pt. 3 ]

pairing | jjk x reader genre | ceo!jk, arranged marriage word count | 4.5k rating | M, 18+ pt. 1, pt. 2, end

You opened your eyes to the blinding light of the sun shining high and bright in the sky, and blinked a few times to adjust yourself to the brightness, rubbing them with your fingertips.

You took a deep breath and closed your eyes to go back to sleep when your brain began registering your surroundings. You shifted your legs under the sheets and noticed that this was not your bed, and opening your eyes wide, you looked around and realized this was not your room.

Images of the night before began flashing back to you and you felt your body tense up, remembering everything that happened. Under the sheets, you felt Jungkook shift beside you, and noticed his arm was around your waist and was pulling you backward, your bare skin pressing against his.

You waited until his movements stopped and turned very slowly, trying not to wake him. You turned to see him, still fast asleep, long strands of his hair falling down over his eyes, his shoulder and the dark patterns and lines of his tattoos exposed over the edge of the blanket.

Shit.

Despite the ringing hangover in your head, you were able to recollect everything that happened last night. How Jungkook burst into Taehyung’s apartment. How he cornered you in the elevator. How he pulled you into him to pose for photos at the benefit. How the two of you got into a drunken spat at an event full of your clients and colleagues. How Namjoon made both of you leave only for the two of you to continue the fight at home. The fight that led to this.

Your head spun with all of the thoughts swirling through your mind. You slept with him. Oh god, you slept with him. Was it because both of you were drunk, filled with adrenaline from fighting, and needed an outlet for the pent up frustration you both felt? How did this happen?

Jungkook shifted a little, snuggling his face into the pillow and you felt his arm around your waist pull you closer. You took a long breath in in an attempt to calm yourself, but the lingering scent of the cologne on his skin made your eyes heavy and you remembered in excruciating detail how he touched you, the way he held you, the way he made you feel. How good it felt.

You reached a hand out slowly, gently brushing a few strands of hair from his eyes. You’d never seen him this close before. Or maybe you have, but you weren’t really looking. You traced your fingertips softly over his brow bone, across his cheeks, your eyes catching the little moles on his nose, under his lower lip, and wondered how long he’s had these, why you’d never noticed them before.

He stirred at the movement and mumbled something into the pillow and you retracted your hand quickly, not wanting to wake him. Not wanting to face him.

Slowly and carefully, you slid your body out from under his arm, and slipped out from underneath the covers. You tiptoed quickly from his room, quietly picking up the pieces of your undergarments trailing to the living room. You moved quickly to your side of the penthouse and shut the door quietly behind you. Once the door was closed, you leaned your head back against it, feeling your tense muscles relax as you took a deep breath.

You stepped into the rain shower in your bathroom, turning the water on as hot as you could tolerate, hoping a little bit of pain might distract you from all the thoughts running through your head. You doused yourself in soap and shampoo, wanting to wash his scent from your body.

You felt ashamed. Not because you slept with him. You felt ashamed because you were finally registering the few words you exchanged before you drifted into the deepest sleep in his arms.

I’ve never slept with any of those girls, you know.

You put a hand up against the marble wall of the shower, trying to hold yourself up but your legs felt like they were giving out under you. You lowered your head and let the hot water spill over your body.

I haven’t slept with any other girl. Not after that night at dinner with our parents. The month before our wedding.

You felt your hand clench into a fist, your cheeks grew hot and you felt a warm liquid building along the bottom of your eyes.

Because I’ve only ever wanted you.

You slid down to the floor of the shower, curling into a ball, leaning against the marble, tears flying from your eyes. You held your legs close, head buried into your knees, making a concerted effort to focus on taking deep breaths to stop crying.

After a few moments, you were able to stop the tears flowing and the adrenaline seemed to fade. The steam from the shower helped clear your head, but when you stepped out and wiped the fog from the mirror, you saw how swollen your eyes were from crying. And you saw the darkened patches of clotted blood underneath the skin of your neck and shoulder. You wished you could wash these marks he made away too.

Think, you thought to yourself, closing your eyes and bracing yourself against the counter. Had he given you any indication that this was how he felt? Why didn’t he say anything earlier? Why didn’t he just tell you how he felt? Why didn’t he, at any point during the engagement, try to reach out and just talk to you? Or anytime during the last two years?

And how could he feel this way? How could he be like this? Sure, you were childhood friends, but you never saw him as more than that. In fact, although he liked to follow you around as a small child, when both of you grew to be teenagers he became increasingly distant and standoffish towards you.

You tried to shake your thoughts away, taking a seat at the vanity and began dabbing foundation over the marks on your neck. You got dressed, ultimately choosing to tie a silk scarf around your neck because no amount of foundation was going to do any good.

Carefully opening the door to your bedroom, you peaked out to make sure he hadn’t woken up. You heard no sounds in the living room or kitchen and you silently tiptoed back down the hall to his side of the penthouse and lingered in the open doorway to his room for a moment. He was still blissfully asleep, his dark hair a wavy mess on the pillows.

You thought of Taehyung on your drive to the office. You remembered that tonight was his art show. That about two months ago he told you that for the first time, he would actually open a gallery and exhibit his work for the public, something you’d been encouraging him to do for a long time. And he wanted you to attend.

You knew you needed the day to clear your head, and getting some things done at the office would be the perfect distraction. And then tonight, you would call Jungkook, and get to the bottom of how this happened. And you would text Taehyung, and inform him that you can’t make it to his art exhibit after all. You thought you didn’t want to see him, at least for a while, until you have everything figured out.

You heard a soft, wry laugh from yourself. There was a bit of poetic irony in the events of last night, you thought. That on the night you told your husband you wanted to divorce him (though you didn’t mean it), it was also the night the two of you finally consummated your marriage.

Miya, your secretary, greeted you at the elevator the way she does every morning with a latte and your calendar for the day to review with you. And as you made your way through the open floor space to your office, she sat down across from you and mentioned that the security team was doing a full sweep of everyone’s hardware storage, and that their remit to everyone in the company is to go through their cloud drive and emails and delete anything that was not needed or should not be saved, even the CEO needed to comply.

You glanced over your schedule and thanked Miya for the coffee, glad for the mindless task of deleting emails because it would make for a good distraction. As you were flipping through endless pages of emails in your various work and personal mailboxes, you came across one folder in the junk category you didn’t recognize.

The folder was labeled with only a single dash and you can’t remember if you created this, or if this was a standard folder that the email drive provided.

You clicked on it, and more than 50 unread emails loaded. You furrowed your brows, confused, but found your eyes opening wide in surprise and confusion when you read the ‘from’ column. The email address that sent you all of these messages was jjk1997, and every email had the same generic subject -

re: untitled.

You scrolled through the pages until you found the very first email from this address, simply denoted as ‘untitled.’ And this email had been opened, as opposed to all the others that came after. When the message itself loaded, you saw that it was a photo of Yoongi, your first crush from middle school, kissing one of your friends.

The memories of how this happened came crashing back to you.

Years ago, way back in middle school, when the two of you still attended school together, you remember there was an older boy that you had a crush on. You remember revealing who that was to Jungkook and a few of your friends during a game of truth or dare at one of your parents work events; one of those events where all the children of the executives in attendance banded together.

And you remembered that a week later, Jungkook sent you this photo, without a subject, without an explanation. And you remembered being furious with him for sending it. You didn’t understand it. You supposed his intention was to inform you that you should not go for this guy, because he was making out with one of your friends after school. But you felt so embarrassed that he’d taken action on this personal information he knew about you. You felt exploited.

And so you had clicked the filter messages like these button at the top of the page. The site had asked you to name the folder you wanted to filter these messages to and in the absence of wanting to give Jungkook’s emails any meaning, you simply typed -.

That’s why you never saw these, you thought to yourself. Upon receiving any correspondence from Jungkook, your email automatically filed them away into the folder nested under the Junk category. And he’d sent you so many. You scrolled back again through the pages and found that the latest email from him was sent over two years ago. In fact, the date on it was the date of that night with both of your parents when they announced your engagement.

You clicked on the email to open it, and realized it was part of the same chain that originated with the first message. You took a deep breath and read it.

‘You didn’t seem too happy about what happened tonight. I’ve known that we were betrothed for a long time, my parents told me about it when I was 7. You looked so taken aback, I can only assume your parents never told you about the arrangement.

You can tell me if you really don’t want to do this.

You should know, I’m okay with this. I’ve known about it for a long time. But I guess you must feel differently. If you don’t wanna go through with this, I’ll talk to my parents, I’ll make up something. Im not gonna let our parents to force you into this if it’s not what you want.

But before I do that, I want to see you. There are some things I want to say.

I’ll be at the cafe on 52nd, a couple blocks up from the restaurant tomorrow at noon.

- JK’

You sat frozen at your desk, eyes glued to the screen, unable to look away.

Finally, you were able to restore movement to your hand over the mouse and you frantically clicked through the rest of the emails from him and you found the contents to be very similar. They were all mostly photos from his travels.

Photos of a fishing boat, crossing a wide river in misting rain to a small island in the distance. Below those photos he wrote the word Patagonia. Photos of impressionist paintings from Monet to Seurat, old architecture and towers of petite cakes in candy shops, blue and white ocean waves crashing onto giant rocks, titled Cote d'Azur. Photos of vast, open fields of green, snow capped mountains in the distance, sheep grazing, titled Milford Sound. Aquamarine waters, sailboats, and an ivory city on a plateau that rose above the sea, titled Malta.

These weren’t just photos of all the places he’d gone. They were also all the places you have always dreamed of visiting if you weren’t so busy and stressed with school, with work.

You referenced the dates on these, and they began the summer after he was sent away to boarding school, extending through when both of you had gone away to college.

You leaned back in your chair, stunned.

He had tried to keep in contact with you all these years.

You sprung from your chair, grabbing your purse and turned to fly through the doors to your office when you saw Seokjin at Miya’s desk outside, a frantic look in his eye, a stack of papers in his arms.

He turned, making eye contact with you as you were walking out and you held a hand up, “Not today, Jin, I have to go-”

“Y/N, please, this is urgent,” he said. You examined the panicked expression on his face and turned back toward your office.

“Ok, let’s make this quick,” you said, holding the door open for Seokjin as he stumbled his way to the chair across from your desk, dropping the stack of papers down with a thud.

“Okay, well, um-” he mumbled.

“Jin, just, tell me what’s going on, succinctly please.”

“Well, ok, here,” Jin grabbed a manila folder that sat at the top of the stack and opened it to a long document with a table on it that looked like a bank statement. “Look at this,” he said.

You glanced through the line items, confirming that it was in fact a bank statement from your company’s corporate account, and all the deposits and withdrawals were from your clients, from investors, and out to all the vendors and expenses the company pays.

“This is just our bank statement, Jin, this is what you wanted me to look at?” you asked, impatient.

“No, this is what I want you to look at,” he responded, flipping through the pages until somewhere in the middle of the stack, and pointed to a single line item of a transfer of twenty thousand dollars from the company’s corporate account.

“I don’t recognize this vendor, do you?” he asked, “And I realized, I’ve seen this line item before. At first I thought it must’ve been something to do with when we moved to the new office, the admins might’ve contracted some designers or architects for the office. But transfers to this company have been made regularly, every month, for the same amount, for the last two years. I thought this couldn’t be right.” He looked at you intently, waiting for your response.

But you had none. You stared down at the line item he pointed to. And at the stack of other bank statements he brought in. The twenty thousand dollar transfer was made to a company called Vante Studios, LLC.

“Maybe I should bring this to Taehyung instead, surely the CFO knows what’s going with this-” he continued impatiently.

“No,” you stopped him abruptly. “No, I will look into this personally. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Jin, have you told anyone else about this?”

He shook his head, a confused expression manifesting on his face.

“Ok Jin, this is very important, this does not leave this room.”

“So you do know what this company is?” He inquired.

“No I don’t, so I will look into it.” you lied through your teeth and motioned for him to leave your office.

Once Jin left you just sat there, staring down at the sheet of paper. You knew exactly what this company was. Vante Studios was what you and Taehyung always joked he should name his art gallery if he ever opened his own. And now he has.

“Miya?” you called from your desk. She stood from her desk and poked her head through the opened glass door.

“Yes?”

“Please call down to the showroom and bring up that black dress and heels I’m wearing to the gallery opening tonight,” you said. Miya nodded and a short 30 minutes later, you had changed into the little silk slip dress and strappy heels, and you were on your way to the gallery.

You needed to confront Taehyung.

The gallery was packed when you arrived. Undoubtedly thanks to your contacting all the local journalists and photographers to cover the event ahead of time and help build anticipation for the gallery opening on Taehyung’s behalf.

Walking through the front door, you looked on in disbelief at the tall concrete walls of the gallery, the exposed piping and brick, the glazed marble floor, the gilded wallpaper accents, the waiters and mixologists in three piece Gucci suits, carrying endless glasses of Moet through the crowd. You knew the money was for this. Because in looking at the way this gallery was designed, there was no way Taehyung afforded this on his own.

You often wondered but never thought too much on how Taehyung was able to afford his lavish lifestyle - the first edition books on the mahogany bookshelf in his apartment, the authentic Marie Antoinette tea set in his china cabinet, the Van Goghs hanging from the walls.

You navigated your way through the crowd, finding Taehyung standing before a photograph he’d taken, printed in black and white. He was waving his hand around, steeped in drama, explaining the photo in artistic detail to his audience. You stood at the periphery of the room, observing him. At how he could act like everything was ok. At how he smiled, the smile you thought you adored but now revile.

You were about to make your way through the crowds to him when you saw a valet open the front door of the gallery and Jungkook walked in.

You tried to duck away, attempting to blend into the crowds but you couldn’t help glancing over at him as he looked around the groups of people, looking for you. You couldn’t help looking at the long strands of his dark hair, tucked behind one ear, the other side hanging over his cheeks. At his chest and shoulders under a pressed black shirt and black coat, stitched with silver tinsel. At his long legs in a pair of perfectly fitted black trousers. He looked in your direction and your eyes met for a moment.

You saw the corner of his lips lift in a soft smile, and he moved to walk towards you but you turned, averting his gaze and walked quickly towards the back of the venue, finding an empty storage closet. You quickly shut and locked the door behind you, hoping that in the midst of the crowds of people, he didn’t see where you went.

You weren’t ready to face him. Not yet. You still needed to confront Taehyung but you knew there would now be two confrontations if you let this go on. So you decided you needed to find a way to leave the venue, and save these confrontations for another day.

Taking a deep breath, you let out a sharp exhale and turned the doorknob to leave and as you stepped out, bumped directly into someone.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that-”

An arm reached out and slid down around your waist, and he took a step forward, pushing you back into the supply closet, closing and locking the door behind him. You felt your own breathing become shallow and the air around you grow thin when you smelled the familiar scent of amber and patchouli radiating from the heat of the body in front of you.

In the dark, tiny, confined space, the only light source was a sliver of orange glow from the crack underneath the door. He pushed your back against the metal shelving on the wall and pushed his lips onto yours, his arm holding onto your waist tightly, crushing your body against his, his other hand gripping onto your jaw, refusing to allow you to move away.

“JK..” you mumbled weakly against his lips molding into yours, his tongue forcing your mouth open. You felt your cheeks growing flushed, a dull aching building in your core and his hand slid down to your hips, his fingertips digging into your skin.

You lifted your hands up into small fists against his chest, completely ineffectual in pushing him away with any meaningful force. You thought you couldn’t do this. Not again. Not here.

But your body refused to stop as his tongue glided over yours, his hands now sliding down to your legs, fingertips brushing softly at the exposed skin under the lace hem of your dress. He kissed at the corner of your mouth, your cheeks, and ducked his head under your chin, clamping down onto your neck, making you gasp as he pushed his thigh between your legs, the pressure making you feel like you would turn into a puddle, melting into him.

“You left me without a word this morning,” he whispered into your skin, hands brushing the straps of your dress from your shoulders.

“JK..I, wait..I need to..” you were struggling to obtain enough air to get the words out you needed to, and you could hear his breathing becoming more ragged as he bit at your ear, his breaths hot against your skin. “I need to talk to you,” you managed to choke out as his hand found the lace material of your panties under your dress, hooking his finger underneath the ribbons that held it up.

He pressed his lips to yours, “Ok, go ahead,” he moaned into you.

“No...no I can’t talk like this..” you panted.

“So tell me to stop,” he whined, his tongue rolling into your mouth.

“I..” you gasped. “I don’t want you to stop..” you reached down to his belt, hastily tugging at it, tearing the zipper open, gliding your fingers underneath the hem of his briefs.

He tugged at your hips roughly and spun you around, pushing you against the wall. His hands glided up the back of your thighs, and you could feel the soft silk material of the hem of your dress being pulled up over your hips. You arched your back, pressing your ass against him, feeling his hard cock pressing into your drenched panties.

You gasped, clawing your fingertips into the wall as he ran a finger down the soaked material on your clit, massaging you.

“JK..please..” you begged.

You felt his fingers pull your panties to the side, and felt the tip of him rubbing against your entrance and you felt like you were melting around him.

He slid a hand around your neck, pulling at your jaw, pulling your head back to lean against his shoulder. He leaned over and bit at the skin of your neck, and you whined to him, begging for more of him, and he gently pushed only a little more of himself inside you, denying you full satisfaction. You felt yourself trembling against him in need, your wetness dripping down all around him.

“Did you come here to see him tonight?” he growled into your ear.

“I..” you were completely out of breath, seeing stars behind your closed eyes.

“You still want him after last night?” he tilted your head back with his hand, forcing his tongue into your mouth.

“Mmm, no...that’s not..” you couldn’t breathe. “Fuck..JK..what are you doing to me...” you begged as he was grinding against you at an agonizingly slow pace, continuing to deny you the full length of his cock.

He bit at your lower lip, pushing a little more of himself into you.

“I’m making sure you never even think about another man again.” And with that, he thrust all of himself deep inside you, his hand moving swiftly over your mouth, covering the scream that escaped your lungs as he pushed into you.

“No one else can ever make you feel like this, do you understand,” he whispered into your ear, thrusting into you harder, filling you to the absolute brim. He slid a hand over your neck, closing around your throat with the gentlest force and you felt all the muscles in your body begin to tense.

“JK..I..” you were losing all control as he pushed you to the edge.

“Go ahead, love,” he commanded, his hot breath against your ear, sliding his arm around you, bracing you tightly against him. “Show me how good I make you feel.”

“Fuck, JK-”

Your body shook against him, in little waves at first, then violently as he held you tightly against him, burying himself deep inside you and you could feel his own climax pooling warmly in your core, his hand pressed firmly over your mouth to cover your gasps and screams, and you reached back to cover his.

His head collapsed onto your shoulder and you fell against the wall, both of you fighting for the little bit of oxygen in the room. He waited for your body to find stillness and pulled himself away gently. He tugged the hem of your dress down, and with gentle hands, guided you to turn to face him.

He planted soft kisses on your lips and cheeks and your forehead, his hands cupped around your flushed cheeks.

“Let’s go home,” he whispered, leaning his forehead down to yours.

You closed your eyes, and as the little stars started fading, you were again being hit by reality. You remembered Taehyung. You remembered you were still at his gallery.

Jungkook could sense this chaos in your mind and pulled his head back to study you for a moment. But his lips curled into a smile, a little scrunch forming on the bridge of his nose, little lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. You’d never seen him like this before.

“Come home with me,” he said.

You took a deep breath in. “I will,” you answered. “Just, not yet. There’s something I have to do first.”

He looked into your eyes for a moment, confused, but nodded. He leaned down and gave you a long kiss, breathing you in. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

#jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook scenario #jungkook series #jungkook angst #bts x reader #bts fanfiction #bts scenario #bts series #bts angst #ceo!jungkook #jungkook arranged marriage #arranged marriage au #phew! part three already #yall know 190811 lotte family concert jk was the insp here #hope you like it!#part 4 sooon

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

Text

summertime sadness .5.

work day

Sequel to kiss me in the d-a-r-k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 (masterlist under construction)

Warnings: dub con sex (fingering)

This is dark!(dad)Steve and dark(professor!)Bucky explicit. 18+ only. I know they aren’t super dark, but like questionable so I’m keeping those tags just to be safe.

Summary: Loki adds to your workload.

Note: Right, here we go, here we go, here go again. Girls, what's my weakness? Men! Sorry, minor detour there but are we ready for the darkness? Y'all hold onto your panties. Thanks everyone for their support and I love you all! 💋

<3 Let me know what you think in a reblog, reply, or like. I’m loving the feedback from y'all and the enthusiasm! Also as always, memes accepted.

💋💋💋

You didn’t sleep much. Every time you closed your eyes, the scene flashed behind your eyelids. Loki standing over you, the image on his phone, his hand on your chin. And then you thought of Bucky. It was hard not to; your phone buzzed all night as you ignored his messages. Steve’s too. It had finally caught up to you and it felt worse than you could imagine. A man you admired thought you nothing more than a floozy. Well, maybe you were.

Saturday shone through your window and you rolled over. You were exhausted; mentally, emotionally. Your hours were spent reprimanding yourself. Going over all your mistakes; every single choice that had led to such disaster. You sat up and rubbed your eyes. You moved slowly, your body cramped from the tension.

The grind of your coffee machine filled the apartment as you sat at your desk. A mark of your guilt. A gift from one illicit lover; another having defiled you a top it. A year ago, to think of all that had transpired, you would’ve been appalled. You were. You’d sold your integrity for fleeting pleasures. You felt cheated. By yourself more than any.

You filled a mug and grabbed your phone from beside your bed. You hadn’t looked at it since you laid down the night before. Missed calls, unanswered texts, unread emails. You answered Bucky first, a simple ‘I wasn’t feeling well. Sorry.’ Besides, he had plans with Tanya, or was busy dodging her.

You texted the same to Steve and his response was swift. Your phone vibrated as his ID flashed across the screen and you answered the call after several rings. You were weak, breathless.

“Hey,” You said quietly and sipped your coffee.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked.

“Fine,” You lied poorly. “Work’s kept me busy and… I guess it’s gotten ahead of me.”

“Oh,” He uttered. “Any plans today?”

“Rest,” You shrugged and sat back in your chair. “After I sort through all my work emails and catch up.”

“Bucky?” He asked.

“I… I’m tired.” You grumbled. “I… need a break.”

“I’m sure work would understand if you took a day to yourself.” Steve said.

“No, no, I can’t do that,” You said suddenly. “I wasn’t talking about work.”

“What do you--”

“You shouldn’t be calling me. You should call Kylie. See how she’s doing.” You interrupted. “And Bucky should worry about his students. About marking and whatever. And I need to think about myself and my job.” You stood and paced around the small space of your apartment. “I’m sorry but… you said it yourself. It’s okay to be selfish, so I’m going to be selfish and think about my future because fucking old men isn’t going to get me anywhere.”

You hung up before he could respond. And then your heart sank. Why had you said that? It all had spilled from you so quickly. You cringed and your phone began to buzz again. It was Steve. You let out a shaky breath and dismissed the call. You set your phone to do not disturb’ and tossed it on your bed. Maybe your words were rash but it didn’t make them any less true.

💋

Monday. You walked into Adder Press with a pit in your stomach. You were jittery from more than your morning coffee. You gripped the strap of your bag tightly as you passed Stacey. Everything around you seemed distant, obscured by the haze that fell over you. You sat at your desk, numb, and began to set out your stuff as you always did. In a desperate attempt to make it all feel normal again.

As you waited for your computer to boot, you felt a subtly weight on the back of your chair. You looked up at Loki as he gripped the chair and smirked down at you. You blanched and your pen slipped from your hand. He bent to grab it before you could and as he rose, he dragged the lid against your leg. He held it out and you snatched it from him.

“Morning meeting in five,” He said as he stood before you. “Then I wanted to go over layout with you. A useful lesson if you ever hope to be anything more than a freelancer. You have to have a good eye… for detail.”

You gulped and nodded. “Yes, okay, yeah.” You set the pen down on your desk. “Five minutes.”

He winked and left you there to stew in your shame. You glanced around but no one else seemed to notice your tense interaction. They were all too concerned with their own schedules, their own presence at the meeting. Really, who cared much about the summer intern?

You were antsy as you walked into the conference room. You hid between Vanessa, a political pundit, and Jory, who covered local business stories. Loki sat near the head of the table as the marketing head went over the final prints of the Pride issue. You folded your hands before you but couldn’t concentrate.

Your eyes wandered from the powerpoint and you found the editor-in-chief peering over at you. Another sinister grin sent a chill through you. You looked back to the screen and prayed for the day to go quickly. Your heart felt as if it would explode.

When you broke out, you dragged your feet and were the last out of the room. You lingered at your desk as you grabbed your notebook and pen. Loki’s office beckoned to you ominously. He stood in the doorway watching you; waiting for you. You neared him as his lips curled.

He shut the door and you jumped at the click. He brushed past you before he rounded his desk. He pulled a chair with him and placed it beside his. He waved you over. You took a breath and crossed to him. As you sat, he pinched your ass and you pressed your lips together to keep from yelping.

His hand settled on your thigh as his other moved his mouse. He opened a page from last month’s issue and kept his eyes on the screen as he kneaded your leg. “We’ll go over composition. How to draw the reader’s eye and using layout to enhance your words.”

You nodded stiffly and shakily opened your notebook. He kept his hand on your thigh as you place the book on his desk and uncapped your pen. He circled the title with his cursor, entirely unfazed by your discomfort. His fingers slipped closer to your pelvis.

“Titles are easy but you’ll want to position them according to article type as well. Is it an editorial? Review? Reflective?” He continued. “Now, most editors would leave this to marketing and such but… I try to be hands on with every aspect of my business. My seal is on every page, ever word, that goes out.”

You scribbled down a jumble of words as his hand slid between your thighs and he squeezed. You flinched and he let out a soft chuckle under his breath. You kept your wide eyes on the monitor and he carried on his lesson. His hand never quite reaching its target. He was teasing you. Asserting the new power he held over you.

When he finished his spiel, he drew away and turned his chair to face you. His legs were far apart and you tried not to look at the obvious bulge in his pants. You kept your head down as you slipped your notebook down onto your lap.

“I’ve got an important lunch date tomorrow,” He said. “I should like you to accompany me, darling.”

You peeked up at him. “Okay.”

“Sceptre Press is looking to expand its mediums. The director of Celestial has agreed to discuss a partnership.” He said coolly.

“Oh?” You breathed. “They… do podcasts?”

“Mostly,” He confirmed. “But, my dear, do wear something nice. A skirt.”

You crossed your legs. Your straight-cut pants felt thin enough. “Alright.”

“No panties.” He licked his lips. “Our little secret… well, another one, yeah?”

“Okay.” You said. You bit down and your pen rolled out of your grasp once more.

His eyes followed the pen and flicked back to you. “Well, go on,” He mused. “Very… clumsy today.”

You bent to retrieve your pen and he caught the back of your head. He held you there and rolled his chair closer so that his lap was only inches from your face. He snickered as you tried to pull away but quickly gave up. His other hand stretched over his crotch and he grasped his erection through the thin fabric of his trousers.

“I could make you do it right now,” He slithered. “Hmm?”

“Yes,” You uttered.

“I’m tempted,” He rubbed himself and shifted his hand as he pushed you closer. “Kiss it.” You closed your eyes and kissed his bulge. He shivered and let you go. You sat up, dizzy, and he grinned at you. “Not yet.” He preened. “But I do have to take care of this…” He ran his hand across his lap again. “So if you would excuse me. I am certain you have work to catch up on.”

You stood and back away slowly. “Yes, sir.” You turned as you rounded the desk.

“Sir? I like that,” He called from behind you as you neared the door. “Oh, darling, one more thing.”

You spun back to him and shielded your chest with your notebook. “Yes?”

“I’ll need some inspiration so before you sit down, go to the lav and take a nice photo for me.” He made a show of unzipping his pants behind his desk. “I bet you’re wearing a sweet little white bra, aren’t you? Maybe a precious pink number?”

Your throat tightened as you stared back at him. “Okay.” You forced out. “Is that all?”

“For now,” He shooed you away with a wave of his fingers. “As you will.”

💋

You had few skirts to choose from. You settled on a lavender one that ended just above your knees. With it, you wore a blouse with a Peter Pan collar and a grey blazer with three-quarter length sleeves. It wasn’t as enticing as any other outfit you owned; which was not at all. Perhaps that would work in your favour.

When you arrived at the bistro, Loki waved you ahead of him as you followed the hostess to your booth. You slid across the bench first and he was close behind. He took out his phone and checked it before he set it face down on the table. He asked for water and nothing else.

Your leg shook under the table nervously. He grabbed your thigh to still you. The waitress returned and he thanked her, his hand still on your leg. When she departed, his fingers slowly gathered your skirt. You reached to pull it back and he tssked.

“Our associate has informed me she’s running late.” He grinned. “About twenty minutes or so.” You squirmed as his hand slipped beneath your hem. “I think we can fill our time accordingly.”

“L--Mr. Laufeyson,” You gasped. “Someone might see.”

“They’d have to be watching us very closely,” He leaned against you as his fingers crawled along the top of your thigh. “Now,” He shoved his hand between your legs roughly. “Let’s have some fun, darling.”

You parted your legs reluctantly and he tickled along your cunt. You grabbed the edge of the table and your eyes searched frantically. The other diners were occupied with their own meals, their own company. You felt as invisible as you had back at the office. He rubbed you slowly. He lifted his glass with his other hand as he continued.

“After our meeting, I think we’ll head back to the office and call a conference. We’ll need ideas for prospective podcasts,” He swirled his fingertips and you let out a long breath between your teeth. “Of course, if this all goes to plan.”

You whimpered as you felt yourself getting wet. His fingers glided easily along your folds as he spread your arousal. You planted your elbow on the table and held your chin as you bit your lip. Mortified, you tried to hide your face.

“Uh uh,” He grabbed your wrist and shoved it down as his fingers dipped inside you. “Look at me.”

You leaned back against the booth as you looked over at him. He smirked as he moved his fingers steadily in and out of you. He pressed his palm to your clit and the sensation made your legs shake again.

“Is this what you like? Sneaking around?” He taunted. “Is this what he does, hmm? Or maybe he bends you over his desk?”

“Mr. Lauf--” You swallowed down a moan and clapped your hand over your mouth.

“I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it,” He sped up and your thighs squeezed his hand. “Are you going to cum? Here in front of everyone? In the middle of this restaurant?”

Your eyes rounded and you grabbed his shoulder pleadingly. You couldn’t speak, afraid you would cry out instead.

“You like being a naughty little girl, don’t you?” He curled his fingers and you heard a subtle squelch as your walls twitched around him.

You bared your teeth and latched onto his arm. You rocked your hips without thinking as you came. You let out a shuddery breath and he slid his fingers out of your cunt, sure to drag them along your folds. He untangled his arm from your grasp and you fell back against the seat and pushed down your skirt.

He raised his hand and ran his wet fingers over your lips. He pressed against your mouth until you opened it. He stared into your eyes as he made you suck your own cum off his knuckles. He withdrew them and used a napkin to wipe away your saliva.

“It is a pity, however, that this lunch should set you behind, darling,” He crossed his legs and drank from his water again. “You will have to stay late tonight… to catch up.”

“Yes, sir,” You ceded.

He smirked and looked around. A moment of silence before he perked up and stood. He buttoned his jacket so it hid his bulge and greeted the tall woman who approached you. He shook her hand with the same one he’d just had between your legs. You stood in kind. Your legs felt weak.

“Valerie,” He purred. “Thank you for fitting us in today.”

“Us?” She looked between you. “And sorry about the delay. Traffic was… traffic.”

“My intern,” He introduced you by name, “She’s shadowing me for the day. To get an idea of the business and all its little quirks.”

You shook her hand and you sat down as she did the same. The server was quick to appear and offer you menus. You eagerly took yours, hoping to hide behind it for the rest of the meal. Especially as that familiar and irresistible tingle nestled in your core.

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delicatelyherdreams · 4 years

Text

Pragma(tic) 7: Her Thoughts Conflict

Pairing: Persephone!Bucky Barnes x Hades!Reader

Summary: In a world where the old gods never truly died, you must learn to navigate your way through the ups and downs of immortality. And if living forever wasn’t hard enough, an ancient evil is now threatening to break free after centuries of silence. And as if that still wasn’t hard enough for you, now a pesky and infuriatingly handsome god is trying to wedge his way into your life. Gods, work, love, and conflict—what more could a goddess need? [Hades & Persephone AU]

Word Count: 5913

Warnings: Language, sexual themes, implied sex

Pragma(tic) Masterlist

Previous 6: He Never Listens

As soon as James—no, Bucky—crossed through the barrier, you were spinning around on your heel and running back down the river. Your heart was racing, your palms were sweating, and your thoughts were running. What was he doing out?

Your legs could not carry you fast enough towards the Cocytus. You had to find him. Why was he here now? Couldn’t he see that you were busy and didn’t have time for his shit and shenanigans? What the hell did he want now?

He hadn’t moved from his spot on the river bank. His signature smirk warped his lips, his deep eyes staring at you with a famished lust as you approached.

You couldn’t believe him and his lack of shame. He knew better than to look at you like that in public, even if the entirety of the Underworld was your private domain. Your blood boiled with every step you took, ready to rip him a new one. You marched right up to him, ready to yell at him, and called, “Brock—” But you didn’t get very far in your scolding.

His hands were on your hips faster than you knew and his lips were on yours in a feverish intensity. You could feel the need rolling off him and it made your stomach do flips. You felt your legs weaken at the familiar feeling of his kiss, the need you felt matching his. You whimpered into the kiss, the sound pathetic in the back of your throat. It was embarrassing really, just how fast a simple river naiad could turn you, the Queen of the Underworld, into a pile of mush.

You wound your arms up around his neck, leaning against him with a sigh as he kissed you. Your eyes fluttered closed as his hands found the hem of your shirt and lifted it up ever so slightly so that his skin could touch yours. His fingers were warm, but they sent shivers down your spine.

He pushed you back so you were taking small, unsteady steps. His hands were pressed against the small of your back, pulling you closer to his body.

You didn’t want to do this here—not out in the open where unwanted ears could hear and eyes could see. Moving your arms away from his neck and bringing them under his arms to clutch his shoulder blades, you lurched back, calling on the shadows around you to bend space, and suddenly you were in your mansion, in your bedroom with which he was all too familiar with.

He knew exactly where to lead you so your back would hit the wall, giving him something to prop you against as he took his hands from your back and slid them behind your thighs, lifting you up so you were seated on his hips. One hand made its way to your back once again while the other cradled the back of your neck and tangled its fingers in the hair at the base of your head. He tugged gently, drawing a moan from you. With your mouth open, he took advantage of the opportunity and slipped his tongue into your mouth.

You would never get used to the feeling of having him try to dominate you like this. As queen, very few people defied you, much less try to take over, but Brock Rumlow—that damned naiad—always managed to do it. And you, for once, were powerless to stop him.

You inhaled sharply and squeezed your hands into fists. The smell of him was enticing, the sensation euphoric, and the feeling familiar. You let him explore you for the millionth time, opting to just revel in the moment.

His tongue took over, running over every inch it could. When he finally had his fill of your mouth, he pulled away and migrated to your jaw, placing hungry kisses on the skin and making his way down to your neck.

You groaned as you lifted your head and dug your nails into the skin on his back. “Brock…”

He pulled away just enough to murmur, “Shhh,” his husky voice breaking the silence of the room. “Shhh, don’t say a word.” Placing his lips back on your skin, he sucked at your neck, undoubtedly trying to leave his mark on you.

“Brock,” you tried again, pulling your hands from his back to place them against his chest. “Stop.” You opened your eyes to see the world coated in red—though whether the color change was from the annoyance that was building up in your throat or your own need that had made its home in the pit of your stomach, you weren’t sure.

He didn’t stop, continuing to kiss you in ways that would normally have you begging for more.

But you weren’t really in the mood for it tonight. You pushed him back, tearing his mouth from your neck and setting him at a distance where you could see his face.

He whined at the lack of contact, his pupils blown wide with need. “(y/n)...”

“Don’t,” you snapped, the red only intensifying in your sight. “I’m mad at you right now.”

“Oh, come on, Precious,” he cooed, his lips turning down in a pout. “Don’t be like that.”

“No, I will be like that.” You pushed him again, making him put you down and take a step back. He was taller than you—though not quite as tall as Bucky, you noticed—and so you glowered up at him. “You disappear for almost a year without warning or notice, and then you come back like nothing’s happened?” You jabbed your finger into his chest. “And then you just expect me to welcome you back with open arms? Nuh-uh. I want an explanation. Where were you? Why didn’t you answer any of my calls? Why did you choose right now to come back?”

He held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have ghosted you like that. But you were getting busy and didn’t have any time for me and I needed a small break, (y/n). I’m sorry I went away so suddenly, but I’m back now, okay?”

“No, not okay.” You crossed your arms in a pout. “I was lonely without you. I kept waiting for you to come back; I started to doubt that you ever would. That was really mean.”

The corner of his lips turned up in a soft smirk. “I’m sorry. Is there any way I could make it up to you, my queen?”

My queen.

Gods, when he said it like that it did things to you.

You felt your cheeks redden as the rouge in your vision only intensified. “You could kiss me like you missed me.”

He laughed. “Gladly.”

———

Brock Rumlow: the naiad of the Cocytus and your long-time… Well, if you were honest, you weren’t entirely sure what he was to you. Your relationship was what the mortals would call “complicated.”

You’d met shortly after you’d assumed control of the Underworld. As the spirit of one of the rivers, you made it your business to get to know him. He was charming, as always, and well-spoken. He knew the words to make your legs feel like jelly and he knew how to make you feel like the queen you were getting used to being. He was, without a doubt, one of your most loyal subjects.

There’d always been an underlying tone of sexual tension between the two of you. He was attractive and made you feel powerful or cared for depending on what you needed, and after about a thousand years the two of you pursued a “relationship” of sorts.

But it wasn’t really a relationship. You two would have “dinner dates” which would eventually lead to sleeping together, hangouts which would lead to sleeping together, or even just flat out sleeping together. He always managed to find a way into your bed but then he’d always disappear the next day. It wasn't real love.

You weren’t sure why you let him toy with your emotions the way he did—maybe it was because he was the only thing you’d known for centuries, maybe it was because he was familiar, maybe it was because you were lonely—but whatever the reason, you let him stay.

Even now, with his head pressed against your bare chest and your fingers tangled in his short, rough, nearly black hair, with nothing but a thin sheet shielding you from the rest of the world, you knew he was just going to leave you as soon as he woke up. Who knew how long he’d stick around this time.

You wished he’d stay for forever, but you knew that wasn’t possible. Brock didn’t do commitment (he’d made that clear when you’d mentioned to him in passing potentially making him king of the Underworld), and you didn’t have the heart to make him. So, as much as it pained you, you took what little affection and love you could get from him and did your best to reciprocate.

You looked down your nose at his head which rose and fell with your breathing and tugged gently at his hair.

He groaned in his sleep, his arms tightening around your waist as he pulled you closer.

Your heart ached. You weren’t sure if you loved him, but you knew you felt some kind of way about him; you knew you hoped he felt the same. Brock was the only love you had known, even if that love was kinda fucked up.

A buzzing on the nightstand beside you drew you out of your thoughts. You glanced away from Brock to see your phone screen lit up with a single unread text message. With a quiet but exasperated groan, you untangled your fingers from Brock’s hair and reached for the little box. You picked it up and squinted at the screen, the bright light hurting your eyes.

The locked screen displayed three texts in quick succession.

(y/n). Hey, (y/n). You up?

You frowned at the screen before swiping your thumb across it and opening up the text.

who is this?

The response came almost immediately.

It’s Bucky!

You frowned but typed back quickly.

how did you get this number?

I asked your sisters. Queen Carol was more than happy to give me your number when I told her that we were friends. She said something along the lines of “thank gods, my sister is finally getting a life” or something. Idk, but she was happy to hear that you were meeting new people.

You groaned and muttered a quick “fuck” under your breath, but your thumb was moving across the screen quickly and quietly as you tried your hardest to not disturb Brock’s sleep.

yeah, that sounds like my dearest sister. ill have to remind her later not to give my phone number out to strange men

But am I really a strange man?

youre as strange as they come

I’ll take that as a compliment.

you do that

A smile danced on your lips. This was utterly ridiculous. Not only were his replies as silly and stupid as they would’ve been in person, but you were in bed with one man texting with another which was a whole issue in and of itself. Gods, if your mother saw you now, she’d have a heart attack.

You chuckled to yourself before continuing to text Bucky.

well mr. strange, now that you have my number what do you intend to do with it?

For one thing: correct your grammar. Seriously? No capitalization and hardly any punctuation?

well when youre as old as i am, you just dont give a fuck anymore

Hmph, you can’t be that old

im pushing 2000+ buck. i am that old

Alright, fair enough.

will you do anything else besides annoy me about my grammar?

Well, of course. I was thinking that, since you gave me these seeds and everything and lectured me about how you’re a busy gal and all who doesn’t always have the time to deal with me, I’d text you before coming down. You know, just to make sure you’re not busy with queenly things.

You bit your lip and heaved a sigh. What a goof.

Taking your other hand away from Brock’s back, you now used both hands to text Bucky, fully engrossed in the conversation.

thats surprisingly considerate of you james

I’m a surprisingly considerate guy. And it’s Bucky, remember?

i remember i just want to irritate you

Ha ha ha. So not funny.

its a little funny

Whatever. Anyways, I am also wondering if now would be a good time to pop in?

werent you like just here?

No, that was a couple of days ago. Did you hit your head or something?

You frowned and looked down at Brock. Had he really kept you occupied for that long? It wouldn’t have been the first time you’d gone on for days without end, but it still surprised you nonetheless. But then again you were immortal which meant that time was irrelevant—unless you were dealing with new gods, it seemed.

i hardly pay attention to time. it doesnt matter to me

Fair enough. My question still stands. Is now a good time to come down?

You hesitated, your fingers so tempted to type “yes,” but the man on your breast saying no. You held your phone to the side as you looked down at Brock’s peaceful face. You weren’t quite ready to break the stillness that encompassed the two of you.

actually rn is not such a good time. i have company over

His reply was slow.

Oh. Alright.

im really sorry buck. ill text you when im free?

It’s fine! I was just free right now and was wondering. Yeah, if you want to, I’d love to see you again soon.

He wanted to see you. He wanted to be in your company. He’d love to see you again.

That was more than any other man had expressively wanted, and it, for some reason, made your heart flutter.

The smile on your face then was one you didn’t recognize. It wasn’t pleased, it wasn’t happy, but it was almost touching and endearing. The warm feeling in the pit of your stomach was foreign to you, but you liked it. Because you were wanted.

As strange as it is for a queen to say, you were happy to be wanted.

Your fingers rapped against the phone screen.

soon

It was a single word, but it was a promise and one you intended to keep.

Smiling at the screen, you failed to notice the waking man beneath you until he groaned.

“I hope you’re smiling at me like that, Precious,” Brock mumbled, the side of his face still plastered to your chest.

You glanced at him down your nose, smirked, and locked your phone setting it back down on the nightstand. “No. I’m looking at cat videos.”

“Ugh. Those things? Don’t the mortals ever get tired of their pets?”

“No, and they’re adorable, thank you very much. If I didn’t have Cerberus, I’d have a cat. Even then, I’m still considering adopting one and making it immortal too.” You chuckled and moved your hands back to his hair. Swirling the short locks between your fingers, you hummed and smiled softly. “Did you sleep well?’

“Always do when I’m with you,” he mused, pulling his face off your skin and crawling up you so he was hovering over your torso. He bent down and locked lips with you.

You smiled into the kiss, a small laugh escaping when you broke for breath. “Brock,” you whined. “Again?”

He grinned. “I’d like to go again, Precious.” His words held vows of another fun time, but his tone held nothing but empty promises.

Your smile dissolved into a frown. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

He breathed a laugh. “You always did know me, (y/n).” He shuffled off of you, clamored out of your bed, and began to collect his clothes from where they’d been discarded carelessly on the floor.

You turned on your side to stare at him, pulling your sheet up to cover your chest. “You’re leaving again.” The way you said it, with your lips drawn into a disappointed pout, made it a statement and not a question.

“Unfortunately, Precious.” He pulled on his pants which hugged his legs in all the right ways before tugging on his shirt and covering his torso, still damp with sweat. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Work? Is that what you’ve been doing for the past ten months?” You could see the red begin to creep into your vision as bitterness and malice took root in your heart. “Is that why you left me?”

He sighed heavily. “(y/n), we talked about this.”

“No, we didn’t. You said that I had been too busy and that you needed a break.” You narrowed your eyes. “And frankly, I’m calling bullshit on that.” He opened his mouth to protest but you simply waved your hand to silence him. “You had hardly seen me in weeks, and if I recall correctly—which I know I do—it was one of the rare times where everything was calm for once. I had all the time in the Underworld for you but you just up and went without a word. And now you seem to think you can come back, sleep with me, and make everything alright again.” Your voice began to crack, letting loose a small river of emotions you had tried to keep from him. “I miss you, Brock. Please don’t leave me again.”

He winced as if your words hurt him and padded back over to the bed. Leaning over you, he cupped your cheek with his broad hand and pressed his lips to your forehead.

You let out a trembling sigh, closed your eyes, and leaned into his touch.

His skin left your’s way sooner than you would’ve liked and he looked down at you. “I’m sorry, Precious. But I swear, one day, this will all make sense to you.” You opened your eyes in time to see him smiling down at you. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised before pulling away from you completely and exiting the bedroom. You could hear his footsteps as he descended the staircase right outside your door and made his way through the house to the front door.

You slid out of bed, the sheet still wrapped around you, and walked over to the window that oversaw your front porch and the entirety of the Underworld. You watched as Brock exited your house and began to make his way down the mountain, growing smaller and smaller as he grew farther and farther away.

When he finally disappeared, you felt something in your chest break… again. Yet another piece of your heart crumbled away as he left. He’d said that you’d understand one day; you craved the day he’d finally make sense to you.

You spent the next week lingering around the house. It was a “mental health week” you’d decided and you used it to mope and eat ice cream as you did when he left you alone. The house was quiet—too quiet. Not even Peggy or Cerberus could lift your spirits while you sank in your misery. You had nothing to do, nothing to be.

On the eighth day of your sulking, you realized that this was pointless. You found yourself wondering why you bothered with him. Why you bothered with these emotions, why you bothered with being upset that he left you.

You needed to get out of the house. You needed to spend time with someone.

Your eyes flickered to the coffee table where your phone rested on the surface. You hesitated for only a moment before you swiped it, pulled up your messages, and typed a quick text before sending it off.

hey im free right now if you still want to come down

Bucky’s response was immediate.

Planting a seed now.

———

Behind your mansion, just a short way down the mountain, stood an extensive garden. Filled with fruit-bearing trees, large bushes, and flowers of all kinds, it was your miniature refuge from the rest of the Underworld. It was isolated, kept away from all the death and gloominess that sometimes infected the rest of your realm. It was silent and beautiful.

Maintained by a small team of shades who had been gardeners in life but now resided in Elysium and wanted to continue their craft even in death, the flowers were in bloom year-round and everything was always healthy and lovely.

You loved being there, removed from your title and responsibilities. It was a place where you could just be (y/n). It was your secret garden, and you couldn’t believe that you were sharing it with someone.

You sat on one of the white marble benches, watching Bucky as he roamed through the trees, his eyes alight with wonder and a wide smile on his face.

You’d decided to take him down there shortly after he arrived, realizing that, when you’d invited him down, you had nothing for the two of you to do. However, with a bit of quick thinking on your part, you deduced that a nature god such as himself would appreciate a garden. And that’s how you ended up taking him down to your secret refuge, someplace that not even Brock or Peggy had been invited to.

Yes, you were a fucking idiot, but he seemed happy about it.

“I still can’t believe that there are living things down here!” Bucky exclaimed, his voice filled with awe and pleasant surprise.

You couldn’t help but chuckle. “You sound so shocked. Is it really that unbelievable that I have plants?”

He laughed and averted his gaze. “A little. My mother always said this place was evil and was nothing but death all the time.”

“Hmph. Not very surprising. Demeter’s always lied about me, trying to paint me as some merciless demon goddess who hates all life.” You rolled your eyes. “It’s bullshit really. But I guess I shouldn’t say that about your mother.”

He looked at you, his face betraying nothing but stoic indifference. “You know, the more I get to know and see different sides of you, I see how she’s wrong and that she’s lied about everything.” He frowned. “The only thing I don’t understand is why she would do all of this though.”

You simply shrugged. “She just doesn’t like me. She blames me for a lot of the death that happens in the world despite the fact that I’m not actually the goddess of death and death is just a part of life.” You looked at the tree to your right and pressed your palm against the bark. “It’s what makes life beautiful: you know there’s an inevitable end, and so you know you need to cherish it while you have it.”

“I know what you mean,” he said as he started to approach you. He stopped right in front of you, smiling softly down. “Thank you for sharing this with me. I can just tell by the way you sit here, so relaxed and at peace, that this place means a lot to you, and it means a lot to me to see this side of the great Queen Hades.”

You smirked up at him. “It’s (y/n), remember?”

“Oh, I remember,” he said, quoting your taunts. “I just want to irritate you.” He offered his hand out to you. “Walk with me? Show me around a bit.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna know more about this place. You know, when I first thought about where a Queen of the Underworld would live, I was expecting a palace with, like, a giant throne room.”

“I had that once,” you admitted, “but then I didn’t really see a point in keeping such a large space. So I remodeled.”

“But don’t you have a throne?”

“Sure I do. It’s big and black and made entirely of obsidian and souls of the damned.”

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.” He sounded a bit uneasy, but there was a hint of amusement on his tongue.

“Oh, I’m not joking. It’s in the basement.”

“Interesting… Now, about showing me around the garden…”

You grinned and hung your head. “You’re such an idiot.”

“Oh, I’m aware. My friends remind me every day.”

You took his hand. “Alright, idiot. You probably know what kinds of plants these are, but you don’t know the names I gave them. Allow me to introduce you.” You stood and began to lead him by the hand. First, you stopped by a large bush, filled to the brim with little pink flowers. Waving your hand with a flourish, you said, “Bucky, this is Petunia. Right next to her, that tree is Marcell, and on Marcell’s other side is Beatrice. Moving down the line we have Lucy, Harold, Mochi…” You continued to name the different plants, introducing every single one that grew in your garden, until, at last, you came to a large tree that was teeming with plump red fruits. “...And this one, perhaps my eldest plant, is Pom the Pomegranate Tree.”

Bucky waited for you to finish your introductions before chuckling at you.

You raised your chin and eyed him. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” he promised, grinning broadly at you. “Just, you name your plants?”

You blinked. “Well, yeah.” You turned back to your tree and walked to its trunk. Placing your palm against the bark, you smiled fondly. “I didn’t have many friends starting out. No one really wanted to be friends with or be associated with the creepy goddess of the dead and Queen of the Underworld. I got down here day one, and there was no one else. I had millions of souls to deal with, and not a single god, nymph, naiad, or the likes who wanted to talk to me. My sisters were busy getting their own realms in order and my mother was still in hiding with the other titans. Hell, Cerberus hadn’t even been born yet. I was completely, totally, and utterly alone.” You laughed weakly. “Well, as I was building my palace—yes it was a palace at the time. Hey, don’t give me that look, I like the modern house much better now. Anyways, when I was building my palace, I came across this place. It was nothing but a flat ledge, but here, right at the edge, was a single tree with a single fruit on it: a pomegranate. And I thought to myself, ‘Hey, you know what, this is the only other living thing for miles. I’m gonna make it my friend.’ And I named her Pom. Whenever I had lulls in the day or the builders didn’t need me, I’d just come back here and talk with Pom.” You smiled fondly. “My garden, along with Cerberus, has been one of my only constants.”

“And you’re just sharing it with me?”

You turned to him, an eyebrow cocked up in questioning.

He was looking at you incredulously, shocked that you would dare share something so personal with him.

If you were honest, you were a little shocked too; but there was just something about Bucky that made you trust him with even the most intimate sides of you. You smiled and nodded. “I am.”

With almost careful reluctance, he smiled back at you and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” You turned your back to him and looked back at the tree. “Pomegranates are some of my favorites.”

“Mine too,” he agreed from behind you. “I love the fruit; it’s so delicious.”

“It is.” You smiled softly and turned over your shoulder to look at him. At once, the peaceful look on your face turned to one of horror and terror and you yelled at the top of your lungs, “No! Don’t!”

Bucky had picked a pomegranate from the tree and opened it when your back was turned. He’d already dug out some of the seeds and was lifting them up to his mouth when you turned around.

In a desperate panic, you lunged at him, plowing into his torso and shoving his hand away from his mouth.

He was not ready for the impact. He dropped the fruit and wrapped his arm around your waist to pull you close, positioning your bodies so he would hit the ground instead of you. He landed with a heavy “oof.”

You fell down onto his chest and pushed yourself up so you were hovering over him. Your eyes frantically searched his face for red from the pomegranate seeds, especially around his mouth. To your immense relief, you found no trace.

You sighed in relief before anger started to bubble up in your throat. “Are you fucking crazy?” you demanded.

He stared up at you, startled into silence. The only word he was able to utter was, “What?”

“What? Are you kidding me? You. Do. Not. Eat. Food. In. The Underworld! You’ll condemn yourself here for all eternity, you idiot!” Your voice broke in the last syllables and you stared down at him desperately.

You wouldn’t let him get trapped down here. Sure, you enjoyed his company, but you also didn’t want him to be limited. You were bound here by responsibility and necessity; he was still free to roam. He was still young, inexperienced, and new; he could not be trapped down here so early in his life before he’d even gotten a chance to live.

He stared up at you, the pomegranate having rolled away from his open fingers. His mouth was agape, his eyes wide, and he simply stared at you.

His gaze made you self conscious and you hung your head. Of course, it was only then that you realized your legs were straddling his hips and your hands were right beside his head as you hovered over him. Of all the positions you could have landed in, you had to land in this one.

You were about ready to apologize when Bucky spoke.

“Y-You saved me?” He sounded a little scared, a little startled, and a lot grateful.

You hesitated before crawling off of him. “I don’t know if that’s the right way to put it. You would not have died had you eaten the fruit, but you would not have been able to leave here if you’d eaten even just a handful of seeds.” You shook your head. “It’s this weird stipulation of the Underworld’s, but it’s real. Anything that lives, unless they’re related to me by blood, and consumes food or drink here is doomed to stay here. Best not to have a meal while you’re visiting.” You sat cross-legged on the ground and smiled weakly at him.

He continued to stare at you, dumbstruck.

You shifted in your seat, uncomfortable under his gaze. “Say something if you’re going to, but stop staring at me for god’s sake.”

“I… I just…” He shook his head. “Thank you, for saving me.”

“I didn’t save you,” you said again. “But you’re welcome.”

He smiled then, and you averted your gaze.

“Whatever.” You rose to your feet and offered your hand to him. “Come on, Springy. Let’s get you out of the garden before you cause any more trouble. We can probably go play with Cerberus or something.”

He took your hand and allowed you to pull him up.

Keeping hold of his hand, you led him out of the garden and up the back where a staircase took you back to the main house. You had nothing but intentions of hanging out with him for a bit longer, maybe playing a round or two of fetch with Cerberus who was undoubtedly napping on your couch, but, as with all things, something had to get in the way of your agenda.

Bucky skid to a stop right outside your door, his grip on your hand halting you too. “What the Hades is that?”

You looked up to where he was staring in fear and right about flipped it off.

In the distance, a large, winged figure flew towards your mansion, their black suit flapping in the wind as their wings moved in sync to beat the air beneath them.

You only groaned and let your head fall forward. “That is my lieutenant. Alexander Pierce, the god of death.” You sighed heavily. “I probably have to deal with him now, as god-awful as that sounds.” Pinching the bridge of your nose between your thumb and forefinger, you looked at Bucky with a sad grin. “I trust you know the way out by now.”

He simply smiled. “Yeah, I do.”

“And you promise to go home this time? No detours? We don’t need another ruby incident.”

He barked a bitter laugh. “You’re never going to let me live that down, now are you, Doll?”

“Nope,” you said popping the “p”.

“Hah. Fine. Well, I’ll get going then, so you can deal with your employee.”

You nodded with a smile. “Thank you, Bucky.”

He nodded and gave your hand a squeeze, bringing it up to his lips and placing a chaste kiss on your knuckles. At your shocked expression and undoubtedly red cheeks, he chuckled sheepishly. “Sorry. My mother taught me to be a gentleman to a beautiful dame.”

“I-It’s alright...”

He let your hand go and took a step backward. “Until next time, then?”

You nodded. “Yeah, until then.”

He grinned at you. “Alright. I’ll be going then, just, do me a favor? Don’t be a stranger. Call me anytime you need.”

Nibbling at your lip, you bobbed your head ever so slightly. “I will. I’ll see you later.”

He waved at you and turned around, walking down the side of the mountain.

It was no sooner had he left than did a figure land on your front porch. His black wings, only greying with age, spread out in a flourish as he fell in a crouch.

You had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes as you waited for him to stand.

He did so, his wings retracting into his back as he stood. He stared at you with beady blue eyes, narrowed as always, and ran his fingers through his greying strawberry blonde hair. He bowed before you, murmuring a respectful “Your majesty” as his greeting.

You smiled at him, standing up straighter as you assumed your regal stance. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Alexander Pierce, my favorite god of death.”

“I am your only god of death.” He smirked up at you, playing into your banter.

“Fair. Anyways, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I am here to give you my update on the soul intake.” He gestured to your door. “Mind if we move this inside?”

“Not at all. I always prefer to talk numbers in my chair anyways.” You stood to the side, allowing him passage into your home. As he walked in past you, you hesitated and looked down the mountain. If you squinted hard enough, you could still see Bucky’s figure in the distance. Catching sight at that mop of brown hair, your heart fluttered a bit as it yearned for him. But you simply shook your head, clearing all thoughts of him. It was not time to hope, but time to be practical. You had a job to do.

Next 8: He Gets Found Out (and a Phone Call)

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #pragma(tic)#delicatelyherdreams #greek au #hades & persephone #hades and persephone #hades & persephone au #persephone!bucky x hades!reader

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writingsfortwoset · 3 years

Text

two am twoset convos; - a breddy (friend)ship fic

it’s past two o’clock already in singapore. two violinists at the age of twenty-nine and thirty were snuggled under a comforter on a large, single king-sized bed in their condominium bedroom. there was only one lamp on, their eyes stinging every few minutes because of the light radiating from both of their phones. the taller one was laying on his right side and was facing the shorter one, who was laying on his back.

eddy was scrolling through his instagram feed, checking up on his mates after a long day of filming and planning with brett. their channel was continuously growing after eight years of long hard work, and after playing a piece from tchaikovsky, sibelius, brahms, bach, and mendelssohn to celebrate their subscribers count milestones, they were now preparing for the seven million mark.

how time flies.

he was skimming through posts when something mostly black and white caught his eye, and he focused on it. a gasp was emitted from him as shock and amusement turned his eyes from being droopy to widened.

“what is it?” brett turned to look with inquiring eyes at his bestfriend, whose mouth was agape and was slowly turning into a grin.

“ray, freakin’, chen,” the light emitted from eddy’s phone screen is now turned to brett’s face, “is now married! damn, how’d he hide that from us?”

“what? seriously?” brett single-handedly cupped eddy’s hand to stabilize the phone, and lo-and-behold. the violinist groom was smiling at his beautiful wife as the people in the background threw petals toward their way.

brett beamed out of amusement. “wow, i didn’t even know he had a fiance! i thought we would all grow old together as single, greasy violinists playing smash bros for life,” he chuckled. eddy responded with a ‘yeah,’ retreated his phone from brett and started typing a congratulatory message to ray.

a bunch of breaths were inhaled and exhaled amidst the silence. their minds were both working on what to text ray, thumbs pausing every now and then. brett was still composing his own message when...

“brett, do you think we’ll still see each other when we’re married?”

a pause. “duh? you said it already, when we’re married. so we’ll be in the same house, you idiot,” brett decided to joke, still alternating between typing and backspacing on his phone.

eddy chuckled lightly. “no, seriously though...”

it’s at this that brett’s typing halted. he turned his head towards eddy, who now had his phone down, and whose eyes were unreadable and focused on him. brett thought that his tone was too soft to be ignored, too vulnerable. maybe it’s because it’s two in the morning and the tiredness is kicking in, thus eddy’s voice seemed a bit sad.

“of course, bro,” brett offered a small smile while setting his phone down on his chest. “we’ve been inseparable ever since we met. when we do separate, it’s not like we don’t do video calls,” he chuckled as he remembered the video messages they’ve sent back and forth during the few years before twoset. that was their way of updating each other. “and it’s been, what, 16 years now...? no marriage can stop us from hanging out every now and then, right? plus, i bet you’d be the favorite uncle of my future kids, hey.”

eddy lightly snorted at this, “well, duh. that’s eddy chen for you, world’s best uncle, lah!” he imitates an asian mother’s accent at this.

brett took this as a cue that everything was fine, and went back to his phone, oblivious of eddy’s lingering stare. eddy wasn’t the type to be dramatic and full of feelings, but... brett is the other half of his soul. the best-est human being in his life. it was always different with him -- vibrant, happy, safe.

home.

he bites back the urge to sigh deeply as he takes in the sight of his best friend, albeit a little blurry because his glasses were taken off. brett’s at the marrying age now (at least, for most of their friends) and though quite difficult, the shorter violinist has been going on undercover dates with a lady named vivian, in spite of their busy schedules. eddy just knows she might be the one for his best friend, judging from how he talks about her as if he still had that big crush on vivian 6 years later.

he bites back the urge to get envious of the time he spends with her, the latter sometimes being the reason why they have to adjust the filming schedules (’maybe i just need my own girlfriend, ugh’).

he bites back the urge to ask about the channel. they’ve been filming a lot for the past eight years, and had three world-tours already. after the marriage of one, what then? will they contin--

eddy stops himself. let’s just focus on the seven million mark now, shall we?

“i’ll always be here for you brett, you know that, right?”

brett can’t help smiling at the cheesiness. “you always were, so i guess you always will be,” he snickered. he set his phone under his pillow, and then lied down on his left side to face eddy. his left hand was tucked beneath his head. “you sound so sad bro, what’s up?”

eddy shrugged and averted his gaze. his next words were more of an evasive lie, but still kind of true, so...

“nothing, i’m just tired. first time for a nocturnal like me.”

brett recognized eddy’s (kind of a) liar voice, of course. after almost two decades of being soulmates, bestfriends, brothers, co-creators, and basically the best partners in crime, how would he not know? he had an idea of what eddy was thinking. after all, the latter wasn’t quite an expert at hiding the sad puppy eyes he does sometimes when brett says his goodbyes before leaving for a date.

nevertheless, he chose to keep quiet about it, and just arched his eyebrows at his bestfriend. it was followed by his smile and gaze which emitted nothing short of endearment. brett’s face was illuminated by the warm, orange light from the lamp on eddy’s bedside table, creating small yellow gleams in each of his eyes.

eddy always felt loved by those eyes.

“you do know that i’ll always do the same for you, right?” brett asked softly. “always, even when i get married. until you grow bald,” he added, chuckling.

eddy smiles warmly at his best friend’s words amidst their locked gazes. “you’re the one who’s growing bald,” he rolled his eyes. “but yeah, the greasiest best friends.”

i’m just certain that i’m going to miss you so bad, bro.

#breddy #twosetviolin

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knitting-with-norbert · 3 years

Text

Blue Icon of Doom

Thirteen minutes.

The little icon was teasing me, staring me down from its place on my screen.

Sitting comfortably in the corner (as if it couldn’t mock me anymore than it already was it had taken my favourite spot), companionably wedged with the pixelated red heart of Undertale to its left and the achingly familiar grass block of Minecraft below it.

My stomach turned as my phone screen lit up where it lay on the desk beside me. A mountain of notifications marked as unread covered the screen, overwhelming in its reminder of how I failed to maintain conversations.

My fingers fumble the phone, almost dropping it and I squeeze my eyes shut, desperately trying to ignore the twist in my gut and fight back the familiar wave of panic.

Twelve minutes.

When I open my eyes again the three has changed to a two and my throat has gone dry.

‘Might be running a little late – kids still not in bed! Shouldn’t be more than five minutes, though’

The dreaded zoom call, planned just a week ago.

Not dreaded because of the people – no, everyone who I speak to from my course is lovely and caring and so, so understanding.

Or… I suppose it is because of the people. Because I don’t deal well with people. I never have. In a way, I just don’t understand them, I struggle to read them because I’m too focused on trying to follow the correct social etiquette, always so sure that I’m going to mess something up, become a public laughing stock.

Sure that they have formed a secret club and there will be some form of ‘social initiation’ that I will probably fail.

Eleven minutes.

Though, I’m sure I’ve already failed the test seeing as though I can never bring myself to reply to the messages on the group chat.

I so desperately hope that they don’t take my constant silence on there personally. But I can’t explain it to them, I would never be able to find the words to explain how exhausting I find even the smallest amount of social interaction. Or how I could spend hours tweaking my responses to their messages, wanting to make sure that I got the right tone, wrote the right thing, hit the right joke.

How it’s just easier to silently panic over replying than it is to live in fear that I’ve said the wrong thing.

Ten minutes.

I’m sure that the Zoom icon is taunting me.

If it had eyes they would be staring right back at me, boring into my skull, reading my mind and coming up with an abundance of ways it can make me squirm.

Am I still invited to the call?

They haven’t explicitly said that I could come. Perhaps I ought to read between the lines and not turn up. Maybe they took my lack of public response on the matter as my saying that I couldn’t make it or that I wasn’t interested.

Nine minutes.

Maybe in this scenario it would simply be best to tell them that I was feeling unwell and so wouldn’t be able to join them. It would probably be a relief to them – after all, they are all a few years older than me, with real lives, real jobs and real hobbies and a real chance to take what we learn on this course to their futures.

They don’t really want me there.

My thumb hovers over the home button on my phone, ready to unlock it and open the WhatsApp chat to send a message to say I was feeling unwell.

It wouldn’t be a lie, and it wasn’t a lie either the countless times before where I had sent a message saying I was sick so couldn’t complete some of the work or couldn’t make it to some of the other group sessions.

Eight minutes.

But I know that they must think it’s a lie every time I say I’m feeling unwell.

After all, physically I am fine. But I don’t know how to tell them that every conscious moment I am simultaneously exhausted by everything, even thinking of reading a few pages, and yet also completely wide awake, jittering and fidgeting, desperate for my brain to just shut up for a moment.

I close my eyes again, feeling wetness gathering at the corners and I bite my lip to stifle a pitiful whimper. I clench the hand that isn’t holding my phone, finding a vicious comfort in how my ragged, bitten down nails dig into the palm of my hand.

Six minutes

When I open my eyes next it is to find that two minutes have been wasted and three more messages have come through to my phone.

One with the room code and password and link which serve to twist my stomach into knots and clog up my throat and I struggle to breathe.

The next is a photo of two children, tucked into bed. One looks half asleep, eyes looking drowsily up at the person who was taking the photo (the same woman who had been concerned about being late) with a tired smile. The other was far more awake, sitting up in bed and his arm is blurry as he’s moving to grab a book from his bedside table.

The image makes me smile. It helps me to breathe easier.

The final message waiting for me on the group chat is simple, and yet makes all the difference to me as I try to suppress my panic over joining the call.

“I hope everyone can make it this week! I can’t wait to catch up with you all!”

Five minutes

With still shaking hands but renewed assurance I navigated my mouse to hover over the malicious icon.

There’s a few moments after I click it where it doesn’t boot up and I am left with the sudden irrational fear that Zoom itself – the hivemind, if you will – has decided to intervene and save my course mates (my friends?) from having to endure my company.

And then-

Four minutes

the familiar coloured bubbles. The screen welcoming me to the meeting and for a brief moment I can’t remember why I was so panicked about joining as I navigate myself to the ‘join meeting’ button and click it, writing in the room details.

It’s instinctive, the way that my fingers type the name “Freddie”, rather than my full, real name which they all know me by. After all, most of my friends call me Freddie by now and hearing the nickname is somewhat of a comfort to me because of that.

I suck in a breath and try to stop the menacing carousel in my mind, going over every possible outcome of what would happen if I didn’t change it to the name that they knew me by.

Three minutes

I type quickly, erasing Freddie and replacing it with the old, familiar letters and don’t hesitate before ticking the box to turn off my video.

I sit back at my desk chair and wait, chewing anxiously on my nails as I wait for the minutes to pass.

I can’t be early.

I can’t be late.

I’ll click join meeting the moment that 7 o’clock hits so that I can’t be judged or mocked for being early or late, I’ll just be on-time. Reliable, boring, safe and on-time.

Two minutes

I can’t help but worry that my course mates will be able to hear how my leg is shaking beneath the desk. The movement sends tiny ripples across the surface of my now lukewarm tea.

I pick up the mug, cradling it in my hands in the hope that it will be enough to stop them from being able to see how my hands are visibly shaking.

I count to ten, I try to slow my breathing down into something more manageable, something more natural. I try to focus on something – anything else.

The dog zipping past the window as she cases the ball thrown by my laughing brother, the smell from the kitchen and the quiet murmurs and laughter of my parents poking fun at each other. Above me I can hear the footsteps of my older brother, home for the weekend and having turned his room back to normal from the make-shift study I had set up for myself in there.

I consider going to grab a blanket, something to hold on my lap properly, something to curl into and make myself small. But as the thought crosses my mind, my eyes flick to the clock in the corner of my screen and something pierces through my chest.

I’m one minute late.

I type in the password at least three times incorrectly before at last being allowed into the meeting.

Nine faces smile at my entrance, calling out cheerful greetings and “glad you could make it”‘s, some just raising their hands in a wave before they return to the conversation they were already having.

I turn my camera on, hiding myself in the folds of my hoodie but smiling at them all the same, nodding along to the conversation.

And about half an hour in, my heart has finally stopped pounding and my brain has lost its fog and I can breathe again.

(you may be able to tell from this short story that I’ve been having a lot of Zoom calls with my coursemates and as much as I love all of them, Norbert acts up every single time and this is what I go through and I wanted to get it out on the page. Let me know your thoughts and if you’ve had similar experiences with Zoom or anything of the sort! Links to all my socials and website and the like are all in my bio if you’re interested!

Freddie 🐸)

#short story #short stories #mental health #mental health awareness #mental health sucks #mental health stigma #anxiety #anxiety disorder #social anxiety #social phobia #writing #blogging

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holyfuckthisfishcandrive · 4 years

Text

Rent and Grafitti

First, Previous (Chap 19), Ao3

Word count: 1553

Warnings: semi-grafic description of a gory picture

Mum closed the door behind her staring at the ground in front of her.

"Our rent was paid," she said numbly.

"What?" Luan asked surprised.

Janus forced himself to act surprised as well.

"Yes, Mx Johnas said it was paid a few days ago. He was confused when I tried to ask him for a little more time to get the money together."

Janus managed not to smile proudly. He had faked Mum's handwriting for the letter, even if he hadn't actually signed it. Their landlord knew Mum's handwriting. He had learned to fake both handwritings and signatures in English five years ago.

It was a far more useful skill than most people thought.

While he and Luan prepared dinner Mum and Luan continued talking about the mysterious bill payer until a phone beeped in their bedroom and Mum left to check whose it was.

"I'm not sure why," Luan spoke quietly, clearly not meaning for Mum to hear him, "but I have the feeling you have something to do with this."

Janus froze for a split second.

"What makes you think that?" he asked. "Where would I even get that kind of money from? I don't even have a job."

Luan shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't know how you spend your free time. Maybe you picked it up after that heist? Maybe you found a different way to earn money. You're a clever kid. I wouldn't put it past you."

"I didn't do anything though," Janus lied.

"Alright, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything."

"Babe?" Mum called from the bedroom. "Your boss is calling."

Luan dropped his head with a sigh before pushing off the counter to leave the room.

Janus took over the pan and mum came back into the kitchen.

"How was your day, anyway?" she asked. "Did you meet up with any friends?"

For a moment he contemplated lying but he decided to be honest with her for once. She deserved to know at least something about his life.

"No, I had detention."

"What? Why? What happened?"

"Mr Heller called this trans guy in my Latin class a girl and a fake boy so I called him out on it."

"And he gave you detention?"

Janus nodded not looking at her.

Mum put a hand on his shoulder.

"You know you were in the right anyway, don't you?" she asked, pride in her voice.

Janus smiled up at her. "Yeah, of course, I do."

Mum pulled him close in a one-armed embrace. "How did I end up with the best son in the world, huh? I'm sorry I've been so busy lately."

"It's fine," Janus said. "I'm old enough to take care of myself."

She was quiet for a moment.

"That's what I'm afraid off," he caught her whispering before she went to set the table.

Luan came back in a little later saying that his boss had ordered him to come immediately and that they shouldn't wait for him to eat. He looked as done as possible with the world as he put his coat back on but Janus knew that his boss wouldn't ever get to see that glare.

Mum turned on the TV saying that maybe 'those thieves' had struck again and they could pick up a bit of cash if it was nearby. Janus chuckled knowing full well that this wouldn't be the case.

It had almost been a month since their bank robbery and he and Virgil had more plans already but it'd take time. They couldn't risk getting arrested, running into some supervillain, accidentally making the mafia their enemy or running intro Heartrate and his sidekicks. Neither of them were fighters after all.

At least as far as Janus was aware. At this point, he doubted anything about Virgil could surprise him anymore.

Mum switched through the channels until she finally found the news.

Some guy Janus didn't recognize had died at the age of 78 and Mum told him that he had been hot when she had been young.

"And- this just in - Professor Logic is on his second heist this month!"

That caught Janus' attention. Prof Logic wasn't the type to conduct heists often.

Security footage of the inside of the Central Bank showed Logic shoving a man towards a vault with a gun to his back. The man shook as he began opening the vault. The Professor looked up as if something had caught his attention before turning towards the camera. It looked like someone had brought it to his attention even though there was no one there with him. He aimed and the footage cut off.

After dinner, Janus helped Mum clean up the kitchen and she went to bed.

Janus let his pet snakes, Deklan and Desmund out of their cage and let them drape over him as he sat down on his bed and picked up his phone.

Four unread messages.

Two from the girl he was assigned to do a presentation with asking when and where they should meet up to work on it which he didn't even open so she wouldn't know he had read them - he didn't feel like texting her back - and two from Virgil he opened without hesitation.

The first was a badly lit picture of a graffiti of head, detached from the neck, with what looked like blood dripping down and something he couldn't really make out in the left eye. The second was a single question mark.

Janus didn't need more to understand what Virgil wanted to know.

Looks cool

What's with the eye?

He waited if Virgil would respond for a few minutes and left the messenger app to go to his browser - oh.

He had forgotten what he had looked u earlier.

The colours of the nonbinary pride flag illuminated his face - or was it their face?

"They," Janus whispered, trying to picture someone using the pronoun. "Their name is Janus."

They sat up and pet Desmund, letting their fingers slide over her smooth scales.

'They' sounded nice.

It made Janus smile.

But did that really mean that Janus was nonbinary?

'He' didn't exactly feel bad after all. Just not as good as 'they'.

With a sigh Janus began to scroll through different posts made by nonbinary people, scanning most of them only briefly and dropping a like here and there on the ones that came so close to home it was almost weird and a few nice artworks.

It's okay if it's just a phase.

The phrase was in the same font, in the same colour as everything around it but it made Janus freeze, thumb on the screen, ready to scroll on.

Instead, Janus read the post.

The message was simple.

That is was fine to experiment with pronouns, labels and names, even if you came to the conclusion that you were cis the entire time. At the end was a smiley face and the words that had stopped Janus.

It's okay if it's just a phase.

"They," Janus whispered again and clicked on the comment button.

Thank you

Then they switched back to their messenger app.

Virgil was online and had read the texts but not replied yet. Not that it mattered.

Can you meet me at Winblae by the park in 15?

Janus hesitated before sending, watching the 'Typing...' blink in and out of existence next to Virgil's contact name before finally tapping the small blue button.

The two arrows turned blue right away.

The 'Typing...' disappeared again.

sure

emergency?

Janus couldn't help a small smile.

no, just need to talk to you irl

They brought their snakes back to their cages and noticed that their fingers were shaking slightly.

Virgil wouldn't mind, right? He wasn't transphobic. Or enbyphobic... right?

They took a deep breath, grabbed their jacket and climbed out of the window.

They would be fine.

It was just a coming out.

To their best friend.

It would be fine.

Virgil was already at the park when Janus got there.

He sat on a swing and stared into the cloudy sky.

Janus took a seat on the one next to him.

"So, what's up?" Virgil asked, looking at them. "Did something happen?"

Janus took a breath and let it out watching it turn into fog in the cold air.

"Kind of," they began. "Nothing bad though, don't worry. At least I don't think it's bad. I just... I've been thinking lately..."

"A dangerous past time," Virgil commented and it startled a chuckle out of them.

"I think... I think I might not be a boy," Janus finally managed to say.

Virgil was quiet for a moment.

"Are you... something else?" he then asked.

"I'm not sure but I think I might be nonbinary."

The statement hung in the air between them and Janus wished they could take it back and stuff it down, deep down so it'd never reach the outside world.

"Do you want me to call you by different pronouns then?" Virgil asked.

"Maybe they/them?"

"Okay," Virgil nodded to himself. "A different name?"

Janus felt a weight fall of their chest.

"No, I think Janus is fine."

Virgil smiled at them.

"Okay," he said.

Yeah, this was fine.

"So, where did you spray that head?" Janus asked. "Because the pic was shit."

Taglist:

@patton-cake , @isabelle-stars

#sanders sides #janus sanders #ts janus #virgil sanders #ts virgil #platonic anxceit #coming out fic #janus is nonbinary #my writing #au #woethough au

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deadanddeactivated · 4 years

Text

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Put on Your Pants

Fandom: Sanders Sides Pairing: DLAMP Characters: Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Logan, Patton, Roman Notes: Day 12 of the fluffuary event being hosted by @tsshipmonth2020 - DLAMP. i am so far behind opps. Summary: Remus doesn't really mean to meet his brother's soulmates first. He just sort of does.

AO3

In a world of soulmates, Virgil sometimes wonders what end of the stick he got when words started appearing on his skin. They weren’t First Words or Love Words, static words that marked a special moment. Rather they were Written Words - the things that his soulmates had written on their skin. Or drawn. Or accidentally marked themselves with. Basically whatever ink spills onto his soulmates, leaks onto his.

Sometimes it’s nice, like the little ‘I love you’ that always appears in light blue pen at his wrist. Other times it’s annoying, like back when he was trying to figure out exactly how many soulmates he had.

The ink only remains on him as long as it remains on them. Which is why that ‘I love you’ is usually faded by the time he goes to bed but fresh in the morning. It’s also how he got a completely free and mostly painless tattoo of a yellow snake on his hip.

But there’s a thousand other connections Virgil could have developed, and sometimes that thought keeps him up at night.

A timer would have been interesting. An exact count of the seconds until he met his soulmate, or the moment he fell in love with them. It also would have been terrifying and a lot of pressure and Virgil’s really glad he didn’t get a timer.

First Words might have been nice. Solid words that didn’t change or fade. But then he ran the risk of having terrible first words, or gerentic ones. Sure, no one really greets strangers with a ‘hello’ for that exact reason but the risk is always there. And what if he misheard someone? Or if two people said his words? It all sounds like such a nightmare.

Virgil would just straight up hate having a first touch soulmark. He isn’t a touchy-feely type person, just brushing up against a stranger in the street leaves him wound tight all day. And what if that was how he and his soulmate touched? He’d never notice.

Of course there are also the invisible connections. Like Strings of Fate, or Guides. Then there were the colourblind soulmates. And the mental connections. Virgil’s pretty sure any type would make him nervous. It’d be too easy to ignore the strings and guide, to run away from who fate deems his match. Being colourblind doesn’t seem too bad, but Virgil would always be doubting if he had soulmates at all. Same if he had something like a soul song.

Besides, he’s seen Aunt Patty cornering his cousins with invisible connections before, grilling them for news way worse than everyone else. That is something he’d rather avoid, thank you very much.

So yeah, Virgil often wonders about the other connections. But usually he decides written words suit him just fine.

Usually.

“Oh come on.” Virgil complains when he steps out of the shower. Red’s got a moustache drawn across his face, which means Virgil has a moustache across his face. Virgil also has class today. Where people will see the moustache across his face. And stare.

“I so don’t need this today.” He grumbles. Unfortunately, there’s really no avoiding it. He can’t miss this class. Only hope his soulmate will rub the moustache off soon.

Another piece of ink catches his eye as he gets dressed. Light blue ink right beneath the usual ‘I love you’. ‘Sorry! It was a joke! -- thinks hes funny.’ One word, likely a name, is smudged and unreadable. Like names always are. Virgil isn’t sure if Light Blue doesn’t know those details wouldn’t show up or if they just never think about it.

What he does know is that Light Blue and Red have met, a few months ago at least. He figured it out when the usual ‘I love you’ appeared in red text on his other wrist, the handwriting matching Light Blue’s perfectly.

Virgil also knows that, despite Light Blue’s tendency to talk to him, none of his soulmates share his Written Words. Which is fine, it’s whatever. Most soulmates don’t share a connection.

He’s pretty sure Red can see strings, based on the rings they sometimes draw around the base of their fingers. Light Blue told him he has Love Words, one night long ago when he was wondering about a person he doesn’t know exists. Virgil has suspicions that Yellow is coloured, because sometimes they write the names of colours up their arms. To Virgil they’re all yellow, but he doubts that's accurate. Dark Blue is a mystery. If Virgil had to guess, he’d say Dark Blue has Timers because, very occasionally, Dark Blue writes numbers and dates that don’t quite match their usual science-math mumbo jumbo.

All of that is fine with Virgil.

Really.

“Put it out of your head Virgil.” He orders himself, huffing. Why is he so focused on his soulmates this morning? Does a stupid moustache prank really have him digging deep right now?

Or, a quiet and very honest voice says in the back of his head, maybe it’s because it’s your birthday. Which, Virgil knows, is much more likely. That doesn’t mean he wants to admit it.

So what if it’s his birthday? So what if he’s another year older and no closer to finding his soulmates?

So what if it’s another year he doesn’t even exist in their lives. Not really. Not the way they exist in his.

Because if he’s right about his soulmates, then they don’t have a changing connection like his. They have some flat, unchanging thing that doesn’t tell them anything.

But Virgil? Virgil already knows them. He knows that Red likes theatre, because they’re always writing down their lines or the dates of shows or the roles they want, sometimes later circling the ones they got. He also knows that Red always forgets the milk.

Then there’s Light Blue, who will write on his skin for hours because he doesn’t want Virgil to feel alone. Even though he doesn’t even know Virgil’s there, reading his every word. He also sounds like the sweetest person on Earth.

Yellow likes to draw. They also have a pet snake, and a pet rat. Virgil thinks they’re terrible with names too, because they like to write people's names only to give them little nicknames or descriptions.

Dark Blue probably writes the least, but when they write boy do they write. Virgil’s arms have been covered in various math formulas and half-finished thoughts. It’s like Dark Blue can’t find enough paper in the world to contain all the thoughts in their head.

That’s what his soulmates are to him. Full people that… well, that he’s sort of already fallen in love with.

It hurts to think they know nothing about him.

“Okay great, I guess we’re just having a bad day today.” Virgil huffs, fitting a scarf over his face in hopes it’ll cover the red moustache. It must have been drawn in some heavy duty stuff.

Great.

“Trying to look anime instead of emo today?” Virgil sighs as he falls into his seat, not even sure he wants to give Remus a response. No matter what he says, Remus is likely to make something of it and Virgil just isn’t sure he has the energy.

Of course, his friend is likely to make something of it even if he doesn’t say anything so…

“No.” He admits, pulling the scarf down to reveal the mark. “Apparently someone played a prank on Red this morning.” Remus gasps, then grins.

“Matchy!” He says.

“Sadly.” Virgil agrees, rolling his eyes and fixing his scarf back up. “Hopefully by tomorrow they’ll both be gone.” This time Remus’ gasp is more offended.

“Are you insulting my moustache good sir?” He demands.

“Always.” Virgil smirks.

“I’d throw my gauntlet at you but Roman refuses to give it back.” He claims.

“You’d duel me on my birthday?” Virgil asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh most certainly. It’s like birthday punches but with sharp pointy things!” Remus grins. “But, since it is your birthday…” Virgil’s amusement turns to caution at the look in Remus’ eye.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it.” He warns.

“I won’t, I won’t!” Remus assures, brushing him off. “I’m just saying you should come to my dorm later to get your present.”

“Isn’t that my present there?” Virgil asks, gesturing towards the lump on the desk, horribly wrapped in a mix of purple spider-themed paper (the spiders look self-drawn) and green octopus paper.

“Nop!” Remus claims, very concerning grin on his face. “This is something else!”

“Seriously?” Virgil sighs.

“As a heart-attack!” Remus grins, and then grins all the more as Virgil mutters about how that doesn’t work.

‘It’s ready!’ Virgil sighs at the message for the thousandth time, trying to pretend he wasn’t nervous. And excited. Nercited. Oh god, he’s been spending way too much time with Remus lately.

And he’s about to be spending more time with him too, because he’s just reached the door to Remus’ dorm and the mysterious birthday present beyond. Raising his hand to knock, telling himself he just wanted to get this over with, Virgil pauses right before his hand connects with the door.

“Remus, this is ridiculous!” An unfamiliar voice snaps from the other side of the door. Does Remus have guests? Although it could be Remus’ roommate, that guys so exlusive Virgil’s not convinced he exists. Should he still go in?

“Just trust me Ro, you’ll love this!” That’s Remus. What is he talking about? Surely it’s not… no, Remus wouldn’t be trying to play a prank of him. He’s better than that. Right?

“I don’t trust you.” Mysterious Person, possibly roommate, probably ‘Ro’, huffs.

“Oh come on Roman,” a new mysterious voice speaks up, “I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

“The last time you said that I ended up with a moustache drawn on my face!”

What?

“Shush!” Remus shushes the other. “Shhhhhhhh!”

What?

Did, did Virgil hear that right? Surely he didn’t. Surely he misheard, or it was a coincedience or-

A ding sounds from his pocket as Virgil’s phone goes off. The door opens a second later, revealing a wide-eyed Virgil with his arms still raised to a pouting Remus.

“You heard, didn’t you?” He whines. “Roman you stole my thunder!”

“What?” Virgil finally manages to say it as Remus steps back, revealing the owners of the mysterious voices. Two men are standing side by side in the middle of the dorm, chests wrapped together with a mix of purple wrapping paper and green paper covered in octopus’. One has browny-blond hair and big blue eyes framed with glasses. He smiles at Virgil, seeming entirely unbothered by Remus’ sheddigans.

The other man is clearly the twin brother that Remus has mentioned having. They’re practically spitting images of each other, although this one looks more… well, less like a chaotic mess. He has his arms crossed and a moment ago he sounded very put upon. But now? Now he’s staring at Virgil like a deer in headlights.

A lot like Virgil is staring at the two of them really.

Surely these aren’t…

That can’t be possible, right?

But right under the twins nose is a somewhat smudged, slightly faded moustache. It’s drawn in a black marker but it other wise matches the red mark on Virgil’s face perfectly.

“Hi!” The blond greets, waving. “I’m Patton! You’re a friend of Remus’, right?”

“Um, hi?” Virgil manages, swallowing around the lump in his throat. If Remus’ twin is Red, and Virgil is starting to really think hope he is, would that mean Patton is Light Blue?

Holy shit was Virgil really… really staring at half his soulmates right now?

“He’s a friend of mine, but his much more to you.” Remus says, grinning ear to ear and wrapping and arm around Virgil’s shoulder. Still stunned, Virgil doesn’t even push him off.

“Huh?” Patton asks, tilting his head tiltly. In response, Roman holds up his hand and wiggles a finger. Virgil can just barely make out the purple ring at the base of the finger. “Oh my gosh, really?” He asks, hands raised to cover his gasp and growing smile.

“I uh, I think so.” Virgil says.

“Well I know so!” Remus grins. “I recongized that moustache immediantly, I mean I did draw the original. Aren’t I the best best friend? I got you your soulmates for your birthday! They’re even wrapped!”

Virgil takes a moment to let that sink in.

And then…

“You got me stuck with a moustache on my face!” He accuses, turning to glare at Remus.

“It was for a good cause!” Remus claims.

“Good cause my ass.” Roman huffs.

“This is so exciting!” Patton grins, bouncing and accidentally breaking the wrapping Remus had done, much to the mams dismay. Without the paper in the way, Patton quickly bounded over to grab Virgil’s arms. “What’s your name? What’s your soulmate connection? Wait, you were talking about the moustache does that mean you have Written Words? Oh my gosh that’s so exciting! Does that mean you got my words?” Words tumble out of his mouth so fast that it takes Virgil a moment to catch up.

“Uh,” he starts, “I’m Virgil. And uh, yeah. Um…” he trails off again, not quite sure what he’s meant to say. So instead he gently pulls his arm out of Patton’s hold, turning it over so he can see the words there. Words that Patton wrote. Every morning. Holy shit.

“Oh my gosh!!” Patton squealled, pulling Virgil closer to look at the words.

“Babe you’re overwhelming him.” Roman warns, having recovered a lot more completely than Virgil has.

“Oh please.” Remus says, leaning more completely on Virgil’s side. “I’m the most overwhelming person he knows.” This time Virgil has the sense of self to bump Remus off, although he has to do it with his shoulders since Patton still has his arms.

“That’s not a good thing.” He huffs.

“Ignore my brother.” Roman says, he taps Patton’s shoulder and Patton, begrudingly, steps away. Virgil’s arms don’t stay free for long, Roman taking his hand and bowing over it. “I am Roman Prince, I have been searching all my life for you Virgil. You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed.” He says, ending his little speech with a kiss to the back of Virgil’s hands.

“Uh,” is all Virgil can manage, his face flushed red.

“That was really good Ro! You didn’t even stutter this time!” Patton praises, making Roman’s face turn red as he stands back up.

“Patton! You’re not meant to tell him that!” He hisses. His face goes all the redder when Virgil laughs.

He knows these people, he suddenly remembers, he’s known them all his life. Red is just as dramatic in person, Light Blue just as sweet. Virgil never should have expected anything different. The thought calms him. Why was he so overwhelmed in the first place?

“I’ve been waiting all my life for you to find me, Roman Prince.” He teases, laughing again when Roman stutters. It reminds him of the grand declarations Red would write, the hearts he would draw, only to quickly scribble them out in embarrassment. It’s cute.

“Using our dorm for a party I see.” A new voice speaks up. “And blocking the doorway.”

“Hey De!” Remus grins. “Guys this is my roommate, I told you he was real!” The three soulmates look over, meeting the mysterious mans yellow eyes. Roman makes a strangled noise but Virgil doesn’t get time to think about that. He’s a bit distracted as De’s eyes roll into the back of his head and he stumbles.

“Shit.” Virgil curses, quickly stepping forward to catch the stranger.

“I’m fine.” De claims, eyes already blinking open again. “It was just… lots of colour, rather quickly.”

“Oh my gosh!” Patton grins, looking from the now yellow band on Roman’s wrist to the new comer.

“I am the bestest best friend and the bestest rommate!” Remus announces, cheering.

“Huh.” Is all Virgil can manage for the moment, staring at his soulmate as gets back on his feet.

He’ll never actually tell Remus this but… yeah, best birthday present ever.

“I am determined to find our last soulmate first.” Roman announces, slamming his lunch onto the table the others have claimed for lunch.

“I’m still reeling from the fact there’s only one.” De, actually Dante, says. It didn’t take long for him, and Virgil, to get used to Roman’s particular brand of dramatics. Or Patton’s practicular brand of ‘constantly, unintentionally adorable’.

“I’m sorry!” Virgil says for the thousandth time, although there’s no heat in it. “I can’t help my eye colour!”

“Colours.” Dante corrects. He’d been only a little put out when he realized Virgil had mismatching eyes, apparently he’d spent his life assuming he’d have five soulmates not four. That has been added to Virgil’s ‘con’ list for being colourblind.

The little messages his soulmates send him have been added to the ‘pro’ list for Written Words, not that he’ll say aloud how much he loves them.

“Why first?” Patton asks, because he’s a kind heart who will actually play along and not just tease Roman.

“Because Remus keeps meeting my soulmates first! He’s convinced he’ll meet our last soulmate first, and I won’t let him!” Roman explains.

“Well he does have a fairly good track record.” Virgil says.

“You meet Patton first at least.” Dante offers.

“No, I meet Remus first.” Patton admits.

“Patton was his favoruite barasita.” Roman says, like it’s some great tradegy.

“You know, it shocks me how good he is at finding soulmates. He couldn’t even find out classroom today.” Virgil says.

“Seriously?” Dante asks, smirking.

“Yep. Apparently he ended up in some science class and decided to just stick around. He made a friend though.” Virgil elbroates, pulling out the text messages they’d been sending earlier that day.

“Oh, maybe his friend is our soulmate!” Patton suggests, deaf to Roman’s dramatic ‘noooooo’. “He does write a lot of science-y things, right Virgil?”

“Lots of people do science-y things Patton.” Virgil points out.

“Still, maybe there’s a clue in the things he writes to you.” Dante says.

“He doesn’t write anything to me, he just writes on his arm.” Virgil argues.

“There has to be some sort of clue.” Roman claims, suddenly in good spirits again. “This could help us track him down, so we can meet him before Remus.”

“I hate to break it to you but any ‘clues’ would probably be smudged.” Virgil shrugs. “All I know is that he’s probably got a timer.”

“A timer?” Patton asks. “How can you tell?”

“Well it writes weird dates sometimes.” Virgil explains, lifting his sleeve to show the date on his shoulder. There’s a date about three weeks from now, which has be crossed out. “But it changes almost every time.”

“I hear that’s common with timers.” Roman says. “Apparently the timer changes when your fate changes, like you were meant to meet today but you missed your train and now your won’t meet for another three months.”

“Seriously?” Virgil frowns. “Okay that’s terrifying.”

“I like it.” Dante says. “Soulmates seem way too ‘free choice is a myth, our lifes are completely pre-determined’, you know?”

“Okay! Let’s not have another one of those talks! I need to sleep tonight!” Patton quickly shuts that down.

“Yes, let’s go back to talking about how we’re going to meet our soulmate before my brother!” Roman says. “If he’s crossed it out, does that mean that’s not the date anymore? What’s the new date?”

“How am I meant to know?” Virgil sighs.

“Hey guys!” Remus calls out. “Look I made a friend! His names Logan.” He gestures to the man beside him who suddenly raises a hand to his head, wincing.

“Go away Remus, I’m trying to organize how to meet my soulmate without you.” Roman says, back to his brother.

“Might be too late for that.” Dante warns.

“Seriously?” Virgil asks, looking from Dante’s smirk to the new comer. Roman turns to look, eyes glued to the end of a red string that no one else can see.

“Oh come on!” He exclaims, frowning.

“Four for four!” Roman cheers.

“Why does Remus keep meeting my soulmates first?!” Roman demands, standing from the table to glare at his brother, hands on his hips. For his part, Remus is finding quite a bit of amusement in his brothers annoyance.

“Oh last soulmate!!” Patton grins, jumping from the table to wrap his arms around Logan. “We found you!”

“Or Remus found you, he has a habit of that.” Virgil says.

“It’s a horrible cruelty of fate.” Roman huffs.

“Way not to be overwhelming everyone.” Dante comments, resting his cheek on his hands as he looks between Patton, Roman, and Logan. Virgil just watches Logan, seeing all the stages of surprise and confusion that he went through meeting Pat and Roman.

“Ah,” Logan finally manages to speak, “I was wondering why they suddenly all matched.”

“What luck!” Patton grins.

“Remus luck.” Virgil says.

“Stop giving Remus all the credit for my soulmates!” Roman snaps.

“We’re not just your soulmates.” Virgil argues, just to rile Roman up a bit more. As they bicker, Patton lets go of Logan and instead leads him to their table. It was a little cramped with just the first of them but they managed the six.

“They’re always like this.” Dante warns from his spot across from Logan.

“Don’t lump me in with them.” Virgil says, only to immediately return to his overplayed argument with Roman.

“Believe it or not, this is actually them giving you space. De almost passed out when he met everyone.” Remus faux whispers to Logan.

“It was because of the colour!” De claims, face turning red.

“Oh my god!” Patton exclaims, suddenly standing and looking mortified. “We didn’t do introductions!”

“I think,” Logan tells De, looking over the chaos, “I might not mind.”

“Yeah, they get you like that.” Dante sighs.

“Don’t let him follow you, he’s just as bad.” Virgil says.

“Oh so’s Logan, you guys just didn’t see him in class.” Remus grins.

“Falsehood!” Logan claims. Virgil can’t help but laugh, grinning as he feels something settling. They go through proper introductions. Roman goes last, giving his customary prince-y bow. And then getting flustered as Patton, Dante, and Virgil clap because they’d made a secret pact and they all agree Roman looks adorable flustered.

When Virgil goes home, he’ll fret that they scared Logan off. He’ll worry they were too much.

But tomorrow, Logan will join them for lunch once more. And the day after, and the day after. Then, when the semester ends and they have the time, they’ll all look for a place to live together.

And when Roman comes home, grumbling about how Remus found his own soulmates and Roman wasn’t at all involved, Logan will be there to chuckle about it.

All of them will be.

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imchiareyy · 3 years

Text

;two am twoset convos; - a breddy (friend) ship fic

how time flies.

“what is it?” brett turned to look with inquiring eyes at his bestfriend, whose mouth was agape and was slowly turning into a grin.

“ray, freakin’, chen,” the light emitted from eddy’s phone screen is now turned to brett’s face, “is now married! damn, how’d he hide that from us?”

a bunch of breaths were inhaled and exhaled amidst the silence. their minds were both working on what to text ray, thumbs pausing every now and then. brett was still composing his own message when...

“brett, do you think we’ll still see each other when we’re married?”

a pause. “duh? you said it already, when we’re married. so we’ll be in the same house, you idiot,” brett decided to joke, still alternating between typing and backspacing on his phone.

eddy chuckled lightly. “no, seriously though...”

eddy lightly snorted at this, “well, duh. that’s eddy chen for you, world’s best uncle, lah!” he imitates an asian mother’s accent at this.

home.

he bites back the urge to ask about the channel. they’ve been filming a lot for the past eight years, and had three world-tours already. after the marriage of one, what then? will they contin--

eddy stops himself. let’s just focus on the seven million mark now, shall we?

“i’ll always be here for you brett, you know that, right?”

eddy shrugged and averted his gaze. his next words were more of an evasive lie, but still kind of true, so...

“nothing, i’m just tired. first time for a nocturnal like me.”

eddy always felt loved by those eyes.

“you do know that i’ll always do the same for you, right?” brett asked softly. “always, even when i get married. until you grow bald,” he added, chuckling.

eddy smiles warmly at his best friend’s words amidst their locked gazes. “you’re the one who’s growing bald,” he rolled his eyes. “but yeah, the greasiest best friends.”

i’m just certain that i’m going to miss you so bad, bro.

#writings #breddy #twosetviolin

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gotatext · 4 years

Text

hello, its nora (she/her, gmt) n this is the ethereal but spoiled alma olive putnam (she goes by all 3 names cos she’s pretentious as fuck). raised in a farmhouse in vermont, big horse girl energy. very hungry for everything life has to offer. wakes up and smells the success in her blood. luvs the smell of libraries and listening to french music from a tinny record player in knee socks. here is pinterest. bio is below the cut, like this post to be bombarded with plotting messages but i might forget tho so pls message me x

application template.

『ELLE FANNING ❙ CIS-FEMALE』 ⟿ looks like ALMA OLIVE PUTNAM is here for HER JUNIOR year as a CLASSICS student. SHE is 21 years old & known to be RESILIENT, MAGNETIC, CALLOUS & PROUD. They’re living in PERKINS, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ NORA. 24. GMT. SHE/HER.

aesthetics.

a red beret nestled on top of bright platimum locks, neck scarves tied around your throat the way they do it in french new wave films, running barefoot through the woods in feckless hedonism, china dolls with porcelain faces lined against the walls of your room, the mona lisa smile, knee-socks tugged over the hockey grazes on your knees, a forged botticelli drying on your easel, ophelia floating in the middle of a lake.

proceed w caution, tw for death, drugs, alcohol, violence

the short form.

— studying classics cos she thinks it makes her sound smart, but actually hates fuckin latin and just loves learning about feckless hedonism and the festivals of bacchus and writing about how all women in myth are literally forgotten. was expelled from princeton in her first year so her parents basically paid her way into radcliffe but she made an impression.... like... super fast and in her sophomore year she was upgraded to perkins accomodation n a paid scholarship bcos i think the governors kind of expect to see her in the supreme court one day or.

— born in vermont in a big old farmhouse. her great-great-grandfather moved to america as an immigrant and worked on a plantation, made his way up cos he could speak a lot of languages and therefore win more people over. for the last two generations, putnam men have owned the farm and do little of the dirty work. big in the meat industry.

— both her parents had large personalities, so alma’s never really been shy around adults, even as a kid she’d speak to them in a forthright, confident manner, and because she was always surrounded by adults, she’s always seemed a bit wise beyond her years.

— very much a consolidation of every character in the secret history. has a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. obsessed with w.h. auden and the beat poets. — ”aestheticism is the only thing worth pursuing and even that is pointless” — is majoring in classical civilisation. can read ancient greek and latin. also speaks french.

— studies hard and plays hard. she gets top marks but it’s because academia is literally her life, she loves the smell of libraries, the ancient smoke of learning, of feeling like old wine in a new bottle reincarnated from the bones of some old, dead witchy woman who invented a cure for cowpox or somethin.

— isn’t a foward-planner, however. alma prefers to leave her options open, play the field, live in a spontaneous manner so her study style is mostly cramming a few days before a test, or staying up all night writing an essay on a massive adrenaline boost powered by red bull or probably adderall, scribbling (or typing) furiously into the night.

— pretentious motherfucker. loves poetry, especially the romantics, loves morbid ones too, edgar allen poe, sylvia plath, allen ginsberg, she just loves them all. can’t get enough. her favourite films are like…. wanky artfilm independent european cinema. especially french new wave. “what do you think of goddard’s work??” while snorting a line off someone’s sink at 5am on a school night, but you can bet she’ll make it to that 9am class. — very intelligent and beautiful and knows both of those facts. plays devil’s advocate. humanitarian, vegan. — judgemental but takes great care not to appear so. petty and vindictive

— obsessively devours mystery and thriller novels. she herself is a gillian flynn book waiting to happen. — tries to be an enigma. wants to be mysterious and unreadable because that’s what books have taught her makes women desirable and interesting and cool. very amy dunne in the way she expertly reinvents herself to suit her audience, when she wants to impress

— act like the flower but be the serpent under it. is a user. manipulative. leads people on. will throw another student under the bus to demonstrate her own intelligence and integrity — heavily involved in the theatre society. loves attention. — has an addictive personality. seems unable to do anything in a small dose, she has to let it utterly consume her. with sports, she’s fiercely competitive, runs track, played lacrosse at school, now is a cheerleader probably. with alcohol, it’s never a shot, it’s a whole bottle – wine or whiskey – she’ll be table dancing before the night’s up and making out with someone she’ll regret in the morning.

— her clothing style is like…. vintage thrift store but make it preppy. berets and cute hats, neck scarves, large fluffy cardigans or like those leathery jackets with big suede fringes on them, mini skirts (very 70s), and knee-high socks or boots. quite often she’ll be in sports kit, maybe a cute tennis skirt, n when she’s feeling casual she’ll wear like, a talking heads tshirt with a pair of mom jeans and converse, but otherwise, the library is her catwalk. — relates to ophelia from hamlet and sibyl vane in dorian gray. weirdly obsessed with women who commit suicide. loves jackson pollock paintings and abstract art. – likes old things. old books, old music, old houses, it reminds her of happier times like when she wasn’t alive. buys all her music on vinyl and has a gramophone because “the sound quality is better” kfdsjj.

plots.

here are some generic wanted plots but by all means message me so we can flesh them out more if any strike ur interest:

study buddies !! someone who is equally unprepared and so spends all night in the library with alma before a big deadline, maybe they even met in the library

if they’re from new england or vermont, then cousins . second cousins / extended family / family friends – probably spat volavons on your character once as children, omg childhood friends !

people who live in perkins n feel like they r constantly competing with one another to keep their place as one of the #elite only know each other from brief interactions in the lift or the canteen

honestly someone who is fully in love with her or crushing on her that she can just break would be sweet :/ or on the other hand someone she unexpectedly gets feelings for and actually wants to guage her own eyeballs out bc of it

frinds !! unlikely friends !! toxic friends !! former best friends separated by sporting or academic rivalries !

hockey / cheer friends who are on other teams but who she absolutely loves playin against!!!

fellow academics who like meeting up to discuss latin and greek ! gimme a secret society bonding by their love of ancient learning

i reckon she’s in a lot of societies, definitely the film club, maybe works as a projectionist at the uni cinema if they have one so give me ppl affiliated with that, give me fellow wanky pretentious art-lovers and poets and historians who will go to museums and galleries with her and listen to the velvet underground on vinyl

people she gets mortally fucked off her tits with at parties

people who think she is throwing her academic potential away by caving to hedonistic impulse

A SECRET SOCIETY !!! honestly i would die for a slug club esque thing in which the children of notable families are invited to dinners OR alma’s also an art forger, so maybe like a club of students set up to basically forge paintings and documents from the university special collections

people she has drunkenly made out with, hooked up with, or regularly sleeps with casually, maybe even a friend w benefits she is repressing feelings for, i love angst,

people she used to date or unrequitedly likes, but to them it’s just a physical thing, give me all the thirsty angst plots, and maybe some softness too, i need some religion in this girls life, she is a roman catholic after all

full biography.

alma olive putnam.

intro.

the girl is a knife. razor-sharp, double-edged, the bright shine of a two-faced, lovely thing. silver like the secrets you magpie thief from other heads. you’re a scavenger of knowledge, of tidbits, of gossip to lock away for later use and late-night re-inspection. a mind is like a clock if you get to learn the pieces. bit by bit, you dismantle the inner workings of the brains that tick around you – how easy it is to change it’s path, how words and their meanings can make a person laugh or cry in an instant. to have the power to control that is to be a god. it’s the power trip you crave wielding pom-poms in your hands; a possessive need for control that a younger you, small and weak, never had as a child. small lips, smaller smile, a doll clutched in your too-hungry fingers, hard enough to shatter the bones of a real infant. you cut your hair with your mother’s kitchen scissors before the autumn falls, rendering you out of season, unfit for the cold weather that beats against the nape of your neck, where a stick-and-poke marks the star you were born under ; the bull. “mama, when will i be a queen?” as soon as they find a crown small enough not to slip from your head.

biography.

if you get hungry enough, they say, you start eating your own heart. hands red, stained by pomegranate seeds, the empty pulp of its shell splattered on your thighs you find yourself wondering – what would it be like to want? in the beginning, you never knew hunger. twins, born under the same star, you first, him second – a nuclear family. never a sister to compete with, you were always the cherry pie of your parents’ hearts. white-haired, blue-eyed, beautiful baby of mine. the townhouse in vermont and the summer house in lyon, you wanted for nought, showered with attention, saddled with gifts - hardly a wonder you came to rely on such affection as a confirmation of your own worth.

at eight years old you first met death, blood on a gingham-print dress, a smear of it over your cheekbone and the pulp of a mangled animal at your feet murdered by the hands of a stable boy. “alma, my precious baby, you get away from that filth,” your mama would cry from the upstairs balcony – cigar in one hand and a bloody mary in the other – though whether the filth she referred to was the dead pig or the boy with a kernel of corn in his mouth, you never did find out.

your family earned their keeps in farming, great-grandfather wolfgang hildegarde a german immigrant, great-grandmother maura lisbon a prairie girl. they fell hopelessly in love between troughs and pig-shit, working for three dollars a day at a farm their descendants would later own, trade deals with the indians, vacations to calcutta, your father todd putnam in the kind of sheepskin coat his father’s father could only dream of owning. he worked hard so that you’d never have to. your mama once asked – you heard it through the window, rounding cartwheels across the picket-fenced lawn – could he not find a respectable career rather than selling shrink-wrapped pork for a dime a dozen? that blood money had no business raising a child. you look far back enough, edie, your father had said in his low, strong voice that could bring a civil war to silence, and i think you’ll find that all money is blood money.

language was never fickle on your tongue, french dinner time talk by the time you were out of your hush puppy shoes, your mama fixing the au pair a smile as she fixed herself another martini. you learned the clarinet at four and how to dance with the grace of a swansong at six, ethereal under a spotlight, an audience captive in the palm of your hand. by eight you knew that you’d always been destined to be loved. loved so hard they would want to taste you, bite into the soft plump of your cheek and eat you alive. that was how magnetic you wanted to feel. but mother hamsters eat their own young when penned in together too long, and soon you became too wild, too restless, another package on your father’s delivery invoice, box-shipped out to english boarding school.

fitting in had never been something you had to concern yourself with. you were always the shiny new toy the other girls wanted to play with, bright like a dropped coin from a magpie’s beak. wherever you went, you seemed to leave a trail of awe, pig-tailed harriet’s adoring you, imitating you, teachers forgiving your class-time chatter for the sake of your wild heart and the restless spirit you possessed. tell us what it’s like in the states, alma. they’d coo, enamoured by your hollywood drawl. does your father own a gun? you hardly knew. barely even knew the colour of his hair, for the scarce amount of times he’d stoop to kiss your cheek, though you’d tell silver-tongued tales if it’d guaranteed you an audience. when you learned how to smile at the right times, and that flattery would get you everywhere, it soon became apparent that charm would pave the yellow brick road to success even when your lack of drive couldn’t.

the road you followed – gum-snapping, roller-blading, friendship bands all up your arm – eventually led you to radcliffe. bright-eyed and gingham skirted, you’d always known you were more. there was a hunger in you to be something extraordinary, a want so adamant to be imagined and desired that it was almost savage. in leather-bound volumes and a circle of stones, you were helen of troy, the girl for whom they’d launch a thousand ships. but there’s so much rage within you, collecting like sawdust in cavernous parts. hockey helped. there was something grounding about the feeling of a stick clasped in your hands. sweat. stiff knuckles. feet pounding the earth. the smash of wood against flesh in the scram of a game, passed off as mere enthusiasm. “slipped, sorry.” hockey is the one thing you had that was yours alone – a feral instinct that motivates you to play; something primitive within you that sparks an energy like no other. on the pitch, you feel alive. you feel like a god.

#screeches from the rooftops like a banshee #radintro

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blurry-fics · 5 years

Text

Chapter Six

Realize That It’s Gone | Series Masterlist

Warnings: Angst

Word Count: 2190

Author’s Note: Ok, so I expected the last chapter to frustrate a lot of you, but oh my gosh some of you were heated!! (And I don’t blame you in the slightest). Anyway, hopefully this chapter clears some things up. Enjoy :) (picture credit)

My fingernails were digging so deeply into my palms that I was sure it would leave marks. I watched as Josh chatted with Y/N just inside the door, despite the fact that she said she had to leave nearly ten minutes ago. She glanced at me every so often, but I simply offered her a smile and acted like I was doing something on my phone.

“Ok, I really need to get going,” Y/N said, checking the time on her phone for the third time during their conversation. “My parents are going out tonight and I told them I would look after Georgie, they’ll be waiting on me.”

“It was really nice getting a chance to talk with you,” Josh said, offering her his signature smile. “Hopefully we get another opportunity soon.”

My jaw clenched.

“Agreed, I’ll definitely be over here more often,” she returned his smile.

Josh pulled her into a hug and my fists tightened. This was ridiculous.

“Bye, Tyler.”

I barely even registered that Y/N had said my name. My right hand loosened as I raised it to wave at her. Hopefully she wouldn’t notice the deep ridges in my palm from my fingernails.

Josh closed the door behind her and slowly wandered into the kitchen, whistling to himself. I stood in place, waiting until I heard the heavy metal door in the hallway slam. Y/N always took the stairs down.

“What was that about?” I asked.

Josh turned to me with furrowed eyebrows, “What do you mean?”

“With Y/N!” I said, throwing an exasperated arm into the air.

He pursed his lips, “I’m not entirely sure what you mean, Tyler.”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not playing dumb! I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The flirting? ‘There’s a lot of people here that I want to get to know.’ Come on, man,” I said, running my hands through my hair.

Josh grabbed one of the plates from the sink and began to rinse it off. “It was harmless, Tyler. I honestly didn’t think it would be a big deal.”

“Obviously it’s a big deal! You know how I feel about her. Did you really think that I wouldn’t care if you went around blatantly flirting with her right in front of me?”

“She was flirting back! You can’t pin all the blame on me for what happened. Had she been uncomfortable, I would have stopped immediately, but she wasn’t.”

“That’s not the point, Josh! You know that I like her. That alone should be enough to stop you from flirting with her like - well, like that!”

Josh set the plate that he had been washing down in the sink and wiped his hands off on a nearby towel.

“Why aren’t you doing anything about it, then? If I didn’t know any better, I would think you two were nothing more than friends. If you were actively pursuing her, I wouldn’t have flirted. You’re right. But you’ve had your chance, Ty, and you’re lying to yourself if you think I’m the only guy that’s going to show interest in her.”

I shook my head, “You don’t get it. Why don’t you try spending some time in my head, alright? Do you know how badly I want to tell her how I feel?”

“Then why don’t you?”

“It’s not that simple!” I yelled. Josh looked taken aback by the sudden jump in volume. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I might if you actually talked to me about stuff, Tyler! How was I supposed to know that flirting with her would upset you? I barely even knew that you still had feelings for her!”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No!”

I sighed and rubbed my hands along my face. My thoughts were quickly starting to spiral.

“Listen, Tyler, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to upset you. I assumed since you hadn’t mentioned your feelings in awhile, it wouldn’t be a huge deal for me to flirt with her. She’s pretty, I’ll admit that, and I want to get to know her better. But if you’re uncomfortable with it, I can lay off the flirting.”

“I am uncomfortable with it.”

“But if she flirts first, then I’m going to reciprocate.”

I knew I should argue, but I was tired of fighting with Josh and my head was muddled with too many thoughts.

“Sure, fine, whatever.”

“Are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good. I’m sorry for exploding on you, it’s just a sensitive topic with me,” I said, refusing to meet Josh’s eyes.

“You can talk to me about stuff, you know. I’m willing to listen.”

“I know. Thanks.”

Josh didn’t say anything else, so I shuffled down the hall towards my room. Even though Josh had said he would stop flirting with Y/N, I wasn’t entirely convinced that it would stop the entire situation. I had no idea where Y/N stood with Josh, aside from the flirting she had done with him today. Josh wasn’t really her type, but then again, I didn’t really know her type. The only person I had ever really seen her show interest in was me.

I collapsed onto my bed, grabbing a pillow to pull over my head. Maybe Josh had a point. I had my chance to go after Y/N and I hadn’t used it. Did she even feel the same anymore? We had been apart for a long time and she had seemed interested in Josh when she was over.

He was perfect for her, when I thought about it: the exact type of guy I had always assumed Y/N would end up with. Josh was confident and funny and caring, all things that I wasn’t. He knew how to flirt and make her blush, another thing that I had never been able to do. Yeah, maybe they would work out together.

Even if I didn’t want them to.

Not wanting to entertain the thoughts any longer, I walked over to my dresser and grabbed the headphones that were sitting on top of it. I slid the volume up to full blast and fell back onto my bed, allowing my face to get squished into the mattress.

Maybe if I laid here long enough, I would fall asleep and my brain would shut off for awhile.

* * *

My music was still blasting when I woke up from my nap. I sighed and rolled onto my back, trying to figure out just how long I had been asleep. The sun had gone down and there were a few unread messages on my phone, mostly from my family. Y/N had texted too, so I read that one first.

Y/N: Hey, I noticed you were acting a little off today. Hope everything is ok. Text/call me if you need me <3

I smiled and typed out a quick answer. It seemed the nap had done its job of making me feel a little better.

Tyler: A lot on my mind. Call you in a little bit?

Josh was sitting on the couch as I walked out to the living room with an empty plate sitting on the coffee table in front of him. He turned and smiled at me, but didn’t pause his TV show like he usually did. I gave him a lazy wave and continued my shuffle to the kitchen.

After looking through the cabinets, I decided that nothing in our kitchen looked appealing enough for dinner. There was a Taco Bell not too far down the street and getting out of the apartment for awhile didn’t seem like such a bad idea. Before I fully processed what I was doing, I was standing by the door with my car keys in my hand.

“I’m going to Taco Bell. Want anything?” I asked.

Josh didn’t turn around as he answered, “No, thanks.”

“Ok.”

My car was still a little warm from the afternoon heat as I slid into the driver’s seat. There was a stack of half-written songs on the passenger side of the car, tossed into an unorganized mess. I collected them into a neat pile and set them in the back, hoping they wouldn’t fly up and out the open window on my way to get food.

I hummed along with the music as I pulled out onto the main road, hoping that it was the right direction. A few days in the new apartment hadn’t yet allowed me to get used to where everything was in relation to us, which had led to a lot of wrong turns as I tried to run errands over the last few days. It had taken me nearly twenty minutes to get to the grocery store the other morning.

My phone started buzzing right as I was about to pull up to the drive-through window at Taco Bell. Once glance at my phone was enough to tell me it was Y/N, so - not wanting to ignore her - I answered the call.

“Hello?” I answered, carefully watching the car in front of me.

“Hey, Ty, you said you wanted to talk-”

“Hold that thought,” I said, noticing the car in front of me start to pull away.

Y/N said something, but it was too muffled in the passenger seat for me to hear. My left leg was bouncing nervously as I paid for my food and took the bag from the person working at the window. As soon as it was in my hands, I pulled away and immediately parked in one of the little spots in the parking lot.

“Sorry about that,” I said, putting the phone on speaker and setting it on top of the dash.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m getting food,” I laughed. “You called right before I pulled up to the drive through window.”

“Of course.” She was laughing too. “What did you get?”

“I’ll give you three guesses,” I said, already pulling out my food. The wrappers crinkled in my hands.

“Taco Bell?”

“Ok, well, I guess you didn’t need all three.”

“Yes!” she cheered happily. “Anyway, do you need me to call you back?”

“No, it’s fine. I’m just chilling in the parking lot now.”

“Charming,” she giggled. “So, what was up with you today?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on, Ty, I know you better than that. The spacing out. The weird looks. I know something was going on.”

I took a sip of my drink before speaking. “I guess - I don’t know - it was just weird to see you and Josh together.”

“Why?”

“Um, it was just like - I’m not used to hanging out with other people. Usually it’s just you and I, you know?”

“Are you worried that I like Josh better or something?” Her tone was joking, but I could tell there was sincerity behind the question.

I paused a moment. Then answered with a mumbled, “Yeah.”

“Ty, you know that’s not the case, right?”

I leaned further back into my seat. My back was sticking uncomfortably to the fabric of my shirt.

“You two seemed pretty friendly.”

She sighed. It was quiet, but I still caught it.

“I just wanted to get to know him because you’re in the band with him. You mean so much to me, Tyler. More than words could ever explain, I think. Josh is never going to take that place from you, he just… can’t. There’s years of inside jokes and arguments and memories that he can never take from between us.”

“I know. I just get worried. Like, there are better people for you out there.”

My hand clenched a little tighter around the empty wrapper in my hand. That was the closest I had ever gotten to admitting how I felt about Y/N. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to lay everything out during this phone call.

“Think what you want, Ty, but that isn’t the case.”

Even though I didn’t entirely believe her, I knew it wasn’t worth getting into an argument over. I had already had my fair share of arguments tonight.

“Alright, alright, I believe you.”

I lost track of how long I ended up sitting in that parking lot, talking with Y/N and enjoying the quiet background noise of my music. There was a light breeze that would drift through the windows every now and again, carrying my laughter along with it. It was peaceful, and for awhile I forgot all about what had happened when she visited the apartment.

She eventually said she had to go, her parents would be getting home soon and there was some laundry that needed to be dealt with. I agreed, explaining how I had told Josh I was going to get Taco Bell and had ended up staying out for over an hour. Despite me still being a little upset with him, I didn’t want him to worry.

“Goodnight, Tyler. I’ll see you soon, ok?”

“I’ll hold you to that. Goodnight, Y/N.”

The phone clicked as she ended the call and I leaned back in my seat, letting a smile overtake my face. Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as I thought.

* * * * *

Taglist

@faceofcontvsions @ohprettyweeper @tylersheavydirtysoul @topownsmyheart @schrodingersjustine @heythereitm3 @leam-2001 @breadbinishigh @wearebxnditos @iguessimsatan @harishaanne @5secondsofmoxley @patdsinner33 @littlerachelbee @iamnotawasteofspace @nostalgic1975 @fruityfreddie

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handmethelillies-blog · 4 years

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Gmail Hacks That Will Super Boost Your Productivity

Professionals around the world use a wide variety of tools to do their job. Customer relationship management systems, lead generators, task managers, marketing programs, and scheduling software are just some of the sales tools that help reps at every stage of the sales process.

With so many different kinds of tools that help you work more efficiently, it can be easy to forget that one of the most powerful sales tools is already at your fingertips—your Gmail.

The trick is in knowing how to make the most out of your inbox.

Use Gmail shortcuts

Hit Shift+?, and you’ll get a whole list of keyboard shortcuts that can make cleaning out your inbox a breeze.Gmail hack, keyboard shortcuts

Commonly Used Gmail Shortcuts:

Ctrl+: Compose a new message

Ctrl+Shift+5: Change fonts (format shortcut)

Ctrl+Enter: Send message

You can even add CC recipients, embolden items, change indentation, or go immediately to starred messages with shortcuts. By default, Gmail has certain shortcuts always turned on.

Unsend a Sent Email

Email bungles are amazingly normal. An AOL overview, secured by CBS states that around 32% of individuals accidentally forward an inappropriate email.

A wrongly sent mail with an undesired attachment or carrying confidential information may create a bad impression as a professional or can even demolish your career.

Remembering this basic blunder, Gmail has created a feature that can help to "unsend" a sent email inside a period span of as long as 30 seconds.

To do this, basically go to the "Settings" page of your Gmail account. Enable the Undo Send catch and set the invalidation time frame according to your desire. The beneath given screen capture will assist you with understanding better.

Send emails later with Boomerang

Working into the extremely early times? Advise Boomerang to send your email land at 9 am.

The Gmail add-on that Tim Ferriss can't survive without is a clever email scheduler that has been around since 2010 and just continues showing signs of improvement.

With Boomerang introduced, you'll see Gmail's customary send button and furthermore a Send Later catch, which lets you upgrade an email's conveyance time to suit your circumstance. Messaging somebody in an alternate time zone? Type your contact's time zone directly into the schedule window, and it will process the ideal time so you don't need to do the figuring yourself. (Boomerang's essential arrangement begins at about $84 every year. See valuing.)

Boomerang's originator, Alex Moore, was an early adopter of Gmail. "I had a companion in school who met at Google and got a Gmail welcome before nearly any other person," he says.

One of Moore's preferred Boomerang hacks is to computerize a subsequent when you email somebody and get an out-of-office skip. On the off chance that your contact is returning to the workplace on Monday, you can plan your message to send on, state, Tuesday morning. Be that as it may, here's the stunt: Be certain to check the case by the Send Later catch that says "if no answer."

"Presently you have your follow-up totally robotized in the event that they don't hit you up," says Moore. "Furthermore, on the off chance that they do, it never sends."

I for one love this module since I have customers everywhere throughout the world in various occasions zones," says Marie Flounoy, a media expert at Bitter NYC, an inventive office. Regardless of whether she is working at 3 a.m., "Boomerang permits me to send emails at what resembles a fitting time or during typical business hours."

Tip: Use Boomerang to send yourself updates for significant assignments. For instance, send yourself an email called "Look into flight" and use Send Later to take it back to you precisely 24 hours before your takeoff time.

Create labels

To begin with, you can create and begin utilizing explicit labels. On the left-hand side of your web application, you'll discover a choice to "create new name." From there, you can give a custom name to your name and possibly "home" the mark under an effectively existing name (like a subcategory). For instance, you may create labels for messages related with explicit customers, or ones for messages of various degrees of need.

Self-Destructing Emails

Snapmail resembles something out of Mission Impossible. All things considered, not exactly, yet it's really cool.

How often have you sent three emails and a WhatsApp message to give your companions or family your charge card subtleties? Or on the other hand do you frequently send emails which you would prefer not to get into an inappropriate hands? All things considered, presently you can cause them self-to destruct.

Snapmail encodes your message and sends the beneficiary a connect to it. When they click on the connection, they'll get a notice saying it will self-destruct in 60 seconds.

Time to get the damnation out of there.

Try not to stress; it's an exceptionally quiet self-obliteration. Tragically, Tom Cruise won't visit your office.

Get an unread message icon

At the point when you get another email in Gmail on your work area, there's no fancy "You've Got Mail" audio effect to alarm you. And you can burn through a great deal of time and get effectively diverted by returning to the Gmail tab for the duration of the day to check whether you have any new messages. Along these lines, to build your profitability, get Gmail's unread message icon. Go to Settings > Advanced > Unread message icon > Enable > Save Changes.

After you've empowered the unread message icon, you'll have the option to see the quantity of your unread messages showed overtop the Gmail logo on the tab. No additional time will be squandered browsing your email account, you can simply glance at it rapidly and keep it pushin.

Create to-do lists

Gmail allows you to easily keep track of your to-dos with its “tasks” function.

Here’s how it works: when you get an email that requires a later action on your part – maybe a reply, a fax, or some sort of meeting – you simply click the “More” button to the right, and hit “Add to Tasks:”

You’ll get a handy little Google Tasks pop-up, where you can add a task, due date and any details you like. Gmail will automatically include a link to the email for reference.

Take a break with Inbox Pause.

Need to take a break from Gmail? Hit the pause button.

If the constant siren call of your inbox is preventing you from getting stuff done, one of Boomerang’s coolest features lets you temporarily pause Gmail for as long as you like. You can also program this feature to deliver emails in batches, at certain times of the day instead of constantly.

Inbox Pause is useful when you're traveling because you can let your contacts know that you're unavailable for pockets of time. You can set a customized outgoing autoresponder message to let people know when your inbox is paused and when you'll be back.

Need to make an exception for your boss or an important client? Simply white-list the senders you want to allow past the gatekeeper.

Integrate with Drive

Are you currently using Google Drive? If so, there’s a convenient little button at the bottom of your draft that allows you to insert any file you have in storage. It makes it easy to search for and find exactly the file you’re looking for, and saves you the step of opening Drive separately.

Keep Gmail Open in Two Tabs

This one sounds somewhat peculiar, yet trust me. Give it a go for a few days, and you'll perceive the amount it can help.

Open chances to improve your Google Ads.

FREE report investigations your crusades, recommends upgrades and gives you a preferred position in 60 seconds.

How frequently have you needed to spare an email as a draft to go fishing for another email address or more information you have to reference from another message?

This little stunt implies you have one tab open with Gmail for searching and finding things, and the other tab open for composing your email.

Straightforward, however compelling beneficial!

Install some extensions

You don’t have to stick to just the features Gmail offers to increase productivity either, you can install some extensions too. There are a number of Gmail extensions for Chrome that can super-charge your email productivity including:

ActiveInbox – schedule emails to send later, add follow-up reminders, attach notes to emails that only you can see, includes the GTD (Getting Things Done) productivity system and more Sortd – turns Gmail into a Trello-like task board Checker Plus for Gmail – allows you to get popup window notification for new emails but it’s not just a notification, you can interact with emails and even mark it as read or delete it DraftMap – make sure your emails are professional and well-written, this tool highlights repetitive words, cliches and more For any type of action you want to be able to perform in Gmail, there’s probably an extension for it.

Read more at:https://www.business2community.com/strategy/7-gmail-hacks-to-boost-your-productivity-in-2019-02157601

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bamby0304 · 6 years

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With Wolves- Ch.13

Series Masterlist

Bamby’s Masterlist

Summary: Known as The Omen, your reputation puts fear in some of the most dangerous and deadly Alphas. So when you’re caught and sent to the worst maximum security facility unknown to man, no one expected an unclaimed Omega to walk through the gates in shackles and an orange jumpsuit. Word circulates, and before long there’s a price on your head. Who will claim the untamed Omega?

A/N: Last week I missed posting on Wednesday and got chapter 12 out on the weekend, so I guess it’s still a little fresh and everything. I didn’t want that to keep me from posting this chapter on Wednesday and get back on track. So, here we are. Also, thank you to @crispychrissy and @yourvoiceislikearose for looking this over!! Love you girls!! :):)

Warnings: Explicit language. A/B/O dynamics. Okie, so… angst. Like… talk of past abuse and implied sexual assault… but not Y/N’s. Then fluff?? Cheating??

Bamby

You’d managed to find a little nook in the library where you could sit on the floor and hid behind some shelves. It was a decent space, not small but not overtly big. It was wide enough for comfort, and ignored because there was no danger of violence occurring. A fight that might arise in you little hiding place would end up out in the open… the people in the fight would then end up in the Pit.

Maybe ten, fifteen minutes had passed since you seated yourself on the ground. There was a window above you that offered a view of the blue sky. You watched as birds flew passed, free… you missed being free.

“Hey.” You didn’t have to look up to know it was Sam.

He waited just a few seconds for your response before deciding to take a seat by your side. You didn’t look at him. You didn’t offer a shred of attention. Instead you remained looking out the window, aware of his presence but not willing to justify it.

There was another pause before he sighed, giving in to the silence. “I didn’t realise he’d done that to you. I know you guys knew each other before ending up here. I didn’t think it had ended like that.”

Still, you remained silent.

“You hate him. You’d kill him if you could.”

Those words got a reaction out of you.

Head spinning, you looked at him with a hard glare. “Do you think I’m just some cold blooded killer? Does everyone think I just mindlessly kill any Alpha I deem fit? If that was the case then I would have killed Cas. We never would have been friends in the first place. I wouldn’t have gotten close to him. I wouldn’t have been put in that situation. Contrary to what people assume, I don’t just kill. There’s always a reason, always a purpose, always an incentive. Whether that be anger, money, self-defence or bloodlust, there is always a reason.”

It was his turn to stay silent as he sat there, watching you. Try as you might, you couldn’t decipher the look in his eyes, but you didn’t really want to. His words had your mind whirling along with all the pent up feelings you’d been suppressing for far too long now.

“You know, I haven’t even killed as many people as you might think. And they weren’t all Alphas. Some of them were Betas. Anyone who wrongs an Omega deserves to be punished. Castiel is just lucky I didn’t get to him in the outside world.”

He continued to watch you with that unreadable expression as he asked, “You didn’t see him after… after what happened?”

“No,” you scoffed as you looked to the window. “I don’t know if I stayed clear from him to keep myself out of trouble. Or maybe he stayed away from me to stay alive. Either way, I didn’t see him again. He called, messaged, tried to explain that it was an honest mistake, but I didn’t believe him.”

“You think he was lying?”

Rolling your eyes, you turned back to him then. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“You ever think the Alpha just happened upon you? You were close to your heat and he was in rut…” he noted cautiously, taking note of your easily pressed temper. One wrong move and he would be in deep shit.

“So, what, you think he just sniffed me out?”

“Possibly.”

You gave him a pointed look, ready for him to explain away your next words. “Castiel told me to meet him by an abandoned building in the industrial part of some out-of-the-way town.”

Instead of trying to find a plausible reason to the situation, Sam fell silent once more which did not make you feel any better.

“What kind of person did you think I was before we met?”

He paused a moment before shrugging. “I thought you were a myth. A story told to little Alphas to keep them in check. Which clearly doesn’t work.” He gave you a light grin.

Unable to stop yourself, you chuckled softly.

“To be honest, other than the myth part, I thought it was all blown out of proportion. Dean and I did some damage in our day, but most of the stuff people said about us was bullshit. We came here with a reputation we didn’t know what to do with. People either wanted us dead or wanted us on their side. We had to fight tooth and nail to get where we are now. Kind of like your story, right?”

You nodded lightly. “I’m not the monster people think I am.”

“You’re not the weak Omega girl, either,” he noted. “Guys underestimate you. Just because of your biology. Either everything is bigger than it really is, or everyone thinks you’re playing pretend.”

Looking up at him through your eye lashes, you found his calm demeanour easing your own temper. “You never thought that. You and Dean… you were never scared of me, but you weren’t condescending either.”

“We’re not here to judge or rule over people.”

“You’re Alphas. Pack Alphas.”

“Benny and Dean knew each other out in the real world. He knew my brother could lead him, and he knew he would be safe with us. There was no risk of betrayal or anything complicated. Bobby was already here, didn’t really hang out with anyone other that Rufus, but he took us in without blinking an eye. Kind of became a father figure. And Kevin… he didn’t have an easy beginning here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember Lucifer?”

You rolled your eyes, remembering your first day locked up. “How could I not?”

“Well, you’re not the only one he’s badgered. Kevin… he’s weak. I’m not going to lie or beat around the bush. They guy is easily pushed around and before he made friends he was easy pickings. Fresh meat.”

“Bacon,” you recalled the name Lucifer had called him.

Sam nodded. “It started off as teasing, but there are guys around here that… let’s just say they don’t care where they put their knot. Omega, Beta, Alpha. Whatever they can overpower is theirs.”

Blood running cold, you looked up at Sam with wide eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that Kevin was-”

Cutting you off, Sam shook his head. “Almost. Dean and I put a stop to it. After what I went through I couldn’t stand to see him suffer, too.”

After what I went through…

You weren’t sure what that meant, but suddenly you felt sick. Sam was a big guy, a strong Alpha, and a little scary at times, he didn’t look like the type that was easily overpowered…

“Sam…” You reached over to rest a hand on his arm.

Not needing you to ask the question, he went on to explain, “Dean and I spend a lot of time in the Pit and sometimes we have our off days. For Dean that means the brink of death. For me… Lucifer…” His eyes turned to meet yours then. “The staff around here really don’t care about what happens to us, especially down there.”

Your heart broke. He couldn’t and wouldn’t say the words. To be honest, you didn’t want to hear them. You didn’t want his trauma voiced. If Sam told you exactly what he’d been through you weren’t sure you’d survive. Even now, listening to him, watching the broken look in his eyes grow as he fell further into his memories… it was chipping away at you.

“Hey.” You lifted your hand to cup his face, turning him to look at you completely. “Tell me you’re safe now.”

He leaned into your hand. “They won’t touch me anymore. No one will. Dean and I made sure of that. But that doesn’t mean I’m safe. I’m never going to be safe.” His eyes stared into yours with an intensity that had your heart racing and skipping and going a little crazy.

“Sam…”

Lifting his own hand, he brought it up to yours. “I know you’re with my brother. I know it’s his mark you wear.” His eyes dropped to your neck then. “But I feel it, and I know you do, too. There’s something connecting us, and as long as it’s there I’m never going to be safe. Because I know every second you spend in this place is a second too long.”

“You can’t… you can’t talk to me like that, Sam.” You pulled your hand away, letting it fall to the ground.

“Why not?”

“Because, it’s like you said, I’m with your brother. I am with Dean. It might not feel or seem like it, he might be being a dick right now, but that doesn’t change the facts. There’s no going back from this.” Raising your hand, you let your fingers graze your mark.

He followed you, his own fingers brushing the scarred bite on your neck. You shuddered at the feel, eyes instinctively fluttering closed as you tilted your head slightly. The light ghosting of his rough fingers on your skin sent shivers all throughout your body. You could feel the tingle settle between your thighs as your lips parted on a wanting breath.

“Your skin is clammy,” he noted. “The drugs are changing you.”

“Hence the mood swings,” you mumbled.

This was so wrong. So very, very, very wrong. Sam was not your Alpha. He was not the guy you should be sneaking around with. Part of you in that moment wondered if you’d come to this spot just for him. It suddenly felt as if, after seeing him out in the yard, you’d wanted nothing more than this.

If you weren’t so submissive right now you might have climbed him like a tree. Although, if you were so submissive you probably would have realised just how wrong you were being and left him. He was not your Alpha. He was not Dean. But he was with you.

Dean had made himself clear. He was stubborn and impossible. You knew the only way to get through to your Alpha was to give him whatever he wanted. You couldn’t do that. You literally couldn’t, because what he wanted was out of your control. You couldn’t stop the medication, which meant you couldn’t keep yourself out of danger, which meant he wasn’t going to stop worrying about you, and that drove you insane.

“You’ll be going into heat soon.”

Whimpering lightly, your eyes opened to meet his. You refused to say the words, because you refused to sound so weak… but you were scared. These drugs were changing you in dangerous ways, and your Alpha was being too pigheaded to help you. Maybe things would change if he knew how dangerous the situation was, but you doubted it. You got the feeling Dean didn’t let things go so easily, no matter the situation.

Sam watched you carefully. “Have you heard the about the Pack Claim theory?”

You shook your head. “No.”

“It’s this theory that if the bonds are strong enough not to over power one another… an Omega can be claimed more than once.” His eyes turned back to your neck where Dean’s mark lay. Finger grazing the scar, he went on, “It’s not practised anymore because Omegas need to be strong in order to survive each claim made on them. It was also used in less pleasing ways, but once the Omega population began to dwindle those practices were made illegal.”

Watching him with wide and curious eyes, you tried to take in all the information he’d just laid on you. It wasn’t every day you found out that the way you lived, the way everyone lived, wasn’t the only way.

“Dean would never agree to it,” you noted without any real thought.

The corner of Sam’s lips lifted into a little grin. “You really don’t know the guy if that’s what you think.”

“You tried to kill each other.”

“Because he took you without so much as a word to me. We always talk about everything. We’re always on the same level.”

“Equals,” you remembered the conversation you’d shared with Dean in you cell a week ago.

His fingers lifted to brush against your cheek as his eyes wandered all over you face, lingering longer on your lips. “Exactly.”

“It’s just a theory.”

“True.” He nodded. “But you need an Alpha. You need stability. Dean isn’t going to calm down until everything else settles. He’s not going to be the guy you need. Not like this.”

“I feel like you’re trying to convince me…”

“Not for anything malicious,” he assured you. “I don’t want you because you’re an Omega. I couldn’t care less about the reputation all that would bring. I want you because I like you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I like what I’ve seen so far. And you like what you’ve seen,” he noted without some much as a hint of smugness in his tone.

Not realising what you’re doing, you nodded. “I do.”

He leaned in a little more then, watching you carefully, waiting for you to pull back. But your admission had you frozen on the spot, wondering why you were bothering to fight him. Why were you trying to fight your own attraction and instincts? There was something inside you that was drawn to Sam. It had always been drawn to Sam. Dean was a part of you, you cared for him more deeply than you’d cared for anyone, you felt that same connection with him as you did with his brother. But Dean wasn’t here and you needed contact. You needed an Alpha.

When Sam’s lips brushed against yours in a breath of a kiss you were lost.

A flutter of emotions clouded your thoughts, and all you could feel was the press of his lips to yours as he deepened the kiss, drowning you and your senses in him. It was a relief, as if this had always been right. As he cupped your face and held you against him as his kisses turned bruising… you knew there was no turning back.

Pulling back, he leaned in once more to press a gentler kiss to the corner of your lips before he moved until his hazel eyes met your own gaze. There was a simmering heat there, but it wasn’t overbearing or controlling. It was a background glimmer against the relief and hope that really shined.

“Let me talk to my brother.”

“He’ll kill you.”

“I’d rather die than live with a brother that hates me. I’d rather die than live knowing I can never have you the way he does. This feels right. You can’t deny that.”

“No.” You shook your head. “I can’t.”

Lips turning up into a smile that bordered a grin, he leaned in once more to catch your lips in a kiss that lingered a little longer than necessary. Then he was pulling back and shifting to his feet before he stood before you.

“I’ll go talk to him. Figure this all out. You should… you should go-”

You gave him a short nod. “I’ll be in my cell. You just come find me. If you don’t… Dean will.”

“If I don’t, it didn’t go down well.”

“Just don’t get dead.”

He chuckled lightly. “Promise.”

Then, without another word, he turned on his heels and left. You waited a moment longer before pulling yourself up and starting for your cell, hoping that whoever came to find you would be a bearer of good news and not bad.

If someone had told you just a few months ago that you would be locked away in a maximum security prison filled to the brim with Alphas, that you’d be claimed by one and sneaking kisses with another… you would have thought that were insane. But here you were, looking up at Sam with the same relief, because while Dean felt right, he didn’t feel complete.

Maybe there was some truth to that Pack Claim theory…

Bamby

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kashmiresims · 6 years

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Apologies of Men

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“Alanna…”

The way he said her name was delightfully lascivious. It rolled off his tongue, originating from his voice which was as deep as a chasm. Instead of the indifferent, impersonal, tone that usually marked his words—there was a myriad of emotion caught in it. Adoration. Longing. Sincerity. He didn’t need to say anything more. Franz approached her, swept her off her feet as easily as if she was a piece of paper, and allowed her to taste that voice of his. He was strong, warm, and in that moment, she knew he loved her.

“Three pints of blood.”

Alanna blinked.

She was no longer wrapped up in the scene her imagination had conjured. Instead, she found herself at her Wednesday afternoon class in the lecture hall. The professor had brought in a fake cadaver to demonstrate whatever he was teaching that day.

“This is how much a body loses and then goes into level 4 hemorrhage shock. A transfusion must happen or else the patient will die,” her professor reached into the cadaver and yanked out a plastic heart that was apparently made of some kind of squishy material as he squeezed it. Of course, no blood or other bodily fluids seeped out but it got the point across, “the heart can’t pump fast enough to replenish lost plasma at that point.”

Alanna had been finding herself drifting more and more into daydreams as of late. She was usually alert—taking notes, and asking questions. She was ashamed to admit it, but she didn’t even know entirely what the professor was talking about now because had started out the lecture on blood pathogens. She looked down at her notebook, and saw all she had been doing was etching hearts in the margins and had incomplete notes but for one clear line reading ‘blood should stay in the body.’

She sighed and glanced at the clock on the back wall and saw it was already time to go! Lectures sure did fly by when her mind was racing about other things.

“Be sure to read the section on blood types, transfusions, and diseases before the next session,” the professor reminded the class as they began to pack up their books and bags. Alanna stayed seated for a few more moments, still musing that it was no surprise the predominant ‘thing’ on her mind was her best friend. Dreaming up scenarios of confessions of love, either by both or one of them. If not that, it was imagining their first kiss. Alanna had kissed boys before…well rather a boy. However, that was when she was 15 and it wasn’t serious. What she felt for Franz now, was unlike any other feeling in her body she had ever experienced.

She was in love with him.

After talking to her brother more about it, without naming names, she had come to the conclusion it had to be love. Nothing had driven her heart to beat so fast or feel so tight in her chest just from thinking about someone. She could usually navigate her thoughts with clarity but now they were just a disorganized jumble injected with a heavy dose of feelings as soon as she thought about Franz.

“Oh, Miss Thackery!” the Professor called as she slipped her backpack straps over her shoulders. She turned her head over her shoulder and saw him gesturing for her to join him at the floor where he stood. She nodded and joined him next to the cadaver model, while her classmates shuffled out of the hall and onto their next classes or naps.

“What do you need, Professor?” she asked curiously, hoping her lack of focus was not noticeable or causing an issue. Maybe it was a good thing she had never been so in love before, because she didn’t see how she could have completed high school if she had been struck with such a distracting affliction.

Her professor didn’t seem at all offended she hadn’t asked a single question during the lecture, he instead began speaking with great animation, “The medical studies program will be taking applications here in the next few weeks for students interested in doing their next semester abroad. Only a handful are selected and I think you would make an excellent candidate and would be willing to endorse you.”

Alanna beamed, feeling very flattered that her professor would not only single her out to tell her about the program but endorse her as well.

“I’m honored! What does it consist of? Where would I go if chosen?”

"It varies from year to year—the committee is still finalizing the location, however it’s a great opportunity few get to have, and I’d ask you to consider it. Not only would you be able to continue your studies but receive hands-on experience in helping patients in another area of the world!”

“That sounds amazing! Yes! I will definitely apply for it when I see the announcement. Thank you for letting me know about it,” Alanna’s smile grew even wider as she left the lecture hall and emerged into the building lobby. She took a moment to sit down and giddily think about travelling out of the region, being immersed in another culture while helping those who needed it. She pulled out her phone, immediately checking her text messages to see if Franz had sent anything and to her delight there was one unread message from an hour before but she hadn’t seen it since she had been in class. She hadn’t heard from him since she had visited him at his dorm and eagerly pressed the view button.

Franzster: Hey, thanks for the flowers. Mom really loved them.

She flashed a grin at her phone screen, even more delighted to hear that her flowers were appreciated. She had decided to send them over after hearing about Ms. Schoulsburg being in the hospital. She still was very devastated that his mother was ill and that their family bakery was going to be sold.

She typed back:

I’m so glad! How is she doing? How are you?

She tapped her foot, hoping he was around his phone to answer. She hadn’t realized until the last couple of days but she really hadn’t talked to him all that much since school started compared with previous years—so made a mental note to reach out more often and not get as lost in studying as she had been. Her phone made a noise, indicating that it received a text and she crossed her leg over the other, smiling as she opened the reply from Franz.

Franzster: She’s still there. Hopefully they will let me take her out this weekend. Sorry, but I have to go. I am pulling all the shifts at the bakery this week in her absence. She quickly typed out:

Hopefully! I’ll chat with you later. Have a great day!

She put her phone back into her pocket as she stood up, feeling slightly disheartened they couldn’t continue their chat. She could always retreat into her thoughts-turned-daydreams and imagine what else they could talk about but it wasn’t the same. She needed to try and concentrate anyway. She decided to head over to the campus library, she had a few books she’d been meaning to check out for her studies and she had a whole section to read before next class, as the professor had assigned.

Alanna thought that maybe, she had enough books as she straightened her shoulders and climbed the stairs to the upper floor of library, the weight of her backpack nearly pulled her backward. She needed to remember to empty her bag before her next class, otherwise there’d be no more room left!

She came upon the bookshelf that supposedly contained the title she had been wanting to check out when she noticed a familiar red head sitting at the study table directly across from it.

“How’s your robot holding up?” She approached the table and crossed her arms; she tried not to let any enmity seep into her words. Shane seemed to jump at being addressed publicly, coming out of a particular intense stare of boredom or so it seemed. He had a blank piece of loose-leaf paper in front of him. If he was doing a writing assignment, he was failing miserably.

The redhead turned his bored stare to Alanna and quirked a brow as if to ask her why she bothered addressing him, “It’s just fine.”

“Good,” she said a bit indignantly, because if anything went wrong with it, she had no doubt Shane would have blamed her for it. She was still miffed that he hadn’t thanked her for staying to help the other night. She figured he was a bit like his father in that respect.

She’d been exposed to the Calhouns because they had lived on the same street as her family growing up. Alanna didn’t like to throw around mean words but Mr. Calhoun was a bit of a…well…a butt head. She had seen him out in his yard when she was younger, watering his garden but then spraying water at any stray animals that happened to walk by. They were the same animals that she would leave out food for in case they were hungry. She felt bad, like it was her fault they got sprayed because they wouldn’t have been there in the first place if they didn’t expect food. What really made her burn with anger was that Mr. Calhoun had the nerve to chuckle when the poor cats or dogs went skittering off in the opposite direction, shaking cold water from their fur. She stopped feeding strays after two whole summers of that behavior.

It reminded her that Mr. Calhoun was running for mayor and he certainly didn’t have her vote. People who treated other living things with such disdain didn’t deserve to be in any kind of position of power.

She began to search the bookshelf for the book she wanted but heard Shane clear is throat from behind her.

She whipped around with a slight frown but found he had kicked out the chair next to him and nodded toward it as if she should sit. She did so, but with suspicion—’welcoming’ was not an adjective she would use to describe the red head. He wasn’t outright mean, but his demeanor was that of an intellectual snob—people, it seemed, were all just too stupid to waste his time interacting with.

She pulled the straps of her backpack off her shoulders so she wasn’t sitting so awkwardly, letting it to ground with a slight ‘thump.’ She met Shane's gaze to see what he wanted.

“So, I forgot to thank you the other night,” he leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, his eyes were intensely serious though; they seemed to want to dart to anywhere else than hers but held firm nonetheless. Alanna’s brows hiked upward in surprise that he was acknowledging it. “I’m sorry, I just don’t usually get help for that sort of thing and forgot. So, thanks for helping me figure what was wrong—maybe now I’ll beat out Orbinson to get into the tournament.”

Alanna shook her head back and forth, suddenly confused, “What do you mean ‘beat out?’ I thought all the robots get a chance to participate?”

“Well no, not at the regional level. Each college picks one robot to send to compete. You can tell the other members at SSU don’t take it seriously enough since they left for break instead of working on their builds. Only Orbinson and I really have the chance for competing, but that’s just my opinion,” Shane explained, and his serious stare was interrupted by a few crinkles at their edges as he grinned. Alanna had never actually been in an official robotics program before and her brother never mentioned that he always beat out his classmates to complete at the regional competitions. She bit her lip in worry, now wondering if she had unfairly given Shane the advantage as he wouldn’t have figured out what was wrong with his robot without her. Then again, she’d given advice to Reggie as well that bettered his build. Perhaps she should have just kept her mouth shut. Her brow creased, remembering how Reggie had seemed annoyed with her advice, probably wishing would have kept it shut in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” Shane asked, seeing the unusual expression, well it was unusual for Alanna—the human personification of sunshine.

She took in a breath and released her frown, settling her expression back to a Franz-like neutral.

“Nothing. You’re welcome. Glad I could help,” though her tone wasn’t indicative of gladness. She picked her back pack up and slung one strap on her shoulder, trying to keep herself balanced from tipping the other direction because of all the books in it. Curs-ed Newton’s laws! “Good luck with the competition, Shane.”

“Hey wait,” he said and paused while she turned around, regarding him with slight annoyance. She had things to do, and didn’t feel like chit-chatting with her old high school rival.

“What?”

“Are you sure you can’t join the robotics program? I mean, it’d nice to feel challenged again,” he asked and then added the last part in that arrogant tone he always seemed to have.

Alanna grinned sarcastically and narrowed her eyes, shaking her head, “Reggie doesn’t challenge you enough?”

“Orbinson does all right but he lacks imagination. You always had it.”

At that rare compliment, her grin transformed into something genuine and a bit regretful, “Sorry, I have too much going on with my coursework to dedicate time to building tech anymore.” Especially if she needed to do the work required to get into that program that the Professor told her about.

“Well, maybe you should stop by more often to see what is being worked on, since you’ve managed that much,” Shane suggested.

“Why? Are you running out of ideas?” she teased.

He made a doubtful scoff at the back of his throat in response and rolled his eyes; this was the kind of banter they’d always had in high school when the science fair came around every year.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she chuckled, “Anyway, I have to get a book and get back to studying.”

“Same,” Shane gestured to his unwritten paper and promptly turned around but looked back over his shoulder with the same slight grin, “See you around.”

She nodded and quickly scanned the row of book spines, grabbing the one she was looking for in the first place. She saw some others near it that piqued her interest but feeling that literal weight on her shoulders reminded her she didn’t have room for all of them. She frowned in thought, trying to solve her dilemma and came to the conclusion she would get the books she wanted and she would just carry the rest in her arms if need be.

She emerged from the library triumphant. She had her books, and now she was…

“Heeeeey Alanna,” she nearly jumped as her train of thought went reeling off the track. She balled her fist and looked up to see Reggie of all people, smiling at her. She blinked a few times and relaxed her posture before replying, “Hello Reggie.”

What a coincidence she should run into him right after thinking about him. He had his messenger-style bag slung over his chest and adjusted the strap as he said, “You going off to study?”

“Yeah actually, just had to pick up some books first,” she bobbed her head to indicate the stack she was carrying.

“You need help?” he offered.

“Thanks, but I can manage,” she started walking down the sidewalk toward the campus coffee shop. She liked to study there during the weekday afternoons. The library was too stiff, her dorm room was too crowded—but the sofas and the table in the corner of the coffee shop were quiet and cozy.

“H-Hey, I…I wanted to say that I was sorry for snapping at you the other night,” she heard him say from behind her. She hadn’t realized he was following her, and looked over her shoulder to see his sheepish expression. He was nervously running his hands through his dark hair, mussing it one way, then the other while he looked at the ground, “I actually took your suggestion and installed audio component lower on the bot.” She stopped walking, and felt the light autumn breeze bluster past them. She’d had two guys apologize to her the same day about what happened in the same night—three if she counted Franz's apology text but for an unrelated thing. Timing was an odd thing. She turned around fully but not with her usual smile, “Thanks, I accept your apology, but I have to know—why were you so short with me? If you went ahead and took my advice, it surely wasn’t because my ideas were bad?”

Reggie shook his head, “No, I just got overwhelmed—it’s not everyday someone shows that much of an interest or knowledge in one of my hobbies.”

“So, your first reaction is to push them away?”

Reggie only knotted his brows in thought as a reply and Alanna continued on her way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the first time Reggie had pushed her away. Reggie was the only boy she had ever kissed, and she had felt strongly for him at the time and thought he felt the same. He never called after, and it didn’t help that she had told him she only pretended to like him in exchange for Evelyn Jane to spill the secrets of her scheming in the Battle of the Bands. She had told Franz the same thing, however Franz saw through her lie and reached out—he questioned her—Reggie wasn’t brave enough or didn’t care enough to try. Poor Reggie was collateral damage, and that to some degree, was why Alanna felt she owed it to him to try being friends again.

But he made it difficult sometimes.

She was walking up to the coffee shop entrance when Reggie bolted past her and leaned on the door as she was about to open it. She frowned and pressed her lips together, silently questioning why he was blocking her way. “Listen, I really am sorry and I’ll make it up to you,” he grinned with a hint of hope.

“Oh? How?” she arched a brow.

“There’s a meteor shower on Friday night. I can bring my telescope and we could watch it together at the Old Sim State Tower. I’ll bring snacks, some chairs, and we can stargaze the night away. How does that sound?”

She did like stargazing. Had she told him that before? She probably had back in high school when they were chemistry partners; they used to have very long, productive conversations when they had been friends, and she did miss that. Franz, though they talked together often, wasn’t one to hold such lengthy, personal, conversations.

She mulled the idea over in her head, “That sounds lovely, I’d accept that as an apology too.”

Her answer sent Reggie’s smile to its broadest yet and he removed himself from the door, opening it and gesturing she should go inside, away from that chilly autumn breeze.

#ts2 #sims 2 #NOV arc #kashmiresims #sims 2 story #my shots #Thackery #Orbinson

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margarethelstone · 5 years

Text

That Hopelessness of Mine

She was weary, she was sick, she was completely unable to focus. She, the Astrid Hofferson, the most hard-working student the University of Berk had ever taught, suddenly appeared to be perfectly indifferent to what was happening around her. Her life was an utter mess – and a ridiculously handsome, green-eyed stranger was the last person she needed to meet.” Hiccstrid modern AU.

fanfiction.net / AO3

She had told Ruffnut she would need three minutes to cover the distance separating her from her flat.

She did it in one.

One feverish minute of sprinting in the snow, trying to fight the embarrassment that spread over her like a plague, hoping against hope that the considerate – and way too handsome for his own good – stranger would forget about this entire situation by the time she got to the threshold.

Her cheeks were flushed red like never before, and she couldn’t even pretend it was the cold or exercise that had caused it.

Astrid sighed heavily as she tapped the right code on the intercom and pushed the door open, all while doing her best not to sit down on the floor right then and there and curl up in resignation – and then she sighed again, looking up the high staircase, seeing all the steps she still needed to climb.

Life definitely wasn’t fair.

Refraining from the third sigh in a row, she approached the staircase and without further delay, she resumed her run, because again, even this exhausted, she did not feel like staying away from her own room any longer than it was necessary.

She just wanted to get inside at last.

‘And when I do,’ she mused to herself as she went up another floor, finally nearing her own little place of solace, ‘it’s all about myself. A hot shower, a cup of hot tea and a warm bed… and silence. Lovely, cosy, undisturbed silence.’

Yes, she was actually happy Heather wasn’t there for the evening.

And as she stood in front of her door, rummaging through her purse and trying hard not to think about the very green eyes of the young man who’d helped her with its content less than a quarter earlier – nor about the awkwardness she still felt at the remembrance of her own childish behaviour – she also recalled her other girl friend. Astrid had promised Ruffnut she would call her as soon as she got inside, and her unexpected stop at the pavement must have doubled the time she usually needed to get there; she would not be surprised to see about ten missed calls and four messages from Ruff as soon as she unlocked her phone.

Which she did. And the numbers were precisely like she had jokingly assumed.

“At least one person cares,” the blonde muttered with a smile, shaking her head at her best friend’s overprotectiveness – and then froze, remembering the kindness of the man she was trying so hard to forget.

It didn’t even matter it was him. What mattered was the fact, that there was someone else, someone she didn’t know, but who still was kind enough to stop by and help a person, only because he thought she could use it.

Maybe there really was more good in this world that she’d thought?

Her grin widened a little at the realisation. Still, there was no point in pondering over it on the dim, empty staircase, which only threatened to bring back her feelings of loneliness if she stayed there any longer. Not ceasing to smile, Astrid slid her phone back into her pocket, turned the key and let herself in through the unlocked, heavy door – and slammed it behind her eagerly.

Lonely or not, it was good to be home again.

Without much thinking, she tossed her bag on the nearest chair and headed to the bathroom, for the first time in her life wondering why on earth didn’t they have a bathtub. The reasonable part of her could immediately give her a whole list of reasons, yet right now, reason was the very last thing Astrid was interested in, while the thought of submerging herself in hot, steamy water was the most tempting option of all.

Still, the reality would not change because of her whims, and so wouldn’t the equipment of their small, shared apartment. The best Astrid could do was to use what she had to the fullest – and that was exactly what she was planning to do.

She resolved to change her tactics a little then, and left the bathroom, heading towards the kitchen instead. Her fingers hovered over her phone screen as she tried to dial Ruffnut’s number, simultaneously hesitating whether she should even try to call the girl when she was officially still in class… when her own phone vibrated in her hand, announcing the call from the friend in question herself.

Astrid couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Alright, I know what you’re gonna say,” she threw in carelessly after answering the phone. “Ten missed calls and four unread messages, you were sure I had died a terrible death on my way here. Well, I didn’t. I’m home, and I’m safe. And my lousy butt is still in place.”

“It better be!” She heard Ruffnut hiss on the other side of the phone. “And you owe me big time for sneaking out from that stupid marketing class to make sure you’re okay! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been sitting on this bloody corridor?”

“You almost sound as if you preferred to stay inside,” Astrid teased back mercilessly, putting the kettle on and searching for her favourite tea. “Come on, it’s not like you were going to listen to Johann anyway.”

“That doesn’t change anything. He can still mark my absence if I don’t come back soon.”

“Well, you better do then.”

“Oh no, not until you excuse yourself and tell me what exactly took you so long to call me.”

Astrid rolled her eyes. “Nothing really, except some snow getting in my eyes and my bag strap falling off. Oh, and there was some ice involved, too.”

“What the heck did you do now, Hofferson?”

“I slipped. And my bag fell on the ground. Well, not in that order precisely, but that’s not even close to the point – either way, I ended up lying on the pavement, with my things all around me. I needed some time to gather them, and even with the little help I got, it still took some – are you grinning?”

Ruffnut did not answer, however, that only confirmed Astrid in her assumption. She slapped her hand against her forehead, and no longer caring for appearances, she groaned. “Why do I even tell you anything?”

“Because you owe me,” Ruff answered cheerfully.

Astrid was ready to swear she could hear her face muscles stretch; she groaned again.

“Yes, you’ve said that already.”

“And still, you’re asking. And I was just wondering what kind of help you got that it took you both so much time to grab those few notebooks of yours. Was the guy as clumsy as you today, or was he just too good looking for you to bid your adieu at once?”

Astrid felt herself blush immediately.

“What?” she asked a little too quickly, cursing the wavering of her voice. “Why would you even assumed it was a guy?”

“Because you’d have already told me if he wasn’t. Duh!”

“Ruffnut!”

“Astrid!” the other girl retorted mockingly. “Okay, so he definitely is a guy and he is handsome enough to make you stutter over your words. That’s perfect. You did give him your number, right?”

“Of course I didn’t!” Astrid cried out, and rubbed her temples, trying to calm herself down again. “I don’t give my number to every guy unlucky enough to meet me on the street, especially not after he saw me lying on the pavement like some pathetic, sobbing child. No matter how kind he is, how handsome he is – I may not have much dignity left, but it’s just enough to stop me from doing anything of this sort.”

Silence fell on the room, while she waited for Ruffnut to respond to her spontaneous little speech. She gritted her teeth and reached for the kettle, ready to pour the water into the awaiting mug.

Her tiredness was back.

“You know,” she heard Ruff speak a moment later. “Judging by the way you speak, that might have been about the dumbest thing you did today. Or ever.”

“This really isn’t helping, you know.”

“This isn’t very comforting, you mean? No. It’s not. But I’ve never been a type to comfort you, you’ve got Heather for that.”

“Ruff, I -”

“Look, Hoff, you really have to stop thinking about what’s proper and for once, do what you feel like doing. Sometimes, at least. Now go get that shower and get yourself to bed before I decide to come over and force you to do it myself.”

Astrid sighed, wanting to smile weakly at least, but finding herself unable to do even this much.

“I will. Thanks,” she mumbled instead, hoping that Ruff would not feel too offended with the way she’d just spoken to her.

“Sure,” the other girl answered, calming her nerves a little with the steadiness of her voice. “Take care, chick.”

Astrid put the device away; she was definitely confused but somehow, she was… glad at the same time. Sure, Ruffnut’s final comment did not make her feel any better – but then again, even with her harsh and direct attitude, Astrid could not miss the attentiveness and true care hidden behind it.

And at this point, she just wanted to appreciate that.

She still wanted a shower, too.

So she headed back to the bathroom, shed her clothes and finally took it – and when she left the cabin, with her hair wet and her skin practically steaming, she was almost willing to admit that, despite the constant turmoil in her soul, there still was some hope left for her.

That was until she came back to her room and took her bag, searching for the book she was supposed to read for her course. The book was there.

But her wallet was not.

#i can't believe i haven't posted it here #well i am posting it now #hiccstrid #fanfiction #modern au #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #HTTD

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