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starlit-dreaming · 2 months

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[prologue] re: All in the Past

Fandom: Persona (3 & 4) Rating: M Major/Eventual Ships: Akihamu Minor Ships: Jundori, Minayuka AU: Twin Protags + Somebody Lives/Not Everybody Dies + Post-Canon AU Note: Cross-posted on AO3 under the same title.

Summary:

Kotone Shiomi might be an idiot. No, actually, she is undoubtedly an idiot, because no one in the right mind would choose to stick around in the same city that took her loved ones away, a place that had nothing for her. She knew that her parents loved this wretched place, that they often swung by to play concerts when they were alive. Her brother had loved this terrible place, enough to want to finish his schooling, enough to actually consider opening up that bakery she always joked about. Her brother made friends here, he even had a girlfriend (which, gross, someone actually thought her gloomy brother was attractive), and he was finally opening up his heart to people. On their phone calls, he had even asked Kotone questions of her life! Questions that he’s never bothered to ask before! And then he died. He died, leaving everything behind — money, his cosplay crap, the letters she sent him over the years, and… He left her a goodbye letter. //In which the aftermath of Minato's death affected those outside of SEES.

A/N:

I wrote a fanfic around 2014 on FFN under my first fanfic writing account (and I want no reminders of its existence, but if it gets found, just know I will scream and cry if you do find it). It was intended to be a one-shot, although it was very open-ended and I didn’t really want to think too deeply on it. Originally, this was meant to hype me up for P3: Reload, but I haven’t touched it yet because I’m still mourning over the fact that there’s no Female Protag. Hamuko is a nickname; Kotone Shiomi will be used as her full name! Also, I’ll be including Japanese suffixes to better portray relationships. Fun fact: The University is named “Hankyō” (反響) which means “echo” and “reverberation”, which I found to be poetic, because Hamuko’s following after the traces of her brother’s memory in order to solve the mystery of his death. @hwang-lucas because I'm posting this fic for you instead of letting it collect dust in my google docs LMAO

Chapters: [prologue] 1 | 2 | 3

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0. prologue

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Beginning of March, 2011

Breathe in. Breathe out.

This will be the third time in her life that she visits the Iwatodai Graveyard, and she wishes that it never went beyond the first visit.

But that’s the thing about life.

Like it or not, you don’t always get what you want.

“Thank you for showing me the way,” she politely bowed at the handsome silver-haired young man.

“No problem, Shiomi-san,” Akihiko Sanada gave her a sympathetic smile as he hands over the bucket of water — for cleaning the graves, she idly reminds herself as her eyes linger on his muscles for just a second too long. “Will you be okay from here?”

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Yeah, no worries,” she replied, smiling at the stranger despite the clenching of her fists. It was very hard not to grab his shoulders and shake him for answers about her brother, but she knew better than to do that.

Easy. Just take it easy. They don’t know you, and he might not be one of them.

It was, predictably, harder to watch him walk away without any answers to any question of hers.

When she first arrived in the area, she got lost — plain and simple, and flat out embarrassing. Her phone was dead, and she couldn’t contact anyone who might know something — not that she knew anyone in Iwatodai, much less Tatsumi Port Island, to begin with. Maybe Mitsuru Kirijo, the person who helped fund her brother’s funeral and arranged everything, but she’s not sure if that’s how she wants to get back into contact with her brother’s friend…

Anyway, that was how she became acquainted with Akihiko Sanada — she wound up finding the police station and asked for directions to the graveyard. The officer at the desk was a rather intimidating fellow, and maybe it was obvious that she was gradually getting more and more confused at the older man’s instructions as he mentioned the names of streets and buildings, that Akihiko Sanada, a handsome young man who had been in the room, had politely offered to show her the way.

Which, she supposes, has been the only good thing about the day for her.

Talking to Akihiko was easy, and maybe that was because he was easy on the eyes. As she glanced at their surroundings throughout the journey to the graveyard, he made it easy to feel as if she hadn’t been an outsider looking in. He made recommendations to some of the food places, she asked about things like the bookstores and cafés. Eventually, they touched on the topic of why she was visiting the graveyard, and he sympathized with her by mentioning his younger sister after she spoke of her brother.

His name sounded familiar enough, so chances are, Akihiko had been one of her brother’s friends. There was a brief mention of an Akihiko-senpai, and she had suspicions that they were one in the same. She would need to revisit the letters her brother sent her as well as the emails to be sure. Detective Shirogane was arriving next week, so the sooner she figures it all out, the better.

Still, it was clear that Akihiko managed to walk forward with his grief, even if it still hurts.

She wondered, then, that if it was her who left this world, would her brother mourn for her in the same way as Akihiko had done for his sister? Would he miss her, often, but still find the strength within him to still push forward?

Or would he be standing here, alone in a world that feels strange? Alone, and unwilling to let sleeping demons be, to touch upon matters that were best left behind as everyone had advised? The past is in the past, but would he let himself feel angry at the world? Would he get frustrated when things feel hopeless, despair when it starts to feel pointless? Would he deal with detective after detective, the constant confirmations that he’s in over his head, and that the only logical explanation ought to be drugs and a friend wanting to protect their reputation?

Oh, but she knows. She knows her brother better than anyone else in the world prior to his death. And, maybe, the only thing she never knew was the him before he died. He would wear his apathy to mask the painful aches, if he ever allowed himself to feel in those fleeting moments.

But, unlike her, Minato had friends that he could trust. Friends he could count on.

Her brother was strong, both physically and mentally.

And, more importantly, he isn’t her.

He’s not Kotone.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

She won’t break down like this. She hasn’t cried in years, and she’s not gonna start now, when she knows absolutely nothing about the man her brother became. Oh, she certainly raged at his death, cursing the world for all that it’s taken from her, but she had yet to shed honest tears over his death.

And instead, she smiles. Smiles were a good thing. Smiles made people feel safe and reassured. Smiles made her likeable. Smiles hadn’t failed her, even when she’s alone and tired and sick of it all—

Eventually, she manages to find her brother’s grave, settled beside her parent’s gravestone. Her parents eloped and ran away from their respective families after marrying, but only her father was disowned by his family. The Shiomi Family was matriarchal, and because Kotone was the only girl born in her generation and was therefore the heiress — at least, until one of her cousins were born and Kotone was more than happy to pass on the hat, so to speak — she was accepted into the family with open arms after her parents died, even if they criticized her mother often.

So, it was a bit surprising to know that her parents didn’t have their gravestone in the Shiomi Family Graveyard. For Minato, it was probably thanks to his friend who likely argued in his favor. Did he ever talk to her about their maternal family? Or did he just leave the thought alone?

Vaguely, she recalls a blurry memory of her crouched down in front of their parent’s grave. She was just a little kid sobbing, her brother hugging her, traumatized and different because the adults said so, saying that he had been awake when the accident occurred.

(She woke up in the remnants of the accident, after their parents had passed, with her brother shaking her and trembling all the while, with an expressionless look on his face and tears falling down. In the midst of burning flames and blooming pain that looked almost like an ominous green, she was traumatized in a different way.

But that is neither here nor there.)

Kotone shakes her head, settling down and opening her yellow backpack for the cleaning rags and got to work cleaning her parent’s grave. Her brother’s grave was much cleaner and well-cared for, likely visited by his friends more than her parent’s have ever been. But, his stone sits beside them, like his cremated ashes placed beside their parents in her room.

Seeing his name engraved in the stone was a very jarring thing. It’s a strange sight, one that she never expected to see before she’s even considered a young adult. Like her brother, her name will also be carved in this place when she passes, and she hopes her family honors that request.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Kotone rinses out the cleaning rag and places the flowers for her parents.

Seventeen.

Minato died when they were both only seventeen.

And now here she was, eighteen and in a world without him.

Living in the same city where their parents died, the same city that traumatized him and left them both orphans. The same city that she recently moved to, just to cling onto the could-haves and should’ve-beens.

Eighteen and alone, when they promised to move in together so she can finally escape the Shiomi Family and he can finally live without them threatening to hold their parent’s inheritance against him.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

When she attended his funeral, her family — her mother’s side of the family, because father was disowned after he eloped with mother and adopted his own mother’s maiden name — was solemn and quiet, but all of them only showed up for appearances. Most inquired about possessions, and only some of them realized that she was still there. Everything went to her, except for certain boxes that he himself had set aside and noted for who it would go to. He drafted his own will, apparently, and left it with the same lawyer their parents used who looked at her with sympathy and pity.

All of his belongings had been neatly tucked and packaged away, as if to make it all easier.

Her brother had told her that his time was coming to a close, that he was tired. She thought he was joking when she first read that email, with him talking about graduation for his senpais. She thought that with how animated his letters and emails became after befriending his friends, that he was finally coming out of his shell. Maybe he had a flair for dramatics, something she never knew, and wouldn’t that have been nice to have in common with her brother?

She thought wrong, when she received that dreadful phone call from a stranger whose name she’s only known through her brother’s letters and emails.

It sickened her, really. She had months worth of letters and emails from him, and as his letters stopped, descending into short phone calls and even shorter emails, she thought nothing of it. He sounded tired, and she could only assume that he hadn’t been sleeping well again.

Final exams often did that to people. So what? He missed a few phone calls, and he sent her apology texts whenever he missed five. Whatever. He’s a busy guy.

How naïve of her. Did she really think it was normal?

She thought it was strange, maybe even suspicious at times. His first week there was odd when he emailed her about it, no matter how much the detectives justified it as delusions or just pure exhaustion. He even claimed it, but it still stood out to her.

Because apparently he was so exhausted and thought the city turned into some sort of deranged graveyard in greens, with blood oozing in places and the moon yellow. She even thought it was a dream of his, since he mentioned dozing off on the train at some point, and that maybe it’d be a great premise for a suspenseful horror story he wanted to write. At some point he mentioned his dorm mate-turned-friend-turned-girlfriend, Yukari Takeba, had pointed a gun at him. Granted, she supposes that having a gun was probably for the best safety-wise since only two girls and a guy lived at the dorms until her brother came along, as well as the others.

She wonders if this Yukari girl had known about her brother’s condition. Apparently, from what was told, the doctors claimed that her brother passed away in his sleep. How that was possible at such a young age, she hadn’t the slightest idea.

It was like one day, he was spirited away.

At one point in all their correspondence, he mentioned that his friend asked him to kill him, and that he felt horrified at the idea of it. She doesn’t blame him, but since she couldn’t even find a Facebook profile of this Ryoji guy, she wonders if her brother was… if he was talking about himself, rather than an actual friend. She hopes not — God, she really hopes not. How much was her brother struggling? Did he actually rely on his friends, or did he only tell her that so she’d feel at ease?

She… was too distraught at the funeral to take notice of them. His friends did show up, at least, she thinks they did, but they mostly didn’t approach her, and she kept to herself. A young woman, Mitsuru, had expressed her condolences to her directly, saying that she was her brother’s friend, and offered her phone number if she ever needed it.

But Kotone never called her. The number was saved on her phone, but… she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Her nails were digging into her skin painfully, and the pain quickly washes away when she immediately releases her clenched fists upon realizing this fact. She’s been staring at the bouquet of flowers resting before her brother’s gravestone — pinks and blues, seeming almost symbolic of something.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Vision is shaking, but that’s normal.

Right. She can think this over and over again a million times, and she will, but now she’s here visiting her brother’s… grave. What should she even say to him? Should she apologize for being unable to visit his grave because she hadn’t fully moved to Iwatodai yet, even though she prayed to him and their parents often? Should she tell him how exhausting it was to unpack everything by herself? That her university admissions made a mistake with her transfer paperwork, so she ended up wasting maybe an hour having to wait on getting that crap sorted out? Does she talk about the journey to the graveyard because she got hopelessly lost?

Does she talk about the detectives, all of the ones that rejected her case? Or what about the ones who threw insulting remarks about him or his friends, or the few believing that the Kirijo Group had some involvement? Not all of them were bad, she supposes.

But what does it say about all those full grown men, when it was a kid barely into his first year of high school who reached out to her first?

The same kid who asked her if she was still looking for someone to look into her case?

What the hell do normal people really talk about, anyway? What should someone say, despite the distant relationship they shared prior to them passing on?

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Hey,” she settles on a smile. “Sorry I couldn’t come sooner.”

Before he decided to attend Gekkoukan High School, they were only able to meet up a few times in a year if they were lucky. All of them had been for family gatherings, and Minato had been shoved into house to house among their relatives because none of them wanted to deal with the more traumatized twin.

They only stayed in contact through her sheer stubborn will, and she doubts her brother would agree to it if she hadn’t been intentionally annoying and nosy about his life. The letters were meant to be his reprieve from her constantly trying to contact him by phone.

(Maybe she should’ve tried harder.)

It was a good thing that she didn’t give up on staying in contact. She doubts that she would be excluded from it as his twin sister, but if she wasn’t one of his contacts, maybe she wouldn’t have even known about the funeral. Some of their relatives still didn’t find out until recently.

(And they were all disgustingly the same, murmuring feigned sorrow with greedy eyes as they reluctantly ask about whatever was left of their inheritance from their parents.

She knows they wish she were out of the picture, too.)

“I know you didn’t want to talk to me about a bunch of stuff, but what the hell, big bro?” she dryly laughed. “What’s up with all the money and cosplay crap?”

Part of her thinks that maybe he really did do some shady jobs — the money he left behind to her was enough to buy her several houses and live comfortably unemployed for years, and that didn’t include the inheritance from their parents and the royalties they still received from their music. If she was smart with her money and didn’t waste it, if she made a few investments, then she’d be set for life.

(One detective thought that maybe he sold raunchy cosplay pictures, a mental image that was, and still is, very much unwanted and unneeded and made zero sense with what she knew of her brother. It helps that the detective seemed just as uncomfortable with the thought as she was.

Another suggested it was from video game competitions, which sounded much more likely and vastly more doable and preferable.)

Similar to their parents, there were royalties coming in under his name. Maybe she ought to revisit those papers and figure out why that is. The past few months, she’s been more focused on graduating and planning what to do next, so she tried to avoid thinking about most of the unpleasant aspects that come after someone’s passing, which included those royalties.

Still, he really did leave behind a lot of stuff. Weapons, clothes, accessories, books, and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. The few detectives willing to entertain her case before declining after hearing that the Kirijo Group was involved considered that maybe his school club was one of those Dungeons and Dragons thing, but was much more serious to the point that they’d embody their character. His phone’s background was also proof that he was really into gaming. It explained half the problems and nothing more.

So this whole green world thing from the first letter was maybe a mistake, which was possible. He might’ve been tired and started writing a scene and forgot that it was a letter to her. Debatable, questionable, but not impossible. The weapons thing felt odd, but her brother had never been very forthcoming about his interests other than music, so that left room for possibilities. Books were normal, but the random outfits and accessories made sense when lumped together as part of the cosplay stuff. He had an armband with “SEES” on it, which was apparently one of his after school clubs.

What concerned her was the random health stuff.

He had a notebook. It mentioned the names of the items, the effects of it, the HP and SP — that was one of the tip offs that it must’ve just been a group game thing. Some were items were relatively harmless, but the more concerning items were what he noted to be “Rancid Gravy” and “Odd Morsel”.

She supposes that it was fortunate that Mitsuru Kirijo had offered to buy most of her brother’s things for her, even if she sent an assistant to handle the deal. Even if she was sure that the Kirijo Group covered up her brother’s cause of death, she did seem guilty about it. And ashamed, if the avoidance of a second in-person meeting was any indication.

One of the suggestions for her brother’s cause of death was overwork, despite being at the pinnacle of health. That was the official story, anyway.

(How the hell does the rising star of the track team die in his sleep, without an ounce of drugs in his blood?)

It was painful going through his belongings, and the whole thing felt rather ironic. She would want for nothing thanks to her brother’s passing, and yet him being alive was the only thing she wished for.

She crouches down, feeling so incredibly small and sad and angry at the world. It looked like the grave was well-maintained. His friends, she thinks, because their family hadn’t thought kindly of her and her brother, except for a few who were never able to care for them.

A passing thought flickers in her mind, wondering if her brother ever visited their parents while he was here.

Probably not.

He didn’t like reminiscing any more than she did.

She places an incense, a habit that’s become second nature since the death of their parents. Even if she doesn’t believe in an afterlife, she finds comfort in the gesture. It helps, knowing that if it really did exist despite her disbelief, then she could make her loved ones happy even if just for a short while.

“I don’t even know if melon bread is still your favourite,” she admits softly, placing the plastic wrapped bread on the grave as an offering. “I’d like to think it still is.”

It’d be devastating if she were ever told otherwise, but she likes to pretend that she still knows her brother well. Her brother would eat anything placed in front of him, but he had minor dislikes that popped up from time to time. When she first started learning how to cook back when they were younger and still lived together, she was absolutely terrible, but her brother never complained and simply made suggestions little by little. He sent her compliments when she sent him cookies every once in a while, and she promised to cook for him whenever she had the chance to see him.

Her brother was always the better chef, though. He was always sending her recipes, mentioning alterations he’s done. She didn’t really have the chance to show off when they reached high school, but she promised she would. Hell, he entertained the idea of a restaurant, purely because he had a senpai who was good at cooking.

And now, she’ll never have that chance to cook for her brother.

“You promised,” she muttered, feeling so horribly hurt and broken as she smiled with gritted teeth. “Did you remember? We were going to be grown-ups and open up our own bakery or restaurant. I’d deal with the customers, and you could stay in the kitchen cooking and baking all day, rocking out to music as much as you want, and then when we close up shop, we can just go upstairs and be at home relaxing in minutes.”

It was a what-if, a possible future plan, but she wanted to be with her brother because he was the only person left who understood. She wanted them to live an easy and simple life, because it was hard to move from place to place with no one to return home to.

And that’s what will happen now. Moving to a new place with no one to come home to.

Again.

“You liar,” she muttered, bitter and hateful, burying her face into the palm of her hands. Part of her wants to cry, but she won’t, and she hasn’t. This dreadful place doesn’t deserve her tears. She could smell the sandalwood incense, and yet again, she’s reminded of that time during their parent’s funeral.

How could he leave like this? Did she even cross his mind?

Ah, but she knows. She knows that whatever happened to him, he didn’t want to leave her.

It wasn’t said outright, but there was a chance that he’d be fine. That he was going to hang in there.

Something happened to him, but what ?

She clenched her fists, her nails once again digging into her skin.

It’s very easy for her, she thinks, to feel resentful about everything. Resentful of her brother, of his death, of herself — everything.

Between the two of them, she was always selfish, something that she didn’t mind until now, always wanting things to go her way. She was always more resentful, she knew hatred so intimately well that it made her feel bitter to her bones. Maybe that was why she knew that he’d tell her to leave it be, let bygones be bygones, and to not even try to look into his death.

But her brother was gone, so he can’t really tell her what to do. And she won’t take the imagined advice — not even if he were to rise from the dead to tell her himself.

She’ll damn well figure out why he died.

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[Unsent Letter]

From: Minato Arisato

To: Kotone Shiomi

January – 2010

Dear Hamuko,

For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.

I’m not sure if this letter will ever reach you, but if it has, then. Well, I’m gone, and the world hasn’t ended like we thought it would. This day came sooner than I thought, and it’s hard sometimes, but I think I get what you mean now. About rising above challenges as long as you’re with some friends, even if you were only talking about manga. I have a promise to keep to my friends, and I’ll die trying to achieve it.

Maybe in another life, or another world, you could understand what I’m going through. Or maybe we would live normal lives and build up that bakery you keep yapping on about.

I’m sorry for never really being present in your life. You always reach out to me, even when you get upset at me for something I’ve done. I do feel guilty about that, and I can’t make anyone happy here no matter what I choose to do. I know you’ll be okay, you always manage to bounce back up no matter what, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.

I’d like to tell you I’m sorry in person, but if you received this letter, then I can’t do that.

My choices have brought me to this point, and I can’t say I regret anything about my life now that I understand what true relationships are like.

I do regret one thing, and that’s leaving you behind. I’m sorry, Hamuko, for breaking our promises. I won’t ask you to forgive me.

This is just another consequence of my actions, and I will bear it as my responsibility.

You will always be my little sister.

Goodbye,

Minato

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‘Now what?’ She thinks, staring blankly at the gravestone. ‘I bought an old dormitory to renovate so I can feel less guilty for using brother's money one I start getting tenants — I need to do some tidying up, but it’ll be a good place to rent out, so I can have a little extra money just to be safe. I don’t have a meeting with the detective until next weekend, and I need to wait to hear about my enrollment to University.’

She looks up into the sky, watching the clouds floating by amidst the sunset skies.

How long has she been standing here?

“Shiomi-san? You’re still here?” comes the familiar voice, surprise and a hint of concern in his voice. Looking up, she finds herself staring at the man she’s seen only several hours ago.

“Oh, Sanada-san,” she politely greeted after a moment of silence.

She knew that seeing him again was inevitable, considering that he was a student at the university she’s enrolling into, but it’s only been a few hours. And, unlike before, he wasn’t alone. Standing a little away was a group of young adults, with a teen, a dog, and a foreigner girl.

“I was actually just about done,” she smiled at him. “There’s been a lot on my mind, so it’s rather refreshing to get it off my chest.”

It wasn’t necessarily a lie — she really did feel better, even if she had a minor headache from all the things that she needed to deal with. Renovations. Paperwork. Meeting the detective. University.

Paperwork was no joke, but solving a mystery with almost no clues was the absolute worst.

Ah… so much to do.

“I see,” he looked at her, understanding in his eyes as he simply nodded.

“Well, I ought to get going before it starts getting dark out, Sanada-san,” she bowed to him, smiling politely. “Have a good evening.”

She walks past him, getting a better look at the group. What a colorful group, she thinks. Blue baseball cap guy, a lady in a pink sweater, a petite lady in green, a blonde foreigner, a teen in an orange sweater, and…

Kotone instinctively smiled, bowing politely at the group and glancing up at Mitsuru Kirijo, the most famous among the group. The heiress, or rather, the leader of the group. Wasn’t she her brother’s friend? If that’s the case, then everyone here must’ve been the group who showed up at her brother’s funeral.

So she was right. Akihiko Sanada was the same Akihiko-senpai her brother mentioned in passing.

“I take it that you and your friends have been taking care of my brother’s grave,” she bowed again. “Thank you for looking out for him even now.”

She bites her tongue, her mind cursing at them. How much did they contribute to her brother’s death? There’s been shady rumours of the Kirijo Group, they were wealthy and had more than enough influence to keep things hidden.

Kotone will never know.

Before they could say anything — surprise, shock, or just downright confusion written all across their faces — she takes her leave. Fists clenching, she bites her lip and wonders how she ought to go about this.

She can’t take any risks right now.

It was safe to assume that they were all dorm mates or or they were all part of the same club, otherwise they wouldn’t plan on visiting together with an almost carefree air to them. It was also possible that they all happened to know her brother from separate instances and came together to grieve after his funeral. He’s mentioned quite a lot of names, so that’s her first step: rereading everything and writing down names and his relation to them. That’s already her plan for before the detective arrives.

She wasn’t going to demand answers from them. Not right now.

For starters, a cover-up was still in the realm of possibility with the Kirijo Group involved. And it was very obvious now that they might know something from how they acted at the funeral back then. They grieved for her brother, but it was different from all the other funerals that she’s been to. Back then, she thought nothing of it because her mind had blanked and she couldn’t focus.

But Kirijo recognized her after she thanked her, with a flash of guilt and understanding. Maybe she’s grasping at straws for something, but it doesn’t matter.

She will find out the truth.

#ilyusha tag #wynter writes #p3 fic #re: all in the past #fic: all in the past (rewrite)#akihamu

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she-karev · 7 months

Text

Aftermath

Age Rating: 12+

Chapters: Three of Three

Fandom: Grey’s Anatomy

AN: Here’s the final chapter guys, I hope you like it and I’ll try to post most stories by next weekend.

Summary: Amber gets a feedback from Webber about the meeting when her friends barge in.

Words: 2920

I stand by the nurse’s station outside Paul’s ICU room drinking my water to relax. Alex, Jo and Jenny are right outside the door waiting for Dr. Shepherd exam to determine if he’s brain dead. Grey and Jo were able to bring him back but they had to intubate him on a ventilator. Shepherd diagnosed him with second impact syndrome which never ends well in this case.

It’s weird him dying was something I thought would bring me joy but instead…it made me feel defeated. Paul died before we could press charges and expose him for the misogynistic, abusive low life he really is…was. In the end it just felt pointless everything he put us through when he’s not gonna pay for it. I can only hope that hell is real and he gets a special seat. I see Andrew entering the ICU and walk to me relieved.

“You’re okay.” Andrew exhales relieved.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I put my water down to face him, “I take it the grapevine heard what happened.”

“Only that Stadler tried to attack Dr. Wilson and an intern. I came up as soon as I heard. Do I need to kick his ass?”

I look at him touched but point at Paul behind him. He looks and see’s the damage, “Even if you could kick his ass, I don’t think his brain would register it.”

Andrew looks back at me with a slightly feared look, “Did you do that to him?” I lightly smack his arm.

“He fell and hit his head after his fiancé told him she was gonna turn him in.” Andrew nods relieved, “His first concussion barely healed so the impact caused a brain bleed I think, we’ll know more once Dr. Shepherd confirms it.” I see Dr. Shepherd coming out and we stand by the others to get the news.

“Is he brain dead?” Jo asks plainly.

“We can’t say for certainty for a few more hours, but it appears the way.” Amelia explains and looks at Jo conflicted on what to say, “I’m-I’m very…I’m sorry. Are you comfortable talking to her about her options?”

Jo nods, “Yes.”

Amelia leaves us as Jenny asks Jo, “What does she mean by options?”

Alex explains, “Well she means you have to decide if you want to withdraw his life support.”

“Alex.” Meredith calls him and he turns to her, “It’s not up to her.”

I look at her confused for a second until I realize what she’s saying. Since the divorce wasn’t finalized before Paul went on a vent, Jo is still legally his wife. Which means this depraved shell of a man’s final wishes falls on her. I shake my head at the cruel outcome of this and Andrew realizes it too as he rubs my back in a futile attempt at comfort.

“Oh my god.” Jo makes the realization too, “It’s me. I’m still legally his wife.” There’s a tense second of silence until the next sound out of Jo catches me completely off guard. She laughs out with a smile, “Oh my god!”

I look at Jo startled by her reaction as she continues to laugh hysterically despite the tension. I wonder to myself if this is what I looked like last night to my friends after Paul came to me. If I was I’m embarrassed I looked this insane. I see the others looking at Jo concerned except Alex who grins slightly. To keep her from being sent to psych I explain.

“Laughter relieves tension.” I hope they can hear me over Jo who’s still laughing like a hyena, “People laugh at funerals all the time, it’s okay she’s okay.”

Jo starts to calm down, “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” She stops for a second to laugh before composing herself, “I’m so sorry. Crap. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Jo finally stops laughing and now she’s sobbing cradling Alex’s face who looks at her with love.

I feel bad for Jo’s predicament and try to remedy it, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“She’s right.” Grey chimes in, “You have power of attorney you can hand the decision off the someone else.”

Jo sniffles and fully composes herself before responding, “Thank you both…but this is my decision and I intend to make it.” I suddenly get an alert on my phone and look to see a text message from Webber saying, ‘Meet me in my office.’

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

After the ICU I gave an excuse that the office needed more information for my keycard. They buy it except for Jo who looks at me in pity and I shook my head to keep her quiet. Now I’m sitting in a chair across from Dr. Webber waiting to hear what this is about. I already know what this is about so I remind myself that I have nothing to be ashamed of.

If they want to fire me for my past then I’ll go on a rant and tell them I am not that angry teenager anymore. I am a surgical intern who has experienced pain that doesn’t make me crazy it makes me more able to connect with the next foster kid who got beat up by their guardian. Or a wife from a lowly neighborhood who can’t afford good healthcare. Or a teenage girl who has to pay for rent and take care of her family.

I am not gonna be ashamed of my past anymore. I think I came to this conclusion when I heard Jo and Jenny talking. Those two went through the ringer and instead of being beaten down they grew stronger and showed Paul that he didn’t break them. I went through hell but it didn’t break me, it made me stronger and I am not gonna let these guys judge me anymore.

Webber clears his throat, “Karev, I called you in here because-”

His words are cut short as his door bursts open and Dahlia comes in looking peeved. Behind her, Parker, Helm and Schmitt follow all standing by Webber’s desk like a small, baby blue army. I look at them surprised that they barged into our residency director’s office after spending the last month kissing up to him.

Webber looks at them stunned as well, “Dr. Qadri, Parker, Helm and Schmitt to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You can’t do this.” Qadri starts, “You can’t fire someone for having a few scars and yes a few tiny arrests in her record before she was a C cup.” I widen my eyes at her and Parker steps in.

“It’s unlawful, and unjust and frankly sir it’s a bitch move to pull off this century when every little workplace incident is reported.”

“I can already see the headlines now.” Helm speaks next, “’Top Hospital Fire’s Surgeon for being Low Class.’ And that’s a nice one.”

“I-I don’t really want to say something to get me fired.” Schmitt stammers nervously and I roll my eyes at him, “But sir with all due respect she does not deserve to be fired for something out of her control…respectfully.”

“All right people I appreciate your input and this united front is something I hope for with my classes but-”

“If you fire her then I quit.” Qadri throws in and I look at her shocked.

“Are you stupid right now?” I ask her, “Don’t quit just because unlike you I have a problematic past.”

“A past you’ve worked hard to overcome.” Parker states, “And now you’re here in spite of all the obstacles and your superiors shouldn’t be another one. If that’s the kind of workplace I signed up for…then I’ll quit too.” I see Parker nudging Schmitt with his elbow and he gets the message.

“Um I’ll quit if you fire her.” I look at Helm to see her reaction and she doesn’t relent until Dahlia glares at her causing Helm to roll her eyes.

“Fine I’ll quit too.” Helm says without feeling.

“Damn it you guys we’re not doing Spartacus.” I say frustrated that they cut me from making my case to Webber, “I don’t need people from Mensa to defend me and quite frankly I don’t think the hospital will lose much from four interns quitting. I mean let’s face it my money was on Blood Bank getting kicked out the end of the year.”

Schmitt looks at me offended, “I was gonna lose my job for you!”

“Nobody is losing their jobs!” Webber yells out, “I called Dr. Karev in here to tell her that her job is safe and she is not fired.” I look at Webber in shock and I am silent for a moment before speaking.

“…What?”

“You’re not getting fired Karev.” Webber repeats, “Now listen Jennings pulled that meeting and told all of us to call you in so we can get an explanation for how this file came to our desk. After you explained that it was an attempt of harassment by Dr. Stadler after he cornered you yesterday, we decided to investigate further and see if the allegations were true. When we heard from the ICU nurses how he verbally assaulted his fiancé and moved to attack her it was clear there was nothing left to investigate.”

I exhale in relief at my good fortune for once, “So you all decided then to let me continue here?”

Webber winces, “Jennings was still insistent on letting you go and was gonna peer review it with the medical board.” My joy deflates, “But Dr. Avery went to the bat for you.” I look at him confused at Avery standing up for me and he explains, “He told Jennings that if he got the medical board to contact you, he would hire you the most bloodthirsty attorney out of his own pocket and make it so Jennings would lose his job and more.”

I widen my eyes at a plastic surgeon I’ve barely interacted with suddenly fighting for me to keep my job, “He really said that?”

“Word for word.” He turns to the interns who look relieved for me as well, “As for all of you there will be no need to quit in solidarity. I commend you for it though, not a lot of interns bond to the point of standing up to their residency director for a friend. It’s inspiring, loyalty is something I respect very much. It’s something people like Jennings could learn to adapt.”

“…So can I go then?” I ask him.

“Yes you may go.” I stand up and exit the room with the others and we all stand there frozen not knowing what to say. I clear my throat, “Thanks.”

Dahlia nods and the others grin appreciatively after that we go our separate ways.

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

After my first bit of good news today I stand next to Alex outside of Paul’s room while Jo and Jenny are inside no doubt wondering Jo’s next move as Paul’s power of attorney. We stand by each other tensely letting it sink in that this nightmare of ours is finally over.

Alex exhales, “I’m sorry.” I look at Alex confused by his apology and turns to me with guilty eyes, “I heard what you said in the lockers this morning.”

It takes a moment for me to remember one moment after this grueling day and simply say with a blank face, “Oh, you heard that.”

“Yeah I did. Look I’m not sorry for falling in love with Jo but I am sorry I made you feel like I ruined your life again.” I can tell that he’s being genuine, “Believe me if I had the chance again I would have killed him back at that damn conference I tracked him to.”

I inhale and exhale before responding, “If you did that he would win and Jo would be as scared of you as she was of him. I was angry and pissed off when I said that and I just wanted to lash out at the world instead of the one person responsible for it. But if I lashed out at him I wouldn’t be better than him either.” I sigh at that bitter truth, “I’ll tell you this though at least one of us got a good punch in before the lights went out.”

“Damn straight.” Alex agrees, “Listen I want to say thanks for standing by Jo when she confronted Paul so…thanks. I’m glad you were there if I couldn’t be.”

I look at Alex appreciatively, “Your welcome.” I decide to add one more thing, “She is way too good for you.”

Alex snickers quietly, “I’m glad I got your approval. And as of yesterday, DeLuca’s got mine.” I turn to him with shocked eyes. I don’t need my brother’s approval of who I date but oddly it makes me feel warm inside to know that he does.

“Thanks. I’ll pass the message on to him.”

“Not just yet.” I look at him curious and he grins, “Let him fear your big brother a little while longer.” I smack his arm even as he grins at his own joke. Meredith approaches us with a grin.

“It was a drunk driver.” We turn to her in shock over this news.

“What?!” Alex asks happily.

“They found the guy who hit Paul.” Meredith explains, “It was a drunk driver. So nobody has to go to Canada. She’s free.”

I exhale in relief for all of us not going to jail, “Thank god, I hate the cold and the Canadians are annoying as hell.” Alex chuckles lightly as Meredith leaves us to bask in our collected joy.

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

After Jo decided to donate Paul’s organs, I saw that as my cue to leave them to it and head to Joe’s with my friends. I owed them a drink for standing up for me earlier even though I acted like I didn’t need it. It was still nice and they’ve been good to me throughout this whole ordeal so it was the least I could do.

The bartender lines the shots for me, Taryn, Levi and Casey at the round table. Dahlia is with us but she can’t drink so I opt to buy her a coke instead. We grab our shots and they pause the drinks in midair to which I look at them confused.

“Don’t you want to make a toast?” Casey asks.

“No I don’t want to make a toast I want to drink.” They look at me annoyingly and I relent, “Fine here’s to the interns that were willing to quit for their friend even though she wouldn’t have done what they did.”

“Your horrible.” Helm tells me amused.

“I’m kidding.” I rectify, “I appreciate what you guys did it was ballsy, a little reckless but I don’t exactly have a high ground on that so cheers!” We clink out shots and swallow them down our throats. Helm and Schmitt groan and hiss at the burn causing me and Casey to look at them amused, “Wimps.”

Casey joins in, “Yeah can’t you guys handle your tequila?”

“Maybe if She-Karev didn’t spring for the cheap stuff I could.” Helm says.

“I said I was buying you a drink I didn’t say it was high quality.” I signal the bartender who looks to refill our shots but I speak out, “Oh no, not them just me my tab ended.”

“Figures.” Casey says knowingly, “I guess quantity is limited too.”

“Amber can I say something?” Schmitt asks me and I nod, “I think your totally amazing.”

I look at him surprised by his flattery and feel the need to point out, “Schmitt. I have a boyfriend and even if I didn’t I’m sorry but you’re not my type.”

“Ouch.” Casey whispers.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Levi glares at Casey and turns to me, “I just mean…I-I look at your in the pit and the locker room and I used to think you had this most perfect life. In a million years I never would thought you had one single problem.”

I nod bitterly, “Well obviously I do.” Dahlia squeezes my hand in comfort as Schmitt continues.

“I know…and that’s why I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” I look at Schmitt appreciative of his compliment. I look back at my shot glass in thought.

“No one’s ever really said that to me before.” I admit softly, “I mean being the freak with the psycho for a mom leaves you with the lifelong impression that your broken. And the teasing and bullying didn’t help either.” They look at my sympathetically which I also point out, “And the occasional pity stares weren’t a favorite of mine either.” They all stop staring.

Dahlia speaks, “Well hey I think it’s safe to say you showed all of them after getting an MD.”

I nod proudly, “Yeah I did, didn’t I?” I swig my beer and decide to change the subject, “Why do you think Avery stood up for me in there?”

Helm snorts, “I can think of one reason.”

“Is sex always the reason for you?” I ask her and she shrugs, “It doesn’t matter as long as it got me to keep my job. Just as long as he’s not expecting a special favor in return.”

Dahlia chuckles, “I think that would end with him worse off than Stadler.”

“You know that’s right.” I clink my beer with her glass and resume back to drinking with the others looking to end this horrible week.

#greys anatomy #amber karev #alex karev #jo wilson #andrew deluca #elizabeth gillies #liz gillies #giacomo gianniotti #headcanon

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sydtaxerror · 10 months

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It continues? Day 5 Extended and new plans.

So I've been wanting to finish my October prompts for awhile now. It felt really REALLY good to write again after literal years of not writing at all, but I let myself get in my own head too much, let myself fall behind, and dropped Holoctober. As a warmup, for something else, I extended one of the most neglected stories from the original run. I'm including the whole thing in case someone stumbles on just this post, but if you read the original Day 5 new content starts at the plus signs.

Day 5: Seiso

In a New York City hospital, on a chilly autumn morning, Sora stood at the foot of Ina’s hospital bed, a strange metallic briefcase in her hand and concern etched into her face. Not far away, A-chan searched for a spot to place the flowers they had brought. The room was filled with the quiet, repetitive beeps of medical equipment. On the other side of the bed was equipment much less standard, a series of runes and arcane enchantments scanning her for increases in extra-planar influence. Sora only knew the basics of either, but collectively they seemed to indicate her heart-rate and physical health had stabilized, and that there was no chance of the Ancient One seizing control of her again any time soon. If anything their health, at least on this plane, was far more precarious than Ina’s own. “It feels wrong to leave her alone. Where is the rest of Myth?” Sora asked.

“From what EN staff say they’ve hardly slept, between taking shifts guarding Ina and trying to hunt down the ones who did this, they’re running themselves ragged. I imagine its also hard to face you, considering you’ve essentially been sent to clean up their mess. Even if we don’t see it that way.”

“I certainly don’t. This wasn’t their fault. We never would have let her be around civilians if we thought this could happen. It should have been impossible, Ina was vetted when she joined and staff were assigned to monitor the Ancient One’s influence. If anything, we failed them.”

“No.” A small voice rang out from the bed, Sora ran over and grasped it. “Ina you should be resting.”

Ina shook her head. “I know it sounds crazy, but me and AO-chan have an…I guess you’d say an understanding. We struggle but there’s rules. Its hard to explain but they wouldn’t do this, not this way. It would be…rude.” She broke into a coughing fit and Sora poured her a glass of water. As Ina drank it Sora tried to understand what she was saying.

“Rude? The creature trying to steal your body and conquer the world wants to be polite about it?

Ina nodded. “They steal worlds like Lupin steals gems. If they were ready, there would be omens, warnings, we’d all be having dreams about the sun being blotted out by darkness. And there definitely would have been casualties.” She shivered, and pulled the blanket tighter around her.

“So what was it?”

“Someone made this happen, planned it. Made sure there would be cameras and civilians caught in it. I heard a song before everything went black. Not something you’d hear at a convention. It was slow, operatic, beautiful but…wrong. As soon as we heard it the balance between me and AO was shattered, they became furious and I couldn’t push them down, it was like I gave up trying to, without even thinking about it.”

Her story told, Ina’s eyes started to grow heavy. Sora smiled gently. “I understand, we’ll do everything we can to make this right, and protect the others. Get some rest for now, we’ll need everyone at their best soon.” Ina drifted into sleep almost immediately.

After making sure Ina was comfortable, Sora checked in with the nurses and the guards. A-chan drew her attention and tapped her watch, Sora nodded. They were running low on time for the other reason they were in New York.

Though far less important to Sora than her kohai’s health, the company’s reputation was in an even more critical condition. Two weeks earlier, Ina had been at a convention in New York City, everyone in the world had seen her lose control, seemingly unprovoked. Tentacles the size of redwood trees had brought down entire buildings. It was a miracle no one had died. No, not a miracle, she corrected herself. You could tell from the footage, even possessed and trapped in her own body Ina made sure no one died.

That wasn’t what had dominated conversation since the footage released however. When supernaturally powerful teenage girls from other planets, dimensions, and even the underworld had started showing up it had been treated as a cute novelty at first. Suddenly humanity felt threatened. Sora had been asked to speak in front of the Council of Nations to represent Hololive. It fell on her shoulders to justify the continued freedom of dozens of idols.

As they walked to the car, Sora noticed, as she had many times lately, a growing unease in the people on the street. There was an anxiousness in the world, a wariness of soul. Even before the now so-called “Ina’nis Incident” people were more guarded and quick to temper. Hopefully this speech could be the first step to putting a stop to all of this. The first step to bringing back everyone’s smiles.

+++

High above, two cloaked figures watched her enter the car, waiting for a signal. The shorter of them, Salamander, sat on the ledge, swinging her bare feet, which were covered in bright crimson scales and terminated in black talons. She grinned as Sora entered the car. “Woody, they have Aliens, demons and literal gods, and you’re telling me that schoolgirl is priority S1? The one we’re blowing our one and only debut suckerpunch on?” Woodcutter, a towering woman with a set of wolfish ears and ashen antlers peeking through her crimson cloak, only shrugged. “Unlike you I don’t call people weird nicknames or ignore the boss’ orders. Weaver says this speech of hers could unravel Siren’s emotional destabilization…thing. The boss isn’t willing to take that chance. Also, they’re specifically not literal gods.”

“Yeah, just de facto ones. The old man really thinks they’ll just stay out of it huh? Seems nuts.”

“There’s a chance, and a plan. Siren’s calling it her magnum opus, she's even cooperating with Weaver.”

“Well, I’ll believe it when it doesn’t freeze time and stab me three hundred and fourteen times before I can blink.” She rose to her feet and stretched. “But I’m more than happy to get off the bench early. Come on, lets stop waiting for FurFarm to get the balls to signal us and just jump em”

Woodcutter held her back. “Just wait until they’re clear of the hospital. No sense in a bunch of sick and injured humans getting caught up in our fight.” Salamander cackled, “Oh my god, is Charlie's naive bullshit contagious? I don’t need her magic story powers to know that by the end of this one, everyone in that hospital will be long dead. And you shouldn’t either. Who cares if it's today or a few months from now? At least most of them got to live for decades, we’ll be lucky if we turn two by the time the world ends. And I won’t waste any more of that time waiting” Salamander leapt from the ledge and Woodcutter pursued her.

As they landed on the street they found Sora standing there already, as if waiting for them. The vehicle took off, removing A-chan from danger and Sora was in a slight crouch, gripping the briefcase with both hands. Woodcutter scrutinized the situation. The idol was clearly in a fighting stance but even if that briefcase concealed a weapon, it would take time to open it and collect the weapon. With a burst of flames from her feet, Salamander launched herself towards the seemingly unarmed idol. Woodcutter’s eyes narrowed the way Sora was holding it made it seem like the briefcase itself was…”Wait!” she shouted. Salamander managed to slam on the brakes at the last second, forcing flames from her arms and raising them in a defensive posture just as the hilt of a blade, marked with a KoyoLab logo, exploded out of the briefcase and into Sora’s open palm. The idol managed a kind of pirouette, diverting the force so as to catch the blade, while keeping her arm in its socket, and channeling the blade’s explosive velocity into a wide swing directly through where Salamander would have been. Having stopped at the last second Salamander turned what would have been her own decapitation into only a maiming, her forearms cleanly severed and cauterized, falling to the ground unceremoniously. She leapt back, just managing to avoid Sora’s follow-up swing. The two attackers hesitated, gawking between Sora, armed with a Katana that had a glowing blue edge, and the still-smoking briefcase.

Salamander pointed with the stubs of her arms to the katana, “she has a laser sword!? What happened to ‘she’ll be unarmed’?”

Sora looked between the two, happy to have weakened one threat at least. Most of the bystanders were fleeing, but several lingered in doorways and windows trying to capture the fight on their phones. She had to keep the aggressors focused on her, and buy time for her kouhai to respond to the alert she’d sent out as soon as she noticed she was being followed. “It was a gift from a kouhai. I’m still not sure about it as a full-time replacement, the change in weight throws off my form, but the concealability and compactibility were desirable given the circumstances.”

“Hah! Guess ol’ eight-legs ain’t so perfect after all.” Salamander said.

Woodcutter sighed, “Tokino-san, would you have kept that briefcase on you when preparing for your speech.”

“Carry a weapon into a place of diplomacy? Of course not.”

“I thought not.” Woodcutter glared at Salamander.

“Oh, that's why we were supposed to wait huh? My bad.” Salamander rubbed one of her cauterized forearms against the back of her neck. Already the stump was beginning to heal, miniscule fingers had begun to sprout past her burns.

Sora noticed this. On a grand scale, she knew time favored her, with the warning she’d sent out and several bystanders streaming the fight, it was only a matter of time before one of her kohai arrived to even the battle. But if her second opponent reached full function before that happened, Sora felt certain it would mean her death. She charged towards Woodcutter in her moment of distraction. By the time Woodcutter had shifted her full attention back to Sora and began responding, Sora was already in range to swing. Woodcutter managed to brace the axe into an improvised defensive position but Sora simply swung for her exposed fingers. Sora expected the Koyorium-edged blade to easily cut through her enemy’s fingers, weapon, and potentially even wound her chest, instead it only seared halfway through two of her fingers. The recoil from the blow made the blade ring out, and pain shot through Sora’s hands. It was as if a regular blade had been swung at a tank, but this was a blade that could cut through a tank.

What could she possibly be made out of, Sora wondered. Woodcutter seized on her astonishment forcing her uninjured hand into the back of the axe blade and managing a rolling swing towards Sora’s, now over-extended, arms. Taking nothing for granted Sora took the blow as cautiously as possible, using the leverage of her blade and her body’s movement to minimize the force as much as possible. Despite it being an improvised strike and Sora expertly mitigating it, the axe swung with an amount of force Sora hadn’t had to bear since the strikes she deflected incompetently when she first learned to parry. If that's what she can do with a jab to the back of her blade, I’ll be crushed if I’m forced to take a full swing. Leaping back from the exchange Sora flexed her numb hands, getting back full feeling.

Woodcutter looked down and flexed her own right hand, two of the fingers hanging limply. “Despite all my advantages, I disrespected you by allowing my attention to waver. You’ve exacted a fair price for that.”

Before Sora could respond Salamander laughed, “Oh my god! You’re such a drama queen. I told the old man you’d half-ass it if we two-v-one’d her.”

“No longer,” Woodcutter said, hefting her axe and beginning a charge.

As she pondered how to receive a charge from someone who might swing with the force of an elephant, Sora noticed Salamander waving with fully-formed hands, before using her flames to launch herself into Sora’s blindspot. She heard another explosion directly behind her, no doubt launching Salamander directly into Sora’s flank. She was caught between an anvil and a hammer, she might be able to receive either strike on its own, but certainly not both. As she’d predicted, it was over. Nonetheless she proceeded as it was not. She feinted towards Woodcutter, then pirouetted on the spot, swinging her blade in a wide, sloppy arc, hoping to catch Salamander in another drastic over-commitment. Her heart sunk as she turned. Salamander had learned from her mistake. She was several feet away, palms outstretched, mustering some yet unseen flame. As the radiant flames gathered in Salamander’s palms, Sora already felt the intense heat even from feet away. It felt like a violent sunburn just from a few sparks. She heard Woodcutter’s massive frame diving out of the way of the attack, and knew it was already too late to do the same. She closed her eyes. I’m sorry everyone, you’ll have to play Yokohama arena without me. The fire never came. Instead there was a wet, cleaving sound and a shouted “Oh come on.”

Sora opened her eyes to see Salamander’s hands once again hurtling through the air. A tall, cloaked figure stood between Salamander and Sora. Calli threw back her hood, and smirked at Salamander. “Sup.”

#tokino sora #hololive #holoctober #holomyth #holoen

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surrojourney-2022 · 2 years

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The Journey Concludes

So much to write about! First and foremost, belly bud was delivered on November 14th. Up until labor and delivery, this was my best pregnancy (other than the fear of the baby being HUGE based on ultrasound measurement). I chose to be a surrogate based on how great my two other pregnancies and deliveries were, uneventful. After this journey, I can say I will never put myself at risk again. The events that occurred during labor, delivery, and recovery has opened my eyes to how lucky our family is and how grateful the fathers are for a healthy baby. If you are considering being a surrogate, nothing can prepare you for the worst. And if I went through what I went through during labor and delivery with my own children, I wouldn’t have signed up to be a surrogate.

24+ hours of active labor which led to a C-section

Couldn’t progress past 5 cm dilation due to the umbilical cord wrapped twice around belly buds neck - each contraction led to a drop in baby’s heart rate

He ended up being sunny side up (eyes facing out toward belly) with an arm at his head - and turning couldn’t happen until 10 cm dilated

No pain meds aside from Tylenol and Motrin for the first 4 days due to medication allergies

Blood transfusion post delivery

4 days without seeing my kids and the guilt of our parents taking care of the kids

With not having a C-section with my own children, I was not prepared with what recovery was going to look like. Brian was my rock through it all, helping me throw up on the OR table, getting me dressed during the first week, taking care of the kids and house while I took time to heal. It was very humbling to have someone else do it all when I couldn’t even get off the couch on my own. I don’t know how mothers take care of infants while recovering. Kudos to all of you out there who tackled it all!

Although it wasn’t what I expected, I am thankful for this journey.

A healthy baby boy who now completes a family just in time to share the joy during the holidays

Our marriage is on a new level, I fell in love with Brian even more than I thought I could during this process

The kids help out so much more now

An amazing life lesson for the kids on equality

Questions people have asked:

Were the fathers in the L&D room? Yes, the whole 24 hours. They witnessed my water breaking, many emotional conversations and decisions, and many hours of contractions (thankful for an epidural). They were unable to go to the OR but held their bundle of joy right away in a separate room.

Will I do it again? Strong No

How did I feel giving the baby away? It didn’t negatively affect me, this baby was not my genetics and although I grew him in my belly for 9 months, it was the best feeling seeing him with his parents.

Any advice for someone considering surrogacy? Go in with an educated perspective, anything could go wrong during the process. I went in blind and naive based on how well past pregnancies went. All pregnancies and deliveries could be different.

How am I doing now? 3 weeks postpartum and I’m feeling a ton better than the first week. Still need a reminder to take things slow, but definitely on the other side.

Will you keep in touch with the family? As of right now yes, the family sends pictures, have sent get well gifts, and we’re planning on the girls meeting the baby after the holidays. I don’t know for sure what the future holds, but we currently have an open mind.

Thanks to everyone who followed along on this journey. Feel free to reach out with any questions!

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catch-the-wind · 3 years

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when reader is sick hc's

finally posting writing here so true

n e ways okay so i’m brainrotting about the genshin charas taking care of their s/o’s when they’re sick 🥺 and now i'm feeling sick, sigh

ohm and sulien ambros belong to @teyvattherapist! they're such good chara's, i know i'm writing them here but i deffo recommend reading up on them

okay here u go, have some hc's that are kinda sorta long and by that i mean 2.5k- i haven't proofread this bc it's 4am and im going to BED but if i write for any other chara's i'll post a second part <3 mwah

tags: gn!reader, diluc x reader, kaeya x reader, jean x reader, lisa x reader, albedo x reader, dainsleif x reader, tartaglia x reader, ohm ambros x reader, sulien ambros x reader, soft bean hours

diluc

is not working or traveling when his partner is sick

absolutely makes them soup and hot tea and drinks

he’s trying to make them food but he’s not the best cook so he’s asking adelinde for help

absolutely asks jean, barbara, and ohm for help while his partner is sleeping but he’s so awkward LMAO

was absolutely frantic the first day he found out his partner was sick tho, he made them come over to the winery so they could sleep there and he can take care of them <3

absolutely lied about what room was his so they slept in his bed

“hmm this guest room is so furnished diluc are all your rooms like this” and no, no they are not, this room is his, bestie

diluc slept on a sofa in his bedroom and did work on the table that was supposed to be for flowers. kinda stressed over abyss order locations but was more worried ab his partner being okay so he was distracted

he just put the flowers on his nightstand for his partner to see when they woke up <3

gives his partner forehead kisses because they won’t let him kiss them on the lips and he gives them the gentlest cheek kisses while they sleep

also gives his partner his clothes to wear <3

cuddles them and reads to them when they’re awake and TEMPLE KISSES OH MY GOD

kaeya comes over because he’s worried his brother and his brother’s s/o haven’t been seen in a little while

n e way, diluc gets sick after his partner gets better and they nursed each other back to health

kaeya

like diluc, he took off work so he could take care of his s/o i,mediately after he found out they were sick

wouldn’t force them to stay at his place tho, he’d probably let them recover in their own place

but he might make them go to the kof hq or the cathedral just so they can be taken care of by a proper healer

he absolutely soothes their fevers and stuff w cryo and also the man can heal himself w his elem skill ofc he can fix someone if he tries hard enough <3

he gives kisses no matter how much his partner says not to but he’ll also give them butterfly kisses so it’s soft moments too~ sigh, ur too cute alberich

asks ohm and barbara and albedo and lisa for potions and such to help his partner feel better but he’s really lowkey so he doesn’t seem SUPER worried

he just hates seeing his partner not feeling so well </3

refreshes his partner’s vase of flowers at their bedside every day

brings home work so he can watch over his partner. he can’t cook super well either so he asks for help and brings stuff home from good hunter too

jean was okay to let kaeya off of work and diluc would never admit it (man practically swore everyone to secrecy smh) but he helped take up some of kaeya’s duties in his stead

and kae, the alcoholic, didn’t even drink while his partner was sick bc he was lowkey worried they would need his help w smth and he didn’t want to be drunk just in case <3

many cuddles despite protests of getting him sick <3

jean

absolutely uses her healer skills to make her partner feel better

panicked when they were still sick and thought it was her fault </3 she asked barbara and ohm for help and they just told jean to relax a bit bc her partner was sick and it wasn’t going to be a quick fix

wanted to take off work but didn’t, so she just brought her work with her

kaeya and ohm very kindly took up her other duties where she had to leave so she could be w her partner

her partner is staying in the kof hq where they get access to ohm and barbara comes to visit <3 but also so that jean can sleep comfortably enough close by bc you cannot tell me this woman does not sometimes sleep in her office or the library and barely makes it to the kof dormitories sometimes

she’s so worried the entire time, she’s probably got a few gray hairs and a new frown line smh

she has clothes that aren’t her work clothes???? it’s so foreign seeing her in stuff like pajamas. you didn’t even know jean owned pajamas

jean sets them up in her bed at home (yeah she has a place outside of the kof hq??? it’s surprising) but it’s a big bed so they can rest and she’ll have the lamp on her side on while she sits up and does work

absolutely dotes on them. she’s good at making foods that make them feel better, she’s just a good healer that way <3

albedo, klee, venti, kaeya, lisa, and ohm all come over to check on jean and co and make sure everyone is doing okay <3 lots of food brought

if jean was asked to sing to her partner normally, she probably wouldn’t bc she’d probably get embarrassed but i think she probably sounds v good and venti would give her his lyre to try out a musical instrument too. but also she’d read to her partner and they’d probably fall asleep together uwu

lisa

works part time hours at the library so she can go visit her s/o

probably asks them to stay at the kof hq for easier access to medical assistance and plus she’s almost always there

“cutie” but worried and very 🥺 (pleading emoji)

makes soup and potions and reads to her partner until they fall asleep

also super playful omg she’s still got a smile on and is full of affection while she walks her fingers up her partner’s arm to their face so she can cup their cheek

she’ll make her partner laugh and smile and blush even when they’re sick, but she makes them laugh until they cough sometimes and immediately feels so bad

jean, barbara, kaeya, albedo and ohm all come to visit with different foods and soups and medicines and such

klee comes knocking and gives lisa some good fisherman’s toast and asks lisa’s s/o if they want to hug dodoco b/c that always makes klee feel better

purple roses galore, lisa has them in her partner’s room and they’ve got a potion to make the. uh. sniffer? to make the sniffer feel better. don’t ask me how, idk but she would find a way to make them physically feel better with flowers

reads to her partner ofc, and she tells them stories ab her own life and time at sumeru sans the crazies

worried looks when her s/o is sleeping but also the softest smiles when they wake up pls-

albedo

cutest lil frown on his face when he finds out his partner is sick

immediately they are taken home and he’s testing to confirm what’s wrong w them and what he can do to speed up their recovery

he’s more distracted than usual at work but he’s coming over to your place all the time w what paperwork he can do

also sketches his partner while they don’t know. he’s got lots of beautiful candids of his partner sleeping, looking out the window, falling asleep, reading, even drinking water. he’s made the most mundane things look captivating

kaeya and ohm come to check on albedo when he doesn’t show up for work after a few days and it’s bc he’s taking care of his s/o with food and soup and alchemical potions and shit. and when kae and ohm come in, they find his partner opening the door wrapped in a blanket while albedo is asleep cuddling the pillow they left bc he stayed up the night before making soup and reading to them

klee has camped out on his partner’s couch, she helps w the cooking too~ she absolutely lets them hug dodoco and gives them a treasure to feel better too LOL

many kisses from klee and albedo, and they also go out to get treats for albedo’s partner too

domestic albedo cooking in his partner’s kitchen and for once it isn’t some alchemical potion that he might blow up the stove with

tartaglia

takes off work entirely but BOY OH BOY is he stir crazy smh

brings his partner to his apartment to rest <3

he’s so worried ab his s/o that he makes all the sick ppl food the first day, orders from wanmin restaurant when his partner wants smth different, and also gets toys and such to entertain them otherwise

also reads to his partner but, again, he gets stir crazy after a while

absolutely does workouts and katas in the living room and phew shirtless tartaglia working out? gets the heart rate up for sure ahem

rushes to his partner tho omg- need soup? water? a trip to the bathroom? another blanket? he goes to them the MOMENT he hears them moving around. absolutely dotes on them <3

his family knows ab his partner and he’s probably written letters ab them being sick~ his family sent snezhnayan herbs and flowers and medicines and such

zhongli comes around because he wants sugar daddy!tartaglia with tea and medicine from bubu pharmacy. hu tao is in tow with well wishes and a “hope i don’t find you at work!” which is. a little worrying because aren’t you just a little sick-

many kisses from tartaglia because he is Needy and he’ll absolutely get sick from cuddling his partner while they sleep

also he’ll probably just like. envelop his partner while they sleep. they’re all cuddled into him and he’s actually so warm it’s nice bc they’re cold w a fever and he’s living for comforting them

he’s so worried tho, he’s got the frowny face and he’s so adorable but he just doesn’t want his partner to feel sick

dainsleif

the man camps in ruins, he’s going to his partner’s house smh

he doesn’t go into the church either LOL so expect him in his partner’s home making dinner and doing their grocery shopping thanks

he would get ohm and barbara to come over tho <3 “fix them please” but also “how can i fix them”

is so dead set on making sure his partner takes their medicine at the right times, he’s so soft for them and them alone

cooks soup and old recipes he barely remembers from khaenri’ah. he doesn’t really get sick, so he doesn’t remember these ones too clearly. deffo brings back old memories he’d long forgotten

reads to his partner and tells them old stories of how the world used to be, his travels, gives them the gossip on a certain khaenri’ahn but doesn’t give away the name

ohm comes over with medicine and lollipops bc dain is so unlikely to go to the cathedral to get barbara smh

but also dain, so self-sufficient, is unlikely to want to ask for help, so ohm just goes to help anyway

dain with the old khaenri’ahn lullabies and tucking his partner into his arms and singing quietly while he holds them and rocks them to sleep

dain is immortal, he’s giving his partner kisses bc “i’m immortal, ofc i won’t get sick”

he got sick

but his s/o nursed him back to health and then there were smooches the end

ohm ambros

the doctor with his ill lover oh my god

he’s frowny, he’s taking care of his partner at his home in springvale and his home clinic is open to everyone else. but everyone knows his partner is the first priority LOL

kaeya and albedo come over to see if ohm is okay or if his house needs to be checked up on. they’re wondering if he went on a last-minute expedition to sumeru and didnt tell them

diluc comes over too, he’s just checking up on his best friend but he’s also stealing a cherry lollipop smh. he heard from kae that ohm’s partner is sick tho, so he brings some soup and good food over from adelinde. he also brings some of his own specialty food tho, the once upon a time in mondstadt <3

sulien sending letters to his big brother to see if his brother’s s/o is okay

ohm is also just super protective of his partner, there are not many people who come into his life who he loves and lets in in the first place. he’s absolutely trying to heal them with his own vitality, so their recovery is much shorter than initially expected

barbara also comes over w jean to check up on ohm and co, complete w a goody basket of soup, a teddy bear, flowers, and books

ohm reading to his partner <3 he’s got such a soothing voice even if his accent is wack LMAO. he’s reading stories and even his paperwork because just his presence is comforting

he puts his hands on his partner’s forehead to soothe the fever goodbye

ohm will not sing for his s/o simply bc he doesn’t think he sounds v good. and he probably doesn’t but it would be so cute to hear him try and please ohm? 🥺

n e way i want smooches idc if i’m sick KISS ME OHM AMBROS

sulien ambros

when he finds out his partner is sick, the man blinks like twice and then suggests so calmly that they go to his apartment in liyue

man does not sleep normally, he’s just going to nurse his partner back to health and read during their recovery. fruit tart can cover his duties for him <3

sulien cooks for his partner tho, he’s making soup and stuff and getting medicine from bubu’s pharmacy. he’s also picking up books on the way home but some of them are to be read to his partner so it’s okay-

like tartaglia, sulien works out while his partner rests and goes to them if he hears them moving around. he’s reading to his partner and not so frowny, but the slightest furrow of this man’s brow is already such a big expression of his concern <3

sends letters to ohm asking for advice ab how to help his partner feel better. ohm just sends a letter back with “i’m coming” and shows up within the day LMAO

reads to his partner, and the monotony of his voice is soothing and lulls them to sleep. he just looks at them affectionately (well affectionate for him) and presses a kiss to their forehead before finishing the story on his own and in his head

tartagalicious comes over and brings food, flowers and a teddy bear with some of sandrone’s paperwork but he sends a smile to sulien’s partner with some well wishes

scara comes over too just to visit and check to see where sandrone is, but scara is a grumpy bean so he just says “feel better” all brooding and like it’s a command to one of the fatui subordinates LOL

sulien like ohm uses his cold hands to soothe his partner’s fever and also gives them forehead kisses <3

Edit: a link to part 2

#genshin impact x reader #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #jean x reader #lisa x reader #albedo x reader #dainsleif x reader #tartaglia x reader #childe x reader #ohm ambros x reader #sulien ambros x reader #lane's ocs #genshin fluff #hc's #lyz.writes #i'm finally posting here omg #so many tags...#goodNIGHT

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

Note

How long would it take the volturi to solve the Kira case?

Fascinating question, anon, I like it. So much so you get answered much earlier than you normally would be.

Shinigami and the World of Twilight

In Twilight there are few supernatural creatures that remain in our world. There's vampires, children of the moon, and the shapeshifter. However, these need not be the only supernatural creatures.

There have likely been mass extinctions (seen in Children of the Moon) and there may be more creatures that are so uncommon that we just don't see any hint of them.

Death Note's Shinigami easily fall into this category.

They live in another dimension, and in the human world (which they rarely visit in person), they're invisible to the eye save for those who have touched their death note. Their methods of killing are so unobtrusive, (heart attacks by default or whatever method they please), that they're unlikely to be noticed unless someone (i.e. Light) is trying to make a point. And in the grand scheme of things, Shinigami also kill relatively infrequently, meaning that any odd death gets passed off as that: an odd death. Also being forbidden to kill for the sake of a human being means that the deaths tend to be a) random b) whatever amuses them the most. That'd be hard to pick a pattern up of.

Shinigami exist in such a manner that I doubt even the Volturi are aware of them.

Some Ground Rules For the Post

I don't see why vampires would have an innate ability to see Shinigami that humans lack. As a result, the Volturi are in the same boat everyone else is, they can't see a Shinigami unless they touch that Shinigami's notebook.

Also, per the manga, the Kira case takes place from 2003-2010, meaning that as Twilight is happening (or before if Aro and the gang somehow solve this faster than L would), the world is mired in the Kira case.

Bella would certainly have been talking about it in Twilight. As would Edward, as he once had his Kira foray as well if on a much smaller scale and with a lot more junkies.

For the sake of my nitpicky need to have everything line up, we're going to push Death Note back a few years, to the beginning of Twilight.

Also, we're taking out L. If L's there, Aro can rely on him doing most of the work for him and only show up at the end to either murder or turn Light once L's narrowed down exactly who it is. That's not really fair per the ask, we have to leave the Volturi on their own.

With that, let's start.

Kira Makes His Appearance

Light's appearance was by no means subtle, he wanted to be noticed immediately, but he also didn't want to be noticed as a human being.

He made no televised announcements, left no messages, sent in no letters saying, "I am God, tremble before me". Instead, he let his silence speak.

He killed via heart attacks those he considered having broken the law to some heinous degree and then he sat back and watch. The public dubbed him Kira first and he only became a confirmed presence, something more real than a specter and a human who could be caught and brought to justice, when he murdered Lind L. Taylor in a public spectacle.

But this is a world without L, which means no Lind L. Taylor, instead we have Volturi and company in Volterra, utterly unconcerned with the human world.

Of course, they immediately notice once an undeniable pattern becomes clear. Human criminals are dying en masse of heart attacks, someone is making a message. The question is, to what end?

Aro wouldn't immediately think this is a human. This kind of power, this kind of gift, to be able to seemingly kill any person in the world at any time no matter the distance, is something too strong for a human. It would be unheard of to have this much power as a human.

Which means Aro believes he's looking for a vampire breaking the law.

The trouble is, it's only humans. The newborn wars are raging as always, every major coven he's ever heard of remains untouched, and there's been no noticeable uptick of deaths among the vampire population.

The only difference to them is that more of them are dangerously close to breaking the law, as crime rates are now plummeting as criminals live in terror of a spiteful god who might strike them down at any moment. This makes murders performed by vampires, in certain areas, far more noticeable.

(As Light is probably killing off known gang leaders, drug lords, etc. left and right, it's probably pandemonium in certain cities/countries. So vampires are probably alright in these places as I'm sure there's a lot of murder going on as survivors try to fill the power vacuum.)

Still, the Volturi have to put their heads together and try to think why any vampire would do this? To what end would they murder all these humans, in such a noticeable manner, and not even to eat their victims?

Aro concludes he's looking for a very young vampire, likely newborn, someone who still thinks of himself as very human and beholden to human society and who isn't aware of Volterra or else does not consider them a threat.

The Volturi Investigators

I think Aro's going to take the lead on this one. There's his gift, obviously, but he'd by far have the most interest.

Caius would be upset by the nerve of Kira, but he has no patience to track him down either when it becomes exceedingly obvious that this is going to be tricky. That, and it just doesn't seem like his thing to me. He's going to mostly sit this one out.

As for Marcus, he's not up to it.

Which makes Aro our lead detective.

The Investigation

Like L, the first thing they do is try to pinpoint the first deaths. There was the immediate deluge, of course, but that screams of confidence in this assassination gift.

Kira likely needed practice to perfect his gift or even realize he had it at all. There's going to be a first victim and it will probably be messy.

Given enough investigation, this probably leads Aro to Japan, where a man taking children hostage suddenly dies in the middle of the hostage situation when televised on national TV (though not outside of Japan). Given that Kira's a vampire, he could have moved from where he started quite easily, but Aro's willing to bet he's still somewhere in Japan.

What Aro does know is that Kira's keeping close to human society. Kira will be reading human papers, watching human television constantly, and appears to be very well-informed concerning his future victims. Both locally as well as internationally. Kira is likely still in a human settlement.

So, the first thing Aro does is look for an unusual number of casualties in any city or town in Japan. Kira will probably be in the newborn phase, may truly be only a few months old, and given his actions has probably been abandoned by his sire. Even if he has unusually high control, he's got to eat sometime, and thanks to his own actions the murder rate in major cities is way down.

Except... there's no uptick.

Crime, murder, in Japan is universally on a downwards trend. Major cities like Tokyo and small rural villages it's all the same, there's nothing noticeable.

Kira either isn't in Japan or... he's not eating.

Aro wonders if, perhaps this assassination gift of his, somehow feeds Kira. He is, after all, stealing life. He does it via heart attacks but maybe, somehow, the very act of stealing life is all Kira needs. Perhaps he doesn't have to drink blood due to this.

This blows Aro's mind for a few days but eventually he decides that, no, he's never heard of this. True, he's never heard of this gift either, but all vampires drink blood. Even Carlisle, who drinks animal blood, still drinks blood and suffers great negative effects for his avoidance of a natural diet.

Kira the vampire must still eat.

Which means, in the absence of any other explanation... Kira's not a vampire. Kira is likely a very gifted human.

Aro's mind is blown again because Holy Fuck, what a gift. Kira has blown Jane and Alec, who were only immediately noticeable in their own village, completely out of the water.

Except, the trouble is, neither Aro nor anyone else in the Volturi is a detective. Aro knows enough about human society to pay his taxes, to hire secretaries, and keep on the up and up, but he doesn't actually solve human crimes.

What he's looked for for thousands of years are vampires who break the law: and they have certain patterns, motivations, etc. that are more or less easy to spot. More, the entire point of his law is that, if Aro notices then it means you broke it. There are those that can and do fly under his radar.

How is he supposed to find a gifted human who can kill anyone in the world any time he pleases? From a brief perusal of Japanese news, there's no one immediately obvious as gifted or strange by local papers.

From earlier killings, Aro notes that Kira doesn't seem to kill between 8 in the morning to 4 pm, which might make him a student but also could mean he's working those hours.

And even if he is a student? How in the world is Aro supposed to touch the hand of every student in the entire country of Japan? Aro, who makes it a point not to navigate the human world.

Aro Calls in the Expert

When you want to hang out with the humans, there's only one vampire to call: Carlisle Cullen. As we're setting this in early Twilight, neither Eclipse nor Breaking Dawn have happened. To the Cullens, and Carlisle, Aro is simply a wise king and Carlisle's old friend.

And I'm sure Carlisle has been watching the Kira case very closely and is very disturbed by the entire thing. Kira's methods are very much not Carlisle's m.o.

Aro gives Carlisle what he knows: Kira's probably a gifted human, probably somewhere in Japan, probably in school, and has access to an extensive amount of human media.

That's it.

That's all Aro's got.

As for the police at large, without L, they haven't even narrowed it down to Japan yet.

Carlisle points out that, as much as he hangs out with humans, he doesn't think he could find the needle in the haystack either. However, he definitely wants to help in any way he can.

However, they do have something. Aro can't touch the hand of everyone in Japan, however, Edward can unobtrusively listen to a much larger segment of the population.

(Alice is off the table as she's best able to see the future of those close to her. Without knowing who Kira even is, let alone being close to him, she has no idea what he's going to even do next. She's likely very frustrated by this.)

Surely, whoever Kira is, he or she will be contemplating their victims more often than not. It's a long shot, but Edward might be able to find that needle in a haystack.

How's Edward Feel About That?

Edward's extremely conflicted. On the one hand, he doesn't want to disappoint Carlisle, and this is the first time Carlisle has ever asked him for a favor of this magnitude. And, in theory, Carlisle is right, all creatures are worthy of life.

On the other hand, Edward's on Team Kira. He thinks these rapist, murderer, pigs all deserve to die and is rooting for Kira to put the fear of God into them. Emphasizing this is when Bella was nearly raped in Port Angeles, but her would be rapist suddenly remembered himself and vomited in terror at the idea that he might be next should he get caught raping her. (As it is, Edward catches him, and a few weeks later he dies of a heart attack in prison. Edward pops the champagne).

More, if Edward goes to Japan, it means he has to leave Bella. Bella has proven she cannot survive without his personal protection. More, he's not sure he can survive without her presence. He can hardly contemplate the idea of leaving Bella, though he ultimately must, but to do so soon? He though he'd have a few more years, likely until they graduate, but now he and the family would have to move all the way to Japan in a matter of days.

Not to mention this would be letting Aro know that Edward's... not technically breaking the law but not not breaking the law either. Bella clearly suspects he's not human, she just doesn't have the right word.

And then to give Kira up to the Volturi? To have his activities stopped, to be turned and placed into the guard, or else murdered? Edward feels like he'd be selling out the brother he never knew.

But also Carlisle and imagining Carlisle's sad, disappointed, face.

Edward says yes but he really wants to say no.

He sneaks into Bella's room in the middle of the night, and for the first time, makes her aware of his presence. He tells her that regretfully he must leave her, he's off to do a man's work and catch Kira, and that they will never see each other again.

Then to Edward's horror and disappointment, Bella's completely on board for Edward catching Kira and thinks it's the noblest thing he could do. Charlie, being a chief of police, utterly despises Kira and Bella carries forward this sentiment. People deserve the due process of law, not being murdered off by some jackass conning people into believing he's a god.

Bella wishes him luck and tells him to return as soon as he can.

Edward just numbly says he won't be returning. This really is it. Goodbye forever.

Bella's utterly broken (though not nearly as much as canon as Edward didn't dump her for being boring).

Edward in Japan

Well, turns out, Edward's not actually that useful. There's a few problems.

First, there are a lot of people out there claiming to be Kira, or even convincing themselves that they're Kira. They do this to brag, to feel special, for any number of reasons.

None of them are Kira.

Second, Edward can only go out on cloudy days or at night, this severely limits when he can wander the streets and the people he'll run into. More, even if he starts with Tokyo, Tokyo's a big place. That's a lot of wandering to do.

Third, say that Edward does come across Light Yagami. Edward immediately dismisses him as being utterly insane. See, Light Yagami is talking to his imaginary friend, Ryuk, bickering about which apples they should buy from the store. Edward sees the giant clown demon that Light believes only he can see and goes, "Ah, another lunatic, cheerio."

Edward does not find Kira.

The Investigation Continues

Aro likely keeps Edward at it for months. It doesn't matter how long it takes, they're going to track down Kira and they're going to find him. It might take years, but dammit, they'll find him. Edward despairs that he will ever be able to go back to normal life.

Luckily for the gang, Bella saves their bacon.

Bella, ruminating on Edward's mission and on Kira, starts doing her own internet investigation. She doesn't get very far, but she does have those prophetic dreams to help her out.

Bella has a seriously weird dream about the moon, night gods, Kira, demons that look like giant crows, notebooks, and Light Yagami's face. Somehow, just as in canon with vampires, Bella's able to somehow put this together.

She calls up Edward (as they parted on more amiable terms, and so quickly, Edward did not yet disconnect his number) and tells him that Kira's name is Light Yagami, he's attending the University of Tokyo as the top student, and his murder weapon is an evil notebook.

How does she know this?

She looked it up on the internet.

Well, Edward isn't sure how to take that, but he also has nothing to lose. They find Light Yagami, Aro shakes his hand, and holy shit, Bella Swan was right. (Aro now decrees that she will be turned, much to Edward's horror and insistence that she has no idea he's a vampire, and has plans to recruit her for his guard).

What Are We Going to Do About Light?

Well, on the one hand, Aro discovered a new species today that he can do nothing about. Luckily, they seem to have their own laws that have more or less the same result as the Volturi laws: don't get noticed.

On the other hand, he's disappointed that this all-powerful gift was not a gift at all.

On the other other hand, Light does not seem to be an ordinary human. He's... lucky, for lack of a better term. No, it's more that he doesn't need luck, he somehow has such an awareness of everything around him that he assimilates it perfectly into his own plans. As if he can manipulate the very universe to his favor.

That's intriguing and useful, and in any other situation, Aro would jump on taking that chance and at least seeing what happens.

So the question becomes, does Aro turn Light or not? On the one hand, that's a useful gift, on the other hand, this kid's a loose cannon and a lunatic.

This Kira thing cannot continue, and Light, even as a vampire, would likely insist on continuing it somehow.

Luckily, there's a solution to this.

Aro burns the notebook, much to Ryuk's protesting despair. Light loses his memories of Ryuk, the notebook, and having been Kira. Before Light even knows what's happening, Aro turns him.

Three days later, Light wakes up a very confused vampire, gets the Volturi pitch with Chelsea there to help loosen bonds, and accepts a position in the guard to, oddly enough, stop those like Kira.

Aro's confused, but hey, they'll see how this Light thing works out. Aro also likely tells himself that he will watch for Ryuk trying to drop Light another notebook like a hawk.

The Kira case is never solved for humans: Kira just disappears one day as if he never existed. As for Light, I imagine he plots the destruction of the newborn armies, and Caius watches in utter fascination as this kid ruthlessly exterminates them all.

Bella is shortly turned into a vampire, much to Edward's despair, and due to the giant mess of this is also likely recruited to Volterra.

How Long Does This Take?

Given the need for the Volturi to first investigate, then Edward, I give them at least a year. Maybe a year and a half.

And really, it's Bella who saves their bacon.

#twilight #death note #twilight meta #death note meta #twilight headcanon #death note headcanon #light yagami #ryuk #carlisle cullen #edward cullen #anti edward cullen #aro #caius #the volturi #bella swan #meta #headcanon #opinion

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ladyartemesia · 4 years

Text

ঌ⊙ fic preview ⊙ঌ

Once Upon a Bracelet

Pairing: Prince Jungkook x Sorceress Reader

(Featuring Platonic Jin x Reader Friendship)

Genre: Fantasy • Soulmates • Enemies to Lovers

Predicted Word Count: 7K (Teaser is 1K)

Rating: Explicit (18+) (Teaser is PG-13)

Summary: You were born to nothing, but your powerful craft caught the eye of a charming prince.

However, his distinctly un-charming younger brother challenged your betrothal and is routinely challenging you.

Jeon Jungkook is (probably) a former necromancer and (definitely) the wrong prince...

But the bracelets tell a different story.

⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ

Prologue: Blood Magic

⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ

Blood magic was the oldest and most powerful of the ancient crafts.

The best and strongest blood crafters hailed from Dionysia, where the heart of all blood magic, the Sanguine Well, rose up from the earth. The people of Dionysia served as caretakers and protectors of the Well and, in time, reverence of the blood craft wove into the fabric of their souls.

Their culture thrived around it. Their beliefs embodied it.

Even love bowed before it.

Bonding bracelets were born of blood magic.

The ritual creation of a bonding bracelet pair marked the transition from childhood into maturity. When a man or woman reached their 20th birthday, they and their family traveled to the Sanguine Well.

Four cuts were made on the right hand. Six drops of blood offered to the water...

Then the Well would churn and rise with violence, swelling till the overflow swept over the youth who fed their blood to the currents.

When the water receded, the bracelet pair remained.

One bracelet for the man or woman who sought the well.

One for their soulmate.

Only the first of any soulmate pair (the first seeker) to perform the ritual received the bracelets. Many who traveled to the Sanguine Well left empty handed because their soulmate had offered blood first.

The first seeker’s bracelet formed fully clasped around their wrist. The second bracelet remained open and would only close for the first seeker’s destined mate.

When an unclaimed bracelet united with its true host, the open ends stretched and intertwined to form a rune.

From that moment on, the first seeker and their mate were blood bonded; their powers and abilities joined in a sacred union that was – to all known craft – unbreakable.

The strength of a blood bound pair could be quite formidable and, over the centuries, powerful soulmates rose to become great warriors, crafters, and leaders of their people…

For this reason, Dionysia did not take the gift of bonded soulmates lightly.

All proposed matches were registered and approved by the Ruling Council before an open bracelet could even be tried on by a potential partner. Both parties were required to present evidence of their commitment to one another. If the alliance was approved, the betrothed pair participated in a public ceremony where the first seeker’s intended mate would activate the bond by finally placing the open bracelet around their wrist.

The Royal Council believed this care and reverence honored the craft and the gods, thereby allowing the sacred tradition to continue.

In 900 years of recorded history, only five bonding ceremonies ended with a bracelet that did not close.

Now there were six…

⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ

Once Upon a Time...

⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙థ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ⊙ঌ

“Jin!”

Your voice echoed dismally down the dusty corridor of Silent Truth Hall. “I’m sorry…I—”

Jin whirled on you, shaking his head vehemently.

“None of this is your fault.”

“There are many reasons why this could’ve happened,” you offered breathlessly.

“There’s only one reason why this happens.”

He sighed in defeat as you rubbed your temples in frustration.

“I don’t understand. The Council gave permission!”

The Ruling Council was a sovereign governing body of three kings and three queens, one monarch from each of Dionysia’s six royal bloodlines.

“The Council isn’t all knowing… ” Jin collapsed against a nearby wall. “This is a disaster,” he whispered.

And it was.

You had no family, but all of your friends from the Academy were there.

Jin was technically an orphan as well, but his adopted family, the Jeons, were there.

Jeon Alaya was high queen of the Ruling Council, so half the kingdom was there to see her (adopted) son bond with a craft prodigy from The Wastes.

Half the kingdom, but not her blood. Not her youngest son, you thought bitterly.

The two of you were silent for several moments while your minds struggled to process the shock.

“Do you think the rumors—what they say about me—is true?” you asked solemnly.

Jin’s head shot up in an instant.

“No,” he swore, “they’re absolutely not true.”

“But it didn’t close—”

“It didn’t close because we aren’t soulmates—not because you aren’t one of us.” His expression softened. “We were a good idea… just not the right one.”

Tears begin to burn at the corner of your eyes.

On some level you were not surprised. You cared for Jin but–

Yours was not an overly romantic attachment.

It was a strong friendship—one that spanned several years. When you decided to apply to the Royal Council for bonding, it seemed…

Logical.

Friendship was an excellent basis for blood bonding. More than one bonded pair applied as friends.

You believed in the wisdom of the Royal Council—everyone did. If you and Jin were not meant for each other, then surely the Council would see it. They would turn down the application. Someone would object…

Someone did object, your mind taunted.

But you were approved.

The date was set. Announcements made. Invitations sent out. The bracelet was placed on your wrist and…

Nothing.

Nothing happened.

Jin’s bracelet remained stubbornly un-closed.

And you had never felt so mortified, so exposed… so profoundly alone in your entire life.

It was a scandal of epic proportions, one which potentially called into question the judgement of the entire Ruling Council.

“Listen,” Jin said at last, “I need… I need to clear my head and think about the next steps. I know an expert on bonding bracelets. Maybe I can convince her to help. There might be another explanation.”

His hands slid up to grasp your shoulders in a familiar comforting gesture.

“Head to my house outside the city for a while. No one will bother you there, and I’ll be back tomorrow.” He gave your arms a brotherly squeeze. “We’ll work through this.”

You nodded, extremely grateful for the opportunity to be alone for a few hours.

Jin helped you slip out the back corridor to avoid the insanity still unfolding in the Hall (where the failed ceremony took place), then you parted with a final hug and quietly walked the few miles to his beautiful manor near the lake.

Technically, Golden Starlight House was one of many homes owned by the Jeon family. This one, however, Jin shared with his younger brother…

Jungkook

Jeon Jungkook was a sore subject for you. In fact, you preferred not to think about him at all if possible—and you certainly would never agree to hide at his house if you thought he would be there.

But Jungkook left weeks ago… right after the betrothal was announced.

“I cannot stand by and watch my brother make a mistake like this.”

His horrible words echoed in your mind as you unlocked the door, prepared to simply collapse fully clothed on the chaise when—

“Shouldn’t you be off playing bride-to-be literally anywhere else?”

You turned, already knowing who you would see.

“Jeon Jungkook. Of course.” A mirthless laugh bubbled up before you could stop it.

Just what I needed right now.

Full story should be posting very soon! Please let me know what you thought of the teaser! 🥺I would really appreciate it and it really fuels my creative process! I promise I treasure every word!

Let me know in the comments if you would like to be tagged for this story!

Tagging: @lemonjoonah @xjoonchildx @ppersonna @hobi-gif @untaemedqueen @underthejoon because you ladies are my heart and I always want to show you what I did right away 🥺

Important Note: I previously published a version of this story for a different fandom (Star Wars). So if you see it elsewhere (though I have made considerable changes) I promise it’s me and I can prove it. Tagging @wwilloww because she read the original way back when 😂🤣

#jeon jeongkook #bts #jeon jeongguk #jungkook smut #jungkook oneshots #jungkook oneshot #jungkook scenario #bts smut #ficswithluv #jungkook x reader

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yama951 · 2 years

Text

Coronet Highlands, Hisui Region, 1804 AC

In the weeks since reaching the Highlands and setting up base camp, Dawn went to work catching pokemon for the pokedex. Rei and Laventon worked with the rest of the Galaxy Team in setting up new camps in the highlands.

Dawn had a heart attack or ten watching Ingo casually doing freestyle cliff climbing up the various cliffsides. The other half of said set of heart attacks was due to seeing the results of the years of said freestyle cliff climbing on Ingo’s physique when he took out his coat for Dawn’s sake due to the highland’s colder climate.

“No thanks! I’m good. I got some snow wear ready for visiting the icelands.” Dawn explained after mentality lambasting herself for her developing aesthetic attraction to someone in front of her. It was sorta different when they were strangers and in a one sided parasocial relationship with a version of him from another reality... “Damn it, puberty.” she muttered to herself. “Uh, how old are you exactly? Given the whole… two bodies thing?”

“I can sense your unease about the situation. I’m somewhere in my forties now, not sure on the exact number. I’ve been here for almost a decade. How… how long was I gone, from my brother? I’m sure the date of the posts you’re getting on your phone imply a sort of present period we would be returning to once your true role here is complete.” Ingo asked as he looked around for Lady Sneasler.

“Well, almost a year, I guess? The internet time period I’m connected to isn’t really flowing quickly or at all, does give me a lot of time to catch up on my reading at least, but still. At the rate we’re going, I’ll be a year older than my friends.”

“I’m basically a decade older than my twin brother. Given the memories I can remember of both myself and Reshiram, I can imagine the trouble that’ll cause once Emmet realizes I’m a lot older now, especially since he has access to the progenitor Zekrom’s power.”

“I’m sure he won’t cause that much of an issue, right?”

“Unova has various distortion spots due to the twin heroes arguing that slowly but surely resulted in the splitting of the Original Dragon. I don’t remember anything before the progenitor Reshiram’s creation but I remember the arguing after the splitting.” Ingo’s normal frown turned much deeper and more annoyed. “Said arguing resulted in the distortions, even tiny reality warps for the most inane differences in opinion… why my mind made me remember very clearly the fact that the progenitor Reshiram and Zekrom having to share a big bowl of snow based dessert only to argue over the flavor and turning the Original Dragon’s crystal bowl into the mythical Crystal Cauldron of Unovan myth I have no idea.”

“Minds are weird like that. At least you’re remembering more.”

“At least. Still, at least I have proof that I am different from the progenitor Reshiram. They apparently like rose water and dried dates, while the progenitor Zekrom wanted saffron and nuts. I prefer vanilla ice cream, in terms of cold desserts.”

“I see.” Dawn said with a chuckle. “Wait, what do you mean by my true role?”

Ingo glanced at her, his silvery eyes momentarily surrounded by a blue glow.

“I have no idea what the real goal is but I have the gut feeling that the act of completing the pokedex is ultimately circumstantial, that the true reason why you were sent here would be solved on the way of completing the pokedex.”

“I mean, the weird lightning strikes and the giant crack over Mount Coronet isn’t enough of a sign?”

Ingo chuckled a bit.

“Still, we don’t know the real reason why we were sent here. From what you told me of your experience, it was a lot different from mine. The Original One spoke to you and gave you your task. I can’t recall what happened through the rift that sent me here all those years ago.”

Before Dawn could reply, Lady Sneasler arrived with her odd backpack basket.

“Ah, seems we’re ready to board the next station. Lady Sneasler is ready to allow herself to be your guide through the cliffs along Hisui.”

The relatively simple flute playing went without fanfare.

“I wonder how the Nobles could tell where and who’s calling them when someone plays the same tune.”

“It’s not the same tune. Not in a deeper sense.” Ingo replied. “It’s like how pokemon could communicate with each other. They speak their emotions out and they understand it, not like humans in how we communicate with ideas in our words. That and they have the blessing of Sinnoh through them, which runs in a similarly deeper level than just through blood. Some sort of ritual is done, I heard from elders, that awakens the power within them, though given Lord Arcanine’s ascension, I feel that it’s less about the ritual and more about it being awakened in a different way. The noble titles were passed down through the millennia after all. If every child of a noble pokemon were themselves nobles, Hisui would have been filled with a multitude of nobles by now.”

“You got a point there. So, how does Lady Sneasler guide people through the cliffs?” Dawn asked as Lady Sneasler waved at Dawn as she placed the basket down and opened it up.

“Hop in and she’ll carry you up.”

Dawn then looked at him as if he grew feathers.

“I’m sorry. Lady Sneasler carries you in the basket on her back?”

“It’s a surprisingly tough and comfy basket. Also useful in going through the wilderness in secret since to other pokemon, it’s just Lady Sneasler in her uniform doing her rounds. The basket’s also useful in carrying berries for the kits, and even carrying the kits around if she needed to be quick. I’m pretty sure the Ancient Celesticans used some sort of magic on it and the other equipment of the Noble guide pokemon used given how it’s passed down as well, from what Irida and the Pearl Clan elders told me at least. If it helps, the basket was my way of moving around before I was made a warden and I learned to climb cliffs by myself.”

“I…” Dawn muttered as she placed her hands over her mouth. “Ingo, have you thought of like… a safety harness? Given how high the cliffs you regularly climb are?” she asked but Lady Sneasler picked her up and put her in the basket despite her protests. The noble then patted the basket lid before she lifted the basket backpack up.

“Snea?”

“I… huh, this is very comfy. I imagined it would have some sharp wicker stuff or something. Though I’m not sure about the eye hole given how I’ll end up facing the mountain view from my position.”

“Snea sneas sneasler.” Lady Sneasler said as she hopped a bit, freaking Dawn out a bit. Lady Sneasler chuckled at that.

“Now Dawn, Lady Sneasler will show how safe it is. She’ll climb over the short hillside cliff we were facing to prove it. I’ll follow behind you.”

Dawn did struggle to stay still and keep her mind clear as she found herself imagining the basket ripping open below her and her imagination stretching the short cliff into something vertigo-inducing as Lady Sneasler climbed up.

“Me and my imagination.” she muttered to herself as she pulled out her phone to try to distract herself.

That’s where she noticed the Chirper notifications.

Fortunately, she didn’t jump up at the sudden discovery or scream and freak out Lady Sneasler. She waited until Lady Sneasler plopped the basket down and patted the lid.

“Snea sneas sneasler.”

That’s when Dawn popped out of the basket, eyes still fixed on her phone screen.

Curious, Lady Sneasler went to look at the phone’s screen, noticing the image of the Temple of Sinnoh on it. She then shrugged and waited for her warden to arrive, which he did some seconds later.

“Uh, Dawn? Is something the matter?” Ingo asked as he noticed Dawn standing on the basket, too focused on her phone.

“I… I managed to post something on my Chirper account. We can contact our time!”

Hope stabbed Ingo at the prospect of sending a message to his friends and family in the future.

“B-BRAVOOO!” he foghorned out a shout. Lady Sneasler was surprised given that it was years since he shouted that loud. The Highlands and Icelands are terrible places to make loud noises after all.

“Oh, oh wow, the Chirper videos actually made your shouts quieter.” Dawn muttered out before returning to her phone. “The real issue is the time difference, and I don’t mean the whole past and future situation.” she said as she showed him the Chirper thread while getting off the basket. “I accidentally posted the picture of the Temple of Sinnoh weeks ago yet the Chirper thread has been a few hours since the posting.”

“So we experience more time compared to them. Unfortunate but it makes sense, given how relative space-time is. Better something than nothing.” Ingo said as he went to look at the replies, hoping to find a comment from someone he knew.

“I guess it has something to do with the massive crack in the sky. Might mean it’s a massive space-time distortion opening, which makes sense, but also worrying.” Dawn said as she glanced at the storm clouds over the mountain. “That would mean it’ll result in a distortion at the size of the region. Might even be the reason for the red sky in the future when Team Galactic did their crazy plan for a few hours.” she muttered to herself before she realized something. “Quick, we should get a selfie! Show everyone we’re okay! Lady Sneasler can join in the photo.”

It took a while for Ingo to recall what a selfie was as Dawn struggled to hold the Arc Phone at the side with its camera function. She then practically forced Ingo and Lady Sneasler close together with her in the middle as the camera flashed.

“Perfect!” she said as she posted the photo on her Chirper with a description.

Stuck in the past to do Arceus a favor, I think. Found Ingo! He’s been here for 10 years, compared to my few months. Time’s wonky so it has been weeks on my end since my last post. AMA later on Commit? #TrainTwins

“I- Dawn, is it wise to tell people how long I was stuck here?”

“It’s best to tell people the issue directly instead of going around it and letting it fester. Barry told me that. Besides, if what you said is true, it’s better to let your brother process it instead of dropping the bombshell once we’re back.”

“You got a point there. I just worry about the potential freakout. My brother can go wild without me to ground him, metaphorically speaking. Given that he’s also the progenitor Zekrom, that might be literal now as well.”

“Yeah, we should keep the knowledge of you technically being the progenitor Reshiram to a minimum. Captain Preselle’s a Zekromite and she might have gone against her oath if she knew you were Reshiram Incarnate.”

Dread creeped up on Ingo as he remembered the various church denominations and realized what it meant.

“Oh Dragons, I can imagine my parents being worshiped as the Mother and Father of the Twin Dragons and my childhood home becoming a pilgrimage site.” he groaned.

“Yeah, not to mention your current home and probably Gear Station and the Unovan railway system… we can set that aside for future Ingo to deal with.”

“Of course. Anyway, shifting the tracks to the matter at hand. Did you have a satisfactory climb with Lady Sneasler?”

“It might take some getting used to but I can see the utility. I have to go off the safe routes to find rare pokemon and Sinnoh, I mean, Hisui is very mountainous.”

“That’s good. The other thing is that Warden Melli decided on what your first trial for meeting Lord Electrode is.” he said with some annoyance.

“What sort of trial is it?”

“He convinced me to take the torches I put in the Wayward Cave out as part of some symbolism on light and shadow, either that or a cave orienteering trail.”

“So, no Flash, if I could have a pokemon that uses it?”

“I… I don’t know if Flash was used at this time period. I suddenly recall a disk of some sort?”

“That would be the TMs and HMs, I think. Well, the issue is that the Wayward Cave doesn’t really lead to anywhere? At least, in the future when I explored it.”

“It does have a terminal in this time period.” Ingo helpfully informed. “Though I am worried about the dangers. There’s an alpha crobat and going too deep without a light source can be deathly.”

“I mean, we’re not going to the lower level right? I would use Flash either way.” Dawn said as the trio headed down the hill’s slope before heading to the wagon.

“There’s a lower level?”

“Huh, I guess it’s not explored or found yet.”

“I still urge some caution given that it is a cave system.”

“Of course. Besides, I would likely try to catch the alpha pokemon anyway. Pretty sure I’ve altered Jubilife City history somewhere.” she said as they soon reached the wagon, seeing Volo writing something down on his notebook.

“Hey Volo. Found a new ruin to explore?”

“Indeed I did. There’s clearly a quarry site nearby where the Ancient Celesticans used for their building material. We can go there later if you’re interested.”

“I know Cynthia was curious about where the Ancient Celesticans got their stone. Since I can post on my Chirper while near the space-time crack, I’m sure she’ll be ecstatic to see the quarry site.”

Volo blinked in shock at that.

“C-can you explain?” he managed to ask out. Which she did during a nice meal of curry. Volo was in deep thought about it, barely eating his spicy burger-steak curry.

“Even with the time gap, I… I’m not sure if I want to interact with the future, let alone my wonderful descendant. There’s a difference between hearing about someone and actually meeting them, and well, I don’t want to give false impressions.”

“Don’t worry about it, Volo. I’ll make sure to keep it focused on me and Ingo.” Dawn said as she pulled out her phone to check. “Looks like an hour passed in the future, compared to our couple of hours. Not sure if it’s consistent but well, time has always been a bit wibbly-wobbly. Mom’s asking if I’m well. Got a message from Cynthia asking me to call Lucas and Barry since she couldn’t seem to get a hold of them. Oh dear. They might end up calling both the Diamond and Pearl Clans’ Almighty Sinnoh just to get me. Oh, Ingo! Your brother posted a reply to the photo.” Dawn said as she showed the screen to Ingo.

I am Emmet. Once we rescue you, I am deaging you back to your Ideal age. You are older by ten minutes, not ten years.

Ingo processed the message for a moment.

“May I?” he asked, to which Dawn gave him her phone. He then replied.

This is Warden Ingo. Get used to the Truth of the matter, or are you also going to undo my marriage and all of my kids as well?

He smirked as he sent the reply and returned the phone. Dawn looked at the reply.

“Wait, you’re married!?”

“Yes, to Lady Sneasler and we have many sneasel kits back home.” a beat. “It’s a symbolic thing. The Rite of Wardenship was more like a pledge of service towards the noble, making us equals in a sense. That does mean I’m technically married to my pokemon.” Ingo said with a chuckle though he could see the gears turning in Dawn’s head.

“Is that the reason why the folktale went like that? It got so many interpretations and some people thought it was a literal marriage between humans and pokemon but was it a metaphor we took seriously due to losing the necessary context? Was it even talking about the Rite of Wardenship in the first place?” Dawn muttered out before she realized something.

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait, you can lie?” she said as she glanced at the reply then at Ingo.

“Just because I’m Reshiram Incarnate did not mean I was aware of being Reshiram Incarnate when I was born. I was raised as a human and humans can lie, though I don’t like to lie. It does make me wonder if being Reshiram Incarnate explains why I’m quite skilled in math. Before Lady Sneasler chose me, the Pearl Clan was thinking of making me the clan’s accountant due to how good I am in dealing with conversion rates with the Gingko Guild.”

“Why math? That’s a bit of a swerve there.”

“One, two, three, four. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. Mathematics is a form of Truth in the world. One can misinterpret the numbers but one plus one will always result in two.”

“Huh. Never thought of it that way.” Dawn muttered as Volo went to focus on his meal.

“It would be difficult to just focus on you and Ingo though.” Volo pointed out. “If I know historians, they would ask for all the details they could get. Can you imagine me somehow getting a way to communicate with the hero of legend? I would go crazy wanting to learn anything for their time period, even something as inane as pottery painting methods.”

“I mean, Cynthia did get into a massive fight over Ancient Celestican pottery patterns and how they made it. The other guy claimed that the patterns represented the alien rulers that brought culture to the Ancient Celestican people. Same guy who claimed that aliens did the building of all of Ancient Celestica’s stone buildings.”

Volo and Ingo looked at Dawn, struggling to understand the leaps of logic on that one.

“Honestly, I would have joined in the fight at how insulting that is.” Volo finally said. “There’s always an idiot, I guess.”

“That is an unfortunate truth, yes.” Ingo agreed.

“Well, looking at the comments, I can see a couple historians asking questions about the Hisui Era, so it looks like you’re spot on there.” Dawn said as she went back on her phone. “Oh, huh, there’s a comment from Elesa. I guess it’s for you.” Dawn said as she gave Ingo her phone.

Ingo, please tell me you’re joking! Emmet’s brewing up a storm, literally! I’m pretty sure he’s blue screening due to his ideal crumbling before the truth of reality. Either that or freaking out at missing out ten years of your life.

“Oh dear. Seems that Emmet has become a bit more unhinged since I was gone.” Ingo muttered as he typed a reply.

I am technically married, Elesa. Becoming a Warden of a Noble pokemon is sort of similar to marriage in this time period.

The response was swift as he saw a burst of rechirps and likes on the reply popping up.

Ok, Cynthia gave us a history lesson and Emmet is angry at you for messing around. He misses you a lot, you big bidoof-fus. He’s still gonna deage you though, once you’re back. I honestly think he’ll use his Zekrom powers.

Ingo instinctively huffed smoke out of his nose in annoyance.

My amnesia may be clearing up due to Dawn’s help but if Emmet dares to alter the Truth of my age, he has another thing coming.

I am Emmet. You had amnesia!? For almost ten years!? Which god should I punch right now!? We’re in Sinnoh and I will beat up Uxie!

Ingo blinked at that, memory flashing in his mind.

“Suddenly remembered the progenitor Zekrom roaring about fighting the gods for the existence of injustice and suffering.”

Volo found himself whistling at that, which caught the attention of Ingo and Dawn.

“I mean, I would honestly follow a god that fights for what they believe is right. A world without suffering… no wonder the Unovans have such a zealous streak.”

“The Reshiramites would claim otherwise. They claim that the progenitor Zekrom being the Lord of Lies, who blinds people in the darkness with flashes of light far from the safety of the flame, leading them into foolish illusions of unrealistic fantasies and impossibilities. The Lord of Lies, of Dreams, of Fantasies, of Make Believe… then again, I would be lying if said dreams, fantasies, and make believe didn’t bring innovation and improvement. Even so, he is my brother, my twin. I can’t say we have a perfect relationship, which sibling has?” Ingo then chuckled. “Sorry, I suddenly remembered the clothing choices Emmet and I went for in our teenage years.”

“Oh, I think I saw that video.” Dawn added. “You wore bright pastels while Emmet went full goth.”

“In hindsight, I wonder if that was our dragon sides wanting us to be in our proper colors.”

“The most frowny pastel and the most happy goth twins.” Dawn joked as she went to grab her phone, searched online, and showed Volo the old picture of the young Jameni twins.

Volo blinked at the sight.

“Wow. One looks like a mess of light colors and the other looks like they just wore black all over like some bad ninja. I honestly couldn’t imagine what you two were talking about before you showed the picture, thanks Dawn.”

Ingo blushed in embarrassment at that.

“Elesa once claimed that she went to master fashion because of our horrible sense of fashion.”

“To be fair, you had no color coordination while Emmet had no clothing and accessory coordination. Black polyester pants, black leather coat, black cotton shirt… meanwhile you look like candy vomit.”

“Ouch, but I remember Elesa saying the same when she first saw us try out our new clothes during our journey.”

“It’s nice to see you getting better on your memories at least.” Dawn said with a smile, to which Ingo smiled back.

Volo smiled for the both of them but it was a sad smile he kept to himself.

A few days later, Dawn and Ingo were at Wayward Cave where the trial was to be held. Dawn was ready to enter but Ingo stopped her, guiding her through the right path, away from the alpha pokemon in the cave and possible weak spots in the cave system that’ll result in a fall to the yet-to-be-discovered lower level of the cave.

It was an unfortunate truth that people disappear in caves and areas with significant cave systems.

Of course, Melli was annoyed at the, in his opinion, blatant favoritism, despite Ingo’s words to the contrary. He then declared that the trial was null and void, and that he’ll think of a proper trial later on.

Dawn was annoyed but focused on working on the pokedex. Ingo felt something off about that, a lie, a withheld truth, and so he secretly followed her for a few days as she went north of Mount Coronet. She soon looked around, seemingly trying to figure something out, before she went south, climbing up the mountain through Lady Sneasler, up towards the Temple of Sinnoh. Worried, Ingo climbed up the cliffs to the temple behind them.

By the time Ingo reached the temple, it was almost dusk and he hid behind the pillars to see Dawn photographing the statues of the first nobles, the pillars, the top of the decorative columns, the ceiling, the floor...

“This is amazing. What sort of Ancient Celestican style the top of the decorative columns came from? There’s elements of Ionica but the top bowl implies a sort of Dorica influence as well.” he heard her say to Lady Sneasler. “I need to photograph the roof, maybe even the frieze…” that was when Ingo made himself appear and coughed to get her attention. He crossed his arms.

“You do know this is a restricted access area?”

“Ah, uh, Ingo, fancy seeing you here?” Dawn tried to sidestep the question. He just raised his eyebrow at that. “Look, this is a massive historical find and with this we could build a replica of the Temple of Sinnoh in our time, if not restore Spear Pillar. We don’t even know what happened to the roof.”

“While I admire the Ideal-” Ingo then stopped himself as he realized that the word had something more to it, like it was somehow capitalized by a slight force of will before he coughed and continued. “You still broke into restricted ground deemed holy to multiple people. If anyone were to find you, it might cause a diplomatic crisis.”

Dawn just groaned at that.

“I know but for all we know, the temple might get destroyed days if not weeks or months from now.”

“Even still, the relations between the Clans and the Galaxy Team are a bit tense due to the rift alone.”

Dawn sighed as she looked at the roof.

“Fine, I’ll go down.” she then began posting the pictures on her Chirper. “After I finish getting as many pictures for future historians. I do need to have a better look at the roof…”

Ingo glanced at Lady Sneasler for help, to which she raised her paw over her mouth and laughed.

“I’m pretty sure Lady Sneasler can’t bring you up with her climbing skills, that and Melli would notice the resulting claw marks on the stone.”

“Ugh, you’re right, and staravia’s not strong enough to carry me with Fly.”

“I’m pretty sure none of the local pokemon are careful enough to allow you to be on their backs to fly even if they trust you completely. There’s a reason why the noble guide pokemon of the Alabaster Icelands grants safe passage through the air, Lord Braviary.”

Dawn gave an annoyed look on her face.

“Seriously? Ugh, of course it’s not that simple.”

“None of the pokemon here interact with humans a lot, less of all the flying types. Falling from a great height because one underestimated either yourself or your pokemon is completely dangerous. I would veto it even if it’s just a few feet up in the air.”

“Veto it? Since when did you become my guardian?” Dawn asked in teenaged annoyance, only for a sudden heat to warm the temple’s cool air. The whites of Ingo’s eyes glow a fiery blue.

“I am the Pearl Clan’s Warden of the Coronet Highlands. I am one of the top pokemon trainers from our time period. I am also Reshiram Incarnate.” he was warm like a hearthfire while as warning as the flame that causes a wildfire. “While you’re here in the Coronet Highlands you are under the protection of its Wardens. Since you challenged Warden Melli for the right to meet, and quell if it comes to it, Lord Electrode, that responsibility falls down to me. Was this responsibility commanded to me by Lady Irida? No. Am I obligated to take care of you like this? No, my duties are to Lady Sneasler and to help any travelers in need. But I am IngGou.”

I am Guide-of-Travelers.

Dawn and Lady Sneasler winced at the way Ingo said his name in an odd growling accent that gave mental images of trails and tracks, the people that travel on them, and the guides and protectors of the travelers.

“And as long as you are on this track, I am to keep you safe until we reach our destination. This is my Truth.”

As Ingo panted and the warm air and blue glow faded, Dawn and Lady Sneasler looked at him in shock and wide eyes. A fire was lit back in Ingo. He could feel it. Compared to before, it was an ember in comparison to the fire burning within him now. It was meaning. It was purpose. It was a self he didn’t realize he was missing until right then.

“W-was… was that… was that draconic just now!?” Dawn said in glee as she ran towards Ingo. “That was amazing! The digitized public grimoires I read talked about how dragon language was all about pushing out willpower upon others or reality but I didn’t realize it meant that.”

“I… I seem to have used my Reshiram power by accident, I think. I… I feel more… alert? No… at ease? No… awake. I feel more awake.”

Dawn became worried as she placed the back of her hand on his forehead while checking online for anything different in Unova.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking if we somehow woke up the progenitor Reshiram way too early and altered history.” After a minute, she sighed in relief and lowered her hand. “Well, you’re warmer than before but no sign of history changing, especially when it comes to Team Plasma since they were the ones to awaken the progenitor Reshiram.”

“I see. Well, back on track, we should go before Warden Melli arrives to clean the Temple and spot you trespassing.”

Dawn sighed.

“Of course, of course.” she said as the three headed back north, climbing down the mountain in the middle of sunset. They must have taken a different route up as they noticed and went down a path they haven’t noticed before.

A cold wind blew as they found themselves in what looked like a snowy field at night. Dawn blinked at that as Lady Sneasler growled, vigilant of her surroundings.

“Did… did we walk into a space-time distortion?” she asked. “It doesn’t feel right.”

“This place… it looks familiar…” Ingo said as he looked up at the night sky. His eyes widened in realization. “Dawn, can you show me that video the Sinnoh museum got from the phone they found? The one with my voice in it?”

Dawn pulled out her phone and the two watched the video then their surroundings.

“Okay, so, are we in the past and we’ll bump into past you or have we ended up a bit later on from you losing your phone? We can’t exactly grab it since it’ll result in a paradox since that’s how your brother found us.”

Before Ingo could reply, Lady Sneasler snarled. Another Ingo, younger with his uniform still in one piece, walked through him. A cold shiver went through the actual Ingo as they watched what’s likely an illusion repeat the same actions as in the video.

The trio then followed the illusion, keeping themselves away when the illusion climbed up a hill to the resulting scare by the Hisuian zoroark and the resulting run down.

“I would then run north and be found by the Pearl Clan.” Ingo said, stating his memory of the events while looking at the hill his phone had probably been resting on and eventually discovered centuries from now. Dawn was more focused on the illusion and checking her phone’s map function.

“Uh, that Ingo’s not going north, he’s going east… deeper into the woods.”

Ingo blinked at that before turning to spot the illusion was indeed running east into the woods. The trio silently agreed to follow the illusion, not noticing the distant eyes of a pair of zorua, one white and one black, looking at them from the hill, until they reached what looked like a space-time distortion before them.

“Wait, a space-time distortion within a space-time distortion?” Dawn said in confusion as she tried to figure out what’s going on. She then turned to Ingo. “Should we go in? I’m not sure if we should go in deeper but the other you went in…”

“Something strange is going on but we can’t find the Truth without heading out into the unknown.” Ingo said before facing Dawn. “Lady Sneasler and I will be with you either way.” he said, placing his hand on her elbow.

Ever so curious, Dawn nodded and took a step into the strange distortion.

The first thing they saw was a blinding flash of grayish dark teal light and the sensation of static and goosebumps through them, before they found themselves in front of a clearing.

At the center of the clearing was a boulder roughly carved into a tombstone with a pile of seemingly freshly laid dirt before it. On the pile of dirt rested a familiar white hat.

Here lies Ingo Tamadensha

A son, a brother, a conductor, a subway master, and a friend

“There is no terminal called End in your life!”

Dawn covered her mouth in shock at the sight, instinctively holding on to Ingo’s arm to prove he’s still with her.

The world then momentarily glitched with a snow of static.

An older Emmet was then before the grave, crying and muttering to himself. His white uniform stained green and brown.

The trio slowly went closer.

“... how… how did I find you months too late?” Emmet then slammed at the ground. “I COMMANDED TIME AND SPACE ITSELF TO FIND YOU!” the trio flinched back from the outburst as Emmet began to laugh at the injustice of it all. “Celebi warned that all possibilities are possible, even one of tragedy and that even she can’t force my timeline to follow certain tracks...” he then stood up and turned to face the mountain with his wide mad eyes. “They say the peak of the mountain rested the Creator, the Original One…” he then turned to face the grave with a too wide grin. “I’ll make this right Ingo, so just wait a little bit longer. We’ll be home soon. I am Emmet. And I like winning more than anything else. It’s the only thing I have left.”

The world then glitched once more with Emmet gone and what looked like the ghost of Ingo floated above his grave, facing the mountain. His frown looked deeper, almost a resigned despair.

“And then the mountain shatters…” the ghost said as the world shook. The trio turned to watch a grayish dark teal crack split Mount Coronet apart like a tree of unreality bursting forth from the ground before vanishing, leaving only a chasm where the mountain once stood and floating pieces of rock. The shattered pieces then floated up into a spiraling storm below a tear that was, and Dawn’s eyes began to hurt at the sight, nothing that was truly nothing. Neither black nor white, her mind struggled to see anything but something similar to television static and visual static tinted magenta. But she could feel that there was something behind that Festering Rupture on reality in the sky, a crack that seemed to reflect the very Coronet Mountain Range in its vast length and width.

Dawn kept staring at the nothingness. Her mind struggled to conceive of anything to fill the vacuum of information and the void of existential reality before her.

She didn’t notice Lady Sneasler glowing gold nor her Ingo glowing blue and white as she saw something in the void of non-existence.

Ingo, on the other hand, watched Dawn’s eyes glow a golden symbol over her pupils and irises, with four lines extending into the whites of her eyes. A circle with two arcs on its left and right, connected by four lines, the same symbol that graced the Temple of Sinnoh’s entrance frieze. He tried to shake her away from the sight of the shattered holy mountain and the sight of the glowing symbol on her eyes being out of sync with her actual eyes as they moved was surreal to see.

“Dawn.” Ingo whispered in his most quiet voice he could even after the years living in Hisui, hoping it’ll snap her out of it.

“What’s this? New fools for Euthymia to play with?” the ghost Ingo said as he turned his blank white eyes at the trio before looking at them in confusion before looking at Ingo even more crestfallen and despondent. “No… Emmet, please… tell me you didn’t…”

“Wait, you noticed us?” Ingo asked the ghost. The ghost looked more confused at them.

“How… how are you not possessed? The last guy who ended up here became Euthymia’s Fool… Is it the glowing?”

“Who is this Euthymia and their fool you’re talking about?”

“Euthymia is more of a what. A living emotion that wants to be more permanent and longer lasting… Well, it’s more accurate to say that they’re an anti-emotion. I’m no medical expert but I think they’re trying to usurp the real euthymia, if that makes sense. The fool is someone who somehow managed to end up in this place and watched this reality that shouldn’t be. Long story short, he’s now under the false euthymia’s control. Something about how he wanted a world without emotion that it latched onto him.”

“W-wait, what?” Dawn said, snapping out of her trance, turning to face the ghost. “Cyrus was here?”

“Cyrus?”

“Cyrus wanted to use Palkia and Dialga, the gods of space and time, to create a universe without spirit but Giratina dragged him into the Distortion World before he could accomplish that… did he end up wherever this place is?”

“The humanoid things here call it Shoth-Ithar, the Festering Rupture, a place where the future devours the past in a cannibalistic frenzy.” the ghost explained. “I lost count of the times I saw what the remnants of the inhabitants of this place did to themselves in each loop. As a ghost, I guess I’m outside their frenzy, then again, as a ghost I don’t have possible descendants to try to devour me.”

“Oh that’s just gross and messed up.” Lady Sneasler said with her arms crossed, shocking everyone else. “What?”

“You can talk? Wait, why are you two glowing?” Dawn asked as she looked at Ingo and Lady Sneasler. Lady Sneasler simply shrugged.

“I figured it’s magic or divine power or how weird this space is.” she said before glancing around. “We should leave before we get the notice of the other things that exist here.”

“Wait, before you go, other me, did my brother… did Emmet dragged you into this? I don’t know what happened to him but I know he’s still trying to get me back…”

“Your Emmet didn’t pull me into this mess as a replacement of you, that, at least, is the Truth.” Ingo said, much to the relief of the ghost. “Something else pulled me here…” he muttered to himself, still struggling to recall what pulled him into Hisui.

The snapping of nearby twigs made them turn to the source of the sound and they saw what could be best described as a humanoid static snow with glowing circles for eyes, watching them from the woods before slowly heading to them.

“It’s the unborn. Run! Before they eat your existence!” ghost Ingo shouted as Ingo noticed the same golden symbol appeared, floating in front of Dawn’s ears, giving the appearance of some mystical earphones. The thing screamed in static, static that Ingo could recognize as non-existent words of a language-that-does-not-exist.

1SG eat-FUT.DECL 2PL!

‘Subject-Verb-Object… first-person-singular… eat-future-tense-declarative-mood… second-person-plural…’ Ingo’s mind quickly filled in the linguistic gaps, knowledge he should not have known.

I will eat you!

The trio ran away from the clearing as the static thing went on all fours to chase after them. Lady Sneasler even picked up Dawn as they ran.

2PL.GEN form… 2PL.GEN history… 2PL.GEN future… 2PL.GEN name… 2PL.EX.GEN all 1SG eat-FUT!

‘Object-Subject-Verb… second-person-plural form… second-person-plural history… second-person-plural future… second-person-plural name… second-person-plural-exclusive all… first-person-singular… eat-future-tense!’

I will eat your form… your history… your future… your name… everything about you!

“Lady Sneasler, don’t fight it close! It’ll eat your existence piece by piece if you do so! Go with long range attacks!”

“If I had known I would need long ranged attacks, I would have learned Hyper Beam ages ago!” Lady Sneasler complained. “Where are we supposed to go!?”

“We need to go back where we entered! Exit the distortion! It’s somewhere through the thick fog!” Dawn shouted.

“What fog?”

“Didn’t you guys notice the fog that moved in? We better hurry, the thing in the fog is silent but it’s gaining speed! Over there! There’s an opening through the fog there!” Dawn pointed at their right.

“Okay, it’s clear that what you're seeing and hearing is completely different from what we’re hearing. I’m hearing noise from some human shaped thing.” Lady Sneasler said as they followed Dawn’s directions.

“I’m hearing what it’s screaming at us.” Ingo supplied. “It wants to eat our existence, to be short. It’s rather verbose and its language seems to be shifting in its structural order.”

“Okay, as much as I want to analyze what’s going on, let’s do it after we escape. Take a left!” Dawn shouted and with a sudden turn, they soon found themselves back out a layer in the distortion. The static noise and screaming suddenly came to an end.

They still ran a good distance away, just in case.

“Okay… good news, it doesn’t seem to exit the deeper distortion.” Dawn said as she pulled out her phone to take some photographs. “I need to warn people about that.” she explained. “‘Distortion within distortion leads to some horror movie fog world with Mount Coronet shattering, a massive rift with giant screaming space Emmet, and a fog monster that eats existence. Good news, it can’t leave the second distortion layer. It’s somewhere north of Coronet.’ and send.”

Lady Sneasler gave a deadpan stare at Ingo.

“Oh right, ‘Also, there’s a ghost Ingo from another reality in said double distortion’. Hmm, anything else should I tell people?”

“Well, we should walk and talk while we can still understand each other. We still need to get away from this weird distortion.” Lady Sneasler said as she looked at her golden glow in curiosity. Dawn simply posted the message on her Chirper as they walked.

“I suggest heading back to the Temple of Sinnoh. This distortion is clearly not like any other distortion.” Ingo said, to everyone else’s agreement, while he looked at his glowing self. Dawn took a picture of the two before showing them the photo.

“Okay, Ingo’s glowing white with blue eyes, which makes sense for Reshiram, and Lady Sneasler’s glowing gold, which is associated with Arceus, so the whole thing with the nobles being blessed by Arceus, I mean, Almighty Sinnoh, has some truth to it.”

“Let’s not forget the golden ring on your eyes and ears that’s the shape of Arceus’ symbol as well.” Ingo pointed out. That made Dawn take a selfie and looked at the resulting photo before using her phone’s camera function as a mirror.

“Oh, oh wow. That is freaky. The ghost Ingo said something about being possessed, so maybe this was some protection from that. Since I see and hear things differently from yours, I probably got memetically protected from any hazardous information, the whole ‘things man was not meant to know’...”

“Honestly, you are so blase about all this.” Lady Sneasler commented. “We just saw a ghost, the holy mountain breaking apart, some thing that’ll probably haunt my nightmares, and we’re glowing and chatting like it’s normal.”

“Lady Sneasler, no offense, but I casually look for human ghosts and weak spots between realms, read through ancient grimoires, and try to practice magic as a hobby.”

“... in that context, that explains a lot about you.”

“What do you mean by ‘a giant space Emmet’?” Ingo asked as he still processed what happened.

“Well, the tear that split the sky in two, I kept looking at it and after a while, I saw flashes of what looked like Emmet screaming, trying to push himself into the world, though he looked very freaky. His bottom half was like a ponyta, I think, and he has multiple arms trying to crawl into the deeper distortion.”

Ingo and Lady Sneasler glanced at each other for a moment.

“We never saw anything like that, though I guess we were more focused on my ghostly double.” he said as they slowly walked up the slope of the mountain.

“Right. We should probably need to head back to Jubilife Village and report to the Galaxy Team. If Cyrus is here and possessed by some eldritch thing to be their puppet, we might need to save him as well.” Dawn said as the closer they reached the peak, the more the glowing faded away.

“Sneas sneasler…” Lady Sneasler said with a nod.

“Ah, it seems that strange effect has faded.” Ingo said, to which Lady Sneasler simply shrugged as they returned to the Temple of Sinnoh in the middle of the day. It was a sudden shift between a cold winter night on the slope and a bright sunny day at the peak.

A glance back revealed that the slope was never there at all.

“Wait, what?” Dawn said as the trio looked at the raised mountain edge on the northern side of the temple. “Where was the slope we used to head down?” she said as she went to feel solid rock that wasn’t there when they went up.

They then hear someone clear their throat.

Nearby was Warden Melli watching the three of them with a cleaning rag and a bucket of water.

“Warden Ingo, you do realize you’re not supposed to bring outsiders to the holy temple? Ugh, did the Pearl Clan not tell you the rules when it came to the Temple of Sinnoh, or has their carefree nature made you disregard the rules?”

Ingo glanced at Dawn and Lady Sneasler for a moment.

“I know the rules, Warden Melli, but since the Galaxy Team is going to be stationed in Hisui among the Clans, I believe it would be for the best to have a representative of the Galaxy Team do their part in maintaining the holy temple. Dawn herself wishes to record the temple as much as possible, hopefully for the chance for the future generations to repair and restore the ruins with the knowledge she passes on.”

Melli looked conflicted for a moment before he huffed.

“Well, even I can’t ignore that logic. Very well, I, the great Melli, would ignore this break in protocol if it means the galaxy grunt pulls her weight in cleaning the dirt off the holy temple’s stonework. Of course, since she has no idea what to do, I will be supervising her actions. The last thing we want is the ancient paint being scrubbed off.” he said as he walked back to the temple.

Dawn sighed and thanked Ingo as the trio went to help clean up the temple. She did glance back at the solid rock where the slope once existed, wondering how it appeared when they were heading down.

A mystery to solve in another time and place.

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spideyspeaches · 4 years

Text

Vibrations per minute ↬ P.P

AN: Based on this post ehehe. (Also 223 followers?! I’m not crying you are ಥ‿ಥ Beta read by my baby sis @parkerpeter24 <3<3

➳ Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

➳ Warnings: smut (semi public), vibrator, minors dni

➳ WC: 1.8k +

➳ Masterlist || Taglist

Peter Parker was not who he looked to be. He was the kind of guy who impressed parents with his bambi eyes and A+ academic performances, but at the same time, he could be a little shit and tease the fuck out of you. For example-

Bets were a naturally occurring event in the Avengers compound, whether it was between Sam and Bucky about who could eat the most number of marshmallows in one go or between Tony and Peter on who could digest more amount of coffee in the least amount of time (both of which landed them in the medbay).

So maybe placing a bet with your boyfriend may not have been your most intelligent choice. You were a smart woman, you should have known better than to place a bet with Spider-Man, especially if the bet included cardio.

And now you were facing the consequences.

You were sitting in the post mission debriefing room, thighs clenched as you saw your boyfriend trying (and failing) to hide his shit eating smirk. You felt the vibrations inside you once again, a little faster than before. Suppressing a moan, you tried to glare murder at him without letting the others know.

Puffing your cheeks, you slid down the chair, hands folded on your chest. You were pretty sure your cheeks were blood red with the amount of heat you felt.

"Y/N are you sure you're alright? You look a little flushed." Steve asked, shifting to look at you from where he was besides You. He looked concerned.

"Uh- yeah- yeah I'm good. Just exhausted." You stuttered a response. Huffing, you tried to discreetly rub your stomach from clenching. A little whimper escaped your throat, which you quickly suppressed by picking up the glass of water and chugging down some.

Sam looked at you weirdly, the others not paying attention as Nick Fury asked them questions.

"Miss Stark if you think you're going to get out of debriefing because your little boyfriend and father are sitting here, you're wrong. Please pay attention" Fury said, looking at you with his pirate eye, before turning around and muttering, "I swear sometimes they behave like school children."

You gave Bucky and Sam a glare as they snickered.

"I'm sorry, I'll- uhh- I'll pay more attention. I'm just, my tummy hurts." You whimpered, flushing when you realised you had said "tummy" in front of the Avengers.

"Well you better take care of the tummy ache. Don't want you to poo all over here." Peter smirked, your jaw dropping at how rude the little shit was. How unfortunate would it be when he finds out someone had burnt his Kylo Ren special edition figurine?

"Fuck you asshat." You seethe, your glare intensifying when he increased the rate of vibrations using the phone app he was holding under the desk.

"Y/N, Peter, enough of this, now listen to what Pirate here has to say before he asks you to skedaddle back to your nursery." Your dad says, rolling his eyes at your childish banter.

You wanted to get out of there. Right away, because you couldn't take the shudders in between your legs anymore, or you would orgasm right there, in front of everyone.

So to get back at them, you raised your hand like you were in elementary school, asking the teacher for permission, "May I go to the washroom? I wanna poo." You ask innocently, smirking when Fury widened his eyes.

Averting your eyes to your boyfriend, you silently conveyed your message, hoping that he got what you were up to.

Ignoring the laughter of the babies in the Avengers' bodies, you stood up abruptly before he could change the settings anymore, walking stiffly to the bathroom.

"That was kind of mean of me." Peter finally said when you were out of his vision.

"Yeah kid, I would've kicked your ass if I didn't know that she would do it before me." Tony snarked, curling his lips and shaking his head before going back to the dossier in front of him.

"You should go and apologise to her Pete. She looked upset." Steve piped in, his disappointed eyebrowsTM showing their way.

"She's in the toilet and he's a horny teenager, you really want him to go right now?" Sam said.

"Ew Sam, get your gutter brain out of here!" Peter defended, not meaning what he said.

In fact he was going to do just that. The entire time during the mission, you had been teasing him one way or another, whether it was landing in certain poses or just touching him every chance you get.

The bet was just an opportunity for him to get back at you for leaving him hot and bothered, dreaming about you all night in that tiny lingerie with spider prints on them.

“Yeah Sam, get out of here.” Natasha joked. Before he could witness the counter arguments though, he left the room, leaving a very noisy meeting room and a very frustrated Nick Fury.

He found you in the bathroom stalls near the cafeteria. It was the women's bathroom but no one was around this time of the night, so he entered it.

He could hear your moans and pants, your arousal hitting his nostrils as he tried to hyperfixate on you. His jeans suddenly felt strained at his… web shooter area.

Opening the bathroom door, he clenched his fists. You were standing there, vibrator out of you and your finger inside, eyes scrunched as you threw your head back, not even noticing him enter.

"Why are you touching yourself?" He growled, smirking innocently when you jerked up, eyes taking a lustful look that sent his blood rushing south.

"It's your fault. You were the one who made me horny in the middle of those boomers." You gritted.

Your hand was poised on your waist now, legs still spread apart, your pussy on display.

Grabbing you by your ass, he picked you up and slammed you against the wall, kissing your jaw, "Just seeking revenge." He mumbled

"Oh oh Petey- revenge for what?" You moaned, arching your back as he undressed you, grabbing your now unclothed boob and sucking on one nipple, twisting the other with his fingers.

Moaning at the sensation of the cool tiles, you dug your fingers at his back, your wet pussy throbbing for a feel of his dick.

"You did it on purpose didn't you? Showing off during missions?" He sucked at your skin, leaving it tender and brushed, "you know how hot you look while you kick ass?"

He unbuttoned his pants, letting his dick slip out with his boxers. His length never ceased to amaze you, the thick organ making your mouth water. You imagined it slipping into you, your thighs slipping wider on instinct.

He saw the look you were giving him, his lustful eyes full of mirth and desperation. Without waiting any further, he slipped out a condom from his discarded jeans' pocket, sliding his dick into your wet entrance, your ass hitting the wall as he pushed into your walls.

Throwing your head back, you hissed as your walls clenched around him.

"You get, you get turned on when I kick ass?" You panted, grabbing his hair in desperation to the coiling in your gut, "Fuck I'm gonna cum. I'm gonna come Pete."

"Well what are you waiting for princess?" He nibs your ear, squeezing your breasts to his now naked chest. You shuddered at the coolness of his body, he's always been cold to touch.

"Fuck princess, feel so good." His mouth was slack, his thrusts getting harder as he shoved into you, "so tight for me. Enjoying my cock in your pussy eh?"

"Yes! Oh- I love it Pete I love it!" Hitting your head on his chest, you pinched his nipple, making him groan and hit your stomach, the slapping sound echoing in the bathroom.

"Say it louder pretty girl"

"Why?" You whined, "I should get back to you for using the vibrator but I'm having too much fun."

You groaned, Your eyes scrunched when his thrusts started to slow down, his senses too overloaded to work together with his stamina.

"Yeah you're needy aren't you?" He said, out of breath from your little meet. He set you down, wiping off your cum using the tissue paper, flushing it off in the toilet.

He took a minute to just admire you. Your body was shining from sweat, your breath coming out in short pants. You were completely naked, breasts out to the display. He flushed when you smirked at him, you had caught him staring. Not that you minded.

"My beautiful girl." He said, voice husky from strain as he closed the distance between you both, holding you in his arms.

You laid your head on his chest, rubbing your cheeks against his pectorals. You could hear his racing heart, chuckling when you saw heat rising up his chest to his neck and then face.

"Why are you blushing? We literally just fucked." You laughed, tracing circles on his collarbones. He looked ethereal from where you were standing, perfectly sculpted by a skillful sculptor.

"Because you're amazing and I can't believe you're my girl." He said.

"Mmhm,” You nodded against him, “Also, do you always keep a condom in your pocket?"

__________••☆••__________

There were many reasons as to why you keep around Peter, and one of them is that he's an amazing chef. Living with his aunt and uncle, he and Ben had been the main source of home cooked meals, because Aunt May was never good at cooking.

You saw him standing in the kitchen, flipping pancakes while he hummed to some melody. You didn't mind, you could stare at him all day. Thankfully, none of the Avengers were awake yet (but they would be. They're huge fans of his food)

"Morning." You smile, wrapping your hands around his waist, placing your head on his back.

"Did you sleep well?" He asked, moving around as you clung to him like a koala. Giggling, you wrapped your legs around his waist, jumping on his back like a potato sack.

"Mmhm, the best sleep I've had in a long while." You mumble, words muffled by his back.

"Is that so?" He asked.

"Yup."

Hearing shuffling noises, you quickly jumped off of him, fixing your t-shirt and sitting on the dining table.

You saw as Steve and Sam entered the kitchen, Natasha soon following suit. Clint had left for his home early that morning, wanting to meet Laura and his kids as soon as he could.

You smiled at each of them, nodding a good morning and helping them sort a plate.

You were arranging the plates when you heard a choked gasp. Alarmed at the sound, you looked up at Steve's horrified expression, looking at where he was pointing a finger.

"What?" You asked, biting your lips.

"That- is that a hickey?!?"

Slapping your neck, you let the plate clatter on the table, ignoring Peter's scrambled replies. You saw Bucky entering from the corner of your eye, unable to formulate a coherent answer.

"Oh my god, Bucky they totally fucked yesterday!"

Page dividers by @cicicantblog

#peter parker x stark!reader #peter parker x reader #peter parker x avenger!reader #peter parker smut #peter parker x reader smut #spiderman x stark!reader #spiderman x you #peter parker x stark!daughter #stark!reader #avenger!reader #spideygirl writes

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bluerose5 · 3 years

Text

Honesty is Key

Pairing: Scott Ryder/Jaal Ama Darav

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,487

Tags: Mass Effect: Andromeda, Pre-Relationship, Slight Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, Loyalty Mission, Post-Jaal Ama Darav: Flesh and Blood, Emotional Hurt and Comfort

Scott couldn't take it.

He had been so close to losing him. His stomach churned at the thought alone. His hands shook, yet no amount of deep breaths or calming thoughts helped soothe his nerves.

Adrenaline coursed through him, showing no sign of letting up.

Scott had barely stepped foot on the Tempest before he was already rushing off to the bathrooms in quick, long strides. The others called out to him, but he ignored them. Their words were garbled, unintelligible. It was like listening to someone from underwater.

Thankfully, no one was in the restroom.

Using the codes that Kallo had given him, he overrode the Tempest's protocols and locked the doors behind him. Bile started to rise in the back of his throat, leaving a bitter taste that lingered on the back of his tongue.

Taking his helmet off, Scott tossed it aside. It hit the floor and cracked, but he couldn't find it in himself to care right now.

He had been so close to losing him.

Both of his knees buckled, and Scott barely had enough time to brace himself against the sink before they collapsed entirely. Running shaky fingers through his hair, he glanced up and met his eyes in the mirror. They were red, swollen, and puffy. Tears had started to stream down his cheeks without Scott even noticing.

His face was as pale as a ghost, and his stomach continued to churn until finally he gagged.

All he could see was that bullet slicing through Jaal's cheek, over and over again. If the shot had been aimed slightly more to Akksul's right, then he—

Before Scott could even finish that thought, he was stumbling through the bathroom. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet, and his stomach heaved.

By the time his stomach was empty, his throat burned, and his vision blurred.

He couldn't stop trembling from head to toe, feeling as if he was coming apart at the seams.

"Pathfinder," SAM said through their private channel, "your vitals are consistent with those associated with extreme distress. Should I alert Dr. T'Perro?"

"I—" Scott managed to scrape himself off the floor, careful of the shards scattered around from his helmet's shattered facepiece. "No, I'll be fine."

Eventually.

Scott rinsed his mouth out at the sink, nose wrinkled in disgust.

Cleaning up as much as he could, Scott figured he could come back later and finish up.

Of course, the second he stepped out the door, he bumped into Jaal's chest.

Well, that dashed any hopes he had of making a quick escape to his quarters. Not that he should have expected any different. Jaal wasn't the type to avoid an issue when he could confront it instead.

At the sight of Scott's blotchy, tear-stained face, Jaal frowned.

"You are upset," he stated.

"Yeah, no shit."

It took Scott a whole minute to realize that he had said that aloud instead of keeping it to himself. Jaal blinked owlishly at him in shock, but Scott averted his gaze, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, face flushed with warmth compared to mere moments prior.

Jaal regarded him in confusion.

"Why are you apologizing for speaking your mind?" he asked, utterly baffled.

Right. The angara value openness and honesty.

Scott could work with that.

Hopefully.

"Mind joining me in my quarters?" Scott asked, eyeing the empty corridor with suspicion. Knowing his crew, he might not have them in his direct line of sight at the moment, but that didn't mean that they weren't listening in somehow. Call him paranoid, but Scott wasn't taking any chances. "I want to talk about what just happened out there."

At that, Jaal shifted uncertainly, wringing his hands together.

"Okay," he whispered, "but are you certain that we have to have this discussion alone?"

Scott narrowed his eyes at him, arms crossed over his chest.

"I would prefer to be alone, yes."

"You're upset with me," Jaal noted, but was he right?

Yes, no, maybe. Scott didn't know, but he wasn't going to have this conversation out in the open.

"Come on," Scott grumbled, dragging Jaal into his quarters alongside him. Once they were inside, Scott sealed the doors. "In you go."

"Scott—"

"Not. A. Word." Jaal snapped his mouth shut, and Scott jabbed a finger into his chest. "You are so—" Reckless, stupid, careless... There was so much he wanted to say, but it was near impossible to settle on one word alone. "—infuriating!"

It was nowhere near enough, but it would have to do for the moment.

Without thinking, Scott kicked at a nearby box. He didn't notice until it was too late that his body was thrumming with biotic energy, his frame enveloped in a bluish light. He sent the box flying into a nearby wall, where it shattered into little pieces.

Scott watched it fall apart, but he didn't feel much satisfaction from the act. Instead, he felt numb. Numb and drained.

Turning back to Jaal, Scott let his biotics fizzle out.

His face crumpled.

"I could have lost you," Scott whispered distantly, his voice thick with exhaustion. "I almost lost you."

Repeating it didn't help any. Reality refused to set in entirely. He still struggled to comprehend everything that happened at the Forge.

In the blink of an eye, Jaal had Scott wrapped up in his arms. Scott choked on a sob, burying his face into the crook of Jaal's neck.

He took a deep breath, Jaal's sweet, warm scent a constant reminder that he was still there. That he was alive.

"I don't have many people left that I care about," Scott whispered, finally giving voice to those feelings that had been bottled up for so long. "My mom and dad are both gone. There's no telling when Sara will wake up." He swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat. "You and the crew... You're all that I have left. My friends, my family, my colleagues."

He pulled away, just enough to stare pointedly into Jaal's bright blue eyes.

"And so much more," he breathed.

Carefully, he traced his fingers along the underside of Jaal's latest wound. At first, he flinched, but Jaal grabbed Scott’s hand and held it there before he could pull away.

If anything, he leaned even further into his touch, and Scott melted.

"I'm sorry to make you worry so," Jaal said, "but I'm grateful that you trusted me enough to refrain from bringing harm to Akksul. I know that it had to be a difficult decision, but acting against him would have only strengthened the Roekaar's cause. You did the right thing."

"Perhaps," Scott grunted, "but that doesn't make me feel any less like shit."

Jaal chuckled.

Tightening his arms around him, his rofjinn draped over Scott’s shoulders like a warm blanket, safe and secure.

Scott snuggled in close.

"Doing the right thing won't always feel fulfilling," Jaal said, "but thank you. Not only for that."

Scott furrowed his brow.

"What else do you have to thank me for?"

Jaal beamed.

Truth be told, he had no right to look that happy, not when Scott was mad at him. Sort of.

"For being honest with me." He shrugged. "I've noticed that you've been opening up more and more lately, at least compared to when we first met. It means a lot."

"Well, uh..." Scott trailed off, clearing his throat. "No problem. My family were never really the touchy-feely types. It's definitely new territory for me."

"Yet you take to it so well. Even when you're enraged, you're radiant."

Scott sputtered, then unraveled himself from Jaal's embrace, keeping a hold on his hand.

"Alright, on that note, it's time to go."

As he pulled Jaal along, Jaal grumbled in protest.

"Hey!" They exited the room together. "Where are we going?"

"To have Lexi properly clean and disinfect your wound before I kiss you, and neither of us want that." Before Jaal could get too hurt by that statement, Scott clarified. "Not until I've showered and brushed my teeth, at least. I'm a mess."

"Oh!" Understanding dawned on Jaal, but he decided to take a risk. "And after that? Will you kiss me then?"

Of course, about half the crew decided then —of all times— to emerge from the Crew Quarters, all of them stopping short when they heard Jaal's exclamation.

They tossed Scott teasing glances.

"Yeah, Scott," Vetra called out, "when are you going to give Jaal a kiss?"

"It would be rude not to," Peebee said.

With his cheeks lit aflame, Scott gaped like a fish out of water, opening and closing his mouth as he struggled for words.

Why did he suddenly feel like it should be against the rules to bully the Pathfinder?!

Eventually, he said, "I should go."

And he hurried back to his quarters, tripping on his feet as their laughter chased him off.

#mass effect #mass effect andromeda #scott ryder #jaal ama darav #rydaal #scott x jaal #mrydaal #my writing #my fanfic #not so subtle nod to shepard at the end 😂#sorry in advance if tumblr scrambles the order again

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argylemnwrites · 3 years

Text

With Care

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f!MC (Cassie Vanderfield)

Book: Open Heart (just over 2.5 years after Cassie’s residency/ about 3.5 post Book 2)

Word Count: ~1200

Rating: PG

Summary: Bryce is surprised by a shipment from someone unexpected.

Author’s Note: This is my entry into the 12 Days of Ficmas event graciously hosted by @leelee10898 and @emichelle! My prompt for Day 8 was stocking. Not really relevant to this piece, but my fic is only canon compliant through OH2.

Bryce frowned as he grabbed the package from the mail room. This was not the Amazon box they were expecting. He glanced at the return address and let out a sigh. He wasn’t expecting anything from them for the holidays. They hadn’t sent him gifts in years, after several packages were returned to Hawaii unopened.

Riding the elevator up to the fourth floor, he pondered what to do with the package as he stared at it. He was tempted to send it back, just as he’d done so many times before. But he was also curious as to why they were sending something this year. Thinking back, the last gift from them was probably back when he was in med school. He didn’t think he’d gotten anything from them since moving to Boston.

He unlocked the door to the loft and tugged off his hat, hanging his wool coat and scarf up before kicking off his boots. It smelled amazing, so Cassie must have started something in the crock pot before she went in this morning. Sure enough, some sort of stew was simmering on the counter.

He set the package on the island counter and flipped open his laptop as he took a seat. Cassie should be home in a half hour or so; he could catch up on some emails until then. He was just addressing scheduling his semi-annual review with his program director when he heard the lock twisting on the door. A few seconds later, the door swung open, revealing Cassie, her dark hair and earmuffs flocked with a dusting of snow. She unzipped her oversized winter coat that was growing snugger across her abdomen by the week and tossed her bag on the console table.

“Why didn’t you light the tree?” she asked as she stepped into the main room, sliding a hand across his shoulders as she walked over to the far wall and flipped the switch, the Christmas tree instantly glowing on the other side of the room.

Bryce shrugged. “Guess I forgot.”

“How was the OR today?” she asked as she maneuvered her way over to the back counter, but Bryce joined her, nodding for her to sit down.

“So boring. Just varicose vein stripping all morning.”

Cassie chuckled. “You only have one more week at the Surgical Center. I somehow think you’ll endure having all the 50 and 60 year old women flirt with you for just a few more days.”

Bryce grinned, grabbing two bowls out of the cupboard and a ladle and two spoons from the drawer. “Yeah, the patients are real charmers, but trust me, even they can’t make up for how dull day surgery is. Why do surgeons do that to themselves?”

“Money?”

“Ahh, well they should just get themselves a rich wife instead. That’s worked well for me.”

Cassie rolled her eyes as she pulled two sparkling waters from the fridge. “Yeah well, I’m only going to be out earning you for three and a half more years, so don’t get too used to it.” Bryce was about to ask how her QI meeting went, but her eyes locked on the package as she sat down. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Check the zip code,” Bryce said as he slid Cassie’s bowl in front of her. “Don’t know why this is the year they decided I needed a Christmas present.”

“Maybe it’s a baby shower gift?”

Bryce twisted around, pausing with the ladle over the stew. “Sienna invited them to the baby shower?”

Cassie nodded as she stirred her spoon through her meal. “Inviting them, knowing that they would never fly in thousands of miles for a few hours, was way less drama than if they’d heard that Keiki was helping to host and they weren’t invited.”

Bryce sighed and shook his head. “Well, you should open it then. It’s probably for you.”

He heard Cassie slicing through the strapping tape as he finished serving his dinner. She was just opening the box as he made his way back around the island and sat down with his food. He watched as she pulled out a card. Her eyes scanned over it quickly before she passed it to him.

“Well, not a baby shower gift.”

Bryce glanced down and read the card, delicate gold-embossed evergreen boughs depicted around the border.

Bryce

Now that you are starting your own family, your father and I hoped that you might carry on the tradition of hanging Christmas stockings.

Merry Christmas, Mom

Bryce glanced over and saw Cassie holding a large stocking in his hand, one he knew very well. It was heavy, a snow-dusted forest surrounding a sleigh embroidered across the entire body, with bead work designed to imitate the sparkle of a fresh snowfall and his name stitched in gold cursive on the top. It had hung in his parent’s home for his entire childhood, been loaded with handheld games, iPods, gift cards, and new phones year after year. Generic gifts that any child or teenager would want. Gifts that didn’t require his parents to get to know him as a person but still allowed them to look like awesome parents to outside observers.

It had been part of a matching set - A New England Christmas. All four stockings were pretentious, stuffy, and over-the-top, not to mention wildly out of place in Hawaii. He hadn’t seen this stocking in over a decade, but here it was, in his home. He honestly never thought he’d see it again.

“Wow.” Cassie’s words pulled him back to the present. “This is beautiful. It must’ve cost a fortune.”

Byrce just hummed in acknowledgement. “Yeah, well. Money wasn’t exactly a constraint for Lahela family Christmases.”

“Sorry, I know. I just… my grandmother used to do some cross-stitch and embroidery. This sort of work would take forever.”

“If she wants it, she can have it.”

“I don’t think she knows any other Bryces, but I’m sure she’ll appreciate the gesture.”

Bryce forced a smile at that. “Sorry, just… not a lot of awesome holiday memories attached to that stocking.”

Cassie nodded. “I get it.” They both were quiet for several seconds, the only sounds coming from them both eating their stew. Eventually, though, Cassie spoke again. “Do you want to do family stockings?”

Bryce paused, so she kept going. “Not like this one, but more regular, less fancy ones? Maybe even ones that we could decorate with this little girl next year? That might be fun.”

Bryce smiled, glancing down at Cassie’s gradually growing abdomen. “Yeah, something like that might be nice.”

“New memories, right?”

“Absolutely. New, better memories.”

And so after dinner, they browsed for DIY stocking kits online, Bryce’s old stocking laying on the counter, a relic of his past that didn’t deserve a second more thought or worry. They had better things to celebrate, not only this year, but hopefully for many more to come.

Ficmas Writers: @katedrakeohd @sirbeepsalot @alj4890 @ofpixelsandscribbles @queenrileyrose @burnsoslow @darley1101 @blackcatkita @debramcg1106 @cordoniansgonewild @leelee10898 @kat-tia801 @emichelle @twinkleallnight @arosentinel @bebepac @nestledonthaveone @txemrn @thegreentwin @karahalloway @annekebbphotography @cordoniantrash @sincerelyella @aussiegurl1234 @boneandfur @thehonorarybeaumont @chemist-ana @lucy-268 @jerzwriter @sillydg @mynotsohealthyobsession @camillemontespan @texaskitten30 @axwalker @argylemnwrites @twinkle-320

Ficmas Readers: @iaminlovewithtrr @tessa-liam @tinkie1973 @lovingchoices14

Perma: @mom2000aggie @octobereighth @kingliam2019

OH: @mskaneko @louvregirl

Bryce x MC: @anotherbeingsworld @lahellacute @weaving-in-words @fortunatelywaywardsandwich

#choices 12 days of fictmas #12 days of fictmas 2021 #bryce lahela #bryce x mc #open heart fanfiction

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broiunno · 3 years

Text

License to Steal - Act IV

License to Steal

ACT IV

Act I // Act II // Act III // Act IV

---

summary: Min Yoongi is your new protection detail upon your return to your father's side after being sent away during a bloody gang war. Now the dust has settled, you've been called back to your old controlled life, and leaving you an unwilling participant in your family's plans. You don't know what they are but you are no longer willing to be the obedient, protected daughter. You don't really care in the least of it makes Yoongi's new assignment hell on earth- So you'll carve your own life out back home on your own terms.

-rating: 18+

-pairing: min yoongi x reader

-word count: 5.8k

-warnings: swearing, gang activities includes drug mention and eventual drug use, the slowest of burns, organized crime, toxic af family dynamics, BEWARE IN THIS ACT: graphic family abuse (father initiated verbal and physical assault- does not fade to black), violence, blood, graphic descriptions of torture, and graphic sex scenes will be included in this work.

-authors note: @chelsea-chee leading the au as usual. I love her the appreciate her as my love, writer, and my beta. Her works are *chefs kiss* Thank you again beautiful <3 PLEASE NOTE: I AM REALLY NOT EXCITED TO POST THE NEXT FEW ACTS. They deal with heavy subject matter and I don't fade to black at any point so please note my works are for mature audiences, warnings are there for a reason and in bold. You are an adult if you are reading this work (per the warnings) and you are responsible for the content you consume. Thank you. ILY all and I love asks about the characters. And that's all I have to say about that...I'm sorry for the wait. I've had covid. I'm back on a better schedule now.

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You fumbled with your hair as you tried to rip your fingers through the still damp strands to assemble it back into a semi-presentable pony tail as the door slid open to your father’s office. You really did wish that you had been able to go upstairs and shower. Or at least change your clothes from the workout gear you currently felt sticking to your skin from the cooling sweat. As a breeze drifted from the vent as the air kicked on, you shivered violently, shaking your head and shooting a hateful stare in Yoongi’s direction as you stepped into the office. Appearances were everything in your family. They were the first level of protection to ensure threats stayed at a minimum. A show of strength and cohesiveness discouraged any hair-brained ideas from a weaker or less organized opposition.

Your father raised a dark, thick brow, turning from the man was speaking quietly to, his expression unreadable as you inclined your head slightly in greeting. “You asked to see me?” you said quietly, keeping your eyes downcast. Since Yoongi had mentioned your father was summoning you, you knew it couldn’t be anything positive. This soon after your arrival? Nothing good would come of this. You had just grabbed onto the distraction of Yoongi until you both stood in the office, feeling stripped bare, awaiting whatever admonishment was about to be delivered.

“You couldn’t make it a full forty-eight hours without causing me a migraine,” your father said sharply and you kept your eyes trained on the floor, as you replayed yesterday in your mind.

“Father, I don’t know what you-”

“Y/N, you weren’t even back a day and you spent how much?” he said, aggravation lacing his tone. “I had to call in Kim to look at your accounts immediately. You’re a fucking hassle.” He huffed and your eyes finally lifted to the stranger that stood next to your father, noting that he stepped away from your father and bowed quickly.

“Nice to meet you, miss. I’m Kim Namjoon. I’ve been handling your accounts and will continue to do so.” You felt your lips part in a soft ‘oh’ as you studied the broad planes of his face, full lips and intense eyes. You felt like he was picking you apart in that moment as you took your time to absorb his ash blond hair in a relaxed, but carefully crafted style. His skin tone was golden; a contrast to Yoongi’s milk-like skin. He glowed, and you couldn’t tell if it from his melanin or the fact that he was radiating intelligence.

“N-Nice to meet you too,” you stammered and managed to close your mouth as he pushed up the rolled sleeves of his white button-down shirt. You swallowed hard and tried to claw through the mental fog that had overcome you. With the teasing from both Jungkook and Yoongi, being presented with another god-like man was the last thing you needed. “I will admit I’m a little confused; my spending was never a problem when I was away? I mean, it’s not like I bought a car.”

Your father barked a laugh and threw up his hands. “You have no grasp on what I do to make this money that you just piss away Y/N! And you COULD have bought a car with the amount you spent yesterday! Like I said: a god damn burden!” he hissed and you flushed slightly, taking a step back unconsciously as you watched his neck flush. Yoongi hadn’t said a word, but you knew you could still sense his dark presence in the corner of the room, not looking at him to notice his eyes narrowed slightly as the scene unfolded.

“Y/N, I’ve had an idea. You’re a daughter. I can’t do much with you. Your brother who I could actually have used is dead. Your mother-” He stopped as he watched your eyes bulge and he shook his head. “I can’t have more children. I’d consider it disrespectful to her memory,” he mused, a hand running along his chin and you couldn’t help the scoff that escaped you, but your jaw snapped shut audibly as your teeth clacked together after the noise passed your lips.

Your father’s eyes flared to life in challenge and he glanced at Namjoon, lip curling. “Did you calculate her estimated cost of living and monthly expenditures? Do you have solid numbers?” he said shortly and Namjoon just nodded, eyes flicking between the family members silently. “And did you adjust for a profit at the margin we discussed?”

“Yes sir,” came the deep steady voice, Namjoon’s eyes traveling your figure, his gaze not heavy with lust or desire, but full of curiosity. “The monthly amount that you should request for that profit is in the proposal if you would like to review it.” He finished and cleared his throat. “I can return if you want me to look over the contract,” he said softly, clearing fishing for a dismissal and your father granted it, offering his hand and you felt your mouth tighten in confusion.

“What contract?”

Namjoon grabbed a briefcase and inclined his head to you stiffly in farewell before his long legs carried him out the doorway. Your father’s gaze didn’t leave your eyes as he spoke. “Yoongi, see him out.” Yoongi nodded and started after the tall man in silence, not sparing you a second glance on his way out.

“I asked you what contract?” you said softly, struggling to keep your voice even as your father stepped closer to you.

“Well, you went out. Spent a lot of money that you’ve done nothing to earn, and caught someone’s eye in the process. Someone worth a lot of money and who would be an asset to have closer to the family at this point in his career.” Your father clasped his hands behind his back as he continued to close the distance between you, each step he made, you felt your heart plummet further.

“Father… what exactly are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything, Y/N. I’m telling you. Someone’s made a bid for your hand, and it’s the only thing you’ll be good for at this point. The shopping sprees, your lifestyle. I can maintain them, but if someone else is willing to do so, and the marriage benefits me in my business, I’d be stupid not to pursue it. Do you think I’m stupid, Y/N?” he said, voice getting dangerously quiet as he reached out to tuck a piece of hair that had escaped the rapidly put-up ponytail behind your ear.

“You can’t sell me off like fucking cattle!-” you said, flinching away from his touch, and his large, calloused hand shot out to grab your chin tightly. He forced your face back towards his as you tried to jerk away, squeezing hard enough to make your eyes begin to water. Your heart thudded out a dangerous irregular rhythm as you breathed hard through your nose.

“I can’t? Y/N, you seem to be under the delusion that you are free from the responsibilities that come with being in this family. I suppose that may be my fault. I was too soft on you, pitied the losses I caused you to have. I always had your brother anyway; there was no harm in indulging you. But now, you’re the only one with my blood in your veins. You’re home to do a service for this family. Everyone else has given their lives in some way. Did you think you were special?” His words were measured and cold as he studied you, grip not loosening on your face. You would be bruised tomorrow as you felt the throb set in from the pressure he was applying.

“You may order me to do it, but I don’t have to go along with this,” you hissed, barely able to open your jaw, but clenching your teeth to get your words out, rage licking up and down your body. He had taken your entire life as a child, as an adolescent. Did he really think giving you a few years of freedom put you back in his debt so far that you owed him the rest of your life?!

No sooner than the words were out of your mouth you heard the sharp crack, and felt yourself stumbling backwards into the wall. You blinked quickly as you registered the pain in your head, immediately starting to pound as the metallic taste of blood filled your mouth. You barely had time to regain a semblance of your bearings before your father was upon you again, face chillingly blank as his ringed fingers gripped the base of your ponytail, ripping your head back at an awkward angle, a scream breaching your bloody lips. The noise was cut short by another blow, snapping your head to the side before he jerked your face back to center.

“Who do you think you are, you little bitch?” he said with a lilt to his tone as you choked out a sob, unable to keep it from escaping your lips. “You really thought you weren’t going to do shit to replace that money you spent?” When he finished speaking he gave your head a violent shake, as if to scramble your thoughts further. It was completely unnecessary, as your head felt as if it was splitting with the pain he had rocked through you with his blows and harsh grip. You felt the start of a purely hysterical giggle break through, spitting out the fresh rush of blood that ran in your mouth due to the cuts in your cheek from your teeth. You noticed a piece of the skin from inside your mouth flapping loosely that made you nauseated if you dwelled on it.

The laugh was probably the worst response you could have had.

You heard a soft hiss, and your father stepped into your space further, hands darting from your head to wrap themselves around your throat and squeezing. As your hands scrambled to scratch at his hand, his arm, his face, anything, you wished you were surprised at this. You wished you were hurt because you were shocked, but you weren’t. There was blood in the water and he was a shark. He built his life this way.

“You don’t have to go along with this…” he said softly, voice void of emotion, “but you also don’t have to keep living here either. How long will you make it without this family? You’d never make it out of the city.” He mused and continued to squeeze, your vision starting to spot as you tried to draw in any bit of air within the hold he had, the choking heaves under the weight of him making the blood that had pooled in your mouth from his blows spill over your chin grotesquely as it began to stream onto his hand. “So will you behave for once in your fucking life?”

You were hyper aware of the tears streaming down your face as you managed the smallest of nods. You supposed he was right; you had never imagined you would be used in the family in any way. Your entire life had been lonely, and even though you hated it, you had resigned yourself to it. His hands unwrapped themselves from your neck, letting you inhale a burning gasp of air as you slid down the wall, and onto the floor. You coughed and rocked forward onto all fours as the shaking of your body didn’t allow for much more than consciousness.

Your father pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the crimson of your blood off his hand before tossing it to you on the floor. You could barely recognize the quick but unhurried footsteps coming back down the hallway to the office before they stopped short.

“Yoongi, take her upstairs.”

The flush from hustling back to his boss’s office drained from Yoongi’s face as his eyes widened at your figure hunched forward onto your elbows on the floor. He watched you hack as your body tried to clear your airway. Yoongi stayed silent as he reached down, crouching next to you and attempting to offer you a hand so you could stand on your own, for which you were thankful. You felt the physical pain, but no emotions as your mind sluggishly screamed at you to just accept his hand and stand. You needed to walk out of here on your own. You knew you wouldn’t make it all the way to your room after the assault, but you didn’t need to. Just to the elevator.

You reached out your hand, shaking hard, as you clasped at his large palm and hoisted yourself up, letting him pull lightly as he stood with you, noting that he was still silent. You tried to ignore how your vision swam before you, willing your knees not to buckle. You couldn’t pinpoint if the unsteadiness was from the blows to your face, the lack of oxygen, or the tears that had thankfully stopped streaming down your face but still filled your eyes.

Yoongi seemed to read your mind, shifting his grip from your hand to your upper arm, nestling in your underarm and gently steered you to the door, but let you support most of your weight on the way out. You walked in silence as he didn’t rush you down the hallway, both of your eyes trained on the lift door as he typed in the code. As you waited for the door to open you felt your shaking legs betray you and start to bend. You glanced away from him, the movement of your eyes causing a piercing pain to shoot through your head. “Please,” was all you rasped wetly as you put more weight and started to sink, but the pressure holding you up immediately doubled, Yoongi’s support forcing you upright, even if it made your shoulder raise. It would be almost imperceptible from your father’s office if he was still looking in your direction, but you doubted he would. He had already received your submission; he didn’t need you for anything else.

Yoongi didn’t seem to want to take the chance that he was still watching, stepping into the elevator and continuing to only hold you in one place. His grip was still disguised as if he was walking you out in the same way he may escort an associate who was no longer welcome - in such a manner that would deter any further escalation. No one would be able to tell he was the only thing keeping you upright.

As the door slid shut to the elevator the facade crumbled, you lurching forward and gasping out a sob of pain, tilting your head down to let the blood that had been collecting in your mouth pour out onto the floor. You forgot how much mouth wounds bled. Yoongi was not bothered with the grotesque display as he swiftly adjusted his grip to wrap around your shoulders, his other arm sweeping at your feet as he lifted you with apparent ease. You shut your eyes as the tears began to flow once more, unable to restrain the moans and whimpers of pain that escaped between gasps as you cried. He still hadn’t said a word, even as you turned your face into his suit jacket, inhaling jaggedly as you tried to focus on the scent permeating from him, trying to place it through your snot-filled nose. The only thing you could recognize was the warm, woodsy scent of patchouli as you reached a shaking hand up to hold onto his jacket tightly. You knew he wouldn’t drop you, but it grounded you all the same.

You tried to slow your breathing, but failed as the elevator door opened and Yoongi strode quickly to your bedroom door, bending at the knees and somehow using his crook of his elbow and his body to turn the door knob, the only change in your positioning being that you tilted slightly as he spun it. He kicked the door with his foot gently as he stepped in, by-passing your bed as he carried you into your bathroom, carefully getting on his knees as he lowered you into your large bathtub as he placed you there. You continued to breath quickly, your gasps becoming sharper as your gentle shaking soon became uncontrollable. You released his jacket as he stood and you pulled your knees to your chest, shutting your eyes finally as you heard the tap briefly run before a cool rag brushed your chin, eyes flying open as you flinched away.

“Shh, I need to see your face. I have to get the blood off,” Yoongi whispered, and you finally looked at him, noting his face was still paler than normal. “Princess, I need you to take a slow, deep breath okay? Can you do that? Your lips are turning blue; you’re hyperventilating. You’re safe,” he murmured, brows pinching together in a pained expression you had never seen on his face as you tried to nod, attempting to take a long breath in but ended up gulping in air multiple times on the way, the blurring of your vision worsening as Yoongi grimaced, your breathing speeding up again, your shoulders shrugging with the effort to take in air. The last thing you heard was Yoongi’s tense exclamation of “Shit!” before you blacked out.

When you awoke, you were under the covers of your large bed. You sat up quickly before groaning from the ache in your head, then realizing that opening your mouth made you want to scream from pain. Between the squeeze on your jaw and the cuts inside your mouth, it was safe to say you would be saying very little for a while. You glanced towards the window, noting it was inky black outside.

“How long has he hit you?” came a cool voice from beside your bedside and you turned to face the source, seeing a figure standing beside the small table, casting a shadow with the aid of a lamp. Had he even left? Yoongi had shed his stained suit jacket, but still wore the white shirt and same suit pants. You only knew it was the same shirt due to the blood stain from where your mouth must have painted him. Instead of attempting to speak, you shrugged in an attempt to get his gaze off of you. It was piercing and unnerving. You felt as if this was the beginning of an interrogation, and you didn’t fail to notice the color had still not returned to his normally pale face. Now that your mind was a bit clearer you were able to recognize why it registered so deeply with you. He was the embodiment of white with fury. “How. Long?” he said again with such harshness you swallowed hard, ignoring the fire that licked down your throat as you did so.

“That’s a joke right? He’s always been like that. I just normally am better at avoiding it,” you forced out; your words were almost incoherent as you tried to move your jaw as little as possible as you spoke. That was bearable. Good. Not that you had expected it to be, but at least your jaw wasn’t broken; that would have been a pain in the ass. “What time is it?”

“It’s three am,” Yoongi hissed as his eyes glimmered in the near darkness, pushing off the wall and grabbing a glass of water off the table and sweeping a few pills into his hand. “Take these.” You took his offering and a small sip of the water before carefully throwing the pills to the back of your throat and washing them down, sighing softly. “They’re pain pills. They’ll help and you’ll be able to go back to sleep in a bit.”

You didn’t answer but pulled back the cover of your bed and slid out, noting that your bloody shirt had been changed but you still had on your sports bra and leggings. And your ponytail had been taken down, which was probably a good thing since your scalp was still aching from the hold your father had you in.

“Y/N… don’t.” Came Yoongi’s voice, still unemotional but a bit gentler than his earlier tone. You didn’t turn back to him but stopped your path to your vanity, obviously trying to look at your reflection in the mirror to assess the damage.

“Is it that bad?” you grumbled, turning to him and you watched him shrug.

“It’s not good. Don’t worry about it tonight. No bones are broken from what I can tell. I wiped you down the best I could. Just change once I leave and get back into bed.”

You let out a deep breath but finally stepped towards your closet instead to grab an oversized t-shirt. You could work the bra off under it and slip your pants off once you had it on. “Why did you even stay?” you said softly as you set to work, your muscles aching as you attempted to change modestly. You don’t know why it even mattered, but in this moment it did.

“I needed to know if he had done this before. I needed to know if this was the first time. When we were kids, you weren’t around all the time. Sometimes, I’d go months without seeing you. I didn’t know if this was a part of it,” he spat out, visibly tensing as he took a loud steadying breath.

You shrugged as you pulled off your leggings, successful in stripping your bra off under the shirt, and padded back to your bed. “There were a few reasons he kept me separated from everyone. It wasn’t all because he thought I was too precious to see any of this.” You climbed back into bed and tried to settle back into the plushness. Yoongi took a step closer to you, his mouth slightly open as he watched you try to get comfortable, seemingly unable to stop himself.

“Y/N…” he said softly and reached a hand towards you and you stiffened, eyes narrowing, and he took note, dropping his hand slowly.

“Yoongi, I never asked for your fucking pity.”

“I know, and it makes me want to help you even more.”

You blinked and tried to register what he was implying. “Help me?” you repeated, shaking your head as you felt the same hysterical laugh bubble up that had made your assault that much worse in your father’s office. “No one can help me!” You laughed, eyes widening as the smile twisted your features. “This is my life, this is what I was born into. This is what all those shiny things cost, Yoongi! I always knew it but I forgot.” You watched as the pained expression from earlier slid back over his features, and you raised your eyebrows in response. “I appreciate it, but unless you’re willing to put a bullet in my fucking head there’s no saving anything.”

“Who says it has to be your head, Princess?” he said gently and you swear you felt the world stop.

“Don’t say shit like that Min,” you hissed, baring your teeth and shaking your head. “Even if we don’t always get along, I don’t want you dead too.”

“Whatever you say Princess,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he cocked his head to the side. “Are you alright to sleep? You don’t feel like you’re going to vomit?” he asked seriously, watching as you shook your head.

“I don’t have a concussion,” you grumbled but as you watched him smirk and go to grab his jacket you felt your heart speed up. “Yoongi- w-wait.” He immediately stopped, as if he was anticipating your words. “Can you stay here the rest of the night? I know he won’t do anything but I-”

“Let me go change my clothes. Is that okay Princess?”

“Yeah… I just don’t want to be-”

“It’s fine Y/N. I’ll be right back.” You stayed sitting up, watching him as he dismissed your attempts at explanations and justification as he walked out.

You sighed, leaning against the leather headboard and let your breathing even out, even as your heart still raced. The pain began to slowly ebb as the medication took effect; what had you even taken? It had to be something strong as a comfortable fog began to cloud your thoughts.

You didn’t know why you felt the need to have him here. Did you even need to explain? He was technically your bodyguard. You had known each other most of your lives. You had just suffered through an assault; staying with you was reasonable. Even if the assailant wasn’t unknown, nor were the motives. At the end of the day, Yoongi’s presence made breathing a bit easier. His presence made you feel safe.

The door opened again and you sucked in a breath as Yoongi re-entered your bedroom, one hand carrying his gun and holster, the other a hanger with a clean pressed suit. “I’ll wake up before you,” was all he said in response to your surprised expression as he studied you. He mistook the shock on your face as being accredited to the suit. He was an idiot if he thought you cared about the fact he would dress here. You were too busy drinking in the sight of his lean figure in low-slung grey sweatpants. You tried to rip your gaze back to his face but you got caught on the black ribbed tank top and the swirling black tattoos covering his shoulder and chest before disappearing under the material.

“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” you choked out, feeling your face flush and mentally slapping yourself. He may look like sex on legs, but you looked like you just had the shit beat out of you. Which to be fair to yourself, you actually just had the shit beat out of you.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, a small smirk tilting his lip up but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He draped his suit over the chair to your vanity and carried his gun with him towards the plush armchair in the corner of the room.

“The bed is big enough Min. I won’t touch you,” you said breathlessly, trying to force away the blush that was deepening across your face. He seemed to freeze and take a few steadying breaths.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Princess.” His voice was controlled but quiet.

“Please Yoongi…” you said just as quietly. “It’s just for tonight. I won’t feel safe if you’re all the way over there.”

It was definitely an over exaggeration. You hadn’t really expected him to even agree to stay in your room with you. The chair was the reasonable option. You knew you were pushing it.

“Princess, I-” He breathed, the airiness of his tone making your belly somersault and it gave you a tiny shiver.

“Yoongi, please. I need you next to me. Just tonight.” You shouldn’t be so worried about getting this man into bed with you, but now that he was here in front of you and it was so close to happening, you felt you might cry if he denied you.

You watched his back muscles rippled as he tensed and tried to relax. He turned wordlessly and walked to the opposite side of the bed, setting his holster down and climbing into the king-sized bed with you. “Go to sleep Princess.”

The drugs had to be prescriptions, not that you really expected a member of an organized crime family to just take a regular aspirin when they were in pain. “Is the oxy working yet? It should start soon if it hasn’t.” You hummed your assent as you squirmed down into the bed and tried to keep the smile from your face as you reached over and turned out the lamp. You took a deep breath and shut your eyes, savoring the heat that quickly built from having two bodies under the covers of your bed, ignoring the slightly annoyed sigh from the other side of the bed.

“Be quiet Min, I’m trying to rest,” you said softly and a soft dry chuckle cut through the silence as you let sleep take you.

Yoongi’s POV

Yoongi listened to the soft sounds of your breathing as they lengthened and deepened, the pain pills having done their job perfectly. If only he could have done his job in such a manner. He had been given a job: to keep you safe, and he took it seriously. Even if the one assigning his work was an abusive piece of shit. Yoongi let out a sigh, glancing over at your figure in the dark to make sure his huff hadn’t disturbed your slumber. It didn’t. You were still laying there, eyes closed and unaware, your face turned towards him to afford him a view of what exactly your father had done in his absence.

He felt his teeth grind against each other as even in the dark, he could make out the near black bruises covering your neck in the clear shape of hands, a bloom crossing your smooth cheek as well. Even your chin and jaw were dark from bruising; evidence that your father had held your face to force submission. It had worked. He opened his mouth and stretched his own jaw to try and stop himself from continuing to grind his molars down to nothing in rage. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to forget how you looked and how he felt when he entered the office, watching the blood drip onto the floor. How he wanted nothing more than to simply pull out his gun and lodge a bullet into your father’s knee before proceeding to swing the butt of his gun down onto him until he shattered every bone in the pig’s disgusting face.

Until he begged him to stop. Until he begged his daughter to tell Yoongi to stop.

The daydream made Yoongi smile a full gummy smile and chuckle for the first time today. He would stop when you told him to. If you told him to. Now that he knew your father had put his hands on you before this, he wondered if you would just let him continue until his mania at seeing what had been done to you was sated. He knew it wouldn’t be until he heard your father’s death rattle, knowing it had been at his own hands.

You stirred slightly to readjust in your sleep, drawing his attention back to the present as you moved closer to him in the bed and he sucked in a breath. Even beaten and bruised you affected him. Even carrying you in that elevator down the hall as you clutched onto him. He had been spiraling down into violence but as soon as you grabbed his jacket, he knew you wouldn’t withstand even him raising his voice to anyone without shattering. You were normally so fierce and seeing you broken made him want to tear apart this entire society you both lived in, even if it was all either of you had ever known.

It was then he had decided he would be what you were asking of him with your sobs and how you clutched onto him; he would be as gentle as could be and give you whatever you needed tonight. Tomorrow he would begin the undertaking of dismantling your father piece by fucking piece.

He had watched over you after you passed out; you had woken up briefly for him to get you to take pain medicine once before you actually were able to speak to him. Before you asked him to stay with you. He wanted to pretend it didn’t make his icy heart crack, the way you tried to explain and justify his presence. He would never ask you to in this kind of situation. When Yoongi returned to his room, he attempted to steel himself for a night of sitting in that uncomfortable chair, and a sleepless day tomorrow. He had gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep before.

But when your eyes, even if they had started to become glossy and dilated from the drugs, began to run over him, he had to try and think of every unsexy thing he could fathom. You had just been fucking violated and just with one look he felt the blood travel away from his brain and pool below his waist. Why did he think he would be able to wear sweatpants while staying with you? You destroyed every semblance of self control he had. He still hadn’t forgotten your teasing in the elevator prior to this shit show.

Then your soft drowsy voice had called out to him just as he had regained his mental fortitude and continued to the chair. You would be the fucking death of him and he didn’t think he would really mind. Now, as he laid here in bed with you trying to ignore the fact that you were shifting closer to him in your sleep, seeking his warmth, he closed his eyes. He had anticipated the pure fury of tonight keeping him awake, but instead it was the fact that he could feel your breath on his neck, that if he turned his head back to you he could still make out your absolutely gorgeous feminine form from under the blankets. The dip in your waist and the curve of your hips, sloping into your soft thigh. Yoongi’s eyes shot open as he let out a soft hiss as he felt his member stiffen in his sweats, one large hand reaching down to palm himself, and he willed his hard-on to disappear.

He dropped his eyes again, confident he would get his bulge to go down without waking you, and as he tended to it, a soft small hand reached across his middle, making his forehead furrow. He tried to take a steadying breath, and tried to not imagine that the events of last night weren’t the reason he was in your bed. That you had just invited him to bed because you wanted him there, not for security but because you wanted him as a man to share your bed and body. That he could roll over to face you, slip his own hand up that oversized shirt and rub soft circles into your skin before slipping his hand down in-between your thighs.

Yoongi felt his cock twitch and himself harden further, forcing another deep breath in and out as he circled back to try and think of grotesque things to make his longing subside. You at least had stopped wriggling in the bed in an attempt to get closer; he was thankful for that. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to calm his heart and regulate his breath to make it possible for him to drift off.

This was going to be a long night.

#bts suga #bts ff #bts x reader #mafia!bts #bts gang au #bts imagines #yoongi fanfic #yoongi x reader #suga x reader #btsxarmy #License to steal

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hoe-doroki · 4 years

Text

Siberia

minors do not interact

warnings: 18+, drunk sex, marking, biting, love scratches, sloooow burn

pairing: Shouto x fem!reader

genre: pining/angst, smut, fluff

wc: 13.8k

summary: On the field, you and Todoroki are rising stars amongst hero pairings. Off the field…you’re kind of in love with him. After a successful capture, you’re boss brings you in to let you know you’re being sent on assignment in foreign country…alone. Before you leave, you have to act. You’re not partners anymore, after all. And with a little liquid courage you do. Then, the next morning, you still have to leave.

a/n: Thanks so much to @some-kindofgnome, @mindninjax, and @linestrider for helping me out with this beast! Ya’ll are such dears, hyping me up when I was feeling really uncertain about this story. FYI, this story is kind of the prequel to a short fluff fic that will be posted (for bnhabookclub’s secret santa) on Christmas, so stay tuned for that!

edit: I no longer write x reader but here’s my old masterlist - mobile | desktop

September

Shards of ice and concrete flew. Ears ringing, you faced away, keeping your uncovered cheeks and hands from the debris. You’d have to turn back into it soon to keep an eye on the villain soon, though. He wasn’t exactly subtle, firing off explosions every few minutes, but he did have plumes of smoke and heaps of destruction on the city street to hide behind. Todoroki had been shooting walls of ice up to protect the buildings, but the road was shredded.

“You okay?” Todoroki shouted, also facing away from the blast.

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah.”

You turned back with a dry, scratched hand in front of your eyes as you squinted into the wind, streaks of both freezing and hot air blowing past you. You had to consciously keep from grinding your teeth in frustration as the villain cackled at you.

Todoroki and you had a near-perfect capture rate. Usually, the two of you could manipulate his ice to capture any villain, but ice didn’t work so well against a villain with exploding spines on his back. Each attempt to restrain him ended with ice shattering, blown away from the villain’s body in one go. There wasn’t much that Todoroki’s fire could do against a guy like that either.

“Shouto,” you shouted, making your way closer to him. “Make me a big block of ice and then distract him. Be ready to run back and use your fire.”

You saw the question in his eyes for a split second, but he’d stopped asking questions of you early on in your three-year partnership. Questions and explanation took time that couldn’t be spared in battles against villains, so you just had to trust each other.

You hadn’t failed yet.

With a sweep of his arm, you had an iceberg the size of a school bus at your disposal. Todoroki ran at the guy, fire in his hand in order to distract with some close combat—neither of your specialty.

You worked quickly to manipulate the ice into four walls. They didn’t have to be straight or pretty, just sound and close enough in size to line up. Luckily, Todoroki’s ice was the easiest thing you’d ever worked with; it was free of impurities and even in temperature. From there, you could mold it however you wanted.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw another one of the spikes on the man’s back explode. Todoroki was able to counter the blast with a wash of fire, but it still knocked him back and set your heart pounding. You needed to end this before either of you ended up hurt with more than the light burns and scrapes you were sporting now.

You took the last bit of ice and lifted it overhead, letting it expand into something soft and irregular—nothing more than densely packed snow. Then, another shout of Todoroki’s hero name had him running back, and you used all your focus to shove the four ice blocks around the villain and fuse them at the corners, sealing them to the irregular ruble on the street.

“Haven’t you learned that ice can’t keep me down?” the villain shouted over your frozen terrarium.

You had learned that, but you’d also learned that he was slowing. He only had a few spires on his back—less than ten—and each one he used had to be regrown. He was regenerating them much quicker than you might have hoped, but it wasn’t as fast as at the beginning of the battle. However the explosions worked, whatever they did to his body, they must have been taking a toll. That gave you a window. A small one, but hopefully enough.

“Fire!” you shouted at Todoroki, pointing to the tall pile of snow you were controlling, moving to just above the ice box.

Todoroki loosed a thin tongue of fire, letting it hit the snow but dissipate before it turned the solid straight to a gas. He knew that what you needed now. The only thing that would bring you both victory, was liquid.

A shelf of water dumped into the room of ice you’d contained the villain in and you returned your focus back to its makeup. You held the ice strong, not letting the new water—warm in places, still nearly frozen in others—melt the walls. Then you shifted some of it to create a roof, leaving only enough room for the man to be able to poke his head out, and some air holes to allow in oxygen. You didn’t need him poking his back out of the water and creating another explosion.

You used your finest degree of control, your tightest concentration to clarify some of the ice, providing a window into your new aquarium. The villain was holding his arms, obviously cold, but he wasn’t using his quirk. Seemed that his explosions didn’t work underwater.

“God,” you said, letting out a relieved sigh as your shoulders slumped, though you didn’t relax your hold on the walls. They wanted to melt against the heated concrete, but you didn’t let them.

Todoroki came over to you, breathing heavily himself. “He won’t be able to stay in there long.”

“I know,” you said, watching the man’s movements closely for signs of hypothermia. You weren’t too worried, since Todoroki could create heat at a moment’s notice, but you still didn’t like this method. It was the best you’d been able to come up with, though.

“Great work, Snow,” he said, a thin smile curving on his lips.

The thing about Todoroki’s smiles, rare though they were, was that they were contagious. They were always earned, always a surprise, and you couldn’t ever help but return one when it was given to you. So, you smiled back, heat blossoming in your chest as your gazes lingered, panting in matching breaths.

It was easy to restrain yourself during battle. In combat, you and Todoroki were partners whose quirks worked well together, whose minds and styles had grown to be one with each other. But as soon as the battle was over and your breath was allowed to slow, the adrenaline able to recede, things felt different. You wanted to take his cheek in your hand and wipe the ash off his face. You wanted to take a washcloth and clean the blood away. You wanted to hold him in your arms and whisper that he was whole and okay and you’d both done your job well.

But all that you could offer was a hand raised in partnership. He took it and you touched from fingertip to elbow. Your tight grip on his equally cold hand held for just a moment, just one squeeze. And then you parted.

“Excellent work today, Snow.”

You were standing in front of your boss, freshly showered and out of your thermal costume, back in clothing that was a little more appropriate for a temperate fall in Japan. Nevertheless, the office felt warm, kept that way to make your manager’s day of sitting in pencil skirts at her oak desk comfortable.

“Thank you, ma’am,” you said, bowing and doing your best to read her face. “It was a team effort.”

It was unusual that someone was called to the boss’ office for good news, but, at the same time, you couldn’t read any dissatisfaction on your boss’ face. Your capture today had gone well. Yeah, there had been damage to the street, but very little to the buildings—save for the guy’s hideout, which had been ruined—and the police apprehended the man before he’d gotten frostbite. All in all, a neat wrap-up to a villain you and Todoroki had been chasing for weeks.

“Yes, it was. You and Todoroki are one of the star partnerships on the field nowadays,” she said, her gaze breaking down to some paperwork on the table.

You narrowed your eyes, able to hear the but that was coming.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth in your quirk. You used it really fantastically today when you were in a tight spot, and we’d like to send you on a covert operation.”

You cocked your head, feeling a disconnect between the different statements she was making. “…With Todoroki?”

She shook her head, looking grim. “Only one was requested for this mission, and you’re the one best suited to the job. Your ability to freeze and manipulate ice at will is really unique. If all goes well, it won’t be for long.”

“How long?”

She shrugged and your heart dropped. “Maybe a few weeks? It depends on how it goes. I’m emailing you the briefing now.”

A shrug and a maybe. She obviously had no idea.

“Okay, well, where is it?”

She looked up at you, a slight cringe wrinkling her brow and the bridge of her nose. This, she did have the answer to.

And she knew you wouldn’t want to hear it.

You’d somehow managed to drag Todoroki to a bar, you hadn’t been choosy about which. The light was dim, the décor mostly dark wood with black accents, and the atmosphere nearly morose with the lack of patrons. It matched your mood. He was nursing a gin martini and you a vodka to give yourself an ironic little laugh. Or maybe it was preparation. Either way, it was helping to steel your nerves.

“You seem upset,” Todoroki said before you were halfway through the drink. You’d been through congratulations on the day’s capture, but it had been hard to keep up the merriment. You weren’t entirely shocked that he’d picked up on it so quickly, though. The two of you were only kept alive by how attuned you were to each other, after all.

“It’s annoying that your job is being perceptive,” you said, knocking back a bit more of the drink.

“It’s yours too,” he said plainly. “What’s on your mind?”

You sighed, plucking the olive out of your drink to chew on it. Your mouth filled with brine, each taste bud standing on end at the sharp taste of pure salt. You had to take another sip to wash it down. “Boss lady didn’t tell you I’m going on assignment?”

You knew she hadn’t otherwise he would have asked you immediately. Todoroki wasn’t the kind to beat around the bush.

“Oh?” Todoroki asked, sipping more of his own drink. “By yourself? For how long?”

You ran your finger over the condensation on your glass. It was cold, though not as cold as you were used to. You liked your drinks frosty so you froze the condensation and gave the glass a swirl. “I don’t know. A month?”

You’d saddled Todoroki with the day’s villain paperwork while you’d read over the mission’s briefing. It had been short, which was your first hint that the team didn’t have as much information as they needed. They were pulling from an outside agency, after all, which always smelled of desperation to you.

“Where are you going?”

You looked down at your vermouth-mixed vodka and said, “Siberia.”

A rare bald reaction showed on Todoroki’s face. His eyes went wide and his chin jutted toward you. “Siberia?”

You held your hand out and pulled at the particles of water in the air, freezing just enough to make a few snowflakes to dance above your hand, drawing Todoroki’s gaze. “Siberia.”

It was your quirk that matched you to this assignment. You would thrive in an environment surrounded by snow. You’d be able to manipulate the whole terrain and freezing would be easy. You’d be at full power.

Todoroki took your ice-filled hand in his warm one and you felt heat flow rapidly into you as he melted the snow to water and then back into vapors barely catching the bar’s yellow light before slipping in and amongst the smell of liquor and hops.

“Wow,” Todoroki said, a word that always sounded stunted through his dull monotone, almost oxymoronic. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you said, though receiving the compliment felt disingenuous. Being chosen for this was a testament to your strength, but it didn’t feel like an achievement—it felt like a disruption. Months away from the job that you loved and the partner you…

You swigged the rest of the martini and ordered another one. If you were going to have to go to Russia tomorrow, you’d do well to invite a piece of it to you tonight. Microdosing or something.

Todoroki ordered a second, too, as he was nearly to the bottom of his own drink. He stirred the last dribbles of it and said, “Siberia isn’t that far from Japan.”

“Just one time zone behind,” you said. You’d done some googling after memorizing your notes. You weren’t sure how much you’d be moving about the region, but the location you were being sent to tomorrow was set.

The energy between you was stiff. Battling together today had been so easy, the two of you essentially extensions of one another. Todoroki created ice that you could manipulate as though it had come from your own body. Sure, you could create ice out of the water that was around, but Todoroki could so easily give you exactly what you needed. And then his fire could clean it all away. It was a perfect pairing.

Usually that chemistry followed you off the battlefield, but now you were trapped in small talk. Stuck with you apparently one foot out the door, unable to face him fully. Your elbows fell to the black marble bar, hands pushed into the roots of your hair. “God, this sucks!”

“They can’t force you to go if you don’t want to.”

He was right, but how would that look? Heroes didn’t turn down cases without good reason; that wasn’t how the job worked. You were expected to take jobs that were difficult, dangerous, and unpleasant—that was simply the field. The only reasons to turn one down were if you felt you couldn’t fulfill it.

“I can’t exactly tell them that I’ll miss my partner too much to go,” you said, eyes flickering towards his for a moment before starting on your second drink. “Then they’ll just think I’m too stupid and they’ll fire me.”

“I’ll miss being your partner too,” Todoroki said.

Your stomach squeezed. This. This was what made it impossible to spend time around Todoroki without getting the wrong idea. He just said things, so simply and genuinely that your mind would always jump to the next thing, when really, he just said what he meant and nothing more. There was no subtext, no matter how you tried to find it. And the search made your heart ache.

“So this isn’t a celebration so much as a farewell,” Todoroki mused, finishing his first drink and joining you on the second.

You were beginning to feel a bit of a buzz. Your emotions were a bit more liquid, sloshing from one state to another with more ease than usual. The sadness was transmuting into longing. The longing transmuting to desire.

“I wish I had known,” Todoroki continued, your eyes slipping back over to him. “I might have ordered something stronger.”

“Hah,” you said, the huff coming out humorless. You might have also, if you didn’t want to avoid being hungover on the plane. “Wanna drown my memory, Todoroki?”

“No.”

He didn’t look like he had more to say. Damn, sometimes you needed just a little more—subtext or actual text—out of him.

But he didn’t give it to you, so you just looked at him. His bangs were covering his eyes from you as he looked down into his drink, but you thought you could see the sadness. His shoulders were hunched, head hanging heavy off his neck. He would miss you. Maybe not as much as you would miss him, and maybe not in the same way, but you knew he valued your partnership. Your friendship. That, at the very least, meant something to him.

Tonight, however, you weren’t thinking about the very least. You didn’t want the lowest common denominator between you—your professional partnership—to be the last image you held of your relationship before heading to one of the most desolate places on Earth.

Besides, as of this afternoon he wasn’t your partner anymore. Not for the moment, at least.

“Shouto?”

Your voice was timid, unfamiliar with using his name in this setting. It was his hero name, but that wasn’t what you were saying here, and you knew it. He knew it too, by the way his eyes jerked up to yours, a question creasing between his eyebrows.

You didn’t answer, though. Maybe he had the right idea, leaving things unsaid.

You put two fingers to his jawline, drawing his face up, lifting his whole posture off the bar with nothing but a gentle touch. His brows furrowed deeper and then they relaxed, his eyes open and at ease.

For a moment, you did nothing more than breathe each other’s air. A moment of hesitation or of resolve, you didn’t know—it didn’t last long enough to figure it out. Then your mouth brushed against his, the bitter taste of alcohol on both your lips.

It wasn’t a good idea. But you’d regret it too much if you didn’t, and you had just enough courage to make it happen. As you twisted more to the side, slanting so you could feel the smoothness of his shaved cheek, you soared. Maybe he’d wanted this too. Maybe even as long as you had, though you’d lost track of exactly what that was.

Then he pulled away. Not for breath, but for distance.

“We can’t,” he said, feeling for his wallet and pulling it out. He placed a few bills on the bar, paying for both your drinks and his. Your heart hadn’t even finished breaking by the time he was taking your hand and dragging you out of there.

He hailed a cab in record time, everything moving just a bit too fast for you to keep up with. He was ushering you into the cab without a word and then you were seated side by side, hands still clasped tight.

“Todoroki, I—”

Todoroki caught your eye and shook his head, and you stopped immediately. Just like in combat, you didn’t ask questions. You did as he said, quiet for the whole car ride to his apartment.

Luckily, it wasn’t far. Half the reason you’d been able to drag him to the bar was its proximity to his apartment. It was fully within walking distance. But it seemed he’d decided he was in a hurry.

Your hands finally split from one another as you exited the cab and you followed him through his building, still quiet. You’d been there before, visited him when he’d been sick or injured, or occasionally to talk shop—though usually that easily dissolved into something more casual with food being ordered, knees touching as you sat crisscrossed around a low table.

The moment you made it through his front door, you automatically toed off your shoes on the tatami mats. Then the light were flicked on and his lips were back on yours, catching you off guard. Hadn’t he just rejected you? Hadn’t he pulled away from you and spoken his dissent?

You fell into the push and pull of his lips against yours, both a little too dry from the constant cold and heat you put them through, but that didn’t matter. You’d dreamt of kissing this man for so long, and here he was. You allowed yourself to revel in it for just a moment more before pulling back, just as he’d done earlier.

“What’s happening?” you asked. “I thought—”

“Not in public,” he said, “That’s not how I want to do this.”

“Oh,” you said, unable to believe you’d disregarded that. Even if the bar you’d been in hadn’t been that populated, that didn’t mean that you were invisible. And, like it or not, you and Todoroki were both public figures, well known for your partnership. The two of you kissing, no matter how innocent, would be news if it went public. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Todoroki said immediately, taking your hand in his warm one. “Don’t be.”

And then he was kissing you again, this one more passionate than either of the last two. The first had been hesitant, feeling each other out, the second quick and needy. This one was full, in no rush while making sweet use of the time you did have. His other hand came up to grip your waist and you moved to grip his shoulder, feeling the swollen muscle beneath his shirt.

You were drawn to his warmth, as you always were, and your body couldn’t help but press against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. You’d always tried so hard to keep a professional distance that as soon as the boundary was taken away, you couldn’t seem to get close enough. Making up for lost time, as it were.

Making up for the time that was about to be taken.

You felt yourself being dragged out of the entryway, and you eagerly let it happen. In the past times you’d been to his apartment, you’d never seen his bedroom, but you knew where it was. Todoroki led you there, his lips barely leaving yours for breath, fingertips pressing in wherever they could reach.

The next thing you knew, your knees were hitting the back of a bed and you allowed yourself to be pushed back. You landed on a soft comforter atop a neatly made bed, and were met with Todoroki’s hard body crawling on top of yours. You continued to make out and you thought that if this was how you spent your last night before leaving Japan, you’d be happy. You were already happier than you’d been in ages.

Todoroki was panting when he pulled away from you, kneeling over you so that he looked powerful in a way that you didn’t usually acknowledge. You were intimately aware of Todoroki’s strength, but usually it was matched with yours, used to compliment and support you and vice versa. But now it was suspended over you and it sent a thrill through your core. This was a side of him that you’d always wanted to see, always imagined, but never believed would be yours.

“Y/N,” he said, brushing a soft hand down your arm, the light touch making you shiver. “What do you want?”

“What do you want?” you asked, pressing up, entangling your legs.

Now both of his hands were on your arms and you loved the touch, warm on one hand, chilled on the other, but both making you equally heated.

“I want to be with you,” he said, the rare euphemism coming out as assuredly as any blunt word ever had from him. “I want to have you.”

“Me too,” you said, pushing on your knees to catch his lips again.

Then there was no stopping you. Todoroki’s hands moved down to the hem of your sweater—too cold for outside, too hot in the bar, and utterly unneeded here—and ripped it over your head before starting on the buttons of his shirt.

In the meantime, you pressed your way into his lap, riding his thighs a little as you kissed him, making your way down his neck and leaving the softest kisses, reveling in the shiver it sent down his spine as you did.

“Sensitive?” you whispered in his ear.

“Mhmm,” he murmured. Then his own shirt was off, and a quick flick of his fingers behind your back sent your bra following.

Then you were pushed back on the bed, his lips now giving your neck the same treatment. You felt him lingering in one spot halfway between your jaw and your collarbone, his teeth just barely grazing the soft skin. Before you knew what you were asking for, you whispered, “Do it,” and felt his lips latch and give a good suck.

You were going to Siberia. A scarf would never leave your neck. You’d be clothed head to toe every moment you were there, you were sure. He could mark up your whole body and no one would ever know.

What was more—you wanted him to.

You wanted to dress in the morning, clean yourself and see the footprints of his presence on your body. Little reminders that this wasn’t a dream, one of the many fantasies that had eaten at you, feeling good until they left you hollow. This was as real as the familiar smell of his detergent on his navy blue bedding. The poster of All Might you couldn’t really be surprised to see.

A moan escaped your lips as you felt the spot on your neck go hot with his ministrations, and you knew the bruise would linger for days. You grew wet at the thought of it.

“More.”

Obediently, Todoroki trailed down your neck to your chest, taking in the sight of your upper half bare to him. You’d seen him topless before, usually when the two of you exercised together, his body glistening with sweat, rippling as various muscle groups enjoyed his focus. But he’d never seen you. He looked up at you, eyes almost too soft to bear, and said, “You’re beautiful.”

You bit your lip and your head fell against his pillow as his mouth descended onto your breast, not the nipple but just above. He sucked a new spot, this one even more private than the previous. You arched your back into his mouth, wanting him to know how much you wanted it, how much you needed it. He could read you as well as ever, sucking the spot until the pain was sharp, then releasing and laving his tongue over it. Then he sunk his teeth into your nipple.

“Ah,” you gasped, gripping his hair and tugging. That pulled the smallest moan, almost a grunt out of him, and you realized that you needed more. You needed more, fast.

“Shouto,” you breathed, reaching down his waist towards his pants, but arms not quite long enough to make it there. Still, he looked into your eyes and understood, giving a smile that bloomed one of your own and pushed his jeans down, leaving him in nothing but tight boxers.

You could see his bulge straining against the fabric and your heart knocked against your chest. This was your partner, the man who held your life in his hands on the daily and his in yours. The man you sat up with doing paperwork, and who worked missions with you when you were both dead on your feet, starving, and snippy.

How did that add up to where you were now? You didn’t know, but when he unbuttoned your pants and looped his fingers around the hem, you lifted your hips. Your panties when halfway down with them, leaving half your ass against the comforter and the tops of your pubes frizzing out, but what did it matter?

You didn’t wait for Todoroki and pushed your panties the rest of the way down yourself. You immediately felt the slickness at your center begin to dribble down your thighs, sticking them together. Todoroki took the invitation and removed his boxers as well, revealing himself in his full glory to you. He was pale along the shaft and red at the tip—the same colors that you associated with him. You blushed at the thought, unable to miss the subtle dual-tone of his pubic hair, more muted in color than the hair on his head. You’d never be able to look at his split color the same way again.

Your hand was on the back of his neck, bringing him to you before you could overthink things any further. His dick pressed against the crease of your inner thigh as you tasted his tongue, the flavor of the martinis all but gone at this point and replaced with nothing but him and you.

“Y/N,” he managed, his voice coming out rough as he grinded against you, the whole of his length making it from your crosswise crease to your belly button, leaving sticky pre on your stomach. “I feel I should tell you…it’s been a while for me.”

“Me too,” you answered quickly, lifting your hips into his, pulling a groan from him.

When was there time to be meeting people—much less people who weren’t influenced by your being a mid-tier celebrity—when you were a pro hero? Not that there was any point in trying. You’d barely been able to look at other men as you spent your days fighting off a growing crush on your partner.

“I’m just saying,” he said as you went to press your lips against his neck again, “this might be over quickly.”

That affected you, causing you to bite down high on his shoulder, where the tall neck of his hero costume would more than cover.

You didn’t care about how long he would last. The base of his length had moved between your lips and was grinding soundly against your clit, ensuring that your own orgasm wouldn’t be far off either. But while you weren’t particular about how long it lasted you didn’t want it to be over. You wanted to stay in this forever.

“Nothing to prove,” you said, returning to his lips and taking them in yours. “Just need you.”

“Me too,” he said, voice low and throaty. Your heart flipped before you forced yourself not to read into it. There was no subtext. Never any subtext.

He reached away from you, pulling at a drawer next to his bed to pull out a pack of condoms. He picked a square from it and tossed the rest aside before ripping it open. He rolled the rubber down himself and you took in his size again.

It would be a lie to say that you’d never thought about what Shouto was packing before. You’d seen his costume in ribbons after a particularly grueling battle, leaving little to the imagination. You saw the thickness of his thighs, the jut of his hipbones. You’d wondered what else was there.

He didn’t disappoint. The condom left a good inch or two at the base of his cock uncovered, and he wasn’t narrow either. He’d be a stretch, a delicious elongation for you to make room for.

His hand left his dick and went to your center and you spread your legs automatically. He reached with two fingers and spread your wetness up and down your pussy. You groaned at the feeling, arching your hips up to encourage him further. Hesitantly, he began to press one finger into you and then another.

“Damn, you’re tight,” he said. “You weren’t kidding.”

You just squirmed beneath him, all of his movements far too slow to stoke anything but the smoldering coals within you. But you needed Shouto’s fire.

“Sho,” you whined. “Don’t tease.”

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice not carrying an ounce of the smugness that another man’s would.

“You’d never hurt me,” you said, lifting your arms up and encouraging him toward you. He indulged, giving a couple more pumps of his fingers, scissoring them just a couple times and then pulling out. Without hesitation, he slipped them into his mouth and sucked them clean.

Your face went hot. The pure nonchalance of his gesture didn’t even seem to register, as his hand dropped to the bedspread, his lips back down to yours. You tasted the tinny flavor of yourself on his lips and only felt more aroused.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice soft and hot in your ear.

You grinned. “Impatient.”

He chuckled as his knuckles brushed against your thigh, guiding his dick to your core. And then he was pressing in, stretching you wide despite the prep that he’d done. Your body ached, wanting to pull away from the discomfort, but also yearning to feel whole, feel full. But he was filling you up so slowly.

“There you are, princess.”

You felt the head of his cock kiss your cervix, and when you looked down, you saw that he wasn’t even all the way in. A good inch still hung out, keeping his hips from being flush with yours, keeping you from being as close as possible.

But you felt it, that heat that started in your groin and moved up through your stomach and your chest as you squeezed your walls around him, feeling every bit that you could. Sex wasn’t love, you knew that, but then why did having him so close make your heart flutter in a way that it didn’t when he was gone?

“Can I move, sweetheart?”

You were gone. The tone of his voice, the words on his lips made anything possible. You would take whatever he would give you and hold it with both hands.

“Please.”

He started with a gentle rocking, barely leaving you, and you were grateful for that. You were so warm when he was deep inside you, his swollen cock pressing against the nerves of your clit, even from inside. He took one hand and pressed it against the base of your belly and every sensation turned hot, searing. Every drag of his cock was magnified, and you could see the light ripple of your belly every time he plunged into your depths.

You gasped and wrapped your arms around his back, nails finding the skin under his shoulder blades and digging in. “Oh, fuck,” you whined as he upped his pace, sweat making your skin stick to each other.

“What do you need?” he grunted, his words knocking you out of your daze just enough to hone in on his sentiment.

“Fingers,” you breathed.

Todoroki rotated his hand so that the heel of his palm pressed right above your pubic bone, and the tips of his fingers began toying with your clit. After that, it wasn’t long. Your hands clawed at his back, knees rose all on their own and clung to his sides.

“Shouto,” you cried desperately. “Shouto…!”

“I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you.”

“I—” Your voice broke as the heat spread from your core and your chest to all through your body. Even your extremities, always cold from your quirk, became flush with warmth, your cheeks hot, lashes wet as Todoroki only seemed to move quicker. “I’m—Shouto!”

Your breath left you as your orgasm tore out of you. It seemed that was all Todoroki needed, as he pushed a few more desperate ruts into you, half your name passing his lips before he stuttered to a halt, only managing a few more rough passes of his cock before he collapsed on top of you.

You panted as the heat left your body, save for all the corners at which Todoroki was still pressed against you. Those were hot, hot as any touch from him had ever been. You felt him adjust his hips as he pulled out of you, but you didn’t loosen your hold across his back, not wanting to break apart.

“Y/N,” Shouto said after a minute. “We have to clean up.”

Always so logical. Always so sensible. Your brows furrowed above your closed eyes as you tried to wish it away. You wanted to stay here. As long as you stayed put, it felt like time was paused in this moment for you. That you could live in afterglow forever.

“I know,” you said, but you made no sign to move.

Todoroki seemed to think this was because he was on top of you and rolled to the side, peeling of the condom as he did so.

You shivered immediately, your combined sweat on your chest cooling and leaving your skin tacky and raised with goosebumps.

“C’mon,” Todoroki said, placing a hand over yours. “We’ll take a shower.”

He helped you up, your body heavy, though you didn’t know if it was from pleasure or denial, and led you to the bathroom, flicking on the shower.

Under the hot spray, you leaned into the touches of Todoroki treating your skin with soap, pressing his hand gently between your legs to clean you of evidence of your activities. When he faced away from you, you gasped at the lines of red you’d left down his back, pairs of stripes marking either side of his spine. The spot you’d left on his neck was already purple, as were the two he’d left on you.

“I’m so sorry, Shouto,” you said, rubbing light fingertips over the raised spots.

“I don’t mind,” he said, turning around and taking your hand in his. “Don’t worry.”

He passed his thumb over the bruise on your breast and, despite the warm water, the soft touch had you shivering again. The intimacy was surprising. Weren’t you supposed to rebuild your walls after your time in bed was over? Was this a one night stand?

It had to be. Because you were leaving.

With that thought on your mind, you wrapped your arms around him and hid your face in his shoulder as the water poured over you. You couldn’t face him.

But you surely couldn’t let him go either.

“Stay.”

You felt Todoroki’s chest rumble around your hands, his words carrying into your bones. You weren’t certain whether he was talking about tonight, or asking you not to go to Russia. But, either way, tonight, you could do. It was all you could do.

The vibration of your phone was faint, but pulled you from slumber as the sensation rattled up your arm. Somehow you’d managed to keep your phone clenched in your sleep and you fumbled as quickly as you could in your haze to turn off the alarm. Your motions were imprecise as sleep and the last vestiges of alcohol coated a thin film over your senses.

You blinked at your phone. 4am. It was early, but that didn’t mean you had time to spare. As you tried to peel through the murky layers in your mind, you became aware of the sensation of something thick and warm across your middle.

The next breath you took squeezed your chest, seeming to inflate your heart instead of your lungs, bolstering the dual weight of joy and heartache. Todoroki’s touch was always one that you craved, his left side so warm to your constant chill while his right side never shivered at your own cold touch. You wanted to curl in closer, scoot back to deny the few inches that were separating most of the lines of your bodies.

But you couldn’t. The arm was enough of a problem.

As slowly as you could, you scooted out from under his hold, hoping that the alcohol—or the sex—had rendered Todoroki out cold. This was the first time you’d seen him in repose, so you weren’t sure of your luck. He’d never told you if he was a heavy sleeper or not.

So you could only hope for the best as you slid to the ground, recovering the clothes you hadn’t put back on after your shower and gathered them in your arm. You just had to leave the bedroom without waking him up.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t look back.

Todoroki’s room was dark, each piece of furniture nothing more but a rectangular shadow in the sparse space. But Todoroki’s hair, pure white on his right side, caught just enough light to draw focus to the bits of him that poked out of his blanket. His cheek pressed against the same pillow you’d used, the second one behind him resting untouched. You let yourself study him, memorize him like this, and then brought a hand to your lips and blew him a kiss, relieved you hadn’t woken him.

You didn’t know what you’d do if you had to say goodbye.

The good thing was that you could feel that you weren’t hungover. You and Todoroki had both gulped big glasses of water before bed and it seemed it had paid off. Of course now you had to pee, but that would just have to wait. You couldn’t risk making the noise.

You called a car to Todoroki’s building. You were all packed back at your place, and then you’d have to dash to the airport to make the flight that had been arranged for you. It seemed this was all happening so quickly to keep you from even being able to consider making a decision. Your next steps were handed to you quicker than you could plan for. Your agreement was expected. Assured.

You shuffled back into your clothes at the front door, not wanting the pull of your sweater against your skin or the zip of your jeans to alert Todoroki to your sudden departure. Then you slipped on your shoes and pushed yourself out the door before your car was even ten minutes away. Once you closed Todoroki’s door, there was no way back in—an automatic lock. No turning back.

As you passed through the bright corridors of the apartment complex and then to the sheet of darkness outdoors, you felt the stillness of the world at 4am. Your sluggishness from both the remaining alcohol in your system and the paltry three or so hours of sleep you’d gotten feeling endemic to the atmosphere. It was a lull, providing you just enough awareness to gently guide you through the motions, but not enough to truly have to think about them.

The cold curled around you as you waited on the car, making you shiver through your sweater despite your high tolerance. You wished that Todoroki was back beside you, making you warm with either his quirk or just his presence. But now, every move you made was taking you one step further from him for who knew how long.

Time crept by before your car finally approached. You sent it in the direction of your own apartment, dark and empty, and told the guy to wait once you got there. You’d be right back down.

And then it was off to the airport to catch a redeye due north.

Shouto felt cold.

Not from his quirk. No, he’d just finished his first solo patrol in months, and there wasn’t a villain to be seen, so he hadn’t had to use either his right side or his left.

Now that he was back at the agency, he felt sluggish. Pulling his boots off, unzipping his uniform was a chore. He placed them on the wooden bench mechanically, wondering if this was what the next month or so would be like since you had left his apartment this morning.

The thought of it was bittersweet. He’d been so happy yesterday, and then had woken up to find nothing but bunched up covers in front of him when he’d woken up. Your smell had barely even lingered, since you’d showered using his soap. He’d been left alone with little more than the memory that you’d been there at all, the whole thing barely feeling real at that point.

He’d been cold ever since.

It took Shouto only five minutes to fill out his no-incident log, and then there was nothing to do but go home. But the last time he’d gone home had been with you by his side, the promise of kisses in the air between you. He was loath to replace that memory by schlepping home with loneliness as his new partner.

He closed his locker door with a slam, frustration feeding his emotions. He needed to snap out of it. You were his partner, dammit, and you were away on hero work. That shouldn’t have left him feeling so empty.

Worse, he didn’t know what to make of last night. You both had been tipsy, but not drunk—he was sure of that. You’d been to enough company holiday parties, galas, and celebrations to know each other’s spectrums of drunkenness pretty well. So that meant there should be no regret, right? He didn’t regret it.

But you’d left without saying goodbye. Had you just been upset about having to leave and had got caught up in the moment? Had you been trying to communicate something he wasn’t getting?

Shouto ran an irritated hand through his hair and left the locker room, marching for the elevator. When he made it to the boss’s door, he gave three good raps of his knuckles and waited, his nerves more on edge than they’d been for his entire shift. He touched the bruise at the base of his neck through the turtleneck he had on now. It was probably good he’d been in the locker room alone. This morning, he’d gotten a good look at the scratches you’d put on his back, flashing immediately back to the moments before your orgasm when you’d clung to him so tightly, seeming to need him more than you ever had in combat.

“Come in.” Shouto walked in to see the agency’s manager smiling up at him as she lowered her laptop screen. “Oh good, I was hoping to speak to you, “Shouto.”

She gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk, plush green ones with rounded upholstered backs. Shouto sat down and eyed her wordlessly.

“We haven’t worked out the details completely, so that’s why I hadn’t called you in yet, but it’s just as well that you’re here,” she began, intertwining her fingers and resting her chin on them. She was casual in a way that Shouto didn’t quite think was professional, but that you always said you appreciated. “We’ve been speaking with Deku’s manager and think that it’s a great opportunity while Snow is gone for a little PR between the two of you. It’ll look good, the two of you, high school friends, crossing agencies to do a little partner work to make up for the fact that Snow isn’t here.”

“That sounds fine.”

He wouldn’t mind working with Deku—they didn’t get to see each other often enough as it was now that they were both pros. Their quirks didn’t work as well together as yours and his did, but he did know Deku’s style well enough to be able to work seamlessly. It would do in the interim.

“Of course, it’s too bad to lose her while you two are going up in the rankings, but we’ll just have to make the best of it.”

“Right,” Shouto said, his hands going clammy. “Have you heard from her? Do you know if she’s landed?”

“The flight has landed,” she said. “But I have not heard from Snow. There won’t be any internet or cell service there.”

Shouto’s eyes widened, posture falling forward. “What?”

“That’s right,” she said, looking only the slightest bit apologetic. Not nearly enough. “I’ll probably get occasional updates about the course of the operation, but we can’t expect anything more than that.”

“So we just won’t hear from her for a month,” he stated, voice tumbling out quick with disbelief.

“Maybe less, maybe more.”

Shouto stared, able to see his reflection in his boss’s perfectly polished glasses. His jaw worked as he finally looked down, hands pushing against the seat of his chair, ready to push up and out of there. “Are we finished?”

“You’re dismissed.”

Shouto swept out of there, feeling the tension of a slowly ticking clock following him.

November

“Three, two, one.”

The man beside you put his hands on the wall and you felt the telltale vibration that the snow around your feet never seemed to dampen. A round hole dug through the thick concrete wall of the building you were back against as you held a pile of snow taken from the ground aloft, ready to turn it into spikes or a dense shield or sword at a moment’s notice.

As soon as the wall was dug through, you charged in first, masses of snow floating on either side of you. You ran fast, perhaps a bit quicker than was strategic. The nondescript hallways of the concrete building blurred past you, mixing in a blur of beige as you kept your senses alert. All you could pick up on, though, were your own echoing footsteps and those of the team behind you.

When the path split, so did your group, different people going down different hallways as you continued straight, barreling forward. There had to be something this time. Some clue, some person. Or, gods willing, maybe the whole operation would fall into your lap. Rarely did you hope for battle when on patrol, but you were. Eight weeks and yet to actually interact with any of the big bads you’d read about had you itching for a fight. Hungry for it.

Anything to get this over with.

But you already knew there was nothing. Nothing more than the dank smell of mold from melted snow traveling from the grimy corners of rooms and hallways into the air. The wireless communicator in your ear was silent and you didn’t see anything to hint at any signs of human life. No footprints—nothing.

You let go of some of the snow you were holding, turning it to ice slabs and sticking it to the rough texture of the cement walls. You weren’t going to waste your energy on villains who weren’t here.

You barely felt yourself slowing to a stop, nearly causing the person behind you to smack into you. “Sorry,” you said, before gathering the strength to at least keep walking.

A clean sweep would have to be done before this building was rendered a lost cause like all the rest. And then you’d go back home.

Well, not home. Not even close.

“Why don’t you go outside?”

The Mole’s eyes were on your leg, which was bouncing up and down as you sat in a rocking chair, trying and failing to read. You turned to him, eyes cold. He had the strange snout of a star-nosed mole, though it had nothing to do with his quirk. Neither did his name, which you always thought made it sound like he was some sort of spy. No, his quirk was tunneling, which was handy for powering through old cement prisons, seeing if they had hidden basements but made for quite the nightmare from a hero branding standpoint. You’d gone simple. Ice quirk. Snow.

“Fine,” you said, standing up, feeling the heat you’d created in your leg from the anxious bouncing.

It took five minutes to bundle up. Thick socks over your thermal leggings and snow pants over those. Gloves then jacket, scarf then coat. Hat and waterproof boots. All that and when you stepped outside, you still felt the cold biting into you. Still, outside might have been cold, but inside was stifling. After two months you had cabin fever bad.

It turned out that Siberia had its own League of Villains much like the one Todoroki had interacted so much with during his high school days. Siberia housed a lot of prisons that had been dealing with high profile escapes for months. Then people with matching quirks descriptions were showing up in groups, wreaking havoc only to recruit more members.

But they were slick. Siberia was so vast that so long as the villains made it in and out quickly, hunting them down was a wild goose chase. By now, you were afraid that they had one or more teleportation quirks in their ranks, able to send them hither and yon without so much as a scent to follow.

Thinking about it too hard grated on your nerves, though, so you walked over to the garden. This was the real reason why you’d been sent to Siberia alone, without room for even just one other person to join you. Your group of heroes was off the grid with as little contact with the outside as possible. That meant growing your own food.

In the arctic.

You approached a woman who simply went by Dell—you didn’t know if it was her real name or a hero title—who had bare fingers to the soil, coaxing life out of a potato sprout. You crouched behind her, back naturally curling to match her premature hunch, making her look older than she was—and she did look old. There’d been no snowfall today, so the only snow that had to be cleared was that that had been blown by the wind. Light stuff, easy to move as breath itself—easier, actually. In this cold, every breath felt like it tore at your nostrils, then your lungs. You’d thought you were used to the cold, but it turned out you didn’t truly know it.

You easily moved the snow that had strayed into the garden, compacting it into a snowball and dropping it in your hand to toss it off into the pine trees. That brought you a smile, at least. Then you began the harder work of picking the frost out of the soil. You’d grown spoiled, manipulating little ice other than Todoroki’s for three years now. What he created was perfectly pure, exactly what your quirk liked best. This stuff was tiny, stuck in dirt and warped with atoms besides hydrogen and oxygen. It was good practice, but it made you miss the ease with which you interacted with Todoroki’s quirk. Like it was an extension of your own.

Dell’s eyes were closed, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think that she was totally unaware of your presence, her focus solely on the plants. They were growing, just barely perceptively—almost a trick of the eyes. If you stared long enough, though, you could see a leaf’s edge move past one wrinkle on her knuckle to another, a mark of the growth.

Her quirk allowed for her to steer nutrients from the earth into plants. So long as they had sunlight and water, they could grow more rapidly. She could protect them somewhat from the cold as well, but your quirk was also intended to help with that. While you couldn’t heat the soil, you could keep the frost off of it, keep the leaves bare and pointing up to the sun.

“Bad nerves?”

You looked at Dell, her eyes still closed. You couldn’t even say what color they were, you’d so rarely seen them open. When they were, she was walking from one plot to the next, eyes cast down. Humans got her ears and her mouth, plants got her eyes and her touch. As for smell—it was hard to smell anything in this cold, much less through the scarves everyone had bundled up to their eyes.

“No,” you said, perhaps a bit petulantly. One didn’t get to be a hero with bad nerves. You had to be cool and calm under pressure. Steady.

“They sent you out again.”

It had become a habit of the group, the dozen or so members who had access to this remote cabin. A location only to be found with coordinates of latitude and longitude, as there were no other landmarks for miles. Just snow, trees, and Dell’s small garden. When the few weeks your boss had promised you turned to the month you’d promised Todoroki, then turned to five weeks and even six, you’d become more and more ornery. At least you always had Dell to talk to when you were kicked out, the comfort of the snow around you feeling both familiar and allowing you to feel powerful.

No one had mentioned that you’d have no internet access. No cell phone. No courier service. The detectives in the group had some internet access, but it was strictly for professional use. Not a single private email was to be sent.

“Not a lot of patience for fidgeters,” you mumbled. “Gotta do something to stay warm.”

“The fireplace makes me sweat,” Dell commented, shifting to the next plant over.

It did for you too—you’d just been making an excuse. It was so hard to get a neutral temperature in this place. This was the land of extremes. Blizzard or drought, heat or frostbite. Yet people continued to survive and have the propensity to commit crimes.

“Something is on your mind.”

Todoroki.

On your flight north, you’d let the warm feelings of your night together linger over you, kindling into hope. He hadn’t said anything, but Todoroki wasn’t foolish enough to jeopardize a years’ old partnership for the sake of carnal passion. No, if he was going to sleep with you, it was going to be for a reason. Just like you.

Since then, you’d been in two months’ worth of circles.

“I didn’t tell anyone goodbye,” you said, just one of the many things that had been on your mind. “I didn’t get to tell anyone.”

You’d put every effort into not waking him. You hadn’t left a note. You hadn’t stolen one last kiss or even a touch of his hand. You’d thought you’d be able to talk again. Soon.

What was the point of being one time zone away if you couldn’t make contact?

“You’re missing someone,” Dell surmised, pulling a potato the size of her fist from the ground you’d just cleared of frost. Without you, it would have taken a shovel to do that. The frozen ground here was as hard as asphalt.

“Yeah,” you said. It wasn’t that you didn’t miss everyone else, but at least you knew what you’d be coming back to with anyone else in your life. You relationships were stable. But Todoroki…

“You’re in love.”

You’d been staring at the dirt, your eyes practically frozen over. You blinked up to find Dell’s eyes staring at you. They were a murky brown—or maybe a murky blue. They were right in that land of in between.

“Can you really be in love if you’re not in a relationship?” you asked. “If you’re not in it with someone else, really testing out what your compatibility is like? Isn’t it just a crush otherwise?”

You didn’t know why you were asking her. You were the only person you ever saw speaking with Dell—the others seemed to think that her plants were enough for her, that she had all the conversation that she needed with them. Maybe that was true. You had no idea what she knew of love.

“Is dating the only way to know those things?” she asked. “Is dating the only relationship of meaning?”

“Of course not,” you answered. It sounded stupid the way she said it. You and Todoroki were partners—had been. You had no idea if you’d been replaced. Certainly temporarily, if not permanently. But you knew how the two of you worked. Perfectly in tandem. As each other’s other half.

The wry laugh that followed didn’t come out as anything more than a breath, muffled in our scarf.

“So you love them,” she said, a smile quirking her lips as she pulled another potato. “But they don’t know.”

“I thought he might,” you said, the cold from both the air and your quirk leeching out any heat that that cabin had brought you.

“But now?”

You had no clue.

December

As The Mole tunneled into this building, you could tell it was different right away. Rather, you could hear it.

Human noises. Voices. Multiple of them. You ran in first, taking your place as the muscle of the group as you carried as much snow and ice in with you as you could without inhibiting your peers’ vision. You stuck patches of it to the wall, where it wouldn’t be in the way, but would be available for you to call on. Then you readied a staff of ice, compact with no air pockets so that they wouldn’t snap as soon as a fist or weapon came at them.

You began knocking people down indiscriminately, thwacking them with your staff and then sending slicks of ice to their feet, sending people sprawling. You created handcuffs and restraints watching to see who had a quirk that would let them crack out of them, only for you to trap them in something bigger.

Three months. Three months of isolation with no one but a handful of colleagues to keep you company, nothing but the case and the garden to give you purpose. Now, all of that impatience, all that frustration came walloping out on these villains, descriptions matching the text that had burned into the back of your eyes.

A screech came through the hallway, making your fingers go numb almost too quickly to counter for. But these villains didn’t know who they were dealing with.

You formed hunks of ice in your ears, freezing one of the only parts of your body that still felt the warm pulse of your blood, but silencing out some of the noise. You clenched your staff, ignoring the tingles of the villain attack and headed back into battle, deafened, looking for a mouth to fill with ice.

It was easy to spot the one making the soundwaves. It was a quirk similar to Present Mic’s, except the pitch was always high and, rather than just being painfully loud, it was at such a frequency that it messed with the nervous system. You jabbed some snow into his mouth, feeling it form around the nooks and crannies of his teeth, pressing it up against his soft palate, and turned it from compact snow to hard ice, hoping he got brain freeze.

You weren’t usually so coldhearted. But you’d been in Siberia for three months. You wouldn’t allow anyone to get frostbite. You’d cuddle any villain you gave hypothermia to if you had to. But your nerves were raw as your throat was with every frozen breath you took. It had taken three days through the tundra to reach this place.

Your patience was at its end. You’d been brought on to be the brute force.

So you were brutal.

You continued plowing through the crew in the windowless hallway, catching more of the quirks you’d read about in the mission’s write ups. Fortunately, most people could be stopped by ice—it just depended how much ice would be needed. The next thing you knew, a hole was burst through in the ceiling. You raised a shield of ice over your head, saving you from the dust and plaster that rained down on you, though it did little to help your vision.

You were unsure if the move had been done by your side or theirs, an accident or not. But it was to the villains’ detriment, as you were now able to reach your pull out of the building and drag in heaps of snow through the new hole. Now you could cage people completely if you needed to; you could freeze the whole room.

Although, suddenly, it became much harder to do that. Your ice wanted to melt. You had to focus on all that you’d already molded, keeping it solid and strong as you felt the temperature in the room steadily rising. You were sweating, both from the exertion of the fight and then the heat you first felt on the exposed skin of your face and then at your extremities, tingling from the temperature change now that the previous numbness had dissipated. Something was coming. Something hot.

Then you saw it, a bright orange flecked with streaks of yellow and red, fluid and coming at you. Reflexively, you brought your ice up to shield you. It held long enough to turn the incandescent source from orange to black in an instant. Then what was once liquid was suddenly solid, sending it crashing through your ice and to your skull.

You didn’t even remember falling.

You woke up to a pounding headache, exacerbated by the constant rumbling underneath you. You opened your eyes and found yourself already sitting up, strapped in the backseat of a car.

Panic shot through your veins immediately. You’d been caught. The villains were taking you somewhere. The feeling only lasted a second, though, as your wits returned. You were bound by nothing more than a seatbelt, limbs loose and free to unbuckle at an instant.

“What’s happening?” you asked, your voice dry.

The teammate beside you handed you a water bottle as The Mole began to speak from the driver’s seat. “Mission’s over, kid,” he said, “I tunneled the lava quirk into the ground and when he used his quirk to ride back up, we were able to capture him.”

“But what about all the other villains?” you asked

You had no idea how many had been there. Your shots had been fired indiscriminately at anyone who wasn’t one of the few people you’d spent the last three months holed up with. Everyone else had gotten your ice—until that lava villain had melted it.

“Your ice held even when you were unconscious,” he said, glittering eyes catching yours in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got a strong grip, kid.”

You furrowed your brow, drawing your attention back to the throbbing at the side of your head. You were definitely concussed, but that was nothing you couldn’t push through.

What The Mole was describing shouldn’t have been possible. Certainly, the ice couldn’t have been that strong to have withheld the heat that villain brought into the room. Unless you were holding it in place. Which you always had to put thought into. Thought that wasn’t possible when you were knocked out.

You froze a bit of the water in the bottle that was in your hand, playing with the ice as you shifted the fractals from snow to ice, changing the shapes like you were twisting the base of a monochrome kaleidoscope.

Your quirk had gotten stronger here. All the snow you’d worked with—the vast amounts, the uncontrollable impurities, not to mention your hours of detail work in the garden—it had refined your craft. Outside of the minimal hero work you’d been able to pull off—until the hurrah at the end, of course—the last three months had been an intensive in using your quirk. In living up to your hero name as you were thrust into the stuff it was made of. Without Todoroki to rely on.

“Are we going home?” you asked suddenly. The Mole had said that the mission was over, but…

“Yeah, we’re all going home,” he said, and you could hear the grin on his face.

Home, you thought in relief, your head falling gently to the headrest. Then you froze.

Home.

Shouto.

“Shouto?”

Midoriya was right in front of Shouto, eyebrows raised in concern. Shouto leaned back reflexively—he hadn’t even noticed Midoriya approaching him on the sidewalk. His training shouldn’t have allowed for that to happen, but he’d been distracted.

“Something on your phone?”

Shouto was suddenly aware that he’d been staring at his phone entirely too long. He’d barely noticed the snow landing and melting on the screen. He wiped it against his pants.

In the three months that he and Midoriya had been partnering—offset with many solo shifts and shifts with their various sidekicks—Shouto had been pushing himself. He’d been overcompensating because you’d become inextricable from his battling style over the years. And now that you were gone, he had to be on top of his game.

But, aside from that—he wasn’t mad about having to further hone his skills, after all—he and Midoriya had needed to be on their best behavior. There’d been more citizens and fans to interact with, more autographs to sign, more selfies to pose for. Midoriya had taken on your usual role of speaking with charm to the crowd, and Shouto was thankful. Thanks to him, PR had been right; Shouto’s public perception had gone up.

However, staring enraptured by his cell phone while on the job didn’t look good.

“She’s coming back,” Shouto said, unable to quite have it in him to put away the phone, still open to the email he’d just received. He had a special alert for work messages and he’d almost skipped this one when he’d heard the notification. They’d done nothing but disappoint him for weeks now—months.

“Snow?” Midoriya asked, his grin bright and genuine as ever. “Wow, that’s amazing! When?”

“Should be today,” Shouto said, staring back at the little box of black and white text on his screen. “Soon.”

His heart started pounding, and suddenly all the warmth that he’d been missing for months was pooling back in his belly, in his cheeks, in his sweaty palms.

“Shouto, are you okay?” Midoriya asked, cocking his head as he brought his hands up to the phone and lowered it.

“I’m not sure,” Shouto said, putting his phone back in his pocket to find his hands tingly, his fingertips feeling flush and warm. He took a step in the light dusting of snow, continuing the route of their patrol while Midoriya followed. “I feel very…anticipatory.”

“Anticipatory?” Midoriya echoed. “You mean excited? I know you’ve been eager for her to come back.”

“Yes, but…” Shouto let out a sigh, brushing both sweaty hands through his hair. “I don’t know.”

Midoriya smiled, eyes wide with mirth. “You’re nervous. What do you have to be nervous about?”

Shouto had been playing over the events of the last time he saw you for three months now to the point that word you’d said, every sound you’d breathed when you’d been underneath him was branded in his mind. But in between all of it, there’d never been any promises, any statements that he could glean your intentions from.

“We slept together. The night before she left.”

Midoriya nearly choked, doubling over coughing while Shouto cocked his head and patted the man’s back. He’d probably swallowed some spit.

“Midoriya,” Shouto continued, grateful that the snow was keeping people off the streets, and they could speak for a moment without hordes of fans approaching them for once, “do you think that one can make love to someone if it’s onesided?”

When he could stand straight again, Midoriya’s face was red, so Shouto waited for him to get his breath back under him as they began walking again.

“Um, wow, sorry, you just surprised me,” Midoriya said. “Can we backtrack for a second?”

“But nothing was happening back—”

“No, I mean,” Midoriya pinched the bridge of his nose and Shouto paused, allowing him to gather his thoughts, “was that the, uh, first time?”

“Yes.”

“And, er, nothing like that had ever happened before?”

“No.”

“And you’re in love with her?”

Shouto became aware of his heartbeat again, now moving up to his throat. He could see your face in his mind’s eye and wondered if your hair was longer or if you’d had it cut while you were away? Had being up north paled your skin since you’d been here in the fall, or would it have the same hue as when you’d left? It had been so long since he’d seen you; would he even notice?

“I’m not certain,” Shouto said. “But…”

Shouto put two fingers to the pulse point at the base of his neck. The mark you’d left there was long since gone, as were the marks on his back, but he could still feel the ghost of them. Your touch had hardly left his mind in the three long months of autumn turning over to endless winter.

“My heart races when I think of her.”

“Aw,” Deku said, his mouth turning down in one of those smiles that radiated out even when it curved the wrong way. “You do. But wait, you asked if you could, uh, make love if it’s onesided. Why do you think it’s onesided?”

“Because she didn’t say anything,” he reasoned. “And her actions could have meant a lot of different things.”

“Shouto,” Midoriya put a hand on Shouto’s shoulder, “obviously I don’t know the whole situation, but do you really think that her actions would mean anything other than her liking you?”

“I just…” Shouto made a block of ice in his hand, thinking of the fine control you had over your quirk. You could take this crude creation of his and turn it into something utilitarian, whimsical, beautiful. Then he took it in his other hand and melted it away. “I always thought I would be a solo hero. But I really don’t want to have to keep doing this without her.”

“So go,” Midoriya said. “You said she’ll be back soon, right? Go to her then. I can handle,” Midoriya gestured to the light flurries around them, “all this.”

Beyond the flurries there were only a few pedestrians, clad with umbrellas. There was a fairly steady parade of slow-moving cars on the city block, but no one seemed to be in a rush today. The snow made everything quiet.

“But I still don’t know—”

“You know, Shouto,” Midoriya said, an assured smile on his face. “So go do what you need to do.”

Upon getting to the airport, you’d had access to the internet for the first time since you’d left, and the first thing you’d done was google Todoroki’s name. You had to make sure that he was alive and uninjured. In doing so, you’d stumbled across heaps of articles with photos of him and Hero Deku, a few of which mentioned your absence and yours and Todoroki’s esteemed partnership.

Was there a partnership to come back to? Or had it been dissolved in your absence and you’d have to become a solo hero or settle for sidekicks until a new partner came along.

You weren’t sure that you’d ever be able to partner with someone else after working with Todoroki.

You’d become much stronger in your time abroad—you knew that now—but you wanted to bring that back to Todoroki. You wanted to show him what you’d learned, wanted to feel that power in a battle alongside him.

On the airplane, you tried to push all that aside and focused on Japan. You’d packed so sparely for the trip that the few pairs of socks you’d brought were threadbare, your costume in need of a replacement. You thought of the warmer weather, the longer days, the familiar faces, and your own warm bed.

By the time you landed, you’d almost convinced yourself. You hailed a car, enjoying in the easy Japanese you exchanged with the driver rather than the broken English you’d brought with you to Russia.

All you needed was Japan. You could worry about everything else later

You had the car drop you off on the corner of the street from your apartment building. The snow was coming down, but it was different than it had been up north. It was only just starting to stick, each step leaving a bald spot on the sidewalk that would be filled again in a few minutes. The chill wasn’t bitter, the air no longer biting. For a moment, you reveled in the snow. It would likely be melted by noon tomorrow and, despite all the snow you’d just left, you’d still miss it when it was gone.

When you approached your building, you noticed a silhouette loitering outside through the dimming light of the afternoon. The sun set only an hour later than it did in Siberia—still not nearly enough daylight. No one knew that you were returning today, so this person couldn’t be waiting for you, but you still used your quirk to sweep away the snow to leave your vision unobscured between yourself and the figure.

You recognized the hair immediately. The last thing you’d seen before you’d left.

“Shouto?” you called, your pace increasing as you released the snow and it flurried back to fill the void you’d created. “What are you doing here?”

That rare smile tugged at his face and then he was coming your way, arms outstretched.

“I missed you so much.”

You felt his hands coming to clutch your arms first. Then, not a moment later, his lips slanted over yours and your suitcase toppled to the ground.

His lips were cold. The cheek your hand came up to touch was cold. But his tongue was hot, and you could feel the heat spreading throughout you as wildfire on kindling kept too dry and too isolated.

He pulled away too soon, your mouth taking in a breath of frozen air when it had expected another touch of his lips.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked,” he said, taking a step back.

“No, it’s okay!” you reassured him, feet creeping half a step forward, feeling the crunch of snow under your boot. “It’s just…we’re in public.”

You remembered last time, when Shouto’d had the foresight to save any physical affection for the privacy of his home. A good call, as it seemed that any knowledge of your stolen kiss at the bar hadn’t leaked.

“And it seems a lot of people have been enjoying taking your picture lately,” you said, referencing all the photos you’d seen with him and Deku.

He smiled again—maybe they weren’t so rare after all. “I don’t care. I mean, if you do that’s fine, but I want people to see us together. Because…I want to be together. If you do.”

He took your hands in his and you wished neither of you were wearing gloves. You wished all the bundled layers between you would fall away—you’d been in cold worse than this.

“I do,” you said, and you leaned in to kiss him to prove your point. If he was okay with people seeing, you didn’t care either. Your boss could take it up with you later. “I really do.”

“Good,” he said, and his hands slipped up your arms before wrapping behind you, pressing you against him. You clung to him, fists clutching the fluffy material of his coat. “I know that maybe it’s too early to call this a relationship or anything—”

“I don’t think so.”

Todoroki fell silent at your interruption, waiting for you to continue. But, for a moment, you contented yourself in breathing in his scent, before pulling your face away to look into his eyes, pupils wide from the dimming light.

“A friend told me that a relationship isn’t the only way to have a partnership with someone. That it wasn’t the only circumstance around which to have true feelings for someone,” you explained, thinking of Dell.

“You were thinking about this while you were away?”

“Every day.”

He kissed your forehead, and then his eyes urged you to continue. “What did you think about?”

“Well,” you started, feeling flush from the gesture, “the way I see it, things usually go crush, partnership, sex. Or, I guess if you’re feeling impatient, crush, then sex, then partnership. But we kind of did: partnership, crush, sex. We have all the right pieces, they were just out of order.”

“That’s not so bad,” he murmured, low voice sounding deep and rumbly so close to you. If you didn’t have the soft layers of your overcoats between you, you’d be able to feel the vibrations under your skin.

“So the only thing we really need to catch up on…is dating.”

Your eyes met his shyly, a question hidden in your words. Todoroki wasn’t always good at reading between the lines, but you were good at reading his face. You saw the understanding in his eyes.

“Well,” Todoroki said, looking around. “I understand if you’re sick of the snow, but it’s not that late yet. Maybe we could go for a walk and see where it takes us?”

“I’m never sick of the snow,” you said with a grin, taking one hand off Todoroki’s back so that you could pull all the flakes that had fallen on his person at once and swirl them in your hand, just like you’d done in the bar so many months ago. One of your favorite tricks since you were a kid. Then you dropped them to the ground with their brethren. “I even got pretty good with it.”

“Impressive,” Todoroki said. His voice was deadpan, but the brightness in his eyes hinted at his intrigue.

“I learned some tricks while I was away.”

“I can’t wait to see them,” he said. “And, you know, I don’t mind a little snow either.”

A snowflake landed on your cheek and before it melted, Todoroki leaned in and kissed it, replacing the cold with his heated touch. When you left the embrace, you remembered your suitcase flat on the ground, handle outstretched. Todoroki saw your gaze and reached for it, but you did him one better. You grabbed the thing and pushed it into a hedge outside your building, totally obscured in the low evening light. Todoroki raised a brow at you, but you just smiled, summoning snow and turning it to ice. You wrapped it around your suitcase, sticking it to the ground, and giving it a coating too troublesome for a thief to bother with hacking through with a pick.

“It’ll melt,” Shouto said. “We can just take it up to your room or leave it in your lobby.”

“No,” you said easily, looking up at the falling snow. “I don’t want to miss a moment of this. And besides, it won’t melt. I told you I’ve learned some tricks.”

And, just like always, he didn’t question you. He simply offered his hand to you and you took it as though it was ordinary. As though the many times you’d been side by side over the years had always been linked with a hand, not just trust.

Then, without a destination, you took off strolling. The night wasn’t nearly as dark as it had been in your little cabin in Siberia, what with all the city lights. The air was still below freezing, but you’d never felt warmer.

“Can I ask you something?” you said, before the air fully settled and left you in a lull of silent contentment. “Why did you bring me home with you? Back then. Did you like me and just didn’t say anything or…?”

Todoroki was quiet for a moment, the night air filled with the drone of slow-moving cars and the beeping of city crosswalks.

“It was nothing I had thought about before,” he admitted. “But when you kissed me, I wanted to kiss you back…because it was you.”

That didn’t really tell you anything. Nothing about what he’d felt before or after, nothing about how that had led him to waiting out of your building to kiss you again. But, at the same time, it told you everything. Because, after all, it was the same reason you’d kissed him. That you’d liked him at all. Because he was your partner, your best friend, the person you trusted with your life over anyone else.

Because…it was him.

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