#and now hes got freaks that corner him in his own safe space and stalk him and dont take his want to be alone seriously

[lazyneonrabbitt]

Full moon meetings

Werewolf!Daryl Dixon x Reader

You get stuck in the woods, surrounded by walkers when something saves your life.

Running from walkers was terrible. The only upside here was that you were alone and you could hide way easier than with a group. The other bad part was that it was currently late at night and you had to leave most of your stuff at your campsite because of the small herd that woke you up. The slightly better part was the full moon brightening the area which helped you spot a cabin up ahead to hide in until the walkers passed.

You rushed in and blocked the door behind you, waiting for the herd to pass. When it finally did you carefully scouted the way you came from and backtracked towards your campsite with the hopes that everything was still fine. On your way back you managed to avoid running into another small group of walkers but your camp was ravaged. You could find two knives that you took with you but the bag of food you had to leave behind was trampled completely. Now you were stuck in the woods, alone and with no food.

Your group had ditched you after you've gotten in a fight with someone and they all chose their side instead of yours. You sighed and dug around for anything that was still good enough to take with you and left for the cabin again. Memories of the fight that got you into this mess kept repeating in your head, causing you to not notice a ditch that you casually stepped into and slipped with a shriek, alarming all the walkers you so desperately tried to avoid. This time you didn't have enough time to escape and ended up surrounded, slowly taking down stumbling walkers but it wasn't long before you had them all getting too close too fast and there was no way out of this for you this time.

Not until you heard more growling, but a different kind then walkers' growls. You cowered down and hid your head between your knees, just waiting for it all to be over with as the growling became louder and the shine of the moon seemed to disappear underneath you. There was more growling and a lot of movement but nothing seemed to be directed at you and it surprised you how long you were actually surviving this whole thing. When the walkers' growls died down and the movements seemed to stop, the moon shone on the ground near you again and you carefully lifted your head to look at what happened, only to touch your nose against something wet before opening your eyes. You jumped up with a scream and ran off in the opposite direction, frantically looking back to see a giant creature standing among the corpses of the walkers that surrounded you just now. It didn't seem to move as you slowed your run and rounded it from a large distance, back on your way to the cabin to hole up in for the night, hoping the creature wasn't gonna attack you when it got hungry again. Finally back at the cabin you sat down and let out all the anger and frustration you had bottled up and cried into the murky bed that sat in the far corner. A group of walkers got in the way of his search for food. These nights were best for hunting and he always brought back the largest catch for the community. the ones who knew never spoke about it, and the ones who didn't never seemed to question it and somehow all accepted that the moonlight helped seeing late at night so it was easier to make multiple kills in one night. The group of walkers was a big one, but split after a noise somewhere further down into the woods which he also decided to follow. He came across a small campsite with only one sleeping bag and minimal supplies when another small group passed through, ruining everything in sight. He decided to watch from a distance to see what the walkers were fixated on and after a while of observing he ended on a survivor in the middle of another small section of the herd, surrounded and unable to get out by themselves. He watched as the person gave up and crawled down. As if his body moved on its own he jumped in and started gnawing away at the walkers, clawing and biting at them until all of them were down. He stepped away from the girl and sniffed around her, trying to smell for other humans or any sign of a walker bite but he found none. While he was busy she had raised her head and bumped her nose against his and jumped up with a shriek. He stepped back in confusion and stared as she ran off into the distance. He stalked her back to the cabin and decided to go back to hunting after seeing she got in safe.Normally he'd store his kills in the cabin but for now he'd have to think of something else.

You woke up later, your eyes still hurt from crying so it took a while longer to get adjusted to the darkness. When you were able to see properly again you checked out the cabin again, better this time now that you were safe and rested. While staring at the far wall you dragged yourself out of bed, stepping on something and dropping to the floor. Said something moved. "What the.. Shit!!" You called out as you tried to get away from the thing that you ran into earlier. It was large, covered in fur, and ..snoring? No, that wasn't a snore. That was more of a huff. Shit, you woke it up. It grumbled as it opened an eye to see what happened and saw you on the floor, staring in fear. It decided to get up and move further away from the bed and plop down on the floor again, keeping an eye on you until it had settled and closed them again to continue its sleep. Carefully getting back up you to make it back to the bed you spotted something near the door. Taking a better look you saw it was a pile of animals, not chewed down or torn apart but seemingly skillfully hunted. From what you could see there wasn't a lot of blood on them but their necks were clawed open or twisted in a gross way so you stopped looking and lied back down. Rest didn't really come anymore so when it was getting brighter outside you carefully snuck out of the cabin with all your stuff and left without waking the thing that accompanied you.

"I'm heading back to my group now, bye." You whispered softly as you closed the cabin door and walked off to what you hoped was your next safe stop and some food.

After what felt like an eternity you managed to catch a fish to fry and finally eat something. You took a break at the riverside and moved on after you had rested enough. You walked for a bit when you ended up on a road with a sign telling you about a place called Alexandria, a safe space according to the writing. It felt like a dream come true and you quickly made your way towards where the sign told you to go and close to sundown you finally arrived at the gates. You were quickly called after by someone on top of the gates. They asked you all kinds of questions  after someone opened one part of the gates before letting you in. A small group had gathered already and a guy named Aaron had given you some water and was talking to you together with another guy who introduced himself as Rick. He was a lot less nice than Aaron but you understood where his concerns came from. "She's fine. Quit bein' harsh on her." A gruff voice spoke from behind them. A guy with long shaggy hair moved into the group and you tried your hardest to remember if you ever saw him before but you had no idea who he was. "Ya said ya were goin' back to yer group. Why're ya here alone?" The two other men looked at him with confused looks on their faces but you tried to go along with what he said. "Yeah, I don't have a group. Thanks again for saving my ass. I didn't want to be bothering you any more than I already did." You said apologetic, hoping you came across convincing enough. "S'alright. good ya found this place." He added before going into a discussion with the other two, just out of your earshot. The man named Rick came back and brought the news that you were accepted into their community as long as you posed no threat to anyone and pulled your weight in the group. You agreed to all the terms he gave you and led you to an empty home where you could live for tonight. They all understood you were tired and left you alone for the time being. After you cleaned yourself up you went to sit down on your porch to take in your surroundings. It all felt surreal, it looked like this place had never even seen a walker at all.

"Hey, you." The guy from before made his way over to your porch and sat down next to the bench, keeping an acceptable distance to not scare you off. You welcomed him and moved down to sit closer so you could talk easier. "You saved me last night, didn't you." You asked quietly, not sure if it was something okay to ask about. He nodded and thanked you for not freaking out about it. "S'alright. My name's Daryl."

"Thank you for saving my ass, really. And for  saying what you did when I got here." You had introduced yourself before at the gate and now you talked about how you lost your group and ended up in the area. It was clear you were skilled enough to survive on you own as long as you didn't get caught off guard. "So, am I allowed yo ask about last night?" You wondered carefully, earning a smile and a nod. He told you about his hunting trips during the full moons and the further his story went, the more he wondered how you were so calm about it all. "I guess I have a soft spot for big monsters that are nice to people? I used to watch old monster movies for days on end before al of this." You turned away shyly. "I gotta admit, I've always been a sucker for werewolves." Saying that out loud made you want to curl up and disappear, but instead of being answered with something hurtful or being laughed at, you got a genuine smile and a "Glad I saved yer ass, then." He replied casually. "Finally someone who ain't scared of that side." The sad tone in his voice was hard to miss now and you felt bad for him. You gave him your biggest smile and leaned closer to him. "I like both of your sides."

You were new here and it was all still a little scary, but you knew it was all going to be alright with your big, not so bad wolf at your side.

[ficforce]

Little Wound Part 2

Joker/52 x Little Lady Reader SFWish Mentions of abuse and non-con

“What are you doing?” Joker threw a glance over his shoulder to Licht and gave a small shrug, The scientist hadn’t visited him for well over a month and a half, “I thought you just wanted to lay in bed all day, now you’re building furniture - why?” “Because flat pack furniture is easier to move through The Nether than already built pieces.” Licht rolled his eyes and entered the room that used to be where they stored random finds, “I know why you’re having to build it from scratch, I meant, why are you doing it in the first place?” Tightening a screw on the metal frame of the double bed and then picking up a vacuum-sealed bag, Joker heaved a sigh at the scientist, “Because,” he threw the bag on top of the frame and cut it open so that the mattress inside could grow, “You said, ‘Get up and do something’.” “I meant to fight the bad guys, investigate Ameratsu, go stalk the kusakabe kid… Not make a better bedroom to lay around in…” He was trying to keep his tone amicable but he really wanted to blow the long-haired man up with some faulty concoction. The room wasn’t at all how Licht would expect Joker to like it, the steel walls had been sprayed a soft colour, the steel ceiling was white, the usual bare bulb now sported a nice lampshade that matched the… “Did… did you lay a carpet?” Joker smiled proudly, “Yeah, so take your damn shoes off.” It hadn’t been easy for him to set up, what was essentially a steel box like most of the manmade hideaways in The Nether, into something that looked like it belonged on the surface in a regular house. “I’m going to get a wardrobe built, a chest of drawers, gonna have a dressing table too. Later I’ll grab some bedding and what do you think of a bedside table with a lamp?” “I think you’ve finally lost it.” This time he did frown and his voice dropped, he couldn’t hide how disappointed he was that Joker wasn’t taking the truth seriously anymore.

He wasn’t blind and Joker lit up a new cigarette, sitting down on the bed to rest his aching body, “It’s for Y/N, Licht. For when I rescue her.” Licht was quiet for a moment, staring at Joker and then at the room and the work going into it, “I think you’ll need help stealing more electric and diverting clean water pipes to make a little bathroom.” x - - When Y/N opened her eyes and she saw a ceiling above her and a lamp on a little table beside the bed she was on, she was confused. She sat up slowly, looking all around her to take in the bedroom she appeared to be in and when she looked down at herself she wasn’t in the shapeless, white uniform of the shadows but in pair of clean pyjamas. The last thing she remembered was fighting with a man with mismatched eyes and then the world morphing and changing as something made her think she’d finally gone mad. Then… “Fuck!” Her eyes widened and Y/N looked around the room harder than before, she stumbled out of the bed and hit the main light switch to disperse all the dark corners of the room. She was alone. Opening one of the two doors she found a tiny room containing a toilet, the smallest sink in the world and a shower. There was an artificial mirror stuck to the wall, she wouldn’t be able to smash it for shards to use as a weapon, a shelf with a few cosmetics she recognised from her time at Company 3 and a towel hanging neatly on a hook - no rail for her to use as a weapon either. Heading for the second door, Y/N wasn’t surprised to find it locked. This was a prison made to look like a cosy room. What was Joker up to? Was he going to lull her into thinking she was safe and then kill her - it was hardly any different from what she had done to him… would he try to humiliate her too? Not a day had gone by where she hadn’t thought of his pleading eye and the way he had reached for her; how he hadn’t stopped even after she had poured her drink over him as he lay there helpless. And now he was back. He had killed the Captain and taken her as his prisoner. Y/N hid beneath the bed, it was obvious he could find her there but as she balled herself up as small as she could go, the tiny space was somehow comforting, despite her claustrophobia beginning to act up and telling her to get out into the open. A scared gasp left her lips and she shoved a shaking hand against her mouth to muffle the onslaught of panicked sounds trying to force their way out. What was he going to do? Was he going to torture her? Cut her? Strangle her? Whip her? Would he… no, this was Joker… but then she had betrayed him. The thought of going through more torture was more than she could stand. The captain had continued to hurt her even after she completed her mission, he had beat her and whipped her and he had continued to defile her at every opportunity. He told her it was for her own good, that he was making her stronger. Sometimes suffering was just suffering. It didn’t make her stronger, it didn’t build her character… it had only hurt. So maybe if she could find that kind part of Joker, the one he had let her see, she could convince him to just kill her quickly. Y/N had wanted the pain to stop and the Captain had told her that the only way she would ever truly be one of them was to get rid of the original Five-Two, until then she would always be a spare card.

Her teeth began to chatter as she hugged herself tighter and her eyes stayed glued to the door. Unable to tell if it was night or day or even how long she had hidden for, Y/N fell into an exhausted half-sleep.

When they opened again she was back in the bed, the small lamp dimly lighting the room as it had before, only this time there was a tall figure sat at the dressing table with his back to her. Y/N felt her body move before her mind could register it, she scrambled into the corn of the bed, the blanket tangled around her legs and heard shaped pillows tumbled to the floor in her rush. The movement made Joker turn around to face her, he figured if he stayed sat she might not freak out too much, “Hey, it’s alright, Little Lady. I swear I’m not gonna hurt you.” He doubted she would believe him. “I don’t believe you.” See? He gave a little sigh, “I don’t blame you. I get it - I was in that same shitty situation. That green-eyed bastard used to beat me to a bloody pulp, he got worse the older we got. He beat me, got into my head, whipped me down to the muscle and on the odd occasion he was feeling a little randy, he’d fuck me too.” He’d been the one to change her out of her old uniform and clean her up, Joker had seen old scars and marks he vaguely remembered from their time together but he had also seen the new marks and scars - she’d really been through hell. “If I had been in your place, I would have done the same thing… I don’t think I would have been kind enough to leave you unfinished though.” He saw her flinch and he gave her a small grin, “But nice job on recognising you couldn’t take me head-on, gaining my trust and stealthily attempting murder like that - that was impressive!”

She had so many opportunities to kill him before that night. Like the times he would fall asleep beside her and be completely vulnerable. That had been one of the things that plagued his mind the last year but also gave him a scrap of hope; she hadn’t even finished him off and that had allowed him the chance to survive. The Shadows would have taught her to always make sure the target was dead before leaving… maybe she had wanted to give him that chance to survive. “Let’s just talk about it, Little Lady,” the man stood up from the chair and took a step toward her, “You said talking was how normal people do thi- Y/N? Wait, hey, it’s oka-” Joker stopped and lifted his hands in surrender as she got off of the bed to run into the bathroom, slamming the door after her. Leaning against the door he called through to her, “Y/N, Little Lady…” she didn’t reply and he heaved out a loud sigh; he had known this would be hard. “Don’t be scared of me, I forgive you.” He had forgiven her the moment he had felt the knife in his body. “I just want to help…” From the other side of the door he heard her begin to vomit and he opened the door, he had guessed she would try to lock it so made sure it wasn’t an option, “I’m going to touch you.” Joker wasn’t asking if he could, he was informing her so that she might not react too badly. He placed his open palm on the middle of her back and stroked up and down until she stopped being sick, the retching sounded painful and it was hardly a surprise because it must have been a while since she had eaten - she’d been there for less than forty-eight hours already. “Okay, let’s get you back to bed.”

“No!” Y/N’s reaction was almost violent as she threw herself away from him in the tiny space and he winced at the force that her body hit the wall, it was enough to shake the shelf above. He watched her breathing become rapid and shallow, her chest heaving and a cold sweat had started to break over her brow. She was beyond terrified. Joker gave her a little space, wary of the wildness in her eyes, “You’re scared this is all a lie and that I’m going to do worse to you than the Captain did. I get that, I know you won’t believe a word I say and I know that if I let you leave here then you’ll either get yourself killed or do it by your own hand. So you either stay here and be scared or let the Stockholm Syndrome start to kick in.” How was he still so bad at people-ing? Did he even register what he was saying half the time? Y/N was half tempted to yell at him for being so stupid but she didn’t have the energy. Instead, she huddled up and hid her face again, “I did everything the Captain told me to… he just kept pushing and pushing and pushing me until I fucked up.” The words were muffled and her breathing was still too fast but Joker understood her just fine, he noticed her nails biting into her skin and without thinking her reached for her wrists to stop her. The action made her scream so loud that couldn’t avoid wincing as it shredded his ears; he didn’t let go even as she struggled and thrashed in his hold. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you but you’re hurting yourself,” Despite knowing it was probably the wrong thing to do, Joker dragged her to him, he let her wrists go and her nails soon found their way into his clothed arms and even into his hair as she tried to escape the forced embrace. It was better to attack him than herself he supposed. “Listen,” he said as firmly as he could to make her understand he was serious, “He was a bastard. A sick, twisted, son of a bitch, who thought he had the right to take what he wanted, that he could punish and treat people however he wanted and tell them it was their fault. He didn’t teach you a damn thing, his lessons were just his excuse for raping you. For making you think you deserved to be violated and defiled.” Y/N froze completely at his words, “He did the same fucking thing to me, from the time he was old enough to get an erection to the time I ran away. If I had thought for a second that killing just one person, no matter who that person was, that it would save my ass for even just one time - I would have fucking done it. Man, woman or fucking child.” He could hear her still struggling to breathe properly but it was enough for him that she wasn’t fighting him anymore, “He’s fucking dead, Y/N. I sliced him up into pieces and now the rats are chewing on what’s left.”

Y/N’s grip in his hair didn’t loosen and he had to twist his head a little to relieve the pressure on his scalp, “He’s dead?” “Dead.” “Then why… why can I still… why is he still in-“

“In your head?” he murmured, “Yeah, he was in mine too - drove me kinda mad.” Finally, she seemed to be able to take a deep breath and her urge to fight him was replaced with a trembling that seemed to go through every nerve and limb. The man loosened his hold a little, giving her the chance to get away if she wanted; to his surprise she stayed in his embrace, her fingers unlatching from his hair as she slowly dropped them to his shoulders and put her face into his neck.“I know you’re scared and I know you can’t trust me yet… But listen up, I promise I’ll let you feel the warmth of the sun again.”

[inactiive-shit]

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” Dukeceit?

My guy, absolutely.

Title: Medusa

Words: 1,674

~~~~~

Remus was stalking the night-or, more accurately, he was stalking the man creeping around in the night. People who snuck around at night in dark clothes and kept looking over their shoulder were generally bad people and, therefore, fair game.

You know, according to the rules that Roman and Virgil said they had to follow so they wouldn’t be caught or whatever. Who cares if they got caught? Any one of the three of them could get out without even trying. It didn’t matter.

But Remus would never intentionally do something that got his brothers in trouble or hurt when they didn’t want to be. Which unfortunately meant he was only going to attack people that they deemed ‘safe.’

Like this guy, who was obviously trying (and failing) to coast through the shadows like some kind of two-bit vampire. Nobody did that but shady people and vampires.

Which, to be fair, Remus was arguably both. (Did he technically count as a person who had to adhere to a person’s morals if he was an undead bloodsucker?)

Anyway, this guy was ducking in and out of deadend alleys like a drunk rat and that was just asking for a hungry vampire to stop him for a bite.

Remus was all too happy to oblige.

He’d been tracking the man for the better part of three nights to make sure his brothers wouldn’t stake him through the heart because he accidentally ate an innocent again. He hadn’t seen this man do anything explicitly illicit, but all this shadiness was close enough. (Even if Remus was a little intrigued now, to know what the man was doing.)

He followed the man into the next alley and turned down and scuffed his feet across the concrete to alert his prey. He did like a little bit of fear; it made the blood taste sweeter. The man paused, tensing, and Remus scented the air. Curious, but not scared.

Yet.

“Hello, little one,” he purred, stalking forward, making himself seem bigger with the shadows. “What are you up to?”

“Something of your concern,” the man said without turning.

“What’s your name?” he asked. He paused, just watching. He was very interested in this person, and he wanted to see how the man would answer.

“Janus Dante Ophiuchus. May I ask after yours?” The words sounded forced, but Remus was more focused on the words than the tone.

“You could,” Remus said, “but it won’t matter. You’ll be dead before you can use it.” His arms shifted and Remus was behind him in a second, spinning him to slam his back into the wall.

“Ah ah ah,” he sang, watching the knife Janus had been trying to pull clatter farther down the alley. “I don’t think that’s a nice toy to play with.”

“I really think you want to do this,” he said, and now his scent was laced with regret more than fear.

Curiouser and curiouser, wasn’t it?

Remus would retrace his steps once he drained this guy, and then see if he’d missed something. What’s got him not fearing death or muggers but feeling regret so strongly he can smell it?

“I really do. Ready to die?” Remus asked sweetly and opened his mouth as wide as he could to showcase his fangs. He waited for fear to permeate the alley, for Janus to tremble in his grip or maybe even—if he was lucky—wet his pants. But nothing happened.

“What the fudge?” Remus said, immediately followed by, “Damnit, Patton!” Fuming now, both because he’d said what the fudge and because his prey wasn’t scared of him, he snapped, “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“What’s to fear?” Janus said, nonchalantly, as though Remus wasn’t mere inches from killing him. “A few pointy teeth and moving fast? How useful will that be when you can’t move at all?” He ripped his hood off, staring Remus directly in the face.

Now, what Remus noticed first was this asshole already had pointy teeth of his own! The next thing he saw were the beautiful, gilded scales crawling up his face, and then his one gold-one brown eyes. Then, and only then, did he notice the dreads moving in the breeze.

When the man just kept staring at him, shocked, Remus realized those weren’t dread. They were very alive, very sentient snakes coming out of his scalp.

“Well,” the Snake-man Janus choked out. “You’re certainly turning to stone.”

“Holy fucking shit,” he said. “That is so fucking cool.” The snakes hissed at him, some edging closer and some leaning as far from him as they could get. Mesmerized, Remus leaned lifted his hand off the collar of his shirt to touch the snakes. The boldest of them pressed into his hand like they wanted to be pet. It made his breath catch. He hadn’t expected them to be so soft.

However, that lapse cost him. Snake-man Janus brought his knee up right into Remus’ stomach. Remus fell back and the snakes hissed angrily as his hand ripped away. The snake-man sprinted down the alley, donning his hood as he went, and disappeared around the corner.

Remus recovered within a few seconds and took off in pursuit. He wished he was angry, but really he was excited. He’d found a real life Medusa! Virgil was going to be so pissed he hadn’t come out hunting tonight.

He trailed the man’s scent all the way down the street and to the next one. He must be moving fast to have put this much distance between them already. The mystery and the chase were only making Remus more determined—and excited—to find out who his snakey guy was and why he was snakey.

Remus caught tSnake-man Janus three streets over, bent over his knees and panting. Remus, who hadn’t broken a sweat, grinned triumphantly.

“Hel-lo, my Snake,” he sang, walking up and sitting down right beside him. He tried to duck under the snake-man’s legs so he could see into his hood and get another glimpse of those snakes. Janus kicked him and, deciding to humor him, Remus rolled dramatically down the alley, moaning about dying. Snake-man Janus snorted, even though he tried to cover it up with a cough.

“Hey, is your tongue forked or what?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said. Remus pouted.

“Are your scales smooth or slimy? Do you shed? Are you venomous?” He bounced up and careened back to where Snake-man Janus had finally caught his breath. “How’d you get to be part snake? Can I be part snake?”

“Not smooth, no, absolutely your business, I wasn’t cursed by a Goddess, and yes, you can.” He shoved Remus’ hands away from his face.

“Cursed?” Remus said. “I’ve never met anybody who was cursed before.”

“You’re literally not a vampire,” Snake-man Janus said, deadpan. He stared at Remus. Remus stared back.

“Yes I am?” he asked. He’d been doing this vampire business for a few centuries now, but maybe he’d been wrong about it. He hadn’t believed that celery was real for two hundred years and look how that had turned out.

“Part of my curse isn’t that I can only lie,” he said, very slowly, like Remus wouldn’t be able to understand.

“How was I supposed to know that?” he demanded, followed immediately by, “Can I have the skin you shed? I could make a hat.” Janus looked outright disgusted by the notion, so Remus tucked the idea away for later consideration. He’d get that shed skin somehow.

“Yes, that doesn’t disgust me at all.” Snake-man Janus sighed. “Are you going to quit chasing me?”

“Nope,” Remus said. “You’re the coolest person I have ever met, and I’ve been alive for a while. You wouldn’t be able to keep me away with garlic or a rosary.” He grinned, a little deranged, and stuck his hand into Snake-man Janus’ hood before he could react. A few of the snakes instantly rubbed his hand, demanding petting. Remus scratched at their little heads and Janus sighed, his own head tipping sideways before he snapped back upright and jerked away. Angry hissing emanated from under his hood.

“I think you’re making the babies angry,” he said.

“Have you ever heard of personal space?” Snake-man Janus snapped, one hand coming up to shush his hair snakes.

“I was once shoved into a one person coffin with both of my brothers because a bunch of locals thought we were going to turn them all. I no longer believe in personal space,” Remus said proudly. Janus stared, dumbfounded.

“What damn century was that?”

“1700s, maybe?” Remus shrugged. “We left and never went back.”

“Well,” Janus said. “The sun won’t rise eventually, you know. You don’t want to be inside before that happens.”

“You should come back with me. They’re not much fun in the day, but my brothers would lose their shit if they met you.”

“I am a circus attraction,” he said, voice dark.

“Of course not! I once killed an entire circus, I won’t stand for that!” Remus crossed his arms, pissed to even be thinking about that place. Then he shrugged it off and grinned. “We freaks have to stick together, you know. My younger brother is even dating a werewolf. No standards, if you ask me.”

“What exactly do you consider standards?”

“Scales and a forked tongue, for one.” Remus looked hopefully at Snake-man Janus, who sighed. He looked up at Remus.

“Let’s not go to your house, then.” He shook his head, like he couldn’t believe what he was doing. Remus couldn’t either. “But I am definitely making promises about anything.”

“Promises are too easy to break,” Remus said. “Blood pacts, on the other hand…”

“Absssolutely!” Snake-man Janus shrieked. Remus laughed and cast an eye to the lightening sky.

“”If I carry you on my shoulder and run, we’ll probably make it back.”

“Probably?” he said. “Probably!”

“Ready to have some fun, snakey?”

Janus flicked his tongue, definitely forked, at Remus and smiled. “No.” Remus threw him over a shoulder and ran, laughing.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 103

103

“That’s enough!”

Pausing as went Lotor, Lance felt his knees give out as Coran yelled. Falling down hard, he let his body continue so he was laying on the cool flooring of the gym, chest heaving in exertion. Fucking Lotor. Fucking piece of shit Lotor. His ego wanted the vampire’s blood. Lotor had no right touching him. He had no right being in the same space as him. Clutching his stomach, he groaned. Everything fucking hurt... Everything hurt and he hadn’t even beaten Lotor. It wounded his pride. He wanted to scream in anger, yet he could. He could barely do anything other than lay there and groan. Coran had brought him back. He’d snapped him out his ego, and now Lance was left with a dirty feeling throughout his whole body. He’d been pushed so far in anger, but he’d failed at turning into a bat. The whole purpose of this stupid little farce.

Catching his breath, Lance rolled to his side. Lotor was sitting cross legged, watching on. Lance wanted to get up and punch that smug look off his face... God. What kind of a face must he showing right now? He must be hideous. His monster wearing his skin like it owned it. Clutching at the floor, his nails snapped as he tried to find purchase to pull himself up. Fuck... He was a fucking freak. Lotor had tossed him around like he was trash that refused to stay in the bin. He wasn’t fucking trash. He was someone who... who deserved to live. Someone who had... who had what Lotor never would... his stupid ego flooding him with that feeling. God. Shit. He’d... he’d lost it. His ego growing and growing. He felt trapped in his own mind by its presence. Trapped and left in a dark corner to stay out the mind.

“Lance?”

Coran’s voice shocked him. Lance jolting, whining softly as his hand clutched his side

“He’ll be fine. He is not wounded”

Who was Lotor to answer for him? Ugh. He wanted Keith. Coran didn’t seem happy with Lotor’s answer

“Lance? Are you with us?”

“Ow... I think I’m stuck”

Hurrying over to him, Coran took him by the upper arm, Lance growling as Coran touched him. He wasn’t the one he wanted touching him. Embarrassed, the heat in his cheeks was lost from the solid however long he’d fought with Lotor

“My boy, are you okay?”

“Sorry. Sorry... I’m... is Keith okay?”

Keith wasn’t even there. Keith was safe, but his boyfriend wasn’t where he could see him. Part of his panicking that he couldn’t see him

“He’s quite alright. Are you?”

“I want to see him”

“You need to calm yourself first”

“I look bad, don’t I?”

His face was messed up. His nails hurt as they started retracting. Where was a paper bag when you needed one? Coran chuckled at him

“You’ve looked better. Is your side injured? You have been clutching it for some time now”

Looking down at his hand, Lance tilted his head. He didn’t remember why he started clutching it, but with how everything hurt, he imagined it’d been a stitch... Why didn’t he remember? Lance blinked... He always remembered? Fucking Lotor... His ego must have set Lance’s off

“I... don’t know. Everything kind of hurts. I feel like someone dropped a house on me... Are we still in Kansas, Toto?”

Coran looked alarmed. The reference flying right over his head. Whatever. Dorothy wished she was as glamorous as him. He’d rock those red shoes. Clearing his throat, Coran tugged gently on him

“Let’s get you back to my office. Lotor, will you be alright?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Coran. Thank you, Lance. It had been some time since my heart beated so fast. Perhaps next time we shall work on your emotions”

Lance nodded, wrinkling his brow at the taste in his mouth. He’d lost a tooth... but... ugh. He remembered what he’d done now

“Shit... I went for your throat... I’m sorry. Thanks... for whatever this was. I’ll be sleeping like the dead tonight”

Lotor chuckled. Damn. Maybe he should be a stand up comedian...

“Nonsense! It was exhilarating! I’m still tingling from the look in your eyes. Positively exhilarating”

Lance wasn’t exhilarated. He was agitated. He wanted to see Keith in one peace. Why were they going to Coran’s office and not to see Keith?! Shaking Coran off, Lance drew his battered form up, stalking towards the door and leaving Coran to jog to catch up.

Keith was coming to find him, Lance rushing his boyfriend in relief. He didn’t know why he’d been stupidly scared. There was nothing around that would have hurt his lover. Too aggressively, he wrapped his arms around Keith, nuzzling into his neck as he mouthful of blood so kissing wasn’t safe

“La-Lance?”

“Thank fuck you’re okay”

“You’re the one... what were you thinking?! Why didn’t you...”

“Boys, perhaps you can wait until Lance has calmed before you get into this?”

Lance shook his head. His human was so soft and warm... and smelt like blood. Drawing back, he gripped Keith by the shoulders

“Who hurt you?”

Keith frowned at him, Lance’s emotions deciding he needed to cry right then

“Babe?”

“I smell your blood! Who hurt you?”

Keith’s confusion grew, jerking his head back, his boyfriend’s gaze flicked to Coran then back to him

“Me? No one. It’s the dressings against the scabs”

Scabs. Right. Fuck. Keith must have opened his wounds. Fuck... The scabs had opened earlier. He’d seen it happen when Keith had dropped down on the end of the bed. His boyfriend hissing as he clutched his leg, then jerking up from hurting his arm

“No one touched you?”

“N-... Babe, what’s going on?”

Lance hugged Keith close again, resting his cheek on Keith’s shoulder

“Thank god. Thank god you’re okay”

“Coran, what’s happening? Did he hit his head too hard?”

Had he hit his head? He’d hit the wall... and the floor... and the floor... being thrown was only fun when Keith was throwing him down on the bed

“I stopped the fight. He’s shaken. He really let his ego go, so you should expect some conceit and unusual comments until he settles”

Rationality? Nope. Lance didn’t know them right now. He just couldn’t calm down over the thought Keith was somehow hiding wounds... Yeah. Zero rationale in those thoughts. His boyfriend patted his back, kissing his cheek and ignoring how stupid Lance was being

“I’m fine. I’m worried about my boyfriend. Is that not allowed? He could have been injured!”

“Babe, Coran’s right. Let’s get him to give you a quick check over...”

“Why? Do you think something’s wrong with me?”

“No. I think you scared me. He threw you at the training dummies... and you’ve clearly hurt your side”

Ah... Yeah. Okay, that hadn’t been fun. Maybe they were why he felt like a house dropped on him? Nope. No. Maybe Lotor hit him there when he’d gotten too close?

“I don’t think I did... I feel weird”

He was cranky, yet not. He was exhausted, yet not. He felt good taking on Lotor, yet absolutely really did not like it at all. Why wasn’t there a word for how he felt? Weird didn’t fit... How was he wordless? Shit. He still needed to drive them home after this... Hopefully Matt wouldn’t start his ego again... How was his face? Was it all messed up still? Was his teeth showing? He’d lost a tooth. He shouldn’t smile with one tooth, it was weird. Kissing his cheek, Keith brought him back from thinking too hard over how to name how he was feeling, Lance nuzzling into him all over again, trying to rid himself of Lotor’s scent, only to realise he was making Keith smell like Lotor and he didn’t like it

“Then let Coran look at you, babe. Please? For me?”

“I... yeah. Maybe that’d be best. I think I got Lotor’s blood down my throat... it’s revolting”

“You did bite him”

He had and he wasn’t sure why he had. He’d acted on instinct. Anything to get Lotor off him and to stay down. Lotor said let go, and to let his ego go. He didn’t feel like he’d done anything right from the moment he’d been thrown down. Something snapped and he just wanted to fight. He wanted Lotor to hurt for throwing him... He’d roughhoused with Matt plenty of times, but he’d never been like that. Even fighting Matt hadn’t felt like this. Maybe Matt and Rieva could help him figure out how to feel? They’d both be happy, only serving to prove how wrong his actions had been. Then again, he hadn’t wanted Coran touching him either. What a confusing mess.

*

Having friends was hard. Keith decided so as he sat in Lance’s living room. Hunk and Pidge had invited themselves to stay, throwing a small party for him, where Pidge proceeded to drink too much. Their friends had made a banner “Welcome Back, Moron”, hung across the mantle side of the space made from sheets of A4 paper. Hunk had baked a cake, Keith and his bike reduced to being made out of modelling chocolate on the top. He’d gone from having Lance and Shiro to consider with his snappiness to Lance, Curtis, Matt, Rieva, Pidge, and Hunk. With so many people, it was hard to pretend he was on top of things.

The weekend had decided it needed to go far too fast. When he and Lance had gone to bed on Friday night, they’d barely had a chance to talk about how Lance felt his training with Lotor went. Coran had given Lance a quick exam, had him drink some blood, the sent him on his way. Keith kind of felt that Lance maybe needed to talk to Coran, as he wasn’t really acting “right”. His boyfriend pulled himself together for the surprise party in Keith’s honour, only after he’d showered and reappeared wearing one Keith’s shirts and a loose pair of sweats... that Keith also recognised as his.

The following morning Lance was up at dawn. Keith woken to the sound of the vacuum cleaner. He wanted to head downstairs and drag Lance back up to bed, but knew better than to try the stairs as Lance would kill him if he fell down them. He couldn’t make sense of why Lance was so certain he’d crept off and gotten himself secretly hurt. He’d been in the briefing room. Safe and sound. Where neither Lance or Lotor could touch him. Keith had a dreadful feeling. It welled in the bottom of his stomach, refusing to leave. Lotor had called the current state in Platt “a war”. He’d told Lance to stand beside him, and admitted he could have drawn Sendak out sooner.

Pidge and Hunk stayed over Saturday... and Sunday. Keith hugged so many times by accident that he hurt more “relaxing with his friends” than he had trying to find a way to have sex with Lance on the sofa. Coran said no work until the scabbing wasn’t so tight and crunchy. Keith would have pealed and scratched at them if he’d been left alone long enough to. Instead they hung out pretty much from sun up to bedtime in the living room. It soothed him being there. Lance had the whole house. He wasn’t trapped in his tiny apartment listening to the world go by. He felt bad about the apartment not being enough, especially when Shiro tried so hard to make it their home.

No. Keith didn’t get to talk to Lance until Sunday night. There hadn’t been a right time... or if there was, Lance would give him a look and Keith’s heart would go funny. The hunter knew Lance had talked to Matt at some point, because thanks to that, Matt kicked Hunk and Pidge out, then he’d gone out to take Rieva on a date after her shift. Finally they had the house to themselves. Keith dragging his crusty body off the sofa and hobbling into the kitchen where Lance was making dinner

“You’re supposed to be resting”

Lance didn’t look up as he scolded him. Keith shuffling up being him, shaking his arm around Lance’s waist where he rested his hand on his boyfriends belly

“We finally have the house to ourselves”

“We’re not having sex”

His track record might have taken a dip with frustration induced horniness, Lance excuses for jumping to that conclusion

“Nah. I was hoping we could finally talk about Friday. I’ve been trying to talk to you all weekend”

“I know. Pidge and Hunk haven’t made that easy. Honestly, I still don’t know how I feel about what happened”

Keith rubbed at his boyfriend’s belly, the act subconscious as he tried to reassure himself that talking was the right thing to do. He hadn’t been shot down, so that was a good sign

“Do you want to try to tell me?”

Placing the kitchen knife down, Lance twisted in Keith’s hold. His boyfriend hugging him gently

“I feel like that’s the kind of person I don’t want to be. I gave myself a real scare... and I don’t like that I bit Lotor. That’s not okay with me. I get Lotor was baiting me, but I never should have let him in my head. I went all vampirey and that scares me. So I’m still messed up about it, and I think my anxiety didn’t help. If anything it made me paranoid that you’d been injured because I was hurting”

That was an answer and a half. Keith catching himself before he could ask “How does that make you feel?”. Lance was talking, he wanted him to explain more and get it all off his chest

“Yeah...? That’s a lot”

“I want... I want to be stronger, but I want to do it on my own terms. Without my ego clouding my decision making. I don’t want to feel like I won’t be able to protect the people I care about. I don’t want to choke when I’m needed, but I can’t... bury my head in the sand. If this spills into the public, everything Coran has worked for will go up in flames. Families will be torn apart. And though that’s scary, you not coming home... that scares me even more. My reasons might not be the best, but I’m going to meet with Lotor again”

What. What part of the first part of what Lance said led him to think meeting Lotor again was a good idea?!

“I can feel how angry you are. But I want to... if he can bring Sendak in, the Blades could stop this sooner. If I have to fight for what I love, I can’t be a burden”

How stupid could Lance be if he thought going to Lotor was a good idea?!

“You’re not a burden! Lotor is bad news...”

“He is... but I need to know how he controls his emotions. How he can use so much ego and then let it slip back to his usual douchiness. I turn into a bat when I’m emotional or stressing too much. So maybe if I can figure out what exactly pushes me over, I’ll be able to control it. I don’t want to fight like him. I don’t want to throw away my humanity. I just want to be able to handle everything inside me”

Keith felt like he was being tossed aside, his voice low and lost as he asked

“And we can’t work it out together?”

“We are working out together. Anything he tells me, you’re the one I want to talk to about it. Coran and Curtis promised to help but they’re too busy. We’ve been trying to work it out on our own, and I’ve been so up and down, and I’m sick of it. You’re my stability. I feel stable enough in this relationship to touch that side of me I’ve tried for so long and hard to ignore. I think I need this if I’m going to get my life back on track properly... and I know I need you, because you are the single most important and good thing in my life. I love you, and I respect you. I want to find a way to have a safe and stable future with you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I love and trust Pidge and Hunk to the moon and million times over, but you... I can’t even put it into words. I treasure absolutely every moment I have with you in my life”

Lance had filled him with doubt, then crushed all of that an instant with his sincerity. He didn’t deserve Lance’s love

“I love you, too. I’m scared of what Lotor will do to you”

“He plays mind games. I’ve realised something too. I’m susceptible to his ego. But if I push, I feel like I can break through it. If I learn how to break through it, I won’t be sent into heat randomly. I only want to go into heat when you’re touching me”

Lance loathed his heat. His boyfriend would never be comfortable if he constantly felt threatened, and Coran and Curtis had both let him down there. If Lance could bring his body under control, they’d be able to date. To like go on dates without worry... he wanted to date the fuck out of his boyfriend

“It still sounds dangerous”

“That’s why I’m relying on you. You call me out on my shit. When you talk, I always listen. I’m weak on my own, but we’re damn near unstoppable together”

“I feel like this is the most optimistic I’ve seen you in a while”

“I feel optimistic because I’m with you”

Keith’s heart was freaking out. He couldn’t process so much love. He wanted Lance and all the parts of him

“What do you say we blow off dinner for now and head up to bed?”

Lance nodded against him

“I think I’d really like that. I’m sorry... Our friends are so clingy and they don’t see you as much as I do”

Keith snorted

“They’re fine. We’ll talk to Coran, but first, we’re going to bed”

[cheryyori]

SK8TERBOY - Skaterboy!Yeosang/Soft!Reader Social Media AU ft. side pairing: Seonghwa/OC

Genre: Pure fluff (possible smut has yet to be determined)

A.N. Whoop, new update, not a lot of Yeosang bc Y/N is a bit of a mess rn. Also italics is Japanese. Also a bonus chapter about Seonghwa and Sumire’s date from the last two chapters will be coming soon bc I’m soft for them.

Chapter summary: It was supposed to be a nice evening between roommates/friends until Y/N gets an unknown text from what might be Yeosang and starts freaking out on what to do. Aka Y/N is still up to her usual clownery.

Taglist: @philosopher-of-fandoms @mangobee @mingiibabieee @yourbunny-xxii @angelichris-b97 @yeosatinyngz @kimtae-bae​

(let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!)

Masterlist.  prev.  next.

Chapter 4. You’re Pretty Cute

Once Y/N returned home, she dropped her bag onto the floor and kicked her shoes off before flopping face down onto the couch. A muffled loud groan left her lips as she recalled her clownery.

“Oh god, she’s finally lost it,” a voice mutters, followed by the sound of a slap to the shoulder. Yusung, Y/N thinks as she recognized the deep voice of his.

“Yusung, don’t be rude!” another says in a harsh whisper. Y/N knew that it was Suzaku who was berating the younger.

“What? It’s not our fault she’s an idiot,” Yusung said. Suzaku smacked his shoulder again, only this time harder than the last one, “Ouch, will you stop that, you bastard!”

“You know that said idiot can hear you, right?” Another chipped in. Junho had been sitting on the other couch, adjacent to the one Y/N flopped onto while scrolling on his phone for anything remotely interesting.

“I have such great friends,” Y/N huffs as she looked up to see the three boys. She could see Yusung stand tall (the bastard being the tallest out of all of them and using his height to make many short jokes at both her and Sumire’s expenses) besides Suzaku who had a concerned look on his face.

“Again, not our fault that you’re an idiot sometimes,” Yusung said once again. Suzaku elbowed him but used one hand to cover the small smile on his lips.

“This is bullying! I will not stand for such slander!” Y/N cried as she sat up, a pout on her lips as she glared at the boys. Junho remained unfazed by the whole exchange, ignoring his group of friends as usual. Yusung, on the other hand, stuck his tongue out at Y/N.

“You two are being loud, shut up!” A female groaned. Emerging from the kitchen, Sumire had a tired looked on her face. Her hair a mess as she walked into the living room, apparently she had been sleeping before the commotion.

“Sumi!” Y/N whined, “They’re bullying me again!” She said as she pointed to the boys, standing up as she went to Sumire’s arms. Sumire only sighed and placed a small pat on Y/N’s back in a weak attempt to comfort her.

“Sumi, you can’t blame us for Y/N’s own clownery!” Y/N heard the soft snort that escaped from Sumire’s lips and pulled away, staring at her in betrayal.

“Sorry,” there a small smile on her lips, “but it was kinda funny to read the whole thing,” Sumire explains. Y/N groaned as rest her head on her shoulder, wanting nothing more than to forget this moment.

“Don’t remind me,” Y/N whined, “I was so excited to see him again and thinking about what nonsense you three idiots were spamming in the chat that I totally spaced out and forgot to ask for his number!”

“Disappointed, but not surprised,” Junho mutters to himself but Y/N’s ears perked up at his words.

“Nam Junho! You are rude!” Y/N fumed. Junho merely shrugged and continued scrolling through his phone. Sumire sighed and decided that since she was up now, she might as well get started on dinner.

“I’m going to make dinner now, feel free to join me if you’re bored─no, not you Yusung!” She gave Yusung a pointed look as he started heading towards the kitchen, “Don’t think you’re still off the hook from the rice cooker incident last night.”

“Oh my god, it was an accident, how was supposed to know you plug the damn thing in?”

“How do you burn rice without having it plugged in?” She replied, raising a brow at him. Yusung opened his mouth before promptly closing it, not wanting to be judged more than he already was by his best/childhood friend.

“Fine. I’ll go play with Iroha, at least she’ll appreciate me!” He grumbled as he stalked over to the small ragamuffin kitten that was settled in the corner. “Iroha-chan! Come play with uncle Sungie!” He cooed as he picked up the small kitten and the toy that had caught her attention.

"I think I’m gonna be in my room for a bit,” Y/N said, “Today was quite eventful,” she mutters as she slowly dragged her feet to her room. Sumire almost felt bad for her friend. Almost, if she didn’t recall the texts she had with Seonghwa earlier. It will only be a matter of time when Yeosang will text Y/N.

“Alright, I’ll call you when dinner’s ready,” Y/N nodded and went inside her room, flopping onto her bed. Y/N closed her eyes, her mind constantly replaying her time with Yeosang and felt her cheeks heat up. Her heart suddenly picked up as she thought about him in general and let her thoughts wonder if he was dating anyone. Would he want to date her-

“AH! Y/N stop thinking like that!” She shrieked as she smacked her warm cheeks lightly again. “You don’t even know him! And you didn’t get his number! Maybe this is a sign that you’re going to be forever alone,” she scolded herself before letting out a dejected sigh.

It was then that her phone went off, Y/N figured that it might have been either one of the boys or Sumire and glanced over at the message before she let out a scream when she saw who texted her.

Meanwhile, in the living room/kitchen, everyone was doing their own thing to pass the time before dinner was ready when they heard Y/N’s voice coming from her room.

“What the fuck is going on?” Junho was the first to ask as he looked up from his phone. 

“So it’s begun,” Sumire muttered to herself as she ignored Y/N’s scream and continued to cook. Suddenly Y/N rushed out of her room and into the kitchen, her phone in hand as she held it out towards Sumire.

“H-he─” Y/N couldn’t even make the first words out as she slowly started talking nonsense. This ruckus caused all the boys to walk into the kitchen (surprisingly Yusung wasn’t kicked out this time) to figure out what the hell was going on with their roommate.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Yusung asked, carrying Iroha in his arms. The ragamuffin kitten was oblivious to what was happening around her as she started to paw at his fingers.

“I-I, he─!” Y/N continued to babble before Sumire shuts off the stove and went over to take her phone.

“Oh,” she says, “He texted her.”

“Who did?” Suzaku asked, going over to Sumire’s side as he peered over her right shoulder while Junho peered over her left side.

“Her skaterboy friend,” Sumire replied.

“I thought you said you two didn’t exchange numbers,” Junho asked with a raised brow.

“W-we didn’t,” Y/N said.

“Then how the hell did he get you number?” Junho continued, skeptical of the idea that this was really her skaterboy crush who was texting her.

“U-uh, I don’t know,” Y/N mutters.

“Hey, here’s a crazy idea,” Sumire started, “Why don’t you, you know, ask him,” she suggested, handing her phone back.

“B-but that’s scary,” Y/N mutters, thinking what if it some stranger or worse. It actually was Yeosang, how the heck was she going to text him?

“Can’t you do it for me, Sumi?” Y/N asked, batting her eyes at her wife.

“No,” Sumire replies, “besides, it’s not that hard it’s just a text, you can text him. Also take a deep breath before you do, you look like you’re going to pass out,” she told Y/N, who was looking rather pale at the moment.

“I think Y/N rather die than do that,” Yusung snorted.

“Shut up, Yusung, don’t make me hit you,” Sumire glares at her childhood friend, eyes narrowing at him.

“As if you can reach me,” The boy mutters. At this, Sumire kicked the back of his knees, causing him to fall onto them.

“Ah, thank you for continuing to brighten my day, Sumire,” Junho smiled brightly at the sight.

“Dammit, Junho, you bastard!” Yusung grumbles as he sets Iroha safely on the ground and rubs the back of his knees.

“Anyways,” Sumire continued, glancing back at Y/N, “Just text him, trust me, it’s not that hard.”

“O-okay,” Y/N said as she took a deep breath. Just a text, she told herself before going replying to the unknown number might or might not be Yeosang.

“Oh my fucking god, Y/N,” Yusung muttered over her shoulder, apparently reading the text she just sent to Yeosang.

“S-shut up, Yusuck!” Y/N exclaimed with a red face before reading Yeosang’s reply, turning away from them all.

“So? Did he say how he got your number?” Suzaku asked curiously.

“He said that his roommate Seonghwa gave it to him,” Y/N replied, causing the boys to have a surprised look.

“Seonghwa? Like Sumi’s Seonghwa, Seonghwa?” Yusung asked. At this Sumire went back to cooking dinner, missing the suspicious look Junho cast her way before turning back to the conversation at hand.

“Yeah, I guess I must have given Seonghwa my number and he passed it along to Yeosang when heard about our situation,” Y/N concluded, earning a quiet snort from Sumire.

“Huh, that’s kinda anti-climatic, I thought skaterboy started typing in random numbers until he got your number right,” Yusung pouted before cooing at a mewing Iroha. Junho gave Sumire another glance and hummed to himself.

“Well, at least you have a way to get in contact with him,” Suzaku said, “And the fact that he texted you first means he likes you!”

“Oh my god, Suzaku, I barely know him!” Y/N sighed.

“But you think he’s cute, right?” He pressed. Y/N bit her lower lip because yes, she did think he was cute. And she hates how these little heathens knew that she thought he was cute.

“I mean yeah but─”

“Then why not ask him out?” Yusung chimed in, leaning forwards slightly, “I mean let’s be honest, we’re all sick of you complaining to us about wanting to go on cute dates whenever Sumi leaves the apartment to meet Seonghwa.”

“I-I─” Y/N’s cheeks were tinted pink as she gawked at Yusung, “I-I do not complain! I just think that going out with someone would be nice,” she pouted.

“Ah, you’re complaining again!”

“Shut up, Yusuck!” Y/N snapped before turning her attention back to her phone.

“CHO YUSUNG!” Y/N shrieked as Yusung stole her phone from her hands and replied to Yeosang. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the text he sent before she started hitting his chest with a red face.

“Ouch, ouch! Dammit, woman! You should be thanking me, I just secured you your future boyfriend!” Yusung whined as he grabbed her arms to stop her from hitting him anymore. Y/N will not be thanking him if anything she felt mortified.

“More like secured your own death,” Sumire comments.

“I AM GOING TO KICK YOU IN THE SHIN, CHO YUSUNG!”

“As much I would love to see that,” Junho drawled out, “I think your skaterboy called you cute as well,” he said as he swiped her phone out of Yusung’s hand and read the newest text.

“WHAT?!” Y/N took her phone back and stared at the screen, feeling oddly giddy as she read the text.

“Oh god, you’re already sending him cute love memes? You’re so whipped for him,” Yusung teased, beside him was a snickering Suzaku.

“Shut up, Yusuck! It was an accident! And Suzaku! How could you betray me like this!”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s kinda cute though,” Suzaku cooed, “This is the best and cutest entertainment since Seonghwa paced around the living room and asked for our permission to try to ask Sumi-chan on a date last week.”

“Anyways, dinner’s ready,” Sumire says, clearing her throat when her name was mentioned and placed five plates on the table they were all gathered around. The three immediately quiet down as everyone took their seats to enjoy dinner, a few teasing remarks from both Suzaku and Yusung as they poked fun at Y/N and her crush on Yeosang ( “It’s not a crush, you two!” “Aw, look at how red her cheeks are!” “Aw, how cute!” )

After dinner, they all went into their room to retire for the night. 

[writemywaytoyourheart]

Onsra- Chapter 12: A Bed For The Night

pairing: vampire!jungkook x female reader

genre: horror, drama, angst, romance

word count: 2k

warnings for this chapter: Jk is a butt, language

Tag List: @xxonyxpearlxx @jjungkook99

Onsra: ML, Previous

Ok les get it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"That's when who came?" 

Yuri speaks up suddenly and you hush her, to which she bows her head quietly and lets Jin continue. He smiles sadly and clears his throat, "The vampires. We still don't know where they came from, but we do know that they're gathering people." 

A hush falls over the whole room at his words and you gulp. Jin seems lost in thought, so you gently speak, "Why are they gathering people? Is that where you come in?" He snaps back to reality and nods at your question, "Yes. They just started attacking, out of nowhere. It was so horrible..." You feel your stomach turn and your chest clenches at the sadness in the young man's voice. His red eyes are glistening, and he coughs. 

Yuri nods in understanding and you remember she was there when the people in that room were attacked, when you lost all memory of that.

"Anyway, their goal was always to find people and turn them into vampires. But, we're not sure why." 

Yuri nods again and you look at her, horrified at the sentence that passed Jin's lips. Turn them into vampires? That must be what Yuri was talking about when she said you wouldn't 'turn' because they didn't have you long enough. You feel a chill go down your spine when you glance down to your wrist, where the tiny hole still sits. 

"B-but, what about all those murders, then...Were those the vampires too?" Ga-In asks hesitantly, and Jin nods. You shake your head, even more confused than before, "Wait, then why didn't those people turn into vampires? They just...died." Jin clasps his hands together and leans forward again, "This is what we've figured out so far. Vampires can do two things; they can bite you and kill you, or they can bite you and turn you into a vampire. It really depends on how long they have you for. I'm guessing they were planning to turn those people into vampires, but when the person put up a fight and started to cause a scene and draw attention, they decided to just kill them." 

Anger bursts in your chest at that and you grind your teeth before continuing, "Ok...So you seven were just normal humans before, and they had you long enough to turn you into vampires, not kill you?" Jin claps his hands and points at you. 

"Exactly."

"So, why were you there today? When you saved us." You question. He bites his lip and you can't help but notice his sharp canines. 

"Even if they turned us into vampires, they didn't change us completely. We knew that they had plans to turn a lot of people. I just wish we could've gotten there sooner..." 

"So, that's why you don't seem like monsters?" Ga-In speaks up and Jin chuckles lightly. "Well, thank you. Yes, that's probably why we don't seem like monsters. They had each of us long enough to turn us into vampires, but not long enough to get rid of our true selves, so our personalities remain the same. Although, there is something you need to know about-"

He gets interrupted mid-sentence when heavy footfalls sound through the room as someone saunters through the doorway. You look behind you when you see Jin's face change at the arrival. 

Jungkook stands there, looking unamused as usual with his arms crossing his chest. 

"Hoseok said you were in here. What are you doing?" He glares at you accusingly even though his question was directed at Jin, and you sigh. Why does he keep looking at you like that? You haven't done anything to him. 

Seokjin forces a smile to his face and clasps his hands again, "Jungkook! So nice of you to join us. I was just filling the girls in on how we aren't going to kill them and how they're safe here."

Jungkook raises his eyebrows and turns his attention to Jin, "What do you mean, safe here? They're not staying here." 

Jin sighs in irritation at Jungkook's sharp tone. "Yes, they are. You're going to need to deal with it and be nice. Why do you think we went there, Kook? Don't be stupid." You shift uncomfortably at the tension in the room, Jungkook is clearly pissed off. "Why don't you show the girls to their rooms?" Jin continues and Jungkook immediately stalks out of the sitting area. 

You hear the front door open and slam shut, and you flinch at the loud sound. The man sitting in front of you drags his hands down his face tiredly, "Ohhh I can't stand when he acts like this." 

You purse your lips and say quietly, "Was he always like this, then?" 

He blinks rapidly and it seems like he's trying to fight back tears when he forces a smile back onto his lips and shakes his head gently. 

"No...no, he wasn't."

~

Jin leads you three up the stairs and down a long hallway, passing a few doors before stopping at one and opening it. You walk in first and almost gasp at how beautiful the room is; it still has an old-fashioned look to it, but the three beds lining the wall on the left catch your attention. One is a pale yellow, another a pale pink and the last one a pale blue. The wall is lined with mahogany and the lamps have stain-glass covers.

Jin smiles genuinely and throws his arm out to the room,

"This is where you'll be staying. If in time you'd like your own room, that can be arranged. I just figured that you might want to be together for now. Jimin and Hoseok set it up for you when we got here. Go ahead and get some rest. We can talk things out more in the morning, but for now you can wash up and sleep. My room is the last one on the right down the hall, if you need anything please don't hesitate to come get me." 

You smile at him for the first time since meeting and nod, then you call out to him before he shuts the door,

"Jin."

He pops his head back in and looks at you, "Yes?”

"Thank you. For everything."

He smiles and nods, slipping his head out and closing the door softly. You turn to see Ga-In has already claimed the pale pink bed as she pulls the covers back and climbs in. "I'm so tired and confused and if I wake up in my own bed tomorrow from this horrible nightmare, I will be a very happy girl." Ga-In claims as she turns on her side and closes her eyes. Then she waves her hand in the air,

"You two can clean yourselves up if you want, I'm too tired."

You nod and look at Yuri, who shrugs and says, "I think I'm just going to wash my face." 

"Ok."

Yuri walks over to a small vanity where a bowl and pitcher are sitting. She pours water from the jug into the bowl and laughs quietly while she dunks a rag in it, "It really feels like we've gone back in time, huh y/n?" You nod your agreement and walk over to look into the marble bowl, "I think I need to take a shower." Yuri jerks her head towards the bathroom, "Go on, I can wait up for you if you'd like." You shake your head and sigh,

"No, it's alright. I might be awhile."

You turn the knob and water immediately comes down and splashes into the tub, you decided to take a bath instead. You strip off your sweaty shoes and socks, your oversized t-shirt and floppy pajama pants following close after. When you see yourself in the mirror you're taken aback by what you look like; your eyes are bloodshot and there are dark bags hanging under them, your skin is blotchy and covered in a mess of dried blood. Your hair is matted after not being brushed for however many days you lost in your memory, and your nails are covered in dirt and grime. You bite your lip and move to step into the tub that's filled with warm water, sinking down into it and sighing when your aching muscles finally start to relax.

You scoop water up with your hands and splash it on your chest, gently wiping away the dried blood that Yuri smeared on you earlier to save your life, watching the water in the tub turn into a dull pink as you wash away the exhaustion and panic of the day. All the confusion and fear seeping back into your mind as you curl your knees up to your chest and start sobbing into your hands.

You don't know how long you sit in the bathtub, washing yourself part of the time, and the other time spent sitting and staring into space. Eventually, you force yourself to get out of the tub and grab the towel hanging on the rack. You wrap yourself up in it and try to comb your fingers through your hair to untangle it, wincing when it tugs on your scalp.

Then, you pull your dirty long shirt back over your head and pull your socks back on, not liking the feeling of dirty clothes on a clean body. You open the bathroom door and see Ga-In fast asleep in the pink bed and Yuri snoring lightly in the blue bed next to it. As you walk over to get into the yellow bed, you realize you're absolutely parched. You don't know how long it's been since you last had water, 

I should have taken Jin up on his offer for a drink, you think miserably as you climb under the covers and pull them up to your chin. After a couple minutes of tossing and turning, it's become clear that you're not going to be falling asleep anytime soon; especially not when you're this freaking thirsty.

You throw the covers off of yourself with a huff and sit up in the bed, tossing your legs off the side. Yuri and Ga-In are in such a deep sleep that you aren't worried about waking them up as you stand and search the room for your pants. You find them in the bathroom and pull them on quietly, walking across the room and carefully opening the door to slip out into the hall. It's dark and quiet as you creep down the hall and over to the spiral staircase.

You walk down the stairs, praying that they won't creak as you descend them slowly. You make it the bottom of the stairs and walk down the hallway to where you think water might be, peeking your head around the corner and smiling when you see a big open kitchen. Stepping into the kitchen and quietly look through the cabinets until you open one that's full of glasses.

Snagging one and gently turning on the water, you fill the glass and start to gulp it down. Once you finish, you fill it up again and take another sip as you walk out of the kitchen.

Suddenly, the front door swings open and Jungkook walks through, a scowl on his face. You choke on the water and try to move back into the kitchen, tripping on your own feet and stumbling. The water goes down the wrong pipe and you start to cough uncontrollably. Jungkook looks up and sees your smaller figure, hunched over and coughing while you grab onto the wall with one hand and a glass in your other. You hear the door shut roughly and look up, catching your breath and stepping back when the vampire strides across the floor towards you.

"What are you doing here?"

"I- I was thirsty...I just- I'm sorry."

You stammer out and keep your eyes glued to the floor. Jungkook just scoffs,

"That isn't what I meant. I mean why are you here, in this house?"

You look up in confusion, seeing his judgmental stare as he looks your attire up and down. "I'm not sure what you mean, all I did was go where I was told." Jungkook won't stop staring into your eyes, almost as if he's searching for a sign that you're lying. What could you even be lying about? Wasn't he the first one to tell you to follow them?

"Didn't you tell me to come with you?"

"I never asked you to stay here, did I?"

"Well, I never asked you to save me. Did I?"

You've honestly had about enough of his attitude towards you, when you've done absolutely nothing wrong.

Jungkook's jaw clenches and he stares daggers into your eyes as you stare up at him, unflinching. You know now that he isn't going to bite you, from what Jin assured you earlier. Apparently, he's just a jerk.

You really hate confrontations, but you're not about to let this boy treat you like that.

"I'm going to bed now. Goodnight."

You move to walk past him and he scoots to the side, blocking your path. You turn to go to the other side and he does the same thing. Then, you sigh and look up at him again; his red eyes almost seem to glow a little in the dim light, and he flicks his tongue out to wet his lips a little before he whispers, "I don't think you're quite understanding something. This is my house-" you roll your eyes and that seems to set him off even more as he snaps.

"Believe me, if I knew who it would've been before going into that room, I would've never gone in and saved your sorry ass."  

You're not sure why, but that comment makes your heart sting as you pull yourself back from how close he is. He doesn't even know you, and he's already labeled you as unworthy of being alive.

One of your biggest insecurities, and now a stranger has just confirmed it for you. You shove past him and he lets you, then you walk up the stairs without looking back. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a/n: aight it's passed midnight. I'm tired af and I still have to shower, decorate for my sis' bday, and write some more. im officially. streSSed.

[neighborhoodmoonchild]

My Last Hope (Clairvoyant!Taehyung x Spirit!Reader)

Genre: Supernatural Au, Angst

Warnings: Explicit language, mentions of insomnia, death, murder, stalking, POV switching

Word Count: 7K 

Running. Faster. Take the stairs three at a time. The crash of glass. A loud bang. A puddle of blood.

Taehyung awakens with a start, chest heaving and a thick layer of sweat causing goosebumps to break out across his sweltering skin. He’s disoriented, gaze hazy and not catching on anything to focus and ground him. He’s panicking. Rubbing furiously at his eyes and slowing his breathing to a steady rhythm, he sits up in his bed and peels the comforters away from himself. The light peeking in from his window helps him fix his attention and he remembers that he’s in his room, safe and sound. Just a dream.

A few hours later and dawn is stretching across the sky, lighting up Taehyung’s apartment as he marks another tally in his journal. That’s the 15th time. Nothing’s changed, no break in the days, it’s all the same. Rickety steps. Broken glass. Blood. But what does it mean?

After making himself breakfast and staring off into space for a good twenty minutes, he decides it’s a good enough time to start work. Working from home was the only way he could, somewhat, get anything done. Too many distractions flooded the outside world, too many things that catch his eye and his alone. In the safety and comfort of his own abode, at least he wouldn’t get weird stares when he spent too long searching for a glimpse of something not really there, or straining to hear something no one else could. 

Taehyung spends what he would say as a good hour of being ‘productive’ before he starts getting that weird sensation again. The one that tingles from his toes, up his spine, and into his head. The one that makes him feel full of static and like everything around him is alight and spinning.

Drawing his eyes away from the screen ahead to survey his surroundings, he tries once again to pinpoint the cause of his discomfort. There has to be something causing this, there is no way that this is just a normal thing now. After his efforts come up dry, he goes back to his laptop, ending his work to just blindly search the internet to try and shake it off. 

As if to make this strange feeling worse, Tae finally looks at what he’s been searching for the past twenty minutes, and it leads him to an address of a house. An old, abandoned, familiar house. 

His blood runs cold. Flashes of his nightmares course through his vision, and he has half a mind to close the laptop, put it somewhere far away from him and lock himself in his room. 

“Maybe I’m still asleep,” he murmurs quietly, taking a few mere seconds to collect his thoughts and calm himself down. But instead of dropping everything and moving on, he delves deeper into the place. Built in the early 1800s, abandoned a few years prior to the present, and about to be demolished by the end of next month. Nothing seemingly out of the ordinary, and Tae has plenty of experience with that.

Yet, something about it still pulls him in, beckons him to dive even deeper, until it’s almost 3 a.m. the next morning and his eyes glaze over so bad he can’t see straight. His head lolls back and he finally starts to fall asleep.

Crash. Broken glass. A scream. Blood. Tae shoots from his chair so fast it tips to the side and both come tumbling to the ground with a loud bang. His neighbors probably hate him already with the number of times he’s awoken in the night screaming when the nightmares began. 

He rubs his sore side and sits up with a loud sigh. A quick glance at the clock hanging on his wall says noon, and he’s grateful he got at least a few hours of semi-peaceful slumber. Even after his nap, however, he still feels that tingling sensation at the back of his neck. 

When he looks back up at the picture of that house on his laptop, the feeling grows until it’s coursing through every fiber of his being and he can’t just ignore it anymore. If he’s being honest, Tae does that a lot. When it all becomes too much for him, his preferred course of action is to pretend it doesn’t exist. If only things were ever that simple. 

Pencil scratches haphazardly across paper as he takes note of the address in his journal. Now, trespassing in some creepy rundown house all the way over on the east side of town is not what Taehyung would call a good time by any means, but it sounds better than a lifetime of nightmares and static nerves. Sometimes the best way to face a nightmare is head-on and hopefully he can keep his. 

—

That night, as Taehyung drives away from the familiar buildings that make up his block in favor of the desolate rural houses that make up the east side, that feeling inside his body seems to grow. However, it was no longer an uncomfortable, static feeling, more like, a fuzzy warmth he didn’t know he was capable of. 

If his intuition has taught him anything, it was that this is a sign he’s finally doing something right, and he rarely gets those. 

Driving at night made him a bit uncomfortable, not going to lie, but he didn’t have much of a choice. The house was too far to walk and he wasn’t sure if he’d even make it there if he walked alone. In the dark. At night. 

Taehyung is prone to giving himself anxiety he surely doesn’t need, he argues it’s one of his many charms. When he finally pulls up to the house, well, he actually parks a block away so it wouldn’t be too suspicious, he starts mulling over all the possible outcomes of tonight.

99% of them end poorly. 

Just as he is about to put the key back into the ignition and give up on his dumb theory, the feeling overwhelms him to the point he feels sick. He flings his car door open and heaves himself out onto the concrete, sure he was about to vomit. 

It takes him a second to collect himself, pushing off the ground to come to a wobbly stand. 

“Alright, alright, I’ll go.” He’s not sure why he’s addressing the feeling as if it were another being, it’s just this sense he gets that it’s trying to tell him he needs to buck up and do it already. 

Great, so even mystical forces are calling him out for being a coward, awesome. 

Brushing himself off, he stalks to the back of his car, grabbing his bag and a flashlight out of the trunk and starts towards the house. 

The closer he gets, the creepier everything seems to get. The paint is peeling off the siding, broken windows haphazardly boarded up. As he ascends the few steps up to the porch, each one creaks in a different pitch, adding a terrifying soundtrack to the night. 

Taehyung stares at the door, falling slightly off its hinges and debates whether it was right to go in or not. It’s not like he was invading anyone’s privacy, nobody had lived there in years.

His hand slowly reaches out to grasp the door handle, the cool metal of it contrasting the burning of his skin. He’s not just nervous, he’s terrified.

He’d never investigated his feelings before, and none of them had ever been quite as strong as this one. He was worried if this would make his affliction worse, or if this was all going to be some trap.

Again, Taehyung was mildly paranoid, but for good reasons. 

A loud creak sends a shiver up his spine as the door swings open, the gust of air it created sending some dust and cobwebs into the air.

His head shoots from side to side, making sure no one was watching him before he enters the house, careful of his steps. 

The inside of the house didn’t look as old and battered as the outside; in fact, it looks pretty normal aside from the ominous white sheets covering a few pieces of furniture and the spiderwebs making their homes in every corner. 

Despite his fight or flight response telling him to book it back to his car, he pushes himself to keep going, looking around as if he were searching for clues for something.

Maybe he was?

Taehyung does his best to check out both the first and second floor, not so much investigating, more so just trying to occupy his mind so he didn’t freak himself out, 

Upstairs he found a room at the far end of the hall that connected to a balcony. The room itself was nice, as nice as any abandoned house could be. The walls were a soft light yellow, intricate filigree detail, a vanity at one side and a bed at the other. 

He felt almost cozy in the room, something he hadn’t felt in any of the others. It was significantly less creepy and as his eyes roamed over every inch of the place, it felt almost familiar to him somehow. 

The door to the balcony overlooks the backyard, a roaring river cutting through it, woods at the other edge.

He watches the water rush and splash violently over the rocks and sees a small patch of dirt eroding at the bank. He’s not sure if it’s the air or the sight that makes him feel so cold. There’s a small set of stairs that lead from the balcony back down to the first level, so he takes each one cautiously and hops to ground. 

As he is about to head closer to the strange patch of dirt and grass washing away, he hears the distant roar of sirens, shaking him to his core. 

Taehyung books it back to his car, throwing his bag and flashlight in and tearing away from the sidewalk as quickly as he can. 

It doesn’t even matter that they might not have been for him, something in the pit of his stomach said something was very wrong and he wouldn’t stick around to find out.

Taehyung passes the cop car on his way out of the neighborhood, tensing up every muscle in his body. The officer doesn’t slow down or go after him, so he figures he’s in the clear. It’s not like he was doing anything super illegal anyways, right?

Tae is long gone when the officer arrives at the house. He’s been here before, right after the accident. He wasn’t happy to be called back after a neighbor called in a possible vandal. He was already in the area, though, and decided he’d humor them. 

The officer does his rounds, checks the house, the front yard, the basement.

It’s when he heads back out toward the river, the same bank catches his eye. Just to be safe, he gets closer, but the closer he gets the weirder things get.

There, at the edge of the bank, the mud washing away into the water, he sees a bone.

This just turned into a crime scene. 

—

Taehyung wants to sleep in, he deserves it after the shit he put himself through last night. There’s this nagging feeling trying to wake him though and after fighting with it for too long, he decides it’s just not worth it anymore.

Sitting up, long yawn escaping as he stretches his limbs out, his eyes catch on the remote on the sodden table in front of him. He reaches out to grab it, flicking the TV on, it opening on a random channel. 

Seems normal enough, but Tae never watches TV in the morning.

It’s when his eyes read the words ‘Missing girl’s body found’ on the ticker across the bottom of the screen, he pales, turning up the volume to hear the story. 

“News sources say the body of 22 year old Y/F/N Y/L/N, who went missing 5 years ago, has been found in the backyard of her childhood home.” 

The shot cuts to the scene unfolding behind the reporter, the house from last night as clear as day on the screen. Taehyung thinks he actually feels his heart stop beating. He’s sweating buckets, goosebumps easing across every inch of his skin. He can’t breathe. 

“You know, I really wish you had found me first dummy.” 

Taehyung jumps out of his at the presence of an unknown voice right next to him, plummeting to the ground with a loud thud. 

There you sat, on his couch, head in your hand, staring at him like he was being dramatic.

“Who the hell are you? How did you get in my house?” His questions come out as short gasps, figuring he really was in the middle of a heart attack or something. He was dying, that was the only plausible explanation.

“What, you’ve never seen a ghost before ‘Ghost Whisperer’?” Your sarcastic comments don’t phase him, he’s still too stunned about everything happening he’s not sure what to do.

“I’m going crazy, aren’t I?” He says it more to himself, but you take it as an invite to comment.

“No, you’re no crazier than you were yesterday or any other day before that.” 

He scoffs, rubbing his elbow that bashed against the edge of the coffee table when he fell, “Yes I am, obviously, since I’m seeing,” he points to you, not actually looking at you, scared of what could happen, “you, and you’re apparently a-a-“

“Ghost. Spirit. Apparition. A dead person.” He finally looks at your face and just stares for a second taking and processing the information. 

“Right,” is all he can muster.

You stand up and walk over to the TV, crouching down and staring at the scene, your body being pulled from the earth by the river. If you could feel pain or sickness, you’re sure you’d be thoroughly feeling them right now. 

You’re hand slowly comes up to the screen, finger pointing to the body bag strapped to the gurney as it’s rolled out of your yard and into an ambulance, “That’s me.” You’re telling him, but your also telling yourself.

Taehyung doesn’t know what to do. First of all, there’s a fucking ghost in his house. Second, there’s a dead body at the house he visited last night. Third, there’s a fucking ghost in his house.

Taehyung has seen crazy things before, but never a full-bodied apparition like you. What does one say to a ghost as they watch their body be found? Can you comfort a ghost? Did he want to comfort you?

In all honesty, it took everything Taehyung has in him to not piss himself he is so freaked out. 

You turn back around to face him, “Do you know why I’m here, Taehyung?” 

His eyes widen, “You know my name too? You just show up in my house like you know me?” 

You roll your eyes, walking over to him, trying not to be too offended when he scoots away. You crouch down next to him this time, “I’ve been with you for a while, actually, I just didn’t have the capacity to do this,” you gesture to your ‘body,’ “until now apparently.” 

He leans a bit closer, intrigued at your revelation, “What do you mean you’ve been with me for a while?”

Before he can move away, you shoot your hand out to rest on his shoulder. He suddenly gets that overwhelming tingling sensation again, but it’s so much stronger now. 

You pull your hand away when you see the realization on his face. 

“Wait, have you been, like, inside of me this whole time.”

Another eye roll, “No, I was not inside of you, more like floating around you, simply put.”

You both sit there in awkward silence for a few seconds, before he runs his hand through his air exasperatedly, “So what now?” 

Your eyes widen in excitement. Now you’d finally get a chance to understand why you’ve been stuck here for so long.

“You are going to help me figure out how I died.”

—

“No.”

“You have to.” You feign a pour and push his shoulder. Tae ignores you, pretends he can’t hear, feel, or see you.

It’d been two days since your abrupt appearance, and in those two days you’d sufficiently annoyed the shit out of Tae. There was no way he was getting involved in an open murder investigation.

“The cops will figure it out, go annoy one of them.” 

You step in front of him, blocking his way to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

“You’re the only one that can help me, I already told you that.” A huff escapes your lips when he pushes past you, your arms folding across your chest as your attention follows him.

“Nope. You’ve got the wrong guy, I’m not helping you.” 

“Why not?” Leaning across the counter, you catch him roll his eyes, making your agitation grow. 

“Because I can’t.” 

“Why?”

“Maybe someone murdered you for being so goddamn annoying,” Tae whispers to himself over his mug, but you still hear it, pushing away from the counter to approach him.

“Why are you such an asshole?” He smirks, finding it funny when you got so riled up.

“Why are you so annoying?” Oh, if you could muster up enough energy to physically slap him, you would. 

Turns out full body projecting is harder than you thought, and while you’re glad you can at least do that, you wished you could touch things again.

The only thing you can do is sigh, turning away from him, “It’s not like I had a choice of who can see me or not.” 

You’d spent years wandering alone in limbo, an in-between, roaming the earth with no guidance. You couldn’t remember anything about what happened, except for a few small things long before it.

There was no light, no pearly white gates and angels to welcome you to heaven. There was no fire and screaming like hell. You were just there, in your house, surrounded by people but no one could see or hear you. If it was possibly, watching your family live on without you would’ve killed you again. 

You’d spent years trying to find one person, just one, to acknowledge you, but you’d always come up empty. 

Then you came across Tae. It was when he spent more time out in the world, before he let the things he could see drive him to hole up in his home. You’d sensed another spirit in the area, and tried to locate it, to maybe have someone or something to talk to. 

You saw Tae, staring in the direction of the energy source, but you couldn’t see what he was looking at. He looked scared.

You approached him, forgetting he was a living being and you were not. It was when you lay your hand on his shoulder to comfort him, and he reacted, you’d realized you’d found the one person who could feel you. 

You’d stuck around ever since, and as your energy grew (you may or may not have been borrowing some of Tae’s), you influenced him more and more until he’d decide to go to your home. 

Since you had no memory of how you died, you figured that’d be a good place to start looking for answers on how to pass on. 

Taehyung was the only tether you had to the living world, whether you both liked it or not. You’d spent too long wandering around and you were done. You wanted answers, you wanted to be at peace. 

You let yourself dissipate into the air, figuring it was more trouble than it was worth to use up your energy on fighting with him. You just needed some time to yourself, and figured so did he. 

When he watches your figure disappear, he can’t help the guilty feeling crawling up his throat as the coffee slides down. It was just all so much to take in right now and with the investigation, a murderer on the loose, and you, he felt overwhelmed. 

He knows it’s just as hard on you, though, too, and wishes he’d been more sensitive. 

Taehyung was always good at saying the wrong things. 

—

After his comment, you’d been more distant lately, and whether he liked to admit it or not, he kinda liked having you around, even though you were annoying as hell. 

Taehyung has been on his own for so long, he had forgotten what it was like to have a friend, and while you were dead, he thought a ghost friend was better than no friends. 

So, even though he didn’t like nor know what he was doing, he decided he’d at least look into what happened 5 years ago.

Flashback

“Yes, I’m fine, I’ll be home in, like, 10 minutes.” You hang up on your mom, knowing that she’ll probably reprimand you once she sees you, but you were too excited to care. 

You’d stayed after school to help the Art Club decorate for their Halloween fundraiser this weekend, and the President asked you if you’d like to dress up and work the haunted house with him. 

Kim Namjoon is many things, but forward was not one of them. You cool accepted, even though you were jumping up and down on the inside. The Kim Namjoon was asking you to hang out Saturday night. It was like a dream come true. 

Your walk home was filled with going over all the different ways the night could play out, your lovesick mind always ending it with you both kissing and living happily ever after. Cliche, but you couldn’t help it. 

As you rounded the corner to your block, you felt uneasy, like you were being watched. Calmly looking over your shoulder, you sand your surroundings for eyes. The street was pretty empty, though, save a few parked cars and the rare one heading down the road. 

You shake your head, waving away any paranoia and keep going.

What you didn’t see was the familiar red car parked down the road from your house, it’s occupant’s eyes following your every move.

That night, after a lighthearted scolding from your mother, you help her wash the dishes from dinner, your dad placing a kiss to the tops of your heads before retiring to his office for the night. He worked a lot, but you couldn’t hold it against him, he was a good dad.

Bidding your mother Goodnight, you retire to your room to wash up and start the pile of homework that had grown on your desk.

As you tackle what you can with your fluffy pajamas giving you strength, you get that weird sensation of being watched again. You turn your head to stare out the door to your balcony into the backyard. 

Nothing. 

Creeped out and tired as hell, you draw your curtain, turn the light off, and go to sleep. 

Saturday came quicker than you could hope, the excitement over your costume and your date/not date with Namjoon skyrocketing your mood. 

Joon had met you in the hallway before school let out on Friday to ask you if it was alright if he picked you up, to which you quickly said yes. He told you what his costume was earlier that week, but when he’d asked about yours, you said it was a surprise. 

You kept it classy but cute and chose something that you knew and Namjoon would appreciate. You couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when he showed up at your door. 

You walked home again that evening, the feeling of being watched lingering through the whole walk. You were bothered, but you didn’t want anything to spoil your mood. 

In retrospect, you should’ve said something. 

The last thing you remember is going to a haunted house with Joon, something happening, and walking home.

Then, nothing.

End Flashback

Tae’s research into the known details of your disappearance came up short. The only thing he could gather was that you were on your way home from a school event but never showed up. 

The police told your parents that at your age, it was normal for kids to just disappear for a few days. 

After 3 days, they started a missing persons search. 

Weeks of looking came up with nothing. 

The investigation started out as possible foul play, but after some evidence was unearthed, it turned into a runaway. 

No criminal evidence found, no new details or leads, and the case quickly went cold. 

To the town, you were just another teen runaway.

Your parents fought hard for justice, knowing there was no way you’d run away, but the more time passed, the more tired they got. Funds dried up, people made horrible clamping about you and your family, and they didn’t know how to fight anymore.

They lost their only daughter and no one seemed to care.

In the end, they sold the house and moved as far away as they could. 

The hope that they’d find their daughter alive diminished until it no longer existed.

Taehyung felt a sorrow he’d never known before. How could something like this happen to anyone?

From his point of view, it looked like the only ones who took it seriously were your parents. 

How could the authorities brush away someone’s life like that?

You’d been with Tae for so long, you could tell the changes of his emotions, and a pang of sadness shot through you that felt familiar. 

Despite still being mad at him, you appeared behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screen of the laptop to see article after article about your disappearance. Then, focusing on Tae, you the smallest tear slide from the corner of his eye. 

Your arms reach out to wrap around him, phasing right through him but he can feel your presence. 

Eyes squeezed tight, you wished you could feel him, not just to comfort him, but to feel comfort yourself. All you could do, though, was try.

“I’m sorry I was a jerk.” Tae doesn’t turn from the screen to address you, he just closes his eyes, focusing on the static feeling from your ‘touch.’ 

“I’m sorry I was annoying.” He cracked a pathetic grin, finally turning when you had pulled away.

He sticks his hand out, offering it to you to shake. You look  at him confused, knowing you can’t grab it, but he just waves it up and down until you stick your hand out and put it near his. 

You imitate a shake and a giggle escapes your lips, “What was that all about?”

“I’m going to help you find the truth.” Your eyes shoot open, locking on his. There is no hint of sarcasm, just pure determination.

Taehyung was going to help you find peace if it was the last thing he did. 

It was what you deserved, what your parents deserved, and he wasn’t going to let anyone brush you aside again. 

—

“Are you sure this guy can help, Tae?” You whisper, trailing behind him as he heads deeper into the building. 

Taehyung, before his affliction took over, had actually had friends of his own before. One, a few years older, had become a detective a few years back, at least, that’s what he’d heard.

Yoongi was a serious guy, and he had a passion for finding justice, and Tae knew he was just the man to aid them on their investigation.

Taehyung was realistic. He knew there was no way he’d be given access to the new evidence or the open murder investigation. 

He needed someone on the inside, someone who knew the game and how to play, but could still be trusted.

So, he emailed Yoongi, very vague just in case, and he’d offered to meet Tae today in the old warehouse they all used to hang out in when they were teens. 

Here you were, standing exactly where Yoongi had agreed upon, when Tae hears footsteps.

Yoongi approaches carefully, seeing his old friend right where he told him to be. 

He wasn’t going to lie, he had absolutely no idea what Taehyung could possibly call him out here for, and his email didn’t help. 

Having not seen him in years, Yoongi goes in for a simple handshake, but Tae goes straight for a hug. He missed his hyung, more than he’d thought once he actually saw him. 

Yoongi wasn’t ever one for physical contact, even when they were younger, but he knew there must be an important reason for meeting, so he let the kid hug him.

“Thank you for meeting me Yoongi, sorry I haven’t kept in contact these past few years.” Tae feels guilty for shutting his friends out, but he didn’t know what else to do, they’d never understand.

Now, he needed at least Yoongi to.

“It’s okay, we all got busy. So, why are we here?” Yoongi wanted to get down to business, he didn’t like idle chit chat. 

“Right. This is going to sound crazy, but I need your help solving a murder.” 

He’s surprised to say the least. At first, his mind jumps to Taehyung being involved in something serious, but he knows his friend well enough to know he’d never commit murder.

“Why are you investigating a murder?”

Tae rubs the back of his neck, growing more uncomfortable by the second.

“I’m just going to be honest with you. Don’t laugh, and please, hear me out.” 

Tae waits for the elder to oblige before beginning.

Once he goes through all the nitty-gritty details, he can tell by the look on Yoongi’s face that he doesn’t believe him. Tae looks from Yoongi to you, then back again, and wonders how the hell he’s supposed to prove himself.

“Taehyung, it’s not funny to waste people’s time.” Yoongi turns to leave, and Taehyung starts panicking. Yoongi was his only lead, as if this didn’t work out, he wasn’t sure what else he could do. 

You can tell the situation is turning sour, so you figure the best way to prove Tae is telling the truth, is to prove you’re there.

You search your surroundings quickly, finding a piece of pipe on the ground. You grab it, mustering up all the energy you possibly can until you actually feel it in your hands. 

You push away the excitement and focus on moving it. Slowly, you drag it over until you’re blocking Yoongi’s exit. 

He stands there, staring at the seemingly floating pipe, and is wondering if he’s lost his mind.

You take the opportunity to write your name in the dirt as bets you can. You’re growing weaker, but you finish it and the pipe drops to the ground.

Tae watches your form dissipate into the air again, afraid you’d disappeared, but he feels your presence at his shoulder again, so he relaxes. 

Yoongi, on the other hand, is staring at the dirt, frozen, mouth gaped wide, and pale as a ghost. 

“Believe me now?” 

Yoongi followed Tae back to his house and they start their dive into the case.

—

Yoongi is able to get his hands on some of your files, both new and old, and the two of them start a board to piece the puzzle together. 

The only problem, they have no idea where to even begin.

You go over the events you remember with Tae as best you can, Tae filling in Yoongi and then adding new information to the board. 

You stare at it, your picture idly in the center, pictures of everyone you knew around you, as well as crime scene photos, news clippings; everything.

The longer you stared at it, the more frustrated you got. Yoongi and Tae’s leads kept coming up empty and they were no closer than when they first began.

“Are you sure she’s telling us everything?” Yoongi questions Tae, and you scoff, even though he can’t hear it. Tae looks at you with a smile, before turning back to Yoongi and nodding.

“Apparently.” Tae, even though he was finally helping you, didn’t lose his joy in antagonizing you, but you had your own fun so it was only fair. 

You’d hide his things, or phase through him because he said once it felt weird, so you’d do it just to annoy him. Annoying Tae became your new favorite thing.

“Didn’t she say she felt like she was being watched when she was walking home?” Yoongi turns from his puzzled stance towards the board to where Tae was staring, figuring it was you.

You nod, and Tae relays it to him.

“How long had she had that feeling?” 

You had to think about it. So many years had gone by, it was harder and harder for you to recall memories from your past. Bringing up so much at once, now, though, was helping them resurface.

You remember the feeling starting around 4 months before the incident. You’d been to a party one night when the cops showed up to send everyone home. It was when you were escorted to one of the cars that you first felt it.

After that, it’d only gotten worse, but you weren’t sure how to bring it up to your parents, or if you even should. It wasn’t like you could prove it, it was just a feeling. 

The harder you thought, the more memories flooded. 

You tried to picture every instance in your mind as it happened. The party, after practice, the dance, fall festival, these were all the times you could remember it happening. 

After the first month, it started happening when you were at home. You could see yourself in the moment clearly, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t find any connection. 

After Tae relayed all of this to Yoongi, he just stood there staring at the board for a while. Tae grew tired quickly, leaving the room to make some coffee, and you followed.

“I’m sorry I’m not much help,” you admit, face turning down in a frown. You hated that you couldn’t remember that night or what had happened to you. It wasn’t fair.

Tae turns to you quickly, sympathetic smile on his lips, “It's not your fault, we’ll figure this out, I promise.” He holds his pinky out to you, causing you to smile, bringing yours up to lay next to his. 

It was simple gestures like this between the two of you that made you almost feel like you were alive again. 

Tae is about to say something when Yoongi shouts for him to come quick. You both sprint into the living room, seeing Yoongi circling something in every crime scene photo frantically. 

“What do you see in all of these photos?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer. Tae takes a closer look, you just behind him peeking around his shoulder. You see the faint image of the same man in every single picture.

He’s not close enough to quite make out, but he’s definitely in every single one. It’s eerie, the man standing just outside the frame, staring at the scene. It sends shivers through you, well, as much a shiver as an entity can feel.

“There’s the same guy in every picture!” They both exclaim together, clapping hands together in the air. Yoongi and Tae finally had a lead. 

Tae turns to you, “Do you recognize him?” You stare at one as hard as you can, but the image is too fuzzy for you to know for sure. 

“I don’t know,” is all you can offer. Tae looks a bit disappointed, but it doesn’t last long, Yoongi offering, “We can get these enhanced so she can have a better look.”

With that, they call it a night, well, you call it a night, while the boys continue, too excited to stop any time soon. 

Yoongi decides it’d be better to stay with Tae until they can figure this out.

—

A knock on Tae’s door at 5 a.m. has everyone in the house scrambling.

Yoongi is the first to get presentable, opening the door to two local officers.

“What can I help you with officers?” He says, gritting his teeth. Local cops were a bane in Yoongi’s existence. Nothing against the position, he’d had to go through it himself, but nowadays, he remembers just how incompetent and cocky they can be.

“Is Kim Taehyung here? We’d like to ask him a few questions about his whereabouts the night of October 19th.” Yoongi is about to ask them why the hell that was necessary when Tae comes up behind him.

“I’m Kim Taehyung,” he says, trying to sound confident but failing miserably. When they brought up the night he’d visited your house, he knew things were about to go down.

“Were you at this address that night?” One officer shows the address along with a picture of the house to Tae, to which he shakes his head.

  “I drove through the neighborhood to go see a friend, but that’s it.” 

Tae didn’t want to lie, but something in his gut told him the truth would end a lot worse. 

The officers look from each other back to him.

“We have a witness account identifying you at the house that night, sir.” Tae thinks he’s done for, but Yoongi comes in with a quick save. 

Luckily, Tae had brought Yoongi up to speed on everything, so he knew he could set the perfect alibi. 

The officers don’t look too convinced, but they leave. Yoongi shuts the door and Tae releases the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in.

“That one officer looked familiar.” You say, popping up behind Tae, causing him to jump. He swears one day you will actually kill him.

“Which one?” Yoongi questions, walking into the living room, the both of you following suit. 

“The taller one with the dark hair and mustache. I’ve seen him before.” 

Yoongi takes this information from Tae and scours the board. His finger shoots out to one of the photographs.

“That’s him,” he says and then gestures to the figure next to him. It clicks in everyone’s mind that the man next to the officer is the same man in the rest of the pictures. 

“You don’t think...” Tae starts, everyone taking glances at each other in silence. 

“We might have just found a rat.” 

—

“You can’t just bring him in without reason!” Yoongi yells as the officer escorts Tae out of the building and into the car.

He ignores Yoongi, taking Tae away.

Yoongi follows pursuit in his own vehicle. 

After a few hours of interrogation, Tae exits the police station, finding a furious Yoongi in the lobby.

“What the hell did they want?” Yoongi shouts, storming after Tae. Tae just gets into Yoongi’s car and slams the door. 

It’s not until they get home that Tae shares.

“That cop from the photo, he tried to get me to confess to being at the house that night.” 

Yoongi runs his hands through his hair, clearly exasperated, while you watch on in silence.

“Did you tell them anything?” 

Tae scoffs, “Of course not!”

The room goes quiet, tension thick in the air. 

Yoongi is worried their investigation is blown.

Tae is worried your murderer will get away.

You’re worried for your new friends’ well-being.

“Let’s just stop.” You say, eyes trained on the floor below. Tae shoots up from his place on the couch, looking at you in disbelief.

“No way, we’re so close, I can feel it.” He says, approaching you.

You look up at him, lips curling down, “I don’t want anything bad happening to you.” 

Tae isn’t sure what to say. He’s too invested in this to let it go over a little scare with the police. This was bigger than all of you knew, and he couldn’t let your chance at peace slip away over him.

“I did learn something new though.” Tae turns away from you to address Yoongi, ignoring your wishes for him to stop.

“I saw that cop talking with a guy that looked just like the photo guy when I was leaving. They were whispering and looking around all suspicious.” 

All of a sudden their off on theory tangents and you’re too exhausted from worrying about Tae to stick around.

Yoongi is finally able to enhance one of the photos a day later, enough to get a clear look at the mystery man. 

When you finally look at his face, it’s like opening Pandora’s box. 

That night, after the haunted house, Namjoon offered to drive you home, but an emergency came up. 

You told him it was no problem and instead of calling one of your parents, you decided to walk home. 

You enter the part of town that had few houses with far stretches of woods in-between. You were spooked, but there was nothing to do about it, so you kept going.

A red car pulls up next to you, a familiar face, the officer, through the window offering you a ride. 

You accept even though your whole being is saying that something isn’t right.

There’s someone else in the car you didn’t notice before. 

He never takes you home.

You’re standing there, shaking, eyes wide in fear and Tae can sense the overwhelming terror coursing from you.

“Are you okay?” Tae asks, concern taking over his body.

“He offered to drive me home...Tae.. he never took me home.” You sob, falling to the ground. Tae goes to comfort you but remembers he can’t. He can’t touch you. He can’t hold you as you fall apart. He can just watch.

Yoongi is standing there, utterly confused, but when he sees his friend drop to the ground, he stops what he's doing.

Tae stares at you, hurt evident on his face, guilty he can’t help you, and then looks up at at Yoongi. 

A tear slips out of one of his eyes, but it’s not from sadness, it’s from anger. 

“Those bastards are gonna pay.”

When you finally remembered, your energy had completely depleted. Tae couldn’t see or feel you and he was growing more worried by the second. He didn’t let that stop him from helping Yoongi go back to the house to search for evidence. 

When they pull up, they see a car parked outside.

Your killer is here.

Tae tries to rush at him, fury telling him to beat the living shit out of him. Yoongi holds him back, keeping him in the car until the man leaves. He manages to snap a few pictures for evidence, and reminds Tae that if he does anything stupid, it’ll ruin everything.

After a few minutes pass, another car pulls up. This time, your parents step out of the vehicle, staring at the house they once called home. They look tired, like they haven’t slept in days.

He bets they never thought they’d be back here, let alone to bury their daughter. 

They wait till they leave, finally leaving the vehicle to search.

Coming up with nothing, Yoongi offers to go back to his office and try the resources there.

Weeks go by, the local authorities slowly leaning towards another cold case. Yoongi and Tae, however, are hot on the trail.

Yoongi was able to use his clearance to look at the evidence the police filed away. There, he was able to draw connections to you and the man. Multiple witness statements had been disregarded when it came to a familiar looking man seen around your school and on your path home. 

The evidence was quickly piling up, and it was firing up the boys. 

The match to set the whole thing ablaze? Tae found a connection between you, the man, and the cop you recognized. 

Turns out your father had filed a complaint against the town for the man showing up in your backyard one day. The cop to address it? The same one. The suspect is the cop’s younger brother who has a history of stalking underage girls.

Yoongi was right in his opinion on local cops, the bastard was covering it all up, probably even helped him.

Going to his superiors, Yoongi was able to get jurisdiction over your case. 

The greatest day in Taehyung’s life was watching the two men get taken away in handcuffs.

Your parents invited both Taehyung and Yoongi to your service, and you gave Tae the okay to go. 

He stood with you at your casket, closed considering the amount of time and decay your body had gone through. 

He cried that day, more than he ever had before. Not just because he was burying a friend he never truly got to meet, but because you finally got the justice you deserved. 

Tae throws his tie on the couch when he get home, entering the living room, plopping down to rest against the back of it. 

You just stand before him, watching him breath, his eyes closed.

You walk forward, leaning close. 

As Tae opens his eyes, he sees your figure close, and then feels the sensation of lips on his forehead.

You poured all of your strength into this final goodbye. You could feel the warmth of his skin as your lips pressed to his forehead, leaning away to see him staring in shock.

He reaches out to grab your hand as you back away. His fingers graze yours, and you both feel the sensation of physical contact. 

“Thank you Tae, for everything.” 

You finally passed on. 

He cried for the second time that day.

—

Years later, Taehyung is back in town. It’s the anniversary of your death, and he wanted to visit. His right hand is wrapped tight around one much smaller than his, his left arm holding another tiny figure close. 

He knows the path to your stone by heart. When they approach, he stops just before it, staring at the words. He lingers over your name and smiles. 

“Daddy, where are we?” The little one lets go of his hand and instead holds the small bouquet of flowers close to him.

Taehyung looks down at the little boy and smiles, patting his head.

“I want to introduce you to my old friend.” He says, gesturing forward, the little boy taking the bouquet and setting it down by your stone. 

He sets the youngest at his feet, dropping to sit down in front of your headstone, gathering his children in his lap. 

“Do you want to hear the story about how I met my best friend?”

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

This. Is.  a rollercoaster of emotions my guys. I’m sorry I had to do it to you, but I did. Honestly, I’m overly proud of this one, like, it may be my favorite. It is my favorite. Hope you guys enjoy a little cry fest over Tae, I know I did. Also, a birthday shout out to @arxsu, I hope you like it! Our little Kookie gets Halloween, so get excited. Stay Spooky!💜

-Moonie🌙

[saizoswifey]

AKA our favorite thing in the world !!!!!!! jsjsjsjdfkjsfj I love you so much thank you for this ask @catchthespade !! I’m not replying to this directly because I wanted to add images and going right from the ask makes the layout stupid lmao. (and I fucking hate tumblr because you can’t add text between nicely bunched images and it downgrades the quality to fucking hell but here we are)…

This gets semi-N//SFW

______________________

Okay SO. Saizo is one of the most intensely jealous characters in the game. He even gets jealous of Yukimura:

I’ll put the rest under a cut for length purposes….this is LONG [seriously] and also mild spoilers for event stories to (hopefully) come…

AND LET’S NOT FORGET 

Obviously, he is pissed but not going to hurt Yukimura in any way. I think in a lot of ways he turns his jealous feelings into teasing/poking fun at the person he is jealous of. It’s his defense mechanism and he likes to push their buttons or make them look like a complete idiot in order to ease his anxieties and make himself feel better. 

We know his jealousy goes far enough that in canon he keeps MC from screaming during sex so Yukimura does not hear it, and he also has been known to keep Yukimura and Chibi Sasuke busy in order to not be interrupted with MC. 

Saizo literally gives ZERO FUCKS about what is going on around them when it comes to MC and his jealousy. He’ll ruin anything, he’ll stop anything, he’ll make the biggest fucking scene. We saw it in his route when he swiped her up from the faux wedding. There’s another event upcoming, in which MC is chosen for a lead part in a performance (in which she must kiss the male lead). At first, the male lead chosen is Yukimura, and Saizo seems to not care one bit, he doesn’t seem threatened. And I mean, Yukimura is his bestie and he trusts him so that makes sense, it’s a play kiss with no meaning. However, Yukimura gets sick and the part lands on Sasuke (BIG ninja Sasuke, not chibi). Saizo. Is. Pissed.  He literally jumps on the stage and ruins the whole fucking things by stealing MC and running away before they can kiss because he won’t allow it. 

Now, these are all “friendly” encounters with jealousy. However. I think Saizo has a very dark side to how possessive he can be when it comes to MC. 

We’ve seen in canon him mentioning several times that he will kill men if they try to see her intimately. In an upcoming ES we see just how pissy Saizo can get when he gets jealous of someone who ISN’T a friendly threat but a random stranger. MC volunteers to help at a nearby school but the teacher ends up being a real creepo. Saizo knows it right away but MC doesn’t listen or understand and continues to go there despite the fact that she is starting to receive letters from an unknown stalker. Saizo goes into freak-out mode and keeps watch of her from a distance 24/7. He shows up at the school purposefully to send a message to the guy, and the moment he DOES end up making a move, Saizo reveals himself AND HIS SWORD. 

Saizo may be the kind-hearted softie when it comes to MC and Yukkins, but the cold and calculating, unflinching Saizo is still very much a part of him. He has no qualms with murder and death, and since he holds all of like 3 people dear to him, he will do whatever it takes to keep them safe. 

SO, what sets his jealousy/possessiveness off the most? 

When someone has known MC longer than he has/someone who appears to be very close with MC. Saizo may have met MC long ago but he wasn’t able to be by her side and he’s pretty self-conscious about that fact. He doesn’t like it when someone tries to show they know her more intimately than he does. 

MC talking about other men, ESPECIALLY when they’re in bed together or have alone time. It’s few and far between they get quiet moments together so the last thing he wants to hear is about another guy no matter the context. 

MC not listening when he tries to warn her about someone or tell her not to do something. He’s got a sixth sense for trash people and he’s usually pretty easy going, so when he tells you to stay away from someone its for a good reason. Not to mention the fact that it’s hurtful to have your S/O ignore your advice in order to spend time with someone else. 

Anxiety after almost dying or losing MC. 

Of course, there are lots of other reasons, but I think these are the most prevalent, the ones that will actually get a huge rise out of Saizo. As far as other random jealousy/possessive HC’s, Dare I say……yandere???: 

Absolutely keeps tabs on you like at all times. If it’s not him himself(which it usually is) he sends Kiyohiro to watch and report back. If he even so much as WHIFFS someone is being creepy towards you he is ending that shit right away. 

How he takes care of them depends on the level of creep. And maybe how he’s feeling that day. If they can be scared off easily he could simply drop into their room in the dead of night, wake them up with a blade to the throat, “shhh, quiet now or I may just slip.” Perhaps he slips something into their evening tea and carries their unconscious body to the nearest cliff or into the woods. Maybe he writes a “love letter” in MC’s hand and lures them to a remote area, sword ready and Utsusemi ready to gobble some plucked eyes. Either way, MC will be none the wiser. 

“Hm? The grocer disappeared? That is strange…so what’s for dinner, little lady?” 

Has no qualms being vocal about his jealousy (most of the time). If it strikes his nerve just right he’ll come out and say he doesn’t like XYZ and wants you to stop. Other times, you have to pay attention to when he is being bitchy and distant. 

If he could, he’d keep you locked away all to himself. He has real issues with love/ownership/things because of his childhood. He’s never known how to have things, especially not precious things. So how does he control himself? He knows it’s not right to keep you locked away, so instead, he controls what he can keep to himself. Your ears showing, your skin showing, your dango, your blush/pleasured expressions, your moans. He doesn’t want anyone else experiencing this stuff of yours. 

That being said, he WOULD 100% lock you the fuck up if you were down for it. He’d get you a pretty little ribbon to tie around your neck and a comfortable room with things to keep you occupied, he’d bring you your meals and feed you, he’d bathe you, he’d tie you up sometimes when he was feeling extra anxious. 

On the off-chance someone actually did hurt you, its game over. It doesn’t matter if they had their hands on you, they left a small wound/mark, or something worse–they’re dead. Saizo will go into autopilot and obliterate the person. Bloodbath. 

In his efforts to keep you safe, he sometimes loses his sense of what is right and wrong with control. At his worst, he WILL refuse to allow you to leave his sight. By any means necessary. 

Blocking exits. Tieing you up (he knows the best and most efficient ways to immobilize you in seconds). Drugging you (such as putting you to sleep). 

When he’s feeling extra insecure he’ll claim you for himself. Tear your clothes off and tease you until you admit he’s the only one you love. He’ll make you say his name over and over again, and hearing it will ease his worries. He may even be inclined to break his own rules and let someone hear him fucking you so they know you belong to him. 

If you’re out in public and he starts to get jealous, he’ll pull you roughly into a dark secluded corner or onto a rooftop and tease you, pull at your collar and grip your face so you can’t look away from his intense expression

“Keep this up little lady, and I’m going to have to punish you.” He nips at your exposed clavicle. “Or…was that what you were hoping for all along?” 

Out of spite and pure jealousy he would 10/10 fuck you in a space such as a person’s bedroom or work, or with an item of that person’s. A way to get back at them and know he’s claimed you there or while you were wearing that (like fucking you on top of someone’s haori or with a hairpin they gave you in your hair before he gave it back to them) and they will never know. 

Has NO PROBLEMS talking about having sex with you. As long as they don’t see you its chill. He will let it out that he just had your legs spread 10 minutes ago and smile. He’ll go into detail. Especially when someone is trying to intimidate him over you. 

“Sorry, she won’t be able to meet you tomorrow like she promised. She’ll be quite sore…if you get what I mean. She looks quite sweet and docile but don’t let that fool you, she’s a different person when the lights are off. It’s no myth some women are wild in bed when you least expect it. Some night she asks for it so many times I have to wake up and check for bruises ^^ well, anyway, look at me going on when I’m sure with a face like that all of this is completely foreign to you. Don’t be discouraged, someone always has to be the late bloomer on the branch, hm?”

Definitely has a mental list of all of the people he’s threatened or killed over you 

Sometimes Kiyohiro has to step in and warn people to GTFO and leave before Saizo ends up murdering them 

Has had the urge to kill Inuchiyo more than once LOL 

Sometimes uses his Kotodama when he’s jealous. 

Maybe it’s during an interrogation of the person trying to steal you from him or harm you. If they deny, he’ll use his power to get them to confess the truth before torturing them. Maybe they lose an appendage for every time they lied or stalked MC. 

He’ll use it to keep you near him, keep you still, after your life was threatened. He needs time to look over your body, check for injuries, make sure you’re okay and tell you how much each finger and tear mean the world to him. 

HATES WHEN OTHER MEN TOUCH YOU. It disgusts him if they had ill intentions and he hates to think that you had to endure that. He’ll order you to strip and ask you where they touched you. He’ll wash the areas himself and caress you with his hands. He’ll whisper in your ear how you belong to him, and kiss over the areas until his anxieties disappear and he feels like he can no longer smell them or feel their energy. He’ll dispose of what you were wearing in an effort to rid you both of the memory completely. 

[seafoamkazuo]

Does Schrodinger’s Cat have nine lives?

 Prologue - Next

Chapter 1: Future Problem Children

Pairings: None so far.

Sachie Komuro is not a good person.

“Sachie, how was school? Did you make any new friends?” Her mother smiled softly as she walked in the door of the apartment.

“Ummm…” She paused unable to immediately answer. “Well… Dad…”

She never was.

She felt the cold weight of her father’s hand on her shoulder. “Picked her up today… She was kind of upset about it. Guess it’s not cool to have your Dad come get you at school anymore, right?”

Sachie glanced up at her father, her mind fuzzed a bit around the edges. She had not really wanted to tell her mom after all. “Yeah… that’s right… It’s kind of embarrassing.”

Not since her father realized just what her quirk could do.

Sachie stood still at the door way as her father walked past her as her mother continued to speak, “Well… honestly I think she’d be fine walking home. The area around Nabu Middle School is supposed to be safe enough.”

“What and leave my little girl susceptible to villains there are more around than you think.” Sachie stared at the ground trying to clear her head letting her parent’s conversation disappear into the background. It was not like it mattered anyways she hadn’t been to school in the last five days. Dad had kept taking her out after day three.

Not since her quirk came in.

Sachie gasped for breath turning a corner before she ran into someone. She felt the shove coming more than she saw it. Going limp as she was shoved against the large window of a convenience store. She heard it wobble as she slide down. “S-s-s,” She tried to speak but the combination of her mad dash and memories caught the words in her. She heard Schrodinger beginning to yowl and hiss. She glanced over as she curled in on herself. She was surprised the cat had managed to keep pace with her. The man who shoved her grumbled out something, the familiar sound of an umbrella opening as the man stalked away. Right it was raining, no wonder Schrodinger was upset. She heard the swift movement of steps in her direction. “Are…. Ou… okay?” Her ears were ringing she could not make out what they were saying. Maybe they would leave her alone if she did not reply. They seemed concerned from what she could make out though; that was nice of them.

Schrodinger butted their head against her leg. There fuzzy face sinking into the leg in a way that would have been startling if Sachie was not used to it. Sachie unwrapped a hand from around her legs letting her finger stroke the fur on the Schrodinger’s back. They fell through entering the subspace that was the storage dimension that cat created. It wasn’t really what she wanted to do but she could never quite pet the cat right when she was upset. As she continued to pet Schrodinger, she could still feel the slight softness of their fur even if her fingers were still going through them. She heard additional murmurs but rather than concerned they seemed more focused on how interesting her quirk was. Sachie looked down to see Schrodinger walking through her legs as they tried to rub up against them. Sachie snorted a bit which caused Schrodinger to let out a soft, “Mrrp” as they stuck their head through Sachie’s leg. The face poking out past her knee. Sachie continued to run a hand along Schrodinger’s back bringing the other scratch underneath Schrodinger’s chin. She was spoiling them; she really should stop after all even if she thought these antics were cute other people were probably freaked out by the cat passing through her limbs. Sachie rolled her shoulders before putting a hand on the ground to stand up.

Then a hand appeared in front of her, “Here, are you doing better now?” Sachie froze at the movement and slowly looked up. There was a boy with vivid green eyes and a smile on his face watching her. She quickly averted her eyes as she took the boys hand who suddenly tugged pulling her to her feet. She stumbled a bit before righting herself wondering why she could not share in Schrodinger’s cat like grace, “If it isn’t too much invasive is that your quirk?” The boy seemed to point at Schrodinger, “I mean I thought at first that maybe you just had a quirk that let you phase through things but then I remembered that you ran into that gentleman earlier. Though I suppose maybe it’s a quirk that only works if you know the person is coming. I guess I shouldn’t really assume.” The boy continued to murmur to himself under his breath as Sachie could only stand there and listen as the he continued to ramble. Sachie looked down at her hand, she wondered if he realized he was still holding it. Sachie frowned before she decided to get his attention by running her thumb against his knuckles. The results were immediate. The boy threw his hands up gesturing wildly while apologizing.

“It’s fine.” Sachie stated as she looked at her hand, she almost felt disappointed. She shook her head slightly.

The boy looked at her a bit wide-eyed as if remembering something, “Ah but seriously are you alright. It looked like that guy shoved you pretty hard. The window even seemed to wobble.”

“I’m good.” She wasn’t really but in the context of the shove; it wasn’t the worst hit she’d taken over the years. “I went limp… so It didn’t hurt as much as it could of… or wait… Are you supposed to tense up when you take a hit?” She paused in thought before abandoning the idea, “I can never remember which it is?”

“That might be something good to look up for Hero work…” The boy began murmuring under his breath again.

“Hero work?” She tilted her head considering him for a moment.

“Ah yeah. I’m training for the U.A. Entrance Exams by cleaning up the beach.” The boy smiled again, “I’m on a pretty strict schedule… but it ended up downpouring so I was going to take cover for bit but then I saw you and…” The boy looked off a bit sheepishly, “You looked like you need help. Though I suppose I didn’t really end up doing much to help in the end.”

Sachie frowned before flushing her gaze turning away, “I mean… You actually came over to help. So… I say that was good heroic instinct in my opinion. You’d probably make a good hero.” She peered over in his direction and then jolted back. This kid had the ability to produce an ungodly number of tears. She averted her gaze again before looking down at Schrodinger; that was right. She really could not deal with tears, “Anyways… You wanted to hear about my quirk, right?” She opened up her arms so Schrodinger could leap into them. The cat snuggled into her arm rolling so that their belly was facing up. It was cute but that was beside the point, “Observe.” She brought Schrodinger in close to her cradling him in the crook of her one arm as she lifted her other hand up. The boy leaned over towards her eyes watching her intently as her finger glide into Schrodinger’s stomach like they were phasing through an object. She heard him beginning to mumble under his breath as he watched and while normally only sticking her hand in was all she had to do. She kind of couldn’t help but show off a bit; she allowed her hand to go deeper sinking her limb up to her elbow into the cat. She heard the boy shift beside her and figured he was trying to look and see if her hand had passed through Schrodinger but she knew already that it hadn’t. She then paused, trying to think of something she had on Schrodinger. “Umm… wait… what do I have?” Frowning she looked at the kid staring intently before something popped in her mind. She then pulled her arm back out of Schrodinger along with a protein bar. “… Ta-… Tada?” She then held out the protein bar to him.

She paused, the look on the boy’s face was not what she expected. His eyes seemed to light up with a sort of glee, “That’s amazing! Can you pull anything out of your cat?!” The boy seemed to go off on a tangent of theories as she felt her face grow warm. She was probably bright red; she wished she could pull her hood down over her eyes as if it would help quell her embarrassment. She’d never really received compliments before. She could feel her mouth trying to twist out of the neutral friendly expression she had put on. The guilt was eating at her again, why was this kid praising her. “Does the item have to be a particular size in order to be created- “

“Ah no it’s not creation,” She interrupted continuing to hold out the bar in the hopes that eventually the boy would take it from her. “My quirk is Schrodinger’s Cat. Schrodinger here is sort of like a pocket dimension where I can keep things that I can lift and place inside them. I can’t tilt a heavier object in that I would not be able to carry.  Of course, I also have to remember that they are in there or I won’t be able to pull them out.”

“That would be really good for rescue work though or even with Support work. You could probably carry around a lot of delicate medical equipment or supplies. Plus, since your cat can move on their own, you’d be able to maneuver around in tight spaces and not have to worry about equipment getting stuck. Are you thinking about taking the exams too?”

“No. I can’t.”

“Huh,” She kept her gaze averted, she had not meant to say that so bluntly. She frowned look down at her shoes. “Why not?” How was she supposed to answer that question?

“I… don’t really have the smarts for it. U. A’s got some pretty high standards, I doubt I’d pass the written portion and I’d assume there was some sort of practical portion as well.” Plus, it was not like someone like her deserved to try anyway. Especially with what had happened earlier. She was not a good person.

“I mean… it doesn’t hurt to try at least.”

“I suppose…” Sachie looked out past the awning of the building, “Looks like the rain’s cleared. Might want to get to the beach while you can. Also…” She shook the bar one more time hoping he would take it from her. “This is yours by the way. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“I.” He looked like he was about to reject it but instead took it, “I’m Izuku Midoriya by the way.”

“Sachie Komuro.”

“Maybe we’ll see each other at the exams. Ummm... see you around.” And with that last statement he was gone running down the street again.

She watched him leave before looking down at her hand, “Maybe… probably not though…”

[sunsetscurving]

Oh, Cruel Fate (Enemies to Lovers AU)

Ch. 10

ao3 link

The Demaurys and the Lallemants had been enemies for over one hundred years. And when Lucas first meets Eliott, he hates him with his whole heart even without knowing him, blaming him and his family for his life which is slowly falling apart. But when they are forced to live alongside in the same surrounding, something is changing between them. And this scares Lucas more than anything else.

Lucas walked home. He didn’t take the bus, he didn’t take the train, he walked the long way back to his noble neighborhood, already slightly shaking in negative anticipation on what he would find at home. He punched his brothers, he most likely got them into jail.

Did he feel guilty?

Absolutely fucking no.

It’s what they deserved, it’s what all of them deserved, except his mum.

He knew that his father would be there but he didn’t know what he would say. Or rather, what he would do to Lucas. Months ago, he was even afraid to be in one room with his so-called father. And now… now he went numb. Now he didn’t care. He did the right thing and the feelings which were slowly but surely evolving for Eliott were also the right thing and he was tired and sick of backing down.

His father wanted to punch him?

Cool.

His father wanted to scream at him?

Alright.

His father wanted to hurt his friends or anyone who was not involved in any of their family shit?

Lucas clenched his fists at this though.

That is where my acceptance ends.

Lucas’ steps faltered and he stared at the ground in front of him. He was surprised. Surprised about himself and about his change of attitude. And Eliott helped him to become this person, not with pain or aggression, but with kindness and honesty. Lucas smiled slightly to himself despite the doom looming over him.

We nearly kissed.

And although Lucas was afraid, afraid of what would happen after giving in to his feelings towards this nearly stranger… he wished that their moment in this empty classroom would’ve ended differently – with Eliotts lips on Lucas’.

Lucas didn’t realize that his feet took him automatically to his street and that he was nearly in front of his own house now. His heart started to race but his back straightened to the same time – he would not be a victim of his father and his emotions anymore. He spotted the car in front of his door before seeing the already open door. So his father really went straight to Lucas’ house. To punish him. Or something else. Lucas took a deep breath and started to climb up the stairs, ready and not ready to the same time.

Let’s get things done.

His father already waited in the living room, lounging on the couch as if the whole world would bow to him in an instance.

Lucas would have done the same months ago – but he was different now.

“What do you want?”, asked Lucas while walking past the living room into the kitchen, getting himself some water from the tap. He was hiding his shaking hands, acting like he couldn’t care less about his father being here in his relatively safe space.

“You have blood on your shirt”, stated his father with this dangerous calm voice. Lucas knew that a storm was coming his way.

“If your sons wouldn’t have beaten up an innocent man, there would be no blood on my shirt”, said Lucas exactly as calm as his father. He was nearly proud of himself for holding up that façade of him that long.

After these words from Lucas, everything seemed to happen too fast. His father jumped up and rushed over to where Lucas was standing in the kitchen and the next thing Lucas knew, was that his father pinned him against the fridge, his arm on his neck so he couldn’t breathe properly.

I should’ve gone to the police long ago.

“Do you really think that this Demaury boy didn’t deserve it? You told us that he stalked you. You told us that he was the fault for your misery.”

“I lied”, answered Lucas breathless while trying to breath. “I lied because I was stupid, only wanting to safe myself.”

“And now?”

“Now I want to safe the whole world from you, especially Eliott.”

“Your brothers only wanted to defend you honor”, his father hissed, his face close to Lucas’. “And you decided to… to save your own enemy? He deserved the pain and the beating.”

“No. No, he doesn’t.” Lucas was trying to gasp for breath, his heart beating painfully against his ribs. Panic was rising inside of him but this was not the time and place for freaking out.

You will not die here.

“No one deserves pain, father. This is your business, not our business. And when you pull your children in this, then this is not our doing but yours and it shows how badly of a parent you are.”

Lucas pressed these words out of his mouth, the darkness at the corner of his mind slowly creeping into his sight, announcing the soon fainting of him. But he said what he said and he was proud. Proud of him for realizing how fucking wrong all of this was.

His father stared at him, lips slightly parted, an expression of pure shock on his face. He couldn’t believe that his son acted against him. He couldn’t believe that his own son decided to drop out of this stupid game and partner with his enemy against him and against this feud itself. Lucas could see all of this in his father’s eyes and he could also see how the anger took over. His father took his arm from Lucas’ neck and air flooded into his lungs. But Lucas didn’t had time to enjoy this feeling of fresh air. His father raised his hand in the same moment, ready to slap his own son with all the force produced by his anger.

Lucas caught his hand midair and looked him deadly in the eyes. The shock on his father’s face turned into confusion and Lucas enjoyed this display of emotions on the other one’s face.

“I think you already hurt people enough, don’t you think so?”

Something like a growl escaped his father’s mouth and he tried to wrench his hand out of Lucas’ grasp. But Lucas was stronger. For once in his life, he was stronger.

“You son of a…”

Lucas pressed his fingernails into his father’s hand, his heartbeat suddenly steady and sure.

“Don’t you dare to end that sentence. Just… shut the fuck up.”

“You will regret this. All of this. Trusting Eliott and the Demaury clan – this will be your doom, Lucas.”

Lucas laughed out without any humor, still holding the gaze from his father.

“You were my doom”, Lucas said quietly after some quiet seconds passed. And with that, he suddenly let go of his father’s hand and shoved him into the next cupboard. His father was too occupied with himself for this moment, watching the blooming of a bruise on his wrist. Lucas used this moment and was with some big strides in his room, locking the door from the inside. His father went after him, hammering against the door, calling him names Lucas would never forget.

How could there be a time where I looked up to that monster?

Lucas only realized now that his hands were shaking uncontrollable. He fished out his phone from his pocket, his hands shaking so much that he nearly dropped it. He unlocked it while his father was still trying to open that door, to hurt him with words and, when he would enter this room, also physical.

Lucas had to hurry now. His door wasn’t made of titan.

lucallement: eliott

It took Eliott only some seconds to see the message.

srodulv: you okay?

lucallement: pick me up. now.

please.

Eliott read the message but there was no answer. The panic in him started to raise again. Was Eliott not available at the moment? Did he just… refuse to pick up Lucas, to help him escape his abusive father? Lucas slid down the door, his head resting against the wood where his father was still striking the door again and again and again.

Suddenly, there was the noise of squeaking car tires. Lucas looked up and hope suddenly flooded his body.

Okay, you have two choices. You don’t know for sure that this is Eliott. Either you stay in here and your father will eventually get to you, or you stand the fuck up and run.

Lucas didn’t have to think twice.

He stood up, took a deep breath and opened the door so sudden and fast, that his father stumbled past him into his room.

“Lucas! Stop!”

As if he would listen to his father. He showed him the finger and took off, running down the hallway, down the stairs. And when he saw who sat behind the wheel, a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

“LUCAS! If you don’t stop now and come back here then…”

Lucas swirled around. He didn’t care about the neighbors looking out of their windows already. Everyone should know what a monster Jack Lallemant is. Lucas was nearly glad that some witnessed this scene.

“Then what? Huh? Then you punish me? Sorry, but too late. You already did that with your presence in my house.”

He heard the opening of the passenger door behind him.

“Come on, Lucas. Let’s go”, said Eliott in an urgent voice. But Lucas waited and watched. Watched the reaction on his father’s face as he realized who was about to pick him up.

“No… You cannot be serious, Lucas”, his father whispered but he could’ve screamed it, Lucas heard every single word.

“You are a disgrace to this family and this name.”

“You know what?”

Lucas tilted his head to the side and looked at his father who was breathing really heavily, trying not to strangle his own son.

“I don’t want this name anymore.”

And with that, Lucas turned around, climbing into the car beside Eliott. And just as his father ran down the stairs, his arms outstretched as if already feeling Lucas’ neck between his fingers, Eliott pushed the pedal through and the car rushed out into the dawn, leaving Lucas’ father alone with the thought of hurting his own son.

[irwintry]

House of Pizza

Warnings: swearing

Author’s Note: this is based on a real place in cambridge, mass fyi but i haven’t been there in a year lol 

Word Count: 3k

A slice of pizza should never, ever be fifty cents. At least, that was what Michael believed for the longest time. If the pizza were any good, it would be at least one dollar. But, the House of Pizza by Michael’s apartment had no sense of what qualified as ‘good pizza’; it was easy and cheap, and the perfect combination for a college student with a low budget. And, by senior year, he was a shift manager.

His apron had seven individual stains on it, and if anyone asked, he could tell them their origin. Stain number one was obviously grease from his first few shifts at the House of Pizza. It was a large splatter that coated nearly the entire bottom portion of the white cloth, and he later had to dispose of his jeans as well. The second stain came from Margot’s lipstick. She often ran the register, and he could not tell you how that lipstick stain came to be; he just knew it was hers. The third stain, tragically, was a dot of blood from the time Michael cut his hand with a pizza cutter. The fourth, fifth, and sixth were all grease stains again. Lastly, the seventh stain had the biggest name for itself, for it was the one that came from you.

He noticed you every time you walked into the tiny restaurant. Often, you had a coffee in one hand, your keys and wallet in the other, and the time always read 9:40 pm. Michael wondered why you drank coffee so late and how you always managed to show up at the same time every Monday and Wednesday. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by you. The fifth time you made an appearance, you ran headfirst into him as he was making his way out for a smoke break. Therefore, your coffee splattered against his hardly-white apron. You apologized profusely while Michael grinned, an expression he found himself doing more and more around you. So, he brushed it off and added it to the list of remarkable stains.

He never saw you on campus. Michael partially assumed it was because the majority of his classes were in the morning while yours were most likely at night. Sometimes, he sat on the steps of the library in hopes you’d casually walk by so he could casually stroll up to you for a casual conversation. He liked to think he was somewhat good at casual things. You never did walk by of course. Maybe you weren’t even a student. If you were, he imagined you majored in Art Therapy. The later the class, the more convincing it was.

Every Tuesday night, he’d close up with a great big smile on his face. Tuesday night meant that tomorrow was Wednesday, and with tomorrow being Wednesday, that meant he would see you again. Michael tried to convince himself to stop thinking about you as much, but he’d later attest of his crush the moment you walked through the door again.

His crush.

Michael hadn’t had one of those in three years. He assumed he would never find love until your sudden love for fifty cent pizzas came to be. Well, truthfully, he didn’t believe in love. He never felt it, so why should he? He believed in lust, and he had felt it before, too.

So, with Michael unable to believe in love, he had no way of understanding how hard he was falling for you.

-

“Care to explain this, Cliffo?” your voice sounded through the small space of the restaurant, and luckily, there were no current customers to be disturbed. It was you, him, and Margot. You made your way over to him, your paper plate pushed out in front of you as if the content on the dishware was repulsive. And, quite honestly, it was.

Michael raised an eyebrow at you, his arms coming unfolded from his chest as he stalked slowly to where you were standing in front of the register. “Something wrong, Chili Pepper?”

You returned his eyebrow gesture and handed your plate over to him. “Notice anything?”

He shook his head, taking the plate from your hands to examine the greasy, cardboard-esque pizza himself. He honestly saw nothing wrong with it except for the fact that it looked and tasted fucking disgusting.

“Seriously?” you chuckled. “There’s no chili peppers, Cliffo.”

“Why didn’t you put any on?” Michael was confused and concerned; you always put chili peppers on your pizza.

You rolled your eyes, clearly agitated with his bewildered expression. “I wanted to,” you stated, “but, unfortunately...”

Michael had no idea how to catch onto what you were saying. All he knew was that you were teasing him, but he was frustrated about it.

“You didn’t refill the shakers, Cliffo!” you exclaimed, letting out a loud laugh as your arms flew up beside you. “How can you call me Chili Pepper if there are no chili peppers? An honest travesty if you ask me.”

His eyes widened, and his cheeks flushed. Without another word, Michael handed your plate back over to you and ran to the back to find more chili peppers to refill the shakers with. He was, at the least, real damn embarrassed. Not embarrassed because he hadn’t refilled the shakers, but embarrassed because it took him that long to catch onto what you were saying. The last thing he wanted was to make a fool of himself, and boy, he sure did that. To be honest, every time you were around, Michael somehow managed the make a fool of himself. It all started because of the coffee incident.

“I-I’m so, so sorry,” he spurted as he rushed back into the dining room to your specific table. He felt your presence behind him as he fumbled with the lid. The heat in his chest and his cheeks had exceeded a healthy temperature.

“Cliffo,” you chuckled, reaching your hand out to rest on his.

Michael’s hand could catch fire. He truly thought he would combust right then and there all because you were close behind him, and you were touching him. He had never felt this good before in his life. Crushes were fucking terrible, but sometimes, they could be amazing all at once.

“Ya realize I’m messing with you, right?” you wondered. “I do not care that much.”

He let out a shaky breath and stood tall as he faced you. Man, he loved the height difference possibly too much. He struggled to contain himself as you watched him closely, your eyes peering up into his with a gentle smile tugging at your lips.

“Okay there, Cliffo?” you questioned, placing a hand on his bicep to steady him. “Take a breath, my friend. I’m sorry.”

Michael nodded, then swallowed thickly. “I’m- I’m good. You’re the devil, Peppers.”

“The devil?” You let out a huff. “Think again, sweetie. I’m your worst nightmare.”

Yeah, Michael thought after you left ten minutes later, but you’re also my best dreams.

-

Michael knew he would remember the following Monday for a while. His hands smelled of “fresh” dough and mozzarella cheese, and no amount of soap or hand sanitizer could fix that. By the time you were meant to arrive, he was having a conversation with Margot at the front counter. He kept his eyes glued to his watch while he tapped his foot, and as 9:40 came and went, Michael felt nauseous.

Relax, maybe you’re sick.

Since you had this pizza twice a week, you were bound to get sick every once in a while. In fact, Michael was quite worried about you and your health because of how often you came here. Luckily, fifty cents hardly made a dent financially.

At 9:56, Michael took his smoke break. The night was warm and stale, but the gentle breeze reminded him of your laugh. If you were here, he assumed he would enjoy it much more. He rounded the corner, pulling a cigarette from the box in his pocket then placed it between his lips. Michael didn’t even get the chance to light it before he looked up and noticed your familiar figure hurrying down the sidewalk. You looked upset, even though your eyes were locked on your shoes. His heart sped up anyway.

He tried to greet you as you neared, but the moment he opened his mouth, your body collided into his. For a second, he thought it was on accident, however, your arms wrapped around his torso soon after. Michael complied to your hug, his own arms reaching around your shoulders to pull you in tight. He tossed his unlit cigarette to the side.

“Missed you, baby,” you mumbled loudly as a bystander glanced over at the two of you. You held Michael for a long while, and he swore his head was going to tumble off because of how hard his brain was working to assess the situation. After you let go, you looked behind him and let out a long sigh. “Sorry. I got freaked out because a dude was hot on my ass for a few blocks.”

Michael frowned. “You’re safe now, Peppers,” he then smiled, hardly poking your shoulder. “Speaking of peppers, I refilled the– “

“Hey, Michael,” you said abruptly. “You give nice hugs.”

He gulped, then bit the inside of his cheek. Ohmygod. “Oh, thanks,” he muttered while trying not to smile as big as fucking possible. He failed.

You returned the smile, and its soft appearance made Michael wanted to run his thumb along the skin. “Did I interrupt your smoke break?” you asked, glancing down at the cigarette on the gum-stained concrete.

“Might���ve.” Michael shrugged. “But it’s a bad habit. If ya hug me every time I pull out a cigarette, I’ll never smoke again.” His chest felt heavy but in a good way. With the way you were gazing up at him tonight, Michael swore that he was in ecstasy.

You nodded. “That can be arranged,” you said. You began to bounce on the balls of your feet. “Ya smell like a weird mixture of cheese and cologne.”

He shuttered, pulling an odd face in reaction to your statement. A mixture of cheese and cologne? Sounded nasty.

You shook your head. “I like both cheese and your cologne, Cliffo.”

You had to be flirting with him. There was no way you were not flirting. Of course, Michael had a hard time acknowledging when people did flirt, but this was a little insane. His insides were catching flame. It took every ounce of him not to reply with “I like you”.

He bit his lip, grinning widely. “Come get your fuckin’ pizza, Chili Pepper,” he mumbled. Michael began to turn towards the restaurant again, but your hand caught his before he could walk any further. Ohmygodohmygodohmy–

You stood on your tiptoes to reach him. For a second, Michael had no idea what to prepare himself for, and then he felt your lips hit the scruff-free part of his cheek. You pulled back only after a second before you walked into the restaurant without another word. He could not stop smiling as he placed his hand on the spot your lips recently touched. Michael’s face felt numb. Oh my god.

-

He was so used to seeing you in his environment that the minute he stepped foot into yours, he had no idea how to function. A friend of his invited him to an exhibition on campus, and though Michael had been to the art buildings a few times, he got a little lost. As always, he was a good forty-five minutes early to the event, so wandering down endless halls only bought him some time. He never once thought about the possibility of you being here, too.

Somehow, red paint had found its way onto Michael’s grey converse. It wasn’t a big deal of course, but how it got there in the first place was a real bitch to figure out. After going in circles for a bit, he finally noticed the small puddle outside of a classroom along with hints of his footprints leading down the hall. Michael muttered a few curses under his breath and looked around, his eyes gazing into the windows of nearby classrooms. He nearly kept walking, but you were in one of those classrooms he had looked over, and you were alone.

Michael glanced down at his watch. Thirty-nine minutes until the exhibition, perfect. He knocked on the door, hopeful to catch your attention, though the headphones in your ears helped keep you in the moment. So, he walked on in with no intentions on spooking you. However, you jolted in your seat once you noticed his long figure beside you.

“Jesus!”

Michael burst out into a fit of hysterics. And, it was a good, genuine kind of laugh. The one many of his closest friends sometimes had trouble edging out of him. He could hardly stand up straight because of how hilarious your face was when you saw him.

“Cliffo!”

“Sorry, Peppers,” he said, holding his stomach, “that was fucking hysterical.”

“I’m never buying pizza from you ever again, you shit dick,” you mumbled. You brought your knees up to your chest, and he finally noticed how dressed down you were. Usually, you stopped by House of Pizza in at least jeans or leggings. Your outfit tonight consisted of zucchini socks, grey sweatpants, and a university sweatshirt.

Michael frowned. “I highly doubt that.” He looked down to the table in front of you. Papers were scattered, most of them notes while some were full-page sketches. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Could ask you the same thing,” you muttered.

“Friend’s exhibition.”

You nodded. “I’m, uh, putting together all of my notes. Big midterm tomorrow. Gotta get that last-minute studying in if ya know what I mean.” You shifted your chair to face him, and as you did so, Michael took a seat for himself.

“What’s your major?” he asked, trying his best to stay close but also keep a healthy distance. But, Michael didn’t want that. In all actuality, he’d prefer you sitting on his lap, and maybe even attempting to get yourself off on his thigh. “I didn’t even know for sure if you went here.”

“Art History, minor in Illustration,” you answered. You kicked your legs out and placed them on Michael’s lap, which, in a way, was sort of what he wanted. And, he was also sort of right when it came to your major. You did something with art. “I knew you went here, though. For a while, I thought you were Graphic Design, but then I figured I’d see you around more often. So, I heard from a friend of a friend that Michael Clifford was in her major, but I never heard what it was.”

Michael grinned. “History. I wanna be a teacher.”

“Wait, you’re also studying history?”

He nodded.

“Goodness me, we’re meant to be!” you exclaimed, clearly not caring how unimaginably sappy that sounded.

Michael didn’t care either, in fact, it was the last part that kept repeating over and over in his head until his temples ached. The feeling of your legs over his lap now suddenly tingled, and all he wanted to do was rest a hand on them or pull you in closer without it seeming weird. By now, he truly felt like his heart was about to burst.

“Hey, Peppers,” he murmured, poking your toes until a chirpy giggle left your lips. Michael could no longer feel the pain in his cheeks from smiling so much. “You might just be the cutest person I’ve ever seen.”

You shook your head, your own smile bright and evident. “That’s false. You look in the mirror every day.”

OhmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmyGOD. Michael was quite actually going to fall to pieces. His cheeks had never felt this hot before in his life, and now, there was no way to hide it. His hands were sweaty, and he tried not to put his palms down on your exposed calves.

“Peppers,” he chuckled and tilted his chin down into his chest. “You’re so fuckin’ precious.”

“Yeah?” You pressed your sweater paws against your cheeks, and Michael hoped it was to try to cover up your blush.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

For the next thirty-two minutes, Michael stayed with you until he had to join his friend upstairs for his exhibition. As much as he loved his friend, Michael did not want to leave you at all. The continuous flirting was a kick of adrenaline for him, and you were happy to flirt in return. He wondered if, after all of this time, you possibly liked him, too.

Once the exhibition was complete, he made his way to House of Pizza for the closing shift, though he knew not to expect you tonight as it was Thursday. He shimmied the newly washed apron (though still stained and yucky) over his head and fastened it around his waist. He was only there for a good ten minutes before the door chimed, and in you walked. Your lack of coffee disturbed him.

“Peppers,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s Thursday, you have no business here.”

You looked around the restaurant, quickly noticing the empty space along with the fact that Margot was nowhere to be seen. “Shut it, Cliffo,” you breathed. “You forgot something.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What did I­– “

Before Michael could finish, you were leaning your body up over the counter and grabbing his cheeks to pull him closer to you. A moment later, your lips crashed onto his, and he easily melted into the kiss. He desperately wanted to reach out and grab your waist, but the glass counter separating you two kind of held him back. His fingers were itching to touch you, except he wanted to let the kiss play out before making any other moves. He felt every single nerve in his body spark with emotion at the feeling of your lips on his. Even then, he could hardly think.

The second his lips parted from yours, he’d reconnect them again, desperate to taste and touch you for as long as he could. You were so soft–– it was hard not to crave you. 

You pulled away, breathless and still holding his cheeks with your hands as you settled back into your previous spot. Michael, however, was unable to move.

“Peppers I– “

The door chimed again, and a few teenagers walked in with film cameras dangling around their necks.

Michael glanced at you, chuckling at the spreading blush on your cheeks, then looked back over to the kids. “Hi, welcome to House of Pizza.”

[palmettofoxden]

Daycare: Andrew Hey I love you u make me cry a lot can u tell me if Andrew gets attached to bee because like as someone who works with children if we even give the slightest attention or appreciation to the “special” (meaning hard to deal with or special needs) they just kind of... latch onto you?

Oh, Andrew definitely gets attached to Bee and there is going to be a lot more of that coming up in future extras and in future chapters. At this point in the fic, he’s already known her for a while and has grown attached to her. That’s going to come up more in the future and has come up a bit with Nicky calling her for help in the fic, but here is an extra from Andrew’s pov with some context of how he and Bee got to where they are now with a scene that may also appear in next chapter from Nicky’s pov at the end of this.

Fox Daycare extras 6/?

Andrew wasn’t used to trusting adults and he had been sure he was going to hate Bee.

Sure, Bee didn’t get mad in front of Nicky when he made a mess or got angry and lost control, but that meant nothing with eyes on them. She’d made other kids leave the area he was in to give him some space but she had never taken him to her office before he knocked over and smashed all of Matt’s Lego because he was bored and Matt had gotten onto his nerves trying to play with them. They had gotten into a fight and even though Matt was bigger, Andrew held his own and didn’t immediately feign remorse when adults interfered.

“Andrew,” Bee said when she stepped between them. “I think you need to come to my office to calm down.”

“No,” Andrew said.

“If you want to stay out here, then you need to show me you can be calm,” Bee said.

Andrew really did mean to, but Matt was already talking about him and Nicky was looking at him all disappointed and Matt still had Lego that hadn’t been broken, so Andrew kicked it as hard as he could in Matt’s general direction.

“This is not calm,” Bee said. “Come to my office.”

Andrew had zero desire to go to her office and be alone with her, but he stalked off ahead of her anyway so that she wouldn’t grab him to drag him there against his will.

When he got to her office, Andrew pushed her as hard as he could to test her and to try to convince her that she did not want to spend time around him so that she wouldn’t keep taking him to her office, even if she had left the door open. He kicked and punched at her and bit her, but she didn’t hit back or get mad. She didn’t grab him to stop him. She just took a step back or to the side to get further away whenever he struck her. She was different than other adults. She didn’t try to touch him after he first flinched and jerked away from her when she reached her hand out toward him after he first punched at her legs.

“You can be as angry as you want,” Bee told him. “Everyone gets angry. There’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not okay to hit people. I brought you in here so you can calm down and keep yourself and everyone else safe.”

Andrew didn’t think it was okay for people to hit him or Aaron, but when he was angry he had a hard time keeping his own body in control. Something about the fact that Bee didn’t fight back and that she was against hitting made Andrew switch to kicking the armrest of the couch in her office as hard as he could instead.

“Hit whatever you want,” Bee said as she sat down in the armchair across from the couch. “Let your anger out on the furniture all you want. It won’t feel it.”

Andrew didn’t get quite the same sense of satisfaction as he kept kicking the couch, but he was angry enough to keep going. He expected Bee to be bluffing and snap at him to stop, but she just sat there and waited. She didn’t care that Andrew was being bad. She wasn’t yelling at him or grabbing him or punishing him. She was just sitting there and watching.

He kicked and kicked and kicked until he was too tired to keep going.

“Are you done now?” She asked.

Andrew said nothing.

“Will you come sit with me when you are?”

Andrew ignored her for a moment and stood there in defiance, but he didn’t get a reaction out of her so, eventually, he sat down. Maybe, if he listened to her, she would let him go back to Kevin and Aaron sooner.

“Do you feel better now?” Bee asked.

“No,” Andrew said honestly.

He expected her to argue with him or try to force him to feel better.

Instead, she asked, “Would you like to sit here for a while longer?”

Andrew said nothing. It felt like a trap. He didn’t think he would be allowed to leave so easily.

“We don’t have to talk,” she said. “We can just sit here until you’re ready to go back out. I can even get you an extra chocolate milk.”

“Okay,” Andrew said cautiously. He still did not trust her, but he at least was going to get chocolate milk out of this.

She got up and went to a mini fridge in the corner of her office and pulled out a chocolate milk container that resembled a juice box. He was surprised when she handed it over to him with no strings attached. He thought for sure she would try to force an apology out of him or try to make him promise to clean up Matt’s Lego before she would hand it over.

They sat in silence as Andrew tugged his straw off the box and jabbed it out of the plastic. He stabbed it into the box and drank his chocolate milk as quickly as he could, afraid that she would change her mind and start questioning him, but she sat in silence while he drank. She didn’t ask him if he felt better when he finished.

“You can leave whenever you feel ready,” Bee said. “Or you can stay as long as you want. This door is always open to you when you need it and you can always go back when you feel ready.”

Andrew dropped his empty milk box on the floor and left.

The next time Bee pulled Andrew, it was after Allison had shoved Aaron out of her way. Andrew had shoved her back much harder and Allison had yelled at him about how much trouble he was going to be in and how important her parents were.

Andrew had shoved her again and warned, “Don’t touch him.”

“Then tell him to stay out of my way,” Allison insisted.

Andrew had been about to hit her again when Bee interrupted.

“Allison, go,” Bee said.

Allison hesitated but then after a moment, she left with a smug smile that said she was certain she had gotten Andrew in trouble.

Andrew knew that she had not learned anything so he went over to the cubby where she kept her stuff and grabbed her backpack. He dumped her backpack out and grabbed books off of the floor and began ripping them while Bee followed him.

“What are you doing?” Allison snapped as she walked back over. “Stop touching my stuff, freak.”

“That’s not yours!” Dan yelled at him.

“Hey, stop!” Matt insisted as he reached out and grabbed Andrew’s arm to try to stop him.

Andrew jerked out of his grip so hard he almost fell.

“All of you away,” Bee said. “Go play by Nicky. It’s my job to worry about Andrew, not yours. Go.”

None of them seemed very happy about it, but they slowly trailed away. Andrew could still feel their eyes on him though.

He was angry and he wanted to wreck more of his things but something in him didn’t want to disappoint Bee any more than he already had when she was getting them away from him. He stood there seething and trying to decide whether to wreck more or not and Bee seemed to sense how frustrated he still was.

“Would you come to my office with me?” She asked.

Andrew considered, then asked, “Do you have chocolate milk?”

“I always do,” she said.

Andrew stomped over to her office without a word.

“Would you like me to leave the door open?” Bee asked.

“Yes.” Andrew was surprised that she had bothered asking for his opinion but relieved when she listened to him and left the door wide open.

He stomped over to the couch and sat down on it with his arms crossed while she got him chocolate milk.

He waited for the lecture as he opened his straw, but she just sat down in her chair again without yelling at him for hitting Allison and wrecking her stuff when she had shoved Aaron first and shown no remorse for it. Andrew had no doubt she would do the same again and he knew he would react the same next time.

“Do you want to talk about anything?” Bee asked.

Andrew glared at her and said nothing as he slurped chocolate milk.

“Maybe why you hit Allison?”

Andrew said nothing. He knew that saying she deserved it would get him nowhere, but she had deserved it.

“If you ever do want to talk to me, you can tell me anything you want and it will be our secret,” she said.

Andrew wasn’t going to fall for that so easily. He barely knew her. Maybe, she wasn’t totally intolerable, but he wasn’t about to give her information to hand over to Nicky and whoever else she felt like telling.

“Okay,” she said. “If you don’t feel like talking, then can I tell you a story? Maybe it will take your mind off of Allison and help you calm down.”

Andrew glared at her but didn’t tell her no.

“Is that a yes?” She asked.

Andrew glared for a few moments longer, then decided it wouldn’t be the worst thing to listen to her story and find out more about her so he would know better whether or not to trust her.

“Yes,” he said and then purposely slurped his milk box extra loud so that she wouldn’t think he was too eager to listen and so she wouldn’t think he was behaving too well and expect him to act the same way again later.

At first, Andrew only walked to Bee’s office of his own accord at her request so that he wouldn’t be carried or dragged, but as time went on he started dreading entering Bee’s office less and less. It became a much-needed break instead of a timeout. He liked having extra chocolate milk. He liked getting away from the other kids when they were getting on his nerves. He liked that Bee asked him if he wanted the office door open every time and respected his answer every time. He liked that Bee didn’t push things or yell at him and would let him sit in silence when he wanted or would tell him a story when he was in the mood for a distraction.

The first time Andrew went to her office without being asked was a day when Kevin was annoying him more than usual. He kept pushing for Andrew to play games he didn’t want to and talking about exy and arguing and Andrew couldn’t listen to Kevin try to convince him to play pretend exy one more time so he stalked off and walked into Bee’s office to get a break.

She seemed surprised that he was there as she glanced up, but she covered it up quickly.

“Andrew, what a surprise,” she said. “Would you like me to leave the door open?”

Andrew glanced over his shoulder and saw Kevin watching him from too close, waiting for him to come back out. He didn’t want Kevin watching him and listening. He didn’t want to see Kevin while he was trying to get a break from him.

“No,” Andrew said, even though he was well aware of the risk he was taking. At least this would be a test to see if trusting Bee was a smart move or not. She hadn’t given him a reason not to trust him yet and if she did this time, then he would avoid her from now on.

“Okay,” Bee said as she closed the door behind him. “If you change your mind, we can open it whenever you want.”

Andrew said nothing as he sat down on the couch and waited for his chocolate milk.

“Did you just come here for milk or is there something bothering you?” She asked as she handed him a milk box.

Andrew figured the truth wasn’t too dangerous and he didn’t feel the need to be openly hostile to Bee anymore, so he answered, “Kevin’s annoying and I need a break.”

“Thank you for coming here and taking a break when you need one to keep you and everyone else safe,” Bee said. “I am glad this is a safe place for you.”

Andrew didn’t say anything and played with the straw in his milk so he wouldn’t have to look at her because he did not know how to react to her words and was uncomfortable.

“You and Kevin do spend a lot of time together,” Bee said. “It’s hard to spend so much time with someone and get along with them all the time.”

Andrew definitely did not get along with Kevin all the time, but he had promised to keep him safe when he had found out what had happened to Kevin at his old daycare that made him so skitterish and clingy. Kevin had agreed and they had become inseparable. Kevin could be annoying, but Andrew had picked him to spend time with nonetheless and he wasn’t about to go back on his promise.

“I don’t want to talk about Kevin,” Andrew said.

“What do you want to talk about?” Bee asked.

Andrew considered for a moment. “Tell me another story.”

Andrew knew that most of the other kids at daycare had two parents. Kevin only had Wymack because his mother was dead and Neil only had his mother, but the other kids had two parents as far Andrew knew.

There had always been two parents in the foster homes Andrew had been in and he hadn’t liked either foster parent. Tilda hadn’t had any permanent figure in her life, but she’d had a string of men that Andrew had not liked in the brief time he had lived with her and Aaron before her death.

Andrew had never thought that he would want Nicky to start dating. Another adult around had never been a good thing in Andrew’s experience and he was still getting used to Nicky and didn’t fully trust him.

One day, as they were leaving daycare, Andrew heard Wymack talking to Nicky about Nicky being lonely though, so Andrew decided to take matters into his own hands. If Nicky was lonely and wanted to date someone, then maybe Andrew could help Nicky pick someone he could trust and wouldn’t mind having around.

The next day, Andrew walked right into Bee’s office when he got back to daycare after school.

“Do you want me to leave the door open?” Bee asked.

“No,” Andrew said because he had plans and he didn’t need anyone hearing and interfering or messing things up.

“Did something happen at school?” She asked as she got him a milk box, just like always.

“No,” Andrew said.

“Is something wrong or are you just visiting?”

Andrew shrugged.

“Are you here to talk or for some quiet?” She asked as she handed him his milk.

“To talk,” Andrew said. “Are you married?”

Bee looked surprised by the question.

“No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

Andrew considered how much to reveal as he took a sip of his milk.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” He asked.

“No,” she said. “But you’re a little young for me if that’s why you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking for me,” Andrew said. “But I bet if you wanted to come over for dinner with us, Nicky would let you.”

Bee let out a chuckle and then said, “I would love to come to dinner with all of you if Nicky asks, but don’t expect anything to happen between him and I.”

“Why not?” Andrew asked. “You don’t like Nicky?”

“I like him as a friend,” she said. “But I am not Nicky’s type anyway.”

Andrew mulled that over for a moment.

“Okay,” he said, but he thought he would still have to have a conversation to make sure that Bee was definitely not Nicky’s type.

Andrew and Aaron were watching cartoons while Nicky cleaned the dishes when Andrew got up and left Aaron behind to go talk to Nicky that night.

“Nicky,” Andrew said to get his attention.

Nicky turned away from the sink with a smile on his face that Andrew didn’t understand. Nicky looked like he had won the lottery just because Andrew had decided to talk to him and Andrew didn’t know how to feel about that.

“What’s up, bud?” Nicky asked.

“What do you think of Bee?” Andrew asked.

“I think she’s great,” Nicky said and Andrew felt his hopes get up against his will. Bee had said she liked Nicky but wasn’t Nicky’s type but Nicky thought she was great and that sure sounded like she could be his type. “You like her too. Don’t you? She’s been helping, hasn’t she?”

There was something in the way Nicky asked that made Andrew feel like his answer held weight, so he chose to ignore Nicky’s question altogether.

“If you like her, you should ask her over for dinner,” Andrew said.

“Maybe we could have her over some time,” Nicky said and then realization crossed his features. “Oh, do you mean like a date?”

“You said you like her,” Andrew pointed out.

“I like her as a friend and a coworker and someone who helps you,” Nicky said. “But not like that. She’s not my type, Andrew. I like boys like that. Not girls.”

So that was why she had said that she wasn’t Nicky’s type.

There was a moment of silence and then Nicky asked, “Is that alright with you?”

Andrew didn’t know why it wouldn’t be, but something in the way Nicky looked nervous about his answer made it harder to answer. Andrew didn’t want a big reaction out of Nicky just because he was alright with something he had no control over anyway. What did he care if Nicky liked boys or girls or both? It wasn’t like Nicky was bringing anybody around anyway and either way, if he started dating someone, Andrew probably wouldn’t like them if they weren’t Bee regardless of their gender.

“You don’t have to date Bee,” Andrew said.

“Maybe we can have dinner with her sometime as friends when we can afford it,” Nicky suggested.

Andrew left the kitchen and went back to watch cartoons. He pretended he didn’t care either way because he knew that ‘when we can afford it’ could mean that they had to wait a few weeks or could be the same as a no.

[haloud]

the stumbling phase of the midnight waltz

ao3

Alex makes one stop before he hits 285 and leaves town for a few days in Albuquerque with his old unit. Liz meets him at the Crashdown’s back door, but she doesn’t hold out her hand for the key he’s trying to give her.

“Does he know you’re giving me this?” She asks, arms folded, gaze levelled at the cracked rubber of the old UFO Emporium keychain instead of anywhere near Alex’s face.

“Life is too uncertain; we’re big on emergency contacts these days. Kyle won’t be back from his conference until after I get back. Turns out he’d rather it be you than Max or Isobel. All he said when I asked was ‘she gets it better.’” Alex shrugs. “I trust you, too. I didn’t press him.”

Liz lets him hand her the key and shoves it quickly into the pocket of her robe. This isn’t a responsibility she ever expected, not an honor she ever thought to receive. After the way Michael reacted when circumstances forced them together into his lab, she had mostly expected—made her contingency plans—for Isobel to encourage her to forget what she saw. And the temptation is there—to make copies of the key; to sneak in when she knows it’s empty; to break all sorts of trusts to scratch the what if at the back of her mind. What if there’s some secret hiding away to help Rosa? To help Mimi? To protect her father?

A couple miles away and a hundred feet underground, Michael thinks in what ifs too. Alex and Kyle are right to want someone to have the ability to check in. Project Shepherd may have been an illicit operation, but operatives could still be out there. Employees from Caulfield looking for revenge. Other aliens like Noah. What if Liz can’t be trusted after all? He’ll change the locks, of course, once Alex and Kyle come home. Whatever damage she can do in the interim they’ll have to deal with one-on-one.

He’s almost looking forward to it. Secrets and science both, Michael thinks that Liz Ortecho just might be his best match.

--

Day one, Michael doesn’t even notice the bulk of it pass. It’s stuffy and hot like a forge in his underground lab because one of his fans got busted. The heat should be unbearable. He already wasted half the day moving temperature-sensitive items to his much-less-secure trailer, so he should be worn to the bone with anxiety. But mostly he’s just glad to have something to do with his hands, something to do with his brain. He strips off his sweat-soaked white shirt, knots his hair on top of his head, sets his tongue between his teeth, and gets to work.

It’s an okay day, all things considered. He straddles his stepladder to get at the right angle to reach the back panel, and with a few awkwardly-angled cranks of his wrench, the fan comes back online with a crunch. He falls back against the wall and lets out a whoop of relief as stale but moving air teases the tiny curls that have escaped from his bun to cling to his neck. Satisfied, he grabs his phone from the nearby worktable and snaps a few selfies. Himself, flush with triumph and the haloed halogens of his bunker, smudged with grease and his own honest sweat, his hand sliding suggestively through the trail of hair on his abdomen.

Neither Alex nor Kyle respond, and when Michael pulls himself out of his hole in the ground to look for a shower, the sun hasn’t even finished setting.

Alex could be driving if he and the guys decided to have a night out, Michael thinks while he soaps himself up mechanically. Or at a restaurant, a bar, somewhere where he wouldn’t be looking at his phone. Kyle is definitely busy, definitely surrounded by people he wants to impress. It was stupid to even send the pictures in the first place. Michael ducks his head under the spray and turns it straight to cold and doesn’t step out until his knees start to shake.

Bare-skinned and shivering in the chilly night air, he wraps his arms around himself, but he just stands staring at the wide, soft bed the three of them share. Using the shower or the kitchen as a tool is one thing, but the bed, the couches, all the spaces where life takes place—it feels like Alex’s first, then Kyle’s history, something they share together. Without either of them there it doesn’t feel right.

Fighting down the anxiety beating wings against his ribs, he wrestles into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and stalks outside, across the ground to where his Airstream stays parked almost all the time, these days.

The moment his back hits the bunk, he knows he’s made a mistake. It would feel a little like grief, a little like loneliness, to wrap himself up in a duvet meant for three and try not to scream into the silence. But here, in the one place that’s been something like a home to him, he can’t breathe at all. No one echoes off these walls but him. He knows with the heart-attack certainty of himself a half-decade past that if he closes his eyes he’s gonna wake to an American flag and a hole in the ground.

He scrambles out of bed, bruises his knees on the metal sheet floor. He spends the night sleepless in a corner of the lab.

--

Day two, Michael gets a dozen or so texts, a half-dozen unanswered calls. Not that he’d know; he left his phone under the bed, so the weight of silence didn’t hit so heavy. He takes Isobel out for lunch because if she sees him she won’t freak out if he doesn’t answer his phone all day.

Kyle rolls his eyes every time he’s sent to voicemail and decides not to worry. It’s not unusual for Michael to bury himself in the lab, and it only makes sense that he’d be even worse about it with no one to keep tabs on him. Everything will probably be fine.

Alex almost hits the city limits before he takes a deep breath and decides to turn back around. Someone would have called him if there was trouble; Michael would be mortified if Alex burst in like the world was ending just because he forgot to check his messages. He’d blame himself for “ruining” Alex’s vacation.

Everything will be okay.

--

The knock comes first, then the key scrapes in the lock at three a.m. on the third night. The numbers and diagrams have just started swimming off the page.

“Don’t be dead, Michael,” Liz calls down. “One undead alien per town is definitely more than enough.”

The smell of fresh fries and boozy milkshakes precedes her down the ladder. Her eyelids look as dark and heavy as Michael’s feel. He drops his pen and goes over to take the drinks from her before she falls and breaks her neck and finally gives Max a reason to take him out.

“What are you doing here, Ortecho?”

She snags her shake back from him and takes three long gulps before she answers. “Electricians kicked me out at the hospital, and I didn’t have anything delicate enough in progress to give me an excuse to stay. I figured I’d find you here. If I have to take a break then so do you.”

“Says who?” Michael says, already digging in to the fries and flying sauce. Turns out it’s probably been even longer since he’s eaten than it’s been since he slept.

“Says Earth rules, obviously.” She wobbles a little big, and Michael shuffles over to clear a spot where she can sit.

“Oh, Earth rules. My bad. The ‘mad science’ pages were missing from my orientation packet.”

“Damn. They just can’t get anything right these days, huh?”

“I’ll drink to that.”

They knock their Styrofoam cups together, and Michael says a silent toast to understanding.

--

Liz is a good friend—or the kind of person who tries to be, which is just about the closest thing Michael has ever had to the real thing, and more reliable to boot. Isobel is always, incontrovertibly, Isobel; Max is something else entirely. He and Maria, they were a mistake made twice over, and it makes it hard for them to share a space these days, but there will always be an understanding there between them that once made them think they’d be good. Michael has a support system now, after all those years alone. He has his people, people who care about him.

Alex hasn’t even been gone a week, and none of it is enough. He’s got feet crawling under his skin; he’s got the shakes like an addict, and Michael knows from addiction. More desperate than he’d been that first night, he roots around in their bed for a little hair of the dog, but no amount of secondhand scent will ever be a strong enough hit. He stretches out one of Kyle’s tight henleys and curls up like a dog in front of the empty fire with only Alex’s leather jacket as a blanket. Sleep never comes, or it comes in bare, panicked snatches. There’s nothing to dull the scratching in his skull, not the booze, not the acetone, not the grasping hands of a stranger.

There’s just him, and he’s less than nothing in the yawning face of loneliness. Always has been.

Is the specter of pride enough? Kyle’s uncomplicated, unselfconscious excitement for the progress Michael has made? And Alex—Alex is so steady, so strong, Michael can still feel him all around him, and it should be, should be—

But Michael has never been good on his own. Never been good enough at ignoring all the clamor and chaos in his head, the whispers that they’re never coming back, that Alex’s unit could be compromised, that Kyle’s all alone in a crowd and it’s not safe, that without Michael there to stand at heel they could get hurt in so many stupid, accidental ways.

Michael whines and grinds his face into the rug. The muscles of his back twist and twitch as he tries to flex out the tension pulling him apart. He could call Alex. Wrap himself up in his warm, vital voice, in the sound of his breathing. It would be a few moments of relief. But Alex deserves better. He deserves to be able to take a few days to meet up with people so important to him without worrying that Michael will hurt himself or piss on the floor.

He’s not even sure what day it is. He’s been afraid to look at his phone, afraid to see that less time has passed than it should, afraid he’ll be weak and have Alex ringing on the other line before he can stop himself.

For most of his life, Michael has been a staple at the Roswell branch library, a tourist in every section and a local in some. Science fiction, of course, and physics, astrophysics, and psychology. He found himself in books, tried for a while to therapize himself when there was no one else who could or no one else who cared. Codependency, trauma, abandonment, avoidance, he has the words for the things raking at his insides, but no way to make it stop.

His burning mind gives out just as the sun comes up, and he falls asleep with his arms covering his head.

--

It could be the fourth day; it could be the fifth. Michael thinks counting would be pathetic. He wraps himself in a heavy old quilt and sits in the weak morning sun, searching for peace. His hands ache for the weight and feel of silken smooth wood; his mind aches for the quiet. But that phantom pain is too old now to inspire any self-pity.

He folds one hand over his heart. Clutched in its palm is a battered black-and-red pick, one its owner never noticed was missing from its stolen case. Over the last decade, he never buried it with the other memories that hurt too much. He wore it over his heart instead, like dog tags. It centers him now, like it has before, when it was less than a splinter of hope that he’d ever get to have what he has now.

Alex will be home in a few days. He can make it that far.

He’s made it longer and longer before, after all.

--

On the sixth day, a car pulls up to the cabin. The day is dark gray; it’s probably morning still, but Michael’s internal clock wishes he could crawl back into bed. It’s quiet; the car’s approach barely pricks at the edge of Michael’s hypervigilant hearing. It drops dread into his stomach; he doesn’t feel like dealing with Max or Isobel today. Doesn’t feel like much of anything, really. He feels how he thinks being sick must feel, and he’s so sapped of energy that standing barefoot in the kitchen eating dry cereal is a Herculean effort.

The footsteps on the stairs make an uneven beat, but they’re firm and steady. There’s a jingle of keys, then the catch of the lock, and

And Michael can’t breathe, he sways forward and only just catches himself with a hand on the counter, flinging his bowl into the sink so he can wrap the other arm around his middle, and

“Guerin?” Alex call into the cabin, his voice light and warm and happy to be be home and oh god

Michael’s mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. He clutches at himself; he rubs his hands over his own arms like he can prepare his touch-starved skin for someone else’s touch. He gulps down enough oxygen to feed his brain. He turns on the water to hide the sound. He composes himself before Alex follows it to him.

“There you are,” Alex says from the doorway. There’s a smile in his voice; his footsteps are eager as he crosses the room. He leans his hip against the cabinet and bends in to look at Michael’s face through the curtain of his hair. He’s not smiling now. That little line has appeared between his brows. His arms are folded, and his thumb runs back and forth in the crook of his own elbow. Michael grits his teeth, ducks his head, and his knuckles go white on the countertop.

Even so, his voice comes out gruff but normal sounding when he says, “You’re back early. Everything all right?”

“Mm, yeah. Fisher had some sort of emergency and a few of the others took it as an excuse to break early. Reconnecting with the guys is important, but it’s not easy for everyone, you know?”

“Fisher ok?”

“Oh yeah, it was just his…ferret, or his car or something, and—Look, Guerin, look at me.”

The small part of Michael that likes the hurt because it’s familiar holds him still, waits for the kick. What he gets instead is Alex speaking again, impossibly soft, “May I touch you?” A single, jerky nod, and then the pad of his thumb touches the sharpest part of Michael’s jaw. His palm follows it, a broad, gentle stroke against the side of Michael’s face that sets him shaking, all of him, lips and hands and knees.

Like he can’t help himself, like it’s all he’s ever wanted, like it’s basest instinct, Alex’s other hand mirrors the first, cupping all of Michael’s mind between them, gentling him and pulling him forward so their foreheads press together.

“I missed you,” Alex says. Their breaths mingle together, and it’s enough to keep Michael’s lungs working.

“Oh yeah? That sucks. I barely even noticed you were gone,” Michael pants. Alex’s shaky laugh is everything, so he leans in and devours it, bites at his mouth, sucks at his tongue. Alex lets him work, eggs him on with gasps and groans and fingertips teasing the aching roots of Michael’s hair.

Finally, after Michael’s kisses have gone all sloppy and slow, Alex pulls him back and holds him still and says, “Are you ready for me to tell you what you need?”

God yes. Please. The words alone are almost enough to get Michael floating.

Alex grips the scruff of Michael’s neck heavy and Michael keens soft and whiny and pathetic, choking on air and desperation. It’s not enough, this single point of contact; he wants to be collared, full-body, and kept, and owned. Leashed so Alex always knows where to find him, even if some deep-down instinct tells him to go chasing. Tagged so any goddamn stranger who picks him up knows he’s not for them.

“You’ve been neglected this past week, haven’t you, Guerin?” Alex asks, low and dangerous against the shell of his ear. Michael tries to shake his head—tell him no, no, it’s not possible, it’s all okay now that Alex is here—but Alex is holding him too tight for him to get any traction.

Alex grips him tighter, and his trembling thighs give out.

“You look good down there, but that’s not what I had in mind for you today. And I had a long time driving back to think of how I’m going to make it up to you.”

“Anything. Anything you want, that’s all, I don’t care—”

“Shh, I know. I know. You’re so good to me, Michael. And because you’re so good, here’s how it’s going to be: you’re going to let yourself come, and I’m not going to stop until I think you’ve had enough. That’s how I’m taking care of you tonight—making you feel so good it hurts.”

Giddy fear chases boneless surrender through Michael’s blood—a familiar emotional cocktail Alex inspires in him. Nothing hurts, and it tastes better than acetone at the back of his throat.

He sways forward—almost faceplants into Alex’s crotch, but sure hands divert him to the side and press his face into the hollow of Alex’s hip. The scent there is heady and addictive. Michael’s eyes flutter shut; saliva pools beneath his tongue.

“You get to pick how you want it first and last. What do you want?” Alex says, re-settling his hands firmly on Michael’s shoulders.

There’s only one real answer. Michael pulls back just enough to look Alex in the eye, though it makes his body cry out to be back curled against the warmth of Alex’s thighs. Holding that safe, dark gaze, Michael grinds the heel of his hand into the flannel-covered bulge of his cock and drop open his bruised-red mouth.

Alex grins at his reaction, satisfied, knowing. He presses his thumb to Michael’s tongue; the eager muscles at the back of his throat work to swallow around nothing at all.

“I thought that might be your choice,” he says, “But first, undress us both. I want to feel you—all of you.”

Michael presses a grateful, worshipful kiss to the inside of Alex’s wrist, tasting the delicate skin there with just the tip of his tongue, before standing up. How does Alex always just know? Michael needs skin on skin tonight; needs to find a heartbeat wherever his hands land without having to search it out through layers of protection. Skin on skin will also make this go much faster; Michael is too raw, too needy for anything else, and his sensitivity will turn painful that much quicker as well. But it’s worth the cost to feel real again.

Michael’s own clothes are disposed of quickly, his pajama pants stripped and launched telekinetically across the room. With Alex, though, he takes his time, and Alex takes his time with him. Michael smooths his palms across the cotton-covered planes of Alex’s chest; he rolls the shirt up slowly and bends to kiss and nuzzle at each new inch of skin revealed. In return, Alex feeds him his fingers one by one, letting him stretch his jaw and taste his fill. Michael traces Alex’s belt buckle with his fingertip; he fumbles a bit at the clasp when the smell of new leather fills his senses. He unties Alex’s laces and sits obediently as he steps out of his shoes. Alex rewards him with a long tease of a kiss.

The sound of Alex’s zipper is thunderous in the quiet room. Michael almost misses the challenge of peeling him out of those tight-tight jeans he used to wear, but this is good too, the looser fit letting Michael keep all his movements dreamy and slow. Next, he rolls off Alex’s underwear, finally revealing his cock—hard and just starting to bead wet at the tip and Michael licks his suddenly dry lips. But he’s good; he won’t lean in and drink his fill until he’s given permission.

“Excellent, Guerin; you did so well,” Alex says against his lips. Michael moans weakly at the touch, at the praise. It’s hard to walk as Alex leads him to the bedroom, where Michael kneels beside the bed as Alex follows the methodical steps to care for his leg. Then finally, finally, Alex spreads his thighs and welcomes Michael in between them.

There’s a reason this is one of Michael’s favorite things, and it’s this: with Alex’s hands in his hair, his head settled in the cradle of Alex’s hips, the whole world melts away. There’s no sound from outside the window; there’s no exposure in the back of his mind waiting to jump at new hands on his back. The whole world is right here, in the barest rhythmic flex of Alex’s hips, in Michael’s own sounds of pleasure. There’s only one taste, only one scent, and it’s heaven.

Alex indulges him for a while, long enough to build up a friction-heat in his soft palate and coat his chin with drool. “This is about you,” he says, “So you can come as many times as you want. But you can’t make me come just yet.”

Michael whines in disappointment but doesn’t protest. Alex always gives him what he needs. He feeds his dick back into Michael’s throat and lets it rest there until Michael brings himself to his first orgasm of the night. In the aftershocks, Alex pulls him in close and whispers love against his skin. Michael drifts in the waking sleep of Alex taking care of him. Here, he can be as small and safe as he needs, feeding the trust that’s always been there between them and has at last been watered and brought to light until it’s big enough to hold them both.

The day goes on, nothing but the two of them and their bodies twined together. For Michael’s second orgasm, Alex takes him hard while Michael clings to the headboard and arches all the way off the bed, begging in snatches of a half-dozen languages he only learned so he could be filthy. Third, he keeps himself still, keeps himself good, lying there and taking it as Alex sucks him down and past the point of raw pain.

“I want one more out of you,” Alex says afterward, rubbing soothing circles into Michael’s chest. It’s too much, it’s going to be too much, but Michael’s toes still curl and he’d be purring if it was possible. If Alex says he can do it, he can do it.

So Michael goes onto his belly with his knees beneath him, ass lifted and presenting as Alex fucks him like something precious. Michael’s eyes blur with tears; his head is swimmy and light. Everything aches; everything in him feels like new, like being Alex’s again.

--

He sleeps for a while. Heavy and good. Alex stays beside him the whole time and gets through a solid few chapters of a book he’s been meaning to read, until his own eyelids grow heavy and he succumbs to the living temptation that is Michael Guerin warming his bed.

They have things to talk about tomorrow. No matter how much it’s wanted, needed, or deserved, it’s too hard for them to be apart after everything they’ve put themselves and each other through. One day this codependency will become a far uglier thing.

But those are thoughts for tomorrow, and healable ones. Right now, he finds himself falling asleep next to Michael made fucked-out and fluid, and there aren’t any other thoughts that matter.

[terminally-anxious]

Aisling (chapter 12)

summary: Virgil has been dependent on helpers around his apartment after an accident rendered him unable to take care for himself. After his previous helper quit, Virgil needs to find a new one. And the lucky person is a literal ball of sunshine with glasses and freckles.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, those fully belong to Thomas Sanders and his friends.

Word count: 1740

Tw: Swearing, Deceit, stalking, obsession, threats, stalker (if there are any more please tell me)

Authors note: Okay just a quick heads up! I was recently at the doctors, and it turns out i’ve been living with a broken hand/badly healed hand the last two years, and because of this i need surgery. Which unfortunately means that i don’t know how many new chapters i can get out before i need to operate. so if there is a sudden lack of chapters, that’s most likely the reason.

Previous chapters  

Logan and Emile / Roman and Remy / D.C (Deceit) / Patton and Virgil

Pairings: (finally) Moxiety and Logience

Two days later found Patton and Virgil sitting close on the twins’s sofa, They were currently alone, seeing as the other two occupants still had jobs to attend to.

The case had been reported to the police the same day Virgil had received the letter, but due to the lack of evidence there wasn’t much they could do. So the small group of friends had been advised to stay vigilant, and if anything happened they only needed to call.

Logan had been furious with the police, furious that this wasn’t taken seriously. He’d only managed to calm himself later on that evening, and after much discussion between them all, they figured that Virgil and Patton would be rotating around for a place to stay. The first three days were gonna be at the Picani’s, the next three at Roman’s, then Patton’s, And finally Remy’s. Then the cycle would repeat.

Virgil worried about being a burden to his friends, but that was quickly shot down. They would much more do this for a while, rather than losing Virgil to a lunatic.

There was only one problem, neither Virgil or Patton had brought with them any change of clothes. Patton’s problem was easily solved, when the twins got home, he would drive to his house and grab some of his clothes, and then return. Virgil’s situation was a bit more difficult, he needed to go home to his apartment, not only for clothes but for important medications as well.

They suggested just sending Patton, but Virgil had protested, his stalker didn’t like Patton, what if he just killed the aid. No, Virgil insisted on coming along, besides there was safety in numbers. Reluctantly the others agreed. The two of them would head out tomorrow to collect Virgil’s stuff and Patton would pick up his clothes that evening, when the twins came home.

Right now though, the two sat in a comfortable silence, exhausted after the last couple of days. Virgil sat curled up into Patton’s side, his head resting on the white haired man’s shoulder, and Patton had his right arm curled around Virgil.

Virgil felt completely safe with Patton, even if their situation at hand was dire. The white haired man had come into his life when he had truly needed him, and his kindness and compassion had awakened something within him.

Just thinking about it made all sorts of emotions swirl.

The ravenette looked up at Patton, seeing nothing but darkness, but for once since the accident, he found that it didn't really bother him.

“Virgil?” Patton asked, his voice pitched low, but instead of sounding sexy, it was more comforting in manner. Many things about the aid was comforting, reassuring. It was no wonder that Virgil fell hard for Patton.

Patton had brought with him a sense of security that Virgil hadn’t felt since he got diagnosed with anxiety as a teenager. Patton could brighten his day with just speaking to him, could make him flustered with just a touch, he made the hard days bearable.

So with confidence that Remy had helped him build, he spoke.

“Pat, do you think I could see what you look like?” He didn’t need to know what his caretaker looked like, he’d already fallen in love with his voice, his gentle touch, his lively personality and his goofy yet professional demeanor.

So he truly didn’t need to, but damn if he didn’t want to.

He’d only done this with a few people, but it felt right to extend this to Patton as well, this intimate sort of closeness that is difficult to explain to the seeing. Most people didn’t put much into seeing another’s face, but to someone like Remy and Virgil, it was like being introduced to a person all over again, to know them in a way that no one else could.

It certainly made him feel less lonely. It would give the voice he had grown to love a face. It would give him something more.  

“o-oh, of course you can kiddo..” The aid stammered out, flushing lightly.

Virgil smiled, and Patton’s heart sped up within his chest. Virgil’s face held a gentleness rarely seen, and it made him look gorgeous. A dimple shyly greeted him, his eyes gaining the smallest of squints, highlighting the creases in the corners of his eyes, and it was breathtaking.

Patton wanted to frame that smile, this expression of gratitude, fondness and love.

The aid took off his glasses, and gently lead Virgil’s searching hands towards his face. The soft pads of his fingers touched his cheeks, and Virgil hummed, the same gentle smile on his face.

“Close your eyes?” Patton immediately closed his eyes, unable to resist such a cute request.

The blind man cupped his face and softly brushed his thumbs underneath his eyes, before carefully going over his closed eyes.

The gentlest of pressures was applied.

His patient’s ministrations went up to his eyebrows and forehead, Virgil giggled when Patton wrinkled it on purpose.

He figured it was safe to open his eyes again, so when he did, he was slightly startled by how close Virgil was.

The fingers that were cupping his cheeks moved along his jawline as the thumbs brushed over his nose. Virgil was openly grinning, but when his fingers reached his mouth, the expression turned fond and longing.

Patton’s heart skipped a beat in it’s quicker tempo.

“Can I?” Virgil’s voice had lowered in volume, barely a whisper, but Patton wouldn’t have missed it even if he wanted to.

It was obvious what the younger man was asking, they had grown closer as of the last 2 months, and while Patton was sure of his own feelings for his patient, he had been unsure about the nature of Virgil’s own.

But it seemed that they were the same.

“Yes.”

The kiss started off as careful and shy, just a simple brush of lips, a shared space of breath. The sweetest of kisses Patton had ever had the pleasure to receive.

However it seemed like Remy’s lessons in self-confidence had really helped Virgil, for the next thing he knew, Virgil was straddling him, eyes full of mischief as he turned his blinded gaze down at the white haired man. Patton’s arms wrapped around Virgil’s middle, urging him closer, and it seemed that the ravenette was completely onboard with this.

Pale hands found themselves cupping the caretakers face and Virgil pressed their lips together a second time. This time there was an increase in pressure, Virgil’s lips were slightly parted, and Patton couldn’t help but mirror it.

While the first kiss conveyed shyness, this one translated as one of deep infatuation or love. It was one of those kisses that leaves a person breathless, in awe and brimming with love.

Patton couldn’t help grinning, ridiculously happy at the moment.

The ravenette smiled in return, before pulling away. He did not go far, as he shyly rubbed their noses together in an eskimo kiss. It was freaking adorable if you asked Patton, but then again he was pretty biased in his opinions about the man in his lap.

A comfortable silence settled over them as they just basked in each other's presence; content and in love.

“Thank you.” Patton spoke in awe, the words unable to convey the extent of his gratitude.

“It was a pleasure.” Virgil reassured, feeling a little light headed by his strong feelings.

Virgil’s hands had started an absent minded caress of his cheeks, and without warning Patton turned his head and kissed the inside of Virgil’s open palm.

“Oh my god!!” Roman’s screech made them jump out of their skins.

“Roman, do you have to scream everything you say?” Remy’s voice sassed, moving past the openly gaping drama teacher.

“Do close your mouth Ro, you’ll catch flies.” Logan seemed calm and hardly fazed by the display on the couch, instead opting to carry a few of the grocery bags into the kitchen.

Virgil could barely contain the giggle that wanted to leave him at Logan’s deadpan and flat response. “I suppose congratulations are in order, storm cloud.” Emile’s use of his nickname made him smile in the direction of his older brothers voice.

“WHAT?!! YOU TWO KNEW?!” Remy and Virgil cringed at the noise. “Roman, gurl,” Remy sounded unimpressed “Even me, who is blind, could clearly see that there was something between the two of them.”

“B-but! I’m supposed to be the romance guy, how did i miss this?!” The drama teacher gestured wildly at Virgil, who still was seated in Patton’s lap.

Propping his chin on top of Patton’s head, Virgil levelled Roman with a flat look. “You’ve probably been too busy chasing tail yourself” A raised eyebrow and a lazy smirk pulled at his features, which developed into a full grin when the amputee squaked with indignation.

Remy laughed as he plopped down onto the couch. “Gurl, you always talk about Logan, so sunshine here does have a point.” Virgil groaned.

“Damn you Roman, now you’ve gotten him to start with that bloody nickname.” The ravenette grumbled, shooting daggers in the drama teacher's direction.

“I think it’s cute!” Patton chirped, smiling up at Virgil. “but i gotta wonder why does Roman call you sunshine, while Emile calls you storm cloud? Those are kinda opposite…” The white haired man trailed off.  

Virgil opened his mouth to answer, but was cut off by Logan. “We call him storm cloud because he used to rush outside whenever there was rain or thunder outside.” Emile continued, “we used to think he could predict storms and such, sense them in a way.” The oldest twin shrugged, joining the others in the living room.

“and sunshine came from his overall mood, which was pretty sour. I just called him that one day and he almost decked me.” Roman laughed, remembering how Virgil’s face had gotten an impressive shade of red.

“Roman, you have three seconds to run before i beat you with our own leg.”

“oh come on Virgil, we both know you won-!!” Roman didn’t get to finish as Virgil vaulted himself over the back of the couch and navigated his way to Roman quite quickly.

“NOT THE LEG!” 

The others laughed as Virgil gave chase to Roman. For a moment they all forgot what had happened two days prior, this moment of joy too great.

But tomorrow they would learn how dangerous it was to forget.

((tag list: @metaphoricalpluto2 @funsizedgremlin @ako1209 @the-straight-as-a-circle-girl @callboxkat @storiesarereality @lara-crofters @fandoms-n-ship @astraastro @nightmarejasmine @that-one-invisible-chick @virgilisaneternalmood @yourhappypappypatton @nienna14 @evillive369 @ivesscottthis @generalfandomfabulousness @twomutesplusone @smokeyrutilequartz @randomslasher @daughterofsomnus @trans-pan-rainbow-man @amber1594 @afilhadehades-blog @hamilin-manuel-miranda @ijustreallylovesanderssides @miraculousfandoms @fullmetallovr21 @rileyfirstname @hanramz-the-fander @enderperson43 @ladynightmare12 @nonofthekingshad-arthurization @chocopirate @oh-star-how-the-mighty-fall @patton-loves-coloring @reba-andthesides @nightmareelmst @itsbilliejoemotherfuckers @aricana8 @impossiblebluebirdcreation @panic-wizard-sex-walrus @narniasfinestavengingsociopath @iris-sanders-athena @peanut0303 @emo-potato-virgil @darkle-elkrad )) 

[sugarless-suki-writes]

Panic

Rating: T Word Count: 2,998

Read on Ao3

Support me on Ko-Fi!

More vent, yay;;;;

Appearance are based on my sona

CW/TW: Stalking, Identity Crisis

(Left to Right: Suki, Plum & Bug. Art by @bitter-plum-art

As soon as Suki walked through the door, they made direct eye contact with him. They kept their expression stoic, quickly turning into the hallway and walking towards the sever's station. They didn’t know he’d be working tonight. They should’ve. He always worked weekends. Their stomach started to knot, a hard ball forming in the pit of their stomach as their hands began to shake.

The Hanged Man, See No Evil.

Their jaw set as their fangs dug into the skin of their lip. What utter bullshit.... What kind of cryptic bullshit was that? What did he think sending them a weird, cryptic, “poetic” message would do? And to send one to the other two? Suki didn’t care for that, not at all....

With a sigh, they walked up to the front, greeting their friends and coworkers as they set their bag down, then proceeded to head towards the back once more to get dressed.

The uniform was easy to put on, and they did it quickly. They then went into the server’s station to make themselves a drink, a cucumber water; they were trying to get better about drinking water and cut back on their soda/caffeine intake.

Their hands were trembling.

As they plopped the cucumbers in the glass and reached for the ice scoop, they heard the dish bin get slammed down and a chill ran down their spine as they felt eyes on them.

He was there.

They didn’t dare turn around.

Thankfully he didn’t stick around to stare but so long. Once they felt his eyes leave, Suki turned around to fill their glass with water. They almost dropped the glass in the sink.

Their head was pounding, their stomach was doing flips, and they felt like they could puke.

They set the water down on the table in the server’s station and ripped the paper off of a straw, sticking it in and casually tossing the paper to the side, towards the trash can. They took a long sip before reaching for the pill bottle on the counter, pressing down on the cap and unscrewing it. The grabbed two excedrin and then closed the bottle. Taking another sip of water, they popped the pills in their mouth and swallowed. The orthodontist today was rough, they didn’t need creepy stalker man on top of it. At least they could kill their headache.

They took another sip of water, soothing the strange feeling in their throat. It was still new to them to swallow pills; they still had to fight off the innate fear that tried desperately to claw its way to the surface. Why their preschool teachers thought it was a good idea to give four year olds hard candy, they would never understand. But at least now they were working past it.

Suki made their way back up to the front, just in time for their first table to walk in. A 5 top. Great. Seems like this is how their Friday night was going to go.

Once they were seated, Suki greeted them warmly. Two of the five were still on their way, but they all wanted water, and 3 iced coffees. Easy. They went to the back and put in the iced coffee orders and grabbed a tray. They set everything up before making the waters and bringing them out to the table. Once that was done, they went back into the kitchen, walking to the sushi bar and grabbing the three containers that held the coffee grounds.

Eyes.

They made quick work of walking back to the sever’s station. They uncapped the coffee and poured the grounds into the brewer and poured hot water into all three. They then turned around to make three glasses of ice, for the coffee.

Eyes.

Pressure.

Presence.

Stop stop stop stop stop.

Once the glasses were done, Suki turned around and, lo and behold, there he was. He was pretending to look at the coffee they were brewing. Suki slid past him, trying to keep some form of distance from him in the confined space, but he had started to turn around, making the space smaller and almost touching them. They did their best to not grimace, focusing on getting their tray prepped.

They could see him out of the corner of their eyes, taking his time putting ice in his cup, moving so much slower than usual. Standing in front of the soda machine and just staring.

Eyes. Eyes. Eyes.

The Hanged Man, See No Evil.

Suki was quick to walk out of the sever’s station, plastering a warm, welcoming, fake smile on their face.

Their customers were nice. Suki wished they could enjoy them....

It shouldn’t be like this. They shouldn’t have this overwhelming sense of dread coming into their place of work. They felt safer walking the downtown city streets alone at night than in their own workplace.

Every single male/male-presenting person they had interacted with/met lately had just been... awful. Of course, male-presenting people always set off at least one or two red flags, they all did. Every single one of them. That was normal, even though it shouldn’t be. You just have to ignore them before you can properly judge a person. That’s what they did with this guy.

He set off some flags. The three of them thought he might just be weird. Nothing wrong with weird. He barely talked. Could barely make eye contact with them. They talked about DND one night, and so he made a Discord account so he could join in a campaign.

That’s when it started. He friended Suki and Bug, but did absolutely nothing with Plum. He started messaging Suki. Just a sentence a night. Never replied to anything Suki said. One night, he sent them a compliment. Being polite, they thanked him. Then they changed their hair. It was the first time they had ever dyed it. They were so excited.

They came in to do the numbers for the restaurant that night, and as they were leaving, one of the managers walking with them, as he always did. (Previous employees had been attacked at night, so he went out with all the servers to make sure they got to their cars safe). They turned to wish the others a good night. He looked up, said some garbled nonsense, not even really words, something akin to a verbal keysmash, and went back to the dishes. Their manager laughed his fucking ass off. Suki simply raised an eyebrow as they furrowed together and let out a weird chuckle, mostly laughing because their manager was losing his mind and that always made them laugh.

“What was that?” he had asked as they walked out the door, before it had even closed behind them.

“I have no idea.”

That night he sent them a message, saying he was “taken aback”. It had made them slightly uncomfortable but they said thank you anyway. In all honesty, they thought it was kind of funny. Did he have a crush? After only talking to them a grand total of 5 times, each of those times just being one sentence from the both of them? They had to admit, it was a little ridiculous.

Then he had asked them out to lunch, and Suki was just... taken aback. It was unexpected. They... barely knew each other? He couldn’t even look them in the eye. They meant to reply, they really did, but they just kept forgetting, and every way they tried to phrase it in their head just sounded mean so they just.... didn’t.

The bell in the back dinged, drawing Suki out of their thoughts. Their food was ready. They let out a huff and stood up from the server’s table and walked towards the back. One roll combo and four dinner combos, three of which had tempura. This was gonna be fun to bring out...

They grabbed a tray and started to set two of the bento boxes on it, the ones that were ready. They had to finagle with it a bit, trying to find space to put the tempura sauce.

Pressure.

Presence.

Eyes.

He walked up behind them and stood there. They were off to the side, leaving the small walkway clear. He could’ve easily walked by. Out of the corner of their left eyes they could see him flipping the dish bin. Why wasn’t he walking by?

Stop staring stop staring stop staring stop staring stop staring stop staring stop staring stOP STARING STOP STARING STOP STARING!!!!

They finished putting what they could on the tray, picked it up along with another box with their other hand, and walked out of the kitchen.

He followed right behind.

Suki plastered a smile on their face.

It shouldn’t be like this... They shouldn’t feel scared to be in the back, thinking this fucking freak is going to come up and shank them if they weren’t careful. Their chef shouldn’t have to be waiting by the bathroom everytime he goes, holding a knife and waiting for him to come out with a gun. These complete, asinine, awful, insane and downright predatory interactions they’ve been having with men shouldn’t be making them question their sexuality, their gender.

For a while now, a couple months at least, Suki had been questioning their gender. They had never really felt comfortable in their body, and whether that was from all the bullying or the dysphoria.. that was something they figured a therapist could help them with, whenever they had the time to find one. But now.... they weren’t sure.

Maybe I’m not nonbinary.

I don’t want to come across masculine in any way.

I don’t want to be associated with them.

Maybe I’m cis.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.....

They had talked about it recently, on the ride home from work one night with Plum and Bug. Maybe part of the problem was they still thought along the lines of the binary - viewing being nonbinary as some sort of in between of masculine and feminine, male and female. But could they really be blamed? It’s how they were raised to think. It’s what society wanted. It’s how things were and they weren’t going to change so quickly over night, not here, not now, especially not in the south, where they lived.

Either way, all these interactions were making them question everything about themselves. Sure, Suki had never been the fondest of men in the first place; they’d only been in two relationships, both with men, both abusive, one long term and recent and still a very much open, festering wound.

Men made them uncomfortable.

Men pushed their boundaries.

Men hurt them one too many times.

Men were borderline repulsive at this point.

Maybe I’m a lesbian...

Maybe I should start identifying as that.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

The night dragged on. He continued to come to the server’s station. Suki’s trembling never ceased; it slowed, but it never stopped. They came close to dropping glasses and dishes and trays multiple times. They bought food, hoping that would be the solution, but he came back so many times. He checked the dishes more often. He made small, very small trips to return the dishes to their proper places, trips he could’ve easily, and usually would condense, he continued to fill up his drink as slow as possible, and more frequently than normal.

Suki couldn’t eat.

They didn’t feel comfortable.

They didn’t feel safe.

The Hanged Man, See No Evil.

After Suki’s silence, he latched onto Bug. He posted music, raps specifically, in the group chat they had, and he messaged Bug whenever they worked together, just like he had with Suki. It was funny. The raps were terrible; the beats were okay, but his voice and lyrics were just... Let’s just say it sent the trio off to other planes of existence.

As he messaged Bug, he got aspects of the three of them confused, mixing them into one being and projecting them onto Bug. While Bug did take dance classes, they never mentioned them at work, Suki had, multiple times, loudly. Plum plays the cello. Both Plum and Bug draw. He once complimented Bug on how artistic they were, thinking it was crazy that they “dance, play the cello, and draw.” It was hilariously bad. A poor attempt. They laughed about it for days.

Eventually, he asked Bug out as well. Bug, of course, turned them down. They were very polite about it. He sent an odd... poetic message that made no sense. Then, the next day, he posted a new rap in the chat, that had other people in it as well, it was their group’s DnD chat afterall.

It was a diss rap.

He mentioned them by name, twice.

He talked about murder.

It wasn’t so funny anymore.

The red flags grew larger, brighter, blaring.

They laughed nervously and weren’t too eager to go into their next shift after that.

He later sent Bug another song, this time to their DMs. It was their name in all caps. After writing, creating, and posting such an angry, hateful, terrifying track in a public group chat, he made a song about how they were meant to be but there was *~*something*~* between them and keeping them apart. They told him his songs were making them uncomfortable. They weren’t as nice that time. They had to be blunt. They told him to stop.

A couple days later, at 4 a.m., he sent all three of them his final messages and, supposedly, deleted Discord.

They blocked him just to be safe.

They couldn’t take any risks.

They’ve been through this before, multiple times.

They knew what to do.

They knew what needed to be done.

It shouldn’t be like this.

They shouldn’t have to put up with this.

Suki shoved back any feeling of dread, anxiety, panic - they had a job to do. They needed to push through. They couldn’t afford to have a panic attack. They couldn’t show any sign of weakness. Not around him. They’d been through this before. They knew how to deal with stalkers. They’d had three in the past. They just needed to push down the panic. They needed to ignore it. She needed....

The end of the night couldn’t come quickly enough. When it did, Suki was grateful. They sat down with their receipts, doing their readings and chatting idly with Plum, Bug, and Hail. Once all their stuff was done and they were clocked out, they sat at the server’s table. They wanted to speak to their manager, but they needed to wait for him to leave.

They sat there, quietly, on their phones as they waited. It was nice. It was peaceful. It was what they needed after today.

“Alright, hope y’all have a good night.”

His voice made their stomach drop. A pain, sharp like a knife, twisted into Suki’s heart as fear and dread and panic and terror gripped them in an instant. They didn’t look up. They couldn’t. They continued to scroll through Twitter.

When had he walked up?

She didn’t hear him.

She heard him walk away though, his footsteps heavy against the laminate floor. He was probably pissed he got no response.

Drama queen.

He was a big drama queen. He thought he was an important figure in their lives. How could he be though? They only knew him for, cumulatively, 2 days. The only thing he had done was made the three of them nervous around white cars and fill them with dread when they came in to work at night. One could argue that that was an impact, but it was nothing new to the trio. They’d been stalked before, multiple times. They had a restraining order on someone. They knew what needed to be done.

They shouldn’t have to know.

It wasn’t long before their manager was done with his side work and he was joining them at the front of the restaurant. They then proceeded to tell him everything in great detail. He didn’t emote as they talked, voicing their concerns and Suki trying to keep themself calm and in check.

“In his message to me, he told me that he could handle a no, but not silence. Clearly he can’t handle a no, seeing as he wrote a diss track about Bug when they politely, politely, turned him down.”

Once they were all done, he sat there for a moment before shaking his head. “Man, I wish y’all had told me before he left!”

“We wanted to wait until he was gone. This isn’t our first rodeo, we know what we need to do to stay safe.” Plum said.

“Yeah, yeah I know. But man, I wish I had known. I’d’ve went and “talked” to him. You know...” He didn’t use air quotes, but they were implied in his tone. “Y’all... You guys know we’re all like family around here. We’re close. I’m here to look out for ya. I’ll talk with Billiford about it. We’ll take care of this.”

“Yeah, I talked to Billium before he left, but I couldn’t say too much cause he just kept walking by.” Plum said. “He said he was going to talk to you so..”

“Yeah, I’ll remind him. I’ll make sure to remind him. Man... maaan I really wish y’all had told me earlier.”

“We don’t want you killing a man.” Bug said with a laugh.

“I’d bail you out.” Suki said immediately.

“I think we all would.” Timothy replied, taking a pull from his “addiction stick” as he referred to it.

They chatted for a bit longer before they all walked out. The parking lot was desolate and Suki felt themselves breathe a little easier. Their manager walked the three of them to their car and watched as they got in. They then began to make their way home, keeping an eye out for white cars.

The Hanged Man, See No Evil.

[imaginitiveescapism]

Talk Less, Smile Less

Summary: Abusive Hamburr, endgame healthy Jamilton. Quiet is not a word anyone would use to describe Alexander Hamilton, yet that’s exactly what he’s been lately. Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t want to admit it, but he’s worried about his favorite frenemy. What’s going on with Hamilton?

Tw: Abuse, thought it’s mostly off-screen.

Thomas wouldn’t admit it to anyone, for appearance’s sake, but he was worried about Alexander Hamilton. So many people thought he hated the younger senator, and he was willing to let them believe that because it was abundantly clear to Thomas that Hamilton hated him. But, in a way, Thomas loved Hamilton because Thomas loved a challenge. There was no one else in politics who could stand up to him the way Hamilton could. Which was why the other man’s reservedness recently disturbed him as much as it did. It was out of character, and frankly it was making Thomas’s life boring.

Everyone else seemed relieved. They took it as Hamilton mellowing and maturing. After all, it wasn’t as if the senator was suddenly slacking. He was just as passionate, witty, and sharp as he had ever been in meetings and on the senate floor. And he still worked at a breakneck pace that would be considered absolutely insane by anyone else. But on the off hours, even just around the office, Hamilton never spoke anymore. The change was chilling to Thomas.

Thomas decided to fix it the only way he knew how. Start shit with Hamilton. He cornered the other man in the break room, leaning casually against the doorframe while Hamilton made coffee. “Hamilton.”

Hamilton looked up at him, shoulders tense, but continued preparing his coffee. “Jefferson.”

“You were off your game today, Hamilton,” Thomas taunted, pushing off the doorframe and stalking closer to his rival. “Bring the big guns next time or your immigration bill won’t make it past me. Not that it will anyway. The thing is a mess.”

Hamilton jerked up, looking ready to fight back, ready to show the person Thomas knew was in there, but instead he took a breath and hunched in on himself. “I guess we’ll see when it makes it to the floor.”

Frustrated by the lack of response, Thomas pushed further into Hamilton’s space, and Hamilton... flinched? Thomas backed off. “Yeah. I guess we will.”

Thomas watched Hamilton leave with increasing worry. It was obvious that Hamilton was scared of him at the moment, and Thomas had no interest in that, at least not that way. Intimidated by his mental prowess and status? Sure. Afraid his bills won’t get past his political rival? Please. But afraid of Thomas himself? Afraid the man would hurt him? That wasn’t something Thomas ever wanted, and he didn’t know why that was the case right now.

For the next month or so, Thomas did his best to discreetly keep an eye on Hamilton. He didn’t want to freak the younger man out, especially when he already seemed to be pretty on edge, but he felt a growing need to understand what was going on. It wasn’t just Thomas himself Hamilton was avoiding conflict with. It was literally everyone. Any time someone tried to talk to Hamilton about something serious, he got jumpy and evasive, unless it was specifically in a work context. Thomas finally got his answer, though it was more horrifying than anything he would’ve thought of himself.

Thomas leaned on the doorway of Hamilton’s office. It seemed that Hamilton’s boyfriend, a young lawyer named Aaron Burr, had come to visit him for lunch. Thomas hadn’t been noticed yet, and he let the conversation continue. “And you’ve been behaving, Alexander?”

“Yes, Aaron,” Hamilton answered, not meeting the other man’s eyes and speaking in a soft voice. Thomas frowned. It was strange enough that Hamilton had been acting the way he was around other people, let alone his own boyfriend.

“I’m not sure if I think that’s true.” There was a hardness to Aaron’s voice. “I’ve seen footage of you on the senate floor, and in interviews. You’re just as boisterous and overbearing as usual.”

Thomas’s frown deepened. That was harsh. It was something he himself would’ve happily said about Hamilton, sure, but he wasn’t supposed to be the man’s loving partner. Hamilton hunched in on himself, but did look up to meet Burr’s eyes. “It’s my job, Aaron. I can’t just not do my job. But I barely even talk to anyone outside of it anymore. I haven’t even seen John or Herc or Laf for more than a week.”

Burr rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to see them every week, Alexander.”

Thomas’s frown deepened again. Talking down to Hamilton, and potentially isolating the man from his friends. Those were two pretty serious strikes against Burr, in Thomas’s opinion. Before he had just been waiting for a lull in the conversation to come in, but now he was paying attention. Thomas had figured Hamilton was sick or facing financial troubles he was too proud to tell Washington about, but maybe Burr was the root of Hamilton’s problems.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just miss them sometimes is all.” Hamilton went back to averting his eyes. “But I really do need to do my job. I’m a senator. I have to speak up on these issues. People are counting on me.”

“Talk less, smile more.” Burr reached out and grabbed Hamilton by the ear, yanking hard and pulling Hamilton half way across his own desk. Hamilton made a small sound of pain, but managed not to be loud enough to draw attention to the scene. “Do you think that’s only supposed to apply to your personal life? This is for your own good. If you’re too ungrateful to see that, then I don’t know why I waste my time with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Hamilton gasped. “I’m sorry, please.”

Thomas had seen enough. He strode into the room, a look of thunderous rage on his face. He closed the door behind him to protect Hamilton’s privacy and grabbed the wrist of the hand Burr maintained a painful grip on Hamilton’s ear with. “Let him go.”

Never one to perpetuate a confrontation he wasn’t absolutely certain he could win, Burr released Hamilton. In turn, Thomas released Burr. Burr schooled his features and looked to the larger man. “I apologize. That was unseemly. If I’d realized how that was going to go, I would’ve closed the door.”

“Unseemly?” Thomas hadn’t thought he could be angrier. “Fucking unseemly? You call abusing your boyfriend fucking unseemly?”

“Abuse is a strong word,” Aaron protested. “You witnessed a private moment in our relationship without context, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t make wild accusations.”

“I know what I saw.” Thomas crossed his arms and glared at Burr. “If Hamilton tells me later something else was going on, I’ll let it go, but I’m not gonna believe a word he says while you’re still here to intimidate him. Now get the fuck out of this building before I have Secret Service drag you out.”

Thomas closed the door behind Burr, then turned back to his political rival. Hamilton’s head was in his hands, and he was shaking. “Oh, fuck. What have you done?”

Normally, Thomas’s first instinct would be to make a snarky response, but he recognized the inappropriateness of that at the moment. Instead, he approached Hamilton slowly. “I kicked him out. He’s gone. It’s okay, Hamilton.” The man continued to shake with his head in his hands. “Alexander.” Hamilton flinched, and Thomas winced, remembering the way Hamilton’s full name came off of Burr’s lips like poison. “Alex?” When Hamilton actually looked up, Thomas nodded. “Alex. It’s okay, you’re safe.”

“I have to go home to him,” Alex pointed out with clear horror. “He’s going to be so angry that he got caught, that you accused him of that, and I have to go home to him.”

“I’ll come with you,” Thomas told him. “We’ll get your stuff together. It’ll be fine.”

“And where am I supposed to go after that?” Hamilton yelled, and Thomas was glad to see some of his personality back. “As you love to point out, we’re not all trust fund babies with a massive estate. I can’t get out. I don’t have the money, the resources, to get out!”

Thomas frowned. “What about any of your friends? Or President Washington? They would help.”

“They wouldn’t want me anymore if I told them,” Alex yelled, frustrated. “They like me because I’m strong, because I can fight for them. If they knew I was weak, they wouldn’t want me anymore. I can’t lose them.”

“You’re not weak, and you wouldn’t lose them,” Thomas told him. “Who told you that, Burr?”

But Alex didn’t seem to hear him. He had gone into a clear mental spiral. “They’d all be so disappointed. And now you, my greatest political rival, know. What are you going to do with the information? Who’s going to know? I don’t want anyone to know!”

“They won’t,” Thomas told him. “They won’t be disappointed. They love you. God, Washington treats you like his son. And I’m not going to do anything with this information, Alex. You’ve been hurt by your boyfriend. I’m not going to use that to hurt you more. I’m not a monster.”

Slowly, Alex looked up from his hands. What Thomas saw in his eyes devastated him. “I’m scared.”

Thomas tried to reach out, and Alex flinched. Thomas grimaced. “Sorry. Sorry, that was stupid of me. I’m not going to hurt you, Alex. I’d like to help if you’ll let me.”

“Why?” Alex asked, genuinely confused. “You hate me.”

“I don’t,” Thomas answered immediately, glad to drop the artifice to help Alex. “I never have. I disagree with you a lot, but you’re intelligent and passionate and you’re a good challenge. I don’t want to see you lose that, so I want to help.”

“Okay,” Alex accepted. “Thank you.”

Thomas felt his heart warm. “Of course.”

“What’s the game plan?” Alex asked. He still couldn’t imagine a world where he was out from under Burr’s thumb.

“I mean, that’s at least in part up to you,” Thomas answered. “I think you shouldn’t go home tonight. I think you need space to calm down. But if you decide you want to get your things tonight, I’ll come with you. And I think you should tell Washington.” Thomas held a hand up to forestall Alex’s protest, and winced when it made the smaller man flinch. “It’s okay. Not gonna hurt you, sunshine. I think you should tell him. He loves you, and he’ll help keep you safe. You’d be better off with someone you trust nearby. You could stay with him for the next week until Congress goes to recess, and then, if you wanted, you could come back to Monticello with me. It’s big enough you wouldn’t have to see me if you didn’t want to, but you’d be safe there, well away from Burr, and it would give you the summer to try to find a new place.”

“Okay.” Alex visibly relaxed. “Okay. That sounds good. Thank you.”

The next few days were hard for Alex. The situation forced him to swallow his pride in a way he never wanted to. His conversation with Washington was probably the hardest. Alex entered the Oval Office, still pale and shaky from what had happened earlier. Washington, of course, noticed right away. It took all his willpower not to stand and pull Alex into a hug, knowing the fatherly action would not be welcomed. “What’s wrong son?”

“I...” Alex felt his heart fall. The President of the United States. The most powerful man in the world. What would his mentor think of him now? “Never mind, sir. It’s nothing.”

Now, Washington did stand. He strode across the room and placed a sturdy hand on Alex’s shoulder, growing more alarmed when the gesture was met with a flinch. “It’s not nothing, son. Please.”

“I’ve... I’ve gotten myself into a bit of trouble, sir,” Alex admitted, not able to meet Washington’s eyes.

“Why don’t you come sit down and tell me about it?” Washington lead Alex over to the Oval Office couches, leaving a respectful few feet between them. “What kind of trouble is it?”

“I’ve been stuck in a bad relationship. He’s... he’s never really hit me, but he talks down to me, and pinches me, and grabs me by my ear, and grabs me too hard, and sometimes... sometimes if I do something really stupid he will slap me.” Tears fell from Alex’s eyes. “I’m so sorry to ask, but I need help, sir.”

Now, Washington did pull Alex into that fatherly embrace, the younger man’s feelings on being his son be damned. Right now, Alex needed a father. “Never be sorry for that, son. I’m right here. Whatever you need. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. That is a promise.”

For the moment, what Alex needed was to cry into Washington’s shoulder. Washington let him, gently rubbing the young man’s back. When Alex finished crying, he tried to pull back, embarrassed, but Washington just held on a little tighter, and Hamilton relaxed, allowing himself to feel the comfort as he filled Washington in on the plan he had made with Thomas. “But I need somewhere to stay until Congress goes to recess.”

“What a coincidence that I have all these guest rooms.” Washington allowed Alex to pull back enough to meet his eyes. “And if you need me when you’re in Virginia, I’m just a phone call away.”

“I was scared you’d be disappointed in me,” Alex admitted.

“Never, son,” Washington swore. “Not for this.”

Alex settled. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, son.” Washington couldn’t help himself. He pressed a gentle kiss into Alex’s hair. “You should consider telling your friends, too. They wouldn’t be disappointed either. You might have some help moving your things out of Burr’s apartment.”

The conversation with his friends went well. They were all outraged on his behalf. John cried. But not a single one of them was angry or disappointed with Alex. Alex never even had to go back to the old apartment, because Herc, Laf, and John went for him. And if John hauled off and punched Burr in the face for the damage he did to his best friend, well, that was no one’s business but theirs.

A week later saw Alex moving into Monticello. That was an intimidating experience, to say the least. Alex froze on the doorstep, looking at Thomas with wide eyes. After the long drive, Thomas was exasperated. “You do know how doors work, right, Hamilton?”

“Y-Yeah,” Alex stuttered, reaching for the doorknob. “Sorry.”

Now Thomas felt like a jackass. Alex was moving in with him for the summer because he had been abused, and Thomas had acted rashly and exacerbated the situation instead of approaching Alex discreetly. “No, I’m sorry. What’s wrong, Alex?”

Alex seemed to be intently studying his shoes. “Aaron was always so nice, so sweet to me. Right up until... right up until we moved in together and I had nowhere else to go.”

“Shit.” Thomas could see the potential threat now, someone who had been his enemy for so long dragging him all the way to Virginia alone. “Hey, you have somewhere to go, right? President Washington, any of your friends... they would come get you if you needed them to. You know that now. But I’m not going to hurt you, sunshine. Promise.”

That was the second time the older man had used the pet name for him. Alex studied Thomas’s face carefully, finding honesty and... was that a spark of affection? “Okay.”

After that, moving into Monticello went smoothly, and Alex started to heal. Instead of living as removed from Thomas as possible, as Thomas had expected, Alex moved into the room across the hall from Thomas. More than once, Thomas woke up to Alex panicking from a nightmare. He always carefully calmed Alex down, and they would sit up talking about anything and nothing, except for politics, which were always off limits for these late-night chats. They learned a lot about each other that way, and each man felt his affection for the other grow.

Thomas knew Alex was really on the road to recovery when he started fighting with him again. They were sitting on the couch together, watching the news and having their morning coffee, when news of another gun death came on. Alex shook his head. “This is why we need better gun control laws.”

“That’s what you think,” Thomas scoffed. “The founding fathers gave us the right to bear arms. Our government was created by a citizen militia overthrowing a tyrannical government. Do you really think you know better than the founding fathers, sunshine?”

“No, but I think I know better than you, honey.” Without so much as a thought of danger, Alex rose to meet Thomas’s challenge. “The government has tanks and shit. Drones. Some redneck with an AK-47 isn’t going to stop the government, but they could do a lot of damage to the public.”

“Doesn’t matter, sweet pea,” Thomas shot back. “It’s an ideal our country was built on.

“People living now matter more than an ideal some old dead white guys found important, darling.” Alex retorted.

After that, the debate devolved into Thomas and Alex shooting terms of endearment at each other like insults.

“Angel.”

“Sweetheart.”

“Sugar.”

The two men fell into a fit of laughter, leaning on each other for support, the initial debate forgotten.

Still, recovery was not linear or simple. A mere few days after that debate, Thomas came running into the kitchen when he heard a crash. He found Alex staring, horrified, at a glass that had shattered across the floor. Alex dropped to his knees, thankfully not in the glass, and moved to scoop the mess up. Thomas moved quickly, crouching behind Alex and grabbing his wrists before he could hurt himself.

“I didn’t mean to. Please.” Alex’s voice was thin and fearful. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Shh, sunshine. I know it was an accident. I’m not gonna hurt you. Wouldn’t even if it wasn’t an accident.” Thomas kept his voice soft and gentle. “But I can’t watch you hurt yourself, either. C’mon.”

Thomas led Alex away from the mess, then hefted the smaller man onto the counter. Alex was slightly disconcerted by the ease with which Thomas lifted him, but he kept his touch nothing but gentle. Thomas left Alex there and went to clean up the glass himself, properly and safely. Then he came back to stand in front of Alex again, one hand resting on either side of him on the counter.

Alex thought he ought to feel trapped, but instead he felt safe. He smiled up at Thomas, and caught himself glancing at the other man’s full lips. “Thank you.”

“Of course, sunshine.” Thomas pressed his forehead to Alex’s. “I don’t want to see you scared or hurting.”

“I know.” Their eyes met, and Thomas started to lean in for a kiss, but Alex put a hand on his chest and said, “Wait.”

Thomas stopped, giving Alex a little space though not stepping away from him. “What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t like...” Alex looked down in shame. “A pity thing because of Aaron, is it?”

“Of course not.” Thomas used a finger to gently nudge Alex’s chin up so he would meet his eyes. “I think I’ve loved you for a long time.”

“Good.” Alex grinned and pulled Thomas in for their first kiss. “Because I think I love you too.”