#and him being under the impression that el said those things about him and feels all that about him

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #42 – The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

This is the rare book that I read less than six months after finishing the previous entry in the series, and only the second definite conclusion to a series. It was incredibly readable and never a slog, and the big final climactic set-piece absolutely worked for me, but on the whole I probably enjoyed it rather less than The Last Graduate?

The book picks up the precise moment Graduate lets off, with El getting shoved out of the Scholomance moments before it goes spinning off into the void by Orion – her storybook monster-hunting hero/traumatized child soldier boyfriend. Who she instantly tries to move heaven and earth to drag him out, and then spends a week near catatonic with exhaustion and grief. In the end, the plot comes in the form of Liesel, the valedictorian of her year at the Scholomance, arriving and all but dragging her off to save the London Enclave from imminent collapse and consumption by a rampant Mawmouth, one of the horrifying, deathless monsters that she is one of exactly two people alive to ever kill. From there she’s dragged into the mystery of an unknown malificer destabilizing and destroying enclaves, the brewing war between New York and Shanghai, and convincing Orion’s family to help try and rescue him before the Scholomance vanishes entirely into the void.

Despite being about ostensible adults who have graduated and are properly finding their places in the world, this still very much read like YA to me – moreso, really, without the conceit of the killer magic highschool overshadowing everything else. Or, okay, have gotten disagreement when describing the series as YA before, so to be more specific – El’s romantic and familial drama are quite literally the most important things in the world, as she and her highschool boyfriend are the most important and powerful entities in all creation. With the exception of El’s mom being a saint and providing healing and support, I’m pretty sure literally every consequential act that occurs on-screen is done either by or to someone under 20. El melts down, fucks off for a week, and never answers her phone in a way that is very relatable for an overwhelmed 18-year-old but potentially world-war-starting for a walking WMD. And so on. Without the deliberately artificial setting of the Scholomance, the wires of genre convention just show through more obviously, you know? (Also, my first introduction to Novik was Spinning Silver and I’m still waiting to read anything else of hers that comes near it on the level of prose and style).

None of which is a complaint – the fact that your boyfriend’s mom is literally the worst person in the world just comes with the territory. What is a complaint is how the book treats its supporting cast. This is El and Orion’s story, and I’m pretty sure they are literally the only people in it who get – not even an arc, but just any sense of development or change over time whatsoever. They feel like characters, everyone else feels like cardboard cutouts, or NPCs in a video game. Which is a fair choice to make when space is at a premium, but my copy of this came out to over 400 pages. Even the other characters with enough personality and screentime to make any sort of impression can honestly be counted on one hand.

In consequence, this is an incredibly plot-driven novel. The pacing is both frenetic and frantic, with what feels like basically the entire thing spent either in or rushing to one crisis or big dramatic set-piece after another – a surprising amount of it is spent in airports, honestly. The epilogue mentions that they ‘crammed a decade worth of crises into a fortnight’ or something along those liens and, yeah! The contrast between this and the previous two books spreading their crises across whole school years is inescapable.

That said, that frantic, 400-page-sprint plot did work. Or, at least, the big emotional setpieces and dramatic confrontations that are clearly the heart of the whole thing absolutely hit me like they were supposed to. The finale especially.

There is a certain sort of cliche in old arguments about superhero stories, where one side says that superman is boring because he’s more powerful than the rest of the world put together and impossible to threaten, and the other says that he’s interesting for precisely the same reason. This isn’t actually true of most superman stories as far as I can tell, but it still seems an apt comparison for this book. There is absolutely no point in the entire story where ‘Can El kill this?’ is a question that is in any doubt. The horrifying monsters that the thought of fighting again in Book 2 sent her into panic attacks? She can kill them with a sentence an a wave of her hands. There is simply not a moment in the book where her efforts fail due to a lack of force – so the entire story becomes an exercise in supplying dramatic tension and a compelling action-adventure wizard-battle narrative despite this handicap. And it (mostly) works!

The series has never been big on villains – in both the previous books, the central problem being struggled against was always environmental or systemic or a matter of coordination and planning. This book redoubles the commitment, to the point of dangling the red herring of the sinister dark wizard running around destroying enclaves before eventually revealing that the real villain is, well, the collateral damage of trying to fix (metaphorical) climate change and structural inequality without a full understanding of the problem. Never a really convincing red herring, but I still enjoyed the reveal.

Part of the whole YA feel is just the themes being very close to the surface of things and legible to casual reading. What with the enclaves of comfort and luxury that every wizard is fighting for entrance to literally being built on a foundation of eternal and deathless suffering, or the number of monsters in the world being the proliferation of enclaves as China and India began catching up with the Euro-Americans leading to an arms/development race that leaves anyone not part of it just more and more fucked over, and all. Not a bad thing – honestly it’s a compliment to say that the book managed to have such clear themes with such obvious applicability to the real world without ever feeling like it had turned into a lecture. Many similar works fail the test.

It is I think kind of funny how you can use the prominence of queerness in this series to track how the culture of mainstream publishing has changed between releases. From not really mentioned at all in Deadly Education to El sleeping with a woman on-page in this. (I actually can’t remember if she ever, like, realized she was bi or it just got retroactively established as something she was already comfortable with?)

Speaking of themes – this is mostly just on me personally, but the whole resolution with El’s great-grandmother left an intense bad taste in my mouth. I’m sure it was just necessary to make the whole very cute resolution of her whole doom-laden prophecy work, but ‘yes the family matriarch basically threw my mom in the gutter with newborn me in her arms, but it was with the best of intentions! She felt really bad about it, and she was right that it was the only way things would work out well in the end!’ is a trope that just viscerally repels me. Or at least it does when El reconciling and reconnecting with the extended family that abandoned her is clearly portrayed as part of the big happy ending. I’d probably react less harshly if this was a different genre, honestly? But as it is, yeah, in the same way that being so consistent about making The System the only real villain makes the fact that there’s apparently some sort of system of instant karma and doing good things/being a good person actually does make the universe like and do good things for you ring a bit hollow.

Anyway yes, there’s definitely more to talk about – Orion as a character is a whole essay in himself, and so is his mom, but that’s enough for now. It was a very fun, addictively readable book that hit the Big Moments very well, but everything outside of them and the two main characters felt kind of threadbare and perfunctory. Still, not a book I regret reading.

[brionysea]

it's actually so interesting that when you start stretching possessiongate back to s3, it presents another way to interpret Will's weird MF/Vecna alert senses that season. because people have been pointing out left and right how it's funny that those Only happen when Mike is around. but under the guise of possessiongate that's a bit... uhmmm...

because you have 1. the movies (sitting next to Mike), 2. walking up the hill (looking after Mike leaving with El) 3. after destroying castle Byers (as Mike is visibly running up to him) and so on

but then every Other time Will gets the Vecna alert it's because he's actually here. once when Billy and Mrs Driscoll activate (Henry is literally in his presence). then at the hospital (Nancy's flayed ex coworkers activated upstairs and merged into the baby Meatflayer -> literally in the presence of Henry again). and then subsequently when the physical Meatflayer/Henry gets close to him from here on...

just... it's odd. there's this clear split in s3 of when Will feels Henry. there's the obvious and straight forward cases, where Henry is Right There. either in form of the Meatflayer or Billy activating right in front of him. and then there's the other times when it's not really logically clear what Will is actually reacting to

the cinema and hill scene follow shots of the rats and MF particles in the warehouse, it's assumed Will just has Massive range on his Vecna-sense. but then there's also moments like with the Flayed at the hospital that directly go against this, where Will only feels Henry when the exploded flayed start Activating activating and explode into meat. while they were going about their semi-normal flayed person business trying to Kill Nancy and Jonathan right above Will he seemingly caught none of that

so i'm genuinely curious about what's going on here. either Will can feel the flayed all across town (including the small rats) each time and just had a hiccup at the hospital and Missed the goosebumps somehow with the Flayed directly above him. Or looking at possessiongate, all the times his neck went off without the Meatflayer or an activated Flayed around coincidentally also being all the times right after talking to Mike isn't just a really funny and unfortunate coincidence...

i need to know what's going on here so bad it's eating at my brain (sorry for the long asks mb)

i LOVE long asks i eat long asks for breakfast

you've made SO many good points. and now you've got me thinking about how phenomenal this is as a writing strategy

it's honestly just really impressive how well they've hidden it. i read that post about el overhearing mike and will's phone calls argument and later hearing from dustin that mike was actually trying to call will an annoying amount, among other things mike has said throughout the show that he didn't know she heard, and it was all used as evidence that she probably knows or has the ability to figure out how they feel about each other from that and from mike's monologue

the general audience thinks mike acting weird is about el, and bylers think mike acting weird is about will, and even when it's directly about mike like what happened on weathertop (which was linked to mike and mike alone because dustin said later that he was only mad at him, similar to hopper blaming mileven's clinginess on mike), people still find a way to be like oh it's just about the love triangle, it's the heteronormativity, don't worry about will's spidey sense acting up around mike who everyone and their mother has been saying isn't acting like himself just like will wasn't one season ago, it's probably an elaborate metaphor or something

to be clear, absolutely no shade on bylers! they're actual geniuses to be able to figure all this out. but it's honestly a MASTERCLASS of misdirecting your audience that even the people who are listening to the show when it tells us to pay attention can get so close, but still not quite grasp it

they're weaponising the amatonormative assumption that people "outgrow" friendship being important to them as they grow up and start prioritising romance and only romance while actively devaluing friendship against us. they're banking on us just buying into that to forget about how mike called bullshit on only having one person who's more important to him than everyone else and how he's willing to sacrifice his life for any of his friends. they're letting us reduce mike down to a character who literally disappears into his romantic subplots so that we don't see what's right in front of us

the party is more of a family to mike than the wheelers, and considering how heavily involved will's family was in bringing him back, i think it's really really really telling that they're the ones who've been noticing how weird mike's been acting for a full year

mike devaluing friendship through his words and his actions is weird. mike forgetting about everyone he isn't dating is weird. mike letting all the societal bullshit get to him is weird. he's so headstrong, he's such an independent thinker, he's willing to start a fight with a bigot over homophobia. he has the capacity to be unashamed of that aspect of himself no matter what anyone has to say about it

they've been telling us at least once a season since season 2 that vecna definitely knows who mike wheeler is. putting it all together, it makes absolutely no sense that mike would be acting the way he has if he's really been left alone like we're supposed to think

[lupon]

Not a childish crush

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that Will’s feelings for Mike are a continuation of his difficulties with growing up from s3. Which is weird because it’s the total opposite, accepting his feelings for Mike was the result of him learning to accept things that scared him that were out of his control. 

At the very start of s3, Will felt the Mind Flayer, and directly afterwards he got nervous around Mike in the movie theater. He felt the Mind Flayer again on the field, ironically looking back at Mike and El leaving to go make out as he turned. And again at Castle Byers, right after he destroyed it because of Mike, he felt the Mind Flayer once again. It’s a strange pattern throughout s3, with something involving Mike/El or Mike/Will happening, then Will feeling the Mind Flayer soon afterwards or beforehand. The point is to show how he’s scared of/avoiding both the possibility of the Mind Flayer being back, and of his feelings for Mike. They’re always connected because they’re both things Will doesn’t want to feel. This is what caused him to try and distract himself with D&D for so long, he was afraid of what he was feeling and wanted pretend it wasn’t happening. As he put it, “I guess I just didn’t want to believe it.” This is true for both the Mind Flayer’s return, and Will’s sexuality. 

But there was a conclusion to this, Will accepted the Mind Flayer was back, gave away his D&D set and said he would only play if Mike still wanted to play, and at some point between s3 and s4, accepted he was gay. And we can see how much he’s grown and matured in s4;

He told Mike about feeling Vecna as soon as the chance arose, instead of lying or pretending it wasn’t happening.

He used D&D as a way to express his feeling rather than avoid them. 

He did his best to help Mike and El’s relationship, despite being jealous. He wanted El to tell Mike the truth as to not upset him, and gave advice to Mike to mend things with El and make him feel loved in their relationship. This is very different from him saying “They broke up with you, what else is there to talk about?” in s3. 

Point is, his struggle with growing up and maturing is done. That arc was fully completed by him facing who he is. It wouldn’t make any sense for his crush on Mike to be something childish, since being childish was his way of avoiding those feelings. 

[berenwrites]

Beyond the Battle - Chapter 25 - Stranger Things - Steddie

Beyond the Battle­: Action & Consequence

Click here for All Posted Chapters

Summary: Steve hits things with a bat or gets hit depending on who you ask. He definitely does not have anything to do with the psychic stuff. That is El’s domain. However, as Vecna is defeated, the rules change.

Pairing: steddie (Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson)

Other Relationships: Steve & Robin, Steve & Dustin, Eddie & Dustin

Rating: Teen

A/N: Multi-chapter story, updated regularly. Honestly not sure how many chapters it will have yet because it's still a bit hand wavy in the middle, but definitely more than 12. Thank you to my beta for find my mistakes and to all those who read/like/reblog.💖 Follow #st:beyond-the-battle for updates.

Also on AO3

Chapter 25.    Meetings

Will appeared in the doorway in front of them and immediately stopped. He gave them a small nod before turning away and walking back into the other room. Eddie gave Steve a long, vaguely terrified look, so he leaned in and pecked his boyfriend on the cheek, giving his hand a quick squeeze in support at the same time.

The way Eddie took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second was very familiar to Steve. He’d used the same technique himself more than a few times in his life.

“Okay,” Eddie said quietly and took a step towards the door.

Steve followed a little behind. He wanted to make sure Eddie felt supported, but he also didn’t want to intrude on Eddie’s moment.

Everyone was gathered in the middle of the living room when they stepped into view. Steve had never really interacted with Eddie’s friends, but he knew them by sight, and he had checked with Dustin to make sure he didn’t do something stupid like get any of their names wrong. Gareth and Jeff were talking to Dustin and Mike about something, so only Frank was looking in Eddie’s direction.

The way Frank’s eyes went big and round and the poor guy kind of flailed at Jeff to get his attention would have been funny under other circumstances. When Jeff turned and had an almost identical reaction, Steve held his breath. Only he didn’t need to, because a second later the tableau broke.

“Eddie,” Jeff said, face breaking out in a huge smile.

In moments, Eddie was swamped by Frank and Jeff, even though Jeff appeared to be limping.

“Hey guys,” Eddie said, apparently trying to get his arms around both his friends at the same time.

Steve couldn’t help noticing that Gareth hung back a little, even though he had followed the other two.

“I knew you were too stubborn to get yourself killed,” Frank said, all but squeezing the life out of Eddie.

“It was close,” Eddie replied.

“What happened?” Jeff asked, eyes clearly on the scar on Eddie’s face.

“Bad shit I am not allowed to talk about,” Eddie said, “sorry. What happened to you?”

“Oh, Mom’s mixer fell off the counter onto my foot during the quake,” Jeff said with a shrug. “I was dumb and tried to save it and missed.”

“You have a war wound from a stand mixer?” Eddie asked, a smile making his mouth twitch.

“My mom was impressed with my valour,” Jeff replied, and Steve could see why they were friends.

“A noble act of heroism indeed,” Eddie said with a laugh. “And Gar, what’s your story?”

Steve had also noticed the bandage on Gareth’s hand around two of his fingers. Both obvious injuries were making his instincts prickle. He’d seen people at the hospital when going to see Max who had been in need of help, but they hadn’t made him feel like this. Whether it was because he was more aware now, or he’d been focused only on Max, or if it was something to do with these being Eddie’s friends and hence now in his orbit to protect, he had no idea. All he knew was it was a little bit frustrating.

However, what pushed those thoughts into the background was the way Gareth reacted. The other boy shrugged and hung his head. If Steve didn’t know better, he would have read it as guilt. Frank leaned towards Eddie and whispered something that Steve couldn’t hear. The way Dustin was looking over told Steve the kid knew what was going on as well.

“It’s so good to see you guys,” Eddie said brightly, covering the awkwardness. “If you haven’t guessed, while Will the Wise would no doubt have done a great job, I am your DM for today. Thy battlefield awaits.”

He made a big gesture towards the dining room table, and everyone groaned as if this was the worst news in the world. Eddie looked gleeful rather than offended, so clearly that was the correct reaction.

“Gar, come help me grab the sodas our noble host, Sir Steven, hath stashed in the box of ice while our comrades fight for dominance,” Eddie went on.

Steve rolled his eyes at the dramatics because that was what he was supposed to do. The odd tension between Eddie and Gareth, who Steve knew was one of Eddie’s closest friends, had him worried, but he knew how to follow a lead.

“Do not drop anything in the cake,” he warned as Eddie all but bodily dragged Gareth towards the kitchen.

“Cake?” Dustin asked, eyes lighting up.

“Well, this is a celebration,” Steve said, “but don’t get any ideas Henderson, it’s for later.”

“Did you make it?” Dustin asked, looking hopeful.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but not this time,” he replied.

He’d picked it up on a whim when he had been grocery shopping.

“You bake?” Jeff said in such an incredulous tone, Steve found his hands on his hips in his default defensive pose.

“Why does everyone say that?” he complained.

“Steve, platonic love of my life,” Robin said with a laugh, “have you seen you? You do not look like the baking type.”

“His chocolate cake is to die for,” Erica said in a surprising show of solidarity. “He made it for my birthday.”

It was nice to know he rated above the Corroded Coffin guys.

“Steve, you baked for Erica but didn’t bake for Eddie?” Dustin said in a mock shocked tone.

“Do not think I am above throwing you in the pool, slime and all,” Steve threatened. “When was I supposed to get the good chocolate exactly?”

Dustin was grinning at his bitchy tone.

“Did you say slime?” that came from Frank.

“After the quake, something fell in the pool and became slime,” Steve replied. “Haven’t had time to get it properly cleaned yet. Don’t worry,” he added, looking at all the kids, “it will be ready by the time the weather is warm enough to use it.”

Dustin had already extracted that promise from him. He hadn’t had a pool party in a long time, but after all they had gone through as a full group this time, and with everything being over (hopefully) it seemed like something to look forward to.

Steve could see the way Jeff and Frank were swapping looks like they couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing. Not that he could blame them. It didn’t really match the image he had had in school.

“Come on,” Mike said, “let’s get set up.”

“Make yourselves at home,” Steve invited, and everyone headed towards the dining room table at the end of the large room. “If you could just keep the snacks out of the rugs, that would be great,” he added.

He’d loaded a side table with chips and candy that he hoped would satisfy all tastes. Frankly he might have gone a little over the top, but he had wanted everything to be perfect for Eddie’s comeback campaign. Eddie and the kids all deserved time to just have fun. He didn’t want them having to worry about anything.

Gareth and Eddie appeared a few minutes later, carrying many cans of soda, shoulders bumping together looking very much more relaxed. Steve exchanged a glance with Eddie, who gave him a nod and a small smile. Whatever had been bothering Gareth was clearly dealt with. Steve was dying of curiosity, but he could live with that if Eddie was happy. He’d just give his boyfriend the third degree later.

“Daring adventurers,” Eddie announced loudly as he reached the table, “art thou ready for thy dangerous quest?”

Everyone yelled a hearty response and Steve felt himself smiling, despite the chaos that was taking over his home.

~*~

Steve had just finished making sure everyone had snacks yet again while Eddie put them through hell in his campaign to end all campaigns when he heard a key in the door. Since Robin was chattering away to Wayne on the couch and everyone else who wasn’t already battling away around the table would have rung the doorbell, he was immediately on alert.

“Mom,” he said, shocked as he peered around the corner towards the front door.

Everything went ominously silent behind him from the end of the room.

“Steve,” his mom said, “thank heavens you’re safe. We’ve had terrible trouble trying to call you.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said, heading over to her. “The phones have been up and down. I left messages, didn’t you get them?”

“Yes, Darling,” his mom replied as she enveloped him in a hug, “but there are only so many, ‘everything’s fine, don’t worry’ messages a mother can get before she does start to worry. And your definition of fine is not always accurate.”

He heard Robin snort a laugh.

“I know we’re in the middle of a big merger,” his mom said, giving him a motherly once over, “but I’ve left your father to deal with it. Now, are you going to introduce me since we have guests?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, turning to find all eyes on him. “Mom, this is Robin.”

“Ah, the Robin I have heard so much about,” his mom said. “Nice to finally meet you, Robin.”

“And you Mrs Harrington,” Robin replied.

“And this is Wayne,” Steve went on, “and Eddie, Wayne is Eddie’s uncle. Um, I offered them a place to stay because their home was destroyed by the earthquake and it’s going to take a while to fix. Eddie’s a friend from school.” It wasn’t that much of a stretch. “Then there’s Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, Erica, Gareth, Jeff and Frank.”

“Very nice to meet everyone,” his mom said with her polite smile. “Some names are very familiar, it is lovely to finally have faces to go with them.”

Everyone chimed in with various greetings and Eddie surreptitiously climbed off the chair he had been crouching on while playing what Steve thought might have been a dragon, but he wasn’t sure.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt,” his mom said. “I’ll just go and freshen up.”

“Can I get you anything, Mom?” Steve asked, picking up his mother’s suitcase and taking it towards her and his father’s room.

“I have been dying for a coffee for the last hour,” his mom told him, “I am just about ready to kill for one.”

“You’re in luck,” he replied. “Wayne just made a fresh pot. I don’t know what he does to it, but he has a magic touch or something. Do you want it before or after you change?”

“I think I’ll have a quick shower first,” his mom replied.

Steve followed her just into her and his dad’s downstairs bedroom and popped down the case as his mom disappeared into the ensuite bathroom. When he came out again it was to find everyone staring at him.

“Are we really okay to carry on?” Eddie asked.

“What?” he replied. “Oh yeah, Mom’s cool.”

“Even with DnD?” Lucas asked, and he couldn’t really blame them, after all the town had just gone crazy about it.

“Yeah,” he assured them, “we’ve talked about it loads of times when we talked about Dustin.”

“You talk to your mom about me?” Dustin said, mouth open in shock.

“Um, yes,” he said, not really understanding the surprise. “Why?”

“Dude, you’ve mentioned your mom, like once ever,” Dustin said.

“Oh,” he said. He hadn’t really thought about it. “Well Mom and Dad have been away a lot the last couple of years because they’ve been working on a merger, their company is taking over another one. We talk on the phone all the time though.”

“Phone time is scared time,” Robin said in a very serious tone before breaking into a fit of giggles.

“Robin!” he scolded, but that just made her laugh more. “You are so losing best friend points for that.”

“Oh no, you wound me,” was all she replied.

“My whole world view is shifting,” Gareth said with mock wonder.

“Pool, slime,” Steve said glaring at the whole table. “Don’t think I won’t.”

That just got him a fond smile from Eddie and some scoffing. It seemed gone were the days when he could inspire terror with a glance.

~*~

“Steve,” his mom said as he poured her a cup of coffee, “Eddie’s not just a friend from school, is he? I have seen the news.”

He took a deep breath. He’d accompanied his mom into the kitchen a few minutes previously and he’d been waiting for something like that.

“No,” he replied, “honestly, we barely spoke in school, that was just the first thing that came into my head, sorry. We became friends after he was accused of murder because Dustin’s been friends with him since school started this year. He’s completely innocent and we knew that from the beginning. So, when he needed a place to stay, I offered him one of our spare rooms. Then the press began to hound Wayne where he was staying at the motel, so I invited him as well. I hope it’s okay.”

He finally looked up from where he was concentrating hard on the coffee pot when he felt his mother’s hand on his shoulder.

“Of course, it’s okay,” she told him with a soft smile. “I trust your judgment.”

“It was crazy, Mom,” he said. “The whole town tried to hunt Eddie down because he runs a Dungeons and Dragons club. They actually believed he killed Chrissy and Fred and Patrick in some ritual because he worships demons. It was like everyone lost their minds.”

“And then the earthquake happened like an act of God,” his mom commented. “I see you managed to do yourself some damage again.”

His hand went to his throat and the now silvery scar. The lie about being caught up in something during the quake jumped into his mind, but he just couldn’t say it.

“Things happened,” he said quietly, “things I’m not allowed to talk about yet. Did you see Chief Powell’s full press conference?”

His mom nodded.

“Then you know there’s information that isn’t public knowledge yet,” he said. “It’s part of that. I really am fine, though.”

“I noticed Eddie has a similar colour scar on his face,” his mom said. “It looks unusual. Did his come from the same source?”

Steve nodded.

“Oh, Steve, my sweet boy,” his mom went on, gently placing her fingers on the side of his neck, “how do you keep finding yourself in the middle of the bad things in this town? Actually, I can guess; you are far too brave and far too worried about everyone but yourself.”

She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead.

“I’m proud of you,” she said, “and I will drop the questions for now, but I will want an explanation in the end. Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed. He didn’t like lying to his mother, but once the cover story was finalised that was what he would do, so his parents never ended up in danger from the Upside Down. It was all supposed to be over, but he would believe it when he saw it. It had been supposed to be over so many times before too.

End of Chapter 25

Chapter 26

[bemylord]

↠ toji with a virgin s/o ↞

pairing: toji fushiguro x fem!reader.

warnings: nsfw, aged up, size kink [?], oral [fem!receiving], virgin reader, first time, lost of virginity, praising, toji calls himself daddy, grammar errors.

word counter: 3.2k

rq: I would like to request a oneshot? a hc would be appreciated too though. Toji with a virgin gf who can’t even make herself cum? Just how he would like to destroy her :)

butler's remark: (◕‿◕) hello lord, i'm back with an oneshot with toji being tremendously tender with his lover for the first time. in addition, reader is a citizen. sorry, i did it soft, bc i think toji will super-extra-super soft for the first time with his s/o, only for the first. i hope you'll like that, thanks for the request ;)

disclaimer: everything you read is purely my opinion - any detail, sketch, or event is a figment of my imagination.

you've been an ordinary citizen and had never planned to date a sorcerer or someone close to this specialty. you ain't cowardly, merely as you were thinking you'll marry a simple man and will have kids with him, and die in one day like lovebirds.

you had never considered yourself being stuck in a relationship with a sorcerer killer.

you were overworked, virtually sleeping as were walking in the empty street, dreaming to get home as soon as possible, to feel the silk sheets against your back. the area where your office was located had little street lighting, although, you hadn't felt the anxiety of being robbed or something worse. the day went lingeringly and horrible due to the boss who declared you as a temporary deputy, piled you up with a stack of papers.

but, this is life, anything might happen. all of a sudden, you overheard something behind you but as you looked back - there was nobody, as soon as you turn your head to the starting position, you saw a young, skinny man who is holding a knife in his hand.

'hmm~ look who's here, a young, gorgeous lady..' he said with his disgusting, lewd voice, coming closer to you. 'would you mind playing with me? don't be shy or els-'

you have a perky personality, no doubt, but because of how hard the day was, you had one option - run for the hills. before you could do any movements as if hit the man or run away, something prompt hit him, like a swift meteorite that you couldn't see. a cloud of dust grew around you and the man, so you hide your face in the elbow curve, covering your mouth with another hand.

as soon as the dust had settled, in front of you opened up on the view of an adult man. he was high, had an athletic, broad-shouldered, pretty impressive figure. your savior held the blade in one hand, flopped on his back.

'he ran away like a coward. don't worry, girl, you saved, thanks to me' he laughed, he stroked himself on the shoulder, as were about to leave the dead body.

'no i'm not! i'd have protected myself on my own'

you refuted his smugness, watching as he slowly moves his torso in your way, flaunting his outlining muscles through the fabric of the black t-shirt. his complacent eyes and the sharp scar over the right side of the mouth on the edge of his lips. you took a deep breath, continuing on your path as he isn't standing there, not hadn't protected you.

'you're too weak to beat even him, if not me, you'd be-'

'i am stronger as i may look'

he giggled, in a flash stood in front of you, bending over to your face, by finger tugs your face up to look at him directly in eyes, smirked.

'are you sure, girl?'

those green, almost emerald, but cold eyes looked directly into yours as two faces were as closed as you could kiss his lips.

'i'll walk you home'

'i don't want to, and anyway, maybe you're his partner in crime, leave me alon-'

previous to you had finished your phrase, he threw your tiny body on his shoulder, leisurely walking, better say, carrying you home. you beat his back, softly reminiscent of a parody of the word 'let me go, moron, i can walk by myself'

'tch, fine, idiot,' he deliberately shrugged his shoulder to close your mouth as heard the name you had given him. 'by the way, what's your name or you prefer the name idiot?' you said sarcastically.

'for you it's toji'

well.

as a result of your crawl and also being talkative when clearly you shouldn't be, you ended up being in a relationship with a man, who'd obviously fuck you on the first date, as it may count as a 'date', anywhere-anytime, by the way.

although you wouldn't ever say he isn't hot or sexy, conversely, you willingly allow him to breed, precisely you'd beg toji to breed you on the straightaway on the cervix, but for one thing.

you're a virgin.

hilariously - it's true. nothing bad to be in your age a virgin, but if you weren't dating toji it'd fine: his dirty jokes and lustful eyes which are maddening you insane, also his fucking athletic body which is outlining through the t-shirt or white cotton shirt [he wear it once] you thought he did it purposely: he knew your secret, undoubtedly could sniff your chaste nature as if you can emit fragrance.

on the second date, it had been nine days since you got acquainted with him, as you moved in with him. toji was exceedingly obsessed with every step of yours - he followed you from the work, in the mall or market, for your security and control every guy who'd be close to you.

although, you couldn't hide your addiction - he's a drug you should be careful with or you might be addicted as if you ain't. he isn't wearing pants in home, walking in front of you solely in underwear. he could walk from the shower in a terry towel wrapped around his torso as he buries his hands in his dark hair mess it up.

'what are you looking at, girl?'

you couldn't take your eyes off his bulging..

'you. just you. i'm gonna cook dinner, something.. special?'

'eggs, baby'

fushiguro put hands above the door frame, exhale and tensed every muscle, narrowing predatory eyes as you were the extraction he was target for. you're laying on his king size bed [lol i'm sorry i'm out], wondering is everything he has gotten measured in king size as he interupted your reflection by putting the knee on the edge of the bed.

'mine. in your pussy'

as if you're bewitched - you couldn't talk, just contemplate as he leisurely moves towards you. you couldn't contravene as he tugs your face to ogle in your absentminded eyes as you're avoiding his gaze, looking at the ceiling or door or even window. not. at. his. bulge.

your heart had stuck in your throat when toji ran his hand under his shirt, certainly, he has a kink of dominion, when he suddenly stopped. despite of your uncertainty and timid of subsequent play, you looked at his emerald eyes as he licks his lips with a tongue.

'are you sure, baby girl? i mean, it's your first time after all'

you quell your forthcoming question staring deeply into lascivious eyes, put hands on his massive shoulders. as you anticipated, his cock twitched as toji letting out a low groan in your ear, kissing your temple. you're absentmindedly running finger pads on his back, not knowing the proximity of bodies that are readiness wanted to intertwine together. not knowing how much it turns him on.

'stop me if i go crazy over your body, okay?'

as if. as if you dare would rip out his tongue off your crotch as he makes you his woman. toji left on your red cheeks quick kisses, took off the towel. you shut your eyes tight, still holding his shoulders barely squeeze them, letting out a hushed moan.

after you quelled your moan, toji touched your lips against his one, running fingers on your lower stomach to the cup of the breast without touching the hard nipple. light movements mixed with his muted groans. his pads deftly touched one areola as you emitted a sharp purr, arching your back a little as a dulcet sign for toji.

you dug your fingers into toji's back, as he put a finger on your hard nipple, holding himself as to grab your tits and clench it in his large hand.

you gasp for the air as if there was a catastrophic shortage of it due to the pressed body of toji. you responded at his deep kiss, wrapping hands around his neck, apparently begging for something more.

he pulled away from the kiss just to take off the shirt he has given you, baring your untouched by no one but him tits, leading palms onto breasts, skipping nipples between the gaps through fingers. he reached down to your lips to give a bit of warning kiss as he slightly bit your lip, kissing all the way down to your collarbone, finally leaving there manifestations of hickeys.

for how long toji has been stopped from leaving on your stunning skin his marks? it seems it has been absolutely not many days but toji, as you may see, clearly has to leave labels on your neck.

he dug his teeth into your neck, frantically wants your area to be dotted by him as a token for everyone meaning: she's taken, dude, don't mess up with her.

for how long toji has been stopped from touching your sensitive area as having been feel warmth and tenderness is emitted from your body?

toji squeezes your nipple imponderable, to make you feel some kind of power over you becoming submitted by toji fushiguro, a sorcerer killer, a man who owned you, spinning the pea between pads, making you let out whimpers.

'you drive me insane, little one,' he approached his face close to the breasts, touched your pea with his tongue cautiously, as not to frighten you away. 'i'm gonna make your pussy drool beneath me, completely own you as my little girl'

you feel yourself gush beneath him, burying hands in his messy hair as your breath has stuck in the throat as toji snuggles his lips on your tits, sucking your hard and probably swollen from teasing. fushiguro has made you became wet in your panties as he's moistening your breast, hearing your precipitous whimpers.

'toj-toji, i don't know-'

'tch, little girl, relax your body and let daddy do the rest'

as he pronounced, he moves down, leaving the trace of wet kisses on your stomach, massaging your hips, stopping his action to look at your red face. your chest heaves heavily every time you feel toji's silky lips on your belly as his finger pads caressing your thighs. as if something weighty is resting on your chest you take deep breathes, breathlessly exhaling.

'spread your legs'

you obediently did what he said, hesitating a bit as the only fabric holding him back to bury his mouth against your pussy, assembling all juices, tasting your cum as if it's his meal. he rested kisses on the fabric of panties, couldn't sate with tender kisses he spreads on your body.

deliberately run tongue on your labia through the thin fabric as you were about to push his hand from your crotch as toji grab you by the hips, pulling you closer. he slackens his teasing actions by kissing your inner thighs. as your cunt was lack of attention from toji, you let out a pliant whimper, approximately woefully have purred.

toji's self-restraint thinning as you're silently begging with your eyes and your hands immeasurably are burying in his dark hair. the tip of his tongue deftly sideline panties, flicked it, as he discovered a divine view on your drooling hole.

'stop me now, because i won't be able to hold back later'

teasufully kissing your labia and area around the place he should be playing with as anticipating for some pliant whimpers of you, deliberately showing you he'll lick that swollen clit, pressing a soft kiss on the skin instead. fushi's shattering your hopes of being eating every time he kissed literally everything and lick everywhere besides your hole and clit. he acts like an inexperienced teenager, notwithstanding, you know that toji'd ruin or demolish your holes like a monster.

't-toji..'

'yes, my little girl' he pressed the tip of his tongue on your clit, hearing those moans he's willing to listen for the rest of his life, then take away as you were about to press his mouth back again, digging his tongue deep inside you, although he obviously couldn't reach to your cervix, barely permeate in your hole.

'you want me to eat your little pussy?'

as if you can't talk, you nodded. scarcely reached up to take off the last thing, leisurely pulling down the panties, staring at you as a predator. toji is standing on his knee on the bed, threw your ankles on his shoulders, smooching ankles watching as to how your cheeks are becoming pinky, as you try not to look at his dick. still, you're a timid one, despite your words.

he reached to your face to give you a voluptuous kiss, returning to the starting position.

'look at your pretty pussy'

he kissed your clit in a flash replace into the tongue, making a circles on swollen and needy spot, decisively giving you what've been begging for. running the tip of the tongue on your virgin hole, leaving it for the dessert, returning to your clit.

you'd swear to god you can see stars in the ceiling as toji squeezing your nipples while moistening you. the proximity of his face in your pussy is driving you insane, for the days of cohabitation you understood he isn't a tender one, vice versa, he'd fuck you whenever his dick gets erect. maybe it's a rush of tenderness, maybe it's the fear of hurting his girl. nevertheless, you not scared to give toji full control of your body and bring you to your first orgasm by ripping the hymen. if that's i may call the way he's licking you, it'd be make-out with your pussy, due to his relentless movements by flicking his tongue on the clit.

'baby,' he pulled away from it, as you squeeze a sheet, making your knuckles become whiten as you spread legs wider, watching his mocking grin appeared on the face. 'i'll be gentle' he pressed his lips on your forehead, taking from the bedside table lubrication to low the friction. although, the thought of his dick ripped the hymen, putting all his tenderness in your first time, make your knees get shaken.

he put a soft kiss on your lips, smearing lubrication on his dick, substitute cock on the entrance. abrupt and penetrating pain wavily covered your body as you feel soft lips covered your mouth, blunting the pain with one hand being dug in your hip, painting illegible traces. another hand he put on your cheek, drawing circles with his thumb, waiting till getting used to the pain.

toji will find lots of red stripes from your nails on his back, smirked, as reminiscing about that special night when he made you his woman. his broad back was made merely for you to leave thousand and thousand fingernail impressions every night. toji had let a low groan as he feels as you move fingertips to the neck, exhaling in his chest.

he entered all his dick inside you feeling as your walls compressing the base, getting used to being full with his thick cock. you're indulging at the new, mind-blowing feeling, give him sheepish kisses as you're scared to be rejected. he moves his palm from the cheek to the ear, running fingers through your tangled but soft to the touch. you nudged your hips up, intermittently letting your breath out.

'tch, if you're not feeling well, i can come-'

'more, toji, more'

without breaking up kiss, he pulled out cock to the tip as pulling it again slowly, stretching your walls, touching with the tip your cervix as his balls touching your ass, groaning in the kiss, softly caress your thigh. you moved your palms to the shoulder, touching the musculature, going down to the biceps wrapping his arm as another hand attempting to draw patterns on the back as if it a canvas for you.

you can feel every vein, curve, and the way his tip is expanding gummy walls, as toji diligently coming in, adjusting inside you then pulling out. you're focusing on how full you're with his cock inside, your clarity gradually getting mushed as the sharp pain turning into a pleasurable and delightful feeling. sating to the new feeling might get addiction, but you're far beyond to accept that, surrendering to your lover as he gets addicted to it. you grasp for his shoulders, as he nudged in you, leaving whimpers from your mouth.

'like that, huh?' he pulled his cock out to contemplate as your facial expression have changed: you furrowed eyebrows as felt your hole being empty without thick toji's cock, practically purring like a march cat. 'beg me for it, baby'

what an insatiable man you've got. he licked his lips, looking down on it. your hymen has left blood, as he glanced at you to see his future wife your reaction.

'i-i toji, it's..'

he hummed, returning to your lips, slowly giving back the missing part.

'you okay?' you nodded as a response; he's perceiving fullness as wants to fill you up, but desperately be tempered himself, blaming he didn't wear a condom to do it. a dozen of half-moons will be littering your hips as toji's digging nails, scrambled your mind with squelches pushes in your hole. 'relax, baby girl, i'm here' he thrusts inside the spongy spot, ripping another moan out of you, voluptuous to his ears. 'baby~ you tease me with those moans of yours'

his cock was aimed at a place inside your vagina, with a slow but deep thrust skillfully reaching your cervix, massaging with the tip of his cock that spot. toji's staring at your pleased, satisfied face as he found that needy place of yours.

holding on to the headboard in the bed as support, clutching the sheet with his other hand like the composure he was rapidly losing with each thrust into your hole, formerly virgin cunt, letting out a heavy sigh, tilting his head back.

wiggling the pelvis backward and forwards as heard beneath his body your whimpers, feeling replenishment on his skin to his previous strips, losing remains self-control as your walls have been clenching his cock, as your body gets shaking as his, preparing the body for the coming ecstasy.

'toji, mh~' you tilted the head back on the pillow, wrapping legs around his pelvis, quelling moans while arching back against his chest. you're milked [? correct if i'm wrong] his cock, shuddering. you felt his lips on your cheeks, as he's covering your wet face in kisses, pulling cock out.

'damn, baby, probably-' he stroke his hard cock a couple of times before releasing his cum onto your belly. fushiguro ran fingers from the hairline, wiping beads of sweat from the hairline through hair. 'are you good?'

as you're still catching your breath you rested on your face a slight smile, closing eyes. he giggled, getting out of bed.

'almost made a baby' it took him a second or two, to lift you up in my arms, leading into the bathroom. 'i'm gonna clean you up, my baby. but you could fall asleep in my arms, you did such a good job by taking my cock' he kissed your forehead, wiping your drops of sweat.

'i love you, toji'

he put you on the washing machine, turning away from you to fill the tub. what went unnoticed was his relaxed smile after your phrase.

'i love you more, little one'

(◕‿◕)

↳ back to the main master list.

i feel i made lots of mistakes, like, idk. correct me if smth i did wrong.

i remember my promise to do one more work with toji, so lately i'll write hdc + drabble with him.

[tirednerd2012]

Emotional influence anon again. Thanks for writing about my ideas and sorry if I’m bothering you with these! But what if instead of Jonathan taking one emotion and replacing it with another his power was more like taking the emotion and keeping it within himself? Of course everyone he uses his power on would think he’s just changing their emotions, because he doesn’t want to burden anyone with the side effects. He’s learned to take those negative emotions and pack them away until he can process them alone. And he’s just kind of used to that at this point. He can even keep a few days worth of emotions locked away if he can’t be alone for a bit. Until he overestimated his limits, the emotions he kept locked away escaping before he can take refuge in his room. Just him cycling through all the emotions he took this week. Joyce’s pain, Will’s anxiety, El’s sadness, Hopper’s anger, just all spitting out rapid fire. It makes him dizzy how fast his emotions are changing. It doesn’t settle down until he’s experienced every emotion he took. I imagine for the rest of the day he wouldn’t feel anything. He’d just be in some weird zombie like trance until his brain kind of reboots itself. I wonder how everyone would react if they figured out the truth?

Like I said before, you're not bothering me with these and I genuinely love receiving them!

But I love this idea. I feel like not even the twins would know because he's only ever used that part of his abilities to take away their fear/pain while they were in the lab. He never wanted to tell them he took it on for them, and he never let Brenner know about them. There was no way to track it because he only did it when necessary. So when they escape and they have a home life, the twins are under the impression he just replaces the emotions without any harm to him. If they found out he took it on, if anyone did, they would worry about him and Jonathan didn't want that. But he doesn't know how to regulate it. He takes the emotions and then goes to do his own thing, allowing himself to feel them for his loved one and get through it. Due to the trauma the twins have, he's able to practice with taking a lot at once so he's able to take a few days worth if he's not able to be alone. It is hard for him to find alone time often, because the twins want to be around him a lot and no matter what, he could never just turn them away. And he and Will shared a room and after everything with the Upside Down and Will's disappearance, he sleeps with Jonathan a lot and Jonathan decides to take more of Will's negative emotions (his anxiety and panic) so he can sleep instead of giving himself time to heal.

Over a few days, he takes Hopper's anger when he thinks about what happened to the kids. Then Joyce's anxiety as she watches the effects of the Upside Down eat away at the twins and Jonathan, who tries his best to hide it, but with all the emotions he's taking in, it's hard. He walks into El's room and finds her crying, having a depressive episode and he walks over to her and pulls her into him, taking the emotions from her and holding her while she cried in his arms. The final straw was Will's full-blown, horrible panic attack. Jonathan wakes up to Will jumping up in the bed beside him, barely able to breathe and he doesn't remember where it is. Jonathan has to physically restrain him because Will is on the verge of hurting himself and Jonathan takes it. It sends his mind racing and it physically burns and aches his body, but he doens't stop. He holds Will tightly, feeling his own emotions while taking his baby brother's and holds Will until he cries himself back to sleep. He takes it all.

But it sends Jonathan into a spiral. He doesn't sleep and the next day, he can't comprehend anything. No one seems to notice right away, mistaking it for him being tired, but as the day progresses, Jonathan finds himself in the woods by the house, sitting down under a tree. Joyce panics at first because she doesn't know where he is, but Hopper is the one that sees him and they all decide to make sure.

And Joyce is trying to get his attention but he's just staring blankly at the wall, too wrapped up in his own mind. He goes from anxious, to angry, depressed, panicked, over and over again. He feels sick to his stomach but he can't grasp anything else. Will calls out for him, but he doesn't hear it. El tries, but nothing. Hopper grabs Jonathan's shoulders and calls his name again, and Jonathan just starts crying at the touch. He tells them he needs to be alone for awhile until it passes and Will has the realization of what it means. Everyone else is confused while Will walks over to his brother and crawls in his arms, holding Jonathan the same way his older brother did at night. And he tells him they're not going anywhere. "Jonathan... what happens to the emotions you take from us?"

Jonathan can't answer, his head hurts too much and he doesn't feel like getting into it so he just shakes his head. El realizes what Will means and gets beside him, hugging Jonathan, too. Hopper and Joyce sit on either side of him, Joyce wrapping her arms around the kids and then Hopper around all of them. They stay there for a few minutes, all of them telling Jonathan he's okay. He's safe. He doesn't need to be alone, let it go. Hopper offers to take the emotions, too, but Jonathan says it doesn't work like that, so they stay there.

After awhile, it starts to get colder and Hopper lifts Jonathan up in his arms and gets him back in the house. He gets Jonathan in his bed and then Joyce wraps a cover around her son. Jonathan doesn't talk much, still feeling everything with tears silently pouring down his face, but he cries himself to sleep. When he wakes up, the emotions have passed and he's surprised to find his family stayed the night with him. Will is curled up on his chest, El right beside him, and Joyce and Hopper squeezing in on either side, holding him.

Once they wake up, Jonathan explains he's always been able to take the emotions, but they still need to be felt, so he feels them instead. He only did it for El and Will back in the lab, taking away their pain and panic when necessary, and he would be able to hold it in until he was alone and he allowed himself to feel it. He knew the twins would hate it, so he never confessed to them what was going on. And the lie just kept going, but he hated seeing his family hurt so he kept doing it. Joyce and Hopper sit him down and tell him he's not responsible for "fixing" them and no one in this family deals with their burdens alone like that. They all agree to feel their own pain, but that doesn't mean they feel it alone.

Jonathan will still do it from time to time with the twins, but when no one is looking or suspects it. Hopper is too hyperaware of what's going on to do it to him, and he only does it to Joyce when he's worried she'll shut down otherwise.

[catxsnow]

DAMIAN WAYNE FLUFF ALPHABET

A/N: It was pointed out that this got deleted so here it is again! Damian is 18+

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

Damian doesn't focus on the physical attributes of you, so he finds your personality the most attractive. If you can keep up with his wit then he knows that you're a keeper. However, he does find himself getting lost in your eyes quite often so he would have to say that he loves those the most.  B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

I'm gonna have to say no. Damian loves you and he doesn't believe that he needs kids to keep loving you. Maybe when the two of you are way older, but he doesn't see having kids for a very long time. He would be open to adoption when you guys are too old for having your own kids. C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Damian hated cuddling with you at first. He ran warm enough as it was and to have another body under the blankets? He was sweating. Once he got used to it, Damian liked when you laid on his chest and he could wrap his arms around you.  D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Either ridiculously mundane or over the top extravagant there is no in between.

One time Damian took you across the world just to go hike and buy local delicacy. Another time he considered the grilled cheese sandwich Alfred made for you both a date. It really depends on what kind of occasion it is.  E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world...))

Damian says 'habibi, ya nour el ein' which means 'you're the light of my eye' in Arabic. F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

It took Damian a long time to realize that he was in love. It's not easy for him to love someone after the way he was raised to opening up to you was a side that he didn't know he had.

He realized it one night when you were tending to his wounds as being Robin. You worked silently as you always did. Damian realized that if there was anyone he wished to stitch him up day in day out it was you. He broke that silence with an 'I love you' and you had nearly fucked up his wound even more with shock. G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

Damian is gentle but he gets violent when he had nightmares. He never means to hurt you and you know that, but he always feels terrible when he sees that he left you with a bruise because of his rash actions while in his sleep. You never blame him for his nightmares, he's gone through so much as it is. H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

Damian doesn't like to hold hands, especially in public. The only time that he will willing grab onto you hand is if he can tell that you're nervous about something. Otherwise, just standing next to you is enough. I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

He didn't like you. Then again, he never liked anyone at first. J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Damian gets jealous for reason you never expect. He gets jealous of his brothers and when you spend time with any of them. He gets when Alfred the cat sits on you rather than him. He only got jealous at another man once and it didn't end well at all. He was all over the papers and Bruce nearly had a fit when he tried to fix what happened. K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

You did. He was being an asshole and wouldn't shut up about something so you decided to make him quit talking in a different kind of way. Damian didn't complain about it though. L = Love (Who says 'I love you' first?)

He did. You felt it first, but you never said anything until he felt comfortable enough to realize that he loved you too. M = Memory (What's their favourite memory together?)

His favorite memory was when he was trying to teach you to draw. Damian held the utmost patience for you and he genuinely enjoyed spending that time with you. You spent the whole day practicing and looking for his approval. He loved everything you drew simply because it came from you. He still has your drawings hanging up. N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

Yes. Without question he'll buy you everything that you could ever dream of. Being the heir to the throne of the League of Assassins and son of Bruce Wayne he got a lot of items that he didn't even need. He loves to spoil you with things. O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

Red. As calm and as patient as you were, you had a fiery side when it came to Damian being a brat. When he saw anything red, he always thought about the times that you called him out. P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Beloved (as every Damian fanfic has ever had) Habibti/Habibi (my love), Ameli (my hope) Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?)

Damian is surrounded by tech all day. So when he takes to the time to read a good book, he's in his happy place. He's read all the great historic literature and has tried more modern books but didn't like them as much. R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

Damian likes to draw on rainy days. He's got a great talent for it and doesn't get enough time to practice it. You'll be laying on his bed while he draws and the rain patters against the window. When you get lonely, you'll stare until he notices and then pout until he joins you in his bed. The half a drawing left no longer matter, he just wishes to hold you. S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

Damian cheers himself up by training. He'll spend hours working out and training like he did back in the League. When he's finally wore himself out, he'll find you and pass out in your arms. That's all he needs.

When it comes to cheering you up, Damian became a great listener. He refrains from making snooty comments about the people that you are ranting about and tried to give a level headed solution to your problem. However, he's always ready to go petrify anyone that has made you upset. T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

Damian's got a well-rounded knowledge about everything. He could talk to you about every war that's ever happened or how the earth works. When he's in a talkative mood, he loves to spill facts about everything that he knows. It's not a way of him being cocky, he's just genuinely excited to tell you things. U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

Damian doesn't relax. But when he does, its when he's injured or forced to stay home. You'll baby him for the night and even though he seems mad about it, he enjoys it (only when it's from you, not anyone else). He'll get Alfred to bake you guys cookies and settle in for a movie of his picking. V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

Damian's proud of everything he does. He's a show off particularly with his athleticism. He doesn't have one specific thing that he likes to show off, except maybe his art. W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

Damian doesn't. X = Xylophone (What's their song?)

Bloodflood by alt-j Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

Nope. Damian doesn't see the need for you two to get married. He doesn't want some fancy wedding just to show off your love. As long as you know how much he loves you, then that's all that he cares about. If he were to get married, it would be something extremely lowkey. Your immediate family and his, that's its. No supers, no teams, nothing. Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

Damian was ready to adopt a whole herd of cows do you really think that he's going to settle on just one more pet? No, he's gonna get every single helpless animal that he can.

[candlewaxandp0lar0ids]

if I can never give you peace — one || Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x reader // Word count (chapter): 6k // Genre: Mafia AU, Hybrid AU, enemies to lovers // Ao3

↳ It starts like quite a few stories do, in your world. Girl meets boy, who happens to be a hybrid, girl buys him at an auction where hybrids are sold, boy falls in love with her, girl gets bored of him. Then it’s not so typical anymore, when the boy ends up forced into illegal fighting rings, until he makes a wrong move and the girl’s father decides he needs to be killed.

Where does that leave you? Well, you’re the one who handled Jungkook’s fight and generally organized his life, and, when the girl’s father, your boss and mafia leader, tells you he wants him ‘put down’, you’re the one who has to get it done. Except, instead, you let him escape, and everything turns out fine.

Until he comes back.

Warnings and tags (chapter): Descriptions of violence, Minor Character Death, Guns, kind of dark in general

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The first gunshot takes everyone by surprise. Unsure glances are exchanged all around, “did you guys hear that”, and disbelief is clear as day on people’s faces. There’s no way this would happen here, right? People are mostly aware of the fact that they’re technically working for a mafia leader, but this is the legal side of the business, and this building is in the middle of the town’s business centre. This cannot be happening.

You stay perfectly still, immobile where you were standing. Out of all the people here, you’re the one who is the most involved in the questionable parts of the family’s activities. In fact, you were just about to go up to Mr. X’s floor to discuss said questionable things — in this case, the smuggling of a large cargo of weapons.

The gunshot is still ringing in your ears when it is followed by another one, and then possibly more, but you can’t hear them because chaos erupts all around you.

People get up, start running around, some towards the elevators, some towards the stairs. Your brain tells you those choices are probably bad. If those gunshots are for the Family — and who are you kidding, they are — then whoever is firing them is coming up.

“Don’t use the stairs,” you order, and some people stop to look at you, unsure of what to do. They trust your decisions, to a degree, but you doubt it’s enough in this situation. “They’re probably coming,” you explain, even if three of the employees have already slipped through the door and left, “and I don’t think you should be in front of the elevator when the door opens.”

Blood drains from people’s faces. Downstairs, there are more shots fired. A woman starts to cry. Your brain is going in overdrive, processing everything, trying to come up with the best decision, and yet it doesn’t feel like anything is actually registering.

“You should barricade yourself in a room,” you say. Your voice is eerily calm, even to your ears, and it feels strange to hear it. It’s like a curtain has fallen between you and the world around you. You understand that this situation is terrifying, that you should have a reaction that is not apathy. You just don’t. “I don’t think you’re the main targets here. I’ll be going up to see Mr. X.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” a man shouts. “You just want to leave us here to be canon fodder! You—”

He’s shut up by your bodyguard pulling out a gun of his own.

“I suggest you do what she’s saying,” he orders, voice deep and gravelly.

On top of being armed, Hector is a bear hybrid you hired about a year ago. He’s tall and large, very impressive physically, which is generally enough to discourage any kind of altercation. He’s also a calm and gentle person most of the time. This is the first time you’ve ever seen him hold the gun he carries.

“You should stay here with them,” you tell him. He send you a disconcerted look.

“Are you sure? Even if they’re not the target, you might be.”

The statement shouldn’t take you by surprise. It’s something you should have considered immediately, and it takes you a second to figure out why you haven’t. If you are a target, that means the attacker knows about the workings of the organization. That would mean that they’ve been planning this for a while, and that they’ve simply gone completely under your radar all this time. Which is a lot more worrying to you than anything else.

“Stay,” you insist. When this is over, it will be better if people here think you had their best interest at heart.

If you make it out, that is.

Hector ushers people inside a conference room, and you walk towards the stairs. From there, you hear gunshots better than you did earlier, and you wince at the sound. You’re not used to it. It’s strange, since you’ve been working for the Family for years now, but you’ve very rarely heard people firing guns. You’ve never even had a gun pulled on you. You’d like to think it’s because you’re too careful, or too smart to find yourself in those situations, but the truth is you’ve just never been in situations where that sort of things would happen.

Sure, someone could send a killer for you — they have, actually — and then the carefully crafted net of precautions you’ve woven around yourself would — did — stop them, but you don’t participate in drug deals and you’re rarely out in the street, and that’s where those things happen most of the time.

You glance down. You’re on the fifteenth floor, so you doubt the employees who ignored your warning have made it out yet. You doubt they will, to be honest.

Glancing up, you wonder if you’ll make it to the twentieth before someone catches up with you and, since it’s a useless thing to think about, you begin your ascension. You’re not the most in shape, most of your daily exercise consisting in walking from places to places. That is a lot of walking, and you can do it without getting breathless, but you never take the stairs. Soon, you’re panting, and you’re about to take a break after three floors when you hear new gunshots that make you freeze.

These were in the stairwell. They echo deafeningly, and, for the first time since this all started, fear actually grips you. You swallow, heart beating loudly, and you keep going. You hear some screams, down there, and the horrible sound of flesh — bodies — hitting the floor, and then nothing. You’re sure someone must be climbing up those stairs, but you can’t hear them at all, and that terrifies you. You have no idea how fast they are, how soon they’ll catch up with you, how—

You slam open the door to the last floor. The time is not to discretion, and anyway, whoever is down there is probably coming for the twentieth floor.

The second you walk out, three guns are pointed towards you, and someone is screaming at you to stay where you are. You obey, until Mr. X’s bodyguards identify you. You had told him that hiring hybrids would be a good idea, since they rely more on their heightened senses and tend to have better reflexes, but you’d been ignored, so you had just shrugged it off and followed your own advice.

“Mr. X is inside,” one of the men tells you, pointing at the door, but not moving to take you there. You walk by him, and they all keep their eyes firmly on the stairwell’s door. That makes you assume the elevators don’t work, otherwise they’d have part of their focus on there.

“Mr. X, do we have any idea what— Miss Xanders, I apologize, I hadn’t seen you there.”

“It’s fine, (Y/N),” Anna says. “We really have more important things to concern ourselves with.”

“Do we know who’s attacking us?” you ask, giving your attention back to Mr. Xanders.

Mr. Xanders is an old man, you feel that he was already an old man when you’d joined. He had Anna quite late, when he was nearing his fifties, and he recently celebrated his seventieth birthday. You would know, you organized the party.

He’s looked old for as long as you’ve worked for him, using a walking stick, small eyes hidden behind large glasses, skin marked with wrinkles. But there was always something sharp and smart, cunning, in his eyes. Despite everything, he felt dangerous, and you had never doubted that he was not a man to underestimate.

Right now, though, he looks tired. Exhausted. He’s staring at his laptop screen and shaking his head, utterly confused.

“I can’t recognize anyone,” he says, and your heart misses a beat. Not good, that’s not good at all. “Can you?”

You walk around the desk quickly, examining the view you get from various cameras placed all around the building, and your hands involuntarily clench into fists as you see how dire everything is. On several different floors, men with machine guns are walking around, and you know for a fact they’re not working for you. You can’t see what’s happened to your people in the low-resolution, but you can guess, and your stomach tightens at the thought.

“How is that possible?” you whisper. “How has no one intervened yet?”

You know the police isn’t too keen on coming here, but this is genuinely insane. The only explanation you can think of is that they’ve been paid-off, and again, you don’t know how you wouldn’t have heard about that.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Mr. X says harshly, and you wince, focusing again on the men on the screen. You scan the men again, quickly. Some are wearing masks, but a lot of them are brazenly showing their faces, and that is one more thing that is not good. They should want to make sure no one would recognize them. If they’re confident enough to do that…

“I don’t know them,” you whisper. Some look vaguely familiar, but you just can’t place it, so you’re sure they aren’t big names. You have definitely not been on the look-out for them.

“Dad, we should really go up to the helicopter,” Anna says urgently.

Mr. Xanders hesitates, then nods, getting up in a movement that is slow and clearly painful. You help him out without thinking much about it, holding his arm and giving him his walking stick.

“How will you do that? The elevators aren’t working and the stairs don’t go to the roof.”

“We’ll reactivate the elevators,” Anna explains with a shrug, and you stare at her in disbelief.

“That will mean those people will be able to move freely in the building. I don’t think—”

“They are already moving freely,” Mr. Xanders barks.

“Still—”

Then, a lot of things happen at the same time. You were standing in front of the elevator, Anna calling it with a special key, the bodyguards surrounding you, eyes and weapons still directed at the stairwell door.

The elevator opens with a ding. And the door slams open.

There are gunshots everywhere. You dive to the ground, or maybe you’re pushed down, you’re not too sure. You look up to see two men falling down around you, the third guard ushering Anna and her father in. You try to push yourself to your feet, but the door is already closing. You call out, you can’t hear your own voice, ears ringing from all the noise.

You meet Anna’s eyes, filled with indifference and a complete lack of remorse, and then the door is closed, and you know they’re gone.

And someone, someone who wanted them dead and just killed two men, is in this room with you.

Slowly, oh so slowly, you turn around. As you do, you feel your lower lip starting to tremble, and you sink your teeth into the flesh to stop it. You push yourself on your elbows, and your eyes fall on a man with bleached blonde hair pushed back with a bandana, a round face that makes him look younger than you suspect he is, and a mocking smirk. Once more, you’re struck by the fact that you don’t know him. He’s alone and he took out two trained guards, not to mention the people he must have killed to get there, and you have no clue who he is.

His eyes confuse you, at first, and then you realize it’s their color that is throwing you off, an unnatural yellow, and the slit of his pupils. He’s a hybrid, you understand, and you curse yourself for how slow your brain is at the moment. You don’t have time to wonder if he’s part cat or part snake before he takes a step towards you. Fear grips you, and you consider crawling back, but you force yourself to stay unmoving. You don’t let emotions control you. That’s not who you are.

Instead, you stare at him straight in the eyes, even as you feel tears well up in yours. You’ve never been afraid of death, and yet it seems that you can’t stop your body’s reaction as you understand that this is it. This is how you die, where you die, this is who kills you.

The man crouches down in front of you, and lifts his gun to press the barrel against your forehead. He looks at you like an animal playing with its food. The situation seems to be amusing to him, and you think he is waiting for you to beg. You have no intention of doing that.

“Just make it quick,” you say.

You don’t recognize your own voice. The man’s smile widens, revealing pearly white teeth and a set of fangs. Tears start to roll down your cheeks, and you’re completely unable to stop them. You don’t feel sad or afraid, you just feel empty, but the tears keep falling. Still, you hold the man’s gaze. You won’t beg for your life.

“What if I let you go?” he drawls, and you can’t help the way your eyes widen at the possibility. Then, he laughs, pleased by your reaction, and you’re horrified to find out that this had an effect on you. The treacherous hope you’d just felt makes the reality of your imminent death crushing. A sob escapes you before you can get yourself under control again.

“Please,” you whisper. “Just get it over with.”

A pout forms on his face, and he shrugs. Then, to your surprise, he removes the gun from your forehead. The next thing you feel is the grip of the weapon, violently connecting with your temple, and then you don’t feel anything at all, not even the floor when your head hits it in your fall.

You wake up to the sound of soft, muffled sobs. It takes you a few seconds to piece things together, your head throbbing painfully and your mind in shambles. You lift your head with a groan, trying to take in your surroundings. Your thoughts are slow and you hate it. It makes you feel so vulnerable and defenseless.

Of course, that gets worse when you realize your hands are tied behind your back. That sends a jolt of adrenaline through your body, and you manage to look around you. It seems like you are in some warehouse, which, in your experience, is not a good thing. That’s where executions happen. They’re places that are accident prone, so the presence of blood could be explained easily, and they aren’t inspected that often anyway.

There's another sob beside you, and when you turn to look where it’s coming from, you find Anna, not just tied up but gagged, tears streaming down her cheeks. You assume that means her and her father were caught before they made it to the helicopter. On the other side of her is Mr. X, who seems to be in the same situation as her.

I’m here to be killed, you think. You can’t see another explanation. Mr. X and Anna are definitely here for that reason, so if you’re there with them— it means you’re here to die. You hope it will be quick, like you had asked that man, but you doubt it. If they took you here, it’s probably because they intend to make an example out of you. Intellectually, you don’t blame them. If this is a takeover of the family, they’ll probably need all the intimidation power they can get to keep the situation under control. It’s a ballsy move, certainly, and you would be at least a little impressed if you weren’t thinking about the creative and painful ways they can choose to get rid of you.

“Is she awake?” a voice asks. You turn your head quickly, too quickly, and another groan escapes you as your head painfully reminds you of the blow you just took.

You meet the mocking eyes of the man who knocked you out, before he looks away from you, at a large man you don’t think you’ve seen before.

“He wants to see her.”

The man nods, and then he’s on you in just a few steps, roughly forcing you up, his grip tight around your arm. You groan again as he drags you through the warehouse, to a large black car. You have just the time to think that someone must not want to be seen, if they’re in that, before you’re pushed into it. You lose your balance and land on your knees, and that’s when legs appear in your field of vision. They’re clad in black suit trousers.

You slowly look up. First, you discover elbows resting on spread knees, tattooed hands joined between them. Then there’s an elegant white shirt, unbuttoned at the top, muscular shoulders, a strong jaw, an amused, mocking smile and—

Your mouth drops open. Today is definitely proving to be a trying day for your reputation of never expressing your emotions, no matter the situation.

“Jungkook?” you ask, in disbelief.

Because it’s him. There’s something harsher in his eyes, his hair is longer, dark locks falling down to his jaw, and he’s lost any remaining softness he still had two years ago, when you last saw him, but it’s definitely him. He looks confident, and he’s more relaxed than you’ve ever seen him, clearly knowing that he’s in full control of the situation.

“Hey,” he says. “Wanna take a seat?”

He watches you struggle to get to your feet, something that turns out not to be that easy when your hands are tied behind your back, and doesn’t make a movement to help you. When you manage to sit opposite him, you’re still watching him like you’ve seen a ghost.

“What are you doing here?”

You know you should be able to piece things together to get an answer now. The deferential tone the man had when he talked about him earlier, everything that happened since these first gunshots… In another situation, it would be obvious to you. But because it’s Jungkook, you can’t bring yourself to come to the natural conclusion.

Jungkook had an out. He could have left this world behind altogether. So why wouldn’t he?

“Come on, you’re supposed to be smart,” he says, mocking, and his smile is harsh and condescending. “I’m taking over for the Xanders family. I think that should have been pretty clear.”

There’s a moment of silence, a long moment, as he waits for it to sink in. He’s in no hurry.

“But why?”

He shrugs, lean back against the leather seat.

“Because I can. Don’t you wanna why you’re here?”

That… would be a good idea, actually, and you’re bothered by how long it took you to think about it. You’re also bothered by how you lost track of that the second you saw Jungkook. You blame it on the surprise and on the fact that you’ve known him since before you became as— you’d like to say ‘efficient’, but the right word is probably ‘emotionless’. Empty.

“Why am I here?” you ask, frowning. If he wanted to kill you, he would have done it outside. It could be that he just wants to gloat, but something tell you he has—

“I have an offer for you,” he says, and then he grins and reveals his teeth. “It’s my way of saying thanks for how generous you were when you gave me five minutes to save my life.”

His tone is so abrasive it almost makes you wince, but you’re already falling back into your normal self. ‘Offer’ is a good thing, it means negotiation, conversation, things you can do, things you’re good at, things you can focus on to block out everything else, like the pain in your head or the guilt that settles in when he describes your actions.

“What offer?”

The grin disappears. He doesn’t seem happy he didn’t get a reaction from you.

“Work for me.”

That… makes sense, you suppose.

“I’m taking over for Mr. X. You know everything around here, and some people say you’re the best there is at what you do.” Then he shrugs, and casually pulls out a gun that you think was tucked in his back pocket. “That, or join him out there. I’m not sure you’ll like the outcome for that though.”

Despite the obvious threat, you can’t help but seriously consider the offer. If there’s one thing you’re sure of, it’s that it’s not a good one. Even if he manages to replace Mr. X, you doubt all the people who work for him will obey him. Stabilizing the whole thing will be a titanic task, but that’s not even what worries you — you can appreciate a challenge. No, the issue is that if you switch your allegiance, people will remember it. You will make a lot of enemies, and that doesn’t even include the people who simply will not trust you because you used to work for someone else. It’s a poisoned gift, really, and you’re sure Jungkook knows it.

“How do you plan on making the families follow suit?” you ask with a frown.

He rolls his eyes.

“Do people ever tell you how boring you are?”

They do, actually.

“This is not the only coup happening today. Some people who have already agreed to work for me will get in power. And the others… will take some convincing, but I’m sure they’ll come around.” He gives you a joyless, aggressive smile.

You’re still focused on his first words. You were already so puzzled that you wouldn’t have heard about what’s going on today — about how Jungkook is back in town, about how he’s been planning an entire takeover — but this is on a whole other level.

“How did you do that?” you ask, and when he lifts an eyebrow, you know you didn’t manage to keep your surprise out of your voice.

“Which part?”

“How did I not hear about that? I mean, Mr. X could sneeze and I would have known about it. People couldn’t open speakeasies without getting approved by me first — and they tried more than once.”

Jungkook looks at you, and disbelief passes on his face. This is what gets you? You couldn’t be bothered to give a shit about anything earlier, now you seem barely affected by the fact that he was threatening to kill you, but that caught your interest. Not just that, but you almost look impressed.

Okay, maybe you’re not as boring as he’d said, but you sure are fucking weird.

“We can smell you,” he says, tapping his nose. “It’s not too hard to figure out who you’re in contact with. Just had to make sure to avoid them. There were a few close calls, but we took care of it.” Then he shrugs. “It wasn’t as hard as you think it was. You’re not as cautious around hybrids.”

You stare at him for a while. He starts picking at his suit, looking annoyed by the turn the situation has taken, and you think about what he said. He’s right, you realize. You fucked up here — badly. You should have taken hybrids’ senses into consideration. You’d like to tell yourself that you didn’t think about it because there were no hybrids in high places, in the organization, but that’s not a good excuse. You file the information in your brain. You’ll do better.

“I’ll do it,” you say, and Jungkook glances at you.

“What changed your mind?”

“I’m— curious, I suppose. I’d like to see where this thing is going.”

Jungkook considers taking back his offer. He didn’t know what he thought would happen, but he expected it to be more interesting than this. Instead, you sat there, face as stiff as ever, and now you’re talking about being curious, which sounds wildly out of character, if you ask him. Yoongi’s told him you cried when you thought he was about to kill him, but he doubts it right now. It doesn’t look like anything can get through that thick shell of yours — and even if it did, he doesn’t think there would be a lot underneath it.

But the thing is, he was telling the truth earlier, when he said you were rumored to be the best there was at your job, and Jungkook is nothing if not a perfectionist. He likes to surround himself with the best. Which, unfortunately, means you.

“Suga!” he shouts, opening the door.

The man with the slit pupils jumps in easily, and looks at you with a disapproving twist of his lips.

“I’m not killing her, am I?”

He sounds disappointed.

Jungkook shakes his head in response.

“That’s Suga,” he tells you, pointing at the man. “He’ll explain how we work to you.”

You nod.

“I think he should kill you,” Suga informs you off-handedly, dropping on the seat next to you. “I think you’ll betray us.”

“If she does, I’ll kill her, if she fucks up her job, I’ll kill her, ” Jungkook says, and you have no doubt he means it. “Consider this your five minutes. Let them go, and you won’t have another shot.”

“That’s fine by me,” you say evenly. Betrayal has never been an option for you. You had no loyalty towards Mr. X, but the threat over your family was too big to risk it. And now, with Jungkook— you guess you’ll have to wait and see. You don’t think you’ll betray him, but if things turn sour… You suppose you’re not above it.

Maybe it should worry you, how little you value your own life, but you brush it off quickly. Thinking about it too much could compromise the way you do your job, and you can’t have that.

“So,” Jungkook says, leaning back, eyes watching you carefully. “What do you suggest we do with the Xanders?”

Suga opens his mouth, but Jungkook lifts a hand, signaling that he wants your answer. You wonder if this is some kind of test.

“Killing them would be the best decision,” you say, somewhat reluctantly. You know your decisions in the past, your suggestions, have lead to the death of people, but you’ve rarely been so direct about it. Then again, death is part of the game, when you work this kind of job. Mr. Xanders is about as close to an actual monster as it gets. And Anna… Well, maybe Anna isn’t. You don’t like her, and you absolutely believe that she was happy to enjoy everything that came with what her father did, but she’s not him. Which is a low bar to clear.

“She’s not wrong,” Suga echoes, sounding annoyed.

“Letting them live would be seen as a proof of weakness and they would try to come back. It’s just— a bad idea.”

You can see Jungkook’s jaw tensing. Next to you, Suga starts to make his leg shake. You suppose he has the same kind of bad feeling you do.

“What if we kill Mr. X but not Anna?” he asks, and Suga groans. Jungkook rolls his eyes and develops. “Yoongi, we’re not taking over the legal part of the business. We can just— leave that to her, and not bother about it.”

“We’ll have to figure out something else to launder money,” you say, because that was the main point of that side of things, legal just in name really. That is not your biggest concern, though. “But if you kill her father and not her—”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Yoongi snaps. “She needs to die.”

He’s right. It’s just the smart thing to do.

“People here aren’t impressed by mercy,” you insist, and that’s when you realize you’ve lost that fight already. Jungkook knows it. There’s no way he doesn’t. He’s made his decision, even if it’s a bad one, and trying to change his mind is useless. So you’re quick to jump to the things that need to be done if he lets Anna live. “You need to get her to sign emancipation papers.”

Jungkook tenses suddenly at the suggestion and a low growl comes from his throat as he bares his teeth at you threateningly. Yoongi barely moves, but you see his hand settling on his hip, near his gun, which you guess serves as a reassuring gesture. The car fills with tension, and you swallow. You feel small and defenseless. It’s not that rare a sentiment, but you suddenly become extremely aware of the fact that you’re alone with them, hands still fucking tied behind your back, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do.

“Anna doesn’t own me,” Jungkook snarls.

“Legally she does,” you explain. You’re choosing your words carefully, making sure not to anger him any more, but you’re still staring right at him. “You may have forged an ID or something, but if she lives and she can prove she hasn’t freed you— the consequences will be bad.”

There is a second that feels like an eternity, Jungkook just staring at you, lips now in a tight line, before he shrugs and you can breathe again.

“Okay. Let’s do that.”

Yoongi groans and sends you a furious glare that you don’t understand. You agreed with him. What did you do to deserve that?

“I’ll take care of Xanders,” Jungkook adds. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

“Can someone— Can someone untie me?” you ask as they’re moving towards the door.

Jungkook glances at you.

“We’ll see when we come back.”

A grin flashes on his lips when your lips twist into an offended expression, and then he jumps out of the car, followed by Yoongi, and leaves you alone in there.

Fuck.

What an asshole.

Jungkook walks towards his captives with long, confident strides. Yoongi is right behind him, of course, his shadow, the perfect killer. He may disapprove of Jungkook’s plan, if you can even call it that, and he sure doesn’t like how easily you dropped the topic, but he’s still loyal to him. If he fucks up, he’ll clean up after him.

Jungkook savors the moment when Anna’s eyes fall on him. He can tell she recognizes him immediately by the way they widen and how she tries to speak through her gag. It’s been years since the last time he saw her. Much longer than the last time he saw you, which leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He’s thought about this so much. A long time ago, he dreamt of her telling him she wanted him back, but over the years, it mostly turned into him finally taking revenge, and he intends to fully savor it now that it’s happening.

He removes the gag from her mouth, and takes an unhealthy pleasure from the way she sobs out, loud and desperate.

“Jungkook, Jungkook, baby, please, please…”

Jungkook only needs to glance at Yoongi for him to set her free, albeit after an annoyed roll of his eyes. The second he does, Anna falls from the chair, right into his arms. Jungkook knows that she’s only trying to save her life, doubts she’s thought of him for more than a split second since he’s disappeared, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to enjoy it.

“Hey baby,” he grins, and he watches as she winces when she sees his sharp teeth. Right, she didn’t see him after that.

Fuck. It’s been a long, long time. She really didn’t give a fuck about him, huh?

And yet he can’t kill her. And yet he knows her bright, pleading eyes, the light weight of her body, the curve of her neck by heart.

“I’m going to need you to do something for me,” he says, voice deep and eyes boring into hers.

She blinks.

“And if I do you won’t— you won’t kill me?”

Jungkook’s opinion of Anna is far less charitable than yours. He thinks she’s an opportunist, will do anything to preserve herself and, sure, she’s not personally involved in her father’s business, but she wouldn’t bat an eye if she was. She likes to play the innocent girl who’s horrified by what’s going on with her family, but she just isn’t. As simple as that.

“Nah. I won’t.”

It doesn’t take long before Anna is kneeling on the floor, writing down what Yoongi is dictating to her, reading from his phone. Jungkook could do it, knows the text by heart, learned it a long time ago when he still hoped for it, but he just stays there immobile instead, watching her at his mercy.

It’s not as nice as he’d imagined.

Finally, she hands him the piece of paper with trembling hands, a small smile forming on her lips as she thinks that her nightmare is over.

Jungkook takes it, reads it over, and nods. Then he pulls his gun out, and Anna’s smile vanishes. Jungkook thrives on her reaction, on the idea that he has complete power over her in that moment. It feels dark and twisted, but fuck, it also feels good.

“But I—”

He shoots and Anna yelps, protecting her ears in reflex.

It takes her a second to realize he wasn’t aiming at her, and relief washes over her, before she understands what it means. She turns around, slowly. And screams.

A clean shot, Jungkook decides, looking at Mr. X. The man had been glaring at him the entire time, and he doubts he would have groveled like Anna had. Now, his blood is splattered on the floor, head thrown back, mouth open, staring at the ceiling with empty, dead eyes. Jungkook doesn’t care when Anna runs to him, sobbing, calling for him, trying to shake him awake.

“We’re going,” Jungkook announces to Yoongi, who finally seems a little less angry with him.

He doesn’t look back at Anna as he walks away.

You rub your wrists, then your shoulders after Yoongi has cut you free. Jungkook doesn’t say anything about it, just sits back in the luxurious car. You thought he would look content, happy with himself. He doesn’t.

When the car stops in front of your building, you’re not sure what to do. Part of you still can’t believe he’s letting you live.

“We’ll come and get you tomorrow to get things started,” Jungkook informs you while staring out the window. “You know, you probably should have moved two years ago,” he adds, and for some reason, that really rubs you the wrong way.

“I changed the locks,” you answer, and he grins.

“You still haven’t figured out how I did it, right?”

You frown. You haven’t.

He looks genuinely pleased by that.

“What should I call you?” you ask. “Do you want to be the new Mr. X?”

He growls at the suggestion, but seriously thinks about your question.

“Call me— Call me Mr. Jeon,” he decides spontaneously, without explaining his decision, and you nod. This should help make things more professional, isn’t if this isn’t actually a professional setting.

“Fine, Mr. Jeon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You’re pleased to find that your voice is back to normal, calm and even, not letting anyone know of whatever you’re feeling.

Except Jungkook and Yoongi can probably hear how fast your heart is still beating, but that’s a problem you’ll have to deal with some other time.

You step out, and linger there a second too long, the door open. Finally, you gather the courage to turn around and look at Jungkook.

“Why are you back?”

You mean a lot by that. In the city, sure, but also in that setting. You’d always thought— you’d always thought Jungkook was better than that. You’d always thought he should get the opportunity to get away and he’d be fine. That’s something you can’t shake away, can’t push under the rug.

He couldn’t escape.

He stares at you blankly.

“Where else am I supposed to go?”

Then he leans in and closes the door, and you’re left alone on the pavement.

Tagging list: @chaiwivluv​ @mintyrae​

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Future

A/N: Yikes. I cried several times writing this. I'm very proud of how it turned out - I think it's one of my strongest pieces on the entire blog - but be warned: bring tissues. Also, Mozzie's quote is originally from Abraham Lincoln. Requested by @ladykeqing

Summary: In the wake of Neal's death, a regret haunts you.

Word Count: 1,964

Peter sat you down and told you in his home. Well… just June’s home, now. The way Mozzie had trailed behind him, for once wordless… His face looking ashen… A part of you had known even before Peter asked you to sit down.

“He told me to say he’s sorry,” Peter said, barely more than a whisper that somehow felt deafening to your brain. “And that he loves you more than you know.”

The room was suddenly stifling. It was more than just the emotions in the air, layering over each other into a thick, caustic fog. It was the darkening of shadows that stretched in from the glass doors, and the silence of the record player that drove deep into their eardrums to muffle the little sounds of life coming from each other. The penthouse was, in an instant, so tiny and deathly empty, and you wished so dearly that you’d been at your own apartment. Staying the weekend had seemed like such a great idea before you abruptly became the only resident.

For a few seconds, you had a mind to just stay put and let the shadows come and take over. To let the agonizing ache of loss engulf your entire heart and continue expanding until it was bigger than your body and you disappeared forever. All so you wouldn’t have to keep looking at the records Neal would never again play and the table he would never again sit at. So you would never have to spend a last moment in the home of your lover before turning your back on it and, by extension, him.

Without him, there was nowhere to turn. The prospect of your remaining lifetime without your partner made your chest and throat tighten with another round of sobs. It all felt so dim. You tried to hold it back, but couldn’t last long before your hands were to your mouth and a strangled whimper was breaking from your lips.

Mozzie could have fooled you into thinking he hadn’t heard, so resolute he was in boring a hole into the rug with his stare. Peter looked towards you with deep brown eyes, solicitous and pleading at the same time. He was as stunned as you were – but where you were being crushed under the weight of isolation, at least Peter got to go home to El. You didn’t have anyone to go home to anymore. Hell, without Neal, did you even have a home at all?

You envied Mozzie. Really, you did. His Buddhist leanings might be a comfort to him, able to think of Neal’s absence as temporary, or his spirit as remaining around them in some way or form. But when you tried to imagine you could feel him still there, the encroaching shadows and silent record player and empty bed all drew together at once until you were drowning in the lack. It was as if your haywire senses were punishing you for thinking even for a moment that you could feel your loss as anything less than absolute. He was gone and the world was permanently less wonderful.

A gunshot. Neal hated guns so much. Maybe this was why.

Wait. No. Time didn’t work like that. Right? He couldn’t hate something for a reason that hadn’t happened yet.

Laughter that bordered on hysterical bubbled out of your throat as you anxiously covered your face, waiting for the mania to pass. Laughter was easier than sobs. It physically hurt less. Emotionally it was so much worse. You could feel the concerned eyes on you while you waited until your desperate giggles died, just like your partner.

“I never said,” you said, wresting the words out before cries – or worse, more laughs – forced themselves out instead. You looked down with shame and guilt. His last words to you were almost cruel. Tender in their meaning, but cruel in consequence – he would never know how deeply you cared for him. You hoped he did. Didn’t you show it all the time? But that was different from hearing the words out loud, and now not only were you going on without Neal, but you were going on carrying the burden of knowing you hadn’t been able to offer him the comfort of certainty in knowing he had been loved in life and would be grieved in death. “I never got to tell him I love him.”

The mere look that Peter gave you in response would have broken your heart if it hadn’t already been lying shattered somewhere between your stomach and the floor. It was as if he were imagining for himself not getting to tell Elizabeth how he felt, or worse, imagining how alone or afraid she might feel if she didn’t know there were somebody fighting for her and remembering her every day.

Sobs would come any moment now. Your throat was tighter than a string on a violin, and any minute you’d stop being able to breathe. In, out, you reminded yourself. Keep it together just a moment more. And then another moment after that. You couldn’t break down until you were alone. You didn’t know why you couldn’t break in front of Neal’s family, but didn’t have the energy to question it, either, not when you barely had the energy not to scream and weep into your hands.

“He knew.” Mozzie’s words were quiet but startling and said with all the confidence of Neal himself. “You didn’t have to say it.”

“But he deserved to hear.” Knowing it and hearing it were different games and Neal, for all his faults, deserved to hear it, too. “He deserved to come home. I don’t…” You lost your train of thought. Why were you talking about yourself when you weren’t the one whose brilliant life had been stolen? After a small shake of your head, you sniffed and shakily breathed out. “We had an entire future. And now there’s nothing left.”

You could see it passing in your imagination, all the little milestones that you’d come to anticipate. Content days at home, interspersed with adventures to his favorite places around the world, marked by marriage and birthdays and achievements and anniversaries. You’d never articulated them out loud, never even realized fully that you’d started to await those days, but now you saw them vanishing and you realized not only were you having to grieve for the best man you’d ever known, but you’d also have to grieve for the missed experiences and joys that he had lost, and the shared life that you had to give up on, as well.

Mozzie finally looked up to you and you noticed that his eyes were puffy and red behind his glasses. You didn’t even know someone could cry that silently. “The best thing about the future,” he quoted, slow and weighty, probably to keep his own voice level. “Is that it comes one day at a time.”

The comfort was meaningless to you. One day at a time was worthwhile when it was endless days of love and companionship. When that was gone, it was just day after day of being adrift with nothing to hold onto.

You sniffed again and replied in a surprisingly even voice, “My future is laying in the morgue.”

~Future~

Leaving Y/N was one of the hardest things Mozzie had ever done, and he had a lot of challenges and dubious decisions in his past. Leaving her to wallow and suffer rubbed him in every wrong way possible, except for the one where it meant – at least for now – that she would be safe. He didn’t think, if he stayed, that he would be able to hold back from blurting out the truth. He couldn’t even look at her for fear of spilling. Not once her tears started. He couldn’t watch his friend, and his best friend’s love at that, weep with agony she didn’t need to feel.

Neal begged to differ, though Mozzie knew that it tore his heart in two to hear her voice over the long-distance connection. When Mozzie was sure the suit was out of earshot, and that Y/N and June had both stayed inside, he lifted his phone from his pocket and breathed heavily in the cold December air that seemed to burn his lungs.

“Did you hear all that?” He asked, impressively steady and managing to get his criticism and support across with his tone simultaneously.

He took off his glasses, thankful Neal couldn’t see that he, too, needed to wipe his eyes dry. Alive was good. Alive but far away and unreachable – at least for the foreseeable future – was still painful.

“I did,” Neal confirmed, voice and heart both heavy somewhere at least a thousand miles away. “I wish…” Neal trailed off, and Mozzie wholly believed that he also needed a moment to compose himself. Why either of them bothered pretending not to cry, he didn’t understand, but they had already dedicated themselves to the farce. “She’s safer this way. If she looks for me, we’re all in danger.”

“If you let this go on, she will never forgive you.” Mozzie warned, thinking about the broken look on your face. It had been like watching a dropped plate shatter in slow motion to see the cracks begin to appear before your very spirit seemed to splinter. Then he thought about how desperately you wished Neal knew you loved him, and he thought maybe there was a chance that desperate love would override the anger. He amended, “Or, if she does, it’ll never be the same.”

“I know.” Neal agreed readily but with a quiver to his voice. “I want to come home, but not if it means visiting her grave.”

“The cautious way it is.” Mozzie put his glasses back on his face, bravely shoring up his willpower. “I can’t know where you are, and she can’t know you’re out there.”

“Keep an eye on her for me.”His voice was full of sorrow and longing.

“Of course.” Neal didn’t even need to ask. If there came a time when the Panthers were dealt with and Neal could – well, if not return home, at least be reunited with Y/N somewhere without an extradition treaty, Mozzie would be the first to set it in motion. “Be well, mon frére.”

“You, too, Moz.”

The line went dead.

~Future~

Approximately four thousand miles away, on a windy beach, Neal stood barefoot in the dark, watching the light from the moon reflect off the choppy, shallow surf. The breeze drifted through his hair and bit across his face with the sting of northern weather.

He looked down at the open phone in his hand, fighting every feeling in him to turn it back on and beg Mozzie to take the phone back up to his former penthouse. Or, worse, to turn his whole body around and get on a ferry to the mainland, and fly back to New York as fast as possible to hold you in his arms. The heartbreak in your voice had been almost too much for him to bear. It would have been, if not for his terror of being reckless and selfish and letting you pay the price.

He had known you loved him, and because he loved you so unbelievably much in return, he couldn’t go home. Not yet. He would work on it from afar, where no one knew he was breathing, much less could trace him back to his darling. One day, if he were incredibly lucky, he could come home and you would still have space for him in your heart and mind. For now, he would have to settle on replaying your words in his head.

I love you, too.

Neal hurled the phone out into the ocean.

[mybillyhardgrove]

The Language of Love s.h.

A/n: another one! love language is such an endearing idea to me… plus, I need to show steve more love lol

ps. i mentioned watching movies too much lmao

Disclaimer: i don’t own any Stranger Things material

Word count: 3125

Warnings: a couple curses (par for the course at this point)

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader (female)

Summary: after being with Steve for a while, it has become clear how he shows his love for you

Words of Affirmation

You couldn’t stop shaking your leg or gnawing on the skin of your bottom lip on the drive over to the Wheeler’s house. You looked over at Steve when you heard him laugh a bit under his breath. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, nothing.” You nudged his shoulder a bit, whining that he share what was so amusing. He sighed, glancing over and resting his hand on your thigh before returning his eyes to the road. “I just think it’s cute how wound up you are to meet a bunch of kids. You can relax, they are not hard to impress.” The entire party was meeting at the Wheeler’s to watch The Neverending Story and it would be the first time you met them all. Of course you’d seen your boyfriend talking with them from time to time and you knew Billy, Nancy, and Jonathan from school, so you knew something about their younger siblings, but this was a different circumstance altogether. You thought you might be more nervous than when you met Steve’s parents.

“This is important, Steve. I mean, these kids are practically your children the way you talk about them, and I want to fit in, make sure they like me. You love them and I love you, so I really want this night to go well.” You took a deep breath, getting worked up again and grabbing his hand from your leg, squeezing it tight.

After a few minutes, he pulled his car to the curb outside the house and turned to you. You looked towards the first-floor window and saw the kids all gathered in the dining room, laughing and wrestling. Oh boy.

Steve reached over and put his fingers under your chin, turning your face towards him and pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You’re gonna be great tonight. You are so funny and loving and sweet. Those idiots will love you as much as I do. Trust me, beautiful, just be yourself and everything will work out.”

And not to spoil anything, but it did. A few days later, Steve recounted over the phone how all the kids were raving about you and how cool, funny, nice, and pretty you were - just as he said they would.

Gifts

Ever since the first night you met them, you and the party were very close and they always invited you to everything they did. You accompanied them to the arcade from time to time, you helped El and Max get ready for the school dances, you gave the boys relationship advice, and you were even attending the Christmas party at the Byers’s house. Though it was usually you, Steve, and the kids getting together for impromptu hang-outs or some casual pizza nights, this evening involved everyone getting dressed up and bringing food, drinks, and their secret santa gifts.

You had received Max and took care to get her the specific skateboard she had been talking a lot about, information passed to you by Lucas. You gave the gift after being at the party for a couple hours and she jumped up and down, hugging you tightly and saying more than once how excited she was to try it out. After that success, you were riding high through appetizers and dinner, so glad your gift was a success and you were celebrating the holiday with those closest to you. When you had collected the plates for Mrs. Byers and finished washing them with her, you heard someone clear their throat behind you. You turned and saw your handsome boyfriend in a cozy sweater and khakis, hair brushed back neatly from his face.

“Hey, stranger.” You reached out your arms, slipping them around his waist and letting him pull you in tight.

Mrs. Byers shooed you two to the living room to be comfortable, “Honey, everything is all set here. Thank you for the help.” Steve released you, draping his arm over your shoulders and walking with you towards the couch. Once you were both settled, you tucked into his side, watching the kids exchanging more gifts, he pulled something from his back pocket. Passing it to you, he leaned his lips to your ear and whispered, “Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” You looked over with a smile, surprised he hadn’t let it slip that he got you for the secret santa (he wasn’t the best at keeping secrets usually). You sat up a bit more, tearing the neat paper from the gift, gasping when you saw what it was.

A small, ornate book filled with ticket stubs, receipts, polaroids, pressed flowers, and other mementos from your relationship. Your vision got blurry as you looked through each page, reading the little handwritten descriptions Steve had added. When you got to the last page, it said ‘To be continued’, which made you giggle despite how emotional you were. You closed it and held it close to your chest, turning and kissing Steve a few times before thanking him profusely. “Steve, this is beautiful. I love it so much. I can’t believe you put this all together and kept these things.” He placed his hand on your cheek, running his thumb under your eye to wipe a tear away before kissing you again.

“The kids helped me set it all up and organize it, but I had been keeping it all in a little box in the glove compartment of my car. I looked in there from time to time when I was having a shitty day, so I put it in this book for you to look at.” His cheeks were red from all the attention and the confession, which you thought made him so handsome.

You kissed him a couple more times before resting your head on his shoulder, finally realizing that all eyes were on you. Steve seemed to realize at the same time, so he said, “Alright, show’s over. Put the movie on already.” When the lights were turned down low and all attention was on the screen, he turned to you once more, whispering, “Merry Christmas. I love you.” And what a merry Christmas it was.

Acts of Service

It was your birthday and you were dreading it. Birthdays felt like a day of awkward encounters and attention you didn’t want, all while being reminded you were another year older. For most of high school, it seemed to be a letdown in a way because it fell on some random weekday and you did homework for the evening, instead of something fun or relaxing.

This year, however, would be different because of the one and only Steve Harrington. When you had explained your sentiments about birthdays to him a couple weeks earlier, he assured you he would change your mind. You argued that your family would be leaving you for the week and hadn’t even mentioned or apologized that they would be missing your birthday. After making you feel better, he wouldn’t say what he was planning, but he seemed to think it would excite you.

You were on the couch working on Math when you heard a knock at the front door. You rose, opening the door to see your boyfriend juggling three bags full of stuff. “Come in, come in. Do you need help?” He shook his head and shuffled past you, heading right for the kitchen and putting everything on the counter.

When he had done that, he ran to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and picking you off your feet, squeezing you tightly and kissing your neck a few times. “Happy birthday! Happy birthday!” He spun you around before setting you back on your feet. “Alright, I love you and this is all for you, but not yet. Please return to whatever you were doing and when you’re finished, you can… one second” and he rummaged through one of the bags with a frown before pulling out a VHS tape. “Here, this is your first gift. I grabbed it on the way over, so you can watch this while I do my thing in here. I will call you when I’m ready for you to see.” He turned you around and hit your backside, kicking you out of the kitchen and back to your place on the couch.

You were confused, but knew he had things handled and had been over enough to know where everything was, so you got back to work.

When you had finished, you played the movie and tried to ignore all the mumbling, clanks, and shuffling you could hear from the kitchen. At one point, you thought you heard him go upstairs, but ignored it. Then, after a little over an hour of that, Steve came back into the living room, announcing that he had cooked you your favorite dinner and the table was set for you to eat. “While you were watching the movie, I also took the time to clean the kitchen and your bedroom, all sparkly clean. I would like to say I saw your Christmas gift album up there, as well, which makes me very happy. Anyway, happy birthday.” He looked rather pleased with himself and you admitted you were too with all he had managed to accomplish in the time he had been over.

He offered his arm to you and escorted you to a beautiful dinner illuminated by a few candles and enjoyed the delicious food and meaningful conversation with your thoughtful and caring boyfriend.

“This is perfect, Steve, thank you. I think I am starting to like birthdays.” He did a little celebration dance in his seat. You laughed at his silliness, heart swelling with how grateful you really were and how much you loved him.

“Well, get ready because I also made dessert.” Yeah, you really loved him.

Quality Time

The nature of your relationship with Steve was that you spent a lot of time together, whether just the two of you or surrounded by people. He was clingy (in the best way), craving your attention and affection. He cuddled, hugged, and kissed you more times than you could count each time you were together, so you would say every time you were together was meaningful and special. If you both had your ways, you would spend all your time together, but the need for money outweighed those wishes.

Steve had been working at Scoops Ahoy, but after everything in the mall, he and Robin began working at a movie rental place. You were not lucky enough to work with them, working instead at a pizza place that was always loud and always filled with rude teens and entitled adults. Your only time of solace was your hour lunch break, which you took each day at the same time. This was so Steve would know when to stop by. Usually, you ate a couple slices or walked to the strip mall across the street to grab something quick, but this time, Steve said he had lunch handled. When he said that, you frowned and tried to ask what he meant, but he wouldn’t elaborate, so you let it go.

Looking at the clock, it was finally time for you to get some fresh air and spend time with your boyfriend before returning to work again. You pushed open the door, bell jingling, and waited out front for the flash of Steve’s deep red car. After a few seconds of scouting the lot, you found it, parked a few spaces away, Steve smiling at you and waving through the windshield once he saw you approaching.

He got out to meet you at the front of his car, pressing a kiss to your lips and rubbing your back. “How is it going today, sweet cheeks?” You laughed at his silly nickname and explained that it was relatively quiet, fewer phone calls and customers than usual. “Oh, that’s great. The day will fly by and I’ll come pick you up when it’s all over.” He put up a finger to signal you to wait where you were, opening the back door and leaning in to grab a basket and a blanket. “In the meantime, I packed a little picnic for us because I remember how you feel a little sick of all the shitty food we’ve had lately. There are some sandwiches, chips, cookies, and sodas.” Steve placed the basket in your hands, a pleased smile on his pink lips. You never got over how thoughtful he was, always taking care of you. It reminded you of your birthday dinner and how much care he took to make it special for you.

“Thank you, honey. This is perfect. Where should we eat?” He grabbed your hand and brought you to the back of his little car, laying the blanket across the back and took the basket back from you. He put his hands on your hips, squeezing a little before lifting you on the back, making sure you were comfortable before pulling the lunch from the basket, explaining everything and kissing your cheek.

You spent the next hour talking and eating. While he was telling a funny story that involved Robin and a rude customer, you just looked at him - his soft hair, doe eyes, smooth skin, pink cheeks, full lips, and freckles, admiring how beautiful he looked. “And then, she said that he should… is there something on my face?” He stopped talking, rubbing his fingers across his mouth and chin, confused why you were staring at him. You laughed and grabbed his hands, kissing him and leaning your forehead against his.

“There is nothing on your face, Steve. I love you and how much time we spend together. This was a wonderful lunch. Thank you.” You kissed his cheek and encouraged him to finish the story before you had to pack up and return to work.

Physical Touch

Another Friday night with the party, another movie. This time, it was at your house. Since Steve started his new job, it had been even easier for you all to figure out the newest and most popular movies to try. After some arguing, the kids had chosen to watch Gremlins, which would not have been your first choice, but you didn’t want to get involved in the complicated debating. In the end, it wouldn’t matter because on these nights, you and Steve usually ended up whispering together or making snacks as the rest were entranced by the screen.

Max and El looked over at you, asking if you wanted to sit with them on the little mountain of pillows and blankets they had set up in front of the couch the boys were sprawled out on. You smiled and joined them, getting comfortable with one of the large bowls of popcorn you had set out for everyone. You and the girls reached your hands in the bowl every once in a while as you waited for the movie to start. Once it started, you hopped up and shut off the light, looking over to make sure Steve was comfortable. His eyes were already on you and he had an exaggerated pout on his lips, arms crossed as he sat in the big armchair by himself. You shook your head with a grin and returned to the girls.

A little while into the movie, you realized the popcorn was finished and the candy was getting low, so you grabbed all the bowls and quietly slipped into the kitchen, grabbing the makings to replenish everything. After beginning to pour the M&Ms into the bowl, Steve joined you, wrapping his arms around your stomach from behind and swaying you both a bit. “You ditched me. That wasn’t very nice of you.” He kissed your neck after that and you could feel he was a little lonely in that chair alone, despite being only a few feet from you.

You put the candy down, spinning in his arms and wrapping yours around his shoulders as he dropped his face into the crook of your neck. “The girls asked me to sit with them, Steve, sorry.” He grumbled against your skin, pulling you in tighter. You decided to indulge him as you were tired and snuggling into his lap seemed like a nice idea. “When we go back in there, I’ll tell the girls they can spread out more and I’ll sit with you in the armchair. Does that sound okay, you big baby?” You felt him smile and nod. He helped you finish refilling the bowls and carried them to the living room, setting them all by the kids to be devoured. You leaned over to Max and El, informing them of your seat change.

Standing back up, you saw Steve was on the chair and waiting for you to join him, a big blanket in his hand. You smiled and climbed on top of him, sitting with your legs curled up between his and your head against his shoulder. You shifted a little to make sure you were both comfortable and he pulled the blanket over you, wrapping you in his arms. After a couple minutes, you felt your eyes getting heavier with how warm and relaxed you were. Every few seconds, you felt light kisses pressed to your hair and his hand tracing your cheek. He whispered sweet nothings in your ear and it lulled you even closer to sleep. That was, until you heard some snickers and whispers. You lifted your head and saw that the boys on the couch and the girls on the floor were all looking at you, speaking in hushed voices behind their hands. Steve noticed too and frowned. “What the hell are you guys laughing at?” He said this lightly, already having a suspicion it had to do with the two of you.

Dustin answered. “Oh nothing, just that you two are showing a lot of PDA. Steve, you’re whipped.” With that, the kids all laughed, nodding and looking at you for a reaction. You snorted and lowered your head back down, closing your eyes and pressing them against Steve’s neck, letting him answer for you both. You wracked your brain and figured there must be plenty of times where you and Steve act like this in front of the party, so why was this so surprising?

“Oh shut up. Watch the movie.” Not the most graceful comeback, but you felt Steve’s chest vibrate with a laugh as he gestured towards the screen. You heard a few more laughs before attention was once again on the movie. He whispered, “What a bunch of idiots.” You smiled and Steve wrapped you up even tighter, rubbing your back as you fell asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

masterlist

[elriell]

Any fun Elriel scenes you would want to see in the next book?

For me, it would be at some point Azriel not realizing he has a flower in his hair when around the IC. Maybe because of garden sex...

I would LOVE a drunk Elriel part. Where Azriel gets the hiccups haha I think a tipsy Elain would be cute.

Maybe a cute interaction between Nyx and Elriel.

Anything with Elriel laughing together.

AHHHH A HAPPY ASK I LOVE IT!!! ♡♡♡

All of those are great choices! Hmmm let me see, here are some HC

Elriel Kiss in the rain!!    (Nessian let me down with it so I need it now!)

Azriel brading her hair.

A conversation about his deep insecurities, and both of them accepting each other as they are. Which we know they do  but like I needddddd it in conversation.

I made a specific post about this but El sending him little people made of light and vice-versa with his shadows

Elain choosing him, a la sleeping beauty as I have said. Her going on a epic quest to save him, top tier

Elriel Forehead Kisses, Tip-toe Hugs, LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

A goddamn apology for giving the necklace to someone else. (He owes Gwyn one too while we are on that note.) 

FOR SURE NYX MOMENTS, either way around one of them just gazing adoringly at the other holding the precious bubba

More Spy!Elain and impressed Az

KINKYNESS 

El tracing his scars absentmindedly while they do anything, in bed, in the gardens, under the table at dinner.

Elain randomly adopting progressively more aggressive looking or dangerous creatures because they love her (because she is a life goddess) and Az being equal parts adoring, amused and terrified of the wild beasts she brings home. +Bonus points if they chill with her in the garden or on walks and at some point protect her from danger.

A bathtub scene PLS  I love them

Elain finding out what happened with Rhys and asserting her own agency.

Azriel carrying something with him that reminds him of her when he is away

Elain, Nuala and Cerridwen ganging up on him

Elain stress baking and Azriel reaping the rewards

She casually steals/wears all his shirt because they smell like him and are massive on her because thats literally my fav thing to do with my bf even after all this time 

Them going on adventures and travels across the courts, seeing all the places they can. 

Az becoming more comfortable with showing his emotions and not needing his walls and shadows to protect him... 

DOUBLE DATES WITH NESSIAN

I would kinda love for eventually after the initial awkwardness for him to be friends with Lucien. And the three of them all be on good terms.

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS GOD I COULD KEEP GOING.

Feel free to add on!

[megumisbimbo]

- One -

megumi fushiguro x reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

summary: (y/n) was nothing special. A human being who had no idea that curses walked the same earth they walked. But then they locked eyes with Megumi Fushiguro. Can Fushiguro focus on the task ahead or will he be distracted by the king of curses and his new love interest?

series masterlist

©️ @megumisbimbo — all rights reserved. Please do not repost, modify or translate my work. Reblogs and likes appreciated!

Credit for the main storyline and characters goes to Gege Akutami.

the songs are indicated throughout the story at certain points!

songs used:

sunflower - vampire weekend

turn back time - wayv

humble - kendrick lamar

look at me! - xxxtentacion

———— sunflower - vampire weekend ————

It was a normal school day. You sat through each of your classes bored out of your mind. If only something interesting would happen, maybe then you’d enjoy your day. Classes felt longer than usual and all you could think about was getting to the occult club and opening whatever Itadori found last night.

Classes had finally finished. You raced to the other end of the school and walked into the club room and greeted your two classmates.

“Where’s Itadori? Shouldn’t he be here with the thing he found yesterday?”

“We thought it would be cooler if we broke into the school late at night and opened it then!” Sasaki says with a bright sinister smile. Iguchi sat next to her and nodded his head in agreement.

Just then, Itadori walked into the room with a bright smile and greeted you three.

“(y/n)-senpai here’s the thing I found yesterday. Sasaki-senpai said to give it to you so you guys can open it tonight. I’m not gonna be able to make it.”

“No worries Itadori, we’ll make sure to take pictures when nothing shows up.” You say glancing at Sasaki.

You had always been skeptical when it came to ghosts and monsters. Iguchi and Sasaki were your best friends so they always ended up dragging you on their haunted adventures. Itadori was the newbie first year who recently joined. He was happy to take the pair on their ghostly escapades when you weren’t available.

Sasaki ruffled through her bag and pulled out the ouija board you four regularly played with. Itadori turned to you and asked if you were ready to call on the spirit of the day. After asking your fellow club members, he called upon them.

“Spirits! Spirits! Please reveal an animal that the school council president is weaker than!” Itadori said giggling slightly.

You watched as the small coin shaped object wiggled underneath your finger.

Ku

Ri

O

Ne

“A sea angel?!?” Itadori roared.

Your giggles were interrupted by the door suddenly sliding open revealing the sea angel himself.

“OCCULT RESEARCH CLUB!” The council president yelled, startling you.

“Your club did not submit an activities report! We don’t have room in this school for such irresponsibility!” He yelled, anger dousing his tone.

He explained that the club was going to be used as a changing room starting today and your club was to find somewhere else to play.

“I wouldn’t mess with our members council president.” Itadori said smirking at you and your friends. Sasaki slams a book onto the table and pushes her glasses up onto her nose.

“Here’s your proof council president! As you know, our rugby field has been closed off. The students who used it started getting sick and some were even hospitalized. Don’t you think that’s strange? I mean we’re talking about tough rugby players here. WELL. Just before the players began getting sick, they stated that they heard strange noises and voices on the field.”

You stand up and flip through the book that had rested under Sasaki’s hand.

“That’s where this newspaper article comes in.” You say showing the president an old newspaper clipping from many years ago.

“Mr. Yoshida, a construction man, went missing and he was last seen here at this school during construction.”

Sasaki interrupted, finishing the riveting story you four had discovered.

“Which means. Mr. Yoshida’s body is buried in the rugby field and the sickness was caused by the lingering spirit!” Sasaki said with stars in her eyes. Itadori and Iguchi stood on either side of you two giving jazz hands for dramatic effect. The council president looks at you four with a blank stare, dumbfounded at the ridiculous story.

“No...” He started.

“They were caused by ticks.”

You felt Sasaki wilt beside you while Itadori argued with the council president, explaining that either way this was club activity. The council president interjected and rudely pointed out the fact that neither you nor Itadori were registered with the occult club, leaving the club with too few members.

“Itadori, (y/n)... I thought you said you put your names down.” Sasaki said with an evil glare plastered on her face.

“Sorry Sasaki... I lost the paper ehehe...” You said, staring down at your feet with regret and a bit of fear hidden behind your eyes.

“I did put down the occult club senpai! I swear!” Itadori announced.

“Then who changed it?”

“I DID.” A voice barked, alarming all the students present.

“Coach Takagi?!” You all yelled in unison.

“Itadori, we need your speed and strength on the track and field team.”

“I ALREADY SAID I WASN’T JOINING!” Itadori wailed, hoping the coach would get the hint.

“No can do. However I’m a fair man so I will let you go if you beat me in a fair fight.”

“You’re on!”

You all ran down to the track to see Itadori battle it out with the coach.

“You think he’ll win?” You say skeptical of Itadori’s strength.

“I’ve heard he won the Ninja Warrior contest and he’s the incarnation of Mirko Cro Cop!” Iguchi explained.

“But he’s not dead...”

You watched as Itadori threw the heavy ball the same way a pitcher would. It whizzed through the air landing at about 30 meters from where he started, demolishing the Coach’s record of 14 meters.

“He’s like a gorilla.” Sasaki says behind you.

Itadori then walked up to the three of you and you congratulated him on his impressive upper arm strength.

“You know you don’t have to stay in this club Itadori.” Sasaki said.

“Thanks Senpai, but as much as you guys love haunted places, you wouldn’t go if (y/n) or I didn’t go with you.”

“Being scared is what makes it fun.” Sasaki says, laughing nervously.

Itadori checks his watch and realizes that it was time for him to leave. He speeds down the stairs and out the gates of the school, dust collecting behind him from how fast he was going. Out of the corner of your eye you spot a tall, handsome ravenette. You stare at him a little and hear him call out to Itadori trying to stop him. Do they know each other? Maybe he’s a first year too. “I’ve never seen him. He seems interesting, and cute.” You think to yourself. He notices your stare and sharply turns away giving off an egotistical aura. You break your gaze and scoff. “Interesting, cute...and cocky.”

————— turn back time - wayv —————

The room was dark, lit only by the light of a single candle resting on the table that Sasaki, Iguchi and you sat around. You handed Sasaki the wrapped object and she began fiddling with the stained paper. There were weird symbols on the paper, it kind of looked like a talisman.

“This is creepy, I’m gonna turn a light on.” Iguchi said timidly.

“No no we need to keep the ambience.”

Sasaki finally gripped on to a corner of the paper and began unraveling. The unraveled paper revealed a dark crimson finger.

“Is it real?” Sasaki asks.

“Probably not. Someone must have put it there as a joke.” You say, the skeptical side of you hiding the real fear you felt.

Suddenly the room shook and the candle went out. You were frozen with fear. In all the times you’d gone out to haunted places, you’ve never caught anything, but this time felt different. A faint screeching noise startled you three. Slowly you looked up and noticed a giant monster coming straight for you. You grabbed Sasaki’s hand, the finger stuffed into her pocket, and ran for dear life, Iguchi trailing closely behind. You hear the wall of the club room burst, and glancing behind you a huge creature was seen, hot on your trail. Iguchi turns a corner separating himself from you and Sasaki. You pull her behind a wall and sit with your hand pressed firmly against her mouth. You wait there for what feels like hours. Iguchi walks toward you ever so slowly.

“Iguchi! Thank goodness!” Sasaki says naively.

As he walks closer to you two, you notice the small monster that has latched onto his face. Your heart drops.

“H-el-p m-e..”

Iguchi’s voice rang through the hall alerting the creature that followed you and Sasaki. Almost instantly, the monster picked you, Sasaki, and Iguchi up. You felt the monster feel you all over, as if it was searching for something. Your mind starts going blank. Thoughts of your childhood, your family, the memories you made at school, flood your head. Thick, hot tears stream down your face. You faintly hear the voice of a person yelling. Your vision faded and soon you blacked out completely.

Megumi pov:

————— humble - kendrick lamar —————

Running down the halls I find one of the curses that Sukuna’s finger attracted.

“Out of my way! Divine dogs! You can eat it.”

The curses were getting closer together.

The finger was close.

I turn the corner and find Itadori’s friends. The curse is trying to eat them and the finger?!

Wait.

I recognize one of them. The one that was staring at me on the field.

“I’m not gonna make it!”

A loud crash echoes through the hallway. The window was smashed by someone.

Itadori?!

I watch in shock as he scoops up his friends. The one I’d seen before suddenly falls from his grasp. I run over and catch them in my arms. My heart beats faster.

What was this feeling?

I hold them close to my chest as my divine dogs run over and eat the curse.

“Normally I’d be pissed.. but good job.”

“Oh thanks, but what are those munching on the curse?” Itadori asks.

“Those? You can see them? They’re my shikigami. Normally you can’t see curses, unless you’re facing your death or in special places like this.”

Itadori stands and Sukuna’s finger drops from the girl’s pocket into his hand.

“This what your looking for?” Itadori asks.

I drop the feet of the unconscious person, still holding them upright. I reach my hand out to grab the cursed object. Itadori reaches out to take his senpai from my arms. A loud gurgling comes from the ceiling, startling me.

“RUN!”

I cling tightly to sleeping body and protect it from the curse as I try to call for Nue. The curse picks me up and throws us both against the wall, waking them up slightly. The curse gets ahold of us once again and blows the whole side of the school out, exposing us to the cold night air.

(y/n) pov:

You wake up with a pounding headache. You feel two arms around your waist and the cold night air blowing on your face. Were you flying? You look up and see a different monster heading your way.

“Hang on!” A voice calls behind you.

You turn slightly and see the same black haired boy from this morning. Why was he holding you? And why were you flying through the air? Where is Iguchi and Sasaki?

Slipping from the boy’s grip, you land on the hard concrete behind him. He glances over to you, checking to see if you survived the landing. You looked at him with big tear filled eyes. He struggled to put his hands together to form a bird shadow puppet. What is he doing?

“Damn I can’t focus.” He says, frustration written in his defined features.

Itadori flies through the air and whacks the monster on what looks like the head.

“Are you guys ok?!” He screams aiming his worry at you.

“I thought I told you to run.” The boy asks with a harsh tone.

“No can do, You were in trouble and you still had (y/n) in your arms.”

He jumps back onto the monster and starts beating it ruthlessly.

“Stop! You can’t defeat it without cursed energy!” The boy says.

Itadori doesn’t stop fighting it. The monster grabs him tightly and pushes him closer to his mouth.

“Itadori!!” You scream, heart beating out of your chest.

“Then all I need is cursed energy right Fushiguro?!”

He throws the crimson finger into the air and swallows it in one swift motion. Your jaw drops as the black haired boy, who Itadori referred to as Fushiguro, screamed at him. Fushiguro turns to you and, noticing your shock, runs over. He uses his entire body as a shield over you while his eyes are locked on Itadori’s changing body. Your eyes peek over his shoulder giving you a clear view of Itadori. Dark tattoo like marks form on Itadori’s tan skin. He looked like himself, but different. His nails grow long and sharp. He turns to the monster and swipes his hand upward, causing it to disintegrate. Itadori, or what looks like Itadori, turns back to you and Fushiguro with burning scarlet eyes.

————— look at me! - xxxtentacion —————

“Finally! A cursed spirit’s flesh is no fun! What a wonderful age it has become, women and children crawling around like maggots! It’ll be a massacre!”

His voice is deep and there is no trace of Itadori in his tone. Your breathing is heavy against Fushiguro’s neck. His arms are wrapped protectively around you as you’re both crouched down on the floor. The strange man’s eyes lock onto you.

“You don’t look like a sorcerer, maybe i’ll kill you first!” He says laughing maniacally.

Fushiguro’s grip tightens out of anger, squeezing so tight it hurts. A familiar voice exited the tattooed man’s body.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing with my body? Give it back.”

The soft, sweet voice of your kohai calms your nerves ever so slightly.

He’s still there.

Fushiguro lets go of you and stands in front of Itadori.

“Don’t move! You’re no longer human. Under jujutsu regulations, I will exorcise you as a curse, Itadori Yuuji!”

tags: @xreemie @noyakura

big thank you to @noyakura for the banner :’)) ily

[avengerscompound]

The Tower: Family - 24

The Tower: Family An Avengers Fanfic

Series Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Pairing:  Avengers x OFC, Bruce Banner x Bucky Barnes x Clint Barton x Wanda Maximoff x Steve Rogers x Natasha Romanoff x Tony Stark x Thor x Sam Wilson x OFC (Elly Cooper)

Word Count: 2123

Warnings:  Pregnancy, smut (MF, oral sex, vaginal sex, pregnancy sex)

Synopsis: With new powers, Thor now living on Earth full time, a wedding to plan, and Natasha and Wanda expecting, a lot is changing for Elly and her large and rather unconventional family.  When Elise’s parents try to reestablish connections, Elly questions what being a family actually means.

Chapter 24: New Hires

As we drew closer and closer to our due dates, and Wanda got to the point in her pregnancy that they thought they’d arrive at any moment (though all be it early quite early), we still hadn’t hired a nanny.  Tony had been so adamant that he’d handle it but when it actually came down to doing the hiring, the thought of strangers looking after the kids seemed to cripple him in indecision.

Eventually, Steve told him that if he didn’t get on it, the task would be taken from him, so with Natasha’s help, Tony employed a similar technique to hire our nannies as they did when Natasha first started dating me.  First Tony advertised the positions.  He then had FRIDAY do background checks on all the applicants.  After that, he interviewed the best ones.  Then Natasha, Bucky, and Wanda went out and checked into the ones Tony liked best, to make sure there wasn’t something hidden deep down.  Finally, we had the last five candidates come in and meet everyone for a less formal interview with all of us.

“Well, I definitely loved Amber,” Sam said, as we discussed which of the applicants we’d be taking on.  “She had that multitasking between talking to us while the kids showed her things down.  And she never talked down to them.”

“The dogs really liked her too,” Bucky said.  “I dunno if that matters.”

“Hell yeah it does,” Clint said.  “Dogs know shit.”

“I think Amber is a definite ‘yes’,” Bruce agreed.  “She didn’t show any signs of intimidation or uncertainty about any of this.  Like it was just another day for her.  That’s an impressive thing.”

“Oh yes,” Wanda agreed.  “She was certainly a little overwhelmed but the fact she could cover it and keep up - they need to have that.”

“So a yes to Amber,” Steve said, making a note in a file on her tablet.  “No objections?”

Everyone nodded their approval and Tony flicked a screen bringing up the other four resumes.  “And for the second?”

“What do you kids think?”  Natasha asked.  “Who did you like best today?”

“Ummm…” Pietro mused and looked at Riley.

“I wiked dem all,” Riley said.  “Dey was nice.”

“They were nice,” Bruce agreed.  “We need to choose one to live here.”

“I quite liked either Travis or Jade,” Thor said.  “They seemed to have good senses of humor.”

“Of those I liked Travis,” Wanda added.  “Jade was a little more awestruck by everyone, particularly you, Thor.  I think that’s why she was laughing so hard at your jokes.”

“Anyone have any other opinions?”  Steve asked.  “El, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet.”

“Oh, um…” I said, looking around at everyone.  “Yeah, I’d be happy with both of them.”

“You okay, El?”  Sam asked.

“Yeah.  This is just a lot I guess,” I said.  “These people are going to live with us.”

“That’s why it took me so long to do!”  Tony said, sounding exasperated.

“You didn’t get any of those little connections to any of them, El?”  Clint asked.

I shook my head.  “No.  That would be neat, wouldn’t it?  But going off my mom, I think those are formed with people through a shared bond.  Gonna have to pick like regular people do.”

“Alright,” Steve said.  “If anyone has any objections to the new nannies being Travis and Amber speak now.”

No one said anything and Steve marked it on his file and got up.  “I’ll go make the calls.  Shall we ask them to start in two weeks?”

“Two weeks earliest, but give them until the end of the month,” Tony said.  “It might take them longer to get their affairs in order.  I mean, they’ll be moving in.”

“Right,” Steve said with a nod. “Good thinking.”

“Alright kiddos,” Bucky said, getting up.  “I’m gonna take the puppies to the park.  You want to come?”

“Yeah!”  They said, jumping to their feet and running to Bucky.  The dogs ran after them.

Natasha heaved herself up.  “That means me too,” she said.

“Anyone else?”  Bucky asked.

“Yeah, I’ll come,” Clint said, getting up.  Sam stood up as well and stretched.  “Yeah, why not.  We can go on the swings, hey kiddos?”

“Yeah!”  Riley squealed, grabbing Sam’s hand and swinging on it.

“And with that, I think I might head back down to the lab,” Bruce said, following the little group to the elevator, and leaving just Thor, Tony, Wanda, and I in the living room.

“What shall the four of us do?”  Thor asked, stretching out on the couch.

“Thor,” Wanda said, shifting uncomfortably.  “The babies are pressing on my sciatica nerve.  Can you rub my back for me?”

“Of course, my life,” he said getting up and helping Wanda to her feet.  “Shall we go to the special chair Anthony acquired?”

“Yes, please,” Wanda said. 

I watched them head up the stairs together and Tony moved over beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.  “Just you and me,” he said.

“It’s been a while since it was just the two of us,” I said, cuddling into his side.  “Thought you’d be my shadow this time.”

“Got the feeling if I did that, you’d punch me,” he joked, running his hand over my stomach.  He pressed his hand down and was rewarded with a kick from Edwin.  Tony grinned and leaned down and kissed the spot the baby had kicked.  “Hey little guy,” he whispered.

I pushed my hand into his hair and began to massage his scalp.  He looked up at me.  “I’ve been trying to be more balanced.  You know?  Work, and here and the others and you.  I hyperfocus on things and I don’t want to do that and miss out on everything else.”

I smiled and leaned down as much as I could, kissing him on the temple.  “I love that you’re thinking about that,” I said.  “But I’m glad we’re getting some nice one-on-one time too.”

He sat up and grinned at me.  “Yeah.  Gotta take special care of my wifey.”

I leaned in and kissed him, smiling into his lips.  He pulled back and looked at me.  “So what do you want to do?  We could watch a movie.  I could rub your feet.  We could invent time-travel.  You could finally introduce me to your mom.”

I sighed.  Things were going pretty well with mom.  I’d seen Ian and his kids a few more times and Olivia had come to visit.  I was still being cautious though.  She hadn’t met Riley or Pietro nor had she met Tony or Steve.

“I know it seems kind of arbitrary that I haven’t let you or Steve meet her yet,” I explained.  “But I need to be sure she’s definitely here for me.  That she understands the life I have and accepts me.  If I introduce you to her then she’s right up close to the man she was grooming me to marry.  I just… I need to be so sure that she’s not just trying to go through me to get to you.  Which I know is what my dad was doing.”

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, waving his hand.  “So what then?  You want me to sex you up?”

I started laughing.  “Not if it’s a chore.”

He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close.  “It’s never a chore, dear.  Not for me.”

He pulled me into a deep kiss, smothering my laughter.  I hummed and wrapped my arms around him and pushed my hands up under his jacket.  I pulled back and looked at him.  “Maybe if you’re gonna sex me up we should go upstairs.”

“Who are you worried about walking in on us? The kids will be gone for hours.  The cleaners are done.  The worst that could happen is Steve could come in,” Tony said.  “And then he’ll just get a nice show.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, running my hands around his waist and up his stomach.

“Who are you talking to?” He teased.

I looked at him and chewed my bottom lip.  “Then you better get on your knees.  You’re gonna be eating me out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he smirked, slipping off the couch and kneeling between my legs.  I spread them wider and leaned back as he pulled my panties down.  His head disappeared under my skirt and nosed at my cunt.  He used his fingers to spread my folds and ran his tongue up the length of my crevice.  He dipped it inside me and ran it up over my clit.

I moaned loudly and my cunt flooded immediately.  I could feel the wetness seeping from me as a warm tingle spread through my core.  I let my head fall back on the couch and closed my eyes.  He expertly used his mouth on me.  He knew my body better than he knew his own.  He knew when to tease at me lightly and when to apply more pressure.  When to suck and when to lick.  He knew every trick to get me right on the edge and hold me there begging him for more.

“Oh god… god, Tony… please!”  I begged, rocking my hips against his face and digging my fingers into the couch.

He chuckled against my cunt and sucked my clit into his mouth and flicked his tongue over it.  I gasped and jerked up, coming on his face as I moaned loudly.  “Fuck…” I groaned.

Tony lapped it up greedily and got up, wiping his face.  “Now, how are we going to do this.”

“Sit down, I’m gonna ride you,” I said.

He got up and pulled me to my feet.  “Always gotta be on top, even when your preggo.”

“Being pregnant doesn’t make me not the boss, Tony,” I said, unfastening his belt.

He laughed and unfastened his pants, sitting back on the couch and pulling out his dick.  I watched on, chewing my bottom lip as he pulled out his cock and started to pump it in his fist.

“Well, come on dear,” he said.  “Take a seat.”

I turned so that I was facing away from him and straddled his lap, slowly lowering myself down.  He guided his cock inside me, and we both let out a quiet moan as I seated myself on it.

“How are you doing there?”  He asked as he skimmed his hands around my hips and over my stomach.

“Mmm… good,” I hummed, leaning back against him.

He spanked my thigh.  “Then get riding.”

I chuckled and started to bounce in his lap, moving up and down on his cock so our thighs slapped together every time I dropped back down.  Tony’s arm curled around me, supporting my stomach with his forearm as his fingers found their way back to my already sensitive clit.

“Oh god,” I gasped, letting my head fall forward.  “Go easy, I’m right on edge.”

“That’s okay,” Tony teased.  “You can come as many times as you need to.”

I kept moving up and down, up and down on his cock.  Shifting in his lap so I could get the angle just right that the head hit my g-spot with each movement.  He began to rut up into me, countering my movements as he quickly fucked up into me.

“Fuck…” I moaned, starting to feel weak as another orgasm built and pressed down in my core.  He grabbed my hips and held me in place, snapping his hips up into me.  My whole body shuddered and seized up, coming hard around his cock.

He guided me forward, keeping his cock buried deep inside me.  I dropped to my knees and braced my hands on the coffee table.  He crouched over me and began to bounce above me, penetrating me deeply again and again as he chased his own orgasm.

I moaned and shuddered under him and another orgasm hit.  I cried out with it and barely managed to hold myself up as it crashed through me.  Tony’s thrusts began to stutter and with a low groan, he thrust into me and came.

“Fuck, Tony,” I moaned as his cock pulsed inside me.

“See, told you we had time,” he teased.

He slipped out of me and fell back, pulling his pants back up.  I sat back on my feet, breathing heavily.  “So now what?”  He asked.  “Wanna go watch a movie?  We could get the bed out and snuggle.”

I nodded and held out my hands.  It was nice getting one on one time.  Not just with Tony, but with everyone.  It was a nice reminder that even as we were working as a family unit better than ever, we should still take time with each other alone too.  “That sounds really nice, Tony.”

// NEXT

[gellavonhamster]

cold weapons

Suicide Squad (2016) || Captain Boomerang/Katana || post-canon

ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2017 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.  

“So, what do you think of them?” Colonel Flag asks.

Tatsu puts the folder containing the rap sheet of Waylon Jones, better known as Killer Croc, on top of three other folders.

“They’re complicated,” she replies after giving it some thought.

The materials in these folders could have formed her first impression about the members of Task Force X – or, as Lawton has aptly put it, the Suicide Squad. Could have, but did not, because they were given their first task earlier than expected. Which is why she doesn’t say “villains” or “scoundrels” or “worst team imaginable” – her first impression of them was formed in combat, and then in an empty bar in Midway City where they all drank together thinking it may be the last drink in their lives. She remembers all of this and says ‘complicated’.  

“Very tactful of you,” the colonel chuckles. Then again, what kind of colonel is he now – an unwashed shirt, black circles under the eyes. Just another guy struggling with a deluge of work, a hard-hearted boss, and a troubled relationship with his girlfriend. “But yeah, they definitely aren’t simple,” continues Rick Flag, one of her few friends in the country that will never become her home, and Tatsu cannot suppress a tired smile.  

“You like them.”

“They’re… tolerable,” Rick admits, and takes another sip of coffee. Lately he seems to be living only on coffee and whiskey and the verb “must” and (so Tatsu supposes, although they don’t talk about that) the hope that June Moone, who still hasn’t fully recovered from all the horrors she’s been through, will be all right – and will stop isolating herself and avoiding him. These means for not letting yourself just fall down and never get up are far from being reliable, but Tatsu herself lives mostly on revenge and duty and, for that matter, whiskey as well, to a certain degree, so it’s not for her to judge. “Most of them, at least. All of them minus the Australian.”

“At least he’s a good fighter,” Tatsu points out. This is the only good thing she can say about Captain Boomerang with full confidence.  

“He’s not cut out for teamwork.”

“When we were fighting the Enchantress, it didn’t look to me like that.”

She does not put much meaning into these words. It’s just that at some point Captain Boomerang saved her, and she saved him – and good thing they’re even, because the last thing she needs is to owe a favour to someone so incompatible with the very concept of duty. She could have said much about the man who tried to escape at the very beginning of the mission and got a teammate killed (and for some reason stood up for El Diablo when Harley Quinn lashed out at him at the bar, and for some reason came back before the battle after trying to desert), but the only thing she’s sure of is that he’s a fine weapon; she can confirm that, being a weapon herself. At the end of the day, that is all that’s required from him.      

At the end of the day, that is all that’s required from her, too.

 ***

 It is possible that what she said about Digger Harkness sticks in Rick’s memory, because when the need to comb the area arises during the next mission, he sends the two of them to search through the same building.

“If he gets up to something, do whatever you want to him. No one’s gonna weep for him,” he flings off. This is in the heat of the moment, of course – Boomerang almost got into a fight with Killer Croc on the helicopter over some nonsense. Or rather, it was Croc that almost got into a fight with Boomerang after the latter provoked him. Complicated.  

“You heard that, darl?” Boomerang addresses her with a smile so wide as if he hasn’t heard the last remark. “I’m all yours.”

Tatsu looks the other way and pointedly takes her sword out of its sheath – not completely, just a little. No further comments follow, and they part company – Deadshot with Croc, Flag with his team of spec ops, Tatsu with Boomerang – and go on a recce.  

In the basement, they discover something that looks like a laboratory – if a place so far from being sanitary may even be called one. All their hopes to move without making a sound crumble as soon as they enter the room: the floor is covered with broken glass. Those who ran the place must have escaped in haste and couldn’t take the entire stock of the serum with them, so they opted to destroy most of it. Tatsu’s attention is immediately drawn to the object on the table in the middle of the room – a metal container with tubes going from it to several smaller vessels. She heads straight for the table, shards crunching underfoot. Boomerang follows her, apparently kicking the largest shards on purpose so that they fly in all directions.      

“Looks like a hooch still,” he comments, having come closer, and gives a whistle. “Whoa, fuck, is that blood?”

Compared to the first task of their squad, this one looks almost effortless. Two gangs, the members of one of which possess the formula of the serum that grants superpowers to those who take it. A gun battle, collateral damage, the entire district on lockdown. If a few people weren’t noticed literally floating through the sky, the police would have been handling this. But this is an emergency, which is why they’re here, and the flying gangsters aren’t flying anymore, for Lawton is an exceptionally good shot.    

As it turns out, the serum that sparked the conflict is based on metahuman blood – hardly donated voluntarily.

“I’ll contact Colonel Flag,” says Tatsu, eyes locked on the bloodied tubes, and then someone grabs her by the neck.

For the first time in her life, she really has to fight blindly – because her enemy is invisible.  

Later, when the dead bodies gradually become visible on the floor like an eerie animated movie, it turns out there were four of them. Before that, Tatsu manages to lose her sword, recapture it, almost choke when an invisible hand squeezes her neck, slash one of the attackers in half, and plunge the blade into another’s stomach. Boomerang takes care of the other two, knocking over the container in the process.    

Tatsu is listening to the silence that came after the fight, wondering if any other invisible foes are lurking around the corner, when she feels that something is wrong. Something is wrong with her – she just can't figure out what. Sometimes it happens that one feels unwell but cannot determine what exactly the problem is – she is experiencing something similar now. Until she realizes: the mask. Until she looks up and makes eye contact with Captain Boomerang, who is staring at her and grinning.  

“You lost anything, doll?” Harkness inquires innocently, with an emphasis on the last word, and his smile grows even wider and cockier.  

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. The invisible man she fought hand to hand tore off her mask, and she didn’t even notice. But her partner, blast him, did – and picked it up.  

“Give it back,” Tatsu demands, hand outstretched. She feels naked. In combat, during the mission, she is Katana, a single whole with her sword. A cold weapon. No one needs to see her face. Truly, if she was wearing only the mask and nothing else, she would have felt less exposed – all right, this is an overstatement, and she doesn’t even want to imagine such a situation. Meanwhile, Boomerang is in no hurry to return the mask.      

“What did ya call me when that fucker was about to stab me?” he asks. Tatsu clenches the sword hilt. There is no telling how many enemies drunk on the magic serum are hiding in this house, and he’s dawdling. “You said…”

Damn it, what did she say? She saw one of the invisibles creeping up on him while he was fighting another – a bloodstain was floating through the air. She shouted…

“I said ‘George’”. Isn’t your name George Harkness?”

“You bet it is. It’s just weird. Most people don’t call me George, y’know.”  

“How do they call you then?”

“Digger. Boomerang. Boomer. That Prick. All sorts of things, but never George. But you,” he winks, “can call me whatever ya want. I liked the way you say my name.”

“Give. Me. The mask.”

“And the magic word?”

“I will chop your hand off,” as a proof of her intentions, she puts the blade against his extended hand that is holding her mask. In fact, she would face no consequences for doing so. No one’s gonna weep for him.      

Harkness makes a helpless gesture and hands her the mask.

“Can’t say no to you, luv.”

The mask helps her conceal her identity, but what is more important is that it helps her conceal needless emotions. Tatsu really hopes that her facial expression isn’t giving away that she’s ill at ease now. This is a weakness; weaknesses are not to be demonstrated. She feels deeply relieved when she puts the mask back on.  

“Let’s get out of here,” she commands, turns around, and heads for the exit. Harkness trails behind.

“It ain’t fair, by the way. You know my real name, but I don’t know yours,” he muses. “Care to introduce yourself, eh?”  

He asks the same question at least three times more before they return to Belle Reve, and each time she ignores him.

 ***

 A week later, he still doesn’t know her name – but he learns something else.

They do away with the last members of the recent gang on the outskirts of the city. Both wretches have overused the unfortunate serum, in keeping with the best traditions of the clichéd movies about superheroes and supervillains that Hollywood keeps producing for some reason, even though it is more and more often possible to see nearly the same thing on the news. As a result, one of them got puffed up almost to the size of the creature that Superman died fighting, and the other couldn’t control the flames bursting from his mouth. He burned half of the shopping centre with customers, retail workers, and guards. With teenagers in the bowling alley on the second floor and children in the playroom on the first.    

Santana… wouldn’t have approved.

Both problems eliminated, they leave: the firefighters and the cops will take it from here. Flag’s spec ops stay behind, because officially it is their victory; the general public shouldn’t know about the existence of Task Force X. Through backyards, they retreat in the direction of the abandoned construction site on the other side of the street; a car has been sent to pick them up there.  

There is a workers’ trailer still standing by the construction pit. The door is not locked, and Rick, Deadshot, Croc, and Boomerang go inside. Jones’s arm is broken: his inhuman strength notwithstanding, he still was no match for his enemy – not the fire-breather, but the other one. Tatsu leaves them to figure out how to make a temporary sling, and wanders away. Not far from the trailer, a piece of tarpaulin stretched over the fence has come off, and she can see the building across the street. Tatsu sits down on the ground, puts her arms around her knees, and stares at the dandelions growing by the fence.  

In her head, flames are raging.

She doesn’t look up, neither when she hears the footsteps approaching, nor when Harkness – and it is him, no one else in the Squad reeks of the mixture of booze and cologne like that – sits down next to her and cracks open a can of beer.  

“You want some?” he nudges her. What extraordinary generosity. It is, however, perfectly possible that if she says yes, he’ll reply along the lines of “Well, then go and buy yourself some.”  

“No,” Tatsu replies without looking and, after a short pause, adds, “Thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

With a sigh, she accepts the can from his hands, and takes a sip.

“This is disgusting,” she whispers, and takes another.  

Harkness just snorts and opens another one. For a little while, they sit side by side in silence, drinking each from their own can, and study the wall opposite through the mesh of the fence – like out of a prison window. Old advertisements that are half torn off, graffiti, a writing proclaiming that life fucks us all – plenty of things to stare at to avoid looking the person next to you in the eye.  

“So what the hell happened to ya?” Boomerang asks, and suddenly she could do with some serum for invisibility or, better yet, disappearing completely. Naturally, it is a fleeting impulse; she has no right to disappear. She has obligations – towards Flag, towards Waller. Towards herself.    

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You zoned out, Flag shouted himself hoarse before you heard him. Like you were someplace else. Didn’t ya?”  

Why do you need to know? Tatsu thinks. If she almost rushed headlong into the fire, it’s her own business. If it only seemed to her that someone was there, it’s her own business. If she’s going to see things that aren’t there for the rest of her life, it’s her own business. He shouldn't have spoken. There is something comforting about being silent together.    

“Nah, you don’t have to say if you don’t wanna,” Boomerang assents, and takes another pull on his can. “I just thought that you, well. Might wanna talk to someone.”  

And they fall silent again. Yet now Tatsu feels awkward, which makes her angry at herself. She’s not obliged to pour out her heart to anyone who shows something that looks like care.    

This silence doesn’t make it any easier.

“I have… bad memories,” she finally says. Now it won’t be as awkward: she answered his question. It won’t be, right? “About a fire”.

Harkness nods, looking at her attentively.

“Someone you knew died, aye?”

“My children,” she hears herself say, and wishes to disappear again.

“Fuck,” Boomerang says, embarrassed, and – unbelievable – looks like he actually feels bad about starting this conversation. “I’m sorry, I… well, uh, I had no idea.”  

“It’s okay,” Tatsu says mechanically. Nothing is okay: she can still see Yuki’s tear-stained face, still hear Reiko’s voice, she is still watching the flames run up the curtains that she and Maseo picked together, she is still breathing in the smoke and still cannot believe she deserves a gulp of fresh air. She should have saved them. All of them.  

Boomerang looks at her incredulously but doesn’t say anything, and bit by bit, the silence that she doesn’t want to run from returns – the kind of silence in which one is not alone.    

Then there are footsteps again, and Flag approaches them.

“There you are,” he says with relief as soon as he sees her. Rick does not let himself overstep the limits of formality – they’re on a mission, after all – but he has obviously been worried. At the sight of Harkness, he frowns warily. “You! Quit getting on her nerves.”

“Who’s gettin’ on her nerves, Colonel? I was just tryin’ to help,” Harkness protests. It appears Rick’s words have wounded him a little.  

“He was,” Tatsu says. “It’s all under control, Colonel Flag.”  

Flag shifts his gaze to her and then to Boomerang again, and nods.

“Okay. In any case… follow me. We’re leaving.”

Tatsu gives her unfinished beer to Boomerang.

“Don’t talk about this to anyone,” she tells him. This might be an order or a request; she doesn’t really know.

He nods, and she thinks absentmindedly: who would have thought this man knows how to make a solemn face.

“Thank you,” she says again, hoping that he understands that this is not just about the beer or his promise to keep his mouth shut.

***

 After a few days, Tatsu comes to visit him. In prison.

Actually, she comes to visit all of them, of course. Not more than fifteen minutes alone with each of them – Waller wouldn’t allow more. This request seems to have surprised her, but Tatsu is certain that Waller is already picturing the new threads she can use to manipulate her special operations puppets. So it is possible that one day this decision will blow up in Tatsu’s face – or in the faces of all of them. But she cannot shake off the feeling that she must do this – so that someone except Rick, who is already dealing with a lot these days, would notice in time if the inmates are treated with undeserved cruelty. So that she knows what’s on their minds, because it is safer to fight side by side with the people whose line of thought she can understand at least roughly. So that there is some kind of variety in their lives between the missions.  

This is why she visits all three of them. Killer Croc, who looks like he’s not surprised to see her in the slightest and doesn’t really seems to care that she came, but doesn’t have any issue with that either. Deadshot, who looks like he is surprised, but doesn’t seem to mind answering her questions when she notices a stack of letters in the corner and asks him how his daughter is doing. And Captain Boomerang, who, when she enters his cell, looks like he can’t figure out if he’s dreaming.

“Katana?” he frowns perplexedly. He’s stripped to his waist, so she can see a couple of fresh scars he brought back from the last mission, and he’s got a black eye – when Tatsu saw him last, he had not. Must have quarrelled with the guards again. “What are you doing here?”  

“I came to see you.”

For a moment he seems not to understand what she just said. Then he breaks into a smile – or rather a grin, wide and pleased. Very pleased.  

“Aha! Knew it would end up like this,” he pronounces in triumph.

“Like this?”

“You,” he looks like he’s just proven a theorem of immense complexity, “missed me.”  

“I haven’t missed you, Captain.”

A very, very pleased grin.

“And still you’re here.”

“I visited Deadshot and Killer Croc earlier,” Tatsu says, and sees his facial expression change instantly. Not for long: the grin is quick to return, and she wouldn’t be able to tell right away that he’s disappointed.    

“Did ya now? And how are our fellas doing? Better than me, I reckon?”

“So it would seem. Did you fight the guards?”

“Why do you care, gorgeous?”

Indeed, why does she? Most likely, he picked a fight himself – and got his just deserts.  

“Make up your mind,” Tatsu says, “if you think that I missed you or that I don’t care.”

Harkness chuckles and really seems to ponder over this for a while.

“Beats me,” he concludes at last. “Care to throw some light on it?”  

No, Tatsu thinks, I don’t get it myself and I’m not sure I want to.

Instead of answering, she comes closer to him – so close that she can smell his sweat – and studies his face. She has to look up to be able to do that, which must look comical. Then again, he’s hardly stupid enough to laugh at her height or anything else about her, especially when she’s armed and he is not.  

“You lost a tooth. What happened?”

“Didn’t get along with one of the Wall’s watchdogs.”

“You could have tried not to look for trouble for a change,” all of a sudden, Tatsu realizes that she’s mad. Really mad at him. They might get dragged to another mission this instant; whether they like it or not, they have to be in good enough shape to protect the society that the most of them have to atone before at least partially. They shouldn’t spend their energy and health on nonsense. Black eyes and knocked-out teeth are nothing, but it mustn’t come to any of them being out of action when all of them are needed. All their powers, all their skills. All the anger they should rather aim at something other than the people who can just press a certain button at any point – and dispose of the wilful weapon.

Boomerang bares his teeth – not like Croc, of course, but still threateningly. He looks dangerous now – big, sturdy, more than a head taller than her. But he still isn’t more dangerous than her – and both of them are aware of that.  

“And they could have tried,” he speaks through his teeth, “not to talk shit about my mother for a change. They wanna talk shit about me, they can knock themselves out. I’ve heard enough ‘bout myself, I don’t give a flying fuck about what else they gonna say. But they’d better leave my mother out of it.”

So that’s what it is. They have found a quick and easy way to infuriate the man who has “MUM” tattooed on his chest. In uneven letters, like a child's handwriting. Tatsu noticed that tattoo as soon as she came in but didn’t look too closely at it. Now she feels like she has the right to look, to let her gaze slip lower, at the ridiculous writing that heaves with each furious breath of his, and then to avert her eyes at once.    

“They have power, and you have nothing,” she says. “Do you enjoy being their plaything?”

“Oh, so I’m a plaything, darl? And do I have much choice who to be now? In these four walls, and,” Boomerang points at his neck, at the place where a bomb is implanted under his skin, “with this crap in my neck?”  

Tatsu looks up again, right him in the eye.

“You already know who you are,” she tells him. “You’re a weapon. Broken weapons get discarded. And you’re letting them break you.”  

He stays silent, just looks at her in an odd manner, as if she’s speaking another language but he has a vague understanding of what she’s saying and doesn’t like what he just heard – because it is the truth.

Tatsu still doesn’t understand why she cares, and with each passing minute she has less and less desire to learn why.  

“Also,” she continues, “if you call me ‘darl’ or ‘gorgeous’ one more time, you’re going to regret opening your mouth.”

“Yeah? And how should I call ya?”

“Katana.”

“What, and that’s all? Nah, we might be weapons,” and she probably ought to remind him that there is no ‘we’, but in this particular case he’s right. Perhaps that is why Tatsu feels drawn to all of them: they’re cut from the same cloth, “but we’re alive as well. So far. Seriously, what’s yer real name? You know mine.”  

“I should not disclose that.”  

“Oh, come on. Listen,” he breaks into a pleased grin again. Another theorem proven. “How about a deal? You tell me yer name, and I will try to keep my temper if anyone else decides to stir me up. What do ya think?”    

“As if you’re going to keep your word.”

Boomerang makes a show of putting his hand over his heart.

“For you, ma’am… anything.”

For you. All at once, she recalls Rick’s words: do whatever you want to him. How many minutes of the visit she has already spent on this predictably fruitless conversation?    

“My name is Tatsu Yamashiro,” she says, tired, and then he smiles – not the way he did before, but in a calmer and more sincere manner. Gratefully.

“George Harkness,” he offers her his hand with an earnest air. “Nice to meet ya.”  

Tatsu hesitantly offers him hers. Her hand looks very small and fragile against his huge paw, and he must be thinking the same because the handshake comes out very careful. He could easily break her wrist. She could easily kill him with one hand afterwards. But he holds her hand gently in his warm, pleasantly calloused palm, and Tatsu hastens to take her hand away, because this is a mistake of an even worse kind than the time he saw her without the mask.  

“So you promise not to fights the guards.”

“I promise to try,” Harkness assures, but he’s keeping one hand behind his back.

“Don’t cross your fingers,” Tatsu says sternly. Real mature.

With a sigh, Boomerang repeats his promise, this time holding his hands within her view.

“But I ain’t promisin’ not to call you gorgeous,” he declares in the end.

“You know my name now.”

“But you’re still gorgeous.”

“Time’s up!” shouts the guard outside the door, and Tatsu cannot help feeling relieved that she has to go. She doesn’t regret visiting him, but all of this is too strange and awkward, and both of them might be weapons, but her position is different from his, and it is better not to forget that.    

“Can I do anything for you?” she asks him on parting.  

“Well,” Boomerang smirks. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“With something I would actually agree to do?”

“Come again. Will ya?” This time he isn’t flirting; this time she can feel his insecurity, even shyness. As if he doesn’t like to admit to himself that what she answers is really important to him.  

“I’ll try,” she says cautiously. She’s not going to make any promises: she asked Waller about one time only. She doubts if she’ll be allowed to visit them again – to visit him again.  

“Try,” Harkness repeats, as if weighing the word on his tongue. “This means no.”

“This means I’ll try,” Tatsu says firmly.

And she comes again in a week. And the week after next. And a week after that.  

 ***

 “Why didn’t you walk away in Midway City?” Tatsu asks him once. “When Rick broke the control panel. You left then; why did you return?”  

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the time Captain Boomerang dared to smart off Amanda Waller. Several successful missions, slightly more respectful attitude on his part – and his cell already bears a passing resemblance to a place for living, even if for living quite miserably. Now there is even a table, and a chair that she gets to sit on as guest privilege. Harkness is sitting on the floor opposite her. The question seems to catch him unawares, but only for a moment.    

“Huh? Why did I return? Gotta live up to my name, that’s why. Have you ever thrown a boomerang, luv?”

I’m going to throw you somewhere one day, Tatsu thinks, yet without much irritation.

“And jokes aside?”

Boomerang attempts to feign an offended sigh.

“How do ya think? Plenty of options, all right. You gonna try to guess which one?”

Tatsu frowns.

“Is this a psychoanalysis session? Were you bitten by Harley Quinn?”

“Nah, Blondie didn’t bite me, I would’ve remembered. So don’t be jealous,” his voice gets playful again, and Tatsu stifles the urge to roll her eyes. “Lookie here… suppose I suddenly realized that I can’t leave you guys! ‘Cause you’re my mates. One for all, and so on. Don’t believe me?”

“You said something about plenty of options. What are the rest of them?”

He scratches his chin thoughtfully.

“We-e-ell… the second, ‘course, is that I wanted to save the world. Not that the world smiles upon me every bloody day, but I still wanna live! And for everyone an’ their mother to know that the bastards like us can also be heroes. Don’t you like being one of the good guys, eh, Tatsu?”

“I’m not ‘one of the good guys’”, Tatsu protests. “And it’s not me that we’re talking about. Any other options?”

“There was no point in leaving. That was still gonna be the end of the world, aye? So I’d rather meet it in battle and in good company than on the run. All the same it’ll be the end. There you go.”  

He stops talking, and in the silence that falls Tatsu can hear the footsteps of the guards in the corridor. Once again she wonders what the duty attendants that monitor everything through the surveillance cameras think of their conversations. They must make for the strangest and most pointless reality show ever.  

“The third one,” she says.

Boomerang looks a bit disappointed.

“Why?”

“Not the first one, because none of us meant anything to you then. You had just met us. And it didn’t seem like you were upset about letting Slipknot down,” Tatsu explains. She doesn’t intend to offend him – she’s just saying the truth. Once, he claimed it himself that they understand each other – here’s some understanding, he’s welcome. “Not the second one either, because you’re not stupid – no, stop smiling. You never believed that if people like us stop the Enchantress, someone would learn about that. Only the third option remains.”  

Harkness nods slowly.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and his eyes turn pensive, abstracted, as if he is there again, in the night city frozen in anticipation of the apocalypse. As if he sees himself – and makes a choice once again. “And that’s what happened in the end, didn’t it?”

“So the third option, then?”

“So it is.”

But something in his face makes Tatsu think that he was hoping for a different answer.

***

 Time flies; weeks and months go by. Tatsu spends them fighting, spilling someone else’s blood, occasionally drinking with Flag at a bar or in his apartment – a bachelor’s home again; reading books – most of the plots seem too naïve and unimaginative compared to what goes on in her life, and that is even for the best, and visiting the members of the Suicide Squad in Belle Reve. Some people go clubbing Friday evenings, and she goes to prison Friday afternoons.  

“Don’t get attached to them,” Rick scolds her.

“That is rich coming from you,” Tatsu replies, and he has enough self-awareness not to argue. Lest he gets offended, she chooses not to tell him that sometimes she and Lawton talk a little about him good-naturedly behind his back.

During one of her visits, Harkness raises a topic she has totally forgotten about.

“Hey, come to think of it, we never had that drink,” he points out. Tatsu doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and it must be written all over her face, because he continues. “Remember I asked you out for a drink? In Midway City, before we fought the witch.”  

Tatsu has to make an effort to remember: indeed, he said something of the sort, but it never occurred to her to take those words seriously.

“We had a drink,” she counters. “When… when you shared your beer with me.”  

He shakes his head, dissatisfied.

“At the construction site? That’s bollocks. I’m talking a proper bar… nah, a restaurant! With crystal glasses an’ candles an’ shit… Like normal people.”  

“Candles,” Tatsu mumbles. She tries to imagine the two of them at the table at a restaurant; the picture turns out pretty absurd. On the other hand, a lot of what has happened in her life during the past few years can be deemed absurd.

“Yeah. Candles,” echoes Harkness, and continues with a crooked smile, “well, that’s me jokin’ around. In the near future,” he gestures in the direction of the small barred window of his cell, “I won’t be able to take you even to a fucking McDonald’s.”  

They don’t talk about the hypothetical dinners at a restaurant anymore, but the absurd picture stays with Tatsu, who still feels somehow indebted to Boomerang – for no reason, as she keeps telling herself – for that conversation at the construction site. She doesn’t like to feel the weight of unpaid debts on her shoulders – yes, that’s what it is about.

One day, she finds a way to pay that debt back.

 ***

 She waits for him in the car outside the prison gate. She hears him first; she cannot make out what exactly he is yelling at the guards, but that surely isn’t ‘good evening’. Then the door of the jeep is open, and someone must have kicked him in the rear because he literally falls into the car. Tatsu shrinks back on instinct.  

Then Harkness looks up – and notices her.

“Katana?.. Hey, what the hell’s going on? They didn’t let me take the boomerangs, didn’t let me take anything…”

“Close the door,” Tatsu tells him, and when he, still confused, obeys, tells the driver, “Let’s go.”

The car pulls away.

“I still don’t get what’s happening,” Harkness reminds her. “Sure, I’m happy to see ya, but… you weren’t ordered to take me to the woods and finish me off under the radar, huh?”  

“If Waller wanted to get rid of you, she would have had you killed in your own cell, and that’s all.”

“Wow, thanks for honesty. So where are we going?”

“To a restaurant,” Tatsu says, and turns away. Yet again it crosses her mind that it is a terrible idea.

“A restaurant?” Harkness drawls quizzically.

“As far as I recall, you said that the beer at the construction site is ‘bollocks’.”  

She should turn back to him, of course. The problem is that Tatsu is ninety-nine per cent sure that if she meets his eye now, she will blush. And she is by no means going to give him any sign that might be interpreted as taking an interest… of a certain kind. She has already blundered more than a few times.  

Therefore she stubbornly keeps looking out of the window. Then again, she doesn’t even need to look to picture how his facial expression is changing now; she’s seen this rakish grin enough times.  

“Holy cow. Tatsu, are you serious? We’re really just going to a restaurant? We’re getting outta this shithole where they only give us porridge with rat crap to gorge ourselves on lobsters and drink wine? Oh, fuck me sideways,” in the end, she turns to him and sees him throw back his head and burst into laughter, narrowing his eyes happily. “I’ll be damned! Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming. Pinch me.”    

“I can assure you you’re not,” Tatsu says, and realizes that she is also starting to smile despite herself. She has visited him and the others in Belle Reve often enough to know that porridge with rat crap, unfortunately, is far from being just a figure of speech. After such a diet, a meal at a restaurant must seem like the pinnacle of happiness.    

Boomerang shakes his head, apparently still unable to believe her.

“Holy fucking shit. How did you do that? How do you even do all that? I’ve told ya you’re unreal, have I?”

“Yes, you have,” Tatsu confirms patiently. And more than once – too often for her to attach great importance to it, too fervently for it not to please her at all. “Let’s put it that way: this is Waller paying me for a… favour.”  

“A favour, then. I take it a lot of some poor suckers died?”

“No,” she shakes her head. And it is true – but there still was a lot of blood. Both the man Waller indicated and his bodyguards turned out to be worthy adversaries. The whole thing went not as smoothly as she wanted it to – not that she wanted to; not that she would kill another person she knows nothing about if she could help it. Nothing to assure her: this one deserves it. Everything turned out rather… nasty. She had to burn the bodies. Then she got home in a haze, tended to a couple of fresh wounds – or rather, just scratches. And then she went to the bathroom and spent a long time soaping herself, as if the invisible filth that bothered her the most could be washed off with shower gel.    

Afterwards, she rummaged through her modest wardrobe and dug out the only dress she has about in America. Nothing special: wine red, below the knee length, sleeveless but with a pretty high neckline – very demure. The first and so far the last dress she bought after… after. If she and Rick didn’t have to accompany Amanda Waller to some event once, she wouldn’t have bought this one either. She put it on, combed her hair, still wet after the shower, with her fingers, looked at herself in the mirror – and flew into a rage, pulled off the dress, and could barely stop herself from tearing it to shreds. Restaurant or not, what does it matter? The last thing she needs is for him to think she dressed up for him.      

So the situation might be a little less absurd than it could have been. Both of them look like they’re going on another mission with the others, only she isn’t wearing her mask – he has already seen her face anyway – and he isn’t wearing his ever-present coat. It is no wonder he wasn’t allowed to take it – Waller wasn’t going to let him out of Belle Reve armed, and to let him wear his coat would probably be as unwise as to hand him all his boomerangs. Tatsu has no doubt that everyone and their dog have already searched through the personal belongings of the Squad, but she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that somewhere in his inside pockets Harkness has as many boomerangs as he is listed as having officially. She witnessed this man produce from his bosom at least four different lighters, a massive stack of dollars, a pocket knife, small binoculars, flat-nose pliers, and a toy unicorn. She has to admit: sometimes she doesn’t understand how he even does all that either.    

It appears that the thoughts of Captain Boomerang also turn to the contents of his pockets.

“Hey, how the hell are we affording this, though? Make no mistake, I’d stand treat, but my stash is in the coat, and these assholes didn’t let me take it, y’know.”    

“Don’t worry about that. Waller is paying for everything,” she explains, unable to suppress a grin, because this part, possibly the most unbelievable part of the entire affair, gives her a sort of silly, spiteful joy. Task Force X is a comparatively recent project, but they’ve already cleaned up so much mess for Amanda Waller that Heracles and his labours don’t even come close. A dinner at a restaurant is the least thing she could offer them. So when Boomerang explodes with laughter and gives her a conspiratorial wink, she looks him right in the eye and smiles. Another mistake. Then again, this is not the first time they share a secret.

He puts his hand on her knee, and she shakes it off immediately; this is way too far.

“I see you took your sword with ya,” Harkness observes, not giving any sign that something didn’t go the way he wanted.

“I am to keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah. How about…” he leans in closer, and the smell of cologne blasts up Tatsu’s nose. She can only hope it is due to external use only, “we chop off his head,” he nods at the driver, “and drive the fuck away from this? Huh?”    

The driver, who can definitely hear everything, doesn’t turn, but Tatsu notices him tense up.

“You’re kidding,” she says dryly. He may be, or he may be not – with Digger Harkness, one cannot always tell.

“Why kidding, doll? Zip, and done. There’s no way you enjoy working for Waller.”  

“I do not. But if you pull some stunt,” Tatsu feels for the sword hilt, and Boomerang sees that – very well, it is good for him to see that, “I will chop your head off. I really hope it won’t come to that.”  

“And what’s it to you? Scared of me? But I’m unarmed,” he claps himself on the chest demonstratively, implying that he has no weapons on him. “Why do you care if it does?”  

“I just wouldn’t like to do that,” she says firmly, and it’s true. It works well; he doesn’t even mention running away for the remainder of the day.

 This might be the strangest evening in her life.

Waller’s man drives them to a French restaurant whose name she cannot read but is almost sure that the phrase was chosen solely because it sounds impressive. They are let in through the back door, so no one among the other guests, who are sporting evening dresses and suits, pays any attention to her crop top and sword or to his… appearance in general. Their table is one of those located in alcoves, away from prying eyes, but Tatsu feels they are being watched. Which means Waller doesn’t trust her too much – well, she can understand that. She is part of a special team composed of deranged madmen, and she must admit she likes these deranged madmen more than she likes certain normal people known to her. Of course, she is Flag’s right-hand woman, but it is most likely that Waller doesn’t trust Flag either. It is doubtful whether there are any people in this world that she trusts at all.          

Waller is rich. Their little feast will not shatter her wealth, all the more so since the restaurant she sent them to is not the most luxurious. But they still have a field day ordering loads of food and a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu.    

“To honour among thieves?” she suggests, when they raise their glasses for the first time.

“Didn’t ya say yer not a thief?”

“That is true,” she admits, and adds inwardly, I’m a killer.  

In the end, they drink to the Suicide Squad. Then to Lawton and Jones, currently languishing in their cells. Then to Zoe Lawton, who is acting in a school play next week. To a lot of things. He asks her about her life here, in America. At some point she finds herself trying to explain to him what taiyaki is, and him telling her about banana sandwiches, and she can’t remember why they started talking about this at all. The bottle becomes empty, and another appears as if by itself.      

They don’t talk about the past. They don’t talk about the future, because there might be no future at all – they can’t know for sure, what with their way of life. That evening, Tatsu laughs and thinks: good thing I’m drunk – it almost gets easier for a while.  

When it’s time to leave, Harkness gets pig-headed.

“Whoa, no, no, no. Already? It’s too early, are you kiddin’ me?” he booms out when they exit the restaurant. He protests, but she drags him by the hand and he stumbles along after all, treading heavily like a dancing bear. “Let’s go someplace else, luv. Look at the pretty stars.”  

“We are already late. And you… you have to go back to jail,” Tatsu tells him. The stars are pretty indeed, but she regrets looking up at them, because her head begins to spin. Thankfully, she isn’t wearing high heels. Thankfully, she doesn’t have any high-heeled shoes at all, or she could have been possessed to wear them. “Sorry,” she adds when they get into the car and set off. “There is no other way.”  

“Back to jail,” Boomerang repeats with disgust. Sprawling on the seat, he unzips his hoodie, and Tatsu is swept over by the smell of cologne again. Weirdly, it doesn’t annoy her as much as at the beginning of the evening. “I’m a fucking Cinderella. I’m not back by midnight, they turn me into a pumpkin.”  

“Cinderella,” Tatsu echoes, and giggles: everything is way funnier now. The driver makes a sudden turn, and she is literally thrown at Boomerang. Her cheek presses to his chest – and stays there. Tatsu feels drunk and sated and drunk again, and sleepy too, and he makes for a decent pillow, and she can’t make herself move away.  

“Oh, you think it’s funny,” Harkness mutters with mock offence in his voice. It seems he’s about to fall asleep too. “Well, go on, laugh.”

They drive back in silence, and through the drowse Tatsu feels the warm arm around her waist and thinks: good thing I’m drunk, I can pretend I’m asleep.  

The road to Belle Reve is long, but it still feels like they reach it too quickly.

“Inmate,” calls one of the guards, “get out.”  

Harkness, his eyes still closed, moans with discontent.

“Captain Boomerang,” Tatsu says softly, freeing herself from his embrace. “It’s time.”

There is nothing to be done. He’s already about to step out of the jeep, when he suddenly moves closer to her again.

“Hey, darlin’,” he says, looking her right in the eye. “Aren’t ya forgetting something?”

It takes her some time to realize what he means: he must be expecting her to kiss him. All at once she remembers everything that has happened this evening, and awful shame washes over her: it is no wonder he’s expecting that to happen.  

“Inmate, get out!”

She shrinks back.

“Good night, Captain,” she tells him as dryly as she can. He looks wounded but says nothing, and almost obediently lets the guards escort him back to his cell. Tatsu closes her eyes and rubs her temples wearily. Tomorrow she is going to regret drinking so much. She already does – and that’s not the only thing she regrets.

She has to stop seeing him.

 ***

 At first, she even succeeds. Next Friday Tatsu, as always, goes to Belle Reve to see the Squad – all of them save for Harkness. She feels sick at heart because if she did promise him anything, it was to visit him, and now she’s going back on her word because of her own stupid weakness. But there is no other way.  

“He asked about you,” Waylon tells her a week later, when she brings him the latest issue of Playboy. Tatsu almost doesn’t feel weird anymore when buying it, and doesn’t try to imagine anymore what the news stand clerks think when she pays them for it. Such periodicals cause her a feeling of light disgust, but Croc, who gets let out of jail only to be thrown into another trouble spot, deserves at least some small joys.  

“Who?”

Waylon, no doubt observant like all the quiet ones tend to be, bares his impressive teeth.  

“You know who.”

It seems a logical solution to give up on these visits at all – but in that case she would betray all of them. Perhaps this little tradition is much more important to her than it is to the prisoners, but Tatsu is almost sure that it means something to them as well. She has no right to deprive the rest of them of this bit of understanding, companionship, normalcy because she wasn’t smart enough to stop the game she and Boomerang started before it became too late.

At home – not that the apartment she’s renting here deserves to be called ‘home’ – she, unable to fall asleep, unsheathes the sword and runs the tips of her fingers along the cool blade. A tender, habitual movement – like touching the cheek of a loved one.

“I’ve lost my way, Maseo,” whispers Tatsu. The place where the souls of the people struck down by this blade are trapped is still a mystery to her, but she knows that Maseo will come as soon as she calls him – as a voice from afar, as nebulous shapes in the swirls of smoke, as the peace and safety granted by the presence of someone dear. “I’m afraid of my own heart.”    

I know your heart, Tatsu. You have nothing to be afraid of.

“It makes me act rashly. Makes me succumb to false feelings.”  

I know your heart, Tatsu, and it incapable of falsehood.  

Only the ones that are already far away can speak so vaguely and with such unrelenting honesty at the same time.  

“I will always love you,” she whispers ardently. Not because she doesn’t want him to think it is not so; not because she herself feels like it is not so anymore either. She knows for sure that she is always going to love him, for she loved him as a lover, as a husband, as the father of her children, as the only thing she had left after all her life fell apart, burned in that damned fire. He will stay in her heart until her last breath – even if she has to close her heart to the rest of the world. Once she used to think that after all she’s been through, it isn’t going to be an issue.

And I will always love you, her husband replies, and Tatsu blinks back tears with a deep sigh.

“I just wish you were alive,” she tells him for what must be the hundredth, or maybe a thousandth time.

If he was with her – not as smoke or a voice, but as flesh and blood – he probably would have kissed her gently on the nape of her neck, as he often used to do.  

I just wish, says her husband – no, the soul of her husband, which is already rushing away, deep into the world she shouldn’t hurry to go to if she doesn’t want this sword to fall into wrong hands, that you were happy.

***

 Literally the next day there is a message from Metropolis that some giant snake-like beast is terrorizing the city and devouring people. The monster was last seen crawling into the building of the opera – which is where their squad heads to after reaching the city.  

“Look at that freak,” Harkness comments in a low voice. The creature is curled up slumbering on stage, and they are watching it from the catwalks above. “Not a family of yours by any chance, eh, ‘gator?’    

Waylon steps towards him, and the planks creak under his feet, threatening to break.

“Say that again,” he growls.

Tatsu bares her sword and wedges herself between them. Waylon backs off reluctantly.

“Knock it off,” she tells Boomerang. It feels like everything has come full circle – the day Harkness picked up her mask, he also had a run-in with Jones. The day they were sent to fight the Enchantress, she also put the blade of her sword under his chin. Why did she even think something would change?

“Oh, so you’re talking to me after all?”

“Enough,” Tatsu hisses. She really wants to try to explain everything to him. Maybe if she tries to put her feelings into words, many things will become clear to her, too. But if he thinks they are going to discuss this now, he is mistaken.

On the neighbouring catwalk, Rick is looking at them in a rage, gesturing both of them to shut up. Harkness steps closer; now the blade of the Soultaker is within a hair’s breadth away from his neck. A single careless movement, and blood will be spilled. A wild idea crosses her mind: it looks as if he’s into this. Tatsu licks her lips.

“Y’know,” Boomerang begins, lowering his head a little so that it is easier for him to look her in the eye, “I think you’re scared of me. Or of yourself, hell if I know. Am I right?”  

A loud rustle comes from beneath, and the next instant the monster bites through the middle of the catwalk they’re standing on, and both of them are falling down. Tatsu manages to grab some rope, but when she tries to climb it, her hands slip, and she comes tumbling down.

The fall is far from being soft, even though she falls on the tatters of the curtain, which the snake must have torn earlier. She is lucky not to hurt her head, but her left leg and hip are aching. Only the awareness that there is no time to lie around makes her summon up all her strength and get up. Her sword is nowhere to be seen, and Tatsu is overwhelmed by fury: now she is useless.

The snake roars and shakes its head, trying to shake off Croc, who is trying to bite through its scales. Rick is shooting at the monster from above, and Deadshot, who is already on stage somehow, is doing the same from below, dodging the blows of its tail. Tatsu sweeps her eyes weakly over the stage and suddenly notices a hole broken in it. At the very edge of the hole, the hilt of her sword is sticking out of the floor. Moving as quickly as it is possible to do that with a limp, Tatsu hurries there.

The moment she pulls the sword out of the stage, Harkness’s head pokes out of the hole. Not waiting for him to ask for help, Tatsu helps him get out.

“Are you…” both of them begin in unison and drop it immediately, because the snake has managed to shake off the bothersome little crocodile – who is hopefully just somewhere on the floor and not in its belly – and is moving towards them, slower than before but still pretty speedily. They scatter, and Tatsu charges at the monster with her sword drawn. Harkness throws a boomerang at the creature, aiming at its eye, but it dodges at the last second.        

Eventually, with joint forces they manage to kill the beast. To be on the safe side, Lawton fires a round into its open jaws. The long body shudders one last time and falls still. For some time, the five of them stand there looking at it.

“Where could this thing even come from?” Rick mutters.

“Remember what the Wicked Witch of the West said when she tried to get us to join her? The world is changing, the time of magic has come, blah, blah, blah,” Lawton reminds him. Rick nods absentmindedly; these are not happy memories.

Jones kicks the dead snake.

“Maybe it meant no harm,” he points out in his deep voice.

“Croc,” Rick says wearily, “it ate people.”

“So did I.”

“But at least you didn’t chew the curtain at the opera like a disgraced diva?” Lawton asks, struggling not to grin.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Well, then it’s okay.”

Rick titters nervously, and the next instant all of them are shaking with laughter.

 Tatsu is drinking water straight from the tap in the restroom, when Harkness comes in.

“This is a ladies’ room,” she says reflexively.

“Hey, I just wanna wash my face, is all.”

Without waiting for her to answer, he comes closer and starts washing at the neighbouring sink. Tatsu casts a sidelong look at him and notices that the water is turning red.  

“Show me your face,” she orders.

“It’s not a bad face, what’s yer problem?”

“I’m serious.”

He rolls his eyes, but stands still while she examines his face, only wincing when she dabs at the cut on his forehead with a paper towel.

“Just a scratch,” he assures at once.

“Just a scratch,” Tatsu agrees. She scrunches up the towel and throws it into the sink. She would like to keep her hand on his face, pretending that she’s still wiping off the blood, but she’s done pretending.

“How about you?” Boomerang asks quietly.

“Fine. A couple of bruises. You were lucky today,” she says just as quietly, and takes off her mask. Tomorrow they might not be as lucky. “I’m happy for you.”

“And I’m happy you got out alive… darl.”

For a moment she wants him to ruin everything. To reply with a jibe, to crack another dirty joke, to try to grab and kiss her only to get smacked. Not to stand motionless in front of her like he’s afraid to scare her off. It occurred to her once that from the outside their relationship might look like an attempt to tame a wild animal. Perhaps this is a mutual process.

Do whatever you want to him.

She stands up on tiptoes and kisses him.

For an instant, Harkness freezes – possibly trying to figure out again if he’s dreaming – and then pulls her closer and kisses back. Drinks her hungrily, like this is both the first time and the last. Bearing in mind what their lives are like, it really might be the last.

Tatsu doesn’t immediately realize why she suddenly doesn’t need to stand on tiptoes anymore.

“Put me down–” she starts, but gives up and wraps her legs around his waist. Boomerang grunts with satisfaction and switches from her lips to her neck. His beard, fortunately, is softer than could have been expected.  

“Stop drinking so much,” Tatsu breathes out, now that no one is trying to shut her mouth. “You taste like…” all English words slip her mind, “like… a beer cask.”  

It tickles her when he laughs into her neck.

Someone simply must enter now – Rick, Floyd, Amanda Waller, the president of the United  States, but no, no one is trying to stop him from squeezing her hips, to stop her from running her fingers through his hair. Weapon to weapon, blade to blade. Red-hot metal to red-hot metal. Melting until something new is forged – without fear, without regret, without the past, without the future.

Clearly, Maseo wants too much: she remembers what happiness is, and she is sure she’ll never ever be happy again.

But she can take a shot at being alive.

[chancelloramidala]

Staring at the Sun ➤ Evan Buckley

Chapter Five: Growing Pains.

Masterlist.

Marceline Pierce was trying her very hardest to move on from Evan Buckley. It sucked because yeah, maybe this should’ve happened long ago when it was obvious that he didn’t return her affections, but hey at least she’s learning.

She got tired of waiting, of being filled with sadness and jealousy whenever Abby was brought up (especially whenever the subject of "Abby made me a better person!", god that made her blood boil) or whenever she was around.

It made Marceline feel… ugly if that made sense. She didn’t like those feelings brimming at the top of her surface and sort of gave up on her feelings for Buck.

She went on a few dates, finding that the men, women, and non-binary folk she met were just trying to find a one-time thing. And in most cases, Marceline was fine with that, nothing too serious and just a little fun for one night, but she craved something more than a quick interaction like that.

She wanted to get to know someone, figure out what they like and dislike, what they’re allergic to, what drives them to be a good person, and many other things. Marceline wanted a human connection that lasted longer than one night, one that would be reciprocated instead of one-sided.

And that’s how she met Elena Chavez. A beautiful Argentinian-American woman who's easy on the eyes and had the ability to make Marceline actually laugh without trying too hard. They’ve been on a few dates, namely four, and kissed for the first time towards the end of their third.

It was strange for Marceline to be dating again after several years of remaining single and then the several months quietly pinning over a goddamn oaf, but she was proud of herself. She realized that Buck was just never going to love her back in the same capacity she did and decided that she deserved better, even if it wasn’t with him like she initially hoped.

Even if something crucial was just… missing.

Nicolette was ecstatic to see her moving on from Buck. She even helped set up many of Marceline’s failed dates, but she was glad that Marceline was leaving her options open to people other than Buck. Nic has spent the better half of her days listening to her best friend go on and on about her unrequited love for Evan Buckley, and watched her cry when he attended her get-well-soon party with his new girlfriend.

Plus, it helped Marceline think Elena was actually there for her when she watched the other woman interact with Gemma and Nic. Because if there was anything you had to know about Marceline Pierce was that her friends and somewhat co-parentship to Nicolette and Gemma Pierce were an added deal into dating her.

And after the sixth date, Marceline worked up the courage to introduce Elena to another set of important people in her life: her team. Even if they didn’t know they were that important to her.

“Hey, guys, uh,” Marceline cleared her throat at the table whilst Bobby laid out the food with the help of Chimney and Buck. “Can I talk to you?”

“Hm?” They all turned their attention to her, and at that moment she kinda wanted to disappear.

“So,” she pressed her lips into a thin line as she recalled the dialogue she made up last night. “I know I haven’t been the most… open person here with my personal life, but I do consider you to be people I hold very close to my heart.“ she paused for a moment, her green and brown eyes glancing around the table to find they were all looking at her with soft expressions and a small smile tinged on their lips. ”So, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to introduce you all to my girlfriend?”

“Of course,” Bobby nodded without any hesitation and smiled softly at Marceline for taking a step at opening herself up to them.

“Aw, so the Ice Queen does have a heart.” Chimney jokes, thus earning a smack to the back of his head from Hen. “Hey, hey, I was joking, I’m very excited to meet her, Mars.” He winked at her as he rubbed the back of his head and shot Hen a playful glare.

“Great,” then she checked the watch on her wrist, “she’ll be here any moment. She’s bringing a pie.”

Marceline then led Elena towards the table after she arrived, and gestured to each person as they introduced themselves. “This is my dysfunctional team, El,” she said with a small firm.

Elena smiled brightly at everyone and waved, “It’s great to finally put faces to the names, Mars talks about,”

“Please, sit,” Bobby gestured to the table, specifically at the open spot next to Marceline.

Chimney, ever so the man to break the ice eyed the tin towards the end of the table. “So, what kind of pie did ya bring for us?”

She grinned as pink tinted her cheeks. “I baked you guys some peach pie,”

Bobby was instantly intrigued. “You made it yourself?”

Buck laughed, “We’ll you’ve already sold, Bobby huh?”

“Yes, I’m a baker and owner of Delicate Taste Buds downtown.”

Then, for the majority of the meal, Elena and Bobby exchanged their favorite dessert recipes with Marceline smiling softly at the woman next to her. It didn’t go unnoticed that the two women were holding hands at this point. Their clasped hands could be seen on the table when Elena talked about herself and grew nervous, wanting to make a good impression for the 118. So Marceline carefully reached over and put her hand on Elena’s, and gave it a gentle squeeze

Hen and Chimney whispered conspicuously to one another, smiling at Marceline and Elena’s display of affection and talking about how cute the two women were.

Buck sat there, nodding and listening to Elena talk about herself, and would add his own inquiries every so often. Then his eyes would flicker to Marceline who seemed to be only staring at the woman beside her with this soft, gentle gaze that matched how he felt he looked at Abby.

Evan Buckley never thought he’d see Marceline Pierce like this. So entranced with another being. But perhaps he wasn’t looking hard enough, to begin with.

Because if Henrietta Wilson knew the long, pining gazes of Marceline Pierce, it certainly wasn’t directed to Elena Chavez. While Buck, Bobby, and Chimney were busy talking with Elena, they never caught Marceline staring at Buck with heartbreak in her heterochromatic eyes.

The facade of warmth she thought she was holding together for her own sake slipped whenever she even spared a look to Evan Buckley.

Eventually, Elena had to go stating that she had errands to run and a business to manage. The team gave Elena and Marceline some time to say their goodbyes as they cleaned up from their meal before smirking at the woman as she walked up the twisting stairs.

“What?” she asked, dubious as to why the hell her coworkers were acting so goddamn weird. “Do I have something on my face or…?”

“We’re just happy for you, that’s all.” Bobby cut in before Chimney or Buck could make a fool of themselves.

“Oh,” Marceline replied, dumbfounded at how her team seemed to enjoy Elena’s company. “Well, don’t be too happy,” she mumbled under her breath as she walked over to the sink since it was her turn to wash the dishes.

As she rolled up her sleeves, Buck slid beside her with a red rag in hand. “You wash and I’ll dry?”

For a moment, she eyed the other man strangely, knowing very well that they had a drying rack for this very purpose but whatever, to each their own. “Sure,” she mused before turning the water on.

Silence washed over the two firefighters by the sink, one passing a wet plate or fork the other’s way as they dried it with a dishrag. But just because it was quiet, didn’t mean it was uncomfortable. Marceline and Buck were in sync with each other’s movements, the only sound coming from the splashing of water from the sink or the small squeak from the cloth against a plate.

This gave Marceline a lot of time to think about where she was in her life right now. And the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. In the end, no matter how hard she tried to get over Buck, he would still tug on her heartstrings and linger in the back of her mind, and that was in no way fair to Elena. Even if she was the perfect person to be dating, Marceline had too much shit to work through and Elena didn’t deserve to be used as a distraction of sorts.

(In short, her efforts of shoving her feelings for Evan Buckley into a box locked away deep within her wasn't going so well.)

After they finished washing and drying each and every dish in the sink and the epiphany she was having, Marceline took a blue rag nearby and wiped her hands before turning to Buck. “I think I’m going to break up with Elena,”

“What?” Buck was absolutely floored to hear this because he thought Marceline was head-over-heels with Elena.

She shrugged lamely as she threw the towel onto the counter after she finished drying her hands, “She’s a great person, but… I lack that spark with her, you know?” she turned her head to look at him, curious to know if Buck would understand.

Buck tilted his head to the side for a moment, pondering at the word spark. Because if anything, he’d think that he has that special spark with Abby. She brought the best in him, Buck 2.0 which was the best Buck, so that had to mean something, right? “Yeah,”

But then Abby’s mom died and that spark he thought he had with her started to dwindle when she walked past the glass doors and into the airport.

@skyslowalking @beelarson 4 u <3

˚ ༘✶ ⋆｡˚ ⁀➷ AUTHOR’S NOTE: we in season two now bitches

[nalgenewhore]

masterlist - ao3 - last chapter - next chapter 

an: hmm. well. it is what it is. enjoy !

+*+*+*+*+*+*

Sipping on her tea, Elide stared across the table at Ress, who was steadily ignoring her and looking at his phone. She reached her leg under the table and poked his thigh, “Who’re ya texting, Ress?” 

“No one,” he muttered, blushing at the message he received. Elide poked him again, idly scratching Bear’s head as she attempted to annoy her bodyguard into cracking.

“Come on, just tell me. I’m very good at keeping secrets,” she said, jabbing him sharply. He hissed and shoved her foot away, his cheeks bright red. 

“Elide, seriously, it’s- it’s nothing.” 

Elide hummed, “Whatever you say.” She sighed dramatically, batting her lashes at him as she speared a chunk of watermelon on her fork. “Pretty please? I promise I won’t tell anyone, not even Aelin.” 

“You won’t tell me what?” 

Ress shot her a pleading look as Aelin swept in, heading straight for the drink bar to pour herself a cup of coffee. Elide nodded imperceptibly and made a dismissive gesture with her hand, “Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just teasing Ress.” 

“Don’t be mean to him,” Aelin said, walking behind his chair and hugging him with one arm around his neck. “You’ll scare him away.” 

The door opened again, in walking Rowan who commented drily, “I don’t think there’s a single thing that could scare him off now, Fireheart.” 

Elide slowly drank from her cup, watching her cousin’s smile soften as her husband kissed her gently. Aelin deserved a love like the one she had with Rowan and Elide couldn’t be more happy for the both of them. She noticed Rowan had something tucked under his arm and nodded towards it, “What have you got there, Ro?” 

“This,” he said, tossing it down and sliding it across the dark mahogany table, “is for you.” Elide put her cup down and picked up the paper, a picture of her spread across the front page. The headline read Perranth Welcomes Home Its Duchess-To-Be!

Aelin slid into the seat next to her, trying to subtly sneak a piece of bacon down to Bear and failing miserably. Bear snatched it right out of her hand the moment she got a whiff of it. “Those pictures turned out well,” Aelin said, letting Bear lick the grease from her fingers before wiping them on a napkin. 

Elide nodded, “They did.” She flipped through the rest of the pages, scanning the article before dropping it down. “So, what’s happening today?” 

“I have a parliament meeting in an hour,” Aelin said, adding copious amounts of sugar and cream to her oatmeal. “Ro and I will be there for the morning.” 

“Am I not invited to parliament?” Elide pondered, knowing anyone who wasn’t a member or of royal status were barred from attending. Rowan rolled his eyes, quickly hiding his smile in his coffee. Aelin chuckled, sneaking another piece of bacon down to Bear. “Oh, woe is me. I shall wallow in grief until your return.” 

Aelin’s eyes held a wickedly amused look as she huffed, “Well, I should expect nothing less.” 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

Elide walked with Aelin and Rowan through the castle to the larger of the conference rooms, where Perranth’s government was assembling. 

She mainly chatted with Rowan, as Aelin had her head stuck in her briefing file, going back between the meeting’s agenda and her personal notes. The queen barely gave Elide more than a vague wave before ducking into the side office. 

Rowan went to follow her, but stopped at the last minute to pivot neatly back to Elide, “El…” 

“Yes?” 

He rubbed the back of his neck, concern flashing in his pine green eyes, “You seemed really upset last night. Are you sure you were just tired?” 

Disappointment clenched her heart, at the fact that her mystery partner hadn’t even told her his name and Lysandra hadn’t been able to get it from the guest list. She shrugged her shoulder, “Oh, I’m fine. Just tired and a little tipsy.” Rowan’s worried frown didn’t ease. Elide insisted, “Really, Ro, I’m alright.” 

He muttered something and pulled her into a hug, still wearing a frown, “Ok, but text me if you want company, I don’t really have to be here.” Elide smiled and hugged him back, shaking her head slowly. “Ok?” 

“Yeah, ok, Anneith above,” she exclaimed, rolling her eyes and pushing him towards the doors. “Aelin is right.” 

“About what?” His silvery-blonde eyebrows raised, an innocently curious light entering his eyes. 

He looked so earnest to know that Elide almost felt bad about saying, “You are a mother-hen, buzzard.” She cackled as his mouth dropped open and quickly ran away, waving at him before ducking around a corner. 

Her laughter was cut short when she saw her uncle, Vernon, and one of the most prominent women in Perranth, Maeve Nathair. “Oh, pardon me. Good morning, uncle, Ms. Nathair. It’s good to see you.” 

Maeve gave her a disapproving look, making Elide feel self-conscious when her hawk-like gaze snagged on Elide’s right ankle and the corners of her thin-lipped mouth turned down. “Lady Lochan.” 

Without another word, the pair swept away. Elide rolled her eyes, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling of… catching them in the corner, looking like they were conspiring. She shook her shoulders and went back to the dining room, skirting around the staff to get one last cup of tea. 

Elide bent down as she stirred her sugar in, “Bear, come on, you can’t stay here the whole day.” The dog wore a look that told Elide she was not impressed by being found out. Bear hung her head low, moping as she padded over to Elide’s side. Elide laughed, bidding good-bye to the staff as she pushed Bear out of the room. 

Bear pressed against Elide’s right side as they walked down the hall, her tail not wagging for once. She followed Elide into the entertainment room, passing her owner to hop up on one of the large couches. After sniffing it and turning around several times, Bear sat, whining softly until Elide sat next to her. 

Elide shook her head as she scratched Bear’s stomach, “You are the biggest baby I know.” She picked up the remote and turned on the TV to the local morning shows, flipping through the channels. 

They were all talking about her ball last night and what everyone was wearing. Only Remelle had a different subject. Elide frowned, putting the remote down, and watched Remelle’s show. 

Seated at her desk, the blonde woman stared directly into the camera as she spoke. On the screen behind her, there was a picture of Elide dancing with Rowan, her head thrown back as she laughed. 

A headline flashed over it, reading Trouble For The King and Queen?

Elide rolled her eyes and turned the volume up as Remelle spewed nonsense about Rowan’s first dance not being with Aelin. 

“Confirmed sources from royal staff have confirmed in the last few months, the monarch’s relationship has taken a downfall. Many attribute it to Queen Aelin’s near constant travelling and heavy workload.” A smug little grin appeared on Remelle’s face, “If I were her, I would spend more time focusing on her delicious king consort rather than unimportant busy work.” 

“Well, fuck you too,” Elide muttered, watching the rest of the segment out of pure spite. Bear shifted to rest her head in Elide’s lap, growling softly at the screen. 

“And that’s the lowdown, with Remelle DuBois. Tune in next time–”

Elide shut off the TV, “Yeah, I doubt that.” She rolled her eyes and stood up, “Well, B, where should we go next?” 

Bear loped after her, her nails clicking against the polished floors as they walked back to Elide’s rooms. She made a beeline to her bed, curling up and tucking her nose beneath her tail to sleep. Elide snickered and closed her bedroom door behind her, letting Bear have her little nap. 

She hadn’t had that much time to explore her rooms since her arrival home, so Elide opened the closest door in her entry hallway. It was a small powder room, just enough space for a toilet, a sink, and a mirror hanging above it. 

Elide looked at the artwork hanging on the wall, swearing she could see a shadow running along the wall next to it. Curious, Elide ran a finger down it, feeling a slight crash in the wall. With a small gasp, Elide pushed it and a section of the wall popped open. 

A cool gust of wind blew through the passageway, making her shiver. Elide glanced over her shoulder, debating just closing the secret door and forgetting about it but… curiosity got the best of her. 

She pulled out her phone, turning on the flashlight to see as she walked carefully. The passage twisted and turned, but there were no forks in the path. Elide ran a hand along the cold stone walls, looking up at the spiderwebs covering much of the ceiling. 

There was a soft light flickering a little ways ahead. Elide walked faster, eager to see what it was. 

The passage opened into a small room, the only exit the way she’d came. On the wall to her right, there was a small grate where the light was coming from. Elide looked at it, feeling around for a latch or something to open it. 

She found it and flipped it open, peering carefully through the peephole. Elide swallowed her gasp when she saw the parliament room. 

Her uncle was standing, a smug look on his face. Worry pumped through her and Elide looked to where Aelin and Rowan would be sitting. 

She only saw Rowan, the seat next to his empty. The king’s face was tight, the muscles in his jaws feathering. His green eyes were unreadable as he stared intently at his wife. Aelin remained poised from her standing position beside the speaker’s desk, but her hands were clasped tightly enough that her knuckles were white. “I beg your pardon, sir?” 

Vernon’s snivelling voice echoed up into the room Elide was watching in, “As of November of three years ago, when he turned twenty-one, he became eligible for the title.” 

“I understand that, Duke Lochan, but your niece is first in line.” 

Another member of parliament spoke up, raising a hand, “Not yet, your Majesty. Terrasenian laws state that a woman must be married before she succeed any royal titling.” 

Aelin made a helpless gesture with her hands, “We have never enforced that law, gentlemen. And- and this is the twenty-first century, by the gods. A man would never be forced to marry, why should Elide?” 

Elide felt tears well, her blood rushing through her ears. It couldn’t be true. She- all her life had been preparing her for this moment and because she was unmarried, she was unfit? She couldn’t focus on anything the congress said. Her lungs started gulping down oxygen, her vision fuzzy. 

She was having a panic attack, this she knew, but Elide couldn’t ground herself to anything until a heavy mallet struck down. The startling sound frightened her enough and she looked back down, seeing the parliament members pack their things up. 

They filed out of the room, one by one shuffling towards the double doors. Elide flicked her eyes to Aelin and Rowan, hoping maybe they had reached a verdict, something that would help her. 

But when all she saw was heartbreak on their faces, Elide fled back to her rooms. 

+*+*+*+*+*+*

Elide paced the carpet in her office, “How- how is anyone else in line for the title? I’m the only Lochan left and Vernon is the duke regent. He’s a placeholder, for the gods’ sakes.”

Aelin didn’t look up from the groove in Elide’s desk she had been staring at for the past ten minutes. She ran her nail along it, uncharacteristically silent. Elide looked to Rowan for help. 

He was standing at one of the windows, leaning against it with his arms crossed, a fierce frown gracing his face. Feeling her desperate gaze on him, Rowan turned to face Elide, sighing tiredly. “It goes back to the beginning, Ellie.” 

“What do you mean,” she whispered, picking at the skin around her nails out of nervous habit. “What aren’t you guys telling me?” 

Aelin finally lifted her head, the redness of her eyes making the blue pop, “I swear I didn’t know, El. No one- I didn’t know.” 

“You’re making me nervous, Ae,” Elide said, her voice trembling. “Just- just tell me. I deserve to know.”  

“Why don’t you sit down,” suggested Rowan, gesturing to the couch by the window. “We’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” 

Numbly, Elide walked over to the plush chair and sank down into it. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, “Tell me the whole story.” 

Rowan looked at Aelin, waiting for her to speak. The queen exhaled shakily, refusing to meet Elide’s eyeline. Instead, she picked at a loose thread in her pants, “The Lochans aren’t the only family in line to the throne. When- when Perranth was formed, there were two warring families.” 

“Who?” 

“The Lochans and… the Nathairs,” Aelin whispered, as if speaking any louder would summon some evil being. “The families settled here and fought over the crown. When-” her voice cracked, her face crumpling, but still, Aelin continued, “when the Lochans won, they agreed that if either ruling family couldn’t produce an eligible heir, the title would automatically go to the other family.” 

“But Maeve isn’t married either,” Elide said, a spark of hope igniting in her chest. She sat up, “She isn’t married either, how can she get the…” she trailed off when Rowan shook his head. “Oh, she isn’t- she isn’t talking about herself, is she?” 

“No, she isn’t,” Rowan confirmed, leaning against the desk. “Her brother, Cillian, had a son.”

Elide swallowed past the tightness in her throat, tears stinging her eyes, “How long do I have? They aren’t just giving it to him, right?” The conversation halted when the door opened, the three of them tensing. 

When they saw it was just Bear, intrigued by the noises, they relaxed. Bear ambled over to Elide, planting herself in front of Elide and growling. She bared her teeth and her hackles raised, the dog on edge due to her owner’s obvious distress. 

“No, you have time,” Rowan said. 

“How much?” 

He and Aelin looked at each other, avoiding Elide’s question. She repeated herself, her tone hard, “How much time do I have, Rowan?” She figured at least a year. It was still short, but she could make do. 

“Sixty days.” 

Elide gasped, floundering for the words. “No, that’s not right.” She looked at Aelin, pressing her lips together to stop from crying. “Ae…” 

Her friend dragged her gaze to Elide’s, whispering, “I’m sorry.” 

“But- please,” Elide pleaded, tears coursing down her cheeks. “Sixty days?” Rowan nodded solemnly, moving towards her with an outstretched arm. He let it fall when Elide shook her head, pressing herself further into the corner of the couch. 

“I’m so sorry,” whispered Aelin, her own eyes filled with tears. “I tried to make it longer, but…” 

Elide shook her head, “H-how can they expect me to find anyone I love enough to marry them in two months? It’s like-” she sniffed, crying anew when Bear bumped her nose into Elide’s leg, “it’s a big trick for an arranged marriage or…” 

But there was no ‘or’. It was the only option, she married whoever was most suitable or she lost her throne. “There is no ‘or’,” she said. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Rowan muttered. Aelin opened her mouth to say something, but Rowan cut her off, “No, Aelin. She doesn’t have to do this.” 

“How?” Elide asked, her voice cracking. “Tell me.” 

“Rowan…” 

Rowan shook his head, dismissing Aelin’s warning tone. “Elide, you don’t have to be the duchess. You- you can say ‘no’ and live a normal life.” 

Elide gawked at her friend, not entirely sure she’d heard him correctly. “Are- are you serious right now, Rowan?” Bear whined, clearly distressed by Elide’s visible upset. The dog pawed at Elide’s leg, her tail tucked beneath her. “I’m not just going to give up. I can- I can do this. It’s my throne and I won’t let some pompous, crown-stealing bastard take it from me.” 

Aelin chuckled a bit, wiping her eyes. She stood, walking across the room, and sat down next to Elide. “That’s my girl.” Aelin wrapped her arms around Elide, shooing Rowan away over her shoulder. 

Feeling spent, Elide practically collapsed onto Aelin. She felt calmer when the queen started rubbing her back and speaking in a soothing tone, “We’re going to get through this. It isn’t the end of the world.” 

Elide nodded, not entirely believing Aelin. “Yeah. I’ll be ok.” 

It seemed almost silly to think that in the morning, her biggest concern was the name she didn’t get of the man she would never see again.

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an:.......hehe 🤭

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