#only difference is that i picture him with Mostly-straight dark hair
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The lovely @prim-moth requested #22, "things you said after it was over," from this post!
Edit: I've also posted this on AO3, with the other requests I've completed so far!😊
Arthur jolted awake, sitting bolt upright on the mattress. His left hand moved up over his mouth as if to keep him from yelling out, and for a moment, he just sat there, wide-eyed and frightened, panting as he stared out in front of him, everything else still in the darkness of the room. His bedroom.
Their bedroom.
Arthur moved his hand down, still shaken, but confident enough now that he wasn't going to scream.
The voice from his head had taken to sleeping beside him, wrapped up in his sheets, in his blankets. Arthur would say it had gone on for more nights than he cared to count by now- but he was still counting. All the nights this figure in his bed had spent at his left side- always his left side- as if guarding something. Or staking a claim. And this night, in this moment, Arthur hadn't noticed the way his companion had shifted, too preoccupied himself trying to get his breathing back under control and keep himself from spiraling, which was proving to be more difficult this time than most. He couldn't take a deep enough breath to help slow himself down, and he could still feel his heart racing. Having the same nightmare multiple times didn't make it any easier to wake up from, after all. He hadn't processed that the man next to him had stirred awake and moved closer, until the light touch of his hand slipped over Arthur's thigh and pulled him out of his own head.
Arthur opened his mouth to try and say something, to either explain or apologize, but couldn't pin down any words. Instead, he shut his eyes tight and moved to lie back down, wrapped his arms around his partner, and buried his face in his chest.
John, groggy as he was, took a moment to reciprocate, but pulled Arthur in close. One hand settled in the middle of his back, and the other slipped into his hair, gently smoothing it down for a moment before falling still. As always, John paid incredibly close attention to the way Arthur reacted to his touch.
"That's it," John reassured as he felt the man start to relax against him, albeit slowly. His voice was soft, low and heavy with sleep. "There we are..."
There was a stillness between them for a moment- John allowing Arthur more time to compose himself, knowing by now that too much noise or movement could very well wind up making that a task even more daunting than it already was. So for that little while, he just lay there, holding his partner and lightly dragging his nails over the other's back in an attempt to keep him grounded, until he was sure Arthur's breathing had steadied enough to allow him to speak.
"Tell me your name," John instructed gently, the same as he had many times before.
"A- Arthur Lester," Arthur just barely managed, his voice trembling.
John flattened his hand over Arthur's back. "Where are you?"
"I-In... my bedroom. O-our bedroom. In our home."
John hummed. "Our address?"
"Eight-..." Arthur huffed out a sigh in spite of himself. "Eighty-three Merriweather Lane."
"State?"
"Vermont."
"What year is it?" John asked through a yawn, his left hand once again moving to smooth down Arthur's hair.
"Nineteen thirty-..." Arthur hesitated. "Thirty-six."
"Good," John confirmed lightly. "How long has it been...?" He knew he didn't need to elaborate.
Arthur understood. "...Six months." He paused a second, then, and nuzzled into John's chest, breathing him in before letting out an exhausted sigh.
"I know," John murmured, taking to gently playing with the ends of Arthur's hair. It was cropped short again, like it had been when they'd first met, and a mess of thick curls in its currently unstyled state. He remembered how Arthur had been on the verge of tears once they'd finally gotten the opportunity to see a barber for the first time a little over five months back, and how religiously he'd stayed on top of maintaining it since then. That, and how dutiful he was now about remaining clean-shaven. Something stirred inside John as he recalled the first time Arthur had asked for his help shaving about three months ago. John had hardly trusted his own hands yet then, having only had them for a few weeks at that point- but his partner had stayed calm, reassured him that everything would turn out fine. That thought echoed softly through his mind as he lay there with Arthur in his arms now, holding him as securely as possible.
It had only been a second since John last spoke. "Do you want to talk about it...?" He offered, making it clear that Arthur had a choice in the matter.
Arthur shook his head with a huff, one of his hands closing into a loose fist around the back of John's sleep shirt. "N-no... I-" He took in a breath. "Distract me...?" He requested, trying his hardest to keep his voice steady.
"Mh..." John thought for a moment, letting out a soft sigh. It brought him some odd sense of comfort to know that Arthur found solace in his ability to ramble about damn near anything. There had been a week or so after they'd made the deal to separate themselves that John had hardly spoken at all, having been too unsettled by the way his voice sounded in this form and the fact that he could feel it inside his body. Arthur had kept having to coax him into conversation here and there, just to get John to say anything, which had been such stark contrast against how he'd been during the time they'd spent bound together.
John realized his mind was wandering again, and quickly spoke up. The drowsiness that lingered on him still came out through his words, but there was a distinct lightness to his tone. "There's an orchestra concert coming up in a couple of weeks- I told you when we passed that flier for it the other day, while we were out getting groceries. I want to say it's... an annual event- free to the public, outside at the bandshell near town hall. There were a few pictures on the flier from what seemed to be previous years' runs, with groups of people scattered out on the lawn in chairs or on blankets and just enjoying themselves, children running about..." John leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Arthur's head, not entirely thinking about the action. "We could go, if you wanted. Make a day out of it- pack a lunch and take a stroll downtown, set up a blanket and eat on the lawn. Have a... a picnic? Is that what you called it that time in the park?"
Arthur gave a slight nod to confirm. John noted his response, and continued. "I'll point out the scenery and the goings-on of the crowd, you'll scold me for talking through the whole first movement, as if you'd actually expected anything different," he joked at his own expense. "And this is where you’d tease me and say, 'Well, you have been rather well-behaved whenever I've played, so far, so I do suppose I have some faith that you'd stay quiet for a whole orchestra,' if you were feeling up to it right now," John added, and tried to ignore the way his heart fluttered at the huff of a laugh Arthur gave in reply.
Arthur turned John's words over in his mind, one word ringing a little louder than the rest. Ever drowsy, Arthur nuzzled his partner again, and shifted to be just that much closer to him while he tried to collect his thoughts.
Faith was something that had eluded Arthur over the years- always slipping through his fingers as this fragile, impermanent thing. Framing it in a religious sense had never worked for him, either, even though there had been points in his life where he’d been low enough to try. Trying to rely on something so intangible and so far out of his reach had only made him feel smaller, lonelier- more inconsequential than he’d cared for. And the one thing he’d so desperately needed in life was consequence.
For his own sake, just to have something to hold onto and keep himself on some semblance of a path, he'd begun to put faith in the ordinary, the routine. Faith that the newspaper would be on his doorstep every morning. That he'd have to put gas in his car by the end of the week. He'd put faith in the fact that Bella would call on him at least once every week, always with a new excuse for why he should leave his studies and take a break for a while. That on the rare chance Faroe woke up before him in the mornings, she'd pad into his bedroom and climb under the covers with him until they were both truly ready to face the day. That he'd see Parker's face when he walked into their office and that their clients would meet them as scheduled. That after a long day of work, Arthur, most times by his lonesome, would be able to go home, have a hot meal and a shower, and a peaceful place to sleep, before he had to wake up and do it all again the next day.
How crudely that faith had been shaken, one time after another, and with no real relief in between. Everything he'd been through- even before Kayne, before the King, before John- should have broken him down and defeated him. Should have destroyed his resolve and depleted his strength and made it so that he would have never had faith in anything ever again. But, selfishly, he'd begun to let himself hope, after a while. Just to start.
And hope without faith had started to seem like an empty promise to Arthur. Like a wish for something, but one with no real desire behind it, no will to see it come true.
So now he put faith in this man he'd told to sleep next to him. He put faith in the experiences they'd shared together, and continued to share now. How they'd grown alongside one another. How they'd learned so many things, so many damning things about each other, and themselves, and how they'd worked through it- not in spite of it all. But because of it. Because of every little thing.
He wasn't afraid that John would leave him. Not anymore.
Arthur put faith in the fact that, if he awoke in the middle of the night, startled and shaking and drenched in guilt, this man- his companion, his partner, his lover, his friend- would hold him close. And talk to him. Without complaint, for minutes, or hours, or however long it took for him to feel calm again.
He put faith in the fact that he loved John. And that John loved him.
While Arthur thought, John had been taking the moments to find something else to talk about, his own sleep-addled brain running a bit slower than usual. He'd been keeping track of Arthur, though- his breathing, his little movements, the tension that had melted out of his muscles as he laid there in John's arms. He'd finally settled on a new subject after a minute, right when he heard Arthur's soft, tired voice cut through the silence they'd been lying in.
"I do have faith in that. In-... In you." The way he spoke almost made it sound like he was sharing a secret. Something that was meant for himself, and his partner, and them only. "More than I think you know."
There was something about the words that covered John, wrapped him up and held him for a second. Purposefully, this time, he leaned down and kissed the top of Arthur's head. What he said next wasn't to mimic his lover's words, not an echo that he'd felt obligated to make- but a confession, ardent even in its hushed tone.
"And I have faith in you."
#malevolent podcast#prim-moth#this is shippy but it's g-rated i promise#is this au stuff? yeas. do i feel cringe about it? no💖#i woke up this morning and the first thing i did was fixate on the fucking hat money from pt.5 and write a wholeass post about it#i've moved well past the point of feeling cringe i think#also wyrm i think you'll probably notice where i started rly thinking about arthur's hair dfkljhdflgk#fun fact the way i picture arthur when his hair is unstyled is that he has curls that want to Eat him💖#and the fucking!! wyrm i need to say. the way you draw human john is like almost EXACTLY the way i've been picturing this whole damb time#it genuinely is like u ripped the visual from my brain#only difference is that i picture him with Mostly-straight dark hair#i'm#NO words anymore i hope you enjoy this💖💕#edit: there are SLIGHT discrepancies between this original post and the one on ao3 lol#changed a couple tiny details#not saying which ones😇
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Operational Risk Management (John Price x Reader)
Kate calls with some bad news.
1k words
CW: swearing, military inaccuracies
This work is part of the S.N.A.F.U. series, master list also pinned to my blog.
Masterlist
Ao3
John’s phone lights up in the center console with an incoming call just as you are returning to the flat. Two hefty shopping bags of new glitter-less decorations are safely secured in the back seat. His patience ran out about half-way back from your excursion, locked in a snarl of holiday traffic. When he began to grumble about the lack of common sense on display, you reminded him that he wanted to tag along with you. The look he gave you afterwards was dark, but you didn’t let it faze you, used as you are to his intermittent grumpiness. Still, you’re happy to claim your spoils and clear off so he can take his phone call in peace, his annoyance doing nothing to dampen your spirit.
“Hello?”
John’s tone is curt. The familiar sound of chopper blades swells and then he can hear Kate over the staticky line, immediately picturing her cupping her hand over the bottom of the phone as she clears the rotors.
“John? Got some news, you aren’t going to like it. Can you talk?”
She’s moving, likely just landed. John’s brain is leaping ahead, trying to fill in the gaps.
“Yeah. What happened? Gaz alright?”
Kate cuts straight to the chase, apparently no time to waste on pleasantries.
“The commander Gaz is working under is a younger brother to man killed in Las Almas - belonged to Shadow Company. He’s leveraged his position with Norris to start knocking on doors to find out what happened to his brother and he’s managed to get enough intel to hold the 141 responsible.”
“Jesus Christ Laswell.”
John’s palm comes down with a slap on the steering wheel, his mood worsening. He can feel his blood pressure rising as Kate’s terse voice washes over him.
“I suspect Norris is feeding him information. We’re going to keep working on that end, see if we can confirm anything. When you turned down the contract and that photo popped up, he tried a different path. The commander did basic training with your girl’s would-be-assailant years ago, before the dishonourable discharge. We think he’s currently switching tack again. Gaz is obviously compromised, and they’re about to ship out.”
“Ah hell Kate.”
John’s violently pushing his fingers through his hair, the implications of Gaz being in the thick of this commander’s operation making his stomach turn to lead.
“I didn’t know John, didn’t think Norris’ men needed further vetting. Lesson learned. I’ve got a potential intercept point. Right now, we’re handling some rendezvous communications for them as we’ve got friendlies in the field, Gaz being one. They’re going to be sent to recon a chemical manufacture plant in Lithuania for a potential raid.”
Kate’s tone suggests she’s well aware of her fuck up, and John respects her enough to leave it there, satisfied with her acknowledgement.
“There’s got to be a vulnerability we can exploit to get Gaz to safety.”
John’s instinct is to plan, even without any intel yet.
“Ghost is planning an avenue of approach for the potential intercept point before whatever the commander is up to comes to fruition out there. We urgently could use an extra set of hands in the know, Captain. Timing is critical here. Gaz’s assigned taskforce won’t be expecting us. If we do this correctly, we can bury this for good with no one the wiser.”
John looks up at the flat, can almost picture you flitting around, rearranging items to account for your new prizes. His heart sinks as he makes the only decision his conscience will allow.
“Yeah, my bag is mostly packed. I can be at the base in a few hours for pick up if you can arrange liaison.”
Kate asks the question he’s been dreading since this conversation started. He can guess at the outcome and is in no hurry to be proven right.
“Your girl going to be ok with the last-minute change of holiday plans?”
At the mention of you, John’s brain immediately pulls the image of you naked in the shower, flushed from the orgasm he’d just given you, admitting you’re in love. The center of his chest aches at the thought of leaving you alone during the holiday you’re so obviously excited to share with him. At one point, early on, he was confident that he knew exactly what he was doing. His emotions lately tended to be out of control and headlong, almost impossible to moderate. After years of relentlessly telling himself it was better to keep his distance, to stay platonic, he’s finally getting what he’s coveted after all this time. And still, he can’t stop his greedy heart from wanting more. He fights back the uncharacteristic swell of emotion and clears his throat, refocusing on the conversation at hand.
“I’ll handle it. Not leaving anything this volatile for someone else to clean up. I want assurance it’s over.”
“If you’re sure. You’ve been moving fast with this woman John. I’m assuming you know what you’re doing here.”
His laugh is dark, the sound of a man whose best laid plans are unravelling in front of his eyes.
“Gaz would do the same. I’ll sort it out on my end, set up the liaison for 19:00.”
John is all business, putting any indecision firmly to rest in short order.
“We appreciate the assist; I’ll debrief you further once you’re on route. And John?”
“Yeah?”
He’s preoccupied, already trying to work out how to explain what’s about to happen to the woman he loves.
“Good luck, hope you bought her something nice.”
Kate’s tone is a mix of gentle teasing and honest concern. John’s foul mood refuses to rise to the occasion.
“Piss off Laswell.”
John grates out before hanging up the call and sighing deeply, gripping the steering wheel tightly. He shouts a handful of curses into the empty car, grateful for a mostly vacant street to witness his outburst. He takes several deep breaths to gather himself again before stepping out of the car to rejoin you in the flat and break the news.
Next Chapter
Tag list:
@deadbranch @beebeechaos @cadotoast @writeforfandoms @syoddeye @itr-00 @chloepluto1306 @batw3nch
#fanfic#captain john price#call of duty#john price#john price x reader#john price cod#friends to lovers#john price x f!reader#captain john price x reader#john price x you#captain price#captain price x you#captain price x reader#fanfiction
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SteveTony Weekly - March 24 - Week 12
Happy Sunday, my friends! Check out this week’s five recs, and be sure to kudos and comment on the ones you enjoy!
non functional requirements by lazywriter7
“Morning Tony.” Someone greets from close to the front row. Gwen, who’s waiting for her Macbook to complete its primeval, laborious booting up procedure, feels her shoulders sag even further down. God, not this shit again.
“Did your coffee machine explode again?”
“Implode, and no.” The lecturer – Tony – cracks a brief smile. The band t-shirt he’s got on is mostly just wrinkles, his hair flattened straight down the sides like it hasn’t been washed in a couple days. Really gives Gwen such an inspiring picture to look up to for her own prospective career in academia. “And just for that not-so-subtle commentary on my opening salvo today, I’m gonna teach this entire lecture using a metaphor.”
~
Gwen Stacy isn't having the greatest day, and that's before her System Designs Engineering professor starts explaining the material through the lens of his strained-sounding relationship. With his boyfriend in the audience.
arei’s thoughts: I really loved this. It’s outsider POV, and Steve is the ‘bad’ boyfriend in this, but they’re both trying--sometimes failing--to make things work. The way they lean into each other and learn from their mistakes is lovely.
An Educational Experience (The Good Things Come To Those Who Wait Remix) by valdomarx
Ults Tony has a nice day.
aka Tony talks Steve through sucking his cock.
arei’s thoughts: it’s no secret that I adore Ults and this one is so lovely, Steve is so grumpy and pining so damn bad if he’d get out of his own way, he could be SO HAPPY. And then it’s just hot. Check it out.
take a long line by ShanaStoryteller
Steve knows that Tony Stark is going to be a problem from the first line in his file.
Designation: Alpha
arei’s thoughts: I love the a/b/o dynamics in this. The way that Steve kind of fumbled them on account of his coming from a different time, and the way Tony was so anxious to care for EVERYONE around him. The scene where he tries to feed Steve a sandwich is quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve read in months.
Even the Score by Sineala
After Tony risks his own life to save Steve from the deadly Bloodwash gas, he's in bad shape, and he needs immediate treatment. Thanks to the treatment, he doesn't quite remember what's going on, but he does remember that people have been trying to kill him and that he can't trust the government. Since the Secretary of Defense did try to murder both of them today, Steve can't exactly tell Tony he's wrong about either of those things -- but, unfortunately, Tony doesn't remember who Steve is. And, even more unfortunately, Steve taught Tony to fight.
arei’s thoughts: I love this fic. It’s a very simple plot and premise pulled from the comics but it’s just so well done, and I love seeing Tony competent and dangerous even without the suit. Sine’s characterization in this--on both Steve and Tony’s parts--is just so lovely and well done.
pretty baited trap by Areiton
The first time Tony walks into the Trisk, he’s following Tiberius, his eyes downcast, a perfect five steps behind his Alpha. He’s wearing a suit, cut in traditional omega style, because he’s an asset, a part of the display of wealth and power as much as the car they arrived in and the expensive watch Ty is wearing, the deliberate slight of being late and the bottle of wine that hangs from three fingers, careless, like it’s not worth several thousand dollars.
It’s the same display Ty has put on a dozen and more times since they Bonded. The only thing that changes is the location, the Alpha that Ty is trying to impress.
Where Tony ends up. His role in the evening’s proceedings. Those are already determined. This is a business deal and he is the pretty baited trap.
arei’s thoughts: well, I wrote this one but. I’m adding it to the list because I kinda love it. It’s very soft, and a little dark, but the devotion that grows between Steve and Tony is…lovely.
#stevetony weekly#steve rogers#tony stark#stevetony#stony#iron man#captain america#stevetony fic#stony fic#fic rec
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Lose me to Love you (Loki x Female Reader) (AU) (18+)
Read Chapter 22 here / Series Masterlist
Chapter 23
Summary: Loki isn't the only one fighting with his inner demons. People from your past continues to turn up.
Trigger Warning: 18+, Description of rape and assault, panic attack, violence against women, Extreme dark themes, Sexual abuse, physical abuse, public sex, Rough violent sex, 18+, Steamy stuff, age difference ,Rough language, mention of suicide, talk of virginity and slut shaming, manipulative behaviour, mention of trauma, smut, toxic relationship between main characters. Dark themes, cult stuff
His palms felt clammy, he had been standing outside the orphanage for half an hour and you were taking your own sweet time coming out, as he noticed a girl approaching him he was slightly surprised. For some reason he kept picturing the eleven year old sweet girl that he knew instead of this fully matured grown woman that he probably would have fucked if he met her at the club. Just 18, he had to remind himself that you were barely an adult.
"Hiiii" you smiled at him and he snapped out of his thoughts.
"Y/n"
"Lokii..how are you?" You were the reason he was even alive today, for a moment the feeling overwhelmed him so he grabbed your hand and pulled you closer to him to hug you.
"Thank you darling, thank you..I'll take care of you I promise" the gratitude slipped past his lips and as he felt your arms around his waist his nerves went calm for a moment.
"So it was your birthday a few days ago, want to do something?" You looked at him as he said that.
"Not really..Where are we going?"
"Ummm my place" you hummed as he answered.
He drove you to his house and you looked around as you both entered the studio apartment he was renting in Brooklyn. It wasn't enough for you two but that's all he was able to do at the time, the divorce settlement has ruined him even further.
"It's cozy, I like it" you placed your backpack down on the couch and smiled again.
"Well you can take the bed, I'll sleep on the couch, food is in the fridge, here's the..umm some money..you can go grocery shopping or get whatever you need..the girl stuff and all" he passed you a few dollar bills so you took it from him, everything was awkward with you two and he felt it in his bones.
"What do you do for work?" You asked him and he sighed
"A small gig at a club"
"What type of gig, are you a bartender?" He combed his hair with his fingers as he tried to avoid your constant gaze.
"A bouncer..you ask too many questions" The job always paid okay, that's also how he met Jolene as well, she frequented the club he worked at and she finally asked him out one fine day. When they got married she got him a position at her accounting firm but he was fired while he was resting after the wrist slitting incident. Now he wished that he never ever met her at all.
"That's hot..i like bouncers..they're soo strong and so manly" his brows furrowed as you said that, how the hell you had even been in a nightclub? He wasn't sure if he wanted to know that.
"Well I have to go meet someone..when I come back we can discuss your uhhhh future plans…if you want to get into college or–"
"No discussion required..I want to become an actor..we should probably move to LA" you mumbled nonchalantly before you proceeded to raid the fridge that was mostly empty.
"Excuse me?" He looked at you all perplexed, getting you into acting business didn't seem feasible to him.
"LA? Los angeles?"
"I know where LA is ..are you serious about this acting thing?"
"As serious as Joker was before his dad carved his face" he looked at you all confused again as you quipped "Really??never?? Oh my god we are definitely going to watch the dark knight once you come back.. Don't worry we don't need to watch the first part.. honestly 60 percent of people skipped the first part and went straight to TDK and somehow it makes perfect sense ..it's like you're not even missing anything important or worth knowing…you know…"
Your voice faded in the background as you continued to speak gibberish to him. However your sweet voice also filled his empty sad apartment and he liked that. Alot. That was the moment he knew that life wouldn't be the same from then, he knew he'd have to make several adjustments and since he had taken the responsibility of taking care of you, your dreams and aspirations became his as well.
His eyes opened to your shaking form and he absolutely abhorred that, every time you had a nightmare he felt afraid that you'd slip past his fingers like that one horrible time. It had happened a few days prior to your mother's anniversary during the second year of living together. He never talks about it because you don't seem to have any recollection of those two days, at first he wasn't sure how to deal with you, how to bring you back but on the third night you went to sleep and came back absolutely normal. You had a bad dream last night too but it was about Thor and he just knew this one was different from that. He knew you'd probably not remember this one because it involved your mother.
"Hey sweetheart" he turned the lamp on to see you properly. His heart rendered as he noticed the tears running down the corner of your eyes,
"Loloooo …mommmyy .. I want mommmy" you sniffled, your voice reminded him of that little girl he had left at the orphanage.
"I know baby..it's okay.. open your eyes..I'm here..im here" he shook your body a little and you woke up gasping for air,
"Lolooo mommyyy ..I need mommmy"
"Shhhhhh baby.. everything is okay..you're safe" he mumbled softly as he wiped your tears, his lips lingered over your forehead before he wrapped his arm around your waist and made you sit up so he could embrace you, you felt safe that way.
He leaned against the headboard while you clutched onto him and cried your heart out.
"I'm here baby, my sweet girl, come back to me, I'm right here, you have me i promise" he mumbled mindlessly
"Don't send me away ..they sent me away every time I had a nightmare..they sent me to that place I hated" you sniffled between your words and his eyes welled up.
"You have me okay? I got you baby, I got you i promise" you hugged him as tightly as you could and your foggy grief stricken mind lulled you to sleep but he couldn't sleep that night, next morning as usual you didn't remember the outburst like always, a few years ago he had asked Steve about that place you kept talking about after such nightmares and Steve told him that it was a psychiatric hospital where they sent you whenever you relapsed or whenever you showed the signs of dissociative Amnesia.
"What are you making?" You hugged him from behind so he smiled.
"Guess" you opened the lid of the pot and all the excitement disappeared
"Porridge" your face scrunched in disgust and it made him smile.
"Well you wanted to eat healthy remember"
"Just take me to the gym again, it's been months" you groaned as you moved around the kitchen to make tea
"I will.. as soon as he's caught" You hummed as he said that "Are you feeling okay sweetheart?" He asked you softly and you shrugged
"Yeahh why?" He sighed as you said that. He wanted to ignore it like he had done before but after last night and the way you were trying to help him cope with his trauma, it had made him reflect upon your own situation, you didn't get away unscathed from his father's abuse, sure he wasn't able to harm you irrevocably but the damage was already done when he had hurt your mother.
"Because of the nightmare? Do you remember what you saw?" He asked you and you stopped doing whatever you were doing.
"Nooo.. i .. I didn't have a nightmare last night..it was the night before remember?" You walked over to him to kiss him on the cheek and he hummed in response. He can't just dump it on you, that would only make the matters worse, he had to find a way to talk to you about this.
"Take me shopping today daddy, it's my birthday in a few days"
He picked you up and sat you down on the counter as you said that. Your birthday. He promised to fuck you senselessly on your birthday but the approaching date had him feeling someway, he couldn't decide if it was a good feeling or not, a part of him wanted to ravish you and enjoy every second of it. The other part though? that bastard wanted to keep himself away from your precious body as far as possible, he didn't deserve to fuck a girl like you, he was one of the reasons why girls like you lost their lives, he was the reason why their dreams got broken so how come he got so blessed as to have someone as pure as you saving herself for him.
"What else would you like to do? A party perhaps?" You thought about it as he said that.
"Or we could just spend it together..just the two of us" you answered him while your fingers played with his chest hairs so he kissed you.
"Aren't you bored of seeing my face all the time?" He chuckled after speaking.
"Ask that girl who spent 7 years without seeing this angelic face. She'd always say no" his eyes softened as you said that.
"For this to happen it had to be that way"
"For what to happen?" You asked him confused so he cupped your cheeks.
"For this to happen.." he kissed you passionately, it wasn't a touch and go type of kiss either, his tongue slid into your mouth so you sucked on it, he tasted like peppermint. Delicious "It had to be that way" you inhaled sharply as he finally decided to allow you to breathe.
"Does it bother you that I was into you way before you were into me?" You asked him
"You were just a child sweetheart, you didn't even know what you felt"
"Well I knew I wanted to kiss you, I was ten when I knew that I wanted to kiss you and –"
"Shut Up.. that's inappropriate as hell" He pressed his thumb onto your lips but his digit couldn't really stop you from smiling or talking even
"It's just the truth, and to this date you are still the prettiest boy i have ever seen in my life"
"Well i'm no boy now my darling" he wrapped your legs around his waist to pull you closer to him and his mouth travelled down from your lips, you moaned as he sucked the soft skin of your neck.
"Some parts of you is still the boy i met"
"Uhhhuh like what?" He chuckled condescendingly so you held his cheeks and kissed him lovingly, as lovingly as you could.
"Like these eyes, still as gentle as I remember, mommy always told me that you could judge a person fairly well by the look in their eyes, you have the kindest eyes lolo" his eyes teared up as you said that. He thought you'd give him a break after last night but you were hell bent on coddling him like a baby.
"Well your mommy wasn't really the best judge of character"
"Take it back" your voice broke because the meanie in him came out again so he kissed you again.
"I'm sorry baby" he murmured against your mouth and you almost melted into a puddle because of how tender he seemed at the moment "You're forgiven" He smiled as you whispered. He wondered how badly he'd have to hurt you to make him unforgivable in your eyes because no matter what he did or said you always forgave him and that too pretty easily.
"What else?" He asked you and it confused you for a moment before it finally dawned upon you. He wanted to know more about those boyish parts of him.
"The smile, still the same, everytime I felt scared at the orphanage I would just think about you and your smiling face, that calmed me down immediately" he kissed you again instead of responding with words "And your voice hasn't changed in the slightest either"
"You are such a sentimental little girl"
"Is that bad?"
"Not at all, I just don't want to disappoint you with my stoicism" a smile graced your features at the blatant lie.
"You're pretty sentimental yourself mister "
"No I'm not"
"Yes you are"
"Shhhhhh"
After force feeding you that unsavory porridge he took you shopping like you had asked him to, you also had to be at an audition tomorrow, you needed to find work or you knew he'd try and find other works, like that thing he used to do at the club, you hated not having him at home all night.
You picked a dress but you didn't want him to see it just yet. You both spent the whole day out, it was a peaceful day but it didn't stay that way. Ofcourse it didn't. It came crashing down on you.
Your soul almost evaporated as someone ran in front of the car, you both watched a woman lying unconscious in the middle of the deserted road and you wondered if she was alive.
"Is she…oh gooddd" you mumbled under your breath so he looked at you
"Stay in here okay?" He asked you so you nodded. She had long blonde hair so it wasn't Jolene, you hated that it was your first thought. Your worries didn't cease there because as Loki rolled her over, it was someone you knew, someone you both knew very well. He picked her up hurriedly before you two could get caught by a passerby or something. After laying her down on the backseat, he quickly got in and drove towards the apartment as fast as he could.
"Ummm is that uhh--"
"Yeah and I don't trust the bitch so we are going to take her home and you're going to help me tie her up as securely as we can okay?" You looked at him all perplexed and he glared at you so you nodded.
The cops on the patrol tonight asked him about her so he lied that she was a friend that had gotten drunk out of her mind. As soon as you all reached the apartment you helped him tie her up onto a chair.
"Lokiii what are we doing..is she even alive?" you asked him nervously so he walked towards you and grabbed you by the shoulders.
"She's alive and breathing, it makes no fucking sense that she'd end up right in front of our car of all people"
"We should tell Steve "
"No not after Thor's situation, I'm already on his radar"
"But what if this brings us more trouble?" he wiped the sweat beads from his forehead as you said that. Ever since his bastard father has escaped your lives has turned into a rollercoaster that just doesn't seem to stop rolling.
You both waited for her to come back to consciousness and when she did she started to struggle against the binds almost immediately.
"Why the fuck are you here?" He asked her as he pulled up a chair right in front of her, you dragged another chair from the kitchen table, it almost looked comical as you tried to be as quiet as you could but the situation wasn't funny at all.
"Lokiii? Y/n?"
Well no memory loss it seems.
"Why the fuck You have me tied up Loki? I know you enjoyed that one time I had--" your eyes widened as she said that. He fucked her all tied up? Again you hated how your mind couldn't move past the jealousy
"Shut up.. shut the fuck up okay? Why are you here..answer me" he glared at her and she looked at you, she then gave you the sickly sweet smile that you remembered really well.
"Oh look at you now, turned yourself into Loki's pretty little girl huh?? Dreams do come true i guess"
"Sister Natasha–" Loki glared at you so you corrected yourself
"Natasha..what are you doing?"
"I don't understand, do you guys like own LA now that I can't be here?" She chuckled and Loki's teeth gritted in anger, he was so close to doing something awful
"Are you here to do his bidding again? He sent you.. didn't he?" she started laughing as he said that.
"You are still so naive loki. You know if he wanted to be here and eat her heart he'd be here, he won't need me" He stood up and all of a sudden there was a smacking sound that you heard, you looked at him shocked as he slapped her. Her lower lip split open at the force he used, your eyes teared up because you weren't expecting him to just go off like that, he never lost his control like that with you. He wasn't like that. Not with women. Not outside of consensual bedroom shenanigans.
"Ohhh I have missed that" her reaction wasn't shocking though, you knew they fucked, you just didn't know they indulged into this, though you should have guessed considering the sexual history of the cult.
"Don't make me kill you Natasha, just tell me the truth, for once in your life, tell me the truth"
He heard you sniffling so he turned his head to the side to look at you, the look on your face was enough to kill whatever shred of self esteem he still had left in him.
He walked towards you and grabbed your arm to take you to the bedroom.
"Stay here" he warned you before he turned around to leave
"This is not you loki" his eyes teared up as you said that.
"That's me sweetheart, that's the real me..still want to believe that bullshit you had made up in your head about me? This is me..the monster I keep warning you about"
You shook your head as he said that, you wanted to stop him and hold him, tell him that he wasn't a monster but he didn't give you a chance, just an hour later cops raided the house, they were tipped off. Natasha told them that he had kidnapped her, she told them that you had no involvement in all of this, you begged Steve to not believe her, you asked him to not take him away from you but he said that he was helpless. All the evidence was against him.
They wanted to take him away to lock him behind the bars, he was to be questioned later on about his motives.
And that's when you were finally able to understand why he went crazy on her, he knew her. You didn't.
You didn't know that she was as rotten as Odin. He wasn't wrong, she was there to do his bidding and she got what she needed. You without him by your side.
@annoyingsweetsstranger @whylokiissocute @loki-s-wife @fraoid3 @siggytumbles @crzyplantladyvibes @stupidthoughtsinwriting @vickie5446 @wheredafandomat @mcufan72 @xxntiimulti @loz-3 @dishahaldar @mcdesij @scram1326 @elthreetimes @army24--7 @sinsandguilt @holotacopeely @huntress-artemiss @blog-the-lilly @ultraviolencexxss @disneyismyworldforever @bunny24sstuff @kats72 @somewiseguy @asgardianprincess1050 @multifandom-world8 @loki-laufeyson-1054 @daddylokisqueen @lulubelle814 @itsybitchylittlewitchy @rogerrhqpsody @praq123
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#loki x female reader#loki#loki x reader fluff#loki x reader#loki x reader insert#loki x reader fic#loki x you#loki x reader angst#loki alternate universe#loki au#dark themes
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Springtime of my loving
There was someone standing at the foot of the jungle gym. She caught a dark shape out of the corner of her eye. It’d better not be Coralie wanting her to come and play families, or worse, Heather, pretending to want to be her friend, but actually just being a total bitch.
Charlie carefully drew a fine, straight line coming from her knight’s hand, aiming for the soft underbelly of the attacking dragon - because everyone knew that was where they were vulnerable.
Then she flicked a careful glance at the potential disturber of her peace. If she made eye contact, whoever it was might think she was interested in them, and Charlie was more than happy doing her own thing in her own dragon-infested world, thank you very much.
Oh. It wasn’t one of the girls. It was Dean.
Dean was a kind-of friend. She’d shown him one of her pictures once and he hadn’t laughed at her red-haired, dragon-fighting lady knight. He’d said she was ‘awesome’. And if Dean sometimes teased her, it was in a nice way, and not a ‘I’m pretending to be nice but actually I really think you’re scum,’ kind of way. Adults never seemed to get the difference - so that if you snapped and punched someone in the stomach as hard as you could, you got the blame because they were ‘only being friendly.’ When they weren’t.
Anyway, Dean was okay, mostly.
He was an onion-person, of course. Lots of people were like onions - so many layers of stuff that wasn’t really them covering up what was inside. But Charlie didn’t mind the layers. And a couple of times she thought she’d glimpsed what was hiding inside Dean’s tight wrappings and she'd liked what she’d seen.
At the moment though, Dean was using his cool-guy onion skin, which he did most of the time outside of class. In class he used the slow-kid skin, or sometimes the bad-kid skin and it took a clever teacher to peel the skins away - cleverer than Miss Smelly Hanson, that was for sure.
Charlie flicked Dean another sidelong glance. He was leaning against the jungle gym, arms crossed, one leg straight, the other bent up, his head tipped on one side, eyes narrowed - like he was seeing stuff way too dark and deep for most eight-year-olds. And actually, even though the pose was a familiar part of the cool-guy routine, this was Dean. So maybe those dark and deep things actually existed.
He took an audible breath and let it hiss out through his parted lips, his eyes squinching up even tighter. It was a super-awesome act, even if he really needed a leather jacket to pull it off completely. His too-small, holey hoodie didn’t work.
Dean was building up to something, though. In fact - and the handful of trail mix she’d been nibbling on suddenly started skittering around her insides - all this must be for Charlie’s benefit. He was going to ask her out, wasn’t he? He must like her. Like like her. Oh God, this could be really bad.
“Hey, Charlie?”
She closed her eyes and sent a quick prayer to Ganesha, who she’d recently come across in a solo expedition into the humanities section of the local library and she’d decided was a pretty cool kind of guy. Then she took a firm grip on her trusty pencil-lance and sat up, smiling brightly and, she hoped, unattractively.
“Dean!”
His lips wobbled, like he thought he should smile back, but cool, tough-guys didn’t smile. The potential smile got diverted into a choking splutter and his face turned bright red. Oh no. No. Please don’t, Dean.
He shifted awkwardly against the metal frame.
“Uh, so…” One hand made a bit for freedom from his crossed arms. It rubbed the back of his neck and then scratched through his hair, which was a bit longer and more floppy than Dean’s usual short spikes. “Um…yeah, so, uh…”
This was torture. If he was going to declare undying love, he should just spit it out.
“So, uh…” Dean’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. And then there was a blurting mix of maybe ten or so mashed-up syllables, with an uptick at the end to show it was a question.
Charlie stared at him. “What?”
Dean’s eyes darted from the dusty ground to hers and back again. He took a deep breath and then ran through his word-mess again, marginally slower.
“Whatd’youdoifyouthinkyoulikesomeone?”
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I wake up screaming again and Charlie charges in the room like I’m being murdered. I start crying softly and he sits at the edge of the bed, pats my leg a few times and stays there until I quiet down. When I wake up he’s still at the foot of my bed, his legs still hanging off the edge of the bed and at some point he had laid down and fell fast asleep.
“Charlie,” I say in a hoarse voice and he barely moves, so I gently kick him, “Charlie,” still nothing. “Dad!”
And he’s up with a loud snort, sitting straight up and then turns to me, “Bells?”
“I’m okay Dad, you can go back to bed.”
He smiles at me, with his eyes still mostly closed and pats my leg before he gets up and hobbles back to his room. I lay back down and feel myself start to cry again, but for a different reason.
A few hours later I get out of bed, the sun still lazily making it’s way up over the horizon as I pull on a pair of jeans and another thick hoodie. I pull on wool socks and shoves my feet into my Doc Martens, pulling my hair up in a messy bun as I slowly make my way down the stairs and put a pot of coffee on.
I step outside in the freezing morning air and find the paper on the sidewalk, taking it inside and setting it on the kitchen table as I grab a mug to pour myself some coffee. I sit back down on the kitchen table and begin to peruse the paper. There was a news story about a few missing hikers, a young couple that had left two days ago into the mountains and hadn’t been seen, also a sighting of a few extra large bears which was weird, and then I came across the Jobs section and thought I would check it out. I read through a few of the listings for waitressing, a sales clerk at a clothing store, a night shift security officer and then a library technician. I thought about that for a minute: the smell of books, the quiet, the unlimited access to any book in any genre and for the first time in a while I felt excited about something. So I grabbed the flip phone I left on the table to charge that Charlie insisted on me having and took a picture, I think the only picture I had ever taken on my phone. My eyes flicked to the digital clock on my phone: 7:02am. I had another hour until the library opened and I could go in and inquire about the position.
When I finished my coffee I started back upstairs and headed to the bathroom, running into Charlie as he opened his bedroom door.
“Morning kiddo,” he says in a hoarse groggy voice.
“Hey,” I say, heading into my room to grab a change of clothes.
“Got any plans today?”
“Yeah I’m gonna apply for a job,” I say, grabbing a blue blouse that Mom had bought for my for my birthday and a pair of dark gray slacks.
“Really? Where?” he says, his interest piqued as he leaned on my door frame as I gathered up my clothes.
“The library,” I say, I hold up the clothing combination to him, “this works right?” I ask and he looks bewildered and holds up a thumb, “nevermind,” I say.
“Are the hours flexible with school?” he asks.
“I don’t know, but I’ll be sure to ask,” I say, heading into the bathroom, turning on the faucet and then the showerhead.
“Okay well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your school work and you know…being home for dinner and stuff,” he says, crossing his arms in front of him.
I straightened up and met his eyes, the corners of my mouth arc up in a small smile, “yes Officer Swan,” I salute him playfully and he rolls his eyes as I shut the door to the bathroom.
***
“The interview went well, really well actually. The librarian offered me the position,” I tell Jacob over the phone.
“That’s great! When do you start?” Jacob says cheerfully.
“Monday afternoon after school,” I say as I tap my pen on my notepad. I had just finished an English paper on Wuthering Heights at my desk when he called.
“I’ll have to stop by the library more often then,” he says, “do I even have a library card?.”
“Now you have a reason to stop by and see me,” I say, starting to draw doodles on my note pad.
“Paul asked about you today,” he says, and my stomach does a little back flip.
“Okay,” I say, passing off my interest as indifference, although I’m not entirely sure why, “any new developments with that gang of Sam Uley’s?” I say, trying to change the subject away from a tall muscular frame and spots of green in a pool of tawny brown eyes.
“Uh, sort of,” he says, for some reason struggling.
“Tell me,” I say right away. I had a bad feeling about this Sam Uley guy since the moment Jake told me about him a few weeks ago; following Jacob around, saying cryptic shit that made him uncomfortable, watching him from afar and having some of his lackey’s follow him…seems like Sam Uley is a creep and I feel bad that Jake is caught in the middle of whatever weird gang initiation Sam was trying to get Jacob involved in.
“He was waiting outside my school,” he says, hesitating, “he said he needed to talk with me and so I did.”
There was a long pause and the anticipation was starting to wear on me as Jacob was clearly deciding how to tell me what Sam had to say. I decided to stay patient and let him tell me how he needed to instead of acting antsy.
“He…he told me some weird shit…about wolves and the Quileute tribes. He said…he,” man he was really struggling and the ants on my skin were getting ravenous, “ugh, nevermind it sounds crazy. He’s crazy, Bella.”
“Jacob, it’s okay. I’m sure it won’t be the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say, trying to coax it out of him gently.
“No it seriously might be the most insane thing you’ve ever heard,” he says, his tone turning more serious.
“I seriously doubt it, Jake,” I say as I remember Edward telling me about being a vampire, about his family of “vegetarian,” vampires, and how there was an archaic vampiric system of government he called the Volturi, that seemed more like a monarchy than anything. Especially with how they were depicted in the off kiltering life size painting the Cullen’s had in their home. I suppose you can love something as much as you fear it.
Jacob huffs loudly, “he said I was going to change into a wolf, Bella.”
Okay yeah, that’s pretty weird. “A wolf,” I say, my tone rather incredulous.
“Yeah,” he takes another breath, this time a little more steady, “he said that I’d ‘phase’ soon, whatever that means.”
Well this was a weird turn in our conversation, “Jake you said it yourself that Sam Uley’s crazy. Why are you believing anything he’s saying?”
“Because my Dad is not denying it, Bella,” he interjects and that throws me. Why the hell is Billy not storming over to Sam Uley and telling him to back off? God knows Charlie would be and I kind of thought that Billy and Charlie were cut from the same cloth.
“Jake,” I say, trying to find a way to comfort him but coming up short, “tell me how I can help.”
“I don’t know, I’m just…” he says hesitating again, “...I’m freaked out.”
Now I want to punch Sam Uley in the face. “I get it,” I say, “do you want me to go find Sam and beat him up?”
Jacob laughs which makes me feel like the world makes sense again, “that would be quite the sight, seeing Bella the waif wailing on the wall of muscle that is Sam Uley.”
“I may be skinny but scrappy,” I say, “like an alley cat.”
This awards me much more laughter and the day is somehow less gray and I’m grateful. I say goodbye to Jake and he says he’ll try to come by the library on Monday to see me and get a library card. I can’t help but think about what he told me about Sam, about him “phasing,” into a wolf. So would that make Jake a werewolf? Under normal circumstances, I would just pass that off as something that couldn’t exist, it wouldn’t be possible, but less that nine months ago I learned that vampires existed which opened up Pandora's box of relative possibilities…so if vampires existed, than I suppose it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that werewolves existed too.
***
Interesting fact about librarians: there is actually a degree in being a librarian. I had no idea until the librarian told me when I arrived at my shift on Monday fifteen minutes early. In my mind, I’ve always seen the quintessential librarian as an older more cranky and strict woman that took filing and silence very seriously, with thick round glasses perched on the lower half of her sharply pointed nose and a a tight white bun on top of her head; I imagined her name would be Ethel or Gertrude. But no, my boss’ name is Kelly, she has mahogany hair that she wears loose and curled held back by a black headband most days, she has bright brown eyes that don’t need glasses, and she’s in her mid thirties. Kelly bought me a coffee from the coffee cart that sits outside the library and I think I might really like her.
She shows me around the library, where the break room is (a small room in the back that looks like a lounge with soft chairs and a couch with shelves and shelves of more books, a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom, also it smells like cookies), and the front desk where I learn how to use the computer system and make library cards. For today, she has me working on putting the books back and making library cards.
I’m making a library card for a twelve year old girl named Sara when I notice a familiar voice coming through the front door. Jacob walks in smiling and chatting with Paul and I feel my stomach do that familiar back flip it did the other day and I swallow, handing Sara her library card.
“Hey Bells,” Jake says, striding up to the front desk, “how’s the first day going?”
“Good, I think I got the hang of making cards now. I feel like all of Forks has a library card now,” I say and Jake laughs, Paul is also smiling as my eyes flit to him, remembering how the green of his eyes lit up in the evening sun. I cleared my throat and looked back at Jake. “I took the liberty of making you one, Jake,” and I handed him his newly minted library card and he smiled one of his big and warm Jacob Black smiles.
“Thanks Bells! I’ll be in here all the time now!” he said grinning.
“Sounds great but I’ll be working,” I say, my eyebrow arching up at him slightly, “like I am now.”
“Oh yeah, sorry, we’ll just go and look around,” he says, walking into the library towards the science fiction section and Paul walks after him. He’s wearing a navy blue hoodie today and the same well fitted jeans and biker boots he had on when he came over for Thanksgiving. I wondered if he still had his flask in his back pocket.
I had a moment to sift through the bin of returned books and started putting them back on the cart to return them to the shelves. As I placed them on the cart, I came across one about Quileute Tribal legends. I opened it to the chapter index and saw a chapter that said, “Quileute Wolf Legends,” and turned to it. It recalled the small tribal nation having magic in their blood, but had little need of its use until the “cold ones” came to their land, killed their people, forcing their tribe to begin to change into wolves allowing them to kill these “cold ones,” to save themselves. A warrior chief, Taha’aki, phased into a wolf in one of these battles after his son was murdered by a “cold one,” and his wife called The Third Wife, sacrificed herself so that the wolves could finish the last of the “cold ones,” and save the tribe. I started to scribble out some notes as I went through the book, the pieces beginning to slot into place easily since I already knew about the vampires and surmised that the “cold ones,” from the Quileute legend were vampires.
So it was possible.
Perhaps Sam Uley wasn’t completely crazy. I still thought he was a creep but there was something else happening in Forks and now on La Push. According to the legend, the Quileute tribe began to change into werewolves because of the presence of the vampires. So it stands to reason that if people on the reservation are now changing into werewolves, then that could only mean one thing: vampires are still here.
“Can I check this out?” my eyes snap up to an all too familiar baritone voice. Paul was standing there holding a book, Wuthering Heights.
“Yeah, hey I’m reading this one right now,” I say, taking the book as he hands it to me over the counter.
“I’ve read it before,” he says, placing his library card on the counter and I don’t know why I’m mildly shocked he has a library card.
“Really? What do you think of it?”
“I like that it’s complicated…a lot of people get hung up on the love story but it’s the revenge that interests me.”
“Huh,” I say, and I found myself appreciating that, especially since recently I wanted less to do with romance and more to do with darker things, tragedy’s and murder mysteries with no potential for love and other bullshit that made me think of Edward. “You don’t like the unconventional love between Heathcliff and Cathy?”
“Their love was bullshit,” he says and that kind of set me back on my heels a bit, “it wasn’t unconventional, it’s steeped in hierarchy, societal norms, and money. Also if Cathy really loved Heathcliff why did she marry Edgar? It’s ridiculous.”
“That is quite the stance, Paul,” I say, scanning the barcode on the book, “then why are you checking it out if you hate it so much?”
“I never said I hate it,” he says, “I said the love story was bullshit. I don’t buy it,” he takes the book and his card back, “but the vengeance that I get.”
Now I’m starting to wonder what happened to Paul Lahote and his clear aversion to romance. “Are there any love stories you do believe in?”
Paul smiles, putting his card back in his wallet, “yes,” and then with an arch of his eyebrow he walks back over to the fiction section where Jacob is standing, reading a copy of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
…Their love was bullshit…Paul’s statement ran through my head like a vinyl record skipping over the same few lines of music and I hate that I’m starting to see what he meant. I loved Heathcliff and Cathy at one point, but things have changed so much since I read that story and perhaps I had drawn similarities with those imaginary characters and Edward and myself. It was the stuff one does when they find they’re in love, but mine was clearly unrequited, otherwise my Heathcliff adjacent would still be here…but he isn’t and now I can’t wait to get home and steal some of Charlie’s whiskey.
#twilight fanfiction#fanfiction#smut#sexy content#angst with a happy ending#angst#werewolves#vampires#shameless#i wrote a lot#how do i tag shit#paul and bella#paul lahote#bellafinallygetslaid#bella swan#swooning#omg
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"Alternate version of the above: anyone wishing to marry into the inner family of the Nie must spend a night in the saber tomb, where their intentions for the marriage are judged by the saber spirits. How much their partner loves them doesn't factor into it, it all rests on whether their feelings are considered pure enough." cql verse, that asshole commander locks meng yao in the tombs as a prank, and the sabers judge him worthy even before he's aware of his feelings?
....ooooh.
---------
He doesn't know how long he's been trapped, but it's been long enough that he has mostly ruined his voice screaming for help and his fingers are bruised and bloody from clawing at the stone doors in a futile attempt to find a way to open them from the inside.
Shivering from the chill of the tomb and feeling lightheaded from the combined fear, exhaustion, and a hunger he hadn't noticed right until his stomach growls, he sinks down to huddle against the doors.
...
There is something else in here with him.
The realization makes his skin prickle, every hair standing on end.
There is something else in here with him, and he has absolutely nothing to defend himself with, that asshole having divested him of everything down to the weakest light talisman before throwing him in.
Now fighting back tears and shaking enough that he has to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering, he presses himself flat against the doors as the something gets close enough that he swears he can feel its breath ruffling his hair as it-
-sniffs him?
'He smells like the little cub,' a low, female voice says, sounding like it's reverberating within his own skull.
'But he didn't come here willingly,' another, male voice says. 'That's unusual.'
'Does he even know there's a claim?" asks a third voice, also male.
A claim?
A different female voice chuckles, the sound sending a chill up his spine. 'Oh, the poor thing has no idea.'
'But there is a claim. And he is here,' yet another male voice says. 'He will have to be judged, same as any others.'
Judged?
"I don't know what's going on," he says, his voice trembling in his mouth sounding wrong in his ears. "What am I being judged for?"
The ice-cold darkness swallows him up, cutting off his voice before he can scream.
---
He is in Nie Huaisang's room, the young master in question carefully kneading salve into his hands to help speed-heal the bruises and cracked open callouses he had from a very long day of trying to handle a sword with hands used to other kinds of labor.
He is in the market, and though he's already finished fetching what his sect leader actually sent him for, he doesn't mind lingering a little longer, watching Nie Huaisang inspect bolts of fabric with a critical eye. The other boy waves him over to ask his opinion, genuinely ask his opinion, then smiles brightly and grabs the one he chooses.
He is in the aviary, and the birds have grown so comfortable with him that they beg him for treats just as shamelessly as they do their owner, happily fluffing themselves as they settle on his shoulders and in his lap, and Nie Huaisang laughs at the picture they make before grabbing his drawing book.
He is in-
He is-
Flickering memories, all held together by a thread of strange, aching fondness, and a heavy weight in his head, as if his eyes aren't the only ones seeing this.
What is-?
---
"Meng Yao!"
"Yao-ge!"
It's hard to open his eyes. They feel all gummy and crusted closed.
He flinches when something touches his face, but it's nothing more than a cold, wet cloth.
"Easy does it, Yao-ge. Just keep your eyes closed until I've gotten all the blood off."
Blood? Had he worked himself up so much he'd qi deviated?
Large hands lift him up from where he'd been lying on the cold stone floor and rearrange him to sit. One closes around his wrist, and he feels the warm wisp of his meridians being checked.
"Damn. You're definitely going straight to the healers."
The cool rim of a water jar presses against his mouth and he drinks desperately until his mouth and throat are no longer too dry to form words. "How- how did you find me?" he rasps.
The question draws an uncomfortable silence.
Then Nie Mingjue sighs. "Well, since you're here already, you might as well know. Fuqin used the broken wards to contact us and warn us that Nie Zhen had dragged someone up here."
He finally manages to crack his eyes open to find that both of them are wearing -uncharacteristically for Nie Huaisang- matching grim expressions. "Your father's dead."
"He is," Nie Mingjue agrees.
"So is everyone else here," Nie Huaisang says. "That doesn't stop them from involving themselves in certain things."
He involuntarily shivers as he remembers the voices telling him that he was going to be judged for... something.
Had... had that actually happened? It hadn't just been hallucinations brought on by the dwindling air in the chamber?
He swallows hard, but before he can ask, Nie Huaisang gently takes hold of his hands. "Can you walk out to the horses?"
He looks down at his legs, willing himself to get up, but he might as well be trying to command jelly. "I don't think so."
"Alright, then," Nie Mingjue says, then unceremoniously picks him up to walk outside, Nie Huaisang falling in beside them, still holding one of his hands.
Meng Yao swears he hears an amused murmur of many voices as the stone doors close behind them.
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@objective-j asked: I really need to know more about this Jim and Lucius thing. They're codependent and singular and I can't help but wonder if that connection ever edges into something romantic? Is it a natural thing for someone like Lucius to connect in more ways than one, or is the lack of attraction something that helps them to function better than Eddy and Izzy ever did?
(so the answer to the latter is YES, not having a sexual relationship definitely helps them, but I wanted to tease out how they got to where they were, so here are some snippets from how they began together from the first two years)
The bar wasn’t anything special. It was on the way between the office and Jim’s dusty apartment. They’d noticed it before and it had never mattered much until today. Booze was something they used as anesthetic mostly, administered late at night on rare occasions when sleep would hover too far out of reach.
Tonight, they weren’t worried about that. They were in the middle of a long job, more boring than stressful. What they really wanted to do was run down one of their targets and finally do something about it, but they knew they didn’t have the plan straight enough yet.
So when they passed the part and laughter spilled out the front door, they slowed a little. There was a menu posted on the glass, burgers and the like. They were hungry and if they sat at the bar, it wouldn’t draw the annoying pity of eating alone at a table.
Jim went inside. There was a barstool open at one end of the bar, the one next to it clear too. A little island of space that they took gratefully. The bartender was at the other end, back to them, so Jim settled in to wait. Someone had spilled a packet of sugar onto the dark wood, so they drew their finger through it, a nonsense spiral.
“Abstracts, nice,” someone said and Jim’s finger stilled. “No, keep going. Haven’t had anyone do zen gardening in here yet, but I’m into it.”
“I think I need a little rake for that,” Jim pulled the knowledge from some dusty drawer in their mind. They looked up and found the bartender smiling down at them. He was young, baby-faced. White guy with ordinary dark hair and brown eyes. There was a puff of fabric wrapped around his throat.
“Excellent point, hold please,” he held up one finger then dipped down behind the bar. He came back up with toothpicks and the bit of wire that usually kept a bag of bread closed. While Jim watched, bemused, he wound the wire around the toothpicks and then presented the amalgam to them. “Rake away.”
“What the fuck?” they laughed and took it from his hand.
“Hey, it seemed to make you all chill, spill a packet for me and I’ll take a turn if it gets slow enough. In the meantime, get you something to drink?”
“Yeah, whiskey sour. And a cheeseburger.”
He tilted his head, “You could be thirteen or thirty, your skin is incredible, but uh...ID?”
“Ugh fine,” they got out their wallet. “Ignore the name.”
“Long as the picture matches and the birth date is right, I will avert my eyes,” he agreed. He did look very quickly then handed it back. “Whiskey sour. Cheeseburger. How do you want that?”
“Rare as I can get it.”
“Still mooing, on it.”
He went back down the bar. Jim ran a fingertip down one of the toothpicks. No one had done something that ridiculous for them in a very long time. They grabbed another packet of sugar and spilled it out. Hardly their worst crime that week. And it was kind of nice to drag the makeshift tines through the grains.
“You know it only occurred to me I could’ve just given you a fork after I placed your order in,” the bartender returned with a glass of amber liquid.
“This was more fun,” they told him and took the drink. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing, may I?”
Jim handed him back his frankenstein creation. He repeated their pattern right slightly to the right, giving the whole thing a different dimension.
“You don’t have a name tag,” they realized. The waitress working the tables had one, gold and gleaming.
“Don’t I?” He made a show of groping around his shirt with his free hand and to their surprise when he dropped his hand again, a gold name tag had materialized. The name had been picked at, obscured into illegibility.
“That was fast,” they said appreciatively. “Can you do it again?”
“Yeah?” He laughed. “Sure why not?”
His hand went up and came back down, no name tag. With a flourish, he opened his palm to them, showing it off.
“The pin has a little spring and catch. It’s easy to palm,” he explained. “I hate when people use my name like they know me because they took some 101 business class that said if you use someone’s name it makes them do more shit for you.”
“That true?”
“Not for me.”
“Excuse me!” Someone down the bar called. “I ordered a rum and coke ten minutes ago!”
“Ugh,” the bartender pushed off the bar. “Back with your burger soon-ish.”
The bartender kept coming back to Jim the rest of the night. For their part, Jim didn’t leave once they’d eaten their burger. They got a second drink and nursed it. Watching Lucius was fascinating, sort of like watching Eddy do her thing with new clients. He would smile and tease and flirt, collecting tips despite making everyone wait for him to do things in his own sweet time. And eventually he’d be back in front of Jim, not asking how the food was or if they wanted something. Instead, he showed off, palming away a lemon, then pouting when Jim did the same with equal speed.
“The name tag is different,” they explained. “I can do the lemon. Not the pin.”
“Oh! I can show you that.”
They did it twice and then had it down. By the end of the night, they were wearing the gold oval, they’d had three drinks and the bartender wiped down the bar after the other customers had left, stuck out his hand and said,
“It’s Lucius.”
“Don’t think I’ll use it to get what I want?”
“Maybe. Let’s find out.”
“Jim,” they took his hand and shook it once.
“Come back soon, Jim,” he said and it wasn’t a customer service line.
“You hurting for customers?”
Lucius shrugged, eyes falling down to his work as he smoothed away fallen droplets of booze. He hadn’t touched the pile of sugar yet even though it had lost its pattern an hour or more ago.
“I’m kind of...I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m younger, but I thought if I bartended, I might meet people. Haven’t really.”
He’d spend most of the night talking to people. Jim had watched. He was good at it. They weren’t, generally speaking. But maybe being good at it was just as lonely as being bad at it, sometimes.
Not that Jim was lonely. They were alone. It was different.
“It’s on my way home,” they shrugged. “I’ll be by again some time.”
They waited a week exactly. That seemed reasonable. When they walked in, they expected Lucius not to recognize them. Most people didn’t have Jim’s memory for faces, they’d found. The same barstool was empty, so Jim headed to that. They’d order a drink, be forgotten, drink it and go home. Fine.
Lucius came out of the back, holding a small tray. He sat down plates in front of a couple, giving them a wink as he recommended salting the fries. Then he turned and Jim felt the moment his eyes caught on theirs like it was the completion of a circuit.
“Jim!” He beamed.
“Hi,” the word got caught in their throat.
He ignored three other people waving for his attention to come straight to them, “Listen, I had a total brain wave.”
“About what?” they asked, pushing down whatever had risen in their neck to strangle them.
“Bar side zen art, obviously,” he grinned, reached into his pocket and plopped down a sheet of gray thick paper. “It’s sensitive to water.”
“So?”
“Watch,” he grabbed a glass, squirted water in it then set it next to the paper. He dipped his finger in and drew a squiggle over the paper. Where he touched it went dark, then a few seconds later seemed to evaporate, growing lighter until it wasn’t clear where the water had been at all. “See? You can do it over and over.”
They copied the move, dipping their finger in then swirling it over the paper. “Oh that’s...I like that.”
“Thought you might,” he said, pleased.
“Can I get a beer or what?” Someone barked.
“Just a sec!” Lucius said brightly while rolling his eyes so only Jim could see. “You enjoy that. I’ll be back.”
They did enjoy it. Usually in meetings, Jim would draw increasingly tiny concentric circles, it helped them listen. Eddy, who did elaborate doodles often with tiny stick figures performing amazing feats, approved. Izzy, who would find the circles on all manner of paperwork, did not. Would he mind droplets of water more or less? If it was more, would it be in a funny way or in an annoying way?
“Here, hope you haven’t changed your order cause I don’t have time to make something else,” Lucius passed by, leaving behind a whiskey sour. “Food tonight? I’d get the chicken fingers, they just went into the fryer.”
“Sold.”
He was gone again and it occurred to Jim that the piece of paper might have been sitting in his pocket for days. Moved from one pair of pants to the next in the hope that they’d come by.
Slowly, they wrote his name on the paper and watched as it slowly vanished. Then again and again.
The chicken fingers were good. Lucius propping his chin up on one hand and showing them how to make a cube with the dampened tip of his pinkie finger was better.
/
Lucius couldn’t pinpoint how he knew something was wrong. He rarely could. The radar that had protected him from his mother’s moods and school bullies was finely calibrated, but inscrutable.
“You good?” He asked them as soon as he had a moment’s breathing space.
“Hm?”
They were in their usual spot and he had already given them their drink. Most of the time it took them long minutes to sip it and today was no exception. It was sweating gently into the bar napkin. They were messing with one of the tiny 3D puzzles that he’d swiped from an insufferable asshole’s dorm room after a terrible hookup.
(There was a box under the bar marked ‘Yellow Napkins’ which no one ever looked in, but was full of things like the hydrophobic paper and bent paper clips. By now, Jim knew where it was and just helped themselves. Did they know it was just for the two of them? That he spent more time thinking about how to stock it then keeping orders in his head?)
“Seem a little....” he let it drag out, not sure what word to put there, eventually settled on, “not yourself.”
Jim slid one piece against another. “Long day.”
“Yeah? Anything I can do to help?”
He’d noticed early on that Jim wasn’t big on ordinary eye contact. Either they didn’t allow it at all or they caught his eyes and wouldn’t look away long past when most people would grow uncomfortable. Lucius liked it. He wondered what they were seeing when they did that. Today was a catch and hold day. He did them the courtesy of not looking away. Let them search for whatever it was as long as they liked.
“If I brought someone else here, what would you do?” they asked.
“Give them whatever they ordered. A friend or a lover?”
Their nose wrinkled up, and it was adorable. “Neither. My boss.”
“Uh, you bring your boss around to your local drinking hole often?”
“No,” they slid a piece around so it came together with a soft ‘click’.
“You know I don’t own the place, bring whoever you want,” Lucius tapped the bar with a finger, trying to parse what they were getting at.
“I don’t want this to be different,” Jim said after a pause. “I want things here to stay the same.”
“I won’t treat you any different if your boss is a pain in the ass,” he frowned.
“He might be,” they allowed. “Anyway. He probably wouldn’t come.”
Lucius watched them slide another piece in, trying one angle then another before it sank into place.
“Hey,” he ventured, “you want to come over to my crappy dorm room after closing?”
Jim didn’t pause in their manipulation of the puzzle and yet he felt a change in their attention all at once. Like it had suddenly all fallen on him with fierce intensity.
“Why?”
“Because you’re my friend,” Lucius told them. His only friend at the moment though he kept that close. “My roommate is out of town and I scored some decent weed for once. We can get high and watch movies.”
“Can we?” They ask, as if the whole idea was both entirely charming and utterly impossible.
“Yeah,” he said lightly. “Who the fuck is going to stop us?”
No one stopped them. Lucius even let Jim hang out as he closed down the bar and no one else noticed let alone said a word. Jim walked beside him, booths barely making a sound on the pavement as he led them back to the dorm. He took them around the back of the building where the smokers always had a door propped.
“Smells like a locker room,” they observed without any apparent judgment as they stepped into the hall.
“Yeah, it’s a hellhole, but at least it’s not my mother’s house,” he agreed.
His room was tiny, barely large enough for the few bits of furniture shoved into it, but it wasn’t like Jim took up a lot of space. There wasn’t much of his personality in the room, just his bed with its utilitarian pieces, his desk littered with art supplies and textbooks. Unlike his roommate, he didn’t have a hundred posters, just a single print of a Maplthorpe photo, black and white photo of a punk shaping his mohawk from behind. Strong hands, strong arms on display.
Jim studied the photo, then folded themselves down onto his bed, legs crossed. They hadn’t asked which side was his, just gone for it like it was obvious. It probably was. Lucius took down his math textbook and flipped it open. He sliced the inside front cover open a few inches to make a natural pocket for a dime bag and rolling papers.
“Nice,” JIm gave him an approving nod. “What do you do about the smell?”
“Well as you already observed, this place reeks already, so mostly just open a window and do the time honored move of also burning incense.”
“That’s it?”
“Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.”
It was only once he’d gotten the joint lit, took a hit and offered it to them that Jim admitted,
“Never done this before.”
“What, really?” he blinked. “But you’re like...grown or something.”
“I’m only three years older than you,” Jim took it and studied it like it might turn into a bug.
“Still. You just give off that all-knowing air. Just suck in, hold it for a second then blow out. It’s okay if you cough.”
“Smoked cigarettes before.”
“Then you’ve got the gist.”
They took a long toke, held it and did indeed cough a little, but not nearly as much as he had the first time. There was no fairness in the world. Lucius held his fingers out and Jim settled the joint back between them. They didn’t talk as they passed it back and forth. Lucius had oncesmoked like this with a guy before a fuck and it had been like foreplay to touch his lips to the same place the guy’s lips had been.
It wasn’t like that with Jim. Maybe it was the gradual high or maybe it was just who they were, but what Lucius felt when he sucked in smoke, mouth wrapped around the paper they were sharing was a mellow correctness. As if they had done this a hundred times before.
“Want to watch something?”
“Yeah...no,” Jim wavered. “Can you put on some music? I don’t care what.”
“Sure,” Lucius didn’t have music he thought would actually be to Jim’s taste. Even if he had no idea what their taste was. So he just threw on Mika because everyone should like Mika in his opinion. “What do you usually listen to?”
“Why do you have so many colored pencils?” they asked.
Lucius wavered, then caved to the misdirection. “Because I like having choices.”
Stoned Jim wasn’t any more interested in giving away information about themselves, but they did flop back onto his bed, boots abandoned on the floor and let him sketch them.
“Don’t you do nudes?” they asked, watching him under their lashes.
“I’m versatile,” he moved quickly to catch their lines in case they shifted.
“You didn’t ask.”
Lucius paused, “You know I didn’t invite you back here for sex, right?”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“I mean, you’re hot and all. We can. You’d need to talk me through a few things. New equipment for me.”
“You don’t fuck women.”
“No.”
“But you’d do me?”
“If you actually wanted me too,” he started drawing again, needing the distraction.
“Why?”
“Jim,” he captured their jaw in a swift angle, “are you a woman?”
“I’m not a man.”
“So don’t be either.”
They sucked in a breath, “Tell me the words for it. You have all the words.”
Lucius gave them the words as he sketched. Jim repeated them one after the other. They hung in the air around them, drifting in the smoke. Songs bled one into the other, almost entirely unheard. Eventually the sketch was as done as Lucius could make it with eyelids getting heavy.
He yawned and crawled into the bed, the shitty plastic mattress undulating beneath them.
“I can go,” Jim realized. “I should go.”
“Stay,” he muttered.
Everything about Jim said ‘Do Not Touch’, but they’d never said a word out loud about it. They were warm and unmoving, so Lucius threw an arm over their stomach and pressed his forehead against their shoulder.
“You shouldn’t,” they warned him.
“Why not?”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
He didn’t then. Not really, but Jim stayed anyway. They both fell asleep fully dressed, stuck together in the tiny bed in a sea of incense and contentment.
***
“Give,” Jim demanded, holding out their hand. Lucius sulked, but handed over the knife he’d managed to lift from their pocket. “You’ll cut your fingers off.”
“I’d just take your wallet, the knife was in the way,” Lucius groused.
“You shouldn’t be able to do that. You fall over your own feet.”
“Feet are pretty far from fingers.”
They were standing outside the bar, hidden in the back. Lucius was on his break and Jim had slipped back to join him.
“Boss is helping me out with my ID,” they told him.
“Nice of him,” Lucius lifted his eyebrows. “Can’t even get my boss to remember my name.”
“Worked with him a while. We get each other.”
“How long is a while?”
Jim tilted their head against the brick, “Mm. Almost three years.”
“Holy shit, you actually told me,” Lucuis gave a sarcastic little clap. “A fact! About Jim. I shall treasure this day always.”
“Fuck off,” they elbowed him hard which he mostly skipped away from, but they felt like smiling. Lucius didn’t actually care if they didn’t tell him things. He loved guessing and even more loved being right with his guesses.
“Second time you mentioned this boss guy. You must like him.”
“He’s not likable.”
“Just your kind of person.”
“You're likable.”
“I’m the exception to every rule,” Lucius mimed tossing his hair. “Truly extraordinary.”
Jim didn’t dignify that with a response. Even if they did agree with it.
Their birthday arrived with the ID and Jim made a decision about the whole thing at last. Izzy would come with them to meet Lucius. That could be their birthday present to themselves. They had no idea how it would go. If they could’ve asked Lucius without ruining it, they would’ve. He had a way of predicting people.
It was to Jim’s intense pleasure that Izzy, after an initial hissing cat instinct, caved to Lucius’ brand of terrible customer service and tawdry flirations. Izzy was easy to rile to anger, but Jim hadn’t seen him this straight up flustered before.
So maybe it was terribly surprising when a few Fridays later, he turned up at their elbow as they pulled on their coat and said,
“Going to that shithole?”
“Yep.”
He didn’t ask to come along. Just did and like a magic trick, Jim could make both of their favorite people appear in the same place at the same time. Between the two of them, they didn’t even have to talk much, Izzy and Lucius leveling biting comments at each other filled the air. Jim could fiddle with a puzzle or draw their circles and just listen. Perfection.
****
Lucius sat down heavily on the awful leather couch, his breath ragged in his ears. People had just died in front of him and then he’d been whisked away to this fucking terrible apartment with dire prediction of his own death raining down around him.
“No no,” Jim said softly, coming to kneel before him. Their face was the same, their long ragged ended hair falling in the same drape. “Breathing, Lucius. It’s important.”
“Fuck,” he gasped. “Who ARE you?”
They stared up at him, eyes wide and their voice cracked, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t! I’m not anyone. I’m a blank,” now their breathing had gone ragged. That seemed....very dire and Lucius found himself evening out just to compensate. “Except there’s you.”
“Me?”
“I chose you,” their hands landed on his knees. “I don’t do that.”
“Okay...fuck, okay,” he lay his hands right over theirs. And that was calming too. They were so steady there. “Am I going to die?”
“Only if I die first,” they said without any ferocity. Just a cold fact.
Lucius wrapped that fact up and set it into himself. Like a bit of dirt in an oyster, he grew a pearl around it.
***
It was almost their twenty-third birthday when they finally had the plan in place. They left work and kept it simple. Just headed out like it was a regular Wednesday night, except they went by their apartment building. Past the bar that no longer meant anything to them now that Lucius didn’t serve behind it. They were together almost every day from morning until evening and that was better anyway.
Jim wound their way to shitty restaurant where the man that had once been part of the Siete Gallos ate dinner every week like clockwork. Primarily because he was having an affair with one of the waitstaff and would stumble into the alley after eating to get in a long (and highly unappealing) groping session.
They waited in the alley. The waitress had her hand on the door when the host called her back. Jim exhaled with relief and hung up the burner. It had been an easy enough thing to call the front and play irate patron with a complaint. The host and the waitress would have to at least talk about it for a few minutes.
The man was whistling when he came out for his fling. Jim didn’t give him time to notice that she wasn’t there. They had already known speed and accuracy when Eddy crossed their path. It was Izzy that had taught them what to do next. The easiest thing. To just walk away, careful to keep it off your clothes.
They got to the lip of the alley, already thinking about disposing of the weapon.
“Did you bring a change of clothes?”
Their knife was at his throat, another man’s blood still wet on the metal.
Lucius’ pupils were blown wide and there was the tang of fear around him. But he was also holding still. Trusting that they would pull the blade.
“I have them by the dumpster a block away,” they did drop the blade and start walking. “Did you follow me?”
“You were jumpy all day and wouldn’t tell me what was up, of course I followed you.” He walked beside them.
“You saw.”
“I saw,” he said gently.
“That’s what I am.”
Lucius snorted, “Yeah, okay.”
“It is,” they hissed, trying not to draw attention.
“It’s something you are. Maybe an important part. But the word Jim can hold a lot for only three letters.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
He reached out and took their hand. The one that was tacky with the spray of blood. He pressed them palm to palm.
“You should have someone at your back when you do this. A look out. How many are there?”
“Fifteen.”
“How many were there?”
“Sixteen.”
“Then you’re just beginning,” Lucius’ hand carried theirs along, not quite swinging between them, but close. “And I’ll be there.”
“You hate blood. The violence.”
“There’s only so many times you can watch people punch each other and still get upset over it.”
“You’re not allowed on jobs.”
“I watch,” he said as if it was nothing. As if that didn’t mean he’d accessed machines he shouldn't have been able to, knew passwords that were kept secret. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s happening.”
“That’s a dangerous game.”
“Iz wouldn’t touch me.”
“Eddy.”
“Mm. Guess you’ll just have to watch my back too.”
Jim could turn him over to Eddy right then. Call her up and tell her that Lucius was a busybody. Not to be trusted. Nothing awful would happen. He’d get turned loose. Izzy would have to cut ties which he would do without a second thought, then bleed internally about it for months without realizing what had happened.
“This way,” they tugged him a little, venturing into their tucked away spot. He kept watch as they changed. When they bundled everything up, including the knife and disposed of it in a bag already full of rotting garbage, he helped them with the dumpster lid.
“There has got to be a better way,” his nose wrinkled up with distaste. “Maybe a getaway car next time.”
“You don’t drive,” they pointed out.
“Then you’ll teach me.”
“But-”
“I’m not saying I’ll like it or I’ll even be good at it, but I’ll learn enough to get a license. Don’t tell Izzy or he’ll think I’m honing in on his territory.”
They go back to their apartment as planned that night, but not alone. Lucius shot off a text to Izzy, telling him the truth ‘stayed out late with Jim, home in the morning’. While Jim showered, Lucius made tea laced with rum and they both drank it as the shower’s leftover steam rolled through the studio.
“What do you want?” Lucius asked them. “Ten years from now when they’re all dead?”
Jim frowned, “What do you mean?”
“Consider it a homework assignment.”
They drank. The television played over them. And eventually, both of them crawled into Jim’s twin bed and fit themselves together for sleep.
*****
Lucius had planned for this day for ages. It had taken several semesters before he was confident enough to even try and then he had to wait. Keeping secrets from Jim made him deeply uncomfortable, despite the relative ease he hid from everyone else. Hiding things from Izzy was just a part of life. The man didn’t need to know how deep in Lucius had thrust himself, he was uncomfortable enough with what he did know.
Hiding from Eddy was a fascinating game. She was excellent at sniffing out deception and Lucius couldn’t test her too many times without becoming suspicious. So he danced a careful line, poking at perimeters without setting off alarms.
But Jim...Jim was different. He was always honest with Jim. Jim had earned that from him and returned the favor.
Still this seemed an okay secret. He hoped.
He waited for a day when they were in a foul mood. It was rare, despite their constant low level irritation, they were rarely truly furious. When they were though, they would let loose in Spanish, half under their breath, lacing into all the monolingual assholes that had troubled them that day.
In what was so perfect that he almost wished he’d arranged it, they decided to vent their spleen as they walked into the conference room that only Lucius was occupying.
“Stupid assholes” they grumbled, “how fucking hard is to do what I told you to do? Like you know better than me, you dumb shits.”
Lucius raised his eyebrows and offered, “If you mean Dom and Bradley, they already packed up their things. Liked the touch of stabbing Bradley in the hand that tried to pinch my ass less week.”
“Anything-” Jim stopped, switched back to English. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Is my accent that bad?” He asked ruefully.
“How long?” they demanded.
“I’ve been trying to learn for a year or so. It’s not really my area, but I got an A on my final last week.”
“Luc...”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he blurted. Was he flushing? He felt hot. “Really sorry, I just...I wanted to do it for you. For us.”
“Why?”
“So you can talk to me in whatever way is easier. Whenever.”
They sat down heavily in their chair. The one that was always pulled up beside his.
“And you know that no one else here speaks it.”
“What’s wrong with a little extra layer of privacy?”
Jim did the eye contact thing. Lucius looked back. Their Mona Lisa smile flickered to life.
“Too clever for your own good. I like it. But if you hide something from me again...”
“Never again,” he promised. “It sucked and I hated it the whole time. Want to go out and get very drunk?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
All night as they drank, Jim taught Lucius phrases that no classroom teacher would. He learned new verbs and some very descriptive adjectives between shots. As they stumbled back to Jim’s studio, he even learned a song, some half-remembered thing from Jim’s childhood.
In the morning, they shared a single plate with the obscenely huge omelet Lucius had made with the sad remains of vegetables in Jim’s fridge. Their forks warred over the craggy territory.
“In ten years,” Jim said as they stabbed a bit of tomato, “when they are all dead, I want enough money and power to make sure no one ever hurts what’s mine again.”
“Done.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Watch me.”
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just like we never said goodbye (memories | aspirations)
happy @joukaiweek!! my dearest friend @luvdevilart sent me their beautiful picture for day 1, and i knew immediately i wanted to do a friends as kids au to complement it. we’re starting this week off with something really sad people so strap in!!!!
Title: Just Like We Never Said Goodbye
Rating: T
Characters: Joey Wheeler, Seto Kaiba, with special appearance by the friendship gang and Zigfried von Schroeder
Word Count: 5446
Warnings: Nostalgia, Depression, Drug Mentions, Implied Parent Death
Summary: Joey Wheeler lives across the world from the place he grew up, from the people he knew, and from his own emotions about growing up. It takes one chance meeting with Seto Kaiba for everything to come flooding back.
...
Joey had come in for a pack of cigarettes and stopped short at the counter. Rows of magazines sat next to the register, mostly tabloids showing the faces of well known celebrities bathing on the beach or getting out of their car at the club. Tucked beside them were the more prestigious catalogs, tech and lifestyle magazines. A face stared at him from the glossy photos of the TIME magazine. A tall, lean figure, cut smart in a black turtleneck with a purple sequined coat flared at the broad shoulders. An arm jutted out in a strongman pose, showing the VR gaming technology strapped to his arm. Dark hair brushed against pale skin, framing the sharp features of his face. It was his eyes that made Joey stop. A deep blue, wide and soft against the angles of his face. Everything else had changed about him, but those remained the same.
He picked up the magazine and saw the name emblazoned in strong letters across the page. Seto Kaiba. The surname was different, but the rest was the same.
“You want your smokes?” Ron said from behind the counter. He shook a pack of Lucky Strikes Joey’s way.
“Yeah,” Joey said and reached for his wallet. He waved the magazine at him. “This too.”
He walked the two blocks back to his apartment, a trail of cigarette smoke burning behind him. The magazine was tucked into his jacket, and his heart pounded against it every step of the way. Cold had hit New York like a sledgehammer, and the inside of the apartment complex didn’t do much to keep it out. He bounded up the stairs and unlocked his door, right as his roomie was making her way out.
“I’m gonna be late tonight,” Anzu said by way of greeting. “There’s some mixer downtown. Gotta shimmy and shake for the bigwigs.”
“Finally, you’re big break,” he joked. “When’re you gonna get us an apartment with heating?”
“You cut those cigarettes out, we’d already have one.” She wrinkled her nose. “You stink.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waved her off. “Don’t freeze out there.”
She tugged down her knitted beanie. “On it. You’re still working with me tomorrow night, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I could use the change.”
She headed out, and Joey shut the door behind him. He took off his shoes, tossed his keys into the little plate Anzu kept by the door, flipped the switch on the heater that didn’t do a damn thing, and went straight into his room. Only when the door was closed did he remove the magazine from his jacket and toss it onto his bed. He moved around it, shedding his jacket and his flannel shirt. He found everything to do but look at it. Why he was acting like he just bought his first dirty magazine, he didn’t know, but it took him twenty minutes to finally sit down in bed and open it up.
Seto Kaiba, the adopted son of Gozaburo Kaiba, had taken over his company at a tender age. Before most kids knew what they wanted to do with their lives, he’d been made CEO of a million dollar organization, and immediately gutted it. There was no kindness in his tone, just clipped responses to questions about his personal life and his relationship with his adopted father. The photos were aggressively fashion. No minimalist tech bro bullshit. Long coats draped across his shoulders, highlighting his tall shape, and boots climbed his legs. Pictures in his office highlighted his ostentatious shape amid the clean corporate whites, and the backdrop of the Japanese city in neons behind him. He’d grown from nobody to tech titan in only a few years, and had exploded onto the American scene with his recent deal with Industrial Illusions. This holiday season every gamer would be dying for his VR system, and the bevy of licensed releases that would come with it.
It was a long way from that kid in Okinawa.
Joey closed the magazine and set it face down beside him. He opened his phone and scrolled through the ancient pictures he’d managed to save on there. Serenity had found a pack of Polaroids in her last move and scanned them in. Saved to a folder on the cloud from her computer, he couldn’t bring himself to download but a few of them. Old pictures of the beach stretching out behind them, and the rich green fields they would run in. Blurry faces of his sister laughing as he grappled her, and then them respectfully bowing their heads when they visited a shrine, dressed in traditional clothes. His mom appeared in a few of them, holding Serenity close with sad eyes. He scrolled quickly past the one of his dad cooking breakfast, a small version of him lifting an arm up to help, and paused at the image of him and Tristan climbing rocks on the beach. There were a few others from the kids they played with, and he examined each and every one of their faces. No one he recognized. After a few thoughtful moments, he opened a browser and searched Seto Kaiba’s name. A wall of the same face appeared in his phone, and he saved one picture before switching to his messages. Yugi’s name was at the top, and he sent the photo with the question: Have you heard of this guy?
It’d just be morning on the other side of the world, and no way his friend was waking up that early. He clicked a few of the articles that popped up, but there wasn’t much about Seto Kaiba from before his adoption into the Kaiba family. A younger sibling was registered with the family, and that was it. No mention of Okinawa. No talk of a summer spent digging holes in the dirt and chasing fireflies across the grass. No sign of the laugh that had graced a young boy’s face, with chubby cheeks and lanky limbs he hadn’t grown into yet. No mention of hands that held his kid brother’s as they twirled in circles playing stupid games, or the laughter as their festival lights spread sparklers in the dark. No mention at all of the sudden shadow that fell over his face after a rainy night sent a car careening off the road. No talk at all about the sudden goodbye and the empty home. Just the cold, empty space of a life that he wanted to forget.
Joey couldn’t blame him. His own family had fallen apart, not suddenly, but like a house weathered down to its cracked foundation. He’d escaped his own past, in a way. Not as successfully, it seemed, but he didn’t have a Wikipedia page to update or a bio in the New York Times to keep straight. It was hard not to cling to those happy memories, and to mourn their loss all over again. All because he saw a familiar face in a magazine.
Joey closed his face and closed his eyes. The nostalgia trip had exhausted him. They weren’t the same kids on a bright beach playing tag in the sand without a single care. They never would be again.
He’d do what he always did. Keep moving, don’t stop. No time to think, no time to look back. But as his breath moved in and out of his lungs, he let himself linger on those memories, just for a little while.
...
The stiff collar of the crisp white shirt dug into Joey’s neck. He fiddled with the tie and stopped himself. No, catering wasn’t his favorite gig, but it put extra money in his pocket, and Anzu and her friends were usually a good time. Tonight’s gig was at some gallery in Manhattan, a real bourgeois affair. PR girls and finance bros were dressed in couture suits worth a thousand bucks, sliding mozzarella bites off toothpicks with their teeth as vaguely undanceable club beats played. They bounded off the white walls to create a hollow echo. Joey made his rounds, and the crew rotated in and out of the kitchen, stopping to chat briefly and stealing appetizers off discarded plates.
“You’ve been in a mood lately,” Anzu said as she emptied half-drunk glasses into the bin. “More than usual.”
Joey chewed on a stuffed bell pepper that hadn’t made it onto the plate properly. “It’s just the season.”
“Try not to look so sad,” she said, patting his face. “You get better tips when you smile.”
He stuck his tongue out at her, and she picked up another tray before sauntering out the door. Wiping his hands on his vest, Joey snagged a platter of champagne and followed after. His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and he ignored it. Yugi had answered him back sometime in the middle of the night, no new information worth sharing. To the world, Kaiba Corp’s CEO had sprung fully formed into power at a tender young age, no history, no nothing. It didn’t matter anyway. Joey’s life had split when his parents did. There was no undoing what had already been done.
He made the rounds, and the tray lightened as upper class yuppies took their fill. He might as well be a ghost to them, which suited him fine tonight. Work the job, get the money, go back to smoking weed and playing video games. What else was there to life?
He rounded the walls to a smaller corner of the gallery, two drinks still on the tray. A party guest stopped in front of him, picking up both drinks with thin manicured fingers by the stem. He turned, bright pink hair flipping over a fur lined coat, and a pitched German voice called out, “Herr Kaiba, toast with me.”
The sudden assault on all Joey’s senses froze him. The party goer had a wide, veneer smile and a made up face, brushed lightly to highlight the cheekbones and plump the lips. It took Joey a few seconds to tear his eyes from the garish individual in front of him to see his companion. His heart stopped. Like a phantom stepping out of the pages of the fashion magazine, Seto Kaiba strode forward. A long white coat flared behind him, the belt open and hanging loose to reveal the clean black silhouette beneath. The boots he wore were heeled, giving his already impressive height a few extra inches so that he loomed over the crowd. Shoulders back and hand at his waist, he had all the casual ease of a 90s super model. Seto Kaiba looked exactly like his picture in a way that felt unreal. Joey almost pinched himself to see if he was dreaming.
“Our first trip to New York together,” the German said, extending a glass to Kaiba. “Hopefully not our last.”
Joey was no longer needed for this exchange. With his plate empty, he should bow out gracefully and only show back up when he had something to offer. But the German waved a hand at him, signaling a request.
“Bring more booze around,” he said. “It’s been terribly dull so far.”
Seto’s eyes drew to Joey, and for a moment he thought he saw a flicker of something. Was it recognition? No, his face was passive and straight. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Joey held his tray to his chest like a shield.
“You got it,” was all he managed out before he turned and fled. He headed straight back into the kitchen and slammed the tray down, calling out to no one in particular, “I’m taking my break.”
The first cigarette didn’t slow his heartbeat, so he lit a second one. He breathed out a long stream of smoke and watched it dance up into the streetlight. The back door to the kitchen led to an alleyway and some dumpsters. He wished he’d brought something stronger tonight, but this was cool, this was chill. So the past had risen like a zombie from the grave, like the hand on the monkey’s paw curled and the dead came back alive but not quite right. He felt like Alice through the looking glass, staring at a strange reflection. He didn’t know what bothered him more: his own reaction to the whole thing, when all he had was a summer friendship a decade ago, or that Seto had looked straight through him like he didn’t even remember. But why would he? Why should he? Everything was so much better for him now. He had money, and fashion, and a German boyfriend by the looks of things. Why would he want to remember anything from that time? Joey didn’t.
He finished the second cigarette and pulled out his phone. The message had been from his sister. Another squeeze to his heart. Tonight was shit. Time to cut and run. Anzu would forgive him for ditching her.
Inside the gallery, someone was speaking to the audience. Joey ducked past the crowd to give Anzu a heads up. The lights had gone down briefly, making faces hard to see. He rounded another corner, where he smacked straight into a person. Joey staggered back, holding his face as he muttered apologies, and then a low voice said, “Jounouchi.”
Joey blinked rapidly, staring up at the tall figure of Seto Kaiba. With only the flickering screen and the low lights from the gallery pieces, he looked even more ghost like. This couldn’t be real.
“No one’s called me that in a long time,” he said. “It’s Joey now.”
“Of course.” His long fingers twisted the stem of his champagne glass. “You’re working.”
Joey tugged at the stupid vest he wore. “Actually about to ditch.”
The flickering light caught the blue of his eyes as his head tilted just slightly, like Joey was one of the art pieces on display.
“Let me give you a ride,” Seto said. “Wherever it is you’re going.”
Joey blinked again. “Uh. I’m okay–”
“It’s a good moment to sneak out.” He placed the champagne glass on a display case. “I think I’ve had enough of my companion tonight.”
“The German guy?” Joey glanced back at the crowd. “He’s not your boyfriend?”
A smirk broadened Seto’s lips, and that was a familiar face. “He wishes. I’ll get my driver. You get your coat.”
He didn’t wait for Joey to respond, only marched past him. Joey stood there a moment longer. Was this really happening? He wanted to run away and ditch it all, but his chest tightened at the thought of letting this opportunity go. If not now, when?
Joey grabbed his fleece lined coat from a locker and found Seto outside. He chatted with an older Japanese man who immediately moved to open the door to a black town car when Joey padded up. It felt extra weird being escorted into the leather lined seats. A small bar was tucked into the side, and a laptop had been left on the seat. Seto didn’t say a word as he got in, and Joey dropped into the seat beside him.
“Where are you going?” Seto asked.
“I’m gonna be honest,” Joey said. “I was trying to get away from you.”
Seto stared at him, and a smile cracked his face. Joey huffed out a laugh as he gripped his hand through his hair.
“I’m craving fries,” Seto said to his driver in Japanese. “Take us somewhere we can sit.”
Joey undid his tie as the car took off onto the busy New York street. He felt like he could breathe again. Seto removed his phone and tapped away at it, the blue screen illuminating his face.
“I couldn’t believe it was you,” Joey said. “I mean, you look crazy now.”
Seto laughed again, eyes not moving from his screen. “You don’t want to see me, and you insult my fashion sense. Meanwhile you’re dressed like a low rent maitre d.”
“I was working,” Joey said.
“Not very well,” he said. “You’ve left.”
He leaned back in the seat, fluffing up his hair. “Yeah, well. It’s just a side gig anyway. They can boot me for all I care.”
“Very American of you,” he said and finally put down his phone. “And I was worried you might be different.”
Joey looked up at him. Street lights passed overhead, briefly illuminating the interior. He wasn’t sure if this would ever feel real.
“I didn’t think you remembered me,” he said.
“You have changed,” Seto said.
“So have you.” He reached across, picking at the white thread of the jacket. “You’re Seto Kaiba now. I guess things worked out okay for you in the end.”
Seto shifted his arm away. “I guess you could say that.”
Joey swallowed and sat back again. “You still got a little brother?”
“Little sister now,” he said, a smile easing back onto his face. “Adena’s in a private school in California. It’s easier for her there.”
“Mazel tov,” Joey said. “That’s cool for her.”
He nodded solemnly. The car pulled around a corner, and when Joey looked out he saw the golden McDonalds arches.
“You wanna eat here?” he said, looking back at Seto.
The car came to a stop, and the driver’s door opened. Seto shrugged.
“I travel a lot these days,” he said. “I’d rather have something familiar.”
They shuffled up to the counter, dressed in their Saturday night best. Seto paid for them both, and they took up a booth in the back away from the evening drunks and partiers. He looked even more ridiculous in the red plastic booth, one leg sticking out and the other propped up on his knee, his coat draped behind him. Joey removed the vest and unbuttoned his shirt, relaxing into his coat. He chewed on the straw of his soda.
“So why are you in New York anyway?” he asked.
“I spoke at a conference today,” he said, examining his nails. “I’ll fly back to Tokyo tomorrow. Zigfried insisted we not waste our evening.”
“Your boyfriend,” Joey said.
He wrinkled his nose. “Absolutely not. I have taste.”
“You ordered a twenty piece chicken nuggets,” Joey said.
“I have better taste than Zigfried.”
Joey bit down on the straw. “But you are gay, right?”
Seto looked at him, splayed out like a super model, manicured nails tapping against the plastic table. “Is that a question?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I knew it. I knew it when we were kids too.”
Seto smiled. “I don’t believe you.”
“You’re not exactly subtle.”
He picked at the collar of his white coat. “That’s true. You knew who you were at that age.”
“I knew I was a boy,” Joey said. “I don’t know if I knew who I was.”
Seto was watching him with that same discerning stare. “Tell me. Who is Joey?”
Their meals came on red trays. Seto opened a mountain of sweet and sour sauce packets while Joey bit into his burger. Two large fries sat between them, filling the tray with salt and grease. Joey chewed for a while, trying to come up with an answer.
“I work a few jobs,” he said. “Mostly doing deliveries. I like stuff like that, no one over my shoulder, lots of time to take a smoke break. Me and Anzu rent a place together, she’s a friend of a friend. You’d probably like her.”
Seto swept a fry through a glob of ketchup. “You ended up here from Okinawa.”
“Oh, yeah.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t long after you left that we did. Ended up all over the place, but somehow my dad always found work in Brooklyn. It’s basically the only place that feels like home. So when I was old enough to go out on my own, I came back here.”
“You had a sister as well.”
Joey wiped his mouth. “She’s getting her masters at UCLA. We talk every week. Tristan’s in California too. I don’t know if you remember him.”
Seto’s blank expression told him no. He picked up his own soda thoughtfully and washed down his fries.
“You don’t have anyone here,” he said.
Joey chomped down on his burger and swallowed it half chewed. “I got friends. I still got penpals from all the places we lived.”
“But not here.”
He shook his soda cup, rattling the ice still left inside. “So what? It’s what happens when people grow up. They move, they leave. I’m lucky for the people I do know.”
“It’s interesting,” he said, “that you describe this place as home, but it’s the place you have the fewest connections.”
Joey slammed the cup back down. “What does it matter to you anyway? You were the first to leave.”
Something flinched in Seto’s face. “I wouldn’t say that was my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Joey ran his hands through his hair and groaned. “This is too weird. Can we both say this is weird? Why are you here right now?”
“I told you,” he said. “I had conference.”
“No,” he said, waving a finger between them. “Why did you pick me up tonight? Why do you care what I’m doing with my life? We don’t know each other. Why bother?”
“You think we don’t know each other,” Seto said. He stared Joey down, unblinking, with an intensity Joey hadn’t met in a long time. “If that’s true, then all you’re doing right now is wasting my time.”
“Fuck you,” Joey spat out, and he stood up from the booth.
He didn’t bother to wait for what pithy reply Seto had. He grabbed his coat and stormed outside. The cold was like a force slowing him down, and he fumbled into his coat as he hunted for cigarettes. The hit of nicotine spiked inside him. He was aware of the door swinging open, and he turned on his heel.
“And where the hell do you get off?” he shouted at Seto’s face. “You gotta interrogate me about my life because what? You don’t feel good enough about yours? You dragged me out here! You’ve got all the money and the power in the world, so what do you want out of me?”
Seto took a single step forward. The lights of passing cars crossed over his face, illuminating his unreadable expression. Joey shored his shoulders, like he did when he was preparing for a fight.
“When was the last time you were happy?” Seto asked.
It was a knife to Joey’s heart. His whole body slumped in one exhale. Defeated.
“I left everything behind,” Seto said in his silence. “Everything. My home, my connections, my childhood. I feel every day like I’m grasping at threads to hold what I can remember. But you want to run away from all that.”
“It wasn’t a good time,” Joey croaked out.
“But there were,” Seto said, “good times.”
He closed his eyes. The polaroids filled his head, the smiling face of his sister, the smell of grass as he and Tristan rolled across the grass, the festival sparklers reflecting in his eyes, the heat of the summer sun warming his skin. His whole life felt like an uphill climb, and he’d never turned his head to see how far he’d come.
The headlights of Seto’s car appeared behind him, casting his face in darkness. Joey stared up at him.
“So that’s what you want out of me,” Joey said. “Nostalgia.”
The light caught the edge of his smile as Seto shook his head. “That’s not all I wanted.”
The driver opened the side door. Seto’s fingers found Joey’s wrist, the pad of his fingertips pressed against the pulsing heartbeat. The touch sent electricity through his arm and down his spine. It was the first time they’d actually touched each other since they were 10 years old. This wasn’t a dream, or a fantasy, or some kind of bad trip. There was more than nostalgia happening here.
“I dunno,” Joey said. “We might be going in two different directions.”
“It’s true,” Seto said. “But I think we can meet in the middle.”
Joey snorted out a laugh and dropped his cigarette. “I changed my mind. That was the worst line.”
Seto huffed out a breath, rolling his eyes. It was so bratty, and for a moment beneath the veneer he wore, Joey saw the face of his friend. Everything was different now, but some things were always going to be the same.
He reached a hand up, taking Seto’s face, and he kissed him. Seto took a beat, and then he pressed his lips against him, moving with an explorer’s curiosity. Against the cold, his face was heated, and Joey reveled in the skin on skin contact. It wasn’t like kissing a stranger. It was new territory for sure, but there was comfort in it, along with the thrill.
Joey fell back on his heels and smiled. Seto arched forward to chase him.
“Had to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into,” Joey said, patting Seto’s chest.
Seto grinned wide. “There’s still time to run you know.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
Seto kissed him again, and then hand in hand they climbed into the car.
...
The hotel room was the perfect temperature, and with the cloth covered windows, Joey could pretend it wasn’t even winter. He stretched against the messy sheets, breathing in and out. It was the nicest fucking hotel room he’d ever been in, even in the dim lighting, with a kitchen and seating area bigger than the apartment. The shower ran in the bathroom with sweet smelling steam pouring out against the sliver of golden light. The sluggish euphoria was leaving his body, and Joey clicked on the light to check his messages.
Tonight had ended a hundred miles from where it started. He’d have to explain himself to Anzu, and he had work and his life to get back to, but for now he could enjoy himself. Joey tossed his phone aside and stood, shimmying back into his shorts. Okay, maybe he was being nosy. He’d never been in a place this fancy before. A table had discarded coffee cups and leftover wrappers tossed in the trash, and the fridge was full of glass bottles of bubbly water. The closet showed more outfits carefully hung up, but the suitcase had been kicked over and shirts tossed aside. Joey suspected Seto’s driver was responsible for anything that looked organized. Especially because there was a desk set up, papers piled up in mismatched files, and a briefcase left open with materials spilling out from it. Joey tapped a file folder with his finger. It was too difficult not to snoop. The pile of papers gave way with another careful nudge, sliding onto the floor. The contents of the file folder scattered out, and Joey cursed as he dropped to his knees to pick it up.
The top pages were a blur of numbers and figures and dollar signs with more zeroes than he could count. He shoved them back and paused when the corner of an old, half-crumple piece of paper stuck out. Pink crayon scratched across the page, faded and carefully covered in a protective sheet. Joey pulled it out and saw a princess drawn in pink, next to a sketchy knight in blue, and a dragon behind them both. A blue crayon arrow pointed to the knight with a carefully copied SETO in child’s script, and in pink it was signed ADENA. Joey smiled as he tucked it back into the file. A polaroid landed at his feet.
He expected to see Seto with his sister, and his heart stopped when he saw his own face instead. It was him, still just a kid, wearing the same rough worn jeans and tennis shoes he’d worn every day, his shaggy hair hacked at with kitchen scissors, and a tooth missing from a wide faced smile. His arm was thrown around another figure the small and lanky form of a young Seto. Dressed in clean, crisp clothes, his big eyes were framed in dark heavy bangs, his big ears sticking out, and his face curved up in an almost imperceptible smile. They sat together on the grass, with the sun shining down on them. Scrawled in pen in the corner was the year 1993.
“I couldn’t hold onto a lot,” Seto said from behind him, and Joey jumped up. “But I managed a few things.”
“Sorry,” Joey said. He scooped up the rest of the papers and dropped them on the desk. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”
Seto smiled as he ran a towel through his hair. “You did.”
“I didn’t mean to get caught,” Joey admitted. “I can’t believe you have a picture of us. I couldn’t find one when I looked.”
“You looked,” Seto repeated.
He flopped back down on the bed. “I mean, I saw your picture on a magazine and I was like there’s no way that’s the same scrawny kid. I wasn’t lugging around your picture in a locket or anything.”
“It’s not in a locket.” Seto dropped down on the bed beside him. “I hold onto all sorts of things I think will give me inspiration.”
“You find me inspiring,” Joey said with a grin.
“It’s a nice reminder where I came from,” Seto intoned. “So I don’t let the little people down.”
“Jackass,” Joey groaned. “And here I thought you were pining for me all these years.”
“Don’t get bigheaded,” he said.
Joey snorted out a laugh. “It’d be kinda romantic if you were. And creepy. But also romantic.”
“It’s good to know you don’t find those things mutually exclusive.”
Seto laid down so their heads were touching, bodies splayed out at different angles. It was a strange way for Joey to be after sex. Usually he was out the door as soon as he could stand. Seto didn’t seem bothered either.
“Things might be different in the morning,” Joey said out loud.
Seto nodded. “It’s like you said. We’re going in two different directions.”
“Yeah, but.” Joey swallowed. “We already met again once. Maybe they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
Seto was silent for a few heartbeats before he rolled over so he was facing Joey.
“Give me your phone,” he said.
Joey laughed. “Why?”
“I don’t trust things to be left up to fate.” He took the proffered phone and frowned at the cracked screen before swiping over to contacts. “If you want to meet again, you’re going to tell me. Don’t worry about where. I have a private jet.”
Joey laughed again, burying his face in the comforter. “You don’t have to keep impressing me you know!”
“I’m just naturally impressive.” He tossed the phone aside and sidled up beside him. It wasn’t quite cuddling, but there was comfort in each other. “People say I’m crazy, you know.”
“Is this more sweet talk?” Joey asked.
“And stubborn.” Seto’s blue eyes blinked up at him beneath dark lashes. “And ruthless, when I want to be. I don’t like having my time wasted, so if my inbox is going to sit empty I’m not going to hold my breath. You said you wanted to know what you were in for.”
“I guess I did.” Joey breathed out. “People have said those same things about me. I’ve got a long history you don’t know about and the rap sheet to prove it. I had some hard times and I don’t like to talk about it.”
“I could say the same thing.” Seto’s lip quirked up in a smile. “At least your rap sheet isn’t listed on Wikipedia.”
Joey rolled on his side. They were face to face now, breath mingling between them.
“It’s not like we’re dating,” he said. “You’re an international tech giant CEO, and I’m…”
“Hard to pin down,” Seto said.
“Right. So we’re, what, exactly?”
Seto’s mouth curved down as he folded his lips together. Joey held his breath as he watched him.
“I think,” Seto said, “we’re friends. It’s what we’ve always been.”
A smile cracked Joey’s face. He breathed out a relieved laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I like it. Friends.”
It wasn’t the full story. It would never be the full story. Even in the dark of the room, with the cold midnight outside, with each kiss and touch and sigh, Joey could feel sunshine, smell the ocean, and for a moment linger somewhere where he was happy. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t make him want to run away. Yeah, they were miles away from where they started tonight, but maybe it was where they’d been going the whole time.
#this is not as polished as i want it to be so i'll give it some shine before tossing it up on ao3#but i saw october's drawing and i knew exactly what i wanted to write#joukai#kaijou#joey wheeler#seto kaiba#Jounouchi Katsuya
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Do you happen to have any good references or at least pretty good physical descriptions of Leon and at least Bram if not all his kids? At least the ones we've seen in the story, anyway! Just curious, since I know about their wings, but I can't recall what other physical attributes they had, like what style hair and such :)
I knew someone would ask about this sooner or later. I have kept it very vague on purpose. Mostly because that way the reader can project whatever they want onto the characters, and secondly because I didn’t feel like the physical descriptions were that interesting outside the wings. I also think it would have been kind of weird if I paused to describe all the fledglings in the middle of Bram freaking out about being kidnapped; and then I just kind of forgot about it... The only thing that I’ve really tried pushing is characters having brown eyes, because brown eyes are so underutilized in writing. It’s all green but also blue uwu
But I do have mental images that I work with. Let’s do them in descending ages. (And guys, don’t feel like you have to change your mental images to fit what I’m picturing. If you want Adrian to have blue hair, go for it.)
Leon: How I picture him, Mr Daddy Angel wears his hair in an office approved hairstyle, and his hair is brown. I haven’t decided the exact shade. My brain fills in anything from milk chocolate to dark brown, bordering on black. He has an olive skin tone and from the looks of him he’s from somewhere in the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean, the cradle of the Abrahamic religions), though he’s kind of pale from being at “the office” all day. Naturally, he has the best eye lashes.
Because Suit has picked the moms from different places on Earth, all the kids turn out mixed with one thing or another. Angels don’t really care about ethnicities though; they care more about the color of your wings.(Which have their own stereotypes.) and they'll make you assimilate to Heaven whether you like it or not :)
Jack: As Bram has mentioned several times, Jack is close to being a carbon copy of their Daddy. His hair is more unruly though.
Theresa: I envision her as a sporty Persian princess. Long, black, pin straight hair, olive skin, dark brown eyes. Bram would definitely describe her as “Disney Pocahontas, but middle eastern and stuck up”, but he keeps it to himself. (Not that Theresa knows about Disney outside of Mariel and Nathan mentioning it in passing.) She usually keeps it in a ponytail or loose, but if Hannah wants to braid it, she doesn’t refuse.
Adrian: Everything about Adrian is pale compared to the other kids. He has cool blond hair; the type no one believes is actually natural and they would accuse him of dyeing it. I haven’t decided his eye color. Maybe hazel so that Hannah isn’t alone with green eyes. I imagine he has freckles, although they’re faint.
Hannah: She has 3a 3b springy chestnut hair. It reaches to her chin, but if you stretch it out the longest strands could reach to her collar bone. Don’t ask me how she manages it in heaven, I don’t think they have gels for CGM, haha. If she’s standing in direct sunlight, it can shine red in some strands. Green eyes that are brought out even more by her wings. I imagine she’d dress in sun dresses with busy patterns whenever the weather allows it.
Mariel: If Theresa is the Persian princess, Mariel is the princess’ plainer younger sister. She has a warm skin tone and tans really easily. She has dark brown hair that reaches past her shoulders, but it’s nowhere near as long as Theresa’s. It’s like 2a, so there’s some shape to it. She would definitely buzz herself an undercut, get piercings and dress like a skater girl with lots of oversized flannel shirts if she was let loose in the twenty first century.
Nathan: Chibi Nathan is in my profile pic. He has longer brown hair (chin length) the same texture as Mariel, and brown eyes. He thinks cutting it short would make him look too grown up. I keep thinking of him with a pageboy haircut. His sisters would definitely try making him wear it in a manbun or half-up if they knew about the concept, but he doesn’t like hair ties.
Bram: The baby of the family has light brown hair and easily passes as white because of his mom. He does tan rather than burn in the summer. He has the same eye color as Leon. He was never rebellious enough to grow out his hair or get pierced. Besides, he knew his given name (Brahim) risked giving him trouble in applications and job interviews, so he tried staying as neat as possible.
Thank you for the ask Cal!
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PSA:
2022.001.002 will be posted tomorrow around 9.30PM JST. Here's a small teaser:~
...I shake my head, chasing away the dark thoughts before they crowd my mind. It’s the reason I started that list of my grandaunt’s paraphernalia, something to keep me occupied and distracted. Which is why I decided to go up to the attic now while I have a couple of hours of sunlight left. Just a quick look around, in and out...
After making sure that Mrs Oliviera is somewhere downstairs tackling a certain stubborn stain in the dining hall, I creep back upstairs all the way to the third floor and down the hallway towards the attic trapdoor...
...I push it open and climb in, making sure the door stays open in case of an emergency exit. Standing in the middle of the empty room, it feels like a crowd of people has inhaled a sharp breath, waiting to see what would happen next...
...Taehyung, especially, since he is standing just a hair’s breadth away from you, staring down over the top of your head, eyes panicking and looking over at the others on what to do. Jin is mostly amused...
...Once calmed enough to be brave again, I walk around the room, running my fingers lightly against the desks surfaces or the back of the chairs or the frames of the beds. I can’t help but feel something is different. Did someone else come in since I was here last time?...
...The logical part of him is telling him that they should all just relax, you can’t see them, but the other part of him can’t quite accept it, careful not to move too much. But damn, if he leans in just a fraction, he can literally put his nose against your temple...
...I get up and walk over to one of the cupboards. Opening it up, I expected for the clothes to have that familiar musty smell of old clothes left behind, find a mothball or two. But no mothballs, no musty smell...
...he pictures you in that shirt, and only that shirt, barefoot with your hair all mussed up, spinning in slow, small circles just for him, asking in that sweet voice of yours, “Do you like it, Jinnie?” with a giggle. He bites his lower lip, clearing his head of the fantasy. Too soon, Jin, he chastised himself...
... He wonders what kind of face would you make if he does that by surprise; would he be rewarded with a sweet smile or a cute little pout? It doesn’t matter...
...I’m ready to leave, looking around one last time before letting out a sigh. Maybe tomorrow, I guess. I’m about to head over to the trapdoor when I feel a prickly, tingling feeling on my elbow...
...I turn to look back at the rows of desks. But I checked them and they were all empty. But the sudden curiosity that I can’t quite explain drove me back to stand in front of one of the desks, the one in the middle...
...Odd. The drawer is shallower than what it looks like from the outside. A hidden compartment? I rap against the bottom of the desk...
...Everyone is starting to materialise and he means materialise to the mortal eyes.
He looks towards the window. The sun is just barely there, the sky painted dark purplish orange. He looks down to his own hands and he can actually see them, faded like a blurry picture but there and only getting more opaque...
...Something moves behind me in the mirror and I stop breathing. With what little light left to see by, there is an apparition standing right behind me, by my shoulder, that our eyes meet through the mirror...
...I scream...
Go to series masterlist!
a/n: Let me know if you would like to be tagged when the chapter drops tomorrow. I have to work this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, and I'm so exhausted from the straight 7 days of work already. But I've been excited about this series. It might be short chapters but we're just at the beginning. I hope you guys have a better weekend than me! xx
#bts#bts fanfic#bts smut#bts x reader#bts namjoon#bts jin#bts suga#bts jhope#bts jimin#bts taehyung#bts jungkook#ot7#ot7 smut#ot7 x reader#ot7 fic#bangtan#bangtan ot7#ot7 poly#bangtan poly#bts poly#fiction#polyamory#bts supernatural au#eidolons
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Hi! I'd like a matchup for (male) dbd killers 🙏 I am a straight cisgirl with medium length wavy hair that is dyed in a dark brown color. I have a slender body type, 5'3", and I have acne scars.
For hobbies, I enjoy illustrating, playing story-oriented games and taking pictures of cityscapes, flowers, and animals. I also enjoy listening to music, and while I don't really have a preference and they're usually depending on my mood, I mostly listen to bedroom pop and dream pop.
I have an interest in art, but while I excel in drawing and illustration I absolutely suck at arts and craft. I'm also interested in photography. I'm curious and interested in bugs that don't give me the heeby jeebies and would snap pictures of them. If there is a particular topic I am interested in I'd waste my time reading every single trivia and fact available (though this does not include studious theories, I hate having to learn theories and heavy philosophies). With movies I tend to like action and comedy movies, and with horror I lean towards psychological horror moreso than thriller as I couldn't stomach so much gore on screen. I never rewatch movies that made me shed tears.
Personality wise I'm quite laidback and a go with the flow kind of person. I like to think that I'm outgoing and friendly when I'm actually a bit introverted. I'm an open book with my face always subtly showing my actual feelings (like my lips always pout when I'm upset) so it's hard for me to lie. When I'm already with close friends I tend to let myself go and be rowdy and rambunctious. I'm unfortunately kind of slow intellectually so I never had the confidence to discuss and debate, which in turn makes me upset if someone disses my values and beliefs and having to repress anger. Aside from being kind of stupid I'm also a bit clumsy 😅 Whenever I'm in a low mood I tend to shy away from everyone and prefer to be left alone, both in real life and in social media.
So sorry if this is too long, if there are some things that I actually forgot to include then please ignore this!
Sorry this took a bit I’ve been busy, my apologies <\3
I match you with…
The Hillbilly! (Max Thompson)
Max was instantly hooked on you, the way you snap pictures of the environment and your surroundings always had him staring in your direction. You’re unique, different from the other survivors. You always caught his interest. You always had different things to do, different places to be. Even in trials you managed to stand out from the rest
You’re perfect for Max, you made him feel relaxed rather then his usual timid demeanor. Everything he had missed out in life blossomed with you, every time you were together he got to see the beautiful nature, music, life all around him he never got to witness.
As much as you love taking pictures of animals Max can’t help but feel the urge to kill it and store it for food. Though if you let him know you don’t like when he does that, not only that but can’t stand all the gore he’ll not do it in front of you. But once you guys separate he’ll go back to that same spot and hunt the animal you both spotted earlier. Though the longer he spends time with you he’ll slowly stop that habit.
If you’re chatting with Max about a debate don’t worry about him arguing with you because he doesn’t talk, he’ll just nod and listen to you. Ranting to him is better then a “professional” he won’t ask dumb questions or judge you no matter the topic.
If you’re researching on a particular subject he’ll look over your shoulder to see what you’re reading / researching. If you ask him if he “needs anything” he’ll shake his head before tilting his head at what you’re reading. (Im gonna guess you get excited when telling someone your topic you’re interested in atm? :) ) with Max he loves when you get excited to tell him, he thinks you’re so cute and loves seeing you happy and excited. He’s excited too.
I match you with…
The Ghostface! (Danny Johnson)
Danny loves how you both share interest in photography. Well… while you snap pictures of places and animals Danny snaps pictures of people and well, you
If you’re distracted with your music Danny will snap pictures of you while you’re listening, keeping very quiet so you can’t hear him even without your headphones. If you fall asleep with your playlist open he’ll snap a picture of that too, a lovers gotta know his girls music right?
If you’re watching a movies together you’ll notice he gets more turned on and or flirty when you guys are watching horror, gore. Though can you complain? He’s such a good tease. If you both are watching anything else together he likes snuggling with you, resting your head on his chest as he plays with your hair.
When you’re distracted he likes styling your hair in different styles, ponytails, buns, you name it, whatever he’s feeling at the moment. When you’re sleeping he’ll secretly snap pictures of you. It’s creepy obviously but it’s Danny, don’t expect him to be “normal”
If you show him your photos he’ll give you advice on lighting, placement, everything you need to know. If you question how he knows so much he’ll just shrug it off saying he had to take pictures for a job. Sometimes he lets his words slip, telling you, you should add some gore in your pictures. He knows he messed up especially knowing you hate gore and can’t stand it. He’ll be quick to correct himself saying things like “I’m sorry sweetheart I was watching a film the other day and it had your type of photography in it so I thought it would be a good combo”
#dead by daylight#x reader#dead by daylight fanfic#x slasher#max thompson jr#danny johnson#the ghostface#ghostface
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When I was a kid, I was prone to vivid, intense dreams and nightmares. I’m told that my normal dreams sound like the ones that regular people have when they’re taking strong narcotics. My nightmares can be borderline traumatizing.
But the most frightening dreams are the ones that feel…different. There’s something about them that makes them feel more…Hi-Def if you will. Everything is too bright, too focused, too detailed. It’s like I’m watching a 3-D movie without the special glasses.
The first one of these dreams that I can remember happened when I was nine years old. It was right before my parents’ marriage turned sour and hostile, when things were just strained and off-key.
In the dream, I found myself sitting in a wooden rocking chair on the front porch of what seemed to be a cabin. The yard was mostly sandy dirt, with occasional tufts of yellowing grass scattered around. A dusty dirt road stretched away from the house, disappearing a few hundred yards away into a thick wood. I do not think I have ever actually been to this place.
I looked around and saw that I was not alone. To my left, my great uncle James sat in his wooden rocker, slowly rocking and looking half asleep. To my left, my father sat, hands folded across his belly and also looked half asleep. Beyond him, I saw my grandfather, John and past him my great grandmother Ruth sat. Everyone seemed quite relaxed and content - it felt like a classic Sunday summer afternoon in the Deep South, only missing tall glasses of iced tea to complete the picture.
I turned and saw a figure appear from the woods and start down the road toward us. I watched curiously as the man ambled along, as though he were out for a pleasant stroll. He was short and heavyset, wearing a white dress shirt and dark dress pants. He carried what looked like a dark colored dress coat slung over his right shoulder. I wondered if he was lost and looking for help, but something about the way he moved bothered me. Looking back, I realize that it was the unsettling effect that some older television shows have - the frame rate of the film used for recordings makes everything appear too smooth and too detailed. But at the time, I just knew that I did not like the way it made my brain feel. Especially as the man drew nearer and I found that his face would not quite come into focus. It was like trying to read print from too far away; my mind could understand what was supposed to be there, but it just…couldn’t quite parse it out.
As the man continued to stroll towards us, I turned to look at my father, hoping to get an idea of how to react.
To my surprise, I saw that although my father sat ramrod straight, he had lowered his head and was staring at the ground directly in front of his feet. His hands now gripped the armrest of the rocking chair, fingers curled tightly around the wood. His face was furrowed in what I hoped was annoyance but suspected might be fear. I looked past him at my grandfather and great grandmother, then turned to look at my great uncle. All maintained the same posture, rigidly upright, heads bowed and staring at the ground, hands tightly gripping the armrest of the rocker they sat in. All had expressions ranging from discomfort to outright fear.
I turned and saw that the man had somehow traversed the long distance to the porch steps in the few seconds that my gaze had wandered. He stood at the foot of the steps, coat still slung over his right shoulder. He was older, short and very rotund. His hair was mostly silver with a few black streaks still and it was slicked back with some type of pomade. His face was still…somehow not there but his body posture clearly conveyed an easy welcoming aura. My brain insisted that he was giving me a wide smile, in spite of the fact that his face was just a fuzzy and unfocused flesh colored haze.
He raised his hand toward us, palm up as though offering a helping hand. I watched him closely, but he stood frozen without further movement. A sound to my right caught my attention and I turned to see that my grandfather had stood from his rocker. He stood tall, his back straight and chin up, looking directly ahead. He looked as though he had been called to attention. His eyes seemed strange and I now realize that it was as though there was no consciousness behind them. He stood perfectly still for several minutes, not even breathing. Then he slowly took a step toward the man. Jerkily, as though he would stumble at any moment, he made his way down the steps. When he reached the man, he paused for a second and I turned to look at the others in confusion.
They remained as they had been, although tears now rolled down my great grandmother’s face. I looked back to my grandfather and saw that he had begun walking down the dirt road toward the woods. The man had dropped his hand and turned to follow my grandfather. As they neared the woods, I noticed that they now both moved with that “too smooth” gait that the stranger had.
When they reached the edge of the woods, I awoke. It was a bright spring morning and it was time to go to school
While it was a vivid and intense dream, had that been the end of it, I would not have recalled the details for more than a few hours. But around mid morning, I looked up from the math exercise that I was working through to see our principal standing in the doorway. He motioned to the teacher, who walked over to the door where the two conversed in hushed tones. When they finished, the teacher came and instructed me to gather my things and go down to the principal’s office.
My mother sat in one of the little chairs outside the principal’s office. I was shocked to see her - her face was flushed and blotchy and her cheeks were still wet with tears. She patted at the corner of her eyes with a waded tissue and drew me close as she choked out in a whisper that my grandfather John had passed away that morning. I looked up at her in wide eyed shock, unable to speak.
The next few days passed in a blur. It was the first time that someone I actually knew passed away and I was confused and frightened. We stayed at my grandmother’s house and there was a steady stream of people in and out right up until we left for the funeral services.
The funeral was disturbing for me and I wandered through it in a daze. It was the first time that I saw my father cry and I found that distressing and confusing. My great grandmother was there, but she became so distraught that she fainted and had to be carried out and later sedated. My great uncle sat through the service silent and stoic.
Everyone was so caught up in their own grief, that no one thought to explain to me what was going on. I sat on the hard church pew and tried to understand the words being spoken by the man conducting the service, but my brain felt as though an electric current was running through it. I don’t think I moved at all until they closed the casket. Then I lost it, not understanding and thinking they would suffocate my grandfather. I also had to be carried out of the service.
But, as is always the case, life went on. Eventually, grief loosened its grip on everyone’s heart and things began to slowly settle back to normal. My grandmother began to seem stronger and my great uncle and great grandmother went out of state for an extended visit with family. My parents began to snap at each other a little more often, but that wasn’t too far from normal and so I didn’t really notice at first.
And then, about three months later I had another dream.
Once again, I was sitting in a wooden rocking chair on the front porch of the cabin. My great uncle sat to my left and my father to my right. The rocker that my grandfather had occupied was now empty and my great grandmother sat in the last chair. Everyone seemed peaceful and content; again it felt like just a lazy Sunday afternoon, quietly rocking and enjoying the occasional stray breeze.
My gaze went immediately to where the road disappeared into the woods. Sure enough, the man had just emerged from the trees and was strolling in his too smooth gait in our direction. He again wore the white dress shirt and dark dress pants, but this time the dress jacket was folded over his arm, which he held at chest height.
I looked at the others to find them just as they had been the first time that the man appeared. Ramrod stiff, eyes focused on the ground and hands gripping the armrest of their rockers as though for dear life. Turning back to the man, I found that he had again traveled a few hundred yards in mere seconds and stood at the foot of the steps. His face was still blurry and unfocused, but this time I thought that I could detect the faint outline of features, as though I were looking at him through thick warped glass. He didn’t seem to have changed and again his body language seemed to convey friendliness and openness.
Again, he raised his hand to us, palm up as if offering assistance to descend the stairs. I heard the sound of my great uncle rising from his seat and turned to look at him. He stood at attention, back straight and chin up, shoulders squared and looking straight ahead. His eyes were empty as my grandfathers had been and I thought that I now understood when people had tried to tell me that what lay in the casket at the funeral was no longer my grandfather.
My great uncle took a faltering step forward, as though he were moving against his own will. Slowly, he made his way to and down the steps. When he reached the strange man, he paused and the man dropped his outstretched hand. I watched as my great uncle began slowly walking down the dirt road, closely followed by the strange man. As they neared the trees, I saw that my uncle’s gait had also turned too smooth.
As they reached the edge of the woods and entered the tree line, I awoke to the strident sound of the kitchen phone ringing.
It was 5 am on a Saturday and the sky was still dark. I sat up in bed and listened to the sound of my mother answering the phone, then silence before she barked my father’s name.
My great uncle had taken his own life in the basement of the family that they were visiting.
I became violently ill at the news and spent several days in bed battling a high fever and headache that left me unable to think. When I finally began to feel better, I decided that I would not think about the dreams again. In fact, I think I actually managed to forget about them for a little while, especially after my parents announced their separation and intention to divorce.
A year after that second dream, my parents were officially separated. My mother had rented half of a duplex and I stayed with her on weekends, as my father had taken a part time job driving a tow truck and often got called out on Friday and Saturday nights to pull drunk drivers out of ditches.
The room that I stayed in was in the very center of the duplex and had no windows. It was also down a long hallway, so at night with the door shut, there was so little light that the darkness felt suffocating. I was still prone to nightmares, but now they were compounded by the fact that waking into total darkness made it impossible for me to be sure that I was actually awake and not rolling into another nightmare. I hated that room, but neither of my parents seemed to be able to understand how intense my feelings were about it, so I simply stopped complaining.
It was winter when the last dream came, bitterly cold and tiny pellets of sleet hitting the living room windows as I’d prepared to head to bed.
Again, I found myself on the porch of that cabin, the rocking chair to my left now empty; my father still sat to my right, the empty chair that had been my grandfather’s sitting between him and my great grandmother. It only took a glance to see that they had the same still frightened posture as before and so I turned to the road, looking for the man.
He strode purposefully along the dirt road, this time wearing the jacket of his dress suit instead of carrying it. He looked neater somehow, as though his previous visits had just been casual but this visit was all business. He moved quickly and although I actually saw him make it to the steps in mere seconds, my brain could not process what I had seen well enough to remember it now. It was certainly not natural movement. I realized that this time, I could almost see his features. They were dim, but I could make out his eyes, nose and mouth. He wasn’t smiling and his body language did not seem as easy and open as it had before. If anything, he seemed reluctant, as though he did not relish his task this time.
The stranger stood at the foot of the stairs and again, he reached out his hand towards us, palm up as if offering assistance. I watched him warily, but his gaze was fixed straight ahead. I turned, expecting to see my great grandmother rising. Instead, my father stood in front of his rocker. He was at attention, with his back straight and his chest out, chin up and looking straight ahead.
But he did not have the blank stare that my grandfather and great uncle had displayed. He did look straight ahead, but tears rolled silently down his cheeks. He took a faltering step toward the strange man and I cried out unthinking. My father paused, but continued to look straight ahead. The man turned and looked directly at me for the first time. I still couldn't see his face well, but he seemed to look at me with sympathy.
Then he turned and motioned toward my father with his outstretched hand. My father again took a faltering step and this time I exploded from my seat as I cried out. I ran to my father and wrapped my arms around his waist, while crying out “No!” to the strange man.
This seemed to unsettle the man. He lowered his arm and took a hesitant step back. He looked from me to my father and back again. Finally, he raised his hand again, but the instant I felt my father try to step forward, I pulled him backwards with all my might, still screaming out no at the man.
Again, he lowered his arm. He looked around uncertainly and took another step back. He tilted his head as though he were hearing something and stood attentively for several seconds. Finally, he looked at me again and through the dimness of his face, I thought I saw him smile sadly.
He took a step forward and then began to slowly climb the stairs. I watched in terror as he slowly and far too smoothly approached us. When he was only inches away, he leaned down so that his face was level with mine. And then, placing his hands on either side of my face, he forced me to meet his gaze.
And for a moment, I saw him completely. I could not describe it to you if I had all the worlds in the universe at my disposal. I can only say that there was a deepness, a darkness, a vastness in him that my mind could not comprehend. I teetered on the edge of what may have been total madness for what seemed like an eternity.
And then, he opened his mouth. His jaw unhinged like a snake’s and a great boiling darkness poured out of him. As the darkness swirled around me, it compressed against me, strangling and choking me as I tried to call out.
And then there was nothing but that crushing darkness as I screamed and screamed and screamed. Suddenly the world flooded with light and my mother’s voice called out. I screamed still, incomprehensible gutterings pouring out of me as I tried to convey the absolute terror that I felt. My mother’s gentle touch had no effect and a pounding on the door signaled that the neighbors could hear me as well.
My mother continued to try to calm me or at least get me to acknowledge her, but I still screamed and screeched as I tried to find my way back to the part of my brain that knew what language was. Finally, frustrated and frightened, she called my father on the phone. She must have told him that I had had a nightmare, because when she forced the phone to my ear, he was already angrily lecturing me for being the reason he was awakened in the middle of the night.
It did not take long for my animalistic gutterings of fear to silence his anger. He began to shush me, speaking in calm and soothing tones. But terror had firmly ensnared me in it’s grasp and I was desperately trying to warn him about the strange man though I could not form words to express myself.
I’m told that this went on for over twenty minutes. I have no notion of time while I was in that state, but all at once I was calm. It was such a sudden shift, the terror simply vanishing and nothing but exhaustion in its place. My father continued to shush and quiet me for a minute before realizing that I had stopped screaming. When he asked if I was okay, I simply muttered yes, handed the phone to my mother and crawled back into my bed. My mother stood in my doorway, holding the phone down by her waist and stared at me in disbelief. Finally, she put the phone to her ear and began to speak to my father in hushed tones, turning off the light and pulling the door only partially closed. I stared at the sliver of light that shone in from the hallway and softly began to cry.
The next day was Sunday, but my father did not come to pick me up as he usually did. I decided that I had angered him with my late night antics and grudgingly accepted that I would stay with my mother a few extra days until he calmed down. But, when I came out of school that Monday afternoon, I found that my father was in the line to pick me up instead of my mother.
It was the only time that my father ever picked me up instead of letting me ride the bus. He was quiet the entire car ride home and for the rest of the evening, but he did not let me out of his sight. It was several weeks before he seemed to treat me normally and I was at a loss as to why - I had certainly never reacted so strongly and badly to a nightmare, but he was not the type to be petty like that.
I wouldn’t learn the truth of what really happened that night for more than twenty years., when my father finally had a few too many beers while we were out camping and told me the rest of the story.
I told you that my father was driving a tow truck and that he often got called out on Friday and Saturday nights to pull drunk drivers out of ditches. During ice storms like the one happening that night, there would be a plethora of all kinds of drivers skidding off the road and since my dad’s best friend was one of the sheriff’s deputies, my father was the first tow truck driver on the list to be called.
A couple of hours after hanging up with me, he was awakened again by a pounding on his front door. He answered the door to find his friend, the deputy looked haggard and pale. My dad invited his friend in, seeing that something terrible had clearly happened.
Just after midnight, a car had slid off the road on the main highway. The front end of the car was in the ditch, but the rear was still on the road, potentially blocking traffic. The deputy had been the first on scene and like always, he had called my dad to come tow the car out, happy to help his friend get some extra work.
But the line was busy. This was in the days before call waiting even existed, so he waited a minute or two and tried the call again. The line was still busy. He tried off and on to reach my dad for twenty minutes, but each time he tried to connect the call, he only got the busy signal.
Because my father was on the line with me, desperately trying to calm me down.
And so, with no other choice, the deputy called another tow truck driver. The other driver showed up quickly and got right to work hooking up his cable to pull the car out of the ditch and back into the road.
It was sleeting and icing pretty hard at that point, which probably made enough noise that it was hard for him to hear the approaching vehicle. Even if he did hear it, he wouldn’t have been too worried - after all his truck's flashing lights clearly announced his presence.
Except the driver of the car had been drinking. He didn’t see the tow truck, didn’t see the lights. He didn’t see the driver standing next to the incapacitated car or even the car itself. The deputy had tried to call out a warning, but it was too late. The tow truck driver was killed instantly, thankfully likely never even knowing what was happening.
And the only reason that it wasn’t my father is because he was on the phone with me.
I haven’t seen the strange man since that night. My great grandmother passed away in her sleep, but he did not visit for that.
I wonder if he only comes when the death will be tragic.
I wonder why he never visited for any other part of my family when tragedy struck.
I wonder if I made a mistake when I looked him in the eye.
I do not wonder who or what he was though. There are some things worse than death and I fear that all of them live within the strange man.
#Writeblr#Writers of tumblr#Creative writing#Scary story#Paranormal story#Short story#Horror story#Fiction#Writing#Writblr#Dreaming dreams#OC from me
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not gonna screenshot the whole image bc I'm not trying to call out a teenager I do not know in a small fandom. but like. how do you end up looking at Marius, a biracial Black person with dark curly hair, and end up drawing it this colour/texture?
like I'm not trying to be a dick or anything I know this art came from a place of love and respect but
??????????????????
#I'm really not trying to shame anyone here#it's a genuinely fun and nice piece of art and i like it#and tbh drawing curly hair is a different skill to drawing straight/wavy hair and it takes practise#but i legit assumed this was a picture of jonny at first glance just bc of the colouring#like kofi's hair doesn't look light brown in a n y light it is not quite black but it's certainly very dark brown#I'm not trying to make a big thing of this but i see a lot of art where Marius and Jonny look identical#and i just. racialisation aside like how do you get that from photos?#jonny is a pale white guy with light brown/dark blonde straight hair. marius is a light-skinned biracial guy w black/dark brown curly hair#they don't look like each other and it's kinda weird also how in a band with two biracial black members#ashes is generally racialised black but Marius is very very very often drawn as like. the whitest white man.#i feel like a lot of people if anything darken ashes' skin and hair but they lighten marius to the point of looking like jonny#idk it bothers me often mostly bc. like. whitewashing is obvious when it looks like significantly lightening someone's skin#but with someone like Marius who's quite light skinned anyway like idk that's understandable. it's largely an undertones issue.#but when ppl draw marius with hair that is utterly. not even close to the colour and texture it is irl. idk it feels off.#like i say i think the racial aspect is unintended. but i don't understand how you end up in this place colour wise.#even in a highly simplified palette black is a lot closer to Marius' hair colour than light brown is#tbh i can only find like 3 pictures where his hair doesn't look black and they're ones with the sun behind him#but like i am lucky enough to not have to rely on photos taken in low light. i have cut and styled that hair. it's dark.#it's not honey or walnut or even chestnut. it is very dark brown to black.#and in almost every photo it's evident that Marius has darker hair than most of his crewmates.#tim's hair is chestnut. Jonny's is dark blonde/light brown. brian's is strawberry blonde. ts' is mid brown. ivy's is (usually) red.#raph is blonde. ashes' natural hair is a similar colour to Marius' but tbh Frank has so many good hair looks it could be any colour.#idk this is not anger or an attempt to shame and i hope it doesn't come across that way#this type of art choice just. baffles me. like are we seeing the same things?
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You're Mine
Warnings- stalker/yandere tendencies, somnophilia, fingering, male masturbation, penetration, dubcon/noncon, squirting, breeding kink, etc
WC- ~1.7k
This is for @ultimate-astridwriting ‘s Watch It Creep collab!! (thank you for letting me participate ily)
Dabi had never been one for shopping, going out in public just to have people gawk and point at him was never very appealing. He didn’t need new clothes, there was no one he wanted to impress. Except you. When you went shopping, he couldn't help but love it.
Your constant late night trips became his favorite time of the week. Every time you get new clothes you would blast your music and try on all different outfits with the new pieces you had just bought. Dancing and singing in the mirror, feeling yourself up. Watching you strip and pull clothes snug over your curves over and over never failed to get his dick hard.
On goes a pink tank top and low rise skinny jeans. You take off your bra and brush your nipples over the shirt, looking in the mirror to see them peek through the thin fabric covering your chest. Off goes that outfit, your flawless tits on display, perked by the touch of your own hands. You bend over to pick up a dress to try on, the black thong you wear riding up your ass and giving Dabi an ideal view.
He has a chair pulled up right in front of his window, the perfect view down to your apartment, directly across and down one floor from his. The buildings in your area are packed tight, no more than 10 or 20 feet between the both of you. He takes a seat, spreading his legs and unbuttoning his jeans as he hears your music blast even louder through the thin walls and small expanse of grass that separates your buildings.
He wishes he had a teleportation quirk, that he could hold you in his arms instead of desperately attaching himself to your vulnerable moments. So innocent, you never pull your blinds closed. He often wonders how an angel like you could exist so close to him, in his neighborhood, in his world.
His cock slaps against his stomach, coming to life when he glances up, seeing you peeling off a tight dress. If only it were his hands, his everything pressed up against you, guiding you in your dance while you grind back onto him, hips rolling against his. His rough and scarred hands pump up and down his cock, spreading the minimal precum, the pain of the dry tug spurring him on.
When he glances up from his lap you're putting your pajamas back on, leaving your room to go get ready for bed. Not to worry, he has more material to get off to. His eyes search his room, looking over the various photographs of you hanging on his walls. He’s taken many over time, mostly just normal pictures of you in your apartment or around the neighborhood. But even the most average photos of you entranced him. How could they not, you were just so beautiful.
His eyes run over the photo taped to his wall on the right. He has it placed right next to his window so he can see it when you walk into a different room in the middle of your “session”. The photo depicts you licking dripping ice cream off of your glowing skin on a hot day. Your face is a mix of innocent and erotic, your arms squished together slightly, pushing your breasts up through your low cut shirt. To Dabi this photo is not only perfect because it was captured at the right moment, it’s perfect because it's you.
He tugs harder at his cock, spitting on it roughly and imagining you on your knees for him. How you would wrap your hand around it, cup his balls, swirl your tongue on the tip paying special attention to his piercings all while keeping your eyes glued on him. How he would grab a fistful of your hair and shove your nose to his hips, feeling the contractions of your gagging throat hugging him just right. He’s panting in seconds, making eye contact with the photo one more time before spilling into his hand. He gives a few more pumps, milking himself. He leans over to his desk, wiping his hand off on the matted washcloth that lies there just for this, the one that hasn't been washed in weeks.
When he stands, he sees you walk back into your room with only a small towel wrapped around your body and a face mask, relaxingly flopping onto your bed with your phone. The sight is almost enough to get him going again but he restrains himself, after all he would see you later tonight.
--
Your door creaks, swinging open into your dark apartment. Dabi gets his lock picker from the door handle and shoves it in the pocket of his pants. He slips silently into your living room, he never stumbles, he knows your apartment like the back of his hand. How could he not when you're so obviously begging for him to come over? He has to listen to his baby’s needs.
Your room is down the hallway to the left, right across the bathroom and 14.6ft from your couch. Your room’s door is open, like always. He sits on the edge of your bed, the dip of his weight on the mattress making you roll slightly towards him. He reaches for your face, your skin so soft against his burnt hand. You stir slightly when he tucks your hair behind your ear and wipes the drool from your lip, but he knows you won't wake up, you never do.
Your blankets only cover one of your legs, you must have been too hot. But this is better for both of you because it gives Dabi a nice view of your night attire. Your legs bare, all the way up to your hips. Your unblemished skin begging to be marked by him. You always wear an oversized t-shirt, probably stolen from one of your many ex boyfriends. And only some nights do you wear panties. Dabi counts his luck as he slowly moves your sheets off of you, his breath taken away when he realizes tonight you aren't wearing any.
Your pussy glistens in the moonlight that filters in through your open window, you could never be bothered to buy curtains. Dabi can't resist the need to touch it, to touch you, to claim you. You were his, you just didn't know it yet.
His slender fingers slide through your folds, slightly pinching your clit to watch your pretty little hole twitch and clench at his touch. He slips one finger inside of you, it goes in easily with all of the slick that's gathered and begun to drip down to your thighs. You let out a small mewl when his finger curves to your g-spot, and he adds another for good measure. You never wake up though, you've always been a heavy sleeper.
But he needs you now, he wants you awake. So he kisses you gently, his mouth molding against yours with a softness he didn't know he was capable of. But soon need and lust take over. His soft kisses turn rough, teeth clashing and blood being drawn from your lip. You begin to wake up, he's causing too much commotion for you to stay asleep.
Your eyes blink open to meet his bright blue ones, panic beginning to set in your mind. You take a deep breath, preparing to scream for help but his hand is covering your mouth in an instant before you can even open it. He leans down to whisper in your ear with a gravelly tone.
“If you scream or make any noise, I’ll make sure you can never talk again”
His hand heats up just enough for you to know he’s not bluffing. All throughout his threats, his fingers never stop thrusting into you. Your tired mind is conflicted between fear and lust, you don't know which one to give in to. Your eyes widen and you nod, choosing to comply with him.
You let out a small moan, bucking your hips back against his hand. This causes the nastiest grin to spread across his face, his evil intent sparkling in his eyes.
“You're gonna be a good girl for me, yeah?”
You nod feverishly, your brain not thinking straight. Dabi lets out a low groan at your eagerness, palming himself through his jeans. He begins to unzip them, undressing both himself and you until your bare skin presses against his. The piercings on his cock sting your skin, so cold against your sex.
He kisses your neck, down to your chest and across your torso. “I'm gonna make you feel so good”
He aligns his cock with you, shoving in his entire length in one go. The wind gets knocked out of you, you're breathless as he begins to fuck you at an ungodly pace, never waiting for you to adjust. He murmurs sweet nothings into your ears, kissing you sweetly as if you were in love. Tears begin to fall down your cheek but he licks them away, he knows you want him.
He fucks you harder, curling his hips into yours. The piercings lining his cock drag against your walls so nicely, the previously cold metal beginning to warm up from your shared heat.
“I bet you like that, don't you slut? Prancing around in front of your window every day for me to see. You know what you do to me. Thats why we are where we are right now; me fucking your tight hole and you taking it like the good little bitch you are.”
You moan at his words, his cock bruising your cervix so nicely. His hand reaches down to your clit, rubbing fast and hard circles against your sensitive nub. Your entire body shakes, clear liquid squirting out of you all over him. You grip him like a vice, milking him with your orgasm. He moans loudly, spilling thick white ropes and fucking them into your womb.
“Yeah, you fucking take it, youre mine”
He slows down after a minute, pulling out only to shove his fingers back into your abused hole, keeping his cum safe inside of you.
“You better hold that, I’ll be back”
#mha smut#bnha smut#mha#bnha#dabi smut#dabi x reader#x reader#mha x reader#bnha x reader#touya smut#touya todoroki#cw: somnophilia#cw: breeding#cw: dubcon#cw: noncon#cw: yandere
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sugar and spice ( 1 )
pairing : resident bad boy!jjk x model student!reader
setting : highschool!au x stepbrother!au
summary :
a messy highschool!au x stepbrother!au where model student reader who has quite a few dirty little secrets sees her world take an unexpected turn when her mother comes home one day with an engagement announcement, to the father of none other than the school's resident bad boy.... Jeon Jungkook.
genre : smut, for laughs, kinda pornish, slow burn with collosaly overwhelming sexual tension
rating: soft m ( for now ) due to adult content
warnings : unconventional relationship of sexual nature, tropes and clichès, teenagers partaking in porn-esque activities, made up things with made up people happening in a made up world, don't like don't read XD
wordcount : 2.3K
a/n : i've been fighting in a long standing war and I have lost. the man known as jeon jungkook had his foot on my neck for years and today, I have finally submitted to my fate and surrendered to his reign.
yes. after a hundred years, i'm writing again. specifically, writing for bts. particularly, writing for jungkook. its been a long time coming.
life just took over and I transitioned into an adult and kind of grew out of the state of mind I was in before. but. sigh. jeon jungkook has been tormenting me the whole time. it was only a matter of time before i relapsed honestly.
so here I am again. in mind, body and spirit, a different person from who I was before but still the same in the sense that with the way bts have my whole heart, jk will always be the demon in the corner of my room that I invite to bed for a cuddle even though it's (probably really) not good for me.
do not misconstrue. I love him more than I can say. but. sigh. he has me in a chokehold, loves. please try to understand where I'm coming from.
anyways, enough with this ranting. you all came here for the nitty gritty so let me not hold you hostage with my dilemma rambling any longer. here's to the first bts fic i've posted in literal years. introducing- sugar and spice.
1 2
Unless they told someone, no one would have been able to guess it.
At school they were complete strangers.
She was the nice head girl with a clean record, all smiles and straight A’s. He was the mysterious bad boy with a track record, all tatted up with bruised knuckles.
She wore plaid skirts with neat pleads in them and pastel sweaters with bows at the collar. He wore jeans with rips in them and leather jackets with studs.
They couldn't have been any more different.
As far as anyone was concerned, they existed on two extreme ends of a vast spectrum.
What they didn't know was that they shared a dirty little secret.
.
You were a girl with many dirty secrets.
For instance, you used to sell nudes online. It was a side hustle you did.
Not because you needed money.
Your mom was a renowned doctor so there was more than enough of that in your life.
Not because you needed validation from people online either.
Even without the constant compliments and the praises you knew you were visually blessed with a pretty face and a nice body too.
All things considered, you simply thought you had a nice pair of tits and you took pictures of them sometimes.
Posting the shots you snapped online came much later when you heard about this website where people were getting paid crazy money for posting racy things.
‘It’s just so degrading…’ It was one of your friends, June, who sneered, pretty nose scrunched up. She fixed her long ponytail and rolled her brown eyes while looking in the mirror at her locker. ‘Who would do such a thing, am I right?’
She said this, but June was the girl who has slept with more boys than she could count on her two hands. And those were the ones she told you about.
Like every other time, you said nothing. Even when it carried on to lunch with the rest.
‘Pretty desperate if you ask me.’ Mei the stellar track runner shrugged casually as she stretched her limbs like routine.
‘Where are their parents?’ Nina the library nerd shook her head in disapproval as she fixed her glasses so it sat right on the bridge of her nose.
‘Um… I don’t think it’s … appropriate… to talk about ….’ Kiko the one who always carried a cross and bible around mumbled into her sleeve.
All your friends spoke of it in derision and repulsion of course. This was a school for proper children so they were proper girls. At least they were supposed to be.
Regardless the conversation sparked a curiosity in you.
So you made an account and uploaded your first picture. Nothing bizarre. Just your tits in a pretty lace bra.
You made sure to keep your face out of the frame because that was the smart thing to do and you were nothing if not the smartest student in school.
In all honesty, you weren’t expecting anything out of it. In fact, in between work with student council and tutoring your juniors with finals right around the corner, you even forgot about it for an entire month.
It was by a complete whim that you decided to open the app while you’d been unwinding at your desk following a tedious day at school.
To say you were amused by the response you found waiting for you would have be a grave understatement.
You were staring at the four figure digit that now sat in your bank account.
Reading through the comment section was even more interesting.
There were all sorts of people there who had all sorts of things to say. Ranging from honestly sweet to downright dirty.
You had never been brought to tears laughing in her life before until then.
It was just so funny to see people misbehave and lose their minds over a pair of tits.
From then on it just sort of became a thing.
.
But that wasn't the worse of your secrets.
You were making a name for yourself on the crude web months later.
The next step was naturally to move from making taking pictures to making videos. Since you was already in too deep you didn’t see why not.
So you upgraded and opened another account. An amateur one where your touched yourself for an audience.
You were no prude.
You might have never been touched by a boy before but you had touched yourself plenty times. Stress and frustration came hand in hand with being head girl. Since you couldn’t quite vent it out at the annoying troublemakers at school, this was your second best option.
Third was watching porn, but that was mostly when you were extremely bored.
But that wasn’t where that little endeavor ended.
Later on it became a lot more risqué.
.
It all started when your mom hit you with a marriage announcement.
She met a guy on her business trip who she really liked and she was convinced he was the one.
Your mom had a tragic history of being a bad judge of character.
You’ve had this conversation at least five times since you became old enough to understand that boys and girls who were just friends didn’t kiss and sleep with each other.
Most times, it felt like she was doing it because she thought you needed a dad around.
You might have once, when you were younger and your mom was too busy with work to be there. But she worked from home these days and you were soo busy with school to worry about things like that.
This time it was like she was doing it for her. You were glad.
Your mom looked genuinely happy when she spoke about this guy.
Who were you to get in the way?
.
She spent almost the whole weekend in the kitchen. It was the longest you’ve seen her in there in your entire life.
She was excited for the dinner on Sunday.
Mr Jeon was the name of the chosen man.
He was coming over with his kid. A son, his only family. His wife passed away years ago.
You wore the dress your mom picked out for you, something cream in color and off the shoulders that brushed your knees. She looked pretty in her champagne dress. It was different from the office slacks and loose blouses you were used to seeing her in.
You stood by her at the door while the guests came through.
Lifting your head from a polite bow, you found herself staring straight into an achingly familiar pair of glinting dark eyes and went completely still.
‘Sweetie,' Your mother said sounding delighted, a soft hand on your stiff shoulder. 'This is Mr Jeon and his son Jungkook.’
Ah. Fuck.
‘Jeon dear, this is my daughter. Isn’t she lovely?’
.
Dinner was a mild affair, with small talk and the occasional clinking of cutlery on fine china.
From the outside looking in, you probably looked the picture perfect family already.
Only if no-one looked close enough.
Arms crossed, tongue in cheek. Your discomfort could be detected from miles away.
The two adults were oblivious.
The dark eyed boy with the slightest wave to his nape touching, brow grazing, ear covering onyx hair sat across you though; he took note of this with a passing glance and wordlessly returned to his food.
Jeon Jungkook had a countenance that betrayed his reputation.
Even though you’ve never talked, you knew plenty about him and you were sure he knew a lot about you too.
You went to the same school.
Dressed as he was in a crisp white dress shirt buttoned at the wrist and dark tailored pants with a fine belt on, it might have been hard to tell what kind of person he really was.
You lifted her gaze from your plate to look study him wordlessly, idly twisting the noodles with your fork.
People either called him the black sheep or the dark cloud but for you, Jeon Jungkook was the school’s resident lone wolf.
He smoked in the secluded areas on campus, sometimes playing his guitar. Beat up people who got on his nerves, sometimes using his guitar. Slept in class the rare times he was there, many times on his guitar.
Being his senior, you had never seen any of any of that for yourself. But you received plenty reports weekly to come to a sound conclusion.
There was no way people hated him enough to join hands in solidarity and make this all up.
It was quite the contrary actually. He had an alarming number of fans.
On the surface level you couldn’t see why. Most times you saw him, he looked bored out his mind and honestly, intimidating.
Maybe it was the tattoos. Or the ripped skinny jeans. Or the leather jackets with studs.
Maybe it was the domineering height and fit frame and structured face.
Maybe it was the intense dark eyes or the silky ruffled hair.
Even then, you failed to see the irresistible appeal in him. All those things that made him up only added to his unapproachable aura.
Bottom line was, he was bad news.
.
You didn’t want to be a spoil sport.
But how much of a thug your mom’s boyfriend’s son was shouldn’t be something that would make her like him less.
They were both their own people. Right ?
It was just that you just didn’t want her to be shocked and devastated if something happened later. When it happened.
Yet it seemed the serious conversation would have to wait.
After dinner your mom suggested you head to the living room to chat over wine and cheese.
You stayed back to do take out the dishes.
Earlier, your mom had stood to do it instead at first.
‘Don’t bother with that, dear.’ She reached for the plates in your hands. ‘Let me do it.’
‘It’s okay, mom.’ You smiled a little. ‘This is your night. I’ll meet you in the living room.’
'Sweetie...' Your mom looked close to tears. ‘But there’s so much of it…’
‘Jungkook,’ his father's voice had cut through the moment. He was a serious man in a crisp suit with a stoic countenance. His voice was just naturally authoritarian without him trying ‘Give her a hand.’
Jungkook stood, almost robotically.
‘It’s fine.’ You said. Politely. Nicely. Tightly. ‘I can handle this much.’
You left without another word.
That had been moments ago and now you were done with cleaning.
You stood at living room entrance for a while, taking in the scene.
The two adults were exchanging moon eyes and whispering in each other’s ears at the love seat.
Jungkook was sitting on a solo seat, but he was on his phone, completely unbothered by what was happening.
Your mom seemed to think it was the perfect time to pull out the photo album right then and there upon seeing you.
It was embarrassing but at least you knew you didn’t have to worry about the pictures spreading at school.
Jungkook was looking, picking up a picture occasionally to rove over, but he wasn’t the type to do that.
He also wasn’t the type to stare but you felt his glance shifting to you and lingering multiple times.
Once, you caught his eyes and he just stared at you across the coffee table wordlessly with a curious tilt to his head, idly flipping a picture of you dressed as a knight in glitter shining armor for Halloween at eight in his hands.
Honestly, it was starting to get annoying.
But you endured. For your mom’s sake.
.
Your alarm went off at exactly ten.
As subtly as you could, you excused yourself with an apology to the guests, saying you weren't really feeling well.
In hindsight you probably should have used a better excuse.
Your mom was notorious when it came to worrying, especially when it comes to your health.
Also, you probably should’ve locked the door before undressing just for good measure since people were over.
But in the moment, you were too busy setting your camera up where you were kneeling on the floor at the foot of the bed to be concerned about that.
That day you were testing out a new toy.
.
Distractedly, you took note of a couple of people asking you if that was your boyfriend’s shirt you had lifted over your tits.
You ignored them.
Couldn’t a girl own an oversized tee without getting any flack?
Trivial comments like that aside, a good majority of the audience are fawning over how wet you were and how perfect you bouncing tits look being played with.
Your head fell back and your eyes fluttered shut.
You were sitting there, knees raised to your chest and legs splayed, your gushing pussy in full display where the toy was stuffed deep into her tightness, vibrating pleasantly.
‘I’m close…’ you mumbled throatily, squeezing your tits and pinching your stiff nipples in between your moving fingers. You moved your hips move faster, feeling the toy buzz against fluttering walls. You took a hand off one of your tits to rub at your engorged clit. ‘Fuckfuckfuck…’
Deep in your high, you didn’t hear the door open and close with a foreboding click.
You only heard your name being called by a deep, smooth voice through the heady haze.
Instantly you stilled.
When you snapped your head to look over her shoulder Jungkook was there, hands in his pockets, leaning against your doorframe with his sleeves drawn up to his elbows, muscle roped, inked skin on full display.
When he tilted his head to the side a little, appraisively, you dared to say as a quaking chill ran down your spine and your entire body felt like it was about to burst into flames, a bit of his hair fell over his face.
His eyes were like two black in the dark as he took you in, dragging his gaze up and down your exposed body languidly.
In the back of your mind, you wished the ground would part and swallow you whole.
‘Your mom,' he starts, capturing your attention wholly, dark gaze finally flickering to your face, his voice suddenly lower, hoarser. ‘She sent me over to check on you.’
It took you a moment to realize where you were, who you were, who he was.
It was like a bucket of cold water had been dropped over your head.
Jeon Jungkook, the school's resident trouble maker, soon to be your step brother, just walked in on you fingering yourself in in front of a recording camera.
Well. Yeah.
You gulped.
You were royally fucked.
depending on the response I get I might ( most probably will ) delete this. not because I'm ashamed of my work. because I'm embarrassed of myself. I really swore to never write again and here I am. sigh. yes, I have seen my previous works and noticed just how terrible they were and this is a big reason why. so sorry for putting you through that. a million apologies.
also, that's right. I have adopted a new style which might not be to everyone's liking. another reason why.
anyways, if you liked this filth ( i know it seems mild but I can tell you it's very likely gonna get worse ) please idk uh... fuck this isn't ao3. hm.
like and drop by in the ask box if you liked it and want to see more. it makes me happy. its like serotonin fuel to me.
have a nice day. see you next time ( maybe ). stay fresh. yeah. 💜💜.
#bangtan#bts#bts angst#bts fluff#bts imagine#bts scenario#bts smut#bts au#jeon jungkook#jungkook scenario#jungkook imagine#jungkook smut#bts x reader#jungkook x reader#bts high school au#jungkook high school au
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