pencil-peach · 1 year ago
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I’ve been trying to contain my G Witch posting to the Onscreen Text series so as to not be annoying but GOD I love Prospera.
FUCK dude. The horrors are endless but she STAYS silly. (She Is Responsible For The Horrors.)
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death---dealer · 4 months ago
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Cleopatra. ( Caesar x Pregnant! Human Reader, Drabble Series. POTA )
I should not listen to myself i said 5 drabbles well well here we are with like 6 and close to 7K words and most of them are smaller oneshots AH. Reblogs, likes, comments all appreciated. I am working on a similiar piece for NOAAAAA!!!!
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Beginnings. ( Drabble 1. )
You felt like you couldn’t breathe - the air was sticking onto your lungs, coating them in ashen dust that was laying on the ground of the woods. You needed to move --- Okay, maybe not, grunting that inside of your mind as you attempted to shift your head just a bit to get a bearing onto your surroundings proved futile as red hit your eyes and your neck convulsed under the usual movement. Pain radiated from the back of your head, down to the base of your neck and stagnantly danced on the nerves piled there. Even shifting to press your hand against your stomach was an endeavor and even then, the blood that was on the palm of your hand… You squinted at it, fear setting in as the last drop of whatever adrenaline you had faded into obscurity.
 Was… Was that your blood? Trying to swallow was impossible, planting your face down into the mud and letting out a strangled cry as you attempted to move once again, your teeth gritting against each other but in the scape of the situation, that felt heavenly as compared to the tattering that was running through your muscles. Saliva began mixing into the already impure snow under your body having been mixed previously with mud. One foot, you tried to convince yourself. You just needed one… On… One… Looking down at your right foot as you managed to get yourself kneeling, accomplishment was short-lived as your ears rang, your center of gravity disappearing as did your vision. Falling back, your body was hard to hit the ground. 
In a fitted haze of unconsciousness, you could have sworn you were… Swooped up in one foul move by a set of arms that were much hairier than a humans. Warm, you had thought to yourself, but that could be swelling in your brain telling you that death was on the horizon. Death… Sounded nice versus the incredible tremors of your body, throwing into a it of hypothermia, a cusp of bruises and cut-marks aligning against your already frigid skin to the point where it felt you were going to shatter into shards if you were moved too quickly, to feverishly. How selfishly you wanted to open the door where the knock was coming from. But you had more to think about than just yourself now. 
Flinching at the pain of your abdomen, a pair of hands were astute enough to deduce your intensely fragile situation. 
What… is happening?
Voice of God, it had to be. It trembled in a deep setting baritone, hard and unforgiving. Yes, you wanted to cry, I am with Child but I… Can’t find it in myself… to live…
Found in woods! Nearby Human Camp--- This voice was light and airy but you were unable to process the words that came after that, your mind bending into a haze as you tried to get yourself into a state of lucidity so you could actually focus.  Brought back to Colony when saw she was still alive.
Colony? You wanted to tilt your head but in your jilted state, you were unable to move.
With Child. Not far along, but both will survive if we keep her here and heal.
This voice was a bit more soft spoken, gentle and caressing like the hands that were now placed on your head, your eyes refusing even the most basic of knowledge from your brain to get them open. It smelt like conifer, the highest tree possible, a bird sitting atop and watching the inklings of the ground below its mighty perch. Heaven? There was a lax in the air of contemplation before the baritone voice from earlier spoke. 
She will stay, do what you can to heal. 
And with that command and your mind taking itself to the darkness, even in the state of your eyelids being shut, everything went black. 
Empathetic Ape. ( Drabble 2. )
It did not take long after you finally willed yourself out of your semi-coma to realize that you… Had been taken prisoner by a Colony of Apes. In your mind, you drew the conclusion from the snippets of the conversation you got when you were first brought here in your altered state of reality that… They had found you. Half-alive and brought you back to the Colony at the bid of their King. This… Your eyes narrowed a small bit as you looked over the giant and sweeping bonfire that was built in the middle of this communal space. This Caesar. 
There was irony in the name itself, and you just had to wonder if he knew that. You had woken up nearly a month ago, fading in and out, but able to keep yourself stable enough to process that… They were being kind in healing you. They knew, you drew your arms closer to your stomach as you tightened the animal pelt around your shoulders and gave Caesar a wide stare as he looked over at you, your actions must have torn him from his conversation with the others around him. They knew you were pregnant. They must have thought they were sparing you, not telling you the detailed nature of the camp when they had found you. The--- You choked a small cry, tears pricking at the back of your eyes. The bodies. Your friends. Your family. Your--- Squeezing your eyelids shut, you couldn’t bear to think about it any longer and forced a swallow down before looking at the fire rather blandly. “Do not know… much,” That voice! You jumped on your spot, clutching the pelt even harder and causing your knuckles to go white. Your eyes scaled from the jumping flames, up the hackles of an Apes legs and rested uncomfortably in a sea of green, ablaze from the depths of the fire itself. You swallowed lightly, watching him move in petulant silence as he sat next to you, bowl in his hand. Caesar. Caesar. Your mind was wailing like an old police car.
“About human… Pregnancy.” No shit, you wanted to retort sarcastically but you held your tongue as he held out the bowl in his hand. Fruit. And… You squinted. Roasted fish? Your stomach churned at the prospect of having something other than a slurry of ground up food, something the Apes that were aiding you to heal often fed you as a means to get the food down as fast as possible. Faster, no chance of morning sickness, right? Wrong. You found yourself kneeling over and getting sick more times than you could count. “Might be similar to Ape, but do not know.” In between his choppy English, you grasped the plate carefully with one hand and brought it into your chest with the smallest ‘thank you’. It wasn’t as if the Female Apes that were healing you were awful, they weren’t cordial though. It felt they only did what they needed to to appease the Ape next to you. Strong, mighty and all encompassing Caesar. “I am…” You had begun eating, chewing mildly so as to not disturb the tone of Caesar’s voice. Waving right around the edges, or it could have been your imagination in the front of the roar of a fire, “Sorry…” Furrowing your eyebrows at that, you picked the fish with your pointer finger, suddenly not at all invested in eating as bile switched in your throat. “Lost my mate,” He continued on, your eyes dead-set and widening as you realized he was… displaying empathy. Your mind fogged for a moment. They were capable of that? “Only recently,” Gesturing to the perch you had found yourself watching him on earlier in the evening, he was making direction towards the broader chest of one of the Females that took care of you here. Squinting, you gasped quietly. They were so small, so ingrained in the fur that it was hard to tell there was a baby there, until their tiny head turned to the side and much to your surprise, you were met with a mild azure rather than the scrutiny of green you were so used to. “Blue Eyes, my Son. Mother lost after… Birth.” Not meaning to seem rude, your tried to keep your mouth from falling open dramatically, but it did partially split. “Complications from childbirth?” Surprised at the gentle nature of your voice, you felt a tear slide down your right cheek and you were quick to brush it away. Like it mattered, once one started, there was a flood soon to come. He only nodded, silent and a bit less intimidating than the times you had seen him, times you had interacted before this. “I---” you choked a bit, looking down at the bowl in your hands that Caesar was gracious enough to bless you with, “Don’t know wh-what happened to my husband… Was…” Narrowing your eyes in slight suspicion, you glanced over at him briefly when your voice tapered into nothingness but you forced yourself to speak the next question with no animosity. You needed to know the answer. “Was it Apes?” He’d know the answer, you bargained. Being a King and all. That’s what it was to be a Leader. You knew the good, and you knew the bad. And even worse than all of that, you knew the carnage. “No.” He was assured in that answer as his gaze met yours once again, this time, instead of finding yourself looking away, you drifted towards it, towards some comfort that someone else… Knew about the absolute torn away nature of your heart and how it was so empty now.
“Humans.” There was a twinge of assurance in his voice as he rose, gesturing to the bowl he had given you. “Keep strength up. Not just for yourself, but for…” His eyes flickered down to your stomach, minute in nature but he may as well have been gawking at you. “Child.”
Baby Blue. ( Drabble 3. )
A few months passed and you found yourself easing into the Colony, despite the disgruntled comments you got from a certain Bonobo who shall not be named. That was your nickname for him, and that’s how it remained as Winter fell off and Spring blossomed, the wildflowers bustled through the ground, through the snow that was still encapsulating its livelihood. All of it was going to be gone by the end of the day, you thought mildly as you looked at the Sun.
Taking a bid from Caesar himself, you were basking in the rays, sitting atop a rather comfortable tree trunk that had been rolled onto its side as a means to be sat on. He had convinced you to leave your hut earlier in the day, telling you that Sun was good for Ape pregnancy, it must be good for Humans. There was no intense argument to be made as you gave him a delicate smile, nodding in agreement and finding yourself drenched deliciously in mild-warmth, your scattered and torn paperback book sitting in your lap. 
Looking down at it… You felt a deep yearning and pressing sensation hit your chest. You were showing. Not much, you were sure that the other Apes had yet to notice any change with you, not that you could blame them. As you got adapted to living with them, you became just another part of Colony life and they paid you no heed. Unless you were late for meals. Then Luca was on you ( something you thought that Caesar was responsible for, but it turns out the Silverback was genuinely concerned for you at times ).
 In your time here, he had become your closest ally, even going as far as to call him a friend. He made gentle comments, telling you how glowing you looked today, something he must have heard through the grapevine that humans said about pregnancy, he told you how wonderful it was that your baby was developing, and that you were beginning to actually show. He had explained that with Apes, they all grew small. Small to the point where it was undetectable. You envied that, placing a soft hand against your bump and sighed deeply. Soon, no Ape here would be able to walk past you without gawking, without it looking like you had stolen a ripe melon and decided to shove it under your shirt. 
There was chittering to your side, your head wiping over to investigate. Not too quickly though, even though time had passed, your neck still felt sore if you went to fast in your movements. Blue Eyes, much like yourself, was growing. The phase of always clinging to a Female, or even better, your guilty pleasure when you wanted to see something abnormally cute, clinging to Caesar’s chest, were coming to a close and he was becoming more curious of the world around him, much like yourself.
Chuckling at the fact that you were drawing comparisons to a baby Chimp, you grunted and picked him up as he so often liked to held by you when you would read pages from your book. He had to learn speech, right? And who better to learn from than from a Human who had impeccable --- Well, you tilted your head and smiled at the baby as he crawled himself up your arm, around your shoulder and then back down the other arm, decent skills in English. 
He paused at the same time that you did, a fluttering capturing your abdomen. Was that… It happened again, this time more fervently, your mouth falling into an ‘O’ shape, and any Ape who saw you at this moment were probably assuming that you were laughing. “Did… did you feel that?” You bent your head down and gawked at Blue Eyes, who gave you a small tilt of the head as he placed his dainty hand right upon the top of your bump. Right where you had felt the sensation. The butterflies - The - The… Your baby. 
“You felt that.” Confirming that, Blue Eyes hooted in your lap as a response. You had no idea what he was saying as tears hit the back of your eyes as your face contorted. You began openly sobbing, not a care in the world if anyone saw you. 
Caesar was perched in his normal spot, having just dismissed the council. Koba lingered as he usually did, giving comments about you, about you being with child and how dangerous of a game it really was. But, the King was in no mood to listen to that and told Koba that he would need time to think about his words and they could discuss at a later time.
Blue Eyes-- He had jumped off Caesar’s shoulder mid-meeting. Probably scavenging somewhere for some berries, most likely pestering you though as that slowly became the small Prince’s favorite pastime. Not that Caesar was one to complain. It came with benefits. You were good with Blue Eyes, you were gentle and kind and it gave Caesar actual time with his own thoughts without having to dally on his child. 
He peered down the rock ledge. Spotting you was easy, your scent often gave away your where-abouts to Caesar. Green eyes hit the back of your head first, admiring the tousel of your hair on this particular day and how it appeared naturally highlighted in the sunshine.
You had been reading, Caesar’s suspicions confirmed. Blue Eyes was with you and was most likely getting a mouth full from whatever you were reading to him. Then the shaking of your shoulders. Caesar’s eyes narrowed upon seeing his Son’s small hand on your stomach. He wasn’t… No, no, Blue Eyes wasn’t hurting you, the gentle touch he had was too soft to inflict damage of any sort. Watching in contemplation of whether he wanted to go down there and see what was happening, he saw your hand come up as you lightly placed it on Blue Eyes’, holding it against the shelf of your stomach that was becoming more pronounced. Caesar stopped himself from moving and just… Surveyed. He could hear your mild words fluttering through the air like dandelion seeds. “I think it’s a boy.” Chittering from Blue Eyes. “A girl? Are you sure?”
Camp. ( Drabble 4. )
Caesar had told you that on their most recent delectation of Hunting, on top of snagging a few Elk for the Colony, they had fallen upon what appeared to be a deserted human settlement. He estimated it had been abandoned for only a year, maybe less. Some of the things were coated finely in dust from the woods, no implications that it had been there since the beginning of the Flu and it was in remarkable condition.
He didn't dig into it though, unsure of what items you were in more need of than others and had chosen to come back home and tell you of it. You were prompt to accept the offer to go with him two days from when he told you, now in the present you were teetering yourself to keep balance on the uneven floor of the woods, opting to walk when you were concerned of riding a horse while pregnant. He told you it wasn’t much farther, having left shortly after dawn and stopping a few times as you severely needed to relieve yourself behind a tree, having to tell the Ape King himself not to watch you as he was pretty concerned you could be attacked while out of his sight. Ideas flurried in your mind as you drew closer, Caesar having just stopped to take in the surroundings.
He banked right, and you were quick to follow. You thought about what pieces of clothing you had. Things were beginning to not fit, you were rounding out and getting plump. Your favorite cargo pants were hanging on by a literal hair-tie that you had been using to keep them shut by the front button, your favorite shirt… Well, the Apes, you joked in your head, must have been tired of seeing the bottom of your stomach always innately displayed. 
Some larger shirts would do the trick, nothing needed to be Maternity in a world where that was considered a privilege and luxury. To put things plainly, as you had told the Ape King, who was kind enough now to give you a helping hand right down a small embankment, his other hand coming to ghost right under your bump to keep your center of gravity, leaving you with a wild tinted blush against your cheek when you scuffled against him, chest to bump for a few seconds, beggars could not be choosers. 
Pulling away from Caesar’s grasp was never an easy thing. You wanted nothing more than to sink into him, sink into the tender moments where he had you alone, and vice versa. The late nights of restlessness you found yourself in at times, thinking of your lost family, your husband, the conversations in front of the dying fire where he had finally laid bare his feelings and emotions about the loss of his wife.
Spotting glances through the day, Caesar laid his hands on you only when he was easing to help you. He had taken note that while Cornelia was small, and Chimpanzees were known to carry small, you were quite a delicious spectacle to his eyes in all the best ways and he considered your attention something he actively sought now, though, he was unsure if he was willing to ease himself into admitting that. 
Rounding a large Red Wood, your eyes were witnessed to the camp. If you felt like running, you would surely do that but the fear of falling flat on your face stopped you as you tore away from Caesar and trekked ahead of him, only giving him a glance over your shoulder as if you were asking if it was okay to go in front of him. He did not nod, but he didn't object as you gave him a smile and quickened your pace, hand on the underside of your growing baby to keep yourself steady enough as you sauntered.
The outside was remarkably sparse, nothing to really indicate that Humans had been there, other than a firepit and a few strewn bags like they packed and left in a hurry. But, once you were able to really get your teeth sunk into the abandoned building, from the set up of an old restaurant of sorts, you were able to get a taste of things you had missed. You felt like crying as you came upon a table with a few pieces of clothing on it. Upon further inspection, they were Men’s, XL. Without hesitation, they were placed into the bag that Caesar had provided for the occasion. Three shirts, one red, one black and one white. Basic, but you were bursting at the seams. All you needed were some pants! Maybe some undergarments if there were any. It felt like you were in a retail store! So exciting---
Feet coming to a slow pause they eventually stopped moving and billow of dust remained underfoot. Your eyes wanted to blink, but you were unable to stop. Caesar must have seen you, having rounded you and obscured your vision from what you were focused on in a darkened corner. He didn't touch you, he wasn’t sure if that was allowed as tears slid down your cheeks.
One at a time before they came down in a torrential rain. You pushed past him as if he weren’t even there and trailed forward, dropping to your knees without reserve as you grasped the small teddy bear into your hands. There was a name embroidered upon it. Fingers touched the thread, pink in color. Cedar. 
Caesar drew near you carefully, the sob you let out was nothing short of shocking and he felt the hackles of his fur standing on edge as if someone were there intentionally hurting you. 
“A… baby…” You whimpered to him, holding up the bear for him to take. He saw nothing special about it as he grasped it with one hand and you shuffled on your hands and knees, baring the pain it was causing you against the tile flooring and came upon a few tangled up pieces of clothing. Small. So… So very small… “Th-They had a baby…” Crying out again, you grasped the clothing and held it in your hands before falling back onto your butt, “Do-do you think they-they’re still alive?” Caesar had no words, his eyes widened at the turmoil you were suddenly thrusted in. No explanation, perhaps those… Pregnancy hormones you had joked about from time to time, Caesar thought and narrowed his eyes on you. He didn't… know how to comfort you. You were crumbling down right in front of him.
He knew you were going to need help getting off the ground though, and he was careful to crouch next to you. Plucking the baby clothing out of your hand, he placed them lightly onto the floor, your eyes squeezing shut and without a word, you collapsed right against. Caesar was fast to react, grunting a small bit as he moved himself, and then you enough to get your body to sit in his actual arms rather than against him.
“B-B-B-...” You stuttered, the Ape hoisting you upwards to get you out of the dusty nature of the floor, you clung onto him tightly. “Do-Do you think they…” Caesar surged a bit at your implied questions, grasping you that much tighter. The side of your bump conformed against his broad chest. “I--- I am sure they got out. That they are fine.” He did not feel comfortable bluntly lying about something that he had no basis for, but as the tears fell from your eyes, as you grasped his forearm tightly, your fingers digging to the point where you were touching his skin and no longer his fur, Caesar didn't care. He’d lie his tongue off just to get you to a sense of comfort. 
Bumping Foreheads. ( Drabble 5. )
The water surging against your back felt incredible. Pressing your hands to the small of your back, right above your tailbone you grunted gently and eased back into the chill of the small waterfall you had been blessed to enjoy in the spotting Summer evenings. It was still early in the season, but it was beckoning you more and more to enjoy. You knew that Caesar was in the area - probably only meters away, and paying his eyes attention elsewhere as to not see you naked, but his hearing and his scent were always on the prowl. Three times a week he’d bring you to the secluded waterfall, letting you bathe and release the tension he knew that your body was going through. 
You were large - to the point where you had accidentally bumped into a bowl of blueberries this morning and it went tumbling down the rock face. Before you managed to cry though, Blue Eyes began eating them right off the ground and Caesar even blessed you with a mild joke of ‘they… are not completely… ruined’. That did make you feel better as you sniffled and nodded in agreement. All things were cleared away when you took in the water, letting the chill seep into your pores as you tilted your head backwards to let it drain against your face. Feeling the kick on the side of your stomach, you winced at the severity of it against your ribs as your baby had turned to start playing against the bones there to let you know they were content with the water too. Maybe a bit cold for their tastes, but they were snuggly inside of your stomach, wrapped in eternal warmth until you were ready. Until they were ready, you thought, laughing and pressing your fingers against the side of your abdomen. They reacted right away to your touch, something like a hand or foot pushing back and you took in the sight of your stomach stretching with their movements. 
You had no care in the world anymore. Hell, you thought to yourself in your bliss of the moment, you’d let Caesar see you bare in all your glory. It was the most comfortable. Clothes were restricting, especially in the heat that started to stick around in the early afternoons into the evenings. You thought about that again… You’d… Let Caesar see you either way. The vague notion left you more than amused. He must have thought it pretty grotesque what your body was doing to itself in a bid to grow another Human. 
The stretching of your skin, the wild-card emotions that you became comfortable letting loose around him, your breasts were unfortunately too big for any of your undergarments and you were unable to find one that was accommodating and you ended up going the last few weeks without one. You could have sworn you’d seen him staring at them, but that could have just been in your mind as ravishing ideas ran through you and rested rather uncomfortably between your legs when Caesar stared at you a bit too long. How you tried to push aside the feeling.
The pestering in the back of your head. Maybe, just the hormones, you tried to convince yourself over and over. You were pregnant, you were alone… It made sense, right? To… Want to be… satisfied? Your thoughts came to a slow stop as you looked down at yourself. Unable to see your feet, you still wiggled your toes like you were able to and sighed deeply. He probably found you unattractive beyond belief. 
“Are you… done?” Caesar asked, not shouting but loud enough for you to hear over the waterfall itself. He was close, as you had suspected, his deep baritone coming from the right of you. “Nearly sundown.”
“Yes. Can you toss my blanket on the shore for me to grab?” You asked, waddling yourself out of the water's way and into the open space of the small river that the water trickled into, grasping your hair and wringing it out. That was the rule. He’d throw your blanket on the ground, you’d wrap yourself up in it so he couldn’t see you naked, and you’d dry yourself, re-cloth your body and head back to the Colony, less than a click to the west. 
With your arms still in your hair and your eyes shut as you enjoyed the last feelings of water against you, you could hear Caesar moving. Figuring that the blanket had been placed previously, you thought nothing of it and thought that he was just moving out of the way again as to not see you bare. Releasing your hair with a small groan, you opened your eyes and looked at the shore. Green.
Green eyes.
Green eyes staring at you.
Green eyes staring at you while you were naked.
Caesar didn't move. It appeared he was completely frozen, blanket still in his hands and you were flashing him without reserve. If you were able to move quickly, you were sure you would but you found it difficult to do as you wadded through the water with a fast paced waddle. At least, it was fast for you, it probably looked pretty comical to the Ape. Caesar was still frozen, his eyes had drifted downwards towards your chest to linger for a moment before they finally rested right on your bump. Protruding… And not appealing, you groaned internally and clutched the blanket right out of his hand and untangled it. 
“Caesar.”
Nothing, he was still looking at your bump as you wrapped the blanket around your shoulders. “Caes--” Your hands were grasped. Actually, it was more or less your wrists and with one swoop, the blanket was pooling at your feet and you brought your knees together for a moment when he caught eyes with you before they trailed right back down your body. Supple breasts, he noted, nice, nice bump, he had only really seen a pregnant human this close to him through the screen of a TV back when he was with Will.
The rounding, dipping between your legs--- Caesar stopped himself at that and trailed his gaze back upwards to rest right on the top of your bump, looking down at it.  Being self-conscious finally hit you as you tried to hide yourself away from the judgment he was placing down on you, but Caesar just… Admired. You supposed that was the right word, you had no premonition as to what he was thinking or what he was do---
Without even asking, his hand was placed on you. Not just on you, but on the bump that encased your baby. Right on the underside of it, he drew his hand in as far in as it would go. Shuddering at the chilly nature of his already leathery skin, your eyes widened, mouth ajar as your breathing had picked up.
With your mind racing, you were frantic to look into his eyes to get any idea of what he was thinking, even if it meant you needed to tear his head open just to get a glimpse. Your bottom lip quivered at the feeling, a direct response your body was giving to the fact that you were being touched. No, no… Your knees went weak for a second, but Caesar grasped you with his free hand under your elbow to keep you steady, refusing to relent control on your stomach. You were being caressed. 
“I-I’m probably fatter than the Apes get.” You tried to get him to look at you, you tried to get him to say something other than standing defenseless. “I---” Gasping quietly, Caesar moved his hand from the undercarriage to the top where he brushed the pads of his fingers in the most feather-like way he was able to muster. It tickled, but you bit your tongue in a bid to see what he was doing. You knew, oh how you knew now, he wasn’t going to hurt you. 
“Have never seen…” He started.
“Yeah, well, we get fat.” You joked again, jolting your shoulders forward for you to cup your arms on top of your bump and shield yourself from his eyes. Before you even had a chance to do that though, Caesar's free hand that had previously been cupping your elbow moved. You had no time to react as he cupped the back of your head and brought it towards his own. Breathless, not due to the baby for once, you swallowed hard, shutting your eyes and let it happen. Caesar’s forehead lightly kissed your own.
Lightly at first, but as he tangled his thick fingers into your hair, he pulled your neck towards his own with a bit more fever, his own eyes squeezing shut at the silent admittance. The hand that was tracing your bump remained, but now was placed on the side. His entire hand spread, finger to finger, across the entire scape of your skin and you sunk into it with a small moan of satisfaction. This… you thought, letting your eyes flutter open for just one moment so you could see him this close to you. This was where you belonged.
Birth. ( Drabble 6. )
The intensity of your screams were not for the faint of heart, and you figured that was the case and shared sentiment of the Female Ape midwives that flanked your entire body, one working diligently between your legs to gauge your dilation. Caesar had known it to be hard for Humans, their babies were much larger than Ape babies and required a lot more pushing and vigor to actually induce birth. Hours, he thought to himself, his eyes tired and red around the edges, his hand, as tough as it had been for years, was nothing more than a swelled appendage from your hand grasping at it so tightly, fingernails digging into the calloused skin when another contraction set in your vision and racked your entire body of all senses. 
You were beyond sweating, you felt like you were swimming as Caesar brought his free hand up to wipe some of your wet hair away from your face. His skin felt cold against you, and for that, you leaned your head into the small wave of affection from him before another shot of pain dripped through you relentlessly. 
“I can’t do this!” You cried, your knees shaking as the midwife looked at Caesar who only nodded with a hard swallow. They were telling him in silence that you were ready. 
“You can.” He assured, but that felt fruitless as you hunched forward, bump contouring all sorts of ways in a very unnatural way that made even Caesar uncomfortable but he was steady fast and refused to leave your side. He knew this, he had been through this with Cornelia… He tried to not linger on that for too long. 
Things would be different, he tried to keep optimism alive as the midwife told you verbally that it was time to push. The extrusion on your face caused the Ape King to shut his eyes for a moment as you grunted out, attempting to push the baby from your body to greet the world. Yes… He laxed himself and reached around your entire head to hold onto you as you screamed to the highest heavens, things were going to be different. You… You could do this. You were going to preserver and you would have a new addition to the family that Caesar had already provided for you. He knew he couldn’t cry, not in front of the others, but how he just wanted to take all your pain away. It was hard not to go feral, the simple smell of your blood and sweat were eradicating his entire nose. He didn't dare look down and kept his green gaze focused on the side of your face as he was propped next to you, laying in the nest. “Ohhhh my god!” You jolted with another push, breathing rapidly and it felt like your entire chest was suddenly on fire after being cold for so long. Plunged into an ice bath and then sent to the depths of a volcano. “Caesar!” One more. The midwife signed at Caesar one handed, the other properly braced between your legs. 
“You need to give one more,” Caesar said and brought his hand through your hair once more. Swallowing, you felt a shudder run down your spine at the prospect of having to give it more despite giving it your all already. You were being torn in half, someone grasping both legs and pulling with all their might and they wanted you to give more. Strangling a cry out, Caesar brought his forehead down and planted it directly onto yours. “One more…”
As if a robot shocked back to life, Caesar still holding onto your head and moving forward as you braced yourself, you gave it one more as commanded. The sheer terror of your scream faded into the wails of a baby… A… baby… Your mind fogged. Concern swept over the Ape as he grasped the side of your face. “A girl,” He told you, breathing against your cheek and right into your ear, “A girl.” 
Repeating that seemed to bring you right back from the trenches as tears flooded down your face, mixing deliciously with the sweat that had fallen from your forehead. Even now, you felt you were unable to breathe as you tried to smile - It was a forced grin of sorts, Caesar could tell that you were still in pain, but the crying of the baby… Caesar finally allowed himself to look down as the midwife was fast to adjust them properly in their arms before drifting upwards carefully to place them against your bare chest.
They were smeared with blood but… His eyes admired their small features. Carbon copies almost of your own when you were scrunched up for sleep. You have done it. You… Grew this… You made this Human and you preserved through the endeavors of birth. You began crying alongside your baby, hands reaching up and grasping at them lightly to keep them close to your chest. 
“Girl.” You finally managed to say something, your throat dry and incredibly hoarse. “Girl?” Asking that to your mate, he nodded and brought a hand up to rest against the child's small head.
“Girl.” Caesar confirmed.
Bonus ending:
Blue Eyes… Was incredibly cautious upon hearing the wailing of a human baby to the point where he grasped at Caesar’s chest with his small frame with all his might, his gaze intent on staring down whatever was causing the noise. With a small hush, you got them to quiet down against you, now lightly wrapped in a blanket you had for this very moment. 
‘New sister.’ Caesar signed for the Prince, looking at the now newly adorned princess with a soft gaze. ‘Say hello.’ He was still hesitant, but at the urging of Caesar himself as he placed Blue Eyes on the nest by your feet, you both watched in anticipation as the small Chimp moved his way up your body, making eye contact with you in a flurry of affection and happiness that you were still here. It had been an entire day where you and Caesar were gone and he was left to hang with the other Young Apes with Maurice, and he hadn’t the slightest clue where you were until now. Until… He crawled onto your shoulder as he so often did, your eyes shutting for a moment as he played along your hair before his gaze fell to the bundle in your arms. 
It was your turn to speak, “Blue,” He looked at you, suddenly frantic at the sound of your voice like he had forgotten, “This is your baby sister… Cedar.”
Bonus Ending ( 2 ):
Three Months Later.
Caesar, in his wildest dreams, never imagined he’d be holding a human baby, let alone the one of his mate. His tender gaze rested on you as you were laying in the nest, wrapped tightly in for a nap with Blue Eyes resting beside you, as he had offered to care for the baby that afternoon when you complained of being adversely tired. He did worry upon his offering that it would be difficult to care for them alone, but he didn't realize just how much they actually slept and Cedar seemed really intent on doing that in the warmth of her Father’s arm. 
He drew his gaze down to look at her. 
So small, and so gentle… Every day, Caesar thought to himself, she looked more like you. So beautiful.
Was she… Caesar’s brows furrowed for a moment at the curling of the baby’s mouth. She was… Smiling. Right up at him. Familiar, her head tilted towards Caesar’s chest minutely but the movement was there for him as he swallowed hard at the sight. 
She smiled at him.
Bonus Ending ( 3 ):
Five Years Later.
“Cedar, you need to get down from that tree right now!” You yelled, looking at the Chimp sitting next to the human, high up off the ground. Well, not that high up. Maybe two or three meters at the most but the idea of a fall was not for the faint of heart as the two young laughed. 
‘We climb higher,’ Blue Eyes signed to his sister. ‘That way mom cannot find us.’
There wasn’t any contemplation. Cedar nodded in agreement, grabbing the bark and began her ascent. 
“CAESAR!!! OUR SON BROUGHT OUR DAUGHTER INTO A TREE AND I CAN’T GET THEM DOWN! I SWEAR THEY GET THIS UNRULY BEHAVIOR FROM YOUR SIDE OF THE FAMILY!”
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redfoxwritesstuff · 7 months ago
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Another Day in Paradise- Chapter 1
Pairing: Eventually Alastor x OFC, later- Alastor x ofc x Lucifer Rated: E for eventual smut Content warnings: It's Hazbin Hotel- this feels redundant. Sex, eventual smut, referenced implied suicide to be discussed in more detail later, drugs, drinking, poor coping, toxic behavior, controlling behavior, cannibalism, idk, it's fucking Hazbin Hotel, if it's worth a content warning it's probably going to come up at some point?
AN: Coping with mental heal spirals with new fandom crack? Fuck yes we are. Did I think I was over simping for cartoons at 33? Also fuck yes, but here we are. Idk how long this will be but hey, it'll get finished eventually if there's interest in it. I'm playing some with the timeline, starting off prior to season 1 and we're running through it.
Chapter 2
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Summery: Amber hated her life but she smiled and took what it gave her. She had tried to be a good Christian wife. She tried to give the to God everything he was due. She tried to be devoted enough. She tried to survive the cult she was raised in. She tried until the day she couldn't try anymore and then, she had hoped to never have to try again.
Instead of an eternal sleep as her punishment for not trying hard enough, she woke in the very place she had been taught was a lie fed by false Christians- Hell. With her body changed, her resilience gone and no way to get her feet under her in her new afterlife, she pulled herself up the hill to the newly renamed Hazbin Hotel, tail between her legs and without anything to offer in exchange for mercy and charity.
Could the safety of the hotel provide her what she needs to finally blossom? And what, if anything, could she blossom into? And why is Alastor interested? And what role could she fill for the King of Hell himself?
~~~~~~~~~~<3~~~~~~~~~~<3
Amber opened her eyes, which was something she shouldn’t be able to do. It was supposed to be over. Everything was supposed to be over. It was supposed to have ended. So why was she still alive? 
Sounds flooded her ears as she regained her faculties. That was another thing she was never supposed to do again. Yelling, screaming, explosions, engines and the simple sounds of city life which made no sense. She didn’t live in a city, she lived in bum fuck rural ass no where and more pressingly, she was dead. Or she should have been. 
That was something she had personal seen to, for fucks sake. 
“Good, you’re awake.” A voice that was soft as velvet spoke from a distance. The voice sounded like bells, musicale. 
“Where am I?” She pushed herself up against the wall. 
The room she was in looked to be abandoned, a thick layer of dust covered the ground and trash had gathered in the corners. There was an open exterior door, giving way to what looked like a busy street and the source of the trash. Next to her was a golden office door that looked like it hadn’t been opened in years. Another wall housed a closing elevator door. 
It was from the elevator that the voice seemed to come. 
“For your sins, you’ve been sentenced to an afterlife in hell. Sorry, that sucks.” 
“What?” 
~~~~~<3
That was how her first day in hell went. She had woken up, dumped on a dirty old office floor with a tank top and cargo pants that didn’t belong to her. She didn’t even have shoes on her feet. 
It took less than a month for her to end up exhausted in front of the hotel that promised to rehabilitate sinners. Amber didn’t know if she wanted to ascend to heaven but she did know she wasn’t going to survive on the streets of Pentagram City for much longer. 
She was weak. she was tired. Her body was starved. In her short time in hell she had learned that she like many of her fellow residents, didn’t have fuck all for powers and no way to defend herself. Unlike many of the others however, she struggled to find the fight to gain a foothold. 
After spending a lifetime being told to be smaller, meeker, and weaker, she simply had no bite to her. No one wanted to hire a girl who was too timid to keep their shop from being robbed. No one would rent a flat to a girl who couldn’t manage the income to afford food, let alone the rent. 
Sleeping on the streets, on benches and in whatever alley she could find provided little rest. More often than not she’d wake with a start, hands on her. When she was lucky, they’d just take what little things she had managed to acquire. Other things it was her body itself they wanted. 
Those that bothered her were so much like her though, weak. Powerless. Timid. Easy to frighten. She easy target for them when she was asleep but as soon as she woke, like cockroaches they would scatter. It was better to not sleep.
Refocusing on the present, she took a deep breath and tried to gather the courage she needed. Her heart was in her throat as she stood at the door. 
In life, you didn’t knock on hotel doors and wait to be let in. It was weird. This was weird. She had almost convinced herself to walk back down the hill when the door opened. 
“Hello~” The tall woman swept the door open with such cheer and energy, attention focusing on Amber in a instant. “Are you here for a chance at redemption?” 
“I don’t know.” Amber answered reflexively, honestly. She had heard tell of how kind the Princess of Hell was but being faced with the first ounce of kindness in her afterlife left her speechless and feeling the urge to run just as much as she would have if faced with aggression. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.”
The Princess watched her as she turns to leave and though Amber couldn’t explain it, it was like a switch flipped in the tall woman. The kindness and warmth remained but it subdued as she took in Amber’s appearance. 
The Princess’s eyes took stock of the girl in front of her. She was wearing much the same clothes she would have arrived in hell in, if not the very same- it was near standard issue. The girl outside the hotel looked simply rough, hair dirty and tangled. 
“Are you alright?” Amber flinched as the Princess reached out, snagging her fingers. Amber jerked away from the contact on reflex, sure she was going to be hurt. 
“I don’t- I’m not- redemption isn’t for me.” She settled as she backed away a few more steps.”
“You’re new, aren’t you?” Stepping outside of the hotel, the Princess allowed the door to close behind her before she continued. Amber didn’t know it at the time but she was seeing something few had gotten the chance to see- Princess Charlotte caring for one of her people, not Charlie the over energetic dreamer. 
“I’m Charlie. It looks like you’ve had a rough start to your life here. I’m sorry for that. Mom used to have staff that greeted new sinners, helped them find their feet but Dad- He’s fallen away from that. It makes for a rough landing, I bet. Why don’t you come in?” 
~~~~~<3
The princess of hell was in possession of a bleeding heart that made her eager to collect the stray fox regardless of her weak protests at the door.
The reality was, Amber didn’t have the strength to offer much protest at all, though she did try. Trusting in theory was a lot less scary than trusting in reality, she discovered as the Princess dragged her inside the hotel. There were eyes on her as she walked, head down and shoulders slumped but Amber didn’t dare face them. Bitter tears stung at her eyes.
Charlie led her through the halls and to a room to call her own. It was a modest room, though mainly at Amber’s insistence. She had no money to pay for her stay, no hope for redemption and nothing to offer. She wouldn’t take a nice room that they could give to someone better deserving.
“Stay as long as you want. All I ask in return is that you help or participate, even if you don’t think anything will come of it.” Charlie said, as she stood just inside the room. 
“Why?” Amber hated that her eyes stung with emotion she didn’t want to name. “Why are you letting me stay?”
“Because you came for help and this place; it’s about helping people. Clean up, take some time for yourself and when you’re ready, come down. We have dinner at six, if you want you’re welcome to join. You’re safe here.” 
~~~~~<3
Amber didn’t have anything to store in her room. It wasn’t like she could unpack to kill time. She’d have to make do with what she had been ever so generously provided, and she would, without complaint. 
The bed called to her. She was so tired. The call of the shower, of being clean was stronger though. She wouldn’t dirty the bed with the mess that was her clothes, hair and body. 
Dragging herself to the bathroom, she stripped and started washing out her clothes in the bathtub. Dirt, blood and god knows what else dislodged from the fabric while she did the best she could to clean it. It was disgusting.
It was humiliating but she reminded herself that this wasn’t the first time she had washed her laundry in a bathtub. It wasn’t as uncommon as it should have been in her living life. It wasn’t like she had another option, anyway. She didn’t have any other clothes.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when there was a knock at her room door. “Hold on!” Amber called, searching for something to cover herself with. 
“It’s me again.” Charlie’s voice came through the door, “Can I come in?” 
Amber wrapped a towel around her and left the soaked clothes in the bottom of the tub where they made a dirty puddle of water as she made her way to the door. Opening it, she peeked out at the tall woman. 
“I brought you a change of clothes.” She said, passing the bundle to Amber. “They’re some of my girlfriend’s old stuff, she doesn’t really wear them anymore and she’s shorter than me so they’ll fit you better than anything I have. I hope that’s okay?” 
“Why?” Amber could feel the way her ears sagged, nearly flat against the crown of her head. 
“It’s okay.” Charlie smiled down at the little fox demon, so beaten down by the world she was sentenced into. How could someone so meek and timid manage enough sin to end up down here? “I want to help you.”
Amber nodded, shoulders sagging as she tried to will the burning from her eyes. 
“What’s your name?” Charlie asked as she rested her hand on a bare shoulder, softly rubbing while she watched the girl try to hold herself together. 
“Amber.” Her voice was hardly more than a whimper.
“Do you want a hug, Amber?” 
Amber nodded weakly and stepped into the Princess of Hell’s embrace. Charlie’s arms wrapped around her and held her tight. Amber nuzzled her head under Charlie’s chin as the tall woman stroked her hand down the waves of red hair. 
At first, Amber didn’t realize she was crying. She hadn’t had a chance to grieve until now, the life she had lived and all that she had lost. When death encroached on her, she had thought it was over and she could rest. 
Sobs ripped through her chest as she clung to Charlie’s jacket, trusting the towel to stay in place where it was tucked into itself. Amber grieved for the life she had lived and the sins she had committed. She cried for the bodies she saw ripped apart in the streets over the last few weeks. Her shoulders shook with the power of her grief until the tears finally tapered off, soothed away by the soft weight of the Princess’ hand running down the length of her hair. 
“Go get yourself a hot shower, okay? Throw out those ‘welcome to hell’ issued spawn clothes. I don’t know how long you’ve been here but you can start your life over. You can have happy days in hell.” Charlie spoke softly, glancing down the hall and locking eyes with her worried girlfriend before returning her attention to the small girl in her arms. Amber hadn’t realized she never let the woman in, instead stepping out in just a towel. 
“Okay.” Amber sniffled before forcing a smile that felt as weak as it was forced. “I’m sorry for crying on you. So much for everyone being tough in hell.” 
“It’s okay. It’s hell, not everyone’s big bad and tough but everyone is broken.” Charlie smiled down at her and couldn’t resist resting her hand on Amber’s head, fingers stretching between the soft ears. 
~~~~~<3
Soaked clothes were left to drain in the sink while Amber sat in the tub under the burning spray of hot water. Pain, lovely sweet pain she could control filled her senses as she continued to grieve. She had thought she had run out of tears in the Princess’ arms but she had found a new well to tap when the hot water hit her skin. 
Eventually, the tears stopped and she pulled herself off the floor. Mechanically she used the complementary soaps to wash her body. Washing her hair was a struggle, she accidentally sent water and suds into her ears more than once. It wasn’t a great experience but it did manage to shake her out of her sadness and replace it with indignant annoyance. 
“How the fuck do I do this?!” Amber grumbled to herself, pinching an ear between her fingers and pulling it painfully down, trying to block the water from entering the stupid tall ear while trying to rinse suds from the fur and hair around it. 
It took a her a moment to decide what was the proper thing to wash a tail with, a debate that felt surreal. Did you wash a fur covered body part with shampoo or a body wash bar? Dogs were washed with shampoos, she decided, so that was what she would use but God above, she’s never felt so uncertain on how to clean her body in her life. 
It felt weird to her still, to touch her tail. The changes her body had undergone upon her death were strange but easy enough to forget about as long as she didn’t touch them or look at them too long. She could pretend her nails were just freshly manicured for Halloween into claws. While running, hiding and scavenging, it was easy to not see herself and forget about the new form of her body. 
This was the first time she had a chance to come to terms with the changes. It was also the first the she had no choice but to acknowledge them. Still, it was weird. 
In a way, she was thankful all in all. She’d seen imps that look more like monsters and people that looked like massive bugs. She’d seen ogres and people that looked more beast than man. There were people with more than two arms or legs, only one eye or far more than two eyes. Things walked the streets covered in scales and fur and yet she looked oh so similar to what she had in life. 
Why was that? Why did she seem to look so human? Amber wasn’t sure there was a rhyme or reason to anything in hell. 
She squeezed the water out of her tail after wringing out her hair. This was the most she had handled her tail since realizing it existed. Thick dark red fur ran down the length until it gave way to white at the tip. The fucking thing could hold a lot of water in all that fur, that was for sure. When it was wet, it was heavy and uncomfortable.
Wrapping herself in a towel and stepping out of the tub, she prepared to properly face her reflection for the first time. Glimpses in mirrors, glass and puddles had been the most she had braved looking until now. 
There wasn’t a reason to put herself through that stress while trying to survive in a world of monsters. She’d seen people stabbed to death and some man with a dog’s head step over the still warm body as if it was nothing. 
Now she was safe. Or at least, Charlie said she was and it seemed like she could be trusted. What a world Amber had woken up in, where she drags herself to the devil’s daughter’s hotel for charity. And gets it! 
A giggle at the thought threatened to spill from her throat. It was misplaced, a reaction to stress and anxiety. Wiping off the steam from the mirror as the giggle died down, she took a deep breath and faced herself. 
In life, her skin had been olive and kissed by the sun. Now she looked washed out, pale as a corpse. That was a common skin tone, she had noticed in the last few weeks. Everyone looked pale as the dead if their skin wasn’t covered in fur, even those with darker skin tones were washed out and ashen.
Curly brown hair had been replaced by bright red waves. The eyes that looked back at her should have been rich chocolate brown and instead they were inhumanly green. That wasn’t the only inhuman feature about her. Her face was more angular and her teeth sharp points in her mouth. 
On top of her head sat tall red ears, tipped with black. She watched as they twitched, seeming to communicate her curiosity. It reminded her of how the husky she had as a child would express himself with his ears, always flicking and flattening to tell his mood. It wasn’t something she was very good at controlling but she found she could intentionally move them. 
It was weird. Lifting the hair at the side of her head, she looked at where her ears should have been. It wasn’t just that the ears were missing, the hairline was shifted, going to her neck in a smooth curve rather than dipping back around where the ear would have been. 
Weird. This was so fucking weird. 
She was just thankful looking at herself in the mirror didn’t add much to her trauma or make herself vomit. It was more of a curiosity than anything. The woman looking back at her was so much like herself and yet in every way, wrong. 
She had no bra but thankfully her new body didn’t come equipped with a particularly sizable bust. She would have liked the support and security of a bra for the normalcy the feeling would have provided but beggars and all that shit. The shirt was long and thin, a pretty basic tee shirt that was almost a dress, reaching to her upper thighs.
That was good because Amber didn’t know if these clothes were to keep or to be returned. She tried stuffing her tail in the pants but decided quickly that it didn’t work. There wasn’t a way to fold it up so the pants could rest where they should have. 
It was painful to try. 
The pants were very much like leggings and she rolled the top down so it rest low on her hips. 
“Welcome back to the 2000s,” Amber mumbled to herself as she looked at how dangerously low the pants sat. This allowed the pants to sit so that her tail could hang out overtop. 
It wasn’t comfortable but if she stuck her tail out a good bit but it worked. 
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lady0ctavia · 6 days ago
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As We Ponder Belief
(2p!Prussia x Reader) - Chapter 30
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Note: This story is based vaguely during the mid 1200s in Eastern Europe where the Teutonic Knights fought the Northern Crusades to try and convert the native pagan population to Christianity. As a result, this story will have heavy religious themes all throughout. It should also be noted that, while referencing real-life events and locations, I am not striving for full historical accuracy. This is for the sake of the story I am telling.
Once again, this series will have heavy religious themes throughout, including discussions of bible stories, doctrine, and scripture verses, as well as critical analysis of Christian doctrine and beliefs. So, if you don't like that, you will want to skip out on this.
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Still no answer. How long have I been praying?
(y/n) sat back in defeat, gazing up at the chapels ceiling. The curved beams stretched from the ground upward before crisscrossing up above. Side windows allowed light to cascade down into the room, heavenly rays of light illuminating the space. So much so that she could see little specks of dust float by here.
After her chat with Gilbert, she paced around the fortress, unsure of what to do. She eventually decided to retreat to the chapel and pray, hoping to figure things out. Or at the very least, obtain some kind of comfort. But no matter how much she prayed, answers seemed to forever be out of reach. And the anxiety in her chest refused to subside.
"God, I know you are there. Why will you not answer me?" (y/n) whispered to the heavens, tired and at her wits end. What do I do? Do I follow and do as Captain Nikolaus and Gilbert say? Do I tell Gillen how I feel? Do I even have the strength to go through with either option? Are there any other options I have neglected to realize?
(y/n) understood that time was running out. She felt as if she were standing in the gallows, with a noose tied loosely around her neck. A noose that was slowly beginning to tighten with every passing minute. Closing her eyes, she hoped to find some kind of solace in the silence of the chapel. She would have accidentally fallen asleep had it not been for a sweet, kindly voice from behind startling her.
"Are you having a hard time?" Albrecht asked from a pew behind (y/n). After she jumped, he waved a hand in the air before apologizing. "Oh, sorry about that."
"Don't worry about it," She mumbled, her mind clearly occupied by something else. Observing her semi-mournful state, Albrecht leaned forward, crossing his arms on the back of the pew before him, right beside her.
"Is something on your mind?" The young ward pressed.
"Always," (y/n) droned. "By the way, how's your shoulder doing?"
"It's doing well, all thanks to your help," He smiled warmly, sunlight bouncing off of his curly brown hair, giving the appearance of little gold spirals woven into the locks. "Say, are you feeling well?"
"Yes... Well, no. Not exactly," She tried to lie, but she couldn't. Not to that adorable, freckled face. A face that furrowed its brow in concern.
"Would talking about it make you feel better?"
"I suppose."
Albrecht responded by getting up from his seat and moving to sit beside her on the pew, the bench only creaking slightly underneath him. Quietly, he sat in attention, showing he was open to hear anything she had to say.
"Albrecht, have you ever felt like God isn't answering your prayers?"
He paused, looking to the side before answering. "Sometimes, yes."
"What do you make of that? When you ask God questions, and He doesn't answer?"
"Well, that's the funny thing about prayer, and about God," He leaned back in his seat, gazing upward as he spoke of Him. "My mother and father both had different points of view on the subject. My mother would tell me that God answers prayers in all kinds of different ways. For some people, they hear a voice in their heads. For others, He may send a sign, either in the material world or in a dream. And sometimes, He just doesn't answer them because it is not part of His plan. In short, look for signs of God's hand around you."
(y/n) nodded along with Albrecht's explanation. "I can understand that. I remember my father certainly believed that to be the case. What of your father?"
"My father had a more simplistic, albeit straightforward opinion on the subject. As far as he was concerned, if you felt you weren't receiving an answer to your prayer, it meant that God was trusting you to make your own decision. As if to say, 'Both options are good, so just pick one and work your way from there.'"
(y/n) was momentarily stunned, impressed by Albrecht's words. "I must say, I have never thought about it that way before. I never thought about the possibility of God simply telling someone to make up their mind."
Albrecht chuckled. "My father said that probably happens more often than we think. But I admit, it can be frustrating. Usually, when we go to God with a question, we're asking Him to tell us what to do. Not to be told to figure it out."
"Indeed. I suppose this is the Lord's way of trying to help us build some character," (y/n) laughed bitterly, but accepting of the answer Albrecht helped clarify. The two individuals took a moment to sit in silence, allowing the rays of sun to wash over them. Turning to the boy beside her, (y/n) smiled. "Albrecht?"
"Hm?" He turned to look at her, dark brown eyes shining.
"Thank you for being my friend. I am going to miss you."
"And I'll miss you, Miss (l/n)," He gave a sheepish grin. "I take it you're leaving soon."
"I am," She affirmed sadly, but made an effort to maintain her smile, refusing to bring melancholy into the conversation. But the effort appeared to be for naught when she saw Albrecht's grin falter for a moment.
"Well, then I will make it a point to be there at the gate. The last thing you will see is me waving goodbye!"
The two shared a brief spell of laughter before quieting down. After they did so, the two made their way out of the chapel for dinner. Upon exiting the hall of worship, however, (y/n) decided to bid Albrecht farewell and retire early for the night. He responded with a bow, before wishing her farewell in return.
Once she made it to her guest bedroom and opened the door, she had to stop. Her eyes danced around the room, taking in every last detail. The bed she slept in, and the window above where the light would shine in each morning. The curved ceiling descended to walls made of carved wood on the bottom half, with the opposing upper half a warm beige. Smooth planks of wood made up the floor, allowing one to walk around in bare feet without fear of getting splinters. And on the other side of the room, just across from her bed, sat two identical chairs, whereon one lay a nightgown.
Quietly, almost reverently, (y/n) moved across the room to sit upon her bed. Staring at the chairs before her, the memories of the past few months rotated through her mind.
This is the room I woke up in the day after my village was destroyed. After I lost my father. The room where I met Gillen and Gilbert. We would sit here and eat breakfast together each morning for several weeks. All before being treated by Gillen each day.
She felt her face burn when she thought of how he treated her wounds back then. Him having to gently press his fingers against her bare skin as he treated the stab wound on her abdomen. The talks they had, how they butted heads, how they drifted between acquaintances and becoming friends before she ultimately became his apprentice.
And now it's all coming to an end. My time here at the fortress. Spending time with Gilbert and Albrecht. Learning about medicine alongside Gillen... I likely won't see him every again now, will I?
Letting out a deep breath, (y/n) laid down on the bed and turned to her side, gazing at the chairs before her.
Regardless of what choice I make, whether I tell Gillen how I feel or not, one thing is for sure; tomorrow morning, I am leaving Malbork Fortress. And that's all there is to it. Come to think of it, did I really, truly ever have a choice in the first place? Or was I just tricking myself into thinking I did?
As she sunk into her thoughts, she felt her eyes getting heavy. As sleep ironically evaded her, a few, final thoughts trudged across her weary mind.
Perhaps I shouldn't tell Gillen I love him. It would make my departure all the more painful. And I don't know if I'm strong enough to bear it.
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Gillen paced around the infirmary that evening, awaiting the dark of night. His mind was spinning, and his heart quaking. But regardless of how he felt, he knew what he had to do. Tonight would be his final and only chance. He couldn't waste it. When he looked out the window and saw the half-moon raise high above the heavens, he stopped. It was time.
After getting completely dressed in his uniform and throwing on his cloak and hood, he made his way for the door, moving as silently as he could through the empty halls.
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Previous Chapter - Next Chapter
Guysssss It's gonna get gooooooooooooooood! As always, let me know your thoughts!
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oksana-moods · 1 year ago
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Queens of Promise - Part 9
Summary: The realization of love and desperation hits you without mercy. 
A/N: Hello. I was meant to post this several days before, but I was so caught up in my work that I couldn’t find the right moment. So here I am, trying to find some typos or other mistakes instead of preparing for an exam work-related. Please, tell me your thoughts. 
And guys? Thank you for your love with this story so far. It means the world to me.
Warning: Allusion to intimacy (nothing explicit), mentions of death, blood, war… you know the drill by now
Previous Parts here
“Between Heaven and Hell” 
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#she has no business being this gorgeous
The shades hanging from the windows couldn’t keep the sun rays away, out of the room, but you wouldn’t complain either. Now that the fireplace died down, they provided you a clear view of the goddess deeply asleep in your arms.
Wanting an unrestricted view of her perfect face, your hand brushed a strand of her silky hair to the back of her ears.
Wanda slept like an angel. 
No furrowed brows or scowls. Her features were clearly relaxed, and your heart soared in your chest knowing she trusted you enough to allow herself to drop her guards down for you. With you.
Asleep like this, you avoided the distraction brought by her eyes and you could purposefully focus on everything else. How her high cheekbones framed her perfect nose or how her plump lips were always redder than you deemed feasible. 
To be honest, Wanda features had that edge of flawlessness rarely seen in this world, as if carefully designed to be the definition of perfect beauty. Sometimes you wondered if she hadn’t been sculpted by the sculptor.
It’s been a week since your perfect first night with her. Every morning she’d get to her business self and venture on the streets after the jeweler, and every night she’d come back to your arms.
The shy princess had an insatiable woman hidden under her skin and you made your job and goal to satisfy all of her lust and desires. The whole week you took your time to learn what she wanted and what she liked just as Wanda learned your preferences. And soon became extremely skilled in it.
However, it doesn’t matter how amazing the night is, your heart always loved the scene playing right in front of you: Wanda laying in your arms, hands circling your waist in a possessive way that made your stomach churn with devotion.
You loved her.
You knew this by now, but you were too much of a coward to disclose your feelings - this specific feeling - with her. You were afraid of telling her the truth of your heart and scaring her away.
The relationship built between the two of you, so far, involved a bed. You knew that your heart claimed her name, like you would with a god, and it was plain to see that she too had feelings for you. But love? This could be too much for her.
Like threading in eggshells, you didn’t know which word could initiate a complete withdrawal on her part and force her to retreat into her metaphorical castle, lifting her walls around herself once more. 
That’s why you said nothing concerning a future, concerning your feelings for her. However, it was hard to keep your insecurities and feelings at bay when all you wanted was to hold her close and never let go. 
Though this situation was indeed dreadful, you vowed to yourself you’d enjoy your time by her side as long as she’d let you. You’d drown on the tenderness provided by her words and little gestures as long as she’d let you.
“Don’t you get tired of staring?” Her voice brought you out of your reverie and you smiled gently. Looking downwards, you saw her eyes still closed. The face of perfection. Just like an angel.
“No.” You replied softly with a smile, and she chuckled. You were always blunt on your answers.
“Hm, maybe I should charge you if you dare to keep looking at me that much.” Her nose trailed the line of your jaw and you smiled, warmth spreading throughout your heart because of her actions. “It’s a high fee, I must tell you.” She bit your earlobe to punctuate her sentence.
You wondered if she was aware of all the reactions she pulled from you. The slightest of the movements or touches could light up your heart and soul ablaze, without even trying. Undeniably, this was sorcery of some sort.
Though your breath got caught in your throat, you managed to speak. “I expect no less, Princess.” You hissed and waited for her reaction.
A heavy sigh came from Wanda’s nose, and you marveled at how you could affect her so much with one single word. With her very own title, no less. It was all about the tone.
When you opened your eyes, you saw her already looking at you with a small smile gracing her lips and you could swear she was the most beautiful person you have ever seen, met or contemplated even.
You were sure she transcends this world and you felt so lucky for holding her in your arms.
“I’d make you poor.” She teased and your smile turned into a smirk, that very infuriating smirk that she hated.
Or adored. You weren’t sure. Neither was she.
“I’d pay with all the gold in Taharr if you asked me to.” A soft snort came out of her mouth, and she kissed your lips gently.
Mad Wanda was sexy as hell. Wanda’s version of Princess that boasted power was always mesmerizing to watch, especially when she barked commands left and right. But if you were to be honest, there was something about the soft Wanda that had you on your knees. 
There was this innocence and kindness in her soul that you knew many people would never see, however she had opened herself enough for you to reach it. Touch it. Savor it. “I’d give you everything if you asked me to, Wanda.”
At your words, her eyes scanned yours as if searching for the catch, for any trace of a joke and she found none. Only you, being adorably sincere and that made her heart clench in her chest.
“I know.” She replied after a while and kissed you once more before laying her head on your shoulder.
You wanted to ask her to marry you, you wanted to run away with Wanda to a land where no one would know who you were, so you could live happily ever after without the burden over your shoulders as you do now.
In your mind's eye, you’d daydream long enough to the point you could almost taste it. You’d grow old together on a small farm, with two kids and maybe a dog. There would be a horse, definitely, and you’d teach them how to ride it properly. 
You supposed Wanda would chastise you when you disappeared with the children to go and hunt your dinner because you’d come back home late. How she’d lavender tea every night, just because she knew it helped you to sleep better,  
Though it hurts, you knew this was a fable you had created in your head and was merely a wish that would never become true. And this little fairy tale you two were living on the past few days was nothing but a beautiful story with an expiration day.
Soon, your investigations would end. In fact, it couldn’t take much longer now.
It’s been two days since you had last met with Clint and Natasha to get an update on their leads, and you updated them on what you and Wanda had learnt about the possible whereabouts of the missing artist, who, unwillingly, held so many answers.
Then, after another clue defogged another piece of the puzzle, the odd duo made of spies left on a new quest chasing a new lead. And now they were confident about this one.
Breaking your trance without even knowing, the feel of Wanda’s finger tracing random patterns on your bare skin with the tip of her digit made you hyper aware of her skin on yours. She kept a lazy movement as if she didn’t know where she was going, sometimes she’d trail a scar and then she’d go back to her patterns.
It was almost possible to hear her thoughts, you knew she was just distracting her mind and trying not to overthink about something. About everything.
Before you could delve further on what could be, she broke the silence.
“I’m tired of war.” You couldn’t properly see, but you knew she had her brows furrowed. “And I don’t know where Harv’s information will lead us to.” Then, you felt her finger touch and trail the scar her very own dagger and hands had made, in what felt a lifetime ago.
Maybe it was.
“I don’t know either, but I don’t think we can stop now.” You voiced and felt her nod in your chest, the movement shot another round of scent directly to your nostrils and you savored it as one does with the first flower blooming in spring.
“It’ll be bloody, you know?!” She asked as if she already knew the answer herself. Of course she did. She grew up in Sokovia, on the other side of the same battlefield you yourself had grown. She knew the exact same things you did. Or should.
“Yes.” You breathed out after a while and realized her fingertip never left your scar – her scar.   
The silence in the room was full of questions and answers that never took the form of words. It wasn’t particularly heavy but had an edge of something that you didn’t quite like.
Once again, the redhead broke the silence. “So much death, don’t you get scared?” Her voice sounded small, so you snaked your arms around her a little tighter, trying to provide any comfort.
“The death of my enemies doesn’t really bother me anymore, but the skeletons of my men under my bed do keep me awake at night.” Despite the comfort you sought to give with your actions, your words were heavy and showed that you were indeed made of steel. “I’m scared, though, of the day I’ll have to settle a score with those who lost their lives because of me.”
Her head snapped back up. Few times Wanda saw you this serious or grim. The tone delivered by your own voice and words settled heavy on her heart and she hated it. You were hurt by an invisible guilt and it bothered her.
“What happened to you?” Her brows were furrowed, visibly upset by a past that she didn’t know. She had heard stories, but if anything, these few months coexisting with you, getting to know you like no other, showed her that the stories did you no justice. 
You were brave, skilled and relentless, yes. But you were a stark contrast from a perverse warrior princess slicing life of those who dared cross your path on a whim, just because you could. Quite the opposite. 
“What happened when you got captured by the Kree?” You could take it as a simple question, but one look into Wanda's eyes and you saw them begging for you to share this hidden past. Her eyes begged way much more than her words did but she had barely finished the sentence you were already shaking your head.
“You’ll see me different and I-.” Your brows crinkled and you forced the lump trying to choke you back down your throat. At the mere mention of your time as captive, your whole body tensed as if you were about to relive it.
There was just too much to tell, to feel and you knew Wanda wasn’t ready for that kind of rawness being dropped at her feet like this. You knew you weren’t ready to divulge this ugly and scarred part of you either. “I- I don’t want to lose you.”
Against better judgment, you spoke a line dreading in your heart, instantly, you held your breath. To be honest, Wanda wasn’t yours, maybe she’d never. But right then and there, who could blame you for dreaming about it?
With a silent plea to the gods, you hoped she’d overlook your words and the weight they carried, so maybe she wouldn’t jump and run away after hearing what had just flown from your lips. She tensed and you clenched your jaw in reprimand. 
“You could never.” The conviction in Wanda’s tone was heavy as stone. The certainty, the ease in her words was almost as if such thought brought an impossible idea. Her confidence was nearly overwhelming.
You could feel your lungs resuming its normal function, letting out a breath you knew you were holding. Then, you felt her moving and suddenly, she was climbing onto your lap and straddling your lower body. 
She had you as her captive. As you always would be, as it seems.
Nevertheless, her next words struck you like lightning and set your heart ablaze. “I am in love with you and all I wish is to take your pain away and I know this burdens you, holds you back and I hate it.”
If you were to be honest, you didn’t properly hear the words after the first part. I’m in love with you… These words rang in your ear like a melody and you bite the inside of your cheek to make sure you’re awake, to make sure you’re alive. 
Her words settled in your heart as if made of fire and you were sure you had never felt this way. You had never experienced these feelings, and you could barely understand how she could affect you this much. 
“Do you trust me?” She asked after a moment searching your eyes after something you couldn’t know.
In truth, you were not ready to reveal parts of you that no one had ever seen or even imagined it existed. In truth, Wanda asked you to expose the very part of your heart that you had learnt to keep hidden from everyone and everything. 
‘I am in love with you.’ Her words and the meaning they carried coursed through your ear and brain. Perhaps she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Maybe she doesn’t even know what she had just spoken. 
Hells, or all you knew, she could be playing you like a ragdoll.
But all criteria or analytic sense left your body a week ago. Being honest, the rational part of your brain probably abandoned you the second you laid your eyes on her for the very first time. 
Perhaps she bewitched you, for you didn’t even surprise yourself when you replied. “With my life”. You were always blunt on your words.
“Then let me in.” Again, the plea in her eyes pulled you in, almost drowning in their purity. Her sincerity. “Please.”
There’s nothing that she couldn’t get from you when she gave you those eyes.
She will probably be the death of you.
You sighed and conceded her wish. Against better judgment you let her in, cutting yourself wide open only for her to see. You showed her your weaknesses, shared your terrors and nightmares. 
Not settling for little, once the damp was open, there was no way to hold it in. That’s why you shared with her everything that you never had the courage to tell anyone else. Not even your mother or Loki. 
For Wanda Maximoff, you let the façade down and divulged every single detail of your time as prisoner - or before or after. Every sin, every fear, every tear and all the reason why you second-guess yourself. 
And with it, every reason why you knew you’d burn in Hells for being naïve or weak.
You were bare, stripped from every layer created to please the standards of what or who a princess should be. Devoid of any characteristic a Queen wannabe should possess. 
And you were beautiful. Only you couldn’t see. 
With every word spilled at her, all Wanda wanted was to take her sword and avenge the wounds of your heart. She knew that people could be mean, but there was nothing that could compare to the things you’ve seen or endured.
Within her heart, Wanda admired you even more now. There were true terrors in your past, there were things that she couldn’t even fathom, yet she saw how strong or resilient you were. Maybe you couldn’t see it yourself, but she did.
There was this something about you that she could only name as raw, sheer strength, for not only you had survived the torments you had been put through, but mainly because even though you were scarred, you were not bitter. 
Wanda supposed that with a history like that you would be cold, distant even. But the woman before her, beneath her, was so powerful that she made it through with a broken heart, yes, but still made of gold. Despite everything, you were still kind.
And for that Wanda fell in love again.
----
A knock on the door disturbed the calm and chill atmosphere the room was enclosed in after your revelations.
Wanda was gone from the room only for a few minutes but when she came back, there was a whole new stance and demeanor. When she walked through the threshold back inside the room it wasn’t Wanda - your Wanda - anymore, but the Princess of Sokovia. And she was ready for her duty to her people.
It was time for her to leave for her day of due and responsibility, which meant you would go out to meet Clint and chase after ghosts in this game of puzzle. That, naturally, meant you’d be apart for the whole day.
Although her absence pained you, there was nothing that made you more proud of Wanda than this specific trace of her personality. It didn’t matter the rest of the world but she’d never forget who she was fighting for. And she always worked bearing in mind the people of Sokovia and their wellbeing, nothing else.
“News from our spy friends.” She announced as she waltzed back into the room, but decided to lean into the bedpost instead of diving into the sheets surrounding your beautiful frame. The sly smile on her lips was a tell, those were good news. “They got to Harv alive.”
As soon as her statement sank into your tired brain, your eyes lit up immediately. This was wonderful news and since the man was alive, they could finally track the noble who was playing as double agent in Sokovia and Hydrarr and as a bonus the person responsible for your bounty and.
And answers.
You were in dire need of answers. Who was the one pulling the strings? What were their intentions with all these games? Why would someone go to such lengths as they did to push one realm to clash against another just to instigate a fight that would inevitably turn into a war? 
The questions were virtually infinite. Harv, the artist who created the lioness pendant used by the Black Widow during her hunt, was just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the waters, you knew, held unfathomed dangers that could swallow you whole. 
It was your time to get ahead of your enemy, but how could you if you didn’t know who they were? It was a must stay sharp and ready for anything. However, reacting all the time was tiring. Now you supposed it was your turn to give the cards.
“Amazing.” You shot her a prize-winner smile and crossed the room after your boots. “My head’s already spinning with all the questions I want to ask.” You uttered more to yourself than to the woman beautifying the bedroom.
Before you could get your shoes, though, Wanda’s hand stopped you by softly holding your shoulder. You turned to look at her and her eyes were torn.
“I know you do, but you won’t.” Her voice was colder than metal. Her tone left no room for argument, but you were you.
You weren’t expecting her demands, not about something like this, especially because you’ve been working together for this very moment. So no, you would argue. “What?” You asked ineloquently, then tried again. “Why?”
“I’ll hate myself if I let you out of this house today and something happens to you.” She’s ripped from that know-it-all pose, again, for a second, she’s just a woman. “I hate to admit it but there’s too much at stake and I can’t afford something happening to you.”
A small smile – almost a smirk – reached your lips when you retorted. “You’re cute worried like this. Are you saying it as a Princess or as a lover?”
“Both.” She confessed and your body craved for her touch as if starved for millennia although barely minutes had passed. Yet it was a whole new situation unfolding before you.
“I can take care of myself, Wanda.” You decided to push aside your needs and cravings for later. You too needed to fall back on your duty mode. As she had just said, there’s too much at stake.
“You don’t understand.” She took one step closer to you and locked you in place by placing a hand on your cheek. “There are spies out there, people that I don’t trust and Natasha doesn't either. I’m not talking about the normal, usual danger.”
“It’s something else. I can feel it.” She sighed defeated. 
The warning mixed with pleas by her eyes struck your body like never before. It shattered your resolve of getting to that interrogation beyond repair. You were damned. And you’d damn yourself for giving so much power to Wanda like this, but she had you. 
There was nothing you could do now. She had you in a chokehold. 
“You can be recognized, and god forbids if-.” She tried again, but you interrupted her by placing your lips over hers gently.
“You already convinced me, Wanda.” You muttered and she sealed your words with a kiss. It was passionate, fervently. As if staying apart was a strenuous effort, maybe because it was. 
“I’ll be back before you know it.” She murmured and kissed you intensely before turning her back and heading to the door of the house you shared.
The silence on her wake was lonely. The walls around you seemed so warm barely minutes ago, but you could help but think they were lifeless, cold. 
Doing nothing was something new to you. For your whole life you have been practicing, training, studying. There was always something to absorb, to master, but now? You realized pretty fast that you hated to be the one who sits and waits.
There wasn’t much to do, hence why you thought that fetching yourself a cup of tea to savor over a book about some random Targaryen was a nice thing to do to pass the time. You weren’t sure of how long she’d be gone, it could be days for all you knew.
But you’d wait for her. Patiently.
Strangely, an hour or so after she left, a heavy knock on the door broke you from your reading. It was odd for Wanda to knock, but you remembered that she had requested for you to close the doors for precaution.
Still, it was too soon. Maybe she forgot something or maybe things went wrong and Harv escaped or was dead. Maybe she came back to warn you about something- a threat, so you could escape.
Either way, you made your way to the front door ready to meet your lover again. Bringing to your lips that daring smile that your had mastered by now, you spoke as soon as you opened the door. “Are you back already?”
However, the face outside didn’t belong to Wanda.
Standing on your doorway, there were three figures. The first, was Sir Rumlow with a devilish smirk plastered on his face and on the other side was Winter Soldier, as Lord Barnes now, as mentioned by Wanda, with an unreadable expression on his face. As always.
Then, in the middle of the two, stood a figure of a tall blond man that you haven’t met yet. But his cold eyes, dark smile and his maroon robes told you right away who he was. Lord Vision.
“Hello Lioness, Wanda sends her regards.”
A sudden movement from Lord Barnes and the hilt of his sword was everything you saw before all went black.
Part 10 - here
taglist: @californianwhiterabbit @cowxpoke
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snappydragon14 · 2 months ago
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Part Two
Previous page~
Soar's eyes never left Mictlan's, even as the weight of the silence stretched between them. Her expression remained calm, unflinching, as if she had infinite patience. When she finally spoke again, her words were measured, deliberate, as though she was choosing each one with care.
"I don't expect you to understand everything I’m saying right now," Soar began, her voice soft but steady. "And that's okay. It's not about understanding everything all at once. It's about finding a way forward, even if that path looks different for each of us."
Mictlan blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What are you saying?"
Soar took a deep breath, her gaze shifting slightly as if she were organizing her thoughts in a methodical, careful manner. "I guess… what I’m trying to say is that I notice patterns, connections that others might miss. Sometimes it makes things clearer, other times it’s overwhelming." She paused, her eyes flickering with a hint of vulnerability before she composed herself again. "But it helps me understand."
Mictlan watched her, something about her tone—her way of thinking—unsettling him, but not in a bad way. "You talk like…" he hesitated, unsure how to put it. "Like you don’t fit in."
Soar gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. "I’ve never really fit into heaven anyway. I’ve always felt like I was outside looking in. When I see people, I don’t just see their actions—I see why they do what they do, even if they don’t realize it themselves." Her gaze met his again, piercing but gentle. "I see what’s driving you, Mictlan. The hurt, the rage, the isolation. It’s so loud I can’t ignore it."
Mictlan stiffened at her words, the rawness of them hitting too close to home. "And what makes you think that means anything? You seeing things differently doesn’t change what I am."
"It’s not about changing what you are," Soar said, her tone unwavering. "It’s about acknowledging that there’s more to you than the role you’ve forced yourself into. I don’t need you to fit into any neat category, Mictlan. You’re allowed to be complicated. You’re allowed to be contradictory."
There was a pause, and Soar’s gaze shifted again, as if she was analyzing her own thoughts with the same careful precision she applied to everything else. "I know I see the world in a way that’s hard for others to understand. I notice details, I read between the lines, and sometimes… it’s too much. But when it comes to you," her voice softened, "it’s what allows me to see past the war and the violence. To see the person underneath."
Mictlan’s fists unclenched slightly, the tension in his shoulders easing as he absorbed her words. There was something disarming about how candid she was—how she laid her own struggles bare without hesitation, as if that was just part of who she was.
"I don’t know how to deal with that," Mictlan admitted quietly, almost to himself.
Soar’s lips twitched into a faint smile, not of amusement, but understanding. "You don’t have to figure it all out right now. You don’t have to be perfect or even know where to start. Just... let yourself be. No masks, no walls. Just you."
The simplicity of her statement, the lack of expectation, stirred something in Mictlan—something almost like relief. He had spent so long pretending, hiding behind the persona of the God of War, that he had forgotten what it felt like to simply exist without the weight of that identity.
He looked at Soar, his voice rough but quieter than before. "You’re… Wierd."
Soar gave a slight nod. "I’ve been told that before." There was no hint of apology in her tone, only acceptance. "But being different doesn’t mean wrong. It just means I see things from a unique angle. And that’s why I’m still here, Mictlan. Because I see you, not just the warlord everyone else sees."
Her words lingered in the air, a strange comfort settling between them. For once, Mictlan didn’t feel the need to push her away, to reject her words. Maybe, for the first time in a long while, he didn’t have to.
Soar’s eyes lingered on Ike's unconscious form. her breath escaping in a soft sigh as she walked over and crouched down to pick up the once—delirious demon. Her muscles strained slightly as she hoisted him up into a princess carry. Her expression, however, remained unreadable—neutral, perhaps, with a trace of weariness.
Behind her, Mictlan stood, watching with crossed arms, his battle-worn face a mask of satisfaction. The remnants of a victorious sneer played across his lips, Wondering if Ike was actually dead or not. But Soar’s gaze, sharp and calculating, suddenly shifted to his belt.
“Mictlan,” she said, her voice laced with suspicion, “is that one of my feathers around your belt?”
The warlord stiffened, every muscle in his body going taut as his eyes flicked downward. There, dangling from the leather strap around his waist, was a single cream-colored feather—Soar’s feather. It swayed gently in the faint breeze, as if mocking his attempt to conceal it.
Mictlan's usually fierce, commanding eyes widened slightly in panic, betraying a moment of vulnerability he rarely showed. He felt his pulse quicken as his fingers instinctively curled around the feather, his hand moving in one fluid motion to snatch it from sight. He hid it behind his back with an exaggerated flourish, as if that alone would erase the evidence of his act.
“What!? Don’t be foolish!” he barked, his tone a bit too sharp, too defensive. His voice cracked under the weight of his hastily spun lie, and for a second, he appeared more like a child caught in a mischievous act than the hardened warlord he was known to be.
Soar’s narrowed eyes told him she wasn’t buying it.
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theprayerfulword · 5 months ago
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June 18
1 John 5:4 Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Ephesians 5:15-17 Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Philippians 2:13 For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose
John 17:9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.
2 Corinthians 3:17 …and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Though you may fear for your life when the enemy threatens, may God provide you strength and meet with you in a quiet place, hearing you and giving you wisdom, understanding, and direction, not allowing you to be distracted by outside events. 1 Kings 19
May you know with certainty that honest work and hard labor does not disqualify you from God's calling, for if your heart is open to Him, you will recognize His voice when He speaks to you, so seek Him daily, draw near through His Word and pray without ceasing lest you be distracted and inattentive when the moment comes. 1 Kings 19
May you be willing to accept the call and anointing of God when it comes, embracing the changes and counting the cost as not being worthy to be compared to the glory which is soon to be manifested in you. 1 Kings 19, Romans 8
May you be confident in the Lord, trusting His care and provision, accepting His will and purpose for you, even when circumstances constrain you, for through the grace of the Father and the prayers of the saints, you will be brought out into a broad and open place where you can stand firm in the Lord and be about the Lord's business. Acts 12
My child, I have opened the way for you to come before the Father. The separating walls have been removed, the obscuring veil has been rent, the forbidding statutes have been fulfilled, that you may approach the mercy seat and find grace to help in times of need, joy to strengthen in times of fellowship, and authority to overcome in times of battle. Do not back off or be reticent to approach, for you are fully accepted in Me, the Beloved of the Father. You are clothed in My righteousness, which is not of obedience to the law, but of faith in Me; you are right that you have not earned it, but only pride would insist that you must. Humble yourself as a servant, acknowledge you own nothing of worth and possess nothing of value, and that the only things you have which are of any use come from your Lord and Master; then realize that because all which you have has come from Me, the salvation, the redemption, the sanctification, the faith, the fruit of the Spirit, the righteousness, the armor and weapons, the wisdom and understanding, you have the best, the strongest, the most efficacious there is in heaven and earth and under the earth. There is no place for proud refusal or false modesty, simply honest acceptance and obedient progress. Just as the moon willingly uses the light of the sun to have dominion over the night, so My Body, and each member individually, faithfully stewards the light of My grace with those in need, and the radiance of My glory to push back the works of darkness, not claiming it as your own, or trying to hold on it for later, for the sun has no shortage of light. My love for you, My child, is not based on performance. You are of Me, My precious one, created in My heart, shaped by My hands, ever in My thoughts. Even if a mother could forget her child, still I could not forget you or stop caring for you. Trust Me for My promises toward you, even as you have accepted My works for you. I do not change, and My compassion for you will never die. All that I am, king, priest, prophet, shepherd, captain, physician, even man, is for you and to your benefit. Do not hesitate to call on Me for all you need, and keep calling as often as you need, for there is no one who cares for you as I do.
May you give thanks to the Lord for He is good and His love endures forever. Psalm 136
May you give honor to the God of gods and the Lord of lords, Who alone does great wonders and, by His understanding, has made the heavens and spread out the earth upon the waters, placing the sun and moon to govern the day and night. Psalm 136
May you humbly revere and respectfully obey the One who destroyed the strength of the world's system in your life and redeemed you out of it with a mighty hand and outstretched arm, making a way where there was no way and leading you through it, closing off and cutting free all ties with the enemy which tried to reclaim you. Psalm 136
May you joyfully and gratefully follow your Commander, the Captain of the hosts of heaven, into battle as He trains you in the desert, striking down great powers and disarming mighty principalities, giving you His victory as your inheritance, making you more than a conqueror. Psalm 136
May you walk in the temperance and self-control of the Spirit, demonstrating the meekness and humility of a child of God about his Father's business, for against the fruit of the Spirit there is no law. Proverbs 17:14
May you walk in agreement with the judgment of God, for two cannot walk together except they be agreed. Proverbs 17:15
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eonian-nightmare · 2 years ago
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I am a romantic in the historical sense; A poet who uses flowery language to depict the world in its rawest form. But lately, rather than finding solace in these words, I've felt crushed by them.
It's hard, because as I witness Sappho shout "You came, and I was mad for you and you cooled my mind that burned with longing" or Hozier sing "No grave can hold my body down, I'll crawl home to her", I can't help but be left with a certain taste in my mouth. A taste so sour that says "this is not the life for you."
And no matter how many times I scrub out my month, no matter how many meals I try to consume, the aftertaste remains, lingering in the back of my mind like a cruel joke. So I sit, and I wallow because even though I'm able to love others, care for them, hold them tight, and protect them I know will never have what the bards sing about.
There is no obsessive passion for me, no separation anxiety or butterflies to line my stomach. No fireworks or desperation or feeling like I belong to another and another belongs to me. Because when I kiss, sometimes it feels so wrong, and afterward I need to wipe it away. When I "make love" with another, I feel indifferent to the activity and when I love, I love so completely and strongly true... like one would like a sibling, a pet, or a friend.
And it hurts because I feel so alone because of it. Sure, I have other friends on the aromantic spectrum, but it's always felt different for me.
I still hear them talk of crushes growing up, like they didn't have to make up some random person just to get others off their backs, they still talk of dates and anniversaries and special occasions. As I feel I've got to pretend they mean something to me like it's not just another day. And I see them exist in worlds where they've naturally been drawn to people/ relationships as if every relationship I have ever had hasn't been some form of fix-up or setup.
Don't get me wrong, I care for my partner, I love them dearly, and I find comfort with them around, but I can't help but feel like sometimes I'm faking my affection, or trying to meet a need that I'm not sure I can comprehend.
And so, I wallow in my emotions sit back, and listen to how Shakespeare spoke of love. How he wrote the words "And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods, Make heaven drowsy with the harmony"
And I can't help but feel mournful in the knowledge that no matter how much I desire the type of passion that encourages heroes to fight gods, or villains to destroy worlds, I will never hold it in my palms
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demiurgic-warrior-chael · 4 months ago
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Not supposed to be || Self Para
Standing naked in the bathroom he turned the direction Aleera had gone. The voice wasn't as loud now and it sounded defeated. It urged him to go after her, to comfort her, but he could not bring his legs to move.
She had realized who it was but Daniel was still so confused.
"Because you're high." The voice said to him. He spun to find the culprit but he wasn't there. Of course he wasn't. Daniel was going mad.
"you're not going mad. You're hosting an archangel. It can feel like madness." The voice said in a much more patient and kind voice. It was such a juxtaposition from the condemnation moments ago that Daniel let out a sob.
He tried to grab the sink as his legs gave out and he fell to the floor, the sobs starting to wrack his body.
"Who are you?" He asked out loud, looking around the bathroom for answers.
"You know who I am, Daniel. I've come to you before." The voice said. He was so soft and kind now. If this has been the voice that had spoken to him originally, Daniel would have done almost anything it wanted.
"I know and I'm sorry for that. I should not have gotten so upset." He admitted.
*Saint Michael?" Daniel managed to say, keeping his sobs to a minimum.
"Yes, and I'm sorry, Daniel. This isn't how it was supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen." Michael said with a sad tone that made Daniel start to cry again.
"what do you mean? You sent me here." Daniel whispered desperately. He wanted confirmation that he had done what God wanted of him, he had done the right thing.
"it's more complicated than that." Michael said apprehensively, as if regretting saying anything.
"Please... I'm so confused." He sobbed out loud, his voice echoing in the bathroom.
"pick yourself up and get dressed. I don't want you to be embarrassed if others come in. I'll explain everything." Michael became soft now.
Daniel sniffled as he slowly stood and pulled the much too long jeans on and the shirt. His jewelry came next but he didn't feel like himself until he put on his riding jacket. It was summer but this jacket was built for safety on a motorcycle, not heat, so it had vents in the sides, hidden like pockets.
He started to leave the bathroom, pausing as he realized, "I have nowhere to go. I don't want to upset Aleera any further. Why... Couldnt I resist her?"
Tears welled in his eyes again and he cleared his throat trying to clear them away. He flinched as Michael's anger shot through him like an adrenaline rush.
"What do you want from me!? I made it days without giving in! I fought as hard as I could! We were meant to couple."
"No you weren't! We were! Me and her! You werent supposed to have to part of any of this! You were supposed to be gone!" Michael, if he had teeth, would be talking through them by the sound of it.
Daniel was falling. The room spun and he lost his balance, slipping. He tried to catch the sink but it was too wet and the floor knocked all the air from his lungs. He laid there, dazed, as tears rolled down his face. He laid there for a long time, his anxiety attack making his thoughts race so fast and loud that even Michael became confused. Finally, a thought came through.
"I wasn't supposed to wake up." He whispered.
"No... You were not." Michael agreed, barely enough for Daniel to catch it.
Daniel pressed his palms to his eyes starting to cry hard.
"I'm sorry, you weren't ever supposed to have to experience any of this. I assumed you would be in heaven and that your body was all that was left. I really thought you were vacant." Michael apologized.
"I was redeemed! I died pure!" He screeched,"My mother was right."
"She was not! She was not right and is not right. You're not dirty, you're so godly that you were chosen to host an archangel. The only difference in what was planned and what happened was that you weren't supposed to have to experience any of this." Michael corrected, sternly.
"Then... Take it. Take over. I don't want to be in the way." Daniel whined the words.
"I... I can't. Until you coupled I couldn't even speak to you." Michael admitted.
"so... The coupling was... Part of the plan?" Daniel asked softly.
"Coupling has always been an important part of our duties... Even if it was pleasurable as well." Michael admitted,"You need to go to the infirmary. I think you got your head."
"what if...?" Daniel started, but Michael cut him off
"No. Don't you dare." Michael growled.
"what if it's the only way you can fully take over?" Daniel asked. Michael was thinking the same thing but he wasn't happy about it.
"It wouldn't be worth it." Michael lied.
"What if your enemies find me? Or I have to defend Aleera. I'm not strong enough. You are. You need the body, what if I need to...?" Daniel opened his eyes, the room wasn't spinning anymore. His anxiety was being crushed by the plan in his head.
"Daniel, I don't want you to kill yourself." Michael was soft but desperate," I'm sorry I became so upset. I'm sorry that you didn't get to enjoy losing your virginity and didn't receive after care because of me."
"you need the body... Let me give it to you." Daniel whispered.
"it's not the body. It's your body. It's you. Daniel, I don't want this. Good wouldn't want this."
They continued to argue as Daniel got up and started to walk the halls. He had already taken some of the opioids in his pocket, so he was in and out of it until he slid to the flood in the hallway.
He had made up his mind. He would empty the bottle into his gut and find Aleera after so that she could drag Michael out once Daniel died, one last time.
Michael begged until Daniel pushed him almost completely down.
@denarius-quart-of-wheat
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rieminightmarepainter · 1 year ago
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Hey, it's been a long time. You would think re-reading the below filled me with cringe. However, I kind of feel like it's endearing, a little kid just trying to find his/her voice. I got to say I had some kind of style, I guess.
I want to start using this blog again, maybe make new friends on Tumblr, but first a note to the little endearing kid who used to write here.
Hello me, I think I know who you are, but I have no clue who I am. I will start with the simple. You graduated college at KSU, a school I think you didn't even want to go to. It was fine, if not good. I am happy about the experience and you made at least one friend. Friends will come and go, however, but as of right now, I think you have never had better. You miss Jacob M and Daniel from time to time, but hopefully, they are doing well. You will be very hurt by others, I'm sorry, it will take a long time to get over. But don't think I am sad about it now. It's life, and you made out with better friends anyway.
Speaking of, you have already met Jacob C., Henry, and Ben at this time. You don't know it, but they will become your best friends, along with Josh and Keegan. You haven't met them, and it will be a few years before you do. You play dnd regularly, which I'm not sure if you even know what that is, at this point. It's fun. You love all of your friends and want to at least get to know your coworkers more. You like when people fill your life, though you're still kind of an introvert.
Your aunt did die, and I am sorry. It was hard, one of the hardest deaths to you. You have one living grandparent at this time. There death's were hard, but they are in heaven. Or at least it's a nice thought heaven, you are unsure if it exists. As the Christains of today challenge your very beliefs, you will see a lot of things as hypocritical. However, in some kind of faith, you still pray from time to time, treating God more of a far-off observer, who may not be the same God they preach in their Bible. Don't worry too much about it. It's just life after all.
So what do you pray for? Well, you're not going to like this, but to be a girl. Yup, it never went away. But for the first time in your life, it's not a bad thing. You're still you, and you may actually be funny now. Like you actually somehow learned to make people laugh. But you're probably not a dude. You barely look like one. You won't feel like that's too bad. The truth hurts, but I believe in you. You're a good kid who gets mad too often, but even that fixes itself one day.
So keep living, and start living for yourself, for the girl inside you, for the person you want to be, in the end if you aren't a girl who cares. Love yourself, be yourself. Keep dreaming.
Yours truly,
Riemi, nightmare painter
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jigujellee · 2 years ago
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LEAD THE WAY -> you were always taught not to talk to strangers, but if the stranger is hot, then why not? (part 2: emergency contact) [ request: jennie Blackpink x fem reader ? Something like a hookup at the bar , like the immediate spark between them ]
jennie x reader slight smut, some fluff word count: 1.8k warnings: suggestive themes
a/n: i'm so sorry this took so long ;-; i've been in such a slump and it's been hard to find motivation to write. i am fairly content with this but i will try to improve on future works. thank you for your support! also, pink venom out august 19 and born pink out sept 16, mark your calendars!! :D (also this isn't rlly proofread, so sorry for any mistakes lol)
you enjoyed spending your friday nights all snuggled up in a hoodie and blankets in front of your xbox. so why exactly were you here at a local bar instead? lisa dragged you, as in literally grabbed you by the arms and yanked you into this bar.
“come on y/n, it’ll be fun! we just need to get out of the house for a little bit and find something to do!”
“i know damn well you mean someone to do, lis”
“see, this is why we’re best friends! you’re the only one who truly understands my brain. now come on, let’s go have some fun!”
hence why you were sitting and watching your best friend do shots with some random girl. to be fair, the girl was pretty. really pretty for that matter, and her australian accent made her even more attractive. you have to admit that lisa has really good taste in girls.
“can i get you something to drink?”
you jump in your seat at the sudden voice that spoke up beside you.
“sorry, i didn’t mean to startle you” the stranger says as she flashes an adorable gummy smile. but as you looked her up and down, she was anything but adorable. she was hot*,* she was sexy*,* and damn she was enticing. her bright orange hair contrasted with her black calvin klein tee that was tied up to expose her abs that were clearly crafted by the gods in heaven, and a pair of calvin klein jeans to match that did absolute wonders for her ass. jesus christ, why am i thinking about all of this?
“i can’t tell if that’s a yes or a no considering how long you’ve been eyeing me” she giggles. how could someone this drop dead gorgeous and still be adorable as fuck?
“i’m so sorry, i swear i’m not a perv and i’m not weird. i really have no intentions to make you uncomfortable or anything” you quickly defend, hands frantically waving in hopes to clear any misunderstanding.
“you’re really cute you know that?” you feel your cheeks heat up at her sudden compliment. “so drink, yes or no?”
“actually, i’m just here for moral support. i’m most likely going to be her designated driver for the night” you tear your eyes away from the woman in front of you and try to point at lisa, but she was nowhere to be found and this bar wasn’t even that big. the stranger follows your line of sight and finds her friend that she came with leaving with lisa.
“i think your friend just left with my friend,” she points at the short haired blonde. “is that her? that blonde over there with bangs and who’s really loud?”
“yeah, that’s her alright. so your friend is the other blonde with the australian accent?”
“mhm, that’s chaeyoung. i had a feeling she’d ditch me at some point”
“that makes the two of us” you chuckled lightly before continuing, “well, i’d be more than glad to buy you a drink instead?”
“i have a better idea,” the girl says with a small smirk. “how about we just get out of here instead? you’re welcome to stay at my place for a bit” you fail to notice the subtle sultriness in her voice, but you smile nonetheless.
you hesitated to answer at first because you knew you shouldn’t openly trust people you’ve just met. but god, were you really gonna let this opportunity slide? the orange haired girl in front of you didn’t seem all that sketchy and her friend even left with lisa, which could be a sign from the universe that you should also go with this woman here.
“can i get a name before i take off with a random stranger?” you flash a smile to the girl.
“jennie. jennie kim” a beautiful name to match the beautiful lady.
“alright miss kim, lead the way”
-
the two of you arrive at jennie’s home, to which she then leads you to the living room. there were windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling with a black couch sitting right in front of it.
“have a seat, i’ll grab us some drinks and make us something to eat” jennie says.
“please, let me help-” but she raises her hand to stop you.
“no need, uh…” she trails off. you stare at her in confusion for a moment, waiting for her to finish her sentence before realizing you haven’t even told her your name once since meeting her at the bar.
“ah, it’s y/n. i swear i mentioned it earlier, but i guess not” you chuckle while rubbing the nape of your neck, earning another gummy smile from the orange-haired girl.
“y/n” she smiles. “it’s beautiful,” and you begin to feel your cheeks heat up slightly.
“well thank you for the offer, y/n, but i can manage. just sit back and make yourself feel at home” jennie says as she turns and makes her way to the kitchen, not letting you utter another word. while she prepares a charcuterie board for you to share, your eyes roam around the living room. you take in the simple and modern design of her home, how it screamed expensive but cozy and heartwarming at the same time. you notice a few picture frames sitting on display across from where you were and you decided to get up and study each one. there was a photo with her, her mom and her dogs. next to it, there was another one of her with three other girls who you assumed were her friends.
“wow, it’s been 6 years since that photo was taken. maybe we should update it soon,” the familiar voice startles you for the second time tonight.
“you really like coming in as a surprise, don’t you?” you giggle.
“i think you just get scared easily,” she laughs as she sets down the board of assorted cheeses, meats, and crackers along with some drinks. “come, help yourself. i can get more if you want”
“this is perfect, thank you jennie” you say as you grab a piece of cheese and start eating.
the night is filled with chatter as you both begin to open up more to each other. you learn that jennie is a model (makes sense) and though she travels around the world, she always loved coming home to seoul. jennie then learns that you were a med student aspiring to be a doctor, but if you could choose a different career path, you’d pursue music instead. conversation flowed naturally between you two and it felt as if you have known each other for years. you and jennie were able to click so easily with no awkward tension between you at all.
however, there was the presence of a different kind of tension - the kind of tension that had introduced itself after one too many glasses of wine tonight. both you and jennie were far from drunk, but you began to question your judgment and your head began to spin a little. since when was jennie sitting so close to you on the couch?
you quickly glance at your phone and find 2:47 displayed, not realizing you had been here for a little over 2 hours. “i really enjoyed tonight, jen. but it’s getting late, i think i should go” you say somewhat sluggishly as you attempt to stand, but jennie pulls on the hem of your crewneck and stops you.
“why don’t you stay the night?”
you simply stare at her, not bothering to move the arm that was holding onto your top. though half-lidded and somewhat droopy, you saw an unhealthy amount of desire in those dark brown orbs of hers. she stared back at you, eyes fluttering between your eyes and your lips. you knew exactly what she was asking for and you’d be the biggest liar if you said you didn’t want to stay.
slowly, you grab hold of the hand on your sweatshirt and lower yourself to sit back down on the couch. jennie straightens herself up and moves closer to you, wrapping her arms around your neck and bringing her face towards yours until your foreheads touched. you placed your arms on her waist and you two stayed like that for a moment, simply feeling her breath on your lips and vice versa. the tips of your noses were rubbing against each other and jennie was starting to pull you even closer. it was difficult to distinguish what was clouding your judgment right now: was it the wine or was it the suffocating amount of tension between you two? perhaps both?
“kiss me, y/n” jennie finally whispers. you didn’t need to be told twice and you immediately place your lips onto hers. it was somewhat slow at first, but after getting comfortable, the two of you eventually start fighting for dominance. every time you bit her bottom lip, she would return the favour albeit much harder than how you did it. without ever disconnecting her lips from yours, jennie manages to climb onto your lap and straddle you which allowed you to pull her even closer to you. the only time you two stop kissing is when you both yank your tops off of each other, and then immediately continue your make out session. jennie’s skin is warm and smooth against your own as you run your hands down her back before unclasping her bra. as soon as you feel her moulds against your front, your mind turns into absolute mush. you take your lips off hers and move to her jaw and neck. the sound of jennie’s whimpers and you leaving sloppy wet kisses along her jaw and neck were the only things that could be heard in the living room. she tangles her hands through your hair, hoping that would somehow bring you even closer to her. she brings your head up and smashes her lips onto yours once again, hungrily kissing you as if it were her last meal.
“b-bedroom, y/n” jennie manages to say in between breaths. “let’s continue in my bedroom”
you smile as you kiss the orange haired girl one last time before you effortlessly carry the girl, your arms under her legs as she wrapped them around your waist. you begin to make your way to her bedroom while making one last attack on her neck, leaving behind a purple mark that you knew she’d probably have to hide tomorrow.
“lead the way, miss kim”
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Lord Save Me My Drug Is My Baby (+18)
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Summary: Father Spencer and Y/N reminisce about their salacious encounter and then find themselves giving into the very thing he's supposed to deny
CW: Spencer Reid (Priest AU) x Female Reader (strong religious themes, kissing, corruption kink kinda)
Word Count: 4400
Note: OMG here it is!! This is either good or really bad...
Taglist Sign Up | Tell Me What You Thought | Part One
I could recognize that perfume anywhere. It’s the most delicate, yet potent aphrodisiac known to man. It’s so wrong, the one true example of sin, but I don’t even try to stop myself anymore. Not when I can feel her soft skin against my hands and inhale her perfume with every breath I take. 
“This is wrong,” I murmured, my teeth catching her earlobe as I kissed her next. She smelled sweet like summer rain and sinful like a broken prayer, “I just need one taste. One taste and maybe I’ll be able to forgive myself,” 
“Your God won’t strike you down for a little kiss, now would he,” the woman says, teasing dripping from the lips that I desperately want to capture between my own. Her body was flush against mine. Every bit of her is soft and plush where I am hardened and smooth. My hands move down her body, gripping her hips like a vice. 
How can something so good, so seemingly divine and angelic be the one thing I’ve been ordered to swear away. Her skin is hot, sticky with sweat and sinful with broken promises. My lips burn against her’s. I haven’t kissed a woman in ages. I love the burn. I love the way my lips melt into her lips amidst the flickering flames.
Her eyes are icy, but burn into my soul. If I look hard enough I could see myself reflected in them. It reminds me of a homily I gave, months ago. Something about eyes and souls and knowing someone entirely and completely. The exact words escape me at the moment, but I think I finally understand what I was trying to say. 
Her hands swiftly undo my belt, yet her eyes never leave mine. They bore into my soul, icy yet burning. She’s like rum on fire and I am nothing but an unlit match. I’d bathe myself in gasoline if it meant I could feel the heat of her touch. Her lips slip between my lower lip as her hands sneak under my shirt. I desperately want to deepen the kiss, but resist the urge. 
The edges of the indescribable room grow fuzzy and her touches are soft. Her breathless voice rings in my ears, calling me in like a fatal siren. 
It’s too fuzzy. Too soft. Too breathless. Too beautiful. 
Yet, I can feel her soft kiss below me. I can hear her breathless moans as I bite her lips, wondering if I’ll taste her. I want to kiss her neck, cover her in my marks so the entire world and the Heavens beyond know that she’s mine. 
God forgive me, I am only human. A man.
A man who needs a frigid shower and a half marathon. 
It would be a sin in itself to ask for forgiveness for something that I don’t want to be forgiven. Yet, I am a priest. I made a vow to my Heavenly maker to deny myself to the carnal pleasures of man. I broke that vow already, exactly six days ago, when I gave into the deep desire that I feel for the woman in the confessional. 
Running is the worst exercise known to man. It’s nothing but knees and feet pounding against hard pavement. My chest aches with the guilt of my desire, but I attempt to convince myself it’s not that. I decide, convinced of my own convictions, to lose myself in the run. The pain in my knees and the tightened noose around my heart is of my own doing. I’ll take the pain of my human form over the guilt of man’s desire any day.
But God help me I’m only human.   
I think of her hair.
I run. I think of the smell of her handkerchief that I stowed in my drawer. 
I run. 
I think of touching her, her touching me. I think of her breathless whispers, chanting my name like a prayer. I think of her body writhing under mine, giving her divine, Heavenly pleasure. With the same sweet shock of Adam when he first came. My chest burns, begging me like a sinner to give in to my thoughts. To give into the figment of a woman that dwells in my dreams and corrupts my conscience. 
And so, I run some more. 
– 
Trepidation seemed to drip from her fingertips as she sat in the back of the church, eagerly waiting for him to end the mass. She had never been to a Catholic mass before, and even though she didn’t find herself there with the most pious of intentions, it would be a lie to say she wasn’t interested. It would also be a lie to claim that her interest in attending the mass rested in the hands of a particular priest. 
A priest, who looked like he was preserved in pickle juice and whatever crappy wine they serve at Communion, was dressed in ornate green chasuble, and wore a look of deep contemplation. He looked lost in thought as he prayed under his breath. A couple of times, Y/N swore she saw him doze off. The deacon, a man with bronzed skin and curly hair, had to nudge him a couple times. Even on the way back, Y/N caught that. She figured she needed something to pay attention to, considering her attempt to catch Father Spencer in his most natural habitat was a no go.
The choir, made up of another collection of eldery women with permed curls and enough blush to make even Dolly Parton remove some, sang a hymn that Y/N recognized as Amazing Grace. She flipped through the book, unsure which page the words to the song would appear on. Just then, she felt a breeze against her side. Looking up, she was face to face with the last person she would be expected to sit next to this morning. 
Father Spencer. 
“Sorry to startle you,” he said, his words sounding eerily familiar. He must have a habit of scaring women, “It’s page 345 by the way. Or you can just share with me,”
She smiled, grateful for his kindness. As she sat there, Y/N’s mind wandered off to their first encounter. It’s easy to recall the way his voice, deep and gravely, sounded through the small screen of the confessional. She remembered the way the firm kneeler felt against her skin. It was hard and cool, the unforgiving leather left marks against her skin. Y/N thought about the way Father Spencer guided me during the confession. He was gentle, kind even. And Y/N, being anything but innocent, found herself thinking about him in more nefarious situations. 
He was like a forbidden fruit, for lack of better metaphor. He was untouchable, yet Father Spencer was the only man she wanted to touch. Her brain was sent into overdrive. Did he know who she was? Could he possibly recognize her voice? She remembered hearing his door creak open when she fled the confessional, her body coursing with embarrassment and humiliation. He must have heard fifteen different people that day. It would be silly, foolish even of her to think he’d remember her, remember their…encounter. 
But she remembered it. Oh did she remember it all too well. 
Fuck. 
She was so fucking fucked. Y/N scrolled on her phone, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread rush over her. It’s not that she didn’t not believe that it was a sin, because she was pretty sure whatever being that was up wherever had better things to care about than her getting off to a hunk of plastic because her (now ex) boyfriend was too much of a tool to even try. Like, even if there was a God or whatever wouldn’t they care more about starving children or sick old ladies or the wars? It made sense that way, but in her limited experience, religion rarely did. 
That isn’t why she was fucked though. Y/N was fucked for a very different reason. She zoomed into the picture on her screen, unable to help herself. Greeting her, was a very handsome, very off limits man. He was young, at least by priest’s standards. In her mind, men of the cloth were in the age range of graying grandpas, not 35-ish men with sweet brown eyes and perfectly plump pink lips. Confessing something like freaking touching herself to a man that looked like he stepped off a taboo issue of Hot Priest calendar would be a near impossible task.
Yet. 
Y/N’s two feet, adoring her favorite ankle cut boots, walked to the church steps. They were small, but long and led up to the doors adorned with stained glass windows. She wasn’t knowledgeable enough to understand what they were depicting. With her heart threatening to thump out of her chest, Y/N opened the doors. She was met by a gust of cool, air conditioned air. It made her realize just how hot it was in her car. Y/N’s back chilled in the coolness of the large room as a cold sweat formed. The church was strangely quiet, but then Y/N realized that it’s probably that like most days.
 An eldry woman, dressed in bright salmon pink tops and white capri pants knelt in a pew. Her shoulders were slumped with either age or reverence, Y/N wasn’t too sure. Uncertain what to do, Y/N looked around at the tall windows above her head. Some she understood, the story of Adam and Eve, the first Christmas, and Easter. Others were beyond her scope of religious knowledge. Standing near the sign for Confessions, Y/N stared up at the stained glass depiction of Eve handing Adam the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. 
She always found it silly that women got the blame for being tricked by Satan, when the real fool is Adam. But, she supposes, faith isn’t supposed to be logical. If it was logical, well then it wouldn’t be faith would it? 
Speaking of the illogical and fantastical, the image of the man she’s about to confess to burned in her mind. The way his smile was somehow boyish and coy, yet wise and chock full of intelligence. You could see it. The intelligence. It was as if it seeped from his warm brown eyes and straight into her thumb that couldn’t help but zoom in and out. 
She sat in a pew, staring at the stained glass and attempting to rid her mind of the less than pure thoughts that circle the drain of her mind. Fiddling with her thumbs, Y/N watched as an eldery man exited the small room to her left. Unsure what to do, or if it was her turn, she took a second to take in her surroundings. The old woman, who knelt a couple pews behind her, looked deep in prayer. Y/N figured that she already went and was taking a moment of reflection. That’s what happened. Right? 
Plagued with uncertainty, she let the man find a spot to sit before entering the small room with a heavy oak wood door. It was dark in the room, save for a small battery operated candle. In the tiny room, Y/N realized that there wasn't much room for anything, but to kneel. Again, that’s the point, isn’t it? 
“You’re supposed to be kneeling,” 
Her heart stopped. It didn’t just skip a beat or two, it actually stopped. His voice startled her, not unlike an innocent lamb at the hands of an unsavory predator. But if anything, she’s the impure one in this duo of sinners. 
“Sorry for startling you,” he apologized, a layer of sincerity piqued her interest, “You sound like you don’t know what you’re doing,” Y/N felt her skin heat at the man…the priest’s words. It wasn’t suggestive. It was far from it and it was unfair of her to take it in such a way, “I don’t,” she chuckled, kneeling on the leather kneelers. They were hard against her knees, bound to leave marks when she stood. 
“That’s quite alright. I can show you the ropes if you like,” 
He sounded….kind? Sweet, even. I knew he was young. And handsome. Ridiculously, wonderfully gorgeous. And completely off limits. A fucking Catholic priest is perhaps as off limits as a man can get. God, there should be rules or something. Like they should all have to wait until they’re graying or wrinkling or smell like talc and moth balls. Before she could help it, her mouth overtook the more sensible part of her brain, “Do I really have to say ‘Forgive me Father, for I have sinned’ or is that only in the mafia movies? 
She could have sworn she heard him chuckle. Swallowing the last bit of pride she had left, Y/N listened to Father Spencer as he instructed, guided her, like a wise, kind shepherd leads his unknowing flock. From his handsome countenance to hearing his rich, velvety voice, Y/N is resigned to the conclusion that she’s thoroughly, inconceivably fucked. 
The choir, probably half exhausted, half in need of resuscitation after their rendition of Amazing Grace with great gusto, instructed the congregation to sing what they called a processional hymn. Y/N, unsure of what to do, looked over at her not unwelcomed companion’s shoulder. 
“You’ve got an incredible voice,”  
His humble voice reached Y/N’s ear through the echoey church, making her shudder with anticipation. She didn’t fully understand what he was saying, nor did she ever think she believed in it. But it was hard when he looked so sinfully beautiful doing it. 
“Father Spencer,” she says, nodding her head politely. She looks up towards him, wondering how he snuck into the pew so silently, “You’d think you would get enough of this,” she teases, taking note of how he tinges pink. 
“One could never get tired of this,” Father Spencer murmurs, raising his head and looking at church with an unidentifiable longing. 
Staring at him, Y/N found herself hit with a wave of jealousy. She wondered what it would be like to devote yourself to something so ardently. Y/N didn’t have that privilege or burden, she’s not sure which is it. But whatever it is, Father Spencer certainly makes it look attractive. 
In more ways than one. 
“I have another confession to make, Father,” she whispers, shocking herself with her brazen words. She sneaks a look at her pew companion, searching for some reaction to her confirmation, “It’s not as….salacious as the last one,” 
“You’re not supposed to talk during Mass,” Father Spencer mumbles, “It might just bring us back to that confessional again, my dear,” 
Heat rises to her chest, as the memory of closed off, stuffy confessional rushes back. She remembers the feel of the leather kneelers against her skin, the sound of his voice, warm and rich like a glass of whiskey. 
“Well, at a risk of being bad,” Y/N starts, her eyes flickering to Father Spencer. He swallows his clerical collar moving up and down as he collects his thoughts, “I have to admit, the only reason I came here today to because I thought I’d see you,” 
“Hmm,” he says, neither agreeing or disagreeing with her confession. 
 “And now, Father,” she starts again, “I’m wondering if you’re here with the same intentions,” 
The congregation sits, finished with three verses of Amazing Grace. The priest, pickled and pruning, gestures for the altar boy to collect the basket for donations. While the rest of the church is occupied with finding spare dollars and change in exchange for their souls, Father Spencer’s fingers dig into her elbow. His voice is rich and warm against Y/N’s ear and if she focuses she could feel his lips brushing against the hard part of her ear. 
“Follow me,”  
She wasn’t sure what prompted her to listen, but there’s something magnetic about Father Spencer. It’s in the way his eyes, light with promises of something more tinilating flickering below the surface, shone in the church. His breath was reveret, not unlike a prayer, against her neck, beckoning her like a lost lamb towards its rightful shepard. Father Spencer, never letting go of his grip against her elbow, leads Y/N down the stairs. Storage rooms and secret nooks are filled with ornate statues and altar decorates. She knows that they must have some significance, but the very thought is lost to her at the moment. 
It was as if the world stopped. Y/N, breathless and timorous, could hardly breathe. She found herself all too aware of Father Spencer’s grip against her elbow. His nimble fingers, attached to strong veiny hands, bore into her skin. She found herself wishing he’d leave marks, a testament to this…whatever it was being real. 
“Is it presumptuous of me to assume you had thoughts of me, wanting me to touch you, to kiss you, to do things to you that good girls should never be thinking of, in a church no less?” Father Spencer cooes, leading Y/N’s back against a strong stone wall. 
Guilt and shame and lust rose in her chest, demanding to be dealt with. She could feel it ebb and flow from her body, tethered to the Earth, to Father Spencer’s tethered to Earth by a power unknowable to her mind.
“Tell me that’s not what you want, little lamb,” Father Spencer asks, his lips dipping closer to Y/N’s neck, barely touching yet leaving not a millimeter of space between them. Father Spencer’s hand came to rest on her thigh. He brushes her skin and plays with the hem of her delicate dress. His eyes rank her body, lust evident in his eyes. She wonders, silently, proudly if she’s the first woman he’s touched, wanted, lusted for since taking up the cloth. A wave of unearned, yet potent jealousy washes over her. She may not have Father Spencer, she very may be denied him, but damn if someone else will procure the very looks she gets from him.  
She whimpers into him, inhaling the smell of the incense coupled with the aroma of his Earthy, woodsy cologne. It’s so wondrously him that she wants to lose herself in it. 
“You fucking undo me, and I don’t even know your name. You’re everywhere. My dreams, my runs, you’re the prayer on my lips. You’re the reason I’ve had to beg for forgiveness. And I don’t even know your damn name, my dear. And hear you are, in my church, brazenly flirting with, reminding me of what you’ve done,” 
Y/N gasps, whining as Father Spencer peppers careful kisses along the expanse of her jawline. Her skin is sensitive, but with his lips on her flesh it’s like he’s on fire. Y/N reaches forward, searching for something to yank her closer to her body. She’s desperate to feel their bodies flush, joined together as one in some bastardized sacrament. Her hands touch his hardened body, a juxtaposition against her soft, smooth one. 
“Oh my God, please, Father Spenc-” she cries, her lips bitten a bold, sinful red. Father Spencer groans the sound threatens any sense of reserve that remains. 
Father Spencer’s hand rises to her cheek, thrilling her heart as it holds her gently, “And to think I thought you would have had more resolve. That pathetic boyfriend of yours did know what he had, didn’t he. But, my dear, look at me when I speak to you. You’ve made me question the vows I gave with my whole heart. You’ve made me doubt the undoubtable, and for that, little lamb, I think you deserve a kiss,” 
Father Spencer’s hands cup her cheeks, bringing her lips towards his lips. They are bitten and swollen from her attempts to stifle any noises. They hear the swell of the organ, alerting them that mass is over, but neither of them care to move. Her chest rises and falls with trepidation as Father Spencer’s bowed head eclipse the low light in the storage room. Y/N’s back, pressed up against the cold wall, arches into the kiss. She tastes his hesitation in the kiss. Her eyes kill the lights and for a moment, she feels like a person. 
Her breath, wary and unsure, bleeds into Father Spencer’s mouth. Y/N kisses him, languid and deliberate, savoring the musk of his sweat and the taste of his tongue against her lips. She shudders as his hands grip her hips, ordering her to stay in place. She’s docile in her arms, puddy in his lips, hot liquid against his skin. 
No words needed to be said. Somehow there was a silent exchange between them as she stole his breath like a thief. Y/N marvels at the strength in his hands; he holds her so forcefully, pinned up against the wall. 
He smelled so good, his hands so rough and big; and he moved them higher up her hips and to her waist, raking the hem of her dress up as he went, like he'd forgotten who he was and where they were. Desperation, as it turned out, wasn’t something only she was plagued with. 
It wouldn’t be another sin to try to convince Father Spencer that Y/N was the kind of girl that found herself pinned up against a wall by a man. She’s a good girl. Kisses that make her lips ache and touches that bruise are foreign to her. She stifles a moan, her remaining decency dwindling as Father Spencer’s teeth graze her bottom lip. Desperation floods her skin, as he grinds his lips against her groin, reminding her of the sweetness of Earthly pleasure. 
Oh what she could show him, oh what they’ve both been missing. It’s wrong how something that feels so good could be so depraved. Father Spencer’s lips reach her neck, hellbent on leaving marks that will last longer than his fleeting touches. 
His hands rest on her hips, forming refuge against her ribcage. Father Spencer, in what seems to be his better judgment, releases her.
“My name,” Y/N says, “It’s Y/N. I want you to know what you’re calling out when you’re alone, Father Spencer. Because I do,” 
“And here I thought you were a good girl, my sweet Y/N,” Father Spencer trills, his long fingers dashing up her face. The sound of her name against his lips is almost too much for her to bear. She feels flush and weak, like some ill Regency woman that faints when men so much as ask her for a dance. But it’s her name repeated over and over again as the devilish, yet angelic man mauls her throat. He plants kiss after kiss, washing away all the ones that came before. 
“I’m sorry, Father.” She admits. Y/N’s tone is soft, yet she is sure Father Spencer is witty and clever enough to catch the glimmer in her eyes as she lowers her gaze.  
“Good Catholic girls don't lie to priests, my dear,” 
“It’s a good thing I’m not a good girl, or a Catholic, Father,” Y/N teases, a chanting sort of tone beckoning him forth. He can’t resist the whims of a woman, of a divine enchantress. 
Father Spencer’s hips shift, attempting to either hide or announce his pleasure from their secret thyrst. His hands caress her thighs, up to her soft chest, hidden by the confines of her dress.
Her confession, not her first to his ears, and certainly not the first to effect his resolve sends a shockwaves down his spine. His hands shake, perhaps tormented with the gravity of his sin or taken by the woman before him. It’s like in a moment everything in the Earth finds its realignment. The birds return to the sky and the fish to the sea. The grass is green again and the clouds white. 
Father Spencer, a man of the cloth, a believer of all things visible and invisible breaks away from the woman before him. He rests his head against her head, unable to not have his body pressed against hers. In a moment, Y/N’s chest rises and falls with her panty breath. She slums against the wall, her mind wandering at the last ten minutes. 
"I have to go."
With that, Father Spencer is gone. And all that remains is the knowing, ironic eyes of St. Agnes looking down below her. 
Taglist
@reidslovely @reidsbookclub @spencerreidat3am @fightingdragonswithreid @hotchandspencearedilfs @sadgirlml @spencerslibrary @foxy-eva @reidslibrarybook @reidselle @alexxavicry @justlivinginadaydream @reidsmilf @mrs-dr-reid @bloomingeagle @spencerreidsmommy @spenciesprincess @ssawonderland @strawberrykittey @simp-for-men-80083 @gublur @awhoreforspencerreid @spookydrreid @gettingrailedbyreid
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levi-ish · 3 years ago
Text
Red Watercolors | Jean
Summary: There wasn’t anything Jean couldn’t paint, but suddenly, there was.
Pairing: Jean X Reader
Genre: [+18] smut with plot
A/N: just drunk thoughts of dark academia Jean that became this piece. i just have a feeling our tall boy is artsy. hope you enjoy it!
Tags: @tacobellfreshavocado
Masterlist
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“Oof” was the sound that fell from Jean’s lips as soon as his body collided against something.
He fell on his side, a hand soon falling to the newly formed bruise on his hip and he wondered why things like this happen to him only when he’s late to class. Looking to the other side, he checked on his art supplies that were safely stored in his bag, checking to see if anything was in order and sighed in relief.
“Oh my god!” a soft voice appeared and he instantly realized that he collided against someone, eyes shooting up to find this ethereal presence above, both hands covering her mouth to hide her shock and he observed how the sunlight formed a halo on top of her head. Am I dead? Is this heaven? “I’m so sorry, are you hurt?”
But each and every word from this girl was now muffled. There were ringing bells in his ear and white spots in his sight, and he swore that those few seconds felt like an eternity as he stared at this stranger who he’d just collided against. The lighting, the surroundings, all the composition perfectly placed so she could represent the new Birth of Venus, the delicacy of her skin with the strokes of a brush that would—
“Sir?” She questioned and he shook his head. How long had he been in his mind?
“Oh, sorry…” he turned around to gather the papers that fell from his bag and took the offering hand she held.
“No, no, it was my fault!” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m running late and didn’t see where I was going.”
“I’m also late for something, must’ve been in my head ‘ya know?” He offered a gentle smile and she just nodded.
“Well… I gotta go” a shy smile formed on her lips as she hugged her own body. “Sorry again!”
He was a little sad to see you go. Something inside him urged for him to follow this stranger, tap her shoulder, wait for her to turn around and bless him with those enchanting eyes that stared into his, like foreign hands that were reaching for a grip on his soul.
But when life gets in the way, there’s not much you can do.
So he rushed his steps to cross the road and entered the huge building from the University of Fine Arts.
When you are young, your parents hover around you like flies, trying to catch a glimpse of what their offspring would be good at. Some people are born talented, some acquire talent, but everyone has something they can excel in their lives, and Jean’s has always been art.
From when he had chubby fingers and painted slobs on his feeding chairs with the colors left from fruits to crayons stamped on the walls, to which his mother finally realized that she would spend thousands on new paint if she didn’t give him something else to place his creativity at.
So for his 5th birthday, she gifted him with a humble but full art kit with non-toxic paint and a few brushes, and Jean took it as a challenge to finish his first sketchbook in a week. Let’s say his mother wasn’t pleased to buy another one.
It did pay off, though, because when he reached his teenage years he applied for a big academy with very low acceptance rates and got in. There he learned how to better his art and got to explore new materials and techniques, all too new and exciting for him, even though it was a little hard to balance that and high school, and his mother even considered making him take some time off when she found his bio notebook full of sketches from a girl that sat across from him — he couldn’t help himself, when he saw beauty, he had to draw it.
And with a mediocre GPA and very good scores on his art exams, he got into college with a scholarship. He was just that talented.
There wasn’t anything he couldn’t paint; landscapes, still life, portraits, self-portraits, abstract, charcoal, oil, acrylic, watercolor…
But then he looked up from his seat, everything set up in place as his professor stood on the other side of the room. He put his new canvas in place, observing the platform in the middle, wondering what the assignment of the day would be, ready for anything that was thrown in his way. He had his sharpened pencil in hand and leaned back on his stool, noticing a girl standing on the corner, talking to his professor, wearing a robe.
She turned over her shoulder, nodding as they talked, and he caught a glimpse of her face, suddenly, everything froze in place.
It was her, the girl from the street.
He felt a blush rush to his cheeks and his brain seemed to big to fit inside his head, body going cold in contrast to his whole face. The robe, oh no…
And she stepped on the platform, the words from his professor sounding muffled inside his mind as this girl took off the silky fabric, falling like a small waterfall on her shoulders as her naked body was revealed to everyone else.
There wasn’t anything Jean couldn’t paint, but suddenly, there was.
The professor stopped talking and he realized that it was time to start drawing the girl, this stranger he’d never seen before but already had a grip on his heart in ways he didn’t even comprehend himself. She stood still, one feet in front of the other as her shoulders were straight up, aligned with her back in what seemed to be a painful posture, but pretty to be in a canvas. He thanked God that she wasn’t facing him.
A sigh fell from his lips as he grabbed his sketchbook, opening on a clean page and raising his pencil to his eyes, trying to form shapes and figures, get any work done, even though his mind only wanted to focus on the beautiful sight that stood in front of him. From how her breasts stood, to where the lines of her muscles were marked under the skin, the moles and marks that her body carried, everything that made her, her.
He traced a line on his sketchbook, small strokes of graffiti on the textured page couldn’t describe the curves of her waist, how the fat was like a magnet to his fingertips, wildest thoughts running around his mind, wondering if it was soft to the touch, sweet to the taste and warm to the heart. He could draw shapes all day long, and none of them would transfer the angelical figure standing in front of him.
Just when he finally got to sketch the first part of his idea, his hazel eyes met those deep ones, soft watercolors painting his cheeks in redness as he tried to hide his face behind the canvas. His mind went abstract, almost traveling through art to cubism as his thoughts didn’t meet an end, and he tried his best to avoid her soft gaze, not knowing how a bunch of butterflies made a ball inside her stomach. Her pupils quickly looked away and it felt like there were only those two people present in the room, the whole class evaporated into thin air as the spread of orange tones from the sunset invaded the window, shadowing her every details, scars, beauty.
Jean was so in the moment he didn’t even notice how his professor stood from her desk and walked in front of the platform, offering the model her robe and letting them all know that the project would go on for two more days. He shook his head, sighing deeply a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding. A quick look to the sketchbook on his lap and he also realized how screwed he was.
“You are a little behind” the voice of his professor came from behind his shoulder, startling him as he nodded slowly. “Is there anything wrong? This isn’t like you, Mr. Kirstein.”
“S-Sorry” he rubbed his neck awkwardly, raising his eyes to see the model gathering her things and heading to the door.
He had to hold every muscle of his to not act on their own and lead him to follow this stranger. His mind screamed for him to run after her, offer to pay for a coffee, talk shit, whatever, he just needed to know her.
“You also seem distracted” his professor kept going, anxiety grew inside his gut as the girl finally went out the door, and his chances were thrown out the window once more. “I should remind you that this assignment is 70% of your total grade, Mr. Kirstein.”
Jean looked up, eyes widening. He didn’t listen when she opened the class, so it was now a surprise for him to hear that. It was more than half of his grade and he only had a sketch of a torso and it was all out of proportion. He was fucked.
[…]
The next day Jean showed up to class early, his glasses on top of his nose and the soundtrack of Downtown Abbey playing on loop on his earbuds. He woke up so early he even had time to go for a walk, cook breakfast, grab an iced coffee and force his mind to find inspiration around. He spent the whole night working on sketches of the female body, finding no trouble at all as his graffiti lines ran smoothly across the surface of the thick paper, he even found time to play with coal, and made sure he was very much ready for the assignment.
But it all came crumbling down as the same model stepped on the platform, the silky white robe falling from her body and pooling around her feet, to which she kicked it off. His heart did the same dumb jumping around and failing his breaths, and suddenly, he forgot how to even draw a simple tree.
He didn’t know a single thing about this woman. Didn’t know her name, how old she was, what she enjoyed doing in her free time, how she liked her coffee or if she even liked coffee at all. It was childish and stupid of him to act so lost over a small crush, it didn’t make sense for him and nothing could wrap his mind around it.
And still, whenever he took a glance, he felt so drawn to her, to the point he started creating stories in his mind. How she got that small scar on her knee from falling from a tree when she was younger, how she applied a thin coat of nail polish on her toes before going to bed just to entertain herself, how she was always late to important things and waking up early wasn’t in her ideal plans.
He wanted to know her. He wanted her to become close enough so she wouldn’t be ‘her’ anymore, but ‘you’.
His hand slapped his forehead and he tapped his cheeks twice, attracting some attention over his station and he just looked at those curious eyes dismissingly, until his eyes met those same ones, and he could swear that the gaze accompanied a giggle.
That was inspiration enough for the evening.
A simple giggle, almost undetectable if it wasn’t for his eyes that were already fixated on hers. A small curve that adorned her luscious lips, nothing too exaggerated, he was sure no one else saw it, meaning it was only for him. Something of hers that he could call his too. Suddenly, this small curvature played part on his sketchbook, tracing around in fragments, drawing her whole torso, thighs, legs, all so it could form pure perfection.
It was funny how she was standing without a single piece of fabric to hide her body from the world, and Jean still felt like he hadn’t seen enough of her. She was on display, like a pretty decorated cake for people to feed on the idea of the sweet frosting, the foundation laying on top, fake pearls and flowers all over. And he only wanted a taste.
As soon as his inspiration begun, it put him into a state of trance so deep that he didn’t even notice when his glasses fell from his nose. His sketch was now done and he placed the idea in soft strokes of his pointy pencil on the canvas, applying a thin coat of white paint over to hold the other paints on top. The smell of acrylic, oil and gouache assaulted his nose and he felt a little dizzy. He made sure to make a mental note of bringing a mask the next day. He searched for his paint kit in his bag, but before he could grab it, his professor interrupted the class, signaling that it was over for the day, and he almost felt disappointed, knowing that that state of inspiration wasn’t a normal occurrence, however, he felt proud of himself.
Looking over his canvas, he nodded to himself and started to gather his stuff, taking his time and almost forgot to look for her, not seeing the stranger’s figure around, and a pang of disappointment reached his chest, but he wasn’t going to let anything ruin his productive day.
His professor looked at his sketchbook and gave him an approving nod, asking for him to close the door as she left the class.
Jean stood from the stool and threw his bag on his shoulder, glasses in their case as he headed to the door.
“Oh gosh, has everyone left already?” A sweet voice came from behind him, he turned around to see the model coming out of the private bathroom, now fully clothed and hair messily sitting on top of her head, as if she had changed in a rush.
He looked in almost a state of shock, hand on the doorknob as he looked around.
“Uhm… It seems like it” he said, eyes never leaving hers.
“At least you didn’t lock me in” she giggled and he just stared, too nervous to notice that she was joking around. “Sorry, I—”
He let out a small laugh and looked away from those captivating eyes, opening the door for her as she gave him a nod.
“You know any good coffee shops around here?” She turned around, asking as she grabbed the strap of her bag tighter.
Jean widened his eyes. So she likes coffee after all.
“There’s one across the street. I know the owner” he bit his lower lip as she tilted her head to the side.
“Do you wanna grab a coffee with me?”
And suddenly, ‘she’ became ‘you’.
He learned that you liked things simple; black coffee, a plain croissant, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, enjoyed 80’s songs and cheesy books. You had a normal life and were also a student, doing modeling gigs on the side to pay the rent. You’d been a nude model before and didn’t mind doing it. You told him funny stories and he listened to each and every one of them.
The next day, he came in with his heart full, he got a glimpse into your life, he got to learn your essence and now he felt more connected with his art than ever. You gave him a gentle smile as you stepped onto the platform and as soon as his professor gave the signal to start, Jean grabbed his palette and started working on mixing the paints, playing with the gentle strokes that made your body figure, tracing every shadow he captured in the light the days before, studying the whole room to find the contrast in between.
He added more white, added more black, made the soft colors become layers that texturized the canvas and gave it a depth that was unique to his style. He wanted you to be the highlight, he wanted everyone to see what he saw. He wanted everyone to fall in love with you — not that way, he felt kinda jealous — seeing what he was able to transcript into a mix of paint, oil and brushes. He felt like adding some shadows in forms of pointillism, much like Signac and Seurat. The optical illusion was pleasant to the eye.
Small beads of sweat started to form on the sides of his face and he dried them away with the sleeves of his white shirt, unbuttoning the first two buttons to have more space for breathing. All the concentration and work making his muscles tense. He didn’t even notice how you were glancing at him from the side, adoring the way his tongue poked out between his thin lips. He didn’t also notice when the professor threw daggers at you because you were too infatuated with the boy in front of you.
The clock marked now 6PM and the class was now over. Jean stared at his piece with shiny eyes, you can even say boyish, childish ones. It was a nice painting, he painted you in the center, light streaking from the window and creating a shiny halo through your whole body. It illuminated your form as he made you seem like an angel that blessed everyone with its presence. A few other students stopped to admire his job and congratulate him, making Jean feel like he has accomplished what he wanted; to capture your whole essence.
He stayed behind again, not because he needed to or anything, but because he wanted to spend time alone with you. He waited by the door when everyone left and you came from the private bathroom, hair messy again from putting your clothes back on and cellphone between your teeth as your hands searched for something inside your bag. You took a scarf from the inside and wrapped around your neck, eyes meeting his and a soft smile forming on top of your lips.
“Hey” you greeted him and he leaned more onto the wall, swearing he could melt into a puddle right then and there.
“Hey” he gave you a tight-lipped smile and fisted his hands into his pockets.
“Were you waiting for me?” You tightened your grip on the strap of your bag, a nervous habit he had noticed you had.
“Y-Yeah, I was wondering if you wanted to go for a coffee…”
Your eyes lit up and your mouth was left parted. A second later you just nodded shyly.
Jean opened the door for you, but before you could pass through, you stopped, turning around instantly and fixating your gaze on him.
“Wait, I want to see your painting!” You said and he froze on his tracks.
“My… painting?” His hazel eyes widened and you gave him a firm nod.
“Yes! I saw how the other students were admiring it. I wanted to see it, too.”
It was her body there, after all. He did feel a little insecure, he wondered what your thoughts would be, if you would hate it, like it, love it, maybe throw it at him and make him rip it to shreds…
He sighed and walked to his finished product, covered by a thin piece of cloth to avoid dust falling over the semi-wet paint. You followed quietly as he gave you a side glance, just to find you waiting patiently with gentleness printed all over your face. He could feel his cheeks heating up once more.
“I hope you like it” he said as he uncovered it, waiting by your side as you took a step further, analyzing it carefully.
He watched nervously how you leaned forward, eyes tracing every shape, dot, color, trying to gather as much information as you could. He didn’t see it, but the shine that invaded your eyes was with pure adoration. You almost wanted to run your fingers on the texture and feel the layers of paint and noticing every stroke of his brush that marked the canvas and formed calculated shapes, all combining into the figure of your body.
You didn’t have a problem with your image — it was okay, but as you watched it from his point of view stamped on his project, it felt weird. It wasn’t something you saw on the mirror every day, but the combination of things around you and the way someone else would see you. You loved it. How he transcribed into art every detail of yours, your hair, skin, he made you look as if you were a porcelain doll, smooth and fragile, beautiful in a light no one else saw in yourself.
But he did. He saw you.
Mouth parted, you turned around, and he swore his heart dropped. Did you hate it? Oh god, was it that bad?
Your eyes teared up and you covered your mouth with your hands, looking in between him and the painting. “Is that how you see me?”
“W-What? Was it bad? Did I—” He started stuttering, his eyes avoiding yours and his chest barely containing his frenetic thumps.
“No!” You put your hands on his shoulders. “I love it! You made me look so… so pretty. How did you do it?!”
He frowned, confused. “I painted you exactly the way you are.”
“But I—I look so pretty” you turned away from his face, cheeks heating up quickly. “Holy fuck, Jean, I love it so, so, so much I could kiss you right now!”
He froze. His stomach flipped when you put your hands on his shoulders, but when you said it so nonchalantly, he almost felt like the butterflies were eating his insides. He not only felt the anxiety, but also the adrenaline that was now rushing inside his veins, running along his wild thoughts, and suddenly, his mouth acted before his brain could:
“You can do it” his eyes widened, not even him believing what came out of his own mouth.
But before he could even think, your lips landed on his, your fingers wrapping themselves in between his honey-glazed locks while he relaxed under your touch, hands falling to your hips and meeting with the naked skin from where your shirt was ridden up, quickly backing away, scared of being too disrespectful, but you grabbed his wrists and placed them back.
His arms wrapped around your figure, holding you tightly, afraid you might get away if he didn’t. Your lips were everything he had been dreaming of and the reality could be considered even better. He observed how soft they felt against his, how sweetly they slid between his own and how intense your touch burned on his skin. His hands sneaked under your shirt, feeling your back and fingertips tracing on your spine so delicately that you could feel every hair on your body standing.
You leaned back for a second, only to find his own eyes staring at you, the sight so blessed, the sunset painting half of his face while his mouth was parted and painted in your saliva. His hand went up, his knuckles caressing your cheek as you leaned into his touch, falling under his spell as he did the same.
He decided to do something riskier and started to graze his pointer finger along your plump lips, feeling the softness of the moist skin under his touch, only to trade places with his thumb, pressing a little until you leaned forward, letting it rest on your tongue as you did a slow movement around his digit, taking in every inch of his parted gaze on you. His heart stopped for a whole second, he could swear. You sucked on his finger and teased its tip with your tongue, not once breaking eye contact. All Jean could think was about your lips wrapped around other places, resting so pretty on his skin.
“Maybe you should close the door” you looked to his finger on your grip, slowly looking up to meet his reddened cheeks.
He just nodded and walked backwards, quickly closing and locking the door and placing his bag on top of a stool as you did the same, removing your coat.
Jean walked towards you again and watched as your hands invited him to their touch, and he raised your chin, burying his nose on your neck and taking in the scent of your perfume mixed with the scent of your skin, wanting to take notes on each and every detail of your body that he had watched for three whole days and only now was able to touch it. The feening, the craving, the wanting, he thought would stay inside his mind, the reality being an alternative space he never thought he would visit, not so soon, and now you were letting him in, wanting for him to feen over you, to crave you, to want you.
And he wanted. So bad.
His hands roamed to your head, giving the ones on your nape a little pull that incited a whine from your mouth. That only made him lose the last string of the thin thread that held his sanity that moment.
And he dived in, lips leaving marks on your neck as you moaned on the shell of his ear, letting him use your skin as a canvas to his mouth, painting it with passionate kisses, some open-mouthed, trying to take in as much as he could. He kissed until his mouth met your jaw and then he went back to your lips, missing the silkiness of them.
“Taste so good” he muttered against you. “Wanna’ taste more of you…”
Your eyes met his once more, finding the hazel mixing with a deep tone of lust and desire, both of which you wanted so bad. With your semi-open lids you nodded slowly, landing a quick peck on the corner of his mouth.
Jean took off his coat, hands going to your shirt as he removed the fabric to reveal the same skin he had been staring for far too long, but now under his touch. All his. Your hands shoot down your pants to unbutton them as quickly as you could as he placed a hand on the small of your back, leading you backwards until your lower body collided against the desk and he helped you sit on the surface, only making you jump to remove your pants, the traces of hazel never leaving you.
He kneeled and placed your legs on his shoulders, nose running along your thighs and taking soft gasps from you as your fingertips danced in between his dirty blonde strands, biting your lip teasingly. He ran his mouth across your skin, not daring to place them fully, wanting to savor your expressions, drinking you all in. One movement and his hot breath fanned on your covered cunt, making shivers run down your spine and you threw your head back.
Placing two fingers inside his mouth, he placed your panties to the side with the other hand, leading his now wet fingers to run a stripe along your entrance, teasing the outside walls as you kept on whining almost silently. He squeezed your thigh and made you dug the hell of your foot on his back, earning a dirty grin from him. Licking his own lips, he buried his face in your drooling pussy and placed a hot kiss on your clit.
You moaned. Loudly. And you felt a smirk form on his lips.
Leaning just a little back, he stared deep into your soul; the real devil waiting for you to sign his contract, sealing the deal with just the mark of your lips. Giving him another nod, he dove in, letting his tongue do the messy work around your bundle of nerves, playing with the little pearl hidden from the naked eye. While one of his hands held a firm grip on your thigh, the other one climbed up your abdomen and sneaked inside your bralette, squeezing the mounds and pinching your nipples. He did his job right, and got paid with the sweetest of moans that were now engraved in the back of his mind.
“Holy fuck, Jean… more” your voice echoed in the empty room, eyes never leaving his, since every time they roamed somewhere else, Jean pinched your nipple.
He wet his pointer and middle fingers in his mouth once more and teased around the entrance as you rode his face while holding to dear life on the edge of the old desk as he worked them inside you.
“Gonna—ah!—fuck… Imma’ cum!” you moaned from the new presence inside and he noticed how your chest was moving faster, breath now ragged and he suddenly stopped, leaning back and earning a frown from you.
His face glistened with your essence and his own saliva that trailed to his neck as he stuck his tongue out to collect what rested on his lips. Your cheeks felt heavy and hot on your face as you stared at him, a little disappointed he took away your climax.
“Sorry love, wan’you to cum on my cock” he said so simply as if it was just another regular for him and cleaned the remaining wetness with the back of his arm, now unbuttoning his white shirt.
You wanted to complain, at least say something, but as soon as the cotton slid off his shoulders, you found yourself speechless. His skin seemed so smooth, the light from the outside lamppost shone against his muscles, creating a contrast and building depth into the demigod in front of you. It was hard to believe that this man only studied art, he was art; every inch of his could be painted on the Sistine Chapel, be a sculpture made by Bernini himself, walking around in its human form. How was that fair?
His fingers hooked under your panties and he slid them off, following by your bralette and you lowered your hands to unbutton his tailored pants, he helped you by sliding them down, leaving him in only his boxers. Jean placed each of his hands on your sides on the desk, leaning down to place his lips softly against yours and you took them, you wanted to take all of him.
Your hands were dangerously wandering around the band of his boxers and he gasped against your lips when they reached his clothed cock, tracing along his print and quickly sneaking in to grab him from the base, giving it a slow tug, twisting your wrist as you did. Jean wasn’t shy to moan in your mouth, and you swallowed them all, wanting to hear more from the sonnet you had been wondering about for days.
It didn’t surprise you that he was thick, your hands traced along his dick only to find out that he was long, too, and the thought of him buried inside you only made more wetness pool under your thighs.
Raising a hand to your lips, you let spit fall on your palm as your eyes captured his and he slid his boxers down, kicking them to the side where the rest of his clothes were sitting. Your hand landed on his base once more and the movements felt easier from the drool enveloping his whole length. Jean couldn’t even keep kissing you anymore from how sensitive he felt under your touch, moans falling non-stopping from his rosy lips.
You found out you had a tight grip on him, figurative and literally.
But Jean didn’t want to wait more, his hands fell to your hips and a yelp escaped your mouth as he pulled you closer, his own hand substitute to yours, giving himself a few tugs before lining up to you and slowly burying himself in, swallowing each of your moans, gasps, whines now craved in his mind till the end of times.
Your hands found themselves tangling in his hair once more as he held onto dear life your thigh, squeezing it around his waist as his thrusts became consistent, filling you to the hitch and merging both moans in a form of a sacred song from above. Everything about your disheveled look made sense in his mind, how your hair stuck to your forehead and how your eyes were half-lidded and never left his, not even for a second, to how your thighs glued to his hips and the point where his body met yours, wanting to be as close as he could. You were art, he never had a doubt about it, but the way you looked right in that moment was a masterpiece. And he was the one who painted it.
You met his lips once more, the addictive taste of them leaving you dependent, the thought of not being able to kiss him scared you. You wanted everything he could offer you, you wanted and you would take it. His thrusts became harder and left you gasping against his mouth, each meeting a new mess of sloppiness with clashing teeth and tongues.
He went back to your neck, leaving marks that he could admire later and so could everyone else. Jean Kirstein’s works were made to be seen, and he wanted the world to know his lips had been there.
“Fffuck baby” his voice sounded muffled against your neck and he bit under your ear, enticing another moan from you. “Pussy feels so good, ‘wanna stay here forever.”
“I’m yours, Jean” your voice was weaker and weaker from each thrust of his hips. “Take me, however you want!”
His hips started to go harder and more erratic each move, you rolled your own against him, trying to reach the building feeling on your lower abdomen, tasting it on the tip of your tongue, it was right there, reaching for it, wanting so bad.
“You’re mine” he reminded you as your hand fell to his nape, holding his neck and leading your forehead against his while you both watched where your bodies met. “Mine, mine, mine.”
“Yours” you moaned loudly. “Gonna cum, Jean.”
“Imma’ fill you up” he groaned, his thrusts so hard that you almost fell from the edge of the desk. “Gonna take it all, every last drop.”
Your response was a raspy moan that failed in your throat, he buried himself inside you to paint your walls in white, wanting to fill every inch of your walls, marking you as his and you took the closeness to rub your clit on his skin, trying to get your god-oh-so-wanted orgasm. The way his cock pumped you full made your head light and dizzy from the feeling, hotness warming your whole body and a sheer coat of sweat covering you both.
You two stayed in the embrace of each other, calming down both hearts together, feeling tired and hot from the whole act, not wanting to break contact. The closeness felt almost familiar, like it was meant to be, and the way both bodies held each other felt like a puzzle that fit perfectly.
After fully calming down, you two leaned back, your hands still in his hair and his never leaving your hips. Jean leaned in and placed a soft peck on your lips, trailing to your cheek and then your forehead, brushing the hairs away from the sweaty skin and you giggled as you did the same to his.
“You’re so beautiful” he let out accidentally, his thoughts falling from his mouth before he could even process his words. Red watercolors painting his cheeks.
“You too” you smiled at him and he laughed.
You placed your feet on the floor, ready to jump from the desk before he placed them back, legs open to reveal your stuffed pussy as cum dripped from it. His artwork.
“Didn’t think I was done, right, princess?”
746 notes · View notes
cjsinkythoughts · 4 years ago
Text
Windows Down, Music Up
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader
Word Count: 3730
Warnings: !FATWS Spoilers!, Cursing, Lotsa Fluff, Slight Angst, Talk of PTSD/Flashbacks, No Seatbelts at One Point (WEAR SEATBELTS!)
A/N: The Part I didn’t know I needed. I started writing and this is where it got me. I needed these soft moments after the intensity of the last few parts. I know I said there’d only be one part left, but…I didn’t know this Part would be so long. So three parts for episode 5 it is!
I hope you enjoy this! I know it’s not really a part of the show, but I love the idea and I think both Bucky and the Reader needed it. Plus the show has a lot of leeway this episode because time passes but they kinda skip over traveling and stuff, so I thought I’d give you a glimpse of what it looks like in mine!
Not beta’d, as per usual! All mistakes are mine and please excuse them! Be kind to yourselves and others! Enjoy this part and stay tuned!
FATWS Masterlist
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!SPOILERS UNDER CUT!
******************
“So what’s next?” You questioned, your feet hooked onto the bar below the bar you were sitting on so you didn’t fall. Not that you could - Bucky was right next to you, his hand flying to your thigh every time you shifted even a little bit to keep you steady. “Walker’s been arrested, we have the shield, Karli’s in the wind…where does that leave us? Do we have any leads on Karli right now?”
“The GRC is conducting raids to try and find Karli, but so far they’ve only found her followers. They’ve searched this camp, and just like the last camp, nothing. She’s gone. And we’ll never find her.”
You huffed at Sam’s words, rubbing your temples as you grumble, “way to look on the bright side.”
“What bright side? There’s not one here, cher. Not this time.”
“Hey.” Bucky snapped. “Back off, Sam.”
You grabbed his forearm and squeezed reassuringly. “Hey! You got your, uh, you got your sleeve back!” You turned at the familiar voice that caused Bucky to scoff lightly and shake his head.
“Torres!”
The kid smiled at you, waving as Bucky pushed off the bars, helping you down (he’d been refusing to let you do anything on your own since you woke up) and started walking towards the door. “Hi, Y/N. It’s been a while.”
“Are you off to take care of Zemo?” Sam questioned, making Bucky look over his shoulder at the three of you. The former assassin raised an eyebrow at you. You nodded, and he turned around to leave. 
“Alright! Good to know you survived!”
You snickered a bit at the kid. “It’s good to see you.”
Torres turned back to you and grinned. “You too. I really am glad you survived.”
“I know you are, kid.”
Sam looked at you questioningly. “Are you gonna go with him?” You pursed your lips, chewing your cheek, and nodded. “Alright. C’mere.”
You frowned as he lifted his arms, but walked into them anyways. “What’re we doing right now? This isn’t goodbye. We’ve still gotta find Karli.”
“For now.” He responded, setting his chin on your head, careful of your shoulder. “But we don’t have any leads and I’m sure we’ve been benched. So, until we do and we meet again, stay safe. And take care of yourself. And for the love of God, please have that conversation with cyborg, now.”
A small puff of laughter came from you and you nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you later then, Sammy.”
He pressed a kiss to your head, before letting you go. “Later, cher.”
“Bye, Y/N!”
You smiled, waving to Torres. “Bye, kid. Keep out of trouble.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
You chuckled, shaking your head as you walked out the door Bucky disappeared through earlier, turning down the hall to exit the building.
When you got outside, you found Bucky leaning against a wall, narrowed eyes watching the police as they finished the raid. “Do you agree with it?”
“What?”
“These people getting arrested.”
You shrugged, shoving your hands in your pockets. “They harbored a criminal.”
He looked at you with a frown, eyebrows knit together and forehead creased. “We harbored a criminal. We broke him out.”
“Technically he broke himself out.” Your joke fell flat, Bucky’s head dropping. “Buck…” You sighed, eyes following a lady as she was shoved into the back of a car. “No. I don’t. I think these people have been through enough.”
“But?” His eyes grew sad as you met his gaze again, making you smile softly at him.
“But we can’t do anything about it right now. So we need to focus on doing what we can and finding Zemo.”
He nodded, reaching for your hand as he straightened and started walking off. You grabbed his fingers, jogging slightly to fall into sync with his strides. He seemed to notice and slowed down slightly. “We already know where he is, though. Don’t we?”
You hummed, thumb brushing over his knuckles. “Where else would he be?”
“Anywhere.”
You shook your head. “No. He’s there. Question is…how are you going to take care of him?”
“Sam thinks I’m gonna kill him.”
His blunt statement made you raise an eyebrow. “Are you?”
Licking his lips, he looked down at you, eyes set with certainty. “No.”
Your lips pulled up at his answer, leaning closer into him, shoulders brushing. “Good. Not that I’m an advocate for never killing people ever…it’s just,” you chewed on your cheek, thinking about the previous day’s events. “Revenge and justice are two different things.”
“Yeah.” He agreed softly. “We kinda witnessed that.”
“Yeah…we did.”
He let go of your hand to wrap an arm around your shoulders, tenderly avoiding your wrapped wound. “Good thing I contacted Ayo while you were sleeping then, huh?”
“You did?” You looked up at him with a smile as he nodded in confirmation.
“Yeah. And…I’ve been thinking a lot. Since our conversation about Wakanda and Zemo and Sam. You were right.”
A smirk graced your lips, an eyebrow quirking in amusement. “Pardon me? I don’t think I heard you correctly. What was that?”
He rolled his eyes, reaching over with his free hand to shove your head lightly, making you laugh. “You are such a punk sometimes. I’m serious though, doll. I-I’ve been…I dunno…I haven’t been thinking straight. The whole thing with Zemo was wrong and-and Sam didn’t deserve what I was blaming him for.”
You froze in your steps, tugging him to a stop as well, staring at him thoughtfully. Just since that phone call a couple weeks ago he’d grown so much. You could barely believe what he was saying - that he was finally saying it. He was a stubborn ass sometimes, so to hear him say that? It just stunned you. You knew he was a good person, but this…you felt yourself falling more, which you thought was impossible.
“Doll? Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”
Your arms raised around his neck, tugging him down into a hug, your lips pressing to his cheek. “I’m just proud of you.” You murmured softly, kissing his temple. He ducked his head, leaning against your shoulder, arms wrapping tightly around your waist. You held him like for another minute or two, before kissing his temple again. “We should get going. Gotta get to Sokovia before the Dora do.”
He hummed in agreement, pulling you tighter against him and squeezing you slightly, before letting go. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
“Question.” You said once you two started walking again.
“Possible answer.” He replied, making you elbow him as he chuckled.
“How’re we gonna get to Sokovia?”
He blinked, tilting his head. “Uh…plane? Unless you wanna have a road trip. The plane would only take a couple hours at most and a car, well…I could have us there in under a day with some broken traffic laws.”
You giggled, shaking your head. “Know what? I could go for a road trip right now.”
“Yeah?” He grinned at you.
“Yeah. And yes, you can drive. Just don’t get us in the middle of a high speed chase.”
He winked, kissing your head. “No promises.”
**********************
Bucky was actually a very good road trip partner. He made sure you had plenty of your snacks and let you control the music, turning up the volume for your favorite songs, shouting the lyrics to the heavens as you danced in your seat, the windows rolled down, wind ripping through the car, ruffling both of your clothes and hair.
You grinned over at Bucky, bobbing your head to the beat as he stared back at you, his eyes soft and sparkling. “Watch the road, dork!” He chuckled as you shoved his face.
“I’d much rather watch you.”
You felt yourself heat up despite the cool breeze moving through the car. “Have you ever stuck your head out the sunroof?” You suddenly asked him.
He gave you a weird look. “What?” Feeling a bit mischievous, you smirked and unbuckled. “Woah, woah! What are you doing?! But your seatbelt back on!”
“Oh calm down!” You stood on the seat after opening the sunroof, the top half of your body outside the car. He laughed as you whooped and hollered.
“Alright, alright. Sit back down, doll.” He tugged you back in, shaking his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this.”
You smiled, putting your seatbelt back on and plopping your feet on the dash. “Like what?”
He turned to look at you, his teeth pulling his bottom lip between them contemplating. “Carefree. Relaxed, even.”
You shrugged, leaning back in your seat. “I don’t get to do it often. But it’s so hard to care right now.” You gestured out to the gorgeous landscape you were moving through, the sunsetting on the horizon. “The wind, the music, the open road. Nothing feels more like freedom.”
“Yeah…yeah. I guess. I’ve never really…been on a road trip. Unless you count going across Germany in that little blue car-”
“Ha! That was not a road trip! That was Steve being a reckless dumbass driver for a few hours.”
He laughed. You’d heard him laugh before, but this was different. Something about the freedom you were talking about made it different. It was nice. And you’d do anything to hear it more often.
“I’ll take you on a real road trip once this is done.” You vowed. “We’ll hit all the states. Even go through Canada to get to Alaska. Nothing but us in a car for weeks. Wherever we wanna go.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
You winked. “You do that.”
Conversation died after that, the only sounds being you and your music with the occasional chuckle from Bucky at your over dramatic dancing. You made a few stops at gas stations, getting food and drinks, before you felt yourself start winding down as the stars came out, winking down at you. You didn’t even realize you drifted off until the car jostled, waking you up.
“Sorry, sleepyhead.” Bucky apologized. “There was a deer. Maybe if you put your seatbelt on you would’ve stayed asleep.”
You rolled your eyes, rubbing at them and blinking. It was still dark out, no hint of the sun peeking out yet. “They’re uncomfortable.” You grumbled, shifting and wincing at your leg which was still asleep. “What time is it?”
“Almost two.” Bucky answered. “Are you okay? Is your shoulder hurting?”
“No. My leg’s just asleep so it feels weird and it’s aching. You want me to drive so you can sleep?”
“Nah, it’s fine. We’ll be there in a few hours. I’ve got it.” 
You hummed, sitting up and digging through your bag for some food. “Hungry?”
“Uh…I’ll just take a bag of pretzels.” Nodding, you grabbed one of the bags and handed it to him. It was quiet, the radio now turned low on some jazzy station you were sure Bucky turned it to once you fell asleep. “I’ve been thinking-”
“Hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” He shot you a bemused look, making you giggle. “Sorry. Go ahead.”
“I’ve been thinking of that fight. With Walker.”
You tensed, clearing your throat as you munch on your snack. “Oh?”
Glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, you saw him lick his lips, setting the bag down on the middle console, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. “When you were fighting him…why-why’d you hesitate?”
“What do you mean?”
He glanced over at you quickly, forehead creased. “You had the shield. You were holding your own. I’m sure Steve taught you some stuff…but then…” He trailed off, seemingly trying to find words. “It was like that first fight. On the semi trucks. You hesitated. Got distracted. Why?”
You shrugged, turning back to your food nonchalantly. “I guess I just had a lot on my mind. That’s all.”
“I know you better than that, doll. Please don’t lie to me.” Turning to the window, you just noticed that yours wasn’t down anymore. You look over to his side to see his was only a little cracked open. “I didn’t want you to wake up so I rolled them up. Answer the question.”
Letting out a sigh, you shrugged again. “I’ve been having…flashbacks.”
“Flashbacks?”
You nodded, sipping on your water bottle. “Yeah. Kinda like PTSD, but it’s not. Not really. They’re never traumatic or anything.”
You could see the gears in his head turning, his jaw clenching. “What are they about then?”
“Steve.”
The tension in his shoulders slipped, his head ducking while still keeping his eyes on the road. “Oh…why…why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t want anyone to worry about me with all the other problems we’re having-”
“Hey.” Your eyes snapped up from where they fell at his sharp tone, his gaze meeting yours. “Don’t ever think that. Ever. You’re not a fucking burden, Y/N. You’re important to me. I-” He cut himself off, shaking his head and looking back out the front. “Does Sam know at least?”
You pursed your lips. “I-I told Sharon?”
He groaned, head falling back against the seat. “Sweetheart…”
“They’re just memories. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is if it’s affecting you on the field. And if it’s gonna get you or someone else hurt-”
Crossing your arms, you shifted in your seat, feeling the ache in your legs from sleeping in that position too long. “What? You don’t trust me now?”
“No! That’s not what I’m saying!”
“What’re you saying, Buck? You can’t have me watching your back because my mind’s messed up right now?” The car came to a halt and you sat up, looking around worriedly to see if any cars were coming. “James, we’re in the middle of the street-”
“Look at me.” You turned to him, only to look away at the intensity of his eyes. “Doll. Look at me.” He repeated tenderly, grabbing your chin between his fingers, making you face him. “I trust you.” His tone was nothing but genuine, and you’d never seen him look so sincere. “With my life, I trust you. But if your head isn’t in it? It’s okay, you just need to tell someone. When did you start trusting me?”
“At the airport in Germany.” You answered quietly.
He tilted his head. You kinda missed his long hair - the way it used to get in his eyes and you’d have to brush it behind his ear. “Even though I could still get triggered?”
“Well, yeah. But that’s different! You wouldn’t have been in your right…mind if you were…triggered…”
He raised an eyebrow as you frowned. “Trusting you and trusting your mental state are two different things. I’d know. Sometimes our brain’s do stupid things and we can’t stop it. But we can get help.”
You sighed, hanging your head. “Okay. Alright. I got it. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just…tell me about it.”
You nodded, before looking at the road. “Okay, okay. But can you drive? We’re still in the middle of the road.”
He chuckled and nodded, starting up the car again. After a moment, he glanced at you. “So?”
Another sigh left your lips, before you told him. You told him what’s triggered you so far and what the memories were about. How it feels when you slip. “It’s like, I remember something and my mind latches onto it and won’t let me out until I relive it again.” He just nodded, never interrupting as you explained what was going on.
It felt good to finally get it off your chest. And it felt good knowing he wasn’t freaking out and pulling you from the mission like you thought he’d do. It was something you hadn’t done in a long time. The last person who sat down and listened to your problems was Steve and the fact that you felt comfortable enough around Bucky to pour out your soul made you realize that Steve was gone. But Bucky was here. And maybe it was time to let go.
Bucky looked over to you when you stopped talking abruptly, cocking his head to the side. “Sweetheart? You alright?”
You lunged forwards, hugging his shoulders, burying your face in his neck. Fortunately for you, he had great reflexes, or else you’d probably be wrapped around a tree. You couldn’t care about the what ifs though. Sniffing, you closed your eyes, a couple tears leaking down your cheeks and landing on the skin connecting his shoulder to his neck.
“Thank you.”
It was so soft and muffled by his shirt, you weren’t sure if he heard it. But then he set his cheek on your head, his hand coming up to run through your hair like you did to him when he needed comfort. “C’mere, cuddle bug.” He cradled your head, shifting you easily so you could lay down comfortably, your legs curled in your seat, your head in his lap, taking extra care that your shoulder wasn’t agitated. “Try to get more sleep, doll. We’ll be there soon.”
You nodded, sleep taking over you once more with Bucky’s fingers in your hair, soft jazz still floating through the air along with the slight whistle of the wind from the crack in his window.
****************
You leaned against the hood of the car, crossing your arms, watching Bucky pull on a shirt. You had stopped at a rest stop to clean up and change, just a few more miles until you got to the memorial.
“Ayo’s there already.” Bucky spoke, shrugging on his jacket. You pushed off the hood of the car to pull him closer by the sides of his jacket, your fingers moving to button it. “I just…I want a couple minutes alone with him.”
You nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
“You trust me right?”
“More than anything.” You confirmed, looking up at him, smoothing his jacket down with your hands.
He nodded, leaning forwards to kiss your forehead. “I just - I just need you to know…I’m not gonna kill him.”
You nodded back, smiling softly at him. “I know.”
“Okay…let’s get going then. Get this over with.”
It didn’t take you long to reach the memorial, only a few more minutes down the main street and then going off down a side road.
Just as Bucky said, the Dora Milaje were already there, waiting for the two of you to show up. Bucky and Ayo had a conversation in Xhosa - which you were really regretting not learning anything more than “hi”, “please”, “thank you”, and “where’s the bathroom?” - before he turned to you.
“Stay with them. Just...I just need a couple minutes.” You nodded, eyes flickering down to the gun he pulled out from his coat pocket. He hooked a finger under your chin, lifting your gaze back to him. “Trust me.”
“Sometimes our brains do stupid things.”
He shook his head, kissing your forehead. “Not this time. ‘Cause I have help.”
Pursing your lips, you nodded. He gave you a reassuring smile, before stepping away, out of the trees to face Zemo. You couldn’t hear what was being said, but you had to admit that when Bucky lifted the gun, your heart skipped a beat. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He promised.
The quiet click of the gun seemed to echo, a pressure lifting off your chest as the bullets spilled from Bucky’s hand, clattering against the ground.
You figured that was the signal, considering Ayo led her badass women out to grab Zemo right after the bullets hit the ground, so you followed them out. You stopped next to Bucky, his hand slipping out of his pocket to wrap around your shoulders, tugging you to his side, your arms wrapping around his waist.
“I was listening to your heartbeat. You get nervous for a second, doll?”
You hummed in response to his question in your ear. “I trust you…but that doesn’t mean you don’t raise my anxiety levels.”
He snickered, kissing your temple, before straightening to listen to what Ayo had to say as she stepped towards you. She informed you both that Zemo would be going to the Raft and told Bucky to stay away from Wakanda for a while; both very fair statements that you weren’t surprised to hear. What you were surprised to hear was Bucky’s next sentence.
“I may have another favor to ask of you.”
Ayo raised an eyebrow, signaling for him to go on. Bucky caught your eye and his lips twitched up into a small smirk, before he faced her again and started speaking Xhosa, making you groan.
After their conversation, Ayo nodded. “We will drop it off here tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.”
You pouted as Ayo turned to walk to their ship, Bucky starting to lead you back to the car. “You’re not gonna tell me what that was about, are you?”
“Nope.”
You huffed. “You’re the worst, you know that?”
He chuckled. “You’ll find out.”
“Soon?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
Bucky shrugged, pulling open the passenger side door for you. “On when Sam wants you to see it.”
You narrowed your eyes, a smile spreading on your face. “You got Sammy a present?”
“Maybe.”
You groaned, sliding into the car before he shut the door, watching him jog to his side. “You’re so annoying.” You spoke once he got in and started the vehicle again.
“If you feel that way, you don’t have to come to Louisiana with me to drop it off.”
Scoffing, you gaped at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shrugged, turning in his seat and putting his hand on the back of your headrest to back out of the spot he parked in. “If I’m so annoying-”
“You’re so dramatic!”
“I thought I was annoying?”
“You’re both!”
He grinned at you, before looking through the windshield, blinking as something occurred to him. “I dunno where we’re going. We have to come back tomorrow morning-”
“Just drive, Buck.”
He blinked at you, eyebrows raising in slight shock. “What?”
You shrugged, nodding your head to the road. “Drive. Wherever we want, remember? Just until tomorrow. We can go back to reality after we pick up Sammy’s gift, but for now-”
“Just drive?” He guessed, the corners of his lips pulling up.
You smirked, shooting him a wink before propping your feet up on the dash again, turning up the radio, and linking your hands behind your head. “Exactly, Buckaroo.”
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diedbutterflies69 · 3 years ago
Text
Will you stay?- Bang Chan imagine.
Contains: friends to lovers au. , Divorce, smut, fluff, blindfolding, oral sex, explicit sexual stuff etc . Minors don't interact.
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Never once on your life, you thought you could get your shit together and laugh genuinely at the worst in world. falling out of love is worse but it's even more worse if it's your it's not you who fell out of love. Married at 22 and the honeymoon phase hardly lasted for a year and by the age of 26 got yourself labelled as a woman who sabotaged her own marriage in thirst of money. Your ex husband was bitter about your success even before you got married. He thought as a woman, you just did bare minimum and got yourself a high positioned rank by sleeping with one of the rich rags. You tried hard enough to hold on to that rotten red string , but he had the scissors and just cut you off. You weren't willing to sacrifice your career just because of his Immature mindset, yes you loved him, but can't a women love her own hard achieved success more? That's the question you wished to ask everyone who pointed there fingers at you. After divorce you didn't feel pain just numbness. Your self-hatred coming more stronger than ever, even hating the job, you tried Saving since years, getting life on track seemed impossible and at the end just quitted. Moved out of the city just to move back to your home town, the root of your real pain. It wasn't really a town but rather a more flashy city, expensive shits which you were unable to afford in childhood but now it wasn't any big deal. Earth is round and sometimes precious people find you all by themselves. Your highschool friend, the only friend you had throughout your lifetime because of your anti social tactics.
Bang Chan, the social butterfly who almost knew every single student in whole school, he was the hottest guy you ever saw in your life and also the kindest. You had crush on him even before you both were friends, he was your senior,used to help you with those shitty math sums, crack jokes every now and then and scolded you whenever you procrastinated. He came to congratulate you even on your graduation day, even though there were many more students whom he met you were still glad atleast someone bought you a beautiful bouquet of tulips and bellflower. The last time you saw him was before you moved out in search of cheap collages without informing him, as you thought you were just one of many friends he had and won't ever notice someone like you existed.
But god, how much wrong you were.
You met Chan after almost 9 years in convince store and his reaction was almost priceless , like finding treasure. He was now more handsome, beautiful and god-like even after all this years his style of dressing didn't Changed much, he still looked like Kim Kardashian at 2021 met Gala. nevertheless his smile still had those healing properties with his Cresent moon eyes. He was absolutely stunning.
The first sentence he spoke after confirming your identity was 'I missed you' and then tons of lectures and questions . Knowing how narrow-minded you were he gasped dramatically. Cheesiest ways of saying how could I forget my best friend and so on. That day was probably the best day of your life and maybe even the day after years you really smiled. You both exchanged numbers and addresses and his home was just 10 minutes away from yours. Destiny indeed.
Now it's been over 7 months since you met Chan again and he never made you felt like you were just one of his 109 friends. Chan made you feel special, after knowing what kind of disaster you faced he was even more supporting of you, you both used to spend weekend together watching variety of shows and movies going to stargazing, best friend goals. After many years you knew even if Chan had many people to confide with he never really did. He was alone, just a night owl obsessed with work. You were happy. And he was happy too. Being just friends was enough for you, but not for him . He was slowly trying to find courage to confess his love to you. He liked you fuck from highschool days. He found you once randomly staring at him across the room and when you suddenly disappeared all his fantasies were scattered, he knew your dreams and was willing to help you with your every step. knowing how messed up your household was from your neighbours he felt guilty for not being able to give you happiness. He loved you, but was helded by his own insecurities.
Not anymore though, he wasn't the same coward who just stared at the love of his life from distance. Being the extra human he was, he bought you one of the most expensive restaurant of the whole country, man was loaded. After driving for almost 5 hours you both finally reached there .
Now a nervous Chan sitting infront of you. You being oblivious to the fact that he has a beautiful diamond ring and a confession to make. Chan handed you the menu card and every single dish had an extraordinary name, without much thought you placed the order.
"atleast tell me now, why are we here?" You asked the man infront of you who was behaving extra weird today, he looked sick and was occassionally asking you random questions.
"No reason, I was in mood for long drives and... You know have a nice meal" Chan said fidgeting with his fingers he was acting like a flustered high school guy it was clearly indicating that he was lying but you didn't really care, Chan was weird sometimes.
"Sounds fake, but okay. By the way you aren't sick right?" You asked Chan out of pure concern as he was sweating profusely even in an cold AC room.
"I am fine, just feeling a little hot. Don't worry", Chan said it was more like he was convincing himself that he was fine and shouldn't worry. He wasn't a teenager but a human with responsibilities who once again fell for someone out of his league, he used to think that and he still sees you as a literal goddess. While he was lost deep in his thoughts, the waiter came with food , and this was his opportunity to shoot his arrow. You both started eating and talked like being in paradise.
"did you liked anyone in highschool?", Chan asked you out of blue making you almost choke on food. The only person whom you liked throughout your highschool days was the guy sitting infront of you and you didn't really remembered much guys and the best answer was probably saying a lie with little truth.
"no one lol", you answered trying to sound chilled but since highschool crush topic was out you weren't able to keep your curiosity with yourself.
"What about you, liked someone?", You asked trying to sound nonchalant and not desperate and bitter.
This was the Exactly the conversation that Chan planned in his mind. And here started his way to either heaven or pit of rejection.
"I loved someone", Chan said and you this time you really choked from the depth of your heart, you thought Chan was anti romantic type of guy as he never talked about of his female friends with you or bragged about his non existent dating life. Trying again to not sound jealous or bitter you spoke again.
" Who was that lucky bit-- I mean girl yes girl? Who was she?", You asked, almost letting out the bitch loudly. You weren't sure but you saw Chan smiling cheekily, he was really getting old acting weird more and more everyday.
"Well... Someone from our school",Chan said and you swear you didn't made a disgusting face showing pure jealousy. The best human in your life and your first ever crush had crush on somebody, you didn't knew why you were feeling so fucking bitter but you weren't able to handle the curiosity anymore.
"Tell me her damn name", you asked Chan in a frustrating tone not being able to keep jealousy to yourself.
"Why you being angry", Chan asked followed by his small laugh.
"I am angry, just the food was a little spicy you answer me now, her name?", You answered Chan with your defenses up and still sticking with your previous question.
Chan in response got a little serious now,you thought he was being childish now, he wasn't a kid who was given a dare to name out his crush yet he was acting like one.
"You won't leave me right, I mean after I answer your question?", Chan asked you and you didn't knew what to say in response you were now a little sus about him.
"fine don't answer, keep secrets", you said and continued eating. The next thing Chan said made you now choke and die on food.
"I loved you and I still love you" Chan said looking down at the table head hanging down like his teenage self just confessed he watched porn infront of his parents. You were shocked, frozen and the your heartbeat 10x faster, you didn't knew how to react and tried to find humor in this extraordinary situation.
"Chan, you kidding right?", You asked Chan with a nervous smile on your face. Chan looked up at you , his eyes trying to find yours but you avoided the eye contact.
"I am serious, I liked you from HighSchool times, I saw you for the first time in library when you were looking at me, I swear you were so beautiful and even now after all this years after seeing you I can't, I can't help but fall for you all over again, sorry"
Chan confessed, his voice filled with sincerity and vulnerability his sentences were scattered here and there and incomplete explanation but still you understood everything he really poured his heart to you, you felt like crying even if you both weren't such stupid cowards back then, then today you won't have turned out a divorced women and Chan a guy who grew out lonely even if he had a world for him.
"What should I say Chan?", You asked Chan you were sounding like a girl whose bf told her to breakup even if the situation was exact opposite. Even if you love Chan , you didn't think about him reciprocating same feelings back to you. You were beyond insecure with your love emotions. One thing was sure you won't be able to love Chan without being a bundle on him. Your emotion Baggage was too big and you didn't want Chan to get his heart too with your stupid emotions.
"I love you and I will be really really good to you. Please try staying with me I will try really hard to earn space in your heart, please?" His confession was like literally begging. You weren't able to believe if he was real or not, if it was a dream that will end as soon as cruel morning comes, this felt like fantasy. Chan was a amazing man, he had everything money ,honour ,beauty a nice heart. He was like a character written by women so perfect so delicate yet strong, and he loves you this fact was enough for to lose your mind. but you thought you were a taint to his beauty, you were a character full of inferior complexes and a person too easy to dislike thats what illusion you made about yourself. A random extra in her own story.
"I will pay the bill, let's talk later", you said and walked away immediately to pay the bill leaving a clueless and disheartened human behind. Chan was able to see how you stopped yourself from saying love you too and throwing yourself in his arms. He wasn't same from HighSchool a guy who gets overwhelmed by his own emotions and gets unable to see others. He knew you had atleast a small space for him in your heart and to make a big room for himself he had to throw out all your insecurities and self hatred. He followed you like a lost puppy and he wanted to pay for food but you already did and now you were already out of restaurant searching for his car to get back.
Chan sitted beside you, without doing anything silence and awkward air surrounding you both.
"start the car", you said breaking down the silence, you were extremely worthless and trash as you made the only one person whom you love feel like nothing.
"Just answer me, will you try dating me please", Chan said his voice again passing draggers into your heart. Trying to form any logical explanation you spoke again.
"I am not looking for relationship right now, see Chan you are amazing, but I can't make you happy now and did you forgot that I am divorced, please understand" you said expressing your real insecurities and fear, fear of not being able to keep a man happy.
"you don't want relationship because you divorced that fucking trash of a man?", Chan asked he was getting frustrated you thought but he just wanted to make you happy and not deny what your heart wants.
"my mind isn't stable, I might just irritate you everytime with my mood, you will will get tired of me and leave me -- I don't want to be alone again I will die if you leave me", you confessed tears threatening to fall out of your eyes there wasn't any doubt that you loved Chan he filled the void in you in just months made you happy but you didn't wanted to just take and take and give nothing in return. Chan's hand found yours interlocking your fingers with so much delicateness that you might cry.
"you think so low of me, just stay by my side I will make you so happy that you will hardly get time to think about your past, trust me", Chan said his fingers slightly lifting your chin up to look into your eyes, you looked in his eyes filled with so much care and this was your last straw before breaking down in his arms.
"I love you, I love you so fuckin much, you were my first love my only friend, my everything, please-- please love me", you confessed tightening your arms around Chan, his scent making you feel safe and like home, his one caressing your hair and other wiping away the tears. Even though the scene was more like a dramatic clique scene whatever emotions you both felt was unexplainable.
"So you my girlfriend now hmm?"Chan asked you for first time in night his voice containing pure happiness and excitement.
"I have a sexy boyfriend", you said smiling from ear to ear against Chan's chest. The label boyfriend making your heart flutter, you didn't knew happiness like this can even exist.
"My love", Chan said his voice sweeter than honey, suddenly the night was more starry."now can we go home?" You asked Chan finally breaking the hug, reality hitted you now Home was 3- 4 hours away.
"I made a reservation in hotel, we gonna spend night there", Chan casually said making your heart jump out of your chest.
"pervert, you planned everything seriously", you said dramatically and giving him a playful digusting look.
"I booked two rooms", Chan said now starting the engine making you feel embarrassed. "Who is pervert now~" Chan said in air teasing you more.
The rest of the ride you both talked about anything and everything. Confessing how you used to find ways to always be in each others vision etc. Both of you finding a new thirsty side of each other. Nothing felt uncomfortable, it was happiness those inhumane laughs crazy tricks you both used to pull everything was heaven. After some time you both reached infront of a gaint hotel , it looked expensive af but regardless Chan knew how to waste money and you were tired of lecturing him about savings.
"let's go", Chan said removing your seatbelt and getting out of car to open the door for ya. He was being so cheesy gentleman and you were enjoying every minute.
"room 42 and 43" Chan said to the receptionist and she handed two keys to him. Thanking her then getting on elevator, you were a little disappointed that you weren't sharing room with Chan, yes you were pervert and total simp for Chan, he was too hot and your sexual drive was getting higher each passing second. The elevator doors opened and you got off. Chan handed you the room key and softly kissed your forehead, both you wished it was your lips.
"if you want anything, just knock okay?" Chan said in his lovely tone, I want you you internally screamed, nevertheless you gave him a nod and got inside that expensive room .
Starring at the ceiling while lying on the bed your mind was full of Chan, you knew he wasn't probably sleeping and was wasting time in watching random shit on internet and you were hungry, hungry for Chan, it wasn't your fault that Chan was so hot. Trying to fall asleep and fidgeting here to there you finally decided to knock on Chan's room door. A danger zone. You noticed how the door flunged open in less than few seconds.
"Hi" you said scratching back of your head and trying to think what next to say.
"Hi..?"Chan said being confused.
"there is cockroach in my room, let me stay with you" you said a clear white lie. Taking impulsive action were never good for you.Chan sighed before opening the door fully and signalling you to come. This was your happiest day ever.
"whY you lying", Chan asked you as you plopped yourself on sofa besides bed. He asked the sentence in a sarcastic way.
"Do you you wanna kiss me?", You asked Chan with a straight serious face catching him off-guard, you didn't wanted to waste more time, you wanted to do everything with Chan, yes fucking on first day of dating was a little too early but you fantasized about this gorgeous man since ages, in your eyes he looked total dom but his reaction to your question was making you doubt your thoughts.
"Are you sure", Chan asked you clearing his throat.
"Are you virgin?"you asked Chan, he was being too nervous.
"Obviously not"Chan answered you in duh tone, rolling his eyes. And it was getting awkward.
"The cockroach must have gone by now I should go, bye", you blabbered and got up ready to leave, you were about to open the door but Chan grabbed your hand and before you knew anything his hands were on your cheeks cupping them softly and his lips so close to yours, Chan's eyes were looking straight in your orbs , your heartbeat stronger than ever.
"Can I?", Chan asked your consent his thumb softly brushing against your lower lip. This man had totally made you insane, something stirred inside you. Chan was perfect he was everything you wished. You gave him a small nod and slowly his lips touched against yours, you wanted to cry, his lips felt so good, he didn't rushed his movements everything was happening in slow motion, he holded you with such a vulnerability like he was afraid that you will go, your hand reached his head, fingers moving through his soft locks. You felt his tongue inside your mouth , you felt a electricity run down your body when the kiss deepened.
We kiss again. The next kiss is the kind that breaks open the sky. It steals my breath and gives it back. It shows me that every other kiss I’ve had in my life has been wrong.
Breaking the kiss Reluctantly in need of air, Chan rested his forehead against yours. He was hot almost like burning, sweating.
"Why are you so nervous, Chan?", You asked Chan hugging him tightly clinging like the last leaf to the tree.
"I am scared, I just love you", He said engulfing you in his arms. And you Finally felt, what real love feels like.
"Love you too", you replied softly.
"Do you wanna continue..?"Chan asked you his tone little less scared.
"Off course", you said looking at him with smile, something inside you told it was okay to let out your freaky side infront of Chan. Chan smiled back and suddenly turned you around , the large bed infront of you.
"Lie down there",Chan whispered in your ears , his low register sending shivers down your spine. This was exactly how you pictured Chan to be, your inner submissive almost died. You followed Chan's word and laid on your back on the bed, now you were feeling like a virgin. His eyes roaming through the room in search of something.
"Are you okay with being blindfolded?", Chan asked you as he came back with the tie he wore today and was rolling it slightly in his palms, and you swear you never saw a man so hot in your entire life. Getting blindfolded was one of your unfulfilled kinks.
"ye- yes", you replied your tone filled with thrill and excitement. Chan came back to you standing near you, his hand softly cupped your cheeks , before bringing the tie to use it in sinistrous way tonight. The cloth felt strange to your eyes, his cologne smell hitting you and Chan caught your shy smile, His heart felt so fluffy. Tieing a comfortable knot Chan sat on bed near your waist. His hands slowly crept near your stomach leaving a direct lingering touch on the sensitive skin, eventually going upwards while giving a little squeeze to add stimulation, his hands reached your boobs, you didn't wore bra, and he wasn't surprised maybe your nipples perked up enough to get noticed, his middle and index finger Rolling your sensitive bundle of nerves, the blindfold making his every touch more intense, your breath was heavy you let out a suprised moan when Chan gropped your right boob in an erotic way, this sole action increasing your wetness down there you were getting impatient. You moaned his name a little loudly when his lips came in contact with your sensitive neck, sucking in a painful way, inorder to leave a hickey.
"Should I touch you here", Chan asked you as his hand reached to your area where you needed him to the most, hands going directly inside your panties ,but not touching he was a teaser.
"yes please", you moaned almost breathlessly too tired of intense foreplay. You just wanted Chan to rip off your clothes and fuck you till sunrise. Getting satisfaction with your answer Chan finally removed every clothing of your lower body, leaving you completely bare, all at his mercy. His finger moved up and down on your opening , the wetness making Chan easily slip his one finger deep inside you.
" my baby is so wet, because of who?", Chan asked you as his finger was moving slowly inside of you and thumb rubbing circles on the bundle of nerves.
"because of.. you", you admitted without any hesitation trying to grind yourself on his hand, begging for more.
"Good", Chan said and without saying anything he added another finger inside you moving a little faster inside your cunt, rubbing your walls with a little pressure, scissoring them inside you painfully and making way for a third finger too and by then you were a complete moaning mess, his fingers were pleasure yet torture the blindfold making your senses weak. Mind full of whatever Cham was giving you. Your legs were shaking sign of your orgasm approaching you, by one hand Chan holded your thighs tightly to their place fingers now moving more faster to make you reach the peak of pleasure.
"Chan.. I--I-I-- wanna cum please", you moaned your little squeaks and begs almost making Chan's cock cum right inside boxers. With some final thrust of his fingers, you cummed the hardest you could imagine, squeaky sounds coming as Chan was fingering you through your orgasm, you almost crying from overstimulation. Moaning his name like a chant.
"you did well",Chan praised you finally removing his fingers from you leaving you empty, but it won't have last wrong. Chan removed your blindfold , the bright lights hurting your eyes, you adjusted your vision and the image of Chan sucking his wet fingers coated with your liquid came directly in front of your eyes. Letting out a helpless whine.
Chan plopped himself on knees on either side of your thighs, finally letting his cock out, leaking with precum, and he was big, thick , you didn't thought he could get even hotter.
"Ready baby?", Chan asked you as he fully undressed himself as well as removing your top, your mind hazey . The scene which you pictured since highschool finally happening.
"yes", you replied Chan, he came down to kiss you passionately and slowly entering inside you. You moaned painfully, tears pulling your vision, it was a painful pleasure. Chan kissed away your tears and hand interlocking with yours after finally being fully inside you he started to move at slow pace.
"you feel so good Chan", almost screaming from pleasure, your whines were fuel to Chan's ego and he increased the pace. Body slapping sound filling the room, his groans were most sexy thing you ever heard. Again and again his tip hitting your deepest spots.
"I am close", you moaned out breathlessly, pleasure becaming too much to handle .you released around his cock, reaching the peak second time at night.
After giving a few more thrusts Chan cummed at your stomach, he was still sane enough to not curse you with kids while being lost in pleasure."I love you", he said as he settled beside you hugging you tightly. This was heaven.
"love you too", you said , your voice a little hoarse.
"by the way I forgot that I bought a ring to propose you", Chan said, realisation hitting him, that he forgot to say the long ass paragraph that he was supposed to say while sitting on one knee. You smiled at his guilty face.
"don't worry, propose me after having shower", you said heart filled with pure joy and happiness . Happiness of knowing that You love someone who will always love you back.
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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years ago
Text
Headlights Girl
Genre: Urban fantasy + wlw romance
Words: approx. 8k
Summary: The story of a girl with headlamps for eyes and the moth-girl she meets along the way.
My book 🌸 Ko-fi  🌸 Patreon
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Most humans carry the night with them. Even during daylight hours, they can shut out the sun, turn off the light, recede into themselves and into that soft secret place behind their eyes.
Did you know certain animals don’t have eyelids? Gecko’s have nothing between them and the violent sun which wishes to cook the colors of their world. They have to use their tongue. Dust and sand and rain, can you imagine? I was obsessed with lizards as a kid.
I stacked up books on snakes and lizards and skinks. I traced the way that sand snakes crested across the dunes, sideways and wrong. I put glue on the pads of my hand and tried to climb the walls of my room— I didn’t even get one handhold up. I went to the zoo and peered into their cages, up on my tiptoes, trying not to smudge the glass or breath too hard. I tried make out their triangle heads and slow tongue-flicks, but they each shrank away deep into nooks and crannies of their cages. Most things do when I look at them.
Most humans carry the night with them, right there behind their eyelids is an entire world of darkness. I have something else inside me, not quite, not soft, not secret. They called me “headlights girl” in the newspapers.
There were even stranger kids born in the Age of Spirits. I checked. Every morning of fifth grade, I scanned the papers for mentions of “oddities” growing into anomalies.
A boy who could breath fire. A girl with leaves sprouting from her head. A kid with antennae that could taste the wind. There are stranger things than me in the age of beasts and magic. My father called it the “Epoch of Bastards,” sons and daughters of flickering fire elementals and wind ghosts who seduced half-asleep ladies from their beds.
He didn’t look at me much growing up. And I knew what he meant. I knew what he was getting at by calling it the Epoch of Bastards. Growing up, I played in my little puddle of carpet on the floor as he blustered in and out of rooms like gale force winds. He’d be looking for his keys or a left shoe or wallet since he was going out, out, out. I think I missed him at first, in the way you miss strangers you’ve never met.
Later, still on my puddle of carpet, still on my island, I would glare at him with that sour, acid taste in the back of my throat. Acrid, smoky, I would barely blink as he passed; he’d jump when he turned too quickly and accidentally fell into my path. Later still, I would begin to wish they were both like that—blustery and calling people names, gone more often than not.
It sometimes felt better than hearing my mom weep to herself on the couch. I wish she’d do it in her room or outside or anywhere else than that theatrical sobbing in the middle of the house, a naked heartbeat to the place. She spoke to her friends on the phone in that same watery voice, handkerchief in hand and sniffling, she spoke to them more than me.
What else am I supposed to do? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. She’d wail, just a bit, and then find a new thing to wail over. They could barely afford to send me to That School. They could barely afford the special doctor’s appointments for my eyes. They barely knew what to do with me.
Sometimes, I wanted to shout right back: It’s not like I didn’t want to be here either!
But she wasn’t talking to me. 
School wasn’t much better. We weren’t the same, not really. None of us were the same age or had the same affliction. Plus, most everyone else stayed in dorms where they bonded with secrets and whispers and hiding from matrons. It wasn’t the same.
They called me The Lighthouse and Car Face and Nightlight. Sometimes they’d give me a few bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face. I did it. They’d laugh and reassure me I was as ugly as you’d think. Or beautiful. Or perfectly average-looking or I had a pig-nose or unibrow. I’d never seen anything but the blinding light of my own eyes in the mirror so I could never contradict them.
A boy with antlers handed me a twenty for a kiss in the 6th grade. I closed my eyes for that too. It was chapped and dry and he ran away with a screaming laugh afterward. There are stranger kids than me, I reminded myself. So why do I feel so much stranger than the rest of them?
I was 16 when I heel-toed my way down the stairs toward the front door. A duffel bag slung over my shoulder stuffed with loose clothes, change, a bath towel, three books with broken spines, all the tampons in the house, and a Swiss-army knife.
I hoped to stuff as many cheddar-cheese sandwiches in my sack as possible before the midnight bus came, but he was at the kitchen table. I don’t think either of us expected it, like running into your teacher at the mart and you’re both buying the same brand of toilet cleaner. There was a beer in front of his idle hands and he still wore his rumpled work shirt. He glanced at the bag on my shoulder for a long minute.
Finally, he sighed like I cut him off in traffic.
“Gimme a moment.”
My father leafed through a wad of cash he kept in a safe. He handed me almost three hundred bucks and we nodded at each other. At the time, I thought there was a kind of satisfaction to that nod, an endnote.
I was out the door before the midnight bus arrived.
Only three people were at the terminal. None of them looked at me with my pack and my knife stuffed in one hand and my eyes glowing. They did look at the glow, but not for long.
Remote and empty like maybe the world had ended and the last bits of if were nothing but strangers not making eye contact.
Finally, I watched the headlights of the midnight bus approach through dense summer night. I was struck by the thought that it was like looking at like, the glow of my eyes against its eyes. Can a bus be your father? Can your father be a man after all this time? Will your mother come looking for you?
I got on the bus and kicked my feet up against the seat in front of me. Scrunched into a ball, crossed my arms over my chest, and watched the trees turn into flickering bodies of shadow with each passing mile. ------------- My feet moved like tides. They tossed me against nameless city streets and toward empty forested slices of land. I stumbled into the painted deserts toward the west. I dipped my toes into the neon districts of the east with lights brighter than my own. I slept on benches and in kid’s treehouses and hunched my shoulders against brick walls of back alleys.
No one touched me. Maybe they’d approach now and then, but I’d open my eyes and they’d see nothing but heaven or devils or an absent lightning-God father that would smite them. I was the daughter of spirits after all.
I found my way to the ocean; beaches where other stragglers gathered and it was easy to stretch out on empty pieces of warm sand. I didn’t talk much by then, I didn’t like to; people stared whether I was speaking or screaming and clamping down on my jaw so hard it ached. Sometimes I get yelled at: Turn that off! No phone lights in here. You’re blinding me, bitch!
I’d never seen a movie in any theatres, but I could imagine what it’s like.
It was crowded, but I liked that ocean city, despite myself. It had pale buildings built into cliffs, narrow winding sidewalks where cars couldn’t fit, reckless bikers, and crushed seashell parking lots. I liked the tang of salt in the air and the way my hair crinkled from the ocean water as it sun-dried. I camp out on beaches and bummed cigarettes and hotdogs off strangers. I was good at taking care of myself once I got into a rhythm.
I had a tent by then and even an enormous sun umbrella to keep any prying eyes away. I still liked to sleep under the stars most nights though.
I often dreamed of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed of descending on pointed ballerina-feet to the silted black bottom. I’d be weighted down through the cold and the silence to where no human being had ever been. I’d open my eyes there, open them all the way, lightning-bright, and unflinching. In my dreams, the salt didn’t even sting. I lit up the world, the whole untouched world of whales and fish and terror and maybe I’d do something good then. Maybe I’d do something good and bring the sun to places that had forgotten it. 
I hated those dreams.
I met Mags on the beach after one of those dreams. Mags had one eye and twelve teeth and carried around nothing but string and scissors everywhere. She smelled like seawater and burning kelp, dank and crusted over. Her clothes were neat despite her leather-cracked skin and arms and neck covered in tattoos of shipwrecks. We ran into each other at some bum gathering and she cackled and pulled me aside.
“What’s your name?” Her voice was old creaking wood. I didn’t answer. “I could give you one.” She offered with a grin that was more empty space than anything.
“Nana.” I gritted out. “You want something?”
“Not sure. What do you want, kid?”
I glared openly, my beam of light slanting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come here.”
I didn’t know why I was chosen.
Mags liked me more than I deserved. I pocketed her last pair of socks when she wasn’t looking. She never mentioned it and dragged me down to the community showers to get clean with soap and shampoo. She took me to the soup and salad restaurant for something that wasn’t burnt or freeze-dried or from a convenience store. She cackled, she spat when she talked, people shot her looks as well.
I thought she was normal, not touched by the spirits, but she liked me more than most people and I didn’t know why.
“You like art, kid?”
I snorted. “No.”
“Why not? You broken?” Yeah. Probably.
“How am I supposed to know?” I snapped back.
“Lippy squirt. Come on, I’ll show you something worth your forked tongue.”
She heated the needle before she used it, red hot and untouchable. She dipped it into deep black inks, only black and sometimes red, she called them the only colors that matter. She shows me how to prick the skin and clean it. She showed me how to slowly, painstakingly etch images. I wasn’t sure I liked it, there was something so permanent and intentional about the act.
I watched her lessons though: stick and poke to her right foot, all over those fine little bones that must hurt, in and out, a little bloody.
It took her six hours to make a tiny shipwreck right above her big toe. It was a narrow schooner going under and I was the only witness. She made the waves come to life and crash against its sides and sometimes I forgot to blink. She didn’t seem to mind.
She washed another needle. She heated it red-hot. She dipped it in ink and handed it to me.
I still wasn’t sure I liked the permanence of it, but I told myself I was bored and it was something to do. I decided quickly I did like the bite of it, I liked the focus it took, and the ability to pull something from nothing.
I practiced all over my thighs first, there was enough meat there and it was easy enough to reach: a lizard design that looked like nothing but squiggles, a TV set playing static, a tiny smudged skink with its tongue out. I practiced designs in the sand and then on paper when Mags splurged on pen and paper.
Mags took me to the museum on Sundays. They were always free on Sundays.
Something stirred in my chest, even as the guards yelled at us about how flash photography wasn’t allowed in the museum. Even as I was shooed out of exhibits for ruining the paint. Still, an ache so old it rotted roared to life in my chest.
I stabbed in and out, gentle, a collection of stars right above my right knee. A winding sand snake on my wrist, and then finally, something good, something that gave people pause and reason to stare. I made it in the mirror: a ghost on my collarbone. Shadowed and intricate and yet simple, I put a ghost right above my collarbone and it bleeds more than any of the others.
That was a good year or so; one of the best I could remember.
I didn’t want to leave the ocean city though and Mags said she had to keep moving. She had places to be. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
“You're a gem, kid. You’ll knock ‘em all to the pavement.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You’ll be back?”
She cackled. “Wouldn’t miss it. You know me.” She winked as she turns to the bus, my second father. “You think I’ll miss your great becoming, kid? I’ll be back.”
I wanted to make her pinky-promise like I was a kid again begging one of the others to tell me if I’m beautiful when I close my eyes. I couldn’t do that; I waved as she tottered up the steps of the bus and was taken away with the tides of her own feet.
A had a moment of thinking it was the end then; I was ready to get back to my real normal. I was ready to disappear again. But even shipwrecks with no witnesses leave things left to be found.
------------ I got an apprenticeship. Technically, Mags talked them into it and I just followed up when I had nothing better to do.
I didn’t think I’d like it much, but couch surfing and camping out was the pastime of the especially young. And I’d lost my giant umbrella.
It was a small shop that smelled like bleach and dried flowers. A tattoo parlor in one of the steep arts districts neighbored by food trucks and beaded necklace shops.
Penguin Davies and Bitch-Annie ran it together. Davies walked like he’d never encountered land before, and Bitch-Annie had a throw-pillow embroidered with “If you don’t have anything nice to say then come sit next to me.”
Davies was covered in nothing but birds and dizzying M. C. Escher house-designs up and down his chest and arms. Bitch-Annie had topless mermaids and pinup girls across her shoulders and legs. She’d been asked to leave a number of stores before the children started staring or thinking thoughts.
Neither of them had ever met someone like me. It was not that type of town. I rankled at most their questions, a cat meeting a steel brush. Where are you from? What’s your family name? What kind of school did you go to? Is your sight better than other people you think?
I brushed off anything more personal than my favorite type of soda. Bitch-Annie called me “Shadow” probably as a joke, probably. Davies said I must be possessed by the ghost of some dead star: a blackhole that takes everything in and lets nothing out.
Neither of them let me touch a needle in those first six months. They had me practice on pig skin and trace designs and stand by their shoulders as they worked. I felt like a dental assistant except I was the hanging light shining into open mouths instead of anything with a pulse. I stood at their shoulder as they drew thick lines and thin dots and made hearts and wolves and names of dead lovers come to life.
They asked me to stand still and stop wiggling the light. I almost walked out several to find a new cliff to crash against, almost. 
No one had ever expected anything of me before. They never expected me to show up somewhere or do something well. No one really cared if I went to school or if I did my homework, if I dressed well or went to bed on time. And no one kept any tabs on me at all after I took that first bus. That’s how I liked it.
I should’ve left, tattooing didn’t mean anything to me, not really. But Bitch-Annie stomped up to my attic-apartment one morning and threw pants at me.
“Get up, Shadow,” she barked. She was sterner than Mags, no hint of humor in her eyes. “I told you 9am so I expect 9am.”
“The fuck!?” I was eloquent in the mornings.
“Pants, shirt, shoes, and bra if you don’t want that desk idiot staring at something other than your eyes all day.”
“Are you serious?”
“Serious as a root canal. Mags swore up and down about what you. Let’s see some of that, up, up!”
I grumbled. I put on everything but the bra. No one ever expected me to be anywhere before and 9am shouldn’t have even been a concept much less a real thing. I told myself I hated it. I’d leave the next week. Or maybe the week after that or in just one more month. I kept a bus ticket under my pillow but every time the date arrived I shrugged and made myself busy.
There’d be no harm in having a savings too and seeing what all the fuss was about with having a dishwasher and a kitchen.
I wasn’t an artist of course. I didn’t understand what everyone else was seeing when they looked at the “old masters” paintings of water or war or lovers pulled apart. I didn’t feel anything in front of stain-glass windows in churches or mosaics on walls. Maybe there really was something wrong with me, my eyes. I didn’t let up though. I put on pants for it after all.
Penguin Davies hovered by my shoulder when I made my first real design.
“Mm.” He rumbled deep in his chest. He’d gone grey at an early age, had tired eyes and quick hands. The desk kid said he’d been in medical school once, a surgeon. It was hard to tell. Davies muttered a lot, stared off into space too much, and laughed like it was always a painful surprise
“Perfectionist,” he muttered at me as I start over on a crappy unicorn design. “That line was barely off. You’re being a perfectionist, Nana.”
I scowled over my shoulder and let the full weight of my light hit him across the face. “Got a problem with it?” I challenged. He chuckled darkly. His grin was crooked like a broken door handle. I tried to hide my work from him with my shoulder. “It’s not done yet.”
“It’s late.” The rest of the street was dark. I knew that.
“I said I’m not done yet! You can go home.”
“Hmm.” He scratched his grey beard.
“What?”
“Look at you. You know who makes the best artists, Nana?” He was always a bit of a philosopher. Maybe he used to study that before medicine.
“Yeah, yeah, shut up. I’m working on it.”
He gave my shoulder a light push. “The ones that don’t quit.”
They let me touch a needle gun after that. I told myself I’d only sign my new apartment lease as an experiment. I didn’t have to actually stay. I’d just run from the ink on paper and hope no one chased after girls with eyes that glow.
I didn’t break my lease. I drew suns and moons, trees and fireflies, hunks in speedos on tipsy college girls who swore they were sober and erotic vampires on the chests of men getting their first divorce. I had to give two refunds for a duck that turned out lopsided and a tattoo of someone’s dog which I swore really was that ugly to begin with.
There was one at the end of that next year though, another college girl with perfectly white piano-key teeth. She asked for a stick and poke, that was what I was best at anyway, she asked for a butterfly. Butterflies were easy, I could do the little ones in my sleep. She wanted one all across her back, she said I could make it look however I wanted. So I did. Wings like fringed shawls and straight heavy lines combined with wispy swirling ones. It was dark, black ink with red highlights and gray shadows under each wing to give it movement and flight.
I hid my smile when I finished and showed her the results in the mirror. She went to my bosses and jumped up and down. She pointed and babbled, ohmyspirits, the best thing I’ve ever seen! Fuck. I should pay you double! Where did you get this girl? 
I held myself perfectly still and studied the ceiling until my eyes dried out.
I took the long way home that night. I stopped once, at the corner where the midnight bus arrived, and watched the the passengers trudge off. I didn’t expect to see Mags again so soon, not really, but sometimes I wanted to show her: Hey, maybe your work wasn’t all wasted. Maybe I did start to become.
---------------- “I’m getting you chocolate.” Annie spat, her thick arms flexing as she cleaned off the spotless counter. “I’m getting you fucking chocolate, Shadow, ‘less you tell me what flavor you actually like.”
I hung at the back of the shop next to the narrow window that faced the road. I let the sun warm my face in thick strips and watched the bicycles pass. “It’s not my birthday.”
“Tell us what your actual birthday is then, you sugar-toasted tart.”
I shrugged. “Not today.”
“Well happy fucking birthday. You’re turning two. You came to work for us two years ago today, washed up from the beach like a deranged feral cat, so this is your birthday now.”
I rolled my eyes which served to look like a flashlight given a shake. Annie spent another minute splashing disinfectant on anything that might have had even a passing conversation with a germ.
“You talk to Birdie?” She asked, but mischievously this time. I responded by setting my mouth in a hard line. “You’re turning twenty-something and you’re not even talking to Birdie, are ya?”
“I’m not telling you what I’m turning. It’s still not my birthday.” I dodged inelegantly.
“Birdie will give you a proper go-around. Even shadows like you must need a little rub now and then.”
“Go dunk your head, Annie.” I huffed.
“Afraid you’ll blind her in bed?”
I turned with a snarl. “I’ll start with you.”
“I’ve seen you flipping through those poetry books, every word about hands or mouths or rosebuds.” She gave me flat a once-over. “You’ve got a sweet tooth in you.”
I dragged myself over to the desk to snarl at her some more, but Annie was already putting her hand up and going toward the backroom.
“I’m getting you a chocolate cake either way.”
There must have been a proper way to get her to never look at my little leather poetry books again, the ones with watermarked pages, the spines broken-in, and words that oozed. No one had to know that I could read, much less that I read that.
The door dinged instead.
“Excuse me.” She walked in. Her. “Is someone, um, named Nana here?” I turned before I could stop myself. That was still my name. And it was still my work.
Twenty-something, curtains of straight black hair falling in her face, pinched nose, thin energetic lips, shorts that gave way to milk-dipped legs that never seemed to end. A slight girl in a university t-shirt. College kids came in often during their breaks, but this one was a bit different. My eyes dragged up and fish-hooked there.
Feathered tendrils sprouted from her head and reached toward the ceiling. Long and searching, a pearly green color that reminded you of leaves or plumage.
I knew within a moment where I’d heard of this: Antennae Girl. The newspapers ran our stories close together along with the boy that breathed fire and the girl with roots growing from her head. We were all born in the same year during the epoch of monsters and bastards.
I think she recognized me too.
We stopped like heartbeats seizing up before the ambulance could make it. A confused, unnatural silence. I glanced at the door and considered making a run for it.
She cleared her throat first.
“Someone said that Misty’s butterfly tattoo came from here?” She blinked once and I noticed how her feathered antennae seemed to twitch. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t blind her. She took a step forward. “So are you . . . Nana?”
The door was right there.
“What do you want?” I had been spending too much time with Bitch-Annie.
“A tattoo?”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why are you here?” I grunted. Footsteps came in from the back room. I was examining the smudged off-white tiles of the floor one by one.
“I wanted to . . . hey, you can look up if you want.” She said, curiously, softly. I didn’t look up. “I’m still figuring out the design.” She trudged on ahead.
“Fine.” I pivoted away. “But we’re busy. Come back later.”
A hand slapped across my shoulder. “This is Nana.” Annie stopped me from leaving. “Don’t let her eyes fool ya, it’s her personality that’s actually the problem. You saw her butterfly you said?”
“Yes!” She gushed. “It was gorgeous.”
“It was fine,” I corrected.
“It’s her birthday today.” Annie shared because she could and because she was a failed evil villain still trying to get her kicks in.
“Oh cool, happy Birthday.” A deep pause followed that could fill oceans. “You can look up. I don’t mind.” She repeated.
I opened my eyes wide and lifted my chin in one jerky motion. A beam of fluorescent headlights hit her across the face. “Is this what you want?” Venom dripped from my lips. This was why I tried not to talk too much.
The young woman squinted for a moment before covering her eyes and nodding. “I read about you,” she stated as if it was nothing. “I’m turning twenty-two this year . . . so I guess, you are too?”
“What?!” Delight filled Annie’s entire expression. “Hot damn! Twenty-two?” I groaned deeply. “Hey, you, girlie,” she addressed antennae-girl, “you want to come out for drinks tonight?”
I tried to protest as quickly as possible, but somehow didn’t summon the words quickly enough.
“Sure.” She agreed. ----------------------
The night was humid and clung to us like a second skin. I wandered through the hilly streets with Penguin Davies wobbling beside me. The desk kid—Daft Jeff, said Davies had some inner-ear problem that made it hard for him to keep his balance. Annie said he just didn’t belong on land— he couldn’t walk straight unless something was tilting and rolling under his feet.
Davies made his way up the hill, faltering and missing the musical beats of it. He refused to let me steady him and I refused to have him sing to me. It was apparently my birthday.
“Someone saw your design.” He noted on the downhill.
“Yeah. Some college girl.” I grumbled.
“What’d you think?” He asked in his usual mysterious way.
“She just wants a good look.” I returned in a neutral tone. “She read about me in the paper. All she wants to do is look.”
“She saw your design.” He paused. “And Jeff said she was like you.”
I blinked hard so the path ahead was eaten by shadow and Davies stumbled. “Not all of us have to be friends . . .” I said sourly and didn’t fill in the rest. “I’ve met kids with antlers and frog-hands before. I doesn’t mean anything.”
“Any of them come visit?”
“They’re smart enough not to.” I snark. “But the ones who manage to be pretty don’t have the brains to stay away.”
“Mm.” He made a soft sound. “What kind of tattoo do you think she’ll get?”
“How should I know? A heart or anchor or something dumb like that.” I walked on ahead. “Maybe I’ll give her a quote from some dead poet.”
“You like poetry.”
I huff dramatically, “Not what I mean. Girls like her don’t like my type of poetry, you know I’m saying.”
“What kind of girls?” Davies was patient. I hated that about him.
I stopped at the corner to let him catch up. “Don’t play dumb. Hot ones, college ones, getting a degree in money or music. They don’t watch over their shoulders enough or know when to stay away.” I scuffed my shoe on the ground. “Whatever.”
Davies was still thinking. I considered pushing him over. He finally spoke up again as we approach the bar, “That sea witch ever show up again?”
“Mags?” I snorted. “No. Why?”
“Cause I’m sure she’d like to see this.”
I didn’t say anything else as we reached the doorway. -------------------- The bar was loud. More people than I liked came to my “party.” I should have seen it coming. If the cliff city liked one thing it was an excuse to drink.
I crammed myself up against the bar and ordered a gin and tonic before the rest of the night crowd could arrive. Birdy was holding court at a corner table and waving at me. “There she is! Someone put a blanket over Nana, lights out, party up!”
Her puns usually left something to be desired. She sang “Blinded by the Light” every time she saw me for half a year.
I drank half my gin and tonic in the first gulp as a new stream of townies burst in. They arrived to buy me birthday beers and shout their opinions on the shitty new chain restaurant on 3rd street. I was almost tasting the bottom of my second glass when someone tapped on my shoulder.
I barely looked over.
The girl with sheets of black hair and a practiced-appearance stood before me—like she was at dress rehearsal and expected everyone else to know the lines as well. She carried a baby-blue bike helmet in one hand, and I noted there were two hand-drilled holes in the top.
“You.” I was tempted to shake her hand like I might make this a transactional hello and goodbye in short order.
“Hey.” She smiled, hesitant, like maybe the food on the fork might be too hot. “Nana, right?”
“Yep.” I sighed the word real long and heavy. “Listen, I really can’t give you a tattoo if you don’t know what you want.”
“No, no, I get it. But I want you to know . . . I didn’t know it was you.”
“Uh, okay. Though I’m pretty hard to miss over here.” I was looking at the dirty wine bottles stacked near the ceiling. Her antennae hang over both of us like fern fronds.
“No. I mean, when I saw the butterfly. That’s when I wanted to come here. Not after.”
“After what?” I was gonna make her say it.
“After I found that it was, well, you know, Headlights Girl.”
“Mm.” I was spending too much time with Davies. “You want something to drink?”
She sighed as well, real long and heavy. “Sure.” She took the seat next to me. “I’m Park by the way.”
“Park.” I rolled the name around in my mouth. “And you already know me.”
“I don’t think I do.” She laughed, sharp and bristly like something you can get cut on. “And I’ll have a beer. . . but only once you look up. Come on, I’m not like that.” I looked up. Her face was bright, round like the moon, her grin was sneaky and unearned. “There we go.”
She waved over the bartender Kipp and ordered her dark beer.
“It’s not really my birthday.” I informed her, dumbly. Every word felt dumb and clumsy all at once.
“Why not?” She was teasing. I knew that.
“That’s not how birthdays work.” I informed and wished I could backtrack into hostility again.
“Oh darn,” she winked. “And here I was about to make it my birthday too.”
“Uh, well,” I really should have left when I had the chance. “It’s not too late?”
“That’s the spirit!” She laughed, fuller this time and rounded. I looked her straight in the face and then quickly looked away again. Her grin was aimed at me, somehow, and seemed to reach high cupboards inside me you usually needed a stool for.
“Park,” I repeated the name and shifted in place. “So did you go to Haveryards or Simmons?” There were only two schools in the country for spirit bastards like us. Haveryards was close enough for me to get bussed to—an hour one way and then an hour home.
“Neither. I went to public and then Bakerville Uni.” She rapped on the counter. “Hey, you want another gin and tonic? Or I’ll mix you up something.” Her eyes flickered over everything. “I bartended my way through college so I can make a mean margarita.”
“Oh, Bakerville U., yeah. That ones close.” I stuttered a bit. She was leaning across the counter and trying to get Kipp’s attention a second time. My words were feeling dumber and dumber by the moment, perhaps losing all shape and meaning altogether. “That’s where you went?”
“How’d you guess?” She said playfully and pointed to her t-shirt. She finally got the bartender over. “Right, you want something hard? Vodka maybe? A mule?”
I scratched my chin. “ . . . I don’t care. I’m easy.”
She rolled her eyes and I knew she must feel me staring. “I can’t imagine shopping for you for today then.” She snickered and climbed over the counter. “Happy birthday, how about one chocolate mule for a free tattoo?”
“You wish.” I made a face. “You don’t even know what you want.”
“And you do?” She was still grinning, somehow. “I’ve decided I’m making you the equivalent of all the soda flavors mixed together at once. Close your eyes.”
I closed my eyes and I tried to turn off my thoughts. It was bright as knives inside my skull; I carry the daytime with me. Panic threatened to rise up (for no reason of course), but a soft hand brushed against mine, soft like sheets in fancy hotels and flower petals. I peaked and Park slid a full murky glass toward me.
“Drink up.”
It was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday. I didn’t care. She called it a chocolate-mule-Park Special and maybe chocolate really was my favorite flavor. -------------- Park started coming around. She rode a sky-blue bike with a white basket and rusting hinges. I couldn’t imagine doing all the hills in the city without any gears, but she managed. She said she was figuring things out after graduating. She said she liked it here.
I grumbled when she came by. I complained like Annie when Wicker the cat visited: Get that thing away from me. I hate that. Smells awful. I’ve got allergies. Put that away, it’ll kill me.
I never said anything when Annie left fish heads out and bowls of milk of course.
Park smelled like sunscreen and breath mints. She had strong opinions on everything from street paving techniques to which sun hats went with which dresses. She invited me on walks. She invited me to help her change a flat tire. She invited me to the corner shop to help her pick out bottle can openers.
I said no. Sometimes I said no. I started to say yes.
“Look at this,” she liked to show me things. She liked to show me pictures of squirrels on her phone and weird pieces of glass she found. She liked to point out new restaurants (that I’d already been to) and play videos of funny traffic jams.
This time she held up a seashell. It was rounded and flat with a swirl in the center.
“I’m looking.” I said carefully.
“Watch how it catches light.” I shun my eyes on it and she moved it back and forth. There were bits of silver veins caught in the cracks of it.
“There’s tons of those.” At this point, I had valiantly refused to be impressed by even her cutest squirrel pictures.
“Ugh.” She pouted. “Are you kidding? I spent all morning looking for this.”
“They're right by the surf. I could find you five bigger ones than this before sunset.”
“Alright, hot-shot.” She jut her chin out and jabbed my shoulder. “Prove it.”
I said yes to that one. I left right after my shift ended with the sun setting in the waters like a stabbed orange bleeding out. I met Park by the parking lot with drooping palms trees lining the sides and lost flipflops everywhere.
“This is where you went wrong.” I announced. I couldn’t help it. “This is the tourist beach. You have to go somewhere real.”
“Alright, alright. You’ve already established you’re the hot-shot here. Lead the way.”
She followed me. I ignored how she lingered by my side. I ignored how her hand wrapped around my arm as she stopped us to look at a tiny horseshoe crab. Her hand was soft, like velvet, soft enough to smother something in my chest.
I found two seashells with streaks of silver and rainbow through them, both bigger than my palm. The sun was a flat line on the horizon before I could find a third and Park hooted.
“You said before sunset! It’s sunset, baby, pay up.” She called. “And you were so sure you were a better seashell hunter than me.” She tsked.
I scanned the ground more quickly. “It’s barely nighttime.” I pointed to the sky. “And I can keep looking. I have the built-in equipment for it.”
“Oh I know.” She planted herself on the soggy crusted sand and sat down in a heap. “But can you find why kids love the taste of not doing that? Take it easy. Take a seat.”
“So pushy.”
“You know me.” It was fond. It had only been a few months, but there was something fond there.
I ran a hand through my short choppy curls. “Fine.” I sat next to her, not too close. “It’s your loss.” We both looked out at the gently lapping waves, foaming and anemic. She let a long breath of air and for a moment I considered brushing her hair back. It was always in her face.
It was a quiet moment, bottled, and pitching toward something. Like the the moment where you miss a step on the stairs and the certainty of the fall was right there.
I was the one that scooted a little closer.
“I’m considering getting a storm cloud,” she commented off-handedly. “Can you do storm clouds?”
I made a sound of consideration. “Sure.” I glanced toward the opposite corner of the night sky. “I think I’ve seen one of those before. Big puffy wet things?”
“Kinda fluffy? You’re getting there.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” I’m smiling, which is alright since there’s no way she could see it. She’s silent for another moment longer.
“Or would you make fun of me if I got something like a butterfly? Like your other one.”
“A storm cloud butterfly?”
“No. The cloud would it’s own thing.” She chewed on her bottom lip, ragged and chapped. “I mean, I’ve been doodling some ideas. And tattoos should be personal, right? So I thought a storm cloud might be fitting. Kids used to pay me a couple dollars to predict the weather. It could be a memorial to childhood entrepreneurial spirit.”
I watched her speak and something beat inside my chest like a second animal. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to feel velvet again.
“Why?” I rasped after a moment.
“Uh, why did they pay me? It’s just something I can do. Whenever it's going to rain or storm or be sunny out. I dunno, I don’t know why the rest of you can’t sense it.”
“And you didn’t become a meteorologist?” I smiled a bit bitterly.
She made an indignant noise. “And you didn’t become a professional lighthouse?”
I choked on a laugh. “Not yet.” A quiet consumed us from both sides, I made sure my light didn’t crash into her. I made sure to look at anything but her. She’d have to squint if I did and cover her eyes and I’d be there, ready to run her over.
“Kids in my class paid me too.” I barely realized I started speaking. “They slipped me a couple bucks to close my eyes so they could see my face.”
“You got money for that?”
“There wasn’t always much to do. Teachers were quitting all the time and sometimes it was just the TV. I dunno, they paid me. Then they’d giggle and run away afterward.” My voice sounded automated like the announcer at an airport, informing travelers their flight was canceled. “They always said I had a pig nose or a unibrow or looked like the lead singer of that Minx girl band-- super hot, but you know, it didn’t matter.” The laugh that escaped was high, girlish in a grotesque way. “Since, you know, no one would ever see it.”
“Kids are fucked up.” Park contributed simply.
“Adults are too.” I sniffed. “Everyone wants a light show.”
“Oh.” She said slowly. “Is it . . . is it bad I wanted to meet you then? I mean, I wanted to see the art first, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a factor.”
“No.” I said quickly. I lit up my own lap and empty hands. “Does it matter?”
“I never went to those schools,” she said hesitantly. “My parents fought them, said the schools were unfit. They shouldn’t be able to force us there. And that I wasn’t even dangerous since,” she gestured helplessly upward, “I just have these. So then, well, I never really met anyone else like me.”
“I mean, everyone’s different. It’s not . . . a big deal.”
“You’d think so,” she commented sardonically.
I folded up into myself like a complex origami piece. “Yeah, well, sometimes I wish I was dangerous. Actually dangerous.”
She giggled. “Didn’t you just say everyone’s different? I’d say everyone’s dangerous too. Just gotta find the niche.”
“Oh yeah,” I dared to turn toward her. “What’s yours then?”
“My danger niche? Hmm.” She was leaning now, pitching forward like a wave come to drown me. “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve I’ll admit.”
“You have a pair of wings hidden away?” I stopped breathing as her hand lifted up, strange and all at once. I wasn’t ready.
“Here.” Her skin was against mine. She cupped my cheek with one velvet-hand. It was heated cashmere, tiny feather-light hairs on her palm. “Feelers.” She whispered with a hesitancy there.
“Ah,” I was indulgent. I closed my eyes. I leaned in. “And you want to put a needle over these?” I put my hand over hers, loosely, so she could pull away if she wanted to. Tiny hairs pulsed there with some kind of life all their own. 
“I wanted . . .” She paused and I peaked open my eyes. I could see every detail of her face, illuminated. “I dunno.” She finished. “I guess I just wanted whatever I saw there, before.”
“In the butterfly?”
“In the butterfly.” I turned toward the ocean, but my hand remained over hers. “I’m not sure how good it will be a second time. It’s not like I’m really an artist. . .”
“What did you want to be?” Soft.
“Who knows. I mean, I’m glad my parents didn’t try to fight the schools. Being there during the day was better than being home, listening to my mom crying all the time and my father exploding . . . They wouldn’t have wanted me home.”
Before the sunset, when I was walking over, I thought maybe we’d kiss that night. I thought I’d feel that first electric pulse and maybe we’d climb into the ocean and swim in circles, laugh until the moon rose. I thought maybe I’d get something out of my system and there wouldn’t be anything left to say or do.
I’d kiss Park, once, and she’d be satisfied. She’d understand. She’d go on her college path and I’d go on on mine.
But the words spilled out, unbidden. Park stayed in place, steady and unflinching. That made it worse, so much worse.
“My parents weren’t like yours.” There was an accusatory edge to it. Don’t you know? I wanted to shout. Don’t you know? Even without the eyes or the school bills or the bus.
“Hey,” she cradled my cheeks with both hands now and smeared the tears away from one eye. “Hey, listen, I know. Alright? I know.”
I scowled back at her feathered little feelers.
“It’s not about the damn antenna or head beams or anything else.” I tried to pull away. “Even the kid with the antler’s kissed me and I didn’t stop him. I ran away from home and my mom never came looking. It didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter! You wouldn’t even get it. You wouldn’t get it!” I squeeze my eyes closed. “You were wanted.”
Slowly, like an awkward animal burrowing into soft earth, she pressed her forehead to the crook of my neck. I could feel us both breathing in, strong and steady. She was lean and silky, and I swore I can feel her heartbeat hammering through my throat.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered. I inhaled her sunscreen scent. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know. But I could.”
“Why are you here?” It was miserable and wet, I hated that my eyes were so different and yet still the same. Could still spill over like theirs. She took a long breath but didn’t move away.
“My last girlfriend broke up with me for being . . . sensitive and I thought maybe if I got a tattoo, I’d stop feeling so much. I’d prove something. I’d feel everything less, you know? It would hurt and then it wouldn’t.”
I took that in a parsec at time. “Are you,” I sniffed. “Are you alright?” Her legs and arms were plastered over mine. “You’re so soft, but, but I don’t want to,” I wipe at my face like it didn’t matter. “Hurt you.”
“I know.” Her face was still pressed to my neck and her lips fluttered across the hallow of my skin. “I didn’t want to hurt you either.”
A stillness settled into my bones. I glanced toward the moon, and it was like looking at like, a terrible moon to another moon. I gathered myself. I took a deep breath. I flattened.
“I shouldn’t have said all that.” My voice had dried up. “We led different lives.” It wasn’t her fault if she was wanted.
“No.”
“I wasn’t thinking . . .”
Her hand wrapped around my wrist. “I talk to Annie sometimes when you aren’t there.”
“Okay?”
“And Davies. And that front desk guy.”
“Daft Jeff. Yes.”
“They all say the same thing . . .” I blinked a couple times. “That I really should wait for you to give me the tattoo. You have a steady hand and an eye for detail.”
“Alright . . .”
“That someone taught you tattooing the right way. They wanted to show you the right way to do it.”
I snorted despite myself. “It’s not that hard. Mags was batty. Who knows why she showed me how to pick up a needle.”
“Don’t you see? They say they wouldn’t know what to do without you.” She was still there. She wasn’t moving, almost in my lap now. “You were wanted.”
“Park?” My voice cracked like a question.
“And you come with me to restaurants and help me buy bottle openers. You find shells for me and help me fix tires.” Her breath was hot and dragged across my cheek. “You are wanted.”
I blocked out her face, her voice, I turned on the sharp white sun inside and for a moment I imagine never opening my eyes back up again. Maybe I could make it night forever inside myself as well. Wouldn’t you rather have something quiet inside?
She wrapped herself around me, fully, one long arm at a time until it was cocoon. Soft. “Listen, sometimes the first people aren’t the right people. Sometimes your first relationship isn’t the right relationship. Sometimes you’re sure the world is one way, and like, always one way . . . and then it rains and the whole world is different again. You know? People pass.”
“My parents aren’t the weather.”
“But they’ll pass.” I should have pushed her off. But even against that, even those words— I liked being held, indulgent as chocolate and twice as guilty. “People sometimes feel forever, especially those kinds of people.” I was off again. “But it rains. And hey, I always know when it’s going to rain.”
I hiccupped; a smile found its way uninvited onto my face, unsure and just wobbly on its feet as Davies. I glanced down after a deep breath. Park grinned back at me and it reached the highest shelves of me all over again.
“So what happens when it rains again? Do you people like you pass?”
“Nah, not me. I don’t know how.” She winked. I didn’t notice that we’re lying flat now, stars and carpet of black above. “You can’t get rid of me. You haven’t given me that tattoo yet.”
The sound of shushing waves filled the midnight air and the moon looked down like that very first bus arriving to get me all those years ago. I wrapped my arms right back around her. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sticky or strange or sometimes kept tearing up all over again even after we’d stop saying anything worth tearing up over. ------------------
It happened. I felt like I should have been more prepared, brought flowers or poetry or earned it through honored warfare. But it happened. I was wearing ripped jeans, a spotty t-shirt and my breath smelled like coffee. We were looking for Park’s lost earring along an overgrown hill she usually biked along.
I found it, one shiny red dewdrop in all that green. Park pointed at some clouds that looked like my last “abstract” tattoo. We lay back in the grass and let the sky pass overhead. She giggled and touched my wrist, side by side. I let her.
“Summer’s almost over.” I mumbled it first.
“Yeah?”
“You find your next step then, college girl?” I tried to keep my tone light. She turned to be on her side.
“Maybe.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Oh, you know. This and that.”
“That does not sound like a college-girl plan.”
“Maybe I’ve got other plans. Maybe I’ve got other priorities, huh?”
“Ridiculous.” A playfully push her shoulder. “A lousy seaside town really isn’t priority material. There’s only one bookshop you know.”
“Two thank you very much. And that’s not my priority either.” Her voice wavered.
“Are you going to share with the class?”
“Is the class ready?” She whispered and I turned toward her as well now, taking in her perfect round face and question-mark mouth.
“I have been.” I matched her whisper. I tremor from my center outward and hopes she can’t tell.
“Do you know what they say about moths?”
“What?” I gave a breathy laugh. It wasn’t what I was expecting. “I’ve heard of them.”
“They tell your fortune.” She was grinning in that way that put out a stool and reached up. “I used to cry a lot growing up, because some kids said that moths are just evil butterflies. I was sensitive and ran all the way home. I threw myself at my mom’s feet and threw a fit about how moths were just evil butterflies. They were just ugly, wicked versions of a good thing.”
“Evil? Well, I suppose you are rather sinister when you haven’t eaten.”
“Shut up. I’m telling you something.” She put a hand on my shoulder. I inhaled deeply and turned over in place to face her. Only the shallow breeze kept us apart.
“I’m all ears . . . though maybe not as many as you.”
“You’re lucky you’re cute.”
“What can I say? The sun is adorable. I take after him.”
A finger ghosted over my cheek, tracing the arc of my cheekbone. “Well, you’re not so bad behind those headlights too. Some of us have good day vision you know. And good taste.”
I wished those words didn’t make my chest do funny things. “Thanks.”
“Do you want to hear what my mom said or not?”
“That you shouldn’t worry about evil butterflies?” I wiggled closer. “Because you’ll be really hot and funny and smart one day. So who cares if you’re evil?”
“Yeah, those were her exact words.”
“So?”
“So,” a firm hand took my chin. “Look at me.” I looked at her. I was glad she couldn’t see the flush in my cheeks in any way. “Moths show good fortunes she said.”
“Right. Lots and lots of good fortune.” I breathed, dumbly, of course. She was close and sweet and there was hair in her face. The fronds of her antennae tickle right past my ear.
“They can help you find good fortune. They’re good omens. You know why?” Park’s lips were barely moving as she spoke, hypnotic and unhurried.
“Why?”
“Because they follow the light.”
It happened all at once. Like every cheesy love poem or bad lyrics I wrote in my journals at night. It was every cracked-spine of a book using words like “rosebud lips” and every overdone song about people who find their way to each other.
I kissed her, leaning in with no life vest on or readied crash-landing position. She kissed me and my chest filled with her, breathless, drowning, soft as dreams and stranger than hope. I cradled her and she dragged me closer and closer until it was nothing but floods and brimming.
I’d been nothing before I think, I’d been an island that waits, a bus that leaves, a shadow that hides. And then I had been hers. ----------------- I was strolling home from work along the main road. The thin strip of sidewalk was streaked with bleached sunlight and the salt air was thick enough to burn throats. It was the long way home, but I was in the habit of going back to this corner.
The bus pulled up with little ceremony. It was an interstate one that crisscrossed over empty bellies of land. I stopped in place to watch, just in case, as I had many times before.
A silver head bobbed down the steps and planted herself on the concrete, unbelieving. She took an enormous noisy sniff of the air. “Not so bad!” She bellowed.
“Are you?” That wasn’t meant to be my first word. She was more stooped now and wearing shiny things on her wrist that clanked. She’d lost another tooth. “Mags.”
“Eh!” She yelled and waved frantically as if I hadn’t shot up another inch since I last saw her and started wearing clothes without holes in them. Her eyes sparkled as she tottered over. “So how’d you do, kid?”
“See for yourself.” I smiled. It was nice when the tides came back in. Mags gave me a thorough appraising. “Like this I guess.” I held up my hand. I wiggled my ring finger at her, heavy with a silver band and glittering opal.
“That’s my girl! Always knew you’d find your feet.” She cackled. “Am I too late to give you away, kid?”
I shook my head. She waddled over to me so I could take her hand. I took her home to show her my art and new tattoos, I showed her our terrible one-eyed kitten, Basket (Wicker’s son), and the little house we styled ourselves. I showed her our shoe closet and our queen bed, our messy kitchen and busted screen door. I showed her the moth tattoo over my heart, and Park showed her the matching lighthouse one over hers.
I tried to thank her, of course, I tried to say I owed her more than she knew for picking up an angry, dirty kid and seeing something in her. I owed her everything. But she just patted my hand and said that it’s not about our debts in life, kid. It’s about the becoming.
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