#And my arms are darker like bread sticks

[minty-bubblegum]

My neighbor calls me chebread

[babybluebex]

long lost love: after | joseph quinn x fem!reader

summary: part two of two! eight years after you break up with joseph, you reunite with him, and you grapple with the decision of if you want to get back with him and become a household name like him, or if you want to lose him again. pairing: joseph quinn x fem!reader (rpf - don't like, don't read) tags: accusations of infidelity, lovesick joey, wes makes several appearances AGAIN, mentions of smut (but no actual smut lol sorry), brief mention of vomit author's note: thank you for your patience with this fic! i don't deserve y'all, and i love y'all so much!! thanks for reading this fic, and i hope you enjoy the end!

“Oh my god, babe,” your coworker started, leaning over to wipe down a table. She was young, a girl named Anna that was still in uni, and you liked her a lot, enough that you called her your work-sister. Yes, you were doing what you had to do; roles had washed up, and you needed to pay the bills somehow, so you were waiting tables at a little restaurant in the heart of London. It was a hellish job and you hated it, but you had no other choice.

After your short stint on the sitcom right out of LAMDA, you had auditioned and sent in tape after tape, but nothing really came to fruition. You weren’t as lucky as other people were, and you sometimes thought about going to uni proper so that you could get a meaningful degree and get a real job and give up on the whole acting thing, but you couldn’t possibly do that to yourself. Your pride was too strong and, after Joe, you were determined not to sabotage your own life again. You didn’t date, and you continued to send in tapes. “You’ll never guess who just walked in.” 

“Is it Kate and William?” you chuckled, wiping the bread crumbs from your own table. “No, wait— It’s Meg and Harry.”

“No,” Anna laughed. “Do you watch Stranger Things?” 

You shrugged. “I mean, I watched the first season,” you said. “I know the fourth one just came out.” 

“Yeah, well, Steve and Eddie from Stranger Things just walked in,” Anna said. She could barely contain her excitement, and you rolled your eyes as you laughed. “Will you take that table from me? I can’t serve them, I’m too nervous.” 

“Sure,” you said; it was a slow lunch hour, and a table meant money. Especially if these guys were on a Netflix show. “But you’re taking my next table that comes in.” 

“Deal,” Anna said. 

You smiled at her as you tightened your apron around your middle, and you approached the only filled table in the whole place. Two men occupied it, one facing you and the other facing away. The one facing you, you recognized— He was Steve, you remembered from when you watched the first season. With his head of good hair, it was impossible to mistake him, but you had no idea what his name was. The other guy— well, you couldn’t make him out too well, not from the back of his head. “Hi there, gents,” you welcomed them, smiling first at “Steve” and then turning your attention to the other man. “Welcome to—“ 

You dropped your pen, your breath sticking in your chest. Joseph. It was Joseph. He looked equally as shocked to see you, dark eyes big and wide, his cheeks pale, and tears started to well in your eyes. “Oh my God,” you whispered. You couldn’t breathe, your heart ramming inside your chest. It was actually him. He was here.

“I actually get that a lot,” “Steve” laughed. 

“Oh my… Wow,” Joseph said, a grin crossing his face. “H-How are you, how have you been?” 

“I’m fine,” you told Joseph, and he stood up to envelop you in a hug. You threw your arms around his neck and hugged him back, hand on the nape of his neck, appreciating how eight years could change a person. He smelled different, felt different against your body, he even seemed to carry himself differently. His hair looked darker, he had a bit of stubble on his chin, he had small wrinkles next to his eyes— but he still had his beautiful brown eyes, the same ones that had drawn you in, back all those years ago. “I’ve been fine, how are you?” 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Joseph said with a breathy chuckle. “It’s been— What? Eight years? Time flies, huh?” 

“Definitely,” you agreed. You couldn’t believe it. Right in front of you was your biggest regret, smiling at you and staring you in the face, and you could only manage to be cordial. You wanted to be childish, to break down at his feet and beg for him to take you back, but all you managed to say was, “Sorry for not keeping in touch.” 

“Oh, it’s—” Joseph said, and he dismissively waved his hand around.”Right after Dickensian happened, I had to change my phone number, so it’s probably my fault.” 

“Crazed fan?” you asked and laughed, and Joseph pulled a face, his eyes wide and eyebrows raised as he gnawed on his lip. 

“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Here, actually, I’ve had to change my number again since Stranger Things aired, let me give you my new number.”

“You’re blowing through phone numbers,” you chuckled. “That many crazed fans?”

“Well, this time I changed it because my old number was linked to my Hinge account,” Joseph said with an embarrassed flush in his cheeks, and your heart skipped. Had he been using dating apps? Jesus, even the thought made you ill. You hadn’t dated anybody since him, and you wondered how prolific he had been in the wake of his success, but then you stopped that line of thought. It was your fault he was single in the first place. “And I didn’t want people to find that account so… I changed it.” 

“Smart,” you nodded. “Yeah, I don’t have my phone on me right now— against the rules— so just, umm—”

“Give me your number,” Joseph said quickly. “I’ll text you instead.” He gave you a crooked smile, the same crooked smile that he had given you that first day, when he still had his braces on, and it made your heart melt. You were a little glad that the onus was on Joseph to contact you instead of the other way around; you never would have texted him, too afraid of messing everything up again. “I’m not in London for very much longer, but maybe we could grab a drink before I head to Santa Monica.”

“Yeah, for sure,” you said. Joseph handed you his phone, open to a new contact card, and you quickly typed in your name and number, then hesitated before adding a small heart after your name. That would tell him what he needed to know without actually saying it, you hoped. “I’d like that a lot. Oh, how’s Wes?”

“Wes is doing good,” Joseph told you, pocketing his phone swiftly. “He and Liam got married a few years ago, in 2018.”

“Oh my God!” you exclaimed. “Oh, good for them! I remember Wes telling me all about how he thought Liam was ‘the one’ when they first started dating.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Joseph laughed. “They’re still obsessed with each other, it makes me sick.” 

“They always were a little into PDA,” you smiled, reminiscing on movie nights with the pair. “But they were cute.” 

“You know…” Joseph started. “I was going to grab drinks with Wes tonight, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you joined. He was just talking about you the other day, wondering what was going on and everything.” 

“Yeah,” you said quickly. “I’d actually love that, I’ve been wondering how he is too. I haven’t been able to find him on social media. Or you either, for that matter.” 

“Yeah, I had Twitter for a bit, but I gave up on it,” Joseph admitted. “I just… I don’t know, I think I’m too old for that sorta stuff. I don’t know how it works or anything; I have an Instagram but my mate runs it for me, and only because Netflix basically forced me to get it. I don’t even know the password to it.” He laughed, and so did you, and you caught “Steve” out of the corner of your eye, suddenly remembering that he was there too. “Oh, fuck, sorry, where are my manners? Y/N, this is Joe Keery, he plays Steve. Joe, this is Y/N, she’s my… Well, it’s a long story, but we went to LAMDA together.” 

Wow. What a way to simplify your relationship. Although, you suppose it was easier than explaining “We used to date and then she broke up with me because she thought I cheated, which I didn’t, but she knows that now”. Long story, indeed. “We were pretty much best mates,” you added. “But after we graduated, we just… Drifted apart.” 

“What a shame too,” Joseph mumbled, then, before you could react, added, “I’ll text you about tonight, yeah? Time and place and all.” 

“Alright,” you said. “I’m looking forward to it.” 

You ended up introducing Anna to Joe and Joseph, telling her that they were good people and would tip her well, and you excused yourself to the server alley. Your hands were shaking as you sat down on a cardboard box and buried your head in your hands, and you tried to control your breathing. Joseph. No longer was he the awkward, blond, braces-and-glasses thing that he had been— he had matured nicely, luckily seemingly keeping his sense of humor that you adored, and you sniffled as you extracted your phone. You saw a text from an unknown number that just said “Joey” with a heart, and you frowned it away as you went to Instagram and typed in his name. Sure enough, his account was the first one to pop up, only one post so far, of a heavily made-up Joseph. He wore a long wig, giving the camera his best Blue Steel look, looking more serious and deadly than you had ever seen him before. Apparently, according to Anna, this was Eddie. 

Before you could do any more research into Eddie or Joseph, a new text came through from the same unknown number, Joey’s number. Wes and I are meeting at Soho House at 8 o’clock, he texted. I’ll be there a few minutes early, to make sure that you can get in.

You had heard of the exclusive Soho House before, although you had never been in it, and your heart skipped. Joseph had definitely moved up in the world. Cool, you answered back. I can’t wait. 

Wes says he’s excited to see you, Joseph told you. It’s been a while, huh?

Yeah, for sure, you answered. And you stopped, debating what to say next. Should you apologize?  Would he even know what you were apologizing for? Maybe you should wait to apologize and explain yourself in person. But Wes would be there, you wouldn’t be able to say exactly what you wanted. You wished that you could be alone with Joseph and talk, but you would take drinks. You would take anything that he decided to give you. 

You went home after your shift and instantly started to fret as you got dressed. Would it be awkward? Would you even enjoy the drinks with your old lover and friend? Or was tonight bound to be a disaster? You decided to try to look at it with as much positivity as you could— if he was inviting you out for drinks, he couldn’t hate you that much, right? Maybe he had forgiven you. Maybe he was still in love with you. 

No. Put that thought away. He was not in love with you. He had been dating since you, and probably had had girlfriends since you. He probably had a girlfriend now. He was the ultimate full package, kind and thoughtful and smart and funny and handsome and interesting, he was everything, girls should swoon over him. He should be absolutely rolling in women; there was no way that he still had feelings for you. 

When you arrived at Soho House, you saw him sitting outside instantly. He was looking as handsome as ever, smoking a cigarette and sipping on a drink in a short tumbler, and he took your breath away in a brown suit. God, had he grown even more handsome in your years apart? It didn’t feel real. “Joe!” you grinned as you approached him, and he smiled back at you, putting his cigarette out in an ashtray. 

“Hello!” he crooned, opening his arms for you. In an instant, almost as if you were drawn magnetically, you fell into his arms, hugging him tightly and pressing your head into his neck to smell his warm and earthy cologne. Joseph rubbed your back as he hugged you, just the same way he always used to, and, when you pulled away from the hug, Joseph gave you a warm, blushed smile. “Well, darling, you look stunning.” 

“Thank you,” you laughed breathlessly. “Says you! You— Fuck, you grew up! You look so good!” 

“Aw, well,” Joseph shrugged bashfully, tugging at the thin silver chain around his neck. “I mean, a lot can change in eight years.” 

“True,” you said. “But… A lot can stay the same… I’m sorry.” 

“What for?” Joseph asked, his eyebrows furrowing. 

“I…” you started. “For… You know what for. Don’t make me say it. It was humiliating enough the first time around.” 

“Let’s not have this talk here,” Joseph said softly. “Just come home with me later, we can talk there.” 

“Okay,” you agreed softly. “Can I just ask one thing?” Joseph nodded, and you carefully took his hands in yours, pressing your palms against his. You were scared to even ask, knowing that he would reject you, but you kept your resolve. “I know I hurt you. I know you probably want nothing to do with me, but… Please, if there’s any part of you that doesn’t hate me, just tell me. You are the best thing I’ve ever had in my life and I ruined it, and—”

Before you could say more, Joseph leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. It was quick, you could hardly call it a kiss, but your heart pounded in your chest like it did with your first kiss with Joe, all those years ago. You sighed and laced your fingers with Joe’s as he broke the kiss, and you started, “Does that mean—”

“Yes,” Joe whispered. “I never stopped loving you, sweetheart. You hurt me, but I never let you go.”

“Okay,” you said softly. “Good. Umm… Let’s go. Is Wes inside?” 

“Yeah,” Joe said. “He won’t stop talking about you.” With a hand on your back, he led you inside the exclusive club. You felt lightheaded even walking beside him again, and you couldn’t help the grin that covered your face when you saw Wes. He looked exactly the same, and you hugged him tightly. Wes’s arms were just as tight around you as he laughed, and he said, “Well, well, if it isn’t Miss Y/N. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” you shrugged. “Sorry.”

Joe helped you sit down on one of the tall stools, his hand still on your back, and he kissed your hair as he mumbled something about going to the restroom, and he slipped away as Wes showed you his hand and the gleaming silver band. “Liam and I got hitched,” Wes smiled as you squealed in excitement. 

“Oh, Wes, I’m so happy for you!” you told him. 

Wes hesitated for a second, looking over his shoulder at Joe retreating as he showed restraint that you didn’t remember him having, and he finally said, “Joe will never tell you, but you really did a number on him.”

“I know I did,” you cringed. 

“No, like,” Wes started. “He was going to ask you to marry him. He had the ring in his sock drawer and everything. When you broke up with him, I came home to find him on the floor, sobbing. He cried so hard he threw up. He was inconsolable for weeks. Didn’t do anything other than go to work and lay in bed. He was depressed, love. I thought he’d be like that forever.”

A ring. Marriage. The thought that you had ruined that made you sick. You rubbed the hem of your shirt between your fingers as you nodded at your lap, and you mumbled, “What got him out of that?” 

“Honestly?” Wes asked. “I don’t think he ever got out of it. I think working helps him, but he didn’t figure that out for a while. He did Dickensian, then didn’t work again for, like, a year, and he got really bad. He still really only works and goes home. I had to twist his arm to even get him to agree to this. ”

“Is it really your place to be telling me this?” you asked, halfway-jokingly, and Wes smiled. 

“It’s definitely not,” Wes said humorlessly. “But you deserve to know how he reacted when you broke up with him. It ruined him. He deserves better than that, and if you’re going to hurt him again, then don’t even bother.” 

“What makes you think that we’re gonna get back together?” you asked. “He wants nothing to do with me.” 

“That’s not what that kiss outside said,” Wes shrugged. “Just… Don’t let him down. Like I said, he’s been hurt enough by you.” 

You felt thoroughly shaken by that, but you nodded and righted yourself as Joe came back to the table, resting his hand on your shoulder. “What do you want to drink?” he asked. “I’ll get it for you.” 

“Oh, umm,” you started. “I can get it. Sit down, visit with Wes, I’ll be right back…” Quickly, before he could ask questions, you stood up and made your way to the bar. You needed a second alone to absorb everything Wes had just told you, but Joe had his own idea, taking the back of your shirt in a gentle grip and following you to the bar. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Joe said firmly. 

“Nothing,” you told him. “Everything’s fine.”

“Did Wes say something?” Joe asked. 

“No,” you insisted. “I just… This was a bad idea, all of this was a terrible… I’m going home.” 

“No, wait,” Joe said quickly. “Talk to me, darling, tell me what’s wrong.” 

“I’m not your darling,” you said quickly, edging past him towards the door. “Not anymore, I fucked that up so long ago—”

“You didn’t fuck anything up,” Joe told you, following you once again, out onto the street. 

“We could have been married by now, Joe!” you exclaimed. “We could’ve had kids by now! We could have had entirely different lives, the lives we always wanted, if it weren’t for me and-and my— I was an idiot, I was stupid and I thought I saw the signs and—”

“Hey, easy,” Joe said softly, shushing you as he pulled you into his arms. “You’re right, our lives could be completely different, but you weren’t the only one in the breakup. I could have tried to explain myself, I could have done a million things to keep you, but I didn’t, and I’ve fucking regretted it every day since then. You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and, if I could, I’d snap my fingers and have everything change, but I can’t do that. All I can do is beg you, please, come back to me.”

“But I did so wrong by you,” you whimpered. “Why do you still want me?” 

“Because I love you,” Joe told you. “I’ve loved you since I met you, and every morning, I wake up without you next to me and it fucking hurts. I want this to stop hurting. Please.” His eyes were big and wet, pleading and begging with every inch of himself, and you sniffled as you pressed your hand to his cheek. 

“Joey,” you said on shaky breaths. “I want you back too, but I can’t… I’ll just hurt you again.” 

“How are you sure?” Joe asked. “You don’t know that. Maybe we needed the few years apart to find ourselves, so when we came back together, we’d be more mature and… Darling, please. What do you need me to do? Get on my knees? I’ll do whatever you need me to. I just need you back in my life, please.” 

“Baby, please,” you sighed. “Stop begging. I’m… It’s such a terrible idea. How the actual fuck are we supposed to go back to being together like nothing happened? I’ll always feel guilty about the things I did to you.”

“But you don’t need to be,” Joe said. “You made the best decision you could have with the information you had. If I had the same evidence, I would have done the same. My girl, please.” 

You squeezed your eyes shut as your tears fell, and you mumbled, “Everything in me is telling me not to do this, but… I’ll do it. Maybe we can do a trial run, a few weeks together casually, and if that works, we can… We can be together fully.” 

“I’ll take it,” Joe said quickly. He nodded quickly, putting his hands on your waist, and he said, “I leave London the day after tomorrow for the MTV Awards, but-but, yes, a trial run would be amazing.” 

“MTV?” you asked, furrowing your eyebrows. “Were you nominated for something?” 

“Well, no,” Joe started. “But me and a few other guys from Stranger Things are presenting an award.”

“My famous actor,” you chuckled lightly, knocking his chin playfully with your knuckle, and Joe flushed. “I’m proud of you.” 

“Thank you, darling,” Joe said softly. “I’ve always dreamed of hearing you say that.”

The rest of the night went by better than you expected. Joe convinced you to go back inside Soho House with Wes, and the three of you threw back drinks and laughed like old times. It felt like no time had passed, all of the same old jokes coming back to you and making you laugh as hard as the first time, all of the “Remember when Joe…” or “Do you still…”, and Joe’s hand rested on your thigh all night, inching further and further up as the night went on. Eventually, as his thumb rubbed your inner thigh about half past eleven, you sighed and put down your glass. “Well, gents,” you said. “This has been just lovely, but I need to get going. I open at work tomorrow, which means I’ve gotta wake up early.” 

“No!” Wes sighed. “Don’t leave!” 

“I have to!” you giggled, pulling your purse around your body. “Bye, Wessy, it was so nice to see you!” 

“Wait,” Wes said, standing up and drawing you into a tight hug. You smiled into his shoulder as he embraced you, and, when he pulled away, he said, “Okay, now you can go.” 

“Alright,” you chuckled. Then, you turned to Joe, unsure of how to depart, and he stood up too. 

“I’ll walk you outside,” Joe said. “Have to make sure my woman gets home safe.” 

“Your woman?” you scoffed. 

“Won’t have anyone touch my woman,” Joe mumbled, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of the seat and tossing it over his shoulders. You smiled as he put a hand on your back and led you outside, the city bustling now, and, once you were outside, you hugged Joe tightly, hand on the nape of his neck. 

“Thank you, Joey,” you said. “Maybe we can see each other again before you leave for Santa Monica.” 

“Come home with me,” Joe said quickly. “Please?” 

“Cheeky bloke,” you grinned. “S’that all you want from me? Just a little fuck?” 

“No!” Joe huffed. “I mean, yes. I mean…” He laughed a little, and he said, “Are you drunk?” 

“A little,” you admitted. 

“Me too,” Joe cringed. “This is a terrible idea, isn’t it? I should let you go home and go to work tomorrow, and we can save this for when I come back.” 

“Or,” you started, then lowered your voice, tangling your finger in the silver chain around his neck. “You can take me home, we don’t fuck, but we can do all of that other stuff anyway.” 

“I could do with a cuddle or two,” Joe mumbled, rubbing his jaw with his hand, jokingly thoughtful. “But you have work tomorrow.” 

“So I’ll call in sick,” you said. “We can spend all day together tomorrow, catching up and everything.” 

“That sounds tempting,” Joe said. “Can we fuck tomorrow, when we’re both sober?” 

“Yes,” you told him. “Now, call a cab, and take me home.” 

It was the same flat that Joe and Wes used to live in. You still remembered your way around and all of the motions you used to go through, setting your purse on the dining table and toeing off your shoes at the door— it even smelled the same as it used to, laundry soap and cigarettes, and you giggled as Joe led you into his bedroom. The things in it had changed, a different bed frame and different photographs and different curtains, but the bed felt the same as you laid on your back, looking up at the same ceiling that you used to. Everything was so different, but so similar, and you watched as Joe shrugged out of his suit jacket and let it crumple to the floor as he went for his belt. At least that hadn’t changed. Your messy little Joey. 

“Joey?” you whispered, and Joe looked at you with big eyes, waiting for you to say more. You wanted to tell him that you loved him, that you had never stopped loving him, that you would always love him, but all that came out was, “You said something about cuddles?” 

“I did,” Joe said softly. “Let me get undressed, love.” 

You sat up and moved over to meet him by the closet door, and you nudged his hands away in favor of your own hands undoing his belt. “Let me…” you mumbled, feeling the buckle loosen, and it fell away in an instant. Joe sighed, his hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, and he pressed his lips to your forehead as you tugged his belt out of the loops. 

“I missed you,” Joe whispered, and you frowned. 

“I’m so sorry, Joey,” you told him. “I was so stupid, I should have just listened to you.”

“It’s okay,” Joe told you. “At least you came back to me.” 

“I love you,” you whispered, and Joe smoothed down your hair gently. 

“I love you so much,” Joe mumbled. His hand fell from your hair and went to the bottom of your shirt, and he tugged it up and off. You undressed each other with gentle love, stealing kisses and stepping back towards the bed, and you cuddled close into Joe’s warm chest as he laid down next to you. He was left only in his boxers, you in your panties, and his arm went around you, squeezing you for a moment. “Oh, my girl… I never thought I’d get to hold you again.” 

“I’m right here,” you told him, gently kissing his chest. “I’ll never leave again.”

The night passed with comfort, bundled up in Joe’s safe arms. He fell asleep quickly, just like he always used to, and you slept well in his grip. You only woke up at around 7 in the morning, with your phone going off across the room, and you groaned and wiped sleepily at your eyes. Joe was still holding you in a death grip in his sleep, and you pried yourself out of his arms and carefully crossed the room to retrieve your buzzing phone. Your mum was calling. Oh God. 

You slipped out of the bedroom, carefully shutting the door behind you, before you answered the phone. “Hey, Mum,” you said, wrapping your arms around yourself. It was cold, especially with your level of undress, and you went to the small laundry room to try to find a shirt or something. “Why’re you calling me so early?” 

“I was looking at the news as I had my coffee,” your mum began, and you flipped up a t-shirt that was sitting in the dryer. It smelled clean, like Joe, and unwrinkled, and you slipped it up over your head as your mum spoke. “And I saw an interesting article.”

“Oh, yeah?” you asked absently. 

“Yes,” your mum said. “It was a series of pictures of you and that Joseph boy on the street, snogging away without a care in the world.”

“What?” you said sharply. “Where did you see this? Send it to me! There’s a news article about us?” 

“I thought that you and Joseph broke up years ago,” your mum said. You were fully awake now, setting her on speakerphone as you went to Google and searched up Joseph’s name. Just as your mother said, there was a news article, some ratty gossip mag, your picture splayed across the front of the website: WHO IS STRANGER THINGS’S EDDIE DATING? It was a paparazzi picture from last night, of you and Joseph at nightfall, kissing and smiling, and your heart fell deep into your stomach. “Are you back together?” 

“Umm, it’s complicated,” you answered. You could hardly even register the hangover in your skull with the rapid panic of your heartbeat, and you went back into the bedroom to find Joe now awake, squinting as he looked at his phone screen without his contacts in. “Kinda? It-It’s hard to explain.” 

“Did you see—” Joe started to ask, and you frowned as you nodded. “Shit, darling, I didn’t think—”

“Well, explain it,” your mum told you. “Tell me what’s going on.”

You sighed. “Joe and I are back together,” you said. “But he’s leaving the country tomorrow and won’t be back for a while, so it’s a lot more… Casual, than I think either of us want it to be.” 

“But I thought he cheated on you?” your mum asked.

“I can call my publicist and see what we can do about getting this removed,” Joe started. “Do you want me to do that?” 

You felt sick. Everyone talking to you at once, the upset in your chest, an odd feeling of betrayal— it was too much. “Joe, stop, please,” you said quickly. “No, Mum, Joe didn’t cheat on me. I thought he did, but he didn’t. I-I have to go and sort this out, I’m sorry. Bye.” You hung up the phone and sighed, and you sank down onto the bed and covered your face with your hands. 

“Darling?” Joe asked. “What can I do?” 

“I didn’t even think that there would be paparazzi,” you admitted. “I’m so stupid, of course there were paparazzi around…”

“Stop, love, don’t do that,” Joe said quickly. “I should have warned you that it was a possibility. I didn’t think about how… I’m still getting used to being a celebrity, I’m afraid.” 

“Oh, God,” you mumbled. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this. This might be more than I’m cut out for.” 

“No, what?” Joe asked. “Darling, no, don’t say that. Just because we were outed by a trashy website doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be together. I-I think we were made for each other, don’t let this little thing discourage you.” 

“It’s not a little thing, though!” you said, your voice wavering. “It-It’s a big thing! I was okay living in anonymity, but this is— I was fine not being well known, but you— You’re the most talked-about guy on the planet right now! I’m not sure I’m meant to be Joseph Quinn’s girlfriend, maybe it was good that we broke up before you got super famous.” 

“What do you mean?” Joe asked. He looked hurt, like a little puppy, and he said, “Do you not want this?” 

“I want this more than anything!” you said. “But I’ve only ever had a handful of acting jobs before, I’m a fucking server for God’s sake, I don’t think I’m ready to give that up! Right now, my options are to date you and lose my anonymity, or keep it but lose you!”

Joe sighed, shaking his head. “Well, love, I can’t make that decision for you,” he said. “What do you think is best?” 

You sniffled. “I don’t want to lose you again,” you whimpered. “But I… I don’t know.”

Joe was quiet, and he took your hand in his, rubbing his thumb across your palm, and he finally said, “Let me make some calls and see what I can do about getting those pictures taken down.”

“No,” you sniffled. “Leave them up. I want everyone to know that you’re the man I love. I’m not ashamed of that.” 

Joe nodded quickly. “Darling,” he started. “I don’t want to leave tomorrow if you’re this upset.” 

“I’m not upset,” you told him. “Not anymore. It’s not something that either of us can control, so why bother being upset about it? Or at least I can try to believe that… I don’t want you to leave either.” 

“What if I don’t leave?” Joe asked. “What if I cancelled and stayed here with you?”

“No, you can’t cancel the day before,” you said softly. “I wish there was some way I could… I don’t know, go with you. So that we didn’t have to leave each other right now.” 

Joe’s eyes lit up, and he said, “Actually… There might be a way. When I was first asked to present the award, they asked if I had a date, and I said no, but I wonder if it’s too late to say yes.” 

“The day before?” you cringed. “They’d have to shuffle around so much shit. And so would you. And I don’t have a dress or anything to wear, and I’m awful at doing my makeup—”

“Let me call my team,” Joe asked. “I wonder if Fabio can put something together for you, and my makeup artist might be able to… Don’t count this out, let me call my manager and see what we can do.”

Whether Joe had a silver tongue or what, you had no idea, but, by the time you had called into work to ask for the day (and next few ones) off, you were officially a guest at the MTV Awards. He had managed to secure you a spot— “you may not be sitting next to us, but you’ll be there”— and he was calling his stylist as you slipped out of the flat to go back to yours to pack. You couldn’t remember the last time you had done something spontaneous like this, and your heart thumped when you returned to Joe’s flat, luggage in hand. He was still in his boxers, although now he wore a t-shirt, and he smiled and opened his arms to you. “Tell me I’m the best boyfriend ever,” he said.

“Why?” you asked. 

“My stylist, Fabio, said that he got permission from Valentino to loan him a dress for you last minute,” Joe told you, and you gasped. “I’m wearing Valentino, and now, so are you. I still have to call my makeup artist and see if she can do anything for us, but, baby—“

You jumped forward and hugged Joe tightly, laughing and smiling along with him. It felt like a dream, and you could hardly believe your luck as you pressed your lips to Joe’s. You got to kiss him again. You got to hug him again. You were the luckiest girly in the world. He sighed as he kissed you, gentle and loving, and his lips parted from yours all too soon for your liking. “Let me make more calls,” he whispered, his eyes intensely watching you. You didn’t feel small or inferior under his gaze, only loved, and he kissed your forehead before he parted from the hug. “See what I can do for you.” 

“I love you,” you told him, and Joe’s ears tinged pink as he blushed. “You’re amazing.” 

“I love you too,” Joe said. “I… Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I was… I was in a bad place when you left me. It was… I didn’t eat. I hardly slept. I could only think about how badly I had fucked up.” 

“Stop,” you said, shaking your head. “You did nothing wrong at all. You’re literally the least guilty person in this situation, you did nothing at all, and I was… I’m the one who should be apologizing to you. And I will, for as long as you want me to. I didn’t listen to you or let you speak when it happened, and you were right to, like, cut me off and out and shit, I would have done the same, and you’re remarkable for forgiving me and wanting me back, and then bending over backwards to help me so I can wreck your plans. I don’t deserve you.” 

Joe stepped back close to you, and he wrapped his arms around you and touched his nose against yours. “All I’ve ever wanted is you,” he told you. “And now I have you again.” 

You thought about what Wes had told you, how Joe was so close to proposing all those years ago, and you whispered, “Did you… Keep it?” 

“Keep what?” Joe asked. 

“The ring,” you said, and you swallowed thickly. “Do you still have it?” 

Joe nodded slowly. “I always thought that, one day, I’d have you back to wear it,” he said. “Do you want to see it?” 

“I’d like to wear it this weekend,” you told him, your heart beating up in your throat and nearly choking you. “If that’s okay with you.”

“That’s…” Joe started,, and he scoffed and smiled that movie-star smile. “That’s more than okay. I’d love nothing more. Let me go get it, a-and if you end up hating it, we can find a new one for you.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” you told him, and Joe nearly tripped on himself as he hurried out of the living room and back into his bedroom. You followed him, albeit at a slower pace, and you leaned against the doorframe as you watched him rummage in his closet. He checked the topmost shelf, pushing his hand all the way back to the wall, and he finally closed his fingers around a small box, dragging it out of its hiding spot. The velvet on the outside of the box was a little dusty from eight years in his closet, and he blew on it and gave you a sheepish grin as he handed you the box. 

You cracked it open and was met face to face with a silver diamond ring, not gaudy but big enough for it to be obvious that a large chunk of money went into purchasing it. Your mouth fell open, and you gasped softly at the sight of it, and you frowned instantly. “Joe—”

“Oh, you hate it,” he whispered. “It’s too big, isn’t it? I can get you something smaller.”

“No, no, I love it,” you said quickly. “It’s just… You kept it this whole time?”

“I told you,” Joe said. “I always thought that you’d come back and want to wear it.” 

“Well, you were right,” you chuckled. “Put it on me, darling?” 

Joe stepped forward, and he took the ring box from your hand and carefully lifted the ring from its velvet home. He took your hand in his and carefully slid the ring onto your finger, and you held it out for both of you to admire. “What kinda ring is this?” you asked. “A promise ring, or… More?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Joe told you. 

“Can I be honest?” you asked, and Joe nodded, and you finally let your thick throat win, and you began to cry. “The thought of you being with any other girls makes me sick. I get so jealous a-and I know it’s not healthy, but I need to be your only one.”

“Have you dated since me?” Joe asked, and you shook your head. “I told you that I’ve been on dating apps, but it… I was chasing something like what you gave me, and I could only find your kind of love with you. I don’t want anybody else’s love, just yours. So… This ring?” 

“I’d marry you in an instant,” you told him, pressing your hands to his cheeks. “My sweet, amazing Joe.”

You helped Joe finish packing that day as he finished his phone calls, securing a makeup artist for you the next night, and he didn’t answer his publicist’s hounding for a response to the articles. Your flight left early in the morning for Santa Monica, and you spent every second with Joe. It felt nice to be surrounded by him again, and, before you slept that night, you gave him a kiss and bundled up in his arms. 

The day felt like a whirlwind. You barely had a second to breathe, and you followed Joe blindly the entire time, holding his hand and letting him take you wherever he needed to. It was good to be able to blindly trust someone again, especially after spending so long apart from each other; the fact that you were able to slip right back into that meant the world to you. Finally, you reached the hotel where preparations were being made for the awards show, and you met Joe’s favorite stylist, Fabio. Fabio was kind and silly, joking all the time and making you feel right at home, and he dressed you in a dark brown dress that complimented Joe’s suit. You smiled, watching your lover get dressed and get confused by the long scarf-like accessory attached to the shirt, and you held him close as his publicist nearly demanded to take pictures by the large window. He buried a kiss in your styled hair, and you grinned as you presented the ring to the camera. It felt special to be able to share your love with everyone now, and, as you held Joe’s hand as you approached the red carpet later that night, you felt like your heart would burst. 

You had to run the gauntlet of photographers and interviewers before you could go inside and escape the sunshine, and Joe held you firmly, cringing in the sunlight but smiling at you. You were very aware of the photographers calling your name, only knowing it because of the most last-minute change to the guest list, and you grinned as best as you could with your professionally-done makeup and soft lipstick smile. Your heart was lodged anxiously in your throat for the entire time (which was really only maybe 5 minutes, but felt like hours), and you sighed as Joe approached the first woman with a microphone. You tried to step away from the camera, to give him the limelight and let the focus be on him, but his arm snaked around your middle and kept you close to him. 

“Mister Joe Quinn!” The interviewer smiled as he approached. “What a sight you are! How’s your night so far?” 

“Oh, God, bless you,” Joe chuckled. “I-It’s alright. Stressful, but good.” 

“And who is this?” she asked, and Joe looked at you with his gaze playful, a look you recognized, even years on.

“This is my wife,” Joe said, and you laughed, squeezing your eyes shut. 

The interviewer grinned at you. “You’re married to the most desired man in the world right now,” she said. “How’s it feel?” 

You stammered over your words as you spoke, acutely aware that whatever you said would be broadcast all over the world. Your few roles had the same effect, but this was something different. “I-I can hardly believe it,” you said. “When I first met Joey, we were kids, and he wasn’t… Watching him grow and mature and become what he’s always dreamt of being, it’s rewarding. I love this cheeky bloke, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.”

“And what do you think of Eddie?” she asked. “Did you like him?”

If you were lying already… “Well, someone didn’t warn me about the ending,” you chuckled. “And that would have been nice.” 

“I told you you’d cry,” Joe scoffed. 

“Well…” you sighed, and you smiled at the interviewer. “I loved Eddie. He’s my favorite thing Joe’s ever done.” 

“So, Joe,” the interviewer said. “What’s next for you?” 

Joe shrugged, pouting his lips. “I’m not too worried about what comes next,” he said. “I’m gonna sit in this sun and bask for a while.” 

You leaned in and softly whispered, “You deserve it.” Joe looked at you with a small smile, and he kissed your cheek softly. 

“Alright, well, you’ve got a long night, so don’t let me keep you too long,” the interviewer said. “It was nice to meet you.”

“You too, love,” Joe said kindly, and you smiled and waved at her as you stepped forward towards the next well-dressed interviewer and camera. 

“Wife?” you mumbled through a smile, and Joe nodded. 

“I’m off the market,” Joe shrugged. “Is that so bad?” 

“Not at all,” you said. “I like you being off the market.” 

“Good,” Joe said. “I like you being off the market.”

“My man,” you hummed, and you leaned forward and kissed him. “Thank you. For absolutely everything.” 

“Thank you for giving me someone to give everything to,” Joe said. “I love you.” 

“I love you too.”

-

taglist: @corrodedarchiv, @faeriemunson14, @steddieloverrr, @wordscomehither, @harley1608, @ellolovely22, @birdysaturne, @freakymunson, @miserybeans, @3rd-conchord

[asleepingtiger]

@dreamsaremywords thanks for the prompt. Literally just wrote this quickly. Ignore any mistakes.

Prompt: clexa arguing over the best ways to butter toast

Clarke hummed to herself as she buttered her toast sticking the butter knife into the block on the butter dish and forcing it to spread on the freshly toasted toast. The bread was ripping apart from the force.

Lexa stood next to her in horror.

“Love, Clarke, erm. Why are you buttering your toast that way?”

Clarke raised her brow in question, “Lex, this is the only way to make butter on toast.”

Lexa stared at the butchered toast.

“Clarke, no there’s other ways.” She said holding in a smirk.

Clarke folded her arms facing Lexa, “go on then, show me how you butter your toast with that rock.”

Lexa smirk broke as she took the butter knife from Clarke, “while the toast is fresh, you want to scrape some butter, let it curl on the knife and spread it lightly so it just soaks in.”

She turns to Clarke who was still looking at her with her brow still raised.

“I know how to butter toast, Lexa.”

“Clearly not, you’ve butchered yours!” Lexa pointed to the holes in the now soggy toast.

“But it’s my toast, you might be perfect in everything you do, even if it is toast!” Clarke was taking this a little too seriously.

Lexa was only winding her up and it was working.

“I’m perfect in everything I do, huh?” Lexa put the butter knife down, forgetting her nicely spread toast as she moved closer to Clarke.

“Oh you know you are, being a lawyer, an aunty to Raven’s and Anya’s child, the way you hold yourself and the way you make me orgasm, everything you do is perfect even buttering the pathetic bread!” Clarke was irate.

Lexa pulled Clarke’s folded arms free and held her waist, “love, I’m winding you up.”

“Well it worked.” Clarke relaxed in Lexa’s hold, she couldn’t never be annoyed in Lexa’s arms.

“I did like the sound of what you said about when you orgasm.” Lexa lowered her gaze to Clarke’s lip seductively.

“I thought you’d perk your ears up at that.” Clarke scoffed, she now had her arms around Lexa’s slender neck bring her closer.

Lexa leaned into Clarke, pressing into the right places, “Want me to make it up to you?”

Clarke brushed her fingers down the back of Lexa’s neck where her hair was loose from her messy bun.

“Lexa, you’re going to crumple your outfit.” Clarke pulled away slightly checking her wife out.

Lexa wore a causal white v-neck top, light grey tailored slacks and black patent brogues finishing it off with her glasses.

She looked damn hot.

“It’d be worth it,” Lexa kissed Clarke and lingered.

Clarke bit her bottom lip and looked up at Lexa’s growing darker ones then leaned in.

“I just got my period this morning.” Clarke stated as she just kissed the side of Clarke’s cheek and walked away satisfied with herself.

“That explains a lot,” Lexa muttered.

[twilightdomain]

ID: two panels of a sketched comic. the first shows the silhouette of park chul-moo in the arched doorway of a room that is much darker than outside. dialogue from him reads, "I was wondering if you'd turn up." the second panel looks over his shoulder from behind, showing a hooded figure seated cross-legged on the floor in front of him, lit by the doorway but with their head bowed and hands bound in front of them. dialogue from chul-moo reads, "Again." end ID

this got. so long. it's under the cut. an ode to my favorite plot-relevant renown heart.

ID: a sketched, dialogue-heavy comic of guild wars 2 characters in two long vertical pages. the first two panels are the same as those above the cut.

The next shows the lower half of the hooded person's face, which is pale with faint scratches and bruises, and grinning nastily under a thin mustache. A loose bandana is pulled down below the chin so it hangs around his neck and he wears the shoulder guards of medium jade tech armor. Dialogue from him reads, "Like a bad penny."

The panels begin to overlap with each other. The next shows Chul-moo's face and shoulders from the front, looking unamused with slightly gritted teeth. Two merging dialogue bubbles from him read, "And what do the Kestrels think they stand to gain by wasting my time? We're the only reason Tetra hasn't already blown this whole forest to smithereens."

In the next panel, the hooded man (it is Ratthew the Vile) tilts his head up, revealing a truly scummy smile framed by strands of loose hair and topped off by several worse scratches and bruises. His dialogue is in two bubbles connected to him both here and in the next panel. It reads, "Oh, don't worry. There's another outsider doing the same in the Speakers' camp right now. And I guarantee they're not being as friendly about it as me." He says the last part in a large panel with a solid dark background that extends vertically behind the two above it. Both figures are shown from the side, facing each other and starkly lit by the doorway. Chul-moo's arms are crossed, and Rat looks up at him, still smiling, with his bound wrists held in front of his chest.

The second page starts with two panels side by side, simpler than the previous one. Chul-moo is doodled with raised eyebrows and wide eyes, gesturing loosely and saying "Great!!" Then with lowered eyebrows and holding his hands emphatically, saying "Why don't you go help with that then."

The next panel shows him again, drawn with the original level of detail, slightly backlit by the doorway. He has lifted one hand from crossed arms to wave it in the air, eyes closed with an irritated smirk, saying "I can even give you some pointers," and in smaller text outside of a bubble, "Please get our bread oven guy out of there."

The next panel shows most of Rat's seated form from the front and the edge of Chul-Moo's crossed arms from behind. Rat's smile has become more unassuming and friendly, his one blackened eye shut and head tilted slightly. His hands are still tied so he gestures slightly with his thumbs, saying "Well... The company here is so much nicer..."

The next three panels are the same size and shape, stacked vertically to the right of the previous one. The first two are close ups of Chul-Moo's eyes, first glaring down with one raised eyebrow, with no dialogue, then looking to the right with an unreadable expression, saying, "Is that right?" The third is a blank dark box with white text that says "Maybe we've been too forgiving then."

The next two panels are close-ups of hands; The first is Chul-Moo's armored fingers over the opposite elbow of his crossed arms, the pinky finger tapping slightly. The second is Ratthew the Vile's bound hands, seen from the side, with all the fingers comfortably folded besides the pinkies which are sticking out slightly. Dialogue extending across both panels says "Or if you mean it... Why not join us for real?"

A jagged tail leads from the last dialogue bubble to an even more loosely-drawn final panel with no frame or shading. It is being emitted by a boxy radio on a large table, surrounded by Kestrel Ayumi, Detective Rama, and Gorrik, who are all wearing varying concerned or weirded-out expressions. Ayumi is saying, "The little Krytan got caught again. I thought you said he'd be good at this?" Gorrik replies, "He should be! The Marshal said he did this stuff all the time! Maybe he's sick?" Another bubble from the radio says "—What a generous offer—." Rama says "I'm gonna be sick if I have to keep listening to this." end ID

something something first conversations. phew! this was a pain in the ass. thanks for making it this far.

[cuprohastes]

Lunch In Space

Part 1

Wherein we are introduced to two of our main characters, the perils of interspecies cafeterias and the alternate uses of dog jumpers, and the Narrator is too self-obsessed to introduce themselves properly

4am, in the vast darkness of space, the lightless void that's darker than the stygian depths.

Apart from the stars. They're actually pretty bright. Famously so come to think of it. Also all the lights on the station, so you can look at it and admire it and spot any fresh new exciting holes that have appeared.

And if you're on shift, like me, use those handly lights to find the cafeteria and very carefully pick through the offerings because believe me, while Yarrick won't kill you, your body will basically say 'What the heck?' and treat it like a nice big plate of Silicone jelly and you will be experiencing a whole new and exciting set of sensations, and hey, sometimes you just have to clutch the toilet seat and scream a bit: We've all been there.

So I get my nice human safe food, and an extra roll of purple stuff that's not bread but it might as well be, and relocate my heiny to the big table by the window, the one that's always a bit chilly which is why me and Atrix and Atrix are usually the only ones who sit there.

I mean Atrix does because she's comfortable with a little extra cooling, and Atrix is there because he's not driving, he's just along for the ride.

"Yo." I say to my good buddy, the giant purple kangaroo dinosaur. She gives me a Yo back and dual finger guns.

Atrix the pocket lizard sticks his snout out and makes grabby paws at the roll.

I slide it over to his wifey, the purple lizard woman with the colour changing face and a degree in Astromechanics (Also horticulture, Art History and apparently, Interspecies erotica).

"You're over feeding him." Big Atrix says. Small Atrix grakkles. He has opinions and he really wants that bun, but then again if he gets too fat he has to move out, change gender and start paying taxes.

I also know that Godzilla here always skimps on the husband food because she knows I'll swing by with a little something something for her pocket hubby.

"Yeah well, someone has to be the fun Aunt." I say cheerfully. You're always the Aunt with the Atrix, regardless of gender.

I settle in, to eat a lovely meal of... what appears to be chicken flavoured... it's... hmm. Well, it's chicken flavoured and guaranteed not to cause anything to go a funny colour and fall off. It actually tastes great, but I'd describe it as being yes, a thing.

"So," I say around the food flavoured... stuff, "Picked a good solid Traditional Human Name yet?". My friend bobs her head again: Practicing her human physical emotes.

-This should be good. Atrix are good people but they don't have spoken names. They have a word that means 'I'm gonna show you name' then they change their face colours like a cuttlefish. They literally just turn into another person for a moment: This drives most species nuts.

Humans find it hilarious. Atrix can see the funny side. Humans and Atrix get along a little too well for everyone else's comfort and That's The Way We Like It™️.

Big n' Purple thinks about it, then says, "I was thinking... Gondolier Dottirsdottir, or maybe Luminal Effervescence."

OK so the Atrix tend to go for names that are just really fun to say. hence the Secretary General of the Combined Human-Atrix Interstellar Survey, a really big female with as much or more gravitas as a class two black hole - a very serious pocket pal all 'round - being named Pingbing O'Candyfloss.

I consider it. "People will call you Gondy, or Lumy." I point out to her as she feeds purple... bread-y stuff... to the iguana-sized male that lives in her belly pouch. He grakkles at me. He's a sociable little guy, quite chatty, I just have no idea what he's saying. Gondy grackles back and he does Upsies arms.

"Gondy. Ahm-hum. That sounds good. Gondy." she says trying it on. I can see she's definitely enjoying the mouth sound.

She hauls her hubbins out of her pouch, which is covered by her overalls and a big apron flap so he can sleep or play games on her phone.

"Did you... put him in one of those dog jumpers?" I ask as she puts her guy on the table. He looks smug and shows off. It's a small, chihuahua sized Christmas sweater. It's currently May, or close enough. But I'm not going to harsh his mellow. The little dude's obviously stoked to be a fashionista.

Gondy bobs her head looking pleased. "I'm thinking he should be Raxyplank Magellan. Raxy's a cute name." she says.

Raxy looks up and says "Rax!" around a mouthful of hubby food. Well, I can't fault that. At least he gets a name he can say.

For an Atrix male, he's pretty adventurous - He'll talk to people and even come out and walk around if he can keep one eye on Gondy.

Traditionally, or "Back in the day" - Several tens of thousands of years ago, until an Atrix got big enough to be safe, there was a good chance that something would camper up and make a meal of them.

So they have a general resistance to being out in the open, where it's cold and there might be cool alien eagles or space-lizard foxes.

Luckily when they get big enough they develop pouches and to they pick a male out and carry them around for safety and to have someone to talk to and hold shiny rocks (I'm a bit fuzzy on the finer details), so you almost always see two Atrix, even if one of them is usually hiding.

And now Raxy is hanging out with us like a regular little dude and getting crumbs on his ugly Christmas sweater. It is in all ways a pretty nice moment.

Anyway that's about when the station blew up...

[marvelhoeforlife]

Poly Marauders

James x Remus x Sirius x fem reader

Warnings: sick oc, fluff, swearing

One thing Y/N hated most about herself was that she got terrible migraines, none or the healers could explain to her or her parents why she gets them but she does have a potion that she can take to help relief the symptoms of the migraine and make it disappear.

Today was not one of those days.

Y/N was in the great hall with Lily, Alice, and Marlene for lunch. She knew something was wrong the minute she woke up, only she thought it was a headache from dehydration. Only her headache started to get worse in transfiguration to the point James noticed her discomfort.

“Princess, are you okay?” He had asked and y/n quickly dismissed him saying that she was just tired, and when it was lunch Lily made sure she didn’t skip out on the meal.

“Y/N you don’t look so good.” Alice says gently as she placed her hands over her eyes, the light was making the pounding in her head worse. She could feel her eyes welling up with tears from the pain but she was determined to stick this one out.

“Here, try some toast.” Lily offers placing a toasted piece of bread on her plate, but the smell of the toast started to make her nauseous. Y/n quickly shook her head and pushed her plate away hoping that it would help with the nausea.

“Do you want us to get Remus?” Marlene asks and Y/n quietly mumbles a yes.

Remus was the boyfriend you went to whenever you were sick, he always managed to make you feel better and gave you the comfort you needed.

Marlene was quick to leave the great hall, and Alice started to slowly rub Y/N’s back to give her some comfort.

“Try some water.” Alice says gently handing you a cup of water and y/n grabs it bringing the cup to her lips and takes small sips from her.

The pounding in her head started to become worse and she felt like her head was going to explode.

“What’s wrong love?”

Y/N broke down into tears hearing Remus’s voice and she quickly threw herself into his arms. Remus frowns and quickly hugs her back kissing the top of her head gently.

“My head hurts.” She whimpers into his chest and Remus sighs.

“Let’s get you to bed.” Remus whispers and the two quickly leave the great hall back to the Gryffindor common room.

Since it was lunch time, the hallways were filled with people making the loudness cause more pain to the migraine that y/n had. Remus made sure to keep her close to him as they walked to the common room.

Once they made it Remus picked her up easily so that she wouldn’t have to walk anymore. Y/n hid her face in the crook of his neck small whimpers leaving her mouth.

“It’s alright love. It’s alright.” Remus whispers as he walks to his dorm room.

Remus makes sure to gently close his dorm door so that it wouldn’t affect her migraine. He carefully set him on his bed and she squints from how bright it was in the room. Remus closes the blinds of the two windows making it darker in the room for her.

“Here love, let’s get you out of this uniform.” Remus says gently.

You nod your head and you slowly start to get undressed, not wanting to make sudden movements. Remus goes and grabs one of James quidditch sweaters to wear and helps her put it on. He leaves a gentle kiss to your forehead causing a sigh to leave her mouth.

“Where’s your potion?” Remus asks softly.

“Ran out two weeks ago, Pomfrey said the new batch was going to be this week.” You explain and Remus sighs knowing that this means he has to relieve your migraine the old fashion way.

“Lay down love.” Remus says and you don’t waste a second crawling under the covers of Remus’s bed, your body shaking from having the chills.

Remus sighs and leaves the room to their attached bathroom and wets a washcloth with cold water for your forehead, knowing that it helped relieve some of the pain.

Another cry leaves your lips and Remus quickly ran out of the bathroom sighing when he sees James kneeling beside you, his hands gently running through your hair.

“My poor princess.” James whispers to you.

Remus smiles at the two of you and walks over crawling into bed beside you gently placing the wet washcloth over your forehead.

“There, daddy is going to make it all better princess.” James soothes you as another whimper leaves your mouth. The cold washcloth had helped soothe the pounding enough for it to be less intense.

Remus had an arm around your waist his hand gently rubbing her stomach while James never left his spot from the floor. You close your eyes and moved closer to Remus enjoying the warmth that he was giving you. Remus places a gentle kiss on your neck while James smiles gently.

“It hurts.” You whisper and the two quickly shush you again knowing that if you talk it will make it worse.

“Where Siri?” You whimper.

“He’s coming princess, just close your eyes.” James whispers and you shake your head another cry leaving your lips.

Remus and James look at eachother with a sad look in their eyes, they hate not being able to help you, they hate seeing you cry and be in pain.

“Love you have to calm down, crying will only make it worse.” Remus says gently to you as you turn to hide your face in his chest, the wet washcloth being long forgotten.

“It’s hurts really bad daddy, make it go away.” You cry to Remus. Remus just holds you closely while James looks at you feeling helpless.

“I’m going to throw up.” You cry quickly turning to puke off the bed, and James grabs a trash can holding it up as the puke leaves your mouth. Remus was quick to hold your hair back as you sob puking more of your breakfast out.

“Of love.” Remus whispers gently rubbing your back with his free hand. James continued holding the trash can close to you until you were fully done puking. He handed you a glass of water and you dipped it to fry the taste out of your mouth.

“There you go princess.” James says gently as you move to lay back beside Remus. The pain in your head still very much there.

The bedroom door slams open making you cry and hide in Remus’s chest and the two men glare at a very out of breath Sirius.

“I got, the potion.” Sirius wheezes holding up the bottle of your migraine potion. James was quick to jump on his feet and take the potion rushing back to your bed side handing the potion to Remus.

“Here love.” Remus whispers making you look up at him with puppy dog eyes. He holds the vial to your lips and you part them allowing Remus to poor the potion down your throat. Once the potion was gone he handed the empty vial to James and pulled you closer to his chest kissing the top of your head.

“such a good girl, taking your potion so well.” Remus praises gently. James crawled into the bed behind Remus while Sirius moved to the empty spot next to you. You quickly turn and move to Sirius’s arms letting him hold you closely as you close your eyes and let sleep take over you.

“There you go puppy.” Sirius whispers feeling your body relax as you allow sleep to take over you. He rests a kiss onto the top of your head and the four of you fall asleep in each others arms.

[cringy-undertale-theorizer]

A story.

Hey, folks... I am a writer in my spare time, and I thought I might share something with you. I specialize in reimagining comfortable places into darker places- today I have for you a work-in-progress short horror story named The House With Red Windows, based on the video game Minecraft, taking inspiration from a number of legendary sources. 

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The adventurer spurred his horse over the hill, surveying his surroundings in the dimming light of the setting sun. Straight ahead of him, he saw the shapes of a village in the distance, though something was off. At this hour, from this distance, he should be able to see, if not hear the villagers hurrying home from work or shopping, but there was nothing…and it was dark, too. Not one house glowed, save for one, on the western edge of the town. It was much larger than anything he’d ever seen built by a villager, and stood out even more through the materials used. Dark stone hewed from the deepest caverns, and an almost black oak wood. By far its strangest aspect was the windows; they were a deep red color, almost like blood. 

Checking his satchel, the adventurer discovered he was quite low on supplies, his stash of bread and dried beef almost gone. And he could see that while the homes were lacking in occupants, the fields and animal pens were well kept and quite full, so he gave the reins a flick and trotted down the rise towards the ornate manor. “Perhaps,” he thought. “The owner will be willing to trade.” As an adventurer, he kept a pair of donkeys, both holding a pair of chests for storage. In these chests, he kept the spoils of his travels, from the waterlogged gold and iron of sunken ships, to the glittering jewels and magic books pulled from temples buried in the sand. 

The manor loomed high above him as he tied his horse to the fence of one of the animal pens, and turned to approach its imposing, ironbound doors. Up the small set of stairs he went, onto the porch. The doors were set into an archway, with a raised section, like a coat of arms, which was carved with an image he recognized. However, this was hardly the place he would have expected to find it. The carving was of a three headed, skeletal beast, and up till now, he’d only seen it carved into the walls of surface caves in the western mesas. The going theory amongst scholars was that it was a depiction of an ancient god of death.

Swallowing his apprehension, he grasped the door knocker, an iron ring set in a skull carved from some dull, almost crystalline stone. Once, twice, thrice he knocked, listening to the sound of it echoing on the other side of the door. With a great groan, the doors opened, unleashing a gust of musty air. There in the dusty, reddish haze beyond the arch stood a gaunt figure, well dressed. He was pale, and spoke with a rasp like a dead man.

“May I help you, traveler?” he asked, removing a lit cigar from his mouth using the hand unoccupied by a china teacup. 

“Aye, I think ya can, my lord. See, I’m runnin low on supplies, and I saw yer pens and fields were bountiful, thought we might be able to reach somethin of an agreement.”

The old man sipped his tea before responding. “What sort of agreement would that be, lad?” 

“Well, I’m an adventurer, and me bags hold all manner of artifacts and treasures- gems and gold and the like. I can certainly pay ya handsomely, sir.”

Now the man chuckled, taking a drag off his cigar. “Look around you, man! I hardly have need of dusty trinkets and badly cut gems! However, I am getting rather old, and the house is overdue for maintenance and a bit of cleaning. Stay here, perhaps a week, and help an old man out, and I shall see you off with your victuals.”

After contemplating his offer, the adventurer nodded, sticking his hand out to shake on it,  though the old man did not accept. Instead he turned around sharply on his heel, wordlessly showing him to his room before making it clear he should stay put.  He returned shortly carrying a map and a sheet of instructions, which he left before disappearing into the maze of black and scarlet misted halls. 

  The instructions were written in a heavy, gothic, and confusing hand, the embellishment on the letters making them blur together in the dim light of the lantern. In an effort to shed more light on the paper, the adventurer took the lantern down and used the candle within to light the others in the room’s wall sconces, before returning it to the lantern, which he placed on the desk. Not seconds later, however, a chilled wind blew through the room extinguishing the sconces. But, having moved the lantern, he found he didn’t need them, and put the nagging question of where the breeze came from to the back of his mind. He then began to read what his mysterious employer had given him.

Firstly, I have been hearing animalistic sounds issuing from the attic. You will need to clean it and dispose of any and all vermin and their nests, as well as bring everything downstairs to the parlor (see map) so that I may go through and decide what, if anything, is worth keeping. Secondly, I shall require you to lay mouse traps throughout the house, as they’ve been eating my bread. Third and finally, I need you to harvest and replant the fields and cull the herd- you can find tools in the caretaker’s hut. 

The adventurer sighed as he puzzled his way through the old man’s writing, turning to look out the window at the darkened village below as he finished. It nagged at him, the thought rooted in the back of his brain. “Just where did they all go…?” He shrugged it off and crawled into the creaking bed, falling into a fitful sleep, plagued by visions of a fiery hellscape and lakes of magma, sobbing tentacled beasts flying through red mists as pillars of living fire and charred skeletons taller than any human patrolled a bloodstained fortress. He saw a star, too, a star of white and gold and purple that cracked open and split the heavens with a blindingly radiant beam of light- and then machines, machines of industry and war, a city of glass and steel. Visions of a society long vanished, torn asunder by hubris and greed. Visions of a black shadow in the sky that shrieked as the damned did, and rained destruction down on the city beneath. Until at last the rooster crowed, and he shot up sweating, shivering in shock and fear.

       Moving from the bed with speed he didn’t know he had, he threw open the window and took greedy gulps of fresh air, shuddering as his mind replayed the already fading nightmares. He shook his head, and changed into a set of plain working clothes from his satchel, heading downstairs. He found the old man at a table in the mansion’s unusually small kitchen, who gestured silently at the other chair. Breakfast was a simple affair, consisting of sausage, eggs, and coffee. In an attempt to break the silence, the adventurer spoke. 

        “I thought I’d get your fields harvested today, sir. Anywhere in, ah, particular you’d like me to store the wheat?”

However, the old man once again declined conversation. Instead he simply stabbed a gnarled finger at the window to the right- through it the adventurer could see a barn, hidden behind the mansion’s bulk.  

        “Oh, well, alright then. Suppose I’ll see you at dinner then, sir.” 

        The only acknowledgement he received came in the form of the old man slowly looking up from his food…something was wrong. The adventurer scrambled to his feet, back pressed against the cabinets because the old man had no color to his eyes…just empty white ovals. The adventurer blinked rapidly, heart hammering in his chest. And then his eyes were normal, the irises an icy blue. Shaking his head in disbelief, the adventurer gathered his dishes and placed them in the washbasin, hurrying into the warm light of the morning sun, and out of that strange mansion. Shuddering, he made his way to the hut mentioned in the old man’s letter, where he found a rusty scythe and a wheelbarrow in which to haul the wheat. One by one he harvested the fields, and the sun rose higher and higher. On and on he toiled, and then, in the light of the setting sun- thunk! The wheelbarrow hit something buried in the dirt. It was a rod, a handle of sorts, rusted with age and the rain of a score of springs. Grasping the decaying leather grip, he heaved upwards, yanking loose the object- a longsword, as it turns out, blade long rusted over. 

Chills ran up and down his spine on icy feet,  as the color drained from his surroundings. Suddenly he stood not in the fields of that accursed mansion, but in the streets of that once-bustling village as carts raced by him, men and women barking assorted wares, from glowing yellow dust to simple loaves of bread. The mansion still rose above it all, but it seemed less threatening now, less a looming monument to greed and death. He watched a young woman run up the steps, knocking on the door.

 As it opened, her voice carried over the general din of the village. She was with child, she said, begging for a bed to sleep in, to be let in away from the beasts that stalked the plains at night. The man standing at the door was younger, and seemed kinder than the man he knew, and yet…the woman’s begging was answered by a flash of steel, a painful shriek, and a spray of red. The woman slumped over the steps, gone limp like a puppet with broken strings. The man silhouetted in the manor’s arched doorway wiped his blade and stepped back, the doors slamming shut with an echoing, booming finality. 

The adventurer came to on the ground, sitting bolt upright as his mind raced, a part of him wanting to race inside, collect his things, and run for the hills, food be damned. This land was cursed, the mansion was tainted, and only the gods knew what thoughts ran wild behind the old man’s eyes. But he thought not. He wouldn’t make it very far without food, and he felt a kind of responsibility, as though the gods had brought him here to cast out whatever evil lurked in that godforsaken house. And thus he forced himself to his feet, collected the wheelbarrow full of wheat, and headed towards the barn, where he stored it all. 

He avoided the old man that night, nicking a bit of bread and cheese from the kitchen on his way to his room. He ate in silence, mulling over what he had learned. Carvings of an ancient god, visions of destruction and senseless murder, blank white eyes…how did it all fit together? The blank white eyes called to mind an old urban legend his father had passed down to him one night, of a figure that stalked the woods. The thing wore simple clothing, looked like any Tom, Joe, or Stan off the street, save its eyes. Glowing white orbs that seemed to cut to his very soul- or so his father said. 

But then he remembered something. His father had said that the trees where this thing made its home were dead, leafless. Narrow spires of wood that stabbed at the sky, bare of green and branches. And hadn’t the forest he’d passed through to get to these plains looked odd? Troubled by spiraling thoughts, he unsheathed his blade, took a whetstone from his satchel and took to sharpening it. He didn’t feel like sleeping, not with such dark thoughts on his mind. Morning seemed to come too quickly, 10-12 hours passing in what seemed like minutes. 

The crowing of the rooster startled him from his grim reverie, and he gathered his thoughts before hastening up the stairs and through the maze-like halls to the attic trapdoor. It was a dim, dusty place beneath the twisting gables of the mansion’s roof. There was junk from every place and era conceivable, trunks, crates, boxes…all piled up haphazardly, coated in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. One by one he took them down the steep ladder and down through the gloomy corridors, depositing them in the parlor, an overcrowded room that reeked of cigar smoke and musty books. As he worked, he became aware of a sound that slowly burrowed into his brain, making his head ache with a dull throb and drove him half mad- a constant and unsynchronized ticking, like standing in a roomful of clocks. 

It happened just as he moved a heavy wooden captain’s chest, ironbound and stained with the sea. The junk fell outwards, a box of clocks tumbling open across the floor. They all began to chime at once, and it threw him off balance with how much he’d been trying not to hear the ticking. He jumped back, tripped over the chest, and tumbled into another pile of junk. It fell all around him, and a human skull into his lap, staring up at him with its empty eyes and grinning its death rictus. He shot upwards like a bullet from a gun, and turned around, nearly running out of the attic when he saw what was behind him, for his tumble and the following avalanche had disturbed a long, narrow chest, inside of which lay the now jumbled bones of some poor young woman, judging by the dress she wore. In one bony hand, she clutched a small leatherbound book, likely a journal. Eventually his heartbeat slowed, and he reached for the journal. The fright had come less from the bones themselves, but from the disorientation he had experienced when the clocks fell and went off- and who expects to find bones in a box in the attic anyway?           

[bizzlepotter]

NO WAY HOME SPOILERS

no way home spoilers

nO wAY hOMe SpoIlERSsssss

This is actually just me ranting because nobody else has seen the movie, my friends failed to get tickets and now they don't want any spoilers from me until they are able to watch it on Sunday so here I am, because ranting on tumblr is so much cheaper than therapy... which is what I actually need, bro.

I went to the cinema expecting to watch an epic come back and an amazing fight between the S6 and all three Spideys (bc I didn't believe Andrew for a second and I knew he was going to be there... Andrew, you little lying shit, I love you so much and I've missed you) but after the first ten minutes or so I knew this was going to be way darker and deeper that I've had anticipated.

I always said there was no way any other movie could compare to Endgame in the epic department because what could top every single avenger in the same movie? Cap lifting Jonathan? Tony Stark making the ultimate sacrifice? I still cry and mourn to this day. But this movie? I'm surprised but at the same time i'm not? Because I knew Marvel could always aspire to outshine itself movie after movie and they did exactly that in this one.

Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland's Spidermans all in the same movie? They ended Tobey's universe because they wanted a fresh start (I think), Andrew's because the critics hated him and "wasn't popular", and Tom's because they really really wanted a Spiderman in the MCU that they agreed to literally hold no profit from him (I honestly don't understand that agreement between Sony and Disney and don't try to explain it to me, my brain can't do the thinking thing rn)

And they put THEM ALL TOGETHER, like it was a fkn family reunion, a sad, depressive family reunion, just to make us all go mad. The whole movie theater was in chaos, you could hear the screams from outside the building, not because they had failed to soundproof it, no, it was because every single people inside was screaming, over 500 people, at the same time. Every 5 minutes there was something wild to roar about.

Tobey and Andrew coming out of the portals. That hilarious "you want me to crawl? Isn't fhis enough? I'm sticking to the ceili... please, stop throwing bread at me". Tobey "innocent baby" Maguire smiling and waving. The lab scene with the webshooters and the "I'm sorry, did that just come out of you?". The "I lost someone too. Gwen, my... My MJ" (oh god, the EMOTIONS).

TOBEY TELLING ANDREW HE IS AMAZING, NOT WILLING TO HEAR ANY KIND OF CRITICISM OR ARGUMENT ABOUT IT "NO, YOU ARE AMAZING AND AWESOME AND I LOVE YOU... I KNOW YOU NEED TO HEAR THAT BECAUSE I'M YOU, SO YEAH, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, MY AMAZING LITTLE SPIDER, LOVE YOURSELF"

The fact that Andrew's Spidey knew deep down he wasn't the favorite (don't know what that means, he is my #1, I've never stopped loving him), the little grunt when the Lizard (I think it was the Lizard or maybe Electro, idk, I was screaming) told him he wasn't the biggest sh*it anymore because he kneeew, he knew the public's opinion about him (again, my favorite Spidey, he deserved so much better), even after Tobey told him he was the shiniest star out there.

Tobey and Ock reunited once again, you could see in Peter's eyes how much he had missed Otto, or at least was relieved to see him well and alive once again. "You are all grown up now, my dear boy", yeah, I needed that.

Andrew. Catching. MJ.

And at the verge of tears while holding her in his arms. I know he has never stop thinking about Gwen's death, how much he had wish to go back in time and do something different so he could save her. And when he saw MJ falling and Peter1 getting railed by the board, his brain just clicked "notagainnotagainnotagainnotagain never again". The relieve in his eyes, he finally caught her, he had been waiting for that moment for years, had gone bitter and furious for far too long and he finally got to catch Gwen, not his Gwen but he caught her. At last.

That scene. D*amn. I knew it was coming, it wasn't a spoiler, I just knew because if Andrew was there, and MJ was falling, I knew he would catch her.

Tom going wild on the Green Goblin and lifting the board, ready to finish that man without a second thought for what he did to May (we are never going to talk about that scene in the lobby. EVER. IT DID NOT HAPPEN. MAY JUST WENT ON VACATION TO ROME) and Tobey having flashbacks and stepping in to stop Tom, not willing to let this kid version of him make any mistakes, he somehow saw what would've happened if Peter succedded on sending Norman to the great beyond. Peter Parker would have gone totally mad, Spiderman be d*amned. He knew that wasn't him. So he stepped in, no words needed, just "look at me, that's enough, you are not this, you'll never be this" and it was so powerful, once again reminding us that every Peter had gone through stuff, you can tell Tobey and Andrew still were going through stuff, would have loved to see more of that but time was against us.

Everyone forgetting Peter... that hit hard, that hurt so much, he is utterly alone, no one knows him, no one remember his name, what he had done, what he was, what he had been through, he is all alone, dealing with May's death by himself. At least if May had been alive and she had forgotten about him, Peter would have been fine with that because that meant she was safe...but no. He is grieving yet again, but this time, not just May's demise, but for every single person who knew him and loved him and he loved back.

But hey, Spidey finally is Spidey, like, himself. No AI, no multi-billion suit, no back-up killing drones, nanobites, anything, just Peter Parker, off to dealing with low life criminals and helping grannies cross the street. And I love it so much.

Peter is the next Tony Stark, he is, Tony chose him but not to follow his steps, nonono, he is the next big superhero who would give his life to save the world, who would sacrifice everything for the greater good, he now is that man. He grew up, he is now the man Tony knew he would be, choosing to do the right thing the right way instead of the convenient way.

We will see more of Spiderman in the MCU, I'll not have it any different, we know Tom just got a renewal, he is due to be in more MCU movies and I can't wait to see him... now that part of Venom is lost in a new universe (Sony and T. Hardy literally put a gun to Disney's head and said "we want gay, Disney, and I have this bi himbo disaster and his slimy very gay extraterrestrial boyfriend and they are showing their love and gayness in this movie wether you like it or not"), we need to see Venom totally freaking out and looking for his Eddie but finding a depressed spider instead (totally making that up, it would probably be one of his babies, kinda like Carnage, who knows)

I have more tickets to watch this movie today, tomorrow and Sunday so I can cry and scream all over again. Thank you past me, who knew me so well to buy more than one ticket because I knew one wasn't going to be enough for my sanity.

[pastel-peach-writes]

Unforgiving Elements  | Raya x Reader

╰┈➤  PLOT: The region of Talon is celebrating the rain coming to their land and Raya’s partner, Y/n, has their own and “dangerous” ways to celebrate. 

╰┈➤  WARNINGS: One Curse Word, Stubborn Y/n, Comfort, Not Proofread.

Hey guys! This is apart of my 100 followers special! The phrases used are you’re trembling, you could have died, and i’m not going anywhere! 

REQUESTED BY: @xxcrystalxx28

⍣ ೋ Enjoy!⍣ ೋ 

Y/n exclaims with their arms spread out as they looked up to the dark purple sky. It was nearing midnight in Talon and everyone was inside partying their lives away as rain and lightning came down from the skies. In Y/n’s culture, rain symbolized new growth and celebration. 

Nature was happy, taking its course to care for the greenery and the Earth many humans have spent hours up-keeping.

People would go out into the streets barefoot, dancing with glow sticks and sparklers. Some wore makeup in white on their face in many shapes and sizes. Some of the elders shared foods their parents used to make for them on rainy days. There were countless stews, breaded goods, and if they got lucky, some desserts and cold drinks were served too.

The rain parade, as Y/n’s girlfriend Raya likes to call it, is one of their favorite parts of living in Talon... well, that and the oozing adrenaline Y/n gets knowing they could get a cold or even worse from being in the rain too long.

With a hearty laugh, Y/n spun around in circles on the docks of Talon. Much like the rest of their town, they were barefoot too. The cold water drops crash onto their skin like melting ice, giving them goosebumps. It washed away some of the makeup an elder put on them, but, Y/n didn't care. 

Their family waited nearly all spring for some showers and Y/n was going to enjoy all the rain nature gave them.

“Ah, I knew I’d find you here.” Raya and Tuk Tuk roll onto the dock, a couple feet away from Y/n. The princess hops off of Tuk Tuk, giving the furry companion praising pats on the back. She adjusts her hat that kept the rain out of her hair and kept her clothes underneath a magical poncho Sisu and her family made for her. “Can’t resist a little rain, can’t you?”

Hearing the smirk from their girlfriend, Y/n let their arms drop to their sides and looks her straight in the eye. “You know how much this rain means to me, yet, here you are teasing me and wearing clothes that hurt my soul.” Y/n places a hand on their chest and pouts at the girl who was walking over with a smirk still on her face.

“Oh, come on~ I was traveling throughout all the different lands!” Raya says as she walks to her partner. Standing in front of them with a smug smile, she crosses her arms over her chest. “You know I have to get through Spine to get to you, right? It’s hailing over there right now, so, excuse me for wanting a bit of protection.”

Y/n rolled their eyes, pulling Raya in by her waist before embracing her. “Drama queen,” they mumble.

“Aht--” Raya pulls away and looks Y/n in the eye. “You did not just call me a drama queen.”

Y/n shrugs. “I did.”

“Wowww,” Raya walks back towards Tuk Tuk. “After that whole speech about the rain and my clothes, I’m still the drama queen?” Raya turns to face Y/n who had a shit-eating grin on their face. “How rude~”

With a laugh, the drenched being placed their hands on their hips. “Oh, can it. Either join me for my festivities or take the long trip back home.” Y/n walked back to the end of the docks.

It was darker by the edge than it was closer to the mainland. The wooden edges were almost impossible to see in the darkness, and, if you weren’t careful, you can hurt yourself on one of the rocks closer to the shorelines.

Luckily for Y/n, they didn’t pick any of the docks closer to the rocks.

Raya removed her hat, placing it on Tuk Tuk’s equipment. “Ah, they’re a little bit out of their mind, but, they’ll be okay,” Raya speaks to him, petting his bumpy exterior. “They’ve done this multiple times before we met, so, they’re going to continue even after. Even if it’s extremely dangerous.”

Raya went around to the pet's backside, making sure he had nothing trailing off of him. Looking and petting the furry backside, Raya smiles with glee. The back of Tuk Tuk was completely clear of rocks or pieces of trash they might've picked up on the way. Only thing that remained was dust and dirt. "Ahh, a world record! There's barely anything--"

A splash erupted from the edges of the docks along with the sound of creaking wood. Raya ran over to the edge of the docks, her heartbeat quickening. She never liked the tradition of standing on unstable docks in the dark night. It wasn't safe and water isn't forgiving. 

Seeing Y/n standing there perfectly safe, Raya let out a relieved breath. "Oh my gosh," the Heart princess pants, placing a hand on her chest. "I thought you fell in."

"Nah, that was the waves crashing onto the boards. The water can get a little feisty when it comes to storms." Y/n explained, placing their forearm on Raya's shoulder. Raya scoffs playfully, pushing Y/n's arm off of them. Instead, she held their hand and looked out into the horizon.

Across from them, on an unclaimed island, lighting struck and lit up the sky. In the brief moment of light, the two could see the clouds were a dark gray and the sky was more a midnight blue than anything else. 

“Oh, yikes. I don't like the look of that." Raya turns to her partner. "Come on, let's get you home. It's getting late anyway." Raya turns and walks towards Tuk Tuk, dragging Y/n along. 

With a scoff, Y/n rips their hand away from Raya and shakes their head. "Uhhh, nuh uh. I haven't completed all of my traditions yet."

The girl sighed, swinging her arms as she faces Y/n. Much like before, they were feet apart. "Alright, what's one you have to do? I don't want you out here any longer. You could seriously get hurt and it's dark, Y/n." 

Y/n opened their mouth to speak, pointing their index finger up to the sky, but, Raya cut them off. "No excuses. I'm serious. You know I'm one for traditions and keeping things together, yada yada. But, I can not watch you injure yourself over some rain that comes nearly every other week!"

Y/n narrows their eyes, biting their tongue and running their thumb along their wrinkled finger pads. Their chest heaved up and down as anger stirred up in their body. "It's worth it to me. No one else in my family wanted to celebrate tonight. They claim that they're too tired, that it's not worth it, and that there's always tomorrow. I'm tired of waiting for tomorrow," Y/n looks back at the island. "Everyone in this region is always telling me I'm too eager for today and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of hearing it," they turn back to Raya. "So, screw tomorrow. I'm completing it all--"

At the same speed as the lightning bolt, a wave came crashing onto the docks. The water broke the creaky wood, making Y/n fall into the water with the rest of the wooden shards with a screech. Their call out for Raya was the last thing the princess heard before Y/n was pulled into the water completely.

"Oh shit!" Raya curses, throwing off her poncho and running to the edge. "Tuk Tuk, try and get help!" She calls out to him before he nods and rolls to the partygoers. Raya was careful not to pierce her hands on the jagged edges as she got onto her knees and peered into the water. 

Underneath the docks were some rocks, nearly the same color as the water. It was too dark to see anything... Raya took a deep breath, preparing herself before she carefully got in the water to find Y/n.

-

"Okay sweetie, you stay right here," the Nurse spoke to Y/n, finishing up the last of their bandages. Y/n stared blankly at the nurse. The scratchiness of their throat hurt to speak, the pain on the left side of their neck made it impossible to do anything, and all the open wounds and scars stung. Even after cleansing and bandaging them up.

The nurse walked out of the small and dimly lit room, nodding at Raya as she walked in.

The princess made a beeline to her lover, who was sitting on the patient bed. Bandages were wrapped around their legs, fingers, and some placed on their face. Their hair and clothes were wet, damp if you will. Y/n didn't dare to meet Raya in the eye. They should've listened... Raya was only trying to help.

"Oh my gosh, you're trembling." Raya walks over to them in a quick fashion, fidgeting with the damp poncho in her hands. "I know it's wet on the outside... but it's really nice and warm on the inside. You'll feel nice." Raya carefully wraps the cloth around their shoulders, tying it tightly around their neck. She made sure it was secure and set before softly smiling. "Feel better?"

At first, there was no warmth emitting. It was just wet and cold, but then, heat started to rise from the back of the poncho all the way to the front of the neck where Raya tied it. It was like a sauna, a personal sauna. However, instead of sitting in it, it was wrapped around them.

Raya sits beside Y/n, chewing on her lip as she observed them. "I'm so sorry," she whispers. Y/n looks at Raya, tilting their head as much as they could in confusion. 

Raya had nothing to apologize for. Y/n was the stubborn one. Y/n was the one who refused to go home even when the weather got dangerous. Y/n was the one who was irresponsible and acted irrationally.

So, as a consequence, they're sitting in the infirmary with their girlfriend who was soaking head to toe. The tip of Raya's nose was red from the cold, her hair matted and shiny from the water, and her usual mustard colored top now a medallion yellow. She jumped in to save Y/n. She risked her life to save them over some stupid wants and wishes.

"No," Y/n says, barely audible. "Y-You... you don't get to be sorry. You could've died... jumping in for me. I'm sorry." Their throat burned with every word they spoke. The scratchiness getting to be too much to bare on their vocal cords. 

Raya's eyes soften, her cold hand clinging on tighter to Y/n's."Hey, it would be stupid of me to leave you there. The water could have taken you away from me forever. I'm not ready to let go of you just yet," The brown eyed princess continues to whisper, leaning closer to her partner. She takes the hand that was on their hand and wraps it around Y/n's shoulder instead.

"But--"

"No talking. I can hear the hurt from here. Just... just relax on me, okay? I'm not going anywhere."

Y/n smiles slightly, allowing Raya to pull them closer to her side. Even though she was colder than them, Raya's touch provided more warmth and comfort than any poncho could've. Relaxing on her and inviting a pleasant silence to accompany them was nearly better than any dangerous rain tradition could be... maybe the next time it rains, Y/n will participate in the more saver traditions and create new ones with their girlfriend.

WC: 1,907

[vanderlustwords]

What if Steve leaves and she finds out she’s pregnant? I really love your alternate ending where he leaves for Peggy and wondering if you could write more about it. Doesn’t have to be him leaving a child behind that was just a question that popped into my head

Pairing: (past) Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader

Please do not repost/translate anywhere. Reblogs/Comments are much welcomed ♥

Continuation of: This Dress is Karma || Alternate Ending

Warnings: unbeta'd. Angst ending for Steeb.

Note: I don't know how you roped me into writing a 2.3k continuation but here I am LOL

Count: ~2.3k

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

You shut the door with a soft click, waiting until you hear the quiet footsteps fade away. The lump in your throat gets harder to swallow as you turn around, leaning back against the door and let out a shaky sigh.

You can't help but think those were some brave words you said to Steve. You desperately wanted them to be true. You did want to be so happy that it would physically pain Steve if he were to ever witness it.

You wanted it to be true that you were never going to see him again because he had hurt you so much, and he needed to stay away from you.

But when you lift your trembling hand to your stomach, you wonder if everything you said had been nothing more than a brave front.

"You alright?"

You immediately look up and see Bucky stepping out of the guest room, fully dressed with towel-dried hair.

You swallow and force a smile as you drop your hand.

"Yeah, you ready to head out?" You ask him as you stand up straight.

Bucky nods with a grumble before he grabs a strand of his hair. "I need a haircut first, though. Do you think we could find a barber first?"

"Sure," you say, turning around and opening the door with Bucky following you behind.

"You sure everything is okay?" Bucky asks you again.

The way your throat feels raw, the hysterical words that want to escape your mouth make you feel dizzy. You want to put your hand against your stomach again as if to see if you could suddenly feel a bump.

But you refrain because Bucky would get suspicious. Well, he'd probably think you had a stomachache first, but if you didn't stop acting strange, he would pry.

"Everything's fine," you mumble.

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

As the weeks pass, more and more things begin to slip from you.

There is a layer of never-ending panic that sits right beneath your skin, crawling and setting your nerves on fire.

When you began to get morning sickness and threw up into the toilet, you began to shake.

The reality of your situation began to hit you.

You were pregnant.

With Steve's child.

Steve, who had abandoned you and was grey and old and probably would pass away soon.

The notion of it all had you throwing up in the toilet again.

You were alone, and you were scared.

What were you going to do? You couldn't rely on Steve anymore.

You looked down at your relatively flat stomach still, placing your hand against it.

There was a life growing inside you. What were you going to do?

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

It was harder to hide when Bucky came over almost every other day, even though he didn't live with you. He had stayed for a week after the confrontation with Steve but quickly found his own place.

Initially, that had made you feel more alone, like everyone couldn't wait to escape from you. But it had worked out when you needed alone time.

Bucky was currently in your kitchen, cooking up steaks for lunch for the two of you.

The smell of it made you deathly pale.

"What's going on with you?" Bucky asked with a frown as he set the steaks aside to rest.

You had to swallow hard before you could answer. "Nothing," you said weakly. "I'm—I'm sorry. I know you came all the way here to cook but I'm not really hungry."

"You've been saying that for days now, doll," Bucky pursed his lip. "I feel like I haven't seen you eat a proper meal lately. What's going on? I know things have been...hard. Especially since you last saw Steve, but this isn't okay. I need you to eat something in front of me that isn't pretzels, bananas, or bread."

The idea of sliding a piece of steak basted in butter had your stomach knot itself painfully.

You shook your head, but when Bucky insisted, slicing the steak and you watched the juices run, you couldn't hold it in anymore.

You took off to the bathroom in haste.

"Hey—" Bucky called out and took off after you, but you were quick to shut the door before you fell to your knees over the toilet and hurled.

"What's wrong?" Bucky yelled through the door, trying to jiggle it open but found you had locked it. "Open the door, doll. I just want to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine," you said shakily as you grabbed some toilet paper and wiped your mouth, eyes hot with tears. "I just—I just haven't been feeling well."

The silence on the other side of the door only lingered for a moment before Bucky used his metal arm to turn the doorknob so hard, it broke open.

He found you sitting on the floor, over the toilets, eyes rimmed red and your face pale.

Bucky carefully walks in and kneels slowly before you.

He thinks back the couple of weeks and how you've been going to the bathroom a lot more, and how you don't like going to restaurants to eat. You've been eating at home and the strangest things and wearing more flowy shirts.

He looks at your face, and the way you're trying to hold back your tears makes Bucky feel dread.

"Doll..." he calls you softly. "Are you—Are you pregnant?"

You let out a choked sob in response, face dropping as you close your eyes.

Bucky's quick to hold you in his arms as he strokes your back, his heart dropping.

There was only one person who could've gotten you pregnant.

There had been some dumb shit Steve's done the entire time Bucky's known him. Always getting into scraps he couldn't finish, always prideful when Bucky wanted to help him.

But it had been the first time Bucky's ever been so fucking pissed at Steve. It was the first time Bucky couldn't defend or make an excuse for his friend.

"Bucky, what am I going to do?" You trembled in his arms. "I can't—Steve isn't—I want to keep it but I'm alone."

Bucky swallowed so hard it was painful.

There was no fucking way he was ready to be a dad or step up in any kind of way—that is, if you even let him.

Fuck, you two didn't even have feelings for each other or anything. There was something, maybe, Bucky thought for the future. But now?

"You're not alone," Bucky reassured, keeping his voice still for your sake. "I'm here. I'm here all the way and I'm not gonna leave you, doll. Ever."

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

You manage to keep the fact that you're pregnant under the wraps easily. It helps that since saving the world, no one really meets up anymore. A part of you worries because you can't find Wanda anywhere, but you know she can find you if she wanted to.

Sam might be the only other person who knows, and Bucky was begrudging when accepting his help.

Months pass, and you're surprised how dedicated Bucky is. You're pretty sure you're on the verge of a mental breakdown constantly. A part of you worries Steve will show up, but Bucky reassures you that there's nothing Steve could do even if he did show up.

"Fuck..." you swore as Bucky was in the middle of figuring out how to build the crib the two of you got from Ikea. He looks up at you alarmingly. "I think my water just broke."

"Oh, shit, okay, okay!" Bucky jumps up right away and starts running around to grab the prepared bag as he helps you out into the car. "Don't panic!"

"Bucky, I'm literally about to push a baby out of my body. I'm going to fucking panic if I want to," you snap, and Bucky bites his lip to refrain from speaking as he zips through traffic.

"Oh, god," you say under your breath. You were having a baby. You were actually going to have a baby.

⊶⊶⊶⊶⊶✞⊷⊷⊷⊷⊷

"Bucky, you can't just carry her everywhere," you grumbled as you pushed the stroller through the park. "You're spoiling her."

"Yes, I can. She wants me to carry her and whatever my princess wants, she gets." Bucky declared indignantly at you while sticking his tongue out.

You sighed with a smile.

You couldn't believe a year has passed. Despite the time passing, you never really felt fully prepared as a mother. You were scared you were fucking it up all the time if you're honest.

Bucky holds your hand, and you give him a shy smile. That was new too. Slow and steady, as Bucky has always been, and you think you were falling for him because of that.

When you look up, your heart stops.

"Oh," Steve blinked.

Another year has passed, but you find Steve doesn't look too different. A little more tired perhaps, but still...Steve.

You feel panic creep up in your chest that threatens to become a panic attack before Bucky squeezes your hand.

"Breathe, doll," he whispers encouragingly to you, but it's loud enough for Steve to catch.

You do as he says, taking a few calming breaths. You want to keep walking, but it seems Steve can't stop staring at the child in Bucky's arms.

"Why don't you take Hazel to the pond? She really likes looking at the ducks," you tell Bucky, and he nods, warily looking at you and Steve. He sends Steve a curt nod before he takes the stroller with him and walks off.

Steve's eyes trail after Bucky.

You know then that he knows. It's not hard after all. Hazel looks like a spitting image of Steve, something that had been hard for you to deal with at first. Her blonde hair and blue eyes—the blue eyes were easier since Bucky's eyes were blue too, even if a darker shade.

But Hazel was so lovely; you loved her so easily.

"When did you know?" Steve asked.

You shrugged. "The day before we all saved the world."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Steve's voice was pained and betrayed, and you cocked your brow at him.

"Why? So you would stay?"

"Yes, I would have!" Steve insisted.

The sheer stupidity of the situation had you give a humourless laugh.

"The last thing I want is for you to stay because of a baby, Steve. You wanted to leave, despite everything, you chose to leave. We would only hate each other in the long run."

"That's not true," Steve denied. "When I made that choice, it wasn't because I didn't love you anymore."

"No, you just didn't love me enough."

The words rang clear, almost throwing Steve off-kilter.

The silence fell, and the two of you could hear Hazel laughing with Bucky in the distance as she shrieked.

"Don't you think I deserved to know about her?" Steve asked with his lips pursed.

"No," you answered honestly. "What do you, a 90 something-year-old man, have to offer her? You certainly can't step up and be her father. Your time keeps running out and the last thing I need is for Hazel to have instability. Did you want to be her grandfather? She's already met mine, so do you want to pretend to be Bucky's?"

"So, you're just gonna lie to her and let her think Bucky is her dad?"

Your eyes flash angrily.

"Bucky is her dad. He's the only dad that counts in every way. Do you know how hard it was for me? I was scared shitless, Steve. You can delude yourself into thinking otherwise, but you're unreliable. I couldn't come to you for help," you snap at him. "Do you know who was there every time I was puking my guts out, crying or screaming, or wanted pickles with peanut butter at 2AM? Who do you think was there for every appointment. Who bought fifty parenting and baby books to study religiously? It was Bucky. Even though I knew he was scared too, he was there. So, don't fucking try to make me and Bucky look like the bad guy. You have NOTHING to offer to Hazel."

Steve stood there wide-eyed, guilt crowding over his eyes. Steve doesn't want to say he regrets going back because that would mean a lifetime of regrets he can't get back.

"You're right," Steve said slowly, trying to appease your anger. "I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. It's not my place to say anything."

Even though Steve says it, he looks over to the little girl squealing in Bucky's arms. He looks at her blonde hair that she clearly got from him and your nose.

He and Peggy had children—children he loved more than anything.

But...the idea of his child with you...that was another reality he missed.

It seems to be that way always for him, Steve thought somberly. He was always missing something. Maybe you had been right about him.

Steve listens as you take a deep breath in and exhale.

"Do you want to meet her?" You offer, and Steve can tell it's difficult for you to say those words.

"If you're okay with it," Steve said slowly.

You nod stiffly. "It's fine as long as you respect my wishes and refrain from telling her you're her bio dad. I want to save that conversation for when she's older and able to understand it more."

You don't say it, but Steve is already thinking how he'll most likely be gone by then.

The two of you begin to walk towards Bucky and Hazel.

"What will you tell her?" Steve asked.

"The truth," you shrug. "That you were the world's greatest hero and you loved her and would've loved to get to know her if you stayed, but you didn't and it wasn't her fault."

"Right, it was mine," Steve felt a sting in the back of his throat.

"I don't think it was anyone's fault," you tell him. "It's just karma, Steve. I wasn't enough for you and now you're not enough for Hazel."

Right, Steve thought somberly as he looked at you in your summer dress. It was different from the sexy red one that used to drive him insane.

It was a calm peace, a show of your motherhood and graceful maturity.

This dress is karma, too.

[hhjs]

forget me not.

♡ based on — "During times of war. I want to say: I only love you, And I cling you, Like the peel clings to a pomegranate, Like the tear clings to the eye, Like the knife clings to the wound." and the song nightlife by daydream masi.

♡ summary  —   Hyunjin's unsure of the tingle in his gut, why it's happening. But he thinks, just for a second, it feels a little like hope.

wherein, putting your heart on the line for the sake of doing favours isn’t a frequent component in your schedule. But what happens when this favour is asked for by the boy you may or may not have fancied for far too long?

 You accept it. 

 For a very embarrassing reason, really, which is — you think Hwang Hyunjin needs you.

♡ pairing— hwang hyunjin x reader

♡ word count— 8.8k whoopsies

♡ genre and alternate universe — angst, fluff + hanahaki au.

♡ author's note— this was supposed to be a drabble and then i sort of lost my fucking mind ehe...also this is easily the worst thing i have ever written im so sorry aaa but this is a lil present from my end hahaha

♡ warnings— suggestive content, vomiting, mention of blood. allusions to depression and heartbreak.

Amongst other things, you're extremely bad at saying 'no'. You don't mean the word per se...but the underlying connotation of this very monosyllable which may come at the expense of letting another person down.

It's sort of stupid, you understand, your friends have constantly voiced their worries for your extremely complacent nature more often than you'd think actually. But it all goes over your head. See — old habits really do die hard.

When you're eight, this very defect takes you to dreadful saxophone lessons your mum spoke so highly of. When you're 15, it gets you called to the principal's office for flashing Jeongin trigonometric functions in Mister Choi's pop quiz, when you're older, things are definitely no different.

The passenger seat is occupied, Hyunjin's holding a tangled muffler to his suede jacket clad chest. At 21, he's become someone you used to know. A friend of a friend, Felix's to be very specific. But the man in question, who was supposed to be his ride, passes off this duty for kegstands and you just happen to be the designated driver for the night, shuffling Jisung beside Changbin and Chan, who claims to be 'sober' even though he's half asleep.

Hyunjin is uncharacteristically quiet.

There's a polite smile on rendered your way as your eyes meet. A small curvature along his plump bottom lip, tighter around the edges. Still this simple formality is so beautiful that you feel something inside you come alive.

When Jisung starts snoring, you flip on the radio and Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here comes on.

Your fingers feel numb when they come to tap out a rhythm to the track. It's nice. Tingling guitar riffs swelling, David Gilmour's gruffy voice pours in from faulty speakers. The more the song progresses, the more you find yourself attempting to think about anything that will distract you from the boy beside you, in the flesh no less.

So late at night, the main road is eerily silent. Cobblestones reflecting the sound of tires thumping against its layout, streetlights blinking at you from their drooping heads. Across the street, a baker is tucking away leftover bread and buskers are packing up their beat up guitars, a man in his late 50's pulling his blanket to his nose as he rests a head full of gray hair on the cold pavement.

You glance at Hyunjin from the corner of your eye and find that his staggering smile has completely disappeared. Now there's a distant glaze in his eyes. It's like he's here, in this moment, with you, but at the same time, he's somewhere else.

Under the impression you've done something wrong, you immediately begin to panic. But the thing is, you don't actually know if you should ask. Would it constitute as crossing a line if you had anyway?

Hyunjin covers his mouth with a sleeve, muffled retching building beyond fabric.

The reasonable assumption is obvious. It's not abnormal to be nauseous when you've got one too many drinks in you. He motions for you to pull over, incoherent sentences practically melding together, words forming and dissipating between choking fits.

You scramble to dig out a bottle of mineral water you habitually deposit in the glove compartment, offering him the tissue first. Ears perking up in satisfaction when a garbled thanks escapes his parted lips. But then... something weird happens.

As your eyes flicker to unintentionally glance at the contents discarded on the pitch grey sidewalk, you freeze in your seat.

You were never a big believer of superstition, not someone who buys into myths only meant for the fiction genre. Sure, you can be gullible sometimes...but what's happening falls no way under the realistic category.

The lethal Hanahaki disease, only inherited by some unlucky descendants, every moment in your head prior to this one, was something that's obviously non existent.

Yet... there's so much blood, too much blood attesting to your blatant ignorance. The petals are of a white rose, smudging together in swirls of grotesque crimson in mimicry of a sheen of red sticking to the inner corners of his lips. It has happened before, you can tell, from just how unsurprised he looks.

Hyunjin's stare flits to commit every detail of your to memory, in what only seems a quick study of gauging your forthcoming reaction, though even before you can produce a coherent thought, he says,

"You can't tell anyone." His voice drops a few octaves as though he's afraid your snoring friends in the back might've noticed. "Please."

Hyunjin's face softens by the slightest, contrary to his firm demand, there lies a desperation you couldn't overlook.

In retrospect, what you're about to tell is ultimately a promise that'd come back to bite you in due time. However, see now, you're extremely bad at saying no. Somehow you're even worse when it comes to Hyunjin. So you blink, turn the radio off and say,

"Okay."

—

The pool is preheated. For that you're most thankful.

Frankly, you couldn't imagine what it'd be like being pushed into a chilly body of water mid winter. Not that it's pleasant otherwise, you can't swim.

Well at 15, you hadn't quite learned to. The other kids have scurried inside to hog freshly baked Snowman biscuits Seungmin's mum is renowned for.

Then and you think you'll never quite forget it, Hyunjin's wearing an orange power ranger t shirt, it's darker now that it's wet, his glasses are marked with uneven splatters. His face scrunches up at the sudden splash of wetness engulfing his body. He wasn't planning to get in the water.

"Hold on tight." He says, wounding your arms around his neck, your calves tighter to his sides to support your shivering body. Back then Hyunjin's hair was black, cropped short and swept to the side, he smells like fabric softener and skittles. A water donut is discarded in the middle of the pool.

Everybody you know and don't know, from the birth of superheroes stuck in comic books to valiant protagonists behind fuzzy television screens, has this inherent desire to be saved. From the world, from themselves. No, no, it doesn't have to be a grand gesture, swooping them off of their feet from the grasp of surly men in dark alleys, sometimes it's really just simple. Sometimes people save you in the most ordinary way there is.

The weight of your form on his bright pink water donut while he stood on his toes to merely rest his elbows so the item wouldn't flip, a small act, certified this very claim, had not the nimble touch of his cold fingers, brushing away wet hair from your face, to anxiously ask if you're okay met the purpose. He talks to you like the sound of his voice has the power to injure you.

You nod slowly. Like this, it feels like you're going to be.

Hyunjin pouts, looking perfectly unconvinced. He paddles the pair of you to steel stairs spiraling into the pool, so he can stand without just his nose peeking out of the water, he looks at you once again, a wrinkle between his dark, arched eyebrows and says solemnly, "Jisung's such an idiot sometimes, isn’t he?"

But isn't he your friend? You want to ask. Something stops you though —his tone tells you you aren't the only one to fall victim to Jisung's practical jokes. Not that they were offensive or anything. Han Jisung, the same person who twiddles his thumbs when he wants the last chicken nugget and cries every time you watch Howl's Moving Castle together, genuinely doesn't mean any harm. It's just that...when he's comfortable with people, who aren't many, he tends to do a lot of dumb things. Dumb, endearing things that Minho will kill him for someday.

"A little bit," You mumble under your breath. Heat rising to your face at the possibility of Hyunjin being concerned for you. He sounds almost angry. "Thanks by the way."

It's rather pitiful to remember. Because with time, Hyunjin's world becomes so big that your interaction stands to be too insignificant to not forget. Before you know it, he's the shooting guard of your school's basketball team, just a handsome face who dates better girls, makes better friends. It's superficial and a little sad.

No, no, a little sad is an understatement actually.

To see someone you understood intimately, a boy who always described details too much just to stray from the main story, a boy with too many emotions bubbling to an awfully animated surface; someone who was passionate, sensitive and so nauseatingly big hearted...change into a man who is indubitably untouchable...is tragic. At least.

Yet funnily enough — you can't quite imagine a world without Hwang Hyunjin. His ringing laughter rippling through loud ambiences, his distant humming of Christmas carols whilst he absently skimmed through spines of children's novels and his eyes glimmering in adoration whenever he spoke of something he loved — Without him, you imagine, there would be a massive deficiency in your world, in the world. Like if birthday cakes came with the biggest slice carved out.

Hyunjin grins, a big sort of candid grin that turns his eyes into upturned crescents. His previous temperament long forgotten. Suddenly, this utterly atrocious happening seems to not be so bad. Suddenly you don't mind that Jisung is an idiot sometimes.

"Of course."

—

Hyunjin is not perfect. Hyunjin is no prince charming.

People don't know this. They don't understand this.

He ends up paying for dinner when he's out with a big crowd even though they were supposed to split the bill, he ends up crying when he gets angry and he is an abysmal liar, in every sense of the phrase. Hardly ever succeeding to hide his emotions when he should. When he was a kid his parents reminded him that it's a good thing to be unapologetically himself, that being honest is a good thing.

But as your eyes meet from across an ocean of people quagmired by crunchy leaves, sticky remnants of rain and his ex girlfriend who he now claims to be okay with being friends with, on her toes to poke his cheek whilst Chan's arm wraps around her waist, the soft white roses ornamented on a bow she loves wearing all the time, he thinks it's far from an agreeable trait to have.

Actually whilst you balance a newspaper under your arm and bring your coffee to your lips, it's like you're looking through him, past his skin, his flesh, something secret inscribed on his bones, embedded into his soul. You know everything, you know everything, you know everything.

The thought itself... surprisingly enough, doesn't appal him.

Hyunjin raises his palm in the air, feeling the autumn prickling against his skin. He waves at you.

—

Working at a library can be taxing. But it sure has its perks.

You can just about turn the place upside down and put it all back together without getting in trouble. Albeit another reason, besides your profession could be that Minho owns the place. Frankly, he may or may not have been the only cause behind your employment. It's hard to tell now that your co-workers really do recognise you've a knack for arranging things.

But to you, your job is very personal. A precious thing which relieves you from various worldly tensions. Velvety spines under your roughened fingertips, the burst of minted pages hitting your face every time you walk in, your love for reading, for a world of stories is so immense that you think you wouldn't have traded it even if your life depended on it.

For a disease that's not very well known, it's ironic how an entire section of mythology is dedicated to it. Past closing hours, amongst many novels mounted on your desk, you fixate on the one that made most sense. There's a few things you've picked up in common from all of them though — the hanahaki disease is extremely rare, it doesn't affect all those who suffer from the qualms of unrequited love.

Possible remedy according to findings entail

growths can be surgically removed, if the patient consents to eradication of memories of their loved ones.

Clanking of keys alerts incoming and you pause your tapping pen to look up.

"Burning the midnight oil, are we?"

Minho leans against the doorframe, he's half yawning, half talking and fully concerned for you.

"Yeah, looks like I'm gonna be a while." Your monotonous tone provides that you are not paying a lot of attention. You blurt without looking up. "Are you leaving?"

"No, still haven't finished archiving for that Pfizer project...But I'm going to get a bite to eat..." His inky eyes remain on you as his tone falters, "You want anything?"

"I'm fine. Thanks."

"Wow you're like...really uh invested." He tilts his head in thought, "You seeing someone again?"

You know Minho long enough to know he has a teasing side to him, from diaper days to play dates ending in pillow fights because he kept offering you his last Pringle just to pop it into his stupid smirking mouth — but you have no idea where he's going with this.

So you look up, finally. Furrowing your brows.

"No. What does that have to do with anything?"

He shrugs, "I haven't seen you concentrate so hard since you dumped Jeongin."

Your right eye twitches. Because you know exactly what he's referring to, and simultaneously, for the sake of your well-being, you much prefer being in denial. "What?"

"C'mon. Remember how you always ended up doing his homework?" He reminds you. "It's like when you like someone, you go out of your way to do charitable stuff for them. But...this? Too much. Even for you."

You ignore Minho's comment. To the world, Hwang Hyunjin's place in your life is not significant. After all this is the most natural undulation in the vicissitudes of life — for someone who once was your friend to eventually drift apart, to become a has been. It's too hard to explain why you care. After all this time.

"I was just being nice." You narrow your eyes, unimpressed. "Clearly this concept is lost on some people."

"Sure you are, bud. If being 'nice' is synonymous with whipped." Of course, there's a smug grin gracing his pouted lips that tempts you to fling something at him. Not that you can though. Seeing as Minho breaks out into a full fledged sprint, his singsongy voice a thinning echo bouncing off of shelves and windows and doors.

Still somehow his footsteps manage to travel through walls, permeating into your office with such great amplitude that you could be bamboozled into thinking he hasn't left at all. Or maybe you've stopped paying attention, your eyes zoom in on any other helpful detail you can put to use in wrapping your head around what you have witnessed firsthand.

At the same time, you can't really ignore how hungry you're feeling just from the mention of a bite to eat. So when Minho's shadow forms again on the page you've been 'reading' for the last few seconds you sense a gigantic wave of relief washing over you.

"You know what I changed my—" slamming the book shut, you blink against scanty provision of light, with raise your head and a bleary vision, recognise him in an instant. Except...it isn't Minho. "mind..."

The only source of brightness is a small emerald lamp perched on the corner of your desk, light green catches onto one of the ornamented corners and speckles of golden caress his supple skin gently. You hadn't realised how cold it might've been outside until you see how heavily dressed Hyunjin was, a long overcoat worn over woollen sweater, a Santa hat and muffler pulled to his chin. It's no one other than your boss himself who has given him directions to your office, you know this, Hyunjin has never been inside before.

So when he marvels absently, you sense yourself feeling a little self conscious about not cleaning up. All around you, a comforter and love seat pushed against the window, cigarette butts discarded in ashtray and then...the books strewn before you tell him you practically live here.

For some reason, Hyunjin only seems to loosen up at the spectacle.

"Hi." He says finally.

"Hi..." you arrange the reading materials quickly to one side so you can rest your elbows. A small (successful) attempt made to hide your research. "Something up?" You say, but what you really mean is, what are you doing here?!

Did he suspect you were going to tell on him? Right that's it, that must be it, you tell yourself, believing, knowing, of all the years Hwang Hyunjin has known of you he has never been one to care about your whereabouts.

"I just...um," He starts, forwarding his mitten clad hands. It's the back of a crumpled coffee cup on which straight handwriting reads a bucket list...of sorts. You immediately understand that his coming is an act of impulse. Urgency of living every moment like it's slipping through it's fingers, that he just needed to tell the only person who knows, be it by accident.

Hyunjin clears his throat. "I wanna do all this before I die."

In lieu of giving an instant response, baffled, you gawp at him. Despite knowing, hearing Hyunjin say it out loud somehow makes everything...too real.

It's as though someone's reached inside your throat, pulled your heart out and crushed it with their bare hands. Hyunjin, the boy who smelled like fabric softener and skittles and wore power ranger shirts, the boy with the fantastic smile and cold fingers, is dying. You won't let him. You can't let him.

You thumb along the numbers scribbled in hasty penmanship, look up and blink rapidly, "Okay," you say, a small whisper, barely there words. "That's okay."

Even with the hat covering tips of ears, you could tell the same faint blush coating his cheeks had rushed to that particular area. His eyes drift off to the sight of pens discarded inside a wooden holder because he can feel your gaze on him. "and I...I need your help."

"Alright."

Hyunjin's eyes widen to a great degree, he sits straighter, as if he hadn't expected you to comply so quickly.

And honestly? Neither had you.

It's quiet. Awkward.

"You know it's not like I haven't thought about dying. I just figured I'd get to grow old first, settle down, have kids and all that," A wry laugh escapes his parted lips. "Everything's happening too fast."

You hesitate, thinking he's making a mistake. Frankly he shouldn't feel obligated to give you an explanation.

"You...you don't have to tell me."

"No—I mean...can I?" He gives you a sheepish look, disliking his own whimsical tone, somehow endearing still. You find yourself wondering how long he had to keep his burdens to himself, not just pertaining to his illness, but everything. His dreams, his hopes, his fears. Anything which requires a certain amount of depth. And you almost ask him, the question sitting at the tip of your tongue, yet the realisation rather simple, stops you. Maybe you've mistranslated 21 year old Hyunjin all along — moulding himself into someone who's convenient around people who only liked him for who he appeared to be, maybe even with all that popularity, parties and glamour, he's just...lonely.

You push your reading glasses into your hair, press your knuckles under your chin and hum in consent.

He shifts in his seat, "Have you ever... been in love?"

You release an amused huff. Let your eyes linger on him for a long minute.

"Once."

Hyunjin half expects you to laugh. Poke fun at him for his melodramatic backstory. That's the sole reason why he doesn't tell his friends (funny, for people he considers close, they seem to know not much about him or care to know, that is. ). But you... you look at him with something in your eyes that tells him the rubbish reasons he posited makes all the sense in the world. Hyunjin's unsure of the tingle in his gut, why it's happening. But he thinks, just for a second, it feels a little like hope.

—

 Midnight rendezvous.

As someone who has lived a fairly extraordinary life, Hwang Hyunjin's bucket list is bafflingly ordinary. He's more of a finding joy in small things kind of a person, punctilious at best.

Things change. People notice. They hesitate, whisper about you and last night while you were out on last minute cheap wine run, the grocerer, a girl who looks around sixteen asks you if you're dating Hyunjin. Underneath the thinly veiled curiousity, there's something like anger dripping from her words.

You furrow your eyebrows in simple insinuation that it's weird for a stranger to take interest in your life. Maybe it was written on your face, the fact that you're a dying man's beck and call is for reasons far more complicated than it looks.

You go to his parties. Greet him as a friend would and not just for the sake of maintaining formalities. He comes to the library more times than he does, waits for you to get off work so you can check something off the list at least. People notice. People understand. Hyunjin's different around you. He's bright, talkative when he forgets to contain himself. You sense your heart swelling with pride just at the understanding that he can be himself around you.

You drive to the beach, sit in your trunk and drink straight out of the bottle.

Hyunjin laughs a little. Suspends his feet in the air. With time, he's gotten paler, exhausted. "Rough day?"

You hum.

"Very. Our children's collection is usually low in stock around the weekends."

Hyunjin crosses his arms over his chest. Curious.

"And?"

"And if I say I got yelled at by a toddler would you believe me?"

Hyunjin feigns contemplation, even with the realisation that his body is becoming less and less cooperative, he manages to remain perfectly cheerful.

"I can actually," he grins, "At that age, I was a real pain in the ass."

"Were?"

Your smile is just a slight curl against the bottle's mouth as he grumbles under his breath about your 'insensitive' remark.

You think of your life after Hyunjin, think of his absence like a gaping hole you'll never be able to fill out. It makes you sick to your stomach.

—

Bake something from scratch.

Hyunjin's face twists in apparent thought, eyebrows rising. A pink tongue poked against his cheek, whilst he chews carefully, trying really hard not to flash an accidental reaction whilst you clasp your butter and oat flour soiled hands together, some of the batter on your cheek, neck to anticipate his answer like your will to live depends on it.

You ask yourself how it got to this. Why you didn't care that you were awake so early on a Sunday morning with flour powdering every kitchen appliance in sight in spite of being awfully restrictive about who you let into your kitchen. But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter because it's nice like this.

Hyunjin has his hair pulled away from his bare face, a mole under his eye, a small birthmark on the back of his ear.

When you first met, you thought he was a kind of handsome that couldn't be real. Something formidable about it. Only destined to exist behind fuzzy television screens and flashy magazines.

But in retrospect, you realise, that that's not true at all. 

If you look close enough, if you really pay attention, there's a softness underneath, something goofy, something warm, the sharp jut of his nose circling into a soft button, his eyes are big, black and his mouth jutted out into a natural pout, he looks innocent, like he doesn't quite realise the extent of his charms.

"It's..." His soft voice pulls you out of your reverie, and you look up to find his eyes glimmering jovially. Every time it surprises you, the lack of regret in them and the abundance of nonchalance. You wonder what it means to love someone like that, to love someone to the point of martyrdom. It shouldn't be like this. "perfect,"

"This is like, the only batch we didn't burn, right?"

You snort, "Yeah." Fully turn to him, "You know what they say, fifth time's the charm."

Hyunjin's laugh, you think, is so contagious that it makes it an imperative to smile in return. In shaky compartments the sound comes, like being 8, laying wide-eyed in a paddling pool and staring up at a crayon blue sky, raindrop rippling beyond all that noiseless water. His eyes curve to upturned crescents, an unconscious hand covering up the seams of his lips whilst he shakes his head. You don't even notice when he starts speaking again.

"Huh?"

"I said you got a little...something..."

You almost lose a fraction of your sanity when his nimble fingers come to wrap around your wrist while you hold onto the spatula employed into the whole snickerdoodle batter mixing business, a liberated hand coming up to gently wipe your cheek. It means everything to you. And nothing to him.

Later, when you're alone at night, really alone, you put your palm to your chest and feel the unsteady beat of your heart. A warning, a reminder. I can't. I can't. I can't.

—

You hold Hyunjin's hair up. His hands resting on the cold toilet seat, he's whimpering and bleeding. It happens every time he sees Haseul, or something which reminds him of her. Like the song.

This time she's drunk. And it's because she impulsively rises to her toes and presses a tender kiss to Chan's lips.

Hyunjin's just a feet away, across students and solo cups and streaks of neon falling irregularly through his line of sight.

He can never confess, not to her. The last thing Hyunjin wants is for her to feel bad for him. To say she feels the same as an act of service. He tells you. You understand. Somehow... you always understand.

They met in college, Hyunjin and she. And Chan was an upperclassman who seemed to be good at...well everything. At first, he couldn't figure out why it never occured to him before, the fact they were getting together maybe before, after or during the length of their relationship.

Though the answer is simple.

Hyunjin thinks the pillar to good relationships is trust. Call him a sappy romantic or whatever but he had seen true love manifest from it through generations before him and his parents and their parents. To think a different fate was woven for him...used to be unimaginable.

How ironic is that?

Hyunjin presses his cheek against your chest because he doesn't want you to look at him when he cries.

Then for the first time....he tells you he's scared. He's scared of what will happen to him. Of what is happening to him.

He's falling apart.

You cradle him, press him closer to your body like you're trying to put him together. People can't fix each other. Not really. But sometimes... they're worth the try.

"Hey...hey...it's alright," You shush him, run your fingers through his hair. Your voice almost breaking, faltering. Still this, this you mean it with every fibre of your being. "It's okay to be scared."

—

Self bleach hair.

It's Christmas and you're late for a late night dinner he's putting together. (As reluctant as he was about getting along with Hyunjin, he seems all too eager to make invite him whenever a get together takes effect.)

His apartment smells like floor cleaner. There's a queen sized bed pushed against an electric blue wall, a Fleetwood Mac poster taped to his door, small reading desk where Canon EOS New Kiss rests, polaroids of things checked off the list littered all its wooden surface.

You pick up the only photo he hasn't labelled, it reminds you that your friendship isn't just based off a pursuit. This is natural. Pizza box discarded between you two, on your roof top. It's a little too dark, you're holding a cigarette between your fingers, you're laughing and Hyunjin looks like he's going to complain the minute he's done taking the picture. (And he does.)

You smile, pressing your fingers against it like the touch could transport you to a simpler time.

"Ready to go?"

Hyunjin rakes a tentative hand through his newly dyed hair, grey (a suitable colour he says.). You can tell he's put a lot of effort into cleaning up, his usual hoodies and sweats alternated with a red satin shirt tucked into dark dress pants and a coat of the same colour.  Hyunjin is beautiful. Perhaps even more like this. In fact, the extent of this quality is so Goliath-like that it obliges dolled up attendees to marvel up in awe.  While you fully agree with their unsaid ponderings, you really do, you find yourself missing a less sophisticated version of him. 

"Yeah, but first..." you fish out a wrapped squarish material from the depths of your pocket. Hyunjin's eyes widen, two bunny-like teeth showing for the extent of his grin.

"You got me a present!" He all but rips it out of your hand, shaking the material eagerly. He’s a Christmas person, a supreme holiday enthusiast if you will. The sheer excitement in him projects itself in every physical aspect possible. Slight jumping on the balls of his feet. "It's a cassette...?"

You speak too much, nervous he doesn't like it. "It’s a Christmas mix. I thought...since you like carols. I know it's a little old school, I'm sorry if that’s not what you were hoping for—"

Hyunjin pulls you into a big hug, wrapping his entire body it feels like; his arms around your waist, he squeezes you tighter against him, "Thank you." He whispers into your hair, it's not just about the cassette, you can tell. 

There's a small light bulb dangling from his ceiling, he hasn't fixed it since the first time you pointed it out. You can tell with your eyes closed, you've begun to know more intimately than your own home. It's safe here. A place that deludes you into thinking that he's not running out of time, that even in his absence in the world, whenever you should walk into this room, it would be an imperative to find Hyunjin lazying about in its confines. Familiarity can be quite tricky, can't it?

His gratitude is not unknown to you. It's in the guilty smile that threatens to show every now and then, it's in this and it's in that. In many ways, it is not something you're a stranger to.

And yet the words manage to tears your heart at the seams. Just a little.

—

 Make a snow angel.

From above, he imagines, he may appear to look like a chunk of cookie dough in an ice cream pint.

The snow is not as comfortable as it appears, its frigid temperature seeps into Hyunjin's clothes (and what feels like his internal organs, if that's even possible). He waves his hands and legs inward, outward.

Your head tilts towards him. Face twisted in annoyance. "You're getting on my wing!" You say. "Have you no respect for personal space?!"

Hyunjin narrows his eyes jovially. And people tell him he's the one with a penchant for theatrics. He leans closer in rebuttal, waving his leg around your design with more purpose.  You give up. Sit on your knees, fumble with the snow. He’s still in the same position. Smug as ever...

"This is what happens when you disrespect your elders." He fake-warns. "Oka—"

What he doesn't anticipate, however, is the snowball you launch on his stupid grinning face. Now it's your turn to laugh. You clutch your stomach and point at him whilst he glares at you having barely managed to blow the snow off of his mouth.

"Oh, you're gonna get it now!"

You let out an animalistic screech, Hyunjin’s already trapped you under his weight, his thighs wound around your waist, hamstringing your plan to escape, now you're merely squirming. His fingers come down to attack your sides, digging into the flesh so mercilessly to the point you’re not sure if you’re laughing or crying. It's like there's a wildfire inside your lungs.

For a moment you forget, you let yourself forget what's to come.

“Alright, alright I’m sorry!” you press your palms against his chest in an attempt to push him off, Hyunjin has a dumb smile on his face that seems to give the impression of a hanger  stuck inside his mouth. But... there's something behind his entertainment as the sound of his laugh dies down, chest heaving with exercise. His smile drops.

You can count each lash, each freckle and line on his face. The dark in his eyes. The pink of his lips. Your sweater's ridden to your ribs. And the warmth of his fingers shifting against your bare skin hits you with an earthshattering force.

Hyunjin kisses you. For a fleeting second, you freeze. Rigid with shock. Then it passes as soon as it comes.

 You let out a noise of content,indubitably grateful that your neighbours forgot to put on their porch light for the night.  See it’s like this, the act of kissing is not as special as is the person himself, you muse, you can kiss anyone, you can touch and be touched by anyone. But none of that truly compares to this. Not when they aren't him.

You’d be lying if you said you never thought about it. Just like you’ve thought about a lot of things. But just the realisation that the boy you’ve harboured in your heart for more complicated reasons than you disclose, to yourself even, touches you with so, so much care...it’s tearing you apart. 

It’s too good to be real.

You suddenly push him away. The tugging and pulling at your heart too much to handle. For the fact remains — Hyunjin doesn't love you. He doesn't even like you. You never expected him to. Actually, you've never felt what you feel with that condition in mind either.

See when the feeling of having everything you could ever want is cradled between your palms...it ought to be hard to let go. (Maybe he’s just doing this because he feels bad for you, the little voice in your head says. You listen.)

Hyunjin speaks up first.

“I love Haseul.”  he tells you, but it sounds more like he’s telling himself. “That’s why...that’s why, all this...I love her.” Not you.

You swallow, “I know.” Your hands come up to dust your pants. Hyunjin’s still on his knees, as if the answer to his conflicts are deposited under all the snow. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not, it’s not okay. I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have done—”

Now you hear it, the hint of pity in his voice. You don’t mean to sound as bitter as you do. Seeing as you’re usually very good at keeping calm , breaking that very reputed front frustrates you even more.

“Look just forget about it, okay? We don’t have to talk about this.”

Hyunjin looks like he didn’t expect this side of you to exist. At least, you think, at least it got him to stop talking.

—

Learn to skate.

"If I fall, I'm taking you with me."

"You say it like I have a choice."

Hyunjin shoots you a warning glare even though you can't see. His choppy skidding steps supported by the vice grip he has on your arms. You haven't skated since you were in highschool. But when you're pretty good at it still, the smooth blade of your beaten skates gliding through ice with much dexterity, it's like floating, freeing, the wind hitting your faces, snow catching in your lashes. It's peaceful, you try not to think about the warmth of Hyunjin's arm circling around body, the vague rhythm of his heartbeat against your back. His laboured breaths on your neck. It's torturous. But spending so much time with him has taught you to hide your feelings better.

The park welcomes a large crowd around holiday season, children with toothless grins, tugging onto their mum's coats, small chin resting onto a parents' head, teenagers moving in together in school uniforms. It's the happiest time of the year. When you move past an elderly couple, they smile and tell you make a wonderful couple.

You're just about to make a correction. This puts you in an awkward position... doesn't it?

But then Hyunjin grins toothily and says, Thank you, like it's the most amusing thing in the world. You ignore the wrenching inside your chest.

Hyunjin leans forward, his plump lips brushing against your ear. "Where did you learn to skate so well?!" There's something like excitement in his kiddish laugh aside from admiration. It's not much of a question as it is an exclamation.

"I am pretty good, aren't I?"

He laughs, doesn't let you go. "Yes, yes...really good."

Out of breath, you slow down, move your feet steadily, careful not to lose balance.

"Oh my God! It is you!"

You raise your head, blink against flakes hindering your vision. Jeongin's voice used to be thinner before. As far as you remember. Now it has a weight to it.

You let out a nervous laugh.

"And it's you..."

Jeongin's eyes travel to the arms around your waist, to the stiffened figure behind you and you immediately liberate yourself. Moving to let Hyunjin use your arm as purchase, you don't fail to notice the pinch in his forehead, a frown on his mouth.

"This is my friend Hyunjin. Hyunjin, this is Jeongin—"

"We used to go out." Jeongin smiles, forwarding his hand, which is returned with an unenthused shake and a demure reply. Hyunjin never speaks to anyone this way, not even people he claims to hate.

The former male looks to you again, "I was, uh... wondering if you'd like to go out for a cup of coffee sometime."

Things between you and him ended amicably at the event of his departure for further studies, which deprives you of awkward tension which is expected when exes meet.

Besides, a cup of coffee never hurt anyone.

Right?

Without thinking, you nod slowly, "Yeah that sounds good,"

"Text me anytime."

"Sure."

 “I'll be out of your hair then," he beams. "It was very nice meeting you too, Hyunjin."

"Right."

Hyunjin, you realise, has released your arm. He leans on barricades fencing along the skating area, smiling briefly. You know it’s wrong...yet you sense that you almost need him to be upset.

Then he tilts his head back towards you, "He seems like a really nice guy," he whispers, genuinely meaning every word. Your heart sinks. "I see the appeal." Underneath the lurid glare of fairy lights brandished overhead, Hyunjin's ash hair glints like it's threaded out of silver. You wonder what he's thinking.

—

 Watch every Disney movie ever made.

You never end up texting Jeongin back. Just stalling for when you're ready, you tell yourself. Even though that's not true at all.

"This brings back so many memories. My parents used to belt out A Whole New World with me, like every time we watched Aladdin."

Hyunjin wipes his face with the back of his hand, technically you’re not very sure what he’s saying exactly because he’s mumbling into a paper napkin you've  passed over for the umpteenth time. You find yourself picturing a small but happy family of three, of Hyunjin in Scooby Doo pajamas and gap between his teeth. (Contrary to your previous convictions, he hasn't changed all at much, save for the teeth bit. ) It's cute.

He looks to you expectantly. Can't be the only one telling embarrassing stories.

You shrug, "I had a thing for Simba. Let's just say my mum and dad were nice enough to indulge me."

Hyunjin reaches for the remote and pauses the ending credits of Lady and the Tramp. He turns to you fully now, gives you a judgemental stare. "Simba...?" He says, "Like the...lion?"

"What? It's normal to crush on fictional characters, okay?!"

"Okay,sure," Hyunjin snorts, putting a pillow between you and him so you can't kill him. "furry."

A part of you is tempted, obviously. But the much bigger part is more invested in how he looks happier, healthier. You want to think that means something.

—

Hyunjin invites you over for movie night. It's getting colder and you keep poking him with your cold feet. There's an extra set of blankets in his cupboard, he informs you, he isn't sharing his with you — and that's when you see it.

The deflated pink donut folded to the side, his and yours sharpie inscribed initials on one side. 

"Found it yet?"

You don't even notice when he comes to stand behind you. So the question effectively makes you jump out of your skin. Hyunjin has a bowl of popcorn pressed to his chest, there's a pink hair band holding his hair away from his forehead. For the lack of a answer he takes it on himself to find the source of your silence. As if you've been caught red handed.

You think this is where he'll ask you to leave, that or he'll least scold you or something. You prepare for the worst.

Hyunjin just smiles, it's a big smile that succeeds in bringing out the small dimple indented on the side of his cheek. You've never noticed before. It's kinda weird. Because when it comes to him, your attention hardly ever falters.

"You probably don't remember. That’s from Seungmin's 15th birthday,"

You want to scoff under your breath. All this time you had told yourself that you were the only one to be affected by your estranged friendship growing up. Now...the same logic colours you every bit of ridiculous. 

You blink away, swallowing. Voice solemn.

"I remember." Hyunjin's gaze is heavy on your shoulders. An emotion you can't quite put a finger on crosses his delicate features. It's something between surprise and relief... something else too. You don’t understand it. 

—

It's disconcerting that he can’t remember the last time he got sick. Not the usual discomfort inside his chest, not the blood, not the thorns or petals. Hyunjin's just gotten so used to it, you know? What if he gets his hopes up for no good reason? What if it just comes back?

There's no possible explanation, he explains over a hasty 3 A.M message he had to leave on your answering machine because he's freaking out.

Then Haseul texts Hyunjin, tells him she misses him. Everything's adding up. Everything's falling into place. This is what he wanted, isn't it? She loves him, she finally loves him back. That must be it. He doesn't know what to say. 

But he tells you, and when he does, it sounds a lot like an apology.

— 

Kiss underneath a mistletoe. 

“Chan and I broke up.” She says it like it’s something he should be happy about. So when he remains quiet, it only prompts her to speak more, fill up the big mighty silences. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Look Jinnie, I know I made a mistake, but...can’t you give a second chance? Just this once?”

Hyunjin has thought about this particular moment a lot. Kissing her instead of producing a response, pulling her off of her feet and mumbling of course, of course, of course. Back then, there were little doubts in his head pertaining to her, back then he believed that she was the only one for him. The love of his life at the wrong time, in the wrong place.

Now...something doesn’t feel right. 

The thing about wounds, sometimes, of the heart in particular, is when they close up, it’s hard to make head or tails of the kind of person you become in their wake. Hard to adjust. Like when he suddenly shot up 7 inches in ninth grade, a late bloomer at that, and the weight of his new sneakers felt..odd.

He glances at her and also understands what it’s like to be lonely, the constant need to compensate for it by grasping at the last straw. He used to be in her shoes too. This isn’t any different.  Albeit, he isn’t exactly taken by her presence. Just that he doesn’t know if what he’s doing is right. He looks over your table a few feet away from where he’s standing. Having gone out to take a call. You notice his absence and then from your seat, do your best to locate him. (he thinks of kissing you on a bed of snow, thinks of the sizzle of your skates against ice, thinks of his list on a coffee cup and his pink water donut and it’s okay to be scared. Why did it have to be you of all people, through everything? It’s not really a work of coincidence. Not at all actually.

  Maybe he just wanted it to be you.)

When your eyes do lock...seeing him with his hands in his pockets, her standing beyond the barrier as she tries to say something, you smile, even if it’s a little sad. Hyunjin thinks to the conversation some nights before. Thinks of you reminding him that there's nothing to lose at this point, that he should do what his heart tells him. That it’ll be alright, if he just takes a leap of faith. Hyunjin smiles back. Through the glassy exterior and mini water fountains running down its slanted form. The realisation is not as dramatic as he thought. It’s just late.

 He tears off the false mistletoe decoration glued along the periphery of an arch.

And like always.

He takes your advice.

— 

Cohorts of guests pour into the colossal hotel, heads turning in quiet admiration for bejeweled arches breaking out against buttery white architecture, the roof is impossibly naked, translucent glass baring a starlit sky to your watchful eyes. Showing little mercy to a frail chute held over your head,costumed characters wade through oceans of gossamer, twinkling silver and swaying movements to slow jazz. You prop a heeled foot up on the bar platform, which strangely resembles a pedestal, in a futile attempt to catch your breath, with clammy digits settled atop the risky surface of a marbled counter. A soft voice speaks over the ambience, uttering your name with much care. You lift your head. And there he is.

Jisung is scouring through the Spotify playlist you’ve put together for New Year’s Eve. He’s complaining about the lack of Beyoncé while your friends go around the buffet table. When he calls you, you’re sipping your drink, laughing at something Changbin is saying, his eyes brighten just at the sound of your laugh.  Hyunjin isn’t surprised to see his friend taking a liking of you even though he hardly knows you. That’s just the effect you have on people.

Excusing yourself, you allow him to walk you to a less densely populated area where a stone pillar faces expensive paintings of nameless painters. With the effect of alcohol settling in and your inhibitions effectively lowered, your steps sway a little. You lean against the massive build rising from tiled floor. “So what’s up?” you murmur, the lump in your throat thickening just at the thought of him speaking the good news into existence. “I take it went well?”

 Hyunjin doesn't answer. He looks distracted for a bit. Then in an instant he snaps out of his daze. “What did you mean when you said ‘once’?”

Your brows come together in inquiry.

“What?”

"When I asked you if you have ever been in love, you said ‘once’." He persists, his fingers come up to your shoulder, grazing slightly as if they’re trying to carve out words against the skin. "You weren’t talking about Jeongin.”

He knows. He’s always known. Hyunjin can’t believe he’s been so stupid.

“Took you long enough.” You let out a sardonic laugh.“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

"It matters to me..." Hyunjin sounds offended, you gather, but he manages to quell his temper for the sake of coaxing your confession. Is he purposely embarrassing you?  "I don’t think...I love Haseul anymore...I didn’t realise...I haven’t for a long time."  

A big chandelier beams over withering plants pushed against the ceiling, in this poor supply of light, you can tell exactly how he looks, eyes glimmering adoringly, you've spent something-teen years of your life wondering what it's supposed to mean. And it still manages to confuse you.

"Why are you telling me this?" you ask, albeit you already know.  Because funnily enough, before he got his braces removed and dyed his hair a scandalous blonde, before bucket lists and heartbreak, he was just the boy who told you he liked your stupid reindeer sweater even though it had officially made you the 7th grade laughing stock. You remember being fifteen and in love with Hyunjin. And you've never actually stopped. You need to hear it to believe it.

It drives you crazy. The way Hyunjin brushes his fingers against your cheek, shifting strands away from your eyes. But you can't help it, you've always wanted this. You lean into the caress, peering up at him as his large hand cups your jaw, thumb traversing from your tilted chin to your glossy lips like he's trying to smooth out all the creases. His voice is small, a whisper.

"Because I need you to know I think I’m falling in love with you.” he says. His palm opens and there’s a plastic mistletoe nestled between his fingers. You’re smiling and sniffling whilst his forehead comes to press against yours. Hyunjin grins. “And there’s still one last item on my list.”

“Are you seriously asking me to land one on you now?”

“Oh hell yeah.”

— 

"Move."

You press your fingers against the slick, sweaty skin.

In rebuttal, Hyunjin grumbles under his breath. Only half awake, half aware that he was mumbling in his sleep. His naked chest seems to be, if it’s even possible, glued to your bare front as he sprawls out like a starfish over your body, using his gangly arms to accommodate the strange position.

Though and you know he knows it too — it’s anything but uncomfortable.

See by now, you aren't exactly a stranger to Hyunjin's sleeping habits. Or really, any habits of his.

All the windows are cracked open, moonlight percolating through a thin sheet of curtains in rendering evidence that it’s still night time. You can make out the faint sound of  honking in the distance, a few stray dogs here and there, probably producing strings of complaints about the blatantly unbearable heat.

The strong stench of sweat and an aftermath of what happened before is a quick reminder of where you are, what you’re doing and that your arm’s going cold for a lack of circulation under his weight. Beads of sweat collected against his skin and trickle down the side of your face, the crook of your neck, which only prompts you to apply more force to the pads of your index and pointer — albeit it did nothing to move him, "Gross." You groan. "You're sweating like a pig!"

This comment, of all the things you've tried to get him to sleep on his side, succeeds in making Hyunjin raise his head, his grey hair matted down, a few rogue strands pushed out to fall over the unamused look in his eyes.

In an unprecedented minute of absolute clarity, something inside your stomach started to churn at the shocking sight. You’re impossibly, absolutely and nauseatingly in love with Hwang Hyunjin and the funny thing is, you don’t have to think twice to know he is too.

"Gross?" Hyunjin lowers his face to brush his pouted lips along your jaw, grinning when you let out a shaky but involuntary breath and as if he is looking to make a point with his digits traversing from your bare stomach, just along the hem of your underwear,   "After all that?"

"I hate you." You say — but more like, stutter. The sound of his giggles eliciting a strange sensation in you, reverberating against your chest, knocking against his ribs and your skin, like it’s trying to reach out to you, like your bodies insist on melding into one.

"I don’t think you’re being honest, baby." He laughs, squeezing your side, coming up to plant a warm palm to your butt to repeat the action, which in turn, drew a mewl from you. “Because you looove me.” Hyunjin smirks, his finger thumbing along your throat to your chin. You think this is what all those great poets meant in endless litanies of lovers torn apart by time and war woven together in a simple caress, like a longing, like a secret. Guarded from prying eyes, greedy hands, and you keep it, you keep it. For him. With him.

[borhapparker]

serendipity | peter parker x female!reader

pairing: andrew!peter parker x female!reader

word count: 2.4k

warnings: maaaajor spoilers for “no way home”

summary: peter parker lost the love of his life once and it shattered him. when he realizes the same thing could happen to another version of him, he decides to make a split second decision to jump.. does it work?

full fic masterlist | new spider-man taglist (add yourself)

-

“So, you’re telling me you’re Peter Parker?” you asked, pointing to a young man in his twenties, messy hair flopping over his forehead as he swept his hair back with his glove-clad hand. The suit resembled that of your Peter’s, yet the symbol covered almost all his chest, the blue a darker hue and shinier version.

“Yeah, as far as I know at least.” he nodded, Ned not fully convinced of who the stranger in his home was.

MJ, being more guarded, grabbed a piece of bread and hurled it at his chest, as he sighed and titled his head.

“Why did you do that?”

“I wanted to see if you have the tingle.”

“I do, but not for bread,” he said as another hit him, “Please, stop.”

“I will, if you show us you’re really Spider-Man.” her hands up in defense as you stood behind her. “Climb the ceiling.”

“I’m not gonna do that,” he frowned, eyes now moving to you as he analyzed your facial expressions, “You believe me, right?”

You nodded, tilting your head to the right as you stared him up and down. “You don’t carry any form of identification, do you?”

He shook his head, smiling sadly, “Kind of defeats the whole anonymous superhero thing.”

Ned’s grandmother, who you all forgot was there, started talking to Ned in Tagalog, as you caught some of the phrases, before he translated for her.

“My lola is asking if you can get the cobwebs from the ceiling.”

“Oh yeah, of course!” he smiled at his grandmother as he leaped up, sticking to the ceiling and making his way to the other side, his hand scooping up the cobwebs before coming down and dusting them off.

“So, how about we find our Peter Parker?” MJ turned to Ned as he nodded rapidly.

Ned squinted his eyes, casting the portal once more, “Find the real Peter Parker!” he repeated the motion again, as a firey circle appeared behind him.

They all turned to look, as an older man had appeared. He looked normal, dressed in a blue jumper with a jacket on top, in his late thirties, to early forties.

“Hello,” he said, a smile on his face as he waved, “I hope it’s okay, I just came through this-” the man turned to look at the portal only for it to disappear as he stepped out, “-Oh, it just closed.” he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

Ned’s grandmother smirked and winked, waving at the older man as he giggled and waved, “Hi!”

“So, I assume you’re Peter Parker?” you asked, as he turned to you and nodded, “Spider-Man?”

“Yeah, I am.” he looked behind them at the other Peter, furrowing his eyebrows, “He’s not your friend.”

You shook your head before giving him a quick explanation as he nodded along before smiling and waving at him, the other Peter mimicking his actions, guard still up.

“Well, seems our Peter could use you guys’ help. We just need to find him.” MJ said as the younger Peter crossed his arms.

“Well, is there a place that he would go that has meaning to him? Like a place he can-”

“Get away from everything?” older Peter finished as they all started thinking. “For me, it was the top of the Chrysler building.”

Younger Peter smiled and breathed in, “Empire State Building, better view.”

“That is a sweet view.”

Ned nodded, “Yeah, I-I think I know where that might be.”

-

Peter Parker sat on the ledge of the building, face scraped and bruises forming on his light colored skin. Blood dripped from his wounds as he stared into the abyss of the city, numbess flowing through his body.

You, Ned and MJ crouched down, embracing his body as it gave up, sobs emitting from his lips. He mumbled incoherent words as he sobbed, his face in the crook of your neck, all your arms keeping him upright.

You pulled away first, placing your hands on either side of his face to get him to look at you, your eyes meeting his glazed ones, “Peter, there are some people here you need to meet.” you whispered.

“What?” he choked out, getting up and turning, his leg limping as he looked at the top of the building, two figures sitting low in the shadows.

“Wait, wait, wait, woah.” he held his hand up, his guard up around the two men. His eyes suddenly landed on the costume one of them was wearing, confusion in his mind only growing as he connected the dots.

“I’m sorry about May.” Peter said.

“I got some understanding of-” Younger Peter tried to comfort him as he shook his head, cutting him off.

“No, no, you don’t understand what I"m going through. She’s gone and it’s all my fault. She died for nothing.” he said, his bloodshot eyes pooling with tears as he sniffled. “You guys don’t belong here, those guys they’re from your worlds, right? You deal with it, either they die or you help them, I don’t care anymore. I’m done.”

You placed your hand on his shoulder. “Peter, please, just hear them out.”

He sighed, shaking his head before younger Peter interjected.

“I lost Gwen.” he started, his voice shaky, “I couldn’t save her. I won’t ever forgive myself for that. I carry on and try to continue being that friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, because I know that’s what she would’ve wanted.” he bit his lip, eyes pooling with tears.

You squeezed Peter’s shoulder, your own eyes pooling as you thought of the pain and grief he felt at the mention of her name.

“But then, I stopped pulling my punches. I got rageful. I got bitter. I don’t want you to end up like me. And I don’t want the same fate for Y/n too, Peter, but we can stop that.” his voice growin with strength.

“The night Ben died, I got my revenge. It didn’t make me better. It took me a long time to learn to get through that darkness.” older Peter shared.

“Aunt May… she told me that with great power..”

“Comes great responsibility.” younger Peter finished as he tilted his head.

“How do you know?”

“Uncle Ben said it.”

You turned to Peter, gripping his shoulders, ‘Maybe she didn’t die for nothing, Peter. We can still do something.“

He nodded, before motioning for them to follow him as he opened the door to the building, all of them heading to a laboratory.

They spent the next hour building together serums and devices to heal each respective villian, banding together to make a change as you walked around each of them, admiring their work and helping make some tweaks. When they were done, Ned opened up another portal as Peter turned to MJ, smiling before bringing her in for a kiss. Your heart sank as you watched yet you put a smile on your face.

Younger Peter patted your shoulder, smiling, "You’ll be okay.”

Looking up at him, you tilted your head. “You think so?” he nodded, “Well, be careful out there.”

He held out his pinky with a cheeky smile, “Pinky promise.”

You giggled, wrapping yours around his. “Pinky promise.”

-

They all appeared in an instant, the boys quickly banding together to bring them all in as Peter grabbed the box, swinging over to the open portal.

“Alright, MJ heads up!” he yelled, as he threw the box. Being a quick thinker, she crouched and wrapped her arms around the box, stepping back into the portal.

“Close it, Ned!” you yelledm as he nodded and motioned with his hands, yet it never did. MJ’s adrenaline running high as she tapped her finger against the box pressed to her chest, watching Ned repeat the motions over and over.

“It’s not closing,” Ned stated as his voice started shaking, MJ’s eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

“Why isn’t it closing?” he shook his head, no answer coming from his lips, “Have you ever closed one before?”

No answer came from Ned as you groaned, “Why didn’t you let us know before!”

“It just slipped my mind! I’m sorry!” he threw his hands in the air as he breathed hard, his hands doing the motions again.

You started bickering with Ned as he kept doing the motions, as something caught your eye, turning to the portal, eyes widening at the sight.

“Oh no, no no..” you started as you screamed, pulling everyone back and away, the Lizard running towards you guys, arms outstretched and claws ready to pounce. Ned continued closing the portal as you guys ran to the back, around the tables to get away from him.

He roared, wood flying everywhere as he crashed into a bookshelf. MJ screaming and gripping the box closer.

“Run!” Peter yelled, attacking the Lizard, webbing his eyes as if he were a horse, while pulling him back and away from you guys.

You all ran through the portal and to the construction site of the statue of Liberty, the other spidey’s swinging around and fighting their own villains.

“Peter 2!” your Peter screamed as the older version of Peter swung over, webbing the Lizard’s arms, as your Peter thrashed on his back, his own webbing giving way to an escape route.

MJ and Ned ran to the end of the construction end, noticing it being over 15 stories high as they gripped the poles.

“Are you okay, Y/n?” MJ asked as you nodded.

Ned tried once more to open a portal to the school, instead opening one and having Doctor Strange come through, an angry expression on his face.

“Where is he?”

He disappeared, taking the ring from Ned’s fingers from him as he gasped. He took the box, pressing the button as Peter screamed.

“Strange, no!”

An explosion ripped through the sky, purple lights soaring through the air as ripples appeared in the night sky. Cutting through stars and the moon, you noticed various shadows appearing, voices emitting from them.

Black smoke covered the air, as you gasped, holding your chest and slowly trying to regain control of your breathing, Ned doing the same as MJ covered her nose with her tshirt.

The explosion caused the Shield to come tumbling down the construction zone, MJ and Ned gripping poles as you held your arms out trying to regain your balance. Everything was shaking around you, your legs giving out on you as you turned, reaching towards MJ and Ned, their hands too far for you to grip.

“Y/n!” they screamed as it caught Peter 1’s attention, his eyes widening as he took off his mask.

You stared in shock, your arms still reaching out as you started falling slowly, your breathing slowing, eyes looking around. The screams around you faded, the air feeling cool on your skin. It’s as if everything around you had muted, your mouth opening to scream out for Peter, yet nothing came out.

Peter launched himself at you, his hand reaching for you, and in that moment, you felt hope. Hope that maybe, this wouldn’t be the end, that you would be able to go home after this and thank him for keeping you safe. Getting the chance to hug your siblings and parents, knowing you took them for granted.

You almost accepted it, the hope surging as your fingers grazed his, before the Green Goblin threw him out of the way, a scream echoing out of him. Watching him get farther away, your body went limp, accepting what was about to happen.

“No!” Peter 3 screamed, your ears not registering it as your arms flailed in front of you, his body dropping from the distance.

He lept at you, determination surging throug his veins as he ignored about his webs, not wanting to make the same mistake twice, using the objects around him to proppel himself forward instead. His body fell towards you as your arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him close and burrying your face in the crook of his shoulder. He swiftly shot webs at the top of a pole, allowing for your bodies to regain balance as he held you in his arms, one behind your back and the other under your legs.

You inhaled and exhaled quickly, regaining your breath as you looked at him, worry etched on your face.

“Are you okay?” he asked as you nodded, his voice shaky. He frowned, eyes flodding with tears as his grip tightened, holding back a sob.

Staring at him with wide eyes, you opened your mouth, “You okay?”

“Oh my god,” he choked out, nodding, sniffles emitting from his lips. “I’m okay.”

He placed you down as you leaned up and wiped the tears from under his eyes, “Thank you.”

He sadly smiled before swinging back to the battle, as you sighed and wrapped your arms around yourself.

-

The battle was over, Peter 1 heading over to you as you smiled. Ned, MJ and you brought him in for a hug as he smiled, his body tired of the fighting.

You parted from them, heading over to Peter 2 and 3, a smile on your face. “Thank you, to the both of you.”

They embraced you, each of them placing their faces in either side of your shoulder and squeezing before you all parted. “Anytime.”

Placing your hands on Peter 3’s face, you smiled and pressed your forehead against his. “Thank you.”

He smiled once more, as you leaned in and gave him a small kiss.

His eyes widened, as he realized what happened, cheeks turning a bright pink as Peter 2 giggled.

“Seems you have a princess there.” he said as Peter 2 rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and sheepishly smiled.

“T-thank y-you.” he said as you giggled.

“I hope you find someone, Peter. You deserve a princess.”

He sadly smiled, longing for more from you. He had grown fond of your caring and warm demeanor, your tight hugs and the giggle that escaped your lips when you were embarrassed. He wished he could hear those sounds forever, wake up by your side whenever he pleased and make you as happy as you made him.

Shush, Peter, you’ve only just met her.

“Y/n?” you tilted your head in confusion, “Come with me.”

“Really?” you asked as he nodded.

A warm fluttering feeling came from your stomach as you thought about going with him, possibly spending your life with this charming man. If you really thought about it, you were older than the Peter you knew, meeting him at F.E.A.S.T through May. You knew nothing would ever come of your crush for him, MJ had captured his heart. Yet, within the time you had met this Peter, you became infatuated. Everything about him just reeled you in, the fluttering only getting stronger when he looked at you.

“Okay,” you smiled, before turning back to MJ and Ned. “Thanks guys, for everything.”

MJ smiled, something you don’t usually see from her as she hugged you. “He’s the one for you, Y/n. Love him like I love our Peter,” she squeezed as you did the same, smiling at her.

“Thanks MJ.”

Hugging Ned one last time, you hugged your Peter, before standing next to the other Peter, grabbing his hand as you felt a fluttering around you, before you both appeared in an alley, the scenario around you changing.

“Peter?” you asked, turning to him as he smiled, “Are we there?”

“He nodded, "We are, Y/n. Welcome to my New York.”

- taglist -

@hi-mishamigos @trashqueenbitch @rrobin-hood @pbnjparker @drxgxnslxyer @cosmetologynerd @sarcasticsara04 @inspiredbynewt-blog @bucky-smiles @stormyparker @hannah-risacher @supernaturalpants @hollandroos @madmadmilk @spiderboytotherescue @bucky-plums-barnes @merceret @fuckthatfeeling @discodeakys @iifandomii @waywardsummoner46 @sleighbellspideyy @quackson-klaxon @the-quackson-claxon @cosmic-parker @cherryparker @tomhollandfics @spiderboywanab

[wavesmp3]

[ksw] clouds

sunwoo x reader

wc. 5k warnings: medical inaccuracies, death, illness, hospitals, overall just a pretty heavy piece genre can only be described as an absolute mess inspired mainly by san junipero but also slightly by charlie kaufman and wong kar wai

a/n: this is supposed to be told nonlinearly but like the creation of it was very messy so i have no clue if it actually worked, so good luck trying to make this piece make sense of this :) 

act iii. scene iii.

Sunwoo sits and watches the sun shift from pink and blue to an impossible shade of green. And it’s then he knows that without a doubt Clara has ruined the color green for him. Because instead of marveling at the color of the sky, Sunwoo is reminded of the doors in her apartment building.

“Thought I might find you here.” The voice of a stranger who Sunwoo loved once upon a time says behind him. He tries like hell not to turn around. Not to lean back towards the voice and wait for your hand on his shoulder or your shin knocking familiarly against his back. He focuses on the waves crashing below instead. The roar of the water beneath him is deafening, but only if you let it be. He does, and he almost forgets that you’re behind him.

“Where’d you go?” You ask, now sitting next to him, tugging at the long grass. 

“I’m right here.”

“And what about in there?” You bring a finger up and poke at the side of his forehead. 

He turns to you, facing you in full. He takes in your features like it’s the first time all over again. And, oh, he wishes he knew before how many firsts you already had together. This is just another. This is just the first time he’s seen you in the past six months and remembered the thousands of times he’s seen your face before. 

He studied your cheeks. The one he now recalls running the back of his palm over after you left for the Cloud. 

He memorizes, for the millionth time, your eyes. He used to swear they were darker than they are, but then he saw them in the sun. He was dying back then; then he saw your eyes and you saved him. Just like that. 

Mr. Choi was right of course. As he always must be. You and him are like an old married couple. Not like. You are. Almost were. 

“I had lunch with Mr. Choi today.” He tells you. 

You squint at him. “I know. It’s Thursday.” You pull out a piece of the grass. “What’d he make?”

“Ramen.”

“Was it good?”

“It was okay.”

“Too spicy?”

Suwnoo answers with a sigh, looking away from you and back towards the water. The deafening waves crash against the cliffside. “I know you looked at your file.” He finally says. You stop pulling at the grass. You still. “Mr. Choi told me.”

After he says it, there’s a silence that isn’t actually silent at all. The waves rage below his feet. The seagulls are there too, beneath, above, somewhere, everywhere. And then, of course, there’s you and Sunwoo, trying to be silent over the static in your heads and the machines you’re hooked up to in a universe far far away. 

“Did he tell you about my file?”

He looks at you again. “No.”

“Oh.” You look away, brows furrowed, lick your lips, and then turn back to him. “So why are you upset?”

“After he told me, I went and I…”

“You didn’t.”

“I looked at mine.”

There’s another silence, except that this time it really is quiet. Sunwoo read once whilst in a rabbit hole of medical research that true silence only happens in a vacuum, where there is no medium for sound waves to travel through. This must be that. This place, the files, Mr. Choi and Mr. Chan, Clara and her apartment building full of green doors--it’s a vacuum. And they stick people in it then call it the Cloud. They call it extra time. But it isn’t. It’s nothing and he’s stuck in the middle of it. So Sunwo stares at you, straight through the vacuum of time and space you’re both lost in, waits for you to say something, and then waits for himself to hear it. 

“You looked?” You finally say, voice folding in on itself. 

“Yes.” Sunwoo’s own voice is barely there. You must be reading his lips which you’ve always been good at anyways. 

“So you know now?” 

“I always knew, and now, I remember.”

act i. scene iv.

There’s been an accident. 

That’s what they say when the sun falls out of the sky and the world starts spinning in the wrong direction. It’s how they show up at Sunwoo’s door painted in shades of blue and red, with authority in their arms and hands on their hips. How they prepare him for the looming moment where they rip past his skin, blood, bone to shoot a gun straight at his heart. I’m so sorry for your loss, they say leaving him with a bullet lodged somewhere between his left and right atrium. 

And those are the four words that play over and over and over in Sunwoo’s head as he gets to the hospital. Those are the words that crawl inside his open chest and turn him blue and black with infection. There’s been an accident, he remembers, staring at the extraordinary measures taken to keep your heart beating and lungs beating. This is it. Except that the accident isn’t that you’re dying, but that you’re dying. It’s always supposed to have been him. He’s supposed to be the one stuffed with tubes and hooked up to monitors, the one whose life is hanging on by a thread, and you’re supposed to be the one that saves him. It all feels like a play that’s gone horribly wrong because everyone switched parts after intermission without telling him. At what point did you steal the role of dying protagonist from him? 

We did everything we could, a stranger in a white coat says. Except that it’s not some stranger, it’s your colleague and co-worker because this is the hospital you work at and the hospital Sunwoo met you in. There was too much damage to the brain, they explain as the image of their tear-stricken face goes from your friend during intern year to the doctor who operated on you as your brain went dead. 

“We have two options, right?” Sunwoo is far too familiar with surgery and all this. He knows from his hospital days what’s supposed to happen next. But apparently, things have changed since then. 

“Actually, there’s a third option.”

Sunwoo doesn’t waste a second. He jumps out of the chair stained red from his bleeding heart and asks: “What is it?”

“We can upload them.”

act iii. scene ii.

In fifty days of living in the cloud, Sunwoo has learned all about the people that he shares a building with. There’s Mr. Chan who lives behind a vomit green on the same floor as him and who hasn’t left his room since last January. There’s also Mr. Choi, who lives behind the emerald door and invites Suwoo over for lunch every Thursday. Clara lives upstairs, where the walls are painted in various shades of green--olive, seaweed, moss, hunter, shamrock, sage, and others that Sunwoo tries not to think too deeply about. He’s only met Clara once in the past fifty days and has no particular wish to see her again. He hadn’t expected her to be a kid. Cancer, you told him after their introduction in the lobby, poor girl was only seven. As said before, Sunwoo tries not to think about it. 

And then of course there’s you behind the forest green door who has been slowly showing him all the good places. There’s the beach where you spent the day making seashell necklaces. The  cafe which serves its tea too sweet for him, but sweet enough to be considered your favorite. Sunwoo just gets the chocolate bread. You took him downtown. To a club. The tallest building. And to midtown where the amusement park is. 

But his favorite place you’ve taken him so far is the cliffside above the beach, where the waves crash against the rocks in a way that can only be described as violent. That day you and him laid in the grass and stared at the clouds with your heads dangling just over the edge and water spraying the backs of your necks. That day you turned to him and told him you’re sorry. For what, he asked. I’m so sorry you’re sick, you said, but it’s nice to have you around here. I think in a sense, we’ve both been waiting for this. Then, you smiled and stole all of the blood from his body. So yeah, that day, that place--it’s his favorite. 

Today, you take him on a hike up a mountain. 

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” You ask him after having spent thirty minutes silently staring at the view from the best peak. 

“One after this?”

“Yeah. I guess. Although, I’m not so convinced this counts.”

“I don’t know.” Sunwoo shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Do you think we’d be able to be with our loved ones in it?”

His chest lurches. “If there is one, yes.”

“Do you think it’ll be different than this?”

Sunwoo turns to you finally. “Why are you asking about this?”

You shake your head. “Nevermind. It’s a stupid question.”

He turns back towards the view. From here, he can make out Clara’s building. He thinks about her, about Mr. Choi and Mr. Chan, who he recently found out were once married but who haven’t spoken since Mr. Chan read his file in January, and he thinks about you and about him. 

“I think,” Sunwoo says, loud enough so that you can hear after wandering a little bit away from him, “that whatever the afterlife is, if it does exist, it’ll be worth it.”

You turn to him, but don’t make any move to come near him again. “And if it doesn’t exist?”

“Then life will have been worth it.”

The corner of your lip lifts. “I like that.”

Sunwoo only nods at the sentiment, and after a long while, he builds enough courage to ask, “you’ve been here a really long time, haven’t you?”

“Time doesn't work as linearly in the cloud as it does in the real world. Sometimes it feels like I got here and then you arrived the very next day.” You turn back towards the view and exhale heavily. 

“But yes. I’ve been here for an eternity.”

act ii. scene i.

Before he actually sees you, Sunwoo feels you. Not you, in particular, but something in the distance, a presence in the corner of the room and a pair of eyes watching him from somewhere far away. 

The scariest part is how much the feeling doesn’t actually scare him. 

--

Two days after that, he starts to see you in the flesh. He tells himself that his mind is playing tricks on him, that the person he saw in the produce aisle wasn’t actually you at all and was just a stranger with the same hair. 

He doesn’t go straight home from the store that day. Instead, he stops by the hospital and checks in on you, but even that doesn’t do anything about the fact that he sees a shadow of you behind the bed.

--

The day after that, you speak to him. Standing in the middle of his kitchen in broad daylight, you speak, you say hello, and the first thing Sunwoo thinks is that he’s dead. 

You aren’t, you reply. You’re a zombie, he reasons, here for my brain. I’m not. A ghost. No. Are you, here Sunwoo falters, fear flooding out of his body to make room for the briefest blotch of hope that’s crushed almost immediately by you saying: I’m not alive, Sunwoo. You saw me in the hospital yesterday. 

“So then,” he swallows, “what are you?”

I’m here. You look at him, stare at his face and without a sliver of doubt say, I’m here for you. 

Sunwoo knows it’s impossible. You can’t be here. You can’t. And yet, you are. 

Three years ago Sunwoo was told he had three months left to live, and he still remembers how impossibly you saved him from the brink of death. He remembers how impossible things happen all the time, and how impossibly possible it is that this is one of them. He steps towards you, touches your face, and feels the real, impossible thing against his hand. 

“You’re here.”

--

On the fifth day of your haunting, Sunwoo finally has the sense to ask why. 

Why what?

“Why are you here?”

I’m here for you.

“Stop saying that.”

But I am, you tell him. You asked, and that’s the answer. I’m a doctor, Sunwoo. I’m here for you. 

Then, finally, he hears what you’ve been saying for the past five days. You’re here for him. 

And the thing about doctors is that they’re there for you when you need them. 

“I’m sick.” 

Yes, you answer quietly, although it wasn’t a question. 

“Again.” 

I’m so sorry. 

“You’re a hallucination, aren’t you?” Sunwoo’s shocked by how sad that makes him, how disappointing it is. “I’ve been hallucinating.”

Find me in the Cloud, Sunwoo. There’s something I want to say. 

You’re gone by the time he gets to the hospital. 

act iii. scene i.

Sunwoo stares at the hall of green doors, eyes darting from door to door in an attempt to stare down the shades until they confess which one of them is tea green.

“Clara, the landlord, likes colors.” A voice says from behind him. “Every couple of months she repaints all of the doors in different shades of the same one. Before the green, it was yellow.” 

Sunwoo turns around to face you. When your eyes find him, they go blank for the smallest of moments. You give him a look that goes right through him, turning him inside out like you’ve seen the underside of his skin. It irks him. 

“I’m Sunwoo. I’m new.”

You gulp. “You’re here.” He doesn’t know what to make of the statement. Do all people in the cloud act like this? “Why?”

Sunwoo nods, maybe you’re not so weird as much as you just have a weird way of posing questions. “I was told I’m sick.”

“I’m sorry.” You say, frowning like you actually might feel back for him. 

“Have you been here a while then?” You nod. “Can I ask how long?” You shake your head. Sunwoo doesn’t think too much about it. Instead, he returns your earlier question “Why are you here?”

“Brain dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

You ignore it and point to a door down the hall. “I’m forest green. You?”

“Tea green. But I can’t find-” 

You tap the door in front of him. “This one, genius.”

“Oh.” He laughs awkwardly. “Thanks.”

Your mouth parts as if to say something, and your face goes blank again. He feels his skin turning itself inside out because of it. “Have you read your file yet?”

He shakes his head. “I just got here.”

You inhale, softening, and mutter an ‘okay’. You continue down the hall towards your door. Sunwoo is stuck in place. “I can show you around here, if you like. Take you to all the cool places.”

Sunwoo takes you up on it.

A forest green door slams shut down the hallway. 

act i. scene ii.

“Thank you for taking me out of the hospital.” Sunwoo says, exhaling. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a park like this.” 

And it’s true, he really can’t. He’s been sick for so long now, and has been through a multitude of treatment plans and too many surgeries. When you’re sick and have 9 surgeons turn you down after asking them to save your life, you forget the joy of being outside and feeling the sun on your skin. You were the first doctor to agree to the surgery. You’re the only doctor to have ever treated Sunwoo like he wasn’t dying, like he was actually going to live.

“You don’t have to thank me. This is good for me too.” You say, head resting against the park bench and eyes closed. 

Sunwoo inhales, taking in the park with all his senses. A visceral sort of thing you learn to do as often as possible when you’ve been as close to death as frequently as he has. He feels the wood beneath his body and the grass beneath his feet. He feels the light on his skin and the wind pushing against his arms and nose. He listens to the kids screaming at the playground at the bottom of the hill and to the dogs barking within the dog park beside it. He takes all this in, relishes in it for the last time as a dying person. 

You sigh. “One more surgery.” 

“And then I’ll be done with this sickness.” 

You smile. He pretends not to see. “And then you’ll be done.” 

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“Don’t do that.”

“No. Seriously.” 

You smile again, this time at him. Sunwoo doesn’t have to pretend not to see. “I haven’t finished saving it yet.”

He leans back against the bench and closes his eyes. “But you will.” 

You tap on your coffee cup. “Honestly though, you did more work than me.” Sunwoo frowns while you take a sip. “The other nine doctors you called are good doctors, and they made the same judgement call I would have made for any other patient. No sane doctor would have agreed to treat you. But you were the reason I said yes. You had such faith that you were going to live and so much faith that I could do it that I believed you. I might be the one doing the technical saving, but you, Sunwoo, you’re the one who convinced me to do it. You saved yourself.”

He stares at you. The light hits your eyes like it’s finding a way to break through them. In truth, before Sunwoo got sick, he didn’t think he was scared of death, but he is. He’s terrified of it. Sunwoo realized it two weeks after his diagnosis and the day after he was wrongly told he only had three more months left to live. But now, for the first time since he was diagnosed, he doesn't feel so afraid of it. Despite how far he’s come and how close he is to beating this fucking illness, while staring at the light woven through your eyes, Sunwoo thinks he could live with himself if he dropped dead tonight. 

That thought alone, is almost as terrifying as death used to be. 

act iii. scene v.

“I saw your ghost, you know.” It’s the first thing Sunwoo has said to you in over two weeks. “It wasn’t actually you though, was it?” You don’t even bother looking up from your cup of tea. Through the silence, Sunwoo orders a coffee. 

“I didn’t know that.” The coffee turns lukewarm. “It wasn’t me.” You push an uneaten half of chocolate bread towards him. “It’s in your brain this time. Symptoms can include hallucinations.”

“Think you can still save me?” You can’t. If you know that much, you know he’s out of medical miracles, and that this time, he really won’t survive it. But it’s a joke. And you laugh at it.

“Definitely not. I never really liked neurosurgery.”

And all at once, he’s painfully aware of your friend somewhere in the real world that does like it but watched anyways as your brain died before her, split wide open. 

“Anyways, how do you know all of this?” But what Sunwoo really wants to say is brains are killer. Literally. Figuratively. 

“I’ve known since we...“ you hesitate, mouth stuck halfway through a word he can’t place. “After last time, I read your chart and looked at your scans.” Sunwoo nods. He expected as much. He doesn’t ask how you got them. “I’m sorry you're sick again.” You say to him quietly. “I’m sorry you’re dying.”

“I’m sorry you’re dead.” As soon as the words have left his mouth, he regrets them. Because you aren’t. And he knows you too well to think you’d look past the technicality. 

You scoff, shake your head slightly, and with a spiteful smile say, “Can I say it?”

Sunwoo only sighs. “Let’s start over instead.” 

You nod. He pushes the chocolate bread back. 

act iii. scene iv.

Mr. Choi was the one to recommend that Sunwoo give you and himself space. It’s been a month since you and him last spoke, since that moment hovering above the waves after he read his file and after he found out you read yours. He misses you, and has been for so long now. Mr. Choi was wrong. Sunwoo’s standing outside your forest green door to prove it. 

You open the door before he can knock. There’s no shock in your voice when you say his name, like you’ve been waiting for this day, expecting it. 

He looks behind you, at your apartment in Clara’s building that looks just like your apartment in the real world. The same one he cleaned out after you died, still filled with things he gave to your family or donated or took back to his place. He wants to crumble just looking at it again. “Can I come in?”

“It’s only been a month.”

And he knows what you mean by it. Three months is the recommended time off after reading one’s file. To reacclimate, they say, to process. But the insinuation that Sunwoo was supposed to go three months without seeing you makes him feel sick. The insinuation that after a year of being without you in the real world he was supposed to be without you here too, enrages him. Then he remembers how long you’ve been here, and how long you’ve been doing this and feels slightly murderous.

All he says is: “It’s been a lot longer than that for you.”

Your lip twitches. You lock and unlock the open forest green door five times before saying, “Are you sure?”

He nods. You let him in. 

Sunwoo used to imagine what it would be like to meet you again in the Cloud one day. He imagined tears and hugs and kisses. He imagined i love you’s and i hate you’s and i miss you. He imagined the scenario more times than can possibly be considered healthy. But he imagined something. He was waiting for the day. Waiting for this day. But this moment, sitting at your round wood table while you boil water for tea, is nothing like the million different ways he imagined seeing you again. 

And as you set down two mismatched mugs and take the seat across from him, he doesn’t even try to create one of them. “How long has it been since you read your file?”

You watch the steam rise from your tea for a long moment, then stand, grab the sugar and pour a spoonful of it into your tea. You take another spoonful and look at him expectantly. “Want some?” He nods, and you pour the sugar into his. You stir the tea then taste, then cringe, then add more sugar and then ask if he wants it. He refuses. You stir again. Sunwoo watches the whirlpool and waits the eternity it takes you to say: “I read it on my first day.”  

You put the sugar away, satisfied with the tea’s sweetness while Sunwoo marvels at how long you’ve known and how silently you’ve been carrying the knowledge of you and him since he came. And that knowledge is what makes him finally remember one of the reasons he came. “Is there something you want to tell me?” You look up at him when he asks it, exhaling like you’ve been wanting to bring it up for so long now, which Sunwoo guesses isn’t as much of a simile as he thinks it is. 

“Yes, actually. I…” you hesitate, flicking the mug as if the right words will come hopping out of the tea. Sunwoo watches for it. “I’ve just been here for a long time now, Sunwoo.”

“Two years isn’t that long.”

“Time doesn’t work the same here as it does down there.” You tell him tiredly. “It’s been decades.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“In the beginning, I didn’t mind the waiting. I knew you were on your way, but I just,” you hesitate, “I didn’t think it’d take so long for you to come back to me.” 

Sunwoo covers your hand with his. “I’m sorry.” You twist your palm into it, squeeze, then pull your hand away. Sunwoo swallows. “I came as fast as I could.”

“I know. I waited.”

“Do you regret it?” Sunwoo’s terrified of what the answer might be.

You don’t give it. “That’s not what I meant.” 

“Then?”

“I’ve been here for so long, and,” your head drops, voice breaking under the weight it carries, “it’s been so lonely.”

“But I’m here now.” Sunwoo says, leaning forward against the table. “You aren’t alone anymore.”

“I know you’re here. I know, and I thought that would fix it, but it didn’t. Seeing you in the hall that day was so bittersweet, because you were here but that also meant you were somewhere else dying. Because you were here and I still felt lonely.” You stop, chugg the remaining bits of your tea, and then wipe your cheeks. “Do you get what I’m saying?”

“No.” But it’s a lie. He does get it. He knows all about loneliness and the way it creeps inside, so slyly. The way it starts small and then grows, feeding on negligence, until it's too big for your body. He knows how it sits inside you, for all its enormity, and spills into everything. He knows how it lingers. How it has nothing to do with people or lack of them and everything to do with grief. Sunwoo knows all about loneliness. The day he read his file he felt a dam of it burst open within him. 

“I’m saying that in the real world I saved you, and now it’s your turn to save me.” You gulp. “I’m saying that I want you to unplug me.”

It takes a moment for Sunwoo to even register what you’ve said, but when he does remember the life support that’s keeping your body alive somewhere in a universe far away, he doesn’t say anything. He just stands and walks out of your apartment. 

act i. scene iii.

“Doctor, please present.” The attending announces, stepping into Sunwoo’s room for rounds. 

“Mr. Kim,” a resident starts, flipping open his chart, “was diagnosed 14 months ago and has gone through several different treatment plans. When he came to us, the illness had spread and was deemed inoperable and untreatable by several other physicians. Our treatment plan was aggressive and grueling but ultimately, effective. Sunwoo is 20 days post op from his third and final surgery. The surgery went extremely well with no complications and his vitals were excellent. He has been a model patient all throughout recovery, and according to our latest scans, he is also now illness free…”

Sunwoo doesn’t even bother listening to the rest. 

--

“So, now that I’m no longer a patient, if I ask you out on a date, will you actually say yes?” 

“Well,” you say, signing his discharge papers, “only one way to know.”

“What is it?”

You look up at him, smiling. “Ask me again.”

He does. 

You say yes. 

act iii. scene v. take ii. 

“I saw your ghost.” The first thing Sunwoo says after the last failed attempt.

You look up from your tea. “It wasn’t me.” 

“I know.” Sunwoo orders another coffee. “But the hallucination was how I knew I was sick again. It made me feel like you were trying to warn me, like you were up here somewhere caring from a distance. Right after I pieced it all together you told me to find you here and that there was something you wanted to say.” The coffee turns lukewarm again. Sunwoo can’t bring himself to say it. You sigh and push the same piece of chocolate bread back towards him. This time, he takes a bite from it. And with a mouthful of chocolate bread, he cries, “I just got you back, and now you want to leave all over again.”

You frown. “I didn’t want to leave the first time, and it’s different now.”

“How?”

“I want to go. Isn’t that worth something?”

“And what about what I want?”

“Oh, Sunwoo,” you say, “I’m sorry you’re sick. The hallucination was you and your head, but for what it’s worth, I have been up here caring from a distance. I still…” you don’t need to say the words. He knows. He never had to doubt it. “I never stopped.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you asked of me.” Sunwoo tells you. He made the decision last week but today, right now, with your confession still falling through the air, is the first time he’s had the stomach to swallow it. “And I’ll do it. I will. I just need some time. You’ve had so long and in comparison I’ve had nothing.”

“Okay.” You say simply.

“How long can you give me?”

You smile. “You know I’d give you an eternity if you asked for it.”

“I’m scared.” Sunwoo confesses then. “I know it’s what you want, but selfishly, I don’t want to let you again. I don’t know if I’m a big enough person to do it.”

“I do.” You say to him, leaning forward against the table and looking straight through him. “I know because I was your doctor. I have cut inside your body, seen all your organs, and during surgery two, I held your heart in my hands. I felt it beating. So I know exactly how big it is, and I know it’s big enough for this”

Sunwoo feels the heart you worked so hard to repair bursting inside of him. 

“God. Why’d you have to read your file so soon?”

You laugh. “I missed you. I couldn’t help it.”

And just like that, you’ve stolen the entire concept of fear from him. 

“I’m ready.”

“What?”

He looks at you and feels the loneliness slither away.

“Ask me again.”

[step-on-me-natasha]

Blade; chapter 3

summary: Parker "Blade" Wiles, a high ranking SHIELD agent with an aptitude for sharp objects, goes missing. When Blade is found again with a darker and colder demeanor, SHIELD, with the help of The Avengers, are tasked with finding out what happened to their colleague and friend. 

OC is ace and uses they/them pronouns

pairing: Natasha Romanoff x OC! reader

warnings: needles (IVs), let me know if there are any others

RECAP:

“I'm doing the thing Florence Wiles could never do.” The room went silent. All the lab assistants stopped working. Everyone just stared at the two of you.

“Knock her out and put em’ under, I don't have time for this.” Madam barks and for the second time that day, everything went black.

*Meanwhile at the Avengers Compound

After the mission, the rest of the team got off the jet while Natasha stayed behind. Still in your seat, her eyes scan the room and land on your journal. She chuckles to herself because only you would have a bright purple journal. She knows she shouldn’t look through it but she does anyway. As she’s reading through the two entries, her vision starts to get blurry. She wipes her eyes and stands up and walks off the jet straight to her room.

“Hey Nat! How’d-”  

“Not now Clint.” She snaps. She practically runs to her room and slams the door as she starts to cry. She sits down at her desk, turns to the next blank page in the journal, finds a pen and starts writing.

Hi Blade, it’s Nat, I know when you see this, because you will see it, that you’ll probably be mad at me for snooping but it was something i felt i needed to do. Your last words to me before you disappeared were “dont worry about me, I got this.” and part of me believed it. Foolish of me. I should’ve stayed with you. I know you're strong and capable and smart and you’ve been in a situation like that before, but god damnit I should’ve gone with you! Bucky thinks it's HYDRA, Tony thinks it's what's left of the Red Room. Men, ugh, So dumb. HYDRA has been wiped off the face of the earth and the Red Room is, as i said, retired widows living the life they deserved. I think it's something or rather someone else. Who it is, I don't know. But enough of this, I'm not here to write about who took you, I don't know why I'm writing. But, and I quote, “here goes nothing.”

The first day you walked into the compound, scowling face and all, I knew something was special about you. You stormed into the conference room, like you always do, and plopped in the chair you claimed your own. When everyone else joined you in the room you didn’t even look up until someone said your name and coughed. You stood up, said your name was Blade and sat back down. It was pretty funny if Steve “stick up his ass” Rogers wasn’t in the room. Something, I think Clint, said to “show your power” or something like that, and you walked out of the room and everyone followed you to the new high tech training room. You then found a bow staff, broke it in half, had Tony load the most advanced training sequence. You set a record, with the broken staff, in that training session, curtsied, and walked out the room.

Anyways, that's not what this is about, I wanted to write this to let you know that we, the team, are here for you. We care about you. I care about you. So, on that note, you better get your ass back here so we can eat some garlic bread and watch some shitty reality TV.

Love, Natahsa

She stares at her note for a little while, thinking about what she could’ve done to save you, to have you here with her. But instead of you being with the team, with her, you quite possibly, could be dead. She can’t think about that right now. She wipes her tears, closes the journal and gets ready to take a shower. After her shower she gets dressed in shorts, a hoodie and a pair of fuzzy socks. She makes her way out of her room to get something to eat while Clint slides in front of her.

“What's up with you? You got Barnes' broody scowl going on.” He says with a mouthful of food.

“That's cold Clint”  

“shut up Barnes, you know it’s true.” He shouted back. “Anyways, seriously, is something wrong?”  

“They’re gone Clint. They are gone and we don't know where they are.”

“Who?”  

“Are you fucking serious Clint? Blade! Blade is gone! And we have no clue where they are or if they're alive! And you're making jokes right now?!” Her eyes start watering again.

“Oh no Nat, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't know Blade was missing, I thought I saw them walk in.” He says as he pulls her into a hug.

At that moment, Nat lets herself cry. She balls up the front of his shirt and just breaks down. “They’re gone, Clint, and I don't know what to do!” She says through her tears.

“Nat what do you need me to do? Let me help.”  

“Find her Clint! Unbreak your arm and fucking find her!’ She cries.

*At the old HYDRA base

After the group of scientists knock you out, again, they put you in an armoured truck, with many following behind, to transfer you from this old base to the new MYST headquarters.

“Madam, what are we supposed to do with the new asset?”  

“Tie them up. And make sure that it’s secured, we don't need it escaping again.” Madam orders.

The ride is long and bumpy and these scientists have been pumping you full of fluids and unknown liquids. Pull up to a gate with a pin pad. Madam gets out, puts a passcode in and the gates open up. They pass through the threshold and into what looks like a parking garage. They park the truck and roll you out.

“Hey, hey what's going on?” You say as you start to wake up.

“Ugh, someone take care of this! They woke up again!” Madam yells.

“Hey, no hey! Let's not do this again!” You say.

“That's not an option sweetheart”  

“And why is that? Huh? I don't know what you want, other than a winter soldier”  

“I want what HYDRA took from me.” She says “Knock her out and start over! We will begin testing strength tomorrow morning!” Madam says as she walks away.

“God, what a bitch.” a scientist mutters under her breath. Heh heh, I like this one.

“I know, at least you're not the one tied to a bed” You say back.

She gasps, “you weren’t supposed to hear that”  “Well, I am a well trained spy and assassin, you learn how to pick up on small sounds.” you chuckle.

“Yeah well, still.” She says harshly. “Youre only here for one thing, and it’s my job not to fuck that up, so you weren’t supposed to hear that.” She says as she injects you with more unknown liquid.

You wake up in a new room, tied to a bed this time. Upgrades people, upgrades. Your eyes scan the room and land on two IVs dripping; one blue and one purple. I am going to die here.

“Ahh, you're awake.” Your head snaps to the right.

“Super soldier serum,” She nodded towards the IVs. “Whatever was left of what HYDRA perfected it, I got the last of it when it fell in 2014.” Madam starts.

“What's that purple shit?” You interrupt.  

“That purple shit? Really? I've been working on that for years and the best you can do is ‘that purple shit’? Really?” A small scientist comes out from behind Madam.

“Oh sorry, I should be more sensitive, what is that weird ass purple liquid that is being pumped into me?”  

“You're a rude person.”  

“Yeah well, I'm currently strapped to a bed with strange liquid being pumped into me. I'm obviously not thrilled about it!” You shout.

“Okay, enough! You two are children!'' Madam yells. Children (derogatory).

“The purple stuff is a concentrated metabolism booster. It makes you heal 3x faster than just the super soldier serum. It makes you basically invincible.”  

“Oh cool, does it give me laser eyes like Superman too?” wrong universe, shit.  

“You are insufferable!” The small scientist exclaims.

“Thanks, it’s my main character trait.” You sass back.

“Oh my god, shut up already!” Madam yells. “Dr. Nichols, you go prep the room while I handle the new asset.” New asset? Get a better name.

You roll your eyes and scoff as the small scientist storms out of the room.

“Got something to say sweetheart?”  

“No no, you do your thing”  

“In about-” She checks her watch, “10-15 minutes, you’ll have a small device inserted into the back of your neck, specifically at the base of your skull.”  

“Sounds painful”  

“It is. The device will expand and it will attach to your brain, causing me to be in control.”

oh shit.

“Cat got your tongue sweetheart?” You stay silent. “Well, nice chat! I'll see you later!”

She leaves the room as your eyes start to water. Oh my god. There is no way I'm getting out of this. As you sit there, waiting for what’s going to come next, nats face pops into your head. And the fact that there is a chance that you’ll never see her again, talk to her, touch her again, makes the tears threatening to fall, fall.

[deliontower]

life on mars | two | b.b

summary: y/n tries to remember her past but the longer she stays with Steve and Bucky the less she wants to remember

warnings: swearing, fluff, some angst, mention drowning, slow burn and last of all don't trust strangers even if they are very handsome

word count: 1.6k

A/N: this took longer than it needed but i was actually being social

ill do another edit later just wanted to get this out!

MAIN MASTERLIST | REQUEST OPEN | SERIES MASTERLIST

Though neither Steve nor Bucky said anything, they were definitely having a silence conversation. You watched half amazed half confused how they were doing it.

“You can stay with me” Steve finally said puffing out his chest.

“I-“ you start but were cut off.

“Just until you sort things out, after all I own you one” he said.

You nodded “Okay, thank you”.

As the three of you walked away, Bucky elbowed you, looking at him brows crumpled. “My coat don’t want you freezing up Doll”.

You felt your face heat up with what you told your self was embarrassment, “Thank you”.

Slowing your paste to put in the coat you took a moment to look at your what new friends? Acquaintances?

“Oh and if you own her one for saving your ass then you own me at least 40, pal” Bucky laughed throwing his arm around Steve shoulder lovingly.

When you reached Steve flat, it was just two rooms put together. One was the kitchen and living room combined, a shared toilet was down the hall, a small bedroom at the back.

Bucky said his goodbyes promising to return in the morning with some dry clothes. You tried to give him his coat back, with a smile and shrug he waved it off.

An hour had past and all you had done was stare ahead into the fire you tried to remember anything. It was like you lost apart of yourself in the water. Shivering you pulled Bucky’s coat closer around you. “Here” Steve sat down on the floor next to you handing you’re a cup of coffee.

“Thanks” you smiled holding the cup in both hands , welcoming the warmth. “I need to get out of these clothes before I get sick”.

“You can sleep in my bed, I’ll take the sofa” Steve nodded to a room in the back.

“How about this, we take turns?” you paused smiling, “I’ll take the sofa tonight plus I like the fire”.

Steve happily agreed, wishing you good night shutting the door behind him. You listened to the sound of people settling in for the night in the other flats. You stripped down to your underwear, leaving the dress to dry over the fire gate.

Under the cover you thought about how risky you were being, trusting two men you had just met, what was even more worrying was that you couldn’t remember anything. You knew things, but the fine details were blurry, like you were looking at it through water.

Even with your worries sleep came easy. But in your dreams you were back in the water, you were fighting to get out, kicking as hard as you could. Muffled voice called out to you, unrecognizable but you heard the worry clear.

When you tried to answer them, water entered your lungs, you kept trying hoping it would work. The more you fought the more distance the voice came. Something was trying to keep you still, you try to hit it away but whatever it was grabbed hold of you wrist.

You woke to find Bucky looking down at you.

Seeing that you were awake he dropped your wrist. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself”.

You carried on staring at him.

Bucky frowned worried. He walked from the back of the sofa and knelt by your side. “You good, Doll?”.

You blinked nodding rapidly. “Nightmare”. You shook yourself pulling yourself into a sitting position. “Did I hit you while I was fighting back?”.

He huffed smiling, “only a little but nothing I can’t handle”.

“You should remember what happened to the last man I hit” you smirked. The smirked fell from your face seeing your dress than disappear from this place. “Where did my dress go?”.

Bucky gasped silently remembering something pulling a large brown paper bag from behind the sofa. “Raided my sister’s and ma’s closets”, he dropped the bag on your lap.

“Did you ask them or am I aiding a thief?” you raised an eyebrow.

“well” he trailed off.

“If it comes down to it, I’ll hand you over, I’m far to pretty of jail” you laughed looking through the bag. Inside was different colour blouses, a few different skirts, and dresses. You looked up at him wide eyed, “you sure they won’t notice, this is a lot of stuff”.

“I have four sisters. This is surprisingly nothing. Sometimes might run a bit small”.

You lifted a yellow blouse from the bag and held it up against you, “I’m quite good with a needle actually, I could fix them” you lowed the blouse down meeting Bucky’s smiling at you.

As soon as you saw him, he looked away with an obvious shade of pink on the back of his neck. “you can get dressed in Steve’s room, he’s out”. He cleared his throat.

You walked across the room holding the brown bag, keeping the cover still wrapped around you. You had a quick look around the room when the door was shut, there was nothing out of the ordinary. A single bed, nightstand and photo lining the wall.

The oldest photo was a couple on their wedding day, his parents. Seeing it felt to personal too fast. You finished getting dress before leaving the room.

“I have a question” you started as you entered the main room again. Bucky looked up from his spot on the sofa. “What will you say to your family when they find out about me”.

He thought about it, “How will they find out?”.

You rolled your eyes, “A strange girl staying with your friend is going to bring up questions, so what will you tell them?”.

“What do you want me to tell them, doll?” he threw his head back smiling.

You shook your head at him. “you’re a tease”.

“I willing to put my money where my mouth is”.

You puckered your lips walking up to him. “Aww darling you wouldn’t know what to do if got the chance” you ran your finger down his cheek as you spoke. He turned a shade darker almost right away. “Might let you one day if you’re lucky”. You wink bating him away.

“Now whose the tease, doll”

-x-

Stood in front of the worktop you question why you had offered to cook. The bread you deemed easy was actually harder than anything you had done before. Working from memory had been your first mistake, you remembered someone telling you how to make the perfect bread but you obviously wasn’t as good.

“Did Steve say when he’d be back?” you asked Bucky.

“Wait he didn’t tell you? He was gone when I got here” Bucky head popped out from the hallway.

“I was asleep remember” you walked to the front door and lent against it, wiping dough down your skirt.

Bucky was knelt down fixing some floorboards, “Thought he told you then you went back to sleep”.

“Aren’t you worried?” question looking down the stairway and to the street below, “he could have gotta into another fight”.

You were shocked when he laughed. “probably”.

You held your forehead in your hand and sighed. “I don’t think I’d get used to this”.

You went back to the kitchen hoping to save dinner, “how’s things going in there?”, bucky called through.

Looking down at the messy dough on the worktop you laughed, “Let’s just say I’m no Sparkles”.

“Who?”

You bent back so you could look at him, “what?”.

“You said ‘I’m no Sparkles’ then I asked who that was”.

It came out before you thought about it, you kept your eyes on the ground trying to remember anything. “She was a friend, is a friend” you murmured. You lifted your head and met his gaze “she was my friend”.

“Do you remember anything else?” you swore you heard a hint a worry in his voice.

“nope” you grin. “How about we swap and you doing the cooking and I do the repairs”. You swayed your hips walking back to him, “come on James, what do you say?”.

Bucky swiped sweat from his brow, squinting at you. “would have to teach ya how to do it first” he tutted.

You got down on the floor next to him. “teach me”.

He studied you carefully before nodding. “be carefully not to hit your thumb”, he warned you. After watching him closely you took the hammer from him. Hesitating you doubled checked you had the right spot, you jumped when you felt Bucky’s hand on yours.

You made yourself keep your face down, the moment you felt his hand on yours heat spread across your face. His breath ran down your neck, raising the baby hairs. “I think I’ve got it from here” you muttered after the second nail.

He took a deep breath making your breath hard yourself.

“ehh what’s going on?”, both you and Bucky looked up to Steve who was stood watching at the top of the stairs.

You moved anyway from Bucky, dusting off your clothes standing up. “I was showing James how to fix the floor”.

Steve didn’t seemed convicted as he walked past you into the flat. “Dinner going well?” Steve laughed.

“so it turns out I’m not a good cook” you held up your hands in defence and laughed along. “The dough just kept sticking to the worktop”.

“You forgot to put flour on it” he pointed out.

You put your hand to your head sighing. “That’s what I was forgetting!”.

Steve smiled shaking his head at you, “I’ll sort it out”.

You smiled thanking him. If your memories were really gone, you wouldn’t mind staying here with Bucky and Steve for as long as they’d have you.

[fiore-rosewood9]

♫FrUk :D

Thank you for the ask, I will send a few songs that remind me of fruk, a whole playlist if you may, not only one song. I also touch a few of triggering topics as I explain the nations's personalities and relationships with one another so I apologize in advance if I upset/trigger someone and will put my trigger here - Warning - mentions of abuse, alcoholism, s*exual trauma. Under the explanation there is a playlist of songs that make me think of Ukfr/Fruk, so if anyone gets upset you can feel free to skip my general headcanons about fruk/ukfr relationship dynamics. There are too many songs that make me think of different characters or ships but I collected the ones that make me think the most of them.

I know the original song is by Lady gaga but this version is too sweet and cheesy for me so I chose the rock cover by the group Halestorm since I prefer it, it sounds more genuine and rough and kinda makes me think of the dynamic that ukfr/fruk has, that some people present is as just the enemies to lovers trope or them just fighting which is.....simply unhealthy????? Fruk is much more than that and I wish people would stop seeing it as a two dimensional thing, yeah they do argue on a lot of things and it is not the healthiest dynamic however it does work in my mind because they stick through thin and thick and that requires effort and true love since a lot of people nowdays do not take time to know the other person, they just jump into marriage and have a few divorces and just argue over everything and then separate, fruk is an off and on thing where they break and make. This kind of dedication is hard to find in today's couples. I know they're fictional characters and no one really cares but I practice my psychology skills and my knowledge of people around me, and I sometimes see people with similar or almost the same characters as fictional characters, they may not have all of their hobbies but they do act the same way. And certain pairs, no offence, just make me want to gag my self due to history with bad and toxic fans but if I look at it subjectivly and never encountered mean fans from a certain ship, I would say that they ship simply doesn't work. No ship bashing but as far as I know, people with this kind of personality from this ship that I dislike, and get upset when seeing fan art of, simply just do not get along and had a hard time divorcing, it is not only unhealthy and unbalanced, it is downright abusive because both partners seek control and to have the upper hand and this is not...what romance is about???? It is about two people taking care of each other, understanding personal space and boundaries, lifting each other up and yeah, they will argue a lot, sometimes for small things, sometimes for bigger things, but generally the point of romantic relationships is not someone using you, or abusing you financially and generally being better or bigger than you. This breeds insecurity and jealousy in the other partner and makes them feel inadequate. Usually such problems are not talked over and one of the partners acts passive agressive which is what ultimaltly leads to said divorce. So yeah, people can go away with their (BUT IT IS CUTE, IT IS SO FUCKING CUTE) pairing because real life pairings and how humans communicate and develop friendships and relationships isn't based on what your mind conciders and doesn't concider cute and there are lots of factors on whether relationship will ever happen like common interests, type personality, etc and just block me so I will never hear from them and their childish mindset ever again, which is why I blocked certain tumbrl fan art hetalia accounts who produce art of a pairing I (dislike) lowkey hate, for historical reasons, for manga reasons, for toxic fans who bullied me and made me go on 3 hiatuses reason and ultimatly in real life experience and psychology and how humans and the human mind works and what is healthy and unhealthy reason. Why should I support something where certain people have been hateful towards me and these same people that act like these characters and I know in my life are on bad terms in real life? Why shouldn't I just move on to something more realistic and more healthy, that I have seen that works with humans I know first hand? I am not a clinical psychologist and I have no power or saying in this but I had to write thesis and read books by psycholgists and analyze them in high school and my first year of Uni, in order to pass the year and I have also read reccomended books by a psychologist I went to because I wanted an advice on how to deal with my anxiety and talking to people, because my condition is extremely severe but I honestly feel stuck and try to improve but also feel confused, I sometimes feel like I am not doing enough to

self improve as a human. I sometimes come off as too cold or overly bitter and angry without intending to, and it sucks.

Francis is a really manipulative person and Matthew picked up that from him while part of Alfred's agression doesn't only come from confidence in his own abilities but the fact that England him self is an overly agressive person and is very dominant or at least used to be for a very long time, now he is more mild to keep his gentleman persona but he does suffer from severe anger issues which he hides while Alfred is prone to breaking things and screaming, Arthur is more prone to being rude, sarcastic and generally mean before he loses it. Matthew and Francis do not engage in fight if they can avoid it which is why sometimes people call them cowardly I think? And Matthew is a bit prone to being a codependent people pleaser as far as I see and he seems to have severe anxiety issues. Francis albeit charismatic and beautiful, is deep down in his core lonely.

I think that part of his pervertedness, shocking people with his s*xual humour and all of this sex obsession comes from trauma in his childhood and dressing like a girl. I wouldn't explain what the trauma in question was since it is not canon but I do headcanon that he had s*xual trauma and it is partly why Hungary dressed like a guy. I don't know if this is legit, it is bias from reading too much japanese fan comics relating to hetalia or just general history of humans and how they treated consent and what is moral today, wasn't amoral or against the law a few centuries ago, but I have seen artists touch on it. I think both Arthur and Francis suffer from neglect and they weren't particularly good fathers, in fact no country is, the whole FACE family is dysfunctional and while I love all of them, I kinda pity them. I think Rome was a bit discriminatory mostly towards France and never towards his other children while Arthur had to constantly prove him self and was bullied by his brothers. While other nations have suffered from trauma too (I headcanon that Prussia was burnt on stake and people threw rocks at him due to his albinism and being left handed) something similar happened to Arthur, who I headcanon that he was burnt for being a witch and Francis went a few times through the guillotine, or Arthur still having a bullet scar on his arm from the American revolution or Francis having nightmares from that day where Jeanne was burnt and waking up in his own sweat. Arthur also must suffer from workholism and alcoholism, judging by how much he works and goes to pubs to drink. Everyone chooses their own poison and how to cope with life and many use unhealthy coping mechanisms, hell, even I used unhealthy coping mechanisms a lot in the past and I am not proud of them, in fact, I try to improve.

I can talk about their history and how it relates to their mental health and what scars they have for hours but I would bore you. You came for a song and I am probably boring you so I apologize for writting a lot of words, in advance. I basically think that fruk/ukfr is the ultimate ship for many reasons because they click, I do ship spuk/engita/asakiku and many other things but fruk/ukfr is kinda like butter and bread, it is a great combination. I never said it is 100 percent healthy, however their relationship makes psychological sense and their personalities click. I know people like to present arthur as this dumb tsundere man that blushes and says baka, or he is this garbage rat dad that no one likes or francis is presented or at least used to be this perverted sex machine that touched other countries inappropriatly or at least the 2012-2015 fans saw him this way and while he still has the reputation of a pervert, what many young people in the fandom see as disgusting, I just see as an overly lonely man that just happens to have high libido and copes with it by having casual sex and just has a sex humour, the same way some people have fart jokes humour or darker, more cursed humour, I am really glad that fans mostly left off this whole - Francis is a r**ist and will grope you, in the past, because honestly r**e is not joke and as a character he clearly understands consent and boundaries and I don't think someone like him would do such a thing. Also Greece and Turkey have even higher libido than him and sleep around more, yet he is the ''pervert'', I don't get it??????????? but fruk is just so much more than opposites attract, they have a lot in common so I can't say they're full opposites, no one is truly. I have heard people ask why does anyone ship fruk when it is just opposites attract/enemies to lovers trope and I am honestly confused, because that is extremely rough generalization to say the least, it is like saying - All men/women are the same, it is simply wrong/uncorrect. I think they ''married'' five times - The Treaty of Paris (1657) formed an alliance against Spain. The Anglo-French Alliance (1716–31) formed another alliance against Spain. The Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata (1845-1850). The Anglo-French joint invasion of Qing Dynasty (1856–1860). And the last one which is their official marriage The Entente Cordiale (1904) fought together in both World Wars. As far as I remember Francis tried to marry Arthur but he refused and why he refused is up for subjective opinion but I must write a whole thesis on why Fruk/ukfr works so well and people are not here for that, they're here for the music and I will provide. I also always saw Francis as the more gentle and more submissive partner, I just love to see him drawn in frilly beautiful dresses with bows and stuff and Arthur as the more dominant, I mean as a country he was a powerhouse during the 1600s-1800s and used to be a punkrocker, usually rockers are mentally tough and that man is extremely cunning and witty so...people drawing him as this useless baka uwu overly feminine anorexic boy that looks more like a tween rather than a 23 year old guy just assasinated his character in my opinion and it disturbs me but I am just some awkward human on the internet and no one values my opinion anyway because this is the internet and many people nowdays love to have hot takes and try to gain followers through clickbait stuff which sometimes goes out of control and everything just seems more fake and shallow to me, the more old I get.Okay that was my silly rant no one asked about but I feel really passionate about hetalia and Fruk/Ukfr. Anyway, I apologize again for my long rant and going all over the place, please enjoy this playlist

PLAYLIST WITH SONGS THAT REMIND ME OF FRUK/UKFR

1 - Halestorm - Bad romance - rock cover https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll4NJs3NBIU

2 - Queen - Somebody to love - lyrics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj69iA_goIk

3 - ABBA - Voulez vous - (I know everyone chooses Waterloo and while waterloo is a fruk theme, I think Voulez vous works too) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcgMVXuBJc

4 - London beat - I've been thinking about you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixBryyQSrD8

5 - Santana - Smooth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Whgn_iE5uc

6 - George Michael - Careless whisper - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izGwDsrQ1eQ

7 - Robbie Williams - Feel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iy4mXZN1Zzk

8 - Michael Buble - Feeling good - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edwsf-8F3sI

9 - Edith Piaf - La vie en rose - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4

10 - Chopin - Marriage d'amour (Spring waltz) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFJ7kDva7JE

11 - Vanessa Carlton - A thousand miles - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERw2LuU6Jj8