Tumgik
#(I really hope he doesn’t watch his own streams back and realize how obvious he is 🤧)
sparfloxacin · 7 months
Note
since tumblr decided to eat your ask from last night, here's one in return, and I DARE tumblr to eat this one too 😤 anyway, I just really miss Aleksi's twitch streams and I really hope he'll get back to them after the tour as he said he would, and I also remembered him saying he'd like to do more themed streams like the spooky one, and idk what your thoughts toward Christmas are but I just think it'd be darn cute if he did a Christmassy stream 🥺 you know, with an "ugly" Christmas sweater on and drinking glögi and making some wintery music and asking the chat about their Christmas traditions or what they wish for Christmas that year (another great opportunity to advertise BC merch), and of course he would text Olli to share his Christmassy thoughts as well 🥹 sorry for talking about Christmas in mid-October lol, my daydreams just escalated I guess, and did I mention I really really miss Aleksi's twitch content? 😩
I really miss them as well 🤧 and oooh a Christmas stream! I can see this happening 🥺💖 it’d be so cozy and chill and aaaaa 😭 and he’d definitely text Olli! he’d ask him about his Christmas traditions (pretending he doesn’t know them already) and maybe share some ideas about Christmas merch 💕
I was actually just today thinking about how they probably text each other often 🤧 Allu sending stupid merch ideas and Olli getting excited about them 🥹 and just generally texting each other everything that comes to their minds or even making up some excuses to do it 💗🥺
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I Can't Stop Writing Post-Season Ficlets
I have another one queued for tomorrow (though if you follow my AO3 account, you may have already seen it). Here's another one. Spoilers for episode 5 and a still from maybe episode 6 that I don't know the source of.
So basically I saw this photo and because I'm a fool and in utter denial about the implications of Sylvie's expression oh my god, I wrote this fic. (The fact that it looks like she's crying is really upsetting me, so I said "You know what? No, she's not.")
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Going Home
He watches Loki, a past Loki or a future Loki or maybe just a different Loki, speak to himself in these memories he doesn’t remember, in this time he hasn’t been part of for who knows how long. He hears Loki quote his own words back to him, watches the god help him through a temperamental, experimental Time Door, sees even from this distance the way Loki looks at him, like he holds all the answers when he can’t even remember Loki’s name. 
“Are you ready?” Sylvie asks.
No. Not even close. “What am I doing?” He whispers, voice raw as it scrapes against his throat, speaking more to himself than her. Loki couldn’t even bring himself to come with them, bidding Mobius goodbye at the TVA instead, muttering some lie about having too much to do there.
But it’s clear now, as Mobius watches their past or alternate selves stumble through a meeting there isn’t time for, but that Loki is clearly taking great care at trying to get right. He had been so angry with Loki earlier, when the god had declined taking him back to the timeline, instead asking Sylvie to escort him. He had felt like nothing, like some odious chore being pawned off onto someone else to take care of. But he sees now it was nothing like that.
Loki asked Sylvie to take him back, refused to accompany him, because he couldn’t, because he would not be able to say goodbye again. Loki respects Mobius’s choice to return to his time, but doesn’t trust himself to let Mobius go if he comes with. Because… because…
Mobius’s past self turns to look at OB’s past self, and Loki continues to watch him. Mobius thinks of Loki time-slipping into the War Room, yelling his name like just the sight of him will make everything better. He thinks of crash-landing into the TVA after Loki flew out of the time stream at the last possible second, the relief blossoming in his chest as Loki’s arms tightened around him. He thinks of Loki’s surprised smile in the automat when he suggested tricking Brad into giving up Sylvie’s location. He thinks of Loki turning to look at him as Timely descended the stairs, searching for him immediately in what must have been (he realized later) the moment Loki returned from the past. 
“This is where you belong,” Sylvie says gently, in answer to the question he scarcely remembers uttering. 
“He loves me, doesn’t he?” Mobius whispers, finally tearing his gaze away from the scene before them to look at Sylvie. 
She looks at him, eyes sympathetic. She nods, and says softly, “But this is your place.”
He shakes his head. “No,” he says, just as quietly. “It’s not. And it shouldn’t have taken me this long to figure it out.”
“Mobius–” She starts, but he pulls out his TemPad and programs in the TVA.
“Are you coming?” He asks her. She shakes her head, holding up her own TemPad.
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I’ll see you around.”
She watches him for a moment, and then she smiles. “You’re going to make him very happy, you know that?”
“I hope so.” Then he turns away from her and walks through the Time Door.
He walks into Analysis, but of course, Loki isn’t where he left him. B-15 looks up from a monitor and smiles with surprise.
“You’re back,” she says.
“I made a mistake.” He replies.
“I’ll say.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“OB saw him walking toward the automat a while ago.” She doesn’t have to ask him who he means, and he sees her smile widen.
“It’s that obvious, is it?” He asks. He’s been an idiot.
“Kind of, yeah,” she nods. “Go get him.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice, taking off in the direction of the automat as fast as his legs can carry him.
He’s there, thank God, head in his hands and long legs splayed where he sits in the small, metal chair. His shoulders shake and it breaks Mobius’s heart, but the sight of him is gorgeous and perfect and he has no idea how he walked away from this man in the first place. His feet carry him forward, not even pausing in the doorway for a moment. 
When he’s a few feet away, Loki looks up, tears tracking their way down his cheeks and eyes awash with sorrow. They widen when he sees Mobius. 
“Mobius, you’re back. What are you–” Mobius doesn’t wait for him to finish his question, taking him into his arms and kissing him firmly. Loki melts against him with a whimper that makes Mobius ache. Mobius pulls him close, threading fingers into his raven hair, wiping away the tears that still fall from his closed eyes. 
At last, they pull away, Mobius gazing down at Loki, hands framing the god’s wet face. 
“I’m sorry,” Mobius says, hoarsely. “I’m sorry I left you. I don’t belong on the timeline. My place is here, with you. I want to be with you. I want to stay,” his voice cracks, then, and he feels the tears begin to fill his own eyes. “If that’s what you want and I haven’t completely misinterpreted everything, but I–”
“Mobius.”
“I love you.” Mobius says in a rush, before Loki can say anything else. And then, because it wasn’t nearly as difficult to say out loud as he’d expected it to be, he says it again. “I love you.”
Loki lets out a noise that sounds heartbreakingly like a sob and presses his face into Mobius’s chest. Mobius holds him, stroking his hair. “I’m sorry that for a moment there it seemed like I didn’t. I’ve never…. I’m not used to this, Loki. You’ve turned my life upside down, and I’m not talking about helping to cause the multiverse and conspiring to kill my boss.”
Loki snorts a laugh, which seems like a good sign, so Mobius goes on. “I thought I’d figured it out, but everything was happening so quickly. And then when we finally had a minute to breathe, you said I should go back to my past. And I’m not blaming you; I probably would have said the same thing, but I thought, okay, that makes sense. And I thought maybe what I had thought was happening wasn’t really, because I had no experience with anything like this so what would I know about falling in love? It’s not like OB put it in their guidebook or that workplace romance is a TVA-sanctioned training. 
“And then you wouldn’t even take me back to the timeline, and I completely misunderstood your reasons for that.” Loki pulls away then, looking into Mobius’s face. Mobius can’t seem to stop touching him, though, but that isn’t exactly new. He strokes Loki’s face, and Loki leans into his fingertips.
“I’m sorry.” Loki whispers. “I should have realized how that would look to you. I should have been able to go with you. Just the idea of watching you walk away from me was so painful I could think of nothing else.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Mobius murmurs, stroking his thumb across Loki’s cheek. “I understand now. 
“Sylvie took me back to the moment you took my past self with you, and I realized…. You were just so careful. You spoke to me so gently and helped me through the Time Door.”
Loki startles him by letting out a huff of laughter. “I learned that from you,” Loki tells him. “You’ve treated me like that from the moment we met.” He looks down at Mobius’s hands, still framing his face affectionately, then back up into Mobius’s eyes. He smiles, and Mobius returns it.
“You couldn’t stop looking at me.” Mobius says. Loki’s green eyes, still wet with unshed tears, sparkle with mischief. 
“I learned that from you, too.”
Mobius’s smile widens. “Well, maybe that’s why I knew what I was looking at when I saw it.”
Loki kisses him. “I love you, too,” he says. “Did I say that already?”
“I think you were too busy reacting to my saying it, but I appreciate you saying it now.” 
“You’re staying? Really?” Loki keeps his tone casual, but his face pinches slightly with worry, and it makes Mobius ache. Both intentionally and not, he’s caused this fear of loneliness in Loki. He will work the rest of his life to assuage it. Loki is worth it. 
“Yes,” Mobius says. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
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hoodiewithhorns · 3 years
Text
━ using your safe word scenarios ★
characters : hajime iwaizumi, tetsuro kuroo, keiji akaashi.
there will be a part 2 & 3 coming soon!
edit : p.2 is out <3
m.sterlist + requests box
▲ cw : not proof read, angst, use of safeword, “red” used as the safeword, clit spanking, mean!doms, hurt/comfort, established relationship, forced orgasm, jealousy, oral m! receiving, facefucking, foreplay f! receiving, degradation, slight punishment if you squint, aftercare/reassurance , all characters are 18+, MDNI ▼
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Kuroo
- you weren’t necessarily in a good mood to be fucked roughly by him
- you just wanted some soft passionate sex with kuroo
- You assumed he’d figure out what you wanted due to him knowing you better than yourself.
- But you were wrong..very wrong.
-Not wanting to disappoint your boyfriend you played along.
- biggest mistake.
〜 ☆
you bobbed your head on his cock while he groaned at the slow pace. you were taking your time today since you weren’t in the best mood to be shoving him down your throat. you thought he take this as a sign of you wanting things slow soft and sweet, instead he took this as a sign of you being bratty, a brat who deserves punishment in his eyes.
“you little brat.” he forcefully shoved his cock down your throat. You gagged in response feeling your eyes become glossy, tears promising to spill at any given minute, looking up at him with pleading eyes hoping he’d show some form of mercy. but of course, he didn’t. tightening the grip on your hair he moved you back and forth on his cock causing you to gag and your breathing becoming heavy.
you heart ached in your chest as you tried to push him off, but to no avail. a dark chuckle leaving his throat as he watched you struggle, a sight he would commonly enjoy. “such a bad girl today huh? maybe i should go find another goodgirl. one that’ll actually listen.” you tried to shake your head as fat tears streamed down your face, the thought of him replacing you being one your biggest fears. did he mean that? just cause you weren’t in a good mood he was gonna replace you? you thought to yourself noticing the grip he had on you loosened a little. you could move away now and so you did. pulling away from his cock trying to catch your breath only causing him to get angrier. “why are you being so bad today? why cant you be a goodgirl and-“
“Red!” you choked out a sob as more tears fell from your face staining the bed sheets beneath you. sitting up, your palms resting on your thighs as you sobbed. the room went silent with the only sound present being your soft cries alongside with your occasional sniffles. confused he lifted your chin up, you pathetically looked up at him like a helpless little puppy. he finally understood what was wrong, mumbling a few curses as he got closer to you, sitting you on his lap as you cried into his chest.
“easy now baby. i’m so sorry...” he whispered thanking whatever was above that he hadn’t lost you, feeling horrible for not picking up the obvious signs you weren’t in the mood for any of this.
“d-do you really wanna l-leave me?” your voice was hoarse from one getting your throat fucked and two crying. hugging you tighter and feeling nothing but regret. each cry you let out tugged at his heartstrings. he never wanted this how could he have been so blind? you were his little baby he wanted to protect every chance he got. now you were here. sobbing into his chest all because he didn’t realize you weren’t in the right mood today. 
“never prettygirl. i’d be devastated without you in my life... I didn’t mean that I promise.” he pulled you away from his chest to face you. kissing the few tears you had left on you. even with tears pampered all over your face, to him you still managed to be pretty. even if it hurt him since he was the reason for all this, you could tell he was on the brink of tears too. he couldn’t imagine a life without you without his precious girlfriend in his life he’d be a train wreck.
“i-i...i just wanted us to go nice and gentle tonight..i didn’t have a good day today..but i didn’t want you to be mad since you like it when its rough so..”
he let out a chuckle at your last sentence causing you to look at him in confusion. “yeah being rough is nice and all but its only nice when you’re in the right mindset for it. you should’ve told me you weren’t feeling it tonight baby. If you wanna get fucked nice and gently by me you should’ve just said so my love.” he says planting a kiss on your forehead.
you smiled, reverting back to your previously cheery self making kuroo more than happy. he rested his head on top your shoulder “if you want, we can try again baby. this time i’ll give it to you nice and sweet..you’d like that wouldn’t you my pretty baby?” he whispers into your ear planting kisses down your neck as you let out a whimper feeling him smirk against your neck.
“mm-mhm please tetsu...”
he wastes no time wrapping his arms around your waist as your cunt feels him hardening again. “whatever my baby wants who am i to deny?”
akaashi
- the thought of using your safeword never occurred to you when you were with akaashi
- in fact he suggested it just in case things took a turn you didn’t like
- tonight was different though you were his innocent girlfriend who just wanted to treat him the way he treats you so lovingly
- wearing nothing but his shirt accompanied by a cute pair of panties feeling confident about your plan to please your boyfriend.
- though it doesn’t go according to plan,
you saw him sitting on the bed reading a novel still in his formal clothing. You were feeling particularly needy tonight learning a few new things you read from the internet a week ago on how to please your boyfriend sexually. you did however feel a bundle of nerves fill you up, but you just assumed it was because this was something you’ve never done before to anyone.
akaashi was not only your first, but he was your first boyfriend your first everything when it came to romance. now, putting all your insecurities aside, you were going to try out what you learned tonight on your beloved boyfriend!
 walking towards him, you crawled on top of his lap, arms wrapped around his neck to pull him in for a sweet kiss. he smirked setting his book down on the nightstand while taking his glasses off as well.
“Can I help you pretty girl?” he questioned placing his hands on your hips. “oh nothing...i just want you tonight..is that okay?” you asked, your innocent voice making akaashi smile. you were just so cute and pure in his eyes. you jump in excitement ready to initiate your plan to please your boyfriend. you started kissing him slowly yet passionately, grinding your wet cunt against his slowly hardening cock through his pants.
he opened his eyes to clearly understand what you were doing. to his shock what he assumed was correct. His innocent girlfriend who had no knowledge on how to please her boyfriend grinding up against him. maybe you were just being extra needy? he told himself. not longer after he snapped back to reality as he felt you pull away from him only to kiss down his jaw leaving a trail of soft kisses.
His cheeks becoming red as your soft lips traced down to unbutton his shirt. “so handsome..” You said kissing his chest as you went down to his abdomen. he would be lying if he said he wasn’t enjoying this, but.... Your not gonna do what he thinks you are right?? his own girlfriend who was too shy who cried at the first attempt to sucking him off?? no he must be getting ahead of himself.
looking down once more to check up on you, he finds you unbuckling his pants letting his cock spring free. his mouth agape seeing your head already lick his precum nice and clean, pumping him a few times to get all his precum out. he shudders as your wet tongue touches his cock, giving him kitten licks here and there. taking a deep breath, shoving him down your throat all in one go, a small gag escaping from you, squeezing your eyes tightly trying your best not to cry.
humming, you bobbing back and forth making him grunt at the waves of pleasure you were giving him. Still, he felt uneasy. who taught you this?? he was always the one guiding you, teaching you how to do things yet here you were sucking him down your pretty little throat. head thrown back his groans mixed with his thoughts, he kept overthinking the reasons as to how you picked up on this.
did Bokuto teach you?? you two always got along so well..sometimes leaving akaashi to third wheel, but why was he thinking about that now??
 “shit..” he grunted as he felt his high approaching. He tried to pull your head back so he wouldn’t end up cumming in your mouth, but you stayed on his cock till he came.
smiling at him, you licked your lips, swallowing his cum. leaving him surprised at everything you’ve just done. you’ve never did any of this nor tried to. It hurt the first time you tried to give him head now here you are taking him down your throat? He couldn’t believe it.
he wanted to get to the bottomed of this quickly.
“dirty girl.” he spits out flipping you to the other side of the bed, pushing your head down to the pillow putting your ass up with your cunt in full display for him. you winced at the sudden aggressive force.
“who taught you all those things you little slut?”hooking his finger onto your soaked panties to push them aside, he shoved two fingers deep inside of your dripping hole making you whimper at the painful stretch, not giving you enough time to adjust as he pumped into you.
“k-keiji w-wait!!” you whined screwing your eyes shut to fight back your tears, while he started pumping his fingers at an inhuman pace, he hovered over you, your back to his chest while his head rested on your shoulder.
“i asked you a question, so I expect an answer.” his voice was cold and stern without a sound of love or worry. the stretch of his fingers were painful especially with how he was practically scissoring you open. your eyes rolled at to the back of your head feeling your climax approaching, but it hurt so much you weren’t used to such a rough pace.
akaashi always took his time with you. Going slow and easy, praising you, calling you his angel or goodgirl for taking him in so well. but now he was none of these things.this felt like a completely different person to what you were use to.
“mm’ n-no one! keiji- p-please s-slow down it hurts!!” you sobbed only making him click his tongue at you, your heart sank feeling foggy and uneasy.“you probably like that it hurts huh? you’re dripping around my fingers you filthy slut.” he never used a tone as harsh as this before. never calling you names or degrading you in general. the pain in your chest overlapping the pleasure as more tears fall.
“n-no not a s-slut!! p-please stop! it hurts please keiji please-“ you begged feeling your stomach tighten as he kept fingering you till you screamed, squirting all over the bed sheets. “dirty slut.” He pulled out abruptly from you causing you to choke out another sob. your body trembling at this point as you pant out in desperation to form words scared of what he might do next. “N-no more please I’ll be good i p-promise just please..” you begged him once again, hoping he’d notice the pain you were in...he didn’t.
“no. sluts like you don’t get to make decisions like that.” He was about to pull your shirt off until you screamed and kicked  “red! red! r-red!!” he moved away only to watch you curl in on yourself, hugging your knees for comfort, refusing to look him in the eyes. “baby..?” he said softly trying to move you to face him to his horror you flinched shrinking in on yourself.
“keiji... why were you s-so...mean to me i only wanted to make you feel good..you always make me feel good so why did you..” immediately, he scooped you into his arms rocking you back and forth as if you were a toddler. you cuddled up against his chest as he felt your tears fall on his chest.he didn’t mind of course. “shh its okay..its okay..” the voice he commonly spoke to you coming back, soft, reassuring, just how you liked it.
“baby..im sorry i.. I didn’t mean to be so mean..i just got scared you were maybe..well someone might’ve been teaching you these things..” you froze pulling away to look at him.
“w-what? I didn’t learn that from anyone..id never let anyone teach me or touch me but you keiji! i just..read some stuff about it online...and I wanted to test it out..” you admitted through sniffles still rubbing your tears away. He sighed as he hugged you again running his fingers through your hair. 
all you wanted was to please your boyfriend from just that, his heart skipped a beat at how sweet you were being, but the feeling was overshadowed by  feeling so stupid for letting his insecurities take the best of him.
“I’m sorry baby.. I promise to never speak to you like that ever again..you’re my sweet girl and I love you so so much.. you were just trying to do something nice for me..thank you i appreciate it my love..it felt really nice you did good.” He cupped your face in his hands, peppering soft kisses around your face.
he smiled as you giggled at the ticklish feeling, sighing in relief.
“ i love you, my sweetgirl. ”
Iwaizumi
- he got home pissed off since he saw you chatting and giggling with mattsun. 
- he needed to blow off some steam
- he didn’t mean to be so mean he really didn’t
-he was usually a soft dom but today..he was everything but soft to you.
“ filthy fucking whore. what were you doing talking to mattsun huh?” his thrusts were sharp, painful, not being prepped well enough by him making the stretch of his cock burn through your gummy walls. feeling the air in your lungs start to leave you slowly as tears streamed down your face at iwaizumis cold , heartless, tone. there was not a single trace of him, not a sign of his love. you weren't trying to make him jealous, you just spend sometime to get to know mattsun just a little more since he was friends with your boyfriend never expecting him to react like this. 
snapping back to your current situation, you arched your back letting out a loud cry as he slapped your puffy clit. “didn’t i ask you a fucking question? or did your dumb slutty brain already get fucked out of you huh?” he wrapped his hands around your throat thrusting harder and deeper in you. 
his tip painfully hitting your cervix with each thrust making you cry at the pain. you tried pushing him off with the little strength you had in you, sobbing out an apology making him roll his eyes. 
“tch, what? you think a little apology is gonna change the fact you were all “buddy buddy” with mattsun? did you forget who fucking owns you little slut?” landing another harsh slap at your clit causing you cry in discomfort. everything around you made you feel light as if you were gonna pass out from the cruel words iwaizumi spoke to you. feeling helpless as there was no sign of your once loving boyfriend. 
“maybe i should’ve invited him over, let him have a turn at ruining your slutty little cunt.”
Finally, having enough you cried out “r-red..” it was soft, gentle, easily could’ve been unheard if it wasn’t for how closely iwaizumi payed attention to you. he halted his thrusts pulling out of you completely, eyes draining of all lust and jealousy converting to concern mixed with regret. he rushed to put back his boxers on, cuddling you against his chest. 
you didn’t push him away, no you could never. he was the man you loved and treasured more than anything. you were hurt obviously, but still wanted to seek his comfort.
“i-i dont like m-mattsun haji..i only like you..only you..” your voice sounding broken. he let out a deep sigh pulling you closer to kiss your head. 
“i know baby i know... i was just jealous..you get along so well with mattsun i..went too far on you..i’m sorry you didn’t deserve that baby” his voice sounding faint but full of comfort.
“i just wanted to get t-to know him...i didn’t mean to make you mad haji..”
“i know baby shhh its okay now..i’m not mad anymore.”he cooed kissing you softly. you nodded letting your last set of tears fall onto his chest. 
slowly shutting your eyes and falling asleep in the warmth of his chest.
him on the other hand was completely mortified at your sobbing accompanied with your sniffles it echoed through his ears replaying like a broken record each time the memory got to you saying your safeword. 
“r-red..”
he never thought he’d reach that point for you to have to tell him that. he let out a few tears that night hating himself for hurting you. you forgave that very second he apologized but him on the other hand? he didn't..no he couldn’t.
let’s just say, he didn't get much sleep that weekend. 
akaashis is long asf (im sorry i just love him sm) and iwaiuzmis is short but i love these boys sm.  
i still am taking requests all links are above and down here. remember to drink water. oh and heres the m.sterlist  in case you missed it <3♡
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phoenixyfriend · 3 years
Text
Anakin and the Jedi Babies: Names and Faces
Context:  Anakin and the Jedi Babies, chrono
Word Count: 6,477
---------------
It goes like this:
Nobody wants to separate Anakin from the children in his care until they know more about why he’s here. The gamble paid off, to some degree, and he thanks the Force that it did.
He hasn’t felt that cold in years.
He knows the logic of why the Mandalorians he’s fallen in with aren’t doing anything yet. He’s an obvious Jedi, and they don’t know why he’s here or what he’s doing. Hedging on the Mando’a and the cultural obligation to childcare hadn’t been anything close to sure, but it was... enough. He got lucky that these Mandalorians leaned on those obligations, at least to the point of keeping them all in the same room. He can sense that much, even before he opens his eyes, and he has to be grateful.
The looming hypothermia had probably nudged things in his favor.
Anakin opens his eyes to a guest room of a cell, something well-furnished and cozy, but definitely not meant to be something he can escape from. His saber is gone, and there are Force-nullifying cuffs on his wrists, and he’s pretty sure they’ve taken his--yep, vibroblade’s gone.
Fuck.
His body doesn’t want to move, and he’s still shivering a bit, but he’s mostly back to normal. When he sits up, he notices that there is, in fact, only one Force-nullifying cuff. They detached his arm.
He closes his eyes and breathes deep and tells himself it was probably medically necessary. Large pieces of metal aren’t great for maintaining homeostasis. He’ll get it back.
Probably.
“Ah!”
The voice makes him jolt, and his eyes fly open.
Two cribs, one much bigger than the other. Both are occupied. The larger one has bars, and through it...
“Snips,” he breathes, lurching to his feet and then crashing to his knees, about as graceful as a newborn eopie.
“Bah!”
“Just--just one second,” Anakin grits out, grimacing as he tries to pull himself to standing again. The fact that he’s down an arm doesn’t impact him much, but the shakiness of his legs is... a problem.
“Owwww,” Ahsoka coos with an exaggerated grimace, reacting to his pain with the innocent sympathy of a toddler. She looks, what, two? Maybe? He’s not sure if there’s anything particular about how Togruta babies age. She’s too young for words, clearly.
“I’m fine,” Anakin assures her, even as his heart sinks. She’s Ahsoka, clearly, he knows her in the Force and it can’t be anyone else, but her memories...
She recognizes him, but that’s not saying much.
He manages to get over to the chair next to the crib, but doesn’t trust himself to take her out right now. The snow and the mess of a fight before that haven’t been kind to him. Instead, he just sticks his hand through the bars and lets her grab at his fingers.
He can’t help but smile, really. She’s adorable, and she’s so damn happy to see him.
“Skyguy!”
“Oh, so you are talking,” Anakin says, part of him relaxing just a tad. “I was worried.”
“Mine,” she stresses, patting at his wrist.
“Yeah, your Skyguy,” he says. So she remembers... some things, at least. “And you’re my Snips.”
She squeals and yanks on his hand, just enough that the Force-suppressing cuff clanks against the bars of the crib. “Sky, Sky, Sky!”
Oh, she’s precious.
“You having fun?” he asks, filling the air with words faster than his head can fill with doubts. “Has everyone been nice?”
“Mmmmm,” she grumbles, falling to her butt with a huff. “Doc!”
“Oh, a doctor?” he asks, wondering at his own tone. He never expected to be one for baby-talk. “Was the doctor mean?”
“Cold!” she tells him. “Cold here!”
She taps at her chest, right where someone might check her heartbeat or breathing; the metal would be cold, and also necessary. He doesn’t fault anyone for it. Considering how poorly Anakin had fared, he’s just happy they’re all alive and mostly fine.
He doesn’t know what year it is. He knows he’s not in the year he should be. He’s vaguely aware of the name Jaster--one of the Mandos had said it while bringing him in--but he doesn’t know when Mereel’s reign ended and Fett’s began. He does know both are supposed to be dead.
Has Anakin been born yet? Has Ahsoka? Hell, has Obi-Wan?
Can he give out any real names?
A series of small, upset noises start coming up from the other, smaller crib.
He stands, but Ahsoka clings to his hand and refuses to let go. He can’t pry her off, not without his other arm, but he pulls away with quiet reassurances that he just has to check on... on...
Her brother, he says, aware that there’s more than a slight chance someone has the room bugged. He’s a Jedi in Mando custody. They aren’t stupid, and neither is he.
Obi-Wan’s the most likely to have already been born. Having the same name and face will draw attention, will cause questions, but... he can’t just rename his master like a recently-adopted pet. That’s just... wrong.
Anakin’s less shaky than when he first woke up, but he still has no way of safely picking up the kids. He reaches into the small crib, something twisting behind his sternum, and tickles under Obi-Wan’s chin.
The baby--the infant--looks up at him with wide eyes, too blue for the Obi-Wan he knows, but full of wonder and--
Love, the Force whispers through the cracks in the effects of the cuff.
“Love you too,” Anakin whispers, though he wonders if Obi-Wan would really feel like this as an adult again. Babies love easily, he thinks, and he’s the only adult that Obi-Wan knows right now. Maybe it’s just chemicals.
He stands there for longer than is probably a good idea, with the state of his body, but he can’t help it. Obi-Wan keeps grabbing at his finger and kicking with tiny legs, and sticking a tiny, tiny fist in his mouth as he tries watches Anakin.
It’s all Anakin can do to mutter a stream of meaningless nonsense as he struggles not to cry. He’s always had too many emotions, and right now he’s the only person these two can rely on. He’s the adult.
The door whooshes open.
“The medic said you were awake.”
He knows that voice. He closes his eyes and doesn’t turn, because there are a million feelings in his chest and he’s not sure which one is going to come out first.
“Sky?” Ahsoka questions, likely feeling his worry. “Issokay! Good!”
No, she wouldn’t have the mind to recognize why this familiar face she knows as friend is quite the opposite.
Anakin turns away from the crib, and smiles. “Mando.”
“Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker,” the teenager in the door says. He’s not wearing his bucket, but the rest of his armor is in place. Anakin would peg him as younger than Ahsoka was, before. Not by much, but... fourteen, maybe fifteen. The face is painfully familiar, and stays utterly neutral as he answers the question Anakin didn’t ask. “We found your Ident card after you passed out.”
Cool, so, Anakin definitely can’t change his name.
“Are they yours?” the teenager that will one day create an army says.
“They have no one else,” Anakin tells him. It’s true enough. Still, he gets the feeling that’s not what Fett’s asking. “They’re family.”
Jango squints at him. “I was told Jedi can’t have families.”
Anakin’s mind flashes to Padme and the fantasies he’d long harbored of children born free, and tears himself away. He can’t think about that right now. He can’t think of who he’s--
“Jetii!”
Anakin’s head snaps up, and he realizes he’s shaking. Fett’s not neutral anymore, just... concerned.
“I’m fine,” Anakin spits out, and leans on the crib behind him. He can hear the little ones whimpering. He has to pull his thoughts in and bundle them up into something that won’t hurt the incredibly Force-Sensitive babies behind him. “I’m--I’m all they have. They’re all I have. Are the exact words important?”
Fett doesn’t grimace, exactly, but his expression isn’t pleasant. “I guess.”
Anakin waits to see if there’s anything else coming, but no. Just an awkward silence. He holds onto his frustration, but it still gets the better of him.
“What are my chances of getting my arm back?” he asks.
“Hm?”
Anakin waves what’s left of that arm, the tied-off sleeve flapping about. “My arm. If you don’t want to give me mine back, can I at least have some kind of placeholder? I can’t pick up the babies without worrying that I’m going to drop them.”
“I can ask the medics,” Fett says. He stares at Anakin for a little more, and then asks, “Aren’t you going to ask about our plans for you, or...?”
“If you wanted to kill me, you already would have,” Anakin mutters. “Right now, these two are my only priority. I’m more likely to keep them safe and alive here than I am if I try to break out. I can be patient. I would also assume they wouldn’t have been left in a room with me, alone, if any of us were in danger of medical complications.”
Fett flushes and turns. “I’ll tell buir you’re up and active. There’s a nurse droid in the hall, I can have it handle feedings until you get an arm.”
“Thanks,” Anakin drawls, aware that he’s a little bitchy right now, but not in any mood to temper himself.
He settles himself on the floor next to Ahsoka’s crib, lets her play with his hair while the nurse droid feeds Obi-Wan, and then feeds Ahsoka herself. Anakin thinks he could probably pull the droid apart for an escape attempt if it came down to it. He hopes it won’t be necessary. He’s barely existing in the moment as it is. The droid asks Anakin if he needs anything, and he... shrugs.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Perhaps some non-perishables,” the nurse droids suggests. “Ration bars, for if you are hungry before one of the Mando’ade returns.”
Anakin shrugs again. “Alright.”
He ignores the droid after that. He’s only mostly cut off from the Force by the single cuff. He can’t blanket his Master and Padawan in his own Force presence, try to make them feel safe and calm with the fact that he’s here and ready to protect them, but he can monitor them. He can meditate, even if it’s not the way he prefers to do it. He doesn’t have the strength for moving meditation right now, but a regular meditation... he can do that.
He needs to do that, because no other stress relief option is available to him right now.
Anakin lets himself feel the babies fall asleep, the two of them radiating contentment and warmth. He lets himself trust that, for the moment, he doesn’t need to worry. He lets himself sink into an absence of thought, and then the Force guides him deeper still.
“Anakin!”
His eyes fly open.
This is not the real world.
This is not the room-cell in the Haat Mando’ade base he’s managed to stumble across.
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says again, a smile hidden in a beard and worn laugh lines about his eyes. The right age, the right size, reaching for him and--
There’s only a moment’s hesitation for Anakin to process, and then he sprints forward and yanks his Master into a hug.
“You’re good,” Obi-Wan mutters to him, rubbing his back as they both sink to their knees. There’s a click of bootheels against the empty white not-space that they’re in, and Ahsoka buries herself into their sides. Anakin pulls her in a little closer too.
They stay that for longer than is maybe necessary, but Anakin’s stress levels are sky high right now, and he needs this. A hug, even one that’s technically only taking place in his head, is important.
“Sorry, Skyguy,” Ahsoka whispers. “Thinking in the real world is... really hard right now.”
He pulls away from the desperate hug he’d started them off with, rearranges things so he’s leaning against Obi-Wan, lets Ahsoka lie down with her head in his lap, on her back and legs stretched out across the white nothingness.
“I don’t know what happened,” Anakin says. “I mean, Sith stuff, probably, but... we’re in the wrong year.”
“I’d wondered,” Obi-Wan admits. “I thought it odd that I couldn’t feel the clones, but I only have so much energy to think right now...”
“Please tell me there’s a way to fix it,” Anakin begs. “I can’t be the adult, Obi-Wan. I haven’t even been born yet, that’s how far back we are. I don’t know what to do, and I can’t just bang around making bad decisions without you there to pull me back and--”
“Breathe,” Obi-Wan tells him.
“We’re in the Force,” Anakin says, just a little hysterically. “We don’t need to breathe!”
“Actually, I think we’re in your head,” Ahsoka says. She’s pointing and stretching her feet like a dancer, but looks up to grin at Anakin like the little shit she is. “You’re the only one whose brain is big enough right now.”
“Hey,” Anakin complains, putting his entire palm over her face as revenge. She giggles and swats him away. “That any way to talk to the guy who taught you how to kill five guys in one move?”
She sticks her tongue out at him. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand over her montrals, smiling when she wriggles and makes a little chirruping noise.
“She’s not wrong,” Obi-Wan says. “Though the phrasing was unfortunate, it does stand to reason that as the only person without the brain of a toddler, you’re hosting. Our minds can’t handle the strain of our own selves, let alone sharing space.”
“Infant.”
“Hm?”
“Ahsoka’s a toddler. You’re an infant. Maybe six months.” Anakin grins, just this side of brittle. He doesn’t want to joke about a problem he can’t fix, but what else is there? “You’re the literal baby of the lineage now.”
Obi-Wan sighs over the riot of Ahsoka’s laugh. “Of course I am.”
“It’s okay, Master,” Ahsoka assures him. “Skyguy’s gonna take care of us until we can fight again.”
“Yes,” Obi-Wan says, grimacing slightly. “I am sorry for you being put in such a position, Anakin. It’s certainly not an easy one.”
Anakin wishes he could say that his immediate reaction isn’t a sense of hurt, a you don’t trust me, a you don’t think I can do this, a you’re disappointed someone else wasn’t here to handle things instead.
He wishes he could make that claim and have anyone believe him, but they are in a shared meditation, and in this moment there are very, very few secrets. He does not make the effort to hide his reaction in time, and Obi-Wan catches it.
Anakin turns away as Obi-Wan’s face fills with surprise and horror. “Anakin--”
“Can we just pretend you didn’t feel that?” Anakin asks, and flinches when Ahsoka pops up from where she lies and scurries around to hug him like a vise. “Can we just pretend I’m not--”
“Dear one, there are very few people I would trust as much as you in this,” Obi-Wan says. “Those who match up are largely the people who helped me raise me when I was actually this age.”
“Being completely reliant on your padawan isn’t--”
“Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, cutting him off there. “I can trust you to care for me in ways that don’t just come down to making me a useful general again. I already trust you to risk your life and safety and freedom to see us survive, given what little I remember of that storm.”
“You handed yourself over to Mandalorians you knew nothing about so we’d be safe,” Ahsoka mutters into the fabric somewhere over his ribs. “That could have gone really badly, and you still did it because you were worried about us.”
“We trust you, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, pulling Anakin to his chest and resting his chin on Anakin’s head. “We know you.”
“You don’t even know what happened in the storm,” Anakin mutters. “You were asleep.”
“I caught enough listening to the doctors,” Obi-Wan says. He runs a hand over Anakin’s head and through his hair. “You did well, Anakin.”
Anakin wonders why they don’t do this in real life. Obi-Wan doesn’t usually hug him, let alone cuddle. Maybe it’s because they’re all stuck in too much truth in this shared meditation, and the other two are currently stuck in child bodies that crave physical affection in ways they don’t realize they’re expressing in here as well. Maybe it’s the stress.
“What even can you hear?” Anakin mutters, still in Obi-Wan’s arms. Ahsoka giggles at him, nuzzling into his side in a way he doesn’t think she’d ever let herself, normally.
“We can’t really think in the real world right now,” she muses. “Only when we’re sleeping, and probably when we’re meditating once we’re bigger. If I try to think too hard, my head hurts worse than that time Ventress got me in the head with the back of her saber.”
“Everything takes up more space than it should,” Obi-Wan adds. “It’s... all of my senses are bigger and brighter and take up more of my attention, but they aren’t very clear, really. They’re just more. I can’t focus on anything, either, except... well, the feedings.”
Ahsoka makes an annoyed noise. “The whole diapers and bottles thing is really embarrassing, by the way. Only here, though, I barely notice when I’m awake because...”
“Because you’re a toddler,” Anakin says drily.
She huffs. “How would you feel if you were stuck like that?”
That’s fair.
“I don’t remember much,” Obi-Wan says carefully. “But part of me recognizes familiar things, even if I can’t quite make the connection.”
“Was that Fett, earlier?” Ahsoka asks. “Because I thought I saw a friend, and I pretty much forgot the face as soon as they left, but--”
“It’s Fett,” Anakin confirms. “But I guess that’s good to know? You saw his face and your baby brain just assumed it was one of the clones?”
“Pretty much.”
“And we know we trust you,” Obi-Wan adds, and tightens the hug when Anakin stiffens. “Anakin, I can barely understand the world around me at all right now. It’s like being on the painkillers that don’t knock you out but leave you saying only the most ridiculous things that come to mind. You have a general understanding of what’s going on, but all your emotions are too much and the room spins, you can’t stay on one track mentally, you can’t remember what you’ve done and what you haven’t--”
“You can’t control your bladder,” Ahsoka mutters, just a touch spitefully.
Obi-Wan grimaces and nods. “An unfortunate commonality in the experiences, yes. What I was aiming to address, however, is the fact that I only remember a very few things with any reliability. Most of my adult mind, so to speak, appears to be stored in a stasis form in the Force itself, because the infant mind can only handle the barest edges of who I am. But what that infant mind knows, and what I remember thinking once I have some sense of my full self in sleep, is that there is no one I react to as positively as you, Anakin.”
“What he’s trying to say,” Ahsoka interrupts, “but can’t because he’s trying to be a serene Jedi Councilor who definitely doesn’t break the code, nosiree, is that we don’t remember much about ourselves when we’re awake, but we remember you, and we know that we love you, Skyguy.”
Anakin stares at her, and then twists around to look at Obi-Wan instead.
“Master Kenobi,” Ahsoka croons. “Stop being emotionally constipated. We’re literal babies right not, which sucks, but we’re like 90% emotion. Tell Skyguy.”
“Yes, er, Ahsoka was not incorrect,” Obi-Wan says, stroking his beard and refusing to meet Anakin’s eyes. “I, that is to say, we...”
“Master Kenobi,” Ahsoka says, a touch sharper than she might have dared if not for the reversal of their ages.
“I do love you, Anakin, and it’s one of the only things my child mind knows consistently.”
The Force does, in fact, sing with the truth of this. It circles them like a delighted tornado of emotional reality, pulsing like a coat of positivity.
Anakin buries his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder and hugs him as tightly as possible.
“Oh! Oh dear, I--Anakin, really, this isn’t news.”
“Master Kenobi, you’re allergic to actually talking about your emotions. Let him hug you.”
“Anakin, I’ve raised you since you were nine, it would be nearly impossible for me to not care, why are you--”
“Master Kenobi, stop questioning him!” Ahsoka whines. “It’s affirmation time.”
“Ahsoka, have you been spending time with the mind healers again?”
“I was a teenager in a warzone and also Barriss bullied me into it for my own good.” Ahsoka shrugs. “I learned some stuff. You two should have gone, too. You were more karked up than I was.”
“Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan scolds.
“What are you going to do, spit up on me? You can’t exactly make me run laps, Master.”
“Both of you shut up,” Anakin mumbles, and tries to push as much of his own affection as possible into a little ball of feelings that he can just drop on the two of them while he’s still in his own brain and not somewhere he can’t touch the Force. “Just--just shut.”
Apparently, Anakin’s feelings are a lot, because Ahsoka bursts into tears and Obi-Wan zones out so hard Anakin starts worrying about him.
They’re in a mindscape, a thing that he didn’t really think happened, but does. He shouldn’t have to worry about his--
“Oh, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, pulling him in tighter. “Why did you...”
“Skyguy, I don’t think you planned on putting in the part where you worry about nobody loving you back as much as you loved them,” Ahsoka says, raw and uneven. “Because, uh, we got that? Skyguy, that’s really wrong!”
Oh shit.
“No, you were... you were not supposed to get that,” he says, just a little strangled. “I am so sorry, that wasn’t--”
“Be our dad.”
Anakin stares down at his Padawan. She stares determinedly back.
“What?”
“Fett asked if we were yours, and you edged around the question by saying we were family, but he was asking if you were our dad. I’m guessing you didn’t want to claim that when we couldn’t agree to it, so I’m telling you now: do it. Adopt us the Mandalorian way or whatever. You were already my older brother, basically, this is just a step sideways in how we talk about it.”
He stares at her a bit more. He doesn’t have words, and his emotions are such a cyclone of conflicting thoughts that he’s surprised the Force hasn’t tossed him out.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be born, but if I am, then I need a name so I don’t have the same one as future me,” she says. She takes his hands, holds them tight and leans in close. “You’re going to be raising us anyway. The Force already made it clear there’s no fixing this, we tried asking while you were unconscious, it wants us to grow up the long way. You’re going to be our dad. Just make it official. Make me a Skywalker.”
Anakin sits up straight, looks her up and down, the determination and affection and--
He turns to look at Obi-Wan. “Master?”
“...yes, Anakin?”
“I know she said ‘we’ and ‘us,’ but I’m not letting anyone speak for anyone else. Not for something this important.”
Obi-Wan blinks at him, and then rearranges himself to something a tad more formal. He takes one of Anakin’s hands in his own. “Anakin, we’ve been family since you were nine. This is just redefining the terms. We can adjust as we go forward, but for all intents and purposes, the majority of the time, I will be that youngling in the cot. For all intents and purposes, I will be your child, and... and I would be honored for you to make that official.”
“Even if it breaks the Code?” Anakin presses.
“All is as the Force wills it,” Obi-Wan says, almost but not quite overriding Ahsoka’s, “This doesn’t break the Code.”
They both turn to look at her. She shrugs. “What? You guys are always arguing about it and Skyguy was married. I went and did some digging about what is and isn’t allowed. This adoption would be skirting the edges of some rules, since we should be taken to the creche to be raised in a communal manner, and official adoptions are discouraged for reasons relating to later padawan stuff, but since the Force is also insisting we stay with the Mandalorians, I think it qualifies as an exception and will be treated as such, retroactively, by the Council. You also won’t be able to take either of us as Padawan once that time comes. It does not, however, violate the Code in and of itself.”
“What the hell, Snips?”
“I’m impressed, young one,” Obi-Wan says, with a smile Anakin can feel. “I could have expected to see you in court in a few years, with an argument like that.”
“You knew I was married?” Anakin squeaks.
“Rex isn’t a very good liar,” she says. She then droops. “Or, he wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. He tried, at least, but I caught on. That was against the Code, though. Just so you know.”
Anakin runs a hand over his face, tries very hard not to think about what and whom he’s left behind. He can save that breakdown for later.
He chances a look at Obi-Wan.
He gets a raised eyebrow in response.
“You’re not mad?”
“I knew you and the Senator were close, considering all the kissing you did in the Arena,” Obi-Wan says drily. Anakin isn’t stupid enough to ask how he knows it’s Padme. “I didn’t know you were married, and am a little disappointed you didn’t at least tell me, or consult me before you did it, considering you were still a padawan... but no, I’m not mad. Even if I were--and I am not--we’ve time-traveled, so I’m fairly certain that qualifies as annulment. It’s a non-issue.”
Anakin pushes down the tidal wave of grief for people who haven’t been born yet, and just breathes instead. This is important. This is too important for him to just kriff it up.
“Names,” he says.
“I still want part of it to be ‘Soka,’ if you don’t think it’s too risky.”
Obi-Wan shrugs with a smile. “Almost every time I’ve posed as a Mandalorian, since my first mission with Satine, I’ve gone by Ben. It would be fitting that, now that we’re here and apparently staying, I take the name for real.”
Anakin nods. He closes his eyes, and breathes deep, and thinks that they may be among Mandalorians on a world of snow, but he has the desert in his bones and will never forget it.
“Ahsoka Tano, sister of my heart,” he says, hoping he’s getting the words right, and takes her hands in his. It’ll have more meaning here and now, where they’re both of full mind. He holds her gaze. “You ask to join my family, to be of those who walk the sky. You shed your old name as you shed the chains of your past. You become my daughter, not of blood, but of love, loyalty, and survival. My wells are your wells, and all I own and earn is to set the path of your freedom. I name you Sokanth Skywalker, she who slips through every hunter’s trap, and you are my child.”
She smiles brightly at him, and looks like she might cry. He presses his lips to her forehead. He turns to his Master. He hesitates, because it’s one thing to redefine his little sister, but...
“Obi-Wan Kenobi, father of my heart,” he says, his voice catching where it shouldn’t. He can do this. It’s weird but he can do this. “You ask to join my family, to be of those who walk the sky. You shed your old name as you shed the chains of your past. You become my son, not of blood, but of love, loyalty, and survival. My wells are your wells, and all I own and earn is to set the path of your freedom. I name you Ylliben Skywalker, he who hunts the monsters of the darkest nights, and you are my child.”
The man before him almost laughs, well aware of how absurd it is for Anakin to be the one adopting him, but keeps it limited to just a twinkle in his eye and a quirk to his lips. Anakin presses his lips to his teacher’s forehead.
He pulls both of them in close. Padawan and Master. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan.
Daughter and son. Soka and Ben. His.
“I’m still gonna call you Skyguy,” Soka says wetly. “But Mas--um, Ben. Ben can call you buir, all the Mandos are gonna love it.”
“Fine by me,” Anakin says. “I’m going to be telling you Tatooine bedtime stories, by the way. You’ll remember creche stories as you grow, but these’ll be new.”
“I do believe that would be appropriate,” Ben says, laughing just a touch. “I also think we should perhaps disband this, unless you have something else to address. You’re going to be dealing with two very cranky younglings soon.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah, we’re gonna have headaches after this,” Soka laughs, rubbing her face against his shoulder. “But it’s okay, we got what we ne--”
“No, shut up, what you do mean, headaches? You said that was only when you were awake!”
“I mean, we’d be sobbing after like three minutes if we were awake,” Soka says cheerfully. “This way, it’s been like... an hour or whatever between all the talking and the hugging and the crying and the feelings, and we’re just gonna be grumpy.”
“Oh my--wake up!” Anakin growls at both of them. “I’m responsible for you now, wake up.”
He ignores Soka’s laughter and drags himself back to wakefulness. Behind him, he feels slight confusion and pain mixed with love and delight. Ben starts fussing.
Anakin drags a hand over his face and groans. He gets to his feet, nods to the nurse droid, and steps over to the cribs.
“Can we put them in the same one until I get my arm back?” he asks. The droid obliges, moving Ben to Soka’s crib. She immediately crawls over to him and envelops him in a hug. She pouts up at Anakin, eyes going watery, and he drops into the chair next to her and offers his hand through the bars. She grabs it.
“You’re going to be trouble for a long, long time, huh?”
She sticks her tongue out at him, and he smiles at her. Yes, trouble in spades, his Snips.
He starts telling her one of the fables of Tatooine, the really sanitized ones meant for children her age, before they got to the slave stories and haunt-tales. She falls asleep for real, no Force Shenanigans, shortly after. Ben is dead to the world by that point, making small snuffling noises whenever the blanket tickles his nose.
Anakin knows he’s got the galaxy’s dopiest smile on his face. It’s fine.
It’s a few more hours before someone stops by. He’s used the fresher by that point, helped the nurse droid coax Ben through a feeding, and helped Soka play with the little stuffed eopie they’ve given her.
“They got names, aruetti?”
He looks up and over. “Yes.”
The middle-aged man ambles over, arms crossed. “Jango said you claimed to be all they had left.”
He is. “They’re family. I’ve had a few hours to think it over, now that I’m not getting shot at or dying in the snow. To any system that allows it, I’ll be their father.”
“No chance of returning them to their people?”
Anakin shakes his head. “Soka has none who would recognize her, and I already--I already babysat her regularly, and she thought of me as a brother. It’s an easy next step.”
“And the human?”
“I... the master-padawan relationship is often one that is compared to that of parent and child,” Anakin says carefully. “My own master was like a father to me, and Ben is... Ben is all I have left of him.”
There. Not quite the truth, but... technically not lying.
Ben makes a small noise in his sleep, fussing, and Anakin reaches through the bars to brush his thumb across the infant’s chubby cheek. He smiles helplessly as Ben whines and curls in tighter on himself, pressing a tiny fist to his mouth.
“You’re good,” Anakin whispers. “We’re fine, Ylliben.”
“I don’t know what you’re hiding,” the Mando says. “But I do believe you’re doing what you can for those kids.”
“That’s all that matters,” Anakin agrees, finally looking away from his... his son.
Mine, the greedy krayt in his chest whispers.
“When are you planning on going back to Coruscanta?”
“I’m not,” Anakin says, standing and looking the man head-on. Anakin’s taller than him. That’s usually useful. “I don’t know why, but the Force wants me to stay here, or at least with the Mandalorians.”
“You want me to believe that you support my cause?”
“I don’t know your cause,” Anakin admits. “But I don’t like Death Watch, and I know you don’t either. Nobody on Coruscant is going to know to miss me, and the Force is warning me away from trying to go back. Whatever it is that needs doing, I’m supposed to be doing it here.”
The man steps forward. “Anyone tell you who I am?”
“No.”
“I’m Jaster Mereel.”
Good for you, Anakin thinks, and doesn’t say. “I’m pretty sure you already know my name.”
“I do,” Mereel says. “Wanna tell me how a Knight with a seemingly valid ident card claims nobody will know to miss him?”
“No.”
Mereel doesn’t even blink. “Try that again.”
“It means exactly what I said,” Anakin says. “The ident card is real. My training and rank are earned and deserved and bestowed by protocol. All of it was done at the Temple in Coruscant, but if you phone up the Temple with my name and face, nobody will know who I am.”
“And you’re not going to tell me why,” Mereel grouses. “What’s stopping me from calling them up anyway and asking them to come fetch your hypothermic ass?”
“...the fact that I already offered to help you?” Anakin manages. “I... I did say that part, right? That I’d help?”
“What’s stopping you from wanting to go back? And don’t give me any of that ‘will of the force’ banthashit.”
“I broke the Code,” Anakain says. The words sit heavy in his mouth, but one of his violations is lesser than the other, and-- “I married, and we’re not supposed to do that. She’s... not around anymore, but it still stands that I did it.”
The Tuskens weigh on his mind, suddenly and intensely. He hasn’t thought about them in ages, has always pushed those memories down, down, down, but--
“And they won’t take you back?”
“They might,” Anakin admits. They probably would, with his full title and everything, especially if he told them about the future. “But they wouldn’t let me keep the kids.”
Understanding flickers. “Not allowed kids?”
“It’s not... technically against the code,” he hedges. “But they’d find out about my marriage while investigating my past--” maybe, he’s not sure what kind of investigation they’d justify for a complete stranger of a knight, especially to confirm the future, but if they had a psychometric so much as touch his saber or arm, once he gets those back, there’d be a risk, “--and after already breaking the code by marrying, they’d be far less willing to bend the rules about the babies.”
He doesn’t realize how likely the risk is until after he says it, because he’s just been focusing on staying alive and following the Force, but.. they’d want the kids in the creche. He’s broken the code enough that any investigation they set to prove he’s legitimately a Jedi Knight that isn’t recorded and isn’t in the system is going to uncover something through the Force. They might not let him keep his family.
“What are their names?”
“I already--”
“Jango kept his last name,” Mereel cuts him off. “Did yours?”
Anakin looks the man in the eye, and then attempts to cross his arms in response, to mirror the pose and hold his ground. Unfortunately, he’s forgotten that he’s only got the one arm, which is really kriffing irritating.
“I gave them my name,” he says. “They’ll know where they came from, but they are mine.”
Yeah, no shit they’ll know where they came from.
Mereel’s face twitches, but the man is unreadable in the Force. Still, there’s something in the air... “So, those names?”
“Sokanth and Ylliben Skywalker,” Anakin tells him. He spells it out when the droid asks. He assumes it’s just for the medical data their droids are collecting.
“How well can you fight without your laser sword?”
“You mean unarmed?” Anakin asks, and then smiles brightly and tauntingly and waves his empty sleeve around. Mereel does not appreciate the humor. “Pretty well, but I do better when I have the Force, and am not still recovering from hypothermia. And I’m a fair shot with a blaster, but no specialist.”
Mereel eyes him for a moment, and then nods. “One of my snipers is Force-Sensitive. Never was enough to get more than some basic training in mental shields and the control to not hurt herself, but when we mentioned bringing in a Jetii, someone asked her what she thought. Came by the room while you were unconscious and said she thought you felt sad, angry, and desperate... but that she had a good feeling about where you’d be going.”
“Sad, angry, and desperate?” Anakin repeats, a little offended.
“You act like a veteran, kid,” Mereel says. He shrugs. “Damn near everyone that goes through some kind of war has all that going on. S’normal. You got Kamira’s approval, though, and that means a damn sight more. Keep your secrets for now. We’ll get there eventually.”
No we won’t, Anakin thinks. Out loud, he asks, “So, how much of what kind of work would I have to do to borrow a ship to Tatooine and earn enough to free a slave girl?”
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harrywritingsbyme · 4 years
Note
hello sweetheart, I have a kink for daddy!h, corruption!h and a size kink too. can u elaborate pls? xx
The Stages of Corruption
A/N: My brain and puthy are about to explode for the same yet very different reasons lmao. Anyways...imma add this hot lil thing to A Series of Firsts bc why tf not?! And I hope it doesn’t suck…enjoy🙃.
Harry was obsessed with you. He could honestly say that from the moment he met and laid eyes on you for the first time, he was hooked. And yes it was for the obvious reasons of how beautiful and sweet you were inside and out. You were like a magnet, he couldn’t help but to be attracted to you in every way shape and form. But besides that, Harry was also hooked because of how cute and innocent you were. See, Harry had acquired a bit of a corruption kink. In past relationships, he’d always been with someone who had their fair share of experience in the bedroom. But with you, it was the complete opposite. After gliding right through the getting to know you’s, and the building of the foundation for you guys’ relationship, you and Harry moved right into the intimacy phase. And as if Harry had hit the nail on the head when it came down to your innocence, you weren’t well versed in the bedroom at all and you hadn’t really done anything either. The farthest you’d ever gone was a bit of over the clothes touching; which was exactly what Harry was dying to hear. He was yearning to teach you and to be the one to expose you to pleasure. He wanted to be the first thought in your mind when the word pleasure was brought up. He wanted to hear your pretty little voice beg for him and your body to quiver desperately for him. Harry wanted to corrupt you.
And over the course of time, Harry was able to do that.
For starters, Harry got you comfortable with calling him daddy in the bedroom. You’d accidentally blurted it out when the two of you were going at it a little bit. He was on top of you and between your legs, kissing down and suckling on your neck as he had a hand up your skirt that was softly rubbing you through your panties. You were so caught up in how good this newfound feeling of having him on top of you with his face in your neck and leaving marks in the process while touching you between your legs felt that he name just flew out of your mouth. When Harry heard it, his head flew up from your neck and down in the direction of your face to address what you called him. Still to this day he could remember how you got all blushy as he pestered you to say it again. Eventually, Harry was in fact able to get you to say it again and he was able to get you comfortable with saying it in general. You became so comfortable with it that you’d call him daddy in every day situations when it was just the two of you. And to make matters worse, you sounded so sweet when you said it too. This meant that Harry’s cock always perked up in his pants resulting in him needing to take care of himself. Luckily for him, almost 99% of the time he took care of himself, he did it with your help.
The next thing on Harry’s corruption check list was familiarizing you with pleasure. He wanted you to have an understanding the feelings that came along with a release and what it felt like to have an orgasm. When he made you cum for the first time, it was a completely euphoric atmosphere for you both. Harry was lying between your legs while you were completely naked against the bed, taking everything that he was giving you. He used his fingers and mouth to send shockwaves through your body. He just sucked and sucked on your cunt and pushed his fingers all they way up into you. You were squirming and whining against the bed as he continued to work the area between your legs. He pushed is fingers in and out of you over and over again as he continuously sucked on your clit and nipped at the delicious flesh of your thighs. When his fingers weren’t inside of you, his mouth was on your pussy, licking up and down your folds and pushing the  tip of his tongue in towards your entrance. You were so overcome with pleasure as he did this that he had to pin your hips down to the bed in order to keep going and push you into your release. You were crying out to him (or daddy for that matter), you were pulling tightly on his hair, and you were clenching up against his tongue as he pulled you closer and closer to your release. And once he did, you were even more of a mess when he was getting you up to that point. You were crying out to him about how your tummy was warm and tight and that you felt like you had to pee and you couldn’t hold back. There were even little tears forming in your eyes from how intense it was. And when you finally let go, you were gushing all over his hand. Harry got to feel first hand your walls convulsing around his finger (he was only able to get one in since you were beyond tight) as you came. And for you, the feeling was absolutely amazing. It was like a wave of pleasure crashed down onto you and went right through your body. You wanted to feel it again and again and again; you were addicted to it.
After letting you feel what it was like to have a release, Harry helped you figure out what felt good to you and how to pleasure yourself. He kept your naked body between his legs in front of a mirror and guided your hand and the vibrating bullet he got for you between your legs and showed you how to pleasure and tease yourself. This was definitely a lifesaver when you weren’t with Harry but you were craving an amazing release. You kept the tips Harry gave you locked in your mind and you just made yourself feel good. And to make it even better, you kept your eyes shut and just imagined Harry on top of you, touching and toying with your body. You couldn’t believe that you were able to pleasure yourself on you own, and you were so excited about it that you did it all by yourself for the first time that as soon as your hands were no longer tingly, you immediately texted Harry to tell him. Your message was almost instantly met with a response of him being so proud of you and that since you were being such a big girl for daddy, he’d have to give you a little treat. With that being said, after replying with a “can’t wait”, you go straight back to your vibrator to take care of the tingling sensation that was forming in your clit again.
Now onto the fourth checkpoint on Harry’s list. By this point, you and Harry have been playing solely with you. He wanted to make sure that you were completely taken care of and he just wanted to dote on you. He was teaching you so many different things about your pleasure and you were soaking it all up and playing with it. And since you were comfortable with your pleasure, Harry figured that it was time to bring his own pleasure into the mix. When he first pulled his cock out of his pants, you were floored. You couldn’t believe that he managed to hold all of that in his pants and you were definitely skeptical of whether or not it would fit inside once you two got to that point. But knowing Harry and how he guided you through everything so far, you weren’t that nervous about it. Instead of actually guiding you through what to do, Harry let you play with his cock. You wrapped your smaller hands around him and you tugged and squeezed him. Your eyes were focused in on his cock, taking in every detail of him. You were also taking him his moans above you, they were your guide to know if you were doing something right. Now while you were playing with his cock, Harry was in heaven. Harry had his innocent little girlfriend on her knees playing with his cock. He was on cloud nine from the way you squeezed and tugged at him. He was also blown away by the way you brought your forefinger and thumb up to squeeze the swollen head of his cock between them, and by the way you pressed your forefinger down into his glistening slit. You were doing everything right without even trying and Harry was all for it. What made him burst even faster though was when you pursed your lips around the head of his cock. You weren’t expecting him to put in in your mouth the first time you touched him so that just threw him over the edge. And as he came, you were quick to pull your mouth back and just watch his cock erupt right in front of you as you took in his moans. You just watched as the streams of his thick cum spurted out from his cock; and it was a lot too, he just kept going. He came so much that your hands were covered in it since they were still wrapped around his very sizable shaft. But it gets even better. After pulling your hands away from his cock, you bring one of your hands up to your mouth to lick up some of his cum. When you first tasted it, you had to admit that the taste was very interesting to say the least. It wasn’t bad per say…it was just different. But after some more licks and Harry being completely dumbfounded above you, the taste grew on you and you went on to not only clean your hands but also his cock.
This moment was the catalyst to so many things. You went on to taking his cock into your mouth (and throat because he was huge) and even letting him flood your mouth with his cum. After practicing, you became addicted to having Harry’s cock inside you mouth. You were so addicted that if he told you to drop to your knees, you’d be down there in an instant. And Harry loved that. Another thing that was brought into the mix was 69-ing. The both of you were obsessed with giving and receiving oral pleasure so it came naturally; and it was amazing. The entire time, the both of you would be mouthing at each other and holding back so you could keep receiving that pleasure. And when you both came, your juices right on each others tongues. One final thing that was introduced into you guys’ mix was something that was highlighted on Harry’s mental checklist. Face fucking. He’d accidentally lifted his hips up into your face, sending his cock deep into your throat, causing you tog gag a bit.   When he realized what he’d done, he immediately pulled your head up to check on you, and when he did, he was met with a response he wasn’t expecting. You told him that you liked it and to keep doing it. From that point on Harry’d thrust his cock into your mouth and just listen to your gags and feel your nails clawing into his thighs as he fucked his cock into your mouth/throat. What he loved the most about it was the little drops of cum that gathered in the corners of your mouth and your watery eyes once he was all done. It was perfect.
Now Harry was beyond happy with where you guys were and was enjoying every moment of pleasure with you. But the both of you had reached the biggest part of the checklist. Actually having sex. Harry was 1000% against pressuring you into it. He wanted you to be completely comfortable and ready for that big moment. And you were. After just enjoying Harry, you were ready to enjoy Harry. It was a bit daunting to think about all of him fitting inside of you but Harry always took his time with you so you were pretty confident in him doing that at this very big moment for you both. And once that big moment arrived, it was great. When you told Harry that you were ready, he didn’t just jump right in. He planned everything out for you to really have your moment. He put his corruption checklist to the side and made it extra romantic. Harry felt so bad that you were experiencing a bit of pain as he pushed into you that he was constantly giving you kisses and praising you for how well you were doing and telling you that he loved you. But even though he was focusing on you, Harry was exploding inside. You were so warm and tight that Harry could’ve came within the first 5 minutes. You were so tight that even if he wanted to slam into you, he couldn’t. He almost passed out too.  It wasn’t surprising that he felt this way though. Harry definitely had a bit of a size kink. Once you’re a little bit comfortable, Hary slowly moves in and out of you. After a perfect stream of slow thrusts along with his fingers toying at your clit and his mouth against your chest, you end up releasing around him and Harry let’s go inside of you per you guys’ conversation a bit earlier.
The first time, along with a some times after that were soft and slow. They were so that you could be comfortable and used to having him inside of you. And as these times progressed on, the pleasure increased and you were getting even more geared up to take everything Harry had. Which you ended up taking like a champ by the way. Once you were all good to go, Harry went back to his corruption check list. And you two went at it. It was so good that the mere thought of it gave you goosebumps. Fast forward up to now and you two were going at it anytime, anywhere, anyway. You were screaming as he pounded into you forcefully, begging him to give it to you. Harry had his hands wrapped around your throat, pinning your head down to the bed as he dropped his hips down onto yours. What kept him going wasn’t solely your screams and  how good you felt, it was also the end result of it all. He loved it when your thighs and pussy were sore and you could still feel him in your stomach as his cum poured out of you. You two were always in a daze after sex and you both were just about completely numb as well. But as you and Harry were in that state, you both were contemplating the next amazing round.
And neither of you would have it any other way. He was teaching you, your body was always quivering, and your mouth was always begging for more. And yet, there were still an infinite amount of stages on Harry’s corruption check list. This was just the beginning.
Masterlist
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ptergwen · 3 years
Text
sensation
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w/c: 4.6k
warnings: some swearing, suggestive tings, and a pretty bad ending
summary: it’s the last night of your world tour, and tom has the perfect way to celebrate
a/n: i know y’all have been waiting for this one! everyone really loved when worlds collide but i ran out of ideas for it lol sorry... anyways my solution was to turn it into a oneshot :D based off the au!! i’m honestly nervous about posting this cuz a lot of you asked for it and i don’t wanna disappoint but i tried my absolute hardest to make it special <3 please enjoy
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“thank you so much! we love you!” you shout to the audience, laughing breathlessly when they shout back. one of your dancers pulls you into a side hug, you throwing your arm around his neck. “we’re so fucking lucky you chose us, that you came all the way here. i’ve seen some of you back at night one. wow.” your voice gets wobbly, thinking about how loyal your fans are.
the tour started in new york, and they’ve followed you here to london.
tonight is an emotional night for everyone. you’re about to wrap your last show before you continue again in the summer. touring the u.k. has been a dream, and you’re just as thrilled to travel the rest of the world after your break. it’s bittersweet because you’re going to miss the hell out of your crew and the millions of lovely faces you’ve sang to each week. but, you do get to spend your time off with a special someone.
he’s watching you from the sound booth, sending fond smiles and loud cheers your way. thanks to you, tom has been at every show you’ve played in england. he brought harry along this time because he’s also a fan and wanted to see you. well, tom is more than a fan at this point. you’d say he’s more of a boyfriend. you haven’t discussed labels just yet.
your dates have mainly been over facetime, since you live on opposite sides of the world with insane schedules. a heartthrob actor and international popstar is quite the combination. you’ve only seen each other in person a couple of times, the first being pretty recently.
zendaya brought tom along to hang out with you in los angeles. he happened to be there recording some lines for a movie. she saw your concert earlier that night and invited him to crash the dinner plans you’d made, resulting in the best surprise and most fun you’ve ever had. the other time you enjoyed each other’s company was one weekend in paris. that was... something.
besides those two miracles, everything between you and tom happens through a screen. you’ll down bottles of champagne or keep warm under blankets while talking about your days. it’s nice, having someone on the other end who listens and actually hears you. tom gets it. you both do.
finishing your tour in london is convenient because not only will you have tom to comfort you, but you get to stick around for a while. he’s invited you to stay at his place. you can’t wait to meet the other holland’s, his friends, and obviously tessa.
“fuck, i’m gonna cry. i’m already crying,” you announce to the crowd, though they can tell from the tears streaming down your face. more dancers huddle around you and turn your single hug into a group one. you’re laughing and sobbing and holding on tight to everyone. fans bawl their own eyes out, the fact that this is it starting to settle in. the onstage crew even gets choked up, seeing you like this.
tom pouts from where he’s watching. he wishes he could run up there and squeeze you tight, but he’ll have to save that for when you’re done.
“i love you all so much, literally every single one of you in this room,” you tell everyone for the nth time tonight, swiping a perfectly manicured finger under your eyes. “my lighting crew, sound crew, my band, my fearless fucking dancers-“ a hiccup cuts you off. people burst into fits of giggles, which is a much needed tension breaker. you adjust your headset so the mic doesn’t pick up any other bodily noises.
grinning, you rest your arm on a shorter dancer’s shoulder, then go on. “sorry, sorry. i just wanna say, like, three more thank you’s before i get out of here.” there’s a chorus of no’s and encouraging whistles at the mention of you leaving. you blink back more tears to delay the breakdown you’re going to have. “thank you to my friends who always show up for me.”
with a knowing smile, you glance over at tom. “and, thank you to my more than a friend.” he smiles back, both hands held over his heart. harry elbows him in congratulations. more screaming erupts from the crowd as they realize where you’re looking and who you’re looking at. this will be sure to spark some headlines. whatever, you’re used to trending on every possible social media platform by now.
“this is the big one,” you preface, taking in a breath while everyone quiets down again. “thank you to you guys. for trusting me, for caring about what i have to say in any way. i feel your love. i really do, and i hope you feel mine.” your fans yell that they love you back, dancers gently swaying you side to side, emotions on high. there’s one last song, and it’s over.
“this has been the sensation tour, and i’ve been your host. was i good?” you try to lighten the mood, earning a bunch of what sound like positive shrieks. the earpiece you have in makes it hard to tell. “y’all were even better.” exchanging looks with your dancers, you pull out of the hug so you can get to your mark for the finale. they follow your lead. music comes through the speakers.
“i’ll see you again soon, okay? i promise. here’s sensation,” you introduce the song, immediately bursting into more tears. it’s torture to say goodbye. thankfully, you have the most incredible fans on earth, so they sing along with you at the top of their lungs. that includes tom and harry, your ultimate stans.
when the show is over, you run right off stage and over to tom. he’s waiting on the side with actual heart eyes for you. you practically leap into his arms, a hand cradling the back of his head, both his arms draped low and tight around your body.
“you were so amazing up there! absolutely smashed it, darling,” tom breathes out. his face is smushed between your neck and mostly bare chest. “thanks, tom. seriously, thanks for being here tonight and every other.” you smile a tired smile and wind your other arm around his neck. he presses some light you’re welcome kisses to your skin. “mm, thanks for having me. how’s it feel to be done?”
you sigh, fingers running through his curls. “like the biggest relief, and also really sad.” you’re such a mess that you could cry again on the spot. tom senses it and lifts his head up to see if you’re alright. “super depressing,” you surprisingly reiterate without the waterworks. “i know the feeling. you’ll be back soon, though. you said it,” he murmurs, a grin on his lips as they brush against the corner of yours.
you’re about to kiss him properly, then one of your dancers comes up to you. you’d forgotten that there are still stage managers and security everywhere, too. you get completely lost in tom whenever you’re together.
“you killed, babe,” coco greets you, linking your arm in hers. tom takes the hint and lets go of you. he watches on with a smirk. “nah, you murdered,” you send the compliment back and bite your lower lip. “i dunno, i feel like someone murdered me!” there’s coco with her dramatics. she’s genuinely hilarious, your shared sense of humor playing a huge part in your friendship.
she brings your free hand to her heart. you gasp at how fast it’s going. “that shit is really beating, coco. are you, like, okay?” “probably not. it was the freestyle that got me.” coco went a lot harder than usual tonight, since it was her last big dance break for a while. she puffs air from her cheeks and nods to tom. “this your man?”
“yeah, you could say that. i’m tom,” he answers, holding out a hand for her. “coco.” she pulls it like you would in a handshake. you beam at them, one of your best friends and unofficial boyfriend finally meeting. “sounds promising. i approve,” coco mutters to you. bumping your hip into hers playfully, you take one of tom’s hands in both of yours.
“aw, we have your blessing or something? your permission?” you coo and get a push at your shoulder from coco in return. tom chuckles, his thumb running over the back of your hand. “no! i was gonna say you should bring him out back,” coco clarifies, like it was obvious. you’re not sure what she’s on about. “uh, what’s out back?” you question. “an axe?” tom teases.
coco gestures to the nearest exit. “we’re having a little goodbye party in the parking lot. fire pit, snacks. remember?” nope, you’d completely forgotten. the idea first sounded like the perfect way to end your night, so you agreed to go. that was before you were dripping sweat and mentally exhausted. now, all you want to do is unwind with tom and tom only.
the superstar life is one you’re happy to lead, just not at this exact moment.
“i do now.” you muster up your most apologetic smile for coco, tugging on tom’s hand. “i’m sorry, co. i think we’re gonna pass.” her jaw drops. you’re never one to skip these things. “aw, for real? it’s our last night!” tom threads his fingers through yours while you talk. “bro, we’ve been together for almost a whole year,” you laugh out, nuzzling your cheek into tom’s chest. “get sick of me.”
“never,” coco deadpans. she catches you gazing up at tom, relaxing as his arms hug your middle. she’s known you long enough to tell what’s a fling and what’s real love for you. this is something special, and she can’t get in the way of it. she’ll let you navigate this yourself. “ok, just for tonight. you’ll text me?” coco gives you a real smile, raising an eyebrow at tom. he gathers that’s a good thing. he’s in.
“mhm. maybe we can hang out tomorrow,” you agree and let your eyes flutter shut. all that’s keeping you up are tom’s strong arms. “tell everyone i love them.” “i think they know.” coco shakes her head lightheartedly. tom laughs at her. “be good,” she tells him and means it, rubbing your back on her way to the lot. that leaves you and tom alone at last.
custodians are cleaning up the arena, fans are piling out, and you’re clinging to tom while his steady heartbeat grounds you. this is the only after party you need.
“harry’s got the car when you’re ready,” tom mumbles, tucking a piece of damp hair behind your ear. you loop your arms around his torso with a hum. “i was kinda wondering where he went.” “yeah?” he gives you a small smile. “gotta ask what he thought... of the show.” yawns are creeping past your lips, tonight’s events catching up to you.
“i like feedback from the fans, or stans,” you elaborate in your sleepy state. tom uses his fingertips to tap your temple. “what about me? i’m your biggest.” “i’ll, um, follow up with you later.” your words are slurring. “right now, home.” warmth spreads throughout tom’s entire body, his house becoming yours for a bit. “your chariot awaits,” he affirms before helping you to your dressing room.
after collecting your things, you follow tom out to the car. harry is in the driver’s seat, and you two slip into the back. he exchanges a look with his brother through the mirror while you settle on his shoulder. you’re hugging his bicep, his lips pressing to the side of your head.
“thank you for driving,” you speak softly to harry. he starts to pull out of the spot with a nod. “no problem. get to say i was y/n y/l/n’s chauffeur.” tom clicks his tongue even though harry is joking. you snicker at his remark, joking back. “you want the job? better be a five star ride, then.” your banter brings yet another smile to tom’s face. his family is everything to him, so seeing you get along so well means the most.
“right, right. did you have a good time?” harry wonders, twisting to see behind him while he turns around. he also peeks at you snuggled up to tom before facing forward. “great, actually. did you?” you check, the grin clear in your voice. harry goes into full stan mode. “no shit! you were brilliant, y/n. god, every note was just like how you did it the studio.” he’s raving, which is much appreciated by you.
“good answer.” tom shoots his brother a wink. “‘s that what you wanted to hear?” he asks in reference to your conversation earlier. your response is a kiss to his shoulder. “yay. i’m happy you liked it, harry.” he buzzes with excitement, having his favorite artist care what he thinks.
not much is said for the rest of the drive. tom and harry make some hushed conversation about golfing this weekend while you struggle to stay awake. they’re obsessed with that damn sport. it’s honestly nice to see, that tom has something he likes to do when he isn’t shooting hollywood’s biggest movies. your free time will finally give you the chance to discover other hobbies.
you stumble out of the car upon arriving to the boys’ place, a backpack on your shoulders and tom’s hand held tight in yours. you’ve got only a few essentials with you for tonight. the rest is on the tour bus, so you’ll gather it after your hangout with coco. besides, everything you need at the moment is right here.
“home sweet home,” tom announces as harry unlocks the front door. his words bring a tired smile to your face. “finally,” you exhale, keeping your fingers laced with tom’s and following the two of them inside. “i could show you around a bit, give you the grand tour. or-“ tom stops talking, feeling your weight on him. harry huffs at how oblivious his brother is.
“mate, she’s falling over. save it,” he suggests and kicks the door shut lazily. you’re done in. you’ve been having to lean on tom since the show ended. “another time, then,” tom mumbles, securing his arm around your waist. “there is one thing i wanna see.” your voice is low, body curled into tom’s side. he raises an eyebrow. “and that is?” “your room.”
tom takes that in a suggestive way, like he does most things. “we’re getting right to it, are we?” he questions, harry gagging and you nudging his arm with your head. “not like that, dummy. ‘cuz i’m sleepy.” there’s a beat of silence. “ask me again in-“ “wow, look at the time!” harry interrupts so he doesn’t have to hear the details. he’s sure he’ll witness enough after it happens. “off to bed i go! goodnight.”
he rushes to get to his room, yelling out, “great show, y/n!” on the way. “thank you! night!” you call back, tom letting out a sigh. “div of the century,” he says under his breath. “must run in the family,” you playfully retort. that gets you a firm poke at your side. “where’s everyone else?” you glance up at him. there should be two other idiots and a lovely, furry lady running around.
“tuwaine’s gone to the pub, harrison’s filming late, and tess is at mum and dad’s,” tom fills you in, grabbing your arm and draping it around his middle. doing him one better, you hug him with both. you squint in confusion about the last part. “they watch her when i’m out,” tom answers your unspoken question. “ah,” you nod, then deflate ever so slightly. “i wanted to meet her, though. the other boys, too.”
tom smooths the pad of his thumb over your cheek. “you will, darling. it’s only for tonight.” he kisses the same spot reassuringly. “we’ve got loads of time.” “yeah, we do,” you agree, instantly cheering up and letting your head fall onto his chest. “now, where’s your room?” “just upstairs. you need some help getting in?” he’s only playing around, but you accept, tightening your arms around his neck.
“show me the way,” you beam at him. “happy to.” tom wiggles his eyebrows, you jumping up. your legs wrap around his waist, his arms holding you against him. with a satisfied hum, you squish your face into his insanely soft shirt. “what a diva,” tom sarcastically complains while taking you to the staircase. “doesn’t even say please. no manners from this one.”
“you try dancing in six inch heels for two hours,” you shoot back, patting the side of his neck. he moves one hand down to your thigh for a better grip. you’re nearing the top of the stairs. “think i’ll leave that to you,” he decides and squeezes your thigh. “look at me, carrying the whole music industry.” your face easily gets hot and your words turn to murmurs. “shut up. you should listen to other songs.”
you’re on the second floor now, tom going for the first door. he frowns at his rejected compliment. “no, i like yours. they’re my favorite.” “really?” your muffled laugh sounds from his chest. “what was the first thing i ever said to you?” he asks, a toothy grin on him even though you can’t see it. you recall the faithful night he slid into your dms while he carries you into his room.
he’d tripped over his words somehow, the fangirling fool. before that, he tweeted to the whole world that he wanted to see you in concert. it was a huge thing, and people were freaking out about it, even more so when your online interactions became routine. that’s nothing compared to where you are now.
you’re currently living with him and basically dating. possibly, in love. the base of it all really is your music.
“that you love me.” you pause for the ellipses. the corners of your lips turn up. “but, you really meant to say my work.” “both apply.” tom passes that off like it’s a side comment, carefully laying you down on his bed. you look up at him with a curious glint in your eyes. “what does that mean?” his cheeks flush, and he bites back the smile that’s growing. this was supposed to go... differently.
you sit up, breathing out a laugh at tom’s boyish behavior. he’s precious, truly. “you do love me?” those three words will change everything if he says yes. he takes both your hands in his and holds them between you two. you meet his doe eyes. “yeah, y/n/n. i do.” so, you were right. “i love you... and, that wasn’t how i planned on saying it.” signaling for him to elaborate, you tilt your head to the side.
tom sits down next to and faces you before continuing. “it was supposed to be romantic, right?” he rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, annoyed he ruined this. “candlelit dinner, flowers, that sort of thing. seems more fitting for the occasion.” you shift closer to him until your knees are touching. your face is lit up, voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“since when do we do things the way we’re supposed to?” you point out and set your hands on his shoulders. “we’ve gone straight from online dating to me moving in. that’s usually not how it works.” tom chuckles lowly. his own hands find their place on your hips. you’re so good with words. then again, you are a singer. “guess you could say we’re, um, spontaneous,” he agrees, fingers drawing circles on you.
you and tom have explored some of each other’s most intimate places, yet you’ve never shared a moment quite like this. it’s like meeting him for the first time again. he’s too tongue tied to spit out what he wants. you somehow know, anyway. what you cherish most about your relationship is that you two completely and totally understand one another, on every level.
“tom?” you speak quietly, butterflies filling up your body. “hm?” he hums back. this is one of those moments where it all just clicks. “i love you. i really, really love you.” you giggle out of the pure happiness that consumes you, tom joining in your laughter. “i love you, too.” he sounds like he’s said it a million times and he’ll say it a million more. he leans over so his forehead rests on yours. “really, really love you.”
your warm breath hits his face, eyes darting from his own to his lips. “i want you to be more than...” you trail off, unsure of how to phrase it. “more than... more than a friend?” tom pokes fun at what you said during the show. there’s less and less space between you with every second. “you mean, like, a boyfriend?”
“exactly. be my boyfriend,” you all but demand. you’re half asleep and desperate to be able to call him yours already. “bossy, bossy, bossy,” tom chastises, swiping his thumb across your bottom lip. how he goes from being shy and giddy to the cockiest person alive in minutes, you’ll never know. “please?” you throw in to sway him. your hand locks with his, slowly moving it off your face.
you run your tongue over your teeth. “at least kiss me.” “you don’t have to ask,” tom breathes, lips now ghosting over yours. “i was going to.” true to his words, he closes the microscopic gap between you, you pushing forward against him as you kiss back. your first kiss in love. his lips taste like the chapstick he always uses, and he moves them softly.
he places a hand on your knee, you opening your mouth so he can have access to it. instead, a yawn exits. tom pulls back with a breathy laugh. “you must be exhausted, yeah? let’s get you to bed.” he pecks your lips once more. “my girl needs her beauty rest.” that confirms your relationship. you scrunch your nose and grin wide. “and, she’s gonna get some with her boy.”
you’re reminded of how sweaty you are when you catch a whiff. “oof, wait. do you think i can take a shower first?” you grimace, fanning at the air for emphasis. tom uses the tip of his nose to nudge yours. “absolutely. need help in there, too?” he’s not asking in that way, only so nothing happens. the hospital wouldn’t be the most pleasant place to spend your break. plus, he doesn’t want to be without you too long.
“you know what? yeah.”
that’s how you end up intertwined under the hot water, letting it cascade down your back as tom hugs you close to him. you sigh in content and tangle your fingers in his fluffed over curls. you’ve learned that he’s super into having his hair played with. it’s endearing, how he instinctively leans into your touch, eyes closing as you tug on the roots.
he drops his head down to kiss your shoulder, dragging his lips to your collarbone in a way that tickles. they land on one of your breasts next. there isn’t anything sexual about it, only loving. just in case he gets too excited because it’s not uncommon he does, you gently put a finger to his lips. tom takes the hint and lets up. you continue combing through his wet hair while you step out of the water.
“do you ever sing in the shower?” he questions, drawing your naked body in closer to his. “sometimes, yeah. i honestly feel like i sound better there,” you admit and slide your hand down to the nape of his neck. tom’s tongue darts out to lick his lips. “not true. you sound beautiful everywhere, and don’t fight me on this one.” he smirks in satisfaction, you groaning at your loss.
“i really enjoy hearing your voice when it blares through an arena, though,” tom keeps buttering you up. you shake your head and settle both arms around his neck. “man, i just love you so much.” “i love you, sweetheart,” he murmurs back, you switching places so he can give his hair a final rinse. you watch him and his glowing body, admiring the sight.
“what a sensation you are,” you say mostly to yourself, which doesn’t stop him from hearing. “i see what you did there.” he eyes you while you do the same to him. your arms still around his neck pull him back to you. “tommy? do you sing in the shower?” you meant to ask him before, then he started throwing all those compliments at you.
tom scoffs, walking you back so you’re against the wall. “i don’t sing anywhere.” “what?” you gasp and put a hand on his chest. “you’re lying, you have to be. wasn’t billy elliot a musical?” he narrows his eyes at you as he tries to gage where you’re going with this. “that i did a decade ago, and way before puberty. couldn’t sing a word without cracking after that.”
your mouth is left hanging open in shock and disappointment. you bet he has a nice voice, and he’s downplaying it. “y/n,” tom begins, cupping your jaw with his palm. “since we’re living together now, there’s a lot you’re going the learn about me. good things, weird things.” he shrugs casually. “this is one of the weird things.”
“only because you make it weird! come on, let me hear you,” you request and wrap a leg around his waist. you’re giving him a hopeful smile. “god, no. you’ll hate it,” he almost laughs, a hand on your thigh. “i’m literally a singer. how could i hate something i love?” you refute, batting your lashes at him. “especially when someone i love is doing it.” “i love you, too. but, i’m not.” he’s quick to shut you down.
“drop a bar!” you try to coax him, which he already has a comeback for. “you first.” “i can’t. my throat is all scratchy from earlier,” you lie. tom presses his lips into a line, feigning pity. “aw, you know what’ll make you feel better? tea. i’ll go get you some.” he turns to shut the water off, so you grab his shoulders. “no, the steam is working. you can stay.”
“love,” tom addresses you in a warning tone that you can’t take seriously. he can’t either, a giggle escaping him. “my voice is shit. ask anyone, and they’ll tell you.” “i won’t believe them,” you hum, pushing back curls sticking to his forehead. “sounds like you just have stage fright. we can work on that, though.” “how?” he tightens his arm around your middle.
“i’ll bring you on for my next show. we’ll do a little duet.” you’re joking, though that would definitely be interesting to see unfold. “uh, never. what happened to you being tired?” tom cleverly deflects and digs his fingers into your side. you look down in defeat. “i forgot about that.” “yeah, yeah. no, seriously. we should really get to sleep, y/n/n.” he’s back to his sweet, attentive self. “‘s been a long night.”
giving in with a nod, you capture his lips in yet another kiss. tom never gets tired of them, and neither do you. you break it after a few seconds, lips lingering on his as they detach. “carry me?” you ask again, not caring how whiny you sound. tom presses a quick kiss to your forehead. “oh, you’re adorable. of course.”
well, you’ve found something to keep you occupied until the next leg of tour. you’re going to discover the many layers your intriguingly unusual boyfriend has.
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sugamamacustard · 3 years
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Please don’t let me go
Pairing:  Alpha! Tetsuro Kuroo x Omega! Reader
Genre: Angst, Fluff, NSFW
Request: HIII my favourite author!!! Happy new year 💜. Wishing you a very happy 2021. Ok sooo i got a scenario In mind. You don't have to write it if you don't want to Reader (half wolf/half omega, and if you don't write half wolf, then omega) in a pack (maybe like you know joint nekoma, fukorodani and karasuno but it's ok if you don't write that, only nekoma then in case) where their pack hasn't exactly accepted them, they're very cold with her. Reader , who has madly been in love with kuroo (cuz I'm such a kuroo lover) for very long, doesn't mind and continues to take care of everyone, making sure their ok and basically like having a soft sweet motherly attitude despite how they treat reader. But at one point reader is just fed up and feels very hurt, thinking they hate them and blames themselves. They also have to keep seeing kuroo bring in other girls for his heat and that Hurts them a lot. So reader thinks they never needed them and slowly stops contacting them. That's when everyone realises they fucked up and tried to find them but they can't. Until one day reader comes to practice and says their joining another pack and apologies for not being enough and all, how would the pack and kuroo, who loves them, stop them, apologize and make it up with them? Angst to fluff, and if you want idk if you write it but nsfw. You don't have to write it ofc! It's just a quick scenario that came to my mind. Please ignore this if you don't want to write it, and sorry if it's too specific and long 🥺
Summary:   You were excited when the other packs joined yours, even finding solace in one of the alphas of one, but suddenly, you weren’t needed. Wanted. Not what he desired. And that hurt. So you do the only thing you can think of. Try to find someone who will comfort your poor omega heart.
Author’s Note: I’m your favorite 🥺 🥺 Happy new year babes!  And I was reading this, and I just kept getting more and more ideas and began writing it right away Hope you enjoy!
Requests: Open!
Keep in Mind! This heavily based off of my Dragon/Shifter! AU from my mainblog! (@Angstyclowns) . The long short of it, is that Shifters have three forms. The first, is completely human. Though the person still has some attributes (Better sight, smell, hearing, etc.) they don’t have any visible features. The second form gives the shifter about half of their features. Tails, ears, wings, fangs, things like that. The third is the “full form”. This is a full dragon, wolf, cat, dog, etc.. You aren’t able to talk in this form, but you do have full control of your actions. I can go into more depth in this AU! if you all want, be sure to let me know!
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Tetsuro Kuroo
➵ The Fukorodani pack was big. Huge maybe. 
➵ It was made up of three different, smaller, packs that had combined for both numbers and power. Karasuno, (the namesake) Fukorodani, and Nekoma. 
➵ You were originally apart of Fukorodani, only really close with Akaashi and Bokuto and had yet to get close with anyone else. 
➵ You still cared for them though. 
➵ You prepped meals in the morning, making enough for everyone. 
➵ Made sure you always had band-aids just in case.
➵ You took the role of pack omega well. 
➵ But people still seemed to hold you at an arms length. 
➵ You at first brushed it off, as they were getting used to being in such a big pack, but as they got more comfortable with Bokuto and Akaashi, you began to feel this sense of unease. 
➵ It was obvious they didn’t trust you, but you couldn’t quite place why. 
➵ It soon got to the point where even Akaashi and Bokuto were spending less and less time with you. 
➵ Your omega was hurt and you felt completely deserted. 
➵ You had no idea what was happening. Did you do something wrong?
➵ You didn’t think so. You just did what you always did. Maybe you were too clingy. 
➵ Too overbearing. 
➵ Yeah, that was it. Right? 
➵ Too much too soon. 
➵ So you slowly began pulling away. You stopped making breakfast (Staying in your nest and feigning being asleep when Akaashi or Suga would come check up on you.). 
➵ Stopped carrying medical supplies. Which hurt at first when Hinata or Noya would excitedly ask you for a cartoon printed band-aid, but immediately frowned when you said you didn’t have any.
➵ You just stopped...caring? 
➵ You went on runs a lot more, staying out later and later and leaving earlier and earlier. There were days when no one saw you at all-- Bokuto ending up crying on those days, almost as if his alpha knew you were pulling away. 
➵ He would make an effort to spend the next day with you but then the process would just repeat itself. He’d be gone with Kuroo for days, weeks on end and you were stuck alone one more time. 
➵ “We always have an opening.” Daishou hummed, stretching his arms out as his forked tongue wiggled between his lips. Your tail swiped behind you as your ears fell back. “We could use a wolf like you. Strong legs, strong jaw, good looks-” 
➵ “Don’t.” You sighed, wrapping your tail around your waist and wringing it gently with your hands. “I appreciate the offer, but I- I can’t. I just-”
➵ “I get it. It’s that damned cat, yeah?” The olive haired alpha smirked, playing with one of his scaled fingers. He chuckled at your red cheeks, licking his teeth all the while.  
➵ It was not secret that you fell for the Pack alpha of Nekoma, Kuroo, quickly. Though Daishou (A snake shifter that you ran into during one of your all day runs) didn’t approve of the crush, he didn’t interfere with it. He respected it, in fact, encouraging it on days he felt good. 
➵ You could honestly say Daishou was one of your closest friends at the moment. He always allowed you into his territory, his pack supporting and loving you all the while. 
➵ He had offered to let you join his pack, in fact, but you turned him down. You were tied with Fukorodani, with Akaashi, with Bokuto. They were your family.
➵ Whether or not they saw you the same way, that was how you saw them. 
➵ Your inner omega kept reminding you that Daishou was also your family. 
➵ You suppose the final straw was seeing Kuroo laughing with some random Beta girl. She smelled like cheap perfume, making you reel. You merely watched as he kissed her neck, nipping her ear, quickly taking her to his room. His rut was around the corner so you knew what was going on. 
➵ Didn’t mean you had to like it though. 
➵ Maybe like a rebellious teenager, this kicked off that side you had been hiding.
➵ Instead of disappearing for a day every few weeks, you disappeared for days, one right after the other. You would pop in for a change of clothes, shift into your wolf and you were gone. 
➵ You were strategic about it too. You made sure one person saw you enter, just to assure everyone else you were alive. You made sure they were far enough away they couldn’t catch you even if they shifted-- which most did. They tried to talk to you, just once.
➵ But you had routes made in the deep of night to get you out of sight, running through water to get rid of your scent, just doing everything to make you disappear. 
➵ And slowly, but surely, Daishou and his pack began considering you their omega, just as you began forgetting about the Fukorodani pack. 
➵ Everyone on the other side just got worse though. More often than not, meals were either ordered in or skipped all together. Alphas snapped on each other, Betas snarled in retaliation, omegas were hissing and closing in. 
➵ While Bokuto and Akaashi were expected to be the worst of this all, they weren’t. While they growled and hissed and snapped, they didn’t snarl. They were recluse and kept away, looking for you day in and day out instead. 
➵ The worst of all was Kuroo. He snarled and snapped, baring his teeth at anyone who crossed his path. That beta girl? She ran out a week ago, bleeding from her hand because Kuroo had bitten her for touching him when he told her to go away. 
➵ Even Kenma had been on the receiving end of a near-close call, making everyone turn their attention to what his issue was. 
➵ They only got their answer on one of the few short trips you made back. You smelled heavily like the territory next door, so much so they could smell it from your room while you were re-packing your bag. 
➵ Your nest had been dismantled and one of the several blankets in there was folded and you began putting it into your bag, only for Kuroo to slam open your door. 
➵ You chirped in surprise, crawling back from the seething alpha. He was angry, you could tell, and you didn’t want to get in his way. 
➵ You bowed your head, quickly zipping up your bag before making your way to the window. 
➵ You couldn’t deal with him right now. Not with your feelings, not with his anger. You just couldn’t. 
➵ “Where the fuck are you going?” He hissed, stomping to your window and shutting it before you could crawl through. 
➵ “I- I don’t- Just-”
➵ He stopped you, sniffing your neck. “You smell like him.”
➵ “Who’s him?”
➵ “That fucking snake! Who else?!” Teeth are dragged dangerously down your neck, making you shudder. “What the fuck are you doing near him?”
➵ “Dai-”
➵ “Don’t fucking say his name. Answer the question. Why were you near him?! His pack?! We are right here. We’re your pack. Not them.” He sounded close to exploding,  making you whine as you withdrew. 
➵ He ran a hand through his hair as he paced in front of you. “Were we not good enough? Huh? You needed another pack? WHY WEREN’T WE GOOD ENOUGH?!” 
➵ You didn’t realize it, but you began shaking, slowly drawing in on yourself, trying to seem as small as possible. 
➵ You didn’t want to make the alpha angry. Why was he so angry? 
➵ “Tell me!” Looking up, you hiccupped as tears began streaming down your face, Kuroo having his own tears dripping down his cheeks. “Why wasn’t I good enough?”
➵ He collapsed in front of you, hands yanking on his hair. 
➵ And while you were hesitant, you slowly crept closer. He was shaking his head by the time you got close enough to hear him whispering “Please don’t leave.” Making your heart and omega whine. 
➵ “I-” You stopped. What was there to say? All of a sudden he wanted you here? Where was he the past however many weeks? 
➵ You wanted to scream at him. Turn and leave through the window anyway. 
➵ Leave this pack, and Kuroo, behind. 
➵ “Don’t leave me. I don’t care about the rest of them-- maybe Kenma-- but don’t leave me. Please. I can’t handle- I can’t handle not seeing you everyday. I thought I could. I thought I could fill the void with meaningless flings, but they couldn’t even touch me before I was aching for you. “ He was sobbing now, tears dripping down his cheeks. 
➵ You hesitantly wrapped an arm around his shoulder, allowing him to cry into your shoulder. He held you tightly, refusing to let you slip through his fingers as he almost had. 
➵ “I-I don’t- I don’t know what you want from me anymore, Kuroo. I-I tried staying, and that didn’t work. I tried leaving, and that didn’t work either. I don’t want to leave but I can’t stay. I’m so touch starved and I can’t keep living like this!” You cried out, frustrated with all the mixed signals around you. 
➵ What did your pack want from you?
➵ “We’ll fix it! I swear, I’ll fix it myself. I swear on my life. I’ll fix it. Fix myself. Make myself that alpha you deserve. Please.”
➵ You said nothing. Only allowing him to hold you close. 
___NSFW___
➵ “Tetsuro!” You squealed, laughing as soft kisses were laced down your thighs. 
➵ “Kitten~” He responded, suckling a hickey right near your cunt. 
➵ You were wearing nothing but his sweatshirt and he was rabid seeing you, his pretty omega all nice and ready for him. 
➵ And his cock. 
➵ Sitting up, he pulled you onto his thighs with a swift movement, making you laugh once more.
➵ He smirked down at you once you calmed down, pressing a sweet peck to your lips, making you hum with satisfaction. 
➵ His hands trailed under his shirt to rest on your hips, keeping you close to him. You seemed so ethereal, sitting in the light that filtered through the window-- oranges and reds highlighting your body.
➵ “I love you. I love you so much.” He huffed, leaning his forehead onto yours, feeling the heat of your smile against his lips. 
➵ “I love you too, Tetsuro.” Another peck was pressed to his lips. 
➵ His heart felt so full, having you in his arms, having you in his grasp. He just couldn’t let you go. 
➵ He had almost done that once. 
➵ But he would never make the same mistake again. 
___
His cock dragged slowly out of your walls, sending shocks of pleasure and sensation wavering through your body as you shuddered. It wasn’t often you got to see the slow and sensual side of Tetsuro-- the one that would kiss your bond mark, the one that would tear up as he spilled praise after praise into your ear, the one that would hold a hand on your chest just to feel your thundering heartbeat only to pull your hand up to feel his own, which was just as bad--but when you did it left you  just breathless as he always did. There were days when you just needed this side and he always picked up on that, but some days he needed the solace he got with it as well. 
You’d always enable it, purring and whispering your own praises to him, kissing his temples when his emotions bubbled far to quickly for him to properly absorb, spilling over.  
It was times like this, when his forehead rested against your shoulder, did you feel closest. His pants were hot against your already flushed skin, adding already to your sensitive body. 
Running a hand through his hair, you waited for him to give you an indicator of what he wanted. What he needed from you at that very moment. 
When he didn’t move it hit you. He just wanted you close. To keep you close. To remind himself you were still there. To remind himself he won the war. He won you. He finally got the queen to his kingdom. The one he wanted from the star. 
And you would indulge him, running your both your hands through his hair and holding him close.  Even if you pretended not to feel the happy tears falling onto your shoulder. 
____
Soft sex Kuroo had me  🥺 🥺 
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Text
Stay pt. 2
Summary: An unknown killer has been abducting local girls but somehow you managed to escape but you are still scarred to be alone. You are now safe in Easttown where you meet Colin Zabel a detective who is helping Mare with your case. When he finds out you have no where to stay he offers to let you stay with him. Little does he know where this offer will lead, and in the end you both end up finding comfort in one another.
Warnings: Mentions of kidnapping, restraint, angst, there us fluff sprinkled throughout it
Word Count: 2879
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“What if she stays with me?” Mare whipped her head up to look at him and Harriet did the same. He looked at them, his head tilted slightly to the side. “What?” 
Mare gave him a hard look as if willing him to understand what about what he had said was wrong. 
“What?” He asked again.
 “Really? You think she should stay with you?”
“Yea.” 
“Are you stupid?” At this point Harriet was glaring at him as well. 
He gave a shrug, his arms still crossed over his chest. “I mean I know I’m not the ideal person to take her in, Harriet is the best candidate. “She nodded her head at this. “But I'm a detective and I have training, I can protect her.
“Zabel.” Mare said slowly as if willing him to understand. “You want the girl who was abducted and assaulted by a male killer to stay with you, a man.”
 Colin’s eyes widened at the realization. “Oh okay I get why you guys were so concerned. But no I’m not offering her to stay with me alone I’m offering for her too. Wait.” He said taking a deep breath trying to clear the awkwardness but only making it worse. He took a deep breath and started again.” Look, I live with my mom.” Mare raised an eyebrow at this but she was in no position to judge him. “She could come stay with me and my mom. There would be a woman present at all times and an older woman at that. She might provide some motherly comfort to (y/n). My mom is also retired so she’ll be able to look after her like all day while I’m at work. And I’ll be there too and can prove protection if it comes to that.” Colin let out a breath of relief after fully explaining his intentions. 
Mare and Harriet glanced at one another. “That’s actually a good idea Zabel.” He smiled at Mare’s compliment. “If she doesn't want to stay alone at her apartment she can stay with you if she feels comfortable with it.” 
Mare stood up making her way to the door. “I’ll go and explain everything to her and let you know what she says.” Mare excused herself from their office and made her way towards you. She nodded at you as she sat down on the bench, making sure to keep her distance. “Hey so we know you have your apartment and if you want we are more than willing to drive you there, and we’ll have eyes on the surveillance to make sure no one bothers you.” You nodded your head at her proposal, a seed of dread still sitting in your stomach. You really didn't want to go back and be all alone. “Is there any way I can stay with you or Harriet?” You asked meekly. 
Mare gave you a tight smile and shook her head with a no. “Sorry.”
You sighed. “That's okay.”
“There is another option.” Your head whipped up, you were ready to accept whatever it would be if it meant you wouldn't be alone. “If you want you can stay with Detective Zabel.” You felt yourself heat up at the offer, that was the last thing you had expected Mare to say. 
You leaned to the side and looked past Mare towards Colin. He was working on something but when he saw you looking he gave you a wave and a smile. “You can stay with him and his mother.” You looked at her with wide eyes not believing her offer. 
“I don’t want to be a bother.” 
“You won’t be. And honestly we would feel much better if you were staying with someone we know.” 
You bit your lips weighing your options. On one hand you really didn't want to be alone right now. But you also didn't want to inconvenience Colin. You looked up at him again, he looked like he would be able to protect you if anything happened, he was the most obvious choice. You were still a little hesitant about staying with him because a part of you wanted to do it for a more selfish reason. He was so nice to you and the way he talked to you brought you a comfort you hadn't felt in a long while. And he was cute, you chided yourself for thinking it but it burned in the back of your mind. You sighed already knowing which option you were going to pick.“Okay.” 
Mare gave you a soft smile. “Okay I’ll tell him.” 
Mare got up to leave but she stopped herself glancing around the room. It seemed Harriet had left to go back to her department floor. Mare knew that she had told her that they should wait to interview you till later but she really needed to talk with you and see what you knew. Sh turne dback to face you and you gave her a curious look. “Hey, would you mind answering a couple questions.”
“About the case?” 
“It’s okay if you-”
“Yeah of course.” Mare was a little taken aback at your response. She was expecting you to try and push it back but there was this hardness in your eyes. You hated that man more than anything in the world, you wanted to do anything you could to get justice for the girls he had killed. You got up and followed Mare into the interrogation room, she called Colin to come in and he sat beside her on the other side of the table. You avoided their piercing gazes and stared down at your lap, playing with your hands. Mare’s voice made you look back up.
“So you were only missing for about two weeks, correct.” 
“Yes but it felt like longer.” You watched Colin as he scribbled down your answer to what Mare had asked you. “He um he approached me late at night. I was walking home from work, my car was being repaired. It was a Tuesday I think.” You furrowed your brows as you tried to recall the exact details of what had happened on the night of your abduction. 
Colin looked at the way your face scrunched up and set his pen down. “We can do this later if you’d like.”
“No, I want to do this now.” You said with a harsh tone. “Sorry, it’s just I want to help you guys anyway I can.” Colin nodded and picked his pen back up. “It was tuesday and I had to work late so I didn't walk home with my friends like I usually do. I was walking home and this guy jumped me near the alley.”
“Do you remember anything about him?” Mare asked.
“Yeah, he had a scar across his palm on his right hand. He was big, but he had a stomach. I never saw his face though. I was new so all he really did with me was tie me up and drug me. So my memory of the house is really hazy. The girl that was there took care of me, she was supposed to teach me how to act around him.” 
“If you were tied up, how did you escape?” 
“He only tied us back with rope, and for the most part during the day and night we were allowed to just be in the room unrestrained because it was locked.” You rubbed your wrists, remember the way the rope burned your skin and how raw it made it. “But one day when he came in to get the girl I was with, she was pregnant and he didn't like that. He pulled her out in a haste and when he locked the door behind him he didn't do it right.” You were crying at this point, remember the screams of the girl as she is pulled away. She had looked out for you when you got there and you knew there was no hope of ever seeing her again.You knew they would find her eventually but it wouldn't be alive. “So when he went to bed I was able to slam against the door and after a couple hits it opened.���
“He didn't hear you?”
“No, we were kept in this storm cellar near the house. It was raining that night, I waited for the cracks of thunder and then hit the door, that way it would mask the sound. I don’t remember the house or where it was as soon as I broke out I ran. It was really secluded, I could hear his car chasing me but I guess I lost him once I hit the woods.” You sniffled, your heart rate picking up at just remembering the events. You had tripped so many times out of fear alone, at one point you believed that there really was no escape. You had collapsed at the edge of the woods from exhaustion, at the time you didn't have any idea that you had actually made it out. 
Colin watched the tears stream down your face. He hated that they had to make you relieve your trauma, but anything you remembered could be critical in catching the guy. Mare reached out and consoled you, telling you that there were only a couple more questions they needed to ask you. You nodded and answered them the best you could. 
“Thank you (y/n). You gave us a lot of good leads to look up on.” She stood up and you did the same. “Detective Zabel will take you to your apartment so you can get some of your belongings and then to his house and help you settle in.” 
You weren't prepared for how out of place you would feel in your own apartment. You hadn't even been gone that long and yet everything seemed so foreign to you. You told Colin he would make himself comfortable as you got a bag together. You walked through your apartment looking at all of your possessions. Nothing seemed real, or brought any comfort. In your mind you were still trapped in that small space, sharing a twin mattress with a girl who was long gone. You had loved your apartment and now it just seemed constraining. Willing you to continue with your life and go back to normal. Something you weren't quite ready for yet. You rifled through your clothes, pulling random out of the drawers, not even bothering to see what it was. All you wanted to do was get out of your apartment. 
Colin was looking at the pictures that were hanging on your wall. He smiled to himself at seeing you through the years, from your awkward teen years to now. He liked this one picture in particular, you were on the beach standing about ankle deep in the water. Your hair was blowing around your face and you had the happiest smile on your face. He blushed looking at it, you  looked very pretty in the picture. Of course he had thought you looked very pretty the first time he had laid eyes on you. As soon as he thought about it he shook his head trying to clear it from his mind. It wasn't right of him to think things like that, he had just met you and you had gone through something horrible. The last thing you needed was the man you were staying with thinking about you in that way. 
You watched as Colin looked over your pictures with a smile on his face. You blushed at the way he stared at our pictures. You cleared your throat and he turned to face you. You lifted up your bag. “I’m ready to go now.” 
The ride to his house was awkward and quiet. Colin glanced over at you. “I wasn't sure if I was supposed to have the radio on or not.” You raised an eyebrow at him and he continued on. “You know how they always say in serious situations you should not have your radio on cause it seems insensitive.” He started to ramble and you watched him with an amused look. He was so considerate but in the most awkward way possible. He sighed and glanced at you again. “That didn't make any sense did it?”
“Not at all.” He laughed and you did as well. It surprised you, you didn't expect to be able to laugh like that anymore. You took a quick glance at Colin, there was something about him that you couldn't quite place, something about him that made you feel safe and almost normal. Being around him reminded you of who you used to be. Colin saw you looking at him and smiled, you looked away with a smile of your own taking hold. Colin flipped on the radio, ABBA started playing. He hummed along to the tune mumbling the words to the song under his breath. After a while you joined him, your shoulders moving away from your ears as you relaxed. “Afraid of a love affair, but I think you know, that I can’t let go….” 
Your first thought was that Colin’s house felt like a home. The minute you stepped through the door this wave of comfort settled over you. The dated furniture and childhood pictures really tied it all together. His mom tried to ambush you at the door with questions and hugs as Colin did his best to fend her off. He told her she could talk to you after you got settled in. 
 Colin rubbed the nape of his neck giving you an apologetic smile. "I’m sorry about her. She means well.” 
“I think she’s nice.” You gave him a gentle smile.
He led you down the hall and stopped at the door closest to the living room. “This is the guest room.” He opened the door. The room was filled with boxes and crafting supplies, they were scattered over the bed and tossed into various corners. Colin cursed and scrambled to quickly empty the room. You giggled as you watched him apologize for the mess. He shook the blanket out, coughing at the dust that erupted from the fabric. He placed the blanket back down and placed his hands on his hips. “I didn't think the room was this bad.”
“It’s okay, it’ll be interesting to stay here.” You joked. 
“No, it’s not, um let’s see.” Colin thought for a moment before it hit him. He grabbed your bag and opened the door across from the room. “You can stay in my room.” He smiled widely at you and you just gaped at him.
“What, no-
“Yes, you can stay here and I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Mr. Zabel-”
“Colin.” He smiled shyly at you. ‘Please call me Colin.”
You returned it and started again. “Colin, I can sleep on the couch. I mean you’re already letting me stay here. I can’t take your room either.” 
“Please, take the room.” His tone was firm. You sighed and nodded. “Great, so you can get settled here while I go back to the station.”
“You’re leaving?” 
“I have to get back to help Mare, but my mom will be here if you need anything. And if you need me you can call me. Okay?”
“Okay.” He moved towards you and kissed your cheek, you flinched and he reeled back. 
“Oh my god I’m so sorry!” He practically jumped to the other side of the room. “Force of habit I usually kiss my mom on the cheek before I leave. I-” he sputtered out, his face flushed red. I’m just going to go now, I’ll see you later.” He rushed out before leaving you standing alone in the center of his room. 
You lifted your hand up to your cheek to feel the spot where he had kissed you. It was wildly inappropriate that he had done so, but it was even worse that you enjoyed it. You felt your heart flutter at the thought of him kissing you again, but this time moved slightly over. 
You set your bag down on his bed and made your way to the kitchen. His mom was sitting at the dining room table and got up when she saw you coming. 
“It’s okay ma’am, you don’t need to get up. I just came to get a drink of water.” 
‘Let me get it.” She didn't even give you room to protest, she sprang out of her chair and rushed back with a glass of water. You thanked her.
“You have a really nice home Ms. Zabel.”
 “Thank you dear.” She smiled warmly at you and hesitantly reached her hand out towards you. Resting it on your forearm, you looked at where her hand rested. You hated how such a simple act of comfort made you tear up, it was nice to feel such a loving touch. Her voice made you look back up at her. “You know, this is your home now too.” 
You smiled at her, nodding at her statement. Little did you know how right she was. And little did you know that pretty soon Detective Colin Zabel’s house would become more of a home to you than any place before.
Taglist: @anonymushhy @chiswritingandreadingcorner @xxspqcebunsxx @coffeeandteaintheevening @kitwalkerangel @xmaximoffic @livingmybestfictionallife @evanmybeloved @kaismessiahbb
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austajunk · 3 years
Note
Please PLEASE go into detail about how protective he is over Chiaki!! I literally am begging to finally hear someone else actually acknowledge their friendship/relationship especially after having to deal with a pretty toxic anti-bi/pan Nagito rper I was on a server with for a good part of a year! (Sorry went kinda ranty but hopefully my anguish is understandable!)
Oh my lord, you’re giving me a chance to shine with my fixations?! I can’t thank you enough! Now, please understand that this is based on my perception of the series as I’ve played through the second game twice. I’m pretty good when it comes to being the person who has unpopular opinions and ships and I know claiming that Nagito is bi/pan/Demi is probably one of them. But honestly, it comes from the desire to see this boy get as much love as possible. Because he sure needs it.
Ultimately, Nagito’s sexuality is never canonly specified, so I think whether gay, bisexual, Pansexual, or what have you, we’re all well within our rights to just have fun and see what we want to in a really flawed and relatable character. And that’s what makes it interesting.
That being said, let’s talk about Nagito and Chiaki. Friendship or romantic, I don’t think you can deny that Chiaki is at least special to Nagito in some way.
Upon replaying the second game, I’ve realized how protective Nagito actually is towards Chiaki interestingly enough.
In chapter 2, she leaves to go question Fuyuhiko but Nagito stops her and tells her not to let Fuyuhiko get rough with her. Every time Chiaki’s skills help them advance, he deeply praises her. Even after he’s stopped praising all the others (which he does mostly after Chapter one, hinting he does not like some of them as actual people). But for some reason, especially during the trials, Nagito is quick to jump in and mention how wonderful Chiaki is and compliment her (only to be usually cut off by someone when he starts to ramble).
It should also be noted that Chiaki and Nagito both share an appreciation for games. Nagito seems to like more luck-based games for obvious reasons, but he also mentions that like Chiaki, he likes the Twilight Syndrome series. Both of them similarly state that they felt Monokuma was butchering a favorite game of theirs.
They also both have an odd way of trying to cheer Hajime up and joke with him, the examples shown coincidentally beside one another. Chiaki says she’s gonna look for a dirty book, throwing Hajime off and Nagito “jokingly” tells Hajime to lick his boots and now to him, but Hajime is extremely put off when he claims it was a joke. These oddballs get each other in the weirdest of ways is what I’m saying. They’re both incredibly antisocial, but their hearts are reaching the same place too when they try to make an effort.
In chapter 4, when Chiaki teams up with Nagito and Kazuichi, then leaves because they’re both being clingy, Nagito quickly follows and chases after her to make sure she’s okay. Then he chastised her for running off, looking deeply concerned. Even after his attitude change, he will answer her more directly and not ignore her. When she tells him to be quiet, he politely obeys... or maybe it’s because he’s deep in thought about her motives as he mentions he was watching the trial carefully to decide on who the traitor is.
I may just be mentioning this because they’re my OTP, but if you know about their school time together and pay attention to Nagito’s Hope versus Chiaki’s Hope, I think it’s fascinating.
Okay, now let’s head into Danganronpa 3 territory. Now this is the part where I am the most shaky as I’m still trying to determine what I take canon from this series. The thing is, a friend who got me into the series informed me that the production was way rushed and that Kodaka never wanted to do the anime in the first place. But! That being said, Chiaki and Nagito have some great moments in this and the anthology comics along with it, so let’s get into some stuff.
First of all, Nagito warmly mentions that Chiaki being their class rep makes her the true Hope of their class. And you can tell he’s serious because as he’s saying it, he’s doing that thing where he’s staring at his hand desperately like he wants eat it. You know the look.
Moving on, it’s clear that aside from Chisa, Chiaki is the only one to value and treasure Nagito. And this makes sense. In her own dying words, she loves her classmates. They are the world to her. All of them. And of course, she loves Nagito too with all her heart. As evidenced as she cradled him protectively in her arms while he’s injured. At first when Chiaki and the others are determined to stand up to Junko and get their teacher back, Nagito pleads with Chiaki not to. That his luck could not overcome them. He knows they can’t win in this situation and I do think he was actually trying to talk Chiaki out of it. But of course, when Chiaki pushes back and says she wants to go anyways, he literally can’t help himself when it comes to wanting to see Hope shine. So he agrees and praises her again because of course he does.
Until it all leads to the Pain Train with Despair coming out on top. Chiaki is brutally slaughtered and we see something new from Nagito. He breaks down crying. Tears are streaming madly down his face as a forced and twisted smile appears on his lips. He even beseeches Chiaki’s name. “You understand right? You know you’re a stepping stone for Hope!” “What has been done to Nanami is unforgivable...” Nagito’s already trying to cope. To rationalize something horrible that he just witnessed in his mind. He’s trying to protect himself as he’s utterly being destroyed and breaking down like all of his classmates. Chiaki’s death literally shatters his mind. It’s a pretty well done scene even if I’m not a big fan of the brainwashing stuff. Not to mention, the way he says “You understand right, Nanami?” As if he’s begging for her forgiveness as he falls apart. It’s so very very tragic. And of course, when being made apart of the Neo World Program, his desire to see Chiaki once more, just one more time like his classmates, brings her back to him(and the other classmates) in AI form.
Honestly... it’s pretty beautiful. Chiaki is apart of Nagito in some way and is imprinted into his mind and heart. He longed to see her as much as everyone else. This person, who doesn’t seek out relationships because his luck either gets them killed or he finds their Hope to be too weak, has a connection with Chiaki like that. This is literally a person who believes his life is just a stepping stone for better and more worthy people, someone who knows their existence is a formality at this point. And still, he does have connections. There are people capable of caring about him and loving him and Chiaki was one of those people. And he wanted to see her again in the Neo World Program. Like Chiaki said, it’s no less than miracle.
But alas, this is getting rather long, isn’t it? Well in the D3 anthology, Nagito also is concerned when Chiaki avoids eating because of her hyperfixation on gaming. Chiaki skipping out on self care?! Not cool, Chiaki. And so he challenges her to a game to make sure she’ll eat lunch. Fucking protective as hell. And yes yes, the anthology isn’t canon... but that’s the thing about Danganronpa. The series is over. Any additional info and stuff added to it is meant to enrich the experience for the fandom, so it’s canon to me. What’s the fandom gonna do? Whine at me and tell me it isn’t? That Nagito wouldn’t do these things when official anthologies and content that’s sold for Danganronpa tells me he would? So... yeah.
Ultimately, whether you ship them or not, I think this fandom is missing out on the Komanami side of things and how good their relationship is when you really observe it. :3
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roger-that-cap · 3 years
Text
meet me in the gardens
knight!natasha romanoff x noble!fem!reader
summary: being the widow of a decently wealthy lord and sitting on a large plot of land automatically meant that you were a candidate for the program that you couldn’t say not to; the hosting. you had to sponsor a knight and keep them in your home for an entire year, which was troublesome enough on its own. but you never expected your knight to be a woman, and you certainly didn’t expect to have a full on illegal love affair with her, either. 
warnings: ppl are upset, shit gets ruined, swearing? the “l” word
word count: 3.5k
what is this, like the sixth part? this was definitely supposed to be a miniseries lmao- all the other parts are on my pinned post!
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The nights passed the same, but the days were entirely different. Days kept flying by, and with every single cycle of the sun, you were forced more and more by tradition to prepare your home for your future husband. It had been days since you and Natasha confessed your feelings for each other and kissed under the starlight, and still, the feeling of her arms around you and her face in your hands still ran around in your mind, pushing thoughts of your duties out of your mind without any effort. And it was for that reason, against your judgement, that you still met with Natasha Romanoff every night. 
  It felt like ever since the honesty started flowing, you began to feel lighter. With every glance at Natasha that became less and less stolen, your soul felt like it could deviate more and more by the second. Your mind knew what was going on, the high before the impending fall, and you knew for a fact that when you hit the ground, you were going to shatter. But you couldn't find your mind wanting to acknowledge how fragile you were becoming for love. And how could you? How could you mind the chilling fall and the results of it when Natasha cradled you so gently, just like stained glass?
 Wanda was the sane one. She was the one who kept trying to bring you back down from the tops of your clouds, attempting to be the gentle reminder before reality itself slammed right into you and took your breath away in the worst of ways. She was the gentle hand of a mother that tried to shake her child out of  a nightmare disguised as a dream, and you were the insolent child who ignored her. 
 Pietro, on the other hand, encouraged it. He was all for splurging, and that went for everything. He was a borderline glutton and when he had money, it was gone within weeks, and he was an advocate for the way that you were divulging in your own little heaven. He would smile when he saw you off in your own head, reminiscing on a memory so sweet you could have sworn it was some sort of dream. He would tell Wanda in hushed whispers to leave you alone, and that you deserved to be happy, even if it was only for a little bit. 
  “But she doesn’t deserve to have it ripped away from her,” Wanda said to him on a day where the sun managed to pierce through the coverage of the clouds, and he just shook  his head at her, looking at her with slight pity. “It’s my duty as her friend to remind her.”
“She’s a smart girl, don’t you think she knows?” Pietro retorted, eyeing you as you picked a magnolia from your garden, standing  by yourself but still smiling. “Besides, do you really think that her lady love is going to let anything happen to her?” 
 Wanda gasped and looked around them, on alert for anyone who could have possibly heard what her brother had said. Her eyes were wild as she watched for anyone who may have heard the scandalous words, and when she saw that everyone was minding their business, she swirled her head back to glare at Pietro.  “What?”
Pietro grinned, and then his grin turned into a sneaky smirk. “What, you didn't know?” When Wanda hesitated to answer, he chuckled. ‘There’s no way you didn’t know.” 
“Pietro, you can’t just say things like that,” she scolded, heart still racing at the thought of someone knowing. 
“You and I are the only ones who know her well enough to know that she’s in love, and there’s no way that you haven’t seen the way that the knight is around her.” 
  Wanda had. She had a great read on people, always seeming to know everyone’s thoughts before they even knew it themselves. She knew the second that Natasha Romanoff started to change, and she would never forget the time where she realized that it was because of her very own dear friend.
 It happened on a particularly cool day, and Wanda had dressed you in a short and flowy dress before realizing that there was a breeze outside. You had walked down to the training areas, even though you said that you were just aimlessly walking, and you kept glancing over your shoulder to watch the red head spar with a man twice her size and hold more than her own. You had looked away the second that Wanda looked at you for a moment too long, with her eyes that were always seeking answers. The first pang of realization hit Wanda that day when she saw you stand up straight and tall when Natasha started to saunter towards the both of you. The second time that she saw it was when Natasha got an eyeful of you, too, and then her flawless steps faltered for the quickest of moments. Natasha never faltered. 
  “It doesn’t matter what we know,” Wanda muttered lowly, putting a strand of her hair behind her ear in an attempt to look like they were having a normal conversation. “We can’t just go around saying that our lady-”
“Likes women?” He asked, and Wanda immediately started throwing curses his way. “No one ever sees past their own problems here. I can assure you, no one cares if Lady Mirellis likes lying with women.” 
“No, but Brock Rumlow will care,” Wanda pointed out. “And he has the ability to make her life miserable. So please, watch your mouth. Or at least care for how loud you run it.”
 “They were meant to meet,” Pietro said, his words nearly running into Wanda’s. “They were meant to meet, that much is obvious. I knew it from the second that I saw them look at each other when the redhead stepped out of the carriage.” Wanda looked at him with shock in her eyes as she watched his face flood with smugness, the sort of effortless smile that made people smile back. “What, you didn’t see that coming?” He shook his head and ruffled his sister’s hair, ignoring the angered sounds she made. 
“And you say that you’re the observant twin?” 
§§
The stream became your hiding place. It was the place that you and Natasha went when it all became too much for you or when she wanted to celebrate getting another step closer to finding herself. You went on good days and bad ones, but at the end of it, you felt at peace. You both ended up forgetting why you went in the first place. 
Your toes were in the water, brushing up against a rock every few seconds as the red head practiced wielding her sword absentmindedly behind you, still looking graceful and as smooth as water while she did it. “What’s going to happen when you finish?” 
  “When I finish what?” 
“When you finish your knightly duties, you know, the reason why you came in the first place?” You asked, turning your head to look at her. She had her arm straight out, sword elongating it and was mid-lunge, but her eyes were on you and her forehead had gathered wrinkles. “What’s going to happen?” 
She dropped her arm abruptly and frowned. You heard her inhale over the sound of rushing water. “Well, I suppose I have to ride back to the capital.”  You knew that. “I’ll be officially knighted there.” 
  “Are you excited?” 
“It’s still a few months away,” Natasha said, and you knew that the statement was more for you than it was for her. “But when the time comes, I’ll be excited.” 
You knew she would be. She rose up from nothing to possibly being a woman knighted by the king, something that had never happened before. She was proud of herself, and you were proud of her. She was the perfect knight, honorable and strong, and everything that a person with that title should be. You sat there with your lips shut, hand in hers like it was meant to be that way, and your mind moving at a speed legs couldn’t even hope for. 
“Whatever you’re worrying about, darling,” Natasha said, the hand that wasn’t intertwined with you reaching up and brushing against your jaw, fingers caressing your face as she turned your head gently to face her. “Don’t.” 
  “If only it were that easy.” 
“It could be,” she retorted, and her pointer finger brushed over your top lip. “Just stop thinking about it.” 
You pursed your lips at her, shaking your head. “You truly do have a man’s brain.” 
“Are you going to be able to do it?” She asked out of nowhere, and you stopped tracing her eyebrows with your finger to give her a confused look. “I guess the real question is- are you really going to do it?”
You sighed, your heart already slowly breaking. “Yes.” You said, lacking hesitancy that you felt deeply in your heart. “It won’t matter that I’ll be married to him. I swear it.” 
“I believe you.” 
“Nothing has to change. We’ll sneak around like we always do, we’ll be fine.” 
“Hey,” Natasha said, grabbing your hands as they started to shake. Your eyes were gathering tears with every word that passed through your lips, and she made you focus on her. “I believe you.” 
The rest of the night was spent as all the other nights were spent. Silence other than the sounds of nature and each other’s soft breathing. The customary breeze that came and went brushing against your bare legs and Natasha’s clothed ones. Soft touches that ranged from hands to foreheads to each other’s backs. It was so intimate, and you were so alone with her that it truly felt like you two were the only people on the planet. You never felt safer. Seeing Natasha wield a sword or wear her armor had nothing on the security that you felt when she just had you close, where there was nothing but a sliver of air between your two bodies. It was in moments like those, when she held you in her arms and kissed your temple, where you truly felt invincible. 
§§
With every passing day, you fell more and more in love with Natasha Romanoff. That much was a given, and you knew that the first night at the stream was going to change your life for forever, but you never expected it to be that hard. And by it, you meant, getting married to someone you would hate just so that you could keep the woman that you loved safe. 
And it felt so good to finally use that word, even if it was only in the comforts of your own mind. You loved her. You loved her like you had never loved anyone else, and you had to tell her one day. Your heart sunk to your toes when you realized that the confession would have to be in an empty forest or in your gardens or somewhere else just a s secretive, and that no one would ever find out truly how devoted you were to her. You were never going to be able to tell the world that you loved her, and that was for more reasons than one. 
  You were going to marry Brock Rumlow the day after he arrived. And that day was hardly even approaching anymore, it was on your doorstep. It was so close, in fact, that you were standing in your wedding gown and crying as you tried it on one last time before the fateful day. 
One second, Wanda was doing your corset and fixing the collar on the traditional wedding dress and the next- she was watching you lose your mind. “I really- I can’t do it.” You had a hand over your mouth as you looked up towards the ceiling. You collapsed to the floor despite your chest struggling to expand and catch a breath while the corset constricted. Your hands covered your face as you allowed yourself to have a good cry for the first time in what felt like years. 
“Oh, sweetheart.” Wanda breathed out, and you could feel the heartbreak in her just like it was in you. “I know. I know, just cry it all out.” 
Your head was spinning. You had no idea what terrible choices you had made for life to bring you to the spot that you were soon to arrive at and be stuck in forever. You had no idea what you had done to the world to make the universe want to make your life miserable. “I can’t do it.” 
“If you’re afraid that he’ll hurt you…”  Wanda started off, a slight tremble in her voice as she tried to gather her own bearings and be strong for you, “Pietro and I won’t let it happen. Pietro is strong, and I’m fierce when it comes to the two of you, you know that. Nothing will ever happen to you while we’re here.”
  “I can’t marry him,” you sobbed, and it felt like you were being crushed into a hug by the corset. “I can’t.” 
  “I will be with you every step of the way, just like I was before, darling.” 
“No!” You wailed, and you felt Wanda startle a bit. You were going in circles in your own mind, s fast that you couldn’t even stop your lips from moving if you had tried. “I can’t- I cannot marry him because my heart is fully in the possession of another.” You admitted lowly, so quietly that Wanda hardly even heard it. “I can’t.” 
Wanda waited a few moments before speaking again. “It’s Natasha isn’t it?” 
You stiffened up immediately, almost forgetting that quickly that you had shared the only secret that you ever kept from Wanda. Natasha. “What?” 
  “Pietro and I have known you for what feels like centuries,” Wanda said rubbing a smooth hand up and down your back. “Did you really think that we hadn’t caught on?” 
  You looked up at her, panic manifesting in your eyes. “Who else knows?” If you were in a rational state of mind, you would have known that Wanda and Pietro would never run their mouths, especially not about something that meant life or death. And you being with someone- a woman at that- before your betrothed came? That meant certain death for the both of you. ‘W-Wanda-”
“No one knows,” she said soothingly, a promise deep rooted in her tone. “Just the two of us. You hid it surprisingly well, but you can’t hide from your family.”
And they were family. The only ones you considered to be family, actually. “So now you know why.” Wanda nodded, and then the two of you sat on your wooden floor in silence, but it felt awfully loud with the thoughts running through you.
It felt like ages had passed by the time Wanda’s voice flooded your senses again, the despair in it hardly hidden. “What are you going to do?” 
“Try to keep us both alive.” 
§§
Your eyes were shut as you laid on your back and tried to will the tears away. Natasha was next to you, and you were supposed to be stargazing during your last night of freedom. You had been keeping it together, but the second Natasha heard a sniffle, she shook her head and leaned up on her arm.
 “You are not going to mope on our last- you know what? You’re just not going to mope tonight. Stand up.” Before you could even tell her that you didn’t want to she was yanking you up with one hand. You stumbled forward and into her arms, unable to stop yourself from giggling a bit before she steadied you. 
The moonlight was your friend as it lit her face, and like you always did, you momentarily lost your breath while the two of you locked eyes, yours clashing with her blue ones and creating a tension that you were so familiar with, the kind that everyone craved. “If there was no rush, nothing threatening to tear us apart, would you agree to marry me right now?” 
 You blinked. “What?” 
“In another life,” Natasha said, and you nodded with hesitant encouragement. “If this was another life and I was someone in a position to get down on one knee and marry you, would you tell me yes?” You stood there tongue tied, holding both of her hands as she stared at you head on. “If I were a man, a wealthy man who loved you for you, just like I do now, would you tell me yes? Would you agree to marry me if there were no obstacles?”
 Once you understood the depth of her question, the answer that had been stirring within finally came to light, and then it was leaving your lips in a surprised exhalation. “Yes.”
“Good,” Natasha said, the apprehension melting off of her face. She took a step back, but still held your hands tightly. “I’ll make it a point to find you in the next life, then.” 
 The next life. An unknown. Something that had so many variables, so many different meanings and outcomes. She was so optimistic, for someone who had seen so much hurt and suffering. But you were a realist, you had to be after everything that happened to you. And you knew deep down, no matter how much you willed for there to be one, that there was no second chance at a next life for you. And there wasn’t one for her, either. You didn’t have the next life. You didn’t even have the one you lived in. But you had a single night. 
“I would marry you tonight,” you said softly, and when you heard her breathing hitch, you turned your head to look at her, watching the slightest of flushes appear on her cheeks, like she was surprised that you would have even said the words that you did. “Even with everything going on right now, I would marry you. I would marry you with or without the people who hate us for loving who we do, and with or without Brock Rumlow coming in the morning. If I could, I would marry you. If you’d have me, of course.” 
“Of course I would,” she said, relief lacing in her voice as she touched your face, and one of your tears hit her pointer finger. “And it’s too late now, I’m afraid, but, I love you,” she said, and just like that, all of your worry and frustration and fear had melted away, like you were in some stupid fairy tale that queens tell their daughters at night. “Is that enough?” 
 No. It wasn’t. Not when it came to her. You wanted to give your all to her and you wanted it back from her. But as quick as you realized that you wanted it all, you realized that you would never get it. So, the little confessions and hugs and caresses in the dark were going to have to be enough. You would make them enough. “It’s enough,” you said, because wanting was enough. Being with her in the night and desiring for her during the day was enough. “It’s enough.” 
§§
You expected a more calm entrance from Lord Rumlow, but then again, you didn’t know him. But the second all of his horses and men came barreling down the road, you felt like you knew him quite enough. 
You knew all men like him at first glance. 
Wanda was on your left, and Pietro on your right as you stood in a pretty, floral dress that Wanda picked out for you. It was silent when she dressed you, but all the words were there. She did your hair the way that you usually did it, said you looked beautiful, and then the next thing you knew, you were standing and watching carriages arrive. 
 Natasha wasn’t there.  
You honestly didn’t know if it was worse or better for you. 
When the fanfare was finally over and the door to the grandest chariot of them all opened, you held your breath. And then, before you could even stop yourself, you thought, I’m about to see what a true monster looks like. 
He was a big man. Muscular, sturdy looking, and intimidating. You immediately understood why he came off as so hostile in the letters, and it was because he was so scary looking that he could get away with nearly anything. You tilted your head upwards in defiance, meeting his eyes even though he cocked a brow at you, easily recognizing you as his betrothed, and as a woman who was directly challenging him. 
He took a few steps closer, but like he knew of your extreme aversion to him and the way that you had two people beside you that would defend you fiercely, he stopped at a far enough distance. His expensive shoes dug up your grass, and you would have flinched if it weren’t for his steely, self assured voice coming your way.  “You must be my wife.” 
You couldn’t even scoff. “Not yet.” 
“But tomorrow is coming,” he said, looking around the estate, clearly pleased with the way it looked. He nodded his head once, twice, and then three times, before his gaze settled on you again, and he looked you up and down. “Couldn’t ask for anything more.
***
it literally astonishes me that this was supposed to be four chapters long, at most. but then again, it was supposed to be a fucking one shot just like all the flowers will bloom- so why am i surprised? i can’t write none shots for shit guys... 
please like and reblog if you liked this lil installment! i hope you guys have a great rest of your day/night :)))) 
taglist!
@teenwonder  @msmarvelsmain @saamwilscn​ @procrastinatingsapphictrash @fayhar @8plasma @slut-for-nat @dontmindmejustreading @swords-are-cool @200605chaeng @thescottishavenger @antidaytime @jenny-song @madamevirgo @natasha-danvers @blackxwidowsxwife @shycucumbersandwich @dailyavengering 
@xxxtwilightaxelxxx @ima-gi--na-tion @chickenhavewisdom
i’m pretty sure i didn’t forget anyone, and if i did, i’m sorry!
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homoose · 4 years
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Through the Smoke
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Request: could you do spencer x bau reader where they aren't dating yet but they both feel for each other? where both spencer and reader are very closed off people and the whole team knows that. but after one rough case on the flight back, they're both just exhausted mentally and physically and seek comfort in each other. then spend the night at reader's apartment and kiss for the first time there. sorry if this is specific but thank you (:
Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader
Category: angst with a happy ending
Warnings/Includes: typical CM stuff, cults, kidnapping, violence, etc.
Word count: 8.1k
Music recs: Through the Fire by Jake Etheridge and Margot Todd; scared by Jeremy Zucker
a/n: anon, I have no idea if this is what you were looking for, but this is where it went. It’s a generous rewrite of 300, substituting the reader for Garcia. Also this blog operates with the understanding that the season 14 jeid arc does not exist lmao. JJ is firmly in the “I love you as a brother” camp and I will not be taking questions at this time. Also, this is a reminder that my requests are open! send me some fresh ideas, head cannons, rambles, whatever! 
———
“Metro PD and the Bureau have been made aware of the Believers and possible activity following their leader’s arrest,” Prentiss confirmed, looking out over the team mingling in the bullpen. “But taking Theo at his word—”
“We only arrested three. There’s probably more out there, but if they follow cult dynamics, they’ll break down on their own without the messiah,” Matt finished.
“Typical cults: you think it’s a cast of thousands when really it’s just four whackos sitting around in the dark,” Tara mused.
Prentiss smiled. “I think we deserve some decompression time, and Rossi’s kind enough to host.”
Rossi leaned over the railing and nodded. “And I have some top shelf wine picked just for the occasion.”
The team started gathering their belongings and heading towards the elevators. Y/N hesitated, looking toward the case file still sitting on her desk. Something about how this had all wrapped up just… didn’t sit right. Her nearly five years with the Critical Incident Response Group had given her an up close view of some of the most prolific cults in American history. She’d studied Jonestown, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Liberty Ranch; new cults emerged onto CIRG’s radar regularly. And there was something about The Believers that just didn’t add up.
Y/N began shuffling things around on her desk, trying to look busy. She caught Spencer and JJ out of the corner of her eye, talking quietly. They ended their conversation with a hug, lingering just a little longer than Y/N would have preferred. She shook her head to try to physically clear the thought from her brain. She knew that Spencer had been through a lifetime’s worth of trauma before she joined the team, and that JJ had been an integral support for him. Y/N was also aware that she had zero grounds to be concerned with any of Spencer’s relationships, romantic or otherwise.
“Y/N, you coming?” JJ asked, walking toward her desk. Spencer headed out of the bullpen and down the hall.
Y/N gave her a half-hearted smile. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a little bit. Just wanted to finish up a couple things here.”
“Well, don’t stay too late.” JJ pressed her lips together for a moment before adding, “Maybe you and Spence could drive together. He said he might not make it, but if he had some company...”
Y/N hoped her immediate flush wasn’t too obvious. After nearly a year in the unit, she finally felt like she had built some solid relationships with the team, and Spencer was no exception. She relished their card games on the jet, the laughs over too-sweet coffee, discussions about books and films and music. But she also adored the way his hair sometimes curled and fell into his eyes, his animated and rambling tangents, the way his hands traced over the tiny print of his books. Most of her adult life had been spent surrounded by men who would gather up her trust in their pitted hands and crush it on a whim. She’d kept her heart behind glass for a long while, but Spencer was slowly chipping away at the fragile panels. She was certain he had no idea that he was even holding the chisel; but just about everyone else seemed to have figured it out. JJ, with her hands clasped together and an eager smile, definitely had. Y/N smiled, too. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“So we’ll see you in a bit?” When Y/N nodded, JJ gave her a warm smile and headed out.
Turning back to the case file, Y/N pressed her fingers to her temple and looked over the documents. Some of the pieces fit together, but the whole case felt littered with gaps and holes. The tale that Theo had woven about The Believers seemed true enough— his parents were simply the suppliers of potential cult members. Although, she still couldn’t figure out the reason for the kidnapping and torture. There were much easier ways to recruit vulnerable people.
She flipped past the pages of written statements and read over the report from the warehouse raid. It was short— the take down of Merva was too easy. Why was he sitting alone in an empty warehouse with only two unarmed, sleeping followers as a defense? Where was the rest of the cult? Matt was correct that most cults fall apart without their leader; unless the loss of a leader was a possibility they’d already prepared for.
The burns on Quinn’s hands didn’t make sense, either. Why use the initiation ritual as a torture device? Shouldn’t that be saved for people who had accepted the invitation? And then there was the one coincidence that nagged at her the most: what were the chances that Theo just happened to be enrolled in Spencer's course? Why did Spencer seem to be at the center of the whole thing?
Y/N sighed as her phone lit up with a message from JJ. She realized she’d been poring over the file for twenty-five minutes, and she had to laugh. As the least experienced profiler on the team, what could she possibly see that the others hadn’t? She closed the case file and quickly packed up, grabbing her jacket and bag and making her way toward the elevator lobby. She paused at the glass doors, retrieving her phone and pulling up Spencer’s contact information. Her thumb hovered over the call button for a long moment before she huffed out a breath. If even JJ hadn’t been able to convince him to go, there was no way she’d be able to change his mind. Despite herself, she glanced down the hall, allowing herself one moment to imagine an alternate timeline where she asked him to come along with her— to Rossi’s, to the moon, anywhere.
With a sigh, Y/N pushed open the glass doors and saw Agent Meadows leading Quinn to the elevator. She pushed down the little red flag in the back of her mind. As she stepped onto the elevator, she smiled politely at the two agents.
“I knew you didn’t do it. I just knew,” Meadows said to Quinn. She turned to Y/N. “And I can’t tell you what a privilege it’s been working with the A-Team on this case.”
Something about the calm in her voice made Y/N uneasy. “Yeah, it’s— um. It’s a great team to be a part of.” Her phone lit up again, this time with a phone call from JJ. “Okay, okay,” she muttered under her breath. Y/N answered the call, half an ear still listening to Meadows speak to Quinn. “Hey, I’m just leaving now.”
“Are you still at the BAU?” JJ demanded, voice low.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry. But I’m in the elevator,” Y/N answered.
“Listen, we’re pretty sure Quinn was converted,” JJ told her. Y/N’s heart dropped into her shoes. “I need you to make sure he doesn’t leave that building. We’re coming back now. Where’s Spence?”
Y/N took a breath to try to even out her voice before speaking again. “Mom, we already talked about this. I don’t know.”
JJ paused. “Is Quinn in the elevator with you?”
“Yep.” JJ spoke quietly to someone on the other end of the phone. Y/N watched as the elevator dinged to the floor of the parking garage. “I’m going to have to hang up, mom. I’m gonna lose you, but I’ll try to take care of it tonight, okay?”
“Y/N, we’re on our—” The call dropped as the elevator hit the basement level.
Y/N took a deep breath to steady her voice. “Ugh, lost her.” She glanced at Meadows and Quinn, forced a smile and shrugged. “Elevators, right?”
The elevator doors began to open and Y/N stepped out, surreptitiously reaching for her holster. She had just lifted the strap when she heard the crack of metal hitting bone. Her face hit the concrete before she realized it was her own skull that bore the impact. She watched as her gun skidded across the parking lot floor, the taste of iron flooding her mouth. “Fuck,” she muttered, wincing in pain and scrambling up off the ground as a gunshot went off.
She didn’t feel the impact of the bullet. She looked down at her body, expecting to see a blooming rose of blood. She stared dumbly for a second too long, before remembering that she needed to get to her gun. Her hand instinctively went to her nose as she stumbled forward, coming away wet with blood.
“Stop, Agent Y/L/N.”
She heard the sound of a gun cocking, and then another. She closed her eyes and ran through an internal stream of curses. Raising her hands up, she turned slowly around. An older white man stood to her left, his gun trained on her. Meadows walked slowly towards her, lowering her own weapon. Quinn leaned against the back of the elevator, clutching his abdomen and blood staining the front of his shirt.
“Surprise,” Meadows sang, a sick smile spreading across her face. She stopped in front of Y/N, sweeping her hand in the direction of the man. “Now, John’s going to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. Get in the car.”
Y/N glanced in the direction of the vehicle, a dark sedan, driver armed to the teeth as well. “The team knows something’s up. You won’t make it out of this garage alive.”
Meadows laughed, loud and unhinged. “Oh honey. They’re not looking for lil ol’ me. And they sure as hell won’t be looking for an ambulance.” Her smile returned. “Plus, I already erased 299 murders from the Bureau’s radar. What’s a couple more? Now, shut up... and get in the car.”
Y/N moved to the open car door, keeping her back as straight as possible and her chin up, refusing to show them any cowardice. The barrel of the gun jabbed her in the back as she lowered herself into the vehicle. The door slammed shut, and in a moment, the gun was back on her, the man sitting next to her in the backseat. Y/N waited for the car to pull out, still trying to make sense of it all. Meadows was a Believer? What did she mean by “erased” 299 murders? Why would she blow her cover to shoot Quinn? Did she think that he had figured her out? Or that Y/N had? If that was the case, why not just shoot her? Why wasn’t the car moving?
“Drop your gun, Agent Reid,” Meadows’ muffled voice penetrated the inside of the vehicle. Y/N’s heart began to race. John dug the gun further into her side.
“It’s been you the whole time,” Spencer deduced.
“Yes, it was. Quinn somehow figured it out first. Pity having to shoot him,” Meadows mocked. “But he can’t give me what I want. And you can.”
“What’s that?” Y/N’s brain scrambled to put the pieces together as she listened to the exchange. Spencer was at the heart of it after all. It was right there, she just couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
Meadows continued, “You and I are going to go upstairs and free my Messiah.”
“You’re in the heart of the FBI. As soon as the rest of my team figures out it’s you, you’ll be dead before you’re out the door.” Y/N hoped to god that he was right.
“Then we need to work quickly.”
“I’m not going to cooperate with you,” Spencer told her. “Might as well shoot me.” Y/N didn’t even have time to panic before the car shifted into drive.
“I have a better idea.” On Meadows’ cue, the driver squealed out of the parking space and into Spencer’s line of sight. His eyes fell on Y/N, hands nearly pressed against the window, John’s gun pointed at her head. “Now, what’s it gonna be? Because you can either join us, or she dies.”
Y/N tried to radiate her rage through her eyes and screamed, “Reid, just shoot her! Shoot her!” The last thing she saw before the second crack of steel against her skull was the hesitation in Spencer’s eyes.
⧭⧭⧭
Y/N’s eyes fluttered open and she groaned at the pounding of her head, the rhythm of her heartbeat throbbing in the space behind her ears. She tried to lift her hand to check for blood, only to strain against the hold of a zip tie attached to the base of the chair. Instead, she surveyed the room around her. A warehouse, lots of shipping containers, and even more men— this time armed with assault rifles and machine guns. One stood at the entrance point of the small area she was being kept in.
She worked through her memory, putting the pieces together. Meadows was a Believer, had been for quite some time to pull all of this off. Quinn wasn’t special, he just got in the way of her real target. Ben Merva might have been the messiah, but Spencer Reid was clearly just as important to whatever mission they were carrying out. Every twisting thread of information somehow traced back to him: Theo in his class, Quinn’s attachment to him, Meadows’ demand that he be the one to free Merva.
“Good, you’re awake.” Meadows strode through the space with a laptop in hand. “I need your handiwork.”
Y/N stared at her. “Is that so?’
Meadows set the laptop on the barrel in front of Y/N and then leaned down to cut the zip tie. “Besides being my collateral for the good doctor, you’re also going to help me access CIRG’s surveillance data.”
“Fuck you.” Y/N spat on Meadows’ shoes. “I’m doing nothing for you.” Her head rolled back, eyes piercing daggers into Meadows. “You should just kill me now, because this is a waste of your time. And I’m sure you know the A-Team isn’t going to waste theirs.”
Meadows narrowed her eyes and gave a theatrical sigh. “I should’ve known you’d make this difficult.” She nodded to John, standing at the entranceway.
Y/N spat again, this time to rid her mouth of the taste of blood. She steeled herself for the next onslaught, compartmentalizing every emotion outside of her fury. Her mind raced to salvage and scrutinize the memories from her time in CIRG, trying desperately to identify what Meadows could be looking for in the surveillance reports. The Believers hadn’t even been on the Bureau’s radar. The reason had to be linked to their interest in Spencer… a piece of information that involved both Spencer Reid and the existing surveillance data. A single grain that could bring the whole damn bushel down.
She heard a scuffle at the entrance of the room and raised her head. Her heart jumped into her throat at the sight of Spencer, bloodied and bruised. John dragged him into the room, throwing him down onto his knees in front of Y/N. His eyes tracked over her face and clouded over with an emotion she couldn’t quite place.
“Shit, Reid—”
“I’m fine—I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” he murmured. The concern in his eyes told Y/N she looked about as bad as she felt. “Are you all right?”
“I should’ve seen it. I should’ve known—”
“No,” Spencer interrupted. “This isn’t your fault. We all missed it.”
“What’s the end game here?” Y/N asked. “What’re they doing?”
“I’m going to be their last victim.” Spencer shook his head, barely able to keep himself upright. “I don’t know why, but I overheard them. There have been hundreds.”
Meadows stepped up behind Spencer, grinning at Y/N. “Have you changed your mind? I sure hope you have.” She raised her gun to his head. “Because if you don’t do what I want, I’ll blow his big, beautiful brains out.”
Spencer locked eyes with Y/N. She held his gaze for a moment, then tilted her head slightly as the gears started turning. The tie between Spencer and Benjamin was where it all unraveled. “No, I don’t think you will.”
Meadows’ grin faltered for less than a second, but it was long enough that Y/N knew she was right. “Is that right?” Meadows questioned.
“Yeah, it is.” She furrowed her brow, and Spencer looked at her. “You need him, don’t you? Alive.” Meadows’ tongue darted out to wet her lips, and Y/N was sure. “Because this isn’t just about Benjamin Merva. It’s about Benjamin Cyrus. It’s about Liberty Ranch.”
Meadows held her gaze for five seconds, then ten seconds. Y/N raised her chin, refusing to be the one to blink first. Meadows shifted the trajectory of her gun a foot to her right and fired off one shot. The breeze from the bullet shifted Y/N’s hair.
“You have two minutes to decide,” Meadows advised. The phone in her hand began ringing. “The next one won’t miss.” She answered the phone and stepped out.
Spencer spoke quickly. “Do whatever she’s asking. We have to get you out of here.”
“Reid, are your eyes broken?” Y/N snapped. “There’s a cult loyalist with a machine gun every five feet. You got a plan for that?”
“Listen to me.” His voice was calm, determined. “You’re right about them wanting me alive.”
The frustration bled through Y/N’s voice. “You should have just shot her.”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t do that.”
“You could’ve shot all three of them and ended this in the garage,” Y/N argued.
“And then I would have watched you die,” he said quietly. “That was never even an option.”
“I’m failing to see how that would have been any worse than this. Look at us.” She gestured wildly between them. She watched as the storm of emotion returned, a cyclone swirling in seas of gold and brown. “The team needs you. Spencer, I—” I need you. She reached a hand up, almost touching his face before dropping it back in her lap. He had found the chink in her carefully constructed armor; a fissure he’d fractured a little further with every smile, every look, every moment. All at once she knew she’d never be able to keep him out, no matter how much it might hurt.
“You’ve got one minute,” Meadows barked, hovering over them.
“Y/L/N, listen to me… Please...” Spencer’s voice was thick with tears. “Tell my mom—” The phone rang again, and Meadows stepped away to answer it. Spencer dropped to a whisper. His eyes flashed with urgency. “They’re taking me and Theo. We’ll distract them. The car we were in is right outside the door. We’re 18 minutes from Quantico. Turn left outside the parking lot, take a right at the light, you’ll recognize the rest. They stay off the highways.”
Y/N’s voice was frantic when she asked, “What about you?”
His eyes pleaded with her to respect what he was asking her to do. “I’ll delay them. Get the rest of the team back here. And do not worry about me.” John hauled up him off the floor.
“Time’s up.” Meadows, in a rare display of mercy, allowed them a hug.
Spencer leaned into her and Y/N wrapped her arms around his shoulders. She squeezed as hard as she could and whispered his name. She felt him take a deep breath into her hair, holding it for one impossibly long moment. Just before she released her hold on him, he mumbled, “It’s all happening. 10:23.” John dragged him back out the way they’d came.
“I gave you what you wanted.” Meadows ordered, “Get to it. Now.”
⧭⧭⧭
Y/N worked and waited, then watched and worried. Spencer spoke to Meadows. He was stalling her, offering a deal, boosting her ego, granting Y/N the opportunity to mentally prepare. But no matter how much time he gave her, she would never be prepared to leave him in that warehouse. He met her eyes across the movements of the operation and gave her an imperceptible nod before lunging forward to reach for John’s gun.
Chaos exploded throughout the warehouse. Theo ran in one direction, accosted by half a dozen Believers. Spencer and John tussled over the gun, one fighting for control and the other fighting the inevitable. Y/N sprinted, largely unnoticed, toward the huge sliding doors left slightly ajar. Bursting out into the night air, she immediately spotted one of the black sedans, unbelievably unlocked and with the keys in the ignition. She slammed the door behind her, turned the key, hesitated with her eyes on the door and her mind on Spencer for one moment too long. A single gunshot sounded from inside the warehouse.
Meadows raced out of the doorway, gun drawn. “Stop!” She pointed her gun at Y/N and there was nothing to do but step on the gas. Y/N had her eyes wide open as Meadows bounced off the windshield and onto the asphalt. She didn’t look back.
She drove. Left out of the parking lot. Just a dark, rural road—nothing particularly special or descript. She drove. Right at the stoplight. Then it was, just as Spencer said, familiar terrain. She wondered how it was possible to have seemed so far away— a world away— when it was right under their proverbial nose. She drove.
Her brain navigated of its own volition. Her mind couldn’t have been farther from the inside of the vehicle. She didn’t realize she’d arrived at the Bureau until she was attempting to pull into her usual parking spot, only to be met with her own abandoned car.
She turned the car off, left the keys in the ignition, and nearly floated out into the garage; up the elevator; across the cold floors of the lobby. Her body had walked this same path so many times before; it carried her without hesitation. She could hear the voices of the team, drifting through the open glass doors.
“She accepted their help knowing she would betray the government,” Tara deduced.
“Not every survivor wanted help,” JJ clarified.
Rossi continued, “We ran those who left the ranch and kept their names. A few relocated in rural Maryland and Virginia.”
“They could be helping now,” Luke suggested. “Any of them have large pieces of property?”
“A few,” Emily confirmed. Y/N turned the corner as she continued, “The Washington field office has started searches in Maryland. We’ll take the lead in Virginia.”
As she moved into the doorway, JJ’s eyes went wide and she rushed to Y/N’s side. “Oh my god, are you hurt?” She gently grabbed Y/N by the shoulders.
“It’s a warehouse in Hillcrest,” Y/N said flatly, eyes unfocused. “I can take you there, but we have to hurry. They hurt Reid; he looked— bad. He told me to r-run and take the car, but he’s still there.” Everyone headed for the doors except JJ and Garcia. “They won’t be there long, they have lots of trucks.” Y/N’s eyes locked on JJ, and for the first time since the whole ordeal started, she allowed herself to splinter, just a little. “I heard a gunshot. JJ, I heard a gunshot. I tried—”
“Shh, it’s okay,” JJ nodded, drawing her into a hug. “I know. I know you tr—”
“I left him there.” Her voice broke, but she couldn’t cry. Not yet. “I couldn’t get him. There was no way to save hi—”
“Stop,” JJ ordered, pulling out of the hug. “Y/N, look at me. You got out, you got back to us. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t even know about the warehouse.”
“What if— what if I got him killed?” Y/N asked.
“You didn’t get anyone killed. Spence knew what he was doing.” JJ’s voice softened. “That’s what he does. He always figures things out before the rest of us. He has a plan and getting you back to Quantico was part of it.” She raised her eyebrows, making sure Y/N was listening. “And now we have to help him by putting the rest of it together.”
Y/N ran a hand over her face. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right.”
Garcia stepped forward and laid a hand on her arm. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Then we’ll get Reid back.”
They cleaned the blood from her face and hair as best they could in the bathroom sink. JJ patched up the lacerations with steri-strips. Back in the conference room, Garcia insisted she should get screened for a concussion as Y/N rubbed the knot on the back of her head. “There’s no time. Reid said, ‘It’s all happening. 10:23.’”
“But it’s past that,” JJ considered.
“So what did he mean?” Garcia asked.
“Could be a clue here.” Rossi's voice came over the speakerphone from inside the warehouse. “They got sloppy since they left in a hurry.”
“Okay, well you can’t be that far behind them,” JJ insisted.
“I know,” Emily agreed. “But there’s easy access to three major highways, and we don’t know which way they went.”
“Right, but they’re in tractor trailers. That means we can track them through weigh stations.”
“Garcia?” Emily prompted.
“In order to do that, I’d need the transponder identification numbers,” Garcia answered.
“Which we have no way of knowing,” Rossi sighed. “Everything they used was almost definitely forged.”
“We’re going to do another sweep here, and then we’ll head back,” Emily said. “Try to map out the most likely routes they’d use to get out of dodge.”
JJ hung up and looked to Y/N. “What do you remember about the warehouse?”
Y/N pressed her fingers into her temples. “It was full of supplies. They were disguising them, but they had stockpiles of weapons and ammunition; non-perishables and other food items; water. Enough to be off the grid for at least a year.” Y/N leaned back in her chair. “But it wasn’t just about The Believers. I mean, we know they’re a reincarnation of the Separatarian Sect.” She looked at JJ and Garcia. “It was more than that, though. Reid was at the center of everything; he was the target all along. Merva is the messiah, but it somehow all comes back to Spence.”
“Makes sense. They blame him for the downfall of the Sect,” JJ supplied.
“Yeah.” Y/N cracked her knuckles. “But—and I can’t—I can’t really explain it, but Meadows really wanted to kill Reid right then. She was— she was irritated, more than anything else.”
“So what stopped her?” Garcia asked.
“That’s what I can’t figure out. She threatened me with it, with ‘blowing his brains out,’ but I— called her bluff. And she was pissed.” Y/N rapped her knuckles on the table. “I mean, really, really furious. Which tells me that, even though she wanted to,  she couldn’t kill him.” She looked between the two of them. “Merva was pulling the strings, and he wouldn’t let her do it there.”
“So it matters where the final sacrifice takes place,” JJ concluded. “We’ve got to figure out where they’re going.”
⧭⧭⧭
They’d been rehashing the details over and over. Liberty Ranch, The Strangler investigation, The Believers, Meadows, Merva, Cyrus, 300 victims, the hyoid bones, all of it. About the only thing they knew for sure was how far the cult could get in the trucks. Spencer could have told them the exact square mileage, but the potential geographical range of the trucks was dauntingly large. Y/N tried not to panic as she stared at the map.
“If this is about a Believer's rebirth, babies are born with 300 bones,” JJ said. “And they’re taking the hyoids.”
“And the hyoids we had in evidence are missing, which means Merva needed them back,” Tara reasoned. “And that means they mean more to the end game than we thought.”
Y/N felt her patience waning. “But why did Reid need us to know it all happens at 10:23?” Y/N hated that her voice sounded snappy and desperate. “That’s got to be important. It’s the last thing he said to me.”
Matt put his hand on her shoulder. “Listen, you’re right. It means something to him. We’re trying to figure it out.”
“Yeah, well, we better figure it out soon.” Y/N shrugged off his hand, pushed back from her seat at the conference room table, and turned for the door. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Every minute they spent floating ideas was another mile between them and Spencer. Another moment closer to losing him. She shoved the bathroom door open, hurrying into the stall and emptying the contents of her stomach.
She slumped back against the side of the stall, head gently knocking into the cool metal. She needed to pull herself together. The team was always strongest when they did their group think sessions, building upon each other’s knowledge and perspectives and filling in the gaps. If they’d done more of that earlier— if she’d had the confidence to call it out as soon as she saw the holes, Spencer might not be locked in the back of a truck, hundreds of miles away.
Y/N hoisted herself off the ground and out of the stall. She braced her hands on the counter top and tried to breathe evenly. She turned on the water and splashed her face, tapping against her cheeks. With water dripping down the planes of her face, she stared herself down in the mirror, willing her tired brain to make that last connection, to find that missing thread. It was all about the Benjamins, and she had a feeling that Cyrus was the key.
Y/N rolled her shoulders back and made her way to the conference room. She listened to their rotating conversation, knowing that this team was the only group of people capable of getting Spencer back alive.
“We have confirmation that there’s been no activity in or around the old ranch,” Matt informed them, pocketing his phone.
“If this is about rebirth, they’ll choose a new place,” Luke posited, arms crossed.
Tara leaned over the table. “Given their adoration of Cyrus and his love for the country, he’d want them to stay within our borders.”
“But Benjamin Cyrus wasn’t his real name, and he wasn’t born into the Sect,” Y/N reminded them quietly. Everyone turned to look at her. She gave an apology grimace to Matt. He just shrugged and smiled, motioning her over to the table.
Garcia nodded. “Right, let’s see. Uh, he and his mom arrived there when he was a teenager. He was kicked out for molesting girls. And then he served time in prison in Kentucky.”
“And that’s where he found religion,” Y/N recalled, thinking back to the report she’d studied dozens of times. “So he was reborn as Benjamin Cyrus in Kentucky.” She closed her eyes and flipped through her mental file cabinet, looking for 10:23.
“That’s within the area,” Garcia confirmed. “Maybe that’s where they’re headed?”
“Find out what city he was born in or where he was in prison,” Luke said. “We’ll spread out from there.”
“He found religion,” Y/N repeated, mostly to herself. “Chapter ten, verse twenty-three. 10:23 isn’t a time.” Y/N shook her head and then dragged her hand through her hair. “It’s scripture.”
“Let’s get in the air; we can narrow down which verse and city before we land,” Emily instructed.
⧭⧭⧭
“We’re approaching Kentucky; the pilot needs to know where to touch down,” Rossi informed them.
The team was scattered throughout the jet, scrolling through scripture on their tablets, reading out verses. Y/N held her chin in her hand, eyes unfocused, dragging a net along the furthest corners of her mind.
“Hey guys, listen to this,” JJ said. “Matthew chapter ten, verse twenty-three: ‘When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another.’”
“They’re going to the next town,” Emily said.
“Flee to the next town. But which one?” asked Garcia.
“Their end game is also a new beginning,” Rossi explained. “Cyrus brought religion back to the cult. They’d honor that by wanting to start fresh.”
Y/N raised her head. “Like the Garden of Eden.”
“That’s how 300 fits,” Tara concluded. “That was the number of angels that protected the Garden of Eden. Are there any Edens in Kentucky?”
The sound of Garcia tapping across the keyboard came through the laptop. “Um, no, but there are two synonyms: Canaan and Arcadia.”
“Cyrus is the original messiah. Which one is closer to where he was born?” Y/N asked.
“Arcadia,” Garcia informed them.
Y/N stood up. “That’s where they’re going.”
“Garcia, pull land deeds. I’ll notify SWAT,” Emily instructed.
JJ grabbed Y/N’s hand. “We’re going to get him.”
Y/N met her eyes. “I just hope we’re not too late.”
⧭⧭⧭
The new compound proved easy to find. In the middle of nowhere but illuminated by hundreds of lights, there were rows and rows of tents. The team began strategizing, looking for the best route to Spencer.
Emily tried to convince Y/N, now showing clear concussion symptoms, to stay with the SUVs.
“With all due respect, there is no way in hell that I’m going to sit in this car while Reid gets sacrificed by a homicidal cult leader,” Y/N said. There was a hushed pause, the team exchanging knowing glances.
“Fair enough,” Emily conceded. “Matt and JJ, I want you on the left side. Luke and Tara, the right. Dave and Y/N, you’re with me. We’re clearing every tent; eliminate any threat that would give away your position.” She unholstered her gun and swept her eyes across the team. “Our objective is to extract Reid with minimal loss.”
As they approached the first line of tents, Y/N could faintly hear Spencer speaking. “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Her heart hammered against her ribcage. “A time to be born and a time to die.” She could feel the blood rushing through her ears. “A time to weep and a time to pluck up that which has been planted.”
“Okay, he’s stalling,” Meadows snapped. “That’s enough!”
“All right. Let the sacrifice begin.” That was Merva now, riling up the followers. “Protect us from all harm.”
As Merva led The Believers in a monotone chant, Y/N tried to block it out. She scanned a tent, watched as SWAT took out a bodyguard, looked for Spencer. Rinse and repeat, again and again. It was taking too long.
“And we thank Our Guardian, who will protect this family now and always,” Merva’s voice rang out. “Spencer: keeper of provisions!” Y/N saw the gathering of followers, but she couldn’t see Spencer.
The SWAT commander stopped them. They had reached the final line of tents. He signaled to the leaders on each side. They were ready to strike.
Y/N’s eyes scanned the crowd. She could just barely make out some sort of hanging mobile, white u-shaped decorations suspended from string. The hyoids, she realized, a wave of nausea hitting her like a truck.
Merva continued, “You have given selflessly to others and will be rewarded by the highest honor we could bestow. Your blood will be our blood. Your life will fuel ours.”
A gunshot rang out. The followers gasped. There was a split second of calm before the bedlam. Y/N took a single breath. Then she heard Matt yell; saw John lift his rifle and be felled by a solo shot to the head; watched Luke take down another bodyguard directly after.
And then she saw him. Strapped down under a canopy of bones, Spencer was silent and unmoving. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t call out. And there was Merva, knife in hand— still trying to complete his mission.
She didn’t vacillate, barely breathed, just let her legs carry her forward. She heard Emily call out his name. When Merva turned, the curved blade of the knife poised at the column of Spencer's throat, Y/N’s trigger finger compressed. She felt the gun recoil, felt the force of the shot travel up her arm as she put a single bullet in his chest. As he fell, she didn’t stop, just stepped over him, knew one of the others would take care of it.
She tripped over the small platform Spencer was restrained on, stumbling and holstering her gun. Her hands moved over the straps, loosening the one over his waist, then the ones at his hands, finally pushing the leather from his head. He panted and muttered his thanks, but she didn’t dare speak, afraid that if she did, she’d never be able to stop. Instead, she flung her arms over his shoulders, pulling him down and close and over her heart. She wondered if he could feel the way it pummeled against her chest, because to her it felt like it might smash through at any moment. His arms came around her, chin resting on her shoulder, nose in her hair. She heard him inhale and hold his breath, a mirror of that last moment together in the warehouse. She held onto him as an overboard sailor holds a life ring: single-minded, unrelenting, desperate.
There was a touch on her opposite shoulder and Y/N swung around, adrenaline still racing through her veins. JJ put her hand out in a placating motion, and Y/N came back to herself, allowing JJ to step forward and help Spencer off the platform. Y/N let out a breath and reached a hand out to steady herself, only to flinch when it brushed one of the straps that had held Spencer down. Luke caught her on one side, Tara on the other. She grasped at them, her emotions teetering right along with her physical form. Luke pulled her out from under the macabre canopy and into a hug. Tara held her hand. For the first time since the parking garage, she let herself go.
⧭⧭⧭
The jet was quiet. The team was spread out around the cabin, each of them lost in their own heads. There was a tranquility over the space, one that only ever happened when unmitigated relief overwhelmed even the joy or fulfillment of a life saved.
Y/N sat in one of the single seats, across the aisle from where Spencer was settled. Tara and Luke had finally convinced her to get checked out by the EMTs, who had confirmed her concussion. She convinced herself that the fuzziness on the corners of her vision was just a symptom of that, not a product of the tears she was struggling to hold back.  
The team each stopped by Spencer’s seat, patting his shoulder, squeezing his hand, or in Rossi’s case, gently ruffling his hair. They all spoke briefly in hushed, grateful tones. All except Y/N. She couldn’t formulate a sentence that seemed adequate. There was simultaneously too much and nothing to say. Everything felt contrived or insufficient or intemperate.
Spencer was safe. They hadn’t been too late. He was bruised and undoubtedly sore, but ultimately, he’d been through worse. So why was her heart still aching? Why couldn’t she catch her breath? She hadn’t spoken more than a few words since leaving the raid, so why did her throat feel like it was on fire? She closed her eyes, leaned her head back. She incessantly pressed her hands together, trying to crack her sore knuckles over and over again.
A pair of hands gently closed over her own, stopping the abuse, and she didn’t have to open her eyes to know who they belonged to. His thumbs stroked over the backs of her hands and she cursed the tears that spilled over her bottom lashes. He didn’t say anything, didn’t force her to look at him or acknowledge her shattering. He waited her out, rubbing a rhythm on her skin and steadying her without a word. She opened her eyes but couldn’t bring herself to look at him just yet. Instead she focused on their joined hands, reciprocating the gentle pulses he gave every so often.
She turned her head to wipe her wet cheeks on her shoulder as the landing announcement came over the cabin speaker. She did look at him then, and the emotion in his gaze left her feeling raw and exposed. Their hands reluctantly separated to buckle their seat belts. Y/N closed her eyes again, turning her face into the warmth of the early morning sun as the jet began its descent.
When they landed, everyone wearily shuffled off the plane, eager to get home to their beds. Penelope met them at the elevator, enveloping Spencer in a long hug, the rest of the team smiling at their embrace. They each moved through the bullpen, gathering their things and talking quietly. Y/N’s eyes paused on her bag, brought up from the parking garage by one of the team after she’d gone missing. They lingered for a long moment on the case file, still sitting where she’d left it hours ago, before she let herself let it go. She grabbed her bag and turned to see Spencer standing in the aisle, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed on her.
“Hey,” she said dumbly.
He smiled. “Hi.”
Her hands wrung the straps of her bag. “How—how’re you holding up?”
“I’ve been worse.” He shrugged. “How’s your head?”
“I’ve been worse,” she agreed.
“That’s good. Because I think after all that, the least you could do is give me a ride home,” he joked.
Y/N knew he was trying to reassure her that he was fine, but she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. If anything, his attempts to provide comfort made her feel worse. Because she couldn’t forget the sound of the gunshot at the warehouse, the sight of the knife at his throat, the feeling of nearly losing someone whom she knew she could love if she just had more time. Too exhausted to hide her emotions, she could tell by the change in Spencer’s eyes that the pain was apparent on her face.
“Actually, you probably shouldn’t be driving, even if it’s just a mild concussion. Where are your keys?”
“It’s fine. I’m all ri—” Y/N started.
“I know I phrased that as a question, but I’m not really asking.” He held out his hand.
Normally she would have argued, but she just didn’t have the energy. Y/N dug into her bag, fishing out the keys and dropping them into his hand. He closed his fingers around them and jerked his head toward the door. “Come on,” he murmured. He waved to the rest of the team, and Y/N nodded, avoiding their eyes.
The ride in the elevator was silent. The walk to the car, too. They were pulling out of the garage before Spencer finally broke the silence.
“You know this wasn’t your fault, right?” he asked. Y/N stayed quiet. “We all missed the connection to Liberty Ranch.”
“But I knew something was off, and I didn’t say anything. I— I almost came to find you before I left, and if I had just done that—”
“Y/N,” Spencer interrupted. “The plan was already in motion. Meadows and Merva would have just figured out another way to execute it.” His fingers tightened on the wheel. “And without you and the leads from the warehouse, the team might not have figured it out in time.”
Y/N opened her mouth before realizing she didn’t have a response. She didn’t even want to consider that possibility. She leaned her head against the window, pressing the thumb and fingers of one hand into her eyes to stave off the throbbing.
Graciously, Spencer let her remain in silence the rest of the ride to her apartment. There was so much to say, especially now; she didn’t know where to begin. And even after everything, she couldn’t stop herself from bringing up that wall— protecting herself from what she knew could hurt her more than any unsub.
They pulled onto her street, fairly empty at such an early hour. Spencer parked in front of her apartment, opening the car door and coming around the other side of the car. She expected him to give her the keys, but as she exited the car, he waited by the gate for her. “I’ll walk you up.”
Spencer opened the gate, allowing her to walk through before closing it behind them and following her up the sidewalk. “I need the keys,” she told him.
He shook his head as if to clear it. “Right, right.” He placed them into her outstretched hand, and she wondered if she imagined his fingers lingering over hers.
When they reached her door, she unlocked the deadbolt and swung the door open, stepping over the threshold. He waited outside, hands in his pockets. Y/N rolled her keys in her hand, and Spencer watched them.
“Um— thank you for—” Y/N started.
“I told Emily on the jet, and I’ll tell you now.” Spencer raised his eyes to meet hers. There was that look again, the one she couldn’t quite identify. “I’ve always had a hard time saying what I feel. And maybe sometimes it’s because I’m afraid of being disappointed. But sometimes it’s because the words I’m looking for don’t exist in the English language.”
“Spence—”
“Please just let me get this out,” he said. “There have been a couple moments over the past few months where I thought maybe we were sharing mamihlapinatapei.”
“Mamih what?” Y/N asked.
“Mamihlapinatapei.” He repeated, gesturing with his hands. “It’s a Yagan word that originates on the Tierra del Fuego archipelago off the southern tip of Argentina. It translates succinctly as ‘the wordless, meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to do so.’”
“Oh.” Y/N felt a flush rising up in her cheeks.
Suddenly, Spencer couldn’t meet her eyes. “I, um—I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize our friendship or make things awkward at work. But last night, I… I just— I’ve had too many moments in my life where I thought it might be my last, and I hadn’t said all the things I needed to say.” He met her eyes again, and there was that familiar storm. “Last night I was out of time, and I hadn’t told you how I feel, and I realized that I wouldn’t get another chance, and it’s okay if you don’t feel the same, but I needed to—”
Y/N stepped forward, grabbed the front of his shirt, and crashed their mouths together. She tried to pour everything into the kiss: every blush, every worry, every laugh, every panicked moment, every mamihlapinatapei. Spencer cradled her face in his hands, opening his mouth and capturing her bottom lip, accepting everything she gave him. She wound one of her hands into his hair, pulling him impossibly closer and grounding herself to this new reality that almost wasn’t. The height of the kiss tapered off, and Y/N drew back, untangling her fingers from his hair and her heart from his grasp. Spencer watched her carefully, honey eyes uncertain.
“I do. Feel the same,” Y/N confirmed. Spencer’s lips twitched. “I’m not good at vulnerability. I’ve got a great track record of getting hurt.” Spencer grabbed her hand and opened his mouth, but Y/N continued, “But then I thought we might lose you, that time was out, and that I— I wouldn’t get the chance to see if you could be— if this could be more.” She gestured between them and then met his eyes again. “And I guess being vulnerable isn’t so bad in comparison. Because I think I could fall in love with you. I think maybe it’s already happening.” She held her breath and pressed her lips together, fighting the regret of saying too much.  
“Actually, there’s a word for that, too.” Spencer smiled, warm and soft and genuine. “Forelsket. The origin is Norwegian, and it roughly translates to ‘the euphoria experienced as you begin to fall in love.’”
“Forelsket?” Y/N asked.
“Well, it’s more like forelsket,” Spencer corrected.
“Wow, okay, 187.” Y/N laughed for the first time in what felt like days. “Forelsket.”
“Better,” Spencer praised. “There’s also the Tagalog version, kilig.”
Y/N took a step closer to him and smoothed his shirt where her hands had wrinkled it. “Translation?”
“‘The sudden feeling of an inexplicable joy one gets when something romantic happens,’ or alternatively ‘the feeling of butterflies in your stomach.’” Spencer moved his hand to her waist and stepped over the threshold.
Y/N cupped his cheek in her hand, soothing the bruises and guiding him back to her. “Yeah. Sounds about right.”
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worminstuff · 4 years
Text
Win Win Situation
dream x reader (more fluff)
from this ask -
Hello! I'd like to request Dream fluff, where they play Minecraft Manhunt with Pandas, Muffin and Gogy. The reader's a secret weapon they hold against Dream (she waits for him in the Nether or the End; the decision is up to u), since they know he really likes her and it's mutual anyways. She's capable of killing Dream with hearts to spare and in last hopes of winning the hunt, he proposes a kiss (in MC, of course) for his life (which the reader grants him). Thx in advance! 💞😊-
i love this ask vvvv much and im gonna try my best to do it justice!
It had been quite a day of filming, this manhunt proving to be one for the books.  Dream had really been stubborn upon not dying, and sapnap, George, and bad were really trying their hardest. 
George was so close to getting a dream when he first crossed to the nether but it was futile as he had looted around a lot and got more armor then they even had time to find.
Dream was pretty sure he was set after proving himself with that battle against George, he had 9 blaze rods, ten pearls and a burning sensation in his stomach from the excitement of winning.
It had been quite a day of filming, this manhunt proving to be one for the books.  Dream had really been stubborn upon not dying, and sapnap, George, and bad were really trying their hardest. 
George was so close to getting a dream when he first crossed to the nether but it was futile as he had looted around a lot and got more armor then they even had time to find.
Dream was pretty sure he was set after proving himself with that battle against George, he had 9 blaze rods, ten pearls and a burning sensation in his stomach from the excitement of winning.
As he sat listening to the 3 weirdos giggling amongst themselves he thought about you, you would've been so proud of the way he's wiggled out of their grasps so many times from a boat chase where he managed to drown Sapnap by using a tnt to blow them up in a cave. A blush crossed his cheeks at the thought of you being excited with him. He couldn't wait to tell you about it later.
Lately you two had been talking awfully a lot and he was enjoying it a lot. You'd met through sapnap since you knew him for a long time. You often streamed with Wilbur or Tubbo too, Tubbo being another one of your favorite people.
Dream loves to watch the streams and videos you both make because you two are so entertaining. Dream thought you were absolutely adorable, especially when you and Tubbo are trying to figure out redstone for a new scheme or terrorizing Tommy for a bit. Most of all he loved your bed wars streams, he was always entranced at how amazing you were at pvp. He loved every bit of it.
He himself had a really hard time talking to you at first. In his defense, you were a pretty girl! Adorable, sweet, funny and kind and incredible at pvp. How was he supposed to approach you without freaking you out with his tiny little obsession.
The sound of an ender eye breaking snapped him out of his little day dream, realizing he was nearby the stronghold, he started his way down.
Unknowing to dream, the boys were just over a hill watching him just as he was digging down. Instead of following just yet sapnap sent a message on discord, to you.
panpas 
    he’ll be there in a second i think
y/n
    okey dokey!
There was nothing in the unspoken rules of manhunt that said nothing about a secret weapon. That's exactly what you were. Sapnap and George and bad all knew you were one of the few people that could easily beat dreams.
Dream knew it too, sometimes he liked to tell himself it was only because she got him flustered so easily, but deep down he knew you just played way too much Minecraft. 
You sat impatiently waiting for him to reach the end, impatiently sitting near a clump of endermen. You were nervous and excited at the same time, beating dreams was always fun. You'd always admired dreams and his presence on the internet but after meeting him, things changed a bit.
He seemed hesitant talking to you at first but lately he had been texting you every morning and night and even called you a few times! He gave you so many butterflies just at the thought of him.
Dream searched around the stronghold looking for the portal, as he was about to turn a corner sapnap spoke up, 
“Don't you guys think it's been a bit boring without..y/n” He smirked behind his computer screen as he could practically hear dreams heart rate go up just by that single sentence. He was correct with that bet.
“Duh! y/n would have had a dream dead like an hour ago '' George spoke with a knowing smirk.
“That's not true-” Dream tried to poke into the conversation when bad suddenly interrupted him.
“No you muffin, you know y/n would totally have beat your booty way back in the nether”
“Booty-” Dream was cut off once again by a fit of hyena laughter from his friends. 
As they giggled he finally found the portal and filled in the empty slots hopping in quickly. He was surprised he hadn't heard the boys say anything about it with the achievements popping up onto the screen. 
He was confused up until he spotted you, standing by one of the pillars.
“what?! how?! y/n? how did you- when- huh?” His flustered state was quickly made obvious by the way the boys could hear a smile even through his confusion.
You started sprinting towards him as the three boys dropped into the portal as well but not rushing over just yet, wanting to see this unfold first.
You let out a small giggle as you were gaining on him, he was running around still confused on how you were there.
“Come here Dreeeeam” You said maniacally trying to gain on him.
“Get away y/n! how are you even-”
He let out a yell as you got your first crit on him, your ax was clearly more op than his and he could tell by only one hit.
“How did you do that much damage! What are you even-”
After finally trying to fight her, he was at 3 hearts and he even had a shield. 
“Okay, okay, okay, y/n hold on for a second please” He backed up a bit facing her character as she lowered her weapon waiting on his next move.
“I have..a proposition” Dream let out a breath nervously, 
“What kind of proposition?” You smirked, ready to decimate him with only a few more hits.
“No! No propositions! y/n you have him just kill him so we win!'' Sapnap chimed in with George and badly agreed.
“No no guys, hold on, I wanna know what it is,” You said with a small airy laugh.
“If you don't kill me y/n, i'll give you something I think you'll like”
“Like enough not to win?”
“I hope so..” Dream started to regret this decision, he knew he liked you and he thought you liked him, but how could he be sure? He would bed George would call him stupid for thinking she wouldn't like him but he just wasn't sure.
“Tell me then, what is it?” You were getting a bit antsy, he was a wild card to you. You adored him so much but sometimes you just never knew what was going on in his brain.
“A kiss.” You definitely weren't expecting that. As Dream spoke the two words he'd been repeating in his head for minutes, you were silent, sitting in shock.
You were expecting one of the boys to call it bullshit and tell you to just murder him on the spot, but they were silent.
“A..kiss?” You weren't sure you heard him right, because you couldn't believe it! A kiss? From Dream? You'd faint!
“Yeah. A kiss. And you let me kill the dragon.” He was gaining a bit more confidence after he realized he made you nervous.
“What?! No! No kissing! Murdering y/n! Murdering!” George wasn't surprised you were considering it because he knew how much you both like each other but he really doesn't want to lose like this.
“In- in game or?” you were sure he meant in game, but you were curious.
“Well.. it'll do until we meet in person. But I'll still owe you a real one after you let me win.” He smiled widely just thinking about getting to kiss you, or even be near you in real life! he could burst just at the thought.
While he was daydreaming, you were conflicted. The butterflies that were creating a sick feeling in your stomach at the thought of kissing him were overtaking the thought of wanting to beat him. You had already decided but you knew the boys would be so angry their secret weapon had failed them.
“How about. I take both kisses.. and then you have to beat me to the dragon. I won't fight you, you just have to beat the dragon before I can” Your plan seemed full proof. Seemed like a win win situation, or so you thought.
“Sounds perfect to me, y/n” He was grinning so madly, Your character got close to his, just a block or so in front of him.
“This won't be nearly as good as it could be but, MWAH '' Dream made an exaggerated kissing noise as he jumped towards your character hitting into it, then turning and booking it towards the dragon as it was starting to perch.
The boys were cheering and yelling as you sat in shock, not at the fact that his character kissed yours but because of what he said before. 
Was he really going to kiss you in real life? Your mind was absolutely swimming with thoughts when you suddenly checked back in at the sound of three boys yelling your name and the sound of the dragon dying.
“You just stood there y/n! why would you just stand there?!” George tries to sound mad but he really couldn't be. He was sure dream was on cloud 9 at that moment.
Dream was out of his chair, yelling with excitement as the boys were angrily shouting about their loss while you were still silent. Your silence was taken by a laugh, your own laugh,
“Hey y/n, can I call you in a little while?” He asked
“Yeah, please.” You said shakily as you left the discord call.
You leaned back in your chair, shaking your head with a small smile. He was going to be the death of you.
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Text
Fugitives Part 2:
Part 1
@teheranb I apologize this took so long.
Warnings: mentions of IV lines, mentions of medicine, self-hating/chastising, animal death, gross food (rat meat), fever, starvation, dehydration, trapped in a cave, talk of death, pessimism/lack of hope, needles
~
They were running... again.
The IV lines, the old medicines... how could Hero be so stupid? Of course a cabin in the middle of the woods would be an old hero base. Well, not of course, because it is not entirely common to have a base nowhere near any known civilization and of that small size, but still. She should've scouted the building, looked for homeowners, predators...
And cameras. Cameras watching them like a fox does to a rabbit.
A quite obvious one too. A blinking red light, stuffed into a corner. Classic, so classic that Hero actually considered the possibly of having to have her mind restarted like a computer.
But of course that sci-fi fantasy was not real, or possible. Yet. If a rottin cabin could be a base, then a way to restart the brain could be quite realistic if scientists worked on it.
The dilemma between whether or not shutting down and rebutting the brain was a possibility was not the most important thing going on at the moment, however.
Hero was running, as stated above, with an injured villain in her muscular arms. And, if you have not guessed it, she was running because there were heroes, her old allies, running after her.
"Take a left," Villain hissed suddenly, his voice spoken with such clarity that it nearly sent Hero to her knees. But nonetheless, Hero dove towards her left.
Sure enough, the villain led them to a deep ditch. Hero jumped into it and started to run, thinking about how lucky she was to have grassroots covering her-
A bullet whizzed past her ear.
Hero ducked, covering Villain as she fell. The villain hissed, but said nothing else- not even a whimper as his shoddily stitched wounds brushed against sharp rocks.
Hero resumed a crawling position as she helped push Villain to his hands and knees.
"Can you crawl a bit?" She asked.
"Cave 'head," Villain answered, lazily and slurred with no strength left in his voice. Telling her to turn absorbed the last of the remaining strength like cat litter on an oil spill.
"Yeah, yeah I see it," Hero replied and helped guide Villain over various rocks and tree branches.
The cave ahead of them was small. They would have to crawl to get inside, and given that, they would have to block the entrance and then not have an escape point.
They would be starved out, but the cave was the only hope for safety at the moment.
Villain went in and immediately collapsed on the ground in a tangled mess of limbs. Hero stiffened when she saw one of the bullet wounds begin to bleed again. Not now Hero, she told herself. Grab a boulder.
Using her superhuman strength, Hero grabbed a hefty boulder and pulled it into the building's entrance, leaving the villain and hero in complete and utter darkness.
"Are you okay?" Hero asked and blindly ran her hands over Villain's body. She felt his muscles move in an upward fashion. He nodded, or so she thought, but whether he did or not, it still equaled the same answer.
He was not okay. Not one bit.
She could tell by the way he just laid there, exhausted. Hero crawled right up next to him and coddled his head close. He didn't resist as if his joints and ligaments were made of fluid- which also worried Hero. If he got sick, if infection set it... would she be able to sacrifice herself for his well-being?
That wasn't even a question. There was no "sacrifice of the mighty". If she gave herself up, both she and Villain would be captured and killed.
He couldn't get sick. There was only one way out of this and that was him staying alive on limited resources.
How hard could it be? Hero thought with a cold shiver sliding down her back.
《~~》
Day Five:
Hero shivered as she snuggled close to Villain to preserve body heat. Periodically, she would jab him in his side in an attempt to keep him lucid as possible. But, eventually, the need for sleep got too overwhelming that even her persistent taps couldn't keep him awake.
They were beginning to starve.
There was no food in the cave, just murky water that drippled off the sides of the cave droplet by droplet. Heck, not even a puny mouse had visited them yet.
Hero pulled Villain in until her weakening muscles started to ache. His stomach had heat radiating off the two wounds, as did the rest of his body.
"Hey bud," Hero murmured, shaking him. "You up?"
"Mm," Villain replied, not really waking up.
"Cold?"
"Mm."
"Is that a yes or no?"
"Yeh."
"Okay."
Fever. Why did he have to have a fever? It wasn't like the current conditions could permit such a miracle to happen, but it still was very unfortunate.
Day 6:
Hero placed a piece of moss on Villain's forehead and around his neck. He didn't wake up that morning, just tossed and turned in fitful slumber. In the dim lighting, Hero could just make out scabbed over abscesses on his stomach.
He wouldn't make it two more days in this condition, Hero realized with a gut wrenching pang as she tried to cool and warm Villain at the same time.
Hero pursed her lips, draining a soaked piece of moss into Villain's mouth. He opened his mouth, but didn't swallow- not that it mattered, there wasn't enough to swallow anyways.
Hero's own hunger pangs and need for water disappeared within the first couple days, though she feel could her own body weakening as fatigue started to get to her.
Later that day, Hero heard a squeak. Glancing around wildly, she saw a rat sniffing her moss operation in the light. Slowly advancing, Hero proceeded to catch the thing.
She did, hands wrapped around the body and Hero ended its life by smacking its head against the wall. Quickly, she used her fingers to dig in...
"Villain!" She called, her voice hoarse and slurred, as she shook him awake. His eyes blearily opened. Hero didn't waste a second. She tore some of the flesh off the thin bones and chewed it up before regurgitating it and placing it on Villain's tongue- he was too weak to chew through the tough meat.
He numbly gnawed at the flesh and swallowed before his eyes started to drift closed.
"No stay awake," Hero shook him again. "You have to eat."
Villain mumbled something and Hero jostled him again, but he was lost to the world.
"Crap," Hero whispered and took a bite of the sour food herself. She ate only a few bites- you never knew when another opportunity would come along.
Day 7:
Hero woke up late that morning, or at least she thought she did. Villain's head was on her stomach where he laid curled up in a tight ball. His fingers grabbed at her dirty shirt with such intensity that Hero was genuinely surprised.
The rat laid next to them, right where Hero placed it to protect it from scavengers. She woke Villain up and helped him once again to eat.
It was disgusting. More than disgusting. Revolting even, but it was the only thing keeping them from starvation.
Villain fell back asleep immediately after finishing his meal. Hero took the time to look him over. Infection was running rampage. Thank God there was no flies or his body would be eaten alive, especially with the intoxicating smell...
Hero pulled his shirt back down and wrapped her arms tighter against his frame. He wouldn't be alive much longer, so she might as well comfort him for as long as possible.
Heck, she wouldn't be alive for that much longer if that rat was the only source of food in the whole cave.
Day 8:
His breathing was shallow and he didn't even wake up that morning. Hero let herself cry, murmuring into Villain's ear and she held onto his limp body.
"Please stay with me," she whispered. "We can't fight this together."
But the villain didn't move, nor woke up to say that everything would be okay.
Because it wouldn't.
How could it be okay? He was dying and she wasn't too far behind.
Hero sobbed, tears streaming down her face and into his grimey hair.
"Please," she shuddered, but it was no use. He was losing the fight, his breaths slowing...
"Quick give him this!"
Hero jerked herself around to come face to face with a masked stranger. Hero wrapped her arms around Villain protectively.
"Who are you?" She spat.
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does. For all I know, you could be working with the heroes."
"I'm not," the stranger chuckled. "Give him this. It'll give his body some strength until he can properly take care of him."
Hero looked at the needle in the stranger's hand.
And then back up at his masked face.
"Okay," she said and administered the liquid.
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sagemusesoutloud · 3 years
Text
Anti-Romantic, Part 1
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(credit to the original owner of the image)
Character | Jaehyun x reader Genre | nonidol!au, Mutual Pining, Slowburn, Fluff WordCount | 3.6 K Author'sNote | lmaoooo the fact that I intended this to be a oneshot type of thing oops. Wellllll, I tried. Most likely to be a two part series, but we'll see.
This is part of a series I intend to call "If Songs were Fics" and this particular one was loosely inspired by TXT's Anti-Romantic bc I'm obsessed. I hope you enjoy reading as much I enjoyed writing it!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
I don't know who loves me
And I don't care, It's a waste anyways
A romantic feeling, Kinda scares me
“Any plans for you birthday next week?”
Jaehyun shakes his head at you, “no, not yet, don’t you have that date with that barista?”
“I’m not sure, he’s been acting weird over text lately. Might not be worth it,” you shrug your shoulders. “Besides, it’s your birthday! You only get one of those a year, we should plan something.”
You were on your way to the gym, a ritual you and Jaehyun had ever since you both found out you worked for the same company. You had been childhood friends, but ended up losing touch since you went to separate universities.
It was a nice surprise to see a friendly face on the first day of orientation and throughout the duration of your training for the next six weeks. Although you were both from different departments, you enjoyed taking your lunch breaks together and sharing small gossip about your old class-mates.
“ugh, don’t remind me,” he let’s out a long sigh, “every year, it seems like my family won’t stop pestering me about starting a family.”
“What’s so wrong about that?”
“Nothing, just not for me. Or at least not yet. I don’t think I’m the type to settle down,” he shrugs again as if it were no big deal.
You gasp, “how could you say that? I’ve seen your insta account. It’s got your cousin’s kids all over it!” You stop to take a good look at him as he holds the door of the gym open for you. “Back in school too, you used to tutor those elementary kids for volunteering hours. Even when you didn’t need them. You’ve always liked kids.”
“That’s different…”
“Right. Totally different things. Got it,” you roll your eyes. This wasn’t the first time he mentioned not wanting to settle down. At first, you had thought it was because he liked ‘keeping his options open’ like back in high-school. Or, not that you knew for sure, but if the rumors were true then it meant he slept his way around. Apparently, he never slept with someone twice and despite the cold shoulder the other party would get, all you had ever heard were praises. Not that you paid that much attention or anything.
You and Jaehyun had the same circle of friends, but despite that, he had never made any advances towards you. You’d be lying if that didn’t bother you at least once or twice. You just assumed that he didn’t want to make the friendship awkward or mess with the friend dynamics of your group. Which was why your crush on him in junior high ended as soon as you got to high-school.
You ended up going on dates with other people, but nothing that kept your interest. Nothing that compared to how you felt around him. Not that he seemed to think the same, so you tried your best to stay the good friend you always have been. You didn’t want to push something he clearly didn’t want; not that it didn’t hurt any less. Throughout the years it’s become bearable, at least. Almost like a painful habit.
You check in and head to the locker rooms to change. His nonchalance about the subject had always puzzled you. You’d seen first hand how all the female coworkers seemed to sway their hips as they walked by him, how some would pop a blouse button more than usual when around him, and you swore no one else was getting that much help throughout training more than him. He was handsome and a gentleman, that much was painfully obvious.
You meet him outside by the water fountain, “ready for warm-up?” he guides your way to the treadmills.
“When’s the last time you dated?”
You would have laughed if you weren’t so shocked to see him trip from the corner of your eye. “why the sudden curiosity?” He finally responds.
“Not sudden, I’d always wondered.” You defended. “You’re good looking and you’re very…I mean, you live on your own and have your own car. You have good relations with your family AND you’re good with kids. So, what is it?” You hadn’t realized how troubling you thought it all was. But now that you started digging you couldn’t stop.
“I just—” you pause, “it doesn’t make sense.”
You hear him chuckle, “you might wanna slow down before you pull something.” You look down and realize that your pace had gone from a relaxed jog to a borderline run during your rant. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to psychoanalyze your only friend in the city.
“Well, I just don’t know how to let people in. It’s just that.” He finally responds. “I love kids, but I don’t know or think I’d be a good partner.” He slows down before stopping, ending the conversation. He waves you off with an easy smile as you stay running.
Huh, maybe you pushed him too far. Your eyes can’t help but follow him around the gym.
Sweet and bitter chocolate, The taste at the end is always the same
Like the saddest movies, Only tears in my eyes
Your hands were sweaty the entire morning, anticipating your lunch time. It was his birthday today, and while you hadn’t made any concrete plans you ended up agreeing to go over to his place after work. Your gym bag was ready with snacks and comfy clothes to stay over. You remembered him saying he was excited to watch that new Marvel movie that had recently come out so you had bought it online to stream it at his place as a surprise. But what had you nervous was the small heart shaped box sitting in your purse. You didn’t know what possessed you to buy it but you had immediately thought of Jae when you passed by it at the mall. You remember vaguely mentioning that it was a special occasion to the sales lady (as in, his birthday), but she must have thought it was your significant other rather than friend because she changed the box to the red velvet shaped one while giving you a wink. In her defense, you could have protested but…why didn’t you?
You hear a knock on your door, “hey little miss sunshine.” Ah, Nakamoto, this couldn’t be good news. He was only sickly sweet to you when he needed a favor.
“What do you want?” you deadpan. He only laughs as he makes himself comfortable in your office. “Well, nothing in particular. Can’t stop by and see how you’re doing?” he feigns hurt.
“Right—the last time you ‘came by’ you left me working over-time through the weekend,” You sigh, “so what is it this time? Missed meeting? Late proposal?” To be fair, your supervisor WAS overworked sometimes. And since you were the only worker under him, it was normal for him to sometimes share some of the load with you.
He smiles at you, “nope. Just have a proposal for you. I know you’ve been working hard these past few months and I’ve been really impressed by your work ethic.” He stands and moves closer to your desk, “And I thought some sort of reward was in order, as well as celebration.” Ok, now you’re confused. You were ok with the reward part, it usually came in the form of a gift card to your favorite coffee shop, but celebration?
“Why would we celebrate? Did I miss something?”
“Not yet, but I did recommend you to the partner position with me. And I wanted to be the first to tell you that the boss approved it earlier today. So, what do ya say? Dinner on me?” he extends his hand out to you and wiggles his eyebrows playfully.
Oh.
Shit! You were hoping this would happen eventually, moving up from the entry-level position you had. But you had never thought it would be this fast. “Oh my gosh, are you serious?” You give him your hand and he shakes it in mock salute.
“Of course, some people will come by to move your computer to the office next to mine. You start Monday!” he winks, “So, wanna go to that new rooftop restaurant? This is a once in a life-time ticket, so you best say yes.”
But your dinner with Jae…He’ll understand, right? He has to. It’s not like he seemed that excited about it anyway. And you could always spend the day together tomorrow, too. It would be pretty rude to turn down Yuta after he pulled some strings for you…
You smile at him, “Thank you Mr. Nakamoto, I won’t let you down as a partner. Yeah, dinner sounds great. Wanna meet there?”
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You sit down on the small table, now nervous for other reasons.
Jae sits opposite of you, a small smile on his face. “Hey you,” he greets.
“hey…” you start, “I hate to change plans so suddenly, but…” crap, you feel really shitty. But you really were between a rock and a hard place.
“everything ok?”
“yeah, no. I actually just got promoted,” you start.
“You did? That’s awesome! So fast, too. Wow—but shouldn’t you be more enthusiastic about it?” he chuckles.
“I am, just—my old supervisor wanted to go to dinner to celebrate. And I don’t think I could say no after helping me out like that.”
“I mean, did you want to skip it or?” Now he’s confused.
“Well, he wanted to go out tonight since I start Monday and today’s Friday…I don’t think I can come over tonight,” you explain.
Realization crosses his features before he gives a small smile. “Don’t worry about it, you’re fine. And he’s treating you! You don’t know when the next time he offers might be,” he continues, “we can celebrate another day anyway.”
“Are you sure?” now you feel like shit.
“Of course I’m sure.”
For the rest of the lunch, a thick silence settles before he excuses himself back to work.
Jaehyun knew this was coming. Nothing ever went his way; it’s why he kept everyone at a distance from his heart. But he was weak when it came to you. This game of push and pull was bound to keep happening, and it only brought him that all familiar foul taste in his mouth.
I know, that sweet love song, Those words of promise
When you turn around, It's just an unfamiliar someone
It was why he decided to go else-where for university, instead of joining you and some of your friends to the one closest to home. He chose to go across the globe—far, far away from the curse of you.
It had started on a windy day, back when you were 4 and new to the town he grew up in. Jaehyun didn’t want to leave his mother’s arms, he didn’t like the thought of being with strangers until later in the day even if his mom promised that she would be back. A little girl with jean overalls like his came up to him and his mom, “why are you crying?”
“I am not!” he sniffed. He didn’t need to make new friends like his mom was trying to tell him. All he needed was to go back home. You took out something from your pocket and showed it to him, “look, my mom said I could give one to my first friend. She said it was sharing. Want one?”
In her little palm, were two kiss chocolates. “You’re not my friend,” he grumbled, “I don’t know your name.” At that, you giggled, “I’m Y/N!” you took his hand and placed a chocolate there, “there, now we’re officially friends.”
“See, Jae? You can spend some time with Y/N and have fun. Before you know it, I’ll be back,” she promised.
“Yeah, Jae! Come play blocks with me, and then we can try the coloring.” You held his hand as you led him deeper into the classroom. Just like that, Jae began to feel a little warmth in his chest. He didn’t mind that his favorite thing to do was play tag outside or that he wasn’t really good at coloring inside lines yet. But that didn’t matter to him. As long as he had this one friend around, he was content.
Sorry I'm an anti-romantic, I want to run far away
My heart that already chases after you, Blazes up as a small flame
Looking back at it now, it was a little funny. All it took to let you in back then was a simple chocolate kiss and your little sticky hand in his leading the way. You were always larger than life to him, sometimes he forgot that you were just as human as him.
As you two continued to grow, nothing seemed to change your friendship. But he knew that the depth of his feelings wasn’t mutual. It was in the way that you brought a lot different people together and decided to call it your family. Another of your friends, Jungwoo, liked to joke that you collected introverts for fun. To Jaehyun, it was more likely that you just didn’t see the fun in leaving people out. You were charming and passionate. Traits he wished he had. Your empathetic nature and gentle disposition were all that Jaehyun needed, even if he wasn’t the only recipient.
Once you guys started to hit puberty, things started to feel rocky. Jaehyun couldn’t help but physically distance himself from you, his ears were always red-hot. You had always been pretty to Jaehyun, but you were starting to become really beautiful. And if the boy’s locker rooms’ talk were anything to go by, then other people were definitely starting to realize “what a great catch” you were.
It really pissed him off. Who were they to say things as if all you were was a piece of meat? It disgusted him. But what disgusted him more was the fact that sometimes, he couldn’t help but also feel the way your body felt in his when you hugged in greeting. He hated the way his body reacted to everything you did.
He first messed around with a senior girl back when he was a sophomore, Sooyoung. She was leaving and he couldn’t take it anymore. Your boyfriend was a piece of trash and he was tired of hearing the way he would share what Jae considered to be intimate moments that had no business being public. But you seemed so happy… that next game, Jae stole the ball from him and scored on his own. Even if it cost him a three hour lecture from the coach, he would do it again. Fuck being a team, that guy was an asshole.
What he hadn’t planned on was liking messing around. He would never admit it, but the reason he couldn’t commit was because he couldn’t get rid of that small grain of hope that glowed in his chest every time you stared at him longer than would be deemed normal. It wasn’t often, but he knew he wasn’t seeing things. So, he succumbed to the cycle of push-and-pull that you guys had going on.
Jaehyun wasn’t blind, he knew that your work definitely spoke of your professionalism, but he’s also seen the way Nakamoto stared after you. Of the way his hand would often touch your waist when walking together. Even now, as he hears you apologize through the phone again as you get ready for your “date” with him he can’t help this heart feel heavy with anger. Anger at himself, for letting you slip away once more. He usually hopes for nothing but the best for you, but this time, he wishes you had an awful dinner.
Sorry I'm an anti-romantic, I don't believe in romance
I'm afraid that after burning my whole heart, It will only leave behind ashes
Throughout the entire dinner, you can’t seem to get Jae out of your mind. It keeps you from enjoying the delicious food, keeps you from keeping your usual banter with Nakamoto.
You’re about to call it a night and thank Nakamoto for inviting you out when he beats you to it, “damn, I was hoping this might be a good break from the usual overtime we do, but something tells me your mind has been elsewhere,” he offers good naturedly, “I know it’s valentine’s, so maybe this is why we feel so awkward, right?”.
You grimace a bit at that, “ah—I’m sorry. I really am grateful for the way you look after me in the company and I’m also thankful for this lovely dinner,” you stop a bit, afraid you might offend him, “I agreed to come out tonight, so no need to feel awkward.” You offer a smile.
“Alright then. I guess you already have your sights on someone?” he prods. Should you be honest? There was no rule against dating outside your department, and you were pretty sure your new boss’s wife also worked within the company. “…I do. But I’m pretty sure they don’t feel the same way. It’s been so long since we’ve known each other. Surely if something were to have happened, it would have by now.” You were loosening up, definitely the wine’s fault.
Nakamoto sighs at that, “damn, and here I thought I could woo you after this,” he winks jokingly but you laugh him off. You knew he didn’t care for you that way. “I really hope you’re talking about the guy you always eat lunch with. I swear everyone thought you guys were married when you were released from training.”
“What?! No, I—we’ve been friends since we were children—”
“Aha! So it was him then,” he smirks. “Good.”
You groan, “Please, no.”
“What, it’s not him? You sure about that?”
“I will neither confirm nor deny that statement,” you groan. Why were you discussing your love life? You push the wine away and take a sip of your water.
“Hmm. That’s too bad. Could have sworn that guy was after you.” He stands up. “But fine, I’ll stop prodding.”
You sigh in relief—“for now.” You groan. “What do you even mean by that? You don’t even know him. Or me, or at least personally at least.”
“Mmm, I don’t have to. Some things you just know. Like how he wishes I was six feet under every time we run across him at work,” he sobers up at that. “He seemed like a cool dude, but his glare isn’t too friendly. I don’t know how you fell for that.”
You scoff, “just because someone has a resting bitch face doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.”
You both make your way to the underground parking. “You’re right, it just makes them unapproachable. Is that why you won’t confess?” His genuine tone rubs you the wrong way, you don’t need be given false hope.
“Stop it, you said you would drop it,” you frown, “Anyways, thank you for the food boss—”
“—not your boss anymore. Just call me Yuta, we’re partners now.”
“Aren’t you two years older than me?”
“And?”
You shrug at that, “well, thanks Yuta. For the food, not for the interrogation.” He chuckles at that, nodding while pulling out his car keys. “see you Monday!” he waves you off.
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You sigh as you get home. It wasn’t as late as you thought it was, only a few minutes past nine. You really wanted to see him. Would he be busy?
You fish out your phone and dial his number before chickening out.
“Hello?”
“Jae! It’s me. Are you busy right now?” your heartbeat is pounding so loud, you’re scared he could hear it on the other end. “Right now?” you hear shuffling on the other end, “no, I was just reading that book Jungwoo sent me. Might have dozed off a bit into it but don’t tell him I said that,” he chuckles.
“Why, is everything ok? It’s still early, did you end dinner that fast?”
“Oh, Yuta and I called it a night pretty early. Too many couples were out and about and it got a bit awkward,” you explained.
“Yuta?”
“Ah, yes. Yuta Nakamoto, but now that we’re associates, he said it would be better to address him less formally.” You waive him off, “actually, I was wondering—if it’s not too late, can I still come over? If not, that’s cool. We can still hang out tomorrow, but your birthday is today and I thought—”
He laughs at your rambles, “of course you can come over, you know you don’t have to ask. How many times have I told you that?”
“Ok, ok. Just checking,” you still had your comfy change of clothes in your car, so you opt to save those for tomorrow and change into something causal for tonight.
“Do you want me to go get you? We can get ice cream on the way, hopefully they don’t close early.”
“Sounds like a plan then,” curse your heart for melting at everything he says.
“Alright, give me 15 and I’ll be there.” He hangs up.
You look at your bag, resting on your sofa and you sigh. The entire night, it’s almost as if you could feel the weight of his gift weighing it down. Yuta is known for being very observant, it’s why he was so good at his job. Closing deals and making contracts in advertisement. Would he be right about this? You know you desperately wish he was, but is it worth risking your best friend?
EndNote | Woooow, that was a longass ride. Let me know if you liked it or if there are other typos I missed! Or just to let me know what you thought, that would be much appreciated. I'm thinking of finishing it by Sunday 6/13, so hopefully the next part is up by then. Until then!
Here's Part 2!
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iconic-ponytail · 3 years
Text
there's always money in the banana stand
riverdale promptathon week 3: yellow + business
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Even as the sun sets, even as the breeze blows, the hell furnace of July in Riverdale burns on. It’s triply as sweltering inside the tiny booth running three freezers, offloading heat to sustain the frozen merchandise inside. “How can it be so hot in there when we are supposed to be selling frozen bananas?” JB complains, at least twice a week.
She’s twelve. Complaint is her new first language. She complains about being left in Riverdale while Gladys went back to Toledo. She complains about living in a trailer park that usually does not have warm water. She complains about their father being imprisoned for covering up a gruesome murder. But most of all, she complains about working in the banana stand.
Child labor laws aside, Jughead can’t blame her for that one. He hates the damn banana stand, but it’s their best shot.
Gladys’ monthly check covers rent and utilities for the trailer. Everything else is on him, now. The idiot eighteen year old who decided to petition the court to be his sister’s legal guardian. Well, and his idiot mom who signed off on it. So he needs money, and the Jones family has never been particularly flush with cash, just trampled over by FP’s failed “business opportunities.”
Enter: the banana stand.
It’s not the fastest revenue stream, Jughead finds. But it’s got potential.
Initially, Dilton doesn’t let him sell during the Twilight Drive-In’s concession stand hours. Before or after the movie, sure, but no overlap. “I’m not worried about competition, Jones. It’s just too humiliating for me to watch you sweat through that horrible yellow polo you call ‘branding.’”
But when customers asked him more than twice a night when the banana stand would be open, Dilton caved.
It’s not like being open during the screening hours is a whole lot more preferable. He only just transferred from Southside to Riverdale High last spring; now he’s the rising senior who hands out phallic symbols from inside a giant phallic symbol. Not exactly a boon to his popularity.
Still, recently the money is enough to pay the internet bill and keep JB fed for dinner when she can’t go to the summer breakfast and lunch program at the local park district. It’s still not enough for him to eat particularly well, and the smell of hot dogs and slurp of his classmates’ slushies makes the heat feel like a minor inconvenience.
He eyes the tip jar, willing himself to wait on rampaging the concession stand until the beginning of the film roar dies down. It’s a double feature tonight, which means maybe he can score enough cash to cover those damn college application fees his counselor will start hounding him about week one of school.
Then he sees her—Betty Cooper. She’s laughing, watching Archie Andrews try to catch popcorn in his mouth, tossed by his paramour, Veronica Lodge. She pauses to sip from her slushie straw, her lips—which he’s watched argue against homophobic and racist comments in their advanced lit class, or pressed to the cheek of her other best friend, Kevin Keller. Which he’s imagined, doing slightly less savory things, though the mere thought of said imagining has his heart pounding wildly.
(Jughead’s been eating way too many fucking bananas. Someone needs to check his potassium levels.)
His absolutely pathetic gaze, once available three times a day in their shared classes where Jughead has still not managed to exert any confidence whatsoever regarding speech, eye contact, or general acknowledgement of Betty Cooper’s existence other than whatever drooling may or may not be happening, all of which he finds he has no control over… is all interrupted by the absolute polar opposite of Betty Cooper. Hiram Lodge zooms up to the banana stand on his segway, angling to a stop just before taking out the stand’s foundation.
“Still getting a hang of that, Mayor Lodge?”
Hiram grimaces. “Just checking that you’ve renewed your business permit, Jones.”
They do this once a week. It’s still the same permit.
“You know,” Hiram starts as Jughead rustles for the paperwork to make him go the fuck away, “I could find you an arrangement with a better banana supplier. For a discount. If you’re interested.”
Jughead rolls his eyes. “I’m not interested in your GMO, black market bananas, Hiram.”
Hiram gives him a pointed look. Jughead rolls his eyes even harder. “Mayor Lodge.” He proffers the papers, Hiram waves them away. “I’ll take one chocolate peanut butter dip. With peanuts.”
Jughead kisses his teeth. “That will be $3.50.”
Hiram’s whole face goes serpentine. “Not between business partners, Jones. Put it on my tab.”
Jughead grits his teeth, handing the finished banana so aggressively he hopes that the chocolate splatters and stains Hiram’s $500 tie. It is only slightly worth it to watch Hiram struggle with navigating the segway one-handed, frozen banana in the other.
He muffles a chuckle before realizing he’s used the dead end of the chopped peanut topping, and exits the stand to update the order board hanging on the outside. It’s mostly an excuse to feel a ten degree drop in temperature, a sweet relief he might be able to extend by grabbing a hot dog before the intermission rush.
He’s crossing off peanuts from the topping list and spinning around when he hears a shriek and a sudden, cold slosh across his chest. The yellow polo drips with artificial blue slushie, but Jughead swallows his fucking hell when he sees that the shriek, gaping stare of horror, and stumble in question all belong to his very own blonde kryptonite.
“Oh my god. Oh my GOD, jesus, shit, I’m so sorry!”
Jughead is frozen while Betty grabs about half his napkin dispenser and starts pawing at his shirt in a vain attempt to right the giant sticky blue mess all over his chest.
Finally, Jughead swallows the golf ball in his throat and chokes out. “Honestly, it’s fine. That stand is a sauna. I needed that.”
Betty stops, both her blotting and her stream of apologizing (which includes a fair bit of cursing, and he is a little revolted with himself by how much this turns him on).
“It’s going to get very sticky, soon. Maybe I should buy a bottle of cold water?”
Jughead can’t help himself. “Oh, impromptu yellow t-shirt contest?”
Betty grins.
I did that.
“Do you have any employees who could bring you another shirt?”
Jughead shakes his head. “Just my sister. She’s playing video games at home. There’s no earthly way she’ll bring me a spare.”
Betty cocks her head. “I had a feeling you were more than the silent back row kind of guy.”
The fact that Betty Cooper has, at any point, considered what kind of guy he is triggers full-on nervous blathering. “I’m usually very tired at school. I have this little sister—but I’m kind of um, her guardian. So I’m doing this stupid banana stand thing because it’s like one of the three assets to our entire family name I guess? Anyway, it’s hard to engage with Haggly’s basic discussion questions at eight in the morning when you spent the whole night dreaming about wholesale banana margins.”
He’s essentially vomiting words, but Betty is still smiling.
“Anyway, I should crawl back into my fruit-shaped purgatory and let you go back to your friends.”
She’s biting her lip, hedging. “Honestly, they’re probably using the alone time to make out in the car, and I’d rather let them get all their sexual tension out so that I don’t have to feel it radiating off of them for the whole second half of the double feature.”
Jughead laughs and tamps down the impulse to offer her a frozen banana, because he cannot possibly say something like that without making it sound sexual.
“What are frozen banana profit margins like, anyway?” Betty asks, either genuinely interested or legitimately flirting with him. Jughead finds both potentials baffling.
Jughead hesitates, then ducks inside the stand, pulling out his spiral bound notebook. “I’m still kind of figuring it out. All my records are in here.”
Betty sidles up to the stand, taking up the whole window. They’re both leaning over the scribbled line items on college ruled paper; he can smell her shampoo. She takes the notebook, scanning thoroughly.
“Do you have a pencil?”
He hands her one and observes her going to work, writing out some algebraic formula and calculating quickly in her head. There is a calculator within his reach, but he thinks handing it to her might come off as an insult. (Jughead wouldn’t know; he assumes Betty is in an advanced math class. Jughead is not.)
After a few minutes of watching her devoted focus, thinking about her hands touching his pencil, thinking about her hands wrapped around his hand, or his—
“I don’t know how to tell this to you, Jug.”
The shortening of his name stops his heart for a jolt, and his response is embarrassingly delayed. “What is it?”
Betty winces but smiles through it, a combination she’s surely learned to use when delivering bad news. It’s well earned, it really does soften the blow.
“There’s no money in the banana stand. At least, not with these margins.”
Jughead finds himself less than devastated by this news, mostly because it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The messenger doesn’t hurt, either.
“But,” she interrupts. “I don’t know if you’ve nailed down your course load for senior year. But I’m taking AP Econ? This could be, um, a good project. Like, if you want to take the class. Or even if you don’t. Not that you’re like a project or… whatever. I’m just saying we could figure it out. Make lemonade out of… bananas.”
Betty Cooper is extremely cute when she stammers.
Jughead doesn’t know what to do, so he gives her an easy out. “I can’t like, hire you, if that wasn’t obvious by the whole… deficit spending or whatever the whole negative circled number at the bottom of the page really means.”
She flushes. “No, that would be highway robbery. I just thought there might be an… opportunity. For um, us. I mean, for you and I. I mean—” she clears her throat, as if it’s closing up. “An academic opportunity. Or, in your case, professional. Well, a betterment of your livelihood. Okay, um, shit, just… I should go!”
She turns away, her face the deepest scarlet he’s ever seen.
“Betty, wait.”
She pivots back, eyes down at the ground.
“How about I buy you a new slushie and you come back into the booth. Tell me everything I’m doing wrong for the rest of the night.”
Betty looks up, biting the corner of her smile. “Sounds like a deal.”
They shake on it.
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mypersonmyg · 4 years
Text
stream simulator | jjk
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pairing: gamer/streamer!jeongguk x reader
genre: fluff, gamer au
rating: g
wc: 1k
warnings: n/a
summary: you want to sit in the comfy gamer chair OR jeongguk’s subs love you more than they love him
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a/n: i’m honestly so proud of myself for keeping up with this, even if maybe they’re not great drabbles; anyways...how perfect that it’s the 7th day, the prompt is games and the only boy i haven’t written for is my love mr.jeon? i hope you enjoy :-))
also...i kinda like the concept of this so mayhaps i’ll do more drabbles with these 2, come back and flesh it out more???
prompt 7. G - Game. The otp+ play a game together.
november drabbles masterlist
main masterlist
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The hum of a droning program does little to distract from the desire for company, Jeongguk long since locked away in his office. You’re privy to the occasional raise of a voice, laughter piercing peaked ears, enticed by the unrelenting joy. Time just meets the mark of an hour when you’re rising in sweats, sights set on the kitchen for a roundup of snacks curated for an occasion such as this. 
You lose resolve as you tread, feet silent with socks against vinyl, towards Jeongguk’s closed door. You debate a knock though you’re reminded of headphone covered ears, the sound of unrelenting alerts and the deliverance of messages dripping with adoration and the occasional well intended dig. 
The door is pushed with exerted effort, the will to maintain grip on the items in your grasp. You’re stilled at the immediate whip of Jeongguk’s head, your entrance not as stealthy as planned. It’s with embarrassment that you realize the image of you fits to frame on the sizable monitor.
“Well hello there, come on in,” Jeongguk is less than surprised at your sudden appearance, already working on the plugging of spare headphones, his backup mic slotted into the stand. “The chat is already going crazy with donos because they like you better than me.” 
“They haven’t even met me,” You deposit your haul to the desk, face scrunched in mortification. You readily accept the placement of headphones, Jeongguk then rising to fetch a near chair. You take his absence as a chance to swoop in, bottom firmly planting in the gaming chair you’d gifted him. “Hi guys, I’m y/n if you don’t know! Guk never lets me sit in his chair, now I see why.”
You’re able to just catch the flash of comments that flood the screen. Viewers poking fun at your boyfriend and his love for the cushioned seats. Your chuckle is interrupted by his reappearance, a chair significantly less pleasing in his grip. 
“Your chat says that you love your chair more than me,” You regard with arms folded, Jeongguk quickly depositing the chair, arms framing you whilst he peruses the screen. 
“You guys are traders,” He points to the lens, feigned disappointment painting his otherwise innocent features. “She’s been on for two minutes and you’re already putting me on blast.”
“You’re not even gonna deny it!?”
“Babe, this chair feels like it was crafted by the gods. Tell me it doesn’t.” He fixes a stare, daring a fib. You shrug without the pretense to move, Jeongguk shifting you ever so slightly with encouragement. “Besides, you don’t need me, the chat has already collectively decided that this is your stream.”
True to word, you glance at the screen, the first words to catch your gaze being jeongguk who? I only see y/n <3. 
“You guys are so sweet! Why don’t you invite me to your streams?” You ask Jeongguk, his hands already reaching for a half eaten bag, as he settles into the spare chair, all but given up on regaining his spot. 
“You can come whenever you want,” He speaks as if it’s obvious past the crunch of a filled mouth. “I just didn’t think you were interested.”
“Not interested in spending time with you and this sexy crowd?” Jeongguk is quick to swallow, eyes widening at blatant flirtation. You feel yourself heat at your own words, unsure of sudden confidence. 
“Oh no, you’re giving them ideas. She’s mine, no one else look at her,” You muffle bursts of laughter at the attempt to shield you from the screen. As if to further prove the territorial gag you feel the press of lips to your cheeks. “Maybe this is why I never invited you, I’ve got competition now.” 
“But hey look, so many people are subbing!” This catches attention, your headphones half askew, a reminder of the alerts sounding in your ear. Jeongguk turns back to the streamer side, your eyes taking him in as he calls out thanks to the rise in sub counts and donations aplenty. 
“Y/n?” You blink, Jeongguk’s attention once more on you, a half smirk on his face. “They said that they want you to come on stream more.”
“Really?” You double check, sure that it’s something Jeongguk would say to boost a shy ego. Sure enough it’s the truth, chorus of agreement sounding off in every direction. You nearly shy into Jeongguk’s hoodie, but simply smile into the lens. “You guys are really sweet.”
“Careful, I’m not trying to let you steal my job.”
“Don’t worry, I love you too much to do that.” Now you’re the one dropping a kiss, thumb swiping along his dimpled cheek. “Let’s play a game!”
“Excuse me? You wanna play a game?” A valid response, your competitive streak not entirely present in this respect. Your explanation lies in the desire to gain the full experience.
“Yeah, we can play something simple like the game with the little round guys with all of the costumes!” You throw your arms out in vague movements, your words not seeming explanation enough. 
“Is-is my girlfriend turning into a gamer?” Jeongguk glances from you to the camera, expression undergoing a range of emotion, all over dramatic in right. “I don’t know guys, I might have to end the stream early if you know what I mean.”
“You’re so gross!” You counter with a gentle shove, both of you laughing at the declaration. He begins typing away at the screen, pulling up the game in question your vocals emitting to a rather pleased squeal. “Yes, this!”
“When have you seen anyone play this?”
“I watch you sometimes,” You admit sheepish, the topic never coming up. It’s not surprising you would support his streams, but the thought of being outside when you could’ve been a part of the action dawns. 
“Aw, you guys she watches my streams,” Jeongguk coos. “You wanna go first?”
“Oh no, I’m scared.” You respond in tiny, watching as the chat explodes with words of affirmation, still stunned at their ready acceptance. “So many people are watching.” 
“Yeah, but don’t worry. They won’t bully you like they do to me.”
“What?” You’re given no chance to thrust the controller away as it’s placed in your palms. Jeongguk leading you blind. You turn to him with wide eyes of betrayal, his hands already offering the raise of thumbs. 
“Good luck, you’ll do great!”
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