#But man I hadn’t budgeted extra expenses…

[fairydustedtheory]

-

[laurfilijames]

Love and Lace

———

Pairing: Modern AU Kìli x female reader

Words: 3,390

Warnings: rated E. M/F unprotected intercourse.

Summary: You and Kili have a romantic dinner date planned and you intend to make it even more special for him by wearing a little something extra under your dress.

A/N: requested by my dear friend and one of my greatest supporters @the-poldarkian . You are truly the sweetest person and I’m forever grateful to have you as a friend and ally! I hope this is everything you were looking for; sweet, fun, romantic and of course, smutty.

The moment you saw the color of the intricately crafted lingerie, you knew Kìli would go crazy over it. Even you had never seen anything in this rich, dark green hue. Most pieces came in the usual black, white, red or pink, making this one stand out to you. You had to have it. It was stunning and incredibly unique, and a little out of your budget, yes, but you knew splurging on a special item like this wouldn’t go unappreciated.

The lace was surprisingly soft against your skin as you pulled it on, finding that most lingerie scratched at you or squeezed in all the wrong places and you were happy for splurging on the higher quality garment.

Watching your body transform into even more of a masterpiece as you positioned the straps and bodice to hug every curve, you turned to check out your backside and couldn’t help but grin and bite your lip at knowing how Kili would react when he saw you in it.

What if he ripped it right off of you in the heat of the moment and it was ruined forever? The thought was alarming, but he wasn’t so reckless, not all the time anyway…

You smoothed your dress overtop, disguising your surprise for later perfectly. You felt powerful, like a seductress about to bring her man to his knees, leaving him speechless. You shook your head at the thought, when was Kili ever speechless?

The date had been planned for weeks now, and you’d never been more excited. You and Kili had been seeing each other for months, but now things were really starting to take off between you. Both of you had been so busy with work recently that there hadn’t been many opportunities to see each other, so when Kili arranged this special meal at an up-scale restaurant it made the time waiting for tonight drag on more than usual in your anticipation of seeing him.

He was clearly excited too, having sent you sweet texts throughout the day, some simply saying I can’t wait for tonight!, others more longing with I miss your face, your body, I need to feel you in my arms again. He was such a romantic, so caring and attentive, and although you hadn’t shared the words with him yet, you loved him and knew the feeling was mutual.

As if no time at all had passed since the last time you saw each other, your chemistry was as electric as ever and your conversation flowed seamlessly. Your cheeks were even sore from how much he made you smile and laugh. The food was divine, Kili really had spared no expense, but even as much as you were relishing in every minute of this you couldn’t help but look forward to what followed your meal.

You watched him across from you, his bright smile gleaming at you as he told you a story about him and Fili when they were younger. He was the definition of handsome and suddenly you weren’t paying attention to his words anymore.

His hair was tucked up in a bun to pull it out of his face, the hair on his cheeks a rough stubble. You felt lost in him, finding yourself matching his infectious smile every time it spread across his perfect lips, his brown eyes luring you from across the table.

You shifted in your seat, the sound of his voice and overall look of him causing fire to bloom low in your belly.

“Y/N?” Kili asked, his question catching you off guard. What had he said that you missed? You cursed him for being so distracting.

“Sorry, I was lost in thought. What did you say?” you stammered, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“I asked what you’re wearing under that dress.”

Oh.

You looked down in a panic, your dress must have moved when you adjusted your position in your chair, revealing the secret you were trying to keep hidden from him. Your hands flew up to adjust the straps of your dress to make sure you were covered, and you gave Kili a shy smile as you recrossed your legs.

“You’ll have to just wait to find out, now, won’t you?”

When you looked back up at him his face was serious. He was no longer smiling and his eyes seemed to have darkened so much they appeared black. You swallowed hard, your stomach erupting with butterflies and heat rose up the back of your neck.

“Seems I better get the bill then,” he said in a low tone.

All you could manage to do was nod in agreement, suddenly desperate to leave and request that the waiter bring your desserts to go. Kili leaned forward slightly, bringing himself closer to you over the table and reached for your hand, running his nimble fingers over your skin.

“I really don’t think it’s possible that you could look more beautiful than you do right now, but I have a feeling that whatever else it is you have on,” he paused, his eyes lingering over your chest before darting back to your eyes, “is going to prove me very, very wrong.” His throat moved as he swallowed hard, clearly worked up by simply imagining what the rest looked like based on the glimpse he caught.

By the time you got back to your house, you both were in a state. Kili could barely keep his hands to himself in the car, not that you minded of course, his hand that wasn’t on the wheel slowly running up your thigh or tangled with your fingers.

Before you had time to open the door Kili turned you toward him, cupping your face gently in his hands, his eyes burning into you and a sweet smile tugging at his lips.

“Is everything okay, Kili?” you asked.

He smiled broader and nodded. “Absolutely. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed tonight, how much I enjoy being with you. You make me very, very happy Y/N.”

You returned his smile and wrapped your arms around his waist, his warmth radiating onto you. “Well, it’s a good thing the night isn’t over yet.”

As if his grin wasn’t big enough already, it grew even more as he chuckled and brought his face closer to yours, capturing you in an eager kiss.

Each time you kissed Kili it was like the first time all over again despite how many times your lips had met with his. He hummed into your mouth as though the taste of you was the most delicious thing he’d ever had the pleasure to try, which in turn made your hunger for him increase. You slid your hand up under his shirt and ran it slowly over the muscles that lay hidden beneath his hot skin, focused on the feeling of him.

Somehow between kissing you and tangling his fingers in your hair, Kili had opened the door and you both stood in your entryway, still entwined. Shoes and jackets were quickly removed and discarded as if it was a race to see who could undress the other the fastest.

Naturally, Kili seemed to be the one in the biggest hurry, his curiosity not having left him since the restaurant. And although he was desperate to finally take you in in your special outfit, he was savouring you just like every other time you were together.

Eventually you made your way through to your bedroom, Kili stripped down to nothing but his boxers, you still somehow in your dress.

Kili sat on the bed before you, gripping your hips to turn you to face him.

His gaze was soft as he looked up at you, his expression full of love.

You couldn’t help but smile at him, and ever so slowly you began to unzip your dress.

Normally an act like this would have made you feel vulnerable and too on display, but being with Kili made you feel so comfortable, washing away any insecurity you may have had.

As soon as your dress fell past your hips, Kili’s expression changed. He was in complete awe of you, lips parted and eyes full of astonishment, looking as if he was working to memorize exactly how you looked.

His hand came up from where it had been gripping the bed to carefully trace along the edge of the teddy that hugged your hip bone, the featherlight touch of his fingers making you shiver. His eyes followed the path of his hands, slowly making their way up your waist and over the curve of your breasts, feeling every intricate detail of lace and satin, the boning that held it all together. He stood, his hard cock probing against you through the materials that separated you, and placed his lips on your neck.

Your head fell back at the contact and you moaned as he peppered his way along your collarbone and breasts.

Despite not wanting to, Kili halted his ministrations and looked you in the eyes.

“Y/N,” his voice barely above a whisper. “You are the most exquisite and perfectly stunning woman I have ever seen.” His forehead leaned against yours and his voice somehow managed to sound huskier when he next spoke. “Everything about you is captivating. I can never seem to get my fill of you.” Kili brushed his lips against yours before continuing, almost like he was delaying what he intended to say next.

You returned his kiss, slow and sensual, stoking the fire that burned within your soul for him.

“This lingerie is pretty nice too,” he broke out in laughter and you couldn’t help but join him.

You tucked your bottom lip in your teeth and carded your hands over his stomach and up to his chest.

“I’m glad you approve of it. As soon as I saw it I thought of you.”

“Well, I very much approve!” he said with his classic Kili grin, the sight igniting your hunger and bringing you back to the heated moment you had been in just before.

You kissed him harshly, crashing your mouth against his with fervor, your hands moving up to rake through his hair and remove the elastic that held it back. While you continued tangling your tongue with his you went to remove the straps of the lingerie, but Kili was quick to stop you.

“No, no, I’m not done seeing you in this yet.”

You smiled against his lips and decided to focus the attention of your hands elsewhere. You plunged into his stretched-out boxers and gripped onto his girth, reminding yourself how much you loved the feel of him in your grasp, the size of him heavy in your hand. He growled against you as you stroked him, twisting around his base before moving to his leaking head.

Surprising you, Kili spun you around and backed you up against the bed, the back of your knees buckling when they hit the mattress, causing you to fall onto it. Sprawling yourself out on the bedding, you admired the view in front of you.

Kili pulled down his boxers, his cock springing free to slap against the dark hairs that decorated the area around it, another wave of arousal flooding the apex of your thighs. He bent down to lean over you, his face hovering over your feet that you rubbed together in anticipation of what his next move would be. Brown eyes glared at you as he planted a kiss on the top of your foot, then another on your shin, slowly crawling his way up your body.

“I love your toes,” he said between kisses. “Your knees,” another mark left in his wake. “Your thighs.”He gripped onto one with his hand, biting into your soft flesh which made the giggles that were leaving you turn to moans.

Kili paused at your core, his expression hungry, bringing his lips to the wet lace that covered you. Lingering here to inhale your scent, Kili brushed his nose against your tingling bud before moving his body further up yours and planting a wet kiss on your stomach.

“I love your belly,” he continued, “your hands,” he said, moving to kiss your open palm. His rough stubble tickled against the inside of your arm as he placed a kiss on nearly every part of your limb, “…your arms,” a mumble against your skin.

Now he was fully over top of you, and your breathing grew heavier. His mouth landed open on your breast, his tongue flicking the hard peak through the thin lace that barely covered it and your entire body shivered at the sensation. He pulled away, looking like he was about to turn feral, his own chest heaving from his want for you. One of his hands supported his weight on the mattress to hold himself up over you while the other ran up and down your side, simply enjoying the feel of the material on his hand. His face hovered over yours, his eyes flickering over your features.

You wanted him to plunge into you, to rip the garment that was keeping him from touching all of you and making you feel as good as he always did, but just as you went to tell him to remove it from you he spoke again, his voice low and breaking ever so slightly.

“I love you, Y/N.”

You watched him swallow after the words left his mouth and could see the emotions he was feeling clear as day in his eyes. Your heart swelled and you fought back tears, giving a smile instead.

“I love you too, Kili.”

Everything from then on was a blur of ecstasy, your mind clouded by elation and lust, your body acting on its own to chase the physical evidence of your love for each other.

Your legs wrapped around his waist to pull him closer to you, his cock pressing hard against you as your hips rolled together in waves. Kili left your mouth, his lips parted and wet, reaching down to pull the crotch on your bodice to the side. He ran a finger through your slick, ensuring you were ready for him, a guttural sound leaving his lungs in his excitement of filling you with himself. Your back arched when his fingers dove into you, hooking to massage the spongy spot he knew made you come apart.

“You look so good spread apart for me like this.” His voice was deep and startled you slightly, your eyes flashing open to see him taking every part of you in, the other hand that wasn’t buried in you lazily stroking his unattended cock.

Kili removed his fingers from you after giving you two harsh blows against your g-spot, his thumb pressed hard on your clit, the action making you clench and cry out before your body no longer had anything to move against.

“Kili…” you begged, needing him to touch you again.

Heat washed over you, watching as he placed his fingers that were coated with your arousal in his mouth to lick them clean, his hips bucking into his other hand as he readied himself more.

He leaned over you again, his breath fanning over your sweat coated skin, lining his throbbing shaft up with your entrance. A shuddered moan left you when he ran his thumb over his head, squeezing out a string of precum onto your clit. Making sure your lingerie still wasn’t in his way, Kili ran his finger between it and your skin, the material pushed over to the side even more to give him full access to you. He wrapped his arms under your hips and brought you up to meet him, pushing into your tight heat. He growled at the same time you cried out, feeling him pull out slightly before plunging back into you to fill you to the hilt. His mouth found your neck again and he nipped and sucked the tender area as he worked to set a tempo with his thrusts. You could feel his spit remain there as he traveled down to pay attention to your bouncing breasts, loving how unhinged he became when lost in his desire for you.

The tip of his member assaulted your deepest spot with every plunge, pushing you closer and closer to the edge, that familiar tingle beginning to spark at the base of your spine.

Kili reached a hand up to your breast, exchanging it with his mouth, pulling the lacey cup down to reveal more of you to him. His mouth quickly returned, his tongue hot on your nipple, swirling in a rhythm that matched his pumping and created chaos through your body. You moved your hips upwards to crash against his every time he pushed into you, sending him even deeper inside you, your swollen bundle of nerves rubbing harshly on his coarse, black hairs.

‘I love you’ filled the air as a mantra whenever his lips weren’t occupied elsewhere and you felt his words in every touch, only adding to your bliss.

Kili leaned back to sit on his heels, gaining more traction to fuck you both to your end, his fingers digging into your hips as he increased his pace. You loved seeing him like this, his form tall above you, him buried as deep inside you as he could be, his eyes dark as he watched your breasts shake in time with his movements.

As much as you wanted to see the satisfaction on his face as he finished you, your eyes shut tight as you began to fall. You felt his hand on your jaw, firm, but still gentle, and opened your eyes despite what your body was telling you to do.

“Keep them open,” he coaxed you, not easing up on his pace, “I want to see you when you come around me.”

You did as you were told, staring into his eyes as fire erupted inside you and your climax ripped through you, the glow in his brown ones keeping you focused as you detonated. You cried his name again and again, your nails digging into the skin on his wrists as he circled your clit and pounded into you harshly. Kili’s teeth clenched together and he joined your wails, your eye contact never once breaking as he pumped you full with his cum.

His body folded over yours and he wrapped his arms around your back, pulling you close to him while you both settled from your highs. He found your mouth again and kissed your lips gently, his hair falling in front of his face to tickle against your cheeks. You felt him pulse a final time in you, the sensation of his hot spend against your fluttering walls the most wonderful thing.

Kili smiled at you before settling himself to lay on you completely as you tucked his curls behind his ear. He was heavy, but you didn’t mind, loving to hold him in your arms while you drew imaginary designs on his sweaty back, his cock still safely encased inside you.

“I could stay like this forever,” he said quietly against your chest that was still partially exposed.

With a hum you agreed, “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

It was silent for a couple of minutes, both of you blissed out and close to dozing off, when Kili began tracing the pattern of the lace that covered your midsection.

“Please tell me you’ll wear this again.”

You couldn’t help but laugh, loving how he always made it happen so easily.

“If wearing it results in this each time, I’ll put it on everyday.”

He turned his head to look at you, his cheeks plump from his grin.

“You know I can’t keep my hands off of you no matter what you wear, but I’ll be sure we put this to good use.”

“I’m holding you to that, Kili. This wasn’t cheap!”

“I could tell, I think I would’ve ripped anything else,” he gave a cringed look before chuckling again, stopping when his gaze fell on your lips.

He captured them, kissing you slowly and sensually, his body moving against yours in a way that told you he was ready for more of you.

“We better start getting your money’s worth now then, my love…”

———

Everything: @guardianofrivendell @midearthwritings @cassiabaggins @lilith15000 @trishthedishofreis @linasofia @unbeatablecurlgirl @the-poldarkian

Kili: @valquiria3000 @fandomfaery

[yinses]

daddy nanami you say 👀

read at your own discretion. i have no regrets anymore.

old habits truly die hard as nanami often finds himself at a desk in front of a computer more than he would like. its easy to think how being a sorcerer was all about exorcising and dispelling curses. forgetful of the that it’s still a career with expenses that such a resources, transportation and maintaining the school grounds. just because they protected the world didn’t give them a free pass to evade taxes. 

nanami doesn’t enjoy budgeting for the school but its a necessity. and his background education puts him in the unfortunate position getting the job done quickly and right. after dinner he told you he would convene most of the evening in his office crunching numbers to prepare for the exchange event. he didn’t miss your pout. nanami knew you were expecting to coax him into bed for a more enjoyable way to burn hours into the night. 

it was why he wasn’t the least bit surprised to feel your presence hovering behind him not even an hour later. you had always been a needy little thing. never pleased with being told no. it should have been an aggravating trait but nanami was so obsessed with the need to give that it kept him from being a stronger man. he was too pliable to the soft purse of your lips as you stretched out one of his button ups with your anxious fingers. 

the shirt is too long, easily skirting your knees but he knows what hidden under. the way you’re pacing in place, thighs no doubt squeezing together to contain the persisting throbbing of your clit. god, he bet your panties were soaked. no doubt dripping from the attention of your greedy digits just prior. 

the glare of his computer shines against his reading glasses as he absently pushes the keyboard away, i’m almost done. he really wasn’t, but his voice was too weak to try and convince you of anything else. 

you tell him its okay. though your actions say otherwise as you crawl into his lap. his assumptions were proven too as he can feel the damp material at your apex brushing against his crotch. you tell him to keep working, that you can take care of yourself all while lifting yourself onto your knees just high enough to pull down the his pants. nanami is unashamed at the sound of his hard cock, fat with fullness as it slaps against his stomach. 

go back to work kento, you whine as you sink down onto him without preamble. as if he could even think about numbers while your essence dripped down to his balls. fuck, he’d bankrupt the entire sorcerer organization before the night ended. 

but he tries. shakily dragging the keyboard back to him as you work yourself into a frenzy in his lap. god, you’re being extra bratty today knowing what you’re doing to him as you squeak about how big he is, the perfect size to stretch you out. you bounce eagerly, taking him to the hilt with every rock of your hips. see daddy, i can work too. 

nanami’s hands are moving, something is being typed but it doesnt matter. he’s going to have to do it all over again in the morning. nothing is comprehensible past the little grinding you do with your clit against the base of him. 

youre not working, daddy. you said you had to work. you try to be insistent but your speech is broken into whimpers and cries as you hump away. he was nothing better than a toy lost without a manual as you controlled the pace and depth to your needs. 

he feels the signs. sure that yo’re breaching the climax as you squeeze around him like a vice.  hm-ah.. ken i’m going to cum. and you do, making quite the mess against him as you ease into slow quakes against his still hard cock. nanami wasn’t that far behind, maybe a minute, possibly less of your cute little bounces and he could follow you over the edge. 

that felt so good, ken. nanami can’t help but meet your nuzzles, dragging his nose from your throat to cheek and back again as his hands grip your thighs. a second orgasm would be nothing to you, still a breadths way for overstim. his hips rock in preparation, ready to chase the peak when you’re suddenly pulling away. dislodging yourself from his lap onto to shaky legs. 

thank you daddy, i think i can sleep now. then you go about pressing an innocent kiss to his lips as if you hadn’t just left him high and dry. 

good luck with work. 

then you just left him. walked away without a second glance with just his hand and a broken excel sheet.

[incarnateirony]

Gotta admit, I'm a bit anti Jarpad. Just because he comes off as entitled. BUT given how he and his wife have their hands in the fans pockets EVERY SINGLE DAY, I'd have thought he was far more minted going forward than Jensen. Neither have anything to worry about.

Corollary of that is Jarpad seems to know how to spend, his wife dresses in 10 grand of clothes daily and he wears 200k of watch on his wrist. Investment watches are usually kept pristine, not worn daily. His wife wears a 1.5m engagement ring. They frequently put pictures of the house on her blog and it's stuffed full of expensive crap. I'd feel claustrophobic living there, seriously.

Please correct my points, cos I'm really interested!

1. Lol-jackles (who is a bit of an arsehole IMHO) said JP would be getting the same for Walker as for SPN and extra (cut of profits as exec), so that's around $200,000 dollars per episode. The ensemble cast of Walker looks really expensive so that surprised me. Do you think that's true?

2. He shoves his overpriced vitamins #Mantrafamily down his fans throat and they are EXPENSIVE. He's an investor, though he's changed his story on his position several times. How much do you get from them?

3. He apparently owns a lot of property, including student housing in Austin.

4. He is owner or part owner of San Jac and Stereophonic in Austin.

5. His wife shills products daily on her blog

FYI, I HATE the "family" tag. The family is the fans not the stars. My test, I know my family's phone number and they wouldn't get an injunction if I went to anyone of their houses. Apply that test to J2?

Fans are PRODUCT to actors and definitely to Jarpad "I care so much I want you to feel better so buy my yellow vitamin wee"

I mean I never said Jared would end up homeless in a box. You can be blackballed and have money in the bank, these two statements have nothing to do with each other.

I haven't checked the Walker payrole. That statement could be true, but I'd say to take it with a grain of salt until you see a receipt about his paygrade. For example, on SPN last I knew he was making about 125K per episode (Jensen was 175K, Misha was just over 100K).

Jensen's value was higher due to a mix of... well, quality, quality of his representation, and the fact he had a few other skills in his pocket on access like directing.

Jared being a producer on Walker likely is worth a paygrade boost, and he headlines the show, truly. It's a matter of how his agent negotiated his worth.

On the other hand, it would be INCREDIBLY stupid for CBS/CW to accept a pitch that high on Jared on a show that hadn't been tested for its success. If Walker was still running its 0.3X in appropriate follow-up to SPN on the same TV season, sure. I guess. But with its fairly stable 0.15 for the last bazillion episodes that is rounding it up or down to 0.1 or 0.2 depending on its thousandths, that is baaaad. The first season should have been more conservative on its paygrades, but CW isn't known for the wisest business decisions and may have highly overestimated its potential appeal, in which case--LOL.

There is some wiggle room on potential budget because at a base, Walker is not a very expensive show to shoot, as it can just drop a camera in real world locations and roll from there. Very little CGI and the like. Again, I'd have to review what the show budget is to see what's going on.

Now to clear up some other things:

Jared does not actually own Stereotype. His friend owns Stereotype. He supported them early on with a small investment but his respective share is not enough to be a decision maker or an "owner" any more than anybody else that owns some stock in a company does. San Jac he is one of the owners of. One of. He holds far larger investment in it with several friends, so he is one of a few co-owners.

Things Jared owns:

Several empty lots

His fancy ass house everybody knows about worth about 5 million (Gen's been given power of attorney)

The "student housing" is:

a 4 bed, 2.5 bath home also for families, that can be arranged like a multifamily unit if needed. If you saw it from the street, you'd go "awww, that's a cute house." (some dude nobody knows has power of attorney--he owns a building company, not gonna be more specific)

a 3 bed, 2 bath home (power of attorney guy has this too)

A funky little duplex with 4 bedrooms per unit, best I can tell. (power of attorney guy has this too)

A singlefamily 3 bed home (different power of attorney guy)

One random suite in a business building with like 200 suites granted to him by a family member

The three with matching "power of attorney" is basically the three rentable ones so Jared himself doesn't have to be your landlord. In total there's 15 bedrooms between three properties (one truly multifamily, one arrangeable-as). These properties aren't located anywhere near each other. There's another 3 bedroom home in there that may be rentable. And some office space that got passed to him and basic cross searching in the past brought up a billion bankruptcy filings so I'm pretty sure it was "quick, Jared, take this".

jared doesn't own some giant mega campus complex. Jared owns a few homes that in theory could be rented out to students. This isn't unusual nor is this something the Ackles don't have too. Jared is the equivalent of that dude you find that owns a couple of houses and rents them out, but he goes through a property management agency by proxy of a building company that does the renovations that puts it in there for him, on 3/4 homes. He's not a landlord titan. He's a guy with a fraction of side income by the time it gets to him on a few properties.

So let's get that set straight before anybody makes it sound like Jared floats the student housing business in some lucrative scooby doo real estate scheme.

AND THEN THERE'S MANTRA:

Yes, Jared is a co-founder of Mantra. Which is honestly... god, don't get me started on why Jared Padalecki should not be simultaneously broadcasting for mental health and then packing nootropics down people's throats. (x for general nootropics) (x for phenibut in particular, which might explain his outburst on SM)

(That's just the one that jumps out as most problematic but the cocktails involved could really just not go over well with the wrong person, some of these things are like mixing OTC ritalin and SSRIs)

At the end of the day, regardless of the ethicality of mantra, I mean, sure, it's a business decision. It makes money. At the end of the day, though, this is not a career move.

Again, nobody ever said Jared's gonna end up living homeless in a box eating beans out of a can. The discussion is whether or not he has arranged himself a viable career forward in media.

Renting out a couple homes by proxy isn't gonna land him roles.

Selling miracle water that turns people into paranoid messes (but with great memory!!) isn't gonna land him roles.

Owning a bar isn't going to land him roles.

None of this actually adds any content to the discussion of Jared Padalecki's professional media career, which his stans keep trying to enter to the conversation to offset discussion of Ackles' business acumen in the acting field.

These are nonstarters in the conversation, at the end of the day. I just wanted to set straight some general details about them.

Jared has a future with an INCOME, but that doesn't mean he's arranged a future in MEDIA. And leave it from Jarpad stans to try to fuck up that conversation.

News flash: Rich White Man Bought Stuff To Make Money. More at 11.

The inability to see how this isn't the same as like. Owning a production company. And owning a record label. And owning a publisher (mostly for vinyls but other potential). And having establishment across multiple distributors and production hubs (WB, Amazon) as a path forward in media is B A F F L I N G.

[sasa-gay-yo]

Maybe (Levi Ackerman x Female!Reader)

Request / Summary: I was wondering if you could write about female y/n being taller than Levi (he's 5'2" and y/n is 5'7"). Sharp, rational mind, she's the new quartermaster and in charge of the supplies... she was asked to cut unnecessary orders. So she terminates the tea supply contract... Levi's not happy and confronts her about it. It takes several arguments to convince her to conclude a new tea supply contract... VERY annoying... but damn, he likes her wit.

Timeline: Season 1 - 2 ish 

Warnings: some swearin’

Art Credits: AoT (I think?)

“Budgets are very important to adhere to when you’re trying to fight against a never-ending force of titans, Captain Levi. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.” You sing-songed those last words, finding happiness in the sheer annoyance that graced his face after. This was power.

“And who gave you the order to cut my tea supply?” His hands turned into fists, keeping his distance so he didn’t have to stare up at you. You noticed this and made sure to take a few steps forward to look down at him. On an everyday basis, you were below him in rank, but this situation made you feel so powerful. Erwin had approved this budget right in front of him, so it was funny to see him so upset over his precious tea that he, himself signed away.

“I did. Does your tea have the same ability to feed the entirety of the Scouts for an extra week? No, it does not. It was either bread from all, or tea for one. I think we all will appreciate your sacrifice, Captain.” He grit his teeth and you could see, physically, how irritate he was with you. While it was a bit scary, your new status as quartermaster made your training sessions almost disappear with how busy you’d become. He couldn’t discipline you if you weren’t able to be present. 

Also, it wasn’t like your decision was wrong. If he went to Commander Erwin to talk about it, he’d probably say the same thing. He definitely knew that. That’s why he was spending so much time here arguing with you, rather than going directly to the higher ups. You smirked at that thought.

“You were asked to cut unnecessary orders, Cadet. The tea supply is a necessity.” You held up your clipboard to his face and he glared at the paper as you used your pencil to explain to him the budget.

“Your tea supply cost the same amount as three bags of flour and yeast. As I said before, food is a necessity, Captain. I can’t, in good conscious, let my fellow comrades go hungry while you have a cup of tea every night. Also, it’s Quartermaster (Y/L/N) now, hence the ability for me to cut your tea supply from the shop in Mitras. If you’re able to find me a cheaper and closer shop to buy from, then all means… Captain.” He didn’t like the way you sneered his name and he wanted to make you run laps out in the hot sun instead of standing under this tent causing him mental anguish, yet he couldn’t think of an argument against yours. He just wanted his tea. No, he needed his tea. The caffeine was what allowed him to stay up and not fall into his nightmare’s grasp. The caffeine was what allowed him to function after a night of no sleep. He needed to convince you to put that back on the list, even if that meant the brats didn’t have bread for a week.

“You’re dismissed, Cadet,” he said, walking away from where he came to find you. You laughed at his actions when you thought he couldn’t hear you, seeing how ridiculous the Captain was acting after not getting his specific and expensive artisan teas. You saved so much money from cutting the export taxes alone, that it was worth the little grumpy short man and maybe a few more laps around HQ. However, you would apologize to the new cadets who were definitely going to get the brunt of his anger. If it got really bad, you could just give him a bit of your “commoner’s” tea.

The next time he confronted you was two days later at dinner. You didn’t know he was behind you, but you were telling the new cadets all about Captain Levi’s attitude. They were complaining how harsh he was towards them, and the older Scouts, like yourself, were all recollecting stories of your first time meeting the Captain.

“The first time I interacted with Captain Levi, I flirted with him and shorty made me run laps until sunset. He was probably just flustered, you know. Captain Shorty doesn’t know how to react to pretty women, I guess.” You didn’t notice the kids freeze up when they saw who approached behind you. You just kept on going, probably digging yourself in a bigger and bigger hole as Levi stood behind you, arms crossed and ever so irritated.

“One time when he was disciplining me I reac-”

“Quartermaster (Y/L/N), unless you want to run laps again till sunrise, I suggest you stop telling such ludicrous stories to the new cadets.” You smirked, turning around with the cup of tea you had in your hand. You’d taken the liberty of using your own stash, as a drinker of the liquid yourself, and now you were going to flaunt it in front of him. You took a sip before talking back. 

“Captain Levi, I didn’t see you there! Do you want to talk about your tea supplies with me? I have a meeting with Commander Erwin next week about next months orders…” You trailed off, sipping at your tea, but not hiding your smirk. You now had something over the Captain that was worth far too much for him to annoy you or dish out a punishment. He knew that. If he made you run into the sunset, the tea was going with you. There would be no mention of it at your next meeting with Erwin. Gripping his fists behind his back, he made sure his face was that normal, annoying look when glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

“No, (Y/L/N), I just came here to tell you that I do, in fact, know how to handle pretty women. That’s why I made you run. Have a nice dinner.” The new cadets snickered behind you as you gripped the teacup hard. 

Oh no, forget about dangling it in front of his head. There was no way you were going to let him have it after he insulted you in front of everyone like that. You turned around and glared at Jean who was laughing the loudest out of the others. That tea was gone now.

You let him know it, too.

As you were walking out of the Mess Hall, you made an effort to stop at the officer’s table in front of the Commander. He smiled up at you while Levi’s glared was evident to your left.

“Commander, do you have time tomorrow or the next day to push up the supply meeting? I think that with the winter coming soon, shipping lines are going to be cut off by impending snow. Ordering a week earlier would be most beneficial, especially since our supplies are already dwindling.” Erwin agreed with you, noting that this foresight is why he assigned you to the position that was vacated by the other Quartermaster (who was killed by a titan).

“I can meet with you tomorrow after lunch, Quartermaster (Y/L/N). Just come to my office!” You smiled back at him and turned your attention to Levi. As you walked by, you mumbled something under your breath, but you knew he heard you. Payback was served to the cocky man you hated ever since you stepped foot on the Scout HQ grounds.

“You’re never getting your tea back, Levi.”

And at the meeting with Erwin, you did just that. He agreed with your plans completely, signing off on it without any protests. You would be excused from training the next day, and would be riding into Trost to set up the order with Reeve’s Company. You might even make a day out of it, needing a fresh haircut and maybe a relaxing stroll through Trost. Then, Erwin called out to you before you could walk out through his office door.

“Oh, by the way, (Y/F/N), Captain Levi will be personally accompanying you to Trost tomorrow.”

-       

You hadn’t talked at all. You just sat next to each other in the cart while the horses pulled you along towards Trost. He made you do all the work too. You hitched up both horses, tied them to the cart, and you were now holding the reigns to make sure they stayed on the pebbled path. He just sat there the whole time is his normal position, one leg up and blank expression. It made you extremely annoyed and he could feel the anger radiate off of you as he sat, which made him smirk. Getting the upper hand on you was one thing that Levi found recently brought him joy.

“Permission to speak freely, Captain?” You had enough. He wasn’t shocked at your request, but he wasn’t sure he’d let that upper hand go. If you said something out of line, he’d jump at the chance to punish you… but he allowed it because he was curious. Besides, he was excited to see what useless insults left your lips today.

“Permission granted.”

“Why the fuck are you here?” It almost surprised him, the tongue you had on you, but he also knew the cadets you were friends with. You’d even taken some of the new ones under your wing, Jean and Connie. Levi has punished them various times for their filthy mouths, and he’s heard it millions of times, but never towards him. You should feel honored that he let you say that to him.

“I just wanted to take a trip, Cadet. Besides, a woman shouldn’t be travelling by herself in a world like this.” You gave him an annoyed look and rolled your eyes. Again, you should feel honored he’s gracing you like this. If any cadet did that to him, he’d kick them off the cart right away and discipline them. Again, he was just curious.

“I thought you didn’t give a damn that I was a woman, Levi.” He put his arms behind his head, closing his eyes. You were making this too easy for him. It was when your anger got the best of you that your insults were sloppy and uncalculated. He’d also made the same assessment when it came to your fighting. Perhaps that’s why he’d always insult you before fighting drills, knowing he could get the upper hand. Still, it was going to an easy day for him if you acted like this. 

“With a mouth like that, how could I consider you one, (Y/F/N)?” You scoffed, but a thought popped into your head. He said speak freely, so you were going to do just that. You couldn’t let him win, not when you were going to be stuck with him all day.

“With height like that, how could I consider you a man, Shorty?” You felt him freeze next to you, now instantly regretting his permission. You knew how bad he wanted to kick you, and the tone of his voice hardened.

“Permission rescinded. Say something like that again and you’ll be locked up for insubordination and be punished.”

“You know I don’t mind punishment, Captain. Especially with you.” He scoffed, closing his eyes again and making sure that you didn’t see his flush. How nasty was this woman he was sitting next to? You just laughed at his reaction. When you were a new cadet, you gained the brunt of Levi’s punishments, simply because you didn’t give him the legitimacy the others did.

Everyday, you would find some way to make your presence his problem. At first, it was openly flirting in front of him, trying to get some reaction, only to be punished by running or cleaning. Next, it was besting your partners, just so you would have to fight him. Levi usually didn’t struggle to fight with new cadets, but you would give him a run for his money. You never won, but you’d get so devilishly close that you knew it slowly frustrated him. The last thing would be questioning his orders, which he hated the most. While you knew to never do it out in the field, it was fair game during training. Why should we hold our ODM gear this way when you don’t, Captain? I don’t think that’s the best formation, Captain, why did you choose that? He would physically punish you then, which gave you fuel. Perhaps it was the way he led others with insult, or the fact everyone bowed to him without question that pushed you to never listen. Slowly and surely, you were wreaking havoc in his mind, but nothing permanent to really stick it to him.

Then, you were given the Quartermaster position by Commander Erwin. As insubordinate you would be to Levi, you knew who and when to rub up to others. Besides, you liked the other officers. Erwin discovered your experience with supply work and inventory at your family restaurant, so he put the job up to you. When you saw that Captain Levi had personally requested to break the rules and order five personal items instead of one, you knew it was your turn to punish him. You didn’t know how much joy it would bring you to erase the tea order off of the inventory chart until he came marching into the supply tent.

“You would be a better soldier if you listened to authority, Cadet.” It seemed the only way he could recover with you was to insult you back into submission. His voice was softer then, calmer and more composed: normal. To you, he seemed to be more serious, but it made you roll your eyes again. You didn’t care if he caught you.

“I am a good soldier, Captain. You don’t put worth on my fighting skills, but on my ability to listen to you.”

“If you listened, you would be an officer by now.” Levi knew you were a good soldier. You would rush out on the field and sacrifice your life or horse or swords for any comrade, regardless how they treated you at dinner the other day. The only time you would listen to Levi without question was on the field, too, and you would execute his shouts with speed and precision. He knew that the new cadets looked up to you, too, after saving many of their assess on the first expedition with Erwin’s new formation. If only you were the same off, then you would be on Levi’s Squad at least, if not in the officers’ cabinet.

You knew that too. You heard the others’ praise your skills and critique your behavior. You wouldn’t let anyone tell you what to do unless they had legitimacy in your mind. Erwin was amazing at strategy and kind to anyone, Hange was extremely intelligent and didn’t care who you were, and Miche was just soft and wouldn’t hurt a fly unless they threatened his squad. Levi was an amazing soldier, but it seemed that was the only thing he had. You didn’t give appreciation to those with bullied others with their brawn.

“I don’t want to be an officer, Captain. Quartermaster is the farthest I’ll go.” He frowned, knowing that one day you’d probably be promoted due to someone’s death. Maybe even his. You had to have known that.

“Why?”

“Papers please! Where in Trost are you- OH! Captain Levi!” The Garrison member bowed only once, seeing Levi’s annoyed face as he cut him off. You handed the papers, smiling, and was permitted into the district, turning right away to get to Reeve’s. You had no intention of answering his question, and he didn’t press anymore as the horses galloped up to the depot. When you hopped out, you smiled at all the workers, knowing they’d give you some extra supplies if you buttered up to them. It worked last time, but you were alone last time.

“Flegel! How are you today?” He looked directly at Levi, not even caring that you just greeted him. You just rolled your eyes again at the two and went to work, picking up the things on the list and signing. Levi didn’t get out to help once, he just sat in the cart, looking down at you like you were an ant. At one point, you stood next to the cart, noting that you were almost equal to his sitting height. You straightened up to make sure he realized it too. 

“I thought you came here to help, Captain.” He scoffed and sent another glare at Flegel who was shouting at some worker.

“I thought the Commander was clear in that I’d be accompanying you. I have no intention of doing heavy lifting.” You leaned back on the edge of the wood, marking off the rush supplies they put in the cart. The only thing that was left was the heavy bags of flour that three people needed to carry. You wondered if Levi would order you to go back right away, or he’d let you go off and do errands of your own.

“You’re right, he didn’t say. You probably couldn’t carry any of these things either, they’re a bit heavy… Captain.” Before he could say something back, hearing your insults, Flegel couldn’t help but join in. He’d told you on your previous supply run that he disliked the short man more than anyone in Trost and it stemmed from an apparent mess up and fight over Levi’s tea order. Go figure.

“Some of these packages are taller than you, Captain Levi. We can’t have our strongest soldier getting hurt by some wood, can we?” His question was directed at you, hoping you would jump in and support him, but after feeling the anger radiating off of Levi behind you, you knew it was better to not indulge him. Flegel was the easier target in this situation.

“I’ve never seen you carry any packages, Shorty.” He paused in his tracks, now noting that your insults were not on his side. They’d never be on his side. You stood up to your full height, trying to tower over Flegel as you handed him the list to sign. He was mumbling something under his breath, and you wouldn’t let him breath.

“What was that? Speak up, I can’t hear you from up here, Flegel.” With that, he walked away without saying goodbye, and your smile was the largest Levi had seen it. In fact, Levi was also satisfied with the way you put the fat boy in his place. Only a little bit surprised, though, that you defended him after insulting him yourself. It seemed to put him in a better mood and he even offered to buy lunch to take back.

You took the cart outside of Trost, letting the horses rest and eat in a meadow before the heavy ride back. Levi and you were on the grass eating, him leaning against a tree. He’d bought pork buns and you noted that it seemed to be his favorite food. You noticed his change in mood, which was probably the reason he’d bought you the buns, but didn’t press it. You also realized this was probably the first time you’d talk to him at length without getting reprimanded or into a fight.

“Is that fat boy always like that?” You huffed in laughter at the nickname he’d given Flegel.

“No, usually he tries to get me to eat dinner with him and I always deny.” Levi could imagine it in his head. If the way you acted in front of him was restrained, he wondered what you would say to the boy once you were all alone. Maybe he’d come again just so he could witness you insulting someone other than him. He had to admit, it was funny, and he wondered if that’s what it looked like to others as well.

“How do you deny him?” This answer might get rid of his good mood.

“I tell him I don’t go out with men shorter than me.” He just rolled his eyes and took another bite. Of course that was your answer. You’d do something daily to remind Levi that you were taller than him.

“Why did you come again? You could’ve saved yourself the time and insults.” You looked up at him from your seat on the grass, having eaten all the buns. He was a slow eater.

“To get my tea back. I saw it in the Reeve’s storage room. What a waste.” You laid back on the grass, looking up at the sky. It was getting colder, and you could tell by the heaviness of the clouds that your prediction on early snow was going to be correct.

“All officers get only one personal item per request. Erwin’s is a leather-bound journal, Hange’s is glassware for experiments, and yours, if we list them all off, are cleaning supplies, tea, a new broom, extra milk, and a fresh linen shirt. When I went to Erwin about it, he just told me to get rid of the most expensive thing and let you have the rest. If anything, yell at him, and stop bothering me about it.”

“I don’t need the linen shirt. Take that off and give me back the tea.” You laughed at him again, and it made him pull back the annoying look. His good mood was quickly leaving.

“Your tea supply is equal in price to the cleaning supplies, broom, and linen shirt. I can only let you have the extra milk and tea. We’re in the middle of a famine and supply shortage, Levi.”

“Captain,” he warned you, and you knew the mood of your previous conversation had flew out the window. You sat up, giving him your best glare. He wasn’t thinking rationally about this at all.

“Look, Captain. I’m given only a specific amount of money per month and have to balance out needs over wants. The Scouts need food, water, and winter clothes, that’s without question. Then, because you’re an officer, you’re supposed to get one thing with the excess money. Even the Commander has given up his leather-bound journal this month because of the recent inflation, and we weren’t about to have any left-over money for budge room. Like I said, it was either your tea or the Scout’s necessities which you also use. Even so, you’re still getting an unequal four other items. For someone who’s so stuck on me following the rules, you really like to use your position to break them.” He looked like he was going to kick you right then and there. You were at the perfect height for him to do it, too.

“I need the tea.” He crossed his arms, trying to forget what you just said. He knew he was being selfish, but it was never a problem before, or rather, the previous Quartermaster was afraid to call him out on it. Maybe that’s why Erwin promoted you out of the blue, knowing you weren’t afraid to tell him.

“So, you want me to cancel the orders for cleaning supplies, the broom, the shirt, and the milk?” You saw his jaw clench. No, he didn’t want to lose those either.

“I use the tea so I can recover from lack of sleep.”

“And if you didn’t drink the volume of tea you did, you would be able to sleep. You seem to be doing just fine without it.” You gestured your hand towards him, and his eyes followed.

“Do you know why I don’t sleep, Cadet?” His voice was lower now, and it made you draw back your hand, thinking he’d probably attack that first. You’d seen him some nights when you couldn’t sleep, just sitting alone in the mess hall drinking a cup or two. Seeing his state at night, dark eyes and dark circles, you didn’t feel like it was morally right to bother him then. It always had a dark tone, whenever you looked at him at night. His head was always hanging low and his hand had a death grip on the teacup. You had an idea why he didn’t sleep.

“Is it nightmares, Captain?” You saw his hand grip the last bun hard, his movements stopping. You knew you’d gotten the right answer, but he wasn’t actually looking for you to answer. Now, he’d had to brace himself for whatever words came out of your mouth next. Were you going to call him weak? Laugh at his pain? He wouldn’t put it past you, yet you just sighed.

“If you can find me someone in Trost, I can set up a contract with them. The tea’s export tax sends the budget over. It would also be better if you permanently got rid of one thing. You could steal a broom from the supply closet, no one but me will notice.” Levi didn’t buy it.

“And then you’ll report it to Erwin again? Announce it to the cadets that I’m stealing from the closet?” You could hear the anger in his words. Who did he think you where? Sure, you’d make fun of him for other things, but not for something he couldn’t control. He could control being an asshole, but not his nightmares.

“No, I won’t, but if you keep protesting my goodwill, the deal’s off the table, Captain.” You stood up to get the horses ready to leave. He still found it annoying that his tea supply hinged on your favor, but this deal seemed much more open than the last.

It took him another month to show up in the supply room as you were auditing. The weather had gotten extremely cold, always being able to see your breath as you went outside, and you knew that it had to be a special occasion for Levi to come outside since he hated the cold. When you turned around to see him, his eyes were bloodshot, and the black circles were the thing most evident on his face. Since the blizzards came, there was no training or expeditions, so you hadn’t seen him for a while, and you wondered what he’d gone through to look like this. Was it the nightmares?

“I found somewhere in Trost that is up to my standard. Here.” His voice was tight was he thrust the contract into your hands. The signature was empty, waiting for you to put your name down, but you were about to ruin his day even more. The blizzard was eating up supplies like crazy, and firewood was quickly running out. Unable to go out and cut down trees, the supply closet’s surplus was bring used up hourly. Moreover, a group of mice had gotten in and eaten through food and clothing, causing you to make this random audit to see the damage. There wasn’t going to be any leftover money this time for him to bargain a tea contract. You almost felt guilty for having to tell him this after personally giving him the option.

“I’m sorry, Captain.” Levi noted this was the first time you’d apologized to him, but he didn’t want to take it. The nightmares got worse as the sun faded from the sky earlier and earlier. He’d run out of all the tea he could find, and now he was forced to fall asleep and wake up in a cold sweat at three or four in the morning, just to stare at the wall before he fell asleep again. When he had tea, he could get up and drink it, not afraid to fall asleep again. He needed tea, any tea.

“I’ll give up everything like you said.” You almost dropped the pencil when he said that. You’d never seen him so desperate for something and you wanted to give it to him so bad, but it was something that couldn’t be done. Not this month. No officer would be getting their personal requests.

“I’m sorry, Levi, I can’t. Not this month. No one is getting their personal requests because of the mice mishap and the snow. I-I can try next month?” He just sighed and ripped he contract out of your hands.

“Nevermind. Forget what I said.” You wanted to stop him from walking away to see if you could work it out, but he was too quick. His cape swished in the winter wind as you watched him walk back to the castle, only to be submerged in the white snow. You felt guilty that you couldn’t give him what he wanted. He was suffering, and you could see it on his face too. He probably thought you were denying him the tea just to see him suffer even more. The next few days he snapped so easily at everyone that your daily insubordination completely stopped. You would just stare at him in the mess hall, willing him with your eyes to come back and talk to you. He never looked back at you, but he knew you were staring.

“You have to get the audit done by the end of this week. It seems we’ll only have a day window for you to get to Trost and back before a big storm comes again. Can you do that with the budget?” You looked down at the list of items you procured, only for Erwin to tell you that the budget was cut down again by the Royal Government. You’d have only a day to rethink the items needed.

“Yes Commander, I can redo the budget tonight.”

It took hours to do, but you did it. Instead of outright buying new jackets, you pushed back the spring supply, and just ordered patches to be sewed on. Then, you go to work figuring out how you were going to do it. If you allotted certain funds to different types of flour, cheaper versions, and you were able to receive beans instead of meat, you could get protein without the added shipping and cooling costs. As soon as you got to the number you needed, you let out a shout that echoed through the empty mess hall. Finally!

“What are you doing up, brat?” You seized up, turning around to see him, this time in pajamas and tossed hair. He looked even worse than the other day when he came to see you.

“I could say the same to you.” You didn’t add your usual insult at the end, knowing he wouldn’t be able to stand it. It looked like he was already fighting some other demons.

“Oh, you know, slowly dying of exhaustion thanks to the Quartermaster. Nothing new.” You held in the urge to roll your eyes at him, knowing what you’d just written down on the order sheet. He wouldn’t be saying that soon. If you stayed in this room, you would probably revert back to your old ways and start a fight with him. You’d only be able to do that after the shipment came in the next two weeks. Oh, how you longed for the day you could insult him in front of the cadets at training again. 

“I’ll leave you then, Captain.” His eyes seemed to light up a bit as you started to get up from the bench. He also noticed how your attitude towards him changed after your trip to Trost. Although there weren’t training sessions for you to sass him at, you would bow to him in the hallways and not talk back when he said something to egg you on at dinner. Sometimes he would catch himself missing it; discipling you just to hear your new insults the next day. While it was annoying to no end, it was refreshing. He needed to be refreshed.

“What, no snarky comment? You wouldn’t let me say something to you like that before, (Y/F/N).” You knew what he was trying to do, but you also knew the dangerous line you walked on. He was looking for something to punish you for, perhaps. Now that he knew he wasn’t getting tea, he had nothing to lose and a person he usually takes his frustrations out on right in front of him.

“No, Captain. I have to deliver this to the Commander.” You walked past the door and he grabbed your arm, making sure you didn’t leave. You looked into his eyes and for the first time in your Scouting career, you were scared of what would happen next. 

“I can give it to him for you.” He looked down at the paper and you pulled it back so he couldn’t see what was on it. His bad attitude was going to ruin your surprise. He took this action as your anger. 

“No, Captain. It’s fine, go get some rest.” His hand didn’t leave your arm and you glared down at it. His grip was starting to hurt and that smirk on his face was getting really annoying. 

“I can’t get rest, Miss. Quartermaster, because of you.” You ripped your arm out of his grasp and his smirk grew. There it was. That’s what he was looking for. You knew you’d lost the game of keeping in your temper. 

“If you keep acting like this, pretty soon you be able to walk either, Captain. Now if you’ll excuse me!” When walking to Erwin’s office, you almost erased that tea order right off the list, but you held yourself back. When Erwin went over the list to approve it, you saw him smirk over the last item, and maybe, just maybe, that made all the trouble you just went through worth it. 

“He finally convinced you?” It was the first time you’d crossed your arms in front of the Commander, but it just made him laugh. He was happy you finally obliged Levi because he was almost to his wits end hearing the Captain complain about your new appointment. Hopefully, next week, he would have a happier, more alive Captain.

“No, he was just too annoying to handle anymore, Commander. I pray he won’t notice that I took off everything else he ordered, because then we’ll be back to square one.” Erwin nodded and signed the paper, making you take a breath of relief. You could go to bed and sleep in tomorrow before you’d put in the order.

“I’m sure he’ll appreciate having a tea supply back, (Y/F/N).” You just sighed and dismissed yourself to your quarters. When walking to the showers, you saw the glow of a candle still coming from the mess hall. Levi was sitting there, drinking something, scowling down at the table. It was the same scene you’d seen over and over.

You threw the small package you had at him, narrowly missing his head. He grabbed the paper, snapping his head to look at his attacker. When he saw it was you, his smirk increased. He guessed it was too tempting not to come back and torment him. At least it was something to do.

“Since the Commander even complained about your whining, you can have the rest of my tea. It’s probably not up to your high standard, Captain, but I don’t think you’re in the position to choose.”

“And I don’t think you’re in a position to have that tone with me, Cadet.” You just rolled your eyes, having a mutual understanding that he wasn’t actually going to do anything to you tonight. He saw the clothes and towel you had in your hands, and you saw how tired he was. If anything, you should be telling him to go to bed again, but you knew that he’s probably afraid to fall asleep. The tea would help tide him over till the next delivery.

“It’s Quartermaster. I swear, even if I get promoted, you’ll still call me cadet.” You turned to walk to the showers, but his next insult disappeared at your statement.

“Why don’t you want to be promoted?” He asked you outside of Trost, and you didn’t answer him. It bothered him a bit, but not enough to ask you until now. You were a perfect candidate for a leadership position in Erwin’s eyes, and Levi knew that. He just wanted to know your reasonings, that’s all.

“I don’t want to have to be in meetings with your sorry ass, Captain.” He glared at the back of your head, and you could feel it as you walked away. He even thought about throwing the tea sachet back at you, but it was too precious. He had a terrible nightmare, so he was not very excited to fall back asleep, and you basically gave him a cure all. If he was smart, he could use this tea for at least a week and maybe take a personal trip to Trost and get more. Either way, he was grateful for your change in attitude towards him, even if you’d still sass him around HQ with your words. He’d take that over nightmares. He even dismissed the idea of punishing you tomorrow for swearing at him. 

Once the shipment of supplies came in the next week and you handed everyone their rations, you had your sights set on Captain Levi’s office. You knew he had a meeting with Erwin in the afternoon, and it would be easy to sneak into his office and leave the box of tea on his desk. Once you got inside, you decided to leave him a note. One last thing to piss him off before he’d see you at dinner. You’d give him a smug look all night, too, maybe even going to sit at the officer’s table and pretend to talk to Hange. No, you weren’t giving him this tea to make a point, but you still wanted him to know he’d have to be thankful to you for once. Maybe you’d even make a visit during his nightly mess hall tea break, just to emphasize your point.

Shortie,

Remember that night you bruised my arm? This is what I was doing. I expect you to bow at my feet during dinner, but it shouldn’t be hard since you’re already close to the ground.

You’re Welcome,

Quartermaster (Y/L/N)

When he found it, he smirked at the note, opening the box to see the tea he requested from the company in Trost. The note was annoying, but he couldn’t stop staring at your handwriting. You were fucking annoying too, but he couldn’t stop staring at you during dinner either, sipping a cup of tea. You’d chosen the perfect spot in front of Hange, making it easy for him to look at your features. Little did you know, he was enjoying your presence while you were trying to rub into Levi that you saved him.

“Hange, you have no idea how hard it was to get everything ordered within budget. I stayed up till three trying to figure out the math!”

“If you had half a brain, then maybe you wouldn’t have had to stay up that late, Quartermaster.” Your gaze snapped to him, glaring, but not missing the fact he called you your proper title for once.

“If I remember correctly, you were up too, Captain.” 

Hange cut in, making sure that both of you atoned for how annoying you were. Every time you two were together, the constant bickering made others listening develop a headache.

“If I remember correctly, I found you two flirting in the mess hall!” She made sure to yell that out loud so that the other cadets looked at the scene she created. Everyone heard her loud and clear and Levi was about to kill her. How dare she make such accusations?! 

“As if!” You crossed your arms, glaring back at Levi.

“Flirt with her?!” Hange could feel the animosity between you two, but she also noticed how red both of your faces had become.

“He’s the most annoying person I’ve ever met!”

“I am?! Have you heard yourself speak, (Y/F/N)?” You stood up, huffing in anger.

“I don’t date men shorter than me.” 

“And I don’t date stuck up brats.” You gripped both of your fists and realized that if you stayed any longer, your face would get incredibly red and you’d have to throw hands with Hange, so you left with everyone watching you. Levi was now in recovery mode, glaring at all of the cadets so they would turn away in fear.

“How can you not see how annoying she is, Hange?” He took another sip of the tea that you had given him. Maybe, he’d grown to prefer whatever brew you gave him that night in the mess hall. It was minty. He liked mint. 

“Mhm, Levi, sure.”

Maybe, he’d have to catch your annoying ass later tonight and ask you to order whatever personal blend you’d given him.

“Don’t look at me like that, four-eyes. Go oogle at some titans.”

Maybe, he’d catch you and start another little fight about the tea order, or force you to tell him why you didn’t want to be an officer.

“Oh, like you were “oogling” at (Y/F/N) tonight?”

Maybe.

xx this one took a LONG time to write haha I hope you like eet xx

[seasonofthewicth]

A Groovy Kind of Love - Chapter 6

AN: I feel like I’ve got my mojo back with this fic a little bit, this was so fun to write and I hope it’s fun to read too!

masterlist

------

First days were always nerve-racking, and this one was no different.

Aelin knew she had no real reason to be nervous other than the fact it was new, she had prepared what she needed, even taking extra time this morning to make sure she had put on a swipe of make-up and a smart outfit to feel primed for the day.

She’d taken it upon herself to wake Fenrys up half an hour earlier than normal to make sure he would be ready to leave on time, she knew he normally rocked up to the school right on the bell, but she needed to be at least five minutes early to meet the principal, lest she look unprepared.

Fenrys had left her outside the principal’s office, waiting for the woman to arrive, taking in the blue carpet of the floor and the wooden panels of the walls. The school was in an old building, with mostly traditional décor that gave it character unlike her old school. She liked it. Even though the chair she sat in was hard and uncomfortable as she shifted her weight while she waited for the principal to appear.

She had been thankful for Fenrys’ comforting presence in the car on their way, he had chattered away filling her in on the harmless school gossip, distracting her from her worries about the new school, but now he was gone, off to teach his own classes for the day, the nerves had settled back in.

He had been almost more excited than Aelin about her new role, glad to have her at the school, and he had championed most of the drinking the night she had found out. She had had a great night, each of her friends seemed genuinely happy for her and had toasted to her all night, even once she had gone to bed they had continued to celebrate.

She hadn’t managed to quiz Lysandra after her kiss with Aelin’s cousin, whenever Aedion came up between the two Lysandra had been quick to change the subject, embarrassed at her drunk actions and the fact that they had even played truth or dare at all.

Aedion had recovered well, from Lysandra’s determined ignorance of his existence every time she saw him since, and Aelin was relatively sure he had brought a guest home from the night she hadn’t made it out to and had instead gone to bed.

Gone to bed might have been putting it generously, she remembered the way Rowan had guided her to her room. A gentle hand making sure she didn’t stumble, tucking her sheets over her and leaving a glass of water for her to down in the morning.

Her heart gave a squeeze at how gentle he had been.

Heels clacked against the cheap flooring and she glanced up. The woman striding towards her was dressed smartly in a black pencil skirt and a navy blue blouse. She had a couple of decades on Aelin, but her dark locks didn’t have even a hint of grey, nor did her harsh face have the beginning of a wrinkle.

The woman strode up to Aelin and presented her with a hand.

“Miss Galathynius I presume? Welcome to our school.” Her voice was stern but polite and Aelin stood and shook the hand she was offered. “I’m Maeve Valg, Principal, we’re glad to have you on board. Please follow me.”

The woman, Maeve, led the way into the office Aelin had been sat outside. Aelin nodded, greeting the woman and following her in.

Inside the office it was tidy, shelves lined the walls, overflowing with books and files, but organised in a way that Aelin was jealous of. Her own organisation wasn’t lacking, it couldn’t be, as a teacher she needed to know where things were, but she could never reach this level of military-style precision.

The Principal took a seat behind the large wooden desk in the centre of the room and Aelin dropped to the seat on the other side, facing her.

“Welcome,” She said again, a polite smile on her lips.

“Thank you, it’s great to be here.” Aelin said, folding her hands in her lap.

First impressions were important, and she knew she’d be able to get away with much more at a later date if she gave Maeve the initial impression that she was to be trusted.

Maeve nodded.

“It’s great to have you here, I was impressed with your interview, and I’m confident that you will fit into our school ethos well.”

Aelin smiled. She knew from Fenrys that the school valued the community spirit and communication between teachers a departments, she was excited to get stuck in. She told Maeve as much and she received another slight smile.

A knock sounded at the door behind her and Maeve called for whoever was on the other side to come in.

“Ah yes,” Maeve said standing from behind her desk. “I’ve invited Mr Havilliard to show you around. He can give you a bit more information than I can as I have to attend a meeting now.”

Aelin turned to the man in the doorway and saw he was grinning at her.

He was as handsome as a Disney prince, his thick dark hair curled around his ears, and his deep blue eyes were striking and sparkling. She took in his clean white shirt and pressed trousers where he stood. He wasn’t as tall as her roommates, but he still tilted his chin to smile down at her.

“Dorian Havilliard.” He offered his hand. “At your service.”

She shook his hand. “Aelin Galathynius.”

He grinned at her even wider than before. “Follow me Aelin,” He turned to the door with a nod behind her at the principal.

“Thanks,” She smiled at the dark haired woman before following Dorian out the door.

Once in the hall, his posture relaxed, and Aelin adjusted hers in response. He led the way down the nearest hallway, the corridors empty of any students given that the first period had already begun.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s a hard ass, but you get used to it.” He told her, his voice was low and smooth.

“Right, good to know,” She joked. “I was worried.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. She’s like that with me still and I’ve been here for years.”

She blinked; he couldn’t have been much older than her. He must have sensed her confusion, or seen the look that crossed her face, and said, “I’ve been here seven years, got the job straight out of college, worked my way up to be one of the assistant principals last year.”

Impressive, Aelin noted. He must have been at least couple of years older than her then, making him maybe thirty, if her quick mental maths added up.

“What do you teach?” She asked him, curious about that path he had taken to get where he was.

“English,” He told her. “I love it, have loved it since I was a kid.”

Aelin shared his interest, she had loved reading ever since her childhood and her mother had bought her book after book when she devoured the stories one by one. She supposed that was where her interest in history had stemmed from, reading historical fiction had led her to historical non-fiction and she found the tales of knights and kings and queens to be fascinating. Sweeping her away into tales of honour and warfare and romance, distant enough from her reality to transport her away.

They were making their way down the halls, Dorian pointing out the points of interest on their tour, telling her where the cafeteria was, where the main hall and staff rooms were. He showed her where her office would be, and they walked past the classroom that would become hers once she had time to make it her own.

“So,” He turned to her after walking her through the grounds of the school, showing her the sports pitches and athletics track. “What’s your story?”

She pondered his question for a moment, chewing the inside of her lip slightly as she took in his smile and the way he was walking close to her, his shoulders leaning into her own.

“My story?” She shrugged, flicking her eyes out across the field in front of her. “I lost my old job to budget cuts, but I’d been there for a couple of years. I actually moved here after college when I qualified and then got the job pretty much straight away.”

He nodded along as she spoke, a dark curl of his hair bobbing along his forehead as he did, but then he tilted his head at her, a piercing look in his sapphire-blue eyes.

“I knew you weren’t from around here, but I couldn’t place the accent.”

“I’m from Terrasen.” She told him, thinking fondly of her home country and her parents who lived there still. It’s rolling mountains and grassy plains that she had explored as a child, sometimes alone, sometimes with Aedion when him and his parents came to visit.

“My accent isn’t as strong now that I’ve been in Adarlan for so long.”

Dorian only smiled at her. “I like it.”

She smiled, unsure how else to respond. Was it wise to flirt with a colleague? She wasn’t truly sure she wanted to flirt with him, and she fought the part of her brain that flashed an image of Rowan up at her. She was trying her best to keep her distance, at least in that respect.

“I teach history, I love it, but I love reading too. I also live with Fenrys, I don’t know if you know him?”

“Fenrys?” He questioned. “Coach Moonbeam?”

She nodded and watched something flash across his face at the confirmation, something she’d have to ask Fenrys about. If his reputation had ruined her first friendship at the school before it had barely had chance to start she’d kill him.

“Yeah,” She confirmed warily. “We live together. He told me about the opening here.”

“I see.” She couldn’t place Dorian’s reaction to her roommate, so quickly changed the subject.

“Any advice for this school?” She asked as he held the door open for her to re-enter the building.

“Not really,” He huffed a slight laugh, scratching his jaw. “Stick with me, and a couple of other teachers here that are pretty sound, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah? You’ll have to introduce me.”

Maybe if she could make her own friends here she wouldn’t have to follow Fenrys around like a lost puppy.

He checked his watch, something silver and clearly expensive before saying, “Actually, I think some of them might be free now.”

He led her back through the hallways to the staff room he had pointed out earlier and pushed into the small room.

There were kitchen counters around the sides, a number of cupboards no doubt stuffed full of mugs and plates, standard for a school staff room. There were tables and chairs dotted about the space and at one of the tables sat a man and two women, each nursing a mug that based on the smell she knew contained coffee.

“Aelin,” Dorian began. “Meet Chaol, Yrene and Nehemia.”

He pointed around the table as he made the introductions.

The man, Chaol, was stern looking but his expression lightened when he offered her a small smile, his copper-brown eyes crinkling at the motion. The woman next to him smiled widely at Aelin, Yrene, was beautiful, and her brown hair fell in spirals down her back, golden highlights standing out. A shining ring on her left hand glinted as she waved at Aelin around her mug.

The final woman, Nehemia, was striking. Her dark skin was smooth and her raven hair, braided down her back, had small elements of gold scattered throughout. Nehemia shot her a sly grin upon introduction, Aelin liked her immediately.

“Guys meet Aelin Galathynius. The new head of humanities, Terrasen native and Fenrys Moonbeam’s roommate.”

At Dorian’s introduction Chaol nearly choked on a mouthful of coffee and Nehemia outright cackled. Aelin needed to ask Fenrys about it.

“Hi Aelin,” Yrene smiled at her, her face kind as she waved a hand at the teachers on either side of herself. “Ignore them, welcome. How is your first day going?”

“It’s fine so far,” Aelin said as she followed Dorian over to where he was fetching a cup of coffee and grabbing her own. “I’ve had a great tour.”

Nehemia laughed again, “Right.” She said sarcastically and Dorian flashed her the finger.

“Where did he show you? I’m sure he probably managed to leave somewhere out,” Chaol cut in, his tone ribbing Dorian again.

“Everywhere, I think. Or at least I’d hope so.” She said, taking her seat next to him, Dorian slotting in on her other side.

“Hmm,” Chaol hummed, shooting an unimpressed look at Dorian who held his hands up, grinning at Chaol.

“I did!” Dorian protested to Chaol who rolled his eyes and sighed a laugh. Aelin laughed along, she could tell Chaol was exasperated, but fond of Dorian.

The dynamic between the group was easy, friendly and teasing, but clearly a very tight knit group. Chaol and Yrene were an adorable couple, very much in love, Dorian had sung at her when she had asked. Nehemia had a killer sense of humour, mostly at Dorian’s expense, but he always laughed along, taking the jokes in his stride.

He had been extremely friendly towards her. Filling all of the gaps in her knowledge without her needing to ask, touching her gently on the arm when he directed the conversation to her.

He was an extremely attractive man, with a charming kind of confidence that she normally would have been all over. Had she met him in a bar, she could see herself sliding into the seat next to him and flashing him a small smile while she accepted the drink he would have offered to buy her.

But they weren’t in a bar, they were at work, and he was technically her boss.

She could hear Lysandra’s warnings, you know it’s a bad idea, she would tut before reassuring Aelin she could find a man anywhere else, that she didn’t need Dorian and his disarming smiles.

Lysandra, as per usual, was probably right.

------

The rest of her day flew by quickly. She had a brief introduction to her classes from Maeve, fresh out of her meeting with the school board, and she had had some time to move her belongings and teaching aids into her classroom. Tomorrow would be her first full day of teaching and she was prepared.

It was only later that evening that she remembered to ask Fenrys about Dorian and his friends’ reactions to his name, even though they had driven home together he had filled the journey with tales of his students and their inabilities to play simple games.

She cornered him in the kitchen as he grabbed a beer from the fridge, resting her hand against the island, blocking his exit as she asked.

“Dorian Havilliard?” He questioned; his face carefully blank.

“Yes, do you know him? He had an interesting reaction to your name.”

More than just that, his friends had outright laughed at Dorian when Fenrys’ name had been mentioned. Surely all of the outlandish situations her imagination was telling her were way off, it had to be something small.

Fenrys sighed, taking a swig of his beer and lifting a hand to rub the back of his neck.

“Dorian Havilliard and I have a history.” He winced as he said the words.

Aelin groaned. She could try to repair any fights they had had; she knew she could definitely blackmail Fenrys into an apology, she liked Dorian and his friends.

“What kind of a history?” She narrowed her eyes.

A blush started on Fenrys’ neck, spreading up to his cheeks.

“A… sexual history.”

“No!” She gasped.

She ran through the interactions she and Dorian had had today. She felt a blush creeping up her cheeks, she had thought he had been flirting with her, complimenting her accent and the way he had been leaning into her. How had she read it so wrong? And Fenrys had a… history with him?

Fenrys bit his lip as he nodded.

“Oh gods,” She groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I thought he was flirting with me.”

Fenrys shrugged, unbothered by both her reaction and his own revelation. “He probably was, to be fair. He flirts with everyone.”

It was that moment that Rowan chose to come into the kitchen.

She fought the small wave of embarrassment at the sight of him, at the thought of the conversation they had had when she thanked him for putting her to bed. She hadn’t been sure whether to mention it or not but decided it would have been worse to not acknowledge it.

He had been graceful, reassuring her with a small smile that it was no bother. Which she appreciated, had the roles been switched she would have made sure he got to bed. Well, she would have tried.

And she was grateful, any of her other roommates probably would have left her on the couch. Lorcan probably would have even taken photos of her passed out, probably would have enjoyed seeing how many things he could have balanced on her sleeping form.  

“Who flirts with everyone?” He asked, stepping around her to get to the fridge.

He was dressed in his usual uniform of jeans and a flannel shirt; this one was green, and it complemented his silver hair.

“Fenrys’ ex, one of the teachers at the school.” She told him, but Fenrys shook his head around a mouthful of his beer.

“Not my ex,” He said once he had swallowed. “It was a one-time thing. Years ago.”

It reassured her slightly that she hadn’t been crazy, and that she had probably picked up on the cues from Dorian correctly.

“He was flirting with you?” Rowan turned to her, pulling his own beer out of the fridge, his tan face unreadable.

“I think so,” She pursed her lips.

“Oh,” Rowan’s voice was quiet, and he looked down to the beer in his hand.

“It was probably nothing,” She found herself saying. “I wasn’t flirting back.”

“You could.” Fenrys said from beside her. “It would be fine with me, he’s a decent enough guy. Good in bed too.”

She pushed him on the arm, and he laughed.

“Didn’t need to know that,” She laughed as she pushed his arm again when he made a suggestive gesture at her. “Get out that’s gross.”

“Didn’t think you were a prude, Galathynius.” He teased, but turned from the room, blowing a kiss at her as he left.

She turned to Rowan, who remained leaning against the counter opposite her, picking at the label on his beer bottle.

“Office romance on day one, huh?” He teased her, his lips twitching with the smirk that was threatening to break through.

“Stop that,” She told him. “It was very light flirting.”

He shrugged at her, taking a sip of his beer.  

“If that even, he probably wasn’t. Or maybe I’m making it up.”

“Now you stop.” Rowan told her; his eyebrows drawn as he pushed off from the counter. “Why wouldn’t he have been flirting with you?”

She raised her eyebrow at him, unimpressed, daring him to continue.

“I’m serious,” He continued, stepping over until he was directly in front of her.

Every time they were close she was struck by how much bigger he was than her. And how good he smelled, his pine and snow combination was clean and fresh, she took a deep breath in.

“Why wouldn’t he want to flirt with you?”

She tilted her head up to look at him, suddenly vulnerable in what had previously been a light-hearted conversation, taking in his serious expression. His eyes were earnest as he looked into her own.

“I don’t know,” She started, not drawing her eyes away from his. She wasn’t sure she was able to. “After Arobynn I haven’t been flirted with for a while.”

She loosed a self-deprecating laugh.

He put his beer down on the counter, resting his hand on the counter by her side, his front was almost pressed up against hers now and her breaths came quickly.

“Of course you have,” He told her, his voice soft. “Maybe you just haven’t noticed.”

She swallowed hard.

He picked up a piece of her hair between two of his fingers, smiling gently as he twisted the strand around a knuckle. Aelin liked his smile, it showed a lighter side of him, and he looked especially handsome when he did.

“I think I would notice if guys had been flirting with me.” Her voice was rough as his other hand came down on the bench by her waist. He boxed her in to the island now, close enough to her to share breath, as he hummed in response.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she felt as if an electric current was thrumming below her skin at his close proximity.

“I’m not convinced.” His voice rumbled over her skin, his breath brushing her ear sending shivers down her spine as she tucked her chin down at the sensation. Her action pinned Rowan’s face in the crook of her neck, but he didn’t pull away, instead he pressed his face into the spot where her shoulder met her neck, breathing her in deeply.

His lips brushed against her neck, their touch feather light.

Aelin couldn’t move. She was sure she was panting now; Rowan’s own breaths had increased their pace where she felt his chest pressing against her own. Each brush lighting sparks along her skin.

She needed to be careful, this would look incriminating to any of their roommates if they walked in now, but she couldn’t connect her brain to her body.

While her rational brain was screaming at her to step away and put some distance between herself and Rowan, her traitorous body urged her to press closer into Rowan. Urged her to press her hips against his own and generate the friction she craved.

Rowan’s brain seemed to work faster than her own as he drew his head back with a hiss, leaning on his heels to put some distance between them. She felt the cold where her body now touched only air.

His green eyes were dark, almost taken over by his pupils as he scanned her face.

He cleared his throat and picked his beer back up of the island.

“I think you’d notice.” He told her with a hint of a smile.

He stepped back from her fully and left the kitchen without another word. She heard his bedroom door close before she managed to breathe again.

She screwed her eyes shut as she squeezed her thighs together, trying to convince herself she felt nothing.

He was a rutting good flirt, damn him. She definitely noticed.

------

tags:

@jesstargaryenqueen​

@maybekindasortaace​

@slytheringalathynius​

@http-itsrebecca​

@morganofthewildfire​

@in-love-with-caramel-macchiato​

@fictional-horan​

@tottenhamboys20​

@dressedindustandshadows​

@sleeping-and-books​

@perseusannabeth​

@ireallyshouldsleeprn​

@superspiritfestival​

@aelinfeyreeleven945tbln​

@spyofthenightcourt​

@jlinez​

@queen-of-glass​

@booknerdproblems​

I’ve combined the tag list for this fic and general tog for ease, but I’m not convinced I’ve done it right so let me know if I need to make any changes.

[clarkesrifle]

Title: The Forgotten Day Pairing: Levi Ackerman x nb!reader Warnings: None, no spoilers Genre: Fluff Word Count: 2.2k Summary: The Survey Corps had no time to remember birthdays -- it was a miracle that anyone knew each other’s name, really. Imagine your surprise when you found a crudely-wrapped item with your name on it on your forgotten day. Ko-Fi | Requests! Notes: Unedited, written when I was lonely.

The Survey Corps had a high turnover rate, as was natural with the profession. How many had died since its establishment? Were any of them remembered, or was all that was left of them was a tiny inscription within the seemingly endless book of those that died in the service to humanity?

Birthdays were unimportant. For some, remembering that comrades were human beings with families, lives, and histories made their duty too difficult. It was decidedly easier to ignore those things. Comrades, at the end of the day, were a means to an end. A partnership doomed to fail. It was easier to forget about them when you didn’t know their important days.

It was hard for you to grasp at the beginning of your tenure. Despite your family’s economic status within the walls and regardless of your experiences with your birthdays, you found it difficult to trust the people around you when you knew so little about them.

Where are you from? Have you seen a titan before? Why did you enlist? Have you killed one before?

Sometimes, it was difficult to discern whether your friendships were born out of genuine care for each other or rather the respect that was necessary to function together as a unit.

Captain Levi had intrigued you from the start -- so many rumors about him lingered throughout the walls. He was a bonafide celebrity and a mysterious one at that. How many families told stories of him? How many children’s nightmares were soothed by the mere mention of his name?

You remembered the first time that you had ever seen him -- the Scouts marched through the quad on horseback, passing through Shiganshina’s marketplace. You crawled on top of the fruit stand’s fabric canopy, feeling it dip underneath your weight. You were so small then, it feels like.

Levi walked his horse into the quad, directly behind Commander Erwin. How could so much strength and resolve lie within such a small body? He didn’t strike you as overtly handsome at first glance. No, your appreciation for his appearance grew slowly over your years wearing your wings.

Admittedly, the years that you did remember your birthday were lamentable. Days off within the corps were few and far between, and when your birthday didn't matter, you couldn’t exactly do anything for it.

Your body felt as though it was about to explode; training only grew more intense the longer that you were enlisted. You supposed this burning pain was worth it -- the Scouts couldn’t risk any more people than necessary, and the best way to prevent deaths was extreme preparedness.

Your squad leader, the infamous Levi, pushed you harder each day. Keeping your cool, both physically and mentally, was difficult whenever he was around. Impressive was the least you could say about your captain.

He seemed peaceful whenever he trained, as though he were relaxing lakeside -- you allowed yourself a quick moment to picture Levi lakeside -- without a care in the world or a titan to slay. It was mesmerizing to watch him use the ODM gear; it was as though he were performing a beautiful and intricate dance.

Much to your chagrin, he ordered you to clean the muck from the stables and care for the hooves of the horses following training, a task that would surely take you hours. Levi, in all of his mysteriousness, was particularly anal about cleanliness.

Being alone with your thoughts was particularly distressing on your birthday. You couldn’t help but wonder about the people you’ve lost -- how many birthdays had they lived? How many more would there have been? Why were you given the privilege to live when they were gone?

For some faces that lived behind your eyes, you regretted not knowing them more. You noticed with anguish that many of those faces lost their sharpness in your memory, the years replacing their features with blurs and blobs.

The moon was rising by the time that you finished your appointed task. Your lower back throbbed, your calves screamed as you climbed the stairs towards your lodging.

Your room was perfectly modest -- only a bed, a dresser, and a desk were provided to you. The pillow was flat; you were not the first nor the last to use it. The blankets were made of a course and itchy material but did its job well enough.

Blinking, you noticed a horribly wrapped item sitting upon your bed. It seemed to be covered with the same paper the captains write correspondence with, tied with twine. Written on it was your name in nearly illegible chicken-scratch, but still, it was your name.

“Um,” you mumbled under your breath. Sitting before the present, you undid the complicated knot with your calloused fingers. Inside lay a book; it was leather-bound, old, possibly expensive. The inside of the wrapping paper had a small note written on it, which read: It's your birthday. Congrats on not getting munched on for another year.

You gasped quietly. It was your first birthday present in years, possibly ever. After the initial shock had worn off, you hungrily opened the book, skimming through pages after pages of incredible drawings, information about a world you'd probably never see.

You flipped back to the beginning, noticing that whoever gave you this gift had left a small note just under the first chapter heading: I keep hearing about the world outside of the walls. Thought you might be interested.

Closing the cover, you held the book tightly to your chest. Thank you, you thought to yourself.

Hearing Armin speak of the sea intrigued Levi. Throughout his life, he had never allowed himself to think of the world beyond the walls. By the time he went on his first expedition outside of them, he could only think about titans.

He had first noticed you upon your entrance to the corps. Erwin had given a rousing yet truthful speech, as he did at every graduation. Levi stood offside the stage, taking in the group of cadets that had stayed.

The Captain had long become used to seeing the fearful faces, the determined faces, the strong, the angry ones. Yours, however, intrigued him.

You looked resigned.

You looked incredibly aware of the sacrifices you would have to make, the people that you would lose. You looked so painfully aware of the trials and tribulations to come. It seemed as though you were the only cadet that understood the reality of being a Scout.

So he pushed you. He knew deep down that he pushed you harder than the others. Levi had even requested you to be apart of his squad. Erwin had looked at him with curiosity at that, only Levi, who could read the man better than anyone else, could see it.

It had been Erwin who had first noticed your feelings for your squad leader. You had been subtle, truthfully, and only a man as detail-oriented as the Commander could see.

He had noticed it after you delivered tea to his chambers, where he, Levi, and Hange were having a meeting to discuss the budget for the next quarter. You had lingered a mere millisecond when you handed Levi his cup, skin grazing against each other so gently. Levi had been surprised at just how much he felt at that slight touch, how much heat erupted on his hands.

You did not stay long after that, wishing Hange a goodnight with a gentle squeeze to her elbow -- Levi was unaware of the friendship that you two had.

Levi glanced at his Commander, who smiled over his teacup, looking pointedly at him. "What?" Levi asked. Erwin shook his head, a low chuckle coming from him. "What?" Levi asked again, impatiently.

"Nothing," Erwin replied, a soft smile gracing his features. "Just don't let yourself get too distracted, Captain."

He refused to elaborate.

Hange was the next to notice. You volunteered your extra time, particularly on your loneliest days, to help her with various experiments. Most of the time, you were on standby, looking out for Erwin. It was very clear to you that these experiments were largely unapproved.

Levi visited Hange's laboratory one day, a ration bar in his pocket. You may not have noticed him slip the bar into your bag's pocket, but Hange surely did.

It had taken plenty of prodding on the scientist's part to get Levi to admit a certain level of care and affection for you. You had been hurt slightly during an expedition. It was nothing serious, and yet the Captain insisted that you stay behind on the following day's adventure. You had fought tooth and nail to convince him otherwise, which landed you a day's worth of paperwork for insubordination. He strategically picked the following day, forcing you to miss the mission to finish the massive pile of work that was needed in a short amount of time.

"Y/N'd just be dead weight," Levi grumbled to Hange after she had cornered him. "I'm not going to babysit someone just because they got hurt and were too stubborn to heal."

Hange scoffed at her shorter friend. "It was only a twisted ankle, y/n was cleared for the mission immediately."

"I'm not going to risk another brat being killed because of a stupid, unhealed injury. That's final." Levi looked below them, taking in the four-meter titan underneath them. Easy.

He triggered his ODM gear, rearing his arms backward and slicing forward at the beast's neck, grinning as the nape fell off of it towards the ground. The titan fell, mouth agape, onto its side. Landing onto a tree limb, he scoured the forest floor for more.

Hange was not far behind. She landed beside him, intent on harassing him until she was satisfied with his answer. He rolled his eyes. Maybe it would have been less of a hassle to keep Y/N in the game. Babysitting didn't seem as awful as being stalked.

He hadn't meant to overhear Armin one night, but the conversation intrigued him. The sea. A forest that not even with fifty gas reserves could he traverse. Small pieces of white, cold fluff falling from the sky like a gentle rain.

A strange warmth built in his chest -- he could picture it all easily, but he couldn't picture any piece of the world without you being there with him. Levi wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He had crashed into an abandoned home after slaying a titan. He needed a moment to refill his gas tanks, and he needed a place under cover to do so.

Levi had landed in a library. Books covered most of the floor, the walls, the tables throughout the room. Besides the dust, the new debris, and the vines growing into the building, it seemed as though life had been suddenly paused and could start again at any moment. Strangely, he felt like he was intruding on something.

He found himself drawn to a book, hidden at the back of a shelf. The books that had once been in front of it had been thrown to the ground in the mad dash to escape the titan-infested city.

The spine of the leather-bound book had a portrait of a snow-capped mountain imprinted into the material. A mountain. He hadn't heard of one before he had overheard Armin that one night.

It had been covered, hidden.

Illegal, he realized. Interest built in his chest, he grabbed the book and flipped through it quickly, looking at the intricate drawings. He thought of you.

Slipping it into his waistband, Levi left the library through the way that he came.

Shamelessly, Levi dug into the records in Erwin's office long after the Commander had retired to bed. Y/N L/N, he read, yanking the file out of the cabinet and searching.

Six months away.

He made a note of it before slipping the file back into the cabinet and pretended he never did anything at all.

In the days leading up to your birthday, he found himself busier than he had expected. He had hoped to wrap the book days in advance, but life never turned out how he wanted or expected. He waited until after training and bought himself time by asking you to clean the stables and care for the horses.

You were just as fastidious as he was when it came to keeping things clean, something he was impressed by and thankful for at this moment.

He hadn't the time to go into town to buy proper wrapping, so he improvised.

Being a soldier was about improvising a bad situation into something better.

Something better was wrapping the book in stationary. "It looks like shit," he mumbled to himself. He attempted to save it by tying it with twine, but he looked out of his bedroom window and saw that you were already heading back towards the barracks.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, he thought to himself. Undignified, he ran up the stairs towards your bedroom -- which he knew was yours based on how pristine it was -- and dropped the book onto your bed without much thought.

The next day, he watched with a rare smile as you read in the mess hall. Happy birthday, brat, he thought to himself. He took a sip of his tea, savoring it.

He wasn't sure if the warmth in his chest was from your appreciation of the gift or the heat of his drink.

[patchwork-panda]

Thirsty... (Kunikidazai smut)

Kunikida awoke to a hand slipping under his shirt. He stirred softly as that hand slowly glided up his abdomen, flitted over the contours of his ribs and stopped only when it reached his chest. He sighed as the hand began feeling up his muscles.

“Good morning, Dazai…”

The voice that responded was bright and clear, unlike Kunikida’s, which was nothing more than a low rumble, still thick from sleep.

Clearly Dazai had been awake for some time already.

“Good morning, Kunikiiiida-kun,” Dazai chirped, still feeling up his boyfriend’s chest like it was a favorite toy he liked to play with (which it kind of was).

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up?”

He didn’t sound sorry in the least, Kunikida thought to himself with a frown.

Blearily, he reached over to grab his phone and his frown deepened into a scowl when he saw the time.

“There’s a little less than an hour before the alarm goes off,” Kunikida growled. “Go back to sleep, Dazai.”

“But I’m thirsty,” Dazai whined.

“There’s a full glass of water on your nightstand. Go drink it and go back to sleep.”

“Not that kind…”

And as Dazai’s voice dropped to a low, sultry whisper, two fingers found Kunikida’s nipple and pinched it just lightly enough to get his attention.

Kunikida stiffened.

“Dazai… we have work soon.”

“Two hours isn’t soon.” “The alarm’s going off in an hour,” Kunikida sighed, “Once it goes off, we need to shower, brush our teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast, make lunch--There’s simply not enough time--”

“Then why don’t we shower together,” Dazai pointed out, not pausing in his molestation of Kunikida’s chest, “ask Atsushi-kun to make a convenience store run for us, get lunch at Uzumaki later--”

“I will not have you bullying our junior like that,” Kunikida snapped, swatting Dazai’s hand away at last.

He rearranged his shirt and tried to shift himself in a way that Dazai couldn’t reach his chest. But with Dazai spooning him from behind like this and the man’s limbs being extraordinarily long and flexible, his efforts were proving futile.

He turned his face away as Dazai’s hand slipped back inside his shirt and began slowly slipping downwards towards his navel. His face warmed. He could feel his resolve crumbling as his body began responding to the man’s touch.

“In any case, the budget doesn’t allow for extra meal expense this month--”

“So we put it on next month’s tab…”

Dazai’s hand was traveling further south with each word.

“You’re going to get sleepy in the middle of the day,” Kunikida insisted, hating the way his breath hitched as Dazai’s hand finally found the waistband of his boxer-briefs.

A single long, thin finger dipped underneath the band and Kunikida nearly swore.

“Y-you’re going to fall asleep at your desk--or try to hog the couch in the client booth so you can take a nap--”

Kunikida swallowed, his protests sounding weaker and weaker even to his own ears.

“We simply don’t have the time --”

His sentence ended on a gasp. Dazai had found his boyfriend’s half-hard cock and was now squeezing it very, very tightly.

He shuddered as Dazai’s voice sounded low in his ear. The man’s own rock-hard erection was pressed into the small of his back like a steel pipe.

“I never said I was planning to take my time with you.”

He punctuated the statement with a bite and Kunikida hissed as Dazai’s teeth sank into his earlobe.

It wasn’t often that Dazai got like this. Just the other night, he was playing the part of a petulant child, draped all over Kunikida’s broad shoulders when the blonde was trying to read and whining about being neglected. He kept at it until Kunikida finally had enough and threw him onto the couch to give the man the kind of “attention” he wanted.

Dazai so rarely took what he wanted from Kunikida, generally preferring to be serviced or taken himself. But this morning…

Kunikida groaned as his boyfriend’s hand tightened further, almost painfully so, around his cock and began pumping.

While he didn’t get to see it very often, this side of Dazai was nice every once in a while. Kept him on his toes. Or more like his knees…

He shuddered as Dazai continued to mouth at his ear, nibbling and sucking at that sensitive bit of flesh like he was determined to leave it so red and raw that Kunikida might be forced to leave his hair down for once.

Yes, this was a reminder that while Dazai so often preferred to wear the mask of a clown in public and keep his cards close to his chest, just beneath the surface of that smiling, foolish facade was a mind so brilliant, it often seemed vicious in its cunning. And damn it if Kunikida didn’t find that hot as hell …

Another sharp nip at his badly smarting earlobe and Dazai moved on to Kunikida’s neck. The taller man shivered as Dazai swiftly brushed the long blonde hairs aside and yanked down the collar of his partner’s nightshirt to expose one sturdy well-muscled shoulder. He heard Dazai’s sharp intake of breath just before the brunette latched onto his neck.

Kunikida winced.

Indeed, Dazai could be downright sadistic when he wanted to be… How many times had he seen the man break an informant with words alone? How many times had he lobbed irritating comments in Kunikida’s direction just to see him squirm? And how many times had he tried to push Kunikida away before finally he accepted the blonde’s feelings as well as his own…?

He moaned--loudly--as Dazai found that one spot between the junction of his Kunikida’s neck and shoulder and immediately flushed as he heard--or rather, felt --the inevitable chuckle that followed immediately after.

“Mm… Kunikida-kun is getting so hard for me,” Dazai breathed, the subtle vibrations of his voice sending shivers down the taller man’s spine.

“ So hard .”

And as he spoke, Kunikida felt his body respond, his cock rising and swelling to fit the Dazai’s hand as if it knew exactly where it belonged. He bit back another moan as the hand relentlessly squeezing and pulling him grew steadily slicker from his own fluids.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to take your time with me?” Kunikida wondered aloud, gasping as Dazai’s teeth found that spot on his neck again.

“Oh, is that a request?”

Another bite.

“Am I going too slow for you, Kunikiiiiida-kunnn~?”

He gasped sharply as Dazai started pumping faster, doubling over as waves of pleasure coursed through him. Dazai’s chuckles echoed in his ear.

“There.” Dazai’s voice was low, husky, sweet.

“Is that better?”

Dazai’s fingers were squeezing him so tightly, their rhythm so steady and controlled. A stark contrast to the bites and nips that seemed to come out of nowhere and were steadily covering Kunikida’s upper body in angry red marks.

All the while, Dazai just kept pumping...

Kunikida let out another low moan.

His nightshirt had practically been torn off. He could see a couple of buttons lying on the sheets in front of him as Dazai’s free hand continued to caress his chest and abs. Pressure was building in his lower body and Kunikida’s breathing was starting to come in sharp, labored gasps.

But just when Kunikida thought he wasn’t going to last much longer, Dazai abruptly stopped. He pressed his thumb against the tip of Kunikida’s cock, squeezing just a tiny bit more liquid out of the slit, then slowly moved to rub that thumb over the head of Kunikida’s steadily dripping manhood.

“D-Dazai…”

His face felt hot. Why in God’s name did he sound so much like he was begging?

“What--”

“Shh…”

Dazai’s lips were soft as he pressed a kiss to Kunikida’s bite-riddled shoulder. The first kiss of the morning. His shoulders ached.

“Call me Osamu, my love.”

Another kiss. Another flick of his thumb. Kunikida moaned.

“You know you want to.”

“O-Osamu…” Kunikida gasped, burying his face completely into his pillow when he heard just how desperate he sounded.

“Mm. That’s a good man.”

And with that, Dazai took his free hand, yanked down the waistband of Kunikida’s underwear, followed shortly by his own, and carefully positioned himself against the entrance. Kunikida shot one look over his own bruised shoulder and nearly regretted it. In the weak light of early morning, the eyes of the man behind him looked pitch-black...

Dazai licked his lips.

“And you are such a good man.”

He started pushing himself in.

“ Doppo. ”

It hurt. Not a lot but it was just uncomfortable enough that Kunikida remembered Dazai hadn’t done a thing to prepare him this morning. Still, at least Dazai was giving him a chance to adjust before pushing further in and it wasn’t long until he was buried all the way inside.

Kunikida shuddered as Dazai began moving his hand--the hand that had never actually left Kunikida’s cock--again.

And then Dazai began moving as well.

A curse ripped its way out of his throat.

“ Fuck .”

Sweat beaded on his brow as Dazai’s movements slowly synchronized. The brunette’s free hand was once again ghosting up Kunikida’s chest, palming at his abdomen, feeling the way Kunikida’s muscles strained and flexed whenever he so much as took in a breath. His clothes and the thin blankets once covering them were long since gone. Strands of long blonde hair were falling into his open mouth. The light in the room was slowly growing brighter but without his glasses, Kunikida couldn’t properly see--he could only feel. And what he felt was full .

“ Fuck …!”

Dazai was hitting something deep inside him that so rarely got the attention it needed and he cursed again as Dazai bucked his hips in yet another sharp, powerful thrust.

Dazai’s voice was breathy, he was laughing or gasping or both.

He was loving this.

Kunikida had no idea where Dazai’s shirt had gone. Maybe he’d gone to sleep without it or maybe he’d taken it off while he was playing with Kunikida just minutes--or was it hours ago? He couldn’t remember. All he knew was that Dazai’s bare chest was sticking to his exposed back and he could hear skin slapping against skin in a hot, wet, lewd way that had no right sounding as loud as it did in the early hours before the sun came up.

And speaking of loud…

He had no idea he could make the kind of sounds that were echoing off the walls. The neighbors were sure to come knocking any minute-- how was Dazai forcing these kinds of noises out of his mouth?!

“You sound like you’re enjoying yourself,” Dazai panted, dark eyes glinting.

Shouldn’t I be saying that to you? Kunikida longed to say but all that came out of his mouth was another breathless moan.

Dazai laughed again. Breathier this time, less controlled. They were getting close, Kunikida could feel it. Pressure was steadily building in his cock again--enough to make him burst--and Dazai’s pace was growing oddly frenzied. Without warning, Dazai suddenly let out a shout. Heat exploded deep inside his body and with one last, final tug, Kunikida came shortly after, spilling all over Dazai’s hand and onto the bedsheets with a low, heady groan.

His energy spent, Kunikida strained to look at the man clinging tightly to his back. Brown, tousled, sweaty bangs fell against Kunikida’s reddened shoulder, the bite marks more evident than ever in the light of the steadily rising sun. He could hear Dazai still straining to catch his breath and his lips twitched upwards in a half-smile at the thought of his boyfriend spending all of what little physical stamina he had just to satisfy this one impulsive need.

He felt Dazai peel himself away and shuddered as the man slowly took out his steadily deflating rod, leaving a trail of sticky, pungent, white all over Kunikida’s backside and the short stretch of sweaty sheets between them. Mumbling something unintelligible under his breath, Dazai reached over and tugged the taller man onto his back. Kunikida grimaced; the sheets were cold and wet and were sticking unpleasantly to his backside.

He let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Satisfied?” he asked, turning to the brunette now happily resting a hot, flushed cheek against his broad, bare chest.

Yawning, Dazai wrapped his arms around Kunikida’s shoulders and nodded.

“Good.”

And as Dazai’s breathing slowly settled into a slow, steady rhythm, a small, secretive smile crossed Kunikida’s face. He pressed a kiss to Dazai’s forehead, settled his head back onto the pillows and closed his eyes.

But just as Kunikida was drifting off to sleep at last, the alarm went off.

He groaned.

Laughing, Dazai drew Kunikida a little bit closer and nestled his head a little more comfortably in the crook of his boyfriend’s neck.

“Looks like we had enough time after all.”

[icequeenoriginal]

The Pain of Secrets

Author’s Note: This was supposed to be fluffy, that was my original intent. But then my brain decided to make it super angsty. So I apologize. Also, I am not transgender. I’m using the information I learned online as well as from what friends who are have told me. I hoped I portrayed a transgender person correctly. I meant to finish this before the end of pride month but writer’s block did not let that happen. Stay safe everyone.

Summary: Roman hates secrets and he hates keeping them, but he still has one. Is it worth keeping from Virgil?

Warning: Fear of Rejection, transphobia, self-hatred, internalized transphobia, keeping secrets, crying, running away, surgery mention, not taking care of yourself, anxiety, divorce mentioned, inappropriate touching, bad past relationship, hurt/comfort, roman angst, body image issues, bad binding practices, fear of breaking up (Let me know if I missed anything)

Pairing: Prinxiety 

~ Roman hated secrets. Even the word would cause him to have an icky feeling in his chest. To have secrets, you have to lie to the people you care about. Secrets were the reason his parents weren’t together. His mother kept her emotions and suspension secret while his father kept his intimate relationship with a young coworker a secret. 

At age 9, Roman swore to his grieving mother when he found her crying in the kitchen in the middle of the night when he could sleep. The smile on his mother’s face was enough to make him never want to break that promise. 

That only lasted a couple of months and it was all his stupid body’s fault. If he had just been born in the right body, it wouldn’t be an issue.

You see, Roman wasn’t born a boy. Everyone told him he was a girl because he looked like one, but he didn’t feel like it. He knew he wasn’t but he didn’t know why.

He learned about the word transgender when his uncle took to a very fun and colorful parade that summer after he made his promise. It would later be the first of many Prides he attended and where his uncle met his other future uncle.

It took a few days for him to muster up the courage to tell his mother but his drive to never have a secret was the final push he needed.

His mom accepted him, she got him on HRT and even bought him his first binder. Though, he did notice how there seemed to now be a distance between them. They did fewer things together, his mother slipped up with pronouns, and always seemed like she was herself back from saying something. 

But it was fine because at least there were no secrets between them. 

“Everything is fine.” Roman would say as he ignored how much that hurt him.

“This is fine,” Roman said to himself as he only applied to colleges out of state. He and his mom just needed some time apart.

“Everything is great,” He told his mom through tears caused by the stress of school and being on his own. 

“It’s okay,” said Roman when his first boyfriend told him he couldn’t be with a ‘fake man’ anymore after a couple of months of dating.

“It’s fine,” said Roman his second boyfriend angrily dumped him when he found out that Roman is trans. Roman didn’t blame him, he hadn’t told him right away as he did with his first boyfriend. This was his punishment for it.

It was really all fine. Roman didn’t mind being alone, he could handle it just fine. He was fine with always coming home to an empty apartment and an empty bed. A home without someone to hold him, kiss him, reassure him.

…

No, no he couldn’t. But he was a good actor and every good actor can lie to themselves.

He, at age 25, decided to put off dating until after he got his top and bottom surgery. It just seemed like the easiest option. His HRT did as much as it could but it couldn’t get rid of that feeling he had every time he looked into the mirror and touched his chest. It was one of the few things he had gotten straight from his mother.

After a late-night of research, he came up with a plan. To get both surgeries, he needs 20,000 dollars in total. Damn you America and your expensive medical costs! Well, there isn’t anything he can do other than every time he got paid, he saves all the extra money he had left after paying his bills and groceries. It wasn’t fun, there was time he wanted to buy that expensive tablet or go to that bar but he wouldn’t touch the money. Not until he had enough.

It was the perfect plan, in his opinion, but the universe was never on his side. He went to the library one day to borrow a book since that was a fun free thing to do, and he accidentally bumped into a young man. After a quick apology, Roman noticed the man was holding a large book of fairy tales. That led to a two-hour debate about the messages of fairy tales.

The man’s name is Virgil and Roman was sure at that moment he is his soulmate.

They spent more of their days texting one another whenever they could. Their first few dates would consist of free things like walking through the park or sitting together in the library. It was lovely. It’s why Roman figured he didn’t have to tell him that he was trans. It wasn’t like they were going to become more than friends. Roman figured this is how their relationship would stay, sweet and simple. That was perfectly fine with him.

Then Virgil invited to dinner to ask him to be his boyfriend. Virgil told him he had never asked anyone else out before but he felt such a strong connection with Roman. Everything about that moment was perfect, the restaurant, Virgil, the music, everything.

It wasn’t until he got home did Roman realize he still hadn’t told Virgil his secret. Roman cried himself to sleep that night. 

After that first date, Virgil seemed to only take him to movies or dinners. Places that cost money, money Roman did not have living paycheck to paycheck. Virgil had a high paying office job so he said he didn’t mind. Roman still, at least once a month, would use his grocery money to buy fancy ingredients to make Virgil dinner and eat ramen for the rest of the week. It was nice, Roman had almost forgotten what it was like to go out.

Roman loves Virgil, he told him on their 5th date. He loved him so much that every day he would want to tell him his secret but the fear of losing Virgil would take over and make him chicken out.

That led him to today, almost a year later, sitting in Virgil’s apartment where he was staring at Virgil as his past flashed in front of his eyes like he was Angelica Schuyler during Satisfied.

Why? Because Virgil was inviting him to go to the beach. A place where you wear a swimsuit. Pushing aside how much he hated how he looked in a bathing suit, that meant he had to take off his shirt.

He was so screwed.

A cold hand jolted him out his thoughts so quickly that a small yelp escapes Roman’s lips. Roman scared eyes lock with Virgil’s loving and concerned eyes. 

“Ro? What’s wrong? Do you not want to go?” Virgil asks softly, gently rubbing his knuckles

“No! I do! I do!” Roman replies quickly, a bit too quickly to alleviate Virgil’s concern.

“Ro, princey, you don’t have to agree just because I suggested it. We can do something else.”

Roman could have burst into tears at that moment. Virgil was just so good to him. He should take the way out, it would just make everything easier. He oh so wanted to but the nagging voice in the back of his head shouted at him that it was a trick, that Virgil was testing him, secretly questioning why Roman wouldn’t want to.

So, Roman shook his head, “I do want to Virgil, I-I just need to check when I can take off of work. You know how busy the restaurant business is during the summer.” Roman replies nervously.

Virgil sighs, “Alright, I believe you.” Virgil leans back against the couch, “You should quit that awful waiter job, they demand so many hours from you and barely pay you enough.”

Roman stares off into the distance before replying, “I wish I could quit too but I need the money and you know how hard it is to get a new job.” Especially if you’re trans.

Virgil nodded, knowing that he was very lucky to have the job that he did, all thanks to his friend Janus. Still, he hated how the light behind Roman’s eyes dim every day he is at that job and the physical strain it had on Roman’s gorgeous body. He wishes there was something he could do that wouldn’t seem like a handout. It would be too much of a blow to Roman’s pride.

Virgil smiles, he has a perfect idea. He turns to Roman and asks, “Roman, what would you think about--”

Roman whines in pain and Virgil’s eyes widen in fear. “Are you alright?!”

Roman nods and waves his hand dismissively. “Just chest--I mean stomach pains. I’ll be right back.” Roman runs off to the bathroom. As soon as he locks the door, Roman rips off his shirt and binder. He gasps, taking a deep breath of fresh air. 

He knows he shouldn’t be wearing his binder all day, he knows it is not healthy but he can’t help himself. He rather be what (he thinks) Virgil wants than be comfortable. 

Meanwhile, Virgil is frowning and whispers, “Hey Ro? Want to move in with me?”

Roman pants as he sits on the toilet. His chest was killing him but he could not care less. He took a painkiller from Virgil’s medicine cabinet. Swallowing it dry, he puts his binder and shirt back through the pain. He gets up and leans up against the wall to catch his breath.

“This is fine,” he mumbles to himself like he does every morning, “Everything is fine” ~

Two weeks had pasted and Roman still hadn’t given Virgil an answer. Virgil didn’t bring it up, he knew Roman would give him an answer when he was good and ready.

Roman was pacing, in a big shirt and boxers, with his phone in his hand, open on it was his bank account. 

Once he got home from Virgil’s apartment, he quickly checked how much money he had saved. He was surprised to see that he had $8,654 saved up. It had been a while since he last checked. He quickly called around to get top surgery that fit into his budget.

He had a new plan. He would get the surgery, he would go to the beach with Virgil about 3 weeks later, and Virgil would see his surgery scars. Then Roman tell him and they could figure it all out there. If Virgil broke up, 

No more avoiding it.

His phone began to vibrate and Roman vibrate and Roman quickly answers it, “Hello? Oh hi, Dr. Travis!”

This doctor had excellent reviews and she was to be trusted. One pleasant conversation later and Roman had an appointment set for a week later for $6,000 with insurance covering some of the cost. He also calls his job, who approves his two weeks of medical leave.

He squeals as soon as he hangs up, this was going to be wonderful. He had to celebrate.

So he calls Virgil, “Stormcloud?”

“Hey Ro, what’s up?” Roman smiles, “I have great news. Four weeks from Tuesday, I can spend the entire day at the beach with you.”

“Jeez, your job really won’t let you catch a break, can they?”

Roman chuckles, deciding it was best not to mention he was one of the last days off he had after the ones he is using for his appointments and recovery for this. “Well, in any case. I would like to see you before then. I’m working the early shift tomorrow so I’ll be done by 1.”

Roman could hear Virgil smiling on the other side of the line, “Well, you’re in luck Princey. I only have one big meeting after lunch tomorrow. How about we meet for lunch, I hide you in my office while I go to this meeting and then we can go back to my place at 5?” “That sounds perfectly wonderful.”

~

The lunch was nice. They went to a cheap sandwich shop that was close to Virgil’s work and had a small debate on whether or not putting mayo on Salami was a good or bad thing. 

Roman almost immediately regretted agreeing to sit in Virgil’s office. He sat silently, and almost immediately, chest started to ache. Even worse, Virgil’s office needed a key to get into, one that Virgil only had because it was his ID card. Something about security or whatever.

Roman sat in Virgil’s office chair for 3 hours, he kept time on his phone. The second Virgil opened the door, Roman practically threw himself into Virgil’s arms.

“Missed me?”

“Something like that.”

They took the subway home, and Virgil could almost immediately tell something was wrong. Roman seemed to keep fidgeting and had on a fake smile. Virgil contemplated saying something, but by the time his anxiety let him decide, the train had arrived at their stop.

Virgil figured Roman would tell him in due time. Right?

Once they arrive, Virgil sighs as he pulls off his tie. “I am going to take a shower, you can set up a movie or something.” Roman smiles and kisses Virgil, “Don’t be long.” “Excuse me princess, but you take over two hours in the showers, I will take all the time I want.” Roman laughs, “Touché, touché. Go on now. Hurry your cute butt back.” Roman gently pats Virgil’s butt to emphasize his point. Virgil sent him a playful glare and heads off to his bedroom. 

Roman smile drops and he immediately takes off his shirt and binder. He loudly gasps and rubs his chest to ease the pain in his chest. He sighs and stretches, Virgil usually takes 30 minutes in the shower, so he was going to give him a 30-minute break.

Or he was...until he turns and sees Virgil standing at the end of the living room where the hallway is attached. He, like Roman, did not have his shirt on. Neither his pants. 

Virgil opens and closes his mouth a few times before saying, “I forgot to mention, I-I-I have a bottle of wine.” He gestures vaguely to the kitchen,

Roman covers his chest with his arms, tears appearing quickly.

Virgil takes a step closer, “Ro...have you been...this whole time…?”

“I have to go,” Roman says as he runs to the door, shirt and binder in hand.

“Ro, wait--” Virgil makes a grab for Roman’s arm but misses as Roman runs out of the apartment. Virgil watches him go, knowing he shouldn’t run out in his boxers. He begins pacing, his nerves are on an all-time high, and he tries to steady his breathing so he can come up with a plan to talk to Roman.

Because they really, really, need to talk.

~ Roman didn’t stop running until he got home. Once he got in, thank goodness his keys were safely tucked into his pocket, he threw himself onto his bed and broken down. That had to be the most humiliating moment of his entire life. Virgil’s face had said it all, he was definitely breaking up with him. 

He sobs and sobs for what it seems like hours until he tires himself out. He walks up at 4 am to 10 miss calls and 30 texts from Virgil.

From: Stormcloud

Ro, please call me back.

Princey, let’s just talk, please.

Babe, please, let me know if you’re okay. 

I’m not mad. I just want to talk.

Roman. I’m not going to say what I have to say through text. Call me, please. 

Roman shuts off his phone. He can’t face Virgil right now. He can’t face anything right now. His only saving grace is that he has the night shift at work. He closes his eyes and had a restless sleep. 

His dreams were of Virgil walking farther and farther away from him. No matter how much Roman pleaded and begged for him to stay, Virgil just kept walking.

Once he walks up, he remembers reading somewhere that dreams tell the truth, and he knows his truth: Virgil does not want to be with him.

~

Roman ignores Virgil’s calls and texts between the Bad Day, as Roman dubbed it, and his surgery day. Though it started because Roman couldn’t face him, it then became just because of the surgery. 

Roman didn’t like his job, for the most part, but he did have a friend. His name is Patton and he is the nicest person Roman has ever known. Patton was one of the few people who knew Roman is trans and he is a bug supporter in Roman’s life. Patton let him cover all of his shifts so Roman wouldn’t lose money on his time off. He was exhausted from all the work, but the happiness of what is to come pushed him through it. He stopped checking his phone as often as he normally would, despite Patton pushing him to go talk to Virgil.

”It may bit be as bad as you think kiddo,” Patton would say, but Roman was not sure.

Anytime he wasn’t working, he was making trips to the grocery store for his treatment or moving everything off of high shelves since he is not allowed to stretch his arms.

His bottom drawers are filled with baby wipes, scar cream, and ice packs. He also bought big comfy sweaters and ice cream to keep himself comfy. 

Roman couldn’t sleep the day before the surgery. He felt every emotion attacking him at once. This was going to be one of the most important days of his life.

The surgery itself wasn’t as bad as he expected, though the anesthesia probably had something to do with it. He found out later he sang a love song to “a very lucky young man” through the 2 hours and 30 minutes. He was embarrassed, to say the least.

Finally came time to see the scars. He froze when the doctor told him. He was lucky to be facing away to the doctor. Could he do this? Would the scars look bad? Would this actually make him as happy as he hoping?

He let out a watery chuckle, he sounded like his boyfriend--his ex-boyfriend. Thinking of Virgil reminded him of all the breathing exercises he learned from Virgil.

He takes a deep breath for four seconds, holds it for seven seconds, and lets it out for eight seconds.

After doing it a few more times, he turns to the mirror. The tears are almost immediate. The scars were bright red but they were thin, as thin as his pointer finger. His chest was as flat as he hoped it would be. This is the happiest he has ever been.

He shakes Dr. Travis’s hand since he is unable to say words. Dr. Travis simply smiles at him and pats his back.

“Now sit down, I have to put the bandages on. Now, make sure to change them every day.” Dr. Travis says.

”Got it, thank you, doctor.” Roman says, managing to get his voice back.

”You’re welcome.” Dr. Travis replies as she gently wraps the bandages around his chest, ”Now, do you have someone coming to pick you up?”

”Yes, of course, as you told me to,” He wasn’t exactly lying, he was planning to call an Uber.

”Good, because all you have to worry about is recovering, okay?” she says with a smile.

Roman nods and soon after, Dr. Travis finishes putting on the bandages. He has to stay in the hospital for another hour to rest before he is properly discharged. He spends most of the hour taking a nap and only 15 minutes on the phone with Patton, which seems strange to him. Roman, once he is allowed to leave, puts on his red zip-up hoodie, ignoring the feeling of his heart pulling because he remembers Virgil buying it for him and heads out of the hospital. Dr. Travis gives him a treatment plan on the way out and Roman puts it into his pocket.

The Uber ride is pleasant enough, the driver lets him drift off in the backseat. He is woken up by the car jerking to a stop in front of his apartment building. He scrambles out of the car while apologizing to the driver. 

He runs up the stairs to his apartment, each step making him more tired and as each second passes, the painkiller wears off more and more.

He weakly smiles as his door, knowing that a few behind it is his bed that he can pass out in.

He opens the door and is so shocked to see Virgil behind it that he can’t bring himself to move. Virgil says nothing as he walks over to him. Virgil wraps his arms around Roman’s waist and moves him into the apartment.

Roman yelps and finds his legs walking up to move with Virgil, ”W-W-What are you doing here?”

Virgil whispers, ”We’ll talk later, you need to get to bed.”

Roman doesn’t argue as Virgil half drags him into his bedroom. Roman lays down and Virgil reaches for his hoodie zipper. Roman tries to push his hand away but Virgil is much faster than him. Roman let's out a small whine as Virgil unzips the hoodie. Virgil shushes him and gives him a painkiller and some water. Roman happily drinks it. 

As he is falling asleep, Roman says, ”I love you V…”

”I know, I love you too Ro.” is the last thing Roman hears before passing out.

~

Roman wakes up two hours later so feeling something cold touch his chest. He slowly opens his eyes to see Virgil putting an ice pack wrapped in a paper towel on his chest.

Virgil softly smiles at him, “Hey Sleeping Beauty, welcome back to the land of the living.” Virgil gently cups his face. “Stay still so that the ice can do its job. I’ll order food in a bit and put on a movie. What would you like to watch?”

Roman stares at him dumbfounded, but Virgil was not fazed. He fluffs Roman’s pillow without uttering a word. He then rubs Roman’s cheek and Roman shutters at the soft and intimate touch. 

“What? How? Why…?” Roman had so many questions he wants to ask. 

“When you weren’t answering your phone, I went to your job and I saw you working. That relaxed me enough to let you have some space. I still would walk by every day, hoping you’d see me, and maybe you would come. When I came by earlier today, your coworker came out and invited me in.” “Patton?” “Patton. He said he noticed me walking by and I told him about you. He spent his break talking to me about you. You have a good friend.” Virgil says with a smile.

“I know, Pat’s great.” Roman can’t help but smile back. “I’m guessing he told you about the surgery?” “Yup so I came here. Knowing you, you wouldn’t ask for help and try to take care of yourself.” Roman looks away and pouts, and Virgil kisses the pout away. The kiss makes Roman stare at him confused, but Virgil just continues, “So I asked your building’s maintenance guy to let me in to surprise you. I did not think that work, you should have seen me, I was so nervous, but he said he’s seen you let me in enough times and he said this was one time only so now I am here.”

Roman blinks at Virgil for a few seconds, trying to figure out what he says. Virgil sits there, so patient and understanding that it only manages to confuse “But why?”

“Why what?”

Roman began to cry, but he is too tired to care. “Why would you want to take care of me? I’ve been keeping a huge secret from you for over a year, I’ve been lying to you over a year. I haven’t been as intimate as I deserve to be and you probably desire to because I can’t be. I will never be a true man physically, no matter what I do. And the way you found out, not from me telling you. You should hate me, be mad, anything. I wouldn't hold it against you.”

Virgil sits on the bed and puts his arm around Roman, “Roman, I don’t know who told you otherwise, but when I tell someone I love them, I love all of them. Especially you, you are my boyfriend. You are everything I want and more. I love your body, I’ve loved it since we met. I wouldn’t care if we never had sex, if it met I could be with you. And don’t call yourself anything but a man, because I will fight you about it and have Patton help me.”

Roman laughs but stops, his insecurities taking over once more, “But the way you were looking at me that day…you looked so disgusted”

“I wasn’t, I will never disgusted with you. I was scared. I saw the binder and how red your chest was. I was scared that you were hurting yourself for me.” “Oh...I’m sorry.” Roam replies while lower his head. Virgil tilts it up, “Don’t apologize to me, you owe an apology to your body. I’ll make you do it too.” Roman pulls Virgil into a kiss and Virgil happily kisses back. They will be okay, actually better than okay. Virgil will take of Roman his whole recovery, taking his vacation time to do so. They would spend the time talking, finally no secrets between them. Virgil will ask him to move in as he drives him home from his checkup with Dr. Travis and Roman will happily say yes. Roman will finally let Virgil help me and Roman saves up the money for his bottom surgery and gets a better job with Virgil’s recommendation. Though he will miss working with Patton, they will hang out every weekend to make up for it. It will be a wonderful future.

But right now, they both just need to kiss and breathe because they are happy and together. 

~

Taglist

I do not have a general Sanders Sides but if you would like to be tagged in all things Sanders Sides I post, let me know.

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 9

Buster hooked his thumbs in his suspenders and stared up with admiration at the 120-foot crane. Having been delivered to the set in multiple pieces by a fleet of huge trucks, the workmen had just finished putting it together. “Beautiful, ain’t she?”

At his side, Joe grimaced. “Did you have to?”

“ ‘Course I did,” said Buster. “How else are we going to lift the hospital off me in the cyclone sequence?”

“I just didn’t expect it … it’s so big, you know?”

“Damn right it is.”

“How much did it cost?” “How much did it cost? Really?” Buster said, feeling like Joe had just stuck a pin in his mood and popped it. “It cost what it cost.”

Joe rubbed the back of his neck as he looked up at the crane. “I just wish you’d said something first. Harry’s worried about going over budget.”

“Tell him he can blow it out his ass,” said Buster. “I’m getting damn sick of Harry. Didn’t we all sit down and agree a cyclone was just fine?” He bit his tongue and didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ because if they’d stuck to the original plan, there wouldn’t have been a crane. He wasn’t sure how much the cyclone had run them so far, but it was already over $20,000.

“Yeah, I guess we did. Just try to—” said Joe. “Well don’t go overboard, is what I’m getting at.”

Buster, who had already handsomely paid to go overboard, kept his silence again. “Sure.”

They took a street car to K Street. The sidewalks were still busy when they arrived at the Senator theater around 6:30, everyone parading around in their Saturday night finery. She felt good about the ensemble she’d chosen, a short-sleeved dusty peach cotton dress with a mauve straw cloche hat and silk stockings. Inside, the Senator was cool. She’d been to a picture there only once before, but it was enough to make her fall in love with the place, which had been built just two years prior and was new like everything on the West coast was new. It was adorned in velvet drapes and jardinières heaped with fresh chrysanthemums, plush wall-to-wall carpeting, and fringed lamps, but her favorite feature was the painted dome and the enormous multi-tiered chandelier hanging from its center.

As she and the Kimbles took their seats in the balcony, she looked to the box seats on either side of the theater, half-expecting to see Buster in one, but she didn’t. Maybe he was in the crowd, but there was only so much gawking she could do before attracting attention. She saw him in person nearly every day now, but always at a distance and always when he was busy in front of or behind the camera. River Junction had been a bustle of workmen and noise in the mornings as they rebuilt sets for the cyclone and put together the biggest crane she’d seen in her life. Bert allowed her to take breaks a couple times a day to watch the filming. Even though she was behind the scenes now and could see everything, from the cluster of noisy cameras to the even noisier rain machines, the sight of Buster falling into a puddle up to his waist or being blown off his feet by a gust of wind was still a laugh. On Thursday, she’d been called upon to place an order for five large loaves of bread from a bakery, but they were spirited off to an unknown part of the set and their purpose remained a mystery. 

Her brief acquaintance with Buster seemed to have come to an end and she wasn’t inclined to press it any further, having made an ass of herself the first day in his dressing room and then later after the party at the blind tiger. It was enough that he knew her name. She’d begun hoping that the company would keep her on when they wrapped filming and packed up for Hollywood in a few weeks. The more she stuck around, the more people would know her face, and the more people knew her face, the greater her chances were of being recognized by a studio.

She shared Joe and Maggie’s jumbo box of Junior Mints as the lights went down and the opening short started. An organ in an arched box with pillars provided accompaniment. 

When the opening credits of Buster’s feature began, Nelly’s pulse quickened a little bit. It was surreal when he finally appeared on the screen, walking beneath an umbrella with his mother in the pouring rain, soaked to the skin; she’d gotten used to him as a flesh-and-blood person. She now knew how his production company made that rain and that there were cameras in front of him tracking his every step. She also knew that the person inside the truck driving down the street in the background was an extra. Nevertheless, the scene still looked believable, and pretty soon she was sucked into the story like the rest of the audience.

Buster played a brainy college freshman without a lick of athletic ability, which happened to be the only thing his girl cared about. He spent most of the picture trying out for sports to impress her and failing miserably. Buster often took two or three-hour lunches to play baseball with his production team, so Nelly couldn’t quite buy that he didn’t understand the rules of the game and couldn’t hit a ball to save his life.

As the movie wore on, she became aware—and it gave her an unpleasant sensation, like an itch—that he was better-looking than she remembered. It embarrassed her somewhat to see him in his skimpy track outfit. In one scene where he sat on the sidelines, the shorts rode up so high she could see where his tan ended and his natural skin tone, considerably paler, began. She was almost glad when the movie ended. The last few seconds had been queer, besides. The scene of Buster and his girl walking out of the chapel after being married had melted into a scene of them sitting at home while their children played in the background, then one of them in old age, before concluding with a shot of two headstones.

The organ died away and the lights went up. 

“What on earth did that ending mean?” said Maggie, with a look on her face.

“I don’t know,” said Nelly, but it had given her a bad taste. Judging by the expressions on their neighbors’ faces, they weren’t alone in their confusion. Even in Shakespeare’s time, everyone knew that you ended a comedy with a marriage. To do otherwise was to let your audience down. The abrupt, morbid ending brought her back to reality and reminded her that the real Buster was not to be confused with his handsome, whimsical on-screen counterpart.

Joe was the only one who seemed to find the ending funny and tried explaining it as they made their way up the balcony and down the stairs. Nelly was busy searching the exiting crowd for Buster’s face and only half listened. They made it out onto the sidewalk before she accepted she wasn’t going to see him that night. 

Maggie proposed getting hamburgers before they went home and Joe and Nelly agreed. They found a diner on L Street and sat in a booth with a checkered red-and-white tablecloth.

“So what’s he really like?” Maggie said, after their food arrived and they were tucking into burgers and coleslaw. She was a heavier girl, pretty, with auburn hair and freckles on her nose. Her claim to fame was that her maternal grandfather had been one of the original inhabitants of Sacramento when it was first incorporated. She’d asked Nelly the question before, but Nelly didn’t mind answering it again. Buster had rubbed off some fifteen minutes of fame onto her and there was no sense in not using them. Of course, she hadn’t told them that he was her savior the night of the party; in her untruthful retelling, Bert had played that role. They did know, however, that he had invited her to be an extra and that she’d baked him cookies after his accident with the baseball.

“Not much like that,” said Nelly. She looked up and scanned the faces in the other booths as if one might belong to Buster, but they didn’t. “He smiles in real life, but you know that, I’ve said that before. He can be very solemn. He’s not boyish like he is in pictures. I think he’s a kind person, mostly.” She was almost surprised to hear herself say it, but it was a conclusion she’d come to in spite of how he’d appalled her at their first meeting. He’d been a gentleman through and through when he rescued her at the party and took her back to his hotel room, and she couldn’t help but alter her opinion because of it. “He keeps a lot to himself and sticks to his own pals. And he’s very funny, just as funny as his movies.”

“He’s a real athlete too,” Joe said. “He can’t hide that.”

Nelly agreed. “Yes, he plays a lot of baseball with his team.”

“I liked the picture anyway. The gags were funny,” said Joe.

“It was alright,” Nelly said.  

Maggie added, “I’m still not keen on that ending.”

“No,” said Nelly. 

They ate their burgers and the conversation moved to the Senators game (everything was called Senator here since Sacramento was the capital) and how, according to Joe at least, the team hadn’t been the same since Brick Eldred (whoever he was) left. It was getting late by the time they left the diner, and they took a taxi back to 22nd Street, Nelly and Maggie deciding that they’d forgo the dance hall for the evening. 

Nelly had almost forgotten about Buster by the time she crawled into bed around eleven. She tried to drift off by boring herself with thoughts of baseball. Her father and uncle liked the White Sox, but she’d never really understood or cared for the game. Her only memory of the game she’d been taken to as a little girl was of eating hot dogs and popcorn and wandering the stands with Ruthie. Although she couldn’t say why, fantasies of men had not been satisfying since the incident with Tommy, not even her go-to of John Barrymore. The idea that a man might take up baseball or another sport he was abysmal at in order to win the love of a girl seemed laughable now that she thought about it, but Buster had done it—and more—in College. He’d even rescued the girl from his rival who was trying to ruin her reputation.

Her eyes shot open. She hadn’t thought of it until now, but Buster had rescued her that night at the blind tiger. Of course, he hadn’t done it out of a sense of love and there was no reading into the coincidence since the picture had been shot long before she’d met Tommy or Buster, but it struck her regardless. Maybe Buster’s pictures did reveal something of his character. As she puzzled over it, her thoughts got hazier and hazier, until finally she dropped off to sleep.

Note: Bonus update this week. I think you all deserve it after current events! Also, do admire this screengrab where Buster’s tan ends and his normal skin color begins. 

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Hi! I know I have other unfinished fic, but I’ve actually been writing a bit, and you can blame @the-well-rested-one! I have five chapters queued up and outline for several more, that’s a good sign! Please comment if you read, or reblog! Thank you to @nikibi6 and @emulateharry for the looksie!

The One Where Harry Styles Sneezed On Me

Day One

There's only three people out on the pavement ahead of her, and a part of Elise is tempted to tip toe because she watches too many movies.

The streets of London are quieter than Elise has seen them since she moved here. She'd basically never left her university classes and not been shoulder to shoulder with wall to wall people. Her classes were over at rush hour and there were a lot of people in London at any time of day. Had you asked her before the move, she would have said she liked big crowds. But now, the tube sometimes gave her anxiety, a brand new thing, because it was so packed.

Today, well London was like a ghost town, like the film where she'd fallen in love with the city and decided she would study abroad there. It was an odd one, but that sounded like her.

28 Days Later was a weird inspiration, but maybe because London was empty in the movie, she was able to see things about it better. It was also why she felt like she should be extra quiet on the nearly deserted streets, this was the closest approximation to her favorite movie scenes she'd probably ever see in one of the biggest cities in the world. Elise had never been to a big city, not really, the largest was maybe Phoenix. But it didn't really feel that much bigger than Tucson, where she grew up, or maybe it had just grown before her eyes so she hadn't noticed.

London was a proper big city as her roommate told her, and Elise hadn't made it for a semester abroad. She'd wound up here for her post graduate work, she couldn't afford it during undergrad. The living expenses, turns out, were too expensive, but she'd found a way later, because there was a will, a dream.

Her will for today had been to find her way after class to the next public green space on her list. She'd done Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, and Regent's Park. She went after class when she could, if there was sunlight to catch. Today was so pretty, she had decided to go even if it meant catching the tube by herself at night. And then she had stepped out into a London eerily like the one from the movie that had first infatuated her. There were people on the street though, and they didn't look like the walking dead, just the walking afraid. Those who had braved the streets wore masks. One lady had gardening gloves on. Elise wasn't sure if she was underreacting or everybody else was over the top. She hadn't really thought about it, mostly because she was under 80, and well, honestly, maybe she did feel a little bit of the invincibility youth brings.

Apparently lots of Londoners didn't feel the same way. Including those who ran her Uni. She arrived with her notebooks and excited for her day plans, resolute, to find a sign on an easel in the entryway.

"Classes Cancelled today. Online classes will resume tomorrow. All formats will be conducted via Portal for three weeks, or until further notice."

Well, shit. Had they thought to send an email? It may have saved her the trip.

Elise looked at the 100,000 emails in her gmail and discovered they had indeed emailed her. This was why she avoided online courses, she was much better, learned better, in person. Also, she was abysmal at keeping up with things via email. The next few weeks would be a trial.

She'd have to figure it out, and she knew herself; A schedule was necessary, she'd write one down, on paper, to order her life while she had to finish these courses online. But that seemed to be her only coursework for this day.

That was a bright side. She took it as a silver lining, she could head to the old London Heath right away. She considered walking, plotted out her path and realized that it was a long, long way, so long it would steal all of her energy to explore.

The tube was really ghostly, like the ghost town they visited once, Calico or something?

Regardless, she was surprised she wasn't more excited. It was just like 28 Days Later. Well not really, no bloodthirsty, spattered lurchers, but it felt eerie. Like it had the first time she watched it, before she got totally immune to the plot and could only see the sights. She was thankful when a few people got on her carriage, though they sat as far from each other as the spacing allowed. She quickly looked up more information on her phone and estimated how far away the people should be, they were all separated by much more than that.

By the time she got to her destination, she'd normally be just getting out of her first class, and Elise's stomach reminded her that this was meal time. She really was married to a schedule, or at least her biology was. She thought a picnic would be lovely, so she looked up a market and found a Whole Foods nearby. She would splash out for her lunch it looked like, could be worse, could be Waitrose, and must be cheaper than a cafe, surely.

London was pricey. Which she'd known intellectually and was now experiencing literally everyday. As such, Elsie was kinda thinking she needed a job. Was she allowed to work? Maybe on campus. She'd have to ask the question to somebody who knew; she was running through her reserves.

Elise kinda sighed at herself as she walked into Whole Foods. Maybe this was not the best idea. But it was bright and cheery inside and smelled like green juice and roasted vegetables. Her stomach growled and she decided the worst that could happen was she would wind up eating cup o' noodles and have to pack a lunch a lot towards the end of semester before her next stipend.

Elsie shrugged and sang along a little to the song playing overhead. She felt like she rarely heard One Direction here, she heard it played out more in public in the US, and wondered if that was due to public exhaustion. She understood that it had been next level crazy here. Maybe it was just time? They'd been her favorite when she was in early high school. She had decided she was gonna marry Liam in eighth grade. That opinion changed as they all aged. She got too cool for them, and well, some of them grew up nicely. "Just how fast the night changes." She tried to harmonize along. The song also meant she wasn't hurrying she was, however, wandering.

Fruit, she should grab some fruits, that was always a good place to start.

How she wound up by the hot bar she didn't know, but she grabbed a bit of roast chicken and realized the layout was backwards to the one she was used to in Tucson. The metal spoon clanked as she got some potatoes that looked deliciously crunchy and had little burned ridges like she loved. She should have some vegetables. Carrots didn't count, real green things were needed. Asparagus counted. She was looking at the cut fruit, but then thought about her budget concerns and headed over to the produce section.

It was a little emptier than what she assumed was normal, a few ladies and a tall, lanky man in a hoodie and hat were the only people about. He was broad from the back, but had a furtive set to his shoulder that made him smaller. He was also standing exactly where she wanted to be. In front of the bananas, her favorite of the economical fruits. The best bunches clustered where he didn't seem to be doing anything but loitering.

Elise's belly growled, the aroma of her roasted chicken wafted up. She'd give it another minute and if he hadn't moved, she'd try to politely shoulder her way around him, 6 feet or not.

She gave it two minutes. By the end her converse was audible tapping. He still hadn't moved at all. So help her, if he was on his phone! It was time for action. She came up to about his shoulder, and he did not seem to notice there was 5 feet of impatience at his elbow, at least he certainly didn't move. When Elise realized he was on his phone, her patience snapped. That had to break some kind of grocery store etiquette. Was there grocery store etiquette? Certainly, it would extend to standing so people couldn't access foods when you were fucking around on your phone.

She reached past him, "sorry, excuse my reach." she hoped he could hear just how not sorry she was. Elise was good at passive-aggression.

She heard his breathing change and was ready to tell him he had just been blocking the bananas for three minutes, and she knew she wasnt being socially distant, but he was being rude, when he turned towards her. He was being rude, especially by English standards and she would tell him so, even if she wasn't sure if he was exactly impolite, accusing an Englishman of that was very effective.

She realized two things when he looked at her.

One- he was not some stranger- he was HARRY. FUCKING.STYLES!

And two- as his spit splattered all over her face, he wasn't about to call her rude, his gasp had been the beginning of a sneeze.

😷😷😷😷😷

The last hour had been an absolute blur. She had just sat down to eat. And though her 16 year old self would consider this an upgrade, her 23 year old self was really sad the heath was not the site of her lunch, even if it had been switched out for her teenage dream.

Because Harry Styles had started his litany of apologies with a "fuck!" Then a spilling ramble. "I'm so sorry, dammit, I knew I should have just sent somebody. Dammit, Jesus fuck, now you will have to be quarantined too." His hands were fumbling with the wet wipes and she could smell the disinfectant on them. She stopped him short before he was wiping that shit on her face and was redirecting his hand while he was still talking about how they could just both be holed up in his house. It distracted from the fact he was rubbing spittle off her shirt very close to her nipple.

"I mean, it's not huge. Damn, I kinda wish the new house was done. Then we wouldn't even have to see each other. Not that, I um, wouldn't want to see you, or like whatever, but um. We don't know each other and we'll be, like, living together for several weeks. I guess you could quarantine at your place. But I just feel better, cause it's my fault. Seems rude to possibly infect somebody due to negligence, and not like, help them through it. I just had to have my celery juice." That part was said under his breath, and he wasn't holding any juice.

She remembered the closed juice bar. The sign had read: Our fresh bars-juice, smoothie, and coffee are close due to Covid- 19 contagion worries. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Then it clicked, while she wiped his sputum from her face. That is what he was talking about. What the?

"Are you just wandering around whole foods infecting people? You have the virus?"

She realized she'd been talking really loud and attracting attention. Harry certainly realized.

He looked agitated and around to see if they had an audience, and she realized his face was a bit of a liability. That would be some headline for sure. "Harry Styles spreading coronavirus!" or some shit like that. He used to get press for existing, the memory made her soft for him.

"Let's get you checked out. And we can go back to my place and talk?" He made eye contact and she got confused for a second longer.

"What?" Elise found herself saying. She would normally never ever go home with some dude in a store. But, this dude was Harry Styles, and that made her feel simultaneously safer and also like this was a chance she had to take. She also wanted to yell at him a little.

He sighed, like she was a hard to open packet of chips. "Can you check out and meet me outside?" He looked around again and bit his lip because the women nearby were watching them. He handed her his basket and helped her transfer her things to it, "Can you grab my things too?" He didn't sound like she remembered him. But she supposed she'd not done more than listen to his albums once through after she'd grown out of her One Direction phase.

He sounded better. He was still growing up well.

"Huh?" She was not following him. He gave her that exasperated face and thinned his lips before he quickly got a hundred pound note out. "Check out and I'll meet you in my car. I'm near the front, all right?"

She barely remembered checking out. The girl had to prompt her twice, and she'd shoved the sanitizer at her when they'd both had to touch the change. She even considered keeping. Can you grab my things too, the audacity! But she handed it to him promptly and he put it away and sanitized his hands and gave her a squirt too. Chivalry in the time of Corona.

The drive had been quiet. Though she was sure there were things to do, to say, certainly. So the radio played and Harry sang along. It was a surreal moment, right out of her teenage dreams. Listening to Harry Styles sing in his expensive car. The missing piece that made it reality instead of fantasy was that she was not singing along, instead she was confused and hungry.

"Here, I'll warm up your lunch." Was the first thing he said to her as he ushered her into the square house she recognized from something on the internet years ago. It was a little cold inside and Elise fitted her sweater around her shoulders and sat at the wood grain kitchen table. Her food came to her steaming. Then a warm mug she immediately wrapped her hands around.

"You cold?" He asked while moving to a fancy looking blue screened rectangle on the wall. "I'm always cold, so I just wait until someone seems too cold to change anything."

She nodded.

"Right, so you know me?" He asked like it was taking out the garbage.

"Um," Elise took a drink. "Yeah, I was a huge One Direction fan in high school."

He smiled at that. "Ok, is that why you've gone silent? Freaking out?"

"Yeah, and also, I'm not really following. Honestly."

"Why don't you tell me a little about about what you think is going on. Then I'll fill in my side."

She took a breath. "Can I eat my lunch first?" She needed a minute, and she was beyond hungry, and annoyed. Definitely annoyed. And maybe just a touch of freaking out. Harry was her favorite for a lot longer than Liam, if she was honest.

"Oh! Yes, of course." He shook his head, "how rude of me."

That was why he felt rude? Not the bananas or irresponsible shopping trip. Elise widened her eyes at her carton before she dug in and didn't look up until the blender went.

A green smoothie, vibrant and lush, was placed at her elbow. It matched his eyes. "Here, to your health."

"Thank you." She took a sip and smiled. Her blood sugar was rising and she was already feeling considerably better, though her odd situation and figuring it out came to the forefront. "So, um, to my health hmmm?" She cheered the air.

Harry exhaled and nodded.

"To yours as well?"

"I suppose you could say that." He pulled his lip between his forefingers and she remembered that from interviews.

"You're not supposed to touch your face." She ah, ah, ahhed with a grin.

He laughed and it broke some of their tension. "I'm not. Neither are you."

Elise realized she had her chin in her hand. She slapped it lightly on the table and sat up. "Fair enough, so what am I doing here, Mr. Styles?"

He groaned lowly and she wondered what that was about. She didn't let it sidetrack her though, she'd wait out his response.

He took a big gulp of health and Elise watched the chunky residue slide down the glass.

"You've heard of Coronavirus, yes?"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes.

He chuckled, she hoped at himself, what the fuck kind of question was that?

"Right, pretty unavoidable, yeah?" He didn't need her to agree, he kept talking. "I travel a lot."

"Duh!" she interrupted.

At that he really did laugh. "So, I travel a lot, duh, and I flew on a flight where somebody tested positive. There aren't many tests yet, they're rationing them."

"Even for you?" She was surprised.

"Even for me," he sighed. "I'm just a person. Anyway, the person in question asked for a pic for his daughter—."

"Likely story."

"Perhaps, and so, we were in close proximity and we shook hands," she nodded along with the line of his narrative. "They won't test me unless I show symptoms. But quarantine was recommended."

He finished, he'd left out a part though.

"Is Whole Foods part of the quarantine radius?"

He blushed a little, and all of the reasons she'd had some of her earliest fantasies about him surfaced. "No, not as such. But I was low on bananas."

"Nobody you could pay a euro for your bunch of bananas?" She hoped for a laugh.

He squinted. "Course, but I don't like to be a bother."

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "So, in your effort to not inconvenience anyone for a couple hours, you've exposed me by sneezing in my face, rude, and kidnapping me to your house? So, now I have to quarantine too?"

"You aren't a kid. How could I nap you?" This was not a joke, but the humor of it was not escaping either of them.

"Not what that means, though I've no idea why." She shrugged.

"Young lady napped?" He tried.

"Oh god, you are sooo English. Young lady napped." She tried on his drawl.

"That was terrible!" He shook his head like he was offended.

"I thought it was pretty good?" She popped her shoulder and her own little dimple in her left cheek appeared, though it didn't pull the weight his did. He narrowed his eyes before raising up his eyebrows.

"It was alright, I suppose. We have time to perfect it."

"Why's that?" She found herself asking.

"Well, we're pretty much stuck together. How d'ya feel about two weeks at Le Hotel Styles?"

He couldn't be serious, could he?

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.79

Running late to pick Curtis and Shiro up, Lance blamed Kosmo. The puppy making off with one of his shoes, while he was trying to find his missing pants. Curtis had sounded drunk, Shiro even more so. Lance hadn’t expected them to get plastered on their date, but with a rare night to themselves, he felt both of them totally deserved to relax. Promising to wait for them out the front of the hotel whose restaurant was where they’d gone for their date, neither of them were waiting out the front thanks to the light drizzling rain.

Heading into the lobby with his boyfriend, Keith unimpressed they were walking around in their “pyjamas” in such a rich looking place. They’d fallen into a doze cuddling after doing a little physical making up more than once. Lance’s hips were sore and his smile gentle towards his annoyed boyfriend. The vampire really loved it when Keith he’d him by his hips, and he really loved making up with his boyfriend. So that gentle smile was purely for Keith. Wearing sweats, he’d had to borrow because lord only knew where his pants, and oversized shirt in a hotel lobby made him feel like a dork. They were clearly underdressed when compared to the ornate Art Deco feel of the place. Sighing, Keith pulled out his phone, both of them moving out of the main thoroughfare to stand closer to the wall

“I’m gonna try calling Curtis again”

Lance nodded. The place really didn’t seem like they should walk further in. He wouldn’t be surprised if the receptionist had already called the cops on them, but all the money that went into such a fancy place didn’t really show on the outside with the rain coming in under the fronts plastic roofing. As Keith talked to Curtis, Lance’s smile started to waver. Not completely sure why, something pricked at his senses. The feeling annoying, as there seemed nothing wrong with their surrounds, and extra annoying as he couldn’t figure out why he was annoyed.

“They’re on their way. They went and sat in the lounge to wait for us thanks to the rain”

Lance almost thanked god out loud

“Babe?”

Humming, Lance pushed his smile back into place

“Sorry. I was totally zoning out”

Keith slipped his phone back in his pocket, Lance trying not to look as the small amount of weight tugged down Keith’s sweats. They’d already fooled around enough that now the couch and the bathroom were christened. He didn’t feel like he was in heat, but he could definitely appreciate Keith’s body, especially this hips showing above the hem of his sweats

“They could have at least texted”

Lance nodded, casting a glance around as he wondered where the hotel lounge was

“Babe?”

Whoops. He didn’t want Keith to worry over some niggling feeling he didn’t know how to explain

“I’m fine. Just tired”

“Are you sure? I mean...”

“I’m fine. Not even that sore... I mean, I’m not sore, but you know...”

Lance was blushing now. He could almost feel Keith’s hands on his hips. Maybe it was a kink? Yet, he only wanted Keith to do it, so he wasn’t sure it counted

“I know it’s harder on you than it is on me”

“Vampire stamina, babe. I’m okay. This place looks nice”

Keith frowned at the topic change, but went along with it

“It looks expensive”

“I don’t know how people feel comfortable in a place like this. I like the hotel we went to better”

“Mmm. Me too. Curtis did want things to be special. Their dinner probably cost what I make in a week”

Did Keith worry about that with him? That he couldn’t impress Lance with a low budget? Lance had his own money. He’d prefer something casual

“I don’t think I could do that. Spend that much on a meal. I’d rather get a room and room service”

“Do you want to do something like that for your birthday?”

Lance bit down his sigh. He didn’t want to discuss his birthday

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure... I get that you don’t like it, but... I want to do something with you”

Pidge and Hunk would probably want to do something

“I know. Please no 18 again parties. If Pidge and Hunk start on it, can you loop me in so I can not be there. Oh, there’s Shiro”

Curtis and Shiro were a welcome distraction. They were sober enough to walk straight, which was a relief

“Sorry! The rain started and Shiro was getting wet”

Curtis looked good. Both of them were suited up. Curtis had styled his hair a little differently thanks to his horn. The look suited him. The few flakes of dandruff on his shoulder were barely noticeable when you looked at Curtis as a whole being

“It’s fine. Can we go now?”

Ruffling Keith’s hair, Shiro laughing at Keith’s huffy tone

“You’ve got to get used to places like this one day. You can’t just take Lance to cheap hotels”

Keith deflated, Lance wrapping his arm around his boyfriend’s waist

“Actually, he can. I really don’t mind where we go”

“Still. You do have a birthday coming up...”

“Lance would rather not talk about his birthday. It’s a sensitive subject when he doesn’t age”

Lance supposed he deserved that for confiding in Curtis. Shiro’s happiness didn’t waver, the hunter nodding understandingly

“I suppose after a while it gets repetitive. We always baked a cake for Keith’s birthday when I could. He always ate it. No matter how much he disliked it”

“Fuck off”

His little anger loaf wasn’t impressed. Lance keeping his arm around him as they moved towards the door.

That was because Shiro had made it his cake for him, Keith would always eat it like it was the best cake ever made. Lance knew those feelings well. This year Hunk would want to bake a cake for Keith, so Lance’d have to let him know not to. As Shiro brushed past him, Lance caught a whiff of vampire clinging to him. That certain undeadness with hints of blood... Now he knew what’d been bugging him. The feeling like he’d been being watched from far away. Stumbling his steps as he tried to look over his shoulder, Keith kept him upright

“Babe?”

Lance couldn’t bring up the topic now. Not if they were being watched and listened to

“It’s fine. Just making sure they didn’t call security on us”

A little white lie wouldn’t cause any drama. Maybe the vampire worked here as something like a waiter. Shiro’s neck showed, no vampire bites obvious. Confidently, Shiro bought his mistruth

“They’d hardly call security on us. Though you two are underdressed. I hope we didn’t disturb anything...”

The way Shiro said “anything” meant sex... Grumpy Keith didn’t appreciate his brother’s comment

“It’s the middle of the night. We were tying to sleep. Don’t be gross”

“You knew you had to pick us up”

“I didn’t think it’d be in the middle of the fucking night...”

Oh dear. Keith was only getting crankier. Pulling Keith closer, Keith leaned into him, Lance enjoying feeling like he was supporting his sleepy boyfriend

“It’s fine. We were cuddled up in bed. He didn’t have any coffee before we left. Are we headed back to the apartment or VOLTRON?”

“Lotor had a meeting with Allura. That should be over now. She was worried about his scent sending you into a fresh heat when now is not an opportune time. Then there’s the affect of your scent on his ego. Allura was quite unsure what the meeting was about. Lotor seemed quite keen on dating her”

Trust Curtis to know what was up. Lance hadn’t met Lotor yet. The vampire less snoopy now the Blades had sent a team. There were probably a lot of supernaturals that felt they couldn’t go to VOLTRON for help until the hunters had left. Things were fine with Coran running the show. He didn’t simply send someone after you. But the Blades didn’t play by his rules. Antok hadn’t seemed to care when he carried out his mission. He was going to have to find Allura and ask her what she made of Lotor now they’d spent more time together. They never had had to go out... and though Lance disliked going to clubs, he didn’t want Allura to miss out on the chance to get out and about. He didn’t want to third wheel on Allura’s dating life, yet he wasn’t sure he was up for Allura going out alone with Lotor, if she’d decided he was worth her time. If they went out, met in a public space, then that’d be a different thing. Allura could experience what being human was like, without the heaviness of it being a date. Not that dating was heavy. But there was a certain expectation of things to run smoothly. Lotor hurting Allura went against things running smoothly and he’d never forgive himself if something happened to her... even if meant third wheeling. Tomorrow he’d talk to Allura. Or today... He wasn’t exactly sure what the time was, only that he was out past his bedtime and he wanted to get as far away from the hotel vampire as soon as he could.

*

When Lance went looking for Allura in the morning, the last thing he expected was to be running into Krolia. Walking through the halls, Krolia and Kolivan were talking with Coran. Lance knew he wasn’t supposed to hear what they were saying, but he definitely caught “Sendak needs to come in and testify that he wasn’t involved in the incident at the shipping yard, or we’ll be forced to hunt him down. If you can get Lotor to agree on a meeting with us personally, we’ll be in a much better position....” before the three of them noticed him and promptly shut up. He’d heard more, but he really had tried to ignore their words by thinking about Keith. In front of everyone else the Blades made it a point to tell the world they didn’t need Coran’s help. Now they were sneaking around and meeting with him like the dodgy snakes they were.

“Lance, my boy. What are you doing here?”

Coran sounded ruffled. Being caught would do that. Sliding his hands into his jeans, Lance shrugged, pretending this wasn’t awkward, and he didn’t feel like prey with the three of them walking towards him

“I just came up to talk to Allura. Is she around?”

“She’s in her office, I believe”

“Great. Well... I’m gonna go... yep... gonna go find Allura...”

And now he was overjustifying. Kolivan stared down at him, crossing his arms with a savage frown on his lips. Lance nearly found himself dropping down and begging for his life. The man was fucking scary

“Can I ask why you wish to see Allura? I was under the impression you’d be leaving by now”

Ouch. He was currently stuck. Things half packed

“I’m not exactly here because I want to be. No offence, Coran. I... well... I was going to ask Allura if she wanted to go out for a drink and a catch up”

Coran nervously twirled his moustache

“Sorry, my boy... Allura needs to stay here today. Why don’t you call Pidge and Hunk?”

Okay. This was weird. Why was it that he felt Coran wanted Allura staying at VOLTRON because he was scared for her? Lotor better not have hurt her already

“Nah. It’s fine. I wanted to see how she was. I’ll message Keith or something”

“Ah. Yes. Well. Shiro and Keith will be required later too. Sorry. Lotor wishes to meet with them and we believe Allura may be able to obtain information pertinent to the investigation...”

“That’s enough. Anything else is to be saved for the briefing”

Coran tugged lightly on the end of his moustache

“I’m sorry, Lance. He is quite right. Maybe today’s the day to go for a nice drive? You’ll find something to do. Only I ask that you please avoid the main floor. We don’t know what time we should expect Lotor’s arrival”

“Coran, you don’t need to explain. It’s okay. I’ll visit Garrison, and catch up with Allura another time”

Heading back to his room. Lance gathered up his things. Lotor was coming on board to work with the Blades, meaning his presence here would potentially cause issues if the two of them were to bump into each other. Coran had promised to work on something for his scent and pheromones but these things took time and the man now had enough of his plate that Lance understood he didn’t really have time to be coming up with something like that. It’d suck not being able to say goodbye to Keith, but Keith had work and that needed to come first. Plus they’d made up yesterday. He’d overstayed his welcome. Not helpful in the current situation. Packing up and moving home was best for everyone... except Keith. He was being pathetic. He’d been spoiled being able to see Keith almost everyday. Mami was right. They were definitely in their honeymoon phase. He wanted to spend as much time with Keith as possible, but already had made his working life hard because his boyfriend had to take care of him during his heats. Putting it that way didn’t sound noble. It kind of sounded like he was running away from his problems. He should just call Keith and explain... but hearing his voice... he’d want to see him, and then he’d want to stay and he couldn’t stay. Ugh. Being in love was exhausting... Don’t get him wrong, he adored Keith, but if he wasn’t thinking about him then he probably would have gone back earlier.

Taking the cowards way out, he shot keith a text. Well. A series of texts explaining that for now he thought it’d be best. He knew Keith had abandonment issues and he’d really wanted to help with this “Krolia Keith issue”. But he was just one vampire head over-heels for his boyfriend. He thought maybe he get them to talk, yet if he was confined to the lower levels of VOLTRON he didn’t see how that was going to happen. With his things packed, it took two trips to his car. Keith hadn’t replied to messages, making him feel even worse about just leaving him in Platt. Keith had mentioned he wanted him to be able to go back to Garrison, where he’d be relatively safe... Matt and Rieva wouldn’t have returned there is it wasn’t... and with the three of them they’d put up a fair fight if anything happened.

*

Blue kept him company for the drive. Clipping her lead to the passenger headrest, his precious princess curled up on the front seat, happy to be in the sun. Her legs stretched out, toe beans pointing towards him. She was just too cute. She’d made a friend in Kosmo and now Lance felt mean separating the pair of them. Maybe he should get another cat? If things were settling down for him, it’d be good for Blue to have some company... Though the house and grounds were her domain so an intruder might not be looked upon so nicely. Plus, she’d have to share her cat tree... and watch another cat eat wet food... Maybe another cat wasn’t such a good idea... Especially when Blue liked to “play” with him as a bat. He was likely to end up dead with a second feline there to help Blue. As Keith would say, he was overthinking things again.

Reaching his house, he didn’t feel better about coming home. Hunk’s car was in the drive, him and Pidge probably already inside. After his craptastic day, part of him felt petty. Pidge wasn’t fine with sleeping over when it came to him. But she was apparently fine with two werewolves... It stung. Like maybe he wasn’t welcome in his own house anymore, like he wasn’t exactly welcome at VOLTRON. Now he was sitting in front of his house, he realised he’d left without picking up blood bags. He should have some still, from when he was going to move back before, but after skulking away, he felt foolish. His metaphoric tail tucked between his legs because the adults didn’t have time for him. Totally fucking lame. He’d stripped his room completely. Everything packed and in the back of his bronco. All that came now was pasting a fake smile on his face and greeting his friends again.

Matt and Rieva had heard him coming, Lance opening the door to the pair of them. As they wrapped their arms around him, it was the best he’d felt all day

“You’re back!”

Matt sounded happy. At least someone was happy to see him... Nope. No. No being petty. They were home and staying there now

“Yep. Back for good”

“We missed you, man! Come in already! We’ve been dying here. Hunk’s cooking is the only thing keep us alive”

Lance snorted

“You’ve missed me because you can’t cook”

“Rieva can cook... but there’s just something not the same without you in the kitchen”

Matt was careless with his words. Rieva letting go of Lance and grabbing her boyfriend by the earlobe, Matt yelping

“What was that?”

Matt grabbed his girlfriend’s wrist

“Okay! I said it wrong! You can cook! You can cook! Stop tearing my ear off!”

Rieva grinned at Lance

“Hear that? He’s volunteered for two weeks of dishwashing and drying. Now, if only I could get him so enthused about doing his washing”

Lance raised an eyebrow

“You haven’t trained him yet?”

“At this stage he’s surviving on his good looks alone”

“Then how is he still alive?”

Matt frowned, Rieva letting go of his ear as she laughed. Crossing his arms, the werewolf put on an overly hurt tone

“Man. That hurt. I thought we were buds?”

“We are. Can I blame that on my ego?”

“Only if you don’t get too mad about your living room”

“What did you do to my house?”

“Well... about that...”

It took naught-point-two seconds for Lance to wish he was buried out the back in his grave soil. His living room transformed. Now there were investigation boards up for Lotor. Rieva hadn’t given up on Lotor being bad... she’d just shifted her investigation here... roping in Hunk and Pidge from the look of it. He’d left Platt and now Platt seemed determined to mock him

“What. The. Fuck?!”

“Don’t freak out...”

Matt could go jump if he thought Lance would be cool with this

“You can’t just... What were you thinking?”

This right here was why vampires lived longer than werewolves! Rieva took him by the hand

“I know this is hard for you, but we couldn’t let it go. Lotor’s bad news. His family is bad news. Please, Lance. This is the only safe place where we can work this out”

From the sofa, Pidge looked up from her laptop

“Rieva, ignore him. He worries too much”

No. He worried just the right amount!

“Of course I worry! You guys are mostly human! I didn’t come home to be caught up in an investigation that’d make me even more dead if the Blades found out!”

“That’s why they can’t know. Shiro and Keith...”

“I’m not lying to Keith. Both of them were booted from the investigation for a good reason. I can home to get away from this!”

Hunk came running from the kitchen. Oven mitts still on his hand

“What’s all the... Lance?! You’re back?”

Why did it feel like Hunk wasn’t happy to see him?

“I am. And I see you guys have been busy”

“Uh. Yeah. Uh, bud... you see... the thing is...”

“The thing is you’re going to end up getting yourselves killed chasing this. I can’t believe you guys! You find out vampires are real and now you’re targeting one of the nastiest around? Seriously?! Do you know what you’re doing?! Allura is like a hair away from dating Lotor. Keith’s stressed out. Shiro and Curtis are finally dating. We’re all banned pretty much from going to VOLTRON while the Blades investigate this. And you bring it home?! This isn’t fun and games! People end up dead or they end up as something fucking worse. Pidge, you were scared and you haven’t even seen the worst of it! I told you I didn’t want her caught up in this! She’s your sister, Matt!”

Matt sighed

“Look. I know you care about Pidge. But I care about keeping us all safe. Lotor is bad news...”

“I know! Well I don’t know, but I know enough!”

“You’re not a hunter...”

Matt started to speak, Lance snapping mid sentence

“You guys aren’t either! You want to be turned into pets? Is that it? You want to be fed on? You want to be tortured? Why?! Why would you do this?”

Pidge stood up, yelling

“Our parents know hunters! They know. They know about things!”

“Then figure out how to help Curtis with his goddamn curse! Not how to bring down Lotor and get us all killed in the process!”

Pidge’s parents knowing hunters kind of gut punched him. Pidge must have either forced them to talk to her or snooped. Probably snooped. Colleen was scary

“You’re not our boss, Lance. We can’t let people get hurt! Or is your precious ego so fragile you don’t actually care about helping people?”

Lance wanted to shake sense into Pidge. What happened to his always dependable ray of sunshine stopping her from being stupid?!

“Of course I care! But we’re banned from investigating! You guys were knocked out by the Blades once. Kolivan isn’t going to be so kind the next time around!”

“What does it matter if it stops people getting hurt?!”

“Because you could die!”

“And I could come back as a vampire! This is bigger than us”

Pidge didn’t get it. She didn’t get what being a vampire was like at all. Pidge turning into a vampire was the stuff of nightmares for him. Why were his friends so fucking stupid?!

“I can’t... I can’t even look at you guys right now. Being a vampire isn’t a joke. It’s the worst existence you could think of. For 26 years I’ve looked 18. I’ve watched my family grow old. I tore my family apart. My sister Rachel became a drug addict because she couldn’t cope. I’ve left people behind. I’ve had to change my name and move. Everything you enjoy about being human is gone. Your precious coffee, drink that and you’ll be throwing it back up half an hour later. No caffeine buzz. No alcohol buzz. We go insane. That’s our fate. Our fate is loose our minds and turn into monsters. That’s if you even survive turning and you’re not hunted down and decapitated first. Our blood is so dangerous that even a hickey can turn our partners if they suck too hard. Fuck this. I’ll be in my grave my soil”

No matter which way he looked at it. He’d be the first to sign up for experimental time travel because today had sucked so hard that not even Keith calling him could make up for it.

[duker42]

can i request this: Y/N is a well loved chubby lil cook for the soldiers, known to be really friendly but socially awkward. she one day bakes multiple batches of cookies with her own ingredients for heckin everyone but saves an extra special one with a little heart made of chocolate chips on it. she gives it to the last person to grab food, levi heckin ackerman. fluff, slight angst from a misunderstanding, and hilarity ensue. sorry if it's too specific ;w;

***So it was a little specific, but hopefully I got the gist of what you wanted. This one was a challenge, but I think it turned out well!

💜Baked with Love💜

Y/N hummed as her egg timer went off. She grabbed a thick towel and reached into the ovens, pulling out the last trays of cookies. Setting them to cool, she began to tidy up the large kitchen, her white uniform covered by the neat apron she wore.

She wasn’t a soldier but her gently rounded curves wore the uniform of one. She supported the soldiers, as their cook and it had just made sense to her higher ups to wear the standard clothes. It was a sometimes grueling job, making their meager budget stretch to try and fill those active bellies with sufficient food. Y/N was creative though. She had managed to convince Commander Erwin that the money saved on frighteningly expensive herbs was worth the time and effort she put into the small gardens in the castle courtyard.

Still, she tried to spoil the Scouts before any upcoming missions beyond the walls. Most of them were frightened kids, unsure of what was to come, unlikely to make it home again. So she did her best to try and remind them of better times if they had those memories or create them if they didn’t. And everyone loved chocolate chip cookies.

The dinner was prepared, and the cookies cooled by the time she had finished washing the last of the pans. Gathering the trays, she began to fill the bowls and plates, certain that the people would start to rush in now that the hour had chimed.

As the people passed through, she gave them a friendly smile, but tried not to talk. She normally stuttered from embarrassment or got tongue tied when there were too many people around.

The line had dwindled out, so she turned her attention to the last of the pans, scrubbing them vigorously as she let her mind wander back to that one last cookie. She had baked it in hopes to give it to one man that seemed to make her heart flutter, but she hadn’t seen him in the Mess Hall tonight.

Lost in thought, she stood for Lord only knows how long before a loud “Oi!” Broke through. Looking up, she spotted the abject of her thoughts standing in the doorway, a bored expression on his handsome face.

“Oh, Captain Levi! Sorry, sir. I’ll get your food right away! She washed her hands diligently and quickly set up his tray of food. With a slight blush, she carefully put the special cookie on the tray before handing it to him, avoiding his eyes.

He walked off without saying anything and she sighed in relief. She stopped herself from looking out across the dining room after him as she turned her attention back to the pans in the sink.

~~~~~

Levi looked down at the cookie with something akin to horror. About the size of his palm, the sweet treat had chocolate chips baked onto it. He HATED sweets. Picking the plate back up, he marches back towards the kitchens.

“Here” He thrust the plate back towards, Y/N throwing her rag down to grab the offending item from him. “I don’t want this shit.”

Spinning on his heel, he walked back out of the kitchens, unknowingly leaving a broken hearted Y/N behind.

~~~~~

Everyone had noticed that Y/N was not her usual smiling self. But no one could quite figure out what was the reasoning for it. The cheerfulness of the kitchens had been replaced by a melancholy air.

Levi’s eyes narrowed as he went through the line for his tray. Y/N had looked away from him every time he had come through lately. Was she upset because he hadn’t eaten her cookie that day? No that couldn’t the case....too many others loved the baked goods she spoiled them with.

He hated sweets for a very good reason. They hurt his stomach, BADLY. That one cookie would have been enough to send him to the bathroom for hours, praying for relief. While he enjoyed his shit jokes, he hated enduring the cramping ass burning pain that came with eating sugar, so he avoided it all together. He figured that he was that way because of the limited diet he had growing up in the Underground. Now, it was just something he lived with.

Maybe he should talk to Y/N. Hopefully he would be able to sooth any ruffled feathers without revealing his embarrassing personal fight against sweet treats.

~~~~~

A light knock on the door pulled Y/N away from planning the next day’s menu. Shuffling to the door, she opened it to reveal Levi, his normal expression in place.

“Can I come in?” His words were smooth and easy, like he hadn’t stomped on her heart a few days ago. She seethed in anger that he would approach her after working hours.

“No.” She moved to shut the door when he placed his foot in the frame, blocking her from closing it in his face.

“Shit, I didn’t think you would be this mad about not eating a damn cookie.” His slightly surprised tone pissed Y/N off even further.

She gave a short bitter laugh. “Yep, I’m upset because you didn’t eat the cookie. That’s what it is.” Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him, but he was confused on why she was so damn angry.

“Then what the hell is the problem?” Rude and to the point as always, his grey eyes flicked to hers.

“Could have something to do with the fact that I gave you a special cookie, one where a HEART was formed from the chocolate chips, letting you know how I felt. And you returned it, saying, I quote ‘I don’t want this shit.’ Maybe....could possibly be the reason I’m upset. Now if you will please leave.......” She trailed off, nodding towards the door as she turned her back on him.

Understanding made him freeze. He hadn’t paid attention to the damn cookie. Once he realized the confectionary treat was on his plate, all he could think about was getting the devil food away from him. He hadn’t noticed the heart shaped laid out on top. Shit.....She had tried to tell him how she felt the only way she knew how, through her food. And like a complete ass, he had unknowingly rejected her.

He had wanted Y/N for years. Had been intrigued by the curvaceous little cook when she had first joined them. Watched her awkward social interaction in large groups, knowing that she was similar in her clumsiness in making small talk. But he had also noticed her passion for making the lives of the Scouts around her better by making the crap food they used to eat feel a bit more like something that would be served at a family dinner table.

Walking over to her, he placed a hesitant hand on her shoulder, feeling her tense under his touch. He would have to tread carefully and watch his abrasive tongue if he was going to set things right and perhaps earn a chance with her.

“Y/N, I’m sorry. I didn’t really look at the cookie. I didn’t see the heart on it. If I had, I would have never returned it to you.” He fought to keep the tremor from his voice. Every time he had practiced talking to her about anything other than food, he had stammered. He didn’t want to make a fool out of himself now.

“Would you have eaten it?” Her question was quiet. He winced, he couldn’t lie to her.

“No.”

Her shoulder slumped under his hand. He sighed, resigned to having to reveal his reasons.

“I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night shitting myself. So no, I wouldn’t have eaten it. Sugar upsets my stomach. I haven’t eaten any of the treats you make. I can’t.” He closed his eyes as his face begins to turn bright red.

She shakes underneath his touch. Her hand had moved up and covered her mouth, small noises coming from her. Shit....he made her cry. Feeling like a complete jerk, he carefully turned her around.

His eyes widened as he look at her. She was red-faced, her eyes dancing in amusement. The little shit was laughing at him. She released her mouth and grabbed onto his arm as her bright laughter filled the room. Rolling his eyes, he looks away.

“I didn’t realize....I’ll make you some savory treats next time. So you aren’t the butt of your own shit jokes.” She snickered, pulling his face back to meet hers.

Giving in to his own wants, he lowered his head to hover his lips over hers. “Your jokes are shit, Y/N.”

Mobile MasterList

[yamithediaperdork]

The wall and the baby (DC Universe, AU)

Amanda Waller, AKA the wall was known for many things. Her hard nose attuide, her belief that she knew right and damn everyone else, and her big baby husband Bruce Wayne. They had met at a gala, where Bruce had been head over heels with her despite well, less the striking figure but it didn't take long to figure out a few things about the Billionaire playboy. One, he was a chubby chaser who had actually kept drooling as they chatted, blushing and saying sorry when she had pointed it out with a smirk. Two, Due to his parents passing away in a skiing accident when he was 12, he had a VERY strong attraction to ladies who gave off a semi mommy energy. Now normally anyone who worked under the wall would of told you that the last aura she projected was that of a mommy, but since she had been there to suck up for some more founding for task force X, she'd had on a kinder face then normal. She did have to admit that it was cute seeing this handsome young man stumbling over his words and clearly love stuck, and so had come home with him that night. And the next night and the night after that. They had barely dated for a bare four months before they were walking down the aisle, Waller in a dashing white dress and Bruce in a pair of short alls and a puffy butt as by that point he was living as her big baby, 24/7. She assumed control of Wayne enterprises and put the corporation to work for Task force X, though most of the day to day was handled much as before, by Mr.fox. Bruce's days meanwhile were filled with making pretty pictures for mommy, playing with his toys and playing in mommies office, and of course, making mommy presents.

It was 7:30 am as Waller came into Bruce's nursery, wrinkling her nose a little at the smell that filled the room but it was all part of the mommy game and she forced the look off of her face as she made her way over the plush carpet that filled the room. Technically she could of sent Alfred in to wake Bruce up but she still felt bad about making Bruce sleep in his nursery last night instead of in bed with her, she'd been up late monitoring a mission to take out a drug cartel in San Baquero. For the most part Bruce just thought she had a very special job with the government and didn't ask too many questions, and in a way he wasn't wrong. but that still didn't mean she wanted him to see the ugly side of her work. shaking those thoughts out of her head, and hat a pain it was gonna be to replace Knockout on the team, she leaned over the side of Bruce's crib railing and smiled. here was a fit young man who could of been a star athlete, and instead he was sucking on a pacifier wearing a light grey onsie that helped keep him from wiggling out of the custom made extra bulky diapers that made it a chore for even Bruce to waddle, and let him stew in his messes for hours on end just like he wanted. 'Sometimes I wonder what I did to end up so lucky~' Waller gushed mentally, then gently patted the bugling (and not just from natural bulk) seat of Bruce's pamper butt. "Hey there sleepy head, time to get up~" she called softly. She of course had been up since 5 am, but unlike Bruce she thrived on little to none sleep and actually was more grumpy when she got a full 8 hours in. Bruce gurgled behind his paci and opened one eye, then grinned and let the paci slid out of his mouth. "Nggggh five more minutes mommy~" He giggled playfully. the big baby knew Waller let him sleep in as long as she could if he wanted to come in with her to work, and he'd been VERY clear that he got to come into the office today. "Sorry my adorable little stinker, if you wanna be mommies cute widdle secretary you have to get up now. for one thing, SOMEBODY needs a diapie change." "-GASP- Did Alfred poop himself!" Bruce asked and giggled like he'd told the funniest joke ever. "heh, you're such a goof ball~ come on Bruce Sweetie, let's get you changed before you make mommies nose fall off."

One smelly diaper change later (which had left Waller seeing just how 'happy' he was to see and regretful they didn't have time for a quick roll in the sack) and Bruce was dressed in triple thick diapers and a black diaper shirt with light grey overall's on, Black and grey being his favorite colors. His bottom was puffed out and he was forced to crawl to the dining room where he was helped into his high chair, and while Waller had her normal steak and egg's with black coffe,she would pasue now and then to spoon anther mouthful of apple cinnamon oatmeal into the mouth of her big baby who gurgled and coo'ed, gushing about how much 'artz' he was gonna do for mommy t'day. "I'm gonna draw you a duck, and a bat, and and a fire truck and and and-" he babbled, only shush as mommy got anther mouthful in in mouth, taking care not to get any on his clothes. "Mhhm I bet you are, and they'll join the rest of your pretty pictures on my office wall, though I might bring some home for the fridge. what do you think Alfred?" She asked, amused and turning to look at the butler. The older man gave a smile. "well i for one would be VERY much honored if I could have some of Master Wayne's artwork on the fridge. But I didn't wanna speak up." he said. Waller had been worried the seemingly stuffie old butler would of been a stick in the mud when she and Bruce had first started dating, but in fact the old Englishman had helped give her pointer for dealing with his immature employer. "oh! I sowwy Alfred! I didn't even think bout that!" Bruce said, looking guilty. "Think nothing of it Master Wayne, I was just saying." "Nooo I'ma draw you a super cool picture!" Bruce promised, then grinned impishly. "Butttt not gonna tell ya what it is, it'll be a surprise!" he added with a giggle. "I shall be waiting with baited breath." Alfred chuckled and cleared the dishes away as Waller helped Bruce out of his high chair. "We should be back around 5:30ish Alfred, and I'm thinking me and Bruce would like some-" Waller started, but was cut off by her little guy as he wiggled his massive diaper butt back and forth. "Grilled cheese and fries! grilled cheese and fries!" He chanted. "heh..Grilled cheese and fries apparently." Waller said and ruffled Bruce's hair.

One half hour drive later and Bruce was crawling next to mommy as they made they're way though the hall's of Cadmus, getting amused looks and waves from staff who knew all about him, and baffled looks from those who had just been transferred. (and in one case the new head of genetics looked at her coffee she had been drinking from and dumped it in the nearest waste basket.) Getting into her office, it was almost exactly what you would expect for the head of a secret branch of the government charged with policing meta-humans and nipping problems in the bud. A high tech desk with a built in computer that could connect Waller to any database she might need, a direct line to the president him, a selection of hand guns in protective cases that only Waller could open (the glass had been installed after Bruce had mistakenly believe they were toys, thankfully no one had been hurt). The office would of had a cold and sterile feeling to it, if not for the corner of it that was dedicated JUST to Bruce. there was a patch of extra plush carpet, a small toy chest with just stuffies, a little desk (fisher price but bigger for the big baby) for him to make his drawing at and of course lots of crayons for him, and the walls were plastered with all the pictures he had made so far. Of course justifying having her big baby in the office hadn't been easy, even for Waller, at least till she pointed out just how much Wayne enterprises helped with the budget for the last line of defense against say, a rouge justice league. add in the expense of his little space was coming right from the Wayne/Waller fortune and well, The president had dropped the topic fairly quick. Bruce took his seat at his drawing table, and getting out some paper got right to work making arts, after getting a pair of headphones on that would be playing nursery music. marveling at just how god damn cute her widdle Brucie was, then brought up a chat with Rick flag so they could go over options for replacing the decreased Knock Out.

Bruce was humming away, rocking to his favorite song, 'the wheels on the bus' when he felt a cramp in his tummy. Looking up at the clock he was a little shocked, he mostly had a soiled schedule for his BM's but he knew when a poopie was brewing and it was a full 2 hours early, with it only just going onto 9:30. He looked over and Mommy was still making a call with one of her friends, and while she mostly dotted on him she had asked him to try and refrain from 'playing the butt trumpet' when she was on a call. He tried to focus on the picture he was making for Alfred, he was drawing his own superhero he had come up with, even though he knew for the most part mommy didn't like them. This superhero actually had no powers, and was like a ninja with a whole bat theme going on, and Bruce called him Bat Dude. he knew the name could use a little work but for now, it would work. As he colored in Bat dude's cape, all black of course, the cramps got worse and he leaned forward to try and help with the pressure. all that did however was bring thing to a boil and he could hear himself, even with his music playing loudly in his ear's let out a massive roar of a fart. if mommy hadn't of been on a call, and giving him a glare, Bruce almost would of been proud of it. Instead he gave a meek smile and lisped out a sorry, then made a face and stuck out his touage as the smell reached him. Looking over at mommy, who normally could take on his smelliest diaper with a bare reaction, he watched her nose twitch and she reached into her desk and brought out a scented handkerchief and pressed it to her face. "S-Sowwy.."

Rick flag did his best not to react to the sound that interrupted their call, but he was only human and the corners of his mouth were twitching as Waller was forced to grab a scented handkerchief and pressed it to her face. "Ma'am, If you need to call me back, I understand you may have other pressing concerns." He said. "I'm Muting my end of the call, but stay on for a few colonel, and I'll let you know." Waller said, hitting the button and muting Flag before he could reply. He was a good soldier and she knew he'd follow his order's anyways. Getting up from her desk she walked over to Bruce who was hunched over, holding his tummy. "are you ok sweetie?" She asked, leaning down and rubbing his back. "I..I don't think so.." Bruce said, of course having slid his head phones off as she walked over. "what's wrong Bruce?" she asked, putting a hand to his forehead and noting a slight fever for the first time. "Tummy hurts. gonna go uh-oh any second. I sowwy." Bruce whimpered, tearing up. "Shhh it's ok Bruce. you can go ahead and go uh-oh, and while you do that Mommies gonna arrange for one of her work friends to take over for her. I think somebody needs to go home, he's under the weather." she said warmly. She of course wouldn't of gone home if it was just her who was sick, having famously stayed at her desk and suffering though a Thangarian flu last year, but she wasn't gonna make her little guy suffer here when he could be looked after in the comfort of their home. As she moved back over to her desk to let Flag know he could make the final selection for the new member of task force X himself, as she trusted his judgement, as well as trying to decide between Eiling or Hamilton for taking over for her, a long booming blast came out of her little guys butt. Turning around she was almost transfixed on the site of the rapidly growing seat, and for a second wondered if maybe just maybe, if this wasn't some sorta meta human power manifesting. Sure, super human pooping would be a first but who knew with some of these freaks? She banished that thought almost right away even as the fumes from Bruce's diapers filled the office, so powerful she almost swore for a second she could SEE them. One because she had secretly had Bruce tested for the meta gene, and Two because she could never consider her little guy a 'freak'. "Guess it's a good thing we triple diapered you huh?" She asked, as Bruce was standing now, the back of his overalls straining as he grunted and groaned, but he nodded lots. "Oh god mommy, Hurts!" he whined and then sucked on his thumb, finishing his uber mess off with a last few weak sputtering farts. Alarms went off in the office as air quilty dropped, and Waller made the command decision to just make her calls from the car..as well as change Bruce outside.

After a check up with a trusted family doctor, one Leslie thompkins, Bruce was diagnosed with just a bad tummy bug..and being guilty of having been sleep waking in the middle of the night and raiding the fridge. Alfred had just assumed that Waller had been doing it since between his diapers and the high railing.. In any case there were changes to be made around the house, more baby proofing to be done, and Waller just spent the day field testing a new set of nose filters that would keep one save from toxic gasses and did a decent job with bad smells. Snuggling with he big baby on their bed, and watching tv, Waller again thought about what life might of been like with out the little stinker..and decided it wasn't worth thinking about before planting a kiss on his forehead.

the end

[7hyuns]

passions and intellect

jaehyun x reader

warnings; alright there’s a few: this accidentally became a mafia au i’m so sorry, smut obviously, uh a lil bit of knife play but nothing violent, choking, implied violence, i mean is being a stripper a warning, completely irrational thought, swearing 

a/n; i actually have song suggestions for this one !! 

songs; love shot - exo, red sex - vessel (!! especially this one), wedding - the handmaiden soundtrack 

word count; 8.5k :) 

requested; yes!! sorry it took me literally forever anon

-  Can I request a rich man jaehyun smut, where he come to club every night to see y/n, stripper. he has interest in her and she has too. likes they flirt every night while her break time. he make her his. pls make it hot(?) Thank you. I really like the previous jaehyun smut. <3

As soon as the clock ticked over 11:00pm, you assumed your shift could finish. Officially, your shift didn’t end until the beginning hour of the next day, but no one showed up here after the first wave of too-tipsy-to-notice-the-price men came through earlier on. If it was you running the place, which it notably was not, you would probably end up lowering the price, wanting more business than the usual customers who made their way through every night.

You wouldn’t go so far as to call it upper class, it was just another strip club in reality, but it couldn’t be classed as anything other than budget breaking. The price to get into this place, with its perfectly carved out wood and everything covered in an elegant display of velvets and silks, was enough to make a working man spin on his heel. Generally, the assumption was made that any man who made enough money to go all the way to the dancers in the back, were the far more upper echelon. Truthfully, you didn’t entirely know what the front parts of the club were; none of the dancers did, none of them asked. That narrative didn’t exclude you, even if you did desperately want to know what went on, and why no one else was allowed to tell you. You couldn’t imagine it was anything too important, if they would let flurries of drunk men rush through if they threw enough cash down onto a counter.

In conclusion, you decided you didn’t really care enough. The men followed the rules, and they payed even better – nothing else mattered when it came to having a job. You took a lingering glance over at the entrance door to the back rooms you were currently standing in, trying to figure out whether or not there would be more customers, or whether you could dip out a whole hour early. Usually, you’d be with your regular by now, and you had made a rush to adjust your makeup and re-prepare yourself for him when he showed up at his impossibly exact time every night.

The time did, rather unfortunately, pass. Whoever you were seeing at the minutes and seconds before the clock hit that time would be asked to leave when he unfailingly showed up. You waited, as per usual, as your most recent client – an older man, who’d been wearing a wedding ring, although you couldn’t even force yourself to be surprised anymore – headed out. The room was felt far emptier than usual, and you found yourself staring directly at the second hand on the clock, practically counting them down until it hit the right time.

10:55pm; the exact moment he’d walk through the door and smile over at you, seating himself in the easiest position possible for you to press yourself as close as you physically could. He’d always have a particular song he wanted to be playing, a different one every single night, and it would always match the tempo he wanted in that moment.

And so, as soon as the clock passed 11:00pm, you knew he wouldn’t be coming. A sliver of you was caught in worry, a wonderment at why he had failed to show up when he never had before. The other, far more rational parts of you reminded yourself that he was nothing more than a regular client, and even the regular clients grew bored of things eventually. It wasn’t un-heard of, not at all, that someone who even took the time out of their day to become a member here, would simply become bored of all it had to offer – like a child with his brand new toys when December passed and a fresh year began.

You sighed tiredly, pulling yourself up to head across the room to where your phone was lying, your legs faltering beneath you slightly as it slipped from your recollection that you were still wearing heels. Scrolling through any form of social media you could find on your phone while you waited for the hour left of your shift to finish did little more than feed into the boredom burrowing in your stomach. You were saved from the isolation when the light above your door switched to green to show you had a client waiting. A small buzz of excitement went through you, the immediate assumption that it was him lighting you up; and you imagined yourself flipping the lock on the door and yanking it open to reveal him, dressed in dark colours as he always was, hair slicked back as it always was, an informal apology moving into the air for his lack of punctuality on this night.

However, the other side of the door was occupied by another young man, dressed in a neat suit with tidy hair and an expensive watch. You offered him a bright smile when he walked, pulling the door the rest of the way open so he could walk in, your eyes trailing over him as he dropped a wad of cash onto the small table that had your phone discarded on it. He didn’t offer you a glance, but your eyebrows rose in curiosity anyway; this action was completely foreign to you, your mind only recalling men throwing more money at you the further into the hour session they got.

Pushing yourself to ignore the slight bubble of suspicion that was collecting in your stomach, you walked further into the room to be in his line of sight before speaking. “What can I do for you, sir?”

The man didn’t immediately respond, instead he seemed to be checking something over on his phone before he switched it off, sliding it back into his pocket before he finally caught your eye. You didn’t recognise him, but that meant nothing when you worked here, and so you simply continued to stare forward at him, waiting for him to give you an explanation.

Instead of beginning to speak, he dug into his pocket again before pulling out another roll of money, this time placing it gently down onto the table as he cleared his throat. “May I ask you a question?”

You rose your eyebrows again, your curiosity peaking. “Of course,” you responded, keeping the customer service voice on.

“Will you be working your usual shift tomorrow?” He asked, eyes not leaving yours despite being completely devoid of any feeling.

You shifted slightly, discomfort finally making its way through to you as you struggled to figure out what was going on, “Uh, yeah, yeah I will.”

At this, he simply nodded and proceeded to place a small envelope you hadn’t seen him take out down onto the table with the cash, “He’ll see you then.” He clarified, turning and walking straight out the door, flicking the switch off to signify your shift finishing as he did so.

For a few moments, you stood completely still, unsure of what you were supposed to do in this situation. The brief training period for the job you had gone through a year prior hadn’t said anything about a scenario like this even being possible, although you didn’t even know for sure whether this was anything vaguely threatening to your safety. Looking back down at the table, your eyes fell naturally to the two piles of cash, your fingertips gently skimming along them as you willed yourself to pick them up. You closed your eyes as you pulled the rubber band off the roll of notes, feeling them begin to uncurl in your grasp as you clenched your fist around them and used your other hand to reach for the wad of notes elsewhere on the surface. Finally, you opened your eyes to see the wad in your hand, feeling the disconnection from reality spin in the air around you. You undid the strange looking clip that held the wad together, the notes flipping upwards into their usual state as you connected them with the other pile.

Surely, you had never held this much money in your hands all at once. You wanted to conclude that there must have been a mistake, a incorrect transaction where the money that was supposed to be left with the front-desk to the back rooms had accidentally fallen into your hands. Although you already knew this was entirely impossible, and that whoever had just left this money with you for no clear reason meant that this was all yours.

You dropped the money onto the wood surface in front of you, grabbing the envelope that was far too small to give you a good explanation for this, and ripping it open. You pulled out the folded piece of paper, losing your grip on it once in your haste to unfold it completely. The first action that came to mind was to skim read it, but you didn’t imagine that would be necessary with the minuscule amount of writing on the paper.

It read, very bluntly, ‘Apologies for not being able to get there tonight, take this as a promise that I’ll be there tomorrow. – J.’ Your eyes scanned the scrawled hand-writing over and over again, knowing already who this had come from. The source of the note wasn’t what had you perplexed, however the sheer amount of cash he had just had someone drop onto a table for you as an apology. He wouldn’t have given you that much even if he had sat through his usual time-slot of an hour in there with you.

You decided that this wasn’t a thing to complain about, picking up the money after you’d finished re-dressing, tucking it as discretely as possible into your pockets, not wanting anyone to know you were just wandering around with this much money on you. The weather remained un-changed from earlier in the night, the rain still striking down against the floor as you decided against attempting to walk the relatively short way home. With the extra cash, you felt a security in the sense that you could throw some away on a covered ride home. You promised yourself as you slipped into the car that you weren’t going to use any of your time left in the night to think of him, the man who hadn’t even given you his name. The letter sign off was the only thing about him you truly knew, and separated from the school-girl excitement of having an attractive man lavish you in attention, he was nothing more than a man who paid his way into a club that you worked in for the simple reason of earning money.  

///

The next shift you showed up for passed by under the haze of normality, the customers coming and going in different fashions as you repeated the same process for each. You were reminded as you sat, slightly slumped against a velvet plush chair and wasted some empty moment on your phone, that this job hadn’t come with a drawback yet, and you’d gotten an entire year in now. A small glance up at the clock told you that it was already reaching 10:50pm, and the light had already switched from red to green. This should have confused you, knowing for definite that he never arrived early – although, you did once think that he never arrived late either. You pulled yourself up and towards the door, swinging it open habitually as you saw someone who definitely wasn’t him waiting outside.

This wasn’t impossible, you reminded yourself, and you tried to calm the unusual racing of your heart with the recollection that this wasn’t the first time this had occurred either. Once the regular arrived, this customer would be asked to leave, just as they always were at these particular times in your shift. You placed the bright smile back onto your lips as you gestured him inside, trying to piece together what kind of dance a man like him would want. He was middle aged, dressed in a neat suit and a gold wristwatch, and you were trying to use the smallest thing to connect the dots enough to give him a good show. You dropped your gaze to his hands, searching for the thing you saw on so many men who passed through here in the later hours, and your eyes connected with nothing. Knowing there was no wedding ring that you would have to be reminded of if he’d paid extra to touch you settled some of the anxiety in your stomach, but something in the air still felt off. Often times, if you spoke to a higher up worker in the club, they said gut feelings were usually more perceptive than you, and if something felt wrong, it usually was.

You closed your eyes tightly, shaking your head of the thought as you corrected yourself. This client had nothing to do with the ever-present anxiety you’d been swamped with all throughout this shift. It was cutting it far too close to seeing the regular again, that must have been why your heart was thumping against your chest so painfully, there was nothing that could go wrong here. The man accompanying you in the room had placed himself down at the classic seat, the one that had the table for you directly in front of it, which usually meant there would be a while before he even attempted to touch you. Yet, the fear in your stomach was still awake, still rising and tightening your stomach up in so many knots it was difficult for you to fully catch your breath. You’d done this a hundred times, you’d shown up for these shifts and left them every night without fail and nothing had ever gone wrong horribly enough that it justified the flurry of anxiety rushing through your veins.

Just as you finished yanking in a rather ragged but entirely soothing breath, a knock came at your door. You looked back over at the clock, seeing it had hit 10:55pm barely a second before you’d looked over. Relief flooded through you, the reality of seeing the regular again even managed to cause the familiar bubble of excitement through you, and you reached over to skim your fingers against the door handle as another knock sounded through the room, this time far louder. You heart moved faster, but you tried to remind yourself that it was just from the surprise of the second knock, and nothing more would come of it. You heard the man who had already risen from his position leant back in the chair huff in annoyance, whether it was at you for not having told them you were occupied with someone else or at the someone else, you didn’t know, you didn’t particularly care.

You did, however, know that this shouldn’t impact your job, so you turned slightly to quickly calm the slight bump of irritation, “Just a moment, my apologies, sir.” From the corner of your eye you saw him nod in response, before a slam sounded against the heavy wood of the door. This noise did make you physically jolt, the volume and implied aggression in the sound made you take an unconscious step back. You pulled in another deep breath, preparing yourself to deal with a customer that you now assumed couldn’t be the regular – he never got that irate when you took a few moments to respond.

You yanked the handle on the door down, pulling it all the way open, trying to get the moment over with like when you ripped off a plaster. To your confusion, the person slamming their closed fists against the door was the regular, but more so than that, the opening of the door brought on a tidal-wave of what seemed to be completely incoherent noise. The regular immediately stepped inside, closing the door tightly behind him and flipping the lock across on it as soon as he had it closed enough to. This action made you take several steps away from him in an act you wanted to call precaution but was more of an unconscious but rampant fear.

The other man in the room cleared his throat loudly, “You’re interrupting.”

The regular’s eyes cast over to him, although you couldn’t see if they were giving anything away from the amount of hair that had tumbled into his line of sight. His hair was usually pushed back off his face, out of the way but not tidy: today it seemed to just be a mess that had slipped down into his face. “You need to leave,” you heard him speak, his voice completely monotoned and movements stilled down to nothing.

Another burst of anxiety went through you then, more so for the safety of the other man, as you didn’t imagine he’d last very long in an altercation between the two. Clearly he had accepted this fact as well, and he scoffed before moving to slam past the regular, however an open palm landed on his chest as he was shoved backwards. “Go out the back.”

The man rose his eyebrows, “What?” Upon the regular’s refusal to repeat himself as he continued to stare unrelentingly at the other man, he nodded cautiously as he took a step back. Something seemed to connect for him, like things were clicking perfectly into place and he could see a full picture as he nodded again. “Can I get to my car?” The regular shook his head and the man resorted to nodding again in response, saying nothing else as he turned and headed straight out of the door you always left by. You didn’t even know how he was expected to find his way out through the back, no one exited the building that way except the dancers and maintenance for the building.

Although, as the door slammed shut behind him, you chose not to question his confidence, instead you just opened and closed your mouth as the regular took long strides across the room to flick the lock shut on that door too. Your fear began to spin into something else then, more of an agitated suspicion at the way he hadn’t spoken a single word to you when he should have been giving you some form of quick fire summary as to what was going on. He turned back to you, staring at you for a moment in silence, as if he was getting ready to have inquiries thrown at him.

You were glad he’d prepared himself, because you knew that as soon as you opened your mouth to push for answers you wouldn’t stop for a good while. But, if you were honest with yourself, you didn’t really know where to start; with the fact that he’d locked both doors for no evident reason, with the sheer amount of noise outside of this closed room, with the weird exchange between him and the customer, why the customer couldn’t use his car – your mind was swarming and you didn’t know how to slow it down. You opted instead to just sputter out a quick, “What’s going on?”

He nodded, reaching to pull the black gloves he currently sported off and drop them onto the floor. You could barely see him in the room’s lighting – the deep red toning to the room that was supposed to make it look sultry did little more for you in the moment than make you squint across at him, trying to use the gold light illuminating from the light by the clock to see what he was wearing. You couldn’t collect anything than the usual black attire, and you couldn’t find the effort to look further into this.

Still, he hadn’t responded, instead he’d reached a hand up to push some of his hair out of his eyes as he sighed deeply. “If I told you not to think about it, could you?” He questioned, looking you up and down as you shifted nervously.

“No,” you answered in a scoff, and despite the situation, he chuckled lightly in response. “Can you answer that question or,” you sighed again, rubbing a hand against your temple, “why can’t you just answer the question?”

He stepped in your direction, although he turned to the side slightly and dropped himself down onto the velvet seat. The action in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the situation in which he was acting just like normal was almost unsettling. He gestured lightly to his lap, calling you over to sit with him while you assumed he would give you the answers you wanted, but before you could place yourself down, he handed you a note as he usually did. Part of you wanted to entirely disregard putting music on, wanted to be angry that he could suggest that in a moment that seemed so tense, but you did nothing other than take the paper from his hand and head to your phone. The music surrounded the atmosphere created around the two of you as he tugged you to sit on his lap, your legs falling on either side of him as your hands pressed to his chest.

“I can’t answer that question,” he finalised, staring up at you while he spoke. You opened and closed your mouth in response, unsure of what to say next. The music had continued to play, and the song was impossibly sensual to be clouding your senses while you sat pressed against him completely.

“Why?” You stuttered out, moving your hands to curl around his neck instead of being pressed defensively against the sturdy surface of his chest.

At this, he hummed, “You don’t need to know the answer.”

You simply shrugged, “Need to know doesn’t matter, I want to know.”

A small chuckle passed his lips as he leant further backwards, and you felt yourself slide along the rough surface of his jeans. You coughed lightly, shifting on top of him as he kept his hands dropped lazily beside him on the velvet seat. “Ask me a different question, babygirl.”

You considered his offer for a moment, debating what was supposed to happen in a situation you had no understanding or preparation for. In the end, you guessed it was really up to you whether or not you trusted an instinct you had no basis for. And in the end, you found something more in the way he felt underneath your touch than you had in a long time. “Why did you lock both the doors?”

The music had reached some sort of peak moment, and your hits jutted forward in what you wanted to call a habitual manner, but when you were literally on top of him, your bodies connected in a way you weren’t supposed to be for free with any customer, nothing you did was in the realm of ordinary. Again, he shrugged, “Didn’t wanna have to interrupt myself later.”

You felt a soft laugh bubble past your lips, even if your brain was reminding you that this wasn’t allowed to be anything more than casual flirting with a customer. Even if you did this every single time with him, you wanted to keep your every emotion in an ordered line, you wanted to push and ask questions and make him answer them, but the drive to do so when his hands were so obviously itching to reach and touch you was out of your hands. The moment seemed completely unreal, completely outside of the plans you were supposed to be following for this conversation. You felt yourself, as if you were another person who no longer had a concern for the lengthy list of questions she should be asking, move your hips down against his. Strictly, this wasn’t supposed to be happening, not even if it was a regular day; the idea of this ‘upper-class,’ club was that you danced, you put on a show for men who weren’t supposed to be seen at a strip club. Now, you were wrapped up in a customer’s lap, your hips moving steadily against his own and his hands moving to grip your waist and push you further down against him. Reality, even the smallest sliver of truth outside of this space, seemed un-attached, a thing so minuscule it had been entirely disregarded within minutes.

You tightened your grip on him, the fear of this moment being part of a strange dream building up inside you, and he mirrored your actions, although you were sure it was for a completely different reason. The moment became a collection of nothing more than soft hands and the feeling of his lips finally connecting with your skin, your head dropping back in response.

A sharp noise of something you couldn’t place in your hazed state made you jolt in his hold, your head spinning to look back at the door, which was still firmly closed. “What was that?” You asked without a second thought, catching eyes with him as he had allowed you to cut off your movement entirely.

“Hey,” he mumbled, watching as you looked back over at the door in paranoia, one of his hands moving to lightly grip your chin and turn you back to face him, “don’t think about it, okay? Focus on me, baby.”

Small trepidations ran through you, your hands returning to his chest as you nodded apprehensively. The buzz of heat in your core shamefully reminded you that you couldn’t care about it in the moment, that you should just listen to him and forget about it. The song had come to a finish, and the pre-made playlist for men who were unnerved by the silence came on, giving you something else to think about. Your hips pressured themselves down against him, the thin fabric of your lingerie doing little to block any friction as he returned to running his lips along the skin of your throat. You felt his teeth catch onto different areas, and you were entirely sure he was working on leaving a few marks behind as the smallest fraction of your brain continued to chastise you for breaking so many rules of the job like this.

Another slamming sound made its way into the room, and from the up-kept volume of it despite it being watered down by the thick walls and door of the room made a fresh burst of fear make its way through you. He pulled himself away from your neck and cupped your face again, eyes catching yours in the briefest second of hesitation before he pressed his lips against yours. The feeling of it made you moan softly into his mouth, his hands moving to drag your hips even harsher against his own, where you could feel him start to harden fully beneath you. Your lips moved against one another’s smoothly, a balanced rhythm finding itself as he slipped his tongue into your mouth.

You tried to imagine yourself stopping, pulling yourself away from him and announcing confidently and assuredly that this could never happen again, that this broke so many regulations of your job that you would get fired immediately when somebody found out. Instead though, you felt your hands move to zip of his jacket and pull it down, shoving it down his arms without breaking your lips away from his. He pulled himself back, pulling in soft pants as he caught his breath, his hands moving slowly from your waist to your back, fingers lingering on the latch of your bra as he stilled himself. You whined, willing him to take it off, to just get on with it, and he laughed cruelly as you did so, giving in and taking it off, watching intently as you slipped it down your arms.

His hands couldn’t seem to still themselves, moving up to cup your chest and then moving to grip your hips again, although he didn’t begin where he left off. Instead, he pushed you off the area around his crotch, adjusting until you were seated on his thigh and then he picked it back up. The pace this time was slowed to an almost painful amount, the friction being perfect but the space between it being far too long. Your small moans and pitiful whines seemed to do nothing but feed into his almost sadistic actions, his nails digging into the skin of your hips as you dropped your head back and moaned in response. After what seemed like forever, he reached down into the top of his boots, doing something you couldn’t see while he gave you a small window of time to move at your own speed. A second later, his hand arrived back at your hips, and when you finally looked down you saw something glint in the light, a flash of light before you heard a cutting sound, looking to see him repeat his action on the other side. After he’d completed this, he yanked your underwear off of you and tossed the object somewhere across the room.

You moaned loudly, feeling your bare core moving against the material of his jeans for the first time, all while you fought to find the clarity to be able to speak again. “What,” you gasped softly, feeling him increase the speed just enough for you to notice, “was that, was that a knife?” You asked through gritted teeth, your gaze going to catch his while he did nothing but laugh in response, snaking his thumb in-between your legs and drawing figure eights.

Perhaps this is where you should have let the last semblance of rationality you had left take over, yank you up and away from this man and pressing the emergency button you had in your room for things exactly like this; a man who locked all the doors, the sheer amount of noises you had heard that had no reason to be happening, a man who just used a pocket-knife he had lodged in his boot to cut off your underwear. But you pressed your lips back to his, hands flying to cup his jaw and tug lightly at the hairs at the back of his neck. Your mind felt completely overcome, the pleasure he was giving you like this being more excruciating and somehow composed than anything before. His thumb had begun to move with more of a quickened pace, as if he could somehow feel that you were dangling so close to the edge that your just wanted to slump against him completely, that your eyes were about to start rolling back into your head at the deterioration of your own rational mind.

The heat in your stomach spread through your whole body just as a noise you hadn’t heard before echoed through the entire building, invading the small space despite the volume of the music playing. As you began to come down from the foreign level of pleasure coursing through you, you were sure, so impossibly and fearfully sure, that the sound had been a gunshot. He had stopped his ministrations, observing you as he pulled you through it, and now as you reacted to the sound you were so entirely sure you had just heard. The only thing that made you second-guess yourself was his lack of movement because of it, his absolute solid exterior that gave no hint of what was running through his head, of if this was scaring him in even the smallest way.

“What the fuck was that?” You demanded, feeling your heart still struggle to set itself back to a normal pattern, whether that was from your thighs still shaking slightly or the alarm burning through you, you couldn’t tell.

His face showed no sign of surprise, no sign of anger or annoyance or anything at all. Instead, he just rose his eyebrows at you, “Excuse me?”

Your heart sped up, and you wished with everything inside of you that you could deny the enjoyment you got from him saying two simple words. You’d heard them before in your life, of course, but the way he spoke them, as if he had an exact effect he wanted you to feel in response to them, made your heart slam against your chest. You couldn’t fully comprehend what was supposed to happen next, so you pulled yourself together and continued, “Was that a gunshot?” Again, he didn’t give you any kind of verbal response, “What the fuck, what the actual fuck, was that a gunshot?” Your voice rose in panic, eyes latching onto his as you pushed yourself away from him, scrambling slightly as you remembered you were naked on the top-half of your body.

His eyes narrowed at you, head tilting as if he was thinking something over, “Calm down,” he concluded.

You pulled in a harsh breath, as if you were about to scoff but then lost the confidence too. Despite the situation and the way he was clouded in an air of power that made you want to get on your knees in front of him, you could feel your body fill up with the distress of what was going on outside these four walls. “Calm down? Seriously? I think I just heard a fucking gunshot, what the fuck?” You realised in that moment of harshly spitting words at him that you couldn’t throw his name into the mix for more impact, because he hadn’t even told you that yet.

He reached over to gently grab your wrists, a complete juxtaposition to how he’d been grabbing you earlier, and pulled you softly back to his lap. You kept your arms firmly covering your chest, your eyes narrowed sharply at him as you placed yourself back down, nonetheless. He noticed the way you shifted in bashfulness, as if you were only just now realising how strange and out of touch the situation had become the second he’d walked through the door. He reached over to grab his jacket, handing it to you so you could slip it on and gain back some form of comfort. You did this without much hesitation, covering yourself before you heard another loud noise that perfectly captured what you’d heard earlier.

The sound made you curl closer to him in a natural action, one you quickly corrected and pulled yourself back from. You took the moment of silence between you to think over everything quickly, knowing that if you needed to, you could unlock the back door and run out of this room, flag down help and never speak a single word to this man ever again. But you noted that the black heels you chose to wear that day wouldn’t do well with running so fast, and so you lightly kicked them off, leaving you in his jacket and black thigh high lace socks and slightly more covering matching underwear. You cringed at the idea of going onto the public street like this, but you wouldn’t have any other choice.

“Don’t take the front door,” you heard him say, his hands moving underneath the jean fabric of his jacket and his fingertips skimming on your hipbones.

You breathed in sharply, “Huh?”

“Take the back door, it’ll be safer.” He clarified, his hands meeting at the bottom of your back and pulling you closer to him. The grip he had on you was tight, but not tight in a way that you thought was meant to hold you to him by force, but was more so supposed to offer a sense of safety.

At this, you let your hands gently cup his face again, “Why isn’t it safe at the front?”

He leant himself into your hands, “There’s, an important meeting going on tonight. No one’s supposed to be here other than us.”

“Who’s us?” You questioned softly, not wanting him to feel like you were prying answers out of him even if that’s exactly what you were doing.

He glanced up to catch your eyes, a sad smile turning his lips up, “I can’t…baby, I can’t tell you.”

You felt the unnatural speed of your heart slow, your chest feeling soft as you nodded slightly in response. The curiosity was gnawing at you, but you knew in reality that whatever answers he wasn’t giving you had to be for a reason you didn’t understand. “Can you…can you tell me if everyone’s gone?”

He tilted his head to the side at this, “Why does it matter?” You opened your mouth to respond before he caught sight of the alarm button you were supposed to press if you got caught up in ‘any form of dangerous situation.’ He nodded softly, piecing it together himself before responding, “There’s no one left here other than us, and you.”

Foreboding filled your chest, making you ball his the fabric of his shirt up in your hands as you curled yourself closer to him. “I’m, I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m terrified right now,” you offered.

He nodded immediately after you started speaking, before he cleared his own throat and continued, “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, okay? I promise.”

You wanted to accept this and nod in response but instead you pressed forward, “Won’t they have noticed by now that you’re the only one not there?”

Hesitation filled his features before he spoke slowly, as if he wanted to dull any impact his words could have on you, “They know where I am.”

More confusion rolled over you, your hands moving to rub at your face, as if this would help get rid of the frustrations you had over not knowing what was truly going on. He mumbled an apology as you did this, and you pulled your hands away to see smudges of makeup that you couldn’t find it in yourself to care about. “So, if everyone’s supposed to be gone, and they know you’re with me, why does….why is this an exception?”

“I,” he began, cutting himself off before he sighed and went on, “I’m second in command, I…I get to make exceptions.”

You knew, you knew that in any real-life rational situation that someone saying they were a high rank in a job that was very evidently influential and what you could only guess was probably illegal, you should immediately get out of that situation. But this felt like something else entirely, like you’d somehow stumbled into a different version of reality, and your brain was telling you that this situation, this man who hadn’t even told you his name, didn’t need that kind of reaction.

“Has this, meeting, got anything to do with why you weren’t here yesterday?” You asked, feeling the anxiety in your stomach untangle in a way it shouldn’t be given the circumstances.

He nodded, moving his hands to latch onto the backs of your thighs as you lifted them to rest on either side of him on the velvet of the seat again. You proceeded, seeing his affectionate actions as a sign that you could, “Is whatever you do, is that how you get money?” Again, he simply nodded, looking you up and down as he had done earlier.

You recognized then that you two options; tell him this was too much and that you wanted to get out of there immediately and never see his face again, or let his hands continue to map you out as if he was trying to memorise every detail of your body. A bubble of apprehension went through you as you reached for his jacket, holding your breath as you let it slip off your shoulders and down your arms, falling into a heap on the floor. His eyes moved from your thighs, up and across your chest before finally meeting your eyes again.

“Baby,” he mumbled, “you’re still thinking straight, right?”

You scoffed lightly, letting your hands reach out for the hem of his shirt and tug it upwards, watching as he gripped the fabric to tug it over his head. He looked back at you afterwards, waiting for your response, “I don’t think I was in the first place.”

You re-connected your lips with his, hands moving along his bare chest to grab at his belt buckle. You felt his chest rumble with a light chuckle underneath your fingertips as he reached down to undo it for you, watching as you tugged his jeans down along with you as you sunk to your knees between his legs. He leant backwards, eyes admiring you as palmed his member slowly, “No more questions?”

A small hum passed your lips as you toyed with the waistband of his underwear, “One more,” you retorted, earning a grunt in response from him, “what’s your name?”

“The real one or the one you’re gonna hear other people call me?” He asked, threading his hands into your hair, lifting it up and out of the way for you.

You glanced up at him, furrowing your brows, “I’d be offended if you didn’t tell me both.”

A laugh passed his lips again, although it quickly turned into a warning groan at you cupped his covered length with a teasing grin on your lips. He hummed then, “My name’s Yoonoh, but uh, people call me Jaehyun.”

You tilted your head, “Which one do you like better?”

“Jaehyun,” he answered, spreading his legs more as you began to painstakingly slowly pull his underwear down his legs.

You nodded, grinning in response as he narrowed his eyes at you slightly, and you felt him tug on your hair in response to you leaning forward to take his member into your mouth. You looked up at him in confusion before he spoke, “What’s your name? Your real one?”

A small smile turned your lips upwards, knowing you were about to break another regulation of your job by giving that out, “It’s ___,” you responded softly.

He smiled again, “You’re not supposed to tell me that, are you?” You shook your head at him, feeling his grip on your hair loosen as you wasted no more time.

You took his length into your mouth completely, hearing him hiss in response as you didn’t slow your movements in the slightest. You could feel his hands begin to guide your actions, so you let him take over completely, moving yourself to accommodate him as he got himself off. You moaned when you began to feel him tug roughly on your hair, and he groaned again in response to the feeling against him. It wasn’t long before he seemed to lose his rhythm, his hips jutting upwards at the feeling of your mouth around him, and he slowed himself to a complete stop as he pulled you back up onto his lap.

You could gather what he wanted, and you couldn’t find the strength to want anything more than to start as soon as you possibly could. Your hands moved onto his shoulders, hips lifting up to hover over his member as he grunted in response, grabbing your hips harshly before he eased himself inside of you. The stretch felt strange at first, and you dropped your head onto his shoulder to try and brace yourself for the embarrassment of how much noise you were bound to make because of him. Oddly enough, the music was still flowing through the room, although you felt like this escapade had been going on for hours, long enough for all the songs in the world to quiet themselves in response to what you were letting yourself fall into head-first.

“Jaehyun,” you moaned softly, feeling his lips that were pressing feather-light kisses to the skin of your collarbones stop as he nodded softly, “move, please, please, move.”

The words felt out of place for you to be saying, as the person on top of him you supposed that was all up to you, but you didn’t feel the control you usually had in this position. He groaned softly in response, nodding as he grabbed your hips roughly, lifting you up and off him completely before slamming back into you. The idea of people being able to hear you made small stings of unease move through you, but the feeling of Jaehyun inside of you made your mind feel so hazed you could barely bring yourself to care. He set a steady rhythm, his hips slamming back against yours as his hand moved to tighten around your throat, making you whimper lightly in response.

The loud interrupting sound of people shouting outside made you look back over at the door, before Jaehyun’s hand cup your jaw and turn your head to look back at him, “Eyes on me, princess, understand?” You nodded, feeling his hand tighten around your throat as you moaned loudly in response, feeling the coil in stomach begin to form.

The noises only got louder, slamming and glass breaking joining them as Jaehyun slammed his hips against yours harder than you thought possible. You tipped your head back, moans and incomprehensible chants of his name passing his lips as the music droned on in the background, none of which doing anything more than lightly cover the sounds outside. You couldn’t ignore the sounds, you couldn’t even lightly push them away from invading your thoughts, but they just couldn’t make themselves the most prevalent thing.

The coil in your stomach began to tighten, and you struggled to mumble a quick, “Jaehyun, I’m, I’m close,” before you saw him nod. His hand moved from your throat back to the space between your thighs, his thumb tracing circles as your moans raised in volume.

Your brain seemed to find a way to completely bury the sounds happening outside, making them sound like they were underwater as your high finally hit you. Your mouth dropped open, but you couldn’t tell anymore if you were still making any noise. You felt Jaehyun’s hips stutter against your own, letting you know he’d hit his high too. An incomprehensible mix of moans and his name tumbled past your lips as you dropped your head back again, feeling him ride out both your highs.

When you both slowed against one another, you let your head fall to rest on his shoulder, feeling him drop his head back as he pulled in heavy breaths. The noises from outside became clearer again, and you curled your face into the crook of Jaehyun’s neck in an attempt to shut them out. He soothed his fingertips along your back, trying to get you to focus on something else as he pulled out of you, shifting you to sit beside him as he reached to grab and pull his underwear back on. You watched him in silence as he did this mundane action of re-dressing himself, feeling all of the terror from earlier flood back in, this time carrying an unlimited amount of shame on its shoulders. Jaehyun continued without noticing, pulling his jeans up his legs and re-doing the belt buckle, turning around to grab his shirt and pull it back over his head. By the time he turned back to you, he was entirely re-dressed, making you feel impossibly bare and exposed in front of him. He didn’t seem to notice, although he did notice the expression on your face morphing into one that he could’ve confused for physical pain.

Your mind was racing ahead of you, concluding that you really had ruined absolutely everything just to sleep with someone. You would lose your job over this, that was a given, but now that you knew the vague outline of the background to the handsome regular customer, you doubted you would be allowed to just go back to normal. You wondered what was going to happen to you now that you knew the most fleeting bits of information about what was going on here, about what it was that Jaehyun did for a living. Tears clouded your vision, as much as you detested their display of there being a sense of fragility to you in a moment – or more so a mistake – that you had created for yourself.

Jaehyun curled a hand around your jaw, tipping your face upwards as he adjusted his stance to be in your line of sight. “What’s wrong, baby? Does something hurt?”

You shook your head, curling your arms around yourself as you attempted to find some kind of modesty in the moment, “I’m scared,” you confessed in a mumble you half-hoped he wouldn’t hear.

He shook his head, standing for a moment to grab his jacket again, wrapping it around you as you pulled it closed to hide your chest. “I know, but I already promised that I won’t let anything happen to you, remember? I’m not going to break that promise.”

You sighed and swiped at the tears slipping down your cheeks, “Why does it matter if anything happens to me now?” You scoffed, watching as his expression turned sour in response.

“You gonna elaborate on that, sweetheart?” He asked, voice tightened in a way you could only guess was used for whatever business endeavours he was involved in.

The part of you that want to be irritated swarmed back to the surface then, “Do you not see how much I’ve fucked things up? I’ll lose my job for this, Jaehyun, seriously, I, what am I supposed to do? Thank you and then go back to normal?” You spat, wishing you could gesture with your hands, but feeling the embarrassment of re-exposing yourself wasn’t something you wanted to deal with at the moment.

Jaehyun made no immediate move to react, instead he just looked down at the floor before shrugging, “Come with me.”

You recoiled slightly, “What? Come with you? I, can’t, I work here, I have friends here, I, I…” you fell into a confused silenced before quietly murmuring, “where?”

His lips turned upwards in a small smile, “We wouldn’t leave the city, baby, you’d just, come home with me.”

“Home?” You questioned, watching him grin in response.

He nodded, “It’s on the edge of the city, so it’s quiet there, and it’s, it’s nice. It’s kinda small, I’ve, been living alone for a while now.”

You cleared your throat awkwardly, “Do your, uh, business partners, not live with you?”

He shook his head, and the casualness of that inquiry and answer made your heart tighten in your chest. This was insane, completely and absolutely crazy; packing up and running away to the edge of the city with a man who you knew had to be dangerous in a multitude of ways. A man you’d only learnt the name of today, granted you had seen him five nights a week for an hour for almost a year now. There was no reason for you to follow him out there like that, for you to give up the stability you’d created for yourself in the hopes of something you didn’t even know.

Looking back down at him as he waited patiently for your response, you felt your heart race at the memory of everything that had happened today, but this time only picturing the things that had happened in the security he’d created in that room for you. There must have been a reason why, for a year, he’d come back to the same place at the same time to see the same person, you knew people didn’t just do that because they liked habit. Besides, you concluded, life was about nothing if not the system of risk and reward.

Drawing in a sharp breath, you nodded slowly, “Okay.”  

[queen-writing-sideblog]

Coffee and Cigarettes

Chapter One

This is the little surprise I was talking about, first chapter of my first fic!! Thank you to all of you so, so, so much for 100 followers (I know I’m a bit late, but it took me a minute to finish, so.. shhhh), but thank you all so, so much for sticking along for all of this. I know I haven’t been updating as much recently, but now that this is finished, I’ll be a lot better about it, I promise, I hope you enjoy!!!!!

Staff dating wasn’t against the rules. It was… slightly frowned upon by some of the board members, but it wasn���t against the rules. That hadn’t been an issue for Roger for the three years he had been working there, so he hadn’t thought anything was going to change when the school hired a replacement for the teacher that had taught engineering and wood shop.

Boy had he been wrong.

They wouldn’t normally cross paths. While their classrooms were in similar parts of the building, teachers didn’t tend to wander around the school because, obviously, they were working. That wasn’t how they ended up meeting, though.

No, the very first time Roger met Mr. Deacon was in the break room when he turned around too fast and accidentally hit him with a muffin and almost spilled coffee on him.

What a fantastic, completely Rogeresque way to meet someone.

To his defense, it was before seven o’clock in the morning, nearly an hour before school was due to start, and he’d been up late the night before, grading the last minute summer work that had been submitted to him minutes before the deadline.

Stupid slackers.

Then again, that had been him when he was in high school, so he didn’t really have much room to talk.

And regardless of how little sleep he’d gotten, there he was, bright an early. For all the work and extra hours teachers put in, they didn’t get paid nearly enough, so he in the mornings, his breakfast off of the coffee and assorted, slightly stale breakfast items that resided there.

His slightly stale breakfast item that was now a shower of crumbs coating the shirt of a complete stranger.

“Oh! Oh, I am so sorry, mate, really, I-”

“Oh, no, no, you’re alright. It’s early. Looks like you haven’t had a sip of coffee yet either, so I’ll let it slide this time around.”

As soon as the air around them lightened up a bit and he let himself relax, it struck him how… easy on the eyes this stranger was.

“Ah, right, right, I’ll take my free pass and be more careful next time. I’m Roger Taylor, by the way. I teach biology. Room 137.”

“Oh, alright, hello, Mr. Taylor. I’m John Deacon, I teach engineering and woodshop and… I’m in room…” he dug a piece of paper out of his pocket, “room number 146.”

“Ah, so you’re the new guy that’s replacing old Bernes.”

“Would appear so.”

“Well, I already like you better. He was a creep.”

“Was he, now? Well, I might be a bit biased in saying this, but I don’t believe I’m much of a creep, so I do hope that helps.” He offered a gap toothed smile and Roger felt something unfamiliar bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. 

“Well, you’re already much, much, much better than he is.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

They stood there for a moment in silence, sipping their coffee before one of them spoke again.

“So. Where’d you come from. Somewhere… North, I’m thinking?”

“Wow, look at you. Yeah. Up in the midlands, Oadby, actually.”

“Really? And how’s that? Living there, I mean.”

“Dull. Very dull. Very boring. Not a lot of stuff going on up there. I wouldn’t recommend visiting. There isn’t much to do, the people are too nice to not be hiding anything, and most of the hotels have rats.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m going on holiday, ‘cuz that’s something teachers do so often.”

The comment earned him a little laugh and another one of those smiles, and something so simple shouldn’t have made him as happy as it was.

He was man enough to admit that he pretty things, attractive people. He was also man enough to admit that John happened to fall under this column. Which meant he was able to convince himself it was the mild adrenaline rush that came from making an attractive person laugh.

Like when he picked up women -or men, he wasn’t really picky- at bars and made them smile and laugh and blush.

Except for the fact that this was his new coworker, they were in a teacher’s lounge in a high school, and he didn’t have the intention of going home with him. Because that would be entirely unprofessional and he didn’t want to do it either.

Alright, maybe if the setting was different, he might. But that meant alcohol would be involved, as well as a location that was much more likely to foster raw, sexual attraction.

Seven in the morning in a break room in a high school packed with other teachers, crappy coffee, and assorted bread products was neither the time nor the place.

And it seemed that it wasn’t going to be much of an issue, just a passing thought.

Which it was.

For now at least.

--

Over the course of the following weeks, Roger found himself and John becoming more and more friendly. He’d begun to worm his way into his little friend group, clicking almost instantly with Freddie, and bonding over some science geek stuff with Brian. He fit in like the fourth piece to their puzzle.

It was nice, meeting someone who he worked with that was good for more than discussion on the woes of being a teacher.

Sure, he’d had Brian and Freddie before, but it was nice to have a third friend, and to no longer be the ‘baby’ of the group.

(Normally whenever it was brought up, he was quickly mention the fact that he was twenty-six years old now, but it was quickly dismissed in favor of making fun of him.)

And John, he had come to find, was actually a rather interesting person. He loved music, but he didn’t think he could sing, so he stuck to the instruments. Specifically the stringed sort. He apparently had a bass, an electric, an acoustic, and a rhythm guitar at home, as well as a keyboard. That he offered lessons to bring in some extra money and because it was something he enjoyed doing. That music was a passion of his, and he’d been into it since he was younger, fell in love with the records his father would bring home every once in a blue moon and found that that aspect of his story was similar to Roger’s.

He’d learned that he’d been a tinkerer ever since he could hold a screw driver. Making magic out of scraps by age ten, which could have been a profession on it’s own, but he’d fallen in love with teaching and had gotten his masters in that after getting his bachelor of science in electronics. That he was still a tinkerer and he would buy bits and pieces of this and that when his budget allowed to make little things and that he had never once called a repairman because he’d always been able to fix the issue himself. How he would fix neighbors broken down appliances for free just because he wanted to. He’d even offered to come look at Roger’s busted air conditioning unit sometime.

That he had a sister named Julie, that she was seventeen and was preparing for her A levels, that she was very bright and that he was a very proud big brother. That he was a mama’s boy, spoke to her every other day on the phone. That when he was growing up, he’d taken over the typical ‘man of the house’ role since his father passed when he was young, that he didn’t get all sad and weepy when talking about his dad, just got a nostalgic, fond look in his eyes. That he’d just gotten a puppy named Eleanor and a ferret named Robert. An odd combination, Roger thought, but who was he to judge when all he had were a few fish.

Needless to say, he’d learned a lot about him in the short span of time they’d known each other in and he found him to be rather intriguing.

They’d slowly become the sort of teachers that bothered each other during prep periods. John would come bug him when he was doing notes and Roger would throw popcorn at him when he was trying to teach. It was nice, he thought.

--

Roger had finally given in to John’s offers and invited him over to have a look at the air conditioner. It was much cheaper than calling an electrician and John had insisted he didn’t mind, so he’d decided it wasn’t such a bad idea. And he wasn’t sure how much longer he could deal with keeping all his windows open and using a fan in its place. He was becoming a baked potato in his own home.

When John had gotten there, they’d exchanged pleasantries before Roger had led him to the source of irritation and he’d gone straight to work.

The conversation kept up while John.. well, Roger wasn’t quite sure what it was he was doing, actually, but.. That was besides the point. He was fixing the stupid AC unit for him and now Roger wouldn’t die of heatstroke or something stupid like that. 

He’d take a break every once in a while to have a drink and wipe the sweat off his forehead before diving back into his work. It was a nice almost silence they lapsed into, with an occasional joke, or comment, or John asking Roger to grab him a drink if he wouldn’t mind. It was certainly much better than the awkward work around that would be involved with a repairman and not nearly as expensive either.

It took a little while, but eventually Roger heard the familiar whir of the air conditioning unit kicking on.

“You’re a miracle worker, Deaks!”

“Ah, nah… just a fan that fell loose and some mixed up wires, is all. Nothing, really.”

“I could kiss you.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Think I’ll pass.”

“How can I repay you?”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that.”

“Well.. I can at least buy you dinner.”

“Well…”

“I’ll get takeaway and you and I can watch a movie.”

“Yeah. alright. Fine.”

“What catches your fancy tonight, Sir Deacon?”

“Sir?” He cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Just go with it.”

“Alright, well.. How does Chinese sound?”

“His highness shall be dining on the finest Asian cuisine tonight.”

“The finest, huh?”

“Or the cheapest.”

“Perfect.”

Roger ended up calling in to order the takeout and decided to let John find something for them to watch. He was mildly surprised when he plopped down on the couch and the TV was playing the opening credits to Peter Pan.

“A Disney man, huh?”

“Shut up. They’re good movies, believe it or not.”

“Okay, okay, okay, I won’t make fun of you. It just… you don’t seem the type.”

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover.”

“Touché.”

“I am not often what meets the eye.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, then.” 

“Good.”

--

John ended up staying much later than Roger had thought he would. By the time he checked the clock, it was already half past ten. He opted not to say anything about it, though, because he did rather like John’s company. He had a good sense of humor and he liked to point out the flaws of and make fun of poorly made movies which Roger had discovered when they’d come across some old movie that seemed like it had a budget of forty dollars.

By now, though, they’d lulled into a comfortable silence like it had been before, only interjected by an occasional joke or comment.

By the time they got to the end of that movie, it was even later. Obviously. Because that’s how the flow of time worked. But it was late enough that Roger was tired, and by the looks of it, so was his company.

“I should get going.” He stretched his arms above his head. “Work tomorrow and all.”

“Stay.”

“Are you sure that’s-”

“I mean, here. Like… on the couch. It’s late, you’re tired, you shouldn’t be driving. We can carpool tomorrow.”

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“You can borrow something of mine.”

“I don’t have a toothbrush or anything. I don’t think I’ll be borrowing that from you.”

“I’ve got an extra in the cupboard.”

John gave him a skeptical look and for a minute Roger was worried he was going to say no.

“Yeah, alright, fine.”

“Great. I’ll grab you a pillow, the blankets are next to the couch.” He gestured in the general direction they were in before going off to get a pillow from his bed.

John was doing something on his phone when he got back, presumably texting his neighbor, asking her to keep the dog overnight, something he’d heard him mumbling to himself about when he was walking away. 

“Oi. Watch that,” He grumbled, setting the pillow down at the edge of the bed.

“I remind you that you are a guest here and I can kick you out at any moment.”

“Fine.” He plopped down on the couch, tugging the blanket over himself and folding up his knees to fit onto the couch.

“Goodnight, Mr. Deacon.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Taylor.”

--

When Roger got up at three in the morning to get a glass of water, he nearly jumped out of his skin at the body draped across his couch before remembering it was just John. As he was pouring his glass of water, he took note that when John wasn’t all curled into a ball, he was much too tall for the couch. Part of his legs hung over the edge of the couch, all the way up to his knees, and an arm was dangling over the side of the couch and he’d miraculously knocked the blanket off and into the middle of the room.

Without much thought, he bent down to scoop the blanket up and draped it over John, who made a soft, sleepy noise in response.

The… domestic nature of it all made something warm and fuzzy climb up his rib cage and wrap around his heart which startled him more than the thought of a stranger in his flat. He pushed them down quickly, going back to bed and leaving the untouched glass of water on the coffee table where he’d set it down earlier.

--

The next morning, Roger learned that you got places much faster when you used the carpool lane, and that John fancied cars nearly as much as he did,complaining about some of nicer cars that weren’t taken care of well as they took turns naming models and makes of the cars on the road.

(Which I will not be doing because while I am all for researching for things, I do not understand much about cars at all, and… yeah. No thank you. Sorry).

When they got to school together, Brian happened to be coming into the building as well, offering a raised eyebrow in regards to the fact that they’d obviously come to school together and the shirt John was wearing was one Roger had been wearing on Friday.

When they got into the break room, John went to get coffee and Brian cornered him.

“Please tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s wearing your clothes, Rog, and you carpooled.”

“I did not sleep with him. He came over to fix my air conditioner, stayed over too late and I let him sleep on the couch.”

“That’s all?”

“Jesus, Bri. I’m not stupid, that would be a bad idea, even I know that.”

“Okay, okay, fine.”

When John got back, he couldn’t help but think he certainly wouldn’t have minded if that happened.

And, yeah. Maybe he was a bit screwed.