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norman-fucking-reedus · 1 year ago

Note

I read something that you said Scud liked to be recorded and I’m actually foaming at the mouth at the idea of that because it’s so real. I NEED a fic for that. So glad I found someone with a Scud obsession as bad as mine

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

THE GOOD GOOD: FemDom!Reader x Sub!Scud, recording during sex, lots of teasing, and edging, bit of bondage, your much needed dose of pegging, and scud crying during sex, don't forget the hair pulling

GUYS I LOVE SCUD SO MUCH I ABSOLUTELY ADORE HIM MY PRECIOUS LITTLE ANGEL

I'm really trying to get my drafts cleared out LOL hopefully sometime soon I'll have a big major posting spree and then I can start working on my inbox

I HAVE SO MANY REQUESTS AUUUGH IDK WHY I LET THEM ALL PILE UP SOMEONE KILL ME

The idea of Scud being recorded is still my favorite because I feel like he'd be so nervous under the lens, trying to hide from it and not be seen but he'd still end up looking like a slutty pornstar (my precious pornstar)

also scud in lace. its been on my mind for I don't even know how long at this point.

You sighed as you walked down your complex's dingy, dimly lit hallway, silently hoping that Scud wouldn't be too mad at you for coming home so late into the night. After all, you had told him that you would only be about ten more minutes, but that had been almost an hour ago.

Things got a little out of hand, nothing you couldn't deal with sure but it was quite an inconvenience. A short, fifteen-minute task had easily turned into a full job, one that included running around the shop looking for spare parts. With what you had learned from Blade and Scud, it didn't take long to find all the little pieces you needed, and even a reward for yourself.

"Scud! I'm back! Look at what was in the shop" You called out to him when you jingled your keys in the lock and swung the front door to your apartment open, eagerly kicking off your shoes as you toyed with the little camcorder you had come across, flipping through the random pictures on it. There was no clear indicator of who's camera exactly, but you had always loved photography, so just one day with it wouldn't hurt anyone.

There was no response to your voice, the apartment barely lit and quiet, soft thumping coming from you and Scud's shared bedroom. He was probably playing on his PS2 with his headphones in, loud music blasting at levels you’ve already scolded him for.

As you padded through the cozy living room, you pointed your camera at random things and took little cameos of them, making your way down the short and narrow hall towards the room where you could see some of the orange lighting spilling out through a crack in the door.

You approached, about to call out Scud’s name once again as the soft thumping faded into a rhythmic beat, a Lady Gaga track when you finally stopped short in front of the door, pushing it open a bit and poking your head through, combing hair out your eyes as your mind drew a blank, greedily taking in the sight in front of you.

Scud was in fact not playing on his game system, but rather prancing around the cozy room what he didn’t know was your very expensive lingerie set. An all-white, delicate full ‘angelic’ lingerie set. A satin ruffle top with a waist-high lace garter belt that clipped onto the white mesh fishnets, all paired with lacy underwear that had a large bow on the back, topped with a fair-sized opening that revealed a large portion of his dumb butt.

You had originally bought it to surprise your boyfriend a few months back, but you had both gotten so overcrowded with work that it slipped your mind, collecting a thin layer of dust somewhere you weren’t even sure where you had put it. Scud always got curious about your things when he was rocket-high, digging through things and asking a million and one questions. Now here he was, looking pretty as ever swaying his hips around in the bedroom, mumbling along to the current track playing.

You found yourself flipping the camcorder's small screen open and resting against the door frame as the device started to record, capturing Scud’s fluid movements as he obliviously danced around, brown curls falling sweetly in his face, and skin glowing orange from the multiple sources of warm light in the room.

He really did look like an angel, his broad body looking much more supple and soft, legs long and lean, hips wide and divine. A walking, talking piece of pure eye candy, reserved for your eyes and only your eyes. Guess this camera just found itself a new owner.

Scud spun around on his heels and toes, once, twice, before he stopped, eyes focusing on the small little red dot, flickering up to meet your gaze and feeling his entire exposed body heat up in embarrassment.

“W– Wha– How– How long– Hello– ” Scud sputtered, completely frozen in place as he stared at you.

You, who was now fully entering the bedroom, “Don’t stop now, I barely got any footage” placing your free hand on his small waist and dipping fingers under the fabric of the garter. A smile tugged your lips as you started taking in the entirety of your boyfriend's body up close, his skin soft and hot under the tips of your fingers. “Y– You’re re-recording me?” He knew the answer, but hearing it from you verbally just made a chill run down his spine, and his cock twitch.

“Does that make you nervous love?” Your fingers trailed up his scarred chest, brushing across the lose ruffled top and grazing his nipples, a small whine coming from Scud as he dipped down in order to hide his face, but you wouldn’t let him. “Look at me” You said as you lifted his head up by the chin, forcing his gaze onto yours.

Scud lightly whimpered, desire burning in his gut as you brushed hair out his face, fingers dancing along his skin. He felt exposed under the camera’s lens, so much of his raw and bare skin visible to the naked eye. Your gaze on his body made his cock throb.

“What do I always tell you about playing in my stuff?” You said in a condescending tone, teasing the tips of your fingers down his textured belly.

Scud shivered at your touch as goosebumps prickled his skin, a strained grunt coming from him as his face flushed. “N– not without mommy’s permission”

You slowly walk around him, taking in his full body in the set. “Don’t touch mommy’s things without permission. That’s a rule, right?” You murmur as you stop recording to take a picture of Scud’s ass, definitely filling out the panties better than you could.

“Yes…” He mumbles, and it almost comes out like a squeak. His cock aching with need and his stomach with embarrassment, heart pounding from a combination of nerves and weed.

You brush your lips against the skin of his shoulder, slipping fingers under the waistline of the lace undies. “So can you explain to me why said rule is broken?”

A whimper broke past Scud's lips as your fingers teased and explored his exposed skin, squeezing his hips and tracing scars. "I just– I just found it under the bed and didn't know what it was" Scud stumbled out, heart thumping in his chest as your hands covered more ground on his body, circling around to his back.

"Mhm?" You hummed, tracing your finger up his spine. He let out a moan as chills ran through his core, trembling under your touch as he could feel goosebumps explode across his skin. "Well, do you know what it is now?"

Scud nodded frantically at your words, "Yes! Yes– I know now" quivering as he spoke.

With one hand on his waist, the other still holding the camera, you guided him to the edge of the bed and pushed his upper half down onto the mattress, smiling softly to yourself as you eyed Scud's new position through the lens.

Click! Click!

The electric snap of the camera made Scud feel fuzzy and warm, slightly embarrassed, and very exposed. His skin was flushed a light red, some areas more blushed than the others. From where his cock was confined in the small panties, he was completely pulsing, throbbing with pure need in his gut.

"Do you also know not to break the rules?" You questioned, flipping through the few shots you had taken before moving your attention to the small walk-in closet, crouching down and reaching inside a box.

Scud whined into the soft comforter when you returned behind him, his socked feet barely reaching the rug between them. He could hear the small beep of the camera as you pressed your front to his bottom, a yelp coming from him when your palm made contact with his exposed cheek. "I asked, so answer"

"Y– Yes! Not breaking the rules is a rule" He whimpered, a shudder running through him as his skin tingled.

You smiled at his words as you caressed his side, squeezing his waist and hip slightly. "Good. Very good. So don't you think you deserve a punishment?"

Scud didn't respond, but he nodded his head, hiding his face the best he could behind his hair. You pushed the strands back and cooed at his cherry-red face, tiny whines coming from him as he squirmed under the camera's lens, jerking his hips slightly as he rutted against the edge of the bed.

Your hand made contact with his cheek again, a choked-off groan coming from his throat at your palm. "Words."

"Y– yes ma– ma'am..." He stuttered, trembling slightly with anticipation. It wasn't often that Scud got punished, even with as bratty as he was, so his cock was totally aching just thinking about whatever vile shit it was you were thinking about doing to him.

And you were thinking of doing some quite horrid things.

Teasingly, you ran your hand over the opening in his panties, prodding your finger at his puffy rim. A suppressed shudder traveled through him as his cock twitched, his hole fluttering at your air-light touch. You softly cooed at how needy he was, smiling to yourself as you single-handedly took off your shirt and tossed it on the floor somewhere to be picked up later.

From the box in your closet, you had pulled your strap set, a pair of cuffs, and a long vibrator that you had been wanting to test out for a little while.

Cuffing Scud's hands behind his back with only five fingers was a bit of a challenge, but an easy one. He squirmed a little as you did it, wiggling his fingers as his wrists adjusted to the new sensation of the cuffs.

You shuffled around behind him, cursing softly as you knocked a few things over before tossing a bottle of lube along with the rest of your toys, pressing yourself against Scud as you leaned down near his ear, breath feather-light and hair tickling his skin. His heart pounded in his chest, and you could hear his pulse in his neck thumping.

“Just how should I punish you?” You murmur, trailing your lips against his ear lobe and teasing the skin with the very tip of your tongue.

“Maybe I should spank you ‘til it hurts to sit,” You run your free hand down to his ass and give it a slap for emphasis, followed by a squeeze just cause.

“Or maybe I could tie up those cute balls and see just how long it takes for you to pop” You hum, nibbling on Scud’s ear and tugging it with your teeth until you dropped it with an idea lingering in mind.

“Or," You said as you pulled away from him. "I could just leave you here by yourself” You smirked, watching Scud’s face twist in horror.

“No! No– please no” He pleaded as he squirmed on the bed, hips jerking in a desperate search for relief, cock painfully hard and throbbing. “Need a punishment, need mommy to punish me” Scud blabbed, his body trembling as his eyes darted from your face to the camera's lens, his body coated in a thin sheen of sweat.

“But how should I punish you?” You teasingly coo, combing some of a Scud’s bangs out one of his eyes as you smiled softly at him. “I could smoke our whole stash right in your face”

Scud groaned, “Please don’t” squeezing his legs as arousal burned hot in his gut. “I’m really sorry mommy, I– I’ll do anything”

“Oh, I know you will. Just stay still for me ‘kay?” You pushed yourself back up to your full height, pausing your recording to swap out the camera for the bottle of lube, shaking it slightly before uncapping it and squeezing out more than enough of the clear liquid onto Scud's puffy rim, watching the shiver that ran through him as the cold sensation rolled down to his sensitive balls.

You scooped it up with your two fingers and easily slid them inside Scud, a soft moan coming from him as he clenched around you, almost instantly pushing back in search of more. "Such a greedy little hole, you just wanna be fucked so badly don't you?"

Scud whined and squeezed his slick walls around your digits, "Yes! Want mommy to fill me up so bad, need her so bad" rubbing his face against the soft comforter as he could feel it burning hot.

"Don't worry baby boy, we're gonna get you all nice 'nd full right now" You spoke sweetly to him as you picked up the camera with one hand and the vibrator with the other, resuming your recording as the toy harshly rumbled to life after the click of a button. Without wasting a second, you watched as the buzzing wand glided into Scud with zero resistance, pressing it directly against his sweet spot and causing him to loudly sputter, blabble, and cry out nonsense as the sudden vibration traveled through his entire nervous system, cock throbbing with the uncontrollable urge to cum.

Scud sobbed around his loud moans, choking out gasps when you started to quickly thrust the toy in and out, each hard bump to his now very sensitive prostrate only sent him closer to the edge, hands twitching and pulling where they were restrained as his body spasmed, heaving as his heart started to pound in his chest the harder and harder you fucked him, hips jerking down into the mattress as he tried to pathetically chase his rapidly building orgasm, a burning pleasure coursing through the entirety of his body before–

You swiftly pulled the toy out of him right as he was about to topple over the edge, a confused, strangled whimper tearing from his throat as his poor hole needily clenched around nothing, so full and pleased just a split second ago and now suddenly empty and crashing down from the way you abruptly ruined his orgasm.

“Sorry, my hand slipped” You mumbled, obviously not sorry at all as you teased his fluttering hole with the toy, capturing all your torturous movements through the little camera lens.

The cuffs rattled as Scud whined and squirmed at the contact against his sensitive skin, trying his hardest to push back onto the vibrator while also jerking his hips away from it. He was so high, so hot and sweaty as he heaved from where he was on the bed, shaking as you tauntingly dragged the toy up from his slick balls to his drenched rim, only ever applying the slightest amount of pressure.

It made him push his hips back in desperation, letting out a surprised yelp when you smacked him with the toy, tutting your lips as you shook your head, placing the camera down and positioning it to capture Scud's hidden face, forcing his head up by roughly yanking a fistful of hair.

He whined as a shiver ran down his spine, trembling as his eyes nervously darted away from the lens, feeling his cheeks heat up in embarrassment at being recorded in such an exposed state. His cock was still painfully aching, whole body throbbing uncontrollably from your early treatment.

Scud made tiny little whimpers when you started to tease his hole again with the toy, his hips twitching as he tried not to jerk them back, desperate and craving to be filled up again. His gut ached with arousal, cock leaking painfully where it was confined in the small panties.

"P– Please fuck me, please mommy" He begged as you dipped your head down and started nibbling at his bare shoulder, teasing the skin of his hip with your fingers.

You blew on his ear as you ran the length of the vibrator up his slick crack, a keen noise pulling out his throat as his hole fluttered in anticipation. "Is this what you want pretty boy? To be stuffed like a dumb slut?"

Scud whined at your words, nodding his head and hiding his face shyly behind his hair, jumping slightly when you tightly gripped his jaw, lifting his head once more and dropping it to pick up your camera.

"You're so cute when you're nervous" You said to him as you smooshed your cheek against his, pointing the lens at the both of you and snapping a few pictures, Scud's face red and embarrassed as the flash flickered, electric shutter ringing in his ears.

Scud huffed slightly as his socked toes brushed the rug beneath him, kicking his feet impatiently as need and heat burned through his veins. He whined softly when you pulled away from him entirely, leaving the camcorder pointed at him to capture his facial expressions when you suddenly shoved the entirety of the vibrator back into him, a loud and shaky moan tearing from Scud's throat as the toy easily slid into him, almost yelling when it buzzed to life against his sensitive walls.

His hands curled into one another where his arms were stretched behind his back, yet immediately scrambled to wrap around your wrist when you trailed fingers up his spine, his fingers twitching and trembling as they latched onto you, incoherent mumbles leaving Scud's lips.

As you started to properly fuck him with the toy, quickly thrusting it in and out as he tensed up at the sensation, shuddering as his jaw went slack and he started to desperately yet sloppy push back against your movements, toes curling into the carpet as you shoved the vibrator right into his sweet spot, stars dancing in his eyes and coursing through his body.

"I bet that feels so good huh pretty boy? Gonna cum aren't you?" You taunted as you fucked him quicker with the silicone toy, watching the way he had started to twitch and squirm, his whimpers and cries starting to increase in volume. Scud tried to respond to your questions, but his words only came out as a garbled mess.

It earned a small laugh from you, pressing yourself up against him and dipping your head down to attack his neck, running your tongue over his pulse, and feeling his heart race under the muscle. "Didn't quite catch that" You murmured into his ear, slowing down your movements as you searched for Scud's sweet spot, a broken sob tearing from his lips when you found it. "Yes," He gasped, trembling underneath you as he heaved for air, clumsily stuttering out his words. "Wanna cum so bad, want mommy to make me cum"

Scud tugged and pulled at his restraints as he choked back cries, clumsily pushing back against your movements desperately as he chased after his rapidly building orgasm, babbling brainlessly. He could feel the buzzing sensation in his toes, all the way up to his teeth, it made his head foggy and his jaw go slack, not sure if the high he was greedily riding was from the weed or sheer pleasure, but it had him on cloud nine either way.

Each thrust brought him closer and closer, so close he could practically taste it. A needy, broken whimper came from his chest as his body twitched against you, small pleas starting to fall from his lips as his untouched cock throbbed from his burning climax, lungs running out of air as his body started to tense up, standing right on the edge and about to fall down face first when you yanked the toy right out of him again, Scud whining and basically sobbing in protest as his hole uncontrollably clenched down around nothing, heavy groans leaving him as his body struggled to recover from the way you completely denied him again.

"Oh Please, please mommy, please" Scud sobbed as his body felt so empty and used, desperately craving the relief that he needed so badly.

You shut the toy off and tossed it down on the bed, taking hold of the camcorder and stopping your recording, snapping a few pictures of how utterly destroyed Scud was, face soaked with his tears and drool as he weakly rutted his hips in search of any type of pleasure. He whimpered softly at the flash of light, feeling exposed and nude under the lens.

"It's okay Scud, you've been doing so well for me. Momma's gonna make you feel so good" You murmured comfortingly into his ears as you pressed a kiss to his cheek, pushing your body up off his and leaving the camera on the bed. Scud still whined out in protest as your body heat left his, leaving him cold and lonely. His heart started to soar and quickly pick up speed when he heard the familiar sound of your strap buckling together, small mutters and curses coming from you as there was a slight struggle.

It wasn't long before you reappeared behind Scud, this time pressing your cock against him. Anticipation sparked to life in his tummy as you dragged the silicone through his slick, unable to help himself from pushing back against you with tiny little sounds. He needed it so bad that his body was practically begging for release, involuntarily twitching.

Scud was so close to an absolute breakdown, whimpering and mumbling incoherently as you finally started to push in at a tauntingly slow pace, the lube helping to make it an easy glide and blissful stretch. His head dropped down onto the mattress as sparks flew up his spine, so understimulated that even the slightest of touch would probably send him tipping over the edge.

You readjusted your camcorder with one hand and the tightly tangled the other in his hair, yanking his head back up to be captured in the lens, giggling at the groan that left Scud’s lips. “Come on pretty boy, keep your head up for momma”

“Need– Need it–“ Scud started to babble, head totally clouded and overworked as he desperately jerked his hips, rocking them back and forth to get any type of stimulation at all, trembling like a leaf on a branch when he felt the tip of your strap finally, finally jab right into his tender and used sweet spot, knees buckling between him as he involuntarily squeezed your wrist tightly, nails digging into the flesh as the orgasm his body had been begging for completely took over, loud and broken sobs leaving Scud’s lips as his untouched cock throbbed and pulsated, cumming right in the lace panties of the lingerie set.

The fact that you captured that on camera almost made your mouth water, and you cooed at Scud when he went ragdoll in your hold, stroking his side to give him some comfort as he slowly came back down to earth. “Oh, you poor little thing. Did I tease too much?”

Scud could barely even muster out words, breathing into the mattress as his body twitched, small grunts and whimpers coming from him your hand in his hair kept his head upright and his face vulnerable, tears streaming down his reddened cheeks.

“Or, did I not tease you enough?” You murmured the question softly in his ear, moving to grab a fist full of hair from the front and gripping his cuffed wrists, yanking both backward as you took a step forward to shove the entirety of your cock into Scud, who could almost taste the pleasure coursing through him. A choked sob tore itself from his throat, eyes darting frantically between the wall and camera lens as it felt like pure heaven burned it’s way up his spine, hands twitching and curling in on themselves under your grip.

It was arguably the best he’s ever felt in days, weeks even. When you started to relentlessly and mercilessly slam into him, each thrust going right to his core and sending his eyes rolling into the back of his head, lips glossy and slick with spit as he drooled from the mouthwatering pleasure.

“You’re just so, so cute Scud. I can’t wait to watch our little movie over and over and over again” You said as you tilted his head to the side by his hair, biting down harshly on the flesh of his already bruised and marked neck, a shriek pulling its way out his chest as all five of his senses were at a complete overload, skin flushing a deep red when he felt your teeth blissfully break skin. It was all so overwhelming, the wet glide of your cock slipping in and out against his tender velvety walls was simply too much for his mind to be able to comprehend, hips jerking as his second orgasm built up rapidly, like a can of soda that had been shaken up and was just waiting for someone to pop the tap.

He heard the sound of the cuffs clicking off before he felt the fuzzy material sliding off his wrists, your hands finding his and intertwining your fingers together, pinning his hands down on the mattress to fuck him with all the womanly strength left in you, sending the silicone as deep and hard into your angelic boyfriend as your body would possibly allow for. Scud’s head involuntarily dropped right down onto the blankets, whimpers and broken moans tumbling past his lips as he tightly squeezed your fingers, so close to the edge that this time he really could taste it.

“Please momma, please, please– fuuck, please” Scud helplessly babbled, needily pushing back to meet your thrusts as he was so fucking close, so close that he’d almost do anything just to cum, not that there was much to do considering he was already crashing down the hill, just needing a few more rough thrusts of your hips before his tap was finally popped, an explosion of fizzy stickiness exploding right in his gut, his second orgasm spilling right into the already soiled underwear, seeping through and dripping down onto the floor.

Scud went totally limp where he laid face down on the bed, breathing heavily as he twitched and tried to come down from such an earth shattering high, whining softly when you pulled out.

Tiny kisses were planted all over his face, neck, and shoulders, you gently brushing his hair out his face and unsticking it from his sweaty forehead. “You okay?”

Scud nodded, with his eyes half-lidded and a content smile tugging at his lips. “Mhmm”

“Did you learn your lesson?” You asked, pulling the bra strap and letting it snap against Scud’s flesh, a small grunt leaving him as his skin burned. “Yes ma’am…” He grumbled out, feet dangling off the bed.

You smiled softly, kissing him right below his eye. “Good baby. Now let’s get you all squeaky clean and cozy for bed, then we can find a way to put our special show on the TV for only our eyes to see” You said with a hint of mischief in your tone, reaching for the camcorder and stopping your recording once and for all.

Whoa. Did Norman fucking reedus just fucking finish something. Did Normam fucking reedus just post something. Whoa. How crazy even is that.

ANYWAYS 😝 yes guys I still love Scud he's still my angel boy and be always will be I love the part of the fic where my peenar goes inside his body thats the best part hands down I love to fuck men with my lady peenar

One fic at a time guys 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ I have a few others that eeerm should get posted soon… dont get your hopes up (because mine are already up and that's a problem)

IF YOU SEE TYPOS NO UOU DONNNT 😭 MY GRAMMARLY IS ON MY COMPUTER AND THE APP IS GARBAGE ON MY PHONE PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS

I was gonna end this with the cam corder MaGiCaLlYy disappearing 👁️ but that's for another fic 🙂‍↕️ (that ill end up never writing)

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nentenkoneko · 2 months ago

Note

for the fic rec, maybe tiger ACTUALLY being and alien?? and hes trying to learn like human culture by playing football and interacting w ppl and thats why hes so fucking fast

Words CANNOT DESCRIBE how much I cackled when I saw this pop up in my inbox. This is peak cinema.

It also made me think about a character that would slot very well into this crack-fic; paranoid alien-hunter Klaus. Klaus is onto him being an alien, Tiger knows Klaus is onto him, Tiger thinks it’s hilarious type shit.

Tiger is less ‘learning human culture’ and more ‘he’s already learnt human culture and how to blend in, but sometimes things slip through/or he does stuff on purpose to fuck with Klaus’ because I kinda figured, working with canon and all, that Tiger’s already been around on Earth long enough to establish the ‘norm’. I also didn’t know where I’d even start with Tiger learning new things lol.

No TWs for this. Just a typical crack-humor fic with some swearing.

—

“–Yeah, and is it true Twisting Tiger’s an alien?”

Tiger grins. He brings his hands up to his face, waggling his fingers like makeshift antennae, “Can I park my flying saucer on your soccer pitch?”

—

Twisting Tiger.

Is an alien.

And now– listen! Listen, okay– he’s not saying that for the sake of saying it. This isn’t another one of his ‘delusions’, as the team lovingly puts it, this is real. Klaus knows Tiger’s an alien. He really knows! Even if the others laugh him off, think this is some made-up fairytale he’s spinning, he knows it isn’t. He knows the truth.

That news report in the paper? It was shabby, yes. Poorly written, yes, but he’d read it over, and it had pretty good points! Tiger was an inhuman force of nature. He has physics-defying hair. And it’s blood red, for crying out loud! That’s weird! That’s not normal! That’s inhuman.

Twisting Tiger is an alien. And he’s sleeping in the room just across from him.

That ‘joke’, earlier today. When Joe had the question that had been buzzing under his skin since that news article came out. Is it true Twisting Tiger’s an alien?

Tiger’s response was no joke. It was a real, genuine question played off as a joke. He had been asking to land his UFO on their soccer pitch- like a vampire asking for permission to enter a house. He didn’t know that was the same for aliens, but it was clear now that it was.

When no one had bothered to say yes and invite him to land his saucer, Tiger’s laugh had slowed into a soft, casual giggle, but his eyes- they’d roamed. Eyed up all of them. As if he was checking that they were laughing, and not second-guessing his apparent slip-up.

Klaus had laughed along- he’d have been stupid not to, after all. He’d closed his eyes when Tiger’s lizard-like gaze pierced into his own, feigning wiping tears, blending in with the rest of the crowd.

He couldn’t let Tiger know he was onto him.

Not yet.

—

So.

Klaus thinks he’s an alien.

The mere thought had Tiger snickering into his pillow.

After all their years together, this is what caused the switch to flip? A crappily-made news report? The photo of ‘alien him’ was just a picture of him saturated green; the antennae were a stock-image, and his eyes had just been photoshopped bigger. It was a load of crap! And yet that ‘load of crap’ had been the thing to work.

He’d expected Klaus to come to this conclusion much, much sooner. The guy was the team’s detective– he lived for crime thrillers and science-fiction novels. He’d had long-since figured Klaus would be the one to sniff him out first.

But this long? Seriously?

I can’t let Tiger know I’m onto him.

Unfortunately for Klaus, one of Tiger’s many added bonuses of not being human was the fact he could mindread. Even from behind several heavy doors. Klaus’ head was especially easy to gain access to, out of all his team members. His was scattered and loud, like, constantly. It was hard to not listen to him- his thoughts took up the whole room sometimes. In an amusingly horrible way, that was; it could either be like listening to a train actively derail, or the most in-depth, scarily-accurate theory about something Tiger had ever heard in his life.

This, however, was neither.

Because firstly, it was a joke. He didn’t need permission to land a god-damn flying saucer anywhere. He wasn’t like a vampire– vampires didn’t even exist. Ghosts do, and demons do too, for the record, but vampires? Nah. Nope. Still just a myth, unfortunately- he’d double checked himself after learning about them from Grimm FC. A true shame, if you asked him; Vlad would be ten times more intimidating on the pitch if he actually was a vampire.

Secondly, his hair? It was gel- could Klaus seriously not tell he gelled his hair? He’d watched him gel it before, many, many times before. What kind of amnesic, dementia-ridden illness had ravaged this man’s brain? And the colour? He dyed it- you know, like normal people do? Did Klaus never question why his eyebrows were black? Because, maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t a natural blood-redhead? His own actual species didn’t grow bright red hair. They had typical, natural shades just like the rest of the galaxy. Humans weren’t as special as they thought they were.

And thirdly?

Hm.

Well, he had no other points, really. All he had now was an issue on his hands. A mild one, granted, but an issue nonetheless.

Klaus was… He was persistent. When he wanted to be, that was. Usually, Tiger appreciated his bounds of endless energy and child-like determination, but his apparent new obsession with him could definitely prove to be an issue.

But, on the contrary, it also might not be. For where Klaus had persistence, he lacked… Well, he lacked brain cells, to put it bluntly. Klaus could be smart, but he typically wasn’t, and that was that.

Either way, he needed to act normal. Just enough for Klaus’ week or two obsession period to calm itself down, at least, then things could go back to the way it was.

Yeah. That didn’t sound too hard. Right? Hell, maybe he could even mess with him a little.

—

He didn’t even mean to mess with him, but the next morning, here he was. Messing with him.

The team had gathered early for pre-match practice, yawning and stretching as they jogged easy laps around The Sultans’ pitch. The grounds were immaculate, as expected from the richest team in the league, every blade of grass identically trimmed like it had been cut with nail clippers. It was a beautiful, peaceful place to train, even if most of the guys looked too groggy to appreciate it.

Staying overnight in places this fancy tended to lull the body into a sort of vacation-mode. Or maybe, Tiger thought, casting a look toward Shakes and North dragging their feet like zombies, some people had simply stayed up too late exploring endless hotel lobbies. Or in El Matador’s case, it was probably more shop after shop than anything. The man’s bank account was probably as drained as that poor guy looked right now.

He, on the other hand, was in his prime.

While the others blinked at the sun like hungover cats, Tiger was loose, focused, stretching and jogging with the ease of someone built for movement.

Which, to be fair- he was.

His species thrived on minimal rest. Had adapted to it millennia ago. He didn’t need more than a few hours, biologically speaking- not that he’d ever listened to that, though. He’d grown fond of sleeping in, of curling up under warm blankets and pretending he was just as tired and soft-limbed as the rest of them. There was something nice about naps. Comforting. Warm. Human.

But this morning, he was sharp. Limber. Muscles humming with restless energy. He was excited for the game later this afternoon, after all. He was always energised on match days.

Even with his restlessness, he kept himself reined in. He always did.

Stretching was where he had to be careful- he had too many extra tendons. Hidden joints, muscles; little evolutionary tweaks that gave him a range of motion human bodies just weren’t meant to have. Over the years, he’d learned what he could get away with through trial, error, and several panicked teammates yelling things like “Your shoulder’s not supposed to bend that way!” or “Oh my God did you break your leg!?”

Long story short, he knew the acceptable boundaries.

He started with casual, basic stretches- calves, thighs, hamstrings. All slow, familiar movements anyone could do with ease. Once he was ‘loosened up’ he then eased into deeper poses. He took a lot of inspiration from yoga, when he stretched. The poses helped scratch some of his itches when it came to not being able to use more hidden parts of his alien self. He’d learnt a lot of the techniques through watching videos; he especially liked the ones where the instructors looked like they were folding themselves in half like a piece of paper, but somehow kept a casual, happy smile on their faces the entire time.

Arching backwards, vertebrae flexing one by one, he leaned until gravity tipped him over, hands catching the ground, absorbing the fall with practiced ease. He lifted into a smooth handstand, his legs swinging up and over his head in a graceful arc, momentum carrying him forward, gracefully.

Then he dropped. Into the splits.

And not just a casual, yoga-guy-on-Instagram kind of splits. He sank into it, legs pushed so far apart they nearly flattened against the turf. It was gymnastics more than yoga at this point, but it felt good. This kind of stretch helped reach muscles of his that humans didn’t even have- ones he never, ever got to stretch out. He leaned into it happily, pressing down on his knees to curve them inwards towards the grass. It probably looked a little odd, but nobody had to be looking that closely at him, right–?

A sharp, strangled wheeze from behind him told him otherwise.

Tiger glanced over his shoulder and found Klaus standing a few feet away, completely frozen. His eyes were wide, horrified. Luckily, his eyes didn’t seem to be on the unnatural curve of his knees- instead, his gaze was sitting... between Tiger’s legs. Klaus’ own legs were crossed over one another tightly, in a way that suggested the sight had caused him physical pain down there–

Oh. Oh. Right, humans had sensitive groin areas. This probably looked really, really uncomfortable.. He tended to forget that, sometimes. There was a lot to remember, okay? He was trying.

Easing up on the pressure against his knees, he flashed Klaus a smile. “Hi.”

Klaus didn’t respond- he simply turned and walked away. More so waddled away, actually, kind of like a penguin. It was as if he’d actually been struck down there.

Tiger blinked, “Uh… Bye?”

—

“Supa Strikas aren’t doing too well, Mac.”

“You don’t need to tell me, Brenda– it’s clear to see! Something needs to change on their end, and soon, otherwise this’ll be a clear win for The Sultans.”

“So much for positive commentary,” Tiger couldn’t help but mutter under his breath, painfully dragging his body up from the stadium floor.

He winced at the dull throb against the curve of his back. His attempted sideswipe had gone wide, his timing off. By the time he was upright again, the ball was already speeding down the field, right into Strikas’ defence. He spat a sharp curse in Japanese.

Fast. I need to go fast. He pushed off his back foot. Catch up, catch up. This is your fault if they score, catch up.

The world blurred. The crowd was a smear of noise. The ball was his target, and Zahir– well, Zahir was just an obstacle. The Sultan’s captain moved like smoke and silk, threading between defenders with cold precision. Blok was bearing down on him like the solid tank he was, but Zahir wasn’t interested in brute force. Instead he twisted, he slipped, and Blok stumbled past with a frustrated grunt.

Zahir smirked, confident enough to wink at the man as their paths crossed. The goal was opening. Bo stood at the ready, arms outstretched and face clenched in focus.

But Tiger was faster. He was always faster.

“Twisting Tiger’s appeared out of nowhere!”

He didn’t think. He didn’t even need to. He let his instinct guide him.

He dropped low, palms slapping painfully against the turf. His leg whipped around, a blur of motion, grazing the ball with just enough force to tear it from Zahir’s feet. The Sultans’ captain barely had time to react before Tiger had already spun, redirecting the ball back out towards the midfield with a sharp, strong kick.

Rasta was there, as expected. He caught it, pivoting swiftly on his feet as he turned and pushed forward. Joe was quick to the change in direction, his shoes skidding against the ground as he moved to follow, hot on the Captain’s heels. The crowd exploded into a deafening roar.

“What a dispossess! That looked insane– Tiger’s doing the defenders’ job for them!”

“It looked inhuman, Mac! That was incredible work by the midfielder!”

Shit.

Tiger froze for half a second as he moved to sit up. That… that had sounded a bit too impressed. Were they playing it up for the cameras? Or had it really looked that unnatural?

Whichever it was, he wasn’t about to risk it. Forcing a few exaggerated pants, he held a hand to his ribs as if winded, buying himself the illusion of recovery. Sweat dripped down the side of his face- forced, not natural. He hated sweating, but it worked a charm in his little world of pretend.

The sun blotted out as a shadow cast over him. Blok loomed above, expression hidden behind his hair. A large hand reached down, palm up. Tiger took it gratefully, letting himself be gently hauled to his feet like a baby deer finding its legs. “Brrztl.”

That he was sure meant something positive. Cool maybe. Or nice job? He wasn’t too well-versed in Brislovian. It was one of the more tricker languages the Earth had to offer. Regardless, he gave a small, grateful smile and nodded. “Thanks.”

“Dude, that looked nuts- you good?” North jogged over, sweat clinging to his forehead and hairline. “You saved our asses. Coach would've skinned us alive if we’d let that bastard through again.”

“I’m good. I think.” Tiger coughed once, lightly, then pretended to stagger slightly. “Didn’t know I could run that fast. Wow.”

North barked a laugh. “Humble as ever.” He reached out and gave his shoulder a firm squeeze, steadying him. “You’re a force of nature, man. That was top-notch.”

“Bratzle brot,”

“Stop it-” Tiger couldn’t help but smile, ducking his head, “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Don’t lie, you enjoy the attention.” North teased, a hand ruffling through his hair. “You soak it up more than El Matador does sometimes.”

“I do not!”

“Oh you so do.”

“After his earlier save, it seems Twisting Tiger’s decided to call the game quits!”

“Come on, Tiger! One save doesn’t make you a defender– stop hanging out with your backline!”

North snorted. “They’re right, y’know.” He chided with a tut, “You’ve caught your breath. Time to buzz off and go do your job- slacking’s totally more our thing.”

“Ha ha.” Tiger rolled his eyes, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender, “Alright, I’m going, I’m going.”

—

Tiger had been wandering back from the water fountain when he’d heard it.

“I’m telling you, guys!” Klaus’ shrill, panicked voice echoed through the corridor, “It’s true! It’s really true!”

Ah. So much for subtlety, then. Seemed like just because Klaus didn’t want Tiger to know he was ‘onto him’, it didn’t mean the rest of the team were spared his crazed conspiracy rants. Lucky them.

His insane save during the match probably hadn’t helped much… If anything, that’d probably just put more coal into the burning fire that was that man’s delusional brain.

Wandering a little closer to the semi-open door of the changing room, he slinked into the shadows of the closest wall, folding his arms lazily across his chest as he listened in.

“You seriously believe that dumb news report thing?” That was North’s voice, flat, yet laced with amusement. “C’mon, dude. That pic was made in IBIS Paint or something. I could’ve made something better with my eyes closed.”

There was a chorus of light snickers- Blok’s rumble of a chuckle, Cool Joe’s sharp bark of laughter. Even Rasta let out a little snort, “You can’t seriously be thinkin’ Tiger’s an alien, man.”

“I don’t think it,” Klaus huffed. “I know it. Forget about the newsletter- didn’t you guys see him today? How he ran? Moved? That wasn’t normal!”

“Like how you ‘knew’ Joe was a cyborg?” Shakes giggled, electing to ignore Klaus’ ‘facts’, “Or when you thought Bo was a werewolf?”

“What about the time he thought I was a vampire?” Eagle Eye’s voice sounded a mixture between fond and amused, “The only proof you had was that I slept ‘like a vampire’ during the one night we shared a room.”

“Guys?” Klaus’ voice grew louder, attempting to hover over the rising voices, “Are you even listening right now?” “–Still had him convinced for months.” North cackled. “Remember the bulbs of garlic he used to wear around you?”

“Hello!?”

“–He used to spray me with holy water he bought on ebay too.” Eagle Eye chuckled, “It came in one of those little plastic spray bottles- it was kind of cute, honestly–"

“Forget about all of that! I’m right this time!” Klaus butted back in, “And I’ll prove it. I will! And when the mothership comes down and Tiger’s on it, waving at us with all seven of his arms, don’t come crying to me!”

This, of course, only served to make the team laugh harder.

Klaus’ thoughts seeped out into the hallway, loud and pouty. Why don’t they believe me? They’re not taking this seriously at all. This is a very serious matter! There’s an alien among us!

Tiger stifled a snicker.

Maybe Tiger wiped their memories… Maybe- maybe he’s controlling them right now, forcing them to try and throw me off course. I know I’m right- I’m onto you, Tiger!

He wasn’t even doing anything! Klaus was spiraling all on his own, he had absolutely no part in this madness.

Yet. He had no part in this madness yet.

Shifting his weight, he leaned closer, tilting his head to peer around the door.

Klaus was standing in the middle of the group like a preacher mid-sermon, wild-eyed and gesturing dramatically, while the rest of the team tried their best not to collapse laughing.

“I’ll prove it– you hear me!” He ranted, “I’ll prove it, and I’ll save us all! Then you’ll be thankful! You’ll all be thankful!”

“Whatever you say, man.” Shakes chuckled, “Whatever you say.”

“Gah!”

Tiger drew back just as Klaus stomped over to the door, yanking it open with frustration.

That frustration was quickly replaced with a -very manly, mind you- scream of sheer terror.

“Hey Klaus.” Tiger grinned up at him, “Whatcha talkin’ about?”

“I-uh-I-” Klaus’ throat squeezed, making a weird, odd little squeak sound. Kind of like a startled rabbit. Or a mouse. That was probably more accurate. “Somethi-nothing- uhm, I- scheiße-”

“You alright there?” Tiger tilted his head innocently, “You look a little pale, my Earthly companion.”

The rest of the locker room howled in laughter. Poor Klaus only freaked out more.

He’s onto me! Klaus’ thoughts screamed at him, He’s going to silence me! Drag me to his ship and dissect me! Oh lord, this is the end!

Tiger leaned in closer, lowering his voice for only Klaus to hear. “I won’t dissect you.” He whispered with a toothy smile, “Yet.”

Klaus’ jaw dropped comically as he reared backwards with a surprised; “What the fuck-!?”

—

Klaus had run off after that, sprinting and ducking behind one of the corridors winding through The Goliath's halls like he was a character straight out of an episode of Scooby-Doo. Cartoonish wails and screams included, of course.

And Tiger hadn’t seen him since.

Granted Tiger hadn’t seen anyone since. That was Friday. It was the weekend now, and they’d long since travelled back to Strikaland. Everyone was off doing their own thing, as they typically did, but Rasta, ever the social one, had invited the team to a barbeque at his place, and Tiger absolutely couldn’t say no to a good meal. Especially if it was one of Rasta’s- his food was out of this world. Pun intended.

And neither could Klaus, apparently, because as Tiger wandered into Rasta’s living room, there he was, sitting on the couch in all his paranoid, conspiracy glory.

Dressed head-to-toe in layers of black, he wore a thick, crumpled tin foil… Hat? Helmet? It extended past what Tiger would define as a ‘hat’, covering part of his jaw and cupping around under his chin, but looked far too shabby to be some sort of helmet. Whatever it was, it was accompanied by a brand new, fresh garlic bulb, hung from a thin piece of string around his neck. A little notebook was resting against his thigh, a hastily scribbled title across the front of it. ’Alien proof’, it read.

And in his hands sat a– was that a gun?!

No, wait, pause, not a gun. Well, technically it was a gun. Both a gun and not a gun. A nerf gun. It was a nerf gun. Spray-painted a weird mix of greens in some crappy attempt at mimicking military camo, it was clutched tight in his shaky fingers.

Fingers which had raised and took aim at him as soon as he entered the room.

Tiger said nothing.

Klaus said nothing back, but his sweaty fingers tightened against the plastic toy ever so slightly. He can’t read my mind now, because of the tin foil. His thoughts, as loud and unmuted as always, seeped into his ears, He’s trying, I know he is. I was ready for you this time, Tiger!

He blinked.

Klaus blinked back.

He knew Klaus had some serious issues, but this was a whole other level.

“Be careful.” Klaus finally decided to break the silence, cocking the gun like some sort of western gunslinger, “It’s loaded with blessed foam.”

Tiger quirked a brow, “Blessed foam? Blessed by who, exactly…?”

“I emailed a priest.” Klaus replied, his voice deadly serious. “And paypaled him five bucks to bless them over a video call.”

“Well…” He blinked once more, “Does it work on aliens?”

I don’t think so, “Yes.” I don’t even think the priest blessed these right… “It does.”

“Uh huh.” Tiger nodded, “So… Are you gonna shoot me with it, then?”

Klaus looked visibly uncomfortable now. “Yes— no- maybe?” He stammered, “Just- just don’t come closer and I won’t have to, alright?”

“I’m literally just here for the food, dude.” Tiger couldn’t help but grin, raising his arms up in mock surrender, “Alien or not, a guy’s gotta eat.”

Klaus squinted at him suspiciously. “I’m not sure I believe you, Außerirdische.”

Tiger chuckled. “Do you think I don’t eat or something?”

“I think you do more than you let on, that’s for sure.”

“What is that even supposed to mean–?”

Click.

An orange-tipped foam dart soared through the air in a high, powerful arc, slamming into his chest with the power of… Of a feather, honestly. Bouncing off of his chest, it did a little aerodynamic twirl before it hit the floor with a weary, pathetic plap.

Both of their eyes instantly moved to stare at it. An awkwardly long silence followed.

Tiger sighed, shaking his head sadly. “Honestly wish it’d killed me at this point.”

Klaus shrieked, pelting more foam bullets at him as he bolted upwards, sprinting like a madman for the patio doors, “Rastaaaaa-!”

“Rasta! Bo! Bo!! He didn’t even flinch!” Klaus wailed, throwing the gun once closer, his hands childishly grabbing the nearest body for safety- Bo, in this case, who didn’t even budge an inch despite being clung to like a human shield. “I shot him and he didn’t even flinch!”

“Wait, what–?” Rasta instantly turned from the grill at that, looking mortified, “-you shot someone!?”

Klaus pointed a trembling finger back toward the house, where Tiger had now casually situated himself, hands in pockets as he watched the whole mess unfold. “I hit him with the blessed foam!” He cried, “And it didn’t do anything!”

Bo’s brows raised now, this time in confusion. “Blessed foam?”

Rasta groaned softly, clearly already sensing where this was going. “Klaus…”

“He’s immune to holy artifacts!” Klaus sounded on the verge of tears, “And that proves it- that proves it! He’s an alien!!”

Bo and Rasta shared a look. The look in fact. It was often a look the duo usually reserved for El Matador and El Matador alone, but clearly they’d decided amongst themselves it was time to add alien-hunter Klaus to the list.

Bo sighed, reaching down to peel Klaus off of him like a strip of velcro, lifting him up by the scruff of his shirt so they were eye-to-eye. “Tiger’s not an alien, Klaus.”

“He is!” Klaus flailed his arms wildly, “Why won’t you believe me!”

“Aliens aren’t real, Klaus.”

“They are!” He wriggled and writhed in the man’s grip, twisting about until he could point directly at Tiger’s smug face. “He’s right there, Bo! Right there! Look at his face!”

“He’s a lost cause, brother,” Joe called from over by the pool, “Just duct tape his mouth shut and let nature take its rightful course.”

“Not a bad shout.” North snickered from beside him. “Some quiet would be nice.”

“Klaus.” Bo sounded so, so tired. “If I let you go, will you promise to keep the conspiracies to a minimum–?”

“If you get go of me he’ll kill me!” He wailed, “He said he was gonna dissect me!”

“Tiger!” Rasta scolded, sounding less like a friend and more like a dad of sorts, “We don’t say things like that to people.”

“I was joking!” He laughed, raising his hands up in mock-surrender, “I’m sorry, Klaus, I didn’t mean it.”

“You read my mind!” Klaus accused him, “You knew I was thinking it, that’s why you said it! Admit it!”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

“If he admits it,” Bo sighed, “will you shut up?”

“Yes!”

“Tiger, please just admit you read his mind–”

“I didn’t read his mind!” Tiger barked. Then, catching Bo’s deadpan look, he gritted his teeth. “…Fine! Fine.” He muttered with a huff, “I ‘read your mind’, Klaus.”

“I knew it!” Klaus shrieked, pointing triumphantly, wriggling even more in Bo’s grip like an excited puppy. “I knew it! You’re an alien! A mind-reading, soul-sucking, spaghetti-brain alien from— from– uh-” He sputtered, “somewhere in space! Mars, probably!”

Tiger looked to Bo and Rasta with a flat expression. “This is your fault."

—

Inspo mainly from Klaus-centric episodes such as ‘On Klaus inspection’ and ‘Klaus encounters of the nerd kind’.

Not my best work as I struggle to write stuff like this, but I gave it a shot. Also been super busy with irl stuff but I wanted to still take some time to write something for you. Sorry if it’s crap lol <3

Additional scene I half drabbled up for you also;

…

“You were right, Klaus.”

He paused, frowning, “W-what?”

“I said.” Tiger’s eyes glinted in the dim light. Like an animal’s. “You were right, Klaus.”

“You’re an-” Klaus cuts himself off, taking a shaky step backwards. Tiger instantly fills that gap, keeping close. He gulps. His voice trembles. “You’re an alien.”

“I am.”

Klaus’ eyes were as wide as frisbees, his jaw slack, “Why are you telling me this..?”

A low, devilish smirk spread across Tiger’s lips. He leaned in closer, his breath a whisper, “Because no one will ever believe you.”

—

20 notes · View notes

blackwidowyael · 4 years ago

Text

One of those days

Hey y'all! I just received my first request from @thoughfulmilkshakeface, and here it is, hope you all enjoy! psa I am taking requests, mainly Natasha/Yelena/Wanda centric, and I dont do reader inserts or anything too smutty so feel free to leave smth in ma inbox ;)

Natasha has bad days. Clint knows this, and he also knows that the bad days will pass, making space for the good ones, where they can go out to the movies, or grab lunch, or take Lucky to play ball in the park without the change of routine sending her reeling.

It is these days that he treasures the most, when he can pretend, even if it is only briefly, that they are just another normal couple, with normal problems like squabbles over who’s turn it is to take out the trash or clean up after the dog.

Today is not one of those days.

Clint can tell from the moment they wake up. He cracks open an eye just in time to see the flash of metal handcuffs disappearing into Natasha’s nightstand.

The handcuffs rarely make an appearance anymore, and only on those nights where she is filled with an anxious restlessness, a sense of uneasiness that only the cool slicing of the metal can satiate.

She never talks about it, refuses to acknowledge that they still have a lingering control over her that she can’t quite shake. Clint understands what it is like to feel that lack of autonomy, and never pushes her to stop.

Lucky knows that Natasha has bad days as well. She stumbles past where he is eagerly awaiting breakfast, straight to the gym without so much as a glance in his direction. It is like she is barely even there.

Clint drags himself into the kitchen, narrowly avoiding hitting Lucky in the face as he reaches down to pat him through a haze of sleep. He fills Lucky’s bowl, and slides two pop tarts onto a plate. A smile almost reaches his face as he thinks about the plan Nat concocted to sneak them past the addicted demi-God upstairs.

And they wait for the last member of their family to return. Sometimes, an hour in the gym is enough to shake whatever demons were haunting her away and she returns more present, having slipped out of whatever funk she is in.

Today is not one of those days.

They watch the clock as the hands trail round the hour, and into the next. Lucky whines, pressing himself against Clint’s leg. He is weirdly intuitive, can always tell when something’s not right. Almost two hours have passed. Natasha’s coffee has grown cold in the pot.

“I guess you’re right, bud,” Clint sighs, rubbing Lucky behind the ears. “I’ll go check on her.”

At first, he thinks the gym is empty. Music blares out of the speakers as he scans every corner.

He finds her huddled in a crack between the wall and a punching bag. From her vantage point, she has a clear view of the entire gym, but she doesn’t even blink as he settles down in front of her.

Nat’s eyes are glassy, unfocused. Clint waves a hand in front of her face, trying to get her attention. He is wary of touching her when she’s like this, but he really needs to get her to the apartment. Clint can see the blood leaking through her pointe shoes, feet white with the ribbons tight enough to cut off her circulation. Slowly he loops one arm around her shoulders, the other under her knees, narrating as he does so.

No matter what, Clint wants her to feel at least some semblance of control.

“Alright, Tash, back to the apartment. I got you, it’s okay.” He glances at her briefly, to see if he has gotten a response, but she has retreated so far into herself that she can’t hear him. Dissociated, the part of his mind that has attended many therapy sessions with her, supplies.

She has frozen by the time he tries to deposit her on the couch. Eventually, he just sits down with her draped over his lap, hoping that the feel of him breathing would help to ground her. He thinks back to the day before, trying to remember what could have triggered it. Nothing springs to mind, although new triggers still pop up now and then. Maybe something from a mission?

Lucky worries when he sees Natasha like this. It makes Clint sad, and then neither of them will take him to the park. He leaps onto the couch, burying his muzzle in Natasha’s face and showering her with kisses. Suddenly, she stirs, breath shuddering in her chest.

“Nat, you’re okay, you’re safe. We’re in the apartment.”

One hand comes up, shielding her face, while she desperately tries to wriggle out of Clint’s lap. Her breath is beginning to come faster as she squirms, unable to escape Lucky’s slobbery hold.

“Natasha, it’s just Lucky, you’re okay.”

“Clint?”

“Yeah. Can you breathe with me?”

She can’t.

She can feel her breath whistling in her chest, coming faster and faster and despite this feel the lack of oxygen in her brain. Lightheaded. She doesn’t think her legs would support her right now if she tried to run.

Run away from all of this. All these emotions, clawing at her chest and anxiety buzzing in her brain and tingling on her skin and she can't breathe, she can’t-

Breathe.

One fist gripping Clint’s shirt, the soft fabric grounding, while simultaneously keeping herself as far away from him as possible, curled on the opposite side of the couch.

Through the icy panic, she tries to focus on his chest. Watching it rise and fall. She manages to take gulps of air to match, feeling the fog slowly evaporating around her.

“Idiot dog,” she mutters, pushing Lucky away from her.

The buzzing panic leaves her as quickly as it arrives, leaving her drained. The world is far too bright, too sharp, now.

Clint is watching as she tries to collect herself. Natasha feels her mask slamming into place, protecting her from the world and hiding her humiliation. She’s not sure how she got to the couch, but she can feel the concern and smothering pity rolling off of Clint in waves and she hates it.

She just wants to be alone, until she can forget again.

“Nat-”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Clint presses his lips together. This repression shit can’t be healthy, but he knows better than anyone that there’s no point trying to make Natasha talk when she doesn't want to.

“Fine. We don’t have to talk. Can I at least look at your feet?”

Natasha glances down. Her feet are waxy, apart from the red marks made by the ribbons chafing. Blood has congealed around the box of the shoe, spattering its way up the shank.

“I can do it myself, Clint,”

“Natasha, I swear to God.” Clint pushes her back down as she tries to stand, going into the kitchen to grab the first aid box.

Carefully, he unties the ribbons, prying the shoes off her feet. The blood is sticky, and it takes a while for him to get them off without ripping the skin further.

Eventually, both shoes are discarded and he gets a proper look at her.

“Nat, what happened?”

Clint had hoped it would be an easy fix, just a couple of blisters, but apparently it wasn’t one of those days, and nothing was easy. Hundreds of shards of glass are embedded in the soles of Natasha’s feet, and when he looks back to her shoes, he can see more littering the soles.

He gets to work, painstakingly removing each shard and cleaning the cuts, before covering them in adhesive bandage. Questions can come later, when Nat is not still partially dissociated on the couch with a vase’s worth of glass in her feet. Lucky watches, resting his head on Natasha’s lap. This time, she doesn’t push him away, running her fingers through his fur.

“I needed to know that I hadn’t got soft.”

The words echo in the silence, although they were barely audible. Clint carefully schools his expression, keeping his posture open and relaxed.

“And dancing with glass in your shoes proves that how?”

“We used to do it,” Natasha pauses, staring intently at a spot on Lucky’s back, “before.”

Clint nods in understanding. It doesn’t surprise him, seems very on-brand given the sparse details she had shared over the years.

“You haven’t gotten soft, Tash. Why would you think that?”

“But I have,” she presses, leaning forward, “I see it all the time. They told me I could never form attachments, that it would make me weak. And I can’t do the missions I did before,”

“Can’t or won’t? You didn’t have any choice over taking missions, Tash. Just because SHIELD does things differently doesn’t mean you’re any less of an agent.”

“They’re in my head all the time,” Natasha admits. “I can hear them. Telling me I’m sloppy. Weak. They would be so angry if they could see me now. I just. I just needed to feel like I was,”

She breaks off, staring at her hands.

“Like what?” Clint prompts gently.

“Made of marble. That’s what they used to say to me.”

“They’re not here now, Nat. We are. Your family. You don’t need to be all perfect and tough around us.”

Nat shakes her head in exasperation, eyes roaming around the room as she searches for an explanation.

“But I still want them to be proud of me. It’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. They took everything from me and I still want to make them proud.”

“They tortured you, Natasha. They raised you, that’s not just going to go away. You’re not under their control anymore. I just want you, whatever that is.”

Suddenly, she can’t stand this conversation anymore, ignoring her protesting feet as she stalks into the kitchen. Clint follows, Lucky not far behind.

“Love is for children.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Natasha huffs out a laugh, turning away to reach a mug. “You’d have to be stupid to want me.”

“I guess I really am an idiot then.” Clint reaches out, tugging on her arm until she is facing him.

“Lucky too,” he adds as the dog jumps up, pawing Natasha’s legs.

“Idiot dog.” A tiny smile graces the corner of her mouth.

“You’re more than just an incredible agent, Tash. You’re my best friend, my family. I love you.”

She ducks her head, staring at their intertwined fingers.

“I love you too, idiot.”

Clint grins. It was one of those days.

#natasha and clint #clintasha #natasha romonova #clint barton #lucky the pizza dog #angst #hurt/comfort #fanwork #fanfic #marvel #mcu women #mcu #black widow #hawkeye #red room #natashas fucked up #but arent they all

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hurricanery · 4 years ago

Text

hurricane

A/N: shoutout to everyone that sent me song recs I'm feeling hella inspired and I’m gonna keep them in my inbox to come back to for future one shots! <3 credit to the anon that sent me this song...i wrote this so fast in my head and now it’s here! This is pretty amelia-centric but there’s a hint of amelink in here too, so hope u enjoy!

TW: implied drug use

also this is for @wordsxstars bc chloe ur my angst buddy forever !!

_______

I’m the violence in the pouring rain

I’m a hurricane

Come and fade me

I’m a hurricane

_______

It rained the day she was born. Like really rained. It was the kind of torrential downpour that turned the whole sky a threateningly dark mix of indigo and grey.

Her Mother hadn’t planned for it. Hadn’t considered the impact that the weather would play on her child’s entrance into the world.

And she’d felt a lighthearted resentment towards this child, for deciding to push her way out at such an inconvenient time.

Because they’d sat in traffic.

Full of panic.

In the middle of a city-wide weather emergency.

“Leave it to baby number five,” her Mother had breathed through a contraction, hands gripping tightly to the cushions of the passenger seat. “To be born….during….a hurricane.”

“This hasn’t been classified as a hurricane yet, Carolyn-”

The glare she’d given her husband was enough to shut him up as she exhaled through the pressure of her contractions.

And she’d gripped the edges of the seat even tighter.

The same way Amelia does now, 18 years later.

Her fingers grip the edges of the seat, and her fingernails scratch over the fabric lightly, as she stares out the passenger side window.

It’s raining out. Not a downpour or anything. But steadily enough to trigger that feeling. That feeling that’s uncertain and nostalgic at the same time. Two practically opposite notions that crash together like the thunder that’s threatening the sky.

She hears Derek clear his throat, and her gaze snaps to his just in time.

Just in time for her to witness her brother’s eyes dart from her tightly-wound fingers to the road ahead as he drives.

She quickly moves her hands, on instinct. Burying them in her lap instead. There’s an overly-positive inflection to her brother’s tone as he speaks out into the space between them.

“I was nervous, too,” he laughs a bit under his breath, like he’s recalling a specific memory. “When I went away to school.”

“I’m not nervous.”

Disbelief flashes quickly across his face, but then he replaces it with something more soft. Like he’s deciding to give his younger sister the benefit of the doubt. Like he’s actually letting her have this one.

“Well, then….I’m impressed.”

Amelia rolls her eyes. And then she shivers involuntarily.

There’s something about being in an air-conditioned car, protected from the heat of the storm outside. It causes chills to rise through her body, despite it being the end of August. She turns in her seat, reaching towards the back of the car, to where all of her belongings are packed. Pulling out a crocheted blanket, she twists forward in her seat again and covers her bare legs with it.

She stares at the road ahead, finding patterns in the wet pavement, before she tentatively opens the conversation back up.

“Was Mom with you?” She utters the question, and she doesn’t let herself look in Derek’s direction. “Was Mom there to drop you off at college?”

It’s not until after she voices the question, that she realizes. Realizes that’s the thing that’s potentially been bothering her.

Derek sighs. And his hands grip the steering wheel a little tighter.

“She was.”

Amelia nods.

This answer doesn’t surprise her. And it doesn’t hurt either. It’s mostly just numb acceptance at this point.

She finally turns to him, and she almost doesn’t recognize herself in her next question.

“It’s because I look like him, right?”

It’s the first time she’s comprehended it out loud. The weight of it hits her like a ton of bricks. The fact that it all comes back to that.

“Who?”

Amelia gives him an incredulous stare, her mouth forming in a tight line. It amplifies her refusal to feed into Derek’s decided lack of wit.

Because he knows what she’s asking.

And Derek knows that Amelia knows that.

Amelia refuses to blink. She lets her eyes become unfocused as she stubbornly holds her gaze.

Until Derek eventually nods, giving up.

“Amelia….” He sighs. “You look like me.” He turns briefly in her direction, like he’s hoping her stare will have faltered slightly at his explanation so far. But it hasn’t. She’s relentless sometimes.

He exhales a bit shakily before he continues, eyes shifting back to the road.

“You look like me….and you look like Dad, too.”

Amelia finally lets herself blink at that. Relief floods her dry eyes and her mind, too.

She turns back to the window, focusing instead on the world around them. Her eyes land on two particular raindrops against the window. And she smiles slightly as she watches them drop down towards the ledge. Like it’s a race to see which raindrop finishes first. Which raindrop will dip first into the crack of the window pane, where it’ll disappear forever.

It’s a game she played as a child, too.

She loved to watch the raindrops race against the plastic walls of her playhouse. In the quiet corner of her vast backyard.

It had rained on the day of her 6th birthday party. And Amelia had almost been glad for that.

Her Mother had talked it up the entire week.

“Saturday is Amy’s birthday!”

“Saturday is all about Amy!”

But it felt false to Amelia, even as a 6-year-old.

The forced element of the celebration. And the way her Mother had demanded her siblings participate, too.

But the party was cancelled. And Amelia instead found herself in her favorite place to be during a rainstorm. Surrounded by the yellow walls of her plastic playhouse.

Derek had found her that day. A smile playing at his lips as he ducked his wet head of hair into the window of her little hideaway.

“Whatcha thinkin about, Amy?”

“What are you thinking about?”

Amelia quickly shakes from her daze, abandoning the slight pride she’d just felt at her choice of raindrop winning the race against the car window.

She turns to Derek, and she even smiles a bit in his direction.

“I’m thinking about….starting over.”

“Starting over?!” Derek gives her one of his classic smiles. There’s an element of surprise to it, that lands in his eyes. But ultimately it’s laced with excitement, through and through. “Starting over is good.”

Amelia beams at him. It starts off small but she can feel the way it grows on her face. It’s the kind of grin that makes her cheeks dimple.

Derek shakes his head, laughing under his breath as he faces the road again.

“You know….no one wants you to start completely over, Amy.”

She raises her eyebrows at this, her grin transforming into more of a doubtful smirk at her brother’s words.

“Well I, for one, don’t want you to change.”

Amelia exhales a slight chuckle.

“I’ll try not to get rid of the good parts,” she mutters.

Derek is focused on the road in front of them, so all Amelia can really decipher, is his side profile. But she can see it. The hint of glassiness in his grey-blue orbs.

Silence falls between them, and Amelia feels a tightness form within her own throat. She attempts to clear it, tries to alleviate what the moment is turning out to be. But then Derek starts speaking again in a low tone, and the tightness spreads itself further.

“Dad would be so proud of you, you know.”

Amelia smiles tightly.

She only half believes that statement.

Because truthfully, she has no idea how she got here. How she managed to make it this far anyway. That realization hits her hard and fast and suddenly she doesn’t care that her eyes are stinging the same way Derek’s were a moment ago.

“I wish I remembered him better,” she admits, and her voice is notably thin.

Derek turns to her, his eyes filled with something Amelia can’t quite place.

“I feel like….” She continues, ignoring the way her voice wavers. “My idea of him comes from the pictures I’ve seen? If that makes sense? And I don’t have the actual memories anymore….I don’t….I wish I remembered what he was really like, you know? His voice, his mannerisms, everything-”

“I know what you mean.”

They exit the freeway, the car slowing at a stoplight as they enter the college town.

“You’re so like him in so many ways, Amelia.” Derek says it in a whispered tone, as they turn onto the main road. Like the comprehension is overwhelming to even him. “So….just like you said….don’t get rid of the good parts, okay?”

Amelia lets herself smile as she turns away from him, eyes scanning the surroundings of the town that will be her new home. The rain has died down significantly, and Amelia questions whether that’s an accurate observation, or if it’s just that they’re driving at a slower speed now.

“Okay,” she eventually responds.

“Are you okay?”

The question had come from Derek.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me,” Amelia had practically gasped upon slipping through the front door. She thought she’d been inconspicuous.

Derek stared at her expectantly.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, but she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.

“It’s pouring out. Did you walk?” There’d been criticism in his voice.

“You’d be more upset if I said I drove, right?”

“Amy.”

“Derek.”

They’d been at a standoff. In the middle of the entryway. Both of them seemingly unphased by the mix of mud and water that tracked all over their Mother’s favorite area rug.

Derek sighed. And Amelia stared at the floor. Unable to make eye contact, too aware that her eyes were hinted red and full of haze.

“Why didn’t you call me for a ride?”

“I didn’t know you’d still be here.” Her reply sounded bitter. But maybe it had just been the tightness in her jaw, the pressure from fighting off the wet and the cold.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

“You missed Dad’s birthday dinner.” Derek’s tone had been accusatory again.

“Dad missed it, too.”

“Amelia-”

She’d cut Derek off with a bizarrely edged laugh.

Their Dad’s birthday dinner. They’d celebrate every year as a family. They’d sit down and have dinner together. And Amelia ultimately despised it. Mostly because they’d started grouping it together with her own birthday celebration. Her birthday followed a week after their Dad’s. And it just served as another reminder. Another reason for displaced resentment.

Amelia bit down on her laugh, stunned. She’d be turning 16 the following week.

“Amelia.” He said it again, this time more cautionary.

She finally looked at him. And she could see genuine concern in his expression.

“Are you okay?” He asked for a second time.

All Amelia could do was nod.

“Are you on your way out?” She whispered the question.

And then it was Derek’s turn to nod.

“I just wanted to say goodbye before I took back off to school,” he explained. “And I wanted to tell you happy birthday.”

Amelia smirked coldly at him, and finally started moving towards the stairs.

“Bye, Derek.”

2 years later and they’ve yet to improve this part.

It’s a rushed goodbye. Like it usually is for them. They don’t do goodbyes very well. Maybe that had something to do with shared past experiences.

Derek helps her set up her dorm room and when there’s nothing left to do, a knowing shift occurs in the atmosphere.

He pulls his hands out of his pockets, and forces a smile on his face. And when he pulls her into a tight hug, it takes Amelia a moment to reciprocate the gesture.

But Derek just squeezes her tighter until she does.

“You’re going to love it here, Amy,” he mumbles, before pulling away.

And Amelia just nods. Not able to find her words.

Because they’re bad at goodbyes. Which Derek knows. So he lets her off the hook, backs out of the small room with one last glance in her direction.

And Amelia watches him go.

Amelia doesn’t love it here, right away.

She tries to. She really does.

She sits in the shared common areas and convinces herself that maybe she’ll step up and talk to someone today.

It’s strange. She’s an outgoing person. She could be the life of the party when she really wanted to. But, she sits now, textbooks open in front of her, glancing around the library at fellow students. And she feels worlds beyond them. She questions to herself how she can even feel years beyond people her own age.

And that’s the self-inquiry that ruins her plan. She gets way too inside her own head and it hinders any chance she has at trying today.

Instead she gets up, shoving her books into her bag and walking purposefully to the exit.

It’s when she reaches her dorm, that the rain starts. She can smell it first. The distinct way the air changes when it’s about to rain. It feels humid and thick and her skin starts to feel sticky before the cold front lightly passes over her, and it provides relief.

The sky gets dark and it starts to sprinkle, just as she climbs the steps of her building.

As she enters her room, a dark cloud of restlessness storms her mind. Because she doesn’t know what her next move is. What her plan is for the rest of the day.

She looks around the small room, eyes catching on a piece of paper that’s been slipped under her door.

She picks it up, and when she reads the words on the flyer, she wants to laugh to herself. Because it simply lists an address for a party later tonight. And she’s laughing because, is this really how college works?

She decides there’s no way she’s going to the party.

After 2 hours of staring at the ugly off-white paneling of her dorm room ceiling, Amelia sits up in bed.

Because there’s a hint of it. A fleeting thought. A question that flashes through her mind almost too quickly to even divulge in.

But it’s there. The question of ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’

It’s enough to make her get out of bed. Which is confusing, to say the least. Because she hadn’t anticipated spending her evening this way. But now she’s pulling open her dresser drawers, trying to find something to wear. And she’s glancing at herself in the mirror, reaching for her makeup bag at the same time.

The last thing she remembers thinking, when she exits her dorm room is, what’s the worst that could happen?

The worst that could happen, happens almost right away.

It takes place in the form of ‘jungle juice.’

“It’s called jungle juice!”

Amelia stares blankly at the frat boy in front of her. She’s standing way too close to the bouncing speakers and the music is way too loud.

“What?!”

“Jungle juice!” He yells again, “Basically everyone brings a fifth of something and it all gets poured in there! It’s disgusting, but it makes for a dangerous concoction! Want me to grab you a cup?”

Amelia shakes her head. She doesn’t know what she was thinking.

Well, that’s not entirely true. She was thinking that she had to at least try. Give a shot at relating to people her age.

She surveys the boy in front of her. He’s attractive. Jet black hair, green eyes and even a slightly alternative vibe to him. It surprises Amelia, considering she’s in a frat house. He seems unexpected. And maybe her type. She’d probably go for him, if she wasn’t currently so inside her own head about it.

She feels her nails dig lightly into the palms of her hands as she drops her arms to the side, and she immediately catches herself. She exhales, trying to relax.

“I’ll grab something else, probably!” she yells back to the boy patiently standing in front of her.

Patiently, she thinks. Because she’s already a step ahead of him, labeling him, and she knows she’s someone that requires patience in events like these.

She shifts her eyes away from him, instead looking to the tiny window in the corner of the crowded room. It’s raining outside. Drops of condensation race against the glass in a familiar motion.

A feeling swells in her chest that’s hard to ignore. There’s a strong desire to escape her current environment and it practically makes her want to crawl out of her skin.

“I’m not supposed to be here!” She shouts over the music, turning back to the conversation.

“Huh?!”

“It’s raining!” She’s an octave louder this time.

“Yeah! It’s good we’re inside, right?!”

Amelia shakes her head, stepping away. Ignoring the confusion on the boy’s face, she turns on her heels, pushing through the crowd until she can find an exit. When she finally makes it out onto the less crowded porch, she lets out a huge exhale.

She keeps waking. The sun is setting, and the impending storm makes the sky a glorious shade of violet.

The rain pelts her skin as she walks hastily through the campus and although it provides relief, there’s also a sense of something else. It’s almost yearning. Or maybe homesickness. But it doesn’t make sense, because she’s never craved home before.

She thinks she’s crying. She can’t really tell. It’s hard to separate the rain from any potential saltiness that threatens her cheeks. The only thing that gives her away is her labored breathing.

She’s overwhelmed. And for once in her life she wishes Derek were here. He’d know the right thing to say.

Her thoughts are interrupted when a figure passes her on her left. It’s sudden. She doesn’t anticipate it and she doesn’t hear anyone approach, mostly because her thoughts are so loud and there’s thunder starting to rumble through the sky.

“Fuck,” she gasps, hand clutching her chest as the stranger passes her.

He’s running, but he slows his jog after she voices her alarm.

He turns around, taking in Amelia’s startled expression.

“Oh, sorry!” His own surprised guise shifts quickly to one of concern, though.

“Are you okay?” He asks, voice raised to compensate for the rain as he calls out to her.

Amelia nods.

“You just scared me, is all,” she shrugs.

He looks her up and down, but Amelia doesn’t even feel scrutinized by it.

He steps towards her. And Amelia finds her voice.

“Out for a run?” She’s surprised by her own curiosity.

He shakes his head as he approaches. “I was walking back from the library,” he points to the sky, in an obvious gesture. “And then it started raining….and I started running….”

Amelia feels a smile break across her face, the dimpled kind. Because there’s something about the way he looks up at the sky while he explains himself, that amuses her.

He turns to her, and he has a wide grin on his face as he catches his breath from running. Not wide in the way that he’s smiling hugely, or anything. But Amelia can tell that his typical smile just happens to stretch that far. It makes her own smile further.

“You heading to north hall?”

Amelia nods.

“I live there, too!” He exclaims. “Food sucks but we have the biggest closets out of all the dorms on the entire campus.”

Amelia raises her eyebrows at this.

“Am I….bothering you?” His grin quickly fades. “God, I didn’t mean to just start….walking with you. Sorry, shit. You must think I’m some sort of-”

“You can walk with me,” she bites down on another smile. Because it’s the most she’s smiled in weeks and it feels foreign to her. “It’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” she peeks sideways at him. “As long as we don’t have to start running,” she adds with a laugh.

His smile returns. And they keep waking. The rain starts to die down a bit, but Amelia questions whether she’s imagined that. She can see the rain. And maybe she can hear it, too. But she can’t really feel it. Her focus has shifted.

“I’m Amelia, by the way.”

“Amelia?” He repeats her name, and there’s a spark of interest in his inflection, like he’s really doing his best to store that information.

She nods.

They reach north hall. The rain has come to a complete halt, and Amelia thinks it would almost feel sunny, if the sun hadn’t already set.

“It’s nice to meet you, Amelia. I’m Link.”

_______

#amelia shepherd #derek shepherd #atticus lincoln #amelink #i feel like. this might have potential for a pt 2 but WHO KNOWS #amelink fanfic #amelinkfic #amelia x link #amelia x derek #greys anatomy fanfic #greys anatomy fic #grey's anatomy fanfic #grey's anatomy fic #my writing #amelinkfanfiction #grey’s anatomy #grey’s abc

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kissinginkitchens · 4 years ago

Text

You Bring Me Home—Chapter Five: Like Real People Do

a/n: hellooo and welcome to the next part of ybmh!! i am sooooo excited about this next chapter (and upcoming chapters😏 ). Thank you again for all of your kind words and wonderful feedback! It's always so much fun to hear from you all, so as always, feel free to come chat in my inbox once you've finished this next part. I have a feeling there will be much to discuss👀 Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing, allusions to sexual content, mentions of drowning

Word Count: 5.6k

read parts one, two, three, and four

“I’m not going,” Alani says finally, discarding the outfit in her hands onto a pile on her bed. The clock reads 7:55 pm, only five minutes before she was supposed to be at the studio. She still hadn’t selected an outfit, but her hair and makeup were still relatively intact from her shift at the café.

“You have to!” Pua whines. “You told him you would!”

“Then I’ll tell him I’m sick or something—food poisoning. Period cramps, maybe,”

She begins placing the clothes on hangers to put back in her closet, but her sister reaches for her wrists to stop her.

“You’re just nervous,” Pua says calmly, getting eye level with her older sister. “But you’ll regret it if you don’t go,”

“Go where?” a woman’s voice calls from the door frame. Their mother, Estrella, peeks her head through the cracked door.

“To a party with a cute boy,” Pua explains.

Alani shoots an icy glare at her sister before turning back to her mom. “It’s not a party. I’m working on a piece about a local musician and he’s recording some music tonight and said I could go. You know, to write about it,”

Estrella nods, not convinced. “So why don’t you wanna to go?”

“Because they almost kissed—”

“Pua!”

“Hey, hey,” Estrella cuts in. “Mija, you’re twenty-two years old, I don’t expect you to stay single forever. If you want to go out and see a cute boy, you don’t need to lie about it,”

“But I’m not lying,” Alani defends. “It’s just… complicated, and I’m trying to be professional about it.”

Estrella steps away from the doorframe and envelops her daughter in a hug. “Sometimes, you just have to do what feels right and hope for the best,”

Alani is grateful for the piece of wisdom from her mother, feeling a small weight lifted off her shoulders.

“But if I were you,” her mom continues. “I would wear the black strappy dress with those wedges.”

********

8:10. Harry checks his phone for the third time in one minute, growing more disappointed each time the same three numbers stare back at him, almost mocking. He doesn’t feel any better when the time reads 8:11.

“Can I interest you in a piña colada?” Mitch pipes up, sauntering over with a glass in each hand.

The choice of drink seemed perfect when Harry had suggested it earlier in the day, but he deeply regrets it now. Despite the tightening at the back of his throat, Harry accepts the drink and chooses to nurse it in a different corner of the room. A part of him feels guilty for being such a buzzkill around his friends these days, and he wishes more than anything that he could just enjoy living in this moment with them. Being away from Alani had produced a strange feeling in him similar to the sickness experienced when leaving home on a long vacation; Harry didn’t know exactly how to cure it, but he hoped that lots of alcohol would do the trick.

When the clock reads 8:20, he accepts that she isn’t coming and decides to make the best of a shitty situation. He drains another piña colada and joins his friends who are huddled around various instruments and sound equipment. A few more of Harry’s writer and producer friends had joined the trip temporarily, and he’s grateful, now more than ever, for their presence—it distracts him from the overwhelming emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Jeff hands Harry a microphone and some headphones while Mitch plugs a white electric guitar into the amp. The guitarist begins with some chords that the crew has been messing around with for the past couple of days: an upbeat riff reminiscent of some of Harry’s favorite 70s rock pieces. His head is spinning mildly, but he uses the feeling as inspiration. He pinches his eyes shut and tries to let the lyrics flow, but the only words coming out are “she’s driving me crazy”, so he starts with that. The group also runs with it, adding a few yells and lyrics of their own. The song isn’t coherent in the slightest, filled mostly with laughter and choppy melodies, but it’s the best Harry has felt all night. He traded the piña coladas for a glass of tequila fit snugly in the palm of his hand, and true to Mitch’s word, the giggles emerge. At one point, he shouts the words “I’m havin’ your baby”, which makes zero sense to anyone in the room, including him, but they decide that it sounds cool and keep it going.

“It’s none of your business!” Mitch calls back, voice raised in his best soprano to mimic that of a woman. The shoddy attempt makes Harry laugh even harder and his hand clutches his stomach.

They continue on for what feels like hours, but in reality has only been forty-five minutes. At 9:05, Jeff Azoff heads outside to catch his breath and cool down. As he takes a seat on the steps, a yellow Ford Bronco pulls into the lot and Alani steps out once it's parked. She emerges in a black dress that falls mid thigh and a baby pink leather jacket, making her way nervously up the steps.

“Alani,” Jeff greets warmly with cheeks flushed. “Welcome. Party’s inside.”

She shoots him a grateful smile and reaches for the studio door, slipping inside cautiously. The music had been audible a mile down the road, but it’s even more overwhelming inside. Standing on a small coffee table in the center of the room is Harry with an arm draped around a shorter man wearing a black and white Adidas shirt. His dimples are on full display and his warbled words carry over the speakers to attack her from all sides. She recognizes Mitch hunched over a guitar and Jeff Bhasker spinning in an office chair, but she can’t put names to the other faces lingering around Harry. Alani feels extremely out of place, not knowing where she belongs in all of the chaos—it all seems to her like a living Jackson Pollock painting that she can’t look away from. In the middle of his off-key rendition of Wannabe by the Spice Girls, Harry’s eyes land on Alani and his smile grows ten times wider. He puts one foot in front of the other, completely disregarding the small size of the table, but he catches himself just as Alani lunges forward to help him. This results in their two bodies pressed flush against one another, the coolness of her leather jacket versus the warmth of his intoxication.

“You made it,” he slurs.

Alani takes a small step back and clears her throat. “Yeah. Sorry I’m late,”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it,” Harry shrugs, his eyes lighting up when he remembers something. “There’s piña coladas! In the kitchen,”

The fact that he remembered such a detail from their previous conversations and made an effort to incorporate it into this night makes her cheeks warm.

“Okay, cool. Thanks,”

Harry scans her appearance and his stomach flutters.

“Y’look really pretty,” he offers. Alani can tell that it takes every ounce of effort to do so.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, voice small.

“Wanna get some fresh air?”

“Yes, please.”

The two of them slip out through a side door and into the backyard, stopping just before the pier. Alani doesn’t know how much of these next moments Harry will remember in the morning, which makes her feel a little more confident to share what she’s truly thinking.

“Harry, I—”

“God, you’re so pretty,” he interrupts, running a hand through his hair.

Her cheeks heat up, but she pushes past the feeling. “And you’re drunk,”

“Yeah, true. But you’re still pretty. Always think so,”

Alani searches his eyes, which are sleepy and bloodshot, but there isn’t a trace of insincerity. In this moment, she also feels the overwhelming urge to be honest—about the butterflies in her stomach that only set flight when he’s around, and the way she constantly wonders what his lips would feel like against hers. But there’s an intensity behind Harry’s gaze, despite his intoxicate state, that stops her.

“You’re making this so hard,” Alani laughs lightly, more to herself than him.

“‘M sorry,” he offers. “Don’t mean to,”

She smiles at Harry’s completely innocent reply, not knowing what to do with all of the pent up affection she has for him. A part of her simply wants to scream in his face to stop being so goddamn endearing. Instead, Alani turns on her heel to put some space between them, but stops when she feels a warm hand tug at her fingers.

“Why d’you always do that?” Harry asks, his expression a little more sober.

Alani takes a deep breath. “Do what?”

“Pull away when I get close. Did it in the car that one time. And the other time at the beach,”

There’s a beat of silence where Alani isn’t sure how to respond, but before she does, Harry releases her fingers and takes a step back.

“Wait, that was stupid. ‘M sorry if I did anything—”

“No,” Alani interrupts, taking a step closer. “You haven’t done anything wrong,”

“So why?”

She releases a breath and swallows. “I don’t know,”

It isn’t the answer Harry is looking for, but he accepts it with a slow nod. Suddenly feeling the need to flee, he takes a step onto the railing of the pier and Alani’s heart rate speeds up.

“What’re you doing?”

“S’hard to tell,” he shrugs before letting himself fall into the water below.

“Harry!” she screams, heaving over the edge of the railing to find him. The drop, unbeknownst to her, is only six feet and he’s done it many times before.

After a few seconds, Alani sees him reemerge at the surface, shaking his wet hair out. There’s a small strip of sand along the shore below, so she bolts down the stairs to meet him at the bottom.

“What the fuck?!” She cries, panic welling in the brim of her eyes. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” he deadpans.

“You could’ve hurt yourself,” Alani croaks, her limbs shaking. “You—you could’ve—”

Harry reaches out to comfort her but she steps back.

“I gotta go,”

“Alani,” he says gently, but she doesn’t respond. “Alani, wait!”

She walks briskly back to the front lot, Harry close behind.

“Alani, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t follow me.” she orders.

Her words are like a dagger through his chest, but he respects her wishes and stops dead in his tracks. Harry stands soaking wet under the moonlight, feeling helpless as he watches Alani disappear into the darkness.

********

She wakes the next morning with puffy eyes and a heavy heart, still wearing the same black dress from the night before. The warm water of a morning bath eases some of the tension in her muscles, but she knows it will take a lot more to soothe the tightness in her chest.

Why do you always do that?

Do what?

Pull away.

Their conversation from the night before lingers like a nasty bruise in Alani’s mind, but she senses a bit of harsh truth in Harry’s words. She did have a bad habit of walking away when things got hard, especially concerning matters of the heart. Her instincts were all flight and no fight, so even if Alani had stayed, she isn’t sure how she would’ve explained her reasons for panicking. How do I gently pepper in the whole almost dying thing? she wonders, a lump forming at the back of her throat. Alani was only eight years-old when she nearly drowned, and though almost fourteen years had passed since then, she still vividly remembers the helplessness of sinking further under the strong tide. On nights after a particularly stressful day, Alani’s sleep is often disturbed by the sensation of her lungs slowly filling with water only to wake up drenched in sweat and clutching the sheets. She had worked hard for several years after the incident to overcome her fear of the ocean, but a part of her still couldn’t shed the debilitating need for caution. After all, it was easier to avoid the water altogether than to wade in blindly and get sucked under. Watching Harry sink into the unknown stirred the same sense of panic that Alani had felt all those years ago and threatened to undo her progress, but she quickly realized that it was the idea of losing him that had sent her into flight mode. She imagines the hollowness she would feel at the sight of waterfalls and the scent of vanilla; piña coladas—the drink and the song—tainted in her memory forever. The thought of Harry's absence was all too much to bear, but it’s how she knew that his presence must mean something. He meant something, and she couldn’t let him go.She ends her bath quickly and sifts through the first pair of clothes she can find. Suddenly none of it mattered: what she wore, how she looked, Rolling Stone—nothing but him. Alani thinks back to her mother’s words: sometimes you just have to do what feels right and hope for the best. All she needed to do was see him and the words would find themselves. The sky is overcast when she steps outside, so she quickly puts the top on Stevie and pulls out into the road, deciding to make one quick pit-stop before setting off to find him.

********

Harry’s head pounds and he feels as if the sun has been set to maximum brightness. His clothes reek of saltwater, his skin feels like sandpaper, and his mouth is the Sahara desert. None of this compares, however, to the sense of impending doom that settles in when the memories of the night before, particularly those of Alani, resurface. I’m so fucked, he groans. Harry doesn’t quite remember every detail, but he remembers enough; he remembers how pretty she looked, and reminding her of it. He feels the temporary warmth of her fingers and the coolness of her jacket pressed against his chest. There’s a bit of fuzziness between the Spice Girls and piña coladas, but then Harry remembers crashing through water and his memory gets clearer. He fucked up. He had upset Alani in some way and although he doesn’t quite know how, he knows that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it. Harry sits up suddenly and the whole room spins, but he makes an effort to stand anyway. Need to see Alani, he thinks with determination, I just need to see Alani.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Mitch comments from the kitchen table, nursing a cup of coffee.

“What time is it?” Harry croaks.

Mitch takes a sip of coffee and checks his phone. “10:30,”

“And last night was…”

“The party?” Mitch fills in the gaps. “Yeah,”

Harry rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and takes a seat at the table. “Did...did you see Alani?”

“No. I don’t think anyone did, actually. Did you?”

“Yeah,”

“So… I’m assuming it didn’t go well?”

Harry’s throat tightens and he hopes that she at least got home safely. He can’t bear to think about anything bad happening to her on his watch.

“No,” he confirms with a sigh. “No it didn’t,”

“Are you gonna go talk to her?” Mitch prods.

“Dunno if I should. She was pretty pissed,”

Mitch thinks for a second, taking another sip of coffee. “What would Noah Calhoun do?”

Under normal circumstances, Harry would be very amused by his friend’s reference to The Notebook, but right now he’s too focused on making things right with Alani. He devises a plan of action and stands.

“On a scale of one to ten,” he starts. “How shitty do I look?”

Mitch scans his best friend over, head tilting from side to side as he considers the question. “About a 7.5.”

“Good enough.”

Harry swipes the keys to the Cadillac off the counter and slips his feet into a pair of beat up vans before heading out the door.

********

The restaurant is fairly empty, as far as Alani can tell from the back. The kitchen staff are gathered in the break room for the time being, which allows her to tiptoe around unnoticed as she grabs the necessary ingredients for her peace offering to Harry. She hurries out through the employee entrance as soon as it’s complete and the key is already turning in her car’s lock when she hears a voice over her shoulder, calling her name.

“David?” she responds, turning to face the brawny man leaning against the car that is parked beside hers.

“Hey,” he starts, offering a flash of pearly white teeth. “I know I’m not supposed to be back here, but I just wanted to talk to you,”

Alani swallows, the icy chill of the drink in her hands reminding her of what needs to be done.

“You know, now’s not really a gr—”

“I haven't stopped thinking about you,” David interrupts, taking a step closer. “Since the other day when you stopped by. I mean, I think about you all the time but…” he trails off and Alani waits awkwardly for him to finish his ill-timed confession. David takes another step towards her and rests his forearm against the hood of her car, practically boxing her in with no escape route.

“We were really great together, don’t you think?” he asks, scanning her face with his prying eyes. “I don’t even remember why we broke things off,”

Alani’s brow furrows, her mind failing to come up with a logical explanation for this very sudden and uncomfortable conversation. She hadn’t lied when she told Harry that David wasn’t her ex, but she hadn’t been entirely honest, either. They had started hooking up during her senior year of high school—mostly because he was the star swimmer on their team that all the other girls fawned over, and despite all the attention, he had wanted her. It made her feel momentarily special, though she knew he wasn’t the boyfriend type. “Just a bit of fun” is what they called it, and the arrangement worked out well until Alani’s freshman year of college when she realized that there was an entire world of opportunities waiting beyond the confines of high school. A world that had brought her Harry, who was probably going to leave just as soon as he’d arrived if she didn’t make amends quickly.

“No,” Alani says decisively, nudging his arm away. “We weren’t ‘great’ together, we weren’t even good for each other,”

“Alani-”

“We were really young,” she continues. “And we did what we did, but that’s all in the past-”

“If you would just give me a chance-”

“I didn’t even know what I wanted for myself back then, let alone what I wanted out of a partner. But I do now,”

She doesn’t have to say Harry’s name, but they’re both thinking it. David steps back, arms crossed, and though he had always been somewhat intimidating, he looks small standing before her now.

“It’s because of that British guy, isn’t it?” he asks, despite the feeling that he already knows the answer.

Alani lets out a light laugh but she doesn’t confirm his suspicions. “We have nothing in common, David. We want different things out of life, you’ll see,”

“And he,” David continues, an accusatory tone on the word “he”. “Wants everything you do?”

She thinks for a moment, her heart pounding as she considers what Harry’s response will be to her confession. “I hope so.”

********

Harry had considered going to Alani’s house first, but he wasn’t sure who else would be home and didn’t particularly want his first interaction with her parents to occur whilst hungover. Sitting parked on the back road behind the café, however, he wishes that he had stopped there first to save him the painful sight ahead. Harry recognizes the other man from the restaurant he had taken Alani to the first time they had hung out, a name that started with the letter “D," though probably not the one flashing angrily in his mind. His arm is draped comfortably along the roof of her car, their bodies inches apart in what appears to be a very intimate moment. While he still can’t remember the exact details of his actions that had upset Alani so much, he fits this piece into the puzzle and it becomes much more clear. She has a boyfriend, and no amount of apologies could reconcile this fact, however tempted Harry may be to try. The word “boyfriend” sits uncomfortably in his mind, but it suddenly puts everything else into perspective. It explains why she fled his car so quickly when his wandering eyes had hinted their desire for her kiss—both times. He could have sworn that it would have happened had her phone not interrupted them the second time, but perhaps it had all been a trick of the rose-colored light. The sudden realization makes Harry feel sick, and a bit foolish, so he speeds off before he can be spotted.

He drives aimlessly for a while, mind still racing with the image of the other man’s depraved hands on Alani’s soft skin. The uneasiness boiling in the pit of his stomach is pathetic—he’s well aware—but he can’t stop himself from wondering why not me? It’s a selfish thought, but it eats at him, nonetheless. It should have been me. But the reality is that it wasn’t him, and it never would be. Despite any feelings he’d had that Alani was the one for him, he was not the one for her, and it’s a fact he must learn to live with. If this thought were a rock, he’d turn it over in his fingers until they bled.

********

Alani pulls up to the studio hesitantly and waits a beat before making her way up the stairs. She knocks twice, but there’s no answer, so she presses her ear to the door in search of any sound. Silence. There’s no trace of the cars Harry usually drives when she wanders to the back lot, either, so she figures that he must not be here. Alani racks her brain for other possible locations, but it’s a dead end. She doesn’t know what hotel or house he could be staying at, and her heart begins to race at the idea that he might not even be in Hawaii anymore. For all she knows, he could be on a return flight to L.A. or London, gone forever with the same instructions she had left him: don’t follow me. Alani lifts her phone with trembling fingers and searches Harry’s name, pressing the phone to her ear and praying like she had never prayed before. It rings three times before she’s sent to voicemail. The sound of his voice on the recording brings temporary relief, but it’s gone as soon as the message ends and she is prompted to respond. She clears her throat gently and speaks as if he is at the other end waiting to hear the right words and pick up.

“Hi, it’s Alani,” she starts slowly. “I, uh…. I’m at the studio. I don’t think you’re here though,”

She walks in small circles around the backyard and lets her eyes roam to the pier where it all went wrong. It sends a pang of guilt through her spine, but it fuels her next words.

“Listen, I really wanna talk—about last night. I shouldn’t have left, I know that now. It wasn’t you, it was me, and I know that sounds cliché but it’s true,”

Alani swallows down the emotion bubbling at the back of her throat and wishes that she could just see him, face to face, one last time. There’s so much more she needs to say, but it’s a conversation she doesn’t want to have with his answering machine.

“Please just call me when you get this. I wanna explain everything if you’ll let me.”

She hangs up and nearly throws her phone into the ocean. Though her trauma response wasn’t completely in her control and it isn’t something she should feel guilty about, she wishes she had been able to explain. Alani hadn’t always been comfortable sharing that part of her life, but there was a security in Harry’s presence that made her feel okay to do so. She wanted to share everything with him, the good and the bad, but she needed to find him first.

Only twenty minutes had elapsed at the studio when Alani decides to head out; there was still no word from Harry and she needed to be anywhere else beside the site of their potential last meeting. She drives with no particular place in mind, the windows rolled down to let in the chilly, overcast air. It isn’t until she’s halfway in the opposite direction that she gets the urge to visit one other location. There’s an extremely small chance that Harry will be there, but she goes less in search of him and more for her own personal wallowing.

When Alani pulls up to the lookout where the two of them had spotted the rainbow, there is another car already parked: a pink Cadillac. The sight makes her entire body freeze.

“Harry?” a small voice calls behind him. He almost thinks that he had hallucinated it until he reluctantly turns his head and sees a timid Alani emerging from her car. A million emotions run through his mind at once, starting with confusion and elation and ultimately ending in grief.

“Hey,” he responds, weakly, still leaning against the hood of the Cadillac.

Alani slowly makes her way over, not entirely sure that he’s actually there. Once she gets closer, however, she can smell the faint scent of vanilla and her chest swells.

“I left you a voicemail,” is all she can say.

Harry’s brow furrows as he tries to remember any phone calls, but he suddenly figures that in all of his rush to see her, he had forgotten to grab it from his bed.

“Left my phone at the house,” he offers.

There’s a brief silence where the two of them size each other up, weighing their own motives against what they assume to be the other person’s. Harry speaks first.

“Alani, ‘m really sorry,” he says gently, stepping away from the car and towards her. “I know I fucked up—”

“Harry—”

“But I understand now,” he continues. “I know why you were upset,”

Confusion settles into Alani’s body and she wonders how he could possibly know about her accident. Or if he didn’t know, what else he could be referring to. She doesn’t have to guess for long because Harry continues despite her silence.

“I saw you with him—your boyfriend, I mean. Derek?” he explains. “But not in a creepy way I just.. wanted to talk. Bad timing,”

“Wait,” Alani cuts in, her brain finally sorting out the pieces. “You saw me and David..today?”

Harry feels as if the knife in his chest has been twisted further at the mention of the other man’s name, but he nods. An uncontrollable bubble of laughter finds its way up Alani’s throat, and the sound would typically bring butterflies to his stomach, but it only exacerbates the heartache.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Alani clarifies. “He’s delusional. And a huge pain in the ass, but I think he finally got the hint when I turned him down earlier,”

Harry’s ears perk up at the news, but he’s still wary.

“But you two were—”

“Ancient history,” Alani reassures him, taking another step closer. “He might as well be Socrates,”

A faint smile tugs at the corners of Harry’s lips and he feels a wave of relief wash over his body. The news is music to his ears, but he still wants to know what he had done to make her walk away that night.

“So you weren’t upset because you have a boyfriend and I tried to make a move?”

Alani takes a deep breath, knowing that she has avoided saying her piece long enough. Before she can start, though, a rumble of thunder interrupts her thoughts.

“Can we talk in Stevie? I don’t feel like standing in wet socks again,” she asks, which Harry obliges.

The two climb into the truck and settle in, the atmosphere quickly becoming more intimate than Alani had planned. His vanilla cologne has also become more perceptible in the confined space, and there’s a whiff of spearmint, most likely his gum, that briefly draws her attention to his mouth. She snaps her mind back to the conversation at hand and clears her throat.

“I’m sorry,” she begins, reading his eyes carefully. There’s a faint reassurance behind the emerald surface, so she continues. “For everything that happened last night. You did nothing wrong, please know that,”

Harry wishes he could reach out and comfort her, but he gets the feeling that whatever she’s about to say is important so he doesn’t want to dismiss it.

“It’s hard for me, sometimes, to be around the water,” Alani continues despite the prickling feeling in her eyes. “Because when I was eight years old, I almost drowned,”

The revelation hits Harry like a ton of bricks and all at once he understands. He hadn’t even thought twice about jumping into the water that night, so it didn’t occur to him to rule that out as a possible offense. He understands now that he couldn’t have been more mistaken.

“And I know that has nothing to do with you,” Alani explains, her voice wavering ever so slightly. “Except that it terrified me to think about, you know… if you hadn’t been so lucky,”

Her composure quickly cracks, a single tear spilling down her cheek before she wipes it away with the sleeve of her sweater. This time, Harry does reach a hand out and Alani accepts it gratefully; the warmth of his fingers are a welcome contrast to her icy appendages.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he murmurs as his thumb rubs small circles over the back of her hand.

“But I do,” she sniffles. “Because—”

Alani pauses, unsure of how to finish her thought. Just do what feels right and hope for the best.

“Because I care about you,” she says finally, noticing the way his Adam’s apple bobs at her words.

Harry's jaw tightens at her confession and every muscle in his body longs to bring her close, leaving no inch of space between them, but he lets her lead despite his instincts.

"But it’s also because I care about you that I can’t let this go any further,”

Alani’s words surprise herself just as much as they terrify Harry, but she knows that it’s the right thing to do as soon as it’s done.

“Alani—” Harry starts, all of his worst fears crashing down on him.

“Please, don’t make this harder—”

“Don’t I get a say?” he questions, tightening his grip on her hand, though she still manages to slip away.

Alani runs the free hand through her still damp waves and lets another tear roll down her cheek. “What is there left to say?”

“How about ‘I care about you, too’? How about ‘I want to be with you’?”

“It’s too messy—”

“Everyone has baggage,” Harry defends. “God knows I do, and I would never ask you to carry all of that,”

Alani lets her eyes meet his again; they’re bloodshot and glossy, which sends a pang of guilt and sorrow through her entire body.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she reasons, this time thinking not only about her own issues, but about everything—the lies she had told and the ambitions she was still nurturing. She hadn’t given up on her dreams and unless Rolling Stone had suddenly changed their mind about the Joni Mitchell piece, there was only one way she was going to achieve them. Alani hadn’t yet reconciled the fact that she would have to put aside her own feelings for Harry to get what she wanted, but she knew that time would heal the wounds.

“All I want,” he continues. “Is a chance. And I know nothing I do will ever change the past, but two hands make the load lighter. So, please, let me carry some of that with you. Give me a chance,”

As she studies the pleading in his eyes, something stirs deeply inside Alani’s chest. She had started the day thinking only of him, but with selfish intentions. Now, she was trying to do right by him, having realized that she couldn’t have both him and the story that would launch her career. Something would have to give, and Harry deserved more than that. He deserved more than her. Despite all of this awareness, there is something else nagging in the back of her mind that she can’t ignore. Don’t walk away, it screams. If Alani ignored her true feelings for Harry and refused his plea, she would be walking away from someone who believed in her, someone who cared deeply for, and wanted to understand, her. Perhaps the universe truly had brought Harry for a story, but to be a part of hers instead of the one she had been so eager to publish. There would be other chances, just like Dr. Hudson had said, but there would never be anyone else like Harry. So with this in mind, Alani decides to stop walking away and stand still, right in this very moment, with the boy who shined brighter than the sun itself and who had only asked for a chance to make her happy.

“Okay,” she breathes and it’s like the weight of the universe has been lifted from her shoulders.

Harry leans in, their foreheads pressed together gently, and cups her cheek in his hand.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispers.

Alani nods and nudges the tip of his nose with her own. “Please.”

Their lips meet like electrically charged magnets, with a force so natural and strong it sends bolts of electrons through their entire bodies. Harry’s mouth is warm and gentle against hers, and the coolness of his mint gum soothes the searing touch of his kiss. Alani’s fingers glide up his chest and along the sides of his neck, pulling him closer as if he’s the anchor keeping her from floating away into the dark clouds above them. Over and over again, their lips collide fervently, breaths mixing and filling each other’s lungs. Their hands eagerly explore the curves of each other’s faces, the softness of hair, and the occasional heat of exposed skin. Harry is the first to break the kiss, panting lightly as he pulls back to search Alani’s face.

“Y’okay?” he asks.

“Never been better.”

next chapter

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles fic #harry styles x oc #solo harry #one direction #ybmh

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haloud · 4 years ago

Text

things we could burn in one go (eminence) - chapter 6

also on ao3

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Isabel Evans & Max Evans & Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Forrest Long/Alex Manes Additional Tags: post-s2, Canon Compliant, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, starts forlex ends malex, other characters may appear - Freeform, tags subject to update

Chapter Summary: Alex comes home to find his world turned upside down; Max and Isobel struggle to save Michael’s life.

Excerpt:

How close did they come to that chest being stilled forever? The answer was clear, splashed rust-red across Michael’s clothes, and Alex couldn’t stand it, couldn’t reconcile it, couldn’t balance the equation made by Michael this morning and Michael here, now, this.

Alex stood sharp, with a purpose, stood over Michael whose eyes moved rapid behind his lids, Michael who flushed with life but hadn’t lived since being healed, Michael who could so easily be an illusion of hope, snatched away in a second, snuffed out. Jerkily, Alex shot out a hand, then yanked it back, checked over his shoulder for Max or Isobel or—anyone—like a kid with a hand in the cookie jar. A touch so innocuous, necessary, even; Michael shouldn’t be forced to rest with dirty clothes; but. Was he allowed? Was the universe watching?

His hands were heavy; purpose and gravity worked on them, yet with a weightless almost-faith they remembered the hill and valley of Michael’s chest, the texture and temperature of his skin, the cartography, topography of loving him and being loved.

Rain pounded the windshield, and pain pounded Alex’s head, from the back of his neck to behind his eyes. He huffed out short relief when he finally turned down his quiet street and settled back against his seat, no longer needing to squint through the panicked flutter of the windshield wipers at the too-bright lights of other cars as he coasted into his driveway. Parked, he rolled his shoulders back and stretched, heavy eyelids opening and shutting, brain ticking over slowly as it tried to marshal signals to his body to get him out of the car and to the door.

Exhaustion didn’t cover the way everything wore on him. Work, other people, the Project hanging over him like Damocles—how much longer could he hold Fields off without an answer before she took drastic action or moved on, maybe even called Flint in? He had a calendar in the drawer by his bed counting down the days to the end of his contract, hidden away so he didn’t have to explain himself when Forrest stayed over. Not that he relished everything about a return to civilian life, a life he’d never lived as an adult…

Even his loved ones wore on him sometimes. Guilt was another chain around his shoulders, from the way he’d ghosted Kyle for weeks, to shooting down offers from Maria to hang out, to letting his morning call with Liz this week slip from a real conversation to a perfunctory text confirmation that Arturo and Rosa were fine. On top of that, he still hadn’t texted Forrest since he landed, and now Alex was avoiding his phone, the tension of expectation he imagined on the other side of the line too much to bear.

And then there was Michael. Brilliant, stubborn Michael, who reminded him without meaning to how wide a gulf he still had to cross to regain his trust, the trust that Alex would always protect him, no matter what.

But—one day at a time. Hour by hour if he had to. Old advice from the counselor he saw after his injury, but no matter how high the papers piled up in his mental inbox (call your therapist), he hadn’t been able to get himself to book a new appointment with a new one, so he’d do what he could, and fall back on the somewhat insufficient tools he had in his outdated toolbox.

And one day at a time meant getting out of his car, carrying his groceries through the rain, and getting in the front door. Okay.

As he turned to leave the car, something moved in his peripheral vision, and he whipped his head around to chase it. Squinting through sheets of rain and twilight-gray haze, he could just make out a dark shape huddled beneath the overhang, but whether it was human, animal, or object, it was impossible to tell. Through the thundering static downpour, Buffy howled behind the door.

Moving slowly, he retrieved his combat knife from the glove box and cracked the door open. The rain rushed up from a rattle to a roar, loud enough to cover the scrape of his boots against concrete and brick as he crept toward the porch. He was soaked cold within moments, blinking water out of his eyes, still and smooth as a cat after decades of conditioning, every muscle locked to avoid tremor. The closer he got, the louder Buffy grew, barking and slamming herself against the door. A few feet closer, and the shape took form—human, definitely human, adult male by size, but whoever it was, they were slumped beside the door, not crouched, not lying in wait, so Alex lowered his knife.

Still creeping closer, he spoke up, “Hey! Do you need help—”

But before he could get out a single word more, the person lifted their head, and—

“Michael?”

Alex bounded forward the last few feet, dropping his knife with a splash, flinging himself to one knee beside Michael’s huddled form, grasping at his sopping clothes, seeking injury, something, anything.

“Michael, what’s wrong? What—”

He tipped his face up and his head lolled back; his breath rattled in his chest. The only color between his ashen face and rain-black hair was an ugly streak of red from the corner of his mouth across his cheek and chin, and a gust of wind blew the storm against them, washing his blood pink, and then it was gone.

“Michael!” Alex repeated, more urgently, frantically. How did this happen? Who could have done this? Alex’s mind shot straight to his own earlier question—how long would Fields let him go without answering. Was this his answer? Tripp’s dog tags hung leaden around his neck. He could choke on them, on the cold tin symbol of his own inaction, even now.

“Max is already on his way,” Michael said, voice breathy and labored, then laughed, a bizarre and throaty caricature of his normal laugh, and his elbow bent robotically to let him tap his temple. “Called him.”

“Why didn’t you go straight to him so he could heal you? Michael? Michael!”

But he was gone; his eyes rolled back to whites, and he slumped strings-cut so Alex almost dove to catch him in his arms; his hand fell from his head to the brick patio and struck the ground with the force of gravity, skinning his knuckles.

It took seconds for Alex to process his shock—seconds Michael might not have to waste, but nonetheless--the rain had his hands slipping on his skin, so Alex held on tighter, clutching Michael’s head to his chest, curling his body around him on the most animal instinct to shield, shelter, protect.

Despite the cold downpour, Michael’s skin was feverish, his breathing bad and worsening, his pulse fast and weak. Bracing his weight on his good leg, Alex pulled Michael over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and stood and unlocked the door.

Buffy’s barking stopped as it swung open; she scrambled around Alex’s feet, pawing at his legs, herding him inside, sniffing at Michael’s fingertips that dangled inches from the ground. Panting, Alex hauled him to the couch and set him down.

Inside, out of the rain, Michael somehow looked worse. His entire front was soaked with blood along with rain; he stank of it, all copper and salt, and bile rose in Alex’s throat. He held his breath and grabbed a towel.

“Gonna ruin your stuff,” Michael rasped. “Gonna ruin…”

Milliseconds before pressing call to figure out how far away Max was, Alex dropped his phone from numb fingers as Michael—there was no word for it, for a second, a heartbeat, Alex lost all faith in his own eyes—as Michael blurred and disappeared and blurred and reappeared a few feet away, whining like a shot doe.

“What the f—Michael!”

“Alex!” Max’s voice bellowed. A fist pounded on the door, shaking the entire frame.

“It’s open!” Alex called back, dropping to the ground beside Michael again and lifting his head into his lap. “Michael,” his voice broke as Max threw the door open. “Michael, what happened? What’s happening?”

His only answer was a babble, words Alex couldn’t understand, words that doubled, tripled in on themselves, moved backwards to forwards and slid out of Alex’s mind the second he heard them, alien, unknowable.

“Michael!” The word wrenched out of Max’s mouth. Buffy paced behind him, whining, letting out a single loud, anxious bark that went unanswered as all the energy in the room funneled toward Michael.

“Hey—[][][][][][][],” Michael said, a horrible, gasping laugh rattling out of his chest.

As the words left his mouth, he groaned and curled in on himself, choking, splattering himself with more blood as it bubbled up between his teeth; then Alex had to strain to hold him still as his back snapped into an arch. Light flashed, then flashed again, and Alex’s logical mind wanted to call it lightning but—but it wasn’t. It came from inside Michael, as all the strength left his muscles and he collapsed, again, limp against Alex. He was so feverishly hot, even for him.

“What the fuck,” Alex whispered. His mind came up blank for anything else to say; his hands tightened, one hand’s nails digging into his bicep, a fistful of bloody shirt in his other. Michael tipped his head to the side, nodding against Alex’s chest.

“Alex,” he croaked.

“I’m here.” To Max, he repeated, “What the fuck? I saw him just a few hours ago, what the hell happened?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Max said, reaching out to grab him.

Alex’s hands tightened more, on pure instinct, clutching Michael to his body, but then he forced himself to let him go, to let Max lay hands on him.

Max continued, “I heard him in my head, like he screamed in my ear, and I just—knew he’d be here, somehow. It’s not normal, it’s not—we never hear Michael, he’s always closed off. I don’t know what happened.”

As he spoke, his hands wandered over Michael, across the bloodstains on his chest and neck. His brow furrowed; he moved as if on autopilot, until his hands found purchase on Michael’s temples, and he closed his eyes. Softly, his hands began to glow, and Alex held his breath.

If Max couldn’t fix him…

No. He wouldn’t even entertain the thought for a second, not when his body still tingled with the sense memory of Michael’s living heat. He couldn’t die; it went against nature.

Max grunted, and his exertion pulled Alex back down to earth. He couldn’t do anything for Michael that Max couldn’t right now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be helpful. Levering himself to his feet, he headed for the bathroom, Buffy following, barking anxiously. Wrenching open the medicine cabinet, he downed two Tylenol dry to head off the pain in his leg and hip he knew was coming, then from under the sink he snatched a fresh bottle of acetone and marched back to the den.

There, it was something out of a horror movie, rain lashing the windows, lit only by the artificial twilight of an afternoon storm, Michael spread out, skin grey, blood red, Max hunched over him looking half as sick, and Alex thrust the bottle at him.

“Drink,” he ordered, and as Max obeyed, guzzling the acetone, gasping between gulps, Alex returned to where he belonged—at Michael’s other side, holding on to him as if their bodies touching would be enough to keep his spirit tethered to this world—the only world—that is, the world they shared together, rendering all others that may exist utterly meaningless.

As nightmarish a scene as they made, Alex let out a sigh of relief when he clutched Michael’s wrist and felt his pulse strengthen. His eyes moved rapidly under his lids; his breathing was regular.

“It’s working,” Alex said, voice croaking out through a thickened throat.

“I hope,” Max groaned. “His mind is like—it’s like an animal fighting back. I need Isobel, I called her, but I’m afraid if she went in we’d lose her too. I can’t think—” his eyes met Alex’s, terrified. “It has to be Jones. Jones did something, I can’t think of anything else that might have done this.”

Alex could. But he seized on the opportunity to have an enemy he could exact answers from, one that didn’t lie at his own front door.

Absentmindedly, searching for soothing and knowing on a base level where it lived, Alex ran his fingers through Michael’s rain-soaked, sweat-soaked hair, stroking it away from his forehead. Blood was drying in rivulets now on Michael’s face and neck, and Alex followed the path of one with the tip of his finger, from the corner of his eye down his cheek.

How close had he come to losing him? If he’d been stuck in traffic, if he’d stopped for coffee on the way home, would it have been too late?

No. No thinking like that now. Stay in the moment.

“What do you need?” he asked Max, who finished off the acetone and tossed the bottle aside, reaching for Michael again.

“I think I won’t know until Michael wakes up again. If he does. If not…Isobel will be here soon.”

“When you heal, can you feel what it is you’re healing? Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

“Sort of?” Max’s hands began to glow again. “I’m healing burst blood vessels—all over his body. Internal scarring, almost like burns, it’s—bizarre.” He shuddered. “What I can feel from his head is separate, and I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

Michael shivered in Alex’s arms as Max placed his hands on his head again and filled his body with light, and Alex kept his eyes on Max, watching for any sign he was hitting his limit.

“How’s your heart?” He asked, though the concern flowed bitter and false over his tongue. Even at his coldest, most calculating, he wouldn’t bring himself to sacrifice Max outright, but if Max had to give his life to save Michael’s, would Alex truly stop him?

“I’ll live,” Max replied through gritted teeth.

Over by the door, Buffy rattled off a series of barks, getting louder and louder until the door slammed open. Alex flinched at the sound, hand flying to where his gun would be if he was wearing it, even though he knew with near-certainty who it would be.

“Where is he?” Isobel shouted, red-faced and panting as she rounded the corner into the living room, Buffy jumping and barking at her heels. “Michael!”

“Iz!”

The glow from Max’s hands faded, and he struggled almost to his feet, but Isobel was there before he stood fully, folding him into the hug he was trying to give her. Then Isobel reached for Michael, shoving Alex aside so she could cling to her brother, and Alex went.

She made a strangled noise when he was in her arms, limp and lifeless even after all Max’s effort.

“I’ll get more acetone. Maybe he’ll drink some,” Alex said, using the couch to pull himself to his feet.

Isobel continued to ignore him, but Max grabbed Alex’s wrist and said a quiet thank you as Alex left the siblings alone.

The bathroom door snicked closed behind Alex before he turned the light on, and in the dark he breathed in deep and deliberate until his lungs no longer caught on every inhale against his aching ribs, his galloping heart. He white-knuckled the sides of the sink to keep himself upright until the shaking stopped.

And when he checked all his welds and seams and found himself still watertight, he turned the light on, met his own eyes in the mirror, just once, and got back to business, grabbing the rest of the eight-pack of acetone.

Before he opened the door, his phone buzzed, and he flicked it open. It was a text from Forrest.

Hey! Just got back to the hotel after dinner. Having a great time so far…but I keep thinking I’d have more fun with you here. How’s my girl doing? And how’s my man?

Alex’s thumb hovered over the keyboard for a few seconds, lips pressed together, head blank of anything to say. Then, a lump in his throat, he shut it down without replying, and headed back to Michael and the Evanses.

He breathed a little easier when he re-entered the room and was met with a different scene than before. Max and Isobel had Michael laid out on the couch—and Alex’s mind flashed back to the way Michael had disappeared and reappeared and what the fuck was that?—and he rested more peacefully than he had before. Color was coming back to his skin.

Isobel sat on the arm of the couch, stroking Michael’s hair off his forehead, while Max sat on the floor at the other end, back against the couch.

“Thank you, Alex,” Isobel said, acknowledging him for the first time.

Alex acknowledged her back with a nod, as Buffy paced from the couch to the door and back again a few times, finally settling with a whuff against Max, resting her head on his thigh, looking up at him with huge, soft eyes.

“Hey girl,” he said softly, petting her ears.

“How is he?” Alex asked.

“Alive. Sleeping.” Isobel ran her hand across his forehead again. “We’ll see where his mind is when he wakes up.”

Alex sat on the piano bench, folding his hands between his knees. “Max kept saying he’d never felt anything like this before. Can you describe it to me?”

She groaned and rubbed her temples, and Max nudged a bottle of acetone closer to her. “It’s almost like interference, but not. There’s nothing in there that isn’t Michael; he’s not possessed. But it’s like Michael’s been repeated. A thousand different Michaels all shouting at once. He’s quieter now. But…I don’t know.”

Watching Michael’s face, approaching peaceful in an unconsciousness Alex was too fearful to be fooled by, Alex spoke slowly, uncertainly.

“When you discovered you could use telekinesis alongside your other powers, what was that like? Was it spontaneous, or…?”

“Not really? Noah said that we all had the potential for much more than we imagined, and—after—I was so angry, I thought, if Michael can use his anger this way, why not me?” She shrugged an elegant shoulder. “So I wouldn’t call it spontaneous. I could always have done it, I just never thought to, until I did. Like knowing how to swim and learning a new stroke. I was clumsy at it at first, but I was just doing something I already knew how to do in a different way.”

“Hm.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Before you both got here, Michael was…”

“He called me. Like your psychic scream, Isobel, except he’s never done that before. And he kept emitting light. While I was healing him,” Max said, looking up at Isobel. “Flashes of light. Not electricity.”

“And before you got here, he—teleported. Only word for it. Something none of you have ever done.”

“What?”

Isobel grabbed Michael’s shoulder tightly, like he might disappear right in front of her, like she could stop him. Max just shook his head silently. He really did look awful, eyes red, dark bruises beneath them, a shakiness to him that hadn’t been there last time Alex saw him, some random Thursday when he brought marshmallows to Michael’s because he’d never actually had a smore that wasn’t made in the microwave. Maybe his condition came down to the rigors of saving someone’s life with your own, but considering how worried Michael had been for weeks, Alex thought not.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, dragging his hands over his face. “None of us know. We’re just talking in circles.”

“I guess we just have to wait for Michael to tell us,” Max said.

“Or we go beat it out of that bearded f—”

“No, Isobel.”

“You can’t keep defending him.” Her voice went high and loud, zero to a hundred. “Look what he’s done! He almost killed Michael, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m not defending him!” Max shot back, wounded. “I’m telling you not to go running off on some half-cocked vengeance scheme when Michael still needs you here! If he’s lost inside his own head somehow, there’s no one who can help him but you. We’ll deal with Jones later, when we know Michael is safe.”

Isobel growled but capitulated.

Not letting any ugly silence settle, Alex got up and said, “I’ll put some coffee on.”

They watched over Michael for all the rest of that evening and into the night, as the storm quieted and the sun set and Michael’s hair dried into a familiar halo of curls. At some point, Isobel brought Alex’s groceries in, half-ruined, and Max made dinner with whatever could be salvaged. While they worked, Alex sat with Michael in a chair pulled up to the couch where he lay, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest.

They started slowly. He eased up the hem of Michael’s ruined t-shirt with a pinch of fabric, without touching his body at all; he inched it up his back where it rested against the couch, until he ran out of room to work with cloth alone. The shirt bunched around his underarms.

Alex had no choice but to touch, so he did.

His hand still fit the circumference of Michael’s arm, and he lifted it. Michael moved without resistance, idle art in living warmth, velvet skin, liquid veins. Alex moved as if he was as delicate as glass. The second arm was no easier; Alex worked just as tenderly, every inch of his skin lit up with sensation. Leave no trace, like Michael’s body was some untouched scrap of woodland in Alex’s brief custody rather than the sweetly historied path toward home. But that was where Alex was right now, what time and choice made of them.

He pulled the shirt over Michael’s head, and it came away easy in his hands, and he went to his bedroom to get a new one.

The whole thing took less than a minute.

Michael slept on.

“Any change?” Max asked softly, handing Alex a plate of the dinner he’d already forgotten about. Buffy followed him from the kitchen, but she didn’t go after the food, opting for her bed beside the piano, where she continued to watch Max with adoring eyes. He didn’t comment on Michael’s shirt, for which Alex was pathetically grateful. In the kitchen, the water ran as Isobel did the dishes.

“No. Can…you sense any change? Through your bond, or through a handprint?”

“No. Maybe? When I first got here, he took up so much space, metaphorically, psychically, that it was almost hard to breathe. He feels more like himself now. Like he fits inside his body. So that’s probably good.”

“Probably,” Alex agreed.

The water shut off, and Isobel appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “I’m going in,” she said flatly.

“What?” Max asked.

“His head. I’m going in. I need to see what he’s seeing; to try and pull him out. This?” she waved a hand at Michael. “Isn’t normal. Liz died and she wasn’t out this long. I’m going in to get our brother back.”

Take me with you? Alex almost said it, almost begged, as much a violation of trust as it would be to walk Michael’s mind uninvited. But as Max healed his body, as Isobel healed his mind, Alex was helpless to do anything, and he never wore helplessness well. It clawed its way out of him. It destroyed things if he failed to catch it in time.

But he held its leash tight, for now, and gave Isobel an equally tight nod.

“What do you need?”

“Space. No interruptions. It seems like you’ve got enough acetone”—five bottles were still left at the foot of the couch—“so I just need time.”

“You can have the guest bedroom,” Alex agreed.

He and Max carried Michael between them, sharing his weight. Some rearing and needy part of Alex wanted to do the work himself, bundle Michael in his arms and hold him close, but he’d already carried him once today, and Tylenol only went so far. Once he was situated on the bed, Max went to get acetone and water for Isobel.

Weak in the legs, Alex sat beside Michael’s head, never taking his eyes off him. He couldn’t; he wouldn’t. And neither was it a possibility for him to reach out and touch his hair, his forehead, his cheek, so he only watched.

In the door, Isobel cleared her throat. She held both liquids—Max had put them in different-colored cups—and set them on the bedside table before sitting on Michael’s other side.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Alex said, but made no move to go.

After a few seconds, Isobel made a frustrated noise and tossed her hair. “Whatever. You can stay.”

“I—really?”

“It’ll be boring, and if it freaks you out, you can’t interrupt. But yeah.” Alex opened his mouth to respond, but Isobel just held up a hand. “I don’t pretend to understand your weird alien soulmate bullshit. Yours or Max and Liz’s. And I don’t really care what your deal is with Forrest Long, but if you mess my brother around, I’ll end you.”

“I’m not—”

“Again, don’t care. I just know…” she softened. “…I just know how much you mean to Michael. So you can stay.”

Alex swallowed, the lump in his throat too big for him to answer with words, so he nodded, and Isobel nodded back.

“Okay. Starting now.”

Her eyes slipped closed as she lifted Michael’s hand and pressed it between both her own.

The world didn’t change; no power within Alex’s senses rippled between the two of them. Isobel wasn’t wrong to call it boring, as even the uncertain anxiety of what was transpiring in Michael’s head couldn’t keep his attention from wandering. Half an hour in, Max came into the room to stand beside the bed as well, and he clapped a hand on Alex’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, an attempt that reassured neither of them. But it was a brother’s touch, and that meant something.

In that room, throughout that silent ordeal, they were family. Alex was part of that family. It was a feeling he had no room on the shelves for; it fit in none of his boxes. He could barely comprehend it, so it sat in the center of the floor, and for a few hours, everything rearranged itself neatly around the new centerpiece of his world, like it was meant to be there all along.

The night deepened on, pain and exhaustion graying Alex’s vision. Discretion and strategy overtaking his determination, he was close to calling it quits and attempting a few hours of sleep when Isobel surfaced, bone white and nose bleeding as Max scrambled to hand her the acetone.

“Did it—”

Max didn’t even finish the sentence before, with a drowning, sucking gasp, Michael followed her out. Alex shouted, elation, shock, fear, everything, as Michael coughed and coughed until a clot of blood dislodged from his throat, guzzling the water that Alex passed him. His bloodshot eyes met Alex’s over the rim of the glass, confused and shocked, and Alex just nodded, trying to say without words everything that…just everything.

Everything.

On Michael’s other side, Isobel was laughing, breathless and triumphant.

“I’m going to kill you! I’m going to fucking kill you,” she wheezed, throwing herself into Michael’s arms.

Michael’s eyes fell shut as he rested his head against hers. “I know,” he rasped in return, but his lips pulled into a smile anyway. “I know.”

“Michael,” Max said weakly.

And Michael replied, “I know.”

Max rounded the bed to fold the both of them into a hug. Alex might have even joined them, if he wasn’t—he realized only now—shaking too badly to move. But in the midst of all the sensory overload, the misfiring nerves electrifying his helpless flesh, one sensation rang true.

Alex’s hands rested on the bed, stiff and motionless, until one of Michael’s crossed that untouched skin, light at first then more firmly, finger atop finger, knuckle nestled into soft palm, and Michael held his hand and gave it a squeeze, and Alex squeezed him back.

#malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #malex #roswell new mexico #rnm fic #max evans #isobel evans #my fic

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much-obliged-timothy · 4 years ago

Text

Dad Tim & Uncle Rhys Part 6

I have been incredibly stressed out lately and writing soft things helps, so expect more of these. Also, my inbox is always open for requests! You can find part one of this here. I might do a master post for these shorts soon just to keep them organized and easy to find in order!

The door to Rhys’ office opened. He looked up, having expected Tim for a morning meeting to go over some reports. What he didn’t expect was for Tim to come in basically dragging Phoenix with him.

Rhys had never seen the two have a serious argument before. Phoenix tended to worship his father, clinging to him affectionately most of the time. Plus, he seemed to be a pretty quiet kid for the most part, not argumentative or aggressive.

But today, he glared at Tim with a fierce expression, mouth twisted in a snarl. Tim looked just as mad, though he didn’t look down at Phoenix as he gripped his hand and pulled him along.

“Lemme go!” Phoenix said, trying to yank his hand away.

Tim didn’t obey. Instead, he pulled Phoenix to a stop and crouched in front of him, pointing a stern finger in his face.

“Not another word out of you until this meeting is over,” he said, voice low and angry. “Not one damn word, Phoenix. You’re going to sit where you usually do and- I don’t know, play or read or something.”

“I dunno how to read!” He was trying to yank his hand free again.

“Then look at the pictures or draw or something! Just sit down and be quiet!” Tim said. “I worked for Handsome Jack so I’d like to think I’m a patient man, but you are on my last freakin’ nerve and it’s only the morning, kid. Go sit.”

Phoenix finally had his hand free. He balled up his little fists, glaring hard at Tim.

“Hit me and I’m making you stay home tomorrow while I go to work,” Tim warned.

Phoenix’s face paled a little. He slowly unclenched his fists and instead stomped his way over to the corner he usually played in, dropping down with his tattered Hyperion bear and glaring at the wall.

“Uh- rough morning?” Rhys said.

“From the damn minute I woke up he was in a bad mood and fighting with me,” Tim said, sitting down and rubbing his temples. “Kinda made me see why Jack locked his kid up far away from himself.”

“Tim!” Rhys said. “That’s horrible!”

“Yea, I know.” Tim sighed. “Sorry, sorry. He doesn’t usually get like this so I’m, uh, not great at the whole discipline thing. Took everything in me not to call his mother and beg her to come, I dunno, put him in time out or something. It doesn’t help that every time I get mad, I sound exactly like Jack did when he’d threaten me and I freaking scare myself.”

Rhys couldn’t argue with that. Tim scared the hell out of him when he got angry during meetings, the Jack tone slipping out.

“Can we just- work?” Tim said. “I’m going to die of a stress induced stroke at this rate. I need to focus on something other than my moody kid.”

“Right, work. I can do work,” Rhys said, hastily pulling out the reports.

They began to sort through them, trying to organize them by urgency. Rhys frowned as he shifted through them.

“Dammit, that financial report on the parts we ordered is gone,” he said.

“I’ll grab it,” Tim said, getting up. “They probably forgot to drop it off again. They always do.”

Phoenix’s head snapped up as Tim headed for the door. He started to rise, but Tim shot him a look.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to be a little asshole to me all day and then act like you want to be around me. You stay right there and don’t cause any trouble,” Tim said, yanking the door open and leaving the office.

Phoenix sat down, tears pooling in his eyes. Rhys felt alarmed at the sight.

“Is he gonna come back?” Phoenix asked, his voice cracking.

“Of course he is!” Rhys assured hurriedly. “He just went to grab something.”

“He’s not gonna leave me?” Phoenix said, hugging his bear tightly.

“No. He better not,” Rhys said. A tear leaked down Phoenix’s cheek. “That was a joke! No, no, he’s not leaving you. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I yelled at him,” Phoenix said, holding the bear up so he could bury his face against it. “What if he doesn’t come back? What if he doesn’t like me no more?”

“A-Anymore,” Rhys said awkwardly. “Not, um, not ‘no more’. Right, bad time for this. Oh, boy, I wish I offered to go grab that report instead.” He cleared his throat. “Tim is coming back, Phoenix.”

Phoenix lifted his head, but only to watch the door. He got up, pacing more anxiously than usual.

When Tim finally did return, Phoenix stiffened, getting defensive instead of looking relieved. Tim only glanced at him before dropping the report on the desk and sitting back down.

“You didn’t say how long you were gonna go for,” Phoenix accused.

“Didn’t think you’d care,” Tim said. “You’ve hated me all morning. Figured you’d be glad for the break.”

Phoenix snatched a book off the shelf he was by, throwing it at Tim’s head as hard as he could. “Stupid asshole!”

The book struck Tim and he let out a hiss, though Rhys couldn’t tell if the noise was in surprise or pain. He stood up, whipping around.

“You little-” he snarled.

Phoenix scrambled back into the corner, trembling. Tim turned away from him, raking his hands through his hair and grinding his teeth together.

“I am not going to hurt you,” he said, his voice tense. “I will never hurt you. But I’m going to leave this room before I say something I regret, I am going to get the strongest coffee I can fucking find, and I am going to take my time coming back while I think of some way to punish you for doing that.”

He moved for the door. Phoenix, still trembling, pushed himself away from the corner, eyes wide as he reached out a hand.

“Dad!” he said.

Tim shut the door.

Phoenix sat down, hugging his knees to his chest and pressing his face against them as he began to cry. He always cried silently, never the loud sobs of other kids Rhys had been around.

“He’s not comin’ back!” Phoenix managed around his silent sobs. “He’s gonna leave me here!”

Rhys wondered when his office had become the home of Lawrence family drama. He bit his lip, but he felt bad seeing the kid cry so hard.

“He’s coming back. You did throw a book at his head. He’s just mad,” Rhys said.

“He was gone!” Phoenix said, picking his head up and wiping at his eyes. Rhys struggled to understand him, his voice choked with tears. “I woke up and he was gone and- and- I thought he wasn’t comin’ back and-”

“Alright, slow down,” Rhys said, turning his chair to face Phoenix and leaning forward. “What do you mean he was gone?”

“Last night!” Phoenix said. “I woke up and he was gone. I had a bad dream and he wasn’t there!”

Rhys knew Phoenix slept in Tim’s bed, his separation anxiety too severe to spend a night away from Tim. As far as Rhys knew, Phoenix tended to follow Tim wherever he went, even at home.

“Did he...come back?” Rhys said.

Phoenix nodded, wiping at his eyes. “But not for a long time.”

“Well, he’ll come back now, too. And if he doesn’t come back in twenty minutes, we’ll go look for him,” Rhys said, more because he didn’t know what to do with a distraught child.

Phoenix was crying again, putting his face back against his knees. Oh, jeez, the kid really thought his dad had just abandoned him for good.

“Phoenix,” Rhys said, getting up and crouching next to him. “Tim’s coming back.”

Phoenix slowly lifted his head. His eyes were big and scared, that sliver of blue standing out more than usual.

Rhys sighed heavily and opened his arms. “Alright, alright. But just this once.”

Phoenix sniffled and reached a hand out to Rhys, giving him a one-armed hug. He pressed his face into Rhys’ shoulder as Rhys hugged him back.

Rhys sat next to him for a while until Tim finally came back. Phoenix shrank back as Tim entered the room, coffee in hand.

“I decided that- Well, no, I didn’t decide, I actually called your mom, but- Whatever, you have to weed the garden when we get home. She thinks it’ll help you let out your anger and punish you at the same time. And if you throw another damn book at my head, I’m taking away all your books at home,” Tim said, setting his coffee on the desk.

“You have a garden?” Rhys said, then shook his head. Not the point here. “Tim, he said he woke up and you were gone.”

“Huh?” Tim said. “When? You were up before me this morning.”

Phoenix averted his eyes. “Last night. I woke up and you were gone for a really long time.”

Tim furrowed his brow before understanding lit his face. “I didn’t leave you, Phoenix. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went downstairs to get some work done until I was tired. I was just trying not to wake you up.”

“I had a bad dream,” Phoenix whispered, eyes watering. “Pretty Boy killed you. And I woke up and you weren’t there!”

“Pretty Boy?” Rhys said in confusion.

Tim scrubbed a hand down his face. “The fucker who cost me my hand. He spent a long time hunting me down, and he finally caught me.”

Tim came over to them. Phoenix shrank back as Tim crouched in front of him.

“So you dreamed I was killed, and then you woke up and you couldn’t find me,” he said slowly. He closed his eyes, muttered “Shit”, and opened them. “And when I left and didn’t tell you when I’d come back, it scared you, didn’t it? That's why you got mad at me.”

“It- There was too much and I-” Phoenix began to cry again, closing his eyes as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Yea, I know, I know,” Tim said, reaching out and putting a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. When Phoenix didn’t flinch away, he pulled the boy into his lap and rocked with him. “I know. It’s okay. It’s called being overwhelmed. I feel it too sometimes.”

“Please don’t hate me, daddy,” Phoenix whimpered.

Tim looked torn. Rhys had never heard Phoenix call his parents mommy or daddy before, and apparently Tim wasn’t used to it either. It made Phoenix seem that much younger, clutching his father and crying into his chest.

“I could never hate you. I hate that you threw a book at my head, and if you ever do that again you’ll spend the rest of your life pulling weeds from the garden. But I could never hate you,” Tim said, hugging him tightly and kissing his head. “You got overwhelmed. It happens. You need to tell me when you’re...when it’s too much. Okay? You need to tell me. Then we can avoid all this.”

“Um…” Rhys knew he shouldn’t, but he felt it needed to be pointed out. “You weren’t exactly being mature, either.”

“Hey! I-” Tim groaned. “Yea, no, I wasn’t. That’s on me. Still getting used to being a parent with responsibilities. I’m sorry I was an asshole, Phoenix.”

Phoenix gripped Tim’s shoulder and pulled himself up to kiss the side of Tim’s head, where the book had hit. “Sorry I threw a book at your head. Do you hate me?”

“I just said I didn’t, and I never will,” Tim said, pulling him back down. “Hey, it’s really just karma. I used to drive my mom crazy when I was your age. I’d do some stupid kid thing, she’d yell at me, I’d cry, and she’d apologize later and say she was trying her best. I get it now.”

Phoenix wiped at his eyes and rested his head on Tim’s chest, gripping his shirt again. “You can’t die, dad. Ever.”

“I don’t know about ‘ever’, but I’m doing my best, pal,” Tim said, running a hand through Phoenix’s messy hair. “Pretty Boy’s dead, and good riddance to the bastard. You don’t have to be afraid of him hurting me anymore.”

Phoenix reached out, taking Tim’s cybernetic hand. His eyes watered again, even as Tim curled his fake fingers over Phoenix’s hand.

“He, ah, he saw me while they were treating me after I lost my hand,” Tim explained to Rhys. “I had to cut it off to save the casino and everyone on it from an emergency protocol. When the adrenaline wore off I didn’t...really handle it as well as I probably could’ve. In my defense, it hurt like a bitch, and I was at imminent risk of infection.”

Rhys waved his own cybernetic arm. “Not quite the same circumstances, but I get it.”

“Rhys? Thank you,” Tim said quietly, hugging Phoenix tighter to himself. “I’m not exactly great at this. If you hadn’t talked to him, I probably would’ve kept being an asshole and making it worse. I should’ve thought to talk to him, but he was so combative this morning that I just gave up on that and went right to being a dick to my own kid.”

“O-Oh, it was nothing,” Rhys said. “You know, I’m just, um, I’m just used to mediating during meetings and stuff.”

Tim smiled at him, small and genuine. “Sure, Rhys. Thanks for caring about him.”

He stood up with Phoenix in his arms, kissing him again. Rhys got up and awkwardly pat Phoenix on the back.

“You look tired. Want to take a nap on the chair there while we do our work?” Tim said.

“Can I…” Phoenix trailed off and clung tighter to Tim.

“Sure,” Tim said, smiling at him. “I do love to have my boy with me.”

Phoenix’s expression brightened, and he threw his arms around Tim’s neck. “I love you, dad. I won’t throw books at you no more. Anymore.” He peeked at Rhys.

Rhys laughed. “Yea. No throwing books anymore.”

“I’m glad to hear it, and so is my headache,” Tim said, sitting down and rubbing Phoenix’s back with one hand, lifting a report with his free one.

Phoenix fell asleep, nestled against Tim’s chest. Rhys couldn’t help but smile a little at the two of them, proud he could help reconcile them, and a little panicked at how close to them he’d grown.

But as Tim laughed quietly at poor wording in a report, trying not to jostle Phoenix too much, Rhys shook that panic from himself. Maybe getting dragged into the Lawrence family wasn’t so bad, especially when he could help these two traumatized people be a little happier in the world and with each other.

#borderlands #timothy lawrence #borderlands rhys #dad tim & uncle rhys #borderlands au #My writing

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sapphicscullyy · 5 years ago

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Doctor’s Care

73. “You don’t have to stay.” 91. “Can I hold your hand?”

Thank you so much for the prompts @stellaxxgibson, and for your patience. I’m pretty sure it’s been sitting in my inbox for at least two months. This can also be read for your convenience on ao3.

Tagging @today-in-fic

+++

The monotone room looked as though it was being viewed through black and white film; there was no colour except for a yellow sticky note placed on the desk covered in doctor’s scrawl. It was impossible to determine whether that sun had set since they had been there; a timeless void contained within four walls. The air was filled with the sterile smell that Mulder had long ago associated with hospital trips just like this one.

The chair he was sitting on was covered in a grey material that seemed to have the ability to make his skin itch through the fabric of his pants. Mulder shifted in his seat, nursing his left arm in his lap, unable to relax. The prospect of being treated by any medical professional other than Scully unnerved him. She, on the other hand, seemed perfectly content in the situation, sitting unmoving in the scratchy chair beside his.

“Scully,” his voice was whiney, dragging out the syllables of her name. “Why couldn’t you have fixed it? Doesn’t it just need to be popped back into place?”

“I said before, Mulder, I suspect that you’ve dislocated it.” She twisted in the seat to look at him. “And if I’m right, there’s a chance that there may be fragments of bone which I can’t fix. Especially without taking an x-ray first.” She paused, then a small smile appeared on her face. “Besides, you forget I deal mainly with dead bodies; they can’t feel pain.”

Mulder huffed a laugh, then grimaced as the movement caused a sting of pain in his shoulder. Scully’s half-smile faded, revealing the worry hidden behind her cool facade, and she added quietly, “I didn’t want to make it any worse.”

He was about to respond, make a quip about her dead patients to make her smile again, when the doctor walked into the room carrying a folder.

“Hi,” he said, too cheerfully for Mulder’s liking, “I’m Dr Brennan. You must be Fox Mulder. And you’re here for a suspected dislocated shoulder.” Mulder nodded, unsure if the doctor was asking him or telling him. He turned to Scully for help, almost feeling like a little kid again, silently asking her to take over. It was just easier, she knew how to talk with doctors, he didn’t.

“Yes, the joint is swollen and painful and he’s having trouble moving it. Some bruising has also appeared on the skin.” She spoke as though he was not in the room, a level of detachment that only doctors are able to achieve, but her eyes betrayed her concern for him when she met his gaze.

“And you are?” There was no malice in the doctor’s voice.

“Dana Scully, I’m a medical doctor,” she paused, “and his partner.”

Dr Brennan nodded a few times before replying, “You’re most likely right, Dr Scully. I will have to take a quick look myself, though.” He indicated to Mulder. “Would you mind removing your shirt?”

The doctor turned around to grab something from his desk and Mulder raised his good hand and attempted to undo the first button. His fingers fumbled over his shirt, failing to slip the suddenly too-large button through the suddenly too-small hole. He sighed, closed his eyes in defeat, then turned to look at Scully, who had been watching his attempts out of the corner of her eye, and silently asked for her help.

She hid a smile behind her hair, but she couldn’t cover the blush that reached her ears as she stood in front of him and reached for his buttons. She made quick work of his shirt and he pulled his good arm out of the sleeve before she gently slid the other over her swollen shoulder. He winced when her fingers brushed his bruised skin and she whispered an apology.

Dr Brennan’s fingers were icy as he squeezed and prodded at his shoulder. Mulder winced occasionally when he hit a tender spot, and every time he did so, he could feel Scully tense beside him, as though she were ready to rip the doctor’s hands away. He attempted to shoot her some reassuring smiles, but they turned out as more grimace than smile.

After a few minutes of prodding, Dr Brennan pulled away. “I have to agree with you, Dr Scully,” he said, nodding to himself. “We just need to take a quick x-ray to ensure the bone hasn’t fragmented, although it’s unlikely.”

He could feel Scully’s patented ‘I-told-you-so’ look boring into the back of his head.

Mulder got up to follow Dr Brennan out of the room but paused at the door, turning back to look at her. “You don’t have to stay,” he said softly, “I’m a big boy, I can handle it.” He displayed his ‘big boy’ muscles for her with his functioning arm.

To his credit, Scully chuckled slightly before the smile slipped from her face, but her eyes remained warm. “I’m staying, Mulder. Of course, I’m staying.” Then her smile returned. “How else will I make sure you do exactly as the doctor says?”

He grinned at her and slipped through the door.

+++

Mulder reentered the room a few minutes later and joined Scully where she was sitting on the bed. He sat close and bumped her shoulder with his uninjured one. Her lips curved in a hint of a smile and she lightly bumped him back. They didn’t talk. They didn’t have to. They remained like that, silently pressed together, until Dr Bennan returned.

“I’ve got some good news,” he said as he entered, paying them no heed as they shifted apart on the bed, looking almost like guilty children. “There are no bone fragments in the wound, meaning it should be a clean fix and won’t require anaesthesia.”

“Shouldn’t that be considered bad news?” Mulder mumbled and Scully smirked.

The doctor continued, unfazed, though smiling faintly. “You will, however, have to wear a sling for a few weeks to aid recovery.” Mulder groaned loudly and this time both Scully and Dr Brennan laughed.

“I’m glad you find this entertaining,” he grumbled.

Dr Brennan informed him on what he was about to do, a procedure which entailed massaging his shoulder then popping it back in when he was least expecting it. The process would hurt less that way, apparently. Mulder still flinched when cold fingers landed on his shoulder once again, poking and prodding. He looked at Scully, giving her his best pout. She almost smiled.

“Can I hold your hand?” he asked, pretending that the gesture wasn’t simply for him, but for both of them. She didn’t answer him verbally, simply grasped his hand tightly in her own. She ran her thumb over his knuckles once and then squeezed. He squeezed back, then turned to Dr Brennan, tempted to ask why he was taking so long.

He heard it before he felt it. A resounding mixture between a pop and a crack that sounded around the room before the pain seared away almost any conscious thought. He cried out, but his voice stuck in his throat, refusing to escape past his lips. He gripped Scully’s hand, grateful for the anchor it provided. He faintly felt her running her thumb over his knuckles. Her voice murmuring in his ear became more and more clear as the pain faded.

“It’s okay,” she soothed, “it’s okay. It’s done now, it’s over.” He gasped and panted as breath returned to his lungs, loosening his vice grip on her hand only slightly.

“Can you try to move it for me?” Dr Brennan’s voice came through his haze. Mulder hesitantly rolled his shoulder, finding not only that he could move it, but that there was only a small amount of pain as he did so in comparison to previously.

Dr Brennan began to inform him of how he should care for his shoulder in the next few weeks while it was still healing, but he zoned out, knowing Scully would be listening to every word. He knew that she would make sure that he was doing exactly what the doctor ordered, that she would take care of him. He looked over at her and watched her nod along to whatever the other doctor was saying. Sometimes, he was struck by just how lucky he was to have a person like her in his life. She had saved him so many times and continued to do so every day. Her existence was his antidote to the poison of the world.

Suddenly, she was standing before him and nudging his leg with her knee, “Mulder.” He blinked, then stood, nodding his thanks to the doctor as he followed her out of the room. Scully paused to wait for him as he exited, and they walked side by side down the corridor.

“Mulder?” she asked innocently, though she already knew the answer. “Did you listen to anything Dr Brennan said about taking care of your shoulder?”

He tried his best to look sheepish. “No.”

The false guilt on his face didn’t fool her for a second.

She let out an exasperated sigh, but she was smiling. “I guess I’ll just have to make sure for myself that you’re following the doctor’s orders, won’t I?”

And, once again, he found himself grinning at her.

#and im back writing fic after two months #please enjoy and of course please tell me your emotions if you have any thank you #if youre wondering how mulder dislocated his shoulder: he was trying to break down a door #that was unlocked #yes scully laughed at him before she went into worry mode #my fic #xf fanfic #msr #the x files #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #yes i know the title is shit i spent hours trying to come up with something it wasnt working

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tehrevving · 6 years ago

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Hello, can I request topping/pegging Dante? I don’t think we get enough of sub!Dante. 💕

Damn yes you can oh my god pegging is my jaaaam. I’m so sorry this took so long and yes, I am absolutely still working through all the requests in my inbox.

Anyway, this one turned into way more dom/sub then just pegging but yolo.

Warnings for some pretty hardcore spanking, scratching, some blood and Dante being a fucking slut for taking it up the ass.

Dante was an annoyance on a good day; a sweet, lovable annoyance that knew exactly how to get under your skin. Normally it was all in the name of fun, it didn’t really bother you, but today was just on another fucking level. He had been a brat all day, whining when you’d asked him to do things and touching you inappropriately in the shop around the others. Normally that was just par for the course, but then he ate the last slice of pizza right off your plate, before you’d even had a bite of it and later, proceeded to throw you over his shoulder in front of everyone just to make a point. You’d had enough.

Dante knew exactly what he’d done from the tone of your voice when you had ordered him, very calmly to put you down. He’d stopped immediately, putting your feet back on the floor with an apologetic smile… accompanied by an attempt at a subtle wink and a slight gesture at the fairly large bulge at the front of his pants… It wasn’t subtle.

And now you’re in the basement, with a magically-for-once quiet Dante kneeling on the floor in front of you. It’s a ridiculous sight, even with his head lowered he has an imposing presence, and almost comes up to your shoulders. He has his hands on his thighs, resting either side of the large tent in his pants while he waits for your instructions.

You call his name and he tilts his head to look up at you, pupils already dilated. You know that he’s into it, that he’s a crazy masochist at heart, but sometimes his intensity startles you.

“You know why we’re here today, don’t you Dante?”

He nods, “I acted up.”

“That’s right.” His face lights up as you praise him. You step closer and put your hand underneath his chin, he shivers at the contact. “I’ll admit that I am partly to blame. It has been a while since you were appropriately disciplined. It’s no surprise you started acting up.”

He nods eagerly.

“Well Pet. For your punishment today. I am going to start with the paddle and then, once your skin is all pretty and red, I’m going to fuck your lovely, abused ass with my demon cock. That’s what you deserve, isn’t it Pet?

Dante is far too busy moaning and bucking his hips up against the air to answer you.

You backhand him across the cheek, snapping a loud, “answer me Pet.” His head doesn’t even move with your action.

He shakes his head slightly to recover, “yes Master. That’s exactly what I deserve,” he answers eagerly.

“If you continue to act up during your punishment, then I will use any other toys that I see fit.”

He nods.

You soften your voice, “is that alright Love?” You still want his explicit consent.

“Yes.”

You reach forward and grab at his hair, pulling his head back until he’s straining to look up at you. His eyes almost roll back in his head from the pressure at the base of his skull. A deep rumble escapes from his chest as you speak, “what is your safe word?”

“Olives.” His voice is low and breathing heavy, eyes cloudy.

“And what are your colours?”

“Green for good. Red for stop.”

“Good Boy.” Dante preens under your praise and you sigh under your breath. It’s difficult to get into a scene sometimes. Normal BDSM rules don’t apply when your partner is an invincible half-devil and an absolutely ridiculous masochist. He’s never said his safeword before, never even said a colour that wasn’t green. The rules, the mutual trust and consent is important to you and you know he appreciates it, even if he doesn’t quite understand your concern.

“Strip and get on the bed while I prepare,” you order him and you start to turn around to get to the dresser.

You know that Dante has super speed, but it’s still a shock to your senses when he decides to use it. He’s a literal blur as he discards all of his clothing and kneels on the makeshift bed in the centre of the room. His thick, hard cock is still bobbing from his movements as his long hair falls in his face. You shake your head, concerned that he’s so worked up, this scene probably won’t last very long.

It didn’t take long for the two of you to work out that Dante was far too strong, and far too into blood and pain for you to do this sort of thing in the bedroom. He had snapped a bed frame in half without even trying, as well as staining the sheets beyond repair. You had compromised, dragging a slightly padded, plastic covered table in the centre of the basement. It does the job.

“Behave.” You reprimand him and then turn to make your way to the dresser. You take out the large paddle, made out of demonic enhanced iron, because it’s not like you can actually hurt him with your meager strength. You also take out your harness and the ridiculous dildo that fits in it. It’s insane, something you found online that you’re sure was supposed to be a joke. It’s the same size as Dante’s triggered cock, thick and solid with only a small amount of bend and give. It’s long and heavily ridged, a deep crimson in colour. You’re pretty sure a normal human probably wouldn’t be able to take it.

You put the harness on, but don’t fit the dildo into it yet. It’s too heavy and unwieldy. You turn back and put everything down on the table beside the bed. Dante’s eyes follow you the whole time, shining red with lust.

You sit down on the edge of the bed and snap your fingers, “over my knee Pet.” He eagerly complies, draping his large body over your own. It’s a little bit silly, but you’re both used to it by now. He supports himself on his arms while his leaking cock nestles into your lap.

You spank him a few times with your palm and he pretends to jolt at the pressure. You can’t be too rough, you’d just end up breaking your hand, but you do enjoy the motions anyway. His skin doesn’t even go slightly red from your attention and you wish that you were able to mark him with your bare hands.

It’s only a few slaps until your hand starts to ache and you reach over to grab at Dante’s hair when you’re finished. You pull on it so tightly that a human would flinch, but you can’t even pull Dante’s head up, he has to do it for you. He rests suspended in your grip while he moans and bucks his hips against your lap.

“Face down. Ass up,” you order, smacking his ass a final time to send him off. He’s already in position by the time you pick up the paddle from beside the bed.

You bang it on the side of the table a few times and the resounding clang echoes over and over through the room. Dante’s whole body shivers in anticipation.

“What’s your colour?” you ask him and his response is muffled into the bed. “So I can hear you Pet,” you order, and notice that he’s drooling as he turns his head to the side.

“Green,” he moans. Of course.

You grin, “right. We’re going to start with ten. Make sure you count every single one for me Pet.” You watch as he braces himself and leaks precome into a growing puddle underneath his hips.

You order him to breathe as you get into position and rear your arm back. You know he doesn’t need the heads up, that he can sense the minute changes in air pressure as you move, but it’s fun anyway. You decide to start with a decent pressure, not really intending to ease him into it, it is the first time he’s been punished in a while after all.

Dante’s body doesn’t even shift on the makeshift bed as you smash his ass with the iron paddle. A huge crack resounds through the room, followed by Dante moaning loudly and crying out as his cock gushes and pulses against the air. The pale skin of his ass immediately turns red and blisters, but you know the colour will face quickly.

You put the paddle down and walk over to him, yanking his limp head up by the hair. “Did I give you permission to come?” you snap.

Dante’s eyes roll back in his head.

“Answer me Pet,” you order, but by the time his eyes come back they’re almost totally black. Clouded over with lust and it’s obvious that Dante has slipped out of his mind for the moment.

You sigh and gently lower him back to the bed, pushing him so he’s lying on his side. You brush sweaty hair back from his forehead and coo his name softly until he begins to stir. This happens sometimes, when he’s too eager and works himself into a frenzy and then falls apart straight away.

It takes a minute or so for his eyes to regain focus and he slowly shakes his head to clear it as he looks up at you.

His voice is hoarse when he speaks, “it happened again.”

You press a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Yeah. Are you ok?”

He ponders your question for a moment, stretching on the bed. “I can keep going.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’m ok. Let’s keep going.”

You shake your head and he sighs. You know that he could go for more, but you’re not going to push it. You wouldn’t continue if he wasn’t enhanced, just because he has near infinite stamina, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to treat him with respect.

“We will resume your punishment tomorrow,” you say and then gently help him up. Preparing for a night of affection and aftercare.

-------------

The next day is better. Dante managed to take 30 hits from the paddle to make up for his insolence and your arm is absolutely aching. His ass is blistered and raw, you’ve never managed to get to thirty before and honestly, the sight is a little bit horrific. You’ve had to cuff him to the crude bed to keep him still as he far too eagerly begged for you to fuck his abused ass. He’s propped up on his forearms with his ass up, the cuffs on his wrists not really restraining him much, but with someone like him, you need every boost that you can.

You’re wearing a glove on your left hand, a spectacular instrument, a glove where each finger is tipped with a claw of demon iron. It scratches open deep red scores again his skin when dragged, and the claws of it are currently dug into the irritated meat of his ass to keep him still while you prepare. You’re lubing up the ridiculous demon dildo strapped into your harness. It’s so big that it almost throws off your centre of gravity and you hold on to Dante for support.

He begs for you not to prepare him, to take him raw. If he were human you would refuse that request, but because he’s not, because he’s such a fucking slut for pain and because you know that it wont actually hurt or damage him, you don’t. You use your claws to pull his ass up until he’s the right height for you.

He moans loudly, basically purring as you start to press the tip of the dildo against his rim. It slips slowly but surely past his tight, eager ring of muscle. You dig your claws harder against his skin as the head of your cock slips inside. He’s too eager and almost the second that the head has slipped fully inside he pushes back against you, taking the entire cock to the hilt with a yelp and a moan. You slap him across his bruised ass with your claws, you should punish him for that, but he’s already shaking and begging for you to be rough with him.

You put your gloved hand on his lower back, digging the claws in and pushing until he sinks down slightly. You have to be careful, he’s such a fucking slut for taking it up the ass that he’ll come within moments if you start hitting his prostate properly. Yeah, he can go multiple times, but he’s not adjusted around you yet, and the longer you make him wait, the more fun it is.

His handcuffs jiggle as he struggles against him, but he knows better than to break out of them. He tries to turn around to look at you, but it puts too much pressure on his stinging ass for him to get traction. His eyes are scrunched shut and he’s shaking as he tries to breathe through the pain.

You wait for him to adjust, dragging your claws down his back, watching as blood wells up from the deep scratches. He writhes underneath you.

You start to thrust, angling your hips so that you deliberately won’t hit his prostate, and he whines as you fuck him. He’s heavy, and it’s not that easy to control him, to thrust against him, but you do your best. You can tell once he finally adjusts to your size, his body almost completely relaxed around you, and you wish you could actually feel it from the inside.

You set yourself up with a good rhythm, timing your thrusts with the creaking of the table underneath you and the slight sound of his cock smacking against his belly. He cries out for you, begs for you to be rougher and harder. You’re physically at your limit, but you rake your claws down his back to sate his thirst for pain.

You adjust your angle slightly, hitting his prostate only once before returning to your previous rhythm. His body trembles against you, tightens around your cock so tightly that it’s difficult to thrust and he screams. He begs for you to do it again.

“Are you sure that’s what you want Pet?” you call out pretty loudly to be heard over the sounds of sex and Dante’s loud whimpering.

“Fuck. Yes.” he cries and you simply have to indulge him.

“I’m not going to stop when you come,” you tell him and in response he simply collapses his upper body down against the bed, burying his face into the pillows but only slightly muffling his cries.

You slow to a stop and then adjust your angle, lightly pressing up his prostate as he lets out a desperate, keening cry each time. You grin digging your claws deep into his skin for leverage and then tilting your fingers in to lock them in place against the slippery blood welling up against them.

You start thrusting again and Dante is incoherent. Even muffled against the pillow you’re sure the neighbours can hear him as you thrust, as you ram your strap-on into his prostate over and over again. It takes only a few rough thrusts before his yells turn to screams, before his body starts to tighten impossibly around you. There’s sweat and blood pouring from his back, dripping down onto the plastic sheeting underneath him and you don’t stop fucking him, even as his cock pulses against the air and his come turns the pooling blood a milky colour.

He doesn’t beg for you to stop, he only begs for more. Even when his whole body is shaking and the both of you have lost track of how many times he’s come. He’s so sensitive and his cock doesn’t stop throbbing and pulsing or coming, demonic stamina at his finest. When you reach down between his legs with your not covered hand to stroke him, his cock is soaking wet with fluid and you hear the handcuffs snap as his whole body tenses up. His cock throbs with such force that you can’t hold it still, but you do your best to stroke him through another orgasm.

That seems to do it for him as his knees give out and he falls to the bed. Crying out as the change in position stretches at his muscles and forcefully pulls your strap-on almost all the way out of him.

You take off your clawed glove and throw it to the side, slowly rubbing soothing circles across his hip as you pull the rest of the way out of him. You move and help him roll over onto his back, brushing his hair back from his face. His skin is flushed pink, breathing heavy and his eyes are dark and clouded over. His front is covered in blood and come and sweat and his head lolls to the side when you stop supporting it.

You hold him until his eyes regain focus, until he stretches out with joints popping and a hoarse groan escaping from his throat. “Damn,” he says and you smile.

You wait until he’s not feeling quite so overstimulated before you start cleaning him up, wiping him down gently. You’ll still have to share a shower later once he’s regained some strength in his limbs, but for now he can rest in your arms.

It won’t take long for him to fully recover, by the time you shower all of the bruises and cuts on his skin will have healed. He’ll most likely end up taking you against the shower wall, punishing you for pushing his body to the brink. Either that or he’ll be too exhausted and honestly you’d prefer it that way. You’ll end up lying on his chest, pleasuring yourself while he watches, feeling the deep purrs of pleasure from his chest while you tremble in his arms.

Either way, you smile, leaning down to kiss his forehead, to rub your cheek against his temple. Dante should be relaxing but instead he’s looking up at you with an absolutely predatory grin. He’s never fucking satisfied and as you start to help him sit up you can feel the air in the room shift and change. He’s a fucking insatiable demon, even after all of that and you just can’t wait.

#dmc #dante #dante sparda #dmcv #rev writes #my writing #Anonymous

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p4nkow · 6 years ago

Text

You take my breath away - part II

I’m enjoying writing this fic more than I should so here’s the second part! Of course please let me know what you think, I love reading your comments ☕️

Part I

As usual while reading this fic you need to pretend that Dominique was given much more space on the storyline, just like to the other love interests of the boys. Of course it is just fiction, even though I tried to make it as realistic as possible. I know it might seem a bit confusing so if you have any questions or if you’d like to let me know what you think of it just know that my DMs and Inbox are always open :)

Summary: reader has always dreamt of being an actress and she gets the chance of a lifetime when she’s cast as Dominique Beyrand in the infamous biopic about the legend himself, Freddie Mercury. But what will happen when she gets to know better the man who plays his love interest in the movie, Roger Taylor? Will Ben and Y/N’s story be as lucky as the one of characters they portray or will they be starcrossed lovers? Because it happens that things might get complicated because of Ellie, Ben’s long-term girlfriend.

Gif not mine so credit to the owner!

London - December 10th, 2017

To say that Ben was devastated was an understatement. The first week after the breakup had been the worst — he did nothing but focus on work, even a little too much. It was his way to get distracted. And add insult to injury: not only he had broken up with with his long-term girlfriend, but she’d also taken one of the most important things in this world to him — his beagle Frankie. That had crushed him.

During those days you’d gotten closer to him, even more than before. All the free nights in which you weren’t busy filming, he’d come to your trailer. Sometimes the two of you spent hours watching TV-shows on Netflix, sometimes you just talked until late nights.

“Does it tingle somewhere?” Clara — your costume assistant — took a step away from you to admire her work. You hadn’t only the chance to wear that amazing dress, whose brights colours put you in a good mood, but you were also wearing a fake pregnant belly! Back in the early 80s Dominique was pregnant with Felix and her belly was quite evident.

You shook your head ‘no’ to reply at her question and you moved your gaze from her to your reflection in the mirror. The sight of the fake pregnant belly on you made you smile — maybe one day it wouldn’t be just fake.

“You comfy in it?” You went back to looking at Clara by hearing her worried tone, smiling just to reassure her.

“Yeah, it fits”, You said with a small laugh. She quickly nodded and put away the needle she was holding. “It’s beautiful.”

Her cheeks slowly turned rose at your compliment and she smiled at you by giving you a look from above her shoulder. “It’s been made just for you.” And you wouldn’t get used to all that not even in a million years.

The album ‘News of the World’ was softly playing in the background as the two of you finalised the dress. You placed a hand on your fake belly and Clara gave you a look you couldn’t read when the door of the trailer swung open.

You heard loud laughters before hearing Ben say in his deep, hoarse voice “Yeah you probably shouldn’t have done that, mate.”

Both you and Clara turned towards him as soon as he entered the trailer. You were getting used to see him in his Roger clothes so you were a bit surprised when you noticed he was wearing a grey hoodie and black sweatpants. A burning cigarette was resting between his lips, which were a bit parted. He looked at you after closing the door behind him and raised a corner of his lips in a little smile when he noticed what you were wearing.

“No smoking in here!”, Clara immediately said and Ben was forced to move his gaze off you, but you’d already blushed because of the look in his eyes.

He quickly raised his brows as if he had suddenly remembered that rule, putting the cigarette out. “Sorry ma’am.” Then he walked towards you, standing right by your side. “Here’s my wife”, He murmured at you with a smile, looking at you through the mirror. His beautiful face lit up when he grinned at you before placing a quick kiss on your already rose cheek. The wife-thing was kinda of a joke between the two of you but you gained a confused look by Clara.

“What’ve you got there?”, You asked him by noticing the bag he was holding, trying to take the edge off.

He placed his keys on the desk right next to you and took a seat on the couch at your back, forcing you to turn around to look directly at him, immediately meeting his green eyes.

“I’ve been looking for you and Gwil told me you had a fitting.” He was literally sprawled in the sofa and for the first time in days he seemed relaxed. “So I went to grab something to eat.”

Right after finishing putting in order her things, Clara was about to walk out and leave the two of you alone, but then she turned towards you and said “Please, don’t get your dress dirty. I have no desire in struggling to wash away the mayonnaise.” You chuckled and after promising her you wouldn’t, you sat next to Ben and she left.

“Lunch then, huh?”

“Yup”, He replied without looking at you, starting to rummage in the bag before pulling out a sandwich.

You gave him a grateful smile while grabbing it. “And why aren’t we having lunch with the boys?” Not that you minded. At all.

But he misunderstood your tone and quickly looked at you with worry in his eyes. “Oh, ‘m sorry. I thought it might be a good idea being just—”

“Hey, hey, hey. Stop.” You placed a hand on his arm to catch his attention and to stop him from putting away the food. “It is a good idea. It really is, Ben. ‘m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like if I don’t appreciate it. I do, it’s perfect.” His eyes were fixed on yours while you were talking, desperately trying to convince him.

He cleared his throat and nodded, looking away from you. “I thought it might be a good idea to be just the two of us for a while.”

And you quickly nodded, smiling to reassure him. “It is, Ben. Now gimme that burger, I gotta eat for two by now, y’know”, You joked, placing a hand on your fake belly. He laughed, peeking out his tongue as usual while unwrapping his own sandwich.

It was hard for you to feel comfortable while wearing it and Ben noticed it. “You comfy?” He asked with his brows narrowed and you groaned in response so he chuckled and patted on his lap. “Place your legs here, love.”

You tried to ignore that nickname and you gave him a surprised look. He softly murmured “C’mon” and nodded as to confirm his proposal, so you did.

“Thanks”, You murmured while lowering your gaze to your sandwich, somehow managing to unwrap it. You could still feel his gaze on you and then, after taking a bite of his burger, he murmured in an amused tone “You still blush? After all this time?”

“Oh c’mon” You groaned. To be completely honest you hadn’t even noticed that your cheeks’d turned slightly red. “I’m not blushing.”

“Oh yeah, you are.” He softly laughed while grazing his bottom lip.

“Fuck off”, You replied while playfully pushing him away, causing him to laugh even harder.

“So”, He started after a few moments of silence. “You always wanted to be an actress?“

You slowly nodded while wiping away your mouth. “Yeah, but I also had a plan B.”

“Which was...?”

“Being an astronaut.” And Ben laughed. Hard. With a deep, sexy sound which made you feel things.

“Seriously? And how would you do that?”

“I swear! I always told my mum that if I didn’t succeed as an actress then I would’ve been an astronaut. And”, You said in an amused tone, trying not to burst into laughter because of the look in Ben’s face. “I was bloody sure I would be the one to take the first step on Mars.”

Ben peeked out his tongue while smiling, which was something he often did and to which you were getting used to. “You’ve always dreamt big, love.”

You felt shivers running down your spine when you felt his hand gently caress your bare knee. He seemed to notice the surprised look in your eyes but he didn’t move it away.

You gave him a thankful smile when he extended you the Coke. “I wanted to be a rugby player.”

“Really? What did stop you?”

He shrugged and slipped his hands through his hair — which was getting longer, you happily noticed — to drive it off his face. “Got a lot of injuries and I couldn’t play anymore. A friend of mine invited me to a drama club and the rest is history.”

And since that day you looked at him from a different light ‘cause when you raised your gaze to meet his, the things you felt by looking at his green eyes were completely new to you. And you were terrified.

London - December 15th, 2017

“One, two, three, four... year, now the hand.”

“Like that?”

It was your last day of shooting and Joe had insisted to teach you the BaB dance. You were a terrible dancer but God, you were having so much fun!

“Y/N is a better dancer than you, mate.” Joe gave Gwil a death stare, causing you to chuckle. The truth was, you couldn’t take Joe seriously when in his Live Aid look. That day you were filming some scenes pre-performance and it meant to finally have some scenes with the rest of the boys, too.

You winked at Gwilym while trying to imitate Joe’s moves, who said “We’re gonna talk about it when I’m gonna win Dancing with the stars.”

You bursted into laughter and Gwil shook his head in amusement. “In your dreams, maybe.”

“Okay, maybe I got it.” Joe gave you an excited look by hearing your words .

“Let’s film it, then! Gwil?”

“Yeah, mate”, He replied. You took your huge coat off and moved closer to Joe. Gwil was ready to film it, phone in hands and an amused look on his face.

And you nailed every move except for the last one — Joe was supposed to raise a leg and place it on your joined hands but you lost your balance and the two of you almost fell to the ground.

You heard Gwil laughing hard and the shocked look Joe’s face cracked you up, forcing you to sit on the ground while trying to take deep breaths between a laugh and the other.

“D’ya still think she’s better than me?”, Joe asked Gwil in an amused tone.

Breathless, you tried to apologise to him when your gaze fell on what was happening a few trailers away. Ben and Ellie were one right in front of the other and they were clearly arguing. Ben threw his arms in the air and Ellie’s ones were crossed on her chest, but she stomped her feet in anger.

“You okay?”, Gwil asked you, noticing you were still laying on the ground. You forced yourself to look away from them and you faked a smile, taking the hand Joe was extending you to get up.

“Yeah”, You murmured, adjusting the folds of your dress.

Joe was uploading the video on Instagram — fail included — when Ben joined you. He was clearly upset — his breath heavy and the veins on his hands were now more evident.

“‘s everything okay, mate?” He moved his gaze to Gwil by hearing his question and quickly nodded, murmuring a soft “Yeah.”

Joe looked at him first and then at you, so you insisted. “You sure?”

“Fucking hell, I said I’m fine!”

His harsh words made you blink in surprise and flinch. The anger in his face left place to regret, his features relaxing as he took a step towards you.

“Ben”, You heard Joe say as a warning while he started to say “Y/N, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

But you were too humiliated and hurt to hear his apologies, so you vaguely gestured towards the trailers and said “I’ll go look for Lucy.”

“Y/N.” His voice was now low and hoarse; he even tried to grab your wrist when you walked past him but you avoided his touch. He seemed hurt by your rejection and you heard him murmur “Fuck.” You were sure you heard the boys whisper something, too but you couldn’t catch their words.

You tried to hold back tears while you walked towards Lucy’s trailer and you spent most of the remaining free time you had before filming in her and Priya’s company.

Lucy noticed there was something wrong with you so you smiled to reassure her when you caught her staring at you.

Your phone buzzed when you got a new message and you knew who it was from even before reading the name of the contact: it was from Ben.

“I’m so, so sorry. Please talk to me”, It read.

Pointless to say that you ignored him for the rest of the day.

London - December 16th, 2017

It was a Saturday night and it was the day after your last day of shooting and your little spat with Ben, too.

All the cast members were heading home for the Christmas break but before doing so, you were spending a night together for a few drinks. You’d have loved to get ready for the night with Lucy, but she was more than busy with Rami. It pushed you to pick your outfit by yourself and that’s probably why it took you a whole afternoon.

You went for a red sweater with a black tartan skirt matched with black, hugh boots. And you spent at least 45 minutes to convince yourself to walk out from your flat.

Anxiety was eating you alive during the drive — you were so nervous that you didn’t even hear the uber when he asked you something.

“I’m sorry?”

He gave you a look through the rearview mirror. “Aren’t you an actress?”

You shyly smiled at him. “I guess I am, yeah.”

He proudly smiled and it was a new thing for you to be recognised by people. “My little girl’s obsessed with you and that boy, Ben-something.”

“Hardy?”, You suggested and he quickly nodded.

“Yeah, she’s way too excited for that movie of yours.”

And his words made you incredibly happy. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

“Juliet.” And the pride in his voice made you smile even wider.

“Then please tell Juliet I say hello and that I hope she’ll love the movie.”

“I will. Thank you, miss.”

You got to the pub shortly after. The music wasn’t as loud as you thought it’d be and luckily it wasn’t even that crowded.

“You’re late.” You hadn’t noticed Lucy walking towards you until when she grabbed you by your arm, giving you the biggest of the smiles.

“And you’re definitely in a good mood. Does Rami have something to do with it?” She gave you a shocked but amused look while she led you to your table.

“Maybe.” It was nice to see how quickly things had escalated between them — you still remembered the looks they exchanged during the very first table read.

“Naughty girl.”

“Hey, Y/N!” Gwil waved at you and you noticed he was the only one sitting at the table. You gave him a smile and sat right next to him while Lucy took seat in front of you. “Am I really late or Lucy’s just being too dramatic?”, You asked him as you got comfy in your seat. To be honest he looked nice and you noticed that glasses looked really good on him.

“Given that it’s just the four of us for now...” He left his sentence incomplete.

“Four?” The math didn’t work, given that you’d only seen him and Lucy.

“Rami’s in the toilet”, Lucy explained.

“Oh, right.”

“‘xcuse me”, She suddenly said, trying to catch the attention of the waiter. “Could we please have four margarita’s?”

“Aren’t we gonna wait for the others?” You asked and she moved her gaze to you at your question. You were glad Ben wasn’t there yet — you had still time to think how to act around him.

“It’s not like we’re having just those margaritas. Think of it as a warm-up.”

Gwil stopped humming the song that was playing on the background and said “She’s terrible when it comes to alcohol.”

“Hey, Y/N!” You stood up to greet Rami before he took his place right next to Lucy. You started to relax as the four of you started to chat and Priya arrived shortly after. Turns out you weren’t late all.

But suddenly your phone started to ring so you excused yourself and you got out of the room to get Laura’s phone-call.

You started to walk back and forth in the sidewalk as you spoke with her, making plans for the upcoming week when you felt someone tapping on your shoulder.

You turned around just to see Ben and your lips parted in surprise when you gave him a better look. He was wearing a black leather jacket with a white shirt and and dark jeans and damn — he looked good.

You raised your index finger as to tell him to wait a second. “I gotta go, I’ll see you in the morning. Yeah, mom. Bye.” And you were secretly hoping Ben didn’t hear the comments she made about him.

“Hey”, He said as soon as you hung off the phone. You gave him a little smile and raised your chin to meet his gaze. “Hey.”

You could feel yourself blush when you felt his eyes raking his body. “You look good.”

You bit your lower lip at his words, his eyes instantly coming into contact with yours. “You do, too.”

There was some tension you could cut with a knife. Ben cleared his throat and gave a quick look at the people surrounding you. “Can we move to somewhere more private? I need to talk to you.”

And when you nodded he gently grabbed your hand and led you to an alley right next to the pub. To say that you were nervous was an understatement. You just hoped your hand wouldn’t get sweaty.

But your concerns were unnecessary because he let go of your hand while placing himself right in front of you. You already missed his touch — his hand, so big compared to yours, made you feel safe, somehow.

His eyes had a completely different shade under the street lamp. “I wanted to apologise for yesterday. I’m so bloody sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

You crossed your arms in your chest and lowered your gaze for a few moments before looking back at him. “It’s okay”, You softly said.

“No, it’s not”, He replied with his brows narrowed. You heard him taking a deep breath and then he came closer to you. “When I saw the look in your face... I hated that it was because of me. I’m so, so sorry, love.”

“It’s just...” You started to say and he gave you a nod as to tell you to keep going. “If you’ve problems with her just don’t take it out on us — me and the boys.”

“You’re completely right, love. I shouldn’t have done that.”

There were a few moments of silence. When you met again his eyes you could easily feel that the atmosphere had suddenly changed. You noticed the bob of his Adam’s apple, the way he bit his bottom lip — which was something he did often, but in that moment it had a completely different effect on you.

And by the was he was staring at you and by his body language, you knew what came next. The anticipation made your breath become heavier and the look he had in his eyes made your toes curl.

The two of you leaned in sync, his hand placed on your cheek as to gently caress it. When his soft lips collided harshly with yours you let out a little moan, but then you kissed him back, deepening the kiss as your tongue met his. It tasted like mint and cigarettes.

His hand moved to your hip and the two of you recoiled, your back hitting the wall. You placed both your hands on his neck, caressing it before letting your fingers slip through his hair. You couldn’t put in words what you were feeling in that moment — his touch, so secure yet so gentle, sent little tremors to your lower abdomen, making you crave for more.

But then you started to overthink.

What if it’s too soon?

What if he’s not really interested in you?

But especially, what if he’s doing it just to forget Ellie?

And your concerns came true when your kiss was interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He backed away from your lips by placing in them a last, gentle kiss before murmuring in a low voice “Shit.”

You were sure your cheek were by now bright red. He took his phone from his back pocket, his breath still heavy. There was no need for you to read the contact’s name to know who it was. You got it from the look he gave you before answering the call.

And your heart sank anyway when you heard him say “Ellie?”

You looked away from him, feeling even more humiliated than the previous day. His eyes were fixed on yours, trying to catch your reaction and full of concern. “What? Hell, no. Calm down, I’ll be right there.”

You lowered your gaze, crossing again your arms in your chest. “Fuck”, He murmured under his breath. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I really gotta go.” He sounded desperate as he tried to meet your gaze and you limited yourself to just nod at his words.

He started to recoil from you, swearing again under his breath. He slipped a hand through his hair while saying “I’ll call you in the morning, alright?”

And that’s when you couldn’t take it anymore. “No, don’t bother.”

He gave you a surprised look by hearing your words. “What?”

You took a step towards him, your face a few inches away from his. Even though you had a know in your throat and you were deeply hurt, you managed to seem unbothered. “I don’t wanna be with someone who’s not 100% with me — mind, body and heart. And you clearly aren’t and can’t be.”

You walked away from him under his gaze, which was closely following your movements in regret and disbelief. Ben Hardy couldn’t be give you a 100% ‘cause his heart still belonged to someone else.

Taglist: @caborhapch @ohtheseboysilove @classy-fangirl @royalblueviper @rogers-weirdo @geek-and-proud @mrsbenhardyx @julessbrown @the-little-warbler @bouncingjoe @benders-diamond-earring @radiob-l-a-hblah @luvborhap

If you wanna be added in the taglist just tell me!

#ben hardy #ben hardy x reader #ben hardy fic #bohemian rhapsody #Bo Rhap #borhap imagine #borhap fic #borhap #roger taylor #roger taylor fic #roger taylor x reader

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takingcourage · 6 years ago

Text

Additions: Part 4

Pairing: Jaime x MC

Word Count: 4,050

Summary: With an important breakthrough and their first holiday season as a family of five, things start looking up for the Lewis household.

November, 2027

I’ve got the details for Thanksgiving. Sending them to your email soon.

Arden dragged a thumb to unlock the screen and sent a quick response to Ellen’s message. After slipping her phone back into the purse at her feet, she attempted to get back to proofreading the document in front of her, but distractions thwarted her efforts.

She’d always been partial toward any day that brought communities together, and Thanksgiving certainly fit the bill. But this year, she was interested in one very specific group of people and not the whole of Northbridge.

Their little family had seen a handful of holidays in the past few months -- Jaime’s and Will’s birthdays, Labor Day, Halloween. Each had been thoroughly enjoyable in its own right, but Thanksgiving was taking things to a whole different level.

Lips curving softly with her anticipation, she reviewed her calendar, making a few adjustments to clear time for next week’s session. She saw her inbox increase in another tab and popped over to check the files from Ellen.

She was still skimming over the plans when the door opened at the other end of the waiting room. Alex walked toward her, trailed by a middle-aged man who raised a hand to her in greeting.

With a smile, she closed the laptop and rose to meet them both. After exchanging a few words with the therapist and scheduling a subsequent session, she and Alex quietly made their way down to their car.

Arden hated parallel parking, but it was a necessary evil in this part of the city. Giving all of her attention to the backup camera and the view out her window, it was easy to ignore the silent passenger at her side.

She stole a quick glance after merging into the flow of traffic.

Her son’s mouth was firmly shut, his gaze fixed on the progression of vehicles beside them.

Alex was never talkative coming out of these sessions. He wasn’t very talkative in general, but it seemed especially unfair for him to be so close-lipped on the heels of a session where she knew he’d spoken freely to someone else. Grateful as she was for the improvement they’d noticed in the past six weeks, an inkling of jealousy always rose during their drive home.

Often, her natural curiosity got the better of her. She’d ask a probing question in return for a few syllables, followed by total quiet for the rest of the afternoon. She wasn’t making that mistake today.

Bottling up her impulse to speak, she adjusted the radio and waited until they’d made it to their neighborhood to even attempt conversation. “I’m really proud of you, Alex.”

The boy muttered a thanks against his palm.

“Mr. Spencer said that he gave you an assignment for your next meeting. Can we talk about it?”

“I guess.”

“He said he wants you to write some things down?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he ask you to write about?”

“Stuff.”

Arden gnawed the inside of her cheek to hold her instincts in check. Carefully measuring her breath, she turned onto their street. These appointments allowed her to have a bit of time alone with her oldest son, but without his siblings around, getting him to open up was nearly impossible.

“Okay. How would you feel about starting on it now while I make some cookies?”

Framing her requests as suggestions rather than commands had been one of Dr. Spencer’s recommendations after their initial meeting. It was only a small change, but the results had been surprisingly fruitful.

“Sure.” He tried to keep his response noncommittal, though she thought she saw the shadow of a smile cross his lips as they drove into the garage.

By the time she’d cracked a pair of eggs into the powdered mix, Alex had already neatly penned through the first several lines in his notebook.

Relieved that he’d engaged in the work so quickly, Arden cued up a playlist on her phone and connected to the bluetooth speaker on the windowsill. The music served as not only a buffer from the silence that she knew was awkward for both of them, but it also helped to keep her mind from wandering to boy’s thoughts. Much as she wanted to know what was going on in the next room over, she hated the idea of taking shortcuts.

Five months. They’d been trying to navigate his barriers for the entire time he’d been living with them. Thankfully, he hadn’t run away again since the night he’d fled to the docks, and he’d been doing a much better job of regulating his emotions over the past month. He even had a decent attitude most of the time.

But he was still so distant.

It made sense, really. Even disregarding all other circumstances of his life, his siblings were naturally the ones who used to receiving attention. With his sister’s eagerness to please and his brother’s sociability, it was easy for Alex to fade into the background. She just didn’t want him to stay there.

“Arden?”

Bowl in hand, she popped her head through the archway to see a perplexed face staring back. “Yes?”

“I’m stuck on a word.”

Her brow creased as she took the seat across from him. “Can you tell me how you’re using it? Or explain what it means?”

Alex stared at the paper before him, twisting the mechanical pencil between his hands. After several moments of thinking, he produced, “It’s like when lots of things are happening all at once and you don’t know what to do.”

Pandemonium?

No, obviously it’s not that, she chided herself. No fifth grader goes searching for that word. “Chaos, maybe?”

“No, it’s how you feel.”

“Anxious? Frozen? Overwhelmed? Dis–”

“Overwhelmed!”

Arden felt the tingle of pride as his face lit in recognition. She might not be a perfect parent, but she fared pretty well as a human thesaurus.

“That’s it! How do you spell it?” He scribbled furiously while she rattled off letters at a moderate pace. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Let me know if I can help with anything else.” With a reassuring smile, she turned back to the kitchen and went back to stirring the thick dough.

When he called a second time, she’d just crawled into the bottom cabinet to find a cookie sheet.

“I’ve got another one!”

The pitch of his tone mirrored her intrigue. She could play find-the-word all afternoon if that was what he wanted to do. “Sure thing! I’ll be there in just a sec.”

Alex was looking up at her, pencil poised. This time, he was ready with a description as soon as she stood before him. “What’s the word for when somebody can’t stop doing something?”

“Umm…” She’d been stringing words together for a living for the past ten years, and she’d be darned if an eleven-year-old child stumped her over a definition. “Uncontrolled?”

“No, like they can’t stop drinking or doing pills or something.”

The ease with which he provided the correction halted her breath. “Like an addiction?” Her last word was tentative, everything in her hoping that her guess was wrong.

“Yeah.” He started spelling the word under his breath, jotting down the letters in quick succession.

Since he paid her no mind, she went back to lining the baking sheet, but this time her thoughts remained in the next room over. He was writing about his past. She knew he was. Temptation mounting, she increased the volume of her music to try to remove at least one of its sources.

“Can you help me again?”

Arden scraped down the sides of the bowl a bit too forcefully, nervous energy getting the better of her.

“I’ll be right there.”

This time, she risked sitting next to him. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t sitting, just resting a knee on the chair. She didn’t want her presence to come off as any kind of threat, but she didn’t want to squander this opportunity to strengthen his trust in her. Second guessing her decision, she almost missed his query.

“What’s the opposite of love?”

The simple question threw her off kilter, and her eyes narrowed as she considered his inquisitive face. “Hate?”

“Obviously. I know that. But like, what is it when someone doesn’t love somebody anymore?”

“You mean falling out of love?”

“No.” Maybe they did hate each other…

Tensing, Arden slid all the way into the chair beside her son. “Do you want to read me the rest of the sentence? Sometimes that helps.”

He shook his head mutely, tugging at the clip of his pencil.

“Alex, can you talk to me about what you’re writing for Dr. Spencer? Is it about something that happened to you?”

Slowly, he nodded.

Even if he wasn’t willing to talk about it, she didn’t want to lose the potential of the moment. She had to leave him with some assurance that whatever had happened in his past would never happen again. “Alex, you know that Jaime and I love you. I know that the adoption won’t be official for a while, but you’re part of our family. No matter what, we’re going to take care of you, okay?”

He leaned away as though he’d been struck. That’s what my real mom said too.

Arden’s throat tightened as she watched the tears gather in his eyes. Dropping his pencil, he tried to smack them away, but they flowed hot and fast.

Cookies forgotten, she scooted her chair close enough for him to feel that she was there. Although she didn’t risk touching him, leaving him alone in that state would have been impossible.

“You don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to, but did he ask you to write about your parents?”

“Uh-huh,” he hiccuped through the onslaught of tears. “He wanted me to write about when I was home with them.”

Arden’s own eyes were streaming by the time he got the sentence out, and it was all she could do to keep from pulling him into her arms.

He’d never let his guard down with her -- never seemed this vulnerable before. Any snatches of weakness that she’d found had been the result of overhearing his thoughts, not because he’d actually allowed them to show on the outside.

A series of rising breaths came from deep in his chest, working up the power to say something. Suddenly, it all tumbled out, thoughts releasing as though they’d been pent up behind a dam. “She we’d be okay and that she’d come back. She promised she’d come back for us.” His words were barely discernible through the thick layer of tears. “But she hasn’t come back.”

Arden pressed her eyelids firmly shut to keep her head from splitting. We’ve talked about this. He knows she terminated her parental rights days after the kids entered the system. He knew when they came to live with us that this was going to be a permanent arrangement.

But that probably wasn’t what he needed to hear.

“Alex…” she started, but words utterly failed her. Taking the leap, she slid one arm around his shoulders. When there was no dissuading thought or action, she balanced on the edge of her chair drew him to her side. Though he remained almost completely still, it was enough. His head rested on her shoulder as his tears continued in a steady stream.

It was Jinx who eventually brought them back to reality, her cold, wet nose bumping against the elbow Arden had propped on the table.

What a mess! You both look terrible.

With a breathy laugh, Alex left Arden’s side and righted himself in the chair. “Hello, Jinx,” he greeted, stretching out a hand to pet her sloped back. Halfway down, he paused and turned toward Arden. “Is she supposed to be on the table?”

“Not at all. But maybe we’ll make an exception today,” she decided, watching with interest as the creature stepped closer to the boy instead of darting away. Selfish as her motivations often were, Jinx did have a genuine caring streak when she sensed others in distress.

The cat butted her head into his palm, purring loudly at his attentive petting. “Should we finish the cookies?” he asked, using his free hand to scrub the tears from his cheeks. “I think I’m finished writing for now.”

“That sounds like a great idea. You can help me with them if you wash your hands.”

Delivering a final pat to Jinx’s grizzled crown, he took his notebook and left the room.

Arden’s smile broke as she heard him turn the corner into the hall. What just happened?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to solve all of their problems. But at least it felt like a start.

Retrieving her phone from the nearby counter, she tapped out a message for Jaime: You’ll never believe what just happened with Alex. I can’t wait to tell you tonight over that bottle of wine we’ve been saving.

_____

December, 2027

“You can’t win Monopoly with just the railroads,” Alex whined, rifling through his stack of money in search of hundreds. Making his way to the end with a huff, he yanked out a set of papers.

Arden gladly received the four blue bills he extended across the table. “Then that just means there’s one less person for you to beat. I don’t see why you’re complaining if there’s no way I can win.”

Will’s short arm flung out in front of her, reaching for the dice. She nudged them closer, then watched his roll.

“Oh, man.” The words were barely recognizable around the yawn that divided them.

Sophia tapped a finger on the Luxury Tax square. “You need to move here.” At Jaime’s raised eyebrow, she withdrew the hand and slipped it under her thigh. “Sorry. You can do it yourself.”

Ribcage propped on the edge of the table, Will leaned over the board and moved his terrier across the requisite spaces in a series of hops. “I didn’t want to land on the ring again. Do we have to keep playing?”

Jaime took a long drink from his mug, exchanging glances with Arden from his end of the table. There’s a reason we went so long before getting a copy of this game.

Arden swiped a lock of hair away from her forehead, giving him opportunity to speak. One of them needed to take the high road, and it was beginning to look like he wouldn’t be the one to do it. “Will, are you sure? You’ve been looking forward to trying out all of the games you got for Christmas.”

“This one is boring,” he pronounced simply, rubbing his face across the forearm that was still stretched toward the game board.

“Is everyone else bored too?” Jaime queried. “I don’t want to cut it short if people are having fun, but it also doesn’t make sense for us to keep at it if everyone’s miserable.”

“I’m bored,” Sophia confirmed with a nod.

“It’s stupid. We should do something else.”

With the consensus from all three kids, it was easy to see that soldiering on would be pointless.

Jaime cocked his head to peep in at the stovetop clock. “Maybe it’s time for us to pick out a movie. It’s after 9:30. By the time we’ve made some popcorn and started watching something, we’ll be pretty close to midnight by time it’s over.”

Alex pulled in all of the money he could reach and filed it away in his banker box. “Can we watch one of my new Marvel ones?”

“Yeah!” Exhaustion overcome by excitement, Will tossed his stack of bills in the air.

“Hey, pick those up!”

Arden pushed in her chair and folded her arms over the back, rolling her eyes at the brothers’ innocent shenanigans. “You up for superheroes, Sophia?”

The thoughtful hazel eyes rose to meet hers. “Yeah.” They darted back to the cell phone in her hands, but her thoughts suggested her mind still hadn’t moved on yet. That one actor is pretty cute. Maybe he’ll take his shirt off…

Turning over her shoulder to hide the smirk that was cracking her lips, Arden checked Jaime’s progress in the kitchen.

_____

By the time the film had drawn to a close, Arden was comfortable enough on the couch to rethink their plans for ringing in the new year. Casting a look across the room, she found Alex and Sophia still very much awake, attention divided between their phones and the television in front of them. Jaime offered her the remaining popcorn from their shared bowl, but she declined.

Once the screen had faded to black, Arden carefully moved the bony shin that had been digging into her calf for the better part of the last hour. Unfazed, Will remained asleep on the other end of the couch. As the credits rolled, she made her way to the kitchen to find the pots and pans that she’d already slated for the task ahead.

11:54

Jaime was gently nudging Will’s shoulder when she returned with their noisemakers.

“Coats on, everybody,” she admonished, passing a pot and wooden spoon to each child.

Still jumbled from sleep, Will gave her an uncertain frown. With a yawn, he took the objects from her hands.

“Why are we doing this again?” Alex lifted his saucepan and wooden spoon to reinforce his skepticism. His coat dangled from the one sleeve that had made it over his arm.

“It’s a tradition.” Jaime’s staunch answer was punctuated by a vigorous shake of his own spoon. "It’s also a lot of fun.”

“Next year, we should have fireworks!” Will suggested a little too loudly.

Arden inclined a brow, thanking her better sense for keeping her youngest to such a rigid bedtime schedule. Tired Will was proving to have even fewer inhibitions than his rested counterpart. “We can talk about that later. For now, we need to get outside!”

The five of them huddled together on the front porch, several sets of teeth chattering as Jaime counted down the seconds before midnight.

“Happy New Year!” they rang out in rambling chorus before drowning out the well wishes with their noisemakers. Sophia’s eyes widened in surprise at the flurry of sound they produced. With the lack of sleep, Will’s easy smile was even more exaggerated than usual. Even Alex renounced his former inhibitions, delivering an occasional smack to Will’s pan instead of his own.

I love you, Arden.

On hearing Jaime’s thought, she paused beating her spoon and rose up to meet her husband’s full lips. His kiss was gentle and slow, rich in the celebration of a year well spent. Feeling his smile before he pulled away, she couldn’t help matching it with one of her own.

In spite of everything they’d told the kids about the glories of board games and banging on pots and pans, midnight kisses were actually her favorite part of the yearly celebration. If there was a better way to start each revolution around the sun, she had yet to discover it.

“This is really loud,” Sophia complained, tapping her spoon daintily against the rim of her pot. “I should have worn earplugs.”

“Next year,” Jaime suggested, and she smiled in return. He checked his watch. “It’s almost 12:02. Time to wind things down!”

Will fumbled over his spoon, but Sophia swooped down to catch it before it could roll into the bushes. Blinking rapidly, the boy held out a hand to take the object back. Sophia surrendered it, but kept a cautious eye on her younger sibling.

“And that’s our cue to go inside and get ready for bed,” Jaime announced, propping open the door so that he could follow the rest of the family into the house.

While the kids brushed their teeth, Jaime collected pans and returned them to their proper shelves in the kitchen. Arden trailed him aimlessly, leaning against the doorjamb with a yawn.

“Let’s get you to bed, Ms. Sleepy.”

“That’s Mrs. Sleepy,” she insisted as she fought to keep her mouth closed.

“I think we’re a whole family of sleepies right now.” With a low chuckle, he took her arm. “C’mon, let’s go say goodnight so we can all get to bed.”

_____

Arden stood before the mirror with watery eyes, yawn building as she watched Jaime strip down to his boxers. He tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper, sending her a curious look through the glass.

“Do you remember that year when you were sick and we couldn’t celebrate New Year’s together?”

“Uh-huh,” he answered, putting away his toothbrush. “And after you pulled the surgical-mask thing when I had the flu, I don’t really blame our parents for keeping us on opposite sides of the fence.”

“True.” She paused for a yawn, leaning close to the glass to examine her bloodshot eyes. “I tried to be extra loud so you could hear me all the way from my porch.”

“For the record, I was so doped up on cold medicine that I slept through the whole thing.”

“Well, I’m still sorry I did it. There you were, trying to sleep, and I was clanging like a drawer full of silverware.”

“You need some rest, babe.”

“I know, I know.” She took the pack of floss he slid toward her and cut a length. “That simile didn’t even make sense.”

He crossed behind her to throw his own floss in the trash can. As he passed, he kissed her shoulder through the flannel of her pajamas. “It’s bedtime,” he pronounced simply.

“It’s barely midnight and I’m completely useless. I feel like an old lady.”

“I guess we’ll just have to be old, tired people together, because I’m exhausted too.”

“Then let’s get you to bed, Mr. Sleepy.” There was a weary lilt to her voice as she wound the floss between two fingers.

“I’m just waiting for you,” he assured.

Arden finished flossing and made a show of prepping her toothbrush. “I know the kids were grilling each other about their resolutions for the year, but I never asked if you had one.”

While he considered his answer, she set about brushing, her weary hand slipping into the accustomed motion with ease. At her insistent face, he finally spoke.

“Nah, not this year. Unless helping Alex keep his is a resolution.”

She spat her toothpaste into the sink. “You mean what he said about doing better in school? That wasn’t his real resolution.” Catching his frown in the mirror, she clarified, “What he really wants is to stay in one place for the whole year.”

“I hate it that he’s still thinking like that.”

“I know, but I get it.” She ambled to the bed and tossed the covers back. “Maybe things will start to change once the adoption is official.”

“Either way, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He’s stuck with us forever.” Jaime flicked the overhead light and joined her, careful to keep his icy toes as far on his side as possible.

Arden burrowed closer anyway, eager to share what warmth he did possess. He scooted over to free some space on his pillow, which she eagerly claimed.

“What about you, my love? Any resolutions of your own?”

Eyes closing in consideration, she giggled at the first thought that came to mind. “I should probably stop drinking so much coffee...”

“We both know that’s never going to happen.”

“Yeah... Other than that, I don’t know that anything needs to change, really. I’m pretty happy with everything the way it is.”

“I am too. G’night, Arden.”

She tugged his arm around her stomach, her fingers curling over the hinge of his wrist to keep him in place. “G’night.” Breathing deeply of his woodsy scent, her mind ceased its drifting, settling finally on thoughts of the man beside her.

“Jaime?” She felt him jolt as she broke the silence.

“Huh?” he asked with a croaky voice.

“Changed my mind. We need more dates this year.”

“Can we talk about it in the morning?”

“Uh-huh. G’night again. Can’t wait to spend another year with you.”

The arm tightened at her waist, and she finally allowed herself to surrender to sleep.

#playchoices #playchoices fanfiction #wishful thinking #jaime lewis #jaime x mc

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moonjelliesjam · 6 years ago

Text

Zach Dempsey 1

Title: Not Just One-sided Anymore

Pairing: Zach Dempsey x Loving!Fem!Reader

Genre: Fluff, Lime, and Tons of Angst!

Fandom: 13 Reasons Why

Masterlist

Notes: This is just a small bit of writing about the series 13 Reasons Why so please do take serious Precautions before actually watching the show!

I do Advise my Precious Readers that If you are sensitive to materials such as; Substance abuse, Traumatic Sexual Themes, Violence, Suicide, etc. Please do not watch or read this!!

If you or someone you know or love is going through something like the listed above please do Reach for help!! Before and at end of this small Fic I will place this message because even if I do not know you I still care about each life!

Please do Reach or ask for help! I am not the best person to help due to being a writer and creator of the fics I post here but its best to seek professional attention and help!

So If anything Proceed with caution!

Summary:

Takes Place after the trials. Zach and his loving girlfriend you take a break. Not only because of what he had testified but of what your relationship had become after and before Hannah Baker. Little does reader know its not just one sided love anymore.

______________________________

__________________

________

The young adolescent female grips the seat under her as she listens to her boyfriends confession. Her facial expression was more shocked and hurt than angry. As she continued to listen to Zach's Words on how he and Hannah had become more than friends during the summer Y/n was gone. The young female bit her lip and quietly left the room.

....

"Damn it Dempsey.." She silently cried in her room clutching the plush that Zach had gifted her. "Why did you go and cheat on me?" She sniffed still upset about the confession. Suddenly there were gentle knocks at her door.

"Y/n? Sweetie? Zach is here to see you!" The Teen's mom had called to her. The girl crying from earlier had cleared her voice to sound normal and responded.

"I'm a little busy tell him to come back at a later time!" She had curled up into a ball and silently cried into. After a few hours of being on the cold now warm floor, Y/n then stopped crying and wiped her tear stained face.

"Im not just going to stay here crying.. I have to take my mind off of this.." I mumbled getting off the now warm floor. The girl changed into a black tank top, a red flannel and blue shorts. She slipped on purple ankle socks and black hightops. She walked out the front door and walked the streets of crestmont. Her feet led her towards Rosie's an old fashioned diner that she regularly attended only for her favorite drink. A Vanilla milkshake which she had only shared with ..

.Zach..

She walked through the doors and sat at her usual booth and ordered her Vanilla milkshake. "Hey you mind if I sit with you Y/n?" A familiar Voice asked. The girl looked up at the owner of the voice none other than Clay Jensen.

"No go ahead! At least your not a heart breaker Clay.." The broken girl had mumbled to herself. The Milkshake had soon arrived in their awkward moment of silence. The tension became thicker the longer it was silent so the male had now began to speak. "Hey Y/n I'm really sorry about what happened during the trials.. you don't deserve that.." He said cracking a small smile. She looked up at him after playing with her straw smiling for once. She then Laughed. "Hey Thanks Clay.. your a really good friend.. at least you know how to cheer a girl up" she smiled at him making him blush. The girl sat up more comfortably looking at him.

"Well if you need me I'll be around the halls of Liberty! Just call for Clay!" He chuckled. The girl stopped her sip and stiffled a laugh. He smiled at the actions of his friend as she laughed at hjs awkward attempt of a joke.

Little did they know someone was watching them.

------

It was now morning and students bustling through the halls of Liberty High. The Young girl who was so broken hearted was now smiling again and hanging with her friend. "Clay! Hey! You wanna watch a movie sometime? Just as friends!" The now happy female chirped. Clay looked at his female friend and nodded.

"Sure! That'd be fun! But I don't think your boyfriend would like that.." He motioned to the said male across the hall glaring daggers at Clay. The girl turned to the male and sighed apologetically. Zach being caught glaring then looked at something else either around or at a locker.

"Clay? Should I forgive him? I know It was one sided but..-" She sighed looking at him for amswers. The male put up both arms mid air showing that he was hiding nothing. "Hmm.. Well thats honestly up to you! If you want to go ahead I'm only tired of his glares." The male friend had sighed. The girl smiled at his words and hugged him.

"I think its time to forgive him Clay" She spoke softly and pulled away from ths hug only to walk ober towards the circle of jocks.

"Hey look its Y/n are you here to tell Dempsey your not his cheerleader anymore?" The Baseball player named Bryce Snickered. The small female rolled her eyes at his words. Her hand reached out for the Larger hand and pulled him along getting out of the circle of jocks.

"Y/n look I'm so sorry.. fuck.. you deserve someone better than me.." He started and only looked at the ground. He rambled on not thinking about the usual filter he had on when he was with friends or family. We soon stopped outside and were near a couple of wooden tables with benches surrounded by trees.

"Zach... The only reason I left you...us.... this relationship.. was because This was all one sided after the summer.. Hannah had ignored me and so had you.." I started rubbing my arms with my hands looking at a tree. He gasped softly. "I felt Like I wasn't good enough for you. .. Even after what happened between you two.. you never even bothered to stop and tell me... not even my own friend..am I that much of an embarrassment to you?" I weakly said tears finding their way out of my eyes. I heard the crunch of the leaves and familiar shoes infront of me.

"Hey.. Your not an embarrassment.. I'm sorry that I've ignored you for so long.. it's just.. I thought with you gone that I would.. try and get over it.. but hannah came along.. and I still have her note.. I never threw it away.. I never bothered to tell you because I didn't want you to think.. oh god.. I'm screwing this up again aren't I?" He rambled on running a hand through his hair. He kneeled to look me in the eye and could only take my hands in his still rambling on.

I smiled at his words and cupped his face with my hands. His eyes looked into mine with utter confusion at my sudden action. "Zach thats now why I came to talk to you.. I camt to talk to you because I.. Still want to forgive you.. I know that only happened once but.. I want us to be honest from now on alright?" I softly whispered only so he was able to hear. Suddenly I was now buried in his chest his arms around me tight.

I hugged his hugs frame that my arms could barely wrap around. I nuzzled into his black shirt that he wore under his baby blue Letterman jacket that I clutched my hands on.

"Y/n.. I want you to know that this wont be just one sided anymore alright I'll love even harder than before! Better then ever! I'll love you just like you have.."

Extra Notes: Gosh this was so cheesy! But if you have any requests! Please feel free to message me or give a request Via inbox!

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wordsonpagespress · 6 years ago

Text

Toll-Free, by Rudrapriya Rathore

fiction by Rudrapriya Rathore | runner-up for the 2016 Blodwyn Memorial Prize in fiction, sponsored by Book*Hug

Near the end of the year, the toll-free number flashes across my phone three, five, seven times a day. There’s an odd rhythm about it that orders everything I do. A buzz on the morning subway ride where the train surfaces long enough to get phone signal, like a metallic dolphin mid-leap. A buzz during my lunch break while I eat my cucumber-cheese sandwich at the receptionist’s desk. A buzz when I walk to the grocery store in the evening, or if it’s Friday, to the Owl to get a drink with Phil. And when I get home after dark, two or three more while I watch TV in bed, the phone lighting up my covers with its bluish glow.

I never pick it up.

“Why not?” asks Phil, sucking down his weekly dose of pub fries while they’re still hot.

“Why should I? It’s just a telemarketer.”

“You don’t know that.” We’re more than a year deep into Owl Fridays and the waitresses know us so well they give us the same window table every time. Phil likes the curvy girl with the ponytail, though he’d never admit it, and gives his usual order trying not to look at her chest.

“Who else would call me this many times? It’s a machine, I bet. Not even a real telemarketer.”

“What if it’s your bank?” He licks the salt off his fingers.

“It’s not my bank. My bank emails me.”

“It could be your insurance company, or your internet.” He glugs his beer. “What if it’s the government or something? CSIS?” We look at each other for a moment, thinking it through. Then he snorts into his pint and I laugh because he’s dripping on his shirt collar.

“Alright, I get it. I’m too boring for CSIS.”

“That’s true. You haven’t even had two beers in a row since college.” Phil wipes his face. He likes this. If I play along for long enough, he slips his arm around me on the walk back to the subway station. Once in a long while, he comes home with me. We have sex for half an hour and then he calls a cab, waving as it pulls up to the curb.

This began when I got the job at the reception desk. Phil’s a manager in the office, I think, or an agent. A buyer. A seller. They’re all something like that, the ten or twenty men and women that pass by me every day on their way to the coffee machine. They look the same: blandly content, middle class. They say the same things on a weekly rotation. Hump Day! Happy Friday! Nearly the weekend now! Ah, Mondays! Sometimes I play a game where I try and beat them to it. “Almost Friday!” I say as Marie turns the corner, her glossy pink lips just opening up to greet me. She pauses. I think I see a flash of irritation move across her face—or maybe it’s just a ripple in the sea of foundation-powder blush. “That’s right!” she replies, heels clicking by.

“If I’m boring, what are your colleagues?” I ask Phil.

He shakes his head and gets up to pay. “You should pick up the call. See who it is.”

The phone buzzes two more times that night, and each time, as I lay there in my pajamas watching TV, I look over hoping it’s Phil. CSIS agent here, Ma’am. We’re concerned about the dullness of your daily routine. He might say that, if he called. That sounds like him.

I think of calling him, but I can’t make myself do it, can’t imagine what I would say. That kind of spontaneity belongs to a different kind of person. Those people regularly surprise themselves with what they come up with. They find a new version of themselves in every phone call, while I agonize over how to sign off in work emails. Sometimes I sent documents I needed for the next day in emails to myself. I watched them leave and then land in my inbox, a virtual boomerang. Each one pinged, Look! It’s you!

But the toll-free calls were different. I liked knowing that someone or something had logged my number. There was an entity on the other end of the line, and it wanted something from me.

I roll over and turn off the TV show. It’s almost eleven o’clock. If I did call Phil, he might not answer. That would be the best scenario, I think, if he sat in the dark, too, watching the phone buzz, liking the feeling of being wanted.

***

Either the next day or the next week, I get a voicemail. I stare at it with my eyebrows furrowed over my cucumber sandwich before opening it. I almost want to walk to Phil’s office so we can listen to it together, but I don’t. It’s been so long since I listened to a voicemail that it takes me five tries to remember my password, and when I finally get it right, the perky automated voice sounds a lot like Marie. I listen hard, but the message is just silence. Not dead air, exactly, but a kind of quiet hum. When I listen the second time I think I can hear a slight shuffle. Clothes, maybe, rustling against each other.

I tell Phil later, when he walks by to get coffee, and he says, “That’s weird.”

“I know.”

“Pick it up! Next time. I’m telling you.” He raises his eyebrows for emphasis.

That day I get home and tip over the potted plant on my windowsill while doing dishes. It spills fresh, black soil into the clean dishes on the counter, so I have to wash them all over again. Afterwards, I fix the plant and realize the windowsill’s dirty, so I clean that too, and it gets me on a roll, scrubbing the counters and the floors and the walls of the kitchen, where dirt has been secretly accumulating without my noticing. The top of the fridge where I keep the cereal boxes. The crack of space between the stove unit and the cupboards. I clean until my knees hurt and my nostrils burn from the soap and bleach, and then I listen to the silent message saved on my phone again, this time with earphones, so I can turn it all the way up. The shuffle is still there, hiding under a hum. Something human that does not speak.

It starts happening all the time. My voice mailbox fills up every two days, the mechanical-Marie alerting me loudly every time I punch in my password. The messages are always nearly silent, but one in every ten or so sounds slightly different. There’s a muted, tinny beeping through one of them. A sound that could be breathing, if you listen a certain way. A buzz like an air conditioner.

One night, I make a spreadsheet so I know how often the noises happen and colour-code it according to the time of day. I type the number into a search engine, but nothing comes up. I even search company directories online, trying to trace it to a corporation. Another night, I dream that something is watching me through the small camera lens on my phone, so I stick a little piece of green tape over it when I wake up.

Phil passes by my desk three or four times a day and we exchange nods. Friday at the Owl, he leaves early, after only one drink, so I go home and scroll through the spreadsheet, waiting for the phone to ring so I can make another entry. According to the numbers, I’ve been receiving more calls since that first voice message. It’s no longer three, five, seven times a day but thirteen, fifteen, seventeen. I cross-reference columns, trying to find a pattern, but there’s nothing there except for the fact that I never get the good voicemails, the human ones, more than once or twice a day.

It should be scary. I know this. It should make me feel anxious, like I’m under surveillance. But it makes work bearable, to have that phone constantly buzzing in my pocket where no one else can hear it. I suddenly like seeing Marie, because she doesn’t know that she sounds like the automated voicemail lady who greets me so fondly, and I wonder in my daydreams at the desk if Phil is actually the one making the calls, because maybe he doesn’t know how else to tell me he loves me.

My mother calls. I hear another call go through while she tells me about her new yoga class, and my hands shiver a little while I think about the new voicemail. She asks me if I’m dating anyone, and it slips out of my mouth: Yes, I am—actually, he’s here, I have to go. But of course she asks who, and I tell her, A man in my office, we get along great, it’s been a couple of months now.

“Well, well,” she says in a tone of voice that suggests she finds this difficult to believe, “What’s his name?”

Another call starts on the other line and my palms grow clammy. “Phi-Patrick.”

“What?” I resist the urge to hang up on her.

“Patrick,” I repeat. Maybe the voicemails have sharpened my ears somehow, because I can hear something that sounds just like if she was sucking on a cigarette. She hasn’t smoked since before I was born, though, and I refuse to ask her.

“It sounds like things are really looking up for you, darling. I couldn’t be happier. Just a little while ago you were telling me how bored you were, and terrified of never getting married. Is this Patrick—I mean, is he serious about you?”

My hand lowers the phone from my ear. There’s a translucent smear of sweat and beige makeup on the screen. Feeling as though my face is breaking down and sliding off me in wet little puddles, I half-cover the bottom half of the phone and call out to my empty kitchen, Patrick, hon, are you serious about me? and giggle.

“He says he’s not quite sure yet,” I say to her, laughing.

She laughs too. I hang up and wash my face.

***

I love it when Phil is nervous. This I realize at James’s retirement party, which I attend in a blue dress that makes my legs look longer than they really are. A big frosted cake has been ordered from the bakery in honour of James, his name piped over it in green and yellow, and a card that says, Now Real Life Can Begin! has been signed by everyone regardless of whether they spoke to James or not.

Phil gives a speech. It’s not clear to me why he is the one giving the speech instead of one of James’s friends. Maybe he is a bigger manager or agent or buyer or seller than I thought. He hands out glasses of champagne in the lunchroom and then takes a few index cards out of his pocket. He reads off them a few things about how lucky we have all been to benefit from the great attitude James brought into the office, and makes a joke about how some people think not working means being less tired, but others think it means being re-tired, tired again. Then he begins to talk about how much we’ll miss him. He must have copied the cards out wrong, because he reads the same one twice. He knows, too, but is too embarrassed to stop, and remains blotchy for minutes after everyone has toasted James and begun to chat again.

I watch from across the room, near the doorway, and he catches my eye and smiles. I gesture to him with my glass and point out the door, trying to ask if he wants to grab a drink later, but he shrugs and begins talking to someone.

Later on, at home, I watch the phone ring. For reassurance, I print off a copy of the spreadsheet, all eighty pages of it, and lay on my impeccably clean bedroom floor listening to the hum of the printer. I remember my favourite voicemails—the breathing, the definitely human shuffle. There will be someone, I tell myself, who can explain this to me. I smooth my hair and tuck it behind my ears before beginning to read over the notes on the spreadsheet again.

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glare-gryphon · 7 years ago

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May I put in a prompt? If you're totally burnt out on this verse, just ignore this. In the Negotiation-verse what would it be like if instead of the whole drugging and kidnapping business, they ended up sorting out the kiss and dating. Anakin has no idea his boyfriend is a serial killer. Could be serious, fluff, total crack or hell it could be Quin mocking Anakin about his hickies. I don't care.

This prompt has been sitting in my inbox for so long. I am almost ashamed.

Here u go.

Alternative

Negotiation-Verse

M/E, 2000 words.

A sharp rap at Anakin’s office door draws the detective’sattention away from the mountain of reports piled up on his desk. With no majorleads to chase at the moment, he’s been working on filling them out all morningand is grateful for whatever reprieve that the day can provide.

When he’d first become an officer, he couldn’t believe howmuch paperwork was involved in the day-to-day operations of a police station.He’d hated it then, and he still hates it now. Usually he tries to shove it offon Quinlan whenever he thinks he can get away with it, but Ventress has sweptVos away for some business conference she has to attend overseas and now Anakinis stuck catching up on both of their overdue reports. He supposes thatturnabout is fair play, no matter how much he would like to complain otherwise.

“Come in,” he calls, swiveling his office chair toward thedoor just in time for it to crack open, revealing one Coruscant Universityprofessor, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

“Is now a bad time?” Kenobi asks, leaning against thedoorframe with a wry smile on his lips, as though already predicting Anakin’sanswer.

“Never a bad time for you,” Anakin replies, moving files offhis desk in attempt to clear a place for Obi-Wan to sit while the other mancloses the door behind him. He doesn’t here the soft snick of the lock, caught up as he is in his work, but he doesnotice the smirk on Kenobi’s lips when the man settles into the space hecleared. “What brought you over this way, babe?”

Obi-Wan shrugs. “Had a class cancelled, and just wanted tosee you. I don’t need an excuse to do that, do I?”

“No, I suppose you don’t.”

Apparently satisfied, Obi-Wan turns his attention to thefiles on Anakin’s desk. While it is technically against the rules for Kenobi tobe thumbing through them as though they were magazines in the checkout lanes ofgrocery stores, Anakin doesn’t see any particular harm in it. His partner isdiscreet, and isn’t the type to go blabbing about the detective’s cases toanyone he knows. Not like their social life is particularly riveting anyways,with most of their friends connected to the police force by way of Anakin’semployment. Really, there was no one to gossip with who wasn’t already in theloop; while Obi-Wan was popular enough with his coworkers, he didn’t maintainany particularly close relationships with any of them.

“Why was your class cancelled?” Anakin asks as Obi-Wanshifts paperwork around, digging through them to find something that catcheshis interest. Most of what is on Anakin’s desk these days is common muggingsand break-ins. Tedious work, but essential toward keeping the generalpopulation of Coruscant safe. He sometimes thinks he would like something moreexciting, but the more rational part of him knows that there will plenty ofthat come the Christmas season. He should spend the off months luxuriating inpicking up petty thieves instead of internal organs.

A hum of satisfaction marks Obi-Wan having found somethinghe likes, and the man answers with his nose buried in the pages of the file.“Not enough students registered. Apparently my Survey of Shakespeare coursedoesn’t have quite the same draw as it used to.”

“Kids today have no respect for the classics,” Anakinreplies, not because he himself has any particular interest in the works of along-dead playwright, but because he knows Kenobi likes to grumble about thedecay of society and youths today.

Leaning over in his chair to get a view of the file hispartner is reading, Anakin is not particularly surprised to find the Negotiatorfile in the man’s hands once again. Since the start of their relationship, he’sshown a keen interest in following along with the case as Anakin attempts totrack down the most prolific serial killer prowling Coruscant’s streets. Thisis hardly uncommon; nearly everyone he’s ever met are curious about theNegotiator case, as high-profile as it is.

“Do you think you’re any closer to catching him?” Obi-Wanasks, drawing a picture from the disorder and holding it up to the light asthough to get a better look.

It’s of one of the latest cycle’s crime scenes, another ofAnakin’s not-quite brothers left brutalized and bared for the world to see. Thepattern has changed again, much to Anakin’s frustration. While before they knewthe Negotiator was luring his victims with sex, the seduction seems to havetrailed off entirely with his newest set of victims. In its place are drugs—thecheap kind, easy to get on the street and difficult to trace for their prolificnature—slipped into drinks at busy clubs with distracted bartenders.

The level of brutality in thesemurders had risen with the exclusion of sex, each victim bearing more of thebruising and evidence of assault only sporadically found in older victims. Thescenes themselves had changed as well, no longer as careful and precise as theyonce were. Not rushed, by any means, or sloppy. Not enough to leave evidencebehind. But Anakin, when he looked at the cuts and the gaping, open wounds,could tell that each one had not been given the same carefulconsideration they once might have received.

“Not really,” Anakin confesses, and Obi-Wan frowns as he draws another picturefrom the file. The Negotiator’s pattern had always been consistent, its onedrastic change clearly instigated by Anakin arrival on the case. What hadcaused this most recent change, he can’t quite figure out. There are a fewpieces, in the rush of his work, but they connect to nothing of significance.No events that Anakin can identify.

“Made a bit of a mess, didn’t it…” the man mutters distastefully, more to himselfthan to Anakin as he grimaces at the picture. It had been a mess, blood usuallydrained away left cool and tacky on the floor and of the county library. Limbshas been shelved neatly away with the books, the head and heart sitting on thelibrarian’s desk when police arrived. There was no note for Anakin, nor hadthere been one this whole cycle. He’s unsure whether or not this comes as arelief that the targeting has stopped, or as warning that his nemesis had begunto lose interest in their game.

“It was messier than usual.” Anakin informs his partner. “I told the guys—Ithink he had a workstation somewhere, and for whatever reason, he can’t getback to it as much anymore. He’s having to work on fly, and it’s not as cleanas it might have been otherwise,”

Obi-Wan hums thoughtfully, offering the younger man a wry smile as he replacesthe picture and sets the file aside. “Perhaps he has someone to go home to, atthe end of the night.”

Anakin chuckles at the jest. “Is there true love for serial killers?”

“There’s true love for anyone, if you look within the pages of literature,”Obi-Wan replies, leaning over to run his fingers through Anakin’s hair.“Princes and paupers, knights and beggars.”

Anakin doesn’t resist when his partner uses his grip on his hair to draw himover, leaning eagerly across the desk and into Obi-Wan’s space. “Cops andserial killers; you and me,” the man breathes, and pulls Anakin into a kissthat is anything but chaste.

Obi-Wan, he has come to find sincetheir initial encounter, is an excellent kisser. When they’re together, it’slike the world around them fades away, as cliché as it sounds. He never used tothink it a thing that could actually happen, but when it comes to Obi-Wan, hesupposes it makes sense. The man himself is almost a cliché at times, seeminglywalking straight out of Anakin’s teenage wet dreams. It’s easy to lose himselfin Kenobi—so much so that he almost doesn’t notice the man sliding off thedesk, shuffling around to where Anakin sits, until he’s upended from his chair.Until Kenobi is bending him over the flat of his desk, tugging his pants downand freeing Anakin’s achingly hard cock from the confines of his slacks.

Another cliché.

“You planned this,” Anakin accuses when he hears the distinctive sound of a capopening. He tries to turn around, but the hand at the base of skull, pinninghim to the desk, only presses harder to still the movement.

“More hoped than planned, really,” Obi-Wan replies calmly, even as Anakin bucksin surprise at the sensation of cool lube drizzled between his cheeks. “Iconfess that this has always been a fantasy of mine, and when you mentionedDetective Vos stepping out of the office for a few days, well… I am quite theopportunist, my dear.”

“You do know you’re supposed to discuss these things with your partner first,right?” Anakin grumbles, but still finds himself pressing back against theslick fingers that have begun to work him open. “What if somebody were to walkin? You’re not the only one in demand of my attention, you know.”

Obi-Wan curls his fingers in a way he knows Anakin likes, dragging a raggedmoan that the detective has to stifle with his fist when the man’s actions sendpleasure racing up his spine. “The door is locked; if you’re quiet, no one willever know what we’re up to.” He murmurs as leans forward, nipping at the shellof Anakin’s ear. His fingers slip from Anakin’s hole with a last stretch, thesound of a zipper being undone quickly following. “You can be quiet, can’t youdear? For me?”

Anakin nods rapidly; he can be good for Obi-Wan. As much as he’d protested, thethought of getting caught—or someone knowing—comes with an unexpected rush ofexcitement. He wouldn’t have thought himself and exhibitionist before Obi-Wancame along, but then, his new parter had proven himself talented in draggingparts of Anakin to the light that he hadn’t even known were tucked away.

“That’s a good boy.”

Breath coming in excited pants, Anakin adjusts his grip on the desk as Obi-Wanslicks himself up. He has to bite down on his lower lip as the man spreads hischeeks, the blunt head of his dick pressing up against Anakin’s stretched hole.The feeling of Obi-Wan pushing into him is a familiar sensation now, but heremembers what it was like the first time they made love. Remembers how nervoushe was, splayed out on the man’s bed. Remembers how gentle his partner hadbeen, as though Anakin would shatter if handled too roughly.

He is not always so gentle now, not that Anakin minds, and today is noexception. He gives Anakin time to adjust of course, aware of the length andgirth of his cock, but once Anakin pushes back against him in unspokenpermission, he quickly finds a pace that has the younger man’s hips biting intothe edge of the desk with every thrust, that keeps him pushing back and takingObi-Wan deeper simply to stop from sliding up into stacks of papers he hadn’tcleared aside when this encounter began.

One of Obi-Wan’s hands lays over his own as the man thrusts roughly into him,their fingers entwining, and Anakin realizes that his palm lays on the openNegotiator file that Obi-Wan had set aside. His eyes catch for a moment on thepale, bloodless faces of his unfortunate look-alikes, and something twisted inthe back of his mind wonders if they liked what the Negotiator gave them. Ifthey enjoyed being stretched and filled and taken the way he enjoys being underObi-Wan. If they regretted it in those moments before he killed them, or ifthey even had a chance to think about it.

When they’re done, clothes adjusted and Obi-Wan sweeping from the door with alast kiss goodbye, Anakin has to close the file and stow it away in a drawer ofthe desk he’d just been taken over. Must throw himself into the work despitethe lingering scents of sweat and sex, to keep his mind busy. Must think ofother things, despite the feeling of Obi-Wan’s cum leaking from him, because ifhe doesn’t, he can’t help but wonder what would happen if the Negotiator foundhim, and if he’d like it too.

#gryph fic #obikin #fic: negotiation

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hydrus · 4 years ago

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I had an ok week. The new tiled renderer is improved.

tiled renderer

The new image drawing system generally worked well! There were a couple of bugs, and it still has some limitations, but in general it really improved zoom and precache performance.

For the bugs, first of all, there was a rare crash, I think triggered by loading a very unlucky coincidence of tile and image size. Then clipboard bitmap copy threw an error, tiny images could not deal with extremely small zoom, and clients under heavy load could sometimes have trouble initialising the viewer. I have fixed them all, but let me know if you have any more trouble!

There was also a problem with PyQt5, an alternative version of the Qt UI library that some 'running from source' users use. It was an object handling difference between PyQt5 and PySide2 that broke the tile caching system. I think I have fixed it, so if you are running PyQt5, please give this version a go.

Beyond bugs, there were tiling artifacts visible at higher zooms. Essentially, where the tiles lined up, there were small disagreements in resize math, resulting in little lines of mismatching colour gradients along tile borders. I worked on the tiling algorithm and have significantly mitigated the problem--I mostly only see artifacts at extreme zooms now, about 2000%.

Since people are suddenly zooming more, users who have mouse-centered zooming were having more images accidentally flying off screen too. I've hacked in off-screen rescue after a zoom, sliding it back to the nearest border, so the image should always stay in view. If people like it, I may patch this in for all media for dragging events too. There's not much need for non-visible media, and when it does happen it can sometimes be a pain dragging around to find where it went.

I hope this basically makes the tile render a complete '1.0' now. In the future, I would like to rejigger some of the virtual geometry, since at the moment a limit in Qt means I cannot zoom higher than a 'virtual' 32,768x32,768 canvas (e.g. 4k at about 800% zoom). I'll also replicate the tiling for my native Animation widget, which displays gifs and video when mpv is not available.

full list

tiled image renderer improvements:

I believe I fixed the 'non c-contiguous' crash issue with the new tile renderer. I had encountered this while developing, but it was still happening in rare situations--I _think_ in an unlucky edge case where a zoomed tile had the same resolution as the full image rotated by ninety degrees! there is now an additional catch for this situation, as well, to catch any future logical holes.

fixed a bug in the new renderer when copying an image to clipboard

I greatly mitigated the tiling artifacts with two changes:

- zoomed in tiles are now resized with a padding area of up to 4 pixels, with the actual tile cropped afterwards, which allows bilinear and lancsoz interpolation to get accurate neighbour data and have gradient math line up with neighbouring tiles more accurately

- on resize and zoom, media canvases now dynamically change tile size to 'neater' float/integer conversion dimensions to reduce sub-pixel panning alignment artifacts (e.g. if your zoom is 300%, the tile is now going to have a dimension that is a multiple of 3)

I hacked in a 'rescue offscreen media' calculation after any zoom event. now, if the window is completely out of view after a zoom, it'll snap to the nearest borders, lining against them or overlapping into a buffer zone depending on the zoom. let me know what you think!

I fixed a PyQt5 specific object tracking bug, I think the new renderer now works ok for PyQt5!

cleaned up some ugly code in the resize section that may have been resulting in incorrect interpolation algorithm choice in some situations

fixed a divide by zero issue when zooming out tiny images hugely (e.g. 32x32 at 1%)

media windows now try to have at least 1x1 size, just to catch some other weird error situations

similarly, tile and native sample sizes will have a minimum of size 1x1, which should fix issues during a delayed startup (issue #872)

cleaned up some misc media viewer and tile renderer code

the rest:

I started the next round of database optimisation tech, mostly testing out a pipeline upgrade. autocomplete fetching and wildcard file searching for very large queries should be a little faster to cancel now, and in some situations they should be a little faster. they may be slower for very small jobs, but I expect it to be unnoticeable. if you feel autocomplete is suddenly slow and laggy, let me know!

I optimised the basic 'ideal sibling normalisation' database query. this is used in a lot of places, so the little saving here should improve a bunch of work

I greatly optimised autocomplete sibling population, particularly for searches with a lot of tag results

I brushed up the tag import options UI: changed the 'use defaults' checkbox to a dropdown with clear labels for both modes; renamed the 'fetch tags even if' tag import options to 'force page fetch', which is a better description, and added tooltips to describe their ideal use; added tooltips to blacklist and whitelist; and hid the 'load from defaults' button if not set to view specific options

added a 'imgur single media file url' File URL Class, which points to direct file links without a referral header, which should fix some situations where these urls were pointed to by other site parsers

collections now store the _most recent_ import timestamp of their contents as the aggregate for time imported. previously they had no value, so would sort randomly with each other. collections therefore now sort by time imported reliably with each other, even if there is no 'correct' answer here

these new timestamps and service presence generally, and aggregated archive/inbox status, (all of which can update thumbnail display) is now recalculated when files are removed from the collection. so, hitting _right-click->remove->inbox_ will now update collections with a mix of archived and inboxed to remove the inbox icon immediately

as the "Retry has no attribute..." network errors have appeared in new forms, I gave the core of the problem another look. we could never really figure this out, but it seemed to be a network version thread safety issue. I think I have ruled this out, and I now believe these may have been occuring during faulty pickling during network session save/load. I fixed the problem here, so with luck this issue will not reappear--if you have had this a lot, let me know how you get on!

I broke the requirements.txt into several variants based on platform. we are going to try to pin down good fixed versions of python-mpv and requests/urllib3 for each platform

I also updated the 'running from source' help significantly, moving everything to the requirements.txt and making sections for things like FFMPEG and libmpv

Also updated the source and contact help around my work style and contact preferences

the test.py file now only does the final input() confirmation if there is an interactive stdin to respond

next week

Next week is code cleanup and some little jobs that have slipped through the cracks. Nothing too clever, but I want to fit in some misc boring work.

Thanks everyone!

#release

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