#and now trying to catch up with replies...but its kind of overwhelming at this point

[shutupposhos]

*opens google* how to declare whatsapp message bankruptcy

[seros-girl]

5. katsuki’s promotion

part(s): one, two, three, four, five, six

WARNING: mentions of sex, angst, nudity

as you lay there in the bathtub, still gasping for air, katsuki enters, buttoning his tuxedo cuffs. “i think i might ask momo to dance at some point if it feels like the-“ he says but stops when he sees you in the tub still.

the bubbles have since disappeared leaving the water clear, your naked form on display for him. “how long do you need to get ready? were gonna be late” he says as he takes a seat on the edge of the tub.

you cover your face, shy and lean back. katsuki smiles and looks over your body in awe. he rests his hand on your thigh.

“you know i’ve been thinking of something kind of crazy” he admits while smiling and looking down. “hm what is it” you said softly, admiring his face. oh how in love you were with him.

he squeezes your thigh and rubs it, going further down. you smile, but you honestly cant think about sex right now.

“lets have a baby” he says smiling now moving his hand to grab yours.

“what?” youre absolutely stunned by the suggestion.

“i mean not right this second, we dont have time. but i love you and i want more of you. and now i think i want a little you. i dont know. it’d be an adventure” he says sincerely.

he gets up ready to walk out and leave you be. “oh here” he says suddenly remembering why he came in here.

he hands you a pill. you stare at it, then look up katsuki. you take it and pop it in your mouth.

you wait till he leaves. you pull the bath plug, spit it out watching it dissolve as you put yourself underwater again.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

the doll house nightclub. you walk in hand in hand with katsuki, as the nightclub is filled with many of the victory residents. a singer on stage.

the biggest night of the year. everyone’s dressed up, having a good time. a 50s band playing with the lead singer, singing her damn heart out. you smile at that.

youre suddenly overwhelmed by how big this place is. its noisy, rowdy. you clutch onto katsuki’s arm and he seems to notice.

“hey you okay?” he asks looking down at you. “mhm” you nod, lying to him.

you find the table your friends are sat at and they all get up to greet you. eijiro and mina dancing in circles, clutching their drinks.

toru gives a little spin of the dress she bought the day you all went shopping. “how good does that look on her! mashirao better watch out. it fits better than it did in the store!” ochako says as toru blushes.

izuku is making mashirao chug a bottle of champagne. he chokes on the bubbles but keeps going, spilling some on his shirt.

katsuki hands you a glass of champagne. you only take it to have something in your hands. “here are the troublemakers!” momo says greeting you all with hugs.

she’s making rounds as the host. “i dont know how were allowed to fit you all in one table!” momo shouts over the music, laughing. “its probably better for insurance purposes” katsuki jokes, making momo laugh.

she touches your arm softly. “y/n, how are you feeling?” she asks you. “im great” you reply smiling. “if i hear glass breaking, im coming right here” she jokes to you all.

everyone laughs way too hard at what momo just said as she moves on to the next table. you watch her go as you catch kyoka. she’s giggling and flirting with denki.

denki seems relaxed, finally relieved to be in the clear after kyoka’s behavior. rumors spread he was bound to get fired. you watch as kyoka kisses denki on the cheek and walks over to the bar.

you grab katsuki’s shoulder getting his attention. he leans down, grabbing your waist to hear you better. “i’ll be right back” you said giving him a soft kiss and leave to the bar.

kyoka grabs two drinks from the bartender as soon as you made it. she turns around to find you standing face to face with her, trapped.

“oh hi. im just going to bring these to denki-“ you cut her off. “you can tell me whatever’s going on” you said seriously. you try and hold eye contact, but kyoka averts her eyes.

“i do have bad dreams. i know theyre hiding something. i know something’s out there. what are they making you cover up?” you ask her quietly.

kyoka stares at you how you all used to look at her, like youre crazy. “i need to find my husband” she says lifting the glasses, her diamond marquis ring shining in the light.

she walks away and you watch her leave and meet katsuki’s eye. he watched the whole interaction. his jaw clenches and looks away.

the band plays a heroic hue as shoto comes out on stage, ready to speak. you quickly move towards your table as you fiddle with your gold pear shaped wedding ring.

you take a seat next to katsuki. you grab his hand, interlocking your fingers. you smile at him as he places a loving kiss on your cheek.

shoto quiets down everyone before he starts his speech. “i just wanted to say thank you to everyone for coming out tonight. this is my favorite time of the year, one where were all together. i love every aspect of tonight, but most importantly to see how far we’ve come” he says smiling at you all.

you look around the room, everyone is watching and listening intently to shoto.

“im so happy to see how much we have grown as a community. and im so happy to say that even now we have grown. please help me welcome the new hire and his wife, tenya and mei iida” shoto announces as he urges them to come up on stage.

you gasp. in your “dream” from last night you saw their profiles as “new users”. you hit katsuki’s arm lightly to get his attention while everyone cheers to welcome the new couple.

“katsuki i need to go home” you said seriously, trying not to burst into tears. “what we just got here?” katsuki said confused.

“welcome to victory, tenya and mei. its an honor to have you both here” he shakes their hands as they walk off to take their seats.

you scan the room again, everyone is laughing but they have no teeth, it’s horrifying. you squeeze your eyes shut to drown it out. you open your eyes again and see everyone is normal.

you grabs katsuki’s arm again.

“we need to get out of here” you whispered at him.

“we’ll get you a drink…” katsuki says now concerned.

“katsuki why dont you come up here for a minute” shoto says into the mic. he was watching the interaction between you two.

katsuki freezes, stature tense as he looks up at shoto. your whole table erupts into cheers as they encourage him to go up.

“please. please lets just go” you plead him, still holding back your tears.

he looks at you and shoto, thinking on what to do. he ends up standing and hurrying on the stage to join shoto.

“katsuki…” you plead desperately, voice cracking.

you watch helplessly as your husband joins shoto on the stage. he blushes, obviously nervous.

“tenya’s gotta work hard. he’ll be taking over katsuki’s job as technical engineer. im pleased to announce that katsuki has been promoted to senior technology manager” shoto announced as your table erupts into cheers.

katsuki shakes shoto’s hand, grateful for this opportunity. you start hyperventilating. you cant watch this. not when something is very obviously wrong.

you get up and run to the bathroom. ochako watches you, concerned.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

you push the door open, gasping for air. you place your hands on your head, breathing in and out as tears slide down your face.

you just want to go home.

a second later, ochako bursts through the door.

“whats gotten into you? katsuki-“ she questions slightly irritated, but you cut her off.

you grab her shoulders to get her to listen to you.

“something bad is happening, something is deeply wrong with this town. and with shoto. and with victory. just something is wrong” you said tears sliding down your face, ruining your makeup.

ochako is stunned at this sudden outburst from you. “okay slow down” she reassures as you cry.

back outside of the bathroom, katsuki is still on stage with shoto. “i heard theres a special way katsuki likes to celebrate good news” shoto says and music starts playing.

katsuki laughs, embarrassed.

“no, no way” he shakes his head laughing.

“i’ve heard your the best” shoto reasons with him.

katsuki shakes his head, secretly loving this. he starts tap dancing to the music, fully immersing himself into it.

the table you were sat at erupts in cheers as izuku, eijiro, and mashirao stand to cheer him on. upon seeing this, katsuki starts doing a full choreography.

back in the bathroom, your word vomitting to ochako about everything.

“i went to victory-“ you said but she cut you off.

“what do you mean you went there?”

“and when i walked inside, i woke up somewhere else” “you walked inside? what are you talking about?!”

“it wasnt even like inside, i was in another room. i was hooked up to some machine, like an experiment of some sort. i heard shoto, he was there and then in the thing i saw “new users” it was tenya and mei” you rambled on.

“that was probably a dream. katsuki must’ve mentioned the new couple or you saw a photo of them once and remembered upon seeing them tonight” she tries gaslighting you.

“kyoka should not be okay. and she’s acting like she’s fine and theyre all covering it up” you said trying to reason with ochako.

ochako backs up a little, scared for you.

katsuki keeps dancing, pouring his all into it. to impress shoto.

“i think shoto brought us all out here” you said nodding and wiping tears, voice hoarse.

“of course he did. he hired-“ ochako starts but you cut her off.

“no! its something else. i think he brought us here for another reason. we cant trust him!” tears slipped out again, you wiped at them furiously.

“honey…” ochako’s voice is soft. “i know it sounds insane i know how it sounds. but you have to believe me, ‘chako, you have to” you plead to her.

youre gettinf louder, and ochako tries to keep you quiet.

“y/n, shoto and momo are just outside-“

“come with me! come with me to headquarters. i’ll prove it you!” you said grabbing her hands ready to walk out, but she yanks you back in.

“come with you- to the headquarters?!” she says confused.

katsuki is sweating. the whole place is impressed as he continues dancing. his eyes trained on shoto, only caring for his approval.

“i can show you what happened” you plead and she shakes her head. “you cant do that” ochako’s voice says firmly.

“we could take kats’ car. no one would notice” “absolutely not. theres no way in-“

“you have to come with me, so i can show you. you have to believe me” “its way too dangerous”

a woman walks in, you’ve seen her before. mezo’s wife, tsuyu. she walks past the both of you and into a stall.

as quietly as possible you plead to ochako.

“‘chako please. please im begging you i can prove it i’ll show you-“

hushing gently ochako says “y/n..”

“you have to let me show you!” you said loudly.

“we can go home-“ ochako reasons.

“im going either way. right now” you said firmly.

katsuki ends his dance, panting and sweating. he looks around as everyone cheers. shoto throws an arm around katsuki.

he looks at their table for you, but he sees your spot is empty. shoto slaps his back gently, snapping him out of his daze.

ochako appears behind izuku, kisses his neck to distract him and pulls car keys out of the jacket. she kisses his lips and hurriedly runs out of the nightclub with you, jumping into izuku’s car and rushing out.

ochako, who’s very nervous, drives the both of you down the empty, scary road. the headlights being the only source of light.

back at the nightclub, shoto still has his arm around katsuki’s shoulders.

“this is why tonight is my favorite night of the year. youre all extraordinary. this is a brotherhood of brilliance. never forget that” shoto exclaims as the crowd cheers.

back in izuku’s car, you keep looking behind you as bunny speeds away to make sure youre not being followed.

ochako is gripping the wheel absolutely terrified. “where’d you learn to drive?” you question her as it now popped into your head.

ochako stutters “s-second nature i dont know doesnr seem so hard” she chuckles nervously. you squint your eyes at her, but ultimately drop it.

“turn your headlights off” you tell her. ochako groans but ultimately looks for the switch and switches it off. youre now enveloped in darkness.

the crowd is stunned, amazed as they continue to cheer for katsuki. katsuki’s eyes trained on shoto only.

“were here because we know we dont need to heed what the rest of the world convinces itself is important or right. you all worked so hard to get here. and i picked each of you. and not just because of your talent and drive, but because of your dedication you demonstrate to our cause” shoto says with power.

the men cheer, ignited. toru’s eyes fill with tears as she looks at mashirao. he smiles down at her and pulls her in a kiss. katsuki continues to look for you in the crowd.

eijiro and mina lock lips, as he holds her stomach. she’s almost due. izuku looks around for ochako, suddenly aware that she’s gone.

ochako parks the car near the lobby and you both waste no time in getting out. the door has a huge lock on it.

“was that not there before?” ochako questions, looking down at you. “thats a sign y/n, we should go before izuku notices-“

you walk back to the car and pop the trunk. you take out the crowbar izuku keeps.

“y/n…” ochako says alarmed now. you walk up to the door and hit the lock as hard as you can. ochako backs up.

“were changing the world. youre changing the world! and we cannot take our foot off the gas” shoto says.

you hit it over and over and over and over and over again, as you cry. you take all of your stress and anxiety out on the stupid lock.

you hit it and CLANK. it comes off. you drop the crowbar, out of breath. you turn to look at ochako and she’s stunned.

“its going to be intense” you warn her and she nods, grabbinf your hands.

you push open the door entering. nothing happens though. youre in a room. and you can see the car on the other side.

no lights. no computers. no shoto’s voice. no dancers.

nothing.

ochako walks in after you. she takes in the empty lobby and front desk. she looks at you.

you walk out not believing it and ready to try again.

“come back out, maybe we didnt-“ you said to ochako and she comes out.

“y/n” she says sighing out.

you stay quiet as your mind realizes something. “shoto did this”

“stop” ochako grabs a hold of your hands softly, smiling down at you.

“you need to get a hold of yourself” she says tears lining her eyes.

“this isnt-“ you start but she shakes her head.

“listen to me. i love you, and i believe that youre seeing things. but i think you should start taking the pills again and see-“

“its not like last time” you said shaking your head.

“we should not be here. you shouldn’t have dragged me into this. im leaving and youre coming with me. get in the car” she demands.

she picks up the crowbar, tossing it back into the trunk and closing it.

you get home to katsuki already asleep. youre in your nightgown, flipping through photo albums. yours and katsuki’s wedding, on vacation, your honeymoon, in niagara falls.

you stare at it and it looks exactly like the ones shoto and momo have along with eijiro and mina.

a plan clicks in your head as you close the book and turn the lights off in the house, sliding into bed next to katsuki.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

you do your morning routine with no problem. bacon sizzling, eggs cooking, coffee roasted.

katsuki takes a long sip of his coffee watching you hum happily.

“im sorry i left early” you apologized for last night, missing his dance.

“i feel sorry for you not seeing my dance” he says clearing his throat.

“im just sorry in general. my behavior recently i dont know im just not in my right head space. but i know how to make it up to you. i invited izuku, ochako, eijiro, mina, toru, mashirao, shoto, and momo” you said eyes lighting up.

“oh and the new couple tenya and mei was it?” you looked up at him for confirmation. he nods and hums. “what for?” he takes a sip of the coffee. “for dinner! i want them to see how great hosts we are. what a great couple we are” you said smiling as you turn the stove off and move towards katsuki.

you throw your arms around his neck and his fly down to your waist. you lead him to the sofa as you softly push him down onto it.

you sit on his lap. “let me do this for you” you whispered to him.

you kiss him as you move to straddle katsuki. katsuki breaks the kiss to check his watch.

“i dont have time-“ he’s cut off by you placing your lips on his. youre turning this into sex.

“were a team right?” you asked him sweetly.

“always” he replies looking up at you.

you pin his hands to the sofa, sensually.

“i love you” you murmured onto his lips.

he’s surprised but not so into it at the moment. youre taking control.

“i love you too” he murmers against your lips. “you and me” you said.

“yes. you and me” katsuki assures and you kiss him once more.

“you and me?” “always”

[redrawthecolorlessworld]

Sie liebten sich beide

I don't know jackshit about PGR and yet I keep listening to its music either way (also I know that it's an actual poem shh). Anyways, here's a thing with VanSun, based off of Main Story Act 2 events.

———

They loved one another, but neither wished to tell the other.

———

"Van~"

"Ugh...what is it now?"

Third Sun laughed at the other God's reaction, before a smug smile rests on his face. "You look exceptionally pretty today." He complimented, and World Vanquisher groaned, his cheeks going red without him even realizing it. He looked away from the sun, crossing his arms as he did so. "Okay, and...?" He replied questioningly.

"Well~ you look exceptionally pretty today because you were smiling a lot!" Third Sun went on, before inching closer towards World Vanquisher, who finally gathered up the courage to glance towards Third Sun. "I...wasn't, though...?" He said—he denied. Third Sun laughed again. "Don't lie now, Van! I saw you with that charming smile of yours! Don't deny it~"

"You should smile more! Good for ya, trust."

"Eh...yeah, whatever."

———

They gave each other such hostile looks, yet nearly died of love.

———

"Ugh...why do they have to keep underestimating me like this...?"

World Vanquisher sighed upon hearing that. "What is it this time? Is it about earlier?" He asked, and to that, Third Sun nodded with a frown. "Yeah! I've been a God for like...what, three years now? And yet they won't trust me to do serious shit like this alone! I'm always stuck with the usual daily work of rising and setting the goddamn sun!" He complained, before groaning. "It's so fucking annoying!"

"Well-"

"Hikaru and Destonio didn't get this treatment, so how come I'm different?! Is it because I'm allergic to the cold? That's just a blatantly stupid reason!"

"Well...maybe the situation's drastic enough to the point where even us Gods aren't allowed to investigate stuff alone."

"I call bullshit on that. It's not like they'll be able to hurt us or anything."

"Wh- Sun, remember what happened to Eternity?! You wouldn't wanna end up like her, right?!"

———

In the end, they parted and saw each other but rarely in dreams.

———

The two Gods argued.

They argued over something so little, so stupid.

That's just their nature.

They bicker sometimes.

But this is more than just bickering.

This is way more serious than mere bickering.

"I'd rather just go on my own and maybe investigate this and be useful to everyone for once! And yet you won't let me!"

"I don't want you to get hurt, Sun! What the fuck is wrong with you...?! If anything, just go with me!"

"No! I wanna do things on my own for once! I can't stay like this forever!"

World Vanquisher's fed up.

He really fucking was.

"Fine! Whatever! Suit yourself! Fucking whatever! It's not like I'd care, anyways!"

And afterwards, Third Sun stormed out of the room, filled with a kind of rage that he had never felt before. World Vanquisher only stayed there, trying his best to calm himself down, before finally, he groaned.

Little did he know, this was one of his worst mistakes ever.

———

They died so long ago...

———

World Vanquisher saw it.

The spear that drove through Third Sun's body from behind.

The one thing that killed him instantly.

Vanquisher couldn't even catch Kamiya in time before she disappeared, and all that was left with him was an unconscious Hikaru, and...

...A dead Sun God.

World Vanquisher dropped onto his knees, before caressing Third Sun's lifeless body carefully. He only looked down onto the other God silently—at that moment, he felt no emotion within him. No pain, no sorrow, no grief; nothing. He didn't even feel like crying. He just knelt there, with Third Sun in his arms, all while rain started to pour down onto them.

Things would feel a lot more off in the following days.

———

...and hardly knew it themselves.

———

"THIRD SUN!"

The very moment Third Sun wakes up, World Vanquisher immediately rushes towards him and brings him into a tight hug, one that overwhelms Third Sun immediately. "I- wh- huh??" The sun looks down upon the vanquisher, who only buries his face onto Sun's shoulder.

"Thank the Overseers and the other Gods you're alive...oh goodness..."

...

"Uh...sorry, but- who are you?"

Huh?

Upon hearing those words, World Vanquisher immediately breaks away from the hug to give Third Sun a confused look. "Huh? What do you mean? It's me, Van! How come you've forgotten?" He asks, trying his best to make the other God remember, and yet...

"I...I'm sorry. I...don't really remember who you are. Same goes for everyone here." Third Sun replies with a frown, and that's all that it took to bring World Vanquisher close to tears. "A-ah..." He lets out, before he quickly blinks away the tears and forces a smile instead, extending his hand out for Third Sun to grab onto.

"Hah...yeah, that's- that's fine. We can just reintroduce ourselves. I'm World Vanquisher, second God of the End. You're, uh...Third Sun, the God of the Sun."

"Ooh...yeah, yeah. Alright. Nice to meet'cha~"

This is painful, but...

World Vanquisher will have to deal with it for now.

[arunikas]

ーolgami

That one time Hinata let herself act impulsively, she never thought it would cost her a bombardment of constant, overwhelming desires she never allowed herself to think of dwelling into. 

Being a college student is hard enough. But being a broke college student is on another level of headache, not to mention that her college life is basically hanging on the thin thread of her scholarship. It's always so packed with endless assignments, nonstop pulling all nighters, and part time jobs at one place after another. 

And when her body betrayed her into refusing to work due to the excessive amount of labor hours and then the stress level hit its peak; Ino had successfully convinced her to do that one thing she always cringed out whenever Ino brought it up during their pillow talk session in their bedroom dorm. 

"Aw, c'mon Hina~ being a sugar baby doesn't always require you to use your body! There are some daddies out there just wanting a companion in a fancy dinner or just a casual date or basically just wanting somebody to spoil their money on." Ino had said.

"There are some, Ino. Not all." I rolled my eyes, "And we never know which type I'll end up meeting."

"No no no! Didn't I tell you? This one guy is a friend of Sai. You remember him, right? The sugar daddy I met last Friday?"

"That one whitey?"

"Hey don't mock him!"

"I just said exactly as one of the things you described him to me."

Ino only grinned sheepishly when she remembered, "Hehe I kno–no no! That's not the point!"

It was my cue to pull up my fluffy blanket, ready to wrap my sore muscles into a warm cocoon after a long, tiring day at class and work. I knew there's no ending when Ino started this topic. Not until the lack of response I give her when I already fall asleep.

I tucked my head lower to nest on the warmth I’d yearned the whole day while half-mindedly listening to Ino’s a to z explanation as to why I should try meeting this one guy she’d been pestering my hearing at least for the past week. My mind was already half-drifted to sleep as I catched a few key words about said guy: blond, blue-eyed, and ultra rich. The kind of those old-money bastards.

“Sai said he just wants a companion for a dinner, no more than–”

“What’s this? You’re still in touch with this Sai guy?” I narrowed my eyes, demanding an explanation.

Ino only stared at me as she twirled her hair, pink dusted her cheeks, and a shy smile plastered on her lips–things that don't belong to an Ino.

“Oh c’mon, No. You’re kidding right?”

“Huh why? Is there a problem with that?”

“There definitely is. Where’s that one absolute rule you kept telling me about?” Now I sat up to look at her more closely, “The holy ‘one day rule’?” I pushed. “‘Which is to only meet a sugar daddy for a day and become a complete stranger after’,” I recited that line like a verse from the bible, reminding her just in case she forgot. 

“Well, we never know, Hina.” She ended her excuse with a naughty wink.

“Wow, what a great excuse for the one who is always so adamant about rules.”

“Is that a note of sarcasm I just heard?” she narrowed her eyes.

Hearing that response, I folded my arms across my chest and looked at her deadpanned, “A note? It was a whole-ass melody.”

“Hey!” she threw her Elmo plushie at my face but I blocked right before it hit my head. We laughed.

“But really, be careful, No.”

“I am.”

Hearing her replying with such confidence gave me a waft of relief somehow. I gave her a curt smile before standing up to take my glass of water–

Huh?

Thud! 

“Oh My Gosh! Are you alright?!” 

My vision went blurry for a few seconds as I landed on the floor, feeling the world spinning below me. I felt Ino grabbing my arms to help me stand but I squeezed her hand instead. Not that I want to stay in that position. 

I can’t.

I closed my eyes, and opened, and closed again. Trying to grasp back my focus before trying to process what exactly just happened.

“You okay?!”

“Yes,” I said simply. 

“See? Your body can’t even make it to stand. You’ve forced yourself too far, Hina.” She was genuinely concerned. I was aware. But I didn’t know how to reply to that because first, it was true. And second, if I admit it she’d continue pushing her agenda to make me meet that blond daddy she kept telling me about.

“I told you, it’s a good opportunity. He has the money you need. And you only need your presence to accompany him for a day. Then you can rest for days without worrying about part-time-shits for a while.”

See? She always brings this up. 

Ino waited for me though I still didn’t reply. But this time, I–surprisingly–just found another reason not to; which is, third, it finally just hit me of how tempting that offer is.

“You need your deserved rest, Hina. Mid-term exam is coming up and you definitely can’t fail this, right?”

I stared at her and she knew that she was so so right. 

She sighed, “That’s why you need to recover. And study. You can get all those at once just by ‘sacrificing’ a day.”

I fiddled with the hem of my sweater, brain working extra careful in contemplating this offer. I bit my lower lip it became white by the pressure, saying, “You sure he doesn’t want anything else?”

“I’m positive.”

“No s–sleeping together?” my voice was small and uncertain. Explicitly saying it was kinda embarrassing.

“No. Just a date, or a dinner. You name it.”

I held my breath. “Okay.”

And that is the root for all the mess I’ve been going through after that…date? Dinner? I don’t know.

Then here I am–after a whole week has passed since that first and (should be) the last time we met–standing with my super ordinary outfit, hair as plain as how my clothes look–without even a small arrangement whatsoever. Student ID on my hand, a canvas tote bag slings over my left shoulder; I try to catch my breath as I make a sudden halt from my jog to the library and freeze completely when my eyes land on him.

That one guy I met last Saturday night. Blond hair shines golden under the sun and blue eyes beam the brightest light I have never seen on anything else before. 

He looks simple in his denim jeans and black shirt. Both sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, the veins around his forearms protrude and flex as he folds his arms across his chest. 

He looks simple, leaning without a care in the world on his black Bugatti La Voiture Noire–as if it is a common car anyone could afford– and the very car we drove together exactly a week ago. Also, the only car name, or type, or whatever, I ever manage to remember after I read its name last week.

He looks simple, even when he lifts his left hand checking the time at his Rolex circling his wrist.

He looks…simple? 

Really…? Is that the right word?

Then I check again, to all the things surrounding him. 

“Haha..ha..ha..” I breathe, “Simple my ass.”

I stare at him again and ‘simple’ is such a vulgar insult.

He is so fucking not normal. So crazy gorgeous yet intimidating. Extremely attractive yet so mysterious.

Everything about him makes me shrink like a tiny feeble drowning to the endless ocean. 

When chills run down my spine, I snap myself out of it, deciding to hurriedly run away before those eagle blue eyes catch a glimpse of my presence. 

Huh? What makes me think that he, the almighty Uzumaki Naruto, is looking for me? Here? Right now? He might be looking for his friend…? Or another girl…? I’m sure he has thousands of reasons to be standing leisurely there and me, the nobody Hinata Hyuuga, is definitely not upon that list.

My feet have already gathered all their strength to walk away until–holy shit–those blue eyes clash with mine.

Then a smirk makes itself seen on his lips.

Then they mouth ‘found you’ that I somehow manage to make out.

Then that God-carved body moves, walking, leaving his million dollar sport car to me, a mere nobody like me. 

I look around, just in case there’s somebody else around me he is actually walking toward, but nope. There’s only me in his line of sight.

Then our eyes engage in such intense staring as I feel everything around me stands still, the time seems to stop to stare at us.

“You are not even going to say hi?” he speaks. He speaks.

I snap. 

W-When did he…?

“Or are you too stunned to even speak?” he smirks, satisfaction brimming from his voice. 

I stare at him. There's lump in my throat, rendering me unable to utter even a single word. My brain seems to crash as I grip on the sling of my tote bag seeking for an anchor.

Tik.

Tik.

Tik.

Few seconds pass by and he still stands there solemnly while eyeing me with such an intense, overwhelming gaze.

“Say somethin’, Nata.” He talks like silk, yet there’s this weird, implicit dominance emitting from his husky voice–which is so scandalously inviting–that makes me helplessly obey whatever he says. 

“Y-Yes?”

Damn the power he holds over me.

Damn that nickname he gave specially for me.

Dammit. This man is so fucking dangerous.

Goddamit. 

He chuckles. 

Oh fuck. 

He dips his hand into his back pocket and takes something there. Oh fuck that flexing forearm. If I grow a kink for a fucking arm, this bastard right here is solely the one to blame. 

Another step forward is taken, his shiny shoes land on either side of mine, caging my feet within his presence. He towers over me as I try so hard not to choke myself due to my almost-snapping self-restraint to breathe this man in. His pheromone definitely does something to me. It’s so intoxicating.

Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, he traces his back fingers down my right, slender forearm. A familiar warmth settles upon my hand as he grasps it, sending me a wild surge of awakenings from his mere touch–of how he touched me the other time.

“Here,” he whispers, his breath feels nice on top of my head.

My brain still can’t process what he does, or whatever the thing he hands me until I feel something slip through my fingers and he moves in reflex to catch it.

“Woops, careful babe.” 

His affectionate voice lands upon my ears and I’m so so so doomed.

“Phone?” I ask, confused.

“Yours.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you break your phone? You didn’t pick up my calls at all.”

Are you serious?! Dude?!!

“It’s the only reasonable explanation, isn’t it?”

 I snort–mentally, of course. 

“I could have gone to you the first time I made my–unfortunately–failed call but I was aboard that day. Sorry, I couldn’t make it anytime sooner than this.”

He suddenly takes the phone from my grip and leans closer, hand finding its way to tuck it inside my jeans’ back pocket until he finishes it with a gentle pat that stays a second too long there. “Can’t afford you breaking this one too, can we?” his whispers feel ticklish on my ears. A sudden rush of heat come surging to the tips of my ears, or my face in general, or my whole body–whatever, but I swear to God, I can bet that they look so red red right at this fucking moment. 

“W-What–”

“I also have a lot of things to talk about. Let’s meet tonight?” he smiles and I know it wasn’t an offer. It was an order. Woah, such confidence should be a crime, no?

I focus my sight on the black shirt only a few inches away from my nose tip, trying as hard as I can to not imagine any unnecessary things, such as what lies beneath that mere fabric–oh fuck. I really need to stop thinking at all.

I can’t see it but it feels so obvious that he roots his gaze at me until his hand comes to tuck my hair behind my ear with such delicacy. Yet I can’t control the goosebumps standing on edge all over my body as his hand brushes slightly on my cheek.

“And the sweet marks I made down there are almost vanished completely. We might as well renew it later,” he says as his eyes glancing on my exposed neck.

I haven’t even made up my mind to utter a single reply when another attack–which is a quick peck on my temple and a simple ‘see you’–made their way to me. Then I see him walking backward with both his hands tucked inside his pockets and a smirk on his lips as if emphasizing his absolute glory in making my whole being a complete bust with his brief presence.

He tops this goodbye with a wink then swiftly turns around, walking toward his car and driving to the main road. The humming of its machine booms inside my whole world until it finally vanishes in the distance.

I don’t even realize how long I stand like a statue there until my watch beeps, reminding me of my original destination to get the anatomy book I’ve been queuing for two weeks to borrow.

What makes him so confident that I would come to see him again? I wonder. Even though Ino–the one who made the ‘one day rule’–has broken it herself, but I’d made myself clear to hold onto it ‘til the very end before I decided to jump right into this whirlpool of rich people shit.

“Huh? Where’s my student ID?” I rummage through my tote bag as the librarian waits to scan my ID. “I was sure I held it before I jogged here, but then–” oh shit. Holy fucking shit.

It’s only then I got the answer.  

Damn that sly fox.

[thewankbankuk]

BRUCE AND CHRIS

TAKE A HIKE

Bruce anxiously hopped out of the car.  He had just arrived at the national park with his best friend Chris and this was the day he would propose to him.

They met on the swim team in high school and quickly became good friends. They seemed to be together for every major event in each other’s lives since then. They won swim competitions together, went to the same college, and Chris was even there when Bruce’s mother passed away.

They dated for a bit in college, but after they graduated life seemed bent on keeping them apart.  They both got jobs in other cities and began to drift away. They would catch up every now and then by phone or skype, but it was never like old times. But Bruce was so excited when he got promoted and was transferred to the same city as Chris.

This hike meant so much to Bruce. It was a chance to not only celebrate his promotion, but it was also a way to really reconnect with Chris, without any outside interference. A chance to express his thoughts, emotions, and dreams for the future.

The plan was they would reach the mountain top right before sunset. Bruce would, of course, get down on one knee and confess his deep love to Chris. After Chris said yes, they would set up a site and spend a beautiful night under the stars.

Everything was going according to plan.  They had been hiking for 2 hours and would soon be at the peak. But then the strangest thing happened.  A man dressed head to toe in rubber stepped out of the woods in front of them. The man had a loose-fitting black rubber body suit on with rubber boots, rubber gloves, and a gasmask. The rubber man didn’t say anything to them, but they could hear the slow deep breaths coming from the gasmask.

Bruce and Chris looked at each other confused. The rubberman then reach out an arm and offered them a gasmask. Bruce and Chris didn’t say anything and began to turn around in hopes of avoiding any further interactions with the rubberman. As they did turn around though they noticed even more rubber men standing behind them.  As Bruce’s relief to finally be alone with Chris, quickly became anxiety that they were all alone in the woods with these crazy rubbermen. What were these men doing out here and what did they want with Bruce and Chris?

Both Bruce and Chris were very strong muscular young men, but there were too many of the rubbermen for them to overpower. The rubbermen were beginning to close in on them fast. So, Bruce and Chris began to run.

Pushing rubbermen out of their way they ran off of the path and into the woods. Bruce was so focused on running away from the rubbermen that he didn’t notice Chris had tripped over a tree root and fell. Giving just enough time for the rubbermen to swarm around Chris.

Chris yelled and Bruce turned around, but at this point Bruce was too far ahead to help Chris. But Bruce could see the rubbermen hold down Chris and force the gasmask over his head. The gasmask seemed to suction itself to Chris’s head, subduing the young man enough for the rubbermen to control him without much force.

The other rubbermen stopped trying to peruse Bruce and turned around and walked towards Chris. They formed a large circle around Chris and they began to breath heavily through their gasmask in unison.

Chris grabbed at the gasmask on his face trying to take it off. But the longer the gasmask was on the more relaxed Chris became. He then gave up trying to remove the mask and instead unhooked his backpack, letting it fall to the ground. He then pulled out his phone and took off his smartwatch. He placed them on the ground and began to violently smash each device with his boots until each was inoperable. Then Chris stood up straight and let his arms fall to his side, breathing in heavily through his gasmask in unison with the other rubbermen.

The rubbermen broke the circle and Chris began walking naked and robotically into the woods as if he knew where he was going. The other rubbermen began forming a line behind Chris and they all marched in unison.

Bruce watch, from a far, in horror and disbelief.  He envisioned his dream of being with Chris.  A dream that he could not let go of.  

He thought out loud, “What the hell is going on?“

” What the fuck have they done to Chris?“

He didn’t know what to do. They were so far from any kind of help. If Bruce left to get help, he may never see Chris again.

So, Bruce began to follow the men into the woods. If Bruce could just get to Chris and pull the gasmask off his face, they could bolt and hopefully lose the rubbermen.

The rubbermen continued to follow Chris into the woods until they reach an abandoned military complex. Out front of the complex were a few men not in rubber but military uniforms and gasmask. They saluted and watched the rubbermen and Chris walk into the complex. They then stood out front of the complex with rifles guarding the entrance.

It was dark outside and Bruce knew he wouldn’t be able to go through the front, so he began to walk around the complex looking for an alternate way inside. He walked up to a side door to see if it was open. When all of a sudden two military drones emerged from the door, grabbing Bruce and pulling him inside.

Once inside, Bruce quickly looked around trying to orient himself. It was a large dark concrete room with no windows. There were hundreds of crates, against the walls, stacked on each other. There was a single light, hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, where the drones brought Bruce.

Bruce fought and struggled but it was no use. The drones overpowered Bruce and forced him to his knees. Pushing down firmly on his shoulder to hold him in place.

Bruce yelled out “Where’s Chris?”

“Why are you doing this to us?”

But the drones didn’t respond. Then Bruce heard footsteps and deep breathing in front of him. The drones let go of Bruce and he looked up in fear.

But it was just Chris, standing rigidly, completely naked over Bruce. Chris’s muscular body glistening with sweat. Bruce thought that Chris looked really hot. As the sound, the sounds of slow heavy breathing pulsating from the gasmask still over his head made Bruce a bit excited.

Bruce popped up and hugged Chris.

“Chris, I was so worried. Are you OK?” Bruce said, But Chris simply kept staring straight ahead as if he was looking past Bruce. Chris began breathing even heavier through the gasmask. Bruce tried to look into Chris’s eyes but was unable to see them through the dark lenses of the gasmask.  

Chris mindlessly pointed at one of the drones.  The drone put down its gun and walked over to one of the crates, opening it. The crates were full of gasmask and the drone grabbed one and walked over to Bruce, offering it to him. Bruce knocked it out of the drone’s hand and it fell to the floor. Bruce then reached up and tried to pull the gasmask from Chris’s face, but it was no use. The mask was suctioned too firmly.  It seemed to be fused to Chris now.  

Then one of the doors, to the room, swung open and hundreds of the rubbermen flooded into the room. Creating a circle of rubber around Chris and Bruce.  It was clear there was no escaping.  

Bruce began tearing up as the feelings of dread and despair grew inside him. He shook Chris as if trying to wake him from a dream.

But Chris was no longer there Bruce realized. Chris was just a mindless drone like the rest of them.

However, just as Bruce thought all hope was gone, Chris turned his head to Bruce. The lenses of the gasmask glowed as they looked directly into Bruce’s eyes. Chris then began to gently caress Bruce’s face. Bruce leaned into Chris’s hand and began to profess his feelings for Chris. He told Chris that he had always loved him, that life kept getting in the way of that love, and that he wanted to marry Chris so that they would be together forever.  Bruce shared how he had planned to propose on the mountain top as the sunset.  

In a deep robotic monotone voice, Chris responded to Bruce.

“Put on the gasmask Bruce”. Chris continued, “Everything will be better. No need to think. No need to worry, just mindless obedient bliss”.

Chris briefly paused, “We can be together forever. Isn’t that what you really wanted Bruce?”

Bruce began to cry even more, unsure of what to do, falling to Chris’s feet.

“Pick up the gasmask Bruce and put it on” Chris said. “It’s our only way Bruce!”

“Do it for me Bruce, because you love me. Show me how much you appreciate me, and how much you want to be with me”.

Bruce picked up the mask and looked up at Chris. He wanted to please Chris so badly and show Chris how much he loved him. He knew he would be trap into the collective and this would be his new life from now on.  It was his only way he could be with Chris.

“JUST FOR YOU BABY!”   Bruce replied as he slowly slides the gasmask over his head and took his first deep breath. The mask immediately suctioned itself to his head beginning to fuse with his skin. The gas from the mask began to take affect and Bruce began to relax. He started to hear the voices and commands of the collective in his mind and Bruce felt numb and obedient.

Bruce wouldn’t mindlessly obey the orders of the collective, but most importantly he was overwhelmed with joy when he realized he would from now on be perpetually connected to Chris. He could hear Chris’s thought and share the same mindless bliss. They were finally a unit and nothing would separate them ever again.

Bruce stood up letting his arms fall to his side as the gasmask took over complete control of his mind. Knowing this was where he was supposed to be.  A couple drones brought over rubber suits. Bruce and Chris eagerly dawned the rest of their rubber body suits happily joining the collective knowing they would be together forever.  

[hqbbg]

still.

pairing: miya osamu x fem!reader

prompt: “I told you to stay still.”

genre: smut

word count: 5.3K (I got carried away, oops)

warnings: 18+, masturbation, some degradation, oral (f!receiving), fingering, some spanking, vaginal & unprotected s3x (make sure you wrap your presents, kids), like 2 seconds of cockwarming, uhm I think that’s it oop

author’s note: I'm back with another Haikyuu!! Headquarters collab piece! check out the master list of everyone else’s works here ✨ I hope y’all enjoy this!

The air in your room feels thick as you pant helplessly, feeling the familiar ache in your fingers as they begin to cramp up while plunging in and out of your sopping cunt. You feel so close to your own undoing, unable to control your thoughts as they drift to the man whose room is on the other side of your bedroom wall. You can’t help but think that it’s his fingers squelching within your warmth, though you’re sure they would reach much further than yours ever could.

You don’t do this often, touching yourself to the thought of your roommate while he’s out at work or running errands, but lately you’ve been frustrated.

When you had put out an ad for a roommate, you were hesitant. You didn’t have much of a choice, as your last roommate decided to move out in favor of moving in with her boyfriend, leaving you to scramble for a solution in order to continue to afford rent. As a full-time student with a part time job, it would’ve been inconvenient to move out in the middle of the semester, and it seemed reasonable to quickly search for a roommate to help with the bills until your lease was up.

Miya Osamu was hot, to say the least, though it wasn’t the main reason why you ended up choosing him to be your new roommate. On top of having manners and being financially stable, he knew how to cook and respected your space in the apartment. Unfortunately, you’ve been unable to say the same recently. The number of times his room door was cracked open as he changed almost made you consider that he was doing it on purpose, as if encouraging you to take a peek.

As you recall the way his back muscles flexed as he pulled his shirt over his head all those times you’d told yourself that you were just walking by, you let another moan slip past your lips. Your fingers begin to move quicker, toes curling, and you can feel your arm beginning to tire out. Your back arches as your other hand quickly moves to massage your neglected clit, rubbing harsh circles until your vision flashes white.

You fail to hear the front door open and close as your moans continue to fill the room. The memory of seeing Osamu stepping out of the bathroom in a simple pair of grey sweatpants with a towel around his neck is still fresh on your mind. You feel yourself clench around your own fingers as you recall your eyes briefly catching sight of the outline of his cock, the image practically ingrained within you. Too many times have you thought about how it would feel inside of you.

Another moan resonates on the walls and you bite your lip, though it does little to stop you from moaning Osamu’s name. Before you know it, you’re overwhelmed by pleasure and your whole body tenses before it relaxes. Your chest heaves as you lay there, trying to recover from your intense orgasm and you want nothing more than to sleep now. You hardly notice that your door is open.

Over the next few days, you can’t help but feel that something is off with Osamu. Though you aren’t particularly close, you’d like to think that you two have developed some sort of friendship with all the shared meals and evenings spent in the living room just chatting about life.

Did he hear you the other night? There was no way; you made sure to give yourself enough time before he was supposed to come home. Then again, you didn’t hear him come in…

Your cheeks begin to burn at the idea that he’d heard you. You let out a groan as you bury your face in your hands, leaning onto your desk. The little motivation you had to study has effectively disappeared and an unsettling mix of nervousness and shame begins to stir in the pit of your stomach.

Taking a deep breath, you try to push the dreadful thought out of your head and sit upright. An idea suddenly pops into your head and you abruptly stand up. You walk over to your door and poke your head out, scanning the area to locate your roommate. He’s conveniently in the kitchen, snacking on some leftovers he’d brought back from his restaurant the previous night.

“Hey,” you say awkwardly as you step out. He looks over at you and hums in acknowledgement, his mouth full. You decide to go ahead and speak, though your fingers fidget with the hem of your oversized shirt. “You’re not working tomorrow night, right?”

Osamu shakes his head, swallowing his food. “What’s up?”

“Well,” you hesitate, trying to find a way to come off as casually as you can, “I saw this recipe online for some salmon and vegetables, do you wanna be my guinea pig?”

“Sure,” he nods as he shrugs. “What time?”

“Dinner time,” you say, a little too eagerly. “How about seven?”

His lips quirk upwards into a small smile. “Sounds good to me.”

You watch as he takes another bite of his food before you realize you’re staring, clearing your throat.

“Okay, well, have a good night,” you say and quickly scurry back towards your room. Once you shut the door, you release a breath you hadn’t even realized you were holding in. You swiftly move back to your desk, your forgotten notes pushed even further aside as you begin to look for that recipe you’d seen all those weeks ago.

The following day, you make a quick trip to the store to buy ingredients and find yourself nervously counting down the hours and minutes until it’s a reasonable time to start making dinner. You step out of your room to see Osamu already perched on a stool at the small island in the kitchen. He’s slouched over, scrolling through his phone when you walk up. He glances up and greets you with a small smile as you place your phone down near the center of the island countertop.

“Okay, so before I start, I just need to say that I’m definitely not a professional chef in any way,” you say as you move to wash your hands. You can feel his eyes on you as you move around the kitchen, pulling the vegetables from the fridge. You grab the apron hanging on the pantry door and sling it over your head, tying it behind your back.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen ya wear that,” Osamu muses as he leans his cheek on his palm. His elbows are both propped up on the counter and you resist the urge to playfully roll your eyes.

“I have to make sure my shirt doesn’t get dirty,” you say, “it’s one of my favorites.”

He says nothing in response, opting for a light chuckle as you begin to wash the vegetables. Once you finish, you pull out the cutting board in front of him on the other side of the island, placing a carrot in the middle.

You open a cabinet and pull out a knife, giving it a quick rinse before positioning the blade to cut through the vegetable. Placing your fingers on the edge, you lift the knife just slightly.

“Hey, be sure to cats paw,” Osamu pipes up, pointing to the hand that’s on the carrot, “If yer not careful, you’ll knick yourself.”

“Huh?” You blink your eyes at him, trying to prevent yourself from sounding like an idiot.

“Like this,” he says, lifting his hand up and curling his fingers inward into a loose fist. You try not to focus on the veins lining his hands, tearing your eyes away and mimicking his motions. You see him drop his hand from your peripherals and finally attempt to cut into the carrot.

Before you know it, the knife slips from your grasp, making a shallow but clean cut across your index knuckle. You let out a curse and hiss as you drop the knife.

“Whoa, are ya okay?” Osamu stands as you begin to make your way to the sink, blocking your path.

“It hurts, but I’m fine,” you reply, looking at him curiously before glancing at your finger. You examine it for a moment, seeing the familiar crimson begin to bead.

“Let me take a look,” says Osamu, gently grabbing a hold of your wrist. He lifts your hand up closer to his face, his eyebrows slightly creasing as you do your best to resist the blush creeping up to your cheeks. “You should be careful.”

“Well, it’s not like this was intentional,” you grumble, unable to meet his eyes. He sighs softly and you glance at him, opening your mouth to say something. However, your train of thought is  completely derailed when his lips wrap around the small incision.

You feel his warm tongue gently lick around it and you can’t help but stare at the way his lips look around your finger. He catches your eyes and pulls away.

“I used to do this to my brother whenever he’d get hurt or something when we were little,” he says, letting go of your wrist. Your face is burning as you drop your hand back down to your side. “Wait here, I’ll go grab a bandage.”

You nod wordlessly, mind still reeling as you try to figure out and process what exactly had just happened. You watch his retreating figure head towards the bathroom, disappearing for only a moment before resurfacing with a familiar pink wrapper with Hello Kitty’s face scattered across the outside cover, a gift he had received from his brother. He makes his way back over to you, pulling the tabs apart and plucking out the bandaid.

Without prompting, you lift your hand up towards him and watch as he moves your hand towards him with his pinky, wrapping it around your finger.

“There, all patched up. Is that too tight?” He asks, picking up the trash and crumpling it in his fist. You lift your hand up and examine his handiwork, nodding in approval.

“It’s perfect,” you say, feeling your stomach flutter at the self-satisfied smirk that’s found its way onto his face. “I still have to cut the vegetables, though.”

“Hand it over; I’ll do it.” He motions towards the knife.

You pout, making no indication to hand the utensil over to him. “I kind of wanted to cut the vegetables though.”

He raises a brow at you. “Are ya sure? Ya already butchered yer first chance; I don’t want blood all over my kitchen.”

“Your kitchen, huh?”

Osamu shrugs. “I hardly see ya in here, so it might as well be.”

“So are you gonna help me or not?” You raise a brow and choose to ignore his statement as you cross the kitchen to grab your phone, pulling up the recipe to skim through the instructions before placing it back down. “I’m supposed to Juliette these vegetables.”

Osamu stays quiet for a moment. “Do ya mean julienne?”

“Yeah, same thing,” you wave your hand dismissively, walking back over to the cutting board. You pick up the discarded knife, giving it a quick rinse. Upon returning to your original spot at the island, your hands position themselves once again, curling your fingers like Osamu had previously shown you.

“Wait, yer gonna end up hurting yourself again,” he says as he walks up behind you. “How thin are ya trying to cut this?”

“About this much,” you reply, positioning the knife towards the edge of the carrot.

“Okay, first things first,” he says as he wraps his arms around you. Your eyes widen as you feel his chest press against your back, his hands moving to hold yours. “Ya have to cut it in half and get a flat surface.”

He grabs your hand holding the knife and moves it to the middle of the carrot, wrapping his thick and long fingers around the handle, completely swallowing yours. He ensures that his grip is stable before pressing down, the blade making a sharp cut.

“Okay, so now that ya have this, ya said ya want to make them look like noodles, right?”

You can only nod your head, afraid that your voice will crack if you choose to speak. Your head feels fuzzy, your senses overwhelmed by the scent of his musky cologne hitting your nose and the way his strong arms continue to guide you. The heat radiating off his chest envelops you in an oddly comforting embrace and something about it feels very domestic. You try hard to keep your knees from buckling under you, shifting your weight between your feet. You immediately tense when you accidentally press your backside against his hips.

Briefly scanning the island countertop, you see that his phone is on the other side where he’d originally left it when you began cooking and try to ignore the sinful thoughts threatening to infiltrate your mind.

“Makes sense?” Osamu says, his lips dangerously close to your ear.

“I-I think so,” you stammer, though you bite your lip and mentally scold yourself for your faltering voice.

“Alright,” he says, taking a step back. You exhale slowly, trying not to think of the loss of warmth. “While ya keep doing that, I’ll prepare the salmon. Where’s the recipe?”

“It’s on my phone.” You nod towards it, setting the knife down. He walks over to the side of the counter you’d left your phone at and brings it over to you. “What’s yer passcode?”

“That’s classified information, sir.” You see his eyes darken for a moment as you pluck your phone from his hand, typing in the digits before placing it in his open palm.

“Never thought you’d be callin’ me that so soon,” he says offhandedly, locating the recipe in your browser. You feel your lips part to say something, but no words come out.

You simply resume cutting the carrot and grab more vegetables, shaking your head to clear your wandering thoughts. You see Osamu grab the salmon from the fridge, pulling it out and getting some seasonings you’d bought earlier.

“Hey, can ya grab a pan from that cabinet there?” Osamu asks as he points to one of the bottom cabinets in front of your legs.

“Sure,” you nod and take a step back, opening the cabinet door and bending over at the hips. You rummage around for a decent-sized pan, feeling Osamu’s eyes on you before you straighten up. He’s quick to avert his eyes as he holds his hand out to you. You place the handle in his open palm and he takes it, setting it on top of the stove.

The two of you fall into a comfortable silence as you prepare your own things, with you seasoning and cooking the vegetables while Osamu prepares the fish, searing it on the pan. As you both finish your portions, you decide to bring out your nicer plates for the occasion.

Opening one of the top cabinets, you stand on your toes to reach for the plates, wondering how they ended up so high to begin with.

“Need help?”

You jump slightly, startled when you feel his body pressed flush against yours with a hand on the dip of your waist as the other reaches above your head to grab two plates, placing them down onto the counter. You turn your head to look at him and realize just how close he is, his face merely centimeters away. His eyes are on your lips as you tongue pokes out to wet them before they flicker upwards to meet your eyes. You look up at him, anticipating his next move with bated breath, and feel his hand that had been holding the plates move to gently hold your jaw. He leans forward just slightly and your eyes flutter shut as your lips meet.

His lips move slowly against yours, though it’s nothing short of passionate. You feel his hand on your waist pull you closer to him and you lean into the warmth. His tongue swipes across your bottom lip and you open your mouth to welcome the warm muscle inside, letting him explore freely.

The both of you seem to run out of air at the same time, pulling away breathlessly. Before you can say anything, he kisses down your jaw to your neck as you crane your head just slightly so he can have better access and you’re not straining your muscles. He nips gently at the skin before dragging his tongue along, finding a particularly tender spot to pay special attention to. A hiss slips past your lips and you’re reminded of how close he is to you when you begin to feel something hardening against your backside.

“If ya wanna stop, ya have to tell me now,” he mutters against your neck as both of his hands settle on your waist, thumbs playing with the hem of your shirt.

“I’d rather not,” you admit rather shamelessly. You can feel Osamu’s lips curve upwards against your skin as his hands give you a slight squeeze.

“If ya say so,” he says before one of his hands reaches between the two of you to untie your apron. “If ya ever need me to stop, let me know.”

You nod your head absentmindedly, slightly dizzy from the reality of what’s happening right now. One of his hands begins to slide upwards from your waist, cupping your clothed breast and giving it a squeeze, while the other slips downwards under your apron and pushes past the waistband of your shorts, hovering over your panties. Suddenly very aware of the wetness between your legs, you move to close them a little.

“That won’t do ya any good,” Osamu mutters against the back of your neck. As if to prove his point, he presses his middle finger against your clothed slit and swipes upward, humming to himself. “Yer practically dripping and I haven’t even started yet.”

A moan slips past your lips and you can only bite your lip in embarrassment at your own shamelessness.

“It’s just the two of us; you don’t have to be quiet,” he says, as if encouraging you to be as loud as you want and disturb your neighbors. When you still refuse to make another noise, he nudges your legs open with his knees, almost forcing you to lean over the counter for support. As if to further prove his point, he pushes your panties aside and slips his middle finger in between your folds, causing you to let out a gasp of surprise at the sudden intrusion.

“Osamu,” you whimper as you feel him kiss his way towards the back of your ear.

“What is it, baby?” His finger is still and unmoving inside of you as you try to gain any sort of friction, attempting to grind your hips against him. His hand doesn’t move as you feel his tongue trace the outer shell of your ear.

“Stop teasing me,” you practically whimper as you ball your hands into fists on the surface in front of you.

“What do ya want me to do?” He sounds smug and you can almost visualize his teasing smirk behind your closed lids.

“Just fuck me,” you say. You fight the embarrassment heating your cheeks, too aroused to focus on anything else.

“I know we’ve been living together for awhile now, but let’s not forget our manners,” he says, beginning to slide his finger out.

“M’Samu, please fuck me!” It comes out too eagerly, too desperately, but you want him to just do something to you.

“That’s all you needed to say,” he lets out a soft chuckle before he slides his finger back in. You find yourself leaning completely on the countertop so you don’t buckle under him and moan when he slides another finger inside, stretching you.

You were right; his fingers reach so much further than yours ever could.

His calloused fingers continue to thrust in and out of you at a steady pace as his other hand that had been on your breast moves down to slip under your shirt. You bite your lip as you feel him expertly unclip the bra before sliding around to cup the flesh, nudging your loose bra aside. His fingers pinch your hardening nipple and you breathe out his name.

“Careful there, sweetheart,” he practically grunts, “if ya keep soundin’ like that, I won’t be goin’ easy on ya.”

Part of you has half the mind to take him up on the offer while the other is failing to form coherent words and thoughts.

A familiar tension begins to pull at your lower abdomen as you feel yourself getting closer to your orgasm. It seems that Osamu’s also aware, quickly slipping his hands out from your dripping cunt.

“Why’d you stop?” You whine as you turn back to look at him. He offers a smirk before removing his hands completely from your pants and lifting his fingers to his mouth to lick them clean. The way his half-lidded eyes are locked on yours as he swirls his tongue around makes you clench helplessly around nothing.

“Don’t worry, yer gonna thank me later,” he says, dropping his hand. He begins to lower himself so he’s on his knees on the ground before he pulls your shorts and panties down in one clean tug. The cool air hits your wet heat and you bite your lip at the sensation.

You watch him with anticipation as he leans forward, using both hands to massage your ass a couple times before spreading the cheeks apart. He nudges your feet so you can spread a little wider for him, which you wordlessly oblige, and inhale shakily as he leans forward and licks a fat stripe up your slit.

“Fuck, Osamu,” you hiss as you turn back to look at him. You use one hand to reach around and weave your fingers through his hair, fisting it as he begins to sloppily lap at your cunt.

His tongue dives in and out, the wet squelch echoing around the apartment. You feel your legs tremble as he angles his head to reach a bit further before opting to have his fingers rejoin the fun. Your moans sound nearly pornographic as you attempt to grip at anything, unable to get yourself to properly stand as Osamu wags his head a couple times, swirling his tongue in the process.

A sharp gasp leaves you when you feel his fingers angle themselves and hit a spot you didn’t even know existed, your walls beginning to clench and flutter around him.

“I’m gonna cum,” you moan, pushing his head deeper against you. You feel him hum against you as if to encourage you to release onto his face, so you do.

A strangled cry erupts from your throat as you feel every nerve ending spark up and you come undone above him. He lets you grind your hips against him a couple more times before he pulls away, breathing heavily as he stands up. He turns you around by your hips and you see your slick coating his lips and chin.

“Look at this mess,” he taunts you, wiping his chin with the back of his hand. You don’t say anything and wrap your fingers around the back of his neck, pulling his lips down to taste yourself. As you do so, he makes quick work to get rid of his sweatpants and pulls away to lift his shirt over his head. You go ahead and do the same with your apron, tossing it onto the island behind him and removing your shirt and bra to leave the both of you stark naked in the kitchen.

You take a brief moment to unabashedly check him out, admiring how toned and built he is. Chewing on your bottom lip, you let your fingers trace along the hardened and defined lines of his abdomen, trailing your fingers down to palm him through his boxers. You see the fabric straining and recognize the heat rising to your cheeks as you feel how hard he is, creating a slightly darkened and damp spot where the head of his cock is located. You glance up at him and meet eyes as you hook your thumbs on his waistband, pulling them down. His length practically springs to life, standing proud and tall before you and your mouth practically waters at the sight.

Wrapping your fingers around the base, you bite your lip as you drag your hand upwards to the tip and collect his beading precum, spreading it around generously with the pad of your thumb before using it as lubricant to continue stroking him.

“Fuck,” he moans softly as you lick your lips, getting ready to get on your knees to return the favor that he so generously had given you moments ago. He grabs your wrist to stop you and you look at him curiously. “As much as I’d love to see you suck my cock, I just want to be inside of that pussy of yours right now.”

The hungry look in his eyes is all you need before you kiss him again, this time much sloppier than the previous ones. He maneuvers you around the kitchen for a moment and before you know it, you’re bent over the island countertop with a leg propped up on the cool surface. You hear Osamu spit into his hand and look back to see him give his thick cock a couple generous strokes before positioning himself with one hand while the other holds your hip.

You feel the bulbous head nudge your lower set of lips apart before slowly easing in, your back arching at the pressure already building inside of you. A soft hiss escapes your throat as you try to take all of him, grateful when he pauses once he’s bottomed out within you. You take a deep breath for a moment and feel your muscles relax slightly as you adjust accordingly.

“Are ya ready?” Osamu’s voice comes out surprisingly soft as he leans over you, placing a kiss between your shoulder blades. You nod quietly before feeling both hands on your hips as he slowly begins to pull out. You realize just how thick he is when you feel empty, though it doesn’t last for long when he slams right back into you. A strangled mewl bubbles from your throat as he begins to thrust in and out of you. You lower yourself onto your elbows on the counter and ball your hands into fists, no longer caring how you sound; you’re too lost in your own wave of pleasure.

As Osamu continues his ministrations, you feel the counter buzz slightly and hazily look around with half a mind to simply ignore it. You see Osamu’s phone shaking across the surface next to your discarded apron, the screen lit up with an unfamiliar name.

“’Samu, your phone,” you say between moans, “your phone is ringing.”

His hips slow, though his thrusts continue to hit deep inside of you. He doesn’t have to reach far to grab it and glances at the screen.

“Shit,” he hisses under his breath. “Stay still for me, will ya?”

You halfheartedly nod your head, though you can’t help but whine at the loss of friction as he stills inside of you.

“Hello?” His voice is even as he answers quickly. “This is Osamu, yes.”

It’s hard to ignore the slight frustration bubbling in your chest as he uses one hand to keep your hips still while the other holds his phone. He continues to speak formally, so you assume it’s probably someone important or has something to do with work. You know better than to tease him in the event that this call is actually important, but you can’t resist the urge to just roll your hips a little.

There’s a slight hitch in Osamu’s voice before he clears his throat, though it sounds more like a warning to you than anything. However, that doesn’t stop you as you grow more bold, deciding to create your own rhythm of shallow thrusts. His grip on your hip tightens, though it’s not enough to hurt you just yet.

“Something just came up, so I’m gonna have to call ya back,” you hear Osamu say, his voice becoming more strained as each second ticks by. When he finally hangs up, the phone smacks onto the table, startling you to a halt.

“Sorry, I couldn’t w-”

“Ya think yer so cute, dontcha? I told ya to stay still.” His voice is dangerously low as he hunches over, practically growling in your ear. You whimper softly in response, feeling the heat radiating off his skin. You’re not sure if you should be as turned on as you are right now, feeling your walls clench around him.

He stands upright and reaches around to grab one of your arms, practically yanking you back so you’re also standing up. His other hand reaches around to grab your other arm, pinning your wrists behind your back.

“If yer gonna act like a slut, I’m gonna fuck ya like one,” he snarls lowly and you resist the urge to moan. He manages to reach for your apron and rolls it up, looping it around your elbows.

As one hand holds your newly bound arms behind your back, the other holds your hips before he begins to pull out of you. You feel his whole length leave you empty with the exception of the tip and you’re about to complain again when you feel him slam back in roughly.

“Is this what ya thought of when ya were touchin’ yerself?”

You hardly contain the cry of mixed pain and pleasure as your back arches, his hips snapping against yours at a relentless pace. You can barely process his words, though you know the embarrassment will hit you later; you simply can’t form coherent enough thoughts to care. The hand that was on your hip leaves but only momentarily before his palm claps against your ass. You yelp in surprise as he releases your arms.

“What, did ya never get spanked as a kid?” Osamu taunts as he rubs the reddening skin. You lean back over, supporting yourself on your elbows. His comment barely processes in your head as he does it again.

Coherent words fail to form as you feel your legs begin to tremble. You’re practically running towards another orgasm and you can tell Osamu is too, based on his unstable rhythm and sloppier movements. You feel one of his hands reach around you to play with your nipples while you let your own hand rub your clit, the sensations overwhelming you in a crashing wave of pure bliss.

As your walls tighten and flutter, Osamu pulls out and fists his cock a couple times before you feel hot ropes of cum paint your back and ass, a guttural groan leaving him.

“Holy fuck,” he pants once he recovers from his orgasm. You’re still shaking, bent over the island, breathing heavily.

A dull ringing can be heard in your ears from the intensity of your climax, but you faintly hear the sink running for a moment. Not long after, you feel a warm and damp towel wipe across the mess on your backside and Osamu’s gentle arm pulls you up.

“Hey, was I too rough on ya?” His voice is soft and you shake your head. He presses a kiss to your forehead as he hands you your clothes from the ground. “Do ya wanna eat now and shower later?”

“Yeah, I’m starving,” you sigh as your head begins to clear up. You look over to your forgotten food, your mouth curving downwards into a frown. “Wait, did you not turn off the stove?”

“I was a little preoccupied.”

[kimthwariru]

Namjoon reaction—calling him a ‘friend’ when he clearly has a thing for you

❀genre: smut, a bit of fluff

❀collage au

(This was originally supposed to be a quick reaction but something happened to me and I couldn’t stop writing)

“Look, Jisoo, I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong” you flash a cheeky smile at your best friend. She’s being going on and on about how this Kim Namjoon guy had a thing for you.

You can’t lie, you’ve seen him around in campus and sometimes you’d wish he would suffocate you with these thighs of his. Ugh. The perfect combo, lean yet masculine physique with a brain that actually functions for a change. You’ve seen the way these collage girls were circling him around and you can’t blame them, the guy was a catch.

But he was not your crowd of people. He was outgoing, social and had loads of what you like to call “the lad friends”. You guessed his main activities were partying and getting shitfaced every night.

You’ve talked to him a couple of times. He uses the same bench as you to read now and then. You would eventually take sneak peeks at the books he was reading, check if he had any taste or not, and the result was always better than what you expected. This guy knew books. He was not just reading what was on the best seller’s that week to look sophisticated in front of others.

When he caught you peaking he’d started having small talk with you. You swear you’ve never experienced a better conversation flow with another human being. This guy screamed comfort. He seemed genuinely curious about the things you were saying. None of that painful act of pretending to be interested just because he wanted to get laid. You had been talking with him for a month straight and aside from a few moments of some what flirty looks his actions never suggested something more.

His aura was welcoming and he always paid attention to the little things. Unlike some other shallow guys out there, he felt…different.

But how different could he really be? You’ve seen the people he hangs out with. Kim Taehyung? He had a relationship with three girls at the same time. Didn’t even apologize for being the biggest jerk in history. You’ve heard Jung Hoseok’s body count was reaching a 3 digit number AND Jeon Jungkook once fucked 4 different girls at the same night.

Just thinking about it makes you sick. It pains you to admit but there’s only one truth to this. Even if Kim Namjoon was interesting, he was definitely a person you needed to stay away from. All the data point to a big fuckboy alert!

“Come on y/n…. If he wasn’t even in the slightest interested in you then why did he tell me explicitly that he wanted you to attend the party??”

“An invitation to a party doesn’t mean anything. Besides, I’m sure I’m not his style. Have you seen the type of girls he hangs out with? Yikes.”

Jisoo smirked at you “Oh, I see you’re stalking him now?”

You shake your head “Don’t be ridiculous! We take Econ together, that’s all. What? Am I supposed to cover my eyes every time I see him?”

“Maybe you should” Jisoo came closer to you “Y/n, we’re going to that party”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“This is a big mistake, I’ll get bored within the hour” You scream at Jisoo over the loud music.

“Don’t be a whiney ass and enjoy yourself for once” she handed you a drink.

Enjoy yourself for once. You and Jisoo’s definition of enjoying one self were clearly very different. You scan the room to look for any familiar faces you could talk to. Unfortunately, not a lot of your acquaintances attended frat parties.

Your head motion immediately pauses when you meet eyes with Namjoon across the garden. Was he looking at you this whole time? You feel your cheeks burn.

Initially, you don’t know how to react but eventually you flash him a small smile and focus back on Jisoo

“Kim Namjoon just gave me the biggest stare of all time” you say as you down your drink

“What!?” Jisoo’s eyes widened “This is the time where I say I told you so.”

You think for a second that maybe Jisoo was right all along. But that just makes the whole thing more dangerous for you. You can’t lie, Namjoon is attractive, but you knew he was trouble. Maybe he liked you today and then liked another girl tomorrow.

Suddenly, you feel a hand touch your shoulder “Hey y/n, Jisoo. Glad you guys made it” Namjoon’s low voice pierced your ears.

Jisoo gave you a look before replying to him “Hey!! We couldn’t miss such a night!” She smiled “right y/n??”

“Yeah!! Totally” you cheer kind of awkwardly.

Namjoon’s eyes fixed on you. You felt his stare eat you up. His whole presence felt angelic yet overwhelming. “Do you guys maybe want to join us? We’re sitting right by the pool”

“Oh! Sure, why not!” Jisoo answered almost immediately

You were walking towards the pool, Namjoon was pacing right next to you, he was so close to the point where you could sort of smell his cologne. You swear you could get drunk off his scent.

“I have to be honest, I didn’t think you’d actually come” He chuckled

“Are you disappointed?” You teased and raised an eyebrow.

You see a dimple smile making its appearance, how can this dude be so incredibly hot and cute at the same time? “I think pleasantly surprised would be the right way to put it”

Why do you feel like you can not breath? He hasn’t said much, yet you feel yourself burn up all of a sudden. “Good to know” you smile back.

“Joon! You have to see this” was the first thing Taehyung yelled when you arrived to the place where the guys were sitting “12 o’clock, Hobi making out with Mina from 3rd year. Can you believe it? After two years of trying to get it, he finally succeeds”

Of course the main talk is girls. No surprise there.

“Jungkook bitch, you owe me 20 bucks” Taehyung eyed Jungkook

Your expression screamed disgust. Apparently, Namjoon noticed “They are not as bad as they seem” he elbowed you.

You give him and awkward laugh “I’ll take your word for it” You lie.

“Guys, this is Jisoo and y/n. Can you stop trying to head lock each other and say hello? You’re embarrassing me” Namjoon introduced the pair of you to the boys who were still arguing about the bet. 

“Oh, hey girls.” Taehyung paused to inspect Jisoo’s face. “Hey, business and shipping? Ain’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, right!” Jisoo smiled

“Hyung aren’t you taking that class for like the third time? How many times can you fail you recon?” Jungkook teased him and Taehyung answered by giving him a slap on the shoulder.

“Hey y/n, do you want to go grab a drink? I think you’ll need it if you are to tolerate these guys” Namjoon offered.

“I trust you know best” you smile and quickly follow behind him. His shoulders wide and his muscles very visible even through his airy shirt. This guy was a whole statue.

“By the way, I’ve never seen you at parties before. I think I saw you once at the December ball but that’s about it. Not really a big fan of these kind of things, are you?” He suddenly said. You can’t really decode his words. How did Kim Namjoon know you even went to the December ball? You’re pretty sure you didn’t even talk to him that night.

“Interested in me much?” You give him a cheeky smile but he was just looking at you, a couple of seconds passed without him responding “I’m only joking! It’s true I don’t really attend these sort sort of things.”

“And what do you do for fun miss y/n?” He laughs and you swear if you could bottle the sound and get drunk on it you would.

“Oh you’ll think I’m lame”

“Try me” he said in a serious tone while starring right through your eyes. Suddenly, your body felt too heavy for your legs to bear. How can he get to you like that?

“Okay…” You start, him looking at you like that didn’t help control your train of thought, but you manage to get a hold of yourself “So you know that little corner cafe on willow street? Every Friday they have these comedy music nights. A guy-“

“Park Jihoon and the little funny guitar, yeah! I used to go there every Friday during my freshman years! Do they still do that old thing? I swear the pun with the atom never failed to make my day.” He started laughing again.

“Whoah what? You’re telling me you’ve been to the shrieking shack?” That place was a little treasure you’d found earlier this year. It was an amazingly cozy place, perfect during the cold winter time. The staff were all so kind and wore these big oversized colorful ties. But the people going there were all much older than you. You’ve never heard someone your age talk about that place. Let alone a person like Namjoon.

“Careful how you talk to a veteran y/n. I’ve basically helped to build the place” he chuckled.

“Y/n is that you?” A familiar voice greeted you.

“Jimin! Oh my god, hey! It’s been ages since I’ve seen you!” You hug him.

Jimin was a great soul, he majored in contemporary dance and ballet. He had been traveling for the past couple of years enrolling in some extra ballet classes in the magical city of Paris. You envied him for his talent and admired him for his passion.

“Girl, you have to come visit me. You’ll love Europe!”

“I would also LOVE to have some money in my wallet” you laugh “Oh Jimin, this is my friend, Namjoon. We go to collage together”

Namjoon gave you a look and soon after shook Jimin’s hand “What’s up. Nice to meet you”

“Nice to meet you too! But y/n, I’m so so sorry, I have to go. I was actually on my way out just now. I sort of uhm, have a thing-you know” he coughed “I’m leaving in two weeks, can we please meet before that?”

You knew Jimin was probably off to his ex boyfriends house. They broke up before Jimin left for Paris but every time he got back he’d have a couple of hookups with him. “Oh yeah! I bet you’ve got something very important right now, you better go quickly” you teased him “I’ll text you tomorrow, ok?”

Jimin laughed so much his eyes were barely visible “definitely! text me! I’ll be off then! Bye mister Kim Namjoon” he playfully said and was out of your sight a second later.

“You two seem…close” Namjoon suddenly commented

“Yeah! We were! But he has been studying abroad for like two years now.”

Namjoon’s facial expression was quite enigmatic “Did you guys ever… you know”

“Oh no no no.” You pause to make a small chuckle “Jimin isn’t exactly interested in, well, girls like me, or to be exact, girls in general”

Namjoon’s eyes widened and he immediately bursted into laughter “oh… I see” he made a pause “So tell me then, how come the old soul that never goes to parties finally attends one?”

You feel your cheeks burn red. Partly because the reason you went was him. You don’t know why, but the past month you and Namjoon hit it off very well and you wanted to test Jisoo’s crazy theory, you wanted to make sure for yourself if Namjoon was interested in you or not. Now the problem was, even if it turned out he did like you, you didn’t know what you’d do exactly. Namjoon was a really nice guy, but he didn’t come without his red flags.

“Just wanted to try something different, I guess”

“And how’s that 'different' treating you so far?”

What could you possibly tell him? That you have enjoyed every minute you guys have been talking? That you think that just by staring at you he could make you feel things no other guy could? You barely can admit all of that to yourself. “I think pleasantly surprised is the right way to put it” you repeat his words from before.

You see him smile at that. “You know what y/n? I’m really happy you came”

How can he make your heart beat so fast with just one sentence? “Oh really? And why is that?”

“I don’t know, I guess… I just like talking to you, you know? Whenever I’m around you I feel at ease, like I can tell you anything. I feel different when I’m with you, but in a good way”

“Wow” that sound escaped your lips without your consent

Namjoon laughed “Why? Is it too weird?”

“No! Definitely not weird, more like, I don’t know, surprising?”

“In what way?”

“Well you’re… Kim Namjoon, you’re the 2021 class president and you’re like the most popular guy in the whole campus right now.” You made a pause “And I’m just..-“

“The most interesting girl I’ve ever met” he cuts you off

The way he was looking down at you made butterflies grow in your stomach “You really think so?”

He gently grabbed your waist and pulled you closer to him “I know so” he leaned down, you swear his eyes had the whole galaxy painted inside of them. You couldn’t even breath properly at this point. Kim Namjoon was too close and the only thing you were thinking about was how well his kiss would feel “God, you’re so beautiful” he said and pulled you in for a soft, gentle kiss.

You couldn’t believe your senses. Kim Namjoon was kissing you and you really thought the earth had stopped spinning right then and there. You could feel his big palms traveling up and down your back.

His kiss was breathless, jubilant, filled with the joy of life, and you should stop him, he is no good to you, you know that, but his scent is delightful and his lips are so warm.

Unconsciously, your hands reach the inside of his shirt. His skin hot and soft at the touch.

"y/n" he practically moans your name, and just the sound makes your knees go week "Don't do that, I don't think I'll be able to stop"

"Who said anything about stopping?" You say and go back to kiss him even more passionately this time.

“There’s a lot of people here, my room is upstairs, would you perhaps want to-“

“Yes.” You immediately say. You don’t care about anything anymore, you’d let your future self deal with the consequences of today’s actions. The only thing that has been lingering in your mind is how good he’d feel inside of you.

The moment you’re finally alone in his room, he lifts you up, swinging you around and kissing you. It was like a dream. Namjoon was everything you wanted. Your reluctance about getting with him didn’t matter any more, the tingly feeling in your stomach overtook every single bit of hesitation you had. You needed him.

“God, you’re lovely” he exhaled

He looks at you as he sinks you down on the bed. Planting a soft kiss before his hands quickly begun to peel away clothes, yanking his belt loose, fumbling hurriedly at his trousers.

You look at his lips tracing your skin and the faint moisture left behind, you look at his muscly arms as he lifts you up and sinks you down again, you look at him looking at you, with eyes brighter than the sun itself. Was this all a dream?

When your dress was finally off he undoes your bra clasp on the way down. Slowly planting kisses on your collarbone, the tops of your breasts, your sternum, and you arched you back as you were needy for more.

His lips finally reach your nipples .Your boobs smooth under his hands, your nipple firm under his tongue, and there, that makes you squirm again, a little more insistently this time.

“Fuck, I’m so fucking wet right now, I feel it” You moan

You see him raise an eyebrow. A vivid smirk painted on his face “Let’s check, shall we?”

He splays his hand low across your belly, and the first brush of his thumb over your clit makes you breathe in sharply and him forget to breathe at all.

“I’m your friend?” He breaths in, his voice dangerously low

“Oh come on” You manage to say in between moans “what was I supposed to tell Jimin?”

His strokes and flicks are light and teasing, his thumb carefully circling around your clit. He gives you a slow, constant, unyielding pressure that makes your breath come up short, makes your toes curl in the effort not to move.

“I’m gonna fuck the word ‘friend’ right out of your pretty little mouth” he covers your mouth with an intense kiss before slipping two fingers of his free hand inside of you, and you makes a noise like triumph and want all wrapped up together. If his fingers felt like this, you can’t imagine how his dick felt like.

“Hmm?” He doesn’t look up, he keeps his eyes on his hands, on you, spread out beneath him “You like that baby?”

God, just the way the word 'baby' sounded coming from his mouth could make you come right this second. You look at him, his eyes look as hungry as his voice sounded. This dude was out of this world.

“Please Namjoon, I want it, I want you inside of me right now”

Namjoon lowered his underwear, and simply pressed his hard member on your slit. You could feel his balls softly caressing your clit as he made subtle movements while kissing you. “Such a needy little thing” he teases “Tell me how bad you want my cock inside of you”

“Oh..” you moan “I’d do anything, please…give it to me… fuck me like you own me” you whined as you used your pussy to caress his length up and down. He seemed to enjoy they way you touched him.

“Fuck y/n… that feels so good” he rests his forehead on yours.

“Imagine what my inside will feel then” you whisper in his ear “I’m such a tight good girl” you move your mouth in front of his, bitting his bottom lip as he growled when he felt your movement grow faster

“Fucking hell” he immobilized your body with his hands and pressed you down to the bed. He immediately shoves his dick inside you, filing you up to the brim before staying there for a couple of seconds and then pulling out completely. That movement made your vagina crave to be filled all the way up again.

“More” you whine, a dopey expression all over your face. You were so needy of him, but you didn’t care.

He lowered his left hand towards your thigh and gave it a big squeeze, kissing you aggressively while doing so. He quickly braced himself back into you, you felt your walls completely wrap around his member. It felt magical.

His strokes long and steady in the beginning. Every time he went in and out completely you felt the pit of your stomach burn in pleasure. Namjoon was doing everything right, you can’t lie to yourself, this is the best sex you’ve ever had. Normally with other guys you don’t even come close to coming, but now, you feel yourself trying not to do so.

“You like my dick being inside of you baby?” He plants a small kiss on your neck and goosebumps run down your spine.

‘Like’ was nowhere near good enough of a word to explain how much the sensation of him thrusting his hard member in and out of you made you feel. “I love it Namjoon… I just love it…”

Your words must’ve turned Namjoon even more on, because his pace immediately started becoming faster and sloppier. Every time your skin touched a loud sound could be heard. Namjoon was thrusting deeper and deeper into you, and every time he’d fill you up completely you’d cry out his name.

“Ah, I like my name so much better when you fucking moan it like that” he says and started shoving his dick inside of you like crazy. You could tell he was close to coming, and so were you.

It wasn’t long until you felt your walls clenching and your toes curling. The sensation overtook all of your body, it was mad… your heart beat uncontrollable. Namjoon made you feel a completely new range of emotions.

“Ah y/n, I can feel you cumming all over my dick” his voice cracky, You could see how turned on he was by all of this, by you. “Fuck” he shoved harder “You’re so” harder “fucking hot”

Namjoon stopped and pulled out immediately spreading his cum all over your tummy. The sight was breathtaking, you’ve never found a man so attractive while coming before, but then, Namjoon is no ordinary man.

He quickly grabs a couple of tissues and wipes you clean before laying on top of you again, placing another soft kiss this time. His hand playing with your hair. You were both naked and sweaty and a mess but it felt so magical. You wrapped your hands around his broad shoulders, pulling him even closer to you. You didn’t want even a centimeter of distance between you and him.

He suddenly stopped kissing you and simply stared at your eyes. After a minute or two, or maybe three, you're not really sure, time didn't exist right now, he tacked a string of hair behind your left ear.

“Y/n, let me take you on a date. Please. I know you don’t normally go out with guys like me, but I swear I’ll make it worth your while-“

“Park Jihoon and the little funny guitar. How does that sound? Or are you too good for the shrieking shack now?” You chuckled

“I’d love that” he smiled, making your heart melt a little.

[get-shiggy-with-it]

collab masterlist

✧ pairing: villain!hawks x afab!reader

✧ word count: 5k

✧ warnings: this is like all smut, angst, ambiguous but happy ending, unhealthy relationships, mentions of transactional sex, reader has a healing quirk but it's really just for poetic purposes, reader has a vagina, no other gendered parts, oral sex (reader receiving), vague metaphorical drug reference, mentions of blood, mentions of wounds, mating press, soft sex (?), sorta, slight potential could be read as dubcon but they're both into it

✧ summary: for years you've stitched hawks back together when the world has torn him to shreds—and he always pays you back, though you can't help but start want more than he can give you.

✧ a/n: hey y'all this months theme was villain/hero swap with a shared opener! please go check out all the other wonderful works in this collab, there are so many talented writers/artists involved!! credit to @/lady-bakuhoe for the amazing intro. also bonus points if you catch the old aesthetic tumblr post references.

Breaking news: We have yet another report to add to the slew of attacks this month, this comes just days after we broadcast rumours of villains running rampant over the city. This spate of attacks has put the entire metropolitan area at a standstill, road closures and damaged property making it difficult for commuters to get to work in the morning. Road maintenance endeavour to do its best to keep the city running, but it seems futile when these attacks continue to increase. The entire city was brought to a standstill by the mysterious villain who has still not been named, but reports show they are nothing like we have ever experienced before.

Where are the heroes now? Who will save us from the terror overwhelming our city?

Every day the crime toll continues to rise and we have no one here to protect us. The Hero Public Safety Commission assured us earlier in the week that the crime rate would go down, that the top Heroes are out there protecting our city, but if so, where are they? Is it really safe to go out anymore, who can we trust? Would you put your life in the hands of a Hero today? When they have proved our streets are no longer safe. We still have no information on what is going on, or who is involved but we must remain observant. We will continue to report the latest news as we receive it, but for now, we must implore you to heed the warnings of the city-wide curfew that is soon to be implemented. If anyone has any information on these occurrences in the city please send them to us or contact the police, you can remain anonymous. The safety of our citizens is what is most important, stay vigilant and don’t go out unless it is absolutely necessary.

One thing we know for sure: we can no longer rely on Heroes to protect us. The streets of our once-great city are no longer safe, we are no longer safe.

***

You can only touch him when he’s dying.

That fact is made even more horrifically apparent as he stumbles through your open window—and how long has it been since you’ve slept with it closed?—dripping with blood and panting from his flight.

The T.V. blares in the background, filling your tiny apartment with incessant ramblings that only grow louder by the day, and you already know what they’re going to say before they say it. Because you see him, before the reporters stumble upon heroes in the wreckage—you see what they do to him before they’re warning the public of dangerous villains loose in the streets.

They spout off about failing heroes but you think they’ve done a pretty damn good butchers job. Red feathers matted together, sticky and brown, fall in tufts from his back. You burn with shameful jealousy at the thought of those who would call themselves heroes having laid hands on what is yours.

He isn’t really yours and you know that, though you often wish you could be a bit more delusional. It might not hurt so much then.

They call him a villain. They call him a threat to society.

But even faced with the truth spilling from him and onto your creaking floors, it is easy to forget what a ruthless predator the man before you becomes when he leaves these four walls.

Especially as he falls forward on heavy feet straight into your arms, outstretched and waiting. There are stains on your shirt but you’ve known the secret for getting blood out of clothing for years now. Cold water for the fabric, warm to wash away the grime on his lovely skin.

“Gonna need you to fix me up again, sweetheart,” Hawks mumbles into your shoulder where his forehead rests.

His breathing is even more ragged now, not just from the flight.

“I know,” you reply and your hands shake when they find the gaping wound at his side—wide and deeper than the ones before. “I know. Can you walk?”

He doesn’t respond but that mop of golden hair shifts a bit as he slings an arm over your shoulder and rests his weight. You don’t need to direct him to your bedroom. This is an old game you’re playing and he knows the steps.

So do you.

Though, you’re never sure if it's dread that fills you and makes your stomach knot and your knees weak. Or if it’s that awful, momentary rush of excitement at the prospect of being able to run your fingers over him, bare and giving you free reign.

As long as he’s bleeding out on your floor.

Then you can feel him.

When he’s dying and needs you.

Needs you to fix him.

But won’t ever let you close enough to finish the job the way you want to.

You comfort yourself in with the knowledge that at least he lets you this close. At least those thin, silver-skin scars are the unmistakable mark of your healing hands. At least you’ll always haunt him like the red feather down that sticks to your pillows or between your floorboards.

So you strip him carefully and try not to let his sculpted chest distract you from the work. Hawks is silent, such a model patient as always. Only grunting when your fingers move to knit together the ragged edges of his flesh.

This will leave a nasty mark, you know it already. But you can’t find it in yourself to mourn the loss of that lovely skin.

It will only make it harder for him to forget you.

You’re knelt beside him, laid out on a towel you keep at the edge of the bed. Blood will soak through to the sheets regardless, but you try your best. He takes a sharp breath, white teeth catching the back of his hand between them to stifle groans.

You wish there was more pleasure to it. That he was biting back moans for you instead of trying not to scream as his flesh pulsed and grew hot while it was rebuilt under your fingertips. So you indulge, pretend your hands are elsewhere, roaming his perfect waistline and pulling whimpers from him.

Your dangerous, villainous, predator Hawks sprawled on his back, wings spread and cumming onto his chest under you.

The sounds above you change, and you know it hurts—must be excruciating as bone is set back into place—but you chose to believe it’s because he’s trying to keep himself from screaming your name as he reaches his release.

Hawks, you’d croon to him—Hawks because you don’t know his real name. Don’t know who he was before he started this underground life of crime on the fringes of a society that called him a monster and then turned him into one.

He isn’t a monster in your bed, though he may cry like one.

Cry as you mold his flesh and try not to look him in the face. Try to pretend they are an overflow of some better emotion. And when those summer wheat field eyes roll back in his head and those horrible pretty noises stop, you push past the growing ache in your limbs until the skin under your palms is smooth and no longer leaking thick, red blood.

And you do your best to resist the itch to feel more of him while he can’t stop you. Even with your fingers numb from overexertion, you can’t help but fall back on your heels and long for the feeling of his cheek in your hand, or his chest on your face.

But your part of the transaction is done.

And your permission doesn’t extend past these limits.

And it pains you to wish harm on him.

But it hurts even more when he does not need you.

So you sit and hate yourself and hope that those heroes with their disgusting philosophies get their shit together just a bit more. So you won’t lose your purpose. So he’ll keep coming through your window, permanently open through rainstorms and snow and spring heat.

Hawks’ breath evens slowly, and you stay still as a watched painting—no shifting eyes or moving limbs.

You crave these times like water or warm food—constant and instinctively.

And this is the only time you’ll ever have them, hands so filled with pinpricks of fried nerves that you can barely feel the soft, relaxed muscle beneath them.

What a tragedy.

What an injustice—

You can only touch him when he’s dying.

***

“Hmm,” he groans, sitting up and wincing as the new flesh protests under his movements.

“You should rest for a bit longer.”

Hawks looks at you, stretched next to him on the mattress—a purposeful few inches of space left between your bodies. It’s both selfish and practical advice.

But he isn’t here for that kind of help.

“You know I can’t just be sittin’ on my ass,” he quips, flashing you that eyes closed, wide smirk that sets your heart hammering in your chest. “Can’t have anyone tracing me back here.”

“Normally I’d agree,” you don’t find it in yourself to give the words any bite, “but you were just actively bleeding out a few minutes ago.”

“Sure, but that was a few minutes ago,” he winks and you can already feel the bed shifting as he moves to settle himself over your hips, one toned thigh on either side to bracket you against the bed. “Now, let me pay you back for all that hard work, yeah sweetheart?”

You wish the way he peered up through those long lashes, gold eyes honed in on you like a piece of meat on a hook, didn’t make your face burn this much.

It doesn’t mean anything to him.

Because this arrangement really is transactional—so you have to get something out of it too. At least, that’s what he tells himself, you think. He doesn’t know that those scant few moments you hold his life between your fingers is more than enough payment.

It’s been this way since the very first time you stumbled across him, half dead in an alley. But then you think it might have just been a ‘heat of the moment’ sort of thing that had just stuck.

You heal him and he makes you writhe on the sheets with his tongue and his hands, until you're fucked into unconscious bliss and he can slip away without your prying eyes watching him go.

But you still aren’t allowed to touch Hawks, even when he reaches into those deep parts of you and molds them to fit only him.

“You don’t—” you start to protest, partly because you want to believe you don’t want it and partly because you want to hear him insist that he does.

“Shh,” Hawks presses a calloused finger to your mouth and it takes every ounce of strength not to suck it past your lips. “I don’t like leaving my debts unpaid.”

That’s the end of your determination for the night. So you try to relax into his touch as slides your bottoms off and tosses them to the floor. Try not to clench up under those fingers that spread your legs. He doesn’t like it when you squirm away, when you flinch from his hands.

You want to think it’s because he hopes you aren’t afraid of him—of what he is—like the rest are, and not because he wants to get it over with as quickly as possible.

You want to.

But he’s so hard to read, and your mind is not often a kind place.

“Mm, god I’m always so hungry after you patch me up baby,” Hawks licks his lips as he stares down at you. “You won’t mind if I eat you right?”

You cringe at how fast your head shakes.

“Mm, course you wouldn’t.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice, and he’s right though you resent it a bit that he’s got you pegged so easily.

But you’re weak, you’re no villain, you’re no hero.

And so you’ll never be able to resist him. But, damn, did you wish you had a name to cry out. Then at the very least, you could keep a part of him with you too. Then you’d have some to moan on the nights he goes uninjured and you have to bring yourself to lonely release, only thinking of him.

Of those wings spread above you like a burning, red sunset, obscuring the rest of the world from view with his blinding light.

“Hawks…” you hiss instead as he shifts your legs over his shoulders and lays his tender chest on the sheets. “Please.”

“Yeah, yeah, what’s it gonna be tonight then?” he asks, breath ghosting over the damp folds between your thighs.

“Thought you said you were gonna use your tongue,” you whine, impatient now for any scrap of attention he’s willing to give.

“If that’s what you want,” he presses a kiss into the crease of your leg and hip, nipping the delicate skin so you whine again. “It’s whatever you want, you know that.”

It isn’t though.

It’s not whatever you want.

You can pick the position, you can ask for his mouth or his fingers, but even then, they won’t go past your neck. Your hands must stay firmly knotted in the comforter and away from him while he works. Cause he is working. This is part of the job to him, it's only in your fantasies that he’s doing it simply for the hell of it.

Hawks nudges your embarrassingly soaked slit with his nose and hums at you, “So is that what you want? Want me to eat your pretty pussy, yeah?”

“Yes—ngh,” you don’t get much in past the confirmation.

He’s a busy man.

He doesn’t have time for your stupid, romantic day dreams.

So he dives right in, and it’s enthusiastic enough that you can convince yourself he simply wants you that badly.

Hawks tongue licks a long strip from your hole to your clit and sucks the little bud past his plush lips. They’re a lovely, soft pink against your skin and they make a mess of you in seconds. He starts up an even rhythm, drawing circles into the nerves that sing and have heat building up in you only seconds after he’s started.

You hate that you love how well he knows your body.

You hate that you only know his when it’s shutting down.

“You taste so good, you know that?” he mumbles, lapping at you and kneading your thighs. “Could live down here just drinking you every fucking day.”

He doesn’t always talk like that but you’re happy he is now. It distracts you from the deep, ingrained urge to yank him by the hair and taste yourself on his lips.

“Makes me wish I’d let those damn heroes get hits in more often,” he’s back to panting and you keen at the sound. “Want my fingers too?”

“Fuck yes,” you don’t even bother hiding the desperation anymore.

He deserves the boost to his ego. You’d shower him with praise if he’d let you, bathe him in warm words and press them into his skin with your tongue.

But he doesn’t let you.

Hawks’ hand on your thigh trails slowly against the sensitive skin until he’s pulling back to run his fingers through your folds to ease the stretch a bit as he pushes two inside. He knows you can take what he gives to you, knows you love the way he fills you up.

Your tingling hands ache to grab his head and force his lips back as he sits for a moment, eyes glued on the space where his fingers disappear into your body. He groans low at the wet sounds your bodies make at their joining. Your legs shake where they rest on him, the one other point of contact he’s allowed. Those deadly soft feathers brush your calves as he curls his fingers up and waits expectantly for the strangled cry he pulls from you.

“There it is,” his voice is so much lower when he speaks now. “Can’t exactly show you the real ones, but how ‘bout you let me make you see some stars, huh?”

He asks so much of you. So much. So often.

In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever actively asked him for a thing he hadn’t already offered in the few years you’d known him. Hawks does it all—the taking and the giving and the demanding.

And you’re simply along for the ride, holding on for dear life lest he drop you, let you plummet like rock to the barren ground.

Still, you are mortal and you crave and you will take what you can get.

“Mhm,” you whimper when his deft fingers increase their pace, not thrusting but grinding mercilessly into that delicious spot inside.

“You wanna cum now, sweet thing?”

Then, true to his villainous nature, Hawks latches his lips back onto your clit, wracking your body with waves of truly sinful pleasure. His tongue draws quick, perfect circles across the bud just how you like. You’ll never know why it feels so much better when it’s him touching you.

How he knows exactly what you want.

Most of it.

Then his other hand is reaching around your hip, thumb taking over to press down where his tongue had been. Panting for the third time, his gorgeous head rests on your thigh and he stares dead on into your eyes. That predator yellow gaze pins you to the pillows better than any hand could and he licks across his lips while you watch, moaning as he tastes you there.

You groan deep and unabashedly at the sight.

“What is it?” he’s teasing you, unable to keep that part of his cruelty hidden even now. “What do you want?”

You shake your head and wish you could turn away, flop against the mattress and writhe but you can’t. You just can’t give up this moment that’s etching itself into your retinas—like you’re staring head on at an eclipse, celestial and short-lived.

“Tell me,” Hawks whispers, nipping at your thigh and working his fingers harder on you. “Whatever you want, you’ll get it.”

And maybe it’s the sudden heat of the room, or the little breeze from his wings spreading defensively to block you from view of his nonexistent audience—the outside world maybe? To keep you, this secret indulgence, hidden from their prying hands. Or quite possibly it’s just your own weakness at the feet of years and years of loving—because you do, you love him, it’s clear by now that’s what this is—this man whose name you don’t know and whose eyes never seem to leave you even when he’s gone.

Maybe you simply crack under the pressure of keeping this awful, looming silence for too long.

You feel your lips split at the seams and it all comes rushing out in a polluted flood—a stagnant river of secrets.

“Let me touch you,” you gasp and close your eyes then just so you won’t have to see that grin slip from his beautiful face. “Please Hawks, let me touch you. I can’t do it anymore, just—I need to kiss you, I need more.”

All this time he hadn’t let up on pulling pleasure from your skin, but he stops now, bringing your release to a screaming halt.

The quiet that follows—devoid of fast breaths and wet slapping—is suffocating.

You wish you regretted the outburst, the waste of years worth of work to keep him coming back.

But you don’t.

Of course you will in a minute, when he slips away and doesn’t return.

But now it just feels as though that boulder of secrecy has been lifted off your chest and you can finally take in lungfuls of sweet, unhindered night air.

It’s only after that dreadful minute has passed and there are still hands on you—buried in you—that you dare to open your eyes again.

Hawks is staring blankly, an expression you’ve never seen before, so stark from the usual quirk of his lips and tilt of his chin. Blank, but calculating. You can see the gears clanking as his thoughts rush a mile a minute, faster than he’d ever dream of soaring over the city skyline.

He blinks once, twice, then again and you can see the redness blooming at the corners as his eyes grow glassy between each flutter of lashes. And then, as though moving through honey, he draws back from you, only to crawl up your body until your noses touch.

You hold your breath, lip caught between your teeth, but his slicked thumb comes up to pull it out of your gnawing reach. He strokes across the puffy skin, never meeting your gaze, until he slowly, slowly leans down.

It’s not really a kiss, more of an accidental brush, so little of your lips touch you could easily have imagined it. When he speaks again, you can feel him forming the words against you.

“I—” he starts and licks his lips and yours and you don’t think it’s an accident, “I can’t.”

It isn’t what you want him to say, but it’s better than a silent loss .

You know truth when you hear it.

“I know.”

And you do, you do know, you’ve always known. He’s darker when he’s not with you. You’ve seen the carnage he leaves behind broadcasted on screens, but it’s never stopped the ache before.

He can’t keep you the way you want, can’t have things that get in the way.

You can only touch him when he’s dying. You can heal him, reform his flesh and bone—pull him back from the brink—but you’ll never feel his chest against yours or his hair slipping through your fingers or have all of him buried inside you. He’ll never love you like you want him to.

It doesn’t stop you from wishing.

And apparently, it doesn’t stop Hawks from kissing you anyway.

“I can’t,” he repeats and it sounds so broken you almost think that wound has reopened and he’s going to start slipping away again.

But the only thing that slips is his tongue past your lips and tangling with your own.

And then the levee breaks.

It’s a sudden torrent of hands and legs knotting together like the torn edges of too many injuries. Hawks covers every available part of you like an addict seeking his fix. It’s breathless and uncoordinated but you’ve never felt more alive, alight, aflame.

He presses his lips to yours again, pulling away and then diving back in. Frantic hands pull you off the mattress until your back is against the headboard and he’s straddling your lap. You take the opportunity to sink your fingers into that goldenrod hair and it’s just as silky as you’d imagined it to be.

Hawks moans into your mouth, kissing you wildly, like the beast he is with teeth clacking and your tongue sucked between his lips.

“I can’t,” he keeps mumbling, between groans and hips grinding and hands grabbing, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t— “

You wonder then which one of you he’s trying to convince.

But you don’t ask, just let your hands wander to the delicious curve of his ass on your thighs and squeeze, rolling his bulge against you. His fingers push and proud, ghosting across your chest and stopping to pinch your nipple. He drinks down the whimpers you let out, letting his lips wander your jaw and throat, sucking bruises—leaving his own scars on you—as he goes. He pushes you back down to the pillows so his lips can continue their work, latching onto the quickly hardening bud and suckling lightly. His groan sends little shockwaves through you and he looks up with brows furrowed like he’s in pain with how good it all feels.

“I’m sorry,” he says and it’s so soft you barely hear it between licks at your chest.

“No,” you finally find it in you to respond, shaking your head and pulling him back to your lips.

“I’m sorry,” he says again while you nip at his earlobe and down his jaw, tight pants yielding under your hands as they’re tugged away so he’s just as bare as you.

“No,” you shake your head and any response dies on his tongue as you dig your fingers into the feathers at the base of his wings and pull him forward.

Hawks lets out a choked gasp as his length, bare, hard, and leaking glides across your cunt. Any other time, you’d have liked to savor this moment. Get on your knees and worship his pretty cock—and you know it's pretty, just from your short glimpse. He’s long and perfectly thick, just how you dreamed he would be. The cute tuft of blond curls at his base is course in the best way as you trail your fingers through it to take him in your palm.

“Ahh,” he keens, arching above you with his head thrown back as you stroke him for the first time.

It’s been so long, you're not sure how you ever resisted this before. Not with how heavy and warm he is in your fist.

“Hawks,” you moan, sucking at the dip in his collarbone and moving to bite at his nipple. “Hawks, please.”

“I—” you think he might protest but you flick your thumb over the tip and it pours precum to help the slide of your fingers.

He’s already got those powerful arms hooked under your knees, all he has to do is lean forward and sink into that tight, awaiting heat, and he knows it. You can see the resolve cracking.

“Hawks,” you beg again. Because you are begging, that’s what this is.

And he looks at you, drool slipping from the corner of his mouth and brows all bunched up with his head shaking.

“Hawks.”

His hands grip the underside of your thighs and knock your hand from his dick.

“Hawks.”

His forehead comes down to rest against yours, eyes squeezed shut and red at the edges. You feel the sting at the corners as if they were your own.

“Hawks.”

You can only touch him when he’s dying.

Is he dying now?

Are you killing him?

“Hawks.”

His breath hitches, whatever he might have said is long gone when the head of his cock catches against your entrance.

“Hawks—”

He sinks in to the hilt all at once and the last utterance of his name is a yelp. Your walls clamp down hard around the intrusion, so much bigger than his fingers, so hot and long and thick as he pulses inside you.

There are no words after that.

No names, no refusals, just his face pressed up on yours as he pushes your thighs to your chest and rolls his hips, fucking you evenly into the mattress.

Not soft or slow or overly rough.

Though it is all of those things at once as well.

Hawks has always been full of contradictions. It makes sense that this is too.

Both your eyes stay open, lips brushing and sharing breath as he slips a hand back down to your clit and starts those perfect circles up again.

He doesn’t ask you questions now. Just stares in your eyes and sinks his cock into your over and over until you feel fuller, more complete than you ever have in the whole of your life.

There’s no warning leading up to the end. You feel the crest approaching, the coil waiting to snap low in your belly and you don’t dare take your eyes off his face. You need to commit the entirety of this moment to memory. Just in case.

Just in case it never happens again.

Or worse, it happens over and over until it doesn’t.

Until you run out of chances to touch him.

Until he comes to you too far gone.

“Oh fuck,” he mutters and that’s all the warning you get.

All the warning you have the strength to listen to as you tumble over the edge, waves of rolling pleasure burning under your skin. You clench hard around his cock as his hips stutter in their pace, thrusting unevenly as you gush and he spills rope after rope of hot release deep into you.

And you’d been wrong before, because this was full. This was whole, your stilling bodies pressed together at every point with his cock still hard and twitching as your walls milked him of cum that warmed you from the inside out.

This is what you would die for.

***

Later when you stumble into unwilling wakefulness, there are hands tucking a thin sheet over your bare skin.

Hawks has pulled himself from you after resting like you’d told him he should. He’s dressing, though not hurriedly, and you can’t find it in your jelly bones to move or stop him.

You’re both silent, even when he looks down to find your eyes alert and raking over him—costume donned and wings prepared for flight.

His face is drawn in a way that might have been resentment. Maybe towards you for breaking his resolve, maybe at himself for indulging in what he cannot have.

I can’t.

You hear the words as clear as though he’d just said them.

I can’t.

Can’t have you. Can’t forget his purpose. Can’t have gentle things.

Hawks is a villain, first and foremost, above all else and that includes you.

So you don’t move to stop him as he walks softly through your door. You just watch as he makes his way to the open window and perches on the ledge. He does look back, only briefly, to see you draped across the sheets, head resting on your arm and staring at him as he leaves you.

The ghost of that cheeky grin crawls its way onto his face before he tips backwards off the landing and into the night sky. He winks once before the indigo of the night swallows him like the maw of a leviathan. The city has teeth and it will chew him up and spit him back out into your arms soon enough.

So you’re content to wait.

You know this isn’t the last time. That he’ll come back to you as he’s always done. And offer you more and more of himself each time.

Because you can only touch him when he’s dying.

And this world is nothing if not determined to kill him.

So you can keep your purpose.

And by extension, you can keep him.

[ap-kinda-lit]

Not With My Daughter!

Rating: T Pairing: Kawasara mainly, with a dash of Sasusaku too Summary: Sasuke sees something that doesn't please him one bit and he faces a realization that is much less palatable for him

Was requested to do a fic where Sasuke or Sakura catches Kawaki and Sarada a while back, but I finally did it! Here y’all go!

For the hundredth time that evening, Sasuke glanced at the clock. It was twelve past eight now. He grimaced. They should've been home by now... The Shadow Hokage anxiously drummed his fingers on his chair's arm. Sarada had left hours ago to train with her new teammate, the boy that Naruto had taken in. Kawaki, he thinks his name was? It didn't really matter right now. All that mattered to the Uchiha patriarch was that it was past Sarada's curfew and she wasn't home. Sasuke kicked himself. He never should've let her go off with that boy. He didn't trust him. This 'Kawaki' was new to the village, little was known about him, he had several incidents of trying to escape, causing chaos, and lashing out violently...and he was getting too close to Sasuke's peanut. Sasuke huffed and stood up from his seat. He couldn't take it anymore. He was not going to wait around while his baby girl was who-knows-where doing who-knows-what with a boy he barely knew. He was grabbing his cloak and house key when Sakura walked in. "Anata, where are you going? Is something wrong?" she asked. "No, everything is...fine." he was slow to finish his sentence. Sakura gave her husband a look and sighed. "Anata, you're not going to hunt down Sarada and Kawaki, are you?" she spoke with exasperation. "...perhaps..." Sasuke mumbled. "Sasuke-kun, I know they're late, but it's not late enough for you to go and terrorize the village looking for them." Sasuke grumbled something in disagreement. He draped his cloak around his shoulders and buttoned it, then turned towards the doorway. "Anata, at least leave your katana!" Sakura shouted after him, but Sasuke did not heed. He marched to the door, opened it and- Sasuke froze on the spot. He had seen a lot of terrible things in his line of work, but none compared to what he was seeing at that very moment: right there before him was Sarada (his sweet, innocent little girl) with her arms wrapped around the shoulders of none other than Kawaki as the two were locked in a simple but somewhat passionate liplock. Sasuke was first in shock which evolved into horror then, ultimately, an overwhelming and powerful rage. Sarada and Kawaki finally realized his presence and pulled apart from each other. "Papa!" Sarada squeaked in surprise. Sasuke's eye twitched. "Y-you..." he could barely speak through his all-consuming outrage. Kawaki said nothing and only stared back, looking alarmed. Sarada saw her father's Sharingan form and she quickly noticed his hand reaching for his katana. "Papa..." Sarada pleaded. But her pleas fell on deaf ears. Sasuke's one-track focus was honed in on one thing and one thing only: the mohawked little bastard who had the audacity to put his nasty lips on his daughter. "You...prepare to die..." Sasuke growled out. "Anata!" "Papa!" Sakura and Sarada shrieks were lost in the ensuing clamor of Sasuke unsheathing his katana in a flash of electric light and Kawaki's arm morphing into a large shield to protect himself from the incoming blade which easily cut through. Kawaki leaped from the doorstep and hit the ground running from his attacker. Sarada and her mother could only stay back and watch as the family man pursued the poor young boy, attacking him blindly with rage. Sakura gave her daughter a nervous smile. "I'm sure Papa won't harm Kawaki...badly." she assured her. Sarada sighed.

+++++

Sasuke eventually returned home, disheveled but fine and not quite as furious as he was earlier. Sarada and her mother talked prior to his return and Sarada was forbidden from going out for the rest of the week as punishment for not being home on time. Sarada went to bed afterwards and Sakura was waiting for her husband when he came into their room upon his arrival home. Sakura was giving Sasuke a concerned but amused look as he changed clothes. "I'm not apologizing for tonight." he promptly said. "I didn't say anything." Sakura responded. "You were thinking it." "Not really." Sasuke finished getting dressed and climbed into bed next to his wife. Sakura shifted to cuddle her husband and he responded by leaning into her embrace. "You did overreact, don't you think?" Sakura murmured into his chest. "I don't think I did." his reply was flat and matter-of-fact. "Anata..." "He had no right. He kept her past her curfew and he...did that...in front of us, her parents." Sasuke's irritation was apparent in how he spat out his last sentence as if it was a morsel of the most disgusting food he had ever eaten. Sakura propped her head up on her hand to look at her husband's face. "Sarada and I talked and she told me that she kissed him." she pointed out. "Sakura, don't tell me that." Sasuke cringed in disgust. Sakura giggled. "Oh, anata, I know that this may be hard for you to hear but Sarada is a young woman now. She's very capable of doing things by her own accord, especially things that we might not like." Sakura explained. Sasuke said nothing. He felt his wife's hand rest over where his heart was and she gave him a meaningful look. She sighed and continued, "I don't like it any more than you do, but it's a simple fact of life. Our baby...isn't a baby anymore." Still, Sasuke said nothing. As just about always, Sakura was right. He admired how she was usually right, but at times like this he wished she could be wrong more often. He really wanted her to be wrong in this case, but no. She was spot on. Her and Sasuke's little girl wasn't so little anymore, whether he liked it or not. To him, it felt like it was just yesterday that he was carrying her on his shoulders as he took her around the woods and sitting on the ground of their home with her, playing with stuffed animals and her numerous toys and listening to her adorable baby babble. But now she was a lot bigger and walked on her own two feet, played with kunai and shuriken, and preferred the company of a mohawked punk over her father's. Melancholy and nostalgia built up in Sasuke and a lump formed in his throat. Sakura could tell right away what was going on in his mind. She nuzzled her head against his neck lovingly. "But it's not the end of the world. No matter how old she gets or who she's with, she's always gonna want her papa in her life." she said. Sasuke's silence clearly meant he took what his wife just said into consideration. "...okay." he said. Sakura smiled. She gave her husband one last kiss and they said their 'good nights'. With that, they fell asleep.

+++++++

A week later, when her punishment was lifted and she was free to go out, Sarada came bouncing down the stairs. "Mama, Kawaki and I are going to the training fields to practice with shuriken. Is that okay?" she asked Sakura. Sakura glanced at Sasuke, who was sitting in his armchair reading a newspaper. "It's alright with me. What about you, anata?" Sakura said. Both Sarada and Sakura looked to Sasuke, waiting for his answer. Sarada looked anxious about what he would say. Internally, Sasuke warred with himself. The overprotective part of him railed against its cage, decrying his daughter going anywhere with a young man who was that close with her, but to no avail. The Uchiha patriarch swallowed and said, "Fine by me." Sarada smiled. "Thank you, Papa." "Just be sure to be back by eight, okay?" Sasuke quickly reminded her. Sarada gave her father a peck on his temple. "I promise." she answered. After that, she gave her mother a 'good bye' and skipped away to see Kawaki. Sakura smiled at her husband. "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" "Yes, it kind of was." Sasuke said. He sighed and added, "But I'll live." Sakura nodded at him. All was silent for a moment until Sasuke spoke again. "But if he tries anything with her when I'm around, I can't promise that I will be merciful with him." Sakura burst out laughing.

End

[risusnet]

Something there that wasn’t there before.

Jonathan Crane x Reader

Summary: [Y/N] is a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. Bruce Wayne is holding a charity gala to help raise some funds for the asylum and [Y/N] along with some colleagues are invited. Her friend and crush Jonathan Crane was one of her co-workers that was invited too and they both enjoy the evening together.

Prompt: “Be still my heart.” Word Count: 2,626

You worked as a psychiatrist in Arkham Asylum and you, along with some of your other co-workers, had been invited to a charity gala hosted by Bruce Wayne which intended to help raise money for the Asylum. You were wearing a beautiful dress that you had picked out a few days earlier and had just parked up in your car outside the gala hall, you sighed feeling nervous to go in. There were going to be so many people there, one of which was Dr. Jonathan Crane, your friend and co-worker who you had been low-key crushing on for the past few years, your heart jumped into your mouth just thinking about him being there.

“I bet he’s wearing something really nice- wait no- he’s just your friend, shut up!” you thought aloud.

You pulled yourself together and got out of your car, shyly walking to the door and trying to distract yourself from the photographers and reporters at the entrance who were also here about the gala. 

“Name, please.” said a frightening-looking bouncer,

“Dr. [Y/N] [L/N].” You told him,

“Ah, I see your name, you may enter.”

“Thanks..” you quickly entered the hall.

It was a beautiful venue, priceless golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling of the corridor with marble lining the floor that led to a foyer. For a corridor it was massive, it felt intimidating. You cautiously wandered onward, the corridor was fairly empty with only a few people littered here and there, some people on the phone, some couples making out and drunk people stumbling around aimlessly. You reached the entrance of the hall and looked around, there were so many rich and famous people here, it was easy to feel like you didn’t belong here. You saw some of your co-workers spanning the hall, there were some of them together in groups, sticking together but then you saw someone in the crowd that was not with the rest of your colleagues. It was Jonathan. It felt like time stopped when you saw him, he was wearing a really lovely suit and you felt your pulse quicken, you took a step backwards and bashfully looked at the ground,

“Be still my heart.” You muttered to yourself.

You braced yourself and walked on into the foyer, you decided to get something to drink to set your head straight. After sipping your drink, you looked up only to lock eyes with none other than Jonathan on the other side of the room. He smiled at you and smiled back, if you had still had the water in your mouth you probably would have spat it out in surprise. Luckily, you were able to hide your surprise pretty well. 

The moment was cut short when a man who seemingly worked for Bruce Wayne came onto the stage and told everyone that the ballroom was now open and people began to make their way in the direction of the ballroom. You put your drink down and followed the crowd, you could see Jonathan up ahead in the corner of your eye and you tried to ignore him for your own good, however, you were doing a terrible job at that.

Once you entered the ballroom, you were mesmerised by how enchanting it truly was in here. You took in every last corner of it and smiled in awe. Your eyes travelled back down again and you suddenly felt a little shy again, remembering Jonathan was here. You really had to get a hold of yourself and forget your feelings whilst you were here, you had to act professional!

A soft song was being played by the orchestra they had hired and many people had already coupled off and started dancing and talking in the ballroom, you found a place off to the side to stand and took in the environment. Jonathan walked over to you and stood next to you,

“[L/N], Hello.” He nodded in your direction,

“Crane, good to see you.” You responded.

“It’s rather, chaotic, in here, isn’t it?” He smiled,

“Yeah, it’s a bit overwhelming,” you laughed a little.

You looked in his direction slightly, he was still just as handsome as before, shit. You ended up catching Jonathan's gaze on accident, to which caused him to speak,

“Would you like to dance for a little?” He said, his tone slightly softer than previously. You paused, you wanted to, but felt shy, how typical.

“Are you sure?” you crossed your arms and looked at him,

“It might be fun, plus, we may as well get in a few of the photos from the event.” He joked,

“Alright, sure, let’s go.” You both walked into the main area of the room where people were dancing. Your mind felt like it was literally screaming at you, you weren’t sure if it was in an ‘Oh my god, this is so exciting’ way or a ‘No no no no no, abort abort, abort mission’ way. Anyway, you still seemed pretty composed and he took your hand, either way. You started to lazily dance along with everyone else, you felt completely in your element and yet completely out of it at the same time, a very strange feeling, maybe it was just the nervousness.

Funnily, photographs were taken of you both, you spied it just out of the corner of your eye and you’re pretty sure he noticed too. Dancing with Jonathan and now you have proof of it? There’s some bragging rights! 

“Wait- what if people get the wrong idea? I’m gonna be hassled by questions and rumours going back into work.” You thought in your head. 

“What if those ideas are good ideas?” a voice replied. Voices aren’t meant to reply to you in our head so that means that…

“Huh- Did I say that out loud-” you felt a little embarrassed, then you remembered what he responded with, “..Hey, wait a minute-”

“Don’t worry about it.” He cut you off with a grin. Is he going to ignore what he said? Great, now you are going to worry about it, or more specifically, you are not going to stop thinking about this. Maybe, ever.

“If you say so.” Your eyes held a mixture of uncertainty and curiosity, whilst he looked slightly smug. There was a vague air of flirtatiousness between the two of you as you continued dancing, you both spoke to each other in a manner that wasn’t flirting, but borderline was. However, it was usually like this when you spoke, you just had that kind of dynamic. You can’t blame yourself for catching feelings in an atmosphere like that, right?

You felt a lot more comfortable than earlier, you had probably just gotten used to his presence. He was always good company and the rest of the bustling gala just seemed to phase out. There had come a point in which you and Jonathan had stopped speaking altogether and just had your eyes fixed on each other. You guys were also having a… moment? You were edging closer and closer to one another absentmindedly and a layer of tension filled the air. 

“Guests! Thank you for coming to this lovely gala we have been hosting today!” Oh yeah, that’s where you were. You and Jonathan stopped dancing and turned to face the voice and saw Bruce Wayne now on the stage introducing the event. You released a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “You all probably already know why this gala is being thrown today, we are here to support our very own Arkham Asylum and its employees who work tirelessly to try to reform the criminals it holds. The dining hall is now ready for everyone so if you follow the butlers they will direct you to your seating! Thank you.” Bruce gave a winning smile and moved away from the microphone and off of the stage.

You looked to Jonathan who nodded in the direction of the hall and you both started to make your way over.

The room was beautiful, with hundreds of tables brimming the hall. You stuck to Jonathan like glue, because despite all of the friendly-seeming faces, it was still pretty nerve-racking and he didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he seemed to enjoy being your protector.

You were eventually seated, with Jonathan being in the seat next to you on your right. You were glad for that, at least. Apart from him, you were surrounded by a load of unfamiliar faces that lined your table, not that that was surprising, you couldn’t recognise 90% of the people attending this. 

There was a lot of, ‘How do you do’s and ‘What is your name’ and ‘Where do you work’ as everyone around you settled in. They asked you and Jonathan many questions about your jobs upon learning that you both worked at the asylum.

“So, Dr. Crane, what’s it like working with a bunch of criminals? Isn’t it dangerous?” one woman who appeared to be quite rich asked. She wore an expensive dress and a face full of extravagant makeup.

“Ah, well, we don’t just have them running rampant with a knife or such whilst we are in appointments with them.” His comment earned some laughter from the table. He was good at this, you smiled to yourself knowing you were in good hands and that you could relax a little because Jonathan knew what he was doing.

A different man, one who sat on your left side began to strike up a conversation with you.

“Dr. [L/N], a pleasure to finally talk to you. I have been meaning to ever since I saw you arrive!” This comment earned a suspicious side-eye from Jonathan but he quickly looked away and continued the conversation he was in.

“Oh, well it’s an honour to meet you, sir.” you politely responded and extended your arm to shake his hand, which he took, shook and lingered for a bit too long before releasing it.

“You must be very intelligent to be a psychiatrist. Where did you study?” He leaned over remotely closer, awaiting your reply.

“Gotham University for the most part! I enjoyed my time there, actually.” You tried to be oblivious to how he was acting, but it was super off-putting.

“Ah, a good one. I have known friends who have attended there!” His breath stinks of booze. He was closer still and you were starting to feel uncomfortable.

“Thank you, I’m sorry, but could you excuse me. I think I need to use the restroom.” He nodded his head and you stood up. Jonathan had an idea of what was going on and waited two minutes before leaving too.

You walked as fast as you could to get yourself some air. You were back in the foyer and nearly at the bathroom when a hand grabbed your wrist.

“[Y/N]!” You turned around and your eyes were met with Jonathan. “Are you alright?”

“I’m... I’m sorry. Everything was just really… hectic. I needed some air…” You weren’t quite sure what to say.

“Was it that man? Did he make you feel uneasy, or something?” His eyes looked full of care and concern. He really knew you well.

“Yeah, I’m sorry for dragging you out here, you can go, you don’t have to worry.” You tried to brush it off but he could tell how it got to you. He moved his hand, which was still holding your wrist, to hold your hand.

“I’m not just going to leave you here when you’re like this. I’m someone who cares for you.” He sounded truly earnest, it made your heartbeat speed up when he said that. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Trust me. If it will make you feel better, we can switch seats. If he tries anything, even if he looks at you in a strange way, I’ll see to it myself.”

“Jonathan… Thanks.” You smiled to which he returned it.

“Shall we?” His facial expression shifted to a smirk.

“We shall.”

You both made your way back to the table, sitting in each other’s seats. You realised you were still holding hands and had to unfortunately let go to sit down. You settled back down and the man from earlier began to speak.

“I think you two are sitting in the wrong seats.” He was so clearly annoyed but tried not to show his frustration by placing an obvious artificial smile on his lips.

“Hm, it seems that we are,” Jonathan said, turning to you. “Ah well, no point in getting up again.” He shrugged and was pulled into another conversation with someone on the table.

At some point, you had ended up placing your head on his shoulder to lean against which he let you do. It was comfy and by the time you realised you had done so, it had been about 5 minutes and he was fine with it so you decided to bask in the moment.

Bruce Wayne, that mysterious rich guy, was once again back on the stage. 

“Hello everyone,” he had a drink and a tiny spoon in his hand which he clinked to the glass to command everyone’s attention. “Now, I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear, is the best part, where I give you all a load of free food! Feel free to indulge yourselves as the butlers bring the food and beverages around to the tables.” Then he confidently strode off the stage and back to his seat. His table was less full of businessmen in suits and more full of beautiful women in expensive dresses.

Everyone turned back to their conversations as trays and plates came out of the ginormous kitchen hiding somewhere in the back. There were all sorts of food that you had yet to try in your life but you were eager to. You had to sit up though so that meant lifting your head off of Jonathan’s shoulder.

You, along with the rest of the guests began to eat the food served. Whilst also maintaining some light conversation. By this time, you had quite the collection of business cards handed to you by various people at this table. 

Bruce stood up to toast to the event, “Here is a toast, to this pleasant gala and to those we are holding it for. A toast to all of the incredible employees of Arkham Asylum who are and aren’t here today!” He raised his glass which everyone else followed suit with.

Half an hour later and everyone was finishing up their meals and you too felt very full and idly set your head back onto Jonathan’s shoulder. You looked up at him from there and he looked back, laughing a little before looking away again.

The gala was starting to wrap up and people were starting to leave. Bruce went onto the stage to say his official goodbye causing a massive flock of people to also call it a night for them there.

“We should probably give it a minute before leaving, save getting trampled.” Jonathan looked to you, who was still leisurely resting on his shoulder.

“You’re right.” You said watching people leave, “This was surprisingly fun.” 

“I agree, I didn’t expect to have this nice of a time. Maybe it’s just thanks to you though.” Jonathan now rested his head atop yours. 

“I’m glad you were here too.” You sighed happily.

“We should see each other outside of work more.” He said, nonchalantly.

“That would be nice.”

“Are you free next Saturday?” Oh wow, he’s good, real smooth.

“Yeah, in fact, I am.” 

“Looks like we’ll be doing this again soon, then.” He had that smug grin again. Then sat up, took your hand and you both walked out together.

[aizawasgoodgirl]

Love & Concussions

Summary: Everyone has the mark where their soulmate will touch them for the first time. Many people spend their whole lives searching for that one person who was meant for them, sometimes to the point of Insanity. You couldn’t care less. Out at a bar with your friends you let yourself fade into the background, but when your life collides with a pro-hero's things are bound to get interesting.

Pairing: AizawaxReader Word Count: 1757 Warnings: 18+ It’ll get spicy later on and I’m adult. Some Violence and Cursing. Minors do not interact.

Next Chapter 1: Made of Stars

You really couldn’t remember how your friends had convinced you to go out tonight, you really just wanted to stay back at the apartment. The club was loud and you could feel your senses being overwhelmed and nostalgically thought of the book lying in wait for you at home. 

“Hey I’m going to step outside for a minute,” you said, excusing yourself from the thrall of the friend group who giggled as you passed.

“I told you they wouldn’t stay,” you overheard someone whisper.

“Why’d we invite them anyways?” someone else replied.

“They’re not even interested in finding their soulmate, just ignore them.”

And there it was, the goal of the night, the hunt for one's soulmate. You stormed out of the bar that was filled with lonely, desperate people looking for their destined soulmates. The night air nipped at you as you stepped outside, and you wondered not for the first time what the whole point was. It wasn’t that the concept of a soulmate didn’t appeal to you, but why actively look when it would happen in its own time?

Besides, why would you let yourself become dependent on just one person? If or when you met your soulmate, they’re going to know that you are your own person. Too many of your friendships had been ruined because of the codependency of their soulmate relationship and you were determined to never let that happen to you.

As refreshing as the outside had been initially, you now found yourself freezing and quickly glanced at your phone for the time. How long til it was socially acceptable for you to leave and catch an uber home? 

The phone only read ten and you knew you had at least a hour before you could even think of using the old ‘I'm just kind of beat from work this week’ excuse. You would have to go back in pretty soon, or one of your roommates might come searching for you. With a fortifying inhale of ice cold air you turned to head back in.

Later there would be a dark purple bruise on your rib from the man that rammed into you, causing you to fall to the ground. The cold hard embrace of the concrete sidewalk jarred you and you were certain you had hit your head pretty hard, judging from your blurred vision.

Groaning, you tried to move, but only managed to lean yourself against the brick facade of the bar, the throbbing in your head screaming at you. 

“Fucking asshole," you mumbled.

The figure was already halfway down the street when you finally felt your head clearing, just in time to see another figure whip past you. You blinked as the second figure whipped something out in front of themselves, entangling the first figure.

An enraged shout echoed through the street as the first figure fell to the ground, wrapped up in some sort of fabric. You heard footsteps walking towards you, and you tried to refocus your blurred vision, wondering what exactly you had just gotten yourself in the middle of.

“Hey, you alright?” The voice was low and raspy as the second figure knelt next to you.

“Uh, I think so? Just hit my head, I’m fine though.” Your vision was still blurry, and you giggled as some stars danced around the mysterious man's head.

“Did you know you have stars in your hair?” you said dumbly.

There was a long pause of silence before the figure answered, “I think you have a concussion.” He said flatly, “Don't worry, I’m a pro-hero - there will be police and paramedics here shortly. I’ll make sure they take a look at you. Just try not to move.”

The stars hadn’t gone away from his hair and you found your head lolling back and forth as they sparkled. You heard a sigh of frustration and then footsteps as the unknown pro-hero walked away, probably towards his caught assailant. 

“I wouldn’t struggle too much, you’re more likely to hurt yourself than escape," you heard the deep voice, now at a distance, say.

“Screw you," the figure who had run into you spat.

“Suit yourself," the gruff voice replied, and it was so soothing to you in your weakened state that you found your eyes closing.

The next thing you remembered were medics trying to wake you as they examined your injuries. The lights from the ambulance and police cars danced in your vision as you came to consciousness, moaning from the pain that now radiated from the back of your head. You tried to close your eyes again, the bright lights making everything ten times worse, but the medics kept shaking you and yelling at you to stay awake.

“They have a concussion,” you heard one medic say.

“Eraserhead, watch her while we go grab a stretcher," another medic ordered.

The gruff voice from earlier was back suddenly. “That's not really…” He trailed off as the medics' footsteps faded away.

Your eyes still squinted, you only saw a dark shadow kneel down in front of you, the lights creating an aura effect around the shadow's silhouette. 

The figure snapped his fingers loudly as you tried to close your eyes again. “Hey now, no sleeping," he scolded.

Startled, you let your eyes drift open, revealing the silhouetted man once more, only this time the stars that had been there earlier were back. You giggled as you watched them mix with the red and blue of the siren lights, creating your own personal light show. 

“Did you know you’re made of stars?” you said suddenly, letting your hand reach out and stroke a particularly bright star right under the silhouette’s right eye. You felt warmth from the star radiate through your finger tips and smiled at the feeling. Then suddenly it was gone as the silhouette jerked back, tripping on his own feet as he tried to stand.

The medics were back now, and you felt your body being lifted onto a stretcher as they rapidly spoke of your vitals. The stars had vanished with the silhouetted figure, and you yearned for the return of the warmth you had felt. The stretcher jostled and lurched to one side and for a moment you had the sense of falling before the paramedics caught you.

“Hey,” you heard the now familiar gruff voice call, “Be careful with them!”

It was the last voice you heard before being loaded into the ambulance and whisked away to the hospital.

---

The worst hangover in the world could not compare to the headache you had when you awoke in the hospital the next day. Nor could it hold a candle to the ache and bruises covering your body, the biggest of which resided on the right side of your chest where you had been knocked into last night.

“Oh good, you're awake," a woman in a white coat and stethoscope chimed, entering your room with an air of authority.

You blinked, still taking in your surroundings. “I would much rather not be," you joked.

The woman chuckled, “I bet. I’m Doctor Yua, and if you could bear with me for a couple moments, I’ll let you get back to resting.” 

The doctor checked you over and declared that you would be able to go home the next morning, as long as you got plenty of rest. 

“You’ll have to be careful and take it easy the next couple of weeks. A concussion is no laughing matter, and you must take care.” The doctor's voice was stern but caring, and you nodded in understanding.

“Lucky there was a pro-hero nearby to catch the culprit and get medics there, could have been a lot worse otherwise,” she said, gathering up her notes.

You did vaguely recall a pro-hero, but couldn’t seem to conjure up a face or a name.

“Do you know who it was? The pro-hero I mean,” you inquired.

The doctor stopped at the doorway, “Oh, it was Eraserhead.” 

--------

Shouta’s morning was more jarring than most, and he found himself burrowing deeper into bed, refusing to greet the world. He was going to forget everything that had happened last night and allow oblivion to take him. The universe had different plans as his alarm rang, warning him to get up now or be late for work.

Violently, he threw the covers off of himself and made his way to the bathroom, groaning as his bones cracked with the effort. He would need to space out his night patrols more with school now in full swing, God knows he needed all the energy he could get to teach his class.

This was good, he could distract himself with work and not think about meeting his… No he couldn’t even think the word. Shouta tried to go through his normal morning routine, and the shower did help, but inevitably his mind would wander back to last night. He found himself staring at his reflection in the foggy mirror.

The scar under his eye still felt warm from where you had touched him last night, although physically nothing had changed. He would have to tell Hizashi and by proxy Nemuri too - that was a conversation he was not looking forward to. Shouta had never been big on the concept of a soulmate, but with the incident at USJ that ruined his mark, he had truly believed he was destined to be alone forever.

Until last night, he reminded himself, and the scowl in the mirror deepened. He dressed quickly, dreading any interaction he would have today, and left for school. As he walked, he pulled out his phone and quickly dialed Hizashi.

“Shouta!” the blonde haired hero called through the phone.

Hizashi had always been a morning person, and not for the first time, Shouta wondered exactly how they were friends.

“I will warn you, my normal chipper demeanor is non-existent this morning,” Shouta growled in the phone.

“Sounds like it, my man. What did I do to receive such a lovely call?” To his credit, Hizashi did lower his voice a few decimals.

Shouta already regretted this call, but if anyone could talk him out of a crisis, it was Zashi.

“I need to talk to you, and you might as well bring Nemuri too.” 

There was a pause on the other end of the line before Zashi spoke. “Is everything okay, Shouta? Are you in trouble?” 

“No, I’m fine. I just need some...help," Shouta mumbled, the last word feeling pathetic.

“Help?” There was real confusion from Hizashi, Shouta never asked for help.

“What exactly do you need help with?” Hizashi asked.

Shouta let out a puff of air, preparing for the outburst that was sure to come and said the words he had been avoiding for the past twenty-four hours.

“I met my soulmate last night.”

[willwriteforhugs]

the most beautiful girl i’ve ever known- jung hoseok

boyfriend! hobi x chubby! reader- one shot !

word count: 2.3k

genre: angst

synopsis: you’ve always struggled with confidence- it’s simply part of who you are. always the chubby student in the class, always the one wearing pants instead of a mini skirt. as an adult, you tried to make peace with it, but after a horrible run in with your coworker, you feel like you just can’t do it anymore- at least, until your boyfriend takes things into his own hands. hoseok’s determined to get you to realize your own beauty, and he’ll do anything for that to happen.

warnings: body-shaming, work harassment, swearing, minor arguing

a/n: wow, first bts fic, here we go...

this fic was requested by a sweet anon- and if they’re reading this, i hope i did the request justice! i think i did well, though i tried to treat the topic with love and respect.

i hope everyone enjoys <333

- - - 

your apartment building’s elevator makes a polite dinging noise as the doors slide smoothly shut- and for the second time since they opened, you thank god the small space is empty. 

elevators are generally silent places, but now the box is filled with the sound of your rushed, uneven breathing. you rotate so your back is pressed into the corner of the moving elevator, pressing a hand to your face. hot, silent tears stream down your cheeks. your thoughts are a jumbled mess: 

god, how embarrassing. crying in a public elevator. anyone could walk in right now. 

you try to take a stabilizing breath- but you quickly realize the attempt was in vain. your inhale causes you to hiccup and choke, making you cry even harder. you bury your face in your hands, wondering what you’d done to deserve this. 

‘why this body? why?’ you think to yourself. it was a thought that came all too quickly, and one you were familiar with.

you don’t think you were ugly, not necessarily- but you certainly don’t think you were desirable, either. being overweight had always had that effect- not complete hopelessness, but a serious lack of overall confidence. and it’s not like you can help it- you try your best to stay healthy, but genetics do what genetics do. so you are overweight. some days, that fact it didn’t bug you- but today was not one of those days.

in the moment, you feel yourself reach up down and clutch at your own arms, squeezing the soft flesh. you groan quietly, unwillingly reliving what had caused this spiral in the first place.

one hour ago:

you had begun the day in a positive mood, really- but that had all gone to shit once the work day began. 

you had a new coworker- mr. lee. he wasn’t your superior, but he liked to be called by his surname, apparently. he’d been hired on a whim two weeks ago, when the company lost the long time employee that previously held mr. lee’s position. 

the man, though being probably a decade your senior, had a childlike way of going about the work day. he laughed at things that weren’t funny, and tried to make conversation even when you had your earbuds in.

you hated him, naturally. 

he was just too much. over-caffeinated, controlling, and immature- basically everything you despised in a peer.

however- or up until today, at least- you’d been able to tolerate him. but while you were on lunch break, mr. lee drew the last straw with you.

he’d walked into the breakroom, already making too much noise. he was humming, and tapping his foot, and running the microwave, all at the same time. and, unfortunately, you were the only other person in the room- so he made a beeline straight for you. 

“afternoon, peach!” he’d said. you hated the nickname, and had no idea of its origins.

“hi,” you grumbled, staring down at your food.

“i didn’t see you come in this morning.”

you made a noncommittal noise. “got here early.”

“right.” the man replied. 

a beat passed, and the two of you settled into a stiff silence, only disrupted by the sound of your eating.

and finally, the vulture had a point of interest.

“you really gonna eat all that?” he’d said, looking pointedly down at your meal.

you’d frowned at the comment, and dodged the question. “why do you ask?” you’d replied.

“well, you know. didn’t think a girl like you would need all of that, right?”

you set your fork down, trying to keep your breathing even. before you had been able to come up with an answer, though, he’d continued:

“i mean, you should be trying to lose weight.” he leaned into the word ‘lose’, as if speaking to a child. 

you remember your anger had begun to dissipate, quickly replaced by offence and sadness. you’d stood up quickly, grabbing at your things so you could leave. 

mr. lee had frowned at your reaction. “come on now,” he’d said. “there’s no need to feel upset, i’m only being honest with you. you don’t want me to lie, do you? you’re fat, you may as well know.”

you spun on him. “and what’s so wrong with being fat?”

before he could supply you with an answer (which he surely thought he had) you’d stormed out of the room and requested the afternoon off.

and now here you are. 

you stumble a bit on your way out of the elevator, cursing as you nearly drop your bag. when you finally make it to your door, it takes three tries to get the code correct.

you sigh heavily as the door to your apartment swings open. to your surprise, you find the lights still on, and it takes you a moment to realize why. 

it’s friday.

hoseok had the day off. 

shit.

you kick off your shoes and shut the door quickly, abandoning any efforts to be quiet. your own sniffles seem loud as you scramble to shut yourself in the hallway bathroom. you don’t want him to see you like this- crying, puffy, and chubby as usual.

right as you slam the bathroom door shut, you hear his voice.

“y/n?”

you grimace, clamping a hand over your mouth to stifle the sounds of your crying. 

“y/n-ah, is that you?”

you hear your boyfriend pad into the hallway, and his steps falter when he discovers your belongings strewn about by the front door. there’s a pause, then the footsteps continue to the bathroom door- where, on the other side, you’re slumped against the cabinets. 

hoseok knocks gently. “y/n? love, are you alright? i thought you worked until five today...” 

when you don’t answer, he continues. “are you sick?”

you squeeze your eyes shut, and a small sob tears its way out of your mouth.

you can tell your boyfriend heard it, because his voice becomes even more frantic. “y/n?” he says, leaning against the door.

oh, hoseok. sweet, innocent hoseok. he was always so kind to you. you remember the day when he first asked you out- you’d been convinced it was a prank at first, but when you realized he was being genuine, you’d fallen for him instantly. now, you know that genuine was all hobi ever was.

he’d never called you fat. it had crossed your mind, of course- whether or not your size bugged him, or if he had to defend you to his friends- but whenever you’d been brave enough to ask about it, hoseok would always respond with: “of course not, my love, you’re beautiful.”

you’d never pushed it, though now you realize you always wanted to. 

now you remove your hand from your mouth, taking a shaky breath. your voice trembles as you finally respond: ‘”i’m okay, i’m- i’m not sick or anything.”

you hear your boyfriend’s body slide down the length of the door, ultimately settling on the ground in front of it. you lean forward so your head is pressed against the wood- the two of you are sitting face to face, with only the closed door keeping you apart.

“y/n-ah, talk to me.” hoseok says. “please.”

your shoulders shake as another wave of tears crashes over you. “i’m sorry,” you manage. “i’m just- i’m not feeling very good right now.”

you can tell hobi’s face is pressed into the door from how close his voice sounds. his words are tinged with distress. “what happened?”

you sigh, overwhelmed with shame and anger. you don’t want to tell him- but of course, you know you have to anyways. if for anything, just to wipe the sad curiosity out of his voice.

“you remember- do you remember how i have that awful new coworker?” you croak.

there was a pause, then: “the older one?” 

“yeah. he’s annoying. and rude.” 

“okay, yeah. i remember.” hoseok says quietly, urging you to continue.

you inhale slowly. “he just- he said some things to me today, and i-”

hobi interrupts you suddenly, his tone having gone sharp. “what kind of things?”

you pause. “he said... things about my body. he said i needed to lose weight.”

hoseok says nothing, which is always worrisome. you can practically feel his emotions through the solid wooden door- a chaotic mix of distress, concern, and red-hot fury.

after a moment, your boyfriend speaks up. “y/n-ah.”

you hum dully in response.

“can you please open the door?”

you frown, but decide not to fight it. you know he’s only trying to help. so you reach up and scoot back a few feet so that the door can open inwards. hoseok, who had been so faithfully slumped on the other side, shuffles inside the small bathroom, still on his knees.

when he meets your eyes, you can see his heartbreak, and he can see yours. without any hesitation, he reaches forward and takes your face in his hands, softly caressing your tear-streaked cheeks.

you lean into his touch, allowing your body to fall forward into his. he slips an arm around your abdomen in support. 

a few minutes pass without speaking, the air filled only with the sounds of hobi’s hand running over your back, and your laboured breathing.

finally, your counterpart speaks up. “y/n- is that all he said? the one thing?”

he places his hand on your jaw to lift your face away from his chest, wanting to meet your eyes.

you sigh, pulling away. “no, he- he told me that i should eat less, and that-” your breath catches. “well, he said i was fat.”

hoseok’s jaw clenches, and you shift in his arms. “what?” you whisper.

his eyes are aflame when he responds. “why would he say those things to you? i just- why did he think he’d have any right?”

you look away. “i don’t know. male workplace entitlement.”

hobi gives a wry chuckle. “that’s no excuse.”

“i know.”

“we’ll report him, alright? i will, if you won’t. that’s no way to be speaking to coworkers.”

you nod vaguely as hobi runs his hands up and down your arms. trapped underneath you, your right foot begin to fall asleep. 

“baby?” your boyfriend asks after a minute.

“do you think he’s right?” you burst, eyes burning. “do you think i need to lose weight?”

hoseok’s face falls, and he grasps at your wrists. “y/n,” he starts.

“no,” you interrupt. “really, hoseok. i- i’m not enough for you, am i? i don’t know why you stay with me. you’re way out of my league.”

“y/n!” hobi snaps. his tone is suddenly sharp.

you shut your mouth, already regretting your words.

“my love.” hoseok whispers, his voice breaking. “how could you say that?”

you choke on a dry sob, unable to answer.

your boyfriend’s eyes search your face, desperate for an answer that isn’t there. “how could you ever think that you aren’t good enough? and- what, just because you aren’t skinny?”

you look down at the floor as he continues, blinking rapidly. the tears really won’t stop. 

“that’s a silly way to think.” hoseok says quietly. “and i know that for a fact, y/n. because you are the most beautiful girl i’ve ever known. and you always will be, no matter how big you are. you could be four sizes smaller, or four sizes larger, and i would love you all the same.”

you burrow your face further into his chest. “you mean it?” your voice comes out in a whimper.

“absolutely.” he says, not hesitating. “there is no version of events where you aren’t good enough for me. you’re too good for me, honestly. sometimes i think you deserve better.”

you pull away now, frowning. “that’s not true.”

“why not?”

“well,” you falter. “because i love you. and i chose you. i chose you because i love you, and i don’t want anybody else.”

above you, hoseok smiles gently, waiting for you to hear your own words.

the realization hits, and you understand suddenly. he wanted you to say that, to hear it from yourself.

“oh,” you whisper.

“now do you get it?”

you sniffle, grateful that your tears have mostly subsided. “yeah,” you mumble. “i get it.”

“good.” hobi pauses. “i love you, y/n. and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says about you, because you’re gorgeous, and you’re important. and you will never be defined by your body. i’ll call your office and report that awful guy, alright?”

you nod silently.

“okay.” he says, nudging your arm. “now how about you get cleaned up? since you’re home early we can spend the whole evening together if you’d like.”

you perk up at that. “oh- yes, i want to.”

hoseok smiles. “i thought so. here-” he rises to his feet, extending a hand to help you. you take it, placing your palm in his. he lifts you to standing, then smiles again.

“don’t worry, my love. i’ll fix your mood right up. i even have some sample tracks i could show you!”

you smile gently. “that sounds nice.”

as he turns to leave, you clear your throat. “hoseok.”

he turns quickly, eyebrows raised. “hmm?”

you gesture for him to come closer, and as soon as he’s in arm’s reach, you lean over and kiss him.

it’s a gentle kiss, really. a kiss that says i love you, and a kiss that says thank you, for everything.

hoseok hums into your mouth, hands quickly finding your waist. you lean into him, body and mind buzzing. kissing hoseok is your favorite, because each time is just a little different. 

your hands find his hair, and you smile against his mouth. you can feel him smile back.

he kisses you for just a moment longer, then pulls away. 

he rests his forehead on yours, sighing lightly.

and you know that you have never felt more loved, more beautiful, more safe, then you do in that moment, with him. 

[dothwrites]

15.20 coda--at the end of the world

author’s note: while i am still reeling from the finale, this was my way of making some kind of personal peace with it. don’t mistake this for me agreeing with the choices made <3 

---

“I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”--Madeline Miller

---

Castiel opens his eyes. 

All around him is green. A moment later, he hears the soft sound of birds chirping in the background; from further away, the faint sounds of children laughing. The air is ripe with the smell of growth, damp in the air and life underneath his fingers. 

He sits up. The sky is a perfect shade of blue, the kind found only in poet’s and painters imaginations. A few feet away, the shrubs grow, flowers spilling over themselves in their enthusiasm to be born. Everything is a riot of life and color. 

“Cas.” 

Castiel’s heart thumps against his ribs. He knows that voice. 

He whirls around, already knowing who he’ll find. Several feet away, Jack waits, one hand raised in a short wave. 

Castiel finds himself up on his feet, and within two short steps, he’s enfolded Jack in his arms. For a moment, he forgets about everything which came before, and allows himself this sheer comfort. If nothing else remains, then Jack is here. 

Jack hugs him back, twice as fiercely, before they separate. Castiel holds him at arm’s length, trying to find injuries or hurt on him, but there’s nothing. In fact, it’s almost as if...

“Jack,” he says slowly, his arm falling away from Jack’s shoulder, “what happened?” 

Jack smiles, a little lopsided, but still his boy. 

“Well,” he says, gesturing towards a bench, “It’s kind of a long story. 

---

For all that Jack said it was a long story, it ends up being remarkably quick in the telling. Castiel listens, sometimes grieving and sometimes proud, as he hears of how Sam, Dean, and Jack ultimately defeated Chuck. His heart grows in his chest as Jack recounts Dean’s words. 

That’s not who I am. 

A small part of him wishes that he could be there to see it, but he tucks that part of himself away. He said his piece. He relieved the burden which has been pressing down on his shoulders now for years. In his lifetime, it was nothing more than a blip on the map, but those years have made all the difference in the world to him. Finally, he can look back on them now without regrets. 

“And so, I came here,” Jack finally says, shifting a little on the bench. He looks oddly guilty, like the times Castiel would find him sneaking snacks back into his room. “I thought...” 

“What?’ Castiel prompts, after a few moments when it becomes clear that Jack has no interest in speaking. 

“Sam and Dean don’t really need me anymore. I mean, I know that they want me, but the world is bigger now. And the people up here need me too.” 

It’s then that Castiel looks around, scrutinizing his environment more closely. The nagging sense of familiarity hits and then he wonders how he didn’t see it before. His favorite Heaven, caught in an eternal Tuesday afternoon. 

“It’s not right,” Jack says, his forehead wrinkled into an earnest expression of worry. “The people here are stuck. While I was on earth, we all talked about free will, but the people here don’t have it. They’re stuck forever in an endless loop of memories, and it’s all just...empty.” 

Jack looks at Castiel, and Castiel doesn’t see God. He doesn’t see a divine being, or Lucifer’s son, or even an angelic being. He just sees his boy, lost and confused, but still so pure, still wanting to do the right thing, no matter what. 

“Cas?” Jack asks. “Will you help me?” 

---

Rebuilding Heaven is slow work, but time doesn’t really mean anything here. It’s delicate to rebuild the walls separating billions of souls so that nothing collapses. Castiel works alongside Jack, making suggestions as his mind trips along to potential problems. 

Though it’s never said aloud, Castiel knows why Jack is working tirelessly. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, the knowledge sits that Sam and Dean are going to die. One day, they will pass from the earth, and come to Heaven, and on that day, Castiel wants everything to be perfect for them. He wants to show them a true paradise, a place without walls or barriers, a place where emotion is genuine and not just a manufactured memory. Rebuilding Heaven is his last chore, the last of his penance to be performed. 

He does make one stop, however. 

When he walks in the door, Kelly’s head lifts up from the book she’s flipping through. Her smile is a balm to the hurt places inside him, the ones that he likes to pretend don’t exist, because he was happy, yes? That was the whole point of everything, was to be happy. “Hey, Cas,” she greets him, shifting over and patting the couch next to her. “I was wondering when you’d be by.” 

“I’ve been busy,” Cas says, settling down on the cushions. In Heaven, his body is easier than it was on earth, more flexible, and he wonders if that’s because after all these years, he’s finally returned to where he was supposed to belong, or if it’s because he no longer has the shadow of his love pressing down on his shoulders. 

“Jack told me. Rebuilding Heaven? Sounds ambitious.” 

“The old Heaven was...not ideal,” Castiel says. “I thought it was at the beginning: each soul gets a paradise tailor made to them. But then, I realized that human life is meaningless without the connections we form along the way. Each soul, stuck forever in its own loop is...” 

“It’s lonely,” Kelly says, reaching out and squeezing his hand. Castiel returns the gesture, grateful for the connection. Her eyes are kind as she moves closer to him, her shoulder pressing into his. 

“So what happened?” 

---

In their time together, Castiel never told Kelly about Dean, at least not explicitly. But she had a brilliant mind and was able to see the threads of his longing woven into everything he did. Relating the story to her comes easily, and he tells her things which he would never tell Jack. 

“And I was happy,” Castiel says at the end. “I was.” 

“You trying to convince me or yourself?”

“Neither,” Castiel replies, bristling slightly. It was true that he might have been happier--he had performed a willful obfuscation of the original terms--but that doesn’t negate what he felt in that moment. The sheer love, the overwhelming gratitude, the incandescent happiness of being able, one last time, to proclaim to the world Dean Winchester is Saved. 

Everything else is unimportant when viewed through those lenses. 

“Why haven’t you gone to see him?” Kelly was always good at cutting to the heart of the problem. 

“Dean has his life on earth. I have my work here in Heaven. I don’t...” Because, of course, he’s asked himself the same question many times. Why doesn’t he go find Dean and tell him of one last, improbable miracle? 

“Cas, let me tell you: I didn’t know Dean all that well, but I didn’t need to if I wanted to know how he felt about you. It was all over his face.” Kelly turns to face him, suddenly serious. “Cas, you should go to him. At least allow him to speak his side. If he doesn’t feel the same way, then you’ll know. And if he does...” 

Castiel shakes his head. Happiness in the being is what he’s told himself ever since he awoke to find himself in Heaven. Happiness doesn’t come from the having. He will live with himself and find contentment in the works which he does. 

Kelly looks sympathetic, but doesn’t say anything as he walks out. 

There’s work to be done. 

---

Castiel sighs with satisfaction as he walks through Heaven. Slowly, the walls are coming down. Souls are mingling and interacting. There’s joy in the once quiet halls, the giddiness which comes from freedom after too long without. He moves through the different realms, silent as a thought, and goes unnoticed, at least until a gruff voice catches his attention. 

“What the hell are you doing here, boy?” 

A wide grin splits Castiel’s face. Only Bobby Singer would think to call an angel ‘boy’. He walks towards the old hunter, who looks the same now as he did in life, and is surprised when Bobby sweeps him up in a hug which would threaten to crack his ribs, were he human. 

“You did good,” Bobby whispers, his voice thick in Castiel’s ear. “I heard what you and that boy Jack did, and you did real good.” 

It means more than he would have thought, to have Bobby’s approval. After a moment’s pause, he hugs Bobby back. 

When Bobby pulls away, he quickly knuckles his eyes, before clearing his throat. “So, you fixed Heaven on top of everything else? What do you have planned next?” 

Castiel’s shoulders lift in a shrug. “There’s always work to be done maintaining Heaven. We don’t know what, if any, effects the restructuring will bring, so I suppose I will be traveling and making sure that everything is stable.” 

“If that ain’t a load of shit,” Bobby scoffs. “From what I’ve seen, your boy has enough power in his pinky finger to do just about whatever he wants. Stop making excuses and get your feathery ass back down there.” 

Castiel swallows. “It’s not quite as simple as that. Sam and Dean have a chance to live their lives, the way that they would wish for them to be lived. It’s not fair of me to intrude.” 

“Now, if that isn’t the biggest pile of horseshit I’ve ever heard.” Bobby’s mouth twists underneath his beard. “Only one thing keeping you from going back down to see those boys, and it sure as hell ain’t concern for Heaven or some BS notion that they’re better off without you.” Castiel opens his mouth, but Bobby speaks over him. “And don’t tell me that you’re just waiting either. Something I learned a long time ago--you never have as much time as you think you do.” 

Castiel closes his mouth and says nothing. 

---

Bobby is wrong. 

There’s still time. He doesn’t have to go yet. There’s still work to be done in Heaven, souls to be guided, walls to be broken. Jack still needs him. 

There’s still time. 

There’s still time, until there isn’t.

---

Castiel feels it before he knows what’s happening. It’s a rift, a tear, something which ripples throughout the universe and comes to hit him in the chest. He staggers backward, hand clutching at his shirt. 

His first thought is that Heaven is under attack, but a second’s observation tells him that’s not the case. Everything is fine. The fabric of Heaven remains secure, the souls are unbothered. It’s only him that feels the blow. 

With a flutter of wings, Jack appears beside him. His face is a mask of distress, tears welling in his eyes. “Cas,” he cries, clenching his hands into fists at his side. “Cas, it’s--” 

“Dean,” Castiel says, finally understanding the bolt of pain which ripped through him. 

It was too soon. He doesn’t know how much time has passed on earth, but he knows it was too soon. 

It’s always too soon. 

“Cas, what do I... I can heal him. I can go and heal him now. I can save him. I can...” Jack trails off, his feet still pacing in desperate circles. “What do I do?” 

It’s a child’s question, and Castiel has no answer. 

“Free will,” is all he says. “Whatever you do...It’s your decision.” 

---

Castiel feels when Dean Winchester’s soul enters Heaven. He held that soul within his grace, he snatched it away from the filth and flames of Hell. He cradled that soul while he was reassembling Dean’s body, pulling atoms out of air to create skin, flesh, and bone. He would know that soul at the end of everything, and he knows it here, when it settles into the place which was created for him. 

It was as perfect as Castiel could make it; down to the Impala sitting in the Roadhouse’s parking lot. He created every inch of Dean’s Heaven in homage, in apology. 

It wasn’t fair. Dean deserved to live to a ripe old age. He deserved to enjoy the world for which he fought so hard. He should have grown old, should have found peace, should have discovered the foibles and pitfalls of normal, human existence. Dean worked too hard, for too long, and he deserved a kinder, softer fate. Instead, he’s here, and all Castiel can do for him is to craft his Heaven with painstaking care. 

He pauses on the boundaries of Dean’s Heaven. Every fiber of him yearns to go forward, to rejoice in Dean’s presence, to see that beloved face again. He wants it so badly he can almost taste it, leather and gasoline and whiskey mingling together until he’s back in the bunker, listening to the sounds of his family--

Castiel takes a step away from the border. First one, then another. After three steps, it becomes easier. 

Dean has his paradise, and Castiel won’t interfere. 

---

Heaven moves as it always does, timeless and changeless. There is no turn of the earth to mark the passage of time. Instead, it moves like the ocean, rolling waves which are always moving and yet the surface remains the same. Castiel travels through various Heavens, observing the newly liberated souls, and taking his peace from their newfound enjoyment. It eases something within him to see his former home restored, better than it ever was before. 

He’s inspecting a field of sunflowers when the sound of a car door closing surprises him. Immediately, his heart lurches in his chest, dipping down to somewhere around his knees before hurtling upwards to lodge in his throat. He swallows before he turns around. 

Dean Winchester is there. 

Castiel’s heart, always out of his control, performs a quick dance against the confines of his ribs. Dean looks...He looks whole and wonderful, vibrant and alive. The lines around his eyes look as though they’ve been carved through laughter instead of despair. His shoulders sit easier, no longer pressed down with the burden of the entire world. 

Castiel licks his lips. “Hello, Dean,” he finally says, when it becomes obvious that Dean has no intention of making the first move. 

Dean’s lips quirk up in a grin. “Cas,” he says, not moving from where he’s leaning up against the frame of the Impala. “You’re a hard guy to track down.” 

Layers upon layers of subtext are placed within the seemingly simple sentence. Castiel remembers Purgatory as well as anything else, the desperate year of keeping one step ahead of Leviathans while close enough to Dean to protect him if need be. 

“I’m sorry,” Castiel says faintly. “I wasn’t aware anyone was looking.” 

Dean’s face performs a series of interesting maneuvers, dropping and rising and twisting. It finally settles into an expression like stone as he pushes off the car and storms towards him. Castiel waits, caught up in breathless anticipation of the oncoming storm. 

“Look,” Dean growls, reaching out and snagging the lapel of his coat, almost like he wants to ensure that Castiel doesn’t escape. Castiel doesn’t even dream of it; there’s no other place he’d rather be than caught in Dean’s grip. “There was a lot of shit going on at the time, so I didn’t get to say it then, but there’s nothing happening now, so you are going to sit here and listen, all right?”

Castiel nods, but Dean doesn’t seem to notice. “I can’t believe you didn’t...” He runs the hand which isn’t still wrapped up in Castiel’s coat over his face. “You idiot,” he finally breathes. “A couple of dumbasses. You’ve had me, Cas. All along, you’ve had me.” 

Castiel looks up at Dean in sharp surprise. When he meets Dean’s eyes, there’s nothing but the infinite compassion which he fell in love with. “You... You’re this force of nature that came bursting into my life. All this time, you’ve always been there, always helping, and I took that for granted, I know I did. But, god, Cas, I should have told you every day how thankful I was to have you there with us. I should have let you know what a miracle you are. You never gave up on me, not once, not even when I deserved it.” 

Castiel’s breath hitches in his chest as Dean lets go of his coat. Slowly, with a shaking hand, he reaches up to cup Castiel’s cheek. “You never stopped believing. You never stopped trying. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

“Dean.” The name bursts out of Castiel’s chest in a harsh breath. Dean’s words are working their way underneath his skin, to the point where his body can’t contain them. 

“Cas.” Dean gently angles his face up so that there’s no escape when he says, “I love you.” 

“I’m sorry,” explodes from Castiel’s chest, the helplessness and grief he felt when he felt Dean’s soul leaving earth erupting in a single quick sob. “Dean, I’m so sorry, I should have been there, I should have done something, I never should have left you alone--” 

“Cas.” Dean’s fingers press into his cheek, not hard, but firmly enough to get his attention. “It sucks, all right? There was so much I wanted...” The corner of his mouth drops. “I was going to get you out, and you, me, and Sam were going to head to the beach. I was going to get you drinking out of a coconut, maybe a Hawaiian shirt. We were going to do Christmas, I was going to take you to a theme park and see if you puked on roller coasters. I wanted...” For a moment, grief so overwhelming that it can’t be touched crosses Dean’s face, but then, with effort, he pushes it away. “There’s so much that I wanted, but it’s done now. And besides, you’ve been busy.” Dean raises his eyebrows. The grin on his face invites Cas to smile as well. “Reforming Heaven?” 

“I wanted...There was so much I did wrong here. I thought if I could make it right, that maybe...” Castiel leans his cheek into Dean’s hand. “I wanted it to be perfect for you. You weren’t supposed to be here yet.” 

“I know. I know. And it’s not okay, but you’re here, all right? Mom’s here, Bobby’s here, Charlie, and Jess, and Kevin, and Ellen and Jo...They’re all here, and thanks to you, I’m going to see them. You did that, Cas.” 

“Jack did most of the work--” Castiel begins, but he’s cut off by the soft press of Dean’s lips against his. 

Sparks burst in his chest as Dean’s hand slides around to the back of his neck to cradle his head. His other arm slides around his waist, and suddenly, Castiel is held by Dean Winchester, by this miracle of a man. Dean’s kisses consume him, until he’s no longer Castiel. Instead, he’s heat, and friction, and more. 

“You and me,” Dean pants against his lips, pulling away just far enough to run his nose along Castiel’s. “We’ve got time now, Cas, we’ve got so much time. I’m going to take you apart, going to show you how much I love you, every single day. I’m going to show you everything.” 

Castiel is drowning in the outpouring of Dean’s devotion. He’s helpless in the riptides. All he can do to save himself is kiss Dean again, tasting salt on their lips from where their tears trace down to their lips. Castiel cries partly for Dean’s missed opportunities and the fact that life is so cruel. But he also cries from happiness. Dean is right. Here, they have all the time they could ever want. There’s time to explore every feeling and desire, time for them to become themselves, without the pressure of the world around them. 

They part. Somehow, Castiel’s hands have found their way onto Dean’s waist. One of his thumbs is braver than the rest of his whole body, as it sneaks underneath Dean’s shirt to touch bare skin. Dean grins at him. 

“Hey, Cas,” he asks, pressing his forehead to Castiel’s. “Do you want to take a drive?” 

Their fingers entwine as they walk towards the Impala. Castiel’s chest feels light, like Dean’s hand is the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground. “I’m still trying to figure out the roads here. It felt like I was driving around for forty years to try and find you.” 

They settle into the Impala, where they’ve been so many times before, but now Castiel can enjoy every squeak of the leather seats. He can revel in the imperfections of the car because of the perfection that’s next to him. Dean Winchester reaches across the seat and takes his hand, as easy as breathing. 

“I can’t wait to show Sam everything,” Dean says, as he guides the Impala back onto a road which Castiel is almost certain wasn’t there when he arrived. “I, uh...Hope it takes him a while to get here. But. Yeah, when he gets here, I can’t wait to show him everything.”

“We’ll see it all together,” Castiel finally says. It’s all he can say, his heart too busy dancing in his chest. 

They have all the time they want.

---

Time slips and passes and stops. In between his time with Dean, Jack, and the rest of the residents of Heaven, and performing maintenance throughout Heaven, Castiel watches the earth. He sees those left behind grow older. Claire and Kaia start a family, Claire finally having set aside the kernel of anger in her heart. Castiel watches Sam and Eileen’s family grow, smiling when Sam finally goes back to law school and gets his degree. He spends the rest of his career fighting for justice for children lost in the system, those who can’t fight for themselves. Saving people, hunting things, indeed. 

Several times, Castiel thinks about going to visit Sam, if only to assuage the grief he can still see the man carrying, but each time he stops. It hurts, but grief is a facet of life. This grief is natural. It comes honestly. It’s not manipulated by a sadistic higher being for a voyeristic pleasure. 

Eileen comes out to the Impala and brings Sam back into the house with gentle touches. Throughout the years, she’s learned how to navigate Sam’s moods, and knows how to bring him back. They lay in bed, foreheads pressed together, Eileen’s body curved into Sam’s. 

“I just,” Sam begins, twisting slightly so Eileen can read his lips, “I just miss him so much sometimes.” 

“I know,” Eileen answers. It’s all she needs to say. 

After a while, Sam gently wraps his fingers around Eileen’s wrist, partly for comfort, partly to grab her attention. “Dean’s baseball game is next weekend. Do we know yet if it’s going to conflict with Beth’s dance rehearsal?” 

“It shouldn’t,” Eileen answers, and with that, the normal routine of their life is reestablished. The grief is always present, but it’s part of the human condition. 

Castiel turns his eyes back to Heaven, where Dean waits for him. Despite it being Heaven, he insists on making repairs to Bobby’s house as well as the Roadhouse, even when Castiel reminds him, for the hundredth time, that if he truly wanted to, he could fix these imperfections with a thought. 

“Sometimes, you just have to do things the hard way,” he answers, through a mouthful of nails. 

Castiel rolls his eyes and goes to help him. 

---

The morning dawns, quiet and gentle. The dawn is silvery-gold as it stretches across the grass leading up to the cabin. In the distance, the birds start singing. Castiel can smell the fresh scents of spring, dew clinging to the grass, the clean, bright potential in the air. His toes stick out from underneath the comforter, but a quick flip of his foot flicks the corner of the blanket back into place. 

A warm, heavy arm winds over his waist. “Babe, it’s too early,” Dean mumbles into the nape of his neck. “Go back to sleep.” 

Castiel strokes over the back of Dean’s hand. The words are tempting, but something has woken him up, and now that it has, he wants to know what it is. He props himself up on his elbows, ignoring the chill of the air as it bites at his bare skin, and concentrates. After a second, he startles. 

“Dean,” he says. 

Though he doesn’t put urgency or fear into his voice, something about his tone makes Dean open his eyes, suddenly alert. Castiel looks at him, and Dean rolls over onto his side. After their time together, they’ve mastered the art of the wordless conversation, much to the chagrin of Charlie, Kevin, and anyone within ten miles of them, at least according to Jo. 

“It’s time?” Dean asks. He rolls closer to Castiel, stealing his warmth, as he trails his fingers over Castiel’s ribs. 

“Yes,” Castiel answers, taking Dean’s hand in his and pressing kisses to each of Dean’s fingertips. “Won’t be long now.” 

Dean’s fingers slide across his cheek before he curls his fingers around the bolt of Castiel’s jaw, pulling him down. Their lips meet in a chaste kiss which still manages to make fireworks explode in the pit of Castiel’s belly. He doesn’t think the thrill of kissing Dean will ever fade. Castiel doesn’t want it to. 

“I should get going,” Dean murmurs, rubbing against the bristles on Castiel’s cheek. “You want to come along?” 

Castiel relaxes back into the mattress, only reluctantly parting from Dean. “No, you go. I’ll be here when you get back.” 

“I know.” Dean slides out of bed, and Castiel takes a moment to appreciate the play of his muscles underneath fair skin. He lets out a small, disappointed noise when Dean slides into a pair of jeans and a jacket, causing Dean to roll his eyes at him over his shoulders. “Yeah, keep it in your pants. Definitely wearing clothes to this particular meeting.” 

“Shame,” Castiel murmurs, waggling his eyebrows. 

“Shameless,” Dean corrects, leaning over the mattress to kiss Castiel once more, short and sweet. “We’ll be back before too long.” Another kiss to Castiel’s forehead, and then Dean murmurs, “I love you,” into his hair. 

Castiel smiles. Much like kissing Dean, hearing those words will never grow old to him. He’ll revel in them, roll in the simple syllables, allow them to sink into him, with the simple truth that Jack tells him, that Charlie tells him, that Kelly tells him, that even Bobby and Ellen and Jo tell him. 

You are valued. You are loved. 

He smiles at Dean Winchester, this impossible, miracle of a man. “I love you too,” he replies. 

Dean out of the bedroom. The door to the cabin opens and closes. Castiel rolls over onto his back and stretches, staring up at the ceiling. 

There’s work to be done today. He’ll need to travel through Heaven, informing the various interested parties that Sam Winchester has arrived. There will be a party tonight at the Roadhouse, a celebration instead of mourning. Then he and Dean will get to show Sam their Heaven, will listen to Sam relate through his years. 

There is so much work to do. 

But they have time. They have all the time they need. 

---

“Life never ends when you are in it.”--Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters

[jamespotterthefirst]

For A Long Time Now (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart, Book 3

Pairing: Dr. Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr. Lilac Allende)

Words: 2K

Warning: Implied adult situations

Premise: He can finally tell her the three words he meant to say for a long time.

Author’s Note: The non-premium Ethan love confession is supreme and nothing will convince me otherwise. This is named after it. 

I.

The bright beams of moonlight illuminated the small, charming bedroom when Ethan awoke. One glance at the digital clock on her bedside informed him it was almost two in the morning. With a sigh that sounded louder in the still darkness, he sank back into her pillows, his heart beating a content, steady beat at the prospect of having just a few more hours by her side. 

A few hours, though a miserable consolation, were welcomed if it meant having her in his arms, peaceful and beautiful. Ethan glanced down at her, unable to avoid feeling awestruck. Her steady breath ebbed and flowed gently, caressing his skin as she slept against his chest, her ear pressed against the heart that beat for her. A few hours were a small but welcomed triumph.

Soon, dawn would break across the sky, announcing the beginning of a new day and bringing them closer to their inevitable end. 

It was as though his misery was a force so strong, it pressed into her because at that moment, she stirred 

“Mmmm.” She let out a small hum of protest twisting and tangling her limbs further in the sheets. When she opened her eyes, she blinked slowly at first then rapidly, pushing away sleep.

“Hi,” she greeted, her fogged expression melting into a tired but breathtaking smile.

“Hey,” he returned with a small smirk. 

Lilac bit her bottom lip against a second smile, this one playful and coquettish. And just like that, they were drawn to one another again, plucking kisses with hot, languid strokes of their mouths. Their movements became slow, lazy, as though they had all the time in the world. 

His heart ached when he realized how untrue that was.

Lilac, lips bruised from his kiss, beamed at him when they broke apart. 

“Why are you awake this early? Don't tell me you actually get up at two in the morning to start your day.”

“Three thirty, actually.”

Lilac made a sound of faux disgust that made him laugh. “If you made me get up that early daily, I'd murder you.”

His stomach gave an involuntary swoop at the implication. She meant if they spent many nights together, not just one night before their return to attending and intern. If they woke up next to each other every morning, stealing kisses as they prepared for their day. If they had more than just mere hours left to be together. 

Lilac seemed to catch the meaning of her words because she blushed. She opened her mouth, mortified, perhaps to dissuade the tension in the quiet bedroom with characteristic rambling. Ethan summoned a crooked smirk before she could get the words out. 

“Not even if I woke you up to do this?” 

In one graceful stroke of movement he had her on top of him, straddling his waist. His lips trailed slow, delicate kisses along her throat, inspiring the most delicious of moans. By the time he reached her jaw, she was breathless. 

“Ethan,” she whimpered, begging him for more. 

He was happy to oblige, fulfilling every one of her panting pleas until, with mingled cries and moans, they collapsed against the heap of pillows. 

“You can absolutely wake me up like that in a few hours.” She snuggled against his chest as she said this, this time listening aptly to his frenzied pulse. 

Ethan chuckled, pulling her close. 

They remained silent for a moment, contently listening to the distant lull of the city. As his breath slowly returned to normal, his eyes scanned the space of her bedroom, taking in every detail he could commit to memory. 

There were many pictures of whom Ethan assumed were her family—lively, kind-faced people, some who shared her same nose, others her smile, few her eyes. Then, in the many frames cluttering the desk, were the familiar faces of her friends, laughing and smiling in just as familiar places: Donahue's, the coast, even Edenbrook. For a wistful moment, he allowed himself to imagine a photo of the two of them framed and placed at her bedside. Lilac would be kissing his cheek and Ethan would fail to fight back a smile, no doubt looking the happiest he'd ever look in his life. 

For a moment he imagined they were just Ethan and Lilac, not Dr. Ramsey and Dr. Allende. 

A swirl of dark clouds slowly floated away, leaving the moon unobstructed. 

In the full light of the moon, he realized they could be both. Ethan wasn't her direct supervisor. If he pulled some strings and asked another attending to be her supervisor, perhaps they could… 

Lilac shifted slightly and hummed meekly, tilting her face up to him. “What are you thinking about?” 

Her voice was thick with exhaustion, both from her trial earlier and from the celebration after. 

Her lids appeared heavy with sleep, already halfway closed. Ethan almost chuckled at the sight, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. 

“You.”

Lilac smiled despite the veil of sleep starting to overwhelm her, savoring the single word. With another small sigh, she snuggled against his chest, her hand sliding up to rest by his collarbone. 

God, he loved it when she did that.

Ethan paused. 

Love. 

A foolish concept he once scoffed at or tried to explain away with scientific facts. Yet, he loved many things about her, he knew that as extensively as he knew medicine.

Ethan swallowed, fingers absently playing with her silky hair.

He loved her.

There was no point in denying what he had known for weeks, what he had felt since perhaps the moment she held his hand on the loveseat of the NICU. As he held her then, Ethan doubted that was an accurate estimate of when his feelings started. He was already in the middle by the time he was forced to accept the undeniable fact that he was in love with Lilac Allende. 

I love you. 

Thinking the words felt like an echo. Merely replaying them in his mind was no longer enough. Simply thinking them felt like a travesty, a complete lack of respect for the beautiful, brilliant woman in his arms. He had to say them, professionalism and propriety be damned. 

He could figure the rest out later. 

She had to know. 

“Lilac?” 

“Hmm?” 

The sound was soft, distant. When he glanced down, she was asleep, breathing peacefully against his chest. With a sad but resigned smile, he pulled her close and kissed her forehead instead. 

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

II.

June and Baz filed out without a backward glance. Lilac, however, lingered behind as was her custom. Of that much, Ethan was certain before he even turned around to face her. His eyes locked with a pair of curious green ones and his stomach dove, an involuntary reaction to her.

“Can I help you with something, Dr. Allende?” 

She arched an eyebrow at him. “So formal,” she commented as she stepped into his embrace. “That's not what you called me last night.”

The false innocence she injected into that little whisper drove him insane. His fingers clenched her hips, wishing for nothing more than to fold her over his desk. Instead, he smirked down at her. 

“I don't believe I called you anything last night.”

“Mmm, you didn't. You were too distracted making out with me. I doubt you could string two words together.”

Lilac kissed him again, this time taking great care to push her body against his. Ethan groaned into her mouth, convinced this type of torture was worse than any other. They had only shared hungry kisses on several occasions, but Ethan never allowed it to proceed any further, even if his body protested that decision often. 

He didn't think he could bear the pain of separation when she inevitably moved on next year. 

“Maybe I’ll let you call me that in bed,” she murmured.

Ethan groaned again. 

Luckily for him, her pager interrupted their moment and Ethan was spared from making a fool of himself by trying to stammer out a reply. Lilac glanced down and sighed wistfully.

“I have to go,” she lamented, making little effort to move away. “They’re going to have the results for the Senator’s lead testing soon.” 

Ethan barely heard her, too busy memorizing the curve of her lips, the cluster of freckles on her nose, the exact shade of forest green with flickers of gold from her eyes. 

“Are we still doing dinner at your place tonight?” she asked, completely unaware of his lovestruck admiration. “You owe me that Gregorian stuffed chicken from last time.”

Overwhelmed, Ethan merely nodded.

With one last smile, she craned her neck to kiss him goodbye, her hand lingering on his jaw when they broke apart. 

Ethan watched her approach the door, a sense of urgency gripping him. After everything they had been through that year, his heart beat just as relentlessly for her. That much was clear from their recent slip in conviction. If Ethan was being honest, his heart had never faltered once, not even when he tried to put distance between them by escaping to Brazil. 

Every kiss since the one they shared outside his apartment was proof of one irrevocable truth. 

He never stopped loving her.

He doubted he ever would. 

“Lilac?”

“Hmm?” 

She halted right as she reached the door, looking over her shoulder curiously. 

I love you. 

Ethan opened his mouth, throat straining against a sudden knot. Before the words formed, that constant, miserable thought pushed its way to the forefront of his mind.

She might leave at the end of her residency. She deserves the entire world at her feet and you could never tie her down. 

“Ethan?”

“See you tonight.”

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

III.

The real celebration occurred at Lahela's apartment later that evening. At least, that's what the surgeon deemed in a loud and almost incomprehensible cheer when they arrived. When his eyes landed on Ethan by Lilac’s side, however, a small moment of surprise pierced the silence, before he cheered louder than ever, proclaiming, “The Chief is here. Now, it's a real party!” 

Ethan had to admit that this cohort of young doctors knew how to celebrate in style. It didn’t take long before they broke into the impressive selection of drinks at the kitchen counter. The only regrettable aspect of the whole affair was the music. 

“Don Julio 1942, bitches,” Lahela proclaimed, brandishing two sleek bottles of tequila. He seemed to remember Ethan was in the room for he grimaced briefly. “Sorry, Dr. R!”

“The only thing you have to apologize for, Lahela, is taking so long to serve us our shots,” Ethan returned without missing a beat. 

“Amen to that,” Lilac responded enthusiastically from his side. 

After many rounds of high quality shots, their group grew in numbers as other hospital staff arrived and crammed the small apartment. Though no one excluded Ethan from their small cliques—quite the opposite, everyone was too eager to talk to the new Chief—he was happier observing from the sidelines. 

No, he was happier observing her, laughing and celebrating with her friends, from afar. It was like being a spectator to the most beautiful and moving art piece he had ever seen. She deserved all the revelry and acclaim pouring over her that night. This was an exciting chapter in her life that she had fought hard to earn. Ethan did not believe the sun itself could contain the pride blooming in his chest. 

After a couple hours, the late evening found Ethan at the terrace of Lahela’s apartment, a blanket of the deepest purple overhead. 

“Too important to hang out with us plebeians now that you’re Chief of Medicine?”

It was Lilac, standing at the sliding door, cheeks flushed and smile radiant in the moonlight. 

“That has literally never been true about any administrator,” he returned, though smiling just as brightly. He couldn’t contain the elation now that the floodgates had opened. 

Their bodies found each other, as they always would, joining in an embrace. Ethan kissed her forehead, the movement something close to second nature. “I’d argue your new job is more worthy of such praise,” he murmured. With a small nod toward the party, he added, “And theirs.”

Lilac pulled her chin back to survey him with pride. “Spoken like a true leader.”

A rumble of collective groans and cheers erupted from inside the apartment as a new song blurred through the speakers. 

“Bryce is on an eighties-only lockdown,” she explained with a laugh. “He does that when he’s had too much to drink.”

Ethan scrunched up his nose. “Then we got out just in time.” 

Lilac laughed, the sound a comfort to Ethan. They stood there in each other’s embrace, overlooking the twinkling lights of the city, reminiscent of another time long ago on a different balcony. Even then, his heart beat fiercely, desperately for her. Back then, he fought so courageously (and foolishly) against the three words that seemed the only truth in the universe. 

He didn’t have to deny himself of happiness anymore.

At long last, he didn’t have to fight them anymore.

“Lilac?”

“Hmm?”

She glanced up at him.

“I love you.”

 Her smile rivaled the stars above their heads.

“I love you, Ethan,” she replied without hesitation. 

He didn’t dare believe he could ever be happier. Then she kissed him, pouring her feelings into every movement of her lips, and he realized his happiness was boundless by her side. When they pulled apart, breathless and grinning like teenagers, Ethan let out a low chuckle.

“It’s an outrage to tell you that with Starship playing in the background.”

Lilac laughed, her eyes sparkling with unshed, happy tears. “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now is a fitting song if you think about it.”

Ethan made an exaggerated face of disgust that he was sure would make her laugh. Pure satisfaction coursed through him when it did.

 “Luckily for you, you can tell anytime you want now,” she told him.  

He kissed her again, spurred on by uncontained elation. 

“You can rest assured I will.”

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

Author’s Note: I am not okay after that confession. I had to write something. Part I takes place right after her trial in book 1; Part II is right before her attack in book 2; Part III after that confession kljdlkfk

A few notes:

I still plan to write for Lilac and Ethan as time and creativity allows. If anyone still wishes to read them, then they’ll be here for you <3. If anyone still wants OPH content, you can count on me for that. I don’t plan on letting go of this story for a while. 

I’m going on a trip to the East Coast next week, including Boston (eeeek). I will leave a queue of random stuff but also two fics. One will be Chapter 1 of my OHTY Rewrite. The second will be a short ficlet I wrote a while ago

I am currently working on the next chapter of both Pictagram series. Hopefully I can post those when I come back!

Whether you leave the fandom or stick around (or something in between), I want to sincerely thank everyone who has supported this crazy journey of mine for the past year. Writing has always been my passion, but I stopped doing it for years before Open Heart. It was this book, these characters, and YOU who motivated me to write my little heart out. You guys gave me my happiness back and for that I am extremely grateful.  

I love you guys! 

*Tagging in a reblog*

[ashintheairlikesnow]

For Vampire Chris! What if he and Jake went to a museum and came across some of Tooley's paintings? And Chris has a panic attack! We would finally get some Jake comfort. And maybe Chris would reveal more horrible things that Tooley had done to him.

CW: Discussion of death, blood, vampire whumpee, caretaker and whumpee

The sun sets early in the winter, and it's the only reason they can make this work.

Chris is barely awake even so, sipping from a coffee cup Jake filled with the contents of one of his blood packs, hoping he doesn't trip and spill and lead to Jake having some very awkward, panicked explanations to make to anyone nearby.

He'd slept in the truck Jake borrowed from Nat most of the way over here, curled in the passenger seat. He looks for all the world like any high schooler who stayed up too late the night before, dragged out by his family, forced to go learn when all he wants is rest.

Chris is draped in a hooded sweatshirt pulled on over his head, hair mussed from sleeping in the closet in the little nest-bed he made for himself in there. It sticks out like stray from beneath the hood he's pulled up, coppery strands occasionally covering his eyes and making him shove them out of the way with a snort that has no right to be as adorable as it is, considering the monster who makes the sound.

Not a monster, no. Not really.

Or his monster, anyway, the same way his mother is his mother. Jake is starting to understand the little vampire - more than three times his own age - has chosen him for family now.

The sweater he wears is kind of a joke, actually. Jake bought it weeks ago from a website that puts the covers of books on clothes, and it's an old cover image from Dracula.

Jake thought it was funny, anyway. Nat was less amused. Chris only smiled and said something about being happy the hairy palms thing isn't true.

The air is chilly, and Jake shivers a little as they head in from the parking lot across a small sidewalk next to a park and toward the museum itself, but of course Chris doesn't even notice. He seems to be enjoying it, the way it blows around his hair as they make their way slowly up the steps and past the row of Grecian-style columns that mark the entrance.

Jake has to visit for one of his classes, an extra-credit something-or-other, and Chris had asked to go along with him.

Jake had been hesitant, but seeing the way the vampire's green eyes sparkle as he moves around in public like any other person, well... he feels like he made the right choice to bring him along now.

"Finish up your drink, you can't take anything in once we pay and get past the lobby," Jake says, and Chris nods, gulping the last of the blood as fast as he can as they push through wide double-doors. Jake tries not to imagine how it must feel, swallowing thick congealing cooled blood. Someone's life, someone's heartbeat, down your throat...

Really, is he that much different? Jake has eaten a dozen cows' worth of beef in his life.

Does Chris see them all as just livestock? He doesn't act like it, but then, there are people who treat pigs or cows like pets and not like food...

His stomach flips a little and he forces himself to look around, up at the chandelier at the high ceiling, the heavy wooden desk they have to walk to off to the side to get their tickets. To stop trying to understand if Chris is a sort of stray they've adopted, or if he's a higher-level predator living with prey.

Once Chris drops the cup into a trash can, Jake throwing a couple wadded-up tissues on top so no one can accidentally see the smear of red around the edge of the lid, they buy their tickets, and wind their way through and past the little velvet ropes that mark off the entrance.

The museum opens before them into a grand hall, with paintings the size of two-story buildings on either side, permanent installations in the museum. Commissioned for its opening, sometime back in the 70's.

Jake picks up a brochure so they know which way to go - LGBTQ+ Art in Pre-War America is the temporary exhibit he's here to see, traveling work that is usually housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

"Oh, nice, it's on the first floor. Looks like you go through a couple of 'specialty' rooms, just showing off stuff from the in-house collection. Sounds cool, right?"

Chris, looking from side to side at the gigantic paintings that hang on the walls in the opening hall, hums softly, a tuneless constant sound. He doesn't answer Jake's question. He hums often, and Jake barely notices any longer, but there's something edged to it, now. As if just being around the paintings is making him nervous.

"Okay, little man, let's go over here." He touches Chris's arm, lightly, through the thick fabric of his sweater. The vampire looks over at him, smiling with his lips pressed together to hide his teeth from any potential prying eyes.

He follows easily, but he sticks closer to Jake than he normally does, and his eyes are constantly roving. They move through an exhibit of Pre-Colombian pottery first, on their way to the room in the back where the temporary showcase is.

Jake watches Chris's fingers twitch with the urge to touch, to learn by feeling the bumps and ridges in the ancient clay, and how he holds back as best he can. His urge to lift the clear protective plastic boxes right off the pottery so he can get at it is nearly physically painful.

Jake pretends not to see it when Chris's fingers trail along a column, settling for the white-painted rectangle the pottery is balanced on, taking in the rough texture smoothed by the matte paint.

"Did you ever meet anyone like you that was old enough to have made stuff like this?" Jake asks, stopping in front of a water jug in the shape of a man playing a flute with a dog at his feet. The dog wears a carved smile marked with disturbingly human-looking teeth. The paint it must have been covered in is worn by time, leaving the reddish-brown of the clay behind, with the faintest streaks of white still in the crevices.

"No," Chris replies, tilting his head, making direct eye contact with the statue in a way he never quite can do with any real person. Not comfortably, anyway. Jake has seen him force it and shudder afterwards, overwhelmed. When he'd asked about it, Chris had said he never liked looking at anyone's eyes, even before, when he was alive. It's too much, was all he would say. It's always too much. "None, um, none of us live that long."

"Why not?" They're alone in the room. It's the only reason Jake feels safe asking.

Chris's tongue runs over the sharpening bumps of his growing-in fangs, pressing against them, easing the itch and the ache of their return. After a second, he pulls a plastic bat on a cord from inside his sweater and puts the bat into his mouth, chewing on it idly, jaw working. "I, I, I don't know. That's just what what what my, my, my pack told me."

"I thought vampires lived in covens."

"No." Chris doesn't elaborate on this one. He can be weirdly secretive about how he lived before he came to Nat's, before he was pulled out of a basement, a living drug for a wealthy asshole.

Secretive, or just forgetting whatever wasn't essential.

He moves away to another pedestal, a shard broken off of a larger vessel, marked with a deep white and intense black angular design. He hums again, and Jake takes the hint and leaves him alone.

They spend several more minutes looking over the pottery before they head through a second room full of what must just be the favorite pieces of museum employees, as there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason, and each little card with the name of the piece and its maker has a paper next to it with a note on why each employee loves this piece in particular. Chris lingers around older things, a woven tapestry from medieval England, landscapes from the 19th century. He stares for a while at a painting called The Country Path by Joseph Poole Addy, a pale watercolor of winter trees with bare branches breaking the line of sky and a woman bundled in a coat carrying a basket down an equally colorless road.

Chris's humming getting louder, and he rocks a little, forward and back, his eyes moving again and again through the lines of the painting.

Jake wonders what it is about this one specifically that catches Chris like that, and when the vampire finally moves on he checks the employee's statement. Joseph Poole Addy, Irish painter in the 19th and 20th centuries, blah blah, something something countryside... Jake frowns, and glances over at Chris, who isn't looking back. He's moved on to something else.

Jake decides to ask him later.

They make it to the exhibit they're here to see, and Jake whistles under his breath as he enters. There are vibrant, saturated paintings lining the walls, a couple of large sculptures on the floor that still are taller than he is, a few smaller ones on pedestals. The work is mostly figurative, although there's some early abstraction there, a hint of the contemporary push to take even figurative work out of simply being an echo of a real life thing.

Chris looks at a sculpture, his head cocked so far to the side it looks almost birdlike, not quite human. Jake thinks his own neck would ache for days if he tried to do that. "Must've been, um, later," He mumbles to himself.

Jake files that away in his mental list of things to talk to Chris about later.

He walks slowly along the line of paintings. The whole point of being here is that he's supposed to pick a specific piece and write a short essay about it and the artist who made it, prove he saw it in person.

The class itself is about how to encourage better outcomes for healthcare in marginalized populations - but if she's giving out extra-credit for looking at queer art, well, Jake is happy to spend an hour in a museum.

After his dismal performance on the last test, he could use whatever credit he can get. Besides, the exhibit is actually kind of cool with that in mind. Every one of these artists was in some way outside of the sort of het ideal, and Jake smiles a little as he catches the heaviness of a look between two men seated across a table from one another, looks over the clasped hands of women, sitting with everything from shoulder to hip touching, who are listed as 'friends visiting the riverbank'.

Art that celebrates, hidden in plain sight. Art that rebels by sliding details in under the surface where only those looking for them will find them.

Each piece has another little paper, although this just has details about the artist and their work, what they were known for. He can use it as a jumping-off point for his paper, anyway.

"You, you, you finished her," Chris whispers, standing in front of a sculpture of a woman with her head thrown back as if in uproarious laughter, a woman with curls expertly carved so that her hair seems to have been there before the stone it's made of somehow. "I wonder if she, um, if if if she saw it."

"What'd you say, Chris?" Jake blinks, pulled out of his own internal reverie.

"Nothing," Chris responds, and walks slowly around the statue. The woman's smile is a shining light in the room. No one could carve like that without being at least a little in love with the subject.

Jake wanders away and then comes to an abrupt stop before a large painting, probably taller than Chris is. The background is near-total darkness with only a suggestion of stone, a single beam of light shining down to illuminate the central figure.

A naked boy clothed only in scraps of torn cloth that only emphasize his nakedness everywhere else is crouched in terror. His knees are bent and his feet are on the floor, one hand holding his weight with fingers slightly curled, his spine bent and arched as if he is caught in the midst of turning to look up to find the direction of the light. His other hand is thrown out, as if trying to ward off an attack.

He bleeds from a dozen or more places, the blood curving perfectly around his form, giving it extra weight and heft that makes it seem like he'll step out of the canvas, grab Jake, and shake him.

Jake's heart starts to race as he stares.

There are bones littering the ground around the thin, wasted boy, not bleached but sort of yellowed, marked with little notches as if cut with a knife. There might still be bits of skin attached to some of them, a hint of muscle. The detail makes Jake sick, but his panic, that comes from something else entirely. Just behind the panicked boy there is a body, as if just fallen, the eyes still open in the final terrified throes of death. The body's fingers are still dug into the dirt floor as if the dead man had been trying to pull himself somewhere, to escape.

A skull watches with eerie cheer from one corner of the painting, a few teeth missing and knocked out from its garish grin.

Barely visible, a thin wash of grayish-white, there is a pale, gnarled hand near the bottom reaching out from the background as if to grab the boy's ankle and drag him into the darkness.

Count Ugolino's Last Son, oils, 1932, reads the little plaque beside the painting. Its faint brassy shine glints in the carefully calibrated light. Edward Tooley, 1907 - 1936.

Jake swallows, but the lump in his throat doesn't budge, and he swallows again. And again. He can't take his eyes off the boy's painted hair, a dirtied copper, strawberry-blond badly in need of a wash. The wide green eyes with their terror writ large and clear, painted with lovingly perfect detail.

The boy in the painting is the perfect identical twin of the vampire who is still staring at the sculpture on the other side of the room. The fear in his face is so expertly done as to seem more photographic than painted in oil. The blood that drips to the ground follows his anatomy with absolute perfection. The bones are not bleached by they so often are in paintings, no, these...

These...

Jake holds his phone up and takes a photo, and then another of the little plaque.

"Chris." His voice cracks and Jake clears his throat. His heart is still pounding. "Chris, come look at this."

"Yes, Jake," Chris answers, sounding a little faint, and then he seems to simply appear at Jake's elbow, the teenage boy who has seen two world wars and a half-dozen smaller, stupider ones.

He goes still at Jake's side when he looks up. Jake looks over, just slightly, glancing sidelong to see a look of something like... wistfulness on the vampire boy's face.

"Tooley," He breathes. His hand goes up, and out, and he would have touched the canvas if Jake hadn't reached out and grabbed on to stop him. Chris jumps a little and turns to meet Jake's gaze. His eyes are pink-tinged in the whites, as if he's holding back tears. "Is, is, is he famous?"

"I guess. He's... he's here, isn't he?"

"He always wanted to, um, to to to to be famous." Chris's eyes move over the details, but it's not with surprise, it's with easy familiarity. He's seen this painting before.

He's been this painting before.

"That's you, isn't it?" Jake asks in a hushed voice. "Like, that was really you."

Chris looks away again, a faint flush in his cheeks. He's full enough of blood for it to happen, and you'd never know he isn't alive if you didn't already. "Yes," He whispers, and wipes at the corner of his eye with one hand. "That, that, that's me."

"Were you his model?" Jake blinks, looking back over the painted twin of the vampire beside him. The fear in the boy's face, woven in with a kind of awful resignation. It's all so perfectly rendered.

"Yes. Sort, um. Sort of. He, he, he kept me in a room." Chris exhales, slowly, and his eyes shift over to the paper with the little bit of biographical information on it. Edward Tooley's early works focused on landscapes or retreads of common historical subjects, only to find greater excellence and focus when he began to paint, again and again, the same figure - a representation of the darkness of the human soul - he stated appeared to him and demanded to be portrayed... art historians believe Tooley was driven by the demons of the Great War that had taken his family from him one by one to seek out uncomfortable subjects that force viewers to see the damage humans do to one another...

Chris's nose wrinkles as he reads, his lips moving slightly with the words as he takes them in. "I never did that. Never, um, wanted to be painted. Also, um this, um. He was... wasn't... he wasn't... wasn't like the paper says."

Jake looks over, reads it himself. Gregarious, sociable, popular with the libertine art crowd... he frowns. "What part is wrong?"

"This." Chris points, this at least he can safely make contact with, and presses the pad of his finger under a sentence that reads took inspiration from the ugly side of the city hidden under its shining lights. "He, he, he he didn't care about anyone in the city. He thought everyone who, who who who who-who wasn't him was, um, was stupid."

"What did he care about?" Jake imagines telling his professor that instead of an essay, he's going to bring in a vampire who literally knew one of the artists in person. How she might react.

Probably call the cops and report an unsecured vampire loose on the streets. But maybe she'd listen to what Chris had to say first.

"Blood," Chris says, softly. His voice is getting lower and lower, until it's barely more than a whisper. "Pain. Fear. Being... being the the the the last person who, who saw someone. He, he, he, he liked to lay them out and paint them, liked me to, to, to... arrange them for him."

Jake's eyes go unwillingly back to the dead body behind the scared boy in the painting. The grasping fingers, the open eyes that look sightless, lifeless, at nothing at all. When he looks, he can see - more suggestion than made clear - that the body's throat is torn open, as if by an animal's teeth.

Now, only now that he's looking for it, does he realize there is the slightest hint of red tears on the cheeks of the painted boy, a sheen of pink on his teeth where he begs for mercy from the grasping singular hand coming out of the dark.

His stomach flips again. "Chris, are you saying-"

"His, his, his name was Ben." Chris nods at the dead body in the painting. "I asked. Before..." He gestures, a little vaguely. "That."

Jake feels a sudden, wild urge to look up missing persons cases from New York City in 1932. See if there's anyone named Ben on there. He knows without having to do so that there definitely will be.

"What happened to him... after?"

"I don't know. I, I, I was never let out when Tooley was gone. I... wonder how, how, how many of me there are." Chris looks up at the echo of his own face, his head tilting again. His lips tremble, just a little, and then part to show the hint of white teeth wet with pinkish saliva. "On walls, in houses, in... in places like, um. Like this. How many there are... is, is, is, is that what I still look like?"

Jake clears his throat again, looks down at his feet. This feels, suddenly, like he's walked in on someone looking down at his own dead body in a funeral home. Interrupting a moment so immensely private it shouldn't even exist.

"Yeah," he says, a little gruffly. "Yeah, that's it. More or less. Except I hope I scare you less than that. Also you wear a lot more clothes with us."

Chris laughs - it's a huff of sound, barely-there. Then he turns away from himself. "We, we, we can't see ourselves, in mirrors," He says, and he's got the little plastic bat back in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the carved silicone. "But I have mirrors everywhere. On these walls."

He goes suddenly terribly still. He isn't breathing.

He doesn't have to, but the realization that he isn't even pretending is a jolt of awareness of exactly how dead Chris is. He leaves the exhibit, and Jake is left to scramble after him, struggling to catch up to someone he should be able to easily outrun.

He breaks into a flat run when they get outside the double-doors, jumps the steps three at a time with grace, and runs across the grass and towards the stand of trees halfway across the park. Even Jake, who works out four days a week, is breathing hard and has a hitch in his rib by the time he catches up.

He finds Chris curled up under a tree in the evening dark, the stars starting to twinkle overhead as the sun finally allows them a clear night sky to shine in.

Jake drops to his knees, ignoring the damp that seeps into his jeans from soil that still hasn't dried since yesterday's rains, and he leans over, putting a warm hand to either side of the vampire's face.

Chris looks up, his eyes glinting like a cat's briefly in the dark, and there are trails down his cheeks, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl that is anything but angry.

No, this is grief.

This is loss.

Jake knows the feeling.

"Talk to me," Jake says softly. "Tell me what it was like, what it's been like for you. Tell me about the life you've lived before I knew you."

"It, it, it hurt," Chris whispers, and his own hands cover Jake's. They're the same temperature as the air around them, and Jake shivers a little. It's almost a chill. "Every time. I, I, I try not to kill, Jake, I try so hard, but but but he would keep me so hungry and I couldn't-... stop..."

Jake thinks about the robbers Chris killed - for him, to save him from them - and how he'd locked himself in the closet afterward. Had he cried like this, over taking lives even when in defense?

"The museum thing said this guy Tooley died in 1936. He was only, what, twenty-nine? Did... did you-"

"Yes." Chris's voice is thick but it's not quite with regret. "I was hungry. He, he he he he didn't bring food. I was so hungry... then I was, um, was alone for a while... then, then, then, then then then I was taken for, for, for the, um, the trade, for my v-venom, and..."

"Got it. I got it, Chris. It's okay," Jake says, softly. "It's going to be okay. You're with us, now. And we'll never, ever make you hurt someone that way. We'll never make you go hungry. We'll never hurt you or use you."

Chris ducks his head, rocking forward until it knocks into Jake's shoulder, and Jake slides his arms around the vampire's shoulders, listening to his soft, muffled sobs, wondering how red his shirt will be stained by the time the vampire's tears have been cried out.

The same mouth that tore out the throat of a dead body that lays in a painting on the wall is so close to his neck it would take less than an inch for him to bite down. Even without fangs, he could lock his jaw and break the skin.

The same dangerous monster that has killed likely dozens to stay alive, the same stalking predator that has been the last sight of far too many, cries in his arms. Just a teenage boy who has been lonely, and terrified, and hurt for too long.

A teenager... and a monster that hunts prey after dark. Jake tightens his arms around Chris, holds him tighter.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter how long he's been alive, not really.

He's just Chris.

That matters more.

-

@mylifeisonthebookshelf @insaneinthepaingame @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @newandfiguringitout @astrobly @endless-whump @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @doveotions @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @what-a-whump

[theartofdreaming1]

Katniss, bravely stepping inbetween Gale and Thread (and his whip) - she’s so courageous and protective, she deserves the world 😭

As usual, my thoughts regarding this week’s prompts and (many) random thoughts on chapters 7-9 are below the cut. (Is it just me, or are my notes getting longer and longer with each and every post? I swear, this book is so meaty, we’ll soon reach the point where I have to type out the entire chapter, with my thoughts in the margins)

heart

“Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else in unthinkable.” 

I think these words are a result of Katniss being so afraid of losing Gale that she’s kinda overcompensating; their relationship has been strained these past few months and they’d just had a row, separating from each other on bad terms - and the next time she sees him, he’s been whipped so bad that he’s lost consciousness and could be potentially dying from his wounds. Of course she’s so terrified of losing him, that she’s holding on as tightly as she can to him. It’s important to keep in mind how important their relationship is to her and we see that in her preceding thoughts: What a pair we were - fatherless, frightened, but fiercely commited, too, to keeping our families alive. Desperate, yet no longer alone after that day, because we’d found each other. I think of a hundred moments in the woods, lazy afternoons fishing, the day I taught him to swim, that time I twisted my knee and he carried me home. Mutually counting each other, watching each other’s backs, forcing each other to be brave. - Gale was the first person who was her equal, a kindred spirit, her partner. After Katniss had lost both of her parents when her father died and her mother succumbed to her depression - the people who were supposed to care for her and guide her through growing up - she was stuck with the role of sole provider and protector of her family at age eleven. She must have been so lonely all this time until she met this boy who understood what she was going through and they learned from each other and shouldered their burdens together, to take off some of the overwhelming pressure. Of course that relationship, of course Gale is important to her. But also now their relationship has become more fragile, after the Games they are in danger of growing apart - it’s got to be so terrifying to feel like the one proper, mutual relationship you’ve had seems to be slipping through your fingers. With everything that’s going on, her entire life as it is teetering on the razor’s edge (heck, the president himself has been threatening her and her family!), it’s no wonder that Katniss is craving that familiarity and safety that her relationship with Gale used to provide her with. And seeing Gale in this state just has her holding on to him more tightly than ever.

mind

Hmm, no big moment is coming to my mind right now; I think I’m always most impressed by the tiny moments that show how tenacious, resilient and fiercely kind humans can be - like Darius stepping forward to stop Gale’s cruel punishment, Leevy volunteering to tell Hazelle about Gale and promising to stay with the Hawthorne children, Madge bringing the morphling, Katniss pressing Darius’s hand in the Training Center, Twill taking Bonnie with her to flee to D13 and so on.

soul

I believe that Katniss was honestly surprised to learn that Gale had feelings for her; she had categorically shut down the idea of entering a romantic relationship for herself, so I don’t think she’d seriously consider anyone being romantically interested in her in return (that’s not how that works, of course, but I think that’s how she perceived the whole shtick). Their kiss threw her completely for a loop and if anything, she mostly saw it as something that contributed to the deterioration of their previous, easy and comfortable relationship.

Chapter 7

A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist. [...] They hadn’t anticipated its will to live. - In a way, the Capitol continues to make this mistake with the people living in the districts, too - underestimating their will to live (opposed to just surviving)

I look in his [Gale’s] eyes. His temper can’t quite mask the hurt, the sense of betrayal he feels at my engagement to Peeta. This will be my last chance, this meeting today, to not lose Gale forever. - Okay, we don’t know how much Katniss might be (incorrectly) presuming here, but the idea that Gale might feel betrayal because his best friend is being forced into an engagement pisses me off. It’s fine if he’s feeling jealous because she’s being paired off with Peeta when he wishes he could have a shot with her, but how in the world does this even rate as a betrayal?! A) It’s done against her will and B) Just because they’re friends doesn’t mean Katniss owes him anything when we’re talking about romantic feelings... Ugh 😒 Also, it’s quite noteworthy how insecure Katniss feels about their relationship - she’s constantly worried Gale will drop her and their friendship (waiting for Gale after the camera teams left after winning the Games: I’d begun to think that he’d given up on me in the weeks that had passed.- Ch. 2) and it doesn’t help that she’s been through that extreme, traumatic experience without him and they haven’t had much opportunity to spend a lot of time with each other (with the Victory Tour and Gale having to work so much) and when they do hang out, they don’t seem to really talk much, which doesn’t exactly help...

He [Gale] tosses the gloves on my lap. “Here. I don’t want your fiancé’s old gloves.” “He’s not my fiancé. That’s just part of the act. And these aren’t his gloves. They were Cinna’s,” I say. “Give them back, then, he says. - Gale can be so petty sometimes 🙄

While I talk, [...] [Gale] occupies himself with turning the food in the leather bag into a meal for us. Toasting bread and cheese, coring apples, placing chestnuts in the fire to roast. I watch his hands, his beautiful, capable fingers. Scarred, as mine were before the Captiol erased all marks from my skin, but strong and deft. [...] Hands I trust. - Oh boy, this moment really shows how these two are at cross purposes right now - Gale’s prepping the food as you would for a toasting (romantic connotation), while Katniss is oberserving his hands, thinking how their hands used to match (not anymore!) and basically wishing herself back into the time before the Games, when things were ‘simpler’/more clearly defined (and also platonic!); there is nothing romantic from her P.O.V. - it’s all about the friendship and trust

[Gale] steps in and I feel myself lifted off the ground. The room spins, and I have to lock my arms around Gale’s neck to brace myself. He’s laughing, happy. “Hey!” I protest, but I’m laughing, too. Gale sets me down but doesn’t release his hold on me. “Okay, let’s run away.” [...] “You’re sure?” I say. [...] “I’m sure. I’m completely, entirely, one hundred percent sure.” - Yeah, and I’m sure you’re not going to change your opinion in the next five minutes, Gale... In his defense, Gale didn’t know all the details, so in that regard it’s totally valid that he might decide to change his mind after having more input... It’s just that Katniss specifically asks him whether he’s sure and his reply is so full of conviction (100% sure!), only for him to do a complete 180 just a couple of minutes later; Gale’s very hot and cold, which makes for such a harsh contrast when compared to Peeta’s more measured reaction later in the chapter

He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. [...] I don’t try to move away. Why should I, anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. “I love you.” That’s why. - Oh man, Katniss just can’t catch a break 😞 Really not wise of Gale to drop the L-bomb here (after, what? a kiss they never talked about and little else... their communication is truly abysmal and it’s really damaging to their relationship, hurting the both of them)

“Gale, I can’t think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, is how afraid I am. And there doesn’t seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don’t know.” I can see him swallowing his disappointment. “So, we’ll go. We’ll find out.” - I mean, honestly, I totally understand where Katniss is coming from - she doesn’t need a romantic interest, she needs a partner, which is why she’s been so eager to talk to her hunting partner, someone she’s used to rely on for survival and now he’s also confounding their relationship by introducing that romance-angle (as if it wasn’t bad enough that her relationship with Peeta got kind of messed up when that same angle was forced upon them prematurely)... Also, telling how Katniss thinks she’d have to be different to maybe even consider a romantic relationship with Gale - Katniss as she is right now just can’t see herself wanting to be with Gale romantically; it would require a change... I’ve got to give Gale credit for still going along with it, and trying to push past his disappointment, though

“My [Gale’s] mother is going to take some convincing.” [...] “Mine, too. I’ll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won’t survive the alternative.” “She’ll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won’t say no to you,” says Gale. - That’s interesting, I wonder what exactly Gale means by that? That Mrs. Everdeen won’t say no to Katniss because she feels guilty that Katniss had to go through the Games or because watching her daughter compete in the Games really made her realize how messed up Panem is? Or that she’s more inclined to trust Katniss’s judgement after everything that has happened?

“Haymitch will be the real challenge.” “Haymitch?” Gale abandons the chestnuts. “You’re asking him to come with us?” “I have to, Gale. I can’t leave him and Peeta because they’d-” His scowl cuts me off. “What?” “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how large our party was,” he snaps at me. - Gale doesn’t seem to have realized how close and important Peeta and Haymitch have become to Katniss... maybe because they never properly talked about this aspect of Katniss’s life (I swear, their shoddy communication must account for at least half of the damage their relationship has taken in these past few months alone)

“What if he [Peeta] decides to stay?” he [Gale] asks. I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. “Then he stays.” “You’d leave him behind?” Gale asks. “To save Prim and my mother, yes,” I answer. “I mean, no! I’ll get him to come.” “And me, would you leave me?” Gale’s expression is rock hard now. - Boy, oh boy! I think Gale knows (like Peeta) that Katniss could never leave behind the people she cares about; then, he’s kind of gauging whether Peeta has already received the Katniss Everdeen Stamp of ‘Caring’ - and, as it turns out, he has! And then Gale ends up making it into a bit of  competition by asking her whether she would leave him behind (or, alternately, her turning him down has him confused about the depth of their relationship, I dunno); not fun

“There’s an uprising in Eight?” he [Gale] says in a hushed voice. I try to backpedal. To defuse him, as I tried to defuse the districts. - Katniss is going to be about as successful as she’d been at defusing the districts, too - But here we have another example of Katniss trying to rein in Gale’s temper because she’s afraid he’s going to get himself in trouble (like when she decided not to tell him about Snow’s visit to her house because she was worried what he’d do with that information)... It’s really not great that she feels the need to censor herself so he won’t do something dangerous... Katniss knows first-hand how badly impulsive actions and decisions can be received in the Capitol - and she never even meant for a rebellion to happen!

“And it’s my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would’ve happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe. too.” “Safe to do what?” he says in a gentler tone. “Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven’t hurt people - you’ve given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. - Katniss is taking all the responsibility upon herself again... Gale is right to point out that she was merely a catalyst, not the cause for the rebellion - the cause are the awful living conditions of the people in the districts

“Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying. The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they’re not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people - they mean less than nothing to them!” I say. “That’s why we have to join the fight!” he answers harshly. “No! we have to leave here before they kill us and a lot of other people, too!” [...] “You leave, then, I’d never go in a million years.” [...] “What about your family?” “What about the other families, Katniss? The ones who can’t run away?” - This discourse is so painful because they are both right - Katniss has seen more of the districts and how things are handled beyond the (relatively tame) confines of D12 and it’s fair that she wants to know that the people she cares about are safe from harm; Gale, of course, has a point commenting that not everyone has that opportunity and the only way to have a long-lasting, wide-spread improvement of their conditions is through rebelling against their oppressor - but that will inevitably come along with sacrifices and collateral damage and it’s easy to say that it will be worth it in the long run, but when those who are hurt/dead could end up being your loved ones, it’s definitely easier said than done

He throws Cinna’s gloves at my feet. “I changed my mind. I don’t want anything they made in the Capitol.” And he’s gone. I look down at the gloves. Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable? The unfairness of it all fills me with rage. But it’s mixed up with fear over what kind of crazy thing he might do next. - Gale getting rid of Cinna’s gloves just because they are from the Capitol is a prime example of this “us vs. them” mindset that he will be (worringly) fast to adopt - of course, perceiving the opposite side as “other” will make it easier to fight against them; however, it’s all too easy to lose sight of your opponent’s humanity when you think like that (think of how Gale has a hard time understanding Katniss’s distress upon seeing her prep team being treated so terribly/inhumanely in D13); Katniss feeling upset that Gale might perceive her as a product of the Capitol instead of its victim is understandable (and isn’t that exactly what the inhabitants of D13 are going to think of Peeta in MJ?) - and yet, she is still worried Gale could get himself into trouble with his impulsivity; she’s a good bean

”Going to town?” I ask. “Yes. I’m supposed to eat dinner with my family,” he [Peeta] says. - I’m tripping over the word ‘supposed’ here - it doesn’t sound like Peeta’s looking forward to hanging out with his fam, although it can’t be that often, since they’ve been away on Victory Tour and he is living alone (maybe the end of the chapter will give us another hint why that is 😒😒)... I can’t help but wonder whether these family dinners are mainly for public perception (in that case... it really is no wonder Peeta is so good at playing the cameras - poor guy had to fool the outside world his entire life) or because they are the only chance for Peeta to hang out with any of the members of his family he might actually want to spend some time with

“Peeta, if I asked you to run away from the district with me, would you?” Peeta takes my arm, bringing me to a stop. He doesn’t need to check my face to see if I’m serious. “Depends on why you’re asking.” President Snow wasn’t convinced by me. There’s an uprising in District Eight. We have to get out,” I say. “By ‘we’ do you mean just you and me? No. Who else would be going?” he asks. - Peeta doesn’t just blindly agree to Katniss’s proposal; he needs to know what’s going on first (he has been burnt before - no more secrets!) - and it’s a testament to how well he knows her that as soon as he’s asking whether she meant just the two of them, he corrects himself because knows that Katniss would never leave the ones she cares about behind

“What about Gale?” he says. “I don’t know. He might have other plans,” I say. Peeta shakes his head and gives me rueful smile. “I bet he does. Sure, Katniss, I’ll go.” I feel a slight twinge of hope. “You will?” “Yeah. But I don’t think for a minute you will,” he says. [...] “Then you don’t know me. Be ready. It could be any time.” - Telling how Peeta immediately agrees to the plan once he gathers that Gale won’t come - he knows that Katniss cares about Gale and could never leave him behind, ergo she’d never actually leave under these circumstances - he knows her so well. Also, Katniss’s reaction is like that of a petulant child, it’s kind of funny 😄

“Katniss, hold up.” [...] “I really will go, if you want me to. I just think we better talk it through with Haymitch. Make sure we won’t be making things worse for everyone.” - Ultimately, Peeta would follow Katniss to the ends of the earth - doesn’t mean that he can’t throw in a sensible suggestion in there as well 😉 (Also, in the next chapter we will see how Katniss, Gale, and Peeta might be a little too inexperienced/naive to be able to form accurate expectations of what is to come - Haymitch and his generation have a little more experience in that regard)

He raises his head. “What’s that?” [...] I haven’t noticed the strange noise coming from the square. A whistling, the sound of an impact, the intake of breath from a crowd. “Come on,” Peeta says, his face suddenly hard. I don’t know why. I can’t place the sound, even guess at the situation. But it means something bad to him. - Why does my sweet boy know what a whipping sounds like, Suzanne, huh?! Care to explain that? 😭

Peeta steps up on a crate against the wall of the sweetshop and offers me a hand while he scans the square. I’m halfway up when he suddenly blocks my way. “Get down. Get out of here!” He’s whispering, but his voice is harsh with insistence. - Peeta was offering his hand to help Katniss up the crate because they are a team (and he’s a gentleman)! It’s only when he recognizes who is receiving those lashes and realizes that Katniss will lose her shit once she knows, which could make the current situation even worse, that he urges her to leave, and he is not the only one to think that: - Voices hiss. “Get out of here, girl.” “Only make it worse.” What do you want to do? Get him killed?”

Chapter 8

It’s too late to stop the arm from descending, and I instinctively know I won’t have the power to block it. Instead I throw myself directly between the whip and Gale. I’ve flung out my arms to protext as much of his broken body as possible, so there’s nothing to deflect the lash. I take the full force of it across the left side of my face. - Katniss is so selfless; she knows that it’s either Gale getting hit again or a lash to her own face and she chooses the latter

“Hold it!” a voice barks. Haymitch appears and trips over a Peacekeeper lying on the ground. It’s Darius. [...] He’s knocked out but still breathing. What happened? Did he try to come to Gale’s aid before I got here? - Haymitch sure appeared quickly - I can easily imagine Peeta taking off immediately to get him (or send someone to bring him to the square) once he knew Katniss couldn’t be stopped; but if Haymitch had been at his house in Victor’s Village, there is no way he’d have made that quickly to the square... maybe he was already at the Hob and had gotten wind of the whole situation? Also, poor Darius! Wearing a uniform/being in some sort of position of power is no guarantee you won’t get punished as soon as you show the tiniest glimpse of compassion - in a place like Panem, nobody is safe from the caprice of the people in charge

I see a flicker of recognition in the eyes of the man with the whip. [...] it wouldn’t be easy to identify me as the victor of the last Hunger Games. Especially with half my face swelling up. But Haymitch has been showing up on television for years, and he’d be difficult to forget. - Getting Haymitch truly was the smartest move to make (which is why I’m pretty sure it was a move on Peeta’s part - he’d know how to use reminders of ‘appearances’ to ensure a punishment wouldn’t go ‘too far’, y’know 😢). But also - Thread must have lived under a flipping rock, to not being able to recognizes Katniss (her face must have been plastered all over the place during the Victory Tour, which just had concluded recently) - or he was just too in the heat of the moment, with someone opposing him, bleugh 😒

“He [Gale] was poaching. What business is it of hers, anyway?” says the man. “He’s her cousin.” Peeta’s got my other arm now, but gently. “And she’s my fiancée. So if you want to get to him, expect to go through both of us.” - I love how Peeta’s just laying it down as it is; his phrasing just sounds so factual, rather than provocative (although it is, of course); he really has a way with words - Maybe we’re it. The only three people in the district who could make a stand like this. Although it’s sure to be temporary. There will be repercussions. - Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss working together as a team again! Also, a good example of the effect people with public influence can have 

One [Peacekeeper], a woman named Purnia who eats regularly at Greasy Sae’s, steps forward stiffly. “I believe, for a first offense, the required number of lashes has been dispensed, sir. Unless your sentence is death, which we would carry out by firing squad.” “Is that the standard protocol here?” asks the Head Peacekeeper. “Yes, sir,” Purnia says, and several others nod in agreement. I’m sure none of them actually know because, in the Hob, the standard protocol for someone showing up with a wild turkey is for everybody to bid on the drumsticks. - It’s kinda nice to see the local Peacekeepers supporting Purnia’s claim to get this display to stop - this is the only way out of this situation where Thread’s authority is not openly challenged (and we know Thread doesn’t take well to having his authority challenged - see Darius)

There’s no stretcher, but the old woman at the clothing stall sells us the board that serves as her countertop. “Just don’t tell where you got it,” she says, packing up the rest of her goods quickly. Most of the square has emptied, fear getting the better of compassion. But after what happened, I can’t blame anyone. - It’s sad how that air of intimidation makes people want to mask their acts of compassion (and also says a lot about the precariousness of the existing living situations if that old lady is still selling that board - I’d never even consider exchanging money for that, but that’s probably my privileged situation showing here; Katniss brings up the theme of fear vs compassion - very fitting, since it seems to be her driving force (although, generally, her compassion wins out over her fear) and despite her assertion that fear appears to be getting the better of compassion we see a good amount of people reaching out to help, such as the following example:

Leevy, a girl who lives a few houses down from mine in the Seam, takes my arm. My mother kept her little brother alive last year when he caught the measles. “Need help getting back?” Her gray eyes are scared but determined. - The subtle suggestion here that Leevy might be further motivated to help out because Katniss’s mom helped her little brother is also an excellent example of how kindness breeds kindness

“Get some snow on that,” Haymitch orders over his shoulder. I scoop up a handful of snow and press it against my cheek, numbing a bit of the pain. - This moment reminded me of Peeta immediately reaching for some ice from that fruit tureen after Haymitch hit him on their way to the Games in THG (Ch. 4) - their different immediate reactions to getting hit in the face could simply be due to the fact that Katniss is a little too preoccupied worrying about Gale to think about her injury, of course, but I feel like you could also interpret them as examples for how much experience Katniss and Peeta have with being hit in the face, respectively...

Gale must have gone to Cray’s house, as he’s done a hundred times, knowing Cray pays well for a wild turkey. Instead he found the new Head Peacekeeper, a man they heard someone call Romulus Thread. No one knows what happened to Cray. He was buying white liquor in the Hob just this morning [...] but now he’s nowhere to be found. - As I’ve already mentioned regarding Darius, inhabiting some position of power does not guarantee you any safety in Panem (there is always someone more powerful who will treat their inferiors like garbage, if they feel like it)

By the time I showed up, he [Gale]’d been lashed at least forty times. He passed out around thirty. - Jesus 😨 poor Gale!

“What about Darius?” Peeta asks.“ After about twenty lashes, he stepped in, saying that was enough. Only he didn’t do it smart and official, like Purnia did. He grabbed Thread’s arm and Thread hit him in the head with the butt of the whip. Nothing good waiting for him,” says Bristel. - It’s so messed up how it is not enough to have someone who’d stand up and do something about a horrible situation - they have to do it the right way, or else they’re toast; there really shouldn’t have to be a smart way of doing the right thing

Snow begins, thick and wet, making visibility even more difficult. - (President) Snow is coming down hard on them, making it hard to see what’s up ahead

Ever so gently, she [Mrs. Everdeen] begins to clean the mutilated flesh on Gale’s back. I feel sick to the stomach, useless, the remaining snow dripping from my glove into a puddle on the floor. Peeta puts me in a chair and holds a cloth filled with fresh snow to my cheek. - Although she’s quite squeamish, Katniss stays as Gale gets treated (the force that holds the loved ones of the hurt/dying, just like when Peeta was being treated after their Games); meanwhile, Peeta is taking care of Katniss - there is so much care + love to be found in this moment

My mother has to save the strongest [painkillers] for the worst pain, but what is the worst pain? To me, it’s always the pain that is present. If I were in charge, those painkillers would be gone in a day because I have so little ability to watch suffering. - Honestly, same; I can’t stomach seeing other people suffer without feeling overwhelmed and feeling like crying... I don’t know how professionals do it

“Just give him the medicine!” I scream at her. [...] “Take her out,” says my mother. Haymitch and Peeta literally carry me from the room while I shout obscenities at her. They pin me down on a bed in one of the extra bedrooms until I stop fighting. - Oof. Poor Katniss! But yeah, it was the best call to remove her from the situation, Mrs. E. had to focus on what she was doing... Also, Haymitch and Peeta are the ones to get Katniss out of there and stay with her - these three take care of each other!

After a while, my mother comes in and treats my face. Then she holds my hand, stroking my arm, while Haymitch fills her in on what happened with Gale. “So it’s starting again?” she says. “Like before?” - Katniss’s mom has become a much more active and soothing presence in this book, I like it... Also, what does “again” mean? Does this imply there has been an attempted uprising in D12 that needed to be squashed before?

Cray would have been disliked, anyway, because of the uniform he wore, but it was his habit of luring starving young women into his bed for money that made him an object of loathing in the district. In really bad times, the hungriest would gather at his door at nightfall, vying for the chance to earn a few coins to feed their families by selling their bodies. Had I been older when my father died, I might have been among them. - Horrifying and absolutely disgusting 🤢 Those poor women! How desperate they must have been! 

... when the doorbell rings, I shoot straight out of bed. [...] “They [the peacekeepers] can’t have him,” I say. “Might be you they’re after,” Haymitch reminds me. “Or you,” I say. “Not my house,” Haymitch points out. “But I’ll get the door.” “No, I’ll get it,” says my mother quietly. - Again, Mrs. Everdeen is taking the initiative! She was so watered down in the movies

[Madge] holds out a small, damp cardboard box to me. “Use these for your friend,” she says. I take off the lid of the box, revealing half a dozen vials of clear liquid. [...] “What is that stuff?” asks Peeta. “It’s from the Capitol. It’s called morphling,” my mother answers. “I didn’t even know Madge knew Gale,” says Peeta. “We used to sell her strawberries,” I say almost angrily. What am I angry about, though? Not that she has brought the medicine, surely. “She must have quite a taste for them,” says Haymitch. That’s what nettles me. It’s the implication that there’s something going on between Gale and Madge. And I don’t like it. “She’s my friend” is all I say. - I mean, Katniss could be mad because A) Gale had literally just told her he loved her a few hours ago and if there was something (reciprocated) going on between Gale and Madge, that would have been pretty shitty for both girls involved and also B) she is friends with both of them and it would be hurtful to learn that two of your closest friends had been seeing each other without telling you anything about it... also, she’s super upset over Gale getting so seriously hurt just after they’d had an argument, her feelings are all over the place

... I’m selfish. I’m a coward. I’m the kind of girl, who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn’t follow to suffer and die. This is the girl Gale met in the woods today. No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does. You saved Peeta, I think weakly. But now I question even that. I knew good and well that my life back in District 12 would be unlivable if I let that boy die. - Yes, Katniss, you knew that your life back in D12 would have been unlivable if he died - but not because you feared that people would shun you; it was because you “couldn’t lose the boy with the bread” and because “if he dies, I’ll never go home, not really”... This is an excellent example of how distorted your memories can get when you are in a bad headspace at present

The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. - Katniss, you don’t have to be planning to overthrow a corrupt and cruel government to be someone of worth! You’re someone of worth just by being yourself! - The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment. - Frankly, very rarely are our motivations clearly defined by a single factor - or my professor would not have been able to teach an entire semester-long course on motivation psychology😉)

Chapter 9

Gale’s dead to the world, but his fingers are locked around mine. I smell fresh bread and turn my stiff neck to find Peeta looking down at me with such a sad expression. I get the sense that he’s been watching us awhile. “Go on up to bed, Katniss. I’ll look after him now,” he says. - Peeta! Must have been hard for him to see Katniss like this (and the underlying strength of Katniss and Gale’s relationship, when his relationship with Katniss is still not all that solidified), and yet he’s being such a good bean about it 😭

I give a strangled cry and wake with a start, sweating and shivering at once. Cradling my damaged cheek in my hand, I remind myself that it was not Clove but Thread who gave me this wound. I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I’m not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine. - Katniss, gurl... Maybe your instinctive desire to receive comfort from Peeta is trying to tell you something??!? Also, Katniss is forcing this strange dichotomous association of Gale = rebellion and Peeta = Capitol, when in just a bit, she’s clearly connecting Peeta to the rebellion as well (aside from the fact that Peeta was basically the first person to suggest to her that maybe a rebellion was necessary... just saying)

Fighting the Capitol assures their swift retaliation. I must accept that at any moment I can be arrested. [...] There might be torture. Mutliation. A bullet through the skull in the town square [...] I imagine these things and I’m terrified, but let’s face it: They’ve been lurking in the back of my brain, anyway. [...] I’m already a target. - Oh geez! Despite admitting that she’s terrified of what the Capitol is capable fo doing to her, Katniss is still pretty composed naming the possible horrors in store for her, which is just a heartbreaking reminder of how many terrible things she has already had to endure.🙁

Now comes the harder part. I have to face the fact that my family and friends might share this fate. Prim. I need only to think of Prim and all my resolve disintegrates. It’s my job to protect her. [...] I can’t let the Capitol hurt Prim. - 😭😭😭 Katniss has reached a point where she can put her own need for survival/physical intactness aside, but the thought of something awful happening to Prim stops her short (it’s so strange to think that, in a twisted way, it wasn’t the Capitol who’d ended up inflicting the final harm upon Prim...)

And then it hit’s me. They already have. They have killed her father in those wretched mines. They have sat by as she almost starved to death. [...] She has been hurt far worse than I had at the age of twelve. And even that pales in comparison with Rue’s life. [...] Prim... Rue... aren’t they the very reason I have to try to fight? Because what has been done to them is so wrong, so beyond justification, so evil that there is no choice? Because no one has the right to treat them as they have been treated? Yes. This is the thing to remember when fear threatens to swallow me up. What I am about to do, whatever any of us are forced to endure, it is for them. - All these things are very true and it’s also very fitting that the main motivation for Katniss would be to ensure a better future for the children of Panem (and to avenge the evils done to the people close to her heart... while Katniss of course can see the abstract bigger picture/reason for the rebellion, she always operates best when it comes to specific people/circumstances she has a deep, personal connection with)... But also: all these things apply to you, too, Katniss! Despite your tendency to feel responsible for everything and everyone, you’re still a child that had to grow up way too fast and had to endure way too much!

We need someone to direct us and reassure us this is possible. And I don’t think I’m that person. I may have been a catalyst for rebellion, but a leader should be someone with conviction, and I’m barely a convert myself. Someone with unflinching courage, and I’m still working hard at finding mine. Someone with clear and persuasive words, and I’m so easily tongue-tied. Words. I think of words and I think of Peeta. - Katniss’s idea of a great leader for the rebellion is Peeta - interesting, isn’t it (she could have considered Gale, but no)? She makes a good point, though: it helps when a leader has plenty of charisma, and our boy has that in spades; he’s got a good set of morals, is not above joining in on the action/risking his own neck when the need arises and is very genuine and purposeful with his words and actions, which is inspiring... I think Katniss is severely underselling how courageous she is, though

He could move a crowd to action, I bet, if he chose to. Would find the things to say. But I’m sure the idea has never crossed his mind. - Why would you assume that, Katniss? Peeta’s literally the one to suggest to you that trying to placate the district might not be the right thing to do... Peeta’s not someone who’d stir up trouble just for the sake of stirring up trouble, sure; he’s much more deliberate about doing things the ‘right’ way, but he’s not generally opposed to challenging authorities (he’s literally the one to openly gift some of your winnings to another district!)

She knows what she’s doing, my mother. I feel a pang of remorse about yesterday, the awful things I yelled at her as Peeta and Haymitch dragged me from the kitchen. “I’m sorry. About screaming at you yesterday.” - It’s so sweet how Katniss feels sorry for yelling at her mom and apologizes to her; their relationship really has improved so much in this book - “I’ve heard worse,” she says. “You’ve seen how people are, when someone they love is in pain.” Someone they love. [...] Of course, I love Gale. But what kind of love does she mean? What do I mean when I say I love Gale? I don’t know. I did kiss him last night, in a moment when my emotions were running so high. But i’m sure he doesn’t remember it. Does he? I hope not. - Katniss is struggling to figure out in what way she loves Gale... She definitely doesn’t want him to remember their kiss because she knows it wouldn’t be fair to give him the hope that she might be able to return his romantic feelings when she is still in the dark about her own

... and I can’t really think about kissing when I’ve got a rebellion to incite. I give my head a little shake to clear it. “Where’s Peeta?” I say. - Lol, goes on to immediately mention the guy she’s been kissing these past few weeks (see, with Peeta you could actually have both: kissing and rebellion, Katniss - he’s the perfect man, isn’t he? 😉😋)

“He went home when he heard you stirring. Didn’t want to leave his house unattended during the storm,” says my mother. - Yeah, I don’t think Peeta left because of his house; I’m pretty sure he needed some time to himself after seeing Katniss and Gale this morning - he is the type of person who needs to be alone to work through his feelings when he’s feeling upset - “Did he get back all right?” [...] “Why don’t you give him a call and check?” she says. I go into the study, a room I’ve pretty much avoided since my meeting with President Snow, and dial Peeta’s number. After a few rings he answers. “Hey. I just wanted to make sure you got home,” I say. “Katniss. I live three houses away from you,” he says. “I know, but with the weather and all,” I say. “Well, I’m fine. Thank you for checking.” There’s a long pause. “How’s Gale?” - Aww, Katniss is worried about Peeta and gives him a call, although she hates being in the study 😊 Also, her calling him must have been at least of some reassurance to Peeta that she genuinely cares about him, in some way (though, he’s still clearly busy processing her relationship with Gale, since he’s asking about him as if he hadn’t seen that dude just a couple of minutes prior)

“Have you seen Haymitch today?” “I checked in on him. Dead drunk. But I built up his fire and left him some bread,” he says. “I wanted to talk to - to both of you.” I don’t dare add more, here on my phone, which is surely tapped. -  Despite everything, Peeta still made sure to look after Haymitch! And I know, there is also the issue of their houses themselves potentially being bugged, but I couldn’t help imagining how they could easily avoid the whole phone-tapping thing simply by using a tin can telephone (they do live pretty close to each other, after all) 😂

“You don’t even have a phone,” I say. “Effie had that fixed,” he [Haymitch] says. “Do you know she asked me if I’d like to give you away? I told her the sooner the better.” “Haymitch.” I can hear the pleading creeping into my voice. “Katniss.” He mimics my tone. “It won’t work.” - Okay, but Haymitch mimicking Katniss’s tone reminds me so much of when Peeta mimicked her tone towards the end of their Games, when she was trying to persuade him to climb into a tree as a lookout while he was insistent she’d show him some plants to gather; these three, I swear! 😂 On a sad note, Haymitch is talking from experience here when he’s advising Katniss not to challenge the Capitol 🥺😢

Some streets away from the square, I see a blaze flare up. None of us has to say it. That can only be the Hob going up in smoke. I think of Greasy Sae, Ripper, all my friends who make their livings there. - Katniss considers the people from the Hob her friends - honestly, even if the Hawthornes, Everdeens, Peeta and Haymitch all had agreed to leave D12, I don’t think Katniss would have been able to go through with it - she cares too much about the people in D12 to have been able to leave them to their fate

“Well, I better go see how much rubbing alcohol the apothecary can spare.” He [Haymitch] trudges off across the square and I look at Peeta. “What’s he want that for?” Then I realize the answer. “We can’t let him drink it. He’ll kill himself, or at the very least go blind. I’ve got some white liquor put away at home.” “Me, too. Maybe that will hold him until Ripper finds a way to be back in business,” says Peeta. - Another instance of Katniss and Peeta being on the same wavelength, having taken precautions to help out Haymitch so he doesn’t have to go cold turkey again

We find Hazelle in her house, nursing a very sick Posy. I recognize the measles spots. “I couldn’t leave her,” she says. “I knew Gale’d be in the best possible hands.” - The second mention of someone having contracted the measles in D12 - Why the heck does the Capitol withhold measles vaccination from the people in the districts?! They’re inflicting unnecessary damage onto the very people they want to exploit... But I guess cruelty isn’t always about playing it smart and logical...

When we’re outside, I turn to Peeta. “You go on back. I want to walk by the Hob.” “I’ll go with you,” he says. “No. I’ve dragged you into enough trouble,” I tell him. “And avoiding a stroll by the Hob... that’s going to fix things for me?” He smiles and takes my hand. - They are a team, they stick together (and they are constantly holding hands, always physically linked to each other)😩💕 Also, Peeta pointing out the irrationality of Katniss’s train of thought to calm her down and stay with her reminds me of how he’s going to use logical reasoning to calm her down after the jabberjays in the Quarter Quell arena

We go back to the square. I buy some cakes from Peeta’s father while they exchange small talk about the weather. No one mentions the ugly tools of torture just yards from the front door. The last thing I notice as we leave the square is that I do not recognize even one of the Peacekeepers’ faces. - How weird is it that Peeta and his dad just talk about the weather?! Is this supposed to illustrate how in the Mellark family they just ignored the ugliness going on in their lives *cough cough* the abuse *cough cough* and just pretended that everything was fine, on a very superficial level? Also, it makes perfect sense that the Peacekeepers have been exchanged; the more time we spend with people, the more likely we are to like them - that won’t do if you want to have a ruthless authoritarian police force in the districts

As the days pass, things go from bad to worse. The mines stay shut for two weeks, and by that time half of District 12 is starving. The number of kids signing up for tesserae soars, but they often don’t receive their grain. Food shortages begin, and even those with money come away from stores empty-handed. [...] The eagerly awaited food promised for Parcel Day arrives spoiled and defiled by rodents. - This is just so awful and despicable 😞 Life in the districts was already horrible but now the government does not even honor the extortionary rules they themselves have set up! I can’t help but wonder if the lack of food could be traced back to rebellions in the food supplying districts and, to keep this from the inhabitants of the Capitol, the reduced amount of good food was (obviously) kept for the Capitolites, so that the bad food had to be sent to the districts, anyway... It just seems like such a breach of ‘honor’/etiquette on the Capitol’s part, I dunno... Or maybe Snow was just desperate to use any means necessary to stamp out any potential rebellions in the districts that he still had some control over...

Gale goes home with no more talk of rebellion between us. But I can’t help thinking that everything he sees will only strengthen his resolve to fight back. [...] Rory has signed up for tesserae, something Gale can’t even speak about - Poor, Gale! Poor Hawthornes :(

My fingers have all but decided to release the arrow when I see the object in the glove. It’s a small white circle of flat bread. More of a cracker, really. Gray and soggy around the edges. But an image is clearly stamped in the center of it. It’s my mockingjay. - It is so very telling that the true symbol of the rebellion combines something symbolic of Katniss (which also contains a nod to Rue) and something symbolic of Peeta (the bread/cracker!) The people in the districts have rightfully recognized the both of them as symbol of the rebellion; they have a truer vision of the matter than the more artifically/forcefully constructed symbol of rebellion that D13 /Coin will push - we will also see that when the people in D13 will view Peeta as a traitor, while the rebels Katniss will visit in D8 instead ask her about Peeta and assure her that they know he was speaking under duress