#what else happened to me in the last few weeks:
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take me home, country road
[ao3]
You have nothing on your person apart from a hastily packed suitcase and the dress you came into town wearing, on the run from trouble back home. Too bad John's missing a bride that matches your description.
Or: the 1800s (mistaken) mail order bride au (chapter 12)
[note: trigger warning for a pretty rough spanking scene with a belt and minimal aftercare. if you need to, you can skip to the midway point (there's a line between the first half and second).]
first chapter >> last chapter
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He keeps your hands tied behind your back on the ride home.
All that does is confirm the fact that he must know. Graves must have tracked him down or perhaps he was approached by someone who did consider your sudden arrival in town suspicious. Why else would the sheriff chase you all the way into the mountains on horseback and then take you back with him? He would’ve within his rights to leave your thieving self to wander alone in the woods and succumb to the elements.
John doesn’t say a word the first hour of the ride back. You can feel the anger emanating from him though. He almost shakes with it. His anger somehow upsets you more than whatever is left to come.
“Anytime you wanna start talkin’, I’m all ears,” John finally says, breaking the silence.
You keep your lips pressed together, stubbornly silent. There’s no use giving yourself away before you’ve learned how much he knows. You haven’t built this life of yours with loose lips.
“I don’t know what in the Sam Hill has gotten into you,” he continues, and his voice is cobblestone tread rough in the night. “Running off all by yourself. There ain’t nothing out in these parts except outlaws and highwaymen. There are men out here that’d love to get their hands on a woman like you—not even a knife to defend yourself with. You haven’t even got a scrap of food on you, never mind water. You’d’ve been dead in a week if the men out here hadn’t picked you off themselves.”
His words make your stomach ache. You know that there are worse things out there. A thousand gruesome ways to die. You’re less of a lady than John might think—you’ve heard stories. You’ve brushed close to that reality yourself. You wonder how he’d take it if you were to tell him about what had happened back east.
Maybe running away this time hadn’t been your smartest idea, but it had been your only. You can’t fault yourself for the instinct to survive.
“I know,” you mumble, dropping your chin to your chest.
“You gonna explain to me why you stole my horse and ran off in the first place?” he asks.
It’s the strangest interrogation you’ve ever heard of—sitting on the same horse with your back to the man questioning you and your hands tied together at the wrists. You wonder if you leaned back whether you’d feel his heart beating furiously in his chest.
You remain mulishly silent though, reticent to answer the question.
“Maybe I’ve been spoiling you,” he continues, trying to rationalize it to himself. “After the fuss you put up those first few days, I thought a bit of structure and discipline would do you well, and it did. Giving you a bit of slack was my mistake.”
You frown at that. Those don’t sound like the words of a man with any knowledge of the circumstances leading to you running off. He might not even have come across Graves at all in the hours since the man made his appearance in the general store. Otherwise, you can’t imagine how he wouldn’t make the connection.
Still, you can’t make yourself come right out and say it, even though every iota of your being aches to let the truth out. Call it nerves overpowering the need to be truthful and good. You vacillate between honesty and self-preservation, but each avenue feels like being dropped into a nest of vipers.
But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. If he knew, he wouldn’t question you like this. It’s a boon you can’t give up, not yet. Not when the thought of his inevitable righteous fury fills you with dread and self-loathing.
“I don’t have to explain myself,” you spit out suddenly, and it’s not you saying those words but something ugly and sad in you. “You’re not my owner.”
“I damn sure am your husband though,” John growls, winding his free hand around your hair to tug you back into his chest. “And I know these parts far better than you, little miss. Beyond running off on me for no good reason when I thought we put your reticence behind us, you went and put yourself in danger the likes of which you couldn’t even fathom.”
“I’m not an idiot,” you snap. “I know what men are like.”
“You’re telling me you pulled that stunt knowing what kinda danger is out there in the woods?”
“I wasn’t thinking!”
“I know you weren’t,” John grunts. “That’s the issue.”
The rest of the ride home is uncomfortably quiet. John keeps one hand clamped on your waist while the other holds the reins of both horses, the two walking alongside each other back down the trail towards the house. The ride home is a lot longer than the ride out into the woods since John refuses to let either of them go faster than a slow trot while your hands are tied behind your back.
He snorts in derision at your suggestion to undo your binds. “That eager for your punishment?”
That gets you to zip your lips.
When you get drowsy, John tips your head back and makes you sip from his waterskin. His hand fits carefully around your throat to hold your head in place, his fingers curling around to just graze the nape of your neck. Your throat pulses under his palm when you swallow. It’s far too intimate for how restless you feel, damn near shaking out of your skin, but it briefly shushes the voice in your head until he pulls his hand away.
A shadow under the doorway of the house startles you at first before it takes a step into the faint light of the setting sun and you recognize the bristly blond of Simon’s shorn head and the red bandana shrouding the bottom half of his face. The tension ebbs back into you when you realize with creeping humiliation that the black horse you rode home on must belong to him.
He watches the two of you approach with predictable disinterest, his eyes betraying nothing. The shame is excruciating.
John brings the horse to a halt some feet from Simon, not bothering to greet him. You wonder if it’s the anger choking him or if this is just routine, men trading favors in silence lest a word in gratitude break the spell. After dismounting himself, John helps you down, all but picking you up and lifting you off the horse.
Simon doesn’t say a word to either of you when he takes the reins from John’s hands, giving him only a curt nod and you a cursory glance before leading his horse away to mount. He doesn’t spare you a backwards glance before taking off back towards town. You watch him over your shoulder while John guides you up the porch steps and into the house, until the shape of him disappears into the horizon. Then the door shuts behind you.
Alone now, your attention turns back to John. He stares down at you consideringly, a hand planted on the door he just shut until he lets it fall to his side. You can see the gears turning in his mind, weighing something out.
It wouldn’t be right to call it anticipation; it’s not quite dread either.
“I don’t make idle threats, you know,” he says, apropos of nothing.
His words make you frown until you glance down to find him undoing his belt. Your blood turns to ice. He tugs the thick strap until it comes sliding out of each loop around his waist. The buckle rests heavy in his palm, thick fingers curling around it, and when he bends the belt in two, you already know that he intends to follow through with his threat from earlier, the one you said you’d gut him for.
“I’ll scream,” you warn, heart in your throat. It almost chokes you. “I mean it. I’ll scream like the devil.”
“Don’t go makin’ no empty threats now, darlin’,” he says in a low voice, almost taunting. You can hear the hard edge in his voice though. It’s not something he craves, but he’ll take it.
“You touch me with that thing and I’ll never forgive you.”
John’s eyes go hard. “I’ll just have to take that chance.”
And then he’s on you.
He hooks an arm around your waist when you try to rush past him back out the door and it forces the breath out of you.
You struggle as best you can with your hands tied behind your back, trying to wriggle out of his hold even as he heaves you up into his arms and climbs the staircase towards the bedroom. The steps creak under the added weight of you in his arms. The screams come tearing from your throat, ripping your vocal cords and nearly sending you into a coughing fit.
“Let—me—go—” you shriek, kicking out wildly, hoping to catch something that’ll make him lose his balance.
“All that squirmin’ ain’t making me feel more merciful,” he growls.
John kicks the bedroom door open with his foot when he reaches the top of the staircase. The room looks ominous without the oil lamp lit, the shadows growing in the corners swallowing up the end table. The bed is just as you made it this morning, the sheets pressed tight and neat, and you only get a second to take that in before he marches towards the bed and throws you down onto it.
You hit the bed hard, bouncing slightly. He sits down heavily enough to jostle you and when you try to roll away on instinct, a hand catches you by the bicep and pulls you back. He hauls you across the bulk of his thighs this time, far different from your first meeting back in the sheriff’s office all those weeks ago. Your feet don’t even touch the floor this time around, dangling in the air and flailing for purchase.
“You brute—you bastard!” you screech.
“I’m not gonna be as charitable this time,” John says, yanking your dress up and your drawers down until your bare bottom is exposed. You gasp at the cold air, murmuring something like please, please, please under your breath. “Even if I knew why it was you decided to run off, that doesn’t excuse the fact that you did. You coulda been hurt or worse out there, darlin’, and I’d never have forgiven myself. I’m gonna make sure the lesson sinks in this time.”
He folds the leather belt to hold it in one hand, leaving the other to pin you down over his thighs, making sure you don’t wriggle out. The leather is cool at first when he drags it over your butt. It makes your breathing pick up. It’s so gentle that you can almost trick yourself into thinking that it’s all he intends to do.
The first lash comes so quick that you barely register it. The second knocks the wind out of you, and then the pain sets in.
It stings something fierce. Where his palm hurt that first time he bent you over his desk and spanked you, the belt burns. It goes deep and it lingers when he pulls the leather away from your stinging bottom.
“Hurts like the dickens, don’t it?” John asks, not bothering to wait for confirmation before bringing the belt down again. “You’re lucky it’s only ten this time.”
You howl into the bedsheets, eyes tearing up and spilling down your cheeks. When you try to cover your ass with your bound hands, John grabs them and pins them to the small of your back.
“What’ll you never do again?” he growls.
“I—I’ll—”
“Say it, darlin’: I’ll never run off on my own again.”
“I’ll—n-never gonna—oh, it hurts, John—please—”
At some point, you must say the words he’s looking for. You lose count of how many times his belt has struck across your ass. Like thunder coming after lightning, you feel it and then you hear it. The sharp snap comes as a second wave of agony in and of itself.
Your throat is stripped raw by the time it’s over. The aftermath finds you with a puddle of drool under your cheek, hair matted to your face. Sweat slicks the backs of your thighs and down your spine. Even the gentlest brush of John’s hand over your backside, the belt deposited off the side of the bed, makes you flinch, the skin there tender to the touch. You’ll surely feel it deep in your bones come sunrise.
Too exhausted for anger, all you can do is lie there. It sits heavy in your stomach though, a pit at the center of you. You want to say, who gave you the right? The answer burns a ring around your finger though. You want to say, you don’t understand, it had nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with him and you.
You can tell he wants to say something. It gets choked in his throat, but you can hear it in the way his breath draws in, like he’s trying to coax it from his chest but it simply won’t come out.
“Stay right there,” John rumbles instead, shifting you onto the bed to let you lie on your belly.
You moan in pain when he moves you, sniffling into your arms. The crook of your elbow is sticky with your tears and snot.
The bed dips under his weight when he comes back. You flinch violently when he draws the skirt of your dress up again and smooths his hand over the tender cheeks of your backside, spreading a cool salve over your skin. The first touch of his hand makes you hiss, tears beading in the corners of your eyes again, but then the cool sinks in, alleviating the ache.
He does that for another few minutes in silence. Gentle, tentative touches, only stopping when the salve has been spread evenly over your bottom. He’s quiet when he shifts you up the bed until your feet are no longer dangling off the end. You’re distantly aware of him taking off your shoes and tucking you into bed, but the events of the day have finally gotten the better of you. It would be easier to push a boulder up a hill than crack even one of your eyelids open.
Time passes slowly; sluggishly. Your thoughts can’t quite catch up with it, either too quick or too slow. You’re stuck in thoughts of the desert, caught in a sandstorm that manifests too suddenly for you to take cover. All you can do is close your eyes and wait it out.
Morning comes like a brutal summoning into the waking world.
It hurts, but you expected that. Before your eyes even open, you’re aware of a throbbing pain coming from your backside. You wince when you shift to your side, squeezing your eyes tight. You contemplate rolling over and taking your chances with John’s temper. The thought isn’t as appealing in the light of day though.
It takes some time to get out of bed and when you do, you have to step tentatively from floorboard to floorboard, the ache making it decidedly uncomfortable. You can’t imagine what sitting down will be like. Riding a horse is just out of the question.
From the bedroom window, you see John standing in front of the house with Simon, back again not even twelve hours later. With the window closed, you can’t hear their conversation, nor can you read their lips. Their exchange doesn’t last long though. After another minute or so, and a nod goodbye, Simon walks back over to his horse standing nearby and lifts himself up and over onto the saddle, taking off towards town.
When John turns back towards the house, you see him glance up towards the bedroom window where you stand. The circles beneath his eyes are dark, pronounced. On another day, you might’ve ducked out of sight or jumped away from the window, but now you hold his gaze.
He breaks your stare first this time, heading back inside. It’s less satisfying than you thought it’d be.
You spend the day resting in bed and avoiding John for the most part. He spends the majority of the day out of the house. You hear him downstairs in the kitchen around midday, fixing himself up something to eat, and you listen attentively to the scrape of the chair across the floor and the pan on the stovetop. Like the day he brought you home, he brings you up a tray only to leave it at the door, rapping the door with his knuckles to let you know before heading back downstairs.
When he comes up for bed, you’re already lying down with your back to the door, the oil lamp left unlit. John doesn’t say anything to you as he changes into his nightwear. He smells fresh when he climbs into bed, like he bathed in the creek out in the woods. You breathe in deeply, trying to keep your breath quiet enough to not disturb the silence. The pillow under your head is saturated with his scent. You turn your nose into it when he lies down on his back instead of curling into you like he usually does.
Your chest aches at that simple denial. There’s a wall between the two of you and you know where it came from. Any trust that you’d built lies in ruins now.
Perhaps that’s not quite right though. It’s a romantic notion that you’ve been building something together all this time, but it doesn’t feel right now that you have the wherewithal to look back and reflect. All this time, whenever you’ve touched, you’ve held him steadfast and at an arm's length away, stopping two degrees short of intimacy.
Deliberately effusive; and worse, you’ve called it affection.
The tenderness in your heart is the worst of it. There’s a bruise there, and it’s been there awhile. It’s only grown with your recent troubles. You tell yourself every year that you’ll air it out come spring, but then the winter comes and it freezes over again.
The pillow under your chest grows damp with your tears.
Your dress the next morning is cornflower blue. The wheatfields are golden stalks swaying in the breeze. It’s a pleasanter day than how you feel.
The ride into town is as painful as you thought it might be. You wince with every stride, your bottom still tender as a rose. John’s arm tightens around your waist when you squirm, like you might slide off the saddle and try to flee again, and you bite your lip to hold back the urge to snap.
The little bit of independence you’d grown to enjoy is snatched away from you. You expected that as well, but that loss of privilege comes with a biting ache. You fight the urge to gnash your teeth and bark at him that you’re not a child when he grips you under the arm and leads you down the road. It wouldn’t do you any good.
When John leaves you off at the general store, you’re surprised to find Kate back, hale and hearty. She looks up when the chime over the door jingles and raises her eyebrows in greeting. The sound makes you flinch, memories coming back unbidden.
You look over your shoulder to say something to John before he leaves, but the door is already closing behind him by the time you turn around. Your lips are pursed on a word that dissolves in your mouth. It has a bitter aftertaste.
“Thought you wouldn’t be back for a few more days,” you say instead, turning back to Kate. There’s already a chair pulled up for you by the wall and you make yourself comfortable there, grimacing at first when your sore backside touches the wood before settling in.
She shrugs. “Plans changed. Gaz and I made it back late last night.”
You frown. “Gaz?”
“Kyle Garrick. Sorry—slip of the tongue. You’ve met him already. He used to go by Gaz way back when.”
“Way back when?”
“Not my story to tell. You should ask one of them, if you’re curious.”
You are, but not enough to ask. “Maybe.”
The two of you lapse into silence after that exchange. Before leaving the house, you remembered to bring with you some needles and wool to pass the time. They’re not as familiar in your hands as you’d like them to be, but you suppose, barring the possibility of Graves or another bounty hunter showing up in town to cart you off, you’ll have time to learn.
The thought leaves you anxious. It feels distinctly more possible now.
“You met Miles while I was away?” Kate asks, out of the blue.
Your head comes up at her question. “Miles?”
“He was minding the store for me while I was away. Said you came in the other day.”
You swallow reflexively. “Oh. Yes, I suppose I did meet him. I didn’t stay long, since you were gone and all.”
She hums and looks back down at the book in front of her. You feel nervous all of a sudden.
“He said you were very helpful,” she says abruptly, breaking the silence. You flinch. “Told me some gentleman came by with a warrant for a murder back east and you were kind enough to take it to your husband for him so he could keep minding the shop.”
Your throat constricts. She pins you under her gaze, unblinking eyes staring into yours but not looking for anything. Wispy blonde bangs brush along her forehead when she tilts her head ever so slightly.
You nod instead of answering.
“Did you give it to him?” she asks.
“I didn’t have a chance to. The day got away from me,” you say tersely.
“I heard something about that. Kyle said John had to borrow Simon’s horse the other day. Said something about him taking off in a hurry.”
Again, you don’t answer. It feels like without knowing it, you’ve crossed over a threshold.
“Do you still have it?” Kate prompts when again you don’t respond. You don’t tell her that you don’t because in all the fuss the other day, it must have slipped out of your pocket and drifted off into the wind. “The warrant?”
“No,” you whisper, shaking your head.
“That’s alright. I have a good enough idea about what it might’ve said.”
Sweat beads on your upper lip. She all but says it outloud. You’re as still as a ferrotype under her gaze, imprinted in place, unable to move so much as a muscle or force a word past your stiff lips.
“You’re under no obligation to tell me or anyone,” Kate says, and her voice is suddenly gentle, softer than you’ve ever heard it before. “I’m sure you had your reasons. I won’t be telling John, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Oh. Thank you,” you breathe, throat so tight that the words almost don’t come out.
It’s the closest you’ve come to admitting to it, tangentially or not, and even now it’s spoken only out of the corner of your mouth. You don’t think you have it in you to recite the events sequentially. Even in the privacy of your memory, it comes piecemeal, in fragmented images that flicker across your mind because maybe to remember it whole would be too much.
You don’t say much more after that, and neither does Kate. That wasn’t the point of bringing it up, you think. You'd know if it was.
When John comes to fetch you at the end of the day, you leave without saying goodbye to Kate. Only a stiff smile before heading out on your way. If she returns your smile, you don’t notice it. To John, you simply duck your head and follow him out the door, letting him help you up onto the horse without a word.
If it bothers him that you refuse to speak to him, he doesn’t show it.
It’s so many steps back that you might as well be back where you started. Maybe even further back, a voyage gone so wrong that when you look over your shoulder, you can’t make heads or tails of where you came from. The trees from the other side of the trail never look quite the same.
If you could open your mouth and say it, you would. If you knew he’d listen. But you don’t think John is that kind of man. Against the gold of the setting sun, he cuts a figure from times of yore. He speaks plain while you tend to speak in fricatives and bilabial stops, incapable of enunciating the words.
You feel like a wound on the world. Getting it wrong again and again.
It’s an old pain, one that started back when you were too small to hold it all. Now, you’ve grown large enough to hold it, though it holds you back in turn. You remember your parents studiously ignoring first creation like some noxious cloud billowing from the chimney. There’d been too many children for them to care about the runt. Shipped off to your aunt’s and uncle’s just for the cycle to repeat itself.
It’s an old grief, this one, friendly because it nudges at your hips when you brush by, striking in the blue-green. And when it burns, it burns.
“John, I—” you say when he helps you down back at the house.
He stares down at you, waiting you out. Your mouth goes dry, the truth beyond your grasp again. Your heart aches when his brows furrow and the lines around his eyes crease again, frustration welling beneath the surface.
You understand. It sits under your skin too.
"Go inside," he says instead when you don't go on. "I'll bring in the horses and start supper."
Your God sits at the edge of the bed, wholly lacking praise. It’s not His fault that it’s been awhile. These days, you can hardly muster up the energy to say hello. You gargle saltwater before you bathe and scrub your skin free of blood, waiting for the next morning to come.
And you think, lying on your side while John sleeps on the other side of the bed, wouldn’t it be lovely to get it right now, rather than in retrospect?
#ceil writing#cod mw2#cod x reader#john price x reader#price x you#price x y/n#price x reader#price/reader#john price/reader#captain john price
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pairing: frank castle x fem!reader
summary: lately frank has been acting suspicious, and you've decided to finally confront him about it.
warnings: swearing, lots of angst
word count: 3.4k
a/n: i hope y'all have been enjoying things being nice & light & sexy & fun bc these last few chapters aren't holding back any punches. shit is about to get real. as always, feedback is welcomed/appreciated!
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Not even five minutes after Frank walked through the threshold of his apartment, the rumble of an incessant banging sounded on his front door. His dark brows instantly furrowed with irritation at the sound. Slipping his right hand behind his back to grab the handle of the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans, he turned the knob and swung the door open with just as much ferocity as the person knocking on the other side.
The creases of annoyance on his sharp features suddenly smoothed into recognition at the sight of you standing in front of him, but not long after, his warm brown eyes widened in complete bewilderment seeing the raw fury that was burning in your eyes.
“Hey-”
Before he could utter another word, you forced your way inside his apartment, causing him to quickly retreat backwards, wincing when you swiftly slammed the front door shut behind yourself.
“You need to tell me what the fuck is going on with you, right now.”
Frank was utterly caught off guard by your aggressive behavior. The last time he had seen you this angry with him was when he showed up at your place after Cavella and Walker had attacked you. He was so distracted by your incensed entrance, he almost missed what you said. But when his brain finally caught up with his ears, your words only fueled his convoluted confusion.
“There nothin’ goin’ on-”
“Bullshit! Don’t you dare fucking lie to me, Frank.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not lyin’-”
“You’ve lied to me three times in the past month.”
Creases of puzzlement settled between Frank’s thick brows hearing that. Had he really lied to you three times? He couldn’t even remember what he’d lied about, or how you caught onto the fact that he was. Frank admittedly had been a bit out of it when it came to you lately, but he wasn’t doing it on purpose to hurt you. He just happened to be caught in the middle of something he was trying to keep you as far away from as possible.
Taking his silence as evidence of guilt, you stared up into his eyes, wanting him to see the proof of grief in your reflection that his actions had caused. You wanted him to hear the severity in the words that lacerated your tongue as they slipped past your lips that had been bitten raw from your tortured anxiety.
“You never once lied to me before Frank, ever. I don’t know why you’re choosing to start now, but if I hear one more lie come out of your mouth, I am done. I will walk out that door and I will have nothing to do with you ever again, that's it. Do you hear me?”
That caught Frank’s attention. There was no waver in your voice, no threat in your tone, just raw emotion and sincerity.
For the past month, Frank had been acting strange. You’d caught him in three white lies, and while they may have seemed small and trivial to someone else, they were anything but that to you. Because you’d been stuck with a pathological liar before, and there was no such thing as harmless lies. A lie was a lie, and it was a crack in the foundation of trust and integrity that you’d built with Frank, and a crack could turn into a rift, and a rift could divide you and make it all come crumbling down.
Since yours and Frank’s schedules didn’t always line up, you’d both done everything you could to make every moment count since your first date. But lately, it felt like you were the only one putting in the effort. Frank was chronically distracted these last few weeks. He was late to meet you for dates, he didn’t call when he said he was going to, and sometimes you didn’t hear from him at all until the day was practically over. And when he was with you, Frank was physically present, but mentally he seemed to be somewhere you couldn’t follow. Even sitting right beside one another, it felt like there were oceans of distance separating you subconsciously.
At first, you’d tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. It was one little white lie. One missed call after a long day. Just fifteen minutes of waiting at the restaurant. This was Frank, the man who had saved your life more times than you could count. He was different. This was real. You had nothing to be concerned about.
But then one white lie turned to three, and one missed call turned into not hearing from him until an excuse appeared across your screen at half past midnight, and fifteen minutes late turned into not showing up at all. His behavior planted a seed of suspicion in your mind that grew like wild ivy, coveting the sense of security you had in him with leaves of doubt, sprouting spirals of diabolical hypotheticals that canvassed your brain with catastrophe.
Every knot of faith Frank had woven into your heart with his actions over the last nine months were steadily being unraveled by his own hand in a matter of weeks. The confidence you had in him was now frayed in shreds and left you in a fit of mania, scrutinizing his every intent under a microscope.
You had been here before. You’d been lied to, manipulated, cheated on, pushed to the brink of insanity, and eventually left behind. You recognized all the signs of duplicity and betrayal, but you’d covered your own eyes so you wouldn’t have to acknowledge them, because it was Frank.
Blunt-and-brutally-honest, jump-in-front-of-a-bullet, remembers-every-little-detail, got-his-knuckles-bloody-for-you, killed-for-you, Frank.
And that’s why this hurt so much. That’s why this dagger of deceit tore clean right through your chest, leaving you standing in the middle of Frank’s living room, hysterical and furious for an elixir of truth that could make this pain go away and heal your belief in him once again. He’d been so MIA lately that you had spent hours camped out in front of his apartment building tonight, waiting to see his truck pull up just so you could follow him inside and finally have this conversation face to face.
Frank could hear in your voice that he’d hurt you, and even worse, he could see the evidence of it shining in your eyes. The pieces of yourself you’d lent him to patch up his own heart were suddenly bleeding at the seams seeing how his unintentionally selfish preoccupation had left you marooned. Shame didn’t begin to cover the way he felt. He knew he needed to be honest, but he couldn’t tell you everything.
Not yet.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. But it ain’t what you think, sweetheart.”
“Then what is it? Explain it to me.”
Frank took a seat on the couch and gently patted the space next to him, looking up at you with diligent patience while you internally debated between standing stubbornly or giving into his request to sit with him. After a moment you finally sat down, but you intentionally put space between the two of you and folded your arms across your chest in a silent gesture of defensiveness. Resting his forearms on the tops of his thighs, Frank clasped his right hand over his left wrist, staring down at his worn boots while deciding his next words carefully.
“I got a new assignment.”
The quiet tone of Frank’s voice and the lack of eye contact while he spoke immediately caused a spark in your nervous system.
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Frank let a moment of silence pass before turning his head to look at you with an apologetic gleam in his warm brown eyes.
“I’ve been helpin’ Madani with somethin’.”
Pinching at the bridge of your nose, you let out a slow exhale of irritation. Frank had already strained your patience with his behavior this past month, and his obscure responses were only making it worse.
“Why are you being so secretive about this?”
“It’s complicated-”
“Complicated how? You didn’t have to hide the last job from me-”
“This one is different-”
“Different how? That doesn’t make any sense-”
“You gonna let me talk? Or you gonna keep yellin’ at me?”
The way you clenched your jaw and narrowed your gaze at his quip made Frank regret letting his own frustration get the best of him. You were already pissed off, now was not the time for him to snap back at you like he normally did when the two of you argued about something. A wave of annoyance quickly crested within you. The second you stood up from the couch, Frank’s large hand reached out to grab your wrist.
“Hey, c’mon. Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Walk away from this conversation-”
“What conversation, Frank? You’re not doing anything but giving me vague excuses. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
Frank gave your wrist a gentle tug to get you to sit back down next to him on the couch. He once again waited calmly as you stood defiantly for a moment before reluctantly sitting back down. He let his large hand glide across your wrist to take your hand into his own, holding it firmly in his lap while cocking his head to the side to try and catch your gaze.
“Look at me, sweetheart.”
When he gave your hand a gentle squeeze, the prolonged pause of silence caused you to eventually shift your attention back to Frank, and you could see that his brown eyes were a deep shade of contrition.
“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been distracted lately, and I haven’t been ‘round like I shoulda been. And you’re right, I did lie to ya, and I’m sorry ‘bout that. I’m not tryin’ to keep things from ya, sweetheart. It’s just…this one is…it’s different.”
“Why? What makes this one so different that you have to lie to me about it?”
“It’s personal.”
Now it was your turn to be perplexed. You thought Frank was long past holding you at arms length and keeping up a fortified impenetrable steel wall around his heart and mind. He’d opened up to you before, talked about his life in the Marines, told you about the family he’d loved and lost, even spoke about them more comfortably and freely now without the shadow of grief looming over his words. Why was he back to shielding his vulnerability?
“Personal?”
Frank knew you wanted more of an explanation. You needed more. And he hated that he couldn’t give it to you right now. He hated that there was still so much that he was holding back from you, and that it was his own fault you were even doubting him in the first place.
“Listen, I can’t explain it right now, alright? But I will. When it’s all said and done, I’m…I’m gonna…I’ll have to tell ya some things first, some things you may not wanna hear and probably won’t like hearin’. But I promise, I’m gonna tell you everythin’, alright? I just need you to trust me right now.”
Every word Frank spoke hid another piece of the puzzle he was crafting, and you were left with misshapen gaps of confusion. You didn’t know what he meant by saying there were things he had to explain that you might not want to hear, or how that factored into the job he was currently working. Nothing he was saying made any sense to you, and it only left you with more crucial questions than justifiable answers. Pulling your hand away from his, you got up from the couch and started to stressfully pace back and forth.
“So the reason you’ve been a shitty boyfriend lately is because of this new assignment, that you can’t tell me anything about, other than it’s personal, but you can’t explain why that is. And it’s going to take you somewhere eventually, but you can’t tell me where, because you don’t even know yet, and even if you did, you still wouldn’t tell me. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you have no idea how long this is going to last, but you expect me to sit here and act like everything is fine between us and trust you even though I have no fucking idea where you’re going or what you’re doing. Did I miss anything?”
Frank could hear the barely concealed hostility in your tone. He couldn’t combat a single thing you said. When you finally stopped pacing and turned to face him, staring at him expectantly, a ring of treachery was blazing around your irises. He could see it right then in your eyes. If he didn’t fix this, he would lose you.
Slowly rising from the couch, Frank stood there with a dispirited weight resting on his shoulders, a look of pleading softening his warm brown eyes.
“I’m gonna handle this as soon as I can, I promise.”
“I can’t do another month of this, Frank.”
“Then it won’t be another month. I’ll figure it out before then.”
“How?”
The resentment you felt towards Frank was rapidly fading into pure desperation. All you wanted was an answer, a real answer. Something of substance that you could understand, something tangible to hold onto during this period of uncertainty. Frank could feel the despair radiating off of you in thick sorrowful waves, and the fact that you were close to forfeiting this argument had him instantly tensing as the chill of dread straightened his spine. He had to give you something.
“Listen, Madani gave me some intel, alright? I’ve been followin’ it, tryin’ to find proof she’s right, or if she’s just seein’ what she wants to see.”
“But why did she give it to you? What can you do that Homeland Security can’t?”
Frank stared at you silently for a moment, and you could see a look of hesitation flash in his eyes. There was something there, something you couldn’t figure out. But you could tell by the expression on his face that there was a lot more to this than it being a top secret assignment from Homeland. Whatever it was, it had everything to do with Frank. You just couldn’t figure out why. After a terse minute of silence, Frank stood up a little straighter while subtly clenching his jaw, and there was a hardened look in his eyes.
“Cause it’s connected to someone I know.”
The way he spoke that sentence with an ominous undertone sent an icy torrent down your spine. Sensing your trepidation, Frank let out a deep sigh and glanced around his apartment for a moment while lost in thought before eventually looking at you again, this time with a softer gaze.
“Look, I can’t explain it all right now, sweetheart. All I can tell ya is that Madani needed someone she could trust on this, and I owe her a debt.”
Letting those words sink in, you tried to put your biased emotions aside for a moment and think logically about what Frank was saying. Dinah had asked him for a favor. Part of you found it surprising that she came to Frank and Billy, considering the way she acted towards Billy the day Steven was arrested. But maybe that look of distrust and disdain had everything to do with the complicated relationship they’d had that Billy mentioned.
If Frank was working for Dinah, then he was working for Homeland, which meant he probably didn’t have a choice but to keep everything from you. And yet, here he was still trying to give you crumbs of explanations, and promising to tell you everything once this new assignment was over. At least you could lay the fear to rest that he was seeing someone else. Standing here now, you felt ridiculous that you’d restlessly jumped to the conclusion of an illicit affair. But in your own defense, it had been difficult to think clearly when Frank’s covert behavior mirrored that of past boyfriends' unfaithful performances.
As your shoulders physically deflated from your own conspiracies unraveling just to get tangled in a new set of ambiguities, you let out a deep exhale and rubbed both of your palms tiredly down your face, grasping onto the back of your neck for a moment. When you first showed up at Frank’s apartment, you had felt completely warranted in your anger. Now, you weren’t sure if you had overreacted in your manic state, or if you still had a right to be upset with Frank. At this point, you just felt drained from trying to balance on that tightrope of your own conflicting emotions.
Frank had saved your life several times over, and Dinah personally made sure that Steven would spend the rest of his life in prison. You owed them both everything. The least you could do was show them a little patience.
“Alright. Fine.”
In the nine months that Frank had known you, never once had you conceded in an argument. Even when you were in the wrong, you struggled with admitting that you had been erroneous. Frank’s blood ran cold with the thought that he might have pushed you too far healing the casual defeat in your voice. He didn’t want you to give up on him like this. Frank quickly took a step towards you the second you took a step towards the door, reaching out to gently grab your arm.
“Hey, hey c’mon. Don’t go.”
“Frank, I’m tired-”
“Then stay. Just stay here, c’mon. It’s late, yeah? Stay.”
Frank wasn’t giving you any room to decline the offer disguised as a command. One of his strong arms slipped around your waist, pulling you firmly into his chest while his large hand gently cradled the back of your head. He pressed his lips in a soft, lingering kiss to the crown of your head, hugging onto you tightly while resting his cheek against the side of your head. The rigid tension in your body lethargically began to melt, and Frank’s deep gravelly voice whispering into your ear dismantled the last of your defensiveness.
“Just stay with me, baby. Please stay.”
Frank knew that he didn’t deserve you. He didn’t feel that he’d earned this second chance at life he was getting. But he would be damned if he’d let anything ruin this now that he had you. He would’ve told Madani to go to hell if he’d known the favor was going to cause such a big disruption to the peace he’d found within you.
But not only did he owe his second shot to her, he desperately needed to know the truth himself.
“When will you leave?”
Frank hugged onto you even tighter, rubbing his hand along your lower back in soothing slow circles.
“M’not sure yet. But I’ll tell ya as soon as I know, I promise. And I’ll make sure you’re taken care of while I’m gone, yeah? I’ll be back before ya know it, baby.”
Hearing the soft sigh that sounded from you, Frank nuzzled his nose into your hair and whispered gently to you.
“Listen, I won’t take no more jobs like this, alright? I’m gonna handle this for Madani, and that’s it. I won’t do anythin’ else that’ll take me too far from you, yeah? I’m not gonna leave ya, sweetheart. I told ya I’m always gonna be here. I meant that then, and I mean it now. You ain’t ever gotta worry ‘bout that.”
You tried to find comfort in those words, but you weren’t in the mental state to accept any vows. You couldn’t get past the glaring truth that Frank was hiding something from you, and until you knew what it was, that crack of dishonesty would continue to slowly spread. You had a sneaking suspicion in the pit of your stomach that whatever verity Frank was concealing had the potential to shatter everything; unveiling the illusion that your relationship hadn’t been formed out of the impervious stone that you’d believed in, but rather of futile glass.
tags: @thyme-in-a-bubble @day-dreaming-goddess @messymissy @itwasthereaminuteago @strawberry1042 @queenofthenoobs @wanda2themax @xcastawayherosx @avengerstower-houseplant @stevenknightmarc @ponyosmom35 @babygal-babygal @wellwwhynot @oldermenaremyreligion @combustiblemeow @tired-night-owl @fairykiss32 @danzer8705 @calkissed @fxckahs-blog @lemon-world1 @polskiperson @imperihoe @v4leoftears @harperdoodle @spideyvibez @joalslibrary @cherry-berry-ollie @sorrowfulfragmentation @kdogreads @sumo-b98 @blackhawkfanatic @gloryekaterina @whistle1whistle @starbritestarlite @callmebrooklynbabes @hallway5 @scarletfvckingwitch @bifuriouslatina @soupyspence @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @wonwoosthetic @linguist-breakaribecca @nerdytreeflower @mrs-bellingham @smhnxdiii @s3riou2 @slavic-empress
#frank castle#frank castle x you#frank castle x y/n#frank castle x reader#frank castle x female reader#frank castle x fem!reader#frank castle x f!reader#frank castle fic#frank castle series#the bodyguard series#bodyguard!frank castle fic#bodyguard!frank castle series#bodyguard!frank castle x reader#the punisher#the punisher fic#the punisher series
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Hiiiii Ik you are not Latina but you write for latinas (which I’m so thankful for btw because I can’t find many Latina reader fics as a Latina) but I wanted to ask that if you are comfortable with it and you know anything about it if you could right a fic about Latina reader dating either Chris or Matt and her introducing them to stuff like pan dulce, tres leches cake, flan, Hispanic candy and big family parties just how they would react to all of it. Again this is only if you are comfortable with it I don’t want you to feel pressured to do it at all I just really love your work so I had to ask.🫶
TRADITION
pairing: matt sturniolo x mexican!reader
summary: family get togethers happened once every year, this year you were more than happy to bring your boyfriend to share your traditions with.
warnings: swearing, fluff, small argument between reader and their cousin, kinda suggestive in the beginning, i make a small joke about white people which could set a snowflake off so 🤷♀️.
word count: 2074
authors note: i can't tell if i like it or if i feel like i didn't do your request justice. i'd like to say that i've never had flan myself, but like everything else i mentioned i've eaten before. (twas not made by white people)
you and matt had been dating for basically a year now. and while obviously your parents, and close family knew matt, your tía’s and tíos did not. however, this month your tía cindy was hosting a family get together.
they typically happen one time each year, each family member hosting a year. last year, your parents hosted. "i think you should come with me to my family get together," you mutter to matt, running a hand through the boy's brown locks as he laid his face on your chest.
the two of you were currently cuddled up in your bed, the babadook playing on your tv. your phone was resting on your pillow next to your head, your phone going off because of the groupchat you were in with your cousins.
"that would be cool," he mumbled, nuzzling his face into your chest. you could feel his eyes close against your skin, obviously meaning he was tired.
"i can introduce you to them as my boyfriend," you spoke quietly, almost as if you were trying not to scare him off, though a small smile was on your lips. though in reality you didn't know how you would. bro had seen you in all your naked glory, as well as seen you breakdown on many occasions.
there really was no scaring him away.
matt pulled his face from your chest, propping himself up on his elbows. the chain he wore dangling in front of your face as his blue eyes stared into your brown ones. "yeah?" he said, a teasing tone in his voice as he tilted his head.
you could feel your face heat up as you rolled your eyes, lightly pushing his face away. "don't tease me, asshat." you pout, looking away from the boy above you.
matt laughed, moving his face back down to press kisses to the top of your breast, before peppering kisses to the valley of your breasts and up to your neck. "i love you," he whispered, pecking your lips before pulling back, sitting back on his heels.
"so when is the gathering?" you snort at his response, "we're not witches matthew, this isn't a coven." you roll your eyes playfully. "mm, could be," he tilts his head.
"it's in a few weeks," you mutter, sitting up and grabbing your phone. you unlock your phone and click on the group chat, seeing what was going on. you rolled your eyes at the chaos that were your cousins.
"fun," he mumbles. "now lay back down," he states, pushing you back down. you look up at him and raise a brow. matt gives a small smile and grabs the blanket, resuming his previous position, pulling the blanket over your bodies.
he pressed small kisses to the spots his lips could reach on your boobs.
"you're such a horny bitch," you laugh, running your fingers through his hair. matt hums and shakes his head, "i am not, i'm just affectionate." he mutters, looking up at you.
"mm, whatever helps you sleep at night, babe." you tease. matt nips at your skin and shakes his head.
the two of you walked hand in hand into your tías house. the foyer was big, decorated with art, that quite frankly you couldn't exactly say where she had gotten the pieces from.
"dios mío, mira cuánto has crecido desde él año," cindy gushes, walking towards you. she incapsulates you in her arms, giving you a good squeeze. "tía, esté es matt," you introduce the confused looking boy. "i've heard so much about you matthew," your tía speaks, her mexican accent thick.
she pulls the boy in for a hug, "so glad you could join us this year." before you knew it, she was dragging him towards the snacks. there had been an assortment of candies, as well as salty snacks. next to it was a drink table, which held different types of liquor for the adults, as well as juices and jarritos for the kids.
you were greeted by other family members as you followed your stolen boyfriend through the people. "tell me matthew," you heard your tío marco say, making your eyes widen as you rush over.
"tío, hi, so happy to see you," you squeak, interrupting, knowing that your tio had a nick for scaring the people you dated away, either that or embarrassing you.
"i was just saying that your boyfriend looks like a real gentleman," he says, slinging an arm around the boys shoulders. "he threaten you?" you ask, looking at matt. this earns a scoff, "now, would a sweet, loving tio do something like that?" he tsks.
he looks over at matt, "tell me son, would i do something like that?" he says, squeezing matt's shoulders. the boys eyes widened slightly, "u-um, no, no sir," he says.
you give your tío a glare. he simply smiles and claps matt on the back, "excellent, glad we're on the same page. now, tell me about yourself." "i'm a youtuber-" matt starts, but gets cut off by your younger cousin who had just walked up the table. "a youtuber?" she squealed with excitement, "no wonder you're so pretty."
"back off kid, this ones mine," you mumble at the ten-year-old, wrapping your arm around matt's waist.
"okay, okay, no need to get territorial," your tía says, pushing her daughter away, "now, matt, let's get you a drink." "i don't drink, i'm sober," he says quietly. she winks at the boy, tapping her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "i like you, that was a test, you passed," she stated, grabbing a jarritos. "have a jarritos."
"and for my favorite sobrina," she stated, pouring tequila into two shot glasses. "don't tell your mom about this," she says, handing you one. you took it with a grateful smile, "cheers to you having a good guy by your side for once," she laughed at the last part. the two of you clinked your shot cups together, throwing them back.
the alcohol burned going down, causing you to make a face. "you okay?" matt asks, his hand rubbing your back soothingly. "woah," you shake your head. "mhm, fine," you hum, answering him.
everyone was seated at the table, the children sitting at the kids table. a bowl of pozole sat in front of everybody, as well as a big plate with some elote on it. "what it this?" matt whispers, ducking his head down to talk to you quietly.
"soup," you say, "tía sofia will you pass me a few limes," you ask. she nods her head, passing the small bowl over for you to grab a few. "look," you tell matt, "like this."
you squeeze the lime into the dish, "or you could just put it on top if you want," you shrug. you stir it around, adding some lettuce and onion to yours. "it's not authentic if you leave out the beats," you cousin miles whispers to matt. "literally shut up, like who asked you?" you mumble quietly, not looking to cause a scene over something as stupid as the way you like your pozole.
"here, let's try a little," you tell him, holding a spoon up to his mouth. he opens his mouth and lets you feed him. his eyes boring into yours as you do, he hums when his mouth closes around the utensil.
you pull the spoon away from his mouth and place it down, "how is it?" you ask, grabbing a piece of elote. "elote will never not be good," you state, "pass me the tajin miles."
the black-haired boy complies, sliding the bottle over to you, the plastic clanging with your glass. "thank you." you open the container and sprinkle the seasoning over the cob.
"isn't that a bit much?" matt says, tilting his head. "white people," you mutter, shaking your head as you take a bite of the corn. "no, it's never a bit much," you say, licking the tajin from your fingers.
you look up and see the eyes of your cousin miles staring at you, "what?" you say, glaring at the boy. "you're mean to him, wonder how you've kept him so long." he was obviously trying to get under your skin, it was what miles did. it was like he lived to be able to piss you off whenever he saw you.
"oh yeah, you're the fucking expert in relationships," you say, rolling your eyes. "because you haven't been able to keep somebody for more then five months," you add, looking back down to the table.
"i'm not the one who cheated on her last boyfriend," he says, crossing his arms. "miles," your aunt warns, "not here." "literally a bullshit lie and you know it," you state, getting up, walking inside to the bathroom.
matt quickly followed, leaving behind a table of people that were shocked. he walked in, closing the door behind him, and locked it.
you stood at the sink, gripping the edge as tears filled your eyes. his arms were wrapped around you, "it's not true," you mumble shakily, "i-i didn't," you hiccup. matt shushed you, pulling you closer to him.
"i don't really care if you did," he shrugs, though he knows there would have been a tad bit of fear that it could happen to him. "you didn't," he says, "but even if you did, i don't care. because you're mine, and i love you." he turns you around, cupping your cheeks.
"let's get you cleaned up," he says, using his sleeve to wipe the tears off of your face. you lean into his touch, and nod. "is it normally like this?" he asks, pressing kisses into your hair.
"miles will do or say whatever it takes to get under my skin," you mumble, "he's an immature little boy who doesn't care who's relationships he hurts," you scoff.
matt hums, and holds you close.
"i don't deserve you," you mumble, shaking your head, "i'm a mess." "then i will gladly be a mess with you so we can do it together," he mutters. "let's go back," he says, and unlocks the door.
as soon as he did, your cousin was standing there. "tía wants me to apoligiz-" "save it," you cut him off, holding a hand to his face. you and matt walk back to the table; pan dulce, flan, and tres leches cake gathered in the center of the table.
"here," your tía hands matt a piece of pan dulce. "thanks," he says, smiling at the older woman. he took the sweetened bread from her hands, tearing it in half before handing you one side. he takes a small bite, melting into his chair. "good?" you giggle, glad that most of the family was having their own conversations.
"magical," he hums, "then taste, tres leches," you state, grabbing a small plate with a slice. "tres leches is the only birthday cake i allow," you say, a smile on your face as his eyes light up. "why does this taste better then actual cake?" "because it is," you and your tía selena state at the same time.
matt nods his head and eats his dessert, looking around at all the people. his blue eyes landing on a picture that was hung on the wall. it was a photo of your abuela, the woman who raised your mom. you followed his eyes, "she was an amazing woman," you state, nodding your head.
“she would have loved you if she had the chance to meet you,” you mumble, resting your chin on the palm of your hand.
he looks over at you and smiles, grabbing a piece of flan. he puts the spoon in his mouth and hums, looking at you with wide eyes. "what is this? how did i never know this existed?" "because you never dated a bad ass latina bitch before me," you giggle.
"that's a good point," he shrugs. "and yes, flan is the shit," you laugh, "i love me some caramelized milk." matt's brows furrowed, "milk?" you hum, "milk, sugar, and eggs," you nod.
matt nodded his head and looked back at the dessert. he scooped some more and ate it. by the end of the night, mostly everyone was telling matt what a great guy he was, telling him they'd hope to see him at my cousin delorese quinceañera.
tag list:
@hysteria-things @tillies33ssss @soimightlikeoldmen69 @sturniolossss @freshsturns @etvar12 @sstvrnioloo @junnniiieee07 @sturnioloa @chrryclouds @sturniolhoe @sturniolowhore @imwetforyourmom @novasturniolo03 @spencerstits @junovrsmp4 @breeloveschris @skyslondon @stars4chratt @monkeyscientist22 @sophssturn @hearts4chriss @l5ka @sturnlovr @blahbel668 @sturncakez @livvy4realll @raysmayhem-72 @jnkvivi
#matt sturniolo#nate doe#christopher sturniolo#nick sturniolo#sturniolo triplets#nicolas sturniolo#matt sturniolo smut#nathan doe#chris sturniolo smut#matt sturniolo fanfic#chris sturniolo fluff#chris sturniolo imagine#chris sturniolo x reader#chris sturniolo fanfic#chris sturniolo#matt stuniolo fanfic#matt sturniolo fluff#matt sturniolo imagine#matt sturniolo x reader#matthew sturniolo smut#matthew sturniolo#nate doe smut#nate doe fanfic
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young, dumb & bwoke | ln4
hi! as u can see i couldn't stop myself from writing about last saturday events in amsterdam with mr norris as main star (he was more popular than the king himself lmao). lando is literally what i always bring to the function and yup, enjoy him being the chaotic drunk bestie while max and y/n are his literal party parents. its nothing crazy and without plot basically, i just added sum to this years' koningsdag so yeah, enjoy!
summary: there is nothing that lando loves more than a good party and his beloved dutch friends so imagine him with drink in his cup surrounded by whole orange nation. it could be nuts and it was
warnings: TONS of alcohol, lando being drunk (and hurted), mentions of blood, basically sum chaos
pairing: fem!dutch!bff!reader x lando norris (ft. max verstappen)
Lando couldn't wait for the plane he was on to break through the heavy cloud cover and land in Amsterdam.
China and Miami, which were the next rounds on the calendar, were separated by two weeks that were nothing else, in Lando's case, than a time of stagnation. Add to this the fact that Lando had bad memories of his performance in China and, what's worse, the sprint he failed so badly and which constantly played in his head like a jammed record, one could go crazy. That's why the Brit was extremely happy when he received an invitation to spend the weekend in the capital of the Netherlands. He was invited to Amsterdam to celebrate King Willhelm's birthday by none other than his favorite flying Dutch.
The friendship of Y/N, Max and Lando began in 2019, practically from the very moment he entered Formula 1. The kid, who was barely 20 years old but looked like 12, immediately won over the Dutch couple with his smile and sense of humor, who, due to their sometimes severe temperament, could not boast of having many friends in the paddock. Even though the three friends were only two years apart, Max and Y/N naturally became Lando's racing parents, with whom the Brit spent practically every moment, from time in the paddock, through celebrating on the podium, to time away from competitions. So it was no surprise when they invited him to spend the weekend together, to which he, of course, eagerly agreed.
When the plane landed, Lando pulled the hood of his orange sweatshirt over his head and slung his backpack over his shoulder, in which he packed everything he might need for the coming days. As you could guess, there wasn't much of it, he actually had everything he needed on him and the most important part was an oversized orange sweatshirt. Waiting for him at the airport was Y/N, who couldn't wait to see him. She didn't have to wait too long, because a moment later he walked out in front of the terminal. Y/N smiled as she saw her friend walking towards her and she hugged him tightly.
"You knew I was coming, you could have asked the king for better weather," Lando joked, trying to sound serious, which only made the girl giggle.
"If you think that the weather will have any influence on what will happen in the evening, then unfortunately I will have to disappoint you," she replied, getting into the car. "It's already starting to get crowded in downtown, and it's not even noon."
Lando threw his backpack into the backseat and got into the passenger side. He smiled like a child, looking forward to how the weekend would unfold. It looked like he would spend a nice few days, able to finally de-stress and relax, and in the company of friends. But speaking of friends, one of them was missing.
"And where's Max?" he asked as they left the airport and were on their way to the girl's apartment. "I thought he had been waiting for me with the welcome committee since yesterday."
"He's already in town, I dropped him off while I was on my way to pick you up."
"He's fast," Lando laughed and shook his head, "I hope he's still on his feet when we get to him."
At that moment, Lando didn't think about the fact that no one else but himself would be able to stay on his feet. When the Brit set off for Amsterdam, he obviously expected to spend two days drunk, with legs sore from dancing and a sore throat from singing, but he forgot that he has absolutely no immunity to alcohol.
When the three friends were finally together, alcohol quickly appeared in their hands. Y/N and Max started with beer, but Lando had no intention of wasting his time drinking something that would only cause pressure on his bladder. As soon as he boarded one of the barges floating on the Herenbracht Canal, he drank several shots at once. Y/N and Max just exchanged glances as he drank the drink standing on Garrix's console in one gulp, who didn't care one bit about it, being already in a good mood himself.
"I'm a little worried about how this might end," Max said in her ear as she took a sip of her cider, watching Lando jump happily.
"Even if he's drunk, so what," she replied, handing him her bottle and taking away the body paints in circulation, "He didn't come here to be bored."
Max was about to say something, but she pushed his hand slightly, bringing the bottle he was holding to his lips. Max shook his head and took a few sips from it, while the girl started painting flags on his cheeks. When she finished, she waved them up, attracting Lando's attention, who understood what she meant and nodded eagerly. The girl squeezed through the console and stood next to him, leaning him against the barge rails, because Lando had trouble not bobbing to the music for a moment.
The smile that never left his face wrinkled his cheeks, on which she tried to paint Dutch flags. When she finished and turned to pass the paints, Lando took off her sunglasses and put them on himself.
"Have a drink with me!" Lando shouted, holding out his empty cup to her, and she raised her cider bottle in response. He rolled his eyes in dissatisfaction when suddenly a bottle of vodka appeared in the crowd and someone handed it straight to his hands. Without much thought, Lando unscrewed the cap and took a few sips as if the contents were water, which of course met with the crowd's approval.
Y/N took the bottle from his hands, fearing not the amount Lando drank, but the relatively short time it took him to do so. However, not wanting to seem boring, she tilted the bottle herself, letting the liquid burn her throat. Delighted, Lando clapped his hands and hugged his friend, causing some of the alcohol to flow down her chin. She smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist as well, and raised her hand in a toast, which was joined by everyone who had something to drink.
Max also raised his beer bottle a bit. However, somewhere in the background of his mind there was an image of Lando and what he would look like in the near future. However, the Brit himself did not care at all about this. As long as he was in the company of his friends, his plastic cup was full and he could jump to the music and sing along, he was happy. Even the fact that his face was in the wrong place at the wrong time, when someone, completely by accident, punched him in the face, didn't disturb it.
Y/N, who also decided to pick up the pace after drinking her cider, immediately sobered up when she saw blood on her friend's face. She quickly pressed a tissue to his nose, but he tried to assure her that he was fine. His brain didn't encode the impact or the pain, didn't acknowledge that he was bleeding, even when he ran his tongue over his lips and tasted blood on them. People in the crowd started calling out to each other to see if anyone had a first aid kit. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bandage appeared, and just as Y/N, being drunk, thought it would be a great idea to wrap Lando's face in a bandage, Max started asking people if they somehow had band aids. He couldn't let that dumbass parade around like that for the rest of the evening.
“I've sobered up a bit, I can keep drinking,” he said as Y/N finished clumsily bandaging his face, “I probably look worse that i did when i crashed in Vegas.”
Her friend tried to be serious, but it was impossible to stay serious around Lando. "You have to be careful, Lan," she said, trying to retain some sanity and touching his cheek, looking into his eyes, "I hope it's not broken."
"Bwoken," he repeated in silly voice, giggling "Oh no, it couldn't be bwoken"
"Honestly, i also hope it is not," Max interjected when he managed to rejoin his friends after some time, "Getting to the hospital now would be a near miracle."
"Hey, I'm fine," he said as Max waved the Band-Aids in his face and began to remove the clumsy bandage into which their friend had probably poured her whole heart and a few drinks that she drank earlier.
"I'm glad you don't feel anything, but that doesn't change the fact that I won't look at it," he replied, lifting his chin and examining his nose from every angle. Luckily this one seemed fine.
Once Max had placed two tiny patches on him, Y/N handed him his mug with a fresh drink again. "Brave patient," she smiled at him.
"In a state like this, I'd be surprised if he felt something," Max admitted, taking a bottle of vodka standing nearby. He decided that since Lando had had an accident, nothing worse awaited them and he could allow himself to loosen a bit more. He took a few sips and handed the bottle to the younger one, who smiled, tightening his hand around it. He looked at his friends standing in front of him, slightly drunk but still fully focused on him. He knew he was important to them and that he is not alone in all this madness.
"I love you guys," he said, with a bottle in his hand, pushing himself off the railing and hugging them, "You are the best in the world, simply the best."
The rest of the day and later in the evening took place in a great atmosphere and the party lasted until 3. in the morning. For the rest of Amsterdam it probably lasted longer, but for Lando it began to end after two o'clock, when he was barely able to stand. Partly from being drunk, partly from being tired. He didn't stand still during a single song, so the next day, apart from his face, his legs will certainly be visible. Taking a break for something warm to eat, Max, Y/N, and Lando sat down at one of the wooden tables. While waiting for their orders, Lando rested his head on Y/N's shoulder and closed his eyes. It was obvious that he just needed something to lean on to fall asleep.
"I think it's time for us to go," the girl announced, directing her words to Max. "The baby is only fit for bed now."
"He's been in great shape for a long time anyway, judging by how much he was on his feet today," Max concluded, glancing first at him and then at the girl, "But you're holding up pretty well, aren't you?"
"Yes, I do," she nodded and hugged Lando, who began to slide off her shoulder, "But I'm also getting sleepy."
"Me too," Max rubbed his face with his hands, "At least we can be sure that no one will wake us up first thing in the morning to explore the city."
He said, glancing at Lando, who was dozing with his mouth open on his friend's shoulder. After eating casseroles and fries, which were for Lando and which he was unable to eat, the three of them went to the girl's apartment. Of course, only she and Max were walking on their own, Lando was between them, leaning on their arms. He was muttering something incomprehensible under his breath, so it was obvious that he was alive and everything was fine, besides the fact that he was completely drunk.
When they arrived at the address and crossed the threshold of the apartment, they immediately went to put him in the bedroom, not wasting time in unfolding the couch for him. Max was in the process of stripping him of his shoes, pants, bloody sweatshirt, and all the necklaces and ribbons he had collected the previous day, while Y/N placed a large bottle of water, painkillers, and a bucket by his bed, as if the contents of his stomach had suddenly decided that they wants to get outside. However, there was no indication that Lando was going to have a restless night, because he started snoring softly as soon as his cheek touched the pillow. Max covered him with the blanket and took a few steps away from the bed, standing next to his friend who was looking at the sleeping boy.
"Can you hear that?" Max whispered, glancing at her, and she frowned questioningly, "It's silence, listen to it, because when he gets up, the only thing you can hear will be his lamentations about how hungover he is."
The girl snorted quietly and shook her head, taking Lando's clothes to the laundry.
"The most important thing is that he had a good time. And a little hangover never killed nobody."
The next day, however, did not bring anything unexpected. When Lando woke up, the first thing that hit him was a terrible headache that got worse when he sat down and tried to get out of bed. When he stood in the doorway of the bedroom, Y/N and Max's eyes immediately went towards him and Lando could swear that they looked like they spent the entire last evening on the couch.
"Hi honey, did you sleep well?" Max asked playfully, in the perfect mood for jokes since he himself was fine after last night.
Lando just blinked several times and wanted to wipe his face with his hands and collect some words to answer, but when he touched his cut nose, he cursed loudly.
"What the fuck?"
"A souvenir from yesterday," the girl answered him, getting up from the couch and taking out a frozen package from the fridge, which she handed to him, "I recommend a shower and I'll make you some coffee."
He closed his eyes and put the package to his nose, sighing and grabbing the bathroom door handle. Before he disappeared, Max just shouted after him.
"And don't puke in the shower!"
#f1 imagines#f1#f1 one shot#formula 1#f1 oneshots#f1 imagine#lando norris#ln4#lando norris x reader#lando norris x you#lando norris x y/n#max verstappen#mv1#mv33#max verstappen x reader#max verstappen x you
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you never cared for love. being in a relationship seemed too exhausting, too vulnerable and messy. you were okay with watching your friends fall in love from afar. as long as they were happy you were too.
and yet, everything changed after a project you had with a random partner for your statistics class.
na jaemin was someone you've heard of before. he was kind, smart and incredibly handsome. the last person you'd expect yourself to fall in love with as deeply as you did.
you remember perfectly the exact day when he went from a project partner, to a friend, to a crush and to what you call now your boyfriend.
"alright, i say we share the subjects of the presentation equally and then we meet again to put everything together, is that okay?" you asked with a small smile.
"yeah sure, that's fine by me. the only problem is that i kinda suck at statistics so it may take longer than a few days to finish all this." he says while checking his parts of the project.
"oh that's okay, i'm doing quite well in this class so i could give you my number if you need any help with something! you kindly offer, something that later became one of the best decisions you've ever made.
mark sat back on the sofa with a tired sigh in the apartement that he shared with three of his best friends, after one of the bost boring lectures he's had that week.
"dude i swear this teacher was a grim reaper in another life. how can you suck so bad at teaching at yet have the nerve to judge your students like that is beyond me" he complained to the other two.
"what did he say again? I told you you should've skipped this morning, who else other than you wants to see his bald ass head at 9 in the morning? said donghyuck while playing a game on his phone.
"there was barely anyone bro, the only person i knew was y/n. she was his victim today, I felt so bad for her."
jaemin was barely paying attention to the conversation, still half asleep , but hearing your name had better effect on him than any other coffee he's ever had.
"what do you mean, what did he say to her?" he asked, now fully awake
"he read her essay and pretty much called it shit in front of everyone. I can't imagine how awful that must be, especially for someone who takes their studies as serious as her" answered the oldest of the group
jaemin didn't waste a second after hearing that, got dressed as quickly as he could and ran to the nearby bakery to get you your favorite pastries and of course, a bouquet of flowers to cheer you up.
"oh jaemin, it's nice to see you!" says chaewon while letting him in the apartement she shares with you, her best friend. "y/n is a little bit down right now so I'm glad you're here, I have a class in a few minutes."
"thanks chaewon, don't worry, I'll try to make her feel better. I hate not seeing her happy" says your kind friend
"hm I wonder why" she shot him a teasing look "I'll leave you to it then".
jaemin made his way to your room, knocked twice and waited for your permission to come in. when you gave it to him, he opened the door and his gaze immediately found yours.
"what are you doing here, jaem?" you asked him while sitting up on your bed. your plan was to rot in bed for the rest of the day. being someone with huge academic validation, it was never easy for you to receive criticism towards your work, so on the rare occasions when it happened, your mood would be down for the entire day.
"what do you mean what am i doing here? my favorite statistics partner isn't her usual happy self and you thought i wouldn't come cheer you up?" he says while taking a seat on the bed " here's your favorites. for now i can only give you this but if you want i'll gladly give a punch or two to that asshole."
he brought you your favorite pastries and flowers? how did he even know they were your favorites, you couldn't have mentioned this more than once in the months you've known each other.
"jaemin you didn't have to do this!" you exclaim, feeling something you couldn't quite name yet.
"of course I did." he says while looking softly into your eyes "now move over, I plan on staying here for the rest of the day and I'd rather be comfortable" he lay next to you and started to look for a something to watch " what kind of movie are you feeling? I'm in the mood for comedy or romance."
"romance.." you say while staring at his pretty face, in a seemingly different light than you did before
oh...
"chaewon please, the last thing i want to do is see him today" you nearly cried while saying this to your best friend. ever since that day when jaemin surprised you with your favorites, you've noticed that you feel different around him. he's no longer a friend to you and you don't want to feel more things for him, so you avoid him as much as possible.
"y/n please stop feeling so scared about this. jaemin is an amazing guy who could make you so happy. why would you run away from this special something you have with him?" huffed the blond haired girl
"what if he doen't feel the same way about me,huh? then what? i just make a fool out of myself and ruin what we already have!"
"if you think that he doesn't ike you back you must be the actual blindest person on earth." she says while rolling her eyes "do all your guy friends treat you the way he does? i don't think donghyuck, mark, jeno or anyone else does!" she starts rumming through your closet despite your protests "i don't want to hear it, you're coming with me to the party! besides, you don't even know if he's going to be there."
you catch the outfit that she nearly hit you in the face, not forgetting to glare at her despite appreciating her efforts to get you out of the house.
"alright, we're going but i better won't have to drag your drunk ass out of there!" in spite of your original reluctance, you start getting ready.
"this is definitely the last party we're going to together" you mumble, not even on hour later while running after your lightweight chaewon.
"need some help getting her home?" you hear a deep voice ask behind you.
"shit jeno you scared me" you say, clutching your chest " i actually do though" you answer, offering a smile to one of your favorite friends
"sorry y/n" he return your smile "you don't have to worry about her, i'll take her home, you enjoy yourself here" he says while giving you a pat on the back
"are you sure? i don't want to ruin your night" you say
"yeah of course! i was planning on going home anyway. also, i think a certain someone wants to talk to you." he says, obviously pointing to his best friend.
"is it too late to ask for a ride home too?" you ask him with a desperate look in your eyes
"yes my friend, it is. he's already coming here. but don't be scared alright, i know you worry a lot but you two are good together." he says, already making his way to chaewon
you take a deep breath, already dreading the conversation you're about to have.
"hey you, it's been a while. i was starting to think you hate me or something" jaemin says with an unsure smile on his face "are you okay with going somewhere else? i missed you and i want to talk to you about something"
there he goes again. saying things that you wish he would stop saying, because you fall more and more for him
"yeah sure" you answer, trying to calm your nerves
you two drove around for a few minutes while listenig to music from a playlist that you made for him a while ago. you already knew where he was taking you. there was a park nearby where you two spend a lot of time together. he once called this his favorite place to go to with his favorite person. you tried to avoid how your heart fluttered when you heard that.
"so, are you going to tell me why you've been avoiding me lately?" he asks after sitting on the blanket he always keeps in his car
" i haven't been avoiding you, jaem. i've just been super busy with uni and work." you answer, trying to seem as convincing as possible. "you said you wanted to talk about something, what is it?"
there were a few second of silence, so you decided to take a look at him. he was already looking at you, love pouring out of his eyes
"jaemin.." you whisper
"i love you" he says
you could immediately feel tears in the back of your eyes
"i have for quite a while now. i can't tell you the exact moment i realised it, but i can tell you that i'm sure of it. everything feels so different to me now. there isn't a single moment of my day where i don't think about you. i know how scared you are of being in love, and i don't blame you. i've never felt like this before. i've never had someone consume every single thought of my brain the way you do" he pauses, takes a look at you and then takes your hand in his " i think the reason why you avoided me was because you feel it too. and i want you to know that even if you aren't ready for something more than the friendship we have, i would never hold that againt you. never. i'm happy with whatever you give me as long as i have you in my life"
you take a deep breath while squeezing his hand "it's so hard for me to put into words what i'm feeling for you because a few months ago it seemes like the most foreign concept to me,loving someone forever. i don't know how i would be like in a relationship, but if it's anything like watching bad movies with you , or staying here in this park talking about anything that goes though our minds, i want to try it with you."
at that, he offered you his beautiful smile that makes you weak to the knees, and pulled you into a hug.
"i'm pretty sure that i can love you forever, y/n" he whispered in your hair
#na jaemin#nct#nct dream#mark lee#lee donghyuck#lee jeno#chaewon#kpop imagines#nct fluff#nct imagines#kpop au
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Weekly thoughts!
Hooboy, the big episode! First off, I think everyone knows by now that you probably shouldn't read these if you haven't read the latest episode, but I ESPECIALLY mean that this week! Talking about some way bigger than usual spoilers.
Phew, this was a big one, both from a writing and drawing perspective. I actually spent a full day on that last panel alone, but writing it took way longer than usual too. Going back and forth between Bell's speech and Jericho's backstory played perfectly like a movie in my head, but it was really hard to portray it as a comic and it was one of the few times I was struggling with the limitations of the format. I think I pulled it off though, since everyone seemed to follow along fine! So while it was probably just a neat scene to everyone else, I'm rather proud of that haha.
As for the actual contents of the episode, I'm also glad everything hit w/ the majority of the audience for the most part. I know a handful were confused about if that was Bell or Jericho who did that, but to those people, I remind you it's been loooong established Jericho can control his extensions (Bell, Charlie, and Claude. Remember, they all took injections of Jericho's blank space?). Also on that note, Bell does not have her own scion... Only Rex and Jericho do. Bell, Charlie and Claude all took injections of Jericho's blank space, thus get to borrow some of his power. I recommend re-reading ep 80 if you need a refresher.
I do consider this ep kind of a big reveal of Jericho's true colors. I mean, you guys have known he's the main villain for ages now, but this is the ep that reveals his "better world for blanks" act is kind of a façade and what he's really seeking is a worse world for humans. The fall of humans benefitting blanks is just kind of a bonus. I'm glad a few people caught onto this with the fact that one of the worst horrors he experienced was having his autonomy taken away from him, then he proceeds to do just that to Bell.
And speaking of Jericho's horrors- Before this season launched, I dropped a bunch of hints about upcoming things. One of them was that the most disturbing scene (in my opinion) was coming up. I was actually referring to what happened to Kallie. I'm not sure if it was as disturbing to everyone else (I totally get like if Claude's leg thing fucked people up more), but being evaporated into nothingness but not dying was an existential dread that really fucks me up haha. If it fucked even a couple of other people up, then I did my job.
I don't have too much else to say about the contents of the episode. It was so hard to bite my tongue for weeks as everyone predicted pretty much every character but Desmond was gonna get it. I'm sorry I don't have too much else to say about him right now given what happened, but I definitely will in the upcoming weeks.
I guess the only other note I have is I might as well address something that bugs me slightly- It's definitely a minority but there's a handful of people who seem done with the series because "too many things go wrong." To which... I'm not sure what to tell ya. I'm fine with critique and criticism to be clear, but honestly, this is one thing I'm actually really confident I'm good at balancing. I'm not sure where people are coming from with "nothing good ever happens in this series" when this season alone has had probably the cutest and fluffiest scenes. Rex has a canon girlfriend, he had his first kiss with her, Desmond was reunited with his sister and learned to accept himself, Lyss learned to move past her trauma and accept blanks, Rex was reunited with Shnee, Rex's scion turns out to be a puppy dog w/ a crush. I'm aware a lot of these got kind of crushed with this latest ep...but that's.. kind of. the. point??? That's how you write tragedy and impactful scenes??
I dunno, maybe this is personal to me because it's ALWAYS bugged me when someone tells me they think a show is bad because it's "too dark." Like no... It's not *bad* because it's too dark, you just don't like dark themes, and that's okay. I TOTALLY get if CoB has gotten too dark for some people- it's definitely hit some hard themes and subjects, but I don't like to accept that as a critique. It just means it's not for you and that's okay. There's a ton of other great comics that are more light-hearted! I think the TLDR of this is it will always annoy me when people say something is bad just because it's not their taste.
Now. That said... everyone is completely valid in their hate of Jericho. I, however, still love him.
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A/N: This took me longer than I wanted it to but it's finally done! That means there's only one fic left to finish before I open up requests again. :•) Enjoy!
Premise: Depressed!GN!Reader finds out they're not as worthless as they think they are.
Warnings: None! Pure fluff.
You scribbled on the corner of the page to test your ink pen.
I have to vacuum the floor again soon. Dishes need to be done again today. I don't know what I want to make for dinner. More chores need to be done tomorrow. Is it even worth it anymore?
You pause. Every entry from the start of this week looked exactly the same. Flipping through the pages you notice that the beginning entries aren't much different either. Seems like every day has turned monotonous and bleak for you for a long time now. When you really think about it, when was the last time you were truly happy to wake up in the morning? Nothing came to mind.
The amount of hopelessness that filled your mind, body and soul was immense.
"Good morning!" Sloan sets down a coffee mug with a cat meme on it for you. Their smile had genuine happiness behind it– not something you could relate to.
"Good morning." You mimic their smile and watch as they take a seat next to you.
You're not sure how they could be so happy to wake up to the same burden every day of their life. Surely they must of thought you were baggage at this point. You were just waiting for the day they got tired of your presence and finally packed up and left. Everyone did. It was only a matter of time for them, too.
You bookmark the current page of your journal and close its cover.
"Don't forget your medicine!" They set your pill case next to your cat meme mug.
"Thanks."
They give you a kiss on the cheek.
You want to cry. Instead, you just watch as they take a seat next to you at the dining table for breakfast.
"Not hungry?" They ask.
They fork small bites of waffle into their mouth.
"I already ate." You lied.
"Oh? What did you have? I didn't hear you making anything."
You knew they were worried about you, but your brain didn't accept this.
"Just toast."
They're quiet for a moment. "Just toast?" They repeat.
"With jam. I'm not completely tasteless." You halfheartedly joke.
In order to dodge more conversation you open your pill case and down everything on an empty stomach.
"You have therapy today, right?" It feels they're playing a game of Twenty Questions.
"Yeah. I can make it there on my own, though."
"Well, I don't have anything to do right now. Why not let me take you?"
Right. You forgot. You were used to them being gone for weeks on end because of field work, studying or traveling. They took a couple weeks off to spend time with you. It seemed to be happening increasingly often as of late.
"It's alright, really. I don't want to bother you with it." You insist.
"It's not a bother! I promise!"
They're smiling again. It's hard to say no to that face.
"Alright."
...
Your therapist gives you back your journal after reading the last few entries. Nearly fifty minutes had already gone by and you don't feel like you've gotten everything off your chest yet.
"So, you feel like nothings gotten any better then?" They inquire.
"How are things supposed to get better at this rate?"
You collapse into the sofa and stare at the wall behind your doctor.
"I'm a burden. I can't do anything right. Everyone else already has everything figured out. What am I supposed to do? I'll never be good enough at anything."
Your therapist jots down everything you're saying before looking back up at you.
"If it's okay to ask... what do you want to be good at, exactly?"
You think about it. "Anything."
"Do you really think that's true, that you're not good at anything?"
You nod.
"You woke up this morning. You're breathing. You're very good at doing those two things. You're taking up space and existing. You're listening. You're feeling. You do these things without even thinking about them. Is that not a sign of skill?"
"That doesn't make me a worthwhile person, though." Tears start forming in your eyes and your therapist hands you the tissue box.
"You don't have to do anything well to be a worthwhile person. You exist, and that enough makes life worth living. If you want to learn more then you can, but knowing everything won't increase your value. You're valuable just by being here. Your worth as a human being is not determined by what you can or cannot do, or what you do or don't know."
Your therapist stays quiet as you sob into multiple tissues. It takes several minutes for you to calm down enough to continue your session.
"I still can't help but feel like a burden to everyone though." You still find it hard to speak after crying so much.
"Those who see you as a burden will never be worth your time. People who want to be around you will stay around you, even if they can't be present in your life at all times."
Rain begins gently tapping at the office window.
"... wouldn't it just be easier to shut everyone out, then?" You point out.
"Well, sure... but then you would never find out who truly loved you, or find others who are going to love you despite it all."
Another moment of silence passes between the two of you before the clock chimes in the distance.
"Same time next week I presume?" Your therapist fills out an appointment card for you.
"That sounds good."
...
You forgot your umbrella. The rain has already begun to pour.
Y/N: Alright. I'm ready.
💛lil meow meow💛: ᕕ( ՞ ᗜ ՞ )ᕗ
💛lil meow meow💛: ON MY WAY!!!
A car speeds by while you're waiting and splashes you from head to toe in puddle water. You're lucky enough that your phone case is water proof and that your journal is in your bag, otherwise everything would've been ruined.
Weird. You haven't thought about the positives in a long time.
You carefully wipe the droplets from your phone before another text message pops up.
💛lil meow meow💛: [Uploaded a photo at 3:56 PM].
It was a photo of you from behind.
💛lil meow meow💛: Omg? There's just a cutie pie standing outside? Do you think they're single?
You turn to look in the direction the photo was taken, then Sloan snaps another photo of you.
💛lil meow meow💛: OMG they noticed me!!!
💛lil meow meow💛: They're walking towards me!!!
You open the car door and the warmth hits your damp face.
"Wow. Now there's a cute person in my car! No way!" They grin and gesture over to you.
You can't help but smile.
"Sorry I wasn't fast enough to pick you up before the rain started..." They add.
They reach over to hold your hand and give it a comforting squeeze.
"It's okay. I can shower later." You reply.
You look out the passenger side window at the world covered in gray. The sooner you could get home, the better.
"So, how did it go?" They ask.
For a moment you replay the conversation with your therapist in your mind. You're not sure if you want to bring it up.
"Well..." You start to say, but you choke back the rest of the words.
Tears form in your eyes and you turn farther way from your beloved to hide them. You attempt to focus on the street lights passing you by instead.
"It was okay."
A brief silence passes between the two of you.
"You can be honest with me." There was a genuine concern for you in their voice that you were all too familiar with.
You bite your lip and think about your therapist again.
"Do you think I'm a burden?"
The question seems to come from no where for Sloan– but for you, it's all you've been wondering for a very long time.
"No! Of course not! Why would I ever think that about you?" They answer almost a little too defensively.
"Because you're smart, and you already have your life figured out– and I'm just a nobody, really..."
"No, you're not. Not to me."
You wipe the oncoming tears with your sleeves. The weight of the world comes baring down on your shoulders once again. Hot breaths escape between choking sighs and you can't stop yourself from sobbing all over again.
"I'm sorry–" That's all you could repeat, over and over again, like a broken record.
"[Y/N]..."
You can hardly hear them over the sound of your downfall.
The crisis seemed like it lasted forever to you. Everything you've been keeping bottled up for so long comes pouring out all at once without any warning. Even though your heart still hurts, you can feel it becoming lighter with every passing minute.
You can't form words. All you can do now is cry, cry, cry.
So cry, you did.
For minutes on end, tears flood out from underneath your swollen, bloodshot eyes. Your face was pink and pain pounded in your head from all the upset. It felt like forever until you were calm enough to form coherent sentences again.
"I'm sorry you had to see that." Once again you find yourself apologizing for things beyond your control.
"There's no need to say you're sorry. Let's just get inside so you can get out of those wet clothes."
You didn't even realize you had made it home already.
...
One mental breakdown, shower and ibuprofen later you felt like a brand new person.
In the same cat meme mug from this morning your beloved sets down some hot chocolate for you to help you cheer up.
"Do you want to talk about it?" They ask.
You can feel them wrap a blanket around you before sitting down and scooping you up into the warmest hug you've ever received. You close your eyes and melt into their affection while placing your head on their chest to listen to their heartbeat.
"I guess I just feel worthless most of the time." You admit.
"But why? You're not worthless to me. Not one bit." They comfort you the best they can.
You can feel Sloan place their hand on the back of your head and gently stroke your hair.
"I feel bad for taking time away from you. You have everything in your life figured out. I can't imagine why you still come around to visit me."
"Because I love you." There's a softness to their reply that makes your heart feel safe and secure. "I love spending time with you, so I take time off to visit you. If I didn't want anything to do with you I'd be gone already."
You think about their words for a minute and wish you had something equally as nice to reply with, but instead drowsiness begins to fog your mind.
You open your mouth to speak but a yawn escapes first.
"Rest, mi vida. Don't let those thoughts bother you anymore. I love you so much–" They place a kiss to your head. "– and I'll love you even more when you wake up."
They let you lay down and listen to their heartbeat for a little while longer.
"You mean the world to me. I don't care about anything else right now– just you. I'm here for you. Everything else can wait."
"Promise?" You nuzzle into their chest, ready to fall asleep at any moment.
"I promise. I'll write it on my tombstone." They reply.
"I'll hold you to that."
"You'll have to wait and see. I plan on spending the rest of my life with you, first."
For the first time in a long time you felt yourself genuinely smile.
#this took me rewatching my entire comfort game to finish oof#overwatch#overwatch 2#venture x reader#venture x you#overwatch fanfiction#overwatch x reader#overwatch x you#sloane cameron#sloan cameron
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Bezel
He couldn't fix or change her past, but he could give her this.
-x-
Hi friends,
As we all know, I have a very famous lack of control. The lovely @eyesontheskyline posted a gif set and made a comment about Emily's giant watch in 2x20, my mind went haywire and once again here we are.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this - please let me know what you think <3
-x-
Words: 3.5k
Warnings: Mentions/references to loss of a parent
Read over on Ao3, or below the cut
Emily sighs contently as she takes a sip of her beer, the coolness of it removing any last bits of tension in her shoulders that the case they’d resolved had created.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?”
She turns her head to look at Aaron and smiles as their eyes meet, his eyes soft in a way they rarely were outside of either of their homes or the hotel rooms they shared. There was something strangely empowering about him looking at her like that in front of their friends and it warms her from the inside out. She nods and reaches for his hand that is slung over her shoulders, linking their fingers together as she leans in to kiss him, the taste of the scotch he was drinking passing from his lips to hers. She smiles into the kiss when she hears the others groan, making a point of deepening it for a moment before she pulls away, squeezing his hand tightly as she leans in further to his side.
“Okay, we get it, you guys are adorable,” Dave says dryly, a fond glint in his eyes as they both turn to look at him, “I think I preferred it when you two were pretending not to like each other.”
“I didn’t,” Penelope says, her glee at seeing them together obvious, her entire body practically vibrating with it. Her gaze drifts to Emily’s bare wrist and her smile drops, the corners of her lips turning downwards into a slight pout, “Sorry about your watch, Peaches.”
Emily looks at her wrist, her bare skin peeking out from underneath the sleeve of her shirt. Her watch had been damaged during the takedown of the unsub, the glass face of it smashed against the wall as he tried to evade arrest and shoved her out of his way. She’d cried out when it happened, more in shock at being pushed than anything else, her worst injury a slight graze of her palm against the brick wall, but it had been enough for Aaron to overreact. Her usually reserved and stoic boyfriend had briefly forgotten where they were and gone out of his way to make sure she was okay, barrelling into the room she was in as if he’d heard a gunshot, accidentally revealing their relationship to the team as he checked her over for injuries that didn’t exist.
It was why she’d allowed herself to get dragged into going for drinks with the team when all she wanted to really do was snuggle up with Aaron in his bed or hers. The news had travelled fast and Penelope had called her before the unsub was even in the back of a cop car, demanding they all went out when they landed back in DC because she wanted to see them. Aaron had been hesitant, his embarrassment at overreacting clear, but Emily had talked him into it. Her smile and a promise of later enough to convince him a few drinks with their friends was a good thing.
They’d told them what they wanted to hear, answering their friend's questions in a way that still allowed them to keep their privacy. Emily felt a certain sense of pride blooming in her chest when they told them they’d been together 8 weeks without anyone noticing, although Dave claimed to have known the entire time. Even though Emily knew they would both miss their relationship just being for them, she liked sharing it with the people she cared about. It made it feel impossibly more real - the three words she hadn’t said outloud yet, the three he hadn’t said either, on the tip of her tongue.
“Oh, that’s okay,” she says, smiling as her gaze drifts to where her hand is linked with Aaron’s for a second before she looks back up at her friends, “It wasn’t expensive. I have plenty of others”
“Are you talking you expensive, or regular person expensive, Princess?” Derek asks, hiding a grin behind his beer, “Because those are two different things.”
She laughs humourlessly as she makes a point of rolling her eyes. She makes eye contact with Penelope again and sighs when she sees that she still seems worried, a crease between her brows that lets Emily know her friend is still thinking about the smashed watch in her go-bag.
“I mean it, Pen,” she assures her, “It’s just a watch, it’s not like held any great sentimental value.”
There’s something about the way she says it that makes Aaron pause, his brows furrowing for just a second as he looks down at her, a smile still fixed on her face as she carries on talking to Penelope. Emily had always been very purposeful with everything she’d ever said. She’d been taught at an early age that words mattered, that everything had weight to it. She was never calculated, but she never said anything she didn’t mean, so it makes him curious and leaves him wondering if she meant that she did have a watch that held sentimental value. He files it away for later, sure that whatever it was it was something she wouldn’t want to share with the team.
When they get back to his apartment, it’s late. They shower together, their laughter and muffled groans lost under the roar of the water, neither one of them wanting to wake Jack up by mistake. By the time they climb into bed, Emily is tired, her body relaxed and sated as she crawls half on top of him, her eyes already closed as she relaxes into his embrace. He hauls her closer and smiles as she giggles, a sound she’d deny if he ever brought it up, her hand fisted in his t-shirt as she anchors herself to him.
“Can I ask you something?” He asks, his lips against her forehead as he trails his hand up and down her back. She hums as she settles further into his embrace, her arm over his waist and her leg over his hips.
“Always,” she murmurs, turning her head just enough to kiss his chest, “But make it quick, the combination of the beer and your magic touch is sending me to sleep.”
Aaron chuckles and kisses her forehead, taking a moment to breathe her in before he asks the question he’d been thinking of since they were in the bar, “Earlier, you said the watch you broke today wasn’t sentimental. Does that mean you have one that is?”
A part of her wonders if she should be annoyed that he noticed, that he was so good at his job it bled into their personal lives, but she can’t bring herself to be. Instead, she realises she wants to tell him, that she wants to reveal another part of herself to him simply because he’d asked.
“Do you remember that big watch I had?” She asks, her gaze locked on the wall of his bedroom, “It had a leather strap, the face of it was wider than my wrist.”
He nods before realising she isn’t looking at him, “I remember.”
“It was my dad’s watch. When he died…” she clears her throat and presses her lips together, giving herself a moment before she carries on, “My mom gave it to me. I kept it and one day I couldn’t find my watch so I wore it to work,” she lifts her head to look up at him, her hands on his chest as she rests her chin on them, “It was huge on me. Big and impractical and so obviously not made for me,” she chuckles, “But it made me feel weirdly close to him. Which probably sounds insane.”
“It doesn’t,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, smiling encouragingly at her as she leans into the touch, “It doesn’t sound insane at all,” he assures her and her response is to turn her head to kiss his palm, “What happened to it?”
He’d picked up on how she was talking about it in the past tense, had seen the wistful look in her eyes as she thought about the watch. She smiles sadly and slips one of her hands into his, pressing their palms together to test the size difference.
There was something comforting about how big he was in comparison to her, something about it that made her feel safe. She didn’t need him to protect her, didn’t need him to hold her together, but she wanted him to. She wanted to share things with him that she’d never shared with anyone because she knew nothing would scare him off. He’d seen the very worst of her and he was still here, he still wanted to know more.
“It was sold with everything else when I died,” she says carefully, making sure to link their fingers together as she says it, hoping the way she squeezes his hand lets him know she doesn’t blame him, his guilt for making that decision for her still lingering every time it was mentioned, “I was surprised Mother didn’t take it - she was the one who got it for him. But…she had all my things sold,” she smiles sadly, a shaky breath slipping past her lips as she thinks about it. About how her mother had all but wiped any memory of her from the face of the earth. She knew it was likely a defence mechanism, a way of dealing with the fact her only child was dead, but Emily liked to think if it had been her she’d have made a different decision.
Aaron drags her in for a quick kiss, his hand on her cheek as he encourages her closer to him, unable to bear to not kiss her any longer, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You deserved better than that.”
She smiles and kisses him, letting her lips linger against his for a moment longer than necessary as she tries to convince herself that he’s right, drawing the comfort from him that only he had ever truly been able to provide.
“I never understood their relationship. They loved each other, just not in the way I ever wanted to love someone,” she says, looking down at his chest again, at the random patterns she was drawing on his shirt as she willfully ignores the fact they hadn’t told each other how they felt yet. The words unspoken but felt in everything they did for each other, a gentle kind of love they both thought was beyond them, “Mom got Dad the watch for his 40th birthday. It had this engraving on the back of it - See You in Paris,” she smiles sadly as she sighs, “It was their favourite place. It’s where I always remember them being at their happiest.”
“Paris?”
She laughs, an edge of bitterness to it as she nods, “Yeah, Paris,” she says, her eyebrow raised as she looks at him, “The universe has a sense of humour apparently.”
There’s so much he wants to say, an apology he knows she won’t accept trapped in his chest as he stares at her, but in the end he settles on kissing her, pulling back just enough to speak as he rests his forehead against hers.
“Thank you for telling me.”
She smiles, familiar love for him burning in her chest, desperately trying to escape as she presses her lips together to hold it in place, still worried it was too soon to say anything.
“Thank you for asking,” she replies quietly, kissing him once more before she rests her head on his chest, sighing contentedly as he wraps his arms around her. He immediately re-starts running his hand up and down her back, the warmth of him drawing her in, making her feel heavy and light in equal measure, “Goodnight, honey.”
He hides a smile in her hairline as she yawns and he kisses her forehead, “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
He lays there as she falls asleep against him, an idea forming in his mind before he joins her, his grip on her never loosening.
___
Aaron pauses outside Penelope’s office, his hand frozen in place as he hesitates to knock, wondering if he is making the right decision. Before he can talk himself out of it the door swings open and Penelope shrieks, her eyes wide as she places her hand on her chest.
“Sir, sorry,” she says, clearing her throat before she steps back to let him into her office, “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
“That’s okay,” he says as he closes the door behind him, “I wanted to ask you something-”
“If this is about the checks I did on Henry’s school, I was only checking if-”
“No, it’s not about…” he frowns as he trails off, raising his eyebrow at her, “Should it be about that?”
She shakes her head, “No definitely not,” she says, taking a seat at her desk, “How can I help?”
He sighs, scratching the back of his head, hesitancy he doesn’t like washing over him, “If I ask you to look for something for me, can it just be between us?”
Penelope’s eyes go wide, the idea of being in on a secret exciting her, “Of course,” she says, before she gasps, her eyes somehow even wider, “Is this Emily related?”
He hides a groan as he shoves his hands into his pockets, “Yes.”
Penelope covers her mouth, physically holding her excitement in as she shifts closer to him on her chair, “Oh my god, are you going to propose?” She asks, and he glares at her, his stern gaze forcing her to calm down, “Okay, no proposal…yet,” she says, “How can I help?”
“When Emily…” he clears his throat, “When she died all of the things in her estate were sold on in an auction. Do you think you could track one of those things down for me?”
He sees the flash of pain across her face, how she struggles to push it away before she nods, “Just tell me what you need bossman, and I’ll find it.”
He smiles gratefully at her and pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket, all of the details about the watch written down on it, “And remember-”
“Not a word of this to Peaches or anyone else,” she says as she takes the piece of paper from him, a sense of determination overtaking her as she turns back to her computer, and he knows this is one secret Penelope Garcia will keep.
___
“Are you sure I can’t help with anything?” Emily asks, smiling as Aaron meets her eyes from where he’s standing. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, giving her a delicious hint of his forearms, the muscles shifting under his skin from where he’s washing dishes.
“I’m all done, sweetheart,” he says, reaching for a dish towel and drying off his hands, “Do you need more wine?”
She shakes her head and grumbles, “What I need is my boyfriend to come over here and make out with me.”
He chuckles and nods, pulling one of the drawers in his kitchen open, blowing out a quick breath before he lifts the large jewellery box out from where he’d hidden it under a towel. The search for the watch had been a little tricker than he’d hoped. In the last couple of weeks, he’d almost given up hope, and at times he’d only been bolstered by Penelope’s seemingly unending optimism that she’d find it. When she did she’d called him, her excitement so loud Emily had heard her from his phone while standing on the other side of the room. He’d brushed off her curiosity and was grateful when she didn’t ask any further questions. The nerves he’d felt when he first thought of doing this for her return in full throttle as he walks over to the couch, a piece of her history gripped firmly in his hand.
“Before we get to that,” he says, sitting next to her, holding the box out so she can see it, “I got you something.”
She hums curiously and sits up straight, placing her glass of wine down before she takes the box from him, “I haven’t forgotten our 10-week anniversary or something have I?”
He chuckles and shakes his head, his hand heavy and warm on her thigh, “Is that a thing?”
She shrugs, “If it is, I owe you a blow…” she drifts off, her joke dying in her throat as she opens the box, her mouth hanging open as he looks at the watch. She chokes on a laugh as she looks between him and the watch, words escaping her for a moment as she shakes her head, the conversation they’d had a couple of weeks ago coming back to her, “They don’t even make this model anymore.”
Aaron squeezes her thigh as he watches her run her finger over the bezel, her touch delicate as if she’d damage the steel, “It’s not a duplicate sweetheart,” he says gently, his smile soft as she looks up at him, her eyes shining, “It’s your dad’s.”
She frowns as she pulls the watch out of the box and turns it over, her breath catching in her chest as she looks at the engraving on the back, as if she hadn’t quite believed him until she saw it.
See You In Paris
She presses her thumb into it, and feels the dips and curves of the metal, a habit she’d picked up when her mother first gave it to her. One of the few ways she felt close to her father after she lost him. She looks up at Aaron, her vision blurry as tears push at the back of her eyes.
“Aaron…” she breathes out, his name caught on a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, “How did you find this?”
He shrugs as if it’s nothing, as if he hasn’t just given her back a piece of herself she thought was lost, “I asked Garcia to help,” he says, smiling when her eyes get wider, “She found the guy who bought it and I bought it back from him.”
She holds the watch tightly as if it would disappear and presses it against her chest. She closes her eyes and blows out a shaky breath. She places her other hand over her mouth, her fingers pressed against her lips as she tries to gather herself, her nerves shot at the unexpected kindness and love he’d shown her.
He watches her carefully, his eyes fixed on her face as she sits perfectly still, the watch grasped against her chest and her eyes screwed shut. Anxiety bubbles in his gut and he squeezes her leg, “Sweetheart, if this was a bad idea-”
“I love you,” she says, her eyes flying open as she cuts over him. Tears splash down onto her cheeks as she laughs and shakes her head. She looks at the watch and then back at him, her spare hand cupping his cheek as she drags him into a kiss, “This is…this is the best thing anyone has ever done for me. And I love you so much.”
He smiles and hugs her close, her hand with the watch still clasped in it pressed in between them. He kisses her temple and then her cheek before he tilts her head up to kiss him.
“I love you too,” he replies, kissing her again, “I love you.”
She laughs, the sound wet as it sticks in her throat, and he wipes some tears from her cheeks, “Thank you,” she says, the words not feeling anywhere close to enough as she rests her forehead against his, “This is…” she blows out a shaky breath, “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he says, pressing a kiss to her forehead, “I can’t give you the 7 months you lost back,” he says, tucking some of her hair behind her ear, “And I can’t undo anything you’ve been through,” he wraps his hand around the one holding the watch, “But I can do this.”
She shakes her head at him and rests her cheek on his shoulder, “I love you,” she says again, the words she’d been afraid of saying for weeks suddenly the only thing she could say, slipping past her lips with ease now she’d said them.
“I love you too,” he repeats, running his hand up and down her back. She sinks into his embrace, her eyes closed as she breathes him in.
“I can’t believe Pen didn’t let it slip,” she says as she pulls back, wiping her cheeks, “She’s terrible with secrets.”
He laughs loudly, the sound reverberating around them and he nods, “Well, I think I won’t be so lucky if I get her to help me propose when the time comes.”
She presses her lips together to stop her smile from getting any wider, the thought of marrying him, even this early on in their relationship, not scaring her as she knows it would with anyone else, “I think she might surprise you.”
When they get married 18 months later, Aaron wears her father’s watch, the weight of it against his wrist feeling like a promise as he watches Emily walk towards him.
-x-
I think I might have to add 'watch' to the list of inanimate objects I've made emotional thanks to these two...
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#aaron hotchner x emily prentiss#hotchniss fanfic#emily prentiss#aaron hotchner fanfiction#emily prentiss fanfiction#aaron hotchner#hotchniss fan fic#hotchniss fanfiction#aaron x emily#hotchniss
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In Sickness and Sadism
Not fluff, not angst, but a secret third thing... (it's Feitan from HxH, what can I say)
Feitan Portor x gn!reader with chronic illness
You can't afford your medicine. Feitan won't accept that!
Warnings: cussing, breaking of human bones, mentions of other violence (not toward reader)
"What do you mean the price went up that much?"
You were incredulous. You had been frequenting the same pharmacy in your home town since you could remember and the price for medicine had always been consistent. That's what you liked about shopping there--the owner didn't price gouge like they did in every other store. Now, you didn't know what to do. You needed to buy the damn medicine or else you would be miserable, or probably even dead. It already wasn't easy having to deal with a chronic illness and now you had to face the fact that you definitely didn't have enough money to buy something you needed to live.
"That's just how much it is now, don't cry to me about it," sneered the cashier and you felt your anger bubble up at his lack of empathy. Your life was terribly unfair and you wanted to scream, cry, and punch the smirk off the cashier in that order.
"Please, can I talk to Mr. Greck, the owner, about this? I've been coming here for years, maybe he can get me a discount," you pleaded, but the cashier just laughed at you.
"The owner has a job from which he needs to make money. Not that you would know what it's like to have money in the first place. So no, you can't waste his time begging like the poor person you are. Now get out or I'll throw you out."
You glared at him, hoping he was bluffing, but he seemed the type to follow through with hurting someone like you and you knew your body couldn't take the exhaustion, especially if you were going to be off your medicine for a while. You needed to make sure you were in good condition to work every day of the week, plus overtime, to make enough to buy your month's supply. Feeling defeated and upset, you left the building, tears falling freely.
Feitan prided himself on his distinct lack of empathy. He relished in the fact that the pain of others makes him feel warm inside. There was no better symphony of sounds than people crying and screaming for their pain to stop.
So why the fuck was he finding himself so outraged at some random person's medical predicament?
The raven haired man had stopped in to a local pharmacy to pick up (ahem... steal) some supplies for the Troupe in case anyone managed to get hurt on the latest mission. He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings for the first few minutes of his shopping spree, completely uncaring to someone else's woes of the fragility of the human body. All of a sudden, after stuffing the last roll of gauze in his sleeve, his ears perked up to listen in to the conversation happening at the front register.
"What do you mean the price went up that much?"
His eyebrows furrowed. Not that he cared, because he wasn't paying for any of his things anyway, but he did notice that the price tags here for items displayed significantly lower numbers than previous pharmacies he had visited in other areas around. You had affirmed his findings in your conversation with the cashier and Feitan felt his blood boiling at the brash rudeness coming from the cashier's mouth. Who did that scum think he was, speaking like that to someone for no reason? Feitan certainly wasn't the nicest guy around but even he had the decency to not be a total jerk to random strangers, let alone people in distress about their medical and financial woes. He didn't know why he was giving this ordeal the time of day. Maybe it was because of his upbringing? He saw this type of thing daily in Meteor City. Hell, he lived it himself. There was nothing scarier than seeing a totally healthy person decay rapidly and shrivel into nothingness, all because they were born in unfortunate circumstances. He scoffed when he saw you leaving in tears. Why didn't you just use your brain and brawn and steal it? Were you too weak? He saw your fists clenching earlier and figured you were strong enough to take down that slime ball. If you did end up getting your ass kicked, at least you didn't lie down like a dog and take it, like you were doing now. His eyes followed your frame until you left the building and he watched until your silhouette was no longer visible outside. He didn't know why he was doing this. He wasn't supposed to make a big scene whenever he was out and about, but the events were already set into motion before he could stop himself.
"5 month supply of whatever that person needed." Feitan ordered, pointing to the boxes behind the cashier's head.
The cashier just laughed at him. "You too, huh? What are you, their boyfriend or somethin'? Maybe their kid? Scrawny little thing."
Oh, he'll wish he never had a tongue to speak those words.
Feitan kept his cool, procuring a velvet bag from his person and set it on the counter with a clank emitting from the contents of inside. "I have money."
The cashier's mouth opened in a greedy smile. He quickly retrieved the 5 month supply Feitan requested and put it in a bag.
"That'll be 100,000 Jenny."
Feitan smirked under his cowl. He reached into the bag, seemingly to pull out money, but instead of coins, the cashier's outstretched hand was met with a mini hammer. The sickening crunch of bones could be heard as the man howled in pain.
"Oh? Big man can't handle small hammer?" Feitan taunted, his eyes crinkled in delight at the man's suffering. The cashier tried to reach for a gun he had stashed behind the counter but Feitan was much too fast, grabbing his wrist and turning his arm the wrong way so that, too, was broken. The cashier couldn't get a word out, instead crying out with tears running down his face.
"Don't cry to me about it." Feitan mocked the worker by using his own words against him. The shorter man hummed a bit, thinking of what to do next. He needed to finish up quickly or else he'd lose track of you and end up having done this all for nothing.
Well, this wasn't all for nothing either way. He needs to make sure he practices his methods often so he doesn't lose his edge.
Feitan grabbed the bag containing the medicine and cleaned up his own bag of tools while the cashier was lying on the floor, writhing in pain and ready to pass out. He gave him a strong kick before turning toward the door.
"Good luck getting all that fixed at hospital. If you can afford it."
You were walking down the street, dejected and unsure of what to do when you felt a nauseating presence appear behind you. You turned around to face a short man with a skull face covering offering you a bag. Naturally, you were hesitant to take it, but he nudged it to you again.
"Medicine. For you."
Your eyes widened in surprise. Did you hear the soft spoken man correctly? You tore open the bag and saw multitudes of your medicine within.
"5 months. Go get better job or learn to steal."
You went to thank him but he was already gone, disappearing like a ghost. You were thoroughly confused but at the same time, extremely grateful. You stood on the street corner in a daze until the sound of screaming could be heard somewhere close to you.
"Someone please help! This cashier's been seriously injured!"
You whipped around to see a woman running out from... the pharmacy? What exactly had that man done to get you what you needed? You were ready to run away from the scene so you weren't questioned as a suspect when you caught a glimpse of your savior once more, watching you like a hawk from the rooftop of the building next to you. He put his finger to where his lips resided under his mask, a signal to stay quiet about what happened, as he let out a short maniacal laugh and disappeared from your sight.
Feitan finally realized why he decided to help you that one day. There were many people in this world he'd gladly see rot to death and then rot even further after that.
But not you.
No, you were much too attractive to be a corpse so soon.
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All That She Wants Chapter 3: Let's Talk
Series: All That She Wants
Fandom: The Royal Romance
Pairings for this chapter: Riley x Drake
Word Count: 1,264
Rating: M
Warnings for this chapter: tiny flakes of lemon
My other stuff: Master List.
Sweat beaded on his forehead, matting his hair and dripping onto the glistening skin of the woman writhing underneath him.
It had been a month since Drake had taken Riley back to his room and done all the things he’d fantasized about for so long. She’d come back the next day and the day after that.
And then she’d gone back to being friendly and polite, but nothing more.
Until tonight.
Though he had been determined to demand a conversation, all his resolve had crumbled the moment he’d opened his door to find her standing on the other side.
He had given in to her so easily, and now her legs were wrapped around his waist, her nails sunk into the tanned flesh of his shoulder blades, and his cock was buried deep inside her.
His name fell from her lips as she shuddered beneath him, and he slammed into her one last time, sending streams of milky hot liquid erupting into her.
He nuzzled into the side of her neck as he caught his breath, unwilling to move off her just yet.
He wasn’t ready for this to be over.
He breathed in the scent of lilac and lavender mingled with sweat and sex. His tongue and lips trailed down her supple skin, the taste salty and sweet.
She made approving noises at first, but then she pushed at him to get him to roll off her. “It’s hot and you’re sweaty.”
“So are you.” He countered, but he complied by dropping his body onto the mattress next to her.
“Yes, I know. I need to borrow your shower.”
The unspoken part hung in the air between them. She couldn’t go back to her husband reeking of sex.
They lay side by side for several long minutes; him searching her face for something he couldn’t quite find.
Part of him was afraid of scaring her away, but a bigger part needed to know what was going on. He couldn’t face the prospect of her leaving and him not knowing if or when he’d see her again. “Listen, Riley. We need to talk.”
“About?”
“What we’re doing here.”
“I thought that was obvious.”
“Haha. Seriously. Listen. I know I have a reputation, Riley, but—”
She cut him off with an incredulous laugh. “You say that like it’s not a well-deserved reputation. You’ve been with a lot of women!”
He blew out a breath of frustration. “I have been with a lot of women, but—”
“It’s okay, Drake. You’re safe.” She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I know you don’t do relationships, and I’m not asking you for one. I get it.”
“No, you don’t!” He shot upright, grabbed her arm, and pulled her back. “I want a relationship, Riley!”
She gave him a puzzled look as she shifted her body into the same cross-legged sitting position he had settled into. “No, you don’t. In the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never dated the same woman for more than a few weeks. And it’s not for lack of opportunity. They throw themselves at you. I’ve seen it.”
His eyes searched her face for any trace of jealousy. “Does that bother you?”
Her brows furrowed momentarily. “What?”
“The women, Riley!” He exploded. “Do you care, even a little, when you see me with someone else?”
He read nothing but confusion in her eyes as she shook her head, “Why would you think—”
“Because it fucking kills me every time I see you with Liam, that’s why! I thought it was just me, all one-sided, but then you… this happened…” he gestured between them.
“What are you saying, Drake?”
“I’m saying that I want a fucking relationship, Riley, but the woman I want it with married my best friend!”
“I…I didn’t know…” she looked stricken.
His voice went quiet as he asked, “Is that why you didn’t give me the courtesy of a heads-up before you got engaged?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh my god, Drake! I had no idea that you ever had feelings like that for anyone, much less for me!”
“Yeah, well, I am in ample possession of plenty of feelings… I just don’t see the point of sharing them with most people.”
“I don’t know what to say. I never knew you felt that way.”
“Why did you think that night happened?”
“Um…. Because you’re Drake Walker and you sleep with anyone and everyone?”
“I do not!”
She arched her eyebrows.
“Okay, I have been around the block a time or two, but do you really think I would have slept with someone Liam was interested in if I didn’t have genuine feelings for them?”
She twirled a loose strand of hair around a fingertip as she considered that. “I mean…we had been drinking, so I chalked it up to that.”
“Would it have made a difference if I’d told you how I felt?”
“Back then? No.” She had been too in love with Liam to give serious consideration to anyone else.
“And now?”
“Drake…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on or anything. I assumed this was just fun and games for you. You know I love Liam. I married him!”
His eyes squeezed shut, pain swirling through him. His voice was clipped as he bit out, “Then why are you here?”
Her gaze drank him in as she considered whether or not to confide in him. One look into his misery-filled eyes convinced her that he was never going to use anything she told him against her.
She could trust him.
Her eyes were trained on her fingers as they twisted the edge of the sheet. Drawing a shaky breath, she admitted, “I can’t remember the last time Liam touched me.”
Drake went still as a soft, “Ah.” slipped from his lips.
She looked up, stunned at the tone she detected in his voice. “You’re not surprised.”
He sighed, unwilling to divulge Liam’s secrets no matter how in love he was with Riley. He hadn’t known they weren’t sleeping together, but in light of the information, he did know exactly why.
Seeing a possible way out without lying, he opted for a truth that wasn’t the whole truth. “I didn’t realize that you two weren’t…. I mean…” a crimson flush crawled up his neck and spread across his face as he stumbled over his words.
For the first time since they started this serious conversation, Riley laughed. It was a short, ironic laugh. She reached for his hand. “Geeze, Drake, after what we just did, are you really afraid to use words like sleeping together? Having sex?” She leaned closer with a hint of provocation lacing her voice. “Fucking?”
The flush went a shade deeper. “Riley!”
Her eyes traced across his face in pleased astonishment. Drake Walker, a known lothario, had somehow regressed into a skittish schoolboy because of her.
She couldn’t repress the smile or the soft laugh that burst out of her at the realization. Her fingers flew to her lips to try to cover it, but he noticed.
“Fuck!” He dropped his face into his hands to hide it from her. “I’m sorry for acting like an idiot.”
“No,” she reached out and gently pried his hands away from his face. “I like this new side of you.”
“Really?” He lifted his head and gazed at her with such tender hope and tortured longing that her heart stuttered in her chest, and butterflies exploded through her.
Well, shit.
That hadn’t been part of the plan.
#the royal romance#trr#drake walker#the royal romance fanfic#drake x mc#drake x riley#angelasscribbles#choices#choices fic writers creations#cfwc fics of the week#choices stories you play#choices trr#trr au#trr au fanfic
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I’ll probably edit this one*
Just some Everlark fluff
enjoy💝
It’s been almost a month since Peeta came back to 12. We spent that time with each other, it was healing but hard at the same time.
I try to understand my feelings for Peeta. I know I love him, but I don’t know if I’m ready to be in a relationship. How could I think about that when so many people died? I’m ashamed for the way I feel when I see Peeta in his garden, his blonde curls covering his forehead and a little part of his temples. I’m ashamed of how much I love the way his blue eyes flicker whenever I compliment his cheese buns… And now, he’s lying next to me, mouth open, his face squashed against the pillow.
Without even realizing, I put my hand in his hair and play with it. Peeta murmurs something without opening his eyes, so I let myself study the boy with the bread a little longer.
“Katniss, I can feel you staring”, he says, smiling.
“No, I’m not”, I reply, suddenly greeted by the blue eyes I know so well. Peeta raises an eyebrow and I groan:
“So what if I was staring?”
“Nothing, it’s nice. I like when you stare at me.”
His hand wraps around my waist, bringing me closer to the warmth of his body. I could stay like this all day, Peeta’s chin on the top of my head, my fingers tracing circles on his clavicle…
“Hey, who’s Naomi”, I ask.
A few days ago, a blonde girl came to Peeta’s house. She was tall, slim and had the aspect of a healthy person- her cheeks rosy red, her skin a little pale. I can’t say I was jealous when I saw her talking to Peeta, or when Peeta opened the door, smiling at the sight of her, or when she went into his house and spent almost 2 hours there… fine, maybe I was a little jealous, but I’d never admit it to him.
“How do you know…”
“I heard you talking to her last week. I had my window open and yeah… Not like I was spying on you!” I wasn’t completely lying. Naomi’s high pitched voice was what drew my attention.
“Oh, she’s Rye’s wife… was”, Peeta replies, a sad smile on his face, “I try to be nice to her since, you know, she has no one but her baby and her brother in law.”
I feel stupid for asking. How could I believe Peeta would be seeing anyone else? After all we’ve been through, he wouldn’t leave me…would he? We’re not officially together, so he could be seeing someone else and I’d have no right to judge him. The thought of not sleeping next to him and another person feeling the warmth of his strong arms drives me insane.
“Why? Are you jealous?”
I look up to see the blonde boy smirk. It’s better than seeing him sad, but I still roll my eyes:
“Yeah, right”, I blush and try to bury my face in his neck so he won’t notice, but his fingers bring my chin up so that I’m looking into his eyes again.
“Oh, my God, you are! You’re blushing”, he laughs.
I sit up straight and hit him playfully:
“No, I’m not!”
Peeta raises an eyebrow and I can’t help a little smile:
“Shut up.”
“Come here”, he says amused, now sitting up and pulling me into his lap, “It’s adorable when you’re jealous.”
Our faces are so close… too close. I can’t give in, I can’t do this to Peeta, I don’t deserve his love. He saved me so many times and all I did was hurt him.
“No one else ever called me adorable, Peeta”, I barely whisper, closing my eyes, so that I can’t be tempted by him. God knows I can’t keep myself together when he looks at me with those puppy eyes.
“No one else really matters”, he says, his warm breath lingering over my lips, making me lick them without realizing.
“Peeta…”
And it happens. I can’t control myself, my hands around his neck, I bring him even closer to me. It’s the hunger I’ve felt before, the hunger that makes me behave like a selfish animal. And I am selfish for bringing him into this, for not letting him get the life he deserves with a normal girl, not a fucked up 19 year old that’s been through the Games twice and started a revolution… but God, did I miss him on my lips.
“Katniss”, he pulls away, gasping for air. I take the opportunity to look at him again, like I did this morning: his curls are even messier than usual. This satisfies me because it was my hand who did that. His cheeks are flushed, his lips swollen, his chest going up and down, trying to get more air. I can’t help but imagine Peeta with nothing on, lying in my bed in the morning. My cheeks must be burning like crazy and I mentally scold myself for thinking about it.
“Did you hear me”, Peeta asks amused, bringing me back to the present moment.
“What?”
“Kiss me again?”
#the hunger games peeta#i love peeta#katniss and peeta#peeta mellark#thg#thg fanfiction#the hunger games katniss#katniss everdeen#thg peeta#thg katniss#everlark fanfiction#everlark
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Trembling Essence:💙Script progress + Updates💙
Hello and welcome new followers, long time no see! I was very busy most of this month, but I am back and ready to continue from where I left off on the game! This game development post might be a bit long but I tried to condense everything! :]
"How are things going so far?":
It's going slow and steady! I haven't been able to do too much these past few weeks, however, I wrote a few parts out before I got too busy and couldn't do anything else.
I want to be very careful when it comes to spoilers but, based on your choices, some of these areas will give off immersive cozy/homelike vibes that really express Noah and the player(Y/N)'s view towards each other.
In the old 2023 script I was very new to writing so the small semi-hints of romance weren't the entire focus compared to the horror aspect but there's a better balance between both genres now and I'm still aiming for a meaningful slow burn versus it just being all over the place. :]
I liked writing them a whole bunch which lead to a lot of these taking place in the mid/end of Day 4+, they just need to be placed in specific areas that call for it. With that being said, it felt really comfy adding key details about Noah and creating meaningful sections in the game. I was even going to draw out some of the unseen script/scenes but I believe the best thing to do is give deeper lore from the [Extended Demo] first. Even though my writing style has improved I still have to fix the multiple pacing issues I wrote last year.
"Playtester's advice":
I wanted to continue working through Noah's backstory but I kept having moments where I'd get sidetracked into wanting to fix up the start of the game again. Eventually, I talked to my play testers about it and they gave me a few encouraging pointers.
To help keep my process at ease, I will fix the beginning of the game when I take breaks from writing up Noah's backstory. :]
I talked about this during early 2024 but the start of the game that leads up to the cabin is still getting reworked. I was able to get some of it fixed for the [Extended Demo] but I wasn't done.
Things are still up in the air but, I will say that I have a better view of everything than I did before. :]
Another priority that needs fixing are the backgrounds! I've improved a lot on drawing and they need to be optimized. When you first start up the game, you wake up in a holed out tree in the swamp with the choice to leave this area and possibly end up in the forest. I was going for a very immersive form of symbolism that only a few noticed but, I believe I can do a better job about this. Unfortunately I don't have any new backgrounds to show right now but maybe next week I'll have some finished up! :]
"Art process/Noah's sprite sheets":
As far as Noah sprite sheet goes, it's still in sketch mode.
I didn't draw anything since I was gone so I need to do a few warm ups before I get to them. There are some old drawing prompts I wrote down and old sketches that I never got a chance to doodle so hopefully I can get to them at some point with some attached lore. :,]
My Q&A / Ask box has been reset!
Thank you to those who have sent in asks in the past, unfortunately they all disappeared except for 1 while I was gone. I have no idea what happened but I can only guess it just got reset.
If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask or resend them in here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!
This is all I have to share so far, Thank you to everyone for the continued support and patience while I was gone! I was ready to accept the interest for this game to fade out and coming back to see that it didn't happen makes me happy, I really appreciate it. :,]
#te updates#male yandere#visual novel#dating sim#yandere#illustration#digital art#murder sim#game development#horror game#art#artwork#artists on tumblr#indie game#otome#drawing#romance#anime drawing#anime art#vndev
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way back in 2014, probably a few weeks or months after you posted that picture of boone with the stick on his head, i checked your blog out and so dearly enjoyed all the dogposting that i followed. i think you were the first dogblr blog i actually followed at the time, but it's been ages and my memory is bad, so i'm not fully sure. it wasn't long before then--2012 i think?--that i had gotten a new dog of my own, a border collie. iirc he and boone were just about the same age.
in 2018 i lost that blog i'd followed you with, and a lot of connections with it. i didn't return until 2021, and when i did, i didn't refollow most of the old blogs; i don't think i even really went looking for them. it took me a while to get back into the swing of using tumblr.
last september, my border collie had a sharp health decline, and i had to say goodbye. it's not the first time i've had to put a pet down, but i think it was the hardest. i'm still not over it. even just typing this now, i feel raw.
then in march or so, i made a new fandom friend who knows you, and i enthusiastically recalled following you before and how much i enjoyed it. i didn't even know about stellina, and now there's kep too! but... i also didn't know you'd lost boone. i followed because i still really enjoy your blog, and i love your collies too. and butters!!! so glad she's still here!
idk what made me look tonight... maybe because i talked about my old border collie with someone today. i went looking for the posts immediately around when you lost boone, because i guess some part of me wanted to know what happened. i spent the better part of an hour (maybe longer?) reading posts from the weeks before the decline, and then the loss, and then the deluge of old boone pictures after, and i've been crying pretty much the whole time just reading your posts and tags about him.
and this is a long and windy way to get to saying thank you. i'm glad you shared your grief, though that seems like a weird thing to say. there's something cathartic about crying over someone else's dog when you still hurt about your own, and knowing you're not alone in that kind of sorrow. boone was such a beautiful boy. i'll never forget that silly post that made me check your blog out in the first place, or the years of posts i stuck around for after. i wish i'd remembered to follow sooner, but the archive is still there, and it's so fun looking through all those old posts about him and his quirks and antics. he was amazing.
sorry for the length of this, i just... really wanted you to know that he touched yet another life, i guess. and i've been so deeply enjoying your posts about stellina and kep. i know it'll be a year soon... i hope there's some peace in how things have gone since he passed, and i hope the anniversary isn't too hard on you. thank you for sharing him with us.
i've been on tumblr for 14 years and this is, genuinely, the nicest ask i think i've ever been sent.
thank you - sincerely. there's been a lot of times over the course of this blog that i've felt like i was oversharing, or talking about pointless things only i cared about. i still so frequently start typing out a post only to stop mid-sentence and delete it because i can't help but think "no one cares about this." possibly it's why i like to talk about my pets so much - they're not me, but i'm the one who knows them best, so i get to say "hey look at this" and ramble and have people say "i'm looking" back. when boone passed, i lost that filter and i poured my grief out into this blog because it was the closest outlet i had. and to have hundreds of people not only acknowledge this but to commiserate, to reassure, to share their own stories - that helped healed me more than i can put into words. it's exactly as you said: there's a catharsis in grieving together.
i am sorry you also had to say goodbye. i wish i could say it gets easier, but i think that would be defeating the point of grief. your grief is your love and damn it if there isn't any act more loving in the world than choosing to say goodbye to an old, loyal dog. you think of how dogs were domesticated tens of thousands of years ago, of how human society and dogs have developed intertwined, of how we have records of ancient greeks and romans carving loving epitaths on their dog's graves, of how a prehistoric dog's skull was found with a bone placed in it's mouth after death, and you wonder if grieving a dog isn't one of the most consistent experiences in the whole of human history that there is.
i'm glad to know that this could bring you some comfort, in some way. it's incredibly touching to know that you kept me and boone in your thoughts for all this time. i am doing ok - i've been reflecting a lot as we approach the one-year mark. i'm not sure if i'll be able to condense those thoughts down into coherent words, but i'll do my best. i hope that my silly little pets continue to bring you some happiness, and that you've found peace with your own grief.
thank you, again - this is extremely touching and means a hell of a lot to me.
#i know exactly what you mean about reading posts about other peoples loss and grieving in camaraderie with them. i do that too#also mayhaps i am nosy sometimes and want to intrude. i cant help my nature to be a looky-loo#which is to say: you should never feel like you are intruding for doing so back to me.
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"I'm gonna say something. Are you listening?"- Frankie "Catfish" Morales, Triple Frontier
Good. Thanks Frankie.
I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
About fandom in general, interactions or lack thereof, how something you can feel so happy and passionate about can make you sad at the same time.
The idea of no longer sharing my fics has also been something that's crossed my mind on numerous occasions, but at the end of the day I WANT to share them. I am proud of them and I figure if they make me this happy, I hope they can make someone else happy too.
I continue to trek on, trying to compartmentalize my feelings and press on, creating fics I think others will enjoy as well, and praising the gorgeous man who plays gorgeous characters whose stories I love to change or extend.
Recently, I've felt guilt. Guilt that I haven't been creating and posting enough things for you to indulge in. And then I remember that in the last 4 weeks, I wrote and posted 3 fics.
3 fics where a majority of the reblogs are my own, and most of the notes are likes.
I'm feeling this way because of the lack of interaction. I'm not blaming or pointing fingers or trying to extend any guilt to any of you (and thank you endlessly to those who do reblog and comment and send messages and have conversations about them 💗) But I can safely say that this is a widespread issue across all fandoms alike.
It's disheartening. People leave and give up and have their creativity crushed to the point they no longer participate or share their wonderful art.
I came across a post that I reblogged yesterday that added another level onto all of this.
Artists and writers having to "market" and promote their work in hopes it'll help drum up excitement for what they have coming up.
As if taking the time and energy to create that fic of piece of art isn't enough, now we have to work like a full marketing team in hopes we will get a few more reblogs or comments.
I have seldom participated in tag games where you share snippets of WIPs etc because more often than not, the response to them are *crickets*. It's embarrassing and gives off that "no one is interested so why bother sharing it" vibe.
We shouldn't have to work that hard to get feedback on the things we share.
I know, and respect, that some people experience comment anxiety, but I promise you that if you're able to, whether it be a string of emojis or keysmashes or even a gif, you will be making a difference.
This happened to me yesterday.
Right when I felt like it's all fruitless, someone swooped in with a comment that gave me hope and reminded me why I do it. And it was on my least popular (and personal favourite) series to boot.
Because of this simple act of communication, my hope and motivation has been restored.
Now I know I'm going to get people saying "you should write for yourself" (I do) and I shouldn't rely on others to keep me motivated (I don't, I have Charlie Hunnam for that) but it's such a key component to all of this and I think most creators can agree to that.
So please, for the love of fandom and the things you love (the actors, the characters, the shows or films) PLEASE INTERACT WITH THE ARTISTS AND WRITERS WHO CREATE INCREDIBLE ART AND FICS FOR THEM.
You may not realize what an effect you have, but I promise you, you do, and it may even help save your favourite artist from abandoning it all.
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FHR: Just a chat (AO3 link here)
Pairing: Sidestep/Ricardo Ortega (hints of Chargentstep), Sidestep & Hollow Ground
Warnings: None, they're just chatting lol
Word Count: 1720
Summary: Ortega takes Sidestep to the park to get some fresh air after being cooped up with broken legs in his apartment for a couple weeks. When he steps away for a few minutes to take care of something, someone else swings by for a talk.
It's a peaceful day at Memorial Park. The sun is shining through the carefully maintained trees, dappling the green grass. The air is cool and calm, balmy even with your multiple layers. The birds are chirping around you and every so often, a squirrel darts by. The air is full of children's laughter as they play on the jungle gym. People are calm and content around you, enjoying the nice weather.
You haven’t been this tense since the last time you were hauled into a lab and strapped down.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," you hiss at Ortega, sitting on the bench next to your wheelchair.
He's lounging, at ease, though still alert. You see it the way his eyes roam around through the back of his sunglasses, watching everyone and everything around you. "Relax, Riley. Nothing is going to happen here," he chuckles. His hand starts towards your knee to give what you assume is supposed to be a reassuring pat before stopping and redirecting to your arm. You don't like it when anyone touches your casts. "You need some fresh air and sunlight once in a while. You were going crazy in the apartment."
"You could have at least waited for Argent to come over," you growl quietly. "Four eyes are better than two."
"We got four eyes. Hell, four hundred probably, if we count your telepathy."
"Fine, four working legs." You roll your eyes at the pedantry.
"We're in broad daylight in the good side of town, no one knows we're here. Relax."
There's a little note of a plea in there that makes you sigh and nod. He is right, but you aren't going to tell him that. The chances of anyone coming after you in broad daylight on this side of town are almost nonexistent. And if they knew where you were, they would have gone for the significantly easier hit on Ortega's apartment by now.
So you try. Take in some sun from the sky. Some sun from the carefree kids running past in a game of tag. As good for your brain as dogs, and they're here too. You sink into the padded chair and close your eyes, trying to focus on them rather than the itch of your healing bones that reminds you just how helpless you actually are.
"Hey, wait here a moment," Ortega says after a few minutes of peace and quiet. You open your eyes to find him perched at the edge of the bench, eyes honed in on something. Your gaze follows but you can't make out who or what he sees at this distance. Are his sunglasses enhancing his vision? Probably, knowing him. You try to follow his line of sight with your telepathy, but what you find that might be getting his attention is strange. Foggy. Nebulous. It's difficult to latch on to any thoughts. Not blocking you like numbers, no, that's closer to the static of Ortega's brain. But someone that is definitely strange. Who is it?
"Ric, what do you see?" you whisper harshly, the anxiety you felt earlier returning in full force like a hammer strike to your skull as he starts to rise, gesturing with his hand for you to stay put. Like you have a choice
"Just an old friend," he says, the cant of his lips saying the opposite. "I'll be right back. You're safe here."
And then he's off at a swift jog before you can protest, leaving you fumbling for the locked brakes you can't easily reach on the wheelchair handles.
"Wait! You stupid fucking jackass—"
"He is, isn't he?" A laugh behind you, and it takes all you have not to scream as a familiar lanky figure folds into Ortega's vacated seat. She's dressed in a finely woven linen jumpsuit, warm sepia with matching leather loafers, her gold piercings sparkling in the dappled sunlight. Her too similar face looks at you with a too similar crooked smile.
Hollow Ground.
How the fuck could she sneak up on you like this? You didn't sense her at all. You still can't. Not even so much as a thought void, just nothing. You've never seen anything like it. How is she concealing herself? What the fuck does she want with you? Your chair is still half-locked, trapping you here. Should you scream? Should you—
" Relax," she says, and it's almost a command as she meets your gaze with your own gray eyes. Still, you try to rein in your heart attempting to race its way out of your ribs. "I just want to talk."
"About what?" Your voice betrays the tension tight in your spine, much as you wish otherwise. If one more person tells you to relax, you think you might actually snap. You need to regain control of yourself. You are Reckoning, for fuck's sake. You're not some helpless child.
"You," she says simply and then pauses. Frowns. Like she's no longer quite sure of what to say. Like she had a plan, but now she doesn't know if it should be executed.
You try to touch her thoughts again, and again you're met with less than nothing. Are you hallucinating? No. The man walking down the path sees you both. He isn't worried by what he sees, two sisters having a conversation that seems tense. You aren't going to dig into the implications of that one. So she's here. She wants something, wants it enough to approach you about it. You realize the benefit to her closely kept secret identity means she can approach you freely as long as Ortega is not around. The weird presence you felt before, you realize that was Jake, you felt the same nebulousness of his thoughts when you went to meet Hollow Ground at Parkside. Irresistible bait to lure Ortega away. But you have no idea what it is she wants. So you wait. Ortega is right. No one is going to try and do anything in public in broad daylight. She won't, not like this.
"What about me…?" you prompt when the quiet of her gets to be too much, impatient to find out what this is about with her mind giving you no clues.
"How… are you?" she asks, surprisingly tentative.
That reserved inquiry catches you off-guard, but you recover swiftly, her odd nervousness making you feel more confident despite your obvious weakness. "Oh, you know. Peachy. Just out for a stroll," you drawl, gesturing at your propped up casts.
She snorts and the corner of her lips twitches. Somehow, your snark steadies her. "I should have expected that."
"Why do you care?" you ask sharply. She's being weird, and you don't like it. What is this about? Why would she risk meeting you like this?
"You're a mystery, Riley Owens. I'd hate it if you died before I could solve it." She smirks as you feel your blood run cold. Something about the way she says your name makes you feel jittery. But even more importantly, how could she possibly know who you are? You never gave your name before, to anyone at Parkside, you were there as your villainous alias. Argent scrubbed all records of your surgery at the hospital, though you have no doubt Hollow Ground knew who had been involved in the wreck. How does she know your name? Do the Rangers have a leak?
As your brain stumbles over what this could mean, she holds out a small white card with something scrawled on it. An address. You recognize the area. Rich and residential. Very rich and residential. Is this… She can't possibly be just handing you this…
"Got it memorized?" At your nod, she pockets it with a smile that's a little sharp for your liking.
"What is your g—"
"Fuck." Her hand shoots up, silencing you as her head tilts slightly like she's listening to something. You can just make out the outline of a small clear low profile receiver in her over-pierced ear. "We lost your pet Ranger, and he's on his way back. I have to go." She rises from the bench with the grace of a crane, giving you a conspiratorial wink.
"Wait, what— Fuck!" You swear, fumbling for the other lock on your chair before she can get away.
As she strides away, she calls back, "You should stop by sometime, when you're back on your feet. We have a lot to catch up on."
For someone so tall, she disappears far too easily into crowds. By the time you can roll after her, she's gone, as traceless as she appeared. What the fuck did she mean, catch up on? You're left sitting there, stewing in your own bile, until Ortega finally returns.
He's sweaty, looking a little tired and roughed up. You think you can see the outline of a bruise blooming under the edge of his bearded cheek. He's definitely been in a fight. You don't know if you should be pleased or pissed that he learned to leave civilians behind for these kinds of escapades after his stunt with Jolene went awry. "Hey," he says with a little wave as he catches his breath. "Everything okay?"
"Just dandy," you snarl, playing into being pissed that he left you. If he knew who just stopped by to pay you a friendly chat, he'd shit his own generator. "Sitting like a duck while you go haring off to go fight some rando."
Luckily, you think he's getting the right message, because he holds his hands up, placating, as he talks to you in the same tone he uses with his unruly horse at the ranch. "Hey, c'mon. I was just gone a few minutes. Nothing happened, right?"
"Yeah," you lie with a sigh, dragging a hand down your face. "Nothing happened."
He grabs onto the handlebars of your chair, and if he notices you've unlocked it, he doesn't comment on it as he starts walking you through the park. "Angie texted me about meeting us at the ice cream stand. You want to get some ice cream before we go home?"
"Yeah." Sugar will help steady your nerves. Get your mind off what just happened. “Let’s get some ice cream and go home.”
You have a lot of thinking to do later.
#kitbug writes things#fhr#ricardo ortega#sidestep#hollow ground#chargestep#riley owens#hints of chargentstep but angie isn't here right now lol#idk i just had a wild hair#thinking about like okay we have the demo for when you don't go to HG in person#but what if you did and you already have the moray#would they be interested in you enough to seek you out again#i think yes#so here we are#call this a book 3 hypothetical lol
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No rizz just brown eyes, long eyelashes, and no idea what the right amount of eye contact is for any situation
#thinking about Valentine’s Day so go stream Valentine Candy#I’ve gotten so many compliments about my eyes in the last few weeks it feels so weird like why now what’s happening lol#also I’ve been told I should voice an audiobook or start a podcast#a man made heart hands at me through a window yesterday and I gave him a thumbs up bc I didn’t know what else to do#so sayeth karma#rizz#no rizz just pathetic#mwah
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