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loupettes · 4 years ago

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Some Ten/Rose domestic fluff for the DoctorRose Fic Marathon, mostly to soothe my mental health but who doesn’t need more Ten/Rose in their lives?

T W E N T Y O N E

SUMMARY: Ten/Rose. It's Rose's twenty-first birthday, and she's invited the Doctor along to a party thrown by her mum. A night of pub celebrations, boisterous friends and family gatherings, quizzes, a little bit of jealousy and some hard truths ahead, the Doctor must grit and bear the domesticity for his best friend — well, the love of his life. If only there was something to make it worthwhile..

TAGS: fluff, domestic, romance, jealousy, pub quizzes, everyone loves Rose Tyler (the Doctor being top of that list), mutual pining, longing, etc etc

Read on AO3: twenty one

***

“See you’ve found a way to pass the time,” she muttered once Laura was out of earshot, slipping her arm out from his and grabbing the napkin from the bar. She looked at it distacefully for a moment, before she passed the napkin to him.

“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”

“How hard that must be for you.”

He couldn’t put his finger on why, exactly, she seemed irritated, and when Laura put the drink in front of her and begrudgingly took the tenner from the Doctor, Rose seemed to only sadden as she swirled her straw around in her drink.

“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.

He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”

Rose looked at her drink for a moment, a pinch in her brow that he couldn’t translate. It wasn’t indifference, it wasn’t even the irritation she was projecting on her voice, but he wasn’t fond of it, he knew that much.

“Only got eyes for you, promise.”

***

It was one of those days, the ones he hadn’t really ever had to subject himself to in his many years of life, and he calls them ‘obligatory domestics’. The kinds of days where he needs to drop Rose off so she can do a bit of ‘life admin’: check in on her grandparents, nip to primark to get some basics, cash her birthday cheques, all that sort of stuff.

And then, of course, there were the days he needed to attend parties.

Now, he wasn’t a party person. Awkward small talk, terrible music — depending on the decade, of course — dreadful finger food, that annoying needless obligation to stay and ‘enjoy yourself’ when all you really wanted to do was leave. This was one of those days where Rose had a party to attend, and had asked him to just drop her off back at home for the night and they could get back to travelling the next day.

The problem was, it was her birthday party.

Now, if it were his birthday — if he even had a birthday — then he wouldn’t exactly call it a mark for celebration. Not even at the turn of a new century, and he most certainly wouldn’t call turning a thousand a celebration, which he was sure was coming up soon. And the funny thing was, Rose didn’t feel the need to celebrate birthdays, either. Well, unless they were somebody else’s; she would go out of her way to make that day astronomically special for them. So when she had turned to him last week, when they were out enjoying a milkshake in a diner on Panvorix, and told him, regrettably, that her mum wanted to throw her a birthday party with her friends and family for her twenty-first, which he was sure meant something to humans, he wondered whether he really needed to be there.

But, and this is where he finds it difficult: he somehow knew she wanted him there. She hadn’t explicitly said so, she had just sort of shrugged and said ‘you can come, too, although I doubt you’ll want to’. But other than that, she had talked about it as though she was going to go, not they. And if he only paid attention to her words and what she was saying, like he thought most humans — and, well, every other species in existence — did, then he would have felt no obligation whatsoever to join her. But these humans, and especially the British, have this odd sort of way of communicating where they would say one thing with words but also without them, and usually, the things they weren’t saying was quite different to the things that they were. And it seemed as though this was the case with Rose. Her lack of eye contact, the slight reddening in her neck, the indifference that he just knew wasn’t as indifferent as she would have liked it to be. She’d slurped her milkshake and changed the subject and that was that — no need to dwell. But once she had gone to bed that night, he wondered. He tinkered away in the control room and tried to interpret all those little things and he just couldn’t, so he gave up and decided to take her for her word. So he told himself, if she brings it up again, if she asks-but-doesn’t-ask him to come, then he’ll go with her. Otherwise, he’ll leave her with her mum for the night and come back for her the next day as she asked.

That was until Jackie called.

“You’re coming,” she had said flatly, and she had said it in such a frighteningly threatening way that he only nodded and agreed.

Rose had seemed most happy when he had said they were getting to her mum’s for midday on Saturday. She had quickly tried to hide it, and once more he got the impression that she was only acting nonchalant. But he wasn't quite sure, so he double checked just to be safe.

“You sure you want me there?”

She had frowned, and again shrugged without looking at him. “Course, you’re my best mate.”

And so here he was. Waiting in the control room for her, in a blue suit this time, while she packed her things in an overnight bag.

Today was her actual birthday. Her mum had called her all excited, wishing her a happy birthday — even though she was about to see her in a couple of hours. The Doctor had made her a cup of tea and said happy birthday, too, but Rose’s cheeks had flushed pink and he took that to mean that was enough making-a-fuss over her birthday for the day. Other than that, he hadn’t seen her all morning, and so when she entered the control room freshly showered and now in her jeans and a hoodie, her backpack slung over her shoulders, she grinned quite sheepishly and said,

“Hello.”

“Hello,” he echoed, a little less nervously. “All packed and ready, then?”

“I am indeed,” she nodded, and skipped over to him with a bit more gusto. “You mentally prepared?”

‘Oh, absolutely not.”

“Me neither,” she chuckled, and tugged on his arm. “You didn’t see mum on my eighteenth — she gets several octaves higher, just to warn you.”

He shuddered. “Well, lucky for you— and me, I suppose— my capacity to detect high pitches gets less and less with each passing century.”

“That’s good to know.”

After they had gone to Nando’s for lunch, Jackie had asked the Doctor to join her and help set up at the pub while Rose got ready back at the flat with a couple of her mates. He hadn’t been in love with the idea — a few hours alone with Jackie filling him in on the gossip of somebody called ‘Bev’ while various 90s pop songs echoed through the room, that was — and she certainly did like to talk when she was excited. They had pinned a few ‘Happy 21st Birthday!’ banners around the room, chucked a lot of small plastic ‘21’s across the floor and the bar, and, by the time Rose called to say she was on her way, the room had filled with quite a lot of people indeed. Some family members he was sure he had met before, little kids of cousins he definitely hadn’t, and a few of Rose’s friends who seemed to know her family quite well. It was the first time that day he had sort of warmed, seeing that Rose had grown up with such a loving group of friends and extended family, and he even loosened just a little as he chatted to a few while they waited for Rose to turn up.

“Everybody, she’s at the bottom of the road!” Jackie called out loudly, when she received a text from Shareen. At that, people picked up nearby birthday poppers and whistles, getting to their feet with excited and anticipatory smiles — the Doctor even had a confetti cannon himself ready to go for when she walked in.

But of course, when she did walk in, he couldn’t do anything at all except look at her.

As people called out excited ‘happy birthday!'s and set off their poppers, the Doctor found himself completely anchored to the spot while the room only burst with colour and into life. He had always found her quite beautiful, especially when she was giggling away or saying something particularly clever, and he had even found himself breathless once or twice to watch her. But tonight, goodness — he wasn’t convinced he had two bloody hearts because neither one was beating and certainly neither of them were supplying oxygen to the rest of his body.

It was her smile, without a doubt. It was different somehow, like an old smile he was sure she must have used before she met him, to see all these familiar faces of her loved ones. That, and her cheeks were dusted a delightful pink, a little shy he knew she must have been to have so many people around her for her. Her hair was wavy for once, and she wore a black dress that the Doctor was momentarily ashamed to find himself looking at; the way it sculpted her curves and defined the most enchanting silhouette, cut mid-thigh and exposing her legs — and he was especially ashamed for his gaze to linger on those, but she was simply so exquisite, everywhere, that he soon felt instead the same overwhelming awe he gets when he studies a painting, ones in which the colours tell a compelling story and the shapes express feelings that words could not completely.

He still hadn’t managed to find his breath by the time she caught his eye, and he found himself desperately trying to cling to coherent thoughts when she nervously made her way over to him.

“Hello,” she said again when she got to him, pausing for a moment before she reached up on her toes to give him a hug. He had just enough semblance of normality to return the gesture, albeit weakly — still trying to process his thoughts as he was.

Tell her!

“Happy birthday,” he whispered instead, and he heard her giggle by his ear before she released him, and there was a moment where he could have told her just how breathtaking she looked, but of course, he didn’t.

Instead, she scratched her arm and looked around the room. “Thanks for helping mum set all this up.”

“Oh, right—” he cleared his throat “— sure, no probs.”

“You’ll have to fill me in on all the gossip later.”

“Don’t worry, I took notes.”

She chuckled, and her eyes softened as she looked at him, taking him in, and they seemed to even darken somehow, which sent an odd sort of sense of affirmation through him — he was right not to shave today, then.

“Listen, er—” she began, her brow creasing in awkwardness, and she started scratching her arm again. He watched her curiously, wondering what she was about to say and feeling strangely nervous, all of a sudden. “Please don’t — I mean, thank you for coming, it— I just wanted to say please don’t stay, if you don’t want to— if you’re feeling awkward or anything just feel free to, you know—”

“Rose, it’s alright,” he grinned, putting his hands in his pockets. “I’ll be alright.”

“I know, I just didn’t want the last of the Time Lords to perish here in this pub in Southwark out of boredom.”

“Yeah, would be a dreadful end to their race I must admit.”

“Not one for the textbooks,” she giggled. “Nor one I’d particularly like on my conscience, either.”

“Blimey, you’re right — lot riding on the entertainment this evening, then.”

“Well in that case, I should remind you that mum planned this party.”

“Oh,” he groaned, and sighed defeatedly while she only continued to chuckle. “It’s just a couple of hours. I can do it.”

He sort of regretted saying that. Well, no, he definitely regretted saying that.

He’d spent the first hour or so meeting Rose’s family, and then after that getting to know five or six of Rose’s friends, sat around in a booth. They were all friendly enough, inviting him in as one of their own and of course, he thought, Rose’s friends would be charming, since they were Rose’s friends after all.

And then there was Callum, he thinks his name was, and at first the Doctor was able to maintain a calm composure despite his irritability when the lad put his arm around Rose, but after twenty minutes or so and he still hadn’t moved, the Doctor started to sincerely regret his decision to come here tonight and wondered whether he could quietly slip away and narrowly avoid some other, less painful end. But then Rose would give him that look, that smile that just seemed to settle him if only for the fact that it was hers. And so he stayed, listening to stories of their school days and joining in with their laughter until it became just a little too much, when Callum started whispering things to Rose when nobody else was paying attention. Rose didn’t seem particularly bothered by him, nor was she giving off any signs that she was uncomfortable, but he certainly seemed to have more of an agenda than she, and just enough that it pissed the Doctor off enough for him to excuse himself to get a drink instead.

“Just a Coke, thanks,” he said as he reached the bar, but the bartender looked back at him apologetically.

“Pepsi alright?” she said.

His shoulders slumped in disappointment because why would he want a Pepsi if he was ordering a Coke—

“Just kidding,” she grinned, reaching down for a glass and picking up a glass bottle of Coke. “Wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Oh,” he only half smiled, and loosened his tie just a little to finally just be able to breathe. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“You look like you could use something stronger, though.”

“Do I?” he frowned, somewhat surprised but not entirely that he must look exhausted to others. It was exhausting, realising that he was far too in love for his own good. But the bartender didn’t look like she thought that, not at all, as she grinned over to him.

“Parties don’t really seem like your sort of thing.”

He shook his head, resting his elbows on the bar. “No, not really.”

“So what is your thing, then?”

Earth wasn’t quite ready for the question to be answered with ‘time travel, mostly’, so he flustered a little in search of an answer more reasonable for the time period. “I tried soap carving, once. That was fun.”

She looked back at him completely confused for a moment, and he only added the admission to the long list of things he was regretting about this evening, before she gave him a friendly smile.

“Not something I would have expected you to say.”

When the Doctor only shook his head in hopeless exasperation, she grinned,

“I’m Laura, by the way.”

“John,” he retorted, as she placed the Coke in front of him.

“Nice to meet you John — this one’s on me.”

It took him a second to realise she had just bought him a drink — of Coke — but a common gesture nonetheless he was sure indicated flirting. “Oh— er, thanks.”

She nodded, but didn’t turn to serve any of the other guests, not that it was all that busy up at the bar, anyway. “So, John. Did you, er, come here with anyone tonight?”

As dreadful to admit as it was, he couldn’t say that he had. And it seemed so odd to him to think about, because he went everywhere with Rose, but he had never been anywhere with her. It wasn’t really something he had ever considered, whether he would like to start going places with Rose as his and he as hers, but now, as he thought about Rose with that slimy little git behind him, he rather wished that he didn’t have to fret. Not about the dreadful moment she tells him tonight that she’s going back to Callum's, and not about any other time in the future she would admit to having fallen in love with somebody else. It wasn’t a possessive thing, he didn’t want for nobody else to want her because she was his, but he wanted to just love her and be free to; no more of this pining and hiding and instead just be able to say that he was so terribly in love with her and that wasn’t going to change, no matter how much he wanted it to. Except he highly doubted she would want that, this nine-bloody-hundred-year-old alien who had murdered and cowered to be hopelessly devoted to her when she didn’t exactly ask for it. So, he swallowed, feeling his hearts sink in defeat as he did.

“No. Just me.”

Laura’s lips curled in triumph, and she leant in a little bit closer. “In that case, what are you doing tonight?”

If he was just that little bit less in love, he might have been tempted, he had to admit. But he was far beyond the point now of needing a distraction to this dreadful torment, he was much too in love with Rose to even be able to be distracted in the first place. Yet, he couldn’t quite find his voice to decline, so he only started to fluster as he broke eye contact, and took a sip of his drink in the meantime.

“Tell you what,” she smirked, taking a napkin from the bar and began to scribble something on it. “I finish at eleven-thirty. Here’s my number, just in case.”

As he helplessly watched her, he felt somebody put their arm through his as they approached the bar from behind, and was somewhat mortified to find Rose appear beside him. She looked quite peculiar indeed, an expression he had seen a couple of times aimed directly at the woman in front of her, and he glanced down in confusion when she placed her other hand on his arm.

“Malibu and Coke, please.”

Laura looked over to her, then down to her arm, then back up with a look that only seemed to mirror Rose’s. “Got any ID?”

Rose scoffed. “This is my party, you know.”

“Can’t serve you unless you’ve got ID.”

“Tell you what—” the Doctor interrupted, reaching into his pocket for the psychic paper as he heard Rose about to counter “—this one’s on me. Can’t have the birthday girl paying for her own drinks.”

Laura only looked back at him in disillusionment, her eyes flickered back to Rose. “Okay, but it was just you I was buying the drink for.”

Rose scoffed incredulously, and wrapped her arms around the Doctor’s only tighter as the two women seemed to be engaging in a fight without actually fighting. Or from what he could tell, anyway.

“Enduring terrible flirting and being come on to is just one of the many things I’m voluntarily subjecting myself to to be here with you tonight.”

“How hard that must be for you.”

“Just didn’t think you were interested in this sort of stuff, s’all,” she shrugged.

He frowned; he assumed she must have meant flirting. “I’m not.”

“Only got eyes for you, promise.”

She seemed to only laugh in spite of herself at his words, and seemed to receive his joke — although he couldn’t be certain he had meant it to be one. She looked up at him through those devilishly long eyelashes of hers and he tried desperately to think of just about anything to say to change the subject.

“Having a nice night?”

Rose pulled up a bar stool and hoisted herself up, wiggling about to get comfortable. “S’been nice, yeah. So many mates I haven't seen in forever — not since we all went to get our GCSEs.”

He gazed to the side of her in thought. “Five years ago, that must be now?”

She raised her eyebrow, but didn’t smile. “Yeah. Can’t believe it.”

She started poking at the ice in her drink now, but not consciously. She was distracted, seemingly saddened by the thoughts running through her mind. He watched her hand, her nails recently painted, wearing the ring her mum had got her for her birthday.

“I’m twenty-one,” she almost whimpered.

“Wait till you get to nine-hundred.”

He was relieved to hear her laugh, a real one, and she glanced at him with kind eyes, her eyes, not those strangely woeful ones she looked at her glass with. “Yeah. If ever I’m feeling old, I’ll just think about you instead.”

“There are some benefits to being ancient, then.”

She giggled, and it only seemed to tickle her more until he saw her completely, Rose as he knew her returned back to him. It relieved him, and he realised he had stiffened to see her so glum. She glanced once more down at the napkin and he sighed, unsure exactly what she was thinking, before something told him to lift up her glass and place it underneath instead. She turned to him with a shy smile, her lips thin as she tried to hide whatever emotion was surfacing, and she was unable to hold his gaze for long when she leaned against him to nudge his arm with hers. An apology, he guessed, and he himself tittered in response. She was less saddened certainly, but her silence was not quite unburdened, so he sought,

“What’s on your mind?”

“Hmm?”

“You,” he said softly. “I know you don’t like your birthday, but something’s up.”

She once more gave him one of those thin smiles, a smile he recognised was one she was trying to put on for him but unsuccessfully — he knew her, afterall. She sighed, and shook her head.

“Everyone’s… it’s just so strange. Being back, after having been away. Things have just… happened. Like Charlie’s had a baby, can’t believe it. She’s younger than me.”

So that was it. He felt an odd sense of guilt in the centre of his chest that only sank lower, and he realised she had only been confronted with how much she had missed since travelling with him. How much she was missing out on, and how much he had taken from her while he only wanted to keep her for himself. But he didn’t suppose she needed his self-loathing tonight, so instead, he frowned as he thought.

“Charlie’s your…” he began, trying to remember as he scanned the room.

“Cousin.”

“Right,” he nodded. He was surprised to find her watching him with a gentle smile when he looked back at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” she grinned, sheepishly, looking down briefly as her smile only grew less so and slightly more endeared, might he say, instead. “Just you, trying to learn all my family and friends.”

“Trying being the keyword there — there’s a lot of them.”

“I know, but it’s funny,” she teased, that tongue sticking out of her teeth that he had to quickly avert his gaze from, “You can remember something complex and yet still get lost remembering the names of my family.”

“My mind sadly is not a TARDIS,” he jibed, and she chortled delightfully into her glasses as she took a sip. “Everytime I have to remember one of your cousin’s names, I have to forget about something else. I’ve forgotten Einstein’s special relativity equation to remember you have an Aunt called Jeanette.”

“Well, that's a bummer for relativity, because my Aunt’s called June.”

He frowned at her, momentarily fooled, before he rolled his eyes. “No she’s not.”

Rose scoffed with her mouth agape in shock. “Yes she is!”

As she giggled away, he vaguely recalled meeting a month, before his eyes widened and he blinked in defeat.

“Blimey, right then.”

Rose put her drink back down on the bar and struggled to contain her giggles and, goodness, he simply couldn’t look away. Her eyes scrunched shut, her nose wrinkled and smile so bright, she was impossibly beautiful when she was like this, her laughter sounding so pure and so wonderfully joyous. He wasn’t convinced she was laughing solely at his complete inability to remember anything remotely related to something so important as her family, because he only imagined it to be quite disappointing, but he wasn’t about to step in and stop her, especially not when he felt his own smile begin to grow at seeing her this way. She shook her head and opened her eyes as her giggles subsided but smile remained and she looked at him in the most breathtaking way and he could feel himself falling, needing to physically stop himself from leaning in closer to her.

There was a moment, one terribly long agonising moment, where he thought he might just falter. Despite everything inside him begging him not to, he found himself unable to hear himself when her eyes locked with his in such a way, in fact, the only thing that was able to prevent him from kissing her was knowing how terribly awkward it would be when she pulls back, wondering what on Earth he was thinking to presume she would want him to kiss her. So he swallowed, and looked away, back down at his drink and he took another sip.

Thankfully, before he had a chance to make a fool of himself and try to string a sentence together, he was interrupted by a voice sounding from a microphone behind them. They both turned, and, over at the corner of the pub stood two of Rose’s girlfriends, both of whom he remembered were with them at the table earlier, standing with a few pieces of card in their hands.

“Ahem — can we have everyone’s attention, please?” one of them — he was sure her name was Grace — announced, a smug anticipatory smile donned her slightly flushed face, and the room went quiet a moment before the music turned down, too. “Hi! Good evening, everyone! So, in case you aren’t all aware yet, today is our very own Rosie Tyler’s twenty-first birthday!”

The room broke into applause, a few cheers and the odd wolf whistle as many turned to look at Rose beside him.

He teased quietly only to her, “Rosie?”

“Shut up,” she muttered as she elbowed him, but couldn’t stop grinning despite herself. “Little gits know I hate being called Rosie.”

“So before we get started, a very happy birthday to you!” the other girl — Cara, was it? There goes Euler’s equation, he surrendered — said into the microphone. “We hope you’re having a great night, and we love you—”

“Even if she did nick my GHDs.”

Rose snorted when Grace stuck her tongue out at her. “I did not! I just forgot to give them back to you!”

“Hmm, how convenient— anyway,” Grace stressed, and the room was chuckling to their playful teasing. “We thought we might play a little game, before we start the, er, slideshow in a bit—”

“Oh, god,” Rose muttered under her breath, and the Doctor sniggered quietly.

“— just a quick ‘How well do you know Rose Tyler’ quiz. No teams, no competition, strictly for embarrassment purposes alone.”

“Get me out of here,” Rose whispered to him, but he stayed firmly put.

“Oh, absolutely not. I’m staying for this.”

“Then I’m going to fly your ship myself and leave you here stranded.”

“Fine by me, I want to see all those pictures you’ve been so adamant remain hidden away in a box every time we go round to your mum’s.”

She groaned, and hid her face in her palms.

“So, without further ado: question one.” Grace paused for dramatic effect, reading the words on her paper with a teasing smile. “What was the name of Rose’s first boyfriend?”

“Oh my god, my mum’s here—”

“Jimmy!” one of her friends shouted, and the Doctor felt Rose bury her face against his arm.

“No,” she whispered, about the same time Grace called out,

“Incorrect!”

“Craig David!” a male voice shouted, and Rose groaned loudly as the room went quiet.

“That is correct!”

The Doctor scoffed next to her as the rest of the room erupted into laughter. “Oh, come on.”

“Rose absolutely believed she and Craig David were meant to be back in year six, and told everyone they were boyfriend and girlfriend,” Cara giggled, and the Doctor only chuckled to hear Rose repeatedly whispering ‘Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god’ into his arm.

“Had to get her a poster!” Jackie called with a squeal of delight.

“Get me— you’re a Time Lord for god’s sake, go back in time and stop this from all happening!” Rose urged.

“Not a chance.”

“Question two!” And once more, the room went quiet in anticipation. “And a little less embarrassing, maybe—”

“Thank God,” Rose mumbled. At that point, he couldn’t really stop himself from giving her arm a gentle stroke.

“— Which film was Rose obsessed with at the beginning of secondary school?”

“Easy! Back to the Future!” another one of her friends called out.

The Doctor scoffed, “You’re kidding?”

Rose pulled away, then, unashamed. “Marty Mcfly, hottest fictional character in the world, I stand by it.”

“If I dress up in that puffer vest and the TARDIS gets her act together to disguise as a DeLorean, are we just playing out your secondary school fantasy?”

“Why do you think you had me so hooked with ‘did I mention it also travels in time’?”

“And that is correct!” Grace called, and just on queue, The Power of Love began to play through the speakers. Rose shook her head, and broke into a timid but unabashed smile.

“How many gigawatts to travel in time, Rose?” Grace called.

“One point twenty-one!” she volleyed, unashamed.

“Is that all? I’ll remember that for next time,” the Doctor whispered, and she elbowed him with a smirk.

“Question three — and sorry, Jackie — but why did Rose get two weeks of detention in year eleven?”

“Oh my god no!”

“Two weeks!” The Doctor kept his exclamation hushed, and once more Rose turned back around to face the other side of the bar, but he tugged on her arm to bring her back around, leaving her unable to hide her embarrassment and red hot cheeks.

“For skipping maths to snog Jimmy in the art room!”

“Rose!” Jackie gasped loudly as the room cheered.

“This is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life ever,” she groaned to the Doctor, and he only found her that much more gorgeous as she looked so delightfully mortified.

“That is correct!”

Rose whimpered quietly to the Doctor as the rest of the room erupted into laughter, “Please do that thing again where you make me forget all of my memories.”

“The snog wasn’t that great, then?”

She shuddered. “Far too much tongue.”

“How delightful,” he chuckled, feeling a peculiar sense of victory.

“Question four!” Grace called, and waited for the room to settle. “Which medal did Rose win in the county gymnastics?”

“The bronze!” the Doctor called, surprised but unashamed for calling out himself, and the room roared in cheer and a thunderous applause broke out.

“And quite right!” Cara hailed into the microphone, and Rose bumped arms with the Doctor.

“Was only the bronze,” she mumbled.

“Hey!” he denounced, “The bronze is bloody excellent!”

Her smile was thin and bashful and begged to be attended to; he responded without thinking by pulling her into his side and she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Okay, okay, our last and final question—” somebody at one of the nearby tables began to perform a drum roll as Grace paused to read the card “— What did Rose do on her eighteenth birthday?”

“Get absolutely hammered?” someone suggested, and by the way Rose only hid herself further into his chest and shook her head, he imagined they were right.

“More detail needed!” Grace called.

“My whole family’s here,” she whimpered quietly.

“How PG are we keeping it?” one of the boys from the table they were all sitting at earlier shouted, and they giggled amongst themselves.

“Oh god, was it that bad?” he whispered to her, but she just kept shaking her head.

“More PG than your eighteenth, Liam,” Cara pointed out, to which Liam held his hands up in his surrender.

“Didn’t you throw up at Tottenham Court Road bus stop?”

“That was not me!” Rose called out, releasing her hold on the Doctor. He folded his arms, now very aware that the rest of the room was looking at them. “That was Shareen!”

Shareen gasped somewhere in the crowd. “You little grass!” She slammed her hand down on the table and stood up. “And for that, I’m breaking my silence — on Rose’s eighteenth birthday, she got drunk and performed ‘Steps, Tragedy’ up on a table on Carnaby Street in front of the entire street with accompanying dance moves — and she fell down at the end.”

“And we have the video to play to you all later!” Cara beamed, just as the room erupted into an excited cheer.

Rose shrieked in protest, her cheeks burning red and the Doctor only cackled at the image of Rose drunkenly bearing her heart and soul out to what he knew was her favourite girl band of the 90s, so he could only imagine how animated that performance must have been. People had got to their feet, cheering and clapping as Rose hid her face in her palms and Tragedy began to blare through the speakers. Some chanted along, some were too lost in their own giggling and retelling of old anecdotes, and some flocked to Rose to give her gleeful hugs and cheer her on. But something about it saddened him all of a sudden, watching as Rose was swallowed up by the love of her friends so fierce and unashamed, a dull and remorseful ache somewhere in his chest that he couldn’t quite place but certainly didn’t like.

He turned back around and spotted Laura, now leaning against the back bar, and he caught her eye.

“I’ll take that stronger drink, now.”

She glanced over at Rose, now completely lost to the crowd, then back at him, and nodded.

He didn’t drink often, not at all, so he insisted only on a single, handing Laura a fiver and telling her to keep the change. He got to his feet, grabbed his jacket, and slipped quietly outside and into the pub garden.

The night was pleasant, the stars for once visible over London, but he imagined most might not catch them so clearly amidst the surrounding light pollution. There were strings of warm fairy lights hanging from the brick wall that surrounded the quite large garden, a few pub benches dotted around with even less people quietly chatting amongst themselves over a beer and the odd cigarette. What encouraged him the most was the quiet, the peacefulness that greeted him as he stepped out of the pub, sitting down on one of the vacant tables just under a tree with yet more fairy lights hanging from it.

He sighed deeply, but he found he wasn’t quite fully able to breathe in all the way, like something caged his chest and prevented it from fully expanding. He took a sip of the — what he discovered was — whiskey and shuddered to feel its heat trickle down his throat, settling something that had been rising in his body all night. He looked down at his hands, quivering now although he was not cold, and swallowed thickly.

He was in love, he had known that for a long time. But tonight he had realised how terribly irrevocable it was, how awfully trapped he had made himself in his dreadful and unavoidable addiction to her, how he had known this was going to be devastating and he was going to regret it but yet hadn’t cared. And now here he sat, alone as he always was and always would be, wondering just how he might survive this in the end.

It wasn’t that he worried about the day she would no longer be with him, although that wasn’t a thought he liked to entertain. It was this horrible ache, a dullness in his bones, a contradiction to the life she inspired within him. It was twisted, it was confusing, and it was devastating.

He looked up at the stars, a universe above him that he knew and yet didn’t. Taking another sip of his whiskey, and following another subsequent involuntary shudder, he closed his eyes to the return of that hollowness in his chest. The vacuum above felt infinitely small in comparison, and he knew there was no fighting it’s torture except to grit and bear it for as long as she stayed with him, and even longer than that.

He didn’t shudder when he took a third sip of his drink.

He had been so lost in his thoughts for so long that he only realised the environment had altered when a figure sat beside him. There were less people now he realised, only one or two at a table a few away from his, but none of that seemed to matter when he saw it was Rose who had sat down next to him.

“You alright?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

She shivered, and looked down at his drink. “Bit too much back in there, yeah?”

He couldn't reply at first, but his lie found his tongue at the time that he swallowed. “Na, it’s been alright. Just needed five outside in the quiet.”

Rose grinned, a warm smile he knew well, and shivered once more. The goosebumps began to line her skin, soft hairs rising on her arms, and he glanced down at her things to see the same pattern emerging there. He unbuttoned his jacket and slipped it off, attentively hanging it over her shoulders and she looked down with a smile, pulling it tighter around her.

“Thanks,” she whispered, a soft sound that settled on the air and he closed his eyes to it, trying to still what it did to his hearts. Once more, he breathed deeply, now that he could as she sat close to him, and when he opened his eyes on his exhale he saw her looking down at the table, mulling over something in her mind.

“Are you alright?” he murmured, and she closed her eyes to that.

“Mmm. Just needed to step out — don’t like havin’ all the attention on me, you know that.”

Funny, he thought, if she knew just how much she claimed all of his attention, his thoughts and dreams, his hopes and longings, even down to his physiology and heartbeat, she would flee.

Her legs had started to bounce — anxiously or because they were cold, he didn’t know — but he found himself looking at a mole on her thigh, one he of course had never seen before. He closed his eyes once more in a desperate plea to try and stop the thoughts from drowning him, of how much he wanted to see every piece of her, to know all her moles and the feel of her skin under his fingers, to learn her and know her in a way nobody else did or ever could possibly again.

“Y’know, I remember the first time you met all my family, when we were huddled in my mum’s living room watching the telly,” she grinned, and her voice encouraged him to avert his gaze, and, thankfully, his thoughts. “Said you didn’t do domestics and all that.”

“I still don’t,” he pointed out, and she sniggered. “I have no idea how I keep finding myself in these situations so often.”

“I think you like them, really.”

“I like you, there’s a difference.”

She chuckled, “So if I’m understanding you correctly, the last of the Time Lords bends to nobody’s will except mine?”

“You understood that correctly, yes.”

Her gleeful hum in response was enough for him to let her believe he was exaggerating. After a minute or two, she spoke again.

“I used to come here all the time. Most Thursdays after work. Sometimes it’d be all of us — it was quite central for where we all worked — and sometimes it’d just be me and Mickey.”

He grimaced as she rubbed salt into the wound unknowingly. He was reluctant to admit to himself just how many hours he had spent thinking about them, of their dates in the park and stolen kisses in her lunch break, of nights spent together and mornings in love. He glanced back down at the mole on her leg and knew of course he wasn’t going to know her as nobody else did, he never could even if he did ever give in to his hearts.

“It’s like a different life,” she sighed. “I always thought this sort of stuff would hit you in your thirties, lookin’ back over your school days and realising how much had changed since then. But I’m twenty-one, and it feels like a completely different me and it was only two years ago!”

He was still while she spoke what was on her mind. He didn’t get the feeling that she regretted it so much, and he was a little relieved at that. But he thought perhaps it was more the speed of time passing that stunned her, her perspective of it all shifting and she wasn’t quite ready for it. As a Time Lord, he so wished he could slow it down for her, make it just that little bit more manageable because, truthfully, it terrified him sometimes, too.

“It’s only that you fill your life with so much that it feels that way,” he tried, and she sniffed in the cold. “It feels a bit like time passed you by because, well, it has. You didn’t even see it go, you were far too busy moving and adapting but it passed, at the same rate it always does. But you didn’t.”

She frowned, and gave him a lopsided smile. “I suppose you would give me some nonsensical explanation of time that oddly makes sense.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

“Really?” She scrunched her nose. “I thought you were here to protect time.”

“Whoever told you that?”

She rolled her eyes with a more symmetrical smile now, her hands moving to cover her face as she attempted to hide just how funny she found his joke. “If it’s this bad at twenty-one, must be bloody awful for you.”

He inhaled sharply, making her giggle more. “The trick is not to think about it.”

“Take each day as it comes,” she reflected, and he hummed beside her in agreement. “They were right, all those adults. Everytime they said to live each day to the fullest.”

“That they were.”

And then she seemed to sadden again. After a moment, and with a quiver to her voice, she whispered,

“If only it didn’t make time pass faster that way.”

He nodded slowly in agreement, although he protested she be thinking such morose concepts on her twenty-first birthday. She began to pick at the skin around her nails, the nail polish on her thumb had chipped and he knew she must have been doing this all night, then.

“Why don’t you like your own birthdays?” he asked, realising that he never had.

She shrugged. “I used to love my birthdays. Birthday cakes, party bags, trips to the London Fields Lido and all that stuff.”

“Then what changed?”

She hesitated, and frowned. He waited while she thought, but he realised at some point she wasn’t searching for the answer, she was only debating whether to give it to him. Eventually, she swallowed, and spoke flatly,

“I met a Time Lord.”

And there it was. He felt his thoughts click into place, then, that strange sadness about her all day that he hadn’t quite been able to interpret finally making sense. It was, truthfully, his biggest regret, although he should have seen it coming, and he only gritted his teeth at his own negligence.

“Rose—”

“No, but think about it,” she insisted, and for once he found himself wanting to listen to her, to hear her worries about something he considered constantly. She seemed too intent on bearing herself to him here, in this garden, on this night, and he could only let her. “Every day I get older—”

“You’re twenty-one, that’s hardly you getting older—”

“But it is!” she retorted, a strange smile that wasn’t a smile by any means only holding back her tears now and he didn't know how they had got here, but his hearts ached to see her like this nonetheless. Her mouth hung open as if to say something else, but she seemed unable to and only let out a small croak instead.

“Hey,” he murmured, and he took the opportunity to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, curling his fingers as he dared himself to brush her cheek. “I do not want you to miss out on any of this because you’re afraid of getting older next to me.”

“M’not afraid of getting older,” she contended plainly. “I’m afraid of leaving you all alone.”

His breath was uneven as he exhaled, but he didn’t think she would have detected it. He dropped his hand back down to the table, and she sniffed wetly, seemingly annoyed by herself for some reason. She bit down on her bottom lip with her eyes closed before she opened them to find his, holding his gaze firm. He saw all of her, then, the things she didn’t want him to see in her eyes even in this light, and he knew she must be seeing all of him, too.

Because it consumed him to learn that this was how she felt. That she regretted each passing day because it was one less day — not that she got to spend with him, but that he had left to spend with somebody. The dreadful wringing of his chest at that, at knowing how much of her life and how many of her days she was spending in fear for his inevitable loneliness when that was only his worry, his concern. Rose wasn’t supposed to feel any of that, much less break her own heart every day, and he realised he must have been doing a terrible job at keeping those worries and concerns to himself. Rose only ever wanted everybody else to be okay, and now, on her twenty-first birthday, she was furious with her own mortality for getting in the way, stopping somebody she cared for so deeply from hurting.

So he had no alternative, really, when he leaned in to her this time. He just about had enough control to pause, give her the chance to pull away if she so wanted, and it seemed as though time completely stopped as he did. He could hear her breathing shallow, see the goosebumps line her neck and he took that moment, those few seconds, to learn her as he had wanted. His eyes found another mole on her collarbone, and upwards, the pulse in her neck at having him this close to her. A quiet and strained whimper on her lips, a plea, and then the feel of those lips against his.

He had always wondered how she would taste. The time he had kissed her on Satellite Five, he had only done so to take the time vortex from her, and for that his senses were mostly dulled. Now, as time slowly began to resume once more, he couldn’t taste a thing either; all he could do was feel. This overwhelming relief surging through him, his hearts beating as they should to feel this alive, and, for a moment, an assertion that nothing could tamper with his hope.

And then she gasped; her mouth opened and that’s when he could finally taste her. And he did, the tip of his tongue finally tasted home as it explored the texture of hers and everything he was learning about her he already knew. Because she was familiar, she was her, he knew her lips already and running his tongue along them told him nothing new about them but yet wanted more even still, to know how her bottom lip felt between his teeth, and he was a quick learner, picking up on the sensitive spots that would draw her moans and which of them would catch her breath in her throat.

His heightened senses had thus far only proven to be most valuable, until now, because she consumed all of him to a point where it was too much, and he had to break away, just to focus. But she didn’t hesitate to keep going, so keen was she on tasting him too, and she trailed her kisses across his cheek and along his jaw and this was new, feeling her learn him with her own senses, the moans she drew out herself at certain points on his skin.

“Rose,” he breathed, a plea and a promise in itself, and she brought their lips back together once more.

She began to shift without breaking their kiss and he felt her move one of her legs over him, soft chuckles she released onto his lips as she fumbled onto his lap on the most uncomfortable bench he could remember sitting on. But he quickly lost all conscious recognition of the world outside him, outside them, when he felt her hands move to cup his neck before her fingers slowly trailed up and through his hair. Her lips curled when he groaned and a second later so did she when she ran her nails back down. Their kiss was broken when her head rolled back to the feel of his hands on her thighs, sliding up to her waist where they held her hips close to his and in their respite, his lips found her neck and he sucked, just over her pulse, her breath catching in response. He felt her hands loosen as they became less conscious of their actions and more reflexive to her feelings and he felt her pulse drum fervently beneath his lips. With a final nip to her skin, he released her, the darkened bruise forming he could see even under this light, and pride raptured his veins to have finally claimed just a part of her as his. But then the trouble was he wanted to claim all of her as his, if she would let him, and by the way she rocked into his hold when he pulled away only confirmed that she would. As her lips began their descent once more down onto his skin, pressing sweet and messy kisses down the bridge of his nose and to his lips, he realised he couldn’t find the trouble in it at all.

He deftly slipped his jacket off her shoulders and shuddered at the speed in which her goosebumps prickled beneath his fingers, before he dragged them slowly across her shoulders and down her back, as far as her dress would allow. One hand stayed where it was, exploring the planes of her shoulder blades as they contracted with the movement of her hands, and the other travelled south and to the small of her back where he pressed, gently, until she arched into him. That move released another sound from her lips, much lower this time, much deeper and hungrier and his was only lustful in response. She tore her lips from his to bow her head to his shoulder, pausing only to catch her breath with the intent of resuming, so he peppered his kisses this time further down her neck, softening as they pressed across her shoulder until he felt her lips on his neck, her teeth grazing his skin as she matched the mark made on hers. He shivered to know she was doing the same, marking him, and he moaned into her skin as he allowed her to.

“I want you,” she breathed, he was sure she was trying to sound firm but her need strained her request. “But not here.”

He remained still as his surroundings began to settle into their rightful place and he remembered where they were. He was in no way ready to pull back, but he couldn't exactly keep going, so instead he kept his eyes closed as he followed the trail of his hands on her body, slowly tracing the curves and dips of her frame. She didn’t move either, but it seemed she too was focused only on his hands, as she had since stopped exploring him herself. To feel her in this way, to roam freely as he wished while she remained compliant and willing above him, prevented him from asking if she was sure she wanted him, and if was even a little bit more level-headed than he was at the moment, he would ask if she had really thought this through.

But all he could seem to focus on was her words, the sound of her telling him she wanted him. After that, nothing else mattered.

“Doctor,” she whispered again, and he opened his eyes to find that mole on her collarbone beneath him. He swallowed, and with considerable difficulty, and pressed his lips to it before he finally pulled away.

She cleared her throat and started to shift off of him and he spotted the other table glance over in their direction. Right, he thought, scratching the back of his neck and neatning his — he was sure — disheveled hair. Public decency, must remember that one.

Rose was grinning sheepishly by the time she settled down next to him, and for a moment, neither looked at the other. He swallowed, now that he was finally able to, and ran his palms over his trousers to neaten them down just a little. Rose tugged on the hem of her dress to bring it a bit further down her thighs and he swallowed again to see her legs bare, having only very recently felt them beneath his hands, and the tips of his fingers tingled at the memory.

Rose let out a breathy laugh, then, and he glanced over to her just at the time she looked up at him. She drank him in, her eyes flickering across his face, but he couldn’t quite do the same; he found himself transfixed only on her eyes.

“C’mere” she grinned, licking her thumb and rubbing it across his cheek. “You’ve got lipstick all over you.”

He nodded, before he gestured to her. “Funnily enough, so do you.”

She pressed her fingers to the side of her lips and giggled while he fumbled around in his suit pockets for some makeup wipes, and then she brought them down to her neck to press gently into the bruise beginning to form over her pulse.

“Bit more worried about everyone seeing that.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Didn’t hear any complaints from you when I was giving it to you.”

“Nope,” she affirmed smugly. She tugged at the wipes when he pulled them out, taking one and began cleaning up his face. “Think I’ve got some concealer in my bag, anyway.”

“Your bag’s inside.”

“Bugger,” she cursed, and he chuckled. “Reckon you could go and grab it for me before anyone sees?”

He pointed to his neck. “I think we just have to own this one, Rose.”

“It’s a lot easier to own it when everyone doesn’t know you.”

“It’s only you they know.”

“Right,” she beamed, “so you won’t have a problem going and getting my bag then, will you?”

“Bugger,” he cursed, and she chuckled.

He watched her, then, the golden lights shimmering in her eyes as she smiled, her lips still a little swollen and hair messier now. She wasn’t aware of him watching her, he didn’t think, so she was caught off guard when he began to smooth down the strands, running his fingers softly through her hair to bring back a bit of order. As he did, his gaze remained fixed on her, the shy way she kept herself still and allowed him to sort her out, to fix her back up as if she needed fixing in the first place.

“You are…” he tried, but the word was lost on his lips. He had no way of surmising her beauty at that moment, and he supposed that's why people looked to poetry or song in times where words weren’t adequate to suffice.

Perhaps she didn’t need any of that, because she seemed to understand exactly what he was trying to say, or at least the depth of it. She took his hand then, which had since frozen in his quest to articulate just how captivating she was, and brought it to her lips. She kissed each of his fingers deliberately, carefully, attentively, her eyes closed as she spoke the words caught in her throat on his skin and all he could do was listen.

God, she was divine. He felt the way his hearts completely responded to her alone, their slight quickening as her lips brushed his skin and the harder they beat for her when she released him. He was sure they had a song about them, her song, and he could have them converse with her for as long as he lived.

“What are you thinking?” she murmured, and he had been mostly — no, completely — unaware of her watching him. He wasn’t quite ready yet to translate his hearts’ intent, so instead he leaned back into her, touching his lips to the corner of hers to kiss her where he was hesitant to pull back, captured instead by a sweetness that lingered on her skin. When her lips curled beneath his, he finally did pull away; not too far though, just enough for her to hear the words he didn’t speak.

Neither said anything, for a while. Not through their searching for something to say, but simply because this was unlike them to be so close and they were familiarising themselves with it.

He was falling in love with it.

“You know,” she whispered with a smile, “I don’t think I’ve ever known you to say so little.”

“Would you prefer it if I were babbling away instead?”

“God, no,” she chuckled as he pulled away. “Think I can safely say that’s one of my preferred ways you’ve made use of your tongue.”

He raised his eyebrow and her cheeks flushed pink furiously.

“Oh my god, no! I didn’t mean— not that!”

He raised his other eyebrow and, after quickly searching his eyes, she raised hers.

“Wow, okay so maybe that, if you’re—”

He chuckled, and kissed her shoulder before climbing to his feet. “I’m going to go and get your bag.”

“Or—” she grabbed his hand to stop him “— how about we both go back to the TARDIS and pick up where we left off?”

He snorted. “No chance am I missing your drunken Steps performance.”

“Not even for a good shag?”

He stilled to hear her say it, and only then did it occur to him that that was where this was heading. It was sobering, but he couldn’t say in any way it was repellent — not at all — only completely unbelievable.

“Oh god—” she slapped her hands to her face “—you didn’t— that’s not what.. what you— oh my god you didn’t say that’s what you wanted—”

“Rose,” he stressed, although gently, pulling her hand away as he crouched down in front of her. He tried to look at her, peering up from underneath her, but she wouldn’t look back at him. “I don’t think we’d be fooling anybody if I said I didn’t want that, too.”

She nodded firmly, still unable to look him in the eye. He rubbed his thumb over her fingers as they rested firmly in his, still a little nervous was she while he was completely certain.

“But it’s not all I want.”

“Yeah?” she said as she chewed her bottom lip. He nodded, and she paused for a moment, hesitant, before she spoke. “But…”

And then it was lost on her, either the rest of that sentence or her confidence to say it. Her fingers began to fidget in his, and he loosened his hold but not entirely, simply only allowing her the freedom to dwell without letting her drift entirely.

“But what?” he probed.

She looked even further down now, her chin tucked to her chest. “Wither and die, and all that.”

Ah yes, he grimaced. That.

The truth was, of course that’s all he could think about. And he regretted saying that to her every day since he had, because it shouldn’t have been her problem and yet he had made it her problem. By only showing her how much it anguished him, she had taken it upon herself to fix it for him, only to realise that she couldn’t. Nobody could, and for that, she couldn’t simply rest and allow herself to be happy while he only awaited misery. He wondered, then, if that was why she was so hesitant — not because she didn’t want this with all her heart, but because he had given her reason to believe he was petrified for his own survival, for a future of solitude without her but it was specifically that last part that tortured him now.

Without her. How could she possibly begin to resolve her heartache when she worried tirelessly over something she couldn’t control? He had to unburden her, assure her that he wasn’t scared for him, when truthfully he felt sick by his awaited grief. So for that, he bent his head to kiss her knee, and swore to inherit all her anxieties himself and free her of them.

“I know you’re a whole twenty-one-years-old now, but I don’t see you withering anytime soon.”

She didn’t laugh, but he still smiled reassuringly, intent on fulfilling his promise.

“But I will, one day,” she countered, and he fought back a sigh.

“Are you always this miserable on your birthday?”

“Doctor!” she pleaded, but she was beginning to smile despite herself. “This is serious!”

The worst part was that he had had this exact argument with himself, time and time again, only he was normally on her side himself. But it had all changed when he had heard her tell him she wanted him; up until then, those arguments with himself were a response to the very hypothetical situation she might want him, but now that she actually did, he found himself quite unable to see her side now.

“Alright, alright,” he held up his hands in defeat. “You’re right.”

She didn’t exactly bask in it, but he knew he wasn’t about to give up anytime soon. So he perched himself down next to her, the picnic bench groaning as he settled his weight. A silence extended between them and he watched as Rose played with her ring, fiddling about with it in the interlude as she tried to find her words. But as the silence passed and she remained quiet, he realised perhaps she had nothing to say unprompted, so he asked a question he was sure he never would in the hope that she might finally release herself.

“What do you want?” he whispered.

She hesitated even still, before her breath carried her answer in a sigh. “You.”

He could have her say it over and over again and never tire of it; perhaps that serenely restful truth caused the words to tumble from his lips so desperately. “You have me. Christ knows why you want me out of anyone else in the whole bloody universe, but whatever you want is yours.”

Perhaps it was the slight inflection on just the right word, or perhaps it was all of them together, but he felt her somewhat loosen beside him. Determined though he was, he was misplaced to hear himself say it, something he only ever imagined might terrify her now only somehow consoling her.

“This is… mad,” she shuddered with a smile. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted this?”

“I can take an educated guess.”

“And you really want this too?”

He shrugged. “Probably— I don’t know, haven’t really thought it through.”

She whacked his arm with a chuckle she couldn’t quite suppress. “Oh my god—“

“Rose,” he whispered, urged perhaps, and she all but stilled completely to hear him say her name in such a way. He turned to look at her but she had closed her eyes, so he took her hand, small and fragile and soft as it was, and started to settle the ache in his fingers by running them across her skin. So warm, even if she didn’t think so in the cool April chill, and the softness against his, coarse and tired, was sublime.

“Why me?”

“Why you, what?”

“You said I could have anyone in the whole universe, well what about you? You’re a Time Lord,” she breathed the name of his race with such wonderment while he only regretted it, but he kept still. “And you’re the last one! You have literally all of time and space to choose from, why would you choose somebody with such a short life span— somebody who you can’t exactly share the rest of your life with or even a substantial part of it. Sixty years, that’s all I have! That’s all we’ll have!”

“This is a bit like talking about breaking up before you’ve even gotten together,” he pointed out, and she grinned again despite herself at that, and it only seemed to frustrate her that he joked when she searched for an answer much more reassuring. But the fact was, it would seem she had thought about this, and perhaps had even used it to convince herself he didn’t want her in return, which was utterly absurd to him. Joking with her wasn’t seeming to do the trick, lightening the mood in the hopes of lightening her worry was proving to serve no end to her own perceived stalemate, and she wasn’t just taking him at his word and allowing herself this.

So he bent his head to kiss the ball of her shoulder and he lingered there, breathing her in, unable to stop himself from kissing the same spot again. He needed saving from this, he realised, because kissing her seemed entirely unpreventable since he had allowed himself to only minutes ago, and right now she needed his reassurance.

“I’ve seen it all, Rose. Nine hundred years of travelling, I’ve met some spectacular people. But you have something on me that I can’t describe, and I know for a fact it’s irreversibly binding. I know, because I feel it in the way you smile, the sound of your laugh, I know I don’t stand a chance when you say my name as you giggle and I’m a complete lost cause when you touch me in any way. What I’m trying to say is I’ve met so many people in this universe, from so many corners of it across so many ages and none of them have ever given me something so completely tangible to hold on to.” He frowned, realising how he must sound completely bonkers, and he wasn’t exactly the greatest romantic of his time, but he really was limited by his words in describing what she was to him, so he settled instead on one final, simple sentiment. “You’re everything.”

He sniffed, because it sounded so terribly feeble and uninspired, and pulled away. She had been watching him as he spoke his mind, perhaps thinking he was an absolute nutter, but her palm touched his cheek and she leant forwards, brushing her lips to his and only holding on to time, savouring each passing second in this point in time and he felt how overwhelming it was, even to him. All the seconds passed, all the ones following it were immeasurable, literally, and for only a few of them, just one or two, they kissed. When she pulled away, he found himself wondering how he could possibly not chase more of those seconds.

“And don’t even get me started on that,” he breathed, and she giggled delightfully.

“You know, when you told me you were coming tonight, I thought maybe I might be lucky enough to hear you tell me I look beautiful—“

“Which I still haven’t done,” he chastised.

“— I never imagined any of this might happen, not for a second.”

“You didn’t?” he retaliated. “I was spending my day hoping that I could just survive it — and I have to say, there was a moment when your mother was telling me about Bev’s one night stand where I really, honestly, thought I might not.”

“And yet, you stayed,” she grinned, somewhat smugly and a little sweetly. “And you hate domestics!”

“I could get used to them,” he shrugged, and she only looked back at him in surprise. “Well, okay, I could learn how to tolerate them.”

“For me?” she said, still a little in disbelief.

“I told you, anything in the universe, time and space, all of it, is yours,” he assured. “If that includes family gatherings and ‘life admin’ days, then so be it.”

“Christmas dinner?”

“I’m there.”

“Even Mum’s fiftieth birthday bash?”

“Even that.”

“Christenings, baby showers, all that stuff, too?”

“If Charlie pops out any more kids, you bet I’ll be meeting them all.”

Rose scoffed, “Who are you and what have you done to the Doctor!”

“S’what you’ve done to me,” he corrected.

“It’s what domestics have done to you.”

“No, no, it’s definitely you.”

The sound of these giggles in particular, the ones where she was endearingly timid as he all but worshiped her, were entrancing; a new world he had yet to explore lay in their sound and he was a traveller, after all. It was far too tempting, she was far too tempting, and her darkened eyes as she looked at him here and now held a map to a path unknown, a whole universe in itself and he was ready to be lost in this one.

Her eyes flickered to his lips and she licked hers almost straight after, before she met his gaze once more and they were somehow even darker now. He found himself falling before he had even let go; their noses touched and her hand on his thigh sparked, and this was ridiculous, it was completely without sense that it all should feel like this. How many times had he fallen in love, how many moments had passed like this one and yet none of them were like this one, nobody looked as she looked at him, nobody’s touch was as devilishly hypnotic and never before had his hearts drummed so mercilessly for a moment in time to pass and yet remain—

“Rose!”

They both tore away to the sound of her name being called from the door, and all at once it came back: the sounds of merriment inside, the rustle of the leaves above them, the very harsh reminder that they weren’t alone.

“We’ve been looking all over for you, your mum wants to do a speech.”

“Oh, god,” Rose groaned as Shareen trudged over to them. But her steps slowed as she got closer, until she stopped completely just before them, her mouth open as she realised what she had interrupted.

He wished, with everything he had really, to be anywhere else but here.

“Oh my god, are you two—“ she gasped, narrowing her eyes at them before she pointed at their necks. “What! is that a— have you two got hickeys?”

Rose fidgeted excessively, pulling her dress down as much as she could before slapping her hand to her neck. “Shareen— please can you go get my bag?”

She scoffed indignantly and folded her arms. “Concealer ain’t gonna cover that up— what did you do to her!” she teased at the Doctor, and he only hung his head low and desperately willed for this to be over.

“Shareen,” Rose groaned. “Please, c’mon— I got two bloody weeks of detention covering for you when it was both of us skipping science to snog our boyfriends!”

The Doctor scratched his neck and shuddered to realise he was now in a situation akin to snogging his high school girlfriend when he should be in science class. He’d always wanted the human experience but this was not so high up on his list.

“As your mate, it’s my duty to have you completely mortified on your twenty-first — but—“ she insisted, when Rose began to protest “— as your best mate, I’m going to do you this favour and help you cover up the fact that you were out here neckin’ with a bloke none of us have really met before.”

The Doctor leapt to his feet, finally deciding to remove himself from this dreadful situation, but Shareen put her hand on his chest to stop him instead.

“Nope— you stay here, you look even worse than she does,” she smirked, before turning back to Rose with a wicked grin. “Give me two mins, but if your mum finds you in the meantime then I can’t help you.”

“Nobody could,” the Doctor muttered, mostly to himself, but Shareen caught it and giggled in agreement, before she turned to head back into the pub.

“I take it back,” he insisted as Rose got to her feet, too. “None of it, you can have none of it.”

“Nope,” she grinned. She took his tie in her hand and began to fiddle with it, but the look in her eye told him she was doing this deliberately, the little minx, and, worse yet, she knew exactly what it was doing to him. But she released him from it, this torture of being in a very public place when he so very much wished that they weren’t, and stood on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down for a chaste kiss, smiling into his lips as she whispered, “No taking it back now, Time Lord.”

And it was worth it, he thought, to see a smile he hadn’t seen before. Well, that and the way she had called him “Time Lord” in a way that sent shivers down his spine. But her smile now was one where she was so completely happy and at ease, and he was quite happy indeed to bear the weight of her concerns if it meant she could enjoy her time alive.

He supposed, then, for her twenty-first birthday, he might have given her time itself.

#ten x rose #tenth doctor #rose tyler #dw fic #loup.fic #doctor who #ficandchips #oh god these two

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xxxsoukokuxxx · 4 years ago

Note

hello! happy birthday!!! hope you have a good one! how about for headcanons: how your favourite character/s would treat their s/o on their birthday please and thank you

Characters: Dazai x reader; Atsushi x reader; Chuya x reader; Akutagawa x reader;

Warnings: might be spelling and grammar errors; tad bit suggestive

Notes: Hi there anon! I understand that I’m super late on this and I’m sorry! Thank you sm for the birthday wish. Thanks for sending in a request, if this is not what you wanted feel free to request again. This is the most characters I’ve done in a single post, let’s see how this goes, under the cut because it gets long

______________________________________________

How Dazai, Atsushi, Chuya and Akutagawa treat their s/o on their birthday headcanons:

Dazai:

It all really depends on whether you enjoy having your birthday celebrated or not, because he understands if you don’t want to no matter the reason

I can’t really decide whether he’s one of those people who would wake up their s/o at 12:00am just to wish you happy birthday and throw confetti everywhere probably is

He has the whole day planned out

And he knows everything and anything you’d like

This bandage man tries making breakfast for you while you were asleep and could give it to you once you awoke along with a good morning kiss

However, little did you know that while you were asleep, he almost set the kitchen on fire, pancake batter spilled on the floor and he had almost cut his finger off with a knife

But it’s all worth it if it’s for you he thinks to himself

When you awake, the first thing you see is his face in yours, he dons a rather huge grin and then throws his arms into the air and says “Happy Birthday My Belladonna!”

The next thing is he takes you to whatever place you wish to go

But! First things first, he makes sure he gets the day off and leaves behind an angry Kunikida

Want to go to the beach? Park? Movies? Or just sit and cuddle at home under the blankies while watching movies or the likes? He’s down for it esp the last one

He’ll sneak little kisses throughout the day and always somehow manages to put a smile on your face

He might get you a gift but honestly i think he’s already a good enough gift himself

When night finally falls upon Yokohama, he’ll cuddle the hell out of you in bed, whether it be summer or winter. He’d place kisses all over your face until he’d reach just above your chest, you’re just too precious to him unless he decides to spend the night in a different way if you know what i mean

Atsushi:

His smile is so precious i can’t-

Would cook breakfast and it actually comes out good. Although he doesn’t think so, please reassure him it is

He’ll get your favorite flowers and put them on the tray in which he’s gonna put the breakfast on

“Happy Birthday Y/n” you smile sleepily as you awake and find him sitting at the edge of the bed

You’d give him a kiss on the cheek and he’d turn all shades of red

He’ll probably take you to the fair or just like Dazai he’ll take you anywhere you’d like

Prefer something more peaceful and serene? He’s got you covered

Of course he’d ask for a day off from work and he’d actually get it without a problem because he works so hard

Even though he can’t offer the most expensive gift, you don’t mind and either way you’d love it even if he didn’t get you a gift

He’ll hold your hand gently throughout the day and smile at you so lovingly, he’ll thank the heavens that such an angel was born on this day

Let’s just say that it were Spring, he’d take you cherryblossom viewing

It’d be so lovely, the gentle breeze floating through the air, cherryblossom petals raining down upon the earth, when he’d look at you, he’ll instantly smile

His eyes look like they were in a dream, when he looked at you, admiring you, wondering how fortunate he was

At night, he’d hold you in his arms, might I add that he’d have his tiger arms transformed if you request, although he would be a bit hesitant

It’s the softest, warmest, coziest feeling in the world, and you fall asleep to the soft beating of his heart, he’ll kiss your head and tell you how much you mean to him and how much he loves you before eventually falling asleep himself

Chuya:

Treats your birthday like the most important day ever

Definitely not the type to disturb his s/o during their beauty sleep just to wish them at 12:00am

Like a professional chef, he prepares the best breakfast one could ask for with a red rose to finish the tray off

He’ll kiss your lips, your cheeks and forehead as you wake up and find him smiling wishing you a happy birthday

He’d get the day off, working some things around in his port mafia schedule

He’ll take you out anywhere you’d like, however for dinner he’s made a reservation for two at a fancy restaurant

Sure he seems all fancy, but he doesn’t really spend money on himself, rather he’ll shower you with gifts and praises and acts of love and affection

Would be a total romantic and kiss the back of your hand and hold it like you’re royalty

He’ll offer only the best gift to you, he’ll know what you like

Be it books/literature, jewellery, anything really

This ginger will admire you with endearing ocean blue eyes, he’ll tell you countless times throughout the day how much he loves you not like he doesn’t everyday

Ends the day of at the restaurant and once night approaches, he’ll hold you in his arms like you’re the most precious thing to him or if he has other plans the bedroom would be lit with soft sweet scented candles, silk bedsheets and everything to scream romantic

Akutagawa:

He kinda freaks out internally as to what to do for your bday

I mean has he ever even celebrated his own?

But would put on an apron and whip up a delicious breakfast, literally puts his heart and soul into it

However, expect to get scared first thing in the morning

This man has high patience, so he’ll just be standing there at your bedside, staring at you waiting for you to wake up because he doesn’t wanna disturb you

Not only is he staring while holding the breakfast and flowers he’d picked for you, he’s admiring you

Taking in every little detail about you, honestly his cheeks turn a little pink from how cute you look asleep

Give him a kiss as thanks and he’ll stop working

Didn’t know at first whether to take the day off or not but decided to do so

Prefers taking you somewhere quiet, serene, better if there are no other people are around actually

Either you’ll both stay at home or go out as per your wish

The idea of cuddling with you under the blankets makes him internally smile

But so does spending the day out with you

He’d love to just sit under a tree in the park and enjoy some peace, serenity, shade and you

A little picnic is what he’d go with. Figs and tea really is all the snacks he needs. He gazes at you, your smile, just automatically makes him smile

He’ll let you lay your head on his lap and read a book, sleep or basically whatever you’re doing, while playing with your hair, twirling it, running his fingers through it

The night ends with him holding you with your back facing his chest, arms wrapped around you, his nose in the crook of your neck and feather light kisses being placed on your skin

He’s not all that good with psychical acts of love and affection but he tries

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fallout-drabbles-n-stuff · 4 years ago

Note

Hey! I have another idea for a request!

So it’s my birthday today, and I’ve been trying to picture birthdays in the wasteland. How would romanced companions celebrate sole’s birthday?

No rush to do this! I’m a Gage romancer, if you’re only looking to do a few companions! Thank you in advance!

(Hope Headcanons are good enough!! Happy belated birthday! Hope it was a good one ❤️)

Cait:

•Given her past, Cait hasn't exactly had a wonderful experience with birthdays. If anything, they were somewhat of a sore subject.

•That in mind, she doesn't want you to feel that loneliness- especially after all you've been through.

•She won't make a huge fuss out of it, but she'll let you know that you're loved by her. It'll probably be a more quiet event, just the two of you together with your favourite drinks and treats. It may be small..but she's also going to steal something nice from one of those stuck up bitches from the Diamond City upper stands.

Curie:

•She's elated when your birthday comes around.

•Having the traditions and mindset of a being pre-war, she tries her best to recreate an event accordingly. She'll arrange it all! A couple of your closest friends, some bright decorations, and a mutfruit cake with lovely vivid frosting.

•She's even going to sing "Happy Birthday" in that cute little French accent of her's.

Danse:

•Although birthdays are still celebrated in the Brotherhood, Danse knew very well that kind of celebration wasn't fitting for someone he truly loved.

•So, using his heart instead of his head (a very rare occasion), Danse fabricated a somewhat of an itinerary solely focused on doing your favourite things throughout the day.

•At the very end of it, he'd sing a soft "Happy Birthday" and present you with a shabby stack of pancakes. They probably will be a little burned, but he figured it was a good gesture. In addition to this, he'll pull a locket from his uniform pocket and drape it around your neck- a picture of you and him standing together inside.

Deacon:

•Well, perks of being in a group like the railroad, they take it upon themselves to make a big deal out of their "family member's" birthday. Deacon however, is the ringleader of the whole event.

•He is going to make sure you have the party of your life! Even some mysteriously accurate pre-war type of party games are going to incorporated.

Gage:

•Once again, the raider shows how sappy he really is.

•For a while he acts as though nothing is special about the day, maybe even to the point of allowing you to get upset- but never fear. He's just deliberately getting you away from Fizztop, as so, expect him to have conveniently scheduled for you to hold counsel with The Pack.

•No matter how pissed you are, as soon as you come back home- you can't help but be in awe. Gage did his very best to clean up the place, getting some fresh feverblooms to spruce up the area- some candles strewn in random places of the room. Dare say, he made it look like quite the romantic scene.

•From then onto the wee hours of the morning, Gage makes sure to shower you in gifts, sweets, and you bet- affection.

Hancock:

•It's going to be a huge event. Period.

•All of Goodneighbor is going to know what's up. Chances are if you are close to hancock, the city probably adores you as well.

•Expect a stereotypical surprise party where everyone jumps out and yells within the Old State House.

•Magnolia is going to perform for the whole party too.

Macready:

•Ol' Mac is pretty sweet.

•The morning of your birthday he'll make you a halfway decent breakfast in bed, maybe even playfully spoon feeding you with a goofy grin on his face.

•It's going to be one of the instances where Mac truly spoils you.

•When it's all coming to an end, he'll finally give you his gift. A small yaoguai made of wood with your initials surrounded by a scratchy heart on it's undersides

Maxson:

•Something so monumental...he'll actually take a day off from being "The Elder"...well, as much as he can. Basically, he's putting off briefings and replying to headache inducing emails.

•Arthur again, has zero experience with a serious significant other- so he is somewhat at a loss for what to do. Nonetheless, he tries his best to make it special.

•Ultimately he decides to give you a normal date, for once. The both of you dressed down like a couple of wastelanders, just enjoying what merriment your company could provide and the wonders of Diamond City's lights.

Nick:

•Another pre-war person.

•However nick doesn't necessarily go the purely traditional route. Instead he takes a more intimate turn, electing to get you something nice, fetch some decent food, put on the Classical Radio Station and slow dance the night away.

Piper:

•She is another one of the more traditional celebrators.

•She won't through quite as big of a party as Hancock, but it will be something! Complete with noisemakers, over excessive drinking, cupcakes and confetti!

•Once it's all over though, she'll hug you from behind on your shared bed and mutter about how much she appreciates you just being you..maybe even teasing you for being literally hundreds of years old.

Preston:

•He goes a little extra. As much as a Minuteman can, at least.

•He and the rest of the soldiers make it their top priority to throw you one hell of a shindig. There will be live music, semi okay foods, and lots of laughs.

•May or may not ask you to marry him depending upon how far your relationship has progressed.

X6-88:

•He never really "got" birthdays..but for you he is going to try.

•X6 eventually finds the best thing he can do is give you a decked out weapon and take you for a moonlit walk. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to test out his gift.

#fallout 4 #fallout #paladin danse #fo4 companions #fallout companions #danse #elder maxson #porter gage #curie #deacon #arthur maxson #cait #hancock #x6 88 #brotherhood of steel #fo4 #macready

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bagadew · 4 years ago

Text

The Great Ace Attorney Playthrough: The Adventure of the Great Departure (Part 3)

Last Time: We finally found Miss Brett, the English woman who’s present had been erased from the scene of the crime, and dragged her ass to court only to discover that she was a Massively Racist Bitch in a swan hat. After a lot of back and forth it became clear that Dr Watson Wilson actually died of poisoning, and that Miss Brett took advantage of the fact Japan currently doesn’t do autopsy reports to shoot his corpse in the chest and frame me (Ryunosuke) for the murder. Fortunately for us Hosonaga took the bottle from the crime scene, and after needlessly translating Miss Brett for the last hour (and presumably filtering out a lot of questionable content) was only to happy to produce it for the court. Unfortunately for us the poison wasn’t in the bottle, so it’s up to a lady in pink to save the day!

I’m going to roundhouse kick Auchi

I’m liking how everyone else in this room is just as done with Auchi as I am

Our saviour Ryunosuke, that’s who

Oh, that’s not a glass

Is it about poisons?

It is!

Ok so I’m pretty sure that Curare is incredibly powerful and fast acting poison (which lines up with what we know). Unfortunately I think it needs to be injected but I might be mixing it up with something else.

Susato’s actually given me the report now, which is probably a much more sensible way of getting information (rather than me trying to remember what I’ve picked up from Agatha Christie novels), and unfortunately it looks like I remembered correctly about it needing to be injected.

(Side note: how alarming is it that I’ve retained this much knowledge on poisons? I feel the need to explain that I’ve been reading and listening to audio dramatisation of Agatha Christie novels since I was about three, but I feel like that makes it worse)

What is curious though is it’s potential use as an anaesthetic. Given that Dr Wilson had just had a tooth removed with anaesthetic I wonder if there’s a connection there?

I’m not sure what it could be though, unless it turns out Miss Brett Weekend at Berniesed his corpse all the over way from the clinic.

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

Actually wait...

GET HER ASS JUDGE!!!

Auchi if we were to run this courtroom on things you know about we’d be running a kindergarten.

Auchi, you’d never even heard of Curare until I told you about it, be quiet while the grownups are talking.

Yeah, Curare is not a nice poison.

I’m not going to post the full explanation here, but wow, Kazuma’s really going all out with his description!

Also it looks like I misunderstood about it needing to be injected. Everyone’s saying that it can just be swallowed, which I guess that makes sense given how deadly it is.

Miss Brett’s being a bitch again (but what else is new) and Kazuma’s taking none of your shit and telling her that the feeling’s mutual. (Something I would have screenshot, but I was too busy calling Kazuma a legend to press the little square button.)

I knew it, it was only in the glass.

Yeah, now try it again from the glass you took.

Don’t worry Ryunosuke, I got this!

It’s ok Kazuma! Believe in me (Ryunosuke) and our beautiful friendship!

It astounds me too Kazuma, but for once I’m on to something!

Kazuma, please stop saying foreboding things, I need you to survive the next case and you’re already not being helped by the fact that you’re so much better than me. You’re so good you kind of render me, the protagonist, a little bit obsolete in fact.

PENALISED!

I guess I was wrong then! That bottle does somehow contain poison.

Yes Kuzuma, because I’m going to be penalised otherwise!

OH FUCK I’VE GOT IT!!!

I UNDERSTOOD CORRECTLY THE FIRST TIME!!!

IT DOES NEED TO BE PUT INTO THE BLOODSTREAM!!!

AND THE DOCTOR HAD A GAPING WOUND IN HIS MOUTH!!!

WHICH MISS JEZAILLE BRETT ADMITTED SHE KNEW ABOUT!!!

It’s finally time!

Let’s get her!

He’s got it!

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!

She’s cracking!

Is it hatred Ryunosuke?

Ah no, my mistake - it’s lawyer rage conviction!

I know I’ve said this a lot but...

GET HER ASS RYUNOSUKE!!!!!!!!!!

HE DID THE THING!!!!!!!!

WE’RE USING HER OWN WORDS AGAINST HER

AND IT FEELS SO GOOD!

Oh good... she’s started laughing

Oh no. We’ve set things into motion haven’t we.

Kazuma, I can’t stress enough how important it is for you to take care of yourself in the case to come.

SHE’S DESTROYING THE EVIDENCE!

You can’t do that!

Oh who am I kidding, this lady’s been dancing on privilege since she walked in.

Oh Ryunosuke I think she might have done...

I knew she felt like an end of game villain!

Auchi’s about to catch these hands!

Kazuma’s telling us to step into our mind palace.

‘Is Kazuma right’, he thinks, as he remembers the blood on the plate.

I don’t know Ryunosuke? Is water wet?

You got it Kazuma!

I mean to be fair it did only just happen.

DID HE STEAL THE PLATE?!?

YES HOSONAGA!!!

YOU BEAUTIFUL GENIUS!!!

I do genuinely love these moments in Ace Attorney though. When everyone works as one to get some untouchable big fry. There’s something very rewarding about the whole thing.

Shit... she swapped it out...

Fortunately my man Hosonaga has everyone’s plates though!

Cheer up Ryunosuke, look, we have steak blood at least. And I’m sure Hosonaga’ll bring us the rest of the plates if we ask nicely. Especially after Miss Brett broke his bottle.

Miss Brett’s now making racist statements again.

But at least I’ve been given the steak to examine!

Bless you Kazuma

Ryunosuke what short of cats have you been looking at!

Get his ass (affectionately) Kazuma!

THE STOLEN COIN!!!

I KNEW SHE SWAPPED THEM!!!

(Also it looks like I was right about it being stolen by Nosa)

Didn’t know that was there, did you Miss Brett?

Now, dig your own grave with your words!

Now it’s time to dob Nosa in it. Sorry Nosa but you were kind of a jerk. Look on the bright side though, now’s your chance to redeem yourself in my eyes, like Hosonaga has!

Old man Korekuna’s armed and pissed!

Nosa I’m sorry. It’s best to throw yourself on his mercy now before I rile him up more. Use your baby to calm him if you must.

NICE CATCH NOSA!

I take everything back, Nosa your complete safe, old man Korekuna has no idea how to use that thing.

Ah, I forgot he was proficient in vase!

(Which I forgot to screenshot)

Never mind Nosa, you’re still screwed!

That is the right face to pull (Nosa not Hosonaga):

Look at him in the corner there. I feel bad now.

It was theft wasn’t it?

...oh Nosa what have you done?

(Kept food on his kids plate probably, given how he can’t afford childcare)

Nosa’s now accusing his infant son of being the mastermind... Sure Nosa, everyone’s bying that.

Either accusing a baby is a panic response, or I don’t need to feel so bad anymore.

Hosonaga how did you not immediately catch this guy?

HE SLIPPED THE COIN UNDER THE STEAK SO IT WOULDN’T BE FOUND WHEN HE WAS SEARCHED!

MISS BRETT’S TRYING TO WEASLE HER WAY OUT TO LUNCH AGAIN!

Oh thank god!

I thought for one terrible second we were letting her go.

(I’ve say it before and I’ll probably say it again, this is an intense first case)

Yes! ‘Her’ steak had a big bite mark in it!

But I thought and English Lady like yourself wouldn’t eat steak that way Miss Brett?

Of course, there’s a difference between the two photos.

I knew I could see the glass in the first one, which means it was taken before Miss Brett rearranged the table!

Oh, now Nosa’s saying that he switched the plates.

I must admit I didn’t expect that, I thought it was something Miss Brett did to remove the bloody evidence.

She’s cracking!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

YEEEEAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

IT WAS ALIVE!!!

BABIES!!!

BABIES EVERYWHERE!

Oh god... what’s she planning.

Your honour, she’s already poisoned one person, do you want to be next?

Kiss my ass Miss Brett

Get used to it Auchi.

HAHA!

DAMN KAZUMA

(Editor Note: I am very upset by how poorly my screenshots conveyed Kazuma destroying Auchi’s hairdo with his sword)

Also, were you always hot Kazuma?

Wait no - I can’t be thinking that. The bar for fictional men I like is the floor and if I want Kazuma to continue to live a long, happy, non morally ambiguous life, I need him to not fall into the category of ‘fictional men I find hot’.

For some reason, I picture it being blue and spiky your honour

Wait what’s this about Kazuma having a mission?

Oh fucking hell, I’ve doomed you to moral ambiguity haven’t I Kazuma?

Thank you for the backhanded compliment your honour!

Ooh, petals rather than confetti, that’s a nice touch!

We did it!!!

And most importantly of all, we’re being praised by Kazuma!

Susato! Our saviour! Has turned up, along with her father: the innocent Professor Mikotoba, who I would like to thank and to reiterate that he could never kill anyone!

Seriously though, what was the relationship between him an Dr Wilson?

Ah ok, I simply just had to click on to find out.

So apparently the two of them worked together in the same hospital in London for a while.

OH MY GOD KAZUMA’S TAKING THE SWORD WITH HIM TO GREAT BRITAIN!!!

YES KAZUMA! F THEM UP!!!

(Also if your journey tragically ends in the customs office there’s a non-dead-Kazuma reason for me to go in your place.)

Oh fuck, she got off didn’t she...

I knew it

Of fucking course...

So basically she’s going to get off with a slap on the wrist. That’s what I’m getting from all of this.

Yep

Ah, but what you’ve failed to understand Kazuma is that the British Government and 99% of those people in power, are hypocritical dirtbags who will change the rules to suit them.

OK TEAM LETS GO GET HER ASS!!!

FINAL BOSS! FINAL BOSS!

Now on to the party with Kazuma!

And also Hosonaga apparently. Who is clinging onto his waiter job even though the case he was investigating is solved. Look like Ryunosuke was right about money being tight.

Hosonaga, do you not have a job anymore?

Were your superiors upset when you said ‘fuck the government’ and bought Miss Brett to us? Or was it your one man forensics team shtick that upsets them?

Oh yeah, we never did find that out did we?

Kazuma Asogi I forbid you from charging me with looking after your sister, of for that matter anything, incase something happens to you!

Fortunatly for us Hosonaga is here! Diving in-front of that Kazuma shaped plot bullet with promises of food!

Ryunosuke over here, taking the cases final moments to roast Hosonaga.

I think we’re even now Satoru, my second favorite character.

I don’t want to click to the next text box.

OH FUCK!

Oh wait, false alarm everyone!

I genuinely thought that the case was going to end with something like: but little did I realize that he never would.

Anyway that’s enough worrying about Kazuma! For now let’s enjoy the fact we’ve finished this bastard hard first case!

We’re moving on to Episode 2: The Adventure of the Unbreakable Speckled Band next!

#tgaa spoilers #tgaa #the great ace attorney #the adventure of the great departure #ryunosuke naruhodo #kazuma asougi #satoru hosonaga #jezaille brett #susato mikotoba #yuujin mikotoba

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greenninjagal-blog · 4 years ago

Text

Deja Vu pt 7

Hey guys. Been a hot minute. If it makes you feel any better this was supposed to be a short chapter and it ended up being 25 pages long. :) If you’re new to the story, you can check out the first chapter [here] or if you need a refresher check out the previous chapter [here]!

Summary: Dee takes on The Prince in a fight, and Remus takes on the Prince’s sidekick.

Word Count: 12029

TW: temporary character death, blood, teargas, guns,

Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist

Remus is twenty-one and he doesn’t think he’s ever been as terrified before in his life as he is the second he sees Dee launch across the stage.

He’s been scared before though: scared from the moment he saw Roman hit the asphalt at eight years old and there was so much blood outside his body and Mom wouldn’t stop cradling the body even when the EMTs were trying to help; scared from the moment he stood in the gas station bathroom miles and miles from what he’d thought had been his home and trying to tell himself that that was going to be the last time he chose to look at a future where he tossed himself into the jaws of death; scared from the moment when he was laying in Dee’s lap with a million lies stuffed in his throat and still was choosing to tell him the truth about this stupid ability of his that only ever ended with him alone and forgotten and not missed at all.

Remus has been scared out of his mind, scared in his mind, scared far beyond the way that he thinks that any other living person could understand. He’s been walking with one foot in the grave since he was eight years old and eleven minutes younger than Roman and people still-- since that was still-- since the first time it started mattering to him at all.

He’s been scared.

It’s still nothing compared to the horror that grips his heart in an icy fist as Dee throws himself mindlessly into a fight Remus can’t see the end of.

It’s stupid and Remus doesn’t quite know how it got to this point even though he had been listening so hard to what Dee was saying. Dee is smart. He’s brilliant. He’s the type of kid that grew up excelling in everything he touched and he liked touching everything. He does math in his head like the numbers work for him, he speaks French like his tongue had never known another language, he lies and steals and uses people without them ever knowing they were puppets in his show.

Dee is a genius among idiots.

And somehow Remus is still watching him pitch himself into a physical fight with The Prince despite how he spent the previous three days saying that physical fights weren’t his forte and that their best bet was to humiliate and discredit the man on stage instead.

The Prince is smart and fast and most likely expecting the attack, but even he doesn’t have a chance to dodge against the agility of Dee aided by a surplus of invisible animal speed traits. Dee is moving for less than a second and--

--his claws are morphing right there in front of Remus’s eyes, too slow to make out, too fast to miss and Remus is beyond time and space as he stands there feeling more stuck than he’s ever been before. Dee’s nails are sharp with hatred, with protectiveness, with a selfish defense that Remus had only ever seen in spurts before. The Prince’s throat is soft and fleshy and weak.

One hit would take him out, permanently. One hit could have him covered in his own red blood, one hit could remove him forever and Remus would be in love with a murderer.

Dee lunges for The Princes throat, but at the last second he dips down and aims for an upsweep of his claws, cutting clean through that sash, shallow, painful, but not deadly because Janus is not a murderer.--

--One hit would take him out, permanently. One hit could have him covered in his own red blood, one hit could remove him forever and Remus would be in love with a murderer.

--shallow, painful, but not deadly because Dee is not a murderer.--

--Dee is moving for less than a second, but The Prince is expecting an attack and raises his arm in a flash of green light, and rolls to the side. Dee’s fist misses his face by inches, but it’s enough for the superhero to stumble off the stage which is not right, which is not what Remus saw, not what is supposed to be happening.

His head is screaming so loudly he can’t piece together a single thought. His stomach lurches up his esophagus, leaving him choking on something that might or might nor be real while Dee fights up on that stage.

The police bodyguards nearest to the shapeshifter swing into action, with guns or tasers or whatever-- it doesn’t matter because Dee’s body turns to a golden jelly like substance and absorbs the bullets and negates the electrical charge with a near maniac grin.

((And god, is it alluring to see Dee go absolutely feral even when Remus thinks that his own body is trying to kill him. He’s always so posh, so sophisticated, so in control. This is the side of Dee that he hides under a pleasant smile, the part that matches the scales and the fangs and the claws, the part that is half animal and doesn’t care about empty words.))

The crowd screams, chaotic and messy and dangerous and it turns the atmosphere into a thick soup of confusion and desperation. Remus feels one of those stupid fucking signs crash into his shoulder blade as someone gets shoved or hit or slammed or run over-- Remus isn’t sure because his focus is only on Dee, only on The Prince, only on the absolute anarchy that is playing out on stage like a theater production.

Remus remembers suddenly that he’s never made it through the intermission of a theater show, never made it to the second act and never made it to see the lead actors take their bows. Remus always left early.

He can’t leave early now.

He doesn’t even want to, not really, not in any way that matters. Remus’s lungs are burning and his heart is slamming against his ribcage like it’s trying to break out and taste the world for itself. He grips the crowd control fence, so hard he’s not sure anything short of a nuclear bomb can get him off of it-- there’s a cold feeling stroking his spine, a voice in his head that tells him he needs to go and go now or he’s going to end up in one of those futures he promised his seventeen year old self that he’d never go through with.

He can’t move.

Call him a captive audience but Remus is on the edge of his seat, off his seat, one breath away from joining the actors on stage and ruining everything.

Dee lunges forward at the police line while The Prince crawls back up to his feet in a stupid daze, too slow, too dumb, too much like someone who couldn’t actually believe this was happening and too thick-headed to keep up with the actions.

Dee never told Remus that he was an acrobat, that he was as flexible as an Olympic Gymnast, that he could twist in the air and remove his own bones and make use of every breath between him and his enemy. Remus thinks of every time he’d counted the feet, inches, centimeters, between the two of them and for the first time he thinks that Dee might have been counting them too, thinking of every way in which he might be able to use that space as leverage to pin Remus up against the wall--

Dee said he wasn’t good at fighting. But Remus watches him grow claws that slice right through bullet proof armor and then flip in the turbulent air and drive his heel into the soft of someone’s neck. A bullet misses him by a hair’s breadth and Remus catches sight of his fangs dripping with blood or venom or something as he hisses at the unfortunate soul who shot at him, missed, and lost a bullet to the dissonant crowd.

The techie with the bright purple hair stumbles back to the van pressing his hands to his headphones and squeezing his eyes closed like he can make all the bad things go away if he pretends hard enough. Remus wants to laugh at him; can’t he see this is too real to be fake?

Someone barrels into the side of him, knocking Remus nearly through the crowd barrier. His head rings at the collision, sending sparks of stars shattering over his vision that he thinks match the pattern of tire treads on an eighteen wheeler that once ran him over.

Someone with another ability lets it loose and there’s an explosion from down the street, sending more people running towards the stage and the battle up there. The winds twist unnaturally, ripping the confetti papers into the air again and throwing them straight up into the air along with any loose accessories not pinned down.

A girl screams right in his ear, an arm jostles into her throat to make her stop and Remus isn’t entirely sure it’s not his arm. Her face is gone in the shifting crowd before Remus can even figure out what she looked like. People shove and jostle and move and tear apart so quickly that Remus can’t keep track of it.

There’s so much noise Remus can’t think. Gunshots, screams, the screech of metal and whirl of the wind-- it’s so much and Remus is so small against it. He feels the world moving around him, feels the time breathing through his skin, detaching him from reality and yanking him into something else, somewhere else, somewhen else. He’s not breathing, his heart isn’t beating, he’s not moving and his vision is flickering, flashing, fleeting: there and then it’s not and he can’t stop any of it. He can’t figure out what to do, what he needs to do, what’s supposed to be--

There’s a coin in Remus’s hand, pressed in his palm cutting into this numbed skin and he clings to it like a lifeline. There’s a Barney in his hand, the Barney from the night he met Dee, the Barney that means nothing to Dee and everything to Remus, the Barney that represents a decision Remus made when he caught it in the air three days ago.

Who gives a fuck about what’s suppposed to happen? Remus stopped Roman from dying thirteen years ago and the universe is going to have to live with it because Remus is not going to get Dee die, either.

He’s somewhere in the crowd, coming into his body, unsure when he left it, and there’s something thick in his throat he swallows away before he figures out what it tastes like. An arm is in his gut, a body slams into his shoulder. The force of the crowd is tearing him back from the fight, and Remus can’t go against it.

The sky is tinged with a low hanging cloud; something grey green and the screams are largest near it, the people shoving vigorously forward and away as it sweeps over--

Remus opens his mouth and it’s a mistake, a mistake, a mistake. It smells like vinegar, sharp and pungent and it fights its way down Remus’s throat when he breathes it in. His skin burns and itches and smolders where the smoke touches, where it seeps into his clothes, where it floods over his eyes. He screams as his lungs warp and twist in on themselves, tight, tight, tight and he can’t breathe through it.

He’s dying, he’s dying again, he’s dying and he doesn’t know what he did--

--them like a wispy wave. Remus feels it pass over him too, a force that he’s barely aware of for a second because it's so quick and then nothing happens at all. It's hard to see anything, hard to hear, hard to focus. The gas is everywhere and Remus can’t see where he’s going and if he stops whoever is behind him will run him over.

He shoves forward burying his mouth and nose in his sleeve, but it's not enough. His heart is exploding in his chest splattering across, bursting so hard it shatters his ribs but not enough to break his skin. He claws at his chest certain there’s blood there even though he can’t see it. He dead and dying and he can’t even gasp an apology to Dee he’s sorry Dee please he’s sorrysorrysorry--

--them like a wispy wave. Remus feels it pass over him too, a force that he’s barely aware of for a second because it's so quick and then nothing happens at all. It's hard to see anything, hard to hear, hard to focus. He’s trapped, caught in a gaseous net of tear gas that lives up to its name because he’s sobbing at the burn that he’s sure is the worst death to have survived. He doubles over, and he’s gone and done and dead because he can’t do it a third time.

He doesn’t have enough sense to brace himself before there’s someone else’s panicked foot on the small of his back. Remus curls on himself covering his head in the chaos to protect himself, but the agony over his body is shredding his insides like razor blades that could pass through anything.

He can’t breathe. He can’t think. His eyes flicker trying to catch an understanding of anything around him, but his tears make it hard to make out anything up close and the smoke obscures the world he knows is past that.

Someone is screaming something, but Remus can’t make out the words.

This is the exact thing Dee did not want to happen, he thinks as his body convulses, as a guy with horns trips over him and several more people without powers descend on him with signs and fists and whatever else they have. Remus’s tears are streaking down his face and he weakly raises an arm towards them like he can help anyone when his own body feels like it’s dying. This is the exact thing they were trying to avoid.

It doesn’t make sense, Remus curses as someone steps on his ankle and he feels the bone do something it probably shouldn’t and his throat cremates the air in his lungs. It doesn’t make sense. Dee is smart. He’s brilliant. He’s clever and witty and always seven steps ahead.

Dee was the one who said a fight would cause a riot in the crowd and it would make everything bad. A fight was the opposite of what they wanted. Dee had even said that if he couldn’t get The Prince to agree with him, he’d back off and find another way.

“It’s not so much for The Prince,” Dee had said. “It’s about getting the message to the people.”

And Remus is twenty one years old and can’t think of what Dee was expecting to happen when he launched across the stage like that when his own head just got kicked again and his lungs are a birthday candle away from engulfing him in flames.

What The Prince was saying was stupid, but it wasn’t something that Dee would have let get on his nerves. Dee was better than that-- Remus had seen him be better than that. Remus had said things that were more annoying, more irksome, more cutthroat than The Pitiful Prince could have thought to say. Dee had been shot half a million times in futures that didn’t happen and Remus had plucked him from the jaws of death every time.

Dee trusted Remus to keep him safe and informed. Even against The Prince.

Dee shouldn’t have been attacking at that point.

Someone kicks his stomach again, and Remus tastes the dregs of Dee’s latte wander back into his mouth with a burn that reminds him of his worst nights except this is worse than all that. He feels like he’s one open flame away from igniting which doesn’t make sense because fire needs oxygen and he’s not getting any. Something happened to Dee, something wasn’t right-- Dee wouldn’t have attacked unless The Prince did something to him.

Remus thinks that if he gets up he’s going to put The Prince in the ground, permanently. His earpiece sings with noises from the fight: Dee’s grunts, his huffs, his ha’s. Remus latches on to the sound of them, of Dee being alive, of Dee being completely in the moment rather than his usual twenty steps ahead of it. He’s not sure if the terror is from the shoe that slams into his spine at that moment, the ache of being unable to help, the fear that the teargas is going to kill him, or the idea that whatever The Prince did to Dee is still happening.

He tries to sit up, but someone jumps over him just poorly enough to kick him in the side of the head as they go. Remus feels the sting of wet concrete at 3 AM shock through his body again, stupidly. His brain screams something about windshields and rain and Remus tells it to shut up because Dee was in trouble and Remus had made him a promise to stick around all those lifetimes ago in that Casino where they’d met, on the balcony when he’d been stuck rather than gone, when he was laying in Dee’s lap in their hotel room saying all the words he’d never told anyone else ever before.

There’s wind. Remus blinks hard, choking on a sob that claws through his esophagus far more effectively than glass from a windshield ever did. There’s wind and it’s moving like a storm front, a physical force, direct, and purposefully. The wind is twisting through the crowd and catching the greenish tear gas in its invisible hands; Remus watches in delirious disbelief as it funnels upwards with the remains of confetti and signs, hats and papers, trash and abandoned items, upwards and out of his lungs, upwards and saving his life.

He breathes in a breath that feels like his ribs are going straight through his lungs, and desperately scrubs the memories of things that he swore weren’t going to happen from his mind. Another foot slams down inches from his face, and loose gravel sprays up into this face.

“HEY!” a voice yells. There are hands on him, Remus realizes in the next second, someone helping move him out from under the current of people that are in too much of a panic to help him. “HEY!--

-- “Are you okay?” the person says, and Remus has to squint to make him out against the tears in his eyes. At first glance Remus thinks he looks like someone important, someone familiar: a teacher he had once, a youth pastor from a church that his family only went to on holidays, someone in the community that all the other kids flocked too, except that they had to be the same age, so Remus’s marks that as his brain spewing nonsense again. He’s got glasses with smudges on the lenses, freckles that dance across his cheeks like a dot-to-dot for adults, and a smile that looks increasingly stupid compared to the background setting.

“You’re going to be okay, sir!” the man chirps right as another round of gunshots go off to their left as the armed guard fires one someone in the crowd and the winds shrivel up and die in response. “We’re going to be okay!”--

--“Are you okay?” the person says, and Remus has to squint to make him out as his eyes ache and burn and he can’t scrub them. At second glance Remus thinks he looks like someone inconsequential, someone familiar: a college student who came here to follow the rules and trust his government, a guy who is in over his head, a kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Remus hasn’t seen any sign of a power at all. He’s got a blue polo on speckled with dust, and bruises and scratches up his arms, a solid footprint on his abdomen that Remus doesn’t need two guesses to figure out where he got it from.

“You’re going to be okay, sir!” the man chirps, but Remus is busy spinning around just in time to see the armed guard fire at a civilian in the crowd and the winds overhead shrivel up and die because they lose whoever was telling them to move in the first place. “We’re going to be okay!”--

-- “Are you--OOP!” the person says as Remus throws himself up and bonelessly tackles that guard before he can fire his weapon. His throat is ragged and strangled and the noise that comes out of his is not even remotely human. His eyes are flashing with the futures he doesn’t want to see and he thinks for a moment if he stops moving he’ll forget which future is the present.

Dee should not have attacked. But he did, and every death that happens now is going to be pinned on him, on them, on anyone who isn’t the government and every plan Dee made will settle into ashes and fall through his fingertips.

Remus is twenty one and knows all too well that he can’t change the past. But he’s going to save the future, their future. His and Dee’s future.

The gun goes skidding across the ground and under the crowd barrier out of reach and out of touch and Remus’s head spins trying to orientate himself. Blood drips down his chin and spatters on the visor shield of the man under him, the would-be murderer, the all-to-willing homicidal maniac. Remus’s heart pounds in his throat, making its way to his mouth, until he’s not sure if he’s biting down on his tongue or the pulsating mass that keeps him alive and the tang of vinegar won’t leave him alone.

People stumble around the both of them, tripping over Remus’s legs, and someone stomps on his captive police guard's wrist so hard Remus feels it snap more than he hears it. The man lets out a yowl, as his eyes roll back and he gives in to the pain of it.

The guy who does not look familiar in any way that Remus cares about is just a step behind them, grabbing Remus’s armpit as if to pick him up, but his focus is on the person in the crowd controlling the winds. Confetti screws through the air, a sign slams into the face of someone who gets too close to them and the two kids crouching behind them. They’re making a barrier. It’s for protection. They saved everyone who hadn’t been able to to get away from the teargas.

((They’re beautiful, Remus thinks, almost deliriously. The power and control and the fierceness. It’s like watching dancing, like watching pure strength, like seeing a miracle in first person. Remus never thought about other people with powers before, never thought about powers being a good thing when his ruined his life, but now he’s staring at this stranger with burning eyes and one foot in the grave, this stranger who is half wind and all power, this stranger who makes him think he might understand why Dee is so passionate about mutants like them.))

Remus is twenty one years old when he sees out of the corner of his eye, the man in the blue polo’s face screws up in concentration as he throws an arm out at the person controlling the winds and pale white light flickers from his fingers right next to Remus’s face.

There’s a moment between Remus’s heartbeats where the sound disappears and Remus doesn’t need to breathe and time doesn’t pass at all. There’s a moment where Remus is frozen in place, half standing, half on the ground with his blood making him want to vomit. There’s a moment where he’s staring at the man right next to him and he thinks don’t you fucking dare--

But then the moment is over and Remus is watching the winds drop everything they’re carrying: the accessories, confetti, all of it that had been between them and the armed guard, falls to the ground and Remus watches the surrounding crowd descend on them like a pack of wild animals. His head rings with words that don’t make sense and he thinks that the smile the man gives him has a cold edge to it when he turns back to Remus like he’s expecting a thank you.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Remus jerks the man’s hand down, rasping where the words grate on his sandpaper throat and shoving him away. “What is wrong with you?”

He blinks and tilts his head at Remus like he’s not sure where the question is coming from, why Remus is asking, like he didn’t see what just happened right there at all. “Let’s get you somewhere safe, okay? I think you might have hit your head a little hard.” He says, “Wait… Do I know you fr--?”

Something soars overhead, and Remus rolls to the side and hunkers down as Dee’s draconic form sweeps over the crowd and nearly decapitates everyone still standing. Piercing screams echo in the crowd so loud Remus doesn’t hear whatever else the man says.

The man who helped him up, the man who looks like no one to remember, the man who just did something to that other person that made them not use their power, that man shoves both his hands into the air toward where--

--Dee is and Remus watches in horror as Dee’s fierce expression flips to a confused one. His glorious golden wings flap, once, twice, and then they vanish without a trace.

He’s been confused before, he’s been terrified before, he’s been scared. He’s seen Dee get shot, get run over, get hit until he bleeds. He’s seen Dee laugh at broken bones, seen him choke on his own body fluids, seen his eyes good dark and empty and lifeless. Remus has been scared, but that’s nothing compared to his feelings when he watches Dee drop like a stone through the air.

Remus knows what that fall feels like, he knows how his stomach swoops at the sudden empty air, how the air feels like daggers, how dreadterrorregret fills his lungs until he can’t even take that last breath. He doesn’t want Dee to know. Please, he can’t know, please Remus needs to stop this, fix it, please pleasepleaseplease--

--Dee is and Remus moves before he even knows what he’s doing. His blood is pumping so hard he thinks it's amazing that all his blood vessels don’t pop on him. He swings his elbow back with everything that he has in him, everything he can spare and then the stuff he can’t, because that was Dee and Remus would do anything for him. The man’s glasses shatter under Remus’s attack and he stumbles backwards several steps in shock. Remus follows him with a kick to his stomach that throws the stranger who can take away the only thing protecting Dee at the moment to the ground.

“DEE!” Remus shouts, glancing up because he has to make sure that he’s still in the air.

“You!” The man chokes on his own breath, looking up at Remus with something that might have been betrayal. “You’re with him!”

And then--

--from behind him something sticks into his back, barbed enough to go right into his jacket and pinches there touching his skin. Remus inhales just as he realizes what it could be and then there’s white hot electricity coursing through his flesh. Remus feels every joint he has lock up, feels pain wrack through his body and ricochet around his bones like the worst game of pingpong, feels the tortured scream carve out of his lungs as he falls forward and his skin bubbles and melts around the prongs of the taser that does not have a safety setting engaged.

He head hits the asphalt and his vision fades and Janus is screaming his name in the worst way possible--

--from behind him something sticks into his back, barbed enough to go right into his jacket and pinches, hooking on his skin, and Remus lunges away, but he’s not fast enough. There’s white hot electricity coursing through his flesh. Remus hears the crackling of violent arcs break through his skin, hears the way that his scream terrorizes the air far worse than that time he dropped a toaster into the bathtub with himself, hears the way that Dee screams his name and lands on the ground next to them.

He head hits the asphalt and his vision fades and Dee wrapping his arms around him in the last embrace he’s going to get--

--from behind him and Remus twists to the side before something sticks into his back, barbed enough to go right into his jacket and stick there. He wants to vomit, but he’s more focused on throwing his body forward and tackling the police officer who just killed him twice and will not get the satisfaction of doing it again. Remus snarls as the man tries to bat him away.

Remus might not have any intensive training, but he spent four years homeless, learning about the world from the streets of it. He spent more than his fair share of nights sleeping in alleys before he realized that he could use his power to find an empty hotel room for the night, a sucker that would give him money, an odd job that would get him off the street.

He’s been in fights. This is nothing compared to those fights.

He feels woozy, flighty: like his bones were replaced with helium and lead at the same time. He doesn’t dare let that stop him. He survived a 3 AM that never ended and he’ll survive this too. He didn’t need to see the future for that.

His knuckles hit the bullet proof padding, hard enough to send jolts through both of them. The officer swings an arm out, but Remus ducks under it and kicks his foot around the man’s ankle. There’s blood on his chin, screaming in his ears, the scent of burning flesh in his nose, and Remus grins as he shoves his palm into the officer’s face. Before the guy knows what is happening he’s on the ground again and Remus is slamming his heel into that visor so hard it shatters.

He thinks he might be laughing, wheezing, as the blood welds up over the man’s nose and his eyes roll back. Remus brings a shaking palm up to his mouth and smears away his blood as much as he can, because it feels like he’s choking on it again. His eyes are searing and he’s almost surprised he’s not bleeding from them too.

Dee uses a brick wall of a building as a launch board to throw himself back at The Prince in the middle of the blocked off area. He flips mid flight, and whips his tail out of nowhere to land a blow that Remus can’t see if it hits or not.

“Motherfuck--” Dee’s shouts through that earpiece Remus forgot he’d been wearing. He hisses, with a stinging edge that matches pitch to the ringing in Remus’s head. “Do you know what this suit cost, you ingrate!”

Remus can’t breathe and is breathing too fast at the same time. He spins around searching through the chaos for something, someone, he doesn’t know-- what does Dee need from him? What is he supposed to do here? The man in the blue polo is gone and Remus can’t find him which means that he can’t see, not that he can see regularly, not that people aren’t still running around, screaming, the water pipes in a building didn’t burst and the metal of a few lamp posts isn’t warping, there aren’t trampled bodies everywhere he looks.

“Dee,” Remus coughs, choking on ragged words. “Hold on a moment. Let me get somewhere…. where I can... fucking see. Fuck!”

“That would be lovely dear,” Dee says although it sounds like he just ate asphalt and didn’t really hear what Remus said. “The Prince is being disagreeable.”

“I can’t...imagine why,” Remus says. “Personally, I love getting my... throat torn out.”

“We’re going to have a lovely conversation about your masochism, darling,” Dee says, and spits out whatever else is in his mouth and then grunts and swears again. There’s the startling sound of metal on asphalt and Remus’s brain tries and fails to configure the scene playing out where they are.

“It might be a pain kink at this point,” Remus says as he dodges between unfamiliar and panicking strangers he can barely see. He’s afraid if he wipes the tears from his eyes he’ll get whatever of the gas that’s in his jacket in them again. He can’t let that happen, not now, not when Dee needs him, and he knows that he can’t stifle the panic if he does. He sends a kick to the back of another armed policeman in the middle of aiming a taser at someone else.

Dee growls something at The Prince. Distantly, Remus hears what sounds like someone or something slamming into a car, and he thinks he sees the roof of the news van jostle along with the new round of screaming.

“I would love to know all your kinks,” Dee manages after another second. “Fuck-- how is he doing this?”

Remus ducks out of the way of a blue post office mail box sailing through the air, missing him by inches, but taking out a police officer he hadn’t noticed before. He doesn’t get to see who threw it, but he thanks them, whoever they are.

He needs to be closer to the fight again, closer to that eye of the hurricane that’s blocked off with crowd controlling barriers, closer than he is now so that he can do something. He jumps over a body, nearly tripping on an abandoned purse. A large shadow sweeps the area again, and Remus catches sight of Dee in the air, with his arm at a terrible unnatural angle. Remus thinks he feels his blood catch in his body freezing all at once despite the rapid pace of his throat bound heart.

Dee doesn’t seem to see him at all, his gaze is stuck solely on where Remus assumes The Perfect Punchable Prince is. There’s a shattering sound of gunshots from somewhere that echoes off of the walls of the surrounding buildings, but Dee remains in the air alright and fine and holding his shattered arm carefully.

His expression is contorted into something awful, something bad enough that even from the ground Remus can make it out perfectly and hates the sight of it-- the amount of pain he must be in, the pain that he never should have felt, the pain that Remus would take on wholeheartedly without a hesitation if he had the ability to sap it away from Dee. But before he can say anything Dee’s arm warps, twists, snaps back into place, and Dee snarls as he rolls his neck and flexes his fingers again.

“Did you just heal yourself?” Remus asks breathlessly, almost certain that his itching eyes are playing a trick on him.

“Surely this came up in one of your futures before, darling,” Dee says without taking his gaze off his opponent.

Remus doesn’t say that in all of his futures Dee is too dead to show off, dead before Remus can get to him, dead before there’s even a hope for him to think about healing himself, dead, dead, dead. He doesn’t think it matters. There’s a feeling in his chest that blossoms and blooms and fills him like helium in a balloon threatening to take off with him. Dee’s wings flap powerfully to keep him in the air and Remus wonders how they would feel under his fingertips. Leathery, maybe? Somewhere between vinyl and bare skin maybe-- Remus doesn’t know enough about birds, bats, wings in general to know the answer.

“Serpent!” The Prince shouts from somewhere on the ground. Remus thinks for a moment he can see the man through the crowd, but it's too much of a blur. There’s smoke in the air now, a fire from a nearby building, and Remus feels it burn acridly in his throat, heavy flumes of it sweeping through the crowd and obscuring the ground around them. Remus can almost hear the sirens in the background.

“I hope you aren’t referring to me, Prince,” Dee says with a bit of a hiss.

“Don’t you see what your actions have caused?” The Prince yells and Remus thinks the sound of his voice is grating. His knuckles crave to jam themselves down the superhero’s throat and rip out his voice box, just to make sure he stops talking forever.

“Me?” Dee says. “You are the one who wanted a crowd and a ceremony and a fight. I shouldn’t be surprised. One can’t pretend to be a hero without making someone else the villain!”

“You started this fight, Wyvern,” The Prince shouts back. “Crashing onto the stage and then attempting to kill me.”

“If you’re going to call names like a child, use my actual name,” Dee says, “Basilisk.”

The name sends shivers down Remus’s spine, and he isn’t sure if it's the good kind or the bad kind. His blood is pumping so heavily he thinks it should have drowned out all the other noise.

Basilisk. Like the Casino where they had met. Like the mythical animal that could kill with a glance. Like a warning and a threat and a challenge. Remus swells with an emotion that’s so bright he’s not sure he can put a name to it, he just knows that he’s never felt it before: so proud, so happy, so thrilled. Dee chose his name and the rest of the world will know it.

((Part of Remus wonders how long he’s had it picked out, how long had he whispered it under his breath when Remus wasn’t there to hear it, how long Dee had thought about having his name up there in the lights outshining The Prince’s.))

“Basilisk,” The Prince snarls. “What type of person answers to the call of a monster’s name?!”

“The King of Serpents,” Dee shoots back. “The killer of foolish knights, and even stupider princes.”

“Now who’s name-calling like a child?!” The Prince yells.

It would have been comedic really, if it weren’t for the smoke and the screams and the gunfire. If it weren’t for Remus’s heart beating out of his chest and his mouth tasting like vinegarcopperasphalt and his ankle crying in a pain he can’t afford to actually think about. He thinks about leaving, about running away, about escaping alone but Dee’s life is on the line and Remus needs to make sure he makes it through this because he doesn’t know what he’ll do if Dee dies.

((That’s a lie. Remus does know what he’ll do if Dee dies because he’s seen it a million times before, in a million other places, with a million other feelings and still no one there to mourn whoever he was and whatever he could have been. Remus is twenty one and he knows that if Dee dies there will be no more reasons not to break that promise to his seventeen year old self. He knows, he knows, he knows.))

He’s closer to the fight now, back to where he had been before the riot chaos. Most of the crowd is gone, leaving smokey forms that Remus only semi recognizes from his nightmares. The crowd barriers have been shoved, there are bodies on the ground, the news van is jostled and the crew abandoned it in favor of maybe not ending up with their blood all over the place.

All of them except that techie in purple with the headphones and the face mask.

“Hey,” Remus says, slamming against the van next to him. The techie stares at him like he’s lost his mind-- and to be honest, that’s fair. He’s got more blood outside of him than inside, and he’s pretty sure the imprint of him is plastered on the side of the car now: a red silhouette to go with the station logo. His eyes are red rimmed, his smile twisted and pained, and it’s only his own inertia that was holding him up. “Don’t mind me.”

The guy is holding a phone peaking, around the corner of the van, dutifully filming Dee barely dodging getting shish kabobbed by The Prince’s rapier and he looks very much like he minds Remus’s presence within 10,000 feet of him, but is too terrified to move.

Remus doesn’t blame him; where would he go anyway? Into the disassembled crowd where the horror movie screams come with real blood and tear gas was just used on hoards of innocent people for no reason with no warning? Into the arena where The Prince and Dee were taking turns causing massive destruction to public property without a care in the world? Remus doesn’t blame him from hunkering down behind the cover of his news van and praying for this hell to end.

He is a bit curious as to who’s watching this video he’s taking, though.

Dee twists in the air dodging The Prince’s attacks on his wings, by a hair's breadth. Remus swears for a second that the silver shining rapier slices through Dee entirely, but Dee’s back in the air the next moment, fluttering back out of reach and catching his breath for both of them.

“You fight like a coward!” The Prince yells from the ground, swiping his sword in a motion that is illegal in Fencing. His red mask gleams like blood, but Remus can’t see a speck of it anywhere else on him, not even a scuff from where he fell off the stage moments ago.

((Was it moments? Remus’s head rings with the question. Was it moments? An hour? Days? Lifetimes? He died, Dee died, the strangers in the street died-- how long ago was it that none of that ever happened?))

Dee looks scratched and scarred to high hell by comparison: his suit is in tatters, slices through his left side and his right shoulder, tears in both sleeves where he gave up human hands for scaled claws and sharpened talons, and he was missing a pant leg at the knee, as well as both his shoes that he loved so dearly. Despite his apparent healing abilities blood was trailing from scratches not fully closed up around his elbow, his shoulder, one cheek.

The two of them had to have been fighting this whole time but Remus gets the sinking, sickening, drowning feeling that Dee hasn’t landed a single blow at all.

Which considering the bodies of unconscious police officers piled around them all like lifeless dolls, seems incredibly unreal. Remus saw Dee fight. There’s no way. It’s not possible.

“It’s not fighting like a coward to use your own advantages over your enemies,” Dee says, to The Prince. He steadies himself in the air, his wings and scales glowing gold. “Surely you’re familiar with that idea? You have all the marks of her other training.”

The Prince steadies his stance, shifting his weight around on the toes of his feet like he’s considering the pros and cons of launching himself into the air. Remus hopes he does it just to see Dee catch him by the throat and send him hurling back to the ground hard enough to create a crater he can’t dig his mortal bones out of.

“If you are trying to suggest something,” The Prince says, “your cryptic theatrics are getting in the way, villain.”

“You think you’re the first Hero she ever trained?” Dee asks. “Think your something special? Going to make all the difference in the world? She’s playing you like a fiddle!”

“You’re one to talk, Janus,” a voice says and Remus swears it comes from everywhere around him. His lungs seize so hard he chokes on the air, the shearing pain in his throat tearing at his vocal chords. The voice sounds like thunder, like a foghorn, like a car alarm at 3AM waking everyone who was previously enjoying their evening.

But Dee doesn’t shift like he heard it at all, and the The Prince doesn’t even look around. Remus’s heart hammers in his chest, stretching his skin, his muscles, his insides as far as they’ll go and the only thing he gets from it is the techie twisting glance at him with a semi raised eyebrow, before he turns back to the standoff in front of them.

Janus. Remus knows that name, doesn’t he? It’s on the tip of his tongue, the edges of his mind, the fog of futures he’s seen and hasn’t seen. He knows that name, he knows who that is, he knows--

--but he doesn’t have a chance to figure it out because Dee is lunging downwards at The Prince, so fast that Remus thinks if he had blinked he might have missed the movement entirely. One moment Dee is in the air, the next his heel is slamming into The Prince’s sword arm shoulder, and from the way that the superhero’s body crumples Remus can bet that his whole foot had shifted into something that was probably lethal.

The Prince hits the ground with a satisfying smack, letting Dee bounce off him and land another five feet away with a self satisfied, deeply relieved smirk. The Prince cradles his arm, his white outfit soaking with red, his face gnarled with painangerfear as Dee turns around methodically. The hero fruitlessly claws the ground for his rapier but Dee snaps his tail and knocks it out of reach.

“Give up, Prince,” Dee tells him. “Unlike you, I don’t want a fight. That shoulder needs medical attention and there are people other there that need you.”

“A hero never gives up!” The Prince says and Remus swears that he’s heard that voice before, that tone before, those words before in a way that’s beyond time. They ring in his head, hollow and cold and empty: ghosts made of memories that Remus hated and couldn’t get rid of and that taste like a brother whom Remus once killed.

“She is using you,” Dee says stepping forward until he’s towering over the hero. “Don’t you see that, my prince? You’re worth more than being her puppet.”

“She saved me when I was at my lowest,” The Prince spits back.

“She probably put you there, too,” Dee says, clinically. “Dragana Witchall is not your friend. She’s not a savoir. She’s not a good person, no matter what she’s told you. She doesn’t want what's best for anyone other than herself and the moment you realize that she will do everything in her power to silence you. I’ve seen it happen before.”

There’s a twisted look on The Prince’s face, and Remus’s heart thumps in his chest, near to bursting, his tongue tastes like blood, and his eyes burn with the need to close them and never open them again, but he doesn’t want to miss a second of this.

“She…”

Dee shakes his head. “Come with us, my Prince,” Dee says oh-so-softly, offering a hand to the Prince. “Shake off her lies and let us save the world before anyone gets hurt anymore. We can do it… together.”

The Prince stares at the hand and Remus, for all that he wants to punch the guy in his teeth, wants to rip out his vocal chords, wants to bury him alive, exhales giddily with Dee when the superhero takes Dee’s hand.--

--but he doesn’t have a chance to figure it out because Dee is lunging downwards at The Prince, so fast that Remus thinks if he hadn’t known it would happen he might have missed the movement entirely. One moment Dee is in the air, the next there’s a flicker of green light and Dee’s fist is--

What the fuck.

Remus hits the side of the news van, choking on blood that’s pouring from his nose and puddling in his throat where oxygen should be. His vision dances with static, buzzing in and out of focus, but he knows what’s going on: Dee’s fist came down on The Prince swinging with a velocity that might have killed a lesser man, but there was a flash of green, a slight side step, and suddenly Dee was on the ground grunting through the pain of a broken hand.

The Prince raises his rapier to Dee’s neck, millimeters from his skin, and Remus’s breathing shallows so sharply it gets clotted up with the blood as well. The Techie inches forward, his hands shaking as he tries to catch every moment of this nightmare.

“Surrender, villain,” He says. “You cannot continue to heal yourself at this rate.”

Remus feels the scream trapped in his lungs, crushing against his ribs until he’s certain it will shatter outwards. He doesn’t… this isn’t… He didn’t see this. Why didn’t he see this? Why did Dee attack with his fist? How did the Prince know to side step?

He can’t… It doesn’t make any sense. His palms tingle with the memories of futures that didn’t happen four years ago: shoving a body down the stairs, shattering a snowglobe against a temple, wrapping around a neck and squeezing for so long that his hand print follows Roman to the afterlife. Futures that didn’t happen based on a conversation that had but shouldn’t have.

Remus’s head pounds, shooting pain from right behind his eyes, that mixes in with the ache from the tear gas. What happened? Why did it… why didn’t it...

“She is using you,” Dee spits up at the hero. “Don’t you see that?”

“You are blinded by your hatred and jealousy--”

“Oh please,” Dee hisses out. “As if I would deign myself to a motivation so cliché.”

“Snake,” The Prince says, but whatever else is drowned out by a strangled yelp when Dee shoves his injured hand up and catches the blade of the sword with enough force to knock it away from his neck. There’s a clattering of scales against metal that Remus thinks he heard once in a movie about slaying a dragon and Dee hisses out in pain as he vaults away to put distance between the two of them again, getting rid of his wings in favor of sharper claws.

“Darling,” Dee says, and it takes Remus a moment to realize he’s the one being addressed. “Enjoying the show?”

“If you aren’t careful... MARVEL is going to be stealing rights for this action sequence from under us,” Remus says, bringing a hand up to clutch at his chest and wondering for a second if it would make sense to tear open his ribcage so that his lungs would have better access to oxygen.

“Disney is a greed based cooperation that’s next on my list to take down, right after the FBE,” Dee says.

The Prince inhales sharply, angrily, offendly. “You would destroy Disney, you monster? I was going to have mercy on you but that’s too far!”

Dee spreads a hand towards the streets around them. “There are people in trouble, possibly dying out there and the thing that makes you upset is Disney?”

The Prince, at least, looks uncomfortable about that.

“Re,” Dee says, “Lead me.”

The Prince steadies his blade, “I don’t know who you’re talking to but--”

--Remus doesn’t wait for him to finish. “Rush him while he’s talking, go low, and strong arm his legs from under him.”

Dee is moving almost before the words are out of Remus’s mouth and, god, does Remus never get tired of that. Of Dee trusting him, of Dee not hesitating, of Dee believing in Remus. Dee soars across the road, taking The Prince in a razor sharp slice: Dee’s left arm laid out and sweeping under The Prince’s sword to take out his feet.

The Prince slams forward and hits the ground so hard that Remus thinks his face imprints on the asphalt.

Dee picks up the rapier and lowers it at the hero’s neck just as he rolls over bleeding from every orifice on his face. “It’s over, my Prince. Give up.”--

--Remus doesn’t wait for him to finish. “Rush him while he’s talking, go low, and strong arm his legs from under him.”

Dee is moving almost before the words are out of Remus’s mouth and Remus is so caught up in the jubilee of being heard that he almost misses the flash of green that flickers around The Prince.

“WAIT--!” Remus yells, but The Prince is jumping in the air doing a perfect flip over Dee’s attack that he shouldn’t have ever seen coming and definitely shouldn’t have been able to dodge.

Dee lands with a roll that brings him back to his feet. “Re, what was that?”

“I don’t know,” Remus says, spitting blood from his mouth. “Shit.”

The techie swivels to look at him again, at the blood trailing down Remus’s chin, at the unsteadiness of Remus’s stance. If it weren’t for the headphones the guy would have been able to hear everything already, and Remus isn’t sure if he’d run away screaming, or drop into a dead faint. He wasn’t even thinking about what the guy’s recording was picking up.

That’s a problem for another day. Assuming they make it through this one.

Dee lunges backwards out of the way of The Prince’s next attack, avoiding it without Remus’s help, and part of Remus is grateful for that. He can’t tell which is the terror of Dee being in a fight with The Prince still or the panic of not being able to see what’s happening anymore but he knows he’s drowning in both in a way that’s unhelpful.

Dee rolls under--

--The Prince’s swipe, millimeters away from an unwanted haircut. Remus can hear the heavy huffing of his breath, of the ache of Dee’s bones, the shake in his limbs from exertion. He kicks a foot to force the hero back, but the reprieve is short. The Prince’s charismatic stupid smile is gone replaced with a determination that makes Remus’s teeth grind together.

The Prince lunges forward, blocking Dee from escaping with a motion that swings upwards and across and reminds Remus of how he drew 7’s before his kindergarten teacher verbally humiliated it out of him. Dee’s face snaps to the side glistening with a new cut that digs through his scales and leaves him hissing in pain.--

--The Prince’s swipe and Remus’s mouth is moving as fast as he can: “He’s leaving his right side wide open. If you duck you can get the back of his calf and decrease his range of motion.”

Dee makes a noise that Remus thinks is grateful, hopes is grateful, prays-to-gods-he-doesn’t-believe-in is grateful. Dee is slower than Remus would have wanted him to be, but when The Prince drags his rapier through the air, it sails over Dee’s head and Dee’s claws slice through his calf muscle as Dee slips away.

“Mother of Pearls!” The Prince shouts, stumbling. “How did you…?”

Dee heaves several breaths, flexing his claws dripping with patches of scarlet. “Finally.”

“Villain!” The Prince snarls.

“We’ve been over this, honey. It’s Basilisk,” Dee shows off his fangs. Remus thinks the relief is hysterical, a gulp of fresh air after he’s been underwater for so long.

The Prince snarls, something animalistic and Remus wishes he could show the whole world it: this is your Prince, this is your fake hero, this is the idiot in charge of everything and look how angry he is over a little cut. Remus has had worse than him and he’s never complained about it!

“ZEAL!” The Prince yells to the open air, “A hand, please!”

“Just one?” A voice responds from across the area, and Remus feels his blood go cold, his knees go weak, his mind go silent in a way it’s definitely not supposed to.

Remus doesn’t know how the man in the blue cardigan who looks like no one at all got all the way over there, but there he is crouching next to a fallen police guard checking for a pulse. He stands up at the call, looking vastly out of place in the scenery.

“Well, if my prince requests it!” He says with his voice drifting like a dream in the chaos. “I’ll give you both of them!”

“Dee, move. Move, NOW!” Remus yells just as the character raises their hands and white lights begin to flicker on the fingertips. They look like stars, like spheres of sunlight, like little harmless rays that probably would feel nice, but Remus can still hear the sound of Dee’s body hitting the ground in a future that he stopped, a future he prevented, a future he does not ever want to see happen again.

Dee throws himself into a back handspring and twists himself over the beams of light, and Remus can’t catch his breath anyway.

“Do I want to know what those did, dearest?” Dee puffs out.

“Bad,” Remus says.

“Delightful,” Dee says, taking another step back, except that he’s sandwiched between the Prince and that guy-- god the partner. Remus can’t believe they forgot about them, the mysterious person only alluded to, and never seen, except that now Remus is seeing him and can’t look away. Of course it would be someone who can take away powers. Of course it would.

Remus is going to vomit.

If Dee turns his back to the Prince he won’t see the sword, if he turns his back to the partner, he won’t see the angle of the rays; Remus has a sinking feeling in his… everything all of a sudden.

“I’m running out of patience, Dragon,” The Prince says.

“How hard is it to remember the term Basilisk?” Dee prods.

The Prince sets himself for another attack. “You’re trapped. There’s no way out. Come quietly and we can get you medical attention and discuss whatever it is that you deemed necessary to harm hundreds for.”

“Will that be before or after Dragana Witchall has my head removed from my body?” Dee asks.

“If you just talk to her--”

“Heh.”

Remus feels the inside of his ears pop from pressure he didn’t know he was experiencing. That voice-- coming from everywhere and nowhere and why doesn’t anyone else hear it?

“--most of my life actually,” Janus is… no that’s Dee. Remus knows that’s Dee talking. Who is Janus? The pain in his head is sharp, like a nail driving directly into his cranium, like brain surgery without putting him under, like dying but without the death part. He doesn’t know Janus.

Does he?

“She’s not who she says she is,” Dee finishes. “She’s--”

“I’m growing tired of your stubbornness,” The Prince says in an astounding moment of pure irony that twists Remus’s intestines into knots and loops them around his neck like a noose. “Surrender with dignity, snake.”

“We don’t want to hurt you,” the partner, Zeal, adds.

Dee doesn’t say anything to them. Remus focuses on the sound of his breaths, on the movement of his chest, on the phantom feel of Dee’s lips on his own from so long ago. Remus’s brain whispers about rain on a balcony, about fire in a mall, about gunshots in a casino, but he reaches past that, past everything, past the past itself.

His domain is the future.

“Are you at your limit?” Dee asks him. “I can do this by myself if I must.”

“What’s a limit?” Remus says. “How much blood is a human supposed to have again?”

“More than that, dumbass,” that voice says, and Remus blinks because Dee’s head tilts and he looks like he heard it too.

“Virgil,” Dee says in a tone Remus can’t describe. “Come to play?”

Remus is vaguely aware of the techie in purple shifting forward, leaning towards the fight, still shaking from every limb. For a moment, he thinks that maybe this mysterious voice is coming from him, but it’s too clear, too loud, too calm to be from someone wearing a face mask and shaking the way this guy is so far away from where Dee is having his standoff.

“You made a friend,” Virgil, whoever he is, from wherever he is, says.

“I got lonely,” Dee says. “And bored.”

“Bored enough to become public enemy number one?”

“Enough, Basilisk!” The Prince yells, “Give yourself up! You’re surrounded and you have all of this carnage to take responsibility for! Your partner may continue to hide in the shadows, but you can tell him we will find him and bring him to justice as well!”

“Or her! Or them!” Zeal tacks on. “Or xem-- we’re all inclusive here.”

“Right!” The Prince says, self righteously. He looks a lot like he does on TV and Remus’s fists itch to punch the screen all over again. “Surrender and end this.”

“You know what will happen if you do,” Virgil’s voice says.

“If the peanut gallery could please keep out of this,” Dee hisses. “That would be nice. I’m thinking.”

“Thinking just like you were when you leapt across that stage?” Remus asks. “Or actually thinking this time?”

Dee makes a face that’s vaguely affronted, a dusting of pink over his ears that Remus might have thought was from exertion if he didn’t know better.

“Do you want an apology?” He asks and Remus is only semi thinking about saying yes you motherfucker, when we get out of this I’m going to strangle you myself because somehow you don’t know what you mean to me at all and you just keep dying and cannot handle watching that again, how did I ever do it the first several billion times?

“I think an apology is a good start,” The Prince says.

“I was not talking to you,” Dee snaps.

“I’m giving you fifteen more seconds, snake,” The Prince says, anyway. “Put your hands up and get on the ground or I will put you on the ground myself.”--

-- Dee doesn’t answer, still mulling one of his brilliant plans, or maybe waiting for stage directions from Remus who still hates the theater and everything that comes with it. The hero shifts as the seconds tick, inaudible and yet unmissable. Then The Prince sighs in disappointment and levels his rapier.

“You leave me no choice,” he says. “Zeal.”

The man in the blue polo grins again at the call and flicks his hands towards Dee, with balls of white light dancing on his fingertips. Dee launches into the air with his wings flicking out, but the Prince is behind him in the next instant jumping and plunging his blade through the thin skin layers between the bones.

Dee lets out a scream as the blade tears down and out of the wing, like a knife through a sail, like scissors through fabric, like an earring being ripped out of an ear. He flings downwards and hits the ground again and before he can think of moving a soft beam of white light hits him.

Dee convulses, he yelps, he tries to get up, but the Prince’s boot is on his chest pinning him down again and Dee’s out of tricks.--

--Dee doesn’t answer, still mulling one of his brilliant plans, or maybe waiting for stage directions from Remus who still hates the theater and everything that comes with it.

“Zeal is going to shoot a beam, if you take the sky the Prince gets your wing.” Remus says.

Dee nods, and then without giving anyone any warning he launches towards Zeal, who doesn’t loose his stupid smile at all. He raises a hand like he’s going to high five Dee, and those white lights come out and suck away Dee’s transformation immediately. He lands on the ground at Zeal’s feet, with the asphalt tearing through his human flesh like it’s butter. --

--Dee doesn’t answer, still mulling one of his brilliant plans, or maybe waiting for stage directions from Remus who still hates the theater and thinks he hates it even more now. If he ever has to see another theater he’s going to set it on fire.

“Zeal is going to shoot a beam, if you take the sky the Prince gets your wing. Don’t fucking get near Zeal, dumbass.”

Dee nods and then without any sort of warning he lunges at The Prince, who parries him with his blade. The scales meet metal again and Dee hisses like he might spit venom, but the superhero grunts and forces him back with brute strength and not even Remus screaming give him enough time to prevent The Prince from shifting them around so that Zeal’s white beams of light hit Dee’s back.--

-- Dee doesn’t answer the hero.

“Can’t you turn into a beetle or something? Fly out of this,” Remus says. “Please.”

“That hopeless?” Dee asks him. “Okay.” And then he takes a deep breath and his form ripples and waves and pulls in on himself, like the reverse magic trick of pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

“ZEAL!” The Prince shouts, and the white lights are flying towards him, even as Dee turns into a beetle and takes to the air. Remus screams as Dee is hit, even in such a small form, even at such a far distance, even against those impossible odds.--

--Dee doesn’t answer and Remus feels like throwing up. They need to win this, they need to get out of this, they need to escape, but Dee can’t and Remus can’t make him and… and...

And there’s a glint of metal in the corner of his vision.

“You leave me no choice,” The Prince says, and Remus barely hears him because he’s staring at a glock of some police guard long lost and long forgotten and long waiting with the safety off already.

This is a bad idea. Remus knows this is a bad idea. Its a bad idea, bad idea, bad ide--

-- Dee doesn’t answer and Remus is twenty-one years old with nothing to lose if Dee dies.

“Take The Prince, he’ll parry, but you’re stronger.” Remus says lunging for the gun on the ground because he’s insane and courting Death as much as he’s courting Dee. He's never held a gun before. It feels bad in his hands, feels weird, and strange and not at all like what he thought it was going to feel like.

Dee nods and lunges towards The Prince and Remus points his new glock at Zeal. The trigger practically pulls itself. Isn't that crazy?

The kickback is a shockwave that flies through Remus’s arm making it numb and the sound explodes just like his heart does in his chest. The shot goes wide, but it’s close enough to Zeal that he lets out a scream and his little rays of white light sail over both Dee and the Prince. Remus slams back into the side of the van out of sight of the heroes while his body shakes and his face pulls into a grin for a reason he can't explain. The techie is on the ground, covering the muffs of his headphones to press them tighter to his head.

“PAT!” The Prince shouts.

“Was that you?” Dee asks. “What the fuck, Re!”

Remus shoves his hands over his nose, stifling the blood flow as much as he can, teargas be damned. His head is thrumping with pain, and Remus wants to scream. His vision is blotchy and patchy like the world’s worst video game. He can barely breathe between the metallic taste in his mouth and the liquid flowing out his nostrils . It’s like throwing himself at a brick wall and expecting a different outcome; he’s at his limit, that limit that Dee told him not to cross, that limit that he’ll gladly ignore if it means that Dee will get out of this safe and sound and--

And he can see a flicker of green light and Dee gasps right before The Prince manages to get under his distracted guard and haul him up in the air. Then there’s green light flickering, dancing, flashing and fading and Dee’s body hits the ground so hard it forms a crater around him and--

-- The Prince steps forward gracefully, gallantly. He walks like he’s standing on the air, filled with an energy that Remus thought only came from drinking five Five Hour Energies and besting Death at hand to hand combat even with that torn up leg. His rapier sways through the air pointing down at Dee’s body.

“Tell your partner to surrender,” the hero commands. “Now.”

“I didn’t... expect him to do it either!” Dee says and it’s funny, Remus almost thinks that Dee is mad at him. That can’t be right!

“Give up, Basilisk.” The Prince says again, “Before someone gets hurt.”

Dee spits a mouthful of blood on the hero’s shoes. “People are already hurt! You are leading them to be hurt more, Prince! The FBE won’t help anyone!”

The Prince hesitates, maybe even uses that rusty brain in his head. “I…You truly believe that? Why can't you just trust me at my word?”

“What is the worth of your word?” Dee shoots back, scales glittering on the side of his face. “Anyone can go back on their words!”

Remus clings to the side of the van with white knuckles, tasting blood on his tongue and in the back of his mouth and on his lips. The hero is thinking, he’s thinking, and Remus thinks that maybe he can cross the distance quick enough to tackle the hero away from Dee and he’ll have a chance to escape.

“That is true,” the hero says. “Perhaps a sign of trust is then in order, then.”

Remus freezes.

The Prince reaches up slowly, plucking at the mask.

He should look away. Remus can’t look away.

Because he knows…he knows that face. He recognizes it. He’s seen that face a hundred million times before. He knows those lips, those brown eyes, that crinkle between his eyebrows and those unruly curls. He knows those cheekbones, and that jawline and the way that head tilts back when he laughs, and curls forward when he cries. Remus knows that face because he’s seen it every time he’s looked in a mirror, he’s been haunted by it for years now, been terrorized in the nights by that face. He’d seen that face covered in blood, that face gasping for air, that face crying and begging and anything to get him to stop, that face staring at him with a hateful vengeful ugly expression and saying “You can’t see the fut--”--

Remus leaves a bloody handprint on the hood of the news van as he vaults it and the techie in purple. His lungs scream in agony, but Remus can’t hear it at all. His heartbeat is thunderous, yet even that is nothing compared to the bloodlust washing over his mind.

Dee’s head whips up, his mouth moving in some type of exclamation, but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters other than the rage in his head, in his body, in his veins that floods his limbs with the need to move.

The Prince hears him coming and his rapier comes up in an offensive attack, that Remus blocks with his left forearm. The blade sinks into his flesh and blood pours down Remus’s elbow and on the asphalt and the only thing he can think is that falling off the balcony, that getting run over on highways, that falling asleep in a motel bathtub with bloody keys in his hands, all hurt a hundred times worse than this itty, bitty little scratch.

He laughs.

"Hey Roman!" Remus says in a parody of a delighted tone, and The Prince stumbles back. "It’s been a while!"

[Chapter Eight]

#deja vu au #good god what happened here #Janus? Who's Janus?#the author asks thinking she's funny af #sanders sides #remus sanders #janus sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #We have the full cast now guys!#:)#I gave Remus a gun because its what he deserves #i'm so sorry #I hope you like that cliff hanger #I've been waiting to write it for a long time #god so much happened in this one

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misqato · 5 years ago

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birthday surprises with tsukishima, oikawa, kuroo and kageyama

Summary: a short hc + scenario of the boys surprising you on your birthday!!

Genre: fluff

A/N: so this fic is for my friend’s birthday, (she told me she didn’t have tumblr but am posting it anyway cuz why not). anyway, hope you guys like the fic!! requests are still open as of now btw :)) ‘til next time, claire❤

tsukishima kei

he’ll actually pretend to forget it’s your birthday.

you text him on the morning of your birthday to see if he remembers ;))

y/n : kei!! guess what day it is today :>

kei: idk, monday?

this bitch.

you were kinda disappointed cause it seemed like he forgot about your birthday + he was acting extra salty on you :((

you left him on read and just spent the rest of your day at home with your parents.

you would get calls and messages from your friends greeting you, but you still felt really sad because of how your boyfriend was acting.

your parents tried to cheer you up but it just didn’t help

you just really wanted to spend the day with kei :((

on the other hand, kei just wanted to surprise you.

he felt really bad about doing that to you, but it was part of the whole surprise.

so anyway, you were just lying down on your bed that time, and just as it was about to get late, you receive a message from kei.

kei: i’m here outside. open the door.

You head downstairs and open the front door to see a sweaty Kei standing there with two medium sized paper bags in his hands. You practically leaped at him and gave him the tightest hug while you inhale his scent because you really really missed him today.

“I missed you.”, you said, head still resting on his chest. “I missed you too idiot, and happy birthday.”, he says, smiling down on you.

You stay like that for a while until he finally says, “Um, can we come in? My hands are still a bit preoccupied over here.”

“Yes, of course. Come in.”, you say, helping him with the bags as you both make your way inside and sit by the dining area.

As you both settled down inside, he takes out the contents of the paper bags: both of you guys’ favorite strawberry shortcake, a new set of headphones, a dinosaur plushie, and one of his hoodies that you love to wear when you come over to his place. “I’m sorry for acting like that a while ago. I really didn’t forget it was your birthday today. I just wanted to surprise you today and-”

You cut him off with a kiss. He was in shock for a while but then he melted in not shortly afterwards. “Ssshhh, it’s fine, Kei. What matters is that you’re here with me now.”, you give him a soft smile. “Thank you for all of this, Kei. Thank you for being a part of my life. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Y/N. Happy birthday. You mean the whole world to me.” You both leaned in for a kiss.

Well, it was a happy birthday indeed.

oikawa tooru

this man will throw a whole ass surprise party for you

he’s got his whole volleyball team, your family and your friends to help him with the surprise

he really wants to celebrate your birthday in the most special way so he’ll really go all out for you

he doesn’t drop any hint of it whatsoever and makes sure no one spoils the surprise

you think it’s just going to be another one of your normal birthdays where it’s usually just the two of you

so like he picks you up at your place when you’re all dressed up and ready thinking he’ll only take you out to dinner with just the two of you

of course he’ll shower you with kisses and compliments telling you how beautiful you are

and just as you both got inside his car to drive to the venue, he brings out a blindfold and tells you to wear it for a while

so then of course you’re like ???

what is this man up to?

but then he tells you “c’mon princess it’s only for a little while. just trust me”

you sigh and put on the blindfold

“you’re lucky i love you”, you jokingly tell him

The drive didn’t take that long, but for you it felt like forever. “Are we there yet?”, you ask your boyfriend countless of times already. In which he’ll reply, “We’re almost there, princess. Hang on.”, while rubbing your thigh reassuringly.

After parking the car, he finally announces, “We’re here, but don’t take your blindfold off yet, alright?”

You whined, starting to get impatient.

“Now, now, it’s only gonna be just for a little while now, princess.”, your boyfriend says.

“You said that for like, 10 times already.”, you protest, rolling your eyes under the blindfold, which made him chuckle.

“Now we’re gonna have to get out of the car. I’ll come around your side and help you out okay?”, he says.

“Alright.”

He hops out of the car and he made his way to the passenger seat to help you step out of the vehicle. You both walked towards the building with your purse clutched in one hand and the other being held by your boyfriend guiding you as you walk.

As you both made the venue, you both made a halt. Your boyfriend finally says, “You can take off your blindfold now.” And as you take off your blindfold you see your family and friends altogether greeting you with a very loud and warm “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!”

There was confetti flying around the place and cameras all pointed at you as you stood there in pure shock. You really hadn’t expected this to be happening.

Your boyfriend then makes his way toward you and hands over a huge bouquet of your favorite flowers. You then give him the biggest hug and smother him with kisses all over his face, with the guests clapping and saying their “aww’s” all over the place.

“You really did this for me?”, you ask him.

“Well yeah, but, I don’t really want to take all the credit since our friends and family members helped out too.”, he sheepishly smiles.

“You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. I love you so much.”, you say as you kiss him on the lips once again.

“I love you too, princess. Happy birthday.”

You both spent the whole rest of the night partying. It was the most memorable birthday you’ve ever had.

kuroo tetsurou

this man will spoil you rotten

i mean he already spoils you enough on a normal day, but he’ll literally give you ANYTHING you want on your special day. i repeat, ANYTHING

he’s been saving all year for your birthday, just so he could give you all the nice things you’ve been wanting all year

christmas is another story, though (which we’ll be saving for another time😉)

the first thing you see when you wake up is a very excited kuroo sitting down on the floor right next to your bed

it’s 9am and you were still a bit confused and disoriented so when you see him you’re just like “???”

when he sees you’re awake he’ll go “happy birthday, kitten” with a soft smile that makes you melt like AKHKADHSH

and he even made you breakfast!! in bed!!

kuroo is actually a really great cook

so he just watches you as you chow down your food and he finds you so adorable when you’re eating it just makes him go uwu

when you finish your food, he’ll offer to clean up and wash the dishes so you could dress up and get ready.

and so after you get ready you both make your way to the mall

It was already around 3pm, and you still haven’t decided on what you really wanted for your birthday.

You’ve been to plenty and plenty of various shops and yet you still haven’t made up your mind. You only wanted to buy one gift so your boyfriend wouldn’t have to pay for much even if he’s insisting that he’ll pay for everything.

And so both of you went through the last of the shops that you haven’t been to yet. You both decided to go to the jewelry shop, in which you found lots of sparkling diamond and gold bracelets, rings and other types of jewelry. But one that really caught your eye was this gold necklace with a small diamond heart pendant attached to it.

He noticed you staring at it and asked the saleslady, “How much is it?”.

“Around 50,000 yen.”, the saleslady replied.

He figured he could just use his credit card. “Do you want to buy that one, baby?”, he asks. And as much as you really wanted it, you didn’t want your boyfriend to spend that much money on just a small birthday gift, so you said, “No, it’s fine. I mean, it looks pretty, but it’s too expensive.”

“C’mon kitten, I haven’t gave you a gift yet, and I told you it would be alright with me if the price is a bit expensive. I really want to give you something special on your birthday, and I want you to be happy, of course.”

“Being with you today is enough for me, babe. You’re the most special gift I ever had.”, you reach up and kissed him on the nose.

“Alright, kitten. If you say so.”, he gives you a soft smile and you both walk out the store.

Later that evening...

Just as both of you were about to head home, Kuroo says he needs to rush to the bathroom for a bit and tells you to stay where you are.

It took him quite a while and then you see him jogging back to where you were supposed to meet.

“Gosh, are you okay?”, you ask a sweaty Kuroo that’s heavily panting.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s go home now.”, he says. Wrapping an arm around your waist as you both exit the mall and walk to the train station.

You were getting quite suspicious of your boyfriend, but you just let it slide.

Both of you then arrive at the doorstep of your place. “Goodnight, Tetsu. Thank you so much for today. I had a really great time.”, you say as you place a kiss on his cheek.

“Wait, I have something for you.” he says, pulling out a tiny grey box with a silver ribbon tied to it and hands it to you. “Open it.”, he says with a large grin plastered on his face.

You take the small box and untie the ribbon. When you open it, you see the same gold necklace with the diamond heart pendant on it like the one you were eyeing at the mall earlier that day. Your eyes widened at the necklace and you were utterly speechless.

You looked up to your boyfriend looking at you with a large smile on his face and said, “Want me to help you put it on?”.

“Yes, please.”, you say, turning around so that your boyfriend could have easier access to secure the necklace around your neck.

“All done,” he says once he’s finished. “Wow, it look great on you, babe.”, he praises you.

You then grabbed him and gave him a big warm hug. “I told you, you really didn’t have to buy me this. It’s way too expensive.”, you say, head still buried in his chest.

“Well, I really wanted you to be happy, babe. Didn’t you like it?”, he replies.

“I love it, babe. Thank you so much.”

“Anytime, kitten. Happy birthday.”, he says, peppering you face with tons of kisses.

kageyama tobio

he’ll get so stressed out on planning a surprise birthday for you ceflvnvbf

so he asks tanaka and noya for some advice which is probably not the best idea

they suggest throwing you a huge surprise party with them dressing up as mascots

istg poor boy almost went with that idea-

but thank gOd sugamama overheard the conversation and came to the rescue!!

so he suggests to take you to this drive-in theater just 10 minutes away

kags liked that idea so he takes sugamama’s advice (stan sugamama😔✊)

on day of your birthday, he takes you to the park first

it was pretty chill. y’all just eating ice cream on the bench while watching little kids play

inside, he’s really nervous about whether you’ll like his mini surprise or not

so during the afternoon he says that he’s going to take you somewhere (but ofc he doesn’t say where exactly)

but you just trust him and let him drive because he’s your boyfriend anyway, not a serial killer

he stopped by the convenience store for a while and told you to wait in the car

he went out with some chips, ready-made popcorn, some soda and his carton of milk (ya boi needs his milk) and you were starting to get an idea of where he’s taking you

so y’all are on your way there and when you saw the tall sign thingy that says what movie they’re showing (idk what they’re called FDEFBEB) you start getting so excited because you’ve never been to a drive-in theater before and you really wanted to go to one with your boyfriend

“We’re here.”, your boyfriend says, glancing at you with a smile on his face as he sees the amount of excitement on your face.

“Omg Tobio I can’t believe that you thought of taking me here.”, you say, reaching over to his side to pull him into a hug. “Oi, boke, let me part first before we cuddle.”, he says, looking for a good place in the front near the screen so that you get a good view.

“Alright, hihi.”

The movie that was showing was one of your favorite old school romance movies. You were sitting at the hood of the car with a blanket laid down under the two of you. You were lying in his arms while watching the movie and you honestly couldn’t think of anything more romantic than this.

You knew what was gonna happen next, so you stare up at your boyfriend and admire his features while he focuses on the movie (he apparently hasn’t watched it yet :<). He then notices you staring at him and gives you a smirk. “What’re you staring at, boke?”, he asks. “Nothing, just looking at how my boyfriend looks so great under the moonlight.”, you say, giving him a smile.

“Thank you for taking me here, babe. I really appreciate the effort.”, you tell him. “Of course, babe. Anything to make you happy.”, he says. “Although I gotta thank Suga-san for suggesting this place to me.”, he adds.

Just as the movie showed the two main characters pulled into a kissing scene, both of you sheepishly look down.

“Do you, um, want to-?”

You cut your boyfriend off by pulling him into a kiss on the lips. The kiss was very soft and tender. When the two of you pulled away from the kiss, he says, “Happy birthday, boke. I love you so much.”

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thestarsarealigning · 4 years ago

Text

Love Acts the signs would totally do

Aries: run through an airport to declare their love, jump on a bar to declare their love, crash a family party to declare their love. Just any occasion because it comes from Aries' GIGANTIC heart and they just need to let it sing

Taurus: prepare a bubble bath before the other one gets home. Surprise them with it and then get in it together, drink something sparkly and enjoy each other's company. Man, Tauruses are the BEST.

Gemini: prepare a picnic basket and go behind a stadium to listen to a GREAT concert together. Also, on this very evening Gemini will swallow their snarky comments about how this is all so cheesy and just be happy that their partner has rose petals in their hair and find it cute

Cancer: Write their partner a love song and play it on an improv stage in front of all of their friends, while their partner just burst into tears because Cancer gives you FEELS

Leo: Shout it from the rooftops that THEY ARE IN LOVE and not caring who can hear it, just cause their head is bursting and they want to tell the world

Virgo: prepare their partner a really fancy dinner, all home-cooked and absolutely DELICIOUS, ask them to dress up and help them getting ready, then revealing it will be all personal, on their private balcony, and it's just the coziest thing cause they have it just for themselves

Libra: they HATE musical numbers with all their heart, but for their partner they will organize the biggest freaking flashmob ever, dancing in the middle and throwing confetti just so that they might see how special they are to Libra

Scorpio: when their love has lost an earring, Scorpio will just drop everything and take their car and ride through the whole city AT NIGHT to search for it, and when they can't find it, Scorpio will spontaneously suggest a little walk up a hill, where they can watch the sunrise and feel like everything isn't so bad after all.

Sagittarius: book a surprise trip and don't tell them where you're going til you're AT THE AIRPORT. And then when their partner's afraid it's gonna be adventure camping or sumn, Sag surprises them again in that it's just a wonderful Spa Relax Retreat because it's not for themselves, but for their partner

Capricorn: Puzzle with their partner even though they find it very nerdy because the partner LOVES it, they sit on this puzzle for evenings and Capricorn is just so patient and once it's done, it reads 'I love you' in the bottom of the puzzle

Aquarius: write a poem or poetry slam to read out at a friend's wedding, it's REALLY funny but only Aqua's partner can read the romantic subtext cause it's written in many inside joke references

Pisces: these actual FREAKING cinnamon rolls will get a real balloon ride for you and then just apologize the first 15min that it's so loud, and then calm down when they just see their partners wide smile

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fishingforyolos · 5 years ago

Text

That Awkward Moment When...

What if Dean got Castiel back from the Empty, and DIDN’T confess his love right away? What if instead, Dean and Cas just...didn’t know how to bring it up to one another, and forced Sam to endure the most intense third-wheel moment that he’s ever experienced, while these two emotionally constipated dumbasses sat in awkward silence?

This is here to answer that question.

________________________________________

Ahem.

It was the fourth time within two minutes that Dean had cleared his throat, and pretended to look out the window.

Sam was counting, now, in a desperate bid to distract from the incredible, palpable awkward silence emanating from the front seat of the car.

He had given Cas the front as a KIND gesture. He was being nice! It was only FAIR that the guy who had just escaped from super mega turbohell got to have a free pass at riding shotgun.

Or, so he thought. When he sidled into the backseat an hour ago, he did not anticipate the absolutely lethal levels of weird that Cas and Dean would be radiating—all pretending not to look at each other, conspicuous rubbing of the back of their necks, and god DAMN it Dean was fake-looking out the window AGAIN! There was nothing out there but corn, Dean!! Corn for miles!!!

Sam sat back and groaned. This was one of the most intolerable hours that he had ever witnessed in this godforsaken car, and that was saying something.

He allowed himself to drift off into his thoughts, letting his analytical side take over. Whatever it was, it probably happened in the bunker, right before Cas was taken by the Empty. Dean had been very...vague, about that situation, which only made Sam all the more curious. What could they have SAID to each other? Sam was no stranger to having a tense relationship with Castiel, but...if they were mad at each other, they’d be doing that stupid stony-faced silent treatment. But no, they both seemed too full of nervous energy. Cas was currently rifling through the glovebox, of all goddamn things, and Dean was toggling the blinker back and forth on a two-lane highway.

Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.

“Are these...salted?” asked Castiel, holding up a box of bullets as if they were a sale item at Costco.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” said Dean taking a quick glance, “We bought those for the uh...for the ghosts.”

“I see,” said Castiel, nodding for just a bit too long.

Click, click. Click, click. Click, click.

Sam scrubbed his face with his hands. He had been to hell before, but listening to bad small talk was its own special kind of hell. What happened in that bunker room that would make them behave like-

Like-

Sam’s mouth fell open.

Like the awkward morning after.

“Oh, my God,” Sam blurted, before he could stop himself, “Did-did you two have a one-night stand?”

Castiel dropped the box of bullets.

Dean choked on nothing.

“Sam, what the HELL?!” he coughed.

“Well, SORRY,” Sam said, in a way that he hoped conveyed how NOT sorry he was, “But you guys are acting, uhhh, really weird, and I thought maybe, I dunno-”

He shrugged, and held his hands up in defense against Dean’s murderous glare, “I thought maybe you hooked up! Y’know, last night on earth style!”

“Wha-no. No, no, no,” Dean said again, gesturing forcefully with one hand before pointing directly at Sam, “That’s-that’s not what happened in there.”

“Indeed,” Castiel murmured lowly, throwing a glance to the backseat, “I can assure you, it was worse.”

Dean nearly swerved off the road.

Sam’s jaw fell open again, eyes flicking from Dean to Cas. “W-WORSE?!”

“Oh my FUCKING god,” Dean whispered into the steering wheel.

“What I mean is, it was more...personally humiliating. To me,” Castiel clarified.

Sam blinked several times, trying to process this new bit of information.

“But I thought...you said, that the Empty's deal was about you experiencing happiness,” Sam said, shifting back into analytical mode, “Does it make an...exception, for humiliation?”

He sat back and grimaced, as he weighed the horrible possibility in his mind. “Is it into that??”

“W-well,” stuttered Castiel, his gravelly voice betraying his discomfort, “Regardless of the...preferences, sexual or otherwise, of the Empty-”

Dean suddenly slammed the steering wheel with his palm.

“Can you two PLEASE, shut up?!” he roared, “And let me fucking DRIVE in PEACE?!”

Sam and Cas fell silent, the atmosphere of the Impala even more tense than before.

Sam put his head in his hands. God, he should have just kept his mouth shut. Or maybe, he should have just taken shotgun in the first place, and stuck Cas in the back. Would've saved everyone all this trouble, maybe.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” Castiel said, finally breaking the silence.

Sam pursed his lips in annoyance. He could already tell, simply by the look on Cas’ face, that this was going to be another heart-to-heart where they completely forgot he existed.

Dean, meanwhile, didn’t react.

“I…” Castiel sighed, “I don’t...mean to make things awkward, it’s just that I didn’t-I never expected to SEE you again.”

“Really, Cas?” Dean exploded, “Really? After all we’ve been through, after all the times we’ve dragged each other out of the clutches of-of Hell, Heaven, you name it, you didn’t-you didn’t even consider the POSSIBILITY that we’d get you out?”

“Of course I considered it,” Castiel said quietly, “It was my most desperate desire."

He sat back, and turned to direct his gaze out the window.

“But there is a sort of...freedom, in confessing directly before death,” Castiel said, speaking a fog onto the window with each word, “All the vulnerability...none of the consequences.”

Sam’s eyes flew wide open as it all finally clicked.

No way. No way. NO WAY.

He shot up straight, incredulity plastered across his face that the other two were too preoccupied to notice.

DId Castiel...confess his feelings in that bunker? Make a move? Shoot his shot? And then DIE?!

What the fuck, Cas?

Sam sat back, reeling, running his fingers through his hair as Dean and Cas continued to stare out separate windows. He quite literally didn’t think he would LIVE to see the day that they acknowledged their...thing, and now they were doing it right in front of his eyes.

“I...I meant what I said, Dean,” Castiel said, fixing Dean’s profile with a longing stare, “Every single word. And I still do.”

Sam turned back toward Dean, hunched defensively over the wheel of the Impala. He still wouldn’t look at Cas.

Please, Sam prayed silently, Don’t fuck this up.

“But, I’m acutely aware that it made things different between us,” Castiel sighed, “And I’m sorry for that. I can’t take it back. However-”

“I love you.”

If he wasn’t literally watching Dean’s mouth move as he said it, Sam wouldn’t have believed his ears. Holy shit.

He whipped his head back to Castiel, who was stopped in his tracks like a deer in headlights.

Even the rain, beating against the windshield at 70 miles an hour, didn’t dare interrupt the moment at hand.

Dean was still staring out at the road, hands gripping the wheel like he was clinging to sanity itself.

“You didn’t let me say it back,” Dean said through gritted teeth, “In the bunker, you just-you dropped that on me, and then you were GONE, and you didn’t even let me say it back.”

Sam’s mouth was agape once again, eyes flicking back and forth between his brother and the equally speechless angel. The air between them was charged, and ready for a lightning strike.

“W-when you say that,” Castiel said, after a solid ten seconds of trying to find his voice, “Do you-do you mean it-”

Dean DID swerve off the road this time, sending Sam sprawling across the backseat as he skidded to a stop on the shoulder.

“Ow! Dean, what the-”

“Yeah, Castiel,” Dean said, finally taking his eyes off the road to fix him with a wild look, “I mean it. Same way you did. When you said that-that the one thing you wanted, you couldn’t have, it-it didn’t make any sense, because I always thought that I was the one wanting what I couldn’t-who I couldn't-”

He sniffled.

“Fuck, I didn’t want to do this in the CAR,” Dean said, wiping his eyes, “Not in front of Sammy.”

“Honestly? I prefer this over the past miserable hour,” Sam said, leaning back, “Do what you gotta do, man. Just...pretend I’m not here.”

Dean actually chuckled at that, but turned his attention back to Cas, who was still blinking in shock.

“Cas, you...you gotta understand,” Dean said carefully, reaching across the seat and cupping Cas’ cheek in a hand, “Come hell or high water, you have me.”

He swallowed hard. “You don’t have to...to want, I-I’m yours, a-already in the bag. Got it?”

Tears tracked down Castiel’s face as he nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to stop a wide, tearful smile from spreading across his face.

Dean visibly softened, and brought Castiel’s face in, kissing him right on the mouth.

Sam hoped he wouldn't come to regret the "do what you gotta do" comment, but they broke apart just a moment later to touch foreheads like a couple of saps.

“...Yaaay, congratulations!” Sam said, waving celebratory arms in the air as widely as he could in the cramped backseat. He searched around him and found some crumpled receipts, which he tossed into the front seat. “Whoo! Confetti!”

“Sam…” Dean said, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“I appreciate your jubilation, Sam,” Castiel said, dead seriously, looking back at him with just his eyes, “Your approval means a lot to me.”

"Hey,” Sam said, clapping Castiel on the shoulder, “This changes nothing. You're still like a brother to me, man. You’re still family."

Cas smiled at him. “Thank you, Sam.”

“Aww, look at that smile, Sammy,” Dean said, tapping Cas on the cheek, “Look at it! How could anybody resist that smile?”

“I dunno, Dean, it’s pretty easy when you’re not in love with him,” Sam smiled.

“Welp,” shrugged Dean casually, as he shifted the car back into drive, “Guess I wouldn’t know, then.”

Sam was taken aback by the...ease, with which all that just rolled off of Dean’s tongue.

“God,” Sam groaned, “You’re going to be an INSUFFERABLE couple.”

Dean just laughed, light and loud, as he merged back onto the highway, offering out his right hand.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Castiel said, taking the offered hand with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, "But as you can see, I cannot resist his charm."

Sam rolled his eyes at that, but he couldn’t keep the grin off his face. It was insufferable, yes, and Sam was going to have to have a LONG talk with Dean later, but...for now, he just laughed, as the tension bled out of the car, and Dean FINALLY turned on the stereo, letting the soothing sound of Led Zeppelin carry them into a lighter mood.

Sam took a deep breath, and let it out slow. Maybe sometimes, good things do happen.

#supernatural #destiel #15x19 compliant #i havent been invested in SPN since about 2013 but i dug deep into my recollections to summon these guys' voices one more time #i didnt put this on a main blog bc i didnt want people to expect SPN from me #i just had this mental image in my head of sam having to endure this moment #and i laughed so hard that i had to see it through #godspeed spn people and good luck on thursday #honk honk honk thats my clown nose when i started writing this 'as a joke'

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pimpedoutgreenears · 4 years ago

Note

shuya/hirono for otp questions? :D

Sorry this took a minute, but I love the ask!

1. Are they more "cute forehead kisses" or "hot making out" kind of couple? Maybe one prefers first option and the other one the second? How do they deal, in that case?

Shuya likes to give her cute little forehead kisses but of course Hirono is too cool for that kind of thing, at least in front of anyone. Like if he kisses her like that in front of either of their friend groups she acts disgusted and is like, "If you're gonna kiss me, do it right" and then she starts making out with him hard core. Shuya is always surprised by that but also always enjoys it.

But sometimes when they're alone he'll kiss her forehead and instead of starting a makeout session, she'll just scoff like she's annoyed, but then lean against him and kiss him along the jawline. Shuya always loves it and wishes she'd do it more.

2. If they wanted to shower their significant other with affection, how would they do that? Dinner in some fancy restaurant, gift, kisses and cuddles or an evening together on a couch with hot tea and very intimate talk?

If Shuya's looking to shower her in affection, you know he's going to write her a cheesy ass song. And she's going to listen to it and laugh her ass off. A part of her likes when he does this in front of other people (girls) because then she can flaunt that he's with her. But if he does it in front of Mitsuko, she hates it because Mitsuko always makes snide comments about him (Yoshimi thinks it's super cute though and wishes Yoji did stuff like that for her).

Hirono would definitely do it physically. Like, she feels like that's what's she's good at so that's what she goes with. But she also shows affection by taking him places that she thinks he'll like, like illegal rock shows and other sketchy places. She loves exposing him to knew stuff and loves the crazy adventures she takes him on.

3. Are they comfortable with showing each other affection in public? If one is and the other one not, how do they interact in public?

They're both comfortable with it! Like, it's a little different because Shuya's more comfortable with romantic affection whereas Hirono's more for physical affection but they strike a decent balance.

4. Do they have pet names? Do they like to embarrass each other in front of their friends/family/coworkers with some silly ones? Or do they keep it with basics, like "swertheart" or "honey"?

Hirono definitely calls him sweetheart in a sarcastic/condescending way when she's mad at him. She also calls him stuff like 'sexy', 'hot stuff', and 'guitar boy' normally. And she's not above calling him something that will embarrass him.

Shuya uses them in a more loving way, but he's pretty basic. Although I could see him coming up with something to call her for a song that's unique and then always using that, but I'm not sure what it would be. He doesn't usually try to embarrass her with them, but there are times where he would if they're fighting. He loves her, but sometimes he's gotta match her energy to earn her respect.

5. If one of them was away for longer time, like a week, how their significant other would greet them back?

Look man, Hirono missed her boytoy and she wants to makeout. But, also, maybe, under the surface, she also wants to just cuddle and talk. But she's gotta go through the motions first, okay?

Shuya also likes some kiss action, but he also wants to talk her ear off about whatever happened. So maybe they just talk in between making out?

6. How often do they say "I love you" to one another? On daily basics, leaving to work, with a kiss on a cheek and quick "love u, bye!" or it's more rare and more emotional?

Look, Hirono will admit she's in love when she's dead, okay? Love isn't real and people who believe in it is are stupid. Isn't it enough that she hangs around? Meanwhile, Shuya's throwing 'em out like confetti (by comparison, he's actually pretty normal about it). And when she doesn't say it back he just smiles and says stuff like, "Careful, or one day you'll slip up and say it back." And she flips him off, but he takes that as an I love you anyway.

7. Do they keep track of each other during the day? Asking how is that important meeting going and texting "I <3 u"? Or they just text each other grocery list and talk when they are both home?

They're both better with talking in person. Shuya loses his phone or forgets about it when he gets involved with other things all the time. So even though he tries to be a good boyfriend with his texting, it's pretty all over the place.

But that's okay because Hirono ignores it when she's doing something fun. So neither of them are super easy to get a hold of. Although sometimes Hirono's bitter when she ignores her phone all day and Shuya hasn't texted her. Like, how is she supposed to tease him about how much he missed her if he didn't text? And she's NOT saying she missed him!

8. How long into their relationship they are, when they say "I love you" for the first time? Who says that first? In what situation?

Shuya says it first, no question. It does take him a little bit but probably within a couple of months. It probably happens after they're doing something they shouldn't be doing and almost get caught, like they're at some underground rock show and cops show up and Hirono leads them out and they run. And once they're safe Shuya looks at her and tells her he loves her. Hirono freaks out about that though, because what the fuck, they're just having fun? Why did he have to go and make it a serious thing? Love isn't real and he needs to not try and pull that shit on her. Like, does he think he'll get more from her if he says that? Because he won't. It leads to a fight but they end up making up and Shuya basically says he doesn't need her to say it back but he needs to be able to say it. And that's how they operate for a long time. But eventually after they've been together for a long while, probably like months, maybe a year, she eventually lets it slip super casually, like, "I love your crazy ass." And she looks at him in a way that says 'yeah, I said it, don't make a thing about it.' And of course, Shuya does then make a thing about it because he can't read the room but he's just really happy, okay? After that she still doesn't say it much, but it appears occasionally.

9. Do they have some unusual ways of saying "I love you"? Squeezing hands, that they both know what means?

Anytime she calls him crazy it's code for 'I love you.' It takes him 90 years to understand that, but he eventually does. Then he starts saying it back to her and it becomes their thing.

10. How they show affection to the other one in everyday life? Do they cook dinner for each other? Or wash the dishes, even though it's not their turn, cause they know the other one hates it?

They just try to do things that makes the other happy. They spend time together. Hirono hangs out with his friends even though she doesn't like most of them and is only sort of mean to them. Shuya always reminds her of how smart she is and how she's better than she thinks.

#battle royale #shuya nanahara #hirono shimizu #peyton answers asks #do they have a ship name?#shuono #?

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s8ncake · 5 years ago

Text

Diavolo x Satan

Fluff #11 - “I think I’m in love with you.”

~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+~+

Diavolo’s birthday is normally a formal affair. There’s a mandatory party that everyone is forced to attend; where they all dress up in their finest clothes and classical music softly plays in the background. There’s no laughter, and no jokes. Only a bunch of demons celebrating the birth of their future king.

That’s how it goes every year. And Diavolo can’t help but feel that no one is there to actually celebrate him. They are enamored with who he’s going to become, not who he actually is. But still, a party is a party. And he intends to enjoy it as best he can.

So he’s incredibly surprised when it comes to an end after only a couple of hours. It’s supposed to last all night, and then carry on through to the next day. But now his castle is empty, and he doesn’t know what to do. That party was all he had. Without it—

There��s a knock on his door, and Diavolo doesn’t think twice before answering it. Confetti is thrown in his face, followed by several party crackers popping off in succession. “Surprise! Happy birthday!”

Lucifer and his brothers are there to greet him, and Diavolo can’t stop his laughter. The sheer relief that courses through him, the surprise of their arrival, it’s already better than anything he could have dreamed. This birthday is going to be his best one yet.

“I didn’t realize I was getting a second party this year! What’s the occasion?”

Mammon is the first to answer. His voice is loud, and the demon is bouncing up and down in excitement. “There ain’t one! Ya need to let loose! Your birthday’s dull every year, so now the real party has arrived!”

Lucifer chuckles and passes him a bottle of demonus. “I hope you don’t mind. If you’d rather have some peace and quiet, we can always leave.”

No. He’s never had a birthday party like this before, but it’s one that he’s always dreamed of. The kind of thing he never imagined himself experiencing. So of course, he leaps at the opportunity.

“Stay! We can party together, just the nine of us!”

It’s incredibly fun. Diavolo can’t remember the last time that he was truly able to hang out with everyone. Normally it’s just him and Lucifer (and Barbatos obviously). But with the others along for the ride the place becomes more lively. It feels like a home.

Empty bottles of demonus scatter the floor. Diavolo is surprised by the sheer volume of them. How much did Lucifer and the others bring?

...It doesn’t matter. Diavolo is having fun after all, and he can worry about the cleanup tomorrow. Barbatos doesn’t appear to be complaining at least, so there’s no harm in Diavolo adding a few more empty bottles to that collection. It’s his birthday after all. And birthday boys don’t have to clean up after themselves!

Besides, things are still relatively tame, considering the company that he’s in. But of course, things would be boring if it remained that way. And Lucifer and his brothers arrived for the explicit purpose of spicing things up.

Asmo’s voice rings out, and he sounds as flirtatious as ever. “What do you say we heat things up for a bit!”

Everyone’s head turns.

“We’ll have a drinking competition! Winner gets to sit in Diavolo’s lap!”

...An interesting proposition, but not one that he has a problem with. Diavolo’s eyes glance over every figure in the room. Yes. He would be fine with any one of them winning. That being said, he still has his preferences. Lucifer is one of them, and the other...

Well, the other one doesn’t matter. Lucifer’s victory is guaranteed. The man's alcohol tolerance is incredibly high. He’ll be able to drink his brothers under the table with ease.

But his brothers refuse to go down without a fight. A fierce determination begins to burn in their eyes, and Satan burns the brightest. It’s a nice look on him, but it’s all for naught. Everyone in this room knows that he doesn’t stand a chance.

Diavolo grins. “Sounds like fun! I look forward to seeing Lucifer’s victory!”

Oh, and the inferno that gets ignited in Satan’s gaze when he utters those words… It’s breathtaking.

Shot for shot. Bottle for bottle. Belphegor is the first to tap out, deeming it a waste of his time. (“I didn’t even want the reward anyways,” he said with a yawn). Beel follows shortly afterwards, claiming that he’s too hungry to play.

Another bottle gets emptied, and Mammon can no longer string together an entire sentence, or properly hold a cup. Lucifer forces him to take a nap. Levi quickly departs to go play one of his games.

Asmo throws down a shot, and giggles. “Oh, things are interesting now!”

Yes, they really are. Lucifer looks mildly tipsy, and Asmo’s cheeks are flushed. Yet Satan remains unaffected. He acts as if he’s drinking water or tea, and not some of the strongest vodka in the Devildom.

...How curious.

Another shot, and then Asmo taps out, but not before throwing Satan a wink. The blonde’s face turns a bright shade of pink, and he almost drops the drink in his hand. Diavolo finds himself chuckling at the sight, which only makes Satan’s blush worse. He had forgotten how cute the demon could be, especially when he’s flustered.

And now, only two of them are left.

Both Satan and Lucifer have a determined look in their eye, but only one of them can win. Several more bottles get emptied, and then Lucifer lets out a sigh. “Fine. You win.”

...What?

Satan laughs, and throws back the rest of his drink for good measure. “Of course I do. I’m better than you!”

Lucifer rolls his eyes, and flashes him an incredibly smug grin. “Whatever you say. I hope you enjoy your reward, especially since you were that desperate for it.”

“Who are you calling desperate?! Just admit that for once you couldn’t—“

Diavolo sighs. They’ll be at this all night if he doesn’t intervene. So he plasters on a smile and breaks the tension. “What a fun competition! Although it looks like some of us got carried away. I have plenty of spare bedrooms, so several of you can stay here if need be.”

Lucifer shakes his head. “That’s quite alright. I’ll gather the rest of my brothers and head out. I’m sure we’ll be able to make it back home in one piece.”

Satan rolls his eyes. “Just don’t expect me to go with you. I feel fine.”

“I’m sure you do. For now at least.”

“What do you mean—“

Diavolo quickly jumps up out of his seat and ushers Lucifer out of the door. “I'll see you later then! And don’t worry, I’ll watch over Satan and make sure that he’s safe.”

A pause. “Of course. I’m entrusting him to you, Lord Diavolo. See to it that he doesn’t get into too much trouble.”

Diavolo nods, and he can hear Satan grumble underneath his breath as Lucifer leaves. A second or two later, Lucifer’s magical signature is gone, along with the rest of his brothers.

They are all alone.

Diavolo sits on a nearby couch, and is surprised when Satan approaches him, a blush on his face.

Oh right. There was a competition. And the prize was getting to sit in his lap.

But Lucifer and the others are gone, and Satan has nothing left to prove. So if the idea of it makes him uncomfortable...

“If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. Your brothers have already left.”

“No. I earned this, didn’t I?”

And then Satan plops down on his lap. He rests his head on Diavolo’s chest, and Diavolo has to stifle his gasp. It had been… awhile since he was last intimate with someone. He had forgotten how good it felt to hold someone close to him, to feel another person's touch. They are keeping things completely chaste of course, but it’s still incredibly nice.

It’s funny. When Asmo first suggested that little game, Diavolo could never have predicted this outcome. Satan’s alcohol tolerance is abysmal. It’s why the demon is usually never caught drinking.

...Something is definitely amiss.

Satan shifts in his lap, and lets out a low purr once he’s finally made himself comfortable. This is a result that should have been impossible, and yet…

It’s already his favorite one.

Diavolo’s voice comes out as a whisper, although he doesn’t know why he’s being so quiet. There’s no one else here but the two of them. “I’m still a bit shocked that you won.”

Satam hums. “I cheated. I used a spell to increase my alcohol tolerance. It’ll be wearing off shortly.”

...How interesting.

“You wanted to win that badly?”

“I mainly just wanted to see everyone else lose.” Satan looks up at him and grins. “But I guess the reward isn’t all that bad.”

Oh. It would seem that Satan is full of surprises.

Still, they can’t just sit here and do nothing. “How would you feel about watching some TV?”

Satan’s eyes light up. “Put it on channel 5!”

Diavolo does as he says, and the show MidFall Murders pops up on the screen. He had completely forgotten that they were airing a new episode today; and now, thanks to Satan, he’s not going to miss it.

The intro begins to play, and the two of them grin. “I love this show!” It’s spoken in unison. He and Satan turn to one another and giggle.

“Have you been keeping up?”

Satan snorts. “Of course. I never miss an episode. I have to be there when they reveal Mr. Morrison as the killer.”

“Really, the butler? Isn’t that too cliche? It has to be Ms. Perrywinkle.”

“She’s a red herring.”

“Or maybe the red herring is the red herring.”

The show begins to start, and the two of them immediately drop their conversation. They’ve been looking forward to this for weeks after all. Yet the silence doesn’t last.

Diavolo feels the exact moment that Satan’s spell wears off. The demon melts into his lap, and begins to move. It starts with a finger tracing patterns along his chest, and then he eventually turns around and blocks Diavolo’s view of the TV altogether.

“You’re missing the show.”

Satan giggles. “But I’d rather be looking at you!”

Ah. Diavolo lets out a flustered cough. “You can look at me any time, can’t you?”

“Not this close. You have beautiful eyes, like a cat.”

A cat huh? Diavolo has received many compliments throughout his life, but being compared to a cat is new.

Satan hasn’t stopped talking.

“You remind me of a Norwegian Forest cat. They’re big and fluffy, like you! Not that you’re fluffy of course. You’re incredibly muscular, but you have the vibe of fluffiness. And your hair looks soft and silky, like fur! As a cat you’d be stuck with an orange coat, but red suits you a whole lot more. I could brush and pet you all day.”

He really is drunk, isn’t he? Diavolo had always known that the demon was a lightweight, but he had forgotten how carefree and silly Satan could get. It’s a new side of him, one that Diavolo can’t help but want to experience. It’s important that he knows and understands all of his subjects after all.

Yes. That’s what this is. It has nothing to do with him finding the whole thing charming.

A large pout is on Satan’s face. “You’re not seduced?”

Is that what he was trying to do? Diavolo snickers. “Should I be?”

Satan furrows his brows. “I’m trying really hard. Maybe I should use one of those pickup lines that Asmo told me about?”

A pickup line?

“If you were a vegetable, you’d be a cute-cumber.”

And that line, combined with the serious and determined look on Satan’s face… it makes him burst into laughter.

How adorable. Yes, Satan is quite possibly the cutest demon he’s ever met. “I think it worked. Consider me seduced.”

Satan is positively beaming now, and Diavolo giggles at the sight. Then he feels Satan’s hands move to rest on the back of his neck. He’s leaning in. Diavolo’s breath hitches. He’s admired Satan for a very long time, but the idea of kissing him… he had never thought about it. And now it’s the only thing in his head. He’s never wanted anything more, so how could he not give in? Besides, one kiss couldn’t hurt.

Their lips meet. It’s strange. Diavolo has kissed many people in his lifetime, but it has never made him feel this warm. His stomach is all fluttery and weird. That can’t be normal, can it? It must be something in the demonus.

Satan pulls away, and rests his head on Diavolo’s shoulder. He giggles, and then nuzzles further into the crook of Diavolo’s neck. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Oh. Diavolo’s heart skips a beat. Satan is telling the truth. Or at least is 100% convinced that he is. Given the amount of empty bottles lying around the room that doesn’t really mean anything, but still… Diavolo can feel himself blush. Drinking was a mistake. His thoughts are far too blurred, and the mask that he normally wears is completely gone. It’s around here somewhere, metaphorically, he just needs to find it.

Satan is straddling his lap now. His lips brush up against Diavolo’s neck. This is incredibly bad. They need to stop. He lightly pushes the demon away.

“You’re drunk.”

The Avatar of Wrath has the audacity to glare at him. “So? It doesn’t change how I feel. It’s just demonus.”

Just demonus. There’s no love potion, or anything else of the sort. Only alcohol, and the lowered inhibitions that come with it.

“You’ll regret this in the morning. We both will.”

Satan smirks. “It’s not morning, is it?” ...A fair point.

Another kiss, this time on his cheek. “Let me wish you a happy birthday, properly this time. We won��t get another opportunity like this again.”

They truly won’t. Diavolo’s schedule is empty for once, and Satan’s brothers are nowhere to be found. ...So perhaps it’s okay. One night couldn’t hurt. Yes, just once. That’s all. He’ll sleep with Satan as a birthday present to himself, and then tomorrow morning everything will be back to normal. So until then, there’s no harm in treasuring this moment; in cherishing what he already knows is going to be the greatest gift that he’s ever received.

“I’d be delighted to accept whatever you’re willing to give me.”

Satan’s eyes light up, and he lets out a pleased hum. Their lips meet once more, and Diavolo thinks back on the day that they met. All of the times that they’ve discussed TV shows together, the cat cafes that they’ve visited. It doesn’t happen as often as he would like but—

He looks into Satan’s eyes, and a thought enters his head. One that doesn’t surprise him as much as it should.

I think I love you too.

#obey me #cw alcohol #obey me diavolo #DiaSatan #my writing!#writing requests #can you tell i started writing this on Diavolo’s birthday #it’s okay! I’m only a little over a month late!

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