#a spare oneshot to get me through the winter | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

skbeaumont · 5 months

Text

Scars – A Joel Miller/Reader Oneshot

“You have them too.” You say, tracing your fingertips along the pale scar that sits at the side of his head, disappearing into thick dark hair. “Yes,” He replies, his voice thick, accent dragging out the vowel. “Show me.”

Summary: When Joel stumbles into the kitchen at 2am, restless and tense, he doesn't expect to find you at the table, nursing a cold mug of tea. He certainly doesn't expect to end up tracing the scars on your skin, explaining how he got his, your hands mapping the contors of each other's old wounds until something new emerges.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, smut, mutual pining, kind of angsty but also fluffy?, descriptions of old injuries, explicit sex, PIV, fingering, dirty talk, body worship, flirting, yearning, mentions of alcohol.

Word Count: 3.3k

It’s late, and the rest of Jackson is asleep.

A single street lamp lights the dark kitchen, casting a soft orange glow over the table and your half empty mug. The tea is long-since cold, but you keep your hands wrapped around it anyway, trying to soak up the last of its heat. There’s a microwave behind you, and a coffee machine, and enough hot water to fill several baths, but after twenty years of surviving by fire light and camping stoves, these modern conveniences still seem like the technology of your childhood, distant and unrealistic. And so the tea remains cold.

You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to the normality of Jackson: the routine and order and kindness that seeps into every interaction, every town meeting and evening out. It’s been four months since you arrived – limping and half-dead, frozen almost solid by the bitter Wyoming winter – at the town’s gates.

And now you’re inside on a mild spring night, sharing a house with a man and his not-daughter, healthy and almost whole again. The town council were apologetic about housing you with Joel and Ellie: it was the only house with a spare bedroom at the time, but in truth it had been a relief. There was something overwhelmingly comforting about being around other people again, sleeping only a thin wall away from another human being, sharing meals and chores.

Joel’s quiet and serious most of the time, but you see cracks appearing in his hard exterior when he’s with Ellie, or his brother Tommy. Something of the man that existed before the world ended. And more recently he’s started opening up to you, too; rolling his eyes at you behind Ellie’s back when she swears or insults houseguests, chuckling at your bad jokes, letting his guard down when he gets home from a hard day’s construction work, allowing you to make him hot drinks and massage his sore shoulders.

You’re careful not to push anything too far, but the slow roll into familiarity with Joel has bred something less familial, too. Something wanting and churning that settles deep in your belly when you’re around him. It makes you want to press yourself against him, settle yourself in the crook of his shoulder, lick the thick tendons of his neck. Whether he feels the same is a mystery. He’s older than you by a couple of decades, not that that matters to you – you’re both adults – but he maintains a distance. Lets you massage his shoulders but never makes a sound while you do it. Holds the door open for you but keeps a respectful distance when you walk side-by-side through town. Allows you to rest your feet in his lap in the evenings on the sofa, but doesn’t touch them, or acknowledge them. You’ve heard him moving around in the night, restless and fidgety, but he never comes to your room on those long dark nights seeking comfort or companionship.

He's been quiet since he went to bed several hours earlier on this particular night, which is why it’s a shock when the kitchen light flickers on, illuminating Joel’s broad silhouette in the doorway. You scramble out of the chair onto your feet, heart thumping. He holds a hand up, calmingly, doesn’t move as your eyes adjust to the light.

“Fucking hell, Joel. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” He takes a step into the kitchen, feet bare on the terracotta tiles.

He’s still in his clothes from today, dark jeans under a thin grey tee, both slightly crumpled as though he’s slept in them. He always does. Undoubtedly it’s the same ritual that makes him keep a pistol on his bedside table, leave a packed go-bag by the front door; the same anxiety that casts dark shadows under his eyes, fuels his insomnia and maintains his habitual whiskey drinking. He’s ready for anything, always, because he’s been through shit and he thinks at any moment it’ll happen again. You understand. It’s why you’re in the kitchen at 2am, cold tea clutched between shaking hands.

“Couldn’t sleep?” You ask, as he opens a high cupboard and pulls out a tumbler.

You move around him, tip the dregs of your tea down the sink.

“Something like that,” He replies, voice croaky.

He pours the whiskey out into the glass, swirls it in thick fingers and then rests back against the kitchen counter opposite you, eyes finally finding yours. They hover for a moment on your face, dark and penetrating, then flick to one shoulder, the other, down your arm.

You keep them covered, normally. Wear long sleeves even in the heat of summer, never undress around anyone. You’ve avoided the swimming pond that opened three weeks ago, even though the water looked heavenly in the warm April weather, unwillingly to bear the scars that litter your body to the town, afraid they’ll show the community who you really are, reveal the terrible things you’ve done to survive. But unlike Joel you don’t have a habit of sleeping in your clothes, and the thin vest and shorts you’re wearing now reveals those long-hidden scars to him in the bright kitchen light.

The bullet wound is the worst one; a puckered, deep purple starburst across one shoulder, skin wrought into something alien and terrible. It’s this one that his gaze linger on, dark eyes making heat roll up your spine. His fist is gripping the whiskey glass so tightly that the tips of his fingers and knuckles are white with the strain of it.

“They’re awful, I know.” You say into the silence.

“What? No- God, no. They’re not.” A pause, his eyes flicking away from yours, over to the far wall, back across. “I’ve got ‘em, too. We all have.”

You scoff at this. Move your hand up, place it on your shoulder. His hand twitches where it rests on the countertop, but he doesn’t move.

“You cover them.” He says. It’s not a question, but you feel like you have to answer anyway.

“Yes.” A breath, shaky on the exhale. “They’re ugly.” “No.” His voice is firm, commanding in the quiet kitchen. Despite yourself, you feel heat pooling between your thighs and you fidget, pressing them together, crossing your feet. The movement makes his eye dart down to your bare legs. You watch the apple of his throat as he swallows thickly, eyes trailing up to the hem of your shorts. There’s a scar there, too, bisecting your upper thigh. Thin and white, a reminder of a long ago incident with barbed wire.

“They’re not…” His voice trails off, eyes searching your face. “Nothing on you is ugly. Not even the scars. Especially not the scars.”

“No?”

“No.” He shifts, puts the whiskey glass down on the counter behind him and lifts his hand to your shoulder. Fingertips trace the edge of the bullet scar, and you feel goosepimples rise in their wake despite the warmth of the kitchen. He runs his hand up past its end, to your throat, along your collar bone and to the other arm. The scars there are paler, older. Shrapnel and grazes from a fall. Each one his fingertips trace reverently, as though they’re a holy text written across your skin. When he reaches the last, the one that loops around your wrist, the indent of a handcuff, you’re sure your heart is thumping so loudly he must be able to hear it, too. Slick is pooling between your thighs, hot and wet against the thin shorts you’re wearing.

“There are more,” You say, so quietly that it’s almost a whisper.

“Show me.”

It’s like a dance. You pull off your vest and Joel’s hand follows the curve of your waist, thumb dipping to press the small coin-shaped scar just below your rib cage. You sigh and he lets his hand run over your ribs, fingertips finding the spaces between like piano keys. When he reaches the curve of your bare breast he pauses, the weight of your flesh resting in the valley between his index finger and thumb. You don’t say anything, just lean into him, holding his eye contact, the pleasure and warmth of his hand making you bold. He moves slowly, carefully, rolling the bud of your nipple between his finger and thumb, pinching just so, pleasure blossoming in your chest, down your spine and to your cunt.

“This okay?” He asks, eyes flicking up from his hand to your face, tracking the pull of your eyebrows as they pitch together, the move of your mouth as you answer him with a shaky exhale.

“What about this one?” He asks, hand leaving your breast to trace across the scar that laces up your thigh under the hem of your shorts. “Can I?”

You’re not sure what he’s asking but you know that you want him to, want him to do whatever it is he’s asking so you nod. His hand grip your waist to lift you, setting you down on the kitchen counter. You grasp at his shoulders, the solid breadth of him hard under your hands. The counter is cold against the back of your legs, but before you can complain his hot hand is wrapped back around your thigh, thumb tracing the scar there again, fingertips inching up to the apex of your legs. He moves to stand between your open legs, still keeping a few inches of distance between you, the extra height of the counter making your eyes level. His burn into your face as he slips his hand higher still, fingers seeking out the wet heat of you, dipping inside, gathering slick and gliding it up to your clit.

“Joel,” You say into the aching gap between your lips and his.

“You’re fucking perfect,” He says, the words hot on your mouth, his breath mingling with your needy sighs. “All of you, you understand?”

You can only nod into his shoulder, head dropping to rest against the broad heft of it, his fingers thrumming a steady rhythm against your clit that has pleasure ratcheting up inside you. You’re still in your tiny sleep shorts, Joel’s hand forcing the crotch aside to palm at your drenched cunt. He slips two thick fingers into you, presses his thumb to your clit, and that tips you over the edge, pleasure coursing through you like fire.

He talks you through it, keeps up the firm press of his fingers, praises falling from his lips like prayers.

Good girl, that’s it, such a good fucking girl for me, taking what you need, so fucking perfect.

It’s only then, as you come down from the high, that he finally kisses you, tilting your head up with a gentle hand and fitting his lips to yours. They’re soft and dry, plush against your own. He slides his tongue against the seam of your lips, into the wet heat of your mouth, pulls back, before driving forward again, breathless and frantic. You thread your hands into the hair at the base of his neck, tugging him against you, teeth clashing in your mutual desperation. His pulls his fingers from your wet heat, smears your slick up your sides as his palms your breasts, his earlier gentleness gone. But when you slip a hand between your bodies, seeking out the hard length of him in his jeans, he pulls back. His eyes are dark despite the bright kitchen light, pupils eating up the thin sliver of brown at the edges, but there’s a reticence there.

“You have them too.” You say, tracing your fingertips along the pale scar that sits at the side of his head, disappearing into thick dark hair.

“Yes,” He replies, his voice thick, accent dragging out the vowel.

“Show me.”

He steps back, out of the circle of your legs, pulls at the neck of his t-shirt and drags it up, over his head and off. His eyes are fixed on you, watching you as you take in the broad bulk of him, the sloping plains of his shoulders and chest down to a softer stomach. He’s all strength: hard where you’re soft, his scars stretched across thick muscle and tanned flesh. There’s one at his side that canters a jagged line across his stomach, and that’s where your hand goes, holding his waist to rest your thumb against its uneven edge. It looks fairly fresh, no more than a couple of years old, still red.

“What’s this from?” You ask.

“I was stabbed,” He replies, “while I was with Ellie.”

“It looks like it was bad.”

“Well, she stitched it up, so,” He smiles, a hint of mischief returning to his eyes, growing bolder as your hands map his chest and stomach.

“And this one?” An old one, hardly noticeable in the light, to the right of his belly button.

“Appendicitis, when I was twelve.”

“These?” A collection of four or five small white gash marks, peppered across his shoulders and along his collarbone.

“Makeshift grenade.” He says. “Went off in my hand.”

You lean forward, press your lips to the first of the scars and kiss it, drag your lips along to the second, and then the third. At the fourth you let your tongue dart out, tasting the skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, salty and warm. He stands stock still as you do so, hands resting at your hips, fingertips gripping the flesh there tight enough to leave bruises. He sighs at the feel of your tongue against his skin, the insistent press of your mouth to his collarbone, your teeth, scraping at the tendon that jolts in his neck.

This time, when you reach for the button of his jeans he helps you, pops the first button, drags the zipper down and pushes them off his hips, revealing thick thighs corded with muscle, dusted with dark hair. He kicks the jeans the rest of the way off, steps forward again into the circle of your hips, letting you knead the thick flesh of his ass, pull him against you so that his hot length is pressed to the crotch of your shorts, two pieces of thin cotton the only thing separating you.

You kiss up the column of his throat, press your teeth to his ear lobe, and are rewarded with a soft groan that sends pleasure sparking up your spine again, cunt clenching down on nothing. His cock twitches against you when you lick a stripe along the underside of his jaw. You fit your lips back to his. This kiss is sloppy and uncoordinated, teeth clashing, his strong nose pressed to yours, one of his hands fisting in your hair, gripping tight at the ponytail at the base of your neck, holding you to him. You shuffle on the counter, pull your shorts off and down to join his jeans and shirt on the tiled floor.

“Take them off,” You say into his mouth, needy fingers sliding into the waistband of his briefs, seeking the length of him.

He does as you ask, bending to push them down, cock dipping and slapping up against his stomach as he frees it. He’s big, thick and beautiful, veins standing out against the shaft, precum beading at the tip. He hisses into your open mouth when you wrap your fist around him and stroke slowly up and down, thumb seeking out his slit, spreading his arousal and yours over it and down his length.

“Jesus, darlin’,” He sighs against the side of your neck, stubble rough against you, his hands seeking out the weight of your tits again, pressing open mouthed kisses against your skin.

You pull him back against you, press the blunt head of him to your slick entrance and watch him watch himself sink inside you, inch by inch, stretching you open. The burn of it is intoxicating, his thick length opening you up, pressing inside deliciously, white-hot pleasure blossoming up through your body.

“Feels so good, Joel,” You tell him as he shakes against you, bottoming out and dragging himself out only to press back inside.

“Pussy’s so goddamn perfect,” He says, his voice almost cracking with the effort of it.

“Please, Joel,” you hiss, “harder, please.”

The sound he makes then is animalistic, something between a grunt and a growl, teeth clenched, jaw pressed hard to your neck. He tightens his grip on your hips, anchors you to the counter and starts pounding into you. The strength of him is something to behold, his hips snapping into yours, muscles of his back shifting and clenching beneath your grasping hands.

“So fucking good,” he groans, “wanna stay inside you for the rest of my fucking life, darlin’.”

You don’t know how he’s so articulate; it’s all you can do to hold on to his shoulders and let him fuck you, whimpers and moans pouring from your open lips as he does, the slap of his hips against yours filthy in the otherwise silent house. When he slows his thrusts again he pulls back from you to watch where you’re joined, eyes dark, perspiration beading on his forehead. There’s a vein in his neck that’s pulsing visibly, a drop of sweat trickling down beside it, charting a course through patchy stubble. He reaches between your bodies, splays his hand over your mound and presses his thumb to your clit.

“Yes, Joel, please, God.”

“I can feel how close you are, darlin’” He says, “can feel you gripping me so tight.”

He strums his thumb over the swollen bundle of nerves, drawing small, tight circles that have you seeing stars within seconds, tension coiling inside you, ratcheting up until it breaks on a hard thrust of his hips, his cock hitting that spongy place inside you that sends pleasure right down to your toes. You come hard, fingernails digging into the hard flesh of his shoulders, Joel’s mouth clamped to your throat, teeth worrying the skin there, repeating the same phrase over and over as you come down.

There it is, there it is, good girl, I’ve got you.

He thrusts lazily into you as you slowly relax again, little aftershocks continuing for several long minutes, the blunt head of him hitting that same spot inside you again and again. You can tell he’s close now, his hands shaking where they’re gripping your hips again, face set in concentration, squeezing his eyes shut every few thrusts as though he’s desperately trying to hold himself back.

“Let go, Joel. Please,” You whisper, and he hisses through his teeth, pulls you bodily forward on the counter so that the angle changes and he can drive up into you, his pace quickening again.

“Jesus fucking Christ, darlin’” He rasps, thrusting into you once- twice- three more times.

He pulls out then, fist gripping the base of his cock as he paints your stomach and cunt with his cum, hot and thick. His face is a rapture, eyes pitch black, teeth bared with pleasure and need, the strong set of his jaw holding together what little restraint he has left.

He kisses you again after, drags kitchen roll from the holder to clean you up, presses sweet lips to your cheeks and temples, down your neck, across your chest, like he’s trying to taste the ecstasy that’s written across your heated skin.

Outside, dawn is quickly approaching. The weak rays of sunlight that filter into the kitchen illuminate the tan glow of Joel’s face and paint the scars on your bodies in pale yellow light. You don’t think anything’s ever looked more beautiful.

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel x reader #joel x you #the last of us fic #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #pedro pascal #joel miller fanfic

1K notes · View notes

blossomwritesthings · 2 years

Text

❦― 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 :: 𝐬𝐤𝐳

❦― psa & reminders

- some of the following content contains 18+ content. if you are a minor, ageless in your profile, or have a default/empty blog, do NOT interact with such work. however, i take no responsibility for your own media consumption, so please read at your own risk.

- all of the following works are purely fictional, and in no way do they represent any of the stray kids as individuals in real-life.

- ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ғɪᴄs ᴀʀᴇ ᴍɪɴᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍʏ ᴏᴡɴ ᴏʀɪɢɪɴᴀʟ ɪᴅᴇᴀs, sᴏ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴛʜᴇᴍ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ. ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴘᴏsᴛ/ᴄᴏᴘʏ ᴀɴʏ ᴏғ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sɪᴛᴇs (ᴛʜɪs ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇs ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs).

💋 - ̥۪͙۪˚┊❛ other cool stuff ❜┊˚ ̥۪͙۪◌

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋread my rules & guidelines here! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋmy wip list! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋ skz fic recs [sfw ver]! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋskz fic recs [nsfw ver]! :: 18+, MDNI! ࿐ྂ

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋback to navigation! ࿐ྂ!

❦― tag directory

genres: ______ - angst [☹] - fluff [☾] - humor [☁] - contains violence [☄ ] - suggestive [✴] - pure smut [❦ , 18+ - mdni]

estimated length: ______ - ♣ :: reactions (depends on how many members are in it, but between 500-1.0k) - ✰ :: drabble/imagine/scenario (500-6.0k) - ♔ :: oneshot (1.5-15.k) - ♦ longfic (15.k+) - request [✎] - completed series [✢]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 ot8

skz & lingerie ~ wc: 5.4k ~ ☾ , ✴ / ❦ , ✰

⤷ [established relationship] idol!skz. smut - MDNI, 18+ only. reader pov.

in which you wear lingerie around skz.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 chan

when you awaken ~ wc: 3.0k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!chan. sick!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

it's always at the most inconvenient of times that your body decides to gift you with your period- and this time around, it's during a moment when your boyfriend chan is busy in his studio. so surely, he won't have time to spare to comfort you, right??

use me ~ wc: 4.8k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] slightyandere!chan. idol!chan. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

recently, life's been feeling rather dull for you. and with you getting caught into the trap of doing the same daily grind, it's up to your boyfriend chan to shake you from your cloud of unhappiness and try and heal your exhausted heart.

still my favourite girl ~ wk: 6.7k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] age gap au. idol!chan. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

against your boyfriend chan's wishes, you had made a twitter account after many years - and what a mistake that was. now, you're left with the aftermath of the damage, and chan is the only person who can pick up the broken pieces of you.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 lee know

don't leave me, my love ～ wc: 8.3k ～ ☹ , ☾ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!minho. sick!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

it's the dead of winter when you suddenly come down with a bad case of the flu. and your doting boyfriend minho is more than happy and willing to help you through the pain.

a voice of reason ~ wc: 3.7k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] idol!minho. angry/protective!minho. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

for as long as you can remember, you've always hated going to the salon - always hated others touching your fragile hair. and now, as an adult, you want to change that... want to face your fears. but you've never had good luck, which becomes clearly apparent after your appointment at the salon.

⤷ [strangers to lovers] veterinarian!minho. client!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

dr. lee minho is known throughout your area as the city's hottest veterinarian, and he's also the very man that's been taking good care of your two cats for the past three years. but one day, you're thrown down a dark path of heartache when the cat that you've grown up with - nyx - is diagnosed with an acute form of bone cancer. burdened with the hardest decision of your entire life, you come at a crossroads of what to do. and throughout it all, minho is the single most person who continually stays by your side.

make me forget ~ wc: 5.0k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] idol!chan. curvy!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

you had thought that your scars from the past were healed, but evidently, your ex from college was still clouding your mind. thankfully, your boyfriend minho is right there to help you heal from the heartbreak.

: ̗̀➛〚 timestamps 〛

{ 𝟎𝟎:𝟏𝟗 } ~ ❦ , ✰ , smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 changbin

fire & ice~ wc: 2.1k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ✴ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!changbin. sick!reader hurt/comfort. reader pov.

you never expected to find yourself in the gym late at night with your boyfriend changbin. but then again, you never expected that you'd get injured either.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 hyunjin

never let go ～ wc: 6.3k ～ ☹ , ☾ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!hyunjin. sick!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

it's been proving to be very difficult to keep the dance class that you take three times a week a secret from your boyfriend hyunjin. and the lies only become even harder to tell when you suddenly hurt your foot during class one night.

my girl ~ wc: 2.8k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔ , ✎

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!hyunjin. sick!hyunjin. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

your first visit back to the small countryside village that your boyfriend hyunjin grew up in suddenly takes a turn for the worse when he starts feeling sick to his stomach. and you're the first person he turns to for comfort.

the sound of your name ~ wc: 10.6k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [enemies to lovers] academic rivals x dark academia uni au. nonidol!hyunjin. rich hyunjin x poor reader. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

ever since you started studying at korean national university of arts in seoul, hwang hyunjin, the other top student of the school and the dean's son, has been an absolute thorn in your ass. although, it turns out that not all thorns are necessarily bad.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 jisung

late night fantasies ～ wc: 9.4k ～ ☹ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] idol!jisung. estranged!jisung. softdom!jisung. needy!jisung. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

things between you and jisung have slowly fizzled out within the past few months. the tension only gets worse after a heated argument that almost ends with your breakup, which ultimately forces jisung to prove to you how much he still truly loves you.

i'm always here ~ wc: 2.6k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!jisung. spiraling/burn out!jisung. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

after a bout of not seeing your boyfriend jisung, you take it upon yourself to visit him one night in the studio. but what you find when you get there is the opposite of a happy sight.

the other half of it ~ wc: 4.1 ~ ☹ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship w/a male oc] enemies to lovers. producer!jisung x hairstylist!reader. harddom!jisung. twin dynamic. cheating au. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

the han twins are infamous in south korea for being the #1 duo in the country, with han jisoon gifted in rapping and han jisung in producing. jisoon is the best man a girl could ever ask for- and a wonderful boyfriend. it's just too bad that jisung is the one you truly want out of the two brothers.

: ̗̀➛〚 timestamps 〛

{ 𝟐𝟑:𝟒𝟏 } ~ ❦ , ✰ , smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 felix

sparkles and butterflies ~ wc: 3.9k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔ , ✎

⤷ [established relationship] sick!fic. idol!felix. sick!felix. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

when your boyfriend felix unexpectedly falls ill with a bad migraine, you automatically throw yourself into the caretaker role. but maybe he needs more than just some pills to relieve the pain... maybe, all the medicine he really needs is you.

angel in the shadows ~ wc: 3.4k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ♔ , ✎

⤷ [established relationship] nonidol!felix. slight confession au. hurt/comfort. reader pov.

ever since you were a little girl, you've had to battle the shadowy demons away from the edges of your mind each and every night. and you're used to dealing with it at this point. but sometimes, you just need your boyfriend felix to help you through the bone-chilling nights.

react ~ wc: 4.3k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] nonidol!felix. softboy!felix // harddom!felix. estranged relationship. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

in all of the time that you've dated him, felix has never dropped the innocent, flower boy persona that he's known for. but perhaps, you'll finally be the one to crack him open to show who he truly is underneath all of the softness and glitter.

⤷ [childhood friends to enemies to lovers] nonidol/collegegrad!felix. waitress!reader. hurt/comfort. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

ever since you were born, all you've ever known is living a simple life in the small australian coastal town of bridgeport bay. you're content with working at your parent's beachside restaurant angel waves for the rest of your life, and you're happy with your place in the world - you have good friends and an even better boyfriend. that is, until everything comes to a standstill when a familiar face from the past visits town for the summer. and in the wake of his return, lee felix upturns everything you thought you were content with here in your comforting little beach town.

not-so-perfect gentleman ~ wc: 1.8k ~ ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] nonidol!felix. rich!felix. harddom!felix x sub!reader. reader pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

coming from one of the richest families in all of seoul, lee felix is known to be one of the most prim and proper young men in the city. too bad he's not so proper when it comes to you.

: ̗̀➛〚 timestamps 〛

{ 𝟏𝟎:𝟐𝟕 } ~ ❦ , ✰ , smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 seungmin

coming soon...

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 jeongin

coming soon...

*ੈ✩‧₊˚🥀 minlix

steal my breath away. ~ wc: 3.5k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ✴ , ♔

⤷ [confession au] idol!minho/idol!felix. introvert minho & extrovert felix. literally grumpy and sunshine troupe. hurt/comfort. minho pov.

although they were complete opposites, minho and felix got along perfectly - fit together like the two halves of a silvery moon. at least, that's what minho had initially thought for years, until felix suddenly starts outright avoiding him.

my dirty little secret. ~ wc: 5.5k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [childhood friends to lovers au] nonidol!minho/nonidol!felix. straight (??) minho & gay felix. felix pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

minho has always been straight and felix has always been gay. but after a certain incident happens during a drunken game of truth-or-dare between friends, sexualities and feelings will be thoroughly questioned.

teach me. ~ wc: 6.7k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [confession au] idol!minho/idol!felix. felix reads hentai. experienced minho x virgin felix. hurt/comfort. felix pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

felix feels like he's the most foolish, inexperienced virgin there is, virtually oblivious to the nuances of a sex life. but then minho comes along - and offers to... teach him, in more ways than just one.

best kind of distraction. ~ wc: 9.6k ~ ☹ , ☾ , ☄ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [childhood best friends to lovers au] dancer!minho/dancer!felix. felix's in an abusive relationship. post-breakup blues. hurt/comfort. felix pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

felix thought he'd always be with his long-term boyfriend jicheul, until one drunken night ruins everything they'd built up together. and the only person he can turn to in his time of crisis is his childhood best friend, minho.

turn for me. ~ wc: 6.0k ~ ☾ , ❦ , ♔

⤷ [established relationship] idol!minho/idol!felix. felix is kinda inexperienced when it comes to sex toys. felix pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

felix never expected that his boyfriend minho would have such devious thoughts and ideas in his mind when he agreed to try out a handful of sex toys. but so quickly, he's finding out that the older man wants to do many new things with him.

⤷ [brothers best friend troupe] college au. dancer!minho/artist!Felix. age gap (abt 4 years). extremely dark themes throughout. minho pov. smut - MDNI, 18+ only.

lee minho was a very content man living his quiet life alongside his childhood best friend chris. they were both studying at the korean national university of arts. but never did minho expect chris' little brother lee felix to join them four years later. quickly rising to popularity as the freshman known for legendary parties full of drugs and liquor, felix's reputation for being the campus' "thirsty little slut" is all-consuming. but minho, a senior, remains unfazed by the change in felix from the boy he once knew. yet, perhaps felix's transformation is driven by more than just growing up.

❦― friendly disclaimer⌇sᴏᴍᴇ ᴏғ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴ sᴍᴜᴛ. ᴛʜɪs ᴍᴇᴀɴs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ’ʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ sᴜɪᴛᴀʙʟᴇ ғᴏʀ ᴍɪɴᴏʀs. ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ, ᴅɴɪ ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀɢᴇ ᴏғ 18.

. . . ⇢ ˗ˏˋback to navigation ࿐ྂ

571 notes · View notes

crestfallencrest · 9 months

Text

Freezing

Summary: Yuri never minded the cold. He was usually the type to get through a harsh and cold winter day without much issue. Today, however, was not one of those days.

Prompt: No prompt, just some Duke/Yuri conversations in the discord that left me INSPIRED. Modern AU (Other oneshots can be read here on Ao3! [x] ) Pairings: Duke/Yuri Genre: Fluff Warnings: N/A Word Count: 1,998

Been hit with a tiny writing slump (too many ideas grabbing my attention) but I really really started liking Duke/Yuri lately and I really REALLY wanted to write a winter themed one shot for the Holidays so here I am. Short but sweet! Also, a present for my fellow Yuri/Duke lovers in the discord server I'm in <3

Yuri wasn’t the type of person who got cold easily.

He had always been that way growing up. While Flynn would be bundled up with multiple layers from head to toe, Yuri could usually get by with a simple jacket and gloves. Maybe a scarf if it was a particularly windy day. But regardless, he would usually get through the day without a single complaint. ( “That’s rare, coming from you.” Flynn had said once, to which Yuri promptly told him to shove it and stop being jealous. )

His resistance to the cold seemed to shock his friends whenever it was brought up. Usually the topic would come up whenever one of his more ‘motherly hen’ friends ( coughEstellecough) would exclaim in shock over how little layers Yuri had decided to wear that day and every time, he would have to explain that he simply didn’t mind the cold weather. He moved around too much for it to bother him too much and a lot of his time on the job was usually spent indoors. Plus, growing up in a shoddy apartment without a heating system did wonders in helping Yuri adjust to the wonders of freezing temperatures.

Today, however, was not one of those days where he could simply just shrug off the harsh and bitter winds of that winter afternoon.

He worked as a cook at a small little restaurant on the other side of town and unfortunately, whatever otherworldly being that watched over him had decided that he was looking just a tad too dry when he was working on washing the dishes at the end of his shift. A pipe had burst and Yuri was quickly and completely soaked within seconds. It turned out that his simple afternoon shift had quickly turned into a closing shift as the restaurant had to be shut down early so the plumber could come in and fix the issue.

Unfortunately for Yuri, it wasn’t like he had any spare clothes to change into at the restaurant. He was starting to wonder if maybe some extra layers wasn’t such a bad idea after all but he also couldn’t give his partner and certain other people leverage to say ‘I told you so.’

Not that they could right now, even if they wanted to. The water jet from Hell decided that soaking him to the bone wasn’t enough and that it also had to completely destroy his phone in the process. So calling someone to come and pick him up or bring him some spare clothes was unfortunately out of the question.

So, Yuri decided to just fucking deal with it.

It wasn’t that long of a walk to the bus stop and he’s endured worse before. So all he had to do was make it onto the bus, ignore the sting of his freezing fingers and the shivering of his body, get home, strip and take a very warm shower and hopefully no one would be any the wiser. Gods forbid the scolding he would get if his partner caught him out in freezing temperatures, soaked from head to toe. He could definitely hear his voice now if he saw Yuri at this moment, all huddled over and shivering as if seconds away from freezing to death at any given moment. He’d be concerned, of course, but his deep voice would also have that slight hint of disapproval as he would say–

“You wouldn’t be so cold if you had taken the extra coat like I had asked.”

Yeah, he would say it exactly like that.

Wait.

Aw, fuck.

Yuri momentarily forgot about the winter’s frozen touch slowly creeping through his body just long enough for his body to jolt into a more straightened standing position. He whipped his head around, following the voice’s source and he wasn’t sure if he was cursed or blessed to see the familiar red eyes piercing into his soul with what he could only assume was his stare of judgment that he could only work to perfect the longer they lived together.

Long white strands poked from the red wool knit cap that he wore over his head, with the rest of it being held down by the black and white checkered scarf that was, in Yuri’s opinion, quite horrendous but it had been a gift from Judith when she was last in town so, of course, his partner saw no reason to not use it. Sure enough, Yuri could tell that the man was wearing at least two layers of clothing to combat the cold weather and for once in his life, Yuri was a bit jealous.

“Oh, h-hey Duke.” Yuri greeted with a tiny grin, trying to bite back the shiver in his voice. “What’re you doin’ here?”

Duke quietly moved to stand by him at the bus stop, letting his arm raise a bit to show off the small grocery bag in his hand. “Groceries.” He answered simply before turning his head a bit to face him. “You mentioned needing to make cookies later this week for the holidays, did you not? We were out of sugar and butter.”

“A-Ah…” Yuri nodded quickly, letting his arms wrap around himself. “G-Good catch–”

The words barely left Yuri’s mouth before he realized that Duke was staring him down, eyes narrowed slightly before his free hand reached over to brush against Yuri’s shoulder. Duke was generally a hard person to surprise. In fact, despite Yuri’s life mission to try and startle this man at literally every given opportunity, he was ashamed to admit that he’s only managed to pull it off a handful of times and instead, it seemed to be Duke that would catch Yuri off guard, most days.

(For example, how in the hell was he supposed to expect that Duke Pantarei of all fucking people would confess first?! No one could have possibly expected that! Of course Yuri would be surprised by that!)

However, upon letting his fingers brush against the jacket that was undoubtedly carrying more water than warmth, Yuri was surprised to see Duke’s hand jerk back in surprise. Yuri watched as his eyes widened and his serious expression tightened, frown stretching across his face. He didn’t say anything and instead just stared at Yuri and… ah, yeah, Yuri was fully familiar with that look. He was definitely in trouble.

“I’ve had one hell of a day.” Was all Yuri could offer and that definitely did not seem to quell Duke’s concerns.

“Why are you standing outside in this weather as wet as you are?”

“Man, and it’s not even the fun kind of wet–”

“Yuri.”

Man, he kept hoping that that joke would land. Maybe one day.

Yuri shoved his hands into his pockets, though it didn’t seem to help the impending chill that was quickly returning to his body. “A pipe busted at work and unfortunately, I was right in the line of fire. And I didn’t have a change of clothes.”

Duke’s eyebrows furrowed. “You could have called me.”

“Oh yeah. Might need a new phone. Water got into my current one.” Yuri would have laughed had he not lost maybe two years worth of pictures on that damn brick. Thankfully he shared a lot of the pictures with his friend group and Duke but it would be such a pain to get those pictures back. Ugh.

Duke quietly placed the grocery bag onto the bench and began to pull off his jacket and scarf. “I see…” He mused quietly as he finally looked back at his lover. “Take off your jacket and put this on over your clothes. Along with the scarf.”

“I’m not going to steal your jacket and scarf. Then you’ll be cold!” And the last thing he wanted was Duke to be freezing too.

“Between you and myself, are you really going to argue that I will be the cold one here?” Duke asked, once again holding out the jacket and scarf and… okay, yeah, he maybe had a point.

Slipping out of the soaked jacket was almost torture for Yuri because while he wore a long sleeve shirt to work today, it sure as hell wasn’t built for this weather but sometimes you had to get colder in order to get warmer. He quickly shoved the jacket on and buttoned it up in record time and the warmth of the jacket having been on Duke’s body seemed to creep through Yuri’s body.

Yuri shivered in relief as Duke took his wet jacket and placed it to the side for now before moving to wrap the scarf around Yuri’s neck. Feeling Duke’s warm, gloved fingers brush against the freezing skin of his neck and cheeks had Yuri nearly move to chase after the warmth of his partner as he gently reached behind him to pull his hair out from underneath the scarf. He was still wet underneath the jacket but the warmth of his jacket and scarf was already a major improvement.

“Mm…Feels nice…” Yuri hummed slowly, letting his eyes close as Duke’s fingers once again brushed against his cheek and this time, he couldn’t help himself as he stepped closer.

This seemed to give Duke pause and Yuri cracked an eye open to see those soft red eyes staring down at his own. Duke was hard to read at times and it was a miracle that Yuri had managed to pin down the ability on how to read Duke’s expressions. Which is why he felt his chest light up when he saw his lover staring down at him oh-so-softly.

Yuri was never a big romantic but even that was enough to have his heart doing flips. “You know, that’s usually when you, the boyfriend, would respond with some sort of sappy remark about always keeping me warm or something and then you’d like… do that.” He quickly added in, that teasing smirk making its way onto his face.

“Do that?”

“Yeah. Keeping me warm.”

“Hm. I didn’t realize that I was being held up to a certain standard.” Duke responded as he let his fingers stroke Yuri’s cheek once more before finally allowing himself to cup Yuri’s cold face into his impossibly warm hands.

The shiver of warm relief shot through Yuri once more as he pressed his cheek further into Duke’s touch with a content smile. “We’ll work on it. Should I go jump in the lake down the street so we can try again?”

“I’d much rather we just get you home and warm you up.”

“You’re no fun.” Yuri answered with a click of the tongue.

And then he looked back at Duke, who had the faintest smile on his face as he stared down at Yuri. Yuri could hear the bus make its way down the street, preparing to come and pick them up to take them back to the apartment they shared but before Duke pulled away to prepare to climb onto the bus, he let his thumb brush gently against Yuri’s lip.

“I see the meaning was lost on you.” Duke replied before he finally pulled away (and Yuri will swear to his dying days that he did not whine when the warmth left with him.) “I suppose I’ll have to do better next time.”

As Duke grabbed Yuri’s discarded wet lump of a jacket and the grocery bag, Yuri was left wondering what Duke could have possibly been talking about regarding lost meanings and doing better next time as the bus pulled up next to them, opening the doors to offer them entry. Duke spared him one glance before climbing the steps onto the vehicle, the amused smile still clear as day and Yuri couldn’t help but feel like he had missed a joke somewhere along the way–

Oh.

Oh. That’s what he meant by warming him up.

Cheeks burning from the cold weather and absolutely positively nothing else , Yuri was certain that he had never hopped onto a bus so fast in his life

---

And then they went home and 'warmed up' and Yuri absolutely did not catch the worst case of the sniffles right before the holidays! Thank you for reading!

#tales of vesperia #dukeyuri #yuri lowell #duke pantarei #oneshots #crest fics #holds them in my hand #i think that they're cute #they should kiss

11 notes · View notes

praline-elegy · 2 months

Note

Hi Praline Elegy, I read all your Fence headcanons and I want to ask do you have any longer fiction pieces you have published? Do you have any on AO3?

Hello anon!

I don’t currently have anything long-form published to ao3, but if you check my pinned post here, you’ll find that alongside my Fence headcanons, I do have three Fence drabbles.

You could also check through the #praline prattles tag, which is where I mindlessly “prattle” on this blog. There might be a crumb or two about Fence under that. There’s also #praline answers which has mainly Fence related asks.

You’re free to ask me questions about Fence if you’d like to see what I think about a particular character, ship, or scenario! You can also browse the #send asks or #ask game tag on my blog for ideas.

I do not have anything posted on ao3 at the moment, but I will post a link on my tumblr when I do.

I am currently working on a short oneshot featuring Thomas Leventis and Seiji Katayama (platonic) that I started as a warm-up but it’s kinda cute, so I definitely plan on finishing it. I also have various projects including Seiji/Nicholas, but the ones that have the most progress are my winter holiday au and vampire Seiji au. I’m a bit of a slow writer, but I’m hoping to get something up before summer ends.

If you could spare a minute, I’d love it if you could comment something that you liked about my writing under any of those posts. I find comments highly motivating and I would love to strike up a conversation about any of my headcanons or drabbles.

Thank you so much for the interest! 🩵

#praline answers #praline prattles

3 notes · View notes

banjjakz · 10 months

Text

once upon a december (things i almost remember); hananene oneshot

On the first day of Christmas My true love sent to me: A partridge in a pear tree The wine glass slips from her left hand and crashes to the floor in an ear-shattering explosion. Dark red liquid – frigid and insidious – seeps between the gaps in her stockings, dyeing her toes crimson from the outside in. She can’t be bothered to cringe at the unpleasant sensation. No, Nene is more preoccupied with dropping the card, clutching her head, and letting out the first wail she’s released since last December.

(Or: Aoi went missing last Christmas, and the chilling bite of the new year rendered her case cold to the touch. This year, on December first, Nene opens an anonymous Christmas card to find a lock of deep purple hair. Terrified, jaded, and freshly incensed, she teams up with the boy next door to track down her best friend before it's too late.)

wc: ~9.7k warnings: horror; psychological thriller; kidnapping; gaslighting; implied drugging; murder mystery; stalking; manipulation; bad end

🖤 read on ao3 🖤

December is the coldest month.

December, for Nene, had not always been cold. December was once filled with warmth and laughter, joy and friction, a vibrant collage of pale golden sun leaking through the bleary overcast sky; beams of light bouncing from snow mound to snow mound in a grand display of merry acrobatics; a fireplace and a hearth and a cornucopia of store-bought curry, leftovers gifted generously by the neighbors, trials and many errors of family recipes lost in the muddled translation of time; cable-knit sweaters; worn leather boots; snowflakes on the tongue like a burst of magic spreading so cold, so rapidly across her body it threatened to burn her alive; and a friend, to join her in this winter wonderland.

December had not always been cold.

Nene, very desperately, tries to remind herself of that fact this year.

It certainly feels colder, but this is admittedly due in large part to her broken radiator. The same radiator she’s been meaning for months now to ask Minamoto Kou from across the street to come and tinker with. She doesn’t know why she keeps forgetting. She should have told him in April, when it first threw in the towel. Should have, should have, should have. Now it is December, and Nene shivers at her own dining table, like she’s seen a ghost. Now, it is December first, and she might as well have, because the ghosts of time’s past are beginning to claw their way from underneath her tissues flushed down the toilet, all her tears buried between threadbare pillowcases. Now, it is December first, and the skeletons in her closet begin to reanimate themselves, cracking their joints stiff from disuse, skulls grinning madly in sadistic preparation.

An anniversary requires fanfare, after all. Twenty-four days until the big event.

How, she thinks, numbly. How has it almost been a year? It’s been simultaneously the longest and yet the shortest expanse of time in her mortal experience of life. Just yesterday she’d been burying her face into Aoi’s neck, red-cheeked with laughter. Eons have passed since she last saw her best friend’s face.

Time works in funny ways when you’re depressed. So does depth perception, apparently; Nene almost brains herself skating across a haphazard patch of ice that runs jagged down her driveway. Her arms windmill, flailing wildly in an attempt to brace what she knows will be an inevitably nasty faceplant. Perfect. An amazing end to a fantastic day at the start of her favorite month of the year. Nene would cry, if she had any tears left to spare.

Someone above must get bored of watching her aimlessly struggle, because she’s able to snag ahold of the mailbox at the last second, effectively steadying her unsightly downfall. Dry, peeling fingers clutch at the hard metal tin with all the force of an animal cornered. It takes her a second to unclench, to exhale, to remember that she is no longer in peril. The tunnel vision fades. Her breathing evens out. The ringing in her ears subsides. She notices the meek red little flag, erect and upturned on the side of the mailbox, valiantly standing tall and bright amidst the grey dreary backdrop.

She hasn’t received mail in months.

Her bills are paid online, for the most part. She doesn’t have any close friends. Her family stopped trying to contact her months ago, when the cherry blossoms began to wilt in the storm drains. Now there are no fruit bearing trees, and Nene lives alone – truly alone – with no one to send her mail. No one she knows of, at least.

That last thought triggers something in the back of her brain, sharp and chilling and alarming all at once, a sensation she has not embraced for months now: self-preservation.

Suddenly anxious, Nene rips open the mouth of the metal box and peers inside. A lone ruby envelope greets her. Before she can think better of it, Nene snatches the thing and hastily fixes her mailbox to fit the lackluster, lonely image she’s more accustomed to: close-holed. Flag down.

She hustles up her front steps, huddled around the strange package like a mother protecting its wounded young. Her neighbors must think her insane, but Nene doesn’t care about that. She hasn’t cared since – well.

The house is cold, and dark. Shadows leap and jump in warm welcome as she meanders her way into the kitchen, flicking the right switch on the first try out of sheer muscle memory. All at once, her line of vision is illuminated in frosty fluorescents, rendering the pale wood and bloodless countertops an even more pallid hue. The dust that collects along the lone windowsill just above the sink unsettles itself at her arrival, motes floating benignly in the air, almost as though waving a shy little welcome home.

Her coat is shouldered to the tile floor. Her heels are kicked off somewhere near. The top two buttons of her work dress are popped open to allow for some breathing room. The bottle of wine she goes to uncork awaits her dutifully from the countertop, where she had uncorked it the day before, and the day before that, and even the day before that one. Tonight’s glass runs a little bit deeper, though. She has a feeling she might need it.

The first thing that strikes her as truly odd is the lack of a return address. She revolves the slim, rectangular envelope in one hand, inspecting it thoroughly from pristinely pressed edge to pristinely pressed edge, and yet she is unable to locate any address beyond her own, which is printed neatly in dark, black ink. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve guessed it had been printed directly on the surface, what with how evenly the characters are spaced from each other. An errant smudge blurs the last zero on her prefecture code, however, and Nene deduces that this was hand-written and hand-mailed – by whom, she’s yet to uncover.

It should disturb her more than it actually does, this piece of mystery mail. A literal scarlet letter resting innocently enough in her lap, its insignia black as night, its arrival marked by the year’s darkest hour. These past eleven months have numbed her, she thinks ruefully. What’s frozen cannot feel.

At worst, it’s a lame little prank from some of the kids on her street. The adults know better than to prod at her, but she’s caught some of the junior high kids messing about on her lawn right around dusk, completely unaware that her dark windows do not denote vacancy. She’s the strange woman in the strange house at the end of the lane, she knows. Tragedy has painted her desolate. Maybe this is a note poking fun at her late age, her living in solace, perhaps even her style of dress, which is just as muted and bland as the rest of her general surroundings.

Maybe it’s an urban legend, placed in her mailbox to frighten her, boldly proclaiming that something terrible will happen in seven days if she doesn’t forward the message immediately.

Maybe the sender was one digit, one character off, and this envelope isn’t even hers to claim in the first place.

Unenthused and fairly exhausted, Nene feels nothing as she unhurriedly splices the red lip with her thumb.

Her immediate reaction is confusion. There is a Christmas card inside. Her family doesn’t celebrate the holiday. She doesn’t have any friends at work, or in her neighborhood that celebrate the holiday.

A prank, she reasons. It’s not a farfetched notion.

As she gingerly pulls the card out of its snug red outfit, she’s greeted with the sight of the Western caricature of a robust, profoundly smiling Santa Claus, who grins up at her from his boisterous perch atop a sleigh wealthy with presents. HO, HO, HO! Read the English characters emblazoned above his head, bright like headlights. She feels caught in their glare.

Yep. Definitely a prank.

Like ripping off a band-aid, Nene flips open the card in one swift, violent motion.

And her heart stutters to a standstill.

All around her, the house freezes in place; the dust-motes shrink back, captivated in disbelief, their once amicable air now petrified with the abrupt shift in the air; the shadows at her feet shrink back in empathy; and even the skeletons in her closet quiet their clamor for a handful of terrible, awful, painstakingly potent seconds.

A lock of hair is tucked gently into the spine of the Christmas card. A lock of hair Nene remembers brushing, braiding, caressing, adorning with clips and bows and ribbons and ties. A lock of hair Nene had watched as a child cascade down from the smooth, scarless expanse of an unblemished ivory neck, all the way down to an impossibly tapered waist, slim and cinched and imprinted on her living room couch, in her kitchen chair, in her bed. A soft lock of hair. A purple lock of hair. A fresh lock of hair.

(It still smells like her shampoo.)

The card is white and red and green and festive, with only the following words written as any kind of explanation:

On the first day of Christmas

My true love sent to me:

A partridge in a pear tree

The wine glass slips from her left hand and crashes to the floor in an ear-shattering explosion. Dark red liquid – frigid and insidious – seeps between the gaps in her stockings, dyeing her toes crimson from the outside in. She can’t be bothered to cringe at the unpleasant sensation.

No, Nene is more preoccupied with dropping the card, clutching her head, and letting out the first wail she’s released since last December.

The “gifts” continue to arrive, after that first fateful day.

Nene, in all her discombobulated panic, scrambled to look up the English text from which the sender was pulling. It was a Christmas carol, apparently. One that went on to detail twelve days of presents sent from a secret admirer to their ‘true love.’ In accordance with the rhyme, Nene received parcels for twelve days – each containing some remnant of the previous day, and a new addition to the mix.

They were all pieces of Aoi.

Locks of hair. Soiled socks. Broken bits of jewelry. The ribbon Nene gifted her as a birthday present two years ago. All of it intimate, all of it freshly pressed into an airtight Ziplock bag – and all of it smelling freshly and distinctly of Aoi. These keepsakes, Nene was convinced, were not coveted posthumously. Despite what the police department decreed, Nene knew eleven months ago what she knows now: Aoi is alive. She must be. She must be.

And her captor isn’t done with her yet.

As the week trickles through her ruddy, cracked, trembling fingers, Nene weighs her options. She could seek legal help once more, but she doesn’t know if she trusts them to do their job right. Not after they’d given up so easily, had let Aoi’s memory fade from their logs and legal books like the final wisps of a fire smudged out. No, she couldn’t go to the police. She couldn’t reach Aoi’s family, hasn’t been able to since the investigation closed out in January and the Akanes minced no words when they voiced their contempt – and their blame – for just who, exactly, was at fault for their daughter’s disappearance.

(“You lived with her,” Mrs. Akane had said, quietly, “and saw nothing?”)

There is nobody else on which Nene can rely, except herself.

She devises her plan on the eve of the twelfth night.

I’ll stay home from work, she reasons. Turn of all the lights. Close all the blinds. Pretend not to be home. And watch the mailbox like a hawk.

Worst comes to worst, the only person who graces her front lawn is a dutiful delivery man. But still, Nene finds that hard to believe; the packages that reach her are pristinely placed with care and precision, arriving on an individual, consistent, and daily basis. Surely the faults of the very human Japanese national mail system would have hit a snag at least once during this entire operation. As such, Nene is led to believe that the culprit is hand-delivering these dark little omens.

And she is going to catch them in the act.

That Friday is a slow one. Nene rises with the sun, or what little of it manages to peer past the caliginous cloud of fog that overcasts the city. She makes her coffee. She settles into her armchair – the one tucked into an obscure corner of the living room, just out of eyeshot from the street beyond her drawn curtains – and she waits. And waits.

And waits.

She is waiting for so long that it surprises her when the sun flirts with the horizon’s edge, dipping his does into dusky twilight. This is usually the time of day when she comes home to a new parcel.

Surely, they haven’t forgotten. It’s the grand finale, after all.

Something is decidedly different, then.

The time, unfortunately, does get the best of her. Despite her best efforts, Nene is powerless to the exhaustion of the week, the fatigue of remaining still and alert for the better part of twelve hours, and the draining anxiety that’s plagued her from the moment she’d received that first card. She’s drifting off before she can catch herself, floating aimlessly, blissfully in a dreamless scape, brought back to the world of the living by an offensive CLANG!

Immediately, Nene jerks awake, rattled.

God dammit. How long had she been out for?

Ears ringing, eyes wide and teary, Nene sits and stews in the silent dark of the house, straining her ears to sus out any more noise. It’s late, judging by the opaque black that coats the living room with a thick, ominous mood. Nobody on her street – not even the spunky kids – are out this late.

Creeeeeak…

The squeal is faint, but telltale. The sound of metal hinges whining in protest. The mouth of her mailbox opening. The mailbox.

Nene, with shaking hands, peels back the curtain just wide enough to peer out of the window.

A dark, shadowy figure is right there on her front lawn. Two arms outstretched into the rusty, tin cage.

Bingo.

She’s on her feet and out the door before she has time to second-guess herself. In that moment, she cannot see the consequences of her actions; rather, what plagues Nene’s mind the most is are the locks of deep amethyst hair, the fingernail cuttings, the socks, the accessories, the used tissues, the empty lipstick tubes, and everything else that has been sent in a boldfaced taunt to provoke Nene into the very same reckless action she has no choice but to take now.

For Aoi, her heart screams as she throws open her front door and barrels into the street, This is for Aoi.

“STOP RIGHT THERE,” exclaims Nene, projection boosted by the copious amounts of adrenaline running rapid like wildfire through her pulsing veins. It is a powerful yell, a wounded shriek, and it startles the hooded figure so badly that they stumble backwards in surprise, catching their footing right underneath the streetlamp. When they look up, the violent yellow lighting is enough to illuminate their face just enough for Nene to make out some key identifying features, but – wait – isn’t that –

“Yugi-san?”

The man across from her giggles nervously. “Hi, Yashiro. I am aware that this looks very bad.”

She blinks. “No shit.”

Yugi Amane, her next-door neighbor. The other black sheep of their strange little cul de sac. She’s spoken to him only briefly in passing, and each time was an oddly pleasant surprise. On one particularly noticeable occasion, he even helped her carry her groceries inside, and let her cry on his shoulder when the gallon of milk she’d lugged all the way from the grocery store did, in fact, burst all over her kitchen floor. He’d been kind. Offered to clean it up, and then fetched her some more the next day.

That was six months ago. They haven’t spoken since.

“Look,” he begins, frazzled, hands in the air as if to show he means no harm, “I’m not the creep you’re looking for. Believe me.”

“The creep I’m looking for?” Asks Nene, wary.

“You know… the… the guy? Who keeps stalking your mailbox?”

All the color drains from Nene’s face in an instant. “How do you know about—”

“I’m your next-door neighbor,” he scoffs, almost offended, “It would be stranger if I hadn’t noticed. He’s there every day, same time, hood up, face mask on. And, let’s be honest, Yashiro, you don’t have very many people over nowadays. Was I so wrong to be suspicious?”

“Excuse me?” Nene feels a vein threaten to burst from her forehead.

Yugi ignores her and barrels on. “So, I tried to catch him in the act tonight! Maybe rough him up a little bit! Teach him a lesson?”

“Teach him a lesson,” echoes Nene, hollowly. She eyes his body up and down. His five-foot-seven, rail-thin body, dwarfed by the egregious amounts of black fabric he’s swaddled himself in to fight against the cold. “You,” she repeats, just to clarify, “were going to teach him a lesson?”

“It’s the least I can do,” says Yugi, suddenly somber. “After all that’s happened.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“Not pity. Try ‘basic human decency.’”

“You are so—” Nene stops. Re-centers herself. “Right. It’s too cold out here for all this. Did you… would you want to… I mean—”

His face shouldn’t loom that brightly. Not out here, not in the deep bottomless dark of the December night. He’s all pale skin and round cheeks, elusive like the moon, marked by twin bright points of luminescent amber. They twinkle at her in a dazzlingly spot-on impression of starlight. They wink in and out of sight as they’re scrunched upwards by the force of a sly, boxy grin. They bore into her, chilling her to the bone, shining bright and merry all the while.

“Why, Yashiro, I thought you’d never ask.” The comment hangs in the air for one beat, two beats, until Yugi breaks the tension with a well-timed quip. “I’m freezing my ass off!”

“’Teach him a lesson,” grumbles Nene, already spinning on her heel to lead the odd young man through her front door. “I’ll teach you a lesson.”

“Hm? Did you say something?”

“No, nothing at all.”

Amane – as he’d told her in no uncertain terms to address him as (“it’s not like we’re strangers, now, are we?”) – sits next to her at the dining room table with a troubled look on his face. The large, even spread of dark mahogany has functioned as her drawing board for the past week; laid out in two neat, even rows are every envelope, card, and keepsake she’s received thus far. Amane studies the twelfth card, which arrive in a small box in lieu of the paper manila envelopes Nene had become accustomed to. There was too much of Aoi to contain in a simple slip, this time.

“Hm,” hums the dark-haired boy, lip caught between his teeth as he studies the contents. “And you’re positive all of this is hers?”

Nene jerks back, as if slapped. “How could it not be?”

“What exactly is your plan, Yashiro?”

He’s standing up, now, svelte figure made even slimmer by the all-black sweater and jeans combination that hangs off of him like dripping gloom. Amane begins to circle the table, socked feet thumping gently, quietly, soundlessly against the wooden floorboards. Nene nearly thinks him to be a specter, floating effortlessly through the thick air, making maddening paces around her. “You charged at me with no weapon to defend yourself, no phone to call for help, nothing in your arsenal except eleven months of pent up hurt.”

She wants to get angry. It’s her knee-jerk response nowadays, and the things he is saying are out of line. They’re blunt, they’re insensitive, and—

Worst of all?

They’re true.

Amane’s slow revolution stops right behind the axis of her chair. He can’t see her bitten lip from her, her watering eyes, her hot cheeks. She wonders what he’d say. She sends a silent thanks that she’s shielded from his calculating view.

“I’m not trying to be mean,” murmurs Amane, quietly. Nene can tell he’s being honest. “I’m trying to prepare you.”

“Prepare me?”

Amane steps into her periphery, then, silently urging her to look towards him instead of hiding behind the safe veneer of her hair. “The world can be cruel. You’re no stranger to that, Yashiro. When Akane-san left, it was hard for you. We all saw it. I saw it. I saw you.”

Nene looks up at him.

His voice is strange, affected in a way that Nene would have never thought to expect from her neighbor. The guy who let her cry over spilled milk, smearing her snot and tears all along the crisp lines of his nice button-down shirt. The guy who smiles at her – who has always smiled at her – when she was out and about in the neighborhood. The guy who never crossed the sidewalk when he saw her coming. The guy who never told his kids to stay away from Yashiro-san, the woman with the missing roommate. The woman whom tragedy seems to tail like a hound after its master.

“I saw you,” continues Amane, “and it hurt me to watch you go through something like that.”

He is pale, he is wan, and he is brightly flushed in the middle of her dining room, Sitting on her table. Fiddling nervously with the hem of his worn sweater.

She doesn’t know what to say. The words get caught in her throat, blocked by the lump that grows bigger and bigger with each word that comes tumbling out of Amane’s stupidly perfect lips.

“Let me help you.” His face turns fixed, resolute. “Anything I can do to be of assistance. Whatever you need, I’m here for.”

“But why?”

“I told you, already. It upsets me when you’re upset. I don’t like seeing you like that.”

“And when have you ever ‘seen’ me,” scoffs Nene, but it’s mostly to detract from the tears trickling down her cheeks.

Amane wipes them away with the pad of his thumb so impossibly gently it nearly hurts. “All the time, Yashiro.” His touch grounds her – or, rather, she’s being sucked into it, forced to lean on the first scrap of stability she’s been offered in nearly a calendar year. Where she is weak, and greedy for more, he is kind, and benevolent enough to offer her his comfort.

Surely, there must be a catch. Surely, she’s going to regret this.

Out of the corner of her eye, Nene spots the errant glint of one of Aoi’s favorite bracelets. It rests atop the card for the fifth day, along with a small mountain of her other personal effects, some of which Nene can recount the stories behind. Those earrings are from the boutique in Harajuku we visited on a weekend trip. She’s used that same brand of dental floss for years, now, ever since we were kids. I gave her that hairclip, I bought her that lipstick, I used to clip her nails for her when she was too tired to do it.

The loss hits her anew, driving her face further into the palm of Amane’s hand. He’s cooing something or other, his carefully crafted words spun like candy floss, but they fall upon deaf ears. All Nene can think of are the past twelve days, the past eleven months, the past lifetime she’d taken for granted with her best friend, and the ticking doomsday clock that lies ahead of her, counting down to one of the worst anniversaries Nene has ever had the displeasure of celebrating.

For Aoi. This is for Aoi.

It must be.

It will be.

The dust had nearly settled.

The last of the moving trucks pulled out of the driveway, leaving the two young women to their brand-new, freshly stocked, Real Adult House. This was a first for the both of them – a first that they were delighted – and purposeful – in sharing together.

It was an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon. As such, Aoi thought it appropriate to pour some lemonade into a pair of matching glasses, even while a litter of cardboard boxes crowded every conceivable surface.

“Oh, let’s just relax a minute, Nene. Un-packing can wait until we catch our second wind, hm?”

“I don’t know,” said Nene, taking Aoi’s offered glass all the same. “There’s so much to do…”

“Stop fretting. You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Little too late to be worrying about that.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about anything. We’re finally home. We finally made it. How do you feel, love? Talk to me.”

Nene swirled her lemonade and worried her teeth at the rim, the dull clink reverberating in the otherwise silent house. Her gaze draped lazily over the wooden banisters, the charming dark, earthy tones of the first floor, all of it bathed in the gorgeous amber glow of near-dusk. The windows had a lovely view, but they were rather large – they’d need to buy some curtains.

“The neighborhood is nice. Well groomed.”

Aoi, it seemed, was pleased by this answer. “It’s not the only thing well-groomed around here.”

“That was terrible.”

“I know.”

“…Who is it?”

“One of our neighbors,” Aoi giggled into her lemonade as she took a dainty sip. “I swear, he was ogling me when we were helping the movers. Like he just couldn’t look away!”

They never can, thought Nene, bitterly. “Which one?”

“Across the street. They’re two brothers, I think. The older one has got such a piercing stare. I’m not going to lie, if I didn’t know any better, I’d be a little frightened.”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Nene. You’re going to find friends, here, too! And then we’ll settle down and live our happy little lives and be best friends forever. Don’t you think so?”

“… Yeah. That sounds nice, Aoi.”

“Of course it does, it’s our dream! Or don’t you remember?”

“I do, I do.”

“Good. Now, why don’t we go door to door and introduce ourselves? The old-fashioned way!”

Ten days.

They’d had to wait until they both had a day off from work to reconvene. As such, it is now the fifteenth of December, approximately four in the morning, and Nene is parked outside of a non-descript storage facility. She’s far away enough to ward off any suspicion, but close enough to carefully track the movements of each patron passing through the massive revolving door.

“Look alive!”

Amane crows from the passenger seat, shoulder-checking her hard enough that Nene is jolted out of her momentary reverie. “No sleeping on the job, silly.”

“’The job,’” scoffs Nene, “Funny you should mention one of those. There’s no earthly way you’re this awake at four in the morning. What is it that you do again, Amane?”

“Property management out in the banks,” Amane rattles off, dismissively, before leaning forward in his seat. “Ooh, now look who finally decided to show up. Closer, Yashiro, or you’re going to miss him!”

The ‘him’ in question is Minamoto Teru.

Amane asked her to conjure up a list of potential suspects. (“Spare no one. It is, unfortunately, those closest to us who pose the most threat. Y’know?”) So, Nene thought back to simpler times, where she and Aoi would sit and gossip on lazy Sunday afternoons about work, family, and the odd faces around town. One odd face always managed to steadily reoccur in every single one of Aoi’s anecdotes.

The elder Minamoto and his kid brother lived directly across the street from Nene, in one of the more traditionally styled houses on the block. Incense regularly burned out front, and the entirety of their porch was adorned with wind chimes, along with various other little tools and trinkets that she could not for the life of her even begin to decipher the purpose or use of. She’d never been spiritual – neither had Aoi – and so the orthodoxy of the Minamoto household was already rather unsettling.

What really drove the wedge in further was Minamoto’s penchant for staring.

There were many a night where Aoi would complain of a restless sleep, chalked up to the sensation of being watched. Nene – in her thoughtlessly callous manner – dismissed this often as a symptom of Aoi’s inflated ego. What Nene now realizes she’d failed to take into account is the fact that Aoi’s bedroom window peered straight into the second story of the Minamoto abode. The distance between the two houses was not that large; if they wanted to, they could push up the glass and shout to communicate.

Naturally, Minamoto is number one on Nene’s list of persons of interest.

After all, there’s something to be said for handsome, charming men with a seemingly endless knowledge of social niceties. Minamoto had never been anything short of polite to both her and Aoi, but the more that Nene reflects on their past interactions, the less confidence she holds in the sincerity of Minamoto’s respectful manner.

Even now, as she watches him stride through an otherwise empty parking lot, large packing bin held effortlessly on top of his right shoulder, his striking features are hard. Intense. Laser-focused. A far cry from the friendly smile he projects at home.

Beside her, Amane whistles low and long. “He doesn’t look so happy.”

“No,” Nene murmurs, agreeing. “I wonder what’s in the bin?”

“Well, it’s hard to say, but…”

He cuts himself off as they both watch it happen: Minamoto hefts the bin into the bed of his truck, and pays no mind to the shiny, metallic item that slips out from beneath the lid. It winks underneath the moonlight, practically inviting the two voyeurs to come and investigate its properties once Minamoto pulls out of the parking lot and off into the impending rising sun. As soon as he’s gone, they slip out of the car and peel into the parking lot, harping in on the lost effect.

Nene’s breath stutters in her throat as she gets a good look at it.

“Oh my God…”

A phone. The case is floral and pastel colored. Feminine. The most popular model and brand of last year’s winter.

But most importantly: it is Aoi’s phone.

Nene would recognize those scratches on the screen anywhere; she’d been apart of nearly all the stories that accompany them. Everything, down to the worried edge of the case where the design fades away, rubbed one time too many by Aoi’s anxious pinky finger, is familiar to Nene in a way that smarts freshly. It is astounding, how every piece of her best friend lives on so very vividly, even as the woman herself continues to elude Nene’s ever-desperate grasp.

“Is that--?” Asks Amane, but his tone betrays comprehension. Nene’s reaction is enough to confirm his suspicions. She presses the power button and nearly wails when it won’t turn on. She begins to spam it, frantically, her thumb coming to jam the home button as well in a cacophonous roar of clicks. She looks crazed. She knows. Yet she cannot bring herself to let go of the phone; she cannot stop hoping that maybe if she presses harder, or faster, the screen will light up and show her the lockscreen photo of her and Aoi sipping hot cocoa in front of the fireplace, taken just days before the unthinkable happened.

Before she can fall any further into disarray, two gloved hands find purchase on her shoulders. Nene belatedly realizes that she’s been shaking. Violently.

“Yashiro,” croons Amane, with infinite patience. “It’s not going to turn on.”

“I-it has to, it has to, it has to—”

“It won’t,” says Amane, not unkindly. He smooths his hands down her arms and comes to rest directly behind her, warm chest to her hunched back. “Can you feel me breathing?”

Nene nods jerkily.

“Try and copy it. Come on. I know you can do it, there you go. Just like that. You’re doing so well.”

The praise washes over her like a hot sauna over old bones. Just how long has it been, since someone has spoken to her like this? Has touched her gently, with intent, with purpose, with fingers so reverent she feels like she’s being worshipped? Has hugged her close to their beating heart and let her count her breaths to its steady rhythm?

In her rational adult brain, Nene knows that the man behind her is only doing what’s necessary to bring her down from what was gearing up to be a full-blown panic attack.

But in her fantastical, escapist brain – the one that commandeers the reign in times of duress, that whispers sweetly treacherous words? Nene cannot help but to allow herself to fall into the daydream that is being held in the arms of a man who cares for her; who camps out with her at four in the morning on a Saturday; who stands with her in empty, poorly-lit parking lots and sways their conjoined bodies back and forth, side to side, like the benign ebbing and flowing of waves at sea.

When Nene can open her eyes again, she finds that it has begun to snow.

Little flakes drift down to collect on her eyelashes, on the crown of her head, on the tip of her red-dusted nose and cheeks. She resists the sudden, childish urge to stick out her tongue.

“Better?” Whispers Amane. The steam from his breath lingers so closely that she watches as it wafts past her ear and out into the dark expanse of the night. Mutely, Nene nods.

“I told you, I don’t like seeing you upset. I’m going to make sure that this year is better for you. Okay? I promise. You can hold me to it.”

“You barely know me,” says Yashiro, finally regaining some clarity. Although she was present for all of it, finding herself entangled in Amane’s arms is somewhat of a shock, now. She’s speaking to a flickering lamp post in the distance as she continues. “Why are you doing all this, Amane?”

A humorless chuckle leaves his mouth. He breathes it into her hair. “Why do you think?”

The night is cold, the night is dark. Nene takes in a lungful of frigid December air and relishes in the way it burns the back of her throat. It feels like a brand, much in the same way that Amane’s arms do as they snake around her own, ever tightening.

“I’m going out!”

“Where? With who?”

Aoi stopped in her tracks, heels in hand, by the front door. “Aw, is Nene-chan worried about me? I can handle myself, you know.”

“I know,” grumbled Nene, indignantly. The stew she’d been working at for ages gurgled at her lethargically. “Just. Wanted to be safe. That’s all.”

“I will be. Don’t worry. I’ll let you know when I’m there and when I’m on my way home.”

“Is there any particular reason why you won’t tell me where you’re going, Aoi?”

Aoi’s face was wry as she finally slipped the last inch of her tiny foot into her gracefully lifted shoes. She looked like a vision – but she always did. That was just her. “You won’t like my answer.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Don’t wait up, okay? I’ll be fine!”

“Ah—Aoi, wait—at least take a jacket! It’s getting colder these days—!”

But she was already out of the door before Nene could finish.

Seven days.

It’s getting harder. Harder to keep up with work, harder to keep up with bills, harder to get out of bed on the weekends to make herself something other than instant meals and refried rice.

This time of year has always been overstimulating for Nene, but now that so much of the holiday season is imprinted in her mind with memories of bereavement, there is very little Nene can experience that doesn’t send her back to a different place in time entirely.

She begins to space out in department stores, in konbinis, in supermarkets, when she spots something that resembles Aoi’s wardrobe a little too closely. When she comes to, she realizes she has no idea how much time has passed, or if she’s someone has tried to speak to her. It’s frightening. It’s numbing. It should be sobering, but the closer the anniversary date looms, the harder Nene finds it to wade through the waking world.

And through it all, of course, is Amane: cooking her dinner when she lets slip she hasn’t had much besides energy drinks and protein bars; picking up groceries when she cannot bear to take another step outside of her house; running errands on her behalf like it’s his civic duty; keeping her company while she knits, or reads, or even as she sleeps, so that she is never alone; and even when he isn’t at her immediate side, he’s just one door down. One knock away. Less than one hundred feet apart from her at all times. Always so close. Always.

Sometimes, he behaves… strangely. Erratically. On these days, Nene will hear him talking to no one in particular in the next room. He is louder, too, and proceeds with a manic edge. He laughs too hard. He laughs at the wrong jokes. Nene considers that she is not the only one with dark secrets, with loss brimming at the core of her being.

In her state of gradually building disarray, Nene finds it especially hard to keep track of her personal belongings. It starts with harmless items, things she can easily replace: her toothbrush; her hair comb; a few pairs of socks; a vial of nail polish. Although she swears she puts them back in their respective places, still they vanish into thin air, without a trace.

“Amane,” she hums, tonelessly, “the next time you go to the store, could you pick up some more floss?”

He snorts, like she’s just told him a funny joke. “Again? We should keep a running tally, at this point.”

Nene sinks down to rest her head on the kitchen table. “I don’t want to hear it, Amane. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” groans Nene, miserably. “It’s like… I don’t know…I’m just sort of. Floating. Through life. You know?”

She peers up at him through her crossed arms and almost chokes on her own gasp. In the dim lighting of the kitchen, there stands two Amanes. The twilight of the late afternoon provides a sinister backdrop for the sight that Nene’s mind cannot even begin to comprehend. The two Amanes are grinning down at her, eyes bright, mouth wide open. And then she blinks, and they merge as one, and suddenly Amane is crouching down to her level, nose on her arm, pupils boring holes into her own.

He stares at her in silence for a few moments. This close, Nene can smell him – neutral, clean, yet faintly metallic. “What would make you feel better?”

“I just want her back,” Nene says, so very quietly. “Getting Aoi back would be the best Christmas present ever.”

Amane, Nene has noticed, for all his enthusiasm and passion for their investigatory activities, doesn’t appreciate it when Nene talks about Aoi. For whatever reason, his face falls flat, his eyes, dull, and the shift in his energy is so sudden it threatens to give her whiplash.

As the sun finally sets, it is just the two of them illuminated by a small table lamp several paces away. Amane is aglow with orange light. It bounces off of his cheekbones sparingly, rapidly. He’s drawn gauntly like this, a vision of nightmare in her mundane little kitchen. Golden eyes half-lidded and simmering with…

“Amane…”

“If that’s what you want,” he says, finally. “I’ll make it happen.”

“You can’t—don’t say something like that. It’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to make you laugh.”

“… Promise me, then. Promise we’ll find her for Christmas.”

“I promise, Yashiro.” He hooks their pinkies together with a grim smile. “I promise you’ll get to see her again.”

Minamoto Teru stops by two days later.

He has the audacity to stroll up to her front door, put his dirty hands on her doorbell, and summon her outside where he awaits, a tray of what he announces to be baked goods occupying his right hand.

“Losing a loved one can make the holiday season burdensome. Please remember that you are in all of our thoughts, Yashiro.”

She slams the door in his face.

How dare he? How dare he? How dare he come onto her property and offer her his stupid fucking food and say – that – knowing damn well what he’s done. He is so sick. He is so sick. He is twisted and evil and Nene cannot breathe she is so livid. She rushes upstairs, little feet pounding hard on the wood, and throws herself into her bedroom, slamming the door shut in blind rage.

The collapse onto the floor is natural; her knees fail her and she plummets onto the carpet, fingers scrabbling blindly as she lets out a frustrated sob. The devil is her neighbor and he smiles in her face, invites himself to her house, and speaks of Aoi as if he doesn’t know full and well about her loss.

Delusional with upset, Nene fishes her phone from her pocket and dials the first number in her favorites. She expects the mindless ringing, the numbing dial tone, the familiar error message telling her that her call cannot be completed at this time.

What Nene does not expect, however, is the faint ringtone that wafts through the wall.

No, she thinks, panicked, I must have finally lost it.

Still, Nene crawls slowly, hesitantly, to the opposite wall – the wall which conjoins hers and Aoi’s rooms. As she makes her way nearer, the ringtone grows louder, easier to discern from the rapid pounding of her own overexerted heart. She strains to make heads or tails of it over the pounding in her ears, the rushing of her blood, the adrenaline buzzing through her veins. She crawls, on her hands and knees, unsure of if her feet could even carry her through a moment like this.

There are no thoughts in her mind. She is suspended in disbelief. Pressing her ear against the thin wall, she confirms that yes – that is Aoi’s ringtone. One of the prettier pre-set sounds on her model. Nene would recognize it anywhere. She recognizes it now, with her pulse in her throat.

Her mind is made up in the blink of an eye. Swiftly, silently, Nene rises from her muddled heap on the ground and moves towards her own bedroom door, tactfully twisting the knob and slipping through the miniscule sliver she creates for herself. Before she can think about what, exactly, may greet her, she’s shoving open the door to Aoi’s room and barging in.

The ringing grows louder, louder, and louder, until she hears it in her eardrums, can feel it in the heavy pit of her stomach.

“What are you doing in here, Amane,” breathes Nene.

He’s – here. Sat cross-legged in the middle of the room. Her room. Her phone is in his lap. Turned on. Miraculously functional. And ringing.

(Hadn’t Nene stored it in her dresser, the night they discovered it?)

“What do you mean, Yashiro?”

“Why are you—in here—”

“Didn’t you invite me over today?”

Did she? “Did I?”

“You wanted me to look for clues.”

“Clues…” repeats Nene, dumbly. She brings a hand to her head and massages her temple, as if that’s going to jog her memory. Why can’t she break through the heavy fog permeating her mind, obscuring from her even the most basic of mental passageways?

What had she done all day? Where had she been?

If Minamoto Teru never came by, would Nene have awoken from her stupor?

“The phone…”

“You gave it to me,” Amane reminds her helpfully. “I told you I found a way to unlock it.”

She considers, for a brief moment, arguing. She wants to tell him that she doesn’t remember anything he’s saying. The past twenty days have all been a blur, exacerbated by Amane’s introduction into her otherwise benignly lugubrious existence. Just what is his real motive, here? Why insert himself into her personal affairs after months of watching from afar? What does he know that she doesn’t? The questions swirl inside of her, ready to leap forth in a vitriolic outburst, but one good look at Amane stops her dead in her tracks.

This… is one of his strange days.

The days where he acts like a stranger wearing Amane’s skin. Jerky movements. Pitchy laughter. Shrunken pupils. He smiles innocently up at her, nearly childlike in its simplicity, and chills erupt along the rigid line of the back of her neck.

“Okay.”

“Are you hungry?”

“…Yes.”

“I’ll go make you something!”

“I can help.”

“No,” says not-Amane. “Let me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay!”

He brushes past her on his way out of the door, pocketing the cellphone as he descends the stairs.

Nene realizes that she probably should have asked for it back.

The next four days are something out of a nightmare.

Nene is barely lucid for any of it. Bits and fragments of her days find her like bottles drifting aimlessly onto the shores of a deserted beach, with nobody there to properly receive the message.

Amane had to leave for the weekend – something about business and taking care of the properties he manages – and so Nene is left to her own devices in one of the worst states she’s found herself in. She has to call in sick from work. She can’t go out. She can barely make it from the dining room table to her bedroom without some form of setback.

As always, Amane seems to have been prepared for this. He left her packaged meals before he left, encouraging her to eat to her hearts content. He cooks for her all the time. He is very kind to her, even if sometimes Nene is a little frightened by just how far his kindness extends.

The food is good, but her condition gets worse. She doesn’t call an ambulance, because she doesn’t know what she would tell them. I’m sleepy and depressed and obviously dying because of this.

Very quickly, reality begins to blend with her dreamscape. She sees Aoi at the bottom of the stairs during the nighttime hours. She wakes up to a voicemail at three in the morning left by an anonymous caller; when she clicks on it, she hears her best friend’s bloodcurdling shrieks of terror. Minamoto Teru haunts her, stalks her property, prowls around her house like a predator studying its prey. Is that it? Is he mulling over how he’s going to catch his next victim? She refuses to answer the door when he knocks – not even when he shouts that it’s important, not even when he says that she isn’t safe. What does he know? He’s the one who—

She’s in the bathroom, sifting through the cabinets, throwing out decrepit old orange pill bottles. She looks up and Amane is behind her in the mirror. She blinks in surprise and he’s gone again. The back of her neck is still warm. Nene wonders how he always manages to get into her house—

She’s in the garden. Do they have a garden? Aoi always wanted a garden. She’s in the maybe-garden and she’s planting a radish, only it’s not a radish, it is a pale, thin, slender arm with fingernails painted an extravagant lavender hue, and Nene is powerless to do anything other than shovel more dirt onto the appendage until it disappears from sight completely. She tries to dig up the body, but her hands don’t move fast enough. She should have done more—

She’s in her bed, and she’s being jolted awake. Truly awake. Nene tries to scream, but a gloved hand covers her mouth.

Amane is leant over her.

“Yashiro,” he says, gravely, “I found her.”

Wordlessly, she nods, once. Hard. Resolute. She went to bed in her day clothes (time had long since stopped meaning much of anything to her) and so there is little she needs to do to get ready to accompany Amane. Shoes. Coat. It’s dark in the house, what time is it? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, except that she is finally – finally – going to be reunited with Aoi.

Before Nene can get too far out of the door, Amane draws her back in with one arm, bringing them forehead to forehead, nose to nose, breathing in one another’s air. They are so close that Nene feels it when his heartrate picks up as he caresses her cheek.

“I did this for you,” he reminds her. “It’s all for you.”

“I know,” says Nene, lips pressed into his palm. “Thank you, Amane.”

“Always. Come on, let’s go.”

“What day is it today?”

“Christmas,” Amane says from the driver’s seat. “I heard your wish loud and clear.”

Not for the first time that morning, Nene’s gratitude is intermingled with an underlying sense of insecurity. She pushes it down. Amane would never tell anything but the truth, and he’s the only person who cared enough to take Nene seriously and help her find Aoi. If anything, Nene owes Amane more than she could ever possibly give.

Perhaps this is why she doesn’t question him, when he tells her that the way to Aoi is long, and she must rest beforehand.

Perhaps this is why she doesn’t object to taking the bottle of water he hands back to her, with claims of concern for her health.

Perhaps this is why when she wakes up hours later to sand and water surrounding the car, she trusts Amane when he says to get out and follow him.

Perhaps this is why she trails dutifully behind him, slipping through nooks and crannies, hustling through underbrush, scurrying through nature’s back alleys, relying on him to direct their path.

Perhaps this is why, when they come upon the secluded one-story cabin, she clings to him as they enter inside, her fists white knuckled and tense as they dig into the back of his black jacket.

“Is the—” her fearful whisper splits in half right down the middle. “Is Minamoto here?”

Amane is silent for a beat. “No,” he finally says, without turning to look at her. “So this is the perfect time, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Nene agrees. “It’s really… wow, it’s really normal-looking in here. I can’t believe someone like him can have a cabin out in the banks, all furnished and decorated or whatever, and then he just – does these horrible, awful things. It’s sick. He’s disgusting.”

Again, Amane is silent.

“You think so?”

“I know so,” sniffs Nene, hot on Amane’s heels as he opens some sort of trap door and begins to climb down a concrete ladder. “Scum like him are so good at pretending to be normal, likable. But it’s all a ruse. Just to get close enough to their victims. And then they strike.”

“Strike?”

“Well, sure. They… they take people.”

“How?”

Nene’s brow furrows. This sure is a long way down. Some light would help guide her way. “How? Um, well. I guess he would have lured Aoi in with a false sense of security, right? Made her feel nice, take her out, call her pretty, that sort of thing. And just when she was getting really comfortable, he probably…” Nene chokes. She doesn’t like thinking about this. “… he probably tied her up and threw her in his truck and drove all the way out here. She probably woke up alone – cold, scared, on Christmas. He would have dragged her inside, and down all these stairs, and then he’d… have his way with her.”

“Are you sure?”

Nene nearly stops mid-climb. “Excuse me?”

“Must it be so violent, Yashiro?” Amane must be significantly farther down than her – his voice sounds odd. “Why couldn’t he have knocked her out for it?”

“That’s unrealistic.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. What if she woke up before they got down to – here?”

“What if she followed him willingly?”

“I can’t imagine her doing that. Aoi’s too smart.”

“What if she thought someone was in danger?”

Nene is quickly starting to lose patience with this pointless conversation. “But who, though?”

The moment her feet hit the ground, she’s seized suddenly from behind. Nene struggles in the pitch black darkness, shrieking out for Amane, but her cries for help are rendered defunct with the man himself croons low in her ear:

“You.”

Oh.

Her body goes limp with the realization. Her hands poised for attack slacken on his forearms. Her kicking legs sputter out weakly, until they drag lamely on the dirt floor. Her unseeing eyes – glassy, watery with emotion – flutter, stunned.

She cannot speak. She cannot move. All Nene can do is whimper, now properly ensnared in the spider’s web.

“I’d never hurt you though, Yashiro.” Amane’s voice is sing-songy, light and airy, flirtatious and fun as he drags her body through what feels like an endless array of catacombs. “Would never hurt a hair on your pretty little head, hm?”

Oh my god.

“The—the phone, Minamoto—”

“I planted it there, dummy.”

“In his personal storage unit?”

“People really do a terrible job at creating reliable passwords and pins nowadays.”

They take a turn, and there’s distant light up ahead. Nene tries to hone in on it, but it’s multicolored, and focusing on it for too long makes her vision blur. “Why Aoi? If you wanted me, then why did you take her?”

“She was a distraction. She was holding you back.”

“Holding me back from what?”

“Me.”

The light grows nearer. Now that Nene no longer has to strain her eyes to parse out the source, she can recognize that the forceful glimmer is actually—

A Christmas tree.

It illuminates the dank cellar just enough for Nene to look around and take in the chilling sight. A decrepit armchair with a few springs popping out of the seat sits perpendicular to the tree, with some poor excuse of a throw hung over the back of it. Mysterious stains litter the upholstery in a disturbing splatter pattern that she must look away from, if only to preserve her sanity.

The rug is dingy and cheap, if not outright taken right from the dumpster of some overstocked department store. Leaves and brush still cling to its prickly surface. Where the hell did it come from? How did he drag it all the way down here? Is this supposed to be some sick attempt at a heartwarming Christmas scene? Nene feels bile creeping up the back of her throat.

Now that Amane has brought her up close and personal, she makes the mistake of looking underneath the tree.

“Holy fucking Christ.”

“The ‘best Christmas present ever,’ right, Yashiro?” Amane’s voice jolts her back to reality. Nene startles in his arms and he lets her go, watching fondly as she stumbles around like a newborn fawn, collapsing next to the limp hand farthest away from the tree. The purple nail polish is still fresh, still bright; so bright, in fact that Nene can glimpse her own horrified face in the distorted reflection.

“Merry Christmas.”

This can’t be real.

Nene looks up and sees double. The two Amanes are laughing – absurdly, ridiculously – with arms outstretched and cheeks flushed pink. “I got you the best present ever, right? You like it, right? Right?”

“R-Right,” gasps Nene, because what else is there to do?

“December can be warm. December can be bright. I can’t wait to spend all mine with you, Yashiro. I’ll make sure you’re happy. You know I hate it when you’re upset.”

Curled next to the tree, clutching the cold, lifeless hand of her best friend, Nene smiles. It is watery and it is wobbly, but it is a smile and she knows, now, that there is no other option. “Thank you, Amane. I’m r-really happy.”

“Of course.” He crouches down to her level, and brushes the sweaty, tangled hair from in front of her face. “Anything for you. Merry Christmas, Yashiro. I love you. I always have, and I always will.”

An incessant pounding at the door awoke Aoi in the dead of night.

She was not above admitting it – Nene returning home to spend Christmas with her family left Aoi alone in their brand-new house. She felt odd, and a little strange, by herself in such an unfamiliar environment. Hopefully all of the new-neighbor activities she’d participated in would shield her from any misfortune – at least until Nene returned.

She hurried down the stairs with urgency, in fear of some poor soul needing help on Christmas night of all nights.

When she wrenched open the door, she was met with the sight of… their next door neighbor? Yugi Amane, if she remembered correctly. Before she could ask him what on Earth brought him there so late, he began to speak frantically.

“Yashiro is in danger! You’ve got to come, quickly!”

“Danger?” Mused Aoi. “I haven’t heard anything from her.”

“I know.” Amane held up a blinged-out phone, adorned with two charming hamster clip-on charms. “I found this at the end of the street.”

“Oh, God.”

“Please, come with me. And hurry. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“Oh, God, okay, okay. I’m coming.”

And so Aoi went, with no knowledge of what was in store; with no clue that they were not the only new tenants in town, and that in fact Amane moved in one month before they’d settled down, entirely on purpose, after he’d seen the activity in Nene’s bank account and connected the dots to their brand new location. And so Aoi followed him, wholly unaware that if anyone knew where Nene was, it would in fact be Amane, as he did, in fact, know where she was, as he knew where she was all the time.

And so Aoi believed him, crawling willingly into the spider’s web.

Aoi was not a stupid woman. Aoi could not ignore the red flags that waved overhead, announcing the imperfections of such a convenient danger. But if her friend was truly in distress…

For Nene, she thought. This is for Nene.

#hananene #hananene fic #hananene ao3 #tbhk ao3 #jshk ao3 #tbhk #jshk #amane yugi x yashiro nene #hanako x nene #hanako x yashiro #hanako x yashiro nene #toilet bound hanako kun #jibaku shounen hanako kun #my writing

13 notes · View notes

emotionallydrainedtrash · 2 years

Note

Can I request a fluffy Joe Mazzello x fem. reader oneshot where it’s their wedding day and reader thinks back to when her and Joe met in college and how it was love at first sight? Also, after the marriage ceremony, can you include them having their first dance together as a married couple?

A/N Oh god this is adorable.

This is so cliche and a bit long so apologies in advance. 🤭

Lover

Joe Mazzello x fem! Reader

Warnings: Fluff

Masterlist + Request Info

You stood in front of the mirror, a vision in lacey, crystal white.

Your eyes fixed on your engagement ring, the memories of your relationship with Joe swimming through the diamond. It was the morning of your wedding to Joseph Mazzello and you couldn't believe the day was finally here.

As you reminisced, one particular memory came to mind: the day you met.

It was pouring down with rain at the University of San Francisco, the cold chilling you to the bone, and you forgot your umbrella. Your winter coat was doing its best to stem the freeze as you ran to your bus stop, but it was soaked through, rendering its efforts useless.

You sheltered under a tree for a moment to catch your breath and when you looked up you realized you had no idea where you were.

The rain was so dense and heavy it was bordering hurricane territory and your hand probably would've vanished had you stuck it out. You relied purely on muscle memory to move you around campus each day so now that you couldn't see a thing and had to think about your whereabouts, you were completely lost.

The sound of brakes screeching in the unintelligible distance alerted you that your bus had arrived, and you groaned when you heard the rumbling of the engine as it pulled away. So, you'd missed your bus and your only other means of transportation was on the other side of the school and wasn't set to arrive for another hour. You also had no idea where the other side of the school was at this point.

Deciding to wait under the tree in hopes of the rain clearing so you could locate yourself and eventually the next bus, you leaned against the trunk and sighed frustratedly. A few minutes had passed before you heard someone calling your name. Squinting your eyes and scanning the area, they fell on a blurred figure a few yards away.

"Y/n L/n is that you! Is there even a person there?"

You yelled back confirmation, and the figure ran towards you. You grinned when you recognized Joe Mazzello from your Film & Television Studies class holding an umbrella. I must clarify. This was the first time you'd officially met. You were working on the same degree, and you shared a couple of classes.

"Hey, I thought I recognised you. I saw you book it when it started raining and wondered why you didn't just grab your umbrella. Looking at the state of you however, I'm gonna assume you forgot it."

You nodded in embarrassment. He grinned and shrugged off the warm parka he was wearing, handing it to you and collecting your sopping wet one. Thanking him with a smile, he asked what your plan of attack was, and his face contorted in mild horror as he discovered you intended to, "subject yourself to even more of this hideous weather." His words, not yours.

"You're kidding right? I'm sorry, I know we're not too well acquainted with each other, but I insist, come stay with me in my dorm for the night. My roommate moved out the other week so there's a spare bedroom if you want it. The weather's only gonna get worse in the next half hour and is supposed to stay like that for the next 2 days. I just don't like the idea of someone out here for another hour. They're recommending people stay off the roads you know."

So, you did. You and Joe christened your friendship over pizza and study notes. He rifled through drawers and found some smaller clothes for you to wear for the remainder of your stay. You slept in the spare bedroom and awoke to the smell of bacon and eggs being cooked, grateful for the fact that neither of you had any classes that day.

It was such a simple event in your life, but it meant the world to you now. Wiping away a stray tear before your makeup artist freaked out and powdered your face down again, you forced yourself back to reality and checked the clock, hearing a knock on the door.

It was time.

Oh. My. God. Mrs. Y/n Mazzello. Every decision over the last 8 years had led up to this moment. Joe had his arms wrapped tightly around your middle while yours were fastened around his neck. The two of you swayed together in time to the music, blocking out the gathering of family and friends surrounding you.

Taking your hand in his, Joe spun you out and spun you back in before dipping you and planting a kiss on your lips. The crowd whooped and whistled but neither of you took any notice as you guided each other across the floor. When your fingertips brush over your husband's ring, you couldn't help but grin.

"What are you smiling at Mrs. Mazzello?"

"Your wedding ring Mr. Mazzello."

Joe brought your hand to his lips and kissed your own ring before pulling you close to him once more to kiss you sweetly as the song ended and your families cheered.

"Thank God for that damn hurricane."

-Sarah💛

#joe mazzello oneshot #joe mazzello imagine #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello

31 notes · View notes

substituted-shinigami · 11 months

Text

Bubble Tea

AO3

Characters: Rukia and Renji (RenRuki), with a guest appearance of Yoruichi

Rating: G

Genre: Slice of Life, Friendship, a little Romantic Fluff

Chapter Summary: Relaxing is difficult when you are so used to fighting. Now that the Winter War is over, Rukia and Renji shoot the breeze and talk about the future. (During the Fullbringer Arc timeskip, Author’s Note after the story)

Part of the "We Can't All Be Winners" anthology series of oneshots.

************************************************************************

“Hmmm… Getting to know you without the fangs of death constantly nipping at our heels feels…weird,” Rukia commented suddenly, and a little too casually, one day as she sipped her bubble tea. Renji coughed in surprise. That or he got another tapioca pearl stuck in his throat, Rukia wasn't too sure.

“H-Huh?!" he spluttered, after he had finally begun to recover.

"Well, think about it," Rukia continued, as she settled her cup down beside her upon the park bench. She began to list things off on her fingers, “First it was surviving in Rukongai, then Aizen's betrayal, and then the Winter War. Whenever we were together it felt like our lives were in constant mortal danger. That it was us against the world. But now…now there’s no real threat.”

"Oh yeah…" Renji agreed, looking up to the sky in thought, "I guess, you're right…huh."

“Yeah," Rukia went on as she picked up her cup again, "The only other time it was seemingly this peaceful was when we were separated."

At that, Renji was silent for a moment, before asking quietly, "Kind of makes you wonder whether or not we're cursed, huh?" Rukia turned to look up at him, but Renji continued to stare up at the sky.

"If we are cursed," she began slowly, "then whoever made it, absolutely sucks at making curses," Renji quirked an eyebrow at her as she turned back towards her tea, "Curses are meant to make you the most miserable, but despite the dangers, I'm always more miserable when we're apart." Renji stared at her wide-eyed as she went back to sipping her tea.

"Heh…Yeah…" he agreed quietly with a small smile on his lips. He returned to his tea as well.

"Besides," Rukia went on, "How else am I supposed to watch you blow yourself up with kido." Renji spat out his tea as he fell into coughing fits again.

"Are you trying to make it come out my nose or something?!"

Rukia grinned at him mischievously, "Nooo, of course not, Renji. How could you even think that of little 'ole me?"

"Because it is little 'ole you," he grumbled as he began rummaging into their snack bag for a spare napkin. As he started to mop tea off his gigai’s Red Pineapple shirt, he continued his grievances, "With you around, I'm not just in mortal danger, I'm also in danger of never getting any tea.” Rukia laughed as she grabbed some napkins to help him dry off.

"Still…" she went on after they had finished cleaning up, handing Renji her now tea-filled napkins, "One thing that the danger did do, was give us a clear goal. We always had something to work for or to fight for. Whether it was poverty or war, we always had a clear enemy to defeat. But now… what is it that we are striving for? What do we have to drive us forward? We’re going to help Ichigo get his powers back, obviously, but what then? What happens after that?”

“Well…" Renji began, as he folded up the wet napkins into an easily disposable pile, "I guess, then we get to decide, right? Instead of the world or someone with god-like powers deciding, we get to decide where we want to go and what we want to do.”

“I suppose…” Rukia agreed quietly as she looked back down at her bubble tea, brows knitting together. She watched the tapioca pearls bob about, to and fro, back and forth, drifting along but ultimately going nowhere inside the cup. Rukia frowned, as a million different thoughts, scenarios, and future possibilities began racing through her mind, and she began unconsciously squeezing the plastic container harder and harder in her concentration. Renji turned back towards her and raised a tattooed eyebrow.

“Wait a minute, are you…? You know I didn’t mean you had to figure it all out now, right?! Soul King’s Beard, you take things seriously…” Renji sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “Just take your time figuring it out, alright? And I’ll be right here when you do.” Rukia looked up at him, her brows slowly unfurling and her grip loosening.

“Yeah. Thanks, Renji.”

“What for?" Renji shrugged, "I’m here anyway. Not like you can get rid of me easily.” Rukia smirked at him.

“Heh. That’s true!”

“You don’t have to agree so easily, y’know?!” he grumbled playfully.

“Hey, you said it, not me!" Rukia stated matter-of-factly, fishing into their shared snack bag for a piece of chocolate mochi. She popped it into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully, "Besides, I like it when my friends are hard to get rid of. Means they get to stick around longer…” Renji regarded her somberly, before popping a chocolate mochi into his mouth too.

“Yeah…that’s true.”

They sat there quietly, chewing mochi as they watched the clouds pass them by. Finally, Rukia asked, “So what about you? Got any lofty goals, eh Renji?”

"Hm? Oh, uh…" Renji began, but he hesitated. Now his brows knitted together as he went deathly quiet.

“O-Oh!” Rukia started frantically, “Um… You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to-”

“I want to get stronger,” he stated firmly, “There is…someone I wish to surpass. And even though the reason has changed, the desire has not,” He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky again, “Plus even though Aizen is locked away, one day he may find a way to escape, knowing him...”

“Yeah, that’s true…” Rukia nodded. She looked back up at the clouds again, “I want to get stronger too. Maybe even go for a seated position.” Renji spun towards her.

“Really?! That’s great, Rukia!” Renji exclaimed excitedly, “If you ever want to train together some more, let me know! Heck, I’ll even let you ride on top of Zabimaru’s Bankai!”

“Really?! Sweet!” Rukia exclaimed. She sipped the last few drops of tea using her straw. Then, opening up the cup’s top, she poured the remaining tapioca pearls down into her mouth, smiling broadly as she chewed them heartily. She looked up to see Renji staring at her, “What’s that look for? Got something on my face?”

“Huh? What? Uh, no! Nope! Uh uh! Come on, let’s hurry up and get to Urahara’s to see if he got anything on how we can help Ichigo get his powers back,” Renji said rapidly as he stood up to throw away his cup. Rukia got up quickly and went after him.

“Wait! Wait! Let me eat your pearls!”

“Oh, yeah, here you go.” He switched his cup with hers, and threw hers away. Rukia took his cup, downed his tapioca pearls too, and then handed Renji back the cup, wiping her mouth on her jacket’s sleeve.

“Ah!!! I can’t believe you don’t like them. Why do you even drink Boba if you don’t like 'the Boba'?”

“The pearls’ texture isn't exactly to my taste, but the drinks are still nice and sweet,” Renji explained as he threw away the second cup. He looked back at Rukia, “Well, now you do have something on your face.”

Rukia tried wiping her face again, “Did I get it?”

“No, it’s more to your left. No, your 'other' left!”

“Well, you get it then!”

“Fine, get over here!”

Rukia stepped over to Renji and tilted up her face to him as he fished a napkin out of their shared snack bag. He gently held her chin with one hand and gingerly wiped away the spot of tea with the other. “What am I going to do with you?” He murmured tenderly. Rukia reached up her hand to gently hold onto his wrist.

“No idea,” She smirked, “But just like with you, you can’t get rid of me easily, so I guess you're stuck with me.”

“Heh, yeah. I guess I am,” he agreed warmly. They hadn’t realized they were still tenderly holding onto each other, until they heard someone clear their throat.

“Am I interrupting something?” A familiar feline voice drawled. The two jumped apart to see a black cat sitting on top of the park’s jungle gym. Yoruichi’s facial expressions were hard to read in cat form, but they were pretty sure she looked highly amused.

“Y-Yoruichi! I…I thought we were going to meet you and Urahara at the shop?!” Rukia spluttered frantically.

“Oh, you were! But I was on my way back there when I felt your spiritual pressures. So I thought I might walk over with you all,” Yoruichi yawned as she stretched out her cat body lazily, “Didn’t realize I was in for a show. Now I just wish I had some dinner. Got any snacks left?”

“Yes,” Renji stated flatly, as he balled up and threw away the napkins, “But considering they’re chocolate, and you’re in cat form, maybe we should wait till after we get back to the shop.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, freeloader," Yoruichi teased, causing Renji to whip around on her.

“I don’t even live there anymore! And I worked while I was there, so if anything, you’re the freeloader!”

“Fine. Stick-in-the-mud then!" Yoruichi replied, as she licked her paw, "By the Soul King’s Weirdly Almost Hairless Body, no wonder you and Byakuya-Boy get along…”

Renji was about to protest, when Rukia interrupted him, “W-Wait! The Soul King has almost no hair? Really? I always imagined him with luscious locks and a long, fabulous beard for some reason. Wasn’t there a painting of him back at the Academy…”

“Oh…yeah… I think so too…” Renji agreed.

“U-Uh… Anyway, I think we had better go now!” Yoruichi panicked, suddenly jumping up, “Kisuke is expecting us, and we wouldn’t want to be late just because you two were busy smooching!” Now it was their turn to look frantic.

“We weren’t smooching!” They both shouted in unison.

“Fine! About to smooch then! Let’s go!” Yoruichi said, hopping down from the jungle gym and strutting away. Rukia started after her, but stopped when she saw Renji hanging back. He seemed to be thinking hard about something.

"You okay?"

"Hm?" Renji blinked, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Just thinking about the future is all…"

"Oh? Anything in particular?"

"Um…" he paused and looked ahead towards Yoruichi's retreating frame. Rukia followed his gaze.

"Ah! No worries. Tell me later." She turned back towards the path, and began to walk away again.

"W-Wait! Hold up!" He said as he put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her. He waited until Yoruichi had rounded the far corner before continuing, "L-Listen, Rukia, I just wanted to say…no matter what happens, I'm glad we're facing the future together. You…You mean everything to me, and I…well I… Look, just know I’ll always be by your side, alright?!" Renji let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. He looked at Rukia, who was staring back at him with wide eyes.

"Renji…"

"Oi! Are you two coming or not?" Yoruichi yelled from around the corner.

"Yeah, yeah, we're coming!" Renji shouted back at her. He looked back at Rukia, and gave her a toothy grin, "Together then?" She returned his smile with one of her own.

"Yeah. Together," she nodded resolutely, "Let's go."

>>>>>>>>>> Author’s Note <<<<<<<<<<

One day I was thinking about Rukia and her friendships and realized, “Wow, she sure has started a whole lot of those during stressful and/or deadly situations, huh?!” And from that idea, this story was born! Lol

Don’t have as much to say about this one. It’s certainly a lot more chill than the last couple. They really are just sitting around, chatting, shooting the breeze, not much really happens until the end. But I had fun writing it, and I thought eh, maybe people would like it, so here we are! Anyway, thanks for reading!

#bleach #renruki #renji abarai #rukia kuchiki #fanfiction #bubble tea #we can't all be winners #wcabw #Yoruichi guest appearance #slice of life #friendship #romantic fluff

6 notes · View notes

jolapeno · 1 year

Text

francisco morales [triple frontier]

↩ back to main masterlist all works contain a female!reader. 18+ only, minors do not interact.

series.

⇉ i like the way you [complete - 18+]

best friend! friends with benefits/lots of smut what starts off as an offhand remark, quickly becomes a regular, scheduled 'stress relief'. the only problem is, both of you are in denial that you feel anything outside of friendship for the other.

⇉ do me yourself [complete - 18+]

meet cute. romcom. a meet-cute in a hardware store? impossible, out of the question. except, that's exactly what happens. a need for screws leads you to a broad-shouldered, brown-eyed man who you're sure is about to change your day, never mind your life.

⇉ with no strings attached collection [wip - 18+]

smut. one night stand turned fuck buds // kink list stumbling into a diner in the dead of the night, frankie morales doesn't expect to find anyone there. then he meets you. what begins as a one-night-stand-turned-weekend becomes a no-strings-attached arrangement.

oneshots.

↦ the book of love

soft!frankie, meet cute, bookshop meet cute. romance. wiping the back of his hand across his forehead, he looks at you. “I need a book.” “You… you need a book?”

↦ rainy world, blanket days

sweet!frankie, he just wants to get home to you. “Yourewet.” It escapes, muffled between your mouths, as he smiles against your lips. “It’s raining, amor.”

↦ unwrap me now [smut]

birthday smut. it's a nice bathroom. and you're a good girl on your birthday.

↦ cold, biting

[smut, winter] Painting you in it, all varying shades, a masterpiece he thinks he’s came across, but really just became the first to admire.

↦ coming under the christmas tree

[smut, christmas] The way he whispers your name should be a sin—it coating the air, making each letter feel important, essential “Do you know how hot you look right now, Morales?”

↦ frankie, baby

[smut, christmas] “Well… we technically can’t touch each other inappropriately,” you begin, tracing your fingers on his black shirt, circles then squares, then triangles. “But, Will wasn’t specific about saying inappropriate things.”

↦ the day frankie came home

he’s been gone for ten days, and don’t you both know it. warnings: smut, p in v, mirror sex, frankie wants some.

↦ wet n' wild

[smut] you go to a pool party and can't keep it to yourselves in a spare bedroom

↦ midnight strikes, where is my prince?

[angst] he had been your neighbour. a man you'd stare at through blinds when he’d been on the front lawn. a man you’re now staring at through splintered shards of your mirror—because he saved you.

↦ a debt to pay

[smut] frankie arrives home to find you willing to pay him for the pizza, in ways that don't involve cash.

↦ in the locker room

[smut] when you join him for benny's fight, frankie appears stressed. you have an idea to de-stress him.

↦ up sky, low high

[smut] frankie takes you on a heli-ride. you decide to test his competency and take him for a ride.

↦ spell out miss you against my skin

[smut] frankie wants to make you feel good.

↦ fifteen hundred and one

[fluff] he's your best friend. nothing would ever change that. except maybe a goodnight kiss.

↦ take you to the hilltop and tell you you're pretty

[fluff] you book a guided hike tour for one when on your trip, not at all expecting your guide to be so damn hot.

drabbles.

⤬ long distance - “how do you think they’d both cope when he has to go away for longer than four days?”

⤬ long drives - you don't run well off limited sleep, but frankie wants to take you away

⤬ bad day - you have a bad day, and he just gets it

⤬ soft frankie and blanket sundays

⤬ knockin' down a wall - part of hardware frankie things, but he knocks a wall down, and you admire.

⤬ untangling - frankie untangles your necklace [smirks]

⤬ imagine going to the cinema

francisco morales x santiago garcia.

↦ sunrise

after mixed messages, pope asks frankie if he'll watch the sunrise with him.

#francisco morales x reader #frankie morales x reader #sharing this for no reason #none at all #you just all avert your eyes #jo: the pedro collection

221 notes · View notes

granhairdo · 2 years

Text

fics!!!

fun fact: i write fics, so heres a post talking about them (only my lm ones)

but everybodys bones are just holy branches

relationship: eponine & marius

publish date: 10.29.22

word count: 2,985

link: but everybodys bones are just holy branches - Chapter 1 - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: teen

synopsis: as a punishment for trying to get marius killed at the barricades, eponine is cursed to feel the pain of her wounds anytime she feels jealous of marius and cosette until marius' death. she waits through years and years of agony until finally at 80 years old, marius dies. allowing her to be freed from her pain and happy for eternity.

its hard to keep the rainclouds out when the windows never close

relationship: eponine & marius

publish date: 9.16.22

word count: 14,215

link: its hard to keep the rainclouds out when the windows never close - Chapter 1 - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: teen

synopsis: after an incident with her father, leaving her bloody, bruised, and barely able to walk, eponine seeks out marius' help, who is more than willing to help her get out of her awful position. the two move into a run-down apartment just outside paris with an eccentric roommate, courfeyrac. eponine learns to be a normal part of society, with the help of marius, who teaches her basic things, like reading, writing, and math. the two slowly form a deep spiritual connection that is unmatched by the everyday trials they face in their complex relationship. street girls aren't meant to be with rich boys, after all.

burgundy cap

relationship: cosette/eponine

publish date: 11.11.22

word count: 118

link: burgundy cap - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: cosette and eponine's final goodbye before she departs off to the barricades, unknowing if she'll make it out alive.

the boxer

relationship: eponine & marius

publish date: 11.17.22

word count: 790

link: the boxer - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: eponine is a homeless street singer, who makes her only form of income from a little donation tin setting in front of her while she sings. when a mysterious boy starts walking by each day and sparing her a little cash, she soon falls a little bit in love with him.

reminders

relationship: n/a

publish date: 11.24.22

word count: 21

link: reminders - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: a short poem about Éponine, specifically based off the novel

desperate

relationship: eponine & marius

publish date: 11.24.22

word count: 760

link: desperate - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: a little oneshot spin-off of it’s hard to keep the rainclouds out when the windows never close

lullubies

relationship: eponine & gavroche

publish date: 11.27.22

word count: 778

link: lullubies - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: teen

synopsis: on a cold winter's night eponine helps gavroche get to sleep, when suddenly her mother bursts in with news that puts their entire relationship in jeopardy.

a thénardier must know

relationship: n/a

publish date: 12.04.22

word count: 350

link: a thénardier must know - Chapter 1 - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: each chapter tells the story of one of the three main thénardier siblings and the things they must give up and learn. told through poetry of course because it's me.

i'll wait

relationship: n/a

publish date: 12.22.22

word count: 78

link: i'll wait - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: general

synopsis: basicallly it's a poem narrated by marius and cosette's son, who watches as his father struggles with ptsd behind closed doors

sabinus et eponine

relationship: eponine & marius

publish date: 12.28.22

word count: 159

link: sabinus et eponine - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

rating: teen

synopsis: yet another eponine poem. this one is telling the general story of her death

invade us, an innocent song

relationship: eponine & marius, eponine/montparnasse

publish date: 01.03.22

word count: (still a wip)

link: invade us, an innocent song - Chapter 1 - the real courfeyrac (sagetail) - Les Misérables - All Media Types [Archive of Our Own]

synopsis: snapshots from the life and death of eponine thenardier.

#fics #fanfiction #fandom #lesmiserables

1 note · View note

flowerwrites06 · 3 years

Text

bow to you VI — jjk

Pairing(s): King!Jungkook x Queen!OC (Name: Belle) x King!Yoongi

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Genre: Royal AU | Marriage AU

Word Count: 3.8k

Tags & Warnings: infidelity, cheating, lots of crying and screaming, marital problems, a lot of mentions of miscarriages and losing children, royal marriage troubles, a crap ton of back and forth fighting, jungkook is something else dude, ANGST, coarse language, mild violence, sexual content (both explicit and non-explicit)

Authors Note: here you go, another part! sorry for the large gaps between chapters truly but my other duties just demand a lot more time and attention so I need to put this on the sidelines. Hope you like this update!

Three months passed since Belle left the Kingdom. Spring had never arrived so numb and quiet amongst the peach blossoms. Jungkook spent most of his nights emptying cups of makgeolli until he couldn’t see the other end of the room. He would yell at the servants to shut the windows so those ghastly flowers were away from his sight. The smell of tea angered him. Some servants learned to gain reflexes to ensure they didn’t get injured by a thrown plate or cup.

Mei was full in the belly with his second child. Jungkook had seen her roundness a few weeks ago. His first child; a son born by Lula was a sickly one. He had fevers, needed to kept inside and often suffered from infections that rendered him a crying mess for days on end. Physicians informed him that the child wouldn’t survive the winter. Jungkook needed to seed again if he was to have a spare heir.

Tonight Ichiko entered the room in her bright orange gown. She stood in front of Jungkook as he sat in his velvet chair and bowed. “Your Majesty.”

“I’m feeling a bit tired.” It was a lie. He just didn’t care. “Do you mind leading for me?”

Ichiko smiled in glee, unencumbered by his behaviour. “Of course, your Majesty.”

She looked the most like Belle. With her long, brown hair and pretty eyes. The smile wasn’t the same but Jungkooks’ mind was clouded enough for him to imagine.

Ichiko knelt down with a clink of her anklets and spread his bent legs. Untying his trousers, she wrapped her genteel hand around his member and took him into her warm mouth. She never wasted his time. He liked that.

Jungkook relaxed himself, taking another sip of makgeolli and letting his imaginations run wild. All he could see from his field of vision was a blurry head of brown, bobbing up and down his cock. None of them cared whether he was completely interested. Holding the Kings’ baby in their bellies seemed to be their only goal. Except one person had bigger goals.

The door squeaked open for a figure of green to walk through. Jungkook only saw from the corner of his eye but didn’t move.

“What’s going on?” Lula asked in a tight voice.

Ichiko latched off him and gently wiped her lips. She didn’t look at Lula but Jungkook. “Should I keep going?” Large, pretty eyes blinked as if this was a minor disturbance to their dalliance. In some twisted innocent way, she may have even been mocking Lulas’ so-called importance.

Jungkook sighed. “What do you want, Lula?”

“What—what do I want?” Lula hissed. “Tell her to leave.”

“I don’t remember giving you any kind of permission to tell me what to do.” Jungkook faced Ichiko properly, touching her shimmering chin. “Just rest over there until I’m done.”

Ichiko flushed more with the minor touch. She tied back his pants happily and walked over to the bed, lying down with grace.

Lulas’ eyes were burning and glazed but she didn’t argue any further. “Your child is not taking my milk again.”

Jungkook finished his cup of makgeolli. “Give him that soy substitute then. The physician gave it you specifically.” He waved his hand towards Lula. She looked taut while she obeyed his silent order and refilled his drink. “Is he sick?”

“I don’t know.”

“So why’re you here and not trying to feed him again?” Jungkook peered through his glass.

“I wanted to see you,” Lula spoke simply. As if he had sympathy specially built for her.

“My child is hungry right now and you left him. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Well—”

Jungkook grabbed onto her wrist and pulled her down so she was resting on her knees. She whimpered and gasped but said nothing to fight back. They all looked like her but none of them acted like her. They were dolls. “You interrupted my night, left my child hungry and tried to tell me what to do. Power reached your head faster than it did mine. That’s not a good sign for you, dear wife. Do you still want to be called that?”

Lula tried to take a breath to say something defiant. Anything that could mimic what she was. But it could never work. None of them were her. “Yes.”

“Go find a way to feed my child.” Jungkook yanked her hand away so she staggered back. “He’s the only reason you’re here. Don’t take him for granted.”

Lula stammered once more. She struggled up to her feet, anger flushing her face when she noticed Ichiko watching the whole display. The orange adorned girl lay proudly where Lula used to be. The favourite. The secret first consort. Whatever those concubines called it in their private politics. With reddened cheeks and fingers shaking with anger, Lula walked out of the room.

Jungkook down the entire cup of makgeolli and threw it on the table. He dropped onto the bed, easing the aching on his back.

Ichiko smiled and caressed his chest. “Can I continue now, your Majesty?” She failed to hide the satisfaction in her voice.

He nodded, seeing her blurred face. “Hmm.”

Ichiko undid his pants again and mounted him without another word. She made pretty noises, gripped his loose hands and placed them on her bare breasts. Jungkook let her do all the work.

When he closed his eyes, the imagination grew stronger. He imagined Belle on top of him instead.

Morning arrived with plump peaches served on gold platters, so ripe they could burst from a touch. Golden light painted like rainbows through the mosaic glass and the smell of jasmines suffused the air. This was the beauty of the Garden Kingdom. Her home. It was the place of endless summer and gentle winters. However, summer came with its worries especially when it came to extreme heat that led to fires.

Amber potions were accidentally placed on the edge of the windows in a school and they ended up bursting into flames when the morning sun touched them too long. Thankfully, no one was in the school so there were no serious casualties. So today Belle stood in the small hall discussing new plans to rebuild the lost schools.

She wore a peach dress, mostly translucent and her hair partially tied with a ruby clip. Sweat created a soft sheen on her skin. “The sandstone and glass arrived but we need more builders to create the large spaces otherwise the schools will be overcrowded. In this heat, it’ll only cause sicknesses and less parents might be encouraged to send them.”

Yoongi rested back on the chair. The Mountain King had an uncharacteristically thin black shirt on. It was obvious he wouldn’t resort to his furs in this heat but he seemed like a man dedicated to whatever he wore. Sweat made his dark hair wet, matting it to his temple and forehead. “My men and I could build it.”

“You’ve already done enough.”

“That wasn’t me.” Yoongi chuckled. “I only gave it a little backing.” He gestured his hand. “If we are to be allies, you can let me take care of you too. You don’t have to hold it all on your own.”

Belle smiled. “Thank you.”

The double doors cracked open with the clinking of jewellery and a shrill, familiar voice.

“My earrings don’t match the necklace shade!” Harmony, Belles’ sister cried. She had even curlier hair than she did and her eyes looked like carnelian gems.

“What?”

“And the silk for the ceremony has been ripped.” Harmonys’ curls bounced along with her as she held up a ripped piece of red silk. “Everything’s going to ruin, this wedding is going to be a disaster!” She shrieked.

Yoongi tried his best not to snort too loud, covering his mouth with his fingers.

Belle immediately cupped her cheeks, pressing some of her curls with it. “I will get a seamstress to fix it for you.” She gently wiped the wetness underneath one of her eyes. “You’ll be fine, these things happen in weddings. And believe me, a perfect wedding is probably a bad sign, take it from me.” Nothing went wrong in her wedding with Jungkook at least.

Harmony sniffled. “You promise?”

“I promise.” Belle took the red silk carefully. “Let’s get this fixed.” She looked over at Yoongi.

The Mountain King smirked, keeping a soft gaze on Belle. He’d made a habit of looking at her like that. Belle didn’t think too much of it at first but eventually the flutters in her stomach grew thick like blossoms in spring. She began smiling at him back and sometimes found herself looking at him before he did. It was unspoken yet so loud that she needed to address it somehow. Not now though. Her sister needed her.

“I’ll take care of the construction.” Yoongi spoke in the midst of her trance. He gave her a smile and walked out of the room. Leaving Belle with a yearning pull in her belly.

After calming Harmony down and having her rest for a few minutes, Belle walked down to the education district in her main city to watch the school construction. Builders’ skin glistened in the golden sun and grunting suffused the air. People occasionally served them with cold, pomegranate juice to refresh while a group of giggling girls served a large man some ripe mangoes.

Belle walked under her parasol, guards in their ivory armor surrounded her for protection. One could tell the Mountain men from the Garden ones. Their bodies were like gods and beasts, treating even the largest piece of stone like it was a feathery light cloth. She heard stories of the Mountain Kingdom being built by the people together, both highly respected officials and lowly builders. The more she learned of this Kingdom, the more she came to respect it.

In the distance, Yoongi lugged blocks of sandstone on a wagon. Tattoos littered down his arms and scars littered across his torso. He had a smaller build than Jungkook but the muscles were still taut and rough from training his whole life. Sweat made his hair extremely dark like the dead of night, stuck to his temples.

Belle gripped onto her parasol, trying her best not to stare too much. “Prepare some cold tea, please.” She gently instructed one of the servers and they obliged at lightning speed.

A mat, floor table, assortment of fruit slices and cold chrysanthemum tea was prepared a few feet away from the construction site. Two men set up a canopy with curtains so she could be protected from the dust. Though Belle wanted a clearer view of the work, she didn’t protest either.

The chrysanthemum tea was sweet and refreshing on her tongue and the fruit was a taste she still missed dearly after living in the Silk Kingdom. Their fruits were nice but nothing beat the Garden Kingdoms’ produce and flora. Belle took every day for the past few months to appreciate what was lost in the seven years of her marriage to Jungkook.

Yoongi then walked through the curtains, absentmindedly dabbing the sweat off his face. “Your kingdoms’ heat never stops being brutal,” he breathed out.

“We make up for it with good tea and fruits.” Belles’ eyes flickered down to the shirt in his hand, wiping off the sweat on his toned abdomen.

The Mountain King sat on the other side of the floor table as a serving girl hurriedly served his cup of cold chrysanthemum tea. He immediately downed the first cup, making her refill it in the span of seconds. “I saw that, you know.”

“Hm?” Belle felt her heart jump to her throat.

Yoongi smirked, leaning forward on the table. “I can see when your eyes start to wander.”

“Would that mean you were staring too?” She took a delicate sip of her tea. Excitement thrummed through her belly as the Mountain King laughed.

“I suppose I’m also a culprit.” Yoongi took a bite of a mango slice. “You can’t blame me though. You’re difficult to ignore in Garden Kingdom attire.” Black eyes took no shame in taking every inch of her form now; a quiet revenge for Belle drinking in his.

Garden Kingdom wore extremely thin, translucent layers that barely covered most parts of the body. Even the royal family. Only in weddings and high-tiered ceremonies did anyone wear their best clothing but for a regular day, they preferred the freedom of movement with feather light fabric.

“It’s not proper to be so blatant with the Queen, Your Majesty.” Belle smiled.

The Mountain Kings’ face lit up. No one would ever see a look of such euphoria on a man’s face when challenged. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Many of the people were willingly took his side,” Namjoon uttered news of the day in the small council room. “There hasn’t been major casualties other than a few injured. Ten soldiers died in the battle but King Taehyung seems to be taking over the villages in a non-violent way.”

Jungkook didn’t know how long Namjoon had been speaking but he was only listening to bits of it. Taehyung began to make moves towards his Kingdom, only a month after news spread about his separation with the Garden Kingdom.

“The people are also travelling to the Garden and Mountain Kingdom as refugees.”

His attention soon arrived. “So they’re all working together now?”

“Not necessarily. Most of the people in the Silk Kingdom switched their allegiance to Queen Belle.” Namjoons’ eyes flickered to each side nervously. “A lot of them weren’t highly approving of your behaviour in the summit.”

Lula tried to hold his hand for comfort before Jungkook discovered his rising anger. He didn’t realize that she was sitting next to him. Lulas’ comfort wasn’t something that tugged at his heartstrings. Not when their son was still sick.

Pulling his hand away, Jungkook raised his chin at Namjoon. “Ready the men. We’re going to ride out to Taehyungs’ base.”

It’d been a long time since Jungkook rode out to the borders of his kingdom. Alcohol still lingered in his veins from the cups of makgeolli in the morning but his strength in riding never subsided. His bannermen rode with him to the sea of honey-tinted tents scattered around the villages that used to belong to him. Now they were tainted by the coward King.

Unmounting his horse, Jungkook made his way to the largest tent, heavily guarded. They were ready to sheathe their swords to stop him.

“Taehyung!” Jungkooks’ voice boomed.

Taehyungs’ hum sounded from the other side. “Let him through!” There was far too much excitement in his voice for Jungkook to calm his fury.

Roughly pushing the curtains aside, he was met with a King with beautiful white robes and golden jewelry. As if he wasn’t on a war ground but visiting a pleasure garden. “My! It’s so nice to see you again, your Majesty!” Taehyung held his arms out, a cup of wine in his left hand. “I heard about what the Queen did. How sad.” He failed not to look too proud of himself.

“I understand you have a problem with me but this is getting silly,” Jungkook spoke through gritted teeth. “Call off your men.”

Taehyung chuckled, placing his wine cup back onto the table. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. See, I’ve discovered that your people are in need of a different King after your little issue.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes…I mean, how many of your people travelled to the inner villages?” He waved his fingers and Jungkook had the greatest need to cut them off. “I’ve barely touched anyone here, they all either leave or come with me.”

“You came with bannermen. Of course they were going to try to do whatever possible to save themselves.”

Taehyung only laughed louder. Jungkook came to a conclusion that he was no less drunk than he was. “Come on, Jungkook. Even you know that’s stretching it a bit.” He leaned forward on his polished wood table. “While you were dancing around with your new lady friends, you seemed to have underestimated how much security and loyalty your wife mustered for you.”

Jungkooks’ brows furrowed. “And you’d know that more than I do?”

“I’m not the one losing people.” The drunkenness in his voice disappeared soon. Confidence of the same King that carried the hearts of people returned to tower over Jungkook and his vulnerabilities.

“Call off your men now and I’ll go easy on your pretty little face.” Jungkook unsheathed his sword.

By one call from Taehyung, the curtains were drawn and the metallic tip of the guards sung near his ears.

“I wouldn’t make too many threats here if I were you, Your Majesty.” Taehyung put his hands behind his back, walking closer to Jungkooks’ figure. “The sun is going down on you soon. Too bad, you couldn’t get over your pride.” The pretty King took advantage of tapping the bottom of Jungkooks’ chin, mocking him of his frozen stance. “You’ve lost your wife and now you’ve lost your kingdom. I’d almost feel sad for you if you hadn’t humiliated me.”

“Assassinating me isn’t going to solve anything,” Jungkook said. He tried shifting on his feet but each side of him was a sharp blade, ready to cut him down if he moved too fast.

“That’s why I’m not going to assassinate you.” Taehyung smiled, not a glimmer or shine in his eyes. “I’m going to humiliate you. And you’re going to live a long life remembering it.”

Harmonys’ wedding was an event filled with flowers of spring decorating every corner of the palace and kingdom; petals of all colours fell onto the pools as she was escorted to the private bed chambers for wedding conjugation. Belle filled her belly with honey cakes, peach tarts, chicken drowning in red chilis and peach tea.

Her two other sisters were ten cups into their makgeolli and singing old songs from their childhood as their bodyguards tried to keep a close, worried eye on them.

Belly full and warm, Belle looked around the fray of chatting and flushed people. All of them drunken in their excitement. Except one face was nowhere to be found. The one face she really wanted to see right now. She waved for one of the Mountain men to come towards her. The large, bearded male bent down to listen. “Where’s King Yoongi?”

“He’s gone to work a bit at the construction site,” he answered plainly. “Doesn’t like parties for too long.”

Belle nodded and smiled in thanks.

After a small announcement to her sisters’ bodyguards, she asked two men to escort her towards the construction site. The moon had been high and round in the black sky. When the days were hot, the nights were a gentle cold to which Belle wore a thin robe to cover her translucent, honey dress.

She heard stone lugging and metal grating from the construction site. A thin sound compared to the bustling night marketplace, open all night for the wedding celebrations. “Please wait here.” Belle had her eyes on the resting tent.

A yellow glow beamed amongst dark blue, one silhouette slowly passing through before sitting down. Belle desperately tried not to run too fast despite the pounding of her heart. Past the scatter of stones and soil, she gently pushed the curtain and entered the tent.

Yoongi swallowed down the cold gulp of water when he noticed her. “Your Majesty…” His voice was rasped from heavy breathing and his hands were flushed from working.

“You’ve been working hard.” Belle tried to keep her knees still.

“I did promise to get this finished.” Yoongi leaned his elbows on his knees, black hair covering most of his glinting eyes. “And I like building things.” He gave her that look again. “What about you? Out here so late at night?”

“I can visit places in my own kingdom.” Belle rested back against the edge of the table.

“Of course.” Yoongi got up to his feet. “You’ve shown a more Queenly side of you. I was bit worried by the tone of your letters.”

She scoffed. “I think you forget my kingdom sent yours running when I was seventeen.”

“Is that a challenge I hear?” Yoongi padded closer and stood toe to toe with her.

“Did it hurt your feelings?” Belle had to grip onto the edge to keep her legs calm. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be this melted and excited over someones’ presence.

“I feel a little wounded.” Yoongi touched his bare chest, his voice so low that it was mostly rasps. “Will you make me feel better?” He lowered his head. Noses barely brushed.

She grinned. “Only if you ask nicely.”

“Now that’s a challenge.” Yoongi chuckled that Belle couldn’t help but share. The Mountain Kings’ expression had softened then—a strange gaze that she hadn’t seen before. “It’s good you’re smiling.” Glinting black orbs pierced through her very core, bringing out a vulnerability that Belle hadn’t faced in months. “That old kingdom took your shine away.”

Swallowing down thickly, she took a moment of bravery to touch his collarbone. “It’s thanks to you.”

Yoongi clicked his teeth. “It’s not thanks to me, I already—”

Belles’ mind couldn’t catch up with her actions. She closed their distance and kissed him. Not quite gentle but still full of passion that her heart hadn’t expressed in so long. Yoongis’ warm hands cupped her cheeks, pressing her body flush against the table until she was made to sit on it.

Breathless and flushed as they broke away, Yoongi kissed her cheek tenderly. “Being thanked isn’t so bad.”

Belle playfully slapped his chest. “That’s not what it was for.”

Yoongi groaned under his breath, smirk tugged softly on his lips. He lifted her and laid her down on resting mat, scattered with silver embroidered cushions. The oil lamp flickered in and out of darkness.

Clothing peeled off their sweating skin, flesh suckled and bitten to purple, nails dug into the pillow while the groaning and whimpering of pleasure blended into the loud cheering from the night market. Belle watched the flickering oil lamp in the blur of her bliss. Yoongis’ hot kisses trailed down the slope of her love-bitten neck, movements rough yet his each touch desperately tender. He wanted to prolong their time. Belle reassured him that they had all the time in the world with another passionate kiss. She was free now. She would happily be his.

< prev | next >

#jungkook #thebtswritersclub #jungkook fanfic #jungkook imagines #bts imagines #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfiction #bts fanfiction #royal au #bts royal au #jungkook royal au #king jungkook #king yoongi #queen oc #royal jungkook #tw: infidelity #tw: cheating

438 notes · View notes

jamie-leah · 3 years

Text

Traitor

Bucky x Reader

Oneshot

Summary: Everyone thinks you're a traitor but Bucky isn't convinced.

Word: 2592

Warnings: Swearing, action stuff, hints at abuse and violence at the end.

A/N: I had a half formed daydream that turned into this. Starts strong, ends weak, enjoy!

Oneshot Masterlist Series Masterlist

Steve throws your file on the desk in front of Bucky. Bucky just stares at your face on the front of the folder, pinned by a silver paper clip.

Silver was your favourite type of jewellery. Bucky remembered storing the information away for when he bought you a silver necklace for your birthday not long ago.

“I’m sorry, Buck, but we had an operative confirm everything I just told you. Y/N is a contract killer, an assassin and she was sent here to infiltrate and kill. Namely, all of us.”

Bucky hears the words coming from Steve’s mouth, but he can’t understand them. Images of you flash in his mind. You laughing at one of his lame jokes, you crying in his arms from a nightmare, you underneath him moaning his name as he kisses a trail down your neck.

Bucky shakes his head, “I don’t believe that Steve, I can’t. Who’s the source? How do you know they’re legit?”

Steve picks up a remote and points it at a screen in the room. It blinks to life on a still image of you in a restaurant, kissing the cheek of one of the most prominent mob bosses in the city and known Hydra agent.

Bucky stands so fast his chair cracks on the floor as he tears out of the office at full speed. He skips passed the elevator and takes the stairs, missing steps in his rush.

He keeps going and going until he hits the lowest level underneath the tower and storms passed all the guards. None of them challenge him, too afraid of the former Winter Soldier to get in his way.

As Bucky gets to the cells, he grabs an agent by the scruff and grinds out, “which cell?”

They all knew who he was talking about. Everyone would be talking about this for a while to come. The agent points into the open space of cells and stutters, “its, c-cell 203”.

Bucky drops the agent and stalks through the cells until he finally comes to 203. He steps into view with clenched fists and doesn’t pause before he asks, “why?”

You sit on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees, staring at the grey wall opposite. It takes you a moment to build up the courage to look at him. You never intended for this to happen. You never wanted to get feelings involved, but as you look at Bucky, you know it’s far too late for that now. Now you have a mess on your hands.

You debate how to play this. Do you keep up the contract killer façade or do you confess, tell him everything you’ve ever wanted to tell another human being before?

“Barnes, I should have known you would pay me a visit sooner rather than later.”

Bucky felt like you had struck him in the face with the way you addressed him, but he holds firm, “why?”

“Why what? I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific”, you reply coolly as you stand to face him.

Bucky changes his question, “is it true? Are you a contract killer?”

It takes you a few moments to keep the mask in place, “yes”.

You watch the pain flash across his features for the briefest of moments before he locks it away to be felt in private. It breaks your heart, but you’re so used to the feeling it never shows on your face.

Bucky goes to turn from you, wanting to get away, the sight of you too much to bear. You throw a question out into the void between you before he can retreat, “are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?”

Bucky never turns back to look at you, but he whispers, “was any of it ever real?”

Despite knowing this was the question, despite hearing it from a few people across your lifetime, it was the first time it ever hit you in the gut with such force you had to take a silent gulp of air before choking out, “no”.

He leaves without another word.

You wait a few days. Working out the routine of the place before you wait for your next move.

You wait with your back to a small portion of the concrete wall next to the cell door. A blind spot. And when the guard brings your food and slides it under the metal bars, he looks up to find you missing.

Just as he steps closer to look, you strike. You shoot your arms between the bars and pull so hard his head bangs into the metal and he crumples, out cold.

You drag is body parallel to the door and you sweep his body for keys. You start to lose hope when your hand flits over cool metal and a little jingle rings out.

You wait fifteen minutes until lights out and the use the keys. You drag the guard into the cell, swapping your uniforms before closing the door and locking him in. You check all your hair is tucked until the cap before heading for the locked door between freedom and your prison.

You rap on the metal with your heart beating furiously against your ribcage. But the door opens without a problem and you have to stop yourself from sprinting down the hall and up the stairwell.

Once you make it up one flight of stairs with no alarms raised you start to sprint. Before you leave, you have to make it back to your room for your go bag. You can’t leave it when it has all the information you need for what started this all off.

You run and run and run. You run until your lungs burn with a fire that’s been flowing in your veins since you were born. You run until your legs scream at you to stop and just when you don’t think you can take any more flights of stairs, you make it to the top.

You stop. Your hand on the handle, taking a moment to get your breathing under control. You push the handle down slowly and open the door a crack to find the hallway in darkness.

You slip through and creep on the tiles without a sound as you make it to the first spare room in the hall.

You get into the room no problem and let out a breath when you realise no one knows you used this room to stash your information.

You waste no time in grabbing your go back from the closet, checking everything you need is in there before heading for the door again. Three steps from the exit and alarms scream out, waking everyone from their slumber. The alarm is followed by a female robotic voice, “alert, alert, prisoner escape. Alert, alert, prisoner escape.”

You swear under your breath as you rush out the door to see Bucky, Natasha and Sam at the end of the hall, near the stairway. Your only exit.

They spot you seconds after you spot them, and you take off running in the opposite direction. You can’t afford a hand to hand with all three of them. As confident as you are in your abilities they have just as much, and you don’t want to hurt them.

They shout in your direction, but you ignore them as you unzip your bag and rummage around for a miracle. You get to the living space when you finally feel it and a flimsy plan comes to mind.

You turn, gun in both hands as you drop the go bag. Bucky, Natasha and Sam all creep into the room, guns pointed in your direction as yours is in theirs.

“There’s nowhere else to go now, Y/N,” Sam says in his calm way.

You hold firm, the sofas keeping the four of you apart. You look in Bucky’s direction as you talk, “things are more complicated than they seem. And I’m sorry you were caught up in it. I’m not a good person and I’ll get what I deserve, but I have something I need to do first.”

“And what’s that? Kills us?”, Nat asks.

You shake your head, still looking at Bucky, “If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it three times over. You’re not my mission.”

“Then give yourself up and explain.” Sam tries to reason.

You lower your gun slowly, “it would take too long, and you may never believe me. I can’t afford that, and I’ll never get a chance like this again.”

Bucky remains silent throughout the whole exchange, but you study each other the entire time. You try to convey that you lied earlier before reaching up your arm with lightning speed.

Two shots and the chandelier that Stark insisted on installing for the living room crashes in front of the three as you turn and shoot the glass window. As the glass spiderwebs, you drop the gun and run at full speed. You have a moment to acknowledge that throwing yourself from the top of the tower is the dumbest move you’ve ever made as the air rushes to greet you.

You twist with a hand in your pocket and throw upwards, watching and praying for your miracle to work as the rope and hook catches and you plummet.

You fall down the building on the rope watching the ground and unclip at the last second, rolling with the momentum as the impact jars through your bones.

Bucky couldn’t believe you threw yourself out the window. He was the first to recover, leaping over the lights and the sofa to dive head first after you. He digs his metal hand into the concrete and slides down after you.

He sees you roll and run immediately like the pro that you are and wastes no time pursuing you.

You dart between traffic and glance behind to see him behind you. You growl in frustration at the stubborn solider, having to change your plans once again as you head for the roads.

You instinctively feel Bucky gaining on you with the serum pumping through his veins so when you spot a cargo truck coming on the road below. You don’t hesitate to jump off the road you’re on and slam into the truck underneath.

Your lungs scream for the third time that night as all the air leaves them, but you pay no attention as you look up to find Bucky staring after you.

You walk in the quiet of the night, looking down at the folded piece of paper. You check you have the right address when the empty warehouse finally comes into view. You slip in without any problems and head over to the machine where you stashed more stuff.

Just as you go to reach for the bag you hear the click of a gun. You freeze. You turn slowly, with your hands visible and find yourself staring into the face of Bucky and the barrel of his gun.

You resist the urge to roll your eyes and sigh, “how did you find me?”

“Please, do you really think I don’t know you after all this time? After our talk in the cells, I checked all the spare rooms. Found your go bag and the addresses. This was the closest one to the tower”, Bucky replies with an easy shrug.

You nod your head, “but if you found them, why did you leave them there? Why didn’t you tell anyone else?”.

“Tell me what’s going on, Y/N”, Bucky dodges the question.

You knew there was no other way out of this now. You had to tell him if you ever had a hope of getting this done tonight.

“Look, can you put the gun down-“

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. I can’t trust you.”

You pretend like his words don’t hurt, though they’re warranted, “okay, okay. Look, most of it is true. I am a contract killer. Long story short, I was born into a mob family. Mum died giving birth to me and left me and my older sister with my piece of shit father, the “use you as an ashtray type father”. At least he did with my sister. She took the brunt of his shit…anyway, when I turned 13 and had my first period, he sold me to a man. That man? Was the mob boss I know you saw me with, Joe Selene. I’ll skip passed all the torture and right to the part where he trained me as a contract killer for him and bided my time. My father had gone underground and with my limited access to resources I couldn’t find him.”

Bucky lowers the gun as you go through your story, his features softening at your tale of tragedy.

“I swore to my sister that I would come for her but I needed to gain the trust of Selene so I could get the resources to find my father. That was when he got involved with Hydra and they asked him to take you out. I agreed, knowing that you would have all the resources I needed to find my father and my sister.”

Bucky shakes his head, “why didn’t you tell me, us, any of this? We could have helped you.”

You look away from him, “because about a week after I got to the tower, I read my sisters name in the obituary. All the people I had killed to get to my sister was for nothing. She died alone, waiting for a rescue that never came and I knew…I knew that I was going to kill that bastard for everything that happened. I also knew that none of you would let me. You would reason about justice and doing things the right way. But I know what’s right and that’s that bastard six feet under and in hell.”

You look back up at Bucky to find him already watching you. You square your shoulders and jut your chin as you say, “so, you’re either with me or against me and so help me God, if you try to stop me from leaving this building and killing that piece of shit, I will not hesitate to put you down. I told you that you’re not my mission, but I will damn make sure nothing gets in the way.”

Bucky nods, “I’m in.”

You turn back to your bag and pull out the knives to strap around your body. You hand a few to Bucky and he takes them without a word.

As he turns to head back out of the warehouse you throw the question out again, “are you really going to leave without asking me the question you’ve been dying to ask me?”

Bucky turns to look at you this time. He captures your eyes with his as he stares into your soul and whispers, “was any of it real?”

You reply without hesitation, “yes. Every single word.”

Bucky takes a few long strides before grabbing your face with his hands and crashing his lips to yours in a bruising kiss. You return with the same ferocity, gripping his shirt in your fists to try and bring his body closer to yours.

When you can no longer breathe, you break the kiss. You both pant as Bucky brings his forehead down to meet yours. He whispers, “after we go drop a few bodies, what do you say we go take a trip. Just you and me?”

268 notes · View notes

kyofsonder · 2 years

Text

Find the Word

I was tagged by @on-noon to find a specific set of words in my WIPs, and tag others to keep the game going. Thank you for the tag, the more times I play this game the more fun I have and the more I enjoy the perspective it gives me on my own writing.

My Words: grow, worse, wind, snow, and wake.

I’ll tag @aohendo, @junypr-camus, @starlightscribe, @did-i-do-this-write, and @marinesocks this time. It's also an open tag for anyone else who wants to join, as always!

Your Words: voice, equal, second, purpose, and greed.

I found grow(s) in an original short story WIP, titled “Kiyo”:

Kiyo herself is pretty small, also like me, but her leaves are strong. They're bright red and her vines are a soft orange, so it's less that she grows like a regular plant and more that she spreads like a flame. She's a little wizened, with some crunchy edges of brown on some of her older leaves and a lot of black in her veins, but her roots keep pushing their way down through the soil. Reaching for water or more soil or whatever it is they find for her. The guy selling all those half-neglected plants hadn't acted like there was anything special about this one in particular, but I haven't heard of plants that look like Kiyo... pretty much anywhere.

I found worse in my novel WIP “To Be Honest”, although it does show up in a scene where there’s (magic-related) self-injury and mentions of blood:

The feeling from earlier is practically screaming at him now, rattling his bones until he thinks the vibration might knock him out. The way David had greeted him. The way his voice has been changing. The fact that Micah hasn't been able to see his face this whole time. The repeated circles when he'd tried to walk. Something is wrong. Micah can feel the magic in his own blood, warning him that if he takes too long to figure this out he'll end up trapped here. Not just here in the woods, but somewhere much worse. He can't control his breathing anymore and every spell he knows is gone from his mind. Alright. Fine. Screw patience, then. The witch takes as deep and steady of a breath as he can manage, wincing each time it catches on the way down to his lungs. Without sparing a second more to think, he brings the knife down on his arm at whatever angle fate decides. If he's lucky, it won't catch any major arteries and he'll be able to bandage himself up later.

I found wind in a draft of a Given oneshot fic “Present Tense”:

He steps toward the water, bracing himself against the wind. It isn't cold, somehow, but he still feels like he should be wearing a jacket of some kind. The sound of the ocean makes it feel like Winter, steady and calm. Rolling like the sand, only stronger. Moving steadily. Making itself known. White noise, washing away the feelings of early afternoon sunlight that had been so vivid just a few moments ago. He finds himself sinking into a crouch, closing his eyes again and holding his knees close to himself. He buries his face into his arms. Ah. He wants to sink into this sound. Let it wash him away, too. Out toward the sunset. The gradually darkening blue and fading light pink of nightfall. The warped yellow and orange of a sun saying its goodbyes for the night. He wants to fall into these soft colors like a fluffy bed and rest.

I found snow in a Sk8 the Infinity fic “True or False”, although it shows up in a scene where Langa is experiencing a type of unreality that might affect some readers:

It's quiet for a while, then Langa adjusts himself so he can speak -- still holding as tight as possible, "Sometimes... I have dreams. They aren't like normal dreams. When I wake up, I can't tell if they were real or not. If I was remembering things that really happened, or dreaming things that never did. It feels like I'm awake and just thinking about real memories, but it also feels like I'm asleep and dreaming. That doesn't make sense, but... the dreams don't make sense. They get... it happened for the first time after I got lost on a mountain as a kid. I was out in the snow all night. I kept thinking that I remembered the way back -- then I'd realize that it was the wrong way. The path I remembered was from a dream. No matter where I walked, it didn't get me home. It got... really confusing. Ever since then, I'll get that way again sometimes. Confused from dreams like that, I mean."

I found wake in my novel WIP “Apricots” when the main character is talking about how long it’s been since his girlfriend died:

Noah doesn't let him get away that easily, "The beginning is the day Jess died, whatever day or month or year it was when that happened. I think you know that much."

"Kade's lost track of time since then, too. More than usual. It feels like he started talking to her ghost months before she died, every time he was at her bedside, like he'd already known it was coming. I guess... when her condition... that's probably why you got mad at me. You knew she would die so much earlier than I did. I still don't think you should have blamed me for not knowing. I did the best I could to take care of her. It's been two months and I still wake up thinking I'll take the bus to her place to... I think I'm still not convinced that she's even gone at all."

Thank you again for the tag – there was a little more original content mixed in with the fanfiction this time! I'm learning to balance how much I write between original and fandom projects, which is encouraging to see when I play this game.

6 notes · View notes

the-broken-truth · 3 years

Note

Can you do a oneshot of Miranda x Male Reader? something about the male reader being Eva's father and that he disappeared in the first world war centuries ago and left miranda heartbroken and sad, but he did not really die and since he discovered that he was immortal and then he only remained hidden for centuries working for Russian organizations with a secret identity. and that after finding out that her lover was still alive and in a Romanian village, he went to see her. 👨 - 🐾 (EAGLE) - ✈

Wings Of A Feather - Mother Miranda x Male Eagle Shifter Reader

- Quick Key -

[Y/N] - YOUR FIRST NAME

[FL/N] - YOUR FAKE LAST NAME

[L/N] - YOUR LAST/SURNAME/FAMILY NAME

[H/C] - HAIR COLOR

[H/L] - HAIR LENGTH

[E/C] - EYE COLOR

[S/C] - SKIN COLOR

«Сержант [Y/N], ты слушаешь?» (Sergeant [Y/N], are you listening?) The voice of the Master Sergeant called out to the man rubbing his forehead on the other end of the meeting table who looked up with his [E/C] eyes upon hearing his rank and name.

«Да, сэр. Пожалуйста, простите меня, сейчас я довольно устал»." (Yes sir. Please do forgive me, I'm rather tired at the moment.") The man replied with a tired exhale.

«Это понятно, вы только что вернулись с месячной миссии с отдыхом. Вы уволены с этой встречи, вернитесь в свои апартаменты и расслабьтесь на весь день. Нам нужно проверить на�� Орлиный Глаз». ("That's understandable, you've just returned from a month-long mission with rest. You are dismissed from this meeting, return to your quarters and relax for the day. We need our Eagle Eye in check.") The Master Sergeant said to the man. The Sergeant rose to his feet and saluted his Master Sergeant, who saluted back and he was on his way out of the room.

Sergeant [Y/N] [FL/N] walked down the hall of the Russian Special Ops base with his jacket draped over his shoulders - waving behind him with each step he took; he passed by two Corporals on his way who moved aside and saluted him. He gave a simple "Отставить." (As you were) as he marked down the path before reaching his private quarters.

The Russian Sergeant removed his hat and placed it on the coat rack by his door followed by his coat before he walked over to his desk and took a seat - pouring himself a glass of vodka as he looked out the window at the setting sun.

Oh, the sun - so many times has he seen it in all of the centuries he's lived.

Yes - Centuries.

The [H/C] haired man looked at his glass as he thought about how long he's been doing this - going around with names other than his own, joining militaries, after all, it was the only thing he's known...since the First World War.

[Y/N] thought back to when this all started - back to when he was something else; then he thought of them.

Miranda and Eva.

The Wife and The Daughter he left behind when he went to fight in the war.

There was never a day he didn't think about them: wondering how they were doing, if they were alright, or if they were even alive. So many questions about them filled his mind, he wanted nothing more than to return to them but he didn't know where they could possibly be.

When the first war was coming to a close - he was blown in the chest by a snipe rifle, it killed him...or at least, it should have. He woke up in the morgue which surprised the diener - a person who works in the morgue - that was working on preparing his body for an honorable burial. According to the man - that bullet ripped his heart to ribbons but now he was alive; they even sent a letter to his wife to inform her of his death.

Once he was given the okay to leave, he went back home to Miranda - only to find to the house he built for them was completely burned down and they were not there; fear filled his heart. Were his wife and daughter dead? Did Miranda take her and Eva's lives when she got that letter or...did someone else do this? Unsure of what to do - [Y/N] returned to the military and continued to serve before faking his death and starting over

He looked at a photo of him and Miranda when she was a few months pregnant with Eva that sat on his desk by his laptop - it was the only thing he had of them now. He gathered the picture in his hands and tried to fight back the tears that were coming.

'Miranda... Eva... Where are you?' He wondered but his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. He stood up, walked over to the door, and opened it - revealing a Corporal with a folder in his hand.

"Капрал, я могу вам чем-то помочь?" (Corporal, can I help you with something?) He asked.

«Простите, что беспокою вас в свободное время, сэр». (Sorry for bothering you in your spare time, sir.) The Corporal saluted him, «Но есть кое-что, на что вам следует взглянуть». (But there is something you should look at.) He said as he held out the folder for the Sergeant to take. [Y/N] looked at the emblem on the folder and his eyes narrowed at the familiar logo on the front of the folder.

'Umbrella? What could they possibly what?' He thought to himself before looking at the Corporal before him.

«Что это? Они сказали, что хотели?» (What is this? Did they say what they wanted?) [Y/N] asked.

«Нет, сэр.» (No, sir) The young man shook his head. «Мужчина просто передал мне папку и сказал, чтобы я отнес ее вам. Он также сказал мне, что есть номер телефона, по которому вы можете позвонить». (The man just handed me the folder and told me to take it to you. He also told me that there is a phone number you can call.)

«Хорошо, я разберусь. Вы можете уходить, капрал.» (“Okay, I'll figure it out. You can leave, corporal.) [Y/N] said before closing his door.

He walked back over to his desk and opened the folder - something about the 4 Lords of Romania and Their Leader - Mother... His eyes widened.

"Miranda?" He gasped.

There were photos too - there were of the supposed 4 lords: A rather large lady, a veiled woman with a doll, a hunched back figure, and a man with a large hammer, and...

"That's her." he said.

Before him was a photo of a woman in a golden raven mask in black robes with black wings and some crest behind her. He looked at the number that left behind

XXX-XXX-XXX - Chris Redfield.

[Y/N] narrowed his eyes before calling the number and placed the phone to his ear - it picked up on the first ring.

"I see you chose to call me, Mr. [L/N]." A deep male voice said on the other side of the phone.

"How do you know that name?" [Y/N] asked.

"Umbrella knows a lot about you, Mr. [L/N]; we've been watching you since your face has shown up in our database since the first world war. We know you're not human, Eagle Eyes; but your eyes aren't the real reason people call you that, are they?" Chris asked over the phone.

"Just what do you want? Why have you sent this?" [Y/N] asked.

"We wanna make you a deal, Mr. [L/N]. I know you've been looking for your wife and daughter since your first death during the first world war but they haven't been located - I know where to find your wife." Chris said.

"And my daughter? What about Eva?" [Y/N] asked, gripping the phone tightly in his hand.

"That's the main reason I'm calling you - you see, your daughter is dead; she's been dead for centuries but your wife thinks she can bring Eva back by finding a proper vessel to rebirth her from. Here's what that has to do with me - the latest vessel she's taken is Rosemary Winters, the daughter of some very close friends of mine; she wants to use Rose to bring Eva back but I know it won't work. Her father and Umbrella are intending to get Rose back but that would mean killing your wife and everything she holds dear; we think you can stop that from happening." Chris explained - there was pure silence on the other end of the phone. "Mr. [L/N], are you still there?"

"Tell me exactly what you want me to do?"

[Timeskip - One Week Later / In an Airborne Helicopter above the Romanian Village.]

The side door of the helicopter opened and [Y/N] stood there - his hair blowing around in the high winds as he glared down at the earth below.

"Remember, Mr. [L/N] - Find Miranda and convince her to release Rose. Once that happens, we shall leave you and her to be as you wish." Chris said from his space sitting behind [Y/N].

"Just make sure you're ready, Redfield." And with that, [Y/N] jumped out of the helicopter.

His eyes narrowed as he fell from the bird of metal before he closed them - a warm feeling coursed through him as he felt the mortal flesh of his form shrink and take a new shape. Once he felt the wind against his wings - he opened his eyes again as he flew through the sky as the might eagle. He flapped to catch himself against the current before he got to a gliding height - he could see the village below. He got close to the ground and flapped again to slow himself before he changed forms again - back to his mortal face, his boots landing on the ground.

'Now, all I have to do is find one of the lords and they will take me to Miranda.' [Y/N] thought but his thoughts were cut short when he heard growling - turning, he saw the Lycans from Chris' File.

"Heisenberg's Servants." He pulled out two knives. "Just my luck." He darted forward and made quick work of the lycans before his knives went flying out of his hands - he turned again and there he stood: The 4th Lord.

"Karl Heisenberg." [Y/N] said as he glared at the hammer-wielder.

"Oh, you know me?" Karl asked.

"I know of you. I need you to take me to see Miranda right now." [Y/N] said.

"And just who the hell do you think you are, demanding to see Mother Miranda like that?" He asked.

"I'm her husband - [Y/N [L/N]." With those words, Karl's eyes widened.

"I heard of you; she talked about you some times." Karl looked the man up and down. "Alright, I'll take you to her but you need to cuffed; I don't know you that well,"

"Do what you will." [Y/N] held out his wrists, "Just take me to my wife."

"Fair enough."

[Timeskip - Miranda's Chapel]

"Heisenberg, just why have you called us here?" The tall lady asked before looking at [Y/N], "And who is this man-thing?"

"That's none of your business, Lady Super-Sized Bitch. This dude is for Mother Miranda." That made Alcina and Miranda raise their eyebrows.

"And who is this male that wants to see me?" Miranda asked.

Before anyone spoke - the bound man walked forward.

"It's been a while, Corbul meu întunecat." (My Dark Raven) That name made Miranda's eyes widen...and she removed her mask to make sure she wasn't seeing things.

"[Y/N]? Vulturul meu?" (My Eagle) Miranda asked as she walked closer.

"Yes." The man said with a smile.

The leader ran into his chest and clenched his shirt tightly - crying instantly.

"I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!" She cried.

"I'll tell you - we have a lot to talk about."

After hours of talking - everything came to the light: [Y/N] explained what happened all those centuries ago, Miranda explained her plan, [Y/N] managed to take her out of her & Rosemary - along with Mia Winters - was given to Chris Redfield. Ethan Winters was captured in Castle Dimitrescu by her daughters but was ordered to be let go. The Winters Family left with Umbrella and [Y/N] & Miranda sent all that week making up for all the centuries of lost time...and possibly making an Eva #2.

#ask #mother miranda x male reader #resident evil 8

143 notes · View notes

blizzardfluffykpop · 3 years

Text

Lucky Strike

Summary: A bad snowstorm leads to staying in a bowling alley until the snowstorm passes.

Oneshot

Fluff, Strangers to Lovers au

Word Count: 1,941

Hyungwon X Reader

Not Requested

Prompt: 12. Make your own prompt!

[This was inspired by Hyungwon’s outfit in You Problem and the m/v too.]

------

I met him in a bowling alley the night of a big snowstorm. The wind was bustling, filled with snow, and when my eyes settled on the neon signs of a bowling alley. I threw open the door and felt the warmth immediately after I entered. I texted my friend that I’d be in the bowling alley while I waited for the storm to pass. I took off my coat to notice only one other winter coat hanging up there. At least I’m not the only one stuck here, I had thought to myself. As I looked around, I saw three lanes open, and I looked over to the shoe collection booth. And that’s when I see a guy leaning lazily back in a chair, polishing a bowling pin, looking bored and like he wanted to go home. I cleared my throat, and he raised a brow before he looked up.

“Yes?” he murmured out, and I went for it, “Since we’re the only two here, you wanna bowl together?” He stares at me before he puts his lips together, and when they pop back out, he shrugs and goes, “Why not?” He puts the pin down and throws the rag in a bucket. “What size do you wear?” I tell him, and he hands me a pair before walking around the counter and gesturing for me to follow him. He slides his hands in his pockets as he walks down to the first lane, where seven different colors of bowling balls fill up the queue.

I go look for a bowling ball when he lets out, “What’s your name?” I look over towards him and tell him and ask him his. He gives me a small smile, “It’s Hyungwon.” I smile back, “It’s nice to meet you too, Hyungwon!” He tells me in a softer tone that it’s nice to meet me as well. After picking up two more bowling balls, I finally found the perfect one, the right weight, size, and color. When I return, I see our names on the board. I smile over at him, “It seems you’re up first,” I tell him, and he nods, “Let’s see how you roll!” He rolls his eyes but lets out a light laugh. He heads over to the queue and picks up the sparkly black ball with silver swirls running through it. He lines up and throws it halfway down the lane. It barrels down the lane, and he lands a strike. My mouth hangs open, not expecting that; “You’re going to catch flies.” He says when he turns back to see me, and I laugh, and so does he, “I thought I was playing with a regular bowler, not a pro.” He smiles, and his eyes crinkle, man, he’s a pretty cute stranger. I bat away that thought as he says, “Well, I got nothing but time to bowl, so I’m pretty okay.” I roll my eyes, “If that’s pretty okay, I really don’t want to see what is spectacular to you.” We both laugh, and I grab my bowling ball and line up and throw it. It was going so well, and at the very end, it decides to curve out, and gutter.

I pout and go, “You didn’t see that, right?” He shakes his head, “No, not exactly but the screen above definitely let me know.” I sigh, come on, get it together! Y/n play good in front of the cute guy! I scream internally in my head and wait for my ball to pop back out; once it’s settled, I pick it up. And aim it down the lanes, this time more successful, knocking down eight pins. “Not bad~” He teases, and I roll my eyes and tease him right back, “Okay, Mr. Lucky Strike.” He smirks and picks up his ball and rolls another strike with ease.

I struggle getting spares since it’s been a while that I’ve been in a bowling alley. It’s my third gutter ball and Hyungwon’s seventh strike when I notice that after I roll next, it’ll be the twelfth round. I shake off my nerves internally as he knocks down the two pins he missed. I get up and grab my ball, throw it down the lane. I knock down seven of the pins, and it just has to be a 5-7-10 split, a sour apple. This is going to bite; I decide on aiming for the fifth and seventh pin and roll it down. I don’t even watch the result as I whine, “Can we please put up some gutters!” He shakes his head and goes, “Look!” I turn around and watch in time as the seventh pin flies across and knocks the tenth pin over. I look up at the bowling alley ceiling, “Whichever bowling person is looking out for me, thank you!”

Hyungwon laughs as he gets up and puts his hands in his pockets, “On your last two rolls, you want my help? Since you haven’t gotten any strikes yet?” I nod, “Please!” We smile at each other as I sit down, and he throws his ball down the lane. And with little to no trouble, he throws another strike making an eighth. He waits for the ball to pop back out before he grabs it and effortlessly throws it. He turns away from the lane as I watch his roll. The pins barely have a chance to stand before they get knocked back down. He smiles and gestures for me to get up with his shoulder, and I do, picking up my ball, getting into my normal position.

He makes corrections to my posture before he grabs my arm and pulls it back. We bring it forward and up with vigor, and as he tells me to release. I do, and it spirals out of my hands rolling away like lightning. No wonder he can strike so well with the power he has behind his striking arm is phenomenal. And I watch as it clears the lane landing a perfect strike. I turn around and hug him, “Thank you!” He lets out a slight, ‘Oh!’ before he reciprocates and wraps his arms around me. My ball comes back up, signaling to us that I have one more roll, “Can you do it by yourself?” I nod determinedly at him; he nods and takes a step back as I grab my f/c ball and position myself the same way he showed me. Replicating his motions was easier than I believed it to be, as I ended the last round with another strike. And he’s right there to congratulate me, “I’m proud of you!” I turn bright red as he gathers me in a hug, and I hug him right back.

Once he pulls away, he asks, “Want some pizza from the warmer?” I nod, “Heck yeah!” He walks over there, and I look at the screen and whip out my phone, snapping a photo of my strikes and sending it to my friend. “Who are you bowling with?” Comes his question right back, “Oh, this guy who works at the lanes!” I can almost hear their sigh of relief as they text me back, “Any friend of my brothers is a friend of mine. So, I know you’re in good hands.” I text back quickly, “Wait! This is the one Minhyuk works at?! I thought he worked at the one closest to my place. That makes sense now.” He tells me to enjoy myself and not get into too much trouble as Hyungwon comes back with a pizza and two drinks. “I assumed you like coke. Is that okay?” I nod, “Works for me!” He smiles, and we both dig into the pizza.

After three pieces, I ask, “So other than bowling, what do you do here for fun?” He shrugs, “Usually, I have my six friends to keep me company. But they heard about the snowstorm and left faster than the snow coming down outside.” I nod, “I understand that I would have too if my shift didn’t end late. My best friend’s brother works here. His name’s Minhyuk.” His mouth drops in shock, “Minhyuk is my best friend! It’s a small world.” I laugh, “Damn, it really is." And that’s how the night progresses, telling each other little things about ourselves while bowling and playing a few rounds of pool.

I look outside to see what the snowstorm looked like, “Oh wow.” I say, and it’s no longer the raging storm taking place outside. It’s calmed down with little flurries coming down here and there. He looks out the window where I’m looking from, “Well, looks like we can head home now. My shift ended about thirty minutes ago anyway.” I smile, and we collect our coats and go our separate ways. And I, finally, head over to my friend's house and tell him about the cutest guy I ever met. Which happens to be his brother’s best friend, “This is like a cheesy Hollywood movie if the two of you end up together.” I whine, “Why do you have to put it that way!” He shrugs, “I’m right.” I grumble, “I know, but I don’t like it.” He smirks deviously, “But you like him!” I groan, into a pillow, “This is the last time I’m coming over to your house– And no! Don’t you dare say anything of the sort.” He mocks me and goes, “I wAsN’t GoInG tO.”

------

And from then on, I would go and see him at the bowling lanes. Usually, after my Thursday and Saturday shifts, I'd open the door with a smile to see him get up and greet me. Even on his busier days, when I'd barely be able to catch a glimpse of him, he still found a way to play a game or two with me, whether it was a round of pool or a full bowling game. And if I wasn’t enamored with him before. Him making time for me to chat about our days and play a game or two together; I was definitely in deep now.

I come in and see it's a slower day, and he’s once again polishing a bowling pin like he was that first night. He sees me and immediately gets up, putting both things away. I wave, and he gestures over to the first lane. I follow him over and see he already has my shoes laid out. He was probably expecting me since today is Thursday. We start up the game, and I pull off two strikes which land two high fives. We're in the midst of the game when we start talking about anything and everything. That has happened in the past few days. The conversation lulls, and he goes, “I’m so glad you got stuck in the snowstorm.” My eyebrows quirk up at that, and I ask him why. And he tells me, “Because if it wasn’t for that, I would have never gotten to meet you.” I blush and look down at my hands before I look over at him, “I feel the same way. But, I may feel a little more for you than that.” And just like the first time I hugged him, he goes, ‘Oh!’ and I nod, “I think I’ve fallen for you, Hyungwon.” I look down at my bowling shoes this time. And miss the way he gets up and kneels in front of me until he grabs my hands. And I look over at him, and he smiles, “I’ve fallen for you too.” I smile and tell him, “This is the beginning of something great.”

32 notes · View notes

remsmoonlight · 3 years

Text

— title : point of view

— word count : 3k words

— pairing : daryl dixon x reader

— summary : tomorrow is something that is never promised, less so when the dead walk the Earth. being trapped for the night when a storm pours down upon you and daryl while trapped in a decrepit house by a few walkers are you sick and tired of hiding what you feel.

— warnings : some swearing, talk of potential death ( of the reader ) , a wee bit of angst that turned into more at the end :)

note: omg another daryl oneshot i gotta chill ajksajksk, but i had like seven main bullet points i made to follow when writing this and i followed like...... two, three at the most, anyways.... enjoy? this is brought to u by ariana’s discography lmao oops it does be cute at some point tho ... also felt a bit hsm with that one line at the end ahaha but fr lemme stop talking now

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* requests are open ! *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Dark and gloomy clouds swirl over your head, blending into an extremely large and angry looking ready to descend from above. You wonder to yourself just how long you have left before the loud cracks that crumble through the air to accompany the forceful winds and pouring drops of rain are finally released. Halfway through the trip back from the town that lays after miles from the prison the car used decided it preferred to lay quietly in the middle of the road, shortly after the sickly sputters from the engine you heard Daryl mutter a few curse words. You were unable to hold in your amusement, despite the fact that a lack of transport obviously leaves you in a vulnerable position, it felt like it was your luck for that to happen to you.

It’s why you stay behind following the hunter in silence.

Studying him with focused eyes you can’t help but wonder how he never realises when you’re unable to tear your gaze away from him. In the beginning when you began to develop a certain affection for him you had been glad, for it to be too embarrassing for the thoughts you had about him in your head. In spite of this, when you realised that it was much more than a crush did you wish for him to mind read, because you have no idea just how to approach him about such a sensitive topic and while he can be tender about feelings, it’s also his downfall.

“ it’ll be gettin’ dark soon, there should be some houses down there to spend the night in. “

You stop in your tracks with a curious look that bled so suddenly into your features you had no time to stop it.

“ you don’t want to carry on? I mean, we’re not far from home? “ you question him with a hint of fear coddling your words.

“ we’d be trippin’ over our feet. Let’s back it back in one piece, yeh? “

Nodding, you regain your pace. It’s been a few months since you’d been hopping from one house to the other during that harsh winter, the bare thought of having to stay in yet another frail structure sent a chilly hand drawing its claws deeply up your spine. If you never had your group, you don’t think you would have made a winter like that, barely protected from the elements and the walkers that wished to plunge their teeth cavernously into your flesh.

“ as long as we leave as soon as the sun comes up. Please. “ you plead, your words filter off into a gentle volume from your position.

Leaves crumble and buckle underneath the weight, the sound of crickets dominate your surroundings as the two of you walk in silence. You itch to start a conversation, but the fear of distracting the man and annoying withhold the words that wish to fall from your lips, even then you don’t know how to begin. What would you say? There’s not much to talk about in a world where the dead have risen, where they wish to drag the world into decomposition.

Your wandering mind is pulled from its very own depths from a noise coming from Daryl, he’d turned to catch your attention. You both set to work attempting to enter any of the abandoned houses, hoping one had been left unlocked at some point.

Of course, luck is scarce. Despite there not being a soul who occupies them, they’re still somehow locked. Mournfully, you wonder if the owners of these homes had thought the governments and armies would eventually lock everything under their control, to the point that there would be a house for them to come back to? Your heart thuds painfully in your chest to think about what happened to them, and if they’re even still surviving.

A large thud draws you back to the present, the wooden door splinters at the force Daryl puts into a large kick to its frame.

“ well, there goes the lock. “ you mutter humourously, lifting the heavy bag higher up onto your shoulders as you walk in the open door.

“ we’ll put the couch there, stop any unfriendly types that come our way. “

“ I don’t know if there’s anyone left anymore. “ you reply, dropping the bag to the floor and moving towards the couch.

Situated on the other side of it, you grip the plush handle and lift with a struggle. It’s a strain to get it through the doorway to turn it around the corner, but eventually it happens. Daryl is joined by your presence by his side, you both push ⏤ this time it’s an easier feat with two of you on one side to dedicate your strength and weight to advance it.

As soon as you finish, a heavy crackle cuts through the air.

“ we got here just in time, huh? “

“ just about. “ he answers you, sparing a glance before moving through the lower floor ⏤ searching for anything that can be taken back to the prison.

Thunderstorms had never been your favourite thing growing up. Of course, rain was something that calmed you from the anxieties life brought, but the thunder and lightning is what you loathed. Never knowing when you were about to receive a fright from the loud rumbles and flashing lights ruined the whole experience for you.

The rustling Daryl makes is the only thing that brings you comfort in this moment, keeping you grounded and away from your thoughts. It doesn’t escape your notice that these houses feel no more than graveyards with the memories that have no use to live, instead haunting the structures with what could have been had chaos and death not taken over. You climb the stairs, hugging your sides as you refuse to touch the handrail leading up stairs.

There is a middle room with access granted without having to push open the door to gain entry. Your eyes scan the room’s interior, even with the dust and grime that bespeckle its surfaces, you can still see its beauty. Now, who does that remind you of? Your mind cheekly thinks before you banish it into the shadows of your brain, where you know it will force itself out with an immense stubbornness.

Despite the thunder booming in the distance frequently, you can’t help but admire the beauty of rain drops falling to the ground with a dainty grace only it holds. The sky continues to grow dimmer, only seeing the rain on your level and lower, no street lights flood the street to aid you in being able to see torrent from above. Jumping at another roar of sound from the storm, your heart begins to pick up its pace, so much you don’t realise Daryl joining you in the room.

“ scared? “

Turning around with such speed that leaves you surprised whiplash did not greet you, Daryl is left smirking at your reaction.

“ yeah, I hate these things. “ you respond, a bitterness coating each word heavily as you speak.

“ more than walkers? “ he questions you, as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“ well, I suppose not that much .. “ another clap of thunder interrupts you, the rain beating harder and harder on the windows of the bedroom. “ can we talk about anything? This shit really grates on my nerves. “

“ what y’wanna talk about? “

Your mind stalls, with the previous thoughts that had been swirling in a state of disorder your draw a blank. A continuous thump downstairs interrupts your shrug, speeding down the stairs you realise a few walkers are trying to enter the property, of course their lack of intelligence fails to realise they’re throwing themselves into the walls and not the blocked doors.

“ shall we take them out? “ moving closer to the lengthy curtained window next to the door to get a better look, you can see three walkers hauling themselves mindlessly against the structure.

“ nah, the storm’ll get ‘em soon enough. “ he shakes his head softly, your mind taking note of the lack of proximity between your bodies as he repeats your action. “ no need to risk ourselves. “

“ wouldn’t be the first time you’ve risked your life. “

“ s’nothin. “ he contradicts gruffly, wiping a finger across his nose at your words. He truly doesn’t view it as that, refusing to think of it as risking his life. To Daryl, it doesn’t feel like risking everything to help the people around him, it’s not something he can find the words to explain but all he knows if there’s a chance, he would do it again and again.

“ Daryl Dixon, so humble. “ you speak warmly with a gentle smile threading itself into your features. “ you need to give yourself more credit. “

“ stop. “

“ you’re as brave as anyone in the group. I’d say braver than Rick. “ you joke, setting yourself from the entryway to the sitting room. “ although, if I had to choose you and Carol .. I’m sorry, but Carol every time! “

“ damn woman frightens me. “

Laughter light in weight dances airily between you with an elegance in its movement. For even a fraction of a second you forget that there are walkers that are itching to break through into the property, that there’s an angry storm that threatens to demolish whatever stands in its path, because right now it’s only you both here and now in this one room.

“ she’s come a long way. “ you agree, pulling a lone chocolate bar from your bag. Your favourite and you’re thanking the universe that it hasn’t spoiled yet. Turns out all these preservatives and chemicals have some use after all you note to yourself as half is offered to the man standing across from you.

“ so have ‘yuh. “ he acknowledges, taking the broken half of the candy from you.

“ I think we all have to be honest. I don’t think any one of us are the people we used to be. “

“ now who’s humble? “ Daryl asks, his tone light in relaxed merriment. He’d long since taken note of the transformation you’d gone through, he’s never seen you so strong as a person before.

“ don’t you turn this round on me, Dixon. “

The two of you fall silent, you direct your gaze to the window and the raindrops that litter the window pane’s surface. The harsh noises thundered no more, leaving a calm pitter of precipitation to fall with no interruption. From your position on the second couch, you wrap around a thin decorational blanket around your arms, leaning your cheek against the palm of your hand.

Pretending the world hasn’t gone to hell, that it’s just a normal evening where you’re admiring the scene before you. Skies that weep heavily is what the Georgian greenery has been calling out for, especially since the warmer temperatures have returned in full force. Switching your line of sight to Daryl, you feel a mellowness in the pit of your stomach as you watch him fondly. You can’t be sure if it’s the lack of distractions or eyes from your group, but you feel a miniscule spark of confidence within your confines.

“ come sit down, you can relax for a bit. “ you call, trying to convince him lightly. Your hand moves to pat the seat next to you.

“ can’t relax in this world. “ despite the disagreement in his words he does move towards your position on the plush seat.

“ it doesn’t mean we can’t make it. Otherwise we’d be burnt out, I’d hate to see that happen to you. “ You divulge as you reply to him, little inklings of hope in your tone.

“ y’don’t gotta worry ‘bout me. “

“ but I do, Daryl. “ you groan as a dull glumness contorts your features into something new. “ I mean, the lengths you go to .. you scare me to death. “

“ don’t be dumb. “ Daryl warns lowly as he shakes his head, few have shared their vulnerability with him. Perhaps only Carol, his mind can’t wrap itself around the fact that people genuinely care for him. Growing up, he’d been taught of it as a weakness. Something that should not exist, no one cared when he went missing for a short while as a child, and now having people who show him the opposite? It leaves a strange feeling to settle within his heart.

“ please, I need to tell you. I mean, I might not even be here tomorrow. “

“ nah, don’t say that. Y’will. “ he argues, he doesn’t even want to entertain the notion of not seeing you even for a day ⏤ let alone forever.

Truthfully, you’d not been particularly close. He understands it now, he pushed everyone away wherever he had the chance to. But after the downfall of the farm? You wouldn’t let up in trying to forge bonds that could rival even the strongest of metals. You had no idea, but he’d overheard you talking to Beth one day. When you said you didn’t want to be afraid of living, to have something worth dying for. That struck him deep.

“ neither you or I can guarantee that. Now, call me selfish but I can’t die with what ifs in my brain. “ you explain, you know it’s probably selfish to announce any kind of fondness for a person nowadays, because you can be ripped from their existence without any kind of announcement. But if you were to depart from the realm of the living, you’d want to have affectionate memories to experience and for them to look back on.

“ what y’sayin? “

Your eyes well up in frustration, whether it’s over the way you find the words are hiding beneath your tongue like cowards under the cloak of night or over the fact that you have begun this topic of conversation, backing yourself into a corner. There’s so much you want to say but how you should is not coming easy. Eloquence in your words is something you find yourself yearning for with all of your being should it bring you a happy ending to this discussion.

This isn’t a fairytale, there’s no happy or bad endings in real life you sorely think. There’s just reality, and the conclusions for that are neither black or white.

Fingertips grip the roots of your hair for a fleeting moment before letting go as if you’d never clutched them in exasperation at all.

Shutting your eyes so hard they hurt, you muster up the courage to speak the truth you’ve locked away in your heart, allowing it the light it has been deprived of for so long.

“ Daryl, I ⏤ “ your voice shuts off with a painful sound, sighing as if to psych yourself up. “ I feel more for you than I probably should. “

When Daryl says nothing, you open your eyes. Your entire being preparing yourself for the worse answer, this moment may hurt now but the pain will lessen. At least your soul feels lighter with the hidden information no longer chained to it as a burden, no longer will it have to be weighed down by its mass.

“ I know it’s probably not what you want to hear, but I couldn’t keep it in any longer. “

“ who said I didn’t wanna hear? “

“ ⏤ what ? “ you question, your brows falling lower as you squint in disbelief. You wonder if your brain is forming a false memory to protect itself later on.

“ y’don’t nothin’ to do with me though. “ he hesitates, the automatic response to push away anything good that comes his way to the furthest reaches. “ nothin’ but trouble. “

A sorrowful smile full of grief clouds your features, your unshed tears threaten to fall. If only he could see himself from your point of view, he doesn’t see just how admirable of a human being he is. Yes, he has his flaws but who doesn’t? In all of humanity, you don’t think there has ever been a perfect person, but it’s how they approach their downsides that shows the peak of their humanity, that they don’t let the darkness fester in their heart, to poison their soul into becoming a shell of a kind hearted person. That shows the strength of their character.

Daryl? You feel honoured to have been a first hand witness to see him turn from a hot ball of anger to a softer, kinder soul.

“ Daryl, you really don’t see what I do.” you forsake everything, leaning forwards and laying your hands across his. Taking in the immense warmth from them. “ That? It hurts me, because you’re rather amazing. “

Saying nothing, Daryl looks down at your intertwined hands. He wants the chance that’s being offered, though the fear of being the one who poisons everything he lays his touch upon settles heavily on his shoulder. No one has come out unscarred when dealing with a member of the Dixon family, his family tree being nothing more than toxic, with weeds that wrap around the limbs of the poor fool who got involved with them, as they drag them to their lowly depths. He doesn’t know how to let go of the past and for this he continues to pay, with the high price being his happiness in the present world. No response leaves his lips, for the first time in a long time he doesn’t know what to say, while knowing what he wants to say. It’s not until he feels arms wrapped around the top of his shoulders is he brought back down to Earth, a shudder of a breath is released from him as he realises what is going on. The action is reciprocated in earnest, you’re full of gratitude that he’s accepting your comfort ⏤ knowing it could have been a gamble of a decision, a fifty fifty chance of him reacting negatively or positively. You, too, draw comfort from the position you both find yourself, clutching the other. Hope dawns on your heart, knowing Daryl is not a particularly affectionate man. This means a lot, for it’s a leap for you both.

“ thank you. “ he whispers in the night. You know that this is the start of something new.

#daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon x reader #daryl x reader #daryl dixon oneshot #daryl imagine #twd imagine #the walking dead imagine #twd oneshot #daryl oneshot

66 notes · View notes