#I’ve spent longer secluded in a dark room with nothing do and no one to talk to than that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yeojaa · 3 years

Text

( NEVER LET YOU GO. )

You do things without thought, making impulse decisions that’d make Freud proud. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don’t.

(or: Jeon Jungkook’s just as impulsive as you.)

pairing. tattoo artist!jjk x f!reader.

genre + rating. slice of life fluff, light smut. explicit (but only at the end).

tags / warnings. mentions of heavily tattooed!JK, casual drinking, tender lovemakin’, JK with the bad jokes, honestly just him being funny and chill like that one guy you never get over...

wc. 7.6k.

beta reader(s). @hobi-gif, @papillonsgf, and @yeoldontknow 💛 ty for always indulging me and most importantly, supporting me when i begin to spiral. 🤠

author note. i got this idea into my head one evening in the shower and now... it is this. it’s not your usual bad boy tattoooist!JK fic but i hope you enjoy regardless. as always, feedback means a lot!

You and forethought aren’t close friends. You really aren’t even distant cousins, or part of the same family tree. You consider it a stranger, wave loftily as it passes you by, squinting like you can’t properly make out what it is. Careful consideration? Thoughtful patience? None of that exists for you. At least, not when you really, really want something.

It’s what has you here now, bumbling your way into the tattoo shop like a newborn baby bird.

You wonder how it must look, whether the shop assistant is used to this. Random girl shows up on a Sunday afternoon looking like a fish out of water, eager yet afraid. By how she greets you - with a curious stare and not quite a smile - you’re sure she is.

“Do you take walk-ins?”

You’d meant to make an appointment. Had sat for hours on the shop’s Instagram page, combing through the residents’ portfolios, trying to decide who to reach out to. When you’d finally decided, you’d realised books were a thing and most of them were closed. (Just your luck.)

Still, it never hurt to try, right?

“Everyone’s fully booked.” The girl sounds bored, apathetic yet genial. (You don’t blame her.) By the way her stare swings over you, it feels like a dismissal. You’re ready to admit defeat - head half-bowed, words draped over your tongue. “But our apprentice might be able to squeeze you in.”

An apprentice? Well— that’s not exactly what you’d been hoping for, but this shop is reputable. Well-known. Considered one of the best in the city. Surely their apprentice would be fine. Just less seasoned, not as experienced.

You all but snap your neck nodding along, gratitude tumbling out in the form of awkward laughter. “That’d be great!”

The girl passes you off with a nod of her head, gesturing down the hall. “Last room on the left. His name’s Jungkook. His schedule says he’s all clear, but maybe knock before you go in.” It’s not the sunniest smile you’ve ever received, but the small thing she offers helps with the nerves. Stills them beneath your skin as you do as you’re told.

“Jungkook?” There’s not really anywhere to knock, every wall neatly frosted glass and no doors in sight. (You had passed a few folding screens but otherwise, it’s open concept, each room offering a glimpse into the artist who works inside.) It feels too disruptive to tap your knuckles on one glass pane, lest it interrupt someone else.

(His studio is minimally decorated but inviting: one big cabinet; two of those typical IKEA shelves in the 4x4 grid that every new homeowner and their mother have; and a shop table, upon which a black backpack sits. Various plants dress the room - both hanging from the ceiling and along the window - and Polaroids string over walls, held aloft by twine. A Roomba sits by itself in a corner and the tattoo bed dominates most of the space, positioned closer to the dividing wall; one teeny tiny rolling chair sits beside it. There’s a bench on your left, with a pair of Birkenstocks tucked beneath. All in all, very homey. Reminiscent of your own apartment.)

Hidden behind the bed, crouched low to the ground beside the cabinet, is a head of dark hair that speaks, drawing your attention from studying the cozy space. “Oh?”

You’re not expecting the face that turns to you, all big doe eyes and the sweetest dimples.

For a moment, you forget what you’re here for. Why you’re standing in the empty door frame, staring down at the guy like you’ve spent your entire life secluded and have no idea how to speak.

The longer you’re quiet, the more his concern seems to grow, single brow disappearing into his inky fringe. It hangs in his vision at certain angles, shields the brightness of his stare with each turn of his chin. “Are you okay?” He’s even risen - stopped what he was doing - so he can see you more clearly, without any obstruction in the way. Good for him, but worse for you.

He’s so cute. Were you prepared to look like an uncertain idiot in front of this… angel?

“Y-yeah.” You manage after what feels like forever, sweeping your nerves under the rug that sits on the floor, separates the sole of his sneakers from hard concrete. “Um— I was told you might have some time? For, uh, a walk-in?”

(Why’re you stuttering? You’re never shy. Or rather, you’re not this nervous mess. People have always called you an extrovert, outgoing as hell, a social butterfly.)

(You aren’t those things but you appreciate the sentiment nonetheless.)

“Oh!” Realisation dawns across his features, throws his kind smile into greater relief, and you have to actively tell yourself not to stare, tearing your gaze away to focus on the wall of stencils past his shoulder. He moves into motion then, stepping around the bed to meet you still rooted in the doorway. “Yeah, I’ve got time. Come in.” Up close like this - there’s only maybe two feet between you - you can make out the little scar on his cheek; the tiny beauty mark below his bottom lip; each individual lash that frames his Bambi eyes and flutters when he blinks. “I probably can’t draw you anything new right now but I’ve got some flash, if you’re interested?”

Even if you weren’t interested, you don’t think you’d say no. You were always a sucker for a cute boy and this Jungkook? He was that. In spades.

“Sure.”

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” He’s retreating back into the room, moving to grab his iPad off the far table. It’s balanced on his arm when he swivels to you, prominent front teeth on full display. “I’ve got a pretty big selection.”

When he drops onto the bench - a wayward vine above his head tickling his cheek - he gestures to the spot beside him. This time, you don’t stare for a stupid amount of time, instead taking up the seat without hesitation.

“So—” He’s swiping through the photo library with his Apple Pen. You’re sure there are pretty sketches on the screen - you just can’t focus on them, too preoccupied by the artwork that crawls across his hand and into the sleeve of his oversized, well-worn shirt. It’s an intricate chrysanthemum, impossibly well-shaded with bold colours that demand attention and stand out over his fair complexion; it creeps halfway up the back of his hand to tickle over his knuckles. He notes your attention with a quiet chuckle, fingers wiggling. The ink moves, flows, ripples with the motion, before his hand relaxes, knuckles unravelling as he offers the limb to you and your curiosity. “Do you like it?”

“It’s incredible.” It really is. You’ve never seen anything like it, as if a painting has been done across his skin, laid in watercolour rather than tattoo ink. “Did it hurt?”

(You almost want to hit yourself for the stupid question. Of course it did. It’s a hand tattoo.)

Jungkook only laughs again, doesn’t hold it against you despite the verbal barrage you’re faced with internally. “Like crazy, but it was worth it. This was my first tattoo and all the rest have just sort of been—” He shrugs, fabric of his shirt bunching around his collar.

“A piece of cake?” You can only imagine.

“Exactly.”

You nod thoughtfully, as if that means anything to you. (It doesn’t. You’re bare as a baby’s bottom, blemish free save for the occasional hellish pimple and the scar you have from surgery on your hand when you broke parts of it in sixth grade.)

If he can tell you’re talking out of your ass, he says nothing, redirecting your attention back to the iPad propped on his lap. “Do any of these interest you?” He’s resumed scrolling, swiping carefully through pages of flash. There are assorted floral pieces (plum stems, lily stalks, fully bloomed mums) and various skeletons (what looks like a deer, a dragon, a wolf). They’re mostly blackwork with fine lines and heavy contrast, so wonderfully detailed you spend too much time studying one piece before he’s flipping to the next.

“That one.” It catches your eye more than the others have. Likely because it’s one of the few pieces in colour, soft hues spilling over neat lines. A pretty little cat with a braided collar, big golden bell centered beneath its head, unravelling petals sweeping around it.

“You like cats?”

You do. “She looks like mine.”

“It’s settled.” He beams then, rising so quickly you’re startled; you watch as he moves around the space with decisive steps, putting your plan into motion. A paper is pulled seemingly out of nowhere, laid on a wooden clipboard and offered with a blue ballpoint pen. “If you can fill all of this out, I can get the stencil ready.”

Well, that was easy. Somehow, you’d thought it’d be more complicated, a ton of back and forth and yes and no. You can’t deny you’re nervous, staring down at the consent form.

(It doesn’t mean you read it any more than you normally would, though. You gloss over all the points, making note of what you’re agreeing to without really considering any of it. You’ve wanted a tattoo for most of your life. There’s really no going back now.)

(You just hope it turns out like you want - that you’re not just being blindsided by a sudden superficial crush and a lack of critical thought.)

“I think I’m done,” you mumble, slashing the date into the paper with gusto.

“Do you have your ID?” You’ve got it ready for him when he returns to take both it and the form. “I’m just going to make copies and then we can discuss more.”

He’s gone with that same smile, disappearing back the way you’d come.

Alone, the nerves set in. You’re actually doing this. Getting a tattoo. Putting something permanent on your body. It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once, shaking your hands in your lap. Maybe you should’ve eaten more before you’d come. (You’d woken up late - had only shoved two pieces of raisin pinwheel bread into your mouth before you’d made up your mind about this.)

(But had you really made up your mind? Was this going to be it? It feels mostly like yes, though the repetitive thud of your toe against concrete seems to indicate otherwise. It’s as if you’re tapping out something in morse, telling yourself—)

“Okay!” Jungkook’s back before you know it, driver’s license returned to you along with an unsealed envelope. You eye it curiously. “A copy of your form and an aftercare sheet.”

He’s really thought of everything. Or the shop has. Either way, you appreciate that when you’re not so sure, caught somewhere between giddily excited and vaguely worried, as if someone’s pulled a weight off your shoulders, taken on some of the burden of this spontaneous choice.

“So, where do you want it?” It’s like he has a one track mind, utterly focused on the task at hand. (Probably a good thing, given you’re about to voluntarily let him needle your poor skin.)

You hadn’t thought about that. You’d always liked the idea of a back of the arm tattoo, positioned somewhere along your tricep so it could be seen while turned away. “My arm?”

“Upper? Forearm?” There’s not an ounce of annoyance or exasperation or anything else negative. He’s just genuinely curious, peering over his shoulder at you.

“Tricep area, I think? Would that look good?”

“If you like it, it will.” Then he grins - beams so bright you half expect the sun to come zooming out of his mouth - and laughs, a funny little cackle that makes you do the same. “I’m kidding. That was cheesy. But I’m sure it’ll look fine. We can try laying it down first, so you get an idea?”

“That sounds good.” A lot better than endless years of regret for poor placement.

“You’ll, uh— need to take your shirt off though.”

It’s then you realise your mistake: wearing a turtleneck. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A beat of silence passes, then another, and he smiles so kindly you wonder what your expression must look like. Sour, like you’d sucked fresh lemon? Awkward, as if you’d never worn anything less than double layers before (a proud Never Nude)?

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can reschedule. Or I can put a divider up so you don’t have to worry about being seen from outside. Whatever you’d prefer.”

The longer you stay quiet - a seemingly common occurrence today - the closer his brows furrow, preparations coming to a standstill. You can tell he’s not trying to rush you, politely waiting for an answer with transfer paper in one hand and scissors in the other.

(If only he could peek into your brain, see the whole reason you’re hesitating is because you can’t quite remember which bra you’re wearing, whether it’s the slinky black one that offers absolutely zero support or the lacy blue one with the cute detailing and practically see-through cups.)

(Did it really matter either way? He was probably desensitized.)

“It’s fine.” You find the confidence somehow, nodding firmly. Jungkook’s still studying you carefully, though. Waiting as you strip your purse off your shoulder and reach for the hem of your sweater. It feels funny in your fingers, more like steel wool than sheep’s.

One breath. Two.

You fold your turtleneck neatly, laying it beside your bag and turning back to face him. “All right. Let’s do this.”

“So, which arm?” He’s close now - crossed to you in two strides of his long legs - and holds up the stencil.

Your right rises, fingers wiggling as if to say hello.

He lays the design down, pats it into place with deft fingers. You don’t realise the breath you’re holding until he pulls the sticky paper away, leaving neat line work in its wake.

“Oh.” It slips out of its own accord, almost a whisper as you stare at the design in the mirror. “It’s so pretty.”

There’s pride in his eyes as he stares with you, bounces his gaze between it and your face. “Thanks.” He lets you linger, peering thoughtfully at your reflection before speaking, casually hopeful. “What do you think?”

“This is it. Right here.”

Maybe he’d fist pump, if he were any less cool. As it stands, he simply nods, cheeks round like fresh baked bread, nose scrunched with glee.

“All right. We’ll shave you down and get started. You like the colours, right?” Once again, he’s buzzing around the room, gathering up all his materials and snapping black gloves on once everything is laid out upon his cart. It’s heavily stickered, covered in video game vinyls and anime mattes. (You recognise a handful of them, make a note to ask him where he got them from.) He pats the tissue papered bed top when you make no movement toward him. “Hop on up. Face down, if that’s okay.”

You do as he says, climbing atop with minimal grace. It takes you a bit of adjusting to get comfortable, folding your left arm under your head and allowing your right to simply dangle, uncertain of where it should be.

“You’re sparkly.”

“What?” You’d misheard that, right?

“Your skin. You’re sparkling.” He sounds a little in awe, surprised as wetness spills across your arm, the edge of a razor following closely thereafter.

“Oh.” Heat creeps over your cheeks, slinks all the way up into your roots and has you chuckling awkwardly. “It’s my soap.”

“Sparkle soap?” Whether he’s just making conversation or genuinely curious, you’re not sure. He does seem delighted by the fact, though, as if he’s never seen a girl covered in glitter before. (Which, fair.)

“It’s this specialty holiday soap. It has pigment in it.”

“That’s cool.” He’s laying the stencil down again, smoothing it over your now-hairless arm. “It smells nice.”

Obviously, you agree. It’s honey and citrus, brightly fragrant but not overpowering, lingering on your clothes like the subtle golden glitter does. Still, you flush, heat crossing from a casual day under the sun to burning-on-the-stove hot. “Thanks.”

“Was that weird? I hope not.”

“No, you’re fine.”

He hums a tiny noise, something that sounds like understanding and appreciation all at once.

Then the buzzing starts - a steady, inescapable brrrrrrrrr - and he’s gripping your arm, steady yet gentle. “Ready?”

Honestly, you’re not sure. Hearing the noise makes it seem scary, has your entire body tensing up like Pavlov’s dog. Your honesty can’t be helped, a nervous giggle chased off your tongue. “I think so.”

“I think so too.”

By the time you’re done - a good almost five hours later, your arm stinging so bad you wonder why you’d ever sat down in the first place - you’d fallen asleep twice, started drooling on your other arm once, and really, really have to pee.

“All right—”“ The incessant buzzing stops. Liquid spills where the pain centres, followed by rougher paper towel. “You are finished.”

(You might be imagining it, but he sounds about as relieved as you. Maybe because you’d been sitting for hours on hours, turning down his offer for a break because you just wanted to get it done and therefore forcing him to do the same.)

“Can I see?” You don’t want to leap to your feet - feel a bit too lightheaded for that - but you’re bouncing with excitement, the thrumming in your arm intensified when you shift to catch a better look at Jungkook’s face.

“Yeah, go ahead. Just be careful - you might be a bit—”

He’s right. You nearly topple over the moment you stand, none-too-gently rolling off the edge of the bed and barely landing safely on your feet. It’s only his close proximity that prevents you from falling to your knees, one degloved hand darting out to steady you.

“Careful!” It’s politely reproachful, coloured soft with worry.

“Sorry, sorry.” You seize the edge of the bed, gripping tight as you wait for everything to settle, the lightheadedness to recede. Everything straightens out quickly enough. “Got up too quickly.”

“Do you need a snack?” He’s already up, moving faster than you, rummaging through the cabinet against the far wall. “I’ve got seaweed and Choco Boys and shrimp chips and—”

You can’t help but laugh, hobbling to the mirror to inspect your new piece of art. “I’m fine.” That, and you’re too occupied with the ink that now sits embedded beneath your skin, a flurry of lovely colour and impressive line work.

“Choco Boys it is then.” The familiar yellow package is thrust toward you, a pack of his own already ripped open. Mushroom-shaped treats are tossed into his open mouth, lips curling around chocolate and his next words, “it’ll help with your sugar levels.”

A thank you comes, fingers curling around the snacks, but you’re still in deep, so focused on the lovely hue that bleeds over your skin, marks up previously unblemished flesh and holds your attention. It’s better than you could’ve possibly imagined, a piece of artwork forever yours. It makes you giddy as you stare at it - almost reach for it, but stop when you catch the alarmed widening of Jungkook’s eyes.

“You like?”

“I love.” You’d stare at it for hours, if you could. Likely will, once you get home, sitting in front of the mirror like a zombie. “Thank you so, so much.”

The brunet beams as he polishes off the last of his Choco Boys, tossing his dark hair back with a flick of his head. Triumph rolls off him in palpable waves, sitting pretty in the lines by his eyes, the scrunching around his nose. Seeing how it blooms in his stare is like a straight endorphin shot, as if you’ve done more than just be the canvas he’s laid all his hard work into. “It was a pleasure.”

It’s a whole month later - enough time for the piece to heal - before you decide you want another one. It’s not as spontaneous as the first time, instead led with an Instagram direct message to @jeonink. (You half expect him not to answer; you’re utterly delighted when he responds not five minutes later.)

Maybe it’s fate or maybe it’s luck that has him with availability the same day you reach out, bringing you back to the studio three hours after you’ve messaged him.

He’s just as cute as before, black baseball cap pulled low over his ears, silver-lined ears twinkling beneath the shop lights.

“So, what’re you thinking?”

Truthfully, you hadn’t done much thinking. Just like before, you’d decided you wanted a tattoo and, well, the rest had been history. You figured you’d let him have free reign, given how happy you were with your first piece. “A sleeve?”

That surprises him. His whole face lights up, eyes wide, mouth rounding curiously. “Like, a full sleeve?” It’s not necessarily a no - more of an are you sure? he hides between the syllables.

“I think so.”

He nods slowly, knowingly, arms folded over his chest, expression suddenly unreadable. “You caught the itch.”

Your own features twist, brows shooting high. “The what?”

“The tattoo itch,” he clarifies with a laugh, the sound sweeping your concern away like the sea. “People say once you get one, you get addicted to the feeling.” He’s extending both arms to you now, hands palm up. For a moment, you’re note sure what he’s doing. (In actuality, you’re distracted by the fact that he’s in a tee, muscle cording his limbs, undulating as he turns his arms over.) “I got bit by it when I lived in Japan. It’s actually what got me into tattooing myself.”

You remember what he’d said last time - how he’d spent a handful of years overseas, working in restaurants after having followed his last partner there. He’d shared lots about his life, giving you the Sparknotes version while you’d ground enamel to fine dust.

“I guess I have the itch then.”

“Guess you do.”

Your dream comes to life in four excruciating sessions. It’s some of the worst pain you’ve ever endured (you’re never going to get an elbow tattoo ever again) but you’d do it all again in a heartbeat, utterly in love with the mural that now lives on your skin. A peony caps your shoulder while one runs halfway up your bicep. Another takes up the entirety of your forearm. There’s a darling little bird and delicately inked koi. It’s breathtaking, greater than anything you could have dreamt up.

You’ve been staring at it for at least three minutes now, tracing over the freshly laid colour with a tender touch. You’re grateful for the SecondSkin, the clear bandage that wraps everything up and keeps it safe from your over eager hands.

“You did it.” Jungkook’s grinning at you, feet kicked up where he sits, his usual bag of Choco Boys balanced in his lap. “Big girl.”

From anyone else, it might sound condescending - might rub you the wrong way and have you glaring daggers. Instead, you take it in stride, beaming at him from your seat. He’s been there with you every step of the way, been there for every hour (seventeen over three months, to be exact) you’ve dedicated to finishing this beauty up. Tease you as he might, you know he really is proud of you.

“You mean we did it,” you return, giddy like a child.

“Ah, right.” The chocolate-covered snack he’s devouring goes crunch crunch crunch before he speaks, mouth still full, eyes crinkled. “I guess I did do all the work.”

“Hey! Screw you!” You’re glowering at him, middle finger raised in defiance.

(How curious that your relationship has grown like this, turned from tattoo artist and client to what feels like more. It probably makes sense, given the long hours you’ve spent together, the support he’s had to offer each time the pain has gotten this side of too much, chattering your teeth and dizzying your head. Solidarity in pain and all that.)

(You really had tapped out once, when he’d crept his gun into the ditch of your elbow. You’d asked him whether it’d hurt beforehand and he’d only laughed, shrugged off the question and continued with the careful shading to your inner arm. That in itself had hurt like a biiitch; you hadn’t thought it could get worse.)

(You’d been mistaken.)

“Am I wrong?” He drawls, full of laughter and that big dumb smile of his you’ve grown accustomed to. It eats up his cheeks and disappears his eyes, makes it hard to be mad at him when he looks so sweet.

“Yes, you are.” You’ve got absolutely nothing to back it up, but who cares. This is the sort of banter the two of you have developed, like two old friends forced to spend too much time together. (Not that you’d complain. You’ve loved hearing his stories, all the tales he regales you with whenever you’re in his chair.)

A snort is his answer, the full roll of his eyes over-exaggerated and playful. “You’re lucky we’re all finished or I’d sneak in an ugly fish somewhere on your arm.”

You think he’s kidding - know he takes too much pride in his work to do that.

Still, you stick your tongue out, hopping down from the bed with your freshly inked arm, hands clapping together in celebration. “You wouldn’t dare.” You’re confident, crossing to the bench to tug your flannel on, careful of the dull pain that throbs beneath the thin medical dressing.

“Wouldn’t I? I’m leaving anyway.”

You’re ready to call him out for it, insist he would never ruin the sanctity of his profession in such a way, when you realise the words he’s spoken, the casual tidbit he’s just dropped like it’s nothing.

“Leaving?”

(Is it you or do you sound disappointed? You can’t dwell on it for long, worried you’ll miss his explanation. Had he mentioned it previously? Slipped it in when you’d been delirious from pain? No, you would’ve remembered that. You swear you would’ve.)

“I’m moving to Tokyo.” How he’s so casual, you have absolutely no idea. You suppose it’s not a big deal for him - he’s not from here anyway. Home is back in Korea, the place he’d spent most of his life before moving to Japan and then here, just two years ago. (God, your memory is good. If only you’d retained knowledge like this when you were in school.) “My flight’s next weekend.”

Your face must be hilarious because Jungkook’s laughing, cackling like the evil villain in an anime.

“Gonna miss me?”

Would it be inappropriate to say yes? Because you will, you realise the moment he’s posed the question. You’ve grown to consider him a friend, someone who you send random memes to on Instagram (usually pertaining to #tattooartistproblems or one of your shared hobbies, like video games and finding the best noodle soup restaurant in the city).

You go for the safe bet, answering with a question of your own. “Are you gonna miss me?”

“I’ll miss your restaurant recs,” he answers, offering honesty to your reticence. “You can still send me funny photos though.”

You can’t help your laugh, the tiny quirk of your mouth into a smile. “I guess you’re right. Will you still be tattooing?” It’s an innocent enough question - you really do want to know. You can’t imagine going to anyone else, even if it means you’ll be shelling out an absurd amount of money for a plane ticket.

“Yep, new shop.” Something twinkles in his stare, has him giddy as he rises to his feet, tossing his empty packet of snacks into the trash bin. “Actually, where I got most of mine done.” You understand it then - that it’s a move of faith. He’s finally come full circle. You’re unbelievably happy for him, brimming with delight to mirror his pride.

But you’re still going to give him a little bit of a hard time because you have to. It wouldn’t feel right otherwise. “Whoa, big shot.”

“I am actually,” he sniffs, raking an ink-strewn hand through his hair. It’s longer now than it was when you met him, curling over the tops of his ears, hanging in his eyes at every turn. “You’ll be lucky if I remember you when I’m famous.”

“Famously lame, maybe,” you tease, slipping your bag over your shoulder. You busy yourself pulling your keys from the interior pocket, checking your phone as if you’re ready to go. It’s only when you’re standing in the hallway - you have no real intention of departing like this and he knows that, considering you haven’t paid yet - when you level him with a half-formed smirk. “But I guess I should take you for a drink?”

His hoodie is on before you know it, yanked over his head and tugged into place as he joins you. It’s become your regular routine - leaving together after your sessions, a perk of always booking the last slot he has available. (Not that you relied on that, but simply because your work schedule didn’t really allow for anything else.) “Obviously.”

Jeon Jungkook is a talented artist, a dedicated snacker, a lover of the colour black. You discover, sitting on the patio of the nearby bar, that he’s also really, really good at holding his liquor.

(Not that he’d ever indicated otherwise.)

“Do you think you’ll get anything else done?” He’s on his sixth pint, casually leaned back in his chair as he picks at the fries you’d ordered but that he seems perfectly happy to help himself to. (Payback for all the times he’s forced snacks on you maybe?) “Like, a face tattoo?”

You scoff at the question as if greatly offended. “You think I’d get a face tattoo?”

While a little glazed in the eyes, you can tell he’s altogether coherent, grinning across the table at you. “Hey, I don’t judge. You like making surprise decisions, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Okay, so he’s got you there. Used your own impulsive history against you. “I would never.”

“If you change your mind, do I get first dibs?”

“Dibs on what? Tattooing me?”

He nods as if it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Duh.”

You can only roll your eyes, tossing a wayward burnt fry end at him. “Yes, Kook, you get first dibs on ruining my face.”

His expression twists, mouth shaping around words he’s keeping caged behind his teeth. There’s something he isn’t saying, a comeback he’s chosen to lock up. You wonder what it is.

“Hey - nothing wrong with face tattoos.”

“Really?” You’re leaning forward, a clear challenge written across your face. “Then why don’t you have one?” He has a million others as it is: a hand, nearly the entirety of both arms, his chest, his shoulders, one of his legs. (You haven’t seen them all in person but you have seen them online, memorialised on his Instagram feed.)

“And hide all this?” One inked hand is gesturing toward his own face, gesticulating wildly as if that’ll drive his point further home. “I would never.”

“That’s what I said!”

It doesn’t matter to him, not when he’s fully sober and most certainly not now, when he’s slightly buzzed, eyes glossier than usual. “But I’m cuter. It’d be a shame if it were me. You…” The way he trails off is suggestive, indicative of something mocking and mean. (Except it’s never cruel - far too friendly and soft to ever hurt your feelings.) “—not so much.”

Another fry hits him right between the eyes and then another disappears into the hood of his sweater, lost to the black fabric that bunches up around his neck and hides the flush he’s been battling since you two got to the bar an hour ago.

“Don’t be rude!”

He beams at you then, so unnecessarily endearing you can only throw one more piece at him.

“I’m kidding.” You knew that already but pretend to ignore the pseudo-apology, choosing instead to polish off the last of your now-cold fries. A bad choice, you realise when he continues, surprising you with the words that come out of his liquor-laden mouth so much so that you almost choke. “You’re actually pretty cute.”

(So what if you’ve sort of maybe been waiting to hear them? Wondering if the tiny crush you’d developed was in some way reciprocated?)

(Not that this meant it was. Only that you perhaps weren’t alone in thinking he was the most lovable - and somehow simultaneously hot - person you’d ever met. It’s almost rewarding to know the long hours together hadn’t left him unscathed.)

“You all good?” The look on his face is worse than that smile he usually offers, instead a devilish smirk that makes him look like Satan himself.

Were you? You’re not sure.

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

“Really? You can’t?” You’re not sure what that means, whether you’re simply reading too far into it. But then he’s dragging his bottom lip through his teeth, head cocked curiously. It’s a bait, you realise—and one you’ll gladly take.

“Should I have expected it?”

Shoulders hike, rising up around his ears. “I thought I made it sort of obvious.”

Had he? Thinking back on it, you can’t really recall. Of course, he’d always been friendly, indulging you in your pursuit of body art, sketching up the loveliest things you’d never even think to dream of; accepting your distracting Instagram messages without complaint, always tossing you a like or some sort of acknowledgement no matter what you’d send (and you’d send some random, random stuff). Chatting with him daily had just become the norm, conversation flowing freely whenever you’d pop in for your next session.

But that was just because he was a nice guy - or so you’d thought. You realise now how wrong you’d been, too occupied with your own crush to notice his (if it could be called that).

“You like me,” you hum, surprisingly nonchalant despite the little pitter patter in your chest, the flutter of your heart within your ribcage.

“I think you’re cute,” he retorts, though there’s no real weight to his rebuff. The two statements are really one and the same and you’re giddy with the knowledge, absolutely tickled pink.

Except for the fact that he’s leaving, fully prepared to start a new life in another city in just one week. The irony isn’t lost on you, like fate’s laughing even as she offers you this little crumb. (You feel like Oliver Twist, frankly.)

“Same difference.”

He huffs - you’re reminded of how adorable he is when he does that - and downs the lukewarm remainder of his beer. “I take it back.”

“No, you don’t.” Where the confidence comes from, who knows. You grip it tight with both hands though, hold it snugly as you level him with a stare that has his own unwavering. It’s almost as if you’re caught in a staring match, a battle of unspoken wits.

It drags on longer than it should, just the two of you locked to each other with nowhere to go.

Then he does the last thing you expect: shoves his chair aside and leans across the table, stealing a kiss and returning to his seat, all in the span of time it takes you to blink.

(His lips are so soft. A little chapped, a tiny bit dry, but soft - deceptively delicate. Bitter, touched with sea salt and something else distinctly him. French fries and beer and his Chapstick.)

(For the briefest moment, you wonder whether you’d just imagined it - if your imagination had truly gotten the best of you and you’ve absolutely lost your mind.)

“You just kissed me.” It seems like you’ve found your new favourite hobby of just repeating things, giving live play-by-plays like an awkward narrator in a romcom.

“Yeah, so?”

“You’re leaving.” Speaking the words into existence feels bad; you see the way his eyes tighten, the subtle sobering of his expression even while he tries to keep his cool.

“I am.” At least he’s realistic. It saves you from any uncertainty, keeping the what-ifs at bay.

You suppose it means you have nothing to lose.

“Do it again.”

And Jungkook does - over and over, sinking the taste of him almost as deeply as ink, offering a piece of himself you want to keep for just as long.

It takes you longer to add to your collection of art, nearly four whole years before you decide what you want next. (It’s a back piece this time - a full body suit from your shoulders down past your ass. Another cat, dressed in traditional Japanese clothing and surrounded by flowers. An ode to your first tattoo, to the one that had started it all.)

(You’re not sure you’re ready for the pain, though.)

“Lay down,” the artist instructs, back turned to you, busy preparing his materials. You’d stripped down while he was occupied, discarded all your clothes to the allocated basket and stood quietly in anticipation.

You do as he says, dropping atop the tattoo bed with a quiet oof. The stencil has already been laid, the entire outline ready to be inked into your skin. You can’t deny you’re more than a little nervous. It’s been years since you’d last gotten anything done, uninterested in finding a new artist since Jungkook had left.

(Which he had, exactly as he’d intended, gone on a 6 AM flight that you’d driven him to, teary-eyed and embarrassed. He’d laughed at you standing outside of the departure gate, his suitcase at his side, arms wrapped around your shoulders. You’d refused to show your face, burying it instead into the warmth of his neck, into the familiar scent of him that was going away for who knows how long.

“Stop being a baby,” he’d said, smothering you in kisses, the full weight of his laughter palpable through your close proximity. It'd rumbled out of his chest all the way into yours, finding a home behind your ribcage, right alongside where your heart fluttered, shaded blue and sad.

“Stop being mean,” you’d countered, petulant like a child.

It couldn’t be helped. You’d had only one week with him - one glorious, chaotic week filled with eating too much junk, rewatching your favourite animes, and generally making up for all the lost time you’d never even known there was. As amazing as it’d been, it still hadn’t prepared you for the goodbye.

That was your fault, though. You’d wrongly entertained the idea that maybe things would work out, that he’d change his mind or ask to take it - whatever you had, that is - with him, keep it going somehow. He hadn’t.)

“Do you have a preference where I start?” You’re unbothered, hair loosely knotted over your shoulder. Ready for the session to start - ready to feel the familiar sting again. (You’re proud of that. It might have taken you years and years but here you were, tackling something huge.)

“Nope.”

“Sounds good.”

The buzzing begins and pressure lands upon the small of your back, a gloved hand laid over the centre of your spine. You remind yourself to breathe in, out, focus on something other than the pain that fizzles over your skin and then ebbs into tenderness. Where he’s started - just above the fattiest part of your butt - isn’t too bad. Tolerable and yielding.

You can do this.

Your back aches in a different way than you’d anticipated, soreness buzzing beneath inflamed skin and making it uncomfortable to move around. It’s not any worse than your arm had been - the lines along your spine had felt comparable to that of your elbow - but it’s fresh, not dulled by years like your sleeve now was.

The artist is stripping his gloves off, your back neatly covered and the bed stripped of its original tissue paper. He’s leaned against the sink, onigiri held in his now-free hands, nibbling at the edge of the rice ball as you turn this way and that in the mirror. “You did good.”

You’re still undressed, admiring the linework from different angles, shimmying closer to your reflection to catch the lighter inking that makes up the undefined edges of the various florals. Something tells you that you should be shy - eager to redress after spending nearly five hours naked in the secluded studio - but you don’t care. Your back is quickly becoming a masterpiece, something that might as well be hung in the halls of the Louvre. You’re in love with it.

“Thanks.”

You mean thank you for his compliment but also for all his hard work, the long hours he’s put into bringing this beauty to life. It means so much - like progressing to the next level.

Which, you suppose it is. This is a fresh start for you. A new beginning in a new city.

“Proud of you,” he hums, suddenly close, broad palms searing heat over your hips. He’s careful to avoid the edge of the bandage that wraps your back and holds you delicately, like fine china or the most precious jewel in the world, lips sweet against your temple.

You meet his eyes in the mirror - the same sweet doe-eyed stare from five years ago. A little darker now, aged by the hand of time but endlessly kind, shining beneath the overhead lights.

“Proud of you,” you chirp, identical smiles spreading over your faces.

Jungkook’s having none of it though, bratty as usual. “Proud of us.”

You suppose you can settle for that. You really are proud of the two of you - for how far you’ve made it and all the obstacles you’ve overcome. From the first few weeks of sadness, all the melancholy that’d set in when he’d left, to exactly one month after, when he’d called you in the middle of the night, drunk and stumbling home.

(It’d been infuriating at the time - incoherent and foolish as he was - but it’d bloomed something between you, something neither of you could ignore.)

Four years of miserable long distance had become this: a love that's brought you back to his side, to a city you’re unfamiliar with but that he calls home; to a city that never sleeps, loud with pachinko machines and some of the best food you’ve ever had; to the place you’ve been missing every minute you were apart.

You’d never thought you would move for someone, uproot your entire life for a relationship, but he’d changed that. Made it worth it in ways you had never considered. Convinced you more and more with each trip you’d taken, two visits twice a year, for a measly two weeks at a time.

“Should we head home?” He means your physical home - the apartment the two of you had decided on in Roppongi, the one you haven’t seen yet, that he’s had to move into all by himself. It’s not quite as nice as the home in his arms.

You say yes anyway.

“I’m so talented.” The words come entirely too whole for your liking, loud somewhere above your head.

“Are you serious?” You’re levelling your boyfriend with the most incredulous look, whole face scrunched up, hands fisted into his dark sheets. It’s uncomfortable at this angle - kinking your neck as you look over your shoulder - but you really can’t believe he’s just said that. He’s knelt between your legs, knees spread wide around his own, his hand halfway up your back and tracking heat over your spine.

Somehow, he has the audacity to look surprised. “What?”

“You’re really patting yourself on the back right now?” Now, when he should be pounding you into oblivion, working that big fat cock of his through your fluttering walls, making you moan his name into his pillows like it’s his only job?

(It truthfully could be. You’d rank his skills in the bedroom on par with his skills in the studio.)

“Oh.” All at once, he’s the devil - sin personified. Or would be, if he didn’t somehow still look infuriatingly cute.

The gentle touch turns bruising, heel of his palm pressed hard into the tender notches of your spine. “You don’t like when I admire my own work?” Asked as he shifts behind you, length dragging out of your dripping cunt to gently tap against your aching clit. The head of it glides through your folds, mercilessly teasing but never slipping back in, never filling you whole like you need. (Because you really do need it. You haven’t seen him in six months, left to your own devices - literally.) It feels like heaven and hell, too good and not nearly enough all at once.

“Kook,” you snap. Try to, anyway, his name far too whiny and breathless to hold any real weight.

“I’m just admiring you, sweetheart.” He’s dragging the hand over your back, tracing all the lines he’s embedded into your skin. They make up his favourite piece, inked permanently into his favourite canvas. A testament to his hard work, his dedication, his love.

Any other time, you might not care. Here and now, after not having felt his touch in what feels like forever, you’re burning from the inside out, a million volts of electricity tripping your circuits. When you speak, it’s more a plea than a reprimand, uttered so sweetly you know he can’t deny you. “Admire me later.”

“I’ve missed you” is his only answer, punctuated by a fluid roll of his hips, the heavy press of his cock back into your dripping cunt. “I’ve missed this,” he breathes out, sinking all the way in, so slow you can feel every ridge and vein as he fills you.

“Missed you too,” you parrot back, a little delirious now that you’ve gotten what you want.

Now that he’s right where he should be - with you.

tag list. @neverthefirstchoice @youwannabelostandnotbefound @snackhobi @codeinebelle @xjoonchildx

2K notes · View notes

frankiekatt · 3 years

Text

1-800-Miss-Ur-Guts

Characters: Dabi / Touya Todoroki

Notes: Loosely based off the song ‘1-800-miss-ur-guts’ by the Tramp Stamps! This is the first fic I’ve ever shared and I’m so excited to share it with you guys! Dabi is one of the loves of my life so I hope you all enjoy <3

Warnings: Mentions of drug use and emotional manipulation. Umm I think that’s it but if I missed anything please let me know!

Words: 10k

Synopsis: She was not you, and here he was, in her apartment, in her bed, kissing her, pleasing her, fucking her. He felt like he was betraying you the first few times he did it. He had to keep reminding himself that you were gone, you weren’t his girlfriend anymore. He could have sex with whoever he wanted. After the first couple girls, the guilt and disgust melted away and morphed into delirium. If he was in bed with some girl he met at a bar, he could forget your face. If he kissed her lips in a sloppy, rushed manner, he could forget the way he felt to be touched by you. If he listened to her maddening moans as he fucked into her, he could forget the way your voice sounded, just for a moment. And that was enough for him to survive each day without you.

The air was stale and warm when Dabi first opened his eyes. It was dark, the room unfamiliar and the bed was uncomfortably hot and cramped due to the naked body that was sprawled out beside him.

Never like how mornings were with you.

With a deep groan, Dabi sat up and glanced at the bedside clock. 1:36pm.

He had slept way too fucking late.

Rising slowly from the bed so as not to wake the sleeping blonde beside him, Dabi began to slip his jeans and tattered t-shirt back onto his body despite the pain in his head flashing hard and hot. Once dressed, he quickly walked to the bathroom and softly closed the door behind him. Cobalt eyes stared back at him in the mirror, tired and spent. His black hair was messy, sticking out in all directions, and the skin underneath his eyes were stained purple and black from stress and from the alcohol he consumed the night before. There was a large, dark bruise on the side of his neck from where – Misa? Mila? – had sucked on the night before. Dabi Todoroki looked like a fucking disaster.

Looking away from his disheveled appearance, Dabi turned on the cold tap water and splashed his face in an attempt to soothe his gnarly headache. It works in just the slightest, as the cool water felt revivifying on his inked skin. Grabbing a small hand towel from underneath the hotel’s sink, Dabi wiped his face gingerly until all the water droplets were gone.

He needed to leave soon. To get ready. To see you.

“Hey, you alright in there?” a high-pitched voice asked from the other side of the bathroom door.

Shit. Dabi really did not feel like conversing with last night’s drunken hook-up. He could barely remember what she said to catch his attention in the small, dingy bar he frequented almost each night, or how they ended up in the equally small and dingy hotel where they had sloppy, unsatisfying sex. Dabi couldn’t even remember her name, and he didn’t exactly care.

Clearing his throat, Dabi grunted out a loud, “Yeah. M’fine.” Smoothing his hair back and glancing at himself in the mirror one last time, he reached for the door knob and pulled open the door.

He was greeted by the blonde women who wore a lopsided smile. She had thrown on her black cotton panties that seemed to be a size too small and the light pink tank top he vaguely remembered her wearing last night, minus a bra. Her short, blonde hair was stuck to the sides of her neck with sweat, reminding him just how utterly different she was from you. Your hair was longer, always brushed and either elegantly falling down your back or neatly put up.

“Mornin’, handsome,” she purred.

“Morning.”

“I was thinkin’ maybe you and I could go down the street, grab a coffee together, maybe beat this hangover,” she crooned, reaching out to run her fingers down Dabi’s chest.

Stepping to the side to avoid her touch, Dabi grabbed his black hoodie jacket off the floor and slipped it on.

“Nah, can’t. I have a thing today.”

The blonde’s face fell slightly before she covered it up with a sneer. “Thing? What kind of thing?”

With his back still turned to her as he slipped on his black sneakers, Dabi rolled his eyes. He had neither the time nor patience for this. “Uh,” he started, “a concert thing.”

The blonde girl hummed in excitement. “That’s cool! Maybe I could go with you and we could-”

“No,” Dabi snapped, “it’s not that kind of concert. Listen, I really need to get home, so, uh, see you around,” and with that, Dabi walked out of the room, leaving the nameless blonde women alone.

* * *

It was just after 2 o’clock by the time Dabi arrived at his apartment. He hurriedly walked up the steps to the second floor, dug his keys out of his pocket, and walked into his small living room. Everything was the same as he had left it the night before; empty takeout containers littered the coffee table, a couple articles of clothing strewn across the room, and all of the thick curtains closed over the large glass windows that looked out over the city. It was dark. And lonely.

Just like it had been since you left this apartment. Left him.

You and Dabi had officially met in your last year of high school. It was by accident really, but Dabi has always thanked the God that he didn’t believe in for putting you both in the same place at the same time.

There was a spot behind the stage in the school’s auditorium where Dabi liked to go during lunch period to smoke. ‘The Spot’ was a small corner in the postscenium behind stage, which was usually hidden behind old props and costume racks. It was cozy and secluded, and was Dabi’s favorite place to be at school. His secret spot.

That was until you found it.

It was a Thursday when you had stumbled upon Dabi hiding behind some of the props that were going to be used in this year’s production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ When you caught him, he had the hood of his jacket pulled over the top of his head and a joint between his lips.

The sight of him had startled you a bit, because you thought you were alone. The auditorium was usually vacant during lunch period, which you thought would be the perfect time to practice the several short ballads you would be performing on your violin with the rest of the school’s orchestra on the opening night of the play.

“Oh my god,” you shrieked and stumbled backwards. Dabi’s head snapped up to survey your face, cobalt eyes wide, pupils expanded. “You scared the shit out of me,” you breathed softly, pressing two dainty hands over your racing heart.

Dabi blinked up at you with a blank expression before lowering the joint to his side and clearing his throat. “Sorry. No one usually comes back here this time of day.”

You recognized this boy. You both had English 6th period, but have never spoken to each other. He always sat at the very back and never raised his hand. Never participated in group projects. Never did anything, really.

“Yeah, um, I just came to practice a few pieces for the play. I needed to get a music rack,” you nodded toward the black iron stand perched to Dabi’s left, right behind a small, emerald green swan fainting sofa used for the production of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ two years ago.

“Ah. You in the orchestra?”

“Um, yeah, actually! First violin.”

Dabi didn’t know what “first violin” meant, but he kind of liked the way your face lit up when you said it. He hurriedly pushed himself off the floor and grabbed the music stand which was surprisingly light. “Here,” he offered.

You went to grab it, careful to avoid touching his hand, and let out a soft ‘thank you’ before walking out from backstage to the orchestra pit. Dabi watched your retreating form and silently hoped you wouldn’t tell anyone what he was doing in there. He was already in enough trouble for skipping class so often, and didn’t need any more drawn-out lectures from his parents or more days added to his weekend detentions. Settling back down on the floor, he set the joint back in between his lips and dug his phone and earbuds out of his pocket. He had about 12 minutes left before he would be forced to go back to class. The moment he decided on a song to listen to, however, he was interrupted by the sound of a violin.

He wasn’t sure if he liked the sound at first. It was shrill and loud and unexpected. Then, the sound began to melt into a beautiful melody and the shrillness soon became a rich and elegant sound that danced in Dabi’s ears.

Now intrigued, Dabi screwed the end of his joint into the floor and tossed it into a nearby trash bin before he pushed himself off the floor and walked out from behind the stage, where he was was met by the sight of you, softly moving your bow up and down the strings of your violin. You were standing despite the fact that there was a chair planted behind you, and your head was moving slightly from side to side in tune to the soft melody. Dabi thought the sight of you was beautiful and alluring. He had seen you in class before and walked past you in the hallways, but he had never actually known you, never actually saw you quite this way.

Sweet. Elegant. Pretty. He couldn’t, for the life of him, remember your name though.

The song you were playing was coming to an end, as was lunch period and Dabi wished he had just a little more time to listen to you play. To watch you play. But then the bell rang, and it was time for you both to head to class.

You lowered your violin from your neck to begin putting the instrument and sheet music away, when the boy with the ripped jeans and messy black hair caught your eye from up on the stage. He met your eyes, but said nothing, and neither did you. You weren’t sure what you should say or if you should even say anything. You had never spoken to this boy before, and now he had just listened to you play music and was currently staring at you.

“I liked that,” Dabi blurted, shattering the silence.

“Um thanks. It’s for the play tomorrow night.” You shifted from one foot to the other under Dabi’s fierce gaze and hoped that the darkness of the theater was hiding the faint blush that was scattered across your cheeks. Dabi Todoroki had just complimented you. And it felt nice.

You stared at each other for a bit longer before you finally broke your gaze and picked up your violin case. “I should probably head to class. Ms. Hatsu hates tardiness,” you said shyly.

Dabi cracked a small smile, which you found quite lovely. “Sure. I’ll see you in 6th period then.”

And he did see you in 6th period. Dabi had never paid much attention to his classmates before, but today was different. Today he wanted to see you sitting in the third seat in the second row. Four desks away from him. ‘Four desks too many,’ he thought. But as if the gods were listening to Dabi’s thoughts, Dabi’s literature teacher announced that today the class would be doing partner work. And without a second thought to consider his actions, Dabi rose from his seat and made his way over to you.

You were never fond of partner work. You preferred to keep to yourself, work alone, and avoid conversing with most people. You were shy in nature, so every announcement of partner work in any class was slightly stressful to you. Finding a partner was usually more work than it was worth. Today, however, there was no need to go search for a partner to work with. Someone had already chosen you, and was pulling up a chair to your desk.

“So,” Dabi drawled smoothly as he plopped down in his seat. “Where do you wanna start.”

“S-start?” This boy who you had only met 20 minutes ago, only exchanged a few words with, wanted to be your partner?

“Yeah. You wanna start with The Iliad or The Odyssey?” He pulled out a few slightly crumpled pages of notes from his school bag before meeting your eyes and raising his eyebrows in a questioning manner.

“Oh, um...let’s start with The Iliad.”

The rest of the hour was spent conversing with Dabi on how each ‘hero’ of the Trojan War was really just a villain, and through this conversation, you realized several things about Dabi. Firstly, he was funny. He cracked a few jokes here and there, which made you genuinely laugh with ease. It was a nice feeling for the both of you, how easily he could make you laugh. Secondly, he was smart. He was articulate and insightful, though you sensed he was just a lazy person when it came to school work. And lastly, you were pretty sure you were now crushing hard on Dabi Todoroki. His aloof personality you and the rest of the school had always been privy to seemed to be totally foreign as he dazzled with humor and charm in front of you.

And Dabi had finally learned your name. Y/N. He thought it was pretty.

The bell rang signaling the end of class, and Dabi slid away from your desk. “One more class of the day,” he sighed as he grabbed his bag off the floor. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you smiled at him. You really hoped you would.

Dabi stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. It was 3:47pm. He had just over an hour until your recital began.

He swiped a hand over the foggy mirror and peered at himself once more. The skin beneath his eyes were still dark, but he looked a little more alive now that he had showered. He was nervous. There was a sharp pain in his lower stomach and Dabi didn’t know if it was from the anxiety, he felt knowing he would see your face tonight, or if it was from his hangover. Maybe it was both. Or maybe it was just because he was scared. Scared to see you. Scared to talk to you. Scared that as soon as you spotted him in the crowd, you would dedicate the night to avoiding him and he wouldn't get to speak to you at all.

He really hoped he would get to talk to you. He hadn’t heard your voice in so long. It had been just over half a year since you two had gotten in that tense argument that had ultimately ended your relationship. In reality, your relationship had been over weeks before the fight, but neither of you were brave enough to admit it. Dabi, because he loved you and couldn't imagine living a life without you. You, because life with Dabi had become so natural that the thought of leaving terrified you. What if you regretted it? What if your life becomes directionless without him? You had spent nearly a year and a half of your life with him. He was your first love. First kiss. First everything since the opening night of your senior year high school play.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was your favorite play. Shakespeare, in your opinion, was quite wordy, but you greatly admired the several love stories and humor weaved throughout the play, and tonight you would be a part of the orchestra playing for this production. You were beyond ecstatic to perform.

The first half of the play went smoothly, and you were filled with adrenaline. Something about playing your violin for a crowd of people filled you with your body with a euphoric feeling. Your chest was full, blood was rushing through your veins and your heart was pounding with pure excitement. This feeling was only magnified once you spotted a certain raven-haired boy sitting in the audience in the front row. The 30-minute intermission had just begun and Dabi Todoroki was making his way over to you as you gingerly tucked your instrument back into its case.

“Hey. You sound pretty awesome out there,” he praised.

“T-thanks,” you blushed. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight”

Dabi scratched the back of his head and looked away from you. “Yeah, well, I heard there was bestiality in this thing and I wanted to check it out.” That forced a small giggle out of you. Dabi liked that sound a lot. “Anyway, I, uh, wanted to ask you if you were thirsty. There’s a concession stand out in the hallway. Figured you and I could get a drink, maybe sit outside until the next part of the play starts?”

Your heartbeat began to quicken. Was he flirting with you? Surely not. Surely, he was just being friendly to you. Right?

“Yeah, sure! I’d love that actually.”

Dabi grinned at you. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

The air was frigid and you had, unfortunately, worn a short sleeved black dress to opening night in an attempt to blend in with the darkness of the auditorium. When the chattering of your teeth became audible and your shivering was too severe to ignore, Dabi quickly slipped his jacket onto your shoulders. It smelled like nicotine and pine wood. Just like him.

“Thank you,” you lilted, and Dabi just hummed in response. “So, why did you really come tonight?” Dabi eyed you from his spot beside you as you both sat on the large brick steps in front of the school building. “You didn’t seem too interested in Homer the other day in class, so why would you want to see a Shakespearian play?”

Dabi clicked his tongue and averted his gaze. Why did he come tonight? “I dunno,” he started. “I guess I just wanted to see you again. Outside of school. And... I like the way you play your violin. It's… relaxing.”

Your face was burning at 100 degrees. You were sure of it. “Y-you wanted to see me? Why”

“Look, I just think you’re pretty, alright. And I like talking to you and shit.”

He thought you were what? He liked doing what? “I like talking to you too,” you breathed softly. You hadn’t meant to say it. You were embarrassed enough as it was, and the slip of your tongue only made the already high temperature of your cheeks rise.

Dabi turned to look at you then. He thought you looked ethereal in that moment. Wide eyes staring back at him, expectantly. Legs dressed in tight black pantyhose crossed and angled toward him. A bright pink blush dusting your cheeks. God, he wanted to fucking kiss you.

So, he did.

He jerked forward and caught your lips by surprise, which forced you to emit a small noise from your throat. His lips were cold and smooth and unfamiliar and he tasted like smoke and mint flavored gum. His lips moved fervently, as if they were on a mission to prove something, until you moved your finger into his inky hair and pressed his face closer to yours. His lips slowed at that moment, and his movements became gentler. He wanted to tell you he liked you. He wanted to ask you out on a date. He wanted to take you to the movies or to dinner or to just drive you around in his car and talk to you. He wanted to touch you everywhere. Your face. Your chest. Your legs, your ass, your cunt. He wanted to memorize every inch of your body with his fingertips.

It was you who broke the kiss. The combination of Dabi’s lips against yours and the freezing air was making it difficult for you to breathe. You rested your forehead against Dabi’s and chuckled.

“Something funny?” he grunted and pulled away from you.

“No, no, not at all. I just never imagined that Dabi Todoroki would be kissing while we freeze our asses off.”

Dabi scoffed at that. “Yeah, well, it happened.” He leaned forward until his face was inches from yours. “And we should do it again. Tomorrow sound good?”

“Y-yeah! Tomorrow is perfect.”

Dabi’s cobalt blue eyes looked like they were glowing. You wanted to look at them longer. You wanted to watch as his eyes got closer and closer until they closed and exchanged themselves for his lips against yours. But your thirty minutes were almost up. The orchestra pit was waiting for you.

“I should get back inside. The second act is starting in a couple minutes.” You stood up then, wrapping Dabi’s jacket tightly around yourself

Dabi got to his feet alongside you and held out his hand, which you took. He led you back inside, back into the warmth, and into the auditorium where the crowd was ushering back to their seats. Dabi whispered a little ‘good luck,’ in your ear before taking his seat in the front row.

Although the orchestra pit was extremely warm due to the building’s heater, stage lights, and the amount of people that were crammed into the little space side by side, you couldn’t bring yourself to shed Dabi’s jacket until late that night when you were getting ready for bed. And even then, you used the soft red fabric as a pillow so you could keep his smell close to your heart.

Dabi was wearing a black suit. He hadn’t dressed up in months, so the stiff material felt completely alien on his skin. His jet-black vest was slightly wrinkled due to being stuffed in the back of his closet for months on end and his ‘dress shoes’ were really just his cleanest pair of black boots. Dabi had no doubt that he would look ratty and out of place among the well-dressed attendees at your orchestra’s recital this evening, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. He was used to looking like a second-rate citizen next to you anyway. You had always cared about your appearance to the next level; every article of clothing you owned was always ironed, every shoe polished, every piece of jewelry was sparkling - a complete contrast to Dabi. That was one of the things Dabi loved most about you - you had your shit together and it was always physically obvious. You were organized, driven, ambitious, clean. Everything that Dabi was not.

It was 4:23pm. Dabi had 37 minutes until the recital started, and he still needed a tie to wear. Dabi had only ever owned one tie in his entire life, and it was a tie made of deep red silk. You had told Dabi a couple days after he asked you to go with him to your senior prom that red was your favorite color on him, so he had decided to buy a red tie for your special night out.

The tie was placed in the very back of his sock drawer and was the only piece of cloth that was folded neatly. Dabi was hesitant to pull it out of the drawer. He had only ever worn it that one night. That one night where the only thing in his eyes, his nose, his head, was you. That one night where he dressed in a black fitting suit, dawning the red, silky tie you had picked out for him the week before. That one night where he felt like someone had punched him in the fucking stomach because breathing became an immense effort after you shyly walked out of your front door, dressed in a long, red satin dress, your mom following close behind with a big, flashy camera. That one night when you told him you loved him after your first dance in the decked-out school gymnasium. That one night where he convinced you to leave the school after half an hour so he could fuck you in his car. That one night where he convinced you to swallow those little blue pills he was always shoving down his throat. That one night where he whispered a barely audible ‘I love you’ into your hair as you dozed off in the passenger seat of his car, high out of your mind. Looking back, Dabi could see that, for you, prom night was the beginning of the end. Drugs and rough sex were things you just weren’t quite ready for. Prom night for him, however, was just the beginning of your relationship. He couldn't understand that the things he would do often, oxy, car sex, ditching school events, weren’t for you. In his own mind, Dabi was convinced he was showing you how to have fun. The 20 minutes he spent fucking you into the back seat of his black Camaro were heaven. You were warm and wet and your arms clinged to him as if he was the only thing keeping you afloat and he loved it. And for the next few months following that night, you thought you did too.

It was a 20-minute walk from Dabi’s downtown small apartment to The Bleu Theater. It would’ve been a measly 5-minute drive, if Dabi still had his Camaro. Dabi thinks maybe you would still be by his side if he had his Camaro.

Dabi was royally fucked. He had promised you right when he dropped you off at Micaretta College for your first orchestra rehearsal that he would only be out for a few hours with his brother, Natsuo. He promised he wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t smoke, wouldn’t do any type of narcotic today while he was driving himself around. He was lying, of course, but he thought he would be able to handle himself. He thought he was ‘perfectly fine, Natsuo, let it the hell go,’ after downing a shot of tequila or five. He thought his high was nothing serious, despite the fact that he swallowed 3 oxys when he and Natsuo parted ways outside of the bar.

But he was wrong. So incredibly wrong.

The silence on the other end of the phone as he made his one phone call to you, mumbling that he was in a holding cell for crashing his Camaro into a government postal box because he was drunk and high and he needed to pick you up, made him nervous. He knew you would be upset - maybe sad, worried, angry - but your silence was conveying another emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on.

“Okay,” you said blankly. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

You showed up to the Tokyo police station ten minutes after your phone call just like you said you would - dressed in the same black and grey mini dress you were wearing this morning when he dropped you off. He had watched you dress yourself in the bedroom you two shared in your small but cozy apartment this morning from the queen-sized bed. Watching you with tired, lazy eyes, Dabi thought you looked so fucking cute. Your hair was still pulled up in a half-hearted pony-tail from when you washed your face minutes before, and your small, dainty hands were fiddling with the metal zipper on the back of your dress. He had cheekily told you ‘you're wasting your time zipping that up, princess. I’m just gonna rip it open when you get home tonight.’

Your cheeks had been coated with a light blush at that, and you let out a small giggle, glancing at him from the mirror with a shy smile on your face.

You had looked so happy this morning. Your smile was dazzling, eyes bright and lively.

You looked like the complete opposite now. A mere twelve hours later Dabi had managed to wipe that smile from your face, replacing it with a straight, thin line. The sparkle had been washed from your doe eyes, where only a blank, empty look now held its place.

He had really fucked up.

Signatures, paperwork, and a large down payment for the fine Dabi now had to pay took almost half an hour to complete before Dabi was allowed to walk free and was given a form that he was told to keep for his court date in 14 days. And then it was time to go home.

The 20-minute walk it took to get from the police department to your home was quiet and tense. You hadn’t spoken a word and Dabi hadn’t either. He was afraid of what you would say if he tried to speak to you. Would you yell at him? Would you cry? Tell him he was a failure, a fuck-up, that he wasn’t just ruining his own life, but yours too?

He already knew all of these things. His father reminded him every chance he got. He had barely managed to graduate high school, he never enrolled in college like you had, he was unemployed, paying his half of the rent with a monthly allowance he received along with the rest of his siblings from his grandmother. Each day was spent drinking, downing pills, inhaling blow, infiltrating his skin with needles, waiting for you to get home from school so he could kiss you, touch you, love you, and pretend he had a normal life - a normal, healthy relationship.

Just like you were.

“Guess we’re gonna have to use Uber from now on,” Dabi grunted, trying to slice through the tension that was strongly swimming in the air around the two of you.

“Guess so,” you said faintly.

Dabi’s eyes flash at your flat tone. “Look,” he said, teeth clenched. “I’m sorry, okay? I know I screwed up. You don’t need to make it worse.”

In an instant, your face morphed from blank and expressionless to white hot anger. “Me? You think I’m making things worse? I’m not the one who got shit faced in the middle of the day! I’m not the one who wrecked the fucking car into government property because you couldn’t see five feet in front of you!”

“I know that for Christ’s sake! Jesus fuck, I just spent two hours in jail for it! I. Fucked. Up! Get the fuck over it!”

You held his gaze for a few more moments before looking away. There were so many things you wanted to say, so many things you knew he needed to hear. But you were exhausted. You were so damn tired of fighting, of yelling, of constantly wondering if your life would always consist of picking up the pieces after Dabi shatters everything in his wake. You were tired of him.

“Okay,” you sighed dejectedly. “Let’s just go home. I have orchestra again tomorrow. We both need some sleep.”

Dabi didn’t say anything in response. What could he say? He could see the drained look in your eyes clear as day. He had pulled you out of your evening class to come bail him out of jail after totaling his car. He had promised you he wouldn’t drink while he was out. That he wouldn’t pop any pills while he was out. But he did.

The line to get into the theater wasn’t too long once he arrived at the front entrance of the large stone building. There were only about fifteen people waiting to hand in their tickets to get inside, and the process seemed like it was going fairly quickly. Dabi pulled the crumpled, grey admission ticket from his coat pocket and handed it to the usher. Watching the man dressed in a baby blue suit scan the barcode on his ticket felt like watching paint dry. He needed to get inside and sit down. His head was pounding from his hangover and his heart was racing from anxiety. He hadn't seen you in six months. Not in person, anyway. He spent plenty of time stalking your social media accounts, looking to see if you had started dating again, if school was going okay for you, if you were happy without him in your life. He didn’t find much over the past few months, much to Dabi’s dismay. The only relevant thing he was able to find out about you was that your college orchestra group was conducting a recital tonight at The Bleu Theater, and that you would have a violin solo. Dabi bought his $250 dollar ticket three months in advance the second he read the flyer you had posted on your Instagram account.

The inside of the theater was as Dabi had expected it to be. Lined with red carpet and donning two grand marble staircases The halls of the theater were littered with high society aristocrats dressed in suits and evening gowns. Although he had dressed in an evening suit, Dabi knew he looked like lower class beside these people. In that moment though, Dabi couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed. The only thing lingering on his mind was you. What you might be wearing. What he might do if he snagged a chance to speak to you. What he would say if you decided to hear him out.

He didn’t have time to think about it though. The recital was starting, and Dabi needed to find his seat, which he knew was in the second row from the stage. All the seats in the very front had already been bought out by the time Dabi had purchased his ticket, so seat J in row B was the second-best option.

Hurrying down the aisle, Dabi found his seat in between two women dressed in both green and silver evening gowns. They were older women with hot pink lipstick coating their wrinkled lips who raised their brows at Dabi as he sat in between them. The MC began his little speech, thanking everyone for attending tonight and asking them to please silence their cellphones. He announced the first player of the night, a cellist who was dressed in a long, black, lacy dress. He hadn’t remembered to grab a program from the man handing them out beside the entrance of the auditorium, but the women in green to his right had one and was currently reading through it. He glanced to her side, hoping to catch a glimpse of your name so he could prepare himself to see you for the first time since your break-up.

And there it was. Act number two. Y/N L/N, violin solo.

You were next and Dabi felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. He was sure everyone in the room could hear the thump thump thump of the organ in his chest despite the rich boom the cello filled the room with. The cellist was reaching the climax of the Cadenza piece. You would be walking out of stage soon. In just seconds, Dabi would have the chance to lock eyes with you. He hoped he would be able to convey the love he felt for you, his anguish at the fact that you left him all alone in a world he felt had never accepted him, his guilt at making your life a living hell because he was too selfish to let you go the second things began to deteriorate. Deep down, Dabi had known your relationship was doomed.

Deep down, Dabi had known your relationship was doomed. That anxious, petrifying feeling of knowing the only heaven he was convinced he would ever know would one day leave him shortly after you had started your first year of college. You had gotten into your dream college, while Dabi hadn’t bothered to apply anywhere. You were working three days a week at a music store, teaching children how to play the violin. Dabi was living off an allowance, popping pills all day. You had aspirations. You were working toward a future you desperately wanted - you wanted to become a violinist for The Halle, you wanted to move to the city - you wanted to be with Dabi. But Dabi didn’t have dreams like you did. His father had instilled in him since he could form coherent sentences that he was a failure. He was a disgrace. He wasn’t even his real son. He was a product of his mother’s extramarital indiscretion - a stain on the Todoroki name. A mistake.

Dabi believed all his life that all he would ever be was a let-down. The only good thing in his life was you. Dabi Todoroki had managed to fall in love with a quiet girl who was ambitious and smart and beautiful - and just like everything else he did in his life - he screwed it up.

“I need you to come home”

He shouldn’t be asking you that. Tonight was an important night for you - scouts for the Chordis Orchestra were in the audience tonight. Your school was putting on a production of Phantom of the Opera - your favorite musical - and you were lucky enough to be the first sophomore to play in the orchestra pit on opening night.

“What? Dabi - what’s going on?”

He felt like he was going crazy. Why were you asking so many questions? Why couldn’t you just come home? He needed you!

“Look,” he gulped as his knuckles turned white from gripping the phone. “I-my dad was here earlier and-”

“Your dad?” Dabi’s father, Enji, had never visited your home before. Dabi would never invite him and Enji would never lay out an offer. Dabi had told you a little about the issues he had with his father during late night talks where you and Dabi would lay naked in the back seat of his car, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“We got into a fight and I don’t even know what happened, I just opened my eyes and our window was busted and my knuckles were bleeding and dad was gone. I was so fucking pissed and I don’t even remember uncapping the fucking needle...but I think I took too much.”

Your blood ran cold. You hated when Dabi would use heroin. You had tried it once when the two of you first moved into your apartment together, and you never wanted that substance in your body again. You knew how Dabi could get when he took too much of one thing. He would get angry, paranoid, anxious and clingy. You were terrified one of these days you would come home and find him dead on the bathroom floor with a needle sticking out of his arm or pills lodged in his throat.

“Dabi what do you mean you took too much? D-do I need to call an ambulance!?”

“No! No, don’t call the fucking police. I’ll get charged with substance abuse. Fuck! Just come home!”

“Okay, okay, Dabi. I’m coming home, alright? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

You quickly packed up your instrument, sheet music, and informed the director you would not be able to perform tonight. It was a tense conversation, as Ms. Hatsuki had given you a big opportunity to play tonight. But Dabi wanted you home. And he was more important, right?

The bursting open of the wooden door startled Dabi. He had been staring blankly at the wall, scratching at the needle scars that were riddled along his left forearm. It felt like he had been waiting hours for you to get home to him, when only a mere 20 minutes had passed before you burst into the living room.

“Dabi,” you breathed, “are you okay? You look so pale.” You rushed over to the brown sofa where he was seated and took his hand in yours. His hand was coated in brown, dry blood and there was a small gash across his knuckles. It wasn’t too bad, but he would probably need a couple stitches.

“M’fine. I think...I’m just coming down really hard. My hand hurts, too.”

Coming down too hard? How many times have you been through this? There had been several occasions where Dabi had called you while you were in the middle of class, or in rehearsal, or out with friends or family, frantically begging you to come home. Each time he made one of those calls, he worried you sick. He never sounded like the Dabi you knew like the back of your hand. He was sacred and sounded like he was close to death every time. And every time you came running, he would lay his head in your lap, tell you he’s sorry, that he wants to do better for you, and then do it all over again the next week.

You weren’t sure how much more you could take. At first, it was small, tolerable things. Things you could look past because you loved him so much. In the beginning, when Dabi went past his limit, he would grow overly irritable, snapping at you out of nowhere. Then, that gradually turned into full blown meltdowns with Dabi shedding a few tears as he paced around the apartment, not sure if he was angry or scared, not knowing what he could possibly be angry at or scared of.

Then, that morphed into complete paranoia. Dabi always thought he would die when he would go past his limit, but he would never do anything to help his fears. He was always afraid you would leave him all by himself in this tiny apartment that only felt like home when you were there. He was afraid his father would finally cut him out of the family because he’s a bad influence on his little brother - because he’s a good-for-nothing junkie with no direction in life.

He was afraid of problems that only he was able to cause. Problems he couldn’t stop causing.

Your mouth set into a thin line, a sight Dabi wished he wasn’t so familiar with. “Dabi,” you started evenly. “I thought you were fucking dying. You made me leave the most important performance of my life - for what?”

Dabi’s puppy eyes quickly morphed into piercing cobalt as he scowled. “For what? Princess, I need you here. I felt like I was fucking dying, I need a little support here!”

“WHAT ABOUT ME!?” you screamed. It startled the both of you. The scream seemed to rip itself from your throat without permission. The shocked look on your boyfriend’s face almost made you back down. But you wouldn’t – couldn’t back down this time.

“What about supporting me, huh, Dabi? Week after week, I drop everything, my whole life, to come running back to you. To make sure you’re okay. You make promise after promise to stop this shit, to get clean, to get your life together so I CAN GET MINE TOGETHER! Fuck, it’s like I’m your mother instead of your girlfriend.”

Dabi watched you silently from his spot on the couch. He had never seen you so angry before, especially at him. The smack running through his veins urged him to yell back at you. To scream that you were selfish. That you can’t talk to him like that.

But he doesn’t. Because he knows you’re right.

Deep down, he knows he’s ruining your life. He knows he’s continually taking opportunity after opportunity from you - because he doesn’t want to be alone. He knows his drug induced moods are wearing on you. He knows he’s tearing your heart apart by worrying you, yelling at you, destroying you. He knows he does not deserve you. But even so, he hopes to God you won’t leave. He’s too selfish to let you go on his own - he would rather watch you crumble because of him than watch you flourish without him.

“Tonight was so important, Dabi. You know that.” Your eyes were filling with tears. Your heart felt like it was shattering within your chest. You didn’t want to. Or did you? You weren’t so sure what you wanted anymore. But you did know what you needed. “I-I can’t Dabi. I cannot do this with you anymore.”

“W-what? The fuck are you saying?”

“I’m saying I can’t stay in this relationship with you, Dabi! It's tearing me completely apart. It's tearing me apart because you’re tearing yourself apart. I’ve tried and tried, but I just can’t do it. I hit my limit months ago. This - us - it needs to end now.”

Neither of you said anything after that. It was strange, in a way. You expected your boyfriend - your ex-boyfriend, would beg you not to leave. Like he always did when he was paranoid and high.

Dabi, on the other hand, had always imagined, in his hazy, drunken paranoia, that he would rage if you ever tried to leave him like this. What was he supposed to do without you? He had nothing in life but you. Every day was about you; waiting for you to get home from school, cooking for you, fucking you, talking to you, living life through you. But he wasn’t angry. All he felt in those next few minutes as the two of you sat side by side on the couch for the very last time, was sorrow.

His father was right, as he always was. He destroyed everything he touched. One tiny brush of his fingertips set anything in his wake ablaze.

When you stood from the couch to go pack a bag, Dabi couldn't bring himself to look at you. He couldn’t force out a single syllable. All he could do was sit. Sit and listen as the girl he loved gathered every piece of herself and walked out of his life.

The next few weeks following the break up were the worst. You were ignoring Dabi’s texts and calls, and he didn’t even know where you were. He assumed you were staying with a friend or had moved back in with your mother - but he wished you would answer one of his texts so he could know for sure.

Dabi didn’t leave his apartment until a month after the two of you broke up. He honestly didn’t see a reason to. After he graduated high school and moved in with you, he only left the house to go grocery shopping, or buy you little gifts, or go on dates with you. Now that you were gone, what reason did he have to venture outside of his safe space?

Alcohol. Sex.

Two enticing reasons.

The first time Dabi had sex with another person after your break up, he felt like throwing up. Her voice was higher than yours, her nose was bigger than yours, the way she looked when she came on his cock was nowhere near as beautiful as yours was.

She was not you.

She was not you, and here he was, in her apartment, in her bed, kissing her, pleasing her, fucking her. He felt like he was betraying you the first few times he did it. He had to keep reminding himself that you were gone, you weren’t his girlfriend anymore. He could have sex with whoever he wanted.

After the first couple girls, the guilt and disgust melted away and morphed into delirium. If he was in bed with some girl he met at a bar, he could forget your face. If he kissed her lips in a sloppy, rushed manner, he could forget the way he felt to be touched by you. If he listened to her maddening moans as he fucked into her, he could forget the way your voice sounded, just for a moment. And that was enough for him to survive each day without you.

It was scary seeing you for the first time in so long. You looked the same as you always had; beautiful, elegant, and perfect.

You were wearing a white, spaghetti sleeved dress that reached to the middle of your leg and your hair was curled delicately and was falling freely past your shoulders. Dabi had spent half a year without seeing you or hearing from you at all, and still, the first sight of you made him feel like he couldn’t fucking breath. Every little detail was special to him.

He could see the nervousness written all over your face. You were used to playing in an orchestra pit, away from everyone’s line of sight. You felt most comfortable hidden in the darkness, playing music that was meant to add character to a play, not right in the spotlight, playing raw music for everyone to judge you with. But Dabi also knew that this is what you always truly wanted. You wanted people to see you and hear you, no matter how terrifying it was.

You started off slow, moving your bow gently and fluidly across the strings of your violin. It was soft and melodic, and only Dabi knew that this was your signature build up - it was how you always liked to play music. Just as you were doing now, you had always preferred to start everything off slow and delicate - gradually and powerfully zipping your bow across the metal strings to create an earth-shattering sound that was somehow richer than the cello. Dabi had noticed this the very first time he ever heard you play in that empty auditorium in high school, and still now you were able to knock him out with your beautiful talent.

You were avoiding looking out into the crowd to evade stage fright. You knew that if you looked out into the human sea, you would face the possibility of choking. This was an incredibly important night. Your mom had joked before you left her house this morning that tonight would mark the beginning of your musical career. You could not afford to mess anything up.

But then you looked up. You tore your gaze from the floor and glanced out into the abyss and fount cobalt blue eyes staring intently back at you. His gaze was enough to almost make your left hand fingers falter over the notes, but you regained your composure almost as fast as you had lost it. Looking away from him seemed impossible right then. Here he was, Dabi, your ex-boyfriend, your first love, sitting in the audience, listening to you play your heart out. Why was he here? How did he even know you would be playing tonight?

A million and one questions swam through your mind. You were playing on autopilot now. You couldn’t focus on anything but him. His inky black hair was combed neatly, just as it was on prom night. He was wearing a suit and he looked completely dressed for the occasion. Your song was coming to an end and you needed to snap out of it. The ending deserved your attention. You owed it to yourself to forget Dabi, just for this second, to focus on what you had in front of you.

The floor wasn’t anywhere near as pretty as Dabi was, but it was where you had to force yourself to look for the remainder of the song. It came to a finish 20 seconds later, and the applause was almost too loud for your ears. A proud grin spread across your face as you grabbed the neck of your instrument and bowed before walking back into the wings.

You weren’t sure why Dabi would come tonight. He had stopped trying to contact you three months ago after you ignored each and every one of his attempts. It was painful to even think about him after your break up. There were many times you felt as if you had made a mistake in leaving. Every memory of Dabi holding you to his chest when you would cry to try and comfort you, every memory of Dabi whispering out that he loved you late at night, every memory of Dabi kissing you goodbye as you left for class each morning, was almost enough to break you. But the fact was that you didn’t just leave for yourself. Dabi was too dependent on you. If you had continued to enable his drug habit, allowing him to think that he could be as destructive as he wanted and nothing would happen to him, he would end up killing himself. So, you stood your ground, and distanced yourself as far away from him as you could.

But he was here now. Dressed nicely, watching you on the most important night of your life. Did he want to talk? Or was he here for something else? There was only one way to find out.

Dabi had gotten up from his seat as soon as you exited the stage. He wasn’t too eager to listen to some guy play the piano for 2 minutes straight. He had only come here to see you. The air was warm and inviting outside as Dabi sat on the building’s steps and pulled out his e-cigarette. He wanted to go back in and find you, just as he planned when he first got here. Seeing you on stage tonight, however, made him think twice. You looked beautiful and vibrant. Despite the look of nervousness you wore tonight, he knew you were confident in what you could do. You smiled tonight. It didn’t look fake or forced, like it had months ago. It looked completely genuine and Dabi didn’t want to take that away from you.

You were happy without him. You were thriving without him. He needed to stay away from you.

“You’re missing the rest of the recital, you know.”

Your voice brought Dabi out of his head. He hadn’t heard your voice in so long, it almost sounded alien to him.

You stood two steps above him, still wearing your white dress. Still just as beautiful as you were on stage.

Dabi was searching for the right words to say, but he was coming up perpetually blank. He wanted to say the right thing, but he never knew what the right thing to say was.

“I, uh, only came to see one act.” You smiled softly at that, and Dabi felt like someone had shot him. He missed you. He missed you so much and your smile only reminded him of what he inevitably pushed away 6 months ago.

“Well, mister Beethoven,” you joked, “how did I do?”

You were walking closer to him and Dabi wasn’t sure if he should move away or not. He was afraid that if you got too close, he might burn you. “God, it was awful. It sounded like a tortured cat.”

A laugh tore itself from your throat as you sat beside him on the steps. “Yeah, well. That was your fault. I didn’t expect to see you out there. Caught me off guard.”

“You were great.” Dabi wanted to smile back at you, but he couldn’t. “Felt like I was watching an actual angel perform.”

It was quiet for a moment after that. Neither of you knew what to say. Why were you out here with him? Why did he come to see you tonight?

“Why’d you come tonight, Dabi?”

“I dunno, really. I just - I knew you were playing tonight. I felt like I needed to see you. I wanted to talk to you, I guess.”

The e-cigarette in your ex-boyfriend’s hand caught your attention. “Since when do you smoke water vapor? What happened to weed?”

Dabi looked down at his hands before replying. “I quit that shit a couple months ago,” he mumbled. “I didn’t like the way it made me feel anymore.”

Your eyes widened in surprise. “You stopped smoking pot? That’s great Dabi!”

“Thanks. I stopped with the pills and smack too.”

He what? “Wait, are you saying you got clean?”

He shrugged, not returning your gaze. “I guess. I stopped using four months ago. Fuyumi and my mom have gotten me into counseling. My therapist is helping me come up with ways to cope without drugs. The booze has been more difficult to quit though. I still drink pretty often. I’m...I’m working on being different. Like I always promised you I would. Except this time, I’m serious.”

The world halted for a moment for you. Dabi...was getting clean. He had promised you countless times in your relationship that he would try to stop. That he would be a better man for you. That he would stop using, get a job, go back to school. Each of those promises were empty, unfulfilled wishes.

But not anymore.

You threw your arms around Dabi, almost knocking him off the step. He stilled, not sure what to do. Should he hug you back? Push you off of him? He didn’t know, so he allowed you to continue to take the lead.

“I’m so happy for you Dabi. That is so amazing. I can’t believe it, I’m so proud.” There was a familiar warmth growing in your chest. The entire two years of your relationship, all you had wanted was for Dabi to get clean. The drugs, the directionlessness, it weighed on him. And, in turn, it began to weigh on you as well. “Have you thought about enrolling anywhere?”

You had pulled away from Dabi by now, but you were still sitting quite close to him, which made Dabi feel uneasy. He had wanted to be close to you like this for months, but now that it was happening, he felt anxious. What if after tonight, the two of you would go back to being strangers?

“I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve worked on a few applications already, but I haven’t sent anything in just yet.”

Hearing that Dabi was finally getting his shit together filled your heart with joy and hope. Dabi was trying to get sober. Dabi had come to see you tonight. And you still loved him after all this time. After everything, Dabi still owned your heart.

“I need to tell you I’m sorry.” He turned to look at you. He had been looking at everything but you this entire conversation, but he needed to look you in the eye as he said this. “I need to tell you I’m sorry for everything I put you through. I fucked up so many things for you because I was a piece of shit. I’m sorry for making you leave.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. Dabi looked so different now. He looked the same as he always did, yet completely unfamiliar all at once. You had spent so many months seeing Dabi kill himself every day. His eyes were sunken in, dark circles painted onto his sickly pale skin. His lips were always chapped and split open, scratching your own lips whenever he grabbed your face to kiss you. Now, underneath the bright June moonlight, Dabi looked alive. His lips were no longer dehydrated and split. His eyes were still tired, but more alert, and his skin looked healthy.

“I left for a reason, Dabi. Not just because it was too much for me, but because I thought you needed to figure everything out on your own.”

He nodded slowly while keeping your gaze. “Is it possible to try again?”

Yes, you wanted to say, absolutely. You wanted to tell him you could pick up right where the two of you left off, but you couldn’t. Not after everything he put you through. Taking a deep breath and taking his hand in yours, you said, “how about you and I go for coffee tomorrow? We can talk things out more then.”

Dabi grinned and squeezed your hand. I have a shot. Being this close to you, knowing he would see you again tomorrow, really made him want to kiss you. Six months ago, he could grab your face whenever he wanted and capture your lips with his. But he couldn’t now. He needed to take his time with you, let you decide if he was what you wanted. He had put you through hell for so long, so he needed to let you take the lead this time.

“I’d really like that.”

To his surprise. you leaned forward and pressed your lips gently to his cheek, and then stood. “I need to get back inside, but...I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”

Dabi nodded furiously. “Yeah. Yeah, tomorrow morning.”

You smiled softly once more, and then turned to head back into the building. Watching you leave the night the two of you broke up made him feel like everything around him was bleak and broken. This time, as he watched you slip through the doors of the theater, he felt light things were finally a little bit brighter.

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wastelandcth · 3 years

Text

Better Love - cth

part two: the wild and us

summary: Maeve and Calum meet. The rain outside puts on a show.

author’s notes: I hope you guys enjoyed the first part of this series! This part had one of my favorite scenes I’ve ever written so I hope you enjoy!

warnings: mentions of drinking, mentions of breakups, mentions of food.

masterlist || request || join my taglist!

part one

Staring in the blackness at some distant star The thrill of knowing how alone we are, unknown we are To the wild and to the both of us

"What are you doing in my hotel?" she asked shakily, her wariness prevalent in the way her voice shook as she stared at the man in front of her.

The towel she was pulling closer to her body felt like nothing in the room with him. Maeve, who had only made it back to the cabin an hour prior, had expected to be alone. She'd hadn't expected to walk out of her shower to find a tall man sleeping in the bed she'd rented out for the week. She also hadn't expected the rainstorm to be so bad, her weather app claiming her entire week here would be sunny and perfect for hiking, so finding a man in her cabin hadn't been in her plans either.

And wow was he a sight for sore eyes.

"What are you doing in my cottage?" he asked, Maeve's eyebrow raising as she heard the trace of an accent, "Mrs. Bagby rented this place out to me, she never said there was someone already staying here," he huffed, his eyebrows furrowing as he studied Maeve's.

"Mrs. Bagby? Who the hell is Mrs. Bagby? I'm renting this from Mrs. Baird," Maeve said, "I was here first! You're the intruder!"

Maeve, who had always been prepared to debate with anyone, was not backing down no matter how exposed she was in front of a handsome man. She wasn't going to stand for a stranger barging into her space, she needed this vacation more than anything in this world and she'd be damned if she let this ruin it. She watched as the man in front of her opened and closed his mouth, looking like a fish out of the water as he tried to come up with a solution to the very obvious problem. If Maeve was honest, she had no idea how the confusion had happened or how they'd both ended up in this situation, but she didn't have much time to think about it.

The thunder outside shook the walls of the small cabin, rattling the jars and the decorations on the walls throughout, and it wasn't until Maeve heard the crack of lightning that she realized just how bad the storm outside had become. The view outside the window had been fogged, the colorful autumn trees disappearing behind the wall of water falling from the sky as the landscape blurred into a mixture of grey and orange with red splotches. Maeve, whose attention had switched from the man in the green hoodie to the raging storm outside, had grabbed the pile of clothes she'd left on the dresser. Without another word, she walked back towards the bathroom and made sure to twist the lock before she let out a breath.

The man in her bedroom for the week had been, breathtaking to say the least. His eyes, although wide and filled with confusion when Maeve had looked into them, were brown and shone even in the gloominess of the weather His hair was short, the tufts of blonde hair curling near the ends. Maeve guessed that his hair had been a darker color naturally, the roots she'd spotted proving her point. He looked like a kind person, maybe he was like Maeve as well, just another person looking for an escape.

That's all her trip to this cabin was meant to be, an escape.

Maeve's life had always been simple if you could call it that. She'd been born on a rainy afternoon, her mother liked to tell her it was because she was meant to outshine the sun itself. Her parents, who'd met in Scotland years before she ever came to take her first breath, had always told her about the magic the country had to offer. They told her stories of the forests so vast and large that even the biggest of problems could shrink down into pebbles that flowed away in the rivers. She'd grown up in a small town, dreaming of the wonders that Scotland had for her when she was old enough to see them.

Maeve had moved when her time at university peaked when her nose was stuck in books that spoke all about the history and the cultures that made up the world. It had been the first time in her life that she'd been away from her parents, from the only home she had ever known, and it had been so thrilling. She went from only traveling to big cities for concerts or when her father had needed to run errands to living right in the heart of all the commotion. The quiet nights that had been filled with only cicadas singing into the night were replaced by the sound of a city, alive and cheerful at all hours of the day. Maeve had never experienced so much at such a fast pace and her life at her university flew by before she had a chance to slow down. One day she was unpacking her bags in her dorm and the next she was accepting her diploma and applying to jobs around the country. She felt the burnout, felt the way her brain tensed whenever she read through application requirements and the thought of having to pack up her life again. She felt the way her eyes forced themself open while riding the train to interviews. She knew that she needed a break, a few days off to remember who she was and what she wanted in life. To make matters worse, her relationship had been going downhill. She'd met James at a social event the school had put on, both of them were in the same program so it wasn't hard to make conversation with him. After too many history jokes and a trip to the campus bar, Maeve found herself awake in his arms as he slept. She'd laid there that first night, looking out at the stars through his window, wondering why she'd felt a pull towards a different place, a different person.

That feeling hadn't stopped since that night, she'd stayed with James, he was a nice guy who made her laugh and kept her company as they both studied. But he wasn't someone she saw herself spending the rest of her life with. She had a feeling that James felt the same way even if they were both too afraid to admit that the spark that had been there before was fiddling out. The arguments were getting worse, the silence lasting longer as time went on. It wasn't until one night when Maeve had been studying for a final exam that it had all exploded. Words were thrown around, tears were shed, and she was left feeling like something was wrong with her. She couldn't understand why she couldn't love James as he loved her, she'd turn distant and pushed him away until all that was left between them was a broken flower vase and tears.

That's why she'd jumped on the opportunity to fly to Scotland when it arose. She'd been sitting at her desk, scrolling through an endless list of applications and teaching opportunities when the email had popped up. She'd read through it a couple of times, making sure she wasn't imagining the words on the screen. Her professor, who'd helped her in more ways than one could count, had recommended her for a teaching job abroad. She would have to visit the school, make sure that it was both a right fit for her and for the administration, but it seemed like they were more than ready to offer her a spot and helping her make Edinburgh her home.

Mrs. Baird, the lovely older woman who had driven Maeve up to the cabin and helped her unpack, had told her that she was glad she'd arrived a few days earlier after Maeve had told her all about why she was visiting Scotland at such an odd time of year. She'd been a curious soul ever since Maeve had stepped out of the taxi that had taken her from the train station out to the main residence Mrs. Baird had seemed to be the owner of. She'd asked Maeve all sorts of questions, which Maeve had taken as to her host just making sure she wasn't escaping from anyone dangerous or anything like that, it was a tough time to be a woman traveling alone.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll love the spot you'll be staying in then. It's very private, it'll be good for you to clear your head and relax before your big interview," she'd nodded as she packed up a few bags with groceries Maeve hadn't recalled reading about on the website.

"Oh, um, I don't think I paid for anything like that, Mrs. Baird," Maeve chuckled and shook her head, "I was thinking of just popping into town and picking up a few essentials."

"Oh don't you worry, darling! It's my pleasure. Plus, the cottage is quite secluded so it'd take you almost half a day to get to the shops and back," she shrugged, "Let's get going, yeah?"

The drive up to the cabin had been slow and gave Maeve a chance to take in the sights. The forest was alive with colors that Maeve's eyes had craved to see. It seemed like everything her parents had told her about the place they'd met was still the same. The trees still sway in the chilly breeze and somewhere in the distance, a river flowed with a power that only came with years of flowing and receiving rain. The drive itself had been plenty enough to get Maeve excited about her days of rest but the second her eyes saw the stone bridge that led to her home for the next couple of days, she knew her life was about to change. After helping Mrs. Baird with bringing in all the bags and thanking her for the candles she'd also brought, telling her a rainstorm was predicted to pass through the next day, Maeve was alone.

Her first day in the cabin had been spent unpacking and unwinding. Mrs. Baird had been kind enough to bring a bottle of Scottish whiskey, telling her," when in Scotland" and Maeve had sampled the liquor, letting it burn her throat as she stared out at the river flowing outside her bedroom window. Her trip had been going great so far, she'd successfully beaten jetlag, had managed not to burn the small kitchen down during her dinner, and she had taken a nice and relaxing show when the rainstorm had shown up the next day. She'd made sure to light a few candles around the place, not wanting to walk around in the dark if the power did go out. Then, of course, everything took a turn for the unexpected when Maeve walked out of the bathroom and was met by a man sleeping in her bed.

By the time she'd walked out of the bathroom again, fully dressed and a little more confident in herself, the power had gone out and the whole cabin had been illuminated with an orange glow coming from the candles. The man was no longer in the bedroom, but the storm outside the window was winding up more and more as the seconds passed. She knew she couldn't make him walk out in the forest during the storm, it was too dangerous and mean in general to kick someone out in the middle of a downpour. So she'd let the guy stay until the storm passed and then they'd both walk down to the main residence and sort out whatever the hell was happening.

"Calum," he mumbled, looking over as Maeve stepped out into the living room, "I'm Calum."

"Maeve," she replied with a nod, "You're not here to murder me, right?"

Calum chuckled and shook his head, which made Maeve warm and sent a shiver down her spine. His smile was nice, a murderer wouldn't have waited for her to get dress unless he was into that, she thought. She'd smiled at him, tugging the sleeves of her sweater down a bit as she looked around the living room. The candles gave the entire room a moody glow, the storm had stopped the sunshine from coming in through the windows and it had felt later on in the day than it actually was.

"So...tea?" she asked softly as she motioned towards the kitchen.

Maeve had found out that Calum, which was a very fitting name for the man sitting across from her watching the rain outside, had been in Scotland for a little over two weeks. He'd been traveling on his own, exploring the smaller cities and seeing what the Highlands had to offer. Maeve had told him about her interview, confessing that she wasn't the most prepared and that these few days before were to help her hopefully calm down. To her surprised, she’d learned that Calum was a professor at a university near his town, both of their widening at the confession of just how similar they were.

"That's exciting, what are you hoping to teach?” Calum asked, his eyes meeting hers in the candlelight, “I specialize in Art History.”

“History,” she nodded, a blush on her cheeks, her eyes glancing down to the cup of tea that had been warming her hands, “I’ve always loved studying it and I want to help others learn about it too.”

“Yeah? I get that. The history department at my school isn’t the best Some older man names Rainer runs it like it’s still warm times,” Calum chuckled, “He’s the worst.”

Maeve laughed, shaking her head as she thought about her fair share of professors who had yet to catch up with the times She thought about what kind of instructor Calum was. It was only his second year teaching so was he the one who made his students excited for lessons ahead? Did he use fun activities and assignments to incorporate them into his plans? Maybe he assigned cool projects, where the main point was to gain a bigger understanding of something a student has been wanting to talk about. Calum seemed like the type and from what Maeve had learned about the man in the short hours she’d known him, she knew he was kind and attentive.

“How was your hike up here?” Calum asked as he set the cup of tea down on the table, his legs stretching out as his head leaned on the back of the couch.

“Hike?” Maeve asked, furrowing her eyebrows as she looked over at him.

“Yeah, I left around like five and didn’t get here until ten,” Calum chuckled and shrugged, “And somehow you look like you just took a leisurely drive up here,” he teased, sitting up as he saw the look on Maeve’s face, “Oh my god, you drove up here, didn’t you?”

"In my defense," Maeve giggled out, holding her arms up, "Mrs. Baird offered to bring me up here"

"Oh, and she forced me to walk for five hours and fall in the mud!?" Calum whined, shaking his head as he let out a groan, "She's so not getting a good review from me, whatever her name may be."

Maeve laughed softly, watching the way Calum ran a hand down his face and pouted over at her. She was surprised at how easily they both got along, usually, Maeve had trouble getting out of her own head and talking to new people. But with Calum things just felt so carefree. She wasn't sure if it was such a good thing, opening up to a complete stranger who had been booked into the same cabin as her, but the rain outside wasn't letting up and she was more than willing to work out a compromise to share with him until the rain stopped and they could take the quad bike Mrs. Baird had told Maeve about before leaving her in the middle of nowhere.

"Do you want to go freshen up? I'm sure your five-hour hike up here more than justifies a nice warm bath," Maeve nodded, giggling as Calum glared playfully over at her, "I'll try and mix something up for lunch?"

"That sounds lovely, if the rain doesn't stop soon I'll make us dinner," Calum shrugged, standing up from the couch and walking over to the entrance of the cabin, gathering his bag and a pile of clothes that Maeve hadn't even noticed were on the floor before making his way over to the bathroom.

The rain had not stopped by the time Calum had gotten out of the bath, much to Maeve’s pleasure since she’d heard his soft voice singing along to whatever song he’d been playing. The rain hadn't stopped while the two ate their lunch, a stew that Maeve had managed to throw together in the tiny kitchen. And the rain had, surprisingly, not stopped while Calum had been bustling around the kitchen a few hours later, making dinner while Maeve read through one of the many books she’d packed with her for her trip If she hadn’t known anything about Scotland before traveling there, she would’ve assumed the Earth was flooding and that her adventure abroad would end before it even started.

It wasn’t until a crack of thunder rocked the walls of the cabin that Maeve realized just how extreme the weather has turned. The window was howling against the windows, shaking the panes with the intensity of it. The power had yet to come back and as the day had gone by, the cabin had only grown gloomier and gloomier. Their only source of light had been the many candles that their host has left them, something Maeve would be eternally grateful for. They crackled and glowed in the darkness of whatever room Maeve would get up to look out the window through. Her shadows mixed with the firelight and danced across the dark walls of the safety she’d come to know in her short stay. The river outside of the house, which was louder now that it was filled with rainwater, had grown taller as Maeve would barely see the giant rocks inside of the river which had caused the small rapids earlier in the day.

It was all terrifyingly beautiful.

Nature had put on a show for her and Calum, letting them in on the secret dance the forest and elements did for one another. The trees danced with the wind, swaying wildly from side to side and switching directions when they pleased. The river water jumped over the stone bridge above it, splashing cold water onto the top and lowering as it sprinkled back down onto itself. The woodland animals, who would be hiding in the safety of their own homes, hidden somewhere Maeve couldn’t quite see but hoped they’d be just as amazed watching the show that the world put on for them. It was all so terrifying and violent, the rain submitting to no one but itself as he disappeared into the river only to come down harder from the clouds in the night sky. It wasn’t until the thunder, which had been singing a song for the forest itself, cracked again that the stone bridge took its final bow.

Maeve watched as the bridge crumbles. It started slowly, one of two big pieces crumbling into the river below as if by accident. But the water was cruel and greedy, splashing upwards and sending more and more stone into its hands. Maeve, who could do nothing more than watch as their only way back out to civilization crumbled and washed away into the river below, gasped and leaned against the window. The glass shook underneath her hands, the wind greeting her palms from the outside and howling in excitement as the once-solid bridge was split into two pieces, never to meet again, as the final act of nature’s show came to an end.

“Did you hear that?” Calum asked as he walked into the bedroom, where Maeve had been watching the show, “Maeve?”

She turned to face the stranger, her wide eyes softening as she was met with the definition of a word she couldn’t place in her brain. Calum had changed into a pair of joggers, the grey material hanging loosely off his hips and only held up by a haphazardly tied knot. His upper half was dressed in a warm green sweater, the color reminding her of the fields of green she’d seen on the train ride to the small town, his board shoulder stretching the fabric a little bit in the candlelight, he looked breathtaking. Maeve knew he was good-looking, it was one of the first things she’d noticed when he’d jumped up from the bed with tired eyes that had been filled with fear. He was beautiful and kind and…stuck with Maeve.

“T-the bridge,” she stuttered out, her cheeks flushing as she realized Calum was still standing in front of her waiting for an answer, “The bridge fell.”

taglist: @hoodhoran�� @finelliine @moonlightcriess @dinosaursandsocks @mxgyver @calpops @karajaynetoday @notlukehemmo @calumrose @devilatmydoor @lyss-xo @lowkeyflop @matchacal @hemmo1996-5sosvevo @myloverboyash @2fangirl4u @multistann

#calum hood x oc #calum hood x reader #calum hood x you #calum hood imagines #calum hood fics #calum hood blurbs #calum hood #5sos x reader #5sos x oc #5sos x you #5sos imagines #5sos fics #5sos blurbs #5sos #5 seconds of summer #better love series #gemma writes

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lavendersies · 3 years

Note

Willuz prompts:

- Willow and her bumblebee Palisman grow an extravagant topiary of her and Luz, adorned with beautiful bouquets of flowers (as well as make delicious honey) for Luz to thank her for everything.

- Kind of a recap of Season 1's Luz and Willow adventures, but with the notable highlight that Willow gives Luz an appropriate flower bouquet as thanks of helping her out (can be combined with previous prompt if preferable)

- Amity and Hunter argue which of the two Luz loves the most, only to find Luz on a date/making out with Willow in a secluded, forested area, maybe with blossoming flowers (this is a non-serious fic as an allegory to the whole shipping war at the moment, but could come off as a bit mean :P)

- Luz practices with her Glyphs once more to make nice flowers and topiaries for Willow.

- Willow has a crush on Luz and can't help but feel a little jealous when she and Amity get close instead. Willow is too shy to confess her feelings for Luz, fearing rejection, and doesn't want to be in hot water with Amity again after they're finally getting along since their breach years ago. Willow wants to be happy for them, but Gus notices her depression.

- Boscha has thrashed Willow's beautiful plant garden, a passion project that's been taken years, and Willow is despaired by this, too depressed to continue and rebuild. Luz decides to fix the garden and improve it.

@Arendalphaeagle gave theses wonderful prompts so I have went with fourth one. The request was suppose to be uploaded on A03 but it didn't work out so until further notice all Willuz requests will be uploaded here. Feel free to drop ya'll request in my ask box. Enjoy.

A flower for Willow

Luz tapped the symbol emitting a green light and a single flower merge. She looks over at her spell book that specializes in plant magic for something new. She had committed her time to mastering a new glyph, hoping it would create the perfect gift for Willow. Luz didn't care if she spent the whole night out here and woke up with tired eyes caked with crust. Starting earlier this week would have been the wise thing to do but studying for her witch classes ate up the time. In a sluggish motion the sun disappeared behind the trees, allowing the moon to provide a dim light and usher in darkness. Luz casted a luminous orb as she read the instruction on how to evoke multiple flowers. She read the guide once more then traced the symbol on paper and activated it. A patch of lavender and lilac flowers bloom before her, this was just what she needed. Luz would allow her artistic skills to do the rest, she took her book and went inside.

She found Eda knocked out on the couch with an empty cup of apple blood dangling from her hand. A smile spread on her lips seeing the grey-haired witch in her apple blood coma. King was probably upstairs waiting for Luz's return so they could continue watching an anime series that she had downloaded on her phone. Upon entering the room Luz sees King scowling one of his stuffed animals.

When he noticed her presence. He stopped chiding the pink rabbit, "Oh hey Luz, are you ready to watch soul eater with me?" He asked, sitting on the sleeping mat.

"Not tonight love," She replied.

"Why not?!" King whined.

Luz faced the opposite direction and stripped from her outwear into pj's. She put them near the mat and got out her sketch pad.

"I have to finish a gift for Willow," she said, sitting down to begin sketching her friend's face.

"You can finish it tomorrow, I've been watching all week for us to watch soul eater!"

"Sorry King, I promise we will watch it together tomorrow" she assured.

The furry demon grumbled under his breath and joined her on the mat. "What are you drawing anyways?" He asked, peeking over her shoulder.

"A picture of Willow" she responded.

"What's the occasion?"

"None, I just want to do something nice for my friend," she said.

"Do you have anything else in mind?"

Luz had finished Willow's eyes and moved on to her nose, "Tomorrow I'm

going to create a plant statue with this picture".

"I want a plant statue of me!" King cried.

Luz chuckled.

"And you've been doing a lot for Willow lately, last week you went out of your way to get her that plant baby".

Luz's heart raced, she already knew the next words coming, "She sounds more than a friend" King commented.

"Friends do things for each other all the time" Luz struggled to tolerate her frisky heart, hoping the tone of her voice wasn't a dead give away.

"Eh, if you say so."

The room fell in silence and Luz worked diligently on Willow's portrait. The plant witch dominates her thoughts, now her heart flutters thinking of those olive green eyes behind the thin-rimmed glasses. The way her ear twitched at sudden noises. Willow had been nothing but a sweet-heart since day, she deserved the world and Luz was willing to give her it. Although these feelings bloomed, she didn't know if it was mutual on Willow's end, and she would keep them buried away. When Luz finally looked up from her sketch-pad King was fast asleep at the edge of her mat. She set aside the finished product and got some rest.

Later that night, Luz had woken up to relieve her heavy bladder, she carefully stepped over a sleeping King and visited the bathroom. After washing her hands, she found herself outside.

The moon's bright orbs brighten her path as she walks through the woods. Luz was a moth drawn to light, she felt compelled to keep moving. The orbs glowed rapidly like glistening gems, Luz could hear the vibration. She was led into the opening and a massive bush that resembled Willow's head came in view.

Woah...

"Thank you Luz!" It says

"Huh?"

Its large yellow luminous remind her of fireflies, she had accidentally swallowed one when she was seven.

"Thank you" it repeated.

"What for?" Luz asked.

She didn't get a response to her question,7 the bush thanked Luz on an endless loop. Suddenly, gravity reeled her forward and its mouth opened wide, swallowing her.

Luz was expecting to be engulfed in darkness, her eyes were squeezed shut. She felt warmth and a chubby body press against hers, opening her eyes. Luz realized it was Willow. She embraced the plant witch hug and gently ran her hand along Willow's turquoise hair.

"Luz!"

Everything faded. Luz woke up in her makeshift room with an annoyed little demon held prisoner in her arms. "Luz let go!" He whines struggling to break free.

"Sorry.." she said sheepishly.

Luz released him and King scurried off on all fours. She took care of her personal hygiene then returned to the room for her uniform. When Luz went downstairs, Eda was waiting at the door with her staff. She wore her pajamas. "Can we take the tub?”

“No, its for emergencies only”

“Please” Luz said, giving the grey haired woman pitiful eyes.

“I’m immune to those” Eda stated dismissively.

“But you can’t be the coolest witch without it,”

“Keep it up and you’ll be walking to school” Eda said heading out the door.

The schoolyard was still empty when Luz hopped off the staff. She watched Eda fly away, disappearing over the autumn colored trees. Luz took out her plant magic textbook and turned to the page about manipulation. After she got a good understanding, she pulled out the portrait of Willow and drew two symbols on them. Luz crossed her fingers and tapped the paper, a stem sprouted forth and the leaves took on the form of Willow's face. Two Lilac flowers blossomed on both sides, the topiary was the size of a miniature house plant. She had expected bigger but before Luz could sulk her crush arrived.

"Willow!" She quickly hid the plant behind her back.

"Hey" Willow smiled.

Luz felt butterflies tickling her stomach, she forced a skittish smile and revealed the topiary. Willow eyes widened with astonishment, she took the plant from Luz's hands.

"Aww thanks" Willow shifted the plant in her other arm and gave her a hug. Luz no longer had butterflies pestering her insides. The euphoria buttered her up, if Luz hadn't stopped herself she would have kissed Willow. For a brief moment, the turquoise haired witch stared at her. Luz was about to look away but Willow touched her cheek and gently kissed her lips. She led Luz by the hand towards the school building.

#the owl house #willow toh #willow park #willow the owl house #the owl house luz #luz noceda #willuz #eda the owl witch #toh eda #toh willow #toh luz

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cosmiclatte28 · 3 years

Text

Seeing Colors (Yuta x blind!reader)

a/n: hey, this oneshot is a little bit long and I actually started writing this last Summer 2020, but I didn’t finish it. Yesterday I got the motivation and the time to finish the ending part. Please let me know if there is anything missing in the scene (like if I suddenly jumped or you’re confused by the timeline... It’s a fic I left a while and came back to, and timeline sometimes suck.)

I want to tag my two fams who also love yuta fics... this was an attempt I made last year to write angst, but I need to practice more. This is more like a romance drama anyways @ailoveyuta and @yutahoes we are all suckers of yuta.

warning : longer than my other oneshots, buildup, you’re a blind character (do not read if you’re uncomfortable with this head to masterlist instead! thanks)

⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ . ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅

You opened your eyes, or at least you thought you did. It was difficult to tell, given the total lack of light.

Your world has never been bright since the day of the car crash. You were only seventeen when the world took away your sight, and your best brother. Your parents survived the crash; they left the hospital walking on their own while helping you. Yes you, who need to learn using your other senses and walk in the dark for the rest of your life. There were no cornea donors up to this day, and you’ve changed from the bright, cheerful, pretty girl next door into a cold, secluded, ice queen. Without light, life was not easy. Friends pity you, but you’re fed up by their fake attitudes. Love? You have not much hope with it.

“That wasn’t my choice,” You haughtily remarked and straightened your back when the man beside you had finished reciting the news your parents gave to him.

“As much as you don’t like it, your parents were not wrong. You’re 26, graduated with a bachelor degree in music, and yet you’re still not thinking to you know date somebody.” The man older than you by 2 years sighed.

You shrugged your shoulder, “Listen Yuta, I never asked you or my parents if I wanted a boyfriend.”

Yuta quietly lets go off his breath he had been holding; here we go again, fighting over relationship necessity.

Nakamoto Yuta has been your personal guard and secretary ever since your older secretary, Kim Jongin, was retired and got married. Jongin was a nice and caring secretary, he was patient when you first trained to walk with cane, plus Jongin graduated as a guardian for the special needs . Jongin dealt with all of your frustration and anger, he was like a substitute of your brother you lost. Jongin dedicated 6 years of standing by your side, helping you walk, fighting bullies for you, and basically did all the things he could to help you live a happy life. You were thankful for Jongin, but as you started to develop feelings for him, he left you alone with a wedding invitation. You, who were slowly being kind, suddenly changed back to the cold version of you. Your parents tried their best to look for any helpers who were ready to deal with your tantrums. That was when you met Nakamoto Yuta, a graduate student from Osaka, who took specialist in helping the blind. Among the other applicants, Nakamoto Yuta caught your attention and now he’s by your side for 3 years.

“Tell mum I am not coming to whatever date she arranged.” You unfolded your walking stick, making Yuta rushed to stand by your right side. He placed his left guiding hand to his abdomen and you found your hand snaked into his and firmly gripped him to walk.

“Where are we headed?” Yuta questioned when you carefully took your steps down the stairs.

“Well, I want to see Mum.”

Yuta assisted you to your mother and then left. He waited on the door to let you have your private talk.

“(y/n), what brings you here?” Your mother asked you nicely.

You brought your eyes to look at her; you cleared your throat and finally spoke up, “I know you’ve tried so hard to find me a date… Thank you, but I am not ready yet. My last love still hurts and I don’t think boys would want to date me when they find out I am blind.”

Your shoulder slumped and your tears fell, “I don’t know how I look right now? Am I still a beauty or am I a beast now? Will men like me if they know I’m blind? To be honest mom, I am afraid… I am afraid of their reactions.”

Your mother stood to hug you. She wiped your tear and whispered, “Look sweetheart, you’re beautiful inside out. You don’t have to worry about other people… Let me tell you… one day you will find a man… who will help you see colors again. When that man comes and when that day happens, you don’t have to thank me. That is fate. Believe and you will find your soul mate darling. Now, wipe those tears off and please try to attend the dinner I arranged this Friday.”

You sobbed, “What if I don’t like him?”

“Then you will not date him. Please, meet him for me…” She held your hand tightly and you can feel her sincere mother love tingled to your skin.

You stopped your tears and forced a smile, “Okay mother, I will try and open my heart.”

“Thank you sweetie, I knew I’ll never doubt in you.”

You exited the room after Yuta was called in.

“Please fetch me Vision, I want some fresh air.”

Vision is your service dog, he is a good boy who never fails to amaze you. Yuta grabbed the dog’s collar from the garage and while humming his favorite song, Yuta found the service dog wagging its tail when it saw the leash.

“You’re on duty today handsome,” Yuta clipped the leash to Vision’s collar and brought him to you.

You walked with Vision and Yuta to a near park just down the lane. There’s not many people and you like to avoid crowds. You don’t like being a distraction and being the talk of the park.

You spent your afternoon day dreaming under the big tree while thinking about your mother’s word. Funny how mother believes in soul mate things and what did she said? Someone will make you see colors again? Well you’ve started to forget what seeing things in colors looked like. A majority of your heart screamed that won’t happen, but a tiny part hopes you can see or at least find someone who can make you feel the colors again.

Yuta sat beside you; you shifted your head to look at him.

“Yuta… do you know what to do in a date? I’ve never been into one.” You deadpan stared into him and if you can see, you’ll definitely see a flustered Yuta. All this time he has been cool and reserved, strong and intelligent man, always ready to help you and he cracked jokes too. You’ve never heard or asked him about his love life.

“Yuta?” you reached out your hand to him and he held them, you remained silent and suddenly broke the awkward silence, “You’re nervous, why?”

Yuta face palmed, how could he forgot your senses are sharp and a slight change in action will bring you curiosity. He calmed himself down and pretended to not be flustered

“Well, I am the master of dating. Now, where should we start?” Yuta coughed and covered his flustered self. Damn he knew nothing too, but he can always look up Google for you right?

You fiddled with the hem of your dress, in two days you will have your first set up date or blind date: literary and metaphorically.

“Okay first thing first I will be there, so don’t worry too much.” Yuta chuckled nervously “You have to put the fear at home, be confidence, be you.”

“You know what, follow your heart. Now, we shall head home… I think it will rain.” Yuta stood up and helped you rise.

He thanked Heaven for sending a rain, but You didn’t found his answers satisfying. You went home nevertheless, with a heavy heart.

Friday came.

The whole house has never been this enthusiast before. It was only a blind date, but they treated it as if it’s already my big day.

You let your mother chose your evening dress, and you can do some of your make up by yourself, unless the difficult part, your mother will help.

You’re pampered and dolled up nicely. The simple black dress loosely fit your petite body. You twirled once to feel the fabric and yourself. Though you don’t feel like going anywhere tonight, you will try your best.

You sprayed your favorite fragrance followed by standing up from your chair.

“Let’s go…” you used your stick to help you stand up, and Yuta does his job. Your hand brushed the fabric he wore, “You’re wearing a suit?”

There was a pause from you and him

Yuta cleared his throat, “I should look decent right? Now, we need to hurry up or we will be late. You sure wouldn’t want to make your date wait right?”

You nodded your head and followed his guidance to the car. He ensured you fastened your seat belt in the passenger seat behind, and then moved to sit behind the wheels. He typed in tonight’s destination and departed.

The two of you arrived at a fancy rooftop dinner place. You stood beside Yuta nervously, your small hand kludged into his strong arms. In the small elevator rising to floor 12, you let go a long breath.

Yuta turned his head to you, “Nervous?”

You nodded your head, “It’s my first time… Of course I am nervous. Yuta what’s his name again?”

Your mind must be fuzzy for you kept on forgetting tonight’s date information.

“He’s from Canada-“ Yuta’s words were cut off as the elevator ding and the door opened.

“We’re here, let’s go.”

You and Yuta carefully left the elevator and you can feel the thick mattress laid like a red carpet across the hallway. This sure must be a top restaurant.

You walked gracefully with one stick on your hand and head held up. Having Yuta by your side somewhat comforts you.

You found yourself seated on a chair where the night breeze tickles you. Yuta excused himself after telling you he will be around, you can always wave and call him for a command.

You reluctantly let him go and waited for the man in front of you to speak. You assumed someone was there since a hint of cologne doesn’t miss your nose.

The introduction began; you learned his name, age, job, and nationality. He’s Mark Lee, a 26 years old song writer. He enjoys light conversation and his jokes are quiet funny. He loves watermelon so much to the point that you worry if he is alright. And you didn’t share the same movie genre. He is a successful man for his young age!

You skipped all the boring questions after learning his interests and telling him yours. You put on your cold face, cold heart, and prepared yourself to hear the truth.

“Okay so Mark, you’re a kind person and wonderful, but I just want to ask you,” You paused and bit your lips hesitating.

“Sure, ask me anything!”

“Why are you expecting to date me a blind girl?” You played with a napkin in your lap while waiting for his answer.

Mark froze and thought for a moment; hey he actually did not know the girl he is seeing tonight is blind. Her dating profile did not include that.

You snapped him from the silence, “It’s okay if you cannot answer. I know your answer already. You didn’t expect this right?”

Mark opened his mouth, about to make a rebuttal, but no words came out.

You straightened your back and raised your head to face him, “I can feel how you try your best not to hurt me, but love should not be forced right?” you waved your hand and wished Yuta saw you.

“I’m sorry,” Mark shot his vision to the sky line of Seoul at night.

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault. I was the wrong one. It was nice knowing you Mark, thank you and good bye.” You grabbed your stick and left the restaurant with a confused Yuta by your side.

Yuta saw the man, he looked nice and cute. He was also successful and playful. Yuta actually would agree if this man dated (y/n), but he didn’t know why (y/n) did not even bother talking more or even learning his face. Come to think of it, she has never touched Yuta’s face too before.

On the way back home, you bombarded Yuta with tons of questions.

“Yuta tell me do I look like a fool when I enter the restaurant earlier? I’m sure people wonder why a blind girl like me go there… to meet a man. A wonderful man! Gosh why would he choose me over pretty idols and normal girls?” You ranted out your heart, a tear escaped from your eyes.

Yuta glanced from the rear mirror and saw you crying, “No, you didn’t look like a fool. You look pretty like princesses. No one looked at you in a bad way.” Yuta truthfully spilled you his heart’s answers, but earlier was nowhere near that.

“I heard the whispers and murmurs Yuta! Don’t lie to me too, please” you scoffed and threw your eyes to the window.

“But for me you’re doing so great for a first date, just that I thought Mark was cute enough to be your man.” Opinionated Yuta.

“He’s not my style; I don’t feel any spark of chemistry. Aish just focus on the road. I’m not doing anymore dates! People are only hurting my feelings.” You bit your lips and cried in silence.

You knew no one would date a blind girl unless they really like her, or fate made you two a thing. You rested your head on the window pane and memories of your brother flooded you. He would’ve been your dating coach if he’s still here, but no. Fate took him away from you, and fate took Jongin too.

You changed. Even worse.

You’re once again the cold, heartless young lady.

The dark thoughts of being blind haunted you every time you wanted to go to bed, or when you started your day.

Your mind repeatedly reminded you that you’re a blind person, who can only rely on someone else, vulnerable, bratty, and useless. You realized it will be hard and almost impossible to found a man who loves you truly for who you are, and not for the money and wealth.

You blamed fate for making you blind, you blamed everyone who made a small mistake, and it was not rare for you to rant your emotion out to Yuta. You hit him; you flooded him with tears, you basically made his life hard.

“Yuta I hate my life! What did I do wrong that I end up blind and have no donors for me up to this day?!”

Yuta detested to tell you the fact that, a lot of donors were found but none were compatible. He doesn’t want you to lose hope.

“Hey, listen I will be here by your side. We will find a suitable donor, and you will soon see colors again,”

You stared into the thin air, “Do you know how hard it is for me, to actually lose sight. Since young, I’ve enjoyed watching sceneries, seeing colors, play with paints, and pour my emotion in a canvas? I miss painting, Yuta.” A small smile greeted your lips when you imagined what painting felt like, “ I miss sneaking out at night to the garden, to paint the starry night. I miss walking with my brother to a hill by the end of town, to just sit on the grass and paint what I felt that day.” Your heart grew warm from the memory, you wiped a tear that left your eyes. your smile faded and your lips pouted.

“Now I can’t even remember what it feels like to finish a painting, I forgot how colors made me feel. I lost everything I love. How miserable can life be?” you threw a sad look to Yuta on your left. Lucky he was in that side.

Yuta sighed and suddenly left you by yourself.

“Yuta? Yuta! Hey where are you going” you shouted when you heard his foot steps leaving you and a door closing.

He ignored your call and made his way to the kitchen. It’s already eleven and you’re nowhere near sleeping. Yuta needed to make sure you rest enough, so he returned to you with a cup of hot lavender tea. You always have that when you don’t feel sleepy.

“How dare you leave me alone?! What if someone came and tried to harm me? Yuta you’ve worked for three years and you still leave me suddenly?”

Yuta was used to this. You would make small matters big whenever you’re having a rage.

“Here, have your lavender tea, then we will sleep. You’re tired okay from everything. Let’s sleep and tomorrow I will bring you somewhere.” Yuta impatiently fixed your pillows and blanket. You drank your tea to calm yourself down and forcefully followed his command. Without saying good night to him, you faced the other way around and closed your eyes. What Yuta did earlier hurts your feeling. Childish? Yes you are!

Yuta covered you in the blanket, then he left you after saying good night. He stretched his body as he made his way to his own room. How tiring was it to deal with a ranting (y/n). He smiled to himself when he remembered what he wanted to do tomorrow. Yuta dropped his tired body on the soft mattress and drove to dreamland faster than you did.

Yuta shot his eyes opened in alarm as the ringer on his nightstand rang and lighted up. He quickly put on his clothes and cursed at himself for sleeping in. Usually he was always up early before (y/n). Yuta dashed to your room, hairs still untidy just to reach you before one minute.

“Good… morning,” Yuta spoke between his breath.

You squinted your eye brow and listened to his panting, “You just ran?”

“Sorry I slept in, anyways I’m here now. Where would you like to go?” Yuta walked to your side to help you got out of the bed.

You stretched a bit before looking at him confused, “You asked? Of course I need to join mother and father for breakfast. Why did you even ask?”

Yuta yawned and scratched the back of his head “What’s wrong with me today?!” was all he questioned himself.

You made it to the breakfast after a quick bath, Yuta also left to take his shower.

Under the warm water, you laughed a little from Yuta’s sudden weird memory. Yuta was ready to accompany you descend the stairs after you’ve put on your morning dress.

Your parents were waiting for you already on the table and your casual breakfast started. Yuta sat across you, as per usual, and helped drive your food to the center of your plate.

Breakfast almost ended in peace, not until your mother decided to ruin your Sunday with another disastrous news.

“Mum’s sorry about your first date, Mark… I found you another sweet man, this time he knew about your condition and he agreed to come and bring you to the beach. Didn’t you told me you missed the beach?” Mother excitedly explained her big news.

You paused your movements and dropped your fork away from your mouth. “Not again mom?”

Your dad tried his best to keep you in a good mood, “He’s a nice guy, can we try for this once? Maybe going to the beach can make you happier too!”

“I didn’t want to go with a stranger. I want to go with you guys.” You tossed your fork and slightly pushed the half finished plate. Yuta looked at you confused, you never left a plate of waffles unclean.

“It was not a good memory for me,” you crossed your arms across your chest and stared down.

“Oh come on my (y/n)~ Try to make a happy memory then with this sweet guy. Please he will pick you up tomorrow!” your mother clasped her hands in delight.

“Beside Yuta will also join you, you’re not to be alone. Come to think of it, Yuta why don’t you bring your girl along and you can also enjoy the beach with your girl?” Your father offered a solution he thought might be a great idea.

You scoffed, “then Yuta will definitely forget me and be busy with his girl. What if someone harms me?”

Yuta hid a small smile, he felt satisfied seeing you jealous.

Your mother didn’t or pretended not to hear your scowl, instead she joined into father’s plan deeper. “Yeobo, that’s a super great idea! Yuta tell me if you still have nobody, I can help you look for one.”

You turned your head to look at Yuta and cocked a brow, though you cannot see his respond back, you frowned when you heard his happy reply.

“I’d love that mother,” He called your mother by the word mother. And he won her heart.

You the sound of a chair pushed back and small foot steps she made while looking for her phone.

You glanced at your plate in disbelief, Yuta can just leave you like that? Your father saw your plate, he ascended and sat beside you.

He took over your plate and cur the remaining portion, “Eat up princess, you don’t want to get sick right? I promise the man you’ll see tomorrow is a nice guy. You’ll have a lot of fun! Now finish your breakfast.” He drove the fork back into your hand and tapped it lightly.

Yuta has left his chair to help clean the plates, leaving you alone with your imaginations and plate.

“Yuta what’s your type?” Your mother excitedly followed Yuta around while asking him questions.

You covered your ears, but their conversations were as clear as a whistle!

“Yuta likes a petite girl, have a beautiful smile, likes nature especially mountains, love art, understands peace, acts like a lady, and of course who will love him purely.” You memorized a new thing inside your head. Well you overheard him answering mom, and it looked like the girl Yuta wanted was near perfect.

You wondered why your mother never asked you what kind of man do you prefer?

With the help of your stick, you made your way out of the house and into the garden. You called Vision and he ran to stand by your side. You don’t walk too far, you found your way to the bench and you sat there. You counted the time Yuta needed to realize you’re gone and for him to look for you.

Your mind drove you back to ten minutes ago, why does it hurt your heart when you heard Yuta will be walking with another girl… a girl he loves? You felt dejected when you heard his criteria of girl. You suddenly remembered of course Yuta will look for a pretty and perfect girl, not anyone like you. Though you don’t know why you were thinking of this.

30 minutes passed, you heard him calling for you and your sour face melted as a smile replaced them.

“(Y/n)! Where are you? Vision?” Yuta yelled through the big garden.

Your wealthy family provided you a big house, a big garden, and a bright shelter.

“Ah here you are!” Yuta tapped on your shoulder lightly and smiled when you remained silence.

“You’re not talking? Fine. Let me tell you, we’re going on a double date on Tuesday!” Yuta’s voice sounded too cheerful, or you’re just too salty.

“I don’t care Yuta, beside I don’t know yet if I’m coming or not to the beach.” You shrugged your shoulder.

Yuta sat by your side and held your hand, his sudden action caught your attention.

“Let’s forget that for a moment. I want to bring you to a place you missed. Now do you want to change or shall we go?” Yuta pulled you to stand up.

You rolled your eyes, what nonsense is this again?

“Let me at least wear a proper shoes.” You wriggled your toes from a fit flop.

Yuta excitedly helped you changed your shoes and after bidding farewell to your parents, Yuta drove the car through the highway.

He rolled the window down after an hour of drive and you could smell the grass, you felt the fresh air greeted your body, and you knew he’s headed to a hill.

He told you to inhale the fresh clean air as he busily took out a picnic mat and several other heavy things. Yuta laid down the mat and assisted you to take a sit while he finished packing out the baggage.

Yuta returned by your side with two blank canvas, a set of paints and brushes.

“Thanks for bringing me here, I miss this place. Tell me Yuta how does the scenery looks like?” You tossed your head to his side.

Yuta glanced into your bright happy face and closed his eyes, trying to feel the same thing you did.

“This place? Nothing changed I guess. A hill is supposed to look like a hill right. But I feel the peaceful fresh air. There’s no one else here.” Yuta peeked over his eyelids to make sure it’s true.

You raised your head to look at the sky, how you really wish you can see the blue sky with cotton clouds.

“I miss painting,” You mumbled to yourself.

“Then let’s make one.” Yuta suddenly held your hand and placed a brush on your palm.

You were stunned, confused to find someone telling you to paint when you’re blind.

“The canvas is here, feel the length and width first,” he lead your hand to feel the edges and size of the canvas.

“You can call me if you want to change brush, or you can feel them here, on your right side.” Yuta shook the can of brush beside your right ear.

“The paint will be on your left.” He brought your left hand to touch the palette.

“What about the colors Yuta?” Your voice sounded hopeless.

“I haven’t made it. You, you will make the colors by yourself. I will hand you the color, you put it on your palette.” Yuta smiled for his brilliant idea.

“Babo! I’ll definitely ruin the painting. I’ll mess the colors.” You put down the brush he placed on your hand earlier.

“I know you’re trying to make me happy, but I can’t paint anymore Yuta.” Your hand sadly touched the blank canvas.

Yuta took a deep breath, “Look, you paint not with those eyes. You’ll paint with the eyes of your heart. Just draw it there on the canvas. Spread your emotion, spill everything. Believe me, it will make your heart lighter.”

Yuta planted his eyes into yours with much hope. he really wanted to make you happy by doing things you love.

You smirked knowing Yuta won’t give up. Not when he already drove an hour away from the town and prepared all of this. You sighed, you lost today.

“Fine Yuta, I want red, yellow, and black on my palette. Put them in order from left to right. I’m painting my annoyed feeling because of a stubborn man sitting beside me.”

Your hand found the brush you desire and after making sure where the canvas and paints were, you started making random shapes at the canvas. It was hard at first for you to decipher where your brush was, but after several strokes and missing the edge… you started to get a hang of it.

Your enthusiast in painting burned within your soul again. Yuta was right, after each stroke, you felt your anger and sadness flew away. You stopped when your heart felt light and you called Yuta.

“Yuta, please blue and green! White too” you peeked your head over the canvas. Your face was stained with several splashes of paints, Yuta who was focusing on his own canvas had to stop and helped you with the colors.

“How is it? Does it scream at you?” You cheekily mocked him.

Yuta gaped at the masterpiece in front of you. Not gonna lie, the emotions were perfectly drawn in the colors you chose. The strong and brave lines showed how fed up you were in the dark world. Though he wondered why you wanted to add blue and green and white in it, he didn’t ask anything.

“It’s super you. Mad and furious all the time.” Yuta giggled and jumped away before you got the chance to slap him.

“YOU MADE ME DO THIS OKAY! AND YOU’RE MOCKING ME. HOW DARE YOU?!” you shook your brush furiously and Yuta can only laugh at you. He descended back to his position and continued his art work.

You’re back focusing on your emotions and masterpiece. The cool breeze, warm sun, and soft humming from Yuta calm you down. You have a smile on your face as you delicately moved your brush over the raging colors.

Truth be told, you really enjoy the activity Yuta did for you. Since that day, there has been several quick run away where Yuta will bring you to a quiet place and lets you paint what you're feeling. He successfully tames your anger and you're no longer the horrendous tiger, you're now a fuzzy cat.

Sun rises and sun sets, you've met several men from different backgrounds and lately you're losing hope to find your significant other. Well you've been asking them the same question and there was not single one answer which satisfies you.

Until one day on a quiet alley, Yuta brought you here since he said he needs to clear his head. Well his dates were all canceled, because you… you always do something to make him unavailable. Yuta only attended the first date where your parents made the two of you have a double date. Something in your heart doesn't like the attention Yuta gave to other girls… so you've always tried to make him unable to go.

You actually feel bad because Yuta might not realize you're doing things on purpose.

“Yuta,” you call out his name softly after feeling that he is not around you.

Turns out he was several feet away from you, painting a scenery of his choice. The said man glances from his canvas and walks to your side.

After giving out a single breath, he responds. “What can I help you with?”

There was ice in his voice and you suddenly feel bad for making him this sensitive. Yuta has never sounded this cold and heartless. Was it because of what you did last night?

**flashback**

“(Y/n)! Wish me luck! I'm going to the cinema tonight… she's my fifth date and I hope this time it goes well..” Yuta smiles brightly as he prepares everything you may need before he goes. You’ll be alone with the maids only, your parents are gone for a business trip.

You're on the music room, getting ready to practice your piano. At first you send him off easily. Yuta drives away and you've engaged yourself in the music piece.

An hour after his departure, you feel bored and decided to think of a way so Yuta can go home and maybe accompany you to bed while telling stories.

You think of any way that will make Yuta go home directly and with the help of one of the youngest maid in your house (which of course is close to you) … you made an “emergency" situation.

The maid called Yuta and the innocent man has to sadly finish his date night quickly. He drives the girl back home safely and lied to her that his mother is suddenly ill and he had to take care. The date bought his lie and at nine, he is already running through the house like a mad man. Yelling to the maids for not calling any medic helps and he found you sitting on your piano chair looking fine.

His breathing was short from running and the panic, “What happened?! What’s the emergency. Marry called telling me I have to come here quick.” Yuta said from the door.

He quirks his brow when he sees you're looking so fine. You feel his death grip on your shoulders as he toss your body around to check where the emergency is.

“Tell me what happened?!” His tone raises and you're suddenly so scared.

You gulped and suddenly feel so afraid. Why did the joke feel so horrifying right now.

You can sense his furious glare when he realized it's another “emergency" you made just to cancel his date plan.

“What is it now?” Yuta tries his best to not punch you in the face.

A tear escaped from your eye and you're shaking from fear.. “i'm sorry Yuta.. sorry.. but I had a panic attacked earlier when I suddenly remember the car crash.. and.. and..”

Yuta's eyes widen when he heard your reasoning.. well he knew if it's about the accident and panic attack… it is a serious matter.

“and then what? Did Marry fetch you your medicine?” Yuta kneels down beside you and gently brings you into his arms.

You snuggle into his embrace and a small smile appears from your lips. “Yeah… but.. she cannot make the best chocolate drink you always make.”

You can feel his body tensed and he suddenly lets go off the hug and straighten your body

“WAIT- you called me home just to make you a cup of hot chocolate?!”

You nod “and I actually got a paper cut… which I did not know until Marry came.”

Yuta darts his eyes to the white tiles and yeah there were some bloods there.

“You should learn to know when an emergency is really an emergency.” He suddenly snaps when he realizes you're playing with him. His voice no longer contains honey and there was only cold ice.

“You know what? I'll teach marry to make the hot cocoa and please don't ruin my date all the time.” He warns you and leaves the room with one loud door slam.

It came to his mind like a flood… all of his dates always fail because you.. you always made a small scene big.. and his heart will make him run away home. He did not know why he cared for you so much, he shrugged it off as “It's my duty to keep you safe.”

“Again? She ruined your date?” Taeyong, a long friend of Yuta, asked from the other side of the call.

Yuta nods “Yeah…” they're video calling and Taeyong’s face brightens “I knew it! She likes you Yuta!”

“Nani?!” his japanese tongue comes out.

Taeyong claps his hands “She likes you! Baka! Can't you realize she is jealous?! Gosh do you like her??”

Yuta thinks for a while “I'm not sure…”

“Do you feel like you have to keep her safe but not as a duty?”

Yuta nods

“Do you feel annoyed when you see other man seeing her but they show they regretted going there?”

“Well yeah that part… I had to hold myself back everytime! I wanted to puch them Tae! Had you seen their faces, you'd want to punch them too.”

Taeyong clicks his tongue “You always want to make sure she is happy? If it’s a yes… then congratulations Yuta! You're in love.”

Yuta goes red “I need time to process everything…”

Taeyong smirks “You will always need time but time is not what we all have in this world. Come on! Think quick, bring her to a date or talk with her about her favorite things! Take her heart before she totally hides it!”

Yuta smiles when he suddenly remembers what you want from a man and he quickly bids goodbye to his friend “Thank you Taeyong! You're the best! Good bye~”

In the hill, where everything is dark to you… you suddenly feel small and scared. Yuta brought you here, but he hasn’t open his mouth yet. You're afraid he actually left you here and ran away.

When he finally opened his mouth to answer you, you did not expect a cold tone to greet you.

After giving out a single breath, he responds. “What can I help you with?”

There was ice in his voice and you suddenly feel bad for making him this sensitive. Yuta has never sounded this cold and heartless.

You fiddled with the dress you wore, “I am sorry. I am just a parasite to your life. I'm only ruining your youth and happiness…” your voice cracked and trembled. Which seriously took Yuta by surprise.

“Hey what are you talking about?” Yuta's voice softened but you didn’t realize that.

You sniffled “I just want to find my love Yuta.. like mom said I want to find the one who can help me see colors again.”

Yuta’s heart clenched and he walked closer to pull you into his embrace “(y/n), you do know the doctors said my eyes somehow cannot be given to you, but if you're willing to give me a chance, I can help you see colors one more time.”

Your heart pounded faster upon hearing his sweet voice, what is this warm feeling creeping up your cheeks?

You leaned into his hug “What do you mean?” you were confused. Earlier he looked like he was super mad at you, but now he's like the sweetest man in the world.

Yuta takes a deep breathe, earlier he cleared his mind and upon stepping on the alley and feeling the wind blew, he felt way better. Yuta also remembered what Taeyong said and he felt like he needed to give it a shot. Try to win your heart.

“Alright, come here you don’t want to be lost princess.” He took your arm into his and you followed him.

“We will start with Red,” Yuta brought you to the area where the sun shone brightly.

“Look up, there's the sun and now when you feel your skin burn.. that is red. Red is burn, fear, and emotion.”

You feel your skin burning and your mind recorded everything.

Next yuta pulled you to a shadier place “Here let me take off your shoes, you trust me?” he asked when he kneeled down to take your shoes.

You nodded your head and felt the prickly grass beneath your feet.

“The grass will help you feel green. Green is color of life.” Yuta rolled his own pants and took off his shoes too. He enjoyed the same sensation you were going through.

You did not realize a small smile is coming to your lips, you can once again feel life.

“Happy?” he asked and you nodded, still holding on to his firm arm “Now it's gonna be slippery, but trust me.” He held your hand tighter and you felt a cool stream running under your feet.

You giggled “Water?”

Yuta smiled “Blue! This is blue, the cool feeling and relaxation.”

Your head started to guess what color will come next, and Yuta looked like he prepared this already.

Next he announced you to the color “Yellow, it's calming and you still feel happy.” He said when you sit on the grass as Yuta dried your feet and let you feel the sun kiss your cheek.

“Hey (y/n), can you help me?” he suddenly asked for your favor. You turned your head to face him, giving him a “what?” face.

“Help you?” you asked a bit confused.

“Yes, I need you to help me comb my hair, the wind blew too hard on them.” He lied there's no wind… but you bought his lie.

“Umm okay, let me try… come here.” You reached out your hand and waited for a comb to land but Yuta said “Use your fingers.”

You gently ran your fingers through his soft locks and you love the feeling of helping him and playing with his hair.

“Thank you! I look handsome now.” He held your hands in his big ones as he sat across you face to face.

“That is white, the pure feeling of helping someone.” Yuta rubbed his thumbs over your knuckles.

You cannot explain your feelings right now. Your heart thumped so hard on your chest, your stomach felt funny and your head couldn’t think straight.

But suddenly you felt empty, you felt the breeze of the wind turning wild and strong. You reached out your hands to the space “Yuta? Yuta!” your voice turned into a scream and you wildly looked for him.

You wanted to cry, did he leave you after playing with your emotion? But you suddenly felt his warm arms back at your shoulder

“That is black, something you may see everyday… but the feeling of being alone and afraid represented black.”

You quickly held to his hands, afraid he will leave you again but Yuta won’t.

The japanese man sat next to your side as you leaned your head to his shoulder.

“Thank you Yuta-" you whispered, but he was faster. He kissed your cheek and you blushed and froze in place.

“The last color is pink, the heat creeping up in your cheeks and the fluttery butterfly feeling you have when you fall in love.” Yuta sweetly explained and he was glad no one saw his deep red face.

Your smile grew wider as you touched your cheek that felt warm from his kiss. You turned your head to face him and like magic, your hand could find his chin in one go and you pulled him into a deep kiss.

Yuta didn’t refuse your kiss, he helped you by placing your hands over his cheeks and for the first time you realized Yuta has a handsome face.

“And that I can tell you, is how I see rainbows, Yuta!” you giggled when the kiss ended.

Yuta smoothed your hair lovingly and pulled you to his shoulder “Then I am ready to help you see more rainbows”

You smirked and punched his shoulder playfully “Thank you, I really want to thank you.”

“It's not a problem.” He shrugged his shoulder. His heart is also happy knowing you're glad.

“So… is it mutual?” you chuckled dryly, afraid of the awkward feeling this will turn to if Yuta didn’t like you in the same way.

Yuta pulled you close to his heartbeat “Hear that?”

You nodded

“That's what you did to me all the time!”

You blushed “So you did like me! Why don’t you do this sooner?”

Yuta rolled his eyes “I'm sorry. I'm a newbie too.”

You giggled “I am glad I found the man who can help me see colors again! I love you, Yuta" you sincerely stared into his eyes and for the first time, Yuta could see your eyes sparkle with life again.

“And I love you most.”

“so, when are you ready to meet my mom?” you boldly questioned him.

“Eh? That soon?” he sounded surprised

You laughed “Kidding. I won’t rush you! Tell me okay when you're ready? Because I am ready.”

Yuta smiled and tucked your hair away from your face “Keep smiling like this for me, you're beautiful and life is also beautiful if you think that way. I can't give you back the colors in your life, but I can help you make colors and feel them for the rest of our life.”

Although you never know when you can see colors again, you’re ready to walk with Yuta in this dark world where he can be the source of your light and brings back the color to your life.

end.

leave comments and feedbacks please :D thank you so much for finishing this fic! I’ll try my best to make better stories

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one-boring-person · 4 years

Note

How would stealing the lost boys signature clothes go- SO tries to take it when their boy isn’t looking

This is an interesting idea, thanks for requesting it! I hope you like this!💛💛

A/N: I've done this seperately for once, so I hope that's alright. I'm sorry that some of these are shorter than others, I just didn't really know how to expand on them effectively enough.

"Borrowing" Clothes.

Masterlist

David

It's nigh-on impossible to steal something that is never left alone, and David's coat? Well, he doesn't take it off for anything, even if it does reek of blood, motorcycle oil and cigarette smoke, though he does insist that he cleans it, so there is little to no chance of me ever getting my hands on it. It's not like I haven't tried - I made an attempt a year or so ago, but it was easily shut down by the platinum blonde, who seems to have eyes in the back of his head. I later found out that this is because of his super-hearing, which is an unfair advantage, and one that means my whereabouts around him are almost always known to him.

For this reason, I'm almost certain that he's pulling some trick on me when I find the long overcoat folded neatly on his wheelchair one night, as if the vampire has left it there to pick up later. It's position is almost too obvious and staged, so I approach it hesitantly, expecting the four of them to jump out at me from the shadows as my hand reaches out ever so slowly, fingers gingerly making contact with the worn fabric. Nothing happens, so I step closer and pick the coat up properly, enjoying the feeling of the black fabric as it shifts under my fingers, lifting it carefully to my face, burying my nose into it with a deep breath, relishing the ingrained scent that is David. Glancing around, I make sure one more time that no one is nearby, before quickly slipping it on, giggling quietly when I feel his long it is, the hem brushing the ground as my hands disappear into the sleeves, the smell of it enveloping me as I spin in a circle, my chilled skin soon heating up under the thick garment. Pushing my hands into the pockets, I feel around a little, locating his lighter, cigarettes, some spare change and what feels like a ring, which I pull out curiously, only to feel a burst of happiness when I notice that it's one of mine. I'd lost it a few months ago, and had wondered where it went. Now I know.

Smiling to myself, I replace it and go to one of the sofas, the coat dragging slightly in my wake, sitting down as I wrap myself in the comforting layer, burying my cold nose into the rapidly warming fabric. Laying back against the arm rest, I kick up my feet and turn up the collar of the coat, grimacing slightly as I get a whiff of what is probably blood, only to then find it is followed by an undertone of cologne. I settle myself down, intending to sleep until the boys come back, my eyelids just starting to droop closed when I hear a deep chuckle reverberate around the room, the sound making my eyes snap back open again, slight panic erupting in me. My eyes swiftly find the vampire hanging, upside down, from the ceiling rafters above me, his blue eyes glittering with mirth as he looks down at me, lips pulled into a smug smirk, the sight of which makes shivers go down my spine.

"David! I didn't notice you were there! I'm sorry-" I go to start, only to be cut off by another chuckle, this time sounding more amused at my attempt to cover myself up, his smirk pulling into a smile.

"Don't apologise, kitten. You look damn good in my coat." He compliments me, dropping elegantly from the ceiling so that he's standing beside the sofa, hair slightly dishevelled from being upside down, eyes roaming over my obscured figure with unconcealed admiration and pride.

"T-Thanks." I murmur, blushing a deep shade of crimson as he unashamedly stares me down, the vampire quite content to just watch me squirm under his intense gaze. His lips pull into a grin, before he gently reaches down to pick me up, briefly holding me against him as he lies back down again with me cradled against his chest, arms pushing under the coat as he manoeuvres me so that I'm on my front, hands smoothing against the planes of my back as mine rest against his collarbone.

"Don't get used to it, though. It's never going to happen again." The vampire reminds me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

"Oh yeah? You sure about that?" I probe in response, lifting an eyebrow at him as he stares me down again.

"Very sure."

Dwayne

There aren't many occasions where Dwayne takes off his jacket, being shirtless underneath and all, so stealing it can prove difficult at times, but when I do succeed in nicking it, the result is always great. Over my time spent with him, I've come to learn the specific times when he will remove the piece of clothing: when he's working on his motorcycle, when cleaning himself up after a hunt and, more conveniently, when the two of us go skating together.

When the both of us figured out the other likes to skateboard, we quickly decided to spend time together at the skatepark, where we show off to each other and help each other learn new tricks, though it's incredibly rare that Dwayne needs help with anything, so it's more or less just him helping me. In a week, we can spend hours upon hours in the more secluded skateparks of Santa Carla, thoroughly enjoying our time there, especially when no one else is around. Somehow, however, I never really noticed that he removed his jacket to skate until a few weeks ago, at which point a plan started forming in my head, subconsciously observing his other habits and mannerisms at the park with a keen eye. By now, I have it mostly figured out.

My skateboard clatters to the concrete floor beneath me as I fall out of the flip, my arms flailing slightly as I travel at speed through the air, only to suddenly find myself face-to-face with a toned bare chest, dark eyes looking down at me in a mixture of concern and amusement.

"If you keep doing that in public, someone's gonna figure you out." I scold him teasingly, grinning thankfully up at him, "Thanks for catching me."

"If they figure it out, at least they'll know I don't let people fall into what is probably going to result in serious injury." Dwayne smirks, floating back to the deck a little way away, placing me carefully on the side of the bowl where we're skating, retrieving my skateboard for me.

"Oh right, I forget. You're a righteous vampire." I joke, laughing as he mockingly bows to me, lips pulled into a smirk.

"Only for you." He reassures me, before grabbing his board and dropping off the edge of the bowl, falling into an elegant series of tricks, which is normally pay close attention to. This time, however, I cast my eyes around elsewhere, knowing this is my only chance.

Quickly, I spot my target lying a little way away, out of the way of the lip of the ramps and bowl, a cunning smirk making its way onto my face as I stand and walk over to it, making sure that Dwayne is still focused on his run. Glancing over at him, I pick the leather jacket up when he isn't paying attention, slipping it on before grabbing my skateboard, standing in preparation to escape, noting now that the vampire has come to a halt, his eyes quickly finding me.

"I'm gonna need you to give me that back, (Y/n)." He informs me, starting to walk around the lip of the bowl towards me, lips pulled into a small smile.

"Oh yeah? Make me." I challenge, before kicking off on my skateboard, away from the bowl and towards the smaller features a little way away, intending to lead him on a series of twists and turns through the different obstacles.

Behind me, I hear a quick chuckle, the sound of wheels rattling on the concrete swiftly following as he gives chase, his longer legs giving him more momentum as he starts to catch up to me. Giggling, I veer around a tight corner, using a raised half-pipe as support as I go round, evading his reaching arms momentarily.

"I'll catch you, (Y/n)! Just you wait!" He calls after me, amusement lacing his tone.

Marko

Marko and his jacket are near enough inseparable, so taking it is an incredibly rare occurrence for me, and always results in a playful wrestling match between us, which he always wins. The only times he ever takes it off is either to add another patch, or to wash it if it got particularly bloody during a hunt, and he will not let anyone touch it at these times, not even me, who has offered to help him sew on new bits and pieces from time to time. Each and every time, he has declined, insisting that he does it himself, despite the fact that my sewing is clearly better than his.

One thing he can't stand, however, is when his pet pigeons decorate it with droppings, so he usually takes it off during the times he's caring for the small birds. He always keeps a close eye on it, but he can't always be watching it, so I've made several attempts to steal it at these times, only to be found pretty quickly by the fact that I always scare the birds away. Having realised this, I managed to figure out a way of grabbing the jacket without alerting the pigeons to my presence: befriend some of them.

Marko was delighted when I told him I wanted to help him care for the birds properly, knowing that David gives him all kinds of crap for having them in the first place, eagerly accepting and showing me how to look after them. Soon, the birds became used to having me around and didn't fly off when I came near, meaning it was finally time to put my plan in motion.

I carefully stand from my place on the sofa, eyeing the place where the curly-haired vampire is faffing around, my eyes finding the patchwork jacket quickly, calculating the distance between me and it. As silently as possible, I walk over in that general direction, smiling as a pigeon flies over briefly to greet me, flapping around me once before returning to the crop top wearing vampire, providing me with a distraction, which I gladly take as I go to the jacket and snatch it up. As discreetly as possible, I push my arms through the sleeves and shrug it on, the scent of Marko easily flooding my nostrils as I start to back away again, managing to get to the fountain before he notices me.

"What've I told you about stealing my jacket?" He remarks, tone amused.

"I don't quite remember. You should probably remind me." I respond, continuing on my way to the sofa, only to squeak when he suddenly pops up behind me, having used his abilities to get there in record time.

"Oh, I'd love to." He purrs into my ear, before his fingers swiftly find my side, brushing at the sensitive skin in practiced motions.

"Oh, no, no, stop! That tickles..!" I protest, laughing and squirming as he continues, his hands holding me in place as he continues tobtickle at my sides.

"That's the point, (Y/n)." He remarks again, chuckling at my attempts to break free of him, "You need to learn your lesson, missy."

Squealing now, I keel over onto my knees, clutching at his hands as I try to get away from his persistent tickling, my strength easily overpowered by his, his body falling over mine as he trips slightly, pressing us both into the ground.

"Fine! Fine, you can have it back!" I give in after a minute or so, writhing wildly underneath him.

"And?"

"And what?" Confusion floods me, until I realise what he wants, "And I promise I won't take it again."

"Not without my permission, anyway." His smirk is almost audible as he pulls away, helping me up, "Keep it on for now, it looks good on you."

Paul

Someone as irresponsible as Paul is easily stolen from, even by an amateur like me. And his clothes are no exception to this rule, often finding themselves thrown into the most random corners of the cave at the best of times, sometimes left behind at hunts and especially around my house, as if he leaves a treasure hunt for me to follow every day. It makes stealing from him simple enough.

Tonight is just another of those nights where I've come downstairs again to find a few scattered pieces of clothing around my own lounge, their positions apparently inexplicable in that they seem to be there randomly. Gathering them, I figure out that he's left a pair of his white trousers, a black mesh shirt and a few bracelets, too, basically creating a whole outfit, which I decide I will finally take advantage of after months of just returning them to their owner. Going back upstairs, I take off my clothes and pull on Paul's, smiling slightly at the sheer size of them on my shorter frame, pairing them with a leather jacket of my own and some knee high boots, admiring myself in the mirror before I leave the house for the night, heading for the Boardwalk. On my way, I receive a good few nasty looks, but I ignore them all, flipping one man off as he makes some snide comment, arriving at my destination in a pretty quick time for once, eager to see if Paul will notice my choice of attire.

On the Boardwalk, I quickly locate the boys and go over to them, Dwayne, David and Marko instantly recognising the scent littering the clothes I'm wearing, though they don't say anything, smirking at me as they choose to let Paul figure it out for himself.

"Hey, guys!" I greet them all, jumping on Paul's back as he forgets to turn around in time, giggling when he let's out a huff of air and stumbles forwards.

"Hey, (Y/n)." The other three chorus, smiling at me before turning their attention elsewhere, half-listening to us so that they can catch Paul's reaction to my clothes.

"What's up, sweet cheeks?" The vampire in question replies to me, carefully letting me go as he turns, leaning in to press a kiss against my lips.

"Not much. How about you?" I continue, amused that he hasn't quite slotted the difference yet.

"Likewise...is that my shirt?! And my white trousers?!" He exclaims, blue eyes roaming my fame as he takes this in, clearly not expecting this turn of events at all.

"Indeed."

"But...how? Why?" Is all he can manage, eyes still pinned to me.

"You keep leaving your clothes at my place, so I thought I'd wear them for once." I shrug dismissively, "They smell like you, so I'm quite enjoying this."

"Well, i guess that's fair enough." He muses, smirking at me, gaze darkening as he makes eye contact, clearly more affected by my clothes than I am, "Wanna go somewhere more private?"

#the lost boys #joel schumacher #vampire #david(thelostboys)#kiefer sutherland #paul(the lost boys)#dwayne(the lost boys)#santa carla #marko(the lost boys)#star(the lost boys)

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sarcastic-bubble · 3 years

Text

Running

Paring: Obi-wan Kenobi x Jedi!Reader

Word count: 1.9k

CW: It's pretty agnsty...

Summary: Reader ran away years ago and was content in her new life but one day and old friend shows up. A much longer sequal to the drabble "I'm to sober for this."

A/N: I promised angst anon, and there is no lack of it here. I'm just not sure this is what you wanted when you sent me that ask. P.s if any other anons out there got some suggestions for me to write hit me up.

Masterlist

--------------------

In the darkness, you fled from the only life you had ever known. You fled from the council you were meant to face in the morning, and when the one person who could have helped you begged you to stay, you fled from him too. Through all the fear that clouded your mind, there was only one thing you could understand, the need to run.

----

The warm glow of morning sunlight danced across your face waking you from your restless sleep. A yawn escaped your lips. You took your time getting out of bed, hoping that whoever needed your attention would leave before you made it to the door. It was your day off and you'd be damned if anyone was going to ruin it for you. Upon opening the door you were quite pleased to find the other side devoid of life, outside of the numerous local plants that filled the small plot of land you got to call your own. It had been a mess when you arrived. The small cottage you were now living in had been nothing but two vine-covered walls, the rest of it had fallen down years before. You frequently thanked any god that would listen for your ability to use the force. Without it, rebuilding would have been impossible alone. A growl came from your stomach pulling you back to the present. You had been planning on returning to bed but thoughts of food crept into your mind. You padded over to the kitchen humming a happy tune to yourself. You methodically opened every cabinet looking for something that looked appetizing but unless you planned to eat whole caf beans you would have to look elsewhere. You pursed your lips and mumbled to yourself as you weighed your options. There was always a chance something in your small garden was ready, but that was unlikely. The pests had forced you to tear everything up and replant only two months ago and even then your garden hadn’t been very fruitful. You could always go into town. It was only a ten or so minute ride on your speeder bike and a guarantee of delicious food. Another growl of your empty stomach settled the matter for you. You dressed quickly, your outfit practical but most importantly comfortable. You slung your dark leather bag over your shoulder. You rifled through the bag making sure you had enough credits with you. Almost ready to leave you reached for the lightsaber resting on your nightstand. You sighed as your fingers closed around the cool metal of the hilt. This was the only remnant of the life you had run from and you never left home without it. You placed it carefully into your bag and stepped out the door.

----

You were greeted with friendly smiles and waves as you sped through town. Your destination was easily found. You parked your speeder bike in one of the many open spots surround the large building. This place served as a village center of sorts and served many functions but all you cared about was the common room that could be found once you entered the front doors. The smell of cooking food wafted through the open doors and drew you in.

A pale orange Twi’lek stood behind the bar. She had just finished brewing a new pot of caf when she noticed you walk in. “(Y/N)!” She shouted. “Get over before the caf gets cold!”

“Good morning, Koyi,” you replied with a grin as you slid onto one of the free bar stools. You had become friends with the Twi’lek since coming here, her friendly smile and easy-going manner was enough to convince even the grumpiest of hermits that maybe a few friends were okay.

Before you could ask for it Koyi was placing a steaming mug down in front of you. “You know,” she started, “I hadn’t expected to see you today. When Kendrig came in earlier he had said you took quite the beating from some bandits yesterday.”

“And let me guess, he made it sound like he did all the work?” you asked with a laugh. You took a sip of the hot drink in front of you. Kendrig had been another friend you had made upon your arrival. Before you, he was one of the few that was any good with a blaster so the protection of the village fell to him. Now you worked together to keep everyone safe from the small group of bandits that insisted on making everyone’s’ lives more difficult.

A plate full of steaming eggs and meat was set down on the counter in front of you. “He said he had to save your ass more than once,” stated Koyi with a laugh before placing a fork and knife next to your plate.

You turned your attention to the meal and eat happily. It was delicious as always and despite all your practicing still much better than anything you could cook. As you ate you listened to the conversation around you. The common room was always a busy place and today was no exception. Various conversations filled the room and you mentally picked through them until you found one that interested you. You knew eavesdropping was a bad habit. That had been made very clear to you in your padawan days but bad habits are always the hardest to kick.

“You’re looking for a Jedi?” you heard one voice ask, it sounded confused. You weren’t sure who it belonged to but it sounded like one of the many old men who spent their days in this room laughing and drinking.

“Yes,” replied another man. That voice, it was so familiar and warm. You dropped your fork and it clattered against your plate. That voice! It couldn’t be, but it had to be. Just hearing that voice brought up so many memories you had actively suppressed since running away.

“And why? I’m not about to sell out one of our own to a stranger,” the old man grunted. You gripped the edge of the bar so tightly your knuckles turned white.

“Well,” started the stranger, though he was hardly a stranger to you, “You could say I’m an old friend of hers. I’ve missed her for a long time now and just wish to talk.

You had to leave, you needed to get out of here and find somewhere to hide. If he found you then you would have to stop running. You would have to face the fear that was buried so deep inside you. You would have to acknowledge the life you left and everything you left behind and you refused to do that. “Koyi, how much do I owe you?”

“Nothing, as usual,” replied the Twi’lek looking up from the mug she was washing, “everything okay? You look worried.”

You brushed off her concern, ”I’m fine.” You stood and grabbed your bag from its place on the floor. You turned quickly on the balls of your feet expecting to see the door and the escape it offered. Instead, an all too familiar figure now stood in front of you. His face was partially obscured by a dark brown hood but that didn’t matter. There was only one man this could be. “Obi,” you quietly gasped.

Large hands grasped the sides of the hood and pulled it down to rest on his broad shoulders. There were so many emotions flooding your mind at the sight of his face. The first was love. After all this time you still loved him, you had never doubt that. Another was confusion, why was he here? The most prominent, however, was fear. You wanted to run.

“(Y/N), I’ve missed you.” His voice was quiet as he spoke and the way he looked at you spoke of the many nights he had spent longing for this reunion with you.

You avoided his gaze, looking everywhere but him. “Why are you here?” The question came out colder than you had meant. All it took was a glance to see the hurt in Obi-wan’s eyes.

“I’ve come to see if you want to go home.”

“This is my home now,” you stated harshly as you shoved past him. You couldn’t be here anymore. The last thing you wanted to do was hurt this man but you had come here to avoid your past, you had come here to run from all the things that scared you, and while facing him that was impossible. You heard footsteps trailing behind you as you left the building. You purposely walked past your speeder bike and only stopped when you reached a rather secluded part of town. If he was going to insist on talking to you at least you had some privacy this way. “You know I can’t go back, Obi. There’s nothing left for me there. This is my home now,” you said, your eyes watching the horizon in front of you.

From behind Obi-wan gently rested a hand on your shoulder. “You may not be able to return to the order, but you can return to Coruscant.”

You turned slowly until you faced him. “No, I can’t.”

His expression was pleading as he spoke, there was the same desperation in his voice that you had heard the night you ran. “Yes, you can. I’m not leaving without you.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’m a fugitive, if I return I will be tried for every damn crime the senate thinks I’ve committed.” Your voice was filling with its own desperation. You had to make him understand. If you ever went back the fear would overwhelm you and you would just end up running again. “And if you think you can protect me from the senate, you’re wrong.”

Obi-wan’s hands firmly grasped yours. You had forgotten how much you missed the feeling of his touch. If only things had been different. If only you had been a better Jedi. If only you were brave enough to face the fears you ran from. If only so many things had gone differently. “Are you happy here?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“Then I suppose this is goodby?”

“I suppose it is.” Tears were forming at the edges of your vision and it everything you had to keep them from falling.“Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I need a drink.”

His familiar chuckle made your chest hurt. You wanted to be with him, you wanted to follow him home and love him again, but your fear of what might await you down that path was much greater. “You’ve taken up drinking then?” His rough thumb brushed against your cheek, wiping away a tear that had managed to escape.

“Sometimes,” you shrugged, “It turns out I really was too sober for all of this.” You gestured around at nothing in particular to make your point. “Please don’t tell anyone where you found me.”

“No one will hear about this place,” promised the Jedi Master.

“Goodbye, Obi.”

“Goodbye.” With that, the man’s back was to you and he was walking away. You wished you had the strength to tell him to stop, to go with him, but you couldn’t and you didn’t know if you would ever be able to. The tears rolled silently down your cheeks as you watched him leave and deep down you hoped this wouldn’t be the last time you saw him.

#obi wan kenobi #obi wan kenobi x reader #obi wan x reader #star wars x reader #star wars imagine #star wars #request #well sorta

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purpureumwrites · 4 years

Text

Darth Vader x Reader | Twin Moons | Chapter 1

A/N: I’ve been missing for like the longest time. I’m so sorry. I got a job and started my master’s degree (which I only have the final project left), so it has been a weird and very busy year. Lately I’ve being getting into the Star Wars comics and obviously I’m getting through the Darth Vader ones (I’m also a bit of a perv apparently). I’ve already written the second chapter for this, which is longer than this one, but I don’t know how long this fic will be. We at least need some passion/smut in there, so there will be a minimum of three, but I feel like it will take me a bit longer. Who knows! (Some Mandalorian is also needed in the future)

Summary: Vader is ordered to travel to a far planet in search of a force-sensitive woman. As he becomes responsible for her, what will happen? You know, nothing is impossible with the force.

Chapters: Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6

Warnings: None.

Word count: 665.

The sound of the waves crushing against the shore was all you could hear. In the small, remote planet you lived in, there was no such thing as ships or vessels, and the dark blue ocean covered most of the planet’s surface. You walked back home, a little wooden house in the middle of green endless pastures, only interrupted but the worn-down temple standing on the hill.

It was a day like all the others when a ship crossed the sky and you felt a presence like no other before. Later, when you heard steps echoing through the stone walls of the temple, you were not surprised but curious. You had spent years completely alone.

The temple was completely made of stone and glass, and only the first floor was over the ground. Its rooms and hallways reached so far down, that all that could be seen through the glass of the tall, ominous windows was the reflection of the light in the water and the creatures that lived in it. In the centre, across all the different floors, there was a deep black hole open to the ocean. There were rumours about this temple. Some said a monster lived in it when it was not hunting across the seas, some said rituals were performed there, their blood a tribute to the beast.

All you knew, was that the energy in that place connected in some way to the energy you had always felt within you and, even though you didn’t understand it, it simply made sense. The drawings covering the walls, the echoes, the sea itself had taught you how to wield it, how to become one with it. You felt complete there. Complete, but lonely.

When you heard the steps behind you, accompanied by a metallic and rhythmic breathing, you felt the presence you had sensed before in the sky, overwhelm you by its proximity now. And still, it did not feel out of place.

But god, was it strong.

You took a deep breath before turning around to see the tall man, dressed completely in black and the weirdest helmet you had seen, stand before you. Neither said anything for a few seconds, both of you analysing each other. There was something about him that felt twisted and dark, suggesting that you should be careful with your words and actions from now on. But you also knew that unlike him, you looked harmless even though you were certainly not. You waited for him to speak, unable to find a reason for such an odd-looking man to stand there.

“The Emperor has ordered for you to be taken into imperial custody.”

Emperor? There was no emperor here, just an arrogant, privileged leader. But if it were an emperor from another planet, how could he even know about you? The planet was very secluded, maybe one or two ships, usually old and barely functional, visited the planet. Maybe the people in the mainland knew about it but you had lived away from society for so long, that the world outside was of no interest to you.

“I don’t know any emperors” you answered.

“That’s no concern of mine. You will learn about the Galactic Empire when it’s due.”

“But… I haven’t done anything against any empire, I can’t just go with you who knows where just because you ask me to.”

You noticed him clenching his right fist.

“I am not asking. You will come with me, voluntarily or not. You are a force user and the Emperor has plans for you.”

“Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about, I-“

With one single, wide step, he stood mere centimetres away from you. He was terribly intimidating.

“Do not make me waste my time. Everything will be explained to you. We are leaving now” he stated before turning around and walking away.

“I’m not even…” you started before you felt shivers down your spine. “Wearing shoes” you ended up whispering, following the man.

#darth vader x reader #darth vader imagine #star wars imagine #darth vader #star wars #darth vader headcanons #darth vader twin moons #twin moons

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the-hilda-librarians-wife · 3 years

Text

A Familiar Soul - Chapter Two

Summary: Hilda decides to be completely honest with her mother, surprised when she seems to be a lot more in on magic than Hilda had expected her to be.

With her daughter’s association with witches, Johanna is forced to face some secrets of her own, bringing her back to feelings and people she’d rather have left behind

Dealing with insecurities and inner demons of her own, Kaisa finds herself face to face with the very issues that brought her to be so displeased with her own abilities

Or: the one where Johanna is Kaisa’s familiar

Notes: Hey there! Just wanted to mention that Henrietta being the name for the tall witch from the Committee comes from @cinnamon-sparrow-scout! Hope you enjoy!

Read it on ao3: (chpt1) (chpt2)

Being in the library again after all those years was a strange feeling, to say the least, having avoided it like the plague ever since she was eighteen. Going to that place had always been the most surefire way to find her, which was the last thing she’d wanted to do. Unfortunately, that was exactly what Johanna had come for that day.

The scent of old books and the sounds of pages turning and patrons whispering were all familiar to her like a song she liked but hadn’t heard in a long time. Simultaneously unpleasant and nostalgic, those sensations made her feel like squirming, as if suddenly her skin was too tight. She kept herself composed and continued walking, though. There was a reason why she was there.

It didn’t take Johanna long to spot the librarian’s book cart between two shelves on the first floor, as if it had been put there to close the entrance to the small corridor the space between the shelves formed. It was a clear sign that Kaisa would be there, reshelving.

Johanna squared her shoulder, trying to make herself look braver than she felt. The part of the library they were in was secluded, which served her just fine. She rolled the cart forward to allow herself in and walked closer.

With her headphones on, it took Kaisa a moment to notice she had company. She turned her head to the other woman with a disapproving face, expecting to see a patron which hadn’t respected the ‘do not enter’ message that the cart positioned at the entrance gave. Now Johanna could see why that corridor would need to be closed for reshelving: the two shelves were so close that Kaisa was all but cornered by Johanna in the narrow corridor.

The librarian was good at masking her emotions, always had been. However, even if just for a second before she picked herself up, her eyes widened and her eyebrows shot upward at the sight of Johanna. Good, Johanna thought, I hope I gave the bastard a good fright.

“You need to stop this.” Johanna said with a resolution in her voice she didn’t really feel all the way in her soul. Already recomposed, Kaisa crossed her arms over her chest and deliberately lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, hello to you too.”

“I mean it.” Johanna walked closer, fully aware that she was being rude to someone she hadn’t talked to in so long. Seeing Kaisa again after so much time had gone by awakened something in her which made her want to cry, scream, and kiss her stupid face all at once. “Even you are better than this. Is this some sort of revenge? Trying to put my daughter in danger as well?”

Kaisa blinked, the confidence on her face wavering. In the few moments she’d had, she hadn’t even managed to recover from the shock of seeing Johanna again, a ghost of the past in the middle of her books, and now another blow was thrown at her.

“Daughter?” She asked, hating the disbelief in her voice.

“You know what I mean. You’ve been helping Hilda get herself in trouble, and what for? Getting back at me?”

“Oh, so Hilda is your daughter, is she?” The moments she’d spent with the girl were replayed in Kaisas’s mind, and with this added layer of knowledge, she could now see there had been something about the girl that had struck her as familiar. The irony of Hilda being Frida’s familiar did not escape her either; maybe it was something of a genetic trait? “Congratulations, I would never have guessed such a lovely girl would have been raised by you.”

With one firm step forward, Kaisa tried to squeeze herself between the shelf to her left and Johanna. She wanted that conversation to be over. It was too overwhelming for her to keep up her act of calm for much longer. No such luck, however, since Johanna slid herself to the right and blocked her way.

“You mean you didn’t know she was my daughter?” There was a hint of doubt in her voice when she asked. “Why do it, then? Get her involved with magic?”

“I do not spend nearly as much time thinking about you as you seem to think I do.” Kaisa huffed as she bumped on Johanna’s shoulder with her own, trying to get her to move so as to allow her out. “It’s not my fault she has a wild heart. I just hope she doesn’t let her selfish mother get in the way of what she loves.”

“Stay away from my child, Kaisa.” Johanna glared down into the witch’s eyes. “You know nothing about who I am, so keep my name out of your mouth.”

Kaisa met her gaze with as much intensity, all of Johanna’s anger reflected on her eyes. Johanna didn’t think they’d ever had this bad of an argument before. Even when they had fought, Johanna hadn’t been one to pick the battle. There was one difference this time, though, and it was that this time, Hilda was involved.

“You are a coward, Johanna. I see that still hasn’t changed.” She said with a smug grin that Johanna was dying to slap off of her face. Having no interest in facing charges for attacking the librarian, she instead walked away with an angry groan, feeling like it was much easier to breathe once she was out of that corridor.

With the confrontation over, she noticed her heart rate had picked up pace, and that her breathing was ragged. Thoughts scrambled in her head just like emotions in her heart. Kaisa had to somehow know Hilda was her daughter. She desperately wanted it to be true, because then there would be a reason why her daughter was always going on those crazy quests, why she hadn’t been telling her anything. Because then Johanna would finally be able to tell herself that Kaisa was indeed bad.

And yet, with one small, tragic exception, she knew her old friend was not a liar.

She walked quickly, taking big strides. Her crowded mind made it so she didn’t take much of her surroundings in, until another voice she hadn’t heard in years reached her. It was melodic and overly sweet, at least when she was calm, and Johanna turned her head to see the woman sitting on one of the more comfortable armchairs in the library.

“Johanna? Is that you?”

The woman’s long hair was split in the middle, one half of it orange and the other a creamy white. Johanna remembered that when she was a child, that hair used to remind her of a calico cat. Instead of her usual black dress, she was wearing another ankle lenghted dress, dark pink with a brown sweater on top. Something about seeing her out of her witch clothes made Johanna uncomfortable, or maybe it was just because of the encouter she’d just had.

“Abigail.” She greeted. “Yes, it’s me. Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Oh, how much you’ve grown!” Abigail said, and Johanna had stop herself from saying she hadn’t aged at all. For some reason, Abigail looked surprised to see her there, and Johanna figured it was probably just because it had been a long time since they last saw each other, and not the best circumstances either.

The witch’s gaze was focused on a spot behind Johanna, and she glanced at it for long enough to realize Abigail was looking at where Johanna had just come from, where Kaisa, too, was now leaving from among the shelves.

“Pity, isn’t it?” Abigail said unprompted. “Such a promising witch, she’d been. And yet, she turned out to be so… self-centered.”

Johanna sighed, hugging her torso. “I agree. I once thought I knew her, you know. I cared about her, deeply. But now I’m afraid she doesn’t even deserve my compassion. I recently found out she had been endangering my child.”

Abigail brought a hand to her heart with a soft, almost inaudible gasp. “This upsets you, doesn’t it?” She asked in a low voice.

“Deeply. She’s… she’s doing to Hilda the same she did to herself. It’s happening right in front of my eyes, and I can allow it no longer.”

“You mean the blue haired girl?” Her head was tilted to the side. “Oh, I’ve seen the sort of thing she does with Kaisa’s support… they’re certainly not fit for a little girl. You are a good mother to try and protect her. I, too, shall see what I can do to try and keep her safe.”

Johanna let out a heavy sigh. Few things could stop Kaisa when she had something on her mind, and much less Hilda, but having an ally in the Committee of Three was something of a win. She knew very well about the power they had.

“Thank you, Abigail. It was good to see you again.”

“The pleasure was all mine, dear.”

The witch had barely finished speaking when a shrill hiss interrupted her.

“Abigail, what are you doing?”

Abigail turned to look behind herself, and Johanna noticed the voice, which she also recognized, was coming from a gap before two bookshelves that hadn’t been there before. Another one of the many secret passages the witches had.

“”Henrietta.” Abigail exhaled. “Must you be this way? I’m just talking.”

“With a non-witch!” The other woman snapped. From the gap, Johanna could only see her black clothes and hair split in half, the same colours as her younger sister’s.

“We can’t go our lives without talking to non-witches, you know?”

Henrietta glared at Abigail in a way that Johanna was sure had a meaning between them. Uncomfortably, she noted that they still talked about her as if she wasn’t in the room.

“Well, maybe we should. This place is witch sacred space! You shouldn’t be communing with them here!”

Before they could continue their argument, Johanna cleared her throat.

“I was already going anyway. Good evening.”

As she walked away from the library hastily, she wasn’t sure if in that visit she’d managed to solved her problems, or only to create more.

_#_#_#_

With her small hands, she placed the violets on the cold stone, one upon each grave. Kaisa didn’t like picking flowers. She knew it hurt the plant and often upset the nature spirits that took care of it. For her parents, though, she made an exception, and when she was allowed to visit them she’d always bring them a flower.

Their graves were side by side, just like they would want them to be. Kaisa remembered few things about her mother, because the woman had died when she wasn’t much more than a baby, but she’d heard stories about her. After she got pregnant and revealed that she had a non-witch lover, the witch community had been revolted. Heartbroken at not having her kind accept that romance, she’d decided to leave any affiliation with witch kind behind.

It was a noble decision, Kaisa thought, but not a very smart one. For her choice, she had her magic completely removed, and it made her terribly weak. Even though sometimes witches would take long to manifest their magic, they always had it in them, and taking it away was the same as cutting apart a piece of their soul. Her mother had gotten weaker and weaker, the harrowing experience of childbirth only making her situation worse, which eventually led to her death.

Without the woman he loved, Kaisa’s father hadn’t lasted long. He was with her for long enough for Kaisa to remember the sound of his laughter, which had always felt forced, the scent of the porrige he used to make them every morning, and to fill her young head with stories of how great her mother had been before she had her magic stripped from her simply for loving, how she’d been the most powerful and wise member of the Committee Of Three. Then, illness had taken him.

Her father had no parents in Trolberg, and her mother had no close family to speak of (none that hadn’t disowned her, anyway), so at a very young age Kaisa had been on the verge of being completely alone. Luckily, her mother had had one friend left, one woman who didn’t agree with the rest of the witches, and who had been kind enough to take Kaisa in.

“Come, little one.” Tildy said gently as she put a hand on the child’s shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

“Why don’t they come to visit me?” Kaisa asked suddenly, making the older woman involuntarily squeeze her shoulder. “Ghosts come to visit what was theirs, you said so yourself. But then why won’t they come visit me? Do they blame me for what happened?”

Tildy made her way to stand in front of her and kneeled down to her level. Age was beginning to make her movements less agile, but it wasn’t something that she ever allowed to stop her. Gazing into the girl’s big, melancholic eyes, she knew there was a long road ahead to get her to heal from the terrible experiences she’d had at such a young age. No child should have such a thought on their mind.

“Oh, sweetheart, of course they don’t blame you.” Resisting the urge to lock Kaisa in a tight hug, Tildy cooed. “You see, ghosts don’t usually come to visit people because… the thing with loved ones is, eventually they die too. And then everyone’s together again! It’s not because they don’t like you at all. They loved you so much, little one. You were a miracle in their eyes. I promise they’ll be looking at you with a lot of pride.”

Kaisa nodded. She didn’t look forward to dying, but at least she knew she’d see her parents again then. She knew what she had to do in this world, in the meanwhile.

The woman took her home again, and baked her her favorite cake, which she always did when she wanted to cheer her up. Kaisa was infinitely glad for Tildy’s warmth in her life, comforting and uplifting her. It was all she had. That, and the burning certainty in her soul that she had a debt to her mother which she had to pay.

She had to change the system that had gotten her killed, because even if Kaisa herself wasn’t the culprit of her death, she’d always feel responsible for her mother’s downfall if she didn’t do something. Kaisa would be great, she knew it. She would have to be if she wanted to make her mother proud.

#my fic #fic: afs #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #sketchbook ship fanfic #kaisa hilda fanfic #johanna hilda fanfic

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ashestoashesjc · 4 years

Text

A Necromancer & His Zombie Boyfriend On A Couple's Retreat

Short Story 1/2/(3)/4/5/6/7/8/9/10

"RrRRrrrr... grrr? <Hey, uh, babe... seen my arm anywhere?>" rang Sett's voice throughout their cigar box of a house as he rummaged through closets, opened cabinets, overturned couch cushions.

Shutting and latching the front door behind him, Ulrick began flipping through the stack of envelopes clutched in his right hand. "Huh? Oh…”

“Okay, so… don’t get mad,” Ulrick began, as meekly and guilt-tinged as one can make a shout. “But... there was this huge, I mean HUGE silverfish…”

“GRrrr! Rrrrr. <Dude! Not cool,>” could be heard as Sett stomped his way to the foyer.

“I know! I’m sorry! I’m weak!” moaned Ulrick.

Sett sighed as he entered the cove and laid his single remaining hand on Ulrick’s left shoulder, the other sleeve draped flaccidly at his side. “Grrrr. <Well, yeah.>” he said. Ulrick snickered.

“You know, having your boyfriend kill a bug for you is exceedingly normal,” Ulrick said, separating the bills from the letters that weren’t bills. There were very few that weren’t bills. “Almost conventional.”

“Rrr. <True,>” Sett replied. “Rggrrrr. <Probably while the arm’s still attached, though.>”

“A mere quibble.”

“Rrrrgrrr? <So, where is it now?>” Sett asked.

“Ugh. Still getting cozy with the silverfish, I’d imagine,” Ulrick admitted, guilt creeping back into his voice. He covered his eyes with his free hand and shuddered. “In… the shower.”

Sett sucked air through his teeth in a compassion-filled cringe.

“Yeah,” Ulrick sighed, resigned to his trauma.

“Grrrr. <Don’t worry,>” said Sett. “Rraarr. <I got it.>”

Ulrick slid his hand down his face with a grateful groan. “God, I love you.” Sett pulled him forward by his collar and pecked his forehead.

Continuing to sort through the mail, Ulrick came to a red envelope and, seeing it addressed to Sett, handed it over. “Looks important.”

Confusion clouded Sett’s eyes for the first few, slow moments spent undoing the envelope’s seal flap, until suddenly, a surge of realization like lightning drove him to violently tear the crimson paper away.

As he scanned the contents of the letter contained within, words failing to do his emotional state justice, Sett began to fist pump wildly, God help anyone in the flight path of his singular elbow. Ulrick looked on in entranced bewilderment.

“Was there itching powder in that envelope?” asked Ulrick.

Sett shoved the creased letter in Ulrick’s face, his manic energy not yet dissipated. Ulrick took it and held it out at arm’s length until his eyes brought the words into focus.

“A couple’s retreat?” he wondered aloud, lowering the paper enough to peer over the top at Sett.

“Grrgrrrr. <An all-expenses paid couple’s retreat.> Rrrrrr. <At a swanky resort.> GrrrrRr. <Complete with water skis.>”

“This is from a contest?” he asked, rotating and inspecting the sheet. “When did we enter a contest?”

“Rrggrrrr? <You know those entry slips we’re getting in the post all the time?>”

“The ones I’m always throwing away? I’m familiar.”

“RrrRrrrrr ggrrrr. <Well, your aim could use some work, because some of them wind up in the mailbox,>” said Sett, with a shrug.

The sound that next filled the room, colored with exasperated mirth, was one Sett was used to Ulrick making, though one that never stopped bringing a flush of heat to the place where his heart used to be.

He grabbed Ulrick by the hips and the two began to sway back and forth. “Rrrrrr. <Just imagine it,>” he purred dreamily. “GrrrRRrrrr rrrrRrrr grrr...arrrr? <Massages, rock-climbing, a luau. And… did I mention waterskiing?>”

Swaying still, Ulrick looked up with his head cocked. "I've... never heard you mention waterskiing before."

"GrrRrrrrrr. <I enjoy a lot of things I don't talk about.> Rgrrrrgrrr. <Like country music, or bad chick lit,>" Sett said before twirling and dipping Ulrick in a blur. "Rraarrrr. <I'm a multi-layered zombie.>"

Breaking clumsily away from the songless dance and squeezing the bridge of his nose, Ulrick set down the remainder of the mail on the side table by the entrance and looked his boyfriend over. “It’s totally free?”

“Grrarrr. <It’s totally free,>” confirmed Sett.

Ulrick raised an eyebrow. “No catch?”

“Rrr… <Well…>”

“And streeetch! That’s right! Streeetch!”

At the front of Meadow Grove Resort’s famed yoga studio balanced - one foot planted on the ground, the other hooked deftly behind her neck - Chrysanthemum Smith, a remarkably limber 60-year-old instructor, urging her out-of-shape contest winning students to achieve the same feats of flexibility.

All around Ulrick and Sett, a pretzel factory’s soon-to-be-discarded collection of heinous, gnarly undesirables had been given life in the form of sweaty middle Americans.

That pretzels went through a less agonizing process being baked at 500 degrees was a fact Ulrick was both confident in and envious of. His legs were angled in a way he was sure he’d feel for weeks to come.

Sett, on the other hand, had apparently been a contortionist in a past life, the way he bent himself into poses, well, a pretzel would gawk at, holding each position stoically before moving gracefully on to the next. It also helped that he couldn’t feel what would leave most tendons shredded rags.

Ulrick gave up the pursuit of dislocating his pelvis and instead went to poke Sett in the cheek. Through his mask, Sett made a chomping motion at the finger, though remained otherwise totally still. "Okay, but this kind of bites, right?" Ulrick signed.

"A little. And not in the fun way," Sett signed back.

On a pair of blue, rubber mats to their left were two women - one in a biker's jacket and tattered, patched jeans, short red hair tied into a haphazard ponytail; the other a dark woman donning a shaved head, flower-patterned maxi dress, and combat boots - the former of whom suddenly grabbed Ulrick's attention with a nod.

"You're telling me," she signed.

And in an instant, they were no longer alone in the hazy, secluded sphere that made their reality.

So taken aback was he that he blurted aloud, "You sign?"

The yoga instructor shushed him from her place at the head of the wide room, leading him to duck down sheepishly. With the forced inclusion of an overly casual air, he said more than asked, "You sign."

"Oh, yeah," the woman chuckled gruffly. "Mom's Deaf."

Taking a sudden interest in the conversation, Sett's head swiveled to the leather jacket-clad woman. "Shit yeah!" he signed with fervor, eliciting a harsh snort from the woman. The instructor's head whipped around to glare her way, but went ignored.

Sett's hands jumbled for a moment before he continued. "I mean, I'm sure that must have been very difficult for your family and--"

She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "Nah, don't worry about it. She's capital 'D' Deaf. A congenital thing. Whole family's been signing forever."

Her wife - Jen, they later learned - chimed in with, "Di does it at home, too. She's taught me half the lyrics to Boys for Pele."

"Wow!" Ulrick said with teeth-clenching enthusiasm. "That's so great! Isn't that so great, Sett?"

The mask did nothing to conceal Sett's raised, beaming features. "That's so great!" he signed.

"I'm sorry!" bellowed the lithe yogi, shattering all delusions of serenity. "Am I boring you?"

Several overlapping voices came to the general consensus of "Christ, yes."

One of the husbands, portly and somewhat resembling the famously affable capybara, asked, somewhat less affably, why they were being stretched into taffy when they should be outside taking one-on-one lessons with the beach volleyball instructor. He was joined by a few surly “yeah!”s.

They were met with an unimpressed crossing of the arms. Though it should be noted Smith’s foot was still being held comfortably behind her head.

"I would suggest, in the future, that you more closely scrutinize contest entries," Yogi Smith advised in as calm a manner as it seemed she could now manage, though with an unmistakable edge to her voice. "In order to partake in our facility’s more... physically involved activities, you’ll first need to align and cleanse your mental, emotional, and spiritual energies.”

This provoked a studio-wide groan, with the exclusion of Jen, who seemed just eager enough to cancel out the cloud of grim impatience encircling her.

“Unless, of course,” Smith said, shifting poses to something favoring the letter ‘G’, “you’d prefer to construct your own schedules. In which case, a full price admission to Meadow Grove Resort remains available.”

She sleekly extended her right leg, pointing its foot pin-straight toward the sliding studio doors. “Don’t, as the masters of yore were wont to say, let the door hit ya.”

When no one moved and the room went quiet enough to hear an acupuncture needle drop, Smith resumed a standing position and bowed three times to each division of the studio. “Namaste. Namaste. Namaste.”

Chrysanthemum Smith had in no way undersold how ‘aligned and cleansed’ couple’s therapy and its airings of dirty laundry and subsequent ferocious dissolutions of decades of marriage; couple’s pottery, the same thing but with clay vases; and couple’s finger-painting, a bonding exercise in shared humiliation, would make their minds, emotions, and souls through sheer gut-rending hilarity.

Ulrick almost didn’t want to stop watching people who, hours ago, seemed all confidence and bravado, now being brought to tears by an instructor’s criticism of their macaroni art lacking ‘depth.’

But their confinement was over and they were free to roam the grounds as they saw fit and Sett, without even feigning to look for a map of the resort, made a beeline for the largest body of water (and the largest gathering of humans) he could sniff. Ulrick was still surprised at times by how agile Sett could be on his feet when on the hunt for blood - or recreational watersports - and struggled to keep up.

Their long-awaited waterskiing adventure began almost as soon as they arrived at the lakeside, the instructor needing a volunteer at that instant to man the skis while he lectured another guest on the controls of the boat. At nearly a head taller than anyone else present, Sett didn’t need much more than a raised hand to stand out.

Things were going great; Sett mounted on skis as long as he was tall, the boat revving greedily for take off. At Sett’s thumbs up, the runabout hammered off in a thunderous roar. And then, all at once, things were going wrong.

The envisioned majesty of skimming the motionless calm of the crystal river was halted abruptly with a leaden Sett stumbling mid-lake in his skis, trying and failing to correct himself, going feet-over-head, and sinking like an anchor to the agitated silt of the riverbed below.

Ulrick, though he jumped with concern at the first hint of a misstep, expected a brief swim back, perhaps slowed a bit - but not much - by Sett's stoney limbs. He’d been the star diver of his local swimming hole as a teen and still maintained some of the underwater dexterity, though nowadays tended to lurk the floors of bodies of water like a carnivorous bottom-feeder; eating habits included.

But then a few minutes passed, and nothing. A lifeguard and two of the more experienced swimmers among the guests plunged into the river and searched for fifteen minutes, cracking the surface now and again for a gulp of air, all to no avail. The water was too cloudy with sediment to see past a certain depth, and the orange-purples of dusk were beginning to settle in. They'd need to return in the morning with a diving team.

It'd now been forty-five minutes, and three of the resort’s other guests were consoling Ulrick, one herself on the verge of waterworks. They'd just witnessed a man - someone's significant other - torn tragically from life's teat, and in front of the man he loved, no less.

Ulrick, for his part, was positively miffed.

"When I get my hands on him..." Ulrick started, before one of the grievers tossed him a teary-eyed questioning look. "Er, that is... would that I could only put my hands on him... again..." he corrected.

Just as Ulrick had begun mentally reviewing the basics of the Arts of Throttling, a movement, barely noticeable, shook the surface of the lake. Then bubbles, then the full break of the water as a head rose into view. Then the screams of onlookers as, in the fading light, a ghastly lake monster began its murderous approach. Then screams of a different kind as people began to make the connection proper. Then there was weeping, fainting, more than one declaration of faith renewed. It was a miracle!

Later, after insistences for medical attention were politely but firmly refused and the religious stragglers begging for just a smell of Sett’s waterlogged clothes were shooed away, Ulrick asked why he waited so long to resurface, to which Sett said, "GrrrrRRrr. <Well, at first I was just sort of embarrassed.> RrrrrrrGrrrRrrr? <Then I thought, "How often do these people see miracles?>"

"Oh, sure," groaned Ulrick. "A man comes out of a lake after half an hour and it's a miracle. A man comes out of a grave after a few months and it's "Grab the torches and pitchforks, everyone!""

"Rrrr. <Babe.>"

Ulrick gave a pouty grumble. "I'm just saying. One's a little more miraculous, is all."

Sett pulled Ulrick's head into his chest and stroked his hair. "GrrrRrrrRrrr. <Shh, I know, dude, I know.>" His heavy, soaked clothes and lack of body heat didn't chill Ulrick as much as they should have, and though a fine coating of sand covering him from head to toe gritted against Ulrick's cheek, it only made Ulrick rub his face in rebelliously.

"Okay," Ulrick said, resting his fists on Sett's chest and gazing up into his eyes. "What's the next activity? I think we’re... due-au for a luau?" The moment the words left his lips, his face collapsed into disgusted regret.

“Rgrrr... <Actually…>” Sett said, wrenching off his mask and shaking the excess water from his hair, teasing a blush out of Ulrick. “GgrrrRrrrr? <Doesn’t watching the stars by the lake sound pretty relaxing?>”

Ulrick grinned and took a seat on the shoreline, running his hands through the tufts of ryegrass stretching out in waves around him. He tapped a spot to his right and Sett, half-cocked smile in tow, came lumbering over to take it.

Hours flurried past, changing nothing about the image of the intimately silent pair but the number of stark white pinpricks in the sky they beheld.

They threatened to sit silently basking in each other forever.

And then Sett said, “GRrrrrgrrr, rrgrrr, graargrr. <So, Diane and Jen gave me their number, and they want to plan an outing.>”

Unease shot through Ulrick’s veins, but he held his tongue in search of the correct words. “O-oh?”

“Grrr? Rrgrrrrr. <Isn’t that cool? People want to spend time with us,>” said Sett, ensorcelled with the twinkle of every new star. “Rrrrr. <With me.>”

“That might be…” began Ulrick, before noticing the glimmer in Sett’s eyes and faint lift at the corners of his mouth as he stared up towards a great unknown. He sighed. “It’s going to be great.”

Sett rested his hand on Ulrick’s, their fingers interlocking. He smiled, and the two gazed into an ever-darkening firmament, speckled with a thousand stars and a thousand futures.

#A Necromancer & His Zombie Boyfriend #short stories #supernatural #mlm #wlw #queer #series #A Necromance #original #fiction

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rohad93 · 3 years

Text

Worth the Fight: Ch8

For the first time in a long time, Amity is excited.

More than excited, but she isn’t sure how else to describe it, even with her quite extended vocabulary. To finally have a chance at something she’d wanted to do all her life and had never had a chance to do until now? There are few words to describe the elation she feels.

She and Luz had spent a little longer than they should have at the market a few days ago picking out some clothes that Luz deemed suitable for her to train in, but then they had to hurry back to the manor because it was getting late and if they didn’t Bump would certainly stop her and there was no way to explain the clothes she’d bought. She liked Bump, he was a good teacher, wise, and knowledgeable. That being said, his loyalties were first and foremost to her parents and Amity could not trust him with her secrets, not like she could Lilith, which made it hard to navigate her situation at home at times.

It had been Lilith that had inspired her desire to learn to fight, well, her and ‘Azura, the good knight’ the heroine of her favorite book.

When Amity had gone to her asking to learn the art of sword fighting Lilith had been more than amenable to the idea, but her parents refused, insisting that she do what they had hired her to do, teach her enchantment magic, and as much as Lilith had wanted to teach her, she had acquiesced to her parent’s wishes, much to Amity’s disappointment.

She felt a twinge at the thought of her teacher. Lilith had been gone for over a year now, sent across the sea to fight at the Emperor’s order. There had been no word from her in months and some days Amity wondered if the raven-haired knight was even still alive; she missed her.

Amity shook her head, today wasn’t the day for this, she needed to stay focussed. That was what Lilith would want her to do.

Luz was going to start her training today. They would have started already, but Bump had pulled Luz to help oversee some deliveries being made from the estate and she’d been away all day for the last two days, but she was back now and they could begin.

She carefully concealed her training clothes in her dress, the only useful thing about one of the puffy, ugly, hunter green monstrosities her mother had given her, and one she never wore if she could help it, before leaving the room.

She hurried down the hall, Luz said she would be on gate duty whenever she was ready.

Just as she was about to hit the first stair, a pair of synced voices called out to her.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry today, Mittens?”

Amity groaned to herself before she glanced over her shoulder where her brother and sister were standing, grinning at her from the doorways of their bedrooms.

“It’s a nice day, I’m going out for a walk,” she grunted.

“Well, that sounds like a lovely idea!” Emira grinned.

“Indeed it does, dear sister, we’ll join you.” Edric’s grin matched his twins’.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Amity grumbled as the twins came to stand on either side of her.

“Aw, come on, Mittens, we haven’t done anything together in so long,” Emira lamented as she leaned her head on Amity’s.

“No,” Amity scowled.

“Oh, please, we just want to spend some time with our little sister,” Edric baby talked to her as he leaned on her shoulder, making her growl and elbow him in the stomach. He grunted and backed off.

Amity was steaming inside, there was no way she was going to be able to shake the two now, she’d been waiting for days already!

She took a deep breath, she could wait another day, Luz wasn’t going anywhere.

“Fine,” she bit out and the twins grinned as they walked down the steps.

When they approached, Luz looked up and the confusion that broke out across her face as Amity came walking out of the house with two slightly older people that bore a striking resemblance to Amity, as well as each other, was apparent.

“Luz, would you escort us on a walk down to the coast?” she turned to the human guard as they passed through the gate, she tried to send Luz some kind of look with her eyes, trying to convey to her not to mention their training.

“Of course, Lady Blight.” Luz nodded, glancing between the three.

She’d heard of the Blight twins, of course, Edric and Emira, but this was the first time Luz had actually seen them in person. She hadn’t been in the manor since the first day when she’d met Bump.

“Oh, I’ve never seen you before,” Emira said, eyeing Luz up and down and the young knight’s face turned pink at the suggestive smile that had slid onto the older Blight’s face.

“Uhh…” Luz blinked.

“Luz is new,” Amity grumbled, rolling her eyes at her sister's flirtatiousness. She did this every time they got a new guard around their age, which wasn’t often, but it had still happened several times. Once, a young man had to be released from their employ because Emira had flirted with him and he had been convinced she was in love with him and begun following her around and serenading her at her window at night.

Luz just looked embarrassed, thankfully.

“Edric, Emira!” They all turned as Bump stood on the front steps of the manor, looking quite annoyed and the twins grimaced. “A word if you’d please…,” the old witch practically growled, arms folded behind his back and eyes narrowed at the two of them.

“Well, shit…,” Edric mumbled under his breath as they two moved back toward the doors.

Amity caught Luz’s eye and jerked her head in a very clear message.

‘Let’s go’

Luz nodded and gave a brief wave to Jerbo as they hurried down the road away from Blight manor before Bump finished reaming out the twins for whatever they had done.

They walked quickly until they were out of sight of the manor and Amity sighed in relief. She loved her siblings, annoying as they could be the majority of the time, but she was not in the mood for them, not today.

“So, those were the infamous twins the other guards talked about,” Luz hummed as they walked and Amity rolled her eyes.

“Yes, my brother and sister, Edric and Emira,” she sniffed.

“So I heard,” Luz chuckled. “What did they do to get Sir Bump all riled up?” she asked.

“I couldn’t begin to guess, the twins like to play ‘jokes’, which sometimes come back to bite them.” She shook her head. Last week they were confined to their rooms when they poured an elixir into the stew being made for dinner that made it congeal into an abomination, which the house staff had to chase down,” Amity said and Luz snorted. “The halls still vaguely smell like stewed lamb,” she sighed. “I’m just glad Bump showed up when he did, they were insisting on joining me for my ‘walk’,” she grumbled.

“You don't want to include them in your training?” Luz chuckled at the sour face Amity made. “Why not?” she asked.

Amity opened her mouth to speak but stopped short, jaw snapping back shut with a quiet click. She had just been about to explain her often strained relationship with her siblings when she remembered just who she was speaking to. Luz, who was still all but a stranger to her, an acquaintance, really. Why was she telling her any of this?

She just shrugged in response.

“We have a tenuous relationship at times,” is all she said and Luz waited for more but it seems that’s all she was going to say on the matter.

Luz frowned, she could feel the sudden shift in the atmosphere. They had been having a rather pleasant conversation when Amity had suddenly clammed up and Luz wondered if she had said something to offend her, but after quickly thinking over the conversation she couldn’t find fault in anything she said. She tried a different tack.

“So, are you ready?” Luz asked her as she led them to a secluded spot she had scouted out for them to train at, and Amity’s mood seemed to do another complete one-eighty as she smiled up at her, almost giddy, and Luz couldn’t help but think how pretty the noblewoman was when she smiled as opposed to scowling, as was so often the case.

“I’m more than ready,” Amity asserted, which made Luz grin.

They walked for a good fifteen minutes before they reached the spot.

A clearing, situated on a low ridge by the shore that hung out over the sand on one side and was mostly surrounded by large rocks on the other that would hide them from view as if the woods weren’t already doing so.

��We’ll train here, it’s away from everything and secluded so no one should see us.” She swept an arm around at the space and Amity nodded as she took it all in.

“Alright, I’m going to change…” Amity pulled the folded up clothes they had bought in the market out of her skirts and looked up to find Luz still standing there, looking at her curiously and her face flared hot. “Do you mind?” she asked, though it certainly didn’t sound like a question.

“No...” Luz shook her head innocently and Amity gave her a long look that made realization flash across her face. “Oh! Uh, right!” she spun around to face the woods and hide her red face. “Sorry! I just… with traveling on the road with my mentor the last five years… there was never much privacy to be had so we kinda just did our own things, ya know?” Luz scratched the back of her head sheepishly as she listened to the sound of rustling fabric.

“It’s fine…,” Amity’s voice is low and obviously embarrassed.

Luz anxiously tapped a booted foot in the dirt before Amity finally called out that she was ready and the human turned around to appraise her new student.

Amity was fidgeting with her clothes, she wasn’t used to such attire.

The snug, gray pants and leather boots Luz had insisted on felt strange on her person, but especially the double-breasted black jacket with the dark green piping and high collar that fit snugly around her neck and chest. When she moved the jacket's tails hit the back of her thighs with every step. She adjusted the magenta armband she had added around her left bicep, a small pop of her own.

Everything was new and strange, snug, but nothing was uncomfortable, just different.

“Well, you look ready to train,” Luz appraised. “For the most part…” Luz reached down to her waist and untied the second sword hanging at her waist and tossed the sheathed blade to Amity. “That’s my old training sword, it’s what you’ll be using for the foreseeable future,” she explained as Amity wrapped a hand around the blade’s hilt and pulled it free of its sheath, testing its weight in her hand.

“Training blade, hmm?” she mumbled, running a finger over the edge. “It’s dull.” Amity frowned

“Hey, it took me two years of training before Eda even gave me that,” Luz chuckled. “There's no jumping straight to the front of the line here, Lady Blight.”

Amity blinked at that. A knight named Eda, she’d heard that name before, but from where escapes her at the moment, there’s a nagging little twinge of familiarity in the back of her mind, but she doesn’t have time for that right now, they have training to do, she can puzzle it out later.

“What’s first?” Amity blinked up at her, as she tied the sheath to her belt and took hold of the blade again, ready.

“Well, first of all, that’s not how you hold it.” Luz walked over and wrapped her hands around Amity’s adjusting them on the hilt, warm, rough fingers moving her own hands into the correct places and once she was done Amity realized how much more natural her new grip felt.

“There…” Luz took a step back. Her stance was still wonky, but it wasn’t important at the moment. “Now try to hit me,” she ordered.

“What?!” Amity’s head shot up at that to look at Luz’s grinning face.

“Try to hit me,” she repeated.

“I’m not going to hit you with a sword!” She lowered the blade tip to the ground.

“I need to see where you're at and where we need to work, you won’t hurt me, I promise, now swing at me!” Luz again commanded.

“No!” Amity frowned. Even if the blade was dull, swinging it at her could still cause harm.

Luz frowned, tapping her foot before she got an idea, Amity had proven from the moment they met that she had a bit of a temper, and she was about to receive a first-hand lesson in one of the first lessons Eda had ever given her; how to exploit your opponent's obvious weaknesses’.

Luz walked a few steps over to the trees and scanned the ground before picking up a stick about the same length of her sword and walking back over, brandishing the stick like a weapon.

“Hit. Me.” she punctuated each statement with a poke of the stick to Amity’s stomach.

“Stop, I’m not going to hit you!” Amity grumbled, trying to swat the stick away, but Luz was much faster.

“Hit me,” she repeated stabbing harder still at Amity, who winced as the stick stuck her in the ribs.

“Luz!” she snarled, batting at the stick and missing every time as Luz circled around her poking her mercilessly harder and harder as she repeated her command to strike her.

Amity could feel her temper rising by a few more degrees every time Luz jabbed her with her stick. Her jaw clenched and her grip on the hilt of the training blade tightened. She knew what Luz was doing and she was not going to fall for it, there had to be a safer way to do this than what Luz was suggesting.

Luz could see it in her face, Amity was breaking, her temper was just about to boil over in a frothing rage with a little more prodding.

On the one hand, she was rather touched that Amity didn’t want to hurt her, but on the other, she found it laughable that she thought she could.

“Hit me, Blight!” Luz jabbed her particularly hard in the back with the tip of her stick and knew immediately that she had broken through Amity's patience.

With a strangled, rage-filled noise, Amity spun around, swinging the blade as though it were a bat.

Luz hopped back out of range, a grin pulling at her lips as Amity rushed after her, swinging haphazardly and snarling at her.

Luz could only grin to herself as she danced in and out of range, avoiding every one of Amity’s wild swings and intermittently poking her with the stick, just to add fuel to the fire when it looked like it was starting to dwindle. This was a test of stamina after all.

After a good five minutes of leading Amity around the clearing with her taunting grin and quick pokes with a stick, the noble stood panting, the sword resting against the ground as she tried to get her breath back and looking pissed off.

“Well, I can tell you that stamina is definitely going to need to be worked on,” Luz chuckled as she walked over to her.

“That’s not going to be a quick process is it?" Amity huffed, looking up at Luz as sweat dripped down her brow. Black might have been a poor choice in attire for training outside at the height of summer. The human crossed her arms and shook her head.

“No, you’ll just have to build it up as we go, but it means that our sessions won’t be very long until you start building up your endurance, if you overwork you’ll end up hurt,” Luz warned as she came to a stop in front of Amity, stick resting on her shoulder. “There are ways to help it along. We need to run.” she grinned.

“Run?” Amity grimaced at that and Luz hummed an affirmative.

“Yup, let’s go!” she whooped and took off, sliding down the ridge to the sandy beach below and tossing her stick aside.

“W-wait, Luz!” She sheathed her sword and quickly followed after her as she jogged down the beach with Amity trailing behind as they kicked up a cloud of sand with their boots. Luz was wearing a chainmail shirt beneath her tunic and still outrunning the noble by a longshot.

Her lungs burned as she tried to keep up with Luz as they dashed across the hot beach beneath the blazing sun, she was sure she was sweating to death inside the jacket.

So maybe there was more to learning how to use a sword than she initially thought, but Amity was nothing if not tenacious and resolved to all tasks she set herself to, and this one would be no different.

She wasn’t sure how long Luz made her chase her up and down the beach but it had to be at least an hour judging from the position of the sun overhead.

Luz turned around, running backward now to face Amity who was dragging through the sand at a slow trot rather than a run. Luz was exhausted herself but she did her best not to let it show, she had to put on a good face for her new student after all!

“Come on, Lady Blight!” Luz called, stressing the title. “Is that all you have?” She grinned and Amity scowled at her opening her mouth to deliver a scathing retort when the heel of Luz’s boot caught on a piece of driftwood and she went tumbling backward in the sand

“Ay, meirda!” she yelped as she rolled backward flinging up a wave of sand before rolling to a stop on her stomach.

Amity didn’t have the energy or breath to laugh, but that didn’t stop her from grinning wickedly as the woman rolled through the sand before finally landing face-down, flat on her stomach.

Luz grumbled as she pushed herself up onto her elbows and sputtered, spitting out sand as Amity came to a stop in front of her.

“Well, that was embarrassing…,” she mumbled, face pink as she looked up at Amity, who was panting, red-faced, but grinning at her. “Uh, let’s take a break!” she offered with a huff, getting her own breath back as she pushed herself up to stand, brushing off as much sand as she could as she walked over to the water and washed the remaining granules off her face and hands before plopping herself back down onto her butt in the hot sand, facing the sea.

Amity flopped down next to her bonelessly, cupping her hands in the water and washing the sweat from her face. The salty taste of the ocean water was indistinguishable from the sweat that had been dripping down her face for the past hour, but it was cool on her flushed skin and she sighed in relief. When it didn’t feel like she was going to pass out from the heat she looked up at the waves and the clear blue sky, it really was a beautiful day today.

Luz was contenting herself with digging through the sand till her fingers brushed something hard hidden among the granules and dug her fingers harder into the ground before lifting a whole shell free from its sandy prison. She brushed the remaining grains of sand off as she admired the shiny pink, and white surface, it’s soft spirals were perfectly smooth under her fingers.

“I love the ocean,” Luz said aloud as she turned the shell over in her hand.

“Hm, why’s that, seashells?” Amity cocked a brow at the human as she leaned back on her hands.

“Well, that’s one reason, yeah,” she chuckled. “It’s just so different from anywhere else, like a whole ‘nother world, with things you can’t find anywhere else.” She held the shell out to Amity who took it between her fingers. “I grew up isolated deep in the woods, I never saw the ocean till I started traveling with Eda five years ago.

“That’s your mentor, right?” Amity asked, turning the smooth shell over in her fingers. Luz nodded.

“Yup!” Luz smiled and Amity hummed but they said nothing more for a while.

“Alright!” Luz slapped her knees before she hauled herself to her feet and offered a hand to Amity, who took it and yelped as Luz practically jerked her off the ground effortlessly. “Ah, sorry!” she smiled apologetically. “I’m going to teach you some basic strikes.” she declared and Amity’s exhaustion vanished at that.

Luz pulled her own blade from its sheath, it made a quiet scraping sound as she pulled the blade free and demonstrated a few basic strikes. Which they practiced for a few hours, Luz using her own sword to block Amity’s strikes but nothing more. She corrected her footwork and form several times and Amity realized for all the books she had read over the years about the subject, and the knights she had watched compete in tourney’s, it was nothing compared to doing it herself.

They practiced till Amity’s hands were sore and her exhaustion returned with a vengeance. All she wanted to do was lay down and sleep. Luz seemed to pick up on her ever more sluggish movements before she called for an end to training, she was getting tired herself, though she blamed that on the chainmail she was still becoming accustomed to beneath her tunic.

“Let’s call it a day," she finally declared and Amity almost cried in relief, but she didn’t, though only just. She wanted to sit but feared she wouldn't be able to get back up if she did.

“When I get a chance I’ll set up some training dummies for you to practice on.” Luz scratched her chin as she looked around the clearing thoughtfully.

“Will we train here again tomorrow?” Amity asked her after a moment, sheathing the training blade.

“Oh, after how today went, we won’t be training tomorrow,” Luz said, looking at her.

Amity straightened, feeling indignation well up within her. Did Luz think because of her poor running performance today that she couldn’t do it, was she already rescinding her offer to teach her?

“No, I can do it!” Amity insisted. “Perhaps today had a bit of a rough start, but I can do this!” she insisted. Luz blinked wide, brown eyes at her.

“No, Amity, you don’t…”

“Just let me prove it!” Amity cut her off and Luz frowned. Amity obviously didn’t understand what Luz was trying to say to her. Now she understood why Eda had taught her with a ‘show’, rather than ‘tell’, style. Some things were just easier learned by experience, and though Luz didn’t really want to do that per se, it wasn’t going to stop what was going to happen tomorrow, regardless of whether or not she turned it into a teachable moment, so she might as well.

“Okay, we train tomorrow; no matter what,” she finished and it had a slightly ominous tone to it, but Amity got what she wanted and was pleased, so she nodded. Luz just shook her head knowingly.

When they returned to the manor she and Luz parted ways at the front gate and Amity hurried upstairs to her room, hand on the knob when a voice made her stop.

“Well, look who finally came home.”

“I can’t believe you ditched us.”

She glanced over her shoulder at her siblings, standing there looking at her from their own bedrooms, annoyed.

“You two seemed to have your hands full with Sir Bump,” she smirked and Edric snorted.

“He has no sense of humor,” The only blight son grumbled, crossing his arms and leaning on the doorframe.

“What happened to you, I thought you were going for a walk?” Emira cocked her head as she looked at her sister's disheveled appearance. Her mint green hair was slightly matted and damp while her dress was wrinkled with bits of grass stuck to it, but she looked overall pleased before the two of them had gotten her attention.

“I… fell,” she finally said and the twins glanced at each other.

“You fell,” Emira repeated, crossing her arms and giving her sister a long look.

“Yes, down a hill…” Was that really the best she could come up with? She scolded herself. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired.” With that she disappeared into her room, leaving her sibling standing in the hall in silence.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Edric asked, turning to his twin.

“That Mittens is shagging the cute new guard?” Emira asked and Edric blinked wide eyes at her.

“Actually, I was gonna say I think she’s getting more clumsy, but that makes way more sense!” He laughed. “Didn’t think she had it in her… no wonder she didn’t want us to come along…”

“Too bad… I thought she was cute…,” Emira pouted.

“You could always try anyway?” Edric suggested, looking at her from across the hall. “I mean, I’m not saying you should and it would certainly be a shit thing to do, but you could.” He shrugged. Emira scoffed.

“What kind of sister do you take me for, to try and steal a woman from my own baby sister?” She shot him a scandalized look that made him laugh.

“I was just saying!”

~ ~

Amity quickly pulled off her dress, training pants still on beneath. The jacket would have been visible beneath the dress, so it had to come off.

Just as she went to pull them off and she felt something in the pocket and dug her hand in to wrap around something smooth and warm before she pulled out the pink and white shell Luz had given her. She ran her fingers over the smooth surface. The pinks are bright against the off white and she admired it for a long moment before setting it on the table near her bed and finished changing out of the dirty clothes.

#Lumity #eventually #Luz Noceda #Amity Blight #Edric Blight #Emira Blight #fic #toh #the owl house

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cagestark · 4 years

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A Hole in the Head//3

Read here on AO3.

Peter stares at his reflection, assessing the image. The sweater he wears is dove gray, hemp-fiber and wide knit, giving a glimpse of his lean figure beneath—he likes the way it feels when he moves his arms and the knit brushes over his nipples (which are still tender from the loving abuse Tony delivered to them yesterday). A darling navy tumbled-fabric jacket and chinos complete the outfit, giving him a sense of elegance while remaining casual.

Usually he likes every item he wears to be on-brand, but Peter doesn’t own any Armani sunglasses. He needs the sunglasses, though. Today, he wants the extra security they give. He wants some control, wants his guard to not know where his gaze rests. So on slip the Salvatore Ferragamo sunglasses with the rose-gold frames, like armor.

After Peter’s embarrassing display yesterday, he’d spent the remainder of his afternoon and evening in his bedroom. He’d dropped after the sex, but only a little, lying shaky in a steaming tub while Tony fed him strawberries and licked the juice from his raw lips.

“Send him away, sir,” Peter had begged. “I don’t want a guard. I just want you.”

Tony smiles in a way that’s sad and soft and that Peter hates. “You didn’t feel that way when you were asking him to join us.”

“Do y’ think I’m a slut?” Peter asks. He doesn’t cry—but it’s a near fucking thing. Everything, inside him and out feels scratched raw. “Why am I still like this after what Beck did? What’s wrong with me?”

“Pete. Hey, kid, look at me. Look at me. Good boy. Don’t talk about yourself that way. Do you know what I’d do if anyone said that bullshit about you? I’d kill them, sweet thing. I’d gut them. I’d grind them into dust. Nobody talks about my boy like that, and that goes for you, too. You fearless fucking thing. God, you know it drives me crazy watching you lose your mind, no matter who it’s over. And I don’t think there’s a person in the world who could fault you for wanting Barnes. He’s art, isn’t he?”

Peter sits up, startled. Water splashes over the side of the tub and soaks Tony’s pants (the only thing he wears, tugged on hastily after their fucking) but he gives no notice. Pieces to a puzzle he didn’t know existed suddenly snap into place. “You like him too.”

“I like him as much as I can like anybody who isn’t you. I’d say it’s more lust than anything—some admiration too. I’ve seen him dismember a body in ten minutes flat, you know that? I don’t think he knows the meaning of the phrase weak stomach. He’s got my respect is what I mean.”

“More of your respect than Beck had?”

Tony sighs and lets one hand slip into the bathwater to take Peter’s pruning hand. “Short answer? Way more than Beck had. But Pete, it doesn’t matter anymore. Beck is deader than dead. Do we need to go and visit the hole I dumped him in to make sure? It’s been a while since we’ve visited. Maybe it would help you put it to rest.”

“And what about you?” Peter asks. He reaches out with the damp fingers of his free hand and runs a wet thumb beneath Tony’s eyes where the skin is thin and bruised looking from nights spent in insomnia and in poor sleep. “Are you resting?”

“I’m getting there,” Tony promises. “Barnes helps. We’re going to keep him, Pete. You’ve got to make peace with it.”

They’d spooned and spent the night in their room. Peter had stirred only briefly to Tony pressing a kiss to his forehead and giving him his love before leaving for the day. Plans are being drawn up for a Stark Industries tower in Manhattan, and Tony is up to his eyes with contractors and city planners and architects, spending more time away from the mansion in general. Though he doesn’t say anything, the knowledge is unspoken that Barnes is outside the door, that he will be Peter’s shadow from now on.

Peter is ready, though.

Every hair in place, he moves to the door and opens it. Barnes is there in the hallway. He has the room beside theirs to sleep in (and isn’t that fodder for Peter to consider when he’s jerking off in bed, thinking about thin walls and naked assassins tangled in the sheets), but from what Tony told him, Barnes doesn’t often sleep. The years he spent in Russia being trained in God-knows-what have changed him. It’s no wonder that most of the people in Tony’s employ speak of him like he’s a phantom.

Without acknowledging the other man’s existence, Peter goes downstairs and makes himself breakfast: organic overnight oats and avocado toast. Barnes takes up residence in a stool at the island countertop, eyes on his phone. He looks like a bored receptionist.

Maybe Peter should make things a little more interesting for him.

“I’m going to the mall,” Peter says off the top of his head. Because the best plans are the ones no one can see coming, including Peter himself. Barnes doesn’t flinch at the sudden words. His head turns slowly, eyes half-lidded as he stares at Peter blankly. Did they not have malls in Russia? Peter thinks with scathing glee. “This is me being nice and warning you.”

“Why?”

“Because you asked me to?”

“Why are you going to the mall?”

“To hang out? To windowshop? To shop shop? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“If you don’t have an objective, why do you want to go?”

Had he really spent so little time around normal humans that he’s forgotten the inherent illogic of them?

Something stirs in Peter’s gut, a strange mix of softness and exasperation. Like always, when he’s presented with two choices, Peter finds himself tempted by the worser one. He can’t help but put his hand to the flames; he loves being burned. “I just—oh my god. Look, I need to spend time outside of the mansion or I’ll lose my mind. I’m trying to leave in a safe way. Unless you’d like me to wait for when you’re taking a shit for me to climb out the window?”

Barnes shrugs one shoulder and goes back to scrolling through his phone.

Brown eyes narrow. If there’s one thing Peter does not like, it’s being ignored. It makes him see red, like blood is dripping down into his eyes. If you’re ignored, then you’re ignorable. There is nothing ignorable about Peter B. Parker.

“Shouldn’t you get a car for me or something?” Peter snaps. “Call me a cab?”

“I’m your guard, not your servant,” Barnes says, his voice rough from disuse.

Bust. Peter thinks for a long moment, chewing on his toast. At last, a smile spreads across his face. To his benefit, Barnes responds with a look of appropriate trepidation and scepticism. “That’s fine,” Peter says brightly, pushing away his empty plate. “I’ll get us a ride.”

Tony’s garage is fourteen-hundred square feet and houses six cars and two motorcycles. (His garage beneath ground houses much less legal and savory things, but Peter can’t open that with a press of the automated door opener) Barnes doesn’t look equipped to withstand the sunlight dressed in a black leather jacket that probably conceals far too many weapons and black fitted pants that appear too tight to conceal anything. Though judging by the organic bulge there, he’s certainly packing heat in a way that Peter would appreciate—

Peter opens the third garage door and Barnes squints into the darkness making out the shape of the Aston Martin One-77. It’s a beautiful car, almost supernatural with the allure it holds over most people, luring them in like fish to a pretty tackle. Barnes steps inside without being ushered by Peter. One hand reaches out to hover over the glossy surface as though he doesn’t dare touch it.

“You like?” Peter asks smugly.

“We’re not taking this,” Barnes says at length.

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t know the meaning of the word inconspicuous, do you, kid? You’re supposed to be laying low until Toomes is taken care of.”

“Come on. It’s New York City. Conspicuous is the new inconspicuous.”

Barnes doesn’t look impressed. “No.”

Peter prepares to argue but just manages to stop himself, gritting his teeth. Pick your battles, Pete, he tells himself. It’s no use dying on this hill. Not when he’s sure that he’ll find a much more satisfying hill to die on later in the day. He takes a deep breath in, holds it to the point of pain, and then lets it all out silently. “Fine,” he says at last. “We’ll take the Cadillac. Happy?”

“Thrilled,” says Barnes with all the joy of a pallbearer.

“You’re driving,” Peter says, plucking the keys off of their designated hook. He tosses them and Barnes catches them easily, the bastard. He’s so unflappable. Peter has no idea what it will take to get a reaction from him, but he can hardly wait to find out.

After adjusting all the mirrors and seats (Peter takes note of how far back the man has to adjust the seat to accommodate legs that are inches longer than Tony’s) Barnes sits stoic behind the wheel, unmoving.

“Any day now.”

“Put your seatbelt on.”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not twelve.”

“Put. On. Your. Seatbelt.”

“Make. Me,” Peter mocks. It’s worth it when Barnes reaches out faster than Peter can blink, wrapping a gloved hand so tightly around the seatbelt strap that hangs beside Peter’s neck that the leather of his glove creaks. The scent of leather and oil in Peter’s nose nearly makes his eyes roll back before Barnes pulls his arm back towards the console, jabbing the seatbelt into place.

“Safety first,” Barnes snarks.

Turns out, it’s a good fucking idea: safety.

While he drives them from the secluded suburban house into the city, he breaks every traffic law known to man. Maybe he’s doing it to frighten a reaction from Peter, but if so, he’s going about it in all the wrong ways. Peter is a total adrenaline junkie. The swoop in his stomach he feels at every descent over a hill, the way his body is pressed to one side or another when Barnes makes a turn at double the recommended speed—all it does is take his breath away, make his head spin.

When they begin to enter the city, Barnes is forced to adhere to more conventional traffic laws, but Peter is already looking forward to the drive home. He glances at the older man’s profile, not bothering with subtlety. Sunlight lights up the edge of him, emphasizing the perfect slope of his nose and the defined jaw.

“What?” Barnes asks.

“What, what?”

“You’re staring at me.”

“You’re hot. Sue me.”

Barnes lets a sarcastic breath come out his nose. Peter takes the lack of response as a chance to turn fully in his seat, the belt straining across his chest. “What?” Peter asks. “Has no one ever told you that before?”

“Told me what?”

“How hot you are.”

“Is this a real question?” Barnes wonders, face expressionless, voice unwavering.

“Very real. When’s the last time someone told you that you were hot?”

“About thirty seconds ago.”

“God, you’re no fun,” Peter says. “You’re like Steve Rogers Junior or something. Turn up here onto the one-way. I want to go to Brookfield Place.”

No matter the time of day, everything is always busy in Manhattan. The mall is no exception, and Barnes has to go up three different floors before he finds a satisfactory spot in the parking garage. Going into the mall with the other man is a downright surreal feeling. Peter can’t help but wonder what they look like together: Barnes’s hulking, gothic mass and Peter’s petite, borderline-preppy figure. But if Peter thought that he would get the chance to interact with Barnes here, he was mistaken. The man cuts away from Peter and disappears among the sea of bodies, probably to do something like maintain a superior vantage point. Despite being amongst so many people, Peter feels the keen sting of loneliness.

He hates when Tony spends so much time working.

Determined to make the best of his time, he stops by Davidoff’s and buys the cigars Tony likes. There’s a lighter too that catches his eye: S.T. Dupont, brushed palladium. Peter doesn’t know much about lighters except that he loves the way they look in Tony’s hands, the way he opens them with sure, practiced fingers.

Feeling a little cheerier (spending money has that effect on him, maybe a side effect from so many years of poverty in Queens, but Peter’s no therapist) he crosses over to the new Louis Vuitton store. Tony doesn’t step foot here—it’s ultra-gauche to him, and Peter finds a giddy little thrill in being surrounded by clothes he knows Tony would make a sour face at. He picks a few items that are the least offensive and steps into a private luxury fitting area.

When he steps out of the fitting room to test his stride in the tight denim pants, Barnes is sitting in one of the chairs with his ankle resting on his knee. He looks out of place among the luxury and colors.

“What are you doing here?” Peter wonders.

“I can’t keep eyes on you when you’re in a fitting room,” Barnes says around a scowl. “Stick to the open areas.”

“What’s the use of going to the mall if I can’t try on clothes?”

“I’m not seeing the use of being here at all,” says Barnes, tucking one leg up to rest his ankle on his knee. Peter grits his teeth. It isn’t fucking fair that the guy is so attractive and repulsive all at the same time, that he has a body Peter wants to worship but an attitude that makes him want to take the elevator up to the top floor of the mall and jump off. Splat.

Peter ducks into the fitting room without a word and tugs on his clothes in a cold fury. I’ll show him, he thinks, tucking his shirt into pants. Anyone who tries to fit a collar around Peter’s neck finds that he’s not afraid to pull on the leash, even if it’s a bad idea, even if it chokes himself. Barnes will see.

When he comes out dressed, Barnes lifts both eyebrows.

“I’m going to go and get a shirt to match those pants.”

“No,” Barnes says, slowly, like Peter is a child. “We’re leaving.”

“One more shirt, and I’ll go without a fuss.”

Barnes weighs his options, gray eyes flickering from side to side while he thinks. At last, he says, “Be quick, kid. Or else.”

As soon as Peter is free of the fitting room, he turns towards the doors of the store and begins to walk briskly. Once he’s free of the store itself, he lets himself jog to the escalator. He goes up to the top floor to throw Barnes off in case he’s already looking, ducking into the stairwell and then sprinting down them to the ground floor, narrowly avoiding bumping into a man counting his change at the vending machine.

The feeling inside him is like euphoria. It’s the way he felt in the car with Barnes behind the wheel taking turns at ninety miles per hour. He imagines that he can already hear the pounding of boots behind him, but when he turns around, there is no one there. Barnes is probably just realizing that Peter made a run for it, and when he catches the younger man (when, Peter notes distantly, even in his mind he knows now that he will never be able to escape the man, he is always the rabbit running just out of reach of the dog’s jaws) the punishment—well Peter can hardly imagine what he’s in for.

Peter comes out of the mall and into the sunlight. He turns away from the parking garage and begins to stroll down the street, hoping to god no civilians passing by take note of his half-hard cock. Heart pounding, Peter glances back over his shoulder, looking for a figure dressed in black and towering over the others, but there is no sign of the assassin—

Until a hand grips his wrist and pulls him into an alleyway.

The breath goes from Peter’s lungs and for a moment he feels true fear. He goes for his strap but the figure knocks him off balance, urging him further into the darkness and away from any prying eyes who might glance down the alley. A body presses him into the brick wall of the building, skewing his sunglasses.

The hand that rests palm flat on the bricks beside Peter’s face is gloved in black leather.

“You think this is fucking funny?” Barnes whispers hotly into Peter’s ear.

“Maybe not funny, but I’m having a good ti—ow, fuck, watch it!” Barnes grabs the sunglasses and crushes them in his hand, glass littering the ground. “You asshole! Those were four hundred dollars!”

The pressure against his back increases until he struggles to take in a breath. Gasping for air, Peter grabs at the wrist beside his face, struggling to make known his urgency. All at once, Barnes turns him around so they face each other, the back of Peter’s head thudding against the brick wall. He grits his teeth against the pain and goes to knee the taller man in the balls. But it’s a move Barnes has been expecting, kicking Peter’s legs apart and planting himself between his thighs.

The position is more than intimate. There’s no way Barnes can’t feel Peter’s erection, pinning his pelvis to the wall the way he is. Their chests brush with every breath, and one of those strong, leather clad forearms presses against Peter’s throat, a threat that has his blood singing.

“Do you want to die?” Barnes asks him through his teeth. “Because this is how it happens. By not listening to me. By running from me. Tony told me you were smart, but all I see is a little boy playing grown-up games. It’ll break your daddy’s heart when Toomes gets his hands on you, and who do you think he’s going to blame? His brainless little baby? Or me?”

It’s a good thing Barnes’s arm cuts off Peter’s ability to speak, because at least that way he can blame it on anything but the shame he feels, the embarrassment that ties his tongue. He struggles and writhes more out of instinct than real hope of escape, and during one undulation, his stomach brushes against a distinct hardness.

Peter freezes, eyes wide. Barnes’s eyes expand fractionally before narrowing even more, his jaw working as he grits his teeth. Arching more, Peter makes contact again. Barnes pulls him away from the wall for just an instant before jerking him back in admonishment. The rough bricks catch his hair and make his head ache, but it’s secondary. It’s all secondary.

Because Barnes is hard.

Peter begins to laugh. Even when the forearm pressed against his throat presses forward maliciously until no more noise can slip past his lips, Peter can’t stop shaking. Head spinning, Barnes gives him space to breathe before he can slip into unconsciousness and Peter gasps for air only to give it up again in laughter.

Winning is so fucking sweet.

“I finally got a reaction out of you,” Peter rasps, eyes wet from the hilarity of it all. He bends at the waist, gagging, working to catch his breath. The whole time, Barnes watches with an expression that Peter can’t deduce, head tilted as if Peter is some microbe beneath a microscope that needs further studying.

“Oh, right,” Barnes says at last, mouth curling upwards cruelly. He takes a step back to lean against the opposite brick wall, lounging there in a way that looks far too comfortable. Doubt sprouts in Peter’s mind and sours the joy of his victory. Whatever is brewing behind Barnes’s empty, smug eyes isn’t something Peter’s going to like. “I forgot. About your self-esteem issues.”

That sucks the last bit of laughter from Peter’s lungs. “Excuse me?”

Barnes crosses his arms. At length, he says, “Yeah. You know. How you correlate your own self-worth with the number of people who are sexually attracted to you. How if nobody has a hard-on looking at you, then you feel like shit. Because you are shit. That what you needed, kid? Needed to feel like more than just a poor orphan from Queens who sucks a powerful man’s dick to get affection and protection?”

Peter’s blood boils. He feels himself shaking, fists clenched tight at his sides. For a moment, he thinks about drawing his concealed carry and pointing the barrel right at Barnes’s pretty fucking face just to see the smug expression drain from it. “You’re just talking out your ass right now because you have a hard-on for me. Must suck being human like the rest of us!”

They’re both hitting new lows, finding cracks in the armor of the other person, because Barnes’s face twists into fury and he pushes away from the wall until they are nearly chest to chest again (and the size difference, Jesus, Peter has to look up at the guy, and that doesn’t even speak to how broad the other man is, bulky where Peter is lithe and willowy). Through his teeth, Barnes wonders: “What do you want from me? Jesus, if I knew you’d be such a fucking brat, I never would have taken this goddamn job!”

Peter pokes a finger into that broad, hard chest. “Right now? I want you to admit that you want to fuck me!”

Barnes grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him back into the wall, pulling Peter upwards so that when he presses their bodies together, their cocks meet. Both of them are still hard. “Fine,” he snarls, breath wafting over Peter’s face. “I want to snap you in half from fucking you so hard. I jerked off last night wondering which I’d like more, to cum in your ass or all over that smart fucking mouth. Listening to you and your daddy fucking made me harder than I’ve been in my entire life. Is that what you want? Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” Peter chokes, eyes rolling. His hips thrust even though there is no space, even though the man is front of him is as yielding as the brick wall behind him, the pressure on his cock making stars burst in the back of his brain. “Yes, I want it all, I want it all.”

Barnes drops him. The loss of contact has Peter’s head rushing. The man leans forward until their faces are inches apart, close enough to kiss if they so wanted, and for a moment Peter’s eyes even flutter only to be dropped back into reality when Barnes speaks: “But it’s never going to happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. This is my job. The last guy who fucked you on the job got himself killed, and I’m not looking to follow in his footsteps.”

Peter is left gaping as Barnes steps back to put space between them again. It had all seemed so close, but now it had slipped through his fingers like sand in a clenched fist, like water down a drain. His mouth opens but no words come out. No words.

“Get over it, Peter,” Barnes says solemnly. “And quit trying to get the both of us killed.”

#winterironspider #nff #mafia au #cagewrites #ahith

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worldwidemochiguy · 4 years

Note

Can you write BTS yandere reactions if you try to hurt them or even kill them to escape? Love your blog x 💜

ahaha thanks and here you go!! bc there’s seven of them and i wanted to do unique ones for each i kind of don’t stick exactly to the prompt, but i try to include at least one element of it in each thing, anyways i hope you like it 💞💞

Namjoon

“Really, Y/n?” Namjoon doesn’t even look up from the file he’s leafing through at his desk, despite the gun you’re pointing at his head. His tone is — as always — nonchalant, as if he’s almost disappointed in you for daring to challenge him. You feel regret curling its fingers into the back of your head, but you try to stay strong despite your trembling hands.

“Let me go.” You say, with a much weaker tone than you intended. He looks up this time, an eyebrow flicks upwards condescendingly.

“I have no intention of letting you go, Y/n. Does that mean you’re going to shoot me?” You whimper quietly, your finger loosening on the trigger guard. “I really thought you were more intelligent than that, but I guess you will have to be taught another lesson.”

Another lesson. Your mind flashes back to days spent alone, locked in a room so dark you couldn’t tell if it was night or day. Nothing around you, completely untethered and suffocated at the same time. No. Your muscles tense up and, without meaning to, you pull the trigger.

“No!” You scream, even as your finger tightens on the gun.

But the trigger has already been pulled. You squeeze your eyes shut, not wanting to see the bullet exit the chamber, not wanting to the man who’s tormented you splattered against the wall.

You hear a quiet chuckle, and the gun is gently tugged out of your loose grip.

“Silly baby, did you really think I was going to leave a loaded gun where you could find it? No, this was a test, and you’ve failed, Y/n. It doesn’t matter, though, I’ll just have to give you another lesson.”

Jin

“Jagiya,” Jin’s hurt voice caused you to whip around immediately, without realising the half-full vial was still in your tight grip. “W-What are you pouring in the pot?”

When you had volunteered to make dinner that night for the both of you, Jin had been ecstatic, content that you had finally settled into your place as his loving, doting wife. Little did he know that you had hatched a plan to poison him and run away. You had never been a particularly violent person, but you were desperate to escape. You had realised by now that Jin was never going to willingly let you go.

“U-Uh,” You stuttered, glancing down at the vial in your hand, “…it’s seasoning.” His expression instantly showed his disbelief and he stalked over to you, yanking the poison out of your grip and crowding you against the kitchen counter with his intimidating broad frame.

“Jagiya, when I trust you with these things I expect you to be worthy of that trust, not betray me like some common slut!”

The sting of the slap is the first thing that registers before the side of your face goes numb. He hits you again, making your head jerk to the other side. Hot tears track down your inflamed cheeks, exacerbating the stinging. Jin grips your chin roughly, forcing you to look up and into his manic, crazed eyes.

“Listen to me very carefully, Jagiya. If you betray me like this again, you will be the one who ends up dying. But it will not be by a quick and painless poison, no, it will be long and agonising. Is that what you want, huh?”

Yoongi

You slam him against the wall, hard enough to make the pictures rattle.

“Talk to me!” You scream, and your voice breaks on the last syllable, no longer able to choke down the sobs. But Yoongi just stares at you, silent as he had been ever since he discovered your plan to escape.

You had booked the plane tickets, you were so close to freedom you could practically taste it. But, on the morning of your getaway, you woke up in a completely different location. Yoongi had moved the two of you to a secluded safehouse while you slept. When you ran out of the door, he hadn’t stopped you, and soon you realised why.

The warehouse was literally in the middle of nowhere. You ran around for miles, screaming for help until your throat was hoarse. There was no one there to hear you. Eventually, night fell and you stumbled back to the only shelter for miles around, to Yoongi. For a while you were terrified you couldn’t find it, and it was hours before you were back and safe, for a loose definition of the word.

Yoongi has given you what you wanted. You wanted to get out of that house Yoongi had imprisoned you in, and now you were far away from it. You desired freedom, and now you could roam for miles, untethered. You wished to never speak to Yoongi again, and since the morning of your relocation he had not breathed a word to you, despite how much you begged him to.

He was, as far as you knew, the only living soul in the vicinity, and having him not even acknowledge you, especially after having his devoted attention for so long, was tearing you apart. And you had started to resort to any means possible to get him to talk.

“Yoongi!” You yell, wrapping your hands around his throat and squeezing as tightly as you can. He doesn’t react beyond his face redening, and you can feel his pulse weaken beneath your fingertips. You could just kill him, right here, right now. There’s no one around to see it. And after all he’s done to you…

You let him go and he slumps against the wall, panting slightly. You raise a hand to brush away your tears, damp on your cheeks, but it’s useless. They’ll be replaced by fresh tracks soon enough.

“Please,” you beg, staring at his blank face, “Please just talk to me.”

His eyes meet yours for the first time in this new hellhole, and you realise what he wants.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Just- please,” You bury your sobs in your hands, body shaking with the force of it. A pair of warm arms encircle you, helping your body to still and relax.

“It’s okay, baby, I forgive you. I’ll always forgive you, and you don’t have to worry anymore about your freedom, because I’ve taken us to a place where other people won’t even be able to touch us anymore. Do you feel better now, angel?”

Hoseok

“Y/n!” Hoseok bellows, and you feel that familiar helpless panic surge within you.

A man had approached you at your table when the two of you were at a restaurant while Hoseok was in the bathroom. You had immediately turned him down, telling him you were taken, and the man left disappointed. However, Hoseok saw the exchange and was convinced you were somehow cheating on him with that man. And now he was mad.

“Get back here!” He screams as you dart into the sitting room. You know running will only make it worse for yourself, but you can’t stop from trying to escape from him when he gets like this.

“Y/n! Stop this right now!” His enraged voice rattles through the walls and a second later, he bursts through the door. He sees you on the far side of the room, quivering in terror, and runs at you with his fist raised.

By pure instinct, you dodge his punch. Gaining awareness just in time to watch, horrified, as his knuckles crunch into the plaster. You think you can hear them break, and a second later, Hoseok has his hand clutched to his chest with a wail of agony.

“Oh no~” You whimper, immediately drawing close to him and reaching out to cradle his injured hand in your own. He hisses in pain and you look up to gauge his expression. It is full of discomfort, washing away all of his previous fury.

When you first started dating, it had been difficult to adjust to his constant mood swings, from loving boyfriend to violently jealous to depressed and insecure. Now, you were used to it enough to realise that you had to cherish moments like these when his anger had dissipated.

You lead him upstairs to the bathroom, whispering apologies whenever he made a noise of discomfort or pain. Soon, you have him sat on the edge of the bath as you dab a cotton bud of antiseptic onto his wounds. Three of the knuckles are broken, and all of them badly bruised. Your guilt is a heavy weight on your shoulders.

“I’m sorry.” You say quietly as he hisses when you apply the badages.

“For what?” He snorts, despite the pain in his voice, “For talking to that guy, for causing me to get injured, or for wrapping my wounds too tightly?”

“I-I promise you, Hobi, I didn’t want to talk to him. He approached me but I immediately said I was taken, just like you told me to say. But I am sorry for the other things, Hobi. I’m really sorry.”

He sighs, then runs his uninjured hand through your hair, petting your head softly.

“I only do these things because I love you, Y/n. You’re the one that does this to me, and you make me suffer all the time. Are you going to be good now? And stop making me do all these crazy things for you, huh?”

Jimin

“Aww, baby, you’re so sweet!”

You pause, incredibly confused. When you told your possessive, ridiculously clingy boyfriend that you were leaving him, and had booked plane tickets to leave the country in order to avoid him, you hadn’t expected him to delightedly clap his hands together and coo.

“Jimin… d-did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, of course I did, Princess! Oh, you’re so cute. I can’t believe you got us plane tickets to France to visit Disneyland Paris!”

“Uh, what?” Your brow furrows, “Jimin, that’s not- I got plane tickets for myself so that I could leave the country. Because of you. And these tickets aren’t even to Fran-“”

“Baby,” Jimin interupts, and you can see the danger on the edge of his loving expression. “I know you’re joking, but don’t upset me now. And getting fake tickets just to prank me is going a bit far.” He reaches out and deftly snatches your plane ticket out of your hand, before you can even react.

“I mean, who knows? You might even confuse these with the real tickets for our trip, so I’ll just-” He rips up the ticket. “-get rid of them for you.” He giggles. “You’re welcome, babe.”

You watch in shock as your freedom flutters in fragmented pieces to the floor. Months of waiting, saving up, planning, all wasted.

“Well?” Jimin prods, and you look back up at him. “Aren’t you gonna say thank you?”

You just stand there stock still for a moment, before all of that longing, and pain, and anger washes over you and, without even processing it, you’re slapping Jimin as hard as you physically can.

He gasps, and then runs out of the room before you can react. You pause for a second before running after him. You find him in the kitchen, stooped over the sink. When he hears your footsteps, he turns around and you see his lip is cut, blood streaming over his chin and down his neck.

You gasp, and running over to him and taking his face in your hands, all thoughts of escaping replaced with bitter guilt. You are so distracted with him that you don’t notice the discarded knife resting behind Jimin’s hand, fresh drops of blood gleaming on the side of the blade.

“Ah, you hurt me really bad, Princess. I can’t believe my perfect angel would do something like this to me. You’re sorry, right? Tell me you’re sorry. Tell me you love me, and I’ll feel better. Just tell me you love me and I won’t punish you, please?”

Taehyung

It has always been extremes with Taehyung. Either he was the most artistic, dorkiest, sweetest boyfriend in the world, or he could be violent, possessive to a ridiculous degree, and controlling over every aspect of your life.

You found yourself growing more frustrated each time he asks you about who your friends are, what they’re saying to you, when you’re talking to them. He doesn’t trust you, and whenever you confront him about it, he tells you that it’s because he loves you too much to lose you.

But that doesn’t make sense. You can’t have love without trust.

“Who is he?” Taehyung screams, and it’s midnight and you’ve had this conversation more times than you can count and you’re just so tired.

Your mom’s been calling, she hasn’t heard from you in a while thanks to Taehyung cutting you off from everyone you knew, including your family.

“It was my mom, asshole! I showed you the contact on my phone! It was my mom!” You spit back at him and he chuckles in fake amusement and you know you’re hurtling headfirst into dangerous territory but you just can’t stop yourself.

“Yeah? Well I don’t fucking believe you! Why won’t you let me call the number back, hmm? What are you trying to hide?”

“I just don’t want you calling my mom because you’re a creep and I don’t want you talking to her!”

He shoves you against the wall and your head swings back painfully. Before you can even register the pain, Taehyung’s lips are on yours, licking into your mouth harshly and biting so hard you taste blood.

It’s more of a fight for dominance than a kiss, and you’re determined not to lose this time.

You twist around and shove him against the wall, hard enough that his head makes a twin indent to yours, and you hope it gains him the same dizzying quality that’s leaking into your vision, so that you’re on more of an even playing field.

He smiles down at you lazily and you feel disgusted with yourself. What’s wrong with you? Deliberately exacerbating fights with your boyfriend just to chase the high of being fought over, the bittersweet pleasure of darkening bruises and words so painful they scream their way out. He smiles at you because you’re just like him, you enjoy the pain, and feel helplessly drawn to it. Maybe that’s why you just can’t leave him.

“Fuck, baby girl can give as good as she gets, is that it? You like a little bit of pain, huh? Well don’t worry baby, I’ll give it to you. Trust me.”

Jungkook

A snort is not the reaction you were hoping for, but it’s what you happens when you take a deep breath and point a dagger at Jungkook. The jewelled handle feels cold and heavy in your palm. It’s the dagger Jungkook keeps beneath his pillow each night in case of intruders, and judging my his little amused glance at it, he recognises his own weapon.

“So, what’s the plan, baby?” Jungkook asks you, remarkably calm for someone with a knife pointed at his chest. “You’re gonna stab me?” Absurdly, you nod when he asks you this. He laughs, then nods himself.

“Ok then, you’re just gonna commit a little murder then. Are you sure you’re capable of that?”

“…uh huh.” You reply dumbly. His eyes twinkle with mirth, and he continues his line of questioning.

“Alright then, you’ll murder me. I guess you’re not gonna clean up the body, considering you’re working alone?” He pauses for a response, and when he receives none he smiles to himself and keeps going.

“After that, where are you gonna go? What are you gonna do? After all, it’s not like you know anyone in this area.”

“That’s not true!” You pipe up, “My uncle Minyoung! He’s helping me leave.”

“Oh, your Uncle Minyoung.” Jungkook gasps in realisation and you nod again. “You mean this Uncle Minyoung?” Jungkook takes a Polaroid out of his pocket and hands it to you. You attempt to take it with your right hand, remember you’re holding a dagger, and take the photo with the other hand instead.

The photo shows a broken corpse, its head detached and pointed towards the camera. Jungkook is posing next to it, winking at you. Right next to him is your Uncle Minyoung’s severed head.

“Oh.” You say, and drop the photo. It flutters gently to the floor.

“Oh,” Jungkook echoes, “Well, what’re you going to do now? Your uncle had all the travel information, right?”

“Right.” You repeat distantly.

“So… how are you going to escape?”

“…I guess I can’t.” You realise, and the corners of his mouth curl into a smug smile.

During your conversation, Jungkook has moved closer and now stands directly in front of you, so close that the dagger is pressed against his chest. You watch as the pointed tip distorts the expensive fibres of his shirt. You wonder how much give they have before it tears.

Jungkook takes the dagger from you delicately, and then sweeps you up in his arms.

“Little baby, trying to escape from me? When will you realise that you will never be able to? You’re just so dumb! You’re lucky I’m here to look after you, or you really wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. You’re so lucky to have me around.”

#yandere bts #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts imagines #yandere bangtan #bts fic #bts #yandere bts x reader #bts scenarios #bts x reader

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