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writershapeholeonthedoor · 3 years

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You Marked More Than Just My Skin - Supercorp

Read it on AO3

Kara’s first instinct was to blame Alex because, if she was going to be honest, Alex was the one to blame for many of her stupid decisions. Sisters' competitive nature or something like that. That's what their mother would say when they were teenagers and they randomly started a fight. A just adopted Kara who had just lost her parents was not letting an overly cocky Alex win without fighting back.

So, naturally, she was going to blame Alex for this. However, Alex had nothing to do with Kara walking down the street from her job one day and entering the tattoo shop she walked past by every day on her way home. No, it had started with Winn, her best friend, saying that Kara wasn’t the type of person to do things out of impulse. Which he wasn’t exactly wrong, although he hit a sore spot because "I can be very spontaneous!" had been Kara’s answer and everyone around them gave her that look that made it pretty clear no one believed her.

Then, just about a week after that, Nia was walking home with her after a stop at Noonan's for their killer milkshake and saw the tattoo shop still open even if it was past 10 pm. There was no one inside that they could see, but the sign read "open" in neon letters and Nia did a double-take when she saw the walls covered in drawings.

"Oh, my God! Look at that thing!" she had screamed. And that thing was a fairly beautiful drawing of a girl lying in bed with a cloud above her head as though she was dreaming about a myriad of things.

Nia grabbed her arm, dragged her inside and, ten minutes later, she was sitting on a chair while a young man that couldn't be older than Kara permanently marked the skin on her forearm with the same drawing.

"Did you draw it?" Nia asked and Kara could tell she was just a little bit in pain because she was clutching the arm of the chair and hadn’t stopped babbling for two seconds. Not that Nia ever stopped talking, actually.

"No," the man replied in an excited voice. Like he was happy to be doing a tattoo on a girl that had just ten minutes prior decided she wanted one. But Kara held back her tongue, took some pictures while Nia made her goofy faces and sat on a stool at the corner like the good friend she was. "My boss did. She does most of the drawings we have available."

"Well, she has a hell of a talent!" Nia exclaimed, bit her lip when the needle hit a soft spot and flashed another smile once it was gone. "You should tell her she's amazing!"

Jack, that was his name, Kara reminded herself, laughed like that was a big joke that only he was aware of, but nodded all the same. "She's in the office right now, maybe she will stop by to hear you say that. She loves when people pick her drawings, but she will never say it out loud."

The woman, whoever she was, didn’t leave her office, not even when they left, way past midnight, listening to Jack's careful instructions on how to take care of Nia's arm for the next week. In the end, Kara had to admit Jack was a nice guy. And he did an excellent job. Nia's tattoo was perfect. Perfect for her and perfectly done, and her friend had no problem showing it off the next day.

"Holy crap!" Winn screamed when he saw it on game night on Friday. "I didn't know you were into tattoos. It looks awesome!"

"Thank you! And I just decided to do it," Nia shrugged, as though deciding to do a tattoo on a Wednesday night at 10 pm after getting a milkshake was a normal thing. "Thank Goddess Kara was with me so she could keep me company."

"Wait," Winn eyed Kara with the same incredulous expression from a week before and she immediately felt defensive. "Kara was there and didn't try to stop you?"

"She did say I might regret it," Nia conceded with a smile. "About ten times, but she stayed with me."

Kara rolled her eyes, picked up the pizza box and sulked on the couch while her friends made fun of her lack of spontaneous nature. Kara was a planner. And she had learned her lesson when she decided to walk to the park instead of going home one day after school and returned to the Danvers' household to find out three police cars parked at the street and a frantic Eliza giving them a photo of her and saying she had disappeared. So, yes, Kara wasn't one to do things out of the blue anymore, but that was hardly a bad thing.

She tried to tell that to herself for the next week while everyone still awed and cooed at Nia's tattoo. She tried to remind herself of Eliza's panicked face while James, with his impressive looking dragon tattoo on his back, said Kara would never be one to make a tattoo because she would keep changing her mind. She tried to picture Alex's disapproving stare while Nia's boyfriend, Querl, made comments on how he loved Nia's carefree and spontaneous nature.

In the end, what pushed her to do it was her boss and Kara couldn’t even blame her, or Alex, or any of her friends. But she would, anyway.

"Kiera, the reason why people hardly remember your name-" she wanted to point out that Cat was the only one who had a hard time remembering her name but bit her tongue instead "-is because you are so... blank."

"Blank?" Kara had asked, trying and failing not to look so offended.

And Cat nodded because she knew how to get to her. "Nothing remarkable. You use terrible sweaters and write articles that everyone could write. Did you ever do something, I don’t know, remotely spontaneous in your life?"

Kara was sure - or almost sure because you can never know with Cat Grant - that her boss was trying to push her to fly to Midvale to write about the scandal surrounding some tech company there even though Snapper had decided William would cover that for CatCo. It was either that or to make her wear something that wasn’t in pastel color.

Well, all it did was send Kara straight to a tattoo shop where she hoped to find Jack and demand he did something as spectacular as Nia's tattoo. And she went on a mission, marching down the ten blocks from CatCo to the tattoo shop - that only that day she stopped to read the name of and what weird name they chose, Le Vintage Ink - her feet hitting the ground with a purpose, her hand pushing the door open with a vengeance, her eyes narrowed behind her glasses with one goal in mind.

It wasn't Jack she saw, however. She didn't see anyone at first, actually. The shop was empty like it was a week before and very silent, with the air conditioner doing a soft hum and nothing else.

The anti climax moment was enough to make all her determination wave off. Her shoulders dropped, her eyes rounded, her feet started to stamp and her determination, well, she didn’t quite remember it anymore. Nobody needed to know, Kara told to herself. Nobody knew she was going to do it, so she could just turn around, leave, go back to her apartment and try to do some online shopping. Maybe buy a red dress for once. None of her friends would ever believe she went back to the tattoo shop, so there would be no problem...

No. That was exactly the problem. They wouldn’t even believe her if she told them. They would laugh, call it a bluff, and keep teasing Kara for not being adventurous like they were. Alex does this long motorbike drives all over the state sometimes, and James goes hiking and jumps from planes from time to time. Winn would point out that the last thing Kara did without meticulous planning was to change pizza night for potstickers and that was only because the pizza place she always orders from was out of pineapples.

However, Kara reasoned with herself, instead of doing a tattoo, she could just go with Alex on her next trip. Maybe she could ask James to teach her how to hike. Querl adopted a cat he found behind his building, so maybe that could be Kara’s unplanned moment too. And what did Winn do so adventurous or spontaneous that he had the right to make fun of Kara? She couldn’t remember.

Yes, any of those things would be more reasonable. She could even do an impromptu visit to her mother. It would count for something. She knew Eliza would be happy and she loved making her mom happy. She could even pick Alex's old helmet so her sister could use it to ride with her girlfriend, Kelly, and Eliza makes a killer chocolate pecan pie too.

Already dreaming with the taste of the pie crust in her mouth Kara turned around. She must have been inside the tattoo shop for less than ten seconds and Jack hadn’t shown up yet, so that was a plus and a sign, even if she wanted to greet him and tell how nice Nia's tattoo looked after a week.

The second her back was turned to the counter, though, she heard a door opening and then a voice filled the silence. "Can I help you?"

That wasn’t Jack's voice. That much she knew. What she didn’t know was that someone could sound so... husky and still be so clear on the words. What she also didn’t know was why her body froze like she had been hit with lightning. Or why she ever decided to leave when a voice like that was inside the shop.

It would be rude to just keep walking, Kara told herself and even she knew it was a lame excuse for wanting to see the owner of that voice. But she still turned around, eyes blinking fast as she tried not to miss a second of what she was about to see, and then immediately felt her soul leave her body. That was the only explanation on why her mouth fell open and why her brain's function slowed down at least 30%.

Because the voice's owner was... for the lack of a better word, striking. It was a woman, looking a few years younger than Kara, with dark as coal wavy hair falling down her shoulders, green piercing eyes framed by some heavy eyeliner and plump lips painted with red lipstick. The woman was wearing a black t-shirt from a band Kara had never heard of, the v-cut being deep enough that she could see a black bra under it. The shirt looked like she had been cut at home - maybe she wasn't designed to have such a deep v-neck, maybe she had sleeves at some point and maybe the deep cuts by each side also weren't a part of the initial product. But, damn, it looked great on her. Since she had no sleeves and the shirt moved as she walked and showed a great expanse of her sides, Kara could see that the woman’s body was covered in tattoos.

Her arms, from shoulder to wrist, were almost totally covered. Her left arm almost looked like a flower shop, with dozens of flowers in different colors drawn all over it. Her right arm had tattoos from her shoulder to her elbow, and they were a mix of chemical elements and computer parts that, somehow, worked together in all black and white. Kara got just a few glimpses of the tattoos on her side - something that looked like a cartoon character, another one that assembled a lake, a few words that Kara couldn’t read from that far - but that was enough to make her lick her lips and try to picture what else was there. There were no tattoos on her chest area, that Kara could see, but there was a small musical chord on the left side of her neck, and Kara wondered if she had any tattoos on her legs. She couldn't see them from where the woman was standing behind the counter, and something dragged her feet forward before she could stop herself.

"H-hi," she choked out and her face immediately heated up with embarrassment. Her sister would call it 'gay panic' and make fun of her for three days, and Kara was suddenly very thankful for being alone. "I, uh..." The woman blinked, Kara mimicked her, and lost every coherent thought inside her head. "Jack."

The woman arched one perfect eyebrow, resting her hands flat against the counter, and Kara’s blue eyes were suddenly very interested in the long fingers spread over some papers. The papers, she noticed as a second thought, were unfinished drawings, but she could hardly tell what they were. Feeling her face get even hotter, Kara demanded that her eyes moved up and she was almost proud of herself when they paused for only a second at the woman’s cleavage. Of course, as soon as her eyes met the woman’s face again, she had a tiny smirk like she knew Kara was having a hard time being in the same space as her.

"I'm sorry, love," she said and Kara noticed an accent behind the last word, like she had spent years trying to get rid of it but still couldn't brush it off some words. "Jack doesn't work here on Tuesdays."

Oh. Well, that's a bit of a relief, Kara wasn't going to lie. No Jack, no tattoo, and she still could say she tried. She still wanted to say ‘hi’ but...

"Can I help you instead?"

Oh, boy. Kara almost turned around and ran away right then and there because the things she was thinking this stranger could help her with were kind of mortifying. Instead, Kara bit her bottom lip so hard that it went numb instantly, and leaned forward until she was resting her hands in front of the woman's fingers. She dared to glance down really quick, just to find out the woman was wearing black jeans and boots, before she looked up again - with a quick stop at the cleavage because good lord.

"I don't know, I..." Kara couldn’t even say her own name if the woman asked at that moment, let alone remember what she was doing there and where there even was.

The woman chuckled then. A deep, husky sound from the back of her throat that brought a small smile to her lips, and then she ducked her head - as though she had no idea that was the most blinding smile Kara had ever seen in her twenty-six years of living. Neither the chuckle nor the smile was mockingly, and her green eyes were just a little bit amused when she looked back at Kara.

"Don't get me wrong but... you don't look like the type of person that would get a tattoo."

Okay, what is it with people just assuming Kara is too boring to do something? Kara took a look at her own clothes. She wasn't even wearing a sweater that day! Sure, beige trousers and a blue button up hardly screamed "living on the edge" but come on! Was it the glasses? Alex always said she should use contact lenses, but she liked the glassed!

Feeling a new wave of determination, Kara set up her jaw and crossed her arms. "Well, that's exactly what I came here to do."

The woman raised both eyebrows now, clearly amused. "To get a tattoo?" She asked like there was any other reason for Kara to be inside a tattoo shop on a Tuesday night.

So Kara nodded, her blonde hair wiggling from side to side on her ponytail, and straightened up her back like she was about to enter a fight. Not that she ever fought before, not even when the cruel kids at her new school would call her weird and push her inside her locker. Alex would beat them up for her, so she didn’t have to, it was fine.

"Yes," she said and her voice only trembled for a second. "To get a tattoo," she confirmed like there was any other reason for her to be inside a tattoo shop on a Tuesday night.

"Okay," the woman said, clicking her tongue once before she picked up a pen from the desk, a smirk permanently spread on her lips. "Do you have any idea of what you want?"

Shit. Kara hadn’t gone that far. Maybe not even her own brain thought she would do it because she had neglected the most important part of the entire process. She had no idea what she wanted permanently marked on her skin.

(Permanently marked also sent a thousand of red lights inside her head because, you know, it was permanent)

It must have shown on her face because the woman’s smirk became more of a smile, not exactly gentle but not mockery either. "What's your name?"

"Kara." She was so glad her brain hadn’t come up with something ridiculous to say. She could remember when she met her cousin's sister-in-law and answered the same question with "mashed potatoes" for some reason she would never be able to grasp. Lucy never let her forget that embarassing moment.

"Well, Kara," and Holy Goddess of all the universe and beyond, how could her name roll out of her lips like that? "why don’t you take a look at the drawings we have here, see if you like one. If you don't, we can always come up with something for you."

She then pushed some heavy black portfolio across the counter towards Kara and opened the leather front cover to show her the first drawing. They were all separated by plastic, and she started the task of turning the pages while trying very hard to look at the drawings and not at the woman in front of her. She wasn't sure because she wouldn’t dare to look up, but she could feel green eyes staring at her and her blush returned full force.

"So..." she heard after a couple of minutes in silence. "What kind of dare you lost?"

Kara took full offense on that, glaring at her for a moment before going back to the portfolio. She had gotten on the dragon section and decided to skip it all together. "There was no dare."

The woman hummed, watched her for another minute, and then leaned over with her forearms touching the counter. She reached out, taking the plastic from Kara's fingers, and started skipping the pages until they reached the flowers. Kara looked up, catching a glimpse of the woman's arm, before meeting green eyes with a light glare.

The woman shrugged. "You look like a flower kind of girl."

"What else do I look like to you?" Kara mumbled back and stubbornly went back to the drawing she was seeing before - the ships and anchors section - even though she left a finger marking the flowers page.

The brunette seemed even more amused now, barely able to hide her smile, and she chuckled once when Kara turned the page to see another ship. "Like you randomly decided to get a tattoo because someone pissed you off."

Kara tried not to give her the satisfaction of being right, deciding to focus on studying every ship and every anchor. She heard another chuckle, but the woman wisely didn’t push the subject.

"You could save us a lot of time by just going to the flowers."

Fine, maybe she was right about that too. Kara would never pick a ship, or a dragon, or a coffee cup, or any other drawing she saw before. Although Kara never thought what type of drawing she would get tattooed. With a sigh, she went back to the flowers, throwing the woman a dirty look when she huffed a laugh.

"Hey," she said, raising her hands in playful defense, "if I'm going to do something that you will regret tomorrow, at least let me help."

"Aren't you going to try to talk me out of this?" Kara asked, remembering when Jack asked Nia five times if she was sure before touching her skin with the needle.

"No," another shrug. "I will get my money and you will get the regret. Works fine by me."

Kara scoffed and shook her head, but finally spotted something she liked. It was a rose, not larger than a paper ball, black and white with a few leafs to the side. She was almost pointing that one out when she heard a deep sigh and looked up. The brunette was staring down at the drawing with enough judgment that Kara changed her mind in a blink.

"What?" She still asked because it was a beautiful flower.

"Nothing, it's just... does that even mean something to you?"

Kara looked back at the rose and frowned. "I like roses," she defended herself.

"I like kale, but I won’t tattoo that."

"You like kale?" Kara didn’t mean to sound so disgusted by it but it was stronger than her. Her face twisted in a grimace, shocked more than anything.

The other woman laughed a real laugh this time, and Kara felt the sound into her xcvery core. "Please, don't ask me to tattoo a burger on you. You're too pretty for that."

It was like she knew exactly what those words would do to Kara because she winked right after, making her blush ten times more. "What do you suggest, then?"

The tattooed brunette smiled and tapped her finger on top of the rose. "If you liked this one, it's fine, but I would go with..." She let her voice die as she started turning the pages until she found what she was looking for. "This one."

Kara looked at the drawing and was immediately sold to the idea. It wasn't just any flower. It was a plumeria. Well, two plumerias side by side, with a few leafs to the sides and a mandala carefully placed behind them like it was the third flower. She knew she wanted that one the second her eyes landed on it.

"It would look good on you," she kept talking. "I wouldn’t add any color, though." Kara kept nodding although she was only half paying attention now that she had found the right one. Her silence must have sent twisted signals because the woman’s voice became softer. "I know I said I wouldn’t try to talk you out of this but... are you sure?"

Kara’s eyes moved up then, metting slightly concerned green eyes, and she smiled. "Yes. I'm sure."

The woman studied her face for a few seconds before she nodded once. "Okay, then. Where do you want it?"

Shit.

The panic on her face told her out again and the woman’s laugh filled the space around them like a melody. "Come on, we can figure it out inside."

‘Inside’ being a closed room very similar to the one Nia had gotten her tattoo, albeit it was clear that that one wasn't Jack's. First, it lacked the smell of cigars and heavy cologne that Kara smelled last time and made her nose itch. But it also held a more personal touch like more drawings and a few words scribbled on the black walls. Kara didn’t feel nervous while the woman turned the sign from open to close, explaining that she was the only one who worked on Tuesdays' nights. She also didn’t feel nervous when she entered the room and spotted the comfortable chair she would be sitting on. What made her nervous again was taking her shirt off so she could decide where she wanted the plumerias to be.

She placed the printed drawing on several parts of both of her arms, her shoulders and asked the brunette to hold it at some spots on her back as well. But Kara was only satisfied when she put the paper against the right side of her ribs, a few centimeters below her bra. The woman gave her a knowing look and arched one eyebrow when she said that was the place she wanted her tattoo.

"Are you sure? It can be quite a painful area to get a tattoo, especially if it's your first one."

Again, she wasn't making fun of Kara and she appreciated it, but she also wasn't going to change her mind. "I'm sure."

"Okay. I will put the outlines, then."

It was only when the brunette had her hands against her side and her face a few inches from her chest that Kara realized she didn’t even know who she was. "Hey, I, uh, I didn't catch your name before."

Green eyes glanced up, bright and slightly amused, before they returned to the task of perfectly positioning the flowers on her ribs. "Lena."

"Lena," Kara found herself echoing the name in a whisper before she could stop herself. Lena looked up again, even more amused than before, and Kara felt herself blushing. "It... it suits you."

She had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but Lena smiled and tilted her head to the side. "Thanks." She pushed back the stool she was sitting on. "Take a look at the mirror and see if that's what you want."

Kara took a step closer to see her reflection and tried very hard to ignore the fact that she was standing in front of a stranger in her bra. The plumerias were exactly what she wanted and exactly where she wanted them, and she said that to Lena, who told her to lay down after turning the chair into an improvised bed. While Kara tried to find a comfortable place to lay, she heard Lena slipping on rubber gloves and moving a few things around before approaching her again. She was half expecting her to ask one more time if she was sure, but Lena said nothing when she touched her skin with the black gloves, and raised the needle to her eyes level to make sure it was ready to go.

Kara wasn’t sure if the shivers were from nervousness, the chill air of the room, or the fact that this very attractive woman was touching her just below her breast, but she did her best to ignore it. Lena had pulled her hair into a messy ponytail, Kara realized, and she could see her sharp jawline more easily now. She also spotted five different piercings on the woman’s right ear. For a second, she wondered if Lena could feel her heart beating under her skin or if she could maybe even hear it.

"Be ready for some pain, but try not to move," Lena said while she lowered the needle to her skin. "It will take longer if you keep moving. You also don't want me to fuck this up," she offered Kara a smile to let her know she was joking - at least that's what the blonde hoped for. "Tell me if you need a break."

So, Lena wasn't lying when she said it would hurt. Nia neglected to tell her about the painful part and Kara would make her pay for it by typing down her next article, but, holy crap, it hurt. The first touch of the needle made her jump and hiss, and Lena pulled it away like she knew it was going to happen, giving her a few seconds to recover.

"Sorry," Kara whispered once her body relaxed again.

"It's fine," the brunette mumbled back, totally concentrated on her job now.

It went like that for a few minutes - Kara squeezing her eyes shut, biting her lips, clutching the sides of the chair slash bed, and hissing under her breath whenever she couldn’t hold it back anymore. Until she started to get used to the pain and allowed herself to focus on other things. Her eyes trailed to the few drawings hanging on the walls, taking in the delicate traces and the lack of colors from all of them. She decided that talking would help her with the pain.

"Jack said his boss makes those drawings," she commented lightly.

There was a brief pause before Lena answered her. "That would be me."

"Oh," the blonde breathed out in shock. "So, you..."

"I'm the owner, yes." There was another pause while Lena cleaned her skin with a soft paper. "I used to work for a tattoo artist back in Metropolis before I decided to open my own business. Jack followed me."

"Well, you certainly have talent. Your drawings are beautiful."

"On paper," Lena teased and Kara didn’t need to look at her to know she was smirking. "Let's see how it translate to your skin."

Kara wanted to play along and tell her to ‘please, don't make something awful that would be permanently marked on my skin’, but she found herself saying something entirely different. "Plumerias were my mom's favorite flowers. My dad would bring them to her every Saturday after work because those were the first flowers he ever gave her." She could still remember her father getting back home on Saturdays right before lunch with a bouquet in his hand to her mom and a box of chocolate for her, all smiles and offering hugs. If she tried hard enough, Kara could still remember the smell of her mom's stew mixed with the flowers' smell, could still taste the chocolate. "They died almost fifteen years ago."

Kara had no idea why she was sharing those things with this stranger wearing black rubber gloves and breathing too close to her ribs, but she also couldn't stop. Maybe it was a tattoo thing, like sharing too much about your relationships while cutting your hair.

Lena didn’t shy away, though. She made sure their eyes were locked before saying, "Let's make sure those are perfect, then," and went back to work.

Kara felt herself relaxing more after that, although she didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. "I work as a reporter to a magazine," she found herself saying. "My boss is... both of them are impossible to deal with. I dream about throwing them into space sometimes, but... I love my job. One of them is the reason I'm here today."

"Who should I be thanking?"

Kara blushed one more time, even if she wasn't sure it was said to be flirtatious or if she was just imagining it. "Cat means well, she just... push some buttons sometimes."

"Well," Lena stopped her movements to look at Kara again, this time with a soft smile. "I will be sending this Cat some flowers anyway."

The blonde chuckled at that. "Go back to work. I don't want to end up with a dragon on my ribs."

Lena hummed, eyes dropping back to the outlines of the flowers and needle touching skin again. "I wouldn’t draw a dragon on you," she contemplated. "You're more of an iguana kind of girl."

Kara gasped in faked offense and turned her head to fully stare at Lena with narrowed eyes. "How dare you? You know nothing about me!"

The tattoo artist shrugged, not bothered by her explosion. "Maybe a kitty." Kara huffed and puffed, letting her body fall back on the chair, and did her best to keep frowning. "Definitely a kitty," she heard Lena whispering under her breath, playfully and amused, and Kara was soon smiling. "So... will your boyfriend approve this?"

"Are you fishing for information about me?" Kara teased.

"Huh," Lena sighed. "You didn’t sound this confident when you were stumbling over your words when you first saw me."

She was sure her entire body turned pink with that and she mumbled weakly that: "I was nervous about getting a tattoo."

"Yes, of course," Lena replied and Kara blushed again.

"No boyfriend," she ended up replying because the other alternative was to dig a bigger hole to herself. "Or a girlfriend."

She was ready for another teasing from the other woman, but Lena pulled back instead and eyed her tattoo with her head tilted to the side. "I need you to hold your breath for a few seconds, okay? I'm getting to a delicate part and it would be better if you hold it for, like, ten seconds."

Kara nodded and got ready to pull in a breath to hold it while Lena got her needle ready to go again. When the other woman said so, Kara took in a large intake of breath but, as soon as the needle touched her again, she exhaled in surprise when the pain shot to every nerve in her body.

"I know," Lena said. "It's the hardest part. I promise to be done with it as fast as possible. Can we try again?"

There weren't many options since Kara was already in the middle of getting her tattoo done, so she nodded and waited for the new signal. Kara grabbed the chair with both of her hands, pressed her eyes tightly shut, bit her bottom lip and held her breath for the longest ten seconds of her life before Lena tapped her skin and pulled away with a smile.

"There," she declared in her husky tone. "Good girl."

It was embarrassing how those two words made Kara react. She gasped, the breath still stuck in her lungs almost causing her to choke, and her entire body went stiff when a shiver left goosebumps all over her skin on its way down her spine. She couldn't see Lena and that was a blessing because she could feel the pause that her reaction gave the brunette. So, maybe that was a weird way to find out a praise kink, Kara decided while praying that Lena would brush it as a perfectly normal reaction to have.

"That was interesting," Lena whispered and, this time, the blonde knew she wasn't supposed to have heard that.

The blonde bit her bottom lip so hard that she could feel the taste of blood and she was totally sure that Lena could hear how fast her heart was beating. She could probably feel it, and, God, that was so embarrassing. Kara had half a piece of mind to just pull back her shirt, leave and never go back there, but the other woman didn’t give her time to react before she was once more piercing her skin with the needle. It was still painful, although the mortification she felt numbed it a little bit.

Lena didn’t sound so cocky when she spoke again and she even had to clear her throat so the words would come out less hoarse and more audible. “Just a while longer and we will be done. Can you handle it or should we finish it another day?”

Kara didn’t trust herself to ever come back – and not just because of what had just happened but also because she didn’t think she would be brave enough to get any tattoo needle to ever touch her again. So, she exhaled slowly and nodded. Lena went back to the draw immediately after that and they fell in a half comfortable silence until the trickiest part was over. Or, at least, that’s what Kara thought the trickiest part was because it hurt like hell and Lena had this crinkle between her brows when she glanced back that made her look... cute. Even with the tattoos and the five different piercing sets on her ears, the black clothes, the black room and her undeniable confidence.

It wasn’t until Lena leaned away to get more ink that she spoke again. “Plumerias were very common where I lived.”

Kara thought back on their conversation and wondered aloud, “Metropolis?”

“Ireland,” she corrected gently.

“Oh,” Kara breathed out and then hissed when the needle was back to her ribs.

“Not many people know I’m Irish, so I’m trusting you with this secret, Kara.”

She could hear the joke in the woman’s voice and Lena even poked her side playfully, and Kara heard herself giggling like a schoolgirl. “Your secret is safe with me.”

“That’s not how it works,” Lena declared with a huff. “Now you need to tell me a secret of yours.”

“What?”

“Yes, so we’re even and I can make sure you will never tell anyone what I just told you.”

“It’s not like you just confessed a murder,” Kara argued with an eye roll that was quite too fond to be directed to someone who she had met only two or three hours before.

Lena looked up for a second and their eyes met, making Kara’s face flush red. She was pulling a very uncomfortable position to keep her head raised and turned to the side so she could watch the other woman, and she had just been caught doing that one more time. “No? Well, you shouldn’t go to my office then.”

Kara hummed, trying to sound unimpressed by the joke while fighting back a laugh, and shrugged. “I knew it was weird I didn’t see Jack.”

The brunette let out a breathy chuckle, her hot breath hitting Kara’s side and making her shiver again, before she pursed her lips. “I see you’re too fond of Jack already.”

“Jealous?”

Lena quirked one dark eyebrow and gave her a look – the type of look that Kara tried to pull out her entire life while trying to look all sexy and misterious and was never able to do it – that made the blonde’s entire body warm up. “I’m the one poking your skin with a needle right now, so I think he should be the jealous one.”

Yes, Kara couldn’t keep up with that. She was weird, she rambled, she stuttered more times than not, and just, overall, was terrible at the whole flirting thing. Lena, on the other hand, seemed to be a master on it. Kara didn’t really stand a chance against it, not even for a second. She could try, pull out a word or a phrase here and there, but, in the end, Lena would find a way to leave her blushing and flustered so easily that made her head spin.

(She couldn’t be sure if Lena was just that good or if Kara was just super gay, but, whatever it was, it was working wonderfully)

“Now, come on, spill a secret,” Lena said after a long silence that stretched between them while they just stared at each other’s eyes.

Kara felt hypnotized by the green eyes and that was so unfair. So, damn, unfair. “I get my boss’ coffee order wrong every day.”

Lena stopped with the tattoo again to blink at her a couple of times in what seemed to be confusion. Then, she tilted her head to the side, glanced to the ceiling and opened her mouth as if she was going to say something. No sound came out, she closed her mouth again, and she looked so adorable that Kara felt her rambling coming to the surface again.

“Cat has this really complicated order at Starbucks that makes my head hurt just to think about. 3% fat, quarter milk, a spoon and a half of organic sugar, or whatever that is. It’s my job to get her coffee every morning and there’s no Starbucks close to my apartment, so I stop at another place called Noonan’s and get an order from there.” Lena still hadn’t said anything and Kara couldn’t bring herself to stop talking. “I used to work there, so I have a discount. I can buy a coffee for myself too with the same amount of money I would spend at Starbucks. And she never noticed it!”

There was a pause where Kara tried to come up with more things to say before a loud laugh cut the space around her. She looked at Lena with wide eyes and only slightly offended by her reaction, but the other woman was too busy laughing at her expense to notice it. The brunette used the back of her hand to cover her mouth while she shook her head and kept laughing freely.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said, waving her hand, before being interrupted by her own laugh. “It’s just... Fuck! That’s the worse thing you ever did in your life?” The tattoo artist looked at her again with her eyes crinkling at the sides and Kara felt her anger melting away.

“What? Did you expect a murder?”

“I was hoping that you would say you spit on her coffee, at least.”

Kara gasped. “I would never do that!”

Lena narrowed her eyes at her, a tiny smirk adorning her lips. “But you think about it, don’t you?”

“Every day,” she admitted with a groan, letting her head fall back against the chair.

The brunette laughed again and a cold hand came to rest against her thigh, making Kara’s body vibrate from head to toe. “I won’t tell your secret if you don’t tell mine.” Lena winked – winked – at her and Kara felt her throat too dry all of sudden. The woman chuckled again when the blonde gulped before she gently tapped the hard muscle of Kara’s thigh. “We’re done here.”

“Oh.” Kara blinked in surprise and her eyes immediately fell to her ribs. The skin was red and swollen, but she could see the delicate lines of the flowers and the leaves, and she was hit by the urge to cry all at once. She felt like a little girl again, being six or seven, and running to the door to meet her father, seeing the plumerias in his left hand and the chocolate on his right.

“Hey,” Lena called her gently, ducking her head to be able to catch the blue eyes again. “You're fine over there? I had people regretting tattoos before, but not so fast.”

Kara laughed and shook her head, trying to discreetly brush a tear from the corner of her eyes. “Everything is fine. It’s really beautiful.”

“Well, don’t say that before you take a better look,” Lena pushed her stool away and got up with a refreshed excitement. “Come on, stand up so you can look at it in the mirror.”

That’s what Kara did, sliding off the chair and walking with slightly trembling legs to the full body mirror that she had seen before. The fact that she still didn’t have her shirt on was in the back of her mind while her eyes traced the ink. It looked even better on her ribs than it looked on the paper and she made sure to tell the other woman that, earning a smile that she doubted she would ever be able to forget.

"Here." She turned around to see Lena's hand reaching out a piece of white chalk between her long fingers and sporting a kind of smile that Kara hadn’t seen on her yet - satisfied, the type of smile you give after accomplishing a task that meant something to you. "All of my clients have to write something on the walls. It's tradition," Lena shrugged in the end.

Kara’s eyes swept through the room again, taking in the black walls and words written in almost every inch available under a new light. There were small praises, thanks, some jokes and even a few doodles, and Kara wondered what she could write that could sum up her entire experience inside Lena's tattoo shop. She took the chalk more out of instinct, her brain still working on finding the right words, and Kara took a few steps around the room until she found the right place to write.

It was just below one of Lena's drawings that were hanging from a string, between a Scooby-Doo doodle and the message of someone saying they loved their new rose tattoo. Kara’s handwriting wasn't the best one - sloppy and crooked - and it looked even worse when she was trying to write on a wall, but she managed to write her first and last name to make it look readable. Then, she added her phone number under it and put the chalk inside the small box she found just beside her. Kara turned around making sure her body would cover what she had just written, suddenly feeling too nervous about it, and accepted the plastic foil paper Lena handed her.

"Remember to put on the ointment I told you about and keep it covered so it heals. It should be all healed in a week, tops. You're free to call if you have any doubts."

Lena led the way out of the room and they found themselves once again at the reception desk. Lena picked up the pen she had played with before and scribbled something on a piece of paper beside the computer while Kara reached out for her wallet in the pocket of her trousers. Their fingers brushed when she handed Lena the money and her face flushed red for the millionth time that night. Lena gave her a knowing smile before putting the money away and just like that they realized that they would part ways soon. A small part of Kara, primal and shameless, tried to come up with any reason that would make her stay for a while longer. Anything would do, really.

Even so, there was no reason for her to stay and Kara tried to mask her unjustified sadness by joining her hands in front of her body and forcing a smile to look real. “Thank you again.”

Lena waved a hand dismissively, the pen still hanging between two fingers, before her hand came to rest on top of the other one on the desk. “It was my pleasure.”

“If I regret it in the morning, I will come back with a vengeance,” Kara joked, swaying on her heels, and the laugh that came from the other woman was worth any type of regret she might end up having in the near future.

“As much as I would like to see you again, I would hate for that to be the reason you came back.”

Lena winked at her and Kara’s mouth hang open before she could stop herself. That made the brunette laugh in delight, made a deep blush rise from her neck to her cheeks, and Kara started taking steps back before she could embarrass herself anymore. Alex, Nia and all of their friends were right: she’s a gay disaster. None of them would be able to judge her if they just saw Lena though, of that she was sure.

Stumbling over one of the chairs, Kara let out a nervous laugh and, to her utter terror, she pointed finger guns at Lena. “Have, ah, have a good night, ma’am.”

She missed the door handle twice before she was able to open the door and, by the time she looked at Lena again, the other woman was smiling broadly at her. Ducking her head, Kara walked out the door and let it close behind her. Once the slightly chill air of the night hit her face, she closed her eyes and resisted the urge to hit herself for some very stupid decisions made inside that shop. She wondered if she would ever be able to live it down if any of her friends ever found out she just did finger guns at a beautiful woman as a way to say goodbye.

Well, to be fair, she wasn’t sure any of her friends would let her live it down when they found out about her very spontaneous tattoo.

God, Alex was going to kill her. Not for getting a tattoo, but for doing so without giving it enough thought. And, for Christ’s sake, Alex could be a real pain in the ass when she decided to lecture her for whatever reason it was. She was so not ready to deal with that.

It was only when she opened her eyes again that she realized she was still standing outside the tattoo shop – and that Lena could still very easily see her from her place behind the counter – and, with another blush, Kara pushed herself to start walking. Her apartment was only five more blocks down the street and she took that time to clear her mind from anything negative she was thinking about.

If her crazy and very unusual night taught her anything was that she had the thing inside her that could make her do some very adventurous things. She was capable of doing those things. Maybe randomly getting a tattoo wasn’t the ideal way to prove that to herself, but, damn, she had just renewed faith in herself.

Her poor attempts at flirting were the last thing on her mind when she pushed the door to her studio apartment open and stepped inside, making a beeline to where she had left her laptop earlier that day on the small kitchen table. She pulled a chair after turning the computer on and, reaching out for an apple inside the fruit bowl, she waited for the laptop to come to life so she could open a new file to start typing. She had an article to write, and a trip to plan.

XxxxxxxX

It was two days later – after Alex had scolded her for making decisions in a rush, after Nia took pictures of their tattoos side by side to post on her Instagram, after Querl had awkwardly given her a thumbs up, after James raised his eyebrows, after Winn yelped in shock – that something changed.

Kara was lazily reading something Nia had written so she could suggest some corrections before the girl submitted it to Snapper’s approval, when her phone buzzed from its place beside her mousepad – her rainbow mousepad, thanks to Winn. She picked it up, thinking it was Alex inviting her for lunch so she could yell at her a few more times, but the number who had texted her was an unsaved one. She frowned, but didn’t give it much thought before unlocking her screen to read it.

“Since you didn’t barge inside my shop to kill me, I take it that you didn’t regret it?”

The smile that curled her lips up came from within her and it was apparently too obvious because Nia, who was sitting across from her, gave her a weird look and arched one eyebrow in question. Kara shook her head, biting her bottom lip, and turned her chair around so the girl couldn’t see her anymore before typing a reply.

“I never said I was going to kill you.”

“The threat was clear to me,” came the next text just a few seconds later and Kara chuckled to herself.

“Please, don’t tell me you were scared.”

“Why do you think it took me two days to reach out?”

Kara paused at that. She had spent the last two days being sure that, despite their easy flirt with each other, Lena didn’t actually want to talk or see her again. So, to have her texting her now was really... reawakening something inside her.

“Who are you texting?”

Kara jumped on her chair, startled by Nia’s voice so close to her ear all of sudden, her phone almost slipping from her fingers and crashing on the floor. Thankfully, her reflexes were still working and she was able to grab it, but not without throwing a glare at Nia for scaring her like that. The girl gave her a sheepish smile, although she shrugged and didn’t back away from where she had perched on the corner of Kara’s desk to look over her shoulder.

“No one,” came the childish, and not at all convincing, reply and Kara didn’t need to look at her friend again to know she was busted. Now Nia was not going to let it down.

“Really? Because you have been smiling to your phone for five minutes and you just smile like that when Alex says she’s bringing extra potstickers for game night.” Nia smirked and leaned over, trying to read the texts again, but Kara quickly pressed the phone against her chest to block her view.

“Alex just invited me for lunch,” Kara attempted to throw her off.

However, Nia arched her eyebrows. “Really? Because I just texted Kelly asking her to go to that vegan place with me and she said she already has plans.” A pause. “With Alex.” Another pause. “For lunch.”

Kara groaned and turned her chair so she was facing her computer again, slipping her phone screen down on the table. “Fine, it wasn’t Alex, but I’m not going to say anything.”

“Okay.” Her friend gave up way too faster than usual and Kara watched her with narrowed eyes as the girl jumped from her desk to turn the corner back to her own cubicle. Nia was about to sit down when she tried to snatch Kara’s phone away with one surprisingly fast move, but the blonde was even faster, taking it out of her reach in the last second. “Damn.”

Kara rolled her eyes and pushed her chair back. She grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair, throwing it over her shoulders and slipping her phone inside one of the pockets, and threw an overly sweet, clearly fake, smile at Nia. “Now you will have to eat alone because I won’t have lunch with you either.”

Nia stuck her tongue out at her. “I will call Querl!”

Kara waited until she was safely inside the elevator before opening her texts again. There were three more texts since the last time she looked and a smile immediately spread over her face when she read them.

“Okay, I confess, I was a little nervous.”

“You still there? You didn’t change your mind, did you?”

“About the tattoo, not the... leaving your name and number on my wall thing.”

She barely noticed when someone entered the elevator a few floors below, too focused on replying to the texts.

“You? Nervous? You don’t look like the type of girl that gets nervous. And no, I didn’t change my mind about any of those things, actually.”

A new text only came after she was already walking down the street to Noonan’s, but she wrote a quick text to invite Winn for lunch before opening Lena’s text.

“I’m also not the type to text any of the numbers left on my walls. And good.”

“Do you get a lot of numbers on your walls?” Kara asked and she had to make a conscious effort to cross the street to Noonan’s instead of walking straight for a few more blocks to the tattoo shop. She could picture Lena leaning against the counter with her gorgeous smirk and her impressive tattoos – and even more impressive cleavage.

“Jack enjoys them more than I do.”

Kara was about to make a comment about Jack but another text came in before she could and she stopped in her tracks so suddenly that the man walking behind her shoved against her shoulder. She tripped over a few steps, but quickly held herself again to read the words over and over in disbelief. She hoped, of course, but that was... wow.

“I don’t want to be too straightforward here, or overly confident or something, but I have a client coming in five minutes, so I don’t have much time. This won’t sound romantic at all, but would you like to have dinner with me? Tomorrow?”

Kara didn’t have to think too much about her answer, of course. Alex would give her a piece of her mind for agreeing to go out with someone she barely knew – and ‘that’s the whole point of going out to meet people’ was not a good argument on her sister’s book – but Kara would deal with it later. Right now, she had a very gorgeous woman asking her out and she already knew what her answer would be.

“I would love to.”

“What? Really?” Kara chuckled at the rushed text she received back, but another one came just a second later. “Pretend you didn’t read that. I meant ‘okay, great!’.”

Chuckling again, Kara typed a new message. “I know you were the one who asked me out, but may I suggest a place? I don’t have a car and it’s close to both of our workplaces.”

“Whatever you want, just text me address. Let’s say, tomorrow at 7 pm?”

“Can’t wait.”

XxxxxxxX

“Hey, Kara?”

“Yes?” She asked, not taking her eyes away from her computer screen and typing away as fast as she could to be able to put all the ideas in her new article. She had never written like that before, but she wasn’t about to complain about small inspirations spikes.

“The front desk called and said there’s a pack for Cat downstairs. Can you pick it up?”

With a small sigh, not because she was mad at Winn for interrupting her but because she would have to go all out of the way to pick a pack she didn’t even know was going to come in, Kara saved her file and pushed her chair back. Nia glanced up and was about to remove her earphones, ready to follow Kara to whatever she was going to learn more about the journalism world, but the blonde made some gestures with her hand that she hoped meant ‘boring things, stay here’ before she started making her way to the elevator.

Jenny, the woman that stayed at the front desk, was kind, around Eliza’s age, and very chatty, which worked fine with Kara when she wanted to waste a few minutes talking along. “Good morning, Kara! How are you?”

“I’m great, Jenny. And you?”

“I’m fine. What happened? I recognize that smile.”

Kara tilted her head to the side, although she couldn’t stop smiling, doesn’t matter how hard she was trying. “What smile?”

Jenny narrowed her eyes and waved a finger at her playfully. “That’s the smile of someone who had a very good night.”

The blonde could feel her face heating up and a nervous chuckle escaped her lips before she could stop herself. She had been leaning against the counter, but she leaned her torso back and tapped her fingers against the hard surface nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” Jenny scoffed, rolled her eyes and started pulling out the packages that she would need to take upstairs with her. There was a yellow thing that was sent by one of the photographers of the last shooting they made, some letters and a few small boxes, which made Kara believe Jenny had been holding those things with her for at least a few days. Cat hadn’t asked for any of that, so it wasn’t a problem. “Don’t tell me then. You don’t have to. Is all over your face.”

Blushing even harder, Kara huffed an anxious laugh and looked down at the counter. She put one hand on her hip as the other one raised to push her glasses up her nose, but she kept her eyes down to avoid seeing the smirk on Jenny’s face. She would have to agree with her, if she did. Because she knew it was, in fact, written all over her face. She hadn’t been able to stop smiling since she woke up that morning – who was she kidding? It had been like that since dinner last night.

It had a reason – and the reason had a name – but she was not going to share any personal details about her life with Jenny. The old woman had the tendency to share everyone’s secrets – which was another reason Kara liked to talk with her so much, but she would never admit to being a gossip girl. She did tell Nia, mostly because her friend wouldn’t stop asking why Kara was fifteen minutes late that morning, though she had made the girl promise not to tell anyone.

It was still pretty new, she had argued.

“If you two slept together, it’s not that new,” Nia had teased back, making her face turn red so fast that James, that had been coming back from the bathroom, asked if she was feeling well.

Even if the whole ‘sleeping together on the first date’ thing was new to her, Kara hadn’t regretted it in the morning. Much like the tattoo. Although, it would be remarkably harder to regret sleeping with Lena when the said woman was spooning her from behind than it was to regret a tattoo that recquired a lot of afterward care. Either way, Kara was living the best morning in her life and it clearly showed on her face.

“Looks like you’re not the only one who’s having a great time.” Jenny’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and Kara looked up in time to see the woman pulling a big bouquet from under the counter.

The flowers looked cheap and scruffy, which made it seem like someone had just thrown them together without much care. They were yellow and pink daisies, the colors clashed and didn’t work well together, but the card hidden between the flowers was black and easy to see. She knew she shouldn’t because it had her boss’ name outside the card and it was clearly not for her to see, but curiosity took the best of her – that and the fact that the card had been clearly already open, and by Jenny’s face she knew who had done it.

“Thank you – L”

Well, that wasn’t helpful at all.

Sighing and feeling silly for stealing a look, she put the card back and started to try to find a way to pick everything she needed to take back with her. She knew there was a small cart some other companies in the building used to transport stocks and other products, but she was sure she could use her hands if she just pilled everything right. Kara had just come up with a plan when Jenny spoke again.

“There’s also this one. It doesn’t have a card, but it came with the bouquet. Same delivery. The guy couldn’t say anything about it, but I’m sure we can find something if we call the shop and...”

“I think there’s no need,” Kara interrupted gently, without looking up from the growing pile in one of her hands, but she raised her head eventually.

Only to lose track of every thought she was having.

Jenny had put a single plumeria on top of the counter. As the woman had said, there was no card or any type of identification – who it came from or who was supposed to receive it – but Kara connected the dots quite easily. Smiling, she reached over to grab the simple flower and brought it closer to her face to smell it.

“Oh, I see.”

“I have to go!” Kara said suddenly, knowing everyone in the building would know she had just randomly smelled a flower at the front desk that morning. “See you, Jen!”

The look on Cat’s face when Kara gave her the bouquet, not offering any other explanation othan than that there was a card attached to it, was worth every step on the stairs she had to walk up, holding the woman’s coffee every morning. As soon as she was back to her desk, Kara pulled her phone from her pocket and sent a text before Nia could start asking any questions.

“Thought you said that you’re not good with romance.”

The reply didn’t come right away, Kara ended up putting her phone to the side and went back to work. However, as soon as it rang beside her, she grabbed it.

“Guess we’re both learning new things about ourselves. Want to have lunch together?”

And, yes, she totally did.

59 notes · View notes

obeyme-kaidii-writes · 3 years

Text

Trust

Leviathan x gn!MC

Words - 2885

Content Warnings - angst, lots of comfort, platonic cuddling

Prompt/Inspiration - retelling of the events in Lesson 26 after The Incident at the carnival

Summary - Levi is busy working on the costumes for the upcoming school play when you come over to spend some time with him.

AO3

Levi was sulking.

Not only had everyone gone out to the carnival together, without even inviting him, while he slaved tirelessly over the costumes, they were now ignoring him and snapping at him every time he tried to update them on his progress.

Sitting in his room, he continued sewing the piece he was working on, mumbling curses under his breath all the while.

Stupid normies. Who needs them? Not like they would be able to fully appreciate all the hard work he had put into things anyways. At least Christopher Peugeot needed him. That was all that mattered right now. He’d do this play justice if it was the last thing he did. His useless, ungrateful brothers be damned. Or would it be “blessed” in this case? Whatever. It didn’t matter. He was not going to let them get to him.

A knock at his door interrupted his thoughts.

Who could that be? He never liked visitors and he was certainly not in the mood for any today.

“Levi? Can we talk?”

Oh. It was you. While he was furious with his brothers, your behavior probably hurt him the most. He had grown accustomed to your kindness and the attention you paid him, but you hadn’t stopped by his room in a couple days now. He was torn between turning you away out of spite and a strong desire to see you again, hopeful that you’d listen to him.

“Sure. Whatever,” he replied. He didn’t want to sound too excited to see you, he was still upset after all. But he couldn’t stop the stupid grin from spreading across his face, so he made sure his back was to the door when you entered.

Without a word, you made your way over to the beanbag chair on the floor, and pulled your knees to your chest. You grabbed the Azuki-tan plush that was nearby and hugged it close, burying your face in it. You had been trying not to cry, but now that you were in the comfort of Levi’s room, listening to the gentle hum of his electronics and surrounded by his scent, it was almost impossible not to.

Unaware of your struggle to fight back your tears, Levi finally spoke to you.

“So, what do you want?”, His tone was perhaps a little sharper than it needed to be, and he began to worry he might have gone too far and you would only be annoyed with him and leave again. When you failed to respond, he chanced a look at you to see if he could figure out how you were feeling.

You were staring at him, sure, but tears were streaming down your face. In fact, he didn’t think he had ever seen someone cry so much. His heart shattered. He had done this to you. He had broken you. He hadn’t even been that mad - he just wanted some attention and for you to feel sorry for him. But now you were crying and showed no signs of stopping and it was all his fault.

“I’M SORRY!”, he yelled, tossing the items in his hands aside as he moved to crouch in front of you, “I...I...I… didn’t mean it! Really! I’m not even upset! Just please, please don't cry.” He was pleading with you now, absolutely desperate to undo the damage he had caused. His hands were hovering over your shoulders unsure if he should hug you or just let you be. He knew he liked it when you hugged him when he was upset, but he wasn’t sure how you’d feel about being hugged by the very person that had hurt you.

You started shaking your head, roughly rubbing at your eyes as you tried to halt the flow of tears. You couldn’t form a sentence right now, you could barely even breathe, but you needed to let your best friend know that he wasn’t to blame. Giving up on getting the tears to stop, you opted to instead just throw your arms around Levi’s neck and cling to him for dear life.

Levi was stunned at your sudden movement, but he soon recovered enough to return your hug, and he began to rub soothingly on your back as you cried your eyes out. He really wasn’t sure what else to do at this point besides sit there and hold you. You always seemed to know just what to say to him to calm him down, but he was at a complete loss as to how he should help you.

After awhile your tears had finally dried up, and your breathing had begun to even out once more. Your chest hurt, your throat burned, and your eyes ached. This wasn’t how you had meant for this to go. You had wanted to apologize to him, but here you were instead crying in his arms as he apologized to you when he hadn’t even done anything wrong.

Slowly you pulled back so you could look at him. You really had to talk to him now and say what you had come here to say. He deserved that much. You knew how hard he was working on the costumes, and how excited he had been about them. And you wanted him to know that too. He needed to know that.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered. Your throat was still dry and raw and you didn’t think you could speak any louder if you tried. You looked up at Levi, making eye contact with him for the first time, to see if he heard you.

He had heard you alright and he wasn’t sure how to respond. His hands were resting on your shoulders now and he just looked so confused. You couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of him, giggling uncontrollably at his attempts to puzzle out what he was supposed to do now.

While you had been crying he had rehearsed several different scenarios in his head as to how this would play out, and he honestly hadn’t even considered you breaking down in a fit of giggles.

You showed him some mercy though, and wrapped your arms around his neck again, in a gentle hug this time. Smiling, you pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you Levi. Sorry about that. I guess I had just let everything build up too much and it finally came bursting out.”

You sat back on the bean bag, and offered him a sheepish grin. You took his hands in yours, resting them in your lap, as you rubbed the backs of them with your thumbs. You were rather embarrassed by your behavior, if you were being honest. It wasn’t that you had a problem crying in front of him or his brothers, but you had never broken down so completely before.

“Um yeah. It’s fine.”

“Guess I should tell you why I came here huh?”

He gave you a small nod, encouraging you to continue.

“I wanted to apologize to you. I should have made sure you had been invited to join us once everyone else had showed up. And I should have made more of an effort to talk to you afterwards. I promise you didn’t miss out on anything, and if I had my way, I would have been here with you instead of out there. So, I’m sorry, Levi,” you took a breath before continuing, “And I also wanted to make sure you knew how amazing I think it is that you’re designing and creating all these costumes yourself. That’s not something just anyone could do.”

You were looking down at his hands as you played with them, waiting for his response. You were the one that messed up, and you didn’t want to pressure him or make him uncomfortable by forcing eye contact on him.

“It’s ok. I mean, it’s just me anyways. Who can blame you for not noticing the absence of one otaku?”

Your head snapped up to look at him. But he wasn’t upset like you had imagined, instead he was smiling at you. He was trying to comfort you. You returned his grin with one of your own.

“Well, you are my favorite otaku after all, so of course I missed you.”

That response made him blush, and you laughed as he averted his gaze in embarrassment. No matter how many times you complimented him, he still wasn’t used to it when you were so direct. He wasn’t really going to complain though. He liked hearing those things, a fact he was determined to keep to himself under pain of death.

“So what did happen at the carnival? Everyone else seems to be in a pretty rotten mood too.”

Your smile fell, and the blood drained from your face. Why did he have to ask you that? That was half the reason you had taken refuge in his room anyways. The awkwardness with which everyone else had been treating you since then had left you feeling so lonely and isolated. To make matters worse, Mammon, who was usually constantly at your side, now seemed to be avoiding you.

“Uhh. Sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I get it if it’s something you don’t want me to know. I mean, it’s not like it’s any of my business…”

Levi had started to ramble. He knew he was rambling. He wanted to stop, but his mouth kept on going. Frankly he was afraid if he did stop talking you might start crying again, and he really wasn’t equipped to handle another breakdown. He’d probably start sobbing right along with you if you did.

Seeing how desperately Levi was trying to backtrack, you made the decision to just tell him the truth. There was no use hiding it. It was only a matter of time before one of his brothers explained the situation to him, or he overheard them talking. And you were sure they were talking.

“Well,” you started, giving Levi a moment to settle down, “you know how Beel gets when he’s really, really hungry?” Levi nodded. “He got like that at the restaurant we had met up at. And long story short, the situation quickly dissolved into chaos with food and plates flying everywhere as your brothers one by one also got pulled into the fight, and the ghost servers returned fire.”

Levi could certainly see what you meant when you said he hadn’t missed out on anything. That did not sound even remotely close to his idea of a good time. At least not in public anyways. He imagined chucking a pie at Mammon’s face in the dining room and the thought made him smile.

You sighed, and looked at your lap where Levi’s hands still rested in yours. Now you had to tell him the part you had been dreading the most. The part that had left you feeling scared, confused, and alone. Sensing your hesitation, Levi gave your hands a small squeeze to remind you he was there.

“I...I used my pacts to stop them.”

Levi started to nod in understanding, when he suddenly realized what you had said and the implications, “Wait what?! But I thought you couldn’t use magic? And you stopped them? ALL of them? At the same time? Even LUCIFER?!”

You flinched as Levi raised his voice in his excitement. You didn’t know it was excitement though. Tears started to gather in your eyes again as you were sure he was about to pull away. The only thing you could do was grip his hands tighter, hoping to keep him there with you just a little longer.

“That’s so awesome! I can’t believe it! You stopped Lucifer?? This is amazing. Do you know that that means? Your magic must be ridiculously strong. This is just like that one anime I told you about, you know? The heroine thought she was just a normal, boring high schooler. Then BAM! She discovered her magic through the power of love!”

Levi was in awe of you, and seeing and hearing his enthusiasm sent a wave of relief washing over you. You looked at him as he carried on, and couldn’t help but smile. That was your Levi. You should have known he would be supportive, and accepting. He knew what it was like to be excluded after all, and he also knew the pain of struggling to control his own powers.

“Wait. But why would that make you so upset? That’s a good thing isn’t it? It means you’re getting stronger and will be safer here, doesn’t it?”

Ah. There it is. The other question you had been hoping to avoid. But you were feeling a bit more confident now after opening up about everything else, and didn’t hesitate to answer him.

“I think your brothers are upset with me. Hurt? Angry? I don’t know. They have hardly spoken to me since then. I mean, there’s polite conversation and all, but it just feels different. Like maybe they don’t trust me as much anymore? Or maybe they’re scared of me?

I’ve never really used my pacts before now. They were just symbolic of our connection more than anything. But now...now I used it against them. I controlled them. I forced them to do something against their wills. I can’t honestly expect for them to just treat me the same after that, right? Who would want to be around someone like that, who could just force them to do whatever they wanted…”

Your voice trailed off now into a whisper, and Levi began to understand the gravity of the situation. Or at least your perception of it. He was positive his brothers would never hold what happened against you. Especially Mammon, the known masochist, who probably got a boner about the whole thing. And the way you tell the story, it sounds like all you did was stop them from tearing apart a public restaurant, something Lucifer would likely be thankful for. And surely Beel would be glad someone stopped him before anyone got hurt. No, there had to be more to this than what you were seeing. Something else was going on and causing their strange behavior.

“Levi? You aren’t scared of me, are you?”

Levi blinked and realized you were looking at him again, anxiously awaiting a response. Scared of you? Hah. Yeah he was scared of you, but for an entirely different reason than what you were imagining right now. He was scared you’d forget about him, or leave him behind some day, or just disappear and break his heart. What he wasn’t scared of was you using his pact on him. By now, he trusted you completely, and he knew you’d never use it to make him do something he’d regret.

“No, I’m not,” he replied, forcing himself to maintain eye contact so you could see just how sincere he was, despite the deep blush spreading across his cheeks.

This time he leaned forward and wrapped you up in a hug. You felt so small right now. Usually you were so confident and self assured. You were the one everyone turned to when they needed help, but now the weight of your worries seemed to be pulling you down to that same dark place Levi often found himself.

Resting his cheek on your head, as your arms slipped around his waist, he made you an offer:

“Hey, why don’t you stay here tonight?” his arms tightened around you to make sure you couldn’t turn to see his face. He didn’t want you to know how embarrassed he was at having said that, “Just so you’re not alone I mean. You can sleep in the tub. I’ll be working on these costumes some more, so you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” you chuckled, imagining how he must look right now. You could feel his arms holding you firmly in place to be sure you couldn’t check either.

He let you go, standing up and heading towards his closet to pick out some blankets for you. He didn’t want to just assume you’d be ok with using his blankets and pillows, after all. Even if you had slept over before after a long night of gaming or an anime marathon and never complained. He was sure he smelled, being the yucky otaku that he was.

When he returned, you were nowhere to be found. I guess I did creep you out, he thought. Right as he was about to admit defeat however, he realized that you weren’t the only thing that was missing - Azuki-tan was too. Slightly confused, Levi walked towards the center of his room where he had last seen her, and it was then he spotted you.

You were curled up in his tub, hugging Azuki-tan to your chest, while resting your head on his Ruri-chan body pillow and cocooned in his favorite blanket. He stared at you for a moment, before realizing that you were already fast asleep, clearly exhausted at this point from all the crying you had done earlier and the guilt you had been carrying. He smiled softly, feeling a warmth spread throughout his chest. You were his Henry, and he was going to make sure you would never regret choosing him.

#gn!mc #platonic levi #platonic relationships #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me levi #levi x mc #obey me fanfic #levi fanfic #obey me comfort #levi comfort

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apageinthecastle · 3 years

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A Quarantined Reunion - Chapter One: An Apple Pie Kind of Day

Karen Page and Frank Castle haven't seen each other since their exchange at the hospital. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, the two have been brought together again and have no choice but to quarantine together. What will come of the reunion?

Karen slipped her heels on, reaching for the hook where she always kept her keys and, thanks to this pandemic, her mask. Grabbing her purse off of the table by the door, she started out, careful to lock up behind her. She looped her mask over her ears, adjusting it as she left the building.

It had been months since this pandemic had started, with no end in sight. All of New York City was on lockdown except for essential errands only. It was the empty refrigerator that had Karen currently outside of the walls she’d been confined to for the last few weeks. Even her job with the Bulletin had gone completely remote.

She hurried quickly down the street to the grocery store just a fifteen minute walk from her apartment. Hell’s Kitchen was too quiet for the former Vermont woman. It had taken her months to get used to the noise of the bustling city and now that it was gone, she desperately wanted it back. New York, and it’s loudness, had become a warm familiarity that was now missing from her nights.

Frank adjusted the mask on his face for what must have been the tenth time in the short distance between his apartment door and the street below. When the lockdown was first initiated, the pandemic had only been expected to last a few weeks – Hell’s Kitchen residents were hopeful that life as they knew it would return to something next to normal by the end of Spring Break. After a short reprieve from full lockdown, December saw the restrictions return full-force. Easy enough to lay low when everyone else is doing the same, Frank thought to himself. Still, a creature of habit, he was annoyed with the constant change in pandemic rules and regulations.

In the midst of the neverending flux around him, however, at least one thing had remained the same: the weekly walk to 5 Napkin for a Double 5 Cheeseburger Smash and Bourbon spiked S’mores shake. If he was in a particularly annoyed mood, he might even add a slice of apple pie. Yeah, he decided as he shoved his hands in his pockets against the mid-December cold, it is definitely an apple pie kinda day.

Karen breathed into her hands as she walked, pulling her scarf a little tighter around her neck. Yes, she’d grown up even further North than her current residence, but eventually cold was just cold. Today was one of those days and she’d forgone the gloves, per usual. In the event she did need to use the firearm she concealed in her purse, it was much easier to do without fabric to get in the way.

For all the attention the woman usually paid, the empty streets had lowered her guard. She allowed herself to become absorbed in her thoughts as she walked, musing over her newest assignment from Ellison. Consumed in her own head, the hand that grabbed her by the arm and yanked her into a small space between buildings caught her completely by surprise.

It took a moment to register what was happening - the police officer shoving her against the bricks behind her, pinning her with his body. She didn’t have an opportunity to reach for her gun before the moment was gone and it was too late. A scream erupted from her throat, only to be cut off by the hand that clamped down over her mouth.

Tossing his regretfully empty milkshake cup into the trash as he continued along 9th, Frank haphazardly shoved the apple pie container and compulsory five napkins into the pocket of his coat; he was too hungry to wait to eat anything that required a fork. Tugging his mask down and unwrapping the foil around his burger had become one swift, instinctive motion over the months, not unlike the simultaneous action of dropping one magazine and replacing it with another in the heat of a firefight.

The burger was almost in his mouth when he heard it.at The sound, abrupt but unmistakably a scream, cutting through the eerie pandemic quiet and reverberating off of the buildings nearby. God damnit, he thought, can’t a man eat a burger in peace?

Any potential for cheeseburger peace now ruined, Frank frowned to himself and re-wrapped it, dropping it into the other pocket of his coat. Screams like that - the kind that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end - didn’t happen without good reason. Having spent the last year keeping a low profile (and the one before, working with Madani and the CIA in that god forsaken desert to earn what little amnesty he had), the Marine was conflicted. If the year laying low had taught him anything, it was how to effectively contain the restlessness that had a way of seeping through his better judgement. Hell’s Kitchen has survived this long without the Punisher bullshit, it sure as hell doesn’t need another pile of bodies, he thought. God knows they’re running out of toe tags.

The thought was wiped clean and his blood turned cold as a familiar voice filled his ears. Her voice.

“Help!”

His feet, which had been tracking the source of the sound of their own accord, fell silent against the pavement as he closed the half-block distance and saw Karen Page in the meat hook hands of the NYPD. So much for laying low.

Everything was happening too fast for the blonde to register as she tried to fight against her assailant. She was barely keeping him at bay, let alone making any headway in getting him away from her, and she felt her heartbeat drumming in her ears. Her vision was a flurry of limbs as she continued to struggle, crying out as her wrist was turned to an unnatural angle at a violent speed.

A moment later, she felt space around her as the man was shoved away. Her eyes went wide as she looked, trying to take in the scene playing out in front of her. Her breath caught in her chest. No. She thought, blinking back the pain filled tears that threatened to spill over her onto her cheek. It can’t be. It had been two years since she’d seen him and she’d convinced herself she never would again. Not after that conversation in the hospital when he’d told her he didn’t want to choose to love someone over another goddamn war.

Swallowing as she sank down the brick wall, Karen couldn’t deny the sight anymore. Seeing the meticulous nature of the attack of what had moments ago been her attacker, there was no room for doubt. It was him.

Frank Castle.

He let the incoming right hook catch his cheekbone, and used the cop’s sluggish moment of recoil to throw his weight into the man’s middle, tackling him hip-first against the pavement. Driving his knee into the base of the officer’s spine as he pinned him to the ground, Frank snatched the government-issued firearm from its holster and readied it, knocking his opponent’s hat off with the barrel.

Armed, ready, and itching to pull the trigger, Frank knew that this split-second decision would make or break any opportunity he would ever have to speak with Karen again. He took a deep breath to counter the adrenaline, flicking his eyes over to her just long enough to try for her attention.

“Karen, get out of here.”

No response.

She couldn’t see this. After everything they had been through, everything they had fought over, everything that had fallen apart between them that day in the hospital, the slightest chance of a clean slate would be blown away the instant he-- he grabbed the cop by the hair and slammed his head into the pavement in frustration.

“Karen. Now.”

She was frozen in place, eyes locked on the two men. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. Whether it was from the shock of the attack or the shock of seeing the Punisher in front of her again, she couldn’t tell. All she knew is the only thing holding her upright was the wall behind her. She didn’t have the strength or coherent thought to get her limbs to respond to Frank’s command.

His mind swirled with a multitude of thoughts in a single second, trying to decide the best course of action. This asshole had gone after Karen. He wouldn’t let him get away with that. Not a goddamn chance in hell would anyone get away with putting their hands on the last remaining family he had if he had any say in it. At the same time, could he really jeopardize whatever miniscule chance he might have with making things right with her if he pulled this trigger right in front of her? As the seconds continued to tick by - one, two, three - and she continued not to move, the choice was made for him.

He squeezed.

Clicking the safety on the firearm into place, he jumped up, shoving it into his waistband and abandoning the body to take the three strides it took him to get to her. He knelt down without hesitation, putting himself solely in her line of sight so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Hey, sh, sh, sh, you’re okay. Can you stand up?” Once again, his words were met with silence and a distinct lack of movement from the woman. Her eyes were searching his, but distantly. She was looking at him, but she wasn’t seeing him at all. He held his hand up to her before slowly resting it on the back of her neck to keep her steady, doing a quick once-over for any signs of obvious injury. She was leaning to one side but didn’t dare to brace herself against her wrist - a sprain, maybe? Frank didn’t see any blood pooling. She looked terrified, more than anything. Definitely in shock, he thought as she shook. Satisfied with not having to call an ambulance, he looped her uninjured arm around his neck and helped her to her feet.

“Come on, Karen, let’s get you home.”

She leaned against him, unable to take her eyes off of him even as they started to walk. He kept glancing over as they made their way out of the alley, brows furrowing. He couldn’t read her face, couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and it made the man more anxious than he cared to admit. He’d learned a long time ago not to care what people thought of him. Karen Page was a rare exception to that.

When they’d gone two blocks toward her apartment and she still had neither said a word nor taken her eyes off of him, Frank knew he couldn’t leave her alone. She was in absolutely no condition to take care of herself right now, of that much he was sure. Clearing his throat and stopping, he looked over at her.

“I’m going to take you to my place, okay?”

Whether he was met with the faintest of nods or a particularly violent shake, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t think it would be fair for him to be in her apartment when she couldn’t tell him to fuck off if she wanted to, anyway. It was his place or they parted ways here, and that wasn’t an option.

A quick survey of the area told him she was probably on her way to get groceries. He made a mental note to pick some up when she came to. Should he text Red to drop some off? Were they still seeing each other? Would he lose his ever loving shit if he knew what had happened? Frank shook his head and gently urged Karen to start walking alongside him again. His top priority was getting her to safety, the other details could be ironed out after.

#frank castle #karen page #kastle #punisher #daredevil

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whatareyousearchingfordean · 4 years

Text

Happiness Begins

Part 22

Chapter Summary: Jared and his little sister finally find their middle ground, just in time for her to head back home to Austin.

Warnings: Language, angst

Word Count: 1.9K+

Author’s Note: It’s looking like I’ve finally nailed down the number of parts for this bad boy. It’s looking like we will have 25 parts. That means this is almost done. I can’t believe that the finish line is finally in view. Thanks to everyone who has been on this wild ride with me. I appreciate you more than you know. xo Alex.

Catch up with the series masterlist and check out Alexandra’s Library for more works by yours truly.

The soft yet persistent pounding in her head pulled Y/n back into consciousness. It took a moment for her to get her bearings, but she was quick to realise that she was in fact in her bed in Jared’s apartment. She couldn’t believe how stupid she had been last night, jetting off on her own and drinking her own weight in alcohol. Hell, she couldn’t even tell you how she had gotten home last night. She was still in the jeans and blouse she had left in, though her shoes were gone, and someone had tucked her under the blankets.

With a groan, she pulled away the warm comforter and sat up. There was a bottle of aspirin on her bedside table, along with a sports drink. Greedily, she dumped more pills than necessary into her palm and chugged as much of the drink as her stomach could handle. Once she was sure it wouldn’t all come back up, she stood from her bed and stripped herself of the clothing that smelled as though she had doused herself in whiskey, which wasn’t entirely inaccurate, before hopping into a scalding hot shower.

Y/n let the heat of the water burn away the night before, taking with it everything that had happened in the past few months and sending it down the drain. This would be where she starts over. Last night she drank and cried away the pain. Now, she took the next step forward, to new beginnings, to success she could only ever dream of. She was growing from this if it was the last thing she did.

When the water finally ran cold, she pulled herself from the shower, and wrapped her hair atop her head in a towel. Once she was dressed, she figured there was no more time she could waste. She had to face her brother.

Jared was sitting on the couch as she entered the living room. His legs were crossed and he had one arm slung over the back of the couch. He sat up straight when he saw her, his hands finding the remote to shut off the television in haste.

Y/n fidgeted with the hem of her shirt before finally just biting the bullet. “How did I get home last night?” She asked, her voice low.

“Jensen got a call from the bartender and since he was closer, he picked you up and brought you home.” Jared folded his hands in front of him as he leaned his elbows on his knees.

“Oh,”

“Yeah.” Jared nodded, not looking at his sister.

“So, um, I only have one week left until I head home.” Y/n folded the corner of her lips under her teeth as she tried to find the right words. “I’ve found an Airbnb that I’m gonna stay in until it’s time to go home.”

Jared’s head shot up at her confession, hurt crossing his features. “You don’t have to do that, you are always welcome to stay here.”

“I just… I need some space to breathe, time to think. So much has happened in such a short amount of time and everything is just so frazzled in my brain right now. I need to start over.” Y/n tried to explain to her brother why her moving out of his apartment was the best thing for her.

“Are you saying you can’t be near me right now?”

“I’m saying I can’t be near anybody right now. I’ve got to collect my thoughts and try to figure out how to pick up the broken pieces of my life.” Her voice rose and she had to take a breath to collect herself. Getting angry would serve no one.

“Okay,” Jared relented. “You know I never meant to hurt you, right? I was just trying to protect you.”

“I know. I just don’t understand why you thought you needed to protect me from Jensen.” Y/n pushed herself away from where she was leaning against the wall and moved to sit across from Jared on the coffee table.

“Well, he did hurt you, didn’t he?” Jared was serious, and his expression fanned that fire in her belly. She wanted to yell then, to tell Jared that it was his fault that Jensen hurt her, that if he just could have been happy for them, none of this would have happened. But she didn’t. It wouldn’t solve anything. Her brother and her were finally talking and she could tell they both wanted to patch things up. They both were beginning to recognize their mistakes in all of this. After all, that’s what Jensen wanted for her in the first place, to give her her brother back. There was no way she was going to let this hole in her chest or the numbness in her mind be for nothing. It was the last thing she would do for the man she loved.

“Yeah, I guess he did.”

“I love you, smalls. I am sorry.” Jared pulled her into a crushing hug, his arms comfortingly tight around her torso. Y/n nuzzled her face into his shoulder as she tried to hide the quiver in her voice.

“Me too, Jare.”

****

If she thought things on set were awkward before, it had nothing on her last week. At least before, she had someone else to lean on in the beginning. This time, she was on her own. The three of them were standing in their own corners of the ring. Sure, she and Jared had made up, for the most part, but it was going to take some time for things to go back to normal. Forgiveness isn’t a light switch that you can just flip on and off, it takes real work. Right now, she was just thankful that they had the chance to start.

Nothing could have prepared her for the pain of staring Jensen in the face everyday and acting like everything was fine. It was far from it. Not to mention, the memories from that night he brought her home are still pretty fuzzy, and not knowing the full story was embarrassing enough in of itself without the added tension.

On her last day, the crew had baked her favorite pie to bid her goodbye. There was a small celebration at lunch, and everyone was there. Everyone but Jensen. She wasn’t sure why she expected him to be there. Maybe a part of her was hoping that he would just be there to keep up the facade. After all, people were suspicious of his absence. Jared and his sister blew it off, giving the others a lame excuse. Neither of them even bothered to care if anyone believed it. Frankly, at this point it didn’t matter either way. She was too tired to hold up any more pretenses. She was too tired to pretend like everything was okay when it wasn’t.

****

Y/n stopped as she stepped off her plane, allowing the Texas sun to bathe her in a warmth she so desperately had missed. Normally this time of year, she would be in warmer clothes, but after Vancouver, there was nothing more that she wanted to feel than the Texas sun on her skin. Hell, she just wanted to feel in general. This was her chance to truly start over, to dedicate her life to something again. Starting with her company.

Y/n didn’t even bother wasting anytime, ordering her Uber to take her to the office. The work day was nearly over, but there was something pulling her back there. She couldn’t explain it, whether it was the work, or the people, or maybe just something familiar. It didn’t matter to her though, Et Cetera was her safe place.

“Y/n!” Abby jumped from her seat behind her desk as Y/n pushed open the doors to the offices. Y/n let go of her bags and opened her arm to hug the woman. “You are never allowed to leave again.”

“That won’t be a problem, girly.” Y/n squeezed her tight before letting her go. She wiped away a tear she hadn’t realised escaped her before composing herself. “Tell me, how is everybody?”

“Everybody is great, honestly. Things are not the same without you around. We’ve truly missed seeing your face everyday.”

“Good, that’s good.” The smile that graced her lips was weak. She felt guilty now, being back in her office. After putting her everything into this business, she couldn’t even remember why she had taken Jared’s offer in the first place. Maybe she would feel different if things hadn’t fallen apart, but she would never know. All that she could do was try her best to make it up to her coworkers. “I have some emails I need to respond to and a few other things to catch up on before Monday. You guys have a good weekend and I’ll catch up with you on Monday.”

“Sure, yeah.” Abby nodded her understanding. The women parted with one more hug, both heading to do their respective work.

Y/n smiled to herself, once again finding her office just as she left it, thriving plants and all. This time the sentiment tugged a little stronger on her heart. She had thought that stepping off that plane was grounding for her, but it was nothing compared to sitting behind her desk again. The sense of pride and accomplishment that came with knowing that this little business was something she created and nurtured into a nationally recognized company was incomprehensible.

It was also for this reason that what she did came easily to her. Even the business aspect, from the beginning was something that she never exactly struggled with. But she guessed when you have a passion for something, everything else just tends to fall into place. She had many blessings to count in her thirty odd years on earth, and this was just one more to add to the list.

It didn’t take her long to do what she had needed, but long enough for the rest of the office to clear out. Abby had informed her as the rest of them had walked out. That had been about half an hour ago. It was time she left for the evening as well. What wasn’t done could wait for the weekend.

She locked down her computer and grabbed some papers to take with her after she ordered an Uber to take her home. Flipping switches as she walked back out into the lobby, she froze as her office door swung shut behind her. The main door to the offices was sitting ajar, light from foyer that led to the elevator flooding into the now dark lobby.

Y/n had been sure she had heard the door close as they left, but now was questioning that memory. She was quick to shake off the uneasiness in her stomach, remembering that sometimes the door doesn’t latch properly and that was one of the reasons that they tended to just keep it propped open during the day. Whoever went out last must not have actually pulled it tight. It was an honest mistake and she figured she would just send out a reminder email to check it behind you when you leave at night.

With one last glance around the lobby, Y/n set the alarm and headed off to return to her home, a new glint of hope for the future in her eyes.

Part 23

Forevers: @spn-impala @22sarah08 @turtlepad @callmekda @chaldei @hobby27 @cowboysnwinchesters @tranquility-or-chaos @pikabootoyouchu @dawnie1988 @grease222 @awesome-badass-cafeteria-sauce @polina-93 @clarinette07 @moonlight-babeh @suckerforfanfic @witandnargles @sleepylunarwolf @stiles-stilinski-24-dylan @geeksareunique @akshi8278 @superfanficnatural @malfoysqueen14 @deanwanddamons

Et Cetera: @jbbarnesgirl @hillface89 @arses21434 @thevelvetseries @sslater34 @mrsirishboru @smoothdogsgirl @spnfamily-j2 @encounterthepast @facadeformyrealblog @supernatural-bellawinchester @screechingartisancashbailiff @rebeccathefangirl @squirrelnotsam @heartinmyhead1 @1d-killed-me @samsgirl93 @deans-baby-momma @deanmonandnegansbitch @woodworthti666 @supraveng @onethirstyunicorn @heartsaved @know2grow @littlewhiterose @surprisinglysarah @stoneyggirl @carryon-doctor-lock @thebookisbtr @youaremyfiveever @kalesrebellion @lilulo-12 @winchester-fantasies @vicmc624 @supernatural3002 @winchester-writes @maralisa124 @therollingstoners @parinarain

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ashspn · 3 years

Text

All of my love

*Not my gif* *Major character death*

Dean was pissed. Which when was Dean not pissed. This time he had a good reason. This was the first time that he could have everything he ever wanted, and he got it. He got the love of his life, the beautiful home, the dog, and two kids. The apple pie life. Sam was happy and healthy being with Eileen and becoming the leader of the North American hunters. Dean often told Sam that this was what he was meant to be. He was a natural-born leader. Sam would often call begging for him to come back to the team. Sam loved to try to seduce him with the monster of the week, but he always says no. After his brush with death, even though he had experienced that feeling way too many times and never felt anything of it, that last time felt different for him. It felt real until the paramedics showed up and pumped him with so much medicine and fluids that he didn’t even ask what was in most of the needles. To tell you the truth that time he might have actually felt ready to go. Life at that point in time wasn’t great with Cas gone, Jack being God and Sam had Eileen. He was feeling hopeless. All he knew was he was thankful that Sam told him to shut up about letting him go and called 911. When he woke up in his bed after hours of surgery, he expected life to be the same. It wasn’t because he had gorgeous blue eyes staring back at him and holding his hands waiting for him to wake up.

“Dean!” Cas jumped up to run and grab the rest of the family, but Dean squeezed his hand for him to stay. Cas stopped looking down at the unbreakable man. He hated seeing him looking like this because it reminded him of a time that seemed like a lifetime ago when Dean was forced to take on Alistair all because he asked him to. Cas looked back at the door knowing Sam would want to know right away but then he looked down at Dean and saw the haunting in his eyes. Cas sat back down allowing Dean a moment to collect his thoughts before he dragged everyone in.

5 years prior

“Cas.” Dean whispered. His voice was hoarse, and his throat was so dry. Everything hurt but more importantly his back where the nail shoved right through.

“Cas, how are you even here man? I saw you get taken. Jack said it wasn’t possible to bring you back.” Cas smiled down at him. Dean scrunched up his face knowing something was different. Something was off about Cas.

“We found a loophole. No more grace means I’m human and humans don’t go to the empty.” Dean dropped Cas’s hand in shock. Cas was an angel. That was who he was. Dean wouldn’t have cared anyway if he had powers or not but the thought of Cas giving up who he always been was hard for Dean to wrap his head around. Dean didn’t know if he could give up being a hunter. That was who he was.

“Cas are you sure you wanted to do that. Are you okay with being a human?” Cas gave him a soft look.

“Dean, all I wanted was to be able to come home. Now I can enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again.” Dean chuckled but then winced in pain. Cas came forward wanted so badly to be able to heal him. That was one thing Cas missed about being an angel. When Jack pulled him out the first thing Jack said was Dean was hurt. Cas didn’t care about anything else. He needed to get to Dean. Jack zapped Cas into the waiting room right as they were wheeling Dean into surgery. His breathing was shallow, and he was covered in so much blood. Cas tried placing a hand on Dean to heal him, but nothing worked. Cas knew that but that meant it didn’t hurt any less. Then he was pushed aside by a doctor left alone until Sam came in.

“I’m fine,” Dean waved him off so not to worry. “Well, I’m glad you’re back buddy. Where’s Sam?”

Present-day

Dean paced the bunker library trying to process what Sam was trying to tell him. All he heard was white noise. “Sam, stop! What do you mean that my daughter and my husband are missing? This hunt was supposed to be a milk run.” Dean turned to leave to head towards the weapons room to get every weapon known to man to save his family. Sam ran after him trying to make him stop and listen to him, but Sam knew he lost Dean a long time ago when he said Claire’s GPS was disconnected and Cas’s phone wasn’t answering. Claire and Cas had gone out on a hunt against a werewolf. It was a very simple hunt that both of them had dealt with a million times. At the end of the day, Claire could have done it by herself and been home in time for dinner. Cas insisted to go with her saying he missed her and wouldn’t mind helping her with this case. He even dug his old trench coat out for his FBI uniform. All that was running through Dean’s mind was how could this happened. The nightmares were supposed to be over.

“Dean, will you just listen before you go guns a-blazing.” Dean whipped around with fire in his eyes.

“I’ve been listening Sam. It sounds like a bunch of bullshit to me! Either you come with me and help or get out of my way.” Dean began gathering every silver item they had in the weapons room not caring if he looked crazy to Sam or not.

“Dean, you haven’t been on a hunt in five years so can you please slow down so we can think about what to do.” Sam snatched the duffel bag out of Dean’s hands so that Dean would finally listen to him.

“What are you trying to say I’m not capable to deal with a werewolf. That I’m rusty just because I chose to retire. That doesn’t mean I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m still one of the best damn hunters out there.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. Trust me no one could replace THE Dean Winchester besides THE Claire Winchester. So, yes, I’m worried too. I was the one that assigned Claire the case after all because I knew she could have done it. Clearly, we don’t know what we are getting ourselves into if both her and Cas are in trouble.” Dean took the duffle bag taking a deep breath. He knew Sam was right but that didn’t mean he still wasn’t scared.

“Ahhhh!” Cas blinked his eyes open at the sound of his daughter screaming out in pain. Dizziness was washing over him making it hard to concentrate where she was or where he was. The room was dark with only a flicking light bulb dangling from the ceiling. He could feel his hands and feet were bound by rope to a pole and he could see he was the only one there.

“Ahhh!” Another scream echoed throughout the house. Cas tried to pull his limbs free with no success. He could feel a nail was poking out. He rubbed his wrists up and down feeling the binds loosening with each swipe until finally, his hands were free. He ripped the bounds from his ankles, beginning to run to the door. His main priority was to find Claire and get out. He pulled his phone out dialing the only number he ever needed in the world.

The road felt long and bleak. Dean never would have said he loved life on the road, but he also didn’t hate it as much as he did now. The road was home once upon a time but now it felt like a burden. Home was the log cabin with the lake in the back. He and Castiel often found themselves on the dock fishing for hours even though Cas often asked why Dean found it relaxing to fish when he never caught anything. Dean smiled to himself missing his angel. His smile grew wider as he thought about how Claire and Jack often came to visit too. Both grown and out of the house, but Sundays were for the family after all. Dean cooking on the grill and Cas baking a pie in the kitchen while Jack and Claire fight like kids over the remote control. Dean knew that his kids' lives were never going to be normal and they never were but at least that one day of the week Claire and Jack were able to be normal people.

Dean’s thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of his phone. He reached down to grab his phone out of his pocket not even bothering to look at the name.

“Dean, I’m in a house off of road spring flower. Claire is here but she’s hurt but I’m not sure where she is. Dean, I am so sorry. I was supposed to protect her.” Dean was trying to wrap his head around what was happening. Cas. Cas was okay and alive. Claire was too.

“Cas wait slow down. Tell me exactly where you are. I am driving to you now.” Cas let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Dean’s voice steadies him and made him more focused. As he kept running trying to find where his daughter was; he tried to give Dean as much detail as he could remember but most of it was foggy.

“I’m sorry Dean, everything is still scrambled. It might have been white. I don’t know.” Cas huffed.

“Buddy, it’s okay. Just stay on the line until I get there. Everything will be okay.” Dean reassured. Cas trudged forward seeing all of the horrors that were laid around him. Bloodstained the walls and flesh littered the floor. He sucked in a breath trying really hard not to get nauseous.

“Hey, how did you escape from your bounds?” Cas stopped in his tracks to face a werewolf or that was what he thought. The monster was like a large man, but his teeth were pointy like a vamps’, but his eyes shone like a werewolf. Cas pulled out a silver blade just in time to cut the monster as he swung at his head. The creature jumped back with a yelp but the spot on his arm didn’t burn like it should if he was a werewolf.

“Where’s my daughter, you assbutt?” Cas exclaimed.

“Cas, Cas what’s going on? Who’s there?” Dean shook with fear. He just got Cas back he didn’t want to think what would happen if he died and he wasn’t there to save him. “Cas, hold on and don’t do anything stupid.” All Dean could hear on the other end was fighting and a lot of grunting. It didn’t sound good. Dean pushed the car harder even though she was going as hard as she could already. Almost there he thought. Almost there.

“Cas!” Dean shouted one last time as the line went dead. “Son of a bitch!” Sam looked over at him with concern, but Dean couldn’t focus on Sam’s worrying about him, he needed to save his family.

Every hit Cas got in the monster got three times the amount. All he could hear was a distant sound of Dean’s voice which was the only thing keeping him up. His vision was blurred and knew he might have a couple of broken ribs but he kept pushing. Cas swung one more time missing completely. Then the next thing he knew he felt a fist connect to his skull and the world went black.

“Dean, slow down. You can’t save them if we are both dead.” Sam braced on for dear life as Dean whipped the car around a curve sending the tires to screech. Dean didn’t listen he kept trucking forward. All he could think was five more miles, three more miles, one more mile until he slammed his breaks to find them in front of the house. Dean jumped out running to the trunk grabbing everything he could carry that wouldn’t slow him down. Sam wasn’t too far trying to get him to slow down.

“Wait, we need a plan before we go in there and get ourselves killed or Cas and Claire.” Dean glared at him. He had a plan to kill all of those sons of a bitches and get his husband and daughter out safely. “Dean, that’s not a plan that’s suicide.”

“And they are in there hurt or dead by now because I wasn’t there to protect them and the longer, we sit out here arguing the greater the chances we have of finding them dead. Let’s go because it’s only you and me. Jack’s not answering which next time I see him I’m going to ground him.” That was what Dean had on the subject.

Dean looked around the house trying to focus himself, so he didn’t get sick. He dealt with a lot in his life but nothing would have prepared him for the gore that was in this house. He kept walking until he came upon a broken phone. Cas’s phone. He picked it up and showed Sam. Sam nodded understanding they must be close.

“Dean, go find Cas and I will look for Claire.” Dean looked down at the phone and shook his head no. Sam gave him a perplexed look of confusion. Any other day Dean would be the first one on the finding Cas team even before they were in a couple. What changed?

“Cas and I had a deal that if this ever went down. Whichever one of his was kidnapped along with Claire or Jack we would forget about the other and find them first. You go get Cas. I got Claire.” Sam nodded and understood.

“Such a pretty girl. You know you would be a nice trophy to keep with my others.” Claire breathed heavily glaring at her captive. She spat at him landing it right below his left eye. He wiped it off giving her a grim smile. “Now that isn’t very lady-like, sweetheart.”

“Well, I’m no lady and I ain’t your sweetheart either you piece of shit.” She growled. He gripped her jaw bringing her face real close. All she could smell was the rotting flesh from his last meal. She tried to turn away, but he pulled her back to face him.

“That is no way to speak to your master. Apologize or you get burned again.” She kept her mouth shut without breaking eye contact. “Fine, here you go sweetheart.” He stabbed the hot iron once again releasing a scream from her throat. The pain made her want to blackout. All she saw was the sheering pain of white behind her eyelids as he kept pressing harder.

“Hey, asshole. Get your grimy hands off of my daughter.” The creature pulled away to turn around to see the Dean Winchester. The man they told stories about to scare monster children to bed. This man was supposed to be dead. The monster lunge at Dean but didn’t get far before he shot off three rounds. He only needed one but the other two were for what he did to his daughter. Dean put the gun away and ran over to Claire. He found she was unconscious. He tried to wake her up with a couple of shakes, calling her name out.

“Come on, baby girl, wake up. Please we got to go and find your pops.” Finally, he could see her blue eyes blink open. She smiled when she realized who was there to rescue her.

“Sam is looking for him. I talked to him thirty minutes ago before he was taken again. Come on we need to get you out of here.” Claire tried to protest, wanting to stay and find her pops. Dean didn’t listen and half carried her out of the doorway towards the exit.

“Dad.” Dean pulled her close letting the tears he didn’t realize he was holding in escape down his face. She tried to hug him, but she was too weak to raise her arms.

“Dad, where’s pop?” Dean shush her and ran a hand down her hair trying to soothe her.

Sam slowly made his way down the steps towards the basement making sure to be careful not to make a sound. So far so good, but he feared that as he made his way farther down, he would find something he didn’t want. He did. He found Cas bloody and bruised; chained to the ground passed out.

“Cas get up. Dean is not going to be happy about this.” Sam leaned down to haul his brother-in-law up and tried to carry him up the steps until Cas woke up trying to swing at him.

“Get your hands off of me you monster.” Sam grabbed his hands to stop him from hurting himself even more.

“Stop, it’s me, Sam. I’m taking you home.” Cas blinked recognizing the familiar figure.

“Where’s Dean?” He asked.

“He went to find Claire. We are going to meet him at the Impala.” Cas stopped in his tracks with panic in his eyes. “Cas, what’s wrong.”

“We need to get to Dean right now.” Cas broke free from Sam’s grasp, trying to run up the steps before his legs gave out from him.

“Cas, Dean will be fine besides you can’t help him much when you can barely stand.” Cas tried to haul himself up, but Sam came over to help him instead.

“You don’t understand. These are not monsters we have ever face before shooting them doesn’t kill them, silver doesn’t hurt them, nor does holy water. I have no clue what we are facing.” Cas exclaims. Sam took hold of Cas’s arm trying to steady him once again to help him up the stairs. Sam knew that Dean who kill him if he tried to divert from the plan of saving Cas. He just worried about getting them to the car.

After a few feet of walking, Claire felt better. She wasn’t one hundred percent but at least she wasn’t on the verge of passing out again. That didn’t convince Dean though. He kept trying to steal quick glances at her to make sure she was okay.

“Dad, I’m fine. Does everything hurt yes but nothing but a little whisky and a movie night won’t heal? Please stop worrying and keep your eyes peel. These monsters are unique. They are nothing we have ever seen before. I don’t even think they are in the lore.” Dean nodded trying to focus on the mission.

“You know I will never stop worrying about you or your brother. Even if he might be God.” Claire rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Hey, I know I’ve told you this one too many times, but I wasn’t supposed to have this. I wasn’t supposed to have you two and your father be in my life. I wasn’t supposed to have a family. I was destined to die at twenty-five by the hands of a creature.” Claire smiled at him because she felt the same way. Dean pulled her in for a side hug when he pulled away, he saw the love of his life staring at him.

“Pops!” Claire exclaimed running to hug him. Cas prepared for the embrace and wrapped his arms around her not wanting to let go. His little girl was safe and didn’t look as hurt as he thought she was going to be. As he was hugging her Cas looked up to see his husband smile back at him with tears forming in his eyes. Cas smiled back slowly moving towards Dean after Claire pulled back.

“Cas,” Dean whispered taking in how badly hurt his love was. Dean swore that after this hunt he was going to convince Cas to hang it up. No more hunts, no more missions. Just living the quiet life and helping through the use of the home. Dean didn’t think he could go through this one more time, but he also said that last time they were in this situation.

“Dean.” Dean pulled Cas in for a gentle kiss leading into a hug. Cas found himself sink into the embrace wanting to rest in the warmth of Dean’s arms. Their reunion was cut short by Claire’s shout of a lookout. Dean turned around to see the monster he had killed or well he thought had killed was still up and moving with no visible wounds. What the hell he thought. He shoved Cas behind him and ready his weapon in hand. How was this bastard still alive? Dean swung his knife at him, and the thing dodged each swing.

“Dad, be careful,” Claire screamed.

“Sam! Get them out of here now.” Dean yelled trying to fight off the monster, but each attack didn’t prevail. It was like this thing was indestructible. Claire tried to push forward but Cas caught her in his arms pulling her back.

“No, we are not leaving without you,” Claire exclaimed. Dean turned to smile at her.

“Go baby girl. I will be right behind you.” Then the world stood still. Dean looked down to see the blade go right through his chest and be pulled out. Dean looked up at his family as he fell to his knees.

“Nooo!” Claire screamed running to him kneeling down to pull him into her arms.

“Dean!” Sam and Cas shouted. Sam pulled out his machete and cut the creature's head clean off. Cas stood in place not able to process what just happen. Claire sobbed in his chest and he shushed her trying to soothe her till his final breath.

“No, no. You can’t die. Not yet. Dad, I love you too much. Please don’t leave me” Claire cried. Dean rubbed a hand down her hair.

“Shhh. It’s okay. Claire, it’s okay sweetheart.” Dean whispered.

“It’s not fair. I can’t lose you too.” Cas came behind her rubbing her back as he looked down at the man that couldn’t die.

“I know, darling. You made my life better. You all made me so happy. Tell your brother I love him.” Dean’s breath hitch and his hand that was in Claire’s hair fell to his side. The great Dean Winchester was dead.

Claire sobbed screaming, begging for him to hold on. “Jack! Where are you? Jack!”

Sam held Claire as Cas mustered the strength to wrap Dean’s body in cloth. Sam volunteered to do it, but Cas said he needed to. He needed to say his goodbyes alone. Sam understood because Dean said the same thing when they burned Cas so many years ago. As they waited outside, they saw a figure come towards them.

“Jack?” Jack came towards them looking off. Claire and Sam couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong, but they could tell something was up. “Jack, we have been praying for you. Where have you been?” Claire hissed not able to raise her voice from a whisper.

“I’m sorry angel radio is turned off. I had no way to communicate with anybody. They had me locked away.” Jack said.

“Who had you locked away? What happened Jack?” Sam asked. Jack took a deep breath without a pause to look around to notice his fathers were missing.

“The angels. They have begun to rebel. They don’t like that I have chosen to take a hands-off approach. They believe I should step into people's lives but I have no desire to. Where are my fathers?” Sam and Claire gave him a sad look. “What? What’s wrong?” Claire came towards him trying to break the news as gently as she could.

“Dad’s dead,” Claire said. Jack gave her a perplexed look out of disbelief. His dad was dead. He knew death wasn’t final for them. He could go see Dean in heaven, but it wasn’t the same. No more Sunday night dinners with all of them at the cabin. Dean wouldn’t be able to take him fishing down at their lake. Everything in heaven was very artificial and with what was going on in heaven he didn’t know how much longer heaven would stand.

“I wasn’t here to save him. I’m so sorry. I didn’t get to say goodbye.” Claire pulled him into a hug as he kept repeating that he didn’t get to say goodbye.

Cas stared at the lifeless body that once held the spirit of the man that could have put the fear into any man, monster, or creature. That could have put a smile on anyone’s face with his child-like wonder. The man that had finally defeated all of his demons. The man that was supposed to live the rest of his life easy and happy till he was old and gray. The man that fell in love with a fallen angel and made that angel feel loved for being who he was.

Cas pulled the sheet over Dean’s face. Most days he would blink back the tears but today he let each one fall slowly. He gentle tied each rope around his beloved's body taking his time, not ready to say goodbye.

“Dean Winchester.” Cas closed his eyes and let out a sigh. “The man, the myth, the legend. I love you.” Cas tied the last knot and went out to grab Sam to help him carry his husband’s body to the pyre. As they carried him, he could see his children console each other. Claire holding Jack as they both wept watching their father’s body being placed on top. A signal of a final goodbye. Cas walked over to them wrapping them both into his arms as they watch the whole thing go up in flames. Cas held his children tight knowing they had a lot to figure out. Like what the hell was going on with Jack, where did those monsters come from, and to process the thought for the first time Dean was actually gone with no way back.

#Destiel #dad dean #dadstiel #ash's blurbs #character death #deancas

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hargrove-mayfields · 3 years

Text

A Stake of Holly in Her Heart Pt. 5

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4

Benny’s is nothing special, Max thinks as they pull up into the mostly empty parking lot, which is nothing but a slab of concrete without any lines painted on it.

From the outside, it looks like a dingy old diner with about the same charm as the middle school cafeteria. On the inside, well, it’s just a dingy old diner with the same charm as a school cafeteria, with its greasy tiled floors and stained up old walls painted a sickening baby blue.

It’s about as full as you’d expect a place like that to be on Christmas Day, as in, other than a handful of elderly customers on the stools at the counter, they are completely alone.

They sit down at a cracking booth by the window, which Max notes was probably last cleaned before she was even born, and an older woman approaches them with a menu.

Steve must know her, chats up a storm about the daily special and school, about life in general and the old owner of the place before ordering for the both of them, and all the while Max just sits back and watches.

Even after the waitress comes back with a pot of coffee, and the two slices of pie Steve promised, she stays leaning back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, watching.

There’s a tension burning under her skin, and she wants nothing to do with the pleasantries. If they were here to talk, then talk they would.

Steve goes to say something between bites of sugar cream pie, an Indiana specialty apparently, but Max cuts him off, her tone harsh. “Why did you bring me here?”

He looks confused, looking up as her with a stupid look on his face. “We’re avoiding the Christmas party?”

“Oh, sure, so you’re totally not trying to lay your claim now that my brother’s not here to stop you, right?” That might’ve been a little mean, but she doesn’t really know what to think right now.

He takes her to a remote location on the very edge of town when she’s supposed to be with a crowd of people because, what did he say, he didn’t want her to deal with them right now? She thinks she has the right to be concerned.

“I-No, I’m not.” Steve sits up straight in his seat. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

She nods over-exaggeratedly. “Is that before or after you make your move?”

There’s a certain pleading tone in his voice, one that obviously means he doesn’t want Max to think poorly of him, as he says, “Max, really I’m not trying to be a weirdo, I just figured you’d want to talk about Billy.”

She would be lying if she said hearing his name doesn’t take the air right out of her lungs. If just for a moment, she’s frozen.

Because nobody actually says Billy’s name anymore, just things like ‘your step brother’ or ‘Neil’s boy’. Sometimes Hargrove, and maybe even William once or twice, but never Billy.

It takes some effort for her to muster up the will to keep arguing after that, but Max has a retort at the ready, once she evens her breaths and moves past the initial shock. “What’s there to talk about? Everyone’s already forgotten about him anyways.”

“I haven’t.” Steve looks her dead in the eye, the most serious she’s ever seen him outside of a life threatening situation. “Don’t think I ever will.”

She scoffs, “Yeah, well, negative sentiments don’t count for much either.”

Everyone knows things were a little rocky between Billy and Steve, so she’s expecting him to rub it in her face that her brother was a bad person who beat people up for fun, or whatever the general opinion of those who didn’t know him was.

But Steve shocks her again by saying, “I never said that.”

And it's so beyond frustrating, talking in circles with Steve, that Max decides to cut her losses. Bites her tongue and sinks further back in the pleather booth, casting her eyes down to show him that she’s done with this.

If she would’ve known he’d be this annoying, she would’ve just made him take her to the Wheeler’s and leave her alone for the rest of her life.

But he doesn’t get the message, though shes not sure if he’s even smart enough to, because he keeps talking. “Me and Billy, we didn’t- we were friends, in the end.”

“You probably don’t want to hear it from me, but we all, you know, like, feel pretty shitty after a, um, a personal loss like this.” The words come out slow as he tries to think of the best thing to say, and it’s her instinct to cut him off, but Max listens.

“E-Especially when it’s someone we care about so much.” There’s a focused sort of look on his face, like he’s trying to get Max to understand that there’s some reason behind what all he’s saying. “Just, what I’m trying to get at is that, I think I understand that in a way probably no one else in your life does.”

That sentence is what finally makes it click into place for Max, the reason why Steve won’t just get on with it and say what he means, the reason she’s even here in the first place.

Because Steve lost Billy too.

She realizes that they must have had a thing. The kind that was kept secret, unknown by anyone but maybe a select few for their safety. A thing not much at all unlike what she and Lucas have.

Of course she knew about Billy, about the ex-boyfriends in Cali and the fake girlfriend he acquired last spring around the same time a paternal rage-induced scar appeared in his eyebrow, but she never would’ve guessed that he he had someone, and especially not for that someone to be Steve Harrington.

The realization hits her like a freight train. A snotty, teary-eyed freight train.

Just knowing that he hadn’t been able to show up at Billy’s funeral, or grieve in public the loss that to him must have been earth-shattering, and that he even had to tell her in vague secrets about his relationship to her brother, her heart hurts incredibly for Steve, and she sheds a few silent tears for him

But then there’s this other feeling, this creeping warmth of something like relief deep inside Max. To know she wasn’t alone in her misery or her heartbreak, she feels seen for the very first time since they’d put Billy in the back of that ambulance.

All in one morning, she’d gone from feeling so iced out by her grief, the singular embodiment of mourning being orbited by the ignorant, the selfish, the cruel, and now there were at least two other people out there in the world who could share that pain with her.

Maybe Christmas wasn’t such a humbug after all.

To say that Max doesn’t know what to say now would be the understatement of the century. She’s totally floored, her mind still slowly trying to recuperate from the weight of what Steve just confessed to her.

Eventually she’s able to get her thoughts in order enough to ask, “How long were you guys, like, cool for?”

“He apologized in December.” Looking down into his mug, he takes a sip of coffee, reminding Max that hers is getting cold. “Two months later we were friends.”

She knows what that really means, that ‘friends’ meant he and Billy had started dating in February, and suddenly a couple of things start to come together.

Like the time when Billy had taken her into the city with promises of a shopping spree, but only bought a couple of little gifts and a bouquet of fancy roses that she never saw again. And the days when she’d wake up for school and he’d be missing because he spent the night somewhere without telling anybody, so Susan would have to drive her. Or when she would find him with things too expensive for his pool wages, like a new pair of ray bans, obvious gifts from the secret admirer.

It’s bittersweet, knowing it Steve was behind all of that.

Despite the tears welling up in her eyes, Max decides to try to crack a joke. “Does this mean you’re my brother in law now?”

Steve returns it by shrugging and saying, “I guess it does, shitbird.”

There is a moment where Max allows herself to laugh with Steve, her quiet giggle echoing in their empty little corner of the diner, but in her heart, she feels a pang of guilt when she looks to the booth in front of her, and thinks about how Billy should be there with them too, with his own slice of pie and a whole life ahead of him.

So Max sniffles, a gentle tear sliding down her cheek when she blinks, and says, “I’m sorry.”

Steve sighs heavily, and sets his cup down. “You don’t have a thing to be sorry for, Max.”

The tears make her voice wobbly, and it hardly comes out as she asks, “Don’t you miss him?”

“‘Course I do. All the time.” Steve says softly.

“Then I’m sorry.” Her bottom lip quivers, and she bites it to try to hold back the sob that comes after.

She can be grateful that Benny’s isn’t a very popular hangout spot these days, so that the only ones around to hear her crying are a couple of geezers whose hearing is probably too poor to notice anyways and Steve.

“Hey, don’t,” Steve starts to say, but his voice cracks, and there’s tears streaking his cheeks to match those on Max’s.

It’s probably good for them, crying it out over pie and coffee, and there’s something about the whole thing that just feels so right to Max, being able to talk with somebody who’s felt exactly what she’s been going through for these five grueling months of isolation.

To her, it feels like this is just where Billy would want her to be.

Eventually they get it out of their systems, crying until there are no tears left, and with a final dab at their eyes with wadded up printed napkins, they’re good to keep going.

Max is the first to strike the conversation back up, having noticed something particularly familiar about Steve’s denim vest. She has a sneaking suspicion it’s not too much unlike the jacket she’s wearing, in that both articles had at one point belonged to her brother.

She nods her head towards him. “Is that Billy’s?”

“What?” Steve looks down at himself like he’s completely forgotten what he’s wearing. “Oh, yeah. He forgot it at my place ages ago.”

She smiles to herself and says, “He did that a lot, forgot things.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.” She nods assuredly and explains, “One time, he forgot to pick me up from school, and I didn’t have a bus pass so he had to drive all the way back and get me.”

“Sounds about like Billy.” There’s a warm smile spreading across Steve’s tear-stained face and an equally as warm chuckle. “You know I brought him here last year?”

Max raises an eyebrow and sips her coffee, but doesn’t say anything back. Steve continues in her place. “It was the night of the snowball, and, I’m sure you remember, his face was super messed up.”

“He wanted to talk, I told him we should come here, so we wouldn’t have to sit in his car.” Steve’s sort of staring off into space, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “We sat at this booth, and that was when he apologized.”

He looks back at Max now to say, “He told me about you too. How last Christmas was different because he didn’t know how to make it up to you.”

“He really loved you, Max.” His voice is thick, like he might start crying again.

Hers is barely above a whisper as she returns the sentiment. “I’m not the only one.”

For the rest of the night until closing, they spent their time exchanging stories of their memories with Billy, of times when he’d made them happy that they felt inclined to share.

They talked about how clumsy he could be, how weird his sense of humor was, his favorite off the wall music, anything and everything that comes to mind that encapsulated the Billy they knew.

One thing they don’t feel the need bring up is abusive parents or accidents at the mall, because that’s not the Billy they want to remember him by. They just talk and talk until they felt as close to one another as they had been to her brother, to his lover.

Just before 10, being that they’re the only stragglers left and Benny’s is about to close, the woman from before who’d taken their orders shoos them out with her politest smile.

From behind the counter, she had watched very moment of their emotional exchange, and some of the cheer in her own heart had been awakened, so she sent them away with some more baked goods before closing up.

Steve takes the long way back to old Cherry Road, trying to stretch this out for as long as he can. They didn’t much talk about it, sure, but his knowledge of how things were in the Hargrove-Mayfield house was enough that he knows he doesn’t want to send Max back there, not yet.

There’s a comfortable silence settled over them in the front seat, no sound but tires on wet pavement and faint Christmas carols drifting quietly through the radio.

Everything they could’ve possibly needed or wanted to say had already been aired out at Benny’s, minus some of the less than subtle stories they didn’t think they should share, so they both just take the time to appreciate the peace.

He’s able to get Max another forty five minutes away from home, letting her settle down in her seat with the heat as high as it can go, taking her drearily down scenic routes and back alley ways, but he can’t delay it forever.

He wishes he could, that didn’t have to take her back there at all, but rather give her the same chance for her freedom from that house that he’d pleaded so desperately with Billy to take before it was too late, but that was a discussion he knew very well she wasn’t ready for.

They pull up outside of the house to see the lights still on, and Max gives him a weak smile before stepping out onto the sidewalk.

She shuts the door behind herself, but she doesn’t budge, doesn’t take any further steps to leave, and Steve doesn’t either.

Rolling down the bimmers window, Steve leans across the seat and says to her, “Listen, if you ever need anything at all just, please let me know. We can do this again anytime.”

She nods and stuffs her hands in her pockets, a look on her face like she’s deep in thought. Steve takes that as his cue that it’s time to leave.

One last smile, a “Merry Christmas, Max,” and he’s pulling away, leaving her to stand alone in the icy breeze.

Making sure he’s well and gone, the sight of his taillights no longer visible from where she's standing, Max takes the envelope that contains Maria’s card out of her pocket, rubbing her thumb over the back of the smooth red paper.

She doesn’t know why she kept it a secret. Of all people, Steve deserves to know, but she figures this is something she’s got to work through on her own.

The front door creaks open behind her, and Susan, dressed in a robe and with her hair up in curlers, calls her inside with scorn in her voice for being out so late.

But not even that can deflate the growing feeling in her chest, of camaraderie, of belonging, of having a friend worth more to her than her mothers bitterness could ever take away.

No, Max goes up the steps to meet her mother in the doorway not with fear or apprehension, but with a certain pride about her, one that might have even been compared to the very swagger that Billy would’ve carried himself with, were he the one to come home after his curfew to find Neil at the door.

Read also on ao3!

#max mayfield #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #ej writer #story by EJ!#I keep shifting from proud of this to not even a little proud of this #but i don’t care here it is I like it it’s alright #thank you to everyone commenting on ao3 y’all have given me so much inspiration!!#school starts back up today so I might be late posting chapter 6 over on ao3 #it pretty much only needs some editing though so maybe not!#it will be up today though you can count on that

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queenladyknight · 3 years

Text

Queen of the South

Chapter 1: Dealing With it

Naomi POV

Texas. The Lone Star State. But to you, it's always been home. You owned 150 acres of land to fill with your heart's content. You chose to follow in your grandfather's footsteps in owning a farm. You had 25 milk cows, three pigs, two Appaloosa horses, and an Australian Sheppard named, Bear.

Your farm was your life. You took pleasure in making sure it was taken care of. This farm allowed you to be free when for most of your life, you've been caged away. Hollywood Acres ( what you named it), made you almost forget your life before. Almost.

"Beep! Beep! Beep!" The alarm woke you from your peaceful slumber. You sat up n bed rubbing your eyes. You glanced at the clock while getting out of bed. It read 6:30 am. "I have plenty of time," you thought out loud.

Today was a special day. Your dear sister would be visiting for a few days. She lived all the way in New York, and you had not seen her in a few months. You wanted to make sure everything was in tip-top shape for her arrival.

You stepped out of bed and began getting ready for the day. Bear was running around your bedroom, exited. He seemed to know that today was important. You pulled on a plaid shirt and overtop you put on a pair of short jean overalls. As you got dressed, Bear sat on your bead watching intently. You loved Bear with all your heart. He had been there for you through thick and thin, unlike a lot of people.

You walked out of your bedroom, with Bear at your heels, downstairs to the kitchen. Your farmhouse was too big, but you loved it anyway. It was meant for a family, not just one person and a dog. As you make breakfast, you think about how your grandmother would remark about how this house should be filled with the laughter of little children. She wanted to have grandbabies before she passed, but that was one of the many things I failed to do.

The eggs sizzled in the pan as you poked it with your fork. You had bacon in the oven for you and Bear, his favorite treat. Bear ate and acted as a human most of the time. He barely ate his dog food and had a place at the table.

I put some scrambled eggs and bacon on two small plates. I put one plate in front of Bear and grabbed a fork for myself. "Dig in, Bear." As soon as the command left your mouth, Bear started going to town on the bacon. You laughed and started eating yourself.

Third Person POV

"This is going to be great, you know that?" Tony asked Pepper. The couple was in Tony's lab in Avengers Tower, looking over remodeling plans. Pepper lowered her head on Tony's shoulder while swirling her flute of champagne. "I know it will be amazing, honey," she replied while kissing his cheek. Tony smiled and leaned over the table of plans.

After the Battle of New York, Tony had been emersed in trying to make the Tower better and making new suits. This had not gone unnoticed by Pepper. She was seeing him less and less, and she was worried. Pepper walked to the other side of the table and began her lecture.

"You know Tony, you haven't been getting much sleep lately. And you think I haven't noticed." She paused for a second to make sure Tony was listening. He was too lost in his papers to pay attention. "Tony! This is serious you need to listen!"

With the shout of his name, Tony stood up straight and remarked, "Pepper, hun, don't shout I'm right here." He reached out his arms playfully to go hug Pepper, but she smacked his arm away. "Tony, you think this is a joke, but it's not. You really need to take a break," Pepper scolded.

She walked towards the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out. Tony frowned and walked towards her. He had been avoiding this talk for some time, but she was right. He had not been getting any sleep. Nightmares invaded his rest and were unbearable. Smothering himself in his work allowed him to take his mind off what troubled him.

"Pepper, you know you don't have to worry about me. I'm fine," Tony said. He wrapped his arms around Pepper and laid his head on her shoulder. Pepper sighed and replied, " If you say so, Tony, but I'm here for you if you want to talk."

Tony let go of her and walked to the bar. He poured himself some whiskey and walked back to Pepper. " I know Pep, but speaking of break. I think that's a good idea." Pepper nodded and he kept going. " We should go somewhere like Paris or Australia."

"Paris sounds fun, you set it up and I'll go, but for right now," Pepper planted a kiss on Tony's head, " I'm going to fly Stark Headquarters. I'll be gone for a few days." Tony grabbed Pepper's hand as she began to walk out.

" You know how much I love you right?" he asked. Pepper turned toward him and smiled, " You love me to the moon and back."

Naomi's POV

"In other news, the price of gas has gone up significantly in the past few weeks." The news reporter babbled on and on about the gas, while you cooked. You knew your sister was going to be really hungry, so you had to cook a feast.

Cooking one of the other things that gave you joy. It was comforting and peaceful, well usually. Bear was making a lot of racket with his squeaky toy. Bear was sitting in front of the TV, knawing on his toy.

You flipped the pork chops over in the cast iron pan. They sizzled and filled the kitchen with its delicious scent. You wanted to impress your sister with your cooking. You had not seen her in forever and wanted to prove that you were doing something with your life.

As you hovered over the food, the TV caught your attention. "It has been officially a full month since the Battle of New York. With the help of Tony Stark, New York has been slowly picking up the pieces, but it won't look the same. Let's hear more from our New York correspondent, Tina Lakes. Tina, what are you hearing from officials?"

You quickly picked up the remote and turned the channel. The Battle of New York brought up too many things that you weren't ready to deal with yet. Even though you had not been a part of it, seeing the destruction and the fight brought forth many bad memories. You stared at the TV in thought, not realizing the pork chops were getting burned.

"Ruff! Ruff!" Bear barked twice to snap me out of it. I swung around and ran towards the stove. "Shit!" The chops were burnt and inedible. I threw them out and started over. So much for proving myself.

3 hours later

You had finally finished. You had a good-looking dinner prepared. Pork chops, green beans, mashed potatoes, rice, rolls, and a coconut pie. You expected your sister to be here any minute. You walked over to the mirror hanging on the wall. You had fixed your hair in a high ponytail and had changed out of your overalls and into a forest green sundress.

You knew green was your sister's favorite color and you so happened to look good in it. You twirled in the mirror and faced Bear. "How do I look Bear, honey?" Bear barked in response, putting a smile on your face. Just then you heard a knock at the front door. "Coming!" You ran and opened the door with a blazing grin.

"Naomi! How are you!?" You opened the door wider and lept into her arms. "I'm doing good, Alex. Come on in!" You broke the hug and ushered her inside. You and Alex walked into the kitchen. " I like what you've done with the place," Alex remarked looking around the home.

"Thanks! Ready for dinner?" you asked, but you already knew the answer. " I'm super hungry, that plane ride has given me an appetite!" You both laughed and you got out the food. You finished putting the food on the table and sat opposite Alex.

" You made a feast, Naomi!" I grinned and called for Bear. "Bear, honey, it's time to eat!" Bear jumped up and landed in his chair at the table. " Let's dig in!" exclaimed Alex. We all started to devour our food.

"So tell me, Alex, how have you been?" You talked to your sister on the phone once in a while but you really didn't know much. Ever since grandma died we've drifted farther apart.

" I've been well, I recently started a new job and it's been going well. Jason wished he could be with me right now, but he has other responsibilities." You nodded as she kept going about her life. That's one thing you did not miss about your sister, she was a talker.

"Enough about me, what have you been doing?" Alex questioned. You swallowed down some mashed potatoes and responded, " Nothing much, just tending to my farm and hanging out with Bear." You nodded to yourself, pleased with your answer, but Alex was not.

"Naomi, you need to get around more. You can't stay cooped up in this house every day," Alex said. I stopped eating and responded, " Taking care of the farm is a big job, Alex. And I don't have any help. This takes up most of my time. Besides," you reached over to pet Bear, " Bear has been here with me."

Alex scoffed and looked at you straight in the eye. She had striking honey golden eyes. It was like she was piercing into my soul. " I'm going to give it to you bluntly. You haven't been the same since grandma died and you know it. Acting as though nothing happened and running away isn't going to help. You literally ran away from all of us to this place." Alex gestured to the house around her.

You looked down at your food in shame. She was right. You had run away from your problems thinking that getting away would be the answer, but in reality, it only made it worse.

" I'm sorry, Alex. After grandma's funeral, I couldn't do it anymore. I had lost too many people. I didn't realize how it might have affected everyone else." You looked up to see Alex holding back tears.

" We were so worried about you Naomi. We didn't know how to help because wouldn't tell us anything. After you left the Army, you changed a lot, like you went through something."

You looked in your food once again, not wanting to break down in front of Alex. That was a tough subject to talk about. What you went through was traumatic and changed your life drastically.

" I did go through something, Alex, and I'm sorry." Alex nodded and smiled again, " How about we change the subject a little?" You agreed and spent the rest of the evening chatting and eating.

#the avengers #mcu #marvel #the south #iron man #tony stank #steve rogers #natahsa romanoff #bruce banner #thor

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bisexualsforprompto · 4 years

Text

Of Roommates and Red Heroes Chapter 4

Quick note: I had to change Mari’s hero names for logistical reasons, it’s now Lady Pegasus

Ao3

One Previous

Of Nightmares and Thanksgiving Dinner

The bakery was on fire. Hawkmoth stood in front, laughing hysterically as the bakery, her parents, her livelihood, burned to the ground. He relished his triumph a moment longer before bolting at the sign of Ladybug’s furious face.

Marinette let the tears flow as she ran to the bakery, which was mere ash. She tossed the brick and mortar, ‘ please’ she cried. She dug her fingers through the ash until they were as black as charcoal. Yet there was no sign of her parent’s remains. Marinette sobbed, she couldn’t control her hands anymore, they kept digging until they were raw, calloused and bloody. Then she wept, when she saw what lay underneath.

A man, muscular, not overly tall, black hair with a white streak, blue eyes glazed over, and mouth curved into a viscous smile lay dead on the ground.

“Jason!!!” Marinette screamed as she tried to shake him awake, “No, no, no, this isn’t happening!”

His eyes, still glazed had humor in them, “If you couldn’t save me, who are you kidding? Even master Fu didn’t trust you, he sent you to Gotham because he knew you couldn’t do it.” He laughed, “Guess he was right.”

Marinette keeled over, “No, god no. Please, wake up. Wake up,

“WAKE UP! Mari wake up!” Jason screamed to a screaming Marinette who’d fallen asleep on his arm watching the Macy’s parade

~•Thursday, Nov. 28, 5pm EST•~•

Marinette shot up, “Wh-what?” She said dazed, she couldn’t tell dream from reality, she could still almost feel the burning sensation on her fingers from touching hot rubble.

“Buttercup, I get that you don’t wanna talk. Trust me, nobody gets it more than me, but you know what else I know?” Jason asked firmly, “You can’t just leave things pent up, because then it’s going to spill out and you’ll do something you’ll never forgive yourself for.” Something that could probably get her killed, Jason added silently. He couldn’t lose her, not when they’d just found each other. He knew what she was feeling, he could practically live her anguish just from the blood curdling screams she’d emitted from her dream.

“I- I- I just can’t. Not yet,” Marinette sighed putting her hand on her elbow and turning away. Jason put his arm around her and spun her to face him on the couch. He looked at her, he saw the tears welling in her eyes. He stood up suddenly and gave her what she needed, a hug.

That’s when it all poured out, she cried, she cried for what felt like hours. She clung onto Jason tightly, like a child with her teddy bear. She wanted more, she knew she was high on emotion, but she felt the urge to kiss Jason. Kiss him till all the feelings went away.

‘ Pull yourself together Marinette! Jason is your roommate, not your lover! Ladybug doesn’t cry anyway!’ She told herself, she pulled away from Jason, the tears had disappeared, what was left was a cold stare.

Jason knew it all too well, she was trying to keep her emotions in check.

“Butterc-“

“We should get ready for the dinner,” Marinette stated plainly going to the kitchen.

Jason sighed and followed her, she wouldn’t talk, she wouldn’t allow herself to feel but goddammit, Jason would cheer her up.

“So Buttercup, you excited to meet my friends?” Marinette gave a small smile, Jason mentally high fived himself.

“Yeah, from what you’ve said they seem great!” Her face grew to her regular permanent smile, entrancing as always, the only thing Jason wasn’t fond of was her puffy red eyes. “Kor’i and Dick will love you, they’ll probably adopt you on the spot.”

That earned a chuckle from the bluenette, “I can’t wait.”

~•Thursday, Nov. 28, 6pm EST•~•

Jason heard a rap on the door as Marinette took set the pie on the table decorated in white tablecloth. Her traditional pigtails were intact but she had changed into black slacks and a button up shirt with her signature black jacket. Jason pulled open the door to see Roy, Kor’i and Dick.

“Nice to see you Jason!” Kor’i exclaimed wrapping him into a hug. Roy smirked and walked in along with Dick. Marinette walked over to the guests extending a hand, “Hi, I’m Marinette, Jason’s roommate.”

“Nice to meet you!” Dick smiled charmingly while shaking her hand and returning back to his wife (who looked like she was squeezing Jason so tight he couldn’t breathe).

“Hmm Jason never mentioned you were so pretty, Pigtails,” Roy winked leaving a flustered and blushing Marinette. Roy was certainly not bad looking, she entertained, messy red hair, piercing green eyes, and a build that could only be envied by weight lifters. Marinette found herself wondering how he got so ripped. She shook the thought away and went over to join the group.

“It’s so good to meet you! I’m Kor’i...Grayson” Kor’i said, using her husband's last name, releasing Jason from her grip and zeroing in on Mari, “Good to know our Jason has a good influence finally.” Marinette giggled and nodded, “I don’t know about that-“

“Jay Jay won’t shut up about his new little sister, you got him to stop drinking too, you are a good influence. I’m Dick Grayson by the way,” Dick responded giving her smile of pride and appreciation. Marinette blushed, giving Jason time to take the wheel, “Well Buttercup, should we show them your pie?” Roy raised an eyebrow and gave a sexy smirk, ‘ Not sexy! Not sexy!!!’ Marinette tried to convince herself, at least Roy wasn’t as bad as Red Hood, if he was Marinette wouldn’t be able to function.

“Yes! I’m all for pie!” Dick smiled taking his chuckling wife’s arm to the table. Marinette and Jason went to join them, but Roy placed a hand on Marinette’s shoulders, “I’m Roy by the way.” Marinette smiled sweetly, “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise Pigtails,” Roy winked causing Marinette to turn bright red and Jason to glare at him. Roy chuckled under his breath as the three of them joined the table.

~•~Thursday, Nov. 28, 10pm EST•~•

Dinner had gone over well. It was great actually. The only thing Marinette would’ve changed was Roy subtly flirting with her, not because it made her uncomfortable but because she found herself lost in fantasy about him when he called her Pigtails and winked.

It was considerably late and Marinette did want to get to sleep, but then she remembered that she didn’t know the sleeping arrangements. She didn’t really know how to ask so when everyone was focused on a football game Marinette whispered, as quietly as possible, to Jason, “Where should I sleep tonight?” Roy overheard and smirked, “Well Kor’i and Dick can share in the guest room together, Jason can take his own room and we can share Pigtails.” Marinette blushed and Jason gave Roy a death stare. If looks could kill…

“ Or,” Jason hissed quietly at Roy, “Kor’i and Dick take the guest room, you take my room, Marinette sleeps in hers and I take the couch.” Roy chuckled at Jason, getting under his skin was too fun, “Sure thing.”

“If you guys aren’t going to watch the game and instead gossip like teenagers we’ll change the channel,” Dick said with Kor’i wrapped around his arms reaching for the remote. Dick pressed a button and a news broadcast appeared. Everyone gasped audibly at what horrors laid on the screen.

Marinette didn’t know a lot about Gotham villains, but the face of this one was recognizable world wide.

Joker. In full manic glory he was laughing insanely, sweat running down his sick, white painted face and causing his green hair to stick to it. He held a little boy at gunpoint, screaming, “Where’s Batsy? Or maybe one of his sidekicks?” When only the sound military choppers answered his query Joker’s smile darkened and he spoke again, “Come on, I haven’t got all day!”

Jason’s fists clenched, Roy and him communicated silently as they tried to plan how to get to the scene without revealing their identities to Marinette.

“Why don’t you go to bed Buttercup? It’s late and this isn’t something you should see.” Normally Marinette would be annoyed at Jason treating her like a child, but she was relieved. This gave her an exit, and she’d be able to transform into Lady Pegasus to help with Joker. She walked to her room, not noticing how the heroes behind her had gathered and were motioning.

Marinette walked into her room and closed the door, she gave it a good minute before whispering, “Spots on! Tikki, Kaaliki, unify!”

Marinette was able to make a portal quickly, she had noticed the location of Joker on the TV and teleported there immediately. She landed behind a cargo container, which was deserted and dark. She peeked around it to see she was directly behind Joker and his hostage.

She thought about how she might go about saving the little boy when she saw four heroes land in front of the Joker. She recognized Red Hood from their previous encounter, and she saw a Nightwing with two other heroes she didn’t know the name of.

“Well, well, now things are getting interesting!” Joker cackled earning him a glare from the only girl in the group of heroes who stood next to Nightwing. “Tell me, Nightwing, Red Hood, Arsenal, Starfire-“

“So you know our names! Big deal!” Said the redhead, Arsenal.

“How rude,” scoffed Joker pushing the gun closer to the little boy’s temple, “Didn’t even let me finish.”

Joker moved the boy’s light brown hair out of the way and stared into his caramel eyes, “Tell me, do you want to save him?” He asked motioning towards the terrified little boy, “Or do you want to disarm the four bombs around Gotham that I’ve set to go off in twenty minutes?” The heroes faltered,

“You’re bluffing,” Nightwing said crossing his arms. “Am I?” Joker cackled pulling a detonator out of his coat, “Now, now. I want our game to be fair, each of you start out for one of the bombs or you can save the kid and millions of others go boom!” Joker made a motion, flicking his hand to symbolize the boom. “Better hurry and make your decision though, the clock is ticking!” Joker laughed pulling out a small clock which was counting down from twenty minutes.

Lady Pegasus saw her chance, “lucky charm,” she whispered. A red and black spotted frisbee fell from the sky. The gun flashed with spots as did her yo-yo. While the heroes were stunned, trying to figure out what to do, Marinette threw the frisbee, causing it to collide with great force into the gun. The gun was knocked out of Joker’s hands, “Hey!” He shouted, but before he could turn around Lady Pegasus had stood up and used her yo-yo to take the detonator from him.

“Oooh!” He grinned as he looked back at her, “New meat! She’s good too!” Arsenal was able to grab the child and the gun while Joker was distracted, “Sure you have my detonator, but the bombs are still rigged to go off in,” Joker spat at Marinette checking his clock, “Nineteen minutes! And you don’t know where they areee!” He singsonged as he started to laugh.

Nightwing pulled up the schematics of Gotham, looking specifically for trace elements of laughing gas which Joker always filled his bombs with.

“Arsenal, central station! Starfire, Grand Plaza! I’ve got Upper Market, Red Hood take Gotham Flats!” Nightwing commanding signaling a special message to Red Hood. Both Red Hood and Lady Pegasus’ eyes widened, ‘ Gotham Flats is where I live with Jason! Oh no! Roy, Dick, and Kor’i are there too!’ Marinette internally screamed.

‘ Buttercup is sleeping in her room! I have to save her!!!’ Jason panicked as he started off to his home.

“Red Hood!” Lady Pegasus called. “Look Mystery Girl, we appreciate you saving our asses back there but now I’ve gotta move!” Jason said as he internally freaked out, he wanted to learn more about the mystery girl of course but he wanted to save Marinette more.

“I’m coming with you!” Lady Pegasus yelled as she ran to catch up with him, she grabbed her frisbee off the ground and followed Red Hood to save Jason. Red Hood didn’t argue, the more chance he had of saving Buttercup the better.

‘ Come on! Go faster!’ He screamed to himself, ‘ You just got Marinette, you can’t afford to lose her!’

Marinette raised her yo-yo and lifted Red Hood in her arms, swinging it to get to the Flats.

Though Red Hood wasn’t used to being carried he relaxed a little when he saw that the mystery girl was headed in the right direction and was going much faster than it would’ve been on foot.

Glass shattered as Marinette swung her yo-yo into the lobby of the flats.

“Red Hood, your bomb is behind the desk in the lobby.” Nightwing said over the comms. Jason jumped over the desk to see a large bomb at 16 minutes.

“Shit! Red Hood to Nightwing!” Jason called pressing his comm. Marinette rushed over to join him at the desk, she knew she had only two minutes left before she transformed back, “Which wire do we cut?!” Marinette gasped when she saw the bomb, a massive array of wires in a variety of colors.

“Damn it!” Jason said when he couldn’t get an answer, “Mystery girl! Can’t you get one of those magic charms!” Marinette shook her head, “It only works once and I have two minutes before I detransform!”

Jason facepalmed, ‘ of course’ . “Well we’re doo-“

“Nightwing to everyone! I disabled my bomb, cut the red wire!” Jason breathed a sigh of relief, “We’re cutting the red wire,” he told Marinette. Marinette nodded as he cut it.

Suddenly 19 minutes went to 1!

“SHIT!” Jason yelled, “Uh- We've got a problem!!!” He made a split decision and ripped out all the wires.

The time didn’t stop, in fact it went down to thirty seconds. Red Hood tackled Lady Pegasus, and shielded her from the explosion.

Which never came. Marinette breathed heavily as Red Hood was on her, his chest pressed to hers, she was rigid, hoping Jason, Roy, Kor’i and Dick would be ok.

‘ I bet you’re eating this up,’ Kaaliki giggled the back of her mind.

‘ KAALIKI!’

‘What? Just trying to lighten the mood.’

Jason got up, and Marinette realized thirty seconds had passed. Jason laughed and sighed in relief when he looked at the bomb. Marinette sat up to see the bomb had completely powered down.

“Update Nightwing, we got ours.” Jason said smashing the bomb into pieces.

“Good, Rendezvous back at you know where.”

Marinette breathed in, relieved. “Before I go little Lady, I have to know. Who are you?” Red Hood asked as he stood up and hopped over the desk.

“I’m a friend.” Was all Marinette could say as her earrings beeped. She tipped an invisible hat to him before saying, “Miraculous cure!” She escaped out the window and climbed up to her room with the help of her yo-yo in the chaos of the ladybugs cleaning up.

Marinette pushed her open window and fell into the bed as her transformation wore off, “What a battle, huh Tikki. Well all three of us should actually get to bed. What do you say?” The two kwamis smiled at their holder, “Sounds great Marinette.” Tikki said before lounging on her pillow.

“I don’t know, wouldn't you rather go sleep with that guy? The redhead who’s been flirting all night?” Kaaliki asked as they giggled at their own teasing.

“KAALIKI!” Marinette whisper-shouted burying her face in her pillow. “Priceless!” They laughed as they joined Tikki and fell into a slumber.

~•Friday, Nov. 29, 1am EST•~•

Marinette couldn’t sleep. She’d tried, but avoided tossing and turning as to not wake up her kwamis. She checked the clock on her bedside table and sighed when she realized how long it had been. Marinette slowly crept out of the bed and to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

Marinette didn’t wear anything revealing to sleep, she enjoyed being comfortable while sleeping so she mostly wore long flannel pajamas in the fall and winter. That was what she was wearing today, but when she got into the kitchen she realized there was such a thing as too comfortable.

Roy was opening a water bottle as he turned around to Marinette. “Ah Pigtails.” He greeted, “Why are you up so late?” But Marinette could barely answer, he didn’t have a shirt on.

And he was just as ripped as she imagined, not that she had! She totally didn’t! Thank god he was wearing long jeans, she did not want to be thinking about him like that.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She responded as she too went to the fridge for water, looking at his face and not daring to look any further down.

“Hmm. Bad dream?” Roy asked as he took a swig of water. “Not really, I just couldn’t turn off my brain.” Roy chuckled, “Yeah, I have days like that. Try counting backwards from 100, that always puts me out quickly.” Marinette nodded, “Thanks Roy.”

“Hey no problem Pigtails. And you know, if you need me I’m right down the hall.” He said charmingly, but not in a flirty way like Marinette expected, just in a caring way. Roy left her standing in the kitchen as he went back to Jason’s room. Marinette followed suit, going to her own room.

She put the water on the bedside table and laid down again.

‘ 100, 99, 98…’

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#Of Roommates and Red Heroes

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collecting-stories · 5 years

Text

Velvet Elvis - Dean Winchester

A/N: Trying my hand at some Supernatural💕

Soft to the touch, feels like love, knew it as soon as I felt it. - Velvet Elvis, Kacey Musgraves

\\\

He said it enough times that it should’ve been true. And maybe he could fool other people into thinking that it was. Thinking that this wasn’t the kind of life that he wanted to live. That getting a case was arguably the best moment of his day. He couldn’t do ‘days off’ and he got antsy sitting around and there were only so many times he could take Baby apart and put her back together. He’d tried the so-called ‘apple pie life’ with Lisa and Ben and it was alright and he was kind of happy but he always felt like there was something missing. Always looking over his shoulder waiting for the other shoe to drop. He kind of hoped that it would.

But he talked about his dream life all the time, just to convince himself that he didn’t want to die alone hunting some monster or demon. That he wanted kids, a family, all the stuff you were supposed to have. The kind of relationship his parents had, or didn’t get the chance to really have. He told himself he wanted that. And there were parts that were true. He wanted the companionship, someone that wasn’t just Sam. Someone who loved him the way his mom loved his dad. Someone he could come home to. And kids, he wasn’t sure what kind of a parent he would be but he wanted the chance to find out. But the other stuff he didn’t care about. The house with the white picket fence and the steady 9-5 and the typical happy suburban family. None of that actually mattered. But he was convinced it mattered to other people.

“You think we’ll ever have that?” Sam had asked, sitting in the war room after a particularly nasty hunt. They’d leaned on an old friend for help, one who was retired now, with all those things that Sam and Dean constantly talked about wanting and it had gotten them both thinking.

As the newest edition in their never-ending quest you were mortally aware of the invisible but still painfully obvious wall between you and them. You were just research, a helping hand around the bunker to pay off a favor you couldn’t remember owing. And they were alright and Sam was always trying to include you in their ‘woe is me’ discussions but you usually just ignored them. Tonight was no different, Sam posed the question to the room but really the question was for his brother.

You looked up from the book you were reading and over to Dean. He was stretched out, with his feet propped on the edge of the table and a beer in his hand, trying to look more relaxed than he felt. Sam was nice to you but Dean was nice to look at. The flirtatious comments were shallow and any conversation was kept above a certain level of seriousness. Dean was quite ready to let himself be friends with you. And you’d heard rumours from other hunters about the Winchester’s. Hanging with them was like signing your own death certificate. The people closest to them always bit the bullet and they never looked out for anyone but themselves.

You figured that’s what it was. That was the invisible wall you couldn’t quite scale. Dean thought, or knew, you would die just like Kevin and everyone else and he was avoiding the loss by not getting close to begin with. Or he just didn’t like you. Which you would rather not consider.

“Maybe, someday.” Dean finally replied, feet landing on the ground, “who knows though, we’re not getting younger.”

“What do you think?” Sam looked over and it took a moment to realize he was addressing you.

“Me?�� You asked, just to be sure.

“No one else in here sweetheart,” Dean cut in.

Raised in the life, with only an ounce more stability than they had, your own father was never looking for anything in particular. And your mom wasn’t dead. She was somewhere, probably a beach, but not dead. You liked the road and the living in different places and the learning about monsters. You never had any illusions about this life, never even considered getting out of it.

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, you didn’t talk much to them about your own life. You weren’t interested in manoeuvring around their preconceived ideas about this life and the one they said they wanted. Hunters didn’t always make the best companions and explaining hunting to non-hunters usually sent them running so it had been a while since you’d bothered with any real relationship. The most interaction you had with others since your dad died was these two and Castiel on occasion. That was really the only thing holding you back from the parts of normalcy that you were truly interested in.

“Yeah me either.” Sam mused.

Dean was staring at you as you resumed reading, jotting down notes every couple of paragraphs. You had expressed interest in a ‘more concise and chronological’ history of the Men of Letters and their legacy and Sam had been more than willing to allow you the opportunity to go through the records. You’d been pouring yourself into it for a couple of months now and playing research point for them whenever they were away on a case. Both of them liked having you around the bunker and while Sam had an easier time of it Dean wasn’t adverse to getting to know you. He just didn’t know where to start. It was easy with Charlie, there was no attraction there so she just became another ‘one of the guys’ in his brain but he had trouble separating you into that category.

He wasn’t sure there was any attraction on your side, you didn’t seem remotely interested in either of them, but he was most definitely attracted to you. He’d tried all his usual lines and none of them seemed to even register with you. Sam has suggested the obvious route, just talking to you and letting things work out on their own but Dean was more results oriented. He wanted things to happen immediately so he could gauge the outcome better. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to put in the work but he was reluctant to when he suspected there might be no positive result.

“I’m heading to bed,” Sam announced, setting his beer on the table as he stood up, “I wanna run into town tomorrow morning.”

That left you and Dean. He was still leaning back in his chair, his eyes straying to you once more. Fully engrossed in your book, there was something unexplainably calming about you like this. Sometimes when you were in the library or the war room working Dean would just sit there, fully relaxed by your presence. His favorite was when you called him over in passing. He’d be on the way to the kitchen or his room and you’d lean back in your chair, spitting him and smiling and you’d wave him over with an excited ‘listen to this’.

“How’s it coming along?” He asked, testing out the room now that Sam was gone.

“There’s just so much information, it’s fascinating though.” You replied, “if this is all I do for the rest of my life I’ll be happy.”

“So that’s a no to the white picket fence then?” He laughed, tipping back his beer and taking a sip. He had his suspicions that you were just like him, disinterested in retirement and settling down and working regular jobs.

“I guess so,” you shrugged, an uneasy laugh escaping.

The two of you never had this kind of conversation.

“I don’t think I’d want it either,” Dean finally said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I just, I think I’d get bored.”

“It’s not for everyone, but everyone says that it should be.” You replied, “I think I want parts of it ya know, the partner, maybe a kid or two.”

“A nice even number.” Dean joked.

“But I mean, I don’t need the house and all the hubbub. Not that I’ll live here forever but this is just as nice as any house to raise a kid in. Don’t you think?”

“Yea,” Dean looked over at you as you focused on your book once more, jotting down a note and marking the page with a tab. “You could stay here.” He said offhandedly before his brain could catch up with his mouth.

“I can stay?” You asked, smiling at him, your tone playful.

He smiled back at you, taking another sip of his beer as he watched you. He could laugh and play it all off as some half-way to drunk joke or he could be more than honest with you. Tell you he really was starting to care about you, far more than he had shown you in the couple of months that you had been living with them. Or he could kick back and let things happen the way they would, following fate or something like that. “I wouldn’t hate it.” Dean finally said.

Here’s me indulging in how much I love Dean.

#dean Winchester imagine #dean Winchester fanfiction #dean Winchester fanfic #dean winchester x reader #spn imagine #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #supernatural imagine #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #cs discography series #collecting stories imagine

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getoutofthisplace · 4 years

Photo

Dear Gus,

I turned 38 years old today. I’ll post the detailed account I posted to Facebook of how I spent the day below, but I left out the part about how after talking to Nene, I kept standing out on the patio at Yiayia’s house. I watched you and Mom through the window. You sat in her lap, laughing at whatever she was doing. I’m so happy you and me and Mom all have each other. And that we have everyone else. I’m so happy you are happy.

Dad

North Little Rock, Arkansas. 1.8.2020 - 6.23pm.

PLAY BY PLAY:

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up. The room is still dark. I can just make out enough of the bedsheets to notice that Liz is already gone. She had to be at the hospital by 6:30am for work. I lift my phone off the bedside table. It’s nearly 7am. Gus calls for his mother from his crib, but he doesn’t complain when I open his door, turn off his space heater and his sound machine.

“I want Mama,” he says. His pacifier muffles his words.

“Mama’s at work,” I say, opening the wooden blinds.

“No, she’s not,” he says.

“Where is she?”

“She’s in there,” he says, pointing down the dimly lit hallway.

“Okay,” I say, picking him up. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“I need a fig bar and a banana and a vitamin,” he says. He says it every morning.

He tosses his pacifier into the kitchen sink while I peel him a whole banana, careful not to break it, and put it into the Ziploc bowl with a leftover fig bar. His teeth marks are left from a bite he took yesterday. I add the gummy purple vitamin and hand him the bowl. We walk into the living room and I use the remote to turn the television on.

“I want to watch Dino the Dinosaur,” he says. The show features Dino and his friend Dina, dinosaurs of the triceratops variety, who learn about colors or numbers or shapes in every super-short episode. Neither character talks, but a woman with a soothing voice narrates everything. He loves it. Liz and I can’t stand to watch the show, but it’s better than when he got hooked on Trolls, which has no educational value. Or any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

As I leave the room, Gus erupts into a scream. I know immediately that he has noticed I’ve given him yesterday’s fig bar. He cries and says something unintelligible about it.

“Do you want a new fig bar?”

He says something else unintelligible about it.

“Do you want a blueberry or a raspberry fig bar?” I ask.

He stops crying and says he wants raspberry.

I put the new fig bar in his bowl and take out the fig bar with the missing bite. I start to throw it in my mouth, but remember I haven’t weighed yet. I record my weight every day into a Google spreadsheet I share with my cousin John. We have compared weights for years, but got serious about it in 2018 when we began recording our weights every day in the document, the title of which is “Fat Boys.”

When my grandfather was alive, he must’ve thought his grandsons were all a bunch of lanky, weak kids because he offered $100 to the first of us who could get to 180 pounds. He wanted a grandson that could help him contend with livestock. Zachary earned the money, but now that our grandfather’s gone, we’re all on the other side of 180, trying to get back.

I step onto the scale. It reads 187.8. Down a pound from yesterday. A win. I pop the half-eaten fig bar in my mouth and walk to the back bathroom to take a shower.

I see Gus’s blurry shape through the frosted glass of the shower. I stand on my tiptoes to look at him from over the door.

“I need my milk,” he tells me. We call it milk, but it’s really rice milk. He’s allergic to dairy, so we’ve cycled through all the milk alternatives for the last couple of years. His doctors thought he might also be allergic to soy, so we gave up on soy milk, then we discovered he probably had a tree nut allergy, so we quit almond milk. He wouldn’t drink oat milk, so here we are. For now. Our gastroenterology specialist has asked us to bring in another stool sample for testing. He scolded Liz this week for rescheduling Gus’s scope recently, even though his staff told us to reschedule because of a cold. It was an unnecessary risk, they said. The abnormal results from the lab tests weren’t that big of a deal, the doctor himself said. But when Liz sat in front of him this week, he felt differently. He felt we weren’t taking Gus’s health seriously. He threatened to not reschedule if we were just going to cancel. When she recounted the conversation with me over the phone, I could feel my blood boil. There was a time when I believed in the authority of doctors and could stand to be talked down to within reason, but that time is no longer. Now I need them to recognize the importance of customer service. My instinct was to drive to Children’s Hospital and kick his office door down, but instead I told Liz to write down everything that he told her and the tone in which he said it because as soon as we no longer need him to tell us what is wrong with our boy’s digestive system, I will make sure everyone within earshot understands what an arrogant prick he is. (Stay tuned.)

“Did you poop?” I ask Gus.

“No, I didn’t poop,” he says.

“I think you pooped,” I say, hoisting him onto the changing table. I am late and don’t really have time to take the stool sample now, but I want to get it as quickly as possibly so we can get back the lab results.

I strip his pajamas off him and check his diaper. He wasn’t lying. There is no poop.

“Where are we going today?” Gus asks me.

“I’m going to work and you’re going to school.”

“Oh no, school’s closed today, Daddy.”

I glare at him, but he’s committed to the lie—he doesn’t smirk.

At work, my coworkers have hung a couple of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” banners in my office, which I share with Derek, though he isn’t in yet. They hand me the birthday sombrero to wear and we stand around the small conference room singing happy birthday. My brother-in-law has sent two breakfast casseroles and a large mixing bowl full of fresh fruit. We eat and catch up. We are a closely knit team, but it feels like we haven’t talked as a group since before Christmas, with everyone coming and going. A child has started at daycare. A spouse has gotten a dog. I express my growing anger toward the doctor. A 9:30 meeting breaks up our reunion and we all go back to work.

Derek and I debate where to go to lunch. I pull out my Excel sheet and begin reading off the names of local restaurants. We discuss a future study in which we spend each week only eating one dish, comparing one restaurant to another. We will find the city’s best ramen, the best pizza, the best cobb salad. But for now, we just need lunch. It’s already after noon. We go to Senor Tequila because it’s closer than anywhere else. We each get the special of the day: Bean burrito, cheese enchilada, Mexican rice for $6. We’re both amazed at how cheap that is. Derek quickly does some math on how much money he would save for the rest of his life if he only ate a $6 lunch. The figure is relatively astronomical. But then he surprises me by buying me lunch for my birthday, which would throw his number off, probably.

This morning, Liz tasked me with deciding what I’d like to do for my birthday dinner. She is unsatisfied when I tell her I don’t know. She tells me we can go somewhere, or she can make me something, or her mother has offered to order take-out at her house. I tell Liz I will decide later and text her before she gets off work at 3pm.

As that hour approaches, I am overwhelmed with the mountain of work I am facing at the office. I need the mental boost that comes with being able to scratch anything off my to-do list. Something easy, something quick. I text Liz that I want to go to her mother’s house and eat what we refer to as Korean tacos—chopped salmon and rice wrapped in seaweed. Accomplishing that simple task and being decisive gives me confidence to also ask her to make me a cherry pie, though I tell her it doesn’t have to be today. Just soon.

When she gets off work, she calls to say she’ll make the pie tonight if I’ll go get Gus from daycare.

In my truck I’m listening to Dani Shapiro read her memoir, HOURGLASS. I’ve mostly read fiction lately and Shapiro has reminded me how much I love memoir done right. So right that I feel like I’ve known her, personally, for a long time. Like we have a history that would warrant me picking up my phone and texting her to say, “I’m finally getting around to reading your book, old friend, and it is beautiful.” I wonder if my mother would like the book. I think she would.

I race across town to get to Gus’s daycare in Hillcrest before 5:30pm, but when I get there, I have time to spare. There are only five minutes left in my book, so I turn my truck’s engine off and watch the other parents wrangle their children into their respective cars while I listen to the very end—“This audiobook has been a production…”

I meet eyes with a mother I don’t recognize coming out of the school, and I realize just how creepy I may look, sitting there outside a daycare in my nondescript pick-up truck, no sense of urgency to get out and retrieve my child.

“Daddy!” Gus says, running into my arms when I finally go in and stand in the doorway where he and his friend Luna are the last two children.

“Does someone at your house have a birthday today?” Ms. Cathy asks Gus. “It’s Daddy’s birthday!” Gus says. And I feel incredibly loved by my son. He doesn’t have to love me, I think, but he does.

On the way home, I explain to Gus how the red lights and the green lights dictate when we stop and when we go. He is fascinated. He applies the rule to all the lights he sees.

“What is that yellow light?” he asks.

“That’s a controversial subject, son.” I say. “Some people think it means slow down, but I’m in the camp that just thinks it means it’s time to commit.”

“Oooohhhh…” he says. “I don’t want to go home.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I want to go see diggers,” he says. We are in a construction equipment phase.

“We’ll have to keep an eye out for some on the way to Yiayia & Papou’s.”

“Are we going to Yiayia & Papou’s?”

“Yiayia & Papou, we’re coming for you…” I say. It’s a game we’ve played for probably a year. I say the names of the people whose house we are going to and he will say what it is he wants from them.

“We’re coming for you and your toys and your Paw Patrol,” he responds.

When we get there, he runs into the living room for the toys and the Paw Patrol, which are also toys.

“Happy birthday,” Zill says.

Athena hugs me. Liz kisses me. I can tell she is eager for me to see that she is making my cherry pie.

“I didn’t have time to make Nana’s crust, but look at those cherries,” she says.

They are the red of earthy roses, a color not found from a can of cherry pie filling.

Athena pulls two beers from the refrigerator. “They’re both Birthday Bomb! beers, but one is aged in a whiskey barrel!” she tells me.

Liz and I are on a diet that only allows us to drink once a week and this week has already been spoken for.

“It’s a special occasion,” she says. “You should drink them.”

Athena pulls a frozen mug from the freezer and I pour the stout into the glass. I sit with Zill in the living room. We toast that our country has somehow managed to not initiate World War III yet. Athena brings in a plate of large, chilled shrimp, which grabs Gus’s attention.

“What are those things?” he asks.

“Those are shrimp,” I say. “You love shrimp.”

“I need to have them,” he says.

I hold one by the tail as he eagerly bites into it. He wants to take another bite before he finishes the first. He’s ready to move on to the next shrimp entirely, but I regain his attention and show him the meat that is still in the tail. He devours one shrimp after the other. So much so that I look around to see if anyone else thinks I should stop him. Liz is happy he’s eating protein and not carbs, so I let him continue.

My mother calls me and I step out onto the back patio. She wishes me a happy birthday and we talk about my day. We talk about the extended family getting together Sunday maybe to celebrate everyone who has a birthday in January—me, my sister, my grandmother, my aunt and uncle and oldest niece, Caroline, who came within hours of being a February birthday that night in 2008 when we all waited so long in the waiting room at the hospital in Memphis.

“Stop by so we can give you your birthday gift,” my sister texts me. They live less than a mile from us.

By the time Liz gets Gus bathed and I insist on waiting around to see the Final Jeopardy question, which I initially answered partially correct, but then second-guess myself enough to ultimately miss entirely, our family is tired. I drive Liz and Gus home so she can put him to bed, then I double back.

I look through the window and see Laura and Chris sitting in their living room, which is halfway through a remodel and in a state of disarray. I walk in without knocking. The lights are mostly out, but there is a lamp over the new keyboard my mother got her granddaughters for Christmas this year.

“Where’s Liz?” they ask. They prefer their aunt to their uncle.

“She had to go put Gus down,” I say, noticing the paper taped to two chairs facing the keyboard. On each paper is our names—“Guy” and “Liz”—our assigned seats.

Caroline casually walks out of the hallway onto the makeshift staging area in front of me. She holds a cardboard beard to her face and delivers lines she has written and rehearsed, but that don’t quite steer a clear narrative. Her younger sister emerges from the hallway with a similar prop and a less confident set of lines. They ramp up the drama by throwing their cardboard disguises away quickly and each donning a man’s necktie with the tags still on. They go back into the hallway and return with a gift bag for me. Inside, I find a vintage tie rack on which I will be able to hang the ties they have gotten me.

When things settle down, Cate sits at the keyboard. “I tried to learn ‘Happy Birthday,’ but I couldn’t,” she says to me, before playing the first notes of another simple tune from the songbook in front of her. We all clap when she finishes. I hug both my nieces and their parents.

“Did you ever take piano lessons, Gunkel?” Cate asks me.

“I did, but not for very long,” I say. “I could never coordinate my left hand while I was also using my right.”

Like I always do when I am in front of piano keys, I play the recognizable right hand to the melody of Beethoven’s Fur Elise.

“Can you teach me how to read those notes?” I ask Cate, nodding toward her songbook.

She shows me which notes correspond and together we try to play something. I enjoy the time with her, and I enjoy reading the music, even if it’s in such a simplistic form.

Again, I thank them for my gifts, then say goodbye. As I back out of their driveway, I notice a text from the woman who was married to my father when he died. They were married for nearly two decades. She has already wished me a happy birthday and so before I open it, I think hard about what information she might have to give me, but come up with nothing.

“Abbey passed tonight,” her text reads.

My father’s dog. A Jack Russell terrier he got when I lived with them. She was nuts, but also cute and loyal and absolutely fearless. Every time Dad introduced her to someone, he would say, “She’d fight a bear,” and he would tell of the time she came wandering home after fighting a wild animal, her insides dragging behind her.

Now, when I think of Abbey, I think of my father in his hospital bed at home in White County, depressed and ready to die, and in the corner, guarding the window, there is Abbey, standing guard for him, happy to wait as long as she needs to. I will always love her for the happiness she gave him.

When I get home, the lights are out. Liz and Gus are asleep. Suki and I walk to the backyard and I throw the tennis ball for her over and over until she no longer brings it back. I wash my hands and see our family cookbook on the counter. It lies open to the page listing my Nana’s pie crust recipe. I imagine Liz pulling the cookbook out this afternoon. And I feel incredibly loved by my wife. She doesn’t have to love me, but she does.

This is my wonderful life at 38 years old: cherry pies, tie racks, and memories of my father and his dog.

#happy birthday #gus choate #family #38 #liz choate

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granny-griffin · 5 years

Text

tumbling forward we spin on 4/4

“I'm an accidental fish.”

[hey you! read Part One first]

[also Part Two and Part Three]

[ok now you can read this]

They came to Tomorrow at an awkward time.

They landed on the west side of the island in a bog, which was difficult. From there, Timothy led them eastward, which meant they had to walk uphill. Avariya was breathless—but she couldn't tell if it was from the exercise or the flight. The brightness had been hot up there, without the clouds and the smoke in the way. It was hard to breathe in the sky. There was too much air. The wind caught in her mouth and choked her throat and filled her up with laughing. She'd been on a rollercoaster before—it was like that in the way a recipe is like an apple pie. She could acknowledge the technical similarity, but it wasn't the same.

They passed scattered ruins. A crumbling wall crowned the top of the hill. They came around it to a space where a gate must have hung at one point—and Death-Shade immediately drew his wing over them, shoving them to the ground in the process. Avariya would have been indignant—she had mud all over her knees—if not for the funny feeling in her spine. Something wasn't right.

In a moment, the scales on the underside of Death-Shade's wing shifted to reveal the courtyard beyond. Avariya gasped—it was like looking through a pane of glass. Yet somehow she knew that anyone looking towards them from the other side would only see the empty slope they had just crested.

It was a good thing, since the courtyard was filled with hundreds of dragons.

They were scattered across the ruins of whatever town had once grown up inside the walls— perched on crumbling roofs and towers or nestled into patches of grass that peeped up through the cobblestones. All of them faced a silver dragon that sat on the edge of the courtyard before them.

Avariya and the others sat in perfect silence as, one by one, the dragons came up to the courtyard and spoke to all the rest. It was a rather orderly gathering, but even Avariya, who didn't understand a word of it, could feel the tension in the air. It seemed to her that at any moment the smallest thing could set them off into chaos. She had to keep reminding herself to breathe.

"The silver one is called Ghost," Timothy whispered, "He's in charge of this council."

"What are they talking about?" Avariya whispered back.

"Us," he responded, "The humans, I mean. They thought we were gone. That's why they woke up. Now they're trying to decide what to do. Some of them think they should go back to the sea for another thousand years and wait for all of us to die off on our own. Others don't want to sleep any more. They want to live again, humans or not. And then...a lot of them think...they think that this is all a trick. That the humans pretended to leave in order to draw them out and destroy them. They want to strike us down before we have a chance to carry out whatever plan we might have."

"The ships left a year ago," she responded, "They think we would wait this long if we meant to attack? They'd better not, we'd never stand against them."

"Dragons live a long time. A year is pretty short for them. And a lot of them just woke up."

"Timothy—remember why I came with you?"

He nodded. "You're here to remind me to—"

Avariya grabbed his arm and dragged him out from under Death-Shade's wing and through the gate. Timothy was too startled to offer any resistance—and so was everyone else. They made it all the way to the courtyard where the silver dragon sat.

Then the sky was eclipsed by a gaping maw. Avariya shrieked and drew her sword. The mouth drew back, and she realized that there was only a slightly large grey-blue dragon standing in front of her. She must have interrupted his speech.

"Wait—wait no!" she cried, throwing her sword down on the ground. It clattered across the cobblestones. Most of the dragons were still frozen in the shock of the moment, but the silver dragon—that's right, his name was Ghost—stood and crept towards them. He looked over at the sword for a moment, then up at Avariya and Timothy.

"We—we come in peace!" Avariya continued, "Timothy, you— "

"qlweijoewrhjkvcnmasdaoiwqemklxmlxzs!" Timothy yelled.

Ghost stopped where he was, but Avariya couldn't tell if it was because of Timothy's translation or because Death-Shade had just materialized behind them.

Avariya cleared her throat. "We're here to speak for humanity." She nodded towards Timothy.

He turned to face her. "What does your name mean?"

Avariya scrunched up her brow. "What does that have to do with anything?" she whispered, "We're in a bit of a situation!"

"Dragon names always mean something," Timothy explained, "I have to know what your name means so that I can introduce you."

"Just make something up," Avariya said.

Timothy shook his head. "They'll find out later and think we're rude. We need to not be offensive. Tell me—quick, before I lose their attention!"

Suddenly, Avariya's mind was in another place—a world that had long ago been destroyed. Once upon a time, sitting on a ragged couch as the rain drummed against the windowpane behind them, her mother had told her the story of her birth.

Her parents hadn't intended to have a child. Because of her, Da proposed and Mum moved to England. And with the move and the wedding and the pregnancy, the two of them never sat down to figure out a name.

It was in the hospital, immediately after she was born, that her parents realized their predicament. But in their exhaustion, they both drew a total blank. They sat in dead silence for a moment, trying to come up with anything remotely passable for a child's name, and in the quiet they heard Mum's Mum, Avariya's Ukranian grandmother, whispering quietly to herself as she held her newest grandchild in her arms.

"Avariya," she crooned, "My tiny, perfect Avariya."

Her parents picked the name immediately. It was only afterwards that they discovered what it meant.

"Accident," Avariya said, finding herself back in the present, "Avariya Haddock. I'm an accidental fish."

Timothy looked away from the crouching dragons, suddenly distracted from the possibility of their imminent death. "What was that?"

"I'm an accidental—"

"No, I heard you," Timothy said, "I just mean—"

"Oh come on," Avariya groaned, "You make fun of my hair, and now you have to make fun of my name? Right now?"

"That's not what I—"

"Just translate it!"

Timothy spun around and said something to Ghost. For a moment he didn't reply. The crowd of dragons around them fidgeted and whispered amongst themselves. Then Ghost responded to Timothy. They had a short interchange, and when Avariya couldn't stand the tension any more, Timothy turned to speak to her.

"Ghost is going to allow you to speak to the council," he said, "I'll need you to pause every so often so that I can translate for you."

"I—okay, I can do that," Avariya said, "Tell them—tell Ghost that I'm thankful for his kindness."

"I already did," Timothy said, "Just start talking—I can make you sound polite."

"Oh. Thanks."

She looked up at the surrounding crowd of dragons. Everything was quiet. Everyone was looking at her. The wind was howling lonely through the ruined town. She took a deep breath.

"You are half right," she said, "Many of my kind have left this planet. We were ready, but not all the way. We couldn't take everybody.

"So the strongest and the smartest and the richest of us went—because they could. They left the others behind.

"I was one of the strong ones. I could have left, but I didn't. I couldn't leave the other's. That's—it's evil!

"It's evil to ignore what other people need just to get what you want. And a world where safety is bought through evil isn't worth living in.

"I've heard the old stories. Timothy's been telling me some. Once a boy stood here with the power to destroy dragons forever and save humanity and he didn't use it.

"Dragons live a long time. I know that you remember this. Now we are reversed—will you deny us the same mercy?"

When Timothy finished the final translation there was silence for a moment. Then the dragons started whispering again—the whispers grew to full fledged voices—and now the council was in danger of dissolving into complete chaos.

"I will speak!" someone called out over the din, "You asked me to—you have all been asking and—and I am ready now."

Avariya gasped. It was a dragon's voice—speaking it's own language. She could hear the harsh syllables with her own ears. But something was whispering over that, into the back of her mind, telling her what the words meant.

She could see the speaker now. He was smaller than Death-Shade but bigger than Avariya, and he was green—at least, he might have been before he had been covered over in barnacles. She could just make out the color through the creases in the crustaceans. Without waiting for Ghost to approve his request, he walked straight into the middle of the courtyard and began to speak. Nobody moved to stop him.

"Once I did everything in confidence," the barnacled dragon began, "but now that I am a little older my eyes see clearer and I'm hardly sure of anything."

Without warning, he looked down into Avariya's eyes. She had never looked into the eyes of a dragon before. It made her feel a little sick, but somehow she couldn't turn away.

"Girl," the dragon continued, "when I look at you, I see your life, and your father's life, and your father's father's life, all the way back to your ancestors in the past, when the world was young and I flew for the first time. It is always the same! When evil rises, good rises to stop it, and evil rises to stop that. We are like fall and spring, rising and falling and tumbling forward we spin on—and I am not sure who will end on top, or if it will ever end at all—but one thing I know. I would rather die fighting for a good world than live in an evil one."

He turned back to the crowds. "You are dismissed for now—come back tomorrow after you have thought over these things."

They were all still at first. Then, one by one, they stood and began to take off into the sky. Avariya released a breath she didn't know she had been holding. This had all been her idea, but she had still been half sure that they were going to get eaten in the process. The barnacle dragon approached them and struck up a conversation with Death-Shade, but she was too relieved to pay attention to it.

"That green one—he has teeth now," Timothy said nervously.

Avariya raised an eyebrow, "Did he not before?"

Just then, the barnacled dragon turned to her. "You, the accidental one—walk with me for a moment."

"He wants you to go with him," Timothy said, apparently unaware that Avariya had understood, "I think you should. He's one of Death-Shade's friends, he won't hurt you. And you wouldn't know this, but he spoke in your favor before the council just now."

Avariya nodded her assent, but she stopped to pick up her sword before she left. The two of them walked up to the edge of the ruins where the cliff face fell into the sea.

"Why did everyone listen to you," Avariya blurted.

"I'm a sea dragon," the barnacled dragon said, "I have their respect."

"How come I can understand you?"

"I'm a sea dragon. I'm telepathic."

Avariya crossed her arms, but it was more from the cold than frustration. "This is confusing."

"It confuses me," the dragon said, "I'm thousands of years old, but I wasn't aging for most of it. I only woke from hibernation a few days ago. However, that's beside the point—I'm very interested in you, small one. Where did you get that sword—"

"Death-Shade wanted to know that too," she interrupted.

"How did you know we had gathered here?" he continued, "And most of all, what is your plan? What are you going to do next?"

Avariya shrugged. "Wait and find out if the dragons are going to kill us all? I don't even know how I got here, much less where I'm going now. Have any suggestions?"

The dragon turned to look out at the horizon. "Girl with a name I once loved," he murmured, "you will always have a home with me."

The End

#httyd books #httyd books fanfiction #tumbling forward we spin on #my fanworks

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lunarity2013 · 5 years

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A little thought experiment, if you will...

Say I wanted to rewrite the story of Snow White, with a more modern setting. Say instead of royalty, Snow's parents owned an apple orchard, passed down through her mother's family for generations, and each tree was planted by each new child born to the family. And say instead of dying in childbirth, Snow's mother lived until her daughter was about 4-5, long enough to help her plant her own apple tree in the orchard.

Now, say that after her mother died, Snow White inherited her mother's recipe book. Each page has a new apple-based treat on it: apple pie, apple cider, apple tarts, candy apples, apple juice, baked apples, etc. And over the years, as Snow White grows older, she keeps trying out the recipes and learning to make them the same way her mother did.

Now enter the wicked step-mother. Let's say she hates apples, because maybe they remind her of her new husband's beautiful late wife, and that they also are adored by her new, even more beautiful step-daughter. And maybe she cares a little less about being the "fairest", so long as she's always right — because let's face it, those people are some of the worst anyway. So she spends her time trying to get her new family to focus on anything else — hell, maybe she prefers blueberries, for all I care. I'm making this up as I go — and thus begins letting the orchard die off. Maybe she even helps push it along a bit, poisoning some of the tress one by one until eventually only two trees are left fruiting — Snow White's and her mother's.

Maybe by now, Snow is about 16, and has been bringing apple treats to school whenever she gets a new recipe right. Maybe she's attracted the eye of one of the wealthier boys in town, who maybe liked to buy treats from Snow's mother back in the day, and is now falling not just for Snow's beauty, but also her delicious cooking as well (the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, after all).

But maybe Snow is also beginning to see what her step-mother is trying to do. Maybe something happens to her father — maybe he insists that the apples on her mother's tree will always be some of the best, and eats one, but it's too late because his new wife has begun poisoning that tree too. So maybe he becomes really sick, just as her mother's tree begins to die. And maybe it scares her. So maybe she picks all the surviving apples off her own tree — the only one left untainted — and runs away, taking her mother's recipe book with her, with one last recipe to try.

Maybe instead of seven dwarves, she takes refuge with a friend from a club — home ec, maybe, or something — and stays there, while other members of the club (including the boy who likes her) come in periodically to check in on her. Maybe they're on a break from school, so she doesn't have to worry just yet about her family finding her at the school. And maybe, while her friend and their family go out each day and work or enjoy their vacation, she spends each day practicing the recipe over and over, never quite getting it right but closer each time.

But maybe she runs out of apples before she can get it right, and she gets extremely upset. So maybe one of her friend's parents, just trying to help this poor girl (maybe the friend's surname is something like "mirror", to be completely obvious) calls her dad to ask about bringing more apples. But instead the step-mother answers the phone, learning that Snow was staying with a friend while her dad recovered, and agreed to bring her another bushel.

And maybe she does, because maybe the one tree she hasn't managed to kill yet has been Snow White's. Maybe everything she's tried has failed, and the tree has just become stronger (because I honestly don't know anything about trees or fruit). So instead she picks one, perfect-looking apple, and decides on a new plan.

AT THIS POINT, you would expect her to maybe inject the apple with the poison. You would expect that Snow White, while using that apple in the recipe, might eat a small slice while cooking (because doesn't everyone do that?), and maybe she would choke on it and pass out. You might expect the entire club (and the boy) to show up at this point, freaking out because she's not breathing, and try calling for an ambulance. You might even expect the boy, heartbroken at seeing the girl he likes hurt like this, might try and use CPR to revive her. And you might expect it to work, and she'd cough up the apple and be okay, and the ambulance would show up, take the apple for testing, and the step-mother would be arrested for attempted murder while Snow's father makes a miraculous recovery. And maybe it would end with a glimpse into the future, with the orchard beginning to recover, as Snow and her new husband help their first child plant their own apple tree.

BUT WHAT IF INSTEAD, I had the step-mother lie and say the apple tree had died, and she brought over blueberries instead? What if I had Snow White become angry, and accuse the step-mother of tampering with the trees? And what if I had Snow White decide to poison some blueberry dessert to get back at her step-mother, only instead for her friend and their family to eat it while she cleans herself up? Snow White would be a murderer, and be arrested before ever exacting revenge on her step-mother for what she did to her family's orchard. And Snow's father, heartbroken at his daughter's wicked change, would finally succumb to his illness and die, leaving his new wife alone with a failing orchard, an incarcerated step-daughter sworn to get her revenge, and the blood of innocent people on her hands. And she might feel guilty, so much so that she hangs herself from her step-daughter's tree, just as the apples begin to show the poison taking effect.

THAT ending is different. It's edgy. No one would expect it. But that doesn't make it good. (Granted, neither is very good, because I just came up with these right now). The edgy ending wasn't as satisfying, because it completely subverted the entire point of the story. The reader could piece together how the story would end from the little pieces threaded throughout. They could anticipate how it would end, and with the original ending, they could feel satisfied in knowing they found all the little clues I left for them and figured it out along the way.

The second ending, however, feels more like a fanfiction ending — taking something happy and making it tragic and hurtful, just to see how it might've worked. Were there some clues that might've led to that conclusion? Sure, of course, but they're maybe a lot more difficult to find or piece together.

Not to mention, it takes the characterizations I gave them in the beginning and turns them on their head, completely removing any growth or change they've undergone as the story had continued. The characters have lost any agency of their own, instead being pulled into whatever direction I've decided for them, even when it goes against everything they represented from the start.

Now, to be fair, I am not even REMOTELY caught up on Game of Thrones, BUT! I know when a show's writers are more concerned with trying to make something "new" and "creative" and "unpredictable" than they are with telling a good story. Which is almost impossible, at this point, as we as a species have pretty much exhausted all possible endings and storylines that could exist. What matters is what we do with what already exists to make it our own, unique story. Is it the same as countless stories that came before it? Sure, of course, but it's still a good story, and that's what really matters.

For Snow White, it's easy. The morals shown throughout the original tale — the dangers of vanity, don't trust strangers, and true beauty comes from within — are still vaguely present in my retelling; instead of vanity, the danger comes from the step-mother's jealousy and desire to always be seen as right, whether she truly is or not. She only begins to see her own faults and errors when she finally fails, forcing her to reevaluate her actions as she is arrested in the end. And while there are no strangers really present to wary of, the apples given to Snow White are not necessarily questioned when perhaps they should have been, because the danger lies in not knowing where they truly came from and what they went through to get to her. And the third one, true beauty comes from within, is present throughout Snow's character arc. She inherited her kind-hearted nature from her mother, and learned more as she grew up. She treats her step-mother as much like family as her father, up until the point where she feels her own safety is at risk, and then instead of retaliating, she leaves. She stays with a friend, and shares her cooking with them and their family while she is there. Her mother's kindness as well as her own, in the end, are what makes her friends so distraught when they think she's gone, and eventually wind up saving her.

But GoT takes those characterizations, those signs of growth in Jaime and Danaerys, and even Cersi and Arya and Brienne — and I don't know who else — and just fucking destroys them. I saw it put really well lately, where the writers had basically taken this story of multiple characters growing and improving from who they used to be, only to immediately return to what was always expected of them from those surrounding them: Jaime returning to his incestuous abuser, Daenerys fulfilling the "mad Targaryen" stereotype, etc. It's saying you can't ever escape your past or what people expect you to be, no matter what steps you take to move past it.

It's a terrible message to send out, regardless of what age the consumers are — because morals and deeper meanings are an integral part of all fiction, not just children's stories and fairy tales.

#just some food for thought #got salt #got #got season 8 #got season eight #got spoilers #thought experiment #how to tell a good story

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overwatchworks · 6 years

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Another Reunion (after the McCree short)

Jesse hadn’t been to Deadlock Gorge in a long time. Not much had changed. The diner was still a mess, the coffee still tasted like boiled dirt, and the apple pie was still just as gelatinous as he remembered. When the train tracks exploded, it wasn’t a surprise. He’d seen the wires and poorly hidden charges when he walked in to the Panorama, paid them no mind. Jesse goal wasn’t saving the train, after all. It had something he wanted on it too. He was expecting the wreck-wanted it really-and had cleared everyone out beforehand.

Of course there had been a shoot out-he had expected that too-but his end goal was reached. Echo could do what she wanted, now that she was back online. Overwatch sure as hell could use her help. As soon as Jesse had heard a tip about where they were keeping her, he went looking. Of course, it just so happened to be his old stomping grounds. Seeing Ashe had been interesting. She hadn’t changed. Deadlock hadn’t changed.

Jesse’s brows furrowed lower as he thought, the engine of Ashe’s hoverbike a steady rumble keeping him in the present. He’d done his part. The old motel he was staying at came into view, the neon lights the only thing other than the stars that had a glow in the otherwise empty desert. Jesse parked and went to his room, hat low over his eyes despite the time.

Echo’s question was still lingering in his mind as he took off his belt, hat, and boots. “What are you going to do?”

Jesse huffed a dry laugh to himself, sitting down heavily on the bed. He had only given the most vague answer he could.

“Business to attend to.” He repeated to himself out loud, eyes drifting to the ceiling. There was always business to attend to, but nothing that was truly vital. Just time-passes, something Jesse could amuse himself with and call it justice.

He didn’t really have anything better to do, and yet, Overwatch was something he couldn’t bring himself to accept yet. The old gang, getting back together. Some familiar faces would be there, but there would be more that weren’t. Jesse had paid his time, suffered his losses. If he was being honest with himself, there were some wounds that still weren’t healed. Some that he wasn’t sure could heal fully. Deadlock Gorge had only tugged at one of his biggest, cracking the surface and making it bleed again.

“Damn ingrate.”

“Old man.”

Jesse shook his head and lit a cigar. That was something he wanted to keep dead and buried. Seeing Deadlock had only made it worse. They had been his family, after all. A damn shitty one, but family all the same when he’d had nothing else. He and Ashe had shared some good times, enough to remember a select few fondly. But there was always regret when it came to Deadlock. Guilt when it came to Blackwatch. Reluctance now with Overwatch.

Winston’s message had been a surprise; the fact that they wanted Jesse back at all was even more so. He chewed on his cigar, debating whether or not to view the call again. It had been burned to memory after the fifteenth time, but Jesse still watched it another fifty. Maybe it was some hope he was holding on to. Hope for a place to go to, hope for some sort of familiarity again.

Jesse watched the call again. He wondered how many others had been contacted again. He debated again. Tossed the tablet aside again.

He wasn’t ready yet. That’s why he had gone to get Echo. They needed her, not him. Not yet. The cowboy sighed heavily, putting out his cigar and getting ready for bed.

The next few days were met with more traveling. Jesse listened to the radio as he made his way through Route 66, the atmosphere reminding him of his younger days. He had done the exact same thing twenty years ago. Jesse would have laughed at the parallels if he wasn’t feeling so apprehensive. There was a vague, nagging feeling that wouldn’t leave him alone, making the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He’d left the main road because of it, decided to camp out in a remote town for a bit.

Jesse bunkered down at a little place that could hardly pass for a hotel, making sure his gun was on him at all times. Staying inside made him antsy, so he went back out on the hoverbike. Found a place he could shoot and let off some steam without bothering anyone. Still, that feeling followed him. It was something he could place now, something Jesse was familiar with. He was being watched.

The cowboy shot and waited, figuring he could take care of things discreetly if someone wanted to pick a fight. Probably Deadlock, it had been enough time for them to get themselves back together. It was dusk before Jesse heard footsteps, light and barely detectable. They came up from behind, stopping after a moment. He cocked Peacekeeper’s hammer, the click of it resonating in the otherwise quiet night.

“Yanno, if you really wanted to sneak up on me, you could’ve done a better job of it. I expected more from you, Ashe.” Jesse sighed, whipping around only to find someone leaning against the hoverbike. It wasn’t Ashe. The cowboy’s hand lowered, eyes widening in disbelief.

“Genji...?”

“You know, for being a trained black ops agent, you are quite easy to trace.”

The tone was fond, amused, even. Genji’s green visor flashed as he looked up, arms still crossed over his chest.

“What...Are you doin’ here?” Jesse asked cautiously, not sure if he wanted to believe what was happening.

“Oh, I just heard about a train wreck and Deadlock, then remembered the old habits of a certain cowboy I know.”

Jesse took a shallow breath in, brows furrowing.

“Maybe I should ask why you’re here.”

Genji straightened at that, arms falling to his side as he walked towards Jesse. The cowboy couldn’t help but take him in. He looked so different, and yet, the walk, the voice, the mannerisms were all...Him.

“Did you not hear about the recall?”

“Oh, I heard alright.”

“And? You do not plan to take it?”

“Do you plan on takin’ it?” Jesse shot back, avoiding the question. He was avoiding a lot of things at the moment.

“I already did.”

Genji was in front of him now, hands at his sides. Relaxed in a way Jesse couldn’t make himself feel.

“So, may I ask you again if you plan on taking up the call?” The cyborg continued, something defiant in his voice that sparked memories.

“Is that why you’re here? To bring me back?”

“Yes.”

Blatant and direct, surprising Jesse.

“You are not the first person I have talked to about this. And certainly not the most troublesome.”

“But why me...?” Jesse asked softly, Genji huffing a laugh.

“I think you know why.”

The cowboy sighed, eyes downcast. Of course he knew. Or he thought he knew. But he didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to be wrong.

“Overwatch could use the help, especially with an old member coming back.” Genji murmured, Jesse scoffing.

“I was never apart of Overwatch, never wanted to be.”

“So is that a no?”

Jesse was quiet, Genji’s stance shifting. He moved even closer, too close to be casual. Too close after seven years.

“Overwatch needs you too, Jesse. You are more valuable than you realize, to more than just Overwatch...”

Genji reached out, and Jesse didn’t pull back. His metal hand was taken once more, held delicately as the cyborg ran a thumb over the divots.

“I’m asking you to come with me.”

“I know...”

“So, will you?”

“I can’t give you that answer yet.” Jesse whispered. His chest felt tight, something in his mind not letting him cross that line just yet. Genji was standing in front of him, asking if he would go back to Overwatch with him. And he wasn’t saying yes. He wasn’t saying anything.

“I understand. Perhaps we should go back to your motel, hm?” Genji offered softly, and it was so unlike the Genji that Jesse used to know. And yet, it wasn’t. Genji was always soft at times like this, when Jesse was unsure and confused about what to do. Genji was always there, somehow, to help him too.

“Yeah, sounds good...” The cowboy murmured, not questioning how Genji knew about that. If he could find Jesse in the middle of nowhere after seven years, the motel part seemed insignificant.

Genji nodded, then headed back towards the hoverbike.

“Mind if I hitch a ride, then?”

“No—Wait, how did you get here?”

“I’ve done my fair share of walking over the years.” The ninja told him noncommittally. Jesse only hummed in response.

He swung his leg over the seat and waited, feeling Genji maneuver himself up behind him. Arms wrapping around his waist securely and a firm weight leaning against his back. The cowboy took a breath and fired up the engine, taking them back to the main road with a cloud of dust.

Genji’s arms would squeeze around him tighter when he took a sharp turn or went faster, only derailing what little focus Jesse had even further. They made it back to the motel by the time the night had fully set in, quietly going to Jesse’s room.

Genji looked around for a moment, though Jesse could tell he was just busying himself to give the cowboy some time. Jesse sighed heavily and took off his hat, setting it on a bedpost.

“So. What made you think comin’ here to find me was a good idea?” He finally spoke up, breaking the silence that had long since become uncomfortable.

“Call it intuition.” Genji replied easily, taking a few steps further into the room.

“Intuition, huh?”

“Jesse. I understand this is a shock, and you may not want to come back—“

“You’re right! Maybe I don’t want to be part of that damn place again! Maybe I don’t want to go back to memories I thought I left behind! But here they are, hunting me down day after day! Things I thought I’d left gone and buried, comin’ back and messing with my head again!” Jesse interrupted, voice raised but not quite a shout. He was too tired to really be angry. Hurt was a whole different story, though.

Genji was quiet for a long moment, the cowboy looking down and rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“I’m so tired of the past hauntin’ me, Gen. I’m tired of things comin’ back that I don’t want any part of. I did my time there...Both of us did.” He murmured.

There was a soft hiss, Jesse looking up to find umber eyes gazing back at him. Softer than he remembered, wiser and more aged. A familiar face, paler, with a few more scars and lines.

“I know. I’m not asking you to make a decision now. I just ask that you think about it.”

Gentle hands took his own, without an ounce of hesitation as he squeezed them lightly.

“I know this is hard for you. I won’t try and force you to do anything. I just want you to know that I would like you to come back, Jesse. Overwatch needs you, but I need you more.”

Jesse cursed softly under his breath, closing his eyes as he felt a finger slide under his chin.

“It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to not know what to say. I’m just glad I found you again.” Genji whispered, his hand going up further to cup Jesse’s cheek.

“Gen...I can’t...”

“It’s okay.”

Genji stretched up to place a little kiss on Jesse’s forehead. Jesse felt like he was about to break. He didn’t know what to do.

“I’ll leave you be for tonight. I’m sorry for dropping in so unexpectedly. I know it’s a lot.” Genji murmured, shifting to stand. Jesse’s hand shot out to take hold of his wrist before could get too far.

“Please stay...”

Jesse barely recognized his own voice, barely heard it either, but Genji paused. Turned and gathered the cowboy in his arms, pulling him to his chest. Jesse could hear the soft thump of his heart beat.

He woke up the next morning groggily, though he felt good. Genji had slept on the couch-still was-as Jesse stood and stretched quietly. The cowboy watched him for a moment, the steady rise and fall of his chest, body splayed somewhat haphazardly over the cushions. Genji always did find the strangest positions to fall asleep in. Jesse shook himself, then went into the bathroom to clean up.

It was out to the balcony next, a cigar in hand and smoke rising from it already. He watched the sun rise. Thought about Genji’s offer, his confession. It had never occurred to Jesse that anyone would still hold such strong feelings for him, much less someone like Genji. Jesse had never talked himself out of loving the ninja. Just convinced himself he’d forgotten and hoped to leave it that way. Genji coming back only reminded him again. And it wasn’t a bad feeling. For the first time in years, Jesse woke up feeling excited for a new day. There was the prospect of something waiting for him later, something good, if he decided he wanted to take up the offer.

Jesse startled a bit when a hand touched his back, though he relaxed when he recognized who it belonged to. Genji looked up at him, hair mussed and eyes tired. There was a spark of happiness to them that Jesse hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

“Good morning.”

“‘Mornin’. Pretty sunrise, huh?”

Genji hummed as he turned his gaze outward, Jesse stubbing out his cigar.

“It is quite beautiful.”

“You think it’ll be just as nice in Gibraltar?” Jesse asked, the cyborg’s stare snapping back to him.

“Jesse, you mean...”

“I never could say no to you, hon. ‘Sides, Overwatch doesn’t sound half bad. We can be the good guys for once.”

Genji blinked, then smiled like the sun itself. He threw himself at Jesse, squeezing him in a hug and burying his head in the cowboy’s chest. Jesse wrapped his arms around Genji gently, accepting it like he used to. Like he could learn to again.

“You really will come back with me...?” Genji whispered, disbelieving but hopeful. Jesse chuckled softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. I’ve been debatin’ it for a while now. Just didn’t have the motive to go before.”

“Thank you, Jesse...”

“Nah, thank you. It’s...I think we can do some good with this.”

Genji nodded, pulling back still with a smile.

“I missed you, Genji.” Jesse murmured, reaching up to trace his thumb over Genji’s chin.

“And I you, Jesse. I...I’m glad I found you again...”

The cowboy gave him a little grin, then leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

“Thank you for finding me.”

“Always.”

#mcgenji #jesse mccree #genji shimada #after the reunion short #overwatch #WhiskeyWrites #fanfic #long post #sorry it took so long!#the flow is a little weird but I was getting a block while writing #so I just wanted to get it out

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ethereousdelirious · 5 years

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Fandom: DDADDS Characters: R.obert & D.amien (S.mallmarch established relationship) Tropes: vomiting, fever, fainting, nausea from anxiety, mild humiliation, trying to hide an illness, C.hristmas, hospitals Summary: Spending the holidays with Damien’s family is harder on Robert’s anxiety than either of them expected. Unfortunately for Robert, his symptoms match up perfectly with the stomach bug that’s been going around as well. Note: There are some headcanons coming into play here, namely that R.obert has social anxiety and was abused by his family members in the past, causing him to have worsened anxiety around other people’s family members

It was too loud in here. Too loud and too bright, and starting to get too warm. Robert tugged at his sleeves, but they were already rolled up to the forearm and disinclined to go much higher. At least Damien’s family hadn’t been able to talk him into wearing an absurdly thick vintage Christmas sweater like the ones they were all wearing. Even Damien had abandoned his usual neo-Victorian aesthetic in favor of a dark green cowl neck Christmas sweater with reindeer dancing circles around the chest area.

Robert found himself staring at it more and more as the night went on. Damien was seated all the way across the table and seemed to be enjoying a conversation with his grandparents, a concept which was largely foreign to Robert. He had never enjoyed the company of his own family, nor had be ever anticipated sitting down for Christmas dinner with them.

But Damien’s family all seemed to like each other, and everyone appeared to be having a good time eating and talking together.

Everyone except for Robert, who was sitting there awkwardly, sweating under his long-sleeved shirt and taking occasional sips of his sparkling cider, which was starting to give him a headache. He wished he’d gotten himself a glass of water before they all sat down, but it seemed rude to get up now.

“Robert, dear.” Damien’s mom looked at him from several seats down. “Have some more ham! Damien mentioned it’s one of your favorites.”

“Oh, uh.” Robert smiled awkwardly, acutely aware of his shirt sticking to his back. “Thank you, ma’am.” He accepted the serving tray as it was passed down the line and took several slices. It would have been rude to refuse, but at the same time… He was going to have to eat all of this, not just the ham, but also everything else that had been pressed on him earlier in the evening, rolls and turkey and roasted vegetables. Not to mention dessert.

Robert’s stomach turned and he took another cloying swallow of cider, which seemed to turn to syrup in his mouth. His head pounded. It had been several days since he’d been anywhere even remotely near his comfort zone, as he was stuffed in Damien’s parents’ house surrounded by Damien’s relatives with very little privacy. He hadn’t even been able to catch Damien alone since they’d come here 4 days ago. Even now, he was too far away to hold a conversation with him without shouting, and there were so many people seated between them that anything he said would become an announcement.

Dinner passed agonizingly slowly. Robert managed to eat everything on his plate, which was then cleared away along with everything else on the table to make room for dessert. His stomach clenched at the thought of spending yet more time trapped in this folding chair, awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact with anyone lest they try to strike up a conversation with him.

He reached for his glass only to realize his cider was gone, replaced with a whole pint of eggnog. Alright. The glass was cool in his hand, which was a relief at least. The collection of bodies all in one place had his face and chest burning with heat.

“So Robert.” One of Damien’s… uncles? grandparents? looked at him. Robert took a quick swallow of his eggnog. His stomach tied itself into a hangman’s knot. “Damien tells me you whittle?”

“Yes.” His voice came out hoarse, so he cleared his throat. “Just little things, nothing impressive.”

“That’s not true!” Damien spoke up. Robert noticed a gentle pink flush over his cheeks and couldn’t help but smile at his obviously tipsy boyfriend. “Robert’s made some really cool stuff!”

“I like to make chains,” Robert said. Suddenly all the eyes at the table were on him. He swallowed hard against a wave of nausea that lapped urgently at the back of his throat before receding to something a little more manageable. “I think maybe--” he turned awkwardly, trying to get at his jacket, which was hanging from the back of the flimsy folding chair he was currently occupying. “Well.” He fished an unfinished chain out of one of the inner pockets and displayed it. “This sort of thing.”

Damien’s relative (had to be an uncle-- he was too young to be a grandfather) acknowledged this with a nod. “I’m working on whittling a chess set.”

Someone else at the table (Damien’s cousin, going by context clues) rolled her eyes. “Ugh, dad. You’ve been working on that chess set for like a year and a half now.”

Robert put his chain away. The conversation turned by degrees until he was fully out of it. He slumped back in his chair.

Damien’s mom brought out pie and pudding and fancy chocolates and suddenly Robert’s pulse was racing. He’d spent the whole day, the whole trip, really, sick with nerves, but Christmas dinner had pushed him over the edge. The heat vanished from his body in an instant as a cold shiver crawled up his back.

As calmly as he could manage, Robert stood up and walked to the bathroom. Saliva was already filling his mouth, but he couldn’t-- If this whole room knew he was about to be sick, he would die. The anxiety would eat him alive. So he walked. Slowly. Nerves jumping the whole way there.

Then he was safe behind the closed, locked door. He got to his knees in front of the toilet. Someone had left the lid up, so he leaned in. For a moment, nothing happened and he had a moment of panic thinking he’d be stuck in here all night and then everyone would know and feel sorry for him and--

His stomach clenched, the pressure coming to a painful head, and he dry heaved a couple times before finally vomiting. He sat back shakily, aware of the tears in his eyes and the string of saliva pooling onto his shirt, but unable to move. He had to go back out there and soon, or people were going to start to wonder.

Alright. Robert flushed the toilet, cleaned himself up, and resumed his seat. No one acknowledged he had been gone, which was a relief. But now there was a slice of peanut butter pie on his plate and oh god he had to eat that, too.

At least the nausea was gone, but it had been replaced by a feeling of empty heaviness , like he’d been punched in the gut so many times his nerves weren’t working.

Damien caught his eye across the table and winked at him. Robert smiled back.

He took a bite of pie.

It was good, really good, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Eating in this state was extremely unpleasant, verging on painful but never quite crossing the line. The nausea didn’t resurface until he was almost done eating, but it came back with a vengeance, slamming him with a wave of painful stomach cramps. Robert grit his teeth and tried not to curl in on himself. It was just nerves. Just a whole lot of family anxiety and repressed trauma making his stomach go sour and his blood run cold. That was it.

When dinner was over and everyone had gone to bed, Robert was finally able to curl in on himself on the couch (his bed for the duration). His stomach hurt. Gone was the mere discomfort from earlier in the day. The cramps were near-constant, occasionally stepping off center stage to let nausea have a moment in the spotlight. He hadn’t vomited again, but he could sense it coming.

He moaned quietly and wrapped his arms around himself.

“Babe?” Damien hesitated near the armrest, concern painted on his face.

“Hey.” Robert looked up and smiled, happy for this stolen moment even if he currently felt like his abdominal muscles were trying to tear themselves apart. He patted the couch.

Damien sat down, still looking a little unsure. “Are you okay?”

“I’m great now,” Robert said. The living room was dark, illuminated only by the yellow lights that decorated the Christmas tree and windowsills. Robert was internally grateful for this. There was no way in hell he didn’t look like shit, and he didn’t need Damien worrying after him.

“You were really quiet at dinner, and i just wanted to be sure…”

Robert shook his head. “Nah, you know how I am with… You know, families. It was just weird that nobody got drunk and started yelling at me, you know.”

In the dim light, Damien’s expression shifted to one of horror. He pulled Robert into a hug. “You're safe here.”

Robert allowed himself a moment or vulnerability in Damien's arms, deciding not to mention how being all this familial love had him anxious to the point of nausea. “Thanks. I… You're the best.”

Damien let go of him and leaned back. “I know it's silly because you're right here, but I miss you.”

“I've been missing you, too. It's hard not having any alone time.”

Damien smiled mischievously. “We're alone now.”

Robert leaned back and raised his eyebrows suggestively, ignoring the stab of pain in his middle. “On your parents’ couch? You dirty dog.”

Damien's cheeks went darker pink and he laughed a little. “I'd better get to bed before I make any…” his gaze lingered on Robert, “questionable decisions.”

“On your parents’ couch.”

“Stop saying that!” Damien smiled. He leaned in and kissed Robert on the cheek. “Good night.”

“Night, babe.”

Damien left. Robert counted to 60 before rushing to the bathroom to pray to the porcelain god for the second time that evening. Then the third and fourth.

He fell back from the toilet, groaning. His stomach clenched as though it knew it was empty and was now trying to turn itself inside out. Robert coughed and sank to the floor. His sweat-soaked hair fell into his eyes and he brushed it to the side with a shaking hand. The possibility that this was more than just nerves loomed large in his mind, but he forced it away. He was not sick in a house full of strangers. He wasn't. He couldn't be.

Most of Robert's night was spent in the bathroom, either curled up on the floor trying to sleep or hunched over the toilet praying for death. In the early hours, he forced himself to go back to the couch. It had been a long while since he'd done anything but dry heave and he didn’t want to be caught in here when people started to wake up.

On the couch, he managed to drift off into a light, fitful sleep before Damien's family members woke up and started to clatter around in the kitchen.

Sick of lying there on a couch too short for him under a quantity of blankets that seemed both too much and too little simultaneously, Robert went to join them.

Damien was still asleep. Robert didn't care. He bid Damien's parents good morning, accepted a cup of juice from Damien's father, and parked himself at the table.

“Did you sleep okay?” Damien's mom asked. “You look a little tired.”

“Oh, um,” Robert rasped. He took a drink of orange juice. “Yeah, I had a little insomnia last night.”

“Eat a little too much?” Damien's dad winked. “Me too.”

Robert laughed awkwardly and took another sip of juice.

“I know you're not one for breakfast, but I'll set aside some pancakes for you in case you change your mind.” Damien's mother came around to the table and set a cup of coffee in front of Robert. “A few of us were planning on going to the mall after breakfast. Damien thought you might want to join us?”

Robert was silent for a moment, his head fuzzy and slow. “Yeah, sounds great,” he said after a moment's silence. God, he was so tired. He finished off his juice, then took his mug outside for a smoke. He was still wearing his clothes from yesterday and the cold breeze bit right through his shirt. He shivered and lit up a cigarette.

He had planned to hide outside for a while, savoring his coffee and smoking in the driveway, but he was way too cold. He downed his coffee so fast he blistered the roof of his mouth, put out his cigarette, and retreated back inside to the couch still clutching his empty mug.

There he sat, shivering compulsively until someone took notice of him and he was forced to act like he wasn't dying until their attention faded again.

Damien came in after a while and Robert scurried off to the bathroom to try to clean himself up. If he looked half as crusty as he felt, it was a wonder that Damien's mom hadn't thrown him out onto the street.

The bathroom, at least, was clean and quiet and gave no indication that Robert had been up all night puking.

He took a quick shower, brushed his teeth twice, and came out sweating under the shower water that still dripped down his neck.

“Morning, babe!” Damien smelled the cigarette smoke on his breath and opted to kiss Robert on the cheek instead of the mouth.

“Mornin’.” Robert sat down beside Damien at the table, pleased to find that someone had refilled his mug with more coffee and set it down right next to Damien.

In the light of day, with a little caffeine in his system, Robert found that he was feeling better. The headache that had kicked up in his head around midnight had faded from gut-wrenching to a mere annoying pulse every so often. The nausea in his belly had gone completely, replaced with a sort of leaden numbness. He didn’t feel great but at least he could function.

Robert was dying.

Robert was dying in a shopping mall.

It was lunchtime and their party (Robert, Damien, Damien's mom, Damien's aunt, and 2 of Damien's cousins) had stopped by the food court.

The assorted smells hit Robert like a punch to the stomach. He staggered, nearly tripping over a wayward chair.

“I'll get us a table,” he said, taking the bags from Damien.

He wandered over to the first empty table he saw that would be big enough for all of them and collapsed into a chair. His vision blurred and his head spun, sparking a wave of nausea so vicious as to be painful.

Robert gasped for breath, his knuckles white on the edge of the table. He sat there and tried to collect himself and just couldn't. It was all he could do to not hunch over and start gagging, though he doubted anything major would come up. He hadn't eaten since last night, and it was afternoon now.

Damien's voice pierced the haze in his head but Robert couldn't make sense of the words. “Babe, do you have change for-- Hey. Are you okay? Robert!”

Robert looked up. Damien. Damien wanted something.

He half-rose and the world tilted sideways. He couldn’t feel his fingers or hear the din of the mall over the roar in his ears or see anything but Damien's face as his vision tunneled.

He blinked to clear away the black spots but they only multiplied in number until his whole vision was nothing but black.

It was over. Robert had made it back home to his bed, lying comfortably on his stomach with his face pressed into hard, unforgiving tile.

Wait. That didn't track.

He was on the floor somewhere. The mall. His eyes flew open. The sounds and smells of the food court hit him in the back like a sneaker wave and he couldn't help but gag, his muscles rending, pulling his knees in toward his chest.

“Robert!” Just from his voice, Robert could tell that Damien was near hysterics. “What the hell happened? Are you okay?”

Much as he wanted to answer, Robert just couldn't. The stomach cramps that had plagued him throughout the night were back with a vengeance and it was all he could do to not cry out in pain. He closed his eyes.

Dimly, he was aware of Damien talking, but not to him. No god no god no. He had made a spectacle of himself and was drawing a crowd. This was so much worse than simply admitting he was sick to Damien's whole family. Fuck.

He tried to sit up but his whole abdomen cried out in protest. He let out a harsh exhale.

“We're calling an ambulance, okay?” Damien said to him. “It's gonna be okay. It's okay.” He brushed Robert's hair out of his face.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Damien was crying and Robert was face down on the dirty tile floor of a shopping mall surrounded by onlookers and Damien was crying and Robert's head was so fuzzy and his whole body was hot and Damien was crying and he couldn't move a muscle or do a damn thing but curl up against the pain that laced from his stomach to his chest, up his neck to his head.

“M’okay,” he rasped. “Help me sit up?”

He pushed himself up onto one arm and Damien hauled him into a sitting position with some difficulty.

“Babe, I'm fine.”

Damien looked at him in disbelief. “You can't even sit up on your own.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes.

“Hey, Dames?”

“What?”

“I don't feel good.”

“I know.” Damien sat down and let Robert's head fall onto his shoulder. “You're burning up!”

“Yeah,” Robert agreed. He closed his eyes.

“Why didn't you say anything?!”

Robert ignored the question. “This is the first time I've been in a bed for a whole work week. Don't ruin this for me.” He scratched at the tape holding his IV line in place, then held it out to Damien. “Think I'm allergic to this stuff.”

Damien dropped his arms helplessly to his sides. “What's wrong with you?”

“Um, some sort of virus, I think the doctor said. Weren't you listening?” When Damien just stared at him, Robert scooted over and patted the empty space on his hospital bed. “Got you to stop crying,” he said with an uncharacteristically gentle smile.

Damien laughed in disbelief and sat down beside Robert. “But seriously. Why didn't you say anything?”

Robert shifted uncomfortably. “I was anxious. I thought maybe it was all in my head, you know? Like stage fright, except the audience is your boyfriend's whole-ass family.”

“You can't anxious yourself into a fever of 101,” Damien said. He wrapped his arm around Robert's shoulders. “I was so worried about you. I wish you would have said something.”

Robert swallowed, confident this time that it was truly just nerves making his stomach thrash. “I… Dames. I'm sorry.” Despite himself, Robert yawned. He blinked, trying to keep his eyes open.

Damien noticed this and hopped off the bed. “Get some sleep, babe. I'll be right here when you wake up.”

Robert smiled and closed his eyes.

#illness kink #ethereous writes

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