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juniorgman187 · 3 years

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Fighting Fire With Fire (Reid Fic)

Summary: Reader must lower her pride after a date goes wrong and the only one who can rescue her is her mortal enemy - Spencer Reid.

A/N: This was a beast of a fic to write. It’s been in my WIP since September, and I managed to go from 11 pages to 22 pages in three days. It is now my longest fic thus far. I am insanely fucking proud of it and I hope it does well. Category: Angst Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: allusions to ‘catfishing,’ allusions to abduction, dub-con to taking provocative photos, alcohol, mentions of bruises, jealousy, carrying hug which implies weight of Reader (lmk if I missed anything) Word Count: 11.7k

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

I tried to play nice; I really did, but there was no getting through to him. Everyday started and ended with us fighting fire with fire.

Maybe the reason the two of you butt heads so often is because of how similar you are.

That’s what the team would say when Spencer and I got into one of our daily (sometimes hourly) arguments.

They constantly encouraged us to get to know each other so that we’d finally see the likeness, and until recently, I wasn’t opposed to the idea. I was willing to do whatever it took to get him to like me. However, as previously mentioned, my willingness quickly dissipated in light of recent events.

Voluntarily spending more time than necessary with him would be a recipe for disaster no doubt.

Somehow, in a matter of a month, Reid decided that he simply did not enjoy my presence, which was the nice way of putting it.

To be more crass, he loathed me to no end.

Initially, I was operating under the assumption that he wasn’t fond of change, and with me joining the BAU, the change was too much too fast for him, but after four weeks, his attitude toward me never deviated. Yet again, I made another excuse for him, arguing to myself that people are allowed to not like me. I could respect that, but where he lost my respect was how he made a conscious effort to remind me of how much he despised me. Even when I was at my nicest, he still treated me like a scelerate.

If there was a prize for gaining a mortal enemy in the shortest amount of time, I guess I already won that without even trying. He hated me with a burning passion, for reasons unbeknownst to me, despite the fact that all I’d ever try to do was be his friend.

For far too long, I kept denying the part of me that knew making peace with him outside of work wouldn’t go well and it’d simply go down in history as another failed attempt of mine to form a bond with him, so it was at this point that I decided to face the facts.

He didn’t make it easy for me, either. It was hard having to be kind to someone that was only ever out to get me.

He would constantly correct me but only after I said something incorrectly, just so he could prove me wrong.

“If each police officer patrols a street, we’ll be able to cover the entire comfort zone.”

“Actually, we’d need three more officers if we want to cover the entire comfort zone. There’s still 2.347 miles that are unaccounted for.”

I never understood why he couldn’t just say his piece before me so that I didn’t look like an idiot, but I suppose that was the point.

And he had this infuriating, unwarranted habit of judging my taste in cinema and literature. Anytime I told Emily or Derek about a movie I saw or told Rossi about a book I read, he felt compelled to share his antagonistic opinions as if I asked for them in the first place. Sometimes even spoiling the endings for me!

“Rossi, I just started reading Doctor Sleep!” I was so eager to tell Rossi that, so much so that I’d become blind to one dark cloud’s own eagerness to ruin the fun.

“The hotel burns to the ground, but the ghosts don’t die with it.”

He said it with such monotony and nonchalance, not even bothering to look up from his own book to watch my reaction to his menacing act. He just didn’t care!

The list of reasons not to like him truly did go on and on, so it was almost insulting how people would compare the two of us.

They’d bring up the congruence in intelligence, the same affinity for reading, and closeness in age, but it only made me madder. The last person I wanted to resemble was Reid, except today, I gained another glaring similarity to him.

“Look at you two. Did you plan your outfits or something?” Emily playfully pointed out after I walked into the conference room.

I eyed the doctor sipping at his cup of coffee who swiveled around in his chair to see what everyone else was seeing. Just from a short glance, I spotted his navy blue button-up with white polka dots that was nearly identical to the color and print of my dress.

“Well, looks like one of us has to go home and change.” His lips grew into a mischievous smirk behind the rim of his mug.

Was that a joke? Did Spencer Reid make jokes now?

“Ha ha. Very funny.” I facetiously remarked, taking the only open seat at the table which was next to the jokester himself.

“I’m kidding. You look really nice today.” He alleged without a hint of irony. He was complimenting me now, too? It was so unfamiliar that it felt like uncharted territory, possibly even a trap.

“Why? Because I’m dressed like you?” I wasn’t going to fall for his words now, maybe the version of me who would do anything to gain his approval would have. She would’ve smiled and said ‘thank you,’ but this me was going to challenge him if that was the last thing I ever did. “Bit of a narcissist are we, Dr. Reid?”

“Mmm maybe,” He wagered, tilting his head from side to side as if to contemplate the possibility. “Or maybe I just really think you look nice.”

Without even thinking, my heart skipped a beat. I was utterly repulsed by how I let his words have any effect over me. I couldn’t believe that he’d actually managed to fluster me with mediocre flattery.

It felt like years that I had to sit next to Reid at the round table before Hotch dismissed the team for the flight.

30 minutes later, and we were on the jet. I’d taken one of the seats at the table opposite Derek and Emily, with Spencer beside me.

Little things like this I could handle, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before he started bothering me. Morgan was listening to music and Emily was turned around in her seat, facing the back to talk to Rossi. Reid was playing himself in chess, and it took all of my self-control to not be a total asshole and knock the board and its pieces over and into the aisle. Luckily, I had a good enough distraction.

Grant: can you ft tonight?

Me: we’ll see. i might have to work overtime.

For the months that I had been talking to Grant, I was deliberately ambiguous about my job because I wasn’t exactly keen on telling him that I worked for the FBI and that I might not be able to FaceTime him since I was in the process of investigating a series of homicides. That’d surely scare him away and I was never one to flaunt my government job anyway.

Grant: you look stunning today

Me: you haven’t even seen me today

Grant: don’t need to.

Grant: you’ll always be stunning to me.

“Who keeps texting you?”

I looked up from my screen to see Reid fixated on his game but still engaged in my business.

“No one,” I harshly replied, making a conscious decision to turn my phone on vibrate so he wouldn’t hear the chime of my text notifications.

With one nimble side glance, Reid eyed my screen. I nudged him away with extra force.

“Nosy much?!”

This stunned him. He wasn’t used to my coldness, he probably expected me to smile in a chagrined manner and not confront it - as I would have done - but now I was fighting back, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he liked it.

I knew he could read fast, but how he managed to look at my phone so quickly it was like he never even moved his eyes - I didn’t know. Somehow, though, he managed to capture Grant’s entire username, and I didn’t doubt that he caught my entire conversation with him, too.

“Who’s Grant?” The name rolled off his tongue like he was insulted to even be saying it.

“No one.”

He didn’t respond soon after I said this, which I misinterpreted as a little victory for me since I almost believed he was going to drop the subject, but in true Spencer Know It All Reid fashion, he just kept going.

“‘You look stunning today B-T-W. You haven’t even seen me today. Don’t need to. You’ll always be stunning to me.’ Doesn’t really sound like a ‘no one’ to me.” His recitation of my entire PRIVATE conversation with Grant embarrassed me.

Did I forget to add his eidetic memory and speed-reading ability to the list of reasons not to like him?

“Shut up!” I nudged him, this time using much more force than the last. I was becoming more and more inclined to push over his ridiculous chess game so that he’d finally take me seriously.

“Oh, really clever by the way. Vaguely insinuating that you ‘might not be able to call him because you’re working overtime’ just so you don’t have to disclose the true nature of your job.” Spencer’s sarcasm was thick.

“Are you just jealous because the only date you’ve been on was a fake one with a serial killer and not even your actual girlfriend while she was alive?” My reference to Cat and Maeve caught the attention of the entire jet.

Each member mentally rolled their eyes thinking ‘Here we go again.’ And if that wasn’t their reaction, they were certainly cringing at the fight that was ensuing.

Things had been suspiciously good between the two of us today so it was about time we argued. We were due for our daily quarrel.

“Oh, that’s right! The only girls who like you are victims in our cases.” Now this comment was referring to Lila and Austin. (I had Penelope to thank for filling me in on all of Reid’s ‘entanglements’ after I was first reassigned).

“Really? You wanna go there?” He sassed back, diverting his attention away fully from his chess game now. “Do you know how many people get ‘catfished’ when using online dating websites? Or the statistics on how many people are raped, assaulted, or murdered by said ‘catfish’?”

“I’m not stupid, Reid. He and I have been talking for months. We’ve been on calls and Facetime before, too. We’ve just never met in person. Sound familiar?”

“What Maeve and I had is not at all comparable to what you and this ‘guy’ have. And just because you’ve seen his face before doesn’t mean he’s not a serial killer or operating under an alias.”

I had to scoff. Who was he to label our relationship valid or not?

“What’s it to you anyway? We all know you’d be ecstatic if this guy turned out to be a serial killer or catfish. You’d get to rub it in my face and say ‘I told you so.’”

This touched a nerve. He hated it when I attacked his nice-guy facade.

“Is it so hard to believe I’m actually concerned for your wellbeing?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Fine. If you think I don’t care about you, then don’t come crying to me when you realize he’s not the guy you think he is.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t! It’s not like you’d be able to protect me anyway, Pretty Boy.” I sneered, using Morgan’s nickname for him as an insult got to him, and I could see it in the way his jaw clenched and his nostrils flared.

Hotch had to interject now. “Alright, (y/l/n), Reid, that’s enough. We need to focus on what’s actually important.”

I settled back down in my seat, facing forward and avoiding eye contact with Reid.

“Have fun on your date,” He muttered under his breath. “Hope you survive it.”

Bastard.

For the rest of the case, I was on edge. Deliberately avoiding him was a much harder task than one might think. I had to wait at least ten minutes for my coffee, so I wouldn’t be at the machine when he was there, and if I had to guess, he probably took longer just to make me wait in agitation. I had to awkwardly squeeze into a new spot beside Rossi and Hotch when we were delivering the profile. I had to ask not to travel in the same SUV as him.

And this exhausting routine went on for days. In fact, I’d managed to almost go the entire case without interacting with him. That was until Hotch sent us both in the field to apprehend the unsub.

“Are you sure?” I asked with clear reluctance.

“Are you questioning me?” Hotch replied sternly.

“No, sir.”

I was already on thin ice being the new recruit, so I knew better than to question any of Hotch’s orders. And as miserable as working with Reid was, I figured he’d at least ease up on the hostility when we needed to be professional. Evidently though, even in the field, he wasn’t willing to work together with me.

It was a quick decision, not careless in the least, however. The unsub had locked himself in his warehouse and refused to leave unless we were brave enough to drag him out of there ourselves. The ultimatum he gave specified that only one of us could do it and we both agreed that I should go in, seeing as he’d underestimate my strength as a woman, and I’d have the upperhand when I inevitably apprehended him.

However, he also explicitly told us that I couldn’t come in with a gun - it had to be an even playing field.

“You are not going in without a gun,” Reid ordered.

“We don’t have time to argue about this - I have a spare on me, okay? There are three hostages in there, two of which are children.” Without giving him a chance to respond, I handed him my gun and holster.

Had I let him waste a single second more of my time, we wouldn’t have been able to save the three hostages and successfully arrest the unsub. I saw this as a victory and I was almost willing to celebrate it with him, but it wasn’t long before he let our enmity tear us apart again.

When we got back to the precinct, I went to the locker room to change, then suddenly, Hotch came in.

“I’ve been informed that you went in unarmed against a fellow agent’s orders. This matter will be discussed in my office when we get back. I should warn you, (y/n), you do not want to make this mistake again.” Hotch left me with those foreboding words, and I knew, I knew immediately that Reid was to blame for this.

If I took a look in the mirror of my locker, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I saw that my face was turning a bright shade of red. I was fuming - bursting at the seams from the anger building within me that was desperately fighting to escape. I could imagine myself as a cartoon character with steam blowing out either of my ears. I was about to go on a rampage, and no one - absolutely no one - could stop me.

The last straw was hearing him come in. This was my opportunity to unleash what was already boiling.

“What the hell, Reid? ‘(y/n) went in unarmed.’ Seriously?!” I undid the velcro on my vest so hastily out of my blind rage that the spiky side of the velcro strip nearly sliced my finger. “Are you trying to get me fired?”

“If that’s what it takes to make you realize how stupid of a choice that was, then yes, I do.” He was so calm and collected in his inflection that it angered me all the more.

“What are you even talking about? What ‘stupid choice’? You knew I had a second gun on me. And even if I didn’t carry it, I still would’ve had my vest on. I wasn’t going in unarmed or unprotected, so why would you tell Hotch that?”

“In the time it would take you to assess the danger, react, and then reach for the gun at your ankle, the unsub would’ve been able to shoot you twice - if not more. That’s going in unprepared, which is going in unarmed.”

I scoffed in disbelief that he was actually reprimanding me. “Are you kidding? This is all based on a technicality? Did your eidetic memory somehow forget about what happened with Maeve? Because my memory didn’t. I know for a fact that you went into that warehouse without a vest or a weapon. And unlike you, I had a spare and my vest. AND I actually apprehended the unsub. Did you stop Diane?”

This crossed a line and I knew it, but it was too late to take it back, and clearly, it was much too late to repair any relationship I had with him. We were far beyond the point of no return.

He was so mad that he didn’t even answer me. The only response I could gauge was from his body language, which by the looks of it, all the signs of anger were plain on his face. He clenched his jaw so hard I could hear his teeth grind. Even his nostrils flared so primitively. His eyes narrowed down at me with a glare that said, ‘I’m the predator and you’re the prey.’

“Yeah, exactly.” I spat when he stayed silent.

I turned around, starting towards the exit, but I was too furious to stop there, so I spun around and unleashed the remainder of my wrath that had been dying to come out.

“Look, I get it. I’m the new kid around here, and it sucks when someone new comes in and changes up the team dynamic, but any mistake I make, or any mistake Hotch thinks I make, could send me packing. You’ve been working in this unit for years, and even if Hotch questions your choices, he won’t reassign you. He won’t even threaten it. He’s willing to overlook your mistakes because he knows that what you have to contribute to the team is too vital to let go, but I haven’t even had my chance to show him what I have to offer. So when I do make a mistake, there is nothing for me to fall back on, nothing to redeem me, and no safety net, but you? You have years of experience on your back to break your fall. So don’t you dare act like you’re doing me a favor by reporting my ‘mistake’ to Hotch. You might be costing me my dream job, and if you think that makes us friends - think again.”

I stormed out of the locker room seeing red.

This war was far from over.

_ _ _

“You’re clenching your fists again,” Emily said under her breath. I was grateful that she said it in a hushed tone, otherwise she might’ve revealed my lingering anger to the whole jet, which wouldn’t have been good.

I immediately unclenched them, opening up my hands to reveal small, dark C shaped imprints on my palms from where my nails had dug into them.

I should’ve expected that she would’ve learned at least one of my tells by now. I did have many after all. Cheek biting, fist-clenching, leg bouncing.

“Something bothering you?” She probed quietly.

She set her book down to give her undivided attention to this conversation. That was enough to tell me that an excuse like, ‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ would not suffice. She wouldn’t be satisfied until I told her the truth, which I surely did not want to tell. So I settled for a half-truth.

“Hotch wants to talk when we get back.”

From my peripherals, I saw her knit her brows together in confusion. “Is . . . is that it?”

“Mhm.” I lied.

“But that’s not enough to warrant the fist clenching. Cheek biting - sure - you do it when you’re anxious, but not fist-clenching. You only do that when you’re angry about something.”

“Oh, so you have figured out all my tells,” I smirked.

“Pfft, I figured them all out the first week you got here, but I won’t tell you the rest, otherwise you might try and hide them from me,” She joked.

I shook my head playfully. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m just worked up about something - it’s nothing you need to worry about though.” Habitually, my eyes looked right up in his direction. I caught a glimpse of him sprawled against the couch, sleeping. He was lucky I wasn’t ranting about the little stunt he pulled earlier to Emily. He should be thankful that I was even trying to protect his reputation to her at all.

“I get it if you don’t want to talk about it, but it does help. Take it from me, someone who really only trusts myself, you shouldn’t hide what you feel.”

What you feel.

I clung onto those words.

What was I really feeling?

Was I upset that instead of receiving praise for the arrest I made, I was scolded like a child? Was I angry that Hotch believed what Reid had to say about my “problematic behavior” instead of believing in me?

Or did I feel betrayed that despite my best efforts to build a bridge, Reid was tearing it apart brick by brick? Burning it to pieces with the fire of his rage?

“Thanks.” I bleakly said to Emily. I would’ve told her the truth, but it didn’t feel necessary at that moment. If anything, it just would’ve reflected badly on me.

Truthfully, she was the closest thing I had to a friend in the BAU, and if I wanted a permanent spot here, I needed to make more of them - and fast.

“Hey, (y/n), we’re all going down to O’Keefs tonight to celebrate. You wanna join us?” Morgan asked, walking up the aisle and crouching down beside my seat to talk to me.

“Oh, I wish I could, but I have to talk with Hotch when we get back,” I explained, smiling politely.

“We can postpone the meeting till first thing Monday morning. I need to go home and be with Jack, anyway,” Hotch added.

I didn’t realize he could hear me from where he was sitting, which made me all the more nervous that he might’ve overheard the entire conversation between me and Emily earlier.

“Looks like I’m free,” I looked back at Morgan. “Does the offer still stand?”

“Anything for you, sweet cheeks.” He winked.

Judging from the lightness of the atmosphere, everyone, except maybe Hotch and Rossi, would be celebrating at O’Keefs - including Spencer.

I think I might’ve actually preferred to be scolded by Hotch tonight, instead of being silently glared at by Spencer, but it was already too late to revoke my confirmation of presence.

Because, if Hotch could hear me from where he was sitting, then Spencer could, too.

He already heard I was coming, and there was no way I was backing down.

_ _ _

In spite of the fact that I could barely hear myself think over the loud chatter and blasting music, I could still feel the rage radiating off of Spencer. You would think with how long his nap was on the jet, he wouldn’t be so cranky, but I guess he just couldn’t sleep off his disdain for me after our minor altercation.

I wondered if the team could see it, too. The way he was burning a hole into me with his fiery stare. The tension was palpable, as it has always been, but remember - I’m not the one who wanted it that way.

He started this. I was only making the feeling mutual.

“So what about you, (y/n)? Are you seeing anyone?”

I tried to hide my growing smirk behind the rim of my beer, but I knew I couldn’t hide much from them. Of course, right across from me, Spencer was glaring at me expectantly, waiting for the answer he already knew.

“Oooh, look at her - she’s blushing! Spill.” Penelope ordered, beating her palm on the table so enthusiastically it shook all the drinks on it.

“Well, there’s this one guy I’ve been seeing for a while,” The second I started speaking, I noticed Spencer rolling his eyes. I figured his apprehension was the only response of its kind that I would receive, but I was very mistaken.

“How did you two meet?” Penelope giddily asked, nearly jumping up and down in her seat.

“A dating app, actually.”

The table went completely silent, and I immediately felt my stomach drop. It was as if I’d just said something very wrong. With just a quick glance in front of me, Spencer was basking in this.

What a dick.

Emily hesitated to ask. “...Have you two met in person before?”

Now it was my turn to hesitate to speak. “No, not yet.”

I took another sip of my drink even though I wasn’t thirsty. I just wanted to hide any part of my face I could to shield myself from the five sets of eyes burning holes into me now, rather than just the one. Trying to make matters better, I spoke all too quickly, nearly sputtering on my beer. “I’m completely safe, though. Nothing sketchy’s going on, I promise.”

“Of course,” JJ agreed. “We totally trust you,” neglecting to attach the cliche, ‘It’s him we don’t trust.’ But if she had, it would’ve spoken everyone’s bubble thoughts right about now.

“Just be careful, mama.” Derek’s response felt the most sincere, and I honestly believed he was happy for me, but it didn’t change how much their judgement initially stung.

For the rest of the night, I didn’t talk. No one noticed.

Except maybe the last person I wanted to notice.

I quietly slipped away somewhere in the night when the conversation was at its highest precisely so they wouldn’t question where I was going or if I was okay. If they had asked, the truthful answer to the former would’ve been ‘just outside to get some air’ and the latter ‘no.’

The cool breeze drifted through the door like rising fog and for the briefest moment in time, I felt suspended in the space around me - I’d finally caught my breath. That feeling wouldn’t last long, though.

I’d intentionally gone outside to compose myself until I came back a person who wasn’t on the verge of tears, but apparently, trying to pull myself only resulted in my falling apart. A ball of yarn unraveling is the closest comparison I can draw to what I must’ve looked like, crying quietly on the street.

“I figured I’d find you here.”

It was the mere sound of someone’s voice that shocked me, but it was the person whose voice it was that led to the frustration that followed.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be inside talking to the team of people who also agree with you about Grant?”

He was too much of a nuisance to warrant exchanging eye contact with so I simply stared forward as I spoke and wiped the tears away that were still pooling on my lower lash line. I hoped he hadn’t actually seen me crying, but from what I could tell, he was probably standing there long before he said something. And if he was truly looking at me as deeply as it felt like right now, then he’d have noticed my bloodshot eyes, flushed cheeks, and unending sniffling.

“Is that why you disappeared back there? Because you’re upset they didn’t exactly like the idea of your relationship?” The pain in the ass really tried, he really tried to get me to look at him by facing me and making these gestures with his hands that should’ve gotten my attention, but instead, I stayed put leaning against the wall, keeping my line of sight straight ahead.

“(Y/n), they weren’t insulting you or judging you -”

“Then why did it feel like it?” For the first time since he’d joined me, I’d looked at him. I didn’t even mean to and I had every intention of denying him that privilege for the entire duration of our conversation, but as soon as I asked him my question, we locked eyes, and I saw it written all over his face.

He felt sorry for me.

Now, he could clearly make out how distraught I was from this unobstructed view of my face that was kindled by the dim, flickering yellow glow of the streetlight beside us. And he kept staring, looking into my eyes to read me just as easily and just as quickly as he read a book.

“All we want is for you to be safe,” His voice crackled momentarily, and it actually touched some part of me for how genuine it sounded. “We weren’t trying to judge you or to insult you, and I’m sorry if it felt that way, but if we want your safety, and you tell us about something that could be potentially harmful, then of course we’re going to be apprehensive about it. That’s how people that care about you should react.”

“So are you saying that I don’t care about myself because I’m engaging in something risky?” Isn’t that the most ironic statement of this year? The definition of our job was risky, and even if this wasn’t the safest relationship on the planet, it was nothing like what we put ourselves through everyday being in the field.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying -”

“So what are you saying?” I dared. He shook his head and sighed like he was about to give up, but I needed an answer. “No, please, do continue. Finish what you were gonna say. Since you apparently know everything, 187. Please go ahead - tell me what you think I should do.”

Tell me what you really came out here to say, I ordered him with my eyes.

“I think I respect you more than you respect yourself, and that’s really saying something. Because if you actually liked yourself as much as I do, then you would realize that subjecting yourself to this nonsensicality of a long-distance relationship is not only dangerous - but insulting to your worth, too. You deserve more than that, (y/n).” He couldn’t have been clearer when he murmured a low and firm, “Much more.”

The world was spinning on its axis too fast for me to process anything he said before snapping back at him. “So what exactly is it you want me to do?”

With utmost clarity in both annunciation and intention, he told me, “Break up with him.”

Not a shadow of a doubt in his words.

Then, like the phantom of the opera himself, he vanished back into the bar, but even if he had stayed, I wouldn’t have had anything to say to him. I was simply rendered speechless.

Circling back to my previous argument, I questioned once more why was it any of his business anyway? I was allowed to do as I pleased and I most certainly did not have to listen to him. And I didn’t.

But I should’ve.

_ _ _

My Monday morning meeting with Hotch wasn’t nearly as fire and brimstone as I thought it would be. It did however feel like the equivalent to an “I’m disappointed in you” parent speech. In some ways, I related to the average teen who was grounded. Except instead of my phone being taken away, it was my freedom. From now on, I could only follow executive orders that had been given to me. At least for the time being.

It was clear that, deep down, some part of Hotch knew what I’d done was the right call, but he couldn’t give me any favors. Not until they were deserved on my end.

Walking onto the jet after our meeting, however, felt more juvenile than the punishment itself. I was a kid again, re-entering my classroom after using the restroom, only to have all eyes on me as I came through the door.

As per usual, the only empty chair was next to Reid. There’d been too many instances of this happening to think it was just a coincidence. At this point, I had to assume it was by design. Whose design however? That I didn’t know.

“Hello, trouble,” He sang when I took my seat.

I could only assume that this new nickname was based on what took place in Hotch’s office - thanks to him, need I remind you - but I didn’t care to know the origin because that would require talking to him, and for several reasons, that was the last thing I wanted to do. The first of which was what happened less than three days ago. An event we both hadn’t mentioned yet, and I hoped we never would.

I took every preventative measure in the book. I changed seats with JJ. I moved to the couch. I even started reading in the little hallway between the kitchenette and bathroom of the jet to avoid sitting beside him, but against all my best efforts, he always found a way to bug me. When there’s a will, there’s a way. After exhausting any real reason he had to talk to me, he had to get creative.

“You’ve been on that same page for four minutes and twenty-seven seconds.” I heard him say when he walked up to the kitchen to reach for the pot of coffee. Almost expecting I’d ask him what he meant, he added the explanation casually. “It never takes you more than three minutes and twelve seconds to move onto the next page. So either you’re not understanding the material or you’re not actually reading.”

It was utterly hilarious of him to imply that either of those things were definitely the answer. “What if I’m just taking my time reading this page, genius? Ever thought of that?”

His eyes turned into slits as he leaned in closer to examine me. “You’re blinking rate just increased, too.”

“Stop!” I screeched childishly, pushing him away by his shoulders in an attempt to get him off my back, but he was far from off my back. No, he was right against it. More specifically, his hand was on the small of it.

Leaning in so close that his lips were practically pressing on the shell of my ear, he whispered, “Come find me when you’re ready to tell me the truth.”

He didn’t need to know his words or actions had any sort of effect on me, so I kept the most stoic facial expression on, and I didn’t say a single thing back. He turned back around to leave with the hand on my back being the last thing to go. His lingering touch caused a shiver to run down my spine while paradoxically burning my body from the friction.

I was disgusted with myself for having let him elicit any sort of reaction from me, even if he wasn’t aware of it.

“Yeah ... well, d-don’t expect that to be anytime soon,” was my poor attempt at a retort to shut him up.

“Whatever you say, trouble.”

_ _ _

Personal space can be a wonderful thing. Much less so when it’s invaded, however.

After what felt like the longest flight ever, all I wanted was to take a shower and go to bed. My wishes were granted when I was able to wash off the stress and exhaustion and slip into a blush pink satin pajama set Grant sent me that I’d been meaning to wear. The plunging neck of the tank top was lined with lace and adorned with the tiniest little bow at the center. To match the shirt, the hem of the shorts were lined with lace that trailed up the small triangular slits on the side of the shorts, where at the vertex of them was the same little bow detail. For such a pure and innocent color as baby pink, you’d think it’d be somewhat less revealing. The longer I started at myself in the mirror while wearing it, the more aware I’d become of the intentions behind why Grant had sent it.

How cute, I thought, rolling my eyes.

Gifts should always be appreciated, if for no other reason than the effort put into it, but this just felt slimy. There was obviously no valiant romantic intent behind the negligee, which spoiled the delight of receiving something out of the blue from him. What’s worse was that I wasn’t even sure how to thank him for something like this.

Me: thank you for the pajamas. they’re so cute!

Lying was easier over text message, in case you were wondering what the perks of a long distance relationship were.

Grant: good, I’m glad you like them. are you wearing them right now?

But sometimes, when you should lie, you don’t. And you regret it later on - take it from me.

Me: yeah, they’re super comfy

Grant: great! i wanna see them on! take a pic

As if to compensate for the indisputable hatred I had for this lingerie and what it stood for in our relationship, I did the only thing I could think that would make him think I really liked them. That I felt good in them.

I took pictures - not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, Yelp review pictures, though - provocative ones.

In the same breath I went to take them, though, Spencer’s words rang through my head.

You deserve more than that. Much more.

Shaking off the thought of Spencer, I decided against what the little voice in my head that sounded too similar to his would’ve said.

To add to the illusion, I situated myself within the hotel sheets and used the front camera to capture my chest that was very much on display in this top. In the middle of rolling around the bed, trying to find the angles that wouldn’t show my face of dejection, the door opened.

Instantaneously, I clawed at the sheets until they wrapped around me like a towel. I was ashamed to admit they provided more coverage than these ‘pajamas’ did.

My shriek of shock must’ve sounded familiar to the stranger intruding on me because no sooner did I scream than they questioned, “(Y/n)? What are you doing here?”

Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

“Spencer, what the hell are you doing in here?” I grumbled, struggling to maintain a tight enough grip on the sheets that would keep them from falling and unveiling a sight I desperately did not want him to see.

“I asked you first.”

Boy, if you only knew how badly I wanted to slap that smirk right off his face. “This is my hotel room obviously. Your turn.”

Returning just the same tone, inflection, and vocals, he imitated me. “This is my hotel room obviously.” Like one of those magic tricks he’d show Henry or Jack, he miraculously flashed a room key between his index and middle finger that wasn’t there before.

“No, that’s impossible.”

“I opened the door, didn’t I?” That damn smirk was still there when he asked this. Maybe, just maybe, if it hadn’t been so condescending, I would’ve thought his sarcasm was ... attractive. Disgusting, I know.

“Well, if you actually plan on staying here, then you’re sleeping on the floor or the couch, got it?”

My question went unanswered until I turned around to follow where he’d traveled in the time that I spent pondering how this happened. Now perched at the window, sitting on the arm of the chair in a way that chairs weren’t meant to be sat on, he continued to stare silently at me.

“What? What is it?” I urged.

“What’s going on with the …” He made a side to side sweeping motion with his key card. “Bed sheets?”

Consciously, I shimmied the fabric further up my body. Seeing as there was virtually no way to escape an honest answer, I confessed. “If you must know ... I’m wearing p-pajamas.” My own body was rejecting the shameful admission causing the word to stumble out of my mouth.

He didn’t need to know any more than that to gather what kind of garments they were. He already figured it out.

“Did Grant give them to you?”

I almost rolled my eyes at the implication. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I know you,” He punctuated every word perfectly. “And I know that you wear big shirts and sweatpants to bed because you don’t see the point of spending money on clothes that are only made for you to sleep in - especially if they’re clothes that make you uncomfortable like these ones clearly do.”

Although, I greatly despised the fact that there was even a little bit of a chance that I might’ve agreed with him, I still defended Grant. “It was a thoughtful gesture.”

“Thoughtful, right,” He scoffed. “And which head was he thinking with?”

I was baffled he had the gall to say such an innuendo. “Spencer!”

How dare he? So what if Grant bought me something provocative because he was physically attracted to me? At least someone was.

Despite the ferocity plain on his face, he chose not to pursue this conversation. Visibly biting back on words he knew would hurt me, Spencer managed to sound remarkably genuine when he promised me, “I won’t look if you don’t want me to.”

I want you to, was my very first thought. Oh, God, that’s so fucked up, was my second.

He underlined his sincerity by turning fully around until he was facing the window. “But we should probably put the sheets back on the bed if you plan on sleeping on it.”

He was so patient as he waited for me to remove the cloth from my body. It almost made me feel guilty. He didn’t grumble or gripe, nor did he pressure me to do it at all. So by rights, there should’ve been no reason for me to take so long to let the barrier fall - he wasn’t looking at me. But I was just so goddamn embarrassed.

This wasn’t me, and even he knew that.

“You can turn around now,” I mumbled quietly once my safety net of a bedsheet had abandoned me. My arms were crossed over my chest and my thighs were pressed so tightly against each other as if to limit the surface area that Spencer could scrutinize.

That never came.

He did look, I could tell that much. But it wasn’t a look I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t rage or annoyance or pity. It was a look of lust.

A look that made me positively weak in the knees. A look far more sensual than even my racy garments.

“I’ll just sleep in Morgan’s room tonight, okay?” He offered once he finally broke out of his incapacitation. Grabbing the two opposite corners of the sheets that I was holding, it was a team effort as we arranged the covers where they belonged. It was probably the longest period of time we’d ever worked together without fighting or talking at all for that matter..

Not a single word was exchanged between us while Spencer gathered his things to leave for Derek’s. The room started to feel dangerously empty in the stillness.

When he slipped past me to make his way out, I caught his upper arm, successfully pulling him back around.

I could’ve been sweet, I should’ve. But that wasn’t our thing. So I settled for what came naturally to us and what would set off the least amount of red flags - I didn’t play nice. “As long as you promise not to hog the entire bed with your behemoth body, we can sleep together -” Catching the words as soon as they came out and what they could’ve implied, I began backtracking. “Sleep in the same bed. Sleep as in rest. Not sleep as in … anything else.”

Then, in one of those rare moments- he laughed. He actually laughed. Like a real, hearty, sudden laugh. “I know what you meant, (y/n).”

I’ll never forget the smile that followed the world’s greatest laugh either.

Oh, God, I’m so fucked up.

_ _ _

Spencer’s POV

Domesticated animals are smarter than we give them credit for. Studies have shown that pets can actually sense time; They know when it’s time for their owner to leave for the day and when they’ll be coming home, too.

Animals aren’t dumb - and neither was I.

Like a dog sniffing out their owner’s imminent absence in the home, I could tell (y/n) was leaving the hotel room for the night. If her current state wasn’t convincing enough, then her behavior throughout the entire day supported that theory just as well.

Whether it was her phone, the clock on the wall, or her watch, she was evidently keeping a close eye on the time. She did it so often, though, that you would think she would just use simple deductions to figure out what time it was by estimating the time it was when she last checked, but nope. She rarely let more than a minute go by without monitoring the clock.

My suspicions didn’t end there. What’s more suggestive was the anxious fidgeting. She had her tells of anxiety - everyone does - but this was a level of stress I’d never seen her exhibit before, not even in the field.

She kept cracking her knuckles, even when she’d exhausting all the popping noises she could from them. Her leg-bobbing was another big tell, too. I tend to sit on tables rather than in the chairs at said table, allowing me to feel the earthquake occurring on the precinct floor. Her leg was bouncing up and down so vigorously it was practically shaking the room.

I would’ve asked her what she was so impatient about, but I feared I already knew the answer.

Grant.

And if I never heard that name roll off her tongue again, it would be too soon.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t ask where she was going, though.

Pretending to read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I barely let my eyes venture far off the page when I loudly asked from the window seat, “So where are you going tonight, trouble?”

The faintest sound of a chuckle erupted in the bathroom, most likely from the nickname I hadn’t let die yet.

“Nunya,” was her ever-so mature answer.

I didn’t want to give her the chance to say ‘nunya business’ like I knew she would, so I quickly interjected with a monotone, “How clever of you.” If she wanted to be a child about this, then so be it.

“Let’s see. You brought your good heels out of your suitcase, which you only wear on special occasions. And you put on a different perfume than the one you usually use, so I’m assuming it’s new. ... If I didn’t know any better, trouble, I’d say you’re going on a date.”

She peeked her head out of the bathroom doorway to say, “You’re creepy, you know that?”

Seeing the small portion of her face that was embellished with a smile would’ve been enough if only I knew what dress she was hiding in behind that wall. I had yet to see that part of her ensemble, but if I had to guess, it would break my heart.

“Just saying,” I casually lied while clearing my throat.

“Well,” I heard her begin from within the bathroom. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Grant is meeting me tonight.”

Kill me now.

“I thought Grant lived in D.C.” Not that that would change much if he was already here.

“Yes, he does, but he’s driving all the way here to meet me. Seeee,” She drew out the word. “Would a serial killer do that?”

I refrained from giving the obvious answer: Yes.

“Well, I hope you don’t plan on bringing him back here. Otherwise, that’d be terribly awkward, don’t you think?” My allusion to the possibility that Grant would come back here to find me in her bed was borne from the intentions that were a complete contradiction to the words I’d just spoken. It, in fact, wouldn’t be terribly awkward. No, it would be fun. For me at least.

I would have loved to have seen the look on his face, and the worry on hers as she tried to explain who I was and why I had any right to be in (y/n)’s gravity.

The room went silent again while I stayed on the same page of my book and, unbeknownst to her, waited for her to enter the room. How long she was taking was starting to worry me, though.

“Need any help in there?” I called out.

“Nope,” She said through a strained voice that proved she was indeed struggling with something.

“Really?” I asked once more to give her another opportunity to lower her colossal pride. “Cause it sounds like you need help.”

“Nope. I’m good.” Liar.

I knew her too well. I counted down to the exact second when she finally scrambled to ask, “Can you help me zip up my dress?”

“Yyyup.” I’d already resigned to the fact that I would have to help her, bouncing happily off the bed when she finally admitted it and letting myself lose the page I was on as I tossed the book haphazardly behind me.

I was forced to join her in the bathroom for it was already hard for her to humble herself enough to ask me for help, so she certainly couldn’t be expected to lower her pride again and walk out to a place more convenient for me.

The first thing I noticed was that it was a space clearly not made for two. It was so cramped that I ended up right against her in order to fit. The second thing I noticed was how she made no movements to distance herself. She was so close to me that I could actually see the little hairs on the back of her neck standing up from where my breath ghosted on the area. The sterile smell of hotel bathrooms had been replaced by the flowery, aromatic scent of her new perfume, and my heart broke all over again.

Using the back of my fingers, I cast a barely-there caress on her neck to stroke her hair out of the way to clear the path of the zipper. The little hairs on the back of her neck stood up again.

She liked that.

“So do I get to know where you’re going?” I reached for the zipper on the small of her back. “For safety purposes, of course.”

“Aww, you looking out for me, Dr. Reid?” She teased in a seductive tone while gathering her hair into a makeshift ponytail that for the shortest second recorded in time might’ve reminded me of a constantly recurring intrusive image.

“Always, trouble.”

The zipper fastened with absolutely no resistance all the way to the top. My eyes flashed to the mirror to catch her expression, which told me everything I needed to know.

What a pretty little liar. She didn’t actually need my help.

Comprehending that the realization dawned on me, she gave me what she knew would shut me up. “We’re going to The Rooftop at Lamont’s.”

How effortlessly she slipped past me without a thank you or a glance in my direction served as a rude awakening.

“Well, you should take an umbrella with you. It looks like there’s gonna be a storm tonight.” This was my small way of coming to terms with the reality of the situation.

“Eh,” She waved my suggestion off with a dismissive hand. “We’ll be fine. Oh, and don’t even think about stalking me!” She warned before exiting the room.

In the blink of an eye, she was gone - my peace of mind having left with her.

_ _ _

The amount of sleep you need varies for each person and is affected by several factors. However, for most adults, 7–9 hours per night is the ideal amount. And I was slowly reducing that optimal quantity, hour by hour, until there was none left.

I would continue to sacrifice my sleep so long as I was awake for her return. If she’d asked why I was still up, I would lie. Though I wouldn’t look half so pretty as she did when she lied.

Losing rest seemed like such a small price to pay to make sure I was fully alert in the event that an emergency happened, even if I would suffer the consequences in the morning. But hey - that’s what caffeine is for, isn’t it? To re-energize oneself after staying up to guarantee one’s enemy’s safety.

Yeah, I’m sure that’s exactly why Kaldi invented coffee in 750 A.D.

Besides the thunderstorm, my mind also made great company for situations like these. Granted, the visions it would project kept me up for a reason - they were all so awful.

There was simply no projected reality where things would turn out alright.

If she had the time of her life on her date, she would come back to throw it in my face that I’d been wrong, and her admiration for Grant would have deepened.

Or if he stood her up, she’d be devastated, but instead of letting me console her, she’d push me away as easily as she always did.

In a more neutral instance, perhaps she would admit it wasn’t as great meeting him as she thought it would be and the relationship would fade out for innocent reasons. Even if that seemed like the most favorable circumstance, she would eventually grow to resent me for planting the seed of doubt in her head in the first place.

But nothing- nothing I could have imagined would be as treacherous as what actually happened.

At exactly 1:09 a.m, my phone started to ring. I can’t explain to you what it was, but I just knew - it was her calling, and it wasn’t even her number.

“(Y/n)? Is everything okay?”

If she said something beforehand, I couldn’t hear her because the storm was too loud and her voice was too quiet. “Did I wake you up?”

I reassured her with a tone I didn’t even recognize. “No, no. I was awake. Why? What’s up?” The line went quiet again, forcing me to prompt her to speak in order to find out if she was still there on the call. “(Y/n)?”

“Spencer ...” She choked out a hoarse sob. “I need you. I need you to come get me, please.”

My eyes clenched shut at the dreadful sound of her sorrow, and I jolted into action. After scrambling to gather the keys to her car that she’d left behind, I fled the room faster than ever before.

“I’m on my way, (y/n). Stay right there. You’re at The Rooftop at Lamont’s right?”

The poor thing took the longest pause in history, either from shame or disorientation. “He threw me in the back of his car and drove me all the way to D.C. I …” Her breath caught on her dry throat again. “I, um, I managed to escape and now I’ve barricaded myself in a payphone booth. I haven’t called the police yet. You were the first person I thought to call. I just, I just needed to hear your voice.”

My knuckles turned an unfamiliar shade of white when I gripped the steering wheel, picturing her caged up in a rectangular box, dialing my number instead of 911 just so she could hear my voice.

“Everything is gonna be okay. I promise you. My ETA is 1:28. That’s in 19 minutes. Are you okay being there for that long or do you want to find somewhere safer?”

I could no longer distinguish the difference between talking to her right now and talking to a victim in distress. I was speaking with the same tone and inflection but feeling a sharp pain in my chest that wasn’t there before.

“I can stay here. Just ... don’t hang up, okay?” The fact that the possibility of me abandoning her over the phone even crossed her mind was more than enough to get me to drive well over the speed limit.

The list of traffic infractions only grew from there because honestly? Screw my safety or anyone else’s. Her’s was the only one that mattered. She was the priority.

She was my priority.

Throughout the entire call, I kept repeating, “You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.” Frankly, it was something we both needed to hear.

It was both the fastest and slowest 19 minutes of my life. Time no longer felt real when I finally found the payphone booth that boxed in my troublesome girl. No sooner did I drive up to the sidewalk than I ran out of the car to sprint the short distance to free her from her coop.

“(Y/n)!” I shouted, swinging the door open and throwing caution to the wind in the process. Immediately, she dropped the phone, not even bothering to replace it onto its receiver.

The pouring rain had stripped her of her dignity. Mascara ran down her face in pigmented streams of black. Her curled hair was dampened into strings. But worse of all, it hadn’t washed away the darkening bruises on her skin.

“Oh my god, Spencer!” She cried as she ran into my open arms.

Her body collided with mine in such a gentle manner that I had to wonder how that was possible at all or if it was a figment of my imagination. Was our collision actually that gentle or did it seem that way because of how good it felt to have her arms and legs latch around my entire torso, crossing and connecting somewhere in between?

With one arm under her thighs to hold her up, I pulled her impossibly closer to me by cradling the back of her head with the other hand.

Her small hands found their way into my hair, a new sensation I tried not to indulge in so as not to let my attention stray away from the little life I was holding in my arms.

She was so cold.

Shivering from my warm embrace, her teeth chattered as she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Spencer. You were right I should’ve listened -”

“Shh, it’s okay, (y/n),” I said with the hopes that I could make the pounding heart that was thumping against my shoulder settle down until it reached her standard heart rate of 67 beats per minute.

After a second of just holding her wordlessly, she spoke again.

“I don’t wanna fight.” She surrendered so easily to me that I could hardly believe this was her at all.

“I don’t wanna fight with you either.”

That was entirely true. Fighting with her was the last thing on my mind. The first was getting her into my car.

It was easier that I imagined it would be, but then again, it’s easy to do things when you’re motivated in this way.

Before I loosened my hold on her to shut the passenger door, she squeezed me a little tighter, as if to be absolutely certain this was real and not some cruel dream.

“Thank you,” She hummed into the crook of my neck. From where her shoulder was digging into my throat, I couldn’t exactly respond verbally, so I settled for rubbing my hand up and down her back comfortingly.

“Let’s take you home,” I basically said to myself seeing as it was too quiet to be discernible.

“No,” She shook her head rapidly. “Take me to your apartment.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to go back to the hotel right now. I need to be somewhere I feel safe.”

My apartment is closer than the hotel, I reasoned, pretending it was the logic of it that made my heart swell and not the statement I would fixate on for the entire duration of the ride there.

I need to be somewhere I feel safe.

And that’s wherever I’m with you.

_ _ _

Reader’s POV

Porcelain wall tiles gleamed back at me, mocking my wretched misery. They were much prettier than me, but then again, anything else would be prettier than me right about now.

I certainly wasn’t the belle of the ball in my bare naked state. The fact that I was sitting in a pool of my own washed off dried blood didn’t help either.

I would’ve looked away from the bright white walls, but where else were I to look? Into the pair of eyes that I was deliberately avoiding? The ones that were staring a hole through me right now? No. I couldn’t bear to meet those eyes. So I kept looking forward at the mean walls - those mean, mocking walls.

“Is the water warm enough?” He asked, dipping a finger into the bathwater to test it himself.

I watched as his hand snuck into the tub and swirled around some water, causing soap bubbles to revitalize.

For a reason I didn’t know nor could remember at this given moment, Spencer drove me to his apartment. That memory of why I was here was fuzzy, but the rest following my arrival was more vivid. Perhaps because it was all unfolding right now.

“I think I should go,” I murmured. The bathwater had gone cold, and the silence was too deafening. If I didn’t leave now, then I would be trapped forever.

I leaned forward with my knees still pressed to my chest to protect my modesty while I tugged on the silver drain plug of the tub to release the suction.

“You can’t go home. You’ll be alone again, and who will be there to help you that time?”

“I don’t need anybody’s help.” I responded curtly.

“Then why did you call me tonight?”

“Why did you answer?”

He was stunned by how I didn’t miss a beat with my question, stunned enough to purse his lips in contempt. “Should I have declined your call then? Said ‘no’ instead and let you fend for yourself? You know what - my bad, (y/n). I sincerely apologize that I care about you.”

I scoffed at his factiousness. “No, what you should’ve done is whatever the hell you wanted to do. But clearly, since you said ‘yes’ and came to my rescue like I’m some victim in a case - you wanted to be there. I could chalk that up to you having a hero complex, but I think it’s time for you to admit you just wanted to see me at my worst so you could throw it in my face like you’re doing right now.”

He clenched his jaw in fury, muttering under his breath, “I should’ve left you in that booth.”

This crossed a line, but I was just as ready to cross it, too.

“But I bet you liked saving me. Seeing me as a damsel in distress that you could white knight. You like that, Spence? Does my weakness settle your deep rooted fear of inadequacy in strength?”

Shouldn’t have done that.

For a second there, I was sincerely scared of the response I might’ve just elicited, so I shot up from the tub and grabbed the towel on the rack, quickly wrapping myself in it and avoiding Spencer’s gaze the entire way out of the bathroom.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Judging from the loudness of his voice, he was right on my heels, following me close behind.

“You’re smart. Figure it out.”

“God, why do you have to be such a pain in the ass? I don’t want to leave you like this.” It never failed to amaze me how he could both show disdain and concern for me in the matter of a sentence.

“Well, you’re not leaving me like this - I’m leaving you like this.” My clever remark angered him more.

Seemingly from out of nowhere, Spencer called out from the end of his hallway, “What are you so scared of?”

Reaching the end of my rapidly fraying rope, I spun around to throw my arms out to my side in just the same defensive manner as he did. “Nothing! Maybe I just don’t wanna be stuck in the apartment of the man who hates me! Can you blame me?”

He ran a hasty hand through his hair, pulling at the strands out of pure irritation. “Why do you keep saying I hate you? How can any of what I’ve done for you tonight suggest that?”

He’d chosen his words carefully and for that, he was smart. His inclusivity of the word ‘tonight’ meant I could only reference his actions from the past few hours, which wouldn’t help my case, as opposed to the months and months that he’d given me the cold shoulder, which would have helped my case. But again, he was smart - he had me in a deadlock. I couldn’t accept defeat, but what could I possibly argue against his point?

My body literally shook from the power of the deep groan that tore through my chest. “God, what do you want from me, Spencer?” I wanted nothing more than to be far, far away from him, but my body was resisting all those urges. Lunging forward, I pointed the sternest index finger at him, staring the most unforgiving glare into his soul. “Tell me - tell me what you want! Because when I was nice to you, you-you treated me like shit. And then when I stopped being nice to you, you still treated me like shit. So what -” I had to laugh to alleviate the sheer rage I was feeling. “What the fuck do you want from me? Because it’s like no matter what I do, it’s just not good enough for you!”

His eyebrows had furrowed and his eyes softened. He didn’t look angry whatsoever. No, he looked hurt.

“Not good enough for me?” He leaned down to my level to look right into my eyes. “You are everything … everything to me.”

With one last breath, I cried out in anguish, “Then why? Why do you hate me so much?”

He gulped back the lump in his throat - the last barrier that kept him from telling the truth.

“I ... I never hated you. I just need to be in control of my thoughts and feelings at all times, otherwise, I feel-I feel like I’m going crazy. Like I’m on the verge of a psychotic break that I’m genetically predisposed to have. But when you came around - I lost all my control. You were inhabiting my dreams, you were stealing my sleep, occupying more and more space in my brain until there was no more room left to take. God, I think about you all the time, and I literally cannot physically stop it. I have no control anymore,” and somehow him saying that sounded something like an ‘I love you.’

“The only thing I could control was how I treated you. I thought being awful to you would get you to despise me enough to make me despise you, too, and while it was easier to be angry at you, it was so much worse having you hate me.”

“I never hated you, Spencer.” Never.

“You should have,” He rasped. “I know I don’t deserve you, but I wish to spend every day proving that I want you. Oh, I want you so bad,” He sharply inhaled through gritted teeth, and I unconsciously laughed in return. His pain wasn’t funny in the least. What was amusing was knowing that he had the same excruciating longing for me that I had for him.

“I don’t want control anymore if it means I can’t have you.”

He leaned in so carefully that I almost didn't register the movement at all. Our hearts were pounding to the same synchronized beat. We were the shore and the tide one in the same. Our breaths would draw in and out, in and out, as he held my face so gently. We were still the shore and the tide, but more than anything we were drowning in the ocean of ourselves. The rising waters of his admiration threatened to flood every empty nook and cranny of the room until it swallowed me whole. All I could feel was him, everywhere, filling absolutely everything.

“Wow ... I finally got you speechless,” The cocky bastard hummed happily, letting his words vibrate on the smallest part of my lip.

“Oh, shut up,” I declared through a smirk I needed to fight off before finally closing that nearly imperceptible gap between us.

All the forces in the world couldn’t tear us apart after we connected. They were no match for the force Spencer’s hands had as they pulled me impossibly closer. The pressure might’ve even been unbearable had it not been for the velvety pair of lips giving me back all the oxygen it stole from my lungs just seconds ago. They were so soft, like freshly washed sheets, like biting into cotton candy, like floating for the first time, feeling utterly weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’s so effortlessly sweet.

Not nearly as sweet as the words that followed our parting.

“Not enough for me?” He repeated, recalling my previous claim. “You’ve had me since the day you walked in, trouble.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

fingers crossed this fic doesn’t flop!

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#spencer reid #Spencer Reid fic #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid kiss #fighting fire with fire #juniorgman187 #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction

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clarawatson · 3 years

Text

It Only Takes A Taste (3)

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x [Fem]!Reader (GN pronouns, fem coded stuff, but I’m not sure where this is going as a larger work so we’ll say Fem!reader to be safe) Summary: Jack comes for dinner, I guess. W/C: 2345 Warnings: none yet! A/N: this one got a little long, oopsies. AO3 Where am I in this series? 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 |

The bed had been so warm and comfortable you hadn't wanted to get out, but the thought of seeing Aaron again made your heart grow three sizes. You'd been texting back and forth for the last couple of days, just small awkward stuff. He likes to text emojis. He's precious. Of course he's precious.

He comes in as you're serving your first customer of the night—a sobbing thirty-year-old man who can't even order his pie without spluttering in tears. Is it favouritism to get excited by Aaron turning up? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

"Hello," you smile. There's a hundred things you could have called him, but he's too cute and your brain doesn't want to work.

"Hi," he grins back. "Can I have a coffee, please. Here."

"Yes you can." Aaron splits his bill between the counter and the tip jar. "How was your day, Aaron?"

"Boring paperwork. Couldn't concentrate."

Concern furrows your eyebrow. "Is something wrong?"

"Huh? No! I kept thinking about seeing you." There's that sunshine smile again. You might even match it yourself. He points to the cake that's still in the display tin. He's in earlier in the night than usual, so there's a lot more range to choose from. "Is that carrot cake?"

"Sure is. Do you want some?"

"Please."

You serve him a slice and let the coffee machine splutter and fight with you. He stabs his cake with his fork and looks like he has an out of body experience the moment the cream cheese icing hits his tongue. That's a face you want to see again under different circumstances.

"Joe?"

"Me! And Joe's recipe. I sort of mixed it together and prayed."

"Then mark me a religious man." Aaron smiles. You can't held but smile back at him.

"It's a bit early for you to be in," you say. It's not an issue, just means you got the earlier shift. Finishing at 1am instead of 7am. Plus, Aaron looks nice in the daytime. Very nice. The afternoon light suits him.

"Didn't have a case," he shrugs.

You've googled him since getting his business card. “Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotchner, Section Chief of the BAU”. The fuck did that even mean? BAU was the Behavioural Analysis Unit, which was still mainly a mystery, but you think it’s maybe just an over-glorified way of saying ‘they look inside people’s heads and hope for the best’. He’s got a handful of news reports that you’ve practically memorised.

Okay, that’s a little obsessive. Don’t admit that to him.

He wasn’t the ‘untouched by darkness’ that you’d thought of him before, his work face held all the darkness his smile did not. You hoped you never had to see the serious man who stood before the cameras.

“How’s Rita?” Aaron asks. He’s cut the top off his carrot cake, saving it for later. He looks at it longingly every now and then, then he scoops just a little bit of the cream cheese and lets it rest on his tongue.

“She’s good. Restless. She’s happy for the due date to arrive.” She’d also asked you to be the baby’s godparent. Rather forcefully, actually, it had felt a bit strange. That was the only reason you hadn’t jumped at the opportunity. You’d do anything for Rita, but saying yes in that instant would had felt strange. Almost… wrong, maybe.

Aaron knows you’re thinking about it. He puts his fork down and shifts in his chair, waiting for you to continue. He doesn’t fill the silence between the two of you. You think about telling him, but then Lola’s bustling through the door and grabbing her apron.

“Hot stuff, when can I go for a smoke break?” is the first thing Lola says to you. She pulls chewing gum out of her mouth (yes, pulls. She sticks her fingers in her mouth and pulls it out as far as it will go without snapping) and Aaron moves his cake around his plate a bit. Does he not like it? Don’t be silly, he asked for it. Requested it. Whatever. You put his three cookies into a plastic bag and slide it across the counter to him.

“Lola you only just came in.”

“But I want to know,” she whines like she’s a teenager with an after school job, not a thirty-five-year-old woman who works at the diner full time. “Hey, Rita’s been acting weird, right? Is that a pregnancy thing, or?” Lola rubbed her nose on the back of her wrist and sniffs. An action you’re all too familiar with by now, and of course she was doing illegal substances in the bathroom before she started her shift when there’s a legitimate federal agent in the diner.

“Oh,” Lola says as she looks at Aaron. She looks at you, raises her eyebrows, and nods like she’s impressed. “I take back telling Rita she was a liar." Even without knowing the context of Rita and Lola's conversation, you know Rita had told Lola how pretty/handsome/gorgeous Aaron is. "I’m going to go clean some tables.”

She grabs the cleaning supplies and heads out into the dining area. The door swings open, banging against one of the booths, and you’re immensely glad Lola doesn’t scream 'watch it’ at them. A curly haired blonde woman (gorgeous, mind you) touches Aaron’s shoulder and he sits up straight, smiling, and your heart plummets a little bit. Just the tiniest amount.

“Jack insisted we switch over here before I go to parent/teacher interviews.” As if on queue, a well mannered, sandy-haired boy sits next to Aaron and grins too much like Aaron. Aaron’s son. You can put two and two together. Profiler or not.

“How was school?” Aaron asks. Jack shrugs.

“It was school.” He learnt that from his dad, there’s no question.

“Well, in that case. Jack, this is my friend Y/n. Y/n, this is Jack.” Jack extends a hand to shake in greeting and looks really shy about it. You shake it quickly so he doesn’t feel like a kid who’s been roped into doing adult things. There’s a pile of colouring-in pages Joe’s printed off at the local library beneath a cup of crayons that Jack’s eyeing off.

You grab a sheet and a crayon, raising an eyebrow in invitation as you turn around to Jack.

“Yes please,” he says, grin growing across his face. “Thank-you.”

“You’re welcome. Wonderful manners.” Jack grins even bigger and you think he, too, might combust just like his dad. Stardust! That’s the movie you were thinking of. When Yvaine sees Tristan she shines, literally, the star inside of her just can’t be contained. That’s Aaron and Jack, and the way they look when they smile.

Aaron’s sister-in-law looks at you with a cocked head, like a curious cat. Like she’s waiting to pounce. But… curiously pounce. Like she's sussing you out. She extends a hand in greeting.

“Jess. Aaron’s talked about you.”

There’s no response but to look sheepish. This seems to greatly please Jess, who smiles softly and rubs the back of Aaron’s head affectionately. They have a long history together, it’s too familial to be just a relationship born through marriage.

“I’ll see you later then, Rockstar,” Jess says.

“Bye,” Aaron and Jack say together. Aaron rests his cheek on his hand, watching you as Lola hands you three orders she’s taken while you’ve been talking to Aaron. Jack leans over and whispers to Aaron about his homework (it’s a whisper that belongs on a stage) as you wrestle with the coffee machine.

It’s been grinding it’s way down to not working for a while now. Ever since you met Aaron, actually. Joe’s said he’s going to fix it, or get a new one, but everyone’s in a state of non-commital until Rita has her baby.You’ve got no idea why, it’s just the way things are. Good luck, maybe? Or luck in general?

Somehow you get Aaron talking about Shakespeare. It might have been Jack’s doing, to be completely honest, but one moment you’re trying to make the froth… well, froth… and the next you're listening to Aaron talk animatedly about Othello. Jack's young enough to not think his Dad's passion is embarrassing.

"Have you watched Othello?" Jack asks, a question that Aaron's neglected to ask you. "I'm not old enough to yet."

"I haven't seen that one yet, but I've seen Much Ado About Nothing."

"Is that the one with the olive gardens?" Jack asks. Aaron frowns, eyes searching for the answer in that big beautiful minds tonight.

"Yes," he says finally. "That was the one with the olive trees."

Jack giggles. "There was kissing in that movie."

"Lots of it," Aaron agrees. You're not sure you're talking about the same film, but it's cute to see the two of them interact.

"With the guy who plays Lockhart in the second Harry Potter movie?" You ask. Jack laughs just like his father. It's all light and mirth. He nods in confirmation.

"His name is Kenneth," Jack says like he's familiar with him. When Aaron smiles, you know Jack's his whole world.

It’s not long before Aaron realised he’d brought Jack in without asking if he wanted anything. The afternoon rush had died down, leaving you in the space between out-of-work and dinner. You make the most chocolate-y hot chocolate you can for Jack when Aaron says he can have one. Well, Jack says the best bit is the froth, so it’s more child-size-hot-chocolate-in-an-adult-mug-full-of-froth. Jack loves it. He slurps at the chocolate, which leaves a giant frothy mustache over his top lip that won’t go away no matter how much he licks at it.

When he’s done you let him come around to the kitchen to wash his face, because no amount of wet napkins is going to fix that mess. Jack can’t reach the sink, so you fashion a step out of old milk and bread crates. Joe gives him cake batter to taste before realising that he actually has no idea who Jack is. Aaron watches from the kitchen door with a smile on his face. You don’t catch it until Jack jumps off the crates and takes your hand, leading you back out. Aaron’s fingers brush your hand as you pass him. Electricity sparks between the two of you that's completely unavoidable. The two of you recoil involuntarily.

Aaron gives you a small smile of apology. You give exactly the same one back. Lola legitimately gasps like she too felt the electricity between the two of you. Surely that was just something that happened in movies? Or in books? That’s not a real thing, right? But Aaron brushes past you again, as if he’s making sure as well, and it’s there again. Only it’s like your whole arm becomes pins and needles, not just a quick lightning spark.

If it’s like that every time you’re with him, your not sure you could even go beyond lusting after him and giving him coffee and meals every now and then. Aaron drops his gaze, then follows Jack to the front of the counter.

They stay for dinner (because Jack insists, he wants the nachos) but the rush comes early and there’s really not much time to talk to them, so you almost miss them leaving. Almost. You’re serving the angry couple at table three (are they angry at you, or each other? Who knows, you don’t, but they’re taking it out on you) when Jack taps your hip.

He’s very patient as you finish the order (somehow you figure out what they want between the curse words) and bend down to him. He hands you a folded piece of paper.

“This is for you,” he says. “I did it.” You’re about to unfold it, but he insists that it belongs in your apron pocket until you can look at it with no rush. That’s a kid who knows what it’s like to have a very busy parent. So you tuck it away safely and mess with his hair, which makes him grin from ear to ear.

“See you later!” Jack yells as he runs to Aaron, who’s waving goodbye with a doggy bag full of Jack’s unfinished dinner.and his keys between his fingers.

“I’ll see you later,” he mouths as the noise in the diner starts to rise. Without thinking you blow him a kiss, which he catches effortlessly and kisses the fist closed around it before slipping out.

When you get to the kitchen Lola’s already in the midst of teasing you.

“You like him,” she says with all the confidence in the world. There’s not point denying her, so you just nod. It’s met by a chorus of ‘ooo’s which, to be honest, you really didn’t need. It made the diner feel far too small.

When everything dies down you remember the paper Jack had given you. You wipe the milk and spaghetti sauce off the counter, then make sure it’s dry, and unfold Jack’s page. It’s the generic colouring page Joe’s printed out, but Jack’s tried to make the generic waitress look like you. Well, you if you had purple hair and green skin. It’s a start, you guess, there’s an apology from Aaron on the back. Makes it worth it.

You move a couple of postcards on the corkboard aside and put Jack’s picture there instead. Joe pretends not to notice, but when Lola goes out the back with one of her customers, Joe comes round the front and presses a finger to the page.

“Good kid,” Joe says. He nods a couple of times then turns to you. “You know he and his dad come as a package, right? You fuck up one, you fuck up both.” Joe’s first wife had three kids that weren’t biologically his. He’s still mad at himself for not taking the kids seriously and only turning up for their mom.

“I know,” you say.

Joe strokes your cheek as he passes and kisses your forehead. It’s all the praise you need.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

taglist (if you want to get added, just inbox me, and if I’ve missed you I am so sorry): @willowrose99 @genevievedarcygranger @maryosprinkle @kleff03 @yoshigguk @samanthareid06 @typical-leo @leilanixx

#It Only Takes a Taste #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotch x reader #Diner!AU

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bukojuiice · 3 years

Text

baby it’s cold outside. katsuki bakugo x reader) christmas headcanons🎄

ೃ pairing: (katsuki bakugo x reader)

ೃ requested by @swankiifiied: “hi! could i get some holiday fluff hcs w/ bakugo please?” (your wish is my command! :D hope you enjoy bub!)

ೃ warnings: cursing (courtesy of Bakugo)

ೃ genre: fluff overload!!! ♡

ೃ my ongoing bakugo x reader smau (please do give it a read if you have time!) my writing masterlist (if you want to see more from me! c:

)ೃ i know i’m a day late for christmas and i’m really sorry aaa hope you guys still enjoy nonetheless ♡ tysm for 500 followers!!! it really means a lot to me and i can never thank any one enough for all the support and love.

ೃ song inspo: baby it’s cold outside (cover by Jamie and Gaho)

✧ MATCHING CHRISTMAS SWEATERSSSS!!! You would be probing and forcing Bakugo to wear this cute couple sweater set you saw in the Mall for you guys to wear for Christmas Dinner with your family. However, Katsuki will 100% disagree with your idea before you can even finish your sentence.

"No way in hell am I wearing some shitty and itchy fleece sweater with you."

“SUKI-KUN PLEASE I BEG YOUUU DO IT FOR THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT.”

You eventually got your way though. But, instead, you had to make a deal with your explosive boyfriend that he would be the one to choose the designs imprinted on your sweaters.

Although it was a "risky deal" at least you still get to be cute and lovey dovey with him.

He ended up choosing some rather unique designs. His sweater was colored black with white skulls in Santa hats printed and plastered in every part of the garment. It was very Bakugo and it looked really really hot good on him.

Yours on the other hand, was the exact opposite of his (although the designs are a couple set) with it's lavender color, Rainbows and cute little white bunnies wearing Santa hats sprinkled everywhere... It was very girly and cutesy.

He's teasing you relentlessly because of how childish your sweater looks, and you snap back at him by saying that he was the one who chose this in the first place and you tease him back by saying "As long as I get to match my outfit with you I wouldn't want it any other way."

This catches him off guard as he blushes furiously from your quip.

It also didn’t help that Bakugo thought you looked really hot cute in your sweater too and how it complimented your figure. Making him even more tsundere than usual.

As soon as he arrives at your Christmas eve dinner, your younger cousins/siblings quickly crowded around him. Showering him with compliments, asking him to showcase his quirk, asking him if he could play with them, what training to become a pro hero is like, and what is life like studying in UA.

You try to tell your cousins/siblings to pipe down and give your boyfriend some space but they continue to circle around Katsuki. Pretending not to hear you.

There was no way out of this and at the same time, Katsuki wanted to impress your family in his own little way so he pompously asks the children to follow him out to the backyard.

You follow suit to see the mayhem and to see a heartwarming scene unfold. Not until your cool wine aunt pulls you over to tell you that you scored a good one and he looks like a keeper. You couldn’t help but smile as you quickly head out to the yard.

You continue to admire the scene of seeing Katsuki interact rather kindly and gently to your younger cousins/siblings. It was an unusual sight.

“Katsuki-nii-san!! Come back for New Year’s and use your quirk to light up our fireworks and new year crackers pretty please!!!”

Especially coming from Katsuki Bakugo. As he was very quick-tempered.

Your cheeky little cousin brought out a mistletoe from her bag and waved it in front of you and Katsuki. She couldn’t hold the mistletoe under the two of you because of how small she was, but she was still pushing the two of you to kiss at the presence of the small plant.

You and Katsuki catch each other’s gaze, and stop to look at each other for a moment waiting for one another to make a move. He looks away, his mouth forming into a pout, trying his best to avoid eye contact with you so it doesn’t look too obvious that he was blushing.

He certainly wasn’t going to make the first move so you approach him dutifully at the behest of the peering eyes of your younger cousins/siblings and tiptoe to peck him on the cheek.

The kids all simultaneously squealed in excitement. They jump for joy and began to sing in unison a song they made up on the spot:

“(Y/N)-nee-san and Bakugo-nii-san under a mistletoe! K.I.S.S.I.N.G.!!!”

Once all the splendor had died down, and all your relatives went home, Katsuki had decided to stay for the night with the permission of your parents as you would be visiting the Bakugo’s in the morning too and the two of you could just go together.

Your family goes up to their respective rooms to rest, leaving you and Bakugo downstairs in the kitchen to clean up a few other things. This was the perfect moment for the two of you to finally have quality time with each other specially after an entire night of socializing.

“Hey (Y/N)... Do you want some hot cocoa?” He says begrudgingly, scratching the back of his neck.

You were screaming internally. This is the first time he’s ever offered to cook/make something like this. (As the only time you’ve seen him cook up to this point was the curry incident during forest training camp.) “Yes please!!!”

You watch him make magic in your kitchen, as he carefully pours milk into both of your cups then proceeds to whisk cocoa powder and sugar, then finally, he heats both of the mugs up.

While he continues to create what looks like the tastiest hot chocolate you have ever seen, you suddenly remembered a joke that has been in your mind since the start of December.

“Katsuki-kun... I have a joke. A Christmas joke at that.”

“Don’t even fucking try.”

“Come onnnnn just hear me outttt.” You look at him with your most cutest puppy eyes and signature smile.

“Fine. Do your worst.”

“Okay so... what is the most attractive drink?”

“Forget what I said. Don’t you dare continue your shitty—”

“A hot chocolate.”

“(Y/N) that is the worst fucking joke I’ve ever heard in my entire life. If you think of one again, then your corny ass is never going to have a taste of this hot cocoa ever again.” He says seriously, piercing you with his death stare as he hands over the mug.

“Ahahahah fine. This will be the last time. I promise.” You laugh sheepishly, taking a sip of the hot cocoa and immediately feel a rush of sweetness and exquisite taste from just one sip alone. “Katsuki-kun! This tastes amazing!! This is the best hot chocolate I’ve had in my entire life.”

“Of course it’s going to taste good. I made it.” He ruffles your hair, his lips curving into a smile because of your reaction to his cooking.

You grab his hand and take him to the living room. The fireplace still lit up, with a classic Christmas movie (Love Actually) playing on the TV, and a comfy and soft blanket sprawled upon the couch. Perfect for the two of you to wrap around yourselves and a perfect chance to cuddle with him.

You sit down on the couch, then Katsuki sitting down beside you shortly after as he swaddles the blanket around the two of you.

You scoot closer to him to the point that you could feel each other’s body heat as the two of you began to snuggle.

It was rather an awkward position as Katsuki had no idea where to hold you and this was all pretty much still new for the both of you. You give him a comforting smile and a supportive nod.

You hear him grunt quietly as he props himself up from the couch. You adjust to his new position too and this time, you were lying on his chest. He wraps his arms around your shoulders, pulling you close. It was soft and warm. You could feel his strong trained muscles and a faint scent of his cologne.

“Thank you for tonight. For getting along with my family and for spending time with me like this. I really appreciate it.” You snuggle even closer to him, whispering softly.

“Yea yea.” He says in a slight tone of annoyance, trying to brush you off. “Anything for you. And besides, I enjoyed seeing your cousins/siblings stare in awe because of my quirk anyway.” He adds, this time in a sincere and affectionate tone as he plays with your hair again.

The two of you begin to drift off into sleep, the two of you bathed in each other’s warmth in a cold Christmas night and life has never been better.

- Fin.

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pamgkrthwrites · 3 years

Text

Flame of Healing | EraserMic x Reader | Chapter 6 - Please Love Me

Masterlist | AO3

Warnings: Angst, Hizashi Flirting, some sexual themes

Word Count: 2162

Taglist: @stargazingaloneatnight @rinzyx05

A/N: Sorry about the long wait, had exams. Also, I did not write half of this while watching the election results, no.

Shouta got into the couple’s car and started driving to their home. Hizashi was uncomfortably quiet as we waited for Shouta to finally speak. As they turned the street your apartment was on, Shouta began to talk.

“When I followed her into the building I saw her talking to Saito.” Souta began, Hizashi listening in carefully. “They started talking about her quirk and I noticed she grew upset. I thought this meant he was harassing her and so I pulled her away from him. She pulled away and ran off.”

“So you insulted rejects, yay.” Hizashi said sarcastically. “We are trying to make them trust us so I understand why you went to help her-”

“I called out to her as she ran off.” Shouta interrupted. “I was corrected by Saito. Her name isn’t M/N.”

Hizashi froze in his seat and snapped his head to face Shouta. Shouta kept his eyes on the road, however.

“He said her name was Y/N.”

The two grew silent.

“So. She lied. She doesn’t want us.”

“From what I got out of her she thought we were happy without her.”

“How would sh-” Hizashi snapped at Shouta only to be given a glare.

“I yelled at her for that. That’s why she was crying.”

Hizashi slumped in his seat and crossed his arms. The two stayed silent for a moment before Hizashi broke it.

“So, she doesn’t want us.”

Shouta sighed. “I asked her to give us a chance, and she hugged me.”

Hizashi’s snapped over with a smile.

“That’s good! Is that why we are going to visit her tomorrow?”

Shouta softly smiled at Hizashi’s mood switch. He was worried that his partner will fall into a depression about this again, Hizashi had the most hope out of the two of them.

During their friendship with Oboro, Oboro taught them many things about choosing your own path on soulmates but made it clear he wasn’t saying you should outright reject your soulmate. Like you got to choose your pace of the relationship and not just dive right in just because they are your soulmate.

It was as if he said it before and someone took it differently.

Shouta didn’t know back then but now he does, that person who mistook his words of choosing soulmates was you.

It was probably why on some days, the couple would find times Oboro looked off in deep thoughts drowned in sadness, or how when the three saw you walking home he would make sure the two could see her but never approach.

They knew something happened between you two but they never pushed it out of him. It also hurt them in a way. They thought you were - well, you - and were told you weren’t. They felt so close yet so far. Only for now for it to be revealed they were close this entire time.

“Yes,” Shouta answered. “When we arrive tomorrow we will talk to her about our soulmate bound. She goes to those reject meetings for a reason. All we can hope for is that she will give us a chance.”

---

You’re felt so heavy after crying and hugging Shouta last night. You didn’t even want to get up but you knew you had to, but they were coming over soon and so you had to get ready.

You pushed yourself out of bed and made your way to the kitchen to have a fast cup of water before heading into the shower to get ready. You were a mess but you were going to hide behind a face full of makeup and pretty smells to hid behind.

---

Shouta and Hizashi walked their way from the car park to your apartment door with a small paper bag that had 3 servings of breakfast muffins. The two really didn’t mean to, but they ended up dressing up.

Shouta had his hair tied back, wore black pants and a white button-down shirt. Hizashi had half of his hair in a messy bun and he wore black leather pants with a black v-neck long sleeve shirt.

Shouta knocked and pushed his hands into his pockets. Hizashi waited, swinging on his heels.

“I think we might have overdressed, Shouta,” Hizashi whispered. “it’s only breakfast and we look like we are taking her out for dinner.”

“If we are lucky we will be spending our whole day with her.” Shouta mumbled, a blush starting to form on his cheeks at the idea of you wanting to spend more time with them.

The idea excited Hizashi as well. He had been dying to spend time with you ever since he met you that day in high school. Yeah sure, you were almost kissing Oboro, but he wasn’t angry about it, not anymore anyway.

Shouta was about to grow impatient until he doorknob jiggled.

The two froze and watched as you opened the door.

You peaked out to see who it was, being relieved it was the two. You were surprised about their clothing choice as it was July, one of Japan’s hottest months. You wore a white sundress that had your favourite flowers printed onto it. You also had a light cardigan on just for if the cooler in your apartment got too much.

“Isn’t hot?” You asked the two.

The two stared at you before beginning to blush of embarrassment. They were going to regret their choice of clothing later into the day.

“We brought breakfast!” Hizashi smiled as he stepped closer to you.

You opened the door wide so they could enter. You saw how Hizashi practically ran in, a bounce being in his steps. Shota followed eyeing what you were wearing.

You closed the door behind them and took in a breath. You’ve never been this close to them before and in such a comfortable manner. They were both really eager to have the relationship between you three work. You could tell they would have done anything for you just to like them.

You made your way to the kitchen and the two followed you, like dogs to their owner.

“You two want coffee or tea?” You asked awkwardly.

“Straight black for me,” Shouta answer before looking up at Hizashi for a fast second then back to you. “Please.”

You felt your heart sting.

They may be trying to put in the effect for you, but the love they clearly have each other will always be there.

You weren’t needed.

Why should you be selfish and want their love for yourself?

You turned around to get Shouta’s coffee, the two noticed how you looked tensed and their glance at each other.

Hizashi mentally kicked himself. Shouta said you felt as if you were not needed or wanted in this relationship. Hizashi wanted to prove that was not the case to you.

“What will you have, little Princess?” Hizashi smiled as he leaned onto his hand.

Shouta stiffened from the nickname and you snapped your head around.

“Uh, w-what?” You asked as your cheeks burned.

You were kinda ashamed at how you were responding to the nickname. Your body buzzed happily at it, wanting him to call you that again.

“I will have whatever you’re having darling.” He smiled, looking into your eyes deeply as he tried to memorize all the colors.

You blushed at the nicknames he was giving you. Weren’t sort of names you give to your partner? Shouta doesn’t seem that fazed by it.

Did… Did this mean he already saw you as part of the relationship?

No, that can’t be it. They were just playing nice for you. That had to be it.

“I’m having a hot chocolate.” You finally answer him.

Hizashi’s smile widens from your response.

“Good choice sweetcheeks. Again, I’ll have what you’re having.” He winks at you with his tongue pointing out.

You couldn’t stop or hide the blush burning into your cheeks. Shouta smirked at the reaction, finding it very cute. You pulled your head around, forcing your head around to let yourself cool down.

Shouta looked over at Hizashi and saw an evil smirk on his lips. Shouta followed his eyes and noticed how Hizashi was eyeing your skirt. Shouta side-eyed Hizashi and coughed.

“Your dress looks really nice on you, Y/N.” Shouta said as he rubbed the back of his head. Maybe he wasn’t as open with his flirting like Hizashi, but he still wanted to let you know it wasn’t one-sided flirting that only Hizashi delivered.

“Um, thank you.” You said as your cheeks burnt. You got the kettle and brought it to the tap so you could start pooring water into it.

Than Hizashi had to speak.

“I agree. It really shows off your cute butt!” He smilled.

Your body froze. You felt the harsh blush on your cheeks grow to your ears and heat grow between your legs. You took in a breath and let your body relax before responding.

Hizashi and Shouta watched you. Hizashi waiting to see what you would reply with, and Shouta hoping you won’t reply negatively. He knew Hizashi was going to fast and needed to slow down. When he saw how you were trying to relax, he decided to take control of the conversation.

“We should be talking about why we are here, Hizashi.” Shouta side-eyed his partner.

Both you and Hizashi stiffened. Hizashi because Shouta had changed the topic but also for reminding him of why there were there. You for that same reason, because the following conversation was going to really put you in your place.

You brought the kettle out of the sink and put it on, turning off the tap. You started getting the cups ready for the hot drinks, waiting for Shouta to start the conversation.

Picking up on your social cue to him, Shouta began the conversation.

“Why dod you lie about your name and not having soulmates?”

You turned around after putting in mugs with milk into the microwave. You crossed your arms so they would not pick up how nervous you were.

“When I was younger I had many issues with people around me judging me. When I was 10 I made the decision to hide thee names to protect myself. I moved away from the town and moved here. Because of my quirk, I then got used to people using me for my quirk and so I never really had a true friend until I met Oboro.”

“Oboro talked about his views on soulmates.” Shouta sat back in his chair as he mentally brought puzzle pieces together. “With you using to hiding our names and with Oboro’s ideals, you thought you weren’t needed?”

“Oboro’s ideals worked for him because he didn’t have a soulmate.” Hizashi comment. You noticed he wasn’t in the playful mood he was in a minute ago, but now mirroring Shouta. Either from their UA training or the amount of time, they had together. “He gave you his ideals because he thought you were like him.”

“That is true…” You tried to avoid their gaze. “I guess I got attached to the idea that I got to choose that I didn’t really think the ideals wouldn’t work for me.”

“Why did you give me a fake name those years ago?” Hizashi asked, with a hint of sadness behind it.

You bit your inner lip from the pain in his voice. You made him sad, did you even deserve their forgiveness?

“I actually found out about you two before the sports festival. Oboro came running into my room and told me about my name on Shouta’s wrist and realised it was me. I don’t know how, my names were always covered. Maybe he saw it one time he came over after school. When he told me he really pushed me to meet you two and I grew scared. When you walked in on us Hizashi I panicked and just gave you my middle name. I just continued the lie. And when Oboro and I stopped being friends… I didn’t think I would see you guys again.”

The room grew quiet as Shouta brought all the information together.

“You have made mistakes, but I know for Hizashi and I, we want to have a relationship with you. We can take this relationship slowly if that’s what you want, just at least give us a chance, please.”

Your heart warmed at his words. Even though you had your doubts, you knew in your heart you wanted to try as well.

“Please, Y/N.” Hizashi’s eyes begged. “Please let us love you.”

You were quite. You knew your answer. You wanted to love them, so, so much.

But would it be best for you?

The microwave and kettle went off at the same time,

“Alright, we will take this slow for now.” You said, opening up the doors you locked a long time ago, thinking they would never be open. The doors to let your soulmates love you.

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markftmingi · 4 years

Text

sit down! - part two

summary: the king of south korea hires you personally to become the prince’s personal bodyguard after he receives death threats but still continues to life his life dangerously

pairing: prince!badboy!jaehyun x bodyguard!badass!reader

warning(s): this bad boy got some violence so uh yeah spoiler alert: you get jumped saving jaehyun’s ass. so tw// mugging(?) but johnny saves u.

sit down! masterlist

after only working at the seoul palace for a week, you could admit this was a tough job. most of jobs you had consisted of you tracking someone down and taking them out. you never had to watch over a prince and protect him, especially a stubborn prince who kept trying to sneak out every chance he got. even though the interior was new and modern, the seoul palace was still hundreds of years old. the doors still squeaked and certain floorboards creaked just like they creaked under jaehyun’s feet just now.

“where you going, pretty boy?” you called out, scaring him.

“jesus, siren, you nearly gave me a heart attack... i was just going for a brisk walk.”

you scoffed, “yeah? a brisk walk in that outfit?”

jaehyun was black suit with pretty gold flowers printed all over it. he didn’t have a shirt under his blazer so his toned chest was on full display. (you know his suit in kick it? yeah.)

“okay fine. you caught me. it’s ten’s birthday and he wanted to go clubbing. i swear i’ll only be gone for 3 maybe 4 hours. you don’t have to come with me.”

“uh, yeah. i do. who’s going to watch over your drunk ass?”

“johnny!” jaehyun blurted out, “johnny’s actually downstairs with one of the cars right now! a little secret between you and i? i think johnny has a crush on ten.”

you narrowed your eyes at him, “i am trusting you this one time. fuck up and you’ll never see sunlight again. leave your phone on so i can keep track of your location.”

jaehyun’s dimples popped out as he smiled brightly, “yes, yes. of course. thank you. bye.”

something felt off about the way he just took off so fast but if johnny was there then he’d be in good hands... right?

___________________________________________

waking up in the middle of the night wasn't something new. during training, you’d have ice thrown on you at 3am to wake up and fight. but right now, you woke up to johnny blowing up your phone.

“i lost jaehyun. he snuck off from me at the club and the little shit turned his phone off,” johnny spat out as soon as you answered.

you sighed, “stay at the club with the others. i put a tracker on him before he left. he seemed suspicious earlier. i’ll get him.”

“be safe,” johnny muttered before hanging up.

you reached under your pillow and grabbed the tablet you used to see the surveillance and track him. jaehyun wasn’t that far from the club but it was down some dark alleyway and he wasn’t alone. how could you let this happen? how could any of the guards let this happen? you cursed loudly and threw on some clothes. you took the tablet with you so you could track down the car he took.

when you pulled up, the first thing you saw was jaehyun’s fancy suit. he was being held against the wall by a tall, bald man. behind that man was four other men around his height.

"everything okay here?" you questioned, walking forward.

all five men turned to me quickly. one man laughed while the others glared.

the one holding jaehyun held his shirt tighter, "you little shit. we told you to come alone,” he cursed.

"i d-did! she followed me! she doesn't know anything about this! i swear!" jaehyun said quickly.

"he's not lying. i don't know anything about what you guys do... but i do know that you're going to let him go."

all the men laughed this time.

"listen, little girl, this son of a bitch owes me money and he's either going to give me it now or he's getting the beating of his life. i don't care if he's the prince or not."

you pulled out your wallet, "how much?"

"5,000,000 won... something you can't afford." the bald man laughed.

you counted 5,000,000 won out of your wallet and held it out.

"no sweetheart, he has to pay me. it's not how it works around here."

you rolled your eyes, "look. it's the same money. i'm paid by the king. either you take the money and we leave unharmed... or you don't take the money and we leave unharmed."

the man let go of jaehyun and he let out a breath. jaehyun slowly walked over to me but you didn’t make eye contact with him. you were pissed.

"my plan is to take the money and kill you both."

you pushed jaehyun behind you, "go back to the club."

"w-what?" jaehyun stuttered, looking at you like you were crazy.

and you probably were for doing something like this.

"you heard me. go back to the club. johnny’s still there with the boys."

"siren, i'm not... i can't."

"for fucks sake, jaehyun! fucking listen to me for once! go to back to the club. tell johnny where i am if i don't come back in twenty minutes. get in your car and drive."

jaehyun luckily did as he was told and left.

"you shouldn't have done that." one of the men said before running at you.

you caught his fist before it hit your face. you twisted it until you heard a sickening crack. that didn't stop him much though. he tried to kick you also but his leg suffered the same fate as his wrist. another man swung at you and you barely dodged it. he was fast. you dodged his attacks and he dodged yours until you felt a sharp pain in your calf. you hadn't even noticed that the first man had managed to crawl over to you and stab you in the leg. you kicked him in the face with your other leg and knocked him out. before you could turn back around, you were knocked to the floor. the second man stepped on your wound and held his foot there. it hurt like hell but he was stopping it from bleeding too much. you reached for the gun on your hip and he quickly grabbed it and threw it away.

"i should kill you," the bald man began to say, "but instead... i think we'll teach you a lesson."

he then swung his foot down on your stomach. they took turns: kicking, punching, slapping, stomping all over you. everything burned and ached and you couldn't really breathe. your vision was blurry. you could feel yourself getting ready to pass out but you heard a gunshot followed by the men running away and johnny’s voice.

“stay awake, kid,” was the last thing you heard before you passed out.

#nct au #nct 127 au #nct angst #prince jaehyun au #jung jaehyun #jung yoonoh #jung yoonoh au #jung jaehyun au #jaehyun au #nct jaehyun au #kpop au #kpop scenarios #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct 127 imagines #nct jaehyun scenarios #nct jaehyun imagines #jaehyun scenarios #jaehyun imagines

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emmy-writes-sometimes · 4 years

Text

Strep

You go to visit your brother, Tom, in the states, but you get sick and beg him not to tell your parents.

“Are you sure you feel well enough to go?” Your dad asked you as you shakily made your way over to where your bags were sitting. You were about go visit your oldest brother, Tom, for the whole of summer break, but the past day you hadn’t been feeling well. You were sure it was the bad Indian food you’d had the night before, but you weren’t letting anything stop you. It had been four months since you’d seen him and he’d surprised you with a ticket without even asking your parents first. There was no way you were going to give it up.

“Yes, Dad, I’ll be fine,” you said, “it’s probably just the food from last night.” He sighed.

“Alright, then, load the car up.” You loaded your suitcases, bags, and backpack into the car for your dad to take you to the airport, only for a second barging into your only younger brother’s room to make him tell you goodbye. The others were gone on some weekend trip, so you’d said goodbye to them two days before and they’d tried to convince you that your plane was going to crash over the ocean, so it was better that you didn’t see them again.

You said goodbye to your mom and your dad started driving you, letting you out at the closest terminal to yours. It wasn’t the first time you’d flown, you were basically an expert at it, even though it was the first time you’d actually been alone. Usually you had one of the boys with you if not your parents, so you were watching things a little more than usual. But you printed your boarding pass, checked your luggage in, went through security, got some food, and FaceTimed Tom.

“Are you almost on?” He asked when he saw you’d already downed most of the tea you’d gotten.

“Yeah, we board in a few minutes. It says I get in at nine tonight.”

“Alright. I’ll be there, then, I’ll park and meet you at the baggage. Fly safe. I love you.”

“I love you too.” His face disappeared when you shut your phone off. You didn’t hate flying, but you hated taking off, and turned your music up as loud as it would go. Thankfully your flight got in so late that it was pretty empty and you could pick a seat of your own. You made sure not to look at the map, since it only freaked you out that you were going over the ocean for such a long time, and you bought WiFi to watch a few movies.

You started to feel sick again, but you were going through a storm and you were getting tossed all over the place, so that was probably it. You just opened the blanket you brought, noticing how cold the air on the plane had gotten, and reclined your seat as much as you could to sleep a little. And you were out for most of the rest of the flight – you let yourself look at the map when you felt the plane going down and realized you were about to land in Atlanta.

“There she is!” You heard Tom’s familiar voice and tugged out your headphones, walking over to him and hugging him tightly. “How’s my favorite sister?”

“Tired,” you responded honestly. He laughed.

“Well, we’ll get your bags, I want to take you to get food, and then you can get settled in.” You nodded, looking at the screen that told you your flight was next for baggage. It would still be a few minutes, though, so you let yourself catch up with Tom and throw away all of your trash. You finally got your bags and he led you out to where he’d made Harrison keep the car waiting.

“It’s about time!” Harrison called out, getting out of the car to help with your bags. He attacked you with a hug first and then playfully pushed you back away. “Hungry?”

“Please,” you responded with a laugh as you got in the back seat. Tom shut the trunk of the car and let it settle before getting back in the front. “I missed you guys. I missed American soil.” Tom laughed as Harrison tried to pull away from the curb before the airport police would get pissed off at him.

“How was flying by yourself?” Tom asked, looking behind you. You heard the GPS say something about a restaurant.

“Not bad. Definitely easier than with Paddy and the twins.” He grinned.

“Anything is better than flying with them. They have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes, all three of them.” Tom adjusted the hat on his head and turned back, letting you watch as Harrison drove through downtown. There wasn’t any traffic and they pulled into some drive-thru, ordering a shit ton of food, and passed it back for you to hold.

“How much food do you get here?”

“Are you surprised?” Tom asked as he handed you the third Styrofoam box. You rolled your eyes and tried not to gag. You didn’t know why, because the food smelled good, and you were starving because all you’d had was half a bag of goldfish you got from the airport so they were stale.

You ate with the boys, more than you thought you would, showered off the airport smell, and went to bed. Tom didn’t have to go film for another three weeks, so you had some quality time with him for a few days. You’d decided to go to Six Flags the next day since it wouldn’t be as crowded on a weekday, so you woke up only a few hours after going to sleep. You felt drained, but a cup of coffee fixed it. You’d never had issues adjusting to new time zones, but this one had thrown you for a bit of a loop.

“You good?” Tom asked you as you plopped down on the bar stool, head on your elbow.

“Yeah, just tired,” you responded. He looked you up and down, sighing.

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“Dad asked me the same thing. I’m fine, Tommy.” Your nickname for him always made him smile and now was no different. He gave you some of his breakfast and the two of you ate while you waited for Harrison, and then you all headed out to go to the park.

“It’s so hot,” you complained later as the Atlanta sun beat down on you. Tom could tell you were a little overheated, but he took the bag you were wearing from you and exchanged it with the giant water he got. Your throat was sore, it had been since you woke up, but you didn’t think much of it. You never did. Your body could just hate the fact that you were halfway around the world. You tried not to think about it as you and the boys wandered around the park for most of the day, but it got progressively worse until you could feel a clicking in your throat whenever you swallowed. But you were probably fine, so you ignored it.

“I’m taking a nap!” Harrison called that night as you finally got back to the car. All three of you were sunburned and exhausted, especially because you’d consumed so many sugary snacks that by the time you got back to the car all of the sugar had left you crashing. You tried not to fall asleep, and Tom made sure to hit a curb on your side to wake you up.

“Come on,” he said, shoving you after he pulled into the driveway to the house he was renting. You woke up and got out of the car, taking off your makeup and going to bed as soon as you could.

You woke up the next morning feeling ten times worse than the night before. Your throat felt like it was on fire, but you could barely fucking swallow when you tried to drink some water. You looked over at Tom, who was still asleep. The house only had two bedrooms and Tom wasn’t about to make you sleep on the couch but he wasn’t going to either, so unless he decided to bring a real girl over you were sleeping in his bed as far away from him as you could. Your entire body ached and the last thing you wanted to do was go back to sleep, so you did.

“Wake up!” About two hours later, at ten AM, you felt Tom pushing you back onto your side of the bed.

“What?” You asked in a hoarse voice.

“You sound like a smoker,” he responded.

“I feel awful.”

“Come on, I’ll make you something to drink,” he encouraged, pulling the covers off the both of you. You followed him anyway, and as soon as you started walking to the kitchen your head started throbbing. But you sat down at the kitchen counter and he started to make you some of your favorite tea. You wondered why he kept it around if you weren’t there – he always said he hated sweet teas, but your favorite was peach.

“Thanks,” you said a few minutes later as he was handing it to you in a Spider-Man mug. He’d made sure not to make the water too hot so you wouldn’t die drinking it. It felt good coating your throat, but as soon as it left, you felt awful again.

“I don’t have a thermometer,” he said as he walked over to you, putting his palm to your forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“I feel like shit,” you complained. “I need a shower.”

“Go take one. We can just relax today, okay?” You nodded and went to go take another shower. Your clothes were sticking to your skin from sweating, and you felt so bad that you changed the sheets on the bed. You came back out and Tom had ordered food, but the idea made you sick to your stomach.

“Come get a waffle before I destroy them all,” a tired Harrison said as he was about to pour syrup all over the box full of waffles.

“I’m good,” you said, taking a spot in the corner of the couch between the boys. You drank a second round of tea, but it wasn’t helping much. You could see your mom’s contact name on Tom’s phone and snatched it away from him.

“I’m just going to call her and tell her you’re sick!”

“And then she’ll come here or she’ll make me come home! I’m fine, Tommy, please?” You didn’t give him his phone back until he agreed not to tell your mom, and when he said he wouldn’t say anything you gave it back to him.

“Your germs are all over it!” He said, wiping it off on his t-shirt. “If you’re not better by this afternoon, I’m taking you to an urgent care.”

“Fine,” you agreed, “just don’t tell Mom. I’m fine.”

“You’re lying, but okay.” He let it go, though, and even though Harrison went to run some errands the two of you stayed on the couch. You laid on opposite ends of the couch, your feet touching, like you were known to do at home. Even though you were right in the middle, you were Tom’s favorite and it was no secret. You and Paddy were roped into being together most of the time, so when you got to spend time with Tom you were always excited because he was Spider-Man, he was the coolest older brother ever, and you were always so excited to see what he was doing and hang out with him.

“Feeling any better?” He asked you, poking your leg that was wedged between his and the couch a few hours later. You shook your head. He’d all but babied you for most of the day, and for the last few hours you’d been sleeping through episodes of New Girl.

“No,” you replied. Tom sighed and sat up, so you did the same. You knew what he was going to say and you didn’t want to hear it.

“Then I’m gonna call some place to take you, okay?”

“No,” you begged him. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sick and I don’t know how to help you. We’re taking you as soon as Harrison gets back. Go get some clothes on.” You did as he told you to do, not wanting to take the chance of your parents finding out, and pulled on some clothes. Harrison was back soon and handed the car keys off to Tom, who called an urgent care.

You found out an hour later after about a million swab tests that you had strep. You groaned, looking over at Tom, and he just rubbed your back as they told you they were giving you some steroids. The nurse left you and you just looked at Tom. You were never sick, ever, and you had never even had to get tested for anything.

“You’re fine,” Tom said with a sigh. “And you’re expensive. You do realize I don’t have insurance in this country?”

“I’m sorry.” He just laughed at you.

“I’m kidding. I don’t, but… It’s fine. I’m just glad I can take care of you. I’ll be outside.” You nodded and he pat your back again before taking his wallet out. The nurse gave you some steroids and let you go, but not before warning you that you were still contagious for a full day.

“I’ll get you some ice cream if you’ll sit here for a few minutes,” Tom offered as he pulled into the Target parking lot. You nodded and he handed you a phone charger, leaving the car on for you while he went inside. He was back in a few minutes with your favorite ice cream, Americone Dream, and some other snacks that wouldn’t irritate your throat too much.

You got back and got some of the ice cream out – you’d told Tom you would sleep on the couch, it was fine, and he’d tried to make it as comfortable for you as he could. He even bought you another expansion pack for the Sims without you even asking. It somehow got out in the family group chat, the one without your parents, that you were sick. Paddy and Harry were absolutely awful to you about it, but Sam, ever the sweet one, sent you a few private messages and carried on a few games of 8 Ball in iMessage because he felt bad for you.

“I am officially not contagious anymore!” You said the next afternoon after the boys came in from where they’d been out by the pool. “So you can come within six feet of me.”

“As if!” Harrison said, laughing a little bit. You loved him, but man he was mean sometimes.

“Oh, fuck off!” Tom said, pushing him up the stairs to the bedrooms. Tom came back a little bit later to make some snacks and actually sat down beside you. “You look a lot better.”

“I don’t feel a lot better,” you admitted. “I can’t sleep and my throat hurts and all I can keep down is tea and ice cream.” He sighed and threw an arm around you.

“Come here.” He hugged you tightly and you hugged him back. You didn’t know how long you were there for, but you were almost asleep by the time that your parents called.

“Oh, no,” you groaned.

“Just stay quiet, I got it,” he responded. You leaned your face into his arm, shutting your eyes. “Hey, Dad!” Tom said loudly.

“Hey, how are the two of you? Do anything fun yet?”

“We’re good!” You said. Your throat felt scratchy and you hoped he couldn’t hear it, and Tom sighed before going on.

“We went to Six Flags yesterday and it was super cool, today we just stayed inside mostly. Y/n got me on some new ice cream and it’s really nice,” he said. Usually he liked to walk around when he was on the phone, but now he was just staying with you.

“That’s lovely,” your mother said. “The boys miss you, Y/n.”

“Oh, no they don’t,” you replied, rolling your eyes. Even though all of you got along, you still had to pretend you didn’t. Just for street credit. Tom put his finger to his lips, shaking his head at you to shut up. So you did.

“We’re actually about to go out, there’s a bar here that does quizzes and we were gonna go to the Disney one. So we’ll talk to you later?” All of you said goodbye and he hung up, putting the phone down on the coffee table.

“Are you leaving?” You asked him. He laughed.

“Don’t look so concerned. I’m not leaving you just because you have strep throat,” he promised. He put his arm back around you and kept playing his video game, letting you sleep a little bit before making fun of you some more for sleeping on him.

A/N: I hope this was fluffy enough for you! As much as I love Tom and would love to cuff him for myself, I feel like he’s a great brother too!

Taglist (if you’d like to be on it send me a message/ask!): @an-adventureland, @firstangeldragonranch, @ssebstann, @winterreader-nowwriter

#tom holland x sister!reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine

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unicyclehippo · 4 years

Note

no.14 - “you’re never going to let that go, are you?” w the brjeaus? ily

‘hey.’

fjord looks up from his examination of the map, nods to beau. he doesn’t stop her when she takes a swig from his mug, just laughs when she gags.

‘dude—what the fuck is this?’

‘lemon water. helps with scurvy.’

‘you don’t have scurvy!’

‘habit.’

‘disgusting.’ she takes a second tentative swig, apparently just to test herself or maybe to look like she’s—what? badass?—before giving it back to him. ‘what are you doing?’

‘i’m—pretending i can read this map.’

‘cool. budge over.’ she takes a place at his side, points imperially at what fjord suspects is a smudge, not an island.

he nods. knocks his shoulder into hers.

‘something on your mind?’ he asks a little while later.

beau has bent over the map more intently by this point, and if the way her eyes scan back as forth mean anything—and they do, combined with the crease between her brows—she’s well on her way to figuring out where they are based on orly’s markers. she taps her fingers neatly over the printed dashes that make up the trade lines, skirting west from them toward the volcano. after a while, she speaks.

‘i have a problem.’

‘just one?’

‘get fucked,’ she suggests, voice mild. fjord snorts. ‘at least i’m not shoving melons into my stomach.’

‘first of all, they weren’t melons.’

‘what were they then?’

‘how the fuck am i supposed to know?’

‘nott thinks they’re eggs. or eyeballs.’

‘they’re not eggs,’ fjord grumbles.

beau smiles a quick, tight smile. ‘second?’

‘hmm?’

‘what’s second. you said, first they’re not melons, so,’

‘oh yeah. second, you ever gonna let that go?’

‘nah.’

he sighs. ‘okay. well, what’s your problem then?’

beau drums her fingers onto the volcano. for a moment, he thinks she somehow missed hearing his questions. and then she scowls. it isn’t directed at him, and fjord pities the person that scowl is for. he whistles, low and impressed.

‘someone’s got you fuming, huh?’

she finally looks up, a slash of a glance quick and sharp, before returning her attention to the map. ‘sort of.’

he waits a little longer. then, ‘can’t help you if i don’t know what it is.’ a thought occurs to him and his stomach turns. he’s never been seasick a day in his life but for the first time he feels as green as his skin. ‘beau...’

she lifts her eyes again, catches his look and blanches dramatically. ‘what? what’s wrong? fjord—‘

‘you—‘

‘i didn’t mean to, dude,’

‘mean to what?’

‘what?’ beau narrows her eyes. ‘what were you thinking?’

‘what were you thinking?’

‘i asked you first!’

‘that you’re trying to leave us again!’

beau ducks her head. her scowl returns. ‘no. not just yet.’

‘that’s not reassuring. but okay, okay,’ he lifts his hands in surrender. moves around the table to drag two stools across the floor. he sets one down for beau and she practically falls into it, rubs her hands over her face. ‘talk to me, first mate.’

for the first time, the title doesn’t bring a smile to her face.

‘beau?’

‘i think i’ve really fucked up, man.’ she drags in a breath. holds it for a second. ‘i—it’s, uh—emotions adjacent.’

‘uh oh.’

‘i fuckin’ know,’ she snaps. recoils, shame-faced. ‘i know,’ she says again, more quietly. ‘i’m no good with this shit. can you—will you - help me.’ she has to force the words out, stilted, but out they come.

fjord grins over at her. ‘sure.’

‘wait—really?’

‘yeah. of course.’

‘oh.’

‘you thought i’d say no?’

‘no. not exactly. i just thought you’d ask more questions first. like, what kind of emotions an’ who is it, or whatever.’

‘that comes now.’

‘oh.’ beau crumples on her seat. pulls her feet up to the bar on the base of the stool, folds her arms across her chest. ‘okay.’

‘so. what kind of emotions and who?’

she snorts. ‘uh. there’s. a couple. i guess—i probably need to—shit.’ her brow crumples now too into a heavy frown. ‘shit. i dunno if i should do this with you.’

‘what! we’re already almost there!’

‘yeah but—‘ beau visibly struggles, stares toward the door of the cabin. ‘if this goes bad, i don’t—want you to hate me,’ she says, all in a rush. it isn’t in her nature to be quiet, mostly, but she can say the words fast enough that fjord misses most of it in the jumble.

‘hate you?’

he doesn’t miss all of it.

‘why would i hate you?’

beau gnaws on the inside of her cheek. ‘because.’

‘because...?’

‘i—like someone,’ she admits, like it’s painful to set the words out. out in front of him, maybe. ‘and i came to you because you’re the best with...knowing how to act and stuff. but i didn’t think—‘

fjord sits with that admission for a second, turning it over. it doesn’t take too long to put the pieces together—with who she is and how she has been behaving, it doesn’t take long at all to figure it out but it hits like a sucker punch to his temple, dazes him for a moment, because how did he miss this?

‘oh.’

beau grimaces.

‘there’s not a lot of actual good advice for...liking someone, you know,’ he tells her tentatively. ‘you just. have to be yourself.’ beau scoffs. ‘i’m serious!’

‘you’re sabotaging me!’

‘would i do that?’

she throws a suspicious—and suspiciously shiny—look his way before begrudgingly admitting, ‘probably not. but that’s fucked, dude. i’m—‘ she unfolds her arms, flails messily. folds her arms once more and hunches unhappily.

‘what’s that supposed to mean? what’s all that?’

‘you know!’

‘no i don’t! because if you’re saying you’re anything less than a catch, i’m gonna kick your ass!’

‘you could try,’ she taunts.

fjord ignores her, and the knowledge that he could not, in fact, even catch her to try. she’s too fucking fast.

‘you’re smart,’

‘headband.’

‘brave.’

‘reckless.’

‘fucking hot.’

‘ew.’

‘not my type,’ he assures her, pulling a face, and beau grins back at him. ‘you catch arrows out of thin air and can run up walls and you punch like a fucking blur—what about you isn’t a catch, exactly?’ he demands.

beau doesn’t laugh, the way he hoped she might. she stares down at the salt-crusted boards—fjord makes a note to get someone to scrub in the cabin—and shakes her head.

‘beau. look at me.’

it breaks his heart to see her expression—so very cautious, so very contained—and the glint of tears.

‘i can’t tell you that it’s gonna work out. i don’t know if it will. but i can and will tell you that i don’t know a better person than you.’ she scoffs but fjord holds steady, holds her eyes with his own. ‘i love you, beau. and i want you—i need you to know that no matter what happens, even if everything goes colossally sideways, i love you and i’m never leaving you. y’hear me?’

she stares at him for a long, long time before she bends her head in the faintest nod.

‘i guess you can’t see it, but all of us feel the same.’

‘what about—how i feel?’ she asks. her lips twist like the idea of feeling is sour in her mouth.

‘what about it?’

‘you’re not gonna—talk me out of it?’

‘if it’s something you can be talked out of, i wouldn’t bother. is it?’

‘is it what?’

‘something you can be talked out of?’

beau smiles faintly. shakes her head no.

‘mm. didn’t think so.’

there isn’t much more to be said, so fjord stands. draws her into a hug—her cheek leaning against his chest, his hands solid on her shoulders. he drops a kiss to the top of her head, pats her shoulder.

#cr tag #prompt fill #tagging my stories

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quickspinner · 4 years

Text

Second Chance - Ch 7 Why Wait

“Luka.”

“Nngh.”

“Lukaaaa.”

“Hnh?”

“Wake up so I can kiss you goodbye, you jerk.”

“It’s the weekend, where are you even going?” he mumbled.

“Brunch with my parents. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“Marinette,” he moaned. “Your parents are amazing, you’re amazing, you’re gorgeous, I’m so in love with you, but that concert last night killed me. I’ll beg their forgiveness later, but please, please, please just let me sleep.”

He couldn’t see her pouting, but somehow he knew she was. Too tired to question whether one could hear a pout, Luka raised up with only one eye open, pressed a kiss in the general vicinity of her mouth, and then buried his face in the pillow with a groan. Even so, he smiled as he felt her soft lips on his bare shoulder.

“I love you too, vampire boyfriend,” she teased.

“Love you,” he muttered as he pulled the blanket over his head to hide his grin. He was too tired to be this happy, damnit.

***

Having Marinette there when he woke was one of Luka’s favorite things about the weekend, so he may have done a little pouting himself when he dragged out of bed. Luka had tried adjusting his hours a bit to make more time with her, and had been moderately successful until his next round of scheduled performances, which quickly put him back on night owl hours.

Still, they made it work, and the last few months had seen a great deal of improvement in Luka’s life, even with Marinette now working more standard hours. She’d declined to work with Adrien at Gabriel, and had negotiated a very favorable contract with another major design house, but she still had to work when everyone else was working. Luka had plenty to fill his time when she wasn’t around, especially with tour season quickly approaching, but he’d also taken Marinette’s advice and devoted more time to his personal life outside of her.

He’d started getting together with Ivan every few weeks, and he’d been drawn into Marinette’s circle of friends as well. Adrien has been by to see them a few times with minimal awkwardness. They’d had dinner several times with Alya and Nino, and as Nino also had a career in music that frequently meant he worked odd hours, he and Luka had struck up the beginnings of a friendship outside of their girls. Anarka was back in Paris, and she always had time to see him when he was bored or frustrated, or when he just wanted to get away from the reporters who’d been dogging him ever since his relationship went public. Luka secretly loved watching his mother tell off the paparazzi who had the audacity to set up around her boat, just before she cast off and left them on the bank as she sailed them out of reach, her booming laugh echoing across the water.

He’d found more of a balance, just as Marinette had suggested, and Luka felt much better for it. Lucille took the dip in his efficiency in stride, even though it made managing his schedule more work. “You couldn’t keep the pace you were on forever,” she’d said briskly when he’d apologized. “It’s fine for you to be human, especially if it means you’re writing more songs.”

He was, he had almost a full album’s worth of tracks at least partially written, and the ones he’d demoed for the producers had been well received. At home, Marinette had helped him turn his apartment into something more personal and comfortable for them both. The windows now sported curtains Marinette had sewed herself, dark blue in his bedroom and cheerful red in the living room. There were throw pillows on the couch and leafy, living plants here and there (Marinette promised to help him keep these alive). A knit blanket lay over the back of the couch whenever they weren’t wrapped in it. Framed prints of Luka’s album covers were artfully hung in the living room, and pictures of friends and family were scattered on the walls of the hallways and bedroom.

Technically, Marinette didn’t live with him, but the distinction at this point was a fine one. His spare bedroom was littered with her projects. The clothes she wore most often were in his closet and dresser. Her cosmetics competed for space with his in the vanity and there was a neat row of sweet-smelling bottles with pictures of flowers and fruit on them lined up along his bathtub. His kitchen cabinets housed at least half her collection of mugs that she had picked up in the various places she had visited, most handmade or hand painted and all far more colorful than anything he owned.

Most importantly, Marinette slept in his bed almost every night, allowing them to take advantage of every mutually convenient moment in their very different schedules. Maybe he couldn’t wake up with her and maybe she was almost always asleep when he came to bed, but Lucille worked his schedule to keep their overlapping hours open, or at least booked with tasks he could do at home.

Luka sank down on the couch, leaning back into the soft blanket, and tried really hard not to think about the tour starting in...crap, it was barely a month now. He sighed and let his head fall back with a little groan. He got homesick on tour at the best of times. It was going to be even harder now. He smiled at the ceiling. At least he’d have something really worth coming home to.

Luka perked up at the sound of a key in the door.

“You haven’t even gotten up the energy to make coffee yet?” Marinette teased when she saw him. “You really are tired. Fear not, your savior has arrived.” She waggled a large to go cup at him.

“God, I love you,” Luka sighed, reaching his arms toward her. She came to him and perched on his knee, kissed him, and offered him the coffee.

“I have pastries too if you’re hungry.”

“Mm,” Luka took the coffee, but nuzzled into her neck. “I’d rather have woken up with you, but I’ll take it.”

“I gave you the chance to wake up with me and you begged me to let you sleep.”

“You know what I meant. How are your parents?”

“Same as always,” she smiled brightly. “How was the show? You were too wiped out when you got home to tell me. This was the benefit show for the children’s hospital, right? The one Rose works with?”

“Yeah. It was amazing,” Luka shook his head. “So much energy in the crowd, it felt fantastic. Pretty emotional, though, with the speakers and all, so I really just had nothing left when it was over.” He sighed. “Those people are amazing. There was so much strength—“ he stopped, choked up, and cleared his throat. “It was a lot,” he finished thickly.

Marinette kissed him softly, giving him a tender look, and then got off his lap, heading for the kitchen. “We can take it easy today if you want. Do you have to work?”

“First weekend of the month is fan mail weekend,” he reminded her, accepting the plate and napkin she brought him. “So, yes, but I can work around whatever else we decide to do.” Marinette put the box of pastries on the coffee table near him, and then pulled out her sketchbook. She settled with her back against the arm of the couch and her feet in his lap.

“I don’t mind. You know I think it’s great that you make time to answer your fan mail.”

How is this my life? Luka wondered as he selected a pastry and put it on his plate. It was good, it was comfortable, it was right, and Luka was suddenly struck by the thought that he never wanted it to end.

Luka didn’t realize how he was staring at her until Marinette spoke.

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Marinette asked him without looking up from her sketchbook.

“I want to marry you.”

Marinette straightened and set her pencil down to look at him. She didn’t whip her her head up and stare wide-eyed, which he took as a good sign, so he set his plate down on the coffee table and continued.

“I love you and there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re the one I want to be with. I want this—“ he motioned between them, “—all the time, forever. So I’d like to know how you feel about it. If it’s something you think you might want someday too.”

Marinette rapped a fingernail on her sketchbook. “Someday?”

“Or today.” Luka quipped with a shrug. “I’m sure we could make that happen.” He was mostly kidding, but his eyes widened slightly as Marinette frowned and pulled out her phone. He waited, a weird feeling curling in his stomach as she swiped and scrolled and chewed her lip.

Then she looked up at him and his pulse shot up so rapidly that he nearly didn’t hear her over the pounding.

“I’m sorry, can you say that again?” he managed.

“I said I don’t think today will work, but we can do next Friday. I think everyone we’d need is free.”

Luka could barely breathe as he stared at her. “You want to get married next Friday?”

Marinette smirked at his expression. “Yep.”

Her smirk softened at the smile that bloomed on his face. Luka leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Who are you and what have you done with Marinette queen-of-overthinking Dupain-Cheng?”

She mimicked his pose, leaning in until her nose was nearly brushing his. “She doesn’t live here anymore. Meet the new resident, Marinette not-stupid-enough-to-miss-her-second-chance Couffaine.”

He nearly tackled her in his enthusiasm to kiss her. Marinette shoved him off, laughing. “We don’t have time for kissing, we’ve got phone calls to make.”

“Right.” He whipped out his phone. “Lucille! Hey, listen, Marinette and I are getting married next Friday. Call her in an hour and whatever she wants, you make it happen. If you get stuck on anything, call Penny. In fact, call Penny anyway and tell her she and Jagged are invited.”

“Oh,” Lucille said blankly, and then “Oh! Yes, okay. Um, budget?”

“Break the bank, I don’t care. Just don’t kill anyone, don’t get anyone fired, and try not to make too many threats. Okay?” He grinned at Marinette, who had her own phone to her ear but still heard enough to wrinkle her nose at him.

“You take all the fun out of everything.” Lucille drawled.

“You’re the best, Lu, I’ll call you later and check in.”

“How much does she hate me?” Marinette asked in a whisper, holding her own phone at arm’s length while Alya screamed.

“She wasn’t even phased. She lives for stuff like this.” Luka grinned. “It’s good for her resume. And I’ve been so low maintenance that I’ve earned a few outrageous demands.” He kissed her temple. “I’ve gotta go.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“Gonna grab Juleka and go find a ring.”

“What? Luka, you don’t have to do that, it’s barely two weeks, I don’t need a ring.”

He leaned in and kissed her, caressing her face tenderly. “I’m gonna do it anyway. Unless you want to come pick it out?”

“No,” Marinette said faintly, “No, whatever you pick is fine, just—don’t go overboard.”

He kissed her again. “Okay. But when Lucille calls, you tell her what you want and don’t worry about the money.” Another kiss, and Luka giggled against her lips. “I’ve never been able to say that before. I want you to have the wedding of your dreams even if it is on short notice.”

“Isn’t there anything you want?” Marinette asked, looking concerned.

“I want you, Marinette,” he breathed, and then grinned. “I want to dance with you. I want my guitar and an amp handy. I’d really like to not wear a tie, I hate those things. But mostly I just want you there and as happy as you can possibly be. Everything else is negotiable.”

“Oh my God, girl,” Alya screeched over the phone. “I take back everything I just said, marry that boy pronto.”

Luka laughed. “Hi Alya! Bye Alya!” He kissed Marinette one more time, grabbed his jacket, headed out of his door and straight over to Juleka’s, and pounded a little more forcefully than was probably necessary. Rose opened the door, looking surprised.

“Luka, what's going on? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Rose,” he said, smiling like his face would split. He leaned past her and hollered, “Jules! Get decent and get out here, I need to go buy Marinette a ring and you’re coming with me.”

Rose squealed, covering her mouth with her hands. Luka winked at her. “You’re welcome to come too, Rose.”

“That’s amazing Luka, I’m so happy for you!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh! Have you planned how you’re going to ask her?”

“Already did. We’re getting married next Friday.” His brow furrowed. “Shit, I better call Maman.”

Rose just gaped at him with her mouth open. Then she screeched and ran back into the apartment, screaming for Juleka. Luka chuckled and stepped inside, shutting the door. He pulled out his phone and called his mother. Anarka sounded simultaneously exasperated and delighted, but she promised to be there and that was all Luka cared about. By the time he was off the phone with her, Juleka had emerged, dressed in nondescript black without her usual lace accents, her hair pulled back in a knot that hid most of the color and her purple tipped bangs tucked under a hat. She said nothing, just wrapped her arms around him. He folded around her and returned the hug. When they separated, she reached up and smacked the back of his head, then walked out the door without looking back to see if he and Rose were following.

“The press is going to be all over you,” Juleka mumbled as they got in the car. “They’ve been staking out the building ever since that premier. They’re going to follow us.”

Luka made a face. “Yeah, I know. I’m hoping we can make it look like we’re shopping for you, but if they do, they do. Lucille will have to find a way to keep them off my back.”

“With the tour about to kick off, they’re going to say it’s a publicity stunt,” Juleka persisted, looking sideways at him.

“I don’t care what they say, never have.”

“They’ll probably dig up whatever they can about Marinette. Probably your old girlfriends, too.”

Luka shrugged. “Everyone has a past, it doesn’t matter. As long as none of them show up at the wedding I couldn’t care less.”

“Marinette might care.”

“I’ll talk to her about it when we get home.” He hesitated. “Although I guess we didn’t really talk about—” he stopped and pulled out his phone.

Marinette picked up immediately. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied, unable to help smiling at the sound of her voice. “Listen, before I do this I just wanna make sure, you know the press is going to get wind of this right? Even if I manage to cover up what I’m doing, something is bound to leak if we do this in a hurry.”

“I suppose you’re right, but at least they’ll only have a couple weeks to freak out. Better than planning a wedding for months under that kind of scrutiny.”

“You’re right. We should probably just make a statement,” Luka mused. “I’ll talk to Lucille about putting one out once you’ve talked to everyone you need to. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with everything because the second I walk into a jewelry store, there are going to be rumors, even if we try to make it look like we’re shopping for Juleka.”

“I told you you didn’t have to.”

“You’re not cheating me out of getting to do this just because you’re impatient,” Luka told her, laughing.

“I didn’t expect you to be so traditional,” Marinette giggled.

“I’m not,” Luka chuckled. “Keep the traditions that make you happy, throw the rest out, I don’t care. But this one makes me happy, so I’m doing it and you can’t stop me. I mean, I guess you could decide not to wear it, I’d survive. But I still want to pick one out and give it to you. If you don’t want to wear it I guess we could frame it and hang it on the wall or something.”

Marinette’s laugh was rich and full and brought a dopey grin to his face that he knew he would catch hell for later. “I’ll wear it,” she giggled. “I will. Whatever makes you happy, Luka.”

“You make me happy,” he told her, ignoring his companions as Juleka made gagging noises and Rose shushed her, giggling.

***

When Luka got home carrying a tiny pretentious bag full of fancy tissue paper, he found Marinette waiting on him with a strange looking box on the coffee table and a “we need to talk” expression. His excitement turned to ice in his stomach and he came into the room a little warily. “Hey. Something up?”

Marinette smiled tightly. “Nothing disastrous. Just a conversation we need to have before we go through with this whole thing. I figured we’d better do it now before we let Lucille loose on Paris.”

Luka frowned. “Okay. You know, I’m ready any time, but I can wait, we don’t have to rush into this if you’re not—”

“I am,” Marinette interrupted him. “But I need to make sure you are too, and that can’t be true until we’ve talked about this. Come sit down.” She patted the couch next to her.

Luka sat, eyeing the box on the table. “Please tell me these aren’t the ashes of your enemies. That would be a little creepy.”

Marinette laughed and patted his hand. “Not hardly.” Marinette leaned forward and did something to the box. A series of compartments opened seemingly on their own, revealing...jewelry? He glanced at her, still puzzled, until she lifted a familiar green bracelet from the box and his eyes widened.

It had been nearly seven years since the defeat of Hawkmoth—not a terribly long time in the span of global history, but Luka found now that trying to remember those days was like trying to remember a dream. The bracelet Marinette held was the one point of clarity. Luka remembered what it was and what it did, but had a hard time remembering why it mattered.

“The Miraculous magic,” Marinette told him matter-of-factly, watching his expressions shift. “It doesn’t actually erase anything that happened, or any record of it happening, it just makes it hard to think about. If you tried hard enough, and long enough, you would still remember everything.You’d just be easily distracted and constantly wondering what the point is of trying to remember. It’s been a real blessing for people whose akumatizations were especially difficult, and even more so for Adrien.”

Luka blinked at her for a moment, and then gasped. “Adrien’s father was Hawkmoth.”

Marinette nodded, and then shrugged. “Thanks to the magic, people forget. Or rather, as I said, they just don’t think about it. He hasn’t faced nearly as much persecution as he would have otherwise. Here, it’ll be easier to have this discussion once I give you this.”

She put the bracelet in his hand and he was nearly blinded by a flash of blue-green light. The slight fog in his mind cleared instantly, the clarity suddenly flooding back into his thoughts. Luka remembered everything now. He blinked away tears from the light and the rush of memories and stared into familiar yellow eyes. “Sass,” he breathed.

“Ssssalutationsss, Luka,” the snake kwami smiled, showing his tiny fangs. “My how you’ve grown. Humansss change ssso quickly.” He put his flipper hands on Luka’s finger. “It isss good to sssee you, my friend.”

“Luka Couffaine,” Marinette intoned quietly. “I present to you the Miraculous of the snake, which gives the power of Second Chance. You will use it for the greater good, and for the protection of the Miracle Box and its Guardian.” She smiled and shrugged. “That would be me.”

Luka looked up from the bracelet in his hand. “Thank you, Ladybug.”

Marinette’s smile widened. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?”

“I guessed,” he admitted. “I wasn’t ever totally sure, but I figured it was safer that way.” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know how I’d forgotten until now.”

Marinette raised her hands slightly. “Magic.”

“Right.” Luka shook his head. “Weird.” He slid the bracelet over his arm, watching in mild surprise as it flashed and turned into a silver band decorated with Celtic knotwork. “It’s different,” he observed.

“The disssguise adaptsss,” Sass agreed. “You are different now, so the disssguise isss different.”

“Huh. That design, though, it’s almost as if—.” Luka reached into the little bag full of tissue paper he’d left at his feet, and pulled out a small box. Marinette’s eyes widened, and, regaining some of his earlier enthusiasm, Luka felt a goofy, lovesick smile spread over his face as he opened the little box, and held the wrist bearing the snake Miraculous up next to the ring. The little platinum ring had a repeating Celtic knot pattern around the band and a small but beautiful channel-set sapphire in the center. The Miraculous bore a similar knot pattern repeating across the bracelet.

“Oh,” Marinette gasped lightly. Luka took the ring out of the box and took Marinette’s hand.

“May I?” he asked tenderly, and she beamed at him.

“Yes.”

Luka slid the ring on her finger. “I thought you would prefer something flat.” He grinned at her. “See, I’m not as traditional as you think. I liked it so much that I had them reserve the matching wedding bands for us, but you don’t like them, we can go pick something else together.”

“It’s perfect, I love it,” Marinette breathed, smiling up at him. “And this is a good thing,” she added, picking up his arm to look at the bracelet, and then holding her own hand next to it to compare it to her ring. “Since it matches, if anyone asks, it was my engagement gift to you. That gives you an excuse to always have it on you.” She smiled. “It’s sort of true, anyway.”

“Sort of true?”

“Well, like I said, I figured I needed to talk to you about this before we really went through with things,” Marinette sighed. “And Tikki and I agreed that if we’re going to make a home and a family together, you should be protected, and empowered to protect us, so...” She waved a hand at the bracelet.

“Tikki?” Luka asked, feeling rather overwhelmed.

“Tikki,” Marinette called, and a tiny red kwami zipped up from her side to haven between them. “Luka, meet Tikki, the kwami of creation,” Marinette gestured. “She’s the source of that energy you kept noticing, by the way.”

“That’s only partially true,” Tikki interjected. “Marinette has a strong creative spirit on her own, which makes her very well suited to be Ladybug. The resonance you feel is because we’re so closely attuned.” She smiled, zipping close to examine Luka’s face. “You wouldn’t be able to sense it at all if you weren’t a true creative spirit too.”

Sass hissed a quiet laugh and perched on his shoulder, tail curling around Luka’s neck. “Don’t get greedy, Tikki. Thisss one isss mine.” Tikki rolled her eyes, giggling, and zipped back to Marinette.

“So, if you haven’t changed your mind after learning about all this unexpected craziness that comes attached to me,” Marinette was trying to be positive, he could tell, but there was still an edge of apprehension in her smile. “The bracelet is yours.”

“Of course I haven’t,” Luka exclaimed, putting his hand on hers. “I mean, I’m not saying this all isn’t kind of heavy, and it makes me nervous that we’re—that I’m in the public eye so much. But if you’re okay with this, then so am I. I trust your judgement.”

Marinette flipped her hair. “I plan to be famous with or without you, mister rock star, so don’t go playing the martyr.” She smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “We’ll make it work. Just like everything else. The butterfly and the peacock have been recovered and repaired, there’s no reason for anyone to come after the Miraculous now that the magic is nudging people’s thoughts away from it, and no one but Adrien knows I was Ladybug, so no one would even know where to start looking. We should be fine, this is just a precaution.”

Luka blinked at her for a moment, putting things together. “Adrien is Chat Noir,” he said after a moment. Sass chuckled from his shoulder.

“Yep,” Marinette smiled. “It’s the only Miraculous not in my possession. I couldn’t bear to take Plagg from him after everything that happened. Most of the kwamis prefer to stay in the Miracle Box unless they have a bearer, but sometimes they like to come out and have a chat and they’ll probably all want to meet you sooner or later, so just be prepared and try not to scream.” She narrowed her eyes slightly and pointed a finger at Sass and Tikki. “And you tell them the bedroom is a kwami-free zone, got it? Divine being or not, the first kwami that interrupts us is going to find themselves sealed in their Miraculous and dropped to the bottom of the Seine.”

Luka blushed as the kwamis tittered.

“So, uh…” Luka rubbed a hand through his hair, dropping his chin to his chest as he tried to process. “You got any more bombs to drop on me?”

“This was the big one,” Marinette giggled. “Nothing else but the usual stuff left. Money, living arrangements, future plans, kids.” She paused. “You’re okay with kids, right?”

Luka’s head snapped up and he stared at her, wide-eyed. “You want to have children...with me?”

Marinette sat back slightly and she blinked at him. “I mean, not right now, but in a few years, yeah. Is that...not something you want?”

Luka was having trouble processing. “It’s...honestly not something I thought I could have.”

She tilted her head. “Why not?”

“I’m...I didn’t...I mean, I haven’t exactly had the best example. Or...any example, really.” Luka rubbed a hand through his hair sheepishly. “I mean it sounds kind of stupid when I say it out loud, but I guess that’s always how I felt in the back of my mind. I guess I’ve never been serious enough with anyone to give it any real thought.”

Marinette relaxed a little, and though there was still tension in her forehead, her eyes were soft. “Why wouldn’t anyone think you’d make a great dad? You’re kind, thoughtful, committed, gentle, respectful, supportive, protective. I could go on. Any daughter would be lucky to have you for a father,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it. “And I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have teaching my sons how to be kind, compassionate, respectful men.”

Shit, he was going to cry and he still couldn’t look away from her.

“And if it helps, you’ll have a father now. My father. I know he’d be thrilled if you asked his advice. Most importantly,” she said, leaning in, “You have a huge heart and so much love to give. I know you’ll be fine. And when the time comes, we’ll figure it out together.”

Luka was reminded of his own words to Ivan and smiled faintly.

“But is that what you want, Luka?” Marinette squeezed his hand. “That’s kind of an important question.”

“I—yes, absolutely,” he breathed. A little girl with his eyes and Marinette’s smile and a too-big guitar in her arms, or a little boy covered in flour as he learned how to make bread from his grandparents—he’d never thought about it before but now that he had, he absolutely wanted it.

Marinette relaxed, and her smile turned blinding. “Good.”

For a moment, they just looked at each other, and then Luka took her face in his hands and kissed her—or started to, before realizing his abrupt movement had tumbled Sass off his shoulder. Luka had completely forgotten the kwamis were there. He’d also forgotten they could float, he nearly knocked Marinette in the face as he scrambled to catch Sass, who caught himself and levitated, chuckling at Luka’s floundering and apologies.

“He’s fine,” Marinette reassured Luka, laughing, and then she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back to her lips. “And so am I. Come back here, already.”

The tittering kwamis made a discreet retreat as the newly engaged couple embraced.

***

The rest of the day was consumed with phone calls and a lot of screaming. The next day, Marinette wasted no time getting moved in for good. Luka had a stupid grin on his face the whole day and didn’t make even the slightest effort to hide it.

“I don’t know why you’re so excited,” Marinette giggled. “I practically lived here anyway. The only real difference is now I have to find somewhere to put all my crap.”

“It’s an important difference,” Luka protested. “And I know even though I told you to feel at home, you still think of this as my place.”

“It is—was your place.”

“And now it’s really our place, and that’s why it matters,” Luka told her, and then he sighed. “I almost wish we could get a new place that we picked out together,” he mused.

“Luka, this apartment is amazing, it’s perfect for what you need, and you love it,” Marinette said practically. “I’ll fit myself in, you’ll see.”

“You shouldn’t have to fit yourself in around me, though.” Luka rubbed the back of his neck. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Stop worrying about it, Luka,” Marinette told him, picking up a pile of clothes and carrying them into the bedroom. “You’ll be gone on tour for months, remember? That’s plenty of time for me to get rid of your stuff.”

Luka huffed a laugh at that. Nope, there was no wiping the stupid grin off his face and it was pointless to try.

A knock on his door startled him, and he and Marinette looked at each other.

“Juleka?” Marinette suggested.

Luka shook his head and got up to answer the door. “She’s shooting a new cosmetic ad this week, and Rose always goes with her when she’s got to be on camera. Maybe a delivery? Usually security calls me first though.”

Marinette shrugged and picked up another pile of clothes to carry to the bedroom.

Luka opened the door and blinked, momentarily speechless.

“Hey,” Adrien grinned, hands in his pockets. “I brought Marinette a wedding present.” There was a small knot of people behind him with expressions of longsuffering and a bright red ribbon tied around the whole group with a big bow. Luka glanced over them in puzzlement, and then, recognizing a couple of faces, he turned and called into the apartment.

“Marinette? I think you’d better take this delivery personally.”

“What?” Marinette’s voice came from his bedroom.

“Come on out here.”

She came, but pouting. “Luka, I still have so much to do.”

Luka just stepped aside and opened the door wide. Marinette stopped and went pale as she took in the scene. Then she looked at Adrien. “What did you do?” she asked flatly.

“A little bird told me you were making an exception on your stupid polciy about wearing your own designs for the wedding,” Adrien said with a flicker of a smile. “I thought you might need a little help with your dress, given your frankly insane timeline.” Marinette stared at him, and Adrien quickly added, “And before you go off on me, I’m paying them, and they volunteered.”

“They won’t even all fit in here!” Marinette gasped, and Adrien chuckled and tossed her a key. Her hand snapped up to catch it, proving her superhero retirement hadn’t diminished her reflexes in the least.

“They come with a workspace,” Adrien said smugly. He raised a cautionary finger at Luka. “You’re not allowed. No peeking before the big day.”

“I think I can handle it,” Luka said wryly. He smiled at Marinette’s still gobsmacked expression and kissed her cheek. “I’ll go in the bedroom so you can haul out all those supplies I know you bought without me watching.” He held out a fist to Adrien. “Thanks Adrien.”

“Congratulations, Luka.” Adrien bumped his fist with a bittersweet smile that Luka couldn’t really fault him for.

Luka looked at Francis in the middle of the group. “Make sure she takes breaks to eat for me, okay?” Francis nodded vigorously.

Marinette made a few more inarticulate noises that ended in a huge hug for Adrien and as Luka retreated to the bedroom, he could hear her giving orders to get that stupid ribbon off those poor people, what is wrong with you, you big dork?

***

The next few days were...weird. Luka was walking on a cloud most of the time, going through the motions of his everyday routine with giddy disregard for what he was actually doing, only really tuning in to answer questions periodically from Marinette and Lucille about wedding arrangements or preferences. Even the press mobs didn’t bother him as much as usual, as tedious as it was to have to have his bodyguards follow him around everywhere he went just so he could get in the door. He made time to have dinner with Marinette and Tom and Sabine, letting the warmth of their happiness flow over him. He took Marinette to have breakfast on the boat with Anarka, too. They got on as well as they ever had in that ‘live and let live’ way that both of them shared.

However, having little tiny flying creatures pop up at random was a little unsettling even when he knew it was coming. Most of them were perfectly pleasant little...god-things. Some of them were more eccentric than others. The ones who hadn’t gotten out of the box much were zipping all over the apartment, fascinated especially with Luka’s music gear. He shared a cup of tea with Wayzz and Sass, and Wayzz answered some of his questions about what it meant for Marinette to be the Guardian. Trixx was perfectly pleasant to speak to, but rearranged Luka’s pick collection while no one was looking. Duusu popped up in his studio and they had a little jam session, Duusu dancing manically in the air while Luka shredded. Kaalki examined Luka’s album covers and awards and proclaimed him sufficiently exceptional. Sass and Tikki together had to chase Xuppu back into the Miracle Box, and that was a trip and a half, watching them zip around phasing through anything in their way, before Tikki had sufficiently intimidated Xuppu from causing any further chaos. One afternoon he opened his eyes from his meditation and found a small circle of tiny gods gathered around him, mirroring his meditation pose.

“They like you,” Marinette confided in him one night, sliding behind him on the couch and draping herself over his back. “They say you have good energy, and they like your music. Kwamis sing, you know?”

“Really?” Luka lifted his eyebrows slightly.

“Yes, when they’re separated, they do some kind of magic singing to connect with each other.” She nuzzled his neck affectionately. “The novelty will wear off in a while and they won’t be around so much.”

“I don’t mind,” Luka said, picking a few notes thoughtfully on the guitar. “They’re cute, and mostly they’re just...there. It’s a bit strange, but I’ll get used to it.” He leaned his head back to press his cheek against her hair.

He’d grown to love playing with her wrapped around his back. Sometimes he played whatever she requested. Sometimes he played her the sappiest love songs he could think of, until they lost themselves in laughter and kisses. But her song was still his favorite, being tuned in completely to her, playing for the sheer joy of it, with her pressed close against him, silent and still except for her quiet breath and soft touches against his skin.

“I love you,” he said softly, smiling as he played.

“I love you too.”

“I’m gonna marry you, weird entourage of tiny god-fairies and all.”

“I’m so lucky,” Marinette sighed, and he sensed the shift in her emotion even before he heard her voice go rough and her arms tighten around him. “I’m so lucky, Luka. I love you so much. I almost wish I could just marry you in the morning, but my parents would kill me and Lucille would probably have an aneurysm if we changed the plans at this point.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Luka sighed contentedly, turning his face to nuzzle and kiss her cheek. “We can make it.”

***

The next day, Sass was asleep on Luka’s amp in a small nest of soft fiber scraps pilfered from Marinette’s workroom. The snake kwami found the vibrations soothing, which was convenient, Luka thought, since he spent so much time playing. Suddenly Sass stirred and sat up, and gave a smile that was somehow gentle despite the fangs. “Nooroo. Welcome, friend.”

Luka looked up but saw nothing.

“There isss no need for fear,” Sass said soothingly. “Pleassse join usss.”

A small purple face peeped around the door frame. The kwami eyed Sass, and then turned his eyes to Luka. He shrank back behind the door when he saw Luka’s gaze on him. The edge of a butterfly wing visible over Nooroo’s shoulder explained a lot, and Luka’s eyes widened slightly.

“Hello,” Luka said as gently as he could. “You can come in if you want. You’re very welcome here.” Nooroo didn’t move, and Luka went back to his guitar, playing something soft and soothing, watching out of the corner of his eye but trying not to be too obvious about it.

“I know you can sssensse him,” Luka heard Sass say. “You know you have nothing to fear. But if you are not ready, we will not take offenssse.”

Another moment, and the butterfly kwami slipped inside, skirting the wall toward Sass’s nest.

“He feels gentle,” Nooroo said, very quietly, as he settled next to Sass.

“He isss,” Sass soothed, curling his tail protectively around his friend. “Ressst, if you like. You are sssafe here.”

Nooroo cuddled up next to Sass, his tiny expression enough to break Luka’s heart. “Safe,” he murmured, a little doubtfully.

Luka swallowed hard. He couldn’t imagine what the kwami suffered at the hands of Hawkmoth. Luka was empathetic by nature and practice, and that could be painful enough in the wrong situations, but Nooroo literally sensed emotion. To be forced to feel out the worst emotions he could find day after day must have been incredibly painful. Not to mention serving Gabriel Agreste was no picnic. One only had to look at Adrien’s issues to imagine how much worse it would be for a creature Gabriel believed to be nothing more than a tool. No wonder Nooroo had preferred the quiet, passionless world of the Miracle Box for years after Gabriel’s defeat.

Luka wondered if the kwami could feel his pity, and tried to decide what would be the most soothing for him. After a moment of thought, Luka began to play an old Scottish lullaby from his childhood, one that he associated with warmth and safety and his mother’s boundless love. He darted a glance at Sass and the little snake gave a tiny nod of approval.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been playing before Marinette appeared in the doorway, looking concerned. “You okay?” she asked softly. “You usually play that when you’re upset.”

“Fine,” Luka smiled at her. “Just felt like relaxing a bit.” He flicked his eyes toward the kwami nest. She followed his gaze.

“Nooroo,” Marinette said, face lighting up. “I’m glad to see you.”

Nooroo shrank into himself a bit. “Thank you, Guardian. I felt it would at least be polite to meet your intended.” He paused, looking between Luka and Marinette with a thoughtful expression. “I have seen great love twisted into selfishness and isolation,” Nooroo said solemnly. “But this is a soft love, a...generous love. It makes room for many. It is...good.”

Luka smiled. “There’s room for you too, Nooroo, whenever you feel the need of it. You’re always welcome.”

Nooroo nodded. “Thank you.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Marinette smiled, and blew him a kiss. Tikki slipped around her to join Sass and Nooroo. Tikki hugged the butterfly and Sass patted his friend gently. Between the two of them, he seemed to relax a bit more. Luka smiled to himself.

Yeah, it was a little weird, but when in his life had he ever been “normal” anyway?

***

The two weeks somehow went slow and fast all at once. Luka remembered the feeling well; he’d felt the same in the last few weeks before his first tour.

Friday morning saw their apartment invaded by a horde of women. Alya, Sabine, Rose, and Juleka took Marinette over to the girls’ apartment to get ready, leaving Luka to the tender mercies of his mother to make sure that he was ready and presentable on time. Luka rolled his eyes and refrained from pointing out that it was Marinette who had the reputation for chronic lateness, and that Anarka was the last person he would have picked to enforce order.

Still, he was glad Anarka was there. She went straight for his music studio and picked up his guitar, playing old tunes he remembered from his childhood. It soothed his jitters a little bit. It wasn’t that Luka was nervous or afraid exactly, he just...wanted to get on with it. He wanted to marry Marinette.

“It’s my wedding day,” he said softly to the mirror, just to make it real. “I’m marrying Marinette today.”

“You are,” Sass agreed, hovering beside him. “Are you ready?”

“So ready,” sighed Luka. “More than ready. Why can’t we already be married ready.”

It still felt surreal as he mechanically dressed himself. His suit had been provided by Marinette’s employer, as a bribe to let Marinette off work early for all the things that had to be done over the last couple of weeks, and for the wedding today, but Marinette had done the fittings herself, so it looked impeccable on him. It included a vest, but as he had requested, no tie.

“All right, let’s have a look at ye,” Anarka said, stumping around him. “Can’t be having you looking sloppy for yer bride, eh?” When she had circled him twice, brushed some imaginary dust from his shoulder, she sighed and said, “Well, I guess yer grown up after all, me boy.”

“I love you, Maman,” he said, smiling fondly at her, pretending he hadn’t seen her eyes watering behind her glasses. She returned the smile in kind, and then hugged him tight.

“Come on,” she said. “Play with yer old Maman for a bit. Those girls’ll be forever getting ready, and you’ll just fret if ye do nothing.”

“That sounds great, Maman,” Luka said with relief, going to retrieve his old guitar.

They played duets until Juleka came to tell them that Marinette and the car were ready. The original Couffaines indulged in a quick group hug, and then Luka hugged them each individually again.

“You’ll get wrinkled,” Juleka chided in a mumble. She looked up at him and he looked back at her and for a long moment they were silent. She didn’t need to speak for him to know how happy she was for him, and how relieved, and how much she wished for his happiness. He didn’t have to say anything for her to know how much he loved her and that he would always take care of her and that she would always be his sister.

“Come on,” she said at last, voice thick. “Let’s go get you married.”

Lucille took a step forward from where she stood by the door, clipboard in hand. “I sent everybody else down to the cars already so you two can have a moment. We’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”

For practicality’s sake, the couple and their witnesses were all going to City Hall together in the limo, while the others went ahead to the reception. Lucille ushered Juleka and Anarka our and to the elevator, leaving Luka alone.

Well. Not quite alone. Suddenly there was a small floating rainbow of tiny gods stretched across his living room. “We give you all the blessings we can bestow on this day,” Wayzz spoke for them.

“Oh, it’s so beautiful!” cried Duusu, darting back and forth in her excitement. “Love is so beautiful!”

“Thanks, friends,” Luka smiled. “Really.” Wayzz nodded, and the kwamis zipped back out of the room, except for Sass, who took his place in Luka’s pocket.

Luka crossed the hall to Juleka’s apartment and stood there for a moment, just trying to breathe, outside the door.

“She isss the sssame woman you loved yesssterday,” Sass said quietly, peeping out from his pocket.

“Yeah,” Luka said with a lopsided smile. “But now she’s all dressed up and we’re getting married.”

The kwami chuckled. “Indeed.”

“Okay,” Luka said, feeling his breathing speed up in spite of himself. “Okay, here we go.” He knocked on the door, and then let himself in.

“Marinette?” he called softly.

“In here,” she answered, and he went a little further into the apartment. She was standing in the light of the living room window, nearly glowing in her fitted white dress, her modest train artfully arranged behind her. Her hair was elaborately piled up and adorned with a tiara that he recognized as Rose’s. Her miraculous was in her ears, of course, and the blue seaglass pendant lay against her collarbone.

Marinette smiled with trembling lips. “They posed me like a statue and made me promise not to move until you came in.”

“You look stunning,” he told her honestly. “I’m almost afraid to touch you.”

She held her hands out to him and he quickly crossed the room to take them. “You’re shaking,” he observed.

“I’m going to lose my mind if we don’t do this soon,” she admitted, and they laughed together.

Luka raised her fingers to his lips and kissed all of them reverently. “Then let’s go, before we both fall to pieces,” he said, offering her his arm.

***

The ride to City Hall was a blur. All he remembered was Marinette’s fingers gripping his as tightly as he held hers.

Once they stepped inside, everything seemed to go in fast forward until he heard the mayor say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

The words gave Luka a swooping feeling in his stomach and his knees went weak. He looked at Marinette and she met his eyes with the same awed look on her face. Then they both broke into huge smiles and threw their arms around each other. Luka sighed deeply as he hugged her, the butterflies in his stomach disappearing into a profound sense of relief that felt like stepping into his apartment for the first time after a three-month tour. ”I love you,” he whispered into her hair, and felt her snuggle closer. Then she lifted her face and he kissed her reverently. The mayor had to clear his throat before Luka could manage to let her go. As soon as he did, she was enveloped by her parents. Luka wiped his eyes discreetly as Lucille shuffled them off to another room, and chuckled when he saw Juleka doing the same.

Heaven help them if the world ever found out what a bunch of softies the Couffaines were under their punk-goth-pirate exteriors.

Juleka hugged Marinette and gave Luka a wicked smile over his new wife’s shoulder. “Marinette’s my favorite,” Juleka told him smugly. Luka just laughed and put his arms around the both of them, kissing each on the top of her head, and then turned to give Rose the same treatment. The moment he turned away from her he was caught up into the most epic bear hug of his life courtesy of Tom. He’d have laughed again if he could get enough air. Sabine pounced as soon as Tom set his feet back on the ground, and damn if the small woman didn’t hug him almost as hard as Tom.

“Whew,” Luka put his hand on his chest when Sabine released him and grinned at Marinette. At his wife. “I’m going to have to step up my hug game now that I’m part of the family.”

Marinette giggled and moved toward him, but Juleka caught her arm. “Nuh-uh. We’ve got a party to get to and if you go over there now it’ll take a crowbar to separate you.” She spun Marinette towards the door. “Let me remind you that Maman is waiting, and keeping Maman waiting with nothing to entertain her is unwise.”

Rose gasped and Luka winced. “She’s right, we better go,” he admitted, offering his hand—to his wife.

“If we must,” Marinette sighed, but she was smiling brightly as she put her hand in his. “I suppose your adoring fans and annoying followers are waiting for us too.”

Luka grinned at her. “Just this once, shall we give them what they want?”

Marinette flashed him a grin. “Lead the way, husband.” He had to grab her up and kiss her for that, much to Lucille’s frustration, and it took another minute to get her smoothed back out and camera ready.

Luka didn’t make the least effort to hide his joy or his love for Marinette as they emerged from City Hall into the bright morning light and cascade of camera clicks together, hand in hand. He wanted everyone to see it. They smiled and waved, and Luka bent Marinette back (not into a full dip this time, just enough to make the folds of her dress fall in elegant points toward the ground, like they’d practiced) and kissed her tenderly. Then he bent down and she jumped on his back, the two of them laughing as he piggybacked her through the path their security team cut to the limo, trailed by the long-suffering Lucille and the rest of the wedding party.

Luka waved everyone else into the limo before him, and then turned and waved one more time to his fans, though he couldn’t see much past the cameras. Then he slid into the car next to Marinette and locked their fingers together.

Somehow Marinette and Lucille had conspired to rent them a boat instead of a party hall. The Liberty was too small to hold all the guests, but Lucille had found them a boat with a stage and a largely flat deck made for dancing. It had the benefit of letting them have their wedding outdoors while keeping them secure from party crashers and reporters. The Seine had always been a huge part of Luka’s life, and he was glad to be on the water for such a momentous occasion.

Most of the guests were already on the boat, and Luka made his grand entrance over a gangplank decorated in flowers and ribbons with Anarka on his arm, trailed by Juleka and Rose, and then Marinette’s parents escorted her across.

The ship cast off and everything was a whirl for a while. They exchanged rings on the stage and spoke simple, sincere vows in front of all their gathered friends and loved ones. Luka danced with both his mother and sister, a three-person Scottish reel they’d danced together since he was a child, performed this time with so much gusto and at such a tempo that it left all three of them laughing and breathless (he had no idea where Nino had dug up that track but he was going to have to get a copy). Tom waltzed Marinette around the room with such enthusiasm that Luka wasn’t entirely sure her feet actually touched the floor at any point.

Then Marinette was in his arms again, and he was so lost in her eyes that he missed Jagged beginning to play at the piano until her smile turned teasing and her eyebrows lifted. Luka wasn’t the best dancer, but it didn’t matter; all he wanted was to hold her close and let the music move them. Marinette seemed to feel the same, resting her head on his shoulder with a little sigh of contentment as the rest of the party was invited to join them on the dance floor.

Luka gave her up to Adrien for a dance with only a little reluctance. Luka understood now better than he ever had how deep their bond ran. Before Adrien took Marinette to the dance floor, he leaned close to Luka and held open his coat for a moment. “Plagg wants to talk to you,” Adrien whispered, and a black blur shot from his coat to Luka’s. “Better find somewhere private, he’s not patient,” Adrien warned.

Luka excused himself at the first opportunity to the men’s room, which was thankfully empty, and the black blur popped out of his coat and hovered in front of him, looking unimpressed. “So,” the little cat kwami said, more intimidating than anything that cute had a right to be. “You married my Guardian.”

Luka nodded warily. “I did.”

“I know Sass is all about second chances and that crap,” Plagg said, rolling to float on his back for a moment, and then sitting up to hover right in front of Luka’s eyes, his own cat-green eyes narrowed. “I’m just telling you now, I don’t go for that. I’m destruction, you got it? There won’t be any second chances with me. So you better take care of my Guardian, understand?”

Luka lifted his eyebrows. “Did you have this talk with Adrien?”

“One, that’s none of your business. Two, my kitten has extenuating circumstances. Three, you bet your ass we had words about what went down before. But I like him, so all I did was give him shit luck for a few months. You can ask him how much fun that was.” Plagg narrowed his eyes again. “I don’t like you. I don’t know you. If I hear from Marinette or Tikki that you stepped one single toe out of line—”

“Are you quite finissshed?” Sass popped his head out of Luka’s breast pocket. “Enough posssturing, cat. You made your point. The Guardian isss resssponsssible for much greater decisionsss than this. Do you trussst her judgement so little?” Sass huffed, and Luka would have said the kwami stuck his nose in the air if he’d had one. “Or mine?”

“Yeah well I’ve been around for a few thousand cycles longer than you, fangs, and even smart women can be stupid about the men they love,” Plagg spat. “So there’s no harm in making things clear from the start, right?”

“Fine,” Sass huffed. “You have done ssso. Now return to your bearer and leave mine to me.”

The little cat folded his flipper arms and did stick his nose in the air. Before the cat could say anything else, Luka interrupted. “Plagg—Thanks. For everything you and Chat Noir did back then. For all that I’m sure you do for Adrien now. And especially for looking out for Marinette. I really appreciate it.”

“Didn’t do it for you,” Plagg mumbled.

“Even so. Come on, let’s get you back to Adrien. I want my wife back. No offense, but I don’t think this was a fair trade.” Luka grinned.

Plagg made a noise that might have been a chuckle if he weren’t trying to act tough, and zipped back under cover.

“Charming friend you’ve got there,” Luka commented as he found Adrien.

“Sorry,” Adrien shrugged. “I hope he wasn’t too awful.”

“It was fine.” Luka stepped close for a moment to let Plagg slip back, and then moved away. “All the same, I think you can keep him and I’ll go find my wife.”

Adrien grinned. “She had her ‘up to something’ grin on, so good luck with that.”

“Oh boy,” Luka sighed, but he was grinning as he said it. He hunted through the crowd, stopping for handshakes and backslaps and congratulations. Really, considering the short notice they’d given, a surprising number of people had been able to attend. There were a fair number of industry people here that Luka had felt kind of obligated to invite, but the crowd was mostly friends and loved ones of friends, and that was perfect.

He finally found Marinette conspiring with Nino. “Now what are you up to?” Luka asked, slipping an arm around his wife.

Marinette grinned up at him. “I just think we should take a quick peek back at where all this started.”

“Oh my God,” Luka laughed, as the big screen over the currently empty stage lit up and a familiar kittycorn logo flashed up on screen. “You didn’t.”

“Of course I did,” Marinette giggled, as Kitty Section’s very first music video played, the one they had sent to Bob Roth’s contest all those years ago.

“Wow, that brings back memories,” Luka sighed. He looked at the stage, and then spotted Juleka moving through the crowd near him. “Hey Jules,” he bellowed, more than loud enough to get her attention. She turned toward him with an exasperated expression and Luka nodded at the stage with a grin. “What do you think?”

Juleka grinned back. “I’ll get Rose.”

“Nino, tell them to get the mics live up there,” Luka instructed, and then he kissed Marinette’s cheek and headed for the stage. Juleka and Rose were right behind him as he picked up his guitar and slung it over his shoulder. He stepped up to the microphone and tapped it. “Turn me up guys,” he hollered, waving at the sound techs. They jumped to it and the microphone crackled to life. “There we go,” Luka grinned. “Adrien, come on up here. Hey Mylène,” Luka called. “Can I borrow Ivan for a minute?” Mylène smiled and shooed Ivan toward the stage. “Come on up here big guy.” Ivan rubbed the back of his neck, smiling shyly, but the way he spun the drumsticks between his fingers told Luka he wasn’t too out of practice.

“All right,” Luka surveyed his former bandmates, every one of them grinning widely, even Juleka. “You ready, Rose?” At her thumbs up, he grinned back at Ivan. “Count us off, man. No, wait,” he held up a hand, and turned back to the crowd. “We’re still missing somebody. Marinette, get up here, baby.” He grinned. “You’ve always been my unicorn.” There was a chorus of “aww’s” and a few laughing “eews” as Marinette made her way to the stage. She came to stand beside Luka, and he put his arm around her waist and kissed her temple. “All right, let’s do this. Go for it, Ivan.” He released Marinette and slid his guitar into position.

“YOU KNOW I LOVE UNICORNS,” Rose belted, proving the years had not diminished her lung capacity in the slightest. Luka joined in, improvising a harmony to the old but familiar vocals as he sang to a laughing Marinette. It wasn’t a perfect performance, they were all a little rusty, but it was more fun than Luka had had in years.

Afterwards, Adrien and Ivan relinquished their places to Luka’s regular backup, and he had someone bring up a stool for Marinette so she could be comfortable. He wanted her close to him. She put her hands over his mouth in surprise as he played the opening riff he’d been working on, and he winked at her as he stepped up to the mic. This was his first ever performance of Lightning on the Water and he wanted it to be perfect. Luka knew how to play an audience, but this one time, he ignored them and sang just for Marinette. The crowd of guests was nearly silent as his guitar mimicked sparks dancing over the water, and he sang in low, smokey tones about the draw of deadly beauty, buzzing over his skin, the desire to dive deep and never come up again.

The silence lasted for a long moment after he finished.

He was still staring into Marinette’s eyes when a whoop came from the crowd that he immediately recognized as Jagged. “Now that’s a hit, kid!” the older rock star hollered. “I’m pissed I didn’t write it myself!”

Everyone laughed, and the atmosphere lightened. “You can go down if you want,” Luka whispered to Marinette, and she shook her head.

“Just this once, I want to stay up here with you for a while,” she whispered back, squeezing his arm.

“Kiss her!” someone screamed (Marinette’s grandmother, Luka thought), and laughing, Luka did.

“What do you want me to play next?” he asked her, and she pulled him down to speak in his ear. “Yeah, I can play it,” Luka chuckled. “Too bad Clara couldn’t make it, but we’ll make do.” He stepped back to the mic. “You guys remember this one, right?” He played the opening to Miraculous.

The guests remembered the song and the dance that went with it, and Marinette danced beside him as they belted the lyrics into the microphone together. Luka had to catch the stand once when she knocked into it, but he was well versed in keeping things rolling over those kinds of incidents, so aside from a little laughter, the show went on.

Luka hadn’t planned a set list, hadn’t exactly planned an impromptu concert at all, but this was who he was, and this was what he did. When his heart got too full, it overflowed in music, and it was pouring over today. And this wasn’t like the concerts he was used to playing. This was his friends and the people he loved, a party just like they used to have in the old days. They rolled through song after song, some he’d written and some of their old favorites from other artists, some that came to his mind and others shouted at him from the crowd, and he let his happiness and love shine through in all of them. He bounced with the drumbeat pounded behind him as he belted, “I don’t care what people might think, I got your name in permanent ink—” Marinette leaned up to sing the next line with him. “Baby this ship ain't never gonna sink!” they hollered into the mic together, and he went on as Marinette laughed, dancing with her hands over her head and the beads on her white dress sparkling in the sun, “Just kiss me like nobody’s watching! Yeah people are talking, it doesn’t matter what they say. Just kiss me in the middle of the street to let the whole world see that there’s nobody else for me!”

Of course Jagged couldn’t stay out of things for long, but by the time he leapt up on the stage, Luka was ready to let him take over. He held his wife’s hand as they went back down for more dancing and hugs and congratulations, but it was all a haze to Luka after that. Playing had finally drained off all that excess buzz he’d been carrying around all day and tucked his soul back into his body, and he just felt...peace. Peace, and maybe a little bit of impatience to be back at home with the love of his life and the weight of this day.

Jagged relinquished the stage at last to Anarka, Juleka, and Rose, who sang a beautiful three part harmony of The Parting Glass as the ship came back into dock, and then it was a long string of goodbyes and la bise before they finally found themselves alone in the car back to Luka’s apartment—their apartment.

It felt intensely quiet after all the excitement, and Luka found himself grateful for it. He slipped his arms around Marinette’s waist and she lay against his chest. They cuddled in silence all the way home. As soon as they were out of the limo, Luka scooped her up. Marinette protested, laughing, as he carried her into the building, up the elevator, and all the way up to the apartment.

“You’re wearing yourself out for nothing,” Marinette told him as she dug through his pocket, looking for his keys.

“All that time at the gym might as well be good for something,” he said as she unlocked the door for them. “You’re heavier than you look with all that superhero muscle, but you’re still pretty light.” Marinette pushed the door open, and he carried her inside.

Luka set her down gently on the couch, and then sank down beside her, stroking her cheek tenderly. They kissed softly for a moment, and then curled together again. Sass and Tikki zipped out of their hiding places, and with a quick cheek cuddle for each of them and a whisper of congratulations, the kwamis made themselves scarce. The hem of Marinette's dress was grey with dirt, her hair was coming loose, and when she smiled up at him he could see the exhaustion on her face. Luka smoothed the loose hair away from her eyes. “We’re married,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” she smiled up at him.

“Now what?"

“I don’t know,” Marinette put her hands under her chin on his chest and blinked up at him. “Never been married before. It was fun but I’m kind of worn out. Maybe you can help me get out of all this stuff and we can go take a nice warm bath and relax, and we’ll see how we feel after that.”

“That sounds amazing.” He nuzzled her temple. “My wife is a genius.”

Marinette giggled. “My husband is a sweetheart.”

“God, say that again,” Luka breathed, putting his arms around her.

“My husband,” Marinette murmured, smiling.

“My wife.”

“Marinette D.C. Couffaine.”

“I love it.” He kissed her softly, and then couldn’t make himself pull away until he was out of breath. “Let’s get the bath running, and then I’ll help you get rid of all this stuff.”

Marinette giggled. “I should warn you there are about fifty thousand pins in my hair. It might take a while.”

“Then the bath should be full by the time we’re done.” He cupped her face and kissed her. “I love you so much, Marinette.”

“Don’t make me cry before we get the makeup off, Luka,” Marinette smiled shakily.

“You know I don’t care,” he scoffed. “Come on.” Luka pulled her up gently.

Luka sat her down at the vanity, turned on the bath water, and then crouched beside her and helped her clean the makeup from her face. Together they found and removed all of the pins in her hair, and Luka brushed it carefully. One by one he unhooked the seemingly unending line of buttons down the back of her dress and helped her out of it, and he quickly became distracted with kissing and touching her, until she pushed him away, giggling, to turn off the bath before it ran over. Marinette slipped on a robe and left him, pouting slightly, to get undressed on his own. He forgave her though when she came back with two glasses of champagne and slipped into the bath with him.

“I don’t think I told you with everything else that was going on,” he commented as she leaned back against him, “My album proposal was approved. They loved the demo tracks I did.”

“Of course they did,” Marinette sighed, laying her head back on his shoulder. “What are you going to call it?”

“Second Chance,” he told her with a smile.

Marinette craned her neck to smile back at him. “Perfect.”

#quickspins #second chance #backlog #lukanette #i am lukanette trash i admit it #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug #mlfics

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caelesjjk · 5 years

Text

crave | a.i. (bodyguard!ash)

I can’t even believe that I finally finished this y’all. It’s a fanfiction miracle. I hope you enjoy, let me know what you think! And I’m linking a tiny playlist you can listen to while you read. It’s basically the three songs that got me to push through it.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jfFaDzJCXnJsPYFG23a2D

“I crave a dangerous kind of love. One that breaks hearts and bed springs.” –michael faudet

Rosalie Daniels was not the perfect daughter her father thought she was. While she was away at college, she did everything she knew he would hate. She partied too much, skipped class too much, and used her father’s influence to pass some classes. It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart enough to do it on her own, she just couldn’t be bothered to stay in the perfect mold of a daughter she was expected to be any longer.

Her father was the Governor of New York. Richard Daniels was amazing at what he did for the State of New York, but he was an oblivious father. Rosalie had been away at school for four years now and she wasn’t even sure he had noticed all the letters from the university informing him of all of his daughters misadventures. Or maybe he chose not to. As long as Rosalie stayed out of the papers and off the internet then he wanted to stay oblivious.

Now that she had finished with school, Rosalie was on her way back to New York. Until she figured out what she was going to do with her unwanted Business degree, she was going to have to stay at home. Despite her fathers insistence that she work for him, she refused. What she really wanted, was to photograph the world. Like anyone her age, she had the urge to see what else was out there. Life had so much more to offer than stuffy desk jobs for Rosalie. She just hadn’t figured out how she was going to break the news to her father yet.

The plane had just landed at the airport, and Rosalie suddenly felt nervous. She was nervous about seeing him. She wasn’t even sure if he still worked for her father, it had been two years since she had seen him. But still, the thought made her stomach churn. Ashton Irwin was part of the Governors security team, and when he started working for him six years ago, he had been assigned to be his teenage daughters bodyguard. He was determined to be the best damn bodyguard he could be, but then, in a whirlwind of unexpected events, he fell in love with her.

Not at first, no. At first she was the typical rebellious daughter of a diplomat. Constantly trying to sneak out to parties unprotected. She was utterly maddening, but on the nights he drove her wasted ass back from a party and she talked about the things she really loved, that’s how she got him. Rosalie Daniels was more than just the Governors daughter. She was beautiful and complex. She loved hazelnut coffee in her ridiculous mug she used just to piss off her father. It was black with the words “fuck off” scrolled across the side in white cursive letters. Ashton rolled his eyes every morning when she would sit down at the breakfast table with her father adorning that mug. But he also adored her for it.

There was a flower garden on the grounds that she was always dragging him to. She wanted to take pictures and rush to get them printed. She always had hundreds of prints scattered across her bedroom floor. It didn’t matter if the cleaning crew picked them up, they were back in a scattered mess as soon as she arrived home. That’s how Rosalie liked things, beautiful chaos.

When she went on dates, it was practically torture for Ashton. He didn’t know when it happened, but he cared about the girl he had been protecting for years more than just for the sake of his job. He hated the nights when he was positioned outside her door and he had to listen to her cry alone in her room. He never knocked to ask what was wrong, he didn’t think it was his place, but god he wanted to. He hated watching her at the parties he always gave in to. He was wrapped around her fingers and when she begged for hours for him to take her to the parties, he almost always did. Ashton kept an even closer eye on her, but in turn had to see her dancing with random frat boys and kissing them on the dance floor. He shouldn’t have let himself get in a position like he did, but it hadn’t mattered, after a few years she left for college. She came home for holidays the first couple years, but made excuses the last few to not come back.

To say he was nervous to see her now was an understatement. Ashton was waiting outside of the airport next to the car that would take Rosalie home. He had sent one of his colleagues inside to collect her off of the plane. He didn’t think he could keep his composure if he was the first thing she saw when she got off the plane. She didn’t know how he felt about her. How no woman he’s dated since she left is half as interesting or beautiful as she was. How no matter how many times he tried he couldn’t get her out of his head when he fucked them.

Rosalie was finally able to exit the plane, and as soon as she stepped foot inside the airport she was bombarded my paparazzi trying to get a picture. The prodigal daughter had returned and everyone wanted to run the article.

“Back off, please.” She tried to say politely, but they continued to crowd her. Rosalie tried to keep her face covered with her hoodie but it wasn’t much use. After a moment of panic, her arm was being pulled to the side by a man in a black suit and tie.

“This way, Ms. Daniels.” He said. Rosalie could see his nametag on the crisp black collar of this jacket and she knew he was one of her father’s security people. Just not the one she was hoping for. She nodded and let him lead her out of the airport and towards the front where the car was waiting.

Once she pushed her way through the revolving doors, her sunglasses covered eyes caught sight of who she had been hoping to see when she got off the plane. Ashton was standing next to the car with the door open. As soon as she reached him, his hand was on her lower back ushering her into the car.

“Welcome home, Rosie.” He said softly before shutting the car door. Rosalie was a bit stunned to hear the sweet nickname. He had always called her that before, but it was different to hear it leave his mouth now. She watched as he swiftly hopped into the passenger seat and the driver quickly pulled away from the airport curb.

Ashton was different now. Bigger. Broader. Bright red hair. But still the same soft facial features and kind eyes. Rosalie couldn’t imagine how he had gotten away with that hair while working for her father. If nothing else, Richard Daniels was overly formal. Whatever Ashton had done to be allowed to have bright red hair, she admired it.

“Can we stop for something to eat? I’m starved.” Rosalie finally asked after taking in a deep breath.

“There’s some salads in the bag behind my seat.” The driver said, looking at Rosalie in the rear view mirror.

“Whoever told you she’d want salad after a long flight obviously hasn’t been around very long. Pull off at the Burger King on the next exit.” Ashton said, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror now. Rosalie tried not to smile, but it was impossible. He still remembered. Ashton’s dimpled smile appeared next, and Rosalie had almost forgotten how breathtaking he was.

After she was able to get some real food, Rosalie could feel a cloud of dread settle over her as they pulled up to the New York State Executive Mansion. It had technically been Rosalie’s home since her father had taken office six years ago, but it never really felt like home. Just an old empty house.

Her mother didn’t stick around when Rosalie was a child. When her father started his journey in politics, she took off. Not a word. And it was okay with Rosalie, she couldn’t even remember feeling sad about her leaving. Instead, she was raised by her father’s assistant, Natasha, and the cleaning crew. And thanks to them, she was raised to respect and appreciate all people as humans. She wasn’t always able to use that towards her father, but she did try now and then.

Ashton could tell that Rosalie’s mood had shifted as the car pulled up to the house. Her shoulders slumped and her pretty lips set into a frown. He wished there was something he could do to make her want to be here, but it had never worked in the past, and likely wouldn’t now. When the car parked, Ashton jumped out and quickly turned to open the back door for Rosalie, but she was quicker, opening the door herself and stepping out onto the paved driveway.

“I’m supposed to open that for you.” He said, watching as her eyes settled on the house in front of them.

“I’ve been opening my own doors for quite some time now.” Rosalie said, adjusting her bag on her shoulder.

“Doesn’t mean you should have to.” Ashton replied, motioning with his head for her to walk in front of him towards the door. She sighed loudly and began the short walk to the front steps. Ashton kept his hand on her lower back as he opened the door to the house and ushered her inside. Rosalie swore she could feel his fingertips burning through the thick material of her hoodie.

The entryway was the same it had always been. It was big, open and too quiet. There was a spiral staircase that led to the bedrooms upstairs and a few accent tables with outdated flower arrangements sitting on them. But Rosalie never found it to be very welcoming in any sense. She started to wonder if she should just turn back around and sprint out the front door but the warm voice of someone familiar kept her from doing so.

“I know what you’re thinking, Rosalie Daniels, and you’re not going anywhere.” Natasha said as she descended the staircase with a warm smile on her face. Her straight black hair was cut short and framed her face nicely as always.

“Nat!” Rosalie shouted, dashing towards the bottom of the stairs where she was quickly wrapped into a hug by the woman who raised her. She was the most motherly person in her life and she always made sure that Rosalie was taken care before anything else.

“How are you, darling?” Natasha asked, squeezing her arms around Rosalie once more before taking a small step back to look at her.

“Not exactly thrilled.” Rosalie scoffed. “Where is he?”

“He’s in a meeting in the conference room. Shouldn’t be in there much longer if you want to wait and see him.” Natasha explained, even though she knew better.

“It’s fine. I’m going to head up to my room.” Rosalie half smiled and gave Natasha’s hand a quick squeeze.

“Your dad wanted to make sure you knew about dinner tonight. 6:30?” Natasha’s voice was a bit wary as she watched Rosalie walk up the stairs, Ashton walking behind her with her oversized suitcase.

“Sure.” Rosalie said quickly as she reached the top of the steps.

The hallway leading towards her bedroom was lined with pictures of past governors. Not exactly a comfortable walk to make when Rosalie had been a drunk high school student attempting to walk a straight line down a long hallway. Rosalie had purposely chosen one of the rooms at the very end of the hallway when they first moved into the mansion so that she could be as far away from everything going on as possible.

“You’re okay, Rosie?” Ashton asked, making Rosalie jump slightly, forgetting that he was walking behind her.

“He hasn’t seen me in two years and he couldn’t be bothered to come to the airport? Or be around when I got here? It’s complete bullshit.” Rosalie stops in front of her bedroom door and turns to face Ashton.

“He wanted to…” Ashton started to say, but the look on Rosalie’s face made him stop his sentence with a sigh. “You’re right. It’s bullshit.” His long fingers ruffle through his red locks as he sits down her suitcase.

“It’s fine. I wanted to take a nap anyways.” Rosalie grabs the handle of her suitcase and wheels it through the door to her room.

“I’m just across the hall if you need something. Anything at all.” Ashton says, a small dimpled smile rising at the corner of his mouth.

“Thanks Ash.” Rosalie smiles back and then quickly closes the door. Her back presses to the door as she slides down it onto the floor. She was angry with her father, but she was also angry with herself for once again thinking he cared. She was also completely taken off guard by how strong her feelings for Ashton still were after all this time. It was too much if she was being honest.

Before the tears could start welling up in her eyes, Rosalie felt her phone vibrating in the front pocket of her hoodie. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and unlocked the screen quickly to read the text messages on her screen from her old friend Paige.

By the looks of the news, you must be home lol.

Just got back in town. Anything going on?

Huge party out on the Ferguson’s farm. You in?

Pick me up at 10. Park down the street.

I know the drill. See you then.

Rosalie closed her eyes and took a deep breath before standing up from her spot on the floor. She and Paige had always gotten into trouble in high school. Rosalie’s father was not a huge fan of Paige and the things she always seemed to talk Rosalie into doing. But that’s why Rosalie liked Paige, she didn’t care who Rosalie was.

A very long shower was the next thing on Rosalie’s list of things to do. She needed to wash away this day before she sat down to eat dinner with her father. Once she had almost run out of hot water, she quickly got dressed in something that she knew her father would disapprove of. Her denim jeans were tight and her tank was more than revealing. It was perfect.

When the clock flipped to 6:30, Rosalie made sure to take her time getting downstairs. Even then, when she got to the dining room Natasha was the only one there. Rosalie rolled her eyes, walking around the back of Natasha’s chair and flopping down in the one across from her.

“What is that?” Natasha almost choked on the tea she was sipping when she saw the outfit Rosalie was wearing.

“I could show up naked and he probably wouldn’t notice.” Rosalie picked up her fork and poked at the salad sitting in front of her.

“Please don’t do that.” Natasha teased, making Rosalie smile just the slightest.

“I make no promises for future dinners.” Rosalie said, sitting up from her slouched position and pushing the salad away from her. But before either of them could say anything else, Rosalie’s father came walking into the room with his security and associates in tow. Richard Daniels always did know how to ruin a moment.

“Hello, Rosalie. How was your flight, darling?” He walked behind her seat and quickly bent to press a kiss to the top of her head. Rosalie rolled her eyes again as he took his seat at the head of the table.

“Hi dad.” She managed to say without too much sarcasm. Natasha giving her warning eyes the entire time.

“Tell me about school.” He says, not even making eye contact with his daughter.

“I graduated. By some divine miracle. That’s all there really is to say about it.” Rosalie slouched back in her chair again as one of the kitchen helpers brought out another plate of food and sat it in front of her.

“You’re a smart girl, it’s not so surprising.” Her father said, finally looking up from his plate to meet his daughters eyes. His same eyes. Practically the only thing she had inherited from him.

“Are we really going to keep pretending like you didn’t use your status to keep them from kicking me out?” Rosalie’s arms crossed over her chest.

“Rosalie.” Natasha said, more warning in her voice.

“There’s no reason to act this way at dinner, Rosalie. Drop it.” Her father said before going back to his food. Rosalie had had enough already. She pushed back in her chair until it fell backwards against the floor.

Ashton was standing in the doorway that lead to the hallway where the stairs were as Rosalie stormed passed him. He knew she was hurting, but he didn’t know how to fix it, or if she would even want him to. He waited until he heard her door slam upstairs before he moved. He heard Governor Daniels say something about her being a moody teenager, when she was in fact a woman. But he wouldn’t remember such things.

“Rosie?” Ashton said after knocking softly on her door.

“Fuck off, Ashton.” She yelled, slamming things around the room as she went. Ashton sighed and pressed his forehead against the door.

“Come on, Rosie. Let me in.” He could still hear her shuffling about the room. Then things went quiet for a moment and the door came flying open with a very angry Rosalie standing in front of him.

“You can come in, but I do not want to talk about my father.” Rosalie glared up at Ashton when their eyes met and he nodded in understanding.

“Do you want to tell me what you’re planning tonight?” Ashton asked as he walked across the hardwood floor and say on the cover of her bed. This was something that happened regularly years ago when the two of them were much closer.

“I’m just going to bed early, that’s all.” Rosalie lied, but she was never good at lying to Ashton.

“Now that you’ve gotten your bullshit lie out of the way, you want to try again?” Ashton raised one of his perfect eyebrows questioningly. Rosalie sighed and threw herself down onto the bed next to Ashton. He stayed sitting as she laid next to him, their thighs touching and warming each others skin through the material of their pants.

“I’m just going to a party with a few friends. I swear I don’t need anyone to go with me, I’ll be fine.” Rosalie said, gently pulling at the back of Ashton’s shirt so that he would lay back against the bed with her. He didn’t object in the slightest as his head laid next to hers and they looked up at the ceiling together.

This was something that happened pretty regularly a few years ago. Ashton knew he was overstepping boundaries by spending so much extra time with her but she was all he could think about then and now. He was there when she got the tiny rose tattoo just beneath her left breast and it felt so much more intimate to him than it probably did to her, but it was just another one of those things that made him love her all that much more. Rosalie Daniels was a force to reckoned with and Ashton constantly wished that everyone else could see her that way.

Rosalie’s whole demeanor changed when she was just lying here next to him. Their shoulders just barely touching. Ashton had been her place of solace when things started to get too much for her to handle. He always knew when to gently touch the small of her back and remove her from a room she wasn’t comfortable in. He knew when she needed certain things and when she didn’t. He probably knew what was better for her than she did sometimes, but he never made her feel that way.

“I don’t know, Rosie. You know I can’t let you go alone.” Ashton sighed and turned his head to look over at her pretty face. Such striking yet soft features.

“Do we really need to have the ‘I’m not a little girl” conversation?” Rosalie asked, still looking up at the ceiling. Ashton laughed quietly before he answered.

“I’m well aware that you’re not a little girl, Rosie. I just need to do my job.” Ashton watched as her eyebrows scrunched together slightly and her lips fell into a short lived frown. Rosalie always felt the slightest bit of a sting every time Ashton referred to her as work. But maybe that’s what she was to him. She shook if off quickly, sitting up to look down at Ashton’s face.

“You know I’m going with or without your permission.” Rosalie smiles softly and spends an extra few seconds soaking in the way his bright red curls pop against the white of her sheets. Ashton lets a dimpled smile spread across his face.

“And you know I’m just a phone call away.” Ashton says as he leans up on his elbow.

“Yeah, I know.” Rosalie pulls her bottom lip between her teeth while scooting to the edge of the bed so she can head to her closet. Without hesitation she pulls off the tank top she had been wearing with Ashton’s eyes burning into her bare back. He clears his throat and tries to look anywhere but at Rosalie.

“I should um…go.” Ashton scrambles up off the bed and wipes his nervous palms on the fronts of his black pants. Rosalie tried to hide her smile as she peaked over her shoulder.

“Bye Ash.” Rosalie pulled another top from her closet and slipped it over her head just as her door clicked shut after Ashton had stepped out.

By the time she had finished getting ready her phone was dinging with texts from Paige telling her that she was parked down the street waiting for her. And unlike most cliché scenarios that required the rebel daughter to climb out the window and sneak away, Rosalie simply walked out the front door. She wasn’t a teenage girl who required supervision anymore, but she still didn’t need her father or especially Natasha knowing she was going anywhere with Paige. So she walked down the dark sidewalk until she saw the flashing headlights of Paige’s car. Rosalie quickly slipped on her dark brown leather jacket just before she reached the car, opening the door with a wide grin on her face.

“Where have you been bitch?” Paige said, leaning over the console to hug Rosalie.

“Not here.” Rosalie gave her one last squeeze and situated herself in the seat.

“Being cryptic. I’m fine with that.” Paige smiled and started the car, driving towards the Fergusons farm outside of the city.

When they were finally able to find a parking spot the party seemed to already be in full swing. There was a huge bonfire and music blasting from a DJ system somewhere in a swarm of people. Rosalie started to get out of the car but Paige grabbed her elbow to stop her momentarily.

“Wait a second, I have party favors.” She smiled devilishly and wiggled her eyebrows while pulling a small plastic baggy from her coat pocket.

“What is that?” Rosalie asked, something telling her already that it wasn’t a good idea.

“It’s ecstasy of course. I got it for old times sake.” Paige opened the bag and shook one out into her palm, tossing it back into her mouth like it was the most normal thing. And maybe a few years ago it was, but even though Rosalie had partied in college, it was nothing like the things she and Paige did before that.

“I don’t know Paige. This is a huge party.” Rosalie felt more uneasy as Paige shook the bag once more and pushed her palm towards Rosalie.

“Alright fine, but you have to stay with me the entire time. No wondering off.” Rosalie took the small blue pill and stared at it a moment before she put it into her mouth and swallowed it down.

“Deal. Now, let’s get our asses over there.” Paige quickly got out of her car but waited until Rosalie did as well, linking their arms together and practically skipping over towards the crowd of people.

The night started off amazing. They ran into some other old friends from school and drank keg beer for hours. Rosalie felt like she was drifting above everyone else most of the night. She laughed and sang at the top of her lungs when the DJ played some of her favorite songs from all those years ago. It seemed like the night was going to go off without a hitch, until one word was shouted that no one wants to hear.

“COPS!” Someone screamed above the sound of the DJ. Everyone almost immediately started dispersing. They were either underage or had something on them that the cops didn’t need to find, so everyone was running.

Rosalie looked around frantically for Paige while her head was fuzzy and unfocused. She was nowhere to be seen. Rosalie started moving towards the area where she knew they had parked Paige’s car but she began to feel so dizzy that she had to stop. People were still shouting and pushing, and they kept pushing until Rosalie couldn’t keep her footing and she fell to the ground. It was muddy from people’s footsteps and it made it even harder for her to attempt to get back up on her feet.

“Paige where are you?!” Rosalie shouted, but it didn’t seem to be any use.

“I’m right here, Rosie.” The familiar voice said next to her ear, pulling her up from the ground by the elbow.

“Ashton? What…what are you doing here?” Rosalie knew she had obviously drank too much on top of that pill. Her head spinning.

“Did you really think I’d let you go somewhere like this alone?” His huge hands are cupping her face trying to get her to look at him, but she can barely keep her eyes open. “What did you take?” he asked.

“Nothing. It was just ex.” Rosalie smiled drunkenly as Ashton scooped her up beneath her knees and started walking.

“I’ve got you.” Ashton says into her ear as he carries her towards the black suburban parked in the lot.

Ashton sat Rosalie into the passenger seat, trying his best to keep her upright while he buckled her seat belt.

“You smell good.” Rosalie giggled while her face was buried in his shoulder.

“You smell like cheap beer and cow shit from being in this field.” Ashton teased as he finally got the seat belt in its lace.

“I do not. Stop that.” Her eyes fell closed again as she slightly slurred the words. Ashton shook his head with a small smile on his lips. He used his fingertips to push some hair away from her sleepy face and Rosalie instantly searched for more of his touch.

“Still beautiful.” Ashton says quietly, loving the way the dim overhead light casts shadows on her face. Rosalie hummed appreciatively at his fingers on her skin until he pulled them away and shut her door. Her eyes could barely focus on the bright red curls on his head walking around the car and getting into the drivers seat.

Rosalie slept most of the drive back to the house. She woke up long enough to realize that she needed Ashton to be touching her again and searched for his hand to hold in hers. He didn’t pull away, just let her hold onto his fingers as they turned into the driveway.

“Come on, Rosie. Let’s get you to bed.” Ashton tried to wake her with no such luck.

He pulled open her door and undid the seat belt, pulling her into his arms like a small child and carrying her limp body into the house. She groaned as he jostled her a bit walking up the stairs but she quickly fell back asleep. Rosalie Daniels was the only person Ashton could see himself taking care of this way, whether it was his job or not. He just wanted her to see that there was more for her than this partying type of life. She had so much to give to the world and she was wasting it by getting fucked up in the middle of field.

Ashton felt like he needed to bring her to his room so he could keep an eye on her. He didn’t want Rosalie choking on her own vomit or anything else he could not possibly fathom happening to her. At least that’s what he needed to keep telling himself to justify his selfish want of her in his bed. So he opened the door across the hallway from hers where he had been staying for last 5 years.

The walls inside his room were the usual dark blue that most of the other bedrooms were. All of them except Rosalie’s, hers was painted a horrid pastel peach color that she adored. Ashton never understood why she liked it so much when she had first painted it. But the more he saw her in that room, lying on her bed reading a book or staring down at her phone and the sun coming through the windows just right, it all made sense. Everything about Rosalie Daniels was pastel peach. It was beautiful in the oddest ways. And sometimes if he was lucky, Ashton would get to see glimpses of her beauty that she was willing to let him see.

“Need to shower.” Rosalie grumbled as Ashton closed the door behind him.

“Can you handle that?” He said quietly, walking towards his bathroom with her still in his arms.

“Mmhmm.” Rosalie hummed.

“Okay then, angel. Let’s get you in there.” Ashton slowly let her feet down so she could stand up on her own, but kept his arm around her waist while they walked into the bathroom.

With his hands on her soft hips, Ashton propped Rosalie’s tired and half drunk body against the vanity while he opened the shower door and turned on the water so it could warm up for her. Rosalie yawned and pushed her messy hair around on her head causing more tangles than before. A sudden pout appeared on her face as she lifted her arms above her head and looked at Ashton.

“Help me.” She said pitifully. Ashton could only smile. He approached her slowly, long fingers ghosting over her hips until they tangled in the material of her top and pulled it up and over her messy head of hair. She was completely bare beneath it, and Ashton had to use every ounce of strength in his body not to touch her soft skin.

“Ready to get in?” He asked her, eyes trailing up her torso until they were met by her waiting ones. Rosalie shook her head no, pointing to the button of her jeans.

“I don’t think I can do it.” Her voice was just above a whisper and her pretty bottom lip was pulled between her teeth. Ashton could practically feel himself about to explode and he’d hardly touched her. He watched her eyes a moment longer before his fingertips were sliding from just below her navel to the button of her jeans, popping it open until the zipper came undone as well.

“Baby girl…what are you doing to me?” Ashton whispered the sweet words the same time he was dipping his hands into Rosalie’s jeans and underwear swiftly pulling them over the curve of her ass. Ashton kneeled down on one knee in front of her to help pull them off of her ankles. Now Rosalie was the one on the verge of exploding.

“Do you want to come in there with me?” Rosalie asked with a slight hiccup at the end. She leaned forward slightly so her hands could rest against Ashton’s strong chest. She managed to pull open one of the buttons on his shirt and Ashton’s eyes fell shut.

“As much as I would love to…I won’t be doing anything like that while you’re fucked up.” Ashton’s hand wrapped around Rosalie’s and moved them away from his chest so he could take a step back away from her.

“Are you serious?” She hiccupped again, stumbling slightly on the bathroom rug.

“Have a shower. Then we can talk.” And with that Ashton left the bathroom after he sat one of his clean tshirts on the vanity and quietly closed the door, listening to Rosalie mumble under her breath as he did.

After walking back into his bedroom, Ashton stretched his arms above his head, his tired and achy muscles protesting a bit. He had been standing practically all day, back and forth with the Governor to different places until he had to go to the airport to pick up Rosalie. He may have volunteered to do so all too willingly. He carefully undid the rest of the button on his shirt, all the while thinking about the way Rosalie had just been doing this same action. He had somehow kept his composure in front of the girl he loved while she was completely naked in front of him.

Ashton dragged his tired body over to his bed, flopping down on his back with his arm behind his head. His eyes closed and listened to the sound of the shower running in the next room. He wasn’t sure if she would want to talk. But he hoped she would still give him a chance to finally tell her how he felt, because there was not a chance of going back now. Deep down, Ashton knew he should just be her bodyguard. He should protect her and keep her safe from harm and leave it at that. But if there was just an inkling of a chance that she felt the same way, the bigger part of him wanted to take that chance.

Just when we could feel himself begin to drift to sleep, the water turned off in the shower and Ashton was alert again. Patiently waiting for Rosalie to come out of the bathroom. There really wasn’t any mentally preparing himself for this.

The sound of the door opening startled Ashton a bit, and the sight of steam rolling out of the bathroom in the dim light had him almost squinting to see where she was. Rosalie stepped out, but didn’t make eye contact with Ashton. He could tell she had sobered up a bit by the way she carried herself towards the bed. She flopped down on her stomach on the bed next to him, the tshirt of his that she was wearing just barely covering her delicious curves. Her face was turned away from him and her wet hair was sprawled across his pillow.

“C’mon Rosie. Don’t be angry with me.” Ashton scooted a little closer to her on the mattress.

“Angry? I’m not angry. I’m embarrassed. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to go to my own room.” Rosalie says, still facing the other way.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I just…if you want me…I wanted it to be when you’re sober.” Ashton said, his palm coming to rest on the small of her back. She took a moment to think about his words and how they erupted butterflies in her stomach before swiftly turning over on her side to face Ashton.

“Do you want me?” Rosalie asked, her voice quiet and a bit shaky.

“Everyday.” Ashton replied, his hand leaving her back to come to her face and cup her cheek.

“Why did you wait so long?” Rosalie moved her body until it was flush against his.

“Just your bodyguard, Rosie. You deserve better than that.” Ashton looked away from her eyes as he spoke but Rosalie had her fingers under his chin pulling them back to her.

“I know I’m a disaster…” She whispered, pulling her lip between her teeth the way she always did when she was nervous.

“Beautiful disaster.” Ashton added, making Rosalie smile and shake her head.

“I don’t deserve you, Ash. All the shit I’ve put you through. I’m sorry for all of it.” She looked up to meet his eyes, taking a deep breath. “But I’m not sorry for this.” Rosalie moved her free hand to cup the side of Ashton’s neck and pull herself into position to press her lips to his.

There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation, because nothing had ever felt so right. Rosalie had pictured the way Ashton’s lips felt for as long as she could remember. And even after all those daydreams, it was nothing compared to reality. They were soft as they slotted with hers, molding together and making the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. Ashton’s nose brushed back and forth with hers as they moved around until Rosalie was straddling Ashton’s lap. Their lips never parting in the commotion.

Her hands made quick work of pushing his shirt off of his shoulders and slipping it off of his arms. Finally able to slide her hands into his curls, she gripped at the strands until he was moaning against her mouth. Ashton’s huge hands desperately searched for the hem of his tshirt she was wearing and when he finally had it in his grip, he swiftly pulled the material over Rosalie’s head leaving her naked in front of him once again. He took his lips from her reluctantly to admire the perfection sitting bare on his thighs.

“Fuck, baby. Tell me what you want.” Ashton’s words were desperate as he sat up to wrap his lips around one of her nipples. Rosalie’s head lulled back and her hips ground down against his searching for friction.

The sun was starting to come up outside and a dull bit of light was coming through the thin curtains hanging over the windows, and Ashton wasn’t the slightest bit tired anymore. He felt Rosalie’s hands fumble with his belt, but eventually get it and the button undone. Their breathing mixed together when she brought her lips back to his while she finished pulling down the zipper. Ashton was so hard he didn’t think the confines of his underwear were going to be able to hold him much longer.

“Can I have you in my mouth?” She whispered the words against Ashton’s mouth and he almost came right there and then.

“I will never say no to that, angel.” They both smiled as Ashton lifted his hips and let Rosalie pull his pants and boxer briefs down his thighs and legs until they could be haphazardly thrown to the floor.

Rosalie didn’t find it necessary to waste any time when that’s all they’ve been all these years. Ashton’s cock was heavy in her hand as she moved her hand up down him, making sure to pay attention to the pretty vein running underneath it. Ashton twitched and moved his hips in rhythm with her hand. His moans were captured by her mouth on his momentarily. All too soon she was pulling away and moving down his body. She kissed a hot, wet trail down his stomach and over his hips. When Rosalie got where she wanted to be, she flattened her tongue against his shaft and licked a long stripe from the base to the tip where she stayed to pay special attention. Licking and sucking until Ashton could barely see straight. His hands gathered her hair into a makeshift ponytail so he could watch his cock disappear and reappear inside her magical mouth.

“Stop, baby. Please stop.” Ashton moaned barely holding it together.

“What’s the matter?” Rosalie looked up at him with the most innocent eyes while her hand continued stroking is ungodly hard cock. She was going to be the death of him.

“I want…oh god.” Ashton’s sentence broke off when her little kitten licks started in on his tip. “I want to fuck you.” He managed to get out. Rosalie smiled, pulling her mouth off of him and moving back to straddle his hips.

“Like this?” Rosalie’s hands were pressed flat against Ashton’s chest helping her hover above waiting cock.

Ashton took a minute to run his hands over the soft skin of her hips, slipping one between her legs to feel how absolutely soaked she was from just having him in her mouth. He dipped them inside making Rosalie grab onto his wrist, trying to get him deeper, that’s when Ashton couldn’t take another second without being inside her.

“This is going to be hard and fast. I promise to make it up to you over and over today, tomorrow, every day if you want it. But right now I need to sink so deep inside this pussy that you feel me in your chest, okay baby?” Ashton gracefully wraps his arms around her body and flips their body’s until Rosalie is pressed into the mattress beneath him.

“God, yes.” Rosalie wrapped her arms around Ashton’s neck and held on as he lined himself up with her and slowly pushed inside, letting her adjust as he went deeper. “More Ash, please.”

Ashton started his deadly rhythm, taking time to swivel his hips and hit spots that Rosalie didn’t know existed inside her. Her orgasm was building up so quickly that she could barely breathe. Small beads of sweat started to form on Ashton’s forehead as his pumps became ruthless. He could already feel bruises forming on his hips and Rosalie’s nails were digging long scratches and crescent shaped moons along the entire expanse of his muscular back. He bent down to kiss her moaning mouth and hold her hands above her head in a tight grip as he spilled everything he had inside her. Rosalie clenched around him and met her own high at just the same time.

Ashton’s sweaty body fell limp against Rosalie’s. He kissed her neck and her jaw while he tried to calm his breathing. She only wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled him tighter against her and they laid there like for what seemed like hours, the sun finished its trip above the horizon and beginning to shine brighter than it had been before. Ashton managed to lift himself enough to look down at the angel girl beneath him, all that soft morning light making her look every sense of the name.

“You’re okay?” He asked quietly.

“Perfect.” Rosalie answered, leaning up to kiss his swollen lips a few more times.

“I’ll get you something to clean up.” Ashton pulled himself from inside her, that feeling was something gloriously hot all in its own. He grabbed a wash cloth and brought it back to Rosalie so she could do what she needed to with it.

“Can I stay in here with you?” Rosalie asked, her head resting against her palm and elbow on the mattress.

“Any time you’d like.” Ashton pressed a kiss to her temple and pulled her up the bed until they could both slip under the covers.

“You won’t mind me being in your bed every night?” Rosalie buried herself in Ashton’s chest.

“Never. I’d prefer it really.” Ashton said, arms consuming Rosalie’s smaller body. “We just have to be careful, you know?”

“You’re afraid my dads going to fire you?” Rosalie asked.

“Or have me assassinated. One of those.” Ashton laughed lightly and Rosalie did the same.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.” She pressed a kissed to his wonderfully hair covered chest, relishing in the feeling of it against her cheek.

“You’re my bodyguard now, baby?” Ashton asked with a huge smile on his face.

“Damn right.”

Tag list: @maoricth @slimthicccal @bbycal @kinglyhood @sugarcoated-pain @shower-me-with-roses @c-dizzle-swizzlex @calumculture @sugarcoatedcalum @calthesensation @cheyenne-in-wonderland @softboycal @moonlightcalum @unconditionalcalum @irwinkitten @singt0mecalum @angelbabylu @5sosnsfw @aspiringwildfire @myloverboyash @cal-puddies @lashtoncurls @kchillout @pinkbubbles-and-bigtroubles @callllumhood @sick-orca @lfwallscouldtalk

#5 seconds of summer #ashton irwin #calum hood #michael clifford #luke hemmings #5sos blurbs #5sos one shot #5sos fic #5sos fanfiction #5sos smut #afi #cth #lrh #mgc #i cant believe #its done #bodyguard ashton #OMG IM SO EXCITED

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fanfics4all · 6 years

Text

A Lodge Between Us: Part 6

Request: Yes / No

Request are closed <3 Have a nice day/night

Archie x Lodge!Reader

Word count: 3828

Warnings: Talk of rape, Street race, should be it

Y/N: Your Name

Y/N/N: Your Nickname

Summary: You’re Veronica Lodge’s little sister and are dating Archie Andrews. You’re nothing like your sister, you don’t care about the riches and you don’t follow your parent’s orders blindly. You become close with the Southside and want to stop your father but your father has gotten into Archies head and is the devil on his shoulder.

A/N: I live in New York so if don’t get offended about me saying how dirty New York streets are because let’s be real, they’re not the best.

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK!

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Masterlist

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

The next day Cheryl, Veronica and I told Sheriff Keller about what happened to her. We also told our parents which means they called her mother. We were in my room listening to what they were saying.

“Penelope, thank you for coming. We called as soon as Cheryl told us.” My mother said.

“And I appreciate that, I just wish you’d stopped her from talking to Sheriff Keller. Lord knows what Cheryl did or said to the St. Clair boy to provoke him.” Cheryl’s mother said with a sigh.

“According to Veronica and Y/N, nothing.” Our mother said confused.

“Hermione. Hiram. I want this handled discreetly.” Mrs. Blossom said, more like ordered.

“Well, I’m confident that the St. Clairs feel the same way.” Our father said.

“Then it’s settled. I’ll talk to that idiot Keller and tell him we won’t be pressing charges. After all, nothing really happened to Cheryl.” Her mother said and Cheryl stood up straight.

“Cheryl, I’m...so sorry.” Veronica said.

“Don’t be silly. I’m used to it.” Cheryl said putting on her jacket.

“And besides, you heard what mommy said. Nothing really happened to me.” She said rolling her eyes.

“Nick roofied you!” I said.

“He tried to-”

“I’m fine, Veronica, Y/N, Everything’s fine.” She said with a fake smile.

“If everything’s fine, then why did we just call Sheriff Keller and make a statement?” Veronica asked.

“A momentary lapse in sanity. I mean, can you even imagine? Me, facing off against Nick St. Clair in a courtroom battle royale? I’d be a laughing stock.” Cheryl said heading for the door.

“Cheryl wait!” I said stopping her.

“Veronica, can you go talk to mom and dad?” I asked and she nodded.

“I’ll fix this.” She said and Cheryl tried to stop her but I stopped her.

“It’s not just you Cheryl, he’s done it to other girls. I mean, hell, he even tried to do it to me…The night before the open house.” I said.

“Did you tell your parents?” She asked and I shook my head in shame.

“I can’t…I doubt my dad would believe me or that they would care, I’m not Veronica, I can’t be the reason this deal goes south…” I said with a sigh. Cheryl walked over and hugged me.

“What happened with you?” She whispered.

“He drugged me like he did with you, but I wasn’t asleep for it. He gave me something different, I could see everything he was doing but I couldn’t move. He got undressed then started kissing my neck and then he unzipped my dress…” I said tears forming in my eyes.

“He raped you?...” She asked and I shook my head.

“No, Veronica came in to grab her purse, Nick lied and said I was in the bathroom then he came back in and zipped my dress up. He said if I told anyone I’d regret it and then he left. When the drugs wore off I got up and ran home as fast as I could.” Cheryl hugged me. Her mother called her and she looked at me.

“Go, please don’t tell anyone.” I pleaded and she nodded. She left and I spent the day in my room working on homework.

A couple of hours later my sister came in and said we had to go. I looked at her confused and she just told me to get dressed. I got dressed in blue jean like crop top, a floral skirt, and white sneakers. I put my hair up in a ponytail and tied a bow around it. For makeup, I did a natural nude tone eyeshadow with a nude tone lip.

Once I was dressed I walked out of my room and saw Veronica standing with my parents ready to leave.

“Where are we going?” I asked confused.

“Alice Cooper caught wind of what happened at Nick’s party and she’s having meeting.” My father said slightly annoyed. I nodded and we left to get in the car. Andre drove us to the Cooper’s house and everyone but Cheryl, Nick, Valerie, and Melody were there. Veronica and I sat down next to Archie and Josie.

“Riverdale’s best and brightest, huh?” Alice said placing down a try of coffee mugs.

“Alice, thank you for hosting.” Mayor McCoy said with a smile.

“Of course, Mayor McCoy. When I heard what happened at Nick’s party, I decided that we should come together to deal with this motley crew of liars, dope-fiends, and fornicators. Except for my betty, who was smart enough to leave the party before it descended into bacchanalian free for all.” Alice said.

“God mom, please don’t.” Betty said looking at her lap.

“Oh great, here we go Saint Betty and Succubus Veronica.” V whispered to Archie and I. Betty looked at Veronica then back down at her hands.

“So, this is for clarity, Alice. You’re hosting this little get-together to what? Gloat?” Fred asked.

“You know, I may have taken Jingle Jangle, but she’s the one who has a psychotic break.” Veronica continued.

“Cut her some slack, Veronica. She just broke up with Jughead.” I looked at Archie with wide eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Hashtag Bughead is no more? And Betty didn’t tell me?” Kevin whispered shocked. Alice cleared her throat and we all looked at her.

“Careful throwing stones there, acid-queen Alice. I’m not the only one in this room that knows the story behind that mugshot that your daughter printed in her paper.” My father said with a smirk. Alice looked at Betty and she looked down once again.

“Well I, for one, would like to know who brought the Jingle Jangle to the party?” My mother asked. Reggie raised his hand and his mother slapped it down.

“Reginald, not a single word out of your mouth until we get a lawyer.” His mother said.

“No, all Reggie needs to tell us, Melinda, is how he acquired it.” My father said to her.

“Some gang member who deals on the Southside…” Reggie said.

“Oh my God, you have a dealer?” His mother asked shocked.

“Once again, Mayor, the Southside is the source of all our problems.” My father said and I frowned.

“Was he a Serpent? Does he go to Southside High?” Sheriff Keller asked.

“I think so, yeah.” Reggie said. Bull. The Serpents don’t deal!

“What does it matter? Not all Serpents are drug dealers.” Archie said and I smiled a bit.

“Archie, not helping.” His dad said shaking his head.

“Look, we shouldn’t have taken the JJ, Nick’s the one who asked Reggie to get it and then pushed it on us.” I said.

“He’s the one who should be in the hot seat. I mean, he’s the one who roofied Chery, and tried to assault her.” Veronica added.

“Prosecuting Nick St. Clair would be difficult given that all witnesses were high.” Sheriff Keller said.

“Yeah, but Josie, Y/N, and I saw Nick with Cheryl the night after the party, and neither of us were on Jingle Jangle.” Veronica said.

“The drug stays in your system for three days. So if I drug tested you right now, you’d have a credibility problem.” Keller said.

“Josie, you took that drug? You put that poison in your system, knowing the way your father’s struggled with addiction?” Mayor McCoy said and Josie nodded.

“I see. From this moment on, bringing the Southside under control is my number one priority as mayor. If it means razing it to the ground or arresting every single Serpent in sight, starting at that high school, so be it.” Mayor McCoy said and I looked at Archie worried.

“Let’s go, Josephine, now!” She said. Josie and her mother left.

The next day Archie went to Southside High to save Jughead. He was going to be late to school but honestly who cared? I unfortunately couldn’t go to help save Toni and Jughead but I hope Archie did. I had to go to school with Veronica. I got dressed in a white denim vestlike shirt, a pink skirt, pink ballet flats, a pink purse and put my hair in a braid. For makeup, I put on a pink eyeshadow with a bit of shimmer and a pink lip that was also kind of shimmery.

Veronica and I were dropped off at school and we went to our lockers. I met up with Kevin and we talked about what happened to Cheryl, Ii told him Nick tried to do it to me too.

“What do you mean Nick did it to you?” Kevin asked.

“He almost did. After the penthouse party. Veronica came in to get her purse and then he came back in the room told me not to tell anyone and then left. I ran out of there as fast as I could.”

“Ugh, I hope Nick St. Clair chokes on his silver spoon. You need to tell someone, My dad. Or your dad.” Kevin said.

“No, Kevin. My dad cannot know. This deal is too important to him. Plus have you ever seen The Godfather? If my dad ever found out what Nick did-”

“What? He’s put a horse’s head in Nick’s bed?” Kevin asked cutting me off.

“Worse, he’s put Nick’s head in Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair’s bed. I don’t want his blood on my dad’s hands or mine!” I whispered. Then my sister came up to us with a smile. We smiled back and the three of us stood in the hallway talking. Betty walked up to us a few minutes later.

“Hey.” She said quietly. Her and my sister looked at each other.

“Veronica, I-”

“Don’t even try, Benedict Betty.” Kevin said cutting her off.

“Chill, Kevin. She’s not worth it.” My sister said then walked off Kevin followed her and Betty looked at me with a sigh. Betty got a call and she went into a nearby classroom to answer it. I decided to go to class.

When Veronica and I got home out parents told us we had to do community service. We both of course argue not to but there was no point in arguing. Veronica and I decided to go to Pop’s for dinner since our parents were going out, I was bringing homework to work on and Veronica was brining some too. The two of us sat in a both minding our own business when we heard Betty’s voice. She was talking to Sheriff Keller about JJ.

“Drafting your next savage take-down?” Veronica said and I rolled my eyes. Betty looked at us then got up to join us.

“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I didn’t mean what I said. There’s no sane excuse.” Betty said.

“No. There isn’t. So tell me, B…What’s the insane excuse?” Veronic asked closing her book. I moved over so Betty could sit down and talk to us. She told us everything.

“So, to recap… You’re talking to a serial killer and he’s been puppet-mastering you?” I asked confused.

“I’ll never forgive myself for what I did, V. To you, to Jug, to my mom, hell, even to Nick St. Clair.” Betty said.

“Girl, I would’ve given Nick’s name and then happily treated myself to a facial. I still might…But, yes. You’re in a toxic relationship with the Black Hood, and you need to break up.” Veronica said and I rolled my eyes. Well that’s one way to put it.

“Or I could turn the tables on him.” Betty said and that peaked my interest.

“He says he’ll go away if I do one last thing...Find out who’s behind the Jingle Jangle, some creep called the Sugar Man.” Betty said.

“Okay, so what’s the problem?” I asked.

“If the Sugar Man exists, and Ii find out who he is, I can’t just give up his name. The Black Hood would kill him. And drug dealer or not he’s still a human being.” Betty said.

“Barely.” V said.

“I’m so close guys. Will you help?” She asked.

“I’m in.” My sister said.

“Count me in.” I smiled. The three of us stayed at Pop’s late and and talked, well B and V talked I was more focused on my homework and thinking of ways to catch this Sugar Man.

The next day Veronica and I went to Pickens Park for our community servious. It was filled with garbage. Like crazy amoutes. It was disgusting. Although New York streets probably weren’t much better.

“Pickens Park? More like Needle Park.” Veronica said holding open a garbage bag.

“I wouldn’t even go cruising here.” Kevin said. Reggie was flirting with Josie.

“Josie, mind if I borrow Reggie for a New York minute?” I asked.

“Please take him.” Josie said annoyed.

“Love watching me walk away, huh?” Reggie said to her and she rolled her eyes. I walked up to him with a smile.

“What do you want, Y/N? We were kind of in the middle of something.” Reggie said checking Josie out.

“I want the name of your Jingle Jangle contact and I won’t take no for an answer.” I said and handed him my phone. I looked over to Betty and saw she was talking with Archie. I smiled at her and she smiled back. Reggie handed me my phone back and we finished our community servous.

Once we were done Betty, Veronica, and I made plans to buy JJ and follow him to the source. Veronica would be the buyer and Betty and I would hide in a nearby alley. Veronica called me and I answered.

“Our Drugstore Cowboy should be passing you two in three, two, one..” She said and we saw him running away.

“We’ve got eyes on him.” I said and hung up. The two of us met up with my sister. We unfortunately got caught and some asshole grabbed us. They took us some where.

“They were following me, tried to get in the garage.” The dealer said.

“Betty?” Jughead asked.

“Y/N? Veronica?” Archie asked.

“Archie?” I asked.

“Jughead?” Betty asked.

“What are you doing here?” We all asked at the same time.

“Wait, so, these are your bitches?” Some asshole guy asked.

“You want to say that to my face?” I asked walking towards him, Archie stopped me though.

“Why don’t you take your skanks and get the hell out of here. Until you make me a better offer, there’ll be no race.” The asshole said. I went to go fight him by Archie held me back.

“If you win, we’ll give you the Whyte Wyrm. You can expand your drug-dealing horizons, and upgrade out of this literal hellhole.” Jughead said.

“We’ll take the Wyrm, and Sunnyside Trailer Park.” The asshole said and Jughead nodded. The two filled us in on what was going on. Betty and Jughead went to go as Reggie to borrow his car and Archie and I went back to his house. Veronica went home I guess? I don’t know.

Archie and I were cuddled in his bed, he didn’t have a shirt on of course and I changed into one of his to be more comfortable.

“What can I say, or do, to get you to stay here with me and instead of going to that race?” I asked worried.

“Don’t worry, Y/N/N, I have a plan. You know, kind of like the plan you, Betty and your sister had when you snuck into the Ghoulie headquarters.” He said with a smirk and I laughed giving him a kiss.

“Smart ass.” I said once we pulled away.

“One that hopefully keeps everyone alive.” He said and my phone started to buzz. I picked it up and saw it was Cheryl.

“Cheryl?” I said when I answered it. She started talking a mile a minute, I couldn’t really hear her.

“What? Slow down.” I said confused.

“You’re parents are still doing business with the St. Clairs.” She said.

“They what?” I asked shocked. Honestly there was a small part of me that thought they would cut all ties with them. Cheryl and I hung up and I told Archie I had to go. I left and stormed into our apartment where I saw my parents playing chess and my sister reading.

“Are you still doing business with the St. Clairs, letting them invest in SoDale after what Nick did?” I asked and they all looked at me.

“To be fair, Cheryl’s accusations-”

“Cheryl’s telling the truth!” I said cutting off my father.

“I know because Nick almost did it to me…” I said and my family’s faces turned into shock and anger.

“Nick St. Clair hurt you?” My dad asked and I gulped.

“Yes…He drugged me after everyone left the party and tried to rape me but Veronica walked in looking for her purse and Nick lied to her saying I was in the bathroom then after she left Nick threatened me, telling me not to tell anyone, then he left and once the drugs wore off I ran home. The next night he went after Cheryl…” I explained and my mother grabbed my hand.

“Y/N, why didn’t you say something?” She asked.

“I didn’t have proof, and I didn’t want to ruin this deal for daddy…” I said and my father stood up.

“Y/N, as God is my witness, I swear to you I will-”

“Under no circumstances will we take a penny from that family.” My mother said cutting my father off.

“You should have said something.” My father said anger was clear in his voice.

“I would have but you made it sound like this deal was so important and I didn’t want to be the reason something got ruined again…” I said and my mother grabbed my arms.

“You are more important than some business deal.” She said and my father nodded.

Our parents went into my father’s study to talk more and Veronica took me to my room. She gave me a hug and apologized to me even though she didn’t really have a reason to. I just wanted to forget about it and Veronica said she would help me pick and outfit for the race. I put on a black and white polkadot crop top, a pair of jeans, a pair of cute black earrings, red heart sunglasses, and a pair of hed heels. For makeup up I went very natural eyes with a wing and a bold red lip. For hair I tied it in a ponytail and put a black and white polkadot bandana on my head.

Once the two of us were ready we met everyone at the race. We were all hanging out with one another, well I went over to Toni and her friends to talk to them but my sister ended up pulling back over to the Northsiders. I gave them an apologetic look and Toni gave me a smile.

“Let’s do this!” A man shouted and everyone cheered.

“Not the kind of drag race I ever imagined myself going to, but at least the guys are hot.” Kevin said and I laughed shaking my head at him. I walked up to Archie and Betty went to Jughead.

“Don’t worry Y/N/N, we got this.” He said and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Just make it back to me. In one piece.” I said with a smile. I pulled him down to give him a kiss and then I walked back over to our friends. They pulled over to the road and Cheryl was going to be the flag girl. Toni usually did it but Cheryl being Cheryl took her place. She raised her scarf and pulled it down. The two cars were off and we went back to waiting around. After like fifteen minutes some guys came over shouted.

“Everyone scatter! The cops are rounding up Ghoulies!” He said and everyone panicked. Archie and Jughead pulled up a second later and they both got out.

“Oh my God, you’re okay.” I said walking up to Archie and hugging him.

“We gotta get out of here.” He said hugging me back.

“Come on, come on. We gotta go, right now!” Jug said.

“You called the cops!” A tall guy shouted.

“You won’t throw in with the Ghoulies, but you will with the cops? Where’s the honor in that?” He said getting in Jughead’s face.

“Calm down, Tall boy. You think I knew Keller was going to be there?” Jughead shouted back.

“I called Keller.” Archie said and the two looked at him.

“What the hell, Archie!? Did my dad tell you about this too?” Jughead shouted at him.

“No, this was my idea to get rid of the Ghoulies and it worked. They get arrested to street racing, and now they’re off the chessboard.” Archie said.

“For how long? One month? Three months? You know what they’re gonna want on the other side, Archie? Your head on a stake! All of ours!” Jug said shoving Archie then he walked away. We all got in different cars and drove off.

Later that night Betty, Veronica, and I decided to meet at Pop’s for a milkshake. We were just talking when Betty’s phone rang.

“Oh my God, is that the Black Hood?” Veronica asked.

“It’s Cheryl.” Betty said looking at her phone. She answered it.

“Hey.” She said happily.

“You did?” She asked and Veronica and I looked at her waiting.

“Who is he?” She asked.

“Wait, are you positive?” She asked again then hung up.

“Betty…” I said.

“Cheryl just told me the Sugar Man’s name.” Betty said.

“Oh my God.” Veronica said.

“Cherry Bombshell for the win.” I said with a smile. Betty sighed.

“What do I do guys?” She asked.

“If I give the Black Hood his name, may God have mercy on the Sugar Man, and if I don’t, may God have mercy on all of us.” Betty said.

“Tell Sheriff Keller, don’t let him control your life.” I said.

“Agreed.” Veronica said.

After that Betty said she would go to the station tomorrow morning. Veronica and I left to go home. We were sitting in the living room with our parents, the two of us reading books for school when the phone rang.

“Lodge residence.” My mother answered.

“I’m so sorry to hear that.” She said.

“Of course, all out prayers. Thank you, Andre.” She said and hung up. She sat back down across from my father.

“Everything all right, mi vida?” My father asked.

“The St. Clairs had a car accident. They were run off the road. Nick…He will recover. But it’s going to take several months.” She answered.

“Oh, well. Karmas a bitch.” I said with a smirk. My father picked up a chess piece and placed it on the board.

“Checkmate.” He said happily. My mother looked at him and Veronica and I went back to reading. Maybe Nick will learn his lesson now. Don’t fuck with a Lodge.

Tag list: @jojokoko0717 @lilaqueenquinn @lonelydoode @les-bio-lie @tashy-bear @cuddlememerrick @xrosesareredx @herokyolachan @ashwarren32 @hollie-blogs @rousewriter @blueandgoldaus @southsidefandoms @emo-godess-loves-you @hiya-imthatgirl @answer-the-sirens @mindsetjupiter @averysinclaire @mittelerde1999 @nixdunbarhale @nixdunbarhale2

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bethhxrmon · 6 years

Text

All I Ask of You Pt. 11

“I’m feeling something inside, yet I still can’t decide if I should hide or make a wide, open grin.” -”Happy New Year” from RENT

Pairing: Peter Parker x Original Female Character

Word Count: 3,638

Warnings: Serious transphobia, serious bullying, anxiety/panic attacks, please don’t read this chapter if any of those things effect you!

Summary: Peter is outed and his Spidey-senses do more harm than good

A/N: This chapter covers some serious topics and if you feel I didn’t handle them well, I’m sincerely sorry. Also, remember how I said this is a trans! Peter fic? That’s finally becoming noticeable!

MASTERLIST

Playlist

On the day school started back up again, Annie missed her alarm. Of course she had, she’d stayed out until around two in the morning taking care of a mugging with Spider-Man. Though, her parents thought she was fast asleep, so her dad was surprised when he walked into her room to still see her conked out.

When he woke her up, Annie had hardly any time to get ready and she shoved on the first clothes that she saw and practically bolted out the door with her backpack. From there, she practically sprinted out of the apartment building, wishing the elevator would have gone just a little bit faster. She looked at the time, seeing that if she could speed walk and sprint at some points, she would make it there on time.

After slipping and sliding on some ice, she made it to the subway to see only Peter who looked like a lost puppy. It made sense when she noticed that Ned wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Though, they all knew that he was pretty sick with some kind of stomach flu when he threw up at ten in the morning on new year’s day.

She rushed over to Peter as they got on the subway, “Sorry, I totally overslept!”

“That’s actually kinda surprising… we find out about the audition stuff today, don’t we?” Peter asked as they found a place to sit.

Annie’s jaw dropped, “Oh shit, we do, don’t we? Dammit, what if I totally messed up the audition and I’m not even in the production?”

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re gonna be fine. I listened and you sounded amazing,” he replied, looking at her.

She sighed a bit, “Yeah, I might have sounded amazing, but what about every other girl who sounded amazing?”

“Come on, you’ve said it a lot, the people here aren’t into theatre as much as you,” he said.

She nodded a little, “I mean, I guess you’re right… but really I was just trying to get myself into being overconfident to make up for nerves and shit.”

“Either way, I’m sure you did great! You don’t have anything to worry about,” Peter insisted, nudging her a little.

While Annie and Peter were able to talk to each other just fine, it did feel like someone was missing simply because Ned wasn’t there. Well, that and the fact that Peter never mentioned anything about Annie’s drunk ramblings while she had been a bit drunk. She never mentioned it either, she just pretended to be a serious lightweight and like she had just blacked-out. At least, that was what she said when Tina asked if she remembered anything.

Maybe he hadn’t said anything because Peter figured he didn’t feel the same way she did. That was fine, Annie wasn’t even sure if she had a crush on two guys or not. It wasn’t like she had the time to sit at night figuring out if she liked Peter or Spider-Man more. The answer was simple, things would be easier with Peter and she would definitely be happy, but she would never be able to stop wondering about what it would be like to be with another hero. In the end, it was easier to just not bother with either of them and just stick to having two friends who she liked a whole lot.

By the time the pair made it to the school, Annie was too concerned with finding a heater to stand in front of to be thinking about the auditions. Though, when Peter mentioned it and pulled her in the direction, she was about ready to kick him. However, her stomach was churning too much and she felt like if she said anything that nothing but bile would come up.

The postings in front of the drama room had a cluster of students around them. Her nails dug into her hands before going up to the mask pendant on her neck to play with that. All she could feel was her heartbeat and she couldn’t even hear what anyone else was saying as she slowly walked up to the cast list.

It took a few moments of looking at the paper for Annie to realize what was printed. The first time, her eyes barely skimmed the letters. The second time, she read the names. The third time, she actually understood. She couldn’t stop a hand from cupping her mouth to stop her from screaming out of excitement. Right next to Maria was her own name, and when she looked the list over again, she saw Peter’s right next to Tony. Whether she would end up thanking the universe for that in the long run or not was yet to be seen.

She hugged Peter tightly, “Oh, I told you so! Didn’t I? I so told you that you’d get it!” “H-hey, th-this… this is great. Um… I uh… I can’t believe it,” Peter responded, his face flushing.

Annie pulled away from him, looking at his eyes, “Something’s up, what’s wrong, Pete? I mean, I know Ned’s not here right now, but… but you could tell me.”

“I-it’s nothing, seriously… this is pretty cool, actually,” he said, running a shaking hand through his hair.

Annie sighed, “Is it because Ned’s the understudy for Bernardo? Because I’m pretty sure I could talk the teacher into switching Flash off of it if you wanted.”

“I doubt that, but, it’s not that it’s just-”

“Hey, hey, hey, Penis Parker! I see you got the lead, must be a serious fag or something, right? If that’s even the right word for it,” Flash said, cutting off whatever conversation Annie and Peter were having.

Annie rolled her eyes with a sigh, “Don’t you have something better to be doing?”

“I’m just saying I’m surprised anyone would let someone like… like that be the male lead in this show, just sayin’,” Flash replied with a shrug.

Seeing Peter wasn’t saying anything and looked almost pale Annie glared, stepping up to Flash, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I’d get out of my sight if I were you.”

“Or what, like you could do anything, besides, I’m just stating facts, Annika,” Flash claimed, crossing his arms.

Annie glanced out of the corner of her eye to make sure no one was watching them before jamming the heel of her vans into his foot and kneeing him in the groin before pulling Peter off, “What the hell is he going on about?”

“I-I um… nothing, i-it’s cool. J-just Flash being… w-well, Flash,” Peter stammered as Annie practically dragged him to their first class.

On any other day, Annie wouldn’t have bothered to question Peter stumbling over his words. It was just something that happened every once in awhile, but she noticed that he almost looked like everything around him was causing him pain. As if the fluorescent lights and idle white noise of their government class were torturing him. She had seen him like that before, but never knew what to do. Somehow, Ned would just help and take care of it, but Annie didn’t even know what was going on with him. If it was anxiety induced or if he just had a migraine.

“Pete, you doing okay?” she asked, poking him a bit.

Peter flinched and moved away a little, “Y-yeah, ‘m alright.”

“If you say so,” Annie replied, frowning.

Obviously, Annie couldn’t stay the whole day with Peter, they had to get to their classes that they didn’t have with each other. Though, there was a Start-of-Term assembly made for the end of the day, and Annie was determined to figure out just what the hell was going on with him. She’d even tried messaging Ned, even calling him a few times. Though, whatever he had was keeping him far away from his phone because by lunch, Annie was left at a loss of what to do.

All she could do was keep Flash off of Peter’s back. It must’ve been something that bastard said, but she wasn’t sure just what it was. When she tried remembering it, she couldn’t think of anything that would make Peter nervous. She sighed a bit, looking at the clock and then at Peter and then back at the clock. Ten more minutes until the assembly that she had every intention of ditching.

A part of her worried that if she didn’t figure out what was getting Peter so wound up, that he would do something stupid. While she never knew Peter to be the kind of guy to do anything dumb, she also didn’t know him to say less than a few sentences all day. Even at lunch he just sat and stared at his food. Normally the guy was eating everything and then even some of her own lunch because she was rarely super hungry.

Ned was usually there to sneak Peter out of class, asking her to cover for the both of them while they were out of the room. It was a perfect system, but Annie had no clue what was wrong and she just wanted to help. She’d never seen it get to the point that Peter was shaking so much and it made her want to cry. Though, she didn’t cry about it, he was the one hurting, not her.

It almost reminded her of Harper before they came out as nonbinary, Harper would get nervous. Almost like they wanted nothing more than to rip off their own skin. Annie never understood the feeling, and she was grateful for it. It made her wonder if there was something that Peter had been keeping from her this whole time. Not that she blamed him, they’d only known each other for a little over a month. Sometimes it took awhile before knowing everything about someone else. She certainly understood that.

What she couldn’t understand was the chip on Flash’s shoulder. He wouldn’t stop alluding to Peter being something that wasn’t human. It made Annie sick and she longed to punch him in the nose. Only, she didn’t know how to punch right, the last time she’d done that, she hurt her hand more than the other person’s face.

After Annie also noticed that she had all kinds of notes from the lecture, but Peter only had a few words on his notebook paper. The class was messing around for the last five minutes. It was getting kind of loud, and when Annie wanted to try talking to Peter again, but his head rested on the table, covering it with his arms.When the announcement came, telling students to head to the assembly, they both got up.

“D-do I h-have to go?” Peter asked, looking at Annie with wide eyes.

Annie chuckled a bit, “Bold of you to assume I would’ve let you go. Where do you go when you’re… well… out of it?”

“U-under this one staircase,” he said, starting to lead her over there.

Flash somehow popped up and had an arm around Peter, “Yo, Penis Parker, did ya tell her yet?”

“Get off of him, Flash,” Annie snapped.

Flash sighed a bit, “Well, did he tell you? I mean, you had to notice he’s nervous about that male role he got.”

“Go fuck yourself,” she replied, about to step between them, though Flash would have easily been able to pummel her.

He chuckled, “Or what? You don’t really care about this… this thing do you?”

“You need to get off of him,” she repeated, looking back at Peter who looked like he could barely breathe.

“Oh c’mon, I’m just having fun, you could help me if you wanted,” Flash replied, holding Peter against the lockers.

Annie bit her lip, wanting nothing more than to electrocute the asshole. She could feel the electricity from the lights, it would be so easy. Then, Flash would be off of Peter and she could help him. Her fists clenched, electricity swirling in them, but she wiped her hands on her pants instead.

She shook her head, “No, I want you to leave him alone.”

“You don’t actually care about that tra- wait… you don’t know, do you?” Flash asked, still holding Peter against the lockers.

“Don’t know what?” she asked.

Flash chuckled, “Penis Parker, did you not tell her?” he asked, not getting a word out of Peter who looked so pale and he was breathing so quickly.

“Tell me what? Never mind, it’s not important, get the fuck off of him!” Annie snapped, getting in Flash’s face as she tried to pry him off the lockers.

“Fine, defend the tranny, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he responded, letting go of Peter before running off. Though, not before she discreetly stole all the charge out of his phone.

Peter sank to the ground, hardly able to hold himself up. For a moment she really considered using the energy around her to help lift him a bit more. The way he seemed to be unable to pay attention, she felt she could get away with it, but seeing the cameras in the hallway told her otherwise.

“Hey, Pete, can you hear me?” she asked, kneeling down next to him.

When he didn’t say anything she frowned, “I need you to help me get you under that staircase.”

He nodded and while she tried supporting Peter, he had to do most of the walking and he curled in a corner where the wall and underneath of the stairs met. When she reached to comfort him, he sort of pushed her away for a bit. She was still processing what Flash had been going on about. Obviously she figured out what Peter was being so nervous about when Flash was talking, but Annie didn’t care about any of that. If he would have just let her say something to him, but she had a feeling that he needed to be on his own for a bit.

So she pulled out a book and started reading, checking the time. They had an hour and a half to kill. What in the world anyone would need that long to talk about was beyond her, but she wasn’t going to pressure Peter into anything. Instead, she looked over at him to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt himself.

“A-are you gonna ask about it?” Peter questioned, looking at her.

Annie shrugged, “Only if you want me to.”

“Y-you’re not mad or scared or disgusted or anything? I-I mean, I wouldn’t blame you,” he said, his voice thick with tears.

Annie marked her page and scooted over to him, “Hey, no. I could never… you’re you, Pete, I couldn’t be… I wouldn’t. Dammit, they don’t really write scripts for this kind of stuff,” she said, laughing a bit.

When Peter didn’t respond, she shook her head, “Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say, wasn’t it?”

“I-I didn’t wanna tell you,” he started, “A-and then w-we were friends a-and… y-you didn’t notice so I…” Peter choked on his tears.

Annie frowned, holding his hand, though he quickly drew back, “Of course I didn’t notice, I don’t notice lots of things… and you’re wrong, it’s not ‘were friends’, it’s we are friends, okay?”

“Y-you don’t need to lie to me… a-almost all my friends ditched me, y-you just feel bad,” he insisted.

Annie blinked, “Okay, I’m sorry, what? I’m literally right here and you’re just over here, pushing me away.”

“W-well, are you gonna leave?” Peter asked, looking at her with blotchy eyes.

She looked at him, “You’re joking, right? I’m pretty sure if I ditch you here, you’re gonna fling yourself off the stairs or something really stupid.”

“Nah… I’d be okay,” he replied, looking down again.

Annie pursed her lips, “No, you wouldn’t. I’ve never seen you like this, but you’re… you’re not okay.”

“I-I am,” he insisted, crossing his arms.

She shook her head, “Nope. You’re not, and I get it… well, actually I don’t. Not really, I’ve never been outed, though, I guess there’s not much to out.”

“S-so you’re not leaving?” Peter asked, looking back at her.

She hummed a bit, “Well, let’s put it this way, are you still just as much of a nerd?”

“Y-yeah.”

“And are you still helping me with physics?”

“Yep.”

“And are you still the smartest guy I’ve met?”

“Smarter than Ned?”

“That’s off topic, but yeah.”

“Th-then I guess so.”

Annie smiled a bit, “Well, then you’re still the same guy I met in that bakery, it’s that simple.”

“I-I’m getting top surgery in a couple weeks… do you think it’ll hurt the musical?”

She shrugged, “I doubt it, if I have anything to say in it, which I will, you’re gonna be stuck with that part.”

“What if it’s too much? I-I mean, everything’s too much for me now… I don’t know if I could…” he trailed off.

She shook her head, “What’re you meaning?”

“Like… the lights and noises and people are too much already and sounds, what if I can’t… wh-what if I screw up a-and this happens again?” he started to ramble.

“Then I’ll help you and we’ll work with it, hey… you need to slow your breathing again,” she said, reaching for him.

This time, Peter didn’t pull back and instead pulled her into a very tight hug. Annie didn’t realize he had such a tight grip before, but she hugged him back, breathing slowly and deeply. The events reminded her a little bit too much of times Harper would flip out over their body. She held Peter as tightly as she could, though, having always been a few inches shorter and smaller in general made that rather hard. Somehow, that didn’t stop Peter from managing to shrink into her for a good while. It was hard for her to tell if he was crying or not, but his bloodshot eyes gave it away when he looked at her.

All Annie could notice was just how close they were, she could feel Peter’s heart beating. It had been going a million miles a minute, but now she could feel that his heart rate went down. His breathing wasn’t nearly as fast, and she had a feeling he was doing okay. Well, enough for her to not have to keep holding onto Peter, but there they both were, sitting under a staircase in each other’s arms.

Seeing Peter look away, Annie cupped his face in her hand and turned it so he was looking at her. It was like he wanted to keep crying, but he physically couldn’t. His eyes looked so raw from wiping them with his sweater. She should’ve said something earlier and she hadn’t. How could she have been so oblivious? Everything made sense when she knew Peter was transgender. She’d always wondered where Flash got “Penis Parker” from, and that was one of a handful of things that made sense to her.

They hadn’t moved at all, she was still touching his face and he wasn’t moving away. If she leaned in a little bit more, their lips would be touching. Annie could hear him breathing softly, and her heartbeat was getting slightly faster. Nothing was stopping her, except her own mind thinking about everything that could end up happening.

If she kissed Peter, did that mean they were together? What if it turned out he didn’t feel that way about her? If they were together, then what would she do about Spider-Man, whom she without a doubt had feelings for as well. She would only complicate things further by hiding the fact she was a superhero. After thinking of all that, Annie only then wondered if it was right to even think about kissing Peter when he was like this.

Still, most of Annie’s head just couldn’t listen to everything that would go wrong. Peter was right there and she wasn’t sure when she would get another chance to be this close to Peter again. It wasn’t like she would ever be able to make something happen with Spider-Man, not when Peter made so much more sense.

Just when she barely felt herself move closer to Peter, the sound of the final bell rang out. Both Annie and Peter jumped, separating in that moment. That moment made the decision for her, and they both got their bags.

“You okay, though? Like, can you walk and stuff?” Annie asked as they got out from under the stairwell.

Peter nodded, pulling the bag onto his shoulders, “Yeah, I-I just kinda wanna go home for right now.”

“Alright, I’m walking you home too, though,” she replied as they left the building through a side exit.

They didn’t talk about anything that happened while under the stairs. Instead, Annie went on, gushing about how great it would be to work with him on the musical. She didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so she ended up doing most of the talking, which was fine by her.

After she ended up rambling and repeating herself for the third time, she sighed, “Does Flash do that shit a lot?”

“No… I mean yeah… b-but not like that,” he started.

She nodded, “Okay, I’ll remember that.”

“Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I might pull some strings later,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly.

When she got Peter back to his apartment, Annie waited for Peter to go back to his room before telling May what happened. She mentioned everything except the part where she almost kissed Peter.

It took awhile, but Annie finally got into her White Swan costume and went around patrolling. The shirt she had underneath did keep her warm, but it didn’t stop her from feeling that something was missing. By the time she slid back into her bedroom, she hadn’t seen Spider-Man at all.

Tag list: @flushings-here / @upsidedownparker / @gaypanda / @ijustdontknowsometimes / @lionsfandomsandbearsohmy / @thwipparker / @buzzinglee (just ask to be added to the tag list)

#peter parker #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker fanfic #peter parker x oc #trans peter parker #trans spider-man #spider-man #spider-man x reader #spider-man x oc #marvel #mcu #fanfic #writing #original characters #all i ask of you fic

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pandoraimperatrix · 6 years

Text

After Office Hours

NaruHina | Mature | Romance | 2k | Read on AO3

Summary: Naruto is lonely after Sakura and Sasuke left the village to travel together, he keeps leaving the office later and later, things start to change after one night when his secretary Hinata and him share a couple of vending machine beers. In this AU Naruto becomes Hokage a lot earlier than in the manga and The Last never happened.

Part One

Part Two

“Hinata?”

She jumped awake and stared horrified at his kind smile, missing instantly the weight of the hand that rested briefly on her shoulder while he tried to wake her.

“I'm s-sorry” she felt so ashamed, she couldn’t believe she fell asleep on her table like that. “I know it’s no excuse, b-but think I didn’t sleep well last n-night and-“

“Slow down'ttebayo!” He let out a throaty laugh. “I’m not here to accuse you of anything. To be fair, I’m really surprised you are still here. It’s almost one a.m., I thought there was only me here.”

“Oh... I was...” She hid a yawn behind her hand. “I was waiting for you.”

“Hinata...” He frowned as she nervously started gathering her things from the table. “You really shouldn’t. Your family must be worried...”

She stood up and smiled softly without looking at him directly.

“They are not. Did you... Did you finish? I will help you! I mean, if I can, I should had been helping you all this time, shouldn’t I? That’s why you are here until this late, because your useless secretary can’t even do her job.”

Her cheeks were red and puffy as she stared at him with a glint of maniac despair in her eyes. To think she was asleep moments ago, some energizing nap that was, he repressed the urge do smile at her antics.

“Wow, Hinata, just, wow! Are you ok? Why are you being so hard on yourself? You are the best secretary anyone could ask for, none of your said is true at all. Actually, I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have you and Shikamaru with me. And to be true, I wasn’t working... Not really... I was just avoiding going home and I took a nap on my table too for a little bit.”

She deflated like a balloon filled with sadness instead of helium.

“I'm sorry...”

Now he couldn’t help smiling, and put a hand over her shoulder.

“What are you sorry for?”

“I don’t know, I just...”

He have seen that before, how she retracted inwards like a wounded snail when feeling insecure, he wasn’t having that tonight.

“Hey, are you hungry?”

“What?”

“I’m kinda peckish. Do you think we can find anything open?”

He glanced over the window.

“I... I think there’s a new food machine on the corner of the street.”

He beamed.

“Great!”

***

“Are you sure your family won’t be worried for you staying out so late?” He asked with a mouth stuffed with dry ramen noodles. “I'm quite expecting some sort of super scary Neji-like guy coming to get you.”

She lowered her head to hide a little smile.

“No, no I don’t get those anymore.”

“Why not?”

He offered his cup of raw ramen to her, but she declined choosing to keep munching her M&M's.

“Since I resigned from my ninja career and got an office job I was invited to leave home and the Hyuuga clan actually, but I can’t, I have the byakugan and I am well... My father’s daughter... So I’m still Hinata Hyuuga for now, I haven’t been sealed, for now, but I don’t get bodyguards anymore and I can stay late as much as I want.”

“Oh... I didn’t know any of that. How didn’t I know any of that? You are my friend, you are my secretary, I’m the Hokage!”

“It’s not something you should be concerning yourself with Hokage-sama, you know how my clan is we don’t like to make a big deal of things...”

“You are a big deal for me, Hinata! W-well everybody on this village is... But you should have told me.”

“I’m sorry, Hokage-sama.”

“Like before, you have nothing to be sorry for... I’m the one in the wrong here. It must had been hard to you.”

“I bit. I guess.” She played with the plastic package of her candy. “But I also feeling unburdened for the first time in my life.”

“Yeah, you family is a piece of work, I remember from the chunnin exams. Boy, that was ages ago. Do you remember how young we were? And I was such a brat!”

“You were not...” He didn’t expect the found in her expression, her face turned forward, away from his as she looked at their shared past. “And...” her cheeks were redder than before and not just because of the weather or the couple of beers they drank each “I looked up to you a lot”. She giggled and the sound made his belly feel weird, like there were bubbles inside him instead of the snacks and the alcohol they got from the machines. “Before you were the village's hero, you were mine...” she took a sip from her beer and then realizing what she just said she choked “I mean my hero, not m-m-my.”

He chuckled, she was so cute.

“But Hinata, I was a loser then.”

“But you were a proud one, you never let anyone bring you down, you never gave up, you just kept fighting, and look at you now!”

He stared at her for a few moments, and to his surprise she held the gaze, her expression fierce, her cheeks redder than ever. She was drunk, and after just two bottles, a lightweight drinker. She would remember none of this tomorrow.

And that's maybe why he did it.

He closed the space between them and kissed her.

It was a closed mouth kiss, and it was meant to be fast because he knew that was wrong milliseconds before touching her, but when he did. When the felt how bitter and sweet from the beer and snacks she tasted, and how so, so soft she felt, he stayed and, surprising him another time, so did she.

When he drew back, an apology on the tip of his tong, she still had her eyes closed, and she sighed. He swallowed the apology and it made bubbles even bigger on his stomach. She opened her eyes, they looked like half-moons floating in the dark ocean of her lashes. She licked her lips, he swallowed again, then opened his mouth to say something, but gave up and just leaned towards her again, his hands cupping the nape of her head, her lips parting to receive his, her hand snaking to his arm, the click of the empty bottle rolling to the floor.

He woke up in a bed that definitively was not his, it was too clean and the sheets had no obnoxious print on it, also the mattress as softer and the air smelt like flowers.

“Oh... You are awake. G-good morning.”

She was half-ready for work, but she was still suffering from a serious case of bed hair that became even more obvious now she wore it short again, she also was wearing a pair of fluffy slippers and there was a huge mug in her hand.

“Good morning’ttebayoo... What time is it?” He raised his upper body noticing as the comfort fell and exposed his naked chest that he was wearing nothing beneath it.

“Almost seven and a half.”

He noticed how her face went pink as her eyes wandered over his exposed chest and images of the night before flooded his head, specially those in which he found out the extent of her body through that pinkness spread.

Then he noticed his other morning companion. Oh noes.

“I... I think it's better if I leave first. I'm almost ready to go anyway.”

“You should have awakened me earlier, Hinata.”

Hinata who used that morning to memorise every freckle of his sleeping face didn’t agree and didn’t respond to that.

“I’ve left some coffee and rice in the kitchen, and the spare key you can put under the flower pot. I'm leaving now.”

He tried to get up to reach her but then remembered he was naked. A voice inside his head commented that she had already seen everything, but he ignored it and just firmly held the flowered comfort.

“Hinata, can we talk about this?”

She didn’t turn to him.

“Y-yes. Later.”

And then she was gone.

Work went normal. When he got there, almost one hour late from doing her dishes and hitting home to change clotting, she was sitting at her usual place working, and greeted him with a soft “Good morning, Hokage-sama” as if nothing had happened between them. It burst some of the bubbles in his stomach.

The day was so utterly ordinary that he almost forgot the night before. The weird conversation under the lamp light, the beers they shared, the sweetness of her lips and the tangy of her folds as she crushed his head between her tights. Well, maybe he didn’t forget it at all.

Finally, the work day was done, not that he did actual work that day at all. He kept looking at the door, whishing he could see through it and finding ridiculous excuses to go outside and walk past her, he went to de bathroom seventeen times and bought instant ramen five times, at end of the day he was feeling nauseous and he couldn’t say if it was pure tension or just too much food. He was just glad that Shikamaru was out on a mission and didn’t see that. He was also sorry for the same reason because he could use the advice, an at the same time he felt like he couldn’t talk about what happened between him and Hinata with anyone. It was so weird, he never felt so nervous after sleeping with anyone before. Maybe it was because of how his last relationship ended. If you could call that a relationship.

It was almost nine o’clock when she entered his room, her eyes focussing everywhere but him.

“You s-said you wanted to see me.”

He got up from his table, his hands on his pockets, he walked towards her in silence.

“I want to apologise. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you last night. I was sad, you were drunk. It wasn’t fair dattebayo… And if you don’t want to work here anymore, I’ll fully understand.”

“You didn’t.” Was what she finally said after a long silence that made his guilty grow so big it almost crushed him on the spot.

“What.”

“You didn’t t-take advantage of me. I… I wanted that. I was the one to invite you to my house, remember?”

Well, that was true.

“But still… Hinata…”

“I wasn’t that drunk. I’m actually usually much a heavier drinker than I was last night. I know what I was doing.”

Well, that was some interesting information.

“But if you want me to find a job somewhere else I will understand, but can I stay until then? It will be hard to pay rent otherwise…”

“Hey, Hinata, you don’t have to go anywhere if you don’t want to! I just thought… If you felt uncomfortable…”

“I’d like to stay if it’s possible then.”

“Of course’ttebayo! Actually, I was very worried that you would want to go, where would I find such a good secretary?”

He gave her his trademark Uzumaki a thousand watt smile, she smiled back and they shared a little moment, until her eyes doped from his to his lips, he followed the gaze and swallowed hard, remembering how the night before she bit and sucked his bottom lip so much that he still felt it a little sore.

Unconsciously he stepped forward, almost invading her personal space. But she was the one to talk first.

“Why were you sad?” She whispered.

“I don’t wanna to talk about it right now.”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t snoop in…”

Her eyes dropped to the floor and she threatened to leave, but he stopped her by putting a hand on her waist.

He could feel the goosebumps going through her skin.

“Hinata… I…”

What was fucking wrong with him? He had just apologized for this kind of stuff!

But she was giving him the half-moon look again.

“Tell me if this is ok.”

She crossed the imaginary line between them, there was now only a thin layer of air separating their bodies.

“It is.”

And next thing he knew, she was laying in his table, most of the important papers on the floor with pens, scrolls and empty ramen cups. His hands holding hers to the shaking table, her teeth biting his shoulder and his hips been held by the firm grip of her legs pushing him closer and deeper.

#naruhina #hinanaru #nh fanfiction #nh fanfic #see AO3 for the tags #my fic

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fordarkisthesuede · 6 years

Text

At the Brink of Midnight - Chapter 9

*Arrives two days late with Starbucks* ‘Sup, guys! σ( ▼∀▼)σ These past 96 hours have somehow filled me with a weird chaotic energy, and I pumped out the longest roller-coaster of a chapter I’ve ever done in such a short amount of time!!! Thank you, whoever sent all the writing vibes my way!!!! ★>d(,,･ε´-,,)⌒☆ I’m sending out strong vibes to everybody in return! *May you get hit by the writing bug and have the opportunity and energy to completely translate your ideas to printed words!*

Buuut a big note before we get to the good stuff: I realized too late that the original events of S2 take place in Spring. Like…April. I was writing all of this with the thought that S2 took place in fall; I mean, the characters can wear a leather jacket or a couple of layers comfortably, so I thought “yeah that sounds like early autumn”. Nope! So that means that for this story’s timeline, everything gets shifted into where it should be. On the downside, that means I had to go through and edit all the bits where it said “it was totally spring, you guys”. On the upside… IT’S NOW OCTOBER!!!!! THE SPOOKY SEASON THAT COMPLETELY FITS WITH WHAT’S GOING ON!!! And coincidentally, it’s my favorite time of the year, so I love writing about it even more! I get to add in a thing here and there about the spookiest time of the year, so I’ll have a nice list of what those little changes are uploaded here soon if you don’t feel like re-reading the whole thing. A re-read isn't necessary though, just keep in mind that the humid air of rainy spring in the city is replaced with chilling fronts and even more cloud cover than usual. Why am I bothering with this? Because I’m a stickler for keeping with canon as much as possible and I feel like an absolute fool for not remembering what goddamn time of year it was to begin with. (I mean, I went so far as to download all of TeamFourStar’s play-through because I watched it so often, you think I'd remember to go back and watch the very beginning once in a while…)

Anywho, thank you all again for your continuously loving support!!!

♡~(ɔ ˘3˘)˘⌣˘ c)

Important Spoiler Tags: drugs (mentioned), swearing, canon-typical violence, electric shocks (mentioned), torture of flowers, flirting, almost an excessive use of emoji, crying, romantic dirty thoughts

Read on Ao3 or continue below:

Chapter 9: Grapevines

Bruce Wayne couldn’t remember the last time he’d conducted a meeting from his home office. It wasn’t as if he didn’t use it – the desk surface had hardly any dust settled on it and two empty coffee mugs he’d forgotten about on two different occasions just happened to be stacked behind the monitor – but it felt strange, like a lot of things did lately.

He knew part of the reason for that was watching houses down in the Batcave right now. Knowing he wasn’t alone in the house was comforting, but knowing there were two cops outside the Manor’s front door just waiting for a chance to grab his best friend-cum-houseguest was not, and knowing that they were both close to being thrown in hot water was even less so.

He figured the other reason he felt strange was because he was slipping back into his old habit as if it had never been shelved in the first place. He had time to kill before the video meeting started, so he’d been scouring for information on “Pam”, Jonathan Crane’s ‘old friend’.

There were a few Pamela’s in Gotham, but only one fit within Crane’s age-range and attended Gotham University at about the same time: Pamela Isley, a forty-four-year-old former botanist with a record that ran the length of his arm. Theft, assault, threats, and attempted poisonings all done in the name of extreme environmentalism and social activism were sprinkled in her history before and after her days as a researcher, and according to GCPD records, she was now suspected of running her own drug-ring under the moniker of ‘Poison Ivy’. (Bruce found several recorded instances of people claiming to be Poison Ivy, most of whom were already arrested.)

Bruce would’ve wondered why on Earth she hadn’t been thrown in prison when she made a bomb-threat at a wealthy businessman several states away nearly a decade ago if he hadn’t seen her mug-shot from back then. At thirty-five, she looked every bit as beautiful as a top-billed Hollywood star, with natural orange-red curls cascading over her pale shoulders and ample bust in chemically-tamed waves, flashing the camera a come-hither stare that made it look like she was trying for a part in a high-budget porn flick rather than standing in front of a height chart for her criminal record. Pamela’s charges were mysteriously swept under the rug.

The latest photo he found of her reminded him a bit of those ‘cougar’ dating ads he’d seen – the older Pamela was blowing a kiss to the camera with a mocking look in her dark green eyes. Bruce glared at it. There was little doubt she was using people to cover for her constantly, and when she was in trouble, she managed to wriggle out of it with her looks.

Not this time. She was friends with Dr. Jonathan Crane, and that meant she wasn’t going to get out of this unharmed. The second his virtual meeting was over, Bruce was heading towards Toxic Acres, and hopefully the wounded Crane would still be there to see Batman’s fist hit his –

Bruce snapped out of his thoughts at the buzz of his phone. A message from the BatComputer…?

I’m bored :/

Bruce blinked down at the screen. John had found the emergency messaging system. Of course he had. He was just grateful that the encryption software on his phone was still up to date. Just what else did John poke his nose into down there…? (There was the chance that John would see files he shouldn’t, but Bruce kept those under a thumbprint encryption. He shouldn’t even entertain the thought.)

Stake-outs are usually pretty boring.

It wouldn’t be so bad if you were down here tho! :)

Bruce hovered his thumb over the keyboard, unsure of what to say. The feeling was kind of mutual, if he was being honest; having another person around on a stakeout would at least keep his mind wandering into the worsts of what-ifs and double-checking every last security issue…

No movement on either houses btw. Been reading Crane’s docs in the meantime but it’s DREADFUL!!! I feel like I’m reading a sleeping pill… =_=

You finish your WE stuff yet?

Meeting’s not for another 20 minutes. Been looking up stuff on Crane’s “friend”.

Oh??? :o Do tell!!!!

Bruce couldn’t help but smile at the enthusiasm.

Pamela Isley, former botanist w/ criminal rec., mostly extreme protest kind of stuff. Good chance she’s the head of a drug-ring that moved here a couple months ago; their leader goes by “Poison Ivy”.

They went to college together, but Pamela moved back here recently.

hMmMmm…. That means no burning the place down if we’re stuck! Bad fumes everywhere xP

Bruce focused on the word “we’re”. He hadn’t been planning on bringing John along. He wanted him safe, at home, where no one had a chance of seeing him and he wasn’t put in harm’s way…

Oh!!! You’ve got a bunch of sticky electro-shockers around - do you mind if I tinker with them? :3c pleeeeaaasssee?

What are you thinking of doing with them?

Making one BIIIIIG shock-bomb, of course! ;D I can wire them together so the shock spreads evenly in the space while it’s discharging.

Bruce reconsidered bringing John. He was still learning to curb his impulses, so being outside in a fighting environment would be a serious gamble, but... Maybe that could be their advantage, too. Bruce made a mental note to go dig out the spare bullet-proof vest from his closet’s secret panel.

You can do that?

I played around with making something like it before, but……well, you know.

Time + supplies for that project were low att. I figured I could always go back to it later anyway.

Bruce felt like his heart had deflated and swelled in such a short time that it hurt.

I mean I’m fine with throwing knives around too but I figured that would be less discrete ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

He’d been thinking of different methods of entering the “house”. Most of them featured a silent slip-in and as little combat as possible, but he knew that there would likely be some muscle around to stop any would-be intruders, and getting a quieter jump on them would certainly be helpful. He would certainly be lying if he said he wasn’t impressed that John had thought that far ahead even back then.

If you think you can get it done within 1.5 hours, then yes.

Ha ha ha with these supplies I can get it done in like 40 mins! >:3 just you watch!!!

Btw have you seen the news?

Not yet. Why?

I was on the morning edition! At least they used a good pic ;D

But also saw a guy getting fished out of the harbor. Your handy-dandy invasion software said he’s a registered Ryde driver.

I told you not to fiddle with that.

Sorry, but I only used it the once! Promise!!!

Bruce sighed through his nostrils.

Besides I thought you’d want to know. Think Crane stole his ride and dumped him by the docks? :v

Probably. I can get the plate from up here to verify. DO NOT TOUCH THAT PROGRAM AGAIN.

Yes sir ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Bruce wasn’t sure if that message was supposed to be flirtatious or mocking.

The incoming call from Iman Avesta stopped him from responding. He figured it had to do with John’s escape and the extra security added at Wayne Tower this morning, but why was she calling him now, rather than several hours ago?

“Iman?”

“Hey, Bruce. Hold on a sec – there we go, now we can both -”

“Bruce, what the fuck?” Tiffany asked over the line. “Are you at home right now?”

Bruce almost sighed at the attitude. “Yes, Tiffany, I’m at home, in my office.”

“Uh-huh. I keep getting alerts that your basement’s messaging system is being used. Care to explain that?”

Oh. Of course. He’d forgotten Tiffany had linked her phone to that, too. It’d just…been too long, he supposed. (She couldn’t read them, though, could she? He was fairly sure it didn’t give out mass-texts unless prompted.) “…where are you right now?”

Iman responded instead. “We’re in your second office.”

“…the line’s secure?”

“Of course.” Iman paused, and Bruce knew his new CSO was choosing her words carefully. “I’m guessing you have John Doe in the Batcave?”

“Yes.”

“Bruce, did you fucking break him out?” Tiffany asked with no shortness of impatience.

“I rescued him,” Bruce said firmly. “I know what you’re thinking, and I have a pretty good idea of what you’re going to say, but listen: I had no choice but to take him with me. One of the doctors working at Arkham has gone rogue – he’d been doing experiments on patients, and I have a feeling he’s going to continue them on civilians. I need to find him before then, and John has been helping me.”

“Helping…? You’re not bringing him in the field with you?” Tiffany said disbelievingly. “After that psychopath almost killed us?”

Bruce could still see Joker running at Tiffany, knife in hand, his psychotic breakdown in full force. He could still see him being smacked against the railing, sheer madness played over his long, bloody face as he desperately fought to stab what was his hero.

But John and Joker were as much the same as Bruce and Batman were, and they were constantly changing.

The Joker in the Batcave wasn’t the same one from Ace Chemicals.

“I know what John did,” he answered, trying to breathe even as something wanted to hitch in his throat, “and I know how far he’s come since then. I know you both regret-”

“No, I’m not listening to this right now,” Tiffany scowled, her voice fading in the middle her sentence like she was leaving the room. “Talk some sense into him.”

Bruce heard Iman’s voice call after her, and then nothing for a beat.

Iman sighed. “I’ll talk to her. But Bruce,” she started seriously, “Tiffany isn’t the only one worrying about you. Six months can’t possibly cure everything wrong with a man whose spent his life in an asylum.” He could practically hear her chew over her phrasing. “I need to know… If John goes too far – if he shows signs of regressing…or just becoming more volatile – I need to know you’re going to put your foot down.”

“I’m more than capable of handling him, Iman.”

“Please, Bruce, I’d rather not have to pull you off another broken pipe lodged in your kidney.” She paused, and Bruce let her continue, feeling the scar in his side twinge at the painful memory. “I know you care a lot about him,” she resumed in a softer tone, “and I know you trust him. But if you doubt him at any time, you need you to step back and re-evaluate your choices. I don’t want him to regress back into the Joker.”

That was a different Joker, Bruce wanted to say. He knew that wouldn’t sound the way it should. “I promise I won’t let that happen.”

“Good to know,” Iman replied, sounding somewhat relieved. “This doctor you’re hunting – is there anything we can do to help?”

Bruce shot a look at the clock in the corner of his monitor. He didn’t have as much time left as he would’ve liked before his virtual meeting started. “Tiffany can fill you in a bit, I had her help searching Arkham’s records before. Can you run a plate for me? I think Dr. Crane is running with a stolen car; I’ll send you the details in a bit.”

“Sure. We can check traffic cams for it, too, if you’d like.”

“If you would. And the second I have anything concrete on Dr. Crane, I’m sending Tiffany the details – I need her pull as Oracle to get the word out to the GCPD before anything happens. They’ll listen to their number-one informant more than a vigilante coming out of retirement.”

“…you’re…?”

He could almost see the shock in her face. They’d had a short discussion about his alter-ego when he decided to quit the first time; she’d been incredibly understanding about the whole thing. It was almost as if she’d seen it coming.

“Are you sure?”

He was as sure. She didn’t know about the instincts broiling underneath his surface every day. She didn’t know he never really stopped being half of himself. She wouldn’t know or really understand that he just shoved it all down and aside like he did so much else just to get through things. “I don’t have any other options at this point.”

“…you know you can count on us if you need the help.”

“Of course I do.”

“Right. Well, in the meantime we’ll keep the fort over here running as smoothly as possible.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good luck.”

The line went silent, and Bruce pulled his phone away, catching a glimpse of three unread messages.

Sorry, buddy, I was just kidding around, you know? Ha ha

Bruce???

Hello???????

Sorry, had a phone call and couldn’t reply. It’s fine.

Seconds ticked by, and Bruce began changing out of his black t-shirt and into his button-down. It wouldn’t do to appear as a CEO in anything less than a proper suit. He could leave the jeans on, at least.

“Oh! Uh…sorry, Bruce…”

He felt his heart stop for a second. That was definitely John’s voice, even though it crackled slightly from the speakers. The monitor didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. John must have been using the spy-camera feature on the Batcomputer; it was linked to most the devices in the house, and Bruce’s webcam was no exception. He’d almost forgotten it had a loudspeaker function, too.

“I didn’t realize you were…um, changing.”

Bruce glared at the webcam’s lens. “John, what did I tell you about fiddling with the Batcomputer?”

“…sorry. I was worried when you didn’t answer me.”

He sounded genuine, at least. Bruce could easily picture him running upstairs to find him, if there wasn’t a chance he would’ve been seen. “I answered you a minute ago. I was on a call with Iman,” he stated plainly, fixing the buttons on his sleeves.

“…oh, ha ha, there it is! Uh, I guess I’ll just…go, then…”

Bruce almost questioned why John was sounding nervous and distracted, but it wasn’t until he saw the webcam light wink off again that he realized his shirt was wide open, the scars littering his torso half on display from the waist up.

Thankfully, no one was around to see Bruce bury his face in the palm of his hand for a moment, feeling like his face was on fire from first and second-hand embarrassment.

It didn’t last long. Bruce took a few deep breaths as he fixed himself up, and dialed into the meeting with a fixed expression of calm, firmly ignoring the heat that had settled in his stomach that threatened to go lower at the thought that John was bound not to forget any of that.

Driving the Batmobile in full gear again was certainly something else. Bruce felt the weight of the Kevlar body armor press against his limbs as he sped down Gotham’s twisting alley streets, no one any the wiser that the Wayne’s red sports car was hiding Batman behind it. The city’s CCTV signal was scrambled with the flick of a switch as he came into driving distance of the alley’s camera, making him almost untraceable.

He’d given the Honda Accord a head-start; it couldn’t go nearly as fast as the Batmobile, and Bruce had to find a spot to safely change before going to go pick John up from his drop-off point, and the post-working-hours traffic had already gotten its usual early start. It was a slower drive than he’d like it to be, even with Bruce’s shortcuts.

The setting sun was completely obscured by a dark overcast. It made the orange streetlamps glowing over the decorations sitting here and there in windows and doors even more energetic, like every corner of Gotham was slowly growing with the energy of Halloween.

Bruce clicked the communicator in his cowl. “John, are you there yet?”

Silence for a few seconds, and then a rustling noise. “Sorry, I had to take this off for a bit. What?”

“Are you there yet?”

John giggled slightly. “Oh, yeah, I’m here. Just waiting on you, pal.”

He was already at the meeting point? How did he get there so fast? “You put everything back where it was supposed to be?”

“No, I stripped the seats and threw everything into the garbage,” John grumbled with dripping sarcasm. “Of course I did, it’d be rude not to put Jerry’s stuff back. What do you take me for?”

“…I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything.”

“I didn’t.” There was a loud slurping noise, like the last of a liquid being sucked from a straw.

“John, where are you right now?”

“In the alley, waiting for you.”

“Did you make a stop?”

John giggled, a little louder, but not at all nervous. He was enjoying himself. “What can I say? Going out on the town with you like this makes me thirsty,” he said with a strange purr. “Besides, no one bats an eye at me when I look like this anyway.” He paused. “Well, no, I’ve gotten some eyes on me, but, uh, I think they’re more the appreciative type. I guess ZZ Top was kinda right about the sharp-dresser thing.”

Bruce felt his brows knit together. “You’ve always looked sharp,” he said truthfully, turning down a narrow alley.

“Yeah, but not thousand-dollar-suit sharp. There’s a difference! Plus I think this bullet-proof vest makes me look a little bulkier than I actually am.”

Bruce spotted him leaning against the graffiti-covered wall, a Burger Lord cup in one hand and a plastic orange bag in another. Just how much time did Bruce lose while he was changing?

John tossed the drink in the dumpster and practically jumped into the car, shoving the orange bag behind the driver seat and slamming the door shut as Bruce switched off the communicator. He took one look at Bruce’s questioning glower and gave a nervous sort of grin. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, there’s something in there for you, too.”

Bruce almost asked what, but decided that a lecture on keeping a low profile and not taking money from his house’s various hiding spots would have to wait. (Though he supposed whatever John got wasn’t expensive. He was quite frugal, and it wasn’t as if Bruce couldn’t afford to buy John whatever he wanted anyway.) He concentrated instead on heading down the twisting path towards Toxic Acres. At least the traffic over there was a hell of a lot lighter.

“Hey, when you drove me to the Batcave, did you go in fourth gear, or third?”

He wasn’t sure why he asked, but he honestly couldn’t remember. He just recalled putting his foot to the floor and keeping his eyes on the road, occasionally reaching over to check John’s pulse. “I wasn’t really paying attention to that; I concentrating more on driving as fast as possible.”

“Oh – so you didn’t know you could punch the shift down into third whenever you wanted? It was so fun! I can say I literally punched it out of the Batcave!” He laughed. “I’m guessing you can’t do that in this car?”

“…I’ve got paddle shifters.” They were starting to travel into the more deserted road leading into Toxic Acres. Bruce took a sharp turn onto the hill with the broken Do Not Enter sign, and checking that no one was behind him, flipped the switch to shift the car into armored plates and pressed the wheel-paddle for a lower gear.

They flew down the road with a whirring whine of the engine, John’s notorious excited laugh mixing with it, and Bruce allowed himself to smile a little at it, knowing his own little joyful thrill wouldn’t last very long.

John was soon tapping his fingers together in some kind of rhythm as they passed by more empty houses, Bruce moving a little slower to keep his eyes out for trouble. Sitting close to the river on the outskirts of the city, they were originally meant to be a long neighborhood for the middle and upper class to build their lives, but as the unemployment and crime rates rose, the place became abandoned. It didn’t help that the piping structure to carry water there had been faulty, making either lead poisoning or unfiltered dirty water a prominent problem and giving the section of Gotham its nickname.

“How do we know which place is the botanist’s?” John asked, his green eyes scouring the houses in front of them.

“I sent out another drone earlier for some aerial shots. There’s a place with camouflaged green-houses in the back on Aster Place.”

“Wow, you did that before I left? That was fast…”

“It was a quick job. I’m not picking up the other drone until later.”

They turned the corner onto Aster Place; the road would dead-end in a while, but Bruce knew the house wouldn’t be situated at the end.

“Oh, there’s the spot Jackie got shot at!” John pointed ahead. “I wonder if there’s a bloodstain left…!”

Bruce tightened his grip on the wheel. “We’re close.”

It was oddly quiet out there. There was no other sign of life in what was a hot-spot of criminal hide-outs. Bruce turned on the thermal vision in his cowl; a lot of the houses were actually empty for once.

Except for one. 1801 Aster Place. There were a group of people scattered around on the bottom floor and what appeared to be a lot of heat-lamps running on the top floor. If one of the people in the group wasn’t Pamela Isley, then she might have been holding up in the basement…

They left the Batmobile out of sight down the road, and Bruce and John moved swiftly behind the backs of the houses in the chilly night air, the taser bomb safely in John’s coat pocket; John was surprisingly quiet, only humming a familiar tune here and there. (Wasn’t it the theme from that old spy-thriller…?) Bruce managed to quiet him with a look, and John mimed locking his mouth shut and throwing the key away.

Two unknown people were standing in what used to be a kitchen; three more people were up in the front room of the house. There were no security cameras to be seen.

“Stick close to me,” Bruce whispered, the modifier in his cowl deepening his voice. “We go in through the back window, take out the two in the kitchen quietly and throw the bomb up front so we can cuff the lot. If none of them are Ms. Isley, we find the basement.”

John gave him a thumbs up, pulling out the riot baton he had hidden away. (Bruce had still not remembered when he or Alfred bought that, but vaguely remembered stashing it in the towel cupboard with some other emergency gear. He wasn’t surprised John found it.)

The bathroom window’s locks weren’t difficult to break. They looked like they had been broken several times already. Bruce slid the insect screen up and slipped in through the thin opening feet-first, twisting his limbs just right to softly land on the floor. He had to help pull John through the rest of the way after he smacked his head on the bottom of the window; thankfully he hadn’t made any noise, but he did give Bruce a strange look as brushed himself off where Bruce had gripped his sides.

Bruce didn’t have time to think about it.

The two people in the kitchen stood in semi-darkness, watching through the patio windows with rifles leaning against the wall. There wasn’t so much a bare bulb to give off light. Bruce figured their eyes might have adjusted to the dark, and signaled John to follow as he crept up behind the two goons.

“I dunno, with all the hype surrounding episode four, you just know those guys are going to mess up somewhere. Remember when they decided to let Celestyne drop to his death back in season one?” The one with dreadlocks asked.

“Oh, come on, that was just to test the game’s limits. Besides, Celestyne couldn’t die; I don’t think Jane can, either,” the second person responded in a higher voice with a casual shrug.

“Dude, you know the game’s gonna make her a villain in the end, though, right? She might die…”

Bruce was ready. John was gripping the baton with a widening grin…

“Are you kidding me? They have her affection meter up so high I’m surprised the game doesn’t have a dating opt-”

Bruce slammed dreadlocked goon’s head into the wall just as the baton crashed down on the other goon’s skull, little smears of blood marking the plaster and paint with a satisfying crack.

John clutched the collar of the goon he’d struck, gripping the slightly bloody baton a little harder in his other hand. He seemed to be thinking.

Bruce took a zip-tie out and cuffed the goon’s hands behind their back, and wondered just what John was staring at until he’d turned the person around and caught a glimpse of them in the light of the window.

They were both women with little tattoos of vines creeping along the back of their necks.

If Bruce guessed right, those were ivy leaves on the vine. Poison Ivy had a loyal gang.

John zip-tied the wrists of the woman he’d struck and patted the part of her head that wasn’t wounded. “Sorry,” he whispered as if she would hear it. “Lauren’s ex,” John mumbled, gesturing to the woman on the floor as if he knew Bruce had raised his eyebrow at him.

Bruce simply swept onward, spying the door for the basement. There was a light on in the front room, and three women who looked like they could be professional boxers of different weight categories were sitting in different areas. One was sharpening a knife at the table, and another was cleaning a semi-automatic rifle as the third kept watch over a monitor showing security camera footage; three looked to be by the greenhouses (Bruce recognized the Foxglove variety growing in one under an opening in the glass, sitting next to something that looked primeval), and two were watching over the plants upstairs (marijuana, by the looks of it) and in the basement.

There was a figure in the last screen, working over a row of potted plants with low lamps. A zoom-in with Bruce’s lenses showed long red hair.

Bruce felt a hand on his shoulder, and John crept ahead him, the taser-bomb in hand: it looked like a mass of the sticky-bombs grouped together, colorful wiring connecting them all like some kind of net, and before Bruce could do or say anything, John threw it into the living room, where it tumbled into the middle of the floor.

The group began to shoot out of their seats in a second, and in the next the ball seemed to expand like a geometric toy, the wired tasers being thrown in the air with a flash before smacking people and surfaces alike as they discharged. All three people fell to the floor in trembling heaps, and John dashed out and started to cuff them, Bruce close behind.

The electric bombs were safe to touch now that they had fully discharged, so Bruce had no qualm about stomping on the lightly-burning sections of carpet underneath some of them to prevent any spread of fire as he pushed them aside. The bulkiest goon wasn’t quite down for the count; she was still conscious.

She yanked John off her fallen comrade by his shoulder and threw him into the table’s edge. Bruce threw a Batarang at her arm just as she was about to punch, and John gave a swift knee to her stomach as she flinched.

She fell to the floor with a louder crash and a grunt, pulling the Batarang out from her arm and letting it drop to the floor. “You fucker…” She said, glaring up at John before looking over at Bruce, her eyes widening as he approached with more Batarangs at the ready. “B-Batman…?”

“Yup! He’s real,” John said playfully before smacking the side of her head with the baton. “And so am I,” he added with a growl. He decided to tie her wrists behind the nearest table leg. “I hate not being able to call myself Joker like this… Really sells it better.”

Bruce felt his heart twitch at the name. “You can call yourself that, if it helps,” Bruce said gently, tying the monitoring-station woman’s wrists together, “Just not to people’s faces.”

“Kinda defeats the point,” John grumbled.

Bruce shot a look at the security monitor – Pamela Isley didn’t seem to have heard anything. Still, precaution should be used. “Let’s go,” he said plainly, sweeping out of the room with a swish of his cape.

John tucked a hand into his pocket and followed.

The basement stairs were carpeted and quiet, but Bruce was careful to walk on the outsides rather than the middle. Spiders had clearly made themselves right at home in the damp corners of the walls, and he had to duck to avoid getting the tips of his cowl’s ears stuck in one of their webs. A soft sort of click was heard behind his back, and Bruce figured John had gotten out his grappling gun.

Pamela Isley was bent over a row of exotic-looking orchids posed under heat lamps, dabbing something into the center of a blue orchid’s petals. Bruce saw several troughs full of hallucinogenic mushrooms sitting on the other side of the wall.

“There you go, my darling,” she cooed in a honeyed voice, acting like she was carefully painting the center of the flower, “You’ll soon be the belle of the ball…”

Bruce eyed the electrical box on the other side of the room. It wouldn’t do to drown the place in darkness; he’d be able to see, but John wouldn’t. The best bet was to tackle and restrain her.

Or…

Bruce took out his own grappling gun, and aimed it at Isley’s collar. One click, and it snagged her shirt with practiced ease.

“What the-?!”

Pamela Isley was suddenly dragged yelping through the air at an angle, smacking hard into one of the tables and spilling several unusual potted flowers to the floor.

Bruce grabbed her and threw her to the concrete floor, standing over her with several Batarangs in his hand as John cackled beside him.

“Jonathan Crane,” Bruce growled out, “Where is he?”

Pamela Isley sat up, shock written all over her face as she processed exactly what happened – it quickly morphed to a steely stare. “Batman,” she said slowly in a sweet voice, “I thought you were an urban legend,” she continued, wiping the corner of her mouth where a dribble of blood leaked out. “Do you always treat a lady this way?”

Bruce dragged her up by her collar and threw her against the wall, keeping her at arm’s length. “I know he bought plants from you today. Tell me where he is.”

“Or what?” She taunted, smirking widely at him. “You think I haven’t been knocked around by men before? I’ve been in whole worlds of hurt, honey.”

There was the distinct sound of the grappling wire rushing through the air, and then an enormous crash – John had taken out one of the mushroom tables, the fungi now breaking and bouncing against the floor it the scattered in the dirt.

“Whoopsie,” John hummed, a wide unnerving grin on his face, “butter-fingers.”

Isley looked rather taken aback, but the expression quickly warped into a mocking glare. “You think destroying my inventory is going to intimidate me?”

John shrugged, leaning back against a table and knocking over a several small tropical plants with a slide of his hand, shattering the clay pots and sending the plants scattering to the hard floor.

That definitely got her attention; her face paled slightly and there was tremble in her. “Stop that!”

Bruce glared at her, mentally thanking John for his quick thinking. “Tell me where Crane is and I’ll consider stopping him from tearing this place apart.”

Her dark green eyes glared at him with a slow-boiling dislike. “Let me go first.”

Bruce did a very quick once-over; she didn’t seem to have a gun holster on her, and she was definitely a lighter build than the rest of her gang. Knives were still a possibility. He decided to let go, keeping a Batarang between his fingers just in case as he stepped just out of her reach.

Pamela dusted off her green turtleneck. “I don’t know where he is, and I don’t care. He bought a few of my flowers and left,” she said, crossing her arms.

John laughed, fingering the leaves of the blue orchid she’d been attending. “With a hole in his shoulder? You didn’t even offer a band-aid for that?”

Pamela was closely eyeing the plant in John’s hand. “What if I did?”

“I know he’s a friend of yours, Isley,” Bruce growled. “You’re the only one who could know what he’s planning.”

“I told you, I don’t know,” she stated, “and I don’t care. I’m not his mother.”

“I can see why you were paying such close attention to this one,” John hummed, fingering the petals with a gloved hand. “It’s so pretty. You put a lot of effort into keeping all these, huh?” He grinned at her, almost looking like his usual self. “It’s not just some financial scheme for you, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Pamela stared at him, trying to keep her voice level; Bruce noticed her eyes kept flicking slightly downward, like she was watching the plant. “I breed and sell rare plants to collectors on the side.”

“Oh good! So this won’t bother you!”

In a swift move, John cut the blossom off the stem with the bowie knife one of the group upstairs had been sharpening.

The blossom fell to the table, and Pamela Isley looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

John picked up the blossom. “Let’s see – she’s honest,” he said playfully, plucking a petal from the stem, “she’s not!” He pulled another.

“STOP IT!” Pamela shrieked, making to rush at him – Bruce pulled her back and pointed the tip of the Batarang at her face. She glanced at it fearfully, but then looked back at the flower being torn apart in John’s hand, and it looked like she was watching a child die before her eyes.

“Stop that,” Bruce instructed; John hummed and held it still. “Talk, or my partner and I crush every plant in this place.”

Isley stared at the flower in John’s hand. “I… I don’t know what he’s planning,” she said quietly, her voice cracking slightly. John only touched the tip of a petal before she spoke again – “But-! But I know… He’s building something. He didn’t say what, but he asked for some muscle - I hooked him up with some of Maroni’s old boys.” She shut her eyes and took a breath before glaring at John like he was a complete monster. “I hope the lot of them tears you limb from limb.”

Bruce forced Isley’s hands behind her back and zip-tied them. “Down on the ground,” he growled, pushing down on the top of her head. John pointed the grappling gun in her face with a smirk; a good insurance if she decided to try and elbow Bruce in the face.

Pamela shot them both a hateful glare as she knelt down, and it didn’t waver as her ankles were tied, too. “I won’t forget this,” she spat.

Bruce sent off a message to Tiffany regarding the coordinates of “Poison Ivy”’s headquarters from his gauntlet. He knew she’d get the word out before he could even get back in the car. “Tell it to the judge,” he taunted, leading the way out of the basement, not missing the sparkle in John’s eyes as he followed, the severed, torn orchid blossom having been carelessly thrown at Pamela Isley’s feet.

John gathered up the sticky bomb device before they hustled back to the Batmobile, and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he spoke, and when he did it was in a tone Bruce would almost call revered.

“So, what do we do now, partner?” He asked, a definite glow on his face.

“We go look at some of the Maroni gang’s old haunts and see if we can find anyone recently hired,” Bruce said, the voice modifier in his cowl now disabled. He glanced at his recent text messages: one from Tiffany giving the ok on Poison Ivy, and another from Iman with the last known location of the stolen Ryde car. “After we look into the motels in the red-light district. Crane might’ve stayed there.”

John laughed to himself, but for once he didn’t share the joke; instead, he pulled out a packet of jerky from the plastic bag he’d brought along. “I knew this would be a long night,” he said cheerfully, as if he was really looking forward to the whole thing.

It was well past one in the morning when Bruce arrived back home through the front gate, the Batsuit stowed away and the plates flipped back to red. The two patrol officers were only somewhat surprised to see him arrive back. Naturally, they reported nothing new, since John had been dropped off in the Batcave first.

Sore muscles were nothing new to Bruce. The old strained climb back up to his bed was just as annoying as ever. He honestly didn’t feel like he wanted to sleep, but after following several empty leads over the city and bruising a few heads alongside John, he did admit that he was physically exhausted. He knew lying down was better than nothing, and he still had to go to work in several hours like he didn’t have a double life. At least he wasn't starving, thanks to John thinking ahead and buying him protein-and-carb-filled snacks.

He forced himself to go through his usual nightly routine, despite the temptation to just flop into bed and lay there. He looked at the bruises on his back and ribs from where John had struggled against him under the influence of Crane’s drug, and decided not to bother putting the bruise-away cream on them, nor on the new ones forming on his shoulder from where one of the former mobsters had hit him.

When he did finally collapse onto the master bed in nothing but his boxer-briefs, his brain still decided to chat away at him.

There were no leads as to who exactly Isley had hired for Crane. Bruce cursed himself for not trying to work the specifics out of her. At least he knew she was arrested for drug possession and manufacturing, as well as smuggling illegal fauna.

There was no word on the whereabouts of Jackie Lant. Her car was missing, and she’d called into work sick. Her apartment hadn’t been visited in the entire time Bruce had his drone’s eye on it, and neither Tiffany nor Iman had seen anything when they looked into Jackie’s friends’ places, either. All Bruce knew was that she hadn’t called an ambulance to fetch her from Toxic Acres, that she hadn’t been admitted to a hospital, and that there was no sign of her body either in the Acres or in the Gotham River.

She was alive, somewhere, and Bruce didn’t know what she was going to do next. He hoped she was just going to lie low until he caught Crane.

Jonathan Crane was nowhere to be found. His house was still empty. He didn’t seem to be staying at any of the motels – or hotels – around the red-light district or its surrounding streets, and nothing had come of a quick credit-card check. The Ryde driver the GCPD fished out of the River that morning had been shot in the head, and his car was so common that if Crane could’ve switched the license plate with anything and been completely invisible. They’d done a quick search of the warehouse district and found no sign of him there, either.

Bruce had the nagging feeling that he wasn’t going to find Crane until the doctor reared his head.

The billionaire rolled onto his stomach, shoving the anxious thought away as he pressed his cheek further into the plush black jersey pillowcase. There were a couple more places he could check tomorrow…

The bedroom door creaked, and Bruce’s eyes shot open, a second away from grabbing the billy-club under his pillow – he could see John’s messy hair in his dark silhouette.

“Bruce? You awake?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled.

“…can I come in?”

“Sure.”

Bruce noticed he closed the door behind him. Like he was planning to stay there.

That definitely put a new light onto the situation. A tense thrill was building in his shoulders as John deigned to sit on the edge of the mattress, his back to Bruce.

John was only wearing his Arkham-regulated pants, and the pale white of his bare skin almost shone in the light streaming in from the window. Bruce saw several bruises forming, one of which was from where he’d gotten grabbed by the shoulder by a Poison Ivy goon, and several more where he’d gotten knocked into.

“…I don’t think I can sleep in that guest room,” John sighed. “I mean, I tried my usual methods of sleep induction, but… It’s too big…and empty. I’m really not used to that.” His voice came out quieter and more contemplative. “I know it’s weird, but do you mind if I sleep in here?” He asked, turning halfway to look right at Bruce.

He felt trapped. If he said no, at the worst John would sulk, and at the best John wouldn’t get any sleep, and that was definitely worse for his mental health. John had mentioned before about how regular sleep cycles were supposed to help with that.

If he said yes, though, he’d know he was sleeping next to John, and there was the tiny worry in the back of his head that John might…try something. Or at least roll over too much.

“I promise I’ll stay over on my side,” John muttered, not tearing his eyes away.

“Alright.”

A sweet smile stretched on his face. “Thanks, Bruce. You won’t regret this.”

“If you keep talking, I might.”

John giggled as he slid beneath the covers on the far side of the bed, flopping one of the extra pillows down between them. “There – a no-roll barrier,” he said as if he had to explain the concept to Bruce.

It did not escape Bruce’s attention that John had decided to lie facing him and rest his arm on top of the pillow. John had pulled the covers up to just underneath his armpits; Bruce could see John's sharp collarbone and the lean wiry muscle of his chest. (Bruce made sure not to look for more than a moment's curiosity would allow.)

God, John’s face was actually his for the first time that whole night. Bruce had gotten used to seeing it in the natural makeup, but it was almost a relief to see it in its normal borderline-luminescent white. He looked like the man Bruce knew.

Acid-green eyes stared at him, flicking slightly and growing soft. “I…did want to talk to you about something, though. If it’s okay.”

“I suppose I’m still awake,” Bruce said in an attempt to lighten the tension in his arms. “Sure.”

“Do you ever…look back on something, and think about the worst thing that could’ve happened in that situation?”

He didn’t like to admit it, but he had. Usually in his worst moods, he’d think about how everything could’ve gone wrong. He’d usually think about everything he could’ve done better, too. “I try not to, but…sometimes, yeah.”

“I’ve been thinking about our fight a lot, lately,” John confessed, “At Ace. I used to think about it a lot when I got recommitted, but… You started visiting me,” he said softly, a light smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You remember when I told you I thought I’d messed things up for us?”

“Yeah.” It was Bruce’s first visit to John. He never forgot the sheer hopeful joy on John’s face upon seeing him. It was practically engraved in his memory.

“Ever since I started sessions with Crane, I kept going back to that night. He always tried to weasel my worst secrets out of me,” he said with a low scowl, “but when he started using that…toxin on me… I kept…thinking about what could have happened back there. I… I know I almost killed you.”

The sheer pain reading in John’s eyes was enough to make Bruce want to wrap his arms around him. It was beautiful and raw and honest, and Bruce found himself holding stock still, almost captivated by the expression.

“I kept seeing it. Over and over – it was like I could see myself throwing you over the railing or-or stabbing you, or...” Bruce saw tears welling up as John clenched the pillow between them. “I don’t want to come close to that again, Bruce,” he managed to say, his voice starting to hitch. “I don’t… I don’t want to kill you.”

Bruce threw his pride away and grabbed John’s hand in his. “You won’t.”

“You…you don’t know that,” John said with a light sob. “If…if I…go back to how I was… If I mess up...”

Bruce squeezed his hand, feeling the soft skin twitch under his fingertips. “I won’t pretend you’re perfect,” he said, honesty seeping through every word, “but I know you, John. I know you’re not going after Crane out of revenge, like you did with Waller. You reached out to me for help – but you were already trying to find a way to stop him without resorting to just stabbing him with the nearest shiv.”

John sniffed, a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth like he was almost smiling. “Yeah…”

“So you’re not the same person you were then, are you?” He soothed with a supportive smile. “Even if you feel you are going backward, I know it won’t be to that same point.”

“Maybe…” he said with another sniff, looking more serious. “But Bruce, you know there are things I can’t ever really stop, right? The auditory psychosis is pretty much going to stay with me the rest of my life,” he started, clutching Bruce’s hand back, “and I’m not going to lie here and pretend my pulse wasn’t pounding a mile a minute when we were fighting those mobsters out there.” He sported a small knowing grin at him. “You know what that’s like, though, don’t you…”

(Yes, he did.)

“…you know what’s funny? I used to think one bad day could turn a person completely upside down.” John managed to stroke his thumb against Bruce’s knuckle, sending a little shiver over the skin, and Bruce wondered if John knew how incredibly intimate that gesture felt as he stared softly at him from the pillow. “Especially after Waller came to town… But…I never really thought things could go back up after it. I guess it just…takes a while.”

Bruce knew there was something right in John’s line of thinking. It only took one day to turn his life on its head, and he felt he knew, despite John having no memory of his life before Arkham, that something similar had happened to him. “Well…they say time heals all wounds.”

“How much passed before yours started to heal?”

He almost didn’t want to answer. The truth was that he wasn’t sure at all if he was ever going to fully heal, despite knowing what his parent’s really were. Maybe it was because he knew the terrible truth about them that they wouldn’t ever heal right. Maybe he’d always have that miserable note in the background of his life.

“…I’m still healing.”

“I didn’t say you stopped, buddy,” John chuckled with a knowing look. “Still…got good days and bad days, huh?”

“Feels like it, yeah.” Today…was definitely more of a mixed day. Looking at John across from him, though, all honest and open, and thinking back to how it felt to fight alongside him again, and investigate with him, with that warmth and instant familiar comfort between that never faded away, he almost felt like he wanted to call it a good day. “Today might have tilted things right-side up.”

John laughed, a genuine, humored one that was almost infectious. “Now I know I’m rubbing off on you; that sounds like something I’d say!”

John slipped his hand away and turned to lie on his back, still chuckling to himself. The warmth still burned in Bruce’s palm, and he found himself reluctant to pull his hand away at all.

John turned to him once more, an all-too-familiar affection shimmering brightly in the green depths. It pulled Bruce in and made him feel like he should inch close enough to feel the warmth and security it promised. “’Night, Bruce.”

“Goodnight, John.”

John turned over, leaving Bruce to stare at the bruises forming on his shoulders. There was the terrible temptation in his hands to shove the pillow between them aside and wrap his arm around the man’s middle so he could lean into that pale, battered back and bury his face in a head of soft, green hair.

There was a worse urge, one so vivid it almost made Bruce’s head spin – he could just reach out and touch the bruises, feather-light, and trail his fingertips down the curve of spine until it arched with a pleased shudder, and Bruce could follow that trail with his mouth as far as John would let him.

Bruce turned his head away, the memory of John’s lips on his coming to the front of his mind, and he shut out the mental image of repeating that kiss right then and there, telling himself that he really shouldn’t feel that way towards someone who desperately needed support, nor to his best friend who he’d left scarred in more ways than one, and certainly not someone who was both.

It had been a long time since Bruce shared a bed with someone, and far, far longer when he shared one with someone he didn’t have sex with.

He hoped that was all it was. Just the bed’s memory getting to him, and nothing else…

Notes: Super-sexy-plant-person-in-her-late-twenties Ivy is OUT. Cougar-aged-mobster-botanist Ivy is IN! >:)

I really wanted a different Ivy. I’m tired of the young, uber-sexy walking plant-human-hybrid that’s immune to all toxins and diseases; plants get diseases, too, and she’s so plant-like she should have some kind of physical humanizing weakness! It’s much more interesting to have a human who’s just built up an immunity and uses her babies for weapons and business; I kept her serious environmentalist trait, though, because while I dislike the anti-hero thing she’s got going on lately and would love to see her as a straight-up villain again, we do have to relate to her somehow, and her love of nature is always going to be a good part of her. Since Harley’s older, too, I figured it would be alright if they had a ten-year gap between them, so when Pam eventually goes to Black Gate one day, they’ll be pals. ;)

And Bruce you complete fool!!!! You should’ve kissed him!!! Why do you do this to yourseellllfff? D:

I'm sorry it took so long, but as you can tell, I had a lot to work on, and I’m doing my best to write the next chapter as quickly as I can while this nutty energy in my brain is still fresh. I’m trying to keep with my weekly schedule, but I hope you guys are okay with having a gap day, as appears to be the habit now. ( ._. ) I mean, no one yells at me or anything for being late, but I aim to please with my work, and part of that is being consistent.

I shall continue to try my hardest! (*｀へ´*) 彡3 See you next weekend!!!

#batjokes #telltale batjokes #juce #atbom #at the brink of midnight #fordarkisthesuede writes #I had a lot of fun coming up with a different ivy!#i like the idea that she heads her own gang despite being rather anti-people #like she doesn't even consider them when the JUCE force shows up #then again goons are rather expendable in the batman universes aren't they?#i can't believe i worked in a nod to TFS's playthroughs of TT bats #i still laugh when i rewatch the first season and they just let Selina drop #all because they were curious to see what would happen #so will ivy's info have an impact on future events?#only time will tell.........#also i'm serious about those writer vibes #i'm sending 'em all out #you'll all do great this week i can feel it #p.s. the ao3 chapters are already edited properly so i'll fix the tumblr ones asap

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ongnable · 6 years

Text

last love w/ daniel

for: @fluffykth, the loveliest - dian. i hope everything that causes you unhappiness disappears; and that only good, better things lay ahead in your future because you deserve nothing but the best a/n: part 1 here. set around a month post-break up, angst (with happy end)

{part 2 of 2}

“thank-you for coming to join us tonight on the late night radio show despite your busy schedule, kang daniel-sshi. we’re now moving on to our final segment – ‘words i could never say’. would you like to read out the first letter we received tonight, daniel-sshi?”

“of course,” daniel loosened one ear out of the headphones while reaching for the paper from the host, eyes glazing as he scanned the black ink, clearing his throat

“i thought everything was finally going right. i had everything i wanted. i was where i wanted to be. and then one day my reason for wanting everything - my motivation to keep me going had left.” his voice shook slightly, prompting the host to speak

gentle tones whispered into the mic; “left? why did they leave?”

“she walked away from me. she left me behind because i didn’t - couldn’t - appreciate her. we were no longer the same people we once were.”

daniel paused. wondering if he could divert from the original wording

how was it so accurate?

“we weren’t what each other needed”

picking up the phone, daniel dialled jisung’s number to tell him that recording had finished; waiting for the eldest member to pick up

a smile, wry and bitter, lingered on his lips

maybe it was true, he’s changed.

daniel had thought that if you ever left him, he’d never be able to pick himself up and move on

but in truth, his schedule kept him preoccupied, physical exertion keeping you out of his mind as he collapsed at the end of each day

the dull ache from the day you left is so constant; a weight over his heart, pressed tightly, deep into his chest

and yet - all daniel felt was empty

empty like the flat you lived in

he’d known about you moving out the day after your break up

everything was still in place;

ceramic mugs with last christmas’s photos printed over them, a pair of fluffy couple slippers the two of you always kicked under the dining table, the coat you wore on your last date thrown lazily on top of a chair;

your clothes, your makeup, your perfumes, you’d even left your toothbrush and toothpaste behind - opting to simply buy another toothbrush

you didn’t need your own toothpaste back at your parent’s either

and you didn’t want them questioning why you were taking stuff back to theirs

after all, daniel had keys to the flat that your parents had brought you when you moved to seoul with him after months of convincing your parents that nothing would ever come between you two

and you didn’t know what to tell your parents

so you’d only taken your chargers and a few essentials

acting as if everything was okay, and that you simply missed them; pretending to be excited when they mentioned your ‘successful boyfriend’

just as you had done before when you were still together

that day, daniel had tidied the living room quietly, as if creating sound would disturb the state of the flat;

putting the mugs left on the dining table back in their cupboards, setting the slippers by the door, hanging your coat back in the closet

everything was in place.

but you.

somehow, the fact that he was still functioning fine without you made him angry

angry that you were right

that the two of you had changed

he wanted himself to break down, to stop being the bright kang daniel bursting with those so called puppy-like charms on screen, the charismatic kang daniel on stage

he just wanted to be your’s again, just wanted to hear your voice

(niel-ah niel-ah niel-ah)

daniel wanted to prove you wrong - to have some type of evidence that he needed you;

you were the one he loved, how could he possibly live without you in his life?

but somehow. he was still there.

“-niel?” his call connected.

“jisung-hyung, i finished the recording.”

“you finished early, that’s good! that means you have time to come back to the dorm and shower. we’re going out for drinks tonight. minhyun and jaehwan aren’t coming so they can take care of the kids.”

settling yourself in the kitchen, you pour yourself a drink

swinging your legs under the table, you’re about to reach for the small glass when you hear your phone ring

"hello? is it y/n?” you hear jisung’s voice over the muffled line. static and unstable

“jisung-oppa?” you try after a moment’s hesitation. “how did you get my number?”

you knew that when wanna one debut, all the members changed numbers. daniel had painstakingly tried to change his contact info on your phone without letting you find out. jisung and you hadn’t exchanged numbers though

“i got it from daniel’s phone.”

ah. so he hasn’t deleted your number yet.

it wasn’t exactly a happy breakup, you wouldn’t be surprised if daniel never wanted to see you again

you wonder if he’s changed your name in his contacts - you couldn’t bring yourself to change daniel’s

peter and rooney’s appa, your face used to always light up whenever you saw the cat emoji show up on your screen

“what’s wrong?” jisung wouldn’t call you out of the blue. daniel shared everything with that man. if anyone would know about the breakup - it’s jisung

a sigh. jisung knew that’d you’d pick up on something straight away. “whereabouts are you right now?”

“i’m back home.”

“in busan?”

you nod, an automatic reaction despite that fact that he wouldn’t see you anyway. “yeah.”

“nevermind then. sorry to bother y-”

jisung gets cut off as you hear the phone being passed around.

snatched maybe.

there’s another voice now. one you know much too clearly

“it is y/n? jisung-hyung, did you call y/n? right? it’s her right-”

and you also know daniel well enough to know that despite the lack of apparent slurring - he’s drunk

suddenly, you don’t feel like drinking anymore

“niel!” jisung snatched the phone again. and you hear something akin to the device being wrestled around. “sorry y/n- you know how he can be-”

“hyung! she doesn’t know! she doesn’t know! if she knew she wouldn’t have left!”

you wonder why you like this sweet pain, pressing the phone closer to you ear, adamant to hear his voice

it seems that the other end of the phone has forgotten about you too, and you hear other voices chiming in, focusing on calming him down

“it’s all right-” jisung tried. “you said she left everything in the flat. she’ll come back eventually to pick up her things and you can talk then.”

“hyung, y/n ran away. she ran away from of me. because of me. i was making her sad.” you could almost see him. his voice so loud, so clear, that you could picture him, a bottle of soju in his hands - drinking straight out of the bottle like he would when he was stressed

“but niel-ie, you can’t do this.” that’s ong seongwoo’s voice. you recognised it from all the wanna one shows you’ve diligently watched. “it’s not right to call her when you’re drunk. wait until your head is clear-”

a whine. “i can’t- i can’t call her.”

you wonder if he knows that he’s still holding the phone that his older companions are so desperately trying to remove from him.

“if i call y/n, i’ll make her sad. it’s not fair. why do i have to choose, hyung? i miss her, hyung. i want to see her. i want to say i’m sorry. i want to tell her i love her. hyung- hyung, you have to help me.”

ah. so that’s why jisung called you.

“you said it yourself. you’ve broken up. if she wasn’t happy, you have to let her go.”

and that’s ha sungwoon.

they’re drinking out? together? but you thought that daniel didn’t want to let the others know about you

funny how he tells them everything after your breakup

“jisung-oppa?” you try. voice a little louder so that they can hear your over the commotion on the other hand.

“y/n?” he sounds surprised. you guess that they really didn’t know that the call was still going. maybe he expected you to hang up as soon as you heard daniel’s voice.

you didn’t know why you continued listening either

“i’m coming back to seoul this weekend. i’m starting work there next week. tell dan-”

“i’ll tell daniel.” you could hear jisung chirp almost excitedly as you mentioned the boy

“tell daniel…” you repeated. your voice was steeled. controlled. even though you could feel sobs beginning to form, wrecking you from within.

i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry

“tell daniel to delete my number.”

you’d delete his number from your phone too

dragging your suitcase out of the elevator into your flat, you slip on your fluffy slippers, making a mental note to hide the bigger pair next to them somewhere deep in the shoe cupboard

you might not have left with a lot, but you did bring back way too much from busan

emptying the contents of your suitcase into the closet, you were about to head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea when you heard the door open

you’re not entirely surprised that it’s daniel

nobody else had your key

but - “what are you doing here?”

“i know i shouldn’t be here.” you nod. backing into your room as daniel walks closer. the corridor too narrow for your liking.

he was too close. his familiar scent engulfing you in this small space

you don’t know if you can keep yourself from going towards him when you’re so close

“i left my phone here the other day. so i’m just trying to find it.”

the other day?

he responds quickly to the change in your expression, and you’re suddenly hyperaware of how well daniel can still read you

“i came to pick something up.” your anniversary gift was left unsaid, as he clutched the necklace in his pocket.

daniel had kept it on his body since that drunken night; it was the only part of you that he could always carry with him now that you’d left

“i can’t find it anywhere. i- um. y/n, could you maybe call me? i’ll leave after finding it.” you probably don’t want to see me, he thought, not after what i put you through “i’ve already left my keys on the table when i came in.”

“my keys” you wanted to laugh. he still called them his own when he had already returned them to you.

but you guess you’re the same.

you were also calling things no longer yours, ‘mine’

“it’s no problem. i’ll call you. there’s no need to be a stranger daniel, we can still be friends.” you were friends before lovers. and it’d hurt to lose that.

you had made friends in seoul - but there’s no one you were particularly close to

nothing could compare to the type of friendship the two of you shared before you started dating

before the two of you ruined everything

you see him nod wordlessly, following you as you walk out of your room with fake confidence, strolling past him in that narrow narrow corridor, making sure not to touch him

reaching for your mobile and dialling the number so easily it scares you

because somehow, it means that your body will continue remembering traces of him even when you try to get rid of everything

‘im feeling so energetic’ echoes through the living room and you reach for the source of sound from under the couch, eyes widening when you see the cat emoji on the screen. the name of the caller making your heart clench

peter and rooney’s umma is calling

oh. he didn’t change it.

you don’t know why - but you do but you do - but it hurts, and its the same pain you felt when you heard his voice over the phone

getting up from your crouch, you hand the phone - face down - back to daniel. he’s standing behind you. straight, his expression unreadable.

“i couldn’t change it.” i couldn’t delete your number

“i saw.”

"you typed in my number.” you didn’t use your contacts. i’m already gone.

you’re not surprised that he saw, daniel had always been attentive despite how childlike he seemed

“i don’t want that.” daniel’s surprised too, that he’d let it slip. but as if suddenly gaining confidence, he continues - the words he locked in spilling out when he sees that you refuse to look at him. his voice gentle and firm

“hey, y/n. i figured it out. i do need you, just not the same way as before. you were my source of strength before, but now i want to be strong for you.”

you wish you could’ve heard these words earlier

much earlier

because he sounds so proud, so happy with himself, as if he’s figured out how to fix the two of you

and because you’ve been unfair. mean. cruel even.

and you’re realising too late that you never truly told daniel why you broke up with him

why you could no longer face him

why you couldn’t see the future that you imagined together anymore

“daniel, it’s not about you changing, it’s me as well. i used to be the one making you laugh, but now you’re the source of laughter for so many others and i don’t know how i compare. where i fit in. does that make sense, niel-ah?”

you see him flinch at the affectionate nickname

maybe you shouldn’t use it

“yes.” he nods. “yes, it makes sense. y/n-”

“i loved you kang daniel.”

loved. past tense. because the kang daniel you loved has become someone else now. and now daniel knew it too - that neither of you were the same as you once were

“then why can’t you fall in love with me again?”

the words leave him so quickly you wonder if he’s programmed himself to somehow have a reply for everything you say

to have a foolishly perfect answer to all your questions

“we’re different. but maybe our ‘different’ can still fit together. why can’t we try?”

and you realize that this is what you wanted

what you needed

some sort of proof that he was willing to fight for the two of you

that there was a chance for you to be happy together

“i don’t know”

the words are hard to choke out through your tears.

there’s lingering sadness when you think of how faraway he looks, and daniel holds your hands in his own instead of reaching to wipe tears from your face straight away like he used to

and he cups them in his own instead of lacing your fingers together

baby steps.

“you’ve always been there for me - always been the one taking care of me. but i want to be the one you need now.”

the two of you would take baby steps.

“fall in love with me again, y/n, please.” for me, it’s always been you.

reaching up, he lets his fingers dry the tears, bringing your face close to his

whispering ‘i love you’s as he kisses you gently. as if he’d scare you away,

he kisses like you’d break any moment

only when he feels you kiss back does he press a little harder, a little deeper - as if trying to stamp his existence into you

“i love you.” you can hear daniel whisper against your lips like a habit, his hands cradling your face when he lets you go - out of breath

“please don’t leave again.”

memories of long ago give you the strength to wrap your arms around him, “i won’t, i’ll stay by your side”

you couldn’t give him empty promises of eternal love. but you’d stay by his side forever.

you weren’t ready to say that you love him.

but that was okay.

at least, daniel said it was okay.

and you found yourself trusting him

the two of you were no longer the same people you once were

he was no longer kang euigeon who suddenly changed his name to daniel and began b-boying after school in hand me downs

and you were no longer the same girl who hid and cheered for him behind the cheap cam-corder with a carton of coffee milk and packed lunches

but it was going to be okay

because all roads lead back home, and home was him.

he was your beginning and you were his end

#sometimes the term love can be confusing #but the feelings we feel remain the same no matter what we use to describe it #kang daniel #wanna one #wannaone #kang daniel imagine #wanna one imagine #wannaone imagine #kang daniel scenario #wannaone scenario #wanna one scenario #wanna one angst #kpop angst #jas writes #last love #queue

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